Lewis Nethur

I don't think it would be particularly outrageous for Eshonai to end up as a Bondsmith just because Dalinar already is one (though there are other reasons...) There are many orders of the KR we haven't seen yet; it's possible, maybe even likely, that all of them won't even be introduced before the end of book five. In six Mistborn novels we still haven't seen a Feruchemist store and draw luck or sustenance on screen, but we've seen literally dozens of coinshots. Sanderson is by no means afraid to cast multiple, or even many, characters with the same powers in favor of introducing new magic systems if he decides it fits the story better. Also, Eshonai's book is supposed to be book 5 I think; which would put her pov chapters just leading up to whatever the ultimate conclusion to the first 5 stormlight archive books is. If she becomes a Radiant, or bonds an Unmade, or finds the strength of will to break Odium's control (I'm looking at you Ironeyes...) I assume it'll be at a pivotal moment near the middle or end of Book 5. Until then she'll probably continue being an evil sociopath (I'm looking at you again Ironeyes...)

I feel like you really didn't get enough credit for this post. Hilarious and coined a funny new word, parshbaby. Thank God for people like you in the Cosmere

@Yata that's basically the way I was looking at it. If the Nightwatcher can create a bondsmith (which hasn't been confirmed yet) then why not Moelach.

@BeskarKomrk yep, you're right, just edited. I like your theory with lifespren. If you're right, it would technically even be feasible for the infant Parshendi to achieve dullform in utero, since all something apparently has to do to attract lifespren is grow and thrive. That said, I like the "born in a highstorm," theory better, it just sounds cooler and would give the Parshendi some much needed flavor.

I feel like if a Parshendi is birthed outside of a highstorm there's not really any reasonable way it could have a form other than slave form (the lack of a form). The Parshendi's shock upon seeing Parshmen would then originate from the fact that they were seeing a group of racial relatives who had effectively been denied puberty and disallowed from growing up into proper adults. It would be like seeing docile 6ft tall children, complete with smooth cheeks, distorted features, and shy downcast eyes; absolutely freaking haunting. No highstorm = no spren to bond = slave form If they are born in a highstorm then they could plop out in dull or mate form, even odds. It sounds like a Parshendi always bonds something when they go out into a storm. Since it took them so long to find warform, I imagine that the odds of attracting the right spren by accident is exceptionally low. Spren are splinters, and made of investiture which cannot be created or destroyed. If a Parshendi can rip a silver into existence by giving birth, then they could shatter Shards simply by breeding, which would seem kinda weird to me. Not absolutely impossible, but kinda weird.

@Yata True, we have good indications that a Listener has never before been a Radiant, I can't really argue with your logic. How do you feel about the following alterations? To clarify, I still think it's technically possible that Eshonai could bond Moelach and become a Bondsmith; however, it doesn't seem like there could've been a Parshendi Radiant at the time of the Recreance, and since humans would have an impossibly difficult time bonding a voidspren, it's highly unlikely that Moelach was bonded to one of the three Bondsmiths leading up to the Recreance... The heart of my theory, the idea that Moelach is the traitor identified in the Diagram, remains intact however. @BeskarKomrk I freely admit that it's speculative to suppose that the entire Book of the Second Drawer is about the Unmade. However...one of the exerts we have states: "You cannot help but think of them." Mr. T was pretty smart while writing the Diagram. He seemed to anticipate the fact that his followers (and he himself) would get hung up on the Unmade (see: harvesting homeless people for Death Rattles). I'd think it logical that he would at least try to give them enough information to guide how and when they get hung up. I wouldn't discount it. I think it's obvious Sanderson intentionally specified that these three quotes are from the same book (a book in a religious text is usually loosely based on a single more-or-less encompassing idea), rather than making them from something like the "Book of the Ugly Lampshade," or "Psalms Shaved into a Nearby Cat" (I know they don't have cats on Roshar, it's a joke ). This could be a brilliant red herring, he's known to throw them at us, but I'd give it even odds, at least until we have another quote from that darn drawer. In the infinite possibilities open when decided what part of the Diagram these quotes came from, Sanderson deliberately placed them almost adjacent to eachother. He didn't have to, even if my theory was right he could have placed the quotes in different books and still have gotten away with calling it legitimate foreshadowing; he chose to identify that they're from the same book though, which I think is significant (even if it turns out to be a false trail...) @PallonianFire Thanks for the quick fact-checking assist. @Argel Moelach produces Death Rattles on the Shattered Plains while almost simultaneously producing Death Rattles in Kharbranth. Yeah, he moves around, but he appears to do it pretty quickly. Mr. T speculates that Moelach has moved west, and honestly, he's probably right since there don't seem to be many Death Rattles in the East, but that doesn't really have anything to do with my theory. The Death Rattles did start before Gavilar's assassination, correct. Moelach was trying to warn people of the coming desolation I think; this isn't really a main component of my theory, more like a speculative add-on. Maybe he was trying to help the Diagramists before it was cool, maybe he was just stabbing in the dark, agreed, we don't know enough to say, though I don't think it's particularly important; I mostly meant it as an additional argument to show that helping people is in Moelach's best interests.

