hoser

I imagine that it isn't like hair or nails, but rather like bones, sort of an exoskeleton. This is based on Rlain's tattoo being partly on his skullplate. If, in the transition, it was partly on the armor and partly not, then I imagine that it would transition back to being part of his body in an unarmored form. As such, I deduce that it is a live part of his body, connected by soul. I think the nails and hair are dead, without soul, so they cut the first time. From Chapter 79:

Actually, I think the situation with Syl was different. Kaladin's actions at the time of her death were completely consistent with his oaths. The problem was that the bond was attenuated and she forced stormlight to him to save his life when the bond wouldn't support it (or something like that). We know that one order of Knights did not participate in the Recreance (widely believed to be the Skybreakers). I further assume due to Nin's slaughtering of protoradiants that the skybreakers stopped adding new Surgebinders. When these Skybreakers died off, their spren would have survived. I assume that other random spren were unbonded because their Knights had just died or whatever (which I assume was Syl's situation). Notice all the "I assumes." People with better explanations will certainly chime in here.

It seems possible that Windrunners would "ride the storms" from the perspective of the Stormfather and the Listeners see the Stormfather as the Rider of Storms, but I agree that it is confusing. IIRC, the consensus was that Taravangian totally made up the story about the stolen Honorblade. The Shin never had the missing blade, as a Herald went back for it (presumably from the original ring of blades that we saw in tWoK).

All the above answers seem reasonable and I am not saying they are wrong, but I favor Odium. Not only is there prevalent strife, but Honor is splintered and Cultivation is reported (by Wyndle) to have checked out somewhat. That leaves only Odium. There is also this from the Stormfather (while we don't know why Odium is called the "Broken One", we don't know very much about him, so it's hard to argue that it isn't him):

I am looking for canonical in-world POV. I would argue that Kaladin and Syl not considering Kaladin a Radiant at level 2, but Kaladin saying "The Knights Radiant ... have returned," immediately upon saying the third oath, accompanied by magical glyphs seems really strong. The second strongest evidence I see is the pre-4th level conversation between Shallan and Pattern. I find your analysis of Renarin's level to be excellent. The last paragraph makes no sense to me. From the in-world perspective of both the spren and the humans, an individual at less than 5th level can definitely be considered a Radiant. Renarin does not apparently manifest a sword (remember, Shallan was apparently not a Radiant even when she had manifested a sword), nor has he been effective at anything except healing his eyesight. The level at which one is considered a Radiant seems to vary by order, but neither order that we have seen (Lightweaver and Windrunner) are Radiants at level 2. I consider that a titular Radiant will demonstrate some degree of effectiveness. In a crisis, breaking down and writing 0s on the wall does not mark the level of effectiveness that would mark someone who had passed an important threshold to become a titular Radiant. While Dalinar seems to be at a comparable level to Renarin oathwise, he is clearly more effective and Bondsmiths could become titular Radiants at level 2. I see no in-text evidence supporting the contention that Renarin should be considered to have achieved the title of Radiant.

The murder is interesting. He considers it throughout the book, but never really plans it, so is it premeditated? It seems as hotblooded as can be, in execution. I really wonder about Odious influence. As for the Radiant question, I've been assuming that the thread purpose was to figure out who was a Radiant by some sort of canonical in-world POV. While I generally like laxrulz777's list, I find myself doubting Renarin. He hasn't manifested Glys as a sword and seems comparable to Kaladin when he and Syl did not consider him yet a Radiant.

Thanks, Moogle, for a great exposition. For me, this asks a question about spren betrayal. I imagine the Listeners hanging out with Adonalsium spren, rocking to the tunes of the cognitive realm and changing with highstorms before Honor and Cultivation came with humans, chickens, horses, etc and terraformed some terrain (dawncities). With the Investiture from H+C and the differing thought patterns of the new beings, new spren developed including the Nahel bond spren, which, so far, seem to have exclusively bonded with non-listeners. Is the betrayal of the spren (from the listeners POV) the choice of the new spren or are there other spren that were once allied to the listeners that changed allegiance (leaving aside the Stormfather for now)?

