Anomander Rake

I think with the apocalypse actively occurring on Roshar, dad is probably willing to hold off on putting the kids in time out in lieu of greater problems

Well put, ty, that did a good job of tying things together for me. Syl being a member of Oathpact 2.0 would be a wonderfully horrible end for her arc. Same. The inherent emotion behind nahel bond always struck me as similar to that of the Warder - Aes Sedai bond, something extremely intimate and personal without being romantic (though ofc feelings could develop beyond the bond), knowing the other as you know yourself, sharing your everything and existence.

True. It's not the perfect solution, but it certainly gets rid of a lot of steps in the process. I've wondered the same! The whole mapping a full 3D universe to a 2D plane deal is pretty great for theorizing. I'm particularly curious about where the moon(s) would show up in the CR in relation to the rest of Rosharan geography! Like, let us for example say our world functioned under the same realmatic theory; where would our moon be in our cognitive realm? Where do we perceive the moon to be? Would the moons subastral be attached to Earth proper's subastral, or would there exist "the space between planets" between? Would the moon exist near Merritt Island, Florida or Houston, Texas (NASA launch site and mission control respectively, both locations deeply linked, at least within the American population, to space travel)? Would these locations then be on the edge of our subastral as a result, does being closer to the edge have any realmatic significance? Lots of cool questions and we probably havent even scratched the surface.

There is definitely a lot that could be done with the various magic systems to make a moon-base viable. A few ideas off the top of my head: Any other potential ideas y'all have?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Syl's "becoming more human" just her mental capacity in the physical realm increasing as her nahel bond with Kal progresses, and thus her regaining access to her full personality and human-like behaviors and idiosyncrasies? I haven't really felt like her arc thus far has pointed to her fully changing like that - she is still very much a spren who loves soaring with the winds, I cannot see her being bogged down by all that comes with flesh and blood.

If you ever have some time to kill, definitely check out the Arcanum! Lots of cool bits of info and deeper looks into characters and the cosmere

I'm going to cheat and say the Metallic Arts as a whole, as I'm honestly not sure I could chose one of the three, plus the fact the three are so well interlinked it'd be almost criminal to talk about them in a vacuum. They are everything I wanted from a magic system when I was first getting into fantasy, and reading the final empire was such a thrilling experience, seeing what I wanted to see in a book that I could never personify before - the way the magic system and world develop together, how consistent and deep it is, and creative beyond words. Gushing aside, allomancy leads to some amazing fights with how dynamic it is (though I do think my favoritee fight is still vasher and kal in the laundry!), but surgebinding gives us the best character moments, its much bigger and more epic than allomancy!

True, I dont think we ever see an activated spanreed outside of writing. My equally ignorant understanding of spanreeds, though, is that they work only under mutual understanding and cooperation, and are no different from any other conjoined gemstone fabrial without that bit of culture. The boards seem like a uniform thing, and it seems like there is a set of instructions/steps that everyone knows and follows for sending messages (setting the reed, turning the knob thingy, etc, in rote routine, so that the writing is mimicked correctly. I feel like it should be possible! A radiant could mime waiting for a message by correctly placing and activating the reed, then, when their pen pal begins writing, since the reed is in the same spot relative to both people, stab themselves in the neck/heart, causing a floating pen to do the same somewhere else. The other person who already has their hand on the reed can obviously resist and push back, but hey, it could still happen. This also sees to be a great way to do arm wrestling contests without cheating XD

I hear that and I get the thought process, but I don't buy it because to do so would jeopardize the chapter's authenticity. When Brandon writes the prologue, for him to avoid revealing too many things like you are saying, Gav's thoughts will end up feeling super contrived and fake, because he'll be acting like important thoughts have just been excised from him. We know important things are on his mind tonight, with the treaty signing and his whole study room tea party, and for them all to be written around like obstacles without leaving the chapter feeling messy would be a herculean feat. I hope I didn't do a poor job of explaining what im thinking by this haha. Just as well, it seems almost silly to me that Brandon would alter the book and story he wants to write for the sole purpose of releasing some fraction of it early. We will learn things when he wants us to learn them, not when it is convenient for marketing. If anything, I'd expect him to drop some extra pearls in the early chapters for loyal fans. when we finally get behind Gavs eyes we're in for a wild ride.

