Nepene

"“Unite them. The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows." "And stormwardens whisper that the highstorms are growing more powerful.” The true desolution, which is done by Voidbringers who are "horrors of rock and flame, dozens of feet tall, foes whose eyes burned with hatred. The Voidbringers." The storms becoming more destructive is a sign of monsters whose eyes burn with hatred coming to mess everyone up. It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that seriously bad magical things happening are a result of the only functional god messing things up.

Alfie dreamed. Four legs good, two legs better. He was ready for battle. His pike was long and sharp with the tooth of a snake on it, his armor thick and orange to block their blows. He had forged it from the finest of materials and it was ready. He was on a quest to defeat the biggest baddest black snake once and for all. It was a vile creature which all hated. He was walking through a swamp at the time. It was wet. Very wet. He scratched his head, and forged on. From a afar, a group of reptilian monsters watched. They were the most beautiful of all creatures, with green and orange scales and powerful sexy claws. And they were hungry. "Oh yum yum, a tender delicious cat to feed on. I want to bite its skin and taste its blood and eat its bones." Said one. "I am so hungry, there's no good food here." Said another. "Quiet" Said the third, bigger. "We need to stalk it silently for the kill." The others disagreed and squabbled and clucked. Alfie strode through the swamp unaware, looking for his fated foe. He strode from morning break to nightfall with no sightings. So he waited, peed, danced and played his flute, and set off again. Suddenly he heard a whisper from his side. "Show yourself" He shouted out to the night. From the night strode three monsters of evil and malevolence, part of the dark one's own retinue. They strode on two legs like him but had none of the beauty of a cat. He had heard of these monsters. Their claws contained a deadly toxin that would paralyse him and let them feed. One shouted "Give yourself up, scum, and let us fill our bellies." Another, bigger, shouted. "Welcome to the island, you will never leave." The third, biggest, simply said. "Die." The three monsters circles him, trying to take him from all angles. His spear was sharp, but he could not destroy them all. From his side he drew a weapon he had made. Gunpowder packed in a soda bottle with nails and anything sharp, a fuse at the top. He was ready. All three charged at once, claws at the ready. Alfie jumped up high above them, avoiding their deadly slashes. They collided into each other and fell stunned. As he flew up through the air he tossed his now lit bomb downwards and blasted the monsters to hell. Falling back down, he sighed, in relief, safe. Then he saw in front of him something. The skull of some massive reptile in the ground. He poked it with his spear. It reared up, massive, wings shooting as far as the eye could see, a bloody monster of a snake. Not a skull. He breathed in. "Oh sh-" Alfie sat up, now awake. Another nightmare. He had too many of them now. He got up, stretched his paws, and paced off in search of Satsu. OOC. I didn't have much to do so I thought you might appreciate this dream. Alfie does have a serious fear of reptiles. He's had some bad times over the years with them. Edit. Soon he reached him. He stood at the door and saw Satsu there, working. He quietly paced to a near spot, sat down, and purred softly.

Alfie nodded. After that burn it was like all his reserves had been burnt raw and used up and he was suddenly very tired. He didn't care about anything but making the burn go away. He padded to the chair in the corner. He curled up, nuzzled up to his tail and slept. One last thought flashed through his mind as he dozed off. "I would look very good with blue eyes."

He nuzzled against the man's hand, enjoying the massage. The pain in his head was starting to clear and clarity returned. When he had gained the initial spike of power he had little idea how to control it. It had flowed evenly to all his spikes, including the zinc. That had worked well. But one spike had started pulling the power more strongly to it... "Thank you for pushing her back. She took complete control. Yeah, no nicrosil for me any time soon. Or less, at least. She said some bad things. I don't want to risk death. She didn't do anything bad. Not yet. I think." He blinked a bit, still confused. "I think I'll nap. If you're ok with it." He looked up at the man, searching for approval or disaproval. Something nudged him, from inside. "I'll get a new eye as well. I want to cover up my eye for the public. Be prettier."

http://brandonsanderson.com/blog/925/ The general implication is that these two will be getting more screen time. Dalinar was supposed to get the most screen time by plot but Shallan managed to win out later by character force. I agree that we will get points of view, but they will probably just offer tantalizing hints and glimpses of the truth, not anything direct.

