Isilel

Even so, I'd like to point out that the twins are only 2 years older than Shallan according to that scene in WoR where 13-year-old Shallan was on the stairs with 15-year-old, slightly drunk Jushu. So, Wikim would have been like 13-14 when Gavilar died . Didn't work that way for Dalinar, Ehlokar and Eshonai, who were all bonded to dead shardblades before they started on the path to Radiancy. All we know is that the _honorspren_ would have been deterred, but then nobody expected that any of them would have tried to bond anyway, which is why Kaladin and Syl were such a surprise. So far it seems that the Lightweaver, the Edgedancer and the Truthwatcher spren were the ones who repeatedly attempted to bond in the past and the former 2 even did so as a group effort. It does seem that his initial motive was to seek justice for his mother's death, which would have fit Skybreakers very well indeed. I vehemently disagree with this. First of all, killing somebody on the battlefield is entirely legal as long as you are fighting for the other side, both from Alethi and from the Skybreaker PoVs. Nale expounded on the "law of conquest" to Szeth in OB, making it clear that he, and by extension the Skybreakers, don't see wars as illegal acts. And second - most of the budding Radiants wouldn't have had any criminal history and some would have stood too high in the social heirarchy to ever be condemned to death, so the Skybreakers must have other methods of eliminating them. War being the most direct and convenient (see also Tien), but what happened to Shallan may have been par for the course for the cases when no execution warrant could have feasibly been obtained. Now, Amaram probably wasn't suspected of Radiancy, unless there was a mix-up with Kaladin, but he was a member of an organization dedicated to the return of the Heralds and the Radiants and Gavilar's confidant, which makes it more surprising that the Skybreakers had waited as long as they did to try to get rid of him, rather than that they made their attempt at last. Unless, that is, this wasn't their first one. So, we had only a very limited look at how Nale personally, not the Skybreakers in general, operates. In all 3 cases his targets, conveniently for him, had criminal history and were of lowly enough status that obtaining death warrants for them was easy. Does that mean that he would have just let a budding Radiant who was completely innocent of everything be? Or would have done nothing about somebody protected by their status? Not IMHO, because in such a case the other Orders would have returned long since. But he would have been forced to act indirectly and creatively, possibly through several layers of acolytes and Skybreaker-adjacent people who weren't yet bound by the strictures of the Oaths, like what likely happened to Shallan. It is rather significant that the Skybreaker hopefuls are pardoned for any crimes that they may have committed in the past before they swear the First Oath, isn't it? Perhaps they are used in "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" fashion before that, so that the real Order members can keep the letter of their Oaths. Also, "Edgedancer" demonstrated that Nale didn't know who the person in the process of bonding was, just their approximate location and had to identify them via good old detective work. That his squires failed at and went after the wrong person. Which means that some kind of mix-up regarding Amaram - and maybe Kaladin? was definitely possible. Perhaps nobody came back because once Shallan fell into near-catatonia and her bond regressed to almost nothing, there was nothing for Skybreakers to detect? They may have thought that the bond was successfully broken once and for all and moved on. I too wondered if Lady Davar might not have been an Envisager who tried to frighten Shallan into displaying her powers - which, if true, would have made the whole situation even more tragic. But the tenor of Shallan's oblique memories of the time that preceded the confrontation doesn't fit. There is another bizarre thing, though - namely that none of the Davar boys, not even Helaran, seemed to notice the rising tension and quarrels between Shallan and her mother leading to the whole incident nor got the wind of the reason for the heated arguments between their parents ditto. This is really odd, because it doesn't seem like the senior Davars were particularly discreet about their disagreements. According to Nale, conquest isn't unjust, according to Alethi on whose territory Helaran was operating war isn't a crime and what makes you think that he or his organization care about innocence? If they did, they wouldn't have been able to successfully suppress the other Orders for as long as they did. It is absurd to think that a death warrant could have been obtained for every budding Radiant in the past, and that only people with criminal histories would have been selected for the Nahel bonds. As to Helaran's mentor, they could have been right there in the camps. They wouldn't have stepped in themselves, because living shards are quite distinctive and also, they may have been a woman. Either way them showing up on the battlefield would have endangered Skybreaker secrecy. As to the beef - in WoR Shallan saw Amaram's extensive research into Urithiru. His intention to find it would have been a more than sufficient reason for the Skybreakers to take him out. And also, let's not forget that a budding Radiant was just there, in Amaram's army. Who is to say that Helaran and his mentor didn't make a mistake similar to that of Nale's squires in Edgedancer and identified the wrong person? In this case, Kaladin's enslavement and subsequent rapid change of ownerships and locations may have been a blessing in disguise, because it would have muddled his trail. The Skybreakers weren't looking to eliminate "evil" people, but those involved in the attempts to return the other Radiant Orders or to cause a Desolation. As such, T was uninteresting to them and we can't really say anything definite about Restares, so who knows, maybe he is both legally unassailable and very cautious. I am convinced that Nale had a hand in Gavilar's death, in an indirect way that didn't clash with his interpretation of the Oaths. Amaram was both Gavilar's apparent confidant and was personally participating in warfare, which made him a logical and easy target. As seen in Edgedancer, the Skybreakers know in which town an incipient Radiant is, but not who. Once they had identified their target, they could doggedly follow it, like Nale did to Lift.

