Rainier

I'll be a little disappointed if the Dawnshards are just angreal or sa'angreal, even if they're the Choden Kal itself.

That makes sense. I'm preparing myself for Navani to be a top-5 character in this book, and given that this book is about Venli (Eshonai in the flashbacks), that means she's competing with Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar for word count. Obviously Dalinar is in the same place, so he's the one who I think will lose POVs to feed Navani. This has never been a possibility, and I'm disappointed at how popular it seems. I don't think Shallan and Pattern belong together, nor Wyndle and Lift, nor the Stormfather and Dalinar. Spren and humans are complements, and men and women are complements, but that doesn't mean you can substitute a spren for a woman any more than you could substitute a woman for a spren.

Yes, exactly. I wouldn't be surprised to see Navani get more POV time than Dalinar, or perhaps Kaladin. We're going to see weapons of war, powered by stormlight. I'm getting stoked.

I'm right there with you. It's my favorite dead horse. I'm personally holding out hope that one of Shallan's Truths (not Oaths) will get her there, so Adolin doesn't have to die. What's a more self aware truth than admitting you need a divorce? That said, prepare yourself for Adolin/Shallan buddy romance novelette coming in RoW.

I want to compare what Syl is asking from Dalinar to what we're being set up for in the pre-release description. Dalinar has some kind of ability to join spren and people, and we're getting a book about a war ground to stalemate, which is to be broken by the side with the best tech. Dalinar is going to be asked, or tempted, to make some really brutal fabrials, in full knowledge of what it does to the spren trapped inside. Syl's idea of contentment will prevail, one hopes, but that's the rub that will challenge the core of Radiant ideals. They will watch as spren are made into weapons for the war.

I'm pretty sure the surprise main character is Navani. This is what the blurb on Amazon says of RoW: How are we going to get new technological discoveries if not from the fabrial inventor we've known from the first book? Who do you think is going to be in charge of the arms race on one side if not Navani? I think she's getting a ton of screen time and overshadow at least one if not all three of the previous main characters by being our main POV at Urithiru.

I think this is the right answer: Dalinar sends Szeth away, Zahel stays around Urithiru, but hears about a black sword and puts two and two together. My real question is does Zahel know about Azure, and does Azure know about Zahel? Or, even better, does Zahel know about Azure's sword?

Frequency means the same thing it does for the EM spectrum: distance between peaks. The amount of Stormlight would be reflected in the Amplitude, not Frequency. Amplitude is change from peak to trough. Here's a good link with pictures of the difference between high and low amplitudes, and high and low frequencies: https://www.howmusicworks.org/103/Sound-and-Music/Amplitude-and-Frequency So the high amount of Stormlight allows for a larger magnitude which makes the Windblades taller. The Frequency would be set, somehow, based on how fast the metal plate is vibrating, or in this case, how fast the rock is vibrating. I'm stumped as to what that would be. The Intent of whoever is controlling that much Stormlight, maybe.

Ten just looks bad, and it can't be justified any longer. I suppose if one wanted to make a case, in Space Roshar times, the number 16 would be known and recognized, so 2 shapes of 4 points making 8 points total might be seen in reference to that, instead. Still, I don't like it very much. Roshar should be 10 for all the tens that have been forced upon us. What's the point of ten books of ten orders based on ten heralds, if you're going to represent it with an eight point star within a circle?

I think this has to do with the cymatics we were shown in book 1, when sand is on a metal plate that vibrates at a certain frequency, and when Dalinar uses his powers in Jah Keved. Those windblades are there because the entire earth turned to dust and was shaken somehow, then frozen at the peak of the frequency. The forces involved must be enormous, and it gives a sense of scale to the power used in these places in times long past.

I'm not so sure that's true. Lightweavers are different than the other orders, and their 'oaths' aren't oaths at all, but moments of self-reflection and honesty. I don't think you can have those moments if you're constantly lying to yourself about all sorts of other things. Plus, Pattern came out and told her that she was going to kill him, and thus far I haven't seen anything to make me think he was wrong about that.

I'm afraid that the love triangle was finished at the end of OB. The reason I'm afraid this is the case is because if that is all we're getting, it was a colossal waste of time and energy. If Adolin and Shallan have a happy little marriage after all that, I'll be disappointed. After all, Shallan is still lying to him, and, more importantly, she's lying to herself, which means she's killing Pattern. I suppose that's what I'm most afraid of: that the triangle will have no affect on Pattern, and that Shallan can keep doing whatever she wants regardless of the fact that she's killing her spren with lies. Honorable mention: I'm afraid we won't get nearly enough Vasher and Vivenna. This is most likely to be the case, as I suspect Brandon is saving this for Szeth's book.

It's not so much as thinking he deserves to wear manacles, as he earned those scars, and they are a part of him. They're a badge of pride, not something wrong with him that needs to be healed.

