Leuthie

Nightblood killed a Thunderclast. The Thunderclast's friends assumed it would come back like usual. It didn't. Fused: "How the heck did that sword permanently kill Frankie? Aren't we impossible to permanently kill?" Odium: "I betcha that would work on a Herald! Here's this weird knife. Don't touch it. Give it to that new human that seems to like us and have him kill Jezrien with it." Fused: "Sure boss. Sucks about Frankie, though." Evidence:

You'd need a lot of gemstones. If there were a simple way to contain the Fused, Honor wouldn't have created the Oathpact, sending 10 heroes to be tortured for hundreds of years at a time to hold them back. So far, Nightblood is the only big addition to the world since then capable of removing Fused from the board.

The Nightwatcher is one of these two. Odium "unmade" something that was animated by Cultivation's Investiture. What we see as the Nightwatcher in Dalinar's scene with her shows that Cultivation is helping Nightwatcher understand humanity through the wish granting. This reeks of Cultivation reclaiming a lost soul. The first of the "Remade", if you will.

Just because its mindless doesn't mean it can't know who someone is through simple contact. Ashtermarn has to know you to get you to do the things you otherwise would stop yourself from doing. Why wouldn't it also know your name?

Sanderson is telling a smaller story than he created. I think that's what you're feeling. He's intentionally leaving things out to both keep the books accessible and to provide more fodder for what is planned as two 5 book series. This creates plotting issues like "wtf happened to Jasnah through WOR?" and "Why don't we know how Shallan first bonded Pattern?" and "why did Moash suddenly go nihilist?" The answers to thr first two are: If we knew those things, we would have to know too much that BS wants to reveal later on. The answer to the last is: Odium was successful with Moash exactly where he failed with Dalinar; he convinced Moash to join his team, which, as a god, results in a pretty powerful shift in one's Spirit Web. In any case, different readers are going to react to these holes in different ways. I love them because they provide so many ways to use my own imagination to fill in the gaps, allowing my mind to create a world that I'd otherwise wait for the author to do. The world I create may not be the one revealed later, but that's even more fun.

I'm nearly 100% sure that those dark spheres Galivar was passing around weren't filled with Unmade. Spheres and perfect gems are completely different things, and I believe that the "named" perfect gems (King's Drop, etc) are required for Super Spren holding. However, if BAM were under Kholinar and Galivar found a way to interact with it, he could fill spheres with voidlight.

He wasn't bonded at the time, so he had all the memory, reasoning and intellect of a storm with a lot of Investiture. So, yeah, he's not aware of what was really behind the Recreance.

Of course, if breaking one oath is the only way to uphold another, more important oath...

Of course Nightblood is a character. Why wouldn't it be?

Braize should be in there, but as a Cognitive realm location. As for Nalthis, Warbreaker was a prequel of sorts, at least three characters from that story are characters in S.A. But yeah, my synopsis was probably wrong. Good on you for finding specific reasons why.

The first 5 ends with a pyrrhic victory for our heroes. The Oathpact is reinstituted, Roshar is united (humans and Parshendi are on the same side), and Honor is reformed. However, Cultivation is shattered, the populations of all are decimated and the reader is shown that the new Oathpact isn't what we think it is. 15 years later, the Oathpact is broken and Odium returns in full (as of Oathbringer, Odium is still trapped on Braize, he simply has some of his power available to be used on Roshar; this doesn't change as of the end of the first 5). Roshar is destroyed before the 3rd act of the 1st book of the second 5. The rest of the series takes place on Ashyn, Nalthis and the wasteland of Cognitive energies that Roshar has been turned into.

My words for a similar idea: BAM was granted the ability by Odium to attach itself to Parshendi Spirit Webs, replacing their normal ability to bond with Odium's corrupted version, using Voidlight instead of Stormlight, etc. Sucking BAM into a gem tore this piece away, removing the ability to bond with spren at all. Since spren provide Parsh with their Will, parshman were left as Willless slaves.

