Heilven

This theory works even better. Omitting the gas giants, that makes 4 orbiting bodies. I like that number much better than 8. On the "Wouldn't all of the moons be made of the same material" question: this is a deeply magical event. Perhaps the 4th moon was the core of our prime moon, or something to that effect. Moons don't tend to spontaneously break apart into several different moons with specific orbits. There's a level of non-realism here that I think is very rational to expect.

Syl has never been depicted as a child. Have you read Wind and Truth? It is explicitly noted that while Kaladin often describes her behavior as "childlike", she has always taken the shape of a young woman. You might be confused with her often wearing a "girlish dress" in the early books, which really just means a simple dress with no safehand sleeve.

I've posted about this before, but as I reread the books I keep seeing things which compound my intrigue in the subject. First of all, the facts: Roshar has had 4 moons. This must have been so early in the planet's history to account for it being such a secret to everyone. Additionally, the 4th moon fell long before the shattering. The Rosharan system has 16 total planetary orbiting bodies. 3 terrestrial planets, 3 moons of Roshar, and 10 gas giants. We can be 100% certain that the 3 terrestrial planets existed prior to the shattering. In chapter 100 of WaT, we see Tanavast arriving at the Rosharan system, and he specifically notes 3 planets. This doesn't mean that the other planets weren't there, only that we can't be certain that they were. He doesn't mention the moons either. When Honor arrived there were 3 large aspects of Adonalsium on Roshar. This is specifically noted by Tanavast. The moons of Roshar were placed where they are for a very specific purpose. To the singers, the moons explicitly correlate to Honor, Cultivation, and Odium. Certain numbers have intrinsic power. 1, 4, and 16 all have power regardless of the shard, and each specific shard has their own number of power. Now on to speculation. The idea that Adonalsium would put 17 planetary bodies into a system seems strange, especially considering how intricately designed the system is. Additionally, as far as we know, 10 has no specific meaning to Adonalsium. Honor placing 10 gas giants into the rosharan system doesn't seem outlandish, as there was a period of at least 2,000 years where Tanavast and Koravellium had the Rosharan system to themselves. At the same time, Roshar is intricately crafted for a larger purpose, and plopping in 10 massive planets is going to disturb the place. However, if you ignore the 10 gas giants, we can get a different count of celestial bodies. 4 moons and 3 planets makes 7, but add in the sun and you get 8. The sun is not often discussed by anyone, except for the Shin. They worship the spren of the sun as one of their highest gods. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, but Sanderson tends to write religions in such a way that there is always some truth to them. This points toward the sun being a more important part of the system than we might think. My impetus to make this post was because of a realization that I had today. Adonalsium left 3 caretakers for Roshar. 3??? That is not a number of power, and it is instead very close to 4, which absolutely is. I think the most obvious answer to this is that Adonalsium takes up that 4th slot, and perhaps the fallen moon is meant to represent him. Adonalsium exists within ancient Singer lore as an entity that seemingly had specific and frequent interactions with them, not just as a faraway creator. Other obvious answers point to a 4th guardian spren which must have left before Tanavast's arrival, and must be have been gone for long enough that there was no memory of it. Before I continue, I should address the topic of what the 3 moons represent. The moons have distinct colorations which match up exactly to the colors of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium. The Singer's refer to Nomon as "Honor's Moon", and likely make the same connections to the other moons. This cannot be ignored, as it is clearly important. The idea that makes the most sense to me is that the moons changed colors to reflect the changing gods, adapting to them. The evidence seems stacked against the moons being representations of the 3 shards beyond surface level details. When laying out the facts, I stated that the 4th moon must have fallen long before the shattering. In my mind, this was because a moon crashing down would have caused significant ecological devastation. Upon thinking on it further, I instead think that the 4th moon must have cause essentially no devastation. There is the timeline issue, but if an object in any way moon sized was to fall onto Roshar, it should have killed all life on the planet. The moons of Roshar are unusually small, but they are still large celestial bodies. Besides, the fact that the moon "fell" is indicative of something magical in nature, so there's no reason to believe that the landing itself was not magical as well. The moon gently touching down and burying itself seems natural for Roshar. Then the timeline issue. If the 4th moon represents Adonalsium, the moon most likely would have fallen immediately after or during the shattering. Adonalsium may have consciously done it, not wanting his killers to find the moon and the strange material it is made of. This presents a timeline issue, as surely the Singers would have noticed the event, and it would have attached itself to their lore somehow. Tanavast should have found out about it, surely. There are a myriad of possible explanations, but it seems implausible. This more or less brings me to the end of my thoughts. I have no answers and am certain of nothing. I have like 3 different competing theories, all of which seem possible. I think I will bother to actually do the math on approximately how large the moons are, as that seems interesting.

