robardin

I would assume so, based on The Sunlit Man. Spoiler:

Interesting point, I've gotten so used to not seeing any Lightweaver do any Soulcasting of note yet that I forgot it's in their power set, LOL.

Yes I did finish the book, but don't remember this passage... Let me go back and read more closely! ...Ah, I see. Her thought to herself about finding a way back to the Physical Realm without an Oathgate, that she might never see Adolin again while putting her hand on her stomach, and that "she could survive. She had to. Not just for herself." What a yutz I am that I read right past that, LOL

He does realize he's a hypocrite. That's why he thought of it to himself as "His secret. His dangerous, shameful secret." And the power (the part of Odium) seethed with hatred that Dalinar Kholin "had been right" as a result. Exactly how it's "dangerous" to him, I suspect we'll find out. He's never told anyone, like Fen or Jasnah in their little discussion of the moral ethics of leading and ruling a nation, that "I destroyed Kharbranth to prove my point to Cultivation"; though word will eventually reach them of Kharbranth's destruction, of course. Would it give Cultivation some power over him, to know he hadn't really done it 100%? I mean he HAD destroyed the physical city; those on Roshar would be able to see its ruins. He's only plucked the people out of it and placed them into a virtual simulation of it, in a pocket vision-universe. I guess it being in the SR, another Shard could stumble across it and Do Stuff To It, at the very least? And have an emotional piece of blackmail over him.

My take: she's a mole now, that look on her face that Kaladin found "curious" as she took her place in the circle (the last to arrive) was because he had never seen someone's expression while resuming a holy oath and vow to represent Honor while thinking about betraying it for a "small planet" that she'd been promised.

Well one problem with such an in-world term for a collection of ten books relevant to The History of Roshar and Its Place in the Cosmere is that unless something happens early in the back five books, it's a pretty funny thing to call it the "Stormlight Archive" if for most of it, as of the last few chapters of Book Five onwards, there's no such thing as Stormlight on Roshar any more, LOL.

Whoa... I don't think Shallan was pregnant yet...? Or are you invoking Chekov's Shower Scene as a strong indication that she will find out very soon that she is carrying Adolin's child, while being separated from him for an indefinite time stranded in Shadesmar? (If she got enough "convertible" Investiture, could she feed the shrunken Oathgate spren to Azimir from Shadesmar to operate it, or is that not ever going to work again?) But that's going too far into "real" topics, LOL.

Chana knows that's the truth!

No predictions about major plot lines or developments with Cosmere Implications, those can and will happen in lots of other threads. This one is for predicting minor stuff, like these: Adolin will have learned Azish, because with Urithiru inaccessible, he's going to spend a lot of the next ten years in Azimir with that final Bondsmithing from Dalinar for Connection translation already starting to wear off by the end of WaT. With Urithiru completely cut off from the rest of Roshar and also unable to trade via Shadesmar, they'll have to subsist on food they grow themselves there. Which means the Urithiruans will largely be going vegetarian, because did they bother bringing livestock in to Urithiru when they assumed they could Oathgate for supplies from Azimiar, Thaylen City, and Narak? (Yes, they could Soulcast meat, but that'd basically all be on Jasnah now to do, unless the ardents with Soulcaster fabrials can use Towerlight as well... Mmaybe they can? -- they'd have to infuse the right gemstones on the bracelets with Towerlight, right, versus a living Radiant just investing themselves from it?) I wonder if Jasnah will finally get to liking chouta as a result. With Kaladin gone and Sigzil (and Wit) just vanishing from Urithiru (as far as anybody could tell), leadership of the Windrunners will fall to Skar and/or Lopen, one outside and one inside of the Crystal Tower that is now Urithiru. Skar will reach the Fourth Ideal in the ten year gap, by agonizing over losing Kal, Leyten, and Sigzil within a few days' span and wishing any or all of them could be the leader in his place, before accepting that he couldn't prevent any of that, and that he'd been needed in Azimir with Adolin. Lopen is inside Urithiru, covering as quartermaster and provisions there with Leyten gone, and learns from Zahel to develop a variant of the dish tektees that Vasher had enjoyed in T'telir to make a fusion dish with the Herdazian chouta, in order to make the Soulcast meat go even further. He calls it chouktees, and is disappointed to find that some people he's close to, like Rlain and Renarin, really, really hate it. He reaches the Fourth Ideal when he is forced to admit to himself that there are some people he just cannot protect from his cooking.

