Seloun

The purpose of the Desolations hasn't been established yet. In particular it's not really clear if the purpose of Desolations is to wipe out humankind. Assuming that Dalinar's visions are accurate, Surgebinding appear to have occurred naturally after some initial number of Desolations (which presumably only involved the Heralds). There are some number of Desolations after that where Surgebinders and Heralds exist (but before KR exist). The KR are formed some time after the Surgebinders are around. It's unclear if Nohadon or Ishar actually formed the KR initially, though Ishar appears to have been involved in some fashion for sure. Dalinar's vision in 'Starfalls' does not imply that there has been multiple Desolations in one lifetime. The quote is: It doesn't necessarily mean Harkaylain is not often wrong about Desolations; it more likely means that Harkaylain tends to be right about anything he talks about, in general (think about the phrase as 'Jasnah says the Desolation is close, and she is not often wrong'). In particular, we know that Taffa is not familiar with Desolations: The Desolations don't seem to be about shattering the Shards, or at least they don't seem to be necessary to shatter the Shards, since Tavavast wasn't killed until after the 'Final Desolation', and there (obviously) hasn't been a Desolation since then (until perhaps the events of WoR). tl;dr is that no one really knows what the Desolations are about at this point. It seems to be somehow tied to Odiumspren taking control over native Roshar life and attack people, and the Heralds can somehow prevent its occurrence, but that's about as much as has been actually established so far.

Szeth never questions that the Stone Shamans could recover his Honorblade (which would almost certainly involve sacrilege in other ways, e.g. walking on stone); given his confidence, it seems quite likely the Stone Shamans either have unknown abilities or have dispensation to use the Honorblades for certain purposes (and probably exemptions from e.g. walking on stone). This doesn't rule out the 'bodyguards' theory, necessarily, but at that point it might just be a matter of semantics (i.e. are Stone Shaman bodyguards 'really' Stone Shaman?). It's also worth noting that Szeth seems to expect that the Shin will defend themselves with the Honorblades: It's possible he's referring to other shards and not the Honorblades (the reading doesn't necessarily rule that out), but the most natural reading seems to imply that they have people who can use the Honorblades.

The thing is, Shallan still continues to WWJD past that scene. Besides the 'sore horse' scene above, there's: And Shallan is absolutely a scholar. Her specialization is not necessarily history, like Jasnah, but there's no question whatsoever that Shallan sees herself the same way. This is pretty clear in virtually all of her scenes; one place where it's explicitly referenced is: In TWoK she often talks about her artistic ability in the context of furthering scholarship: It's probably inaccurate to say that Shallan is primarily an artist; art is her talent, but it's not the core of what she is, any more than fighting is the core of what Kaladin is, despite his skill at it. Even besides that point, it's unclear why her viewing herself as an artist rather than a scholar would lead her to specifically disregard Jasnah's disapproval regarding intoxication. Shallan's Jasnahgnosticism holds for everything besides this one thing. It stands out. I concede it may ultimately mean nothing, but it's a break in a otherwise consistent pattern.

There's almost no other way to interpret this, given that Dalinar recognizes the oathgate dais as being identical to where the palace is built in Kholinar: It's pretty unambiguous.

It wasn't trying to destroy one of the sides; he was trying to clean up the entire battle, as the quote in the OP indicates ('wash everyone away'). The conversation the Stormfather has with Dalinar indicates that the Stormfather thinks that Dalinar is going to lose, and the only thing he can do is bring a storm to wash everything away (when all you have is a hammer...). It's absolutely a cowardly thing to do, and it's pretty clear it's being driven by a sense of despair from the perspective of the Stormfather, but the fact that he's despairing is really a good argument that he's not corrupted by Odium - why would he be upset about what will happen if he wants Odium to win? Now one could argue that he's being unconsciously manipulated (e.g. Thrill) by Odium or Unmade somehow (as much as a god-like spren could be manipulated in that fashion) but there's nothing to indicate that the Stormfather consciously wants Odium to be successful. A reasonably analogy is that the Stormfather is where Kaladin was, pre-Honor Chasm in TWoK; he wants to protect, but he's been burned too many times before, and he thinks the outcome is inevitable, so why risk anything? Bringing the storm is a low-risk option even if it's unsuccessful; so what if the humans die from it? They're doomed anyway, and hey, this way you don't risk losing the rest of your already decimated family. In a sense Dalinar becomes his Syl, trying to prove that it's still worth fighting for the survival of mankind, and that it's not inevitable - or even if it is, it's still worth trying.

