alder24

Yup. Killing Kal would always free Syl, but there are some other ways to do that which will work only before the 5th Ideal. OB ch 108:

Actually, no. Dova - Herald Battar - was responsible for many tasks in the Diagram, one of which was collecting Death Rattles in Kharbranth's hospitals. When Moelach moved to the Horneater's peaks, Taravangian ordered Dova to continue her work - but that didn't mean she was going to move closer. No, she stayed in Kharbranth, in hospitals. In OB Dova was responsible for writing an essay about the Elhokar's Highking idea, which was done remotely as she wasn't in Urithiru. Later, Taravangian said to Dalinar that Dova is in Kharbranth. In RoW, Taravangain said to Adrotagia not to trust Dova anymore when she was returning to Kharbranth, which means Dova was in Kharbranth, not in Urithiru. For all we know, Dova never even visited Urithiru during her time in the Diagram. This head liberian doesn't look like an insane Herald, she shows no signs of mental instability, she's just a little bully, nothing more. WoR I-14: OB ch 107: OB ch 121: RoW I-3:

Based on their conversations with Shallan and Adolin in OB and RoW, the Oathgate spren are clearly intelligent, probably one of them is even an Inkspren - Sja-Anat doesn't corrupt intelligent spren without their consent, which I think it true considering she tries to switch sides (and it explains why this didn't happen in the past as all True Spren were just hostile towards Sja-Anat). And the Kholinar Oathgate spren was the first time Sja-Anat was able to Enlighten a spren so powerful, which suggests it's very hard. In my opinion those two reasons alone explain very well why Sja-Anat hasn't corrupted any other Oathgate spren since Kholinar. OB ch 97: RoW ch 54:

No they don't. They tell us that interactions between spren and humans are less common than they used to be, but they still occur. WaT ch 7 epigraphs:

Jasnah of course. Nobody can compete with the queen! She has much more experience in using her powers and she reached the 4th Ideal first (not counting Shallan and Testament). But if Nale counts, then Nale wins - he has both his bond and his Honorblade, which increase his power and he has 7000 years of experience in fighting that none of the current Radiants can ever match.

I get this. She hates humans so much that she would rather be stuck in a cage than be rescued by them. Owning her freedom to humans would be too humiliating. It's just pride.

Easy. The Stormfather can see only during Highstorms. They just need to hide during a Highstorm, just like Odium's army in Marat before the invasion on Thaylen. Venli literally lived in a cave during that time. Odium was behind everything, all the planing, organizing troops, moving them to correct position, preparing Unmades, breaking Kaladin's mind via mental torture (quite subtle). Sure the idea came from Raboniel, but the plan was heavily directed by Rayse. This is literally a proof of his subtlety. He USED them for his plan, not the other way around. He infuriates them before the battle, turning them against Dalinar with rage. He planned this all, he prepared Amaram to switch sides. He correctly identified a weak point in Dalinar's army and exploited it by making Sadeas' troops betray Dalinar. Those two know each other from way before the Shattering. Of course they will have a different conversation. You want subtlety? Look at his conversation with Sja-Anat in RoW. Not possible. Gates under the occupation were used as rarely as possible, because they feared Dalinar's scouts were watching. Sometimes they only activate once per night - and always at night. It would be very hard to amass an entire army from Urithiru with such sparse travels, not to mention that nobody noticed that there is another army stationed in Urithiru that departed to CR - not Venli, not Kaladin, not anyone else. Plus, some of Adolin's men returned to Urithiru after Adolin got inside the Lasting Integrity - they would have seen that army departing. And how would they get any ships around Urithiru's CR? There is nothing there on that side. No port, no city, nothing. They had to bring those ships from somewhere else - and that required men. So if they had to bring them from another place anyway, why not send the army from the same place where ships are? Yeah, friendly is the key word here. Thaylen gates weren't friendly to Odium, they were loyal to the Sibling. Sja-Anat enlights only spren who agree to this. Of course he's not sending it towards Thaylenah, he's sending them towards Azir. I highly doubt the Grand Knell is where Honor died because of the reasons explained earlier by others - compasses were given to Drehy by the Sibling, they were said to be used by ancient Radiants, the Sibling went to sleep around the time of Recreance - when Honor was still alive. It would be impossible for the Sibling to have them prior to Honor's death, because they wouldn't be pointing towards anything back then. It must be some other god death place they are pointing towards - Ambition, Adonalsium, maybe some pre-Shattering god-spren on Roshar. But not Honor. Truthfully I doubt it's Yolen and Adonalsium, because Khriss once said Yolen is very hard to find, it's hidden now - if there was a compass pointing towards Yolen, that wouldn't be a very hidden place. SH ch 3-2: Oh, I didn't know, thanks for pointing that out. Yes, it's probably Ambition given ths fact.

