Jofwu

Of ALL the places for Brandon to reuse this totally made up word, he uses it in a passage about a character writing a bunch of nonsense so that the people trying to decrypt her messages will waste a bunch of their time??? I think this is 100% a case of Brandon having a good laugh about how hard we've worked to figure out secrets where there are none.

Beta readers are restricted from commenting on details about what the beta draft was like, so there's probably not a straight answer to be given on that. And I doubt any beta readers are fully aware of every comment that was made during that process. Peter has mentioned that there word count of beta feedback exceeded the word count of the book itself. Also isn't necessarily a beta-level error. It's possible, for example, that there were not no "Thaidakar" references during beta and Brandon got a lot of "Who is this?" comments, which drove him to add more references while forgetting to rephrase the ending. And then it didn't get caught in gamma. Or something like that. It definitely looks like an error to me, in any case. Worth reporting in the typos thread for sure, at least. I don't see any issues with this one though? The "prison of three planets" is proceeded by: Rosharan's can see Ashyn and Braize in the sky, presumably. It makes sense they would have names for those planets and be aware that they are planets. Damnation is a totally separate concept that she would know through Vorinism. The thing she ISN'T clear on is the connection between them--that Braize IS "Damnation"--and that's what Mraize is clarifying. Ash does the same thing with Jasnah in chapter 17 when Jasnah refers to Damnation as "another realm of reality". Though admittedly I can't tell if Jasnah was out of the loop there, like Shallan, or if she is just internally rolling her eyes at Ash being pedantic.

Can I toot my own horn? The focus of that theory was more specifically about Renarin influencing the Diagram as it pertains to Dalinar. But here's an explanation about this phenomenon in general from the ending of the post, which I quite like:

I think she was following Shallan around to some extent though, unlike usual deadeyes? Her business partner mentions that she was trying to head west. One year prior would be shortly after the Battle of Thaylen Field, so Shallan was probably back to spending most of her time in Urithiru at that point. So Testament was trying to get towards Urithiru, and that's why they settled down in Nameless--seemingly one of the closest towns to Urithiru. Where Testament would have been is hard to guess exactly. Because Shallan spent... about a month in Urithiru during Oathbringer Parts 1 and 2. So Testament was probably trying to move west for that duration. She spent a little while in Kholinar, and then of course the journey to Thaylen City. Hard to predict where Testament may have ended up without knowing how fast she was moving? The observations about "I'm terrified" being clearly spoken to a Cryptic who wasn't Pattern actually make me hesitant to assume the idea that Testament was a more recent development. I suppose it's possible he hadn't decided on all of the order of events though. Maybe earlier on he toyed with the idea that she killed Testament and then bonded Pattern and regressed on those oaths as well? But I don't think it's impossible he may have had things mostly worked out even at the time of that WoB. I think it's plausible and reasonable that he may have been lying there. Heck, with "Pattern" being a generic name for Cryptics (something that I can't see any particular reason that it needed to be included otherwise) it's totally fair that he could be talking about Testament there. The only thing he'd be lying about (implicitly) is the gender. Seems like a fair thing to lie about though. Something he wanted to clarify... but didn't want to give away the plot twist on. Yeah, I think so. I think the popular interpretation (up until now at least) has been that deadeyes are on another level that is significantly less salvageable. Because we knew that reviving a deadeye had never happened before and was incredibly difficult to do. (While Kaladin saving Syl seemed relatively straightforward. He just had to speak another oath and she was back as good as new.) The biggest thing that gives us new perspective on this is, in my opinion, the implication that "deadeyes" are a product of whatever happened to Ba-Ado-Mishram and was not originally related to what happens to spren when oaths are broken. It's "extra".

My expectation has always been that Lift, Renarin, and Jasnah will be the "big 3" of books 6-10, with Taln and Ash filling more of a Szeth/Eshonai/Venli role. Just what my gut feeling has always been. Though I guess I imagine those 3 being less standout than Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar, relatively speaking. We'll see.

