WeiryWriter

That isn't how I understand it. Mistwraiths have a blockage which can be overcome with hemalurgy. Hemalurgy twists and warps the spirit web, in koloss this leads to them becoming less "human" but in kandra the twisting works to alleviate the blockage, like un-kinking a hose.

I'll be responding to these in order so I might repeat myself. I do think he would be aware of the correct terminology. Not only are the spren astonishingly Realmatically aware (and where did they get that knowledge I wonder?) but Cultivation is right there, and I would be extremely surprised if she did not know the correct terminology and didn't explain exactly what he was. Also I would say the Stormfather knows more about the cosmere than the Lord Ruler, and yet the Lord Ruler knew enough to refer to himself as a sliver. I suppose that is possible and you could be right, but personally it just doesn't feel right to me. I just don't know if a spren could hold a Shard? It is definitely worth asking Brandon though. Where are the Heraldspren then? Why have we never heard any mention of them? We know that in order for cognitive shadows to stick around they need to have a strong tie to the Physical Realm, Kelsier has this in the form of being worshipped by the Church of the Survivor, the Stormfather would have it through the worship of the Almighty. I think all of that "thought" could go towards keeping him around as opposed to making a spren (like there is already a cognitive entity that serves that role why would a new one be created? if that makes sense?). Yes he says he is a spren. However there is a pause there, in the form of an elipsis, which is generally indicative of a person searching for the right word to use. If it was as simple as him just being a spren, why the pause/hesitancy? I see it as the Stormfather trying to put things into terms Dalinar would understand. He would understand the term "cognitive shadow" but "spren" he would. It is not technically "true" but it is close enough. I also would hesitate to say cognitive shadows are complete different from spren, yes they are distinct but they likely share some characteristics. We know Seons are very similar to spren, without being spren themselves, they could become shardblades in certain circumstances, they could grant abilities on Roshar. We also know that they would become Shades on Threnody, and what else manifests as Shades on Threnody? Cognitive Shadows, so there is a tenuous connection there. To me, it does not strain credulity that a cognitive shadow would manifest *like* a spren on Roshar. I agree, from an in-world perspective it is heavily indicated the spren communities have Realmatic knowledge. But also from a meta-textual level, Brandon knows that we know "Sliver" is a word that means something very particular in the cosmere. He knows the use of it in a situation like that is something we would pick up on. And to use it, but not according to the definition he gave us feels intentionaly deceptive (and not in the coy way he sometimes does that is good-natured but frustrating) which doesn't fit my understanding of Brandon's character. I just can't see him doing something like that? There is also the fact that he refers to himself as a Sliver not once but twice. I agree the spren do know the "correct terms" such as Investiture, and Physical/Cognitive Realm. This is not something I had thought of but it certainly makes sense. The Stormfather is also trying to make himself understood and the people he is talking to don't know about "Honor" or "Tanavast" but they do know about the Almighty. As for him seeing the corpse of Tanavast/seeing him die, we don't know the exact process for the formation of a cognitive shadow. It is possible that somepart of a person's cognitive aspect "breaks off" in the final moments of life, in which case that piece could watch as the prime individual dies. I believe you mean Sliver? In which case that is a good point and I don't have a response. There is also Physical Realm and Cognitive Realm, both of which Wyndle uses. Also he does use Investiture which I sincerely doubt originates on Roshar since it isn't the common term on Roshar. Most worlds have their own word they use for the act of investing, on Scadrial it is "charge" (you charge a metalmind, you charge a hemalurgic spike), but on Roshar that word is "infuse". So Wyndle is not using the Roshar-specific term. Also not everyone on Roshar uses the term Shadesmar, Jasnah refers to it as the Cognitive Realm, as do the spren. And obviously it isn't hinted at well in the text Cognitive shadows aren't important to the plot of Stormlight at this point but I object to the statement "there seems to be basically nothing hinting that the Stormfather is anything but a spren in the text" because obviously there is otherwise I would not have come up with this theory. As for forming bonds, that is not the exclusive domain of spren, seons can do it too. Personally I see this as a more poetic view of the situtaion. The Stormfather isn't Tanavast. He's Tanavast's ghost, a memory of the man not the man himself. (And I'm not even going to jump on the fact that he refers to himself as a shadow) Okay this has gotten very long, I've probably missed some points I wanted to make but oh well for now...

So you are refering to the imbalance between Preservation and Ruin's investiture in humans? They have both, just more of Preservation? (though it possible to get sentience with more Ruin than Preservation as well) But in anycase that is not the explanation given for what is going on with the mistwraiths and kandra.

I don't think I would put much stock in that theory since: (WoR Spoilers)

That is not exactly how it works. Mistwraiths are people that have a blockage between their Cognitve and Physical aspects, the spikes help to bridge the two. I wouldn't say they "lack the necessary piece of Preservation", at least that is not how I have understood it to be. Anyway, I do not believe kandra can change their genetic material so I don't think they could reproduce with a human.

And the video has now been posted to Youtube. It is a little late now, but I will likely start on the transcription tomorrow!

I really would not be surprised, though it is extremely distasteful in my opinion. Lifeless are certainly cheap enough, and they don't need to be paid. We also know that Jewel very probably got it on with Clod, but it was very taboo. So it probably wouldn't be common or out in the open. But people being people, it has to have happened somewhere, unfortunately.

