DefiantBurrito

Good points. I wonder if Cultivation can also maybe be more abstract, and not about nature/life/gardening at all. You can "cultivate" a skill, or a plan, etc. Maybe Cultivation is sort of the shard of "scheming"? Like, "cultivating" lots of plans?

I like this idea. In fact, thinking about this more, this seems like the most likely option because clearly there is SOME rational deduction going on - you can tell just by reading the Diagram passages. However, many aspects of it are suspicious, as I mentioned. Taking this a bit further, here is a more specific theory: Taravangian's Gift/Curse comes from Nightwatcher, who is associated with Cultivation. This gives Cultivation some influence over exactly how the gift works, and maybe even a "backdoor" into Taravangian's mind. Cultivation helped produce the Diagram by kicking Taravangian's brain into extreme overdrive, while nullfying the "low empathy" drawback he usually has, and also feeding Taravangian glimpses of the future to keep his predictions on track. However, this also means the Diagram is NOT the result of pure human reason - Cultivation was in control, and could have influenced the Diagram toward her own ends. The plan spelled out by the Diagram seems like it could fit Cultivation... Cultivation wants to defeat Odium and keep the world alive, but isn't necessarily bound by "honorable" ways to do it. Furthermore, she wants to "cultivate" (i.e. control) the world, via her puppet Taravangian. There is no real evidence AFAIK about what Cultivation's goals/personality would be like, but that sounds reasonable to me. It does NOT seem likely that Odium is directly influencing Taravangian... It would be an unnecessary long con. Odium's version of the Diagram could simply say "Give all the Shardblades to the Parshendi" or something. It seems like Taravangian's plan IS aimed toward defeating Odium, at least.

Here is the passage: It does sound like he remembers it in this passage, but it doesn't specifically say he remembers it - so I'd argue that it's debatable how much he actually remembers. He could just be making assumptions about what his motivations were at the time. It does clearly say, earlier in the same chapter, "He didn't remember any of this" as I quoted earlier. Here is that full paragraph: Based on this passage I would conclude that he doesn't specifically remember writing sentences over each other, but much like writing along the side of a page, etc, he simply recognizes it as something he would do. But it doesn't seem conclusive either way honestly. Anyway, I agree with you that he probably did just invent the script (that is the simplest answer), but I do like the crazy theory.

I have seen a few threads about the Diagram, but I think I have a different take on it. Apologizes if this has been discussed before! My theory is that the on the day the Diagram was written, Taravangian was NOT actually as smart as he thinks he was. Instead, something ELSE was influencing/affecting his mind on that day. Evidence: 1. The level of intelligence needed was statistically very unlikely Brandon gives us several pages where Taravangian and an advisor are discussing the probability distribution of Taravangian's intelligence, and the conclusion is that the "Day of Brilliance" was VERY unlikely: This interlude makes it clear that the "Day of Brilliance" was significantly outside Taravangian's normal intelligence range. I believe that this whole section is a hint from Brandon that maybe we should treat that day with suspicion, because Taravangian's supposed super-intelligence doesn't fit his usual curve. 2. The Day of Brilliance was different from other smart days On the day he created the Diagram, Taravangian's behavior was described as "babbling the whole time", "lucid insanity", and "madness". He also has no memory of that day: On his second most brilliant day, there is no evidence of insanity or madness, and he remembers it clearly: Taravangian's theory seems to be that both the madness and forgetfulness were byproducts of being off-the-charts brilliant, but I don't think we necessarily need to accept that explanation. I don't see why becoming smarter would lead to insanity or forgetfulness. In fact, I believe that the passages above, providing a direct contrast between remembering one bout of intelligence and not remembering the other, might be another hint that the Day of Brilliance wasn't what it seemed - it's another way in which it doesn't fit his usual pattern. Another discrepancy that I have seen others mention: Typically on Taravangian's smart days, he is correspondingly stupid about predicting human behavior. Yet, that doesn't seem to be the case on the Day of Brilliance. In fact, MOST of his predictions are about human behavior. Some have theorized that he could get smart enough to make up for his lack of empathy with sheer deduction ability, but that explanation is unsatisfying to me. 3. Raw intelligence could not have predicted the future so accurately In my opinion, creating the Diagram should have been impossible with ANY level of raw intelligence. Taravangian would only be able to extrapolate from what he already knew, and some of his knowledge seems like it couldn't just be rationally deduced (e.g. "the secret that broke the Knights Radiant" or "the nature of the bond", specific concepts like "Nahel bond" and "Investiture"). Also, extrapolating human behavior years into the future, even with infinitely high intelligence, just seems implausible to me. It seems like you would just have too much error and uncertainty adding up. Words of Brandon I asked Brandon about this on Reddit, and his answer was not conclusive, but he also didn't outright deny my suspicion: Conclusion? Whatever The Diagram is, it's not just rational deduction To me, Taravangian's theory that he predicted the future through sheer deduction seems far-fetched. A much better explanation is that this is exactly what it seems: - Madness - Scribbling on walls - Predicting the future - Not remembering ...Sounds like prophecy, right? My guess is that some other power was able to influence his mind on that day and give him knowledge of the future. Whether that "other power" is helpful or harmful is up for debate! Other misc thoughts 1. Cultivation has been associated with prophecy, and also has a link to the Nightmother... maybe there is some connection there. 2. If this theory is correct, it means that Dalinar and Taravangian both visited the Nightmother, and were both mentally influenced by prophetic visions... maybe receiving a "gift" from the Nightmother makes you open/vulnerable to something? (I'm thinking, similar to Ruin with Hemalurgy?) 3. Taravangian thinks that he invented the script that he used to write the Diagram, but since he doesn't remember that day, how can he be sure? Maybe during that day, he simply had knowledge of some other preexisting script? Might set up an interesting reveal later when somebody recognizes that script somewhere else! Thank you for reading!!

