cosmeredoug_30

I just finished Wind and Truth and I won't comment on how much I liked it because I'm biased (it was a lot, I really liked it, let's be honest most of us will like anything Brandon writes). I found a few things weird though so maybe someone has some insights. Cultivation: Top of my list is Cultivation and my only question is what was the point of her? Maybe I read her wrong but for me, she was built up over the entire series to be a slightly more neutral, morally ambiguous entity who was made out to be mysterious and powerful, manipulating events for who knows how many years to 'cultivate' Roshar and the Shards and allow for growth. At the end of RoW she seemed like a major player, yet in WaT her attempts at steering Todium were kind of pathetic, her manipulation of Dalinar to go after Honor was extremely obtuse and the minute her clumsy plan to blackmail Taravangian failed she crawled away and never came back. At the end, instead of showing up again and revealing more plans, she instead just runs away from the system and is presented as scared and weak. The one thing she seemed to do right was Lift, seemingly the only Radiant whose powers will work outside of the Urithiru dome since she doesn't use Stormlight. But then, with Cultivation gone, will her powers even function the same anymore? She was probably one of the things I was most excited to see in this book, yet she ended up being weirdly underwhelming. Moash and El: Kaladin absolutely deserved a break this book and I'm glad he kind of got that but Moash, as much as I still loathe him, basically did nothing the whole book. He showed up ominously for a short time to kill Leyten and almost Sigzil while wielding his fancy new crystal Hemalurgy eyes. I get that showing off the new eyes was probably his main function but he also was slightly underwhelming. El feels the same to a lesser extent. At least we got the mystery of his Shardblade, which I'm assuming he is probably a Dustbringer. Outside of that, we got very little from him and considering he was made out to be a particularly scary and intelligent Fused, he was fooled quite easily by the Listeners which was a little weird. Gavinor: I think most can agree that Gavinor being the Champion was extremely expected but that how it was done was a little clumsy. It could have been just as harsh had Dalinar been showed to little Gav's sleeping form and the message that Dalinar needed to kill an innocent to save the world would have gotten across without all the weird time stuff. Gav could have been willing to be Champion if Todium had asked him as Elhokar and also because the kid thought it was just play pretend the whole time. And it could have been great development for Gav to have simply seen Dalinar consider going through with it. Night: What is it? What happened to it? Probably something reserved for the back half of the books but still, we got a lot of Wind stuff, some Stones stuff with Venli, so it felt weird that we didn't get some crumbs about Night, who easily seems to be the most interesting.

I think I'd much rather that it was this way as it would give more autonomy and choice to people and spren about how their bonds and connections manifest, as choice is obviously a big theme for the Deadeyes. However, I also want there to be some outside explanation as, without it, the magic system becomes very soft. Maybe if it had been leading this way since the start, it would be less jarring but RoW was very enjoyable for me due to the science behind the magic that solidified it as a hard system. I'm hoping it is some mix, some entity influencing but not causing the creation of the Unoathed. One thing that seems slightly weird is that Adolin won Maya as a youth. I'm not sure how old Adolin actually is but he seems to be in his early 20s. Considering Alethi contexts, my headcanon says Adolin was maybe 14 or 15 when he won Maya, although he could easily have been 17 or 18. Still, there's at least a good 5 yrs or so where Adolin treated Maya the same as he has the whole series, yet their bond only began to form in Oathbringer (I think, may have been WoR). Regardless, something seems to have triggered the Unoathed bond. And considering Mishram only began manifesting in Shallan's drawings in this book, that makes me think her prison only recently broke. The Spiritual Realm has weird time stuff going on so perhaps Melishi only died in recent years, and so Mishram's prison only broke in recent years, allowing the Unoathed bonds to begin forming. Then again, Shallan's newfound perception of Mishram may have been a result of her advanced oaths rather than the timeline of Mishram's release but I suppose nobody can be sure.