I generally agree with this, although I believe that there is WoB (but am too lazy to look it up right now) that when a Knight reaches a certain level, the default form (which they would revert to upon "death") is the Shardblade. I find this very interesting. The Recreance seems planned and coordinated to me. So planning the Recreance did not violate the Oaths, but actually going through with it did. There is definitely something missing here. So far, the spren who believe in the betrayal have not shown that they understand the reasoning for the Recreance. It isn't clear to me whether or not the Stormfather existed at the time of the Recreance. Had the spren affected by the Recreance had a problem with it, it seems to me that they could have communicated or interfered, so it seems at least possible that they were in accordance with it. Overall, I guess we're supposed to not know, but I find it annoying when the solutions are so easy. For example, Tanavast is creating these projections including the Recreance, and asking for the Knights to be reconstituted. Why not make a projection that explains the Recreance from the POV of the Knights and shows how to avoid it happening again?

I know too little to have an opinion, but just to provide grist for our mill. I think it is Jasnah's notes that mention the Oathgates being locked, confirmed by Shallan's experimentation. At the end of WoR both Jasnah and Shallan have live Shardblades, so the locks may have been tested with live Shardblades. The platform at Stormseat had millennia of crem accumulation and still worked. It is not clear to me that mass or even buildings is the problem. Cognitive identities confuse things, of course. It seems quite possible that there is a specific magical intervention that the Radiants performed to make the Oathgates inoperative.

Without the ebook, I am lazy about searching and copying. The paragraphs preceding your quote have Syl saying that no spren gives him the abilities and that she is the only honorspren in the physical realm. The paragraphs following your quote also point at the Honorblade pretty clearly also.

Kaladin's failure to even try to get information from these exchanges totally annoys me also. I understand why Brandon doesn't want him getting the information, but it is painful how obvious it is that it is for plot reasons. Kaladin, who analyzes everything Shallan does, fails to even try to figure who is behind Szeth. It would be better if they didn't interact, IMO. Syl tells Kaladin that Szeth's powers come from the sword in the first assassination attempt, so he knows that it is more dangerous than any old dead sprenblade. Szeth's trajectory through Mr. T.'s rivals makes it obvious, IMO. The changes are earlier in this thread. You could note the locations and read it with the new sections whether your ebook has updated or not, as others have suggested.

My hardcover matches yours. Please forgive me for my laziness in relying on a previous post. I do quibble with your placement of the ellipsis in this post, but it is not important. Your interpretation makes sense. Nin could have taught the Skybreakers. Though I lack evidence, dividing the guilty fits so well with the order that I believe it is a special ability of the Skybreakers. This next part is making an argument to fit my prejudices, and obviously suspect, but hopefully not guilty. Some of the abilities Kaladin gets from Syl are just spren abilities. She can change orientation freely and stick things together, both Windrunner abilities. One could argue that "strength of squires" is not a spren ability, however. I understand your point that the Knights have relationships with specific spren and all their knightly abilities follow, but I wonder whether the in-world book is making a different distinction. Is the point that some or all of the Radiant special abilities are ones that the spren themselves don't possess, but come to the bonded from another source, possibly the Shards?

The quote I read above was "no specific Surge of spren ... grants capacity," as a result, it seems to fit perfectly as a Skybreaker special power as it relates intrinsically to their purpose and aspect of Honor. Yes, it isn't part of the Gravity or Division surges.

Okay. I have a pet peeve about people using "begs the question" when they mean "asks the question." Until this former misuse became common, they had opposite meanings. Until Nin's ambiguous statement upon learning who that the young thief had been named the Azish emperor, it was widely assumed on these boards that the "drunk" from the prologue was Ishar. Given that we know that Szeth's sword had been Jezrien's, and Jezrien was the king of the Heralds, that question is easily answered. The concern that the presumed Kalak shows for his "lord" and the "drunk" not resembling Jezrien suggest to me that the question being begged is whether the "drunk" is Jezrien.

So even though: Syl and Kaladin consider Kaladin a Radiant at oath level 3 Pattern pushed Shallan to level 4 because another Radiant was needed. Dalinar at level 2 and Shallan at level 4 addressed each other as "Radiant" None of them are Radiants. Further, all Radiants had Blades, Plate and Ryshadium. Is an implication of this that Dalinar will never be a Radiant, because his spren is unwilling to be a Shardblade for him? Is the following quote from Brandon relevant to this part of the discussion?

