Xavien

I agree that Regalia's end game seemed a little weird, unless she was planning on having Prof heal her after she recruited him and David killed her before that could happen. What bothered me was David not being able to figure out the connection between Steelheart's past and his weakness since he flat out told us the connection early in the book without realizing it. As for David being an epic, I still think it is possible even though he was gifted powers. Throughout the book David kept saying that he needed to throw out everything we knew about epics, which could include gifting powers to another epic. Keithli's theory is a good one that would fit in with that. I think Obliteration either went off to kill himself since he now knew what his weakness was or went off to face it. I wouldn't be surprised to see him in book 3 paying penance for his past actions.

I may have misread it but Peter's reply seemed to indicate two teasers in the image: the secret folder (which I agree is likely a book) and whatever the document in the background is. The background document could be another secret book but it could be part of a non-book project. Brandon mentioned the film rights to Mistborn were available in February so I'm merely hopeful the document is related to that (script, background/world info/etc) Either way, exciting stuff! Though the last modified date on SA3 did make me a little sad.

Mistborn movie script?

Emphasis mine, it sounds like you are confusing cultural attributes with physical attributes. There is a very plausible reason for the epicanthic fold being so predominant on Roshar: it's theorized that epicanthic folds were evolved to protect eyes from harsh, windy conditions. Pretty handy for the most of Roshar don't you think? But also not really necessary for those living on the far end of the continent behind the mountains. Likewise you wouldn't want to be very dark skinned in a Nordic environment* (mountainous, high latitude) either, going to have problems with vitamin D deficiency for most of the year (need more UVs!). Light skinned in a hot very sunny environment? Problems with too many UVs. But that's physical changes, not cultural ones. I think Brandon cares quite a bit about the science in his worlds, so having people evolve physically to handle the environments he created makes a lot of sense. Some authors may shortcut things like that, but I don't think Brandon would. I don't see him having light skinned people evolve in a jungle/rain forest. I also don't think that Hallandren & Idris are far enough apart that you'd get two very different looking types of people, though they could have small differences. As for how they actually look? There are a number of rain forests throughout the world and the people living in them all look a little different. Some even have mountain/highland regions nearby so take your pick. Or just don't worry about it & enjoy the book how you want to enjoy it * Edited to add: The Inuit are a good counter example as they are dark skinned living in a climate that does not get a lot of sun. However they migrated there relatively recently and have compensated for the vitamin D/UV issues with a very heavy vitamin D diet.

Does the shardblade of a Radiant have to appear in their hand or can it just be touching them? Does it even need to be touching them? Can they materialize as a shardblade inside of another object? And getting a little off topic but...What is stopping spren from just flat out killing people that do not represent their ideals as understood by that spren?

Kaladin: "Hey Syl, I'm a little tired so why don't you fly around the battlefield and whenever you are about to run into one of my enemies just turn into a shard dagger and stab them." Syl: "But I can't stab them myself Kaladin! I need you for that!" Kal: "No you don't, just build up enough speed, turn into a shard dagger, and let inertia do the rest." Syl: "Well ok, what are you going to be doing?" Kal: "I'll just be sitting over here in the shade with Lopen, Rock has some interesting ideas for Bloody Mary's that he wants us to try." Syl: "But...what if I don't know if they are your enemy or not?" Kal: "Fine then, I'll point them out to you. Now fly off and stab people for me." Syl: "OK!"

My theory is Vasher is a play off of Shashara, possibly a tribute to her, their marriage, his love for her or (my favorite) Shashara's love for him. So since he also killed her, Denth would think taking this name "a joke on his part"

Something I missed before but see now in the quotes is Eshonai's able to hold a spren. Whenever humans talk about spren they move right through them but Eshonai trapped one in her hands. Humans can trap them in fabrials, Parshendi can trap them in rocks, but grabbing and holding one in your hands?

