Subvisual Haze

Yeah, now I'm back to leaning towards Szeth's current spren being the same Highspren that he bonded before being declared Truthless. We may be making the mistake of assuming the Highspren to be perfectly united behind Nale's will. Sentient spren do have a degree of individuality even within their particular types (Sylphrena for example seems highly unique in her carefree nature relative to other Honorspren). I suspect Szeth may have originally attracted and bonded a particularly individualistic Highspren that was forming a bond independent of Nale's wishes.

I will be eternally disappointed if the 5th Skybreaker oath isn't "I AM THE LAW"

I actually think Taln appeared next to Kholinar merely because that was the current location of Honor's Perpendicularity. A Herald spawning at the point of the greatest concentration of Honor's investiture seems to make logical sense to me due to the Oathpact being a thing of Honor. We know Honor's Perpendicularity moves around, although we don't know exactly how or why. It does not seem to be linked to the current location of the Highstorm. Jasnah's reappearance at the end of WoR in the Unclaimed Hills was likely because Honor's Perpendicularity was located there at that time. I personally suspect the location of Honor's Perpendicularity has something to do with the moons of Roshar, as Hoid's epilogue encounters with Taln+Jasnah both occurred during the night (Roshar's moons always pass overhead during the night), although this could just be a coincidence.

Only if Rian Johnson is writing the next Stormlight Archive.

I'm curious how the Oathgates work. I believe Brandon has stated investiture is a special form of energy at be converted to different energy states including mass. Is your body being molecularly disintegrated at Gate 1 into pure investiture and then your mind passes through the spiritual realm into a new clone body freshly created from pure investiture at Gate 2?

I'm inclined to believe Dova is Battar merely because we've had such a drought of information about the female Heralds (excluding Ash) that I'm happy to cling whatever minor morsels we're given. Chana: ??? (blind guess of Liss seems popular, but no real evidence) Vedel: ??? Palah: that one old Ardent Shallan spots in the Palanaeum? (would have been a blind guess if not for a WOB) Battar: ??? Dova maybe?

Nale was literally floating in the sky at Thaylen field battle. Why wouldn't it work?

It's the monomyth.

I see a couple of possibilities. 1) There's the possibility that Szeth was just a squire after saying the second oath and was gaining access to gravity surge merely by being in proximity to Master Ki or Nale (like Bridge 4 with Kaladin or that one dude with Shallan). 2) Several spren took notice of Szeth during his training with the other Skybreaker recruits. One of the Highspren may have bonded him in addition to Nightblood offscreen (it's strange this wasn't mentioned though). 3) My personal favorite: Szeth already formed a Nahel bond with a spren wayyyy back in his pre-Truthless days. Speaking new oaths now is merely reviving the dead spren from before (like Kal did with Syl in WoR).

All of the shardholders can themselves see into the possible futures, the quote seems to refer to when a non-ascended human is regularly doing it. See the Mistborn series for a similar example: both Preservation and Ruin can glimpse the future, but only Ruin's power (via Atium) seems to grant humans the ability to glimpse it themselves. I think a similar phenomenon is occurring on Roshar. Sure Cultivation can see the future, but only Odium's surges can enable mortals to do the same. So be suspicious if any mortal claims they can see the future. None of the Radiant surges seem to involve seeing into the future. Both Moelach and the Listener form of power Nightform have an aptitude for seeing the future though (both of which derive from Odium's power) Glys is a Radiant-spren corrupted by Sja-Anat, seemingly giving Renarin access to one Radiant surge (Progression), but instead of the usual Truthwatcher other surge of Illumination, he instead has access to a something like Nightform.

It's difficult to say exactly. I think Renarin has been having 3 separate things occur causing him to "freeze up": Simple partial seizure - diagnosis is pretty straightforward as Renarin mentions unilateral muscle spasms (partial), remaining conscious throughout, and that it can last upwards to several minutes (not absence type). Renarin might hide the truth sometimes, but he doesn't seem the type to flat out make up lies like that when describing his condition to Kaladin, so I suspect as least some of his "freezing" episodes have been seizures. Hearing the screaming dead spren when holding a shardblade Having a vision of the future (via Glys) All 3 of these would look the same to outside observer watching Renarin. While I think #2 is a pretty recent phenomena, I suspect #3 might have been occuring longer than we've suspected though. Even the first scene we see with Renarin in Way of Kings (when he freezes in battle against chasmfiend), I think his freezing there might have been a vision of the future, rather than an epileptic event.

4/5 oaths seems the most plot appropriate. Jasnah is an overachiever and we have suggestions that she has plate of her own in the final battle. Also this earlier blurb in Oathbringer (when the gang was discussing strategy and Jasnah was chastising Shallan for failing to keep notes) Just the way Jasnah deliver this line is classic scholar/nerd One-upmanship. All it's missing is an "Um actually,..." I still find myself doing this accidentally from time to time. Someone implies they're really great and knowledgeable about a topic, you shoot back with a more complicated question/challenge to suggest that your knowledge/skill still exceeds their own. The subtext of this little exchange seems pretty clear to me that: 1) Jasnah herself has shardplate 2) Jasnah is implying to Shallan that Shallan still has a lot to learn and she should stop thinking quite so highly of herself. It would make sense though if she still had one oath level unachieved to leave room open for further character growth. Also, that final oath seems to make Nale nervous...something about Herald powers I suspect hasn't been fully explained yet.

Don't assume historical sources are inherently unbiased. Brandon likes to use misinformation in his works. The author of ES has a clear anti-human bias.

