icy1155

I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but what if Odium couldn't see any outcome other than Jasnah killing Renarin is because she spared him out of her unconditional love, which is pretty much the opposite of hatred. Maybe love is his blind spot when foreseeing the future.

If you want to get really specific, I don't think Oathbringer is the next book that was released after that quote, Edgedancer would be. Brandon does like to be intentionally misleading with his responses based on a technicality sometimes...

Please keep secret history spoilers in the correct place, either within spoiler tags or in the Secret History forum.

Or perhaps he had one of the abilities before he started spiking himself?

Wasn't there also speculation that an aluminum ferring could tap anyone's metal mind if they got rid of all of their identity, but the Kandra were more worried about the un-keyed metal minds more? It seems like it's a pretty simple work around the whole getting started thing if that does indeed work.

Ehh, no wonder everyone is so confused. For instance, I'm confused why Amazon isn't delivering Secret History until this weekend

The four Wax and Wayne books can be thought of as Era 1.5 - http://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2015/ He is still planning on the original 3 trilogy arc. This series is just a bonus.

Cosmere Spoiler

It could also just be a nearby (in terms of these things that is) galaxy instead of their own.

My thoughts exactly. My belief is that Dawnshards refers to spren that existed prior to Honor/Cultivation/Odium that formed a Nahel bond and became shards that were far more powerful since they were pieces of Adonalsium, not pieces of 1/16 of Adonalsium.

Did anyone else notice that Brandon basically confirmed that Adonalsium was indeed a person, and it was a male? I had completely missed that before, and I had read the WoB a few times.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/hoid

Makes perfect sense if he thought the ability to heal pain receptors would get damaged over time. Brandon has said a few times that healing has to do with what a person thinks should be healed. Stormlight Archive Spoiler

It could also be something to do with how magic works in the Cosmere, specifically with the perception of the magic by the user. Other healing magics only heal what the person "thinks" they should be able to heal. Perhaps Miles thought that after being hurt to often that his pain centers should be damaged, and the next time they were the pain centers didn't grow back correctly.

Ehh, I could see it as going either way. Personally I don't think he will introduce other worlds this early in the series... I think that will be more for the Sci-Fi side of things. My personal theory is that when Harmony was remaking the world, somehow the remaining obligators who had originally fled to the Conventical of Seran after the lord rulers death either had a quasi storage cavern or another compound that they went to, which ultimately ended up on the southern continent.

My thoughts exactly. If that is a case, the WoB about Tanavast being dead at the start of WoK is totally true, he just trolled everyone by making it sound like he was only referring to the prelude when he hedged his comment. When he says the at least at the end it leaves a lot of room for him to mess with us.

Is there anything anywhere that says that they are alive on Braize? This says that when they die go there, but it doesn't say anything about being alive, just being tortured eternally.

Yes, at the start of WoK he is dead... the "Herald" doesn't return until the end. Until that time he would be in damnation and would be "dead". Maybe. Good idea. It would keep the confusion down. I'll try to go back and edit things to make that a little clearer, including some of the quotes from other people just so that wording stays the same through my theory and all of the quotes.

Thanks for the note on etiquette, didn't know that one around here. Figured it would help separate things, but I'll remember it for the future. Like I said... the theory about Mraise and Taln is the weaker of the two and way out there, but it seemed to work in my head. The points you make are great, and they bother me too. He just seems... odd, which is what drew me to him. He initially reminds Shallan of Hoid but not in looks, and to me that meant something along the lines of being ancient or powerful or... well something. As soon as he turns to her she sees in his eyes a look that reminds her "of battles, of killing, and of strife. This was not the messenger from Shallan’s past." Then when I was thinking of who Talenelat was a few things clicked, but yeah, some things don't make sense about that. By reading, Shallan says she cant place where he is from, but we have a WoP that he is from Thaylenar. If he was Thaylen, wouldn't Shallan recognize his accent an/or looks (eyebrows)? Unless maybe he was from a Thaylen that existed several thousand years ago? It's commonly accepted that Iyatil is his babsk, but perhaps that is only in terms of worldhopping. If she has experience at it and he met up with her after he came back (sometime after the Recrence) it's conceivable that a former herald could be learning from her.

Basically, I'm thinking that he was actually killed shortly after Honor being splintered, but instead of a "final" death he was instead sent to where the heralds resided between desolations when they died.

I had forgotten about that part. Now that you mention it, it does fit quite nicely

So theory #2 is about who the Herald Talenelat actually is in the world. I agree with Stormgate's quote above, and I'll take it a step further and say I think we have seen him in the books. My best guess is that Talenelat is Mraize. This is a WAG, here is what leads me to think this: 1) Mraize's scar across his face was mentioned spefcifically, and one thing we know about Talenelat is he had a significant enough scar that they named a whole constellation after him. 2) In addition, the way that he learns about new people is by looking at the weapons that they use. Sounds like something the Herald of War would do. 3) He tells Shallan that the Ghostbloods goals aren't in conflict with being a Knight. 4) Finally, the similarity of his name to Rayse has always bugged me. Perhaps he is someone who lost his power as a Herald when Tanavast took his place, but is doing what he can to fight Rayse/Odium with what he has left. Like I said, this one is more of a WAG, but it just seems to fit. No supporting info/quotes on this one. Just an itch in my mind.

So, I have lurked a long time, but finally had to create a name and post a theory I had. I was reading the thread http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/51176-taln-is-rayse/ that is based off a WoB that implies that Taln may not be the true Herald Talenelat: While I don't agree that Taln is Rayse, it did get me thinking about who it could be if it truly isn't the Herald Talenelat and Brandon doesn't just like seeing everyone scramble to figure things out. There were a few comments in that thread that got my mind going. They are: There is also a WoB that says: (source) So... Tanavast could have survived having Honor shattered. We know that Honor was shattered after the breaking of the Oathpact by the other Heralds, basically leaving Talenelat in Damnation to endure torture alone. So ask yourself. You are the god of Honor. Your chosen champions break their oaths and leave one of their kind to suffer eternal torture to spare themselves. What are you to do. My theory is that Tanavast may have allowed Honor to be splintered (or maybe Odium did it without his consent. Doesn't really matter). After Honor was splintered and he left the messages with the Stormfather, Tanavast took the place of Talenelat in Damnation to suffer eternal torture. If you read the second letter, it says: Now, I may be reading to much into that, but it sounds like Tanavast chose to do something to trap Odium. That fits into my theory. Odium would still have killed Tanavast, just like he killed the heralds. What he may not have expected is that Tanavast's honor required him to suffer in place of Talenelat and that he would bear the torture and keep Odium occupied, not letting him continue on his quest. I'm sure there are things I'm missing here... what do you guys think of theory #1?