This is actually upsetting to me. What is offensive enough about this post to get downvoted? As far as I can tell, it is factual, relevant and phrased inoffensively. Admittedly, I am not the most savvy about downvoting protocols, as I have only seriously downvoted one post. Can someone explain to me what the problem is with this post? I can't tell what you mean. You said: To me the simplest interpretation when you use the phrase "look the same without paint" is that you are referring to the appearance. I am not making any argument. Since, as I recall, there are no references in the text to the plate being distinctive, it would be easy to think that they all look the same. If they all looked the same, it would fit the argument you made that they all had the same origin, whereas, if they are different, that is a fact to be accounted for in our theorizing. For example, if there were ten different patterns to the plate, that would suggest one pattern per order. I just want our theorizing to be as accurate as possible and I thought I had a relevant observation to contribute to the discussion.

Probably already found and fixed, but just in case ... Chapter 46: paperback p806: "free of his captives" should maybe be "free of his captors" also in kindle p649 location 11832

Actually, my post was purely a quip.I actually think the Skybreakers were generally trustworthy. Whether and when Nin got corrupted is a subject of intense interest for me.

Given that they followed Nin/Darkness, I would not.

This is not disagreeing with anything you said here. You've clearly thought it through. As far as the fight goes, I generally ignore the details. Brandon will make it come out however he wants. I just hope the gears don't show too obviously. The whole plateau heaving up was really fun. Good catch on the Shardhammer, though. Why would it break bones rather than just passing through? I'm not sure that you were speaking to my point in your comments about Kaladin knowing whether to get the blade. I was not saying that either decision was correct. I was not saying that Kaladin should have known. I was just saying that the decision was not clear-cut and Syl immediately being directive was not the role I was used to from her. The suicide thing actually makes sense to me. Suicide was forbidden as part of Szeth's sentence, but his sentence was invalid. With the sentence being invalid, his murders can no longer even be excused as part of his sentence. Your alternate ending does seem better to me, FWIW.

Not that it necessarily relates, but there are multiple hints that Jasnah and Amaram have a significant negative history. Coupling that with Navani's comment to Shallan about her suddenly changing in her teens, it is possible to connect dots ...

I'm not sure I can articulate this effectively, but I'll try. For me, it's about Syl's role seeming to change for plot reasons. What is the value of the Honorblade? So far it is less than an honorspren. In fact, it has essentially been serving Odium. Out of the hands of a Herald, it may be just bad. Would the blade have been lost? Szeth believed the Shamans could retrieve it. I think a significant amount of investiture like that would be detectable. Even if Kaladin can't currently detect it, I imagine that the Stormfather's Shard-o-vision or a Herald could find it. A Szeth that is no longer a threat may need protection. Failing that, he could be an amazing source of information. There are significant reasons to grab Szeth. It is bad enough that Kaladin never asks Szeth any useful questions in their conversations. Forever giving up the possibility of gaining information is a significant cost to letting Szeth fall. Syl has been a source of information and essentially Kaladin's conscience, but she has not been directing him in the heat of the moment. She has been a supportive presence, but not directive as I recall. The correct decision is not clear. Now, all of a sudden, she is deciding what needs to be done instantaneously and directing him as to how to choose. It is a different role that seems to be determined by the plot's need to keep the protagonists from communicating more than retrieving some hardware that can (IMO) be retrieved at any time.

This ending could be about Windrunners being all about protecting. As such, it's Brandon's story, so fine. For me personally, it's better because I care about the version in my head and I just got some bonus story. Depending on where this goes, this could be really good, IMO. There may be an echo here of the other inexplicable decision Kaladin made to not take the Shards in tWoK. If I am going to experience this moody, depressive character for however many more books, I would love to have him also able to trust his unconscious and make unpredictable choices at times. If that were to develop as a piece of his character, that would really help me enjoy reading his sections and delight in his character development. I do have a complaint about this ending, though. It really makes Syl less believable to me. I understand that she is a vehicle for Brandon to give information, and there is a lot of information that we are not supposed to have yet. She is generally pretty ignorant about things that she would have known before she crossed over, but here she suddenly knows what is going on and what is important. Her behavior in the revised scene seemed inconsistent and obviously plot-driven.

Dawnshards. Stick. What was the question again? Oathgate lock material? Some form of aluminum? Aluminum foil! Reynolds Wrap that changes shape to fit the Shardblades.

Welcome! Introductory upvote! Your feelings are perfect, of course. I have choices about how to judge things. One alternate thought is that I am buying the experience of the storytelling. I am getting a free edit. The dead trees in my bookshelf are obsolete in some sense, but the version in my head is closer to the story Brandon wanted to tell me. He cares enough about my experience of the story that he wants to tell that he wants it updated. You can be mad at him for changing it or getting it wrong in the first place. Nothing wrong with that. Thanks for caring enough to communicate.