Seloun

A literal weird ship? Fourth Bridge x Sibling. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Storm + Life appears to be more properly 'Science'. Life + Void appears to be 'Freedom': The mixture of all three feels like 'humanity' as much as anything else.

This is a crazy theory, but the symmetry is quite appealing to me. The initial inspiration for this comes from this passage describing Glys and Renarin recalling a vision for Dalinar: The key point here is that Glys is the one that 'captured' the vision, and Glys is the one using the Stormlight, and Glys creating the images. If these are through surges (and the 'capture' sounds similar to e.g. Shallan's Memory), Glys appears to be the ones using the surges. A separate observation, by Navani: Where the does music come from? The most obvious solution is just that Raboniel's daughter heard it, but we don't see any other Listener/Singer hum anything beyond their 'emotion' rhythms. And the parshmen didn't sing at all, when they were (apparently) unConnected due to the BAM captivity. So it doesn't seem like they sing because it's something they overheard; they sing because they have some sort of capital-C Connection to the source of the music. Part A: What if Glys is the surgebinder between him and Renarin? Still trying to work through this, but the basic idea would be that the 'corruption' essentially creates a hole or a break in the spren that could be filled by outside Investure (much like how it works with people) - and this changes the bond, perhaps making it not exactly reversed, but maybe more symmetric. Part B: What is Raboniel's daughter's spren could also bind with a human in a similar way? Or...what if Raboniel's daughter could bind with a human (as they are practically spren themselves, and 'broken' spren at that)? Part C: What if the deadeye spren all have similar 'holes' due to the damage from the broken bonds post-BAM capture? In a way Adolin might be sort of proving this as he seems to be able to provide energy to Maya, if with difficulty: So human can somehow power spren, rather than the reverse. But for whatever reason the process is inefficient, or doesn't work well - maybe because humans are aren't just of Honor and Cultivation, but also of Odium. So they need a spren with all three aspects for the connection to be able to flow in the direction of the spren. My wild surmise is that the deadeyes will need to be 'corrupted' in order to be restored (such potential for drama there, too) - and that the Fused will be able to bond with humans (in the reverse way). That's how the war will end.

Actually, this appears to be answered in the book upon closer examination: (emphasis mine) So, Freedomlight or...Bravelight?

It's actually Glys that's doing it: Which is interesting; it's almost like Glys is the Radiant and Renarin is the spren. But Renarin can materalize a Blade, so it might not be quite that simple.

I think it'll ultimately be some sort of redemption angle - in the context of protecting, perhaps: "I will protect people from themselves." I'm thinking about Ishar, the mental ward patients - also, Moash. This is arguably covered under 'those who cannot protect themselves', but I think there might be enough of a subtle difference in what the emphasis is to maybe make sense. Alternatively, it might be something like 'I will protect the identities of individuals' or something like that (no LifeLock jokes); something related to recovering Ishar's, deadeyes', and his patients' selves. Edit: If Kaladin could recover Ishar's madness somehow...it occurs me that the Fused are suffering from virtually the same ailment. Perhaps that's how the war ends.

There's two issues I have with the 'Regrowth is the Cultivation surge' hypothesis: 1) Why are the other Edgedancers/Truthwatchers completely out of it, then? Shouldn't they be somewhat resistant like the Windrunners? (and presumably Bondsmiths, but the only one at the time isn't there, obviously) 2) Adhesion doesn't show up as a Fused surge; Progression does (or at least, I presume it does; one possibility is that it doesn't or the Void variant is somehow different than the Stormlight variant). So there's something different going on. As noted originally, Lift has difficulty using Regrowth in a similar way Kaladin has difficulty with the Reverse Lashing - it takes more effort but it can get through. The most reasonable analogue might be that Regrowth is also a multi-surge effect like the Reverse Lashing; the main reason this doesn't seem to work is that both Edgedancers and Truthwatchers appear to be able to use it, while only sharing Progression - unless there are multiple ways of generating Regrowth. The other reason is that it would still require one of the surges to be unaffected somehow. Or the Stormlight Progression surge is actually partially independent of the Voidlight Progression surge - and if that's case, would a Voidlight user with a Nahel bond providing Progression be able to use Regrowth?

