agrabes

Agreed - if Lirin does become a healing Radiant it's definitely Truthwatcher. He's not the touchy-feely "listen to the forgotten" type. If someone comes to him with an emotional hurt he's going to be more like, "Get over it kid, you survived! Next!!!"

I would argue based on what we read in today's chapter and the other info we have that group one won't include both Lift and Szeth. We know that Lift's and Szeth's only POVs will be in interludes, with Szeth maybe getting one POV in the "main" book. I find it hard to imagine that the Group 1 characters would include two that don't have any POVs. Could be wrong, but just seems odd. I think only one of Szeth or Lift will be considered part of "Group 1". Much as I argued against it earlier, I think it's Szeth. He's one of the front 5 main characters so I think he'll play a role on screen without POVs during the presumed battle for Urithiru. That will be his ticket out of jail. I think the final spot will be filled by Renarin or a Knight Radiant in Urithiru who gets elevated to the secondary cast. Maybe Sigzil or Teft, or maybe someone from a lesser known order. Not that this matters much anymore. Nor that I've been right on just about anything I've predicted before. I'm excited for Tuesday.

Doesn't that also play into comments Sanderson has made? For example, a Skybreaker could swear to the Pirate Code? I actually don't think it's that farfetched to say the Willshaper became a pirate. It's a life of freedom and adventure after all.

I dunno - just finished reading Dawnshard and I'd say Lopen is still annoying as ever. Nice that he's recognized he is annoying. But he's not changing. Maybe slightly toning down his lame humor, but not changing. What I thought was good was that his arc showed that just saying the words of an Ideal without truly meaning them is not going to grant you the Ideal. That to achieve an ideal, it has to be meaningful. The oaths have to be painful and difficult for the Radiant or they don't count. It's relative. So just saying he would protect even people he hates isn't enough because with his weird way of thinking he doesn't really hate people. That Lopen is definitely still an immature oddball who had to recognize that about himself to progress. And just like Kaladin and Teft and their struggles, he's still going to struggle with being an immature oddball even though he now knows it's hurting him and he's trying to do better. I think Huio doesn't hate Lopen, he just hates the way Lopen acts. He knows Lopen is not a bad person, but can't stand the way Lopen does things. And he's probably thought to himself at different times that he'd be better off if he didn't have to spend all his time around Lopen. I think in some ways, Huio is probably also jealous of Lopen - Huio seems like a quiet thoughtful guy who has a hard time expressing his true feelings, while Lopen just blurts everything out even it seems to be made up garbage most of the time. But when he had that chance to be rid of Lopen, he still saved him even though it probably meant Lopen would act in an even more annoying way toward him.

You definitely bring up some good points. I still think that some of the High Princes are not happy with how things have gone and have enough remaining support that they could make waves. But, you're right that there are a lot of factors that would make it tougher for them to actually form a solid opposition. And a very good point about Dalinar's "The Almighty is Dead!" announcement. That does seem like a much smaller reaction than it should have been when you think about it. He was excommunicated from the church, it seems like that should have cost him a lot more with the common people, if not the other aristocracy. The only reason in world it might not is because it seems like the Alethi are mostly secular and few were deeply religious. This is kind of highlighted in some of Shallan's chapters in WoK and WoR where she expects the Alethi ardents to act much more like a traditional priest, and other people say that it's not really like that in Alethkar or other places. In Kaladin's flashbacks it doesn't seem like the people in Hearthstone are super religious either, though that's probably tainted since Kaladin himself isn't super religious. Yeah, I guess when you put it like that there's a decent chance Sanderson just won't focus on those kind of story elements. He's done a little bit of the divided Alethkar thing with Sadeas so maybe he's done with it as a plotline.

I think it's Moash and/or Leshwi. It's been a "frenemy" type character who gets the interludes in the past. I think Moash would be the most interesting, being the outsider among the Fused.