Sibling didn't get any PoVs. I believe the only one falling in that category was Sja-anat. Pretty sure the text uses she/her for Sja-anat, but I didn't feel comfortable labeling her "female".

Whoops, thanks for pointing that out. All fixed.

On the "Alethi Glyphs Page 2" artwork, under the glyph for Stormlight. Stormlight should be capitalized.

I think it's worth noting that the real answer is probably not the mathematical one. To create a "two-Light" they had to shift the tones slightly to put them in harmony with one another, if I'm not mistaken. I don't expect this is feasible with every combination. Particularly when you start trying to add more than two at a time. Granted, that could have been some music theory handwaving on Brandon's part that doesn't mean much.

Posted this to my "blog" for easier reference in the future, but wanted to toss it out into the forum as well. This is basically just a dozen or so graphs about word count statistics in Rhythm of War. Character word counts for the full series as a teaser:

I took the time to update the statistical analysis of Rhythm of War today and wanted to share some fun charts! SPOILERS FOR RHYTHM OF WAR! Word Count by Character Self explanatory. Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar lead the pack in that order, as I think most people would assume. Word Count by Character (excluding the big 3) Zooming in a bit better on all the characters besides Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar... Navani and Venli both leaped up tremendously in Rhythm of War. Adolin kept his title as top secondary character though, with his biggest word count yet. Lezian is the newest character with smallest word count. I guess I should also note that this has the numbers from Dawnshard as well, so you can see how high that pulled Rysn and Lopen. Big Three Word Count by Book Turning attention back to the three main characters, here's how their word counts stack up for each book. Kaladin had a bit more than OB and Dalinar barely squeaked by with more words than WoR. Rhythm of War was Shallan's lowest word count yet (barely). On the whole, you can really see how Navani, Venli, and Adolin dug into their usual numbers (overall) this book. Flashback Word Counts Here's how the flashbacks have gone so far. This is JUST word counts of these characters' flashback sequences. (Always surprises me how little word count Shallan's flashbacks got in WoR. Brandon packed so much punch in those for me.) Individually Eshonai and Venli would be the lowest. But together they give Rhythm of War the 3rd highest word count on flashbacks. Rhythm of War Word Count by Character Here's the word counts for each character looking only at Rhythm of War. Kaladin led the pack, but only by a little. Navani had more than Venli and Eshonai combined. Word Count by Book Part Here's how RoW's word count is distributed among each part compared to the other books. Word Count by Location One thing not captured on the statistical analysis pages on Coppermind is that I've done my best to note where everyone's PoV happens.This admittedly gets a bit arbitrary... But whatever. Nothing particularly exciting or notable about this graph, but here it is. Rhythm of War Word Count by Location And here's just the RoW data. I think the time in Tukar was just that one Dalinar chapter. And I think the "unknown" is Lezian when he wakes up? Seems like it didn't give any clear indication where he was there. Word Count by Gender This is a breakdown of PoV character gender (in terms of word count) for the entire series... Rhythm of War Word Count by Gender And here's the same thing but only with Rhythm of War numbers. Girl power running the show in RoW. Chapter Word Count Distribution Okay, these last two aren't super exciting. This is a distribution of chapters over different word count ranges, so it gives you an idea of how long the chapters tend to be. Hard to see much of a trend with these ranges... But it's a pain to tinker with the range. Nothing particularly notable about this compared to other books so far I think. PoV Word Count Distribution Same idea here, just breaking it down by PoV instead of chapters. The short snippy PoVs during "avalanches" brings things down.

