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Not always. Preservation and Ruin didn't splinter when Leras and Ati died. I think it takes some extra work on the part of whoever's doing the killing.

At some point the Stormfather calls Kaladin "Child of Tanavast". ...that's all we really know. It stuck out to people because a more natural phrasing would have been something like "Child of Honor" because he was Radiant, but the Stormfather specifically said Tanavast. Someone asked Brandon whether that was significant and Brandon confirmed that it was, but did not give any details as to why or how it mattered.

The Eila Stele! So we've got record of one ancient one.

Yeah, I think it means there was already something noticeably special and unusual about her. Could be the spren bond/lightweaving. Could be whatever else was going on with House Davar.

Wasn't that just him being "impressed" with what Taravangian figured out without fortune?

Alternatively, you get someone who values “power over others” over those things, which selects for psychopaths.

With the whole deal about a giant tower-wide suppressor fabrial, it seems like that might be the opportunity for Lift and Renarin to use their not-Stormlight power sources (food for Lift, or maybe Voidlight for Renarin).

Random throwaway reference, describing humans: Reminds me of that one quote we land about Dawnshards: which many people guess is from the POV of a Sleepless hordeling. I wonder if the sleepless in Aimia (?) (“cremlings building a nest in the shadow of a great temple”?) will turn out to be quite a handful, just like the humans that the Fused are being so dismissive of here.

You can also add something about Seons on Sel - there's a clear bond example. It seems like a bond without a magic system though, because bonding a Seon doesn't seem to give access to the Dor. Sel also has Forgery which doesn't seem very bond-like, and a few others we know very little about (Bloodsealing, Clay-shan?)

Burning a metalmind only grants you more power if it's your *own* metalmind. When Vin tried to burn Sazed's metalminds, she got nothing extra out of it. Wobs about burning spikes: His thinking's evolve a bit on that, maybe. Or maybe it depends on whether you've just eaten someone's hemalurgic spike and burned it, or whether you've been spiked and are burning the spike that's in you. I think the latter - just taking someone's spike and eating it and burning it is uneventful, but if you get spiked and try to burn the spike that's now stapled to your spiritweb weird things happen.

I mean, if "they can splinter them anytime they like", then Cultivation would already be dead. She's not. Therefore, something prevented Odium from splintering her! Enemies make cease-fires and agreements all the time. Both sides think it's beneficial to them; one of the sides is wrong about it.

Alt take - PALONA is Thaidakar. Same reasoning. PALONA has all the same access and opportunities (through Sebarial) and she also has the opportunity to leave, vanish, and do off-the-record things that a Highprince could not. She’s Herdazian, so she could have had access to Cultivation’s perpendicularity to become Cosmere-aware. But we know very little about her past. Could also explain how a darkeyed woman ended up as mistress/common-law-wife to a Highprince.

On the other hand, you really don't know a person's thoughts to judge whether or not they're a bully - just their actions. Gavilar was most certainly being a bullying abusive jerk to Navani, whose POV we have in the prologue.

Is there a transcript of this youtube thing?

I think it’s the first one, more info about the Cosmere. Azure/Vasher/Nightblood haven’t appeared at all yet in RoW, and IMO if they were going to be important in RoW they would have at least had namedrops or cameos by now.

I also agree that the Everstorm and Taln breaking happening at exactly the same time, on a timescale of thousands of years, can't be a coincidence. I can think of, so far, two plausible explanations that tie it all together. One: Taln breaking caused the Everstorm. Maybe him breaking is what let the Voidspren first make their way back to Roshar and contact the Parshendi; this led to the eventual summoning of the Everstorm. Possibly the voidspren returning is what led to the truespren also starting to look for bonding candidate. Possibly the voidspren returning also is related to the Sons of Honor experiments, because it made travel to Braize via the Oathpact more doable? Two: The Everstorm caused Taln to return to Roshar... without breaking. Maybe the voidspren on Roshar finally - after millenia of trying - got the Everstorm summoned to return more of their bretheren. Gavilar's stuff was then also part of the voidspren machinations, just not the avenue that ended up bringing them back. It's possible that the truespren saw their progress and started to look for bonds. In this case, I can't think of a way that the return of the Everstorm would make Taln break - so one possibility is that it *didn't*. He returned because the Fused returned, but in his insane state doesn't realize that he never actually broke down. (Mostly because I don't see any plausible way for the everstorm to cause Taln to break.)

Ooh, interesting! Yeah, would be neat for Hesina's parentage to tie in somehow. So many threads.

Enough with the Enough with the Moash thing already thing already!

I think it’s just about how the different personalities think differently. Shallan is an artist. She notices subtle variations in colors, but doesn’t check up on the guardsman hanging out with Balat. Veil is a spy. She doesn’t care about colors as much but notices Mraize and takes care to protect her satchel.

Well, it's making them that's bad, not using them. Maybe.

Yeah, so possibly the "horrible" thing Navani's doing isn't fabrials in general, it's cutting spren in half. It's like the Rosharan version of Hemalurgy. It also opens the possibility that all these other fabrials are fine, and Navani's making great advances, but just has to stop making conjoiners/reversers...

There's more to Kal's depression than just biology, though. Yes, he's depressed, but him freezing in battle isn't just that, it's that combined with whatever fourth-oath-block he has about being unable to save everyone.

Yeah, it's *definitely* not weighty at all compared to Era 1. Era 1 - immortal Lord Ruler, skaa being raped and murdered, heroes have to succeed at the rebellion or die trying, eventually fighting against a literal god of Ruin for the survival of humanity itself. There's scenes where the characters are horribly depressed and finding the strength to keep going even as the world is collapsing around them. Era 2 has none of that. The world is fine. The characters have challenges and are sad and happy at different times. You never get scenes like when Sazed is ripping up the last of his religions, or when he sends off Elend and Vin off to the north so that they can at least survive when everyone in the city is slaughtered - you get Wax being a bit nervous when going to his wedding and then a water tower falling on his church because Wayne sabotaged it. There's the occasional heavy moment in a climax - when Wax has to kill Bleeder/Lessie, when Wax (briefly) dies - but they're definitely the exception. It is not at all dark, not at all heavy, definitely fun.

Yeah, the first book of Era 2 (Alloy of Law) was supposed to be a standalone side project. Then it turned into a series of 4 books, because Brandon. I think it's pretty typical for people to recommend treating Era 2 as a separate series - people who come in expecting "Like Era 1, more of the same, let's see where this goes next" are the ones who end up disappointed, but the people who treat it as "separate story that's set on the same planet" (no more similar than Elantris and The Emperor's Soul) end up thinking it's great.

Amaram and Sadeas were both pretty straightforwardly hated villains, though. I don't think Sadeas or Amaram were ever morally grey for the readers, though some characters in-world weren't sure of them. They were always just terrible. Leshwi is taking the place of Eshonai in WoR - the enemy that nevertheless has some redeeming qualities and you wonder if there isn't a way to get them to team up with the good guys. Which didn't work out for Eshonai.