Gilphon

I don't know if all fused would be unable to use Plate; the Gravitation ones probably couldn't, but I don't think it's gonna interfere with every Surge; Renarin was able to use Progression just fine while in Plate. But there's also the issue or whether a Shardblade bond sticks to the body or the soul- So a Fused might have to go and collect their blade every time they die. Which would make the weapons less desirable from their perspective. But the nevertheless- a large number of Plate and Blades just kind of existing in the world- not being tied to the life of a particular Radiant- is probably an entirely new opportunity for the Fused- those things were probably the near-exclusive property of the Radiants in previous Desolations. I have to imagine the temptation to try and use them now that they finally have a chance to is great.

I don't even think the Surges are fundamental forces of Roshar- the Ars Arcanum says that the surges were thought of as the powersets of the Radiants before people started thinking of them as fundamental forces, and lots of Fabrials have effects that can't be mapped onto any particular surge without a lot of handwaving. Like there's a in-world idea that they the fundamental forces, and that's the real world inspiration for them, but the in-world scholars are incorrect; the surges are no more fundamental than the Allomantic or Aonic powers are.

I feel like Rlain makes the most sense- It should to be somebody whose is story is complemented by the Eshonai/Venli flashbacks- ideally somebody whose story is intertwined with theirs. Rlain fits that bill nicely. Navani and Adolin are the main other candidates, though.

Cursory googling tells me that Ducks are pretty good at surviving storms- there are even stories of them shrugging off hurricanes. Generally they try to vegetation to hide beneath- so I could see them managing to shelter in Rosharan Forests- although they are so closely knit that there's no room for the highstorms to knock over the trees, a duck is a pretty small bird, it could probably fit and be safe. The issue though isn't actually the highstorm- it's the lack of seasons. Like a lot of earth fauna; ducks have a bunch of adaptations designed to help them deal with winter that would be useless to them on Roshar, and thus they'd end up getting outcompeted by native fauna. Like their fancy circulation system that lets them safely walk barefoot on ice is gonna end up being a waste of energy. And as migratory birds, they have an instinctual drive to fly halfway across the continent every six months, which would be bad. So... my overall judgement is that it would be tough for Ducks to survive on Roshar, but not impossible if they found the right habitat. And given that their were definitely Geese that came from Ashyn, ducks would be far from the weirdest thing the Ashynites decided to bring over.

I don't see how they could possibly have a gemheart- like they're horses descendant from normal horses brought from Ashyn. How the heck are they gonna evolve a gemheart. I also don't think that Rock is the human equivalent of a Ryshadium, because I'm pretty sure that the human equivalent of Ryshadium is a Knight Radiant.

I don't know that there's anything supernatural going on with Rock's strength- I think he's just a particularly strong guy. Though I'd expect us to find out in his Novella and not before if there is something going on there. But other questions... I mean, we're talking relatively minor details here, not major plot twists or anything, right? Things a reader could conceivably not notice on there first read though. Well, one thing of that sort that's been on my mind is 'why can Mrall control his emotions so well?' Which was a weird moment in WOR that didn't get touched on in OB.

I'm in the same camp as RShara on this- clairvoyance is probably the Truthwatcher's main schtick. I feel like it should be possible for them to create illusions as well, but it's just a lot trickier for them than it is for Lightweavers. Like how Shallan's gotten really good at illusions but still can't consciously do the clairvoyance thing. Which would mean that the difference for Renarin is just that his visions show the future- getting visions at all would be a normal Truthwatcher thing. Possibly the visions are meant to be more controllable than Renarin's are, and Glys' corruption is mixing with Renarin's epilepsy in a bad way? That might just be his equivalent of the way Shallan has to draw things before she can make illusions of them, but I feel like they should have better control over their power by the third oath.

Mhm. There a few cases that make that very clear- Vedeledev is clearly just a bunch of extra letters haphazardly tacked onto the end of Vedel, Jezrien has an entire morpheme that's not present in Jezerezeh, so that doesn't make any sense as a nickname, and and the prelude they're clearly talking about Talenel as the full name and Taln as the nickname; they wouldn't nickname him twice and just not think of his full name at all, surely. And Ishar, which is the name the other Heralds call him, is actually longer than Ishi, so surely the symmetric form is the nickname if anything. It's a thing the Vorin do all the time- see also them just kind of inventing the name Nohadon out of whole cloth so they could claim the writer of Way of Kings had a symmetrical name. And deciding that any letter you want can be pronounced as 'h' so that they can write Honor in a symmetrical way.

