Nitpicking

I don't think they're all sapient. I think Honor and Odium became moreso because they were in conflict with their Vessels. I see no evidence that, say, Preservation is independent of Sazed. (The implication is that Ruin might become so.)

Hi. Yeah, I don't think anyone, even the people who didn't like it, have complained that Wind and Truth was too simple.

Well, we know that you can use purified Dor for any type of Invested Art, or at least several of them (e. g. soulstamping, Aetherbound magic). Presumably Skybreakers on Scadrial would be getting their Investiture from a different source than Stormlight (which, after all, no longer exists).

The favorite thing for some of the Shardcasters seems to be the line, "Honor's truest Surge." We still have no idea what that means.

In the most recent Shardcast (as I write this), Brandon himself says he went too far with the modern language.

Bondsmithing is not uniquely of Honor. Odium empowered the original Bondsmith, Ishar, on Ashyn. During the first era of the Radiants, there was one Bondsmith of Honor (bonded the Stormfather), one of Cultivation (bonded the Nightwatcher) and one mixed (bonded the Sibling).

A major theme of the Cosmere is that different types of Invested Art can produce similar effects in different ways, as with the Midnight Essence coming from Nightblood, an Aether, the Midnight Mother .... I don't see why a Lightweaver couldn't produce Soulstamp-like effects.

I didn't say it very clearly. My point was that the Radiant spren are protected from Retribution, so Radiants should be, too, because that's a very strong Connection.

I can argue that the Radiants are no longer connected to Honor, because the second Oathpact protected the spren from Retribution. The Fused are still screwed, though.

Yes, but people who think that are wrong (he said arrogantly).

I've always thought that people call Jasnah "Heretic" because she was raised Vorin, and then abandoned the practice. Many real-world religions (notably Islam) don't recognize that a person can ever leave. Once you're a Muslim, you're a Muslim--if you don't practice correctly, you're a bad Muslim, not an ex-Muslim. (Obviously there are lots of variations of Muslim belief and not all of them believe that, but it seems to be the basic Sunni position.)

It just occurred to me that Nightblood is the literal opposite of Endowment. Endowment is gifting. Nightblood's ability is to steal Investiture away from people and things. Sure, that isn't all it does, but its most dramatic manifestation is literally the opposite of Endowment ... using Endowment's Investiture in the form of Breath. Were Vasher and Shashara influenced by Autonomy to pervert the power of Endowment? Or by Odium?

My favorite Hoid quote, depending on what mood I'm in, is "I was once words on a page" (or something close to that). Brandon has said that this isn't fourth wall breaking, but it's certainly Brandon pointing to the fourth wall (even though he denies it).

No, it isn't.

Imagine if someone taught Jasnah about plutonium ....

We know that Surgebinders on Ashyn were able to make Investiture nukes. I don't see why Selish people couldn't do it, too.

Why do you say that Awakening is shunned on most of Nalthis?

It's pretty close to what Brandon and his characters say, though.

I think some in this discussion are insisting on a monotheistic, Muslim or Christian or Jewish in particular, definition of "God". Other traditions (e. g. Shinto or Voudoun) have much more limited gods. In Shinto it's possible to worship a literal tree. The Romans worshiped Augustus Caesar as a god, well aware that he was and always had been a very fallible human being.

@Oltux72, Shallan is not Adolin. She never swore to follow a code of honor, and among the Alethi Vorin, spymaster/chief assassin are female roles. Other than that: yeah. You do seem to be arguing that Shallan could/should make peace with the Ghostbloods. The story doesn't allow that, IMO, because it would limit what Brandon can do leading up to the Space Wars era.

@Oltux72, to clarify, I meant that removing Zahel wouldn't change WaT. I am sure Zahel is important in 3,000 pages or whatever, but I don't care. This book is weak because far too much of it was at best laying foundations for books i am almost certainly not going to read. (I'm 63. By the time the Back Half starts I'll be in my seventies, again at best. By the time it ends I'll almost certainly be dead. Even if I don't have dementia by 2035 or 2040 or whenever the SA resumes, I might not bother starting it.)

When you're talking the Lord Ruler at his peak (Rashek), consider this: steel feruchemy lets the steelrunner move like The Flash, fast you can barely see them, able to take all of Wayne's metalminds off him before he can react. Now consider that Rashek had both steel feruchemy and steel allomancy. Allowing him to compound steelrunning. Taln wouldn't stand a chance, especially if Rashek was (as he would be) also compounding gold, like Miles. For that matter, against Taln he'd compound pewter for strength. I know Brandon said otherwise: he's wrong. (OK, he's the writer and can't be wrong. He's logically wrong.)

The Honorblades aren't spren-Shardblades. They can't be summoned quite the same way (or so I interpret).

Including, say, Wax's sister (name forgotten)? The Autonovatars vary a lot, it seems.

This is Brandon Sanderson we're talking about. Jezrien is alive, despite all the Heralds feeling him die. The anti-Stormlight destroyed his bond to the other Heralds, not his soul. He's in the Cognitive Realm now, where he'll run into Shallan next book.