DracostarA

I think here is where this particular Death Rattle comes into play. 

Quote

I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw. 

Not sure if a baby counts as a willing champion, but if it is agreed to be a contest 'to the death' then if Dalinar fails to kill it, does it mean he forfeits? 

Quote

Is this passage why you thought it could speak? I figured it was somewhat intelligent but more in a Ryshadium than a Chiri-Chiri kind of way, though not entirely sure how big a difference that is. I do forget whether Aviar behave this way.

I believe this is the relevant passage

Quote

She reached over and carefully picked up the chicken, who had begun to let out pained chirps almost like words. Eerily similar to them, in fact.

I also think this was the Terrisman who tipped them off about Axwindeth, as he worked in the Palace, and this could indicate that she was a Ghostblood since it was presumably Mraize who killed him.

I think it was definitely good, but am confused as to whether or not this counted as one of her 'Truths' and she's progressed on her Oaths?

My theory is that she is connected to the Ghostbloods. Since Ulim mentioned that she was found out by another of 'her kind' and had to leave.

In the 'Lift' interlude we find the corpse of a man with a number of rings missing from his hands, who also owned the Red chicken (likely Aviar) which fought with Mraize's Aviar, and was probably killed by Mraize. So I think this dead Terrisman in Urithiru was the one who exposed her before, and as an enemy of the Ghostbloods Mraize put him down.

14 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

I have recently obtained a chain from the lands of the dead, said to be able to anchor a person through Cognitive anomalies.

So the chapter 64 Epigraph is interesting. We finally know about the chain in Celebrant from Oathbringer. 

It appears to have originated from Threnody, but the reference to 'Cognitive anomalies' could relate to Nalthis and the Cognitive Anomaly we saw in its star system.

Quote

 

In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most.

 

So I guess this line from Harmony's letter was foreshadowing of how dangerous a more capable Odium (Taravangian) could be.

Also, I wouldn't assume that Endowment is linked to the Change Dawnshard. On Reddit Brandon confirmed that the Heightening-like effect on Rysn is due to having a lot of Investiture and that any Dawnshard would provide the same perks in that regard.

EDIT: In addition, related to the WoB above:

Quote

Curtis

Could you write something about Dawnshards that we don't/won't know?

Brandon

One Dawnshard is different from all the rest. 

Words of Radiance release party (March 3, 2014)

Could this different one be Passion? One which isn't the same sort of command as the others?

6 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Passion: the will to fight and the ability to destroy

Shards: Odium, Ruin, Autonomy, Ambition

 

I think you're really onto something with Passion and didn't think of it. Brandon confirmed that there was a significance to the way Odium and Ruin spoke about Passion and he confirmed that there would be Shards who did not refer to it that way.

Edit: Found the WoB

Quote

Valhalla

Ruin and Odium, they both talked about their passion, and it was italicized both times. Would any other Shards talk about passion in that same italicized way?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they would.

Valhalla

Would any of them not talk about it that way?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Excellent, good questions.

Idaho Falls signing (July 21, 2018)

3 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

You don’t think Unite is clearly a Command? Dalinar sees glowing words when he hears the way of kings being read by Jasnah. Odium may have thought he had killed a Dawnshard at some point.

Unite

Dominion

Honour

Devotion

Preservation. 

I think it might be true, though I doubt Preservation would be in that grouping.

In addition, an epigraph mentioned something like 'Using the Dawnshard, known to bind things voidish or mortal'. This seems like something a Unity Dawnshard would be capable of instead of one around Change.

On 19/10/2020 at 2:46 AM, Lemiltock said:

On the nothing new for Kaladin, Syl seemed aweful impressed when he split a highstorm with wind spren to protect the parsh. Also his "Fight with the wind" seems more than just windrunner fighting abilities.

I think Kaladin's specialty links to this, and the fact that he is referred to as 'Son of Tanavast' by the Stormfather when no other character has been.

Quote

Winds Alight (paraphrased)

In SA the Stormfather refers to several people as "Child of Honor", but only Kaladin as "Child of Tanavast". Is there significance to that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, there is.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

1 minute ago, TMC29ZX said:

Well, God-priest = Ishar confirmed like "hey guys, it's Tuesday"

This was actually confirmed in Oathbringer.

