Dlyol

21 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Ruin and Honor. Preservation is wonderfully skilled in future-sight.

Yeah sorry, I was quite drunk when I posted that

19 hours ago, Cosmé said:

We know from Mistborn that shards cannot see into the future, but they do have a Godlike ability to see an endless tree of possibilities.

This isn't strictly true. Preservation and Honour aren't very good at seeing into the future because it doesn't accord with their intent but Honour explicitly says that Cultivation can because it does accord with her intent. Shards have essentially infinite power but they are limited by mind of their vessel and by their intent. So those Shards with which future sight  accords with their intent can and do see into the future and any inaccuracies in doing so are caused by limitations inherent to the nature of their power

4 hours ago, Melovespie said:

He also voiced Hrathen in their Elantris, so I'm hoping by some coincidental twist of fate he ends up being good at the end of this one too. 

The comparison with Hrathen is interesting in that Hrathen has always struck me as quite similar to Dalinar. They're both middle aged men undergoing crises of faith and whose arcs revolve around coming to terms with the terrible things they've done in their lives. (They are also my two favourite Sanderson characters by quite a distance). Given that in many ways Taravangian is the anti-Dalinar I wouldn't be at all surprised if Taravangian's long term arc ends being quite similar to Hrathen's. 

My quibble with this Willshapers making Dawncities idea is that the other things we know of as 'Dawn-' which are the Dawnsingers and Dawnshards both predate humanities arrival on Roshar whereas the Radiants obviously don't. The Singers were already there and the Dawnshards were on Ashyn. In fact we see Kholinar complete in the time of Nohadon which was before the establishment of the Radiants (although not before human surgebinding). My longtime assumption is that the Dawncities were built by Singers as the connection between them, the Rythmns and the sound based nature of Cymatics seems too obvious to ignore. I am open, however, to the idea that given we know Surgebinding existed on Roshar before humans arrived, that the Singers used Cohesion in conjunction with the Rythmns to build the Dawncities 

Dark One has been moved out of the cosmere according to this years State of the Sanderson https://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2017/

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Dark One

My eternal “like Harry Potter from Voldemort’s viewpoint” fantasy sequence is still hanging out, buzzing at the sides of my brain. I wrote a really spectacular outline for it this summer, one I love quite a bit, and it got both television graphic novel interest—but these are deals still very much in the works, so I can’t talk about them yet.

I’m pleased with what I have though, and feel this series has moved for the first time in a long while. Note that I did end up pulling it out of the Cosmere, as it ended up working better as a dark secondary world fantasy than it did as a Cosmere YA series. It went both older, and more twisted, in the current outline. Hopefully, by next year’s State of the Sanderson we’ll have something more solid to announce.

Status: Exciting developments in the works!

 

As for Obrodai I'm fairly certain it is First of the Sun due to this WOB

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Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

As in one of the 16 Shards of Adonalsium is represented and involved in First of the Sun. In fact, one of the letters references First of the Sun in this *Indicates to Oathbringer*

Sorry, I probably killed some theories on that one.

Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW]

Yup, but by doing that you've confirmed some as well so it's fine!

 

@Wit Beyond Measure Yeah it is although do not read Secret History until you've read all the Era 2 Mistborn books because it has massive spoilers for Bands of Mourning

@Wit Beyond Measure My understanding is that the latter WOB supersedes the earlier one because in the second he says that the nature of the investiture is such that it cannot be perfectly contained whereas in the former he's talking more about the function of chasmfiends from a storytelling perspective and so I think he's being a little loose in his language (for example he says Szeth is correct in this one when elsewhere he makes clear he's not). On the perfect gemstones there's a lot of speculation they may be Dawnshards (I don't buy it) but it's the best theory we've got at the moment.

For reference here's the full WOB 

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Argent

Awakening and Surgebinding, Stormlight and Breath seem really similar in some aspects--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

--except Breaths seem to stick to things better--

Brandon Sanderson

They do.

