Ansalem

I think they were definitely bunching up around the center, because remember they were thinking that it would be like a portal that you walk through in the middle that they were planning on rushing through.

Dalinar was healing himself with stormlight. From the end of WoR:

I want to start by saying I could be completely wrong. My understanding is that "magic" is inherent to the Cosmere in a few ways but that the Shards alter it or make it more easily accessible according to their intent. The parts I think are inherent to the Cosmere would be the 3 Realms (Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual) and Investiture. I don't know enough to comment on how the Realms work, so I'll just not try. But for Investiture, you can think of it as being a third fundamental aspect of physics. That is to say, we have matter and energy and the Cosmere also has Investiture. It exists everywhere to some extent and the laws of thermodynamics apply to it (or at least something similar). If our universe had Investiture, we would not consider it magic, we would study it the same as we study all physics. Our kids would learn about it in physics textbooks. It's basically just super energy, really. Shards don't create it, they just alter its functionality or accessibility within their influence. Without Shards there are still worlds with magic, and there are forms of magic or magical entities that existed before Adonalsium was shattered. Roshar for example had spren, highstorms (not sure if they were Invested then though), and presumably the Rhythms before any Shards arrived. The thing I don't know (and I don't think anyone but Brandon does) is whether Investiture existed before Adonalsium came into existence. For that matter, I don't know if Adonalsium always existed or not. My personal guess is that Adonalsium was created somehow by Investing something or someone very heavily, but it's just a guess. For all I know, Adonalsium created the Cosmere, but I choose to believe otherwise until given some reason not to.

Agreed. It's pretty obviously not Jasnah in my opinion. I don't even consider it a red herring. When I read the heretic line, I instantly marked her off the list of possibilities. Which is funny to me because so many people use that line to say that it is Jasnah. But it's so far out of character for her to write that line. As of this time, she is the only character I don't think it can be.

Since Bridge 4 are already squires I doubt it will go to them.

Why would anyone even want to make an alloy out of lerasium to become just a misting? If Hoid is a misting and not mistborn, I would be very surprised if it was because he alloyed lerasium.

Well, I'm not ruling it out. It's entirely possible. But Nalan has commented on a similar problem of Jezrien's. So I figure if Ishar is playing god to a city made of trash, Nalan wouldn't think too highly of his advice.

I doubt Nalan would be taking advice from him if that were the case.

Right, that's what I was trying to say.

Bondsmiths don't have Cohesion, they have Tension. I could see Cohesion doing something like that, but I don't see how Tension could, just based on the names.

I kind of doubt it is that obvious to most people. To the people on this forum maybe. I know if I'd never visited this forum I would have never even considered reviving a dead Blade at all. The extent of my thoughts about it would have been "so the Blades are dead spren, that's cool".

I was under the impression that it wasn't the Blade that changed to fit the lock, but rather the lock that changed to fit the Blade. Although I think we have more to go on than just Blades changing shape. Szeth has been to Urithiru. During the storm at the end of WoR, he saw the army disappear off of the plateau and he knew that they had gone to Urithiru, which means he knows what the Oathgates are. But instead of attempting to use the Oathgate, he immediately starts flying toward Urithiru, because his goal was to kill Dalinar not fight Kaladin. Maybe he just didn't want to attempt using the Oathgate with Kaladin right on his heels, but I would think he would rather fight off Kaladin and use the gate instead of flying all the way to Urithiru. Then again, Szeth wasn't exactly in the most sound state of mind at the time.

Well, he did actually earn a Shardblade like that, though. Plate, too, for that matter.

Perhaps he's a Sliver of Odium.

Well, it is a city, not just a giant tower. Though I get the sense that it's mostly the tower with the 10 Oathgates around a courtyard. I kind of imagine it as being a tower with the footprint of a small city and the Oathgates in a semi-circle out in front of it. It has fields for farming and everything. I really really hope one of the art pieces in the book is Shallan's drawing of the whole thing once she actually manages it.

Which one?

Well, it isn't explicitly stated anywhere in the books, but it's very strongly implied. I'd say we're more than 90% sure.

It's just a box that he keeps Glys in.

