Windrunner

I think that this very clearly indicates that the Nightwatcher is a Bondsmith spren. The Stormfather could be letting Dalinar come to his own inaccurate conclusions, but I don't think so.

Well I also kind of don’t think that Taln will need to be replaced, I’m hoping he will recover in some way. So we may not need a modern Stoneward to be the Herald, although I’m sure we’ll see some modern Stonewards before long.

I'm curious if the Stoneward spren might be named keenspren? Wyndle made a garden for some of them, and there has been no indication that there are conscious spren aside from our nine types and then the larger spren like the Stormfather. It'd be odd to me if there were fully self-aware spren that are not associated with an order of Radiants.

One of the things that has been clear throughout the course of the Stormlight Archive is that the Heralds will play a crucial role in this series, particularly in the back half of this story, when they begin to get POVs. A longstanding theory has been that the Heralds need to be restored and returned to their former glory. Without the Heralds, there seems to be no hope of preventing an eternal Desolation, as the Fused are no longer held back when they are killed as they once were. However, with the final death of Jezrien the hope that the original Heralds will all return to their former roles is dashed. So the question remains now, what is the significance of the Heralds now that we know they will not all return to the Oathpact? The primary goal of this theory is to reconcile a few odd facts that appear unconnected but in actuality stem from the same issue. The first is Nale's assertion that Radiants will cause a Desolation. We now know the way that a Desolation is triggered. When any one the Heralds on Braize in the past yielded to the torture of the Fused a Desolation began. If they died during the fighting they returned to Braize instantly. Those who survive are required to return to Braize in a short period of time, otherwise the Voidspren and the Fused would no longer be held back and the Desolation would begin again. When the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact, they quit being Heralds and gave up their Blades. This trick worked since they all did it. Now there was only one Herald and he was in Damnation, so the Oathpact held barely, since technically all the Heralds were on Braize like they were supposed to be. Taln's eventual break is what allowed the Voidspren to return. But what does any of this have to do with regular Surgebinders? How could they have triggered a Desolation? Luckily, Nale gets a little more specific. My belief is that this evidence indicates that "which comes next" to a Radiant is ascending become a Herald. In order for this to happen, it would require that person to take up a Herald's Honorblade. This is the danger that Radiants once posed. If one of them had reached the fifth Ideal and somehow gained access to an Honorblade, they could have inadvertently taken that next step and become a Herald. The second that occurred, the Oathpact would have been violated, because not all the Heralds would have been on Braize like they were supposed to be. This would instantly trigger a Desolation. In the past, when Honor still lived, he prevented this from occurring. But now he is no longer around to mediate this. For this reason, Nale has been hunting down Surgebinders so that they cannot take this final step. This brings us to another oddity, the Skybreakers themselves. Nale's explanation does not explain why the Skybreakers are exempt from this campaign of murder. What prevents them from accidentally doing something to trigger another Desolation once they reach the power of the higher oaths? Well, no Skybreaker has gotten there in a while. With the notable exception of Nale, no Skybreaker has gotten to the Fifth Ideal in quite some time. This is either a coincidence, or something is going on here. It is also worth noting while we are on the subject, that Nale has retrieved his Honorblade. The reason he excludes the Skybreakers from his purge is that he is there to personally run that order. No one has reached the fifth Ideal in centuries, which is odd to me. I believe that Nale has either secretly come to some sort of accord with the highspren that they will not allow the bond to progress that far or he has been quietly ending the lives of Skybreakers who have approached the Fifth Ideal. Nale's other safeguard is that he himself holds the Honorblade of the Skybreaker Herald. He went back for it to be doubly sure that no one will be able to inadvertently take up the mantle of a Herald. Note though, that Nale has not taken up the burden of a Herald again fully, otherwise the Voidspren would have returned long ago, since Nale has been on Roshar. However, despite having access his Honorblade, Nale has also seen fit to bond a highspren and become a Skybreaker himself. Jezrien is dead now, and it is clear the Heralds must rise again to trap the Voidspren and the Fused (although hopefully they come to a more permanent solution this time). I believe that our heroes, Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, etc, each one more or less from one order will eventually be the ones to take up their respective Herald's mantle. The only oddity here is that we have two Lightweavers in Shalash/Shallan and no Dustbringer, but perhaps that will be resolved in some other way. The reason that Brandon chose to have Nale have his Honorblade and a spren is to foreshadow that a Herald may also be a member of their own order, so we don't have to worry about our main characters losing their spren when they become Heralds. There is one more thing I'd like to touch on, but it's ranging into the speculative for me. I feel very strongly about the theory as presented so far, but this last corollary of sorts is a little out there. The final oddity I want to point out has to do with the death of Jezrien. When he is killed, something strange and very specific happens. And now we see his death from Shalash's perspective. The Fused are doing something very specific here. They do something to Jezrien's soul, which allows them to kill him fully. However, at least some portion of the Oathpact must have remained attached to his soul, because the bond between the Heralds was still intact, as evidenced by Shalash and Taln's reaction to Jezrien's death. That there is still something supernatural about the Heralds is certain, as they remain immortal (or close to it) and ageless as well. I think perhaps in this moment they stole whatever that characteristic of "Heraldness" was and trapped it in that strange dagger (there may be some variant of Hemalurgy at work here, or perhaps not). Now Odium both pieces, an Honorblade and the quality of "Heraldness" and maybe can now craft something new. I think it possible that Odium intends to craft a new Herald, one that is on his side. If one Herald were to intentionally refuse to return to Damnation, a Desolation could never end. So if Odium were to somehow make one of his supporters a Herald, he could ensure his troops could never be trapped again. Moash is the obvious candidate for this role, holding the Honorblade himself, but we have yet to see how the dagger will play into this. Perhaps Moash is not ready or perhaps they are waiting to prove himself yet again before entrusting such a responsibility to him.