Kelsier is a Preservation infused CS, since that's the Shard he held that gave him the Investiture required to remain. The Fused are Odium Invested, and probably in a specific way allowing them to inhabit gemhearts. Kelsier could probably figure it out, but why? And I'm certain he has or is going to figure out how to do it on Scadrial, not Roshar.

As far as I understand it, hemalurgy requires the piercing of one Physical entity to remove a piece of its Spirit Web and the subsequent piercing of another Physical entity to place that piece into the its Spirit Web. Without both components, the action is simply using the same Cosmere fundamentals that Hemalurgy is built on. It's like saying someone is playing football every time you see them kick anything

Perspective is important. We don't have a perspective for the Parshendi, yet. We will in book 4. That's reason enough, and probably the exact why.

The big sticking point is the gem that questions the ideal because "We should help people". If it's simply letting go, that quote wouldn't work.

Right there with you, brother! *Bridge Four salute*

The hardest thing to deal with in leadership, especially in life or death situations, is sussing out where your best success lies. You cant win every fight. A war leader has to actually send people to die. The D-day invasion was suicide for every single troop that stormed that beach. Only the lucky lived. A leader made the decision to send those people to their deaths for the greater cause. Look to that I as the 4th Windbreaker ideal. Not only letting people go who you can't protect, but being willing to sacrifice people for the greater good. Maybe he'll quote Spock: "The good of the many out way the good of the few...or the one."

Dalinar picking up Odium after fully becoming Honor. Together creating the Vengence Shard. I'm almost certain that will be the back 5

Insanity can be Physical (broken synapses in the brain, caused by trauma, chemical abuse, old age, etc), Cognitive (malformed view of oneself caused by prolonged abuse a la Shallan, etc) or Spiritual (mechanics more muddy, but I'd guess it's more often caused by Investment or Shardic influence). While the torture in Damnation may have caused some Cognitive damage, I'm sure Honor healed that upon their return. Their Physical bodies are irrelevant for the time they were tortured, since those bodies were also killed many times. I lean toward Spirit Web issues causing Heraldic madness. The opening of Honors Perpendicularity resulting in Talns temporary healing is evidence of this, although far from conclusive. I personally lean toward Something Else (tm) causing the Herald's Insanity. The torture they endured 4500 years ago wouldn't cause degeneration today and still be narratively interesting and important. The torture had the singular effect of getting one of them to break the Oathpact and start a Desolation. The torture will have no other narratively significant impact until we get to see it first-hand. The Heralds and the Fused are Cognitvely breaking down for a similar reason. The death and return cycle is possible, with the Heralds only experiencing one per Desolation, explaining how the Fused are MORE broken than the Heralds. But the Heralds have been losing sanity since leaving that cycle. With the little information we have, I have to lean toward Cognitive degeneration in a Cognitive Shadow due to loss of Investiture. Honor's power is simply no longer there to sustain them. This makes narrative sense as it ties their fate to Dalinar and his Ascension as opposed to making them completely separate narrative entities that require another side quest to figure out.

The Everstorm is Odium's Perpendicularity. It allows direct access go Odium's Investiture. Honor's Perpendicularity is part of the Highstorm, fully usable by Dalinar when he achieved a strong enough bond with the Stormfather. Normally, Honors Perpendicularity is only partially open in the Storm, passing out Stormlight, Honors Investiture.

More likely "The Rhythm of ..."

Really quick thought: The Unmade are remnants of the third bondspren. Once a full Stormfather sized spren that powered Urithiru among other things. Urithiru began fail prior to the Recreance for some reason. Radiants didn't understand what was happening. The False Desolation was also occurring. Radiants tried to stop it by trapping the Unmade powering the Voidbringers. Suddenly Urithiru was evacuated and the Radiants set down their Spren. Could the Unmade be pieces of the third Bondspren, "unmade" broken off of it by Odium until it finally "slumbered" either intentionally or due to being too broken, etc.?

Spren are attracted to actions and feelings that match their Intent. The Nahel bond required some opening in the Spirit Web for the Spren to take hold in. The bond itself makes the human more like the Spren. There is no repairing going on.

Read what you just wrote. Then, think about what Ash has been doing the entire series thus far...