nehalem

You mean she didn't want to have the giant entity that kills people(and dragons!) by touching them touch the manacles on her wrist... yeah that seems pretty smart to me. Seems like it would be at best trying to perform open heart surgery with a chainsaw.

I am thinking that by "more refined" it also means less powerful. I don't think you would want more nightblood-level shardblades floating around

I think Vasher is just wrong. At this point we have 2 major characters that were originally human for us and have now become cognitive shadows. And I think especially Kaladin can't be a copy. Kind of a let down if Kaladin returns in the 2 arc of Stormlight, but wait its actually not the *real* Kaladin but a copy of him that is exactly like him. Also interesting what impact having a copy of Kaladin would have on Syl and their bond? Shouldn't Syl notice if Kaladin is replaced by a copy? Its also pretty funny that Vasher had whole fossil-soul CS conversation with Kaladin who ended up becoming a cognitive shadow.

Could there be a really simple explanation. Shardblades are formed from one spren. So if it shattered that would be really bad for that spren I imagine. Whereas shardplate is formed from many spren. And is therefore inherently more easily divisible.

I think the difference is that we never knew original Yumi.

I am going to go with Zahel is wrong. It would suck if CS-Kelsier was just a copy the real Kelsier. Who would want to read stories about a copy of a character?

Considering the planet was built together by Ruin and Preservation it seems plausible there was a restriction against smiting people from the planet in place. Preservation would pretty clearly not want Ruin to go around smiting people.

I mean the same basic thing was stated about Odium in a prior book "He bears the weight of God's own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become." Why would Honor without context be good either? You can see the same thing with Preservation as well. Preservation without context is basically stasis. Probably all the shards if you look hard enough.

This is incorrect. Taking up Honor made Todium twice as strong AND made him a clear threat to all the other shards. This would make it so that the others shards would ally an oppose him. If Odium by himself was NOT considered a biggest enough threat for the other shards to oppose.

I feel what you are saying. But I am going to give a completely different answer. The first 2 books were simply more relatable in terms of the world and the problem people faced. Basically we were given a world that maybe it had a weird ecology and shardblades, but was similar to our world maybe a couple hundred years ago. In the next 3 everyone had magic powers and was facing off against demigods or literal gods and going to the cognitive realm and spirtual realm. Also we lost a lot of the culture that was around due to the apocalypse. Maybe Adolin put it best in book 5 when he kept talking about how it was the end of the time of shardbearers. Things changed.

So the Heralds are cognitive shadows right? So its been an open question whether a cognitive shadow is actually the original person or merely a copy of them. For instance Vasher tells, I believe Kaladin(which is actually hilarious now), that cognitive shadows are basically a fossil of the original person. Well guess who just became a Herald, and hence a cognitive shadow: Kaladin! So if Vasher is right that is super awkward, because that would mean Kaladin is now dead And we would only get a fossil Kaladin in the back 5. Also awkward for Syl. Do you think Syl would realize the real Kaladin is dead? So basically I think the simpler explanation is that a cognitive shadow is the original person, and Vasher was just wrong.

So exactly what the title says. Did I miss where this is mentioned? Or is El his own special type of fused maybe?

You kinda have to don't you

I think the better explanation is that they were on a COVERT mission. Bringing along a bunch of shard plate doesn't fit with that kind of mission. Where are you going to store it when you get to Kholinar? What happens if you have to leave suddenly and can't get back to where you stashed it? Or have to leave in such a way you can't walk out with it. So maybe the initial reason was you can't lash shardplate. And then they came up with a bunch of other practical reasons, so didn't both to think up anyway to get around the whole lashing issue.

Samuel L. Jackson is like exactly the opposite of the actor you want for Nale. And honestly they would never cast him as Nale. He is obviously Dalinar.

Yeah I agree. It makes sense that everyone could burn Lerasium, because (1) its what grants allomantic powers and (2) All humans on Scadrial have extra preservation in them. Really the only reason and I can see the retcon making sense is if in the future a non-allomancers has to burn a different godmetal(like Trellium).

Is there an explanation as to why this retcon exists?

It might be accurate to call it Justice or Judgement. But lets just say it would be a rather bloody Justice or Judgement. Which means calling it War seems to fit better.

This seems very similar to my theory. Even our thread titles are almost the same!

I think the problem is that Harmony has trouble acting because his 2 shards are opposed to each. Honor and Odium are not really directly opposed to each other. The fact that their combination is called War should be a hint that combining the 2 won't lead to inaction. If anything I would think it would lead to more action.

A war between the shards of Harmony and War would certainly be interesting. Almost poetic

Am I the only one that finds it strange that all 3 of these things occurred at the same time? So the explanation for the Recreance is that Honor was going crazy and his ravings about Radiants destroying the world caused them to break their oaths. To me that seems unsatisfying and a little like Brandon just needed an excuse to get rid of them. It seems odd that everyone in 9/10 orders would abandon their oaths based on vague fears. And it seems especially odd when you consider that Skybreakers didn't break their oaths. And they have access to the surge of division which seems like it would be one of the more dangerous surges. So if the Radiants were really concerned with destroying the world again why did the Skybreakers stay behind? Of course the other big thing that happened at the same time was the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram and the trapping of the Parshmen in slaveform. It seems like this will be an important plot point in the 5th book. Her imprisonment also had other effects. From the wiki: It seems that one of those souls would be Honor, who just "coincidentally" died shortly thereafter Another important thing to consider is that originally Honor was the god of the singers. In WOR Kaladin temporarily killed Syl because he put himself in a situation where he swore 2 contradictory oaths(to Moash: kill Elhokar, to Dalinar: protect Elhokar). What if Honor had made an oath to protect the singers. I read speculation from others about why humans didn't wipe out the singers between desolations. What if the reason is Honor wouldn't let them as it would kill him? So then when humans essentially did wipe them out he ended up dead. So that leads to why the Recreance really occurred. The Knights Radiant were trying to save Honor. Perhaps the KR thought by abandoning their oaths it would atone for destroying the singers minds. Or at the very least perhaps it allowed Honor's cognitive shadow to merge with the Stormfather allowing Odium to stay bound by the oathpact. So in conclusion 9/10 Knights Radiant didn't abandon their oaths as part of some vague fears about destroying Roshar, but as part of a plan to directly protect Roshar from Odium. That seems like a much better explanation for why nearly all of them would go along with it. It could even explain why the Skybreakers stay behind. They could consider Honor's death to be Justice for what happened to the singers, or that if too many KR existed it would put the Oathpact in danger and they stay behind to prune any future surgebinders.

Navani would be Dalinar's actual sister Their wedding would have at least one important person die(Sadeas?)

Well to be fair one could easily consider Adolin's murdering of Sadeas to be an example of using questionable means to achieve a greater good.

I think there are several things to be considered (1) From the wiki: It wouldn't be surprising to me if the forms which are asexual have less distinct differences between malen and femalen. Which would make transitioning less of a problem. It also likely has an impact on how gender is perceived by Singers in general. Realistically would/should the human importance of gender still exist in a species like the Singers? (2) The Fused are 5000 year old spirits not people. Their attachment to mundane people concerns such as gender are likely to be different. (3) The Fused have more important concerns than worrying about gender. Like a global millennial war and possible eternal torture from Odium. (4) Singers are used to changing forms. Is the difference between say a Stormform and a Workform less than between a human man and woman? Should there be Singers who are transform instead of transgender?