Seloun

I don't think it's obvious at all that Shallan and Adolin are closer than Shallan and Kaladin. While Adolin and Shallan have some infatuation with one another (e.g. their initial meeting) and one good interaction (the meeting immediately before the highstorm), their conversations post-chasm feel like they're talking around each other. There's the scene quoted earlier where Shallan gets distracted from what Adolin's saying because she's daydreaming about Kaladin (telling on its own), and two other significant conversations between Adolin and Shallan. The first one is immediately after the return from the chasm: Note how Adolin and Shallan's focuses are entirely different, starting from their initial expectations (quip/hug, then kiss/forced kiss) and later to the more fundamental perception of what the correct next step should be. Also, the last line is highly reminiscent of Kaladin's earlier Almost like a reverse-oath. The second scene is in Urithiru: Adolin and Shallan are both physically attractive and they're understandably physically attracted to each other, but that appears to be the main thing going for their relationship. Shallan doesn't even need the backing of the Kholin house any more. Despite what Shallan says, their relationship seems pretty awkward (another 'forced kiss' here) and literally the only thing holding their relationship together is that they find each other hot (sometimes maybe that's enough...). I don't think Shallan has really noticed yet (or, more like her, she's not willing to admit the truth to herself) but Adolin certainly is feeling doubts and insecurity about their relationship: On closer reading it's just hard to see Adolin and Shallan's relationship going anywhere without a huge amount of character development (probably from Adolin). While it's certainly possible, it would be a stretch to say that that's the 'obvious' relationship for Shallan at this point.

It's not really clear that Taravangian thinks Helaran was a Surgebinder, mainly because it's not at all clear he knows that Shallan is a Surgebinder (though he seems to speculate she might be one). The relevant passages: Taravangian's immediate conclusion is that it's Jasnah that Szeth met. However, clearly shows that Taravangian is aware of Shallan's presence in the warcamps. This shows that he considers the likelihood of Jasnah faking her death and being in the warcamps to be higher than Shallan being a Surgebinder (assuming everything else being equal) given the first conclusion he jumps to. Adrotagia certainly considers the possibility that Shallan may be a Surgebinder, but the phrasing again implies speculation rather than any certainty. This is less exceptional than it may seem at first glance; it seems clear that Taravangian is expecting the KR to return, so his group is somewhat predisposed to look for potential Surgebinders. The way I read 'trained' in the passage above is not necessarily trained as a Surgebinder, but as an agent - ironically essentially exactly what happens with Veil in the warcamps. Taravangian has met Shallan, and it seems like a reasonable assumption that all he could see of her is that of a perfectly innocent young girl, which, given her family and association with Jasnah, must have been immediately suspicious (a suspicion which retroactively proves to be justified, admittedly). Given that Shallan appears to have survived where Jasnah did not (which, viewed from an external perspective, is pretty flabbergasting), it wouldn't be surprising for Taravangian to speculate that she had some sort of hidden training.

While I don't really agree with the reasoning, I think there's something to the premise. It's interesting to note that the fate Szeth is supposed to have for being Truthless (running around with an Honorblade and being damned to eternal torment after death) sounds a lot like what the Heralds seem to go through. It certainly seems like the Stone Shamans know something about the Oathpact, though their understanding might be corrupted (e.g. they may think being bound to the Honorblade at death is what causes the 'damnation').

which seems to imply that simply being indoors or sheltered may prevent the change. Also suggests there might be other things that prevent the change (e.g. being somehow bonded or protected by another spren, maybe, or wearing Shardplate counts as being 'indoors').

