Calyx

I don't think this would change anything - Tuon is easily one of the worst and most amoral people not sworn to the shadow. Remember that after she discovers that the A'dam only works for women who can channel, which means she can channel and is no different than a Damane, she goes to the Damane breaking room to relax?

Jasnah is almost certainly there already - we didn't see her swear the ideal, though, and I imagine we won't until her flashback book in the back five.

This is a really good point, as they do have potential access to several sources of knowledge that could really push things forward. They may learn a lot as they study Urithiru, particularly if there are more useful gemstone libraries. The heralds, though seemingly pretty far gone, may be able to help. And we know that there are already people from off-world on Roshar. It seems like Scadrial, in particular, has pretty advanced metallurgy which from a chemical perspective is in the same field as gemstone growth - perhaps all it would take to kick that off on Roshar is one friendly and educated Scadrian. I'm still of the opinion that they wouldn't be able to do it in a short time frame on their own, but you have convinced me that it is possible.

Thanks for congratulations, and I have read the pages of argument. Agreeing to disagree is fine with me. Knowing how gemstones are grown, however, I have difficulty imagining it being discovered by accident and even more difficulty imagining it being done on purpose from their (presumably) low knowledge base. Despite this stance, however, I agree that once they know that gemstones can be created (and roughly how, i.e. temperature/pressure) all bets are off - some of those surges will be fantastic at replacing the processes used in our world. So I guess my point is that I don't think brute force experimentation will be enough. Directed experiments based on underlying principles will be needed. This suggests significant scientific advancement, which though not outside the realm of possibility given the economic importance of the research, will likely take decades at a minimum. It seems like scientific theory already exists - certainly the ardents are at a minimum studying fabrials in a scientific manner - but in my opinion building up a basic chemistry knowledge base would still take quite a while. Without outside knowledge, I don't see synthetic gemstones being created on Roshar anytime soon. With continued investment in science, we could likely see it within the next century. I do agree with the other points underlying an industrial revolution, however - a lot of things are going to need to be accomplished without much of the traditional manpower, and fabrials are already enjoying significant research investment.

As a PhD chemist, my impression of Rosharian chemistry knowledge is that it is fairly primitive, and there are a lot of fundamental concepts they need to work out (ie chemical bonding) before they can even understand what a gemstone is, much less how to make one. Once they get that far, however, I think overcoming the engineering challenges will be much easier for them than it was for us - given surges like division and adhesion, there will be no need to develop further technology once they have the concepts in hand. As an aside and point of general interest, one of my coworkers in graduate school grew a ruby in lab and had it cut into a gemstone to put on the ring he used to propose to his girlfriend. His proposal went very well, as you might expect. On Roshar he would no doubt be incredibly wealthy.

What does this mean?

I like this theory, but I would extend it to Sja-Anat, as @Varenus mentions. If Renarin has some future sight, surely she does as well - and I think this is much more likely to have been messing with Odium's specific plans, since Sja-Anat is actually in Kholinar and presumably knows what is going on. Its possible that Renarin saw two different futures - one with Shallan there and one without - and nudged things towards the one that didn't end in everyone dying. But do we have any evidence that Renarin (or anyone else with future sight) sees multiple possibilities at once?

Yes. This. We need the Lift teaching Adolin scenes.

I personally prefer Wax. Wayne is an amazing character in small doses, and I particularly enjoy his interactions with Marasi, but generally I don't care for chapters from his point of view. Mistborn era 2 is probably my favorite set of books that Brandon has written, and I can't imagine they would be nearly as good if Wayne were the main character.

I interpret Dalinar's interaction with Cultivation as evidence that she is actively involved. Maybe directly confronting Odium is a terrible idea (and certainly it hasn't gone well for any of the other shards), but she is clearly still paying attention and altering things. If her goal were to simply hide and wait for Odium to give up looking for her, should she just withdraw as much of her investiture as she can, or maybe even leave Roshar? Instead she is meddling with the very human Odium intends to be his champion.

I didn't pick up on Kdralk and Renarin spending time together, but I do hope to see more of Kdralk - I imagine him being actually pretty loyal to Dalinar after their confrontation and subsequent events. I also love the interactions between Fen and Navani, and its clear that the Thaylen shardbearer has immense respect for Adolin. Overall it seems like Thaylenah will be a strong ally of the Kholins moving forward.

I think the more likely war is Elendil vs New Seran and other outlying territories. There were hints that this was coming (I remember something about battleships being built in one of the port cities). One the other hand, it is difficult to imagine the South attacking once the southerners we have seen go back to report - they know the North has a lot more metalborn, not to mention the Bands of Morning.

Why? Shallan has enough problems, and I wish her useless brothers had stayed away rather than come to Urithiru where they can be utilized as leverage by the Ghostbloods. Seriously, those guys will only create headaches for her.

Yeah, I don't really see her dying.

I assume that Kaladin will need to feel some pressure, or else why would he swear it? It's clearly a difficult thing for him, and for the Windrunner in one of the epigraphs who isn't sure he'll ever swear it. But I agree with you that it would be nice for it not to be in the middle of a battle. I just wonder what else would cause Kaladin to do so.

I also hope Rysn gets more involved as the series progresses - she is probably my favorite minor character (also, her Babsk is great). Looking forward to her novella!

My thinking is that it will be something along the lines of what Wit tells her in "The Girl Who Stood Up" - essentially that she can still be a good person despite the things that she has done (i.e. murder) and the failures that she's had (i.e. causing murder).

Some potentially relevant WoB on Dustbringers themselves: Potential Skyward spoiler (barely): So to summarize: Brandon wouldn't call Dustbringers evil, though apparently it is somewhat debatable. Skybreakers and Dustbringers don't get along, though Skybreakers didn't get along with Windrunners either, so this may not be a point against the Dustbringers. The Dustbringer appearing in the next book will be hard to figure out.

I think this is basically all we know: And in another WoB, Brandon gives a RAFO to someone asking point blank if Liss is Chana (accompanied by an evil laugh).

To be fair, every Knight Radiant order has a modern stigma - nobody likes or trusts them until very recently. As for a potential stigma against Dustbringers in the past, I don't think we have enough evidence. It's possible that they are called Dustbringers because they uniformly like to destroy stuff. But I think its equally plausible that they protest that name because, while they excel at combat, that isn't what they are really about. Perhaps the equivalent of saying "guys, we do other stuff too, don't call us Dustbringers, call us Releasers."

You don't have to, because I'm a chemist

We have very different reads on Lirin's character. While he is clearly opposed to violence, I don't see him as a ghandi-like pacifist. Until we actually see him in a situation where fighting is nearly inevitable, we may not get concrete information on this one way or the other, and I'll keep your view in mind. As to the root of this discussion, as @Lidolas argues, there are a lot of ways to interpret the first oath that don't require physical violence. Lirin is a strong character who shows great resilience and successfully resists temptation (i.e. saving Roshone's life). The mere fact of his profession shows that he puts life before death, in quite a literal sense.

I agree with those arguing that you don't need to fight to be a radiant, but to me it seems like a moot point for this thread. Lirin may be opposed to violence, but if someone physically attacked him or his family he'd fight. He would probably feel bad about it afterwards, but does anyone really think he would just stand there and do nothing?

I agree that dustbringer seems like the most comfortable fit for an engineer or hard-scientist personality.

I like it! Very practical and much less doomsdayish than many of the ideas put forward.