His attack on Thaylen was subtle and almost unexpected, wasn't it? Dalinar barely managed to figure out what's going on. Not to mention his attack on Urithiru was totally unexpected and subtle. That's very Rayse-like. And why attacking from Shadesmar? It's unexpected of course! New Radiants don't realize the importance of CR, they don't have any forces present there, Honorspren fleed is grounded - CR is a free real estate for Odium. And they couldn't use Vyre and other Oathgates earlier, because the collision could have locked the gates on the other side (I think they did it in the end) and the Oathgates were suppressed during the occupation (they used Voidlight to power them, it's possible they could only connect to corrupted gate at Kholinar). Moreover, Odium wanted Dalinar's troops to be stuck at Emul, to distract them from everything that was going on in Urithiru, while avoiding being caught by Dalinar's scouts, which made amassing an army at the Tower problematic. It's entirely possible that Rayse planned a two front assault, one from CR, the other from Urithiru gates, but it failed, yet his army was already in position in CR, so why waste them and do nothing? Taravangian couldn't have organized everything from scratch in just one day.

Well, it wasn't directly said it's for him to read. It's entirely possible that Syl will read the book for him, as his scribe. Kaladin is still very uncomfortable with the idea of a man reading books. Correction, Gavilar believed he would become a Herald, the Stormfather out right denied this and claimed he was searching for a champion. And no, it's not possible to "accidentally" say the Words. Intent is as important as with Radiant Words. Kaladin needs to be ready, he needs to understand them, know their meaning and consequences of saying those Words. You can't just say them by accident. Even the Stormfather said to Gavilar in the prologue that guessing wouldn't work. But once he reads/hears the book, it's possible that when the time of need comes, he will remember and recognize the right Words thanks to this.

Syl learning to write and gifting Kaladin the Way of Kings was adorable . I have to agree, there are a lot of signs of Sylladin happening and a discussion about Syl’s "Chull" was a bit unexpected and weird, but also very expected and fitting to Syl. I have very mixed feelings about this ship. It was nice to see Kaladin standing up to an evil librarian using his therapeutic skills. It's clear there will be a lot of therapy sessions in WaT. It’s interesting that substantiation, as Abidi named it, was a known ability but was unavailable to Lightweavers before. Was it enabled by her double bond, or by Honor’s restrictions on Surges fading? What with those beads conveniently appearing in Shallan’s hands? Finally, Adolin had a fair fight with a Fused and won. It was satisfying but it’s a pity he didn’t kill him. And we definitely know that BAM is very, very angry about her imprisonment, as expected. It’s probably not a good idea to free her, but at least she sounds a bit sane (more sane than I expected her to be after more than 2000 years in a gem). I think that puts a few theories of BAM being a voice/Wind/Stormfaker to rest - she’s totally different from all of them. Which god died at the Grand Knell? Honor? Adonalsium? Someone else? Where is this place? From the last week's chapters Drehy said "As long as we stay at forty-eight degrees from the baseline, we should be right on target" and looking at the map, Lasting Integrity is south of Azimir, which puts the baseline, the direction the compass is pointing at, somewhere towards northwest. Could it be pointing towards the Origin? And we know how the war in Azir will look like - it will be fought in CR. I bet Notum and Honorspren ships will be crucial in this conflict. Oh yeah, definitely! Makes a lot os sense. Why did I think it's the Musicspren Notum was riding on... It had to be Rayse. It's probably related to the Moelach presence in the Horneaters peaks (we would know if the Horneater novel was out). Jah Keved is under Odium's control for weeks now, which was enough for Rayse to set up this whole invasion plan. Taravangian is Odium for a day or two, it's far, far too short for the army to gather in the peaks and swim the entire way from there to Azir. Abidi might not even be aware that he's under new management. They might want to Enlighten one of those spren (Sja-Anat is near in Emul) which would allow them to use the Oathgate. If not, they can maybe try to kill them with anti-Stormlight. Both possibilities would be devastating for the coalition, breaking the much needed connection between Azir and Urithiru and stranding the Alethi army in Emul, preventing them from being relocated to other fronts.

Szeth was mentioned by his name in today's epigraph so it's not him, but we have another piece of information. Syl is learning how to write. Syl even said she's Kaladin's scribe. Can it be Syl? The writing style doesn't fit Syl at all, not to mention she's not a historian nor a philosopher, so it's probably not her. But can it be some other Spren? I can't think of any Spren who fits those criteria, however we don’t know a lot of them.

Then they all returned to those rooms, while Kaladin was unconscious outside. At first, Dalinar and Adolin would be alone in the room, one would have to be sent for Renarin, Navani and the king (probably Adolin), which leaves Dalinar alone in the room. Yes, it's entirely likely in Dalinar's mind that he wrote those numbers in this chapter. Because the numbers appeared some time after each vision, but not when Dalinar was in them, it's entirely possible for Dalinar to think he could do it while he was alone a few minutes after each vision ended.

Have you finished reading the book? Anyway, the answer is in the ch 50: Even if on many occasions Dalinar and Navani were together during visions, there was enough uncertainty shortly after visions ended to make others believe that it was Dalinar who wrote it all.

