Chicken

If someone can photoshop Shattered Plains on the background of this it'll be even more win. ... On the other hand, Hrathen is still the more badass older man character of Sanderson. Sure Dalinar is great, but Hrathen still gets to be the one with bigger cojones for managing to win his battle against himself. This state of affairs is likely to change with future Stormlight books though. And top 5? Nah. Rollcall of awesome: Leras>Ati>Lord Ruler>Vin>Hrathen>Dalinar>Kelsier>Denth>Jasnah>Kaladin One might claim that putting Shards in such a list is cheating, to which I'll reply: bollocks. I want to see more Shards getting personally involved in stories if they will be anything like those two.

If anyone is coming back from death, it has to be the dude nicknamed Survivor. Unless a Phoenix appears.

This is awesome.

Gaz is a Herald!!! You heard it here first folks. Dibs on the wacky illogical hypothesis...

Considering Tien's general fortune in life, he was probably the Parshendi that Dalinar noticed was actually a terrified kid before getting offhandedly skewered.

I fully agree with this. The male and female leads getting together is so commoner than dirt I'm surprised Sanderson held onto that for this long. SPOILER FOR VARIOUS BOOKS!!!He did one reversal of expectations with Denth and finally Wax and Marasi didn't get together so I think he's getting out of that habit. But not this. I could list all sorts of reasons why not but the most relevant one is that it would've blocked MY ship's route, were I a person who normally ships stuff.

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen anyone around here mention this so I'd like to mention that there's also Oldbloods somewhere in Roshar. It's a blink and miss, you only get a single chance to catch it: So, Oldbloods are a group of whatevers that's identified by a tattoo on a cheek, much like Ghostbloods and their tattoo. And the name similarity is too much to ignore. Plus Dalinar knows they exist and doesn't seem particularly concerned that one of his highest officers is one. My pet idea is that there's a bunch of known Somethingbloods around and Ghostbloods named themselves after those, especially if those Whateverbloods are a religious/political thing that ties into Ghostbloods' goals. There's nothing to support this idea, but it would kinda strengthen the speculation that Ghostbloods could be a religion based affair. ... Also, the speculation that Teft is somehow tied to Ghostbloods could actually turn out to be true. Teft betrayed Envisagers and thinks they don't exist anymore, but he doesn't have to be correct in his assumption. Some Envisagers could've survived and formed Ghostbloods. Teft is 40ish I think, and my impression is that Teft's betrayal happened when he was young (teen or tween). That leaves plenty of time for stuff to happen. Also also, there must have been something to betray Envisagers "to". That could be the rival secret organization aka "Taravangianbloods". OTOH Envisagers' belief in Radiants would clearly be quite threatening to mainstream Vorinism so it might've been ardentia that hit them.

Um, hurray I suppose.

These stick out to me: Kelsier's pamphlets mentions Atium Mistings, even names them as Seers. I'm pretty sure Kelsier didn't know those existed because that's the kind of thing he'd have told Vin about which would've required her to not be surprised that Yomen is one. Augur is also named The Black Lake is certainly not a new thing. It's there on maps, all the way back to Sanderson's concept map (as the number 1 lake no less). It's obviously Ruin's lake like Preservation's lake was when Alendi was going to the Well. But Rashek remade the whole world, going so far as to create a false Terris to hide the Well. I'm certain he wouldn't leave Ruin's lake lying around. Not to mention a pure black lake that wards off the mist wouldn't go unnoticed for a thousand years. Alas, I do have a possible explanation for this so I can't point at this and proclaim NONCANON!!! and be all smug and elitist and crap as easy as the other one. Rumors speak of Survivor, this is happening after Lord Ruler's death. The exact timing is nebulous so it might be after Ruin's escape. Ruin's trapped mind was the black mist Vin saw going to Well and it wasn't there after she used the Well. Therefore, the smoke might have escaped to taint the lake. Or Ruin concentrated his essence there once his mind was free. I doubt even a large cave full of smoke could have enough mass to fill a lake that big but such physical issues may not concern Ruin much. Whatever the details, Ruin could've blackened the lake for a while (or even permenantly, Vin and co. might not have had any reason to go check out Black Lake after Ruin's escape). I'm reasonably certain Black Lake shouldn't actually be black during Lord Ruler's reign. It's not a waterproof rationale, but it's plausible. Also, what happened to the apprentice Inquisitor? He had no qualms about killing scouts. Why didn't he kill the tineye girl? Why didn't he kill rebel skaa? Other than nitpicking, all stories were cool. Especially the Bylerum Job and Hazekillers were seriously awesome.