Is there actual evidence for these claims? My explanation for the frost forming on Shardblades is due to this effect, I just didn't know if this is supported by anything more than what we see in the text. As for the surges, I think that relegating most surges to be only physical is a deep disconnect with the themes of Roshar itself. I don't have my books on me so I can't check, but I believe it has been stated that lashings are connecting something to a far away point, or convincing something that gravity is pointed in a different direction. In WAT I believe it is described that when Szeth uses division, he is causing something to believe it is now many things. Truthwatchers can use illumination and progression together to access Fortune. Lightweavers are able to give life to their illusions, even causing them to react to outside stimuli. And that's not just Shallan being Shallan, making an illusion which can walk realistically up stairs is something which takes considerable mental effort to create, but requires comparatively little to maintain. While I am not certain in my theory that Investiture is not used as an energy source for most of the surges, I am quite certain that the surges are impacting things on a cognitive and spiritual level, where the physical effects are the results of changes in the other realms. In fact(WOB):

I don't think your arguments disprove my theory. Yes, all of the surges consume Stormlight. I theorize that the Stormlight is not converted into energy as part of most surges, rather the Stormlight is used to change the cognitive or spiritual aspect of a target. The continuous cost would be from Stormlight leaking. Soulcasting is both my best and worst evidence for this, as it has been shown numerous times that Soulcasting something into a more dense form requires more of the initial substance(and vice versa), implying that the Stormlight does not become the substance. At the same time there are other energy problems involved and whether it is conservation of mass or energy which is involved is somewhat speculative. As for the frost, I think this is the only real explanation for most instances of frost besides the surges just really liking to aura farm. In the case of the Shardblade WOB, I'm honestly really confused about what he means by that. When a gas phase transitions to a solid, it releases energy. This could potentially be the opposite for investiture, where solid investiture is actually a higher energy state, which seems to contradict what we know about solid investiture. Regardless, it doesn't explain any of the other times where frost appears during large uses of surges. Yes, investiture is frequently stated to be "feeding" uses of surges. It was also frequently stated that there were 10 allomantic metals. I am not denying that there is a constant need for Investiture, just that for most (and perhaps all) uses of the surges, Investiture does not provide the source of energy. I could absolutely be wrong, but given the fact that we know that as you advance in the orders your Stormlight stretches further, it seems like decent evidence. It is also very thematically consistent with Roshar's deep ties to the cognitive realm. On the topic of the actual energy consumption of lashings, I think I need to make my argument more clearly. If lashings are a true force, they would need no energy to create, but would do work via W = Integral (Force vector dot displacement vector d(displacement)). This introduces a mess of potential energies, and ultimately requires something to do the pulling to be in any way internally consistent. Without an equal and opposite force we have some pretty terrible violations of conservation of momentum. If lashings are some sort of large fluctuations in spacetime which only affect specific things, then the situation is likely even more complicated. I can't pretend to know the details of how this would work, but it would probably require upfront energy. In this conceptual framework there is no transfer of momentum and thus no continuous energy requirement. Ultimately, Sanderson has all of the power to pick and choose any set of explanations and make them work together consistently while still explaining what happens in the text. I'm mostly looking for the minimum viable theory to explain all that is happening. Sanderson can always add on a thousand different pieces to choose whatever explanation is best, and as such it really could be anything. If we get concrete proof that the energy source for the surges is the Stormlight itself, I won't be bothered. I just think that my theory is a more concise explanation in the meantime.

