Ari

Good to know, I got dinged by someone a bit back for mentioning the existing of Liar of Partinel's sample and that it was relevant to Hoid. He can be a non-timelord that can reincarnate as a new person somehow, however, so whether someone is a timelord is kinda a very specific and non-helpful question to ask.

Not particularly. There doesn't seem to be any special numbers to Awakening or the various Selish magic systems.

Yep, question 26 on this page. Each order has its own type of Spren, and Brandon specifically cites all Windrunners bonding Honourspren. (Highspren were theorised for Skybreakers iirc) edit: And yeah, it's possible with the Stormfather being bonded to a Bondsmith now that other Honourspren might decide to find Radiants of their own without his discouragement. We don't know how much of Syl going alone was due to him and how much due to other Honourspren having the same opinions as the Stormfather though, so I wouldn't expect anything near their former number any time soon.

Well, the Truthwatcher's Patron, Paliah, is associated with the essence whose characteristics are Learned / Giving, implying that Truthwatchers should be learned, and that their relationship with their Spren is based on giving in some way. The qualities for Vedel's essence are Loving / Healing, with Loving apparently exemplified by Lift, and healing in her relationship with Wyndle. (I can see Lift's part in how she goes back for her friend, but it's a little difficult to understand the Spren bond without seeing more interaction between her and Wyndle) While what Ym does with his stories does potentially sound like Lift's (second or later) Oath, you can also argue that in giving away shoes for stories, Ym is exemplifying his bond with his Spren, and counter that by healing the urchin, he's exemplifying an edgedancer bond instead. We really need to know more about Renarin or Lift to make a definitive call on which order Ym is, although I'm inclined to say on balance of probablity that he's more likely a Truthwatcher, as while I can see evidence of both secondary essence qualities, I'm not sure we saw anything that exemplifies "loving" in Ym's interaction with the Urchin or with Nale. I'm in two minds about whether the oath Lift swears even applies here- it could refer to remembering the dead, or to remembering the ancients, or a number of other things. If that's her Second Oath, we'd need the third to really understand it, so I feel like it's reaching to use it to justify Ym as an edgedancer, although perhaps I'm being overly cautious there. (I know I probably seem that way to most Sharders ) On the original topic: We know Radiants have auxillaries of sorts that aren't Knights. Squires is a good name for them. We know in the visions we have seen companions of Knights that didn't exhibit any surges but used Stormlight. (which only implies those companions might have been Squires, and only implies that Squires don't have access to surges) We know that Lopen has a relationship to Kaladin, and his breathing in of Stormlight occured after Kaladin swore his third oath. (We also have Words of Brandon that confirm that Radiant abilities are bestowed upon swearing certain oaths, which was heavily implied by the text of WoR and WoK too, so we would expect our first encounter with Squires to happen after someone from a order using Squires swears an oath) Brandon has confirmed that Squires have some powers that are related to the Order they serve, like the Knights gain secondary abilities unrelated to their surges. This could imply that Lopen is one of Kaladin's squires, and not a surgebinder, and it could therefore imply that he'll share whatever Kaladin's secondary ability is. (I don't think we've determined what his equivalent of Shallan's mnemonic abilities is, so it's either non-obvious or it just hasn't come up) It's also completely possible that's incorrect, however, it is the most obvious explanation that requires the fewest additional suppositions, especially given narratively having Teft's explanation about squires so close to what Lopen does would be a big misdirection otherwise. I would say this is now the theory to shoot down. I didn't recall any direct shutdown of the possibility that Squires could access surges in the two linked WoB quotes, however, or that Lopen is in fact a Squire. So it is still possible to shoot down that theory. As for Teft: He's an unreliable source, but what he's said has not been particularly inaccurate within his expressed confidence of each piece of knowledge. (and really, the only thing that he's been confused about so far is that he hasn't known in advance that surges applied two-to-an-order) I think he's there to serve as a way to make Brandon's hints about Radiants more obvious, while still sharing some of the reader's joy of discovery. As was said earlier in the thread, if Teft says something, it's probably best not to automatically assume he's wrong like we would for people who are completely uninformed, but I would verify before I completely trusted his info. Most of his statements in WoR are found duplicated to some degree elsewhere in the books. Whether you count that as verified kinda depends how much you trust various sources, for instance, his backup on Squires is the Words of Radiance epigraphs. On Kaladin's skill with the spear... I'd note that the extra boost Kaladin got from being a proto-radiant might well have helped him maintain the edge in practice and battle that led to him being so skilled in the first place. That's certainly how I interpretted Syl's statement of "it's us" in that conversation. Kaladin had an edge not dissimilar to someone being very talented, which inspired him to practice more, and helped keep him alive in battles that other people at the same level of skill might have died in. Thus while Kaladin earned his skill today, it's probably due in part to the fact he was becoming a radiant as well, the same way people at the peak of other crafts often owe their dedication to the things that made them talented as well.

