Gilphon

They sure seem to be very cautious of Jasnah, don't they? Like they seem to think she's as dangerous as Dalinar. To be fair, she was pretty badass as Thaylen City, but that can't be all there is too it; surely they haven't had to tip-toe around every Elsecaller to ever spring up. And, indeed, surely some of the Transformation Fused are better at Soulcasting than her. And, of course, we have the need to divert her being emphasized just as they say that they don't think they can suppress Radiants at the Fourth Ideal, and that they only know of one human who's definitely at the Fourth Ideal. And they also seem very worried about Artefabrians. Though I think Raboniel is overselling the potential there; from what we'd know it'd be really hard for an Artefabrian to catch a Fused, and catching every Fused sounds nigh impossible, but I can understand why they're rattled. Two Unmade trapped, after all.

So, by 'going further', does he mean 'introduce the Cosmere as a concept' or 'letting different series mix'? The difference between the two things is whether we're looking at a 'exposition about about travelling to other planets via perpendicularity, in general terms' kind of thing or a 'exposition about Azure's powers' kind of thing.

So. I fully believe that Brandon was not intentionally writing her as bisexual during WoK or WoR. I do, however, also believe that sometimes writers can do things accidentally, and that Shallan has several scenes that read better if you assume she's bisexual. Now. At the time of that WOB, Brandon would've been well into the process of writing OB. Probably late enough into that it is unlikely to have had a major impact on how he wrote her. But that's definitely not the case for RoW. It is totally possible that now that it has been brought to his attention that he accidentally wrote Shallan as bi, he has chosen to intentionally write her as bi. I don't really think it'll ever rise above subtext, though- I think it's likely to stay as stuff like what was in this chapter.

So Ialai said that the Ghostbloods would try to kill Restares. I'm inclined to take her at her word. So the implication would be that finding Restares will somehow make Shallan want to kill him.

So... yes and no. What I was doing was attempting to speak from the perspective of a hypothetical version of myself who does not have cosmere knowledge. That is the context of my original objection to your use of the phrase 'minimal build-up'; I feel that there's been plenty of things that a Stormlight-only reader is likely to take as foreshadowing before this point. I have been having some trouble, however, discerning whether you're concerned about the hypothetical non-cosmere aware version of yourself, or if you're concerned about Shallan. You've been saying the latter, but I also feel like finding some throwaway passage in WoR where Shallan thinks about other planets would not actually change your opinion. My current read on you- and correct me if I'm wrong here- is that you want the characters to act like this is a major shift to their worldview. Finding evidence that is not a major shift, then, would be missing the point. You feel like it should be treated as piece of huge new information, and are annoyed that it's not. Whether or not it's a plot hole that's not being treated as huge and new is, from that perspective, irrelevant. Do I have that right? So, this doesn't fit the exact words of what you're asking for here, since the scene takes place after the reveal, but there's Dalinar's interaction with the Stormfather following the Elia Steele revelation (paraphrased because I don't have my books handy right now): Stormfather: "Did you really think that humans were native to here?" Dalinar: "I thought... perhaps Shinovar." Stormfather: "That is the land you were given. A land where the plants and animals you brought with you from Ashyn could survive." When pressed on the matter, Dalinar admits that, at some point in the past he had considered the idea that humans might've come from some other world, but preferred to believe that they had just come from Shinovar. So this scene is Dalinar admitting that he had considered the idea of other inhabited worlds existing at some point before the revelation. And if Dalinar has, I think we can presume that Jasnah, at the very least, has had similar thoughts.

Ooh, another detail that supports this theory: Ialai believed that she was the only thing preventing the Ghostbloods from controlling the Warcamps. Sebarial is the one who created the Warcamp's economy, and still probably controls a good deal of the trade there. They've killed three highprinces who tried to control the Warcamps, but have done nothing against Sebarial.

To throw a bit of spaghetti at the wall, my mind drew a line between Restares hiding in Lasting Integrity and Navani's penpal claiming that the Honorspren's judgement can't be trusted anymore. Is agreeing to shelter a cult leader part of why this person distrusts the Honorspren?