They do not fall at the same rate with the same terminal velocity. In fact if you neglect "other factors like friction and wind resistance" there will be no terminal velocity at all. Terminal velocity is achieved when the force due to gravity is equal to the resistance forces which oppose motion. A 100kg ingot has a higher terminal velocity because gravity pulls on heavier things more. Two objects with different masses in the absence of wind resistance will fall at the same rate, because the heavier object resists acceleration in such a way that the extra force cancels. But I get what you mean.

I actually disagree, for two separate reasons. Firstly, I believe that most of the surges don't actually use investiture as their fuel source. If I am explicitly wrong about this then I'm easily disproven on this point. Regardless, I think that the investiture involved in the surges is necessary to impose a change in the cognitive or spiritual essence of a target. The energy required for this would therefore come from the environment, which is why I believe frost so often appears when radiants do something particularly spectacular. There are certainly notable exceptions for this rule, but it is rather consistent with most radiant abilities. In this framework if one were to be lashed, then change their mass, no extra investiture should be necessary. There is a lot of room for interpretation here though, as I'm not certain if it is known whether the variation in investiture required to lash an object is tied to mass explicitly. It certainly makes sense, but I could also see volume, as the target's cognitive perception of its own size is likely the most important culprit. Regardless, I doubt that an object which sees itself as lashed upward would change its perception without running out of the investiture involved in the lashing. Secondly, lashings are supposed to work like gravity, and thus a lashing shouldn't impart momentum or energy into the target. We know that depictions of g-force or forces due to lashings are due to the underlying mechanics not being fully thought out (to the general relativistic level that is. That's pretty far to think something out). So there's an issue here in whether we consider all of the evidence for lashings as a force as canon, or something to be ignored. I have my hand firmly in both camps, so I don't really care if Sanderson retcons this or not. If he does, then this point exists. If lashings are considered to be forces, then this point is moot. I do personally believe that most of the whoopsys could be written off as your cognitive self reacting as it thinks it should, rather than reality, but it's totally up to Sandy.

Heralds also seem to have some sort of fortune based abilities, as well as strong lifesense. Iron compounding gives very little advantage in the scheme of things, considering that all wax can do to avoid the consequences of being lashed is store weight, which is not improved by compounding. In addition it seems likely that they properly oathed honorblades grant limitless stormlight, so there's no real war of attrition. The arena advantage is real, but Kaladin can compensate for the lower oxygen with shardplate and or adhesion, and the higher gravity would likely effect him, but it is something he could get used to. Additionally, Kaladin has shown the ability to reverse lash people, and Wax could only use aluminum once, and at great cost. The heralds are simply in a tier of their own, and Kaladin is a herald and a 5th ideal knight radiant. It's really no contest, even if you remove his more speculative abilities.

This is not true. Mass causes gravitational fields, not energy. Investiture is massive, but we have no reason to believe that anti-investiture behaves any differently than anti-matter

The key thing that seems to be in common with everything we know about foci is that they have something to do with accessing investiture, with a secondary effect of manipulating how it behaves. For instance, the metals for Scadrial and the Aons are very similar, and they act very similarly. Without the use of metals or Aons, metal born and Elantrians have no access to investiture. I think that a focus isn't actually necessary for Invested Arts, because if it is then we will need to come up with something else to be a focus for scadrial. If a metalborn has access to investiture (such as the mists or unkeyed door) no metals are required. In that sense I would argue that if rosharan invested arts have a focus, it is spren/sprenlike beings.