I know a lot of people are talking about Valor or Reason possibly being the fourth shard. Personally I think it's Reason but I can see how Valor fits with Roshar's themes. I kind of understood the recovery of the deadeyes to be a result of Ba-Ado-Mishram's release rather than the interference of another Shard? The theme with the sentient Unmade seems to be that they care much more for the neutral parties in the war. Sja-anat wants to 'free' spren from obligation to their oaths, though without them turning fully to Odium. Mishram wants peace in general for everyone, although she has a bias to singers and would choose them if it came down to it. She clearly identified with the actions of the Listeners a great deal, who again are sort of a neutral party. So I kind of see the deadeyes' recovery as something Mishram may be influencing as a way to produce spren who understand the faults of Honor intimately while also being against Odium. Spren who can produce the human equivalent of Regals - Shardbearers without surges - since those were the forms Mishram was able to grant. Not to mention that the Unoathed seem to hold greater importance in doing general good and keeping promises - something that probably resonated with Mishram, who was betrayed by everyone. This reply showed up while I was mid-reply lmao so I actually really like this idea too. If it was a Shard and not Mishram, I would be inclined to agree with this reasoning.

Huh, I didn't know the thing about crabs, might give some more explanation for why the listeners/singers evolved to have carapace? Sorry if I misunderstood but are you comparing investiture to radiation or saying that investiture is counteracting radiation? If you're comparing it to radiation then that kind of makes sense to me. I think I read somewhere (not quite sure so I might be wrong) that the Shards, while they have a specific location, are also sort of omnipresent, the investiture that makes each shard up existing everywhere, so that's similar to cosmic background radiation right? At least it would be a cool parallel. CMBR coming from the Big Bang, investiture coming from the breaking of Adonalsium. If you're saying investiture is counteracting radiation then ignore all that and I have no idea!

I did kind of figure it was probably just this, I just had a tinfoil hat moment because Taldain and Drominad have a common shard and also both have white stars so then the crazy connection to the Rosharan star popped into my head lmao This is giving me nore tinfoil hat theories! Has Brandon said anywhere that he went with the star because of fantasy physics, or would this still potentially indicate that something investiture-wise might be going on with the star, allowing it to support life on the Rosharan planets? Maybe there's some surge of gravitation stuff happening, allowing a star that wouldn't normally support life to do so? Also, I didn't realise the ten planets were gas giants. I know the fact that there are ten is probably important but if they're gas giants then - stormlight being a gaseous form of investiture - could the gas giants be made up of investiture?

First of all, sorry if this has been covered already in the past, or if this should be in the Q&A section instead, I wasn't sure. I recently got the star system art prints from Dragonsteel and they got me wondering about the stars mostly but also Roshar's planets. They show the Taldain, Rosharan and Drominad systems with blue/white stars, while the other systems have red or yellow stars, which would generally be considered the type of stars necessary to create life. We know that Taldain's sun is invested and that the Drominad system has got stuff going on with the same shard investing Taldain. Not to mention, the Drominad planet names run on a theme, 'X of the Sun'. So, is it possible that the Drominad system has some sun-investing going on too, and if so, does the star colour indicate that the Rosharan sun may also be invested? I might be overthinking something that is just an artistic choice but I feel like Brandon doesn't make many artistic choices without a reason. I was also wondering about the Rosharan planets. We have the inhabitable three within the asteroid belt, presumably connected to the three shards in the system. However, the other ten planets outside the belt are suspicious. They are all the same size and all seem to be equally distanced. Not to mention, there are 10, which we know has some significance. So are these planets somehow important or is it like Preservation's use of 16 to hint at the existence of the shards, just something Honor did as a little easter egg to the Rosharans?

So I was reading up on investiture and ended up stumbling on a Q&A that gave me a thought about the mechanics of the Torment, since I just finished Sunlit Man. In the book, Nomad uses a sunheart to cleanse the 'muck' or 'scar tissue' from his own soul, lessening the effect of the Torment so that he can fight. Nomad temporarily held the same Dawnshard that Hoid currently holds, which is why they both have the same Torment, being unable to physically harm others. We also know that Hoid is Mistborn. If the Q&A above is anything to go by and considering that sunhearts likely won't become a greater part of the Cosmere, could Hoid technically remove the Torment from himself by becoming an Aluminium savant, thus cleansing his spirit from the unwanted investiture preventing him from dealing harm? I doubt this will actually happen since it would be a very complicated way to go about it but I can also absolutely see Hoid doing something this crazy and was just wondering if it was possible.

I was always under the impression that the shattered plains were Stormseat. I thought that the part of the city we see as Narak was maybe just the centre/very tall point of Stormseat and the whole of the Shattered Plains were actually the rest of the city. Since the silver kingdoms are known to have symmetry in their layout and the plains as a whole are symmetrical, I thought that each plateau was just a build up of crem around the original buildings of Stormseat, maintaining the city's original symmetry in a way. Is this still possible or was there a WoB that confirmed the plains were actually 'shattered' by some event?

