Isilel

Wow, these are not the Interludes that I expected to see today! I thought that we'd get the 2 that had been read previously. Anyway, El is absolutely great here and Dai-Gonarthis sounds very intriguing. Granted, Sja-Anat is trying to become independent of Odium, but she has to do it subtly and behind his back. But Dai-Gonarthis can actually extract a _price_ from him? Oh, and BTW, isn't it very interesting that there are no Enlightened Radiants with Transportation in his service yet? And Shinovar isn't in his grasp yet either, despite the presence of an (the?) Unmade and of how it seemed when they broke off communications with Dalinar, hence no honorblades, hm... I am so curious about what the original deal between Odium and the Fused actually entailed. I thought that he promised to remove the humans from Roshar, since he intended to use them as his legions for the conquest of the cosmere, as per what he told Dalinar in OB. And certainly, some of the Fused clearly expect for the humans to be eliminated from their planet one way or another. But Todium's promise to El seems to argue against it... Also, nice to have an explanation for why the singer fleet was where it was. So, ROdium intended to attack the honorspren instead of Azir. I begin to think that Cultivation foresaw that splintering Odium would lead to even worse consequences than handing it off to Taravangian... And that she will end up by picking up Odium herself. Possibly in the second half of the SA. We have already seen Shards changing hands to new holders and a new Vessel combining 2 Shards. But what would happen if an old Vessel does so? Or even, instead of combining, switches them?

It is one thing if a child sneaks off for a couple of hours, but quite another if he vanishes for days. Particularly a royal child. Unless Wit and Lift somehow fake his being with them, they would immediately blow their cover if they don't order massive searches and other measures to look for him. Something the Coalition's strained resources absolutely don't need. The trouble is that the Lightweavers don't need to figure out anything, they just need to idly look into Shadesmar and it would be immediately obvious that Hoid and Lift have different soul-flames than the Bondsmiths. They'd need to be either sent away or co-opted before they blurt the truth out in surprise. Lopen didn't figure out the substitution btw, at least not yet. I am not sure how much the book art resembles the Heralds' true appearance, but the only "tan" woman is Pailiah. Interestingly, she also has long black hair and, unlike earlier speculations about her, looks young. Shalash is brown and the other 3 have fair skin. I very much doubt that a 7-year-old Lift would have been as adept at hitching rides and quickly obtaining food as a 13-year-old one. And even if - all overland transport on Roshar happens at pedestrian speed at best, since chulls can't move any quicker. It is entirely believable for her to have taken years to cross half a continent. It is a miracle that she did reach the Valley at the tender age of 10 at all.

It doesn't. With few exceptions, people have families under what would be the replacement level even under ideal conditions. Which is sadly common for most authors of SFF, even good ones, since it keeps things simple. However, IMHO it also creates unnecessary additional strain on willing suspension of disbelief and I would have hoped for better from a worldbuilding and detail-oriented author such as Sanderson. And it doesn't have to clutter and complicate things. Occasionally mentioning relatives who are either dead or have moved away or grown otherwise distant would go a long way towards creating the illusion of depth and believability of a given world. Wax briefly thinking about how Vwafendal's other children moved to Tathingwel (for example) and didn't want anything to do with their apostate sister and her offspring would have been wholly sufficient. Steris and Marasi maybe bringing up some real cousins at some point ditto. Etc. Personally, I fully expected to see an explosion of aircraft invention and development in TLM, with Wax being on the forefront of funding it. And was consequently disappointed by the absence of even a hint of something along these lines. The NoScads have everything they need technologically to invent conventional aircraft and blimps, and, unlike IRL there is a clear and obvious perceived need as well. Not to mention that certain Metalborn powers would make testing much less risky. And having watched Myazaki's "Porco Rosso", I couldn't help but imagine how entertaining an era of wooden airplanes, blimps, barnstorming exhibitions, etc. could have been on Scadrial. Alas...

I just wanted to point out that due to Renarin's and Rlain's presence in Urithiru, as well as directly at the scene of this event, the Shards shouldn't have been able to foresee it. So, it couldn't have been part of Odium's plan. I am not sure if and to what degree this constraint applies to death rattles, but it really should, shouldn't it?

