Aether

Remember that this was three different authors brain-storming for a story. They all had different takes on the story; the space travel one was [the other male's] idea. Brandon kept wanting to make the setting more, um, fantasy-y.

O_o. A bit crackpot, maybe, but really interesting! Still, I think we need to somehow trick Brandon into answering some of this to know for sure, though.

They do use crem as a fertilizer, at least on Lavis Polyp farms. Presumably, most plants use crem as a source of nutrients, not just cremlings. EDIT: capitalisation run amok.

If a lover or any of his family was alive at this point, it seems reasonable that he would have given them the same choice that he gave his companions and Kwaan (id est becoming Kandra as an alternative to Mistwraith or dying). That isn't to say he might not have named Luthadel after any of them.

Relax, I was just surprised that it was pointed out in the first place. But you make a good point. I shall aspire to use spoiler tags for such things in the future.

Actually, "titbit" is how it is supposed to be spelled. It is only because of the dainty Americans and their tendency of seeing sexuality and fornication everywhere that it was changed to "tidbit" in the first place. Most British still spell it in the former way. I thought Lirin was only referring to darkeyes winning Blades in the first place? could you provide the quote? Also, what bartbug said. We have no idea how Heralds fit into this. They might just be the exception.

I am not sure what you mean by this. From what I've understood, Splinters achieve sentience directly from the fact that they incorporate high amounts of Investiture. Now, that isn't to say that this would be the case also for a full-blown shard amount of Investiture - which does not seem to be the case - but I am curious as to why this is. You're basically asking the same question as I just did. Just substitute "personality" with "sentience". Now you're talkin'! But you only end up addressing the conundrum from the other end. If Shards can't develop personality because they lost something essential when Adonalsium was shattered, why can Splinters do so?

Technically, Stormlight is just an easy reachable form of Investiture for the Rosharans. They could presumably use other forms of Investiture if they had them available (which is what Lift does. Even though they say she metabolises food into Stormlight, I think it would be more correct that she metabolises the innate Investiture of her food).

I was under the impression that spoilertags wasn't needed for the Cosmere-theories sub-forum. The chapter is publicly available.

What I want to know is why Splinters of a Shard seems to be able to develop sentience while the Shards themselves do not.

Elendel was named after Elend to honour his memory. I think you could easily look at it the other way around and claim that they just used the "-del" or "-el" suffix to copy the old standard. Of course, Luthadel might have been named for someone, but it could just as easily just be a name, or have been named after something rather than someone. But it would be interesting to ask Brandon about this.

First of all, amazing how much discussion there's been around two simple facts: whether or not "shard-severed" limbs rot or not and whether or not this would be generally known. Otherwise, just dropping in for two small additional titbits: First of all, while Brandon himself does believe there are absolute moral values, he is also somewhat of an eccentric case. He is aware that not everyone holds the same belief on morals as himself, and in those very same Annotations, he several times over states that his books is not about depicting his own moral standard. They are obviously influenced by them, but not consciously. So while his characters themselves might hold one particular view or another on absolute moral values, his worlds in themselves doesn't necessarily have them. For him, it is more about presenting moral conundrums and then make the readers (and his characters) make up their own minds. Secondly, how does it not seem to be the case? True, winning a killing a Shardbearer without Shards yourself is somewhat of a rare event, but little seems to suggest that people doesn't become Lighteyes when they pick up Shards (at least Shardblades). The descendants of the darkeyes that picked up the Shards after the Recreance seems all to be Lighteyes, the fact that Szeth's eyes change back when he dismisses his Blade is a known exception, and Hoid even hints to the fact that there is (originally) a good reason for Lighteyes being in charge in the first place.

Actually, Aharietiam, the last desolation where the Oathpact was broken, was the last Desolation and happened way after the Lifetime of Nohadon. In Dalinar's vision (chapter 60, you can read it for yourself), he can directly see the aftermatch of a Desolation, and the man presumed to be Nohadon talks about it as well. He muses upon the fact that they are never ready for a Desolation - in fact, it seems to be going worse and worse for humanity - and wants to find a solution to it. This solution is assumed to be the establishing of the Knights Radiant. In the vision, Nohadon refers to Surgebinders, but not KRs. It is also well known that "The Way of Kings" was central to the teachings of the KR, but was not written before the end of Nohadon's life. We can quite safely draw the conclusion that Nohadon heavily influenced the creation of the Knights Radiant - if not establishing them himself.

Who's Lutha? Sound like a reasonable conjecture, even though I always assumed it was her right ear, for some reason.

And if the Nightwatcher really is Cultivation (though it is largely assumed that he/she is), there is little reason to think she would need Stormlight at all to perform her "magic".

EDIT: added spoiler tags.

I don't think he did anything to Hemalurgy, nor that he would have wanted to change it. Only a selected few knew of it prior to Sazed's ascension, and they didn't know the specifics they would have had to known to make it work (where to place the spikes, etc.). Nowadays,most likely no one except the Kandra is around that knows about it, neither is Ruin around to manipulate people into using it, so Harmony would have little inclination to do anything about it, even if he could.

I find it more likely that the Shattered Plains was destroyed by something else. Especially considering the very few quotes we have about Urithiru. Someone around here suggested that Honour's Shardpool might have been located in Old Natanatan, and that it was the Shattering of his shard that made the plains.

Could you provide the quote?

Wow. NIce work, Kurkistan.

This seems like a bit of a stretch. We aren't even sure if Urithiru is corporal or not, so you have no reason to assume it is made of stone. Stormlight is also sacred, according to Szeth. By your logic, couldn't Urithiru also be made out of Stormlight, and that Szeth could expelled for having used some of it up?

[Out of game] I somehow just assumed you meant his own Interlude. He has proclaimed he might have to go to the Shattered Plains, so there's a chance we might see him there at some point[/out of game] Sell. I think it is just a tad too early. Book three might be it, though. Joshin Yomen and Mi'chelle Ostlin will turn out to be Worldhoppers (how else is Hoid suppose to know them personally).

Well, you're basically making my argument from my first posts on this thread. I agree, it was probably not Stormlight that pushed them back, but a hitherto unknown application of the Pressure Surge (fuelled by Stormlight, mind you), thereby my "Pressure Surge = Force Push" hypothesis. And in the spirit of reiterating past arguments, it would make sense too, for the Windrunners to have this ability. In-universe, they seem to make up what would be the KR Shock-Troopers - the avant-guarde - meant to run ahead the main body of an army to disrupt enemy lines. What better way for them to do this than randomly dropping from the sky and just shoving back every uninvested enemy trooper around them? ODSTs can go and cry silently in a corned somewhere - they are severely outclassed.

It should also be said that Harmony changed how snapping worked, but he couldn't get rid of it entirely. It does seem to support the hypothesis that they can make some changes, but not fundamental ones.

I didn't say the splintering of Honour wasn't problematic - far from it. I was merely suggesting that the Splintering didn't necessarily result in a huge boom in the Honourspren population, just Spren in general. Quite possibly it manifested in other unknown ways too, such as making the Highstorms stronger or something. Also, we don't know that what we call Honourspren is the only form of Spren that are only of Honour. We don't even know if they are only of Honour in the first place. It could be safely assumed, sure, but apart from what the name suggests, we don't really know much about its composition. And please refrain from name-calling. My arguments aren't "lazy", and even if they were, it is not your place to say so. EDIT: Removed the last sentence, as per next post.