Bigmikey357

It's certainly plausible that this is occurring, by whatever mechanism it turns out to be. My question is, what about the Heralds and the Fused? They are technically the same things as Returned yet they lose no memories to the transition. Could a part of that be because Returned are returning to their original, if altered body and spren never had a physical form body in the first place? These are my thoughts on the matter. Any time one transitions between realms without a perpendicularity, they need an anchor if they wish to avoid the sort of mental degradation we've seen previously. For the spren the anchor is their chosen Radiant but that anchor is not perfect. They (the human) aren't really Cognitive specific beings and something gets lost temporarily in transition. For the Returned, their anchor is damaged through death. They come back to their own modified physical bodies but I imagine death creates a psychic wound that doesn't necessarily heal as fast as a physical wound would. So what about our Heralds and Fused? My guess if the theory holds true is that these guys have better anchors than are available to spren and Returned. For the Heralds I propose that their Honorblades serve the purpose as they are Slivers of Honor in their own right given Physical form. Because they don't have minds to lose they can easily pass between realms with no degradation. For the Fused their vessels are the anchor. Listeners are halfway Cognitive entities naturally so they can provide a much better foothold for a full Cognitive entity to inhabit, though the host is lost in the process. However I still think that without that perpendicularity these entities are still sustaining damage. Their original bodies, having not experienced death trauma, would have been the perfect anchor but those bodies are long gone. Their mental degradation therefore is more gradual and increases with every reincarnation. It manifests as insanity.

The scripts of Roshar are completely unintelligible to me. They look like pictures of seismograph readings. But is that a coincidence, considering the dawncities may have been made with vibration? Or that Lightweaving deals with all waveform? So much of Rosharan culture ties back to the Radiants and the Heralds in some ways that I can't help but think that they are related.

Sadeas established early on in the campaign that this would be a war to the knife when he slaughtered a group of Parshendi that were trying to surrender. They weren't going to let those humans survive captivity.

@Gderu We cannot use Renarin as a template in regards to voidbinding because he's a product of a blended magic system and because his voidbinding isn't typical. His is a byproduct of a corrupted Nahel bond, something that to my knowledge is something new and unprecedented. Sja-anat has never been able to corrupt major spren before Glys. I really hope we get to see the mechanics of true voidbinding with the release of this latest book. Those terms are not IMO mutually exclusive. The person requesting the boon doesn't lose anything or really gain anything magic wise, the spiritweb is just rearranged. The NW uses her Investiture like an access key, the fuel for the transformation comes from the requestor. Granted that this may not be how it works. We've heard about Nightwatcher interactions but the one time we've actually seen one, Mamma C actually performed the transaction and her methods will certainly be different if for no other reason than she has more power at her disposal, can touch a spiritweb more deeply. It just makes sense to me that it would work that way.

I think this theory has some merit, at least loosely. Old Magic being soul neutral in particular is an interesting concept. Either boon or curse can manipulate a soul, the boon either directly or by the effect that boon has on you, the curse always alters the spirit web to achieve its effect. I think this works because one cannot be completely sure what boon or curse you get. You can ask for whatever but the Nightwatcher or Cultivation herself in some special cases picks what you get. As for voidbinding and the corruption of the user's soul we cannot yet know for certain as it really hasn't been written out. However it would not be a stretch if it actually worked as the OP speculates.

Generals die too, for nothing is certain in warfare, especially the way Alethi do it. I agree it's less likely if they aren't on the battlefield but any Bondsmith is going to have a huge target on their back if the enemy is even a little bit intelligent. If said spren is willing to share with a much greater spren I suppose it could be done. What I cannot see is a 5 Oath guy or gal dissolving their bond. I think the 5 oath Radiant has completely soul merge with their spren in a way only death could sever. If Kaladin never reaches that 5th Oath she'd be able to weather the storm. If he got to 5 I think that they'd have to share. Then again how would that even look to beings that are literally born from oaths?

In peacetime the Radiants could go for years with only one Bondsmith or perhaps none at all but as a Desolation approaches all hands need to be on deck and taking one offline for any length of time could be detrimental to the war effort. The Radiants could weather it I'm assuming, but it wouldn't be good. I suppose that a successor could be found in the Knights organization and that the Godspren are actively scouting out their next mates. The question only occurs to me because of Syl's reaction to the gloryspren. We know that it's not impossible for a spren and a human to disagree without hurting the bond. But is a spren above poaching another's bondmate? How disruptive would it be if Dalinar died and the Stormfather chose Kaladin instead of any squires Dalinar happened to acquire? What if Kaladin or Jasnah or even Lift wanted to take a more active role in the Knights, that they weren't content with just leadership of their own Order? Among the KR there will be ambitious people and the Bondsmiths are at the pinnacle of power. I don't necessarily trust the regulation of the KR to the spren, some just aren't as discerning and as Spark proves, they may have their own agenda.