Kaladin is intelligent, but not curious. He is only interested in things with immediate practical applications and rather dismissive of learning for it's own sake, or art for that matter. This may be the result of his circumstances, or a natural inclination, hard to say. BTW, even many highborn light-eyes men can't read glyphs - neither Adolin nor Renarin could, to begin with, and Adolin still can't as of OB, while Renarin taught himself in order to understand the glyphs appearing in his visions.

What genre are you talking about? Sounds like superhero comics genre to me, rather than epic fantasy. And frankly, that's one of the reasons why I find those boring, along with constant reboots and the fact that nobody of significance ever really dies. In the past they had thousands of Radiants and all the Heralds fighting against the Fused, the thunderclasts and the Unmade and it still wasn't enough to prevent the collapse of civilization every time. Now, you expect a handful of new Radiants to somehow manage better than that? Sorry, that would be super-contrived. It already strains plausibility that they won't be permanently squashed between books 3 and 4. Says who? Bridge 4 was on-screen a lot in OB and is certainly going to be present in all important battles. And we all know why Malata stayed on the outskirts. Radiants are not masked vigilants, who tend to act alone and have the luxury of either facing mooks or having one-on-ones with their nemesises. There have to be a lot of Radiants to do any good and they have to support each other with their different abilities. If Adolin became king, he could have remained normal and been an important character with lots of interesting challenges to overcome. That's not what happened, however, and the whole plot of Maya waking up would only be worth it if she regains her memories and finally fills in the rest of the picture concerning the Recreance, as well as convinces the still recalcitrant spren to cooperate. And given that Lift is currently a pacifist, it would be great to see what more traditional Edgedancers are capable of in battle. Navani as a talented artifabrian is qualified to be a useful supporting character. Adolin as a Highprince would need to provide military leadership - and as a young man and a great fighter, he would be expected to lead from the front. We have seen his skills on the battlefield and his training as a military commander - we don't quite know what he can offer off it. As such, he could really profit from having stormlight and surges. A lot of jobs that the main Radiants did until now would hopefully be taken over by minor Radiants, because there is a lot to do, much more than a handful of even super-powered people can believably accomplish. And having more Radiants with the surge of Regrowth would be particularly helpful, because there are going to be a lot of people to heal and crops to force-grow to feed them (Lift can't do that last, BTW, because of how she gains investiture - it is a zero-sum game with her, as Wyndle helpfully explained in Edgedancer). @Pathfinder: Fen, Gawx, etc., don't have to become Radiants, but they should need Radiants protecting them, IMHO, because if I was the Fused, I would take a page from Taravangian's book and start assassinating rulers of the anti-Odium coalition, as well as their key generals, administrators and scholars. Ditto destroy Tashikk spanreed exchange.

We know after OB that Iri decided to side with Odium despite the fact that it used to be one of the Silver Kingdoms and a staunch part of the anti-Odium alliance in the past. However, in Odium's negotiations with Taravangian it became obvious that he is very reluctant to promise safety to human countries in return for their cooperation. My guess is that this is because of the pre-existing deal between Odium and the Fused, which promised them Roshar (but not specified the condition it is going to be in). So, what could he have promised to the Iriali leaders? IMHO, help with moving to their next "Land" and escaping the Final Desolation. After all, that's what we learned about the Iriali from Ym's Interlude back in WoR: The Iriali have been stuck on Roshar for thousands of years and it would make sense that they made the same calculation as Taravangian - that this latest conflict with Odium couldn't be won, and decided that it was finally time for their people to head for the Fifth Land. Why Scadrial? Scadrial is convenient because it has a perpendicularity, yet is mostly empty just 3 or so centuries after the Catacendre - and even before that, most of it was uninhibitable. Now it is largely suited to human habitation, but it would take the Scadrians a long time to build up numbers and spred to fill it. It is also clearly to Odium's advantage to help the Iriali move there. This gambit already worked for him on Roshar, after all. What is more and what makes Scadrians such a threat to whoever is behind the red-eyed "faceless immortals" and to Odium, unless they are one and the same, is that the planet and the people are special because they were created by only the 2 Shards now being combined in Harmony. Other Shards have no purchase there, no beachhead, and Scadrians are extensions of Harmony to the degree not shared by the people and planets created by Adonalsium and later taken over by the Shards, which still have the investiture of all of the 16 in them. By introducing Iriali people to Scadrial, Odium would disrupt this situation and get a foot in the door, so to speak. This snippet from the State of Sanderson may or may not be connected: "I consider Wax and Wayne’s final book to be imperative to finish before I start Stormlight Five." given that it would make sense for the Iriali to leave during a Willshaper book and for W&W folks to possibly run into them either a few years after or in the process of their arrival on-world (in case of time dilation during interstellar travel through the Cognitive), in "The Last Metal".

