Subvisual Haze

haha wherein the Windrunners discover lift and dismiss it as an inconvenience to their gravity negating powers.

Shallan goes back in time to possess her own body and kill her mother, knowing that the resulting mental breakdown will be the only way to temporarily suppress her Radiant powers sufficiently so that Herald Nale does not murder her.

I think the timeskip was especially important for Kaladin's character. Being low-grade barely functioning depressed for several months is pretty accurate for how his type of depression goes, but it would have been miserable for readers to read Kaladin depressed POVs for that whole timeframe. Storywise it's nice to have a "new normal" establish itself before you proceed to shake things up.

Internal power struggle like generations of kandra? It occurs to me that the honorspren Captain Notum really shouldn't have been surprised that honorspren are bonding humans again or that the Stormfather himself had a bond. The heads of Honorspren society may be keeping their people in the dark. Another possibility is that Odium made them a non-aggression offer. Sit out the fight, don't bond any humans, and I won't destroy your Shadesmar civilization. They've spent a couple thousand years building their own civilization in Shadesmar, not everyone would necessarily be wiling to throw that away. They could also be continuing to follow Honor's final instructions he gave while dying (ranting that humans could destroy the world with their unchecked powers).

Makes sense, it seems "Bondsmith" can refer either to members of the Radiant order, or anyone who utilizes the same general set of powers. We also had that Honorspren captain (Notum?) seeming to refer to the Stormfather when he asked "Which of the three [Bondsmiths]?"

Awesome, thanks .

By repeatedly shifting the underlying explanation behind an already Protean character with unstable sense of identity Sanderson masterfully subverts our own expectations with regards to identity. It's turtles all the way down!

Maybe Brandon is just having a meta-laugh at our expense in repeatedly changing the fundamental intent of Shallan's character book after book. From PTSD Shallan with elements of dissociation to "Multiple Personality" Shallan with what he insists isn't actually DID, to what is now apparently intended to be an accurate representational portrayal of DID. At this rate Shallan will develop Morgellons in book 5.

A Windrunner need only fly 45 50 60 combat missions before they are discharged to a non-combat role.

I like it! I was thinking the Windrunner's deference and almost worship they show for the physical Bridge 4 would have interesting effects. From what has been hinted, usually this is a pretty time consuming process in the cognitive realm. The huge number of spren and large amount of stormlight being pumped into this object might serve to speed up the process though.

It would be interesting to see how "them" is translated into other languages. The ambiguity here derives from English specifically using the same pronoun for 3rd person gender neutral singular, and 3rd person plural.

I think Brandon just made a personal commitment to accurately illustrate what living with recurrent depression tends to really be like. In most other media the depressed character would have some dramatic revelation or "cry it out" moment and then suddenly depression is fixed forever. Narratively that makes sense, struggle leading to triumph with constant progress towards the goal is generally what readers find easiest to enjoy reading. That's not really accurate for mental health burdens though, and also is kind of disheartening for readers who themselves have to grapple with a frequently lifelong burden (it's not hopeless, you can get better at managing it, but it's still often a lifelong struggle). I actually think this is one of the main reasons behind the several month timeskip before this book. Depressive episodes do tend to last several months, but reading those months of Kaladin being in dreary funk would be miserable. I think RoW is cutting to the end of Kaladin's month long depressed cycle, and now that he's "bottomed out", he can start getting back to normal and hopefully learning to take care of himself better in future bouts.

Nah, physical dependence on various non-psychoactive substances is actually quite common. Antidepressants aren't addictive, but if you stop taking them all at once you'll get unpleasant physical withdrawal symptoms for example. Or heartburn medications like Prilosec, stop taking them all at once and you'll get nasty rebound heartburn. Addiction needs to have a psychological component, the physical symptoms of dependence aren't actually even necessary for a diagnosis of addiction/abuse. Signs of addiction or abuse would be symptoms such as: escalating dose, continuing to use a substance despite clear evidence of harms, spending large amounts of time thinking about acquiring the substance, and most critically craving. I haven't really seen much evidence of any of those symptoms. The core problem is just that Kaladin is depressed and doesn't know how to fix himself. Without stormlight he'd be basically non-functional, with stormlight he can be just barely functional enough to do his job. His current pattern isn't sustainable, but that's more a problem with his depression, not necessarily a sign that stormlight usage itself is harmful to him.

