Wherethewindgoes

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AMoL means A Memory of Light, which is book 14 in the Wheel of Time, a series started by Robert Jordan and finished by Brandon Sanderson.

WoB stands for "Word of Brandon", which means all of the things Brandon says in interviews, Q&As, that sort of thing. Basically any information that's been said by Brandon somewhere other than his books.

This is a slight tangent, but I thought of this while reading through the thread and wanted to put it out there:

The ardents are secretive about Soulcasting and don't let anyone see what they're doing. Have we ever actually seen someone use a fabrial to Soulcast? Perhaps something happens to ardents during Soulcasting that they don't want others to see, something that has to do with them crystallizing . 

There might be something important about the positioning of the Heralds, not in relation to the Shadesmar map but to the Silver Kingdoms map, which has the same border but flipped.  The only thing I can see is that Jezrien, who is called the Stormfather, is in the direction of the origin.

Any thoughts?

I don't think the man who calls himself Taln is the writer--he's hardly conscious, and doesn't even know what's going around around him. His interlude makes it sound like he isn't faking.  

The spren would likely have the knowledge required, but Brandon specifically said it was a group of people. 

Which leaves either some group high up in the Vorin religion or a group we haven't met yet.

The blade Dalinar had isn't the same one that the man had in the WoK epilogue, though. They were shaped much differently. Taln probably bonded the Honorblade and dismissed it at some point, and then was given a normal Shardblade (likely by Hoid).

On the other hand....

There is a missing honorblade, still.

Which Honorblade are you referring to? I believe they're all accounted for--seven with the stone shamans, one with the man who says he's Taln, one with Kaladin, and one with Nalan.

Dalinar never says he knows what they are, just that they are his.

There's a different scene, though, when Navani asks if the visions could be related to the Nightwatcher, and Dalinar says he knows what his curse and his boon are and they aren't the visions.

My current theory is that Dalinar went to the Nightwatcher after Gavilar's murder and asked "what are the most important words a man can say?"  As his boon, he learned the 2nd oath for the Bondsmiths (I will unite not divide, etc.), and as his curse, he forgot everything about his wife.  This would explain how Dalinar knows the WORDS at the end of WOR, and it has the symmetry that we often associate with the Nightwatcher (learning something important and forgetting something just as important).

 

Thoughts?

Kaladin seems to just figure out his oaths (possibly with help from Syl), though, so I would imagine Dalinar could do the same, especially because the visions had told him to unite everyone as well.

In terms of Dalinar wanting to forget some horrible thing his wife did (mentioned earlier in the thread)--wouldn't he then not remember why he had gone to the Nightwatcher, and not know what his boon was? Knowing she had done something horrible but not knowing exactly what it was isn't all that helpful, although maybe that's the sort of thing the Nightwatcher would do.

What about Gavilar's Shardplate? I don't think Elhokar lends out a set of Shardplate, and Dalinar said he won Elhokar's Shards from the Parshendi. So who has Gavilar's Shardplate?

How can you be certain that a parshman has never died, with only humans to tend to?  I'm sure there have been scholars that have dissected one.  In all the time that's passed since the last Desolation, there is no way that every dead parshman/parshendi was properly tended to by another parshman/parshendi.

 

It could be how they're able to communicate over vast distances.

Small WoR spoiler:

On the main topic: We know that the Parshendi don't like humans touching their dead, but they don't touch their own dead either, correct? I think Dalinar mentions that they step over the bodies as they retreat. I doubt they would be willing to cut open other Parshendi and pull out their gemhearts. 

Yes, but is 'durability' a physical thing or is it a Spiritual/Cognitive thing that can be enhanced/manipulated via fabrial? Just increasing the durability of a piece of paper to make it like steel shouldn't change whether or not a Shardblade can cut it, but if you did something to its Spiritual makeup or reinforced its Cognitive perception of itself, then a Shardblade might have issues with it.