Looking at the map of Roshar, one needs to cross half the continent to get from Rall Elorim to the Nightwatcher's Valley. A young child, travelling on foot, needing to find food and shelter on the way somehow? It should have taken her years, even if she set off immediately after her mother's death... Or "death". Maybe even... About 3 years? To fit the timing of Gavilar's and that Herald's death.

Sure, but we never learned how they are normally stored. Maybe they are sealed in aluminum and that lets them keep the charge for much longer before the seal is breached. Personally, I think that if nothing else, that's how it will work in the future, once aluminum becomes abundant. Allik was quite careful not to share that much technological knowledge with Our Protagonists, and he was also the only one making and servicing allomantic grenades in TLM, again without sharing the specifics. But the crew of Brunstall intended to spend days or weeks at the temple and I very much doubt that they were going to let their main engine run the whole time. They also would have needed a way to jump-start cutters. Now, it is possible that you can charge the priming cubes from an already running engine and that they had small ones functioning like fire-pots did for primitive humans, before they learned to start fires on their own. But it does sound very risky to go on lengthy expeditions into unknown with such a system, though it could work for routine transport within Mawlish lands. Something like that could work in the Basin, but given the often reitirated and stressed rarity of Metalborn in the South, I don't see it. I like your idea of there being some relevant Metalborn being stationed at major airports to provide charging service, though.

Though according to TLM he wasn't one any longer after acquiring a body again, so who knows? Regarding the priming cubes, the Mawlish must have had a way to preserve their charges for a decently long time, since their Metalborn are far too rare for airships to have Coinshots on board. And given that allomantic medallions don't seem to exist.

Ishar might be fully delusional, of course, but it occurs to me that he could have been living among the Shin, pretending to be one of them. He has the "Shin" look, after all. It is noticeable that Szeth was not present during this little confrontation between him and Kal. OTOH, Szeth didn't recognize him in RoW, so maybe Ishar was playing a behind the scenes authority figure? Or, since at least the higher up Shin spiritual leaders know about the Heralds' deal ("We kept your secrets" Szeth's phrase from RoW), and that we know that Shalash had lived in Shinovar as herself for a time, maybe they consulted with Ishar, fully knowing who he was, in the matter of Szeth's warnings? Something else suddenly occurred to me - did Ishar bond all the remaining Honorblades? Or, at least, enough of them to use all the _9_ surges currently available, with both Gravitation blades taken? Because his sudden appearance and disappearance very much suggest Transportation. And some of his "deific" display could be Lighweaving. Another thought - Wit and Lift are playing Dalinar and Navani, but shouldn't someone impersonate Gav, too? Because he is important enough for his absence to raise hue and cry? Or will they just say that they'll keep Gav with them and Hoid will create a Lighweaving to mimic him? Also, they'd need to keep the Lighweavers away from Urithiru, in case one of them idly looks into the Cognitive. And probably discreetly inform Jasnah?

I am not really sure that Odium could be freed without massive damage to Roshar. He'd try to kill and splinter Cultivation, for one thing, which might lead to terrible consequences. He'd have to rip out his own investiture to leave, and as RoW showed, he had become Invested in Roshar despite his will, so ditto. IMHO, we are going to see Odium extending his influence into cosmere in a different way, namely cosmere spoilers .

I knew it! The Ghostbloods collapsed the perpendicularity to get sucked into the Spiritual realm. In fact, they may have intended to do so the whole time. This makes me wonder if they might have a deal with Odium... Though if Iyatil actually cares about the safety of Scadrial even a little bit, this would be counter-productive. It is interesting that Dalinar being prevented from appearing by another is accounted for in the deal... So if it could be proven that the Ghostbloods are responsible, there might be a way to lawyer their way out of disaster even if he is late? Poor Gavinor! It seems that people who foresaw this were right. Might the "suckling child" now happen in the Spiritual Realm instead of during the Duel? Wit and Lift are cosplaying as Dalinar and Navani?! And Hoid seems to have a cordial relationship with the Sleepless, who has been spying on the whole thing, and whose cremling he rescued, hm... Speaking of Lift - is there something special about her mother? It would be very funny if it turned out that _she_ is a daughter of a Herald, instead of Shallan. Wow, Kaladin's part is explosive! And his bumbling is pretty endearing and believable. Is Ishar trying to pick up Honor? Intriguing, that he claims to be responsible for Szeth's exile and supports his quest. Also, could whatever he is doing to the other Heralds account for them considering him sane, when he clearly isn't? Is he making them worse instead of better? I also really disliked him eyeing Syl like that - more fodder for her being made corporeal in the Physical, I guess.

