Jofwu

Yeah... but they also might... I don't think you can assume they don't, especially if non-Surgebinders are involved. Nale certainly has the means to acquire them. It's a toss up. None of these arguments prove anything- they're just hypothetical. Yes, and I've read Edgedancer so I know what you're getting at. But this isn't proof that they don't make use of non-Surgebinders. Another toss up. Heck, I'd argue it suggests that they at least have non-Surgebinder servants and such. Which means non-Surgebinders are involved with the Skybreakers to some degree. Where's the line? I don't think we have evidence that having a Blade reduces your odds of getting a bond. That feels like an assumption to me, that very well may not be true. And as you say, if it's NOT true then they'd know it. Sure, if you want to be precise. That's irrelevant to my point about his personality. I don't think that's quite the case. There aren't THAT many Blades in Alethkar for the Thrill to be as common as it apparently is. Take Sadeas for example. He's never owned one, so far as we're aware, until he gets Oathbringer. Yet he's very familiar with the Thrill. I think the argument would be that violence/killing opens you up to the influence of Odium. And people with Blades (particularly in Alethkar) are obviously doing a lot of that with their blades, so there may be a correlation in that way.

I'd like to take a moment and lay out what I've done with the Help articles. I've moved my new "guide" pages to the top of Help:Contents. I suspect most people looking for Help are newer editors trying to figure out what they're doing, so these should be the first thing they see there. These articles are numbered, to suggest that they should be read in sequence. They build on one another in a logical progression. I've tried to write them such that a person totally unfamiliar with wiki editing can start with "1. Getting Started" and naturally make their way through them in this order. I've toyed with the idea of linking each article to the next in the sequence. A link at the top or bottom of each page pointing to the next? Does this make sense or is it a bad idea? I'm not sure how to do it (stylistically), and it admittedly feels wrong in a wiki. I created a second section for additional help pages that aren't part of the main sequence of the "guide". These are advanced topics, pages that go into more detail about something or other, etc. I do want to take a look at some of these, maybe add some more, but they're not my top priority. I believe the following pages can be deleted, but I didn't want to stick a bunch of {{delete}} tags without running this by others first: Help:Cite - Covered by Help:References. Help:Categorization - Mostly covered by Help:Categories. There's some advanced discussion I left out, but I suspect nobody will miss it? And there are lists of category examples, which I personally don't find helpful; better to just direct people to Category pages, no? Help:Editing - Covered in various Help articles. At this point I think my new pages are mostly complete. I need more people to look them over and offer feedback! So if you have a chance to peruse, let me know what you think. Keep in mind that they're particularly targeting newer editors. My hope is that a good, clear guide will help more people get involved with editing!

The Ghostbloods certainly seem to be up to something in Jah Keved. (e.g. Lin Davar, Amaram's suspicions, etc.) Heck, even the Diagramists are apparently getting in on the action. (e.g. Taravangian) The nation is practically crawling with secret societies. And while I don't expect redheads are running around left and right, I get the sense that it's quite normal in Jah Keved. In any case, I'm offering this theory up specifically as a conspiracy theory-- not as a highly likely scenario.

Two possible explanations I see: 1) The Skybreakers don't just recruit (or generally make use of) Surgebinders. There might be stronger evidence for this possibility somewhere... But the best support that comes to mind is Shallan's mother (and her friend). I don't see being a Surgebinder as something very easy to hide, and if Shallan's mother was one then there's little apparent indication of that. Also, I don't remember the details of the fight in Lin Davar's study... But I have a hard time believing that TWO Surgebinders could be killed by a very young and totally untrained Shallan (even if taken by surprise). 2) He simply wasn't that far along in his development as a Skybreaker. Brandon has said that Dalinar was on the Bondsmith path for quite some time, and he had no problem using a Shardblade all this time. I don't know if the Heralds have a stigma about the use of Shardblades, but if they do I'd expect Nale to be more okay with it in general. He's all about "ends justify the means".

I'd like to point out that this theory isn't attempting to address what happened with Helaran's blade. There are plenty of simple solutions to that problem. Maybe he felt the thing was so vile that he just discarded it somewhere and someone else came across it. Maybe he turned it in to whoever gave the thing to him, and they passed it to someone else. Maybe he gave it to a friend--some fellow Veden noble. I don't pressume to know what happened there, and I don't think there's support for a solution. But I do think there's a lot of wiggle room for an answer.

