Aleksiel

Welcome to the forum! Roion fell eventually: I don't think he had a Blade: A good question nonetheless

Elantris spoiler: Considering what happened last time he did that, panicking might be the appropriate reaction It doesn't look like the Radiants abandoned the city in haste, so either someone left something on purpose, forgot it there or was left by a dead Radiant that no one had the mind to recover. Or even just the protective system of Urithiru or another installed mechanism would be a significant discovery. And there's the possibility it could be something Szeth left there - may be his own research or thoughts, he can write after all and we know he visited Urithiru enough times that the people in nearby villages started leaving infused spheres for him.

I imagine the comment was based on remaining legends, Jasnah is not the type to make a baseless comment even when being acerbic. Even if there's no cymatic pattern, the fact that Shallan can't draw the city remains unusual and suspicious.

Based on Dalinar's visions Shardplate worked differently - from glowing to being summoned and dismissed at will (at least parts of it, but I'd hazard this applied to the whole Plate). Most information about the Voidbringers is lost, a copy of a copy or a folklore leftover. Chasmfiends too were described as Voidbringers and Jasnah dismissed it. We don't have complete and reliable sources and don't know how many types of voidbringers are there. Honor didn't seem to think it was important enough to explain any of this in his visions This was answered above, it is because they lied. There are some WoB (Word of Brandon) about this - they would trigger a new Desolation if they remain on Roshar, so they had to go to Damnation (apparently only Taln being there was acceptable, could be related to the rest forfeiting their heraldic roles). I think there was also another how a Desolation starts when one of them breaks under the torture. We don't know more yet. He sees spren in the mirror, it could be Cryptic, it could be something else. That last possibility aside, Cryptics are about self-awareness. Elhokar lies to himself he is a good king and slowly realizes he isn't, which could be a powerful truth. Welcome to the forum! Ask if there's anything else

Good, good. One love triangle isn't enough, we'll add this to Pattolin and slowly the ultimate love dodecahedron will unravel

Kabsal's answer was 'Urithiru is a myth', so he didn't deny the alleged existence of a particular pattern, though I guess you could argue if he didn't believe the city existed then it nullifies the need to provide cymatic evidence for its shape. However, I doubt Jasnah would have brought it up if there was no pattern similar to those he presented, otherwise it would not be a relevant argument and she wouldn't make that mistake. It's a valid question and it depends on what they wanted to achieve - may be the KR didn't want to get questioned or raise suspicious if they outright closed the city and the Oathgates to non-surgebinders, may be they thought the would fix it in time and preferred to simply reduce the traffic until they handled it only to later realize they couldn't fix what was happening. We don't know if non-surgebinders can close Oathgates (I'm inclined to think they can't) and they certainly can't open it. I find it unlikely Radiants would allow a foreign army to use Oathgates to invade another country. An event like this would be so outrageous I'd hazard it would have made it into the accounts we read of just how allegedly corrupt and traitorous they were. I don't lean towards en entity like the Unmade, but the city itself, which I admit sounds odd when you first hear it. My suggestion is the protective system was corrupted and has turned against those who inhibit the city, thus no Unmade lurking around the corner like a basilisk. Yes, I agree Shallan is the likeliest person to figure it out. We were reminded in OB that she's looking for information hidden in Urithiru (stated several times throughout WoR), thus the reader's expectations are set that she will make a discovery, and she is the one thinking something is off with the place.

During my re-read of WoK, I noticed some things about Urithiru I hadn’t paid attention to before or didn’t see in the same light as I do now. I want to give a shout-out to @Calderis for being the first one to suggest there is something wrong with present day Urithiru. Note the following quotes from WoK: Urithiru is supposed to have a pattern, but in OB Shallan cannot see it, she can't really draw to city. Could it be like the Shattered plains, a problem of scale? Or is it connected to the darkness she feels? I suggest it due to the corruption of the city that somehow interferes with her abilities. Based on this, I suggest something happened that prodded the Radiants to make ‘unreasonable tariffs’ to discourage non-surgebinders from visiting Urithiru. Whatever it was, it got so bad it eventually forced the Radiants themselves to leave the city. From WoR: If Jasnah is right (we know she tends to be) and Urithiru was holy and protected, it’s unlikely it lost Shardic protection before it was abandoned because Honor was still around. Thus I suggest the very anti-voidbringer protection system somehow backfired. Whatever happened, it corrupted Urithiru itself. It is likely connected to the copycat murders in the present. OB Update: Urithiru was slowly becoming uninhabitable with many of its systems failing: We also learn the city had and lost a protection mechanism against the Unmade: A reason for all of this is not given, but in the same gemlibrary is mentioned the withdraw of the Sibling (Bondsmith spren), however it’s unclear if they are connected to the tower and its failing functions. The entries by the Radiants do not sound like people preparing to abandon their duty. How Urithiru was corrupted and will the new Radiants manage to fix it unlike their predecessors remains to be seen.

