Subvisual Haze

You'd have to completely disregard the tone of this WoR epigraph then:

WoR Chapter 51 Epigraph https://coppermind.net/wiki/Words_of_Radiance/Epigraphs The epigraphs in general are a goldmine of plot teases and hints in Brandon's books, so it's really nice to have them all compiled like that.

Someone on these forums also hypothesized that the person named Kazilah in this Words of Radiance epigraph may have been executed by the other Radiants for being corrupted by Sja-Anat as Renarin/Glys are now. It's not beyond reason that Kazilah may have been the Truthwatcher who left the cryptic gem archive message about foreseeing things.

Not necessarily, that is an interesting quote though, thanks for sharing it. The problem is you can read that quote as implying that the nature of spren had an influence on the specific oaths, but not necessarily that formalized oaths always existed. That quote could still fit into a timeline where the spren initially bonded without oaths, or with oaths that were 100% individualized. I'm proposing that Nohadon+Ishi had the effect of basically codifying a standardized oath system (same first oath for all orders, 5 total oaths for each order).

I was actually wondering if it corresponded to Mishim's apogee, as Cusicesh is looking towards the origin at this specific time for some reason in Kasitor. Yeah, it was kind of a guesswork on my part, but I do think it's very strange that only in that one spot (thought internally by Axies) do we see time expressed in what appears to be a traditional 12-hour am/pm system. Maybe I was just thinking about it wrong and this was an obscure hint that Aimians planet hop and thus think about time in a different manner? Or maybe this was an accidental case of an Earth time not being "translated" into the 10-hour day/night bell system we see elsewhere.

I think the oaths are actually a safety layer artificially added to the existing surgebinding system. Surgebinding is just related to closeness of the spren and Radiant and theoretically could very quickly offer the Radiant access to all their powers. I think the oath system was added to prevent Radiants from accumulating power too rapidly or use it in a potentially world threatening manner. I think the timeline roughly goes something like this: Out of control human surgebinder magic unleashes an armageddon-like catastrophe on Ashyn, permanently scarring the planet. Surviving humans from Ashyn are welcomed as refugees to Roshar by the Singers and their gods. I think Ashyn style surgebinding naturally died out without the native Ashyn diseases to offer access to it. Humans and Singers eventually enter a widespread and long lasting war for species dominance on Roshar. Odium takes the opportunity presented to insert himself into the conflict on Roshar (with the ultimate goal of destroying Honor+Cultivation). Honor creates the Heralds and their powers as a way to counter Odium's own eternally living Fused and perhaps Unmade warriors. The spren unexpectedly mimic the surgebinding gifts Honor gave his Heralds to create a new form of human surgebinder to aid in the Desolations. Now the access to surgebinding is linked to forming a bond with a higher spren, rather than linked to diseases as it was on Ashyn. The new Surgebinders are dangerous, as "not all spren are as discerning as Honorspren" per Nohadon in his first vision to Dalinar Nohadon lays down the philosophical basis of re-organizing the surgebinders into orders of Knights Radiant. The in world book Way of Kings not only serves as the moral guidebook for KR, but his repeated central belief about "Journey before Destination" is incorporated into the first oath of all radiant orders. Ishi formalizes the process begun by Nohadon's philosophical theories, makes the swearing of oaths a prerequisite for KR advancement and surgebinding access. The various orders are formalized and all eventually choose to accept an associated Herald as their patron (Nale being the last to do this).

Goofy observation that might tie into further moon/clock connections: Cusicesh always appears in the city of Kasitor at "Seven Forty Six in the Morning". It might be a total coincidence, but roughly between 7th and 8th bell on the clock (assuming 100 minutes in a bell) matches up quite well with the green circle, which we assume to represent the green moon Mishim. Is this a totally random coincidence, or does the timing of Cusicesh's appearance connect to the position of Mishim relative to Roshar?

Random silly idea that suddenly struck my mind: what if Hessi is a pseudonym for Axies (the Collector)? The names actually sound kind of similar when spoken aloud. Also we know Axies has made it his immortal life goal to study and catalogue every type of spren. Theoretically the Unmade would be an important part of that study. That would also explain Axies writing notes about spren on his own skin: he's taking notes for the book(s) he is writing. That would also add further significance to the final Mythica epigraph, which theorizes on whether an Unmade was responsible for the destruction of Aimia.

Szeth's stuff in Oathbringer seems like it was purposefully light, mostly just setting up plot threads for later development. Szeth's first life/arc essentially ended at the end of WoR. Unfortunately I think Book 5 is the one planned to be the Szeth-flashback book, so I don't think we'll have a lot of focus on his character until then.

