Isilel

I suspect that all of the Heralds feel generally compelled to honor their deals, as it would be part of their nature as beings highly invested by Honor. Even after their great betrayal they do cling to certain vestiges of who they used to be. And I still think that Liss is Vedel. BTW, concerning her body shape - I don't think that Heralds can actually change their appearance by gaining weight, etc. IMHO, they are pretty much fixed. They can let their personal grooming and bearing go, like Jezrien did, but I bet that if somebody made the effort to clean him up, etc., that he would have looked pretty much the same. As far as we have seen, Ishar trusted Nale and the Skybreakers to deal with such issues. We have no idea what Kalak was or wasn't prepared to do, and if there was a secondary goal to prevent exchange of information and curtail interaction between humans and Parshendi, then just killing Gavilar wouldn't have been enough. Maybe, Nale even hoped that Parshendi would be wiped out for good in a resultant conflict, as they were an obvious risk in the eyes of somebody who thought that he could prevent another Desolation forever. True, but the highspren are supposed to be particularly conformist and spren in general are more circumscribed by their natures than humans. You say it yourself - we have already seen that. We have seen it with Shallan and in a somewhat different way with Kaladin and now, what? We'll see the very same thing with Szeth for the third time? That would be repetitive and boring. OTOH, we have been told that Nale can somehow disrupt/destroy nascent bonds of the surge-binders from the other Orders and bind them to highspren instead. Why not show us _this_ for a change, eh? Personally, I can't wait to see a ménage à trois between Szeth, Nightblood and his highspren. That should be hilarious. Indeed, the highspren must be very brave and I kinda hope that she(?) will be entertainingly supercilious as well. Why should his former spren be "around"? I am sure that the Skybreakers who have been poached from the other Orders by Nale don't have their initial spren either - that's the whole point of bonding them to the highspren instead!

And who is is to say that some didn't? I believe and have been saying in various threads that some of the members of the more "Cultivationy" Orders which didn't have obviously destructive powers, did leave Rosharan system and figured out how to take their spren along. Puuli's Interlude about his grandfather's foretelling of people coming from the Origin "with light in their pockets" could allude to their descendants bringing those spren back, for instance. They might be trapped in gemstones for transport or something. These ancient Radiants may have, Cosmere Spoilers: And also, there is this interesting WoB (Cosmere Spoiler): https://wob.coppermind.net/events/91/#e817 that offers some other possibilities. Some of the Radiants may have reasoned that in small numbers and without an easy access to investiture they couldn't possibly be dangerous even when living on a world. Which is very true, as far as we know. Yes, I am pretty sure that they did. However, they must have somehow prevented the spren of their victims from returning to their peoples as well, otherwise the reasons for and the circumstances surrounding the Recreance would be well-known among the population of Shadesmar and pre-Recreance spren would still be around. Maybe Nale/the Skybreakers captured orphaned Nahel spren somehow, or even killed them? Kaladin did kill a lesser voidspren tormenting Gavinor with the Sylblade, after all, and Venli felt certain that a Fused could destroy Timbre even without a shardblade. OTOH, we have also been told that it is very difficult to properly kill a sapient spren and they certainly didn't think that they were in danger of their lives from the Fused in Shadesmar, so I dunno.

This is a fascinating topic. I have just re-read the first Mistborn trilogy, and I can only agree that most world-hopping traders would have preferred not to enter Scadrial's Physical Realm while the Final Empire lasted, because they wouldn't have been adapted to breathing ash, like the Scadrians were and would have been at risk of getting the Black Lung decease ASAP. Now, this wouldn't apply to super-duper special, heavily invested folks like Hoid, of course, but those would have been rare exceptions, if not completely unique. Naturally, leaving the Pits would not have been a problem for somebody like that, even without assistance from the natives. Yes, we have seen Khriss and Nazh in "The Secret History", but IIRC it wasn't clear if they ever visited Scadrian PR or just studied it from the Cognitive at that time. Of course they, while not on Hoid's level, still must have _a lot_ of tricks, so they may have been able to survive even if they did. BTW, Nazh's diving after Jasnah's and Shallan's effects in SA makes me think that he must have and be somehow able to tap a cadmium metalmind. Of course, that's 3 or so centuries post-FE. Anyway, I don't think that a lot, if any, world-hoppers would have been caught on Scadrial when the Pits of Hatshin were destroyed, because they had good sense not to enter it physically in the first place. The danger to them would have been the sudden lack of re-supply of water and food at their trading hub in the Cognitive. Excepting Hoid, of course - he was playing an informant in Fadrex and... hm. He somehow managed to get out before the Catacendre? Otherwise wouldn't Sazed have either noticed him when he was re-making all the surviving people or re-made him and caused him to lose all the carefully assembled investiture from the other Shards? Now, trading goods. Slaves are out, IMHO - transporting them would be prohibitively expensive, as one needs to carry one's food and water in the Cognitive and IIRC there is a WoB that it would take several weeks, if not months, to travel from Scadrial to Nalthis. You'd also need to discreetly move them in and out of respective perpendicularities, which tend to be in fairly inaccessible locations. Also, why would anybody want to expose a very lucrative and exclusive secret of world-hopping to slaves? Except... it now occurs to me that the Lifeless would be the perfect means to move trade goods through the Cognitive, as they don't need food or drink. I used to think that the world-hopping traders could only transport what they could carry, in addition to supplies needed for their own survival, maybe pull a cart to be able to squeeze in a bit more. So that they'd be limited to small amounts of light, very expensive goods. That would fit likely Nalthis exports - dyes and spices, as well as gems from Roshar, but not so much anything that Scadrial has to offer, metals being notably heavy. Would even gold be lucrative enough? And something like mechanical watches for off-world export would have needed to be made specially, as other planets have other day-lengths and possibly also different time-units. In any case, I don't remember anybody in Warbreaker or SA consulting those, or even having them as curiosity items. Not even the Ghostbloods. But using the Lifeless, yes, I could see it being feasible to transport exclusive metallic goods. Of course, the Lifeless were invented only 1-2 centuries prior to the fall of FE, so hm... And we don't know where the perpendicularity is located on the Alloy of Law era Scadrial... Speaking of Sel, it is allegedly very dangerous and difficult to travel to it, but we have already seen 2 world-hoppers from there, at least one of whom - Riino, doesn't seem to be a particularly intrepid and resourceful type of person, so perhaps it is not quite as hazardious as all that. Not sure what their exclusive exports could be, though. Concerning Roshar - is there anything else that they could export, besides gems? Fabrials won't work without stormlight and there wasn't even a hint of dead shardblades on the other worlds. Soulcast alluminium? Maybe some of their weird fabrics, which woud be pretty unique, provided that they look good in comparison to the more mundane ones from more earth-like planets? Greatshell carapaces? Spices, again?

