Q10fanatic

Honor considered himself bound by his own oaths due to his interpretation of the Intent, did he not? Cultivation cultivates things. I don't see why it would be inconsistent to want to cultivate herself in some ways too.

This is an interesting theory, but I think you are confusing Odium's Intent with what Rayse (Odium's holder) wants. Odium hates. That Intent drives Odium to seek to dominate/destroy everything. Rayse, as far as we can tell, is a psychopath that was already obsessed with power and being the strongest. Rayse works well with Odium but someone else might not be as obsessed with power/weakness, even holding Odium. I really like the idea that Cultivation could attempt to grow her power by combining with other shards. That seems to align with her own Intent very well but suggests that she may not actually be a "good guy" in the series.

Well, Shallan is Bi according to Brandon and one of Bridge 4 is gay (Drehy?). So we know Brandon is willing to write LGBTQ characters. I've seen speculation that Jasnah could be ace but I don't think we have enough evidence to say that with confidence.

This all seems plausible! Certainly, IF Adolin is actually on his way to reviving the Deadeyes then I think many people in the cosmere would be interested. You're right that Hoid would be uniquely well positioned to take advantage of a new form of magic appearing. I do wonder how similar the new MayaBond would be to a Nahel bond. Personally, I think the spren will need to agree to the bond at some point. I don't think anyone would be able to force a spren into providing surgebinding. They can even get out of hemalurgic binding.

I liked the theory. It built on what we already know. Sometimes there just happens to be a WOB that already addressed it.

I suppose there could also be a cache in Aimia. That is probably the most isolated place on Roshar that we've seen.

Dalinar also hears voices/screams of the dead. I think there is something about the sheer volume of person-to-person violence/death that those two have inflicted that has caused this.

Well, the Nahel-bond/Knights system is based on the magic given to humans from Honor after they came to Roshar. The Heralds came first, then the spren-Kinghts. So there is this call back to an older system but not as far back as you are suggesting. Also, the use of gems to bind Shardblades was not part of the original nahel-bond magic system. Humans use the gems to hack into the nahel-bond of the deadblades. So this is also a callback to an older system, but not to a time before Honor/Cultivation.

That is not what I got from the WOB. My understanding is that each Shard is intrinsically bound up, summarized by, and identified with the concept that names them. The Vessels were able to feel or identify the Shardic intent before they took up the Shards and the vessels applied the word in their language that best described that Intent. To a limited extent, the vessels of the shards are able to interpret the Shards in such a way that informs their actions, but over time the Shardic nature will come through. For an example from Scadrial: If we take Odium's statements at face value, he has interpreted his Shardic intent to be broader than "Divine Hatred" and thinks he is actually Passion. However, we have numerous in-world descriptions from other characters the contradict this. Also, Brandon says that Odium is not being honest with himself about his name and that he has always ever been Odium since the Shattering. I don't think it is accurate to think of Shardic intents as changeable, even by the Vessels.

That makes sense. I remember being surprised that it wasn't more dramatic when Szeth swore his ideals, and Skybreakers are right next to Windrunners.

Didn't Lift do something similar when she swore her third ideal? Or am I misremembering?

I'd argue that Shallan and Dalinar are examples of this. Shallan was a sheltered child, yet we know she advanced far enough to summon the Pattern-blade. In her POV chapters, we see her progress with her truths in times of stress, but not necessarily life or death battles, and not in direct combat (with the possible exception of the Battle of Thaylen). Dalinar swore the first two oaths while he was chatting with the Stormfather in a moment of relative calm, didn't he?

So then, if Szeth gets cut by a shardblade now that he has a nahel bond, will he be able to heal with it or would his understanding/intent get in the way? Also, why hasn't nahel-bond-healing interacted with his stapled soul/cognitive shadow self? Does his soul not recognize that as damage?

Yeah, I think crossbows are rare because they have a different "heavy" bow in the Shard bows. I'm sure there are differences between their capabilities but there is an in-world alternative to crossbows that we didn't have in an analogous era.

Isn't this concept already playing out in the decisions that led up to the Recreance? Giving up power to prevent additional damage? I suppose we could see the current heroes wrestle with this idea as they learn about what actually happened back then.

So, in the real world, thin blades were absolutely a tactical improvement on older massive blades due to the fact that they were faster/lighter. Think Three Musketeers vs Arthurian style blades. The reason was that people in real-life suits of armor (on foot) would often tire out or overheat and a lightly armored person could evade them until they collapsed. In a fight of two lightly armored people, if one had a massive two-handed sword and the other had a thinner blade more suited for fencing, then the fencer could dance in and out of range, score a hit or two and wait for their opponent to bleed out. This logic doesn't make sense on Roshar because the armor magically enhances the wearer, you can't tire them out as easily. Since you need to try to damage the suits of armor, you need as much mass as possible. This is why hammers and massive blades are common. Radiants, as we've seen them so far, throw these tactics out of whack because they are mobile enough to evade people in the suits and strong enough to do damage with lighter (seeming?) weapons. Once we see Radiants with Shardplate and Shardblade, we should see basically super soldiers. More mobile, better protected, and harder-hitting than anything else on the field.

I expect that Szeth's arc will reveal a lot of this, re: Shinovar and the Skybreakers.

I wonder what an awakened supersword would look like?

I believe that bondsmiths could definitely do something like this but Brandon has said the Ryshadium evolved. So they might not be mutually exclusive, but there has to be some evolution somewhere. Questioner #1 (in Mistborn cosplay) (paraphrased) Do Ryshadium exist because of a spren bond, like greatshells? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yea, they evolved symbiotically with spren, unlike other horses. They can still mate will other horses, but they are genetically distinct. OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

If a radiant touched a dead blade that didn't have a gem, would they hear it scream? I guess we'll have to wait until Brandon reveals one of the missing caches.

Do we know if those gemstones ever go dun or refill with stormlight? Is there extra investiture needed for summoning/dismissing a dead blade?

Yeah, that's the key question for me. My idea is that Shallan's portraits of others are somewhat equivalent to Jasnah's traditional soul-casting. Both drawing on the surge of Transformation, but one is Physical while the other is Spiritual. For that theory to be correct, I think Shallan would need to be using stormlight at some point in her process. However, I do think her more social interactions are quasi-magical in that they have more effect than a non-Lightweaver would. Analogous to Kaladin and his skill with the spear.

I don't know if simply one competing Shardic Intent is enough. Odium himself would certainly hate it, since I think Brandon has said he is terrified of anything that could change his intent. However, Hate + Cultivation might simply change him from raging evil god to ice-cold, calculating evil god. That seems utterly terrifying.

You have some fun times ahead of you! Reading Brandon's books, especially looking our for various Cosmere easter eggs, can be a tall order. If you like listening to podcasts, there are several that delve into various cosmere related topics and explain them in a way that much easier to understand than trying to brute force your way through the novels and short stories. Shardcast is extremely detail-oriented and I think is the longest-running cosmere podcast. Cosmere Conversations has done a whole series of introductory episodes on various big-picture concepts, including Hoid.

Oh wow! I had no idea those WOBs existed. I'd say those confirm my initial premise that Shallan's art is magical. And it seems even the more mundane conversation/counseling is magical in nature and might even follow the same in-world mechanics; that's surprising.