From WoR She sees "Shallan" as fake because she regards her true/authentic self as this abused catatonic girl who nobody would love.

Physical dependence and addiction are different things. Kaladin displays almost no symptoms of substance abuse or addiction, just physical dependence.

I feel like people are overreading the Shallan formless comment. The simplest explanation is the answer she gave back in Words of Radiance shortly before drawing Veil the first time.

I like that Navani is basically a lore obsessed reader stand-in. Gotta find that one plot detail so I can make my perfect integrated theory of how the magic works. Kaladin continues to be a painfully accurate depiction of living with depression. It sounds like he's been low level depressed for the whole timeskip. Poor Kal, at the very least he needs someone he trusts to confide in. damnation that hits hard.

Dova is part of the diagram, the diagram has a lot of agents.

I think Syl is onto something here. Kaladin's rebuttal is kind of wishy washy, but I think there's a good chance Kaladin never told Moash (or anyone else) about his almost suicide, indicating that an Unmade was messing with him.

It's grasping at straws, but the handwriting being cramped and almost illegible could also make sense for an ancient Herald. Handwriting styles change quite noticeably over time and the Herald might be writing in an older style from centuries past. If not Batar, Paliah is a good possibility too. Both their associated orders seem to focus on scholarly pursuits and would presumably have familiarity with fabrials.

The sleepless are a good guess. The same fabrials that could capture a higher spren could conceivably also capture a sleepless. This is a route of technological development that could potentially exterminate their race. I wonder if it isn't a Herald. Taravangian mentioned that Dova may be the Herald Batar, and we've seen Dova manipulate spanreed communication before to leak the information in the Eila Steele.

I think it's more that even a small amount of Stormlight grants you a degree of protection to the influence of the Unmade. Once he exhausted all of his Stormlight reserves, he was wide open to mental influence. I think it derives from the natural tendency for investiture to resist applications of investiture. It's not absolute protection (we saw Dalinar still being impacted by the Thrill despite using Stormlight), but I think in Dalinar's case that was a function of connection with Odium due to past actions. Kaladin has no innate connection to the Unmade/Odium, but if he's in close proximity of one and without Stormlight he can become vulnerable.

I would guess he had a future vision telling him he needed to be there at that moment and shine his magic flashlight at Moash.

Ooh, great catch, I love this theory. There would have been a time shortly before the Recreance (when the gemstone archive was being written) where the functions of Urithiru were slowly failing but Radiants weren't aware of the extent. It's a perfect window for tempers to run hot and the Skybreakers and Windrunners to nearly come to blows. Being a psychic shield against Unmade influence likely played a huge factor in why the Radiants Orders met in Urithiru, same with the monarchs from around the Silver Kingdoms. (Minus a functional Urithiru, Roshar desperately needs those aluminum lined hats that are coming into fashion on Scadrial to protect their emotions from bad influence!)

Sja-Anat defects and either becomes the new Bondsmith Godspren (in place of the dead Sibling), OR works her weird enlightening touch to bring back the Sibling as something...changed (weird, but not necessarily in a bad way). She also displays the ability to do this to other dead spren. Hunting and capturing the other Unmade becomes a top priority. Dai-Gonarthis with his "take away my sorrow", becomes a central player in both Moash and Kaladin's emotions. Moash/Dai-Gonarthis' "everyone dies eventually" argument ironically helps Kaladin swear his 4th oath. Moash kills Gaz in a dramatic fashion while Kaladin watches. Dalinar mostly serves as an exposition device and doesn't see much action (sorry Dalinar, you finished up your character arc too early!) Rlain finds the lost remnants of the Listeners, meets Venli, becomes a Willshaper.