Killik

I also like this idea and I think there are probably a good number of blades being held by smaller organizations/kingdoms in secret. The list we have of known blades is what the Alethi are aware of, other kingdoms have every reason to keep their true number of blades secret from the Alethi. Also, I think there is more plate in the world than what we see. I think I remember that the plate will disintegrate if its not kept charges? Someone confirm this? It's said to be very expensive to keep a suit of shardplate in working order, but I think this is from the point of view of having to replace the large gemstones as they crack from fighting. There could be any number of suits that have used the same gemstones for hundreds of years which would lessen the expense considerably.

I know that there has been sufficient evidence to show Hoid's ability to use Breath as investiture. Last I knew, there was some doubt as to if he had used the Lerasium bead he took from Scadrial to become an Allomancer. I recall a thread some time ago discussing the scene in Shallan's flashback when a messenger is talking to her father, notices Shallan standing there, and puts some powder in his drink. This was theorized to be Hoid in disguise as he later talks to Shallan and prods her about her investiture and if "spren talk to you". I don't know if this has been confirmed to be Hoid or not but I think is it most certainly someone using both Breath and Allomancy. Hoid is clearly surprised at Shallan's approach. I think this is because he has at least the 4th heightening and should have been able to sense Shallan approach, for some reason he could not. He is disturbed by this and so downs some combination of metals, probably including bronze to double check her for investiture. The reason he could not sense Shallan approaching and so had to show off his multiple magic system ability was Shallan's necklace. I am thinking that at this point, Shallan is subconsciously using investiture and has somehow inadvertently used the aluminum in the necklace to block Hoid's Breath life sense ability. Similar to a copper cloud hides allomancy. Maybe this has been discussed already, but I've been away from the forums a long while and just re-read through WoR. Hadn't noticed the aluminum necklace before.

I think the Heralds have been gathering them, to keep out of circulation. Once the gemstone bonding method was discovered I think the Heralds starting bonding any they found. Has Brandon ever said that you cannot bond more than one blade? Would Herald be different? I imagine if say, Nalan were to be killed, several dozen if not hundreds of blades would appear near his body. A herald bonding the blades would be much safer than a hidden cache someplace.

Yes, but my point was that from the perspective of the author of that quote, they viewed destruction of the other 9 and the presumed survival of the 10th order to be the result of the subterfuge of the 10th order. Essentially they used the other 9 orders to hide themselves and survive or something like that. But perhaps this is a biased opinion and in truth all 10 orders were agreed on the plan and allowed the survival of the 10th order to appear to be at the detriment of the other 9.

As @Calderis said, I don't really see any of the orders as "leading" the others. I think they were more republic in nature. I picture the Bondsmiths as more mediators for the other orders though. Dalinar most certainly would be a battle strategist type, but I suspect there were very non-battle oriented Bondsmiths at times. I think in general they were more the diplomats for inter-KR issues as well as dealing with the leaders of non-KR nations. Again, I see the the Truthwatchers not as leading the orders but as being vitally important advisers due to the future sight thing. I think the Windrunners leadership qualities pertained mainly to battlefield issues rather than leadership in general.

"This act of great villainy went beyond the impudence which had hitherto been ascribed to the orders; as the fighting was particularly intense at the time, many attributed this act to a sense of inherent betrayal; and after they withdrew, about two thousand made assault upon them, destroying much of the membership; but this was only nine of the ten, as one said they would not abandon their arms and flee, but instead entertained great subterfuge at the expense of the other nine." Words of Radiance, Chapter 38, page 20 I've always read this as the 10th order "entertained great subterfuge" in order to survive the assault from non-KRs after the Recreance. But as this is from the perspective of a outsider some 200 years after the Recreance, perhaps the great subterfuge was the 10th order orchestrating the Recreance itself. Perhaps like the Heralds thought that if at least one returns to Braize it will be enough to maintain the oathpact, if only one KR order remained it would be enough to break whatever contribution the KRs had on the desolations to end, but still maintain one order to assist in the rebuilding of the KRs should it be needed. I haven't decided if I am leaning towards the remaining KR order betraying the others and causing the order's destruction, or if they were well-intended and it was more of a democratic decision that the one particular order would remain.