A bit of a crackpot, but could "he" be Hoid, rather than Odium?

There are many more "S" villains in WoT, though - Shai'tan, Sammael, Semiragh, Sevanna, Suroth, etc.

Wouldn't it depend on whether an aura from normal Breaths can be suppressed as effectively as that from the Divine Breath? Otherwise, wouldn't it just make them targets for abduction and torture to make them surrender their hoard? Just storing these Breaths in objects wouldn't work for maintaining immortality. Now, if this aura is much less perceptible to non-Nalthians, the schemers in question can just grab their Breaths and establish themselves on another world.

Kelsier needed all the power he had to stave off Ruin and besides, Ruin could have easily co-opted any new, inexperienced Mistborn via spiking, as he did with many other important people in the book already. Ditto Vin. As to Harmony, he wants Scadrian civilizations to evolve, what use would Mistborn be for that purpose? We didn't hear anything about Spook's powers being helpful for the rebuilding, they just gave him authority to become a leader. Someone less benevolent could have used them to become a tyrant. Not to mention, that they could have been as easily recruited by the Set as other powerful people. Personally, I also suspect that a very few people with Mistborn potential may have been born since Catacendre, but never manifested, since people no longer need to be beaten nearly to death (or equivalent) to snap. Mistborn always required significantly more anguish to snap than Mistings, and with life being much less awful than during FE, as well as abandonment of the above tradition, it stands to reason that their potential would remain unfulfilled, unless a confluence of very special circumstances occurs. It is a better question why Harmony didn't turn all surviving Terris people into Feruchemists or Ferrings, while he was removing their ash adaptations during the Catacendre. It wouldn't have affected his Preservation/Ruin balance, and, as seen with So-Scad magi-tech, it could have help society and technology develop. Hopefully, we'll get an answer at some point. After TLM, I am now also inclined to think that Sazed may have turned some SoScads into Metalborn after Catacendre instead. Allik said that they didn't have any "at first", even after the Sovereign's arrival. I used to think that Kelsier found the missing lerasium pellets - it would be very odd if there hadn't been 16 all-told, Preservation's number, and used them in alloys to make as many SoScad Metalborn as he could. But now it is clear that he didn't. So, the Metalborn required to produce heat medallions appeared for some other reason, and Sazed creating them, is the most logical possibility, IMHO

But Wax specifically mentioned that harmonium is non-reactive with acids, so it is unlike Cesium in this respect. Therefore, it should be perfectly fine if a capsule dissolved in the stomach to allow burning. It would still be a good idea to use a Bloodmaker with significant health stores for the experiment, just in case. Or a kandra. Actually, a kandra would be a perfect experimental subject, since they can hold harmonium within their body without exposing it to liquid. And IIRC there is a WoB that they could burn lerasium, so harmonium shouldn't be a problem either. Another thought - what is inside the body is to some degree a matter of perception, right? So, if a human could train themselves to think of inside of their navel as inside their body, could they burn harmonium there? If it has a valuable effect, I could see people doing it or even surgically creating special "pockets" for the purpose. I am also intensely curious about the feruchemical power of harmonium, which should be much less dangerous to test for, but apparently still wasn't figured out by the Northerners in TLM.

Yea, if he is worried about being overheard, he should pay attention to the video game-esque air ducts. It is becoming fairly annoying how easy it is to sneak in anywhere and eavesdrop. Who needs traitorous ashspren anymore?

