The Count

Still, I think the number ten does have some significance here. Speculating for a moment... Surgebinding.... 10 different surges. Voidbinding.... the same power with 10 different power levels

I am not sure you can equte the sound of a rapidly expanding gas and a 'perfect note'. In the real world, an equivalent mass of smoke packed densly enough to be the same size as a stone block would be under a ridiculous amount of pressure. The noise and effect of its expansion would be more like an explosion and the shockwave would certainly be enough to knock people over (it would be like a compressed gas cylinder exploding without the shrapnel). Obviously, the 'magic' makes creative license possible such that soulcasting does not create the pressure diffrentials that should arise because of it (e.g creating stone out of air should suck all the surrounding air in to fill the resulting void when an equivalent mass of gas is transmuted, this does not happen). The perfect note Shallan hears then seems more likely to be related to the 'magic' than to the expanding ball of smoke. In short, I agree that there is compelling evidence of a musical link with soulcasting. Whether this is cause or effect is another matter though.

IIRC, in the Radient / Midnight Essence Vision., the male Radient (Windrunner?) comments that he does not recognise Dalinars sword form. Not conclusive by any means but I am not certain that the forms themselves have any direct relation to the orders. More likely they are named to mirror attributes, for emxample: Wind Stance - fast, lots of movement. Smoke Stance - Distraction, Multiple enemies. Rock Stance - Powerful, immobile

What other Ancient Fabrials exist other than Soulcasters? There is no mention IIRC of other Fabrials from the KR days. Just Plate, Blade and Soulcasters. I know it is early days in the books, but I think something would have been mentioned, somewhere. The only current evidence seems to be the Regrowth scene. However, the 'fabrial' could've been just a fancy battery. In world, people seem to talk about Soulcasters quite freely but nobody talks about any other kind of Ancient Fabrial. Although I suppose the Artifabrians or Ardents could be hoarding them / covering them up... They are quite protecctive of soulcasters after all. Also, I think people would talk about the amazing healing powers of the Ardentia if they had a working 'Regrowth Fabrial' but this is not the case, it seems. EDIT: I am not arguing either for or against anyhting here, As always we have so little knowledge about the KR that it is impossible to really argue either way.

Every female character will spend half of every book sniffing at each other... or pulling their hair. All the characters will spend half of a whole 700 page book as part of a circus for no apparent reason at all. ((Should qualify this by saying that I loved WoT, but it really did get bogged down in the middle))

Unless Szeth succeeds and Adolin becomes Highprince.... Would be an excellent way to introduce confilct between Adolin and Kaladin Adolin is likely to be mistrustful of Kaladin anyway, but if Kaladin fails to protect his father.... That could be some really interesting dynamics between the remaining characters.

This could be something a simple as the soulcasting orders not be able to hold stormlight but still be able to channel it. Therfore Jasnah and Shallan would not get the glowy eyes from holding stormlight themselves. Windrunners and Stonewards, on the other hand, have to use their own body as a storage medium first. But, then again, Kaladins glowyness is still pretty subtle so it could be that neither kaladin, Shallan or Jasnah are far enough along to get the glowy eyes. Book 2 can't come soon enough... need more input!

Hold on a moment.... How exacly are spheres going to be used for a non-natural soulcaster (i.e a fabrial)? Shallan can use spheres to soulcast becuase (I assume) the nahel bond alows her to focus / channel the stormlight. But for a fabrial soulcaster? The way I understand it, power for the transformation comes from the spren trapped in the gemstone. The gemstone is then infused with stormlight and bobs your uncle - soulcasting for anybody. The point is that the Bonded gem needs to be infused for the power to work. This would also mean that a broken gem in a fabrial would need to be replaced with another bonded gemstone to work as a soulcaster. Unless the Ardentia is secretly full of natural soulcasters then the majority of soulcasting is done using specifically made fabrials, which would require bonded Gems and not spheres. Have I misunderstood? For the currency, I always assumed that it was notional rather than intrinsic. Just like our own. People know Emeralds are used to make food so emerald spheres are awarded the highest notional value.

I think this is an interesting point. Putting my speculating hat of for a few minutes.... Suppose Odium realised quite quickly (say after 20 or so Desolations) that he wanted to wait longer to allow mankind to implode but couldn't because of the Oathpact? Then I would guess that it was the Heralds descision to leave that allowed Odium the flexibility within the Oathpact to have the extra time. I suppose you could even guess that: 4500 years for 1 herald trapped / tortured or 450 years for 10 heralds trapped / tortured.

