Leuthie

...and Braize is a giant gem that holds Odium and his minions with Heralds as keepers, much as Timbre is holding the voidsperen in Venli's gemheart.

There is a lot of issues of perspective with what people say in Stormlight. Adolin calls what the Fused do Surgebinding because that's all he knows. It looks like Surgebinding so that's what it is to him. That does mean the Fused are Surgebinders. The translated Dawnchant says that Humans destroyed their old world with Surgebinding. Again, that's what they know. Doesn't confirm that Surgebinding exists outside of Roshar. They also state that Humans worshipped/brought Odium. That doesn't mean the Humans willingly. Perspective is important.

I think the madness has to do with the Cognitive Shadow nature of the Heralds and the lack of Honors Investiture to maintain them. The Heralds that continue to use Stormlight (Nale) lose their sanity at a slower pace. Taln regains his sanity when Dalinar opens Honors Perpendicularity. Ash, I think, uses Stormlight to travel around and destroy likenesses, so maintains some sanity. Jezrien uses little to none. Not much direct evidence, but narratively, it gives Dalinar the ability to heal the Heralds, which has to happen at some level for them to be in the second set of five as B.S. says they will

Couple of WOB I need to find, but the following do have WOB support: 1. The Heralds could be reborn because Honor made them Cognitive Shadows and would graft their CS back into their bodies upon return. 2. CS are created when the Cognitive aspect is preserved after death via Investiture. Speculation: If Tanavast had to maintain the Heralds CS, he has not been able to do so since he died. As such, the living Heralds Cognitive aspects are breaking down, leading to madness. The ones that actively use Investiture probably slow this process, but can't stop it. Hence why Nale is still somewhat within his right mind, but Jezrien was damnation near gone. With the direct usage of so much of Honor's power in close proximity, Taln's CS was probably pulling some of it in and reversing or filling in the degeneration. When the power subsided, he reverted back. There's a good chance that Dalinar can use his new power to bring sanity back to all the Heralds in the same way Tanavast did when he was alive. As for Honor's madness, it follows a similar path that was saw with Preservation in Mistborn. As the Vessel is destroyed, the cast power of the Shard holds the mind together as best it can, though not perfectly.

How does Honor relate to wind? Why is associating Cultivation with Stone any weirder than associating Honor with Storm? The associations may have very well originally been arbitrary. "We both want Stone. Let's flip for it!"

This quote solidified a few things for me. Lift is tainted by the Nightwatcher, not Cultivation, according to Stormfather. And if that taint were dreams and nightmares, Stormfather wouldn't react to them as unnatural. However, if Nightwatcher made Lift not able to absorb Stormlight (which is doled out by Stormfather in his Highstorms) but rather create Investiture directly by metabolozing food, Stormfather's reaction to that makes perfect sense.

All entities in the Cosmere have or are drawn to have some presence in all 3 Realms. Spren, without help from others, don't have a Physical aspect. THAT is their payment for work done, THAT is why they bond, why they enter gems, why they pop their heads in when someone does something in line with their Intent. They are drawn to the idea they represent AND willing to die to get a greater Physical aspect

Does giving up pieces of himself in preparation for sacrifice not answer that, especially if a piece is large enough to cause one who picks it up to Ascend?

Honor made recordings. Honor empowered at least one spren with a Splinter. There have to be more than that one. Honor knew he was going to die. I'm not sure even a Cognitive shadow of a Shareholder can Invest as much as Honor did into Stormfather to make those recordings, so his "Odium has killed me" statement was probably made before death (a good question to ask Brandon). I contend that Honor sacrificed himself. He gave a huge chunk of his power into Stormfather to bestow on Odium's future champion (another theory: Dalinar was chosen by the Stormfather because Odium had targeted him first, same reason Cultivation stepped in when Dalinar visited Nightwatcher). This chunk of power has Intent of its own: Unity. Think of Honor with Unity when his followers are given the information that THEY are the actual Voidbringers. It would be Honorable to keep the people that depend on him United, therefore, spinning such information would be within his Intent. Think of Honor without Unity. Is it Honorable to take up arms against those who are only fighting because YOU usurped their land, their power? Neck no! (Commence Honor as raving lunatic god who allows the Radiants to fall apart and eventually disband). Honor sacrificed himself, probably with Cultivation's help (at the very least her precognition abilities). He set the world up to defeat Odium by placing pieces of his power where they'd do the most good, weakening himself to the point where Odium (and whoever Odium is including in his "We") could kill him. Also, we know Odium killed Tanavast by Honor's own words. Do we have text or WOB that Odium Splintered Honor?

Consume was used in the context of control. "Here's power. If you can't control it it will consume you like it did Aesudan." Other words B.S. could have used would be overwhelm, overwrite, subsume, usurp, etc. She's dead in the same way that a Parshmen who agrees to become Fused is dead. Their body, mind and soul are taken over by another. In this case, Yelig-nar

There was always a Highstorm that Honor Invested to become his. There was always an ecosystem that Cultivation invested and became hers. There was always the World - the stone, the crem - that they both invested to become their child. Stormfather continues to ride the storm, doling out Honors Investiture. The Nightwatcher learns by listening and providing boons and curses (don't know much else about that one). Their child powered Urithiru, protecting and nourishing with the joint powers of Honor and Cultivation. They currently sleep after having something done to them by those they once sheltered. Fin

They're also referring to a quality of Odium. He refers to himself as the god of Passion. His effect is to use up all passions and emotion in his service, leaving nothing. A void. The Dawnsingers could sense this directly, referring to Him and his followers as voidbringers.

