Journey Before Pancakes

It seems like they have a direct feed like the Heralds did, like mentioned by others. The mechanics of how that works have never been explicitly laid out though AFAIK. I assume there would be limits though. I think it could cause a lot of problems if their connection actually gave them constant unlimited access to stormlight/void light. It could be limited by what Odium can use; maybe there's also built in stops to prevent say a large group of larkins from feeding heavily off those direct connections and weakening a shard. It could even be like an emergency stop valve; kinda like "he's using way too much investiture too fast; stop giving it to him" to prevent an exploitable loss in power.

He said the ending to SA was hidden in there. We know honour is dead, so I doubt it's that. It's likely something similar though, with specific word choices hinting at what will happen.

@ScavellTane Nightblood's sheath is aluminum which doesn't seem rare enough to be that special in Shadesmar (and it would be a pretty mediocre chain).

@Pagerunner I've heard Brandon reference the first line was a hint as well. Makes sense on multiple levels. Alendi was worried that he was not the hero of ages (good instinct). Also seems to parallel the journey of multiple characters; like how Vin wasn't the hero either, and all Sazed's self doubt until the very last second when it clicked.

That's (basically) a RAFO. (3rd question there). Presumably it would depend quite a bit on the command though. For example, if it had a "Nightblood-esque" command, I assume it would be trying to use its spiked power as much as possible to destroy evil. But the mechanics of that would be sketchy. Would it need raw investiture? Could it burn metal it touches? Interesting to think about, impossible to answer fully right now I'd say.

"Entering and exiting" a form of power sounds a lot more like toggling than switching; I would expect it to say "change form of power" if she were able to switch between two forms she had on hand. You're suggesting she went into another form of power; but she could only release/suppress the "power" that the voidspren was bringing her. That's all that's been suggested so far in OB as well. Probably not too wise to focus on the specific wording of the Coppermind vs. direct text evidence. Based on all the evidence I've seen, I actually think if Venli didn't have a Voidspren in her gemheart, there wouldn't be a need for Timbre to be there either. He did it to hide from the Fused.

She can enter and exit the form of power granted by her voidspren at will. That's because Timbre can suppress it. It doesn't say that she can switch between forms of power, just that she can toggle any voidspren she has in her gemheart at will thanks to Timbre.

Do we know that? There are some spren that change their forms; but I don't think it OB suggested that Venli could change into another form due to Timbre (I know it's a bit different, due to the trapping). He could keep his same form; it may even require trapping a spren that gives a form to work in the first place. Venli is the first we've seen it happen. Unless Rlain hustled hard while he was gone in OB, Venli is most likely the first ever singer to bond a Knight Radiant spren. I could see it giving a new form; but I could also see that not being the case. I don't know if we understand enough of the mechanics behind the singer/spren bond to even say for sure it gives him a new form.

There's a chance I had a moment of insanity and read the section wrong. I had flagged it anyway to have it moved, and it's in the right section now, so I'll assume I screwed up, not you.

Stormlight isnt really the main show. Brandon intends for it to be understandable without prior knowledge of the Cosmere. The novels that tie into previous works will give warning that they require Cosmere knowledge. I don't think we need to know how Nightblood works for the story to make sense. We just need to know that it's some sort of abnormal shardblade, and that it knows Vasher (and hopefully Vivenna) from the past. Although SA will be standalone, doesn't mean it can't include magic from the rest of the Cosmere without breaking he idea of having it as a standalone. Magic is magical, you don't have to understanding it when reading the story. That said, if you're a scholar of the Cosmere, you'll know better what's going on. Us Cosmere aware readers will understand Vasher more; while other readers will feel more like Szeth; not understanding the specifics of the blade; but having some idea what it does.

Rlain is talking about the forms in general from what I can tell. That's just how they work, you need to be open to the form for it to go with your gemheart. Also, Venli's use of stormlight is because of the radiant spren she bonds, not like the other Parshendi forms.

He described it as taking the soul of the fire with him. Khriss does the same thing. From what I remember it describes it the same way as the spren do, but without stormlight needed.

@Calderis That's a good point. It is weird how much more restrictive the cognitive realm seems around Roshar compared to Scadrial. That requires investiture for some reason and it's much harder to navigate.

