LewsTherinTelescope

For Odium, it would probably be a very bad idea because he'd expend way too much power doing something so dramatic and be very easy to defeat. For other Shards, they probably don't want to kill all the inhabitants of their planets nor the ones in the target system, nor completely destroy any solar system they pass through by dragging a planet or star right through them. Edit: also, because you would need to go very fast to arrive anywhere else in a reasonable amount of time, space is very big.

Yeah, definitely is from before they fled, since he appears in Secret History and Secret History is likely a century or two before the evacuation (Shadows for Silence takes place during the "few generations" between Warbreaker and Stormlight, so presumably 200+ years after Era 1, and they had to have fled within a century-ish of SfS since Silence's grandmother was around then [there's a line about the waystop standing over a hundred years, but that is... questionable for that reason, and may be a timeline screwup on Brandon's part]). Edit: oops, forgot to comment on the main part of the post... That's also pretty plausible, yeah. May have been under control for a while, or have been a result of something being messed up.

This has definitely been my favorite theory for the Evil. We see with Rayse that when the Vessel dies, even their clothing comes along with the corpse for the ride, so I think a fain Vessel who was killed would very likely have skullmoss on their dead body. Though, it would likely be affected by the immense amounts of Investiture in some way (we know if a kandra were to eat a Vessel's corpse there would be minor weird effects, but if one were to be made into a Lifeless there would be major weird effects, so there's definitely some changes going on on a less Physical level, which could play oddly with the way skullmoss spreads and twists things). Worth noting that Ambition was Splintered outside the Threnodite system, so I don't know if Uli Da's corpse would have been on Threnody, but the "mortal wound" could have ripped some stuff off, perhaps (which would likely result in it being even more twisted than Ascension alone would do). So maybe we're working with not just skullmoss but like... shade-ified skullmoss, or something. Whatever the Evil is, it seemingly didn't force evacuation from the Homeland for several millennia after Ambition's death (Shadows for Silence takes place between Warbreaker and Stormlight, and Silence's grandparents were among those who initially fled), which could be explained if only a small amount made it to a place it could spread from and so it building up enough to consume an entire continent took a long time.

Ah okay. Yeah, it's interesting, and I do agree that it's not really what I'd expect. I'm very curious to see what's up with that whole situation.

100%, even if he does develop and get better, he still willingly turned his back on them (prior even to the likely Odious influence in Oathbringer) and then killed their friend. Improvement does not have to mean forgiveness nor forgetting. Agreed, it'd be good for him to find his own path. The blindness is an interesting wrench in things. Certainly feels like setup for something big, but can't say specifically what. Tbh this feels to me like it'd be repetitive after Kaladin's Oathbringer and Rhythm of War arcs. Not to say that, from an in-world perspective, it wouldn't have a shot at working, but from a narrative one it would imo feel too much like a step back.

Could be. The Sibling seems to imply they were spren who underwent some sort of transformation, though. (Which brings us back to the weirdness that is Soulcasters all being made in Aimia...)

Something worth noting on this, the reason why I specifically took it to be "child of" is the following quote: So he's legally considered her father, and her name now has "bah-Vstim" appended to the end, so to me there's a strong implication there (and "babsk" may itself come from a similar root word). But yes, it is indeed unconfirmed. Veden seems to include the shift (Shallan refers to Kalak as "Kelek"), as does Natan (Puuli also thinks about "Kelek"), but Herdazian appears not to (the Mink swears by "Kalak"), so the shift appears to be a common but not universal trait. (Someone named Eth also swears by "Kalak", but as far as I can tell we don't know his nationality.) Thaylen is a more distant relative to Alethi than Herdazian, so I'd say most likely the shift happened after the two languages diverged. That seems reasonable to me, since those are two of the languages he's specifically cited as sources, yeah. I've wondered about this as well, my current guess is that it has to do with religion. If originally the moons were possibly named after the Shards, then as Vorinism shifted towards monotheism and began to drop the name "Honor", they may have started to use another name (perhaps "Nomon" relates to "Almighty" or to one of his ten names [would be nice if we knew more than one to try and guess...]? if so, it wouldn't even necessarily have to be an intentional change as much as just the association remaining through the evolutions for a while, and so people organically applying his new names to "his" moon). If I had to guess, there's probably not a true chain of command, but the more intelligent ones may occasionally be able to get the others to do what they want by arguing with, bluffing, and/or tricking them, at least when Odium isn't directly supervising.