Violet licked her lips. It was frothy. She could taste the air and fear in his blood and boy was she excited. The man was nattering on about how he'd crush and destroy her and melt her down for scrap but she didn't really fear him. It wouldn't be the first time she'd died. She spoke, her voice delicate but firm. "I used to be a follower of the Path. I can't remember much but flashes come to me. Things that were ever so important to me, that defined who I am. There was an old religion that I liked a lot. The Canzi. We were all part of the divinity. A tiny fraction, but part of it nonetheless. We were all alive before we were alive and we chose this life. We chose what we would be. Some were good, and were rewarded well with beautiful bodies. Some were bad and were given broken and damaged bodies. I was beautiful before and..." She rubbed a paw across her face, feeling the softness, feeling the hardness of the spike in her eye. "I am beautiful again. In a way. But everyone has to one day return to the divine with what they had. What form will we be, I wonder? Broken and pierced souls, with other souls stabbed through them. Every place we go we leave a bit of ourselves behind and replace it with those we kill." She rested her head on her paws, yawning, and looked straight into Satsu's eyes and speaking with steel in her voice. "If you kill me Satsu, I will rip as much of Alfie out with me as I can to gift the divine. I'll feed my spirit with his. If you burn me like your metals I will forge my soul to yours and do my very best to annihilate you for taking away my second chance." She opened her hand, and revealed the small piece of metal inside. "I still have steel and brass in my belly, unburnt. Metals to burn. I could escape faster than your pewter could ever make you. But this magic powering my mind won't last forever. So, be seeing you." She smiled and winked again, then retreated. Alfie slumped, all the fire taken out of him. His head was finally beginning to clear though he had a massive headache. His whiskers drew back and he purred in pain.

Alfie was quiet as a mouse, sneaking softly across the floor. He couldn't move fast for any length of time but he had always been good at stealth and his tin enhanced hearing made him even more sensitive to how he did it. Ever touch of his orange paw to the ground was like a scream in his ear. The bandits would be screaming soon too. They'd pay for what they did to his family. The only good bandit was a dead bandit. He looked at them, pacing towards the entrance. There was only so much you could force an emotion. You had to inspire it in bits. He saw one walk through a shadow and a moment's fear ran through his face. He focused on that and rioted the man's fear, amplifying it beyond all reason. The man cringed and shook for a moment. A second later he soothed the man's bravery. Not heavily, just enough to blunt the will that the man had that held him there. The man stopped, sweeping back his green cloak, sending tiny fragments of rocks and dirt flying out through the room. The other man looked back, wondering what was up. Some danger out there? Alfie rioted the man's fear too, making him see shapes and shadows and monsters awaiting in the deep dark night. At this time there was enough light to define your nightmares but not enough to reveal them. The man started taking faster breaths and looking from side to side. He left them alone. They looked wildly from side to side, their fear increasing naturally. It would fade soon enough. But with just the right nudges he could make this ember into a raging fire. The man touched him. He could feel the power in him. It could do anything for him, take him in whatever direction he chose. A fire of power, intense and hot. So very hot that his insides hurt. He tried to force it through his spikes, like directing a river through a narrow tributary. It was almost too much power to contain, leaving him raw and broken. He shouldn't have agreed to this. Then he reached some special point and the force of the power broke through him, torrenting out. Raw fear flooded the area, filling up the men. This power needed no subtlety or slow build up. It was, absolute. And then the flood stopped. It dissipated into all of his holes, filling him up. Alfie felt different. He wasn't sure what it was. He walked up to the still live man, shaking with fear of their power. He stepped onto the man's chest and leant over him, staring at the bloody man and spoke in a refined and adult voice. "I know it's not proper to eat your enemies, but boy, am I tempted. Those graveyards don't have unlimited space. Sometimes you've just got to eat them up to save space. The ground can't eat all of them." His head started heating up, every heart beat pounding in his head. He couldn't control himself, couldn't move his paw up in the slightest. There was something else in possession of his body. He had a splitting headache. She licked the man's face, tasting the blood on him. Then she turned her cat head round and looked at the man, speaking in the same accent. "I'm Violet by the way. Currently expanding my enemy list." She winked at him.

Yes, I agree, we do not have anything more than a vague outline as of now. We don't even have enough data to make a wild guess with any accuracy. And the next book is about Dalinar and Shallan so I doubt we'll be learning that much more about Szeth, though no doubt there will be more hints. He's for the future.

He likely discovered some indirect evidence of Voidbringers (such as the dark sphere he mentioned) and for whatever reason the Stone Shamans believe they shouldn't exist. He swore on his honor that they did and may have magically sworn they did. He was thus punished to violate the traditions of his people and murder people.