Awesome work! damnation. I thought I was really onto something with a completely different line of thinking...

"I am a stick!" "Yes, of course you are! Of course you are, stick. But the other sticks... they don't like you very much, do they?" "...I am a stick!" "The other sticks... they told me you weren't much of a stick at all. Barely more than a twig, they said." "I am a STICK!" "The other sticks laugh at you, you know." "I... am a stick..." "I keep telling them! I say, 'That stick is all the stick I could ever want! The greatest stick there is! They've never given you the respect you deserve, have they?" "I AM a stick!!" "Hey..... how about we teach them a little lesson?" "...stick?" "We could show them.... show all those sticks. We just need a little spark, and we can burn all those sticks to the ground. Whattaya say? Be the fire that burns the sticks that have wronged you, my friend!" "I... am FIRE."

We don't lose the ketek by doing that... I was thinking that each number from 1-10 could stand for a glyph or letter, and those would form words. You could still have symmetry with the words themselves 151-9-101112-34-12-5511-52512157-5511-12-34-101112-9-151 Using my theory, I would interpret the 151 as a single word made up of three glyphs (or something): 1, 5, 1. My point is, interpreting it as "15, 1" or "1, 51" or "151" is unlikely because in the Thaylen numeral system, those numbers would look very different. If it was "1, 51" presumably Mr. T's assistants would know that right away, and we would get spaces or something to indicate that. Continuing: 9 is a single glyph which is a word by itself. "101112" is a word made up of "10", "triple-1" (whatever that means), and "2". My tentative hypothesis is that "111" means something like "the 3rd letter in the name of the 1st glyph" or "the 3rd form of the 1st glyph", etc. Not really sure yet.

I had one thought over the weekend that seems like a breakthrough. (Or I could be overthinking it...) One of the challenges here is deciding how to split the numbers - Is 34 "three four" or "thirty four"? Are they in regular pairs, or irregular? Etc. Well, I realized that this is a problem with OUR numbering system, only. Taravangian's assistants would not have had this problem! If you look at how Thaylen numbers are written, their numeral system does not have this kind of ambiguity. "11" does not look like two "1"'s next to each other. In fact, 11 does not look like any other number. (Harakeke and Pattern worked this out in the "Thaylen and Alethi Glyph Translation" thread - http://imgur.com/dAVRpED). That means that if the string "101112" for example was actually 10 11 12, it would have been immediately clear to Taravangian's assistants that it was 3 distinct numbers. So unless Brandon was being particularly mean by smushing them together AFTER converting to our numeral system, I think we can assume that this is actually a string of numbers from 1-10. (This also fits someone else's observation that we never see a "0" without it being in "10"). Since 1-10 is not enough to store an alphabet, I suspect it corresponds to 10 glyphs, or 10 Essences, or something like that. Now, we see lots of "111"s and it seems unlikely that we'd often have 3 of something in a row, so maybe strings like that mean something special. For example, "111" could correspond to "the 3rd letter in the name of the 1st Essence" or something.

