Aeshdan

Yeah, that might be a better phrasing. I saw the issue you raise, but I couldn't think of another phrasing that retains the same elegance.

There's been a lot of speculation about the Fourth Ideal of the Windrunners, but less so about the fourth Edgedancer Ideal. I'm speculating that the Fourth Ideal of the Edgedancers is something along the line of "I will speak for those who have been silenced". I think this makes a logical progression with the other Edgedancer ideals we've seen. Their Second Ideal is to remember, which is a very passive act (you just have to refrain from forgetting what you already know). The Third Ideal advances from remembering to listening, so now you not only cannot forget the little people but you need to actively be willing to open yourself to their concerns and problems. And then the Fourth Ideal goes from listening to speaking, requiring that the Edgedancer not only be aware of those who others overlook but actively do something to help them. Thoughts?

I'd say the Skybreakers are the most dangerous, especially on a strategic scale. Holding Gravitation lets them move very quickly and attack in ways that are difficult to block, while Division lets them destroy almost anything they can get close enough to touch.

Ooh, that would make a lot of sense. If we suppose that the Dawnshards were tied to Honor (since they come from Ashyn), there'd be ten of them. So that explains why there is one Dawnshard different from the rest: Nine were corrupted into Unmade, and one remains intact.

It's mentioned repeatedly that in previous Desolations, Sja-Anat was limited to corrupting lesser spren, that truespren were able to fight her off. But now in Glys we see her having corrupted a full Radiant spren. So what changed? Similarly, we've seen that the Fused are looking to collect Shardblades and Plate. Now, obviously that could just be to use them, since we know that singers can use dead Shards, but it's possible that there is more to it then that. What if the deadeyes, having been spiritually injured by the Recreance, are vulnerable to Sja-Anat's influence? What if Glys was a deadeye that Sja-Anat re-animated as a Voidspren, and that's how she is able to create corrupted truespren?

This is something I'm hoping for. The Releasers are one of my favorite Orders, and I'm really hoping we get to see some on humanity's side in RoW.

Yes, Radiants definitely must have broken their oaths before the Desolation. But do we know that a Radiant of the third oath or higher breaking their oaths results in a deadeye? We know it's possible to break the bond without producing a deadeye, because we see it happening with Syl. I'm theorizing that there was something qualitatively different about the Recreance, some unknown and unanticipated x-factor that caused that specific act to leave the spren as deadeyes instead of simply causing them to devolve.

Could you show me the citation? Because I went looking through the Arcanum and I couldn't find any WoB on this.

Ever since we first saw the Recreance, the question has been asked: Why? Why would the Radiants, after defending humanity for all those generations, choose to renounce their oaths, leaving their spren trapped in agony and humanity defenseless? Even with the revelation of Humanity's origin on Ashyn, and the fact that they'd destroyed that world and had to flee to Roshar, things didn't quite seem to add up. So I have two theories about why the Radiants committed the Recreance, presented together because they're kind of interconnected. Theory 1: The Radiants did not expect to leave their spren as deadeyes. There doesn't seem to be any mention of dead blades or deadeye spren before the Recreance. Moreover, when Syl offers to break the bond in WoK, she says it would cause her to revert back to a non-sapient state, not leave her a deadeyes. And even when Kal actually breaks the bond in WoR, we don't see any sign of Syl being made a deadeye, she just goes mindless like a windspren. So I theorize that when the Radiants renounced their oaths, they expected their spren to revert en masse to their pre-bonding state, mindless in the Physical but fine in the Cognitive. That's something I can imagine the Radiants being willing to do, for a good enough reason. But for some reason, this revocation was different from anything that had come before, and instead tore out their spren's minds, leaving them deadeyed. Theory 2: The Radiants renounced their oaths because they no longer believed they were needed. Whenever the Radiants had had doubts before, Honor was able to point to the unquestionable need for them to continue. The Radiant powers might be dangerous, but they were also the only thing that was keeping humanity alive through the repeated Desolations. But leading up to the Recreance, for the first time in millennia humanity seemed safe. The Heralds claimed they had won, sealing the Fused on Braize forever. The singers were lobotomized beyond any hope of recovery, and the Radiants had no idea that the listeners had escaped. Odium was locked away by Honor's sacrifice. The only threat left that could imperil the entire human race was the Radiants themselves. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising that the Radiants might have decided to revoke their Oaths, remove the last threat to humanity. Thoughts?

