Rasarr

Good luck. I've only managed 83%.

I must admit that at first I just thought, "well, fantasy red stars, it happens" ("it happens" is a phrase I should definitely forget when regarding Cosmere), but you got me thinking. Could it be the sight of Adonalsium shattering? Depending on how far away all the Shardworlds are from where-Yolen-once-was, it could be that the visual effects of the Shattering are only now reaching them, so unwittingly, Scardialans, Rosharans and rest of the company are only now seeing the death of Adonalsium. Must be rusting weird for Hoid. The other option is, as somebody noted upthread, Cosmeran edition of Eye of Terror. I could well imagine Adonalsium's death ripping open the Physical, with Spiritual and Cognitive spilling in and taking on red colour as some weird quirk to their interactions with Physical (or perhaps Spiritual is red by nature?). Perhaps the red stars are places where this sun-thing visible in Shadesmar is shining through the rips.

Perhaps the bane shifted when they attempted to wriggle their way out of the first one? If somebody managed to get rid of the bane while keeping the boon - for example, got incredibly inventive mind, but had his money taken away, and then made money back on his inventions - wouldn't the bane change to keep with the spirit of the deal? It case of Heralds, what the "new bane" would be seems pretty easy to spot - they don't have to be Odium's guests any more, but their SAN levels are plummeting.

Fun quiz, though some questions are... kinda strange ("spearman or duelist"?). Anyway, turns out I'm: 63% Truthwatcher, 45% Elsecaller, 34% Lightweaver, 13% Bondsmith On a second try, I ended up pretty similar in terms of "top 4": 44% Bondsmith 42% Elsecaller 41% Truthwatcher 25% Skybreaker 5% Windrunner Excercise for now: how could I get 100% Bondsmith?

I could guess something about manipulating emotions, perhaps to the point of full-blown possession - as we've seen in Listeners' forms of power. When thinking of Odium, I'm reminded of Rivers of London (I'll put the rest under spoilers, in case anyone here plans on reading the book - do it) It sounds like something the Shard of Wrath could have in its portfolio. Perhaps one of the Unmade might be capable of doing this.

The fact that the Heralds wield Honorblades suggests that Honor had at least a small part in their creation. He also tells Dalinar in one of the visions that the spren started to reapeat what he did, which further states that he was the one responsible for creation of Heralds. But I suppose you consider some sort of cooperation between Cultivation and Honor to create Heralds? It could be that Honor gave them the powers and Cultivation added immortality, only she had to do this via Nightwatcher and so it ended up having some fine print. ...so what I'm trying to ramble out is yes, I agree with the theory.

Uhm, right. True. Here goes this theory. So in this case, I don't think Ym's spren will be coming back. Unless it bonds another Edgedancer and regains its memories of what happened to Ym, but that's just a tad far-fetched.

Sure you get it. For the rest of your life, you see everything as if through very thick mist. I wish to know the names of all 16 Shards and names of their Holders and their planets, assigned so that I know who holds which Shard and where they are, and not forget it.

1. My guess would be that the spren that makes up the visor is moving a bit further "towards" Cognitive Realm so that it's less visible in Physical Realm. No idea how the visor would keep being protective, though. 2. The same way Shardblades can be bonded and unbonded via gems and the Honorblade of Szeth's needs idiotic amounts of Stormlight to fuel it. I'd suppose it's necessary because Plate's original "power source" - which would be spren? - was lost with sprens' death. Kind of like jury-rigging a diesel motor to solar-powered machine because solar cells were broken. 3. Perhaps shattering a Shardplate sends the spren back into Cognitive Realm and feeding it with Stormlight "pulls" them back in? As for what would happen if you fuelled Shardblade with Stormlight, if I recall correctly, Shardblades change their appearance a little bit over time (anybody has WoB or can disprove this?). Maybe actively feeding the Blade with Stormlight could replicate the shape-changing capability to some extent?

It just might. It (don't remember the gender of it...) could warn our heroes in Uruthiru about crazed Radiant-slayer coming their way.

IIRC, it's a jungle area in geographical region that shouldn't permit humid jungles to grow.

Granted, but it will refuse to cooperate with you in any fashion. I wish to bond a non-Odium spren.

Wow! I am honestly awed and stunned by your dedication to the project. And you did an excellent job telling the story by the images! Just... wow. This is amazing.

Oh gods, just reading about it makes me feel absolutely stressed out. If Brandon really writes something along those lines, this is going to be the most harrowing scene in the book for me, period. Not to say that I don't want to read it, but... gaaah. This is a valid point, and one that'll sure weigh on him heavily. I'm wondering whether we're not all just noticing only small parts of what's going to happen - with all that can go wrong, out esteemed author can simply have everything go wrong for Adolin, now can't he? Even without Shard-trading, there're still ample opportunities for young, war-like noblemen to come to blows and have to settle in "honourable" manner. And I believe you overestimate Adolin's professionalism somewhat here. Note that Adolin has never lost. Never. Not a single duel. Even if he is a professional - and we see over the course of WoR that he's extremely emotional - he just flat out doesn't have a coping mechanism. Having one requires experience, and he's never had one, so there was no chance for his psyche to learn how to deal with such a failure. If he failed one of his first duels, he could still lump his earlier success on "beginner's luck" and deal with this without the prior experiences, public opinion and the knowledge that he "should be better" all pushing on him. But after nearly a decade of not losing? "The higher they rise, the harder they fall" is going to be proven empirically. We're certainly in agreement about this.

