Wandering Investor

The Heralds, through their honorblades, are powered directly by Honor. Even though Honor is dead, his body aka energy is still around, and the herald's powers likely function as they used too. I suspect the 5th ideal will enable Radiants to use stormlight incredibly efficiently, and possibly allow them to stop leaking. Developing a gemstone is an interesting idea. Higherspren don't like to bond singers because of being trapped in the gemstone, but the human bond is purely spiritual, so they could develop a gemstone and the spren wouldn't have to be inside.

I assumed Ishar only began taking over stuff and attempting to become king where he sensed the desolation approaching.

I stand corrected, she is not from Southern Scadrial. But if she has heritage from there, the same mask culture may apply.

The mask is due to the culture of Southern Scadrial. That's actually how we figured out where she came from. There are several tribes on Southern Scadrial and all use mask. Some are more open to taking the mask off, and others will almost never take the mask off, and at least one of the tribes will never take them off, instead of letting it grow into their face.

Probably because 10 heralds are better than 1 super one, especially considering the original purpose of the heralds is to contain the fused, surges useless, and later became to lead desolations, in which they're more important as leaders than surgebinders.

I've been wondering the same thing. Something about the timeline seemed suspicious. My best guess is that humans were present before the arrival of Odium. As such both humans and singers were followers of Honor and Cultivation. Then Odium comes along, can't take out H&C, and instead instigates a fight between the humans and singers, possibly by convincing the humans to expand outside their given territory. The singers are then upset, and Odium comes to them and offers to help fight off the violent humans, and some dedicate themselves to become the fused. H&C and Odium then wage a proxy war, with humans and singers on both sides. I'm not sure this is exactly how it went, but it seems very likely to me that a messy beginning is the most likely possibility instead of a straightforward story as the Fused like to tell or that the spren remember. Speaking of spren, I'm not sure where they would fit in, or how their "betrayal" to the singers went down.

We don't know the specific words to them, but we know the general idea of them. They are the ideals of Radiance (normal first one), Justice(swear to uphold Justice), Dedication(dedicate to a specific code), Crusade(perform a task approved by your highspren), and Law(become the law, become truth). It is actually the only one where we know all the ideals.

Not for shards. Even a slight difference can make a big difference over time, as shown by Preservation vs Ruin. I suspect her leaving splinters around is a compulsion to create (partly?)autonomous entities. Also, it wouldn't be as wasteful as I thought since it does not require that Bavidin make powerful splinters, just splinters.

Another way to explain the radiant children idea is that its easier for them to form Connection, since they tend to be more open to things than adults. Similarly, radiant squires don't have to be broken, they have to connect to a Radiant and then get their own radiance. Broken souls have cracks which can let things in, which is how adults can gain their radiancy without another Radiant present.

Not incomplete, just open to external... stuff? Like the child might be able to invite the spren in, if that makes sense. I'm not really sure how the cracks in a soul work, so it is just an idea.

@ScavellTane Didn't he also light the air on fire at one point? I'd have to reread to be sure.

There seems to be a theme of Radiants remember voicing from when they were young, with both Shallan and Szeth being examples. Perhaps a child's soul is more open? Having an open soul is the requirement for the spren to enter, its just that cracks seem to be the most common way.

Agreed, the entire island pantheon being of Autonomy seems likely. Just a matter of how autonomous they are. I find it unlikely Autonomy would actual splinters laying around. The letter shows a use of 'we', so the Autonomous personalities are likely still connected directly to the shard. Perhaps a hivemind democracy? That's just a theory though, not enough to confirm anything. Edit: Read an earlier posted WoB. Seems wasteful, but if anyone will leave behind splinters Autonomy seems a likely candidate.

Odium and Ambition fought near Threnody. Neither were killed here, but Odium sliced off chunks of Ambition, and the Evil is related to that power that was left behind. I think the perpendicularity on the First of the Sun is unusual in that it's of Adonalisum and existed before the Shattering. I'll track down WoB's and edit them in. EDIT: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/87-white-sand-vol1-release-party/#e5772 And I can't find the quote for Ambition being injured. I just remember seeing somewhere that Ambition was injured, ran, and then killed elsewhere. And Ambition's injury meant chunks of investiture were left in the Threnody system.