Oathbringer has given us a much more in-depth look at Odium's forces, particularly the Unmade. Unquestionably, one of the most interesting of the Unmade is Ba-Ado-Mishram. This is a promising villain. The mindless Unmade are terrifying enough, let alone an Unmade that commanded Odium's troops. Surely she has to be a major villain in this book series. However, a question remains. Where is she? Both of these are possibilities. However, returning to Damnation seems unlikely, the rest of the Unmade seem fairly active. We've seen evidence that Nergaoul, Moelach, and Chemoarish have remained active, if subtle during the Era of Solitude. In fact, we know that it is impossible that Ba-Ado-Mishram was destroyed during Aharietiam or returned to Braize afterward. These epigraphs are from the gemstones left behind in Urithiru, from around the time of its abandonment before the Recreance. So Ba-Ado-Mishram was still alive around the time of the False Desolation, allowing the singers to take on the forms of power and providing Voidlight. A strike team went to go to imprison her, and nothing has been heard of her since. Since the arrival of the Everstorm, she has made no appearance at either Kholinar or the Battle of Thaylen Fields, the two largest direct conflicts so far. So it seems possible that they succeeded. So, if she is imprisoned, where could she be? We know that she is crafty and that she provides Voidlight, which seems to have been entirely absent in Roshar since her imprisonment. With one notable exception. Gavilar's dark spheres have long been a subject of discussion. Some have considered the possibility that those spheres contain Unmade. Given what we've seen this book, I consider that to be unlikely. We have at least six of the Unmade accounted for, with only Dai-gonarthis, Chemoarish, and Ba-Ado-Mishram absent. What are the odds that Gavilar happens to have two perfect gems each containing an Unmade and that he values them so little that he's willing to give them away? The most simple explanation is that these spheres are charged with Voidlight. Where could Gavilar have gotten it from? The easiest answer prior to the Everstorm and the new Desolation is that he got it from Ba-Ado-Mishram. Gavilar seems to give additional credence to that idea. The spren he refers to must be Ba-Ado-Mishram. How does he know about this? He's presumably seeing the same visions that Dalinar did (I'm making the assumption that he bonded the Stormfather because there is no evidence so far of a connection between Gavilar and the Nightwatcher and the Sibling remains elusive). Dalinar knows nothing about the capture of Ba-Ado-Mishram from his visions, so how does Gavilar? Gavilar has long seemed to know things he shouldn't. He even mentions a new storm here, something that did not appear in Dalinar's visions (one may make an argument about the destruction of Kholinar vision, but that doesn't match the description of the Everstorm, more like a metaphorical wave of destruction in my opinion). Gavilar has also taken the Stormfather's visions in a much darker direction than Dalinar, trying to trigger the Desolation to unite Roshar rather than prevent it in the first place. It has long seemed to me that he may have been in contact with some sort of nefarious force that was manipulating him to its own ends. The fact that Gavilar has Voidlight, implies that he was at some point in contact with Ba-Ado-Mishram, who has the ability to provide Voidlight. Even if Gavilar was not being manipulated, he must have come in contact with Ba-Ado-Mishram to gain the Voidlight and perhaps learn about how she was imprisoned. So the question remains, where is she? The Fused are destroying a portion of the palace for a specific reason. I believe that the reason is that Ba-Ado-Mishram is imprisoned somewhere within or below the palace in Kholinar. Gavilar as a budding Bondsmith came into contact with her somehow and she spoke to him and gave him Voidlight. Gavilar may have intended to release her to trigger the Desolation or he may have been following her instructions to start it some other way. The question remains, why was she imprisoned beneath the palace? Well, when the ancient Radiants captured her, they needed to put her somewhere. Urirthiru is the obvious choice, however the city was failing by that point. The Radiants were abandoning it in droves. Where else could they put the prison? Perhaps in the capital city of Alethela, the ancestral homeland of the Radiants? Where else could have been better defended? When the Radiants fell, this knowledge was lost and the location of Ba-Ado-Mishram's prison was forgotten. The Fused focused on taking Kholinar first to ensure the return of their finest leader, who will become a real problem for humankind in the next few books.