To me, the biggest linguistic puzzle is 'what language were the humans who came from Ashyn speaking? And why is Shin Dawnate instead of being a relative of whatever language that was?' Like, if you look at the names of the Heralds, the linguistics seem like they match the Vorin languages most closely. But that's based on the wrong end of the continent. It's tempting to think it may have been the Makabaki parent language, but that doesn't resemble the names of the Herald at all. And surely the Iri parent language is what the Iriali were speaking when they arrive; so it must post-date the Ashynites. Which leaves Aimian, which also seems ridiculous. And none of that does anything to explain why the Shin adopted the Dawnchant. Also- it's odd that Herdazian and Reshi are in different families, given that both peoples are surely descendant from Rishir. I suppose they must have a lot more contact with Jah Keved and Alethkar in modern times than they do with the Reshi- and perhaps it's a place where the language families kind of cross over.

I don't mean to suggest that they detached Aimia; just that they took advantage of the pre-existed large island, just as they took advantage of the mountains that surround Shinovar. Indeed, I'm reasonably certain that Aimia wasn't detached, because the overall shape of the continent is still the Julia Set that Adonalsium wanted it to be. Though now you have me toying with the idea that Honor and Cultivation might've raised the mountains around Shinovar in order to isolate it. But that's any entirely different theory, if so. I acknowledge this as a reasonable counterargument. Greatshells have to be native to Roshar, because they simply couldn't survive anywhere else- without a spren bond they'd collapse under their own weight. I would suggest that that particular species was naturally endemic to the island before the Sleepless and Siah showed up, and they just learned to live with them. I'm talking about the Siah here, not the Sleepless. Blue people with super malleable skin really don't feel like any other Rosharan animal to me. Whereas the Sleepless feel a lot like several Rosharans animals, but I believe that to be a conscious effort to evolve natural camouflage on their part.

It's possible they didn't, his bond was just repressed like Shallan's was. Which would explain why managed to get a Highspren's attention so quickly- he's always been bonded to that Highspren.

Could be. The Siah are a bigger puzzle than the Sleepless, in broad terms. The Sleepless are just insects with magically-enhanced hive mind when you get down to it; that could've evolved on any world. But- I feel like we've gotten a good enough look at Scadrial to rule out there, I don't think they're be able to survive travelling through Sel's cognitive realm, and they don't react weirdly to water so they don't feel Taldain-ish. And I similarly don't see them safely reaching Patji's eye in large numbers, so First of the Sun is out. So your list is a good one, if we indeed assume they're from a world we know about. Though- I think there's a WoB confirming that there are only three sapient races native to Yolen, and I concur that Ashyn and Briaze seem unlikely. So Vax, Obrodai and Threnody are the prime suspects. But that's a tad unsatisfying because they're also the worlds we know the least about. Oh- forgot about Nalthis. I don't see any reason to eliminate Nalthis as possibility. Like Warbreaker don't talk about any weird animals, but that doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere on the planet.

I'm totally on board with the idea that Taravangian is Cultivation's unwitting agent, but that doesn't tell us what the real intention behind the diagram is. In the short term I think its instructions are the most obvious way that Cultivation is influencing events, but the overarching goal... Yeah, I'm board with the idea that the whole 'Taravangian conquers the entire world and that forces Odium to spare humanity' plan is a feint. I feel like the opinion of both Cultivation and Super-T would be that it would be nice if that plan worked, and that Odium should be lead to believe that was the real plan, but they shouldn't rely on things working out that well. I don't think think they're relying on a Diagram 2.0 happening, though. More likely there are just contingencies and things that don't mean what they appear to mean built into the first Diagram.

Ooh, I like this idea. It does seem awfully convenient that the only Herald who died was also the only one who hadn't broken. That things would work out that perfectly for them during the same Desolation where they reached the limits of their willpower is quite the coincidence. I mean, Kalak certainly didn't have anything to do with that, and I feel like Ash wouldn't have agreed to that. But I can imagine Ishar convincing Jezrien and Nale- and perhaps some of the others- that it was for the best.

I really don't think Nale is thinking of the Fused that way- I'm pretty sure that it's the Singers he feels are rightfully in charge. As in the living ones who haven't been body-snatched by ancient ghosts. Which I don't think is a point the Fused would argue, for whatever that's worth; they talk about how they're just taking charge temporarily until the whole 'human infestation' and how they're totally going to just leave and let their descendants take over as soon as that's dealt with. And from a legal perspective, which is almost certainly how Nale would think of it- when you die, your wealth is distributed among your heirs, so ghosts can't legally be landowners unless they acquired the land after their death. And even if they did, they'd lose that land if they died again. So the Fused don't have any particular claim on the land, because any claim they might have had would belong to their descendants instead. And, really, I dunno why you're trying to claim he's acting on some mysterious high ideal of law. He explains his rationale pretty clearly; the Everstorm giving the Singers their minds back meant that he couldn't justify treating the humans as the rightful owners of the land anymore. There's nothing particularly mysterious about it.

