Ansalem

I disagree. Eshonai was changed against her will. That could have been a special circumstance, of course, but we don't yet know if that's the case.

You're misunderstanding everything I'm saying.

Yes, but I didn't say Nightblood is an Honorblade, I said it was like an Honorblade in some ways. Nalan saying Szeth is worthy of being a Skybreaker does not make him one. A Skybreaker is a KR that has bonded a highspren and spoken the oaths of the Skybreakers thereby gaining the surges of Gravitation and Division. Nightblood is not a highspren, Szeth will not have to speak those oaths in order to bond Nightblood, and bonding him will not give him the surges of Gravitation and Division. Bonding Nightblood may or may not grant Szeth certain powers, but they will be different from Skybreaker powers. Anyone can bond an Honorblade without needing to speak any oaths, anyone (theoretically) can bond Nightblood without needing to speak any oaths. If Szeth becomes a Skybreaker it will not be from bonding Nightblood. Szeth hasn't met any of the requirements to become a Skybreaker yet. He might in the future, though.

But Szeth hasn't bonded Nightblood and if he does it won't produce the same effects as bonding one of the KR spren. He won't ever be a Skybreaker that way. Bonding Nightblood probably won't require any oaths either for that matter. Nightblood is more like the Honorblades in some ways.

Have you been reading the Oathbringer preview chapters? This question is answered in chapter 5. edit: I just realized this was posted before the preview chapters were being released, but I guess I'll leave it anyway.

Fair enough, I suppose. But I wasn't saying symmetry isn't important, in fact I said the opposite. I just didn't see why people thought the shattering created the symmetry. I see it now, though I'm still skeptical. And I would say the theme isn't so much about symmetry specifically as it is about sound waves.

Right but I guess what I'm saying is, how does the spanreed know which frame of reference to use? My answer was that the CR version of Roshar doesn't act like a planet in space and so there is only one possible frame of reference in Shadesmar. Shadesmar doesn't move relative to anything.

I was addressing @Pattern's point that different points on a planet are moving at different speeds and directions relative to a fixed position in space. If one is on the equator and another is on a pole, the one at the equator is moving significantly faster than the one at the pole regardless of whether they're sitting still relative to the planet. Pattern made the example of two on opposite sides of the planet at the equator, which would mean they're moving in opposite directions from one another (if you look at a spinning ball from above, if the top part is going left the bottom part is going right). So a moving ship shouldn't make any difference, the speed of a ship is inconsequential compared to the speed of planetary rotation, and yet the movement of a ship does seem to matter. This problem wouldn't be solved through the Cognitive Realm if the CR version of Roshar acts the same as the physical version. You're just moving the same problem to another location that way. In short, relative movement is actually the problem not the solution.

The Plains being symmetrical doesn't seem that important to me. Plenty of major cities are symmetrical. The city that became the Shattered Plains was always symmetrical. The fact that so many cities are symmetrical is significant in some way, just probably not to the shattering. It's something more to do with Roshar as a whole. A lot of things on Roshar are related to vibrational patterns or music/sound. It's a general theme but we don't yet know why. But the reason the Plains are symmetrical is the same reason Vedenar or Thaylen City are symmetrical, the shattering didn't cause it. Not unless all those other cities were also shattered.

Yeah as far as I understand it, I just never thought much about the implications I guess. I have a lot of little tidbits of information about the CR but I never really put them together. @Calderis I have read Secret History but I think I need to read it again. I've forgotten most of the CR information from it. You've given me a lot to think about.

@Spicker that's really interesting, I didn't know you could walk from one planet to the next. I sort of assumed that each planet had a kind of pocket universe representation and that the CR doesn't really have space as we normally think of it, but I hadn't considered that might mean all of them were directly connected. But it does make sense now that I think about it. If there's no space between the "planets" of the CR then they must all be touching. I had always thought of them more like bubbles pressed together, but one big bubble makes sense too. I suppose it's the difference between a separate CR for each planet vs one Cosmere-wide CR. I knew there was only one CR but hadn't put much thought into what that means spatially. Nice to know I was right about it being flat though. Definitely lends credence to my idea.

