Ciridae

I agree, I dont want her to fully join team Honor and hang out in Urithiru, she should be doing her own thing, giving the singers a third option. I’m also afraid that the singers will come too short in this book, it’s their book and well get lots of listener stuff in the flashbacks, but there are so many characters and so many plotlines to follow that I’m afraid Venlis arc might get a little lost. Like Kal is due for his fourth oath and that will be so big. I’m so excited for all those other plotlines too but I really want Venli to shine and have her awesome moments too. I have high hopes for Rlain povs as well.

Very cool

I wonder how much Plate can shrink or grow according to a person’s size. I mean there has to be an upper limit, right? I’m just imagining a koloss wearing Plate now.

I don't know, I kind of love the build up to getting a new Stormlight book. Oathbringer was the first time I was following the whole process, and with readings at signings, the Reddit updates, cover and art reveals and the entirety of part one being released as sample chapters week by week the wait is almost as fun as getting the actual book. Especially the discussions and speculation after each weeks sample chapters. I’m really, really looking forward to all of this for RoW.

It says “Who’s excited to see the cover of stormlight 4??” under the same post on instagram, does anybody know how close we are to the cover reveal? I cant remember how far ahead we got the cover for OB, but I think most books reveal the cover around a year before release, right?

I also think that if he were able to heal with stormlight the scars would remain, it seems like that part of his past is pretty important to what kind of a person he is today. Its possible he’s not a Radiant and just bonded a normal Shardblade. Does the dead blade make you a lighteyes of the color corresponding with the dead sprens order or does it just make your eyes the light version of the color you had before? I would prefer if this was a continuity error and he was actually darkeyed but a Dustbringer. And I also love the nickname Mink

If I were a sleepless I’d leave my memory cremlings somewhere underground where nobody could find or get to them and only use other types to make up a fake body, or spy on people, or gather food for the memory cremlings. Makes me think of an ant colony with the queen at its heart and specialized workers and soldiers taking care of everything.

I dont think you could permanently age someone up with Growth. Your age is written as a spiritual aspect in your spiritweb, and I think it’s similar to how healing doesnt work when perception blocks it (like with Rysn’s legs and Kal’s brands). I feel like age is probably more immutable that even that, because your spiritweb always knows your age. Even when using magic to alter it like we see with as soon as the influence of that investiture wears off, you revert to your actual age. It might be possible that you could temporarily age someone (or even yourself?) up, if Growth is powerful enough to temporarily overwrite that spiritual aspect. I think that would be a very cool and creative way of using the power. But I think an easier way of using Growth on a person is to grow out their hair or fingernails, which I think is basically what the Fused are doing when they grow out their carapace, only that the carapace is a lot more versatile and has more mass to work with than hair or fingernails. But I definitely agree that what those Fused are using is Progression. I’m not an expert in this but as far as I know the reason we age is that out cells get worse and worse over time at replicating DNA. I know a lot of plants can effectively “clone” themselves and some have lived as genetically identical versions of themselves for thousands of years. Others as far as I understand dont experience cellular senescence and are functionally immortal. I think this coupled with the spiritual knowledge of your age is what makes all the difference between using Growth on plants vs humanoids or animals. If anybody knows more about how plants age and if the weird moving plants on Roshar can even be compared to how plants on earth age, I would be super interested.

My favorite order and the one I would most likely join are easily the Willshapers. The Edgedancers are a close second though, I really like the divine attributes and their powers too.

