robardin

I didn't mean to imply it was the Unmade in the sphere he gave to Szeth - obviously impossible since it was free to then move to Jah Keved after Gavilar died. But being influenced by an Unmade could have driven him to do something megalomaniacal, like not just capture Voidlight but... Whatever this is.

Good summary. As I noted somewhere at the bottom of a post in the recent Ch 16 thread, the way that Gavilar behaves towards Navani and Jasnah -- coldly angry, cruel without being directly violent, and insisting that Jasnah marry Amaram because he wills it so and she must obey -- are spot on to how Lin Davar acts... But only after Gavilar is killed. Shallan noted in Ch 61 of WoR ("Obedience"), a flashback to "one and a half years ago" not long before she kills her father, that this "darkness in his eyes" was related to this "new anger of his", as well as his sudden desire to become rich and influential. It sure feels like something malevolent was influencing Gavilar to desire power and domination, and then moved on to the Davar household. As for the spheres, why did he hand only this specific one to Szeth and not his entire bag? Which was later found empty by Navani. It's almost as if, as he lay dying, he realized this one in particular was especially dangerous, yet that someone In The Know would come looking for them after he died and an empty bag would be far more noticed than a bag containing many spheres but missing one (a full tally perhaps not being known). What that would imply for this one, that warps space and feels like it as an evil rhythm to Rlain where even the ruby containing Nergaoul evidently did not, we don't know yet. All we know is, it's not simply a perfect (non-leaky) gem containing Voidlight - they already have Voidlight in spheres and this is not the same. Perhaps it's an imprisoned Thunderclast? And yes, what was the "ancient spren" that Aesudan knows, or thinks she knows, that Gavilar found? She speaks here like she was high up or in with the Sons of Honor.

I love how intense this Rosharan Kandra Hunt is, somewhere Brandon is chortling away. And then in the end, all along the kandra was simply a chouta vendor or something. Because everybody eventually breaks down and gets a street cart chouta, and people always talk while they wait for their chouta, and unlike a pub or a bar, a chouta stand can be moved to wherever the kandra needs it to be.

The whole "existing physically in the cognitive realm" is weird, TBH. So what happens when a living person crosses into the CR, what happens to their "bead" - it's replaced with the "actual" person, right? Well, what about stuff you create or change physically in the CR - do they only "beadify" if/when they're taken to the Physical Realm? Like, The Wind's Pleasure was a ship that had a "spren" (bead) that resisted being changed into water by Shallan's Soulcasting, and argued back, because it had been a ship for a long time, people anthropomorphize ships, and it wanted to continue "to serve" as a ship. So what if humans built a ship in Shadesmar, assembling it with wood transported from the Physical Realm, at a shipyard in Silverlight? Would that ship have a bead/spren? If the answer is "only when it gets to the Physical Realm", then what if after many years of use in Shadesmar that putative Lux Argenti finally entered into the Physical Realm, pushed through Cultivation's Perpendicularity to sail directly on the Shardpool in the Horneater Peaks or something. Would the "spren" of that ship now remember everything that happened with it in its "lifetime" in the CR? And if so, doesn't that imply that there is a Cognitive Realm behind the Cognitive Realm, so to speak?

Raboniel says: She doesn't think it's happened yet, but also thinks (knows) that it is not a matter of technique but execution. The humans simply haven't thought of trying to capture a Fused in a gem - they only ever captured an Unmade during the False Desolation (when the Fused were still on Braize), and now Nergaoul in their direct experience not that long ago (how long is the "gap time" since Thaylen Fields? Two years?) That said, how would it be done? Lure a spren with something it knows, something it loves... What would that mean in terms of doing the same for a Fused? If it would take Shallan to capture Re-Shapnir, does that mean it has to be Kaladin to gem Leshwi? Navani to gem Raboniel?

The Fused hadn't returned to Roshar yet, not until after the Everstorm, so this would have to be a Fused trapped in a gem from the previous Desolation where they occured - the last "real" Desolation, i.e., Ahrietiam. That doesn't jive with Leshwi's horrified reaction to the idea that a Fused could be trapped in a gem, if it'd already happened before.