You are totally right, I spaced on the fact SA5 is gonna be right after 4. Guess we'll have to wait for the time skip :')

Exactly this. Its actually something my eponymous character deals with as well, though for different reasons! Rake's author chose not to write from his perspective because he couldn't properly capture it (super interesting story, please read about it here!), but because of that we get a super inflated and warped view of the character, who then becomes more of a force in the readers mind kind of like Jasnah. *edit* Spoiler for the article i linked, but TLDR, this is exactly what happens to Jasnah too! Most of her in text mentions, to my recollection, are characters thinking about how smart she is or how hard she is working to figure x out, Shallan comparing herself to her, etc, so we tend to put her on this pedestal like the other characters do - we know more of the idea of Jasnah thus far, less of the charcter *double edit* LMAO IT CHANGES THEM TO STORM(S) IM CRYING

I like all of your theorizing, particularly about Axindweth with that last post about her and the Set and all, but I kind of disagree with this reasoning here. I fully expect to be given (at least some!) juicy plot points, because we have certainly had the requisite buildup for this moment and its very own sanderlanche - we've waited since the first chapters of WoK to finally learn what happened on that night, and have for a while now known Gavilar would be the final feast prologue, where we'd finally see firsthand what went down. For Brandon to purposefully skirt around the reveal of certain things that happen that night would feel like a total rug pull, and not in the plot-twisty authorial way. Besides, whatever reveals we do get in the prologue, im sure its gonna be a drop in the bucket for what the rest of book 5 has in store. I also kind of expect certain things to be answered as a way to bring closure to the front 5, though the back 5 being more about the heralds might lead brando to leave us a with a few dangling threads regarding Gavilar and his doings.

A hemalurgic spike not in contact with moving blood, nor surrounded by blood or aluminum will decay (lose power) over time, though at a decreasing rate like the half lives of radioactive elements. If you were to put the spike in your ear, it would grant you allomantic bronze, though the longer it had been out of anyone's ear, the weaker it would be. The spike just grant's allomantic bronze. It was used to kill her sister, as seeker.

A quick google search tells me there are no blood vessels in cartilage, which should mean Vin's earing doesn't touch blood, although it is still seen as actively spiking her and granting her the enhanced bronze. I assume that, despite the spike not being in contact with moving blood or surrounded by blood or aluminum, the spike being active (granting power) prevents decay.

I agree and disagree! I think you are totally correct that Kal is gonna be locked in and focused next book, but I think he'll still get some relationship developments and similar in book 5 - they just wont be a weight to him anymore, but something positive! Brandon has said Kal turned a corner with the conclusion of RoW, so fully expect our capable bridgeboy to really come into his own this book. Maybe I'm being a little hopeful here, and will need to wait for the back 5, but this is my guess!

Is this the one you're looking for? It was the only one I could find in reference to blood that specified we / the cosmere are disillusioned about the blood-spike connection in some way. My snap thought is that since blood is in some ways seen as the essence of our life, it may have some connection to the spirit and sDNA? For example, perhaps to give a singer a viable hemalurgic spike, maybe it would need to pierce their gemheart, as they seem to see those as their spiritual center? Were there to exist some bloodless creature out in the cosmere, theres gotta be some way for it to be spiked, so some (cosmerologically) equivalent but alternative thing must work in place of blood, right?

As pointed out in the first response, I don't think most objects - ie a bracelet - have enough of a spiritweb to be useful regarding hemalurgy. Aside from that: given these two quotes it seems like blood, or more generally, something important needs to be present to link the spike to the spiritweb. Blood i guess has enough import to be that go-between. This does raise the question of how something like an AI could be spiked, however. Maybe they have some human equivalent in shadesmar like spren, or perhaps jamming a spike through an AI's CPU is enough lol.

