Rorzikel

After what we see of Shallan using Be Drehy to hijack his lashing's investiture, her variant identities melding so well with her powers, and her manifesting solid projections from lightweaving that draw blood, I'm starting to think that Soul Stamps might share more in common with Lightweaving/Soulcasting than I ever suspected.

Tien was a prospective Lightweaver, I believe.

I believe they thought that because that's what Sja-Anat used as a lie to Odium to explain how Shallan, Adolin, and Kaladin ended up in Shadesmar in OB (covering up how she helped them escape into Shadesmar rather than kill them).

Does the stormfather even lie in the excerpt or does Gavilar merely assume and presume?

Sometimes I think we have to accept that at a hyperspecific level the Required Secondary Powers trope kicks in to suit the story’s needs rather than Brandon’s writing ever matching a physics simulator. If Brandon’s unable or unwilling to implement that stringent adherence to our reality, then no calculation on the matter will accurately predict future ability mechanics. I may come at this very differently than the rest of you though. My philosophy is that hard magic systems exist so that the story can’t cheat when convenient for the plot, not that it’s airtight (pun not intended).

Cracks in the soul don’t necessitate a current DSM-IV diagnosis. Adolin has definitely suffered trauma, and no you don’t need to conform to some expected outcome. The death of a mother as a young child, a ptsd-riddled alcoholic war veteran (who didn’t get his act together for over a decade) for a father, an uncle assassinated, his father suddenly having fits during highstorms and claiming he was speaking to God, a brother with neurodivergence and epilepsy equivalent that was struggling to adapt to a toxic society, the reveal that his father killed his mother by burning down the Rift. What more do you want, three breakdowns before lunch onscreen? I’d say he counts, given his history and his reactions with Sadeas, but here’s Brandon redefining what he meant with “broken” being a flawed term and Lopen being meant to contrast with some of it: (bolding, mine) Truly there has been no greater wound to Adolin Kholin discourse than the phrase “golden retriever boyfriend”.

Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, doesn’t matter if that science was on gas powered engines or unsealed metalminds. I imagine whatever they can’t attain with investiture they’ll develop mundane substitutes, but our real life methods hold no intrinsic superiority if equal results can be gained.

There's also Radriar the God King from the non cosmere Infinity Blade novelizations that Brandon did. It's probably just a title he enjoys, perhaps inspired by Leto II from Dune as he's talked about that series before.

The ars arcanum is written by Khriss and the text follows non-Set protagonists. That it wasn't seen on page does not mean that it has not been tried or conceived of, and the absence of it being on-screen does not make it a plot hole or invalidate making god metals burnable by anyone.

I think Retribution as a name would work really well. "punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act."

Mistborn:

I think they're saying that they can only understand a shard of (possibly) self-determination and independence enabling domination is if the intent is individually self-centered and not universally applied for all. If Autonomy was just about making everyone as free as possible, the intent would compel something more anarchic and less organized amongst her followers/mortals. Personally, I'm side-eying the other definitions of autonomy for what Brandon might be thinking along the lines of: (in Kantian moral philosophy) the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires. (Christianity, uncountable) The status of a church whose highest-ranking bishop is appointed by the patriarch of the mother church, but which is self-governing in all other respects. I certainly think the shard is more complex than what I see people assume.

Brandon's explored this concept before with Elantris. The Elantrians actually had to make laws so their post scarcity capabilities to create goods didn't outcompete the merchants' labor. It's definitely a concept he's thought about before with powers and industry. Two things I think should be considered are: Currently they have bigger worries with the apocalypse and depending on SA5's outcome, such concerns may not matter. The theoretical potential of Surges is bound by the practical and logistical limitations of skill, oath level, knowledge and group coordination. I will agree though that Roshar was never going to develop into an Earth analog. They just don't have the same conditions as we do. Even without the Bondsmiths, Roshar has a built-in massive source of renewable energy that acts as both fuel and light source. I'm not even sure they'll bother inventing electricity and implementing it on a mass scale. They already use Stormlight for heating fabrials so there's no need for electric or gas heaters, gems instead of lightbulbs, conjoiners/reversers for propulsion.

I've never been convinced that just because Atium is a godmetal that it has to be equally powerful as Lerasium, not anymore than supposing that all allomantic abilities must be equally useful as mistings, but electrum-atium is already a gamechanger in combat situations. I expect that pure Atium would follow suit, perhaps allowing the user to cut through other forms of precog and Fortune.