Marsh isn't combined with Lord Ruler. Wax specifically refers to gold compounding as "the way the Sliver gained immortality". They know Ironeyes and the Sliver are different. Also, "and the Ascendent Warrior married some guy and made him emperor" is pretty much exactly what happened. The only reason Elend got to wear a crown is that Vin loved him. Also also, Dockson the Administrator of THE GODS! Has a certain flair to it. I've always felt he was the crewmember that got the shortest end of the stick. Oh well. At least his legacy lives on. (or so I hope)

A Mistborn would be far too powerful in modern Scadrial. He'd surely seem as stronger than puny mortals as Lord Ruler was stronger than skaa. He may not live forever but a guy like that could quickly gather a lot of power for himself. He could even go so far as to claim to be Last Emperor reborn (or the Ascendant Warrior if it's a woman), who would argue with a full deck of Allomantic powers in one person? Sure, not everyone would buy that and Harmony and/or Ironeyes might step in (not that anyone setting up such a scam would expect that as they'd be considering all this stuff mythology), but that's just one possible idea for a full Mistborn to seize worldly power. There's bound to be many many ways to gain power or become the ruling caste if a group of rich/powerful/influential people has a Mistborn on their side. All this, of course, assumes they're really trying to create a Mistborn. Which is a large assumption. More on topic, they're obviously a group of rich/influential men who want to gain even more of that, possibly with a final goal of ruling the world. There's never a shortage of that kind of guys in fiction. They'd prolly justify themselves by talking about some noble ideology or other, but their kind of badguy is ultimately always the same.

Also what relation do they have with turnips? Also also does Sanderson have a particular fondness for them?

And now for something completely different: FTL bothers me. Even with some sort of technology that makes it possible, it'll still take stupid amounts of time to physically move in cosmere (assuming it's like our universe on interstellar/intergalactic scale). So that Allomantic FTL tech is just half of the question, and I'm quite certain anything Sanderson writes won't be moving at the speed of plot. So unless they manage to create a way to instantly move from any point in cosmere to any other, interstellar travellers must be protected against passage of time (then there's bound to be some funky stuff happening with time at FTL speeds, such as time starting to flow backwards or some such craziness, which would be even more troublesome). Then there's the matter of acceleration. Human body isn't very well suited to withstand the kinds of acceleration that must appear when going from 0 to who knows how many times the speed of light. I doubt any sort of material can take that kind of vector to the chin like a man. And then there's the problem of navigation. Any kind of sensory device would go nuts at FTL (not to mention the ridiculousness of the idea of manually steering something moving at FTL speed), so the spaceship must be flying blind on a predetermined route. But how can such a route be determined beforehand? It can't be mapped. Anything you sent beforehand to map out would have to send its signal back at FTL to be of use. Even if you had a sensor that can somehow send FTL signals forward and then receive them back also at FTL, you'd have to scan an impossibly huge cone of space to be able to calculate a route which will allow the spaceship to pass unharmed taking account of the passage of time after it launches. Even after that is accomplished, the problem of maneuverability still stands. You'll still have to steer something that's going faster than light around things like stars, blackholes, asteroid belts and the tiniest fraction of change in velocity will rip apart the puny humans inside. Last but not least, is those puny humans inside. What'll happen to them with all the time-space shenanigans, assuming they didn't paint the walls when taking that left turn at Albuquerque? How long will the journey take for them? How long will it look from Scadrial? What are they gonna do once they get there? How much stuff will they need to survive the journey and do whatever it is they want to do once there, which also reminds me of the matter of mass (and of course energy) which I was trying to avoid thinking about... In short, I'm quite bothered by the whole concept of FTL, Allomantic or otherwise. There's far too many things sticking out to be answered satisfactorily by "it's magic!" The speed of plot thing is so pervasive in media because of these and more that I certainly missed. On the bright side, Sanderson still has years ahead till he gets to write about Allomantic FTL travel. Maybe he'll solve all these problems with Allomancy+Feruchemy.

Marsh's comment struck me as having opposite opinions with Harmony about this mess. Harmony told Wax he doesn't play favorites, he probably sees the bad guys as much his "children" as anyone else on Scadrial, but Marsh clearly wants to help Wax on this matter. As for Trellism, I was really expecting Miles to claim Twinborns are dominant toward the end. Then we could've made up all sorts of baseless theories claiming he was Rashek reborn or something. Alas, it wasn't meant to be...