Ah, but Liss (who, I now think is Vedel, rather than Chana), had that agreement with Jasnah, which may have prevented her from taking on the job herself. And we don't know if Nale's twisted code allowed him to do something as directly criminal as hiring an assassin. In addition, he may have wanted to firmly discourage any further peaceful interactions and particularly exchange of knowledge between humans and Parshendi, as he thought that it might lead to certain revelations about the past and encourage Nahel bonding. We now know, after all, that the listener Songs spoke of the Radiants in the glowing terms. Kalak seems to be currently pretty useless, and other Heralds may have been sufficiently ambivalent about the validity of Nale's views that they neither helped nor hindered them. Ishar trusted Nale and the Skybreakers to deal with any attempted resurgence of other Orders, which Gavilar wanted and worked to bring about (among other things). So, IMHO, convoluted nature of the plot was due to Nale's limitations and/or secondary goals that he also wanted to achieve in one fell swoop.

Yes, indeed. It is worthy of note, though, that his first spren couldn't have been a highspren, as they shared Nale's conviction that a Desolation could never happen as long as the other Orders didn't return and unwittingly tamper with the Oathpact and some additional measures that Nale claimed "_we_ took". "We" being Ishar and likely some of the other Heralds in addition to himself. As an aside, I believe that the "measures" were what allowed Taln to hold out for as long as he did (and may have caused/enhanced the insanity of the 9 defectors in the process) - because great hero or not, I don't think that his out-of-the ballpark endurance makes sense otherwise. Yes, indeed. I imagine that the Skybreakers may have followed him for a time and caused situations where he'd be forced to reveal his possession of a shardblade and subsequently compelled to commit murders by his master(s), to well and truly stamp out his bond. Peaceful people becoming uncomfortable with having him as a servant and all those rumors that inevitably arose about him may have been more directed than apparent at first. I guess, the idea was that he'd eventually snap/slip and let himself be killed or commit suicide. But as time passed and Szeth survived and remained faithful to the Shin law despite everything, Nale became impressed with him and decided to recruit him. I am not entirely sure that this was truly the case, as not everything should happen on purpose, even in fiction, but there was this in the Ghostblood letter to Shallan: And Szeth's story would be an economical way to show how it was done. A nascent, or even already existing bond disrupted by forcing a person to act against their Order's principles and/or to actively reject their spren, then recruiting them if they seemed suitable. If the targets could be manipulated to commit a crime in the process they could also be eliminated if they weren't. Yes! I have also considered what kind of spren could have sought out Szeth initially and the Truthwatcher spren seem fairly active in trying to form bonds - we have already seen 2 proper proto-Truthwatchers and Renarin, who doesn't quite count. Another hint that Szeth was dealing with a different spren the first time around is this: Which, of course, is how the things have been for all of our other new "founding Radiants" and the opposite of how the highspren operate. Speaking of how Szeth thought that he could jump to the 3rd Ideal immediately - IMHO he could feel the forming bond with his highspren and knew that it already reached that threshold, rather than that he had already sworn the 2nd one previously. After all, he is closer to Spiritual Realm than most, both due to his madness and to his not-quite-timely revival.