Argent

--than Stormlight. So when you are holding the Breath it doesn't expire when you put it in something it doesn't go away. Can you tell me something about why that's happening?

Brandon Sanderson

Part of this is kind of inherent to the Shard and the power it's coming from. I mean the power of Endowment is just going to stick, that's part of the nature of its magic. Does that make sense? But it also kind of has to do with how the ecosystems are working. For instance the Stormlight is essential to the ecosystem of Roshar, it needs to be expended, it needs to get out and-- It's like evaporation, does that make sense?

Argent

Recycling? Not the recycling but the cycle of--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah like the cycle of water. And so just part of the way the nature of it works, it has to get out, it has to leak out, it has to run out. I mean it leaks even from spheres, right?

Argent

And when you lash things it's temporary--

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. And even though Szeth says that he thought Voidbringers could hold it they can't. Like it is just not the way that it works.

Argent

Can they just hold it better?

Brandon Sanderson

They can hold it better. It's not permanent. Now there are things that can do it permanently but--

 

We have WOB confirming that humans arrived on Roshar from Ashyn. Braize came to be known as Damnation because thats where the Heralds go to be tortured 

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

A friend of mine wanted me to ask: Was the cataclysm that <rocked> Ashyn and forced its inhabitants into the flying cities Investiture-based, and if it was was it Shardic in nature?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

The same cataclysm that the-- did you finish [Oathbringer]?

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

The same cataclysm that they were fleeing, that they caused, is the one that forced people into the skies.

 

24 minutes ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

BTW, now I am thinking that Braize is the spiritual realm.  Odd, I know, because I've thought of the spiritual realm as heaven before now, but hell is spiritual, too, and Braize = Damnation = Hell, right?  So Heralds die and go immediately to the spiritual realm, which makes sense.  Odium is trapped in the spiritual realm.  That sort of makes some sense.  I don't know.  Just speculating.

Braize is one of the planets of the Roshar system. As for the Spiritual realm, I suggest you read Secret History although this Coppermind article will do in a pinch https://coppermind.net/wiki/Realmatic_Theory

38 minutes ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

So which creatures are perfect forms of Investiture and thus hold perfect gemhearts?  Not Parshendi.  Not chasmfiends because the King's Drop was said to be as big as a chasmfiend's heart but perfect.  So...

My reading of the WOB is that no living thing can act as a perfect Stormlight store although I may be wrong. Certainly Chasmfiends don't because their gemhearts once extracted are very good but not perfect - my assumption is that the length of time it can hold it scales in proportion to the increase in scale (so a gem heart with twice the radius can store 8 times as much etc) but I'm not sure on that

25 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

I take this as confirmation that the black spheres hold Unmade. At the end of Oathbringer, Navani told Dalinar that the gem used to trap the Thrill reminds her of a gem Gavilar had. Gavilar stated he had two in the OB prologue. 

One probably contains Ba-Ado-Mishram, the highpriestess of the Voidbringers who can grant forms and acts as a field general, which is the one they haven't found yet and are tearing the palace apart to try find. This is probably the one that Szeth hid. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ba-Ado-Mishram

It would make sense for Yelig-nar to be in the other one that Gavilar gave to Eshonai. It's more of an appetizer compared to B-A-M who was capable of granting all the parsh forms even without Odium present on the planet. Plus, the Parshendi did not want it, assassinated Gavilar because of it and likely left it behind in Kholinar when they fled. It makes sense for this to be the one the queen ended up in possession of. 

I think the black sphere Szeth hid is still hidden in Jah Keved. I don't think Brandon would go through the trouble of having Szeth hide it in another country for it to end up back in Kholinar and unleashed with no explanation of how it was found. I think the Voidbringers believe it is still in Kholinar and that's what they are looking for in the palace. 

 

Yeah I agree with all this. Perhaps I should have been clearer that I was responding to the OP's suggestion that the 2nd black sphere was Ulim when in my view its likely Yelig-Nar

42 minutes ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

So Parshendi Surges without Stormlight probably actually come from the Stormlight they've stored in their perfect gemhearts? 

