Hischier

Yes, I didn't realize he'd released that chapter in another place besides The Thrill sequence. That's why I spoilered it.

It's not? I didn't realize he skipped chapters in The Thrill. Those aren't the first four flashback chapters?

This reminds me, why has no one looked for actual information? The reason Jasnah wanted to find Urithiru in the first place was to find info about the return of the Voidbringers. Sure they're back already, but that still seems like it'd be very useful information. Hopefully they get around to it at some point.

Yeah, that sounds right (the POVs, I mean). I bet we get Dalinar preparing for Mr. T's entrance and continued musings about how to get other rulers on his side, with a little Renarin sprinkled in and the obligatory May Aladar reference/appearance. For the Adolin part, I hope we get some murder investigation started (and I really want Adolin to somehow runs into Veil during this process). Kaladin: I don't think he gets that far yet. They'll take him in as prisoner, and debate what to do with him, and Kaladin will try to figure out what's going on with them and what their plans are. Can spren see other spren that are hidden? Because that might complicate things. And we'll be left with a dramatic cliffhanger. We know what the next flashback is and

My guess? Proto-radiant. Her name is referenced enough that Brandon clearly wants the reader to remember it. She could be a member of a secret organization, or something else, but I like the radiant theory better. Alternatively, and I just thought of this as I was typing, she ends up being the next murder victim.

Yeah, Freud is called the 'father of psychology', but most of his work is complete nonsense. It's like citing Aristotle when discussing chemistry.

I don't think all of the listeners need to go into voidform for there to be a threat, but I also don't have an issue with them being the antagonists. In fact they'd still be very sympathetic characters, because depending on the details of how this works, either it makes their hatred justified, or they're still being enslaved, just now by Odium.

I don't think that's what @Nymeros was implying. On the other hand, I'm hoping none of that happens, anyway. We already have examples of the Parshendi being a regular (not evil) society and we already have Rlain, Thude and his crew and maybe Eshonai, as (potential) Parshendi good guys. I have zero interest in spending a significant time having Kaladin learn about Parshendi culture, etc. It's a nice twist to have the Parshendi as not all turning to evil monsters by the everstorm, but, well, it's a fantasy book and I want to see Radiant stuff. Not a commentary on social injustice. It's hard to do that if there's not a tangible threat at some point.

I think Jasnah is going to regret not having her assassinated. We know she's vain and selfish, but for Jasnah to be about to have her killed I'd think there'd need to be more. My guess is she's an opportunist, but unless it was deliberate, I don't think she's a part of one of the secret. She doesn't seem to have the intelligence if she couldn't even keep her city from rioting. I do think there has to be something where Jasnah seriously saw her as a threat, I just don't think it's related to the secret societies.

I'd cut her some slack. You have centuries of both religious and social constructs to break through. That doesn't happen overnight.

Too short! When you get 3 chapters a week it's easy to forget that things take a while to build up in these books. I keep waiting for something big to happen and then remember, 'oh right, this is still part 1'. 13: Some nice moments for the Shadolin crowd, with an inauspicious ending to that chapter. If ending the chapter like that isn't foreshadowing, I don't know what is. Also, I was really hoping we'd get to see Veil in action. I wish we'd got an acknowledgement of how much her powers have progressed though. 14: Too Short! I think there's been enough hinting about the Parshmen to not be surprised by them not being Voidbringers. I didn't expect them to be playing cards though. And what's up with the spren? I don't think it's a Radiant spren, it seems way too early for that to happen. 15: It's apparent that Shallan still has a lot to work through. I'd call the different personas more extreme method acting than DID (which btw, is a condition that's met with a heavy amount of skepticism in the field of psychology, even if it makes for some interesting fiction). I like the idea that it has to do with her surges though, much like her ability to make people see a different version of themselves, only applied to herself. As a lot of people already mentioned, it's interesting that the Cryptics would just send someone else if Shallan kills Pattern, I don't think it would work for Kaladin.

Yeah that's an example of it feeling more convenient to the plot, and being very frustrating, even if it aligns with the character's personality. In this case, I'm ok with it. You don't have to justify a character not admitting to a murder with, 'he's going through a lot right now' or 'it's part of his personality'. Besides, Dalinar has enough going on and this would put him in a bad spot. Even in the pre-Voidbringer Alethkar court you couldn't just murder a highprince and not be punished. It was annoying with Kaladin because Dalinar spent the book wondering if he was going crazy and wondering what the visions were telling him to do and Kaladin revealing himself would've saved everyone a lot of trouble. In Adolin's case, it would just create more trouble and potentially undermine Dalinar's efforts.

Most times I get annoyed because the reason the characters aren't talking feels contrived. I don't think admitting to committing a murder fits that bill. I think Adolin keeps this one quiet for as long as he can.

There are rumors and legends about Urithiru. But I don't recall them pointing to it being a giant tower. Plus I'm not talking about rumors referring to Urithiru, I'm talking about people talking about a weird structure in the mountains. They might not have any idea what it was. And if you look at the scale comparing an estimated size to the tallest man-made structures on Earth, I think it is THAT big. Even if it's 70% of that size it's THAT big. I think there's a reason why no one saw or heard rumors about a giant mountain tower existing and it's probably a feature of Urithiru itself. Maybe it's even somehow related to Shallan's inability to draw it. I don't think that's a size thing because she was able to draw the plateau map accurately by simply walking around the bottom of them.

