Subvisual Haze

Szeth is an authoritarian to the core. Only with incredible difficulty would he admit that the last authority he followed was wrong. If Nale hadn't flat out told him that he was losing his mind and he shouldn't follow him, I think the odds were very high that Szeth would have just swore to follow whatever Nale commanded. Szeth follows orders, he was just grasping for a new authority figure to put all his trust in and take orders from, and hit upon Dalinar almost by luck. Szeth hates and distrusts himself, and more than anything wants an authority figure to tell him exactly what to do. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/259-oathbringer-leeds-signing/#e8753

That's true, it may be less of a commentary about Adolin's ability to form relationships than about the generally poisonous and dishonorable nature of the Highprince crowd though. Many people get "betrayed" by friends in the drama of real life, and its not necessarily a mark against the wounded party that they couldn't anticipate it. I'm a little surprised that plotline got dropped so abruptly, hopefully there's some sort of resolution eventually. Jakamav never gave a hint of a reason why he went along with the plan, nothing came of the obviously corrupt judge who refused to call off the match etc.

I think this has less to do with any romantic intention between Adolin and Kaladin, but rather Adolin's comfort and familiarity with men vs. women. Adolin knows how to have deep platonic relationships with fellow men. He has spent the large majority of his life in the overwhelmingly male army, but has likely meaningfully interacted with very few women throughout his life (his mother died young, Dalinar kept Navani at a distance, Jasnah is not very emotionally expressive). He knows quite well how to play the "brother in arms", and quickly makes friends with fellow soldiers. The protective manner he takes around Kaladin when he is sliding into depression neatly mirrors the role he likely often takes with Renarin. More than a romantic angle, I think Adolin has adopted Kaladin as a second brother at this point. In contrast though, Adolin just does not know how to interact with women. His previous romantic relationships were short and shallow, and his current relationship with Shallan also seems emotionally shallow. He likes the idea of being in a relationship with Shallan, finds her beautiful, and wants it to work, but seems to have absolutely no idea how to meaningfully interact/grow with her.

On the one hand the APA DSM-V diagnostic criteria used by every clinician in the country, on the other an editorial written by an MD from 2009? I don't want to get into an academic member-waving contest, but I participate in the actual screening, diagnosis, referrals, and adjustments of medications for patients. Kaladin clearly has major depressive disorder with seasonal subtype. (Brandon states as much in annotations, and notes that his own wife suffers from MDD). This doesn't preclude him from having episodes out of season. The short events we've seen him have are abortive depressive episodes. Without his own actions and the support of Syl+Adolin those likely would have progressed into a full depressive state. This is a mirror of what we do in the real world, patients feel themselves getting depressed and get their meds tweaked or more follow up counseling sessions to hopefully abort the episode before they bottom out. If we manage to get the patient's PHQ score back into the mild range, we consider it a successful intervention, not a sign that our patient somehow doesn't actually have depression. Kaladin also has a distinction in his symptoms: he's using the in-universe equivalent of CNS stimulants in the form of Stormlight. The stuff doesn't banish his depression, but it induces something like a sub-manic state in certain symptoms (energy, concentration, need for sleep etc.) This combined with the underlying sub-clinical depression results in him occasionally presenting what are symptomatically close to rapid-cycling Bipolar-2 mixed episodes (a combination of both hypomanic and depressive symptoms). We would not however diagnose him as bipolar type because he never demonstrated any hypomanic symptoms without Stormlight usage, and in the one instance when his Stormlight was withheld he quickly declined into a classic depressive state. I see similar symptom patterns in real life MDD patients in remission who are taking amphetamines to manage other clinical conditions such as adhd or sleep disorders.

As a clinical pharmacist with a Doctorate of Pharmacy who worked in an inpatient psychiatric unit for 2 years, I disagree with your disagreement. SAD is a sub-category of either MDD or BPD1/2, it's not a disorder unto itself. It has the same diagnostic criteria of either MDD or BPD1/2, just the symptoms follow a certain pattern and light treatment has a more central place in therapy.

He has recurrent depression. The awful truth of depression is that it doesn't just "go away forever" when life gets better. You can have good times, but depression is always lingering in the shadows of your soul, waiting to overtake you. It doesn't even need a good reason to strike sometimes, you can get depressed for absolutely no reason. And you hate yourself it, for not being stronger, you hate that you can't just will yourself to be happy and normal. I've said it before, but Kaladin is an absolutely brilliant fictional portrayal of a person struggling with depression. I love how he keeps straining to carry that burden. I can absolutely understand why people get frustrated with his continued struggles, indeed it's a good insight by the author to the reader into what having depression feels like, it's frustrating as hell.

Some might even say brevity and the ability to present information in a succinct manner is a key component of intelligence!