But I'm glad to know that Dalinar knows that Taravangian and Malata were behind the attack on Urithiru.

3 hours ago, RShara said:

Do you mean Roshar? Because Brandon has said that Vasher has only been to the Physical Realm of Roshar and Nalthis.

The WoB you link there explicitly says that aside from the Physical Realms of Roshar and Nalthis, he has been to places in Shadesmar, which is where sentient Spren live. He would have had to be in Roshar's CR to get to Roshar's Physical Realm, so he must have known about Spren. Whether or not he cared to classify them or told Vivenna the full story in Warbreaker is a different matter.

5 hours ago, MyrmidonOfAchilles said:

Depending on how soon after the Recreance he came, Vasher wouldn't have necessarily had to seen any truespren, let alone whole cities of them, unless he specifically went to the highspren. However long the window was before the spren started appreciably regaining numbers from a near complete genocide would allow for him not to even know they existed.

I don't think it was ever a TOTAL genocide. We know not all truespren want to bond, like Ico and others who presumably have their own lives in Shadesmar. I think there were still a significant number of truespren who survived the Recreance.

Quote

Questioner

Is [Nightblood] like, the Shardblades, kind of thing?

Brandon Sanderson

It is. So, what happened is: Vasher, who was involved in the creation of Nightblood, visited Roshar and came back with this knowledge, and they tried to create something.

Questioner

So he based it off those?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. And they got it kind of right.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 22, 2017)

So Brandon has confirmed that Vasher went to Roshar, most likely post-Recreance with the Shardblades, and wanted to make one himself and that's how Nightblood was created.

1 hour ago, Ventyl said:

He may have visited during the time between the False Desolation and Present day Roshar, when there were either no Radiants or few, excluding the Skybreakers.

I agree he visited during this time, but if he had he would have come through Shadesmar where Spren were still alive and active in their cities like Celebrant. Even if he avoided settlements I doubt he would have got through Shadesmar without at least being aware of sentient Spren living there.

So as you all know in Chapter 15 Vasher mentions how he has reorganised his classification system so that Spren are Type 1 and Returned are Type 2, whereas in Warbreaker he considered the Returned to be Type 1.

However, we know from WoB that Vasher has been to Scadrial before Warbreaker, and the Shardblades were his inspiration for Nightblood. Assuming he travelled via the Cognitive Realm, he should have met sentient Spren, or at the very least been aware of them even before Warbreaker, so why has the change to his classification system come afterwards?

Either this is a continuity error or perhaps he was just reluctant to tell Vivenna about true Type 1s since there was no example of them on Nalthis.

Any thoughts?

A random but fun theory I had is that Adolin might be claimed by a spren of a different order (maybe Dustbringers or something) before Maya is revived, which could be a new issue that's never happened before so humans and spren alike don't know how to deal with it.

Something small I noticed - Scadrial, Nalthis and Taldain are mentioned in this chapter. 

We know in Shadesmar the Expanse of the Densities (Sel), Expanse of Vibrance (Nalthis), Expanse of the Vapours (Scadrial) and the Expanse of the Broken Sky, which I believe has not been confirmed.

I believe this chapter confirms the popular theory that the Expanse of the Broken Sky is Taldain, as all of these Expanses neighbour Roshar's Cognitive Realm and would be the easiest to get to (except Sel because of the dead Shards present).

All I'll say on this topic, is that on Reddit someone speculated sexual abuse as being the source of Jasnah's lunacy and Brandon confirmed 'certain types of abuse I will never cover in my books' so I think it's safe to say that sort of history can be precluded from any theory around any char in the Stormlight Archives.

We've had a number of hints now that something weird is going on with the Honorspren.

 The blurb of RoW says

Quote

no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.

In Chapter 5 of RoW we find that

Quote

Kaladin had lines of men and women ready to advance and say the oaths, but there weren’t willing honorspren to be found. At this point, there was only a single one he knew of who was willing, but didn’t have a bond.

And now in Chapter 9 we have

Quote

The honorspren cannot be trusted, the pen wrote. Not anymore.

from an unknown source.

