Gloom

I don't think killing someone would be enough. If it was, than every soldier on the Shattered Plains, and many of the soldiers not on the Shattered Plains would be far better candidates than Shallan. I would assume that it would have more to do with murder than killing. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, for this theory to pan out, we would have to know that Elhokar murdered someone. I think it's reaching to try to make this connection at this point, but I've done this myself so I'm in no position to criticize that.

Yes he is, but I don't think we have WoB on it directly that I'm aware of. I think a question like this would be RAFOed. Some evidence that supports this would be: The other two being spiritual and cognitive of course. In regards to Syl. So Syl loses her ability to remember without a bond holder. So if bonding spren are splinters, they are sort of like live wires who need a human as a ground in order to function cognitively in the physical realm. Bonding spren are mostly of the spiritual or cognitive and can't maintain intelligence in the physical without the aid of a bond (at least for those more spiritually inclined such as Syl). They very well could be slivers made voluntarily by Honor to create the KR. My primary issue with this is that there appears to be at least as many spren that I would associate with Cultivation as their are those I would associate with Honor, and are even some that could be argued to be associated with Odium, such as fear and anger spren. Now they may all be voluntary splinters, but that's a lot of splinters. To be clear, I'm neither in support of this theory or against it. I'm going to RAFO.

Who was it that Elhokar killed that drew a cryptic to him?

I'm going to agree with Shardlet on this one. The Dawnshards may be needed to create Shardblades/plate, but I don't believe they are weapons themselves. I think we need some kind of artifact that was purposed towards creation to balance against everything that was bent towards destruction.

Very well, I will agree that follow up questions should have been asked by Miyabi. j/k I'll concede the point for now due to a lack of additional evidence.

I've never seen that quote either.

I like this theory as well. It could even be expanded a bit. If gemstones siphon power from highstorms, then it wouldn't matter what state the gemstone was in. A gem heart in a chrysalis may siphon more power than a normal gem of it's size since it would be primed to use that power immediately, but all gemstones would siphon energy to some degree. Each gemstone left exposed to the highstorm would trap a tiny bit of energy causing the storm to weaken as it went by. Shinovar is surrounded by mountains. If those mountains were rich in exposed gems, it could explain why the highstorms fizzle at that point. Highstorms have to have to be powered by stormlight or they would fail long before they reached Shinovar. I couldn't even imagine a storm that could maintain that much power crossing an entire super-continent, replete with mountain ranges but tectonically stable, that was driven by natural forces, and yet wasn't strong enough to tear those mountains down.

This theory fails to address the fact that we have no documentation of any other organism on this planet going through a similar transition from death to new life. By this reckoning, anything with a gem heart should go through the same metamorphosis after death so long as the gem heart remained. Even should we agree that the Parshendi are the exception to the rule, this theory goes counter to the fact that chrysalis are become less common on the plains. If dead Parshendi were transforming into Chasm Fiends, it would make sense that chrysalis were popping up more and more often due to the number of dead Parshendi that have fallen into the chasms or been abandoned on the field.

The purpose of faceting is to bring out the brilliance of a gem. That is where the light entering the stone is reflected off the bottom facets and returned to the viewer. Brilliance should not be confused with dispersion or fire, which is the multicolored flashes you see coming out of diamonds and some other gems. (http://www.gemsociety.org/info/igem3.htm)

Now about the charts. I believe the first chart was the original. This is the chart that showed the combination of Honor and Cultivation and the magic system they shared. I believe that Tanavast was killed shortly after the Recreance. My reasoning for this is simple. Until that time the Radiants were still upholding their part in the Oath Pact. Their participation along with Talns incarceration was enough to keep Odium from gaining the upper hand. Everything that Dalinar was shown before this was highly detailed and included other people. This is the only scene in the book that Dalinar was shown where he was alone in a depopulated world. I believe all the other scenes were seen by Tanavast, including the Recreance. I'm speculating that the Chart at the end of the book is the magic system as it is. Held together by Cultivation with Odiums shadow cast over it. Honor remains because he was splintered on Roshar and his power was distributed into his spren. The Radiants can rise again as they were, because of this. Note: This is pure speculation based on my interpretation of what I've read. You may find things that you agree with and you may find things you don't agree with. I'm not going to defend it because I have very little basis upon which to do so.

