LewsTherinTelescope

Honestly, I'm sort of curious why a specific origin location for them is even needed. Could they not just manifest elsewhere???

I'd agree, especially since we know the Windrunners were not named until the Radiants formed (OB 64), so the order names referring to the Surge pairs were not all pre-existing.

Not directly Stoneshaping, but rather its "cousin" (as Khriss refers to it in the AA) microkinesis. We don't know details, but from WoBs, it is a subatomic particle manipulation magic that has a history of accidentally causing nuclear fission. Brandon's expanded on it slightly here, but not a lot. I'm curious if those restrictions even still hold, considering that even by Melishi's time, the limits on at least Bondsmiths' powers were weakening and/or gone, due to Honor's death. Not necessarily. Stoneshaping uses the Surge of Cohesion, Bondsmiths have the Surges of Adhesion and Tension.

I mean, no, not really (well, probably an IRL thing behind it somewhat, but that's not at all the in-world reason). RoW 76:

Fair. I think it's possible there's more, I just don't particularly see the need for it (and admittedly am in general kind of tiring of "there's always another secret" — imo that motto should apply to unanswered questions, not randomly adding to already pretty reasonably solved questions [or to a main character's entire life story four fifths of the way into a series and two fifths of it after a book full of their flashbacks, cough cough, but that's another topic], so perhaps I'm being a bit unreasonably strong against it).

a.) most were probably not in a position to do so, b.) while they were probably not happy about what happened, I don't think any of them wanted to start the False Desolation back up again. (In fact, this decision could very well have been a driving factor in leaving their Ideals behind — do you stick to Journey Before Destination and release BAM for the sake of the singers, but restart a horrible bloody war that was bad enough literally every single honorspren was needed to bond to combat it? Or do you leave her imprisoned, knowing the singers could be fixed but not wanting to cause all those deaths?) I mean, a.) if your god is directly screaming and raving at you, it's probably a lot harder to ignore, b.) the spren would probably back up the veracity of the claim like Syl did with Kaladin, c.) they very well know that Surgebinding is super dangerous and have a lot of personal experience with the powers. Many very serious things happened at the time, such as: Their home kicking them out and the orders starting to disband Their god raving and promising them they'll destroy the world and in fact have done so prior Them lobotomizing an entire species of people because they were messing with powers they did not understand

I mean.... accidentally destroying the minds of an entire sapient species isn't a pretty big sign they're screwing things up? (I also think that the "changes" in Honor, which we now know to be his death, are probably also part of it. If they realized the reason Melishi could do things no other Bondsmith had been able to was because limits on potentially all of their powers were failing....) From what Syl says, it's mainly that she wasn't ready for the loss, due to how young she was, and couldn't handle it. OB 95:

I don't see how it implies that at all? I don't think they all bonded outside Desolations like happened in that case, but like, Syl's old Knight spent most of his life going around to small villages and using her to cut aqueducts and stuff, and only went to battle when he was old. It'd be odd if there was a Desolation going on that entire time. (Also, we see a Windrunner in the Starfalls vision, iirc, which was explicitly prior to a Desolation.) Unclear. During the early Desolations, they pretty much had to, yeah. But the Silver Kigndoms lasted multiple Desolations, and the Radiants were hoped to be able to keep information between Desolations. So once the Radiants were founded, society may have ended up lasting more whole than prior.

Because we were explicitly told they did. RoW 87:

The fact that every single Windrunner, the largest order (iirc they were largest, anyway; I could be wrong) abandoned their Ideals on the same day does indicate it was a pretty fast event overall. That to me would indicate either some inciting event so terrible and so widespread every single group came to the same conclusion independently and very rapidly (side effects of BAM's capture is the top candidate here, I think), or some kind of pre-arranged thing. Based on what happened with the Tower, I'd assume that it was the former, and that news of this inciting event didn't reach the Radiants left in Urithiru for a while. Good point. Yeah, this is definitely a very big point.

Apparently spren bonds actually can and have been Passed: but I assume they do have to uphold the Ideals still.

I highly doubt he views himself as a fit for Honor. RoW 66:

Iirc, she later draws up to five. I think she was just being scouted out by a lot accompanying Pattern, personally.

I know someone (Grey, I think?) has suggested that perhaps they were starting to abandon the Tower even before it failed, due to the conflict between the Radiants and the Sibling, and that the failure merely rushed it (in which case the Tower Radiants might not yet know about the Recreance, in the chaos following, with no spanreeds and possibly all the Windrunners out on the battlefield having abandoned their Ideals, and the Skybreakers doing whatever it was they did at the time, leaving no flying Radiants), but even that feels kind of weird, and it doesn't really answer why there was no mention of a mass abandonment of Ideals later on when they would have found out. The timeline's just kind of confusing to me and I'm very curious what Book 5 will say to clear it up.