This raises lots of different questions:

1. What's so special about the single willing Honorspren that hasn't bonded - is it waiting for someone in particular? I doubt it's Moash, but maybe Rock is ready but unwilling to say the Words and be a warrior?
2. Why are the Honorspren suddenly changing? Perhaps it's because no Windrunner has advanced to 4th/5th Oath and they do not trust the honor of humans until someone does? Perhaps it relates to Dalinar using Honor's power now that's causing them to be nervous?
3. Why can they not be trusted? The source from Chapter 9 seems to HATE Navani, particularly for doing things like trapping Spren which the Honorspren approved of. We know they have had wars in Shadesmar, so maybe they're encouraging the trapping of Radiantspren and refusing to bond so that they can conquer Shadesmar with greater numbers than the other Radiantspren?

Does anyone have any other theories about what's going on with them and why?

5 minutes ago, Gderu said:

I don't think it's an addiction, more of an overreliance on it. I would imagine that Kaladin uses stormlight to keep going and ignore his problems, but it doesn't seem like he is actually addicted to it. It's just that without the stormlight, he doesn't have that urge to always move and be active, and that is causing his depression to become more apparent.

Well maybe it's just a matter of semantics, but I'd argue relying on ANY substance to 'keep going and ignore his problems' constitutes an addiction. If we replaced stormlight with alcohol or nicotine in that sentence I think the word 'addiction' would be the first thing to come to most people's minds.

13 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

So the Honor's Perpendicularity being the Highstorm is an appealing idea, but there's nothing in the text that actually suggests that- we see Jasnah enter the PR from what must be Honor's Perpendicularity at the end of Words of Radiance, and she was just randomly in the middle of nowhere, without the Highstorm being anywhere near. Plus, when they're trekking though Shadesmar is Oathbringer, they pass through the Highstorm several times without even discussing the possibility to trying to use it to cross over. And the Highstorm isn't particularly dangerous in Shadesmar. 

And certainly Dalinar didn't summon the Highstorm when he summoned Honor's Perpendicularity. 

I don't think Jasnah came through with Honor's Perpendicularity. I think that was just her using the Surge of Transportation, since Hoid asks her

Quote

Did you need to Elsecall this far out in the middle of nowhere?

So I think it's an ability of Elsecallers as opposed to using a Perpendicularity.

2 hours ago, dgreene196 said:

Of course, as noted, it doesn't last long.  I'd compare it to Dalinar's drinking post-Rathalas.  The Stormlight takes the edge off the depression, overcomes the inability to move, just as the alcohol kept Dalinar from hearing the voices of the dead, but only for awhile.

Eventually, he'll have to find a way to achieve a real balance in his life.

From what I know about depression, medicine helps recovery but only alongside therapy, so eventually you will no longer be reliant on the medicine. Medicine alone is not the solution and leaves people prone to backsliding once off meds, and I think that's what Kaladin has been doing: powering through his exhaustion and dark thoughts by self-medicating and ignoring them, instead of dealing with his issues in a healthy manner. I think part of his arc in RoW will be finally coming to terms with this.

Weirdly enough, Odium assumed that T didn't use Fortune OR The Spiritual Realm for the Diagram. But this is directly contradicted here:

Quote

ShadowSgt

Taravangian. When he made the Diagram he said it was "his brightest day". Would you say that he was more towards the Cognitive realm or more towards the Spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Spiritual.

Oathbringer Portland signing (Nov. 16, 2017)

19 minutes ago, Wax said:

I am going through the re-reads and it made me think whether their was another shard there?  Honor, Cultivation and ???.  The Broken One is Odium.

Another way is it was Honor, Cultivation and Odium and Honor is the Broken One.

no idea which is true though.

 

I agree one of these is the most likely, it's just because Odium doesn't appear particularly 'Broken' and I know Brandon has a habit of being misleading in his foreshadowings that I came up with my theory.

2 hours ago, Harbour said:

Shallan wasnt born Davar. She is the daughter of Cultivation's vessel. She was picked up by Davars when she was very little and their memory was twisted by Cultivation herself so they treat Shallan like the member of the family.

I do believe there is WoB confirming that Shallan is her parents' biological daughter, although there might be other ways Cultivation has influenced her.