Between Mraize and Taravangian's comments, I lean towards believing Helaran was positively associated with the Skybreakers. This doesn't necessarily mean he was a full-fledged member. He might have been a proto-Skybreaker. He might have merely been interested in them. I can see how he might have reason to hate them, but there's just no textual support for that. I think it's a big leap to assume his whole arc is bent around this idea of getting revenge on them. I'm also a bit confused by some points on your timeline... First, you suggest Lin was associated with the Ghostbloods fairly early on. I think it's much more likely that he got connected with them later--shortly before his economic turnaround. Second, you suggest that Helaran got his Shardblade after discovering the truth about his mother's death. This doesn't fit to me, because he strongly hates and opposes his father for quite some time after receiving the blade. While he may have had many reasons to dislike his father, I just don't see how their relationship works with this order of events. My personal guess is that he was with the Skybreakers all along. Given his mother's clear involvement with them, it makes sense that he'd be able to get connected with them. He got the Blade from them. The only hole I see with this is the fact he doesn't try to kill Shallan. There are probbaly a few ways to handle this, but I'd say the easiest solution is that he just didn't know. It's entirely possible that Shallan's secret died with his mother and her friend. And if the secret somehow did reach him down the road, it would explain why he stopped communicating with her.

Because he has so many books to write and so little time. He could do it, but it comes at the cost of writing something else. I don't think he's worried about selling more books, so I doubt that will be part of his decision.

The Ati-as-a-dragon alternate reality is killing me.

I see the phrase "10 core Shardworld" being thrown about. I think it's worth pointing out that the WoB refers to "10 core planets/worlds", which is an important distinction, isn't it? For example, I think Braize is unlikely to be one of the ten, unless it plays a much more prominent role in Stormlight than it has so far. Just because a planet is a Shardworld doesn't imply that it's one of the core planets that the Cosmere story revolves around.

Unlikely. Autonomy is the leading theory right now, but nothing is confirmed. Someone else can probably give more of an explanation and cite WoB's... I forget how the argument goes. But I wouldn't really say they have much in common. There's not any indication that Trell has shown up JUST to shatter Harmony. He seems to have more complicated goals than that. The biggest connection between the two was mentions about red things (eyes, etc.), but Brandon recently said that red doesn't imply Odium. And lastly, Odium is trapped during the first Stormlight arc, which takes place just prior to Wax & Wayne. While it's possible that he will escape at the end of SA5 and then advance directly on Scadrial, I feel like that's a stretch. Autonomy, on the other hand, is known to be somewhat of an antagonist as well. Plus we know she's away from Taldain "currently", and meddling somewhere else. Throw in Bleeder's apparently Trell-supported crusade to free Scadrians from Harmony's control and it makes a lot of sense for it to be Autonomy.

How about this... Middle of chapter 20. On the Words of Founding pages that Wax finds, one of them says, "WE'll give you freedom whether you--"

Agreed. I have multiple friends who don't like reading things until a series is done, which means I can't get them to read anything Cosmere besides Mistborn era 1. I'm really hoping to see Stormlight 5, W&W, and Elantris finished before he starts a NEW series. That gives me at least two new (maybe 3, counting SA arc 1) cosmere series to share. I'd be okay if he threw Nighblood in sooner, so long as it's just a sequel and not book 2 of another series. Considering he's continued saying that he has no plan for when he'll do Nightblood (last I saw), I doubt it's going to happen.

The strongest evidence against this so far is in chapter 16, when the voice talks to Wax before Paalm fakes the attack on Innate. At first it spoke about some biology (white blood cells?) that supposedly is unknown to Scadrian scientists. Seems unlikely to me that Paalm would know more than scientists about white blood cells, though maybe it's a kandra thing. A Shard would certainly know about it though. It also seems like the voice can hear him when he speaks VERY softly. HOWEVER, then Wax does actually see Paalm and when he moves closer Paalm speaks to him with a very similar voice to what he hears in his head.

That's fair, though I still have the problem of what to call them in the article text. :-) Feels wrong to call them "number glyphs" or something like that...

Even Thaylen can be written with women's script, I imagine.

