Shale

So is Dalinar's.

At the DC signing he said it would be a ten-year break between books five and six. And then he had to quell a panic by clarifying that he meant ten in-story years.

In addition to the questions I asked I remember one person getting RAFOed when they asked whether Hoid is holding Breaths.

Somebody should ask him in Collegeville! At the least they'll get a shiny red card.

He was talking about how each book has flashbacks for a different character. I can't remember the exact words, but the the idea was that each book "belongs" to a certain character - Kaladin has Way of Kings, Shallan has WoR, Szeth has Stones Unhallowed/Skybreaker/whatever (he was pretty insistent that it would be Stones Unhallowed, though), and so on. The way he put it was that when you think back to a particular book, it would be clearly identified with one particular character and the associated order of Radiants so that no two would blend together.

I wanted to ask about that but was pretty sure it would get RAFOed (and he was out of cards). Instead I asked whether Kaladin can wear shardplate as of the end of WoR (answer: it would affect him like it affects Szeth, so not a good idea), and whether there's any point in trying to figure out who has that Blade everybody's wondering about (answer: not really, no. At this point there just aren't enough clues to do more than guess). The second one in particular is nice to know.

Hopefully I'll be there in time to get a spot - I work about half an hour from Tyson's Corner in decent traffic, and rush hour around there is not what I'd call "decent." So if you see somebody roaming the mall fighting people for wristbands, that might be me!

Re: Shinovar, With Szeth coming for them, they're going to have more chances than usual to experience Thrill, though. Could be interesting.

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture, which is the stuff that makes magic go in the Cosmere. And since they work in similar ways - both are an all-purpose fuel that drives magic-users' abilities - it would make sense that people who can process the one can also make use of the other. (I'm planning to ask what the "exchange rate" between Breath and Stormlight is at the signing in DC next week - I'll be back with an answer if I get one!)

I wonder if this might be what Kaladin's combat instincts and Shallan's Memories are. Hard to say whether those are individual gifts or Order-wide until we see more Windrunners and Lightweavers, but it seems kind of excessive for each member of an order to get two Surges, an order-specific ability and an individual gift.

Life under Odium, mass movement to Shadesmar, abandoning Roshar for another Shardworld, somehow turning men into Voidbringers, a survival rate under 1%, maybe even mutual annihilation with Odium...

Even assuming Taravangian was himself when he wrote the diagram, that doesn't mean his ultimate goal is something Normal Taravangian would agree with. At his most sociopathic, who knows what the king would consider an acceptable form of survival?

Technically all spren are Splinters of Honor, so you were right! It's just that Stormfather is more of a branch, or at least a very big stick. (I AM A STICK, CHILD OF HONOR.)

There are a few different ways the Diagram could be something other than what it appears. One, it could be well-intentioned but wrong. Taravangian asked for the capacity to save humanity from the Desolation, but thanks to his fluctuating mental state he clearly doesn't have that capacity every day. He is assuming that he had it on Diagram Day, but there's no signed-and-sealed affadavit from Nightwatcher saying so. He might have needed some measure of compassion to find a solution. Two, it could be leading humanity to a fate worse than death - more than one person has theorized that he's planning to lead Roshar to pure survival, by conquering the world and then surrendering it to Odium without a fight. Three, it could be a trap. The entire curse of varying intelligence and empathy is a red herring, and what actually happened is that something else was working through him on Diagram Day, which may or may not have humanity's interests at heart.

He wasn't named in the published version, but supposedly in an early draft he's introduced to Lightsong as Dust. So, ding ding ding!