Child of Hodor

That's my understanding, it had never happened the way it happens for humans. One of their songs was hopeful that it could someday. WoR Ch. 32 & 33 epigraphs: Not sure if this is referring to what the Fused are doing or to an actual Nahel bond. The Singers couldn't us the surges before the Fused and the Fused access similar powers, but through a different means. No Nahel bond.

Yeah, before the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact, my bad! I thought the confusion was between 9 and 10 as well, but when I looked in the OB epigraphs the confusion is between 8 or 9 Unmade. I think nine as Odium's number goes way beyond the Heralds. I think he would have only made 9 Unmade. The Everstorm's default speed is to circle Roshar every 9 days "They come at nine-day intervals" OB Ch. 111 When Venli is waiting for a new form from the Everstorm she is one of nine Listeners selected. "Nine of them had been selected from among the two thousand listeners" OB I-6 Moash notes there are only nine orders of Fused. "There were nine orders of them. Why not ten?" - OB Ch. 121 When Moash is given the Honorblade and his new name, Vyre, nine fused come for him "It was maybe an hour later when they came for him. Nine flying Fused" - OB Ch. 122 Odium got 9 of the 10 Heralds to abandon the Oathpact. Odium's planet is 9-centric while the rest of the planets in the system are 10. Presumably he did something to change it to 9. He may not have had a magic number prior to coming to the Rosharan system or maybe it is negative and so he likes 10 - 1.

This is interesting, and would feed into why there is confusion in the histories about the true number of Unmade, but Brandon confirmed there are only 9 Unmade. The Unmade were around between Desolations before the nine heralds stayed Re-Sephir's Midnight Essence was shown in a vision that takes place in between Desolations in WoK and OB. A Knight Radiant identifies the year as "the Eighth Epoch, Three Thirty-Seven." - WoK Ch. 19. The eighth epoch is during the Heraldic Epochs before the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact. One of the Radiants says they live in Alethela right now because that is where the Radiants live between Desolations.

Rock had a brother who died as well. That's why he went from being a soldier to being a cook.

I had a hard time accepting that Kelsier had blonde hair. Same. I think that's not far off though (apart form the red hair). He reminds me of a Final Fantasy X character, Wakka, who has red hair but is otherwise based on Pacific Islanders and the english voice actor does a Hawaiian accent for him. Like Wakka, Rock is very good natured and jovial, but also very casually racist. "Air-sick lowlander" I know Brandon has played FFX and said it was probably his favorite gaming experience. He's also said the naming conventions of the Horneaters is based on Polynesian names.

A riff on Child of Honor referencing Hodor from game of thrones. I don’t recall putting much thought into it before I chose it.

We know Gavilar was receiving the visions from the Stormfather because they were beginning to bond, but I am starting to think the Stormfather talked to Gavilar directly. Gavilar founded the organization known as Sons of Honor and I am now noticing just how often Stormfather calls people "Son of Honor". Mostly to Dalinar in Oathbringer, but in WoK, WoR & OB he calls Kaladin Child / Son of Honor. I had always thought that Gavilar, like Dalinar, got the Visions without figuring out that the Stormfather was giving them to him and without any additional guidance from the Stormfather. Which is why both of their interpretations of what the visions were asking them to do were off. It seems like the Stormfather talked to Gavilar at least once and Gavilar may have understood that the Visions came from the Stormfather because he named his secret club that was acting on the visions "Sons of Honor". It's not an issue of consistency or anything, we know the Stormfather withholds useful information from Dalinar He drags his feet and does the bare minimum. He seems very pouty about Tanavast tasking him with delivering the visions and has a real negative attitude in general WoR Ch. 89: "I WAS REQUIRED TO SEND THOSE VISIONS ... THE ALMIGHTY DEMANDED IT OF ME. I COULD NO MORE DISOBEY THAN I COULD REFUSE TO BLOW THE WINDS ... IT DOES NOT MATTER. YOU WERE TOO SLOW. YOU FAILED ... IT IS OVER. YOU HAVE LOST" Even the Stormfather's efforts to "help" leave a lot to be desired WoR ch. 83: "I BRING YOU A STORM OF CLEANSING. IT WILL CARRY AWAY YOUR CORPSES." I'm just surprised that Gavilar might have talked to the Stormfather and understood more about what was happening to him than Dalinar did before the end of WoR. Additional References:

I like Song of Secrets for the alliteration and air of mystery it brings. I dunno what it is, changes doesn't do it for me. I don't hate it. Maybe I'll warm up to it if he goes with that.