What makes you think that Maylaran isn't chaining Adolin to Roshar as effectively as a living spren? We have no reason to think that dead shardblades have ever been successfully taken out of Rosharan system. And I really don't think that he would be the best person to investigate new worlds - somebody with aptitude for languages and experience dealing with different cultures would be a much more logical choice. Such as, for instance, Vstim, Rysn's old master. He is also a high government official now, so has authority. Or, maybe, one of Jasnah Veristitalian pals, though we don't know enough about them. I also think it likely that the method for taking a Nahel spren offworld will be rediscovered by Hoid by the end of book 5 and shared with Shallan. If any of the main characters becomes a worldhopper after the first half of SA, it will be her, IMHO. After the second half will be another ballgame and Jasnah, Lift and Shallan would all be strong candidates, IMHO. Jasnah's abilities, interests and aptitudes are best suited for such exploration as well as dissemination of knowledge thus gained, and if she steps down as queen in favor of Gavinor or whoever, it would be a good idea for her to disappear from Roshar to give him space (see Dalinar's thoughts on the subject when he was considering ceding his position to Adolin in WoK). She would be one of the very few who'd be able to visit worlds lacking permanent perpendicularities. I also badly want her to have a chance to discuss faith and religion with Sazed! Lack of investiture might be a problem for her, but ways around it could be discovered by then. Or she could ask for the same boon from the Nightwatcher as Lift, maybe? Lift already can fuel her abilities everywhere, is an experienced traveller and a wanderer by nature. I also somehow expect her to end up with Nighblood - they certainly had great chemistry in OB, and always moving around would help to keep it out of mischief, as well as use it in the rare cases when it is warranted. I can't help but think that liberal use of Nightblood could alleviate the shade problem on Threnody, for instance. We don't know if Lift can push her investiture into gems, but if she can, she might fuel the surges of another worldhopper Radiant. Jasnah - Lift team-up could be entertaining, for instance. Ditto Shallan - Lift. Shallan - mainly because Hoid so actively took her under his wing. Though, her interests, abilities and skills would fit the task quite well, too. I assume that Adolin, much as I love him, will die at some point (most likely in book 5, IMHO), so she would be free to leave.

From what we have seen, the interstellar cognitive space is level, so no need to lay railways tracks and also no particular need to fly. So, a "train" consisting of a powerful vehicle tugging a lot of wagons would be best for interstellar transportation in bulk. Planes would be much more useful in planetary cognitives, what with beads, mists, etc. to drown in and a lot of space to cross. Yes, it is possible to travel on the solid reflections of waterways, but they won't necessarily be connected to shardpools. I am also not sure about railways there - it seems like a huge labour and resource investment for something that can be more easily achieved by other means. Nor do I see Shards lowering themselves to actively participate in such endeaviors. If they want to favor interstellar trade they can just make sure that their perpendicularities are conveniently accessible to the worldhoppers via waterways and make it possible to use their magic systems off-world. What the spren have for water production on their ships is another type of fabrial, one that doesn't require spren because the work is done by manifestation. There is no reason why this principle can't be applied to more sophisticated mechanisms, like steam engines. Of course, you'd need investiture for them to work and they probably can't be taken into interstellar space. These may be very different from each other. We know nothing about Silverlight - it might be built from materials imported from the physical realm. Riino likely built his lighthouse from manifested materials, but he is in the Cognitive of their respective planet, so it would have been comparatively easy. The Ire fortress in "The Secret History" is very interesting though, because it was clearly built from manifested Selish stuff - as Kelsier discovered by touching it and getting glimpses of Sel. So, it is possible to take cognitive reflections of items into interstellar space and even to the outskirts of a another star system. However, they also had the investiture pipes powering the structure and this might be what is required to achieve this feat. It also suggests that the means of using the Dor investiture from the Selish Cognitive safely already exist. Yes, indeed. But speaking of Awakened mechanisms, sure, they can be made to work perpetually, but the problem is that the materials that they are built from would eventually wear out and break. What is more, the more durable materials are very difficult and expensive to Awaken, and, of course, once the Awakener responsible is gone those Breaths are locked out of reach pretty much forever. So, I really wouldn't expect such contraptions to be in a particularly wide use. Human-powered Allomancy might work, I suppose, but are there enough Coinshots and Lurchers for it to be a practical proposition? There aren't that many Scadrians, though, and only a fraction of them are Metalborn. Once they get the medallion mass production industry up-and-running, sure, but then you won't really need Scadrians themselves either. Indeed, and it seems like the Ire have already started the work of safely harnessing the Dor investiture back in SH, they just didn't think about applying it to propulsion. I don't see any dearth of raw materials on Scadrial, quite the contrary. And lack of cheap labor is likely to be beneficial for their technological progress, as they'd be highly motivated to invent labour-saving machines. Desirable imports at the time of Mistborn Era 2 : from Roshar soulcast aluminium, gems and possibly shell material from large crustaceans. It should be light and durable and could be used instead of plastics until those are discovered and industrially produced. Exports: all manner of mechanisms and finished products. In fact, I find it more than a little implausible that we haven't seen anything that Cosmere-savvy readers could identify as a Scadrian import in SA so far, even though the characters are unaware. from Nalthis: dyes and spices, possibly also fabrics. Exports, as above. I'd also like to see some unobtrusive evidence of Nalthian imports on Roshar. The more I think about it, the more I wonder why the Horneaters aren't filthy rich, because all this trade should have been going through them. We have no clue what Sel might currently have or need. Threnody would need to _import_ silver, not export it! But again, not sure what they could offer in return. Maybe somebody figures out how to trap their Shades in fabrials and make them do work, at some point... They seem to be much more loosely tied to the planet than normal, if they could threaten the Ire in interstellar space and therefore trivial to remove somewhere else.

Lifeless-drawn carts and South Scadrian ettmetal-powered vehicles would both work very well in interstellar Cognitive at this point in the chronology, IMHO. You wouldn't really want to bring any draft animals for that purpose, because feeding and watering them would be a huge, possibly insurmountable, problem. To get onto the worlds without Perpendicularities they'll need to wait until Elsecallers and/or Willshapers figure out how to get their spren off-world. Rosharan fabrials would face the same problem. By the by, I have this so far largely unsupported theory that some of the Elsecallers, Willshapers and other more Cultivation-aligned Orders didn't break their Oaths during the Recreance, but opted to take their spren out of Rosharan system instead, reasoning that they couldn't possibly destroy any planets when away from the sources of readily available and abundant investiture such as stormlight. And that their spren wouldn't be able to return to Roshar on their own and be tempted to endanger it by bonding again.

