Lightspine

HI guys, I'd like to bring up a couple of quotes that I haven't seen discussed yet, and aren't in the older version of the prologue. (At least, not in the version which is posted on the "Excerpts" pinned page.) What is up with this? Am I misreading this quote? It seems as if the songs described humans this way. Or is it that the songs did not describe them at all, so they took that form in Eshonai's mind? I could see either interpretation. If the songs do speak of humans in this manner, what would be the reason for it? Because they used to fight each other as enemies? But, calling them "dark" and "formless" makes little sense - the human legends tell of the voidbringers in a negative light, but they also got some details correct: skin of ash and fire (orange and black) and red eyes, while exaggerations, at least had some origin in the appearance of the Void-form parshendi. Darkness and formlessness, meanwhile, are wildly inaccurate. The entire spoken part above is new. First of all, Gavilar shows he knows of the Five. This is pretty unsurprising, even though Gavilar never showed this knowledge in the previous version, so, even though it is new, I don't think we need to speculate much about that detail. The detail I bolded seems more important. Who is watching Gavilar? The Ghostbloods (seems likely)? Jasnah (unlikely, but seems almost plausible)? The heralds? (at least 2 of them were at the feast!) I feel as if this is related in some way to the voice in the rhythms. Whoever that was, they knew the Listeners would need an assassin, so they had to have had knowledge of Gavilar's plans. But, would Gavilar even notice a being omniscient enough to speak through the rhythms spying on him? I feel as if he is likely being watched by multiple parties, and he may not have known about all of them. Thoughts? Edit: Forgot to talk about the end of the second quote! ("I need their help to achieve something."). It sounds as if Gavilar can't bring the Listeners back to their old forms without the consent of their leaders. It's not as simple as him breaking some gemstone and unleashing an Unmade or something of that sort: It requires active participation by the Listeners in some way.

I was thinking it could have been the black sphere which Szeth hid away (given by Gavilar) and Hoid had retrieved it somehow. That would've been a lot more interesting. Oh well.

I believe there's a WoB saying that it is a bit traumatic and painful for the spren, but the spren survives and can form another Nahel bond. There is evidence even without this WoB: Syl mentions Kaladin is not the first person she's bonded with.

Soulcasting radiants never used fabrials. The soulcaster Jasnah has is a decoy to disguise her ability to soulcast on her own. She was able to soulcast perfectly well even with the broken soulcaster that Shallan replaced it with. However, Jasnah did need the gems on the soulcasters - for some reason, soulcasting seems to require stormlight being held in the correct type of gemstone. Soulcasting fabrials are a form of surge-manipulating fabrial, one of the two we've seen. The other is the healing fabrial.

Nightblood can control those who are "evil", but I wouldn't label any radiants or radiantspren that way. Unless your definition of "evil" is super strange.

Wait, didn't Szeth need 10 heartbeats to summon his honorblade? Has anybody given that some thought? I doubt the Heralds were limited in such a way. Especially becausel living sprenblades, which were made to imitate the honorblades, do not require these heartbeats. Something about the honorblade has definitely been changed, but it's not exactly like a dead spren, because Kaladin does not hear it screaming. Seriously, what is up with that?

I considered this, but, if you read the OP, I mentioned that I find this unlikely because Nale carried one around. Nale would only do this if he could somehow guarantee that all of the Aimians other hordelings were dead, but that seems very difficult.

(I agree with a LOT of the predictions made above. I'm only writing down new ones that haven't been mentioned) 1. Jasnah will expose herself as alive to her family. 2. We find out what Dalinar asked for from the Nightwatcher. My guess is he asked to be like Gavilar. (Thus leading to his visions, reading and agreeing with The Way of Kings, eventually courting Navani, possibly even his position as a Radiant) (Also, nobody has posted this as a theory? I guess I should) (Stuff that only makes sense if you read Edgedancer:) 5. Kaladin brings some form of justice upon Roshone (but without breaking his oaths) 6. Shallan becomes some kind of double agent, acting for both Jasnah and the Ghostbloods. As part of the climax, she tries to reconcile them and make them band together. (Sorta Spoilers if you don't really know what Sleepless are)

Additional hint that the Sun is related to the Beyond: (Massive Oathbringer released chapter spoiler) Also, there has been a great amount of discussion on this topic already: (there is also a link in the post i just linked to that has even earlier discussion of the Sun, although the Great Beyond was not mentioned in that one) I don't think we know enough yet to tell if the Sun is the Beyond, or simply the Spiritual Realm which is closer to the Beyond, so the pulling effect would still be from the Beyond.

I meant only the last two lines of the passage. I agree that all the prior stuff makes much more sense when applied to Roshar as a whole.

I agree with all that has been said. In addition, I believe the last two lines do not refer to Roshar as a whole, but rather to the Aimians. "Redeem" is not quite the same as "save" - redeeming seems to imply that somebody was falsely accused and has been vindicated. This term would make much more sense referring to the Aimians, once allies now believed by all to be enemies, than to Roshar. If this is true, it seems that one of the Four will be responsible for destroying all of the remaining Aimians. This seems chilling, and I have no clue how they could accomplish this. When it comes to fighting capability, Szeth and Kaladin certainly take the cake, at least in their current state. However, I believe that against the Sleepless, soulcasting (at least of the form Jasnah displayed, which seems like it is different from Shallan's) would be much more effective than swinging swords around. So, if one of the Four directly murders the Aimians, my bet is it will be Shallan. That said, one of the four may simply indirectly cause their deaths.

If I remember correctly, Szeth tells Darkness/Nin that his gods are the "spirits of the stones and the stars" - the sun in particular is perhaps worshipped as above all others, but all the other stars in the sky are also "gods". (wait... is this a connection the the eyes of Nalt?????????????) My other thought is that this is somehow related to the sun of shadesmar (although that does nothing to explain why they worship all stars).