The Parshendi didn't want to bring back their gods, so their law hardly forces Nale to cause a desolation. If anything, they'd tell him to work to prevent that from ever happening. But generally he didn't seem to consider the Parshmen as capable of defining the law of the land, so the law of the land was what the humans said it was. Until the Everstorm showed up and made it so that the Singers could start having strong opinion what the law should be again.

Surely Nale's third Oath is to obey the law of land. Like that's why he switched sides, because if the land changes owners, then the laws he's sworn to follow also change.

It hasn't been confirmed, but we're at the point where that's fairly obviously the case. Like, it has been confirmed that Trell is a Shard that we now about, and it would make zero sense for Trell to be Harmony, Endowment or Cultivation, so the only remaining suspects are Autonomy and Odium. And at that point, Autonomy is just a much better for the evidence than Odium is. The ancient religion is very reminiscent of Taldain, and there's a random craftsman living on Taldain named Trell and it's been confirmed that that isn't coincidental. The modern Trellists talk about how men should be allowed to stand on their own without outside interference, and don't talk about Hatred or Passion at all. Creating Avatars all over the place in Autonomy's main schtick, and meanwhile Odium is totally stuck on Roshar. So, like, we can't be 100% certain, but, c'mon. There's Nun Raylisi, the evil God in the Tashikk religion. That's being clearly based on the name Rayse. But I know what you mean; that's not exactly a natural phenomenon is the same way the Tear of Edgli or Atium is.

It is odd that Nale and Ash think he hasn't gone insane, considering that from our perspective, his insanity is far more obvious and prominent than any of the others Heralds. Like it seems very odd that they'd look at everything he's doing and saying as Tezim and think 'yep, he's still got his head screwed on properly. He's the only one among us who hasn't lost themselves.' Like, Ash, Kalak and Nale all have problems, but they're not so far gone that they'd be dismissed as dangerously insane after a single conversation, like Dalinar did to Ishar. I can only think that he must be a better at putting up a friendly persona where he's talking to one of his supposed equals in person. Possibly he spends a lot of effort of convincing them that he has good reasons for everything he does. Convincing them that he doesn't beg the Stormfather to kill him every night.

The reason I'm pretty sure that's not the case is because if that was how it worked, the crem would be distributed evenly across the continent, like Stormlight is. And, since the purpose of crem is to counteract erosion, in the long-term we'd see larger crem-build-ups in the west, where the storm causes minimal erosion. But in fact Shinovar is covered in regular soil and regular grass and generally has an earth-like biome that doesn't seem to account for a bunch of sediment being dropped on top of it every two weeks. So that implies that the amount of Crem dropped is proportional to the strength of the storm- which makes makes sense if they're a finite amount of it in the storm and it's mostly run out by the time it reaches Shinovar, but is odd if it's supposed to be producing the stuff constantly.

I've also had this problem. I've dealt with it by just altering the URL manually, adding '?page=2' takes you to the second page and so on.

Well- yes and no on that front, I think. Because the reason Brandon (and presumably Adonalsium) made crem a thing was to make sure that the Highstorm will never erode the continent away. So the amount of sentiment being deposited as crem is gonna be roughly equal to the amount of sentiment the storms washes off the continent. So I feel like it's possible that whatever mechanism makes crem happen also recycles boulders and stuff from the bottom of the ocean.

That's a WoB that tells us two important things: Crem is the way is because how Adonalsium build Roshar; it has nothing directly to with Odium or Honor. Crem is definitely supernatural, and we should probably be questioning what it is and how it gets into the storm. Really I feel like there's gotta be something going on the other side the planet that 'recharges' the Highstorm is some way; hence why it's always strong in the east and always weak in the west. Possibly whatever mechanism does that also fills it with Crem?

I don't think it would be Odium's body, if you're right. Surely it would be Honor's, since Stormlight is Honor's Investiture and all. But- this is the first plausible explanation I've read for what Crem actually is, and that's something that's always bothered me. So props for that.

I mean, I feel like corrupting a Deadeyes would be easier than corrupting a normal Radiant spren, so there's really no reason to assume that that wouldn't be possible. I'm somewhat skeptically of the idea that doing so would revive the spren, though. It seems likely to me that Sja-Anat's power tinkers with the Investiture that's already in a spren rather than adding new Investiture, because surely she doesn't have to sacrifice a little piece of herself every time she touches a spren. It would probably have a visually obvious effect on the Shardblade, though- see how Renarin's Blade looks like it's a mixture of two different kinds of metal.