Does the severed Aes Sedai in question have a strange fixation on smoothing her skirt and spanking others?

I absolutely love Jasnah as a character, the brilliant and outwardly abrasive genius scholar. She is going to be an utterly terrible choice for Queen of the Alethi though. Jasnah is in many ways a great example of what not to look for when choosing a leader. As an individual she is brilliant and competent and high performing. The same personality characters that make her excel as a scholar will make her a terrible leader though. I think this scene from Navani's perspective perfectly encapsulates why Jasnah will make a poor leader: Jasnah is brilliant, and loves working with a very select group of people that can match her intellect, most other people just annoy or frustrate her though. She grows easily frustrated with Shallan. She manages to convey her arguments in the first Radiant meeting in such a way that Kaladin is perfectly motivated...to completely oppose her (this isn't implying that Kaladin is without fault or Jasnah is wrong, but to show that she is not persuasive in the way she crafts arguments and interacts with people). She is full of intellectual skills and battle prowess, but seems very lacking in "soft" social skills. I absolutely love that paragraph I quoted, because the offhand way Navani describes the minor part she takes in her projects is a perfect description of what role a good leader should take. Leaders don't need to be the most intelligent and gifted person in a group, indeed this is secondary as they can't do all the work themselves. What great leadership does require is the ability to assemble other gifted people, get them to work together, smooth over conflicts, and gently/subtly encourage and guide them to excel in their own ways. Jasnah is very much not suited to this role, although it is remotely possible she could learn some of these skills as she is surrounded by many characters who have demonstrated great small or large group leadership skills (Navani and Kaladin in particular, Dalinar and Adolin in a lesser sense).

They don't know what they're doing, and some of them are personality-wise very ill-equipped to act as leaders to other future Radiants. Even Jasnah, who in contrast to everyone else seems to have a firm grasp on what is happening and what she needs to do, is crippled by a lack of interpersonal skills. She is filled to the brim with useful information, but can't seem to share it with others without them feeling like they're being lectured.

Kalak was probably the most generic everyman of the Heralds, and his madness seems to express itself only as fear/anxiety, which we can grasp and understand immediately. Our other Heralds likely had perspectives or insanities that would make them poor POV characters without a backstory to establish them.

The power of the shards can change your personality over time to be more like them. Ati was apparently a kind and generous person, but holding the Ruin shard turned him into an angry crazy person after many millenia. Tanavast also may have become more cold and rule-bound the longer he held the shard. Also, Gods don't necessarily die all at once. Tanavast probably got more confused and erratic as his mind slowly was destroyed.

Right. Tien was Kaladin's innocence, someone to protect, someone who could always cheer him up. I think the important takeaway from this scene was Kaladin realizing that he wasn't even all that interested in Shallan from a romantic perspective. Mostly he was just looking for a friend to cheer him up when he was depressed (a role Syl has largely taken with some sweet moments from Adolin). Right now Kaladin doesn't seem especially interested in matters romantic. That might change at some point, but for the immediate future I think he'll continue pouring himself 100% into Bridge 4 and ignoring any semblance of a personal life (notice how he doesn't have any personal hobbies, doesn't go out with friends unless they drag him out etc.).

They probably use it to refer to most small fur-having mammals. The original natural life on Roshar seems mostly shell and crustacean based (to actually survive highstorms) so names were probably haphazardly given to invasive furry species that didn't fit the pattern. Good catch on them stalking rats though, that certainly implies cats are included in this designation. That gives me hope though! What Kaladin needs more than anything is a pet to care for. In my personal experience a huge number of inpatient psych patients were motivated to get better primarily so they could go home to their pets.

My first thought was a connector chain for a Soulcaster. Perhaps made of Nicrosil to enable normally non-magical people to use it (like the medallions from Shadows of Self).

I think when you heal the stormlight is using your mental pattern of what you believe you look like (like a restore point for a corrupted computer file). Kaladin believes the scars are a part of him. I'm pretty sure nobody else in Bridge 4 lost their tattoos even after using stormlight though. Magic is the cosmere is also pretty sympathy based. The more you stretch an illusion (the less believable), the quicker it will fail. Kaladin can imagine himself being an ugly old man, but on a fundamental level Kaladin can't see himself as someone without a scar, so that part of the illusion quickly breaks down.

Pet incomplete theory of mine, I think some time passed while the gemstones were being put in the wall, however the chronology doesn't quite match the drawer numbering system that was assigned to them by default. Some of the gemstones talk of considering abandoning the tower, while others make it sound imminent. I think there's a chronological pattern to the drawer numbers, but haven't been able to tease it out personally. See this brief blurb between Navani and Jasnah: When Renarin has an intuition that something is up, I tend to believe him. Beyond that though I'm not sure how to get the drawer numbers to sort into a cohesive narrative. I think if you go in reverse order based on the second number in the pair, it tends to makes more sense (starting with x-30 and progressing through x-1), but there's things I'm not perfectly happy with regarding that method either.