That's a good thought. Good idea. I will say that my primary insistence on her using Testament throughout WoR is based on trying to restrict Blades to level 3 Radiants. I'm also giving weight to the WoB that "Shallan is a step further than Kaladin". The WoB is paraphrased and Brandon could have changed his mind... But we pointed at that WoB for so long that I'm hesitant to just throw it out completely without more explicit evidence to the contrary. I'd also like to emphasize that my whole train of thought here includes the ideas that Testament very well might (1) be able to glow like a living Blade, (2) change shapes, (3) not scream at Kaladin, (4) operate Oathgates, and so on. So I don't count any of those as evidence that the later Blades are Pattern. My whole idea here is that normal deadeye Blades can't do these things because they rely on the bond with their Radiant to do them. Testament still has her bond with Shallan, to some degree, while every other deadeye we've seen lost their bond completely when their former Radiant died thousands of years ago. The evidence for this is small, but significant enough that it carries a lot of weight in my opinion. Normal deadeye Blades can only be bonded after attaching a gem and bonding it over the course of a few days. I'm extremely skeptical Shallan ever did this. And it doesn't scream at her. There's enough weirdness with these two issues that it makes me question everything we know about how Testament "should" behave. Granted, there's a way to mash all of it up even still. We could have her be level 4 with Testament (a step further than Kaladin at the end of WoR) AND have Lightweavers summon blades at level 2. The different color descriptions is interesting and compelling, even if I'm not 100% convinced. I'm not sure the shopkeeper had her at that time actually. He found her "last year" and "far to the east". She was "insisting on coming" to the vicinity of Urithiru. I'm inclined to believe he found her sometime after the Battle of Thaylen Field while Shallan was spending most of her time in Urithiru? In any case, it's notable that she was trying to move to be near Shallan. Another good observation. I wonder what could be different...

She names Pattern there, but that's pretty easy to sweep away with her being such an extremely unreliable narrator. Didn't forget it, just skeptical that it's a "truth". It's much different from all the others that we've seen. No drop into Shadesmar, no Lightweaving... The italics just seem to be her thoughts rather than a spren asking for a truth. I'm just skeptical that's what that is. Could be though. She followed Shallan around on foot while Shallan was taking Oathgates and being flown around. She just wasn't caught up to wherever Shallan was exactly. I would say part of this whole theory is that her relationship with Testament can't be compared to other deadeyes. Their bond is still there in some way and it makes her behave differently. I'm betting it's related to some of the dark family secrets that drove her to being a Radiant in the first place. Father working with Ghostbloods that far back, perhaps.

True! My thoughts on this are all disjointed unfortunately. Maybe I'm forgetting something that would totally upend this... But I THINK my theory on that is that the Sibling's changes are related to Honor's decline. Their changes seem to have begun BEFORE the Recreance and I don't see much time passing between BAM's capture and the Recreance. We know that Honor's decline was steady however. And I could see how Honor slowly dying would have such an effect on the Sibling. Just an idea. And not to say they weren't also affected by BAM's imprisonment.

Could be, I'm just theorizing. I think it's telling he calls her a different name, but there are certainly other explanations. I don't know that "severed" is necessarily the best term, but I definitely disagree with your interpretation in general. I think it's pretty clear that what they DID was merely imprison Ba-Ado-Mishram. What happened to the singers was a side effect. A side effect they were exploiting, and which they didn't fully understand the extent of. I think they put BAM in a gemstone and it disrupted some (all?) of her Connections in some way that did damage to the things she was Connected to. I think of it like she was tied to them and somebody came along and yanked the cord, pulling part of the thing it was attached too away. I don't know that the Connection itself and those pulled-out-pieces were trapped with BAM or if they were simply broken up and "decomposed".

And I do think we're still meant to have questions. This is all very much my theory. I could be wrong about a lot of this. I've seen several different interpretations. Testament: First Ideal (presumably voiced at some point as a child) Truth #1 = ??? Truth #2 = ??? (killed her mother sometime after speaking this) (she denied Testament here, damaging their bond in some way and causing Testament to become a deadeye) Truth #3 = "I"m terrified" in TWoK Pattern: First Ideal (not sure if she re-voiced this at some point or if the first time still counts???) Truth #1 = "I killed my father" at the end of TWoK Truth #2 = "I killed my mother" at the end of WoR Truth #3 = "I killed my first spren" at the end of RoW And part of this whole theory is that Testament is not like other deadeyes we've seen, because Shallan is still around and their bond is still present even if it's damaged in some way. The implications are that (1) Testament isn't confined to being a sword only and (2) she doesn't scream at everyone who touches her, either in general or specifically in the cases where Shallan hands her over as she does with Kaladin. Probably other differences as well. Again, just my theory. Don't want to pass this on as an interpretation you should adopt.