That's not really what I was talking about in terms of "Might Makes Right" and it's not exactly how that phrase works either. It's not that people decide who they think might be the most individually powerful person and just let them lead everything unchallenged. It's a cultural attitude - the idea that whoever wins the duel or the battle was the one who was right. The Alethi culture is that if a High Prince thinks Jasnah is wrong, then the recourse is to politically out maneuver her, force her to fight them in battle, or challenge her or her champion to a duel. There hasn't been a battle yet, Jasnah has not been tested as a political leader. At least not on screen. The Alethi are ambitious - so if one of the High Princes sees that there is discontent about Jasnah's new laws, then he or she will try to take advantage. They will work in the background to undermine Jasnah and build up support around him/her self. Maybe push to say that some of the Princedoms should be allowed to secede and become independent. The prevailing culture, especially among the top aristocracy, is to do whatever they can to gain the smallest amount of additional wealth, power, or influence. Some of the High Princes seem to have gotten past that, (Sebarial, Aladar, Hatham) but most are still down for the old school Alethi way.

I think it's also important to recognize that Athens was an outlier politically during that period of history, and a relatively small power. They were the most "progressive" government of that time. So, yes you can say Athens did free its slaves. But I don't think that Athens' political situation at that time is very comparable to the situation of Alethkar in RoW. The king of Athens ruled only a small group of people who are not very diverse either demographically or geographically. The culture of Athens was also a culture of ideas, philosophy, and debate to determine the best course of action. Alethkar is a large nation with huge diversity both demographically and geographically. There is a lot of power concentrated in the High Princes, who are basically a loose confederation of kings who swear fealty to a high king/queen. Alethkar's culture is very much "might makes right" and a culture of ambition. They are not culturally similar to a place like Athens. It doesn't feel like Alethkar is the kind of place where an appeal to pragmatism and/or morality will win over the aristocracy or common people when it goes against their own personal interests. You're right that opinions can change radically and quickly. The Russian revolution(s) are a good example. But in that case, for the common people to go from huge supporters of the Tsar to huge opponents of the Tsar took repeated and MASSIVE mistakes by the Tsar and his government. The biggest example is Bloody Sunday where the conservative and pro-Tsar peasants came in large numbers to ask the Tsar to help them with what they considered failures by other leaders, only to be met with a violent crackdown. Cracking down on your own supporters when they come begging you to make only very minor policy changes is about the worst possible move you can make and Nicholas made these same kinds of move multiple times. A competent leader would have embraced these peasants and probably stopped the Revolution of 1905 right then and there. What Jasnah is doing is a lot more like what happened in Austria - pushing for many radical reforms simultaneously in opposition to large parts of the aristocracy and common people. She will face strong resistance to this. Jasnah is a very smart person, but I think she is blinded by that in this case. She's convinced (correctly) that her reforms are what is best for her people, but is ignoring what her people actually want. She knows she is right, but is leaving out the human factor. This is something she's already been shown to struggle with in the books - for example her decision to kill/spare Renarin. She only spared him because she had a personal connection and was able to see how he really felt. Had she not been given the chance to see Renarin's true feelings, she would have killed him and moved on without a second thought for other consequences such as likely pushback from Dalinar and Adolin. We're going to see one of two things with this plotline, imo: 1) We see a moment of growth for Jasnah and we'll be shown how she learned from her confrontation with Renarin. She takes people's feelings into account and has developed a plan that will implement her changes slowly and avoid major unrest. 2) We see Jasnah slipping back into old habits, pushing her reforms in quickly and without thought for how others will react. This is a reinforcement to her of the lesson she learned with Renarin and once she sees the pushback she changes course to a more politically acceptable reform path.

