CJ Feboris

Nin makes mention of Jezrien in the Lift interlude when he talks about him drooling, which is why many think that is who is impersonating Taln. I tend to think that they kept their bonds, but have chosen not to use them while in self-imposed exile.EDIT: mobile interface messed with me...

Not sure if anyone has posed the question, did the heralds break their bonds to the blades before walking off? I know they placed them in a circle but IIRC they did not mention breaking the bond, they just said they would leave them and and not seek each other out. So this begs the question of how Szeth could be bonded to it while Jezrien is still bonded to the blade, is this a property of the honorblade? What others properties might the honorblades enable for the heralds as opposed to other people? CJ

I've often been very curious about this gemstone. Do you have a reference to the WoB?

Pattern can hide in plain sight very much like a lie.

I'm typing on a phone so I apologize for the beer it's and any misspellings. I think Lirin's Hand is really onto something here about secrets. I'm not sure the secret of Shardplate will be stored in any place as I still think it will be a development of the oaths, but I think that we have seen some pretty good foreshadowing about the storing of secrets in Urithiru. I think we will get a lot of reveals in the next book especially when Jesnah gets to the city in the sky.

Jasnah surge binds at a distance in WoK, although she may have been touching the criminals soul in Shadesmar.

This quote leapt off the pages the first time I read this book, the second it did the same, even when I listened I could not get it out of my head and no on here has mentioned it. Maybe it is very obvious to everyone else, and therefore was of little consequence, but I think it might be important for the story. First, I see from the text, there are two figures up on the plateau. The first is huge, hulking and inhuman. The second is sleek and alien. Since alien = inhuman in this context, I'm not sure that the second adjective tells us much. The first figure is also said to be glowing although the second could be striding in the glow of the first. Brandon immediately pulls Kaladin's attention away from the plateau and turns him to Shallan after the above quote so we have no mention of it other than this that I noticed. So what is it that is out walking in the storms? Obviously it could be some major spren, but this seems to be too easy an answer here, I think there is something much more drastic going on, but I cannot put my finger on what it might be. Any thoughts? -cj

I have always thought Syl had just a little too much knowledge, if a bit obfuscated through living unbounded. It is quite possible that her knight died previously and she was able to "escape" due to her oaths remaining in tact. I am pretty sure that death does not break the oaths. This is one possible explanation for why she would be able to know about "helping men to kill people before." It seems very personal in those sequences and not something abstract, I think Syl has been bonded before.

I'm sure I'm wrong based on the much more knowledgeable replies above, but I always assumed that the windrunner glyph was a combination of the two symbols. If you look at the middle of the windrunner glyph it looks like a sword and if you look at the outside, they look like wings.

You all are correct, autism is more of a behavioral issue. I sincerely doubt that BS would delve into something as controversial as healing autism. There are so many theories on the cause for autism that it is probably not even worth going into, not all of them involve brain function. I do know that the behaviors associated with autism can be changed through behavioral treatment. I think it would be safe to say that stormlight is unlikely to alter autism.

Shalash's skin tone says: Jezrien/"Taln" I think there is a chance they could be related. EDIT: Typos

I didn't see the topic posed in this thread, but I think that "Taln" is not Taln, but rather Jezrien. He is trying lead against the desolation, but failing miserably because he is not right in the head. (Nin's comment about him drooling in the Lift interlude). The person who Dalinar and later Amaraam has is clearly gifted beyond normal mortals based on catching the darts at the end of WoR. Some have thought that uniting Jezrien with his blade at Urithiru will help fix things, but I think that this is just wishful thinking since Darkness has his blade (he is awesome too...and he can't be awesome without a spren or his blade).

More on the Renarin is autistic thing...if he is less that aspergers on the spectrum then it is really very close to a normal functioning human. With that being said we already know that stormlight can heal anything short of a crushing blow to the skull and we have seen that even that is tenuous becasue when Szeth is attacking Gavilar he gets his face punched in which is generally pretty crushing to the brain and stormlight healed this wound relatively quickly. With all that being said I think stormlight can heal the neuropathways in the brain if it can repair a "soul." So anything Renarin had previously is probably not a factor any longer.

I have a couple of points on this topic. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the creation of ShardPlate. I like the spren theory personally, although I think there is some validity to the condensed Stormlight theory. The reason that I apprciate the spren theory more is twofold. 1. The spren in Shinovar - Someone else mentioned these spren as a reason for the Shardplate being spren, but they said that it was because there was no stormlight in Shinovar. I don't think this is accurate. I think the spren in Shinovar are employed and this could be a breakout theory with a complete topic to itself, but I think that the Shin are the remenents of the KR that did not abandon their oaths. One could make the argument that it was the Skybreakers, but I don't think this is accurate because we know that Nalan has abandoned his oath and we don't see any surgebinding/flying from the skybreakers at this point. Ergo, the Shin being the order of KR that did not abandon their oaths seems to make the most sense based on the limited factual data we have on them. The interlude with Rysn (sp?) shows that there are no spren floating around in Shinovar, we already know that they are the guardians of the honorblades, we know that they hold to the old ideals of warrior being the lowest class of the four-class system, we know that they should not have a problem removing the honorblades given to truthless from people who would later find them, we also know that Nin is hunting them (this might be the best reasoning). Anyway the reason to expand upon this is to say if we have a fully employed KR order then it stands to reason that their spren are still being employed like they appeared to be in Dalinar's visions (there didn't appear to be an abundance of spren around in the visions although admittidly there were some). 2. The spren trapped in a fabrial also don't appear to scream - We saw from the annotations in Navani's notebook from the WoK that to create a fabrial, one needs to trap a spren inside the gemstone. Since the spren is trapped and still alive it does not cause the screaming. This is quite possibily the case for the Shareplate since the plate does not have the primary bonded spren but only a (possible) secondary bonded spren and the Knights did not break their oaths to these spren, but they still got trapped by the plate and its form. They do lose their luster without the knight, so the theory of the "highspren" control seems to make sense. I think Ansalem is correct about the highspren being refered to as a specific type of spren, but I think that the 10 types of spren capable of forming the nahel bond are also refered to as highspren by Jasneh when she is discussing the spren with Shallan. They are at least the ones that form cities, and not the mindless beasts that painspren and exhaustionspren. Clearly this is very speculative and I look forward to everyone picking it apart.