Is this mentioned in the books or was it a WoB? I feel like it would be really weird to depict her or any of the heralds as underage, considering the Vorin church wants to portray them as mythical leaders and generals during the desolations. Portraying one of the heralds as a child would be a weird move on Vorinism's part. I know Ash is quite young but I always thought of her as being 19 or maybe her early 20s, is she younger? Somehow I didn't clock this. And apparently I've forgotten the whole plot of RoW lmao. To be honest I always thought the metal Hoid gave to Azure and Nightblood's sheath were just some sort of weird god metal but this makes so much more sense.

I really hope he isn't expendable, he's one of the most interesting characters right now, especially with where his arc is going. If Brandon does kill him, I can't see it happening until late in the back half of the books, when his death would hurt more for us and the characters. I don't think Maya is his only arc. The only characters I can see as leaders are Dalinar, Kaladin, Jasnah, Navani and Adolin. We know that for both Dalinar and Kal, they will either lose or move on to bigger stuff. Either one of them could die or become Honor. Dalinar could become a fused, Kal could become a Herald therapist. All I know is that their roles will change greatly. Navani is a scholar and engineer, I can see her taking over when she is needed but she seems to know that her place is not as the primary ruler. She takes issue with people assuming she is the true power behind Gavilar and then with Dalinar, so she would be a very reluctant ruler. Jasnah is already Queen of Alethkar and we know that she means serious business with the shards and the wider cosmere. This leaves Adolin, who didn't feel ready to be king in Oathbringer. Now, however, he has led a diplomatic mission to the spren and succeeded. He and Shallan are the only people on the edge of reviving spren and it would be weird if Adolin did it, died and then Shallan did it, told people how to do it, and took the credit. When he revives Maya, I can't see him being fully radiant, but sort of midway between radiant and non-radiant. All of this kind of makes him the perfect king to rule over humans and radiants and liaise with the spren, his aunt Navani helping him along. I feel like he is too important to the backhalf to be expendable. This is just me desperately coming up with reasons for Adolin to not die but you get my point

Hi, welcome to the shard! Don't worry about it, they're only theories and everyone here is a crazy tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist anyway, there are no wrong ideas. Feel free to correct me, I haven't seen many WoB so he may have said otherwise somewhere, but I think the abilities of metals and their relation to investiture is only present in Allomancers and Feruchemists. Aluminium only has power in terms of the metallic arts, on Scadrial, because that is the magic system that the Scadrian shards put in place. It wouldn't necessarily have an effect on investiture on other other worlds as far as I know. I actually really like this idea that the heralds were unbalanced and their genders may have been changed to fit with Vorin symmetry, it's definitely something I could see happening in the books, if not in this specific way. The safehand thing I would say probably another Vorin addition. I can't remember if they're mentioned in Dalinar's visions or not but I don't think safehands were a practice during the desolations? The safehands on the other four female heralds was probably added by the Vorin church so that they fit modern standards of modesty and could be seen as pious and perfect figures in the Vorin mythology. The other four female heralds are associated with what could be considered 'feminine' orders: Edgedancers, Truthwatchers, Lightweavers and Elsecallers. All are more geared towards healing, scholarship, artistry and support rather than battle. However, the Dustbringers are widely known as fighters, the artillery of the Radiants, with great destructive power due to their surges. The Vorin church might not depict Chanarach with a covered safehand because the role of her order in the desolations was too 'masculine'. I doubt it would happen with Chanarach, as you mentioned, it would fit better if Chanarach were Shallan's mother, but I could see the gender of one of the other female heralds being mistaken. It would definitely cause further conflict within Vorinism, which could be interesting, they've been clinging on for a while now, perhaps it would be the final blow in the downfall of the Vorin church? Not to mention, we know that the Reshi king is trans, his radiant healing, 'healing' his body to match his spiritual perception of himself. It might be possible that something similar occured with a herald, or maybe the Vorin church just changed it for themselves, we don't know. It would be funny if the herald's depictions were just artistic choices and the hand had no relevance lmao Personally, I don't see Lin being Chanarach, otherwise it would be suspicious that his wife was the one connected to the Skybreakers and trying to kill Shallan instead of him. Unless his wife got the connections through him, but then Lin probably would have helped his wife kill Shallan due to his heraldic madness.

