Argent

Adolin has to be my prime candidate. There were some hints about a Kaladin option, but not enough to justify Shallan abandoning Adolin, whom she is already pretty interested in. Now, if Adolin were to go do something really repulsive and she found out, then maybe sometime down the line our favorite bridgeboy would get his chance. But I Shallan doesn't strike me as the rebound relationship type of girl. So we'll see.

I will have to both read all of these when I have time, and maybe revise my own, but here are a few things: I was actually just a tiny bit disappointed for the the first... let's say third of the book. Not because it was bad, but because I think I expected that kind of action we saw at the end of The Way of Kings, and that's just not feasible. Once I got over that, I could see that the book is plain better. Dialogue and jokes - definitely better in Words. Kaladin had me worried. I was legitimately concerned he'd go down a dark dark path, maybe even pick up a Shardblade. I kept thinking that Brandon wouldn't do that, because it would feel too much like a betrayal to his readers, but man, he wrote his depression well. And then of course he started coming out of it - thank you, Vasher! - and was all like "I WILL @#$% UP THOSE WHO NEED SOME @#$%ING UP" (or something like that, I don't remember the exact wording of his Second Ideal), and I was all like "JDAHSKDJSGDAGGADFGHDAHFDFDABFEIKBKAKBDSJABDF"On this note, my hands started shaking pretty badly right around that scene and kept at being unsteady for the next 50 pages or so. Man, I am such a junkie... I am happy Shallan didn't go all "woe is me, I love Adolin, but I also love Kaladin, what shall I ever do?" I didn't really expect Brandon to make this mistake, but he handled it extra well by making her acknowledge that Kaladin is not just a rock, he is kind of interesting, and is in some ways better than Adolin, but she is no Disney princess, marrying people left and right. Poor Szeth. I get the feeling he is not going to be a happy panda... So. Many. Factions. I'll need to sort them out during the first reread. Taln - Talenel? Talenel'Elin? we really need canonical names for the Heralds... Anyway, guy's downright scary. Built like a machine, with lightning fast reflexes, and not quite sane. I definitely want to see more of him. Shallan killed her mother. Yep, caught that pretty early in the book. On the other side, that whole business with her "mother's soul" tricked me. I thought that it could be her spren in there, but then I figured that you can't just lock a spren in a box, and since Shallan kept seeing the light, then the thing must still be there, so I discarded the idea... Turns out I was kind of right about Amaram too. He does believe he is doing the right thing - and it may even be the right thing - but it's not his destination that we all have a problem with, it's the journey. Same applies to Mr. T. And I'll stop here because I have three days worth of forum posts to catch up on.

Rambodin.

Oh, wow, you are all sorts of cool - new member, fantasy junkie, Shallan lover, aspiring artist. Here, have an upvote!

If you are going to use my terminology, use it right I refer to the Blades Kaladin and Shallan can summon (Blades created from their bonded spren) as Sprenblades; Blades such as, for example, the one Adolin uses are still Shardblades in my mind. So a "dead" Sprenblade = Shardblade. That out of the way, I haven't the slightest how the listeners know about the Honorblades. From their songs, maybe? They seem to remember more of the distant past than the other nations do, except for maybe the Shin. Or maybe they and the Shin were alias at the time when the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact, and they collectively decided to leave the Blades with the Shin. Or maybe the Parshendi and the Shin were the same people at one point! *cue drumroll*

I am not quite sure where the part about Hoid coming back to life comes from*... But now that I think about it, it makes sense that Odium would be able to Splinter any soul, not just Shards. If Shards are (mostly) Spiritual entities, as many of us strongly suspect, then if Odium can break that, why wouldn't he able to break a much smaller and weaker Spiritual entity, such as the human soul? * hurr hurr, it comes from the other side, hurr durr

I hate to be that guy, but there is really nothing supporting your idea, and a lot supporting the conventional model. Least of all, the Heralds are known as the Heralds of the Almighty, who in turn is a Shard himself. Honor, to be specific. And we kind of already know that Honor, like the other Shards, is a piece of Adonalsium. So, even if nothing else was available, we know the Heralds are at least one step away from being Shards. Not to mention that they are far too weak compared to beings like Ruin or Odium. I am sorry, I don't know how to kindly shoot down ideas... =\ I like your enthusiasm?

Goodness gracious, did you really just academically cite a part of The Way of Kings?

Except that's exactly not what the book says! Exclamation mark because I am excited, not because I am yelling at you or something. The reason a Knight's Surgebinding strength, as you put it, is reduced is because of his or her spren. The Radiants have to act in a way that allows them to maintain their Nahel bond, otherwise their spren will just up and leave. Or die. Because that's how spren work - you get creative, you attract a creationspren; you get all honorable and protective, you attract an honorspren. But just like when you calm down your creationspren goes away, when you leave the state of mind that allowed you to attract an honorspren, you lose it. Now, it's very likely that the Nahel bond mitigates the temporal aspect of all this - so if you stop thinking honorable thoughts for 5 minutes, you don't lose your spren altogether - but it's not a free ride even with it. This being said, it does feel like Jezrien's Honorblade is weaker than, say, Kaladin's Shardblade (I really want to start calling it Sprenblade at this point, by the way). If Kaladin could choose between the two, and he acted the way a Windrunner is supposed to act, the Honorblade would be near useless to him. So there has to be more to it. It could, of course, be just the tradeoff "you can do whatever you want but with less power, or you have to act a certain way, but you get more power when you do" but I am not sure how I feel about that... And finally, it's possible that Sprenblades are more powerful than Honorblades, because while Honorblades were (likely, kind of) created by Honor, the Shardblades are essentially Splinters of Honor. The difference between teaching someone (or something) how to do something you can do, and doing the thing yourself. Also, about that Honorblade Eshonai says they left in Alethkar - I always assumed she was referring to Szeth's. They commanded him to kill Gavilar, but didn't tell him to follow their people or anything else. As far as she knew, he just kind of sat there, Honorblade and all.

