Ciridae

Interesting that Lirin is a pov character. I wonder if this is going to be something like bridge four in part two of Oathbringer with like a chapter each or if Lirin will have a bigger role.

The ten orders on a flight: The Windrunner listens attentively to the flight crew's safety instructions and spends the flight studying the safety card. In the case of unexpected loss of cabin pressure they would help others first. The Skybreaker tells other people to take out their headphones and listen to the crew's instructions. Gets annoyed at the Willshaper for running up and down the aisle. The Dustbringer is the kid behind you kicking your seat. The Edgedancer switches seats with the Truthwatcher because they asked nicely. They also give the Dustbringer a toy to make them calm down. The Willshaper ignores the seat belt sign and sneaks back to where the crew keeps the snacks and drinks. They spend the rest of the flight looking out the window happily munching on pretzels and drinking dangerous amounts of ginger ale. The Truthwatcher foresaw they would sit in front of the Dustbringer, so they asked the Edgedancer to change seats with them. But they can't get any shuteye because now they're in the seat next to the Willshaper and wake up every time they have to get up to pee from drinking too much ginger ale. The Lightweaver gets up to shenanigans impersonating the pilot and copilot, walking around during the flight casually asking who's flying the plane right now. The Skybreaker is not amused. The Elsecaller is only on the flight to conduct research on human behaviour in confined spaces over longer periods of time. When they get bored they think of ways of improving the plane's design. The Stoneward puts on Avatar, immediately falls asleep, and doesn't wake up until the plane has landed. The Bondsmith is scared of flying and can't wait for the pilot to unite the plane with the ground again. Bonus round for what some of the spren are up to: The Honorspren turns into a tiny plane and zips around the cabin sticking people's plastic cups to their tray tables. The Cultivationspren thinks about the beautiful garden they could grow out of all the luggage on board. The Cryptic humms happily when they realize the airline lied about extra leg room. They then hide in the bathroom and observe human behaviour. They yell "No Mating!" when a couple tries to join the mile high club. The Stormfather grumbles about it not being right that everyone is flying these days.

While reading the op I had to think about Shallan and her personas. At one point she adopts the role of a Brightlady in Kholinar and starts thinking the way the woman would, chastising servants, checking for cleanliness, rethinking her plan to steal the food etc. When she snaps out of it she is terrified. I can't help but feel that it's the same phenomenon that MeLaan experiences impersonating the Governor. I wouldn't get to hung up on whether or not it's identity, but I think it's safe to assume that it has a magical component. Nobody is good enough at impersonating someone that their behaviour and thought patterns change that dramatically in a matter of moments, and Shallan does it accidentally. So even if it's not a matter of identity, I think we're observing the same phenomenon in different characters interacting with different magics. Maybe they are tapping into the Conections the people they are impersonating have? I don't have an answer but I think it's a great observation.

You're right, actually thinking about it, those three things are exactly what differentiates a singer from a parshman. We know the parshmen had their Identity and Connection taken. I think Identity in this context and be called what Eshonai calls soul, and Connection are the songs, i.e. their Connection to Roshar. Pretty amazing that this is from WoR. But yeah, it would be weird if the listeners didn't have songs about what happened to the other singers. And I absolutely agree that we need to find out about all these things in the next book. I find the singers to be one of the most interesting parts of stormlight, both from an ethical and moral angle, and a scientific/realmatic and cultural one.

Eshonai thinks: To me this says that the listeners know that these singers have no spren and that that's the reason they are the way they are. The Last Legion gave up their forms just before Aharietiam if I'm not mistaken. They have an oral history that dates all the way back to when they left behind forms and their gods. The Last Legion was vastly more knowledgeable about forms than current listeners. Why would they assume Dullform, crippling their minds to escape their gods, when they could cast out the spren alltogether, still be rid of their gods' influence, and retain their mental capabilities. I do agree with everything you say about singer children, and the day of first transformation (I like the name birth form by the way). Now, what if, after the day of first transformation, you couldn't be sprenless? What if the only way to expell a spren is by adopting another? In that case the restored singers could be in birthform as you say, without the problems with Dullform that I mentioned above being an issue.