Tbh I honestly can't think of other outcomes that would be satisfying atm, though Brandon's a talented author and could definitely work something out. Kaladin's already sworn the Fourth and moved past the main hurdle I'd expected a confrontation with Moash to be relevant to in book four, and Moash had his breakdown where he just kinda crumples pathetically and admits how much he hates himself for his actions (for a short time anyway). So a Kaladin-Moash fight like everyone (me included) expected prior to RoW now feels to me like it would have all of its oomph already taken out, and would just be retreading ground for both of them. Another Navani-Moash conflict similarly feels like it'd be old for the same reasons, it was already the climax to RoW (and "he's wrong, the leaders of a nation don't bear any responsibility for harm they cause, I just know it even if I can't think of any reasons!" like already happened with their confrontation is far from a satisfying answer to his grievances...) Could have a confrontation with Dalinar but honestly that would probably just feel both hypocritical and somewhat out-of-nowhere when Taravangian is already set to be the one with a big thematic confrontation against Dalinar instead, in my opinion Redemption-by-sacrifice imo only works effectively as part of a bigger climax to a thematic rivalry (and I don't think Brandon is the type to pull it cheaply without one), so I don't think it would work without any of the above I guess you could do something with Gavinor but I think that if Gavinor and Moash do have a conflict it'll be a "cycle of retribution" thing in the back half alongside a slow burn redemption, not something in book 5. Can't see any other way it wouldn't just come across as a raging hypocrisy on the part of the characters for Gavinor to kill Moash in a vengeance-fueled rage being okay but Moash killing Elhokar for vengeance for his grandparents being unforgivable. So a redemption that starts in the front half and continues into the back half (whether to succeed or be cut short by Gav) is the only ending for him I can think of after RoW that wouldn't come with major structural and/or thematic issues, personally. Now, again, Brandon's a skilled writer, so I think it's pretty likely he'll think of something different that works, but as things currently stand I can't imagine what it'll be. Though I think a successful redemption that ends with him as a main character would be some great flexing of authorial chops on Brandon's part, if he chooses to take that route. (One of my favorite crack theories is that the reason Brandon is so cagey about the Dustbringer character, only willing to say it's "really weird" and "really complicated", is that "Ash" for book eight actually means two characters, Shalash in the past and Moash in the present. Is it likely? No. Would it be glorious if Brandon managed to pull such a thing off, twisting the fandoms' collective opinions back and forth that heavily? Definitely.)

She says "a Radiant spren, judging by their shape", which is... really weird, because she should've recognized it if it were say an inkspren or Cryptic or another Radiant spren...

Mainly because Pattern directly refers to it as Transformation, I assume.

It's in Oathbringer, when he's speaking to the Azish: Brandon's actually specifically described it as a "melding" before. Very minor Era 2 spoilers:

It actually does seem to be pretty normal, the Ars Arcanum talks about it a lot too.

I mean, they're Bondsmiths, I'd be shocked if the NW Bondsmith doesn't, well, smith bonds. Agreed. I'm not as sure on this, depends on what exactly defines what a spren is the spren of. Possible, though, especially with Dalinar's whole "remnants of the Shard of Honor" stuff going on. Definitely agreed. (Side note, Bondsmiths get Tension, not Cohesion, but even Brandon made that mistake in Oathbringer and needed to fix it in later editions after the book was published, so understandable mixup ) Assuming you mean it in the sense of Radiant bond specifically (since Brandon uses it incredibly inconsistently lmao), yeah I doubt it would be the same thing. Agreed, Sja-anat doesn't strike me as terribly Bondsmith-y or Connection-y.

Ah, found it, thanks! So yeah, lot of non-combatant ones.