Brandon described Pailiah as the "old ardent": "the old ardent in the Palanaeum".[3] Rushu is the ardent who works for Navani, but she is described as young. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Rushu

I take your point, it's confusing to talk about. All I was saying is that all humans lived in Shinovar before they spread out and conquered. They were all Shin at the time because they all lived in Shinovar, but the humans living there were always ethnically divided subgroups like the Shin with big-eyes and light-skin and other groups that looked different. We don't know how slowly or quickly humans spread out or if they spread out peacefully for a little while then butted up against Singers. A WoB from earlier this year at seems to say it was an "event' that happened and everyone dispersed except for the ancestors of the Shin. Implying it wasn't a gradual migration, but whether the war against the Singers came at the same time as the migration is not known. The first war against the Singers was of humans taking Singers land. If Shin means the ancestors of the ones who live there now that means the Shin at the time are the ones that stayed behind. The ones who stayed behind in human lands could not have been the ones taking land from the Singers. In other words the Shin did not fight in that first war of conquest against the Singers. Now did the Shin, command or drive out the people who looked different and participated in or caused the war indirectly. Possibly. We don't know if the humans living in Shinovar were part of one government or many. Were the Shin the ruling ethnic group that cast out the rest or were they separate tribes that all made their own decisions? As for their pacifism, you are correct they weren't always that way. I'm sure they participated in the Desolations, one of the Urithiru Oathgates goes to Shinovar and a Shin man was near enough the last battle of the "Final Desolation" to be the first to discover the Honorblades before anyone else. There were Shin invasions during the 4,500 year gap, but those seem like the exception not the rule for the Shin. They had the Honorblades all this time and not just Truthless use them, yet they haven't bothered to invade much. This is partly because of the mountains, partly cultural and partly because having the honorblades had an honorable influence on them. I'm not trying to say they were as pacifistic at the time of the first expansion out of Shinovar as they are now. I am saying their pacifism is rooted in their understanding of the past, that they were given Shinovar and were supposed to stay within Shinovar. In the past people who had lived in Shinovar their whole lives left Shinovar and a world altering war or series of wars resulted. The ones who stayed behind in Shinovar, the ones who didn't take the Singers land through war, passed down this history. The history is not completely accurately remembered and has morphed, but it came from the Shin staying put and staying out of that war to take the Singers land. I think the Truthless punishment is a metaphor for what happened in the early days. Ancient people living in Shinovar left and killed and it was a bad thing, It helped create the Fused and the cycle of Desolations. They may have been exiled or they may have been running out of space or something else. The fact that the Shin today (and when we see the guy who got the Honorblades) are all so pale skinned and big-eyed when nobody else on the planet is big-eyed and most are tan or darker skinned suggests that who stayed and who left broke down along ethnic lines. The majority who left couldn't have been big-eyed and the majority who stayed had to be light-skinned and big-eyed. The light-skinned big-eyed people now known as the Shin would have no reason to fight the Singers for the Singers land if they were content to stay behind in Shinovar, the land that the Singers already willingly gave them.

All the humans (except Iriali) were Shin, so the Shin were part of it one way or another. But, the Shin (who look like Shin) are extreme pacifists, warriors are the worst thing you can be in their social structure. Giving someone a weapon and sending them out to be an assassin is the worst punishment in their society. I think the ones we see in the present got this idea from the ones who stayed behind in Shinovar. With the Girl Who Looked Up story it seems they were told not to go past the mountains onto the stone and to stay where there is soil (in Shinovar). Some held to that and are the ancestors of the ones still in Shinovar. Maybe the truthless punishment is a hint at large scale things. Some groups of Shin flirted with exploring past Shinovar and were exiled for it. They were banished and went into the stone lands and conquered. That doesn't mean no light skinned big eyed Shin were part of the groups that went out and made war, but they couldn't have been the majority.

True. The Iriali are separate and came from a different system, but apparently the rest came from Ashyn. I guess big-eyed supremacy drove everyone else out of Shinovar . It's weird that Odium came with the Ashynites and his spren look like Shin. Like Ulim and the spren Kaladin talks to when he is with the Singers. "Venli describes his eyes as odd, suggesting a non-Rosharan ethnicity." https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ulim "Her face was shaped oddly - narrow, but with large, childlike eyes. Like someone from Shinovar. - OB Ch. 23 The Shin (who look like Shin) were not the original humans that sided with Odium and made war on the Singers, so it's weird to me that he would make spren who look like the pacifist homebodies. Maybe those Spren helped influence the big-eyed supremacy movement that drove the rest out of Shinovar and sparked the conflict with the Singers. Rayse chooses to manifest as a Shin-ish human, so maybe he prefers that look. Either way, none of this explains why the Thaylens have those weird eyebrows.