I'm trying to put together an article for the number system on Roshar. I may have some follow-up questions, but I'm struggling to figure out what to call the article. Harakeke is apparently the one who decoded them first. Or at least the one who set out to break down how the numerals are combined for larger numbers. He refers to them as Vorin numerals, and others have as well (perhaps because of him). But as far as I can tell, this is just a fan term. I don't see any indication of a name for the number system in the books. We've only seen it used in Vorin contexts so far, but for all we know it's used universally across Roshar. It certainly doesn't bear strong semblance with women's script, which makes me think it's older and more widely used. But then it does make use of symmetry, which hints at Vorin connections. Any votes or opinions? "Vorin numerals"? "Rosharan numerals"? "number system" rather than "numerals"?

But is there enough substance (at this point) to have a page like that?

More tidbits: In chapter 14 Marasi and MeLaan look at info about the man blew up a damnation and caused flooding, named Johnst. They read that he acted very strangely and couldn't remember the names of his family before being executed. He also claimed that he only intended to cause trouble for a neighbor--not kill people and flood an entire region. Lastly, they read that his grave was desecrated shortly after burial. They conclude that Paalm must have been impersonating Johnst. That she blew the damnation, let them bury her, and then crawled out of the grave. But MeLaan casts some doubt on the first few points. Paalm is too skilled an impersonator to mess something up as simple as family names. What if it wasn't Paalm, but Johnst himself. He was spiked, and under the influence of Trell. Trell convinced/made him to blow the damnation. And given this experience, it's not surprising he was going mad in the end. Perhaps Paalm dug up his bones for some other purpose, afterwards. To retrieve the spike, for example. This is perhaps more of a stretch than Marasi and MeLaan's conclusion. It's certainly more complicated. But it's suspicious to me how Sanderson has them point out multiple times in the conversation that the man acted strangely (not as if he were being impersonated by a skilled kandra).

Quick observation... @BeskarKomrk made a redirect page for "Dynastic" and I was going to add the Language category (Culture also?). Well, I realized that there are a lot of cases where these categories seem to be missing. Particularly on Roshar, where there are lots of languages mentioned. For example, Alethi, Thaylen, Shin, Unkalaki, etc. Is there a reason for this, or would it be good to update these with [[Category: Culture]] and [[Category: Language]]?

Koloss (also, it's "Syl")

That's what I figured, though it seems a mystery how she got away from her guards for that long... I was thinking the guards weren't in on the ruse? Eh... I just need to keep reading and found out.

Icon for Stick PoV: Credit to Exmakina for the Stick fan art.

@BlackYeti and @Blightsong are both right. Brandon has explained that his books are "translated" from the world's language. So you can imagine that the word for "day" in the various languages on Taldain is perhaps closer to something more dry and descriptive (e.g. "cycle"). The people (at least in Lossand) DO apparently have an official time standard. It is presumably based on the moon. They've got years too. Maybe people travel towards Darkside every so often to catch a glimpse of the stars and make sure everything is calibrated. Anyways, it makes sense that Brandon wouldn't use some alternate, more accurate term because it would be awkward for us to read. It's not like he's writing hard sci-fi. And for Darkside... Yeah, it's not night. Makes sense to call it "day" on Dayside, with the bright sun overhead. That's pretty much the definition of day. But Darkside isn't night. They've got a dim, diffuse source of light. AU essay spoiler:

Yep. WoB here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dlROFtLJS6QMt1hoBYwDwS9TJFdgi83ovEgVy5WuDAw/edit#heading=h.9m210jw8aid6 First question in the "Outside Q&A" portion.

I'm just going to keep adding to this as I notice more things during my reread... It dawned on me this morning that Steris and Winsting are in the middle of a conversation when Wax hears the voice in his head at the party. Another thing that doesn't seem odd before you realize Winsting=Paalm, but when you do... Is it possible that Paalm can converse with Steris (while impersonating somebody) AND talk in Wax's head at the same time? Maybe, but I doubt it. Again, not much but it's light support that Paalm isn't the one speaking via Hemalurgy. On the downside, the voice does speak very personally. Things like "I am going to kill your Father," which certainly sounds like the person actually doing the killing. If nothing else it suggests that Trell is very involved and not just watching on and providing subtle support. Side note: I can't remember... Do we find out who killed the priest? Did Paalm sneak away to do it somehow, or was it somebody else? @BeskarKomrk, if you do get into a reread let me know if you see anything that supports or weakens this theory.