fiveAM

I've always imagined Scadrial as barren before Preservation and Ruin arrived. I mean isn't it mentioned that Preservation agreed to work with Ruin so that they could create life? It seems like they agreed to work together, even when they are such opposites, was because basically Preservation wanted something to preserve and Ruin something to ruin. Otherwise, why purposely weaken themselves if there was already life to preserve/ruin? Although, I guess it's possible that Preservation and Ruin had a struggle before the current Scadrial where Ruin won and all life was extinguished. Then Preservation said, "Round 2?" Ruin: "Um... with what?" Preservation: "Hmm... good point.." Ruin: "We COULD go there... but Tanavast is there and he's soooo annoying" Preservation: "Yeah. He can be a bit.. Oh! How about we just make new life here? We'd have to work together though..." Ruin: "Meh.... Fine. But I get to choose what they look like"

It doesn't have to add.. This is really interesting.. I like. How about in Warbreaker? Could Endowment be 7? Or however long a week is on Nalthis (time a Returned's Divine Breathe lasts). @zas how did you get 1 for Endowment and 2 for Devotion?

Can you point out the interview where Lightweaving as a Surge is mentioned/confirmed? I would like the read the context and stuff.

Immortal is more about not dying normally (ie old age) than being unkillable. Like the Greek gods or almost any other gods in myth they were immortal. I can't remember if any of the Greek gods die (actually I guess the Titans..) but I know in Norse mythology, ALL the gods die in Ragnarok. You're thinking of invincible. Hoid is "essentially immortal" because he has time dilation techniques (whatever that really means) that lets him jump around in time and he has longer life (I believe in the same interview where his essential immortality is mentioned BS also mentions that he is very old too).

Considering how much Brandon respected Jordan and how RJ's wife is helping edit, i think Brandon won't be killing off any major characters if it's not in RJ's notes. RJ planned for the worst (which sadly came to be) and he wrote copious notes on how he wanted things to go, he actually wrote some scenes, some only partial, but the rest is all in his notes. I'm doing a re-read of the first book right now and just read the part where Bela saves Egwene's butt by swimming across the river like a boss when all the other horses disappeared/died. Definitely want Bela to be alive at the end of the book, maybe even show up randomly and save Rand's life or something. I mean even though Egwene technically owns her now, she was still Rand/Tam's originally, I've always hoped Bela would go back to being Rand's.

Yup. Like the movie. The Departed.

I feel like if a world doesn't start off with multiple authors, it could be completely disastrous to do it part way through. Star Wars only works because every major plot change actually has to be approved by Lucas before it can go into print. With Jordan deceased though... Also, if multiple writers start taking over, I feel like Randland would cease to be Jordan's legacy, he wrote WoT like it was just ONE REALLY LONG book split into volumes, so.

hear hear! Glad to hear someone agrees with me. I also thought that Egwene was getting crazy high on her high horse with no one putting her down a peg or two. It was really starting to annoy me, especially during Nynaeve's formal testing to become Aes Sedai. It would be pretty cool to see a Fain vs. Matt. Matt was influenced by the dagger before (which is half of the evil in Fain), so it'd be interesting to see what would happen. Interesting point about the Wheel. I was actually wrong before, the Age of Legends is in fact the Fourth Age. So if the Breaking leads to the First Age... The time after the Dark One is defeated is entering the Fourth Age. There must be some sort of significance in which Age being called First and what not.. Last point. About Aviendha's vision. I don't think it's a Foretelling. Foretelling is supposed to be major powerful that is super rare and a lot of those who can Foretell can't even control it. I think it's similar to the Waystones (forget if it's actually called that) where there are possibilities. I think the Terangreal might have just shown Aviendha a possible future, possibly one that Aviendha specifically was fearing (we know from her narrative that she was already wondering about the future path of the Aiel after this was all over). Not sure if I'm making sense as to the difference between the possibilities and Foretelling.

As it has been confirmed that the Seons are Splinters, and those have been around for ages so AonDor with intact Shards could have been very different in terms of how powerful they were. It could be that AonDor only works in Elantris b/c Aona is Splintered and her Well (the lake?) is in Elantris which creates the diminishing effect as Elantrians get further away from Elantris.

Don't worry, LOTS of people missed that. I only caught it after a complete 2nd read through of WoK. In hindsight it just seems so obvious huh. =p

Ooh~ awesome, that was actually a pet theory I had. It's great to have it confirmed. Also, if Hoid had taken Odium, and waay back when, he should have been corrupted by Odium's Intent but we've never seen Hoid angry or hateful. He's always been a bit mysterious but never showed a temper or a strong dislike for someone/something. In WoK, as Wit, Hoid is much more expressive and even then we never see him hateful, just inquisitive and quite witty.

Yeah i know what you mean, it would give some reasoning to the significance of "this time around". But considering how like every book starts with the "The Wheel of Time turns... There are no beginnings or endings to the turnings of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning." It seems very likely that that's probably not the case. It probably is the last turning of the Wheel before it comes back to where it starts, so probably like the start of a new 'First Age' and build to another Age of Legends.

Yeah, i was going to say that too. The writer of the Letter appears to be talking of Aona and Skai's death as something that happened not too long ago, and the recipient being aware of Rayse's visit to Sel as it happened. And the mention of Ati once being a gentle man, and "you saw what became of him" is most likely referring to his corruption by his Shard's Intent. With this mention and the lack of mention of Ati's death, the Letter seems likely to have been written BEFORE Sazed picked up Ruin and Preservation.