Please no, this would be the most cliché thing ever... as part of a bigger trauma conga line I could stomach it, but if that was just one thing, against all that's hapenning in the world at this point, I'd call foul on it. For a speculation, I could see losing a duel as a catalyst for breaking Adolin, or perhaps the final straw. Dueling is his Calling and his life, so if we're supposed to break his soul, we should start with taking it away. Perhaps the blade starts screaming at him as he summons it at the beginning of the duel and, not willing to lose his face in the eyes of all the lighteyes in the audience (not to mention Shallan...), Adolin grits his teeth and decides to go through with the shrieking blade anyway. Seeing how that guy Kaladin caught the sword of (can't remember the name now) reacted to hearing it for just a second, I don't really see Adolin winning under those condition. And I don't think he ever lost a duel, so he likely never learned how to cope with that, not to mention that after such public embarassment (or what he'd see as one) he'd be unlikely to let people talk with him about it, which would achieve this effect of "psychological" isolation maxal suggested. As to what I would enjoy reading about, I'd cheer if Adolin spent long hours of his separation talking to his blade in some desperate attempt to calm it down and bring it some measure of peace, and finally deciding to break the bond to spare the blade further torture. While breaking the bond, he could say something like promising the blade that he'll remember what happened to it (or something along those lines, no idea how to phrase it), saying the Edgedancers' Ideal's words and thus reviving the Shardblade. ...you know, people, we've got to be the only fandom out there that wants to hurt and torture one of their favourite characters...

Those have me wondering if Adolin won't be in some way separated from the main ensemble for a while as his breaking happens. No Shallan to comfort him and help him go through; no Renarin to explain him why his sword is screaming at him; no Kaladin to empathize with him and also help him. Certainly something I'd read about.

If becoming a Radiant requires being broken first, could this be what breaks Adolin? Stress and double-thoughts over killing Sadeas (even if he rationally knows it had to be done...), combined with the fact that pretty much everyone in his circle of friends and family is a Radiant and the fact that those people dislike him for taking what he supposed to be morally correct action could lead to breakdown that'd open Adolin's way to Radiancy. Add to that the fact that dead Shardblades scream at proto-Radiants wielding them - if this happens, Adolin hearing the sword he trusts and cares for so much accusing him of killing it is bound to shake him and push him even further down the breakdown. Although I don't really see Kaladin calling Adolin out on killing Sadeas - bah, I could even see our captain congratulating him on it. Another point for team Kadolin?

True enough. *gets back to re-reading WoR*

Ah, sorry. I was rather tired while writing that, failed to notice one last quotebox. But generally, I absolutely agree with the theory. What would Bondsmiths make their armour of, then? Stormspren are some sort of Odium thing apparently, so maybe rainspren?

I suppose they've been lost. There's a ton of things that could've happened to Shardblades in-between Recreance and year 1173. Their wearers could've been trapped in unreachable caves or chasms. The blades could've been dropped, unbonded, on the ground and be covered in crem during the next highstorm. They could've been washed by the rainds into the oceans. They could've been hidden by people who didn't have time to pass over the location of the caches. They could've been hoarded by one of Roshar's thousand and one secret societies. They could be in the collection of one of the now-crazy Heralds. Honestly, in my opinion the fact that there're so few left is suspicious, but not too suspicious. But of course I will be proven wrong and it will become the most important thing.

I was thinking about something similar, and came across the following WoB: Original here.

Well, this is somewhat worrying. Perhaps that's the secret of how Odium manages to wreck other Shards despite very little difference in power levels.

Hm, so my theory did have some merit... Apart from this little part about Hoid not being a Sliver. Eh, well, I'm not as well-versed with the WoBs as I probably should be. As for the "dead gods" of Liar of Partinel, perhaps Adonalsium was perceived as some sort of single, multi-faceted deity? Sort of like Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma in Trimurti concept, who were all considered to be three aspects of a single deity, yet remained separate in "public consciousness" (people who know more about this, feel free to correct me). This would explain how Adonalsium could shatter into such clear-cut pieces - it already had sixteen distinct "faces", but they were bound together and Adonalsium's death severed those bonds, leading to shattering. As for Hoid not being a Sliver, yet having such great abilities, and the Fain life already killing Adonalsium/Yolen by the time Liar starts - perhaps the Sixteen+1's mission was to somehow "kickstart" Adonalsium back to life. They failed, shattering it instead, and while the Shards hit the original Shardholders, Hoid got washed over by the energy released with it or something along those lines.

A Hoid theory thread? Well, I have a theory that's been going 'round my head for a while... Well, it's more like a wild guess, but still. We know that all the original Shardholders come from Yolen (which is also the place Adonalsium comes from) and we know that Hoid knew all of them personally - hell, he had drinks with Tanavast/Honor. Anyway, something, for some reason, was trying to "kill" Adonalsium. I suppose, then, that Hoid and most, if not all of original Shardholders were trying to stop Adonalsium from being killed and thus all were in one place when they failed and Adonalsium "died". Which is when the "wild guess" part of the theory comes in: Hoid, in attempt to keep Adonalsium from dying, tried to take it in himself, much like Shardholders take in Shards. Only it turns out that human body is kind of a poor holder for an Enormous Cosmic Power, and as a result Adonalsium shattered and its Shards left Hoid, hitting first sentient creatures they've encountered - which, in this case, would be Hoid's Adonalsium-saving crew, AKA the original Shardholders. What would happen next was that something to do with shattering had the Shardholders split all in different directions, and left Hoid as universe's most... well, how would you call it, biggest?... at any rate, the "most" Sliver, which would explain his immortality, his ability to obtain different magic systems and his astonishing knowledge of everything hapenning in the Cosmere. ...does that make the slightest amount of sense?

So... if you cut him in half, would you get two Hoids? More seriously, though, a question I'd like to ask is whether decapitating him with Nightblood or a Shardblade would preclude the head re-growth. Also, where do you suppose he got this particular skill from? Something native to Yolan, a side effect of being a Sliver or did Hoid find a way to become a double-gold Twinborn or somesuch?