aemetha

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Lift has no intention of ever being old enough for a relationship with Kaladin, and is prepared to go to some pretty extreme lengths to achieve that. Additionally, she is spoken for by The Lopen, though there is some doubt over that relationship now after his extremely insensitive "Journey before pancakes" comment. Regarding Lyn - Why? She has demonstrated absolutely nothing that Kaladin needs or wants. I don't really have a problem with her being developed there, if it's done properly, but right now the only justification for that particular ship is that he's a boy, she's a girl and they know each other. She has no background whatsoever yet.

Anytime Jasnah's romantic interests come up there is speculation that she is asexual or homosexual. There isn't much evidence for it, but there isn't really any evidence for her being open to a heterosexual relationship, so I don't think it's implausible. If she is either asexual or homosexual that would certainly kill off any chance at a ship with Kaladin. I tend to believe (unless shown otherwise) that Jasnah is asexual. I could see her marrying for convenience, and producing an heir and a spare as a purely practical exercise. Romantic it would not be though. "Are you finished? Right, get out. I have work to do."

Discussed in this thread. You're certainly not the only one who missed it.

I'm okay with waiting forever for a love interest for Kaladin. I really hate the idea that people have to have a romantic interest in order to be happy. People don't make other people happy. They give them something else to care about, but happiness is more about having needs met and being self-actualised. Social interaction is important in that, but that social interaction needn't be romantic. I don't want to see all of the characters in the book paired up with people simply because of some contrived belief that they can only ever be happy if they find "the one" (which in real life usually turns out to be someone living two streets over and is only the one when they are doing something their partner likes). There isn't any other character on the scene at this time, except Syl, who would be a good match to Kaladin romantically, and if one is introduced solely to address that absence, that's going to be so sickeningly deus ex machina to me I think I would actually vomit. Basically, Kaladin has a lot of meaningful social relationships. He has Syl for companionship and emotional support. He has bridge 4 for camaraderie. He has Shallan and Dalinar and the other radiants for a circle of peers. Romance is a nice snack for him, but he's already eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, so he doesn't need it.

I agree with everything except the shardplate. I think we have enough evidence on screen to assume that shardplate is the collective assembly of lesser spren associated with the particular order. We see it in Kaladin's scene where the lesser spren respond to his powers. I don't think shardplate qualifies as a fabrial, because I don't believe that shardplate is naturally a permanent entity. It is formed on need, new each time. I think the only reason that shardplate is even available to be used the way it is by non-radiants is because the spren are dead, the same as a shardblade, and can no longer move apart or back into the cognitive. A house of corpses if you will. But generally, I think this theory is spot on. Something else in favour of it is the nature of spren. Spren want to do the things that their idea's embody. They don't take a lot of convincing to do it. The only value I can see in trapping them, is when you don't really know how to communicate with them. If you were able to just ask them, they'd probably say yes anyway.

I think you're reading a little too much into that there. My interpretation of that scene is that she is saying Veil remembers what Shallan has experienced, but because Shallan has delineated them, she doesn't have an emotional response as if it happened to her as Veil, she has a response as if it happened to someone else - a close friend perhaps is a good analogy. That's basically how dissociative disorders work in terms of insulating the main persona from the trauma.

Okay, so here's my theory. We have WoB that Honor's number, 10 is important to the greater Rosharan system, except Braize, where the number is 9, Odium's. I take this as evidence Odium has invested Braize. I think it likely that the voidspren are a part of this. Now, since the voidspren are invested by Odium, and they are bound by the oathpact, I think this means Odium isn't able to divest, which is how the oathpact tangentially traps Odium. As long as the oathpact is maintained he cannot leave, and killing the heralds doesn't end it, they just get reborn on Braize in an endless cycle of nobody achieving anything. So to end the oathpact he needs to trap the heralds, without killing them, hence the dagger with the gemstone to prevent their being reborn on Braize. Now, I know what you're thinking, the everstorm bypasses the oathpact. The everstorm is also Odium investing though. It might allow him to divest Braize, but he's still stuck investing Roshar. He could probably divest both, but then he couldn't achieve his goal of splintering cultivation. So he's in a bit of a pickle. He needs to move forward with his plan for cultivation, and at the same time plan for the eventual divesting of both Braize and Roshar.

When Jasnah was crowned as the queen, The ardents they surely did scream, She won't give us an heir, We're all sure she's queer, Her atheism's truly obscene.

Lift had been lying in bed, Lamenting the time since she fed, Deciding it was time that she ate, She took food from Dalinars plate, And left before harsh words were said.

I agree, I think Cryptics are much closer to truthspren than liespren. They are fascinated by lies because lies give truth meaning. A thing can only be understood properly by examining its context. They encourage Shallan to explore lies as a method to understanding her truth, not to muddy the waters. I also agree that Shallans path to regression lies in not recognising and accepting her truths when she should, or perhaps backtracking on those truths. Her current behaviour, replacing repression with compartmentalised personalities is backtracking I believe, which is why it alarmed pattern.