No, making the deal with Odium was the plan all along - that's why Taravangian tried to become the leader of as much of humanity as he could. He intended to bargain for survival and safety of all of his followers/subjects. Fighting against Odium in the Desolations didn't really work out in the long run - they won by the skin of their teeth, but civilization was still destroyed every time. And that's with the help of Honor and the Heralds and well-organized, experienced Radiants, which they aren't going to have this time around. So, he was attempting a different solution this time around. Or, at least that's what T. and his cohorts have been able to deduce from the Diagramm. The super-genius T. who wrote it clearly had some other, hidden agenda. As to why Taravangian believes that he is the savior, it is because of of his boon. He asked the Nightwatcher for enough intelligence and compassion to save humanity and received it. That's the difference between him and Amaram. Now, he may have been egotistical to ask for something like that, but Gavilar's death gave him a very good reason to think that he couldn't just go around and try to convince people of the impending apocalypse as his old plain self without getting similar treatment. Taravangian's tragedy is that he had been everything that he now pretends to be - a good, compassionate man who built and maintained hospitals out of genuine desire to help people, before knowledge of the terrible future was dropped in his lap and he felt compelled to do something about it.

Heh, I have wondered whether Marsh normally lives in all his Steel Inquisitor glory or if he disguises himself most of the time. I mean, his larger frame can't be concealed, but letting his head and facial hair grow, black-tinted wraparound glasses - like Crowley wears in the "Good Omens" series, and a little make-up in a pinch would surely hide everything else. And koloss-blooded people are huge, so it isn't like even his size would really set him apart from normal(ish) population. I see no reason for Marsh not to do it if he isn't living as a complete hermit. Concerning the actual topic, I would expect Harmony to have a number of possible assets on his radar, most of whom don't work out. He does subtly nudge likely people, but they have free will, so...

Operating soulcasters isn't free. They use up specific types of gems, which are a limited resource. So, an army on the march would use them, but even then in Dalinar's flashback it is mentioned that he was trying to provision his troops conventionally when he fought his border wars with the Herdazians, the Vedens, etc. and only had 2 soulcasters as a backup. Back when the Kholins were fighting for unification and could loot their conquered enemies treasuries for gems, they could afford to rely on soulcasting more. Or when they suddenly got a huge influx of emeralds during the war against the Parshendi on the Shattered Plains. Soulcasters normally wouldn't have been used to feed the population, because gems would have been hoarded for use in war or in an emergency - but that last mainly in the big cities. Yes, everything that could produce sparks or explode would be even more likely to do it on Roshar. Which is why they shouldn't have been expected to invent firearms, as primitive firearms couldn't be all that useful and black powder would catch fire and explode at the drop of a hat in the oxygen-rich atmosphere of Roshar. Not to mention that they only have super-slow chulls for transport, with horses being too rare and costly to use as draught animals and complete lack of oxen, etc. But what is even worse is that they have few permanent rivers - and highstorms would play havoc with those too, making safe moorings impractical, and only allowing for use of light craft that can be quickly removed from the river and stored somewhere safe before the storm. Historically, river transport was essential for trade during the long periods in RL history when roads were bad. But Rosharans are deprived of that as well. Neither can they have water or wind mills. In agriculture, it is not clear how much productivity could be improved by better tools, if at all. It is not that simple. Gems need to be of specific type, quality, size and need to be given a very specific cut. All of this is quite expensive and as for the gem-cutting, good tools are required. Spren of different types are not equally represented everywhere on Roshar and a lot of experimentation is needed to figure out what kind of spren could be attracted to what kind of gem and cut and what mechanism can be used to activate them. So, it is not surprising that it is only during the few decades prior to the beginning of the series that the "modern" fabrial science, which operates on different principles than the shards, soulcasters, etc. evolved. And that unified Alethkar was on the forefront of this development. Not as few as you think. I am pretty sure that spanreeds already existed back when Adolin was 4 in Dalinar's flashback - maybe even before he was born. So, 2 decades at least prior to the beginning of the series proper. The folks at Feverstone Keep in Dalinar's vision didn't even have steel - just bronze and an occasional item from soulcast iron. They couldn't have cut any gems. It is likely that the Radiants used to be in charge of any gem-cutting previously, with their spren assuming the form of a tool. And there is not any universal standard of technological development - there were plenty of civilzations iRL that never left the stone age or stagnated at some later stage, some technologies were invented and lost several times before they came to stay, etc.

