Wandering Investor

There tearing sensation Kelsier feels is his soul being torn to pieces while Ash is having a connection ripped off. I think in this case tear is being used to express horrible pain. But it depends on just how the Heralds are linked. It may be that Jezerain's death actually torn a hole in Ash's soul, which would be similar to Kelsier at that point. But hard to say without knowing the nature of their connections. The Stormfather claims the Heralds relied on each other in Damnation, but its unclear whether that meant that had a spiritual connection that balanced out the pain, or if they just mentally relied on each others presense as a form of mental support.

Navani mentioned that Gavilar was a poor husband, in WoR if I recall correctly, I don't recall any mention of Gavilar being a poor father. Both Jasnah and Elocar...Elhocar...The boy king, appear to have great respect for their father, so I doubt he abused Jasnah. I am liking this theory of being locked up by the ardents for "lunacy". We have the example of Shallan bonding pattern when she was little, so it makes sense that Jasnah could have started this process. Brandon has stated that having cracks in the soul isn't the only way to bond spren, just the easiest/most common. I subscribe to the theory that the flexibility of children extends to their souls, allowing them to easily form bonds with spren. So Jasnah starts to bond Ivory, or another spren, freaks out and tells someone. The ardents lock her up in a room with minimal input (dark and quiet), as research suggest is best for mad people. Jasnah is now locked into a dark room with her imagination and occasional glimpses into shadesmar, a lovely recipe for torture. This would also explain why the ever in control Jasnah freaked when her shadow changed direction at Gavilar's last party. Because it was a childhood trauma come back, something she was not at all prepared for. It would not however explain her hatred for the robbers. I'm inclined to believe that was gained when she was older, although there's nothing to support that either way, beyond it appears to be a hatred without fear, a more mature adult feeling than that of a child. Boy King = Elhokar, had to look that one up.

I think the term Higher Spren is the one used in the books somewhere(Syl talking about the void spren I think), although Radiant spren works too. As for Teft and his spren, I think we have enough to guess. Teft hates himself, is insecure or perhaps very secure about his lack of value, and thinks he deserved the worse. The few comments from the spren show her urging him to set up and be a hero. So again we have a spren providing for a flaw within the radiant.

2 explanations. The first is that the was a man named Patji that Autonomy ascended, along with other people representing the islands, and he allows the island to act as a representation of him. The second is that not every god Autonomy plays at is an actual person. For example, one person on Sixth of the Dusk's planet was ascended, and then created/infiltrated the island religion. So there's one/several mind(s) to watch over the planet, and a larger number of gods that are worshiped.

That's such an epic idea! Multiple vessels could explain autonomous personalities while still being Autonomy, haven't seen this one before.

Spoilery stuff. Read the Liar of Partinel chapters(1-6) that are available to find out more, but keep in mind its non canon and subject to change...... I just looked for them and they appear to have been moved. I'm not sure how much else I can say though. To address the original topic, everything points towards Hoid trying to fix Adonalisium, but because of that we all assume Brandon is going to throw a curve ball.

@The One Who Connects Reading that actually reminds me of another time when that occurred. When Odium first attacked Ambition near Threnody, he sliced off some of Ambition's power. So not so much a unique event. But back to Leyrann's original query, the Everstorm still wouldn't likely drain the Highstorm. Previous examples of Shards taking away other shard's powers involves a direct Shardic attack. Also, the SF likely would have commented if the Everstorm interfered with the Highstorm in any way.

Not likely, as stormlight just fades and makes its way back to the source. So far as I know, Shards generally can't steal other shards investitures. The only example of this is Preservation and Ruin, but I'm inclined to believe that was a unique event. If this were the case we'd see stormlight being absorbed during the everstorm. Important thing to remember here is that the Highstorm is the conduit, not the actual source. And as for attacking the highstorm itself, any times the storm cross path they only get stronger, not weaker.

Depends on what the Highstorms were like before Honor was around. Brandon has stated that the Highstorm was significantly changed during the last few thousand years. I think this is most likely Honor meddling with it and connecting the storm to him in order to supply (larger qualities?) stormlight. And while Honor is dead, and his corpse is broken into pieces, its still around. The SF could still be connected to a portion of Honor's power and still supply stormlight that way. But to know for sure, we'd have to know what the highstorms were like before H&C, what they were like during Honor, and compare that to now. And Sja-anat seems to be limited to what spren she can corrupt, and I doubt the SF has any reason to fear her. Well, he might fear what she'll do to his "children", but not him directly.