Sounds crazy, I know, but hear me out. From the Diagram, Book of the Second Desk Drawer: This is sort of speculative considering we only have 3 short exerts from the book, but it sounds like the Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer might be largely devoted to discussing the Unmade. Mr. T recognizes they might not be worth his time, but he can't help but obsess over them, even building "hospitals" to harvest death rattles from homeless people, drifters, and the terminally ill (as well as others...) If that's true, then the phrase: "One is almost certainly a traitor to the others," would most likely be referring to one of the Unmade. We know that Moelach is, in some capacity, intelligent and appears to have been deliberately helping Taravangian augment the Diagram with death rattles. For the record, I suspect that the Death Rattles are what tipped the Diagramists off that a Desolation was coming and that they needed to start getting ready in the first place since they don't appear to be Cosmere aware (speculation). I theorize then that Moelach, a Splinter of Odium, has turned on its creator and fellow Unmade (it is made from the power of hatred after all, so loyalty was probably never a virtue), and has decided to aid humanity. What could be its motivation for this betrayal you ask? Well, it probably found out that Odium was planning on reabsorbing it and leaving Roshar if he succeeds in killing Cultivation. This would make it a good candidate as a Godspren for a Bondsmith to join with (the others being the Stormfather, and possibly the Nightwatcher). (ASIDE: We don't technically know that Cultivation is alive, there have only been hints so far as I'm aware) Parshendi can bond voidspren pretty easily I hear, but I believe it's been stated by Sanderson that they would have a pretty hard time bonding a normal highspren (radiant-spren). Conversely, a human would have a very difficult time bonding a voidspren, even if they were really evil. Back in the day (before the Recreance) there were 3 Bondsmiths. It's often speculated that they each bonded a different Godspren, and two obvious choices are the Nightwatcher (a spren related to cultivation in an as-yet unrevealed way) and the Stormfather (a spren of Honor who has merged with Honor's cognitive shadow). I think it makes an elegant sort of sense for the third Godspren to be of Odium. Enter: Moelach. Eshonai is going to be a viewpoint character so I'm assuming she'll break free of her enslavement by Odium at some point, otherwise, why point out so heavily that she is possessed (and not just evil) and that her real personality is both alive and watching in (seemingly) helpless horror? What better way for her to break free than by forcing the spren possessing her out by bonding a more powerful spren? One that she wouldn't have a difficult time bonding (voidspren) and who appears to desperately want to resist Odium out of self-preservation. She is a natural and compassionate leader of her people and possesses, in my understanding, many of the qualities that allowed Dalinar to become a Bondsmith. What better general for the remnants of the Parshendi (and maybe Parshmen) who either have, or will, avoid being possessed by voidspren? Note, she's not slated to have a book dedicated to her for a good long while yet, so...you know...get settled in because I don't think she's going to be breaking her chains for a few years. In summary, my theory boils down to: 1. Moelach is helping humanity because he (she?) knows Odium is going to throw him away like a used tissue once their business on Roshar is concluded, ie: Moelach wants to splinter Odium. (think rogue AI trying to kill its creator to keep them from unplugging it, ie: classic sci-fi) 2. Moelach would be a good candidate for a Godspren capable of making a Bondsmith, but he would have to bond a Parshendi (or Parshmen I guess...) 3. Eshonai is a high-profile Parshendi view-point character, who exhibits a similar temperament and moral code to Dalinar (a known Bondsmith), is probably going to need to break free of Odium's enslavement over the course of her story-arc, and is (was?) a natural and beloved leader and military strategist. 4. Eshonai will be a Bondsmith with Moelach's help and lead the remnants of the Parshendi race that, somehow, avoid being possessed by voidspren. (maybe they wrap themselves in aluminum foil and stay indoors during highstorms?) That's all folks! Thoughts? Criticisms? Critiques? I've been told my writing can occasionally come off as cumbersome/confusing, so, for a limited time, we're also accepting general stylistic commentary and (constructive) feedback.