I agree it's a really weird thing to lie about. But most everything else in his confession was also a lie. My only justification for it is that Pailiah, as the Truthwatcher Herald, is now into spreading lies. Caring does fit. I was just thinking that back when she had her Honorblade Pailiah would be actually healing others all the time and she would have been one of the field medics and hanging around hospitals a lot, while Battar would not have that surgebinding ability. Pailiah as Learned & Giving could be inverted because she is now learning Death Rattles by Taking life. Pailiah is now dedicated to getting glimpses of the future via the death rattles and future sight was a big Truthwatcher no-no (although at least one did) "Don't tell anyone. I can't say it. I must whisper. I foresaw this." a particularly small emerald - OB Ch. 85 Epigraph One more minor thing, the people recording the death rattles are referred to as "Silent Gatherers" and "The Truthwatchers were silent and secretive most of the time." https://coppermind.net/wiki/Order_of_Truthwatchers

I’m sure they were created the old fashioned way, but the humanoid life on the planet is so diverse: 2 different types of Aimians, Parshendi, humans, at least 2 human / Parshendi blends, whatever causes Thaylens to have eyebrows they can tuck behind their ears, the people with very prominent blue veins that Sigzil got in trouble for groping Even the diversity within humans themselves is extensive Aletha, Azish, Iriali, Shin, Veden, Thats A LOT of diversity considering humans have been on the planet less than 10,000 years. Probably closer to 6 or 7 thousand. And humans were isolated in Shinovar for a portion of that time. Roshar is nuts and I love it! And we’ve barely seen a third of it in any detail. I would guess Cultivation is influencing things. Not like in a lab with test tubes, but maybe giving a little nudge here or there to push groups together and see what happens. It was partially her idea to let the humans settle. She probably also wanted the Iriali who we know are world hopping people. She’s collected a diverse garden of humanoids to tend.

I know Dova has been covered before, but I didn't find a thread that reconciled all the information we have. I really think Dova is Pailiah. At the end of Oathbringer, when Taravangian is "confessing" to Dalinar he says that an ardent, Dova, came to him and warned him of the desolation coming. Mr. T says he suspects she is a Herald, Battah'Elin. But we have a WoB: Pailiah She has made an appearance as "the old ardent in the Palanaeum".[3] They're both pretending to be ardents in the same library? Granted it's a BIG library and Dova probably spends most of her time in the secret kill rooms, not the library. But could Mr. T be wrong or lying about which Herald she is? Dova is not identified on screen by name. There is a Silent Gatherer writing down a death rattle at the end of WoK when Szeth visits Mr. T, but she is not described at all physically. We don't know if Dova is "old" looking or not. Now we know Mr. T is lying to Dalinar about how he found out about the impending desolation and he's lying about when Dova joined the Diagram. She joined after she figured out they were killing people to get the death rattles and offered to help. The Diagram was already off and running. (Good luck with killing her, idiot) Mr. T found out about the impending desolation because Gavilar told him about the visions he was getting and his task to unite the world. Very minor reference in the interlude where Dova is discussed. Could be a little clue, Pailiah is referred to, but Battar is not. I think it fits more for Pailiah, the Herald of the Truthwatchers, to be the one in the secret hospital killing poor and family-less patients. Truthwatchers have regrowth and the truthwatchers we've met like Ym and Stump were healing the poor and family-less for free. From what we've seen of the Heralds who abandoned their oaths their madness often is a perversion or inversion of what they were supposed to stand for. Shallash Herald of Beauty and Art destroys art now, Nale of Justice twists the law to allow him to kill people he already wants to kill for other reasons. And so on. Pailiah being Dova fits that inversion well. As to why Mr. T said he thinks she's Battah'Elin, maybe he really thinks she is. As shown above she came to him after he had his day of singular brilliance, so maybe he figured out she was a Herald, but was wrong about which one she actually is. He could be lying, but that's an odd lie. Unless it's something Pailiah / Dova asked him to lie about. The Truthwatcher Herald asking people to tell lies. Maybe there are two Heralds at the library, maybe they both really like reading. Battar is the Elsecaller Herald, maybe she's scholarly like Jasnah. As for Pailiah: "The Palanaeum was named for Pailiah the Herald. In fact, it was named based off the Greek word "Athenaeum".[5]"

If it had to be a Kholin she was the best choice. Being King didn't stop Elhokar from going on adventures (maybe it should have ). She's like a theoretical Monarch now anyways since Alethkar is occupied, she's Queen in exile. She can order around the other high princes and Alethi in Urithiru (except Dalinar), but she doesn't really have a country to rule.