There's a WoB from tWoK that says something to that effect. If I get a chance, I'll look for it and probably find out that I'm totally misremembering the quote

There's a single multi millennia year old writing that complains about humans bringing the god of voids with them. There's nothing that says the humans were "of Odium". Chances are that Odium was the reason they had to leave their previous planet in the first place. From the perspective of the Dawnsingers, the Humans brought the Void with them. Does that help your quandary?

Spren predate the Shards, although the Shards have changed them. Spren are a consequence of Roshar's Physical and Cognitive Realms being a bit too close. There's enough overlap to give Physical form to strong, shared thought. Once these Cognitive entities take Physical form, they effectively exist separate from the thoughts that created them. However, they are strongly tied to the ideas of their creation. When such ideas or feelings are expressed strongly enough, Spren can enter and even affect the Pysical realm, albeit in a very limited way. Conversely, native species of Roshar have developed ways to use these Cognitive entities to make use of Investiture, usually by trapping a Spren in a gemheart. Investiture is supplied by regular storms (which also predate the Shards, but have since been coopted by them), which "leak" Investiture in the form of Stormlight. Odium has created his own storm to provide Investiture for his creations in the form of Voidlight. I'd provide support for all that, but I'm on my phone and exceedingly lazy

Jasnah wrote the one in OB for a ceremony, I don't remember which one.

I've changed my thoughts to it being an accidental consequence of some other action, with putting the Parshmen to work being the preferable response to simple letting them wander to their inevitable deaths. However, the mutual sacrifice of spren and form to fight a like enemy with the unintended consequence of slaveform Parshmen has a certain lopsided symmetry to it.

4500+ years is plenty of time for groups of people to differentiate their looks naturally

The 4th book will revolve around the Parshmen discovering that, while humans are the invaders, the death and destruction on Roshar was caused by them and their ties to Odium. They and the KR will discover that the Recreance was a joint venture with the Parshmen of the time agreeing to leave their forms if the humans leave their spren bonds. Humans didn't enslave them, they agreed to enslavement by humans to stop the cycle of fighting that Odium and his Unmade had locked them into. However, the KR fight with each other, the Heralds die, replaced by Odium chosen, entire human nations side with Odium, the Fused learn how to take over human bodies, etc. Moash and Kaladin clash at the end of the book as Odium's and Dalinar's champions. Moash loses, but Odium has some contingency and the fight makes everything worse. Vasher/Zahel finds Szeth, Vivenna/Azure find them, too. Nightblood says funny things not knowing they're funny. Szeth misunderstands. The Ghostbloods come out of hiding, side with Dalinar.

It's possible that Odium actually believed he was all of the things he said. But Rayse's belief that he's more than just Hate doesn't mean he actually is. Hate and corruption go hand in hand. It would actually explain the how, which and what of Sja Ajat corrupted spren when you consider how hate twists the very passions that Odium was talking about. Taking that into this discussion, the concept of Hate isn't broad enough for anyone to be able to "filter" it. Hate is a base animal feeling that has a lot of different expressions and results, but not much in the way of differentiation among cultures. Hate is hate. Honor and Cultivation, as two examples, are a bit more ambiguous as concepts and, as such, would be much more open to interpretation and "filtering". But really, can any of you put a spin on Hate and make it a positive thing outside of very specific contexts? I can easily make Honor negative (focus on inward honor instead of outward) and even easier with Cultivation (cull the he'll out of everything!)

Function wise, going by T's "blessed a KR" description, and assuming that the spren surrounding our KRs when they're being especially awesome are the ones that lead to Shardplate, I'd have to to with one of those spren in the half shard gem. Windspren, creationspren, etc

Well that makes Adolin even more boring. I still like him and thinks the story benefits from him. But yeah, I see the OP's point.

Jasnah, Adolin, Lift, Taln and...ummm... who is the 5th? Anyway, Adolin is a second half of the series character. He's different from the others because he has no obvious holes to dig out of. We're starting to see some. However, his time as an interesting, central character is a lo g way off. Forgive him for being boring. He has to be a foil for now while he waits for his turn to be awesome for you. And he has to be a foil in a world that has way too many different types of issues. And he has to be a foil while keeping hidden and whole the thing that will make him awesome later. There's some tough juggling there. So bland and perfect it is. He's already killed a High Prince and took on a giant stone golem one on one without plate for you...let him have his blandness.

There is a limitation to surges that Dalinar managed to remove in his God Slap. Jasnah is good at what she's doing in the fight, but normally she'd be using up all of her spheres very quickly. Same with the others. Really, this was the first time they all got to really go to town without worrying about conserving Stormlight. They really aren't doing anything we haven't seen before.

What are is missed by not showing grief scenes, most of which would have happened in the middle of action scenes. I do think that the choice of ending with a celebratory wedding and no funerals was...not as good as other possibilities. Then again, I didn't spend much time in active grief over the losses in my life, so maybe such scenes simply aren't important to me. Unless the grief creates character change, it's fluff to me.