@Sand Master First, Newton's Third Law, if the shield pulls on the arrows, the arrows pull on the shield. There are things in the Cosmere that appear to be capable of violating Newton's three laws...so they're more like his three suggestions in this case. Not hard proof that Kaladin should have been launched into the air, just evidence that something wonky is going on when he uses a Reverse Lashing that can't just be explained by gravitational fields/forces; he appears to be doing something other than just manipulating gravity, whatever Khriss thinks. I'm not sure how much force is required to alter the trajectory of an arrow, maybe this was a poor example on my part. My argument is primarily grounded in the hypothesis that access to a single surge grants a Radiant the ability to manipulate a single force of nature (or creation or whatever) in a single and, more or less, well-defined way. We don't have hard evidence for this yet, just little hints and consistencies, which is why I consider it a hypothesis instead of a theory. For example, Transformation allows a Radiant to soulcast (which is pretty straight-forward), Regrowth allows a Radiant to accelerate cellular growth/division, Adhesion allows a Radiant to use stormlight to glue things together, ect. This is similar to how a single metal on Scadrial gives access to a single power, for a lurcher, there's no such thing as a "specialized version" of iron-pulling, the idea doesn't make sense unless you have access to another power, an iron-pull is an iron-pull and it always works the same way (though technically the power can vary with the user). It would be sort of weird and inconsistent with other magic systems across the Cosmere if Surges had "specialized" uses that granted access to additional abilities. Sanderson has, in the past, tended toward relatively highly specialized magic systems; ie: small numbers of very specific powers that characters use inventively to solve problems (the exact opposite of lots of other epic fantasy series where some grand wizard happens to have a different spell for every occasion.) I'm making the claim that a Basic and Reverse Lashing are very different and operate by legitimately different mechanisms, which is an indication that they are not, in fact, both automatically granted by wielding the Surge of Gravitation; one of them (which I'm guessing is the Reverse Lashing) is granted to Windrunners as a result of holding the combination of Gravitation and Adhesion. We already have WoB stating that the power/ability granted by blending a Radiant's surges won't necessarily immediately make sense or be obvious; this is consistent with Twinborns on Scadrial, Wax's Steel-bubble is completely unintuitive in my mind, but it's pretty widely accepted that it's his unique ability that originates from blending Feruchemical iron and Allomantic steel. I'll be the first to recant all of this if we see a Skybreaker perform both a Basic and Reverse Lashing, but until then I think there's reasonable evidence and consistent patterns that the door should be left open.

I think you mean "Reverse," not basic. Also, I found a relevant WoB: I suspect that Jasnah's soulcasting at a distance is going to be the combination of her transportation and transformation surges, but again, we'll see. It's worth noting that each order should, in some manner, have its own unique abilities that none of the other orders have; they just won't necessarily always be particularly exciting or obvious...

I've been playing with the idea in my head that it's actually the combination of both surges. IE: Anyone with the surge of Gravitation can perform a Basic Lashing (altering the direction and magnitude of the net gravitational force vector acting on a person or object), anyone with the surge of Adhesion can perform a Full Lashing (superglue two things together), but only someone with both (a Windrunner) can perform a Reverse Lashing (the specific mechanisms of this lashing are peculiar, it doesn't act like a normal gravitational field...) Kaladin vacuums up a whole mess of Parshendi arrows without getting pulled into the air (toward the arrows' collective center of mass). Until we see what exactly Skybreakers can do this will just be speculation (unless there's already a WoB that I'm not aware of...) but to me, it seems like the Reverse Lashing would be a good candidate for being the perk that Windrunners get from their two surges. Obviously, you might just be right and I could be making this needlessly complicated, but I wanted to throw my two cents out there.

