Eri

I think Shallan's memories are of the same nature as Kaladins innate talent for spear fighting. A talent, maybe being one of the prerequisites for gaining a spren.

I think Shallan will draw her Blade in the first chapter. It was forshadowed enough to be shown, but didn't appear in WoK, I think the most resonable explanation is that it will be used very early in book 2. Also, she giving it up... it may be necessary, because Shardblades are bad, of Odium etc., but I don't like the idea of giving it up, because she's a girl and Dalinar is a warrior. That's quite stereotypical. Shallan is a person very unlikely to use the Blade — that's why she should have it. I can't explain it very well, but on Writing Excuses they said something about an interesting character not being the one that fits his/her role perfectly, but the one that seems not to fit the role. Wild, wild idea: Dalinar dies (probably killed by Szeth). In book5 (or 4, or 3) he returns as some weird, powerful being (like Heralds) and does what Honor told him to do. I like Dalinar, but I also like surprises. No, wait, that would be too depressing for Navani. :/

When I was reading WoK for the first time and got to the part of prologue where Szeth says that the end of the world is near etc. (where he kills the king) i thought “Wow, this guy must have a lot of plot knowledge”. And then, in the interludes, he didn't say anything as interesting as that. Recently I've noticed something: at first, Szeth doesn't seem to know the end is coming, he worries that Alethi will make Shards and dominate the world, an then, after he gets the mysterious sphere from the mysterious (a bit) king, he says that thing about the end. And we don't get any more of his PoVs with the sphere, only after he hid it. And he doesn't seem to know anything about the coming end / Desolation / whatever you call it. So the theory is: having (touching?) the black sphere gives you some knowledge. After that you probably forget it. Another small observation: the sphere is black, glows with a black light and is scary. Death is also considered scary and associated with colour black. Dying people know or see something. Maybe the sphere contains a part of whatever the dying people of Roshar go through (in Greek mythlogy it was a river, it may be something material on Roshar too)? Yes, thet is a really wild guess. Edit: Also, this “knowledge” may even not be true, it might be fabricated by Odium. But that is another matter. My theory doesn't claim it to be true or false. Just that the sphere makes you think / know things you normally wouldn't.

Very interesting. We don't know enough, but I support the idea of Cusi-what's-it's-name being bound or able to bind to a Herald, because he's like a spren, only biiiig.

Jasnah? No, not in the first book. And later we'll see.

A Stormlight Archive question: How many (approximately) languages there are on Roshar and where are they used? People in Jah Keved seem to speak Alethi (Shallan's PoV doesn't mention any languages foreign to her) but from Szeth's conclusion of creating Shardblades resulting in “people everywhere speaking Alethi to their children” (quote from memory; it's in prologue) I assume they're quite many non-Alethi speaking people. But so far rhe only explicitly mentioned other language is Shin. The quote is a bit strange if it refers only to Shinovar, however. Edit: Also, after AoL, this one (from first post) is kinda solved unless again ”refers to “not only on Scadrial” ;-) Another edit: Those are answered too: He said it's Dominion (source?) 10. I think it is answered (I remember Navani being mentioned), but don't remember, where. Any help? No. :-( Reddit Q&A some time ago. (smiley is mine, not part of the original answer) No precise answer, but “more that it seems” or something similar. Again, don't remember the source.

You've just won this thread.

I think it is confirmed that Rayse is Odium.