Does he? I just reread WoK recently, and I noticed that he mulls over parts of the first oath on camera, but I don't recall him actually saying "Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination." at any stage. What events should I be looking for to make sure we're talking about the same scene? (I have an ebook available atm, not a paperback or hardback) If we're correct that the second oath is what makes you initially unable to use a Shardblade, then Renarin has definitely sworn the second oath during WoR. It's possible he's reached subsequent oaths soon after, before WoR ends, although I suspect we may begin to see Radiant shardplate at certain levels, which Renarin (to our knowledge) doesn't have, so I'd guess he's not further along than Kaladin, although he may have caught up to him.

Yep, ParadoxSpren has a perfectly good explanation that fits with Occam's Razor a bit better. There are already other worldhoppers around that don't identify themselves similarly, so the only reason they'd have to pretend to be Hoid is to throw people like the in-universe Seventeenth Shard off the track, and we have no evidence so far that Hoid's connected with any other worldhoppers. In fact you could argue his letter to Frost implies otherwise.

The other thing to consider as well is that Spren and Seons are beings composed of sentient investiture that have a Splinter of a Shard, and can bond with humans. Wheras Returned are a human that died and was resurrected by being granted a Splinter of Endowment, and they, to our knowledge, can not bond with other humans. It's entirely possible that a Returned is akin to an unbonded Spren or Seon in terms of their abilities on Roshar, due to not having a bond with any other being. I expect the fact that they have a physical body makes them different from Spren and Seons in a fundamental way, although it is possible that that difference might not interfere with the odd realmatic conditions around Spren and Seons on Roshar. The question really is whether the Surges granted by Nahel bonds are a result of connection to a Splinter like the OP thinks, or a result of a bond to a Splinter-holding being of sentient investiture, like I think. (Really hoping that Brandon does an interlude featuring a "Knight of Devotion" who brought their Seon to Roshar at some point :D) I expect using Stormlight to achieve heightenings would be even more difficult than using it to maintain the Divine Breath. Heightenings are a result of investiture on Nalthis, the same way healing is a result of investiture on Roshar. As for the Returned and Stormlight leaking, it's entirely possible Vasher/Zahel times breathing in his Stormlight very carefully just before his weekly consumption of Investiture, so he can minimise how many spheres he needs to possess disguised as an Ardent, and technically a slave.

It's also possible that Hoid hates Bavadin for completely different reasons from Rayse and they're not on friendly terms. Especially as any Shard on friendly terms with Rayse nowadays would need to have a suicide wish.

Brandon's on record as saying there was a force opposing Adonalsium before it was shattered that's still out there. It's reasonable speculation to say Adonalsium needs a super-human holder, it's holder died, therefore it had to be split. It might disagree with some of the implications from the Gibletish chapter where Hoid muses out loud about Adonalsium to a completely clueless Dalinar, (iirc it was Dalinar?) as that chapter in its conclusion that Adonalsium can't ever be re-united as it was before kinda supposes someone is trying to or has considered renuniting the Shards. I suppose if your speculation is correct they'd be very misguided, but the implication there is that it's actually possible to re-assemble the power, and at least some people think it's desirable. If the reason it was shattered is that no human can hold all sixteen shards and that not having the power held is bad, we would expect a couple things: That there might be some evidence reuniting the Shards would be a Bad Thing™ on Yolen that anyone reuniting the Shards could be put off with. That Frost (the recipient of The Letter in the Way of Kings epigraphs, and author of the second Letter in the Words of Radiance ones) would be far more concerned about Odium's plan to splinter all fifteen other Shards and leave their power unheld, and that Hoid would allude to the dangers of unheld Shards in his letter to Frost. I feel like that second one is probably the kicker here that something a little different is going on, but it was good speculation with so little info! I certainly don't have any good ideas myself yet on the Shattering.

We've seen that surgebinding is accessible through ways other than the Nahel bond already with Szeth's honourblade, so I wouldn't go around assuming that Nahel bonds are the only way (or even the only other way) to become a Surgebinder. It's also entirely possible that hemalurgy can steal access to a Surge from a Knight Radiant without affecting the Nahel bond or the Radiant's access to the other Surge, if used in a non-lethal fashion. But as pointed out above, at this point, we don't know enough about Hemalurgy to speculate. It seems likely that as an Atium spike steals all metallic abilities, it should also steal non-scadrian investiture. Also, this could be an additional reason Harmony is dangerous. It may be that being a Shard on Scadrial is what gave Preservation the knowledge of bind points that The Lord Ruler could use to create Kandra, Koloss, and Inquisitors when he gained access to the sliver of Preservation's power. And then there's also the possibility that stealing investiture through Hemalurgy might unbalance the relative power of the Shards depending on who you "staple" the stolen Spiritual DNA to by spiking them in the right bind point.

