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I'm with the group that says it's some Connection-manipulation. That sort of magic is really common in the Cosmere - it's how Hoid and Khriss and all these other worldhoppers can just go around to places and talk to people. It seems like "learning the local language" is something very easy with investiture, so Odium could very well have granted the Fused that power.

It should be broadly similar. There might be minor differences, but the general principle - restoring the physical to match the cognitive/spiritual - should still be the same. Yeah, if someone was a feruchemist and a radiant, you could definitely do that - it would basically function the same as a twinborn compounding, filling a metalmind with power being gained from an outside source rather than from the feruchemist. However, I think it would be more limited than twinborn compounding - you're limited by how much stormlight you can get, instead of being directly able to tap investiture from Preservation. You could fill the metalminds pretty high up in a highstorm, though. Possibly being able to make multiple copies of it? Storing a memory removes it from your mind, so you can't both have the memory AND have it in the metalmind. Maybe with compounding you could both have the memory, and store it in multiple metalminds, and have it in your own mind. So a copper compounder would have a perfect memory - every memory they get the instantly store in a metalmind, while also keeping it in their actual mind. And they can refresh their memories from the copperminds, so they never forget anything.

"It" refers to objects or animals, but for people you use "them" which is the same for singular and plural. The choice of which of those to use when describing a spren implies information about the sentience/humanity of the spren - you'd use "it" if talking about a mindless force of nature, but "them" when talking about a gender-neutral person.

In the case of the story of Knights Radiant, it is basically impossible to separate the "character growth parts" from the "fantasy magic parts" because the core fundamental principles of how the Knights Radiant magic works boil down to "have character growth to obtain more powers". Kal (and Shallan, and Szeth, and Dalinar, and the rest) have to grow as a people to swear ever harder oaths to get bigger and more epic magic powers. The high fantasy lets the internal character development have a visible outward component. When he overcomes his hate for Lighteyes and protects Elhokar, or when Teft finds it in him to care for himself, they get cool swords out of it. But saying "forget all those troubled characters, let's just see magical power armor and giant swords" isn't how this story has ever worked.

Well, the 'why' is the reasons Dalinar gave (and which we can see) - Kaladin is not a capable soldier right now. He freezes in key moments and is unreliable. It's also possible that Kaladin didn't have useful squires to begin with. Since he's constantly flying around between places - Urithiru, the airship, the shattered plains - any squires of his would spend a significant amount of time too far away from him to have powers.

Ooh, now THAT would be interesting.

The finale of that year were these past chapters, the new airship successfully rescuing Hearthstone and Kal fighting off the new Fabrial and surviving Moash, Shallan taking down Ialai. The bits after that are transitioning to buildup again. I think this fourth oath thing is setting up the next long arc, not gearing up for a quick resolution. (Just like Shallan's fourth Truth, which she says she can't say.)

One challenge of applying this to Stormlight is the nested nature of the story. You've got five books to form a journey, but also each individual book is a journey.

Yesss more Jasnah and Ivory would be awesome!

I don't think anyone knows the answer. This has definitely been brought up before, but with no resolution. Maybe going 3rd-4th wasn't as hard in the old days. Maybe there were more blades than plates at Recreance time, but over time it's easier for blades to get lost, or more of them were stolen by the Shin in their wars and there's a big cache of them somewhere.

From a literary-tropes perspective, I think Kaladin saying out loud (or thinking out loud, to the reader) "I think I'll never swear the fourth oath" makes it much more likely that, later in this same book, he'll find a way to swear the fourth oath. ...for me, this chapter was more of a "phew, that wasn't as bad as it could have been" chapter. Because I can see how horrible Kaladin feels... ...but I was scared that he'd be benched after freezing and watching someone from Bridge 4 die because of it. So if Dalinar catches his issues in time to take him off the field before that, well, it sucks but it's better than the alternative.

It also isn't necessarily the case that Preservation had everything planned out precisely. Part of the theme of the books is trust - and you can definitely interpret Preservation's plans as giving humans the tools to solve the problems and then trusting that they'd be able to do it, even when he wasn't there to aid them directly (contrasting with Ruin, who either did things directly or via control/manipulation). ...but it also could just be that Preservation's foresight was better than Ruin's. Ruin was only ever shown planning a few decades ahead, whereas Preservation's plan was in action for millenia.

My guess as to what the full process would have to be: 1) Someone (Adolin) would have to bond the blade, and say the oaths to become an Edgedancer (maybe of the same level that the oathbreaker Radiant was). They would have to do this without the support/help of an actual spren, since they'd be bonding a dead blade instead of a living spren. So, pretty tough, and possibly no power boosts for this because there's no real bond yet. 2) Then Dalinar (or another Bondsmith) would have to apply their powers to make that bond replace the original one, healing the spren. So, this is pretty hard. Living by several levels of Radiant oaths is hard enough for people when they've got a spren urging them along and powerups for doing so, and it's harder when you have to do it just because you think it's right. And then it takes intervention by one of at most three Bondsmiths in all of Roshar. So, yeah, in the abstract it's pretty tough, though if this really is the case then Adolin's in a position to go down that path.

Hah! Yes, that sounds like a perfect Lopen ideal.

