LuckyJim

Maybe he's a Sleepless, and the one who wrote the epigraph for the Way of Kings (one of them will destroy us). Either that or he's a spren or something, I just really doubt he's human. I might just be missing something important, but it seems really weird to me that a human managed to get into Lasting Integrity and convince the honorspren to let him stay.

I wouldn't mind this sort of publication model actually, but only if there was more than one chapter published a week.

To add to this, swearing the original oaths only works if it's the Radiant who broke their bond in the first place. Kaladin reviving Syl is a simple matter, because he's repairing their bond, but the Radiant who bonded Maya is dead, so it wouldn't work the same way. Brandon has suggested it could be possible, but it would require something extra.

I wouldn't say "as good as dead", I think for that to apply, someone would have to be making some very disastrous decisions that were likely to lead to them getting killed, and that doesn't really apply to Adolin. I think there's more for his character to do, but the same could also be said about Elhokar or Eshonai. Most of all, I think I just resent the idea that Adolin is going to die out of process of elimination, someone has to die and he's the most disposable, I don't know, it just seems very cynical. If someone's going to die, I'd rather it make sense for the story than just done out of some obligation. And yeah, Adolin is also my favorite character, I'm not immune to bias.

Nale is currently the only herald to have joined his own order, and he's the only Skybreaker currently who has reached the fifth ideal (though part of this is due to his flawed teachings). Neither one of these suggests that Taln will be unable to bond a spren of his own and become a Stoneward as well, even though he's not currently.

Worldsinger - A novella detailing Sigzil's early life in training with Hoid, and the events leading up to him being made into a bridgeman. I'm not entirely sure about this, on one hand Sigzil isn't that major of a character, but on the other hand he was oddly cryptic about what it was he did that led him to become a brigeman in the first place, which makes me thing there must be something in there that's important enough to see at some point. Also, Lightweaver - A novella from the perspective of Shallan's squires, covering their path to Radiance while tracking down Ialai and the Sons of Honor.

Perhaps the third group is Jasnah and Taravangian. Both characters are major leaders, and probably have to deal with more internal political struggles. At the same time, they both have a greater understanding of the larger conflict, Taravangian through his new alliegiance with Odium, dealings with Cultivation and the Diagram as a whole, while Jasnah also has knowledge of her own through her dealings with Taln and Ash, Hoid and he travels in Shadesmar. This would make for a sort of background story, while the more important dealings of the actual war, fabrial advances and the listener movement take the foreground. The first group would likely then be Kaladin, Dalinar, Navani, Venli and perhaps Szeth through minor contributions and interludes, or if not him, Renarin.

Personally, I don't think he's a Radiant yet. Most predictions that he's a Dustbringer, Stoneward or Willshaper are all orders with spren that are very opposed to forming oaths with humans again. Also, I think it would be a lot more interesting if he's just a talented escape artist, no magic necessary, people are capable of some very impressive feats just with their own abilities.

I think if you have to argue technicalities in regards to age, that's a pretty bad sign by itself.

From reading Brandon's annotations, it sounds like this was something he got from reading Wheel of Time, where characters that had a minor role interacting with the main characters at one point, would often show up again and meet different main characters. I think he uses this sort of writing well, and it makes the world of Roshar feel a bit more holistic, though if I weren't following fan forums, I'd probably never recognize most of these characters.

YES! My theory of a third faction of listeners was right! It's cool to see Venli building her own pseudo-rebellion, I like that the listeners are able to maintain agency in obtaining freedom instead of being forced to rely on humans, she's becoming a proper Willshaper. I'm also just really excited to see more chapters focusing on the singers/listeners as well, and hopefully maybe some more Radiants from this as well.

I don't think the Kaladin/Leshwi ship makes sense, she's Fused, a being corrupted by Odium and cycles of rebirth that only desires the eradication of mankind. She and the other Heavenly Ones are nice about it, with the whole "honorable duel" thing, but their motivations are still basically the same. Venli and Kaladin kinda works, but they haven't actually met, and it seems people are more interested in the idea of Kaladin being romantically paired with a singer than the actual relationship itself.

