mathwin

Based on the latest preview chapter, my sense is that Shallan's deepest secret is having murdered her baby brother/sister. Her first major truth is that she murdered her father. This was done in defense of others, because Lin had just murdered his wife and was on the cusp of murdering Balat and Eylita. Her second major truth is that she murdered her mother. This was in self-defense, when her mother and the Skybreaker her mother was having an affair with attempted to kill Shallan for being a Radiant. If the pattern follows, Shallan's next truth should also be a murder, but one with less justification. Lin was a multiple murderer who was about to kill again; if any murder could be considered "noble", this would be it. Mother was attempting to murder Shallan, and almost every person agrees that self-defense is at least a valid justification. Last one should be something unjustified, like killing the new baby because it was annoying or took attention away. This would also explain why Shallan's mother would be willing to kill her own child. If, say, six-year-old Shallan soulcast the baby into crystal one day, no one would have any clue what had happened. Shallan would at best tell wild stories about a sea of beads and a cold sun that would make no sense to anyone. Then a few years later, Shallan's mother learns from her Skybreaker that Shallan had actually done it - that might be enough. Mothers who murder their children tend to kill mostly or exclusively male children, and usually when they believe the husband has wronged them. It's much rarer for a woman to murder her children when she is unfaithful, although there have been cases when single mothers have murdered their children because they see the children as impediments to a new relationship. These scenarios don't apply in this case. It is much more likely that the Skybreaker simply convinced Mother that Shallan murdered her youngest child, and that Shallan was a danger to her other children as well (either directly or by causing the Desolation).

I'm surprised that no one has yet pointed out that Sja-anat has already un-corrupted them. They must be in regular working order for the Listeners to have used the Oathgate to attack Urithiru during the Battle of Thaylen City.

We know for certain that Navani, at least, married Gavilar for political purposes and it's fair to assume that Gavilar did the same. I would suggest that she's descended from The Sunmaker's line, but there are already a ton of people listed as his descendants on the wiki including Gavilar and Dalinar so they wouldn't need to marry into that line for purposes of legitimacy (although given the history of European royalty, it's very likely that all of them are descended from Sadees). The next-most significant historical ruler of Alethkar would be the Hierocracy, but given how the church's rule is now viewed even if we were to assume that such a dynasty existed it would not be a favorable political match. We can also rule out the possibility of Navani being a foreigner like Evi. The most reasonable possibility is that she was the daughter of another highprince, thus bringing another princedom into the kingdom, or simply the daughter of a powerful Highlord who brought either wealth, manpower, or shards to the kingdom.

It's worth noting that the other heralds believed that Taln would be able to keep the Oathpact on his own specifically because he's the only one who never allowed a desolation to start, hence even by then he had a reputation for bearing unbearable torment.

If you're worried about size considerations and you're able to unpack the archive, why not convert all of the images to grayscale in photoshop and scale them down to your reader's screen size, then repack the archive?

Most of the images in the books are monochrome, so I don't see any trouble.

A few dozen high-quality images will get you above 200MB easy.

Anglerfish?

This would be an excellent question for someone to ask during the next signing. Was Jasnah able to do these things because she has become so practised or because of the perpendicularity?

Not necessarily. Jasnah and Ivory made it clear that in proximity to Honor's perpendicularity her Soulcasting abilities were enhanced. Specifically that she found Soulcasting much easier to perform, and that the range at which she could Soulcast was increased. See her POV in Oathbringer Chapter 120.

I see Eshonai and Venli as more or less one character from a narrative perspective. The importance of a character from anonymous background character to main character, in Stormlight books, goes something like this: anonymous background < named background < POV interactive = interlude POV < non-interlude POV. We've seen a few characters get "promoted" so far. Moash went from anonymous background to named background to POV interactive through the events in WoK, remained an important side character in Kaladin's POVs throughout WoR, and finally became a main character in Oathbringer. The same is true for Teft, and arguably Rock and Lopen are also now POV characters. In WoK Eshonai was an anonymous background character. At the beginning WoR she moved up to interlude POV and Venli appeared as a named background character. After Eshonai bonded the stormspren, she became more of a named background character in her own POVs, and Venli's role became more POV interactive. By the beginning of Oathbringer, Eshonai was dead and thus permanently demoted to named background, and Venli had moved up to a main POV role. If you take the combined plot importance of the two sisters, it's roughly equivalent to Teft's or Moash's trajectory. In my estimation, the decision of doing flashbacks from one or the other is relatively moot. Each character did a certain amount of solo adventuring/research, but ultimately they're going to start and end in the same place. As far as the impact of the flashbacks, there will probably be more value in Venli looking back on her life and the decisions she made than Eshonai doing the same, unless Eshonai is still floating around as a cognitive shadow somewhere. This is probably the best solution.

Carry around seeds of some of the plants from First of the Sun. Just have to make sure you set them on fire when you're done or risk ecological disaster.

How long would it take you to summon a slug from your surroundings? They have effectively no senses, so you can't use them to spy or anything of that nature unless you want to strap listening devices to them. What are you going to do with your slug minions that would be helpful?

Ah, yes, the classic "what's the most useless superpower you can think of" game. My favorites have always been: the telepathic connection to slugs and snails, allowing you to summon and command them; and the ability to defy gravity but only under water. For particularly useless forms, how about Stoicform: no eyes, no ears, no nose, and no tastebuds, but you're twelve feet tall and indestructible.

We can rule out the possibility of the Sibling being a former Unmade that switched sides by virtue of the fact that there are still 9 of the Unmade in the modern era. Each Shard is associated with a certain number: 16 for Preservation, 10 for Honor, 9 for Odium - I'm not sure if we know any of the others, and Preservation's connection to 16 may only be a manifestation of the overall importance of that number in the cosmere. The connections between Honor and 10 and Odium and 9 are emphasized often in the SA novels: 10 is considered a holy number, and many things come in 10 varieties including radiant orders, polestones, and essences; 9 is considered an unlucky number and in addition to the 9 Unmade there are also only 9 orders of Fused. If the Sibling or any other major spren were created by Odium, it would only make sense if its creation happened before the beginning of the war and the creation of the Unmade.