hoser

Welcome Purelake! Please accept an introductory upvote! I think the laws may be the same everywhere and there is Shadesmar everywhere there are people. It is the spren that are unique to Roshar. The question that I find interesting is whether there are spren everywhere and on Roshar they just escape to the physical realm or there are only spren near Roshar. If the "physical laws" are the default, but the spren can selectively override them, then the "agreement between friends" comment could be somewhat literal. The windrunner ability to manipulate gravity would be a transference of the spren ability to selectively override the "physical laws."

Good catch of a very interesting detail. There is an old thread about hidden heralds that seems relevant. In there someone decided that this guy is Kalak (if a herald) by process of elimination. It is thought that the accentless language could be achieved via clever use of Shadesmar. If it can be done via Shadesmar, then this guy might be a worldhopper rather than a Herald.

Shallan is the someone else. "We" is Jasnah (Elsecaller) and Shallan (Lightweaver?).

Excellent catch! You may want to check out this thread to see preexisting speculation.

I even remember discussion of someone having three apprenticeships. {baseless speculation} I believe that Shallan will be apprenticed to Shallash next and will learn to use the blade and her surgebinding abilities. Finally, I think she will apprentice w/Hoid. {/baseless speculation}

Great questions! Upvote! As for 1., I have been assuming that her information is just old and she might be wrong. There is another possibility that may be being hinted at in that passage. Look at the following information about Syl changing just before she gives the information, it seems significant to me. {cracked speculation}Is she accessing current information somehow?{/cracked speculation} {even more cracked speculation}Is she getting information from Cultivation?{/even more cracked speculation} When I want to fit the data to the conclusion, I can make these things go any which way . For example: If surgebinding is an H+C magic system, the leadership should not be associated with the "pure" spren of either type. The surgebinders of order 10 should also be able to bind things with the pressure surge Lightweaving could be aligned more closely with cultivation even if the "purest" cultivationspren are order 5. Cryptics could have their special status in Shadesmar due to their subtlety, independance and contrast with the "obvious" leadership of the Windrunner honorspren. I know nothing that everybody doesn't know, so please don't take this as a serious argument for order 10 as the purest honorspren. I am sure that we have surprises galore in store.

Snap-upvote! I only regret that I have but one upvote to give for this post. I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, I think he is such a delicious villain that we're stuck w/him for a while longer. Is he completely unredeemable at this point?

It's a really cool idea, but I see some problems with it. Dalinar says that the nation that had been Natanatan fell centuries before. The Recreance took place thousands of years before. If we assume that the nation fell when the plains got shattered, then the timelines don't match up. The fact that the structures are still somewhat usable suggests to me that it hasn't been thousands of years and something big didn't land on them. There seems to be some crem buildup, but not the debris from a whole city landing there. I know nothing, so this is not a disproof, but it doesn't seem to me like something we should take as truth at this time.

Welcome! Upvote for joining and posting! In the editor there is a little icon just to the left of the font box that gives you a drop box that includes "spoiler" as a choice. If you select the text you want spoiled then select that option, it might help .

I imagine live ones would have been useful protection from surgebinders like Szeth at one time. Could the dead ones just be a remnant status symbol? When I heard they wanted dead ones, I assumed their bodies could be used to replicate some of the abilities. But I draw a complete blank at using it as a paperweight.

Needs more handwavium.

It seems at least as good as my pet model and it overlaps quite a bit. Upvote! I understand the spiritual to have to do with connections, leaving both pressure and gravity as spiritual surges. In my model there are just spiritual on the right and cognitive on the left, with the middle orders (5,10) balanced between the two. I have honorpren on the top and cultivationspren on the bottom, with order 10 having the purest honorspren and order 5 the purest cultivationspren. The spren of orders 2,3, 7 and 8 would be the most mixed spren between Honor and Cultivation. Really the strongest reason I do it this way is that the purest cultivationspren seem like they should provide the growth surge. It also seems reasonable that the purest honorspren could provide the pressure surge, which binds, and pious and guiding seem compatible with a particularly honorable order. I will be very interested to see how it really turns out.

