Argent

Except Shallan didn't become a Radiant because of an abusive father. If anything, it was her mother who was the problem - Lin Davar didn't turn into a nutjob until after he took on Shallan's blame. I am not saying that Jasnah was abused by her family necessarily (though Navani does mention that Gavilar was different in private than he was in public), but I like the general argument a lot.

Yep, this looks pretty accurate.

Hmm, yes. I will update the original post to describe the Voids' summetry better and to make note of the matching colors. I am pretty stumped about why there seem to be missing lines... At this point I am treating it as an artistic thing. It's probably not one, but we don't really know anything about the presumed connection between the larkin Surgebinding, so it's kind of hard to draw a parallel to the gemstone and Voidbringing. @banestar, the part about needing a gem to capture the voidspren, and then breaking that gem, it's not necessary. The Parshendi can change forms by simply attracting the spren they want, the gem Eshonai used is a convenience. I always assumed both creatures were artificial constructs. The form that represents the anti-Stonewards could be the one to create the Thunderclasts, at least. Either that, or one of the forms with access to the anti-Transformation surge. I think I remember seeing that thread. I obviously see and explain things a little differently, but I have to agree that stormform does feel a little weird. On one hand, I don't see any noteworthy problems with your idea. On the other, I don't see any (more significant ones) with mine. So it's very likely that we both have incomplete, but somewhat overlapping pieces of the entire picture.

@Cardello, I don't know if those will be useful, but I've been hoping somebody would make a post or two like this. I intend to try to use them.

Ah, another Jasnah thread I can pick on! Good, good... The "particularly a man" part has been somewhat accepted in the community to suggest that Jasnah has had some pretty negative experiences with men - or a single man, perhaps Amaram (given how hard she was cold-shouldering him in the WoR prologue) - in the past. Her behavior and words in The Way of Kings when she takes Shallan on her... philosophy lesson supports this. Now, onto religious views! Just a few days ago I myself had to deal with the question "do you believe in X" (aliens, in my case), and in deciding how to answer, became aware that it's a meaningless question. There are surprisingly many ways to interpret this, and they are pretty different from one another. For practical reasons I'll use "the Almighty" instead of "aliens" here, but it applies across the board. Do you believe the Almighty exists?Yes, and we define the Almighty the same way [the Vorin answer] Yes / Maybe, but I define the Almighty different from you Do you worship the Almighty?Yes [the Vorin answer] No, because I don't believe in the supernatural. There may be a natural being similar to the Almighty, however - but I still don't worship it No, because I don't believe in the supernatural. There are a few other ways somebody could respond to those questions (which are really the same question, "Do you believe in the Almighty?" but broken down). Jasnah - and any atheist who has put some thought into his or her (lack of) beliefs - will always choose the second option. Jasnah acknowledges that there might very well be a being out there, one that became the basis for the Vorin Almighty - and she is right, this is (the Shardholder of) Honor. But she doesn't recognize it / him as a god, a divine being, a supernatural entity - and therefore doesn't worship him. I explain all this so I can just say that her stance on the Voidbringers is the same. She doesn't believe there is anything supernatural about them, but is pretty confident that they exist. I wish we had a good analogue from our world...

I always figured those were the names of the Orders.

I am not so sure here. The way I imagined it, there was a period on Roshar when all life was pretty Earth-like. So they had normal hounds, dogs, back then. Then the highstorms started showing up, for one reason or another, and all life had to adapt or die. Since you are right about the timescale being too short for evolution through natural selection, I am going to use my "A wizard did it!" card. Which I get to do, because we've already seen a case where a single Shard has modified entire species, if not an entire world, all in what would be considered an instant on the astronomical and evolutionary scales. I suspect Cultivation pulled some strings...

Sociopath was my guess as well. He is not actually changing his emotions on demand, he is changing what he displays outwardly - which is easy for him, as the decision is on par with the decision about whether I am going to scratch my nose with the left or right arm. This being said, I like the idea that he is an Aimian, but different from Axies. It's not really supported, but is compelling nonetheless.

I was quite happy with him. His arc felt logical, it made sense that he says, feels, and does what he does. My only issue is with his challenge to Amaram after the duel, but I've never felt the kind of hatred he feels for Amaram, so it's something I am willing to suspend my disbelief about and trust the author.

I deliberately left her out. If I continue the parallels, she would have to counter the Heralds, which would make her the Unmade (collectively), as I understand things right now... I just don't know enough to make a guess that's both reasonable and educated. I have plenty that are only reasonable or educated, but not both though

This brings another interesting question - if we project Roshar (the planet) on Earth so that the Origin is somewhere in Australia (partially because that's where it would roughly land, and partially because I can't think of a better origin point for deadly and destructive things), would highstorms hit the Northern Hemisphere? In other words, are the highstorms "wide" enough to span the entire globe? Or, alternatively, do they expand, so that their diameter is pretty manageable at the Origin, but it grows wide enough as the storm travels farther away? Man, do I not have the right words for this...

Ever since we discovered that the small circles on the rear endsheet of The Way of Kings (what I call the Voidbringing chart) are symmetric around their centers, I've been looking for things to help me figure out how Voidbringing works - because it felt clear to me that there should be strong parallels with what we see on the front endsheet (the Surgebinding chart). The two are far too similar, so I believe they must be opposite in many ways. I think I finally have an elegant solution. But before I present it to you, a quick primer. Surges and Surgebinders We now know a lot about what the Surgebinding chart illustrates. There are ten Heralds around the borders. Each Herald corresponds to a big circle, enclosing a glyph - an Order of the Knights Radiant. Each big circle is connected to two small circles - the primal Surges members of that Order have access to. We now know the names of all the Heralds, all the Orders, and all the Surges, so there is no point talking about them, you can find the information elsewhere. I will provide only a list of all the Orders and Surges for quick reference. Voids and Voidbringers The most important part of my theory lies here. At this point it's pretty reasonable to say that the Voidbringers are the Parshendi. Or, more specifically, the creatures of destruction remembered by the people of Roshar are the Listeners when they embrace certain forms. In other words - and this is a part of my claim - when we saw Eshonai take on stormform, we only saw one type of Voidbringers, the same way Kaladin is one type of the Knights Radiant. Windrunners are an Order of the Radiants; stormforms are a... something... of the Voidbringers. If this is true, then there are nine other types of Voidbringers we are yet to see - one for each big circle on the rear endsheet. Eshonai represents one... let's call them Voidorders (we really need some words other than "void"...) of the Voidbringers, but unlike the Knights Radiant, she has the option to switch her Voidorder. She can go out during a highstorm, discard her stormform, and embrace decayform, nightform, or smokeform, for example. So far those are the only voidforms we have seen, I believe, but my gut tells me there should be a total of ten of those. So far so good. Now, let's tackle the small circles on the Voidbringing chart. Just like the big ones stand for Voidorders and are the opposite of the Radiants' Orders, the small ones are probably the powers, the Voids, each Voidorder has access to. These Voids would have to be something similar to the Surges, but can't be the same - but like much else, they can be their opposites. In fact, the way the Voids' glyphs are written supports this even further. Those glyphs are not just some asymmetric shapes, they are the Surges' glyphs, broken in half, and then put back together with one of the halves inverted, made its opposite. Considering how much emphasis is put on symmetry in Roshar, this looks like a pretty powerful symbol of not asymmetry, but of anti-symmetry instead. We've taken the Surges, something divine (as represented by their symmetry) and natural, and have turned them into an anathema. Still with me? Good. I won't speculate on what the Voids might be, though I suspect they will somehow end up mirroring the Surges. Instead, I will look at the different voidforms and make the claim that they stand opposite of the Radiants' Orders. Stormform, with its control over the winds (and lightning), sounds like the more hateful counterpart of the Windrunners. Nightform shares some of the future-telling capabilities Renarin, as a Truthwatcher, exhibits. Smokeform, "for hiding and slipping 'tween men," seems very similar to what Shallan can do with her Lightweaving. Decayform... will have to be put on hold for now. The Listener Song of Secrets is not very clear on what this form does, but it's possible that it opposes the Edgedancers ("watch where you walk, your toes to tread") or the Willshapers ("destroys the souls of dreams"). The Edgedancers are a good candidate because of Nale's remark about member of that Order gracefully running along ropes, but the Willshapers' name is more appropriate for the good counterpart of something that destroys the souls of dreams. Whatever that means. The colors on the two endsheets' big glyphs also match, so we could treat that as a piece of extra evidence that we are thinking along the right lines. So there you have it, folks. Voidbringing. I wish I could figure something out about the Voids, because they feel like I should be able to see them... but I can't. Not fully, at least. If Stormform is the counterpart to the Windrunners, then its powers should be somewhat similar. And in a way they are - we see Eshonai & co. call a highstorm (which involves strong winds, which are created by - among other things - difference in pressure; so there's a different form of Adhesion) and throw lightning around (which could be the Voidbringers' answer to gravity - Windrunners get Gravitation, Stormforms get Electromagnetism). The other Voidorders' Voids kind of sound similar, yet opposite, to their respective Orders' Surges, but we haven't seen enough for me to come to a conclusion. Is Smokeform (anti-Progression & anti-Transformation) the form creating illusions, blinding enemies, and summoning darkness? And even if it is, how would the Transformation Void even work? This is not to say that I don't like those anti-Surges, but we really need more information for a more conclusive theory. TL;DR The forms of power the Parshendi received from their gods are what transforms them from Listeners to Voidbringers. Each form (stormform, smokeform, etc.) opposes one Order of the Knights Radiant; Stormform, for example, seems to share the same abilities theme as the Windrunners. The powers those anti-Orders, Voidorders as I call them, also seem opposite to the Surges, but we don't have enough evidence. The term "Voidbringer" is about as descriptive as the term "Knight Radiant" - both are used to denote only one type of the entire category (all Windrunners are Radiants, but not all Radiants are Windrunners; all Stormforms are Voidbringers, but not all Voidbringers are Stormforms). I keep wanting to rename this thread to something more descriptive, but everything I come up with sounds like the name of a research paper. Voids, Voidbringing, and Voidbringers: The Nature of Odium's Investiture and its Applications to and by the Listeners...

Maybe I can shed some light on some of your questions. First, I don't think the highstorms are as ancient as you believe they are. In one of Dalinar's visions, the one where he plays the role of Heb and fights the Midnight Essences, he remarks on how none of the architecture seems designed with highstorms in mind. If I recall correctly he even sees glass windows in multiple sides of buildings - something he assumes is a product of the area being sheltered by natural rock formations or somesuch, but this line of thought felt... ignorant when I was reading it. Like something Dalinar would think because he doesn't know better. Also, one of the Radiants he meets there refers to Alethela and Urithiru, so the time period must be somewhere during the Silver Kingdoms epochs. All this being said, I've been wondering about the two-year cycle, so there might be something there. Second... there is no second. I don't have anything interesting to say about the other questions.

Geography was never my strongest subject...

Contact an admin via chat, PM, or a report.

Okay, I don't think the compasses are important anymore. The coordinates (in (longitude, latitude) form) of the ones we see here, assuming the very bottom of the map sits on latitude of about 10° (eye estimate based on how far away I suspect the south pole is), are: (0, 20), (0, 55) (11, 50) (20, 40) (30, 30) The one on (11,50) is incredibly annoying, by the way.

As you wish. Did I send you my mailing information already?

Honestly, I don't think we know enough. I suspect that we will find ten different voids, somehow corresponding to the ten surges. Woah, almost spoiler the Stormlight out of this, didn't realize it's not in the WoR forum. I think I need to head there and form a theory...

Hmm, yes, exactly what I was thinking. I lack the practical experience to do it, however. Maybe if work stays this slow, I can learn cartography...

Shallan's mom's friend was male. Here's the quick recap of the scene:

In the original version of this interlude Brandon explicitly said that it was spren - though I don't remember if it was a single one or many - that saved Rysn's life.

Um... her mother's (boy)friend then?

The Shallow Crypts is just a city in the Frostlands. The slaver Tvlakv offers to take Shallan there when they first meet.

This is pretty wonderful. Apparently somebody made a mockup cover sleeve of The Book of Endless Pages (which, if you are unfamiliar, was the working title of Words of Radiance for a few years) and gave it to Brandon to sign. Take a look at the article over at Suvudu. For your convenience, here is the link to the YouTube video itself - but you should really read the article too.

This way madness lies. Keep this kind of logic long enough and you start justifying your theories with "well, maybe Brandon made a typo." If there was an overwhelming support, or even a precedence that Death Rattles are sometimes written down incorrectly, then maybe. But not in this case.