WoB is that it's technically possible for a person to join multiple orders of Radiants. It'd just be extremely difficult. Truth be told, I can't imagine this ever happening on screen, it would present some weird balancing issues. If you need convincing, just think about why The Lord Ruler didn't get his own series; he was too powerful, everything was easy, and he basically always won, lack of conflict or difficulty = crummy book. @Nightblade you're on the right track with a popular theory that, I believe was discussed a bit earlier in this thread (too lazy to confirm). Lots of people are speculating that Plate is made of spren, we just haven't really figured out how yet, or what the relationship is between a Radiant and the spren their armor is forged out of is.

Plus, when a Herald dies, their blade disappears from the physical realm with them, so we already know they are more closely bound to the blades than Szeth ever was. Possessing an Honorblade does not a Herald make Closer bound to me implies access to greater powers, like how Radiants' bonds work.

He'll probably have bowel problems for the rest of his life, but that's about it.

I think at this point we're definitely supposed to be confused about the Herald's strengths and weaknesses. We've pretty much only seen them at their absolute worst, ie: drunk, pessimistic, and maybe even downright unhinged. But at some point in the distant past, they were granted immense powers and chosen to be humanity's protectors, presumably due to their heroic nature and close association to either or both Honor and Cultivation. Maybe there are thing we don't know about the Herald's surgebinding that will allow them to be immensely powerful...Then again...Darkness doesn't exactly have the easiest time catching Lift, and he does seem to be in possession of his Honorblade...It's possible that the main thing the Herald's brought to the table in terms of saving humanity was leadership, military strategy, and weapons/armor technology. Taln exhibits relatively absurd superhuman reflexes at one point, so I think it's a fair guess that in close quarters, a Herald could probably beat the snot out of a Radiant, but maybe their surges just aren't particularly important and are legitimately less effective than those of Radiants. When Kaladin jumps into the middle of a hundred Parshendi, it isn't usually his surgebinding that allows him to wreck their lives, it's his super speed and stormlight induced healing (also he's really good with the spear, so that probably helps a bit... ) I would guess that when it comes to taking down something like a Thunderclast, using stormlight for increased speed and skill and trying to chop its head off would be more efficient than attempting to lash it into the sky (they're supposed to be really heavy).

Welcome to the forums and congrats on your first post! Book 3, working title "Oathbringer" is set to follow Dalinar.

@Krandacth I think the clarity behind your reasoning is definitely to be commended. It's been previously established that, in order for a person to form a Nahel bond, they must have some sort of fracture/hole/crack in their spirit web that can be filled by a spren. The "size" or "nature" of that fracture/hole/crack isn't particularly important. What's important is that, in order to become a Radiant, one must have experienced some measure of trauma, adversity, or personal struggle which ultimately has left them unable to achieve the level of self-actualization that they could have otherwise achieved. This is all, by nature, extremely subjective, abstract, and resistant to hard logic... What makes your theory so good is that it explains existing observations while also proposing predictions and remaining elegantly simple. If I'm reading your words correctly, it sounds like you're (in part because your theory is obviously broader than this single point) proposing that the nature (size/shape) of the hole in a Radiant's spirit web dictates what type of spren they can bond, and ultimately governs how that spren's presence and personality evolve, as well as what their effect will be on their Radiant. IE: Syl, in filling the gap in Kaladin's spirit web left by the death of his brother necessarily adopts aspects of both Kaladin and Tien into her personality while simultaneously imbuing Kaladin with a compulsive need to protect others. This strikes me as highly intuitive and logical. If I'm totally off-base in my interpretation please correct me, I don't want to put words in your mouth (keyboard?). I like your theory regardless.

All true. It's sort of scary how much Roshar's fate depends on the feelings and whims of a man (Szeth) whose sanity is unclear. He may well be the only living person who knows the location of an artifact of great importance to either (or both) Cultivation and Odium. Now that he's rubbing elbows with worldhopping Heralds he might actually stand a chance of figuring out what that artifact is capable of...will he choose and assist one of the factions working to prevent the end of the world, will he seek to hasten the destruction of Roshar, or will he transcend the conflict entirely and pursue "justice" against the stone shamans and/or Diagramists in a wave of murderous revenge? I'm really hoping he get's at least a little screen time in this next book, these questions are ruining my productivity...