I'm of the opinion that Honor and Cultivation created the spren. I'm basing that on this quote. If Odium has spren at all, rather than simply corrupting existing spren for his purposes, then I believe his spren would be for specific purposes and far more discerning than those that are a combination of Honor and Cultivation. All that we know about spren used by voidbringers is in the Dalinar Reading from WoR. Odium appears to husband his power carefully to ensure he can out match his adversaries. If Odium could not guarantee that any power he invested in spren would not be turned specifically to his purposes, I have deep reservations about whether he would make such an investment. The primary difference between Szeth and Kaladin is that Szeth lacks a spren. The primary difference between Shallan and Jasnah is that we haven't seen Jasnah's spren. Voidbinding could indeed include soulcasting abilities, or it could be a completely different magic system. The only voidbringing magic we've seen is the summoning of Midnight Essence in the TwoKs, and another summoning in the WoR Readings. Neither of these displays of voidbringing conclusively depicted void spren. Now, just because someone becomes a surge binder doesn't necessarily mean they will become a KR. I'm sure that Odium would love to recruit surge binders into his army to fight against the KR. I'm fairly certain that some bonding spren, such as Syl, would abandon a surge binder who made such a transition, but I'm not nearly as certain this would be the case with some of the less discerning spren types.

I was wrong as well it would appear, at least partially wrong. So basically what Brandon is saying is that the gemstones clarity is the defining point in a gemstone. Gems are cut to increase clarity and hide or remove flaws. Both cut and uncut gemstones of any size absorb the same amount of stormlight, but leak at different rates. It just occurred to me how easy it would be to find gemstones in Roshar. Just take a walk through the Unclaimed Hills, the Horneater peaks, or along any mountain stream after a Highstorm and start looking for glowing rocks.

Jasnah wasn't a viewpoint character in TWoK's. Cryptics are invisible. Jasnah is a scholar. Their are any number of ways that Jasnah could have recognized the symbol. People soulcast without cryptics. Szeth surgebinds without a spren. We have no evidence Jasnah's cryptic exists yet. When the evidence is shaky, and it is, we can assume whatever we want. It doesn't make it true, but we can make the assumption. To be clear I should have said something along the lines of 'lets assume' because I don't know that Jasnah is without a cryptic just because Shallan didn't draw a picture of it. If she does have a cryptic, this just means that she is even more likely to be heading down the same path, or a similar path of power as Shallan. This is what I was trying to get at when you nit picked one sentence out of my post to choose as your starting point. I'm of the opinion that Jasnah and Shallan are both firmly in Cultivations sphere of influence. But, if what they were doing was void bringing, then we can't just point at Shallan. Both of them are using soulcasting, and both of them have the same physical requirements to use their powers. The difference between what they do and what Kaladin does is as clear as the difference between Alomancers and Feromancers. It is also possible that Odium steals. If Szeth is using Odiums system, is it a copy of Honors? Did he copy Cultivations as well? If he did, then we actually have more reason to suspect Jasnah of using Odiums system than we do Shallan. Szaeth doesn't have any spren, Shallan has a spren of some type. We don't know that Jasnah has a spren, we don't know that she doesn't. As far as I can tell I was speculating broadly. I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Please feel free to list these assumptions of mine individually and I will be happy to address them. Or, she could be using Odiums power and desires to corrupt Shallan. She could be curious. She could have drank too much wine and had faulty judgement at the time, you're right, we don't know. We haven't seen anything from Jasnah's viewpoint at all in TWoK's. We did see Shallan's viewpoint though. She isn't callous, she has a high regard for life, she feels regret for some of the things she has done, she doesn't appear to crave power for the sake of power. This doesn't sound like Odium to me. Not when we have characters like Sadeas that would make a far better subject for Odium. Sadeas is callous, he doesn't have regard for the lives of his peers, he treats his soldiers as tools, and he treated his bridgemen even worse. As I've said, Shallan has faults, but from what we have seen of her character, her personality, she doesn't seem like she would be attracting Odiums spren (If he even has any). This may or may not be true. You yourself pointed out the scarcity of hard facts in this area in the OP. Everything here is speculation based on very limited information. The symbols on the chart are stylized to some degree. The sword glyph on the cover is different from the glyph on its chart. They have the same basic shape, but if you didn't know it was the same shape it would be easy to miss. Taking a three dimensional symbol that fills the space of a persons head and translating that into a two dimensional symbol would require a simplification of the form. I wouldn't write your theory off entirely based on that quote. A stick figure may represent a person, but it certainly doesn't look like a person.

