Salkara

I wasn't saying societal concepts can't apply to the Parshendi. I was saying that we shouldn't assume our understanding of how a society functions should automatically apply to an alien race. Understanding is shaped by experience, and we're lacking in experience living in a mostly-asexual society. Ours and the Parshendi's understandings of gender can easily differ based on experience alone. Also, afaik, we don't know how the Parshendi reproduce. Do they have live birth or are the oviparous? What are the mechanics of their conception (e.g. is intercourse required or can it be achieved externally)? It's very possible that Parshendi reproduction is miles different from human reproduction. Oh, and we don't necessarily know that spren don't reproduce. Syl did mention having an aunt, which probably means she has a mother.

First, nobody would have to see the murder in order to see or hear a blade get dropped from above them. The actual quote is It's possible someone on the terrace saw or heard it drop, and went to investigate. It's not like Shardblades fall out of the sky everyday. Second, and more importantly, Adolin didn't take Oathbringer with him. Shardblades are incredibly rare and valuable, grant immediate elevation to the 4th dahn, and are godlike weapons. The fact that the Oathbringer wasn't taken indicates that whoever murdered Sadeas doesn't need or want a Shardblade. That reduces the pool of suspects to Shardbearers. It says that Sadeas was definitely not murdered for his Shardblade.

Maybe the point isn't to shake him up. Maybe it's just to pin the murder (and subsequent copycat murders) on him. My personal theory is Ialai is using this as a way to isolate Dalinar. We'll see though. Only 118 hours and 20 minutes until the next chapter release.

I disagree, but only in part. They could also be reasonably certain they can pin the murder(s) on Adolin whether or not he murdered Sadeas. I've seen a lot people indicate there's no evidence to pin the murder on Adolin. There is some circumstantial evidence, though. Adolin scraped his chalk markings off the wall with his shardblade. We've seen instances where people immediately recognized damage from a shardblade, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone noticed the missing bits of wall and realized that Sadeas was killed by shardbearer. That doesn't mean they know Adolin did it, but there aren't that many shardbearers. He dropped Oathbringer out the window (which I guess is the Roshar equivalent of tossing a gun into a dumpster). We're presuming nobody noticed that, but I wouldn't say that's a given. Someone could've seen or heard. More telling, though, is that someone killed a shardbearer but didn't try to keep the shardblade. That narrows down the pool of suspects quite a bit. Probably means the murderer already has a shardblade, and again, there aren't many shardbearers. His cuffs were bloodied. He did cut them off, but what happened to them afterward? It's entirely possible someone noticed they were missing (Adolin is known to be quite a slave to fashion, so it may be remarkable that he had a shirt without cuffs) and went on a hunt to find them. None of these are enough to convict Adolin; however, they could be enough to make him appear culpable to others. Sometimes it matters more what people think you did than what you actually did.

Actually, I think it does affect them. When reading the Parshendi, we have to remember that Brandon intends them to be an alien race. We could make an argument that gender as a social construct in humans is driven by our biological need to reproduce. Malen and femalen Parshendi do not have that need as they are asexual. Moreover, I believe Syl used the term 'gender' in reference to reproduction. Male and female can physically reproduce only with members of the opposite gender. Hence she would say that humans have 2 genders. For the Parshendi, she adds another 2 genders: malen and femalen, which cannot physically reproduce but can change biologic gender to male and female, respectively, for reproductive purposes. I'm not saying that gender lines are absolute. There are likely spren which regularly appear as a different gender than that with which they identify; however, it's difficult to extrapolate our understanding of gender to an alien species with additional genders.

You said the Heralds didn't fit the established Rosharian races. I was making the point that their birth races may not look the same in current time. Makabaki people may have been "massive in build" when the Heralds first walked Roshar even though they are now "small and fine boned."

In my case, I believe Adolin's stated reasoning of "nobody knows we were down here," is just a bit too convenient. I find it too unbelievable to think the whereabouts of a highprince and a highprince's son would be that unknown. Perhaps people won't know their exact locations at every moment, but someone's got to be able to place the two of them in the general vicinity. Can't be a Knight Radiant without being broken first, right? Not enough cracks in the soul for Investiture to seep in.

The Heralds were born between 5,000 and 10,000 years before the current period in Roshar. That's a lot of time for races of human to mix, separate, and repeat until they aren't recognizable compared to historical races.

If we make one major assumption without any evidence to back it up, I believe Ialai moves from "Plausible" to "Highly likely." The assumption I would make is that Ialai knows Adolin killed her husband but can't (or won't) prove it (yet). As I mentioned, I have no evidence to support this assumption, but it seems like something possible for her character. She has a network of spies. She probably knows (or can guess) at the enmity between Adolin and Sadeas. I believe she can probably put it together, but there's no proof that she has. If Ialai knows who murdered Sadeas, it makes sense to me that she's behind the copycat murder. She would probably assume (correctly) that Dalinar's response to the 2nd murder would be to appoint someone to investigate it, and she'd also probably assume (again, correctly) that person would be Adolin. She then has a couple more copycat murders performed (among Dalinar's allies) before providing proof that Adolin killed Sadeas. Everyone then assumes that Adolin is behind the other murders; Dalinar must distance himself from his own son; Dalinar's allies distance themselves from him. All of these outcomes line up with what seem like reasonable goals for Ialai (e.g. see her husband's murderer shamed and brought to justice and see her husband's enemy cast down). Again, there's no proof Ialai knows Adolin killed Sadeas. Maybe she doesn't actually know Adolin did it and just believes she can pin it on him. Either way, I believe she stands to profit the most from Adolin's appointment as investigator for his own murder, which leads me to believe she's behind the 2nd murder. Now to move from "only slightly crazy" to "absolutely insane." Ialai probably believes Adolin is an easy target because she's smarter than him (not that Adolin is an idiot, but there have been a couple mentions of him not keeping pace mentally with other characters). With Renarin's future sight and Shallan's lightweaving, Adolin does have two assets that can help him out. His best outcome would likely be admitting to murdering Sadeas (and accepting punishment for it) while Ialai is proven as the mastermind behind the others. Does anybody actually see Adolin getting out of this without accepting punishment for murdering Sadeas? Punishment could easily be a loss of rank, loss of blade and/or plate, jail time, or a combination thereof. Now, I've been a proponent of Adolin not having a future Nahel bond because I didn't believe he was broken enough for one; however, if the plot plays out like this, I can see the stress of investigating his own murder and the shame of his punishment leading him to be broken enough for a Nahel bond.