Assuming this is true, the reason might be Dalinar's youth spent as a warmongering bloodthirsty gloryhog corrupting his Shards. Adolin has never been a vicious bastard and he didn't kill someone for the Shards, so his stuff are clean. And he even came to war out of his devotion to Dalinar (he thinks about that somewhere in the book).

You can't leave a story like this hanging. It just not done, at least not by people with any sense of propriety... ... Lightsaber has lost the title of coolest weapon ever conceived. Vindication took its cake and shot it too. And a real LOL at High Imperial.

"Table sweep." "I call the gun Vindication. After the Ascendant Warrior." "Somebody shoulda done that ages ago."

Can't argue with that logic.

Ironeyes is the Survivor's brother. That's mythology begging to be written right there.

That's not exactly correct. All languages have words that don't have exact translations in others. I'm certain "defenestrate things" command couldn't be given by a very large % of humans if we had Breath (it's probably not a valid command, but an awesome trap could be set with a curtain using that). And when you're fluent in other lingos, those words start to slip into your thoughts. And when your fluency goes further than that, you sometimes start thinking in the other language without noticing. Therefore, those wires aren't as hard as you think. On one hand, Sanderson may not be aware of such an occurance. On the other hand, it could be an occupational disease for me. Or that my wires are soft. On the other other hand... There's no more hands. ... EDIT: Thinking on that, there has to be some commands that people can't use because of their nativity, thanks to huge differences in sentence structures and word meanings between lingos. And there's bound to be some commands that become unusable when translated, which would put a real damper on international research. Also new words appear and old meanings shift all the time, especially over centuries. Illustrative example of that. How would these affect Awakening? That's two barrels of worms there.

For all we know, that's a Raysium nugget. Or an 8ball fabrial. I'm pretty sure we won't even hear about it for a loong time.

So I finally took a look at the back cover and this stood out like a sore thumb. Obviously Shardwielding isn't Shardbearing, because Shardbearing isn't something that's gone and Shardbearers aren't magical, just have magical loot. So, anyone know what the heck that is? Actually, I know the answer: we don't know. But I jumped to a conclusion (as I was typing this) from little to no evidence as a baseless theory full of holes suddenly appeared. Note that this contains spoilers for other Sanderson books. So the theory: There's 7 completely different kinds of magic on Roshar, and we have only heard of 3 of those in Old Magic, Voidbinding and Surgebinding. And the general consensus (or what I think is the general consensus) isn't necessarily correct: Surgebinding from Honor, Voidbinding from Odium and Old Magic from Cultivation. We know nothing about Voidbinding and Surgebinding seems to really be very closely associated with Honor, but especially Old Magic is troublesome. One boon and one curse Nightwatcher thinks is appropriate for you. What exactly does that got to do with Cultivation? Seriously? OTOH, it looks like a somewhat odd but plausible mix of Honor and Odium. And going back to the start, there's Shardwielding. And we know there was something called Dawnshards and Almighty mentions that they'd be useful but are gone. Since Shardbearers aren't related to Shardwielding, I postulate that Shardwielding is related to Dawnshards. And back cover can't be lying to us (inconceivable!) so they'll come back at some point. Surgebinding is already "returning". And, I'll make another utterly baseless claim to say that Cultivation's real stuff is those: Dawncities, Dawnchant, Dawnsingers, Dawnpizza...=Language, permentant settlements, (maybe) medicine and healthcare, pizza... They all look like things that could easily tie into cultivating humanity. We know magic, as general rule, comes from Shard interactions. But nowhere it says the Shards haggle about and draw up laws to govern mortal magics over dinner. My suspicion is that whole magic systems just spontaneously appear every time Shards are close with no conscious effort on their part, thanks to Adonalsium connection. Furthermore, this would mean that the total number of magics possible in Cosmere is a stupidly large number that I'm too lazy to calculate. That kind of justification would give Sanderson enough cool magics to put in books for several lifetimes. ... So there it is. Another off the wall "theory" that was sparked by some tiny thing. Make of it what you will.