And yet, it's worth revisiting the "old questions" as well. Aside from what they hold and where these strange spheres came from, who knows about them and where are all of them? In the RoW Prologue, when Navani looked in and saw Gavilar meeting with the two "ambassadors" in her study: So not all of Gavilar's spheres were filled with Voidlight or possibly, an Unmade. And then, when Gavilar asks the Heralds to excuse him, So Gavilar had not yet explained everything to them, but he anticipated that at his meeting with "Meridas and the others" (Amaram and Restares? certainly the Sons of Honor), they "should have more information for me". If they had information he did not about the spheres, does that not imply someone in the SoH procured them for him in the first place? Later, when Navani searches his body, she finds the bag he closed firmly in her face with those spheres in it, but it's empty. Yet he only gave one - THAT one - over to Szeth. Who has all the others? Did Gavilar do that intentionally, knowing someone would be looking for "the spheres" and realize something was amiss if the bag was empty, but might not have realized ONE was missing (i.e., if they didn't have a full inventory or means of identification, and wouldn't easily know which one was the missing one)? And finally, later when Navani stands up to him, saying his legacy was in her hands based on what she would choose to write about him: Sounds similar to what gripped Lin Davar over time, doesn't it? And his demands that Jasnah marry Amaram essentially because he wants her to obey. Why won't they just obey? Shallan's father only started having this "new, cold anger" as of "one and a half years ago" before the events in Words of Radiance (per Ch. 61): "This new anger of his, the cold anger, terrified Shallan." We've had WoBs suggesting it was the influence of an Unmade, or at least of Odium. So basically, after it was done with Gavilar?

Artificial creation of a perfect gemstone. Ooh baby.

Here’s what Kaladin and Navani see and feel with the trapped Nergaoul after Thaylen Fields: Kaladin POV: Navani POV: This was before Szeth retrieved the one that Gavilar gave him in especial. Neither noticed a “warping” feeling from the King’s Drop containing Nergaoul, which also involved a very large ruby, much bigger than this one from Gavilar. Since Gavilar referred to the “gods” of the Parshendi, what if this one holds a Very Special Fused?

This is a good point... If you look only at the description that the difference between a gem with Voidlight (that eventually leaks it away) and this "perfect gem" that contains something similar to, but deeper and more vibrant than Voidlight, that has a warping feeling to it, it seems obvious that it's an Unmade because of Gavilar referring to it s as a "god" and that we know Ba-Ado-Mishram was trapped in this way to end the False Desolation. But they have, or had, a trapped Unmade in a perfect gem already. If it also looked and felt like that, they'd know. So either this is not an Unmade in Gavilar's Perfect Gem... Or, each Unmade feels different, and this one (if holding B-A-M) feels "warping" because of all the Parsh Connection somehow forced into it as well? (The Parsh Connection, that's a good name for a band)

Indeed, I was thinking along those lines as well. This is where the one-a-week thing breaks rhythm (ha) - it would have been a pretty good segue between Zahel mentioning "your friend in the cell in the tower" / "not my friend" to Navani having a short, stomach-churning discussion with Szeth about the night he killed Gavilar.

Did you arm Tin Savant Spook? It looks like you are suggesting he'd have a gun to use against Wayne, based on the replies, but I don't see that in the OP. I don't see how Wayne doesn't have the clear advantage, as the Spook who arrived to Urteau as a tin savant but not (yet) spiked for pewter was not yet a fighter.

YES, and Navani specifically told them to try to "move the Light to another gem". Whatever Unmade is in there, may soon be coming out. D'OH. Throwing Nergaoul into the ocean is not stupid if you think it's a way to more or less permanently remove it from the field. But the ocean has santhids and other greatshells, and Cusicesh, and so on. That move could literally come back to bite them. Navani had already noted that Szeth's Shardblade "could reduce objects to smoke simply by nicking them" - why not try that on the King's Drop? I guess there would be the possibility (from their POV) that that move might smoke the gem and release the Unmade within, as actually destroying an Unmade that way would be kind of inconceivable to them. Szeth freely admits to Navani he hadn't thought about what would happen to his Third Ideal if Dalinar were to die. He also doesn't seem to care to think about it until he has to. He didn't volunteer any information until asked, a habit pressed on him from his time as Truthless or just how he's always been? He's become like a spren. And Nightblood had been "speaking into the minds" of those who passed by the prison, and it had taken three demands from Dalinar to get Szeth to restrain it. Interesting. I'm sure Szeth tried just as hard each time, because you know, Skybreaker Third Ideal. And this detail caught my eye: "humans who had escaped Aimia, the men with their beards bound in cords." So there were also humans there for the Scouring - what happened, anyway? Or are these Aimians not really human? Because if there are Dysian Aimians in Urithiru, with all those little air ducts perfect for eavesdropping if one were small enough, it's like hordeling-cremling heaven.

