Smidge

Sure, I agree that's probably what it was. But it still pulled the Alethi together at a time they could have fallen apart, so I think that saying Szeth "nearly toppled one of the greatest kingdoms in Roshar" definitely could apply to Alethkar. This gives me another theory - maybe that was the intent of the action in the first place? Toppling nations by killing their leaders so that he can unify the remnants seems to be Taravangian's plan, perhaps it was also the Parshendi's plan in killing Gavilar. Well he did start a war with this slaughter, a war in which those very bridgemen are getting slaughtered so he's kind of responsible there. It was also pretty bad since it came just after the parshendi signed a peace treaty with the Alethi, which makes it a bit of a nasty betrayal. And there's the fact that he killed a king, which is typically viewed as a lot worse than killing some other random people. If you bring it to a real world context and imagine that say in America some assassin from some other country broke into the white house, killed a bunch of staff and guards, and killed the president, on the very day that country signed a peace treaty with America... It'd surely be viewed as 'committing one of the most heinous slaughters in the world'. Maybe you're right the conversation does refer to some other events, we don't exactly have much in the way of Szeth backstory yet, but I definitely thing that conversation can easily apply to his killing Gavilar.

Gavilar's assassination could have easily broken the kingdom and Elhokar's vengeance pact was all that saved it. I submit these two quotes for evidence: As for the point about it not being enough of a heinous slaughter, it's the worst Szeth has done up to that point in the book so it doesn't matter in terms of his language that he kills even more innocents in his later slaughters. It's also the act with the biggest implications, singlehandedly starting the war with the parshendi.

1. That's definitely a possibility. Since we only have one example where we know the stormlight actually knocks people back we can't know for sure yet whether it's any sort of power they have or just a one off. 2. The radiants in the vision were windrunners and stonewards. The ones that fell from the sky were all windrunners so we don't know yet if other orders can survive falls like that, though shardplate can let anyone fall a fair distance but it takes damage from the impact. They could fly by just basic lashing themselves in the direction of the sky like Szeth does to a rock at one point.

It could be that Kaladin's marrying Laral was assuming that Kaladin would gain a nahn in becoming a surgeon or something, we don't really know much about how the process of gaining/losing nahn/dahn works. There's also things to consider with inheriting them like whether they're inherited through the male or female line or some mix, or just what happens with people of different ranking that marry. On a tangent that's occurred to me, I wonder if Kaladin's mother has a lighteyed parent or something. I got the feeling there was some sort of story there from the way they were brought up. Also, a correction on the OP, there is no promise of a raise in nahn for joining the army, it only comes if they get promoted to a high rank in the army, here's the quote:

I assumed there were 10 nahns, for symmetry with dahns. Any reason for this not to be the case? I'm guessing you're assuming only 5 because it says everyone else in Kaladin's hometown was 4th or 5th nahn: I also suspect there must be something like 10 nahn or phrases like 'only a few nahn' make no sense: Also if farmers tend to be 4th or 5th nahn, it leaves no room for people much lower on the social scale (ie. beggars, whores).

In the moment Kaladin says The Words™, this happens: Note that the parshendi are actually thrown back by a shockwave of stormlight. When Kaladin falls a distance while holding stormlight (as he does moments before this quote) a ring of stormlight is released and his impact is absorbed as well. It only happens twice (to Kaladin) afaik so I'll quote those for convenience as well: It's hard to be sure if the ring of stormlight released from falling is different from what Teft describes in the first quote, which might be a side effect of Kaladin saying The Words™. They sound pretty similar though, so I'm guessing they are. It could also be that this isn't a special power of the windrunners and is just an effect of taking an impact while holding stormlight which could work for anyone - stormlight seems to puff out whenever people in shardplate fall a distance which may support this idea. On the other hand, here's my theory: The Windrunner surges are Pressure and Gravitation. Gravitation has the basic lashing and reverse lashing, which to borrow terms from Mistborn are like pushing and pulling gravity. Pressure just has the full lashing, which creates a vacuum (ie. pull) to bind things together. What's missing imo is a push for pressure, and shockwaves fit this nicely and we've got some examples that could be this. There's also a plausible reason it's not described alongside the lashings - you couldn't really describe a shockwave of stormlight as any sort of 'lashing' unlike the other powers, so it's not one of the 'three lashings' even if it is a Windrunner power. It also makes pressure a bit more interesting as a surge which I think is needed since full lashings are very mundane when compared with the combination of reverse and basic lashings. If Windrunners can also make these shockwaves whenever and not purely from falling it'd be a neat power that could certainly be quite useful - unlike lashings it doesn't require touching people or things, and it'd be handy if they got surrounded.

I figured the 'Syl fighting off deathspren' scene was largely symbolic, like when she tries fighting off the highstorm to little effect. I agree that spren might be able to slightly influence things, but I doubt it's to any great degree. Syl struggles to carry a leaf which might make a decent measure of their ability to influence the world. Re: the original topic: Clearly spren are voidbringers. I do wonder about shardblades though, they must have been created for a reason (ie. conventional weapons weren't effective (enough)). The only two likely possibilities I can think of are that they were made for fighting things with very strong armor (big shelled creatures seems a strong possibility considering Roshar's love of things with shells), or to be able to work on something incorporeal considering they are a bit incorporeal themselves (spren are the only thing we've seen so far that might be like this). Perhaps spren have an evil voidish counterpart for which shardblades were made to harm.