Although irritatingly I can't find it at the moment there is a WOB somewhere that Szeth is wrong when he says that the Singers don't leak, they are more efficient but not perfect stores of investiture

1 hour ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

It is quite possible that great shells, with massive gemhearts, have held enough investiture to become cognitive shadows that can be respun out by the perpetual Odium desolation machine. If this is true, could those other more ancient and powerful souls waiting in Braize maybe be other greatshell spren/Cognitive Shadows capable of similarly creating Titan level monsters when bonding to one of the primary god substrates (Wind, Sea and Stone)?

 

OB states that those Fused which become Thunderclasts are simply the ones who have been most damaged by the process of becoming Fused. They are furthest along the line we see of worsening sanity amongst the Fused

Edit: Found it

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Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, yeah like the cycle of water. And so just part of the way the nature of it works, it has to get out, it has to leak out, it has to run out. I mean it leaks even from spheres, right?

Argent
And when you lash things it's temporary--

Brandon Sanderson
Yep. And even though Szeth says that he thought Voidbringers could hold it they can't. Like it is just not the way that it works.

Argent
Can they just hold it better?

Brandon Sanderson
They can hold it better. It's not permanent. Now there are things that can do it permanently but--

 

I just discovered this WOB (it's quite long but the relevant bit is at the end) which I'm taking as confirmation that the black sphere is indeed Yelig-Nar 

49 minutes ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

When Dalinar originally bonded the Stormfather (around Page 1070 of WoR), the Stormfather said that he wouldn't be bonded in such a way to allow himself to be killed, but Dalinar eventually convinced him otherwise.  The Stormfather does seem to never have been bonded before, except for his bond with Honor.

We have a WOB that says otherwise 

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

The Stormfather, has he bonded with anyone else besides Dalinar?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

In the past? Yes.

 

49 minutes ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

So I'm thinking that the Stormfather doesn't fit the expected mold for the three Bondsmiths.  I wouldn't be surprised if there was only one Bondsmith or if the Stormfather is significantly more powerful than any of the three spren usually bonded.  Perhaps this signals that this desolation will be significantly worse than any that have come before, the True Desolation, given how powerful the Bondsmiths will be, with the Nightwatcher and the Sibling possibly being the other two if there are to be three.

We also have WOB that the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher are on the same power level (as presumably is the Sibling)

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Questioner

Speaking of the Stormfather, would the Nightwatcher and the giant water spren be on the same level of spren as the Stormfather?

Brandon Sanderson

...The Nightwatcher, yes. Um... There are, I would say, a level below the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher who are also much-- a much bigger deal than something like one of the sapient spren, and that's what Cusicesh is.

 

I think that the Honourspren was aghast relates more to the fact that post-Radiance lots of Spren are wary about Nahel bonds and given Honourspren share a close relationship with the Stormfather, many (although not all) might not have wanted him to bond again

So State of the Sanderson 2017 is out and in it Brandon says 

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I do hope to find time for a novella, like Edgedancer, that we can put out between books. This one is tentatively called Wandersail.

So, Rysn novella confirmed get hyped!

I think it was @Patrick Star who pointed this out originally but this video describes exactly how I imagine Willshapers fighting 

1 hour ago, Raventhal said:

I think Edgedancers are pure cultivation spern.  That's why she eats food.