Actually, the strongest evidence for Odium = Broken One comes from this quote in TWoK: The other possibility is that the death rattles so far all seem to refer to the future; this would imply that at some point in the future 'The Broken One' will reign. I don't really agree the Stormfather is corrupted by Odium. All of this actions seem to be understandable as long as you accept that the Stormfather doesn't think Odium can be successfully defeated by mankind. He's trying to cut his losses and lose any more of his 'family' trying to help out Honor's Children; he's already lost a great deal due to the Recreance. When the Stormfather tries to prevent Syl from helping Kaladin, it's clear his focus is not on screwing Kaladin, but trying to protect Syl. It seems pretty clear that the Stormfather is not acting particularly maliciously; he just doesn't want Syl to get killed too, and he's convinced Kaladin will end up killing her (for good reason, since, you know, he killed - or almost killed - her _the week before_, not to mention historical reasons).

Actually, I think it might be Syl's voice. Given the WoB about looking for squires in TWoK - the only person near Kaladin that seems to glow is Dalinar. What if Dalinar is the squire? Note Dalinar glows when protecting Elhokar and the bridgemen, both of which would be covered under the Windrunner aspect. That'd explain why he doesn't recognize the Stormfather's voice - they're different voices.

You've twigged to the root of my intentions. I have it on good authority (the holy Treenity) that the Firebringers are actually the Matchshendi:

So it was a darkeyed male that Sigzil tried to kill and failed, which seems to rule out Tyn, unless 'he' is being used in a gender-neutral manner. The relevant passage for Tyn's side: which does seem suspiciously close to 'Sigzil'. Also, there doesn't seem to be a lot of plot-relevant darkeyed males at this point, barring bridgemen (and excluding Kaladin flashbacks).

But... are you a Frostlands stick or a Kharbranthian stick? I think we all know that the Kharbranthian Stick came first, and all else are merely splinter religions. Also, is there an Order of the Stick?

Thanks! I was actually trying to avoid making keteks for the characters already covered before, but Szeth's came out so naturally that I wanted to include it.

I agree that wine drinking is readily explainable through cultural and sanitation reasons. The main point is that how Shallan is approaching her drinking appears to be different from how the other protagonists treat it. It's also the one area where Shallan specifically disregards Jasnah's advice. Note that Jasnah's atheism isn't really a counterpoint; Jasnah specifically avoids being confrontational about Shallan's beliefs and at least indirectly supports her convictions, as evidenced by the Book of Endless Pages. Dalinar certainly has a big issue with overimbibing, and despite being tempted to do otherwise, Adolin also follows his father's lead regarding alcohol. Kaladin doesn't seem to ever drink (minor exception during the bar scene) though that's also potentially explained by having fewer opportunities to indulge. Every other time Shallan thinks back and considers what Jasnah would do or say, she heeds the advice: Plus the quote in the original post about getting sore while riding, and probably many indirect examples (e.g. when she draw Jasnah into her self-portrait before the initial Shattered Plains meeting). I'm not saying that Shallan tries to act just like Jasnah (she clearly does not) but when she specifically asks herself about what Jasnah would have done (or if she would have disapproved) she follows that advice. Except for the drinking. There's a pattern, and the drinking scene doesn't fit.

It's an interesting pattern, but I'm not really sure that there's a particular underlying symmetry there. I felt that the main symmetry for WoK was that Amaram kills Kaladin's men for the Shardblade, while Dalinar gives up his Shardblade to save Kaladin's men. In particular I'm not really sure #2 is a good instance, since based on what Eshonai says, there seems to be a good chance that Dalinar's life wasn't necessarily threatened at the time (admittedly, I don't know how that quite works given the rest of his army is being slaughtered, but it seems clear Eshonai could have killed Dalinar easily given the motivation).

It's pretty clear that Alethi is basically english, since otherwise virtually every bit of wordplay by Hoid, Shallan and Kaladin (especially chasm scene) fails to work barring a massive coincidence where the languages are effectively identical anyway. The glyphs also appear to translate directly into english lettering, and the secret epigraph code also requires the alphabet and spelling to be effectively identical.