Another possibility is that spren don't become shards until they choose to, possibly once they believe their KR has earned it. Kaladin was still very conflicted at the end of WoK so Syl may have just wanted him to wait, the Stormfather told Dalinar it was never going to happen, and Shallan had hers for a moment of extreme need.

@Moogle - Do we know the order of events between Desolations begin, Oathpact, Heralds and the first Nahel bond? If Surgebinders cause Desolations that means the order would be something like 'Heralds created -> first Nahel Bond -> Oathpact/Desolations begin' but I was under the impression it went 'Oathpact/Heralds -> Desolations begin -> Nahel bond'

Or what the spren represent (see above theory) but also it's a symbiotic relationship for the spren, the KR get powers and the spren get consciousness and the ability to affect the physical realm. Maybe the spren are getting something else from the relationship, which would be why Mr T would want to avoid having the KR reform.

Possible secrets: The Heralds gave up "Our bosses gave up on this battle between good and evil. Well I guess we should too. Oh and kill our spren partners in the process." Just doesn't fit. Honor is dead This could work, "Honor is dead therefore we have already lost so what's the point of continuing. The spren have known this for a while and never said anything so screw them." However it depends a lot on when Honor died and besides, Dalinar knows. Honor/Cultivation started/are the cause of the cycle Desolations, not Odium This is something I have wondered about and has a certain appeal. Everyone knows that the reason for these horrendous Desolations is the big bad guy named after hate and the good guys are obviously Honor & Cultivation, right? Right? The reverse has a Job'ish feel, especially with the damnation the heralds experience. Except the Heralds gave in and the KR when they learned of it threw away their gifts, including the spren who are of Honor & Cultivation. I mean, the Last Desolation had already been won, so why keep the 'tainted' gifts of the gods that caused all that suffering? Then we get the Hierocracy where people are taught to follow the priests, not the Almighty because the Almighty turned out to be a dirtbag but you can't just tell everyone that. Need to think about this some more. EDIT: "wicked thing of eminence" Eminence can refer to an important person and can also be used as a title. What if the wicked thing of eminence refers to something that Honor did? We see through Szeth that people can do some really horrendous things in the name of 'honor'

Her mother had red hair which is associated with Horneater/mixed ancestry. Adolin was also quite smitten with Shallan's hair color because of how rare it was, if there were redheads in the Kholin family it's unlikely he would have found it so novel. Who she is is still a great question though. Jasnah knew of her and she recognized what Shallan was at a very early age. She could of been from a distant branch of the Kholin family, which is why Jasnah agreed to Shallan's petition for wardship and another reason why she agreed to send them money and help them out.

@Delightful - LOL great catch!

At his most intelligent, Tarvangian does show some hubris in believing he can predict near everything. But there will be aberrations. The Diagram reminds me of Asimov's Foundation series and the Seldon Plan. It used history, mathematics & sociology to predict future events and was extremely accurate...until the Mule, an aberration that couldn't be predicted almost destroyed it. Either he is deliberately ignoring them because they are impossible to predict or he doesn't think them possible.

It sounds like the killing of Honor was direct. According to the Stormfather:

"First, why does the amount of time between highstorms differ?" There is a slight reference to this towards the end of WoR So the speed of the highstorm is theorized to be affected by the time of year by inworld scholars. This makes sense as it means highstorms are slightly affected by regular weather and pressure systems as it traverses the globe. When Dalinar speaks to the Stormfather (~page 1069) he is told that the everstorm will come "Regularly, like highstorms, though less frequent." So it is not moving as quickly. As for your second question, he's a large splinter of a shard and the highstorm is his embodiment so him having some level of control over highstorms, when he chooses, makes sense. I think the bigger questions are why no highstorms during the weeping? And why every other year is there no highstorm in the middle of the weeping? Is the weeping related to the Stormfather seeing Odium murder Honor?