How could I have missed this Word of Peter (WoP?)?! So, Chana did, indeed, appear on-screen. However, I still don't think that she is Liss because IMHO, unlike the Radiants, the Heralds' appearance truly reflects what they have come to represent in some way. Taln isn't some dumpy mouse of a man - he _does_ look like an ideal soldier, Ash _is_ stunningly beautiful, Jezrien _was_ regal and commanding before he let himself go, etc. What do we know of Chana? Hoid included her in his story about Fleet as a superb long-distance runner. Chana is associated with guards and was probably a general before she became a Herald as she and Taln are the only ones who are usually depicted wearing helmets. There is every reason to expect her to look the part - which is why she can't be Liss who looks like this: Fortunately, despite the relative paucity of female bit characters, one who could fit my image of Chana did appear in WoR - Ivis the sword-ardent. She briefly interacted with Kaladin and, IIRC and even sparred with his men a couple of times. In a way, that would be deliciously ironic, as I know that I wasn't the only one who completely missed all the hints about Zahel's identity on my first read of WoR and strongly suspected him of being a Herald. So, it would be a minor double twist if one was indeed hanging around the training grounds - she just didn't draw our attention. And I still think that Liss is probably Vedel, who became an asassin through the same sort of twisted reasoning that almost led Kaladin to participate in Elhokar's murder - i.e. view of her actions as a kind of "surgery" performed on society. Well, knowing what we now know of Renarin it obviously can't, as he is not a real Truthwatcher and as such his experiences would have been unique and can't provide a template for this Order. I still think that Ash being one of the 10 people whom Dalinar expected to be around during his Ascension is significant, as well as the fact that the other 9 do somewhat stand for the other 9 Orders, even Renarin. Eshonai/Venli also throws a bit of a curveball, of course, but I still expect Book 4 to flesh out Willshapers as an Order. The whole "A Herald can become a Radiant" angle is there for a reason too - because Nale didn't actually need it to lead Skybreakers, nor will Taln, who remained true to the Oathpact, technically need it to stand for the Stonewards. IMHO, YMMV.

IMHO, if she is a Herald, she bought him expressly _because_ she knew that he had Jezrien's Honorblade. Though, to be honest, since the art for Oathbringer was published, I have begun to think that Liss, might be Vedel, instead of Chana. It may be just a case of artistic liberty, of course, but her portrait in OB seems to fit the description of Liss in WoR pretty closely. Liss just doesn't look athletic and soldiery enough to be Chana, IMHO. It also turned out that the idea that we _must_ have seen Chana on-screen because of the WoB that we have seen a member of every Order, if we count their Heralds, and there hadn't been any other Dustbringers on page, was flawed. The female Radiant appearing in Dalinar's Purelake vision is one - she has reddish armor and uses Abrasion to move easily through the water. And of course, it makes perfect sense that a fellow Herald would have relinquished Szeth if Nale asked her to, which, IMHO, he did. Yes, I have played with the idea that Nale was somehow involved with Szeth being proclaimed Truthless. After all, we now know that Szeth had been in the early stages of bonding with a spren when he attempted to warn his people - or maybe just the Shamans, about the imminent return of the Voidbringers. From everything that we now know about them, Szeth's original spren couldn't have been a highspren, who, apparently, shared Nale's beliefs that a Desolation could be stalled forever if the other Orders weren't around to rock the boat. In any case, we don't know if the other Heralds had the means to find out if somebody carried a Honorblade or not. IMHO, it is quite possible that they did, or that Nale could have just told them to keep an eye on Szeth. IIRC, nobody in this thread suggested that Shallash would represent the Lightweavers instead of Shallan. Current consensus among the SA theorists is that she will become a Dustbringer and represent them. But Ash's PoV in OB states that the Heralds don't look like their iconography anyway, so there is no reason for anybody to destroy their images for the purposes of identity theft.

Hm... so why didn't he also re-make himself as properly immortal, or, at least very slow-aging? We know that things like that are possible in Cosmere and you'd think that Preservation's power, in particular, would lend itself to something like that. Or was it just that he didn't think about it until it was too late and the power was (mostly) gone?

This is a very well thought-through and substantiated theory. I agree with almost everything, but have a couple of quibbles: Well, technically, they didn't. As far as we know, they didn't have Nahel bonds on Ashyn - their magic system was founded on similar principles, but it wasn't the same. And, interestingly enough, Ishar was, apparently, never worried about "greater power of the Oaths" destroying Roshar - he feared, instead, that there was a small, but non-negligible possibility that they might, somehow, destroy the already weakened Oathpact and the mysterious "certain measures we(?) took" - we being Ishar and Nale, perhaps, though other Heralds may have certainly also been involved. And I do think that it is very significant that Ishar's concerns were so different than those of the Radiants who commited the Recreance. And also that Honor, in his visions to Dalinar, was also urging the re-founding of the Radiants, while completely neglecting the alleged risk of them destroying another planet. Something doesn't quite fit - there is obviously "another secret" behind all this. Yes, it is also intriguing that they apparently thought that "the greater power" of _their_ oaths wasn't a problem. Maybe because Nale never let anybody but himself reach the Fifth Ideal? Because he had an agreement with highspren that they wouldn't guide their bonded partners to it, perhaps? But, of course, if they were following the lead of Nale they didn't actually believe that the other Orders were a danger to the world as such - but only to the Oathpact. One of my greatest disappointments in OB was how Jasnah bearding the highspren in their den during her disappearance in WoR was completely glossed over and all the pertinent information she had upon her return seemed to come from Hoid. I mean, why _wouldn't_ they have tried to explain their position to her and attempted to convince her to abandon her bond to Ivory? Yes, I think that's why this plot-line is important. Our Heroes won't get anywhere without convincing the recalcitant spren peoples and reluctant individual spren (which would be the majority of them, even among those peoples who aren't opposed to bonding on principle), to bond en masse again and/or to fight the voidspren and the Fused in Shadesmar. It would take the testimony of a survivor of the Recreance, I think, and some very solid arguments why giving in to Odium would be worse than risking damage to the planet and/or revelations that Honor's dying ravings were misleading/misunderstood in some way, to win back the allegiance of the spren in sufficient measure to effectively oppose Odium and his cohorts.

