hoser

Now why would anyone discredit a horse theory? Or perhaps it is a mistranslation. He really showed the horse's worn hoof, or shoes. Or maybe he really showed the chafed inside of his thighs. We are talking about the abilities of a Radiant (Nohadon, with his leadership abilities, could be a Windrunner with Gravity and Adhesion or a Bondsmith with Adhesion) and the power of a Shard, or ten orders of nascent Radiants. There are infinite solutions. When we discount parts of what we are told, we add more dimensions of the infinite solutions. We won't really know until we are told and no solution is provably correct. It could be that Nohadon founded the Radiants and Ishar got credit. It could be that Ishar constrained the spren before leaving and Urithiru was built during Nohadon's lifetime. He could have walked to the base of the mountain and used his Radiant abilities to get to the Oathgate. I wouldn't call it lying if he walked hundreds of miles and effectively took an elevator to get to the top. There could have been multiple people credited with being Nohadon. Oral narratives could have been written over decades, then compiled over centuries before a bureaucracy canonized a version. There are mountains around, but rather than build on top of an existing mountain, they could have built Urithiru in a flat place in the middle of a mountain range then pushed yet another mountain up underneath it. These theories can be as complex as we want, and none of them will be demonstrably wrong. As long as there is a theory that is compatible with the information that we are given, I will stick with that.

"radiation poisoning" - snap-upvote

IIRC, the listeners don't have Soulcasters (despite Alethi speculation). They just put the gems next to the plants to help them grow, which might work with any gem.

I saw the following, which could even be referring to the oathgate. If he flew, walked up the side of a mountain or teleported, he could arrive at a gate. I don't see anything about a road. Where is that? At the time of the conversation with Dalinar/Karm, I interpreted that there were no Radiants. It is not clear to me that the Heralds have left yet. If the Heralds haven't left Ishar could do his thing before leaving. What makes you so certain that they have already left?

Back before we knew where Urithiru was, Windrunner started a thread with a fantastic OP using quotes, some of which may still be interesting. I am not saying that the multiple Nohadon theory is wrong, but I think there are single-Nohadon solutions. It seems to me that walking to the base of the mountain and flying or teleporting to the top would suffice for the parable. Perhaps Ishar constrained the spren before he left or found a proto-Bondsmith to do the work of constraining the spren. Honor was still around at Nohadon's time, perhaps he assisted in the creation of Urithiru. After all, the city was "crafted by the hands of no man." With Kingdoms being apparently wiped out in Desolations before the Knights were formed, it seems to me that the Silver Kingdoms had to be a Radiant institution. If Ishar was constraining spren simultaneously with the "vision," Nohadon's "time of the sword" could have been brief. Making the different regions autonomous almost immediately (perhaps even under the previous leadership) would reduce the possibility of revolt. A constraint upon said kings to attend meetings could help keep them accountable.

It will be too long before it arrives. In my hands it will be perfect. As soon as I finish the last page it will have been too short.

If that had been your argument, I would have no issue with it. I agree with that. There is no significant supporting evidence that I am aware of. When you say "there is more reason to think they don't" and "the books made it fairly obvious that the gems were only there to act as Stormlight batteries," it seems to me that you are arguing that the gems have been shown to have no greater function, a very different thing. In one instance. That is not evidence that every time he mentions gem type, it is not significant. We know that gem type is important in Soulcasting, for example. Do we know what normal helm functioning in a level 5 Radiant as part of a full set of Shardplate with specific gems in specific locations is? This is evidence of nothing. Yes, Shardhelms protect against Shardblades and draw stormlight to repair themselves. We knew that. How is this evidence that gems do not provide any other functionality? Sure, argument by analogy. And the analogy is that ...? How does this provide evidence that gems do not provide anything other than stormlight to Shardplate? Is the Shardplate more like Deadblades than Liveblades? Neither live nor dead sprenblades use gems as batteries. In dead sprenblades, the gems provide non-battery functionality. Isn't this evidence against your point? I could also make an analogy to soulcasters, where the gem types do matter, saying that these are more comparable fabrials, as the sprenblades are Nahel-Bond Spren and these other fabrials are different. Honestly, we know so little about these things that these analogies are both so stretched as to be meaningless IMO. Argument by stretched analogy is extremely weak, IMO and does not justify saying "the books made it fairly obvious" or "there is more reason to think".

My point is that we don't know whether the gems have additional functionality. Based on the evidence in the books, I am aware of nothing significant that would lead one to believe one way or the other. Please feel free to enlighten me as to what I'm missing. In the absence of evidence, I love people speculating. Passing baseless speculation off as evidence-based conclusions seems like it could mislead people. Note: Italics added to quotes by me If this said something like: I imagine that the gems were only there to act as Stormlight batteries, I would love it. The italicized phrase looks like handwavium being applied to baseless speculation to me and I am concerned that it could be misleading. Note that I am not saying that the gems do provide additional functionality. I am not saying that it is obvious based on no evidence. I am not saying there is more reason to believe that they do. I am saying that it is possible, and providing extremely weak supporting evidence. On the other hand, "there is more reason to think they don't" backed by no evidence or reason just looks like more handwavium to me. What am I missing?

