mdross81

I agree this felt like a U turn from the RoW foreshadowing. The one way that I could see the CS thing happening for him now would be Odium intervening just as Gavilar died. Odium could meet with him knowing that he had him over a barrel and could force him to take a bad deal. I’m reminded of Rayse telling Taravangian that he intentionally met with him on a a day when he would be at a disadvantage (though look how that worked out for him).

My hot take over breakfast this morning. The right words are “give me your pain.”

Yes, people do tend to go to her (or her agent the Nightwatcher) begging. It’s what makes them desperate enough to accept the curse that comes with the boon.

This is a good catch. Also, on multiple occasions in this prologue, Gavilar thinks about or talks about how he has "outgrown" things: He was one of the trusted, a member of the Sons of Honor. A group that was yet another knife that Gavilar kept balanced, for they could never know that he had outgrown them and their plans. Deliver him to my agents, then we’ll give you what you said that you wanted: a return of the ancient days you’ve hungered for. A chance for the powers to come back.” “I’ve grown beyond that,” Gavilar said. He regretted how things had been between them lately. That coldness growing—well, grown over—their relationship. Amaram liked to keep them around, to teach him their script. Something that allowed Amaram to pretend he wasn’t learning to write, preserving some semblance of Vorin devotion. That was important to him. Gavilar had, of course, grown beyond that.

I'm so sad that we're probably going to have to wait like 10 years still for Herald flashbacks that might shed some light on this.

On the topic of whether or not this being in the SA5 prologue is the same Stormfather we've come to know through Dalinar, I just wanted to note here that the "shimmer" thing has actually happened before: He searched the sky and discovered a ripple in the air, like heat rising from distant stone. A shimmer the size of a building. (OB 1) Dalinar backed up, letting Fen rejoin the people and experience the end of the vision. As he folded his arms to watch, he noted a shimmering in the air beside him. (OB 34) Dalinar turned to the side, to where he glimpsed the air shimmering. The Stormfather. (OB 38) But notably, all three times that I'm aware of it happening were inside a vision, not in the waking world.

For those arguing that Ishar might be the Stormfaker, what is the evidence for the view that the Heralds can feel one another’s deaths while on Roshar? Setting aside the death in the SA5 prologue, we’ve only encountered two others: Taln in the Prelude and Jezrien. The other Heralds seem to have felt Jezrien’s death, but I’ve always assumed that’s because he was permakilled and fully severed from the Oathpact. But things Kalak mentions in the Prelude suggest that they would not feel a return-to-Braize death: Now, it’s possible that Kalak just didn’t feel Taln’s death because he was distracted by the furious fighting. But the fact that he had to even wonder whether the other eight all died suggests that they can’t feel one another’s deaths. The only other mention of sensing one another that comes to mind is Nale in RoW 77: But the way Nale trails off there makes it seem like he’s not certain that he would know. And at any rate, knowing that a Herald has broken on Braize is not the same as knowing that they’ve died on Roshar. Just wondering if I am missing some other indicator that they can feel one another’s deaths.

This bit about Axindweth is intriguing: This seems a very different explanation of her departure than we got from Ulim in RoW 77: From this it sounds like Gavilar wanted to continue working with her. The inference is that she had somehow helped him to bring Voidspren through to Roshar and that, without her help, he’d need fabrials to do it. Which begs two questions: 1. Why did Axindweth actually stop helping Gavilar? 2. Why did she lie to Ulim about her reasons for leaving?

Assuming @teknopathetic has the right of it about Shallan's mom (and I think he does) the question of Chana dying versus the Everstorm was responsible for the return of the Voidbringers seems to be addresssed by Thaidakar saying:

It's a fun idea, but I don't think so. Rosharans actually do seem to use "mink" in expressions where we would normally use some other small rodent. See, for example: WoR 17: "A man hunting game will return with a mink if there are no telms to be found," she said. WoR 20: A little like the mink wandering into the whitespine's den and asking when dinner is ... she thought OB 10: "You mink!" Adolin said OB 30: It remembered men - an innate understanding, much as newborn mink kits innately knew to fear the skyeel OB 39 (Jasnah sassing Kal): "I can get you some mink kits to cuddle while the adults plan." BUT ... I'm really glad you made this post because in searching my ebooks for the word "mink" I noticed a few other conspicuous minks, and I'm starting to wonder if they are all somehow tied to Mraize. Consider these - all of the times we see an actual mink: WoR 45 (Middlefest): She was surprised to see a mink slinking in the shadows; she'd expected all those in the area to have been trapped by now. WoK 3 (Shallan first arriving in Kharbranth): In a street of inland docks, a prowling mink skulked in the shadows, watching for morsels that might be dropped. WoR 54 (Veil's Lesson): Mraize passed his blowgun to the side. The short, masked girl was there, holding the cremling that Mraize had speared along with a dead mink, a blowgun dart in its neck. No, it's leg twitched. It was merely stunned. Some poison on the dart, then?" OB 28 (exploring Urithiru): Was that ... scraping he heard? A moment later, a mink slunk into the main tunnel from a shadowed crossroad, carrying a dead rat in its mouth. The tubular little animal twitched its snout toward him, then carried its prize away." OB 77 (Shallan and Adolin on a not-so-romantic stroll): As they walked, she had to step over a dead mink sticking half out of a broken tree trunk. RoW I-5 (Lift): this is the one you already quoted Ok, now hear me out. This is probably too crazy to be right, but what if Mraize is using awakening (or some other means) to send these minks on spying missions of some sort? In each instance where we see an actual mink they are around someone or something of interest to Mraize and the Ghostbloods: four of them crop up in Shallan chapters - that's a weird detail to pop up so many times around a single character right? And the other two are scuttling around Urithiru - which Mraize had been trying to find and surely would want to explore as soon as possible. Consider also that after we hear in Lift's interlude that she sometimes runs into Minks in the ventilation shafts, Mraize shows up to hunt her. In support (1) we've seen something like this before with Vasher using an awakened squirrel in Warbreaker; (2) Mraize seems like he may have the life sense that holding Breaths gives - he's impossible to sneak up on, always knows when someone is there; and (3) we already know that the Ghostbloods have a Sleepless agent working with them, which, come to think of it, could actually be the trick here instead of awakening - CREMLING MINKS! This is bonkers but totally my new head canon.

I've been searching through my cosmere books for hints on the identities of Hoid's other two apprentices, but instead turned up another bit of evidence that seems to support the idea of "Wisdom" or something similar as that last Shard. In the WoK epilogue, when Hoid is waiting for Taln and discussing what men value most with the guards in Kholinar, he says: With Virtuosity and Invention now known to be Shards, this line jumped out at me in a new way, and seems like it could be some additional support for the idea of Wisdom, or as Hoid puts it here "great intellect," as a Shard.

I would love it if Shai turns out to be one of the apprentices. But if we take Brandon at his word that Sigzil is the apprentice we know the best, I'm not sure it can be her given that we've got an entire novella from her PoV.

Nikki Savage is my guess for one of them. Toward the end of the New Ascendancy broadsheet story in BoM, she mentions that, after her confrontation with the Haunted Man (Nazh) she was approached by a young white-haired man who offered to tell her a story. She declined, but I doubt Hoid would give up after just one attempt. She also fits as someone that we know, but don't know as well as Sigzil.

I wonder if this is still going to be the case, or if Brandon cannibalized the idea about waking up on a strange planet and needing to figure out the kite magic, turning it into this Sigzil story instead. It's also interesting that, per this WoB, Brandon has either lowered the number of apprentices that Hoid has running around, or just decided that there are three major ones:

I had exactly the same thought when reading SP4. The ring around the planet reflecting the sunlight for some reason makes me think of Invention too:

So this excerpt has led me to do one of the things I always do when we get some sort of new key word or phrase in the cosmere - search through previous cosmere books for that term. In this case, I searched for the word "torment" and found this interesting bit in WoK 2 that reminds me of Sigzil's discussion with Hoid. Now here's Sigzil and Hoid: Capitalization is different of course. Probably just a coincidence. But the discussion of blessings as torment just caught my eye so I thought I'd drop it here.