I agree about the Envisagers, I wanted to just use them of an example that there are people actively trying to invest. It will be interesting to see how Szeth will manage it.

Thanks for the clarification. We know of at least one group that tried purposely. The Envisagers knew a little about surgebinding, granted their approach was terrible. Teft never mentions being told of something like what you suggest and Lopen was trying to imitate Kal, thus I doubt no one is thousands of years has ever tried to use stormlight while being spiritually broken. I remain of the opinion if it was possible, it would have been done already leaving significant folklore and legends, however I admit I can't offer an alternative explanation of the WoB about Szeth.

Surgebibders stumble into it, they don't even know what they do, so I don't see why non-surgebinders would need to actively try. I'm skeptical because we haven't heard any stories about the Almighty mysteriously curing people and the like that you could expect if it was possible. The only thing that comes close is how wind spren could allegedly catch someone falling, but that's not conclusive. It could be explained with people unknowingly inhaling enough stormlight to survive then saying it was the spren and it could be just folklore. If investing was possible for non-surgebinders, it should have been experienced by countless people from the day humanity came to Roshar until present day, thus it would have created much more than a tale or two. It's something it would be reasonably to expect to still happen once in a while, yet I can't say we've learned about any notable myths or rumors.

Nah, I meant Brightness Radiant, though I doubt the cover has in-depth meaning if the previous Kindle covers are any guide.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been broken spiritually since the Recreance, yet we haven't been introduced to stories about people investing except for surgebinders and holders of Honorblades.

Or Radiant.

If someone's dinner goes missing, too, we'll know who's the culprit

This is how I see it, too. However, Urithiru wasn't built by Honor, but close:

Dalinar thought it was about the Highprinces, I thought it was about the surgebinders: There are many things Honor could have explained and they would have been invaluable. Even the very basic thing that the receiver can interact with the people in the vision, but not with him. He didn't explain who Cultivation was when he spoke of her. This was terribly unhelpful of someone who has seen time and time again just how much humanity forgets after Desolation. Not mentioning the parshmen is the least of it in my opinion and I'm skeptical it means much, just another valuable piece of information Honor did not include in his frustratingly vague visions.

Not to Dalinar. Honor should have known better, there was much more information he could have shared, but when you think about it his visions aren't much of a guide. I would have thought a being of such immense power could have mentioned a few more things in a clearer manner. So overall I would not be surprised the danger from parshendi was one of the many things Honor just didn't include for whatever reason. After all he gave little to no information on the voidbringers. May be something prevented him from sharing more, like his Shard intent or an Oath he had to keep.

Honor could have been straightforward what exactly he wanted the receiver of his visions to unite, but instead he was ambiguous and surprisingly unhelpful.

Can we expect the minds of the Heralds to be fixed similarly to what happened to the parshmen?

How do you explain Dalinar remembering both wives simultaneously? He recovered memory of Evi suddenly, shouldn't he forget Navani at once?

Because if the BS have a way to change things in the SR and the Nightwatcher works in the SR, then it is fitting that a BS could undo a curse/boon.

Shouldn't Urithiru be safe from the enemy and thus the Unmade? Otherwise they would have been easily defeated I imagine. Only Rlain has some loose connection, but he wasn't exactly caught in the everstorm.

Mmm, Szeth couldn't heal himself from shardblade wound the way Kal did it, so it's not entirely Cognitive, it has Spiritual element and requires a certain level of bonding to investiture (for the lack of a better phrase to express myself, I hope it's understandable). Even if I'm wrong or not explaining it well, the perception argument is a tricky y one - Ym didn't heal vision, but Renarin did, so Dalinar might not perceive himself with eternally crippled memory. But I doubt it's about perception, otherwise Lift probably would have cured herself out of the ability to digest stormlight. Bondsmiths seem to have been able to manipulate the spiritual web of the parshendi and Ishar might have had the power to do that to the surgebinders at large based on a possible interpretation of these two epigraphs: So this could be some BS Spiritual perk.

The Occam's razor is the amount of stromlight - he previously inhaled just one sphere much like Lopen when his arm started growing a little, but did not regrow in full. Here Dalinar inhaled much more stormlight, thus allowing for healing his memory in full.

It's a possibility, however I'm not convinced Dalinar has previously inhaled enough stormlight to heal his memory - Lopen didn't grow his arm from one sphere, but a little. Kaladin used plenty of light to heal his shardblade cut hand and Lift was exhausted by how much it took to revive Gawx. The simplest explanation is the larger amount of stormlight used in the scene.