We can estimate Skybreaker numbers, somewhat, from Szeth's PoV: "There were some fifty here, and that didn't count the dozens who were supposedly out on missions". So, I'd estimate between one and two hundreds all-told, including the squires. They did seem to have a lot more people more tangentially associated with them, and one has to wonder how the secrecy was maintained, or for that matter, what was done to hopefuls who failed to become squires. One would think that they couldn't just be killed out of hand, but... Except that if this had been the case, then the Skybreakers would have been forced to leave most of the proto-Radiants alone. After all, manufacturing false legal excuses or framing people would have also been unacceptable by this standard. But we know that this wasn't the case - Jasnah is the only non-Skybreaker active surge-binder so far who has been around for about 6 years (Shallan's bond extreme deteritoriation for many years protected her) - and the Ghostbloods letter to Shallan postulates that they have been appearing for 2 decades, if not longer than that, and that the Nale and the Skybreakers destroyed or recruited all others. I do wonder how the spren who tried to bond humans in a somewhat organized manner and as a group effort - like they Cryptics, Cultivationspren and likely also the Truthwatcher spren, could have been unaware of Nale's - and the highspren, crusade. Did Nale trap or even kill the Nahel spren forming those bonds in the process, so that if they weren't watched by their fellows at the time, nobody in the Cognitive, apart from the highspren ever learned what happened to them? Yea, I can't imagine how Ash or Szeth not telling anything of substance for the whole year could be written in a manner that won't be very contrived. Frankly, I felt that secrets of Gavilar and the Sons of Honor not coming to light in Oathbringer already severely strained plausibility. Re: Ash and Taln fighting Heralds who joined Odium, I very much hope that no more of them will - IMHO Nale and Ishar (who, I am convinced, is a traitor) are more than enough. In particular, I'd really like female Heralds to shine and redeem themselves, as they have been so obscure and unimportant compared to their male counterparts so far. Eh, it would be very disappointing, IMHO, if the _Final_ Desolation was dealt with in such a perfunctory manner. I have hoped that the whole series would be one long Desolation, with a lull in the middle, but if not, then it will be 2 distinct ones. Which is why I think that most of the casualities are going to happen in the second series.

But isn't he also referred to as "The Broken One"? Through, personally, I believe that Honor and Cultivation were the ones who seriously hurt him before trapping him on Braize and that the Dawnshards were somehow involved. OB Spoilers:

Are Metallic Arts more intrinsic to people's souls than Breath, which is also part of their souls? After all, giving it away leaves Nalthians with less investiture than average humans have, and, as you say it has serious downsides. In any case, the problem is that Metallic abilities have become rare on Era 2 Scadrial, due to both LR's systematic culling of Feruchemists and almost all Allomancers dying prior to and during the Catacendre. Yet, future Scadrian civilization is somehow supposed to be based on Metallic magi-tech. It would be feasible, if Metallic abilities could be accumulated and passed on to the later generations via Hemalurgy... but only if it can be made less morally repugnant. Now, personally, I think that even so, people, who are dying anyway, should be allowed to make a freely chosen decision to undergo Hemalurgy, if they want to bequeth their abilities to somebody or even to gift Harmony with an opportunity to create more new kandra, but I just don't see Sanderson going there. Didn't Preservation and Ruin put Feruchemy into Scadrians when they created them? And is it impossible for Harmony to use his Preservation half to produce more lerasium? Balancing it with atium production from his Ruin? I mean, there were a lot more Feruchemists around before Rashek's Acsencion, and Harmony certainly changed so much about the planet and it's peoples during the Catacendre, that it is not clear to me why he didn't give them Feruchemy back at the same levels that they used to have. As far as I can tell, Scadrians are at a significantly lower Investiture levels in Era 2, overall, than they used to be before the Final Empire. That would require selective breeding of humans. I don't think so. They also require Feruchemists to produce and re-charge, so falling numbers of those would put an end to it. Also, something called "excisors" are involved, of which they have only a set number, inherited from the Sovereign, and they don't know how to make more. Those could be hemalurgic spikes, as Southern Scadrians would be even more desperate to keep Feruchemic abilities around. In any case, theirs is a promising, but rather fragile and unstable magi-tech civilization, which can't be sustained or expanded without more Feruchemists being born... or wide-spread Hemalurgy.