Wasn't there some kind of Epic that the coilgun was based off of? Someone who could charge objects with energy and turn them into bombs? That would make sense for Mizzy's power. Either that or explosive teleportation.

I was rereading Perfect State, and I noticed for the first time something that doesn't seem to add up. This whole system is supposed to be ruled by XinWey's Doctrine: that the essential morality of mankind is to create the greatest amount of happiness among the greatest number of people using the least resources. And they accomplish this by removing each Liveborn brain and placing it in an artificial pod that keeps it alive and creates a simulated dreamworld tailored to revolve around that specific Liveborn. Ok, so far, so good. I find the whole concept obscene and horrific, but that's because I subscribe to a different postulate about the essential morality of mankind. The system is internally self-consistent. But then the Wode does something that undermines everything else: they tell the Liveborn what they truly are. There is no logical reason why they would have to do that. Even if the Wode believe that the Liveborn need contact with other Liveborn for psychological health, they could easily put multiple Liveborn in the same simulations or make connections between the simulations that don't reveal the truth. The Liveborn will be perfectly happy with their dreamworlds whether or not they know what they are. In fact, they will be more happy not knowing, since once they learn the truth any Liveborn who really considers his or her life must come to the same realizations Sophie and Kai did. So why exactly do they tell the Liveborn the truth? What possible reason could there be for knowing that your whole life is an illusion, every achievement spoonfed to keep you happy? I can only think of one good reason: there is a way out. Somewhere in each Liveborn's coded dreamworld, if they look for it, is a portal that will let them exit their dreamworld, at which point their brain is plugged into a robot or implanted in a cloned shell or something and the Liveborn awakens into the real world. Perhaps the Wode included that code as a safeguard in case they were wrong about the ultimate purpose of humanity, or perhaps this is simply where new Wode members come from. Either way, I suspect that there is a way out of the dreamworld somewhere.

My guess is that the front five is going to end with Eshonai rising to leadership of the singers, breaking free of Odium's control, and negotiating a truce with the humans to end the war. The Fused will still exist, but will soon run out of singers willing to offer themselves as hosts and so will be driven back into the storm. The Back five will be kicked off with an invasion of human Voidbinders from Ashyn, the descendants of the ones who didn't flee the initial catastrophe all those aeons ago.

I like your Fourth Ideal, and I think your reasoning makes sense, but I have a different guess for the Fifth: I will not protect others from the trials they need to grow strong. It seems to me that that one really encapsulates the culmination of what it means to protect, that you must know not only when others need to be protected, but when, in the long run, helping them would only hurt them worse.

I like this one for the Fourth Ideal. As for the Fifth Ideal, my guess would be: I will not protect others from the trials they need to grow strong. It seems to me that that one really encapsulates the culmination of what it means to protect, that you must know not only when others need to be protected, but when, in the long run, helping them would only hurt them worse.

One thing worth noting WRT the Unity powers is that this is the first time the Stormfather has empowered a Bondsmith since Honor's splintering, and there have been hints that with Tanavast dead, a lot of Honor's power has been inherited by the Stormfather. So it's possible that the Unity surgebindings are actually Bondsmith surgebindings (or at least Stormfather-Bondsmith surgebindings, it's possible that each of the three Bondsmiths interprets their power differently), but much stronger (with both more raw power and the ability to work on a more profound level), because Honor's power is now being accessed directly, instead of secondhand through the Stormfather.

