LuckyJim

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.

This is a bit of a bold one, but here goes. Vyre doesn't rejoin Bridge 4 and the humans, but manages to bond an honorspren before the end of book 5.

You become a full Radiant when you bond a spren, at the end of Oathbringer, Lopen has bonded Rua. Skybreakers only become full Radiants at the third ideal, because highspren only bond Skybreaker squires when they reach that point.

Adding to this, in Shallan's flashbacks, we see that she's constantly trying to make things better for her brothers and help them deal with their more self destructive habits. If she blames herself for everything wrong with her family, this could be a part of it, where she takes responsibility for trying to improve things, but she was never really going to be able to fix her family. She's just a little girl and her father and brothers had issues that were far beyond what she was capable of repairing. I'd much rather her final secret/truth be something like this, it already bothers me that two of her truths were something she did rather than something she is, but this final idea (she blames herself more than she should / it's okay for her to be happy) could kind of compliment that. She's defined herself by the things she's done, but that's really not fair to herself. It would also be nice to see a Lightweaver truth be something positive, rather than revealing some dark secret.

So, in the preview chapters of Rhythm of War, we've seen that Lopen is able to summon a Shardblade, meaning that he has currently sworn the third WIndrunner ideal. I'm really interested in this, because I think it would be neat to see what that process would be like for someone who isn't as troubled as someone like Kaladin or Teft, and I'm really hoping that we'll get to see this moment in Dawnshard, since Lopen will be a viewpoint character. The question is though, what would his third ideal look like? The basic ideal we saw Kaladin swear is "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right", but I have a hard time seeing Lopen swear something like this because he doesn't really seem to hate anyone. It's possible he could just say those words anyway, but that doesn't seem to make sense. Radiant ideals are very personal, and reflect growth that is significant to the individual Radiant in some way, so I can't see Lopen swearing this ideal if it doesn't really mean anything to him. We also know that there is some degree of personalization in this ideal, as Teft's third ideal is different from Kaladin, so this will likely be the case for Lopen as well. Looking at Kaladin's internal thoughts leading up to him swearing the third ideal, the core idea of this ideal seems to be something along the lines of continuing to protect people even when it isn't convenient or easy to do so. To fight even when you feel you don't have the right to, because regardless people still need you, or to fight for people who you morally oppose, because it's the right thing to do. It's hard to think of what this could be for Lopen, there doesn't seem to be anyone he wouldn't want to protect, and he can keep an optimistic attitude even in the literal apocalypse, so there doesn't seem to be situations where it would be hard for him to act. But I think what's likely in this case is protecting people, even if that means he has to hurt others. We haven't seen Lopen fight in the books yet, mostly because he only had one arm in the first two books, but we also didn't see much of him in the battle of Thaylen Field. The moment when he swears the second ideal is when he's comforting a wounded soldier in his own, Lopen way, rather than a dramatic moment of rescuing civilians (much to his displeasure) and I think that speaks a lot to Lopen as a character. I don't think Lopen is the type of person to want to hurt others, even if they are enemies, he always likes to see the best in any situation so perhaps his third ideal would be protecting others when he's forced into a situation where he can't.

I had a similar idea, I think that that image is going to stick with Moash, and be an important part of his development moving forward. If not to rejoin the humans, then at least to break Odium's influence and become a force to defend the singers rather than destroy humanity.

If I could chip in, Moash absolutely does have a moral code. While most of his motivation is his desire for vengeance for his grandparents, it goes a little beyond that, because he doesn't just want to punish the people responsible for the act, but the system itself that oppresses darkeyes and allowed it to happen in the first place. He didn't just want Elhokar dead, he wanted Dalinar put on the throne instead, because he believed Dalinar would be a fair king that wouldn't let brightlords abuse their power and kill innocent darkeyes. This changes in the prison camps, where he realizes that the problem with Alethi society wouldn't be changed by swapping out one king for another, because the problems are so inherent, they're baked into humanity itself. When given the chance to escape the abuse of lighteyes, the darkeyes of the prison camps decided to put Paladar in charge and lick his boots instead. Paladar had no power, but they still gave him all their food so he wouldn't have to work for his while mothers and children starved. At this point he decides humanity is so morally corrupt (aside from exceptions like Kaladin) that they just aren't worth saving, and he decides to throw his lot in with the singers because they aren't human. He even stands up to a Fused overseer when he abuses some singer prisoners, begging them not to become like humans. He's not just mindlessly looking for vengeance and destruction, there are events and logic that led him to the decisions he made, even if you don't agree with them. I could see this happening, with Moash eventually becoming a Windrunner for the singers who "can't protect themselves".

The people forming bonds with beings of conceptualized thought, giant swords and power armor, and ancient gods aren't enough? But seriously, having a secret personality being the spy feels really gimmicky, and I'd rather Shallan's character development be more focused on her and how she learns to deal with her condition rather than just some new personality twist.

To add to this, he genuinely respects Kaladin as one of the only good humans in the world. During his viewpoints he shows real regret at having betrayed Kaladin, and he considers him to be the exception to how corrupt humanity has become. This is why he doesn't fight Kaladin when they meet at Kholinar, despite being on opposite sides of a war on an active battlefield. I really think he genuinely thought he was doing right by Kaladin, he probably would have tried to convince him to join the voidbringers if he didn't already know Kaladin could never do that.

I'm of this mind too. I don't think Moash is going to come back to the human side, Odium or not, seeing Paladar at the prison camp would have made him think the whole "eye color" system has broken humanity beyond repair. I think having Moash decide to work toward a future instead of total destruction would be good enough for a redemption arc.

I kind of hope so, I'd like to see a character that recognizes that humans aren't really all that great, and ultimately throws their lot in with the singers to help them rebel against Odium and the Fused. You can kind of see that being set up in Oathbringer, when Moash meets Paladar, and helps Sah and Khen's group in the Fused prison camps. One recurring theme in Stormlight seems to be that no matter what you've done, you can still become better (even Gaz became a squire) and I don't think anything Moash has done really puts him past the point of no return. Obviously, he'd need to have a moment of self realization break Odium's influence, but I think it would cool if he gets a moment where he decides "the world is corrupt, but that doesn't mean I have to be". That being said, after chapter 8 it seems like Moash isn't really headed in that direction (for some reason Renarin's vision makes me find it less likely to happen) and I think I might have just been projecting my own ideas on Moash's character.

I don't think he's successfully revived Maya, at least to the point that he could bond her and become and Edgedancer anyway (mainly because it would seem a waste to put that in the timeskip). Still, this could mean that Maya isn't quite a dead blade anymore either, maybe she's come as close as she can to being restored, but needs something else before really making that last step.

Okay, I just want to point something out here. I don't think the age difference is a big enough thing to be a deal breaker. In Mistborn era 2 we have Wax, a 45 year old man, engaged to Steris, while we don't know her exact age she's been described as "nearly 30". So the age difference here is about the same, and it hasn't really been seen as a big deal. In fact, I'd be for a sort of reversal of the typical older man/younger woman couple that's fairly common in fantasy stories in general. That being said, I really hope Jasnadin doesn't happen, I think their personalities and values are just too different.

Is Adolin holding a gun? Nevermind, I'm blind, that's just the hilt of his sword.