But speaking of shades, didn't "The Secret History" state that they _can_ occasionally escape into interstellar Cognitive? Weren't the IRE folks on guard against them? So, apparently it is not that hard for them to leave Threnody, despite their mindlessness. Hm, good point @RShara, I have forgotten that it is implied during the journey through Shadesmar that spren apparently need stormlight/investiture to sustain them. Lift's suitability rating as a future worldhopper goes up yet another notch . But I really want Jasnah to get that chance too! And yes, gemstone idea is the most likely, IMHO. P.S. I really hope that Sanderson re-thinks how spiking somebody without killing them should affect them, as I don't see how a highly technological civilization with space-flight, which is based on Metallic Arts could exist in future novels otherwise. They already have too few Mistings and Ferrings in the Era 2. Even though Snapping threshold has been massively lowered by Harmony - who didn't bother to re-inject Metallic Arts back into Scadrial population's genes, for some reason(?). And it would be nice if worldhoppers had an option, however expensive, to obtain Allomancy/Feruchemy without murder or causing a massive amount of harm to the donor. Worse than drab seems to be too extreme. IMHO, YMMV.

Concerning Mistborn: Secret History spoiler - I don't think that this info was in the first trilogy itself, but I may, of course, be wrong, there is something I still don't understand, even though it is now canon: They'd need to build a railroad through interstellar Cognitive in order to ship enough from another world! And if they had built it, then there would have been a lot more worldhoppers around. It would be absolutely great! Except, now with both the highstorms _and_ the Everstorm to contend with, I am not sure that a Rosharan-built ship could reach the Origin. Honestly, there are so many characters in SA that I really wish would become worldhoppers in the end, and Rysn is certainly one of them, though Jasnah and Lift are on the top of my wishlist. It may look easier at the first glance, but the Horneaters would need to be in on it, for it to be easier in practice. And they don't seem to be. That's exactly what I think was happening - people from the Origin and ex-pat world-hoppers sailing ships discreetly using off-world technology, ferrying world-hoppers and their trade-goods and bringing back the same and whatever the islands need from the continent . And also, that they sailed to and from western ports, as highstorms become so much weaker in the west, until they get renewed at the Origin, so that it is feasible to weather them on the open sea. Puuli's Interlude does suggest that people from the Origin will come to the easternmost port for the first time - probably because the Everstorm made the western route impossible, as it blows from west to east and collides with the highstorm somewhere. I am not sure how they'll deal with the massive destructive power of the highstorms rejuvenated at the Origin when sailing in the eastern direction. Maybe they'll come during the Weeping? As to the option of "somewhere else on the continent", I have already said that arriving in the west via highstorm perpendicularity is entirely doable, if one is prepared to jump in the deep end and doesn't have too much baggage. But leaving would be quite tricky, as one would need to locate the perpendicularity and reach it before it moves on. I don't think that the vast majority of world-hoppers could do it, even travelling extremely light. Possible. It would make Riino's existence a little less precarious, at least. I also wonder why he wasn't afraid of dangerous spren and had no defenses and wide open windows that anything could easily slip through. There was certainly cargo on the spren ships - we don't know what was in the boxes on Ico's, but the honorspren had all those bales of cloth that Azure told them to cut into man-like forms in preparation for the fight with the Fused. And it would have to have been a real physical cloth for her to be able to Awaken it, right? It shouldn't work with the manifested one, IMHO.

Many/most of the nascent Radiants wouldn't have had a convenient criminal history. Breaking can happen in a lot of different ways, most of which wouldn't bring a person into the conflict with the law. So, the Skybreakers must have developed strategies for eliminating such people while upholding their own twisted code, otherwise there would be a lot more Radiants around. Which is why I doubt that they would see this: as a crime. In fact, the only avenue for them to proceed against law-abiding targets would have been to convince other people to kill them without outright hiring assassins and/or to manipulate and manouevre their victims into situations where they would be likely to get killed. That's exactly what happened to Tien, IMHO. Now, according to that Ghostblood letter, Nale could also somehow find people in the early stages of the bonding and somehow get them bonded to the highspren instead - and that may be how he dealt with some of the innocent, law-abiding nascent Radiants, but Shallan, for example, was already beyond that. Not to mention that a candidate needs to be at least somewhat compatible to the Order, as far as I understand it, and not every prospective Radiant could get over this hurdle with the rigid Skybreakers or to accept their twisted code.

These theories are very ingenious, but the proposed mechanisms are so cumbersome and breakdown-prone with no chance to recover and prevent a fatal outcome that they make early experiments in RL heavier-than-air flight look super streamlined and safe . IMHO, for the ships to be feasible they need to be autonomous and not to so completely depend on technology in Urithiru and people operating it. Can't the Diminisher fabrials reduce gravity pull on the ship to zero, for instance? Or is it too simple and straightforward? Hot-air baloons are very doable pretty much out of the gate - not to mention potentially much safer, but I imagine that cultural limitations of the Rosharans prevent them from seeing the potential. After all, fire on Roshar burns much more fiercely than iRL, due to higher oxygen content, so toys that could inspire the idea - like flying lanterns, etc. are probably impossible. And heatrials are a fairly new invention - IIRC only a decade or so old, so it is no wonder that it didn't yet lead to a conceptual shift re: what could be done with hot air. Maybe one of the worldhoppers could suggest it .

I am not sure why Riino would need investiture and why he'd chose to live in Shadesmar, depending on unpredictable and irregular showing up of customers to get it, if he did have to regularly consume investiture. I don't believe that Vasher could have survived in his place. Frankly, Elantris spoilers: Or a bit too eventful, in Felt's case, given all the losses that Dalinar's army had suffered and the fact that being a scout pole-vaulting over the chasms on the Shattered Plains, as he was in WoR was hardly the safest occupation anyway. Oh, and there is also Kaladin's old sergeant Tukks, who was notably short and, according to Kal there was something subtly odd/wrong with his appearance. Supposedly killed in some meaningless battle between minor Alethi trying to grab each other's lands. To be continued.