All this talk of spanreeds and getting Roshone to send a message to Kholinar or Sadeas's Princedom makes me think everyone has failed to consider one other possibility. What if Kaladin brought a spanreed with him to communicate with Dalinar directly? Though I'm not sure how they would verify it was Dalinar on the other side. And it may be unlikely since Kaladin can't write, so he would have to trust a stranger. What if the spanreeds work through the Cognitive Realm and the Cognitive Realm doesn't move as the planet does? It would still make sense that you can't use them while moving on a ship since moving along Roshar has an equivalent motion through the CR, but the CR itself doesn't necessarily need to be attached to the motion of the planet in that sense. In other words, is the CR version of Roshar like a shadow planet that moves in the same way as the physical planet or is it merely a representation that is fixed in CR space? Does it rotate and orbit a CR sun? The brief visuals we've had of Shadesmar would suggest to me that it doesn't, because the clouds are always pointed at the sun which tells me that the sun is in a fixed spot in the sky. Though since our viewings so far have been brief, it could simply be that the clouds move to keep track of the sun. But I also wonder if Shadesmar is even spherical, since the sun always seems to be visible. It may be a bit of a stretch since I just now thought it up, but worth considering I think.

I assumed it's symmetrical because it was built that way. Most of the cities are symmetrical, that's why cymatics show their shapes. Cymatic patterns are always symmetrical, so every city Kabsal showed on his plate was a symmetrical city. And the chasms were not chasms to begin with, the bottom of the chasms would be the roads. It wouldn't be the only city on Roshar to be cut into the earth like that. The city Lift visits in Edgedancer is cut into the earth, too. Finally, there are buildings built to mirror each other in real life. One example does not make a pattern. I'm not discounting the possibility, I just don't see any conclusive evidence that they have been shattered. edit: Looks like you edited while I was posting. Well if Brandon says it's shattered then I submit.

I don't recall this ever being explained in the books. Is it from a WoB or do you know where it's mentioned in the books?

As far as I understand it, the Shattered Plains were not shattered. They just look like they were. But actually it is a city that has been covered over by crem over centuries. The plateaus are just the roofs of buildings.

I think I would rather call them valorspren.

Here is where I saw it.

I believe the same. He's obedient to a fault, it seems. Following that order will brand him a regicide. From what little we know of him and the Order he does seem to fit the best out of any character.

I believe the prevailing theory right now is that the Dawnsingers were powerful spren and that they were corrupted by Odium to become the Unmade. The second part is less certain. Kabsal stated that they were spren in WoK, although religions in the Cosmere always tend to get a lot of things wrong. So neither are certain, but the first part has at least been stated as fact by someone in-world.

Well, she's already been training anyway. Being commanded to train in this case is being commanded to keep doing what she's doing. I don't really see why she would comment on it other than to say "okay". She already told Dalinar at the end of WoR that she intends to do just that, after all. They basically already had this discussion, no reason to rehash it.

Well, technically the second. Kaladin was the first. Adolin gifted them to Kaladin who then gifted them to Moash. Kaladin may have earned them from our perspective but not by the law. By law Adolin won them.

Practicing for your inevitable submission to your robot overlords? That way when they take over and read everything everyone's ever posted they'll see that you always loved them!

Finding out that the Shards and Adonalsium exist would not force her to renounce her atheism. I would be an atheist in the Cosmere knowing everything I know about it. The Shards are not gods, they're essentially just very powerful spren. They didn't create the Cosmere (as far as we know), they're of the Cosmere. And Jasnah has already made this point herself. She agrees that the Almighty might exist but that she simply does not accept him as God. She would say the same of any Shard or Adonalsium itself.

Ah, I see. Well, that's fair enough then. Though, I doubt he is planning on conquest. He'll surely attempt diplomacy first. I'm sure he does have conquest on the table, though. The threat is too dire not to consider every possible option. But I feel like he's changed far enough toward a diplomat by this point that he'll try that method for as long as he can first.

No, they aren't. There's Lift, Stump, Szeth (probably) and basically all of the Skybreakers (granted we don't know how many there are, but we certainly know of them). None of them are tied to Dalinar, two of them probably don't even know he exists. Even if there's only 1 Skybreaker and we don't count Szeth, that's still 3 out of 8. Almost half of the known KRs are not tied to Dalinar. It is half if you count Szeth, more than half if we assume there is more than one Skybreaker. And one of those is Dalinar himself. Besides which, even assuming all of the known KRs are tied to Dalinar, we know for a fact that there are many more in the world. Dalinar's role is clearly meant to be finding them and uniting them. He may not be filling that role yet, but it's obviously where he has to go. Maybe he will do that as leader of Alethkar, but ruling Alethkar is still secondary. He can't expect to incorporate the KRs across all of Roshar into Alethi rule, though. That'll be an exercise in futility. Many of them won't even be Vorin, a few may not even be human. And it's easily arguable that the KRs are not subject to any nation no matter what. People have been debating what dahn Kaladin will fall under now when the truth of the matter is Kaladin basically outranks everyone in the world who isn't a Radiant themselves, including kings. They may not know it yet, but that's how it'll shake out in the end.