This has been gone over in some old posts, but one of the main arguments for Shallan/Kaladin is that they're essentially the living personifications of 'opposites attract'. Besides the obvious, they're from opposite orders (Lightweavers and Windrunners are opposite sides on the Radiant diagram, which is also reflected in the reaction between liespren and honorspren). Another interesting observation is how they react to the weather: versus Kaladin is a morning person; Shallan is a night person: Shallan is a heavy drinker (I've postulated that she might be a proto-alcoholic), Kaladin is not: versus Everyone else has had multiple drinks, while Kaladin might not have finished his one if not for Moash's business (also his disinclination to go out in the first place). Somewhat more abstractly, Shallan is bright on the outside while hiding some serious darkness inside, while Kaladin is pretty scary outside with a very idealistic center. Shallan personifies the traditional female arts (probably the best artist in the world barring maybe Heralds, one of the best scholars, at least passable schemer) while Kaladin personifies the traditional male arts (possibly the greatest warrior on Roshar at the moment when factoring in Stormlight). There's probably many other details where we find them to be complements of each other. It's very much as sun-and-moon thing going on between them. Finally, Kaladin compares Shallan with Tien, arguably the single most person in Kaladin's life (the reason he joined the army, the reason for his breaking in the first place). This is a surprisingly apt comparison given that at the time of the observation, Kaladin doesn't know about the role Shallan had in cheering up her brothers. Incidentally, there was speculation that Tien might have been a proto-Lightweaver as well due to (bold mine): As mentioned above, what Tien does to Kaladin is very close to what Shallan does with her brothers. In a sense, they've been practicing their complementary roles their whole lives. That said, I fully expect that in Book 3, their relationship will stall due to distance and being out of communication with each other, compounded by Kaladin not being around to defend his role in Helaran's death (remember, all the bridgemen, Dalinar and Adolin at the minimum know that Amaram stole the Shardblade from Kaladin due to the confrontation near the end of WoR, which Shallan was conveniently not present for). But in a way the roadblocks are indicative of the route the story will take - if it wasn't moving in that direction, the barriers would pose no narrative purpose.

The next two quotes happen almost at the same time, from opposite perspectives: It's pretty hard to argue that there's nothing there. In fact it's pretty clear from their second meeting (the insult-fest as Shallan is trying to get an audience with Dalinar) where this is going; it's classic tsundere. There is so much evidence that it seems almost deliberately misleading.

I don't think that they agreed to it because the Almighty asked them to; it seems likely they agreed to it because Honor told them they could save their world by doing so. Nor does it seem like it was actually an agreement for eternity: Again I'm not really sure why this seems so unimaginable. Someone comes up to Kaladin (or Shallan or any of the proto-KR) and tells them that they can have the power to protect the world and their loved one in return for their personal suffering (something, as noted above, that Shallan specifically brings up as a desire); why is it so weird that they might agree, even if they end up regretting it later?

The use of the word 'human' in this context is likely more representative of the speaker rather than the topic. Zahel's phrasing is much more likely to be indicative of the fact that on his original world, the distinction is highly relevant. Even without that consideration, it doesn't require Zahel to be referring to Adolin's mother; it just requires Zahel not to unconsciously assume the most powerful individuals are men (or women). It's also not clear that that phrase really has to be taken as a literal truth in the first place, as opposed to slight hyperbole used in common adage (like 'leader of the free world'). Nothing of the rest of the scenes with Zahel and the Kholins seem to suggest any kind of deep relationship between the two. If Zahel is invested (no pun intended) in Renarin in any fashion, he does a really good job of hiding it. Zahel seems neutral at best about teaching Renarin, if not actually unhappy (he specifically mentions that he'd rather not be teaching Renarin); while I suppose this could be argued as 'acting' for Kaladin, I feel like looking for a connection there requires pretty convoluted assumptions without much textual support.

I'm not sure I really agree with the initial premise of the argument. I don't see immortality as the reward or benefit the Heralds gets from the Oathpact; rather, it's just a side effect to make the thing work at all. It's also worth noting that most of the Heralds (and possibly all of them) seem to have come to conclusion that it was in fact a raw deal and they've reneged on it. I don't know why it's so hard to imagine that at the beginning of the Oathpact the Heralds might have been much more optimistic about it than later (especially if the nature of the cost was downplayed or presented in a heroic fashion). If Kaladin was presented with a similar bargain (e.g. the ability to protect the bridgemen in return for a similar cycle of torment) I'd imagine he'd take in a heartbeat. Eventually he may grow to regret it, or decide that he wasn't truly aware of what the cost would be (it's tough to imagine eternity without experiencing it, I'd guess), but at the beginning it seems easy to think that he'd jump at the change. Likewise for Shallan. In the chasm scene, Shallan says: which is practically what we assume the Oathpact is (in practical consequence): you get beat so other people don't (or so you can sometimes prevent them from getting beat). Basically I don't really see a reason why it's necessary to postulate the Heralds are anything other than heroic humans since it's so easy to see how the current crop of KR (in particular Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Jasnah, Szeth and even Lift) could easily accept a deal like the Oathpact (or what we are postulating the Oathpact is, anyway) even if they ended up regretting it after a couple of millennia. Heck, Szeth already seems to have made this deal to some extent - his loyalty to his oaths despite knowing that will keep him in damnation forever sounds very Oathpact-ish.