Okay, I have no problem speculating about this. I'll agree that their is a possibility that the cryptics are associated with the chart in the back of the book, but, as far as I know, the verdict on what that chart represents is still out. It could be void bringing, or it could be Cultivation. I will be the first to admit that Shallan has some serious character flaws and doesn't always make the best decisions in life, but at the same time, she isn't cruel, violent, or hateful. I'm not sure why she would attract a voidspren unless it was drawn to her by her Shardblade. Brandon said that we saw three different magic systems at work in TWoKs. We saw Honors system with Kaladin. Many think that Szeth is being influenced by Odium, so it's entirely possible that Shallan is using Cultivations system. Then again, it could be Odiums. We have nothing to base our information on other than the artwork itself, the characters, and some rather vague answers from Brandon. There is also the possibility that neither Shallan nor Jasnah are on the path to becoming a Knight Radiant. The Knight Radiant orders may come exclusively from the first chart. Both women have similar abilities. Perhaps they are both treading down the path to darkness. We can assume that Jasnah doesn't have a cryptic, but if she did recognize the symbol as being associated with the void bringers, then why risk continuing her association with Shallan?

I'm partial to the idea that the cryptics are mostly of Cultivation. My reasoning is that they seem to require something in return for their gifts, a give and take system that would compliment Cultivation. Cultivation is about giving of yourself and reaping the rewards for your effort or sacrifice. I spend time and effort cultivating a garden, and I get a bountiful crop in return. The truth cryptic, seemed to me, to be forcing Shallan to weed out her self delusions to access power. By forcing Shallan to face what she is, and what she has done, the truth spren can drive her to facing who she really is, to discard those things she clings to that are false, and guide her towards the path of radiance. We know from at least one quote by Brandon that spren are neither good nor evil (At least not under normal circumstances). They have their nature, and they follow it. They are no more evil than a tiger or an elk. They follow their instincts and the path that was dictated for them by their Shards. They are attracted to a certain kind of person or a certain set of actions. The person they bond with may be good, or that person may be evil. Nohaden said that not all spren are as discerning as honorspren. In regards to a persons character this is true, but only in this regard. I believe that all spren are discerning, just not about the type of character the person they bond with possesses. They are discerning about those things which made a particular person bondable. In the case of honor spren, character is a part of the persons makeup that attracts them. In the case of other spren, we can (I think) pretty safely assume character is not a factor, or less of a factor. Edit: added quote for reference.

I'll agree that it is unlikely that their is a cryptic for each order, but I don't believe that all of the cryptics are truth spren. We know that their are ten different orders, and at least ten types of bonding spren. I'm of an opinion that the cryptics are a class of bonding spren that may comprise the spren of several related orders. I'm also of the opinion that Syl is a member of another class of bonding spren and that spren like her compromise other orders. That isn't to say that Syl is flexible in what order she represents, but rather that other spren that look similar to her may exist but be part of a different order altogether. For instance, the spren for Stone Wardens may also appear to look similar to Syl, be different, yet hold compatible beliefs. There may even be other bonding spren types that have yet to be revealed.

When we're talking about egg batches from crustaceans, were talking about thousands of eggs. Now, this doesn't change the fact that these eggs are still subject to predation, or that the larval and juvenile forms aren't also at risk of predation, but it does mean that there is a greater chance of genetic diversity in each pod of eggs. This is of course depending on whether or not Brandon is calculating reproductive rates based on earth crustaceans. If he is, then perhaps some real world numbers might be useful. When a sample of four fertilized female coconut crabs were sampled, the females carried between 51,000 and 138,000 eggs each. This is the largest crustacean on our planet that has been discovered. Other crustaceans have varying amounts of eggs from a couple of thousand on up. If Brandon isn't basing reproductive rates based on real world crustaceans, then any numbers are meaningless outside of his notes. The predation on these eggs, larva, and juveniles is always high, which is why so many eggs are hatched. In the event that too many reach maturity, most free roaming crustaceans will fight and kill competitors to provide them with food and reduce competition for prey. I'm going to go ahead and speculate that gem hearts store energy for their symbiotic spren which is what allows a creature supported by an exoskeleton to survive growing to extreme sizes such as those seen in Chasm Fiends based on the quote below. I'll also speculate that any of his crustaceans that grow past the point of where they could naturally survive the planets gravity need a gem heart or will be crushed. This would mean that any creature capable of defying the laws of physics in some way would need a gem heart to do so... Isomere may be correct, but this is my theory on why they need the gem hearts, and why they have them in the first place.

People still access the power of the shards that were shattered on Sel. I think that the High Storms were invested at the same time man moved to Roshar, after they were defeated in the Tranquil Halls. (whichever of the habitable planets in the system the Tranquill Halls may have been.)

Chasm Fiends have purple blood. Parshendi have orange blood. No one was suggesting that DEAD Parshendi change forms into anything that I'm aware of. You're talking about real void bringing when you start talking about animating the dead not just bonding with spren to change forms.

The Wandersail is a funny story. It's a fable about a moment in Roshars history told by an extraterrestrial. Was Hoid even in Roshar then? Did the voyage even take place on Roshar? Was it just something he'd heard? Or was it just something he made up? Irregardless of Highstorms, I believe Roshars seas would be very dangerous. We know they have sailing, I'm not sure how extensively they use it. The storms move east to west, and the sailing we've seen was to the south in the Tarat Sea, and I believe that we will see some type of boating industry in WoR in the Reshi Sea to the north. In TWoK Highstorms were definitely a concern in the Tarat Sea. If Kharbranth is concerned with them, the entire region would be affected. This doesn't even mention other creatures, Great Shells and the like that could hunt the seas and scuttle boats, or normal tidal problems that may crop up on a world with lower gravity and three moons.

So the UK publisher wasn't given a concept or scene to work with? They just made this up without any information to draw upon?

I believe that Silence Above may be in reference to the face that Kaladin saw in the eye of the High Storm. Dying Storms may be in reference to the voice that Kaladin heard in the west that named him Child of Tanavast and warned him that Odium Reigns.