So apparently there is a WOB now that the Heralds (except possibly Ash) were alive during the human Exodus to Roshar. Which... doesn't seem plausible to me. That would mean that the humans would have to flee to Roshar and settle there, the singers would have to go from accepting humans in to starting a war with them, some of the singers would have to become desperate enough to form the Fused, and the Fused would have to be in circulation long enough for the humans to realize the trouble they were in, all in at most a single human lifespan (and that's assuming that the Heralds were babes in arms during the Exodus, and on the brink of death before swearing the Oathpact, neither of which seems entirely probable). Does anyone know if the Heralds had access to some means of prolonging their lifespan before becoming Heralds?

Throughout the entirety of Warbreaker, Denth seems to be running on only a single Breath. He claims to Vivenna that he only has a single Breath, and with the First Heightening Vivenna would be able to tell if he had more. And we know that regular Breaths can't be masked the way a Divine Breath can, because there are times when Vasher has to stash Breath in his clothes in order to conceal his aura. But Denth is Returned, which means he needs to burn through a Breath a week. So is he sneaking out every week and buying a new Breath to replace the one he just ate? That seems incredibly risky. You'd think someone who'd survived as long as Denth would make sure to have a bit of a buffer just in case something goes wrong.

This is the impression I got too. The Krell saw humanity as violent animals, and treated us as such. We insisted on being treated as responsible sapients, and things got ugly from there.

The impression I got was that it was a question of semantics. The Krell coalition basically declared that all humans needed to submit to their authority because they were scared of us, and the humans refused and used force to defend themselves. So you could say that it was the Krell that started it by making unreasonable demands, or that the humans started it by being the first to use force.

My guess would be that the mechanical apparatus "catches" the cytonic signal and projects it over the entire ship. So Spensa makes a cytonic jump, and the device makes sure that she brings the whole ship with her.

Also, the bomber and its escorts are specifically noted as being the only ships Spensa can't "hear", which further implies that they are manned. Or, well, Krelled.

Also, I believe it's mentioned by Gran-Gran that Detreitus had been abandoned for centuries by the time the Defiant fled to it. So the Defiant fighters are using tech that is several centuries older than what the Krell have.

When Siri is talking to Hoid about the former God-Kings of Hallendren, it's mentioned that Susebron III (I think, could have been the IV), sired a living daughter before siring the next God-King. Given that the Royal Line of Idris get their Royal Locks from the blood of Vo the First Returned, logically Susebron's daughter and all her descendants should likewise have them. And yet this is never brought up. Does anyone know whether Brandon has commented on this? Any ideas why he might have left this out?

It specifically mentions that she wasn't. So presumably whatever the priests do to allow Returned to have children can produce both living and dead children. On the issue of Idris's government, Dedelin's thoughts when he is deciding not to send Vivenna off to Hallendren imply that he expects her to become a ruling Queen. And when Vivenna is thinking about her life, she expects to inherit the throne instead of Ridger. So Idris presumably practices absolute primogeniture.

First, there's something else I probably should explain. The story I am currently writing isn't just a story in its own right. It is also the first installment (or technically the second, but the first was more of a prelude) of a series of stories, which themselves form a larger story. The larger story is about the interaction between the two main characters, and the complex interpersonal dynamics of their relationship, while the individual substories are more focused on action and adventure. That's where I made my mistake, I tried to skip to the immediate payoff of the shorter story, rather than putting in the time to start a story in motion that would pay off further down the line. Basically, if I go forward with the plot I have now, I can finish this story, but it will make any future stories almost unwriteable. As mentioned above, I'm near the very beginning of this series, just a few chapters into the first story. Unfortunately, it won't work. The larger story is primarily about the two protagonists getting to know each other through a complex web of deceptions and facades, so it's actually important that they know nothing about each other's true selves until the story starts. And, as mentioned above, I just plain didn't give myself time for them to get to know each other. But thank you for the suggestion!