Whether Ialai's opinion matters remains to be seen. Does Sadeas have a male heir? What are the rules of succession? Remember, Aladar became a Highprince when Sadeas dueled a rival highprince. It isn't clear to me that Ialai will be very influential going forward. Apparently, ruling takes two hands, as it seems to be a masculine art.

I don't entirely agree with this. The gems do seem to function as stormlight batteries and may not be necessary for the Shardplate to act as armor for a Surgebinder. That does not prove or make obvious to me that the gems have no other function. The Armor could have additional functionality with particular gems, for example. Consider the following quote: The boot armor, which seems to demonstrate adhesion, has gems of the Windrunner color. It could be random or coincidence, but why would Brandon specifically mention the gem type if it weren't relevant? It is at least possible that the gems, or particular gems, enhance the functionality of parts of the armor. We can only guess until we commission Navani and Sigzil to measure the adhesion with different types of gems in the boot armor. Other parts of the armor could function in enhanced ways with particular gems.

Dalinar had a Shardblade to his neck. He acted like he was done for. If he doesn't surrender the blade, Dalinar could just end him, no dead bystanders and no dead shardbearers other than Amaram.

Here are a number of threads that provide speculation dating back to the Shadowdays: Dawnshards (Spoilers) What are Dawnshards? What's a Dawnshard? tl;dr: Nobody knows, but there are theories There is an emoticon icon in the editor. The ninja is an option

Could Dalinar have demanded that Amaram surrender his Shardblade and destroyed the gem on it? Then he wouldn't have been a Shardbearer anymore and they could have imprisoned him.

This seems relevant. As I can easily do this, I hope it helps to quote it. Also hopefully relevant: There may be WoB that Shardplate is invested (duh). The material also cracks rather than denting When it blows, it is described as molten.

Syl and Hoid are together in tWoK. In WoR, Syl is present in the zoo threesome dating scene. Hoid drives the carriage on the way to the zoo.

At one point Syl talks about having watched Dalinar. So apparently she does some independent investigations. And to be fair to Pattern, while he is obsessed with lies, he seems too literal to actually make them up (so far).

I still favor my own baseless speculation that the surprise is due to the Purelake mythology about them being brothers is true. The theory seems creative and interesting. Intentwise, I see a more natural opposition between Honor and Odium than between Cultivation and Odium (one can even cultivate hatred), so I've thought of it being the other way around, but I know nothing.

Spren are made of investiture. Some spren have developed sentience. Honorblades are invested magical objects, presumably created by a Shard, that do not seem to be sentient. What are they if not at least partly investiture? So Honorblades are made of the same material as Shardblades. What am I missing?

Welcome! Reading this well thought and well written (IMO) post reminds me of why I am hopeful about the change. To me the change signals that Kaladin really "got" the third oath changes. He is more likely only to kill to protect. He won't be dealing with the same issues in the next book. Much as I love the character, he grinds through his changes and I want him to at least be dealing with new issues. This next book will cover new ground and progress, unlike some books in a brilliant long series that seemed like it would never finish until a certain awesome author took over. There may not be any obvious change in the next book, but I think this ending at least shows that Kaladin has decisively crossed a Rubicon and will be moving on.

And what would you wager? Because I would take that bet in a heartbeat. The fact of the situation is that the Windrunners flew in, could summon their swords and were infusing. When Syl was nearly mindless, Kaladin couldn't even infuse unless Syl was right with him. So all the textual evidence seems to oppose the idea that the spren bonds were not functional. As far as I know, there is no evidence supporting the notion that the Knights were corrupt before the Recreance. It seems possible that they were charging more for transportation, but that could have been in line with their duties. Where did Syl hint that the Knights were not performing their duties?

I think the Chasmfiend Chitin is like nails/hair. Not living. The Parshendi carapace seems to me like bone, part of the living being, because Rlain's tattoo partially translated to the skullplate. So I "think" the armor wouldn't cut until the warrior died. I "think" carapace is not comparable to chitin. But I know nothing...

Maybe I'm just stupid, but what's happening with Lopen seems interesting in this regard. If he does not have a direct Nahel bond, but can regrow a limb, then one could regrow a shard-severed limb by becoming a squire and lopping it off. Obviously much more interesting if Szeth turns out to have an unhealed hand. OTOH, it seems odd not to mention that the hand is not working. It seems like something that would have shown up in Szeth's POV.

Does this help?

You could check out this post from WeiryWriter.

I am not sure how relevant Chasmfiend chitin is to Listener carapace but, FWIW, the chitin can definitely be cut before the chasmfiend is dead.