Argent

The "brokenness" is only one of the requirements for attracting a spren - following the ways of the Orders is at least as important. I would definitely not say that. To imply that all Radiants were neuroatypical sounds... well, insane to me. It also feels vaguely insulting in a world where mental illness is not the source of the magic. And even if that were that case, Dalinar doesn't show signs of alcoholism - he got drunk (like many young men do), just at a very bad time. Not to mention that his bond with the Stormfather doesn't start until very recently, certainly way past his Blackthorn phase. And what about all the other proto-Radiants? Neither Ym nor Shallan show signs of mental illness, and what we've seen from Lift doesn't suggest one either - her strange behavior seems more a result of her visit to the Nightwatcher than anything else. No, all of this feels wrong. I don't see a good reason to deviate from the explanation we've been given so far - that the prerequisites for Radianthood are a cracked Spiritweb (which in all likelihood does not require a lifetime of misery) and adherence to the Immortal Words.

Occam's razor, in my experience, rarely works in the Cosmere. But further than that, I think you are (intentionally or not) misinterpreting Brandon's WoB on the topic - we know there exists a Shard who knows what Odium is up to, and doesn't want any of that. Getting itself Invested in a Shardworld inside a system with at least three human-populated planets sounds like a terrible way of hiding from Odium's - not only would the Shard be losing a significant fraction of its power by Investing in First of the Sun, it would also be putting itself at a risk because there is a very good chance Odium would treat highly populated worlds/systems are prime targets for other Shards (high levels of investiture promote the development of sapient life). Not to mention that we are far from understanding all the internal workings of the Cosmere. In fact, Khriss doesn't even suggest there should be a Shard there - she notes that the presence of a perpendicularity is "a hallmark of a Shard's presence" and then goes on to speculate that something interesting must've happened in First of the Sun's history.

I don't think the distinction is meaningful, at least not in most contexts. It's kind of like how the title of a President and their name are interchangeable (e.g. "the President went live on TV" and "Barack Obama went live on TV"). Sure, the desire probably comes from Reyse, but it's happening at a point where Reyse and Odium are one and the same.

This seems like a massive stretch.

I like this. The WoB comparison is an apt one.

Yeah, seems a pretty straightforward way of naming things - planets are named based on their order relative to the sun, so their moons are named similarly. So I imagine Fifth of the Sun's moons will be First, Second, and Third of the Fifth respectively. I do wonder how they (or maybe Khriss, if she named them) will call the planetary rings...

Or any planet!

The fact that we don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist. Threnody seems... special in some ways. I wouldn't discard anything about it just yet.

Anything of interest?

In the light of the Drominad system essay by Khriss, I wonder if the fourth Shard died on First of the Sun.

Congratulations

This is nice information for sure! Though whoever named the Drominad system was not exactly brimming with imagination... Actually, I think it must've been a scientist. Maybe an engineer or a physicist. Physicists are known for naming things for what they are, in a consistent, self-explanatory, and predictable manner It might be interesting to mention that the sun here is drawn with 16 rays, similarly to the sun on the Cosmere symbol. I don't think that's significant, at least not beyond showing artistic influence. I am just slightly disappointed by the length of Khriss' essay, I was hoping for more. Perhaps with no good reason, but it would've been nice.

Dude. Nerd power!

Szedolin confirmed.

Never mind, team, the first question in the third quote was, in fact, wrong. It is now fixed.

@Joe ST also reported issues with the formatting, but I am not seeing it. I don't know if there is anything I can do... Somebody a while back remarked, quite astutely, that the burnings eyes (or, rather, the smoke that comes out of them) sounds similar to how entities cut by Nightblood turn into smoke. A similarity only enhanced by the knowledge that Nightblood was designed after Shardblades (or was it Honorblades?), but is a lot more powerful than them, as well as the fact that Nightblood is technically a Stormlight "character" (recall that Brandon wrote Warbreaker as a prequel to Vasher's - and by extension, Nightblood's - story from Stormlight).

Uh, hard to tell. Maybe? Both your commission and Tor's casting understate his bulk (as I imagine it).

I was pretty happy with most of Tor's cast, actually. Dalinar is the only one that didn't work for me. As for the actual cast, Brandon spoke briefly (on Reddit) about the challengers when casting people who don't look like anything we have on Earth. He said it was not yet decided whether they would go with a more Asian cast for the Alethi (which will be less accurate, but easier to cast) or try to find actors with mixed heritage (who will resemble the Alethi more closely, but will be more difficult to find).

A few more recent posts:

Correct. Not necessarily correct. I personally think this is very likely, but we don't know this at 100%.

It feels weird, I agree. But it's not inconsistent, at least as far as I've been able to tell. It's just that some characters will remark on the passing of time, while others will not think about it at all, which usually implies (to most readers) that not much time has passed since the last time we saw that character. Karris, I think, is notorious in this - I could never keep track of her timeline.

We've seen Syl cause things to stick together on numerous occasions.

I am actually surprised it's showing around, I had to ask Isaac personally about a week ago to get the clear version...

Could be, but I find this highly unlikely.