@SpeakoftheDeval Agree completely - if you look at real history too much change too fast never lasts in a calm, peaceful way. In fact, the only example that comes to mind of many radical changes lasting long term is the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar claimed politically that he needed to be in power to implement reforms that would help the common people and he did get in office as Consul and then Dictator and implement these massive changes. He was eventually assassinated, but his heir eventually won the resulting war of succession and kept most of the changes in place. I think it's important to point out that Caesar was still assassinated even after the destructive civil wars between Gaius Marius and Sulla had pretty much purged all remaining strong leaders who could oppose him. It was Caesar's own ally Pompey who led the opposition in his initial rise to power, then the seemingly cowed Senators who assassinated him. I don't think that Sanderson will ignore this, even if some fans don't see it yet. There will be a rebellion or at least major civil unrest in response to Jasnah's massive changes. I think it will come as a surprise to the POV characters, because they are only looking at it in terms of objective right/wrong and morality. The problem is that even if someone agrees with the morality of Jasnah's proposed changes they could still oppose them politically. And there will be people who simply don't agree at all, or who agree but feel the changes should be implemented more slowly. The only one who is savvy enough to see it is Navani, but she's majorly distracted and not focusing on internal Alethi politics.

I think the epigraph is clearly referencing the natural process of electricity. The way electricity works is based on what is called "Potential Difference" aka - Voltage. Create a potential difference and you will get voltage and current, causing power to flow. And think about the name too - Stormlight - obvious ties to Lightning where we first learned about electricity in real life. I think the epigraph is foreshadowing that Stormlight can be used a little bit like real world electricity. I think we're on the path to seeing things like Stormlight wiring, etc to make all these fabrials in Urithiru work.

Wasn't Pai executed publicly at the end of that story?

Definitely a fair point - the labor market has already been overturned. So it may be possible to accommodate more change. Then again, removing all slave labor may collapse an already weakened system too. @Rainier @Kingsdaughter613 - Looks like you are both on the same page with the Roman style slavery thought. I agree - I even thought about including that in my post but deleted it for sake of not introducing too much stuff at once. The Alethkar system of slavery is not the "most evil" version of slavery that we've seen, slaves still have certain rights. It may make for an easier transition out of the slave economy since slaves are technically owed a wage already. Without diving into a general discussion of Jasnah, I'll just say I think this is a good opportunity for her character. Either she will prove that yet again she's a super genius who's thought of everything and has a plan to deal with all consequences or she will suffer a bit of a setback. I personally think she is going to face a bit of pushback. She's pushing a lot of changes - all motivated by the idea of doing what is right, for sure, but this is a lot to convince people about all at once. People in general have a tendency to disagree about what is best for themselves. We see it in the real world all the time. I think we have to see at least some pushback. It might be a pretty minor plot, but it seems like a very Odium thing to do to flame up a revolution over something like this.

I think her choice makes a certain amount of sense - make the change while everyone's already off kilter and don't allow them to re-entrench themselves into a new norm that doesn't fit what you want. But I agree - rapid, widespread social reforms are generally a recipe for disaster. They're usually the cause (or result) of civil war and revolution. I can't see the slave owners (aka all or most members of the middle and upper classes) of Alethkar just sitting idly by while they are economically ruined by the loss of their slaves. There are really only three options for freeing slaves: 1) Set slaves free, no money changes hands, resulting in the economic ruin of slaveholders who had invested large amounts of money into purchasing the slaves. If you've got a certain political inclination, that probably sounds pretty good - raise up the common man and bring down the rich and powerful. On the other hand, the destabilization of your economy collapsing when most major businesses simultaneously fail is a pretty big downside. 2) Set the slaves free, but require them to pay back a slave debt to their former masters. This would prevent complete economic collapse, but would result in those slaves still being effectively slaves as they work to escape a debt they can never truly repay. At least their children would be free. 3) Set the slaves free, with the former slave owners reimbursed by the government. This could work, but probably depends on the financial state of the Alethkar kingdom. I will be interested to see how Sanderson handles this one. Even though freeing slaves is objectively a good thing, it's not an easy thing and crass as it may seem to say it does have serious negative societal effects in the short term which is why it took years and years to do in real history. I guess the easy way out would be for Navani to invent fabrials to take the place of the slaves and allow economies to continue by using machines to replace human labor. But I hope it doesn't go that way. I'd rather see Jasnah struggle with backlash to this - or cleverly defeat potential backlash.

