CabbageHead

I'm going with 11thorderknight. None of the Essences are going to be literal translations of the word they are associated with, rather they are somewhat associated with the linguistic root of the word, in that they were correlated with something, the understanding of which may change over time but which's general meaning will remain somewhat constant.

I must admit, when I first read that bit in the epigraph, I didn't think about assigning the point of view to a particular person or group, just a sort of personification of humanity removed from interaction with the world. It would be interesting if it is a group of people, who would fit? The Shards themselves? The Parshendi? The Heralds? On the Shallan thing, I wasn't really thinking about anything like that, just that the reference to the storm responding to a raised hand kind of indicates a soulcaster. I imagined that the "one who killed my promises" is Jasnah. And the one who saved her life... that was where the idle speculation was. Some unexplained nastiness happenned in the past with Shallan's family, involving the death of her father and her aquisition of a shardblade, and they appear to now possibly be "the enemy". There could be tough times ahead for Shallan involving the Ghostbloods and her brothers.

That is generally true, yes. One small nit-pick with it is that countries outside equatorial regions do have variations, which change patterns of rainfall, even if temperatures are relatively stable. Hence the monsoons that happen in hot countries on a seasonal basis. But yes, equatorial regions have a fairly stable climate, and I didn't think of that.

I think we all were assuming that, yes. A country with no major variations in weather would be something almost completely outside our experience. But now that you say that, climate patterns on on Roshar are completely erratic, unlike earth, where they are firmly tied to the seasonal variations of exposure to the sun due to axial tilt.... Roshar could have a tilt small enough for a completely stable natural climate, leading other factors to provide the variations.

On top of that, if you look at the various links about this site to works discussing historical notions of honour, there is definitely an element of fury in there, in that any member of a society not conforming to the preconcieved ideal was ostracised, or at the least severely shamed, until they could redeem themselves. They were all very male notions of honour, embodying strength, ferocity, and impartiality (or at least a measure of equality, for those man enough to be part of the in-group), all things that a storm is. I agree with the theory that the storms were originally natural in origin, and that all the Shards are throwing bits of their own influence into them.

Another fact pointing in the direction of it being Nohadon, is that Dalinar has said that ALL of his visions have been tied to the Radiants in some way. It is strongly implied in the book, by Teft and Dalinar, that the Radiants, the soulcasters and surgebinders of the world, based their orders on the teachings of Nohadon. It is also very strongly implied by That One Guy, that the reason that humanity almost failed in the Desolation just past, is that surgebinders and soulcasters are running amok with no order, discipline, morals or ethics, and he is about to do something about it. Edit: Slightly out there theory. Is Dalinar Nohadon reborn?

Looking forward to it. I'm gonna guess that they did it to force themselves to learn warform, as they appear to be trying to re-learn lost forms. But thats just speculation.

I like this. Effectively, you are saying that the Parshmen are not voidbringers, but the voidbringers were Parshmen. Kind of like saying all the mass murderers in history were human, but most humans are not murderers.

This is actually mentioned in the Kaladin flashback in chapter 16. Mixed marriages between darkeyes and lighteyes can produce lighteyed children. I'm going to assume that the reason you don't hear of two lowborn darkeyes having lighteyed children, is that as well as the division of society into lighteyes and darkeyes, there is also the nahn rank (caste? doesn't seem to quite fit, but very similar) structure. Recessive genes for light eyes are likely extremely rare in the lower nahns of darkeyes, as they are far less likely to interbreed with lighteyes, and any lighteyed children they did produce would find it easy to rise socially, essentially removing themselves from the genepool of the lower classes.

I have an even wilder, completely unfounded speculation about that one. Shallan?

Yes, but there must be some more fundamental reason for 10 being important. 2, 3, and 16 are all related to the nature of the universe or the nature of Adonalsium. 10 seems an oddity, one which I have not yet figured out. Assuming, of course, that there is some mathematical reasoning behind it, and that it isn't just a number picked out of the air. Knowing Brandon, there likely is some reasoning.

There is a relationship between the number 3 and 16, in that 16 is 32 (222). The number 2 is significant as well, as all powers and abilities appear to exist in pairs. I'm actually more puzzled about where the number 10 comes from.

So you did, sorry. It's late at night, my brain is slowing down.

We know the Shin don't get Highstorms because of the mountains. However, I'd imagine that the seasons there are similar to everywhere else. The mountains blocking the storms doesn't make it stop being winter, etc.

My example of English spoken by a Glaswegian and a Pakistani still stands; they could say exactly the same thing and sound absolutely nothing alike. Familiarity with a language trains the ear to find patterns where others only hear noise. If someone did not speak English or any similar language, they would not know that the same words were being said. I have met many pairs of people who were mutually incomprehensible, all speaking english, all of whom I could understand. Edit: given the nature of this conversation, video is now getting linked

YAY! Actually, we don't know anything about the oathpact except that keeping it meant the Heralds had to go to some hell-like place between desolations. We guess that that is the outcome of some bargain between Honour and Odium, but we don't know. Heralds going to hell for thousands of year at a time is pretty much all we know about yet.

None of those are good comparisons for the situation in the WoK though. Someone who knows no language other than Cherokee would be unlikely to be able to tell whether a Scottish person and a Pakistani person, heard at different times in different places, saying different things under different circumstances, were speaking the same language. The examples you are giving presuppose some level of familiarity with the language in question. Nobody in WoK knows Dawnchant, not even Navani who guesses that that is what Dalinar is speaking.

I like this theory, and the bit about Adolin not recognising it can be fairly easily explained. Even ignoring differences of biology between Humans and Parshendi, and ignoring differences of accent, there is a world of difference between war chants and a conversation. All of the "gibberish" that Dalinar produces in his stormdreams are his side of a conversation with another person, not a song chanted at enemies on a battlefield.

Remembering balance once lost, was written the ketek. The written was lost, once balance's remembrance.

There is that. There is also the distinct possibility that bridge crews will not be needed, if Dalinar is appointed Highlord of War. The Alethi already have a system of permanent bridges in place, in areas they don't have to defend. If all ten armies were acting as one in a co-ordinated fashion, they could press much further forward, with fortified plateaus housing heavy garrisons defending bridges, providing field hospital locations, and guarding forward supply dumps. The Alethi are currently besieging an enemy, without the part of a siege where you pin down your enemy.

I like that thought. Odium is a gamer type personifying evil

I know, makes sense. Just commenting on the capitalisation of Shards. And the context is a cosmic battle, which quite specifically is not localised to Roshar: Edit: I was thinking along the lines that since Odium has his base on Roshar, that there is the place where the fight has to be made. That would be where the Cosmic struggle/Knights Radiant thing would converge.

I'd feel fairly confident that the "Broken One" refers to Odium, just from the nature of the descriptive power of the name of the Shard. Perhaps even going so far as saying that Odium was the constituent part of Adonalsium that caused the shattering. Splintering a Shard whose nature was "Cultivation" might possibly cause the birth of multiple new Shards. Maybe Odium just sees her as something that can be worked around, but not to be messed with.

I like your line of thought. I too have considered that the storm is a manifestation of the battle between Honour and Odium. The idea that Cultivation is throwing a stick in the spokes of the storm to enable life from that which scours the land is nice.

I considered that, yes. But I'm not sure how humans taking control of their destiny can be equated with ancient artifacts. Reproduction of past achievements, maybe.