Realmatic Shadow

"I am intelligent and articulate!" - Syl As for a more serious quote that has actually impacted me personally: "Accept the pain, but don't accept that you deserve it" - Hoid

It is overthinking it, but others have certainly seen the resemblance

I know Brandon has said he wants to save the Heralds and their POV for the back 5 books, but I could totally see there being a few interludes and/or chapters from them throughout the book beginning to establish the characters of the ones we've not meet yet, and give somewhere to build from with their viewpoints later in the series

Haven't we already seen Kaladin drawing in and using Light before he swore the First Ideal? I think it is more likely that, with her sort-of there bond with Testament and all the Cryptics gathered around her, that she was still able to draw in and use Light to a small degree, but not enough for any true Lightweaving or anything. For the most part I agree with this, though I'd place "I killed my spren" as 4th to Pattern, if it is even actually a Truth. It could also be the precursor realization that leads her to speak what is properly her third Truth to either of them, instead of an actual Truth on its own. Her actual Truth could be "I regret killing Testament" or something, where her remembering and coming to terms with the fact she did kill Testament is a step in the process, for example. This would explain why Brandon didn't specifically say if it was or wasn't a Truth, but him calling the whole situation 'pretty complicated' makes me think this might be a little too simple of an answer...

From what I've seen of others with misprint copies, if you get in touch with the Sanderson Store you could get a replacement copy.

Oops, thanks! Removed the spoiler entirely, because wasn't really necessary in context.

oh I'm just an idiot, ignore me lol. But yeah, in the Cognitive there is no day-night cycle, it is eternally daytime, though there is likely a cycle similar to it that the spren and other cognitive entities would notice and operate by. I do feel that, due to the jumbled nature of the subastrals of Shardworlds, Taldain's subastral wouldn't end up with a perfect 50/50 split between the Dayside and Darkside skies, and in the inbetween stages you may see the sky in a "broken" pattern. Side theory: The only reason it appears permanently daytime in the Cognitive on most Shardworlds is because of human perception of day as the 'normal' state of the world, whereas Taldain in its unique situation as a tidally locked planet would have a different view of that based off of where you live on the planet, that would affect the subastral there, and people may view it as a 'broken sky' simply because it isn't permanently day on the whole subastral. All of this is theory, but I do feel that the reason behind the permanent day is likely correct.

The planet of Taldain is tidally locked between the two stars in its system, which means that one side of the planet will always face towards the brighter star (the Dayside of the planet) and the other side will always face towards the minor star in the system (Darkside).

I feel something this whole thread is having a little trouble remembering is the reason that you can't forcefully remove someone's Breaths: Identity. The Identity the Breath is bound to restricts who can command it, but we have seen these Identity restrictions on Investiture be ignored by Shards previously, so I don't think it would be too far out of course for Todd to be able to destroy or remove those Breaths, regardless of the laws of BioChroma that stop people from stealing each others Breath. An important distinction I would like to make is also that Todd didn't steal the Breaths, he excised them. I think it is more indicative of him corrupting and removing them, though his relative inexperience with his Shard's power meant that he was not able to do this without damaging the memories stored inside them.

very angry gender neutral 'they' sounds Also on the actual topic here, I think that outside of the Windrunners, each order's oaths are accepted by their bonded spren, with the Windrunners being quite the exception because of how closely they are associated with Honor, and the Stormfather (and apparently his Bondsmith as well now) being in charge of accepting those oaths. So by that logic the voice we heard accepting Venli's oath at the end of the book was Timbre, with this being one of the very few (or I think maybe the only) scene we've seen where she speaks directly, instead of using the rhythms and the general impressions Radiants get from their spren. I would be curious if any of the Bondsmith spren and Bondsmiths can accept the Windrunner oaths, or if that is a Stormfather exclusive thing (with him being the most Honor aligned god-spren). Would they then also be able to accept the oaths of any order, or is that something that can only be done for the Windrunners?

32. Not allowed to refer to Adonalsium as 'daddy ady' or any derivative thereof. Even if it humorous

... Yet another amazing detail I didn't notice until it was pointed out to me.

We have WOB that the perception a Cognitive Shadow has of themselves affects how they appear (with the Returned pointed to as an obvious example of this). Though it would be interesting if this was instead the Investiture that Honor gave them to maker them Shadows starting fade away/disappear, causing their bodies are starting to catch up to their true age even slightly, in a similar way to how TLR 'rubber banded' to his true age when his Atium-minds were removed.

It could be that her bond with Pattern wasn't quite established enough for her to hear the screams, but I find that a little unbelievable. I'm more of the mind that, due to their bond being far enough along for her to be able to summon Testament as a Blade, when summoned after she was killed she didn't scream. It could also be that, in those moments where she did summon that specific Blade, she was living in the Truths she had spoken with Testament, and thus at least somewhat living to her oaths at the time.