Except that Wyndle is surprised that Lift can do this implying this isn't something other Edgedancers can do. I don't know if we have a WOB saying this in so many words but I think what is broadly surmised as having happened is that Lift went to the Nightwatcher to ask not to age ever, Nightwatcher didn't know how to do this so instead moved her slightly into the cognitive realm. This is why she can metabolise food into Stormlight and also why she was able to enter Dalinar's visions and can see Szeth's afterimages

38 minutes ago, Wit Beyond Measure said:

I don't think Dustbringers and Skybreakers are inherently evil - I have actually always loved Szeth, well before Oathbringer, so I'm thrilled to have him pledged to Dalinar - but I think they have the potential to be destroyers.  I see Dustbringing/Voidbringing as a weapon of mass destruction:  only as evil as the person who wields it but with tremendous potential to be evil. And so, when they do turn evil, they are insanely dangerous.  And if this theory was based on one epigraph, I would agree I was reading too much into it.  But there are three quotes linking void and dust specifically (historical WoR quote, the similar quote from Teshav in OB to Navini about Dustbringers and Voidbringers, and Dalinar's vision of the physical void left after the storm of dust).  And then there are tons of other quotes that point to the humans (specifically the Heralds and Radiants) being the true villains, not simply innocent bystanders who have fallen victim to Odium.

2

I don't dispute that Division has the potential to be extremely dangerous (in fact I have a slightly cracky theory that the Skybreakers shattered the Plains circa the time of the Recreance). My point is two-fold. We have lots of evidence that historically the Dustbringers weren't evil. Two that we have a fairly clear timeline of the early days of Roshar and we know the Radiants were founded well after the Humans had abandoned and the Singers had adopted Odium as their God.  

Said Timeline is: Humans arrive from Ashyn -> First Desolation (humans as Voidbringers) -> Singers anger attracts them to Odium, and visa versa, leading to the Fused and the Second Desolation (Singers as Voidbringers) -> The Oathpacts between Honour and the Heralds -> Spren begin to copy the powers of the Honourblades -> Inspired by Nohadon, Ishar forces the Surgebinders to form orders mediated by Oaths

In this timeline, it is fairly clear that the humans had become of Honour and the Singers of Odium long before the Radiants were formed so the Radiants and the Voidbringers were never the same thing. So, therefore, the Dustbringers cannot have been the Voidbringers although they now might side with them because of this timeline and the evidence we have that post-founding they were not of Odium. All of which is to say that I think the association of Dust and Void you detect is basically coincidental

I remember when the preview chapters came out and Dalinar did his nifty trick with Shallan to generate the map of Roshar, it was widely assumed on here (including by myself) that that was his resonance but now it seems fairly obvious to me that is a use of Spiritual Adhesion. He touches Shallan and in so doing is able to Connect her to the Stormfather who he, of course, is already Connected to and so she can use his vision of Roshar to craft a map. So that points to a multitude of uses of Spiritual Adhesion whereby the Bondsmith can be the intermediary between a Radiant and his/her surges and the particular gifts and insights of their unique Spren.

We actually know that Willshapers can Transport  into the Cognitive realm due to this WOR epigraph 

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"As to the other orders that were inferior in this visiting of the far realm of spren, the Elsecallers were prodigiously benevolent, allowing others as auxiliary to their visits and interactions; though they did never relinquish their place as prime liaisons with the great ones of the spren; and the Lightweavers and Willshapers both also had an affinity to the same, though neither were the true masters of that realm. - Chapter 6, page 2" - WOR Chapter 53

So Lightweavers interact with the CR through Soulcasting, Willshapers through transportation and Elsecallers are primary Spren diplomats because they get both. 

This doesn't preclude Willshapers being able to transport in the Physical, in fact I suspect they and the Elsecallers can both do this as we have a WOB (which I can't find because I'm on my phone) that the surges act broadly the same between orders of which the only evidence to the contrary is a hugely dubious statement by the Stormfather. 

Edit: Found it.

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

We know, especially in Oathbringer, that Surges can work differently for different Orders, but we've also seen the Skybreakers and [Windrunners] with Flight, and the Truthwatchers and [Edgedancers], they both can do Regrowth, so is there some way that those actually work differently?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Each of them works a little differently for each Order. There are slight variations, but they are each drawing on the same source concept.