So, the long-standing theories about the roots of stone veneration by the Shin are wrong. It has nothing to do with the humans promising to stay in Shinovar. Too bad that we likely won't see the scene of their arrival on Roshar now. Speaking of which - what in cosmere are Mraize and Iyatil thinking?! Will this explosion somehow transfer all those present on both sides into Spiritual Realm? Because otherwise they have just closed their only path in there, as well as doomed the Coalition. Lift's presence must be important somehow - either she'll be swept into Spiritual Realm too and do something there, or she will be instrumental in dragging the others out of it. Who is the second soul with her? I'd have thought that Wyndle would look different from a human soul? Also, the ease of spying via air ducts is starting to annoy me. Shouldn't Jasnah, with her well-grounded paranoia have come up with something to limit it, or pushed Navani to do so? And btw, how did the Ghostbloods manage to arrive at Urithiru _before_ Shallan and Co. ? Did they Transport across Shadesmar? How did their Radiant skills become so strong so quickly? And, of course, we still got no evidence of their other powers or gadgets. Lieke went down like a chump too... Or did he? Anyway, apparently the spren can hide inside their bonded partner even in Shadesmar, where they are otherwise solid, which is very weird.

I have to say that it always bothered me and seemed like something that demanded an explanation, that Sazed neither changed the kandra so that they didn't need hemalurgy for sentience anymore and could replenish their numbers naturally, nor restored them to their humanity. Sanderson's argument that Harmony didn't want to destroy their unique culture falls flat for me, given that his absolute ban on hemalurgy, combined with granting them freedom to die at will, condemns the kandra to being a dying people. Re: kandra reproduction, since they revert to being mistwraiths when their spikes are removed, doesn't it mean that they could do it that way, if the hemalurgic sentience bottleneck got solved to make transforming the resultant offspring into kandra possible? I also wonder if kandra Feruchemy was completely removed, or if it was blocked in some way. And if a very special set of circumstances couldn't re-activate it. I am thinking of Kelsier and his copper medallions here, as well as the fact that creation of the Bands probably required a full Feruchemist, as well as a Mistborn.

Weird, how despite her being so invested in restoring the Terris people, she apparently only had one kid and her only daughter chose to marry outside the culture. Which seemingly didn't affect Vwafendal's standing in the community at all, hm... But then, you'd think that given how, to their knowledge, they were supposed to re-people the planet, large families would be customary in general, instead of everyone having 1-2 children...

Moonlight/Shai speculates about the possibility of artificial spikes on page in TLM, after they found the hemalurgy lab.

I mean, this is the same organization that, on it's own turf, provided impetus for creation of a cult of inimical deity through slopiness, then allowed the Set to become much more powerful than itself and nearly destroy the very same planet that it's members had sworn to protect above all else. So, par for the course. Prancing around in masks in a place where this is pretty much unheard of and extremely conspicious, also doesn't speak for their discretion. I share your frustration about how the Ghostbloods have been depicted so far. Their main strength should have been the ability to mix and match powers and technologies from different worlds, but Sanderson never allows them to do so! Which feels extremely contrived and implausible to me. OTOH, given that nobody had used any off-world powers or even pulled out a gun in Shallan's previous chapter, I am glad that the lesser Ghostbloods were captured. Because one of the very widespread tropes, that I am very tired of, is that only the main characters matter and must do everything by themselves, while any support they should or might have, particularly if it largely consists of nameless people, has to be ineffective or gets removed. Here, Shallan thought to call for backup, and they proved competent. Arguably, they are the reason for Shallan's survival. I liked that. It also demonstrated her growth. That being said, I am still not sure that Mraize isn't playing his own game and didn't lead Shallan to the meeting place without Iyatil's knoweldge. Maybe he disagrees with his bosses plans for BAM, maybe he thinks that Shallan has a better chance of finding her and their best bet is to follow her, or maybe it is just a power grab. In any case, neither the Seon, nor his Aviar seem to be in the hide-out, which strikes me as suspicious. I also noticed that Iyatil was apparently unaware of Shallan's declaration of war, or that her brothers had been spirited away. So, there is still hope for a twist. After all, I have been complaining a lot after RoW about how incompetent the planning for capturing Kalak had been, and look how it turned out... Now, a couple of different things - how can it be that poor Gav doesn't remember Ehlokar's face? Shouldn't there be portraits? IIRC, it was mentioned back in WoK that artists and artisans flocked to the Shattered Plains camps. And I have been excitedly thinking how Shallan's ability to enter Shadesmar at will would be extremely useful if she became a worldhopper, but then it occured to me that it should probably be one way only and that she'd still need perpendicularities to actually visit any other worlds in the Physical.