I've made other arguments on why I think Jasnah+Kaladin will/could end up together, but I think the most important one is simple genre tropes. The Stormlight Archives is a much polished and improved form of an earlier "Way of Kings Prime", several early chapters of which are available on Brandon's website. Now, he's obviously changed a lot since that draft, but I do think it can give us some clues for the wider direction of the story/characters. In that story Kaladin was still the main hero, but he went by the name Merin and he was a much more boring, stereotypical farm-boy. Many proto-versions of the other main characters are present but the two most important for this topic though: Shallan has been replaced by an unimportant red haired stand-in who was not a main story character at all, and Jasnah seems pretty much identical to her current form. Still beautiful, composed, analytical, and appearing emotionally uncaring on the surface but implied to care deep down (particularly about Renarin). In their first meeting Jasnah seems dismissive and distrusting of farmboy Merin, while Merin's first impression of her is as an emotionless ice queen. Now, our generic farmboy fantasy protagonist is basically required to have a blooming love interest, that's just the trope. Brandon in particular seems to love writing in a romance plot for all his main characters. And with Shallan absent in WOK Prime, Jasnah was the only other female main character! Add in that Jasnah is a Princess, and she has disagreeable first encounter with Merin, and all signs point to Farmboy+Princess slowly blooming romance arc. While Kaladin's character has obviously evolved a lot from his Merin prototype, I still think he's on the slow eventual path to falling in love with Jasnah. I actually wonder if the Shallan-Adolin-Kaladin love triangle was added in just to give Kaladin someone to briefly pursue before Jasnah more fully joined the main cast of characters. The fact Kaladin+Jasnah were disagreeable to each other in their first real interaction in Oathbringer is actually a positive indicator, it's basically setting up the usual RomCom arc of 2 people who start being slightly annoyed by each other, then evolve ever closer as they learn more about each other. I think this is significant because both Jasnah and Kaladin are very internally focused characters who often seem severe and uncaring to others who don't know them well.

I think the flashbacks we saw in the books were designed to illustrate the darkest points of Dalinar's past. It was a barebones tragic arc of a man trying to escape a life of violence but then getting pulled back in. Most of the gentler day-to-day scenes would have been cut out for narrative focus. My impression was that Dalinar was actually a pretty good and upstanding man between the birth of Adolin and Evi's death, which was a great contrast to the sociopathic avatar of violence he was before meeting Evi. Evi didn't hate Dalinar or live in fear of him, but rather she was unhappy with the life of war he lead and that the demands of his position limited his time spent with his family. She still deeply believed that he was a good person though. I think it's important that almost everyone close to Dalinar has a very positive opinion of him, and none of them note an enormous personality change after Gavilar's death and the visit to the Nightwatcher. This implies to me that the Dalinar before and after the Nightwatcher visit weren't that different in day-to-day life. Navani, Adolin, Renarin, and even Jasnah all have overwhelmingly positive views of him. So going back to your original point, I think Dalinar and Evi were good for one another. Dalinar seemed like the only character who treated Evi with any amount of respect and kindness while most Alethi seemed to just mock her as dumb foreigner. Evi had an overwhelming calming and mellowing influence on Dalinar. If not for the events of the Rift Dalinar seemed well on his way to finally being free of his past of violence.

I'd say he's general anxiety. He seems afraid and nervous of everything. Taln seems our PTSD example.

A nahel bond between spren and human seems to "anchor" a spren to the location of their human. Syl+Pattern are natively from the Cognitive Realm, seemingly only able to glimpse the Cognitive manifestations of what happens in the Physical Realm, but when they bond Kaladin+Shallan they become tied to their location. When their human is in the physical realm they are largely in the physical realm and seem like they can only wander so far from their human's physical location, also they have a limited ability to physically interact with things. When their human goes to Shademar, they follow them to the cognitive realm and can no longer meaningfully interact with the physical realm. This is strongly implied when Kaladin asks Syl to deliver a message from him to Dalinar (while they are stuck in Shadesmar), but she cannot comply. As for the Cryptics that Shallan saw: I think they see/hear/experience more than just a glowing ball of light. I think if they focus they can "hear" the thoughts or conversations of a particular soul. I believe Shallan was able to get feelings or impressions of individual souls in Shademar when she touched them and focused on them. I imagine those Cryptics were doing the same.

Could it just be that the Alethi women's script lacks a distinct symbol for a question mark? Adding the "-ha" to the end of the word is like a sign of rising inflection to indicate the phrase/sentence is a question? If that were the case, Nazh adding the question mark symbol was likely for Kris' clarity.

thanks for the confirmation on some of the things we were able to guesswork out. The fact that the border text reads "Keeper of Secrets", instead of her traditional title "Taker of Secrets" seems important. Another confirmation that Sja-Anat is a traitor? Also she is "Corrupted", instead of "Corrupter". Now if only I could figure out what is going on with the top border

Rock loves to cook and to act as the personal therapist for Bridge 4 members. He's a perfect Edgedancer. Rock's cooking + Lift's stormlight metabolism = hilarity and awesomeness for all.

