Seloun

There are problematic issues with Dalinar's visions in general (in particular, since they are reactive to Dalinar's actions, they cannot by definition be the literal truth); however for this post I will assume they are correct in general terms. I'm not really sure how those are really contradictions. I don't think any source states that Nohadon actually founded the Knights Radiant (it's in-world speculation). Nothing states that Nohadon was bound to an Honorspren (if Dalinar's vision is accurate, Nohadon was probably a Surgebinder, but of what type is not clear; if he was really bound to an Honorspren he was being pretty cheeky). It's also worth noting the statement about Nohadon being an 'ordinary man' is in contrast to being a Radiant: which is trivially true given that Nohadon lived before there were Radiants; this statement is also not from any source besides Dalinar's (limited) understanding of history. The rest of the points are pretty consistent. Nohadon lived before the KR, and the KR used The Way of Kings are a model. It's also quite possible Nohadon introduced an organization (without magical-law backing, but an ordinary organization) after unifying Roshar governing how (morally) Surgebinding should be used. Ishi could then have provided the mechanics of translating Nohadon's ideals into (meta)physical laws, thus canonizing the Orders into real, tangible structures. It's worth noting though that there does seem to be a major contradiction in the Nohadon vision - if it's really a Desolation, why aren't the Heralds around?

Syl's actions in bonding Kaladin doesn't mean the Stormfather wasn't involved with Syl's original bond; it's pretty clear at the end of WoR (I did mean WoR, by the way - I'm referring to the scene where Kaladin states the Third Ideal) that the Stormfather doesn't have a choice when it comes to accepting the words, if they're spoken properly. It's also pretty clear the bond doesn't require being in a highstorm for humans: Dalinar bonds with the Stormfather without there being a highstorm present. That scene and Kaladin's Third Ideal scene demonstrates however that the Stormfather can 'be' at locations without the highstorm, and likely in a form which is invisible to most people (e.g. due to traveling in the Cognative). My statement was not that the Nahel bonds could only be formed during highstorms, just that the Stormfather may have to be involved for any spren bond to be formed.

This is an interesting point. If we assume that the development of the human Surgebinding through spren bonds was due to copying the Heralds using the Honorblades (which seems like the implication at this point) and the reason Parshendi don't have similar abilities is due to the lack of Parshendi Heralds, it would suggest that spren that can provide something like the Nahel bond for Parshendi might develop if the Parshendi had access to Honorblades. It might be also that the Unmade do serve a similar role to the Heralds in that they provide an original template for the spren to copy. If this analysis holds, it may imply that Parshendi access to Honorblades might prove to be a huge plot point - a Parshendi Honorblade bearer running around for a while might give rise to a new spren variant capable of providing surgebinding to other Parshendi. Regarding the original point about the spren 'betrayal' - I figured that this is a reference to the spren bonding at all with the humans. I assume that humanity is the invading force on Roshar (all or most native fauna appear to inherently bond with spren) and therefore initially they had no spren bonds. The 'betrayal' seems to be that some spren started bonding with humans at all.

'Nahel bond' appears to be specifically the human-spren bond working within the precepts of Ishi's restrictions: This comes after Ishi's restrictions in the in-world WoR (the above quotation is from Chapter 8, while Ishi's dictates are in Chapter 2). The way the Parshendi bonds work is probably quite different, and (to be pedantic) isn't the Nahel bond. This quote also seems to imply that the potential human-spren bonds might be more freer or more flexible than what the Nahel bond provides (otherwise it's unclear how you could have 'rulings' of each different kinds of bonds). It's probably reasonable to assume that all of the native forms of life require highstorms to do their spren bonding (this is certainly true of the Parshendi and appears to be implied for the chasmfiends). If we also assume that the Stormfather is also always involved in the Nahel bonding process (i.e. what Kaladin hears during the end of WoR is actually what always occurs, even if the Stormfather isn't visible) it may be that all of the bonds involve the Stormfather in some fashion, and Ishi's restriction was on when the Stormfather could 'assign' a bond to humans.

Jasnah is almost certainly bound to a spren by the time of the WoR prologue, yes. I don't think that it's a necessary case for her spren to be visible in Shadesmar, however (among other things, we don't seem to see either spren in TWoK when they travel to Shadesmar). I'll agree that there's a good chance that the prominent spren in the WoR prologue is Ivory; however, I don't think it's a clear deduction. In particular, the premise of the original post (why did 'Ivory' act so unusually in the WoR prologue) can potentially be better answered by hypothesizing that the prominent spren isn't actually Ivory. If the prominent spren is actually trying to kill Jasnah, its behavior is more understandable and doesn't conflict with how other bond pairs appear to treat each other (well, barring the Stormfather). Basically I think Ivory = prominent spren has to explain both why the initial meeting with Jasnah and Ivory seems so different than the other Surgebinders as well as the presence of the additional spren during the encounter (which is not necessarily difficult, e.g. it's not completely clear the additional spren are of the same type as Ivory). Ivory != prominent spren seems to require fewer independent explanations - the prominent spren is one of Ivory's kind that's trying to prevent the bond from occurring/further developing. It's satisfied when Jasnah is pulled into Shadesmar since it can't really interact with her otherwise (alternatively, this proves that Jasnah is the one they're looking for); it's willing to let Jasnah drown, and when she doesn't, it draws its sword and considers attacking her until intercepted by Jasnah's construct. It shows respect for her abilities in Shadesmar when she demonstrates she can protect herself, then the meeting ends. However I concede that Ivory != prominent spren is hardly conclusive; it's just that based on what we know at the moment, it seems like the (mildly) more likely explanation. I think the main thing going for Ivory = prominent spren is Conservation of Detail rather than any narrative evidence. My main point was that we don't actually have very conclusive evidence that the prominent spren = Ivory and alternate explanations are still viable candidates.

