Argent

I want to shoot down this self-respect thing ("but no man with even the smallest amount of self respect would share a woman with another man.") before it turns nasty. There are very heavy implications here, and I am not sure we are all aware of all of them - but one that comes to mind is that a statement like suggests a man who shares a woman with another man somehow doesn't respect himself. Which, if you think about it, devalues women by taken the choice away from them and giving it to the men. Talking about biological differences is fine, but this route will end up offending women, so let's drop it here and now. Shash, I guess you are not trying to offend, but as somebody who is acutely aware of how and how often words are misinterpreted, I can tell you that what you say can easily go bad. Especially on the Internet. It's much much safer (and usually more correct) to not think about men and women, but people instead when talking about... well, people.

I don't know, something about him still doesn't click. How could the Surgebinders bring the Desolations back? Even if we assume that he can see the future (I am fairly confident he can't, otherwise he would've caught Lift much more easily), I don't buy that he saw a situation where the Parshendi saw Kaladin Surgebind and that prompted them on the path that would lead to the Everstorm. And even if this were true, why would he go and hunt Surgebinders around the world, but not in the Alethi warcamps? No, it has to be something else. It has to be something all Surgebinders share. My best bet is the spren bond. For a very long time Shadesmar and the physical realm were separate, with no Nahel spren crossing over, and no spren forming bonds (as far as we can tell). In recent years though, more and more spren are crossing over and bonding with humans - would this make it easier for other spren to cross over too? Voidspren, perhaps? Taravangian, in the Diagram, seems to suggests that if a listener were to obtain the power of the stormform, it would form a bridge - presumably for other voidspren. Maybe it's something similar to this. Then, on the other hand, Taravangian, in his moments of brilliance, thought that "the Desolation needs no usher." This implies that it will come, on schedule, regardless of what people do. This is very much in contrast with what Nalan believes, so one of them is likely wrong. And in this case I am inclined to side against the Herald, as his mind is kind of broken and could not only be misinterpreting things, but interpreting them in a way opposite of their true meaning...

@xbauks, I am not sure that's enough. You might be right, but the last few highstorms during the final countdown had stormspren inside them, both the Kaladin, Syl, and the Parshendi saw them. If Kaladin could see them as the storm was building up, there must have been enough of them there. So why would Eshonai need one captured if they were in such abundance? No, I think for a listener to change forms, they actually need to willingly choose to attract the spren whose form they are interested in. @skaa, I did mean parshmen. As the Everstorm sweeps Roshar, it will be the parshmen who might turn into Voidbringers / stormform, not the Parshendi. I should've used proper terminology though, I should've said: "the listeners with no form of spren, those known as the parshmen, would need to attract them."

But doesn't have to be. Nightwatcher, I mean, not alive. It's possible that Cultivation just dumped a ton of her power - for some reason (as a part of the Oathpact?) into a single spren and stepped away from the action. The main argument for believing that the Nighwatcher is Cultivation is Wyndle's reference to her as "mother" - but now that we know Syl calls the Stormfather "father," I am more in favor of the idea that the Nightwatcher is the Stormfather's equivalent from Cultivation's side of things. Or, as close to an equivalent as we can get.

This seems like a theme, doesn't it?

We need more information. The Orders are stereotypes, caricatures right now.

Aye. Highspren are spren that deal with law, order, and justice - though I suspect it's more than that. Jasnah says that we would dub the Cryptics liespren, but they dislike the term, probably because it's very limited and limiting; yes, they like lies, but their love for lies is not enough to describe their complexity. Honorspren are in similar position, I think. From what we see from Wyndle, he is also pretty complex. So the way I see it, all of the Nahel spren have a... focus of some sorts (lies for Cryptics, honor (or wind? or bonds?) for honorspren, something related to plant life for Wyndle and his kind), but they are not completely defined by it. Highspren would be similar, I believe - order and justice will be the core of their personality / character, but they will be all unique. So we kind of know what highspren are. Furthermore, we don't know if the Unmade are actually spren - Tarangian's Diagram says they are like spren. It could be a false negative, yes, but it could very well be a true negative.

It's possible - and its power does seem both harmless and useful. Compare it to the Thrill, which while not directly harmful, is certainly odious. Still, it's a very flimsy claim, and I am not ready to embrace its specificity - we know of only of the Unmade, and we have maybe seen the names of another two from The Way of Kings. That's not enough for me, but I'll keep the idea in mind.

Hmm, touche. I will need to dig deeper for evidence, but there is no way it's going to be one of these days.

A compromise then. I am not sure Syl would've come back if Kaladin had decided that his oath to Dalinar was the problematic one instead of the one to Moash. That would've pushed him more towards a Skybreaker's mentality, which Syl doesn't share.

Much like the thread about summoning a Shardblade away from the Shardbearer's hand, I think this thread would be best continued in the Words of Radiance forum, because the information provided in the second book is significant enough to change all discussions that include only The Way of Kings lore.

@Kurk, fixed, thank you. Warbreaker Spoilers @Galavantes, [ spoiler ] Spoilery text goes here. [ /spoiler ], without the extra spaces inside the brackets. You should also hide the post where you ask for it (the button is to the left of the [MultiQuote] and

Yea, when I read about that I expected his next Ideal to be something about leading those need leading, or accepting the burden of leadership even if he thinks himself unworthy.

Actually, I am not convinced this epigraph is referring to one of the Radiants. It is part of the Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer, of which we have two other excerpts - both of which talk about the Unmade (though Paragraph 15 tries to steer the theme back to kingship). I expect that the epigraph before Chapter 86 also refers to them. An Unmade who could betray its fellows.

Rereading Words of Radiance.

My copy arrived on time in the US. Shoot them an email, they are pretty quick with the replies.

This is a greeting. Hello.

I think "life sense" is just a passive perk whose strength is a function of the number of Breaths you have. The more Breaths, the stronger your ability to sense people. Warbreaker Spoilers

Those cultures need to have something right - no fantasy lore is 100% wrong.

Ditto.

It's a possibility. Though I wonder if it's not time for him to start dealing with this leadership issues...

Very good observation, @taxilian. Now I want to know even more what was done to Jasnah even more...

I don't know if it's the main reason, but it's a big one. To the honorspren, the Cryptics are very much an anathema - they love lies, they seem to have no concept of right and wrong, they don't seem terribly concerned whether their Radiants are good (which to Syl would look dishonorable as well), and are overall opposites of everything the honorspren value. There might be even a bit of indignation tossed in there as well - as an honorspren Syl has to put her existence at the mercy of Kaladin and his ability to keep his oaths (which are pretty demanding, by the way); Pattern and the other Cryptics are in no such danger, or at least not to this extent.

His story arc was definitely the best out of all the main characters. Shallan grew a lot, Adolin change quite a bit (or we saw him better), and Dalinar solidified himself, but Kaladin was the one I was rooting for. His downward slope, the potential loss of Syl, the potential that he actually killed her (especially after he defended himself so passionately against the Stormfather's accusations that he would) - all of this worked out really really well. I felt confident that Shallan would be alright, and while I was kind of concerned that either Dalinar or Adolin might die, the thought that Kaladin might lose Syl was what made me cringe in horror. I wasn't worried that Moash or Graves would kill him - I was worried he had killed Syl. This has to be one of the best, if not the single best character arc Brandon has written to date.

Dragon's response says Odium is invested in a system, not a planet. So he could be hanging out on Braize, for example (so he is technically not on Roshar), but could stop by Roshar any time and see what's going on.