galendo

The Windrunners' surges are adhesion (the ability to stick things together) and gravitation (the ability to fly, etc.). The super-healing thing that he and Lopen (and Szeth) do is just an effect of the Stormlight. Presumably all the orders could do the same. Now, Lift also has super-healing, and that is one of her abilities, since she can do it to other people. But any of the KR can heal themselves with Stormlight.

Huh. I just noticed, looking at that image of the orders and surges, that all of the symbols for the orders have wing-looking things going off to either side. This might not mean anything, but it's a rather odd coincidence. Note that this isn't the case for the surges. Here's the image again for easy reference:

I mean, maybe, but couldn't the Shards just decide to make more spren themselves if they wanted to? Can't say I really buy into this theory. I suspect the name is more about smithing (forging) bonds between people. They're the ones that bring people together for the cause. Presumably they also help smooth away the conflicts that occur when the other orders' Ideals don't quite align. The peacemakers, if you will. I'm not sure that they're meant to be the leaders or even the examples; at least, not more so than any other order. Dalinar certainly is both, of course, but it's worth remembering that Jezrien was the Heralds' leader, not Ishar. The Windrunner, not the Bondsmith. As mentioned above, I see them more as peacemakers rather than leaders (their First Ideal, remember, is something along the lines of "I will bring people together"). Though I confess I've never quite understood why Jezrien was in charge. What made him so special? I'm not so sure about this. It seems like everyone can unbind a Shardblade "just like that." Szeth does it with the Honorblade in the new version of WoR, and one of Adolin's dueling opponents does the same thing when he lost and had to surrender his shards. Dalinar does it in WoK, too, when he gives his blade to Sadeas, and he's not really a Bondsmith at that point. I don't doubt that Bondsmiths can do cool things (or at least, I'd be disappointed if they couldn't, considering their spren is the storming Stormfather), but the ability to break one's own bond to a Shardblade shouldn't be taken as evidence that they can do the same thing to other people.

This could work, and honestly, it's a better explanation than any I've been able to come up with, but it does have a few problems: 1) Don't/shouldn't Renarin's visions be coming at the same time as Dalinar's, i.e., during the highstorm? The countdown only ever appears on highstorm days. It's not impossible that the vision comes before the storm, I guess, but the one time we see Renarin scratching away in the grip of the vision (near the Oathgate on the Shattered Plains), the storm is already raging just outside. 2) It relies on Dalinar being in the appropriate place when the Highstorm hits. I can't remember if it happened in WoR or not, but in WoK the highstorms sometimes hit at unexpected times, when Dalinar wasn't in his own private rooms. Now maybe you could argue that Truthwatchers can see the future well enough to know where Dalinar will be and Renarin's plotting all this out (to frame his father for the scratchings...why?), but it seems like a bit of a stretch. 3) Why not mark the walls in some other section of the palace entirely? It seems a much better idea than trying to convince everyone that your father's in even less control of himself than everyone thought. It's not like carvings in walls are so common that there's any danger of your warnings being overlooked or ignored. 4) Why hide the marks in the first place? If no one saw you carve them, and no one's around to see you hide them with Stormlight, then probably no one's going to see if you just walk into the next room. 5) Wasn't Dalinar's knife the one used? I kind of seem to remember that the blade showed signs of wear, though maybe I'm misremembering. If so, though, this theory would require Renarin to steal the blade and then sneak it back again. Again, why go through all this trouble? Surely Renarin has knives of his own. 6) Why wasn't Navani watching Dalinar and recording his visions? This isn't really a knock against your theory so much as it is a criticism about this part of WoR in general, but...why did she stop recording? It's not like the few visions she witnessed were sufficient to derive the entire Dawn Chant, right? I don't recall this ever being satisfactorily explained.

Really? See, now I'd really like to read something like this. The problem with Renarin, IMHO, is that he just isn't adding anything to the story right now. Like, he could have literally not been in the books so far, and nothing would have changed. We wouldn't have had the countdown, I guess...but I'm not sure the story would actually be worse for its absence. I didn't really like the way the countdown was handled, anyway. Too much coincidence that literally no one saw Renarin make the markings. The first ones, maybe, I can understand no one noticing, but once they were actively watching out for someone writing them...it stretches my suspension of disbelief. I also feel like they should have had someone in the room watching Dalinar anyway. Wasn't that what Navani was doing as of the end of WoK? Why did she suddenly stop recording his visions as he had them? It makes no sense. I feel that, logically, they should have confirmed or disproved whether Dalinar was making the markings after like the second or third vision, at most. Something like this could be pretty cool. I'm not sure I like the converting the spren idea, since it seems like spren are pretty firmly bound by their own nature (they seem much less flexible than people, for instance). But I wouldn't mind seeing a 'bad' Renarin (maybe 'misguided' is better) struggling against the bond once he realizes what he's somehow bonded. That could be a cool arc, and one that none of our other proto-Radiants could reasonably give us, either.