I had the same thought! Strongly supported, I think, by the way Kalak refers to her as "Mishram" rather than "Ba-Ado-Mishram". Seems to imply her original, pre-Unmade name. It makes a lot of sense to me that she would be... I dunno, Connected to certain aspects of Roshar. If she could Connect to all the Singers like that then perhaps she could had lots of Connections with the spren (or other aspects of Roshar) prior to being Unmade. Perhaps some of those Connections still lingered. Heck, it seems like a fairly solid theory to me. The thing I wonder more about is what those Connections were exactly, what their severing did (particularly to the spren, it seems), and why that severing prompted the Recreance.

Here to write down my opinions on how Shallan's past all fits together. There's so many ways to interpret it, especially when you bring WoBs in. I like mine, and I think it has some interesting implications about the nature of deadeyes. Shallan bonded Testament at a young age. Probably some family troubles that drove her to it? Something giving her reasons to want to hide in the gardens and dream. As we have seen, the Cryptics have been very eager to bond humans though. Recall how Shallan saw several of them in Kharbranth? Pattern was present when Testament bonded Shallan, and may have even been following her around for years afterward. So Testament and Pattern were part of the same group who saw the coming need for Radiants and went looking for humans. They found Shallan. Testament bonded her first. It lasted for... a couple of years? Months? We don't know exactly. But the bond eventually broke. Pattern is considered brave at least in part because of his willingness to bond her after what happened to Testament. Now, I think that Shallan advanced all the way to (at least) her second truth with Testament. Her third ideal. This is because I prefer to assume that all orders get their Shardblades at the same level. Could be a faulty assumption... but until we've seen otherwise, it feels like the best bet that she would summon Testament in self defense against her mother after she had spoken the usual number of ideals (3) to obtain a Shardblade. Then things go south. She breaks off her bond with Testament... Or does she? What does it mean to break a bond with your Nahel spren? The books so far have suggested they become a deadeye. And, well, okay... they do. Obviously that's what Testament is. But I don't think they necessarily have to follow the rules of the deadeyes we've seen. I think it's very clear that, despite Testament's state, she and Shallan still have some shred of a bond between them. She knows where Shallan is, and followed her around. (plus more that I'll get into momentarily) In Shallan's final chapter she talks specifically about how odd it is that she had powers after killing Testament and before finding Pattern: So when Hoid shows up one year at Middlefest, holds up some spheres of Stormlight, and Shallan seems to interact with them briefly? That's because she still has the tatters of her bond with Testament. There's... something in here about the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram that matters, but it's very difficult to speculate on what that means for Shallan's bond. Anyways, then we get to the Soulcasting of the goblet in TWoK. People have often assumed that her bond with Pattern allowed this. I don't think it was him. Note this line: The voice Shallan spoke with in that scene wasn't Pattern. Or at least it dosn't seem to be. Kind of an odd line no? It makes sense though. Testament was following her. She's "dead", but they still have a bond. Shallan can still summon her deadeye as a Shardblade. She can still make use of their bond to Soulcast. And that's what happens in her rooms in Kharbranth. I think the truth that she seems to speak in that scene ("I'm terrified") was either an advancement in her bond with Testament, or maybe it was a slight reparation of it. Not clear how "repairing" a bond like that works. It's somewhere at this point that she begins to bond Pattern as well. She speaks her first truth to Pattern at the end of TWoK ("I killed my father"), and that's why he begins to manifest a few days later on the deck of Wind's Pleasure. The biggest problem with this idea is that she believes the blade to be Pattern on several occasions. She's an unreliable narrator to the extreme. I absolutely think this could be one giant self-deception. I don't think we have any clear descriptions of the Blades well enough to say if the descriptions do or don't match unfortunately. But I'm sure this will bother some people. Nevertheless, I think this is what Shallan is admitting when she says she had two Shardblades in chapter 115. In any case, at the end of Words of Radiance Shallan speaks her 2nd truth to Pattern putting them at "level 3". Meanwhile, her bond with Testament is still there. There's a notable WoB that Shallan is "a step higher than Kaladin" at the end of WoR. This may be because she originally advanced with Testament to "level 4" and that doesn't entirely regress just because she broke her oaths. (Kaladin being at level 3 at the end of WoR) It's also possible that Shallan originally made it to "level 3" (Shardblade level) and then her "I'm terrified" actually advanced their bond further. Remember when Adolin asks about Shardplate in OB chapter 15? There were theories that her bond with Pattern had advanced this far and she's holding back. This always bugged me. Why should she have trouble admitting this? Testament makes it all make sense. She can't summon Shardplate because it would require her to acknowledge her bond with Testament--the one that's far enough along to grant Plate. But she's not there yet. Where's Shallan at the end of RoW? Both of her bonds are now at level 4, with "I killed Testament" being her 3rd truth with Pattern. Shallan has not just one but TWO more truths to go, perhaps. One for each spren. EDIT: Added qoute about the holes still in Shallan's past, and a mention of the "two Shardblades" quote. EDIT #2: I've reevaluated some of my opinions and added a bunch of analysis on page 3 of this topic:

