Morsk

Stones Unhallowed and Skybreaker are two possible names for the same book. There might be a third title too. This post seems to have all the information collected together.

I agree it's similar. The two quotes that convinced me are in a reply in a Parshendi thread. It might just kill Hoid though. The Parshendi are different than humans in being closer to the Cognitive Realm. They might have given themselves willingly to the process, which might make a difference. And Hoid talks about becoming "nothing", not becoming twisted.

Did this come up recently? I've never seen anyone suggest Investiture was anything other than completely Spiritual. It's good to ask since I guess we're only assuming, but I'm just wondering if there was a discussion about it I missed.

It's from the back cover of Way of Kings. I used to think it was parshmen, but now I think it's spren. Or possibly one of the secret societies; there are so many now! But I think spren.

Something like this is already happening. I don't know if that's good for the theory or not. It could mean they just have to try harder, or it could mean it's already been tried. There's a Returned on Roshar, using Stormlight to stay alive instead of Breath. So they're similar. And the point of putting gems on the Shardblades is to make them just barely alive, for ten heartbeats, to be summoned. So they're already bringing the Shardblades back to life (barely) with something like Breath. Maybe if they got a huge gemheart and had someone speak the First Ideal. Or they just have to talk about it to Vasher, and he'll figure out a Command like yours. Maybe the First Ideal is a Command already.

When Sadeas told Adolin he was going to keep doing the exactly same thing in the next book that he'd already spent an entire book doing: petty schemes against Dalinar.

I added a choice for this.

There can be 3 Bondsmiths. People disagree over whether they can be more, and whether they all bond the Stormfather or have other spren. I created a poll about it.

Fantasy always has magic artifacts from lost civilizations and far away places, or some member of a different race that's never fully explained. I don't see how it's different from leaving something unexplained and writing a prequel later, except about half the time in the cosmere, the prequel was already written. Probably all we'll have to know about Nightblood is that it's from far away, is overpowered, and makes Szeth even crazier.

All Lightweavers have some memory trick, but how it works is personal.

They're right that there is an afterlife; they just put it in the wrong place. The mistake makes sense, because most people also think the Shards are the greatest power around, and the Shards are Spiritual.

I like this. I think it's telling us these Orders' "third power" is coming from Honor / Cultivation stuff, rather than one of the Surges. Kaladin's third power is the only one we know, and it's just a second use of gravity. So 8 orders could be like that, but these two have something special.

I figured they can, but they just never would because of the gender segregation into different jobs. We haven't seen any gender differences in magics. There were some in Warbreaker Prime but it's not canon, and I can't think of any others. I used to wonder if the Assuredness Movement is the Thrill affecting scholars, but Adolin usually not feeling it during duels made me think scholars couldn't possibly be feeling it.

I had to google MP for the second question. It means Military Police.

I enjoyed the story. The biggest surprise was all the secret societies. It looks like this will be a big source of conflict, so we'll get more than just Knights fighting Voidbringers. I hope spying on these people becomes a major activity for Shallan. Also the Unmade are already around and have been creating the Thrill, etc. I didn't expect that at all. I never like reading Kaladin mope, but it wasn't bad enough that I stopped reading. I hope WoR was the last of it for a while though. No one staying dead doesn't bother me (yet!) because I at least feared Syl and Kaladin really dying. There were clues all the way from Chapter 7 that Jasnah didn't die. (No body, 8 & 9 epigraphs saying "loss" instead of "death", Shallan & Kaladin surviving ridiculous things, etc.) And even when Szeth's eyes burned out, I expected Odium to send him back. But Syl, I was really worried about. Even when epigraphs and cover art guaranteed Kaladin would get powers back, I thought he might get a new spren, and Syl would really be dead. I like Szeth becoming increasingly insane. He's my favorite for Odium's champion, and hope to see him become far more insane as the story goes on. Sadeas' death was hilarious, and I wonder if Brandon was trolling us with it. Sadeas had just threatened us even more than Adolin: he threatened to make us read him do the exactly same thing in Book 3 that we'd just spent an entire book putting up with. Then less than a page later, he's dead. Yay! The cosmere tie-ins interest me. I hope readers who don't "get" them can accept them as backstory, mysterious artifacts, mysterious wanderers, things fantasy always does. e.g. "Elves made this 5000 years ago on the other side of an ocean," vs. "This sword is from another world. It uses weird magic." I don't see how it's any different and would annoy people. But I'm not in the best position to tell.

I think Yesteel will be making cheaper swords, not as powerful as Nightblood, but using much fewer breaths. Like mass-production generally. Some Warbreaker details

This is very interesting. Previously I thought it might be a way of segregating people who feel the Thrill out of science & history so they don't break everything. Or a plan by Odium to create more war by giving half the population nothing else to do. But it sounds like it's just human pettiness, and more of Shardblades making people greedy.

This is probably Mat and Verin. I can see why it would be hard to write. Mat had to walk away from the conversation agreeing to a bargain with pretty weird terms. Getting a conversation to end in that, and still be in-character for both of them, would be hard. Especially because Verin is magically bound by multiple oaths that limit what she can say and agree to.

That just means it's not based on publication order. I think? I've wondered about this since we first got a partial reading of the Ym Interlude. Everyone on Roshar thinks of it as at least a second land, after the loss of the Tranquilline Halls. The few with cosmere awareness might recognize it as a third land, after Yolen. (Unless Yolen is the Tranquilline Halls. We don't know. Most people seem to think it's Braize though.) Humans originated on Yolen, so the Iriali can't have come from anywhere prior to there. But there could be missing steps between Yolen and the Tranquilline Halls maybe, making Roshar a fourth land. Ashyn could be involved. Or it could be imaginative; the religion could incorrectly believe that Iriali have origins preceding Yolen, or consider everyone's unity with the One to be a "First Land". The Seventh Land part could be imaginative too. Hoid seems to believe part of this religion, because he tells Jasnah to look for God in the hearts of men, and means it literally while she accepts it as a metaphor. If the religion is that old and still has the basics the same, it's probably onto something. On the other hand, Hoid refers to the God Beyond, but Ym doesn't like thinking in terms of gods, so there are differences.

Adolin and Shallan seem superficial to us, but they're such a perfect Vorin couple. Adolin can't even read glyphs, and spends all his time hitting people with things. And Shallan's art and scholarship are quickly becoming famous. Shallan is sincerely Vorin, and as long as she stays that way, I expect this is what she wants. They're also a perfect celebrity couple, because Adolin is famous and Shallan will be soon. They'll have huge fan clubs together. And they're both murderers!

I don't get the "titles included" part. These are the titles: What's the spoiler, that they figure out the shape of the Shattered Plains in this book? And maybe just that Shallan lives long enough to visit all the places in her sketchbook?

This is the epigraph: There's another thread with a theory on this. I wanted to create a poll though. Vote before reading my own take if you want.

I think she broke like a pairing fabrial would, if used when the gems are too far apart. In this case it's not physical distance, but because the bond is weaker, but anyway:

"Ship" stands for "relationship" and it has a long history in fandom. It used to be more underground, but Livejournals and Tumblrs started making it more popular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_%28fandom%29

We can still tell "spren" is singular in that sentence, because it's followed by "was". Also there's this, which suggests Bondsmiths are connected to the Ideals: Ishar was somehow responsible for creating the Nahel bond, or deciding the forms it could take. Taln calls Shallan "one of Ishar's Knights" even though she's not in his Order, and then there's this: This all sounds related to the Stormfather, who we see accepting Ideals.