Lightspine

I've seen the question of how Riina was able to curse somebody as powerful as Hoid so effectively been brought up. Of course, it certainly helps that Hoid was a willing participant and he likely made himself quite vulnerable to make the sort of Connection necessary to making himself an Elantrian. However, I think there might be something more going on behind the scenes of this curse. First of all, let's look at the curse's effects again: I think we've actually seen a previous example of an Elantrian losing their sense of self: the Hoed. Now, I'm not saying that Hoid has gone insane under the burden of immense pain or something like that. I don't believe he was Hoed. Rather, I would focus on how this process was reversed. When Raoden drew the Chasm Line and restored the Aon Rao, the Hoed recovered from their condition. This sets a precedent: an Elantrian can regain their mind when they enter the influence of Aon Rao. One of the things which set me down this train of thought were the actions of Shai in TLM, immediately after using her Essence Mark: I don't think it's controversial to say that Shai drew the Aon Rao, modified to match the geography of the Elendel Basin. I also think it's relatively uncontroversial to say that Riina almost definitely had such an Aon, corresponding the Lumarian geography, somewhere in her tower. Let's look at some descriptions. I'm especially intrigued by the, perhaps coincidental, way that last quote compares to the description of Shai standing "in the center of the circular drawing of light." Now, also look at the clue that Hoid gives Tress on breaking his curse. Tress realizes during the final act that this means to bring Hoid to Riina's room, and I don't think that it is a coincidence that the clue is focused on the map on the floor instead of anything else that might be distinctive to the Sorceress' tower. What I propose is this: Hoid's curse is in part broken because he is brought into the influence of the (Lumarian) Aon Rao, restoring his mind and powers as an Elantrian. I'm not saying there's nothing else going on with his curse, just that this may be a factor in how it functioned.

Ah, you've convinced me. I forgot about the appearance of Roseite evaporating, I assume that must have been in TLM. I didn't mean to equate it as one of the Ten Essences, I was more trying to point out the chain of connections from Midnight --> Re Shephir --> Lightweavers --> Spark which seems weird to me. Also, I've taken another glance down the list of the Ten Essences and am thoroughly disturbed by Heliodor/Sinew/Flesh. If that corresponds to an Aether, does that mean there are spores which sprout... meat? Ick.

I was thinking there's a potential connection here too. However, I think that at some point Shai says that the Men of Red and Gold are "hard to control" or something like that, which very much contradicts their description in this story, which made it clear that they were actually easier to direct than the Midnight monsters.

I'm curious, why did you chose tallow to line up with the Midnight Aether? Of the Ten Essences, I think that Vapor (Smokestone, opaque gas/smoke/fog) is most similar. To throw another wrench into things, there's the Midnight Essence which isn't one of the Ten Essences but uses that same word, and produced by Re-Shephir. Shallan's interaction with her implies she has some affinity to Lightweavers, whose Essence is Spark. Though I do agree with you that Spark is the closest to Sunlight. In general though, I'd be cautious drawing these connections since we have 12 (maybe 13 with bone, which would be Talus Essence) Aethers but just 10 Essences, so even if there's a true connection here 2 or 3 Aethers would have no Essence parallel. (Edit just to be clear because I found these words confusing too: Talus and Tallow are not the same. Talus Essence is bone)

Done! I couldn't quite remember if: I can see that interpretation. However, I'm a bit hesitant to place this ~ 1 century or less after the catacendre (as I said previously, I'm interpreting the word "decades" to mean it hasn't been centuries yet since they were "released") because of the level of tech and magic we see. TLM spoilers: This would also place it roughly 200 years before Stormlight, which makes it before Warbreaker as well. Since we see some Awakening applications that certainly weren't around in Warbreaker, I don't feel like that really works out.

That implies Hoid had been in that state for about a year. (Assuming Ulaam was part of the plan from the beginning, which seems reasonable.) Ah, I did miss that detail. You're right, that does mean the defenses Riina set up weren't for Hoid specifically. Slight correction though, it seems like Ulaam came and found Hoid after he was cursed: But I doubt it took Ulaam very long to reach Hoid upon receiving the letter. We have no idea how long interstellar travel takes, but I doubt it's on the scale of decades. So, even if it's been a bit longer than a single year Hoid's curse appears to be a recent development. Now I am starting to wonder if it has any time correlation to the recent war though. Maybe her getting more aggressive after cursing Hoid is what lead to the escalation?