I like the idea that it has something to do with Ambitions death. We know Ambition died in another system, and we know Edgli did not think highly of Uli Da and knew she would have to be dealt with sooner or later. She even says good riddance about her passing. I could see a scenario where a wounded Ambition fled to Nalthis in hope of getting help from Endowment, but Edgli sees it as a violation of the pact and finishes her off. Another idea I had is that it is an avatar of Autonomy beginning to manifest. A large enough pocket of investiture slowly gaining sapience could be seen as a cognitive anomaly I suppose. I’m not sure how long it takes for Autonomy to create an Avatar, but if Trell is an avatar it seems like it can be done within 300 years. Long enough to be considered a part of the system and not just an event that happens. I’m not super convinced myself, it’s just an idea. I am curious about the timeline for these maps. Do we know when they were created? I think I remember it was said that they were created sometime after MB era 2 and before Sixth of the Dusk but I can’t back that up. Would be interesting to know if the cognitive anomaly is something that already existed during Warbreaker and it just didnt come up during the story, or if it is due to something caused by an event that happens further in the future, maybe during the events of Nightblood. Also, does anybody know if we can expect to get an essay to go along with this at some point? That would be so amazing.

I kind of think that the Oathgates need to be able travel into the CR and the SR for instantaneous travel. So one of the spren could be responsible for going into the CR and the other into the SR. The inky black one seems to fit with the aesthetic of the CR and as far as we know the white pearly one could correspond with the SR. IIRC the white Oathgate spren in Kholinar was corrupted and only the black one was left unchanged, which would explain why the characters were only able to travel to the CR.

Theres a quote from one of the visions, the one in the purelake, that the spren in question is not able to travel far without an ‘carrier’. We haven’t found out what that means yet, have we? Thats the only reference I can think of regarding spren mobility. But I imagine a riverspren probably wouldnt be able to go the the shattered plains for example. Or is it that they could be there on the CR side but they wouldnt manifest on the PR in that area? I dont think we have any idea of how fast the individual radiant spren can move, but we have a lot of descriptions of Syl zipping off to somewhere, which to me implies a pretty decent speed, and we know Wyndle can keep up with Lift when she slides, which is probably faster than running, right?

Ah that’s a shame. Good catch, thanks.

It just hit me that Jezrien probably named Ash after Ashyn. Ash would have been born just around the time humans destroyed Ashyn and had to flee to Roshar. Seems like a thing people might do after having to leave their home planet. Everyone close to her calls her Ash, and I’m inclined to believe that that is her real name and Shalash is just Vorinism making her name symmetrical. Just thought it was an interesting possibility, and it fits with Shin(ovar) deriving its name from Ashyn as well, which I always thought was really cool.

Why did the parshmen know to get angry at people touching their corpses? The listeners had oral histories about humans hacking apart singer corpses to get at the gemhearts, so it makes sense they would hate seeing that. But pre-Everstorm parshmen wouldnt have that. Not even having your wife and child taken from you could cause a reaction like that from the parshmen, Sah says as much. So is it instinctual? Why would it be?

I feel like this is the best solution, I’m happy we’re getting both. He says its 30k, thats about as long as Edgedancer, right? Does anybody know how long the other flashback sequences were?

I think the reason why Dalinar and Szeth hear voices but Vin doesn’t has to do with the amount of investiture they have access to. Szeth exposed himself to prolonged use of a very inefficient Honorblade that channelled dangerous amounts of Stormlight and Dalinar was literally standing inside a perpendicularity when he heard Evis voice. I think both of them were closer and perhaps more Connected to the spiritual corpses too. And we suspect that the borders between Realms are thinner on Roshar because of the highstorms, so that may have been a factor as well. I think Roshar’s purpose was to experiment with life. A big sandbox for Adonalsium to play around in. Yolen stuff spoilers: There is still the question of why the afterlife is weird on Roshar, but I think the answer is just that it’s more likely to become a cognitive shadow because of the sheer amount of available investiture in the system.

In the latest reddit update on Book 4, Brandon talks about potentially replacing Eshonai with Venli as the flashback character. I'm really curious how everybody feels about this, should Brandon decide to actually change it. I know after Oathbringer came out, a lot of people were confused about the choice to keep Eshonai as the flashback character. I personally love Eshonai, and I was excited to see how her flashbacks would contribute to Venlis character arc. But honestly i feel like Venli might really be the right choice in this case, especially with Brandon saying that she is in a far better position to explore cosmere secrets. So how does everybody feel about this?