It definitely should be marked for spoilers. Also, I agree that Ati and Laras were cool. The force of evil vs the lying, cheating, breaking his word force of good. Kelsier... well, murdering everyone isn't awsome, it's homicidal. ;-) I liked him anyway but not as much as some others. I really liked Sazed, I'm very happy with his ending. TenSoon was good, too. And Breeze. And Lord Ruler was cool, too, when you think about it. Honorable mention goes to Marsh, especially for the earring. In Warbreaker... well, everyone was interesting, especially Vasher and his homicidal sword. Oh, and Lightsong, he was great! Susebron was so very sweet. In AoL i really like Steris, Marasi is nice as a character but a bit cliched as a love interest. And Hoid is cool because he deals with metaplot. And go read Mythwalker if you haven't, Ix is great! I want him in a published book (Skeer too!)... and if you don't like Warbreaker's Vivienna, compare her to the prime version, it was much worse. Devin is also an interesing character for me, because he's a conformist and I like characters who aren't morally perfect, because they're three-dimensional. Yes, Kaladin, I'm looking at you. And I also don't care how many fathers has Shallan killed — it is flirting with a guy she doesn't relly want to get into a relationship with and lying to Jasnah that makes her interesting. Big evils from a protagonist create drama, small evils create an interesting character.

I agree that the power would keep him alive, young etc. It definitely was strong enough. The question is rather – with so much Ruin's influence (I think he had significantly more spikes than Vin), would he still be able to use the power?

Um, guys, this is not General Theories, this is SA forum, so please, don't post blatant spoilers here. Even if HoA is a quite old book. ;-)

I think this would be first case of humans not being the original race. On other planets the Shards (being sort of human themselves) created humans and (minor Mistborn spoiler) I've seen someone talking about dragons, but it refers to an unpublished book so I don't know if they are an exception. But you may be right even if humans are always the default race — Parsh* were humans, got changed gor some reason into what they are now, and then humans from (the Silence Divine planet?) arrived. Or the other way around, maybe — Parsh* as the newcomers on Roshar.

I think it is quite sure. I think it's quite resonable for a Shardworld to have religion based on some (mis)interpretations of actual Shards and their interactions. Roshar seems to have it, Scadrial had it (Mistborn) / has it (AoL), I don't remember what about Sel. So yes, the being referred to as Austre is probably (based on) Endownment. The question is, how much is it misinterpreted?

I agree, but going to a planet in same system (like Earth and Mars) is much less than typical worldhopping (which is like going form Earth to Alpha Centauri or something), therefore it would be less Deus Ex Machina, IMO. And Roshar is in one system with the planet of Silence Divine. Unless I got different planets mixed up and my theory has no sense. Edit: I've just realized that all Nightwatcher's curses we've seen (inverted seeing; losing memory about a person; random inteligence) change the mind (or possibly the body also) of a person involved. No curses like “your friends dislike you” or “your money turns to ash”. It fits very well in the “magic for a disability” theme, I think.

Well, even if the Shard wasn't ever on Roshar, a planet in same system isn't probably too far for a Splinter to travel.

2013 is still a great timing, and I'm really happy that we'll have w whole book about Shallan. She's much more interesting than Kaladin, who is soooo good honorable and never ever did anything bad and I really hope he falls and turns evil, even for a short time, because it would make him much more interesting as a character. No, really, he's my least favorite of all Sanderson characters right now. And Shallan is quite selfish, lies and acts on impulse, but she's not too evil also. And she gets the most interesting plot (which means most dealing with cosmere stuff). Or maybe it's just that she's the kind of characters I prefer in RPGs (lies to the party, steals things, doesn't like killing people)? Anyway I'm looking forward to that book.

What do we know about her? First, her name. Nightwatcher. Someone that watches in the night or over the night. A person... or a celestial body, maybe? Second, her gifts. Magic which doesn't seem very honorable, cultivative or odious. Just does not fit to any of them. A curse with every boon. A boon with every curse. Doesn't that remind you about something? One Shard who actually lives (IIRC) very close to Roshar. The Silence Divine Shard. Who may have (for many reasons) been on Roshar some time ago. My theory is that the being granting wishes is a Splinter of that Shard. And that the folk tales about the Nightwatcher are distorted legends about that Splinter, the Shard and the planet of Silence Divine (I recall it is in the same solar system, or am I mistaken?), seen as a star (and, I guess, somehow identified with the Nightwatcher in popular opinion — folk tales work like that, I think). What do you think about it? Edit: I'll edit this paragrapg into small text because it's a digression (sp?): This would leave Cultivation's magic as completly unknown. Honor has Surgebinding; Odium has Voidbinding which may be the art of fabrials or may be not... but what about her? I think the Stone Shamans fit. They have apropriate beliefs, and seem powerful enough to be magic users (they claim to be able to retieve Szeth's Blade, and their whole country has warriors treated as slaves. And they don't ever rebel against it. Why?). Less confusing now?