It may be worth noting that Lasting Integrity is, essentially, in Tukar - where Ishar was before going into the Shadesmar. The place where Ishar met Dalinar isn't quite on top of Lasting Integrity, but from a global perspective it's pretty close. So I think the lines will converge more than one might expect.

TWoK: RoW: It's an interesting idea, for sure.

An interesting passage from TWoK: (emphasis mine) Probably a coincidence, but the wording is suspiciously similar to what Rayse!Odium uses. So not sending a champion (or being delayed) is definitely a reason for forfeiture; perhaps Taravangian has a plan for starting something that would require Dalinar to be somewhere else (forcing a different champion, or forfeit).

Odium + Cultivation = Cancer.

Yes. In WoR: so this is almost certainly part of the schism within the Honorspren (one group believes 'Honor lives in the heart of men', and the other group thinks differently).

Crazy theory - We know that, from Ishar's bit, that Radiants swearing oaths can cause some sort of recovery from insanity: We also know that right around the Recreance, Honor was losing his mind. And the spren that died during the Recreance were trying to save something...or someone. What if they were trying to restore Honor? If one person swearing the oaths could recover Ishar's sanity for a few moments, what about hundreds doing so at once? We can presume before the Recreance, the breaking of the bonds didn't cause spren to die as they do in modern times (points for this made already earlier in the thread). So the crazy plan may have been for all of the existing Radiants to break their bonds, free their spren, and have a whole lot of people bond at once. This is actually how I think things will go in Book 5 - we have a huge collection of deadeyes following Adolin around now, while Kaladin has essentially been training people en masse to be ready to bond as Radiants. Shallan 'primes the pump', so to speak, by figuring out exactly how the process to work with her dead spren, and in the end, Honor is restored through the collective action of a lot of people bonding themselves to the remnants of the Shard (Honor lives in the hearts of men, taken literally). There are two sections that really stood out to me regarding the problem with having Vessels for the Shards: This is referring to the conversation they had earlier: Initially this just reads like setting up for a democratic evolution on Roshar (and that's part of it, I'm sure). But combined with the first section - what if the Shards could somehow be borne by a group of people rather than just a single individual? What happened on Scadrial is one way to mitigate the influence of the Shards to prevent them from being so unbalanced (combine several of them together); perhaps another way is to instead spread the influence around groups of people. The Oathpact could have been an unintended prototype. As a separate note, I think one of the consequence for sealing away BAM was that it made the spren somehow mortal, or more mortal than before: This is probably why the Recreance ended up going as badly as it did, since Maya implies the spren didn't expect to die as badly as they did (or, spren die when they are killed...). I wonder though if this, in the end, doesn't work out better for the spren, allowing them to change instead of being immutable (something we may be seeing in Syl). -

Actually, there is a big assumption I was making: That there is no way for Odium to break his word. However, this isn't impossible, it's just really dangerous: Rayse would never risk it, because he is too concerned about dying. But...what about someone who didn't care that they died if they achieved their objective? We know that Taravangian is exactly that type of person based on what he's done; he wouldn't throw away his life, but he has no compunctions about losing it to accomplish what he wants to do. What if there was a way to break the contract in just the right way so that his death (or vulnerability) wouldn't matter? This feels like just the sort of thing where the identity of the Vessel is absolutely critical, something which might have set off Wit if he suspected Odium wasn't Rayse any longer.

I don't think a baby or a child would likely work; 'willing' probably includes the capability of understanding what they are choosing to do (so trickery or 'I'll give you candy if you say these words that you don't understand' probably doesn't work). More I think about it, more it feels like it would have to do with the 'shared' clause between the two cases, or an implied-but-unspecified case (the 'tie' solution). The former feels more likely since the latter still requires being able to manipulate the results somehow, rather than winning regardless of the outcome (which seems to be what is implied here). The agreement is that Odium will be bound to the system, but what constitutes the 'system'? Could he, e.g. follow around an asteroid, or a piece of one of the planets?

While that's possible, it seems like it would be odd if that led to different Resonances, since those are specifically from mixture of surges. It would mean bonding two of the same type of spren somehow granted different surges (assuming Jasnah and Shallan are demonstrating the same Resonance here).