I was under the interpretation that Investiture comes from all three realms. Everything at its most basic level is investiture. Its just that channeling investiture, aka magic, tends to be powered by a Shard, and their power resides mostly in the spiritual realm. One important note on a focus is that it is an in-world attempt at understanding how magic works, so it may not be a perfect term, and we could potentially see it used in different ways. Anyways, a focus is the instructional mechanism for what the magic is suppose to do. Metals on Scadrial for instance, their chemical makeup acts as a filter/guide on what power is suppose to be used. Similar to how the shapes Elantrians draw act as a filter/guide/instructions for what the Dor is suppose to do. Same thing with commands on Nalthis. Traits within the spiritweb are what allow someone to tap into a magic system, not the focus. The focus just helps shape what the power will do. The problem is that the term focus doesn't always translate well into all magic systems. Surgebinding for instance. Which spren you bond determines your surges, hence the spren being considered the focus. But each KR has at least two powers to use, and that's controlled mentally, so there isn't really a focus for that particular part of the magic system. Unless the spren is actively involved in using and controlling the powers. But when it comes to the fabrials, the type of gem used is important, so the focus is the gem, specifically its color. Which leads into another interesting discussion on foci, how are they decided upon. So far we've seen only one type of focus used in each subastral, including Scadrial where multiple magic systems exist from multiple shards. But not so for Roshar. In Roshar we have the gemstones and the spren that both act as focus, and potentially another focus for voidbinding.

@Palindrome Hopefully in one of the next few books we can see one of the Heralds do it. That's dependent on whether they can still be fueled by Honor or not, but its the only likely scenario I see. Or a fused being fueled by Odium? The only likely scenario to bring about something like that is with Shards battling through minions. And neat on the breaths. I wonder if that's just a hypothetical or if it will be a thing in the books.

@Calderis I'm working on the assumption that Cultivation and Honor's investiture take the form of stormlight, similar to how both Ruin and Preservation had metal and mist investiture. But you are correct that Honor's pure investiture (which powered the Heralds), may be different. I can't recall a scenario in which the surges(KR/honorblade bonds specifically) are powered by something other than stormlight, do you know of one?

The honorblades grant the Surges, which have always been powered by stormlight. In the past, Honor supplied this directly to the Heralds. The KR, and non heralds bearing honorblades, have to absorb stormlight from the Highstorms or gems.

Or its a reference to the ten names of the Almighty, the tenth of which is holy and only suppose to be used by priest or something. Or pancakes can be used to explain both shards, and cultivation as well! One of those two...

The gems, gemhearts, and some of the spren existed before any of the three shards got there. The KR spren and maybe some of the others were created by Honor or Cultivation or both. Voidspren are a product of Odium. The placement of the Heralds, KR, and Fused are correct (most likely anyways, we don't know everything yet). The Ideals may have been created my Ishar, and not by the shards, but we also don't know that one either for sure. KR draw their power from the spren and stormlight, not directly from either of the shards. Fabrials are more of a science than a magic system, and may be able to exist without the shards, especially considering it works with the lesser spren who may have been around before H&C, but again can't say for sure. Honor may be dead, but his investiture isn't diminishing. Dead for the shards is slightly different from normal death. Tanavast, the human that controlled the shard, aka the mind, is dead. But that won't cause his body, now his corpse, to diminish at all. Odium did shatter the shard, which causes it to break into smaller pieces, but the net sum remains the same. Which is why certain things that Honor powered are still in effect, such as the stormlight that comes from Highstorms, the bonds that shackle Odium, Honorspren, etc. An additional note is to take the waterfall explanation for the realms with a grain of salt. That's an in-world interpretation. It might be right, or it might only be partially right, if that makes sense.

I have to agree with Leyrann on this. Although some may feel the Sadeas plot-line was disappointing, there's nothing logically wrong with it. Adolin did not leave any traces and no one knew where either of them were. The only way Adolin would be caught is if he fessed up, which he ended up doing as a growth point. The Recreance on the other hand.. The Recreance seems to have occurred for two simultaneous reasons. The first being the discovery that humans were the original invaders (the details of which are still kinda sketchy...) and a dying, raving Honor proclaiming that the KR would destroy the world. Both of these, if believed, would have a huge impact on the KR and would cause some, maybe a lot, to abandon the orders. But all of them? None of the scholars went, woah, we're the first invaders? Details please? None of the knights asked how exactly are we going to destroy the world? I could understand a huge percentage of the KR leaving for the second reason at least, but I feel like some of the KR we've seen so far (assuming the characters we've seen are good examples of the general KR personalities) would push on no matter what. Plus killing the spren on top of everything? Even if you're abandoning the orders and no longer using your powers, why kill the spren? It just seems that something is missing from the equation.