Well regarding the Female KR we saw in Dalinar's visions, that person could have been Soulcasting. I know there are some people who speculate her use of Regrowth to be a different Surge from Soulcasting (there's a thread called 'Regrowth' where this is discussed in length) but I think Regrowth is very likely still Soulcasting or at the very least not it's own Surge in itself but similar to what Lashings are. So if we assume that, then every female KR/possible KR we've seen Soulcasts, an possible loose end however is Elhokar and him seeing Symbolspren too. Shallan's Memory being a part of her Radiant powers is pretty divisive topic for many people. It seem so unnatural, and yes Shallan had her spheres out while doing some of her drawings.. BUT we haven't seen her mention any unnatural dunning of her spheres like Kaladin when she used her Memory. There are also other times when spheres aren't definitively present that she uses her Memory, and that she seems to have had this ability for her entire life. I think her Memory probably isn't natural, but i don't think it's a direct usage of her Radiant powers. Maybe its Old Magic, maybe it's a side effect of her developing KR powers, maybe it's the POSSIBLE 3rd Shard's magic. I agree that the Shin are mighty suspicious. They don't seem just mysterious, but i get a sort of malevolent vibe from them. I mean, they have super strict laws and rules: Szeth and his utter destitution of free will as Truthless, walking on stone being taboo, allowing a freakin death god like Szeth to wander around being controlled and used to kill people, and of course the suspicion that they are hoarding mass amounts of Blades.

Yeah, same here, just as there are the spheres to hold stormlight for Surgebinding, i always thought it the equivalent for Voidbinding

Haha possibly, maybe it'll be like a slightly tweaked form of the balefire weave or something

It seems likely the Oathpact kept Honor from interfering or helping the Heralds in their fight and even if Odium were to not completely follow it (sort of like in WoT) Honor is also about upholding honor and oaths so even when he saw it happen, he couldn't say it cause that would be "helping" the Heralds.

Isn't there a mention of forced habits for channeling by the Wise Ones when we see the Wise Ones training and create that huge fireball? Or it might have been mentioned to Nynaeve when she first starts learning to channel at the Tower, I forget exactly. But it goes along the lines of how its actually not necessary to "fling" a fireball by swinging your arm. However, that's how people learned it and they associated it in their minds as a necessary component and from then they couldn't throw the fireball without making the motion. Similar idea to the channeling blocks (Nynaeve only being able to channel when angry). Rand wasn't trained at that point so it's possible he didn't have any channeling habits back then. Also, it wasn't a conscious weave of his so that might have something to do with it.

I think the Way Gate was in the New City no the Old City too. The Way Gates were built just outside the Grove and the Grove in Caemlyn was outside the (Old) city. Can't remember for sure though.. I really should brush up on the 11 books before AMoL comes out. I'm sort of hoping Rand will straight up just break the seals in front of everyone at the meeting, well other than the last one. Cause that has to happen at the Bore so he can create a new seal quick. It would basically force everyone to go with his plan... but then again.. Rand is super zen right now so probably not. I'm not sure about channelers but it's possible. Elayne is pregnant and Min can't channel. It seems weird to single out Aviendha with Nynaeve already decided on it, but Rand barely knows the former seanchan damane so... Personally, my pet theory is that Rand, the Dragon Reborn will die, but Rand al'Thor wont. Rand is really similar to Jesus (along with other things like Zeus and King Arthur) and Jesus dies but is resurrected. I think Rand will die at but then come back to life somehow and from then on not live as the Dragon Reborn but just plain Rand al'Thor. And maybe like when Jesus was resurrected, no one would notice it was him even though they walked and talked with him - hence the vision and his multiple future kids.

maybe he did actually "die" but then the Darkhor markings did like a defibrillator effect and Hrathren was resurrected. Hrathren then got up and killed that monk dude (I always forget his name..) but then was like, "crap! blood loss.." and died again. No?

It's also possible that it's important to keep the existence of the Shardblade a secret. We don't know how Shallan got the Shardblade, I've read theories about it being related to the Ghostbloods and the Soul Caster in the first place. Shallan has multiple older brothers, and she's the youngest, so it's very doubtful that it was in the family all along and that she inherited it (by passing her older brothers and going to the young girl, who, in that culture, aren't expected, trained, or even approved of to fight.

Do they have to die? Are Shard bound to the Holder when they take it? Or maybe its simply that if one holds onto the Shard long enough to be changed by the Intent of the Shard that they won't do it, simply because the Intent has too much of an influence on their minds and prevents them from doing it.

It could be the spren Cusicesh (I agree it IS annoyingly hard to remember) or sprens that make up Cisicesh, is being influenced by a Splinter/ is a Splinter?

There are supposed to be 2 Orders who can Soulcast, and Elhokar's Symbolspren may be different from Shallan's Truthspren. Also, I don't think he necessary sees them all the time, just in the corner of his eye, in shadows, etc. That's why it's paranoia and not him going bat rust crazy and attacking random things.

Yeah I think it's more likely the power of the 3rd Shard, which I think has been Splintered so idea isn't completely different. Brandon's revelation of that changed like half the theories on magic and magic-related things on Roshar for me.