LuckyJim

I think there's a very strong chance that there's going to be some revelation about how the singers were the original aggressors who kicked off the Desolations rather than the humans, but I really don't want that to be the case. Despite seeming like such a huge deal in Oathbringer, the reveal that the humans were the original Voidbringers didn't really do anything to change the way the war progressed. All it really did was change the name they used to refer to the enemy. So if book 5 comes around and reveals the original human settlers didn't actually do anything (intentionally, at least) to harm the singers it would just make me wonder what was even the point of that plot twist in the first place.

Something I noticed that might relate to this. In WoR, when Pattern talks to Shallan about her surges and powers, he mentions something about using Illumination to access the Spiritual Realm, which he calls "a realm of only truth" (or something similar, I'm not quoting directly). In context, he's discussing how she's been using Illumination to show the deserters more idealized versions of herself, and their own selves through her sketches. We also know that Progression has some relation to the Spiritual Realm, since it heals people by conforming their physical body to their spiritual ideal. So maybe both surges together allow the user to more directly look into the Spiritual Realm, at least in a kind of limited sense.

Hopefully he doesn't have her thrown in jail.

We know that there has been non-violent interaction between humans and singers for many years during the desolations, to the point that entire populations of Roshar are descended from human/singer unions. With so much cultural mixing, it's entirely possible that some aspects of the different cultures were picked up by the different races. "Moash" was probably just a name that had origins with the singers, but started to be used by humans some time before the Recreance, and continued to be used up to current day.

Lift is kind of a weird case. She is darkeyed, but she also doesn't live within the Vorin caste system and almost immediately after she's introduced she starts living a life of luxury since she's friends with the newly elevated Prime of Azir. Not to mention, as a Shardbearer she's a de facto lighteyes now. That being said, her story does seem to deal with how the lower class is treated due to her own background as a street urchin and her duties as an Edgedancer. It's very possible that her story will deal with these issues in more depth once we get to her book.

Technically we've only seen two orders get their blade at the third ideal. Windrunners and Edgedancers through various Bridge 4 members and Lift (Lift is a little weird, she summoned her Blade before swearing the third, but it was probably close enough.) The whole timeline for Shallan is weird. She probably got hers at the third, but until we get the timeline fully fleshed out it's hard to say. Skybreakers probably get their blade at the third, since that's when they bond their highspren, but we've never seen a third ideal Skybreaker summon a blade.

Because living blades glow, and Testament was still alive when the blade was put in the lock box.

Honestly, were it not for the annotation by Brandon, I would have bought that Wit and Jasnah were friends with benefits after reading chapter 99. It's probably just because we don't get a lot of chapters from Jasnah's viewpoint, but the way their relationship was written felt very casual.

I don't know if this proves anything, but at the end of WoR Shallan is going through the scene where her mother died. She looks into the safe and thinks something like "it wasn't her mother's soul, but the object that had taken her soul" or something along those lines. The point is, she was realizing that what she thought was her mother's soul was actually the Shardblade, and that she had associated the glow with her mother's soul because it came from the blade that had killed her.

Didn't care for Moash on my first read of the series. I didn't hate him, I just didn't think much of him. I knew he was the guy everyone hated before I read Oathbringer, but once I actually read it I kinda thought "is that it?". He just felt like a fairly standard villain and didn't really prompt any strong reactions from me (It didn't help that his relationship with Kaladin was very "tell don't show"). It's kinda hard to explain the exact process of what happened next, but after another reread or two, he became my second favorite character in the series *behind Adolin) and I felt he could easily take the top spot depending on how RoW went. Then RoW was actually published, and I haven't been okay since. Anyway, Szeth has been kinda growing on me lately, I guess.

I agree, I think someone would have to legitimately not know what pregnancy is for them to view it as something so foreign that Stormlight healing could terminate it.

I don't think there's any way to disprove this theory until we get more information, but I feel like it would do more harm than good to the story, because it makes Shallan's character arc even more repetitive than it already is. By the end of RoW, Shallan's finally worked past the guilt she's had over the pain she's caused to others in her childhood, and finally worked through her repressed memory and at the end of the book says she's filled all the gaps in her memory. After taking such a big step forward the next step is to do the whole thing over again. More repressed memories from her childhood and more guilt about harming people through her actions. I realize that she isn't a reliable narrator and her whole backstory is full of weird twists and turns but at this point shouldn't her arc go in a new direction rather than just being "Shallan's secret murders: part three"?

