Olmund

Whether or not Brandon considers it a side effect (despite what in-world sources believe), it still doesn't change the fact that Brandon decided to rectify what he saw as an inconsistency (everyone can burn Lerasium, but not everyone can burn Atium, despite both being god metals) with a retcon that created yet another inconsistency (if a bit of alloyed metal can interfere with burning Atium, it should block burning Lerasium). It's not an important point that I'm making -- Brandon's magic systems all have arbitrary decisions in their DNA. I guess I'm still a bit salty hearing about how critical he has become about some of my favorite parts of Mistborn (sign of the 16, etc.) and thus I've become critical of his retcons which I feel are pointless (though once he starts incorporating them as plot points they will cease to have that status).

I think something similar to this has been asked before -- can't find the WoB. You're asking because Brandon has decided that godmetals can be burned by anyone, right? ...or at least both Lerasium and Atium. I think that's a silly change to the canon, BTW-- if Lerasium alloys can be burned by anyone, then adding electrum to Atium shouldn't make it unusable. Brandon's just trading one arbitrary decision for another arbitrary decision, imo. Setting aside my whinging, I'd assume a shardbead couldn't be burned for because with or without a functioning Nahel bond, a shard weapon is not just a bit of solid investiture like a bead of Lerasium -- the sapient spren "fills" the metal which probably makes it (nearly) impossible to burn, just like it would be nearly impossible to use it for hemalurgy: To be clear, I think a spren can probably be consumed in a manner similar to burning metals -- "unmaking" a spren (especially one that contains one's own investiture as Sja Anat fears Odium may di to her) might be an example of that -- but it requires so much power/investiture that only a shard could do it. The cracks in a broken soul aren't a big enough void to unmake a spren, but they are big enough to absorb some non-sapient investiture.

Your thoughts on Kaladin leading the army/windrunners are voiced in the book by Dalinar himself. That's why he removed Kaladin from his position, and why Kaladin was left behind in Urithiru. Whether someone else would have tried (and/or succeeded) in taking out Moash either in Hearthstone or during the invasion of Kholinar is a moot point -- Moash was specifically targeting Kaladin and attempting to break his spirit, because Moash thinks that the only way he can absolve himself of guilt is by proving that Kaladin's actions were meaningless. Confrontation between the two was more or less inevitable.

Your feelings as a reader make sense, because you're seeing a character that was previously a (well-written) power fantasy fail completely -- thus leading to terrible consequences. During the first two books, it was safe to let yourself live through Kaladin's experience vicariously -- because you knew that no matter how bad it got, when the chips were down, Kaladin would come out on top and justice would be served. None of his failures up to that point were really "his;" he didn't have the power to make things different, so it wasn't a personal blow to you as the reader when he "failed." Now that he has the power, it hurts a lot more when he fails in a situation where he does (on paper) have the power to stop the bad stuff from happening. Now, Kaladin has an additional role -- he's still a power fantasy (though that role will probably conclude in KoWaT), but as Shallan_Stormblessed mentioned he's also a depiction of how people deal with personal failure, trauma and mental illness -- as such, if you grow too attached to him and live through him vicariously you are in for some emotional gut punches. Personally, I have a different (but related) issue with how Kaladin has evolved. He's just too capable in combat, even in situations where he has way too many things stacked against him (no radiant powers, or severely limited powers; intelligent opponents that have had millenia to refine their skills, etc.). I feel like Brandon has powercrept him way too high because he feels like "Kaladin will do some insane combat stuff at the end of the book" is a part of his contract with the reader at this point. It's one of the few respects in which I feel like Stormlight Archive is suffering from sequelitis.

I do think we run the risk of giving Transcendent Taravangian too much credit here -- there are plenty of things the diagram gets wrong, which is why the members of the (secret organization) Diagram notice that it becomes less reliable over time, and no matter how smart he was I don't think he had access to any information that would have let him understand shardhood well enough that he could concoct a specific method to kill a vessel and take his place. Szeth was in the diagram, but Nightblood was not (iirc), and certainly Szeth and Nightblood could not have been associated in the diagram since that didn't happen until later. Anyway, I think Taravangian's initial interpretation of the line "you must be king of everything," is still most likely what his transcendent self was after -- he thought that if he was powerful enough he could have the bargaining power to make Odium leave the majority of Roshar alone after he was released to rampage across the Cosmere. I also think that it was the unique strength of his "dumb" self (i.e., heightened emotions) that allowed him to kill Odium and take his place. That also seems to be a specific blindspot of his hyper-intelligent self (i.e., he doesn't understand or see the value of human emotion while hyper-intelligent), so it doesn't quite make sense that the intelligent self would bank on his emotions as a means to victory over Odium. Cultivation, on the other hand, did have access to all of the information necessary to see the possibility of Taravangian killing Rayse, as well as the ability to mask that future from Rayse by introducing so much chaos into the mix -- so I think the credit for the kill does belong to her (even if it was a long shot that she wasn't confident would work), rather than Diagram Taravangian.

This will probably be explained/explored later. Gavilar had dealings with the Ghostbloods, and they seem to be pretty keen on sinking their hooks into powerful people in the cosmere. It's quite possible they tried to recruit her, and she managed to learn too much about them while also outright rejecting whatever they offered her -- so they decided they couldn't let her live. Alternatively, Mraize could be telling the truth when he said Jasnah killed several of their members -- she's shown to be something of a vigilante, and assassination is definitely within her wheelhouse, so I could see her slaughtering a bunch of Ghostbloods that were engaged in a plot that she didn't like. At any rate, the Knights Radiant weren't a living organization at the point when the Ghostbloods were trying to kill Jasnah; they seem to have backed off a bit since then (probably in an effort to win over Shallan).

Could be a Shin shardbearer, given the setting of SA5. Zellion-son-Humbobumbo, or something -- his full name isn't given, but Szeth's isn't shown on the minifig art either.

There's a small chance that giving the spheres to Roshone (or not taking them in the first place) would have kept Roshone from sending the boys to war, but you need to remember that Roshone is a vindictive greedy manchild and events would likely have played out the same regardless (Roshone's son still gets mortally wounded by a whitespine, Lirin fails to save him, and Roshone decides to punish Lirin by sending his boys to war). In survival situations, disagreeableness and stubbornness are often valuable traits -- because a highly agreeable person who lets selfish people walk all over them will be entirely reliant on the whims of the powerful and can't protect themselves or their loved ones. Had life in Alethkar continued as it had for the past few decades (and Roshone's son not been killed), Lirin's plan probably was the best bet for giving Kaladin a decent future.

I think Sadeas (likely guided by Gavilar) negotiated/goaded Tanalan into a nasty confrontation with Dalinar because he truly did believe that they needed to make an example of dissenters. Dalinar -- the king's brother -- being killed would provide an excellent excuse to destroy them completely, and thus hide any evidence of Sadeas' double-crossing. Dalinar not dying may or may not have been a possibility that Sadeas accounted for, and Evi's death was almost certainly something Sadeas did not plan, but at any rate he got (mostly) the outcome he was after. As others have mentioned, both Gavilar and Sadeas have plenty of reasons to want Dalinar dead during that time frame (read the SA5 prologue for specifics on Gavilar).

I think it depends on how you define "emotions." If you refer to any change in neural chemistry, no matter how small, then yes -- emotions can be necessary to be rational about things (or to have the motivation to act/think at all). That's kind of the way allomancy treats emotion, since powerful soothing is debilitating. That said, what we see with Moash/Vyre is pretty different. Odium consuming his "passions" doesn't make him perfectly rational, but it does keep his emotional attachments from interfering with his ability to accomplish things. We see a similar duality with Taravangian's intelligent & apathetic side versus his unintelligent and sympathetic side.

I know Brandon namedropped him for the Dalinar role, though he was mainly talking about physique. As for Ian McKellen, I think he'd have been perfect as Taravangian if the series had been started 10-15 years ago. Now, I worry that we won't be seeing Sir Ian much longer.

I think those are all solid choices, and Gal Gadot would probably appreciate being able to play a more erudite character -- but I think Brandon might push for more East Asian casting for the Alethi. Ken Watanabe as Dalinar and Michelle Yeoh as Navani could be cool.

That's what you get for choosing "Kholin" as a username. It's like a cheat code for an old NES game; lines up with the books quite nicely.

A couple thoughts-- feel free to repudiate/corroborate as you see fit: 1. Deathspren seemed almost entirely confined to the cognitive realm. This lines up with what we know about cosmere death, which draws an individual into the cognitive realm (or manifests their cognitive shadow, at least) before they transition to "the beyond." I think in TWoK after Kaladin is left out in the Highstorm and Syl is fending off the deathspren, she's able to do so partially because they are all more present in the cognitive realm than usual (since Kaladin is dying). I think witness accounts of deathspren come entirely from those with near-death experiences, as those who are around the dying can't actually observe them. 2. The physical realm plays an important role in capturing spren within gemstones. In shadesmar, where spren are more solid/tangible, I doubt you could trap a spren in a gemstone. This leads me to believe that deathspren would be difficult, if not impossible, to capture in a fabrial.

Perhaps. That would be one way to bring the sleepless into the picture for SA5, from a narrative perspective. That said, the Stormfather in the SA5 prologue seems to think there may be another (perhaps simpler) way to renew the oathpact. It's possible that he, too, was counting on the dawnshard -- but it's more likely that as the largest splinter of Honor's investiture he's able to do much more than he lets on.