I think he's using the same Voidbinding that Singers use in Nightform. I think it's an effect of Glys originally being a Truthwatcher spren, but then being changed by Sja-Anat into something like a hybrid of Radiantspren and Odiumspren. The result being Renarin has the Radiant surge of Regrowth, but also the Voidbinding power of Nightform, allowing him to glimpse the future. There are a lot of epigraph songs in WoR that seem to make reference to this. Sounds like a perfect match for Renarin's foresight. Blending of Radiant and Singer surges has been promised/prophecized. This seems to have been fulfilled in Renarin/Glys.

It's kind of hard to choose a side when one side is led by Satan but their members are made up predominantly of recently escaped slaves. I'd probably be like Kaladin or Lift, trying to oppose Odium while also trying to avoid killing anyone if at all possible.

I really think he's just a thoughtful introvert with social anxiety disorder. With regards to personality type he strikes me as a fellow INFJ. You can make the argument that he's "slightly autistic", but I find that's not a very good habit to get into with mental health conditions. It's the nature of normal human variability that we're all slightly depressed, anxious, manic, obsessive, inattentive etc. from time to time. Except for Evi noting that baby Renarin took an unusually long time to start talking I haven't really read any symptoms that couldn't more easily be attributed to him just being an introvert or having social anxiety. Or as they like to say with regards to diagnoses in medicine: "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras."

It's weird...at first I would have said "clearly", but more and more I'm thinking he's not really on the spectrum at all, there's just some other stuff personality and developmental characteristics going on that looks superficially similar to autism. He seems quite good at reading and understanding non-verbal social queues in others and in showing empathy to those close to him. He also never really demonstrates any abnormal behavior or speech (when not seeing literal visions of the future), just very withdrawn behavior. We've never seen anything like Steris' marriage contract for example, Renarin seems to have a good grasp on societal norms. He's also not overly fixated on certain behavior patterns and routines, if anything he shows good initiative in pursuing new experiences (trying to master the sword, choosing to join Bridge 4). Mostly I think Renarin is just a "highly sensitive" type, and very introverted/socially anxious. Repeated bouts of bullying and seeing others regard him as "strange" have likely just made him further withdraw from social scenarios.

Cult Recovering

Yeah, I too really feel the theme of the Stormlight Archives thus far has been that anyone who makes a bad turn in their life is unforgivable trash and not at all worthy of our empathy or being offered second chances.

It's strange, but that plotline just didn't particularly interest me, so I spent barely any time considering the matter. I think it's mainly because I didn't (and still don't) understand the full implications of a contest of champions, what the rules governing it are, who exactly stands to gain what, etc. Even throughout Oathbringer Dalinar seems to have little comprehension of the details of the contest and seems to blindly propose it merely because Honor thought it was a good idea.

regarding Kelsier and his lack of (or backwards) character development: I think that might actually be by intent, indicating that current Kel (Cognitive Shadow likely stapled into a new body) isn't a perfect copy of original Kel. While a really close copy, I think you "lose something" when you die and keep going as just a cognitive shadow.

I think the part about Gavilar using the BAM gem to fill other gems with voidlight or voidspren is correct. The actual gem containing BAM itself though probably isn't still in Kholinar though. I think that gem was the one Gavilar gave to Szeth, who in turn hid it...somewhere in Jah Khaved?

The scene in Shadesmar where Adolin is subtly doing everything he can to help a near-catatonic Kaladin keep going was heartwarming (keeping an eye on him, not letting him be the last in line, helping to carry his stuff, trying to invite him into conversations by playing dumb on certain topics, not calling him out him for being kind of a jerk etc.). Adolin is just a wonderfully kind person.

Well, I agree that Moash is a nuanced character with a complicated backstory who still has some good in his soul. Definitely disagree that Kaladin is somehow a coward. The fact that he was willing to back out of the plot at the last minute and stand up against his friend for what he saw as right shows great courage in my opinion. I feel like this exchange between Kaladin and Syl at the end of part 1 of Oathbringer (Chapter 31) was added specifically to clarify what was happening with Kaladin's broken oaths in WoR: I think it has less to do with the black and white nature of swearing conflicting oaths, as in the end Kaladin still broke one of his oaths (to Moash and the other conspirators). Rather everything ties into the Radiant's own deeply held perception of whether what they're doing is right or wrong. Deep down Kaladin thought conspiring to kill Elhokar and lying about it was morally wrong, and had he gone through with it I imagine he would have hated himself forever. Choosing to turn against Moash at the last minute was painful in many ways, but it was the decision that he best thought he could "live with".

I'm of the opinion that the issue which the brokenness circumvents is access. A nahel bond requires a sort of soul-melding of a spren and a human. Almost like a nicer and less destructive version of hemalurgy. The hard part is "breaking the ice" between the human and the spren as it were. Spren are largely in the cognitive realm, and humans are largely in the physical, with relatively little ability to interact with one another. A human having a broken spirit-web somehow makes it easier for a spren to initiate contact with them and start the formation of a nahel bond. I do think there are alternate ways around this roadblock though. Notably I think once a Radiant achieves a true bond with their spren, their squires in turn somehow become more "available" to bond a spren, similarly I think friends and family who are especially close to the Radiant are similarly effective. It's almost like the Radiant/spren's bonded soul becomes a beacon to light the way to further humans for spren to bond with . I think this helps explain why new Radiants seem to cluster together amongst squires or families of existing Radiants.