Well, I guess there is a bit more circumstantial evidence for the "sphere contains Blightwind" theory than I first thought, but upon reflection it kind of seems a bit anticlimactic. Like, how threatening can the Unmade possibly be if some random Alethi king can stuff one of them inside a sphere? Or was Yelig-Nar just stupid enough to get himself stuck in some random sphere all by himself? Again, not very threatening. Granted, there is a line in the Diagram about how "many of [the Unmade] are mindless", but always figured this was one of the things that Mr. T. was wrong about. I certainly hope so. I would like my ancient, evil spren to be scarier antagonists than that, thank you.

The thing I think you're missing, though, is that "tertiary character 1" presumably just means that he isn't the main character of a book or the lead "B plot" character of a book. Look at Words of Radiance. He wasn't the lead (Shallan) or the second lead (Kaladin), but he got basically the same number of words/POVs as Dalinar, and more so by far than any other character. He's had over 50,000 words so far in the first two books alone. Adolin is not a minor character. He is not an unimportant character, either. Now, I don't claim to know what the future may hold for Adolin, but he's going to have quite a few more POVs in Oathbringer, if the end of WoR is anything to judge by. I don't know if he'll survive into the back five books, but I'm guessing that he has a better life expectancy than Dalinar does. If he does survive into the back five, it's conceivable that Adolin might end up with more page time than any characters beyond Kaladin, Shallan, and maybe Eshtonai and/or Lift. That's wouldn't be a minor character at all. I can't guarantee you he'll fulfill this potential -- I can't even guarantee you he'll survive to book 5, much less past it -- but Adolin has the potential, at least, to be one of Stormlight Archive's very major characters.

Huh. Haven't heard this one before. Is there any evidence to suggest it, other than that Yelig-nar howls with "the voices he consumed" (or something like that) and that Szeth hears voices howling at him? Because IIRC, he doesn't exactly carry the black sphere on his person.

It kind of is morbid, I'll admit, but upon running the numbers, I thought the results significant enough to report. Statistically, there's a very real chance that The Stormlight Archive doesn't get finished by the same author who started it, and I think it's important that new (and current) readers are aware of that. The possibility may affect their desire to start and/or continue the series. The Wheel of Time is an obvious parallel; Robert Jordan was 42 when The Eye of the World was first published; he died 17 years later, his series unfinished. Obviously, I hope Brandon Sanderson lives longer, and in better health, than Robert Jordan did. This isn't me comparing the quality of the two authors; this is me reflecting that 58 seems like a terribly young age to die. But it does happen, and with reasonable frequency. I wish Brandon the best, partly because I wish most everyone the best and partly from the very selfish desire to read The Stormlight Archive in its full glory, but I also think it's important to be clear and not hide the risks otherwise. Strangely enough, this isn't much of a concern for me at all. It's true that people got very disillusioned with the Wheel of Time. I did myself, and I didn't finally get around to finishing the series until earlier this year. But I didn't get disillusioned by the delay; it was because of the drop in quality. Yes, the main narrative didn't move forward fast enough. But that's because something like a third of each of books seven, eight, nine, and ten were dedicated to seeing events that had already happened as of the end of the previous book (often through the eyes of minor characters whose importance in the big picture was unclear). Moving back in time like this is dangerous because the reader wants to find out what happens next, not what happened a while back but wasn't important enough to mention at the time. Basically, I think that some questionable decisions were what drove readers away from WoT, not the delay between the books. As long as Sanderson doesn't repeat those mistakes, I think SA will be fine in this regard. My own worries for SA are somewhat different: I think Brandon might have written himself into a corner in some regards. For instance, I'm pretty certain that there's no good way to satisfactorily explain the Recreance. I mean, I can't get a dozen friends to all agree on what to have for dinner on any given night. The idea that I'd get them all to betray their closest friends seems...well, pretty inconceivable. I do not think that there will be a satisfactory explanation for this, or for a few other things. And unsatisfactory explanations for mysteries (or mysteries left too long unexplained) are another thing that can drive readers away.