I don't remember any suggestion that Herdaz formally surendered and iRL it was usually depressingly easy to turn natives against refugees and other ethnic minorities. Not to mention that if displaced people are killed away from settlements and their bodies are soulcast into smoke or whatever, nobody would even know. If Sanderson plays the Fused straight and has them act logically, that's what should be happening to the humans whom they deem to be useless. If just a year ago there was a serious fear of famine a few months down the line, they are lengthy enough that missing one period could be pretty devastating. We also saw in Kaladin's PoV in OB that not having enough food stored or losing stores was terrifying to the villagers. And there definitely should be revebrations still - famine would have forced the villagers to kill most of their livestock, for instance and iRL they might have lacked seed corn too - not sure if it is applicable on Roshar. It is not something that people can just bounce back from within half a year. Who she ended up marrying had very little to do with who she could have married. Which normally would have been young lords of similar standing to her father's, or their young heirs. That's what almost happened with Rillir, even, and that's clearly what she wanted. We also don't know if she had a choice in her marriage or not - it seems to me that she wished to stay at Heartstone and was prepared to make sacrifices for that to happen. And she told Kal in OB that she didn't need rescuing. The whole reason why Roshone was made lord of Heartstone was that as a girl Laral couldn't inherit her father's lands. She was given a dowry commeasurate with her father's holdings instead - that is explained in WoK, IIRC. So, no, if she became a surgeon's wife, she couldn't have run the land. She would have had to become her husband's assistant like Hessina did for Lirin - and she didn't want that. She wanted no part of Lirin's dream for Kaladin, which required her dowry as a financial means to make it happen. As to her rank, from WoBs we know that dahn is fluid and can be affected by population fluctuations of the towns, military command, etc. We also know that 6th dahn requires holding land, so it is quite likely that if Laral married a landless man, that she would have slipped a dahn or so down the formal hierarchy and even more so socially if she married a darkeyes. No it isn't. She would never have stopped being lighteyes, so of course she would have continued to outrank Kaladin even if she slipped down to the 10th dahn. The text quote you supplied doesn't say anything other than that. He chose to put his family through hardship and danger for the sake of his dream of Karabranth - the dream that Kal didn't even fully share, and Tien payed the price. Meanwhile, Tien had great talent as a woodcarver and may have had a bright future as an artist - if Lirin hadn't insisted on keeping his family in the back-end of nowhere, where nobody understood such things. To top it all, Lirin coldly wrote Tien off as soon as his younger son was conscripted into the army as a result of his own squabbling with Roshone over stolen money. I don't excuse Roshone, but Lirin is also culpable. He didn't care enough about Tien to realise that he was vulnerable and in danger. What is even more infuriating is that after everything that had happened, Lirin now seems very dismissive of Kaladin's life choices and on the point of writing him off as well, because his son refuses to conform to his expectations and forges his own path in life instead. Neither Laral nor Kaladin had to content themselves with somebody from the town. Lirin hadn't! And while it may have been the best possible match for Kaladin from the material standpoint, it wasn't for Laral. It was all very lopsided - all the gain was intended for Kal. He was supposed to go and get a first-class education, not Laral. What would she have gotten out of it and why should she have wanted this marriage? But Lirin annoyingly thinks like it would have been a done deal, had Wistiow lived. So, was he counting on Wistiow forcing his daughter into this union? Against her interests and desires? It is all very unflattering to Lirin, IMHO. Yes, while Lirin used it as light for surgeries it was noble, but once he sent it away, as he intended, both light and money would have been gone. There was never any expectation that Kaladin would come back to practice in Heartstone after his education in Kharabranth, and in fact it would have been a massive waste if he did, instead of helping many more patients in a city with his world-class skills. We don't know if Roshone had control over her money, either before or after their marriage. We have no idea how such things work in Alethkar. But shouldn't they have thought of that? Lirin in particular, with his hinted at experience of travel and war? And of Alethi laws, which he so deftly used against Roshone? I bet, he wouldn't have made such a mistake with his golden boy Kaladin! Many/most stockpiles were cleaned out by the fleeing awakened parshmen, as seen in Kaladin's chapters in OB. Why would the Fused need ardents? From what we have seen, it doesn't take much to operate a soulcaster and while an experienced user can coax more out of the device, it makes more sense to prioritize security of such valuable equipment over possible performance gain.

I don't hate Lirin and I admire his principles in the abstract, but he does have his share of problematic flaws and Hessina comes across as a bit of a doormat for staying with him and even having another child after what happened to their older sons due to his ambitions. To be honest, Lirin is remarkably similar to the past Dalinar in that he focussed on his firstborn, who had similar aptitudes to himself, and tried very hard to turn him into a "mini-me" through whom he could vicariously achieve everything that he didn't in his own life, all the while neglecting his younger son and sacrificing his interests. I also have a distinct impression that their hardships were in part due to Lirin being too proud to ask Hessina's family for help soon enough and maybe even to the extent that they really needed. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they might have been able and willing to pay for Kaladin's education themselves, if asked. As a man with wordly experience, Lirin should have also foreseen that Tien was vulnerable - that his children needed to be removed from danger once Roshone had demonstrated that he was going to fight over Wistiow's "bequest" of spheres. In addition, I hate how Lirin still considers Laral a possession that should have been his family's, but was denied them. She was 12-13 when her father died, and she never indicated any desire to become a surgeon's wife. Her and Kal were childhood friends, but no more than that, and likely mainly due to lack of other options. It was also technically her whom he was stealing the spheres from. Now, I wouldn't call her "one of the people", necessarily, but it was still fairly crummy, IMHO. Particularly since nobody seems to consider that the money could have gone to _her_ education, instead. I think that they'll have more than enough Alethi refugees for that. And the problem will be with protecting those farms, which the Fused would be able to raid and destroy at their leisure. I suspect that that's why the Desolations were so devastating - neither side could really defend their infrastructure against enemy surgebinders. Hopefully, this time around fabrial science will provide the means for normal soldiers to fend off the Fused, at least temporarily, and actually prevent damage. There was also eventually Teft and possibly also Lopen as Radiants on the spot. But yea, it doesn't seem like it was supposed to be more than a hit-and-run strike, to deliver a blow to the morale of the people gathered there and to give the parshmen fighting experience. I am not sure if Urithiru protections are still functional enough to keep out the Fused, since they didn't work against Re-Shepir, but maybe they don't know that. I doubt that there was any firm agreement, since Wistiow was ailing for a while before his death and had enough time to write a proper testament, if he wanted to. The fact that when Hessina explained things to Kaladin in WoK it all sounded a lot more tentative and that Lirin still thinks about things working out properly in connection with Kaladin being married to Laral, suggests to me that Wistiow told Lirin that he would allow their children to wed and that funding Kal's education would be contingent on that. However, Laral didn't want to become a surgeon's wife (and descend quite a few steps down the social ladder in the process), she wanted to manage land, which she could only do as a wife of a landed lighteyes. Nor was she in love with Kal and prepared to sacrifice her own wishes because of that. So, the only way that there could have been a firm agreement was if Wistiow was prepared to force this match against the interests and desires of his own daughter, which would put both him and Lirin in a very bad light. Or they could take the most logical approach - kill them. The humans currently outnumber the singers and I don't see how the Fused could achieve their goal of reclaiming Roshar for their descendants without severely reducing human population, if not eradicating it entirely. In fact, I am quite surprised that the Fused allow Heartstone to take in refugees and that there is enough food to share with them. After all, we have been told again and again in OB how the Everstorm and the parshmen walking out during the critical agricultural period were going to cause a widespread famine, but there was no hint of it in this chapter. Not only that, but using the Soulcaster devices breaks the gems, which are a limited resource, and for all we know repeated use of gems by Radiants might as well. I don't think that it is plausible for even all the exile Alethi to be fed exclusively via soulcasting in the long term, leave alone the other needy nations.