I'm not sure that this idea feels particularly right to me. The linked thread looks like a lot of speculation that based on meta-analysis of things in the book, which (to me) doesn't hold a lot of water. I don't think it's a great idea to go and try to synthesize 20 values down to 10 just based on one line in WoK. It think it's much more likely that Kabsal's 10 divine attributes was something entirely different from the 20 in those other tables. Kabsal's 10 divine attributes and 10 human failings was probably much more tied to the Vorin religion and not tied to the properties of the Knights Radiant. I also don't think the idea of the number of Unmade corresponding to the number of Shards either in opposition or defeated by Odium makes sense either. We know he's only defeated a small handful. He hasn't defeated or allied with 7 of the remaining shards. I'm not sure my idea from earlier this year was right either. But thanks for the shout out.

I think it's an incorrect assumption to say that Shallan definitely has another secret in her past. I'm not saying it's impossible either. I just don't think it's a given that she either did something bad or had something bad happen to her in addition to what we saw in her WoR flashbacks. I personally think her remaining truth(s?) must be something about herself - her character. Not events that happened in her life. My personal opinion/guess is that the secret she struggles with is that her family was never as happy as she makes it out. I've been rereading the series leading up to OB and picked up on what I thought was an interesting piece of information. When Shallan talks with Wit as a child, he asks her to imagine the thing she wants most. After some prodding, she produces an image of her family all happy and healthy together - which implies that having a happy family is her greatest desire and her being a Lightweaver and Wit being Wit, it also implies that the idea of her family being happy is a lie. Shallan tells herself deep down that before she killed her mother, her family was happy and prosperous. She believes it was only after she killed her mother that things went bad. She believes that she is the one who caused her family's misfortunes. She hates herself for it. She blames everything on herself. She even tells Pattern that she hates herself in early OB. She completely defines herself in terms of her childhood trauma that she believes she caused. The secret (which isn't really a secret and was basically already revealed in WoR) is that her family was not happy even before her mother's death. Nothing was Shallan's fault - she didn't destroy her family. This isn't a secret from us, but it is a "secret" from Shallan herself. Something she won't allow herself to remember, because remembering it would change her entire identity and self image. I think we're being set up for it to be revealed in RoW. Her brothers are with her again. At some point, she'll reveal that she killed their mother. And then her brothers will say something like "Good riddance, she was even worse than Father." Hearing that will start her down the path of releasing her suppressed memories of life with her mother.

I don't think the idea of the Mink betraying the Radiants makes sense with his character. He's known as the general who fought on beyond all hope, continuing a guerilla war at huge costs to himself and his people. That kind of person is not going to give up and give in to the enemy, unless he's had his mind influence by Odium or the Unmade. It seems to me like the Mink has a personal dislike of Dalinar who led the wars that killed his family. But he also understands that the Radiants are really fighting a guerilla war in a lot of ways. The Mink will serve as a good counterpoint to Dalinar and even possibly a lesson to Kaladin. He will show them what an honorable leader can do if he wasn't born to inherit the most powerful army in the world. Dalinar doesn't know because he's been successful at everything he's ever done. Kaladin struggles because he has always been the underdog and it's getting to the point where he feels like giving up hope. I think you're right - Dalinar does still have things to learn. If you think about it Dalinar has never once in his life been the underdog (I guess unless you count his failed romance of Navani when he was young). He's never had to hold out in desperation, knowing he has no allies and no powerful help coming his way. I think the Mink is going to teach him that, in the wake of the Fused invasion of Urithiru - what to do and how to keep going when it seems completely hopeless and no one is coming to your rescue.

I think your conclusion is that Sadeas betrayed Dalinar only? My impression was pretty similar. It's been a while since I've read Oathbringer so my memory may be a bit fuzzy. My general feeling was that Sadeas saw that Dalinar and Evi were headed toward a collision. He considered it a weakness that Dalinar had allowed Tanalan to live. He probably also saw that Evi was taking the edge off Dalinar - softening him. Dalinar was already at that time trying to become a better man. Sadeas didn't want that. So he helped things along with an aim for one of two outcomes: 1) Dalinar dies, eliminating a weakening rival and allowing Sadeas' own power to expand or 2) Dalinar loses the things that soften him up (his wife and growing sense of honor, etc) and reinforces his view of himself as the Blackthorn, returning to his role as the enforcer for the kingdom.

