Extesian

I love the confirmation of Taldain being the most technologically advanced, which I think everyone suspected but I don't think we'd has WoB on? Makes me wonder again if Taldain's the post-industrial revolution planet that the Nalthis scholars visited and how long it's been isolated for.

Turn around, Lighteyes Every now and then I fall apart

I really like how this is put together. The only part I disagree with (and purely on my speculation) is that I suspect the black sphere isn't the spren to make one type of voidbond but is kind of like Lerasium, it gives the ability to become a full voidbinder and then go around bonding the voidspren that give the various forms. In the Oathbringer prologue (spoiler) So I suspect it's an Odium god-spren that turns you into a full voidbinder. But I like this theory. And it makes me want to read through the Parshendi songs describing their forms again. I also need to think more on the third form of binding abilities, sound like Cultivation but I'm curious about how they manifest. Edit - actually rereading, I think the third form of abilities is Adonalsium spren.

I still suspect that Ati took a dangerous shard as part of a deal with Leras to minimize it's influence by starting a planet together with (mostly) balance. But not sure if there's evidence otherwise? Whereas Rayse definitely seemed to choose hatred as he "became what we made him, which is what he wished to become" (I'm paraphrasing).

Indeed!

This is definitely my favorite Hoid quote but I think the one that sums up him the best is "If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so. With tears, yes, but I would let it happen".

Here

Warbreaker is short and gets into (via Nightblood) the dangers of technology and giving rise to sentient machines without the proper planning of how to encode them with commands that have the desired effect.

I think this is right. Something that looks white has no pigment because the white light (light that contains all colors) is being fully reflected, none of out is absorbed. Perfect invocation drains an object to white rather than just grey. Awakening feeds off pigment so the grey is just because not most of every color is drained. Perfect awakening simply drains all of every color. Something that looks black has every color pigment already in it.

Here's the relevant WoB warning spoiler alert kind of...

While some of the original post changes with the transcription, I really like how you've tied in the Melishi point @Blightsong. This would make a lot of sense as an idea to avoid destroying the Parshendi. That said the way Gavilar describes trapping the ancient spren is comparing it to a Fabrial, where the purpose isn't simply to trap a spren, it's too use the trapped spren's powers. So I feel it's unlikely to be the trapping of Odium but instead the trapping of a spren that can prevent voidbinding. It was then used like a fabrial on the Parshendi which removed their ability to voidbind (or indeed bind normal spren in the way they presumably did from the time of Adonalsium). I feel like it's the spren equivalent of aluminium in a very rough way. I still lean towards an Adonalsium spren myself but that's pure speculation.

Sorry for being unclear, I meant that the black sphere is a gem, just one that has been cut in the shape of a sphere. I'm not sure what a flawless gem emails in terms of being perfectly efficient at trapping light but I thought if you have the technology to do so perfectly, cutting a gem into a perfect sphere may perfectly trap the light. In other words it's not a glass sphere with a gem inside, it's a spherical gem. But that may be wrong from a physics perspective, it was just a thought.

A brief point on Taravangian, I did consider this but we have the following WoB/WoP: But I really like your point about the Heralds 'having done something' in the WoR Prologue. I don't know that we've seen any evidence that the Heralds can link telepathically like the Parshendi, but who knows what they can do. Andthey are all insane. I figure Venli got the sphere off Eshonai but I still can't figure out why, when she was getting worried about Venli's actions and the potential new spren she wouldn't have 'thought' of her missing sphere. But it is third person limited writing so maybe it was just narrative structure rather than anything deeper. As for why it's a sphere rather than a gemstone, we have this: I figure if it is Voidlight, and has lasted perhaps thousands of years, the person who made it made a flawless gem in the form of a sphere?

Would it be frightfully bold of me to suggest somebody starts a 'Morality of Gavilar in the Draft Non-Continuity-Checked Transcription of the Early Reading of the Oathbringer Prologue' thread? Coz there are so many juicy Sanderfan-baits in this I feel we may never discuss them amidst the philisophical debates Does Gavilar rightly believe the Heralds could come out of hiding? Does he not know they never left but just left their posts or does he know something we don't (like new Heralds can be chosen if the old ones are AWOL)? Is the light in the black sphere Essence of Odium? Essence of Cultivation? Essence of of Adonalsium? (Surely Odium...). And what does it actually do? Is it the Odium equivalent of Lerasium, turning people (or just Parshendi) into Voidbinders? Where the Braize did Eshonai's black sphere go as she seems so terrified by it then but it's never mentioned in her previous PoVs? And how many more spheres are there? The Voice. Odium? Cultivation? Autonomy? An Unmade? A Parshendi? Sauron? The Zucchini Beyond? And how long has it been planning all this, was it before or after Gavilar started getting visions in Tanavast-scope? Or am I spoiling the fun?

Yes I quite like this. My stuff on different Shards was pure speculation and I should have distinguished it from things we know. But my main point was that I suspect it is more the Shard than the Vessel that determines future sight (with the Vessel still needing to be sufficiently intuitive to interpret connections). That's where the 'confined' wording was leading. But I like your 'flavors' interpretation of why it's confined to certain Shards.

