Lamguin

Assuming he wrote the letter, he knew all of these people before they gained shards. Couldn't he have merely asked some of them to grant him certain powers?

I went to the Chicago AMoL signing. Had a wonderful time. Had some of the best conversations I've had in years. 5 stars, would recommend. I posted the following here: I'm reposting it here, as the reaction there was that this was new info, and I'm guessing most of you wouldn't be checking that section for this sort of thing. "I was, sadly, not called on to ask a question during the official Q & A, so while getting my books signed, I asked Brandon: Hoid is regularly around when important events take place. How does he know where to go? His answer: He uses Feruchemy. Part of it that will show up in later books. I also asked: During book 6 or 7, I forget which, one of the supergirls did a need walk in tel'aran'rhiod to find something to do with The One Power that would help Rand. The end result of this was them discovering The Bowl of the Winds. First, though, she went to the Objects of Power storeroom of the White Tower. What was the thing in the tower? He passed the question to Maria, who didn't know. I asked if it was The Horn of Valere. He said he wasn't sure, but he always thought it was The Horn. Apologies if any of this has already been asked and answered elsewhere. Again, I didn't get to ask during the proper Q & A, so I wanted to make sure it was documented."

I was, sadly, not called on to ask a question during the official Q & A, so while getting my books signed, I asked Brandon: Hoid is regularly around when important events take place. How does he know where to go? His answer: He uses Feruchemy. Part of it that will show up in later books. I also asked: During book 6 or 7, I forget which, one of the supergirls did a need walk in tel'aran'rhiod to find something to do with The One Power that would help Rand. The end result of this was them discovering The Bowl of the Winds. First, though, she went to the Objects of Power storeroom of the White Tower. What was the thing in the tower? He passed the question to Maria, who didn't know. I asked if it was The Horn of Valere. He said he wasn't sure, but he always thought it was The Horn. Apologies if any of this has already been asked and answered elsewhere. Again, I didn't get to ask during the proper Q & A, so I wanted to make sure it was documented.

Let me see if I can attempt to sum up this very interesting thread. Dalinar currently has no Knight Radiant powers. When acting in an honorable way, his plate glows, and he becomes stronger, faster, and better than shardplate should allow. There's no conclusive evidence either way that he's drawing in and using stormlight. He probably doesn't have a spren stalking him yet.

Well, if Szeth is to be believed, Windrunners don't do well with plate. But that may have to do with him having KR powers, but not actually being one. If he's right, then this might extend to the orders on either side, who also use pressure or gravity powers, which would knock the total number of plate sets down by about 450. No telling on the blades, though. There could have been an order or two who didn't use them for some reason.

The way I read this is: 10 orders of Knights Radiant. 10 powers total, each order gets 2, each power shows up in 2 orders. Each order gets 1 unique powerset that comes about as a combination of the two powers, or is simply unique to that order. This one really depends on if Kaladin's Stormriding is a unique Windrunner power, or something else. So, Knights Radiant take up 20 of those 30. Or 10, if you break it down to each order's full powerset being a different magic system. That leaves 10 or 20. 10 levels of Voidbinding makes for another 10. This either leaves nothing for Cultivation (unlikely) or 10 left for her. Which means, logically, that 10 of the magic systems BS told us about are each of the orders of the Knights Radiant (20 powers, total, but each order only gets one "system"), 10 orders of Voidbringers, and 10 left for Cultivation. Note, this should only involve magic that runs on stormlight. "Natural" magic, e.g. Axies the Collector being able to change his body and his shadow going the wrong way, should probably not be included in this count, like mistwraiths from Mistborn. They didn't count as a magic system there until they were hemalurgically spiked. If it didn't run on metal, it didn't count in Mistborn. Same with stormlight here. No stormlight, no magic system. God, I wish we had another series that went as far into its magic system and background as Mistborn did. It would make all of this so much easier.