I recall a thread here that quoted a WoB (I think) mentioning how strongly the desolations were tied to the Heralds being released to Roshar. I suspect that prior to the Radiants, the Heralds fought more of a gorilla warfare style. Quick skirmishes attempting to stay alive as long as possible but relatively short desolations. With so few defending Roshar however, even these short desolations were worthy of the name. As the Radiants came into play the desolations grew longer and more destructive. I agree that the addition of the surgebinders made them worse as Odium would have most certainly worked to counter them. This is where I see the voidbinding coming in to play. For all of the desolations though, short or long, they end when the Heralds die and return to Braize. That I think is the key to how humanity survived. The Heralds attempted each time to fight and defeat Odium, but were eventually overwhelmed and returned to Braize ending the fight, leaving some humanity to continue on.

I saw some time ago a thread on Hoid's Lerasium bead and whether or not he has used it as of WoR. I don't recall if there was official word on this. But could he be using a copper cloud to hide his investiture?

After reading through WOK twice and listening to the audio version, I've just noticed this time inconsistency. Ch. 58 - Just after Dalinar finishes quoting WOK to Sadeas Then after a short conversation and Dalinar ogling Navani:

Or is it..... Rey?! Oh wait, wrong forum for that particular theory. I agree, I think it is very highly likely to see Nale chasing down our budding Radiants for one reason or another. Near the end of Lift's chapter she and Nale have this conversation: This seems to really solidify the idea (in my mind anyways) that Nale is not specifically targeting Edgedancers, but all surgebinders. I hadn't seen the Lift excerpt from the newsletter, but that really makes it seem like Nale has taken out quite a number of proto-Radiants already. I think a group of self-proclaimed Radiants in the open will be too much for him not to head that way. I also think we're likely to see a lot more Herald appearances in Oathbringer, as we did at the assassination in WoK.

From what i remember in the books, and a quick look on the coppermind, I can only find one reference to a Horneater 'leader' which is a "nuatoma" - referenced when Rock was talking about shards. If a nuatoma won a shard he would be named king. But if he's fighting to win shards, he would then be a 4th son since they're the warriors and not a leader of the village. So perhaps the Kaluk'i'iki is a matriarch in Horneater society.

Yes i would consider a normal spren having a fully intact 'mind' as opposed to the bonded and betrayed spren having part of their mind ripped out as Brandon put it. I think of it as each normal spren is like an infant, they have a complete mind/brain but it has not been developed yet. In most cases it never will be, they simply function on an infantile level and are drawn into the physical realm by whatever idea created them. The Nahel bond allows spren to develop the mind to the point of advanced logic and reasoning. The spren capable of bonding have the potential to be intelligent or "awake" from their birth(?), but that is not to say non-bonding spren done have that capacity. We don't know that. Each spren could have the capacity of intelligence, but not the ability to bond and therefor they would never achieve that.

Hmm, thats possible but what would the shardbearer think he heard if pattern was talking to him? What would pattern say that would have him run away screaming like that? The times I remember pattern doing this, they've all turned around trying to find who is talking to them. I thought i remembered a WoB saying he could hear the screams because Kaladin was touching it at the same time, but I can't find it now and its possible I'm making that up in my head. Ah, here it is. Blue highlights are from search criteria.

This made me remember Adolin's duel against the 4 shardbearers. When Kaladin preforms the last clap, the shardbearer runs away screaming "I didn't kill you!" This clearly shows that he heard more than just indecipherable screaming which is all Kaladin seems to hear. Renarin is clearly uncomfortable holding his blade, but we dont know if he heard just screaming or something more. If we take the sharbearer's "I didn't kill you!" as a direct and appropriate response to what he heard, it would seem that spren believes whoever is touching it to be their lost radiant. Perhaps if you could somehow convince the spren you are a different person it would allow a healing process to begin? I also like the idea of the different orders needing to be involved. I think that the process would require a knight of the order matching the spren to get anywhere, but I also think that you cannot simply repair the part of them mind that was broken. The WoB states you would have to replace that part, I'm not sure how many spare spren minds are lying around.