That's a really good idea, so simple yet I didn't even think about it.

Hm... I think if Jez was the new Honor, he would talk to Dalinar and tell him something more helpful. And we wouldn't hear ”Honor is dead” as often. And if he picked up only a part of the Shard, he would be a Splinter Sliver, and (on Reddit, IIRC) Sanderson said that he's not. edit: Why do I always gat Slivers and Splinters mixed up? OK, on Reddint Q&A I asked the right thing, so this post still makes sense... A Splinter he probably is / has, actually.

A bit tangent, but my few thoughts: Parshendi and Parshmen seem similar to Roshar native lifeforms, so I yhink they have gemhearts (“have” as a bodypart, not just treasure) IMVHO they're different because Parshendi's hearts are infused with Stormlight (I think I once wrote a post about investiture creating sentience in not-completely-human races) Voidbringers may be a more infused version; or infused with some different energy (I don't know, is Stormlight of Honor or a mix). Enslaving of Parshmen might be less like “We won, let's make them slaves!” and more like “We won, let's ensure they don't ever get infused with Stormlight again!”. Why not just kill them? Might be unhonorable (especially if they're only *potential* Voidbringers and do not control what happens when they're infused). Might be just ineffective (maybe they have some means of respawning, it would explain their obsession with not disturbing corpses). It may also be the other way around – that Parshmen are “empty” therefor may become Voidbringers (when infused with some evil, odious ;-) energy; and Parshendi are immune because they're infused with Stormlight. It may also be a difference not in Light but in spren. Can a spren be trapped in a gemheart or only in a cut gem? In general: they can be good guys *and* Voidbringers. It may be an involuntary thing.I don't remember how to make a spoiler tag work, so I'd write it very short: imagine the HoA events if the Resolution didn't happen because of weakness.

I was doing a Mistborn reread and noticed that Ruin sounds pretty similar to Nightblood. I mean, his favourite line is “Kill him”. And he sounds happy about it. And I thought, with all the world-hoppers, it's possible that the sword is made from atium someone brought from Scadrial, or an alloy of it. It would explain his personality and maybe how a metal thing could be Awakened (maybe unusual metal helped a bit). And may explain the corruption of Breath – mixing two not very compatibile Shards might give weird results, I guess. Or it's just simply homicidal. But in Cosmere, things are rarely as simple as they first seem.

I think he should answer what happens (I haven't seen any answer – neither in the books nor in annotations) and then they should translate it to game terms. And put in some next book, because people will try it. Crafty Games won't (I hope) publish any facts not approved by Sanderson. And if they do, I'm going to treat them no better than some house-rules. It's his world, after all.

Yep, I think it's lerasium. This makes me think of ‘the element’ mentioned in the letter in WoK.

I guess it takes as many spikes as needed to lower one of your stats to 0. And losing humanity is a continual process, every spike distorts you. A “construct” isn't, I think, something that actually exists in-world or in game terms. I don't know how to explain it well. I mean, in D&D (not that it is anything bad in that game) you have types, and you have a human, he does something strange and *pop* – suddenly his type changes to aberration. Both philosophically and in game mechanics he is something different and nonhuman. In Cosmere, I think, it is more gradual. One spike, -1 Spirit. Two spikes, -more... Until it gets to 0 and *pop*. Or maybe not... It's an interesting question – are the koloss still human (I suppose Cosmere has a good and precise definition of human, which may be quite interesting)? If not, where's the point in which you stop being human? I know they're blue, crazy and biologically weird, but that is not what I mean. I mean more something like “do they have souls”? In Cosmere it seems a valid scientific problem. Also, are kandra human?