I've updated my Stormlight Archive timeline for Dawnshard and Rhythm of War! Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0/edit More info (including Dawnshard and RoW spoilers): Old Post:

Right, my point there was that deadeyes (as we know them at least) didn't exist pre-Recreance. That isn't to say Knights had never broken their oaths. Just that the aftermath of doing so was different.

I've updated my timeline for Dawnshard and Rhythm of War! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0/edit Dawnshard and RoW spoiler below! Dawnshard's timeline is fairly loose. The middle of their voyage was 6 months after OB, based on Rysn's conversation with Vstim in chapter 9. Nailing down the beginning date of the story involves a long trail of events back through Rysn's interlude, when Szeth became a Truthless, and when Gavilar was murdered.... Basically... Rysn says her accident was 2 years prior. We have a rough idea of how much time passed from Rysn's accident and her TWoK interlude. The TWoK interlude gives an idea of how long ago Szeth became Truthless. And in one TWoK Szeth interlude he connects how long ago he became Truthless with how long ago he assassinated Gavilar. The problem I found is that these don't all fit together super great. You have to make a lot of skewed assumptions in their phrasing, and then squint a little. But there's nothing WRONG, so we'll go with it. The ending is presumably an equal number of days after chapter 9 as the beginning of the voyage is prior. This is a little awkward though because the very next string of events is after they arrive in Aimia, meaning Rysn figured out Nikli was the spy... and then sat on that knowledge for several weeks without doing anything. *shrug* It also means the whole voyage took more than a month when the implications earlier suggested less. ("weeks") But again, nothing explicitly contradictory in the text, so I've run with it. (I also have a small gripe about how long it took them to travel from Thaylen City to the Hexi. Feels like their ship is moving WAY slower than previous ships we've seen in the books. But oh well.) Rhythm of War's timeline is mostly tied down to the very clear date given at the end of the book. There are two major soft spots in the primary timeline. First is that it's a little unclear how much time passes between the destruction of the 3rd node and the finale. There's several vague references that seem to mesh together though. The timeline in the middle of the story is very solid. Most of Part 1 is also very solid, but it's not clear exactly when it all occurs relative to the attack on the tower (and thus into Part 2). My solution was to base it on Everstorm timings, so I'm pretty sure the Part 1 events are accurate within +/-9 days. (less than that and the events don't fit, more and there's an awkward additional 2 weeks where nothing happens.) Shallan and Adolin have a few chapters in the middle, where they arrive at Lasting Integrity, that aren't entirely clear. I'm also just assuming that their last chapter is the same day as everyone else's last chapter. (there's a clue suggesting the tower occupation is over, so that makes sense) Dalinar and Jasnah's timeline is somewhat hazy... but there's not a whole lot of time spent with them, so I've just put those in as best I can and they're probably not toooo far off. If you spot errors of any kind let me know!