The problem I always have with this is that the Dawnshards aren't just vague themes, they're Commands. If you Command something to Change, why would you end up with the total lack of Change? Similar issue to with Preservation, I just don't see why Commanding something to rule would end up with something opposing ruling. Interesting, never thought about this pairing before. I do have to say, after this and this I have a hard time seeing Ambition as anything besides Change, because it feels like it just fits so perfectly. Adonalsium demands things Be Better, and Ambition runs with that hard. I do have to note that "Destruction" isn't really a great name for Ruin. It describes the effects, but misses the cause. Even moreso than it is about destruction, Ruin is about change and acceptance of the fact all things must break down and end. On its own, this manifests as destruction, but the Intent behind it is very different from that. It's an interpretation much more befitting of a Deity and of the powers of creation, as Brandon so commonly refers to Adonalsium and the Shards as. Odium is... complicated. It is Hate, yes, and this is its deepest attribute. But it's not just Hate. And of course, one of my favorite scenes: And look at the Unmade, Splinters of Odium. Nergaoul is the thrill of battle, the joy of it. Ashertmarn is an overwhelming hunger and desire, driving out thoughts of all else. Re-Shephir is driven by an insatiable curiosity, trying so desperately to understand those she kills. There are elements of hate, yes (mostly manifesting as an attraction to violence, rather than directly hate), but it covers so many other things too. And even were this not the case, Hate would have a place. Divine hatred and wrath and fury feels very fitting, and there are times where hate is necessary to effect change. Meanwhile, as @Lunu’anakisaid, I do think that, again as they mentioned, the ideas behind them can be reworked into things like Fear and Punishment, which, like Destruction vs what Ruin actually represents and Hate vs what Odium actually represents, have their place and are not inherently just the crappy versions of the concepts.

Apparently there were "a variety of reasons" that it was seen as not possible for anyone to absorb it.

I don't think it's super implausible, there does seem to be foreshadowing for it, but it just feels super anticlimactic and frankly silly to me because of the lack of any benefit it would actually give Odium. I don't see why it'd be a "draw", it'd just last a stupid long time before ending. And Taravangian was happy for the war to end. Putting a child forward and waiting for Dalinar to die of old age or something isn't going to free him. It's just going to let him prolong the war that he doesn't even want to prolong. (I also don't see how T would get Gavinor to agree to try and fight and kill Dalinar, but T is a manipulator if nothing else, so he might be able to do it.)

May I introduce you to shash, shash, and shash? But yeah, Brandon's got multiple times where exact words show up in completely coincidental ways, so I don't feel that something spelled similarly but likely pronounced completely differently is much proof. This is definitely an interesting thought. Hmm.

Brandon's confirmed that Elantrians are not Cognitive Shadows. Definitely disagree, I'd expect Devotion to result in more strings the way Honor does, because it's heavily based around ties and bonds. If you're Devoted to something, you're not just gonna leave it or give it to someone else very easily. (Imo, whatever is going on with seons being able to leave Sel is something odd and different, not the normal state of Devotion's Investiture.)

Ohhhhhh right my bad. That makes more sense.

She could use it for Progression, but not for Abrasion, so clearly it's more than just the Lifelight. Wasn't Venli able to use Voidlight to power both her Surges just fine, even though Stormlight didn't work for them with the fabrial on? Or am I misremembering?

Iirc, he's said the magic system will end up being more important than the planet will be, most likely. Which seems like a big assumption, since almost everything in-world and out points towards Nightblood not being a normal outcome.

Ah, okay. That makes more sense. Yeah that is kinda odd.

Yeah, but the way the WoB puts it, it sounds like it's not particularly major for them (it's paraphrased, but both phrasings talk about Rosharans having stronger immune systems, and "its a plague of the sniffles” is in quotes). So while it can be a big deal, it sounds like it is not necessarily so for most Rosharans. RoW even mentions it was kind of overhyped (chapter 23):

I feel like Sel and Scadrial are likely to get into a fight (or at least have increased tensions), considering Kel and the Ire probably don't like each other, and Kel leads a.) a massive worldhopper org, and b.) a religion on each continent, as well as c.) being a very important and admired figure in both places even for those who don't ascribe religious significance to him. And I'd guess the Ghostbloods are not the type to have decreased these tensions. Roshar's got trade with Sel and Nalthis currently, so they might be more reluctant to war, but that's by no means a guarantee there won't be issues, especially if Roshar works out making perfect gems at some point and no longer needs to rely so much on the Ire tech. Scadrial and Roshar will I'm guessing not get along well, since Harmony's currently trying to build an alliance to take out Odium at the same time the Rosharans are having giant blazing thematic neon signs about Odium being just a normal part of things now. Nalthis... I'm not sure, tbh. Though, Brandon doesn't seem to consider them one of the pillars anyway. Awakening's definitely useful, but up against the other three, I think they'd end up having to throw their support behind one rather than go on their own. I think that Sel would end up winning due to being very very hard to invade, so the others beat the crap out of each other and Sel finishes off the survivor. They might mean Elantris the city?