Draigon

I don't have the text, but Lopen did manage to stick his face to the ground. I can't imagine that having been anything other than his skin on the stone.

It's not that spren can't leave, it's that it is very difficult to do so.

Kaladin may be commoner-born, but that doesn't matter since he holds a shardblade. As soon as he shows the blade, he's considered only a step or two below the highprinces. That's how he gets away with ordering Rashone around in Hearthstone. His shardblade places him above Rashone in authority regardless of whether he was a slave or deserter in the past.

What seems to be happening with the Shards is that omnipotence and omniscience are being forced through a mortal perspective. The mortal holders of the Shards are changed quite completely by the experience but can't fully access all investiture related to their Shard because while the Shard knows the mortal filter does not. Once the mortal filter is made aware of what it knows or has access to, it can start using and affecting it.

I'm curious as to why you've drawn this conclusion. Kaladin knows of firemoss and its medicinal use in WoR. He turns it down as a pain killer because he's aware of its addictive qualities, but it was still accepted by the surgeons for use even with its drawback. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Firemoss

Considering Lopen is capable of surgebinding in that scene, I don't think it matters if the bottle is corked or capped, but the text does say cap. It doesn't seem that outlandish considering the existence of soulcasters, though why soulcasters would spend time making bottlecaps I don't know. Maybe it's similar to the scrap metal that Vstim sells to the Shin.

Best I can come up with with is a patent from 1892 according to Wikipedia, so take with a grain of salt. Technology in Brandon's worlds doesn't seem to progress at the same rate as technology in our own world. For instance, Mistborn had canned food during the first era, while most other technology was repressed.

The exact history of anything related to Shallan before she killed her mother is still unrevealed.

The image of Navani leaning out over the edge of the wall cheering for Dalinar when he Ascends.

Dalinar's visit took place shortly after Gavilar's assassination, and Cultivation tells him he's the first she's personally appeared to in a very long time. Lift's visit was only 3 or so years ago and takes place after Dalinar's visit. Taravangian's visit also takes place after Gavilar's assassination, and we have good reason to believe after Dalinar's visit as well. Dalinar being the first human to see Cultivation in a long time still leaves room for these two, at least, to also have met Cultivation personally as the Desolation looms near.

Odium's blind to a lot of things. So much so that I think he only really knows what his invested followers know. He thought Shallan was an Elsecaller. He's, to the best of our knowledge, unaware of Venli's visit to Dalinar's vision and subsequent radiance. I wonder what other blind spots can be found in what we've been given so far.

Sung by Lift... Dashing through the drop-deads, On awesome feet like mine. Over the bumps I go, Sliding all the way. Ain't it an awesome thing, Making me more awesome. What fun it is to slide and WHAMM... Wyndle... Drop-dead falls, Drop-dead falls, Drop-deads fall all around. Oh why do I have such bad luck With the knight to whom I'm bound.

There is technically a "Veil" in WoK. It's the one in front of the Palanaeum. Basically the area you have pass through in order to gain knowledge, and the area in which Shallan spends most of her time in that book.

I think Brandon's done a very good job of showing just bad the "telephone game" of history can get. The original presentation was that voidbringers had kicked humanity out of the Tranquiline Halls. We are given at the same time the idea that voidbringers come from Damnation. While both ideas are true separately, Vorinism has mushed them together.

This immediately brought to mind the Disney movie Frozen and how we are presented Hans from Anna's point of view as so perfectly that his eventual betrayal at the end of the movie leaves everyone feeling just as betrayed by the story as Anna is. Not that I'm suggesting Adolin has evil plans going, it's just a very good parallel and reminder that our viewpoint is unreliable.

I don't have the text with me to look this up, but I think half-shards would be a special note in your theory. It's suggested that they are formed by trapping spren capable of a nahel bond rather than "mindless" spren.

Did some digging, and this is supposed to a relatively early scene from the book where Dalinar and Eshonai see one another across chasms. Dalinar is also supposed to be the foreground character, and any mismatches between art and book should just be seen as art not matching life exactly.

I think that all the covers are improved by seeing the full art. WoK's cover sets the scene of the shattered plains. You have a shardbearer, a stormwall, and the chasms. The insignia on the shardbearer's cloak and banner make me curious, as I can't recall any crab shaped sigils. WoR displays one of the more epic confrontations in that book as Kaladin arrives to confront Szeth. And Oathbringer's art does an amazing job of showing Jasnah being Awesome. I'm actually torn between WoR and OB covers since both portray characters that I love at key moments in the story. I think emotionally I have a bit more leaning towards the WoR cover as that's a scene that has repeatedly had me tearing up and cheering Kaladin on.

These sailors were spren, and the father's body would be a shardblade in the physical realm.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/188-general-reddit-2015/#e3922

I just caught something as I was listening to the book again. In Kohlinar, Shallan tries to sketch how the various spren look when corrupted. When she gets to hunger-spren, there is a quick note that oddly they haven't changed. This fits very neatly with the idea that Odium is a void or a devouring of passion rather than a source of passion.

The thing is, Ruin wasn't lying. Preservation's favorite person ever on Scadrial was the Lord Ruler because he was the closest he could find to someone who never changed, and Preservation saw that as perfection. Scadrial itself only exists because the two shards worked together to make something neither of them could achieve by themselves. I think we have something similar in Odium in that he is more than just Hatred, but for all that he's trying to put forth his "good side", hatred is currently dominant, much like ruin was currently dominant in a shard that embodied entropy.