AquaRegia

Some 17th Sharders: "I hate Shallan for victim-blaming the bridgemen" The very same 17th Sharders: *victim-blame Shallan*

Szeth will be in Shinovar - I agree he's not a good option. Gavinor is not a viable choice IMO. A 7-year old cannot freely consent to a duel to the death, not even in the Cosmere. I doubt Nale would ever willingly fight directly for Odium... but of the three you chose, he's most likely. You have omitted the person I see as the MOST likely candidate - Gavilar. Link to previous topic, rehashing not necessary:

I'm also a tiny bit disappointed - seems like, by process of elimination (and supported by WoB), the Stormstriders are some weird kind of spren. I really hope we learn more about them at some point. Kudos @Hoiditthroughthegrapevine for the lyrics LOL

The OB Chapter 120 passage doesn't indicate Radiant's Shardplate is any more than an illusion, just as the image of Radiant herself is. I still have not seen anything to make me consider that Shallan already has Plate. Roger that. Just part of the Shallan deal. I had forgotten this! OBVIOUSLY if those deadeye Blades were retrofitted with gemstones, their shape must have changed... and it seems clear that magic is by far the most likely way for that to happen. We've never seen any humans who knew how to manipulate deadeye Blades - the Blades themselves must have been willing to cooperate in some way. Strong evidence, I think, for the idea that deadeyes are not so "dead" as many think. That is a terrific observation! I'm not sure I'm sold, but it's a really interesting thought. I completely agree that unraveling Shallan's past is fascinating. I re-read the chasms scenes in WoR, and was struck by the fact that Pattern is COMPLETELY absent the entire time. He never speaks, is never seen, Shallan never speaks to him; the only time she even THINKS about him is when she wishes she could have used him to attach illusions to, "but that was problematic because - " (WoR Ch. 72). If the Blade being used was Testament, wouldn't Pattern be around helping save Shallan's life? I think this may be the most convincing reason to believe that it IS Patternblade in the chasms.

We don't know how far apart the systems involved are, so let's assume something typical from what we know about our real galaxy - say, 10 light years. Distances between inhabited systems are unlikely to be much less than this, and could be FAR more. Do you really think it took Vasher and Vivenna longer than 10 years to get from Nalthis to Roshar? He may be effectively immortal, but she isn't! Either way, I do understand that your point is to explore ways a VEHICLE could carry passengers through the CR; I just don't have any speculation to share on that right now.

Agreed. We already know multiple characters - Hoid, Iyatil, Khriss, Nazh, Zahel and Azure, just to name a few off the top of my head - who have traveled from one star system to another by, as far as we know, walking through Shadesmar. Clearly, walking CAN be FTL, no spaceships, planes, or other tech required, as long as you know how to get into and out of the CR. This, of course, does not rule out vehicles ALSO moving FTL through the CR.

I read through the Battle of Thaylen City. While it is true that the Radiant persona is the "real" one, there is no mention of Shardplate in that scene, none at all. If you found some evidence elsewhere that Shallan has Plate, I'd love to see it... but I don't remember reading any, nor has anyone else ever mentioned any. Regarding the Testamentblade vs Patternblade debate, this post (in one of my all-time favorite topics here) collects every single mention of Shallan's Shardblades. There are not many. Color is mentioned only three times, and never once AFTER the chasm scene. While the garnet appearance of the Blade in the chasms can be seen as supporting the idea that it's a different Blade than the silver one that killed Tyn, that slim evidence is not enough to convince me 100%. A blade can be both silver and faintly glowing garnet. I still think it's possible that we've seen only the Testamentblade throughout WoR, and the first time Shallan summons Pattern as a Blade is when practicing with Adolin in OB, as described here.

My wife did notice that, and pointed it out to me during her recent reread of tWoK. The prominence of Kabsal's cymatics demonstrations made me confident that sound would eventually be very important somehow.