That first WoB indicates it has to do with the orbital position of Roshar. Perhaps it relates to other celestial bodies it passes throughout the year? I wouldn't think its the stormlight regathering. First is that the stormlight cycle is very fast, so it would make its way back to the spiritual realm in a much shorter time than the weeping. Second is the level of power of the Shards. Even considering the amount of stormlight the highstorm throws out, I doubt it puts even a tiny dent in the source. A counter-argument to those points would be the Shards never tampered with the system and that the origin takes time to restore its energy, which it gathers from the spiritual realm. More likely to do with the position of the planet though, or another reason.

I would consider evolving from as being a common ancestor. The only way that would work is if Adonalisium created two different strains of "human" and they never mixed.

Nice, that's good to know. Now the question is when did that happen, and were they the first humans to migrate to Roshar?

@The One Who ConnectsI misread, fixed it.

Scadrial didn't exist before Ruin and Preservation made it. The humans there were based on the Yolen template by the Shards as well. Nevermind! I read RIP, you said R&P. Adonalsium making the parsh as an alternate design to humans seems likely considering the similarity and lack of common ancestor.

Already a thread on this. Mostly, I don't remember if anyone proposed the Sibling being killed/going to sleep being caused by the Recreance. But the Sibling appears to be withdrawing before the Tower was abandoned, which was before the Recreance, so I think the cause would be something else.

I interpreted the Shard and Shardholder's influence as a two-way street. The Shard will over time influence the vessel, but the vessel's interpretation of the shard's intent is very important. Thus we have Ati's attitude of a shopowner closing everything up, vs Sazed's view of a natural process, not too much, but not too little. Leras's belief that any act of destruction is just that, vs Vin's belief that an act of destruction can be an act of preservation pending results. Following that, Rasye could hold the Shard of Passion and simply consider hatred to be the ultimate passion. This would explain his respect for when people show passion of any kind, while also showing why he is so hateful. His intent is to be as passionate as possible, and he thinks hatred to be the most passionate passion. For the record, I think Rayse does hold the shard of Odium, and his passion statement is just his rationalization, similar to Ati's shopowner scenario.

I think a Shardblade through the head or spine will kill a Radiant. Also, this isn't the first case of awesome healing we've seen in the cosmere. And similar to those examples, stormlight healing takes a lot of stormlight for big wounds. The arrow through the head probably cost Shallan quite a bit of light to heal. Sure, one arrow isn't enough, but do it a few times and Shallan is in big danger without a nearby stormlight source. So the big siege aside, where stormlight was aplenty, in other scenarios Radiants are very difficult to kill, but not impossible. Except for Renarin, his taking a Thunderclast punch to his... well everything, seemed a bit much. Unless he was consuming absurd levels of stormlight and it just wasn't really mentioned.

Seeing the future and manipulating the fundamental force of time are two very different things. As time isn't normally counted among the surges of the world by in book characters, and none of the Radiant surges really seem to involve time in any way, I doubt time manipulation is possible for surgebinders. Radiants anyways. It would be pretty awesome though.

I think this is subtly showcasing the danger of Yelig-nar. He can basically show up anywhere, enter a host, and all of a sudden you're dealing with a 10(9?) surge monster. This could be a volatile and extremely dangerous tool for Odium's forces. Sneak someone into the backline, swallow a gem, BOOM, the backline gets wrecked if they're not careful.

We've seen the flying ones, the Carapace-armored ones, and the Slick fused so far. I interpreted smokeform, nightform, and decaryform to be regal forms, although they could refer to potential fused as well. It is thought that Honor may have had a hand in regulating the Radiants. With Honor dead, the Radiants' powers, maybe even oath structures, may be able to shift/change. I don't think its ever been confirmed though.