Argent

In this case I will assume Talenel is his real name, and Taln is just a nickname Kalak uses for him.

Nope, I was wrong.

I wondered if it was intentional.

I don't remember the exactly description of Rock, but wasn't there something about his beard and hair mismatching in where they are shaved? For some reason I am left with the idea that if his mustache and chin are shaved, then the sides of his hair must also be. Or something weird like that...

Heh, yea, that would be fun to see. "Father, the Knights Radiant are ret-... Oh. I see. Okay then. I'll go teach grandma how to suck eggs then*." But I don't see anything happening with Laral. Or, I should say, I don't see her as a viable romantic interest for Kaladin. There might be something he still harbors for her, but I believe he has grown way past her. She was a child's / young man's infatuation, not his love. * I wonder what the Rosharan equivalent of this idiom is...

Yeah, that's the general consensus. It's possible that there is something cultural going on, and the Azish are using it differently, but I've seen no reason to assume Yaezir is not Jezrien.

Yea, I suspect Hoid's words, at least so far in the series, will require some pondering, preferably by literature majors.

Lirin and Hesina are all the feels. Kaladin and Syl look absolutely awesome. Also, I am really bad at the Tumblrs.

I didn't say it wasn't painful - though Axies himself didn't seem terribly concerned. The Reshi people seemed to react to him in a way similar to how they would react to a dangerous beast, methinks - you catch a bear with a trap, you'd probably just wait for it to die, not go poke it with a stick in the ribs.

Well, it kind of says it in the book... It's somewhere in the last few chapters, Shallan's PoV I believe.

It could be a non-Vorin name that's popular (or at least well known) nonetheless.

Not necessarily. Lift is confirmed individually, but we don't know that the others will show up as well. Some most likely will, but we don't know that.

Very well then, I'll leave you to your quest for answers.

Send him an email - there is a contact form on the website.

Well. From what I can tell this both right and wrong. On on hand, Brandon has talked about what inspired him to become a writer and write the books he wrote and still writes. It's cool. When he sits down to write a story, he doesn't think about the message he wants to send, he thinks about some cool idea. So in this regard you are wrong in glorifying him. On the other hand, however, Brandon likes his fantasy heroic - both as a reader and as a writer. He is not interested in writing books about the horrors of war, or about dystopian worlds, or about situations in which being the bad guy actually turns out better for you. No, he writes stories about heroes - optimistic, uplifting, inspiring, epic, and heroic. It's what he likes to read, and so that's what he (usually) writes. So in this sense, you are right - he does write in a way that promotes goodness, he just doesn't do it for (primarily) that reason. Heh, look at me talk like I know the man. I don't. But I am fairly skilled at stalking, and those are things he talks about occasionally in both interviews and his podcast, Writing Excuses. I definitely don't have the whole picture, but I can speak with some authority on the matter - assuming he hasn't been lying to the Internet all these years

I've thought about that. There has to be some kernel in truth in at least some of them - it's how lore is created - but I would definitely not take them literally. "Nalan's hand" could, for example, refer to the fact that Nalan is the Herald of Justice (and Retribution?), and so followers of Vorinism might start using the phrase to denote a context of law and justice. They wouldn't arrive at "the long arm of the law," like we did on Earth, but at "Nalan's hand" instead. For example. EDIT @FireArcadia, I am not sure about a couple of those. Taln introduces himself as Talenel'Elin, but I think that's maybe an early version of his Vorin name - the 'Elin suffix seems to either mean or denote a Herald; Kalak calls him Taln, so that's what I'll stick to for now. Also, Nalan as Nale?

Vedel would be... Vedeledev then?

That's a good catch. It does seem like one of the men is Hoid himself and he is telling a story he was involved in - with flourish, of course. I must think about it...

A few things of note: Axies is not being tortured - not intentionally at least, and he doesn't seem to be in any sort of great pain. They've captured and restrained him, but there is no explicit mention of torture. The reason he is on the Reshi Islands is probably the same reason he was visiting Cusicesh the Protector - he wants to catalog as many spren as is possible. As to the importance of his presence there, the island greatshells, and the larkin - who knows? Some of them might be in the book just to show off the world (which is part of the reason Brandon has those interludes). I suspect the larkin will play a bigger role sometime down the line, but that's just a suspicion for now. The Aimians were mentioned a couple of times throughout the books, but we still know close to nothing about them. If I recall correctly, there were two different kinds of Aimians - one of which was recently exterminated, and the other has very few members left. At this point I don't think it's productive for us to look for Voidbringers outside the Parshendi / parshmen / listeners culture. The evidence that their species is, or can turn into, the Voidbringers is overwhelming enough.

One of the first Words of Radiance chapters mentions her in passing.

Maybe Kaladin figuring out Full Lashing during his fight with Szeth would've felt like character progression to you. But the fact that a character can grow in a certain way, and the fact that Brandon can make it happen, don't mean that he should. You could make your Kaladin & Full Lashing argument for Shallan & Soulcasting and ask why she doesn't try it more often, but you don't. The way I see things, the current resolution of Kaladin's character arc is consistent, satisfactory, and well justified. The gemheart doesn't play a huge role, because it both makes sense for Kaladin and Shallan to take it from the chasmfiend, and to give it back to Dalinar (or Sebarial). The Full Lashing doesn't play a huge role, because making Kaladin use it skillfully in the end requires him have grown skilled with it just because of the Third Ideal. And I am quite satisfied with how both of those situations were handled.

They are probably more accurate, I agree. But I'll reserve judgment until we can confirm (it's one of the things I intend to sneakily ask Brandon when he comes to Chicago).

I was under the impression that we know only a few of the Heralds' real names. In fact, just a couple of hours ago I was going to create a new topic to see which ones we are confident about - because I can only think of about half of them: Jezrien, Ishar, Taln, and Kalak from The Way of Kings prelude; Shalash might be just Ash (I don't believe any of the Heralds had a palindromic name originally), but that's about it.

If you are curious, I reviewed it (briefly) a page or two ago in this thread.

*sigh* Your entire argument is based on the cover of the book. Would you argue that Brandon had a last-minute change of heart in The Way of Kings and decided to change both the Kholin colors from red to blue and Dalinar's glyph from khokh + linil to what looks like a larkin? Would you argue that prince Raoden was supposed to wear an oversized dress in the original version of Elantris because of the French cover? You fight my point of view on every turn, grasping for some, what, conspiracy? Flaw? Secret? Assume for a moment we had a completely different cover for Words of Radiance, say the image of Shallan from the endpages. Imagine you never saw that Kaladin picture. Would any of your arguments hold water then? Or skip this entire exercise and just tell me you base everything on the cover, old or new. Because then I'll be content to leave you alone, confident that you won't see my side of things because you believe the cover is much more literal than I do. P.S. I realize this reply sounds aggressive, but don't take it personally. I don't dislike you, but I am tired of the argument and being direct is the best way I know of getting to its core. I just need to know how you think about this, so I know whether to keep debating this with you (because it seems this thread is me vs. you, and then a bunch of other people on the side) or just let it drop.