What if group 3 is meant to be Venli and Moash/Vyre? My main assumption in this is that Venli is still with the Voidbringer army, she's a Knight Radiant now, but the singers are still her people, and I would assume her allegiance is to them first. Even if she knows that Odium is bad for the future of her people and Dalinar seems cool, she can't trust humanity as a whole to have their best interests in mind. We also know that she's going to have a smaller role in comparison to other flashback characters in the past. On the other hand we have Moash, another major character still in the Voidbringer army. He had a lot of build up in Oathbringer, both in developing his character and motivations, and becoming a highly respected figure in the Voidbringer army, to the point that he's basically an honorary member of the Heavenly Ones. I think its safe to say that we can expect more from Moash than for him to just be a antagonist to hate and then get unceremoniously killed off, I think there's going to be some good development for him in the future. There's some decent room to have these characters and their current headspaces bounce off of each other, they both have highly respected positions in the army, but have very different reactions. Venli is dealing with her guilt of unleashing the apocalypse and is trying to move forward and help her people, she's currently part of the Radiant order that valued freedom, fought oppression and built new social structures. Meanwhile Moash is also dealing with his guilt of betraying his friends, and disillusionment of his people as a whole after fully recognizing just how corrupt they've become, but does this by just giving up on life, and completely submitting to Odium's will. Maybe Moash would be an antagonist for Venli to overcome, he has respect and sway over the singers so she has to convince them to follow her instead, or maybe she can help Moash break Odium's influence and help him become a force for positive change instead of accepting destruction. I could be completely wrong I just really like both of these characters, and I'm excited to see the directions they go.

Any Windrunner with a bonded spren of the third ideal is capable of taking squires, the Windrunners may have been entirely dependent on Kaladin in Oathbringer, but at this point there's plenty that are at the same level as him. It's entirely possible that any squires dependent on Kaladin just moved to the command of a different Windrunner.

Would a sylpel even work? I mean, shardblades don't cut through living things, if anything it would just do more harm by killing the flesh he cut. Anyway, I'm also interested in seeing Kaladin go back to his roots as a surgeon. He's been pretty busy keeping Bridge 4 alive and protecting Dalinar, it's nice to go back to his central conflict of whether he can protect people best as a soldier or surgeon.

I think he has the potential for it anyway. Becoming a Radiant isn't a goal in and of itself, it's the start of a journey that frequently involves personal growth and change (journey before destination, after all). I totally agree with this comment, Adolin is nicer than most lighteyes, but still pretty blind to the true struggles the darkeyes face, he's a noble in the highest position Vorin society has to offer, it's not really something that affects him at all. That being said, I think this could make for an interesting journey on the path to becoming a proper Edgedancer, the fact that he's kinder than most lighteyes shows that he has the potential for greater change. It would be a challenge for him to look past his privilege and truly listen to the unfair treatment of the darkeyes, outside the occasional mistreated soldiers or prostitutes right in front of him, but that's what makes character arcs interesting. Being in the position of power and influence he is, he could do so much more for the common people as well, rather than just healing the sick and supporting townspeople, he could make real change in the system itself. I think one major factor in which spren bond which humans is just proximity and convenience. Sigzil and Lopen don't seem like prime Windrunner material, but they were Kaladin's squires so they had the attention of the honorspren, and managed to do a good job of it. I think a similar thing could happen in Adolin's case, he might not have gained the attention of the cultivationspren normally, but due to his relationship to Maya, she may decide to she wants to bond him regardless.

Maybe it's the other way around. The current "Shallan" is who she became after her mom died. This perfect daughter, who mainly served to calm down her dad, and protect her brother from his more violent tendencies. Meanwhile, "Formless" is the feelings she's been hiding from ever since she was a child, she tries to be a perfect wife for Adolin, but it feels fake, or like she doesn't deserve it because Formless is hiding under the surface.

