Yumiya

Wouldn't the planet be connected to all those lands regardless of borders?

I am a little confused about the AonDor, or more specificlly the nature of Dominion and Devotion's confinement. We have a WOB describing it in detail: We know that there are worldhoppers from Sel. So humans are going into the Cognitive Realm there. Why cannot one of them become the vessel(s)? Why would putting investiture in the COGNITIVE realm, prevent it from gaining sentience. I would think it would gain it faster there. Thinking of spren who lose sentience in the physical but are perfectly fine in the cognitive. Khriss claims that the landscape itself has become Invested to the point that it has a growing self-awareness, in a way unseen on other planets in the cosmere. Anyone want to bet that the planet becomes sentient enough to become the vessel for a new combined shard?

Granted: You are given a dead shard blade and the ability hear it scream every time you touch it (like Radiants do) I wish for more bookshelves.

Granted: @The Wandering Wizard's staff is charged with investiture keyed to someone else, making the power inaccessible to him. I wish for the ability to operate, both mentally and physically, effectively on no sleep.

Well, I can see where you would go that way, up to a point. "The death is my life" - The deaths of of others have put him on his current path (Elhokar, Jezerin) "The strength becomes my weakness" - The idea that he could have been strong and a Windrunner of the third ideal definitely dealt him a blow. The strength of community and support that Bridge 4 has became a torment for him after his betrayal. "The journey has ended" - This is where it breaks down for me. He is still on a journey. Unless you want to make the argument that his journey with the rest of Bridge 4 is over. Not sure why you would say this. Care to share the thought process?

Not sure who is suppose to update the Coppermind, but Moash's page has a broken WOB reference.

I was thinking of the advancements in Fabrial technology. On the night of the assignation there was talk of the new fabrial heaters.

The stormfather is pretty cagey and might be able to lie (that is still up for debate).

Emeralds are the Truthwatcher polestone. It is thought the stones in the library related to the order of the person recording. Of the stones we see, only two orders are missing. Bondsmith and edgedancer. This lines up with one of the recordings: Also, one of the other emeralds has this quote: Maybe the Truthwatchers had noticed some of their order being corrupted.

There is a WOB that says there are 9 secret societies on Roshar (at the time of Oathbringer): But the coppermind only lists 8. Ghostbloods (aka Kelsier) Ire (Lighthouse keeper and the merchants) Seventeenth Shard (chasing Hoid) The Sleepless ( protecting dawnshards and the like) Skybreakers (killing budding radiants) Sons of Honor The Diagram The Envisagers But who is the ninth? Worldsingers - not very secret Veristitalians - also not secret The Five Scholars - yeah, we have Vasher and Nightblood and Argent, but they seem more preoccupied and not a unified group That leaves three options in my mind: The Set One of the Feruchemists could be a Set agent. The set has decided to wipe out all of civilization when advances in technology gets too high. Maybe the advances in Fabrials has them worried enough to try to start a world war on Roshar to wipe the population out. The Path One of the Feruchemists could be a Pathian Missionary, most likely Gereh Khriss's University This is may preferred theory. We know that Nahz has been infiltrating places, like the Cartographers guild, attempted at bridgeman meeting, stolen documents and now trying to infiltrate the stonewards. Sounds pretty secret agency to me.