He nodded, agreeing to the man's words. He shook his neck and scratched at it with his claws, shaking off a collar. In the badge attached to his collar was a small suspension of metals ready for usage. It made him happy to always have this at hand. He grabbed it with both paws and rolled over, belly up, paws in the air. Then he scratched at the metal till it opened and fed him delicious metals. He felt his metal reserves charge up. Electrum, tin, steel, zinc, brass. All ready for usage. He then started pacing after the man, feeling all buzzed up. He flicked his claws in and out, rearing for a fight. "Should I kill them? Fearing men sometimes shoot themselves to end the pain. I can soothe motivation to crush their spirits and stop them moving or riot depression. What you're doing sounds intense."

A sin is a transgression of divine will. Odium is divine, so anything he wills as wrong is a sin. According to him at least. The human in him can hate whatever he so choses. It's fairly clear what Brandon views as right and wrong but I doubt whatever Odium views as sinful will be that.

When I say it shapes their power I mean it shapes how effectivly they can use their power for a purpose. Honor cannot see as far into the future as Cultivation for example. These aren't massive limitations. I agree it also affects how they can use it. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/306/Mistborn-3-Chapter-Forty It is very much Brandon's intention that people have no chance of victory when facing a shard alone. They're powerful enough that only another shard can stop them. Brandon still made lots of conflict though. Ruin goaded on the conflict having no fear about what would happen. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperWeight I'd probably classify Thor as a super weight 3 and a shard as a World Weight 5. Thor is an immensely powerful and tough being with some degree of control over the weather, a shard is a reality warper on a planatary scale who can only be stopped by another shard and can do pretty much anything on a planet scale. Would you disagree with that classification? The humans have most of the limitations, not the shards. Back on topic, the main Shard limitations, from Mistborn, are them not understanding certain emotions well. Ruin doesn't understand love well, or self sacrifice. The hidden shard probably has a very personal and emotional reason for their actions too.

The Sunmaker reportedly changed Vorin theology. Maybe Shin theology (including some interesting stuff from shards) hasn't been changed and so they know the true reality of the world.

He dreamed of gifts of power. The cat man walked to him. His body was twisted, the bottom half human, the top half a massive cat. Its paws hung out in front of him, black and deadly, holding a gift. A small box. The man approached him, speaking in a soothing voice. "Take this gift. You need it." Alfie stood up and walked to the box. A simple wooden thing with a metal seal. He ripped the seal off and inside was the man's still beating heart, pulsing blood and redness. The man grinned and then faded slowly, leaving only his smile floating in the air. Something floated in across the black landscape of his mind. An electrum vision of himself, bloody, matted, tired. It spoke, commanding. "REFUSE HIS GIFT. IT WILL DESTROY YOU." Alfie nodded at himself and walked up. He mewed at himself and rubbed his head across its phantom shoulder. It was best to not say no to himself. He often found himself burning electrum during a dream and had heard many an interesting titbit of the future. He knew he was supposed to burn his metals after he had fallen asleep but he always left tin and electrum alone. He needed them. Perhaps they would kill him one day, but better one day than today. He felt himself waking up, his tin enhanced ears noting the movement the cat man walking towards him. He was on a cold stone floor in a lab. Several metal deposits were nearby. No one else was around him. He flared tin for a moment and heard a faint step and a scratching. Someone was outside, two people, their. He stilled his movement and pretended to be asleep, burning his electrum and looking through possible futures. Death, victory or pain awaited him. The man walked in and he pretended to awake to him, stretching out his paws, appearing as casual as he could. No one ever suspected him. He listened to him, then shook with a stop. "Bandits..." He shook, hissing involuntarily. His claws came out and his tin flared for another moment, noting the distant steps of what he now knew to be bandits. He wasn't sure whether to flee or to fight. This man said he could help. But could he? Alfie spoke, his humanness dominant. "I will burn Electrum to determine if I will be destroyed by your feruchemical power or saved. I hope for the second option of course." He was sure he was supposed to remember something but couldn't quite put his tongue on it. He shook his head to clear it and burnt electrum, asking himself an hour in the future what would happen if his future self spoke to his past self and spoke its words out loud. "The pain is... hot and agonizing to a level I did not know I had but so was the power. The bandits did not break you." He stopped burning the electrum and looked straight at the man. "I will try it. Perhaps I can overcome my past... these bandits, with your power." OOC note. The electrum image from his dream was from him contacting his self at the future potential of greatest agony. I am trying to make sure I get across that while his power is useful it is not a fool proof way to see the future and it can often stoke his paranoia unnecessarily. He forgot that future and hopefully the actual future will be less agonizing.