Wow, that's...kind of scary, really. Even if we assume a hyper-fast three years per book for the remaining eight books, that's twenty-four years total. I just ran the numbers (based on 2013 data, but I doubt life expectancy has changed drastically since), and the probability that a forty year-old male (e.g., Brandon Sanderson) lives to be sixty-five is only about 84%. If we take a more pessimistic assumption, but one more in line with historical data, of four years per book with a five year gap between, that's about thirty-five years, allowing two years off for progress on Oathbringer so far. The chance that the same forty year-old male reaches his seventy-sixth birthday is only about 66%. Bear in mind, these are only the chances of surviving that long. There are numerous reasons besides death that might impair an author's ability to write or otherwise delay his progress. Even for an optimist, you're looking probably at a 20-25% chance that Stormlight Archive remains unfinished. For a pessimist, it's probably a coin flip, if not worse. For the curious, here are the odds that a man (in the United States) celebrating his fortieth birthday today lives to reach a particular age (through age 100), based on 2013 data:

While I semi-wholeheartedly agree with you (Brandon does pump out books like nobody's business), I also sympathize with the OP pretty strongly. Stormlight Archive is the only Sanderson series I really care about. The next Mistborn book can come out tomorrow or twenty years from now, for all I care. And that's the non-SA book of his I anticipate the most, other than maybe Mistborn era 2, book 1. For comparison: Stormlight 3 is a day-one purchase. Mistborn 3 is an "I'll read it if and when my local library gets a copy."

Or it could be that they don't feel the Thrill because Neragaoul doesn't feel like helping them against the Voidbringers. At least, that's how I interpreted it. IIRC, the Voidbringers feel the Thrill in that battle perfectly well; it's only the Alethi that don't. Watching a Radiant die probably wouldn't tell you whether the could get a Death Rattle, though, unless we actually saw it happen. After all, most people die without a Rattle. Unless you see a whole bunch of Radiants die, you still probably won't know if they can get a Rattle or not.

Yeah, at one point in WoR Adolin is practicing throwing his Blade at rocks. I can't remember 100% if it's mentioned that the Blade cuts or not, but it'd be a pretty silly maneuver to practice if it didn't cut when thrown.

A cool and well put together theory, but this quote alone won you my upvote. It sounds plausible and inline with how other religions have functioned in the Cosmere (grounded in true historical events, but sort of warped, twisted, or romanticized). An excellent insight I've never heard proposed before, well done! Huh. You know, this would also explain why the stones of Urithiru were safe to walk on. Because any ThunderClast who decided to show up in a city full of Radiants would have a lifetime measured in seconds, if that.

Hidden or lost I can get behind, but destruction can't account for all the missing blades, because 1) There isn't any in-text mention of blades being breakable or vulnerable to decay. If something like nine-tenths of the blades had been destroyed, someone would have noticed. A lot of someones, most likely. Shardbearers would have been aware of the danger, and we as readers would have seen that awareness reflected in the characters' thoughts. 2) Blades and Plate are worth a fortune, and people don't generally go around destroying fortunes. Even if they could be destroyed, we'd still need someone to want to destroy them. And given how carefully these things are looked after by their owners, getting access to them in order to destroy them isn't really something that could happen secretly. I suppose it's not impossible that someone like Nalan both knows a way to destroy Blades and has the desire to do so for some reason, but short of that, it seems rather unlikely. Also, other than Elhokar, we haven't seen any evidence of Shardbearers particularly fearing assassination for their Shards, so even Nalan can't be actively killing Shardbearers and taking/destroying their Shards, except perhaps at a very, very slow rate. When one looks at the turmoil caused by the Assassin in White, it seems impossible to suppose that anyone could have been eliminating Shardbearers in anything like an organized fashion without pretty much everyone being aware of it. Now Plate, on the other hand...that I could see being destroy-able. To regrow a set of Plate, you need a piece of the original. If all the original pieces were broken, you wouldn't have anything to regrow it from, and so the Plate would be no more. But again, this isn't ever something any of the characters worry about. Who would destroy a set of Plate? They might worry about having it stolen in battle, but the chance of losing every single last piece is just so small that it essentially never happens. If anything, I'd think that one or more of the secret societies must be stockpiling the Shards. We know Heleran got his Blade and Plate from somewhere, and we know the Ghostbloods had an extra soulcaster to lend to Shallan's father, so it seems pretty likely that they're behind the missing Shards somehow. I suppose in theory they could be destroying the Shards rather than stockpiling them, but...Heleran did get his Shards from somewhere. The Skybreakers' big ol' stockpile of Blade and Plate, I'm guessing.

Not only this, but it's entirely possible that people realize that the Radiants and the Everstorm came at the same time and conclude that one caused the other. It's entirely possible the KR may be blamed for the Everstorm, which definitely won't help their reputation. We don't know exactly what Alethi inheritance laws look like, but I'd say it's pretty unlikely that Ialai can stay in charge of the princedom. First, every single highprince is a male, that we know of; second, Jasnah is never mentioned as being in the line of succession, so a woman inheriting seems to be entirely unacceptable (given the strict Alethi thoughts on division between the sexes, this seems even more likely); and third, when the citylord of Hearthstone died without a male heir, the king just assigned a new citylord. There was never any discussion about letting Laral inherit. So it seems pretty unlikely that Ialai has a (legal) leg to stand on here. Of course, there are always extralegal ways of remaining in power....

