Clovermite

I loved it so much that I tried to tell it to one of my non Stormlight reading friends. Unfortunately, it went over about as well as when Sigzil tries to retell Hoid's stories. Seriously though, I thought it was a great story to drive home the moral about how easy it is to ignore one's victories if one is looking towards too high of an ideal. As someone recently learning about thought distortions in therapy (https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions#mental-filtering it hit a really personal note for me.

I mean, even if anyone could use the well to do the same thing, the fact remains that it was Preservation's vessel who explained to him how to use it and pushed him into the well. While it may not have been him using his shardic powers on Kelsier, you don't get much more direct of an intervention than a Shard literally pushing you into something.

I got the impression that Rayse would have been perfectly able to do the same thing, he just didn't have a mind to seek out and exploit loopholes in the same way that Taravangian does. I think this is a really good theory, and I bet you are correct.

The Ghostbloods have already infiltrated Roshar, and Mraize has firsthand experience of a Lightweaver that he has undoubtedly reported back to Thaidakkar. I'm seeing a lot of references to Navani, Szeth, and Shallan helping out in this thread. I see no reason why they would help Taravangian invade Scadrial. Dalinar will be forced to help, as that's part of his deal with Odium. Szeth, however, hates Taravangian, and I don't see that changing simply because he ascended to Odium. Likewise, Navani already dislikes Taravangian, and would likely hate him more for the pain that Dalinar's service as a champion will cause him. Perhaps she would agree to go with Dalinar so she could be with him, but I don't see her actively helping to conquer a world she has no beef with. Shallan has kind of declared war against the Ghostbloods, but the nature of his resistance seems to be resisting their efforts on Roshar. I don't see why she would decide to invade. She may even join up with team Harmony to help protect innocents, as I suspect many Radiants would.

I was originally thinking the same, but when I looked it up, it appears that the ichor alcohol is optional, to make the lifeless viable over a much longer time period. It seems that an awakener is perfectly capable of re-animating a lifeless fairly quickly. If it survives the battle, then the awakener can decide to inject it with ichor-alcohol

Thunderclasts were present at the battle of Thaylen Field. Having just re-listened to Oathbringer, the description suggests that they are either a particular kind of spren, or a particular type of fused that make their bodies from the rock in the ground. In RoW, the main focus was on a stealthy takeover of Urithiru, so it makes sense not to bring the giant, earth shaking rock monsters for that operation. We also see that many of the fused are still just waking up, so I would guess that many of the thunderclasts haven't woken up yet. I don't think the living ones do that as much anymore. Throughout RoW, we see Syl manifesting as a shorter sword or even a dagger if the situation calls for it. Adolin has that conversation with the stoneward where he brings several different kinds of swords, and the stoneward notes that his shard blade will reshape to whichever kind of weapon is most convenient and appropriate for the situation. I forget at which point, but one of the characters notes that he thought the dead shardblades manifested in such a flamboyant manner to just show off. When not needed in the battle, but simply needed as a symbol, the large overly ornate weapons work far more impressively. Since the dead blades were abandoned to make a statement, it makes sense that they manifested them in the "show off" form. After the baldes died, they became locked into that configuration.

Maybe he was a Dragon Man, with a big beefy arm coming out of the back of his neck.

To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal Light up a stage and wax a goat like a candle

Does the Chelonate remind you of the Reshi Isles? For the life of me, I can't think about one without thinking about the other.

If you have someone who's collected a vast amount of breaths as Vasher has AND has access to a large number of resources, yes your analysis checks out. An awakener can be a huge threat. It's much harder to collect a the large number of breaths required where you could throw away 100 of them and not be phased by it, than it is to bring a stockpile of metals or spheres. The perfect pitch will aid in singing the an anti-tone, but you still more equipment, including investiture of the shard you wish to oppose, in order to create anti-light. Thus far, the only process we've seen to create it involved vacuum tubes, which is rather unwieldy and not something that could be done on the spot in the middle of a battle. Even then, once you've created the anti-light, you need a delivery mechanism. Thus far, the only one we've seen is Rasyium daggers. I'm sure we'll see other methods of delivering the anti-light, but I doubt it will be something that awakeners have a unique edge in applying. You seem to be thinking that the mistborn or radiant will only ever use their powers directly on the awakener of their awakened objects, and that they are going to sit still long enough for the awakener to come up to them and donate breaths. Using electrum, the mistborn would be able to see when the awakener is about to hit them with the breaths, and could thus potentially dodge it You ruled abrasion out completely, but seemed to forget that for the lifeless army to advance on a battle field, they rely on friction in order to run at their opponent. The edgedancer could use clever application of their slicking ability to immobilize the army. It's also unlikely that the entire army is going to go without metal and just use awakened cloth for weapons, so the mistborn is probably still going to have plenty of anchors to play around with on the battlefield. The ability to awaken the dead as lifeless is indeed very powerful, but the awakener will have a slight moment of vulnerability while they are in the middle of awakening a lifeless. That's an opportunity for a radiant to get in with a shard blade, or an atium fueled mistborn to get in a lucky shot to the eyes or something. I think a highly heightened awakener is definitely powerful, but I don't think they are op in the same way that a fullborn would be.

I don't really think it's a thing. I think it's a myth that the Fused bought into so Odium wouldn't have to explain why he doesn't want to give them access to the adhesion surge. In allomancy, we see a lot of powers that are very un-preservation. It seems to me that the shard's intent tends to determine HOW someone can access its investiture to fuel abilities, not WHAT the ability they can fuel with the shard's investiture. I think there is an old WoB saying something along those lines, but I had trouble searching it down.

I chose Team Harmony, mainly because the Roshar team was labeled under Cultivation and included Dalinar. I'm pretty confident at this point that Dalinar is going to end up as Odium's champion. While less confident, my current pet theory is that Cultivation wants this to happen, and ends up being an antagonist in the coming intergalactic shard war. At this point, I'm definitely more attached to the Rosharans and the Knights Radiant than I am to the Scadrians...but I choose Harmony over Cultivation.

Which feruchemist dying are you referring to? I can't recall that event at the moment. Also, which power do you think he got spiked with? I'm pretty sure he has some level of breaths, based on Shallan commenting that he always seem to sense her coming and she can't figure out how. Unless his ability to sense her is based on his aviary. I've been wondering what his bird granted him.

I'm definitely with you that Cultivation will end up being a big enemy, and that she is cultivating people to become shards. Teravangian thinks he's about to pull one over on Cultivation, but I believe she wants him to go out into the cosmere to act as her pruning shears. I don't think she wants to Lift to be her replacement though, nor do I think that cultivation is just about change, but about pruning weeds and creating as perfect as possible crops (ie getting the best fits into the shards). Thinking back to Lift's wish - not wanting to change, it seems to me that the shard that best fits that intention is Preservation. Preservation no longer exists on it's own, however, as it has been merged with Ruin into Harmony. And I think Lift fits the intention of Harmony very well - she contains both a very chaotic nature in her tendency for stealing food and general disregard for tradition, as well as a very protective nature in wanting to keep people like Gawks from getting killed. I think that Cultivation might be trying to set up Lift to take over the shard of Harmony, with Teravangian being the weapon she uses to deshard Sazed. I think Cultivation is a good contender for the final big bad, and it would be a good twist, I'm just leaning more towards Hoid right now as that is a bigger twist in my opinion. But I definitely believe she is going to be one of the big players in the final 5 as a co-antagonist with TeravOdium.

I'm a fan of the theory that Dalinar becomes God of war. As I mentioned in the other thread you had posted this though, I don't think he does it right away. I think he spends a book or two as Teravangian's intergalactic champion of terror.