There is Cosmere evidence that it isn't the case here anyways. We see the beads get manifested in the exact same way in Mistborn Secret History. It would be a pretty extreme twist if that was done with surges. It's just something that can be done in the cognitive realm with practice. The surging must have made it easier or something; but it doesn't seem like something inherently tried to surgebinding.

That takes place in Shadesmar, and the text pretty clearly mentions what it actually is. Making the physical form of the wall appear in the cognitive realm wasn't any form of "cognitive illumination". We see an earlier example when the spren on the ship get water for them. Other Cosmere stories in the cognitive realm have used this without any mention or reason to believe stormlight or surgebinding were involved.

It's invested, but it doesn't seem invested enough that it does much resisting. There really isn't much indication that regular sentient life has enough investiture to naturally resist other investiture. Surges like gravitation seem to work pretty easy on someone who isn't surgebinding, as long as they aren't wearing invested armour (shardplate). I think it wouldn't even be hard. From what I understand _everything_ in the cosmere is basically investiture. Sentience itself doesn't seem to have enough "investiture density" to resist investiture in a noticeable way.

That's correct. Pattern is the name of the Cryptic spren bonded to Shallan. (Shallan may have named him herself, I don't remember) The cryptic that Hoid found would not also be named Pattern. The cryptics do form patterns though.

Is most life on Roshar even notably invested? You might have some trouble trying to destroy a surgebinder holding stormlight; but for regular people I can't see it being a real issue. If that were the case, you would think Soothing in Mistborn would have been near useless, since it would have been incredibly difficult to use on another person (who would also be invested, especially on Scadrial where people were made from scratch). Although investiture resists investiture, I don't think regular people are nearly invested enough to provide a big barrier.

It seems like the highstorm provides some sort of conduit between the stormlight and the physical realm. If the gems can gather investiture from being out in a highstorms, it seems only reasonable that nightblood should be able to. AFAIK there's no real reason why stormlight doesn't exist in the physical realm.

@Weltall I really do like that idea as well. It also kinda fits with the saying "Sentience is just the universe experiencing itself". Definitely a neat idea for what the motivations were.

I've wondered how the interactions would look between opposing savantisms. I'm imagining a pewter and tin savant. The extreme senses would likely become extremely dulled by the pewter savantism (if I'm remembering correctly, Spook was pretty explicit about how much easier the savantism was to deal with when he could burn pewter?). But then at that point you're basically a pewter savant without the painlessness (which might be awesome?). Someone with a better understanding of Allomancy/Cosmere might be able to correct me or support that a bit better. Given the push-pull nature of metals though, I could see some very strange effects of savantism in a push/pull set.

How would you "collect" a Divine Breath though? You would basically need a willing Returned who would die to create Nightblood, and give it the command phrase. The Divine Breath doesn't pass between people like regular Breath. Given that Vasher somehow got enough Breaths to give his gift to the God Kings, it almost seems like they had an extreme wealth of regular Breaths available to do this experiment. Using a Divine Breath and sacrificing a Returned seems overkill in the context; and doesn't match how it's been explained.

That does sound like a very Hoid thing to do. Plus he probably needed a different cool instrument to show off after Kaladin lost his flute.

I don't get the Avengers reference; but I think I can see the point you're trying to make. I don't necessarily agree that much though. I don't think it's fair to compare what we've seen of Odium in SA so far to what we saw of Ruin in MB Era 1. We only heard Ruin's name in the second book. Until book 3; he was basically a force in the background. We're only on book 3 of 10, there's still plenty of time for Odium to live up to the hype. I assume we've just begun to scratch the surface of why so many other Shards and Cosmere-aware people fear/dislike him. Considering that SA isn't even the final story in the Cosmere, there's a chance Odium is such a big villain that he survives SA and is a villain in MB Era 4.

I think there’s good reason that Odium fears Harmony though. As a vessel, he isn’t ready to do anything like that. I don’t think anyone would want to argue that point; dual-shard or not he’s basically a baby in the Cosmere scale of things. In terms of the powers he holds and how they could manifest though, I think he’s in a really good position and that’s why Odium is afraid of him. If Odium were a threat to Harmony, the combined Intents of Preservation and Ruin could easily work together to destroy Odium as a means of preservation.