LuckyJim

I think Moash as a character is a more complicated subject than most of the people involved with the discourse realize. It's hard to say whether or not he's good or bad, both due to the elements influencing his beliefs and actions, and the issues surrounding Roshar in general making it difficult to determine what is and isn't right. Since this is the RoW forums, I know everyone's going to be talking about chapter 8, but even in this case I don't think it's as simple as Moash just trying to psychologically torture Kaladin. Moash has been heavily influenced by the Unmade at this point, he's not operating on the same logic as everyone else. At this point Moash believes humanity (with a few exceptions) is corrupt beyond repair, and ultimately doomed due to the fact that the Everstorm makes Odium's forces undying. The war will continue until one side is wiped out, and the final victor should be the singers. He knows that Kaladin pushes himself to save everyone, and carries everyone's death as a personal burden. The only way he could end the pain this puts him in is to give himself up to Odium, or end it himself, and he knows Kaladin well enough to know that he won't give away his pain. Moash sincerely, without a hint of spite or malice, belives that this is the only way to end Kaladin's suffering. As for whether or not he will be redeemed, well, I think it's a little more complicated than it appears at first glance. What would need to happen for him to be redeemed, I mean, isn't it good to be fighting for the singers? Personally, I think Moash is on the right track but misguided, he's fighting for the right people, but for the wrong reasons. His "redemption" (in my eyes) wouldn't involve returning to the human coalition, but allying himself with Venli's faction instead. He'd make a powerful ally, he's practically a member of the Heavenly Ones and seems to be of similar rank to the Fused, and the end of Oathbringer seemed to imply he was gaining a strong influence with some of the regular singers.

I thought she let the mask down because the Mink had left. It's just a coincidence that Shallan was leading him away.

I've been thinking that since Words of Radiance, but it would take some time. I don't think Jasnah would up and leave Roshar if there was no one to take her place as monarch of Alethkar, especially not when there's a risk of someone overturining her decision to abolish slavery.

Did anyone else have a map of Roshar open while they were reading this chapter? This is a pretty good theory. I also suspect it might have something to do with the Nine not fully trusting the Skybreakers. Granted, Odium can make some strong deals, and I imagine it must be difficult to lie to him, not to mention the Skybreakers in general don't do well with any forms of spycraft. However, they are stationed in Azir, which is on the other side of the planet from Kholinar, which puts a lot of distance between the Skybreakers and the major Fused leadership.

I think it's just rumors. People see a man and a woman sharing a lot of time together and they assume it has to be something scandalous going on. It makes perfect sense for the characters in series to assume that's what's going on, but I have no doubts that they've all got the wrong idea. They're just discussing the secrets of the greater Cosmere, and how to defeat Odium, but since not everyone is prepared to deal with that knowledge they keep it on the down low.

Far gone from who? If it's the humans, then yeah, I don't think they'd ever take him back or that he'd ever want to go back in the first place, but I'm assuming that this would happen if Moash joined the Listeners. If it's the singers then I don't think we've seen enough to make that assumption, we've only seen him on a battlefield and at a meeting with the Fused, we don't know how his relationship with ordinary singers has changed or developed, but considering the end of Oathbringer I feel like he was being built up as an important leader to them. If you think he's just too far gone in general, then that's fair. This whole theory is assuming he can break Odium's influence in the first place and set aside his desire for revenge to focus on protecting and supporting the singers in the first place, which I'll admit is a bit of a stretch. Also, we already know there are some spren willing to support the new Listener faction, since Timbre has said there are more like her willing to bond with singers in the first place, and some might find the idea more palatable if they can bond with humans who support the Listeners instead. Well, Hoid is Hoid, I think we can accept that he's a bit of an exception. My main point comes from a WoB, where Brandon states it's hard for heavily invested people to form a Nahel bond, because Investiture tends to resist Investiture (the example he used in this case was a Returned bonding a spren). Granted, I misremembered the quote, he said it was difficult but not impossible. Questioner Can a Returned gain a Nahel bond? Brandon Sanderson It is not outside the realm of possibility. Much more easy than Nightblood [gaining a Nahel bond]. Invested things resist other Investiture and so it depends on amounts of Investiture and it depends on a lot of factors. But that one's a mixing that could happen. Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016) I think a Fused becoming a Radiant would be more difficult than a Herald but it could be possible. That being said, I think the main difficulty would be other parties allowing it to happen. Mainly Odium, who might be able to kill her before she could actually make the bond, and I doubt Yunfah would be that willing to bond her in the first place. He wouldn't bond a member of Bridge 4 because he's a listener, I don't think one of his immortal enemies would seem much more appealing.

Debatable, I mean when he was a slave he straight up attacked a Fused who was abusing Sah and Khen's group. It wasn't even out of anger, he just didn't want to see them become like humans when they have a chance to be better than them. He then helped them learn to fight when they were being sent in the siege on Kholinar, essentially as a suicide mission, which has some strong parallels to Kaladin and Bridge 4. Moash is a villain to humans, and I don't think he's ever going to return to them, but he can be a hero to the singers.

I think as a Fused, Leshwi is just too Invested to be able to actually form a spren bond, not to mention she gets her power directly from Odium. My guess is although Yunfah is against it now, he will eventually decide to bond with Rlain of his own volition. It would be cool though if in RoW Moash decides to ally with the Listeners, prioritizing protecting the singers over revenge on the kingdoms of humans, which leads to him becoming a real Windrunner.