I think we've overlooked a potential line of reasoning in this thread, but it does hinge on one thing; we have no idea when Hoid got cursed. It's possible it was very recent. But it's also possible that it's been decades. (If any quotes from the book contradict this please let me know, I'd be happy to be proven wrong). Riina and Hoid placed some sort of "bet" that Hoid won at the end of the book by returning to Riina's inhabitance. By winning this bet, Hoid seems to have become Elantrian or something close to it. During the entire final act, it's pretty clear that Hoid's proximity is what is making her nervous. It's possible that, to some extent, the extreme security measures that Riina put in place were for the express purpose of keeping Hoid out. After all, she's only become able to monitor Hoid directly since he happened to join a ship that had Fort's tablet. What if she was previously sinking every ship that entered her domain just out of an abundance of caution to keep Hoid out? When Tress tells Riina that she "won" because she overcome the trials set in her way, Riina assumes she's been listening to Hoid. However, the details of the trials actually came from Huck, and Hoid never mentions them. This is a false assumption that Riina makes because of the terms of the bet with Hoid; if Hoid overcame these trials, he would indeed "win." It might be a bit of a leap to say that the trials were built specifically for Hoid, but it's certainly possible.

One of the most fun bits of new magic that I haven't seen anyone else bring up yet is how the Kandra abilities seemed to have progressed. Now that Ulaam isn't constrained to mimicking humans, he also isn't constrained to using just their bones. From what we've seen before, Kandra use human bones as a "scaffold" and have to build the rest of the organs and flesh around them using their own substance. But Ulaam isn't doing that; he's taking body pieces directly from people and utilizing them instead of building his own. This makes sense. If a kandra can steal your bones, why can't it steal your ears too? It's also a bit confusing as to why the Kandra were doing it the way they were before. Why did they digest the whole corpse except the bones if they could have instead kept the fleshy bits of the corpse, wouldn't that have allowed them to transform more quickly and convincingly? I think the most likely reason is that this is somehow more difficult and "advanced." I'm also fascinated by what traits might be preserved in this process. It's confirmed that stuff like the ability to roll your tongue is kept when Ulaam takes said tongue, but that makes sense since it relies on the intrinsic muscular structure of the tongue itself. What's more alarming is when Ulaam is asking for Tress' brain: Can Ulaam access someone's memories if he gets ahold of their brain? That feels like an important and terrifying ability. Another curious thing is the "salves" that he makes. They might simply be applications of his advanced knowledge of the biological sciences. But maybe there's a sprinkle of magic. Or a sprinkle of Kandra. From my perspective, a Kandra looks an awful lot like a big ball of pluriplotent stem cells. What if Ulaam is basically lacing the "salve" with little bits of himself that reconstruct/graft onto injuries?

This has been a connection that's been brewing ever since we got the release of Aether of Night, but we now know for sure that the Midnight Essence produced by Re-Shephir is identical to the products of the Midnight Aether. (SP3 spoiler) For now though, I think we can start speculating on some of these relationships. It seems like, much like the roseite Aether grows crystals, the Midnight aether produces this Midnight Essence and Re-Shephir can somehow produce the same Essence. What stands out to me most is that we have no reason to believe that Re-Shephir requires water to do this. Both instances of Aethers we've seen so far—in Tress and in TLM—have utilized water as a "catalyst". As Ulaam puts it: I'm curious as to what "catalyst" really means. In the magic systems we've seen so far, there needs to be a Focus and an Intent to work the magic. Is water acting as the Focus? The Focus typically filter what effects are produced—in this case that sounds more like the specific spore you're dealing with is the Focus. In addition, this interaction can happen without any Intent at all—natural rainfall can trigger the spores—although Tress demonstrates that Intent can certainly be used to shape their growth. In the chemical sense, a "catalyst" increases reaction speed. However, without the catalyst the reactions could still happen in theory, though in many cases they are so slow that they might as well be impossible. Does this mean it is possible for spores to sprout without water? The idea that water is not necessary for producing Aethers is substantiated by Re-Shephir not appearing to require it in any way. Given this, I think that Re-Shephir most likely grows Midnight Aether because they have another channel to pull Investiture out of the Spiritual Realm: their direct Connection to Odium. Much like Allomancers can pull Investiture directly from Preservation in the Spiritual, Re-Shephir has access to Odium's Investiture. We already have some precedent in this in the Fused, who seem to have a way to get voidlight directly from Odium. So, Re-Shephir requires no water as a catalyst. Next, what exactly is Re-Shephir? The Aethers are still largely unknown, but we get some explanation from Ulaam, also in Chapter 28: It seems entirely possible to me that Re-Shephir is, itself, an Aether. One that inhabited Roshar in the distant past, but became corrupted by Odium. Since "Spren" is a catch-all term for living pieces of Investiture, I think it could potentially be applied to an Aether. In addition, Shallan seems to feel a willingness from Re-Shephir to form bonds, especially with Lightweavers, which lines up with true aethers having "symbiosis." I know it's not much, but that's all the thoughts I have on this so far. I'm excited to see what this community can think up!

