Aeshdan

Well, if he's writing to Chaos (who presumably is running Seventeenth Shard now that Hoid is gone), he might refer to them as "your friends"(Since they certainly aren't his any longer (as far as he knows)). And I can imagine Hoid thinking "I trained these girls, I've been their leader for millennia, they won't know what to do with me if they actually catch me."

Thank you for understanding

I think you're missing my point. In the same way that God requires that you marry someone to formalize your love, Honor by his very nature might require that the Words be spoken to strengthen the bond.

Sorry to rain on your party, but I just realized something. If your power is tied to your intent, then it's probable that speaking the Words just formalizes your intent. Like how wedding vows formalize and bind the fact that you're in love with someone, making it deeper and more permanent.

That would explain the fire problem, but it doesn't seem to fit with the scene where Jasnah soulcasts the boulder into smoke. It is explicitly stated there that the smoke explodes out because it is far less dense than stone, which only makes sense if we conserve mass. If you can explain that, then your theory will hold.

Alright, here's my proposal: The Seventeenth Shard is looking for Hoid in WoK because they want to aplogize to him and reinstate him. Here's my proposed timeline: 1. Way back in Brandon's college days, Hoid founds the Seventeenth Shard. 2. A great many things happen. 3. We found the 17th Shard. 3. Sometime between AoL and WoK, Hoid does something to make the Seventeenth Shard think that he's crazy/dangerous. 4. They depose him and try to put him in jail. 5. He escapes and goes to Roshar. 6. The Seventeenth Shard discovers he was right. 7. They send agents to Roshar to find him, apologize to him, and offer him the headship back. 8. What do you think?

That is brilliant! It explains what the Dawnshards are, why only Honorspren can be bound, and where voidbinding came from! +1 reputation!

I assumed Joshin was a sort of auxillary sharder.

He might have been writing to his replacement as head of the 17th Shard. Also, I think we can be pretty sure that Hoid either was part of the 17th Shard or was at least on good terms with them during AoL. Otherwise, Joshin and Mi'chelle would have tried to arrest/kill/something him.

Wayne's a Bloodmaker, so tea doesn't taste like that to him.

He wears cabbages for hats too?

Maybe he's trying to synthesize pure Adonalsium.

That does answer my question. Thanks!

What about this theory? There are ten possible "Surgebonds" (A Surgebond grants the ability to use one Surge). Each Nahel bond gives two surgebonds. The ten types of honorspren between them cover all legit surgebond combinations. There are other deciads (groups of ten spren) that grant the same powers, but have no connection to Honor. Nohadon somehow persuaded the spren to only let the ten forms of honorspren bind with humans

If i understand correctly, you are suggesting that Jasnah Soulcasted the thief into flammable gas, not pure thermal energy?

That makes a little more sense, but there are still two problems: 1. That's still a storming lot of fire, much more than i think we see. 2. That would leave behind a big pile of ash, and I think Shallan would have noticed that.

In the scene in WoK where Jasnah soulcasts the boulder into smoke, it is stated that Soulcasting is mass-conservative (100 kg of stone makes 100 kg of smoke). My problem comes from applying that to fire Soulcasting. By my calculations, Soulcasting a 100kg thief into fire would produce 9 exajoules of fire energy. According to Wikipedia, this is approximately 35 times as powerful as the most powerful nuclear explosion ever created by man. What in the world is going on here?

good point.

Do we even know for certain that Inquistors have tin? Their "steelsight" would be boosted by better steel, not by tin.

Doesn't Hoid wear black in WoK? Okay...

I think 10 and 16 have some connection to Adonalsium itself.

He uses a similar technique in Warbreaker.

What if the Oathgates don't like to Urithiru, but to something in urithiru? That is, imagine there's some huge, immensely complex fabrial that powers the gateways. The exit end of an Oathgate can be anywhere, but the entrance end has to be at the Tower of Gates (random name i just made up). The idea being that all the power for the gate came from one end. Thus, a gate can only be opened connecting the Tower to somewhere else, and they didn't build another Tower because it was way too much expense and trouble for very little gain.

And is Harmonium the same thing as Atium + Lerasium.

BTW, I think Elend gave Vin her own set of rooms for three reasons: 1. So she could have some alone space. She really likes that. 2. So he'd be less tempted to sleep with her. 3. To make it more obvious to the skaa that he wasn't sleeping with her. She mentions when correlating the Terris Prophecies in WoA that she spends nearly all her time in Elend's room or out hunting. She just has rooms to sleep in. Or make a mess in.