Ari

A mysterious force, or a visual representation of the Ideals the Spren demand to be part of the order, perhaps? That's not exactly correct is it? I recall the Stormfather saying he would not be a shardblade for Dalinar, but not that Bondsmiths don't get to have one.

I was thinking about Braize also being the Tranquiline Halls as well, as perhaps it started off pretty awesome before Odium invested himself in it, but I'm not 100% sure on that yet. It would fit with how confused Vorinism is that they have two names with seemingly opposite meanings that refer to the same place, but I feel like their theological mistakes haven't been quite that obvious yet.

Brandon has answered in his recent AMA on Reddit that the end of a desolation is marked by the Heralds departing, but otherwise he's been pretty quiet on this with lots of RAFOs, as apparently details about how the heralds work is information we're only supposed to get in the back half of the series. edit: Although asking about why Nalan/Nin thought that killing Surgebinders would halt/slow the Desolations could either result in a really interesting answer or a RAFO.

It seems likely that at the very least he can see Spren. Given he's neither a Horneater or a Herdazian, he probably doesn't have the genetics to see them as a matter of course, and it does sound suspiciously like what Shallan saw when she first reunited with Pattern, so tentatively I'd agree that Elhokar may in fact be a potential Lightweaver, or that he has some other sort of unknown magic going on that allows him to see Cryptic spren.

Brandon has hinted that there's a reason Worldbringers and Worldsingers have similar names in a recent WoB, and we know that Hoid was a Worldsinger, so it's entirely possible that he's had similar involvement with the Terris people before the Lord Ruler took over.

Besides, you might as well wait until you've got a bunch of new Cosmere titles to add.

Remember that whole "Adonasium" thing? XD

They would need to set up some sort of power-booster Aonic construct at their new location that either boosted their powers specifically, or provided an Elantris-like boost to all Elantrians, in order to return with AonDor. Now, arguing for Selish space ships is a bit easier, as you could build any necessary Aons it needs with it into the design, and then figure out any modifications that the relevant Aons need during travel, and design your ship so that the navigation system progressively modifies the relevant Aons as you move. As far as I can see, Sel and Scadrial are the two prime contenders for investiture-based FTL.

Apologies on the delay, I have two 354x100 pixel banners for you. One has a half-tone gray border around the edge to blend better with the white background on 17th Shard, the others is the same as before. I deleted out some of the empty black space around the edges so that you get the glyph showing as large as possible. edit: The reason they're 354 wide not 500 is so they don't end up stretched horizontally, which I can do, but would probably look weird.

Landis: We really don't know one way or the other, there are theories both ways. Hrathen implies that Elantrians used "enemy magic". Seons contain Aons and we know for sure they have/are Splinters of Devotion, (which makes sense as the very word "Aon" is derived from Aona, Devotion's former holder) so that suggests that Devotion has heavy involvement in AonDor at the least. We also know there are counterparts to Seons called Skaze, named after the former holder of Dominion, Skai. Seeing one of the Skaze could probably clear some things up for us. (For instance, if they use the same runes that ran underneath the skin of Dak'hor monks, that would suggest that some of the Selish magic systems are aligned with Dominion, and at least AonDor is aligned with Devotion.) It's also entirely possible that the Dor is the merged remnants of Devotion and Dominion's "bodies", but that the regionalised magic on Sel still aligns with either Dominion or Devotion or both, depending on how it was formed. As Elantris wasn't particularly Cosmere-aware during the events of their first book, and we had limited access to all of the magic systems excepting AonDor, it's really hard to tell what's going on there. (Granted, the reasoning for this is probably also that it's very Realmatically complicated, and Brandon wants to get far enough in the Cosmere sequence to let us organically learn the "rules" before we learn the "exceptions". We might understand a lot more when we learn about the Shattering of Honour and Spren, too, as these will likely reflect on what Shadesmar is like for Sel, but to a lesser extent) On the OP, I see your point, for example Saolin and Karata would fall quite easily within your scheme. It's clearly not enough to just be devoted to a cause or a profession though, as otherwise Raoden would have been taken much earlier, and arguably Sarene should have been taken by the Shaod, too. But you're probably on to something.

Ah, right, I have avoided the Prime books because it's very confusing to read different versions of the same characters, and they're a little too WIP for me. That makes sense and means most likely Feruchemy is firmly Scadrian.

It could be that a certain amount of spiritual hackery would be required to form a full bond, of course.

