Subvisual Haze

Earlier in the story when Shallan was being a little self-important Jasnah directly asked if she had manifested her shardplate yet. Not really proof per se, but would fit with the theme that Jasnah has progressed to that point.

If we assume the loopy drunk demigod is transcribed for us with proper punctuation (which in the real world wouldn't work, but we get to take some liberties when reading a book) I take: to indicate that The Spawning Mother and The Faceless are two names for the same spren. Otherwise they either they should be combined with The Black Fisher into one listed sentence or each name individually given its own sentence and question mark. I think it corresponds to to Sja Anat as she spawns new spren and refers to one as her child when speaking to Shallan (Re-Shepir in contrast just creates temporary illusions/constructs from what we've seen), and her image is of a solid black shadow with 2 white eyes (faceless).

The sapphire gem seemed important. Sapphire is the color associated with Jezrien and the Windrunners. Was the divine portion of his essence imprisoned somehow?

Yes, and it made me sad that conversion didn't go on longer. Jezrien's soul seemed broken in the same way as Dalinar's.

Now that Dalinar has access to a larger portion of Honor's remaining power than any Bondsmith before him had, it seems very probable that Dalinar will figure out a way to use his powers related to Connection to help restore Maya and maybe eventually the other dead spren.

I was actually planning to post this theory later tonight in it's own thread, so great minds must think alike The 3 godspren seem most likely to be Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the spren of Urithiru. Renarin notes that the entire tower is one giant fabrial. Thus it makes sense that simply infusing the gem-pillar in its basement with stormlight was not enough to restore functionality. A fabrial also requires a spren to make the transformation (spren+stormlight=change). Rather than a large number of enslaved lesser spren, I think there was one large godspren which acted as the CPU and caretaker for the whole tower. It also seems like a very appropriate spren for a Bondsmith to wish to bond, "I will bring men together" - a functioning Urithiru would do a great job for that. Current fabrials work by enslaving lesser spren. I suspect that this wasn't always the case though. Spren are drawn and attracted to ideas and change, perhaps the earlier fabrials worked by attracting the necessary spren, then releasing them when the necessary task was done. It's easy to see how that could easily lead to "let's just capture the spren permanently in these gems, then they'll always be available for instant use!". Perhaps this is what went wrong with the godspren of Urithiru, mankind started to regard and treat it like a tool instead of a partner.

Sorry, I was using strain to mean large immigration groups of humans unto Roshar, from which the Herdazians/Horneaters were later genetic driftings. Actually I think I might have been half-remembering an earlier Brandon quote in my thoughts on major waves of humans. The 4 major human language families could definitely be linked to 4 distinct waves of human mass migration to Roshar. Shin (dawnate), Makabaki, Iri and Vorin all seem to have distinct physical characteristics and cultures in addition to their language families. It's also possible though that Makabaki or Vorin might be a cultural fusion or evolution of earlier distinct population groups.

There's a huge difference between just saying the words, and actually being able to live them though. That's actually a disturbing line of thought on further reflection. If we assume the oaths themselves don't fundamentally transform your personality, if Kaladin swore to not overly dwell on the deaths of those he cared about but then found his thoughts continuing to drift in that direction would he be in conflict with his oaths? Would his bond with Syl start to fray? I think it's important to note that Oaths have tended to focus on actions, not thoughts. Like Augstine said "'The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance." You can't just force your thought patterns to change. Oh how nice the world would be if you could though. So while I think you're certainly on the right path, I have to imagine the oath is phrased in more action-focused than thought-focused way.

Ooh, good point.

I actually think there's 2 important processes going on with surgebinding that we sometimes get confused. First we have the spren Nahel bonding with humans, this creates the surgebinding, but it was a dangerous process that could give too much power too quickly (including perhaps the Apocalyptic event that occured on Ashyn). Overlain on top of this though, we have the oath system. I think the really important point to consider is that the oaths aren't a source of power (the Nahel bond gives the power and predates oaths), they are actually "blocks" put in place, to slow the development of individual radiant's powers. I further think this might be the reason why Kaladin (and now Dalinar) tends to dramatically explode with power when they swear an oath. Due to their individual affinity with Honor, all this power "wants" to be used by them, but it's being artificially held back by the Oath system. Once they speak the oath, all that power finally has a release. It's sort of like how the mists wanted to be used by Vin, but they were held back by her spike. With Tanavast out of the picture, Ishi gone crazy and Dalinar holding the remnants of Honor's power who knows how much this system might be modified. Or how much Odium's followers can exploit being able to use the surges without needing to bother with the pre-requisite oaths.

No? We have no indication of that being the case. In fact all signs seem to point to Nohadon being the philosophical drive behind organizing surgebinders into knight orders long ago, with the Heralds later "adopting" their patronage and Ishar adding a structured process to the oath/power process.

"Ah, of course, 'don't be sad about things', why hadn't I thought of this before? It's just so simple!" - Kaladin, sufferer of recurrent major depressive disorder

I think there were a lot of immigration strains of humans. The appearance of the Gods and their spren might be important. I could accept the Shin being the first humans on Roshar though. Perhaps they were fleeing the aftermath of Odium's showdown with Ambition on Threnody/Elegy and Odium "followed" them much later. The darker skinned humans might then be refugees from a post-apocalyptic Braize. Honor's avatar in the visions as well as many of his Heralds seemed to have darker skin tones. The Iri would also make sense as a distinct refugee group based on their very unique belief systems (and hair).

