Nitpicking

If you've read Dragonsteel Prime, you might agree with my contention that Nohadon acts a lot like Frost did in that unpublished, not-all-canon book.

The Komashi spirits do form Nahel bonds with the yoki-hijo. They aren't Radiant bonds, of course, they aren't based on the Heralds.

We can't know, of course, unless Brandon (or possibly someone from Dragonsteel who has access to his notes) is reading this. Thoughts: "My father was an abusive bully. I'm glad he's dead." "My mother never loved me." "I'm scared all the time." (That's one that Shallan spoke.) "I resent my uncle Dalinar, who has done nothing but help me my whole life." "I should have abdicated as king. Jasnah or Dalinar would be so much better." "Adolin's cheerfulness, generosity, and perkiness get on my nerves something fierce."

You don't consider the Heralds, Fused, or Vessels alive? So, you think the current-day humans of Roshar weren't keeping the Singers in slaveform as property, treating them as livestock?

Note to moderator: I don't think the word "Oathless" by itself is a spoiler for someone who hasn't already read WaT. If I'm wrong, change it to "Red-Orange Light", please. So ... what is the source of the red-orange light that shines from the Plate of the Oathless? I think it's Endowment's power combining with ("corrupting") the power of the platespren. The whole creation of the Oathless is all about giving, right? Adolin even says, "You've given so much," and then the spren points out that he, too, has given tremendously. In fact, crackpot theory of the day: Adolin is an avatar of Endowment, without realizing it. She's setting up her own power base on Roshar, filling the gap left by Cultivation (both are associated with plants!), to "deal with" Odium/Retribution as she once promised she could.

I thought that having two spren bonds was part of why Shallan could manifest. Do her Truths count as oaths for both her spren?

My reaction to the R&R romance: eh. I'm not offended by it. I'm just not interested. They seem to just be randomly infatuated somehow, without really having even interacted much on-page.

In my personal headcanon, Kaladin has a Spiritual or Cognitive healing power he isn't consciously aware of. Otherwise, yeah, helping someone that fast with just talk therapy is totally implausible.

Sorry about the vague title, but I couldn't use "Vaporized the Stormfather" without it being visible in the topic list to non-spoiler-wanters. So, Retribution vaporized (didn't absorb) the Stormfather. I'll bet that in retrospect, Taravangian feels like a complete fool. He could have Unmade the Stormfather and greatly improved his own position. Where did the Investiture from the Stormfather go? Well, maybe some of it to Syl? The Wind? Thousands of new windspren and/or gloryspren? The Tower (one reason why Odium can't just take it an Unmake the Sibling)? Other ideas?

At the Steelheart release party (Orem, UT), Brandon said: Did he specifically answer that question in WaT? I mean, he clarified both separately, but I don't remember a specific comparison. However, I (to be honest) skimmed the second half of the Shinovar odyssey thing. It was just ... not interesting to me. I could have missed it.

I continue to insist that Nohadon is Frost. You'd have to read Dragonsteel Prime plus the Isles of the Emberdark preview chapter to understand my logic.

I believe there's a WoB that only Scadrial was made by Shards. All the other Shardworlds existed before the Shattering. That possibly does not apply to Canticle, which Brandon himself hadn't created when he said that ....

I'm saying that I can't see why Kalak, who knows perfectly well what highspren look like, would say "a highspren" and not "figure".

So you agree with Kaladin that the words aren't important, only the soul? All my favorite moments were in Adolin's storyline, really. Maya returning with an army of deadeyes is probably top. Shallan finally killing Mraize is up there. Man, he overstayed his welcome. One-note mustache-twirler.

We saw way back that Jasnah is not good at persuasion. Remember when Navani's letter was more important than Jasnah's brilliantly-reasoned essay (to the Thaylens!). Perhaps if Navani wasn't leashed to the Tower and could have talked to Fen directly, the whole thing would have come out differently.

A highspren is a jet black silhouette with stars visible in it. It isn't hard to make out against the sky. It would stand out like ... like a black silhouette against a bright background.

I think I wasn't clear above: Shakespeare was the Brandon Sanderson of pre-wide-literacy England. Everyone knew his name. Other people published stuff pretending to be him. His stuff is difficult for us because we grew up in a different culture ... same as Tolkien's. I don't think too many World War One veterans are reading this.

No, they're two different spren.

Like all ansibles, seon communication is not compatible with relativity. If you can transmit information faster than c, relativity is wrong (or you lose causality). Brandon's spitballing, he knows perfectly well his world isn't ever going to really follow our world's natural laws.

To expand on the point (I left this out by accident when posting), this is why the Wind is nowhere to be found after the new Oathpact is sworn. She's in the Spiritual Realm with the Heralds (and Syl).

Simple answer: can all of us (I'd bet) read Brandon's stuff more easily and with more in-the-moment enjoyment than the plays of William Shakespeare? Yes. Is he a better writer in some absolute sense? Nope.

If the information arrives at a rate measurable as "more than one light second per second" it's faster than light. That's what "faster than light" means. (Physics teacher son of a philosopher/lawyer here. Definitions matter to me.)

Brandon loves technicalities. The above would be true just because of the Dor, or Ambition--Splintered Shards are not held by any Vessel.

Right, but the Rosharan system is in a time bubble. Time there is moving far slower than the rest of the Cosmere (aside from other time-slowed places, like near a black hole).

I've been assuming that the Shard/Vessel relationship is similar in principle to the various Splinter/mortal relationships (Nahel bonds), e. g. spren/radiant, seon/human. Shards work on absurdly long timescales compared to humans, so it takes longer for (say) Honor to become sapient than (say) a windspren to become Sylphrena. I wonder if musicspren/rhyshadium bonds could eventually create a sapient spren. Or mandra/Ancient Guardian.