Edgedancer is fully optional. It's helpful in understanding one particular sub-plot, but Oathbringer was written with the fact that not everyone will read Edgedancer in mind. Book rights are weird, it's entirely possible that eventually it will come out in your market but it may take more time. If you're so frustrated by being unable to read it that you're done with Brandon's books entirely, I guess that's your prerogative. Arcanum Unbounded is awesome, and contains additional art and essays on every planet as well as Edgedancer, so I think it's quite a good deal and bought it myself, even though I already had access to all the other stories in some format. Some of the other stories were previously only digitally available, so I enjoyed a chance to get them in print. I'm sorry for your frustration though.

The entire plot of The Final Empire hinges on Compounding as an explanation for its final twist, so it’s conceivable that you hadn’t read Era 2.

I don't think there's necessarily an error here. Dalinar is Alethi, so he is able to recognize the accent the man has. Shallan is Veden, so she knows the man is speaking Alethi well, but she doesn't know the language well enough to place where exactly that accent comes from.

Not sure if you already fixed the issue of Bennet/Bennett, but: Final Empire Chapter 29 Hero of Ages Chapter 82 I think I have a few more, I'll keep looking.

The Mistborn Coin kickstarter just went live today! Their goal is only $10,000, so I think this will be more easily funded than the Kaladin Kickstarter, I hope.

I can't imagine that Brandon would answer this question even if they had confided in him. That's pretty confidential information.

I don't think that aluminum necessarily needs to be the dominant metal within the alloy, all that we know is that it is a component. Brandon's been vague on how specifically alloys of aluminum work and which are inert, probably for this very reason.

Yes, because I'm interested to see if it improved. That being said I am incredibly dissatisfied with the first volume and don't anticipate it being any better. In addition to that, if this is the highest quality product that they can churn out with an actual prose manuscript to go off of, I have no idea how they'd be able to do a good job with adapting books two and three of the trilogy which do not exist in a written format (unless you count Lord Mastrell). I'm an advocate for a full rewrite of the prose, which I don't think would take long to be cleaned up. On the other hand, Brandon's got a lot on his plate going forward. Stormlight is taking far longer than expected, so we'll see what he decides he really wants to spend his time on.

It's confirmed that another type of Aviar somehow aids in navigation.

I'm certain it's an error. There were a number of things that slipped past the people who made it, such as the accidental switch between Jon Acron and Cynder. (I may have messed up the names of Khriss's companions, it's been a while.) I am not a fan of the graphic novel adaptation.

Brandon has mentioned this somewhere, I believe the annotations, but I'm on mobile so I cannot check. Vara'Treledees was Denth's scholar name, like Talaxin for Vasher and Shashara for Glorysinger. It's rather like people naming a child after the angel Michael in Christianity. It's a well known name with a religious/historical connection (since I'm not sure how well known it is that the Scholars were all Returned).

I think Nazrilof itself is just a nickname too. Nazh's real name is unknown and it something Puritanical sounding like other names from Threnody, if I recall correctly.

Do we actually have confirmation from Brandon that that is the case though? I followed that thread and don't recall seeing explicit confirmation that there is more Ruin than Preservation in harmonium. Saze could be doing something else with the extra Ruin.

Internal organs can definitely be killed by Shardblades. I assume Kal's knife did damage, but even if he wounded Szeth's kidneys or stomach it's not like he would have died instantly. It would have taken longer than a few minutes.

I just filed my comment in support of Net Neutrality and I urge everyone else to do the same. You can comment here (where 7 million people have already commented) by clicking +Express in the left column. This is an apolitical issue. These regulations particularly protect those that live in places where there is only one ISP. With a total and complete lack of competition, those ISPs can basically do whatever they want and force their customers to go along with it or not have internet at all, due to the lack of a second option.

Well the first bit though seems to indicate to me that the second hypothesis is the case. If the Soulstamp was applied in MaiPon and could be brought anywhere, then there would be able to be stamped objects in Elantris, which Brandon directly says there isn't.

Forgery is actually subject to the same distance problem AonDor has. I assume they're just close enough to MaiPon that the power drop off is less severe than it is for AonDor, as they move away from their homeland (since as far as we know there's no amplifier for Forgery like Elantris is for AonDor). As far as I know, there's no info on whether or not Bloodsealing weakens with distance, but I wouldn't be surprised if it also was subject to the same issue. So they don't function more effectively, in my opinion, than AonDor does in Teod (except I assume both Dzhammar and MaiPon are closer to the Imperial Seat than Teoin is to Arelon). Do you recall where you heard this? I've only seen the initial confirmation that Forton's potions were Invested, I didn't realize anyone had asked follow up questions.

Some things also indicate that they don't all necessarily need to be from the same world. Brandon wrote in someone's book that Sixth has tried chouta and hates it, which indicates to me that at the very least the Ones Aboe also have contact with Roshar.

I've noticed this as well. I'd assume that the "fruit" as they see is is not true fruit, but something similar enough that once the world got covered in ash people continued calling it fruit as it was the closest word they had.