The locking mechanism shifted for 3 different blades, presumably from three different orders. This doesn't prove that it would work if all had been alive, but I think the gate would accept any Radiant who has ascended to the point of having a blade (3rd ideal?). It seems likely that with a system of instantaneous travel across the continent, they would have built in some sort of lock/safety precaution to protect Urithiru and the other kingdoms. I feel like if I was a king of one of the connected kingdoms and I went to war with one of the others, a portal to their capital city would be pretty much my first stop for my whole army. The Radiants must have been able to lock them out somehow. I think we'll see them unlock the gates from Urithiru, but it might take a couple books to figure out how.

His parents may not even be in Heathstone still. Lirin spoke of leaving the town, but was too emotionally tied to the people there. The army must have some kind of record keeping and reporting system on soldier deaths. I'm sure word has reached home about Tien at this point. Not sure what it would have said about Kaladin. Death? Deserter? Either way Kal's parents would see it as a loss of both sons and that could certainly have shifted his position on staying put.

Or perhaps said group did follow up on Shallan. As she repressed the memories and her bond with Pattern was weakened, she didn't show any more signs of surgebinding until arriving in Kharbranth. The group could have written it off as a false lead.

I believe this would be the lifeless on Nalthis

I doubt most of them would consider the king's Wit and a highprince on the same level. Just after Kaladin rescues the Kholin army Dalinar thinks: "How would Sadeas respond when Dalinar returned? Would he try to finish the job, attacking? No, Dalinar thought. No, he did it this way for a purpose. Sadeas had not engaged him personally. he had abandoned Dalinar, but by Alethi standards, that was another thing entirely..." Demanding a duel would certainly have been a better option, but at the same time there was nobody around to witness it which seems to be an important item in that particular system. I remember a WoB stating that some of the Knights orders would find him completely innocent, if not laud him for it. But short of that, I dont think he will escape some kind of punishment, if he is caught.

I remember Pattern saying the Stormfather survived the Recreance. But I can't find it currently nor do I remember it exactly. Does it say someplace that he was bonded? This certainly implies he was in danger but does not prove he was bonded. And if some theories are correct that the Recreance was a direct result of Honor being killed by Odium, then the Stormfather would not have been created until that point as he is a splinter. He describes himself as " the memory men create for him, now that he is gone." That assumes that Honor did not create the splinter before he died.

Perhaps they are born with whatever form the mother is in at time of birth. As Elenion said this is probably mate form, but we dont know that she has to stay in this form throughout pregnancy. Maybe you could have a newborn little Voidbringer running around! I feel like dullform would fit well with a rainspren. Windspren for nimbleform. I can't think of one we've seen that would fit with warform, gloryspren?

This epigraph from WoR says one of the orders of the Knights did not participate in the Recreance. I think the fact that "much of the membership" was destroyed is why we dont see a lot of Knights running around still. The agelessness theory fits in with the rest of the Cosmere magic systems too well to not be in the Roshar system. Presumably the 10th order could still be alive with whatever this process of agelessness is. As AnanasSpren said, Brandon got coy about it being the Bondsmiths and possibly Nohadon being alive. I think this fits better than most as it would be easier to hide at most 3 Knights for so long than another entire order.

Heh, going from a particularly smart day to downright dumb. I picture him just stopping mid stride... "Duh... what was I doing?"

I think that is a good assumption. In the clip Ialai describes the emissary's sister as "a touch vapid". Pretty sure that is the word used. This goes along with how Navani describes her later when she and Dalinar are courting in WoR. This, along with Dalinar agreeing to marry her, seems to indicate union took place and the plate would then likely come as a dowry. It would then make sense this plate would go to Adolin as Dalinar already had his.

I'm not sure where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure I read a WoB saying it was not guaranteed that the PoV characters for each book were going to be Knights.