Hell, even Taravangian cites the First Ideal and seems to believe it, though as he's obviously not bonded to a spren we can't really use that as evidence of what a Radiant bond specifically permits. But it shows how differently people themselves can take it, at any rate. To be fair, from the sound of it almost every singer may have been in a Regal form during the False Desolation, so that doesn't seem to be the normal state of things. Interesting, do you remember where she said that?

Lmaoooo that's awesome!

The thing is, she herself is an external force, and anything she does is going to be external influence. It's something of an inherent paradox to the Shard, how does she prevent external control of one party without herself exerting external control on the other party? It's an Intent that by its nature is going to need concessions made to get anything done.

Probably, yeah, was just expanding the analogy off the top of my head. So perhaps instead you offer Ambition an apple and it tells you to conquer the orchard from its owners I dunno if that's because the Intent is "self-directed" as much as just that Autonomy as a Shardic Intent is something that will inherently need to make sacrifices (how does one act to increase someone's autonomy without taking away autonomy from someone else? let's say you free a slave, doesn't that [from the amoral perspective of a Shard] take away the owner's choice, even though it clearly grants a lot more freedom to the person?) and so she's kind of forced into playing the long game and rationalizing actions in ways a lot of the other Shards just don't have to grapple with.

Also, better hope none gets into their pores or skin or nose or mouth, otherwise they are dying a very excruciating death when it gets changed back.

Given by Brandon as well, but it's one of those WoBs I freaking hate so I try not to think about it too much xD

That too, in addition to the other factors. In-depth reform of the justice and policing systems of a nation she has no power in is a task that would take years or more likely decades of dedicated effort (if it's doable at all, which is far from certain), even being able to flex her "princess in a different nation from this one" muscles. Meanwhile, she's trying to prevent a Desolation, and if she weren't she'd probably be working on her own country. I feel it's pretty unreasonable to expect her to fix Kharbranth's issues, but nonetheless she wanted to do something to help the issue and did so, offering the thieves every chance to change their mind up until the moment she actually had a knife swung at her. She didn't force them to wait in the alley, she didn't force them to show themselves, she didn't force them to threaten her, she didn't force them to swing a weapon at her, she just walked down an alley perfectly normally up until the moment they actually tried to kill her.

Though, something worth noting there is that Shards aren't self-directed – Preservation isn't about preserving itself, Ruin isn't about ruining itself, Odium isn't about hating itself, Cultivation isn't about growing herself, etc, they're about other things. So it might be that you walk up to Ambition and say "want an apple" and it tells you "don't limit yourself to one apple, go find ten!" or something like that.

Agreed when it comes to the dictionary definition, but to me the word "adversity" specifically brings to mind the "growing through adversity" idea (and every sample sentence in several dictionaries that I can find actually uses it in a similar way, which half surprises me half doesn't), which is why I like it. The connotation, at least to me, is not just fighting or adversarial behavior, but specifically the idea of fighting a challenge and growing stronger and more resilient, which imo fits well (it's obviously an imperfect word still, but then so are both Odium and Passion, single words will always fail to capture even a single Shard fully, let alone several). Obviously your mileage may vary when it depends on implicit connotation only, of course. Yeah, Ambition's a weird one. Sort of reminds me of Honor, actually. "I want you to keep an oath." "An oath to what?" "I dunno, an oath!" So I imagine Brandon's got something worked out, the same way he did make Honor work, but I'm extremely curious what specifically he's doing with it. Yeah, agreed. Perhaps also relevant:

I like the name "Adversity" for this concept, personally. Bit more specific of a word and also more... Shard-y sounding, in my opinion, but getting at the same idea. (Technically I suppose the word may not have to mean that, but I've almost always heard it in the context of "overcoming adversity" etc, so the connotations of it make it fit well to me even where the definition on the books technically offers more wiggle room.)

Lol yeah fair. Brandon likes adding in enough toys that if he really needs he can do whatever he wants. Leras explaining what Hoid took. From what Brandon says, Connection is a more abstract force thing, not made of anything exactly. There's actually a WoB asking exactly that (I cut to just the relevant part of the quote but the context is asking if the Spiritual and Cognitive are entirely made of Investiture):