frozndevl

We don't know what kind of Voidspren led the other Parsh-people to the group.

Was this the book that Gaz had to find for Shallan? If it was, it didn't seem too common, but they were in the war camps.

I also had this thought. We have Syl's word that it's a Voidspren, or whatever, but everything else about Void(insert blank noun) has been not what we expected.

I haven't followed threads that discuss how the other Orders might work, but the term Releaser is interesting to me. If she is a Releaser, why are they also called Dustbringers? Do they release the bonds that hold things together, kind of like the anti Bondsmith, but for physical manifestations? Division is one of their surges, rigt? Is it established in our fandom that they are called Dustbringers because they destroy the f**k out of things and all they leave behind is dust? That sounds awfully like soulcasting.

As has been discussed before, I don't think that the wording of the request is critical at all. The Nightwatcher seems to give people what she (he?) thinks is most appropriate, regardless of the request. I think that Navani focusing on that is a red herring.

Maybe Dustbringers rely on touch to do what they do, and she isn't able to control it very well yet. Yes, I realize that her power could also do something to the gloves, but that is usually just glossed over. Also, does Jah Kaved or Mr Ts hometown follow the safehand rules, I can't remember? A couple other random thoughts I thought it was pretty clear that Mr T wasn't really stupid today, as he was smart enough to make comments that Adro****** made him stop talking with a touch. The Shin eyes for our yellow spren is interesting. I'm definitely on board with it being some sort of earth based spren, and the yellow color also to me fits in with the yellow/brown color usually reserved for Earth magic in fantasy settings. But of course, with Brandon, I'm totally wrong on that. Also interesting that she kept the Parshmen from turning into real Voidbringers during the next passing of the everstorm. The Mraize subplot continues to bore me to tears, I don't know if I've just forgotten that storyline from WoR, but Mraize just doesn't do anything for me. Green chicken with a hooked beak, yeah, that's a Parrot.

And even if that quote isn't real, he could have asked for his memories to be removed and he could see that as his boon, but the Nightwatcher does things differently and considers that his curse and gives him a different boon.

I really think that your first two points are saying the same thing. Is it wrong to keep them enslaved is just another way of saying are humans guilty for doing it. Here's an argument, all the evidence that someone committed a given crime says that "Joe" did it, and he is imprisoned. Years later, you later find out that the everyone in the world lacked the perspective to see that Joe was innocent and NOW you have knowledge that the evidence was wrong (and there was no shenanigans from law enforcement). At the time was it wrong to have imprisoned Joe? No it wasn't. The only way you can say yes is with that future knowledge. In this case, throughout the millenia (or however long it was they were enslaved) there was no evidence of the Parshmen being a sentient or sapient species. To this I would say that the answer to both your proposed questions is No. As for the third question about the original enslavement I disagree that once they were made no-form, there were other options. You can't put the cat back in the bag, as they say, so once the Parshmen were created, they had to be dealt with. Allowing them to die out seems immoral. Is leveraging their labour to help them and you survive and prosper immoral? I guess they could have been directed to do just enough task to keep themselves alive, but then that gets us into very unrealistic, idealistic scenarios about what a medieval level mind was able to do. I think the question that needs to be asked is "What was the motivation for creating the no-form Parshmen?" If it was to eliminate a potential threat, was that done with or without knowledge of what this severed Connection would do to the species? If it was to end a war, and this was the alternative, letting them die out might have been seen as okay. Who knows, I'm tired and thinking myself in circles. In summary, in hindsight, it was wrong to sever their Connection, or maybe it wasn't. However, once it was done, it was in everyone's best interest to keep them alive. I don't think it would be realistic to expect any person to only direct them to keep themselves alive. This is fun.

I see it less that he wasn't intelligent, but more that he didn't care. He's sharp enough to realize that people go to war for stuff. And I pronounce it Eh-vee

Who?

Can someone describe where urithuru is on the map, I can't make it out.

I enjoyed that series and I can see the parallels but I think it is a little different. The native species in the CF trilogy wasn't very advanced, as far as I could tell, whereas the Parshendi and maybe the Aimians had well developed societies. Though there was the other alien race, the one that combined with humans and turned into quasi demonic beings. That was a fun twist. I loved that series. I think a key difference is that in all likelihood the invading species on Roshar were already fantasy based.

There's no way to get there without surges or live Shardblade. Which makes me wonder, where are all the bodies?

So does the line of "our ancient enemies" refer to the world's enemies, or the author's race's enemies. Are the parshendi the ancient enemies of the Sleepless?

I read a book years ago about a woman whose mind was shattered into a number of different distinct personalities and the only way she was able to heal was to accept that fact and then leverage them for independent actions. She ended up being a hyperspace pilot because one of her identities allowed that to happen. I wonder if we could be going down the route of these identities never really going away because she is fundamentally broken, as we know all of the radiants are, and she learns to leverage them and slip in and out of the personas in a heartbeat while still maintaining the relationships and connections that she meets with each one.

What intrigues me is the thought that at some point, when Shallan goes further downhill, we will see a POV from Veil completely, without the Shallan thoughts at all.

To echo the other posts, I don't think it's a person. Me too

My thought is that it could have something to do with him using... Was it adhesion, for the first time? But definitely something about connection and identity since the Kaladin chapter explicitly called that it.

Yeah, I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but maybe they gave the soulcaster to her father, not knowing if it would work or not. And when Shallan did the soulcasting, it "confirmed" for the Ghostbloods that they had a working device. This is a horribly bad theory, with more holes than swiss cheese.

I like this thought about her soulcasting the deposits... What if the soulcaster never actually worked?

I had this thought earlier, but you nailed it; Pattern is able to figure things out. I think this points out the key difference between Nightblood and the Shardblades. As a robot spren, Nightblood doesn't seem to be able to proceed past his initial programming, whereas the sentient and sapient spren, actually being alive, are able to do so. Nothing has changed, but I think this makes Nightblood, relatively, that much MORE dangerous since he will always be "let's destroy some evil today" while our spren-blades have some conscious thought to them that could halt them. And they (the spren) are able to detect nuance and be more discerning in their work.

I just had a thought... Kaladin could start to teach them some of the skills, and in doing so could become something of a saint to them. If we follow this thread to it's completely ludicrous conclusion, he fights to defend all of the Parshmen/Parshendi/Listeners from the horrible bad evil humans and becomes Odium's champion by nature of his actions, not his intent to destroy Roshar. Windrunners are one of the martial orders, if not the most martial order, so it could happen....

What I find interesting is that the ARCs are softbound, looking like trade paperbacks. Thanks to all for deciphering.

He might be referring to the idea that fighting Sadeas contributed to his wrist still being in pain instead of healing in a more normal timeframe.

I believe so, but that it would have interfered with his surges. Which is interesting to consider.