That crystal may be Brandon referencing a work that's currently unreleased, as well.

We've never actually seen a Radiant swear the first oath "on camera", iirc. I would say it's highly significant that Dalinar swears the second oath and then discards his new Blade. There may be something that goes on with the First Oath that Brandon's deliberately not shown us yet, or there could be a reason that the second oath is more siginificant. I feel like there's something around that we're not getting, but that we maybe don't have the clues to put it all together.

It's certainly possible that Braize or an area on Braize is what's being referred to when Vorinism talks about the Tranquilline Halls.

That would explain it then. Good luck finding more interest! I'd cross-post to r/mistborn too.

I'm with Maxal here on Renarin's capabilities- there is definitely a certain amount of unconscious surgebinding proto-radiants can do before they swear the First Oath. (He's presumably been seeing the future since well before swearing the first oath if it bothers him that much!) Renarin is expected to be in the area and under guard, so it's unlikely he would create huge amounts of suspicion even if he were spotted anyway. Between that and possible unconscious surgebinding, it seems reasonable he could have carved the walls. That said, it is technically something the Stormfather could have caused Dalinar to do, I guess, but given Renarin has admitted to seeing the future, that seems the simpler explanation.

That's an option too, not as extreme as him developing voidbinding capabilities, but given his position of influence even if he lacks personal influence himself, Odium's forces would be pretty keen to manipulate Elhokar. If they have a way of turning people towards hatred in general or souring their specific relationships, Elhokar would be a great person to start with, and it could be that part of this process makes the relevant Spren visible. Maybe Elhokar's description is purposely vague enough that we're not supposed to be able to put it together. But yeah, I have to say I'm not fully convinced by any of the options at this point.

I've increasingly been buying books as e-books on release when that ensures availability. (And because frankly, the Gollancz covers for Brandon's books are not that great) Generally I find the e-books significantly cheaper than buying local dead tree editions. I honestly hadn't looked at shipping books from 'Murica since HoA, as Brandon's books are available at local bookstores pretty quickly if I do want a paper edition.

Pffft, Nightblood is clearly a Robotspren, and will give Szeth the power to generate investiture from electricity.

Great minds think alike. Don't worry if you're reproducing good existing theories. Means you're thinking along the right lines and just need to catch up on other fan theories!

Thanks for grabbing the WoB on that one Moogle, it came to mind instantly when I read the first post! It bears noting that there's a reason Brandon says that much of the written material on Roshar can be trusted. This isn't WoB that all written material is reliable. Some writings will be unreliable for reasons completely unrelated to Odium- historical innaccuracies, Vorin tampering and censorship, biased authors, or simple mistakes in scholarship or translation will lead to mistakes. I believe we already have word that for instance, the epigraphs in Words of Radiance from the book of the same name are not entirely reliable. But yeah, assume Odium has a similar scale of abilities to what Ruin had, but a different focus of his talents and of his areas of interest. He will find something similar to Ruin's trick with the writing to manipulate events to his liking, and possibly some more subtle means too. The Thrill comes to mind, for instance.

Yeah, and given how little Cosmere or magic system stuff there was in WoK, I deliberately left myself fresh for WoR.

Possible Silence Divine spoiler...

You really should not be reusing a password you use for anything critical on a web forum. I understand it's impossible to never re-use passwords in general, but you have bigger problems than secure connections if you're re-using your email password somewhere where you login with your email information

Yes. Although if you've followed Writing Excuses and/or Brandon's blog, you know what his idea for the magic system on Ashyn is, (his book under the working title "The Silence Divine" will be set there) and it wouldn't fit very well with the Tranquiline halls.

I'm keeping my mind open on Elhokar. On the one hand, maybe being thrust into this role as King has done him some severe mental trauma that has driven him into paranoia and cracked his spirit sufficiently for the Knight Radiant bond to start forming. On the other hand... paranoia and possibly faking assassination attempts against you (although at least some have been real) does not strike me as behaviour many orders of Radiant would encourage, so I'm unsure whether he fits within the definition of what the Lightweavers would want for their Radiants. And he started seeing Spren before Shallan reconnected with Pattern, so I'd say it's not likely he's one of her auxilliaries the way it may be that for instance Lopen could be one of Kaladin's. I'm not as wary as Baine, as he seems to be worried there might be some sort of Voidbinding going on, but I am open to the fact that this could be something specifically of Cultivation, or it could simply be a magical ability that we haven't heard about yet that is unrelated to either the KR or to Odium or Cultivation specifically, similar to Feruchemy on Scadrial. Oh, and btw: If you want to add additional thoughts to the thread and nobody else has replied, you may want to press "edit" on your previous post instead of replying again.