I think if anything it would be related to his scholarly pursuits, his desire to seek out and learn new things about magic and other subjects and pass it on to others. This could be why he takes a more non-intervention role in the Stormlight books.

In a world filled with magic, sometimes it's fun to have a character who shows that humans can just be amazing on their own. Plus explaining his talents through magic takes away some of the, well, "magic" of him being able to do those things in the first place. It goes from "wow, this guy is really talented!" to "oh, he's just using the same magic as basically everyone else.

Maybe, but it probably has more to do with the fact that "voidbringer" was traditionally a word used to describe the humans by the singers.

If the possibility of revival exists, it wouldn't be as easy as developing a relationship and swearing new oaths. Brandon has said that deadeye spren have serious damage, a piece of their spiritual being is literally missing and would have to be replaced. I know it's sort of a meme, but I don't think Adolin "filling the gaps" in a reverse Nahel bond is really plausible because the bonds don't really work that way, spren are fundamentally different from humans, I seriously doubt the roles could be so easily interchanged. I do think Maya will be revived, but it would have to be through some means that are either so specific or difficult that there would basically be no reason to unless you really wanted to revive a spren for whatever reason.

He also has to deal with the fact that he's now next in line to be king, while knowing that he's not fit for that role. His concerns that he doesn't measure up to his father, the world is changing around him and he isn't as impressive as he used to be, and he assassinated a man and doesn't really feel bad about it. When trying to get through the Oathgate, he's powerless to do anything against the Fused that guard the gate and he nearly dies.

I think Rock is only growing into something else because he refused to fight in the first place, and is now leaving Bridge 4 altogether. Rlain is still an active member, only staying out of combat because he hasn't gained the abilities of a squire, and he desires to join the Windrunners as well.

The discussion on personality and mental illness could easily become a tangent that overwhelms the thread, so I'd recommend we cut it off here. Mental illness is a very complicated topic, and it's difficult to discuss in a healthy, non-stigmatizing way. We could talk for hours about this, and it would probably be worthwhile since there could be a lot to learn here, but it would probably be best to leave it out of this particular thread so we don't derail the original topic.

Those aren't the result of having radiant abilities, Kaladin's depression and Shallan's DID are just part of their personalities. It would be an issue regardless of whether or not they bonded spren.

I've said this before, but fitting the description well doesn't necessarily mean that a character will be a member of a particular order. The descriptions in the blog post are very general, and meant to give a basic idea of the ideals, duties and attitudes of the different orders, but in no way represent every member of any particular order. At the same time any one person could fit well into several orders, because people can't be neatly fit into different boxes. Take Sigzil for example, as a Worldsinger he explored and learned from various cultures across Roshar, although he can handle a spear his true talents lie in his mental and organizational skills, which is why he served as Bridge 4's clerk. He'd probably make a decent Willshaper or Truthwatcher, but he became a Windrunner due to his proximity to honorspren as a squire of Kaladin. In the end the order someone joins is more due to whichever spren finds them first rather than which is the "best fit", and spren can find people for seemingly any reason. Adolin will most likely be an Edgedancer because he's already mostly bonded to Maya, and we already know she likes him to some degree. We don't even know if there are any peakspren willing to bond humans at this point in time.

This could also explain the process through which the Nine are built into the structure. I had assumed the stone was molded around them, but with Progression they could just literally be grown into the structure itself, as a living part of whatever makes up the structure.

They have plenty of stone, the entire Kholinar palace that the slaves were tearing down at the end of Oathbringer. Plus, to soulcast you'd still need other materials, you can't just soulcast something out of nothing.

This is kinda why I have a hard time finding Leshwi, or any Fused really, as sympathetic. Their existence hinges on killing other singers, often by convincing them that they're dying for some higher purpose.

Reading this chapter, I think Leshwi genuinely does want to kill Kaladin. People who have given themselves to Odium don't think in the way we recognize as normal, as we've seen with Moash and I don't think Leshwi is any different, despite seeming so on face value. Venli states as much this chapter, that one of the best ways to earn Leshwi's respect is to kill her and I think it's going to turn out that since Leshwi respects Kaladin (and he's not on the same side as her like Moash) the best way she can think to return that respect is to personally kill him in honorable combat.

Storing pewter makes you smaller as well as weaker, so that might have some advantages.

But he wouldn't necessarily say yes in the first place. In order to convince him to do so, they'd need to be open enough about their intentions to get him to trust them, and if their interests mainly serve themselves I don't think Sazed would be happy to support them. At best it would complicate things, and at worst they'd have a god against them. Securing access to Roshar's Investiture may be more difficult in the short term, but simplifies things in the long term.

I've actually been thinking about this topic recently, and I was thinking that Spook may have given Kelsier his body when he was about to die. We already know that Spook was in favor of the idea of using sick and elderly people who were about to die anyway as sacrifices for hemalurgic resources, and I'd like to think that Spook isn't so much of a hypocrite that he'd object to putting himself to that process as well. In addition, the strong Connection shared by Spook and Kelsier might even facilitate the process of grafting Kelsier's cognitive shadow/identity into Spook's body. Although Spook would be almost 100 years old at the time, through the process of feruchemical atium and gold (which Kelsier could easily have access too, either through hemalurgy or unkeyed medallions) he could restore it to a better state.

Highstorms are regular occurances, meanwhile Sazed has total control over where and when the mists show up. Stormlight would be more accessible and plentiful source of pure Investiture.