I would agree that twisting incomplete attributes to make them divine would be questionable. I was not doing that. Hate is a major and important aspect of the god of the bible, and his hate of sin is repeatedly mentioned. It was an important part of Jesus' ministry too, that you may be hated by your family and friends if you followed him. I doubt you could find such direct quotes for greed or cowardice or lust. With half of the sample seen so far being divine I'm not going to bet on the next one being human weakness. Ah I see. I wasn't saying that cowardice or some such attribute was part of a larger set of attributes that would make up a divine intent. The desire to hide and survive is an entirely rational desire to have and isn't necessarily born of fear. In this example someone who wanted to protect their people could, without any non divine fear, not want to involve them in a bitter war of destruction and pain even if they doubted they would lose. I could imagine some sort of intent like Peace too for that. What better way to ensure peace than hiding away? Being isolationist. Is it really cowardice to avoid unnecessary war? Though the human side of the shard may also be a coward. The intent would be twisted to serve his fears and needs. The Cosmere deities are far, far more powerful than the Norse deities. They are functionally all powerful and all knowing except to what is limited by their intent. They are not mortal to anything bar another shard, something which the people of Scadrial depressingly realize when they find Lord Ruler's final cache and he has no magical weapon to defeat the gods. They're not very Norse like. They're pretty divine. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/18/elantris-Chapter-11 http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation/398/Warbreaker-Chapter-Twenty-One His beliefs do tend to intersect with his books, as he notes above, just very subtly. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/faq/section/1/Questions-About-Brandon His beliefs don't overshadow his work, but my suggested theme, that good religious attributes are used for evil, is a shadow across his works. I doubt even Adonalsium will be the Christian ideal. He'll probably just be some interesting combination of eastern and western religions twisted according to whatever human holds him.

"Gold burners can shrug off poisons if they know they're poisoned. Most humans don't want to shrug alcohol. They get so much pleasure and freedom from pain from drugs. They can speak their darkest secrets and be heard. And of course it requires a lot of power to flush a poison out and few bother to do so if they can sleep it off." He nodded at the man's comments. "I heard you had... nicrosil. It can scramble metals? A powerful talent." He had heard of nicrosil in briefings, but no one seemed to know much about the feruchemical powers. Not that he knew that much about these secrets, being a cat. Mew mew. He went off, exploring the compound and seeking out secrets and mysteries. He found metals, strange spikes, and a lot of blood. It tasted old. In time he collapsed, napping in a room next to a massive vat of pewter shavings.

Alfie winced at the the loud sound echoing in his ears, a shiver running down his spine, and lifted his head up from the fish. His head was still swimming with fish and his nose full of the intense powerful delicious smell. He turned off his tin and the overwhelming sensations ceased to barrage inside his head. He sighed with relief and stroked his head, looking thoughtful. The man looked somewhat agitated. His eyes were red and sore, as though he had too much inside his head and not enough space to fill it. One of his eyes looked worse than the other, the right one. He really had no idea what the man had asked him. Did he want a cuddle? He looked like he needed one. This was a pretty cold place to do it. Maybe he wanted to share the fish? He really had no idea so he would have to use his electrum. Burning electrum, he focused his attention on a hypothetical future where he had asked for clarification. A shadow of himself formed, a half minute in advance, lips moving and talking about getting a golden spike. He copied its words, "There's nothing I love better than lying warm in a soft bed. Rrrrr, I could work with gold. But my physical balance is horrific so gold on its own isn't going to make me a better fighter. If you expect me to fight on my damaged leg a gold spike would be a very unwelcome gift. Maybe if he was a twinborn with pewter." He looked back at the food, then the man. This wasn't in the script for his future but he should ask anyway. "Do you have any downers I could use on the bloodmaker?"

We don't hugely need a massively pretzel of a theory. The shards are isolated emotions interpreted by humans. They can be a bit unbalanced and weird. My theory is simply that every emotion is one which is very important religiously and one which is repeatedly mentioned as an aspect of god in religions in which brandon is interested. Odium is hate, according to what Brandon was asked. As I note below hate is a major theme of the god of the bible. His people are hated and he hates various sins. Righterous fury, disappointment and passion are not required, god is directly said to hate. http://www.openbible.info/topics/hate I doubt Brandon would have any issue with making hate a divine attribute, given his theological background. I don't have to bend over backwards to justify it as a divine attribute, it is a very obvious and well known divine attribute. A fun one for Brandon too. He gets to play with the whole god is wrath trope. As you said with Preservation and Ruin, the shards work better when combined. Odium on its own is not a very good intent. Brandon said that the reason Odium didn't absorb other shards was because he didn't want to taint his intent- he would presumably be less hateful. It could be that there are non godly intents, but we haven't seen any yet. Hate is a very godly intent. Being hated is a very godly intent. I can't prove there are no non godly intents, but something radically non godly like cowardice would be a very weird intent for a shard, given what we have seen of their intents so far. Half of them are major and famous divine attributes I don't see how saying strength is unity throws my every intent is obviously divine argument by the wayside. Could you explain your point? Edited for clarity.