Haha, well, it still surprised me because the first time we saw Felt, he was a spy for House Venture that Elend had "borrowed" from his father, and who discovered Kell's crew's hideout (Clubs' workshop) for what it was, and could easily have betrayed them to the Steel Ministry and the wrath of the Inquisitors but for Elend telling him not to. He continued doing work for Elend after the fall of TLR, so his surviving the Catacendre wasn't that big of a surprise once we also saw that Demoux was also nosing around Roshar with other worldhoppers. But I didn't think a GB agent would have been on Roshar for so long already, in steady service to House Kholin, and married to boot. And technically he may not "be" a Ghostblood. He emphatically rejected the notion that he reported to Iyatil, after all. More like, Friend of Kelsier? As for what Felt (or Kelsier) did with or got out of Kalak from the time he was captured to to when he was summoned to his Honorblade at the end of WaT, I'm guessing he spilled a lot of details about the nature of the Oathpact and so on. What value that has to the Ghostbloods, I'm not sure. I get what you're saying about Adolin and Shallan, but it's also worth noting (because Brandon is not great at writing romance/intimate stuff, or does it with a very light "vaseline on the lens" type of touch) that a lot of their deeper bonding has been mentioned as having happened off-screen. And the initial moments of falling in love in WoR, i thought were done pretty well.

Ahh right, of course, that's what I got wrong!

Is this summary accurate, or am I forgetting or missing anything? Four were definitely there: Jezrien: Drunk at the Beggar's Feast. Busy being "Ahu". Nale: Talked directly with Gavilar. Pointed Parshendi to Szeth with Jez's Honorblade. Busy leading Skybreakers. Kalak: Talked directly with Gavilar. Noticed Szeth with Jez's Blade. Busy leading Sons of Honor, while hiding at Lasting Integrity. Ash: Destroying her Heraldic depictions in the hallway; glimpsed by Kalak. Busy roaming Roshar destroying her images. Two were definitely Not Present: Taln: on Braize, dead since Aharietiam, not breaking. EVER. Chana: on Braize, dead since Shallan killed her a few years earlier, but soon to break. When the Stormfather breaks off with Gavilar by saying he senses that "a Herald has died", does that really mean sensing Chana breaking on Braize? Two may or may not have been busy elsewhere: Ishar: In Tukar, being Tezim, Last and First Man. ... Yet? Tezim led Tukar into beginning "Eighty's War" against Sesemalex Dar, which began in 1167, which is the year Gavilar died... So he MAY have only got there after Gavilar's death, if he managed to become their God-King really, REALLY fast. Battar: In Kharbranth, being Dova the ardent. ... Yet? We first learn that Battar was "Dova the ardent in Kharbranth" when Taravangian says she "told them (the Diagram" the Desolation was approaching". But the Diagram was only formed after his Day of Divine Intelligence after visiting the Nightwatcher's Vale, which he did AFTER talking to Gavilar on the day of his death. So she may only have gone Unknown / Unaccounted for: Vedel: ?? The fan theory still alive that Liss = Vedel, right? With the symptoms of Heraldric Madness usually seeming to be the opposite of their original Heraldic virtues (possibly affected by Ishar pushing Odium's power through their shared bonds after his visit to his Shardpool), Vedel the Healer becoming Liss the Assassin makes perfect sense. Pralla: ?? For a while, we had a book signing WoB that Pralla was glimpsed by Shallan while at the Palaneum in Kharbranth with Jasnah in TWoK, but that's never been canonized or mentioned again, right?

What? Bippy? BIPPY?! NOOOOO NOT BIPPPYYYYY STORMING MOASH

I would say it's most likely because it would make more sense for all of his children with Chana (we never did learn her "cover name" with Lin) to be in a row, and Heleran was the eldest. If another of Shallan's brothers, all older than her, were the bastard, that would mean he cheated on Chana while married to her (versus begetting and taking responsibility for a child out of wedlock before meeting her), and I suspect that would not have gone well for him.

Not difficult at all! A box is sent to Shallan one day, with a note. "TO SHALLAN: These boots were made for knockin'. Thought you should know. Love, Kal." Wondering how this package reached her in Shadesmar, she opened the box to find a pair of sturdy boots. However, while they were clearly too small for what she remembered being Kaladin's size (that she had to stuff socks into the toes in order to wear), they also were not quite HER size. In fact, they weren't brand new boots, either. She turned them over in her hands, and noticed a name written on one of the heels: CHANA. And on the other, in a different handwriting and in lowercase: "ur mom." What? Oh... NO... Or... Yay?