I think this explanation makes the most sense--perhaps Shardblades, being spren, don't affect the physical aspect of an object but the cognitive, and living things have two cognitive identities, one of the living being and one of the actual physical parts it is made up of. The guards, and the half-shards, somehow have strengthened cognitive aspects. The fabrials the half-shards use are augmenting fabrials, but they aren't necessarily augmenting their physical durability--perhaps they augment an object's cognitive aspect, reinforce its sense of identity.

I was under the impression the storms were going to hit Shinovar from the east? :S

The Everstorm travels west to east, so it will go around the world and hit Shinovar from the west.

I think the 10th iteration looks a lot more like Roshar, except for that curve on the top right. In fact, if you take that part out and shift it to the other side, then rotate it, you get this...

...which looks rather familiar...

So perhaps the shape of the continent was originally modeled after the Dragon Curve, but Aimia broke off somehow?

 

It can't be a basic lashing for three reasons:

• Kaladin doesn't know how to do basic lashing at that point
• basic lashing is not accompanied by the release of stormlight that accompnies these events
• He walks around normally afterwards, not weightlessly as he would if he had half-lashed himself upward.

When Shallan and Kaladin fall into the chasm in WoR, Shallan survives the fall too, so I think that's just part of the physical enhancements given by Stormlight.

If it's math related it might be something about the numbers on the latitude and longitude marks on the map.  Does the map reveal the entire planet or just one continent?

The map reveals just the continent, but the continent is the only major one on the planet.

What latitude and longitude marks are you referring to?

 

I suspect that the 'champion' thing is due to the Oathpact, probably a set of rules crafted by Honor which Odium is forced to obey. 

There is this WoB, however:

Q:  How many parties were there to the original Oathpact?

A:  The Heralds and Honor. They thought that by walking away from their oaths, that it would break the Oathpact. They're going to find out that it's not quite as broken as they had previously thought (meaning the Heralds).

It doesn't seem Odium is directly involved in the Oathpact itself, just that the Oathpact had to do with the Heralds fighting him.

 I definitely could be very wrong, but I remember seeing a WoB that I can't find at the moment that said there was something very different between how Kaladin healed and Szeth healed. 

There are two regarding Shardblade healing:

Q:  What about Kaladin getting sliced with the Shardblade and then being able to rejuvenate.

A:  That is a clue for what is going on with Szeth and his understanding of Shardblades and the Shardblade he has.

Q:  Which is an Honorblade, right?

A:  I can't say, but Szeth says in book one you can't heal a Shardblade wound with Stormlight. There are other very big but subtle discrepancies between what Szeth does and what Kaladin does.

 

 

 

Q:  Szeth in the prologue of book one says he can't heal from a Shardblade wound, but Kaladin can.  What is the distinction there?

A:  You should be looking to see if you can find other distinctions between what Szeth says and what happens to Kaladin, because there's three or four big inconsistencies.

I imagine either Szeth can't heal because his Honorblade healing isn't as powerful, or you can heal wounds from Honorblades and not Shardblades.

On another note, how exactly does Szeth know that you can't heal Shardblade wounds with Stormlight? Perhaps he has witnessed two people with Honorblades fighting? That could mean Radiants can heal Shardblade wounds but people with Honorblades couldn't.

I've been running that scene through my head with Nalan and the mysterious other ambassador in the hallway.  Is it possible this was actually a skybreaker, and not a herald, and when he says " That creature carries my lord's own Blade" he's referencing that Szeth had Nalan's blade, not Jezriens? 

Szeth clearly uses the adhesion surge, though, so the blade must be Jezrien's.

As the OP mentioned, Kaladin does know glyphs, so he could learn to write with Amaram's phonetic glyph method, 

Do you think somehow Oathbringer will end up back with Dalinar? Somehow revives the spren? 

I imagine reviving the spren would require re-forming the Nahel Bond in some way, so reviving Oathbringer would require Dalinar to be in two KR orders at once. I believe there is WoB that bonding multiple spren is possible, but I'm not sure how that would work out.

