Rorzikel

Some of Szeth's weird behavior might be returning to his homeland after so long. His beliefs on subtracting have to have shifted from the Shin norm anyways as he's planning on killing a bunch of people and yet considers it righteous.

Technically, whoever absolutely sideswiped Hoid originally with the draw move is the inventor of the "draws are the loophole" strategy. Hoid is definitely dumb as rocks if he loses twice this way.

That's not true, there's plenty of other contract breaking moves or things that weren't provided for. A tie occurring with a mutual kill. Goading someone like Gavinor into attacking a champion like Moash for revenge, thereby violating "We each send a willing champion, allowed to meet at the top of Urithiru, otherwise unharmed by either side’s forces." Dalinar getting stuck in the Spiritual Realm (as Cultivation hints might be hard to get back from) and missing the match without naming a new champion.

His knowledge on them might just be from asking the Stormfather questions while being in the abandoned honorblades vision. The location invites discussion but gives no clues on the people who left their swords.

It should make you uncomfortable, but I'm unsure why you think a child is incapable of saying ideals. We put legal and moral restrictions on children to protect them from harm, not because they're incapable of willingly making a poor decision. Example, many countries have age limitations on alcohol consumption/purchase. This is not because a teen or even a young child couldn't understand what alcohol is and still want to get drunk, but because a barrier to entry might keep a lot of kids away from alcohol until they mature. It is certainly unethical for the spren to accept even a valid ideal from a little kid, but at one point Pattern was struggling to comprehend the concept of eating food, so I doubt he would have had a clearcut understanding on informed consent.

Wit makes the distinction that the promise was not a formal covenant (somehow) compared to the oath. It would seem that only formal covenants carry over from vessel to vessel. I'm not sure what distinguishes something in the negotiations being included in said covenant versus being only a promise, but this is my read.

There can’t be no losses, not after Brandon just killed off the previous vessel and replaced him because Brandon felt that Rayse had been narratively beaten too many times. And not after the setup of there being a loophole in the contract. If Brandon did go with an easy win, then what would even be the point of the swap? It’d just be tension created only to be invalidated one book later. Risk and threat that never strikes is neither risky nor threatening.

I'm skeptical that the Radiants will naturally drift towards democracy or that it is inevitable. The nature of the spren's voluntary bond and the oaths' increasing levels builds hierarchies, and the squire system prioritizes networking and nepotism. Even the very existence of the Bondsmiths gives three people much more weight than most Knights as the providers of Light and manipulators of Connection. No one other than Dalinar had the ability to negotiate as Honor's stand-in, and any voting on the Contest would be at the mercy of his agreement.

I think both the Gavinor and Adolin hints are just red herrings, intentionally designed to play into popular theories and distract the fandom.

My issue with this is that Sja-Anat describes her Enlightening as a form of the Transformation surge. Rhythm of War Interlude 2: This is echoed in Raboniel, a Transformation Fused, using her powers to corrupt/Unmake the Sibling. RoW Chapter 42 Finally, I have some thoughts on some of these Unmade you sort into matches with Orders (though I have no issue with BAM) On Re-Shephir, I'd contest that she has a strong argument for Lightweaving. Part of that is built on how I see Sja-Anat as holding that role (if each Unmade corresponds to one surge), but also because her Midnight Essence does not corrupt or change existing things but instead mimics and copies. These copies feel more like Lightweavings with substance and limited autonomy. Moelach, I think there could be other surges with futuresight potential, but it's a point in your placement's favor. Chemoarish I strongly believe can't be the Dustbringer equivalent just because of a name association when the Thrill was sealed away in a perfect ruby. Nergaoul being sealed in a ruby, Mishram being sealed in a heliodor, Yelig-nar using an amethyst as a housing (originally smokestone but changed in a later version to amethyst). There are patterns to the gemstones relevant to certain unmade, and I think that outweighs bynames.

Good thoughts, Windrunner. We also don't know the limits of substantiation yet and what implications it may have, double bond or not. This is the first instance we've seen of it. In comparison, the first we saw of Honor's Truest Surge and all of its weirdness was just Szeth sticking objects together. It could be a risk for all kinds of reasons that don't relate to futuresight.