Those scars are the turning point of his whole life. Sort of like how Kelsier flaring Malatium near death give him a glimpse of the moment LR Ascended, flaring malatium at Kaladin in a similar circumstance would show him receiving those brands. Kaladin views himself and his whole life as revolving around that moment. I have always wanted to ask Brandon though if Kaladin's Bridge 4 tattoo would finally "stick" if he didn't try to apply it over the scars. If the tattoo was applied next to the slave brand would it still heal away?

Apologies in advance for the very long theory, but I think it ties a lot of events set shortly before the Recreance together. In short: I think Bondsmith Melishi captured Ba-Ado-Mishram inside a perfect crystal to prevent Parshmen transformations, but due to B-A-M being an extremely intelligent UnMade Spren, Melishi needed to use his own bonded spren The Sibling to act as B-A-M's binder/jailer. Doing so both locked the Parshmen in dullform, and caused the gradual failure of Urithiru's fabrial system and stuck both B-A-M and The Sibling inside a perfect gem where they remain currently (Gavilar's!?!?), and releasing one will likely release the other. There's a lot of kind of sub-theories rolled up into this one, but I'll try to put in a couple useful quotes. The above quote was debated endlessly between the release of WOR and Oathbringer. I think myself and many others have speculated that this event related to the Recreance and the dulling of the Parshmen. With our extra knowledge from Oathbringer I'd like to focus on the part I've bolded in the quote though. "The Heralds and their divine duties". In Oathbringer we had clarified (to some extent) what the divine duties of the Heralds were: to bind the voidbringers on Braize and thus prevent Desolations on Roshar. Just as Odium and the voidbringers were bound by Honor, The Heralds and their Oathpact, was Melishi planning to similarly bind another great force here? And if so what would he bind it with? Elaborating on WoR's Melishi event, we have the following extended sequence of Emerald (Truthwatcher) gems from the same drawer of the Urithiru gem archive drawer 30-20: And also note the following probably related comment from an Elsecaller (zircon drawer 20-10): The most straightforward conclusion to draw from this would be: The Radiants captured B-A-M in the perfect gem "Honor's Drop" similar to how Dalinar captured Neragoul in "King's Drop" during the climax of Oathbringer. I don't think this is right though. One distinction I would like to note: Dalinar was able to bind Neragoul in a perfect gem by embracing "The Thrill" emotion that Neragoul encouraged and was drawn to. The important difference here though is Neragoul isn't one of the "thinking" Unmade, it is driven almost entirely by instinct, not plans or thoughts. As such, it can be tricked into putting itself in a gem. Compare that to B-A-M (Hessi's Mythica Epigraph): This presents B-A-M as an extremely intelligent UnMade, probably Odium's second in command, and thus unlikely to fooled into entering a perfect gem prison merely by some Radiant expressing an emotional state. Also, Dalinar required a lifetime of violent events to reach such a close connection with Neragoul, it's hard to imagine Radiants past doing the same. Much like Odium's intelligent spren and fused required the minds of the Heralds to hold them captive, I suspect that B-A-M required a binding spren of similar power to her own to hold her captive long term. We also know that a Radiant spren can hold a voidspren captive inside a gem, as we see Timbre do just that to the voidspren inside Venli's gemheart! We know that B-A-M was successfully imprisoned based on the Singers losing access to voidlight for thousands of years until the Everstorm. Also, BAM's long absence is noted in The Mythica: So not only did they capture B-A-M, but they captured her in such a way that she's been inactive for >2,000 years! We also know that roughly simultaneous to these events Urithiru's systems began to fail, forcing the Radiants to abandon the tower. The failure of Urithiru is linked to changes in the Sibling by 3 Elsecaller records in the Gem Archive (3 zircons drawer 1-1): Those 3 gems in the same drawer clearly imply that 1) the tower is failing 2) its failing is related to The Sibling 3) The Sibling didn't withdraw from men voluntarily, something else happened to it. Whatever happened to it likely continues to the current time, as Stormfather states The Sibling is "asleep". So, to sum up: Melishi was the only active Bondsmith during the time shortly before the Recreance, and I believe he was specifically bonded to The Sibling, the spren essential to the functioning of the great fabrial of Urithiru. When the highly intelligent Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram sparked renewed hostilities and the threat of another Desolation by gifting voidlight to the Singers, the scholarly Radiants committed to a plan to capture B-A-M, a plan involving a perfect gem and Melishi's powers related to the divine duties of the Heralds. They were able to capture B-A-M in a perfect gem (where it remains captive at current time), but doing so somehow locked the Singers in dullform and also put the Sibling to sleep (where it remains currently) resulting in the gradual failure of the systems of the Urithiru and the Radiants abandoning the tower. I think maybe The Sibling and Ba-Ado-Mishram are trapped in the same perfect gem, re-enacting "The Odd Couple" for 2 millenia. Or perhaps The Sibling isn't physically inside the gem, but Melishi somehow has used its power to imprison B-A-M limiting The Sibling's ability to function normally (like Preservation using its mind to imprison Ruin). Either way, releasing one would in all likelihood release the other. I think B-A-M's gem prison is the same gem that Gavilar gave to Szeth. Gavilar's idiotic plan to "return" the Listeners their God, may have been partially motivated by a desire to release The Sibling. The Stormfather (at that time pre-bonding Gavilar to some degree) may have felt that this was an acceptable tradeoff to see The Sibling released.

