digitalbusker

I do think it's pretty well established that Shinovar is the place with the longest continuous human presence on Roshar. (Mostly I'm thinking of the Stormfather's comments to Dalinar about it being "the land you were given", where "the plants and animals you brought with you could survive" {those quotes are from memory and are probably off}.) The idea that there was a second large migration of humans from another world has to contend with the fact that we don't have in world evidence for it. Making the Shin the second group helps in that we do have references to a Shin invasion, but it requires a change to we we think we know about Shinovar. I think it's more likely that the differing eye shape,--and other genetic weirdness (Alethi hair color heritability, for instance)--of the rest of Roshar is due to some combination of selection and mutation.

In case it's not clear: I (a white dude) would look Shin to an Alethi. Basically everybody else on Roshar has an epicanthic fold on their eyes. Why? Unknown. It may be adaptive in some way for frequent exposure to highstorms, or some other environmental factor. It doesn't seem plausible for normal evolution to have produced this effect in the time allotted, but we know Stormlight exposure has had biological effects (immune system boost) so maybe it sped that up.

@hoiditthroughthegrapevine I am confuse. Some of these seem like what you think they are, and some what you think they need. And all the sugar means what?

In Words of Radiance, the very first time Kaladin is like "Hey, where's Teft?" we immediately cut to Tyn using firemoss. I'm not trying to convince you of anything; that's just something I noticed on a reread that was interesting to me.

Oh em gee! I had not thought this all the way through, but there's no other explanation!

We don't know that Fused have two surges a piece. So far we've seen one per Fused.

Alethi, especially high ranking lighteyes, are crazy backstabby. The only reason Dalinar isn't on Gavilar's list is he wouldn't have contracted out the job.

It will be revealed that Jasnah can use Transportation and Transformation to create remotely operated simulacra, and every time a darkeyes sass-talks Dalinar or Shallan, it was actually Jasnah.

That's what I'm talking about!

Thank you for your honesty.

So we know we're getting flashback books in the back five from characters that are currently active. Now those flashbacks don't have to be concurrent with the current narrative, but say they are. What crazy stuff is happening right now that we won't find out about for another ten or fifteen years? My money's on May Aladar having a torrid affair with Renarin and/or Jasnah that ends with her being killed to stop her from activating a doomsday fabrial at the moment of Shallan and Adolin's wedding.

Renarin definitely has Progression, and it seems to work normally, so we assume that Glys started out as a spren from an order with Progression. Wyndle is pretty clear that no other Cultivationspren have been sent to bond, so that rules them out, and Truthwatchers are the other order with Progression.

I see where the misstep is now. When I granted you Odium's involvement in "all the cases you cite," I meant that to include Glys. Glys is definitely carrying around some of Odium's investiture. Sorry for being all haughty above. My argument is that Glys was until recently a standard member of whatever you call the kind of spren that bonds Truthwatchers (carrying whatever mixture of Honor and Cultivation is standard for his type), but was"corrupted" by Sja-Anat, which turned him red and changed the powers he can grant to Renarin. What it does not seem to have done, however, is make Glys switch sides. Is Glys still a Truthwatcher spren? Are the corrupted pain spren in Kholinar still pain spren? It seems like a philosophical question more than anything. Which is why I say the question of whether Renarin is a Truthwatcher is complicated.

That is not remotely my argument, and if you honestly came away from my post with that impression, I think we're done here. "So is your argument that we're about halfway done here?" ETA: @MountainKing Other red spren that I can think of: Flamespren Angerspren Stormspren Nergaoul Not, notably, whatever Ulim is.

Hopefully one of our Arcanum ninjas can swoop in with the supporting WoB for this, because I don't have time to look it up right now, but: Red isn't Odium's color (it's gold). Red investiture signifies one shard's investiture being "corrupted" by another's. Which is why Glys is red. Not that Odium isn't involved, in all the cases you cite. He is. It's just that Glys's color doesn't necessarily indicate that he's controlled by or loyal to Odium. ETA: the part of that that there's a WoB for is the significance of the color red. Gold being Odium's color is well supported, I think, but that's not something that's been explicitly canonized as far as I know.