Imagine the Knights Radiant at the height of their power, their ranks fully filled. 10 Orders, 3 Bondsmiths, the other 9 Orders headed by a Full 5 Oath Radiant and a Desolation impending. Suddenly one of those Bondsmiths dies for whatever reason. How does that spot get replaced? I see three possibilities, each however has its own problems. We are sure to get more information with RoW, but for now we can all speculate on which option is more likely based on what we know now. 1. Let the Godspren handle it. They have been choosing candidates for millennia, surely they know what they want in a bondmate and can decide who to take over the mantle. Problem is, when a Godspren chooses a candidate they can come from anywhere, even from outside the Organization. Humans do not do well when they question the stability of their leadership, and nobody is going to want follow someone who just walks off the street to become president. Plus, anytime a Knight dies their spren loses cognitive function. The role of a Bondsmith is too important to leave to chance or the whims of a spren lacking some of its wits. In peacetime it doesn't pose as much of a problem. In war it could be devastating. 2. Promote from within the Organization This solves the immediate problem of having someone taking a leadership role in the Knights without experience. Problem is, the best candidates for this are going to be high up in the hierarchy of their own Order. Spren are territorial for the most part. I don't see many of them giving up on their mates or their own cognition for almost any reason. And in the case of the 5 Oath Radiants it may not even be possible. Could they share a Radiant? Brandon says it's possible but unlikely. 3. Build your own successor Thanks to the new info provided by Brandon, it has been confirmed that Bondsmiths can have squires. This possibility seems perfect, as you have a person familiar with the Knights taking over a leadership position without knocking someone else from their post. And it narrows the random factors that arise from having a spren do the choosing. The problem is the Godspren themselves. If the Stormfather's bondmate dies and he or she has a pool of squires to choose from, all well and good. But what happens when the Bondsmith dies with no issue? Do they pick a squire from their fellow Bondsmiths? What if for example the Nightwatcher squire is in contention? The Stormfather picks the exact squire the Nightwatcher wanted for the successor to their own Knight? They are called siblings, and siblings bicker. Sometimes it's harmless. Other times...? Not so much. Anyway that's all I got. Any thoughts on this?

I gotta pick Roshar. They can essentially duplicate any technological advancements as the guys on Scadrial and Taldain, albeit by vastly different methods so no loss there. The weather sucks, true, but they have much more real estate if you factor in the CR. But lastly and most importantly, If Roshar dies you lose the Listeners, the spren and both sets of Amians in addition to humanity. Sure Odium is a problem but I trust Dalinar to handle it. So for the Preservation of many sapient species, Roshar must be spared.

I truly think Gavilar did his son a bad turn. You could extend this to Navani and to a lesser extent Jasnah, but only to a certain point. He wasn't taking advice from mommy and big sister after a certain age no matter how good the advice. Ruling 101 had to come from daddy dearest. And daddy couldn't have been as present because Elkohar had grown up with the survival instincts of a dodo bird. I mean you live in a world where backbiting and scheming is almost an Olympic sport and you grow up trusting everybody? Jasnah's knives had to have a great workout to keep him alive. There's good mettle in him, else the Cryptics would not have taken an interest. And he seems to have gotten regal bearing from somewhere, though he rarely used it when it counted. I couldn't even call him a coward. But it seems to me that once he started observing Kaladin (and getting browbeaten by a Herdazian mother) he started improving on his kingship performance. Thing is, he should have had those lessons much sooner and the person he should have learned it from was Gavilar. Gav should have taken a little time our from forging the country to straighten out his legacy.

Elokhar was a bad king, but not just for his decisions. Everyone makes mistakes, even the greatest of rulers. What makes a good ruler is in recognition of mistakes so that they can be fixed. All too often he would be unaware of his foul ups or when he figured out that mistakes were made he'd compound those screwups. He made bad decisions worse. However in all fairness we don't know how long he was scouted by the Cryptics, how being supernaturally hunted effected his psyche. We also don't know how Gavilar was as a father, if he taught kingship in any meaningful way. We are starting to see that at base, Gavilar wasn't really the best of guys. And the kingdom he won is fundamentally different from the one his son had to rule. Then again, Elkohar wasn't a child when his father died, he was a fully formed adult. He should have been better. I think that he would have been had he lived. Personally I think Elkohar would have been much happier as a normal guy. He kinda lacks the temperament to rule. In peacetime he might not have been a disaster but who knows? Maybe he was just dealt a bad hand.