Re: Odium sticking around on Roshar for the long haul. From the Mistborn trilogy, we learned that shardholders don't think much of time. So it's not really a long game so much as The Game. Tiny imbalances in power eventually lead to large imbalances in power. The nature of his shard likely does not allow him to leave a job half finished. It also likely doesn't allow him to take up any power that another shardholder loses. That ability seems unique to Sazed's circumstances of two shards becoming available at once. Honor's shard might not be as thoroughly shattered as I implied from the book. Or I could be completely wrong, and honor's shard simply has a new shardholder. At a guess, I'd say that he went to go shatter Unity and Devotion after breaking Honor. Neither shard seems well suited to defending itself from Odium, and the letter implies that he had help. Not sure why he doesn't have help here on Roshar, though. Anyway, that little diversion would have been something like a vacation. Sun, surf, sand, deicide. Fun and relaxation, you know?

@cheese ninja: I was taking a drink when I read about shardblades raining out. Almost spat all over my phone laughing. Well played.

Tranquiline Halls. Maybe what humans survived the original godbomb that broke Adonalsium were brought here, rather than Cultivation and Honor making their own a la Ruin and Preservation. Over time the truth became a story, which became a creation myth.

@fiveAM, yes, that's what I meant. Couldn't remember that The Almighty's name was Tanavast.

I'm thinking that the reverse lashing is the combo ability of the windrunners. Otherwise, it implies that there is a pressure based ability that let's you make something refuse to stick to anything. Regrowth as a combo with soulcasting makes sense to me. It seems to require stormlight from a specific gem to work properly, which works like soulcasting, but it's slower than soulcasting has been shown to be. As for Kaladin going stormriding, my guess is that it's something else. Maybe an attempt by Honor's shard, rather than the Almighty, to communicate. Haven't really thought too much about this one yet. Re: breathing in stormlight vs travelling to Shadesmar to use powers. I believe Brandon has said that the cosmere involves three realms; the physical, the spiritual, and the cognitive. (If someone can throw the quote up here, that'd be pretty great). I'm guessing either each power corresponds to one of the three realms, or each order. Thus, windrunning (or pressure and gravity) is physical, while soulcasting (or the one or two orders Jasnah and Shallan will belong to) is cognitive. If I'm right, it'll be cool to see what the spiritual orders/powers do to use stormlight.

Szeth's blade is almost certainly tied to his being Truthless due to one of his two rules dealing directly with his blade. That Shinovar doesn't suffer highstorms like the rest of Roshar, that they have soil and normal plants, seems like evidence that Cultivation has taken a more direct hand there. The culture seems likely based on the Ten Nations each having a purpose. The rest of the world having plants that can survive massive hurricanes every few days also suggests Cultivation's hand, I'm thinking it was a desperation move when Odium started the highstorms. Chekov's guns: Adolin's courting and dueling. The courting is an interesting personality quirk. The dueling so far hasn't had a real effect on the plot because the battles are shardbearer vs everyone, rather than one on one. Stone shamanism. Unmined metal, no walking on stone. This is super weird on a world where nearly everywhere, there is no such thing as soil. Gotta be important later. Probably not worldbringer important, but still. Hair color. Rather than having varying shades, hair gets different patches and strips of color. Again, weird. Maybe it's just an interesting bit of flavor, but I doubt it. Oh, the idea of cultivationspren and odiumspren is one I like. Like atium and larasium.

So he is. I just looked it up on the Coppermind, and I never connected the "Understand?" with "Kolo?", despite knowing quite well what "Kolo?" meant.

