RShara

Well, Syl was unconscious at the time of the Recreance, and doesn't seem to have close ties with the ones that were lost. The Stormfather was really pissed about the Recreance. He tried to prevent Syl from crossing and sent the highstorm to clash with the Everstorm. Syl says about him:

They definitely saw Honor's Perpendicularity forming around them. And yes, I know I quoted your words. I was responding to them, that's why I was quoting As Striker said, the Nightwatcher changed Lift. She exists partially in the Cognitive Realm, more so than normal people. That's why she can touch Wyndle.

Connection and Identity are two of the basic building blocks of the Cosmere, along with things like Fortune and Determination. That's why they're capitalized. They can be stored in metalminds, for instance. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Feruchemy#Spiritual Sorry, but they don't imply anything other than what they are--aspects of a person's Spiritual component. Their Connection and Identity was stolen from them. The Everstorm filled in the tears and allowed them to access their selves again. This is a Spiritual Realm thing, not a Physical Realm thing. Gemhearts are related to the Spiritual Realm, but are not in or of the Spiritual Realm. Connection and Identity are of the Spiritual aspect of a person, and that was the part that was damaged and restored with Odium's Investiture. BAM's Connection and manipulation of the Singers' Spiritweb (including their spiritual Identity) allowed them the forms of power. When she was imprisoned, she took all that with her. Having investiture that's part of you torn away causes damage. Like when a KR breaks his oaths, ripping away the area of the Spiritweb where they're bonded damages the spren to the point of bare sentience. The same thing happened, to a slightly lesser degree, to the Singers. They were bonded to BAM, drawing voidlight from her. When she was imprisoned, she was ripped away from them, and took parts of their souls with her, making them lose the ability to bond spren or even attain much in the way of sapience. It took the Listeners centuries or even millennia to figure out anything more than dullform and mateform, and they actually had intelligence and motive. With no intelligence to speak of, the parshmen would have no way of figuring out or accessing any of the other forms. And again, both Listeners and parshmen are distressed when someone messes with their dead. It stands to reason that it's because they both revered their dead before their cultural split, rather than they both ended up revering their dead for two separate reasons. Also, just because they are distressed, doesn't mean that the Alethi and others didn't actually dissect them to look for gemhearts. We know they did this to Parshendi.

Or he was an unbonded spren at the time of the Recreance. Spren don't really die, unless their Radiant breaks their oaths (and even then can be revived by the Radiant, and possibly-maybe by other people). Don't forget Ico's father is a deadeye, and it doesn't sound like Ico had ever bonded a Radiant. Edit: Sorry, did you MEAN an unbonded Radiant spren at the time of the Recreance? I thought you meant he was a KR spren that was bonded, and survived the Recreance. If you meant the former, then yeah--there are a number of spren still alive that were around during the Recreance.

Sorry but there is absolutely a Perpendicularity in the Horneater Peaks. It's stationary, so it can't be Honor's. Cultivation's perpendicularity doesn't move around, only Honor's does. Azure calls the Perpendicularity, "Cultivation's Perpendicularity." Ico calls it that. Pattern calls it that. Notum calls it that. Also, Kaladin and Adolin and the others were in Thaylenah at the same time Lift was. They didn't see any perpendicularity or any particular extra power or surprises (other than the number of voidspren) while they were in Shadesmar. The only time we've had a person appear out of no where was Rock's story in WoK about their trickster god...appearing out of a pool...in the Horneater Peaks.

The Parshendi have gemhearts. The parshmen have gemhearts. The capture of BAM deprived the parshmen, who were linked to her at the time, of part of their spiritweb or cognitive self, and prevent them from being able to transform. The Everstorm healed that split in their minds/spirit and allowed them to transform again. Syl says this explicitly in OB: Note the capitalized words. Connection refounded, Identity restored. Their Connection to the rest of their minds, their Identity as *themselves* was ripped away. There's also the bits about physiological changes, the capturing of BAM, and the unlikelihood of two groups originating from the same culture arriving at a similar belief for independent and separate reasons. A final note: There has not been a single case of a creature with a gemheart surviving once that gemheart has been removed. It's never been inferred, implied, stated or alluded to. While this isn't proof of absence, it does make it very unlikely that they can survive without their gemhearts.