Hmm... Words of Radiance (Epilogue) Spoilers You will need the spoiler above to see the (slightly flimsy) evidence for my theory, but you don't need it to understand the theory itself. It's not hard to imagine that the brain is the... focus or source of one's cognitive aspect. So I have to wonder if people around the cosmere die in stages. Under normal circumstances, your body will die before your brain does - so is there a period during which your cognitive (and spiritual) self is "alive," even though you are not? If so, then perhaps it is during this period that people can leave / turn into cognitive shadows. Because of reasons. Furthermore, I posit that if nothing... exciting happens during this period of time between physical death and cognitive death, the cognitive self also dies, and only the spiritual one is left. The soul, as it were. I don't think we have seen any souls hanging out in the physical realm, so I am going to assume that each thing's spiritual aspect permanently resides in the spiritual realm. Which we know is, in a way, heaven. So. The whole "moving on" thing is not so much about moving to to and through the other realms, but about letting go of your more... mortal selves. In my theory people don't go through the spiritual realm and into the afterlife, they abandon their physical and cognitive selves and stay only in the spiritual realm, which is the afterlife. Kind of. I need to think about this some more and make it a theory of its own.

I wonder if a Google doc would be better - it feels like it would be a little easier to format and you can more easily let other people help you maintain it.

Aye. For some reason I still haven't read his unpublished works (though I have them), and I am yet to see information overflow. The only thing I can think of is the fact the Yolen has some form of Lightweaving that is similar to what we see in Roshar, but that no longer applies...

I am not sure if "Rosharan Magic" is the best term here. We refer to the sum of Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy as "the Metallic Arts," not "Scadrian Magic" or "Scadrialian Magic." So, at least for now, I'd probably use Roshar's focus instead of the planet's name - "Stormlight Magic" would be my choice.

Well, depending on how you define "tamper," we may have confirmation that Odium doesn't roll that way. We know that he doesn't want to actually take any of the other Shards because they would shift his Intent - and he likes it the way it is. So if you meant it this way, then no, Odium just Splintered Aona and Skai and then bailed.

Really? How come? If anything, I'd imagine we should all be excited about Dragonsteel.

Hmm. I now wonder what exactly the Stormfather means when he calls Kaladin "child of Honor." Is he referring to Kaladin's Surgebinding abilities, or the fact that he is human and therefore - of Honor ('s Investiture)? I had been assuming the former, but I now find the latter just as likely.

Chicago is totally in the Lehigh Valley area...

Considering that there are hundreds of episodes out there, but each one of them is independent of the others, it's really easy to just listen to one or two of them when you have time. I have no inclinations towards writing, but I like to listen to the team and have all the little tricks of writing pointed out to me, so that next time I read something, I can spot those things and enjoy the book even more.

For moment I thought your name was Fuzzbinn, but you go by Josh... ... Words of Radiance really cut into my sleep this week. =\

Chasmfiends are much more horrifying than I imagined them...

I am going to start using those as a part of my recruitment campaign to get everyone to read Brandon. That aside, I just want to take a break and give you - us - a perspective. We read a book (series) by a guy who (indirectly) created at least two alphabets for his fictional cultures which alphabets, as written languages tend to, were derived from a single parent / root alphabet (the Dawnchant, in all likelihood). Then we (and by we I mean Harakeke) figured out those alphabets were actual alphabets, not just squiggles on a page, deciphered them, and - because why the hell not - decided to create a translation key between them. Harakeke, I expect you to have a beta version of the Dawnchant itself by the week's end. You know, the one we haven't even seen yet.

If you read this in a special way, you could see it a mildly sarcastic remark - "oh, the Bondsmiths have only three spren, so asking them become more would be kind of funny." It's a very liberal interpretation, and even I don't buy it fully, but I like to keep my options open.

Um. What makes you think Lopen would be a Windrunner, Kurk? If it's the bit about sticking his cousin to the wall, I believe that's just him assuming that all Radiants can stick people to walls; ignorance, in other words. Regarding the healing, I was pretty surprised. It's kind of a big deal, regrowing lost limbs, but Kaladin was able to heal limbs severed by a Shard- - well, I guess Honorblade now - by just using Stormlight, so it could be just that. We knew Stormlight can restore flesh, and saw it restore Spirit(web), so I don't know... I believe realmatics can support this, but my brain is a mess right now.

I think it's important to note that the text doesn't say "around three," it says "...three, which number was not uncommon for them." Normally I might use those interchangeably, but in this case it could be interpreted as "usually three, but sometimes fewer." Maybe there were periods when Cusicesh wasn't bonded, for example. It's also possible that there are more godspren out there, and it was just those three that were willing to bond with Radiants. Or maybe they were all the Radiants knew about. The Age of the Silver Kingdoms might have been a golden age for Roshar, but that doesn't mean they knew everything then.

It is located above the highstorms. Presumably the Everstorm would be of similar dimensions.