Isn't the Alethi mythology that they were driven from the transquilline halls by the voidbringers? A potential explanation for the variety of species is that Roshar is a planet of immigrants from other worlds. Ooh, maybe Odium likes to drive people from different worlds together to force conflict... Not a lot of people would take kindly to a whole world's population just showing up in their lands hoping to live there, it would seem rather like an invasion. The herdazian's have weird fingernails, but I get the impression that most of the different people from different places on Roshar have physical differences. I bet you could find a few more in the interludes, and maybe any of Sigzil's talking about places and Kaladin's stormriding thing. And you didn't include the parshmen in that list. Although it does seem like there are quite a few physical differences so maybe cultivation is playing a role in helping species adapt to the world.

That only makes sense if they're the same type of surgebinder, since different qualities attract different types of spren. Not that I'm saying they're not - since aside from Kaladin/Shallan/Jasnah we don't know with certainty that anyone else is a surgebinder at present any guessing would be speculation. It might be a little dull though if we get several POV books from the Kholin family and they all turn out to be the same type of soulcaster as Jasnah.

That looks like it. It does seem coincidental that it seems like many different family members might be/become surgebinders of different types if there isn't a genetic component. I believe at one point Hoid does seem to hint that there may be some sort of reason people put lighteyes in charge though it may be irrelevent now (I forget where this is though). There's also the fact that people believe re: callings that lighteyes are naturally closer to achieving their calling than darkeyes. Maybe that's a hint that genetics can play a role in predisposition to attract spren. Anyway, I just found it very suspicious that without Shallan being put in the Devotary of Purity by her father she may never have become a surgebinder (or that type of surgebinder).

To bring this back to the original topic I'm fairly certain that Brandon has said that the magic on Roshar is *not* inherited like on Scadrial but is instead based on people's actions. I tried to find it but I spent 10 minutes looking for one of the compilations people have made up of Brandon Q&As without being able to find where any of them were so I gave up. I considered this theory too but gave it up because of this fact. There is however the fact that families are often fairly similar people as CrazyRioter notes: However Shallan doesn't exactly seem like she'd be similar to her father - though we don't know much about him except he's apparently a cruel abusive bastard. But on a reread I noticed this from the scene where Kabsal shows Shallan the sand pattern trick: I've always assumed the whole devotary/Calling thing originated from trying to encourage qualities to attract special spren for surgebinding, and that purpose was lost to history (and other irrelevent devotary's/callings came about). So it seems interesting that Shallan's Father chose a devotary for her that emphasizes honesty when based on the spren requiring Shallan to tell it truths we're pretty sure it's the quality that attracted the spren. I wonder if this was purposeful on Shallan's father's part and the Ghostbloods know all about surgebinding/becoming a surgebinder.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I thought the reason that theory is 'unpopular' is because Brandon has said that thunderclasts and chasmfiends aren't the same creature... They could be some other sort of greatshell or giant monsters with gemhearts though. After all there are supposed to be other giant creatures with gemhearts around Roshar, though we've only heard of a few others so far. Wouldn't be surprising if the other giant creatures had the same coloured blood, either. I'll be sorely disappointed if there aren't some sort of stone creature or greatshell among the voidbringers/baddies, otherwise what's the point of shardblades? They're overkill for killing people, and their ability to cut shell considering Roshar's shelled creature theme seems like it could be a hint at their purpose.

The Windrunners' order is #1, they're headed by Jezrien, king of the Heralds, and one of their attributes is leadership. Being presumably the leaders of the radiants I don't think it's too much of a stretch that *their* order are the ones bound to 'Honorspren'. The alternative of having all sorts of spren bonding with people is just ridiculously messy. Would it mean powers are independent of spren type? 'cause that's one of the few things we think we know. Otherwise it'd mess up the nice and tidy magic system. There are supposed to be hundreds of types of spren... how could there be any rhyme or reason to the powers they give?

If the disappearance and reported death were separate occasions, it seems like that would have been indicated ie. 'Helaran—her eldest brother—had known more, but he had vanished over a year ago, and her father had [later] proclaimed him dead.' I suppose it's possible they happened 6 months or so apart, but it doesn't sound like it to me.

I really liked this theory until I started a reread of the book... Shallan's statement about her brother dying over a year ago is at the very beginning of the book. We're told the main events of the book beginning with Kaladin's slave chapter occur 8 months after Cenn's perspective on the day Kaladin kills the shardbearer. Unless the character's perspectives are out of sync (which they could be, but I doubt it's > 4 months), Kaladin killed the shardbearer a fair bit later than Shallan's brother disappeared/died. Given how good this book is about telling us how much time has passed in the timeskips/flashbacks, I doubt that Shallan's chapters begin more than 4 months after Kaladin's without us being told. It seems like the same amount of time passes throughout their points of view also. So as far as I'm concerned this theory is impossible, which is sad because it seemed like the best guess at the Shardbearers identity and now he's just some random guy.

While I can't remember much of what we know about what the different types of metal spikes are supposed to do for hemalurgy, I believe it's been confirmed that TLR's atium bracers were hemalurgically charged... Could it be possible that an atium hemalurgic spike can transfer *all* a mistborn's powers? 'cause if he made them early in the peace when mistborn were still as naturally strong as him he could have roughly triple super-strength everything, which oughta explain it. Atium hemalurgic spikes would hardly be overpowered or reproducible either seeing how rare it is. Or maybe he was totally greedy and ate several larasium beads (I wonder if that would work...)