Darkness

I wonder what would happen if we just spiked the whole planet...

my wife and i were kind of playing with the idea that if Eshonai gets locked in a room with nightblood, she would be drawn and pick him up and he would consume the voidspren, and then she would throw him away in revulsion... Instafix.

The Adolin PoV seems to me more like he was remembering a short tidbit about his past, and then using that to highlight a present situation, more than a true 'flashback' chapter. I would call Dalinar's vision an 'Honor flashback sequence' before I called this snippet 'Adolin's flashback'. but hey, that's just how I reddit

that's right! We cant just spike the birds, we have to get to the worms! Maybe if we built a mini fragmentation spikenade into the cookies...

Too bad Adolin is so honorable. He could have kept Oathbringer and said Sadeas pulled it on him and tried to kill him.

how about ezra miller as Hoid?

But do birds even like baked goods? How do we get them to eat the cookies?

After such an impressive Title, I feel that you deserve an explanation. Now we know who the focuses of many of our books will be: (in no particular order) Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Szeth, Eshonai, Jasnah, Lift, Shalash, Renarin, Taln. So let's have some fun speculating about the possible titles of the future books! Remember that the Way of Kings doesn't really have to do with Windrunning or Kaladin (Jezrien is the kingly Herald? Getting to know the courtly intrigues?), Words of Radiance is more related to Radiant-ing in general, but could be focused to Shallan and Lightweaving specifically, and Oathbringer is Dalinar's sword. All in all, the titles probably have to do more with the plot arch than the flashback characters, but hey why not have some fun?! You'll notice that I'm completely ignoring the whole 'titles of in-world books' thing, because a. we don't know the titles of many important or historical Rosharan books, and b. they still need to be thematically appropriate in some way. Kaladin - The Way of Kings Shallan - Words of Radiance Dalinar - Oathbringer Szeth - Stones Unhallowed is still my favorite, but maybe The Doctrines of Faith or The Broken Soul. (for the worst part of the coming desolation, trials, and struggles) Eshonai - Discovery's Call or Resurgence. (for humanity and parshendi coming back into the light) Jasnah - A Tomb of Knowledge or Elsecaller. (for picking up the pieces of society after a desolation, and I feel like out of the order names Elsecaller and Skybreaker have the most pizzazz lol) Lift - Voidbringer (because Wyndle) Shalash - Effigy of Remembrance Renarin - Afterimage Taln - Return to Braize (kidding). But how about Death's Journey? ok, give me more titles to drool over! Go! Just editing in my favs from you guys I really like Darkness Unclaimed because it works on so many levels from revealing light, to releasing the odiumspren somehow, to Nalan's journey (he's Darkness), and it suits Eshonai. I like most of Gatorgirl's. Those do sound like they could be Archive titles, and the character matching is nice. Not sure about the Arguments though

Maybe its name is Shshshshsh... Mind = Blown.

Bacon... Explains why Stick hesitated...

based on how the stormfather has interacted with Dalinar so far, I would say he has yet to achieve a baseline cordial relationship before he can even hope to influence our favorite grumpy cloudface. The Stormfather is able to refuse Dalinar Shardblade access, so he does retain a not insignificant measure of control even with the Nahel Bond. I really doubt Dalinar will be able to change the Stormfather willfully. More likely to me would be a few other unintended consequences: The bond gives spren an increased presence in the Physical Realm. How would that change the world? Maybe the Stormfather will have a harder time hiding himself from people, like pattern. Maybe the highstorms will be stronger/infuse gems more strongly. Maybe a bigger Connection to the Physical will allow Tanavast's cognitive shadow portion of the Stormfather to come back and play in the world again (ok, that one isn't very likely).

I believe it creates some kind of a 'bridge', or connection for odiumspren to travel from Braize to Roshar.

This is so cool! It's my first time being proven about a crazy theory! I didn't guess how surgebinding led to desolations, but I totally guessed that Nalan believed increased surgebinding would allow odium to begin a desolation!

It could be illuminating to ask Brandon if Szeth would have needed less Stormlight if the stone in the Veden King's wall had been placed recently.

I suddenly feel like the outlier in this thread even though I've long been assuming that I'm in the majority... I may be risking downvotes for saying this here, but it's my opinion: I've never thought of Adolin as any more important or favorable character than say Sigzil, Teft, or Rock. I put him a little above Gaz, but nowhere near Jasnah for example. I only realized that Adolin might have greater meaning to readers after diving deep into 17th shard. Sorry, but that's my view as a big Brandon fan, and my wife (as a more casual reader) seems to agree that he's much less important and less enjoyable to read about than say Renarin or Lift. Please don't kill me for being honest about my opinion just trying to present my understanding of the character.

anyone else think that looks like some dustbringer action raising that massive cloud? I know... I'm reading way too much into it lol

this is why I wanted to post my thought thanks for the great insights! I definitely agree that 4 could be an issue. Perhaps Ishar is the only one that figured out how to do it and didn't share because it's too powerful to spread around, like Khalad's Phantoms, or he's the only one capable of doing it (which means odium waited until now to attack because he no longer considers Ishar a threat). Thus, Melishi might have simply been the first radiant to connect the dots and figure out how to use the bondsmith ability beyond simply making oath levels, etc. 1 is fairly simply answered though... The side effects of the boasting could be dangerous and/or ultimately lethal to the spren. I hope we'll understand more about the mechanism behind 2 as we see more orders, but I think I can rationalize it a bit: First, we haven't seen any squires after the Knight dies, so that's out. Second, Shallan's drawings would likely persist after her death so perhaps the bonds would work in the same way, only needing input during the 'powerup' process. I dont remember nailing down Jasnah's ability offhand... Is it soulcasting at a distance? Or is that something that comes with a surge normally? 3, I think dullform does have an associated spren; they can still hear the rhythms so there is still some kind of connection, it's simply one of the lowest order spren... Maybe confusionspren or something. Slaveform has no music, no soul. I was thinking the parshmen that became parshendi were just lucky enough to be near a spren and bond to it at some point.