Is Szeth a coward? Absolutely. First he refuses to stand up for his convictions that the voidbringers have returned. Then add doing things he knows to be wrong as a form of punishment, because you know, others should pay for his mistakes. People may call that honor but it is also cowardice when you use it as a shield to hide behind doing things you absolutely know to be wrong. Tack on blaming his victims for not being able to kill him so he can justify murdering them to himself. Whats that the mark of? A coward. When he knew that the Radiants had returned he let Taravangian talk him out of it. Why? He said it himself, "It would mean he had killed for no reason." (~page 709) Reread his interaction with Taravangian (~page 910-912) He wanted to be convinced he hadn't met a Radiant. He learned the Emperor was dead and instead of taking responsibility for his actions he convinced himself the Emperor was still alive so he didn't have to. Why? Because he's a coward. At the very end when he fought Kaladin and there was no way for him to hide behind his self justifying lies any longer did he surrender? Did he turn himself in? No, he nodded when Kaladin called him a coward and then let Kal kill him so he wouldn't have to live with what he had done. And once he was brought back? "He immediately squeezed (his eyes) closed again. 'No. I died. I died!'" & "I don't want to study, I want to be dead." (~page 1062-1063) Death was preferable to facing the knowledge of what he had done. It will be interesting in book 3 to see if he faces up to his past actions or he continues to be a coward and hides behind the vengeance and being "reborn" that Nin/Nalan offers him. *Page numbers are approximate, I'm using Kindle for PC to get the quotes so they might be off by a page or 2 Edit: line breaks didn't go through

To me, Zahel/Vasher is an easter egg. Same with the perfect pitch reference. Szeth wielding Nightblood is very different as Szeth is going to be the main viewpoint of book 3 so it will be interesting to see how that is handled. Until then I am reserving judgement. Same with Hoid/Wit and the epigraphs. People not Cosmere aware are going to have tons of questions about this guy which hopefully will be somewhat answered in future books without having to read everything else. As someone else who wasn't a huge fan of Elantris either it's very impressive how much BS has grown as a writer over the last 9 years. He has a WoK excerpt of a very early draft (from early 2000's I think) on his website and it's amazing how much better the writing and story is now.

So Kaladin got some Stormlight as he was falling which was able to heal his (ridiculously fatal) wounds. The scream seems directly related to the Stormlight. Did he force Stormlight through her or did she give him Stormlight? Either way the effect on Syl was very bad. As he wakes he hears "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" written in Stormfather text which could be interpreted either way.

Think back to what Kaladin was able to do with a spear at the end of WoK and in the WoR duel against multiple shard bearers, all before saying the 3rd ideal and without a shardblade. In the duel he even lost the spear and fought with a gauntlet on his hand. Szeth has more experience with Lashings but Kaladin is plenty skilled when it comes to fighting so I think he could of won all the fights Szeth won in WoK. As for the duel between the two, the ability to heal shardblade wounds and a shape shifting Syl responding instinctively to his needs was what gave him an edge over Szeth's experience. And as Gloom pointed out, Syl is much more experienced flying.

Odd thought, what if Dreder is the name of a group? "The people my mother knew...Dreder..." It's not plural so she could just be specifying an individual out of all the people her mother knew. She could also be saying that Dreder was an individual in a group her mother knew and Shallan wishes none of them had come to the house. Remember too that Jasnah had heard of Shallan's mother and that there is a WoB that Shallan's mother was a person of some importance.

I think this comes from looking at the chart, the secondary divine attribute of each order is related to the primary divine attribute of the next order. Some of them are stretches (Giving->Creative, Resourceful->Pious) but others are closely related (Guiding->Protecting, Confident->Brave, Honest->Wise, Obedient->Loving, etc) It could also very easily be reading too much into it.

Adolin is also big on fashion, to the point where he recognizes what others are wearing and reads fashion magazines.

So there seems to be some connection to the people her mother knew and her mother's feelings about her. This Dreder came to the house to help confront her father about Shallan. So who was he? We never hear anything else about him except he was supposedly her mother's lover. Noone comes looking for him or seeking vengeance on his behalf.