Maybe the Everstorm? I seem to recall mention that the Weeping is no longer reliable and the seasons (such as they were) had been disrupted.

Interesting idea! I also interpreted that quote figuratively, i.e., meaning that Sja-Anat granting "enlightenment" allows them to see things they could not before... but it very well might be a reference to a change in the deadeye state.

Yes, this exactly. As previously discussed in other threads, it's far too tempting to make assumptions that we've learned everything there is to know about "how things work", when in fact we have almost no data. Brandon suckers us in: he shows us a tiny bit of the magic system, and we happily say "oh, NOW I get it!"... only to find out later that that little bit was just the tip of a huge iceberg. Incomplete information about four or five Radiants simply isn't enough to infer all the underlying principles and rules. Plus, we've been shown over and over that characters, even the ones who act like they know everything, are almost always wrong. It reminds me of astronomers making theories about solar systems and planet formation in decades past. Makes sense for rocky planets to be close in and gas planets to be farther out, right? Should be a general rule. The problem is, we only had ONE solar system to look at. Once we started collecting data about OTHER solar systems, we learned that our ideas were all wrong.

I disagree - I don't think we can be sure we know any of these things. Some of them are likely true... but we don't KNOW. -Shallan at least had the 3rd oath with Testament when she was young: probably true. But even she doesn't remember what happened yet... the whole picture could change again when more of the past is revealed. -Pattern didn't show up until Kharbranth: Pattern says so directly, and I believe him much more than I do Shallan. Evidence supports this conclusion. -Testamentblade is the one to kill Tyn: yes. Many disagree, and I admit we don't KNOW, but I think the evidence for this is solid. -Patternblade is the one to Kaladin uses in the chasms and the one used to open the Oathgates on the Shattered Plains: I disagree here. It's possible, but I think it's more likely that this was also Testament. What are your reasons for believing it was Pattern? If it's because she says "Pattern" when summoning it, keep in mind she doesn't even remember Testament at this point. -At the Battle of Thaylen Field, she has Shardplate: I don't think so. She creates Lightweaving illusions of Radiant in Plate, but I don't think we've ever seen Shallan's physical body in Plate yet. -Something is wrong with Shallan's Soulcasting Ability: sort of. Her Soulcasting is more strongly linked to her Bond with Testament, and so has been badly damaged. The only time we see her do it successfully is when she seems to renew her Truths with Testament... or, at least, that's how some of us are interpreting the scene in Kharbranth. It's certainly possible that Lightweavers follow the same rules as other orders (3rd Oath = Blade, 4th Oath = Plate) but I don't think we know enough to be sure yet, and the training scene in RoW makes it clear that Lightweavers do not adhere rigidly to rules in the same the way other orders do... so it's also possible they don't.

1) Shallan is an unreliable narrator. We do not know enough about what happened with Testament, and some of what we "knew" was wrong. 2) Lightweavers don't swear "Oaths", they say "Truths". We do not know enough about how this works to judge what's going on. 3) Never in any Sanderson Cosmere work have we (the readers) had access to all the rules. We NEVER know the whole story, and neither do the characters. To sum up: Shallan's weird, Lightweavers are weird, the rules are weird, and we won't ever know everything. We'll know more when Brandon wants us to know more.

Everything you said was true, of course, but THIS was the most true. ;-)

I'm sorry that so many people seem to really fiercely dislike Shallan and her chapters. Of course you are perfectly free to like or dislike anything you please. I find her story fascinating - the "unreliable narrator" has never been done better IMO - and I do personally relate to her curiosity and desire to be a scholar and to her penchant for inappropriate sarcasm and levity. I don't relate to her trauma and her mental illness... but I am married to a woman who does. Believe me, the way Shallan represses painful memories, they way she compartmentalizes things, they way she relies on different parts of her personality (aka different personas) to deal with things, the way she straight-up lies to herself - all these ring true for me through a long relationship with someone who's dealing with similar things. I think Brandon has produced nothing short of a storming masterwork of how trauma-induced DID can work. I would encourage anyone who finds that they can't relate to Shallan's trauma and resulting extreme coping mechanisms, be thankful that you don't have the kinds of experiences which would make these things relatable. That said, it's not really anybody's fault if they don't find a particular character entertaining or enjoyable.