This looks fun, I'm trying to catch up to see if I can help in some way... IMHO: - I don't see a really strong connection to glyphs yet, might be a dead end. - I don't think the "treat every 0 as 10" is necessarily valid... it seems like there are enough 1's in there that it could have easily happened by chance. - I think the massive palindrome/ketek is the most significant discovery so far, because it seems REALLY unlikely to me that it could happen by chance! I'm going to think about that a bit more and see what I can come up with...

This is probably overly optimistic, but I wonder if Shinovar's protection from the highstorms doesn't just come from the mountains? Perhaps some sort of magic (Cultivation, maybe) is protecting Shinovar more directly? It's always seemed odd to me that mountains would weaken the storm THAT much. The characters seem to believe it, but they could be wrong. If Shinovar has some kind of magical protection, maybe they aren't completely screwed.

I asked Brandon about this at the San Diego signing, and while I wish I had phrased the question a bit better, I'm still pretty confident that it was Allomancy... Words are not exact, but roughly: Me: "Can you tell me what Wit put in his drink in Shallan's flashback scene?" Brandon: "It was something that you or I would probably not want to eat in our world, but that Wit got some benefit from eating..." Me: "Something we've seen in the Mistborn books, perhaps?" Brandon: <sounding pleased> "Yes, perhaps like something you've seen in Mistborn" I mean, the phrasing wasn't airtight but that's good enough for me. I think Bronze is a good guess but it could have also been Zinc/Brass to manipulate Shallan's emotions and get more information out of her, or Tin to try to observe more about her, or a mix of all of the above. It could even be some exotic alloy or "the 11th metal", maybe he wanted to see Shallan's possible future or something. Not sure it matters exactly, in any case it seems like the goal was to get more information about Shallan. About Hoid's lerasium... That's interesting that he didn't swallow it, I assumed that he had based on this quote: Maybe if he hasn't swallowed it, but has it close to his skin, he could be using it for Feruchemy? What would feruchemical Lerasium even do? (I guess we can only speculate...)

I think the simplest explanation is that Stormlight healing saved her from the knife thrust, and then she realized she was in trouble and teleported away while the assassins were distracted. Running away and leaving Shallan in danger doesn't particularly seem like Jasnah... but I can think of several explanations for that. Still seems more likely to me than some kind of soulcast "body double" or illusion.

I really like this theory actually! I'm surprised that everyone seems to be dismissing out-of-hand that the voidsphere could be the glowing thing in the safe. Sure, we haven't seen it glow *yet*, but it seems like nearly everything important on Roshar glows at one point or another, so why not the voidsphere? Maybe it became infused with Stormlight, or the evil Spren inside it woke up, or it "activated" in some other way and began to glow... (Equally likely though, there could just be lots of infused Spheres in the safe. So I'd say we have no evidence either way) My theory would be: - Shallan's father found Gavilar's voidsphere, hid it in the safe - Someone (possibly Jasnah, or the Ghostbloods, or someone else entirely) sent an assassin after it - Jasnah's mother (stepmother?) was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was killed by a Shardblade - Shallan stumbles along, somehow (unwittingly) uses the powers of the voidsphere to murder the assassins. - Shallan's father claims the Shardblade, it passes to Shallan later when she kills her father. That raises the question... where is the voidsphere now? Does Shallan's family still have it? Maybe that explains why the Ghostbloods are putting so much pressure on them?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like they wouldn't include this if it were really a spoiler for a death scene. IMO it's more likely that Team Sanderson just wants to scare us a bit.... I'm voting for Adolin getting knocked out somehow during the Everstorm, leaving Renarin to save the day.

Just want to point out, cultivation doesn't necessarily have to be benevolent. You can "cultivate" a grudge, for example. You can "cultivate" a plan. Planning, plotting, secrets seem consistent with Cultivation to me. You could "cultivate" other people who happen to be evil. For example, making Odium more powerful would be more consistent with Cultivation's Intent. Not necessarily advocating that she's doing any of the above, just wanted to try to broaden everyone's view of Cultivation in case that informs more theories.

I just want to challenge this a little bit. I don't think his intelligence alone is reason enough to have faith in his actions. My interpretation of Taravangian's intelligence is that he is (sometimes) very mentally capable and intelligent in the sense of sorting through lots of facts/information quickly, planning, solving math problems, riddles, etc. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean he is mentally perfect or infallible. For example, it's possible he has a flawed personality in some way. He could be blinded by ego, or he could have a streak of cruelty that even he himself is unaware of, or he could just be hasty/rushes to judgement. (I don't think we're familiar enough with Taravangian yet to really know his personality, so I'm just speculating here.) Intelligent people are just as likely to have "blind spots" and rationalize things to suit their emotional desires or egos as anyone else. So, I think it's possible that Taravangian made an unjustified logical leap from "hey Desolations are bad" to "hey I should kill lots of people" based on some character flaw, or just some bad initial assumptions. I don't think that's a "smart is dumb" trope at all, it's perfectly reasonable in my mind that an intelligent person could still be wrong.

I posted something similar in the "What's inside the safe?" thread. I definitely agree that using the word "monster" twice is not an accident. My guess is that the safe contains a malevolent Spren (perhaps trapped in a fabrial of some sort) that possesses people. Shallan is a "monster" because the Spren possessed her and made her kill some people. At the same time, the Spren is the "monster" inside the safe. The same monster, in a sense. Granted, we haven't yet seen a Spren that can do something like that, but this appeals to me because it's the most literal way that Shallan and the "monster" in the safe can be the same.

Very good question. Is it possible that Amaram already owned Shardplate? If Dalinar knew that Amaram already had the plate, it makes sense that he would only comment on the blade - the second set of plate would probably just go to a son/retainer or something, so it would be much less newsworthy.

To quickly recap the most popular ideas... 1. Shardblade/Honorblade 2. Soulcaster (or other Fabrial) 3. Infused Gem/Gemheart 4. Creature/animal that absorbs stormlight (perhaps a Larkin?) 5. A Spren of some sort 6. Something new #1-3 - Shardblade, Soulcaster, Fabrial, Gem - In my opinion, these are all unlikely because they are all inanimate. I think it's unlikely that Shallan would refer to any of those things as a "monster", even if they were used to kill somebody. #4 - Creature/Animal - I find this also somewhat unlikely because Shallan actually has an affinity for weird, even monstrous animals. If some strange unknown animal was in the safe she would be more likely to study it and draw it than call it a monster. Or, to put it another way, if she had been traumatized as a child by a strange dangerous "monster" animal, she would probably not be so comfortable around strange animals as an adult. #5 - Spren - I'm concluding that this is the most likely. It could be simply a weird/frightening spren, or an Odium-corrupted evil Spren, or maybe even a creature/animal infused with a corrupted Spren? #6 - Something new - Obviously we can't prove or disprove this, of course there could be something new we don't know about yet. So, strongly leaning towards #5 above, here's a rough theory... Notice that Shallan talks about a monster in the safe, but also refers to herself as a monster.... what if it's the *same* monster, in a sense? Theory: The safe contains an evil Spren that possessed Shallan, causing her to kill everyone - The "monster" in the safe is a powerful malevolent Spren, perhaps trapped in some sort of glowing fabrial, or even "trapped" in the body of some creature it's possessing. - The men came to steal the Spren. They forced Shallan's mother to open the safe, and then killed her with the Shardblade. - Shallan wandered in, somehow became possessed by the Spren, and "hulked out", using its powers to kill everyone violently. - Shallan's father shows up. He is able to recapture the Spren and put it back in the safe, returning Shallan to normal. - Shallan feels like a "monster" because she lost control and killed everyone. Meanwhile, the "monster" is now in the safe. - Shallan's father claims the Shardblade from the thieves. Shallan is possibly the only one who knows of its existence. She later kills her father so she can take the Shardblade before it falls into the wrong hands. IMO this is the best theory so far, but it still requires a lot of speculation obviously because we just don't have enough data. But I'm fond of the idea that the word "monster" in both places is very intentional.

I've been liking Shallan more lately, but to be honest I found Kaladin's flashbacks a little exhausting, and I like Kaladin more than Shallan. I hope Shallan's flashbacks stay short and sweet, and don't distract from the main story too much. I felt like Kaladin's could have been more concise.