My question is, given the size of this thing, how is it possible that no one knows about it? Even accounting for a remote mountain location, that's the sort of thing that would lead to at the very least, rumor and legends. Is it somehow invisible unless you're actually there? I think that has to be the case, otherwise how do none of the old kingdoms from the maps Shallan looked at know where it is either? The only thing that doesn't make sense is Szeth being able to travel their through flight.

That's good to know. That's the one that really bugs me (Well that and the mask-lady).

Brandon has mentioned he wants to keep Stormlight as a self-contained story. IMO that's the correct decision. When I pick up a book, I don't expect or want it to have 8 books of backstory to it. Stormlight was the first book (outside his WoT books) that I read by BS. I didn't know at the time that the Cosmere was a thing. Now that I do, I'm not sure how I feel about all of the crossover easter eggs. If I were a casual reader, there's a lot of things I'd be expecting to be explained within the series that I don't see how they'll be reconciled without asking the reader to invest in other books (a certain masked lady, a weird sword, a Swordmaster in WoR, Hoid, some strange people chasing Hoid). If it's kept to a minimum I'm ok with the occasional easter egg. However, to me that means explaining that scene at the end of WoR without BS saying "well, if you read this other book I wrote, you'll understand this" (I'm not sure what's allowed spoiler-wise so I hope it's obvious what I'm talking about). If that item is going to play any kind of a role in the series (and really even if it doesn't) there needs to be some sort of in-world explanation as to what's going on with it. To be clear, I think the Cosmere is a cool idea, but you should still be able to understand everything going on in the book you're reading without knowing it exists.

Jasnah revealing herself as not being dead, preferably in a suitably dramatic fashion. Lift interacting with any of the main characters even if it's just via span-reed. Any of the heralds being revealed and interacting with Dalinar. The Ghostbloods being taken down (it won't happen in this book, but I hope it does) by Shallan. They're interesting (because we have no clue what their objectives are) but at the same time, there's a lot going on in Stormlight without shadowy morally bankrupt secret societies running around and the Diagramists already fulfill that quota. Someone (Shallan or Dalinar) discovering useful information about the Desolations in Urithiru. Syl and Pattern interacting. Seeing the Nightwatcher (and hopefully learning what Dalinar asked for and why). Dalinar discovering that this is mostly his brothers fault and having to deal with that. Oh, and since we're probably going to see Hearthstone again, I'd like to find out about Hesina's past a little. Lirin is of the 2nd nahn and even if the people in Hearthstone don't like him, he's still the second highest ranking man in Hearthstone. So how did Hesina fall in social standing that much by marrying Lirin? I'm assuming she's not secretly a lighteyes.

Yeah I think there's a WoB on this. Adolin was created originally so we could get an outside but up close perspective on what Dalinar was going through while everyone thought he was going insane due to the visions and his personality changes. I'm not sure I agree that Adolin becoming a high prince will definitely cause his arc to remain static (it's not like Alethkar is stable after all), and regardless he's too connected to the main characters to not be involved in the action. More importantly though, this is why I think regardless of the consequences for Adolin himself for Sadeas's murder, there will be significant repercussions for Dalinar and (depending on how it plays out) potentially Shallan as well.

I think we know what he was trying to achieve, I just don't buy what we've been shown as far as motivations. We're missing some big pieces of the puzzle because Gavilar's actions don't make any sense if he's receiving the same visions as Dalinar. And we know he (and the Sons of Honor) has way more information than he should. Once we find out where he got the orb from I think we'll understand his actions more.

That would be boring to me. I don't really want a love story that completely dominates the narrative, but I like to have something going on in that department. However I don't get the shipping wars (emphasis on wars) for Stormlight either. I'm a Shalladin fan, myself (I'm really surprised at how many people seem strongly against that) but if it doesn't happen it's not the end of the world and I certainly won't be disappointed if Shallan and Adolin end up staying together. As long as it's a good story that makes sense I'm open minded on that front. I just liked the Shalladin scenes a lot so I want to see more of that.

I'd imagine it has something to do with the event that shattered the plains. Do we know when they were shattered originally? If the oathgates were locked after the city fell maybe they didn't bother locking a gate in an unpopulated area. Or maybe the gates needed to be locked in a hurry so the others were locked first since they were in populated cities and something prevented them from locking the Natanatan gate. You probably have to lock the gate from both sides the same way you have to open them from both sides.

Dalinar got the plate that Adolin inherited through his marriage to shshshsh. Remember the flashbacks aren't the character's reflection of the events, they're a way of telling the character's story in a nonlinear fashion.

I've been thinking about this. When does Dalinar really start to change? Jasnah calls Dalinar "one of the best men I know" when talking to Shallan. Now, I'm assuming she probably didn't know too much about his past and as her Uncle he probably doted on her (especially since he seems to respect her), but Jasnah also doesn't seem like the type to make a statement like that lightly. Since she's been away from the Shattered Plains for I'm assuming at least a few years, that gives her a very short timeframe to make a statement like that. Especially since, as Shallan notes, all of her information on the Alethi court is outdated. To me that means I think we'll see some significant changes in his character well before his brothers death. Maybe it comes with the birth of his son. Maybe it was after his wife's death, maybe it was the even that had a soldier resign and become an Ardent. Maybe something else changed him. But we have no evidence to suggest that Dalinar wasn't at the very least a caring father. I think Renarin is broken because being an outcast is a difficult thing, and being Renarin in a warrior society would not be good for anyone's sense of self-worth. Being sickly, awkward and having Dalinar and Adolin as your family would only exacerbate the issue. Plus his mother died while he was young.

@WhiteLeeopard To each their own. Personally I don't think it gets much worse to show the death itself once you read: