Ashbringer

Two things to note on El: Cosmere characters tend to be named with in-world and out-world ideas: Adonalsium/Adonis are both 'theophoric' in the out-world sense, but in-world Adonalsium isn't named after anything in particular. Thus El as a name might have a meaning in-world in addition to out-world, but they're probably not the same meaning of God. Also El having his names and titles stripped but being able to have God as his one remaining name... doesn't make too much sense to me. (It could work, though, in a rather terrifying way.) It also sounds like Dai-Gonarthis has the abilities of an Elsegate almost as an aside. Her talents are what would allow El to break through the Peaks and then to overwhelm the Shattered Plains - her being able to teleport almost sounds like an extension of her being a giant pile of Investiture, similar to BAM (and perhaps Sja-anat). I do like the earlier comparison, El does seem a lot like Thrawn - he will certainly be an interesting opponent. He seems more visceral and more unbalanced, though. A few other things: The other Shards consider Cultivation a problem? I guess I can see it - she seemingly didn't speak with Harmony, and she did orchestrate Rayse's demise (and possibly the unleashing of super-Odium). Two missing Shards - Valor may be doing something to prepare for Odium and hiding from him intentionally. The other is probably Virtuosity or our missing Wisdom-esque Shard. Letting each side rule in turn... sounds like Roshar would become very complicated. It does give Honor a chance to meld with Odium, though (and the mention of Harmony does as well).

Sanderson: Here, I killed Jezrien in OB. Fans: But he could still be alive! Sanderson: Here's Kalak explaining why he's not still alive in RoW. Fans: But he could still be alive! Sanderson: Fine, I'll kill him again...

Oh this may be interesting... Not sure if I can join. Turns out getting a PhD is complicated. Definitely interested though.

Seeing as Lift has taken Gav on mini excursions through the ventilation shafts before... he's clearly not being watched too carefully. I don't know if they'd have an idea where he'd gone, or if he'd gone wherever "Lift" was supposed to be while Lift is playing Navani. The Lightweavers might figure it out, but there's a decent chance they'd figure it out anyway, if Lopen/Rua did. I think they'd be smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

Ishar seemed to fake or have true functionality for a long while - the whole God-Priest of Tukar is only a recent development, only when Gavilar (and a Herald) died. Alternatively, the other Heralds seem to crave structure, with Nale needing someone to give him the law to work with and Kalak needing someone to force him to make a decision. Ishar is still a Leader, he's just convinced he's a diety. I also wouldn't trust much he says. Especially since he says he gave Szeth his task, when Szeth says an Unmade did it.

My mind is saying the "knife" might be Dalinar needing to leave Gavinor behind in the Spiritual Realm in order to get back on time.

Not as explicitly. And if Dalinar “finds”Honor in the past, he may have to go find it before Odium can truly Splinter it. I don’t know. But I don’t think Hoid does either. He’s being overly cautious.

The Stormfather has some secret about Honor. Odium thought he killed (and presumably thought he Splintered) Honor. Dalinar is going to try to Ascend to Honor. I'd guess that Hoid is trying to make sure Odium or other forces doesn't learn about what happened with Honor before Dalinar can try and bind. Hoid may also just be trying to be careful. He knows there's ground that hasn't been broken before with the new Odium, and he knows at least some of the Ghostbloods' plans / would have some awareness of the danger of what's happening.

I think the Ghostbloods were the guards that Shallan and the Radiants brought to the Cognitive Realm, while there were other, more normal guards in the Physical. Which was a little hard to parse but made more sense. I bet the Ghostbloods can make their own anti-Light now. Otherwise they wouldn't be so free with it.

Maybe? But she’d need Light to do fuel that Illumination, which is the problem in the first place.

Voidlight also has the advantage of being less leaky than Stormlight. Or, perhaps Voidlight is the trick to getting a Corrupted Surge to do what you want it to. I don't think the Ghostbloods care much what the Radiants know they have, they just revealed their presumable trump card in anti-Stormlight munitions and likely have deeper secrets anyway. Remember it was a Ghostblood (or minimum a Scadrian) who managed to get the first Voidspren on Roshar, not that Shallan would know.

We haven't seen Jasnah "straight up teleport" yet. We've barely seen her go into the Cognitive. It's Transportation, clearly, but what form it takes we don't know. I think it's corrupted because there's a callout to a voidlight color when it's activated - I forget if Renarin can use Voidlight to fuel his abilities. Also Elsecallers seem to learn Soulcasting first, then Elsecalling. Most orders follow that pattern of higher-Surge-first except Bondsmiths. Yep! And presumably all the other ones. Re-Shephir sat in an empty Urithiru for a few thousand years, too. Unmade are weird. A hatred of Taln would make sense, but the Unmade don't go back to Braize, so they'd have a bit less reason to hate him than Odium would. Or Fused... I wonder what Leshwi thinks of him, or if that's just a conversation you shouldn't bring up at Thanksgiving dinner.

I think Shallan probably would have been fine taking the bolt to her armor, or shield if she could block it in time - but she'd have no way of knowing, and it's likely better to just be shot with a bolt than risk losing her armor/spren and having the anti-Stormlight explode in her chest. And props to Shallan here. That was just awesome. Ghostblood access to corrupted Transportation explains how they plan to follow Dalinar. Cognitive Shadow souls are much more "accessible" to interference - I think Fused souls are in their gemhearts like Voidspren for Regals are. Living human souls are in the Spiritual, I think. If Iyatil was trying to make a Hemalurgic spike, maybe that changes. And our Unmade is interested in Honorblades. Makes sense.

Two, I think. Glys and Tumi are both Enlightened (bound to Renarin and Rlain), which means we actually have more Enlightened Truthwatchers than normal ones. I'd thought that Tumi was meant for Mraize, at first. But apparently not so.

Sja-anat might be their "newest recruit", but she also says that she'd have drawn the attention of the Sibling. She might have been the plan to nudge Dalinar into entering the Spiritual, but I doubt she was the source. Mraize seems to address those as separate persons. It could be one of her Enlightened spren, though. Another possibility is the Mink, or another conversation participant - or even that new guard we met with Dalinar. Or some sort of bug/wiretap, Those are close to existing. I think another possibility is the more Rosharan type of bug - the Ghostblood-aligned Sleepless. We haven't actually seen them in action yet.

Maybe? But if they were using their allied Sleepless, they probably would know about Rsyn. It doesn't seem like even the True Traitors get fully cut off, and even if they do, the Sleepless have proven to be excellent infiltrators + we know Rsyn talks about the Dawnshard, because she went and told Vstim. Rsyn seems a safer bet than an ancient unstable spren. Although Iyatil doesn't seem to think that'll be a problem anyway.

As in Mishram has/is a Dawnshard? That's... frighteningly possible. But why would the Ghostbloods know about it and not seemingly anyone else? BAM's actions were far before their time, and if they were after a Dawnshard, Rsyn seems like a much more accessible target.

Another thought I had - ashspren. We’re missing some Dustbringers, and even unenlightened ashspren may be willing to be experimental with their bonds.

Enlightening sentient Radiant spren seems to need to be a willing process. But, we’ve got evidence of partially-Enlightened Inkspren, so it could extend to other Orders.

I’m inclined to believe Sja-anat is aligned with the GBs solely for self-interest and survival. They would be a threat to her, but also can help her in ways she needs. So she may have just chosen not to give up Shallan. But believing spren like her has gotten us into trouble, so… Nightblood couldn’t damage Odium (the Shard), I doubt a smidge of anti-Investiture would. Dropping an atom of anti-hydrogen in the ocean would be profoundly disappointing.

I don't think they're interested in the mechanism of imprisoning BAM - otherwise they would have shown interest in retrieving Nergaoul. BAM is a step closer to a Shard, but that's like climbing Urithiru to reach Ashyn. But I had thought BAM was about the source of Voidlight. This is very different. Also this seems like Iyatil's plan, not Thaidakar's.

Weirdly hot plants actually make me think more of Komashi. But it's likely some unknown place, or some weird First of the Sun thing. iirc, Sanderson's mentioned there's "lesser" dragons in the cosmere, and that "greater" dragons raise their young in human form. I think a lesser dragon egg would make sense. A greater dragon egg... sounds incredibly dangerous to try and collect and then put in a case and not do anything cool with. Hoid's statement on a Shard not fully ascending makes me think he means Vin not taking the power in Well of Ascension. Her ascension in HoA was much more complete, and he might not even know Kelsier partially held Preservation. But it's interesting implicit confirmation that remaining Shards are the originals. Iyatil wants BAM to control the Shards... whaaaaat. I thought this was just about Voidlight. Interestingly, they seemingly didn't catch Shallan until just here at the end. Credit to her. But also trying to fool Iyatil was too much of a gamble.

One reason I don't think it's Adolin who's the "big-RoW-choice" is that Adolin wasn't always a major part of Stormlight. He was written into TWoK mostly to be a foil to Dalinar's visions so Dalinar could be more sure of himself, and indeed died in the original draft. After TWoK he gained a larger role. Of course, that doesn't mean too much - TWoK was early when Taravangian-Odium wasn't even a solidified decision until RoW. But the WaT climax is supposed to be big, and something that's been brewing for a very long time.

True. I'm not sure if there's many other examples of how Living plate behaves in battle - maybe a Jasnah chapter or a Dalinar vision. But I don't think it's ever implied that it's indestructible outside of Radiant Stormlight efficiency. Also the Heralds were thought to be essentially indestructible with near-unlimited Stormlight, and yet Taln died every Desolation and other Heralds often did as well. They didn't have Shardplate, though. Zellion's is definitely odd. He thinks he can't bring back his armor, but he also was basically out of Investiture then iirc and may not have been able to repair it even with a normal bond.

Based on Sunlit Man and a few other things, Living Plate acts mostly the same defensively as dead Plate (though if Zellion’s plate is living or dead or something else is uncertain). It can still crack and shatter and repair itself with Stormlight. Summoning probably is fine without - Aux mentions that summoning or changing the Blade uses a “negligable” amount of Investiture, but it’s never seemed like a problem for Radiants or non-Radiants when there’s not a suppressor fabrial around. I doubt the GBs were expecting the Shardplate Iron Maiden trick, but they should know enough about Plate in general. Shallan has no idea what Allomancy can do, though. She doesn’t know a touch can be dangerous to her Stormlight, and a Leecher!Iyatil could probably drain her before getting her armor active (and then potentially stop her from summoning it and her Blade per the WoB Alder just posted, which may solve the GB’s problems). I imagine Iyatil will think she’s in complete control until approximately 3 minutes after she loses control. But that won’t be for a while.