I love singer threads! I'm going to assume that the post-Everstorm restored singers are identical to the listeners in regards to Identity, and Connection, since the Last Legion never got those aspects removed. If that is the case, then the restored singers Kaladin meets in the beginning of OB have to have a spren bond. If they didn't, that would mean that the listeners were wrong thinking that the absence of a spren bond resulted in slaveform. Surely after adopting dullform to escape their gods the Last Legion would have discovered if expelling the spren that gives dullform also got rid of that inhibited form. There's no way they would all stay in Dullform if just getting rid of the spren turned you into a person with the mental capacities of those singers Kaladin befriends. So I think the singers Kaladin meets are either wearing workform or nimbleform or some other new form. About transformation, spren and mindsets, I think the problem the singers have is attracting the right spren in the first place. By WoR they have figured out how to trap spren in gems, but before that, they would probably have to attract the right spren during a storm. I imagine getting the mindset right was a lot more difficult and important back then. Imagine you wanted to turn into artform, you would have to attract a creationspren in the middle of a highstorm.

It would be amazing if we got to translate them ourselves. Maybe not all of them, but maybe one or two like the number code from the diagram in WoR. I love theose interactive parts and riddles in Stormlight.

Hmm I may have been thinking of Demoux then, but good to have confirmation that Felt does have a wife. It's still possible that she is from off-world. The earliest we see him in SA is at the valley, right? No telling how long he's been on Roshar then, might also be someone local. @Invocation I had completely forgotten about the Faceless Immortals, that's definitely another possibility. It's does seem to me like they mostly appear as the people who's body they have snatched, for the woman to have thought of them as monstrous and otherworldly I don't think they could have been possessing someone yet, but she may have seen their "true form" or something. Personally my favorite option is that it was a singer, just because it seems like the most interesting option. Southerners and Faceless we know are on Scadrial, but a singer would be something new.

I would love to see Wayne somehow become a worldhopping kandra. On topic, there is an ardent who uses the world soil as a word for ground that doesn't make sense on Roshar, so he's probably from off world too. And a lot of people have theorized that Rial, Dalinar's bodyguard from one of the bridges is a worldhopper because he's pretty odd. My favorite pick for a potential world hopper is Venli, I think it would be great if she managed to find out how to get Timbre off world and the two go exploring. On that note, there is a broadsheet article from Elendel that says someone saw an otherworldly monster by a pool of water in the mountains. Did we ever get confirmation that it was a masked Southern Scadrial or is it possible that what that woman saw was a singer? Also, am I misremembering or does Felt have a worldhopping wife?

I don't know... It makes sense that the lesser spren are involved somehow, since they show up so regularly. If it weren't for the scene on Notum's ship when Kaladin attracts windspren thinking about the fourth ideal, I would say they don't have anything to do with plate or ideals and are just attracted to powerful Surgebinding by their assisciated order, like when Kaladin made that pocket in the storm to save those people, or when Lift makes a tree grow. But since that scene exists I'm not so sure. I don't like it very much, but I think it's likely that the spren are what that frame is composed of. What doesn't jive with me is that if the joints are actually lesser spen, they must be dead, or asleep or something, since they don't behave like ancient Plate did. Maybe the reason Radiants don't hear screams when touching Plate is that they have only been touching the crystallized Stormlight sections, and the dead or sleeping spren frame is hanging out in the spiritual or cognitive realm. Sad that we've never seen Plate from Shadesmar, I think that could give us some hints.

I think the key are the geometric shapes we see around both Dalinar and Jasnah, as well as the fact that ancient Plate had glowing joints. I think those two are essentially the same thing, and then the gaps are filled with crystallized stormlight. Modern day plate is regrown with stormlight, so that seems like a pretty safe guess. But the stormlight has to know to harden along a mold or frame, and that mold still exists, even if it doesn't glow anymore. So there seems to be an invisible blueprint that exists independently from the actual hardened Plate, that used to be visible and glowing.

Does Trell have to be only one shard? I could see a scenario where one of Autonomy's Avatars absorbed a piece of Ambition for example, in which case the red color of the haze attacking Scadrial would make more sense, since it would be investiture of mixed origins. I'm generally on board with the idea that Trell is in some form Autonomy since we have the WoB saying that what we've named Trellium is from a Shard we know, but I think theres something more to Trell than that.

This made me laugh, I agree On Kelsier, I'd have to agree with RShara, Dustbringer or Edgedancer. I voted Dustbringer, but Edgedancer aren't big softies. Nale said they were elegant, graceful and deadly warriors. And I don't think they were afraid to kill for what they believed was right, especially when fighting for the downtrodden. Sure Kelsier has a bit of a god complex, but he does stand for those who have been forgotten.

I'm saying if the main cast finds out that Mr T and Malata are working for Odium.

You know, I kind of dig that. If that happens this scene would be great foreshadowing: I'm on board.

I would love to see Malata found out and throw down with the other Radiants. I really want to see Radiant v Radiant again as well as a Dustbringer hitting their enemy with everything they've got.

