Willow

Why is it sad? I liked Azure. If you don't know it's Vivenna, she's a mysterious bounty hunter connected to Szeth's weird sword (and to Vasher, who now gets more backstory), who tells us more about the different varieties of Shardblades and helps us navigate the Cognitive Realm and suggests there might be characters who come from other planets. If you do know she's Vivenna, then you can ponder the mystery of how she went from Vivenna at the end of Warbreaker to Azure.

I think this was like three weeks after they were freed from the bridge crews, so he didn't manage to hold back too long. I also thought the few times I remember Moash 'stepping out of line', he mostly raged at the Lighteyes/Darkeyes divide instead of actually questioning orders (well, just before The Duel, but that was because Moash just didn't want to do it, and also after they started plotting the assassination). We've seen soldiers questioning their superiors in the form of Teleb and Adolin, and they went about it quite differently. I'm mostly talking about WoR here though, since before that none of the men had any problem stating their opinion of Kaladin out loud (before he managed to get Bridge Four all pointed in the same direction). I'm not saying Moash was absolutely wrong to question, I'm just not sure 'respectable soldier' is in any way accurate. Especially since I don't think Moash was ever a soldier. He escorted caravans, until he joined the army, and immediately got send to the bridge crews. Then they were suddenly elevated to bodyguards of the king, until Moash became a Shardbearer. Shortly after that he attempted to assassinate Elhokar and ran away.

Yes, but he fled to set a trap for Shallan, so Odium, or another Unmade is probably prodding him in the right direction somehow. I wonder if the Unmade can search through the castle in the Cognitive Realm? That would make searching easier. On one hand, I kind of like the 'there's a secret Unmade trapped beneath Kholinar' theory, on the other I think 'oh there were four Unmade in Kholinar' is a bit much.

What makes you say that Moash was ever really a respectable soldier? Even in WoR he seemed very angry, constantly straining boundaries so even Kaladin (who isn't all that good at staying quiet either) had to call him back several times

Another one? Is that from the theory that says Ba-Ado-Mishram is imprisoned beneath Kholinar? Yelig-nar and Ashertmarn were chilling around pretty casually though, as well as Sja-anat. Did none of them, nor the soldiers under Aesudan's control know where to start looking for it with more direction than 'let's break all the walls down'?

My next Truth is: 'I'm starting to grow envious of the other Lightweavers progressing faster than me, and it's affecting my professional relationships with my fellow Radiants, as well as my relationship with my spren.' There, progression.

I can think of two main things (though there's probably more): 1. They can get information out of it somehow. Especially useful since Cryptics like to be really well informed before they take any action 2. They're going to try and corrupt it like Glys. The second one only works if Odium still trusts Sja-anat to do his bidding, which I'm not so sure is true. I also don't know if Odium knows about Glys (or if Glys is even 'evil', personally, I like to believe he isn't). There's the possibility Sja-anat did that on her own initiative, but the fact that the Oathgate spren were succesfully corrupted might give Odium ideas.

Azure is indeed a type of bright blue (it's really pretty too!). I completely missed it on my first readthrough (listen-through), since I thought the narrator was saying 'Azur', oops. The WoB is our biggest piece of evidence here, since Hyarmenatan wanted to know why Azure is specifically Vivenna, instead of just an Awakener from Nalthis. The colours aren't really conclusive, since most people from Nalthis probably use colour idioms (like Zahel). I think it's the hair changing and the WoB combination that confirmed it for most people.

I am also starting to think it has something to do with forgiving himself, or at least accepting that when he leads people, and they die in the course of duty, that doesn't mean he is personally responsible for failing them. Syl talks about this in WoR, when she said Beld 'died protecting [Dalinar and his family]', and that it was the choice of Bridge Four to follow him [into danger], and Kaladin couldn't take that away from them.

I believe someone else on the forums figured this out, but that was probably Nazh, who is from Threnody. Their planetary system has a giant outer planet called Purity

But that's not what the Stormfather told them. If Jasnah believes the Stormfather is wrong about this, as the quote you shared seems to suggest, she has information she hasn't shared with the readers.

I'm 100% with Kaladin here that it should not even be considered as an option, but I guess not all fictional characters from militaristic societies agree with me *sighs*.

My problem with this is that I thought Jasnah's conclusion wasn't logical. In the epilogue of WoR she said the Everstorm was something she had never seen before, and now all her knowledge is wrong and outdated, which she reaffirmed in this book. Even if sending the Heralds back to Damnation stopped the Fused in the past, she knows from the visions that this is no longer true (they do not return to Damnation at all), and that they're reborn with the new Everstorm. She also knows that the Heralds most likely won't manage to stay on Braize for more than a year (probably a lot shorter than that even, the last 4500 years weren't that therapeutic for them). There's just not enough evidence that doing this will not change things for the better instead of worsening the situation and straining the Oathpact even more. I don't mind them disagreeing, their personal mindsets make it almost inevitable, but for someone who thinks so logically about all of this, her plan makes very little sense, as far as I can see.