We have a Parshendi Shardbearer who says "It is you. I have found you at least," to Dalinar. And this happens after he shatters Dalinar's helm and bends down to take a close look at his face, therefore it's safe to conclude that he recognizes Dalinar's face. Also he must have been looking for him for a while to have "found him at last". Later, when Dalinar's army escapes he comes back: As Dalinar watched, a figure in cracked, silvery Shardplate and a red cape stumbled to their forefront. The helm had been removed, but it was too distant to make out any features on the black and red marbled skin. So we have a Parshendi who knows Dalinar's face, has been looking specifically for him for some time for some unknown reason, but Dalinar doesn't get to see his face clearly. It would be quite logical to assume this Parshendi knows Dalinar from way back. It might also be possible that Dalinar could remember him if he had seen his face clearly. It had been all very logical up until this point. Then I had an idea. Which ended logic right there. I've always been not good at logic anyway. From this point on, the "theory" (if you can call it that) is completely illogical and mostly speculation, whose chief weapon is surprise, surprise and drama. Two! Whose two chief weapons are surprise and drama and baseless assumption... Anyway. The aforementioned idea was this: That Parshendi Shardbearer is Gavilar. Such a weird idea could only continue: They had him assasinated because they wanted him to become one of them six years ago. And it just had to became a theory: Parshendi are the people who were particularly close to Honor in life that came back after death. Now when you have a theory like this, you look for anything that could remotely be an evidence for it. I am aware that actively looking for things that can support a preconceived hypothesis does not work in life. But this isn't real life, it's fictionland. And a fictionland created by such a meticulous planner. So, Exhibit A: Parshendi don't seem to care too much about their soldiers dying but go berserk when corpses are touched. Exhibit B: Parshendi don't leave Alethi survivors. Exhibit C: Parshendi wanted Gavilar to die. Exhibit D: There's a Parshendi Shardbearer who wants to find Dalinar for some reason and knows his face. Exhibit E: Dalinar doesn't get to have a clear look at that Parshendi's face. Exhibit F: Parshendi features and eyes are exactly like humans. Exhibit G: We really don't know anything Parshendi. Exhibit H: Parshendi seem to be hearing songs coming from somewhere and sing along. Exhibit I: Parshmen don't have songs, as pointed out by Parshendi. Exhibit J: Kaladin feels that Stormlight inside him pulses with a rhythm that's almost like Parshendi songs' beat when he's fighting them. Exhibit K: Syl doesn't like Shardbearers. Exhibit L: We don't have any real proof that Parshendi "Shards" are identical to Alethi Shards. Exhibit M: Shards (of Adonalsium variety) can transform humans into something else. Exhibit N: At least one of those Shard can bring back the dead. Exhibit O: Parshendi are a whole lot more honorable than Alethi. (not that it's a hard thing) Exhibit P: There's a lot of parshmen on Roshar. Exhibit Q: Parshmen don't talk to people. Exhibit R: Sanderson loves foreshadowed twists. With all these at hand, one can ramble quite a bit. Semi baseless speculation that keeps getting more ridiculous: Parshmen are empty host bodies that gets filled with the returning spirit. They always obey humans and don't do anything if not ordered because they're more golems than truly sentient creatures. When parshmen "die" and are "left in wilderness", it means they're about to be filled. When the spirit returns, it becomes a truly sentient creature: Parshendi. Probably parshmen prepare "corpses" in some way and humans handling them is bad because of that, which is why parshman are so insistent about their dead. Since this is an instinct hardwired into their bodies, it passes on to Parshendi as well. Their face changes to match the one they had and they either remember their lives, or have some memories. Or maybe parshmen faces are already identical to the person for whom they'll eventually become the host of. Or something along those lines. The songs can hear is actually Honor's power and Kaladin feels Stormlight pulses almost like Parshendi battle song inside him. And Stormlight is also tied to Honor. Seems like Parshendi can naturally hear the Honor's power "pulsing" and they sing along with its beat. Quasi idle make believe: They respect Stormlight, Parshendi archers at chasm and others who watched Dalinar's duel become unwilling to attack Kaladin when he showed his Light. But they did fight back when he attacked them at chasm, which kinda puts a damper on this "theory" without some more contrieved explanation. Since this "theory" is already so off the wall, I won't attempt to explain that irregularity away. Also since an honorspren is extremely likely to be somehow related to Honor, and Syl despises Shardblades so much, Parshendi ties to Honor could explain their suicidal crazy rushes against Shardbearers. Who in their right mind would willingly go against a Shardblade? Hundreds of Parshedi die during the book while attacking Dalinar or Adolin. Parshendi try so badly to defeat Shardbearers so they can destroy their shards. Maybe Parshendi can come back to life in their bodies, which would make their casual disregard for their lives and berserk fury for messing with corpses very logical. It does look like they see Kaladin as some sort of holy thing due to holding Stormlight and since Light is likely to be Honor's power itself, someone holding Stormlight would be holy to Parshendi. They don't interfere with his interference of Shardbearer duel, they even shy away from him when he goes for Dalinar's horse and they seemed rather confused during all that because of the contradiction in seeing a holy man protecting Dalinar, who holds unholy items. Fully empty claim: "The enemy" takes over all those empty parshmen during a Desolation. ... For a theory that was made up from rule of drama only because a Parshendi knows Dalinar's face and Dalinar doesn't get to see his, it has bits and pieces that look suspiciously possible. This is the sort of twist that wouldn't look at all out of place in a Sanderson book. OTOH, it has more holes than a sieve. The only reason I felt compelled to write all this is because, on the off chance that it's actually true, I'll get to say "I knew it!" in an extremely smug way. Then again, isn't that the whole point of speculating on anything?