Maybe her illusions don't last long enough for him to get to Heartstone, even when anchored to a gem filled with stormlight? In any case, this goes against Kaladin and Shallan being in the same PoV group for RoW as some people thought that they would be. I'd have expected for there to be a few more Lightweavers around than just Shallan and Hoid after a whole year, though. I mean, the Cryptics were obvously game to bond. And it does seem odd that Kaladin isn't accompanied and disguised by one of them when engaging in undercover missions, as he is quite memorable. My immediate knee-jerk reaction was that Roshone ratted him out, but this doesn't seem likely as the parshwoman in charge of the town was unaware and he wouldn't have been able to contact a Fused directly. Also, if an insider betrayed their operation, Lirin, Hessina and Laral would have been taken in custody immediately after the Fused arrived. So, in the end I guess that, annoyingly, the Radiants at Urithiru still haven't figured out that intelligent spren can spy on them while they are discussing plans, and that this is Malata's and Mr. T's work. If somebody just saw a Windrunner flying, they wouldn't have known that it was Kal, as there are bound to be more of them now than just him. There already were Teft and Lopen at the end of OB. Except that if he does that, then the residents of Heartstone, the refugees and certainly everybody involved in the refugee relief/concealing and abetting people wanted by the new regime are going to bear the brunt of said regime's wrath. Not to mention that if anybody tells the Fused that Kal is Lirin's and Hessina's son... well. Kaladin is in a terrible situation here and I am not sure how he could salvage it. Even if he killed the Fused and their entourage, he can't get all the humans out before retaliation descends on the town. He and they don't know that, but even the parshmen/singers present are in danger, judging by what happened to poor Sah and his group.

Dalinar still has his scars and his broken nose though? If Mink's scars and the missing tooth predate his Radianthood they wouldn't have been erased, necessarily.

I have to point out that dark-eyed Rosharans also sometimes have funky eye-colors. Szeth's natural eye-color back in WoK (or was it WoR?) was dark green, for instance, and there was a mention of some dark-eyes, either one of Kal's soldiers back in his squadleader days in Amaram's army or maybe a bridegeman who had very dark violet eyes. So, Mink can both have "cool soft green eyes" and be a darkeyes. Of course he can also be a Truthwatcher, but it would be a bit odd, IMHO. As to the eye-color that dead shardblades confer on their owners, we know only that Moashs's dark brown eyes were turning "tan" after a few weeks, yet his blade featured vines during it's summoning, IIRC, so it likely was another Edgedancer blade. Amaram's eyes were also "tan", so it is a color that some ligheyes have and not just an intermediate stage of the change.

I wonder if whatever was caught in the saphire gem when Moash murdered Jezrien isn't the Heraldic essence that would allow somebody a hacked access to direct feed. IMHO, Moash was chosen by Odium/the Fused to bear the honorblade for a reason and this reason is likely that this hack would only be possible with a human. Otherwise, you'd think that they would have just given it to the most prominent Fused without Gravitation/Adhesion Surge, to make them even more powerful and versatile.

Not quite true, there was also the one that Hoid rode on into the Well of Acsension in The Secret History. We don't know who they were and what happened to them, but still. Also, my understanding is that TLR as a Sliver could have chosen to hang around indefinitely after his death, he just didn't. Ditto Leras and Ati. But what about the chosen Heroes who took the power of the Well prior to Alendi/TLR? IIRC, Sanderson indicated that there were some.