Aesudan died. We don't know what happened to her. Amaram turned into a giant crystal. He had crystals growing out of his face and arms and legs. And his chest turned into a giant crystal. Yes...it definitely affected his physiology. I'm referring to this quote Also this quote from the Prologue of OB: It seems whatever he did (I don't know why I keep calling him her), one of the unintended side effects created the parshmen. I don't see how, whatever he did, could have made their gemhearts disappear. And even if they did disappear, I would guess it'd cause some physiological issues. We don't know what else is involved in having a gemheart, what organs, blood vessels, nerves, ligaments, etc etc, are connected to them (if any). Assuming that a fairly important organ being removed is without side-effects is a rather large leap, imo. Dullform has a spren. Slaveform has no spren. The parsmen are in slaveform, not dullform. This wouldn't explain why both the parshmen and the Parshendi hate it when the bodies of their dead are moved. The PoVs we get from the Parshendi don't imply that this resistance is new or due to the humans. The Parshendi and the parshmen didn't know of each others' existence until just a few years ago. The same (original) culture separated by a couple thousand years, arriving at an identical reverence for their dead for entirely different reasons is improbable at best. Also, when would the Parshendi have dissected a parshman to know that it didn't have a gemheart? The Listeners, aka the Lost Legion, fled the fight before Melishi did his thing, so they would have no idea what happened to them or that they didn't have gemhearts.

"Courted" could mean a couple of things. Courted the political connection, courted the alliance, courted the possibility of Shardplate. It doesn't need to mean romantically courted. However, Evi does seem quite fond of Dalinar when we see her, so there must have been SOME romance involved. Yes, Maya is a cultivationspren, same as Wyndle, and would have been bonded to an Edgedancer.

I'm sorry, but that drastic a change in physiology would cause a number of problems. Also, how do you solve the problem of what Melishi did to remove their minds? That she somehow made all their gemhearts disappear? This would again cause a distinctive physiological set of problems aside from them losing their mental abilities. I think you're assigning too high a degree of sapience to the parshmen. They would first have to realize that they didn't have gemhearts, then realize that examining the innards would result in noticing a difference, and then realize it would be detrimental to them (which I'm not sure of). Also, no one knew of the Parshendi at all until about 6 or 7 years ago, so what motivation would they have had to fear this "discovery" before then? Parshmen have been opposed (not violently, they didn't have the ability to be violent) to having their corpses touched for ages.

Then how did the parshmen regain their minds in the Everstorm? I don't think they spontaneously grew a gemheart. No, I think the disconnect involved their Spiritweb or their Cognitive Mind having a barrier between it and their Physical body, similar to the difference between Mistwraiths and Kandra.

There's a thread about this right above yours.

I think we'll need to ask Brandon to clarify that, because Denth should predate the Idrian royal family.

Because perception. The Returned of Lightsong's day don't realize they can change their appearance, or that they are shaped to look how they *think* they should look. Since they don't know that they can change it, and don't try, they essentially can't.

The Heralds couldn't have been guarding the shardpool, because they were being tortured

He's not Vo. Vo predates the 5 scholars by several hundred years, and I think Vasher would have said something. All of the Returned can change their shape and when they don't concentrate, they default to various forms. If you look closely, at one point in Warbreaker (I think, possibly WoR), Vasher almost loses control and gets bigger.

Nightblood kinda likes everybody unless he's destroying them at the time.

The thing is, Cultivation loved Tanavast, and Odium killed him. So her being okay with a spren that's part Odium, to the point of considering it her child, and letting it call her Mother seems unlikely. Here is that WoB. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/64-firefight-phoenix-signing/#e898 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/62-firefight-seattle-public-library-signing/#e3077

Yeah, she's Awakening her cloak to help her in the battle.

I got it written up just for you. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/314-salt-lake-city-signing/#e8904

Zahel and Vivenna both use color metaphors. Zahel is playing the game that Lightsong keeps winning (even though he doesn't know the rules) when you first encounter him. He also mentions hoow he hasn't had someone talking in his head for a long while. The physical description also matches. Vinenna's Shardblade drains color, she has the crew in Shadesmar cut pieces of cloth into human shapes, and her haircolor and face change when she's not paying attention. She also talks about how she was born into a ruling family and ran from her obligations. And she knows Vasher.

While some people may not like Navani for various reasons, I think calling her vapid is quite off base. If nothing else, Navani is very inventive, has quite in-depth knowledge of fabrials and is very intelligent. She certainly challenges current thinking and conventions quite often. I think she might be the one to figure out how Urithiru works, but I agree that I don't think she'd be a very good bondsmith for it. She has too much else to be doing to be stuck at Urithiru.

I think that Cultivation hates Odium enough that the Nightwatcher being a spren of both of them is extremely unlikely. Also, Brandon's said that seeing the future, no matter what way you use, is rather dangerous (WoB isn't up yet, it was at the Dec 16 Sugarhouse signing). As for T seeing the future, it's not confirmed whether he actually foresaw anything, or if his intelligence was high enough to make extremely accurate predictions a la Psychohistory.

But why would he do that? She's happy and her story is done. Doing that seems super disrespectful.

Brandon has confirmed that humans went from Ashyn to Roshar. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/174-oathbringer-portland-signing/#e8243 It was Kaladin just before Szeth came for Dalinar in WoR:

Sorry, Vin is dead and not coming back. That was made pretty clear--she doesn't WANT to come back.