One more detail about the timeline: the Recreance, at least the portion of it that Dalinar witnesses at Feverstone Keep with a mass forswearing of Windrunners and Stonewards, happened close enough to the end of the False Desolation that the officer at the walls of the keep as the Radiants exclaimed, "Why are the Radiants coming here? They should be fighting the devils on the front line!" So the non-Radiant forces, at least this particular group, still expected there to be a "front line" against the Voidlit parsh. If the trapping of B-A-M and the severing of the parsh Connection to Roshar happened before the Recreance, it happened VERY soon before. Which since Urithiru had time to "wind down" as the Sibling fell into slumber, maybe implies that fits into the timeline in a different way than I supposed as well.

Yes, to a light tan. He was "back to being a darkeyes" after unbonding that Blade - the one that Kaladin gifted to him - when surrendering to the Fused that killed Graves and the other Diagram members in the attack where he managed to kill Leshwi with no Surges or Shards.

Not so sure about the haiku part, but now I am reading this with the theme music for the 1960s TV version of "Batman" Sadeas: (Eats bread, drinks soup, makes face) Ugh. Hey, Horneater! What'd you spice all this stuff with? Rock: Chull Dung! Chull Dung! Ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha, Chull Dung!

So in (an earlier version of) TWoK, Moash was described as having "green" eyes despite being a darkeyes - at one point explained away as just being "dark green" eyes and not "light" in the way that lighteyes are meant to have light eyes on Roshar, but then the Coppermind entry for Moash includes: But in the Rhythm of War previews, in Chapter 8: Surrender In The Basement (the Fall of Roshone), he's described again as having green eyes. Might this be from bonding/wielding the Honorblade? But it's Jezrien's, the Windrunner Blade - shouldn't that make his eyes turn blue instead, at least while Surgebinding, the way the Windrunners do?

Reaching back a bit to Vyre’s cameo at the Conference of the Fused...

Airsick lowlanders Do not know the simple joy Of crunching a shell.

"Aloe-mancer." Urk. You must die now.

I had this problem a week or two ago - the trick is, you have to do it yourself, and to use the "Moderation Action - Hide" button/dropdown that's at the BOTTOM of the page (not post - scroll all the way down). There's also one at the top but that one never worked for me, only gave me an error.

We can't be sure of that. There haven't been too many cases (no other case, really) of someone who'd died, refused to Pass On, Ascended while a Cognitive Shadow, de-Ascended to Sliverhood, then re-acquired a physical form apparently through hemalurgy. Even then, he's likely only functionally immortal - as immortal as other "Investiture Expanded Shadows" like Returned, Heralds, and Fused are, but even those can be physically killed. It's just that Fused and Heralds have (or had) an extra mechanism to get recycled from the CR back into the Physical Realm (where Returned do not). In Kelsier's case it'd be from having once Ascended - he will now not pass Beyond "if he doesn't want to go". And it seems like it would take a lot. More than seeing his brother made an Inquisitor, his quest goal in killing TLR come to fruition, seeing all of Scadrial nearly get destroyed then saved and remade, seeing Vin pass on, Sazed become Harmony, and feeling Mare Beyond waiting for him... Nah, I'm not done here. There's always another secret. So what does that mean then? Getting Spook a spike for F-atium is gonna be pretty tough, what with there not being any Feruchemists left to steal it from, never mind the ethical question involved; and it's hard to fathom why Ruin would make too many of those spikes to give Inquisitors. And even then you'd have to find and identify one, after the world was all shuffled around, how to sift through the ruins of Kredik Shaw looking for spikes from the Inquisitors that Vin beat down there? Though it is noteworthy that they do exist. It wasn't just Marsh who was given a spike for F-atium; note use of plural: In fact, it seems that perhaps Marsh was not given one by Ruin but took one for himself, which means he may have been able to identify them after finding the heap of dead Inquisitor remains somewhere in post-Catacendre Scadrial, and give another one to Spook or whoever else. And come to think of it, Wax glimpsed Rashek's Hut and the throne room from inside the former Kredik Shaw among the underground caverns beneath the Originator Tomb at the center of the Field of Rebirth in Shadows of Self. So it may not even have been that hard for him to find. Especially if Harmony wanted him to find it (even if He's opposed to making new spikes and would rather people not learn about hemalurgy, obviously Marsh would already know about how these spikes were made and who had them). Harder for Marsh will be living into Era 3 and beyond, where it's questionable if his Inquisitor Super Steelsight will allow him to experience movies, or TV or computer or smartphone screens. But I digress.