Sanderson has stated that Silver is relevant in the cosmere and has interesting properties unknown of on Scadrial. We know it repels shades, but degrades when doing so. Something silvery is used to anchor silverlight in the cognitive realm. It also apparently can kill spren. I think to understand that last aspect, we need to know more about what it is actually doing (This is going to be a long post, so sorry in advanced). I think silver creates a connection from the physical realm to the spiritual realm, though there is an extension to this I will mention at the end. I will first list properties of silver in the real world as well as real world myths about silver. Then I will get into how that translates to the effects seen in the cosmere. Silver is generally associated with purity, protection, and spirituality. I actually found a quote that "Silver represents the perfectly righteous, who funnel divine "light" into the mundane world." Some cultures believed that wearing silver would help someone live a more spiritual life, some people even believing that the very reflective nature of silver allowed people to see their true selves (little bit of Electrum going on?) On to actual physical properties and not just folklore. Silver exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. We know investiture is also energy and mass. So silver is the very best at conducting investiture. Silver also has antibiotic properties (hence all the folk lore about protection) and is considered too good of a catalyst at times. Silver is also generally a by-product of mining other metals as silver is usually found in nature combined with other metals (This will be important later on). Additionally, silver tarnishes in the presence of sulfur. Note that sulfur dioxide is generated by lightning strikes, understood as divine punishment by many ancient religions or divine retribution in the bible. The formation of silver chloride due to long term exposure to salt water or oxygen creates a pale yellow color. On Threnody, shades are mindless cognitive shadows. We know shadows are the spirit, in essence. But they are manifesting slightly in the physical realm. However, as the creation of a cognitive shadow is the replacement of the spirit web with investiture, and the investiture available on Threnody is corrupted, they have no actual cognitive function (well not much, Silence's grandmother seems to remain very slightly aware of Silence.) BTW I am not counting out the very wild theory that the shades are part of some sort of hive mind... Well, why does silver stop the shades. The connection between the physical and the spiritual that silver creates does not let corrupted spirits like the shades through. Their corruption (I hate using that word because everyone is going to think I mean corruption like Sja-anat does, but I dont really have a better word for it), prevents being conducted by the metal. The healing power that silver has to reverse withering is based on connecting the physical to the spiritual's baseline, restoring the original form (same as recovering from a shardblade cut, actually that would be a really good question for sanderson. "Would the application of silver powder to a shardblade wound have any healing effects?"). As for how silver degrades, I think we can chalk that up to a) writer's license in making something not too powerful and b ) the fact that the shades are the investiture of a fallen/murdered god, the whole sulfur thing. On Scadrial, it does nothing when an allomancer burns it. That sounds VERY odd. Burning non-allomantic metals makes allomancers sick. But then, if it is being burned, but just not having an affect, they would not get sick. The way allomancy is fueled is by using the metal as a catalyst to access the shard's power. What if, burning silver IS doing something, just not noticeable, so the allomancer stops trying before there are any real effects. If silver is connecting physical to spiritual, there might be a little bit of spirit web healing going on when burning (think realigning your chakras), but it is done so infrequently no one notices. Alternatively, it is giving them investiture, but no form to express it. The chains of silverlight are "silvery". They could be anchoring the physical city directly to the spiritual which allows them to weather the changes in terrain that can happen in the cognitive realm. So, spren can be killed by silver, but only while they are in the cognitive realm. "Infecting" them there would force them to manifest as they normally would in the cognitive realm, into the physical, which (thanks to Ishar) tends to be fatal. I might as well start my spin-off theory here. Silver is a catalyst for the natural formation of God Metals. Remember that the natural atium has a bit of impurity, namely silver and gold.I think all the god metals have that impurity, allowing the transfer of the spiritual investiture of the shards to manifest in the physical realm. A lot of metallic items have been described as silvery. In particular, items made of god metal. Shardblades/shardplate/soulcasters/honorblades are all made of an alloy between Honor and Cultivation, and described as silvery. Atium, The Eleventh Metal, Trellium are all silvery. Even Harmonium burns with a "pure whiteness". Even Raysium can be described as a silver. Well "a bright golden metal, so light it is almost white", but remember that salt water exposure causes a pale yellow color, what would exposure to say corrupted investiture do?

My dogs already create rafts of dog hair that I could use to sail the seas of shadesmar. That curse seems a bit cruel (highly allergic to cats). But, wish granted. You get a powerful magic staff... but uncharged and that can only be charged in another dimension, that you do not have access to without access to the power of the staff. I wish that money actually grew on trees.

Granted. Earthbased technology does work, but you put off a magnetic field that disrupts technology within 10 feet of you. I wish that my house magically never had dust.

If it were normal for Truthwatchers, I think Brandon would have mentioned it in his description of the orders: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/the-ten-orders-of-knights-radiant/ Those are the basis around the quiz to decide what order you would be in, something he apparently uses to decide when asked about other characters potential aptitudes for potential knighthood.