Yeah, I'm sure he meant flashbacks. Fitting . I like the theme of change for the next book, but Song of Changes doesn't have a good ring to it. Song of Transmutation / Transformation / Metamorphosis... better, but not great. OK let's just look at all the synonyms for change. All meh, except maybe Song of Revolution(s). Songs of Revolution sounds better to me, but that doesn't really fit with how the Singers songs tend to work. One song for each subject. The in-world book could be a collection of songs that are all related to revolution or change. Song of Corrections is Peter Ahlstrom's song .

He's closer to a spren than the Honorblades are because of his sapience. He can also bond in a way, but not in the same way as Spren. It seems like he just bonds whoever holds him, like the honorblades do. I think the difference to me is Nightblood was a blade first and always a blade. He was their attempt to make shardblade, they weren't interested in the Spren part of it. Spren are cognitive beings made of investiture whose natural home is the cognitive realm and some of them saw the Honorblades and, with great difficulty, emulated them. But the blade is not their natural state, it's just a thing some of them can do. I'd lean more towards calling Nightblood a robot-spren or something if he was taken into the cognitive realm and he had a different form there like we saw with Adolin's blade. If he does have a form there I say it is creepy boarding school / orphan boy:

Yeah, red blood and moldy-smelling orange blood shouldn't mix . Magic handwave, it's either Adonalsium's doing or Cultivation experimenting. There is a surprising amount of humanoid variety considering humans have been on the planet for 6,000 years maybe a little longer and were completely isolated in Shinovar for a time after they arrived.

They don’t seem to have sapience and there is no evidence they ever did. I’m sure there are secrets about the blades yet to be revealed over the next 7 books, but I don’t think they are spren. The Heralds themselves are closer to being spren than their blades. (The Heralds aren’t Spren)

Eh, he retroactively addressed it well enough and I don't mean it as a slight. He's human and his ideas evolved as he wrote more. He wrote Elantris before he had the Cosmere firmly established and then he wrote the three Mistborn novels all at once but even with MB era 1 he's had to go back and change things because the events of the books did not fit with the mechanical rules he later established. The Elantris shard pool that helps people kill themselves. Kelsier being able to talk to Sazed in the fight with Marsh Brandon Sanderson Yup, that's it. Moving the well, playing with where Kelsier was, and the physics of moving through perpendicularities between Realms all kind of combined to make what I had planned originally there not work. I tried fudging things so Kelsier could be there, and felt it was dishonest to the rules. So I didn't let him stray far enough from the Well to talk to Sazed there. Peter had thought for years that was Kelsier, I recall, and was sad we couldn't connect them. Sazed talking to Vin and Elend and knowing they are "happy where they are now" when he has no way of knowing that because they are in the beyond where he can't see, so Sazed is straight up lying to Spook. Feruchemy being separate powers. Whether Marsh is alive or dead Hoid's activities during Well of Ascension

That's a good point, Shallan already had the sword as a child around the same time that Jasnah was officially meeting her spren as an adult. It's possible Jasnah started a bond much earlier in life, but it was halted. It happened with Shallan and it may have happened with Szeth.

Maybe Hoid has a grudge against Rayse and Bavadin because they killed his brother

OH SNAP! IM BURNT! I just thought " they are quite happy where they are" meant it couldn't be the Cognitive realm. It's a retcon and I missed it.

Yeah basically 40% of the Cosmere novels aren’t canon for Cosmere mechanical purposes I mentioned Secret History in my post, but I missed that he briefly talked to them when I skimmed the ending before I posted. It's a retcon and that's ok. Shards can’t go to either the beyond or the spiritual realm. Most of their power is in spiritual realm but the vessels can’t directly access it. I guess spiritual corpse is the more likely answer. Not satisfying “Evi’s” forgiveness is the equivalent of a mortician hearing air go past the vocal cords of a cadaver. The real person, the intent, the will, the ability to process new information is gone. Feels much less meaningful.