@ND103 I really like that idea! I could totally see that happening. It seems like Yanagawn is being set up to grow as a person and as a king, and that he will be pretty important in the back half as an adult. You're right that he's more likely to be chosen because he's hanging around Lift, and I'd argue that he's even more likely to get chosen because he's a king in the coalition. I'm also way on board with Rlain as Bondsmith, but I also think that we will need an antagonistic Bondsmith. Ishar seems to be setting up for that role, maybe he will bond one of the other two big spren. I think a showdown between Dalinar and Ishar is inevitable anyway, and it would be amazing if Ishar was an Bondsmith with full powers as well. I don't know if I want Navani to become a radiant. I really like her right now, as is. I also think that the apothecary from Way of Kings will turn out to be a Lightweaver. I'm not letting go of that theory.

We have seen Nalan infused with Stormlight several times. But I understand your point that without a Pov of a herald we can't be sure that they feel what a surgebinder feels. Personally though, I find it far more unlikely that a Herald would feel something else, or nothing, than that they would feel just like any other surgebinder infused with Stormlight. Out of curiosity, do you think that they feel something else or are you just saying that we don't know for certain?

@Oltux72 I'm afraid I don't understand your question... The Fused are the only ones we've seen use Voidlight, so observing how they use it is the only way we can theorize how it's usage is different from stormlight. The fact that the Fused and Heralds are cognitive shadows didn't really factor into my attempt at a comparison and I'm hesitant to say that it should. We have a lot of descriptions of how stormlight behaves when inside a human body, and only a few instances where we can observe how Voidlight behaves, and with no pov to show us directly. This is a good WoB to illustrate what I'm trying to say:

I think the difference would express itself in the way the user feels when holding the investiture. Stormlight leaks from your body and makes you want to move, makes you eager to act and use all that energy. When the Fused use Voidlight it looks like its sucking other light into them, in a weird penumbra. When they use gravitation they can't add a lot of lashings on top of each other, or change them as quickly, but they can hold one lashing for much longer than a surgebinder using stormlight could. So I think that Voidlight wants to stick, and tries to stay inside your body. Szeth even says he thinks voidbringers could hold the light perfectly. That's probably not true, but they can most likely hold it for extended periods of time. So maybe Cultivationlight is something in between, it doesn't try to force its way out and it doesn't try to cling.

So I think starspren will either turn out to be the cousin spren to highspren or lightspren. Highspren obviously have a star theme going already, with the stars that can be seen through their rip in reality. Skybreaker are assosciated with the sky too, and starspren are mostly seen in the night sky, so there you go. As for the Reachers, I've always wondered why they are called lightspren. In Shadesmar they are made out of metal, and it's odd that they would have a form in the Physical realm that's not even loosely assosciated with their CR essence. Instead for whatever reason they have an astral motiv, looking like a comet, tiny sun, or planet with rings. Plus, Venli at first thinks that Timbre is a starspren, much like Kaladin thought Syl was a windspren. And stars as a means of navigation fit perfectly with the themes of Reachers (and Willshapers). Personally I like the reasoning for the lightspren better, but I could see it being either of the two. I'm blanking on other ideas for cousin spren for either of the orders, but I feel pretty confident that starspren are one of them. Let me know what you think!

From The Rythm of the Lost: Humans did at one point know, and they did harvest singers. This is where the incredible anger and outrage comes from, that the listeners show when Kaladin wears listener corpse armor. They usually don't even touch their own dead. What's really crazy though is that regular parshmen also show aggression when their dead are touched. It's one of the few things that make the Slaveform singers angry, and they are allowed to take care of their own dead. Isn't that odd? The listeners have their oral histories and thousands of years of tradition, but even the parshmen know not to let anyone else touch their dead.

Yes, in one of the visions (I think it's the weird one with Nohadon) Dalinar notes that the Windblades are far less weathered than they are in present times.

Dalinar and the Stormfather know about Venli resisting Rayse, I think they'll try to contact her rather sooner than later. I think RoW will be the book where it finally clicks for Dalinar that he has to unite not only humans but all sapient races on Roshar. Kaladin has figured it out, sort of, and I'm sure Venli will see it too and interact with the main cast eventually. I don't think anyone has to worry that we won't see enough of team Honor. I would enjoy an infiltration/subterfuge/silent rebellion plot line for Venli a lot, but I don't see how she could do that right under the noses of the Fused in Marat if she's also practicing Surgebinding. So she has to go somewhere else, maybe with her Thaylen singer crew. Also is Timbre going to speak only in rhythms? It's pretty cool, and Venli seems to understand her just fine but I'd rather have actual dialogue.

Well Navani is already designing flying ships, so you're thinking along the right lines. There was a really great thread where these ships and how they would work were discussed at length, I'll see if I can find it later.