He swore the third "I will protect even those I hate..." at the end of Oathbringer, which is how he got the blade he needed to operate the oathgate to come to the rescue at Thaylen City.

I'm with you on Moash's level of self hatred being much lower than it should be. Whether the honor blade can be used by non-humans or not gets a big ol shrug from me, at this point.

Go ahead and cite where it defines what an "Odium spren" is and that red eyes are proof of that. And where Renarin's eyes glow red, for that matter. Bonus points if you also cover what, if anything, makes Glys different from Ulim and co, or the Voidspren that provide Listener forms of power, and whether they should count as Odium spren too.

Glys is, as far as we can tell, a standard Truthwatcher spren that has been corrupted by Sja-Anat. That doesn't make him an Odium spren. You're entitled to your opinion that Renarin shouldn't count as a Truthwatcher for that or any other reason; like I said, it's complicated. The association of Lightspren (aka Reachers) with Willshapers is never explicitly stated, nor is it explicitly confirmed that Timbre is a Lightspren. It's mostly process of elimination. We have accounted for most everything else. The brief version: Eshonai seemed to fit the idea of a Willshaper pretty well, and Timbre was trying to bond her. We have a WoB that Venli is of the same order as her sister. As for why we think she's a Lightspren, compare Captain Ico's description of his father and daughter to Timbre's description of her grandfather. In the physical realm, Timbre communicates with Venli via pulses, and the Reachers on Ico's ship communicate via some kind of similar vibration system through copper conductors. Also: assuming that there were in fact one member (or future member) of each Order represented at the end of Oathbringer, the only orders we don't firmly have a lock on are Stonewards, Releasers (Dustbringers), and Willshapers. We have reasons to expect Ash and Taln to be a Releaser and a Stoneward, respectively, so that leaves Willshaper for Venli.

The question of whether Renarin "counts" as a Truthwatcher is complicated, and will probably come up in world. He certainly merits an asterisk, but I think the notation in the original post is sufficient. Venli is listed as a Willshaper because she is bonded to Timbre, who is a Lightspren, which is the kind of spren associated with Willshapers.

Yeah, it got owned pretty hard at the end of Oathbringer.

Did the missing Shalash statue in the palace at Kholinar get destroyed or was it removed? Maybe Gavilar, a man so devoted to his religious reverence of the Heralds that he thinks bringing about an apocalypse is a fair price to pay for bringing them back, somehow also decided to break up his heraldic statuary set, because reasons. And the "paraphrased" WoB where he volunteers information about that statue in particular after being asked about statues of Shalash in general is paraphrased in the sense of omitting "...Not!" from end of the critical sentence, because additional reasons. It doesn't matter. Regardless of whether Gavilar's Shalash statue was "removed" by the same person who destroyed all the other depictions of Shalash, we know Ash isn't compelled to destroy depictions of all Heralds. Just her. We know this from her PoV, and from observing what has actually been done. And the quote where the narration says Jezrien and then Ash says "father" out loud: the narration is not a direct transcript of the PoV character's thoughts. It has to take some liberties so the reader can follow it. When the viewpoint character's thoughts are being directly transcribed, that's indicated with italics. In this case, since the books are written for a general audience, including people who might not have figured out that Ash is Shalash, or remember that Jezrien is Shalash's father, Brandon dropped in the proper noun, even though the viewpoint character wouldn't have used it. It's a pretty common thing.

Yeah I don't think anybody thinks it was just Stormlight. In order to satisfy whatever condition is met by a sprenblade, presumably the investiture he used was part of the Stormfather, who is, after all, sapient investiture, like all spren. ETA: that sentence, I think you'll agree, could really, really have used some more, I guess you'd call them, commas, right?

@Toaster Retribution: Cray-ola.

If you get the splinter/hand pun, but just don't think it's all that funny, your English is much better than my Spanish.