One might even say that there's more than meets the eyes....Returned in disguise. Ardents wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Voidbringers.

I think it's more likely that the first five books will end with Rayse's death... but that doesn't mean Odium's Shard is gone. The epigraph makes me think of a scenario where the Shard is floating around, trying to possess someone, and somehow ends up in a child (or there's some requirements met by the child to hold Odium's Shard).

I'm not sure why people assume the spren Jasnah saw in the Prologue is Ivory. It seems more likely that it's a disapproving whatever-spren of the same type as Ivory: The figure is occupied by or accompanied by others like it. But Jasnah says: which leads me to believe the the figure in the Prologue probably isn't her bonded spren, but rather spren that might have been hunting her or Ivory.

I'd like to reiterate... bond farming. I fully expect to find out that at least some of the spren intentionally broke their charges (not necessarily the specific spren that bonded), and that that's the revelation that caused the Recreance. It's clear the spren highly value the bond, and when there's a scarcity of something that's valuable...well, ask the chasmfiends.

I'm not really sure why people are focusing on the KR specifically so much. We know (assuming we trust Dalinar's visions) that pre-KR, Surgebinders were out of control. It's not really a big leap to consider that there might have been at least some nations where the ruling required being a Surgebinder: Nohadon himself is almost certainly a Surgebinder at this point (he says 'our abilities'). It's not really a stretch to assume there was at least one nation, sometime in history, where Surgebinding was a requirement for ruling. The WoB doesn't really indicate that we should be able to figure out through textual clues as to the particular identity of the mageocracy; what it sounds like to me is just mentioning that there's a huge amount of history on Roshar (much of which, even if it's part of his background worldbuilding, probably won't affect the main series).

If it's really supposed to have rotational symmetry, what's the eastern analogue of Aimia? Did Aimia come from somewhere else?

The specific quote is: Assuming this is literally what Mr. T asked for, note that it's actually two potentially different things - capacity to stop what's coming, and capacity to save humankind. There's no reason that those are the same things (humankind could be saved without stopping the Desolation, and the Desolation could be stopped at the cost of exterminating all humans). I'm inclined to say which is his blessing and which is his curse is not quite as straightforward as intelligence is one and his empathy being another; instead, it depends on the perspective of the individual boons.

There's no 'negating' needed of normal gravity in the gravitational lashing. What it's doing is essentially redirecting some of the existing acceleration; we can see this when Szeth redirects a quarter of a lashing upwards and gets half the weight. Kaladin uses two lashings (one up and one down) to achieve weightlessness: Mathematically this is somewhat weird (up to 1 lashing, the magnitude of all of the acceleration vectors are constant, with a non-differentiable point at 1 lashing) but it's described consistently in the books. Note that terminal velocity is dependent on the force due to gravity (since it's when force from air resistance = force from gravity) so lashing more to go faster is pretty reasonable physics.

No, the first quote is from TWoK (it's Shallan in Kharbranth).

Wasn't there a theory that there was a Herald in Kharbranth? There was a secondary maybe-reference in T's interlude in WoR: People have suggested that Dova might be a Herald.

We know that Dalinar began binding the Shardblade about 6-7 days before Shallan visits Taln: It's at least 6 days, since Kaladin meets Dalinar the day before Shallan's meeting Taln according to the timeline, and Dalinar is not carrying a Shardblade. But this makes it difficult to impossible for Dalinar to have bound the blade before the arena fight. This implies that Dalinar only came up with the plan after Kaladin is imprisoned (roughly the same time Adolin shuts himself off, interestingly enough) since it sounds like Dalinar starts binding the blade about the same time he comes up with the plan (however, there is room for error here). As an aside, this also implies Adolin is writing to Shallan from his cell! I completely missed that. I wonder what he would have done if Shallan had accepted his offer to keep her company?

Jah Keved, I assume. 'Third strike wins all.' 'A man prays before betrayal, listening to cheers, before seeking the betrayer.'

