Argel

Well, it is Odium we are talking about, so entirely plausible. There's nothing in the boon/bane that we know of that suggests the capacity to save humankind would come in the form of The Diagram. It also seems a bit odd in that he's not guaranteed to have a ridiculously highly intelligent day or a particularly stupid day. If that was the plan, then I could buy into the theory The Diagram was created on one of his dumbest days since we would be easier to manipulate and the threshold there is probably lower and thus more likely to occur. It's also possible the ability to manipulate him was added as part of the boon/bane, in which case it wouldn't matter. Do we know when the capacity tests were devised? I think it was after The Diagram, but I didn't catch anything in a quick skim through the Interlude. Isn't there a death rattle that suggests someone else was receiving the visions? Though now that I think about it, you could still be right. That may even make sense -- the old Dalinar was probably not vision/bondsmith material, so after Gavilar dies, the visions may have gone to someone else, and after that person (or persons) dies, went to Dalinar.

Thread necro'ing is against site policy: More at: The sample chapter is from an unpublished work and thus info from it should be in spoiler tags. You can do that by using the "eye" icon on the toolbar or using spoiler BBCode: [spoiler]spoilery stuff goes here[/spoiler] You should really start a new thread, or do some searching first. If the forum search is not working for you, you can also try "site:17thshard.com <what you want to search for>" using Google or DuckDuckGo ("site:" may work on Bing as well -- have not tried it). Life novella sample chapter spoilers:

Real-world politics are off-topic for this forum (emphasis added): And from the site rules (emphasis added):

If true, I wonder if one of the Unmade is responsible for Diagrams like Moelach(sp?) is for death rattles.

The expense could be that there was not a complete betrayal. Think about the oathpact and how that has not been broken to the extent the Heralds think it has been. Could be something similar going on. Reviving the spren could be interesting, especially since reviving Adolin's has possibly already been foreshadowed.

Are we sure of that? The new intent of "harmony" could be the problem, and it could have resulted from merging Ruin and Preservation. I do nto recall any WoBs that straight up confirm that both intents are still there, vs. just using that as an explanation for what is in-effect the intent of Harmony.

Where was the subterfuge though? The Skybreakers seem too well known. They would have had to stay hidden long enough to avoid showing up in the history books (or I suppose purge all records back then so no mention of them survived, but that seems too far fetched). I will throw one out there -- what if the great subterfuge was having most of their order participate in the Recreance -- performing the same betrayal as the rest?

Nitpick: Scadrial had two shards. We have a WoB that if Sazed dropped his shard(s) he would drop one shard -- Harmony. Of course, there were two shard s in ancient times, but we're not sure the current Trell is the same as the ancient Trell or just someone that hijacked the ancient religion.

I agree. I think Brandon just meant it's a passive ability that "just works".

Why does everyone assume the MAG is not canon!? It is canon except when stated otherwise. From the MAG (emphasis added): FWIW, here is what the MAG specifically says for gold:

You can also use Google or DuckDuckGo: site:17thshard.com <what you want to search for> If we went through Eshonai's flashback book without seeing any that would be far more compelling. As is, there is little page time given to the Listeners, so we need to be careful reading too much into it. Case in point, how can Listeners interbreed with humans (Horneaters and Herdazians) if they do not have children like we do? It's also possible Brandon wants to avoid the whole children turning into voidbringers thing and is just leaving them out because of that.

Brandon has said we may see Dust as a worldhopper cameo and that he has had Herdazian cuisine. A Dusk worldhopper cameo supports Scadrial because Mistborn Era 4 is the only Sci-Fi Cosmere series we know of so far.

According to the WoB you quoted Vasher could have read a description of a shardblade that was thousands of years old, so it gives us zero information about the timing. I was also unsure of whether you remembered/knew that we had actual confirmation that Vasher had been to Roshar prior to creating Nightblood. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful the WoB I quoted is for the timeline either since so much is implied in his answer. I think we need more information about when Warbreaker occurs in relation to the SA timeline.

FWIW, I asked about Ashraven's soul on Twitter and got my first RAFO: Now I feel like both celebrating and hitting my head against a wall!!

I already mentioned in this thread that it has been confirmed that Vasher visited Roshar before creating Nightblood during the JordanCon RAFOlympics 2016: Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J43km7wrrZnOuM2WJe2DpBsk_C0E6yLJ8bDxqfen-P4/view

He was trying to becoming an Elantrian and it did not work. Brandon has mentioned that the Hoid from back then knew a lot less than today, suggesting either that Hoid could pull it off now (or alternatively, perhaps not to waste time trying).

IIRC, it's the crystalline castle in the capital of Nalhalla.

Dalinar's bond occurs at the end of WoR and Adolin has a dead shardblade, so no Nahal bond. There is speculation that Adolin may "ressurect" the dead spren in shardblade, but that has not happened yet (if it will happen at all). With that said, maybe they make good proto-KR indicators.

I'm with @Oversleep. Between pointless necro'ing of late and duplicate topics within weeks -- they are turning into spam. Be nice to the new users? How about the new users show some courtesy by doing a quick search before posting?

Horneaters and Herdazians have mixed Listener/Human ancestry.

My main point was the death rattles started before The Diagram was created (which was after Gavilar's assassination, likely within 3 years of that), so no direct correlation, at least not to start out with. Didn't we see a some of the Unmade moving into the shattered plains in WoR (maybe when Shallan and Kaladin were in the chasms)?

Plus if he's still "alive" they have the 3 month mourning period for his wife (who they clearly did not save -- draw your own conclusions). The whole book is about what can be accomplished when desperate enough. Edit: There is probably also no viable scenario for them (arbiters) to stay in power that does not involve Ashraven still breathing. If he was really dead and they pretended otherwise the ruse would be up in three months.

The Death Rattles started before Gavilar was even assassinated (around the time Gavilar started investigating the shattered plains), so Moelach could not have started out trying to help Taravangian. And he moves away from Taravangian near the end of WoR. Maybe trying to help hummany in general or something like that but I think we need more evidence to say Moelach is specifically helping Taravangian.

I think it's exactly like I said -- his Soul went on to the Great Beyond. Basically, the Resealers were brought in too late to prevent it. Stormlight Archive Spoiler: tl;dr for the spoiler is the Resealers were practically guaranteed to not get to the king in time. And even if they did, it may not have worked (emphasis added): I agree there is zero evidence Frava was in on the assassination. There is not even any motive -- Ashraven was about to get rid of Gaotona. Something that Shai was not aware of so was not added to the forged Ashraven, which was a huge setback for Frava. Yes, Frava has ambitions about controlling Ashraven, but that's after the assassination, and is to be expected of someone that likes to scheme like she does. The whole reason they resort to Forgery is because they will be completely out of power if Ashraven is no longer the Emperor. Those are insane risks, and they resort to Forgery out of desperation. All indications are that what Shai did was considered impossible, and she was the first to pull it off. and and If you think Frava was in on the assassination you need to re-read the story. As a side note, a crossbow bolt killed the emperor, not an arrow.