This is a really quick one, just noting something. In the prologue to WoK, Szeth notes that the use of stormlight for illumination was profane. However, we learn in WaT that the shin monasteries use stormlight for illumination all the time. Perhaps this is a case of stormlight only being used by the monasteries, and it is profane generally, but the shin don't use stormlight for anything else. So I'm very curious about this

So I have been listening to the audiobook for a little while now, to take my time and really digest everything. I truly think that the 4th moon is meant to make us think of a 4th shard, but that is a red herring. A couple more things to add to my original post: The singing of the chasmfiends is stated to have 4 overlapping tones, but Venli remarks that surely it should be 3. Additionally, when those 4 tones play they create the shattered planes. A couple things to note: Venli does not state that 3 of those tones are the tones of Roshar, only that there should be 3. Additionally, the shattering of the planes was caused by Honor attacking Odium, and it certainty didn't involve Cultivation. It could have involved a 4th Shard, but that is still only 3/4. I still think the most damning evidence has to be the timeline. Surely someone would have said something about a new moon showing up when odium showed up. That is far too obvious and important. So it really doesn't make sense for the moons to be representative of the shards. It also adds more speculation, since we can truly question what the 4th moon means. I think that it is certainly important that the natans, who have the story about how they came from the moons, settled on top of such an important spot. Then there is the mystery of why the chasmfiends need the shattered planes to pupate into their final stage. I don't really believe that it is just because of Odium's perpendicularity, there must be something else there. Thoughts?

At the very least you missed mentioning Taln's scene where he moved imperceptibly fast. I haven't seen any real conversation about Shallan's apparent identity manipulation, but I've been thinking about it a lot. It seems interesting to note which special abilities of hers are due to her two bonds or her herald heritage. I didn't think too much about the beads avoiding voidlight, it does sound interestingly similar to the mist's reaction to hemalurgy. I've had my own pet theory that the effect of odium's investiture caused the heralds to align with the opposite of their intents, rather than what is usual. It's very interesting because of how similar and yet different the cases of roshar and scadrial are in this regard. On one hand, the effects seem very similar, but the possible explanations seem totally unrelated. In the case of scadrial, possible explanations are the powers hating each other, or them being opposite. This just isn't true for roshar, since the powers clearly don't hate each other, and Honor didn't have a vessel. Honestly it seems unexpected that the beads would pull away from voidlight, considering the fact that odium is fully assimilated into roshar, or at least that is what everyone has been saying. You also forgot everything involving the fourth moon, and the four tones involved in the song sung by the chasmfiends during the highstorm. I have a lot of my own thoughts on this, and I think it warrants quite a lot of discussion.