I'll offer an alternate thought on Shallan's blurb - Freeing her spirit refers to becoming self confident. She's full of self doubt and confusion, as we saw in her most recent chapter, she's also falling under the influence of Mraize who is clearly now manipulating her and trying to make her into the kind of person who will serve him. I think freeing her spirit means returning her to a state where she is no longer being controlled by her mental illness or the influence of Mraize. I think Formless represents all the worst aspects of herself. This is being heavily foreshadowed in the chapters we see so far. It could turn out to be a red herring, but I don't think so. She needs to integrate Formless into herself rounding herself and her current "Three" into fuller personalities, so that a personality that contains only the negative parts does not come into being. The secret that condemns all the people of Roshar is not a secret from her own personal past. I think it is perfectly fitting with Shallan's character that though she views whatever this final secret is as something that makes her a vile, unlovable monster it is actually not that at all. She also felt her other secrets (Killing her Mother and Father) made her unlovable, but any neutral observer would not agree. She has to free her spirit - return herself to a place where she is fully functional - in order to be able to handle what it will take to uncover that secret. One part of that may be to recognize that what she did was not vile and did not make her unlovable. So what is the secret? I agree it has to be something big. My guess is she discovers the true cause of either the first Desolation or the Recreance. We know a bit about each of those events, but not the whole story. Either could be events that condemn the people of Roshar - the start of this endless cycle of war, or in the case of the Recreance I think there must be a deeper meaning behind it. Epigraphs indicate that the Skybreakers engaged in "subterfuge" against the other 9 orders. I think people typically assume this just means the Skybreakers did not renounce their oaths, but there could be more to it. Nale has stated that his sole goal has been to prevent another desolation and he will do anything no matter how evil to achieve his goal. So, could Nale alongside the High Spren and the Skybreakers have betrayed the other spren and Radiants and tricked them into the Recreance? It seems like something Shallan could discover in Shadesmar - a betrayal of Spren.

I think a lot of people are projecting things in a lot of different ways about Adolin, which I think is part of the intent of his character. He's intentionally written as a little bit of a blank slate. He's the equivalent in a teen drama of the jock who turns out to be actually kind of nice, but is still a jock and can often be a jerk without meaning to. And at the end of the day, some people just won't like him because of who he is even if he's not a bad person. My personal view is that Adolin does not have a significant character arc in the books. He hasn't had a significant change in personality or outlook. I think the biggest reason I feel like he doesn't have his own arc is because there is very little he's aspired to do for himself. His greatest goal in life was to become a renowned duelist and it is the only thing we've seen him actively pursue on screen. Everything else he's done is more out of duty, out of being born or placed into a position where he has to fulfill certain expectations. There's nothing wrong with that, but it sets him apart from characters like Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar. All three of the primary main characters have goals and aspirations that they actively work towards, while Adolin doesn't even have dueling anymore. It's not his character's major arc or purpose to revive Maya. In fact, (to my memory) he's never even said he wants to try doing it. I think people read a little too much into the situation there. Adolin is a good soldier who cares a lot about his weapon. He maintains it and treats it well. He personifies it a little bit, not that different from what many similar soldiers would do in that position who have a similar sword. We see in the books that Dalinar did the same with his sword Oathbringer with the same results (Oathbringer hates him less than other humans). Kaladin doesn't, because his weapon is the spear which is expected to break in battle. He doesn't have just one spear that stays with him throughout his life. I don't think Kaladin's opinion of the Adolin/Maya relationship is wrong. Maya is dead. All other Radiants have put aside dead shardblades to bond live spren. Adolin has more of an emotional connection to the Shardblade that's been his constant companion than to the deadeye spren Maya. Adolin is basically making the same choice Kaladin did in a certain respect - Kaladin wouldn't take up Heleran's shards because it felt wrong despite the power increase he would get. I could see Adolin doing the same thing and sticking with a deadeye blade for similar reasons. I do think we're being promised that something will happen with an attempt to revive Maya. I don't think it's clear what the results of that attempt will be. I do like the idea that it could be Dalinar who revives Maya - that maybe the loving attention of a dedicated shardbearer + a bondsmith's power is enough to revive a deadeyes. I could also see the Radiants making a very serious attempt and eventually learning definitively that Maya cannot be revived back into a spren.