Agree with everything you wrote, even the last part, LOL. It did raise a question in my mind though, which is: if he had this literal backup plan for handling a vaporization at the hands of a Shard ("I'll regenerate from a chunk of myself I left on Scadrial"), then why was he so afraid of being discovered on Roshar by Rayse/Odium earlier when talking to Dalinar in WoR, when he says that "if [Odium] finds me, then I become nothing -- a soul shredded and broken into pieces that cannot be reassembled"? Or did he only devise this backup with Ulaam since that chat with Dalinar? I don't think so; somehow he feared being "shredded" at a deeper level by Rayse, Splintered if you will, but knowing/hoping that Taravangian/Retribution would "vaporize" him "only physically".

Oooh good point. He dug up a reason to kill Ym and that was for poisoning a woman at some point in his youth ("I had to look long and hard to find your transgression...") Meanwhile, the crime he had on Shallan was "the Veden Voidcraft Act, to punish those who seek such [Surgebinding] powers". Which, if she broke her spren bond, would render her clear of those charges (I suppose the crime was no longer punishable by death for having had such powers in the past, but no longer).

I'd be really careful about that, if I were her. Retribution is free from the bonds that had forbidden either Odium or Honor from directly affecting people on Roshar... Rebelling would definitely be breaking the contract they formed with Odium that grants them protections. Not only could/would they be subject to being devastated by Fused-led singers, he could just SMITE THEM AT WILL. And as Fen well knows from his display of playing back at will Jasnah's actions and one-line comments in meetings she thought to be hidden or private going back for years, she's dealing with a subtle, crafty, and cruel-in-a-worse-way-than-a-bully god now in Taravangian/Retribution, who as far as she can tell, Knows All, Sees All. I mean, maybe she could plot carefully in an aluminum-lined room to present one face to Retribution while supporting some secret group working against him in some way... But I'm assuming any effort based on Roshar itself to Take It Back From Retribution, now the sole Shard on the planet and a dual one at that, would have to be centered in Urithiru (The Crystal Palace), Azimir (The Land that Sun Remembered), and/or Narak (Listenerland).

Ahhh, I like this explanation. Makes perfect sense. Which makes you wonder why Nale was killing all those nascent Radiants like Ym, instead of somehow forcing them to forswear their Oaths. I guess that isn't something that can be done under duress, like it has to come "from the heart"? Though if Sigzil could forswear his bond to Vienta with no other motive than to save her from being destroyed with anti-Stormlight, you'd think Shallan could have done it to save herSELF from being destroyed with Nalan's Shardblade. As for Chana being a good mother to her kids and the unnamed adoptive bastard (presumed to be Heleran), she was apparently quite deep in the role of a Veden lighteyed woman, with the Vorin safehand and feminine arts thing going on and everything (though she reverted to being "Chana the tough bodyguard" with not even a safehand glove when talking to Nale, causing Dreder to flinch and hide behind the seon when she got mad, LOL). One wonders what her game plan was another 20 years or so down the line when she didn't age while Lin Davar and their kids did... Huh. I guess that was part of being a Crazy Herald, eh? It also raises the question as to whether or not any of the other Heralds went a-multiplyin' over the past several thousand years. Nale refers to Chana blending in with a mortal family as a mother as an "unreasonable endeavor" that she was propagating on "a dupe", and that they (Nale and likely Ishar, at a minimum) knew or suspected any children born of them would result in "predispositions". Even so, it's hard to believe that across nine Heralds, over what is it, four thousand years?, another one wouldn't have done something similar (male or female), if this was even Chana's first time on this ride. (Presumably it was, as Nale wouldn't have missed the chance to tell her she was making the same mistake again, or somesuch.)

A good theory, but unless Shallan was STILL summoning up false memories, Nalan specified Shallan by name as the one Dreder had been sent to kill, if Chana couldn't manage to do it herself. (I suppose letting Chana do it instead of him was a kind of courtesy to a fellow Herald?)