I don't think it's that outrageous to think Kaladin will literally tell the story to Szeth. About Szeth's faith.... we still don't really know much about what he believes, or why he was made Truthless in the first place. Maybe seeing Kaladin use Surgebinding powers, or something else he sees on the Shattered Plains, causes him to realize that some component of his belief system was flawed and that he was put into slavery unjustly. So imagine that he's made a captive after the battle with Kaladin, and he's in a deep depression. Now, imagine Kaladin as the leader of the new Knights Radiant. But, so far, he's the only member, and he understands so little about his powers that he feels like a fraud. Meanwhile, Szeth - the only other Surgebinder known to exist (assuming Kaladin doesn't know about Jasnah/Shallan yet) - is locked up in a cell. In this situation, Kaladin would make every effort possible to try to connect with Szeth. Kaladin still doesn't understand Surgebinding at all, and Szeth seems to actually have a clue what he's doing! His knowledge alone is infinitely valuable to the Knights Radiant cause. Remember that we've seen this pattern from Kaladin before - he got through to Bridge 4 using Rock's cooking. He got through to the second round of Bridgemen (after being recruited by Dalinar) by bringing them back into the chasms to train. He repeatedly shows a knack for finding the one thing that will get through to somebody. In this case, he would bust out Hoid's flute and tells the story.

I know this isn't solid proof, but Wit/Hoid's Wandersail story seems so applicable to Szeth that I can't imagine he would die before hearing it. My theory is that Kaladin captures Szeth somehow, finds out that he is under someone else's control, and repeats the story to Szeth to try to snap him out of it.

Couldn't you actually use "Pressure" to pull the rock against the wall using suction? The spren between the rock and the wall could actually be removing air, causing a suction effect to occur. So I don't think this is really solid proof. That said, I like the idea. It does seem like Gravity alone *could* explain all three of the Lashings, and the combination of Gravity and Pressure seems like it could be able to do a lot more than what we've seen so far.

I like the idea of Tanavast sacrificing himself somehow - it seems like the type of thing the holder of Honor would do, and it also sort of explains how Honor knew of his impending death and was able to prepare for it by leaving messages in the Highstorms. I'm not quite sure about Tanavast agreeing to end Surgebinding as a condition of stopping Odium. It seems like if Tanavast was directly involved in ending Surgebinding, he would have left more direct information about the link between Surgebindings and Desolations in his messages to the future. Tanavast's advice is "Unite them" and "Choose a champion".... he could have easily said, "Don't let anyone become a Surgebinder" if it was really that simple.

Hi I'm new! I strongly suspect that the inevitable Kaladin/Szeth battle will end with Szeth being captured alive. Why? Remember Wit/Hoid's story about the island villagers who were "forced" to do evil things by their king, only to find out that the king had been dead for years? Well, I can't help feeling that the story is "destined" for Szeth. (By "destined", not sure if I mean that this was somehow Hoid's intention, or just Brandon's... either way, seems like too good of a fit with Szeth's character to ignore IMO.) It might seem unlikely that Kaladin would be able to capture Szeth, since Szeth seems much more powerful. But I think there are a few reasonable ways it could happen... 1. Kaladin could become much stronger before Szeth shows up. (Seems unlikely that he could catch up that quickly, but he does have a whole research team helping him out! Plus, maybe Syl or the KR ideals will help power him up in some way.) 2. He could have help from one of the many Shardbearers around. Or perhaps from Shallan or Jasnah. 3. My current favorite theory - Maybe Szeth will be so shocked to see another Windrunner that he will hesitate or leave Kaladin some opening. Might seem unlikely at first glance, but I think we all suspect that the reason for Szeth's "Truthless" status is tied up in the Knights Radiant/Surgebinding somehow, so learning that other Surgebinders exist might be VERY important to him! Like, important enough to make him consider abandoning his mission. Meanwhile, Kaladin certainly has the warrior instincts to take advantage of any slight opening. 4. All of the above? I sort of like Aminar's theory that Szeth might just yield outright (basically just an extension of #3), but I'm not really expecting that, if only because I don't think Brandon would want to cheat us out of such a cool battle scene. Plus, yielding peacefully in a Shardblade/Stormlight battle might be easier said than done. In any case, I suspect the scene ends with Szeth being thrown in a cell (Kaladin will be smart enough to keep Stormlight far, far away), and then Kaladin will start interrogating him to learn more about his powers. Eventually they will become "friends" (or at least develop some respect) and this will lead to Kaladin repeating Hoid's story somehow. Not sure where things might go from there, but certainly Szeth will have something to think about! Anyway, if the scene plays out like I expect, I would guess that it will be a Kaladin POV. That just seems to fit best - I think Brandon would want to tell that story from the view of the "underdog" during the fight, and he'll also want to preserve some mystery and uncertainty about Szeth's reaction to seeing another Surgebinder, to make the later interrogation process all the more interesting.