Late to the party, but here are my 2 clearchips : I think that for the people who have have bonded a spren of their own, which surge they learn first and are ultimately better at (which is not the same thing) is influenced as much or more by their personality and circumstances as by their Order. For instance, Jasnah was concealing her powers* and for a somewhat public person like her a rookie mistake when experimenting with Transportation couldn't have been as easily explained and obfuscated as the one involving Soulcasting, once she had her soulcaster prop. She also hasn't "mastered" Soulcasting despite probably being at her 4th Oath - her soulcasting of food still leaves much to be desired. Lift was a child thief, so of course the Friction surge was more immediately useful to her - OTOH, she hasn't "mastered" it either, far from it, as demonstrated at the Battle of Thaylenah, while she was able to cure a mortal wound/return a person who just died to life pretty much right off the bat. She also used Growth at her 1st Oath and Regrowth at her 2nd, so. Kaladin was using Gravitation even before his 1st Oath - and I think that the fact that he was using it subconsciously only empathises the fact that he was very much Gravitation-attuned from the start. After all, both Ym and Stump also started to use Regrowth subconsciously - and as they were both into charity works, it is easy to see that they needed it more than Illumination. etc. I am also fairly sure that if Ehlokar had lived, _he_ would have been better at Transformation than Lightweaving. He even said to Shallan something along the lines that "a good ? transforms himself" before setting out for the Palace. However! I think that "the Primary surge" does apply to the Radiant squires, in that all squires only have access to one Surge of their Order, with the Windrunner ones being the exception due to the "Strength of the Squires" Resonance. Which would be consistent with both Szeth's experiences in OB and the WoB provided by @Pathfinder. *Which is why I also expect that Venli is going to use Cohesion rather than Transportation early on despite being a Willshaper, as she is operating undercover. As to the Bondsmiths, I agree with @Calderis that they are a special case. In fact, didn't the Stormfather say as much in OB? IMHO, in exchange for their small numbers, lack of shardblades and IMHO, but yet unconfirmed, lack of squires, as well as a somewhat lackluster combination of surges, they get a really souped-up Resonance or possibly even more than one. "Yours is the power of Connection", etc.

The same is true of Gravitation. In fact, I have been wondering if Ehlokar's first instinct couldn't have been right - if Kaladin and his guys attacking the Oathgate immediately - which was absolutely an option, wouldn't have been better than the extended reconaissance that they engaged in. It would depend on whether the corruption of the Oathgate spren was already complete when their group arrived at Kholinar, or not. Soulcasting (as demonstrated by that nameless diagrammist with the soulcaster who acquired Szeth for Taravangian), Cohesion and probably Division could do it as well. Fortifications just aren't much use against surge-binders. As seen in Dalinar's flashbacks, they didn't offer that much protection against skilled normal shardbearers either. As to your envisioned uses of Transportation in aerial battle, Skybreakers can do it so much easier by just filling the area with Division. no need for ridicoulous pin-point accuracy and lightning reflexes that your scenario requires. I also imagine that locations of the Oathgates are places easiest to Transport _to_ on Roschar for some reason, since judging by Jasnah's experience it looks likely that transporting _away_ is generally easier.

Here is a recent WoB pertinent to this discussion: So, the situation is somewhat more complicated than Kaladin was aware of/anknowledged before his stint in Kholinar in OB. Though, of course iRL it was also possible to straight out buy into nobility or be rewarded with a title for service, which the eye-color system doesn't allow. And anyway, it seems like the military is where the caste herarchy is most rigidly maintained. Not that there aren't plenty of common soldiers who are light-eyed, or that the darkeyes don't serve in elite mixed companies like the Cobalt Guard or the Palace Guard, at least after the Kholin unification, but the darkeyes can never be in command over lighteyes. All of this is about to change, of course, and Renarin serving under Kaladin in Bridge 4 already made a precedent.

There are some details on Sanderson's page and I would be grateful if somebody translates what they mean: https://brandonsanderson.com/upcoming-events/#23149 I was toying with the idea of going, but since there was zero information from the store until now(?) and I'd have to travel for hours, it is most probably too late for that.