Johnny Sins as Szeth

I know it's not exactly what you asked, but I hope the epigraphs / letters continue in the back 5, and in book 6 we get a third Sazed letter filled with some hot Mistborn Era 2 and Stormlight 5 gossip

I think "Hemalurgic Construct" is just a catch all term for anything that has had its spiritweb altered enough to change its DNA, and thus its species identity (not cosmere identity! just its classification lol). We know that close proximity to investiture warps things over time - personality, time, etc - and it seems that the addition of investiture to the spiritweb and sDNA, via a Dawnshard, spike, or any other way, will similarly over time change that web. We see this pretty often, actually - savantism in both allomancy and soulcasting brings about physical changes to a person; tin magnifies senses, pewter dulls nerves, soulcasting changes the composition of your body. The inquisitors certainly aren't human. They have unique abilities we havent seen in any other creature (spike vision), and are confirmed to have a different base lifespan and physiology. But they are close to human. They can still mate with regular humans and produce offspring, though with potential complications. It kinda reminds me of horses and donkeys; they are two distinct species, yet they have very obvious similarities, and can mate and produce viable offspring, with a catch. I think this is a valid line of thought, as different investiture-altered creatures can also (reportedly in some cases) reproduce, like Koloss and heralds.

From all the WoBs on FTL and worldhopping, it seems pretty likely there is going to be interplanetary travel both through the PR and CR as we get into the future of the Cosmere. I agree with a lot of the other replies that true FTL travel (meaning not calling moving from planet to planet in the Shadesmar FTL) is probably going to be reserved to the physical realm though. That doesn't meant travel in Shadesmar should be left unoptimized though! I've always kind of thought of the mapping of the PR to CR to be similar to the mapping of the Overworld to the Nether in Minecraft, though admittedly the MC example is a way simplified version, as it maps a 2D plane to a 2D plane, as opposed to a mapping a 3D world to a 2D plane. Anyone reasonably familiar with the game will know of Nether highways! For those who aren't aware, here's the skinny: the Nether, a second dimension in Minecraft, is mapped to the original overworld dimension, however, horizontal Overworld distances are scaled down in the Nether by a factor of 8:1. This means traveling a distance of 10 blocks in the Nether effectively transports you 80 in the Overworld! Using this to your advantage, you can set up a railway in the Nether can let you travel way faster than possible in the Overworld, covering large distances in a fraction of the time. This is essentially what we see happening in the books - but then, the characters are only on foot/boat! I dont know if the scale and distances, or even the "map" of Shadesmar will change as Roshar/etc develops, but more permanent modes of transport are almost inevitable I'm very excited to see more of the cosmere undergo industrialization and change like we saw in Mistborn. The potential for technology in fabrials and unsealed metalminds is insane!

This is kind of the point I was trying to make here. She's conflicted, unsure of her place and purpose, and is often using jokes/quips, however unfunny they may sometimes be, to deal or distance from people. Fair. For me Stormlight is a character study with some kickass fights and magic. I never said I expect change from characters, or that they need to change to be a good character. Dalinar is very much already the man he is from the start of WoK, only changing in how he views certain things as he learns more, and he's easily my favorite character thus far. Change is merely something I enjoy in books, they exist to tell a story after all. If you want Stormlight without Shallan, just skip her chapters bro lol, nobody is forcing you to read them.

Shallan has been trying for years to convince herself that she isn't in pain. She uses Veil and Radiant as crutches who have sound pasts to pretend, while she compartmentalizes and struggles to deal with her past in any sense. Kaladin has a much more common and more visible pain, which makes him much easier to relate to. Shallan also isn't supposed to be a spear-brandishing badass like Kal, nor has she had a past remotely close to his. I don't thinks its bold to say that most people were probably solidly team Kal post WoK. She's struggling to to figure out how to be useful and constantly second guessing herself. This doesn't make her a bad character, unlikable at times yes, but not objectively bad. Just because I don't like her sometimes doesn't mean I don't enjoy watching her develop and interact with other characters. She interesting!

Burning Lerasium increased your strength as a Mistborn, or made you one if you were not already. Burning a Leraisum-X alloy would make you an X-Misting, and I guess increase your strength with the metal if you could burn it already. Burning more and more just makes you more powerful. IIRC another WoB states becoming a lerasium savant straight up let you ascend as the host of Preservation.