Leuthie

Torture for 4500 years followed by a long journey between Realms has an effect on the mind. Hesitation when someone asks your name is an expected thing. Taln is too late. 4000 some years too late. Odium has had too much time to set this Desolation to his liking. That confusion thing again. Probably happens every time so their Cognitive selves are programmed with lines to recite. The words come well before their orientation to the Physical.

"...like they always came." Seems to show that this isn't new, nor unexpected. Possibly it always takes a while for a Herald to "wake up" so a state of automatic recall takes over. In any case, "...like they always came" doesn't fit with the second mind in one head theory.

Honor is dead which makes Cultivation vulnerable. An honorless, Hate-filled Desolation might not just be a pruning. Part of the conflict might end up being whether Cultivation puts herself at risk to help or not.

Making up scenarios: Honor and Cultivation come to Roshar. They both embrace the native species, now known as Parshendi and Aimians. Cultivation is particularly enamored by the Very maleable Parshendi, giving them more sapience and new forms. Together, Cultivation and her Dawnsingers create a strong civilization, completely alien to us, but perfectly suited to the weird environment of Roshar. Honor takes the Aimians under his wing. They create the Silver Kingdoms, 10 major nations (in line with Honors intent) of both Dawnsingers and Aimians. In comes Odium. His first target is Cultivation. He turns her creations against her, creating Void forms for her Parshendi. Honor steps in to protect. All of their creations become Hateful. In desperation, humans are brought in. Formless but easier to manipulate, they stave off destruction but are soon turned against Honor. The Oathpact is made between Cultivation and Honor: she will cleanse, prune; he will protect and both will help rebuild. In an instant, the 10 Silver Kingdoms are smashed. Odiums influence is removed and Cultivation is safe. 10 heroes are chosen and a cycle begins that traps Odium. Until 9 of the heroes give up.

1) Odium is Hate. His purpose, tools and probable strategy for killing and splintering Shards are centered around promoting hate. 2) Hate requires a target. It is this target that Odium wants to splinter, in a previous case: Honor. 3) If people are overcome by an outside force, generating Hate for something other than that force can be nearly impossible. If the outside force causes nearly complete destruction, generating Hate for anything but that force IS impossible. 4) Honor was killed within the last 4500 years since the last Desolation. The Recreance, the Heirocracy occurred during this time. A lot of hate in those two events. So I propose that Desolations were created by Honor and/or Cultivations as a way to cleanse the world of any influence that Odium might have had. When Odium's influence grew too great, a Desolation would be triggered to remove all influence and redirect all odious feelings. This is why Odium always lost...until the Desolations stopped being triggered.

What about Taln having the same issues as the other Heralds? Nalan is imposing Justice on Surgebinders. Shalash is destroying art. Whoever was talking with Nalan in the prologue is being a whiny bitch. Jezrien is drooling in a corner. Taln is mumbling about protecting people and catching darts...

This is why some people dislike high fantasy: --why was that strong, female major character who would have had a huge impact on the plot and the development of at least one other major character gone for the entire book? ---Because Elsecalling

Why would her physical body show up in the Cognitive realm wounded? I would assume, if Lopens arm regenerated simply because he's holding Stormlight, that Jasnah's little stab wound(s) would disappear when she successfully transported it to the Realm of pure thought.

If Stormfather was a splinter until the power was ripped away by Odium when he killed Honor, sliver would apply.

WoR convinced me that Galivar was trying to bring back the KR to stop the coming Desolations. King T in his interlude mentions that Galivar had visions and T's actions are to stop the Desolations that G saw in his visions. I assume the visions to be the same as Dalinar's. Unite them, reform the Knights, etc. Galivar was killed because he divulged this in front of the Parshendi, who interpreted it as Galivar bringing back their gods.

Bah...

What bandolier? What were we talking about?

Hoid is the PoV and knows what a bandolier looks like. What she had on looked like a bandolier. I would lean toward it carrying spheres rather that Shadesmar acquired projectile weaponry. Unless BS plans to jump the shark completely in book three with guns AND talking swords.