You've misunderstood my point completely. I was absolutely writing from the perspective of what was new information to the characters. And I would, in fact, argue that Azure made her identity pretty obvious- obvious enough that I, who at the time had not read Warbreaker and had fairly limited Cosmere knowledge- put the pieces together without much effort. My mind was going 'okay, she's obviously from another world; she's all but outright said that and specifically denied every other reasonable explanation for what her deal could be, but which one? She doesn't match anything I'm aware of, and it seems like that weird sword Szeth has is from the same place.' And Mraize is pretty much doing that exact same thing here. He stops just short of saying that there are other worlds out there. He gets close enough to exclude every other reasonable possibility, but doesn't actually say it: He says that they're places you can reach from Shadesmar, and heavily implies that they're further away than Ashyn and Braize, but doesn't say anything more than that. It's still possible for a casual reader to think that Scadrial and Nalthis are odd and remote spren communities out there somewhere, although the implications say different. That's why I'm saying there isn't actually anything truly game-changing from the character's perspective here. And, indeed, I don't think the idea of other worlds being out there somewhere is that shocking to the characters. Like when the revelation happened at the end of OB, there was shock, yeah, but it wasn't at the idea of other worlds existing, or travel between them being possible, it was at the idea that humans had stolen Roshar from the Singers. Like Dalinar goes as far as to admit he had seriously considered the idea, but had just been hoping that humans start in Shinovar, and he's not exactly on the front lines of scientific thoughts. Everything kind of points 'familiar with the concept in principle, but ignorant of specifics' being the general Rosharan attitude towards that sort of thing. There's a WoB somewhere that I can't be bothered to find right now about how they'd shrug and say 'yeah, probably' if asked if they thought Roshar's moons were inhabited. And the same sort of thing is true elsewhere, by the way- there's a brief moment in Bands of Mourning where we see the characters jump to the conclusion that the Southerns are from another world. It kinda seems there have been enough unsubtle worldhoppers in the Cosmere's history that the idea of other worlds existing and behind potentially visitable has seeped into the general cultural consciousness.

Y'know, thinking it over, Sebarial sure is a character that has shown up consistently enough- and been consistently memorable enough- that Brandon can feel confident that he'll stick in the reader's mind. Despite the fact that he hasn't actually done anything important. Kind of implies he's being set up for some important role down the line, doesn't it? And, certainly, the line about Thaidakar being a title implies he has another name. And what's the point of making the reader ask a question like 'what's Thaidakar's name?' if he's not going to turn out to be someone we know? So yeah, I'm on board with this theory.

Minimal buildup? You say that like we haven't had two books worth of increasingly unsubtle hints of 'the Ghostbloods are Cosmere-aware', three books of epigraphs of Hoid talking with Shards, and one book of main characters from Warbreaker hanging out with important characters, making no particular effort to hid their identities. And nor are the ideas being dropped here particularly massive. Names are dropped without any context for what they mean beyond the implication that they're somewhere further than Ashyn and Braize, and there's talk about how it's hard to bring stormlight to those places. Not particular huge ideas, by themselves. Really the whole Allomancy/ Fabrial connection should be making a lot more people go 'wait what?' than any of thing Ghostblood stuff, that's all been built up pretty naturally. And in case, there's certainly nothing here the requires having read Mistborn to understand what's going on, or anything.

Honestly, although I've suspected Gaz in the past, my mind went to suspecting Adolin as the spy this chapter. Like, the Mraize comes so close to saying that he has a spy among the lightweavers, but doesn't quite say it. Like he wanted Shallan to suspect them. And then he sends her off to Shadesmar, where the spy couldn't keep watch on her anymore, unless it was somebody that she didn't suspect at all. I find ideas about any permutation of Shallan being the spy to be increasingly silly, to be honest. There's no way Mraize would be confident in his ability to keep that secret from her, quite apart from any other issues.