Well, yes and no. From everything we have seen, I think that Venli would have been able to take another form if she so chose, even without Timbre's influence. Voidforms affected her yes, but they did so by enhancing the tendencies that were already there and generally making her more callous. But core personality was still the same. We shouldn't forget that the ancestors of the listeners had been able to formulate and prepare their escape plan, while some/many of them were in voidforms. Venli's scholars still followed her and cared about her while in stormform. Etc. That's not what happened to Eshonai - her personality was pretty much replaced with something completely different, and her true self could only scream impotently from the back of her mind. Obviously, her case was special in some way.

I am all for suitably apocalyptic devastation, but too much too early would only leave a "plucky group of heroes sneak into the Dark Lord's stronghold and destroy the McGuffin tied into his life-force" as a path to victory - and that's not what am interested in seeing (yet again). Anti-Odium side is already very much on the ropes because so much is against them - that's where new discoveries in fabrial technology are necessary to even give them half a chance. They should be dealing with a famine shortly and the Fused would need to start their human-extermination programs soon. It has been mentioned in OB, that humans heavily outnumber singers even in conquered Alethkar, and they will probably try to mount resistance when the shock passes. Add acute food shortages to that and yea. I really hope that Sanderson doesn't chose to gloss over these issues. So, yes, I do think that there is going to be a fleet of fabrial ships at the beginning of book 6, but also hope that eventual victory will be hard-won and that losses will be appropriately high. The first Mistborn trilogy handled this aspect pretty well, though, so I am not particularly worried on that score. Can the ships really be built based on the Reverser fabrial technology as we know it? IIRC it is mentioned somewhere that the archer platform couldn't be moved too far away from it's "twin". Not to mention that the ships would need to be able to alter altitude in order to catch wind, manouevre, etc. I just don't see it. With a barge floating a foot over the ground and being towed by men, they could drag it's (unladen) twin along - this would still be a massive improvement over a loaded sled/cart dragged by a chull or people. Could the Diminisher fabrials be somehow involved in Navani's ship design instead?

Well, it can't be the standard way, can it, if Rock considered Hoid's appearance from the shardpool to be such a unique event? Again, it is possible that one of the other Peaks serves as the normal transfer point, and it is just a trade secret of that tribe, but I doubt that it could account for all the world-hoppers coming and going without the other tribes noticing - because they also have to get up and down the notoriously harsh mountains, and particularly not for the flow of goods between the physical and Shadesmar. We know that at least 4 worldhoppers arrived at Roshar a year or so ago - the Purelake 17-sharder trio and Azure, but given the hinted numbers of humans living in Shadesmar around Roshar - whether permanently or transiently, I'd expect at least a couple of dozens of arrivals and departures yearly. Hoid certainly had no problem finding messengers for his letters to the Shards from the epigraphs. Anyway, for arrivals, I think that it is mostly the matter of how far west they are willing to cross over into the physical, because the weaker the highstorm, the safer it is to use that Perpendicularity, and whether they are prepared to hit the ground running. If they have some bulky trade-goods or don't know the local language/don't have magical ways to circumvent this lack, for instance, it is probably a bad idea to appear in the middle of nowhere. As to Azure not mentioning the Origin specifically, well, it is on the other side of the world - and Our Heroes already thought that the Horneater Peaks were too far out of the way. True, but how much can a person carry? After all, the travellers through interstellar Cognitive would need to have enough food and likely also water, as I don't see the bead trick working there, to sustain them for weeks/months it would take to cross it. Most would be lucky to be able to bring enough to reach their goal and return. Stronger people might be able to squeeze a bit extra canned food to sell at the destination, but then it would be extremely expensive. However, it isn't, as an occasional client coming to consult Riino's oracle provides enough business to keep him in food and drink. Later, in Celebrant, somebody noted that food was relatively cheap. That doesn't jive with it being imported from another world and transported for weeks/months on the backs of the worldhoppers from there. IMHO, it makes most sense if it is being brought from the physical realm of the local world - which, in turn, would require a world-hopper outpost with a cannery. Now, if only we had been given some hints as to why both physical Roshar and it's Shadesmar are so very attractive to the worldhoppers? I mean, we know why Vasher came, while Nazh and presumably Khriss are about, we got some idea what the Ghostbloods are about in OB - and, of course, why the 17th sharders are around. But why the rest of them? Why Riino? Why all those off-worlders serving as soldiers and ardents? What is there for Roshar to export that is valuable elsewhere? The gems as jewelry?

