Dros

You know, after I wrote that, I had a similar thought. It's possible that humans found that striking flint and steel together made fire, but didn't know they were just "asking" for fire; i.e. if a human completed that action, the spren agreed to create the fire.

It seems like the struggle between Shards is carried out by proxies, not direct conflict. If Odium has a plan for dealing with Harmony, it would probably involve setting up proxies on Scadrial to start dealing some blows to the Shard indirectly. Although there's nothing to indicate a Shard can't directly engage another Shard.

I've often wondered why some Shardblades have names and some do not. It could be something as simple as people not remembering or never knowing what all the Blades are named, though. Or maybe some of them were just never given some arbitrary names like the rest. Anyone ever see any discussions of that?

I thought it was referring to the agreement between the Shards. The Shards create everything about the planets and like the agreement between Ruin and Preservation, the way the planet works is dependent on that agreement. I don't think it's the spren because the spren don't create fear or fire or honor, they are attracted to it.

Fun, and not Cosmere related, fact: North Carolina just had to pay out on a lawsuit associated with Eugenics. It was associated with sterilizing African American citizens. Pretty sick stuff.

I was thinking along those lines too. Although, the explanation might not be benign.

Consider that Cryptics are referred to as liespren also; the "l" is not capitalized then. We may not have seen the formal name of honorspren. And, really, most longstanding conflicts are quite simple, but create a series of events and situations that are far more complicated than the original disagreement.

It's possible the Stormfather and Jezrien have bonded. A deal may have been struck...the Stormfather blocks bonds on the Cognitive side, Jez leads the charge to mop up any bonds that have slipped by the Stormfather in the Physical realm. However, I like the idea that Jezrien may have become the Stormfather in some way like FirstSelector has theorized. There's really no way to know for sure yet, of course, bit it seems one of the themes to the SA is that religion on Roshar is at least loosely based on some truths.

The Bizarro Heralds?

I've thought about that too. They must be broken much worse than we think if Honor doesn't even mention his Ace(s) in the Hole. I mean, I assume he knows they're still around.

The Heralds have broken from Honor once already, why think they wouldn't do it again? If Darkness is in fact a Herald, it seems they might think the Nahel Bond brings on the Desolations and are actively trying to stop it. It would follow that they would try to stop the bond from both sides of the equation. FirstSelector had a very interesting theory about how Jezrien might have been able to pull something like this off: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5197-jezrien-shards-and-the-identity-of-the-broken-one/

I imagine Darkness is going after a symptom thinking it's the cause. After all, the Heralds are not infallible and don't they show up after a Desolation is inevitable. Or, maybe Darkness is a little nuts, with a dash of respect for the law to keep you on your toes. It looked like in Dalinar's vision the corrupted spren were doing just fine animating stone rather than bonding with a mortal. And vikorr makes a good point, why would any intelligent spren risk a Desolation to bond with humans?

LOL Ah! Makes sense to me. Perhaps Garden & Gun would like to do an expose on this colorfully dichotomous being, as well.

Nice place that Roshar. Where would the wood come from though?

Neither does most of Roshar. Never really thought about that before. My god, what if they got sent to West Virginia!? That might break the strongest willed of men! But seriously, if Braize (sp?) is as awful as we would think it is (with Odium running the joint and all), I doubt there would be trees and leaves there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but only Shinovar has plant life on Roshar as we know it, right? And maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but would a place called Damnation have anything resembling leaves? Edit: spelling

It might have been the last gambit of a dying, desperate god. During his vision, he seemed frustrated that he didn't foresee Odium coming after him, perhaps he went to his old champion because he didn't have time to prepare and he thought that was his best bet.

Jasnah and Shallan are not covered in dampness, so I wouldn't think it's the Cognitive. One thing, though, if the Heralds are summoned instead of leaving by their own choice, why does Taln think he failed?

It may have been more of a warning than a threat.

That's something along the lines I was thinking too. Maybe they weren't tricked, though, but convinced.

I think Brandon said he's not against writing flashback chapters of dead characters, so I figured that's how we'd see the POV from Gavilar on that night. Quote Or they'd be murdered in the most terrible way. Edited to eliminate double post.

Gavilar.

Although I can't find the topic atm, I'll back you up on that. I remember that thread and it compared the rotation as you said. One thing though about the only mention of voidbinding specifically...Szeth does mention that Voidbringers were able to hold Stormlight perfectly. Humans obviously can't, so.... In any event, I think there's a bit more going on than Odium v Cultivation/Honor. At one time perhaps the three may have not been trying to kill each other, although it's been verified that Odium wants to be the only Shard now. With that in mind, it would make sense to me that the Shard-related magic on Roshar might overlap and feed or interact in some way with each other. Three types of magic, three types of Shardblades, and three Shards. Something I took away from that, although I think you're right, is that Lift didn't really think being a Voidbringer was bad, per se. It may have been a bad joke or maybe she didn't know that many in most of Roshar considered Voidbringers as the embodiment of evil, but it's strange she was alright with the idea of Wyndle being a Voidbringer. The thought of it really didn't disgust or scare her at all.

Maybe that's why he's on Roshar. Get a Shardblade, get some thumbs.

Honestly, my recollection was of the discussion here on the forums. I can't be sure the issue was resolved though. The first link below has a quote saying the question to Brandon of whether Honor was dead before the Recreance would be RAFOed. However, it was my feeling that the vision of the Recreance was too detailed for it to be of a "possible future" as envisioned by Honor simply because he's no good at it by his own admission. All up for argument, of course. Threads: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3362-when-did-odium-kill-honor/ and this one: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3005-honor-died/

Heh. Awesomeblades. I would think their direct relation to Honor would be the most likely reason. At one point, it seems Rosaharans were more Cosmere aware than they are now.