I wanted to put this out there... In Rhythm of War we discovered that there's more to the Recreance than Oathbringer led us to believe. This idea isn't particularly surprising and has long been speculated of course. We are not, unfortunately, much closer to knowing the details. But I think Jasnah knows. What we did learn is that Ba-Ado-Mishram's imprisonment did something deeply wrong that was not predicted. We knew that this act turned the singers into parshmen, but it seems to have done something else. I'll highlight the chapter 94 & 97 epigraphs: So the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram seems to have affected "all spren". It caused "a greater wound to Roshar" than the Heralds predicted. And the secret involves "the Radiants, the Recreance, and the Nahel spren." What the heck could this be?!? This is one piece of lore that is most exciting to me for discussions. I don't have a great theory on this myself. What I'm here to post right now is simply this: Jasnah does know, as does Wit. (Perhaps Taravangian as well, and thus maybe other former members of the Diagram.) Here's a quote from Oathbringer chapter 47: Before Rhythm of War, it was easy to miss the real meaning of this passage. Jasnah's first comment seems to be about the Knights Radiant "dying" with the Recreance. Ivory's response seems to be saying, "Well, all except for the Skybreakers." But that's not what they're saying at all. Notice that Ivory isn't correcting Jasnah. Ivory agrees with Jasnah. He corrects that that all ten "ended" in death, but he agrees with the "death" part. Maya sheds a bit of light on what happened in chapter 94: So something about BAM's capture drive them to the Recreance. They expected pain, but didn't really expect "death." It suggests that the notion of "deadeyes" is a post-Recreance (post-BAM-capture I should say) phenomenon. They didn't realize what they would become. Of course, the big change wasn't just the deadeye part. The BIG issue was whatever drove them to break their bonds in the first place, though I think they must be some relation there. The most interesting thing from that Oathbringer excerpt is Ivory's comment about the highspren. The order that "lived in death" rather than "ending in death". Curious if others have thoughts on what this might mean. What does it mean that the highspren "live in death"? Do they still? Just the spren who were alive before the capture of BAM? What about her capture caused them to die. Why did all the other Nahel spren choose to risk "ending" rather than "living in death"? Whatever the answer may be, I think Jasnah already knows.

I don't disagree with any of this and don't see how it is releavant to my frustration, so I must not be communicating my point well. I agree with your interpretation of how the new device works, though then we just fall back on the oddity of what this "innate orientation" is. It still must be a somewhat arbitrary reference frame, defined by the collective cognition of everyone on Roshar I guess? (because they still work relative to the rotating planet and all that jazz.) I'm curious what you think would happen if you did the curtain experiment and then pull the curtain down? You'd agree with Oltux that the get locked at conjoinmemt and persist even after the operator is aware that their frame of reference turned?

@Oltux72 I think you're missing the point of what's bothering me here. We see in chapter 19 that Navani is very excited about an invention which does precisely what you're saying they could do all along. They've invented a device (which needs a new application involving aluminum) for her to change directions on the fly. Point north, conjoin, get pulled north. Disjoin. Point east, conjoin, get pulled east. All with the pair being pulled the same way each time. I think you're saying they could do that all along, assuming they have the mental control to assert whatever frame of reference they want. Unless you just think that level of control over the frame of reference just isn't possible [for a typical user]? I'm skeptical that's the case because its too easy to make things fuzzy. You could blindfold yourself so you don't know which way the pair is oriented, point whatever direction you want, be told "the pair is pointed the same way" even if it isn't, then conjoin your gem and get pulled that way. So what, Navani's new invention just skips the need to be blindfolded and told a lie? Where does one draw the line on how arbitrary the reference frames are and how much mental control one can exert on them? Your comments about vertical direction being different because of gravity are irrelevant to this? Same for the idea of conjoinment locking the frames. My idea that the reference frames could "collapse" (after being joined) when the user realizes the pair is oriented differently was just an idea to solve the my issues, to a small degree. Because it implies mental control over the reference frames is limited and it means Navani's new device was helpful after all.