If I were a ruler prior to the Everstorm, I would likely have had the same reaction that most leadership had. I would not have believed Jasnah's claims without evidence. Let's remember - at that time the people of the human nations of Roshar have no idea that Parshmen are (or have the capability to become) sentient. Jasnah herself did not know it. All factual evidence available to the humans of the time indicates that the Parshmen are intelligent animals, not intelligent beings on par with humans. This was not slavery or subjugation of intelligent beings, this was the keeping of livestock. The best equivalent to real life would be if it was common practice for humans to keep chimpanzees as animal workers. Some people might consider it unethical to keep intelligent animals that are similar to humans as livestock, but it would not be seen by anyone as slavery. Continue research, seek answers. If, by some miracle, you get solid information that indicates the Parshmen would transform into Voidbringers, then you push to keep them separate and away from population centers. Based on all known facts and the best Rosharan science the Parshmen would be classified as animals, but it's still unethical and distasteful to do a mass culling of animals. Particularly intelligent ones. Let them work on farms or in rural areas where they can't overwhelm human cities when/if they transform. Then, if they do change you have a chance to mount a defense and protect most people from them if they go bad.

Didn't end up seeing this until just now but Chapter 15 ended up not being strongly related to Shallan or Azure, so we can still speculate. I don't know if you did lay out what exactly it is you wanted in the post, but I guess I'll assume it's that Azure and Shallan meet again in Shadesmar and go on adventures? I think the concept at a high level is good. Mraize is tempting Shallan with forbidden knowledge and really contributing to her instability. Azure seems to be a force for good so far who would probably provide a good alternative viewpoint on the stuff Shallan learns from Mraize. I think it depends on how far things go down that plotline. If it's a major plot for RoW, with Shallan being conflicted between that drive for knowledge vs. hating the Ghostbloods, then I'd say there's a really high chance she will meet up with Azure again. I'm not so sure on the idea of Azure being tied to the 17th Shard. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems like she is more affiliated with the interests of whatever is going on back on Nalthis. I'd guess someone from there clued her in about Nightblood and she was given a mission to get him "out of circulation" so to speak. I'd guess Vasher/Zahel is considered a criminal on Nalthis, for crimes he committed there. Maybe even just for the act of leaving and abandoning Nalthis when they may have needed him. Azure has what seems to be basically Nightblood 2.0, so she either must have learned a lot herself or was taught by people who know about what Vasher and his wife did in creating Nightblood. That implies to me that her reasons for being "against" Vasher/Zahel are based on some history between the two of them on Nalthis. Anyway, yeah I think this is a good call. It could be interesting to see the two of them interact and possibly get to know each other a little better.

Very true - Adolin has definitely not faced challenges or shown flaws on the same level as Kaladin, Shallan, or Dalinar. Or the other main front five characters of Szeth and Venli. But when it comes to being a Radiant I also think of Teft, or Lopen, or several others. They don't have to go through the same kind of deep tragedies that Kaladin and Shallan do, but are still able to become Radiants.

