The Bookwyrm

Tress of the Emerald Sea.

This book was storming incredible.

The characters and the plot are wonderful and fit perfectly into the universe of the Cosmere. The worldbuilding is also incredible. The idea of the spore oceans, and all of the implications that come with that, intrigues me greatly. It's so interesting.

And while the story was beautiful, that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about Hoid, and all the references he makes.

I think Brandon understands now that a large portion of his audience are hyper-aware Cosmerenauts like us. He's made a story that can be enjoyed by anyone, but has specifically designed it so that, coupled with Hoid's voice, it gives us tantalizing hints that make us sit up and yell "What?!" before dazedly flopping on the ground and trying to figure out what it all means.

That happened to me like, eight times in this book alone. I don't even remember all of them.

Aethers. Here's a little sort of meme:

And I don't know how accurate that really is, but two things stand out to me:

First, Midnight Essence. Associated with Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother. At least, that's what we all thought. But now we know that it's actually an activated form of Aether.

What?! How?! Why is an Unmade, formed by Odium, using an Aether?!

Also, White Sand. I made a thread about it, and I think Koloss17 did, too; the White Sand of Taldain has far too much in common with these Aethers to be an independent magic system. I think it's a form of Aether. Perhaps an Aether infused with Autonomy's investiture, or something, but an Aether nonetheless. (Maybe that's the answer to the Re-Shepir conundrum; even if the Aethers were originally independent of Adonalsium (if that's really true), a Shard can somehow Invest an Aether in the same way they invest a planet and make it a part of them...)

Multiple Scadrial references. Hoid refers to an "adversary" of himself that likes to use the term "For every Push, a Pull." I'm guessing it's everyone's favorite Scadrian Thaidakar, A.K.A Kelsier.

Also, our good friend Sazed has "freed" the Kandra by this point in the Cosmere, whatever that means. I wonder what's going on at the Scadrian homefront, especially after some little hints about "Discord" in TLM...

Also, Tress mentions Death having spikes in his eyes?! What the scud is Marsh up to?!

What else....

This is obviously in the future of the Cosmere. It could be Sixth of the Dusk era...in fact, I think Hoid might be telling the story to someone of First of the Sun, considering he mentions high-tech spaceships landing on the audience's homeworld.

While I had foreseen Scadrian technology following an Earthlike path, and Rosharan technology achieving similar effects through Stormlight Fabrials, it seems Nalthians are doing cool stuff with Awakening based technology. 

Xisis is definitely the Foil mentioned in the RoW epigraphs. I think.

Oh yeah, first canonical entry of dragonsteel. Interesting....

The Ire seem to be doing weird shenanigans...either that or Riina is a rouge Elantrian now who likes causing trouble. She has access to several different magic systems...Awakening, AonDor, other magic based technologies...also, we have our first canonical actual spaceship besides the stuff in Sixth of the Dusk. That whole thing was weird...

Yeah, concrete evidence that we're in the space age of the Cosmere, and little tidbits of all the technologies being produced by the leading worlds.

There's a really deep ocean on Threnody somewhere.

What else am I forgetting....

Oh yeah. Hoid specifically mentions him being part of a plot to kill God. Adonalsium. 

And he and the Vessels apparently told Adonalsium that his/her/their/its death was for his/her/their/its own good?

What?

This is the end of my ramblings for now. Brandon specifically wrote this book to tease the rest of us. He knows his audience. He knows we spent far too long looking at the clues, and he's using that to throw us for a loop. Giving us just enough to baffle us, but not enough to spoil anything.

I love it. I can't wait for SP3 and SP4.

This man is a mad genius, and I can't wait to see where he takes us next.