I'm sure that actually is the situation. However, I don't think that that would be stable over Roshar-history lengths of time; beliefs change. If the current social structure arose shortly after the Heralds left the Honorblades behind, that would be close to 5000 Earth years. I agree that simply having faith would not allow for such long periods of peace. Perhaps the Shin actually have something which, to their mind, proves their beliefs? This could be something to do with the Honorblades. Perhaps, since they worship the spren, the Stone Shamans could bring people into shadesmar and show them the truth? Similar to the pre-Reod worship of the Elantrians - faith is not needed when you can see your gods. I feel this is much more likely to lead to stability, as long as no evidence appears to question the beliefs (such as the Reod. Or Szeth's claims?). Edit: oops, I did not mean to say they worship the spren. They worship spirits of the stones and stars. For some reason, I always connected these with the spren, but they're not really the same.

Reading the quote above more carefully, does it seem to you guys that perhaps the Larkin communicated with the Aimian? It "scrambled away" immediately after Kaza moved, and the Sleepless shows up very quickly after. I understand their is a high possibility that the Sleepless was just combing the area to make sure his/her (do they even have gender?) plan had succeeded and could have found Kaza without help from the Larkin, making the events completely unrelated. I'm overanalyzing things a bit, but is it possible that the Larkin is acting as a friendly messenger to the Sleepless? (I find it unlikely that the Larkin is one of the hordelings. Mostly because I doubt Nin would carry them around if he knew about that.)

Ahhh, I never saw that one. Oops. They probably found almost everything possible already. Sorry about the new, useless, topic then. I agree that the Sleepless likely have some strange manifestation in either the Spiritual or the Cognitive realm.

I'm starting this topic here because Dysian Aimians were not revealed as of the end of WoR. I didn't know until today that Wit actually talks to one of the Sleepless during the WoR epilogue: (http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1182#40) This detail wants me to go hunting for other suspicious cremlings lurking in monumental events.. Perhaps we can figure out what the Dysians are up to? Unfortunately, I am lending my copies of both books to a friend currently, so I won't be able to contribute much to this search :/. Also, brief thought: Is it a coincidence that there happens to be a Sleepless at the same spot where Jasnah is about to appear? That seems to indicate that the Dysians, like Hoid, are able to have some insight and are watching the new Radiants, or perhaps they are just watching Hoid. (The other option is that they have spy hordelings spread everywhere on Roshar and that every third cremling is actually one of them. Creepy).

I agree that Gavilar could easily have knowledge of such events, but I am inclined to doubt that he would mention something so obscure in front of Sadeas, Dalinar, Ialai, and Navani. I feel like his intention during that passage was to provide well-known examples of empires that had stretched too far. That being said, I could be totally wrong and Gavilar maybe wasn't thinking through everything he was saying.

Yeah, I realized that mistake fairly quickly. It's been changed. Thanks for pointing it out though. Nice thoughts! I was also considering that he was a rogue, perhaps having stolen an honorblade. However, all 10 blades are accounted for (Mr. T mentions the Shin have 7, Szeth had Jezrien's, Nin/Nalan has his own, and Talenel had his). Perhaps it is possible that they recovered the blade after Shubreth died, and that contributed to the collapse of his empire? I feel I'm speculating too far on too little information, however.

Hi guys. Sorry if this topic doesn't seem sufficiently important, but, while reading Dalinar's feast flashback, I noticed an odd detail. Gavilar mentions previous empires that stretched too far, leading to their collapse (Genghis Khan style), and he throws in the name "Shubreth-son-Mashamalan". This appears to be a Shin name, due to the "-son-" (unless you guys know of other cultures in Roshar that use that?). It seems rather odd to me that the Shin, who have an extremely non-violent attitude, would produce an empire. Could this be what led to the formation of their current society? That seems unlikely, since Stone Shamanism and the Shin possession of honorblades indicates that their beliefs are very old and contain a good deal of truth. Perhaps Shubreth was a truthless who was used by somebody else to conquer? My current assumption is that this empire was formed after the Heirocracy, but I could be totally wrong.

What if Cusicesh has something to do with the Windrunner order? He's called "the protector" and is blue colored, which are both some very interesting ties. Could the faces he flashes be former Windrunners? Maybe there are similar spren for other orders of the Radiants? This seems like a stretch though.

Hoid may have powers that come from magic before the Shattering of Adonalsium. This means that he might be travelling forward or regenerating using similar realmatic methods as allomancey, but use a completely different method of accessing that power. (He may not need metal as a focus)

Could what Sanderson said about Syl refer to when she knew that Szeth was coming to kill Dalinar? To add to previous discussion, that warning came IMMEDIATELY after Kaladin's second dream in the storm.

I'm just gonna throw this one in here, it isn't my actual favorite but I love it's comedy. It's from a read aloud of a stormlight 3 chapter but the quote has no real spoilers. "If somebody insulted my biceps, I wouldn't attack them. I'd refer them to a physician because obviously something is wrong with their vision." -Dalinar Kholin, with a straight face.

I believe that there are also other ways for him to wiggle around. For example, what if Trell had the power of two shards, like Harmony? (Let's say, Odium and some other shard) We know Harmonium is a metal, so Trell would still have his own metal. The Trellium spike technically wouldn't be Odium's physical embodiment, because it would be a mix of that and another shard's. He could claim we know of the shard if we knew both the shards that it was comprised of. I don't entirely believe this, but it should be noted Harmony couldn't defeat Trell, which either means that Trell is equally or more powerful, Harmony is too inexperienced with his power, or is just ineffective because his two intents cancel each other out.

The spike mentioned is believed to be of Trelliun, however.