You've got to wait for a Mod to come along and move it for you. Saying you would like to know how should be enough that they move it for you I think that this is Ishar being able to read the Connections in the Spiritual Realm, and use those to pre-empt what people will do. Atium works on a similar principle, so it is correct to consider this two forms of Investiture having similar effects (like Pewter in Allomancy and Feruchemy affecting strength, though in different manners).

Minor pedant: You've named the wrong group of Aimians there. From what you said under this point, you're actually referring to the Dysian Aimians (otherwise known as the Sleepless).

27. Just because you can Soulcast someone's weapon in the middle of a battle does not mean you should. Even if it would be funny.

Your quote from Karger still has unhidden spoilers, just fyi. going to spoil my whole response, because using evasive wording is annoying and not very effective:

I agree with this point, though I don't think that the loophole let Taln slip through. I think he still 'gave in' and let the proverbial flood gates open for the Fused, but did so as a conscious decision. I'm of the opinion that, when he saw how so many Voidspren were bypassing the Oathpact and getting to Roshar despite his efforts to hold them back, he decided it would be better for him to release the Fused and go ahead of them to Roshar, and hopefully be able to prepare the humans for the incoming threat.

I think a lot of the disappointment people are expressing regarding this is about their headcanons and beliefs about Jasnah not turning out to be how Brandon wishes the character to be taken, and that seems very much expected in my opinion. I was hard onto the belief that Jasnah could be lesbian reading through WoK and WoR, but understood that we hadn't really seen into her mind properly in regards to that, or had any overt actions that would give us an idea of it. Because I was so strongly clinging to that belief, I had a little trouble adapting to the idea that she was ace-heteroromantic, but overall felt that it was in line with her character, though not the first interpretation I would've had. Coming into RoW, Brandon has said that he finally wanted to sit down and consider whether he wanted to take her character in that direction, as many readers had interpreted her that way, or if he felt that was not true to who she was. I think that many readers, especially here on the Shard, took that as an almost confirmation that she would go down that route in her character, and were surprised to find Brandon disagreed with them. Brandon has every right to take the character as he sees fit, and I am really happy that he took into consideration the way many readers had interpreted her character until this point, and like that he didn't just cave into those expectations in deciding her character. The disappointment (though I don't think that is really the right word for this, I don't know anything that would work better) that many readers here had about that will probably pass as Brandon releases his next book, as it isn't so much people disappointed in how Brandon has written and taken their character, but that their expectations and hopes were not correct, and people will understand and accept that I would think, even if they need a little time.

are you really a badass super-warrior with a magical sword and power armor if you can't also stand your own against multiple enemies with nothing but a scalpel?

One of the biggest honors I've seen given to a character in any book: multiple poems written in their memory. I agree with that belief. Before passing on, the Stormfather brought Teft over to see Kaladin swear his Fourth Ideal, and Teft was able to give him the encouragement he needed, right before he left for the Beyond.

I think that, in the whole, Wit came out for the worse in this interaction. He was not aware that Rayse was no longer at the helm of Odium, and did not expect him to be able to see and manipulate his Breaths. There are enough clues in the final interaction that Wit could piece together and find out what occurred, so I don't think this is entirely bad for Wit, but he certainly didn't come out of this on top. One thing I desperately hope is that Hoid has a store of his memories 'backed-up' somewhere else, so this apparent tampering of his stored memories can be remedied. As a whole though, that would ruin one big implication of this epilogue: Hoid is not infallible, or immune to being manipulated by Shards, so I'm not thinking it's very likely this is true.

I think that the Voidspren were not specifically part of those hold back both the Oathpact at first, but were also held back due to a fully formed Oathpact and alive Honor making the 'cage' keeping the Fused on Braize much tighter. With Honor shattered, and the Oathpact somewhat broken, there were big enough gaps that the Voidspren could slip through and out, as they were never deliberately bound, but held back more through virtue of the way the Oathpact held the Fused

I love the new context Brandon has given to many parts of the story in this book, and this in particular is one I've loved more than others. I always saw Tien's death as him pressed into going in front of the trained soldiers to act as a bait, similar to how Kaladin sees it, with him dying in fear. But given the new context we've gotten here, Tien stepped up and went with the other messenger boys willingly, exemplifying Radiant ideals by being there for the others, to allow them to have a little light in their final moments. I love the way this shows Tien as someone who was always there for others, which we've already seen from Kal's flashbacks to their childhood, but really shows how this links in even to his final moments, and how Kal refused to accept that others could step into harms way deliberately to protect others, much like he does himself.