Scott

Can you give us a quote or some evidence for this statement?

The force is still around, so I don't think it could be Adonalsium

Mine is to use Electrum to generate a bunch of identical new threads and see which one gets the most replies

BS's writing has so many nuances it's impossible for one person to catch them all I think I've read WoK three times fully, and parts of it many more. I often see new things in the text or remember a detail differently after someone brings up an idea here. It's a fun exercise in attention to detail. It also gets much easier when you have an ebook on every computer you use lol.

I don't think you could get Cryptics to confirm anything that doesn't relate to yourself: The Cryptic doesn't reveal truth or falsehood about Jasnah's soulcaster. It only responds that it needs to know something about Shallan.

This is generally agreed upon as true. Almost all of the visions are things that Honor has witnessed. At least one vision comes after Honor was splintered, where Dalinar and Tanavast stand on a rocky plain and see a massive storm eradicate the land around them. I'm not sure what the consensus is on the Recreance vision being before or after. e/ changed "shattered" to "splintered"

I'm not even sure how you'd blackmail a proto-radiant. It's not like Gaz currently has a position or reputation to protect. If someone was threatening to expose his terrifying powers, I see no reason Gaz wouldn't turn said powers against said blackmailer. Lets pretend, for a moment, that Gaz is a proto-Windrunner. For Lamaril to know he has powers, Gaz would have had to use them at least once, which means he probably knows how to use rudimentary lashings. Lamaril: Gaz, I know your secret. Give me four diamond chips every week or I'll tell everyone. Gaz: Have you ever wanted to fly, Lamaril? Lamaril: Wha....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................................. Gaz: Look everyone, Lamaril has strange powers. See? He's flying. Looks like he doesn't know how to land though, oops.

Here's the quote from Szeth's prelude:

Ah you're right. I skimmed the rest of the thread quickly and thought I saw a certain someone's name. However, it was not the name I thought it was originally

That's a fair point, but Asomdean's fate is only really resolved (more hinted at, anyway) in one of the more recent books. Asmodean died years and years ago, but the loose thread was tied much further into the series.

Welcome to the forums! I'm in Toronto Depends how much you've drunk...

@Shardlet Thanks for the constructive criticism. I agree I've made a few assumptions, but I thought there were good reasons With the lifespren, there are two different location descriptions; "fade into existence around him" and "bobbing around the moss and haspers". I took the second part as describing where the spren were appearing, and the first part as modifiying the location of the moss and haspers to be near Kaladin. In other words, I read it more like this: "Silent green lifespren began to fade into existence around the moss and haspers around him". I could be misinterpreting it. As to defining spren, you're right, we tend to assign labels to things we may not understand very well. However, in some cases spren are defined by things that people do. When Geranid measures the flamespren, it is constrained to that size until she erases the measurement. I made an assumption that their label was accurate based mostly on this. For the bridge/fearspren, I have no good answer. The spren could be appearing from the wood. They could be appearing from the stone under the wood and then having to move through the wood to reach the air. I almost didn't post the theory because of that one (I italicized it so people would notice though). The spren may just emerge from the closest thing physically touching ground of Roshar, and stone is simply the most common material. @Argent Parshendi have exhibited at least one instance of fearspren: Also good points in the rest of your post. I have to think about your comments some more...