I'm going to try not to spoil Edgedancer, but suffice to say I think that's exactly what's going to happen. Back to the general discussion: Dalinar "pulling" on Shallan to enhance her Lightweaving. It seems people are thinking this is the Bondsmith's Resonance, but could it be their Surge of Tension? I think I'm leaning toward Resonance myself, but we still know basically nothing about Tension. Though, out of all the Surges I would think the one that could do something like that would be Cohesion instead. Just based on the names.

That doesn't actually go against my post, though. Could just as easily mean that the Heralds are released X amount of time before the Desolation starts, which would support me here. I would like to see the actual WoB though, but I don't know where to find those. But like I said, if the Desolations are tied to the Heralds then Honor caused them, not Odium.

I agree, although she might be able to impart to him the knowledge of how it could be done. However, this is something I look at more in terms of if I were writing the story rather than thinking about the mechanics of it. If she just did it for him I would consider that cheap storytelling even with an interesting curse. But if it's suitably difficult, emotional, he gets an interesting curse, and he still has to put in actual work, that might turn into some pretty good storytelling. Though, the real question for me would be how does he decide to revive the Blade and figure visiting the Nightwatcher would be the way to do it? I can see some characters considering reviving the Blade and getting him to try but even if he asked around I don't see anyone coming up with that particular plan. Certainly not at first, anyway. Maybe after a book or two of trying everything else first. Honestly I expect if he does revive the Blade it'll be basically by accident.

Are we sure Desolations start because the Heralds break? Personally, I believe that is not the case, though I would be happy to be proven wrong. It seems to me it could be that the Heralds are released whenever the Desolation is coming, not the other way around. That the Oathpact might say something like "The Heralds can come ahead of the Desolation to prepare mankind, but Odium gets to torture them in between Desolations." Instead of saying something like "Odium gets to torture the Heralds until one (or all) of them breaks, and then they are released into a Desolation." The first seems more likely to me, which would mean something else causes the Desolations. Because it certainly would appear that the Desolations would come regardless of whether the Heralds even exist or not, much less that it's tied to how much torture they can withstand. If Honor could have prevented all Desolations by simply not creating the Heralds, then why create them in the first place? If the Desolations are caused by the Heralds breaking under Odium's torture, then Honor is the cause of the Desolations, not Odium. Besides, why would he want his Heralds to be broken before they come to prepare and fight alongside mankind? I imagine it wouldn't be a winning strategy to ensure your Generals are broken before they lead an army. It's one thing to take the risk, quite another thing to guarantee it. As for what else might be causing them, I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of the Listeners (or anyone else I suppose) binding Void spren, and the reason the Radiant spren know it's coming ahead of time is because the Void spren become active, which the Radiant spren would notice. As for what causes the Void spren to become more active, I'm not sure. I'm under the impression that the 4500 year gap between this Desolation and the last is longer than all the others, but I'm not sure if that's the case (can't recall where I got that idea). If it isn't then it could simply be a periodic thing that would happen no matter what. If it is then I really have no idea because anything I can think of can't account for the extended gap this time. I'm also under the impression that the Radiants didn't disappear between Desolations, that they were just always around up until the Recreance. So the Radiant spren in the past were just always making pacts with people and didn't have this problem. This time is unique in Roshar's history in more than one way. But in either case, before we can guess how the spren know a Desolation is coming we first need to know exactly what causes the Desolations in the first place, and we don't have that information, at least not for certain (that I know of). However, unless someone can show me otherwise, at the moment I'm convinced it is not caused by the Heralds breaking under torture.

Agreed, Pattern is easily my favorite character. I love all the spren so far, though.

Yeah, I'm not sure I do either. I do think the Listeners can gain forms of power through Honor/Cultivation spren that is different from Radiants but probably not what the Dawnsingers are. Though I'm not sure what they would be called. But if that is what the Dawnsingers turn out to be, we won't be surprised.

So the Dawnsingers would basically be the Listener version of Knights Radiant. If that were the case I would expect that humans can also bind Odium's spren. So it might go like this: Listener + Honor/Cultivation spren = Dawnsinger Human + Honor/Cultivation spren = Surgebinder Listener + Odium spren = Voindbringer Human + Odium spren = Voidbinder And the normal forms of the Listeners are what they are when they bind their own spren native to Roshar untouched by any Shard.