Subvisual Haze

Not impossible though, the magic system on Ashyn is bacteria/disease based for example. Or you could just overcharge the "healing" of the body and give the patient multiple manifestations of cancer simultaneously. Also, well, "stab them with a shardblade" is probably the most efficient method to kill in 99% of cases anyways. Thankfully mass killing is generally frowned upon by Radiants. Just imagine how much damage Kaladin could do by throwing a Syl spear and immediately returning it to his hand.

I like the way you think, but I would add to it and state the missing piece here is Aimia. Puuli is a Natan native, whose blueish skin and white hair indicates that they are likely a human-Aimian hybrid. The Thaylay people with their long white eyebrows are also likely human-Aimian. This is strange though as Aimia is an island off the south-western coast of the conteninent, but Natan and Thaylenah are on the eastern and south-eastern coasts of the continent. I think The Wandersail legend is the linking element here. Aimian sailors in the distant past circumnavigated the globe, integrated with a lost civilization on near the origin, and later sailed and colonized the east coast of the main continent. The prophecy is really more of a cultural memory of where their people came from. Most of the Aimian civilization was wiped out in the Scouring of Aimia event and the island is now abandoned. Perhaps a large remnant was able to flee across the ocean and further reinforce the lost island.

Lift makes whole plants grow from a seed. Bacteria are alive too. Just target the staph and strep bacteria that exist in your body's normal flora and multiply them rapidly. The endotoxin produced by a large number of lysed strep cells would produce rapid sepsis and angioedema killing the victim from either shock or closed airway suffocation.

It has an identity crisis due to half the cosmere calling it A-lu-mi-num and the other half calling it Al-u-mi-ni-um. The inherent conflict on its perceived Cognitive self results in the dampening effect on magic. One thing I do find interesting though: investiture itself resists or repells the effects of other investiture fueled magic, rather like Aluminum but on a lesser scale. Maybe aluminum is just incredibly invested but inaccessible investiture left behind by Adonalsium.

I don't think you actually cut the the gravitational field, but first reorient portions of it and after that you can apply multiple additional lashes in the same direction or additional directions if desired. See this bit from the Ars Arcanum: "Fractional Basic Lashings are also possible; a half-Lashing can be used to make an object weightless, and a quarter-Lashing to cut its weight in half." Based on the language used and the basic math we can see that the fractional lashes aren't just a static force opposing gravity, they're reorientating part of the object's mass in a different direction for purposes of the effect of the gravitational field. Lash the object 1/2 lash up and, and now we have 1/2 gravity field remaining down, 1/2 up, and no net movement, weightlessness. Lash up a quarter-lash and we have 1/4 mass orientated up, 3/4 remaining down, net effect is half gravity. The object's mass remain's the same, it's the weight (force of gravity on the object, proportional to mass) that is being tweaked. So the general equation is A=F/M. Usually the Force is (standard gravity)*mass. As a result of the two equations mass typically has no effect on acceleration. Mass increases the force of gravity's pull, but also decreases the acceleration of the object by the same amount. Because the lashings reorientate gravity though, the force generated by gravity is redirected or diminished, however the mass in the acceleration equation remains constant.

Sure, the Greeks placed their Gods on Olympus too. Mountains are challenging to climb, but not impossible. A mountain is a good physical symbol of a god that is distant from human affairs, but not nonexistent or completely impossible to reach, just very challenging. It also serves a physical function, making it less likely for Joe Schmoe to accidentally wander into the cognitive realm when looking for a place to bathe.

They need new Herald(s) to lock them in Braize. This will happen at the end of Book 5 and the gap between front 5 and back 5 books will be the gap between Desolations until the new Herald(s) break. I think it will only be 1-2 people max though, causing the relatively brief desolation disruption. Dalinar seems the most likely candidate. My black horse bet is on Moash doing a 3rd act heel-face turn and using the powers he inherited from Jezrien to do the job as penance.

The entirety of Syl+Kaladin relationship theorizing stems from differences in how we individually understand and define the concepts of "relationships" or "love". In the modern world (and Sanderson's books) we have a very holistic and idealized view of what ideal partner relationships should entail. Your ideal relationship should be: your best friend, emotional confidant, object of your emotional affection, focus of your sexual attraction, sole partner in sexual relations, lifelong roomate, financial partner, genetic mother/father of your offspring, and co-parent in raising your children. Obviously this isn't the only model though. Your spouse and/or life partner can be several different parts of this. I don't think Kaladin is literally going to have sex with Syl. That doesn't mean there aren't various other interesting ways their relationship could progress. They already share an enormous amount of emotional intimacy and caring between each other. They're already best friends, emotional confidants, and spend virtually all waking time with one another. They even have a degree of physical intimacy as when Syl gives Kaladin a hug or clings to his arm in Shadesmar. Can you call that true love, or does the absence of sex make this not a romantic relationship? I think the idea of an asexual romance would actually be very interesting to see how it evolved moving forward.

Bah, that's justice! The fallen Watchers had to watch their half-human children be slain en masse, then were chained in the low valleys of the Earth for 70 generations until Judgement Day when they will be cast into the lake of fire. (Book of Enoch) When you fight semi-divine beings, you go big or you go home.