Back to the original topic, being both a geology nerd and a Sanderson nerd, I now can't stop thinking about concHOIDal fracture. I don't think it means anything... but if nothing else it's a neat coincidence that I'm grumpy I didn't notice. Cephandrius never even goes by "Hoid" on Roshar, and I think he existed long before Roshar did in Brandon's mind, but the word might have served as an influence for choosing the name.

@LewsTherinTelescope everything you have said is likely correct... clearly the Stormlight Archive has exceeded the capacity of my brain.

1) Double(triple!)-posting is frowned upon in the Shard; if you've made a post and think of something to add (I do this all the time), you can edit your previous post. 2) I LOVE your profile pic! Stick, of course, is a legend... but what first looked to me like a solar eclipse "diamond ring" became a dilated eyeball, THEN I saw the detail in the iris is actually Alethi script. Brilliant! Is it your work? 3) I don't have any speculation about Radiant spren or fabrials thereof (I don't feel I know enough yet about how fabrials are made and why they work), but I will say that I think we've already seen sapient spren trapped in gemstones - all the Fused initially got to the Physical Realm contained in gemstones. Don't Sja-Anat's Enlightened "children" get smuggled into Urithiru inside gemstones? She also gives some to Taravangian, if I recall. Seems if they enter the gemstone voluntarily, it's just a convenient way to travel, and when the gem is broken, they are released with no ill effects.

Interesting. I've always head-pronounced Cephandrius with a hard C... and I knew someone named Cephas who pronounced it "Seefus".

While I appreciate @Szeth_Pancakes including me on that illustrious list, I choose not to encourage this type of frivolous nonsense. ;-)

Given 1) how much we hear about the power and importance of accents from Wayne, and 2) the known fact that Brandon pulls inspiration for character and place names from real locations around the world, I think it's quite reasonable to speculate about how the characters must sound. For Allik, I also imagined something vaguely German, probably because of his use of "yah" for "yes", reminiscent of German "ja". Turns out, though, that "Ja" is also Norwegian for yes... and the name of Allik's vessel, Brunstell, is also Norwegian (translating to "brown frame"). It would seem Scandinavian is an excellent guess. I have no doubt that Brandon spends time and effort planning how his characters sound to each other. In the case of Wayne, his 'natural' accent - in other words, the way he speaks when he's not playing a different role - is intended to be taken as Australian Cockney. At least, that's how I interpret the creative spellings and word choices Brandon uses there. However, I also think it can be dangerous to carry any ideas about perceived similarities to our world and languages too far; it IS a fantasy Cosmere, after all. Complicating this debate will be the audiobooks, in which narrators, voice actors, or directors may make different choices about how characters sound than Brandon would. Here is an earlier discussion of the topic of accents... I forgot how far down the rabbit hole I went there. We all have our weird interests, don't we?

My impression is that the Rhythms, being generated by Roshar, are truly constant and thus the same for all Singers at all times and places. I think of them as radio transmissions - always there, all the time, even if unheard... but with the right equipment, you can tune in a number of different stations, and every other person attuning that Rhythm will simultaneously hear the same thing you do. There are numerous examples of Singers using the Rhythms to coordinate actions while physically separated.

One small mistake - I fixed it. ;-)

This is terrifying, fascinating, and does indeed seem like the kind of thing Brandon might do... I will not be shocked if something like this happens at some point. Taravangian crashing and burning, followed by Koravellium acquiring a 2nd Shard, would indeed be a kickass ending for SA 7 or 8, and certainly has the potential for ratcheting up the Cosmere-wide danger factor. I will be surprised if it happens in SA 5... but I'm not betting any spheres now.