Either the Heralds are not human and are spren (in which case they and the Inkspren are comparable as sapient investiture) or they do count as human and inhumanity isn't necessary to endure milennia of difficult ordeals. Both interpretations of the Heralds as 1) non-human or 2) human-like have to grapple with reconciling their nature and their actions. If heralds are nothing more than men and women, then men and women can bear extraordinary pain and suffering while still being capable of wanting release, otherwise they couldn't break or want to break. If the heralds are spren, then they aren't an argument against spren having the same complex reality. The assignment of humanlike psychology cannot in the Cosmere be a reason that someone can't do what the Oathgate spren did, otherwise the entire plot falls apart.

You’ve formed your argument on the foundation of nothing similar to human psychology could hold to that oath for thousand of years, and that must mean that they couldn’t have previously thought of freedom. We have a canon example of an extremely human-like mind (a cognitive shadow) that just spent 4,000 years being tortured. The Oathgates had to only deal with boredom and loneliness. Within Sanderson’s canon, we therefore see that human psychology isn’t a disqualifier for these feats.

Counterpoint: Taln

I would've liked it if the Thunderclasts were the Tension brand, but there's a wob that seems to say they aren't Fused. It would be cool if the Division brand was always on fire like the Human Torch or more draconic than crab.

I think that lower stakes abilities can be more interesting than high power ones, depending on the storytelling. At a certain point, magic systems go full Dragon Ball Z and the emotional impact doesn't usually scale linearly with the power level. Not every magic needs to be a doomsday threat to its own world or have built-in exploits to game it.

It might pull glucose and water right out of your bloodstream.

Might be useful (if a bit grisly) if you wanted to keep an enemy alive but leave them injured enough that they can't fight.

I have not been under the impression that this is her actively and knowingly communicating with Shallan. As in, I don't think that's what Brandon is intending. It seems to me that Shallan is like a radio receiver picking up on something blasting out on the metaphorical airwaves. Either it is Connection and the gemstone doesn't shut off all levels or it is Fortune and Shallan is hearing something that Mishram might say if she was released, but I do not think Mishram knows who Shallan is and is attempting a specific dialogue.

The Heavenly Ones like their one-on-one aerial duels with the Windrunners, while the Lightweavers are the polar opposite of straightforward. Abidi has probably suffered thousands of years of stabbing an enemy with his spear just to find it was an illusion. I'd be annoyed too. Plus the Lightweavers seem like a pack of theater kids. They named themselves the "Unseen Court" and I'm guessing that would be in character for the old Radiant order as well.

"What Vasher was doing during the occupation" Looking for new job opportunities amongst dubious individuals in need of their own personal Oppenheimer. Come Mistborn Era 3, I expect to see Vasher sleeping on Kelsier's couch while he works on the programmable spikes or awakened metalminds.

Are you asking why ability spikes don't warp the body/mind or why they don't result in changes to the powers' functions? I'd argue that they do both. With the Steel Inquisitors, we know that they also have bodily distortion because they have railroad spikes going through both eyes and out the back of their heads, and yet can still live and think. Their brains are either shifted into a new structure around it or radically rewired to compensate for severe brain damage. Second, Steelsight comes naturally to them and, depending on what metal Kelsier's spike is, a spike through the eye might not even require a steel/iron allomancy-granting spike (this assumes the theory that Kel is using a duralumin spike to control the body is correct). He also seems to not be able to burn metals anyways, so Steelsight might just be an inherent benefit of an eyestabbing. So I'd say they both affect your physiology and provide new twists on powers.

I'll note that we get an epigraph from Navani on just subspren splitting that states there's many issues with using other types: "Advanced fabrials are created using several different techniques. Conjoined fabrials require a careful division of the gemstone—and the spren inside. If performed correctly, the two halves will continue to behave as a single gemstone. Note that rubies and flamespren are traditional for this purpose— as they have proven the easiest to divide, and the quickest in response times. Other types of spren do not split as evenly, as easily, or at all." -Chapter 13 If they are running into problems with other subspren in RoW era conjoiners, I have no doubt that truespren would be a nightmare if it is possible at all.

I don't think Helaran was a solid lightweaving, but he might as well have been with how that plot thread of Kaladin killing Shallan's brother and her finding out about it went nowhere, lol.

There's some qualifiers here: Shallan is a fellow Radiant and has authority over stormlight-based investiture. She knows Drehy and has preexisting connection to him. The Lashing was specifically placed on her by Drehy. What we know is that usually only the Windrunner who Lashed something can reabsorb the stormlight, but that this can get around it enough that she absorb it. The important thing to note is she didn't gain the ability to use his powers to make new lashings, she just was able to fool it into not resisting. We don't know yet if this would work on other investitures not tied to Roshar and Honor, on effects that weren't applied to her, and on Identities that she had no tie to.