I'm fully on board with Taravangian as a tool of Cultivation, just like Dalinar is. Both Taravangian and Dalinar came to the Nightwatcher and got Cultivation. Both came away with mixed boons and curses. Both of them were deeply affected by their experience and set on a path of growth/pruning. If you want to call Taravangian a plant, then that's OK because that's what he is now: a tool of Cultivation embedded within Odium's faction. However, he has served many roles before now and it's possible he will serve others. Cultivation brought both Dalinar and Taravangian to their respective points, and needed both of them to achieve bring this all to fruition. After all, that's why the text Taravangian reads includes Dalinar in it. Cultivation / Plant is a great pun, though, so no complaints there.

There is a 0% chance this happens off-screen, and a 100% chance that she's still lying to herself and to everyone else. Pattern knows he's going to die, because Shallan is going to kill him, and we're not close enough to that yet.

What I need, and I'm pretty sure I'll get, is a confrontation between Vasher and Szeth. What I also need is a similar confrontation between Vivenna and Szeth, and between Vivenna and Vasher. I don't think we'll get as much as I wish we would until the backstory is taken care of in Nightblood (novel), which isn't going to come until after Stormlight 5. Still, I'm hoping for something in the next two books between Nightblood and his former bearers. You mean after he agreed with Moash that they needed to kill that king? Moash doesn't deserve the hate he gets, although it is a sign that he is the most compelling character in the series. Hate might not be love, but it sure as hell isn't annoyance or indifference.

I don't think we have enough information to say. We don't know why Adonalsium was split in the first place. We don't know why these 16 shards and not some other combination. We don't know why he's splintering other shards, or if that's a good or bad thing. We don't know what the shards are trying to do in opposition to him. There's just so much I don't know about Rayse, the Vessels, and the Shards, that simply proclaiming him evil seems cheap and easy. Why does he have to be evil? Why can't he just be really intense? Why can't he be selfish, or apathetic?

Why? Odium isn't evil. None of the shards are evil. They just are. The only reason why we've prejudiced Honor over Odium is because of the PoVs we've been given. Honor is no better than any other shard. Odium is no worse. There's plenty of killing, justified and not, over the course of three books. This one isn't any worse than dozens of others, and only seems that way because we know what Moash doesn't. Recognizing your mistakes does not prevent you from suffering the consequences. Mind boggling, I assume, and I'm with you. Their hatred just makes me like him more. He's Kaladin's foil, and they share so much, I don't see how you can love Kaladin and hate Moash.

I agree completely with your explanation of the meaning of that quote, I just find it really weird considering the Heralds themselves don't agree with Brandon here. To Nin, a godsdamned Herald, there's a distinction which is made manifest by the "different and distinct" Shardblade he summons. So, from the mouth of one of their own, Heralds were owners of their orders, not members. One owner deigned to join his order, attracted a spren, swore the oaths, and became a Radiant. From the mouth of the author, he considers them the same. So I guess this is a matter of perspective. The Heralds and Radiants are of a kind, the latter made as a facsimile of the former. It's the same Investiture, from the same two Shards, harnessed slightly differently. Why not all three? The poetic question is the one Syl asks: what are the nature of spren? Do they cause the thing, or does the thing cause them? The reason why windspren and not firespren, earthspren, waterspren, or heartspren are of Honor is as you said, that the Highstorms are caused by Honor's Investiture. Spren are sentient ideas that live in the cognitive realm, but they require something to be thinking, personifying, objectifying, and categorizing the physical realm. These perceptions accrete to larger ideas, eventually culminating in a spirit of oaths, promises, and nobility (or the Hogfather).

Redemption? Nah, Moash did nothing wrong. He doesn't need redemption! He's a hero!

Please no more comic relief. No Lopen, no young Lift, nothing like that. I want to see the heavy hitters. I want to see Vasher, I want to see Moash, and I want to see Rock play more prominent roles. Mraize and the Ghostbloods, too. These are the kinds of characters that have mysteries and questions that need answering.

The custody of Nightblood is one of my favorite topics of speculation. We know very little of what happened between the end of Warbreaker and the first time we see it in Words of Radiance. Further, you can't really talk about Nightblood without including Warbreaker spoilers, so that's the meat of my post. There's so many ways it could go. And all we know is that is ends up with Nale. The Nightwatcher is 100% referring to Nightblood in Dalinar's visit, but that doesn't mean she is in possession of it. I think it more likely that she's offering Dalinar the means to go claim the sword for himself. The location, the bearer, and enough information for Dalinar to do the rest, if that's what he wanted.

Just going to leave these here...

Tied to Dalinar's powers, pun intended I hope. Tied with connection, of course. Taln was connected, somehow, through the realms, to his cognitive or spiritual self, which suppresses the damage of eons of torture.

So what's the trivial connection to Ruin? That Ruin destroys and Nightblood consumes? What is Nightblood made of? And who might know something about metal alloys and Investiture? The connection between Nightblood and Ruin is that Nighblood is made of an Atium alloy. Great to see the cameras. It really helps, surprisingly enough.