Spicker

I found a newer listing in the public record under the Dragonsteel LLC name: https://www.utahcounty.gov/LandRecords/property.asp?av_serial=543360001001

It is a little over 6 acres located next to Evermore Park in Pleasant Grove Utah. This is also close to their warehouse so I’m willing to guess this is a likely candidate for the newly announced Dragonsteel HQ and event center. 

I have been thinking about this idea more and more recently. I think there is definitely merit to but I am always hesitant about it. For me a big hang up was how little Gav would agree to be the champion. I don’t buy that he would just do it for the “gift of silence” or because he agreed with  Odiums ideals. HOWEVER if Odium (now Taravangian) were to offer Moash up to Gavinor somehow I could see the young boy jumping to that agreement to avenge his fathers death.
 

All that being said, I could see Brandon going several other ways with this too, and this theory still has a few other hang ups for me. Overall, it’s a very plausible direction. 

57 minutes ago, Mercy said:

I'm thinking her original spren might have something to do with her difficulties soulcasting? She has somehow (mentally or otherwise) linked her soulcasting abilities to her original spren, and thus cannot do it properly with Pattern?

I like this idea. It fits with the idea I had that her first spren turns into the soul caster her father was using. 

3 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Meleeshi used the Dawnshard known to bind (not change

Where is this from?

I think the lack of trust in the honorspren has something to do with Honor being dead. I can see the secret pen pal being a lot of different “people.” I am leaning towards it not being of Odium though. If I had to guess i would say the warning is coming from cultivation or something related to her because of the way the talk about not trusting honorspren anymore (as if they had in the past). The big change I see is Honors death. 

2 hours ago, Watchcry said:

I don't think you meant Shallan, as she and Adolin have a different mission. At least according to the new book description.  But I suppose it could be later in the book when she goes on that mission. 

Shallan just had a PoV in that chapter,  but wasn't necessary physical where Kal was. 

Yeah, I don't think we know enough one way or the other to tell if Shallan is on this specific mission or not. I can see it going both ways. We know she goes to shadesmar but we don't know exactly when. We don't know how long they are in Hearthstone, but my guess is not very long after chapter 8 if Moash is captured.

3 hours ago, rjl said:

I want to reserve judgement on Gavilar, there is a possibility (though small perhaps) that he was pushing Navani away to protect her from something that was about to happen. And whilst that approach is rarely good it could have had a positive objective.

This is the only reason I haven't put him as number 1 worst yet. There is a small chance that he's not as bad as this prologue paints him. I do find that very unlikely though, especially by the way he was talking about Elhokar and Dalinar. I saw that as his ugliness coming out rather than trying to push anyone away specifically. 
Gavilar is still an unknown but there is definitely potential there for being the worst. 

Also, that whole section about living forever.... creepy. It is very ominous to me. That part does not read as him trying to push Navani away.

On 7/24/2020 at 6:57 AM, Oltux72 said:

Sadeas has purpose in his cruelty and never claimed to be different.

Gavilar is mean to his wife and we only have her side of the story. And frankly, Navani was a bit of a golddigger.

Amaram, however, is a liar on top of everything and screwed over a genuine hero.

Sadeas is the worst right now to me because he killed thousands of his own allies (and would have had even more killed if he had his way) on the battlefield to gain power. I don't really care that he never pretended to be a good guy or that he claimed to have a purpose for it. To me, this act alone is worse than anything we have seen Amaram, Moash, or even Gavilar do so far (and this isn't even counting Sadeas' horrible treatment of the bridge crews). I personally consider the act of betrayal against Dalinar to be worse than any lie Amaram has told yet.

That being said, there is still plenty of room for Gavilar or Moash to change my opinion. In fact, I fully expect to learn more that will change my mind. However, I don't expect to hate Amaram the most. Don't get me wrong, I do hate him and am glad to see him dead. But he is not the worst to me based on what we have seen so far.

I have it as Sadeas right now, but I can easily see Gavilar taking the cake by the end of this. 

2 hours ago, Karger said:

Yes.  I think so.  I doubt he would have sat things out too far.  I think it more likely he was just a megalomaniac.

While I totally agree with this, there is at least one case where cognitive shadows don’t really have much choice in the matter. This whole prologue came off very ominous to me, and I couldn’t help feel like we are seeing Gavilar again somehow. It may not happen, but I’m getting some serious vibes here.

I also can’t help but feel that Navani won’t be the only one to know this side of Gavilar. Maybe he doesn’t come back, but something is going to happen. 