I dunno...he's at least partially insane at this point, has, at best, extremely peculiar morals regarding murder, possesses a sword that, at least when used on Nalthis, doesn't just cut through anything, but actually kills on contact, is being mentored by a man whose desire to kill the new Radiants is only outmatched by his desire to obey the letter (but not spirit) of the law, and knows where a jewel is that we know is linked in some important, though as yet unrevealed way to one of the Shards on Roshar (widely believed to be Odium, but we can't know for sure yet). I'd say he's set up pretty well to do anything but join the rest of the Radiants. Don't get me wrong, it'd make for a brilliant twist, but I wouldn't be too shocked if he became Odium's champion. He's been dumped on and pushed around by the Shin, the Diagramists, the Parshendi, dozens of masters, and probably bears some lingering resentment for all the people he fought whom he felt weren't strong enough to kill him and put him out of his misery (which includes Dalinar and Kaladin, though his opinions of them haven't really been explored since his rebirth). He has let the hate flow through him, his transformation is nearly complete... Once he starts slaying younglings in Shinovar we'll know he's past the point of redemption.

Hmm. Maybe Szeth just can't refrain from draining the gems installed in plate when he breathes in stormlight due to their proximity to him. If a Surgebinder tries to breathe in light from a sphere that's 5ft away, I'd be willing to believe that they'd also breathe the light in from any other sources that are physically closer to them. When Kaladin fights the Parshendi he breathes in the light from dozens of gemstones, many of which he wouldn't have had line of sight to, which shows that a surgebinder can breathe light in without having to see or know the location of its source, the limiting factor appears to simply be their distance from the source. I believe Szeth demonstrates some measure of control at some point during his purging of Kharbranth, draining some spheres from his pouch but not others. However, in that same vein, as the fighting gets progressively fiercer, he ends up just absorbing all of the light around him IIRC. Newsletter spoiler: I'd guess that a surgebinder's ability to control which sources of light they drain when breathing in stormlight gets worse as they become more stressed and have to focus harder on fighting and staying alive.

Kinda knitpicky, but we have WoB that a normal person can't bond an Honorblade, it can only be "given" to them. It's perfectly unclear to me what that means exactly, but even though Szeth could summon the blade, it supposedly wasn't ever bonded to him. I'm guessing you're right though that the Heralds will be more powerful than a normal Radiant, or exhibit some type of synergy with their blades. A single Radiant being even close to as powerful as a Herald would be a weird balancing issue in my mind, but it could also serve as an explanation for how Honor was weakened enough for Odium to be able to kill.

I really like this post simply because it raises a question I've not often heard even hinted at: "Considering that surgebinders apparently are faced with a legitimate limit to how much stormlight they can carry, just how effective can we expect them to be in a prolonged engagement?" (for those of you are are mathematically inclined, think of the rocket fuel problem, ie: the amount of fuel required by a rocket increases exponentially with the rocket's weight.) We don't have a good answer for this question yet, but it will be pivotal to the overarching plot of the series. The Heralds fought off the voidbringers (with mankind's help) at least a handful of times without the Radiants and without shardplate (it hasn't been proven that the Heralds didn't have plate, but it is often assumed; take that as you will). We have it from Syl that Honorblades require significantly more stormlight from their user to access surges than would be required from a Radiant. This implies to me that the creation of the Radiants was a tremendous, perhaps even outrageous, advancement in the arms race between the inhabitants of Roshar (possibly plus Honor and Cultivation, though we don't know if they actually approved of the Radiants' creation) and Odium. Newsletter Spoilers: Balancing and explaining the Radiants' powers as "battle-wizards who lead soldiers and devastate the field," and as "leaders and tacticians who inspire and guide mankind to access their full potential," will, I think, be a big focus of the upcoming novels. There are large hurdles in the Radiants' way to becoming insanely powerful, and yet, Sanderson has included references that almost seem to imply that, prior to the Recreance, the Radiants had achieved a level of power that posed an equal, or possibly greater, threat to mankind's survival than does Odium. We don't know how the Radiants' powers are ultimately balanced; this is absolutely by design. I subscribe to the belief that the way living Shardplate and living shardblades will be shown to function will ultimately show that individual Radiants, prior to the Recreance, was unreasonably powerful, resulting in a destabilization of Honor's Investiture (ie: he inadvertently allowed them to suck up too much of his power.) I realize I've probably offered more questions than answers here, but really, isn't that the reason we're all even interested in this topic to begin with? P.S. @PantsForSquares , mad props for the post on the feedback-loop, conductors, minor-spren, shardplate physics theory post. It's intuitive, inventive, and complicated while not exceeding the level of complexity that Sanderson has previously demonstrated in the physics of Shardworlds. Well done! If there's anyone you'd like to credit for previous posts that inspired your thought, I'd love to hear them, if only to participate in the shared vision and contribute an upvote to them as well!