Actually, we know for a fact that this is well after Era II. Ulaam is definitely a kandra, Hoid mentions something about Sazed "released them" at least several decades ago: I'd actually argue that it hasn't been too long since their release since Hoid says "over the decades" instead of "over the centuries". So potentially less than 100 years. That said, we have no idea when the kandra will be "released" on the Mistborn timeline, but it certainly hasn't happened yet. Anyway, in regards to the possible audience there are a LOT of details to trawl through, I think you've listed some good ones here, and there are certainly more. Some of them don't seem that helpful but the one that stuck out the most to me was this one: He says the world not their (Linji's) world. I think this might be a strong point to the audience being on First of the Sun.

Ah, nevermind then. Seems like that should be a difficult thing to keep hidden if he interacts with them a lot but he must have his tricks. Also curious to know how he got to the top of the skyscraper in his epilogue.

Somehow I haven't seen this WoB invoked yet: Seems pretty relevant, especially with all the people theorizing that the men of gold and red aren't fully human. I think it's pretty plausible for this to be the group that the Iriali acquired the gold coloration from, or maybe both groups got the golden skin from the same inhuman source. A lot of possibilities here.

Has anyone considered that Kelsier's steelpushing comment might not have been referring to himself? Some of his agents in Elendel appear to be coinshots, and Wax constantly gives people lifts with his ability. If Kelsier were traveling with a Ghostblood member who was a coinshot, it might explain that comment without the need for lying.

This has me thinking: do we know any instances where Kandra have changed their blessings? I know TenSoon obtained the Blessing of Potency from OreSeur, but I can't remember if he ever swapped out his Blessing of Presence for those, or simply had both blessings at once. However, I'm pretty sure that Bleeder must have completely switched her original spikes out at some point, since she is using an unknown metal now and only one spike at a time. If your theory were true, wouldn't switching Blessings make them forget all the memories held in those spikes?

I agree partially with this interpretation, but I don't think Yolen is meant to be the "tranquiline halls" under that context. I didn't say this in my main post, but I believe that Vorinism is meant to be somewhat prophetic/cyclical. Currently, it describes the First Desolation—the arrival of humans on Roshar—from the perspective of the Dawnsingers. However, as you said, Roshar is Odium's training grounds for his future wars in the Cosmere. In this interpretation, wherever humans are sent to next to fight will be the "tranquiline halls" (although I guess they were never kicked out of them.. hmmm).