Although he enjoyed bantering with Shallan (sometimes), ultimately I get the impression that the characteristic Kaladin would most desire in a partner is empathy and a healing nature.

One interesting thing about Odium being "a human God" and humans being set up in Shinovar as a Garden of Eden post home planet apocalypse: we can now grasp the historical reason behind why the Shin regard it as unholy to step on the stone of Roshar. Szeth even thinks to himself at one point that this prohibition would be impossible to follow outside of Shinovar and Urithiru (due to only Shinovar having soil instead of exposed rock everywhere).... The Shin taboo against walking on stone is a cultural remnant of their original status as planetary refugees, the purpose of the prohibition was to keep the human refugees inside Shinovar and not encroaching on the Singer's lands (the rest of Roshar).

The essays submitted to the Azish on why they should join the war was brilliant. Lopen teaching his spren obscene gestures- nope wrong finger...no that's your foot. Lift just wandering into Odium's FEAR ME I AM ALL POWERFUL magic skype session with Dalinar. Shallan thinking that all she did was grope an eldritch spren.

The interlude starring the Ardent who loves romance novels Alethi Epics was great. The love triangle was pretty subdued in the book itself, which is fine. Kaladin is a great person, Adolin is a great person, Shallan is a nutty person with an occasional mean streak who tries hard. Kaladin's one true love is Syl. It's hard to imagine he could ever love a person as much as he loves Syl, and that might be a problem for our brooding hero's future relationships.

These are all good guesses, and likely very close to the truth but I worry that they sound rather callous. I agree that from a logical and efficiency standpoint Kaladin would be more effective if he "grew calluses" like his father recommends, but at the same time the fact that he cares so much for his people and the lost is his best leadership attribute. I would say in the real world there is no better characteristic to have in a leader/mentor, than to know that they truly care about you and your well-being. Perhaps it will be something like "I will honor the fallen" (in contrast to just mourning the fallen) or even just a re-phrasing of "I will place the lives of others before death, their journies before their destinations". I think this hits at a very important theme with Kaladin. Almost all of his "failures" as he sees them, were actually successes. Sure, he has seen the death of many under his protection, but almost all of them died with more purpose/hope/happiness than if he had not been protecting them. It was an end, but a better end. Tien knew his brother was there, his soldiers in Amaram's army felt hope and purpose in a pointless war, his bridgemen felt more alive than ever in a hopeless situation, Elkohar finally felt like a hero etc. Even Syl says she first sought Kaladin out because of how he made the soldiers under his command feel. Sizgil makes similar statements in WOK, at first he hated Kaladin for giving Bridge 4 false hopes of survival, but in time came to accept that even if Kaladin couldn't save Bridge 4 he was like a surgeon easing their suffering. I don't want Kaladin to stop caring, but him being able to see the effects of what he's doing on people's quality of life beyond just lived/died seems the most important revelation he can have.

He and Ash may have been an item based on her familiarity with his hands. That would make Taln even more amazing in hindsight if he just sort of followed Ash into godhood to not leave her side. It would also give parallelism with Shallan+Adolin's current relationship.

It seems very likely that Lift also received her boon from Cultivation. Lift recognizes a similar effect in Dalinar, and her request also was so "strange" that the Nightwatcher couldn't manage it and Cultivation chose to step in. Cultivation choosing to hide herself in the same location as the Nightwatcher seems to be working quite well, even Odium doesn't seem to know where to find her. Any sightings of Cultivation can just be dismissed as actually being the Nightwatcher and the speaker just being confused. A confusion that we the book readers had in trying to decipher if Lift went to the Nightwatcher, Cultivation, or if they're the same being.

Very cool, I think they're both variants on the same oath - accepting the failures of your past and using them to improve.

That's not necessarily a fault on Brandon's part as much as an in world phenomena. Roshar likely hasn't progressed enough scientifically to properly name and categorize the underlying force.

Dalinar's arc was fantastic. I love his new oath too, those are words to live by. The moment that made me tear up the most was the return of Taln. After finding out he was tortured for 4,500 years the guy was happy. Happy that he bought humanity so much time. Taln, the truest hero in our world. I'm not a fan of where Shallan's character has gone. "Multiple Personalities" might make an interesting plot device, but it's a very contentious area of psychology. After how realistically Kaladin's recurring depression, Teft+Dalinar's substance abuse disorder and Shallan's prior avoidance mechanisms and panic disorder were displayed, I'm rather sad to see Shallan adopting a Hollywood-ized psychological disorder. Also, if she's set on Adolin now, it would be nice if Shallan stopped being unpleasant to Kaladin. She doesn't even have the thin justification that she's teasingly flirting with Kaladin anymore, at this point she's basically just bullying the poor guy. He's stoic enough to not call her out on it, but the teasing is so one sided at this point that someone needs to tell Shallan to stop acting that way.

She clearly has some level of consciousness, just not "true spren" level. Adolin was also able to summon her at 7(?) heartbeats at a critical moment in a fight, which has interesting implications. Clearly there is a bond slowly growing, but I think Maya will need to be somehow healed in order for things to progress much further.

You might want to check out the end of the book notes about the magic systems. Kris now has a new sentence in there about Adhesion likely being a force related to Atmospheric Pressure. This makes sense. A magical vacuum zone between two objects would make them "stick" together. Similarly, creating an artificial high pressure zone of air in front of him could serve to redirect the winds in a Highstorm. Air flows from high to low pressure areas, a fixed high pressure area would bend the wind around it.