Ok, if we go down that path, what about the fact that spren are representations of human ideals. Vorin beliefs are strictly against seeing the future. So, normal spren don't grant that ability.

Right. I was agreeing with that. Even if Truthwatchers were able to have that ability, it was neutered by Honor, blocking it from his base surges. Sja-anat's "Enlightenment" frees the radiant spren from that restriction.

Well, how about the fact that Renarin can block to foresight of Odium? Would Honor want to have his and Cultivation's sight blocked that way? Would Wit?

A couple of reasons. Consider these quotes: And of course, Wit's famous quote in Oathbringer: Though I have a sneaking suspicion that seeing the future is not necessarily bad, but that it is bad to be associated with them, as a certain Secret Project group hunts them.

You are given the power to see a glow when sections of text are good ideas, proportional to its value, but your power short circuits all technology, making things like the internet, video games and cellphones useless to you. (You have to go to the library, but then get banned because you keep breaking all their computers.) I wish for the ability to understand what my dogs say.

No worries. You weren't. I suppose we can try to fill in one of those holes. Ok, so the special rock idea is stupid in this case. It may be possible for other spren like the unmade to learn Yelig-nar's technique, but is not applicable here. So what could be going on (assuming the rest of the scenario is true) Maybe Tanavast splinters Honor, keeping enough of the investiture to make him a cognitive shadow. He already has a Connection to the Heralds. We also know that cognitive shadows like Kelsier can form a Nahel bond (WOB). Maybe Tanavast strengthened that Connection and formed a Nahel bond with Naln when the Herald dies, hitching a ride to Braise that way. Since we also have WOB stating that the bond basically is filling the cracks in the spirit web (which after so much torture, Naln is sure to have a TON), the two have essentially melded completely. One body, two minds. Tanavast comes to the fore when something sparks his interest.

I did say that this has a thousand holes in it...

Same way Amaram swallows a gem with Yelig-nar in it.

This is a bizarre one. What if Tanavast is not dead, just splintered. Here is the scenario. Cultivation and Honor are working to stop Rayse. Cultivation, using fore-sight, sees a possible way to defeat Rayse once and for all. This plot requires Rayse to feel over confident so that he could be maneuvered into a vulnerable position. The best way would for Honor to disappear, splinter (with the potential to reform after the plan is successful). Cultivation's Vessel though, is in love with Honor's Vessel, so she wants his mind to survive. So they plan to splinter Honor, creating a sliver with Tanavast's mind and putting him into a gem stone. The rest of the power is shoved off on the Stormfather. They have foreseen (or potentially encouraged) the plans of the Heralds to modify the oathpact. They mange to get the gem stone containg Tanavast's mind to Taln and convince him to swallow it, allowing Tanavast to fuse with Taln before his death. Now Tanavast is safely hidden away on Braize, the last place Rayse would look for him. Additionally, the extra investiture that he adds to Taln keeps the oathpact strong enough with just one of the Heralds. Fast forward to present day. Tanavast sees the fused being smuggled off Braize and decides that the time of his return is near. So Tanavast (not Taln) chooses to return to Roshar. This means Taln did not actually break, despite his return. But, both Tanavast and Taln are crazy from how long they have been tortured, though Tanavast to a lesser extent. Taln's madness keeps Tanavast suppressed most of the time. So, Taln is reduced to repeating his mantra and Tanavast only manifests once in a while. His appearance is generally triggered by something. The use of his surges seems to draw him out (Shallans Lightweaving, the proximity to his own Perpendicularity). I know there are probably a thousand holes in this, but it is a fun thought experiment.

It was suggested that he was having mental issues during the end. He was described as raving and obsessed with oaths.

Maybe also Cultivation. She controls how smart/callous or dumb/empathetic Taravangian is everyday. So in a way, she is controlling how he will respond to the events of that day. Dalinar also was manipulated emotionally by the Cultivation, setting him on the path to be permanently changed emotionally. Even Lift was controlled in a way, by her stronger connection to the cognitive realm. Soul Forging also seems to be a likely candidate. Didn't Shai manipulate the Emperor a bit in her final design?