Adding a connection doesn't seem enough. I think you'd need to store or excise preexisting connections to your birthworld, and blank your Identity. Maybe even have to use healing to try to revamp the body to fit the new spiritual ideal.

Re-shephir was previously trapped by a Lightweaver and has interactions with them as you say, as well as being compared to being a big creationspren when Shallan puzzles through possible interpretations. Under my theory, she would be a former cryptic and roughly a correspondence to the Lightweavers. Sja-anat herself in RoW describes her Enlightening as being an aspect of the surge of Transformation. She would be an analogue to the Elsecallers and originally an Inkspren under my theory. I do not regard her capability to lie as strong evidence that she is a stronger comparison to the Lightweavers in the text than Re-Shephir or that two of the Unmade are both equally related to the Lightweavers because of deception. Nergaoul would relate to the Dustbringers as a perfect ruby was used to capture him. He also works as an inversion of the Dustbringer oath given in the official listing on the ten orders on Dragonsteel's page, "I will seek self-mastery" through the reckless and uncontrollable state the Thrill creates. Moelach, I don't have a strong opinion yet. Possibly the Truthwatcher analogue, but that intuition is formed only off the fact that the Truthwatchers may have a relation to Fortune. I'm not terribly attached to the placement. Yelig-nar, whose gemstone given to Amaram in an earlier release was originally smokestone that became amethyst crystal and later in a revised rerelease had being amethyst to start with as well, I regard as a Willshaper analog. I've seen some attempts to categorize him as the WR due to his surge granting, but I feel those theories are based in the assumption that only Adhesion has relevance to Connection. That can be seen to be untrue with Venli in RoW speaking to the stones using cohesion. Ba-Ado-Mishram, being immensely connective and yet the Unmade are explicitly stated by Brandon twice to not have a Bondsmith equivalent, would be corresponding to the Windrunners and originally an Honorspren.

Brandon's said that they have some correspondence to every order except Bondsmith though: I think BAM relates to the Windrunners.

I'm very strongly of the opinion that the Unmade were created from nine Radiant spren from every order except Bondsmith because it was too difficult for Odium to pull off when both H and C were alive. Gives a good reason for why they see to have specific polestones that are necessary for each to be captured in, and a reason for why the wob says they mostly parallel nine of the orders except for bondsmith.

Or they might know and consider them/Patji too weak to be compared to "true" gods of full Shardic strength. Lots of invested entities are called gods, from spren by the Horneaters to the Returned on Nalthis, but most of them can't change the orbits of planets or create sapient life.

I'm not sure I'm following your point. I'm not suggesting infinite placements of koloss spikes for variable possibilities, I'm saying that I believe that there's probably 4-spike construct equivalents to the koloss for the other three human-attribute stealers. And that maybe Rashek never found more options because it was both really difficult and some of the options could be threatening to his rule. The man was basically a Terris supremacist and when faced with risks to his power immediately decided to neuter and enslave his people despite those beliefs, so I can believe he could see the threat and decide to pursue other avenues.

It's possible that he didn't try that hard with copper spikes out of fear. Maybe he tried a few times, failed, and then thought it would be better to stick with dumb muscle like the koloss rather than spend his research efforts making servants that were smarter than him.

Not on the list, but I've always found Ulim the voidspren very interesting for his human appearance and oddly modern speaking style/personality. His nervous interaction with Nale is gold:

Spren are cognitive entities and his process appears to shift the entirety into the physical (currently lethally). Heralds are stapled to a body like many CSs, though the Heralds make or reform their own bodies somehow to attach to instead of possession. The assumption behind my theory is that moving their entire fossilized cognitive aspect might change things. It allowed a true death for the radiant spren Dalinar found, entities that normally don’t even go to the beyond or not leave something like a deadeye. I just think it has potential as the hint for the method.

I just assumed it was Ishar’s experiments with making spren physical.

Given that the ars arcanum describes storing as entering a depressed state and tapping as entering a manic state, it’s clear to me that the primary use-case for Electrum Feruchemy is treatment of bipolar disorder. A person with the condition could store when they’re naturally experiencing mania and tap when they’re experiencing a depressive cycle. This is probably the safest and least prone to abuse as one would be consistently baseline; no need to be constantly depressed to buildup the storage or requiring compounding which would be easily abusable into just being Feruchemic meth.