Eh, some Vedens also have it. To look like a Horneater one needs to have an appropriately large frame, noticeably larger than that of an average Alethi - nobody is mistaking Shallan for one, for example. But maybe Chana qualifies, we'll see. I wonder that R&R didn't recognise any of these people. If they are the 9 surviving Heralds, Kaladin, Szeth and Syl, as had been theorised, shouldn't they know the latter 3 at least? I guess I could maybe imagine that Renarin wasn't trusted with Hoid's portraits of the Heralds and wasn't allowed to meet Ash and Taln, but it still doesn't explain the rest.

So glad that the raid on the Ghostbloods had been competently planned and executed, after all. The 3 top people only escaped due to something that couldn’t have been foreseen. And yes, Shallan might have killed Iyatil and maybe someone else, if she struck immediately after being discovered, but I understand why she didn’t. Lets hope that captured Ghostbloods don’t get broken out ASAP and actually provide some information. Also, she can actually enter Shadesmar physically, despite not having Transportation?! That’s new. But it was hinted that she had first done it at the as yet unknown time before Kharbranth when she had just one spren? I am confused. The fact that Sanderson called attention to the timing of Vasher’s disappearance makes me think that my previous guess that he had been nabbed by the Ghostbloods and provided them with anti-Light might prove correct. For some reason I thought that at the end of RoW Lift was running around with the red Aviar that she had saved from Mraize before he caught her? But now it seems that the Ghostbloods captured it, after all. I worry about poor Gav, there is a lot of foreboding re: Odium’s champion. Kaladin is taller than a singer warform?! It was very interesting to see how Renarin experiences his visions. Oh, and to have confirmation that the listeners defected during the False Desolation and escaped from BAM specifically. Otherwise, Renarin and Rlain are very wholesome. In the vision of the 12 people, if Kaladin and Syl are among them, shouldn’t R&R have recognised them? I am also thrown by the presence of a Horneater – surely that person could be neither a Herald, nor a Shin Stone Shaman? Could the blue woman be a personification of the Wind instead? Also, I thought that the Siah Aimians were bright blue?

Personally, I don't believe that the Bands were completely drained - and therefore destroyed. It would be an incredibly odd and unsatisfying writing decision, considering all the mysteries surrounding them. Which would become obsolete if they are now just gone. There is so much weirdness surrounding the whole issue - like, how had the priests even built the mountain temple? Wouldn't they have needed lots of supplies and building materials over a period of years, how could it have been kept secret? Not to mention that building in the permanent snow is generally quite hard and they would have needed their medallions constantly re-charged during that time. Then there is the fact that _somebody_ spread the rumors about them both in the North and in the South over a long period of time. For what reason? And then, there is the fact that Kelsier is somehow duping the Ghostbloods into believing that he still has allomancy... which should have been impossible if he just never employed anything that appeared like it. He has to fake an occasional use from time to time. My theory is that 2 copies of the Bands were created - one that Kelsier actively used and a safety copy. Which would explain a somewhat unwiedly form of the Bands we know - they are just a backup/powerbank. Then something happened and for some reason the secondary copy was removed from Kelsier's reach. Maybe Harmony demanded it, maybe there was some kind of betrayal by the priesthood, etc. Since then, Kelsier was forced to use the one he has very judiciously, and by now it is out of several powers, including Steelpushing, as per TLM. IMHO, the admiral is a Ghostblood and suppressed (but not irrevocably drained) the Bands somehow, or the Ghostbloods managed to swipe them shortly before the attempt to use them.

I wonder about the Thaylens, though. They look pretty different from everyone else and no Herald shares their appearance. And, of course Dysian Aimians are also immigrants from the larger cosmere, while the origins of the Siah are an open question.