Could living plate help a Radiant hold their light in more efficiently? Probably. The Radiants we've seen with living plate had brightly glowing glyphs on their plate, implying that the Radiants definitely aren't holding stormlight in perfectly, but I don't believe Dalinar ever remarks on those Radiants exhaling glowing clouds of stormlight when they speak to him, which I would imagine would be pretty shockingly noteworthy for him since he had never seen a surgebinder (or the use of surges) before. That implies to me that the plate is altering how the stormlight leaves the Radiant, most likely by channeling the light that bleeds away from them through itself to, 1) fuel its operation, and 2) slow the rate at which the Radiant loses their absorbed Investiture; like damming a river to create a more permanent water reservoir (not a perfect metaphor, but not terrible either). The reason dead plate needs infused gem stones would then be: because all plate needs a constant stormlight radiation source to function. I propose that dead plate probably interferes with surgebinding because it is not properly connected to its user, ie: if Szeth grabbed something while wearing plate, he wouldn't be able to lash it because he couldn't touch it through the plate (though he could still probably lash himself to different directions...). If the plate belongs to the surgebinder, I would imagine that it could act as an extension of the owner's body. I further propose that living plate won't drain any additional stormlight away from its Radiant and will if anything allow them to hold light longer and more efficiently, however, it will most likely require them to be holding stormlight in to remain summoned (manifested?) in the physical realm.

Hmm...I wonder how a lifeless created from the corpse of a Radiant's Squire would function...Sanderson has stated that, strictly speaking, a Lifeless counts as a different person than the corpse it was created from, IE: if you store your Breath in something, die, then become a Lifeless, you can't recover the stored Breath. However, he's also indicated that much more is retained by the Lifeless than people in the Cosmere currently believe or understand (and even suggested that a Lifeless might be a viewpoint character at some point). But what if they maintained enough Connection to the Radiant they were serving? Would they be able to draw in Stormlight still? SH Spoiler

Exactly! When you awaken something, it requires a certain amount of Breath to be able to function. If you don't have enough Breath to fuel it, your Breath still gets transferred, but the object isn't Awakened. If you Awakened something with stormlight it could only function for a relatively short period of time before it shut down (due to stormlight not being sticky), unless you could find a way to continuously dump additional Investiture into it (this isn't crazy, it could theoretically be accomplished with additional gemstones). The point is that awakening with stormlight would require pre-planning and additional resources; just awakening things on the fly like Susebron and his magic carpets and tapestries wouldn't work, but...constructing a lifeless out of a corpse sewn with gemstones might be conceivable...

I'm mobile right now so I'll keep this short. We have from Szeth in an interlude that he traveled with a merchant from Kholinar to somewhere in Jah keved, where he hid the sphere. The merchant was traveling via cart, presumably chull-drawn. The context in which these details are delivered leads me to assume that the merchant had been traveling alone, which would make it unlikely that he was following anything other than the most well traveled and protected roads. The rivered open plains north of Kholinar would probably make for a safer and more populated route than traversing the, from what I can surmise, empty, valley between the mountains separating Alethkar from Jah keved and the unclaimed hills. We also know Szeth gets passed from dozens of masters before ending up in Bavland, Masters he describes as lowly darkeyes. Darkeyes in general aren't particularly likely to travel exceptionally far. So I posit to you that the sphere is most likely hidden near the foothills of the horneater peaks. Possibly Valath, though more likely on the Mountains eastern side. Thoughts?