Nightblood doesn't remember anything that happens when he's unsheathed, he's not himself anymore.

Probably not - Nightblood is mostly blocked by an aluminum sheath but his life sense works perfectly fine. Probably, just like a Coppercloud.

Not possible now. Urithiru is fully functional, with all its defenses working at full capacity. If during RoW reversed defenses caused Syl and other spren to be lost and became mindless when separated from their knights, remaining themselves only in the close proximity of their knight, now it would be impossible for any Voidspren to pose as a Honorspren consciously. Not to mention that Voidspren would lack an anchor provided by the Nahel Bond that Radiant spren had during the occupation.

Nah, no WoBs, just some quotes. It's partially the reason. The other reason is that Honor is dead and now Heralds lack a strong Connection to SR. Without a proper Connection to PR or SR, their soul is fading in a gemstone. RoW epigraphs ch 92-93: This wouldn't work because it's not their bodies that prevents Heralds from leaving, it's their hyper-invested soul. In fact Fused also can't leave. This trick wouldn't change anything about Chana's soul - it would still be too invested and bound to Roshar, this time hijacking Shallan's body instead of creating her own. RoW ch 89: That Truth was definitely sworn to Testament in WoK. It was the summoning of her Shardblade (Testament) that allowed her to Soulcast. Garnet - associated with Lightweavers. OB ch 120: The same color as the Shardblade she gave to Kaladin in WoR ch 72: I think there are some clues that indicate there is something of Chana in Shallan, represented by Radiant. However I doubt it's the whole of Chana, or something that entered Shallan when she killed Chana. It's probably similar to Warbreaker spoilers:

I wasn't precise enough. By blocking a Shardblade I meant fully resisting it, without ever breaking - which requires an equally invested object thus my comparison to god metals (I wasn't trying to say that you need to make a god metal, just something similarly invested). Yes. it's possible to invest something to just resist it for a few hits, it would still require quite a lot of Stormlight, but that's definitely possible. Probably the Alethkar's royal gem reserve Kaladin carries so often would provide enough Stormlight to do that. It's not very practical tbf. Halfshards are fabrials - designed to do that with a spren powering them. That's a "radically different process" from just infusing something with investiture. Good thinking with stickiness - cheese for the win.

I highly doubt it because it's not flesh. No matter what your perception is, you can't make something so far away from the human ideal be included in it. Just like you can't heal yourself to have wings without first messing with your spirit web - the spiritual human ideal doesn't include wings and no perception can change it. A spike would be even more impossible because it's invested, thus it resists investiture and damaging it would probably destroy some of its charge, which would be probably impossible to heal back (because it's not your body, not your spirit web, it's Hemalurgy now). No. It's not a body, it's not a part of a body, it's just static investiture - healing doesn't work on that.

Yes, metal isn't invested. I meant how much investiture burning metal flakes provide. An average Mistborn/Feruchemist has much, much less investiture available to them than an average Surgebinder with their Stormlight. Considering that even using Dalinar's perpendicularity one cannot provide enough investiture to Soulcast something into a god metal, I think it would be really, really hard to infuse something with enough Stormlight to block a Shardblade. A spren in non-physical form cannot block it.

It was heavy, it was slowing him down, it was also very recognisable. At that point they were trying to hide and sneak out. Having a bright red armor on wouldn't have helped them. Elantris ch 61:

The city of Elantris was a giant Aon that amplified the strength of other Aons. Without it functioning properly, other Aons can't be as strong as they should be, thus they are simply weaker. One Elantris was restored, all Aons work at their full potential.

Yes, it's invested. If a metalmind, which holds relatively little investiture, can resist steelpushing then an object with an active Stormlight in it will do that as well. It's not impossible to push on metalminds (it was happening in Era 2), so a skilfull Coinshot might be able to push an object infused with Stormlight, if it doesn't hold a lot of it. Probably not. Not enough investiture. Metallic Arts in general deal with little investiture compared to Surgebinding. A sphere of Stormlight should be worth more than a vial full of metal flakes, but that's nowhere near the levels of a Shardblade.

Yes, that's Dalinar's crest, Coppermind: Gray I would say. Way too small. It looks like the top of Urithiru itself. The Oathgate platform is even bigger, capable of fitting an entire army on it, monastery or gardens. This is tiny. It's just artistic liberty. In the article linked above, there is this cover description: Yes, it is Dalinar, it is the top of Urithiru, it is the Way of Kings, it is the Everstorm.

I think a fully sapient, autonomous illusion with its own mind would be impossible to make with Illumination. Not to mention they would run out of Stormlight during the Weeping and the illusions would cease to exist. Others like Nale, Mraize or Hoid interacted with them and if Hoid didn't recognize them as illusions while being fully capable of recognizing Shallan through her illusion in OB, then it means they are real. This is normal. To become a Skybreaker you must first prove yourself to Highspren and get their attention. OB ch 90: No Honorspren currently alive has ever bonded with anybody before this True Desolation - except for Syl. The ones that were bonded were all killed during the Recreance - except for Syl.