6 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I always wondered during the journey through Shadesmar if it would have been possible for Adolin to summon Maya as a shardblade, it's been awhile since I've read OB, but doesn't Kaladin fight the fused in Shadesmar without using Syl as a shardweapon?

Do you mean if he would have pushed through her screaming? Because Adolin does try to summon it, but I believe she just starts screaming so he stops. 
 

Kaladin and Shallan do not use their blades. IIRC, they don’t even try to summon them, but I remember having the impression that they wouldn’t have been able to. There might even be a WoB about this but I can’t quite recall it. 

1 hour ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

This sense of purpose, of fusing to become something greater than their individual selves might explain the contentment that Syl senses from the deadplate.

I guess this is kind of the point I’m trying to make. The act of becoming plate is causing their sense of purpose and abilities to change.

I am very curious to see how the dead plate spren look in the cognitive realm. 

Also, this discussion had me thinking about nightblood and azures sword. They are attempts to replicate Shardblades. It would be cool to see if someone tried to awaken armor to replicate Shardplate. 
Also, on a bit of a tangent, would silver armor protect you from nightblood?

38 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Living plate is most likely as different from dead plate as a bonded sapient Radiant spren is to a deadeye shardblade. 

I totally agree with this. I am not saying that living plate is like the dead plate. I am just trying to account for the fact that the spren in dead plate have a very different attitude about their states than the dead blades. This could very well be that plate spren are not as sapient, but it feels like some type of change must occur to make it so that all the different types of lesser spren would be content as a dead plate. It is harder to imagine that windspren would be content to be trapped as a dead plate. I'm not saying its not possible, but there is a concern there.

38 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

There could be a third explanation for this, namely that like outlined above the constituent lesser spren maintain their autonomy and independent lives and, though bonded, are only summoned when the knight manifests their shardplate. Just like the delay of 10 heartbeats to summon a dead blade, there could be a gap between the desire to summon the plate and the manifestation of the plate due to the drawing together of the bonded lesser spren from wherever they happen to be (Shadesmar, frolicking at the crest of a highstorm, etc.)

This could very well be how it works. Wherever you usually find the spren that make plate, they are likely called in a similar fashion as the shard blade. If this is the case, then I wonder why they havent figured out a way to summon and dismiss the plate as they do with the blade. Is it because the bond for plate works through the now-dead spren? 
Oh, another question that came to me is if Adolin finds a way to revive Maya, will he then be able to summon the plate? will they also be revived?

38 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

A living Radiant spren in the form of a shardweapon can easily block another shardweapon. Spren are sapient pieces of investiture, the fact that a highly concentrated piece of investiture can destroy a smaller and weaker piece (Syl killing the odium spren) makes sense. The bond supplied by the Radiant and their spren to the lesser spren most likely just allows the cousin spren to fuse together into a larger conglomerate of investiture. Investiture resists investiture, but it's a matter of concetration too.

This is very true, too. I guess I view the ability for spren to become a blade as a change that results from the bond. We see the spren change as the bond deepens, so in my mind I see something similar happening with the lesser spren, but maybe not to the same extant. 

I do like the idea of some type of spren merger to create a new spren. That would explain the difference between a half shard and shard plate. In fact, it gives new meaning to the term half-shard. The half shard traps the spren that gives things substance. 

After reading the Syl interlude and the discussions about it, I have been coming up with a tentative theory about how spren are involved in making Shardplate.

I propose that lesser spren are attracted to the bonds between the radiants and their spren, and when the fourth ideal is said they enter into the bond somehow (possibly through the sapient spren). This bond then changes the nature of the lesser spren.

Here are some of the things that has led me to this theory.

From the Syl interlude, we can read her thoughts on the Shardplate:
“It was pretty. Maybe Syl should have hated it, as she did Shardblades, but she didn’t. It was kind of a corpse—well, lots of corpses—but not as offensive. The difference, she supposed, was attitude. She could sense contentment, not pain, from the Plate.”

This quote supports the idea that lesser spren help form plate, but it also causes some issues. In Oathbringer, we see examples of some of these “cousin” spren being attracted to Kaladin and Dalinar at key points. The theory I see most often is that these spren become plate. However, some have rightfully questioned if a windspren (and what we know about its nature) would be content to stay trapped as a Shardplate. There is also the issue of not being able to see the spren after they have become plate.

There are two possible solutions I came up with that could account for this.

1. The spren that become plate are ones we have not seen yet. They are a unique spren that would be content as plate. They would also likely be the same spren that half-shards capture to create the ability to block a Shardblade. This idea could very well work, but it would not require the involvement of cousin spren (which some evidence supports).