It just seems really excessive to me for the entire end of the world to basically be Shallan's fault.At the end of RoW, Shallan's narrations says there are no more holes in her memory, and yes she's not exactly a reliable narrator, but I would hope that after four books of this we can finally start moving forward. Making her arc about uncovering repressed guilt over some murder yet again is just repetitive, and regresses Shallan's character after the progress she finally made in RoW.

I think the reason most people assume Shallan is hallucinating is because in one of the flashbacks, Shallan is with Helaran and sees light coming from the safe "so bright that it's blinding" but Helaran claims to not see anything. Unless Helaran's lying or only Shallan can see the light for some reason, it might just be the simpler answer that she's hallucinating.

I think there's a tendency for Cosmere fans to come up with complex explanations through magic rather than just accept the simpler mundane answer. It's like how everyone was saying that Dienno must be a surgebinder because how else could he possibly be able to escape shackles? In this case, the purpose of the scene is to show how the millenia of combat have made the heralds superhumanly skilled at fighting. He fights as though he can see the moves they're about to make because he's just that good, but he's not even the best of the heralds in sword fighting.

That's more of a personal journey of addressing repressed memories in order to heal and progress. Pattern didn't help Shallan remember those events any more than Syl helped Kaladin reach the breakthroughs of his oaths. (To be clear, she did help but more in a supportive friend way)

A lot of the singers they're fighting just want to be free after spending countless generations as mindless slaves. They aren't monsters, and you could argue they're rather innocent as well, but they serve Odium and are supporting his war so there's really no choice but to fight and potentially kill them. This is the same for anyone who willingly chooses to serve Odium.

Something I noticed in the epilogues is that there's kind of a recurring pattern of characters arriving late or missing something crucial. In The Way of Kings, Hoid directly states that Taln has arrived too late to warn people of the coming desolation. In Words of Radiance, Jasnah escapes from Shadesmar, only to find that the Desolation has come and Urithiru has been discovered without her. The next two books don't fit as well, but if we're a little generous with the definitions, you could say that in Oathbringer Hoid meets Design, who was too late to bond Elhokar before he died, and Hoid himself was too late to meet with Rayse before he was killed (or something like that). I'm not sure it's a solid enough pattern to really point to anything, but its something I thought was kinda cool, and could make for interesting foreshadowing in what the potential end of book 5 could be if that is what Brandon is going for.

Hasn’t it been pointed out again and again, both in universe and out, that being under Odium’s influence is not an excuse for one’s actions?

I mean I don’t think that justifies abuse. I don’t know, but we never got her side of the story, would that really be fair to her?

Uh, what about the women he murdered and all the abuse of his sons?

It seems kinda far fetched to me. It just feels weirdly petty for her to use a child as blackmail over Hoid. I mean she's supposed to actually care about him, she's not that ruthless. Also, if having children was so important for Jasnah as a member of the royal family, she probably wouldn't have gone unmarried through her late thirties. (That's not even getting into the issue of having an illegitimate child as the queen of Alethkar.)

Maybe they have a tolerance to the poisoning, but if they hold on to it for too long, their body starts to react badly to it. I wouldn't think about it too hard though, this seems to be a handwavey "works the way the story needs it to" kind of deal.

In his chapter at the end of WoR, he thinks that he's been "played as one of the ten fools" so he realizes that he's been taken advantage of. It does disturb him quite a bit, as he doesn't understand the full scope of what he's been dragged into and he hates himself for betraying his friend over it.

You know, seeing the child champion theory and Taravangian's Kharbranth deal brought up together, it's made me think of something. I think choosing not to fight Odium's champion, regardless of the circumstances, is insanely selfish. If Odium's champion is Gavinor and Dalinar concedes defeat, then he'd be allowing Odium to run free for the sake of protecting his family. It's kinda similar to Taravangian allying with Odium in exchange for keeping Kharbranth safe, except worse because he's saving even fewer people. Yes, killing your nephew is horrible, but as a Radiant and the Stormfather's Bondsmith Dalinar has greater responsibilities than those to his family.