The Cadmium bubble can be as big as a small room, the Bendalloy max size is about 3 or 4 feet around. But the nature of the time dilation is going to make metal manipulation difficult. Scenario 1, the Mistborn launches his coins, horseshoes, ball bearings, whatever at the motionless (from his perspective) Radiant from inside normal time. The Radiant is on the other side of the room. As soon as those projectiles cross the time barrier there is no way to know where those projectiles are going to end up. Some might even end up shooting back at the Mistborn. And since pushes and pulls fan outward from the Mistborn center of gravity it's going to be near impossible to put a bullet on the correct trajectory. So everything misses. Scenario 2, the same thing only the Mistborn nails the timing and Radiant is only inches away from the Bendalloy barrier. The ricochet problem is somewhat mitigated, accuracy may be higher but if the Radiant is protected then glancing shots aren't going to be enough to overcome the Plate defense. There's no guarantee that solid shot will manifest in the time it takes for your Bendalloy to burn away. In fact, nothing solid that crosses that barrier is going to have a good time. So that could be a good defense for the Mistborn if they can really pinpoint the timing. As the Radiant swings fist or sword or whatever, arrange it so that the strike has to pass through the fast time envelope. It likely will break that arm or screw up that sprenblade. But this isn't entry level usage of this power, one must be a master. But if the Radiant is close it's going to be hard to generate the momentum it takes to shatter plate. Scenario 3, Mistborn is sitting pretty in his Bendalloy bubble, the Radiant is stuck in his Cadmium flytrap, the Mistborn starts manipulation of metals that are inside the Cadmium bubble and not in the Bendalloy one. That one is problematic because those objects are still moving in slow time too. The best you can probably accomplish is to initiate the pull towards yourself. That gives you a little time but pushes and pulls aren't all that precise even when you don't factor in time tricks. It may be different if one could adjust time within a made bubble but I don't think that's possible. Scenario 4, let's play Cadmium nesting dolls. Step 1, pop the big bubble. Step 2, pop a smaller Cad bubble as the Radiant closes in. Step 3, Pop the Bend bubble before the Radiant kills you. Step 4, manipulate the metal in the outer perimeter to smash against the Radiant. Step 5, drop both Cad bubbles so nothing crosses a barrier. Last step, drop the Bend bubble and clear the debris fallout area. This is a trap scenario, requires the Mistborn to use environment to their advantage. Probably won't work in all cases and if anything is mistimed the dude dies.

When someone generates a time bubble that bubble manifests centered on the caster, right? And the Cadmium bubble is bigger than the bendalloy bubble right? So how can the Mistborn catch the Radiant in the speed bubble without being effected by that same patch of distorted time? Using the time bubbles doesn't make sense unless one is using the Allomantic Grenade method. That would work for taking out a Radiant but that's magical tool territory. edit: Ok Thinking about what one is trying to do with the time manipulation. So are you guys proposing tossing up the Cadmium bubble as the Radiant comes into range and then popping the bendalloy bubble inside that cad bubble, thus trapping the Radiant in slow time and the Mistborn is in normal time? Physical objects passing through that barrier are going to have a hard time. Say you catch the Radiant within sword range in that pocket of slow time. That sword isn't going to survive the time stream difference I don't think. So what about projectiles? They are going to be near impossible to aim, but even if you could push/pull metal from inside that bendalloy bubble the projectiles will still move in slow time. So put a bunch of projectiles in the air and try to aim them before dropping the bubble. When everything returns to normal time the Radiant is facing a shotgun blast worth of metal appearing before they could possibly react. Well whatever the mistborn decides to do they must be quick, Bendalloy burns nearly as fast as Atium.

We can do a little intelligent speculation based on general realmatic theory and similar situations in the books. But the results of my deep dive will likely be different than others as more weight given to some evidence others may discount. Being honest, based on the emotional makeup of these Radiants, I think emotional Allomancy would be most effective against them. It might not work against plate but as many have observed, Radiants don't always use plate. But as far as such tactics working against Spren themselves, well Investiture resists Investiture. Spren are in the simplest terms is pure Investiture with some personhood added. It will be difficult for any type of Allomancy to touch them. Speaking of Spren, if the fight is on Roshar the Radiant has a huge advantage over most any magic user.

