perfectlybalanced

There is one big thing about this theory that either makes it not work out or it leads into something else that would be really cool. What happened to Chanarach's Honor Blade? If she had died and was sent back to Braize like Taln was at the end of the previous desolation, then I believe her honor blade would have disappeared from Shinovar and gone with her. In a Taravangian interlude in Words of Radiance, Taravangian "lies" to Szeth about another missing honor blade among the seven remaining honor blades. This means before Szeth left Shinovar there were two honor blades that were missing as when he left he took Jezrien's honor blade with him. One of these of course would have been Taln's blade. We could assume that the other missing one is Nale's honor blade. This would indicate that Chanarach's blade was still there and hence she couldn't have died and went back to Braize (if this is the case then I am really sad because I loved this theory). The OTHER possibility is that Nale hadn't yet retrieved his honor blade before Szeth left Shinovar as he could have still grabbed it well before the beginning of the Way of Kings (prologue time period) without Szeth's knowledge. In this case, Taravangian's lie about an Honor blade going missing is actually a hint that this is the case and the missing blade is Nale's while Chanarach's blade had already gone missing during Szeth's time in Shinovar which I believe lines up with when Shallan kills her mom. If this had happened though, then the ones guarding the honor blades (Szeth's family) may have faced punishment, tried to hide the fact the blade went missing, or perhaps have been part of the impetuous for Szeth making the claim that the Radiants and the Desolations had returned or would return. Brandon could be saving this big reveal to be in Szeth's flashbacks, while strategically not letting any of Szeth's current viewpoints mention Chanarach's missing blade and instead just focusing on Radiants returning. Anyways, this would be really cool, but I feel like Brandon would have foreshadowed this a bit more if it were the case.

We got a lot more shared names in Rhythm of War. While reading mission era 1 again my wife and I wondered if there was a connection between the 16 metals and 16 shards. We decided to first look and see if we could divide the Shards into the four groups of physical, cognitive, spiritual, and temporal. We then thought about pairs inside of these and then their connection with allomantic and feruchemy powers. Attached below is our chart but the ones we like the most are the physical and temporal ones. A quick summary of some of our thoughts: Endowment is about giving while Ambition is about taking making them good foils and about physical things. This made us think of the pull and push of iron and steel. Dominion is about controlling a place while Autonomy is about giving places their own control. Pewter is about muscles so seems to connect with Dominion while Autonomy seems to like to keep a lookout for things with his avatars like a tineye. Ruin is about changing things even until they are destroyed while Preservation is clearly opposed to this. Preservation seems like cadmium where you slow down time (less change) whole ruin speeds up time like with bendalloy. These both seem to relate to time hence temporal. Devotion could be thought of holding strongly to a past belief hence gold which looks at the past you. Cultivation is about changing yourself or others into something new which fits with seeing your future moves like electrum. This also fits with cultivation having better foresight. These both look at change in time hence temporal. The others may be more speculative but Odium seems to almost soothe emotions as he takes them from people like brass. Perhaps Valor riots emotions as valor is associated with bravery hence valor would be brass. These both clearly deal with emotions so perhaps cognitive. We have heard of a possible shard being called wisdom/prudence which is definitely cognitive and may be about hiding from danger hence Copper which hides allomantic pulses. The opposite may be Invention which involves searching for new things and hence bronze to hear allomantic pulses. Lastly Whimsy feels like it should match aluminum since aluminum just messes with every magic system and hence could be the foil to Honor who may take things too seriously which could also equate with Duralumin which gives other metals great strength but also depletes them quicker. These got put in spiritual with mercy in part because we weren’t sure where these should go. What do you all think?