I take a lot of issue with this framing, as this is just clearly not what happens. None of the characters are fully healed within this book, they more or less just took large steps towards healing. Szeth has had the same messaging for his entire life, and never had anyone else care enough to tell him to care about himself. Szeth isn't suddenly fine, he just steps far enough forward that he is able to think for himself and no longer believe that his own death is right. Nale certainly wasn't fixed, he could barely walk after being confronted by Kaladin. Kaladin forced him to look at his own contradictions and see his ultimate failures for the last few thousand years, which crushed him into realizing he was wrong. If anything Nale is less capable after WaT, but in a better position for healing. As for Ishar, we aren't able to see the full effects of what happened. What we know is that part of the herald's madness came from Ishar's corruption due to Odium's power. I think that that must have caused them to align somewhat with the opposite of their intents, rather than with their intent like what we usually expect out of cognitive shadows. The heralds weren't healed of their issues because Kaladin banished that corruption, they still have their few thousand years of failures that they have to deal with. This also misconstrues the message that Kaladin/Sanderson presents. It's about not letting yourself be swallowed up by the "bad thoughts" and presenting affirmations to avoid falling into pits. In addition, I don't think Sanderson means to imply that anyone would hear the advice given and immediately consider that as something they should due. After all, you first have to accept that the "bad thoughts" aren't true. Kaladin's explanation of "soldier thoughts" was meant as a metaphor to Szeth to explain why doing this explicitly would not be an immediate solution, but rather an ongoing process. In addition, the use of "right" and "wrong" was clearly meant to appeal to Szeth who cares very deeply about right and wrong. I certainly understand that none of the concepts that were displayed were all that complex and were a very baby's first introduction to mental health. But Kaladin has quite literally only done this for max 1 month at this point, and is just sharing what has worked for him. I would agree with you if come book 6 we learn that Kaladin's methods haven't changed or progressed whatsoever and yet the heralds are all doing significantly better, but right now that is up in the air. I'd additionally like to ask about your list of "mental health stuff" as you put it. "Just listen" I took as more of a callback to Wit's stories, with "This isn't the part where you talk". Many of these are also used specifically for Szeth and Nightblood, who's main issues revolve around taking agency in their own lives. "We're The Same, You and I" Was shown specifically to not be a catchall method, as it absolutely did not work for Szeth. I thought this showed Kaladin's inexperience, as he had mostly relied upon helping people who had very similar problems to him. "It Might Not Fix It, But It Might Make It Better" and "Just Be Better" were also explicitly the message of Oathbringer, so did you have a problem with them then? For the rest, I suppose I would like to ask if you think that the messages presented are wrong, either to Szeth/Nale or to the audience. If your issue with the items on this list isn't the individual efficacy but rather the idea that you wouldn't use every one of the concepts generically, I would naturally like to point out my argument about "We're The Same, You and I", but also I would like to ask for more specifics surrounding what about these concepts aren't correct to present to Szeth/Nale or why it would be unrealistic for Kaladin to present them and/or unrealistic for Szeth/Nale to respond to them positively. I understand that these are somewhat generic presentations of therapy, but from my non-professional opinion they seem more like the basic foundation of therapy methods than inaccurate portrayals of reality. It is one thing when you have a character in a modern setting who goes to a therapist and receives tremendously generic advice, but this is a different context. Kaladin is not a professional therapist with decades of psychotherapy research to consult, he's a guy with some life experience. Of course all he can come up with is the somewhat generic stuff. I do understand why you would react to therapy being shown in this generic way considering the cultural background of therapy being shown in ways similar to this in other media. But I think the context is different, in that Kaladin does not represent the modern therapist. To imply that modern therapy is nothing more than what we see in WaT would certainly be insulting, but I really don't think that's what is happening here. I don't think Kaladin was implied to have been a perfect success in his first attempt, and I don't think we are meant to believe that he has learned everything he needs to. I really hope that Sanderson doesn't skip past all the time that the Heralds spend in the spiritual realm, and we actually get to see Kaladin and the Heralds growing together, since as Kaladin is right now I do think it would be unrealistic for him to be able to appropriately help all of the Heralds with their issues.

There was a line from the wind about the storm claiming that Kaladin was his son, but that was about it I think. I'm also very curious to figure out what that means

Azimir and Urithiru are the only parts of Roshar that aren't controlled by Teravangian, and Honor forces him to uphold that oath. So the Everstorm is over all of Roshar except Azir and Urithiru. There's probably some nuance around narak.

Chapter 104, page 1001, paragraph 4: "We decided to form 10 varieties. Ten because my power lived the symmetry. 10, because Kor loved me, and knew it would make me happy. We started when the first seven, then one variety was born of Kor alone. In counterpoint, and at her urging, I created one variety almost entirely on my own. My angels of Honor" So clearly here it states that honorspren are not entirely of Honor, but I was incorrect about cultivationspren, at least from this description

There's been something bothering me about the celestial bodies of the rosharan system, particularly the numbers of them. There are 3 habitable rocky planets, 10 outer gas giants, and 3 moons of roshar. Totalling to 16. We know that adonalsium created the system with these celestial bodies, they aren't of the shards. But the numbers are clearly important. We know that 10 is specifically appealing to Honor for some particular reason, and it seems like a very strong coincidence that there would be 10 outer gas giants in the system that Honor would eventually call home. The more significant thing to me is the 3 moons of roshar. For a long while I have wondered about the significance of those moons and how they fit into everything, but we had almost no information about them so it was just in the back of my mind. But then we get WaT, where we learn of 3 beings which existed on roshar before the shattering, which seems deeply significant. It seems to have been commonly accepted that the 3 moons of roshar represent the 3 shards, but that seems ridiculous to me, the moons predate the shattering itself. This leads to a deeper question however, as if you accept that the moons represent the shards, than clearly a 4th moon represents a 4th shard. But if the moons are connected to the wind, stone, and night, than a 4th moon must mean something else entirely. These two questions permeate me more than before given what we have learned in this book. The symbolism is too strong to just be random

Just a small point of contention, "pure" honorspren and cultivationspren are still of both honor and cultivation. They are just more aligned with one or the other.

I agree, I think Jerick doesn't need to be the focus of dragonsteel at all. It does seem like dragonsteel is meant to be more focused on hoid after all.

I was very surprised to see partial canonization of dragonsteel prime at the end of WaT. Much of the main story points were maintained, and it's interesting to view it as perhaps an embellished story of true events within the cosmere.

This book was very interesting to me in how it manages to both wrap up arc 1 while setting up arc 2. I've seen a lot of complaints about things that Sanderson didn't develop enough or seemed to come out of nowhere, but I think that is mostly set up for arc 2. We got hints about the origins of the natan people, and a good look at the old magic. Ba-Ado-Mishram is clearly a player who will be important in arc 2, but she already played a major role in unlocking honor and starting the repair of the deadeyed spren. Personally, I think that this book did a fantastic job at providing us with more questions than answers, while still giving us plenty of answers.

See that's really funny because I just spent a bunch of time yesterday developing a mathematical model for steelpushes/ironpulls instead of studying for the GRE. I really hate that you reminded me of that though, I was only remembering Vin pushing Kredik Shaw to pieces and was willing to chalk that up to weird shardicness. Here I was happy about coming up with an explanation for why pushing a coin doesn't send you flying until the coin hits the ground. I'll probably still make a thread showcasing some of the math and my findings, but I figure I have to agree that some sort of "push mass" sounds reasonable to explain the behavior without throwing out conservation of momentum

Consider my spoiler warning to be in the title, as everything here is going to be spoilers. From how everyone seems to talk about it, the common consensus seems to be that the Sibling is able to offer unlimited investiture to radiants within it. I disagree, and I think my theory is better supported (naturally) but I'd like to know if there are details I am missing. First of all, our knowledge comes from this quote: I'm not going to harp on the exact wording due to this being a first draft, but I actually think this points to something other than infinite investiture. I don't think this is the sibling automatically regenerating the investiture for the lashing, but rather something about the activated tower causing the stormlight to no longer leak. As part of my grand theory of surgebinding, I don't believe that most surgebinding actually consumes stormlight. Especially the surges of the windrunners. When using adhesion you connect two objects together, and the connection is formed using stormlight. Due to the skill of the user and the natures of the objects, the stormlight fades and disperses over time. I have a bunch of evidence for this point, which I can go over if requested. Regardless, I believe the tower is enforcing the connection, or in some way making the stormlight no longer leak. Therefore the objects simply continue to be connected, and the lashing is maintained.

I think it's entirely possible that he is not alive. Unlike Riino he had no experience with realmatics or being an Elantrian, and we don't really know what it's like for Elantrians in the Selish subastral. It's also entirely possible that he is alive, but as far as I'm aware we have no clue if he's up to anything. Maybe we will seem him again, but maybe we just won't.