Dalinar specifically asks Hoid who 'he' is, and Hoid makes it pretty clear he's referring to Odium:

Stormlight making you immune to intoxication is an interesting point; I don't think we've seen anything conclusive in either direction, but it's probably a reasonable assumption based on what we know about the healing capabilities of Stormlight. However, I will maintain that this still seems like a point of interest. The main bit in my opinion is that Shallan spends basically all of WoR asking herself WWJ(asnah)D to solve her problems; the only time she does something different is in the first excerpt with the wine. It's also worth noting that alcoholism or addictive behavior might be problematic even if it doesn't necessarily lead to intoxication; in particular, it might be a prelude to being addicted to other things (I will point out that Kaladin describes his reliance on Stormlight in terms that resemble something addictive).

It definitely feels like there are standard templates or rules to make forming keteks somewhat easier. Sort of an analysis on the structure... One thing is that the 3rd and 4th phrase are often easy to put in the form of [1] / [2][x] / [something] [singleton word] / [something] [x] / [5]; that form basically gives you two phrases which are mostly independent of the other phrases. The second thing is that there's an 'inverting progression' form, where the first word of [2] and [5] are a negating word; this makes it easier to set up a 'progression' through time (i.e. something is true, stuff happens, something is now not true). This is certainly not the only way to form a ketek, but it seems like a pretty general and flexible pattern to start with. It might be interesting to think about other analyses of the form. Edit: Adding spoiler tags

Actually, I was wondering if those related to the WoB about looking for Radiant squires in TWoK. In both cases Dalinar is protecting someone - a clear Windrunner aspect - and we know that Syl seems to keep an eye on Dalinar pretty frequently. We also know now that Radiant squires glow with Stormlight, and the Plate glowing might be powered by the leaked Stormlight as mentioned by couple of people. What if Dalinar was one of Kaladin's squires?

Jasnah: Forever voyaging mind / Radiant, seeking / Teaching Ethics / Teaching seeking Radiant mind / Voyaging forever

I'm not really sure I agree with Jasnah's categorization to start with. For one, she probably has causality backwards, at least; spren aren't the explanation for Cultivation and Honor. Is there any specific reason to think the 'basic' spren are actually associated with one of the three shards, as opposed to existing from the initial Adonalsium seeding? There seems to be a corresponding basic spren associated with the KR-spren (admittedly, it's a short list...) - Windspren => Honorspren, Creationspren => Liespren. Given that the Parshendi seem to require spren to function, and same with many of the natives of Roshar (e.g. greatshells) it seems more likely that some basic set existed before the arrival of the Shards. So maybe the spren in general are native to Roshar, while Honorspren, Liespren, and Stormspren are essentially further Invested spren.

Probably not. We know orange is basically non-intoxicating (or very slightly) while (em mine): and

What's really funny is that this is not the first time Shallan fails to Soulcast a stick. I'd forgotten that she tries in TWoK after stealing Jasnah's fake Soulcaster: Sticks are her kryptonite.

Or boiled the water in e.g. teas, yes. Based on what we've seen, though, rainwater appears to be safe as long as the crem is allowed to settle out of it. That said, culture is certainly part of it: So people getting drunk isn't really a surprise (just a point of embarrassment if overdone). However, in the first excerpt above, Shallan notes Jasnah would have disapproved, and drinks anyway. This is different from the other cases where Shallan notes that Jasnah would have disapproved, e.g.: In the second excerpt, Shallan specifically mentions that she likes the warmth that it built inside her, leading me to believe it's not just a matter of culture/availability. As far as I know, there's no specific comparison of how intoxicating red is compared to any of the other colors. We know that violet > yellow > orange, and blue > orange, which would suggest maybe a descending rainbow order, i.e. violet > blue > green > yellow > orange, which would in turn seem to imply red is not very intoxicating; however, Shallan specifically notes that Jasnah wouldn't have approved (and why), which seems to imply that red is fairly intoxicating.

That's a cool idea, and I was about to concur, but... (from TWoK prelude): So it's probably unlikely, unless there's some other thing going on (perhaps it's a similar idea, but their appearances do change?).

I'm not so sure. The spren don't seem to be bound by the oaths the same way the KR are (they appear to be bound to them in other ways, e.g. Syl can't explain certain things to Kaladin before he progresses far enough). One of the big questions in TWoK is if the spren create their associated attribute or are drawn to it. Note that Cryptics are effectively 'liespren' (Jasnah indicates as such early in WoR) but obviously have no innate capability to lie: they learn it from their bondmates, and they're attracted to lies. Likewise, honorspren seem to be attracted to honorable individuals, and they take on their bondmates' 'honor' characteristic, but it's not really clear that they're actually 'honorable' on their own. The main feature about spren are that they copy things.