Anger + Odium + Taravangian => Mad + Hatred + Taravangian => Mad HatTar Which leads to the obvious conclusion: Carroll predicted this. Alice (Shallan) falls down a hole (chasm) and has a companion that is often mostly invisible (Pattern). Through the Looking Glass is an obvious allegory for travelling to Shadesmar. Also, I propose Mad HatTar as an alias for Taravangian!Odium.

I think we've already seen a way for Stormlight to be converted into Lifelight: This was weird at the beginning of the book...but after Navani's research, it makes a lot more sense. The mixture of the light and the music results in Lifelight, which makes the plants grow better. Note how the Lifespren are getting 'infused'.

Lift using Lifelight instead of Stormlight makes the suppression even more confusing, since she's clearly unable to use Abrasion, and it requires effort for her to use Regrowth. If it was merely a matter of the source of Light, it's unclear why the surges would operate differently. Even if it was somehow a matter of Lift being able to convert Lifelight into Stormlight, the basic premise that the surges are being suppressed differently remains - which was the primary point: the surges appear to be distinct somehow based on how the suppression was working.

It's possible that what Shallan is doing here is different from what Jasnah is doing at the end of WoR (which includes the possibility Jasnah wasn't exhibiting anything supernatural, though Wit's comment seems to imply otherwise). However, as noted in the OP, other Lightweavers don't seem to exhibit this ability, so I don't know that it's just an aspect of Memory. It might be worth noting that Shallan seemed to exhibit a form of this during WoR - her sense of direction when in the chasms seemed to be much better than Kaladin's, who was certainly much more familiar with the chasms in general than she was.

Odium specifically says "I can’t see your mind, but I can see these, can’t I?" referring to the 'external storage' memories, so I think he absolutely can see what's contained within.

During the events of RoW in Urithiru, Lift is able to heal other people using Regrowth, despite Stormlight surges being generally suppressed: The passage also indicates Abrasion isn't working for Lift, a situation similar to Kaladin only being able to use Adhesion: Adhesion working seems to be something that Raboniel might have anticipated: So for whatever reason, Adhesion is not being suppressed. This probably makes sense since the suppression effect was originally designed to suppress the Fused surges, of which there are only 9, and presumably don't include Adhesion, being Honor's special surge (sauce?): Therefore we can probably assume that the suppression effect only applies specifically to the surges expressed by the Fused. Since Lift can use Regrowth - with some difficulty - this suggests that the Fused aren't capable of Regrowth. The specific surge however is Progression, which allows for more than just Regrowth, but also rapid growth of plants (and possibly other effects). As opposed to Lift's Regrowth being difficult to use, Kaladin doesn't seem to have any particular difficulty with Adhesion. However: So an effect which is a combination of a blocked surge (Gravitation) and an unblocked one (Adhesion) works, but requires more effort, much like with Lift and Regrowth. But Regrowth doesn't seem to be a combination of multiple surges since both Truthwatchers and Edgedancers seem to express it in the same way (through just Progression), and the partial blockage for Regrowth specifically doesn't seem particular to Lift (since her Abrasion doesn't work at all). That seems to imply the Fused Progression surge is different from the Stormlight variant of Progression. I don't think Lift ever attempts to grow plants using Regrowth during the event, so it's possible it's just the fast growth of plants which gets blocked. At that point it almost seems like the two variants of surges are different powers altogether. A curious case here is also Venli, who can use both Voidlight and Stormlight to power her surges (which are presumably Stormlight surges). The suppression effect stops her from using her powers with Stormlight: But her powers work with Voidlight. So a big question is, could a Listener Edgedancer/Truthwatcher (Rlain...) using Voidlight use Regrowth? Or how does the type of Light interact with the mechanism of the surge? A similar question would come up with a Listener Windrunner with Adhesion.

The (a) relevant WoB appears to be: Question About Mistspren This appears to be contradicted by Coppermind, which suggests mistspren are the Truthwatcher Radiant spren, so, one of those is wrong or OBE.