I'm not really sure that the Taravangian quote is really any evidence. What else could Taravangian had said? Szeth saw definitively a Surgebinder; that means either KR or an Honorblade. Since agreeing it's KR leads to Szeth going crazy or at least realizing his oath is worthless, Taravangian literally had no other option but to claim it was an Honorblade. He didn't really 'choose' that lie so much as have it chosen by Szeth's words. Regarding the wet - I always assumed it was related to why Shardblades are wet when summoned (something to do with the materialization process).

The quotes can be reconciled if the person being referred to are actually two people from different books. In particular Taln might really be the person in the TWOK epilogue, while the person we see in WoR might be an imposter or a replacement. That said, if the person in WoR is an imposter, he's a really good imposter. If he's not Taln, he's certainly not some random guy off the street given the dart interception scene. He might literally be a replacement - it's unclear if the Oathpact could be assumed by any other than the Heralds, but it seems likely (the Stone Shaman's punishment for the Truthless - giving them an Honorblade and dooming them to eternal torment afterwards - almost sounds like they're looking for Oathpact replacements). Alternatively, as a crack theory maybe Taln does show up in the Epilogue - it's just not the man who shows up with the Shardblade. Maybe it's the guard that Hoid is talking with (what a twist!).

From a Doylist perspective it's quite likely that Jasnah is near Hearthstone or at least somewhere she's likely to come across Kaladin quickly. This is due to the number of distinct POVs we're looking at for book 3: - One almost always in Urithiru (Dalinar/Adolin, maybe Shallan) - Szeth - Kaladin - Likely someone acting as a herald for Urithiru (e.g. to Azish and Lift - also could be Shallan or Adolin) - Eshonai (though she may be skipped in book 3 a la Jasnah in book 2) Given Sanderson's experience with WoT, I'd imagine he'd want to avoid FourLinesAllWaiting. It's unlikely Jasnah will be near Shallan, since that would intrude on Shallan's Ghostblood storyline. Likewise Kaladin probably won't be with Shallan for most of the book, in order for the Helaran Chekhov's Gun to play out (too easy for Kaladin to provide a good explanation if he's in easy communication when she learns of it). It also seems unlikely that Szeth will be anywhere near either protagonist (in terms of communication - could potentially be physically close, of course) given the amount of development he's probably going to go through. Basically Kaladin is the best choice for Jasnah to be around for most of book 3, and given the number of other POV lines to pursue it seems likely her perspective will end up getting merged with someone else.

My working theory is that Adhesion is helpful for flight and is being used by Szeth/Kaladin unconsciously. Assuming Windrunners are better at flight than Skybreakers (given the name, nature of their spren and Kaladin's 'owning the sky' thing), it seems reasonable to postulate Adhesion is the difference. My guess is that it acts sort of like a virtual airfoil, giving them better maneuverability (and more efficiently) than just Gravitation alone.

The problem I have with this interpretation is that you get a weird discontinuity at that downward direction. Think about a half Lashing very slightly behind you but mostly downwards (arbitrarily small amount); this would cause you to 'split' the vector and would work differently than the proposed half Lashing downwards. Since Lashings are of limited precision, such discontinuities would cause unpredictable behavior. It really feels like the first Lashing is mechanically distinct from the latter ones. (obligatory quote about limited precision:)

Not precisely in this context, but I found Szeth's concerns about the afterlife interesting, when factoring in that he had an Honorblade and that the Honorblades apparently represent something about being associated with the Oathpact. What Szeth describes regarding the fate that's supposed to await him is rather close to what Taln appears to have gone through in Braize, and we know from the beginning of WoK that being killed as part of the Oathpact appears to send to back to Braize in some form. Perhaps the Shin are attempting to fix the Oathpact, or are just working off of a corrupted understanding of how the Oathpact actually works. Either way, going to a non-metaphorical Hell after dying is a fundamental part of the very first section of the series, so it's probably reasonable to say the afterlife has to factor in pretty significantly.

Gemheart contacts. Latest craze in Liafor; just ask Adolin.

The modern/ancient soulcaster point was in response to the sub-thread that started with: which I believe someone was looking for quotes in support/denial of. There's potentially other mechanisms that might look like 'burning' (e.g. lemon juice trick or another chemical reaction). I'm not necessarily suggesting that that's what happened, just that Shallan's POV is necessarily limited by what she thinks is possible. It seems quite possible that the accuracy of Transportation may be dependent on distance or some other factor (e.g. living subjects might be much harder to transport, inaccuracy might be due to being in a hurry or because she's transporting from Shademar). If the mugger scene was dependent on Transportation, Jasnah seems to have reasonable precision in that instance.