As a POV character, yeah. But his impact will always be there. I mean, he even shows up in The Sunlit Man, albeit in a case of initially mistaken identity... It was still a big ol' pull on the heartstrings to see Nomad/Sigzil, in a moment of decision making and a crisis of conscience, to see a glowing figure in a blue uniform looking out at a storm and whispering, "...Kal?" Besides, he's a storming immortal Herald now. And the Legend of Stormblessed had already been great and growing among the people even when he was alive. Whatever happens to Vorinism will likely include him as an object of veneration.

But did she bet on living under a constant, never-ending if low key Everstorm and never seeing the sun? Can they still trade with Azir or make literal "day trips" there? What will "trade" mean between all the Rosharan kingdoms under Retribution's control now, anyway? Aren't they all going to be dominated/run by singers, at the high level? Fused are still around, right? What will the currency be now? Still spheres with gems in them, but no longer glowing with Stormlight... Can humans also do the "midnight prayer to Retribution" thing to get infused spheres (of Warlight)?

Well, talking aloud to a spren visible to the Shardbearer but invisible to others would be a sign of a true Nahel bond, as the spren would be in the Physical Realm but not in Blade form. When Adolin and co. talk to their "unoathed" Shard-spren while in the Physical world, they do so mentally, right? Maya only spoke "aloud" (and to other people) in Shadesmar. I mean, I guess Adolin could talk out loud while also thinking the same words to Maya, some people seem less capable than others of think-talking without mouth-talking IRL after all, LOL. And that's kind of how Zellion tried to play it off, as "just as old habit, it's nothing". But the real question to ask about that scene from TSM is: why would the Scadrian be more worried about or interested in him as Oathed vs. Unoathed? And why was Zellion aware of this, and nervous about having let a clue slip? I guess because it helped to identify him as the guy with the bounty on his head from the Night Brigade, because "oathed" Shardbearers are more rare in the Cosmere? Especially after he revealed that he was also quite well educated in Realmatic Theory, and then had his armor start to appear around him as well as he stewed over their attitude over not sharing the secret to renewing their sunhearts without sacrificing people: "Oathed after all... Arcanist... Rosharan... Dark skin... Rusts, there's a bounty on his head big enough to buy a small planet!"

Or the literal "suckling babe" from the Death Rattle. I mean, that one was annotated as: "Collected on Shashanan 1173, 23 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a darkeyed youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note." The Silent Gatherers being the ones working directly for Taravangian in his secret "hospital", and if it was of "particular note", it was one that the mortal Taravangian must already have spent a long time pondering the meaning of. Now that he was a god, the one that's the power behind Moelach no less, you can bet he didn't forget that one and made the same leap about Odium's Champion for the Contest of Champions as many a fan theory already supposed. Yes... Dalinar has set himself up to fail. Either way, he would be satisfied: Dalinar would have to kill an innocent, thus proving him right about Realpolitik in his various arguments with him in the past over what it means to rule; or to yield the Contest. In that light, using an aged-up Gavinor raised to hate Dalinar was simply an opportunistic way to twist the knife even harder. LOL, they all re-form (the ones that were Splintered) and reject their Vessels to recombine into Adonalsium, Voltron-style. I mean we know Brandon is also an anime fan. IT. COULD. HAPPEN!

Is Heleran Chana's son? There was mention of a stepson, when Shallan finally remembered what really happened and who said what on that day: After her mother talked to Nale by seon box, one brought by Dreder the Skybreaker, who would then heal easily from Lin Davar's attack... He said to her, regarding her family and Shallan specifically, "All but your husband's bastard bear a terrible burden, including predispositions inherited from you. Nale says you were warned it would happen." So which of Shallan's brothers is "Lin Davar's bastard" who would not have inherited "predispositions" (presumably to Radiance) from the Herald Chana being their mother? Also, if Nale knew Shallan had bonded a Cryptic (I'm sure Chana would have recognized the spren... Plus she had even named Shallan after Shalash, for Ado's sake), an even lost a Skybreaker in Dreder he had just been talking to (who was at least a squire who could draw in Stormlight to heal -- though he was experienced enough that he sighed that he hated it when they "had" to kill children in their hunt for nascent Radiants, and Nale trusted to delegate the duty to him), ... why hadn't he come back to finish the job? And how did they expect to kill a Surgebinder with just a regular knife (even if they hadn't realized Shallan had reached the Third Ideal, they definitely know she can heal with Stormlight just like Dreder just did)?