I doubt having just Plate would change someone's eyes. There's an actual bond between the Shardblade wielder and the blade which lets the user summon it; there isn't anything like that for Plate. I suspect the changing eye color is a result of the bond, not just possessing the plate. Similarly, although we haven't seen it, I suspect that just possessing a Shardblade without bonding it wouldn't be enough to make someone's eyes change color.

I could be wrong, since I don't follow the Cosmere stuff all that closely, but I thought that Preservation and Ruin's physical bodies were metal because metal was the magic object on that world. For Honor, if the situation were analogous, his body would be gemstones. Or Stormlight, maybe, but I'd think that would be too ethereal. Either way, I'm pretty certain that blades and plate are spren, not any part of Honor's physical body.

At first I kind of thought that we'd see more of Ym again. I figured with his spren begging for Stormlight at the last moment he might be pulling a Jasnah -- disappearing and leaving a body in his wake. After finishing the book, though, I changed my mind and decided the main purpose of that interlude was to imply that Radiants are sprouting up all over Roshar, to introduce Darkness, and to show that proto-Radiants are far from immortal. By showing one sympathetic character bite the dust, Brandon ratchets up the tension regarding the safety of the other characters.

I'll be honest. I can't see how you're reaching the conclusion that radiant spren are a combination of other spren. I read the WoB you quoted, then read them again, but I don't see them saying that at all. The first one seems to just be saying that each KR Order has two surges. The second one seems to be saying much the same thing. The third is saying how/why spren become sapient, but nothing about their composition. In fact, I'd go so far as to say what it describes is a slow awakening/evolution, which seems much different than the wielding together of two lesser spren that you seem to be advocating. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're proposing, in which case, carry on.

Well, I won't tell you what to believe, but personally I find spren to be far more plausible than crem. If your argument is that Shardplate is adaptable, that's true, but spren are much more adaptable than any Rosharan plant. Syl can be sword, shield, spear...basically whatever she pleases in a mere instant. We've also seen live Plate disappear (in Dalinar's vision), much as we know spren can do, which neither crem nor plants can do.

But the spren themselves are partly of Honor and partly of Cultivation. Shallan's spren is much more of Cultivation than of Honor. Pattern doesn't even care if Shallan says any oaths beyond the first. I'm pretty certain we'll see Shardplate being formed from a grouping of lesser spren (windspren to Syl's honorspren, for example). It's the only thing that makes any sense to me. We've already seen that lesser spren, at least, can be bound into shape simply by measuring them. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was precedent for a sapient spren binding the others into Shardplate. A lot of things make sense with this theory that just don't otherwise. I can elaborate if you wish. I'm pretty certain they use the term grow because, when a piece of Plate is damaged, it's literally regrown by infusing it with Stormlight. Like, you go from having half of a breastplate to having three-quarters of one to having the full piece. And that if you lose a piece of Plate, the missing part literally regrows similarly. To tie this into the point above, this regrowing makes a lot of sense if you think of the Plate being made from lots of little spren. They rejoin the Plate one by one in the presence of Stormlight, so the Plate grows little by little. Hence the use of the word grow.

I think this is wrong, though I admit I can't be completely certain. My interpretation is that both of the gravity-based lashings are simply part of the gravitation surge. One makes something fall toward a distant center of gravity, the other makes something nearby into a local center of gravity. Shallan's ability to take instantaneous, photographic images is pretty clearly supernatural, though, so it's almost certainly the Lightweaver "bonus" ability, much as Jasnah's direction sense is likely the Elsecaller ability. It turns out that no one -- literally no one -- has ever been confirmed to have an actual photographic memory in real life. It's just not something a human can do. Since the ability is clearly supernatural, and since the only supernatural thing Shallan has going on is her Lightweaver bond, the supernatural memory is almost certainly the Lightweaver ability.

It's a cool idea, but unless the strength-boosting properties stack, there's no real benefit to having a second set of Plate. Shardplate, we know, is really heavy (it has to be put on from the bottom up, so that the wearer isn't crushed by the weight), so lugging around a whole second set of plate on top of the first seems like it'd slow you down quite a bit. And for what? You'd get some extra defense for having a second set of Plate, since now your opponents have to break through two sets -- but you'd be way better off giving the second set to a trusted ally (see Adolin vis-a-vis Dalinar, though technically IIRC Adolin inherited his Plate from his mother) and making your opponents fight two shardbearers at once.

Are they inconsistent, or are they measuring different things? For instance, four highprinces with just over 30,000 apiece would be about 150,000. Without knowing the exact quotes you're referring to, I couldn't say for sure; but I seem to remember that sometimes the total army strength was mentioned, and sometimes that of each highprince individually. Camp followers (bridgemen, ardents, families, etc.) could affect the numbers further, depending on whether they were included in the estimates.