So we know five things for certain about this hidden thing:

-It can't be discovered solely by looking at the map.

-It requires math-related knowledge to figure out.

-It is related in some way to a spiral galaxy.

-It's not particularly important.

-It doesn't say anything about Roshar's future, but reveals something about its past.

With that in mind, I'm going to go through all the ideas proposed on the page Peter said people were getting closer and see if they fit what we know:

1. Roshar is slowly going down the drain.

This doesn't seem to have any mathematical aspect to it, and doesn't have to do with spiral galaxies. This could also be important to Roshar's future, so I would consider this one unlikely.

2. The mountains could be giant walls.

This isn't really math-related either, and doesn't have to do with galaxies. 

3. Roshar is somewhat symmetrical.

This evidently isn't the actual Easter Egg but it could be related (if the thing had to do with fractals or tessellations, for instance).

4. Roshar could be slowly moving west.

This doesn't seem related to math in any way, and doesn't have much to do with galaxies.

5. Roshar looks similar to certain fractals.

This is definitely math related, but I'm not sure what this would mean about the formation or history of the continent. Does anyone who knows more about fractals have any idea what it could mean>

6. Roshar looks like a hurricane, or two hurricanes colliding.

This doesn't really relate to math, but perhaps it has to do with the shape of the Highstorms and crem buildup?

7. Roshar could have started out as a small central landmass and spread out more and more.

This isn't really math-related either, although it has some relation to spiral galaxies in that they are formed similarly.

8. Roshar could be floating.

I'm not sure how this would relate to math or spiral galaxies.

9. Roshar could be a tessellation.

This is related to math, but I can't see how it could relate to the shape of a spiral galaxy.

So...hmmm. The only ideas that really seem plausible are that it relates in some way to fractals or tessellations. What this reveals about Roshar's past I have no idea.

I think we can say with certainty that this Easter Egg, whatever it is, has to be about the curved shape of the continent--that's what the person asked about when Brandon said they were on to something. Somehow, the shape is related to math and spiral galaxies.

Any thoughts?

There's a dragon? I know the series is called Dragon Steel but a literal dragon?

Specifically, Edgedancer is (I assume) referring to the recipient of the letter in the Way of Kings epigraphs.

Dalinar never says that he knows his curse and boon, but he implies that he does. Forgetting his wife falls perfectly in line with all the other curses we've seen, which seem to stick to being mental. His boon was likely something else entirely.

I don't think there's enough evidence to make a solid guess at what his curse might be, though I suppose the curse could be that he was chosen to receive the visions, and have the weight of uniting Alethkar on his shoulders.

I don't have the book with me, but in The Way of Kings Navani asks if the visions could have been related to the Nightwatcher, and Dalinar says he knows what his curse and boon are and they're not related to the visions. It's still a possibility that he's mistaken, of course, but I would imagine he would remember which thing he asked for and which he didn't (unless it's more complicated like Taravangian's).

Sorry haven't read every comment in the thread but has it been mentioned that the Taln in the warcamp could be someone lightweaving themselves as Taln?

No one's identifying him by appearance, though, because they don't know what he would look like. 

I wonder why you associated the Ideals with The Way of Kings. I don't believe they had anything to do with the book.

Isn't the first ideal of all the Radiants a quote from The Way of Kings? 

Do we know for sure what hemisphere Roshar is in? Since crem from highstorms caused (at least partly) the shape of the continent, we should be able to tell the direction of rotation of the highstorms based on the shape. It looks to me like clockwise, but I could be wrong. This would mean either Roshar is in the northern hemisphere or it's in the south and the planet rotates the opposite way to the Earth.

Also, Brandon's response to the question about Roshar looking like a spiral galaxy makes me think it could have something to do with how spiral galaxies get their shape. The only relevant information I could is that the stars inside a spiral galaxy are the oldest, and the ones outside the youngest. Perhaps Roshar started out as a small central landmass and spread out more and more?

Any thoughts?