All of the shards so far have had an intent that is very obviously divine. God is honorable, god wants to cultivate the world, god hates sin, god loves (or is devoted to) people, god requires obedience from his people and dominates, and from Hindu influences, god ruins and preserves the world. I doubt the newest intent would be something non divine like cowardice or survival or solitude. None of those are classically divine attributes. God is too powerful to fear things and be a coward, god is normally quite social. Perhaps Endurance? A shard that can endure all evils and give its people the strength to endure evils. Edit. A variant of what Kurkistan said. A shard that desired to preserve itself and give people the strength to survive. http://bible.cc/romans/15-5.htm In a complete godlike being this would be matched with Devotion to do good, but in the shards it is incomplete and so it simply desires to endure- to avoid danger and survive. It could even be called something like strength.

He soon reached the door to the ice room. It was a very cat friendly one. He went up to it, lay on his back, and pressed his claws into the indent at bottom. Curling up his body he opened the fridge revealing a host of foods and treats. All for him. It still felt weird, getting his own food. He remembered the past, back before he had to. Stare into my eyes, human. Why do you think I curl up on your lap? Not because of how much I love you. Not because you deserve this. Because I want to be fed, to be petted, to be beautified. I want you to rub me behind my ears and warm my belly. To make my eyes grow heavy as I curl into you. His eyes closed shut, his mind clouded and happy. Then from far away he heard a crack as in another room wood smashed down and a sharp angry female voice. He quickly pushed away the memory. He did not like such thoughts and so imposed his humanity on them when they came, forcing such darkness away. It had been a horrific time. He blinked and shook his head, trying to focus on the food. There was a big silver fish there, scaley and delicious looking. It smelled reasonably fresh. It was on a metal plate. He supposed if the base was ever attacked they could use these as weapons, smashing the enemies with powerful steel pushes. He went up on his paws against the edge of the drawer and grabbed it with his mouth and leaned back, throwing his weight against the floor, pushing with his steel against the plate to slow the fall. The plate levitated above him, paws upright, his steel holding it up. It was quite hard to move from here. He was being pushed against the floor by his push. Twisting slightly he pushed the plate to the side and let it fall with a clatter to the ground. Victory. He took a bite of his capture. But was it worth the effort? Perhaps he could capture a human like this. Humans were stupid. He could get the bloodmaker drunk or drug his food, gently making the man hungrier and more trusting. Possibilities... His mind faded to animalistic desire as he began to rip into the fish and feed. He hadn't realized he was so hungry.

He listened quietly, images softly flashing in front of his eyes. He was accustomed to some degree of danger. If you were to survive on the street you had to be ready for flashes of violence and brutality. You had to spot those who even the toughest of humans avoided. Thugs, coinshots. Some gangs used cats as target practice, slashing bloody ruts through their fur and crushing them beneath their hands. Even a pewter thug couldn't catch you if you were fast. They couldn't get into holes as small as you could and he could run very fast if he had to. But if they got one hit in... what didn't kill you made you weaker, especially when the bastard who did it was ten times your size. And next time they would get you. And he was bait for some of the baddest. He'd heard of the bloodmakers. They'd stride into the heaviest of fights and have rips and chunks of their bodies torn out and stride out unharmed. They'd walk into a hail of bullets and laugh as blood gushed out of their bodies. He gripped a fragment of metal in his paw, concealed beneath the thick fur. He could escape if he had to. Bloodmakers were unstoppable but no better at killing than a normal man. He could run and escape broken and smashed bones. As his sister said, mew sssss, mroww rowwww. Only fight for love, flee if it gets bloody. "I can make these criminals love me and lead him to your cat friendly safehouse. I do not fight and you need to move ahead of me." He winced, remembering the pain of his making. It was so intense, burning him down to the core inside of him that he thought no one could touch. Would gold stop that pain? He suspected the only way onwards was forwards, not backwards. He would be leading this person a long way though. The sun would move far in its journey as they walked. But he did not want to make this man mad so he had to make it work. "I need privacy and nothing suspicious to make the criminal not suspect you want to kill him. If you are not used to Elendel and cannot blend into society we should go on the roofs to watch the criminals from afar." He posed majestically over the map, staring out into the distance and wagging to the wind in his mind. The man went on, talking of deceptions and putting his glasses on. He could see the catman's green eyes glowing behind the dark glasses as clear as if they weren't there with his tin. What was he? It was weird. "Thank you, I will rend delicious meats. Life should be like this. Someone else getting you your food." He nodded his head, as humans did, and walked off, his shoulders wiggling as he left. Time to see if he could find where they stored larger stocks of gold or electrum. He left, going first to feed, then going to explore the compound further, tin brightening every sense and phantom Alfies wandering down each corridor.