The first part of this theory is built on information we've had since Oathbringer, and although I haven't seen a post about it myself, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody has made a post in the same vein. For the second part, I need to credit the moderator FeatherWriter, who brought it up in one of the 17th shard podcast (Shardcast) episodes. So I don't think of this theory as very original. I'm bringing together two separate ideas that I think fit together very nicely. Part 1: Vorinism is about the Dawnsingers After Oathbringer, I got a little suspicious about he Vorin faith. I doubt I'm the first one to have these thoughts. Let's list out the core beliefs of Vorinism and see what they imply. Origin of Humans on Roshar and Central Conflict: Long ago, humans lived on the Tranquiline Halls. The Voidbringers, from Damnation, came and took over the Tranquiline Halls, forcing humanity to flee to Roshar. Desolations: The Voidbringers periodically escape Damnation and try to wipe humanity off of the face of Roshar. Eventually, at Aharietiam, humanity defeated the Voidbringers and the battle moved to the Tranquiline Halls. Present Day and Afterlife: Currently, the Heralds fight a war against the Voidbringers in the Tranquiline Halls, joined by the souls of the dead. Now lets relate these beliefs to the what we know about the history of Roshar, and interpret it the way the characters in the book do: Ashyn = Tranquiline Halls, Braize = Damnation Origin of Humans on Roshar and Central Conflict: Humans made Ashyn inhospitable, came to Roshar seeking refuge. They were the first Voidbringers, bringing Odium with them. (You may notice that this doesn't really fit what Vorinism says) Desolations: The Fused escape from Braize when the Heralds break and try to win Roshar back from the Humans. Present Day and Afterlife: ????? No clear connection This is the face-value interpretation that is given by the books. Raboniel even tells Navani that Braize is the place she would call Damnation. But there are issues with it. Let me try to resolve those by flipping some names around. The Tranquiline Halls are Roshar. Damnation is Ashyn. "Roshar" is Braize (I know this one seems weird). This is now a story about the Dawnsingers. Origin of Humans on Roshar and Central Conflict: Humans, the first Voidbringers, come from Ashyn (Damnation) and drive the Dawnsingers out of Roshar (the Tranquiline Halls) and onto Braize ("Roshar"). This now matches up much better with the story told by Vorinism. Desolations: The Heralds reside on Braize to prevent the Returns. (Okay, this is by far the weakest connection made by this version of the story). Present Day and Afterlife: The Dawnsingers now go to fight on Roshar (the Tranquiline Halls) as the Fused after their deaths. After Aharietiam, 9 out of 10 Heralds are on Roshar rather than on Braize. This aligns with the idea that the Heralds are now in the Tranquiline Halls. I know it isn't perfect, but two out of the 3 points align much more closely with the story of the Dawnsingers than with the story of the Humans. In addition, we know that the Hierocracy erased a lot of the religion of Old Vorinism. It's highly theorized that Ishar was behind this. Therefore, it is pretty possible that the creator of the current Vorin faith new about these connections. Also, notice that this interpretation of events sort of places Odium in the role of the Almighty. (Following the first desolation, at least) Part 2: Dalinar's Fate In the first Rhythm of War Reactions Shardcast episode, FeatherWriter brings up this scene from Oathbringer: Featherwriter noted that this was eerily foreboding for Dalinar becoming one of the Fused. And if we interpret this through the lens of Vorinism being about the Dawnsingers, it becomes even more damning. "After the Tranquiline Halls are won back" now refers to the Fused winning back Roshar, after which Odium will "provide for Dalinar another conquest." If you ask me, Dalinar's chances in the contest of champions aren't looking so good.

My mini theory on this is that one of the Sleepless is just being nice. Maybe Arclo?

The dagger might not be strictly necessary. After all, the very first anti-voidlight sphere (from Gavilar) somehow reacted and triggered an explosion without the use of such a dagger. It must have made contact with voidlight somehow anyways. I know this isn't the same as contacting the investure of a Fused, but I think knowing that it isn't necessary in one scenario at least opens the possibilities somewhat. Theoretically, all the anti-voidlight needs is contact with the investure that comprises the Fused's cognitive shadow. We know that one way to make investure leave a gemstone is by breaking it (this works with spren, I think with stormlight? But i'm not entirely sure). I think that if you crushed up a sphere containing anti-voidlight it could conceivably release it. That means throwing them at the Fused and hoping the splatter on impact or something. Other than that, I guess they'd need to steal some Raysium. The Fused bring those spears into combat, so the Radiants could probably nab them if they defeat any.

There has to be something more going on here. These fabrials are still accompanied by dormant spren in Shadesmar, and the anti-surgebinding fabrial was accompanied by a voidspren. That probably means that the spren isn't manifesting fully into the physical realm. Like, maybe only half its investure has taken physical form? Or something else to do with Intent. In addition, the Oathgate spren do seem to manifest as a very shardblade-like material.

Ah yes, here it is: I guess this implies Kaladin's grandmother was the one who provides this distant relationship. I don't know what else to conclude from this, especially since we know nothing about Aesudan's family.