This is an intriguing take. Alternatively, what if because of something that happens in SA5 oaths ... just aren't a thing anymore. What if the whole radiant-level system of control on Shardblades and Surgebinding goes by the wayside. What if it's just left up to the individual spren now whether they want to turn into a weapon. And the way to get your hands on on a Shard-weapon is to become a squire to a spren. There is this line: There are no active oaths, but Aux could still become a weapon if it weren't for Sigzil's Torment.

With the Night Brigade chasing Sigzil because of his connection to one of the Dawnshards, I'm now wondering if it's the Night Brigade that Nikli was talking about in Dawnshard Ch. 18: And he leaves off there because that's right when he notices the change to the mural. Then in Ch. 19: We gotta ask Brandon if the Night Brigade has been active on Roshar.

YES. I'm wracking my brain on this one. Note that Brandon says " There are three of them, of which Sigzil is the one you know the best." This suggests we may know one or both of the others, just not as well as we know Sigzil. That doesn't really seem to apply to many characters that I can think of though. I'm wondering if this is an extension of what we saw with Adolin and Maya, where the relationship seemed sort of inverted from the usual.

I'd say the signs point to Sigzil having held the same Dawnshard that Hoid once held given that (1) he seems to have the same limitations on hurting people that Hoid has; and (2) the Night Brigade is chasing Sigzil to find a Dawnshard, and Sigzil worries that if they catch him, they'll be able to connect the Dawnshard to Hoid. I don't think it's the Change Dawnshard, if only because I think Brandon wants to do more with Rysn down the line and it most likely wouldn't make a lot of sense for her to then pass the Change DS to SIgzil in SA5. It also seems pretty clear that he's no longer holding the DS from the line you quoted about the "burden he once held." Given what we saw in Dawnshard with the Sleepless saying that it's dangerous for the holder of a DS to bond a spren, I'm guessing that SIgzil was compelled to break his oaths and that's why Aux is "dead." But perhaps through the same sort of inversion of the knight-spren relationship that we've seen with Adolin and Maya, Sigzil was able to restore Aux's mind.

I’ve been intrigued by the Uvara as well. I think you’re definitely onto something with the idea of them being associated with transition points between realms. Here’s a link to some of my thoughts (in particular the update at the end of the reply) based on the name of the Uvaran who left with Derethil - Nafti. It’s part of a broader post talking about similarities between Cultivation and some analogous Greek/Egyptian deities.

Since my post is seeing some recent action just thought I’d chime in. This seems in exactly line with what I think Todium might do. Put pressure on Dalinar that could cause him to doubt whether or not he’s living up to various oaths. Definitely possible and would, in my opinion, set things up nicely for the back five. You have to figure the other Shard in residence will figure prominently in the back half given the first arc has been so Honor-focused. This is so audacious and hilarious. I love it. I think trickery and deceit could still be used to cause Dalinar to do something with Intent... Agree that - IF this were to happen - the only way to make it work would be to frontload it. And yes, 100%, Dalinar could end up doing something by Intent based on trickery/deceit. This is where I think we get into a potential breach by Dalinar or his champ. It’s explicitly a “contest to the death.” Were Dalinar’s side to trap/incapacitate the opposing champ and be in a position where it is possible for them to kill the opponent, but he/they refuse to do so, I could see that being a breach. Which would actually potentially free Odium by putting Dalinar in his power.

Cool ideas @Olmund I don’t know of any WoBs on this and haven’t read Dragonsteel, but I tend to think that “avast” is going to mean “dawn” for the reasons that I laid out in this post: It’s somewhat attenuated, but the basic gist is that Cultivation is similar in some regards to the Greek goddess Persephone. And one of Persephone’s alternative names was kore or kora, which essentially means “she” or “maiden.” Add to that the Sanskrit word “vari” which means water or rain and you can see where this is going I think. If Koravari, the Rosharan version of Koravellium, gives us she and water/rain (dew), then the only part missing is dawn. So that’s why I think avast is going to end up meaning dawn.

Thinking about this timeline definitely makes me reconsider my interest in any kind of cosmere screen adaptation. Because I get the sense that Brandon would want to be very hands-on to make sure it would be done right. And that would take even more time away from writing.

That’s plausible enough. Makes me wonder whether Yolish Lightweaving is somehow more volatile/powerful, just like Khriss suggests that another Yolish version of a surge was in the RoW Ars Arcanum.