I think you're all making it more complicated than it has to be. Talk isn't a madman. He's coming out of a 4500 year coma. He has a "recording" from the many times he's done this before, but the rest of his thoughts are slow in returning. Think of someone shaking you awake waking at 4am; you'd react in some irrational or automatic way, then slowly perceive your surroundings before being able to interact with the world. A 4500 year nap/nightmare takes a while to wake up from. His protective reactions to threats are part of his Cognitive definition as a Herald. I'm thinking you all will be disappointed when you find out there is no conspiracy and Talk will simply become more like Talk as time passes. Of course, we don't know where his sword is.

Of course they do. Ideas of Shadows are drawn toward light, the reason they exist. Cognitive is the Realm of Ideas. And I understand that everything exists in all Realms. Humans can only directly effect the Physical, just as spren can only directly effect the Cognitive. Aimians, it's hinted, can effect both. Parshendi "exist" in the Cognitive more than humans do, evidenced by their connections through song and their affinity for transformative bonds with Cognitive entities (spren).

Aimian shadows point toward the light. Possible explanation incoming... In the Physical, shadows are areas where the amount of light hitting a surface is less than the surrounding surface due to occlusion by a physical body. So a shadow is actually an absence of light. However, we perceive a shadow as being a thing. This perception on Roshar leads to the existence of the Idea of Shadow in the Cognitive realm. The Idea of Shadow needs light to exist so it is drawn toward light IN the Cognitive realm. Aimians are presumed to be both Physical and Cognitive entities (where humans are Physical only). With all that in mind, I speculate that when one sees an Aimian, one sees their Idea of Shadow instead of their shadow. This Idea is drawn toward the local light source (like Jasnah's shadow was drawn toward Stormlight in the prologue). Therefore, we perceive their shadow as going in the wrong direction.

Gravity might be Spiritually based, but, like everything, it exists in all three Realms. Quite likely that its direction is determined by the Cognitive.

The problem with following the laws of physics would be inner ear issues, brain sloshing against brainpan issues, and gut ripping free of their sprenbonds and sloshing around inside the body cavity issues. Changes in direction are difficult. Always falling down and moving the world around you solves these.

There wouldn't be a plot reason to not divulge which arm. However, if the way plot doesn't require you knowing, it would be very Sanderson to never say. Lopen never admitting or accepting that he didn't have an arm defines his cognitive self, which fixes the physical once he has access to Stormlight

The only reason Lopen's arm grew back as soon as he breathed in Stormlight is because he never accepted that he lost his arm in the first place. I get the feeling BS planned this all along and purposefully never let the reader know which arm.

The descriptions, and the reasons given for it being difficult to get used to lashing, are that from the surgebinders perspective, the world lurches around them. They are always falling in the same direction, its the orientation of their surroundings that they change with each lash. No, this doesn't fix the physics problem, but it pushes it aside in favor of a cognitive perspective change approach. If physics depend on cognitive structures, then the rules only matter if you can't convince others otherwise.

No evidence, but I lean toward Dawnshard and Dawnsinger being pre-Odium, pre-Oathpact. Mythical remembrance of a time before Desolations. I'm liking the idea that Parshendi were Dawnsingers before being corrupted by voidspren.

Pattern cops to being the cause of all of Shallan's problems in their final scene. Its quite possible that a spren can squeeze into the smallest of cracks, then do things to widen them; actually doing the breaking needed to form the bond.

Everyone is broken in some way from the time we're born. Think "Original Sin". Pattern chose Shallan because of her ability to draw, her artistic creation sense, which was common for Cryptics in the past. "She made wonderful lies" is how Pattern would put it.

So old King T asked a boon of the Nightwatcher. As expected, his boon came at a price. In Words of Radiance, we learn that his request was . So the Nightwatcher gives him fluctuating IQ. Different every day. A boon and a curse in one. Oh but that wasn't all. Unless someone already said this and I couldn't find it...any thoughts?