So either, the light it emits is not stromlight... Or the rock has properties which make the stormlight in it glow 'black' I think there can be no doubt that the rock is significant to the events of the book.

Agreed (have a +1). Also don't forget that the idea of killing in order to protect is strong theme through the book. Kaladin's struggle to come to terms with this as he decided to become surgeon or soldier (healer or killer) comes to a focus when he speaks the second ideal. I feel theres is a strong implication that Kaladins actions at the tower (resulting in the deaths of lots of Parshendi) was honorable if regrettable. I think the key to use shardblades is the old superhero mantra... with great power comes great respnsibility. Or in Roshar terms. A shardblade is an ultimate killing machine and such power should not be used cheaply (such as mass slaughter or forwarding ones personal wealth) as the Alethi do. To fight / kill a soldier to save an unarmed child is honourable. Using a shardblade to do so? I am not so sure...

Hmmm... some really nice ideas here. I like the general thrust of it. The slight problem I am having with is is that, correct me if I have misunderstood, your main argument is that invested humans acting against the intent of the 'parent' Shard weakens it. But while I can see a Shardic intent as being 'pure'. A human's intent is extremely subjective. On Scadrial for example, Rashek's intention was to Preserve the human race, but his actions cause alot of Ruin (almost destroyed the planet through ignorance). So is he using Preservations power against its intent or not? On the one hand Rasheks intent was indeed preservation. But his use of the power of the well cause huge amounts of destuctioin. I suppose you could say that it is only the intents of the user that is important so Rashek, ultimately acted to preserve since that was his intention. But then again, humans rarely do things for pure motives and reasons. Rashek systematically tried to wipe out Feruchemy from the Terris people while trying to preserve mankind... I guess all I am trying to say, with my rambling is that Human intentions for the use of power are too subjective for anyone to really decide whether they act for or against a Shardic intent or not.

I would guess, that it is like a pressure gradient, the more you hold, the more quickly it leeks out so there is , practically, a limit on the amount you can hold. That way, as the surgebinder / Radiant gains in power the decay constant changes to effectivley both increase the limit of stormlight he can practically hold and make the holding of stormlight more efficient.

Or maybe, after all the other gods died, Adonalsium was so lonely that it committed suicide and shattered itself so that new gods could arise. Just because it was opposed, doesn't mean that said opposition had anything to do with the actual shattering.

If this is true then.... WoR Spoiler

Ok... I missed this... My realmatics-fu is weak. Still, correct me if I am wrong but the black smoke from the eyes is a sign of 'spiritual damage', yes? Yet we see so sign of any such from anything other than living creatures (no black smoke from a split rock for example) I suppose this could be explained if the smoke was from damage to a soul.... Or maybe it is just that the spiritual aspect of a rock is so small that the 'spiritual damage' is minmal on human scale (and so not visible to humans). I think on balance, I like the soul idea better... need to think on this some more.

Nice effort, fits together nicely... have a +1. However, the theory presupposes that all things have a spiritual component... I really am not sure how much a rock exists in the spritual realm. As Kirk said, you also require a 1 way traffic Cognitive - Spiritual - Physical. But from Shallan's soulcasting the goblet to blood, it seems like there is a change in the cognitive aspect that directly leads to a physical change. I suppose you could say that the cognitive change implicitly alters the spiritweb of the goblet... still I am not certain about how much spiritual presence such an inanimate object has.... I admit this line of thought does not disprove your theory, necessarily.

Just a bit of fun, but how do you imagine a full shardplate to look? Even though I know it is not correct from the descriptions, I can't help but think of it as looking like Space Marine Power Armour. Just thinking of the scene in Dalinar's Midnight Essence Vision, I basically imagine Space Marines falling out of the sky and kicking chull with enormous swords... awesome!

I can buy this for an Honorblade, but not for a 'regular' shardblade (i.e those weilded by the Alethi). But this does make me think... How about a 'normal' shardblade as an invested piece of a mortal, honorable soul? Given freely to fight the voidbringers. This could also explain Syl's reaction. Using a piece of an honorable man's soul (someone who swore the ideals of athe KR no less) to kill other men... That is pretty horrific and worthy of hatred IMO. But I am merely guessing... Also, I have no idea how Szeth's blade would fit this...