I was going to write something longer, but basically to that effect. And the something longer was basically to that effect :D. If Wax is prepared - not specially prepared, just generally Era 2 prepared - with Vindication to fight an Allomancer, he'll have special rounds for Thugs, Tineyes, and likely, aluminum bullets (as well as the hollow and ceramic tipped bullets for Coinshots). He's also well-practiced in using his Allomancy to Steelpush a bullet after it's fired, to give it even more oomph. TFE era Kelsier would have no idea such a projectile is possible, and would likely get plugged a few times before he got away to think about things. And Wax has had plenty of access by now to full-on aluminum guns and ammo rounds. If Wax manages to take Kelsier down with a few rounds, he wins. (The bit about the gunfire likely being Bad Juju for a Tineye is on point, too.) BUT, if Kelsier burns pewter and steel and flies away and recovers, and thinks over about the implications of what he just faced, and knows where to find Wax... Wax is a dead man walking. Here's an interesting side question: TFE Kelsier would likely have atium on him. But, he still wouldn't know about guns and aluminum bullets. Let's say he saw Wax coming at him with known or suspected lethal intent, and he could sense with A-bronze that he was a Coinshot, and even took the precaution of burning some atium just in case such a confident-looking Allomancer coming after The Survivor of Hathsin (a known Mistborn) might be a Mistborn himself... And sees Wax's atium shadow pulling out a big metal thingy (aluminum gun). Would atium also give him the information that that is actually really dangerous? Or that his Steelsight wouldn't see any lines to it, when it was pulled in the near future?

Yes... Immortal... Like Vasher/Zahel is as a Returned? (And by wondering why Vasher is still alive, do you mean, why hasn't Yesteel managed to kill him?) And we have no idea how Yesteel operates. If he runs a ruthless organization that values loyalty to a cause over personal loyalties, he simply has to be the best person to lead the cause to stay on top - and being immortal has a big plus in that area.

Oh right. The epigraph to Ch. 85 of WoR that shows a passage in the Diagram: But who is the wanderer, the wild piece, the one who makes no sense? I glimpse at his implications, and the world opens to me. I shy back. Impossible. Is it? And it's Adrotagia who then notes, "Could this refer to Mraize?" so she knows of Mraize as a worldhopper, if not the GBs in general. And the second part, is kind of my point in a thread wondering about what the Ghostbloods have has their stated "greater purpose", and if Thaidakar is a Cult Leader type who created and dictates that purpose for the group, or is simply the current capo di tutti capi who himself rose to that position (possibly from the ground up). Drawing links between Cosmere works by known character motivation and even language clues (ichor-alcohol is... the blood of ghosts!) to analyze a worldhopping group is fun, but another angle is to look at who they want as members, who they do not want, and what they do to get members to join. WoBs mention the Ghostbloods "actively recruiting" from non-field-agents of the 17th Shard, and we have some hint as to the kind of people who are 17th Sharders. So, how are they recruited? When Mraize realizes that Veil must have killed Tyn and taken her place in reporting to them, he tells her that advancing by killing your own superior "is not forbidden, but hardly encouraged" among the Ghostbloods, but also that Tyn had not been made one of them yet (but, being asked to report in person to a gathering of GBs and not just a handler, perhaps hd been on track or close to being one). There's been no worshipful or fearful mention of Thaidakar to Shallan as The One. That seems to kill one aspect of the "Big Cult" idea. I have to say that that also feels to me like reasons against the Thaidakar Is Kelsier theory. Unless he's changed a lot, while Kell would not be above killing people he considers "expendable others" in pursuit of a goal, he would never tolerate in-group murders. And having set himself up as a god at least twice, he would probably make himself known as The Crewleader to everyone in the crew, down to the new recruits. They deal in knowledge and power more so than money. They have been building a cross-world network of knowledgeable and ruthless people, drawing them in with promises of Knowing What's Really Going On And What We Can Do To Direct It. They maintain a low profile. Vasher mentions pursuing Yesteel as his next goal at the end of Warbreaker, saying that "a tyrant of some kind" who was trying to "restore Huth and Kuth" has "recruited" Yesteel, who has "resurfaced" with a "new, more potent form of ichor-alcohol". So, big leap here but building on the Yesteel idea, perhaps the big reveal there (not so big, really) is that Yesteel recruited himself, as it were; that the Manywar was so named because it spanned many worlds; and that Huth and Kuth were factions, not nations of Nalthis (though perhaps the name of their physical HQ footprint on Nalthis), between the Five Scholars. And that the "more potent form of ichor-alcohol" is indeed the Blood of Ghosts. Truly, all the pieces fit!