Hi, welcome to the shard! I'm new here too and have no idea what I'm doing so don't worry. This is my first time answering someone's theory so we'll see how this goes Presumably yes. We know that greatshells form bonds with spren to decrease their weight, thereby ignoring laws of physics that would usually cause their own weight and carapace to crush them. If fabrials are anything to go by, stormlight may be needed to power gemstones, even if there are spren bound to the gem. Just a thought, it may be different in nature, but even Knights Radiant need stormlight to power themselves, could be the same for all living creatures? I know chulls do and greatshells are the main ones we see with gemhearts. I believe cremlings and other animals like axehounds don't have gemhearts. I may be wrong but since they are small enough to not be crushed by their own weight, they have no need for a spren bond so never evolved a gemheart. I can't remember it being mentioned if they have gemhearts or not, if they do, perhaps it isn't considered important as the gems would be too small to be of value? This thread from years ago has some good ideas about it: https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/7095-pupation-of-great-shells/ There are quite a few reddit threads that suggest, due to the size of greathshells, it would be difficult to oxygenate the body, so gemhearts are needed to absorb stormlight to supply oxygen, in the way that radiants don't need to breathe when wielding stormlight. Don't know how valid that is though, we haven't been told if greatshells have regular hearts or not.

You said that Liss could be Vedel? Could she be Chana instead? I absolutely get that Vedel might turn from healing to killing due to her madness, but with Chana being a dustbringer, and I remember something about her being 'the Guard'. I can't remember where but I saw something about her being a protective, family-oriented person? Not sure if that's true, obviously we don't have a lot of info on Chana. However, we see Liss discussing the assassination of Aesudan because Jasnah wants to protect her family. Then again, all of this could easily translate to Chana becoming a mother, and then trying to kill Shallan due to being a mad herald and all. I feel like it can't be true because Brandon tends to go in a whole other direction from fan theories. It does make sense though! Especially since we haven't exactly got a lot of info on Shallan's mother, other than the fact Shallan killed her. In the build up to Shallan revealing that she killed her father, we still got details about him. So her mother and Chana are the two most mysterious people so far. Coincidence? I think not

Sorry, they just talk about heralds so much, I forgot they were trying to bring them back, not look for them. There are too many secret societies on Roshar for me to keep track lmao. Maybe the Diagram could have tracked her? But then I don't think the Diagram had been formed yet, had it? If it had, I doubt it was extensive enough yet to monitor the heralds as they did by present day in the books. There would be a big difference though. A drunk with loads of hair, wasting away, wouldn't be construed with a herald who had been a king. But the Diagram knew about some of the heralds so obviously some of them were noticeable enough. And Chana was very connected to secret societies. I read some of the theory you posted above and presumably Chanarach may have been buying into Nale and Ishar's theory of killing budding surgebinders and she clearly had attachments to the skybreakers. The Diagram, or whichever organisation I'm thinking of, had info on Nale and the skybreakers so they could have found Chana through them? I'm not sure. I just think it's a little weird that we have some idea of what's going on with all of the heralds except Chanarach. Even if she had flown under the radar I feel like we should have had some small indication. I'm going to have to go back through the books to see if there's a random character that fits Chana's description, it's annoying me how well Chanarach being Shallan's mother lines up. I haven't read the SA 5 prologue, I probably should but I want to wait for the full book. Also, just wondering, how do you get the quotes from book passages and WoBs? If you couldn't tell, I'm new to this!

That's kind of what I meant, I can totally see Radiant taking control of Shallan, not for any evil purpose, but because she thinks she has to in order to protect her. Only, I just thought that with how unstable Shallan and her alters are, it would make sense if Radiant took it too far in trying to protect Shallan. I have no idea what to think of this theory. I've seen it all over the place and it's either perfect or crazy. I kind of want to believe it. I always wondered why Shallan's mother just so happened to know the skybreakers and why Shallan seems to be much more important cosmere-wise, why Hoid took such great interest in her. But then I feel like it would be too coincidental. Surely we would have got some mention about how the Heralds felt Chanarach's death, or how the Sons of Honor had intel on her location. I mean, a herald being the matriarch of a noble family surrounded by scandal? Surely someone would notice? Thanks for answering and further debunking the theory. I really need to do a reread because apparently I forgot everything.