FiliusHonoris

The Shard itself doesn't have a consciousness so how could he be Honor's cognitive shadow and not Tanavast's? My understanding was that the names are just used interchangeably.

I've always been intrigued by the fact that the Stormfather doesn't seem to have much of Tanavast's personality/memories as I would expect from his cognitive shadow. I'm sure I'm far from the first to suggest this, but it seems reasonable to me that it could manifest as a split personality. Perhaps this is the Tanavast personality surfacing? Or maybe it's the other way around.

Thanks for the reminder. It's definitely not as clear-cut as I was thinking.

Ah, you just said that, my bad. Is it possible she was a Squire? I don't recall at what point she breathed in Stormlight.

Have we ever seen anyone other than Kaladin breathe in Stormlight prior to the first oath? IMO there's pretty clear evidence he's special in other ways so maybe this isn't something others are capable of.

I'm a firm believer that it was the real Stormfather but I was thinking and wouldn't the mere existence of Squires be an example of Connection by proxy? The Radiant's bond/connection to their spren gives them access to the surges, but it's not like Squires have bonds to their Radiant's spren. Could totally be off-base, just thought I'd throw that out there.

Radiants came after the Heralds and the Oathpact. I would assume being Radiant is not a requirement to become a Herald.

She apparently died minutes before Szeth attacked Gavilar so I'm not sure that works out.

Has anyone offered an explanation for why IsharFather would be able to manifest to Gavilar in the physical world outside of the visions? My understanding of the theory was that Ishar would supposedly be hijacking the Stormfather's visions, which wouldn't apply here.

In my opinion the Stormfather offered his own perfectly reasonable explanation for the different way he behaves with Dalinar, assuming that he is indeed the same Stormfather. Gavilar ultimately let the Stormfather down because of the influence of the Vorin religion as well as his firm belief that he had been chosen by a god-like entity to ascend as a Herald because the Stormfather told him just that. The Stormfather acknowledges that Gavilar's Vorin upbringing was a primary contributor to his failure, and that in retrospect it was inevitable and should have been obvious. He also mentions that it was a mistake to be so open with Gavilar and to provide information so "easily". It seems to me that the Stormfather rectified those mistakes with Dalinar. By being withdrawn and reticent, he forces Dalinar to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of information. Dalinar has to go on his own journey to uncover a lot of these higher mysteries rather than having the destination of ascendance presented early on. During this search for information, he's even forced to abandon the shackles of the Vorin religion and he ultimately comes to the conclusion that the solution to their predicament must lie within the recreation of the Oathpact. I could go on but I'll leave it at that and see what you guys think. I am pretty firmly convinced that it was the real Stormfather, merely learning from his mistakes and taking a different approach with Dalinar in order to fulfill Honor's directive.