Actually I would say the unstylized version does exist in-world, otherwise there would be no such thing as a stylized version. There is also this: Notice how it says "often styled" which implies it isn't always stylized that way which in turn implies an un stylized form. I also do not follow that line of logic. If the graphemes are different (which I do not believe is the case because there is absolutely no indication of it being so) how could they have the same shape? I'm also disinclined to to agree with that interpretation of of Jasnah's dismissal. (Primarily because I can't say I understand it? What does the one have to do with the other?) The actual reason she gives is that she thinks the accomplishment is basic enough that "most children" can do the same, which given what we know of Jasnah makes sense. I am well aware that Alethi and Veden are distinct languages, it is kind of the point I was trying to make. It is made a point that Alethi and Veden are distinct languages, but at no point ever is there any mention of differences in women's script or the glyphs. I don't think we should discount the actual text though. The illustrations are all well and good but the text is equally valuable. And I think it strains credulity that such variations would exist and not be mentioned. Especially by Shallan, a Veden surrounded by Alethi. There were plenty of chances for Brandon to slip in something like "Even though the Alethi shaped the glyphs slightly differently than Vedens like herself did, she still understood their meaning". So yes we have only seen examples of glyphs written by Alethi indivinduals, however the texts indicate the glyphs are universal. First a side note, Emul is not a Vorin nation, I think you mean Herdaz (but even then Herdaz is only sort-of Vorin and isn't considered one of the gour Vorin nations that Shallan knows of). Personally I think glyphs is a perfectly accurate name, since that is what they are called in the books and that referring to them as "Alethi glyphs", as I understand it, is incorrect.

My biggest issue with that is that that implies Veden and Alethi glyphs are different, when everything I have seen says they are universal. A Veden would write shash exactly the same way an Alethi would in terms of the basic un-stylized form of the glyph. Shallan says this during her interview with Jasnah, she does not mention any variation between regional forms of glyphs. If there was any significant differences between "Veden glyphs" and "Alethi glyphs" I find it very strange that it was not brought up, especially since the previous discussion of languages established Shallan could speak both Veden and Alethi. I agree that Vorin is probably not the best descriptor but I do think it is better then "Alethi". The latter implies an exclusivity to Alethkar while the former includes all of the Vorin nations, three of which (Alethkar, Jah Keved, and Kharbranth) are known to use the glyphs. I would also say the fact that Kharbranth is a melting pot is not the reason for glyph and women's script usage, I'd say it has more to do with the fact that they are Vorin.

Tor.com just posted an article about a fan who made Brandon a shardblade for the WoR Tour. I for one think the final project looks really cool, and I'm impressed by the work that went into it.

One slight correction, that is not how the term truthspren started. Someone asked Brandon what we should call them instead of symbolheads and he told us "truthspren was a good enough name for now". You are correct in that that is how we rationalized the name.

OOh, charts! The one complaint I have, which think I've mentioned before, is calling them Alethi glyphs. That is not their name, if anything they should be called "Vorin" glyphs because they are not used exclusively by the Alethi but also by Vedens and Kharbranthians (and for all we know elsewhere on Roshar as well, Sigzil isn't Vorin and he uses glyphs). Yes the Alethi use the glyphs but they are not "theirs". In the same way we use the Latin script to write English but we don't call it the "English script". /end rant

This might be of use. Just want to make sure this is a joke. Slowswift is from Scadrial not Nalthis and is based on Tolkien.

Quick note: The Spiritual Realm is NOT the afterlife. The true afterlife exists beyond the Three Realms.

Spook was made a reduced-strength mistborn comparable to the average mistborn in the final days of the Empire. Kelsier and Vin were both significantly stronger than him, but not as strong as Elend. Ferrings did come about as a result of the genes for feruchemy mixing with the genes for allomancy, so theoretically a person with pure Terris ancestry could be a full feruchemist.

WARNING: An update of this theory is currently being rewritten. Version 1.0:

. Elantris does not take place "thousands" of years prior. It takes place "hundreds but not quite thousands" of years before Mistborn Trilogy which is about 340 years before Stormlight. Also I don't think knowledge about Yolen is quite as scarce as you are portraying it. We know that some of the shardworlds were inhabited before the Shards got there and that humanity originated on Yolen which means some Yolish people had to migrate to those worlds were they would have Yolish knowledge. And there are the Shards themselves, if I was creating something like the Ars Arcanum I would definitely try to speak with them whenever possible. (And then there is Hoid...) Of course that implies that Yolen is no longer "active", which we really don't have any indication of.

No metalborn refers to anyone with allomantic or feruchemical ability. I.e. mistings/ferrings/twinborn/mistborn/full feruchemists are all types of metalborn.

So this isn't exactly news but the physical copies of Terris: Wrought of Copper arrived in the Crafty offices:

Not that I can find.

Brandon has said repeatedly that it is Dalinar on the cover of WoK. The cover images are not in any way canon, the cloak is also the wrong color (it is supposed to be blue, not red) however that does not make it any less Dalinar. Although I do like the "having the focus characters on the cover of their books" it doesn't look like it is going to happen since neither Kaladin nor Shallan are on the covers of their respective books.

Direct links for those two quotations, since search pages can change.

Seons did not exist prior to the Splintering of Devotion. There were no seons when Odium visited Sel.

Navani was initially consisdered for a flashback book, but Brandon has said that she no longer is, that her story is pretty much covered by Dalinar's flashbacks.

They don't actually change. There was a mistake in WoK causing the Divine Attributes for Order 2 and Order 5 to be swapped, this error was fixed. The correct Divine Attributes for Nale/Skybreakers are Just/Confident.