My first topic! Hopefully, I did everything right, if not, feel free to correct me. Here goes: Throughout SA, there are several hints that while Roshar is the only continent on the planet, there are islands at the Origin. IIRC there is also a WoB confirming this. World-hoppers use Perpendicularities to enter and exit physical worlds and Azure apparently used Cultivation's at the Horneater Peaks, but could it really accomodate all the off-world traffic? According to Rock, at least, only the Horneaters are allowed to enter the shardpool - which would make departures difficult, wouldn't it? Now, it is possible that it can be accessed from several Peaks, not just that of Rock's tribe, and that others are more relaxed about allowing outsiders in, but wouldn't most world-hoppers, unlike unkillable Hoid, also need supplies and guides to get up and down the notoriously harsh mountains that surround the peaks? Shouldn't these "piligrimages" there be a thing? Not widely-known, of course, but still a small, but lucrative side-business for the Horneaters? Yet, we have seen no sign of it in Rock's dialogue or PoVs. Another clue is the relative abundance and cheapness of canned food in Shadesmar - and that it seems to be mostly fish. Now, there is another WoB that it takes weeks or months to get from world to world through the Cognitive, at least if they are in different systems. This would make import of canned food from some other world highly impractical and expensive - i.e. the opposite of what we have seen in part IV of OB. That, in turn, means that the food is being imported in bulk from somewhere on Roshar - and that they have a cannery there - which is the technology that the rest of the world doesn't have. I.e. that there is a location on Roshar that is servicing the world-hoppers and humans living in Shadesmar. And there must be enough of them to keep Riino in food and drink in exchange for his prophecies. Now, we were told that Honor's Perpendicularity is unpredictable and dangerous to use - I speculate that last is because it normally deposits a traveller in the eye of a highstorm. But that would mean that the farther west one goes, the less risky using it becomes. Whether the highstorm is almost completely exhausted when it reaches the Origin and gets renewed there or there is some other trick to make transfer there safe - even something as simple as a sturdy shelter in a spot that the Perpendicularity reliably crosses, I am pretty certain that that's where most of the transfers between realms happen, conveniently hidden from the world at large. The worldhoppers can then be discreetly transported to the continent by ship and vice-versa. The small population of the islands - or, maybe, just one island? - is in the know and caters to the travellers, supplying them with what they need to blend in on Roshar or to survive off-world, for a price. Puuli's Interlude hints at these people coming more overtly and in numbers in a near future - maybe they'll have to quickly escape Shadesmar, due to the onslaught of the voidspren and the Fused?

The skyships probably not yet, but they might very well build fabrial barges that float a foot or so over the ground and can be towed by men. That would already greatly increase the speed of shipping of goods overland, as chulls move much slower than humans, as well as allow them to test and refine part of the technolgy without mortal risk. Indeed. I doubt that Dalinar would allow Szeth to go on his crusade though - currently he doesn't want to alienate anybody by committing agression and that's how it would look if his new pet killer decimated the Stone Shamans. Frankly, another of the things that make me wary of the time-skip is the Catch-22 that Szeth represents - on the one hand, those who suspect Dalinar's intentions couldn't help but notice that the Assassin in White's murderous rampage cleared the way for the coalition - it likely never would have happened without it. And history with recruiting enemies and even would-be assassins or not, Szeth did actually succeed at murdering Gavilar - which gave Dalinar his shot at leadership. This doesn't look good. But if they try to expose Taravangian, even if they are believed, they'll likely lose Ja Kheved, which would be the end of the coalition. Not to mention - wouldn't families/nations that have lost people to him want justice to be done? Szeth could _say_ that he had already died once, but would he be believed? Nale vouching for him wouldn't help either, what, with his new Odium-affiliation. So, yea, I don't see how all of this can be resolved off-screen without it feeling incredibly contrived. Another thing that should come to head pretty soon after Szeth reaching Urithiru is Vasher - Nightblood. Surely, both would know that the other is around pretty much at once, and them avoiding each other, or Nightblood not ratting out Vasher's presence to Szeth and hence to Dalinar for a whole year would be highly implausible. Nor could I see Shallan delivering Sja-Anat to the Ghostbloods during the skip - but it is a big enough task that it makes sense for it to take a year or more, so we may just get updated on her progress or witness the final step of it in the beginning of book 4. But Nale/Skybreakers, famine and Szeth? A realistic reaction to the fall of Alethkar by most of the Alethi contingent, who had families back home? These are things that need an immediate response after the end of OB. Personally, I would have very much preferred it if part one of book 4 concerned itself with these issues and the proposed solutions to them, believably established the stalemate, and then the time-skip happened and next we'd see what worked and what didn't.

Well, it did seem to me that stormform affected Eshonai and Venli differently and that while the former was mind-controlled/ brain-washed, the latter was just made more callous and power-hungry, with core personality largely unchanged. Eshonai in WoR: "There was no fighting against what she had become. The eyes of the gods were too strongly upon her" - I-11 "New Rythms" "That didn't feel like her. Not at all. None of this feels like me. I... The new rhythms beats surged in her mind" And, most significantly, this, from I-13, "A part to Play": "Venli smiled often while wearing this new form. Otherwise it didn't seem to change her at all. Eshonai knew that she herself had changed. But Venli... Venli acted the same" and prior to that, in the same chapter: "That voice deep within Eshonai still screamed. Even when she didn't attune the old Rhythm of Peace. She kept herself busy to quiet it..." Nothing like that ever happens to Venli in OB. Perhaps it was because Eshonai's bonding with the voidspren didn't happen properly, as she recognized at the last moment that it was terribly wrong: "In a moment of panic, she cast from her mind the preparations that Venli had given her. No!" I-5 "The Rider of Storms". Or maybe it was her very attempt at resistance that caused Odium to push particularly hard at her mind and to basically imprison her true self, which was screaming impotently at the back of her head? Didn't Ulim say that Eshonai was about to break free when she died and good riddance?