@Oltux72 Stump isn't off her first Oath and Ym was never a Radiant in the first place. At their level a Misting could beat them bloody. But what you say is relevant regardless. But if they aren't planning on fighting gladiator style it becomes a game of hide and seek. Mistborn are better suited to that type of battlefield scenario and striking from ambush greatly improves their chances for survival. It's not perfect; spren serve as an excellent detection alarm. So Shan would have to be ,successful on her first attempt or the game is over. So let's say I'm Shan Elarial and I wanna kill the Lopen. Teft is way too easy a target, compromised because of his addiction. So the Lopen at Oath 5. I'm schooling my emotions by soothing myself, the better to attract little notice in either Realm. I drop from a rooftop or high ceiling, the intent being to bury the blade in his brain and snapping off the hilt. Then it depends upon how much warning Tua could give Lopen and how fast Plate can generate. If the response time is slow, Lopen dies. A dagger in the brain could be worse than a bullet. Fast reaction time kills Shan. She breaks the blades on Lopen's helm, he grabs her before she can flee. If she managed to free herself Tua will be on hyper alert for the next attempt. In other words her cover gets blown. That's a fatal mistake.

The difference between Vin's fight with the Inquisition and Kaladin's versus Amaram and the Fused was that Kaladin had to both fight all his foes and protect a defenseless Dalinar at the same time. Vin just had to stay alive until she ascends. Kaladin, even 3rd Oath Kaladin, is a super formidable foe, and I expect him to get much better. That being said, if we're talking Vin pre-ascension vs. 5 Oath Kaladin, I'd put my money on Vin figuring out a Radiant weakness and exploiting the advantage at just the right time. She doesn't think Atium is an automatic I Win card and she has an intuitive sense of her powers. Plus she's much more ruthless. Kaladin can get squeamish in the moment, Vin won't until after the fight ends. However, neither Kal or Vin is the baseline for their respective power sets, both are exceptional. So for our baseline we could choose Shan Elarial vs. Teft boosted to 5 Oath territory. Shan isn't beating a Radiant of the 5th Oath and most likely wouldn't be able to best a 3 Oath guy no more than 3 times out of 10. And that's with Atium. Without it she's toast.

The thing that makes Atium an "I Win" card is its ability to give a person the knowledge to kill their opponents with one strike. But as long as a Radiant has Stormlight there is nothing a Mistborn can bring to the table that will kill the autoheal Radiant that way. Also Atium loses some effectiveness at distance, as anything flying becomes fixed in the timestream. But a Mistborn could pepper a Radiant with coins and win at a distance by forcing them to use up more and more Stormlight. Unless it's an Elsecaller/ Lightweaver who can instantly magic up a wall for defense. Or a Willshaper who can just step into the CR where the Mistborn cannot possibly follow. Anyway, to use Atium most effectively with fewer factors to futz up the magic, one must employ it at close range. And that's the problem. Most Radiants 3rd Ideal or better will be able to shrug off all but the most grievous of wounds and still be effective in a fight. They aren't going to survive a beheading but anything short of that type of wound heals nearly instantly and unconsciously (said Radiant doesn't have to activate the healing, healing happens without effort). A Mistborn with Atium and a decent size weapon could maybe manage to incapacitate or even kill the Radiant, although the outcome is nowhere near certain. But give that Radiant Shardplate and that close range becomes a death sentence. Why? Because for all a Mistborn's awesome power they are almost pure offense. They have no defense against a Shardblade, no way to block one seeking their spine. And they cannot breach a Shardplate defense from anywhere other than up close.

The Hoid we encounter in the Cosmere stories we've been allowed to read is very much a finished product. Because he isn't a focus character he almost serves as a foundational piece of scenery, a Cosmere worldbuilding tool. He can afford to be the Cosmere version of Loki, unchanging, funny, at times cruel, and possessing way more information than would be safe for anyone other than himself. That will change when we finally get Liar of Partinel. Then seeing him change will be essential to tell a good story. TL:DR, we just aren't there yet with Hoid.

I'd call their trauma close to even. Shallan spent 6 years under siege, having to watch the gradual emotional destruction of her family on top of the normal stresses brought on by puberty, with nothing but jokes and drawing talent for weapons. Her father consumed by anger, her oldest brother abandoning her, the next oldest looking like a serial killer, her last two brothers suicidal and addicted by turns. Kaladin 's trauma was like taking multiple punches, body blows. For Shallan it was like a giant with a foot on her back, pressing and pressing, piling more weight upon her, knowing it would eventually crush her. For 6 years. And it kicks off with her having to murder her closest female relative. It ended with her having to put down the man who saved her from the consequences of that 1st murder like a rabid dog.