The Chapter 99 epigraph suggests what happened to El and his rhythms: Based on the Chapter 98 epigraph (and rest of the epigraphs taken together), the 'they' appears to be humans. Though it's possible 'they' may be referring to a subset instead (i.e. Radiants). Chapter 116 epigraph: All of these are taken from the same source ("—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days") and clearly refer to Taravangian replacing Rayse. So it's likely reasonable to infer that Rayse!Odium was the one to punish El (it could have been the Nine, but their authority doesn't seem to be quite so far reaching, but regardless, presumably with Rayse!Odium's blessing or at least non-objection) and the reason for it was because he wanted to use some group instead of killing them. Since El was punished, it seems reasonable to assume his recommendation wasn't taken, e.g. the possibility that the group El is referring to is the Unmade is unlikely, since they are being used instead of having been killed. The epigraphs taken together strongly imply the group El is referring to are humans, and that Rayse!Odium objected to El's proposal to use the humans instead of killing them. This feels a bit odd since Rayse!Odium seemed to want to use the humans, too (e.g. Dalinar, taking over the Alethi with the Thrill at Thaylen City, the nature of the contract for contest of champions), so there's likely more going on here. Either the group El is referring to aren't actually humans, or what Rayse!Odium didn't like was the specifics of the usage. Alternatively, the punishment happened before the Fused existed (so before joining Odium). It'd be interesting to conjecture what El's title had been, as that might give some hints to clarify this issue. We know that the title is currently possessed by a human: Since The Pursuer/Lerian knows about it, it'd have to be something he'd be familiar with/would accept. Likewise, El would have to know about/accept it. Possible options include: - Stormblessed: Lerian definitely knows about this one... Could argue that it wasn't bestowed by the Fused, per se, but the Fused (or at least the Heavenly Ones) seem to accept it as being Kaladin's. - Voice of Lights: Probably knows about this one being under Raboniel's command. Given that El appears to have the Rhythm of War research, he'd almost certainly have heard about it as well. - He Who Quiets: Possibly the most likely? Seems like all the Fused would be aware of this one. If it was 'Stormblessed', it might have been associated with joining Odium and spurning Honor; this could explain why his suggestion might have been punished (Listeners opposed his plan rather than Rayse!Odium). 'Voice of Lights' could also work in this context, since it doesn't look like anyone was considering Voidlight to be 'real' light before Navani's work (hence Raboniel's assumption Voidlight and Stormlight were opposites). 'He Who Quiets' could probably be generically applicable; Moash's loss of emotion could certainly be paralleled to a Listener losing their rhythms.

During the pre-release, Shallan's perfect sense of direction immediately jumped out at me: The reason for this is because geolocation was the hypothesis for the Elsecaller resonance based off of the end of WoR, where it looks like Jasnah knows exactly where to go despite being dropped in the middle of the wilderness (and because it seems like the natural thing to associate with someone who can travel magically): So my immediate, WAG was that somehow Shallan had also been bound as an Elsecaller, which would potentially be hard to distinguish since they share similar abilities to Lightweavers, or possibly affected by her interactions with the Unmade. I actually misread the original interaction with the deadeye Adolin runs into (I thought it was an inkspren, since I was looking for one, and not a cryptic), which I thought explained it... But of course, that's not actually what appears to have happened. So the question still remains - why does Shallan have geolocation? The resonance of Memory appears to be the established one for Lightweavers. It's possible that the geolocation Resonance is just an extension of that ('memorize direction') or that this ability is actually distinct from the one Jasnah appears to have (knowing where you've been - odometry - is not the same as knowing where you are relative to a global frame), but the two abilities seem pretty close, colloquially (it's also possible Jasnah just knew the direction to go, similar to what Shallan seems to experience, rather than explicitly knowing where she was). There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any other Lightweaver exhibits this, either, though the evidence is scant (to the point of non-existence?) in either direction. If any other Lightweavers did exhibit this, it seems like it would be something that would have come up during Shallan's internal description, though. One important consideration is that Shallan does seem to have at least one power the other Lightweavers don't have yet. Despite being a poor-to-mediocre Soulcaster (at least, doing it Jasnah's way...), Shallan can cross over to Shadesmar: It specifically mention Shallan, despite there being three other Lightweavers going with her, which seems to imply this is something only Shallan can do out of the Lightweavers. And Jasnah can as well, of course, so it might be that the geolocation Resonance is somehow tied to being able to transport to Shadesmar (as an aside, Shallan having this ability actually seems really weird, since transportation to Shadesmar sounds more like Translocation than Soulcasting, but there isn't anything that seems to indicate that e.g. Jasnah finds this unusual). This could make sense if the person could somehow use their sense of position in Shadesmar to help determine their position/orientation in the Physical as well.