What we do know is that Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar together. Odium came after Honor and Cultivation were romantically involved Odium does not want to hold Honor or Cultivation. Odium wants to shatter all the other Shards. There are three Shards on Roshar It is possible to destroy Roshar. (This is speculation, barely, based on the following.) I will agree that everything else is speculation. I believe that the Oath Pact was something unique to Roshar. I will also agree that Shards are not omnipotent gods and have to conform to a rule set, but I believe that the Oath pact was something along the lines of the agreement made between Preservation and Ruin, and that it would have been in addition to the governing principles of Shardic Law. I'll agree that it is speculation based on various theories that lead me to theorize that all three of the Shards on Roshar entered the Oath Pact, and it is also speculation on why they entered the Oath Pact. Now that we've got that out of the way I'd like to say that it still makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. It is entirely possible that it's still wrong, but even science has added evidence up and come to faulty conclusions in the past, that's why they have fancy names like hypothesis and theory for their conclusions. I think, given the title of this thread, 'Quick, somewhat baseless Oathpact theory' that the reader is sufficiently warned should we wander from the land of theory to Hypothesis. We are basing our theories on our observations of Roshar after all. On to Docs questions: The Oathpact occurred after Honor came to Roshar? I believe this to be true, but it is neither implied or said to be so. Culture also came to Roshar at the same time.(Correct?) Cultivation and Honor came together Odium came to Roshar(followed Honor?) Odium came to Roshar later. Honor and Cultivation were on Roshar first. The Oathpact had to have some thing appealing in it for Odium to agree? Speculation - I believe so. The Oathpact had to have something appealing in it for Honor to agree? Speculation - I can't see any other reason he would agree to working with Odium. Culture might not be bound by the Oathpact? This is true - Speculation - I believe that the Oath Pact was a very complex world sharing agreement between the three, similar to the agreement between Ruin and Preservation. The Oathpact allows for Desolations to occur? Speculation - That is my take on it The Oathpact allows for Champions of Honor? Yes The Oathpact allows for Champions of Odium (though he apparently didn't use them(speculation)? Yes, but we don't know that Odium has never chosen a champion. We just know that Tanavast said it would be easier if he did, and that it would be unlikely for him to do so. Odium can be forced to choose Champions? I believe that, should the opposition be fierce enough he may see the need for a champion or champions in order to attain victory, I doubt he can be forced to the decision. I could be wrong. The Oathpact sends Honors champions to Hell between Desolations; which in some manner keeps Odium bound. - The Heralds are sent somewhere and tortured when they die during a Desolation, and are supposed to return when the Desolation reaches its end so they can be released to fight the next Desolation. Doing this was what kept the Oath pact intact, and may have been a needed buffer that protected Honor from Odium. The prelude was pretty clear that the Oath Pact ended when they refused to return to their place of torture. This is additional evidence that the Oath Pact was based on the Shards on Roshar. The Heralds abandon the Oathpact. Yes, this is canonized in TWoKs prelude. Honor dies centuries later. Yes, though exactly when he dies is still debatable. I have reason to believe that he was still alive up until the Recreance. The current (Final) Desolation begins centuries after that. IMO this is the big play by Odium to shatter Cultivation. Once Cultivation is shattered, Odium can metabolize the power he invested in Roshar and destroy the world.

It does point to certain similarities between them. I'd say that, at the least, it's pointing towards the Parshendi and Chasm Fiends being native to Roshar, while humans arrived in Roshar from another world. Humans not being native to Roshar is backed up by the histories about the Tranquil Halls. This would be good evidence that the Parshendi were either, already in place when man arrived, or that an existing life form was reshaped to create the Parshendi after man arrived. It could go either way. I don't think it's enough evidence to suggest that the Parshendi become Chasm Fiends.

A couple of things. If Chasm Fiends were extremely loud, I can't see how one could have snuck up on Elhokar's hunting party. Yes, the main characters were a plateau away, but it emerged practically right on top of the civilians who were unaware of its presence until it had crested the lip of the canyon. It may be a massive creature, but it does have fourteen legs upon which to distribute its weight. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are stealthy, but I don't think they are walking avalanches either. Heck, even Kaladin had a close encounter in the Chasms. He just got lucky that it was moving in the other direction. Chasm Fiends are a type of Great Shell. They are quite obviously not the only type of Great Shell, as several others have been mentioned in TWoKs and an even larger Great Shell was mentioned in the readings of WoR. Until this war, Chasm Fiends were rarely hunted by the Alethi, if I remember correctly. What this tells me is that they are far from the only source of gemstones. If they were even one of a few sources of gemstones they would have been hunted more regularly prior to the war. I personally find it doubtful that Chasm Fiends will be hunted to extinction. I don't doubt that serious harm has been done to the species though. Consider, that they Alethi have contested pupating Chasm Fiends about twice a week for five to six years. They mentioned at some point in the book that it was only recently seeming to slow some, or maybe that was in the reading for Eshonai. I'll agree they are likely slow to reach full maturity, so it's very possible that there are still quite a few roaming the eastern part of the Shattered Plains and the Unclaimed Hills. It seems pretty obvious that Chasm Fiends were modeled off of crustaceans, so live birth is unlikely. Egg batches are very likely. This gives the species good odds of recovering eventually.