An additional point on Re-Sephir is her ability to create. Although her creations were not on point, her shadow spearmen were an attempt to learn from Bridge 4, followed by getting annoyed it wasn't working and creating other creatures to destroy them. So she's not fully sentient, but she does seem more aware and adaptable then what we saw from Nergoul.

@The One Who Connects Sorry, meant the "others". As for Cusicesh, he doesn't seem to be doing anything notably evil. This could have changed since Odium became active, but I'm inclined to believe its just another spren. While they are low in numbers, we do see examples of large spren, such as those in the storms, the oathgate spren, and the Shin reference great spren of the mountains. I suspect there are a number of larger spren in existence just hanging out.

Considering the way Gavilar handed one gemstone to a listener and demanded the other be kept from the listeners, the gemstones are likely different. Because the gemstone isn't described as being large, I originally doubted that it could contain an unmade. But after some consideration, Brandon stating that we would know what Gavilar's black sphere was after book 3, and Navani's mention that she'd seen something similar to the Thrill's prison with Gavilar, I think its a safe assumption that the sphere held an unmade. BAM would be my suspect, with Chemoarish and Dai-Gonarthis as runner ups, and the others as last (requires the unmade isn't confirmed to be free before hand, and that the sphere broke after being hidden, releasing the unmade).

The definition of a splinter is flexible and doesn't determine the origin of the splinter. Their name "Unmade" indicates that its possible they were pre-existing entities that Odium torn apart(hence unmade) and put back together with some extra power to suit Odium's needs. As for whether the original entities were humans, that's not impossible, but seems unlikely. Based on what we've seen, a unmaking of this level would result in the death of the human midway.Now, we haven't seen how well a Shard can manipulate the human soul, so it might be entirely possible. But I would propose that the original entities were spren, ones that Odium corrupted and turned to his purposes.

The shards aren't limitless. Pretty close from a human perspective, but not infinite. So when H&C originally made the spren they might have been fine with them just working in the cognitive realm. Or the spren might have naturally developed that way. When Odium came along he probably made less spren, but also made them able to operate on their own.

It may help to think of it this way. The Investiture of the Shards represents the fundamental power of their intents. Aka, the power of Preservation is the fundamental power of preservation throughout existence, one of the building blocks of everything. The investiture of the shards isn't neutral power connected to an ideal, its the ideal realized in reality. In the spiritual realm, all this power is connected together and forms the central Ideal, which a person can then connect with and potentially ascend, providing the Mind to the already existing spirit element and physical power. Splintering seems to work by severing the connections between the powers. So instead of one big Honor connected to all of the honor investiture, you have several pieces of Honor, each of which is only connected to a portion of the honor investiture out there. And it also seems that a person can't ascend to a broken splinter, just to the full shard. I should note that the above is my interpretation of things, not a WoB. Brandon has been tight lipped about some of this, partially because some of it may still be in the building stage, and the other because spoilers. So we don't have all the information and any theories we make now can not see the full picture. Also of note to this topic is a WoB stating that Adonalsium could have been shattered into different Shards then the ones present today. Whether this means different Ideals, or a different number, etc, we don't know.

The difference is likley do to the difference between the regular spren and Radiant spren. When regular spren are corrupted they don't change what they do. There's no corruption of the magic system, so not red. Gly on the other hand is showing some changes in the abilities he grants. Renarin has so far been shown to be unable to lightweave. I suspect with Gly's corruption, he's given Renarin the surges of Regrowth and the void equivalent of Lightweaving, but not lightweaving itself. An alternative is the amount of investiture present in the spren. Lesser spren don't have much, so very little corruption is required, so no red showing. Gly and the oathgate spren on the other hand have larger amounts of investiture, so they show more red.

As Calderis put, it is a form of control. I think the important point to make here is how much control. Ruin's control was basically complete, but this seems different. When Odium's attention is fully there it's likely to be total control, but this method seems less effective than Ruin's. So I would argue this is partial mindcontrol, If the everstorm had already passed, and the number of regals was larger, Eshonei would probably been better able to resist because Odium's attention would have been split among a larger number of agents.

I agree with the above. Dalinar sees himself as a force of unity, which is why he said what he said. He does appear to have ascended(to Honor) to some degree, but just what that means we'll have to wait and see. Mistborn Era 1 Spoiler (big ones) Odium mentions he can't leave the pieces of Honor lying around, as he can see that going wrong. This indicates that Dalinar has not connected to enough of the pieces to be Honor, but Odium might believe he has the potential to do so.