Well, I am normally all for time-skips - honestly, a couple of fantasy series that would have been very much improved by them immediately come to mind. But there are some things at the end of OB that _should_ provoke an immediate response: Nale and the Skybreakers defection to the Fused. This would not only be a massive moral blow to the nations of the anti-Odium alliance due to a Herald turning against them, but it should also be pretty effective in eliminating nascent Radiants from the other Orders. Skybreakers have a somewhat reliable way of detecting them, after all, and wouldn't need to dance around the local legal restrictions to kill their targets (and their spren?) any longer. All the Fused have to do is make a law that forbids humans to form Nahel bonds, on the pain of death. Presto! Not even the territories of the alliance would be safe, as the Skybreakers have lots of connections and cover identities in these countries, built over the centuries, and could easily slip in and out. I too want there to be substantially more Radiants, hailing from all corners of the world and all walks of life, in Book 4, but with the Skybreakers on the rampage that doesn't appear to be possible - only the potential candidates in Urithiru would be able to survive long enough to become capable of defending themselves. The second issue is the threatened famine. It has been mentioned several times that destruction caused by the Everstorm, defection of the parshmen, breakdown of trade and banking, war, change of the highstorm schedule would all lead to an acute shortage of food. Add to that the flood of destitute Alethi refugees to the neighboring regions. The famine should start within several weeks of the ending of OB and I would find it very contrived if it was glossed over, like in WoT. Oh, and this is minor, but somehow Ash will provide our Heroes with no useful information for the whole year? I mean, I can't imagine any of the important revelations about the past happening off-screen...

Maybe Gavilar suspected that the newly sapient parshmen would need leaders with a bit more knowledge and experience, in addition to Bo-Ado-Mishram herself for the False Desolation to be sufficiently threatening to force nations to unite before the true Final Desolation of the visions arrived? I mean, from what we have seen of them, new singers wouldn't have been much of a danger without the leadership of the sapient voidspren and the Fused and BAM wouldn't have had those to help her. Yep. It is also interesting that according to Venli, the Listeners Songs spoke of the Radiants in glowing terms, while being suitably wary of humans in general. There is also an interesting and mysterious epigraph in WoR about the execution by the Radiants of one of their members - Kazilah, who "fraternised with unholesome elements" or something along these lines. Could this have been connected in some way? Did some other Radiants secretly sympathise with/interact with the listeners and did they, perhaps, chose to break their oaths in such a way as to leave them shards for protection? Another good question is where the listeners got their excellently made steel weapons, decorated with glyphs, on which Alethi also repeatedly commented. First of all, there is the issue of generations of dullforms somehow retaining the knowledge of advanced smelting and metal-working technics, then there is the problem that the listeners had forgotten the very concept of writing - according to WoR, Venli invented a script for them after getting the idea from the Alethi! Oh, and it couldn't have been from Stormseat - _that_ was allegedly destroyed during Aharietam, 4.5 millenia previously and steel just doesn't survive that long in a rainy climate. Even in Urithiru, where it very seldom rains and which was abandoned 2 millenia previously, most metal was rusted into unusability. Not to mention that according to Dalinar's visions, humans couldn't even produce steel weapons anymore, leave alone in such quantities, during Aharietam - they were reduced to primitive bronze ones. On my just finished first re-read of SA, I have noticed that there are clear ret-cons of some things stated in WoK in the later volumes, particularly concerning Gavilar and Dalinar and the timing of their changes. In WoK, Jasnah only found out that Gavilar's last wish was a quote from the in-world WoK book and told Dalinar about it several months prior to the start of the events, Gavilar only became less warlike and obssessed with the Codes during the last year of his life, Dalinar was seriously tempted to kill his brother _10_ years prior, rather than 29, etc. I don't know if any of this stuff was corrected in the later editions, but there certainly are (were?) some discrepancies. Anyway, in OB it is unclear when Gavilar's visions started - when he sent Dalinar off to fight after Adolin's birth, he already told his brother that he might have something that coulpd perhaps help against bloodthirst. Then, just before sending Dalinar to Rathalas for the second time, Gavilar said in his letter that he had some important revelations that he wanted to share with Dalinar. After that, of course, Dalinar wasn't up to being trusted with such confidences. So, I'd tentatively say that the most likely point of Gavilar becoming convinced that the visions were real was then. He may have been getting them for some time before that, of course - there is a hint that Dalinar's first vision may have been just before he met the Nightwatcher/Cultivation, but he remembered nothing about it. Gavilar also may have needed several years before he started to see and remember them clearly. This seems likely and probably is going to be an important argument when/if an alliance with (some of) the new singers is going to be forged. Well, I firmly believe that Nale and his bonded highspren are behind it and I have told so to anybody who would listen, both here: and on the tor.com re-read . I don't think that a spren of Odium is capable of speaking to normal Rosharan Rythms, since forms of power effectively replace them with the new Rythms, those belonging to him. He is external to Roshar, while Honor and Cultivation and their spren have become intrinsic to it.