Let me rephrase for clarity it is a move born out of a philosophy of pragmatism (vs one of idealism). It may not be pragmatic or wise or necessary or balanced but it's an end-justifies-the-means approach. Look at it this way. If you are sure that the end of the world is approaching, that Odium will be released, that the world is in immediate peril, and you believe the only way that can be countered is by the return of the Heralds and the establishment of the full orders of the Knights Radiant, and you believe that doom is so soon that if the status quo remains there will not be time to train Knights Radiant by the time the crem hits the fan, then it actually makes sense to bring forward the first steps of a desolation to bring forward the return of the KR in time to get them trained up and possibly even force the return of the Heralds. Now i don't think that's the case and I don't like our trust these dudes. My comment wasn't about morality or correct approach, simply about whether Gavilar's actions are by definition against what a Knight Radiant should be. They may be, but I think not necessarily. Just like Mr T is doing atrocious things, killing people to gain 'intelligence' in the form of death rattles (which are from the Unmade therefore inherently dangerous). But what he's doing may be worth it. Frankly I despise both of them. But are they inherently evil, unquestionably wrong or necessarily incompatible with every order of the KR? Not necessarily

I'm inclined to agree. This is why there are different radiant orders. There are idealists, there are pragmatists, they both have a role. And Gavilar wasn't trying to cause war, there was already war, he was trying to channel it into a higher cause, a war that had been on hold for several thousand years. Effectively releasing Odium's influence just to bring back the Nahel bonds and the Heralds is risky and will cost lives, but maybe it's worth the risk and will save lives in the long term. I'm not saying I woulda dunnit, but I am saying it's not inherently wrong. It's the pragmatic move and it's definitely less outrageous than Mr T. I don't think it sounds inconsistent with the Radiants. Just certain orders of them. I suspect the orders with spren more from the Cultivation side are more willing to sacrifice for the greater good than the Honor type, where it's more about each action's morals. But even then you have the Skybreakers, mostly of Honor (I believe) but who will do seemingly harsh things in service of a 'higher' ideal. I think spren are like people, different ideas of what is 'right', and bond people who are like them, not who are objectively perfect.

My thanks as well to everyone who put together the transcription!! Some of my thoughts and responses to @Pagerunner's thoughts. I tentatively agree with the idea that the ancient spren used to stop parshmem transforming must have been an Adonalsium spren and it makes some sense that it could be the third Bondsmith one. The Voice - I definitely agree it was a Shard rather than an Unmade. I lean heavily towards Odium, while I think we know he can't communicate directly with humans like Ruin could (can't find the WoB) I think Odium has hijacked the Parshendi, who were originally of Adonalsium: Though against that, and for Cultivation, we have this: and this: As people have discussed before, the intent of Cultivation is probably to make things grow, change for the positive, even though that involves, let's say, some culling from time to time. Parshendi are now of Cultivation in part, Odium doesn't tend to do things like change writing, so i think I've just convinced myself that Cultivation is more likely Everything with Szeth indicates very long term planning to reveal to him certain truths, get him declared truthless and have him in the position to stop the return of the old gods. So yeah definitely going cultivation, with long term planning to get Szeth in the right place at the right time. Fits as well with Mr T, who i suspect becomes more vulnerable to Cultivation's influence on his smart days. I think Cultivation is the source of much of all this for the reasons discussed - to bring Odium out and defeat him properly, but at her chosen time, not his. She's mourned Tanavast for too long. I agree that if the black sphere isn't Odium-essence it's one Braize of a red herring. The parshendi main forms are of Adonalsium, the new forms are of Odium formed by his own essence being given to them. I suspect the timing of the Unmade being back in action is based on Cultivation's longer term schemes. They're my unbelievably long thoughts of how this all ties together

Aaah my apologies, I kept going to the actual White Sand prose link and it's not there, I didn't realize it was in the higher-level White Sand one. Many thanks.

A question/request for the password for the White Sand prose forum. The site does not have the instructions for finding the password in the text. I found it before by searching, but it didn't save my password and now I've forgotten the sentence to search for. It seems it would be useful to have it there like we have for the Aether forum if possible If not can someone please remind me the sentence to complete? Cheers!

Hope you don't mind me copying in said pet theory @Argent, futuresight has interested me for a while. The scenes in the books indicate a lot about connections in the Spiritual relating to future sight, but the main (old) WoB I could find indicates something...different? Not at all decisive but the word confined sounds to me like it depends on the Shard's intent. If it were the Vessel's ability it would be a sliding scale but confined (for a verbatim WoB) indicates it's an in or out prospect. That is balanced though by the idea that Ruin was just "not good" at it, rather than unable. But I'm leaning towards certain intents, like Cultivation (who we know is good at it) and Preservation being able to because their intent is about the future, while Ruin and Odium as intents are about the present. I suspect future-sight relates to certain intents but that the intent iisn't enough, the Vessel still needs to be insightful enough to read the connections properly. I should add that the questions raised by @Kurkistan and others about the idea of the spiritweb corpse are very intriguing, but I'll let them raise them here if they wish.

@Yata thank you, good work. I'm a little disappointed I thought I was onto something interesting, but always better to know

Such an irreligious world, nobody has any fear of the God Beyond any more

After a casual ice-breaker discussion on the merits or otherwise of string theory: In Elantris I hope you're a better geographer than me, coz this thing is trapped in the cognitive and needs to get to the physical In the fjordell empire I hope you're a better orthopaedic surgeon than me, coz this thing is trapped in the cognitive and needs to get to the physical In the rose empire I hope you're a better sculptor than me, coz this thing is trapped in the cognitive and needs to get to the physical

So strange to me. The giggly head-spins I get when someone thinks one of my amateurish thought-bubbles is worth a rep point would be pointless if they weren't earnt. And to my knowledge you don't actually gain anything material by getting rep points. I'm glad Chaos likes order.