 

So while there is some variation I think suppositions of massive differences between orders in their use of surges is off base

On the point about Dustbringers, the Part 3 epigraphs of Oathbringer did a great job of showing that at least historically they were not the sorts of violent, destructive people a lot of us assumed they were before Oathbringer. This doesn't strike me as misdirection on Brandon's part as the misdirection would be for the present era whereby due to the Recreance, the Ashspren have abandoned Honour which we knew about anyway. Every time we have seen Dustbringers historically, primarily one of Dalinar's visions where one fights a Thunderclast and in the aforementioned epigraphs they have been acting exactly as one would expect from a Knights Radiant. @Wit Beyond Measure I think perhaps you are overreading that one WOR epigraph a little bit much.

For reference here are those OB epigraphs 

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"If this is to be permanent, then I wish to leave record of my husband and children. Wzmal, as good a man as any woman could dream of loving. Kmakra and Molinar, the true gemstones of my life. - Drawer 12-15, Ruby" - Chapter 59 epigraph

"Good night, dear Urithiru. Good night, sweet Sibling. Good night, Radiants. - Drawer 29-29, Ruby" - Chapter 87 epigraph

 

I agree with the theory that the Diagram is of Cultivation and as we have seen in Oathbringer with Dalinar she is very good at playing a discrete but effective long game to get what she wants but I just want to comment for a moment on how dumb Taravangian's 'only saving Kharbranth' idea is. It's actually a really neat bit of characterisation from Brandon given that this is meant to be one of Taravangian's stupidest (at least in an intellectual sense) and most caring days. Kharbranth is a city-state that depends for everything on there existing in the rest of Roshar a functioning economy to provide the goods and services it needs to survive. If the rest of Roshar is destroyed (which I find to be more likely in the long term than simply given over to the Singers given Odium views them as tools not as people he bears any affection for) then what will Kharbranth eat or use as building materials or any of the other things a city-state needs but cannot produce on its own. Furthermore, given Odium's endgame is to leave the Rosharan system, what is to stop the Singers if they do now control the rest of Roshar from deciding they would like to own Kharbranth as well and simply taking it given the massive strategic superiority they would enjoy.

In fact, it is such a stupid idea that I almost wonder if Brandon inserted it so that at some point in the future Taravangian can realise how stupid it is and defect away from Odium's side if that what he wants to do with the character long term.

42 minutes ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

Spren are living things... If they died in a similar manner to Nahel Spren, I can't accept that they would just be silent. Sapient or sentient, they're living beings. The argument that they don't have to be feeling the same thing, in my mind, is no different than saying that animals don't feel pain because they can't verbalize it.

This is all true but I think it answers a slightly different point. This is an argument for broken Spren feeling pain which I'm sure they would do. My point is only true Spren express themselves verbally or in an audible fashion. So while, therefore, it makes sense that their pain would take the form of screams, it doesn't follow that lesser Spren that exist otherwise non-verbally would suddenly become verbal when broken. Animals can make noise, generally and so we can hear them whimper and so on when they are in pain but the same doesn't follow for lesser Spren - even if they are still in pain which I'm sure that under this model they are.

As an aside, this is interesting from Adolin describing what I think everyone assumes is Jasnah's plate precursor 

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'A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her' - OB Chapter 120

This is not to say that it isn't Stormlight, although I don't personally believe it is, indeed under your model it could still be Stormlight but it feels like kind of thing Brandon says to foreshadow Plate is not Stormlight

1 hour ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

1) exactly the same as Nahel Spren, bonded to the Radiant. Dead. Plate should then scream. 

I'm not certain this follows. Nahel Spren are Sapient, lesser Spren only sentient if that. It makes sense that given that, unlike lesser Spren, Nahel Spren express themselves when unbroken, they would do so when broken and lesser Spren would not. Even if this is not exactly whats going, there is clearly a difference in kind between true Spren and lesser Spren that means that it is not obvious that they would act in the same way when broken.

I like the Navani idea and I think her holding the coalition together when Dalinar relapsed was clear foreshadowing but I'm really commenting to say that two Bondsmiths married together would be one hell of a power couple