2. The other idea is that the lesser spren (such as windspren), change in nature when they enter the bond. We can Syl and Pattern change overtime as their bond with a surgebinder deepens. Admittedly it is not exactly the same thing, seeing as they are not content to stay as blades. However, we see that Wyndle is willing to become a blade when needed, even if it goes against his nature to not want to kill. I think the bonding has the ability to change the spren. I believe this is part of the reason the Stormfather and Dalinar do not want to enhance or strengthen Syl’s bond in the same interlude.

Another thing that has bugged me about spren becoming plate is the idea that a windspren could block a Shardblade when we see Syl kill a spren in Oathbringer. True this could have just been because the spren was of Odium, but I get the impression that spren themselves are not completely able to block a blade. If something about the spren changes during the process, however, this could explain how it is able to do so. This is why I lean toward this explanation.

The idea that Spren change when they become plate could explain why we do not see them floating around in any examples of people that already have it. It could also explain how spren would be content to stay as plate.

I am not sure how well this theory will hold up, but I think it is a good starting point.

This still leaves me with questions about how the spren would be bonded. Is it with the surgebinder somehow, or would it be through the sapient spren? Syl mentioned having children, which makes me lean towards the idea that bond could possibly be hers.

Also, if they did agree to let Syl enhance her bond, is that something we have seen before? What exactly would happen?

And if cousin spren do change to form plate, then what the heck makes a half-shard? Is it transformed plate spren, or is it something else entirely?

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

4 hours ago, Cheat Commando said:

After reading her conversation with Dalinar, I'm thinking that this is totally where Syl's and Kaladin's relationship is heading. She wants to understand Kaladin and is willing to go so far as to change her nature to accomplish that.

But I'm going to take it one step beyond.

I think this conversation is foreshadowing of Syl's eventual transformation into a fully Physical "human" being, forsaking her spren life to become a mortal so she can be with Kaladin.

Hmm... I think I ship Syladin now....

I don't completely ship it, but I'm not against it potentially happening. 
I don't know why, but the idea of Syl trying to change the nature of her bond to understand and help Kaladin better gave me total Queen Tsa vibes for some reason. I couldn't help but feel that Syl is wanting to do something new with the bond in this chapter, we just don't know exactly what that entails. Is it something that has never been done before?

I always had the impression that Shallan tapped into the spiritual realm when she sketches. The scene in which she sketches Yalb surviving the shipwreck and Shalash destroying a sculpture hint at this. If there is a resemblance between the sketch and that final scene, couldn’t it just be that Shallan’s sketch tapped into that moment a bit?

The worst would be bridge 4 pre-kaladin as a post Reod Elantrian

This quote actually reminds me of the moment when Kaladin and his Dad have to give up on Rillir and focus on healing Roshone. I could see Kaladin having to face a similar situation where he has to do a "triage assessment" of those he can protect. This being an oath could go with that. I also like the idea of it hving more to do with leadership. I can't wait to see which direction it goes.

2 hours ago, Kaladin's Girl said:

I think Syl will be turned into a human and Kaladan will fall in love with her. She knows him and his different moods. Kaladan has trust issues and she is the only one he trusts right now. What I would like to happen is that Kaladan becomes a Herald and King of all of Roshar!!! I say that becomes to me it seems that his special gifts are different from other Radiants. Syl will be a great partner for him.

Ok I don’t think this is likely at all, but it is technically possible...

We know from a WoB that the night watcher does have the power to change a beings species. This would of course break the bond between her and Kal. But, if he becomes a herald that bind might break anyways...

Ok that was fun to think about for a minute.

40 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

So, we're getting into lots of interesting definitional problems here. And lots of ways that different entities perceive the definitions of different terms.

This is actually something I was wondering about in my most recent reread, and I am glad that you asked about it. I read this as confirming my suspicion that not all groups of people are referring to the same magic system when they use similar terminology for things. I think this is evident with the confusions about what a voidbringer is. We know who the first voidbringers were, but that term was later used to describe a different people. We also see Lift calling Wyndle a voidbringer, which may indicate that she was exposed to people that saw any spren as voidbringers. It can get kid of confusing when trying to define voidbringer. Some groups of people would have different definitions for that.
This WoB makes it seem like the same may be true for the terms surgebinding and voidbinding. We know that they have definite differences and rules for each, but that doesn't mean that we can necessarily take all of the accounts of them at face value. We may be lead to believe that one group is talking about a magic based around Odium, then later find out it was really something else. I don't have a specific theory about which accounts may be misleading just yet, I just have a general feeling that what is viewed as voidbinding or surgebinding to one population is not necessarily the same to a different one, which is why he specifies that the question will really be answered in Ash's and Taln's flashbacks. I am assuming that they're past perspectives will be the closest to being accurate (although this may end up being a false assumption, too).