I think in terms of Adolin he does have a few flaws. His character is treated different from the others since he's more of a "secondary" character who doesn't get his own dedicated flashback book, but I think he still does have some key character flaws. 1) Set in his ways/Traditionalist: He is shown continually throughout the series to value the status quo and traditional Alethi values, which gets him into trouble numerous times. Early on in WoK and WoR, he wants to stick to the hotheaded and overly confrontational Alethi values. Whenever a problem comes up, he thinks that fighting is the best solution. Dalinar has to hold him back from provoking duels with Sadeas that would have destroyed the Alethi political alliance. 2) Flakey/Shallow: Up until his relationship with Shallan deepens in OB, he's generally shown as a guy who is pretty flakey. All his friends other than his own family know they can't really depend on him. He goes through girlfriends faster than one a week. He's well liked by people who don't know him very well because he's friendly and likable, but he's not the kind of guy who you call on when the chips are down. He kind of overcomes this a bit through WoR and OB as he develops more sincere relationships with both Shallan and Kaladin. But he's still the guy even in early RoW that wants to be seen as everybody's friend, even if those friendships are mostly for show. 3) Morally Questionable: Killing Sadeas, is a topic that is a hot debate on these boards, but in world would be considered murder. He chose to break the law and his family's moral codes to protect his family. He himself is shown to question that decision in the early RoW chapters we've seen. His choice to kill Sadeas also seems to be a bad moral influence on Shallan as she seeks to find her identity. I think at her core, she feels it's wrong to assassinate someone the way Sadeas was killed, but because it's something her husband did she also has parts of her that feel she has to justify it. The darker parts of her think it's OK to murder people in an ends justify the means type of logic and those darker parts are reinforced because of what Adolin did. As a secondary character, we don't get to learn as much about his internal strife as the others. I think his character's narrative purpose is to give us an outside perspective of Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar so he doesn't get a lot of time to focus on himself during his POVs. But I think his flaws are still there.

I thought this chapter's cosmere bleedthrough was handled much better than Ch. 13 - Kaladin's response is pretty much "Uh... what are you talking about here Zahel?" when Zahel started dropping references to stuff Kaladin has no knowledge or context for. It's good for the characters to acknowledge that the information being dropped is out of place. Especially stuff like "Type 2 Entities" or whatever. Zahel explains a few things that are relevant to Kaladin and the overall story of Roshar, while keeping the rest a thinly veiled secret like his Awakening abilities. It seems like from this that at least the Zahel/Azure/Nightblood storyline will remain primarily about the here and now and what is going on in Roshar. I also liked the Kaladin/Rlain interaction. This really should be the model for conversations like it in the real world. Kaladin has his ideas and tries to do what he thinks is right. Rlain says "Hey, I appreciate the thought, but you know what you are doing is not actually a benefit for me." And then Kaladin thinks about it and will consider how to do things a little differently the next time. There's no dug in dogmatic rhetoric being thrown out by either side. Just two friends honestly expressing their opinions and trying to do what is right, even if they start off with different ideas of what that is. I think I must just be a grumpy person haha. Reading the community's super hyped thoughts about cosmere crossovers annoys me, but reading the chapter itself was good. I'm glad people get what they want who love this stuff, but I'll leave it to you all to speculate.

Adolin just doesn't strike me as a Stoneward, especially from what we know of Taln who I think is meant to be the complete encapsulation of an ideal Stoneward. Taln is resolute, stubborn to a fault, and stands up for what he thinks is right even when the costs to himself are extreme. Adolin (especially early on) is not like that. He's portrayed as the guy who is friendly and liked by everyone, but unable to make real and deep connections with anyone. He is introduced as kind of a flake - one of the first things we learn about him is that he's unfaithful to the current woman he is trying to court. He definitely grows as a person throughout the series and he does have his moments of being more Stonewardlike such as the time he imprisons himself in solidarity with Kaladin. But I think the intent of the Knights Radiant is that generally your order reflects something deeply inherent in who you are as a person. For example, Kaladin always wanted to protect people throughout his life. It wasn't a learned behavior in the year leading up to him becoming a Windrunner. All that said, the Stoneward description from the official personality test thing does match Adolin surprisingly well. At least, it matches the Adolin we're seeing in early RoW. Adolin is not really like Taln, but maybe not every Stoneward has to be.