I think if Rysn were to become a Radiant of any order, Stormlight wouldn't heal her legs. Renarin already tried to heal them in OB. I like the idea of her becoming a radiant though, but I think she might fit the Willshapers or maybe Dustbringers better than Bondsmiths from what we've seen. And there's Chiri-Chiri who's a baby lanceryn. She doesn't need to be able to walk to become a badass Radiant crab-dragon-rider.

I would love if this theory turned out to be true. I don't know how the Iriali would steal an Oathgate but I totally buy that they would if they could. I'll also buy that Cusicesh is looking at Kurth instead of the Origin, but maybe there are other reasons for it. Maybe instead of stealing the Oathgate they stole the spren in an attempt to build a new Oathgate. Odium says that as long as the spren aren't compromised you can rebuild an Oathgate. I think that the inky spren allows the Oathgate to transport into the Cognitive Realm while the pearly spren allows it to transport into the Spiritual Realm for instantaneous teleportation. Maybe the Iriali thought they only needed one spren to build their own Oathgate and decided to steal one. Then when they tried to engage it, (maybe at the time it always shows up at?) it got messed up or drawn I to the physical too far which made it go dumb. There is the issue of people feeling drained after it shows up. I always felt like the faces were the faces in the crowd and by imitating them he somehow took something from the people. But yeah very fun theory even if it's not true.

I think the primary four will be Kaladin or Jasnah with Dalinar, Shallan and Adolin, in and around Urithiru. Im not sure about Kaladin here, he could also be among the secondary cast. He's off seemingly alone in the excerpt so maybe he'll end up getting captured and brought to Marat or something, who knows. I could see Dalinar going on more diplomatic missions while Jasnah does queen stuff in Urithiru. The second three could Be Venli, Vyre and Rlain, each doing their own thing but close to one another. If Kaladin joins then I think Vyre will get the interlude chapters. My pick for the last two are Szeth and Lift. I think Dalinar won't allow Szeth to cleanse the Shamanate yet, he needs their Oathgate and support. Destroying their government won't help with that. I think instead Dalinar is going to send Szeth and Lift across Roshar to find Radiants and to bring them back to Urithiru. They need to find as many budding Radiants as they can. Alternatively, I could see them already having done that in the year gap and Szeth and Lift begin to train the new Radiants in Urithiru.

To clarify, I wasn't trying to say that they would also have truths instead of oaths, but rather that their oaths could be more individualistic than those of other orders. We see a bit of variation in how people in the same order say their oaths with the Windrunners, maybe the Willshaper oaths are even more different from one another than that. But like I said, I don't really think this is true, it's only and idea I had that I thought might be interesting. @SwordNimiForPresident "I will have the wisdom to question my choices, even when I believe they are right" sounds really good too, and I think it would fit the Stonewards really well.

I want to put the idea forward that maybe the Willshaper oaths are very personalized like the Lightweavers'. The Willshapers were said to be the most varied of orders, so maybe they didn't have a very strict set of ideals either. Personally I don't think that's what their oaths look like, and I don't think it would be personal truths like for the Lightweavers, but I just wanted to put the idea out there that the oaths could be a little less straight forward than we think.

I really like your ideas! Especially the first one. I have a feeling one of the oaths will be about accepting responsibility, and putting the needs of others before your own. This is just based on how Eshonai gives up her personal freedom and dreams of exploring the world to serve her people as one of their leaders. It would also work really well with Venli transformation from power-hungry egotist to someone who cares about her people.

Ooh this is interesting. Would the Edgedancer's own stormlight be able to fuel the Windrunner's lashing? Or would the lashing run out once the Stormlight the Windrunner used to lash runs out? I guess the question is do the surges latch on to any available source of investiture automatically like Nightblood or Shardplate or is that just not how they work? Because your idea is really awesome, it would mean that in the reverse an Edgedancer could also slick a Windrunner and they would fall without wind resistance for as long as they had Stormlight.