Now I just have the image of Maya and some new spren fighting over Adolin like some really weird love triangle.

Another thing to consider is that each of these books is written in the native language, and "translated" into English, so there may be some difference in word choice that Vivenna would have used in a Nalthis based book. For example, Galladon always punctuates his sentences with words like "kolo", or "sule", but when he appears in The Way of Kings, he uses the words "understand" and "friend". The words he's saying haven't changed, but because he's speaking in the native language of the Purelake, it's all translated into one language, rather than a mix of Arelon and Duladel languages. The Alethi don't have Returned, the closest they have are the Heralds, but those are a very specific thing, so Vivenna probably uses the term "gods" because its the closest word the Alethi would have to understand what she's talking about. They also don't know about different planets, so she may be saying "my land" as a simplified way of communicating "home planet".

That's a fair point, some people probably would be better suited to progress through certain ideals than others. In that case though, I'd still hope to see what happens when Lopen swears his third ideal, just to see what that would look like.

She's descended from southern Scadrians, but was born on Silverlight, and sought out and recruited into the Ghostbloods, so I wouldn't say there's a strong connection. The Ghostbloods are mainly just worldhoppers, with connections to many of the different planets in the Cosmere.

I saw someone on reddit suggest it was Malata, which makes some sense to me. We know that her spren, Spark, already hates humans for all the true spren they killed at the Day of Recreance, maybe she also considers fabrial creation a form of slavery.

This idea of a third faction is something I really hope to see. I don't think the singers should necessarily join humanity against Odium, because they probably wouldn't be treated well, ally sure, but remain an independent force that won't be ruled by the humans that oppressed them for millennia. Since Moash has effectively cut his ties with the humans joining that faction would be the best option for him. As for his name, I think it's just a name. Sort of a quirk of how language evolves over time, and certain names that were part of one culture bleed into another. We know that singers and humans had families together a long time ago, so some names that were traditionally singer names were given to humans over the course of several years of cultures mixing.

I think arguing that anything about killing children is "honorable" is some dangerous territory. Even as the Blackthorn, Dalanar refused to kill Tanalan because killing a kid is despicable and he knew it. Burning Rathalas was not about honor, it was about anger and revenge, and everyone would agree it was a bad decision. It ended the conflict quicker than a drawn out war, but at the expense of hundreds of innocents. There isn't and shouldn't be anything honorable about that, and there's no defense to what Dalinar did, the only defense is that he worked to become better after that. Ultimately, the difference between Dalinar and Sadeas is that Dalinar began to regret his actions and change before Sadeas did. Would Sadeas had the same turn of heart if he lived longer? Possibly, and Adolin may have robbed him of that chance, but the longer you keep going down the same path, the more you invite opportunities where someone's going to shank you in an alley. Also, Adolin did not regret his actions, he said as much in Oathbringer, but it was because he thought this was the only way to keep Sadeas from doing more harm.

First of all, I just wanna say that focusing on whether or not Adolin is "broken enough" is a pointless argument. Yes I know about the whole "cracks in the spirit web" thing, but at this point it's pretty clear that it's really not that important a requisite for becoming Radiant, and it's kind of a reductive way of looking at characters overall. Anyway, I think it would be really cool if Adolin became an Edgedancer. I don't have problems with there being as many Radiants as possible, because Stormlight is a more "magic heavy" cosmere story and a big part of the premise is magic returning after being gone for millennia. I also think it would be interesting to see how the prince of one of the largest kingdoms in the world adjust to learning to remember and listen to the common people of the world. Sure, he's nice to common people but that only means he's capable of greater change, he's not really conscious of how badly lower class citizens are treated by the system that placed him on top. The whole Radiant progression is all about the individual journey, and seeing how people from widely different walks of life grow and change to these new abilities and responsibilities, so while there is potential in seeing how Adolin adapts to being normal, there's plenty of potential in seeing him adapt to Radiance as well.