I just quickly looked it up to make sure I wasn't lying: So.. alternating is the plan, but it's very possible that the next book is going to be Szeth's book, if that's what the story demands. And if he manages something like Dalinar's storyline in Oathbringer, I won't even mind too much. (Though I want to know more of Eshonai... and Venli, I suppose. It'll be interesting to see how the two sisters view each other in the flashbacks and present)

I think Brandon Sanderson has said he's going to switch male and female flashbacks, so Eshonai was always going to be in book four. That said, it could still be about origins, I'm very curious to know more about the listeners. This does make me very wonder what Oathbringer would've looked like if it had been Szeth's flashback book, since I don't know how we could've gotten Dalinar's main storyline in a book without his flashbacks to complement them.

She's a member of the Idrian royal family (her hair changed colour). Since I believe that we know Warbreaker takes place before, but within the same lifetime as the Stormlight archive, we only have three female royals to choose from. Vivenna, Fafen, and Sisirinah. Fafen is a monk, and we know basically nothing about her. Siri is a queen, and is presumably busy with that. What we know of her personality doesn't really fit with Azure either (Siri's arc was in part about accepting her duties and responsibilities). Then we have Vivenna. Who went from dutiful royal in the beginning of Warbreaker, to eventually deciding to leave with Vasher and not return home to her kingdom (thus making Ridger, the second child, the heir: see her talk with Adolin on the ship). We also know Vivenna is an Awakener, travelled with Vasher (at which point she could've learned the kata) and carried Nightblood for a while, which makes her the most likely candidate for Azure by far. We also know from a WoB that Vivenna is in Oathbringer and looking for Vasher, which I think removes all doubt:

This isn't based on any clear-cut information from the books, but I'm starting to develop a theory that, in order to attract a spren, beside a certain amount of 'cracks in your spiritweb', your brokenness must have something to do with an order of Knights Radiant. Kaladin is depressed, but he also wants to save everyone, even from a young age, and his failure to do so exacerbates his depression. Shallan probably didn't grow up in a very happy home, so from a young age she's been lying to herself about this, pretending it wasn't true, increasing her brokenness. Lift's mother apparently helped everyone, and Lift is angry at herself that she wasn't able to help her mother in return. Adolin could be broken, and he could even be focused on helping the 'ignored people' of society, but due to his high position (the son of a Highprince, a shardbearer), he might've simply always had the capability to succeed at helping those he thought were in need. Thus he does not quite fulfill the 'broken by trying and failing to uphold these ideals part' of being a Knight Radiant. But now there are people he wants to help, but can't, like Maya, like all the civilians in Thaylen City. So maybe things will start to change.

I went to look this up, and according to my hardcover you're missing a lot of text. This is what my book says:

Some people mentioned this during the pre-release chapters, but the bouncer from the second bar in chapter 18: Double Vision might be Demoux (Mistborn - era 1): We know he's on Roshar from the Purelake interlude in Way of Kings, Scadrial has a higher gravity, so he'd be shorter than the average Rosharan (just like Felt, who only comes up to Dalinar's chest), and he has a scar on his head and scalp, which he got during Hero of Ages. That said, I don't think this one has been proven in any way.

I don't think he swore more than one oath (I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man). Part of Dalinar's storyline in this book is him realizing that change can happen slowly, that taking the next step, the next small change, is the important part of becoming a better person. Knights Radiant have Oaths they say over a longer period of time, because there are realizations they must come to, growing they must do, before they're ready. For Dalinar to suddenly swear two (or even three) oaths? More than anyone ever did in one event? To just suddenly be the perfect Knight Radiant he's slowly been struggling his way to ever since the start of his story? If this was true, I'd be disappointed with the way he was developed as a character.

I did read the weekly Tor discussion, but to be honest, there were so many comments there I probably skipped right past the ones discussing this. And yeah, my comment was rather vague (though to clarify, with 'last', I meant her fourth truth), because I have no idea how Shallan is going to be able to do this (why isn't book four here yet.. ). I have a suspicion it has something to do with her Brightness Radiant persona though. Radiant was created to deal with the pain from this Truth, and as @Hulaine noted, in the battle of Thaylen City, she already had Shardplate. Was that an illusion? We'll have to see..

I think Syl said something like this when they were in Shadesmar, that bonded spren go where their Radiant goes. Dead shardblades, on the other hand, reside (as it turns out) in the Cognitive Realm when they're not summoned. Now I'm curious about those, do they disappear from Shadesmar when summoned, and when dismissed, do they reappear in the same place (even though both the place (e.g. a ship's cabin) and/or the shardblade itself might have moved)? Or does captain Ico have to find his father after every time the shardblade is summoned? That just sounds horrible.

I think we can say with relative certainty, based on the part 1 epigraphs of Oathbringer, that Dalinar can be a bit long-winded in his explanations.

I was thinking something a bit more portable. Oathgates are useful, but they're limited in function, like the simpler versions of Soulcasters who can only transform into one material (but yes, I also totally forgot Oathgates were a thing when I posted that, oops.)

This makes me wonder if we're going to see Transportation fabrials in the series, since I believe there's a WoB that says there used to be fabrials that imitated all the different forms of Surgebinding.