Kierkegaard once noted that life must be lived forward but can only be understood backwards. We see people's ends and judge their life backwards through that bias. Life however is an endless series of choices that you have to make with incomplete information using a flawed personality uniquely shaped by your genetics, family upbringing, societal values, individual circumstances and many other factors etc. In the past Amaram was at least trying to do "the right thing", following his King's lead to resurrect their lost holy leaders. This is ethical from a consequentialist perspective (bringing back holy figures), he's essentially a dumber Taravangian in that regard. Dalinar spent a good portion of his life murdering people because he enjoyed it. What if they both died shortly after the Rift, how would we judge them then? Dalinar lived long enough and had circumstances conspire to give the opportunity for him to turn it all around. If he had died shortly after the Battle of the Rift humanity would have rightly regarded him as a monster. I'm not arguing that Amaram wasn't a complete monster, just that fate takes strange turns. At what point in history can we completely write off Amaram as utterly irredeemable? Hard to say, especially since we lack POV scenes for him.

Sure, but Yolen magics can be replicated in other settings: see Lightweaving. I think the gemstone clue seems intentional.

I have it on a laptop at home. I think there's actually 2 samples online of LoP, one is just 2 chapters, the other is 6? It's a simple word document of like 6 chapters that Brandon briefly shared on a forum but I don't think it's available anywhere at the moment. Or I might be hallucinating it, also a distinct possibility.

That's such a bizarrely deterministic sense of morality. Dalinar literally had a God delete the horrible things he did from his memory so he could develop to be a better person and Szeth was literally razed from the dead by a demi-God Herald and given extensive details on the affairs of world and what was and wasn't true. I don't consider a change of faith and ethics after a literal divine intervention to be a particularly good example of moral "choice" to weigh others against.

I think the long ago shared first couple chapters of Liar of Partinel gave this away (Spoilers, non-canon and old, probably revised, etc.):

I suppose it really does depend if the Fused can exit the body at will, or if Odium can recall them at will. If not a chemical induced coma with life support honestly does seem to be the best long term solution.

He's a tragic character. I feel bad for what happened to him, yet also feel he belonged in a forever jail cell or grave for what he did to Kaladin's old squad. Which is hard in this series though where both Dalinar and Szeth have gotten second chances after some mass-murder. He entered the military service with such fine superior role models as Sadeas (worst human being on the planet who has him fight pointless border scuffles against other Highlords), Dalinar (only feels alive when murdering), and Gavilar (wants to start a catastrophic world war so his people feel more inspired and the angels come back). I got the impression he wasn't a purely awful sadist though. In the brief chapter when Shallan infiltrated his house, he seemed rather kind and fair with his servants. He also did feel some regret over his past actions, and spared Kaladin's life when simple practicality would have demanded he close that loose end. He seemed like an okay-ish person that fell in with a really bad crowd, and seemed to believe that the ends (returning the Heralds) justified his actions, however dark. The fact that both his King and Highlord were shifty Machiavellian types didn't help matters either. When it was revealed his cause and actions were all for naught, he cracked under the psychological guilt and gave into despair.

Capture them, keep them alive but imprisoned as long as possible to break the resurrection cycle. Prolong their lives by artificial means as long as possible. Basically we need to build the Golden Throne from Warhammer 40k

There's a reason Cultivation referred to Dalinar as a child of Honor and Odium. The two are not necessarily opposing forces and can work in tandum. For example Dalinar punishing an oathbreaking vassal who attacked him under the flag of truce while then fulfilling his own promise of retribution. It was morally wrong to burn a city, but simultaneously a perfectly honorable thing for him to do because he was fulfilling an oath to punish oathbreakers. (Also, Sadeas was involved somehow in the attempt on Dalinar's life. The passing comments about his army arriving earlier than expected indicate to me that he was involved in the plot and planned to have Dalinar killed and then torch the city himself to cover up his involvement. He also conveniently oversaw the execution of the scouts who led Dalinar into the trap to cover up even more loose ends.)

100% agree. Poor Dalinar, you completed your hero's journey and character arc too soon.

Based on the Lirin preview chapter: One of the central ideological conflicts of the book will be if it's better for the welfare of the local population to just acclimatize to enemy occupation or actively resist the enemy and potentially bringing great reprisals and suffering on the local civilian population. Lirin and Kaladin will clash on this matter (with Lirin taking the "stop fighting, just heal people" approach). Some kind of tragedy/reprisal will happen, or Kaladin will see the aftermath of a battlefront on the local population, and Kaladin will temporarily become a pacifist like Lirin because "war is hell". Then some deep evil being conducted under Odium's rule will brought to light in a "This is why we fight!" moment, finally convincing Kaladin and Bridge 4 that they need to commit themselves to fighting this war, even knowing the consequences. They need to kill in order to protect.

Thank you for enlightening me that murder is a bad thing, and even more impressively you managed to signal your opposition to genocide without referencing the Holocaust. Moving forward I will no longer advocate for the slaughter of my own species, as this is wrong. It seems rather foolish of me to say such a thing in the first place!

As this book is from Eshonai's viewpoint I expect it to be full of tragedy from the perspective of a heavily oppressed minority. By the end of it I expect I will be seriously considering adopting the "kill all humans" viewpoint.

I could buy Natanatan specializing in engineering and construction. In Hoid's Moon Story he mentioned Natan having very tall towers, and said towers had to be built to withstand the full force of a fresh Highstorm. Valhav is the center of Vorin religion and culture. I guess this would translate to spiritual support of the population and the diverse functions that the medieval church preformed The western non-Vorin countries, I just don't think we know enough about yet to make even abstract guess beyond Makabakam focusing on administration/organization.