Yeah I think the answer to this question is the most simple one: Taln has Taln's honorblade. It is wherever bonded shardblades go when they are unsummoned by the person they are bonded to. The other Heralds all purposefully gave up their blades. Taln eventually "broke" after millenia of torture, but we have no indication that he has abandoned his duty. It stands to reason that Taln is still bonded to his blade and has it in magical storage. I'm guessing Hoid subbed in a different shardblade to redirect suspicion (as multiple witnesses likely saw Taln carrying a shardblade). Why he would want to do that is a complete mystery to me though. Such is Hoid and his inscrutable goals.

It's likely that the tendency towards forming lots of obscure secret societies in general (Diagram, Ghostbloods, Sons of Honor etc.) is an effect of Cultivation's nature.

Windrunners: Passive aggressively stating that you will "protect even those you hate so long as it is right" is not a productive way to resolve interpersonal conflicts.

"Middle book syndrome" and POV multiplication diluting the thrust of the plot are the main problems I think I had with Oathbringer. On the whole it's a great book, and I'm sure it's laying the groundwork for amazing payoffs in later books, but it doesn't stand by itself as well as a self-contained story for me compared to TWoK or WoR.

I agree that the Diagram is doing exactly what it is intended to do. Even its seeming failures and setbacks are part of a greater plan. Unfortunately nobody has any idea what the true plan is, outside of Cultivation. Mr T and the gang read a passage stating that if Dalinar sues for peace they should assassinate him. They try to do this, but fail in such a way that it only encourages personal growth for Dalinar and Kaladin. This sounds like an immediate failure, but maybe the failure itself served a deeper plan? They performed their required role in the play without understanding that they were intended to fail in their task all along. The Diagram plays everyone as unknowing pawns, including Mr. T himself. I think Mr. T getting that past message from himself when negotiating with Odium pretty strongly confirms that everything is still going according to the true plan...whatever the true plan actually is. Everything that appears to have gone wrong has gone wrong in the way it was intended to, else how could the Diagram possibly account for such a specific possibility? I especially liked stupid Mr.T's thought that it was kind of blessing that he met Odium on a stupid day. If he was more intelligent he would have tried to read and interpret Odium's predictions of the future and probably mess up the plan. Because he was slow though, he was able to stay focused on what he needed to do. ...or maybe it's all nonsense and the moral lesson here is simply that the future is inscrutable and the ends never justify the means.

I think this is one very likely interpretation. I would caution against placing too much emphasis on the social roles that the different brothers perform though. Like any society, the Horneaters had to prepare for the possibilities of sudden deaths and changes in the succession. Likely all the brothers were trained to perform the various roles if necessary (leadership, cooking, farming, fighting), but their society and honor results in them embracing their designated day-to-day role of Leader/Farmer/Cook/Warrior etc. There's no reason a 4th son wouldn't know how to cook, it just wasn't his role in society to do so. Same idea with a 2nd and 3rd son knowing how to fight. I also wonder if his brothers somehow did a dishonorable thing. Something about the phrasing of "They raised their weapons in vengeance", implies to me that they might have broken a social rule? If so, Rock's family tragedy is exceptionally bitter. His 2nd and 3rd brothers, who were not supposed to fight, ended up dishonoring themselves by pursuing vengeance, meanwhile he as the 4th brother who was supposed to fight instead resigned himself to the role of cook.

It must be the most crushing and dispiriting thing ever to live on Roshar, the planet where magic powers are given out on a meritocratic basis. Sure it sucks to be one of the normies on a place like Scadrial, but at least you can attribute that to the bad luck of the genetic draw. On Roshar though, it's a direct judgement of you as a person whether you can draw the favor of a spren.

I usually just shorten it to "Jazz" and imagine Uncle Phil throwing her out the front door.

/necromancy After reading this recent WOB confirming a hidden kandra female in Oathbringer I feel like Rial is a strong candidate for the hidden kandra. Maybe Melaan or Paalm on recon assignment shortly before the events of Wax/Wayne? They're the only 2 female kandra we've met and neither would have difficulty disguising themselves as a man. Something about Rial's lazy/casual attitude around authority, fake salutes, love of alcohol, and ability to quickly befriend others (Dalinar seems to enjoy having Rial around) reminds me vaguely of Melaan. The unusual local accent might be a clue too. Other characters that cheat and use magic to translate themselves always sound like they're speaking in perfect unaccented local language. Melaan enjoys using accents though (she trades tips with Wayne about the topic), so I could see her adopting an obscure local dialect as part of her identity. Paalm's a possibility too though. Paalm doing offplanet espionage for Harmony before Wax/Wayne events would help explain how she encountered/was exposed to Trell's influence. Rial is also in a perfect position for kandra espionage, acting as a personal bodyguard to the most powerful man on Roshar. It makes sense that Harmony would want to scout the situation in Roshar after receiving the cryptic letter from Hoid. A Bridgeman is a perfect kandra infiltration target too. They tended to be quiet and didn't get to know one another during their Bridge running days. A kandra assuming the place of one who died in a battle would raise minimal suspicion.