Reading across a recent thread on the abilities of Bondsmiths gave me a fun idea, but I didn't want to hijack that thread, so here goes... It seems possible to me that Bondsmiths can strengthen the bond between man and spren. I'm not sure about forging completely new bonds, but at least increasing the power of existing ones. The quote about readily understanding the implications of the surges being granted to men, and binding the radiants to a set of rules and precepts, or else he would destroy them all might in this context be referring to destroying the actual spren, not the knights. We've already seen that a spren's connection with the physical realm is jeopardized when the radiant acts in opposition to their ideals (the spren also seem to undergo cognitive regression if they dont withdraw to shadesmar). Bondsmiths could have been the ones to make the nahel bond so strong that when the radiant acted in opposition to the spren's ideals, the spren would effectively 'die a little'. Alternatively this could be a natural danger of the nahel bond. What I'm really interested in is 'Destroying every last one of them'. If Bondsmiths can strengthen the Nahel bond, perhaps they could make it so strong that when the radiant physically dies, the spren would effectively die with them (note that I'm assuming that spren normally have the capacity to survive the radiants' deaths and continue on to eventually bond another radiant... This is supported by syl remembering other battles and helping other radiants). But if the spren were to be so tied to the radiant that the spren died physically and cognitively when the radiant went beyond, then it could potentially retard or even permanently cease the growth and bonding of surgebinders en masse. Basically it would be a threat to the spren of 'if you let your radiants go bad, I will personally ensure the permanent destruction of all of your kind'. That kind of ability could also go a long way to explain the 'related to the unique abilities of bondsmiths' quote to deal with the voidbringers: Perhaps the bondsmiths found a way to more permanently bind voidspren to their hosts, such that when the host died, that spren was also as good as destroyed (I'm trying to be careful to follow the law of conservation of investiture haha). Once the voidspren saw what was happening, they abandoned the parshendi (making them parshmen) rather than suffer certain doom. Because think about it, even odium is going to pause if all of his spren (and future warmaking ability) can be killed in just one generation, no matter how much devastation he could cause in that relatively short time... The only option would be to wait until all the bondsmiths and their secrets died out, and then try to win before they could rediscover it. There are many other potential ramifications of this ability, but I'm going to leave it at those ones. Additional thought: I've been trying to reconcile 2 things that seem related to me: First, the secret that broke the knights radiant - I find it unlikely that the bondsmith ability would be the sole reason for breaking the knights. Second, the way to resolve the war related to the unique ability of the bondsmiths. I know this is baseless, but I feel like these are connected...

Great, now I have ShardAcupunctureNeedles stuck in my head (no pun intended).

Brandon posted the entire book onto his website for free. Here is the link. http://brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-introduction/ There is a drop-down menu to each chapter of Warbreaker. Forewarning: don't start until you have several hours free

mistborn spoilers we don't really have precedent for a shard wielding a piece of another shard (except harmony I suppose, but that worked because the shards were of fairly equal power, and harmony invested himself to balance it perfectly). I think the closest we have is people wielding shardblades while under the influence of the thrill, which doesnt seem to have any innate interference (perhaps because the spren is mostly dead and the shardbearer isn't invested) but even then, once the bearer is invested a little by honor (ala Dalinar) they get nauseated instead of thrilled - I would guess that's a direct result of honor's investiture clashing with odium's inside the person. so what I'm getting at is, I dont think the physical presence would be as much of a barrier to rayse holding nightblood as establishing a stable interaction between the differing shardic investitures.

pretty sure a shard can manifest his/her body in the physical realm if they want to. They definitely have a body to begin with, and a body definitely appears when a shard dies. I don't think physically wielding nightblood would be an issue for Odium, assuming his body has a hand capable of grabbing a sword (or claw/mouth if he's a dragon).

can we please get "bestfriend" canonized as a term? Right up there with brightlord and dungspren

I do think he heard the screams of dying/severed spren. But there are many reasons he could have heard that... Just off the top of my head: 1. The KR spren had been present enough in the Physical for the scream to be somewhat audible. This could be a function of the type of spren (some are better able to manifest in the Cognitive than others) or even the progression of the kinghts in their oaths, strengthening to sprens' connection to the Physical. 2. Dalinar was present enough in the Cognitive to hear the spren scream (this could be because he's on the path of the proto-radiant, or because he's in the visions and they draw him more fully into the Cognitive. 3. Because the person he replaced in the vision was spren-sensitive (a proto radiant guard?) and Dalinar heard what the guard heard. 4. Honor himself dubbed the voice effect in when he recorded it because he wanted the vision to have greater authenticity and significance for whomever might someday experience it. 5. Something else.

definitely agree. She would still be visible in world as a wind spren during the slave wagon scene, and maybe during battles they could have a little ribbon of wind or something. of course, kaladin does seem a little crazy to some people since he's basically talking to a wind spren in their minds.