Arran

I very much like this theory, especially since it doesn't have any obvious hole. The Ghostbloods having enough Shards to equip Shallan's father and her brother can easily be explained given the number of Shards that seem to have disappeared. Also, by sending Helaran to kill Amaram, the Ghostbloods may have been looking not just to eliminate Amaram, but also to provide Helaran with valuable battlefield experience so he'd make a good champion for Shallan's father when he openly declared his intent of becoming highprince. As others have noted, it was known that there were no Shardbearers in Amaram's army, so the Ghostbloods could have figured the risk was minimal - and indeed the Shardbearer would easily have succeeded if not for Kaladin. I wonder if the Ghostbloods have learned exactly who killed their champion by now? Given the way Amaram has suppressed the truth, it's possible that the Ghostbloods honestly believe that it's Amaram who killed the Shardbearer. What fitting irony it would be if they sought revenge on Amaram instead of Kaladin... Oh, and about Restares - while it's certainly plausible that Amaram spoke directly with him or via spanreed when deciding what to do with the Shards, I wish to point out it's also possible that Amaram just weighed what Restares told him on some previous occasion, and didn't actually communicat with him in the battle's aftermath. Perhaps it's just one of Amaram's other advisors who reminded Amaram of/argued in favor of Restares's words.

Hello everyone, this is my first post on this forum. Happy to be here, though I'm miffed at myself that I missed the recent Q&A - I have a few questions that I would have loved to get answers to. Ah well, I'll try to get them in at the next Q&A. Odium's Shard: I'm confused here. Do you mean that when a darkeyes bonds with a Shardblade, his/her eyes are always genetically modified to become blue? Why not other light colors, like green? Not all Shardblade wielders have blue eyes – Gavilar, for instance, had green eyes: Also, does you theory account for the Knights Radiant having very pale eyes, a detail that specifically attracted Dalinar's attention in his visions? (Maybe Knights Radiant, because of their magically-empowering and -binding Ideals, forge a "deeper" connection to their Shardblade and thus have paler eyes compared to current-day wielders who want only to selfishly gain a nigh-unstoppable weapon.) Finally, and speaking from a purely personal viewpoint, it doesn't seem fair that a darkeyes would be affected by some problem due to bonding with a Shardblade, purely because his/her eye color isn't right, while lighteyes get a free pass. It feels like, well, magical racism.