Argel

FWIW, Dalinar thinks about Earthquakes twice in TWoK when seeing the devastation caused in the visions and Shallan mentions "earthquake" twice in WoR regarding the shattered plains. That doesn't prove there are plate tectonics though, but it's possible.

I could get behind using Sudo and Sudoers!

The front five are Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Eshonai, and Szeth. The back five are Jasnah, Lift, Shalash, Renarin, and Taln.

I think it's safe to say that his special luck and the ability to time-dilate forward both predate the Lerasium bead. I mean, he was alive before the shattering, so he had to have some tricks to keep him alive this long, and time-dilation is one of the obvious ones.

Brandon has even described Nightblood as a robot spren. Though when summoning a dead shardblade, the spren is brought back to life for a brief moment. That could have been enough to inspire Vasher.

Renarin was the one likely doing those (emphasis added):

Death Rattles started around the time Gavilar was investigating the Shattered Plains, which is roughly 7 years ago (well, from when Taravangian mentions it to Szeth at the end of TWoK). The question then is was Moelach close enough to the Shattered Plains at the time?

I just posted about the timeframe for the Diagram in one of these threads -- looks like one of the others since I do not see it here. Anyway, we know The Diagram was created after Gavilar's assassination from a WoB, and given that that day occurred years before that 500 day chart as you mention, the Diagram was probably created within three years of Gavilars assassination. It could be later than that, but the whole "years" reference makes less and less sense the closer we get to that 500 day chart. If those "years" are before the 500 day chart, then maybe within two years of Gavilar's assassination. Either way, we have an rough idea of when it was created. As a reminder (since this post has a bunch of timeline stuff in it), the Death Rattles occurred around the time Gavilar started investigating the Shattered Plains, which was apparently roughly 7 years ago (that quote is from TWoK, so a bit more than 7 from the end of WoR). The part about Taravangian understanding humans on the day The Diagram was created is interesting. One counter to that is that figuring out what the cutthroat rules would do does not likely require any empathy. We saw what happened in Jah Keved. Rest up and I hope you feel better!!!

Correct, Shallan did have proof. Additionally, if Kaladin is "just a guard" then there should be someone else that Shallan needed to talk to gain access/entry. If Kaladin is the one making that determination -- which is how it is presented in the book -- then he was derelict in his duty. I mean, turning away the causal betrothed to the man third in line for the throne. A causal suggested by Jasnah (sister to the king) and approved by Navani (mother of the king) and Dalinar (second in the line to the throne). Yeah, really great work there Kaladin. Not to mention leaving the conspirators plotting to assassinate the king guarding the king... With that said, an alternative explanation could be that Dalinar failed to fully explain Kaladin's duties. Which given the lackluster to non-existent intelligence network the Kholins seem to have, may be accurate.

Maybe that's part of the betrayal?

It's not implied. Brandon said Taravangian knew about the three realms. The "not as much conscious knowledge" referred to the Cosmere as a whole. And there is nothing suspect about "not as much conscious knowledge" -- it implies enough information to use intuition. Much like Mikhail Tal's knight sacrifice in the quote I posted up above.. I posted that in this thread because it's a real world example of having enough knowledge to use intuition to make good choices, something that continues to be underestimated or outright overlooked in this thread. It's also worth keeping in mind that Brandon is speaking these answers off the cuff. If he could spend time writing the answers they would often be phrased better, so it's important to be careful not to read too much into the phrasing.

Actually, it was confirmed during the JordanCon RAFOlympics 2016: Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J43km7wrrZnOuM2WJe2DpBsk_C0E6yLJ8bDxqfen-P4/view

Except that we can see Taravangian is not that hung up on religion. But ego/pride likely suffices. Who wants to admit they were manipulated?

I was going to say that without Sam the quest would have failed (obviously without Frodo it would have too). Anyway, Spook took on more life than originally intended, so maybe Adolin will as well.

The Death Rattles started before Gavilar was assassinated: That's a huge wealth of information to draw upon and could easily explain knowledge supposedly hard to come by. As a side note, since they come from one of the Unmade, it's an obvious way Odium could have influence on The Diagram, possibly without even realizing it. Edit: Odium could be at risk of dying from laughter....

That's fair, but it could be arrogance or an assumption. He's not a reliable source. He's probably not going to seriously consider if he was manipulated. If Khriss or maybe even Jasnah believed him, that would be more credible.

Thus has been discussed before, fairly recently: This post from that thread pokes some big holes in it: Pretty clear that based on current evidence and just how Brandon talkas about Hoid, that Hoid was not and is not a weapon. Please put some more thought into your posts. The one from March gives explanations so we actually have something to discuss. We have none of that here.

Could Vasher have taught the new stances though? I'm pretty sure there is a WoB that Vasher had been to Roshar before creating Nightblood. I agree -- I doubt we will see any major awakening type stuff. On the other hand, Zahel could play some moderate role as long as it avoids delving to deeply into his past. Vasher is such a good swordsman that it's hard to gauge how someone in theory more powerful than him would actually do against him. We are also not sure how many breaths he has, beyond that he has life sense. I also wonder if Brandon may be slightly more lax about Warbreaker cross-overs given the stronger connection it has to the original TWoK.

This quote supports either theory. For example, in Chess, what your opponent can do next turn is very limited, and thus easy to remember and easier to predict which move your opponent will make. The more turns out you go the harder it becomes, to the point where you surpass your ability to memorize and predict. For example, one of my favorite Chess quotes (bold+underline emphasis added): I can definitively believe he touched the SR, but the problem is that given enough intelligence and enough information, he could also memorize and predict much, much better, and when he reached the limitations of his new abilities, could have still use intuition to determine the most likely outcome. Another problem is T stayed present enough to write everything down and write a way to translate the anew language he created. But in the SH quote: But maybe T touched the SR and then wrote down what he saw afterwards? The other problem I see is that e.g. Cultivation or Odium could have been influencing him, and I'm not sure if we can tell the difference. One thing I like about your theory is that there's no direct influence on T, so every decision made based on it is all on him. That's a lot of blood on his hands, with no one to shift blame to. Anyway, have an upvote for such an interesting theory.

I don't see a similarity myself. Are you thinking they look similar, or the protectiveness? Curious to know your thoughts behind it.

Except he cannot remember that day, so his views on it could be wrong.

Which explains why Vasher killed her to keep the method of creating Nightblood a secret. No wonder he's always in a bad mood. Well, Nightblood does leak some Investiture when drawn, but he will take in more Investiture than he leaks if he can. I suppose a question worth asking is what happens if he is unsheathed with no obvious investiture to draw on (e.g. left on the stones of shinovar).

Taravangian could have observed Hoid using magic but not realized what he saw until he had his most brilliant day where he finally grasps what happened. Seems plausible and fits in with just drawing on existing knowledge.

I think in the past the heralds returned earlier so there was enough time to get everyone back up to speed on knowledge, so I do not think there is any contradiction. W=It may have taken Taln longer to return to Roshar as well, being barely functional.

Nightblood reduces the amount of investiture in the Cosmere. That could be the amount usable, or the WoB below could supersede the one Spoolofwhool quoted. Source: http://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27investiture%27