Overall though, I don't think it changes anything with this theory. I generally agree with most of it and lean towards something like this. I am now left still wondering where the sibling is now. There are two ideas I like, and I think that either could possibly fit with this theory. I like the idea of the sibling being related to the sleepless:

but I also like the idea that the sibling is related to stone:

I like both theories, so I want both to work. This probably isn't possible, but I will go back and look at things again to try to make sense of it. 

I am not sure if this adds anything to the discussion or not, but this passage stuck out at me in my recent reread:
"Phantoms appeared, created from Stormlight by the woman with the red hair. These were the shadows in the darkness, the ones he heard whispering of his murders. How she brought them to life, he did not know" -Oathbringer, Ch. 120.
Are these whispering shadows related at all to the source of the screams?
What does this passage say about Shallan's illusions?

20 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Too many people saw Taln with the a blade when he smashed open the gate in front of those guards. Hoid didn't want anyone stealing it. If Taln just dismissed it people could try to coax him into summoning it again and taking it from him. They would then notice it didn't have a gemstone to bond it like the dead blades do and it would lead to them asking too many questions.

I did think about this, and I can see it happening. I still want to know why he would care so much about Taln keeping his blade? Is it because he doesn't want people knowing about the Heralds and the honorblades yet? Or is it because almost all the other Heralds don't have their's and this will be significant in the future to stopping Odium? Besides being the occasional mentor to some of the characters, we don't usually see Hoid directly help or intervene with the main conflict. He's usually doing his own thing, but he's clearly invested in destroying Odium. As a reader, we don't always get to see Hoid's involvement. So if Hoid did want Taln to keep his blade, how does that help Hoid and his cause more than other ways he could have intervened? 

32 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

In this Shardcast they lay out the case for there being a lot of unaccounted for dead blades. Hoid could have found an unaccounted for one.

Yes a few of the characters know that there are more shardblades than publicly known. That is kind of my point, so I guess I was unclear about that the first time. Only a selective group of people could have known about more shardblades, and even less would know where to find one. Hoid would be a viable candidate.

I do think that Hoid leaving a blade fits with the information we have. There is just so much that we don't know that I could also see something else happening.

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

I never thought of him just dismissing it! *facepalm* He's so out of it most of the time. Then Hoid is the most likely person to give him the dead  shardblade. Maybe Hoid got Taln to dismiss it then gave Taln a blade that Hoid had bonded. One of the first things Hoid probably did upon arrival in Roshar was get himself a dead blade. Hoid was waiting there for Taln, he had to have some purpose. Brandon said he didn't "switch" the blades which would be technically correct.

This would be consistent with the WoBs about it. I always found it odd that Brandon has said that Hoid doesn't have the blade, but then specifically adds that he may or may not have had it one point (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/87/#e5773).  We know Hoid wasn't the one who did the actually switching (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/224/#e6885). This would hold true if you don't consider what happened to be actual switching, more like giving up a shardblade. Brandon would not answer whether or not Hoid knows who took the blade (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/60/#e8850). After reading these, I think it is fair to be suspicious of Hoid being involved somehow. Although I will say that I got the impression that maybe Hoid knew about some things, but was not really involved in how it went down.
My big thing is that I don't have a good answer as to why Hoid would give him a shardblade. I could see him wanting to help the Herald if it aligned with his goals, but enough to give up a very powerful object? Maybe...
For that matter, where would anybody get a spare shardblade from? Whether it was stolen, won fairly, or given freely by the legitimate owner, I feel like it would eventually become news that a shardbearer no longer has their blade. As I continue reading, I will definitely keep a look out for any word about a missing shardblade, because someone is bound to notice.
Of course, there could be a cache of secret blades (or even just one blade) somewhere that wasn't public knowledge but someone knew about (this could fit with Hoid). Or someone is missing a blade and they are just not significant enough for our characters to hear about it.I will also watch for any information we have on the fake honorblade, and maybe we can know who its original owner really is. I think this would give us a clue about what really happened.

I feel like there is something here, but there are just too many holes still for me to be completely convinced.

Here is a cool picture summary of blood chemistry, but we don't have orange blood on Earth so we don't see which chemicals would be orange. Not specifically relevant for any theories, but I thought it was interesting to see what life on Earth is compared to Roshar. 
Edit: After rereading the green blood section, it talks about higher concentrations appearing as a light red. Maybe it could hypothetically be involved in Parshendi blood.