Those green, intense eyes burnt into his soul. Alfie kept his eyes down, his orange paws nonthreatening down by his side. He felt his tiny heart pulsate faster against the spike that ran through him. A shadow of himself pacing walked by him, calm, possessed, with no injuries or worries. Talking to someone about something. He saw a shoulder shuffle. That was something he had developed. He would regularly adjust his shoulders, arching his back as he walked. If he was ever compromised but could not speak he would stop moving his shoulders. Another form lay broken and crushed, being dragged away by something. His long fuzzy tail broken and bloody. Not a future he wanted. Most of these visions were just specters, dreams from across the spectrum. Little chance of being true. A lot could happen in an hour. Truly seeing was about blanking out the noise and focusing on that one possibility somewhere in the future. He knew from his viewings that the man would not break his bones and crush him. So he reached his paw forward and took the metal gifts. He was aware of everything. He could see each change of hue of pink and grey and blue and red, every wiggle of the cat-man's fur as the instincts brushed and soothed each other. He reached inside, felt his power pulse inside him, and flared his tin for a moment. No rage burned red to his eye. "Thank you sir. I shall serve your cause well to earn more delicious Electrum." They were beautiful, all shiny. Lovely Electrum. A bright light to see in his world. He considered the man's offer of choice. He seemed sincere enough. He liked fish, a point in his favor. He didn't trust sincerity. Everybody lies. It's not their fault. The world makes them lie. But to the map. He reached up, putting a pair of paws on the map, drawing pictures and lines to illustrate his points. "I fear we may not survive the journey in the roughs. We have no stable fall back position if it goes wrong and there's a lot of dangerous types there. If you don't mind a few broken bones we could go but..." He moved to the Elendel map. "They'll not notice me walking, these bloodmakers. But I cannot kill such powerful beings. Perhaps I could lure one off with my allomancy and allow you to take them." His paw slammed down on the base in the fifth quadrant. "We need somewhere to take him, to hide him so we can remove his powers privately. If we have monitoring in the fifth quadrant we can fall back from any assault safely." He smiled, and purred contentedly. "We'll have another type of meat to eat than fish."

That's a pretty good theory. Maybe Rock is wiser in his words than we knew. Edit. I've been skimming through the book. Names and their value are a huge theme. Kaladin is shocked when Syl knows his name. He initially thinks it isn't worth learning his companions names as they shall all die. Like magical rocks. Coincidence? I think not. On the Pashendi. The collective unconsciousness is limited. That post has some of the relevant literature on its possible nature from other books compiled.

Modern society often predicts the future with lower accuracy than Kaladin's father does. Stormwarden predictions are very impressive. And we have a lot more science than them. http://forecastadvisor.com/Ohio/Hilliard/43026/ Edit. I am not saying maths is bad. Maths is awesome. But no amount of theory can make up for a lack of objective scientific data. Maths needs physics to help it if it wants to understand the weather and the Stormwardens don't have much physics. I would assume they would be doing their predictions with some degree of aid from Odium, if they were his priests. So they would be working with his future sight aiding theirs to a small degree- his actions would reinforce their predictions. If he opposed them it would of course as you say be impossible for them to successfully do it on their own due to the massive future shadow cloud. There is some possibility that they are contacting Cultivation, and she is less fragmented than we thought in the form of the Nightwatcher. My point is based off Odium being the only Shard around and the Stormwardens predicting the future. If that is not true, as we may well find out in book 2, they may be something else.

I talked with Sats, he said he enjoyed the setting a lot and wanted to roleplay with anyone. So it'll probably go somewhere. I shall update, thanks.