I like that idea! I think the core of the third ideal is that you swear to protect people who you really would rather not. It's that you can't pick and choose who you're protecting, it's everyone. And even though Lopen isn't gonna be hateful, that's still a tough ideal to swear for anyone. It's natural to want to make exceptions to that, and swearing it means both finding what those exceptions are for that person, and swearing not to make them anymore. Could come in a situation where Lopen needs to protect someone who hates him. Seems less likely because who would hate The Lopen? ...but it might be someone who generically hates Radiants, and maybe has good reason to. There's some old people/spren around who might hold a grudge. Or could come in a situation where protecting someone conflicts with Lopen's tasks. Maybe he's finally given an independent mission, a chance to prove himself. He goes off and is being successful, maybe has some stumbles but gets over them... ...but some storming idiot who Lopen doesn't even like goes and gets himself in danger, and Lopen has to choose to save that idiot and then accept the blame for failing his mission. Or, since Lopen's version of protecting is more about aid and comfort after a battle than jumping in with spear and shield, it could be about that. That he needs to go around and help *everyone* that's injured and needs help, not picking and choosing the "easy" ones to help. ...ok, the one thing I wish doesn't happen is that little "so long as it is right" clause getting appended to the oath. Ever since Kaladin said that one, people seem to LOVE to guess that all sorts of oaths will end as "so long as it is right". It sounds like a catch-all kind of oath to do the right thing. I hope we don't see that repeated, because to me the whole point of the oaths is that you're swearing to do specific things, not a generic "I swear to Do Good!" It made sense for Kaladin in his situation, because of what his conflict was; he implicitly accepted that protecting Elhokar was the honorable/right thing to do, but was debating whether the benefits to the kingdom of killing him and having Dalinar as king, or just the need for justice/vengeance, outweighed that. But the point of the oath was that he should never have been making that tradeoff, he should have been protecting. I don't think it was a generic "swear to do the right thing" oath from Kaladin, and I don't think it would work well if repeated for other characters.

[citation needed] Strong disagree IRL, but that's not a discussion for this board. *Definitely* not true in Mistborn Era 1, where the only way to become nobility was to inherit it. Still mostly untrue in Era 2, where they remark that most of the leadership is descended from the nobility even though technically that's not a requirement; that's why it was a big deal that Aradel was the first non-noble Governor. As far as I can tell, most of the characters in Era 2 who are wealthy inherited a pretty good start on that wealth.

It also seems like it's got to be somehow important that we still don't know Shallan's mother's name. Anyone have any theories why?

Hehe, looking back on Shallan... ...she overthinks a lot of things. Except things she doesn't want to think about, which she manages to push back and simply decide to never think about, no matter how important. Her Shardblade and what happened to her father are examples from her past, but even in this book we have the moment where she learns about how Kaladin was the one that killed her brother... ...and then never thinks of it again, after deciding not to.

I think they stay "easter eggs" in that you don't have to read the other series before reading this one, or vice versa. Someone who picks up the Stormlight Archive and reads it in order (WoK -> WoR -> O -> RoW -> KoW) without ever reading Mistborn is still going to get an awesome series, and won't be left thinking "huh, I didn't get that plot, must be because I haven't read something else". Or vice versa, you can read Mistborn Era 1 and then Mistborn Era 2 and never touch Stormlight and still get it. And even Warbreaker is like that! You can read Stormlight without ever reading Warbreaker and vice versa, and the books still work fine. Even with these connections we're getting here, that stays completely true. You can read Stormlight Archive and everything you need to know to understand that story is in these books. If stuff about off-world happenings becomes important in SA, it'll be introduced in SA. (And that's what's happening here! It becomes relevant that the Ghostbloods are Cosmere-aware, so the readers get introduced to the other planets.)

If Nightblood is an "artificial shardblade", then I'd guess his telepathy is most similar to the way Knights Radiant communicate with their Spren. We know there's telepathy/intent going on there - most people can't hear the Spren, and of course the Knights can summon their shardblade and change it's form without saying anything aloud.

Yeah, "gods" is the closest way to convey what the Returned are on Nalthis. And one of the religions even worships them as such! She could of course get into clarifying "OK, they're not my gods, but they're the gods of people in a land I spent some time in but I don't personally worship them" but that's longer than just saying "our gods" and moving on. Another thing to think about - the more comfortable with her beliefs she is, the less she'd care about precision here. Immediately after coming to Hallendren - or immediately after leaving Hallendren, even - she would NEVER have said "our gods" about the Returned. She would have made the distinction that she worships Austre, not the Returned. But after another decade of traveling, seeing gods of other lands, other religions, then seeing the Cosmere... sure, she can just handwave the Returned as "our gods, close enough".

Well, I think the reason was the comment about the Honorspren - she'd talked to Honorspren about exactly this and they said otherwise, and she trusts them a good bit more than an unidentified spanreed writer.

That doesn't seem to fit to me. Tanavast held the Shard of Honor - he's the source of all these abilities, and holding a Shard would give him much *greater* power than a mere Bondsmith.

Kaladin having a last stand where he saves everyone but dies would not be too unexpected in book 5, I think.

They certainly could be from Ashyn or something, that wouldn't be too far-fetched. I don't think we've had any evidence that's true so we tend to presume they're from Roshar.