I was looking for info about Szeth when I noticed something odd. We see a lot of spren, but there are only a dozen or so explicit mentions of how spren appear. While searching through the novel for them I noticed a pattern. Here are all of the instances where spren are appearing that also include how the spren is appearing. I've bolded the method in each case. We see two broadly different types of spren; spren that represent emotions and spren that represent concepts or things. Almost all of the emotionspren seem to come directly out of the stone (ground, walls, or masonry), or out of something sitting directly on the stone as in the case of the fearspren in chapter 6 crawling from the bridge. The only exception here is the gloryspren, which are said to "pop into existance" or "wink into the air". The third gloryspren instance is "sprouted around him", which could mean either coming out of the ground or just appearing out of the air. In contrast, the lifespren and rainspren appear out of or nearby the things they represent; the rainspren sprouts out of a puddle, and the lifespren fades into existance beside a plant. There are many mentions of creationspren, musicspren, etc, that don't explicitly say where they're coming from but I believe they're in this second catagory. They represent things. The second catagory makes sense; if Spren represent things, they appear near said things. It works. The emotional spren, on the other hand, confuse me. Why do all but the gloryspren manifest themselves in stone before appearing? After some thought, I may have an answer. "Glory" isn't really an emotion at all, but something attributed to a person, group, or event by others. You feel pain, anger, fear, and anticipation. You would also feel pride and satisfaction in victory. However, you wouldn't walk up to someone on the bus and say "I feel glory-full today". They'd look at you funny and edge backwards. If glory is a thing rather than emotion, then we have a pattern. And so, I present the following theoryspren: Emotionspren emerge from stone. Thingspren (for lack of a better word) emerge around the things they're drawn by.

Debatable whether it's subconcious or intentional. Quote below makes it seem like he's doing it without noticing, but I think you could argue either way.

Szeth is using the surges of Gravity and Pressure, so I figure he should still be referred to as a Surgebinder.

I liked it a lot too. Pretty good read.

Jealousy?

Very intriguing! Are any objects truly self aware? The goblet that Shallan soulcasts seems to know what it is, and is able to communicate in Shadesmar. "I've been as I am for a great long time, the warm voice said. I sleep so much. I will change. Give me what you have" I'd extrapolate that a rock can have the same conversation given that Jasnah soulcast one on screen. A planet is merely a much larger rock, with a larger variety of components.

Maybe if they put them both together they'd get the shard Dominatrix...

I think the majority of Darkeyes wouldn't get much of a trial, especially when up against the word of a lighteyes, but I think the higher ranking ones have that right. Lirin tells Roshone something like "I'd win a judgement and you know it" when discussing the spheres. Don't have the book handy, so can't look for the exact quote.

Why would it be risky? Szeth was given a list of targets by an anonymous figure that held his Oathstone. He went out and killed them all. Only at the end of the list did he (and we) find out that Taravangian was behind it. His orders were to commit the murders brutally, in public, and to continue wearing white. The point clearly seems to be to make people connect these murders with the assassination of Gavilar. If Szeth is captured, he can't give up any information he doesn't know. He can only divulge the contents of the list. I think that Nalan ignored Szeth's surgebinding, and continues to ignore it, because it doesn't result for a bonded spren. Nalan is only hunting surgebinders with a bond. He was at the Alethi palace during Gavilar's assassination. If he wanted to kill Szeth, he would have done so.

I don't think so. As per WOB, Endowment is the Shard and the Shardholder all at once. Endowment can distribute her power freely according to the intent of her Shard, and even if you could gather all of the endowed power in one place, it wouldn't let you replace her. I think the most you could become is a Sliver.

He was one of the people Vin was told to talk to. Vin felt the situation was wrong, and didn't follow through with the meeting.

You mean like every other proto-radiant we've seen so far? Jasnah arguably has had her powers the longest (from the prologue reading in WoR), she's already labelled a Heretic and is one of the most powerful women in Roshar, yet she hides her powers behind a fake soulcaster. Kaladin has only shown his Bridgemen, but that was unavoidable since they're the ones who exposed his powers (Teft). He hides it from everyone else. Plus the surgebinders from the Steelhunt readings. Both disguised their power use or avoided it around other people when they could. e/ also, Renarin knows Dalinar has been having visions from the Almighty himself, which smacks heavily of prophesy and therefor heresy. Dalinar has talked to his family about his visions of the Radiants, and how they were good people. If Renarin has a Radiant bonding spren and has his powers already, who could possibly be a better person to tell than Dalinar? If Renarin already has his powers (which I doubt), then I'd be putting my money on a non-Radiant bond.

I for one don't think Taln will find it hard to convince people. I'm sure he has all sorts of fun things he can do, especially since he still has his Honorblade. I also find it unlikely that someone could keep his Honorblade away from him against his will, and if he has his Blade no cell could hold him. It's stated that they're weapons of power even beyond Shardblades. You'd think Tanavast would have built in a call-home mechanism.