The way I saw it, Oathpact was to stop Odium from attacking Roshar by giving him 10 volunteers to vent his hatred upon. As long as they could take whatever Odium threw at them, he was content/forced to play only with them. When they inevitably all broke and sought respite (for a time I assume), they got sent back to Roshar with what I think would be called superpowers and Odium got to send his flunkies upon mankind. They duke it out with Voidbringers, which is their holiday, then go back to Odium's playground. With the whole binding business, it could be seen as a way for Honor's chosen to bind Odium. But now that I think about it, this is a collosally bad deal for Honor. Throwing ten mortals (mere or not) to the wolves, even if to save the rest of humanity, doesn't look all that honorable. Also if they lose a single time, then everything has been for nothing. But Odium gets to do it again and againt until he gets lucky, while he always has something to keep busy while he waits for his next shot at victory. No way this is a fair deal among equals, unless Honor had some massive benefits we don't know about. Which isn't impossible, though a bit unlikely. However now all this seems quite simplistic to me. Especially remembering the clusterbud of schemes we saw the last time Shards fought. Granted we only saw one such ultimate showdown and it could be the exception rather than the norm of "Shardbattles", but my meta senses tell me Sanderson wouldn't go for a simpler plot. So I got quite attached to this new "they were allies" idea. "Enemy" could really be anything from another Shard to something entirely nonAdonalsiumy. We have no proof if Adonalsium itself wasn't a piece of something even bigger, or he/she/it/they had a few evil twins floating around. The idea of Odium betraying and killing Honor even when they were fighting a common enemy fits both of them to a tee. Honor can't think of betraying his ally, Odium can't think of not attacking a defenseless target. My meta senses also theorize that Sanderson likes inverting things he did in previous books (Kelsier-Denth, Lord Ruler-God King, etc) and when we had two guys named Ruin and Preservation, it wasn't the one who had the "supervillain" name that plotted to outmaneuver and kill the other from the very start. Baseless speculation for now and admittedly it hinges more on meta knowledge than actual info in books... Objections to my rambling would be as follows: What would be more honorable? Should Honor have handed himself over to Odium? Could Honor really trust a guy named Odium to not take advantage of the situation when he's weakened/incapacitated/imprisoned? Ruin and Preservation are pretty hefty abstract concepts whereas Honor and Odium are somewhat straightforward, instinctual feelings, so these two might not be as manipulative as those two. Was Cultivation too busy pruning apple trees to do anything while all this happened? Why did Desolations stop after Heralds quit? Why wouldn't their mutual enemy defeat Odium and do whatever it is it's trying to do (presumably destroying Roshar) when one of the defenders fall? Would Sanderson introduce a nonAdonalsium power into cosmere out of the blue? If it's another Shard they're fighting, how come 2 (or even 3) Shards had to ally to stop it? (Objection contested: Rayse did kill 2 Shards on Sel, who's to say some other Shard isn't even more powerful than 3 combined?) That's more objections than supports I think. Either way, I'll stick to this idea like a horse carcass because I'd get to say "toldya" to someone someday. More than half the fun of this stuff is guessing and being proven right.

860 (hardcover) Dalinar stood and took her nearly empty cup, then walked over to the serving table and refilled it. I'm pretty sure it's his cup, because Navani puts her cup on the table in next paragraph.