I tried to fix it for ya. Not saying, just trying to translate. Edit: Ninja'd by the master!

They also will not trade normal warriors to foreigners, but they tried to give the Truthless away.

Well, since we've not seen adonalsiumspren in tWoK, we don't know them unless they are in our WoR readings. There are the spren that Dalinar sees in the Purelake, the red storm spren that scare Syl and the oilspren like Ivory. Just because we haven't seen them yet, doesn't mean they don't exist. If we assume that we have seen some that Brandon forgot about when he answered the question, it seems like Cusicesh would be more likely than the Cryptics, who have significant interactions with a main character. Pattern is arguably the second most significant spren in tWoK, so I find it hard to believe that Brandon didn't mean to include him in the quote. Brandon could have changed his thinking while writing WoR, so the quote could also be obsolete. I can understand that you still might believe that the Cryptics are adonalsiumspren. That totally works for me. I think it could turn out to be correct. When you include references to "Cryptics, spren of Adonalsium" as if it were a fact, I struggle, given the WoB. I take it as your style to state your theories in a way that seems to me to overstate the degree of certainty, but I fear that people will read it and take it as fact. If this seems offensive, I apologize .

Szeth looks very creepy. The pile of corpses has mostly swords, but there is at least one spear and a shield that seems to be marked similarly to Kaladin's shoulder-patch. If this is accurate, the order of bone will be missing at least one.

Mr. T is a Lightweaver!

I fixed it for ya.

For creative, something that ties in the secondary attribute might work. Somthing like "I will create revelations of a deeper truth," but not nearly as awkward.

The issue I have with the Cryptics=Adonalsiumspren theory is that there is WoB that the spren we saw in tWoK are all of Honor, Cultivation or a mixture. We saw Cryptics in tWoK. Interview: Mar 17th, 2012 WoB is that there are spren that are splinters of Adonalsium (from Shardlet's transcript of the Seattle signing). Edit: added first quote

It seems that one needs stormlight to do things in the cognitive realm and it is a scarce resource there. Jasnah chides Shallan for going there with only one dim sphere. I think stormlight must come from the spiritual realm. The highstorm may contain a rift to the spiritual realm. Satsuoni has a model of how that could work. The age thing seems like a bit of flavor to me. She grew up in a nightmare place, the City of Shadows (Ral Elorim). She tells Darkness that she tried to be like he was, dead, but it wasn't worth it. I am clueless, but I imagine the boon she requested would have to do with her history.

Another possibility is that a more skilled practitioner could interact more creatively or with a more refined intent to modify only a part of something. So I see three possibilities: Separate bead for Shallan's blood Something essence related More experienced practitioner than Shallan can make specific changes internal to the bead or some combination.

Warriors have Oathstones, but are not Truthless. As Bloodfalcon points out, the Rysn interlude includes a passage indicating that he may be the first ever Truthless. I agree that he did something to oppose the Voidbringers, but I think he really did something, as his "crime" corresponds to the start of the death rattles. I agree that the Shin trained him in Shardblade use and windrunning, so they must have had the at least the one blade and a culture around it's use. Mr. T. mentions that Szeth was given the "monstrosity" of a Shardblade by his people and he doesn't disagree. I assume it is part of his punishment. It also doesn't make sense to me that his punishment would be more of his crime. Ooh, I so want one of his owners to give him a sock or shatter his oathstone and tell him to go forth and sin no more .

Nice! Or maybe "All your parents are murdered by me." Maybe Szeth is a Radiant after all .

Basically this, but significantly greater investiture is required (which comes from the stormlight, the Soulcaster or both). If Shallan (or the thugs) had been invested, the magics might have interfered. That might be why Szeth can affect normal soldiers, but not Shardbearers directly. Not saying, just suggesting.