This is something that might have crossed almost everybody's minds during the Hesina Interlude, but I haven't seen a post about it yet. We know from this WoB that one of Kaladin's maternal grandparents was lighteyed: In the Hesina Interlude, she remarks the following in reference to her father: I didn't catch the sword thing in my first read-through, so I'll reiterate what it means. Hesina's father would not normally be allowed to use a sword, but he has been granted an exception. Along with a comparison to a lighteyes that would otherwise make no sense, this is pretty strong evidence that he is darkeyed. This means that Kaladin's maternal grandmother must be the lighteyed one. I don't really have anything to add besides speculation. It seems like Kaladin's grandfather was a darkeyed businessman rich enough to marry somebody lighteyed. Hesina doesn't mention her mother at all in this Interlude, as far as I can tell, so we don't know anything about her. The citylord who Hesina's father bullied is almost definitely lighteyed—even small towns like Hearthstone have lighteyed citylords, and I'm pretty sure they must be lighteyed anyway—so is Hesina's mother of even higher standing? Edit: (additional speculation) the lack of mention of Hesina's mother might actually be significant. Lirin specifically only remarks about whether or not her father is alive. This may be an indication that Hesina's mother is already dead.

We also need to remember that someone told Mraize that Shallan had seen a corrupted gloryspren. That points towards Beryl, yet, as far as we know, Beryl never used the Seon nor had the opportunity—since Pattern admits to the instances of disturbing the box. I guess it's possible that Beryl had her own Seon, though they are supposed to be very rare. However, I think the better answer is Radiant. Radiant killed Ialai, so she was essentially acting as the Ghostblood "spy" in that situation. We know that Shallan sort of wanted to pin the blame on Beryl, since she was the newest Lightweaver and the one whose betrayal would hurt the least. Thus, Radiant could have told Mraize the information about the gloryspren at one point to "protect" Shallan. Let's look at what Radiant says after Mraize repeats the gloryspren information: Radiant is trying to peddle the idea that it's Beryl! This is consistent if she were the one to frame Beryl. This is far from proof though, just what I think the most reasonable conclusion is for the identity of the "spy."

@DracostarA seems to have suggested Voice of Lights first, actually!

Wow, this is a really good observation but also quite puzzling. Does this mean that the cognitive shadows of the Fused are somehow in the "voidlight" state? And that spren like Phendorana are somehow in a "stormlight" state? Otherwise, anti-voidlight or anti-stormlight wouldn't work on them. I think a better answer might be surface area and rate of reactivity. If anti-voidlight and voidlight/Odium's investure need to physically contact in order to react, then their ability to mix is very important. For example, if you're trying to make a really big, fantastic explosion with hydrogen gas, you want it to be mixed well with oxygen first. A piece of wood contains a lot of energy to be released in burning, but it takes several minutes to burn fully because only the surface can react with oxygen. If you had a gas or liquid that held that amount of energy, or a solid that contained its own oxidizer (like most high explosives do) then it would react nearly instantly and cause an explosion instead of a long-lasting fire. (Minute physics actually has a new video that pretty much covers this exact topic, except they compare TNT and marshmallows). That means that, if we think of this in terms of typical chemical reactivity, it makes sense that a solid would react much slower than a liquid or gas (I actually think "Light" is a supercritical fluid from Navani's description, which is a state that has properties of both liquids and gasses, but that's not really important for the topic at hand). Therefore, it's possible that the Raysium dagger was being corroded (and releasing some heat) while in contact with the anti-voidlight, and Navani didn't notice. However, this explanation only works if the Raysium is conducting the anti-voidlight along its surface. If, somehow the anti-voidlight were inside the Raysium then... well I don't really have an analogous situation in real life for that, but it sounds like that should be a condition that allows for fast—and explosive—reaction. Therefore, you would be correct that they anti-voidlight can only react with Odium's investure in the "voidlight" form.

Wait, really? HOPE LIVES! Now that you mention it, Kelsier became a shadow after letting go of a shard's power, so I see where you're coming from. But I don't think I know enough to say for sure if this applies entirely to Teft. I really hope it does, if it means Teft passed on knowing that Kaladin was doing alright.