Argent

It's not the "t" vs "th" that bothers me, it's the missing second half of Tanavast's name. You might be correct, I won't discard your argument entirely, but it's just not something that's as clearly visible as the Vorin changes to the Heralds' names.

I don't see why not. Interesting question. We know that Hemalurgy can be used anywhere in the Cosmere. There may be some caveats (e.g. maybe the spikes will need to be made of a different material - which has been RAFO'd in the past), but the magic can definitely be used outside of Scadrial. I am pretty sure the answer to this will be positive. Good question, but I think somebody asked pretty much the same thing only a few weeks ago. I think I saw something similar in one of the Reddit threads. I don't remember the answer (if there was one) though. So probably some variation of a RAFO. As for the spren, recall that Syl appears stupid because she is in the Physical realm. Spren in Shadesmar, even ones as simple as Shallan's "gobletspren" and "stickspren" are much more aware of the world - but that's because they are in Shadesmar.

I am pretty sure you are misremembering (unless you are thinking of a WoB I haven't seen). Are you thinking of this? The reason I use Jasnah and geolocation as an example is because it was a popular theory at the time. Note that Brandon says I didn't necessarily have all of them right. We now know that my Kaladin example was definitely wrong, but that doesn't mean that the others were right. So, unless you are thinking of a different WoB (and I can't think of another one that brings the topic of Elsecallers and their Resonance), we don't know if geolocation is it.

Eh... I would advise to avoid focusing on gender too much. There are plenty of species with either a single gender, or more than two - and there are species who can change their gender at will. Who's to say Bavadin doesn't belong to a race similar to those? It's probably better to concentrate on her personas.

It's Elithanathile, actually, but I still I don't quite see it. It's definitely symmetric, and it has the elith part, which is similar enough to the elin we see at the end of the Vorin versions of the Heralds' names (e.g. Talenel'elin), but the closest match to Tanavast is thana or thanath - which is only about 50% match in my eyes.

In all fairness, that's an in-world legend. While I think it might be a true one (Miles eating a shotgun blast to the face certainly makes it likely that gold can heal almost anything), it's worth keeping in mind that it might have been twisted over time. For example, I find it hard to believe that even the Lord Ruler would be able to walk of his ligaments and muscles were burned to ash.

I think that's a good way to differentiate between the spren we've seen. Somebody a while back noticed that spren tied to emotions manifest differently from elemental (though at the time we didn't have a good word for it, I think) spren. I don't remember what the distinction was though... Still, I like official terminology!

I fixed it for you.

That's fair. Investiture, in this case, simply helps (a lot). The energy required for the transformation has to come from somewhere, after all.

Eh, I suspect he is stupidly Invested, and not just with Breath. Jasnah is powerful, if Hoid is unconcerned about having his Spiritual aspect (which is kind of his soul) cut by a Shardblade, I doubt he'll be too worried about someone like Jasnah trying to impose her will upon his. The way I see it, Soulcasting a living thing is a battle of the minds (as opposed to Soulcasting a nonliving thing, which is more like a power transfer) - and I am confident Hoid will crush pretty much anyone who is not a contemporary of his and doesn't have access to a Shard.

My impression was that most people like Jezrien for the guy Szeth briefly speaks with before he goes off to assassinate Gavilar, while Kalak is assumed to be Nale's sidekick we see a couple of times. I may be out of touch with those theories though. As for who Tashi might be, I think it depends heavily on which data points you weigh more. From the lore's point of view, Taln makes more sense - he is very much the "odd one out" of the Heralds. From the way Nale speaks of him, it could be any one of the others (except for maybe Jezrien). I think I need to reevaluate my stance on this though, the evidence for Taln makes more sense to me now. I still don't like how Nale talks about him though, it feels weird.

There is also that, yes. If aluminum was better than Shardplate at blocking Blades, more people would be using it.

Everyone is Bavadin!

Not only that - he isn't afraid of her Shardblade.

I personally wouldn't read too much into this, as I believe there is a real world equivalent to this philosophy, which is what I think Arclo is mirroring here.

I think it's incorrect to claim that the ten gas giants are named after the Heralds - at least not directly. The planets bear names that match the names of numbers in the Alethi language; they are literally called One, Two, Three, and so on. What is interesting is that the Heralds' names share linguistic root with those same numbers, but considering that we know some of the Heralds' original names don't sound very much like the numbers (e.g. Nale), I think it's likely that the Alethi language and culture warped the Heralds' names to look more similar to the numbers' names. In other words, I believe the names of the numbers came before the (modified) names of the Heralds, and not the other way around - though it would've made a certain amount of sense for the Alethi to change their language to emulate the Heralds' names. With this in mind, I am reasonably confident that the gas giants were named after the numbers 1-10, not after the Heralds.

I think interpreting Nale's words like this requires some mental gymnastics. He specifically says that they wouldn't like it if he reached their city - there is a level of specificity here that doesn't match (at least in my mind) what you would expect if he meant "if he comes back". As for Jezrien = Yaezir, this is all but confirmed.

I tentatively like this theory.

@Lecrakn actually got us an answer from Reddit (and reported it in a different thread), and it's a lot more fun than anything we've speculated here: My favorite bit has to be the one where there are entire pantheons made up of her.

I actually don't think the two games are the same (or even related). Remember, tarachin is about throwing colored objects in target areas from a distance, and so Zahel's version of it on Roshar (where the target areas are circles he has drawn on the ground) makes sense. It's similar enough. Stump's children are sitting inside circles, playing games - two distinct points of difference. They are not throwing stuff, and they are playing multiple games - if it had been a single game, Lift could've indicated so.

Yeah, thinking back, Shardblades are still blades. And aluminum's weird thing is that it is magically inert (for whatever reason). I think a more interesting question would be whether Shardblades can cut aluminum effortlessly (like other nonliving things) or whether they would be no better than regular swords.

I've been wondering about Bavadin's apparently gender discrepancy, so I welcome this knowledge very very much. Thank you.

This is easily solved by having Brandon re-introduce some concepts. I imagine that's how Nightblood will be (re)revealed.

I am pretty sure it doesn't work like that. For one to become a Sliver, one must hold (most of) the power of a Shard, and then lose it. Wielding an Honorblade is not the same as being Invested with a Shard - the power still comes form the Blade, not from the wielder.

Kind of. All things exist in all three realms (Shai's words), so all things have a cognitive aspect. Spren are just kind of... supercharged in that regard. So in a way, yes, there are spren everywhere, but I think it's more accurate to say that there are cognitive aspects everywhere, but they are very strongly expressed on Roshar.