So, I mean, I won't say I haven't enjoyed these week to week discussions. And there are few weeks between when the book will be officially released and when I'm likely to get his grubby hands on it, and I can't say I'm looking forward to dodging spoilers for that time. But, aside from the bit about having to wait an entire year to read the rest, the book wasn't written to read this spaced out. It's worked pretty well so far, but we will run into pacing problems if it continues this way.

Flamespren make sense to me for this reason. But why rubies? Are they just the easiest to divide for real world physical reasons? Or are they best suited to holding flamespren? But then there's the detail about Reversers using amethysts. If you're right about why Flamespren are used for Conjoiners, they're probably used for Reversers as well. Which implies the difference is due to the magic properties of the gems. Navani's sure spent this entire time talking around the most mysterious aspect of Fabrials, hasn't she?

I mean, she found out that humans originally came from somewhere other than Roshar last book. I do not think Ashyn and Braize are new information to her.

If I recall correctly, Stormlight takes place a little bit before Mistborn Era 2, so Hoid's presence in those books implies that he does end up learning how to take a spren off-world.

My thinking that the guy is there hoping to research Fabrials. Like given what we now know about Fabrials and Metals, even the a basic amount of knowledge of the subject would get some pretty significant gears turning in the mind of anyone from Scadrial. If so, it's Navani that he's hoping to get close to, not Gavilar. Which, now that I say it like that, would be a pretty great counterpoint to the way Gavilar belittles Navani in the prologue; despite his posturing, his significance to the Cosmere as a whole was just that he was married to somebody who knows important things.

Oh, absolutely. It's also just scratching the surface of what might be possible. Stormlight can be used to manifest objects in Shadesmar to make travel easier. And stormlight can be taken off-world, then spren probably can as well, which leads to exporting Fabrials and Shardblades. And who knows what else. It could be a very big deal. Although Mraize overplays his hand by implying it's more important than the conflict with Odium. If Odium gets free, none of this stuff will seem nearly as significant anymore.

Pretty much. We've already seen some stuff along these lines, with Vasher/Zahel being able to sustain himself via stormlight and therefore not have to take other people's Beaths to live. So a way to get stormlight off-world would be incredibly valuable to the Returned. It's less obvious how he expects Scadrial to make use of Stormlight. I feel like it would take additional hacking to get an Allomancer to use stormlight, and I don't think a Feruchemist could at all.

I mean, an Aviar is not necessarily any real life bird, but it's clearly most similar to a parrot, what with it's bright green feathers and ability to mimic speech. I also feel like it's more likely that Mraize just has a bunch of Breath, giving him regular Lifesense.

Here's a question: Sja-Anat talked about having been forced to corrupt the Kholinar Oathgate. Was this a matter of her being too afraid of Odium to dare to defy him openly, or he can he physically compel her to do stuff?

I mean, I agree that Formless has probably been around all along, but emphatically disagree with the idea that Formless could be a Ghostblood agent. Formless is, most likely, a heavily traumatized child who creates her alters because she feels she's useless and unlovable on her own. Shallan, Veil and Radiant are all there do stuff whereas Formless feels she can do nothing. We saw Shallan talking about this explicitly when Pattern was trying to push her to remember her mom's death. And, like, Formless working against the other three would very much be the 'Hollywood DID' thing that Brandon has specifically said he's trying to avoid.

So, you're right that that was bad example, but I also thank you for posting that, because it made me realize that the WoB I was thinking of must've happened after that one, and that was enough of a hint for me to Find the one that makes it explicit that Ruin was bound because of an Oath that he interpreted different than Preservation did, and refers to that not being the only time that's happened:

If you convert from Rosharan years to earth years, Venli is 15 or 16 and Kaladin is 24 or 25. It's a detail that increases the age gap between the two.

Honestly though, my stance is that this is a good theory with some (much shakier) quibbling about the definition of colonialism tacked on and distracting from the actual meat of the theory. Like this is the first time I've seen somebody come up with a plausible reason for the spren to prefer humans to singers, and explanation for why the spren were said to have betrayed the singers.

The question of Godmetals being invested is a weird definitional question. Like they are solid investiture. Is water hydrated? Is soil dirty?