Also, the Parshendi have no cavalry and are extremely vulnreable to a cavalry charge over the well placed bridges. The best way to guard against this is to disrupt the bridges before they are set to stop entry of the the enemy (partiicularly heavy cavalry) on the plateau. So shooting the bridgmen is sound battle tactics. As for the honor of the Parshendi actions. They have no way of knowing that the bridgemen are coerced / slaves. I an not sure that the notion of 'cannon fodder' would even be understood as a concept by the Parshendi. From their perspective, the birdgemen are active particpants in the battle and so are legitimate targets.

This may seem a little left field but here is my train of thought... From some quotes we know that Odium is 'settled' on Roshar and would find it hard to leave. So presumably he is present on Roshar throughout the events of WoK. (I say this as I presumed at first reading WoK that Odium was on his way to Roshar rather than was always there...) So what is he actually doing? Shards we have seen are pretty omnipotent about events on their worlds This would indicate that Odium is aware of Kaladin's burgeoning power and potential, knows Jasnah is researching the Voidbringers. Knows Dalinar is attempting to unite the highprinces... I can only speculate that he must be, at least partially, bound by the oathpact despite the events in the prelude and so cannot act directly. However, there must be agents working for him in world, either with or without knowing it. Ghostbloods? Taravagian? Restares? Szeth? I have no real conclusions to draw here, just wondering what people think.

There is fourth option here... There are no spren in Shinovar. I agree that the highstorms are linked to this once the only thing we know for sure about Shinovar is that the highstorms do not reach there. Weather there are no spren or that they are just invisible... Who knows.

Very valid questions. I suppose there would be sort of 'background' level of stromlight around. On thinking further about this, I think it is more plausable that the innate spiritual nature of the spren allows them to manifest, although the question of whether this requires a power source is still valid. This is exactly what I mean. So we have 2 situations (and 1 Szeth): 1/ Fabrial Soulcasting: Spren are trapped in (or bonded to) a Gem. The Gem provides the framework (or parameters) or the intended function with the spren acting at the vector throught which it is powered. The Gem still needs to be infused with stormlight which provides the actual power source. There is no cognitive transfer in the relationship so the combined 'entity' can only perform a single function as denoted by the cut of the gem and type of spren. 2/ Surgebinding Spren bond to a congitive creature (human). Again, the spren provides the vector though which power is trasfered for a specific task. The key difference is that the function is directed by the cognitive aspect of the surgebinder so the range of functions is wider. Power still comes from stormlight with gems used as a kind of battery (since they can store stormlight perfectly (as far as we know). However, note that the surgebinder (or at least a Windrunner) needs to transfer the Stormlighht to themselves before is can be used. In both instances: A Spren is bonded The type of spren denotes the 'class' (or surge i guess) of abilities available Stormilight is used for power The only real difference is the lack of a cognitive aspect in the fabrials which further limits the functions avaiable to 1 as defined by the cut of the gem. I think that makes sense.

Now that is an interesting notion... Do Spren use stormlight to manifest / become visible? This could mean that spren are merely invisible in Shinovar rather than absent. It seems like Spren must be able to 'channel' stormlight in some way since it is the bonding of spren which allows surgebinding / fabrial soulcasting (I know, I know... as always, our favorite Truthless seems to defy all logic!!!) In which case... in a fabrial, it is the Spren using the stormlight? Or the User? If anyone can, indeed use fabrials, and they only have a single use, then surely is merely the spren acting as a conduit according to its nature. The difference with true surgebinding then is the presence of a cognitive aspect in the Spren / Human bond that is not present is a Spren / Gem bond. Hmmm... I feel a theory coming on... needs work though.

Not sure we can infer that the Dawnshards are a weapon from this necessarily. Tanavast could be saying a number of things here: 1/ Without the Dawnshards, you have no hope of defeating a champion of Odium. OR 2/ Without the Dawnshards you will not be able to make Odium choose a champion. Personally I tend towards the second option. The quote implies either a weapon (can be used to fight a champion of Odium) OR a tool which can somehow be used to influence the behaviour of a full Shard (can get Odium to choose a champion). Either way, they are clearly extremely powerful artifacts. As an asside, the quote linking the Dawnshards with binding creatures is interesting to me. Particularly since we have encounterd the concept of binding inherent to the Magic of Roshar - Surgebinding, Voidbinding, Nahel Bonds etc. So there also seems some connection between Dawnshards and the Magic on Roshar. Mabe the Dawnshards were used to create the first Surgebinders?