First, I'd like to apologize if this is posted in the wrong place, or if someone else already said the same things somewhere. Also, it might get a tad rambly. I just had some thoughts I wanted to get out and get feedback on. Taravangian (henceforth shortened to Tara, because that's a girl's name, and it makes me giggle. Also because spelling that out sucks.) 1. The "idiot king" thing isn't an act. To clarify, obviously, some part of the "kindly old man" thing is an act. He's all evil and murdery and stuff. I'm suggesting that, rather than being clever and witty, he's more of a slow, deliberate thinker. Think Perrin from the Wheel of Time. 2. He's not actually evil. Points against: He has admitted to running and being personally involved in the cold-blooded, systematic murders of hundreds, thousands, perhaps more, people. He gave Szeth orders to butcher the crap out of a significant portion of the world's elite. He gave off a totally creepy vibe when he was talking to Szeth. I don't remember the scene too well, and I don't have my book on me to check, but I'm almost certain that he was stroking a white cat throughout that scene. Points for: The whole "systematic murder" thing? So he could chronicle the mystical and potentially prophetic last words of the dying. These words largely deal with the upcoming desolation. He's gathering intel so he can try to save the human race. Same deal with the orders he gave to Szeth. Chaos isn't the goal here. Throwing the world into chaos so that he or someone else who is in on the whole thing can seize power is the goal. He's throwing the world into a panic now, while there's time left to recover under the guidance of someone who won't drop the ball. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure he thought he had more time than he actually does. The herald at the end suggests that he's out of time to get the world in position beforehand. I thought I had more for him, but if I did, it's mostly gone now. Maybe he's a Ghostblood? I don't really have an argument for that. Desolations 1. They last a really long time. If the Voidbringers are actually Parshmen, a theory suggested in-universe by a very intelligent character who has been researching this very thing for quite some time, and whom we are given no real reason to doubt (so, given that Brandon Sanderson wrote this, the chances of her being tragically, hilariously, wrong are about 50/50), then, in order for the Desolations to have been so very devastating, they would have to last long enough for people to forget that the Parshmen were so docile beforehand. Just like the times in between need to last long enough for people to forget that the Parshmen go batcrap crazy and try to kill everyone. 2. The Ghostbloods were originally created during a desolation. Rather, the secret society that eventually became the Ghostbloods. Someone must have tried to remember that the Parshmen have an on/off switch that runs homicidal rage/docile servant. Forming a secret society makes about as much sense on that score as everyone forgetting all about them. When the last desolation began to look like the Last Desolation, they likely realized that their original goal no longer mattered. Or it was a more natural shift. Maybe someone figured that the best way to guarantee that their group would be in a position to do something worthwhile for the next desolation would be to have certain members of their group gather political power. Enough time passes, and instead of power being a means to a worthwhile end, it becomes the end itself. 3. The Ghostbloods will form the framework to rebuild the Knights Radiant. It's a secret society whose original purpose might have been the survival of mankind through the desolations. It might even have been created by some of the last batch of Knights Radiant who never completely gave up on their oaths. I feel like I'm really reaching here. The Cosmere 1. The Stormlight Archive will not include Odium's shard being dealt with in any significant way. Odium is stated in the letter as being the worst of the shards of Adonalsium. And Rayse is stated to have been a world class a-hole even before he took the shard. After seeing what holding Ruin did to Ati, a nice enough guy, again according to the letter, it really doesn't seem like much of a stretch for Odium to be the Big Bad of the cosmere. He can't be dealt with in SA because he's got bigger plots to be involved with. 2. Hoid. I fully subscribe to the theory that he wrote the letter. Too much about it makes sense for it not to be the case, in my mind. Which means he knows the people who currently hold the shards as people, rather than just as shardholders. Which means that he either knew them when Adonalsium was shattered (and may have been involved), or there's been a mass switching of shardholders. This second idea seems really unlikely to me. Somehow, he is always around on a shard when significant events are happening. And he has a knack for giving just the nudge needed to just the right person at just the right time to allow things to work out for the best. Even when it seems to have no real significance to the greater cosmere (see Warbreaker). I'm guessing he has some way of seeing potential futures, and knowing exactly where to tip things to make a difference. Is he immortal? In the sense of not dying from old age, I'd say yes. I'm betting he can be killed, though. Or maybe he ages like normal, and, in addition to traveling between shardworlds, he also travels only to significant times on those worlds. Holy crap, he's Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap! 3. The guys at Purelake are mentioned in the letter. And one, possibly all, are from the Elantris shardworld. I'm certain I've read this exact theory before. I agree with it. Just wanted to mention it here. The reason I think one or more of them are from Elantris is because that's the only other system in the cosmere we've seen so far that provides some form of magical travel. Thanks for slogging through this wall of text. If I've screwed up any facts from the books, I apologize. Feel free to offer correction. And commentary.