More than a battle ship, it would more sense as a transport to move people and goods around. The destructive power of highstorms severely inhibit the development of transportation infrastructure like roads/canals on Roshar, and the gates only move to specific locations. Large airships could move a lot of goods or people though, they'd just need a Windrunner or a Skybreaker and some Stormlight to move them to their destination.

Hanging with the rest of the Elsecaller dorks most likely.

When you look deeper Brandon's books have a fairly disturbing perception of morality and justice. They're incredibly focused on the here and now ("always the next step"), and emphasize forgiveness and redemption arcs to an almost absurd degree. There doesn't appear to be any moral threshold that can't be later excused as long as the redeemed character feels bad about their prior actions and tries better from that point onward. Dalinar is a mass-murderer who genocided an entire city, Szeth has the blood of countless victims on his hands, Wayne murdered that shopkeeper, Sadeas' death was seen as a tragic loss by Dalinar, Amaram was extended the olive branch yet again by Dalinar in the Thaylen City battle. I believe forgiveness is incredibly important, but the concepts of penance or restitution or seemingly any consequence for past evils seem completely ignored. Perhaps this is laying the seeds to a future moral clash between Kaladin and his brethren. If Szeth reveals what has been occurring in Taravangian's hospitals, and someone discovers that Mr.T was behind the murder of Eth for the Honorblade does Dalinar still try to forgive Mr.T and recruit him back to the light? That seems to fit the pattern so far.

Graves' Disease (thankfully this is not the case, it would be pretty sad if everyone in Shinovar was suffering from an overactive thyroid gland)

Gods can take a loooong time to die. But during said time they can act pretty confused and irrational. See Preservation. The Heralds were gifted their powers and blades directly from Honor, so they abandoning their blades would have been a huge blow. Ahrietam may have mortally wounded Honor and left a very mentally diminished version of him to limp along until he passed the torch to Stormfather. All things told, the Recreance may in fact have been the best option available to the Radiants at that time. It bought the world thousands of years to catch its breath without the risk of some idiot nuking the planet on accident without Honor around to supervise their godlike powers. Also, you can't really fault the Radiants for their desolation blocking plan failing. By blocking the parsh's abilities to bind, they blocked the traditional pathway that Odium invaded via during the desolations. They can hardly be faulted for failing to predict the Everstorm, it's a completely new thing.

It was an extremely effective writing flourish on Brandon's part. On an objective level I still agree that Moash had every right to crave vengeance on Elkohar. His loved ones were murdered and everyone involved got off with little more than a slap on the wrist. Society offered Moash no legal pathway to address his grievances so he took the direct route to vengeance. And although he made nice efforts at redemption in this book, it must be repeated that Elkohar was an absolutely terrible King who has shown no indication that he would ever abdicate his power. So although Elkohar's death was heart wrenching to read from Kaladin's perspective, I actually may have still been willing to forgive Moash at that point knowing what he had been put through. Flashing the salute at Kaladin was pure undiluted spite though, and instantly swung me into the "Moash is a garbage human being" camp. Such a simple thing, but so emotionally effective. That's good writing! In the following chapters he's pure "banality of evil" made manifest though. Murdering harmless drunk hobos simply because the higher ups asked him to, don't even need a reason like vengeance. Moash is basically an anti-Radiant in character. Radiants as much as anything seem to be guided by a focus on moral self-growth, striving to better themselves by accepting their previous failures. Journey Before Destination! Amaram was one example of a polar opposite of this, he refused to accept moral responsibility for any of his actions and Odium let him escape his guilt. Moash, in a slight variance, seems to have decided that the world is awful, he himself is awful, and standing/striving for anything is pointless. He's not lying to himself about being a hero like Amaram, but he has still embraced the nihilistic void all the same.