Lois McMaster Bujold. She's a multiple Hugo/Nebula winner for a reason. Good deal of social commentary and technological impact explored in incredibly readable and entertaining packages. Comes up with some truly amazingly pithy quotes (one of my favorite: weapons are devices for changing people's minds; some careful consideration shows how dense that definition is) Mostly famous for her sci-fi rather than fantasy (Vorkosigan saga) and for having good novels and really, really good sequels. Latest works are good but not quite as amazing as some of the ones in the middle (Mirror Dance is perhaps the best book I have ever read). Of her fantasy, the Chalion series is pretty good. I wasn't a fan of the Sharing Knife and would suggest staying away, but Vorkosigan saga should be a must-read if not strictly stuck on fantasy.

Kaladin is not just a bodyguard; he's in command of an entire battalion. As Dalinar says in TWoK: This is the same rank as Shallan's father (in principle, Kaladin should outrank Shallan as well, as she's only fifth dahn) and only one rank below Amaram. Dalinar officially only gives him the rank of Captain instead of Battalionlord (though it's unclear what Captain would be equivalent to) but the point is that Kaladin's job and responsibilities would make his rank, if lighteyed, equivalent to a Shardbearer.

Herdazians are the Firebringers. Where have we seen a suspiciously calm, enslaved individual? 'Armless, indeed...

Well, it might be worth noting that Sebarial might be ruined. He invested a lot of money into capital and infrastructure in a region which is being abandoned and about to be wiped out by the Everstorm - right as his factories and farms are starting to come online. Jasnah's notes are pretty deprecating: which is actually interesting, since even Dalinar knows there's more to Sebarial: It's odd that Jasnah's assessment is so off; if it was anyone else I'd think it might be a personal grudge...

I'm assuming you think the distinction here is between the Parshendi and the Parshendi gods. My reading is somewhat different - first, in the other stanzas, it seems to be implied that the Parshendi are effectively puppeted by the Unmade/Odium when in odiumforms; if the odiumforms were responsible for shattering the plains, I'd think they'd say their gods were in fact the ones that did it. Second, the first two lines are 'They blame our people / for the loss of that land'. I'm not sure why it would specifically call out that 'they blame our people' if the Parshendi were actually responsible. This seems to me implying that the truth is different from the perception (which is reinforced by the last line with the first point). What the stanza seems to be saying is that something other than the 'voidbringers' shattered the plains. The obvious implication then is that it was human surgebinders (maybe KR) that shattered the plains.

The passage regarding Harkaylain: This can be read in much more innocuous manner - that Harkaylain is not generally wrong about things, and he's predicting a Desolation. This doesn't require Harkaylain be 'not often wrong' about Desolations in particular. We have a modern-day parallel: Jasnah. Suppose the sentence was "Jasnah says the Desolation is close, and she is not often wrong." This is in fact exactly what she's saying, and it should be easy to see how 'Jasnah is not often wrong' can be implied without 'Jasnah is not often wrong about Desolations' being implied.

It's worth noting that those are all examples of Lighteyes apologizing to dark-eyed Kaladin. Contrast with the following scene: Jasnah also discusses apologizing in TWoK. Despite the lesson of WoR being 'don't be prejudiced against lighteyes', Kaladin really does have a point about how lighteyes treat darkeyes, even the 'good' lighteyes. In particular, lighteyes tend to treat Kaladin as furniture: So I'm not really sure the issue is about apologies specifically, but rather the difference in social status. Shallan apologizes for Navani's mistake. Even then, Navani's 'apology' to Shallan is a lot more heart-felt than any that Kaladin gets. The whole 'don't be prejudiced against lighteyes' thing becomes somewhat of a Broken Aesop given that Kaladin really has a good point about how lighteyes generally treat darkeyes. Dalinar does say that: and Elhokar's apology appears to be a step along that path, though how that'll progress given that everyone will think Kaladin was always 'really' a lighteyes is questionable. Still, it seems like a step in the right direction; keep in mind that book 2 is only about two months in terms of time. tl;dr - it seems like the apology issue is really more indicative of the more fundamental lighteyes/darkeyes issue, and even the protagonist lighteyes are susceptible to it; Elhokar's apology (with Dalinar's speech) seems to indicate that progress is being made on that front, though.

Given that Kaladin is likely to spend most or all of Book 3 incommunicado with Shallan, I'd imagine that A is the most likely option, though depending on how you define it, C might apply. It's likely that many of the foreshadowed roadblocks between Kaladin and Shallan will hit while they're separated - mainly because if they're able to readily communicate with each other, most of the roadblocks aren't really roadblocks. Helaran is probably the best example, but we have e.g. Gaz and Honorspren-Cryptic conflict hanging about as well. All of those are pretty easy imagine a solution to as long as Kaladin and Shallan have an opportunity to interact, so they'll all probably hit early in Book 3 to temporarily derail (and generate Drama) Kaladin and Shallan's relationship. This gives plenty of time for Adolin and Shallan's relationship to cooldown or otherwise become OBE (due to e.g. Adolin's murder of Sadeas, or insecurities about being the only non-Surgebinding Kholin). B is highly unlikely simply because again, Kaladin won't be around to be the third vertex of the triangle. My gut feeling is that there will be limited interaction between Shallan and Kaladin (short spanreed communication, maybe Jasnah passes a note) because poor communication is more Drama than no communication (also, hilarious opportunities for misunderstanding).