I think maxal is right on this one, when Kaladin catches the blade in the arena and causes the bearer to hear the screams, he screams "I didn't kill you" as he is running away. This also appears to "awaken" the spren of the blade for a time because it appears to be screaming for quite a while as he is running away. This could indicate that the touch of another radiant could shock the blade awake somehow, but maybe not permanently. If the combination of a radiant's touch and Adolin's compassion / relationship with the blade help ease the transition it would be very interesting.

This topic is particularly relevant to picking a champion. The champion would certainly benefit from having access to all the surges. (As long as they practiced a bunch first...)

There is also the fact that BS doesn't like to do what is expected. Since the blade/weapon/shield/needed tool is a spren then I think many will naturally jump to this conclusion and it seems too simple for Brandon.

So here's a question that may need its own post, does Shallan speak two truths or just one more at the end of WoR? She uses the oathgate and says "a deep truth." Then pattern does the room vision quest with here where she says that she hates him, are they the same or different? And what did she gain by doing this/these?

What about the windspren that were swirling around Kaladin in the storm while chasing Szeth. They seemed to protect him. What if the "cousins" of the bounded spren provide the Shardplate. Presumably this would happen after the next oath, it would also explain how the knights in Dalinar's visions could "materialize" parts of their plate, like the helm, without carrying them around.

That is really interesting and something I have been thinking about for a while, if the shamanate come out to take the honorblade by force, they will notice that the knights have been refounded, what implications will this have?

I like this theory. The problem I see is that Nin/Darkness can surgebind (Darkness was awesome too in the Lift sequence) and his blade is still with the Shin.

This is a fascinating thread, I really like the idea of Adolin reawakening his blade through their conversations. He would probably need to start having more of those. The really neat part would be that if the blade could be reawakened, it would allow for the potential instruction of the radiants by one that had been one. Although it seems Syl might have been one previously too since she "remembers" things from the past. If he could revive his blade, then, assuming the dead Spren did not forget everything, it might make for instruction so t the radiants aren't so in the dark, but then again, this is the problem that BS wants to work with, so I may be way off. EDIT: typos

I loved the book, I don't think I liked it as much as tWoK, but it was awesome nonetheless. I think the major issues I had with the book was the lack of information relating to Shallan's bonding with Pattern, I wanted to hear her speak the oaths, I wanted to see her develop a little bit. I see why it was not included, but I still felt we were missing a lot by not having that story. I have to concur with the comments about Kaladin's character being too whiny. Nearly 2/3 through the book, I got really annoyed listening to his hate, yeah, yeah we get it, he is broken and he is not whole yet, that is what the entire last book was about, can we move on a bit from here. I expected the Kaladin/Shallan connection even in the first book based on their temperments, but I think it might mean that Brandon will have to kill off Adolin at some point which is a bit disappointing and annoying. While speaking of Adolin, I love that Sadeas is dead, I don't love that Adolin did it in such a backhanded way that makes me like him less. He is such a good guy and Dallinar is not wrong in his assessment of Adolin, and then we have to get this darker Adolin. I suppose this is to make him a "rounder" character and not one-dimensional, maybe it is the breaks in his soul that he needs to become a Radiant, Brandon knows the truth and is going to make us wait for 18 more months before we get to know them... I really liked how the book developed the Radiant side of the world this time. I really craved more information on them after the first book and this book delievered on that count. I had to say that I never bought Jasneh being dead, even in the rush I was in to get through the book. It was all to jumbled and chaotic to know for sure, we know that Shallan can create illusions with her Surgebinding, there is probably something that Jasneh could do to make it look like she was stabbed through the heart and dead. It seemed transparent to me. I did find it odd that she took so long to come back to the story until I read some of the comments here, they are right she needed to be gone for the book to progress, especially the Shallan character. I thought it was quite amusing when Wit/Hoid talked to her and told her everything that she had been looking for had been found. I awaited this book like I awaited Christmas gifts as a child, and I must say I am not disappointed. There were times while reading it that I thought I might be, but I just kept going a few more pages and the Brandon awesomeness would show through. I am so thankful that he has chosen to share his stories, they are excessively diverting and all-around wonderful to be a part of.

Downloading!!!!! I haven't been this excited about something since Christmas as a 10 year-old!

I think that Child of Tanavast. Child of Honor. could still refer to only one thing and it does not need to imply either natural or magical creation. Indeed I think it speaks more to the Kaladin's character than to his nature, it is who he has chosen to become rather than where he came from that made him the way he is. This seems to follow with Syl picking him as he fought in the battlefield as a Squad Leader, she picked someone of character and did not just choose randomly, although her choice may have been influenced as she does not seem to have a lot of human qualities when she first starts following Kaladin.