Dalinar had thought Honor was done, But another in the vision had come, He asked him his name, Thought he was going insane, No Dalinar, I'm the other one.

I have to agree with this. If I may quote myself from another thread...

Mmm, repression is a coping mechanism. It's an avoidance coping mechanism, but just being a coping mechanism doesn't make it good. Coping mechanisms are assessed on a case by case basis as either adaptive or maladaptive depending on whether they contribute to improved or worsened health. In many cases, dealing with maladaptive repression is a part of a therapeutic process. Repression is adaptive generally for acute traumatic stress, and maladaptive for long term responses to that stress. From what I've seen of how pattern approaches the issue with Shallan, it's not unlike a therapy process, where he is trying to get her to incrementally accept and move on from past trauma's. That could actually do the reverse of encouraging insanity. In Shallan's case, it's not facing the trauma that is the problem, it's replacing one maladaptive coping technique with another maladaptive coping technique.

Right, so the form of the investiture may have remained the same during the shattering. A spren that existed pre-shattering may for example have existed post-shattering. It would no longer be a spren of Adonalsium though, because all investiture belongs to shards. There is no such thing as free investiture. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8605 Thanks for the upvote too.

There are no splinters of Adonalsium though. A splinter is comprised of investiture, and all investiture once held by Adonalsium was assigned to a shard at the time of the shattering. Any splinters that were of Adonalsium would have at that moment become splinters of a shard. I think a more likely scenario is that the Sibling is a Spren of both Honor and Cultivation in equal meaure, and so may be seen to be more of Adonalsium by virtue of the fact that Adonalsium contained both Honor and Cultivation. It would still be more accurately described as a spren of Honor and Cultivation than a spren of Adonalsium though.

Not immune, resistant, and it would depend a great deal on the skill of the soother and how alerted Kaladin is to it. Breeze could have had a field day with Kaladin without him even blinking in surprise. Kelsier on the other hand, lacks such subtlety at the times we've seen him employ soothing. He has had a long time to practice though. A few seconds. It's generally long enough to give someone burning it time to move out of the path of a bullet or a blow. Now, here's an interesting conundrum - does Renarin negate the power of burning Atium?

This will be the least fun theory in this thread, but I think it's more than possible they just got lost. Consider that in our world (which doesn't have highstorms burying the land in crem and sinking ships with regularity) we've lost any number of precious artefacts in a similar span of years. The arc of the covenant, the holy grail to name just a couple and those weren't regularly employed in armed conflict. Anything lost at sea would sink, anything lost on land is buried in crem.

Credit to @RShara for finding this for us earlier in a private message. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/118-rfantasy-ama-2017/#e3708

Heh, that link confused me even more. It seems to be arguing both sides of my proposition. I tend to believe that the infatuation described in that article is usually the first stage in the development of the interpersonal love. I don't know that I would ever call infatuation delusional though, it's developmental. Infatuation facilitates the development of interpersonal love, and so can be seen as a stage in the larger development. Of course, you also have circumstances that differ from that, so it clearly isn't a necessary stage. I'm not a psychologist, I have just studied some of it. I just thought it an interesting contrast of definitions.

I think a confounding factor there is that the absence of sunlight in shadesmar triggers Kaladin's seasonal affective disorder. It's extremely difficult for someone experiencing that severe a depression to meaningfully engage in any kind of intimate interactions.

Where do you draw a line between infatuation and love? In my social psychology classes, infatuation is described more as a stage of passionate love, rather than a different state to passionate love.

I have to agree, that it doesn't necessarily indicate Odium. It's established in the letters that there were rules the shards were supposed to follow about not teaming up. Harmony is the actual embodiment of a violation of that rule. There is a quite plausible scenario that all of the shards that followed the rules (including ones we haven't met) are hostile to Harmony, purely on the basis that he is a violation of the rules.

Well, shards don't really "give" the ability to surgebind. The magic systems are part the legacy of Adonalsium, and part the influence, but not specific design of the shards. Mistborn spoilers

I can agree with that part. I don't know that it's an issue specific to a spren-human relationship though. I don't think it is ever healthy for a particular relationship to prevent the establishment of other relationships. I think too many people do this in real life. I have a friend who only has friends when he isn't in a close relationship, it's really silly, and it turns a lot of people off him. Again, focused on the non-sexual aspects of companionship and emotional support. I'm okay with a primary relationship with a spren that doesn't limit the potential to establish other relationships.

Yeah, I think the importance of the sun on Taldain is pretty equivalent to the importance of colour on Nalthis. The sun on Taldain is literally the source of investiture there.