Actually, the newest reading (from Tel Aviv) proves the opposite: Neither Nale nor Kalak have been working with Gavilar - they were just learning about what he was doing concerning smuggling things from Braize in this scene. And while Kalak wants to know more and admits that he wants out, Nale cuts him off and broadly hints that Gavilar is not long for this world. That's not to say that Nale isn't a hypocrite, as he indeed is, just not about this. I don't know about that. Apparently, he needed Ishar's "guidance" to make this decision. Additionally, if he wanted to die for real, he had a perfect tool in his posession - Nightblood. In fact, it seems to me that he had been setting Szeth up to kill him eventually, but Nale could have also just suicided if his main goal was to escape more torture. Also, would the Heralds even be drawn back to Braize if they died after breaking the Oathpact? Is it feasible that none of them died in the 4.5 millenia, despite some of them, like Jezrien and Shalash, pursuing rather unsafe lifestyles? There were 2 women in the gathering that Eshonai stumbled on in OB prologue. The old one could have been Adrotagia, but the younger was somebody else, presumably brought in by Gavilar. It may or may not have been Aesudan, who was also involved in some way. So why her and not the brilliant, heretical Jasnah, who wouldn't have been too shocked by any of Gavilar's revelations? I mean, apart from everything else Aesudan was likely just 19-20 at the time. Also, I see no particular misogyny in Ehlokar being the heir - as far as we know there never were queens or ruling High Princesses in Alethkar and Jah Keved, and a conqueror's heir is always in a dangerous enough position that any sensible person would try to avoid the additional risk of them also being a wholly untraditional choice. OTOH, by the same logic it was customary for the Vorin women to be scholars and scientists - and Gavilar certainly was in need of those for his undertaking. Helaran got the shards for a reason. It isn't like every Skybreaker acolyte is provided with them. And why would he have targeted Amaram on his own, specifically? It suddenly occurs to me that poor Tien had extra bad luck to get conscripted in that particular army, because Skybreakers likely kept an eye on Amaram, at least through their agents, which led to his quick discovery. Not according to what we have seen from Shallan's and his own PoVs in WoR. He was tasked by the Sons of Honor with finding Urithiru and actually did some solid work in that direction, that later helped Shallan to accomplish it. Yes? The Heralds are also "trained soldiers" and highly Invested, but they didn't notice Navani. Nale's highspren must have been doing something else somewhere else, instead of guarding them from eavesdroppers. As to who gave Gavilar Breaths - the same people who made those trips to Braize for him. The worldhoppers that he had been working with. Who I strongly suspect to have been Ghostbloods. Their interest in Sja-Anat at the end of OB would fit well with it. And who is talking about the 5th Heightening? The 1st one gives you better health, an extra decade of life, increased life-sense and an aura so weak that it wouldn't be properly detected by a non-Nalthian, like in this very prologue! This is Nale's view of things in OB after he received Ishar's "guidance". However, it has recently occurred to me that Odium's agreement to the battle of champions "for the fate of Roshar" is the ultimate legal proof that he hasn't conquered _yet_. And it may be the very reason why the one-year lull between books 3 and 4 with Nale and the Skybreakers seemingly passive during all this time is even possible. Anyway, my current theory about Gavilar is that he was working with a number of different people and groups, none of which were privy to his plans in their entirety. At least some of them had to be worldhoppers and IMHO it is highly likely that they were Ghostbloods. Certainly, this would explain how Gavilar could have acquired so much Cosmere knowledge so quickly. He also knew the name of the Ghostblood leader in his assassination scene and judging by his words, he has done something that he knew Thaidakar didn't approve of. The last few sentences raise the question of where the rest of Gavilar's spheres from this scene are now. We only know about the 2. Did Nale steal the rest? Is it why Gavilar was so desperate that "_they_ must not get it" during his death scene? Certainly, it would be out of character for Nale to leave such dangerous stuff just lying around - and in Edgedancer he didn't connect the voidspren to Gavilar, so he must have believed that he got them all? There is also at least one unidentified person who was present in Gavilar's meeting with Taravangian that Eshonai blundered on - the other "soldier". We have good guesses as to who the 2 women are, but no confirmation. What happened to all the other bit characters in this prologue, I wonder? I really hope that some of them pop up in the present narrative. A couple of minor details: Oh, and we really should have seen peak fashionista Adolin here! The kingdom isn't at war - so why is he in uniform? This whole close connection to the tailor in Oathbringer and Adolin's general reputation as a clothershorse is one of the examples of "tell, don't show" plaguing SoA. The mere sight of Dalinar makes Navani all hot and bothered, heh.

Thanks, @Wander89! Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me that this meeting happened _before_ Gavilar's talk with Eshonai, but the Parshendi had already acquired Szeth. Which only strengthens my conviction that Nale was the one who arranged that particular shopping trip through his spren and was fully expecting both that Gavilar would approach the Parshendi with his offer and their reaction. Kalak only knows of Shalash's presence, hm... Which still doesn't preclude Liss from also being a Herald, though. After all, he doesn't seem to know that Jezrien is also around. Of course, Nale could have also just blackmailed her into selling Szeth. In Jasnah's prologue Liss did seem very aware that something big was going to happen before it did, however. So, my money is still on Herald Liss! Eagle-eyed people on the stormlight reddit have also noticed that Gavilar being the one who somehow detected Navani, plus the "aura" that she so cavalierly dismisses as anything supernatural are indications of him having some Breath and I can only agree.

So, thanks to @AviH we have a bit more of the prologue, revealing the identities of "ambassadors from the West": and it looks like some of my guesses here have been confirmed: I also take this: as confirmation that Nale was at the very least aware of the impending assassination. I only wonder why it took him so long to send somebody to take care of Amaram, after Gavilar name-dropped him here. After all, Amaram had been fighting in military skirmishes for years after Gavilar's death and before Helaran came for him and it is completely lawful to kill a person on the battlefield. Maybe it wasn't the first attempt and Amaram had been good enough to survive previous ones? Also, an interesting insight into Gavilar's motivations re: keeping Navani out of it. He didn't think that she could handle it, heh. Well, Sanderson did describe her as "orthodox Vorin" in his WoBs, though I'd argue that her nonchalance in the face of the news that the Almighty was dead kinda belies this description. But why did he exclude Jasnah? @Wander89: Would it be possible to edit the title of this thread in something more generally referring to book 4 prologue readings? We can start a new thread, of course, but there is a lot of good discussion already here.

Filling gems with stormlight? While what happened at Thaylenah was unique, there is a WoB that the Bondsmiths of old had been able to do so as well, in a more limited way. I underlined the pertinent quotes: And it would make sense to me if only those bonded to the SF had this ability, given that Stormlight is pure Honor's investiture, so it would be inconsistent if the Nightwatcher or even the Sibling could channel it. I assume that they provide something else to their bondmates instead. I imagine that all Godspren are plugged into Rosharan ecosystem in some way, so that the other 2 could have produced a similar effect, but seen from a different perspective. there is also this concerning Bondsmith power interactions with other Orders: