Subvisual Haze

Oh do we have a thing on Siah blood being orange? I had been guessing purple/violet blood for either or both types of Aimians. Way back in the very first prologue POV from Kelek he comments on the battlefield being covered with red, orange, and violet blood. Red would obviously be human, orange is singer, and I was guessing purple must be Aimian by process of elimination. Purple blood might also explain the Siah's blue-ish skin tone.

Personally I wonder if the Aimians pre-date Cultivation's arrival on the planet. Native life on Roshar tends to be weird, adaptable to environmental demands, bug/carapace based, and have higher levels of interaction with spren and affinity for the cognitive realm. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Siah Aimians at the very least weren't a smaller native humanoid species that co-existed on Roshar alongside the Singers before Honor/Cultivation and later humans migrated to the planet. The Dysian Aimians are so freaky though one imagines they have to be an artificially created magic entity (like Scadrial's kandra/inquisitors/koloss). I could definitely buy into the theory that Cultivation created them as her intended spymasters.

I didn't make the connection until my second read through of Oathbringer that Taravangian was the one who quite blatantly spells out to Dalinar how spren are captured in gems for fabrials. A few short chapters later Dalinar will use this knowledge to capture Neragaoul. I think my mind skipped over it the first time because multiple characters mention spren being captured in gems throughout the book, and Dalinar misdirects us by specifically thanking Navani after the battle (because the fabrial she gave him had its gems exposed during the battle which jogged Dalinar's memory about spren being captured in gems). I'm actually curious if Taravangian info dumping this information on Dalinar when he did was for narrative convenience, or if Taravangian instructed himself to do so via The Diagram.

A bit of indirect evidence possibly in support... Some very old WOBs mention Navani as being a flashback POV character, but this has since been changed (I believe she was replaced by either Eshonai or Ash). Navani binding the Sibling would actually fit this change rather well. As another Bondsmith she would remain central to the story, but would be excluded as a flashback POV option due to Dalinar already being the Bondsmith flashback POV and each flashback POV book covering a different KR order.

No, when Supreme Leader expresses doubts about his trustworthiness, don't trust him. He is just testing your devotion. At all other times trust him.

Because they're the worst order, they're an authoritarian cult that just follow commands. The head of their cult is a literal insane person who also happens to be a demi-God. Said crazy-person cult leader follows the commands of a different even crazier demi-God without questions. It's a pyramid of nutballs all working under the assumption that their boss must know what is really going on, and whatever they're told to do is the right thing to do. Ishi's insane, Nale's insane, everyone else just follows their lead.

Knowing their emotionally distant pasts makes Dalinar and Renarin's current scenes even more poignant. Just the little stuff like Dalinar showing up at the scholar meeting to give emotional support to Renarin or Renarin putting his hand on Dalinar's shoulder when he's feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world are really sweet and powerful. They're stoic and introverted characters respectively when it comes to emotionally expressing themselves, but they clearly care about each other.

As a corollary, I wonder if a squad of well distributed copper cloud smokers could completely neutralize Odium's yellow detection spren. I also wonder if Hoid seeing through Shallan's lightweaving was him hearing her (presumably subtle) pulses via burning bronze, or if he was lifesensing the amount of investiture she was carrying.

Odium was humanity's God in the same sense that smallpox was my ancestors' disease.

I'm incapable of reading that section without tearing up a little.

I wonder how heavy Stormlight usage would affect pregnancy or the chance of getting pregnant. Stormlight healing seems to work by restoring your body to your self-perception of a healthy state. Recent injuries heal better than injuries from the past, but a strong belief can also impact the healing (Kaladin always has the scars because they're part of his identity, Lopen can regrow the arm because he 100% believes he should have 2 arms). So if Shallan doesn't wish or expect to become pregnant, does Stormlight function like a contraceptive for her? Since "being pregnant" is not part of how she perceives her healthy self?

Her death was horrible, but narratively it couldn't be too directly at the hands of Dalinar or we the readers wouldn't be willing to forgive him. It happening "off screen" also allows Dalinar to struggle with the issue, and entertain the thought that maybe it wasn't entirely his fault and continue to plod onwards under a great amount of guilt. If however he had just ripped Evi's head off during a berserker rage, one imagines Dalinar would have taken his own life afterwards from the overwhelming guilt. Overall I thought Brandon balanced the scene well, Dalinar bears some responsibility for what happened, but there were also enough extenuating circumstances that he's not completely beyond redemption as a character. While I love and agree with a lot of your post, I do disagree with the part I've underlined. I think the flashbacks that we experienced of Dalinar's past with Evi were purposefully chosen to deliver maximum emotional impact, the most impactful and darkest moments of their relationship. We were supposed to get the impression that Dalinar treated Evi and his family 100% like garbage, as this mirrors the mental anguish and self-recrimination that Dalinar himself goes through by being exposed to these memories. I don't think this was at all the full picture though, and viewing it as such fits with Dalinar's self-flagellating way of viewing himself. I anything, I think Evi hated everything about Alethi society that wasn't Dalinar and her immediate family. Her day to day life was probably quite pleasant and content though, especially as it related to her interactions with Dalinar. Dalinar and Evi clearly had an affection for one another. Dalinar thought very highly of Evi and beat himself up over how he didn't deserve her. The fact that Dalinar felt an overwhelming sense of shame after raising his voice to Evi and slamming the door after an argument, and Evi was burning prayers to the divine after the same argument indicates to me that they likely had a relatively conflict-free relationship. If they had an even remotely acrimonious relationship, a little argument + slammed door shouldn't be emotionally impacting either of them to the degree that it did. I think we need to look at the secondary evidence. People don't notice Dalinar becoming a 100% different person after the events with Nightwatcher/Cultivation. Even Jasnah/Adolin/Renarin don't note an extreme personality change. They notice the drunkenness receding, but that's usually about it. Overall, I think "Dalinar the General" (after Adolin's birth) personality-wise was extremely similar to the Dalinar we have now. A little emotionally distant due to the demands of his position, but largely loved by his troops, admired by his children, loved by his spouse etc. He even went to incredible lengths to allow the Rift to surrender before the battle, but fate and being nearly 100% possessed by The Thrill after his near death experience betrayed his efforts at redemption. At his core though I think we can read between the lines that Dalinar and Evi were largely happy with one another.

You'll also notice Adolin's sword was more functional/alive in the battle (whispering her name to Adolin, understanding his intentions when passed to another soldier, summoning in less than 10 heartbeats). I think a similar process is at work there, the "dead" spren's spiritweb is a mess, but bridging the realms somewhat healed her spirit. Hard to say if it was just a temporary process though, as we lack comparison POVs of Adolin thinking about his sword after the battle.

I assumed it was in Braize's Cognitive Realm. Torturing of their minds. The Heralds have been so suffused with Investiture and have been "killed" so many times that they're probably closer to spren than humans. Presumably their true selves are buried somewhere deep in the spiritual realm though, and combining the realms allowed Taln's spirit to temporarily peak through his broken mind. Or like Nohadon said in Dalinar's vision:

Why would he have left the field of battle then, unless to avoid the contest? Did he want to look like a clown to the observing Singer troops?

Agree with this 100%. The Odium's Champion plot line is resolved at this point, and accomplished its intended function. Odium chose Dalinar as his champion, Dalinar resisted Odium, and now Odium can no longer directly lead his armies on Roshar lest he trigger a Contest of Champions that he would lose (as his chosen champion doesn't even support him). Now Odium needs to work through agents instead of directly to accomplish his goals.

Spren seem to feed on certain human thoughts or emotions.

Nothing much right now, but it might grow into something more in future books. In particular I think Jasnah is going to struggle with inspiring and winning the loyalty of her new Alethi subjects and Kaladin may be the person who teaches her leadership (as Leadership is a divine attribute of Windrunner powers). It would also be a nice continuation of Elkohar's arc, how he was becoming a better leader in the end and seemed to be observing/imitating Kaladin.

Dalinar seemed to be saved in the last second by a single gloryspren which gave him a very timely message about the most important step in a journey. Who sent that gloryspren and communicated that thought to Dalinar is another topic though (Nohadon's ghost/shadow seems a good guess).

Well, we know there's a brief time gap planned between the first 5 and last 5 Stormlight books. I could see Moash (or perhaps someone else), holding the gap for a couple years, at least stopping the Fused from respawning for a while. Not a permanent solution, but a play for time.

I know the [expletive deleted] Moash bandwagon is very popular right now, but he might be the best current possibility for holding back another desolation. Moash was given both Jezrien's powers/soul to some unknown degree through the gemmed dagger, and also wields Jezrien's honorblade. I think the possibility exists that he could eventually choose to take up Jezrien's place in the Honorpact? I don't particularly love Moash at the moment either, but that would be one hell of redemption arc. Consigning himself to torture in Damnation as atonement for his wrongs and buying humanity more time to survive.

Oh sure, I phrased that wrong, I meant in the sense that Renarin gets repeated glimpses of the likely future, and thus has frequent moments where he can try to change something and mess up Odium's predictions. This being in contrast to The Diagram, which while brilliant, was a snapshot of possible futures taken at one moment in time.

Renarin saw that Jasnah would attempt to kill him in the temple. Knowing this, he faced his death with acceptance and sadness in his eyes, which was ultimately enough to move Jasnah to pause and feel pity. Little modifications like that can change everything. Brandon touched on this theme in his non-Cosmere short story Snap Shot.

He's the Kwisatz Haderach! A prescient individual like Renarin can react in almost real-time to perceived changes in the future. As such, he is virtually impossible for others who try to predict the future (Odium and The Diagram) to account for. It's the same idea as 2 people burning Atium (you see their future and react, but they see your future and also react, and the result is an infinite fracturing of probabilities as both try to respond to the future action of the other). Everyone should read Dune (God Emperor spoilers)

Ohhhh, it's about duty for Adolin. Adolin was always the dutiful son, and sticking with his betrothal was a case of duty. Suddenly that scene at the end of Oathbreaker where Shallan encourages him to make his own decisions and not just follow his duty to his father/kingdom by becoming King takes on a whole new light.