If Rashek and the Atium immortality hack shows us anything, it's that the SR keeps track. One needs to do something to either counter that clock or make it irrelevant, and due to spiritual entropy this change must be drastic, all encompassing, and it gets tougher the longer it goes on. Depending on the magic system immortality is relatively easy to obtain and hard to maintain. I say relatively easy because the methods are known and have been proven to work, because any old random someone can achieve it. The Shards get it built in but lose their humanity as a result, becoming more and more forces instead of people. Something similar happens to Elantrians, though what they lose is sanity not personhood. The Returned and those of the 5th Heightening are immortal, but one needs constant matinence with a breath a week and the other must be hoarded. We know how to achieve immortality on Scadrial, one must become something of a mythical being. But you still have to spend an increasingly longer duration being old to stick around being young. The Heralds get immortality by basically resetting the shot clock with a new body everytime they die. The Fused must parasite their new bodies from the living and their minds get broken by the process as well. Regardless of how one achieves immortality in the Cosmere, simply wishing on a star and expecting the SR to agree with it would not be enough to counter the Spirit Shot Clock. One needs magic to counter the entropy of time. Then, depending on how the immortality manifests, either one has to consistently maintain that immortality indefinitely or one gets the type that doesn't need matinence and suffers severe side effects likened to a curse. Are there people with a will strong enough to call themselves immortal and make their spiritual aspect to the line? By the rules of the Cosmere I'd determine no, but it's Brandon's universe, we just read about it.

Syl isn't a mortal. She cannot die in the same manner as mortal beings, being part of a Shard and all that. Now it's possible for her to be irretrievable in some way, but even that's a stretch. I believe it would take a direct strike from a Shard or shard representative to do the trick, and it's a trick likely as harmful to the attackers as it would be for Syl.

Although I subscribe to the T is a Plant theory, there may be some merit to the OP's theory as well. I do know that Taravanginan desperately wants another shot at God level intelligence; he's been worried about how often the Diagram has been off since he took his shots at Dalinar and the Radiants and wants another day to course correct. Maybe the theories aren't mutually exclusive. The Diagram was eerily accurate before, an almost 100% success rate, sometimes inaccurate in small detail but capturing the essence of the commands. That is, until King T decided to take shots at Dalinar. It isn't so much that the Diagram failed, it's that it failed in such a way as to further their cause and by extension the cause of humanity. But for both of these theories to be true then sometime in the future Cultivation will have to believe that it's in her best interest to send him another vision of Godhood. Preferably close enough to the endgame for T to change course. Then again, considering his goals up to this point that Godhood day is going to have to explicitly tell him that humans can actually win.

@Booknerd Rayse and Tanavast haven't popped up on the scanner of natural phenomenon as of yet, but remember we have not visited even a third of Roshar yet, at least not in an in depth way. Plus, this is a world that has seen multiple extinction level events. Maybe their natural phenomena did not survive the ages. Or maybe I'm just wrong. I'm sure that the name will be revealed someday.

Thanks for the spelling corrections. As for Trell, no natural processes that I'm aware of but he does get a religion and a star name. The thousand eyes of Trell and such sundries.

Some enterprising person way back when figured out Edgli was Endowment based off of a flower that grew only on Nalthis, one that made exceptional dyes. Maybe something similar is going on on Roshar, where a naturally occurring phenomenon gets a name whose origin got lost in the annals of history, a name we later find out is actually significant in that it's a root for the Vessel in residence. Well there is something like this on Roshar. It builds the continents in the absence of plate tectonics. It stimulates plant growth; we've been told that stormwater is better for the plant life. It supposedly facilitates the growth of gem hearts in native species. It's crem. I think Cultivation's Vessel has crem in her name. A potential problem with this theory is that the stuff likely existed before the arrival of H and C in system, and something of these natural processes were already in place. However, names change as do processes. We don't know how much the ecosystem changed when she got there, we don't know if the role crem plays in Rosharan growth was handled by some other process, or whether this portion of Investiture was pre-assigned to Cultivation and thus was a factor in choosing her planet after the Shattering. We don't know if crem was called something else either. The result is likely inconclusive but I think her name, just like every other Vessel we've ever come into contact with, has something with her name attached to it in the natural world. Edgli's flower, Aons for Aona, Skazi for Shai, Atium and Lerasium for Ati and Leras, even Badvadin gets natural stuff named for her avatars, like Patji and Trell. So Cultivation's name has crem in it. Thoughts anyone?