Well, the Onion is generally clever social commentary, wheras Vorinism is a confused mess of truths, half-truths, and straight-up delusions, but I agree inasmuch as you can't take anything in Vorinism at face value. I do wonder if there's a certain significance to concepts like the Tranquiline Halls- are they a reference to Honour's shardpool, or something equally cool?

No, I would agree completely with you that he hasn't won any Desolations yet, except insofar as the very system of having Desolations gives him a chance to meet his Intent. People have pulled through with nations surviving, unity, dignity, and until the recreance, oaths unbroken. Odium wouldn't want any of those things. If my suspicion is correct, he's tried and failed to completely get what he wants in prior desolations, but made a bit of progress that was often undone by Honour or his heralds or later the Knights. This desolation is different at least in part because Odium has had relatively free reign between the previous desolation and this one with only Cultivation to deal with. He's used that to great effect: not only shattering Aleth'kar's unity, he's broken and suppressed the Knights Radiant and destroyed all of their history, leaving the Spren reluctant to bond with humans in the future, he's using his minions to spread the Thrill and other subtle influences, he's insinuated Parshmen through the society and is poised to transform them into Voidbringers using the Everstorm, and only a single herald remains fully committed to the Oathpact as far as we know. I have to agree with CPP that Odium really could break free of his confines if the heroes in the Stormlight Archive don't come up with a way to defeat him, and that there is a reason that this is called The Final Desolation. I wouldn't be sure we have enough information about how the Heralds work to know the exact details, but there are no obvious holes in the theory. Odium, as far as I can tell, wants the only unity to be in serving him in torturing his enemies. He would potentially have long-term use for servants, if they can hate his enemies, hate him, and bring everyone else to hate him too. Previously, probably due to some prior agreement with honour, all he gets are the heralds between desolations, anyone he has permanently on Braize, and whatever chaos he can cause on Roshar during desolations. As of the Stormlight Archive he also had some minor influence between desolations, likely chiefly through the Unmade, although he might have a similar-but-different kind of trick to directly interfere, like Ruin had with altering writing. If his goal was really to kill all people, he probably would have interfered with events on Scadrial, as he would have then not had a problem with incorporating Ruin's intent as well. But we have WoB that Rayse liked Odium's intent and doesn't want to hold any other shards, which means there must be some significant points of difference between Odium and Ruin that would run counter to Odium's plan.

To be fair, we don't precisely know what Odium wants when he wins, because nobody ever talks about it and to our knowledge, it's never happened before. My suspicion has been that he does want that decimation, and for the rest that he wants to have them torture each other, and for their lives to be brutal and short, but for their people to continue, but continue hating each other and hating him. Odium isn't Ruin after all, it's entirely possible he has a legitimate reason for his enemies to live.

Wasn't there WoB that he initially planned Feruchemy for a different story, but it fit well in Mistborn? That could suggest he added it to Mistborn as an import.

Done, keep in mind you need to edit your quote too though. I was intending more to point out that the existence of this unpublished work is relevant to the discussion rather than spoiler it, but if it seems spoilerish I am happy to tag it.

If anyone from Nalthis could handle complex investiture hacking, it'd be Vasher. I'm not sure he needs a simpler way to do it.

And I'm pretty sure we have WoB that Hoid is from Yolen.

Ah, right, yeah, I do remember reading that now. I just didn't consider it super suspicious as I hadn't looked up that Jasnah's order had Transportation.

Likewise, apologies! Too used to the Cosmere Theories forum.

Heh yeah I saw that thread at the time, really funny that Willa is a sanderfan and noticed the resemblance of the model. She didn't actually say she modelled for the cover though. Quoting Peter (Brandon's assistant) from said thread with regards to the artist, Chris McGrath's, process:

If you really hate waiting for sequels, wait until SA5 is released to read the first five. That said, you're denying yourself the opportunity to pick up subtle things by rereading the existing books while you wait, and the opportunity to talk about each book with the rest of us as you go, so up to you what you prefer doing. Plus, at the rate things have been going, it could be 2020 before the first five books are finished.

He's done his research and has friends with depression, based on what he's said online. Now I'm disappointed that Raoden doesn't have anxiety disorder though. XD

It's ridiculous that the sentence "replace 'jail' with 'shardblade murder'" is a discussion that we can even have in regards to justice, lol. You might say Nin... goes to extremes? And that there ain't no in betweens? What size does it need to be? I can shrink it using smart filters and keep it at the same ratio so it should probably look almost exactly the same but smaller.