Well, the point is that there really seems to be two variants of the Basic Lashing, regardless of the exact underlying mechanism. The main thing to note is that for a Basic Lashing of < 1, the net magnitude of the forces don't change. For example, if you do a half-Lashing downwards (or any Basic Lashing <=1), there's no effect.

The most important caveat is that this is Shallan thinking that the words were Soulcast. We don't know for sure that that's actually how Jasnah accomplished it; in fact, one could argue that Shallan's amazement is a clue that the letters weren't Soulcast after all. That said, I'm not sure that Transportation explains the phenomenon any better (remote candle-thrower?), though the 'burning brand' solution still works. It's also unclear if the words were actually burned into the page, or if that's Shallan's explanation since she assumes the Soulcaster is specifically attuned to the three elements. Regarding Soulcasters - at least as far as Shallan is aware of, there are two categories (lesser/greater) of Soulcasters: Shallan implies the Soulcasters are ancient tech, not modern: Jasnah provides some additional evidence: All Soulcasters are apparently ancient tech; there aren't any 'modern' Soulcasters (though on first read I assumed the 'lesser' Soulcasters were modern, due to Jasnah's use of 'original'). It's also worth noting that the Ars Arcanum's description of modern fabrials (which is worded to sound pretty comprehensive) has no mention of Soulcasters.

Lashing effectively redirects the normal gravitational attraction, instead of adding a new acceleration: 1/4th of the original vector cancels part of the 3/4ths that remain (3/4 - 1/4 = 1/2), which leads to the half-weight. Likewise, flipping half of the vector negates the sum (1/2 - 1/2 = 0). The OP's reference is: but this is still consistent with the above (Kaladin is redirecting all of the gravitational vector both up and down, i.e. 1 - 1 = 0); Kaladin appears to be just being less efficient about it than Szeth. The main weirdness is that the Basic Lashings can convert a portion of the gravitational vector as well as increase the magnitude; these feel like distinct abilities in my mind (in the partial Basic Lashing case, the Lashing is 'stealing' from the gravitational vector, but there's nothing to 'steal' once it's all gone, so where is the additional force coming from?). It seems possible that the first Lashing is somewhat different from any additional Lashings that are applied. One of the implications is that the effectiveness of Basic Lashings would be dependent on the magnitude of gravity (so Windrunners are actually more gimped on Roshar than they would be on Earth) assuming that the Stormlight required to create a single Basic Lashing remains roughly constant. In deep space Basic Lashings might be effectively useless.

The post being a digression is essentially a factual statement by the definition of 'digression'; I'll concede that 'pointless' is a value judgement and open to interpretation. Given that your original post regarding the phrase 'dibs' seems to have associated an interpretation unintended by the author, I don't think it's unreasonable that someone else might have misunderstood what the issue was. Regardless, the reply to the mistaken 'helpful' post seems rather extreme. In particular, 'condescension for condescension', especially an escalating strategy, does not seem like a good policy. Going back to the original point of this sub-(sub-)thread, I'm not sure that people reading the original post about 'dibs' were more inclined to think of Shallan in an objectifying manner, since I think for most the intent of the passage as clear (and not about removing from consideration the possibility of Shallan being an independent actor). I'll concede that I don't have any data on that topic besides the existing posts and my interpretation (so, sample size of 3 or 4) but I'm not sure anyone else was interpreting the phase in the manner you were.

The OP's primary point about Mr. T being smart enough on his supremely intelligent day not to need empathy for accurate prediction is probably right (given enough data and imagination he should have been able to postulate and verify a model of how humans generally react going by his own history). In fact how he behaves when he's just 'really smart' doesn't seem that smart to me; for the most part being smart is all about making predictions (or specifically, good predictive models) and he does a terrible job at it, despite having plenty of data from his own lifetime. That said, it's unlikely the Diagram is really a good thing. As noted by a previous poster, the main thing is that Mr. T doesn't really know when the Diagram is drifting off course because he doesn't really know how it works. The number of factions in Jah Keved might not matter much right now, where things are apparently going (on a macro level) as predicted, but there's no way to know for sure that change (or the changes that resulted in that consequence) haven't already derailed the plan six months from then. Taravangian has no gauge except looking at outputs. Essentially, the problem is that a small delta in the prediction might be indicative of a big delta in the internal computation generating that prediction (this is especially true if that prediction is an attractor - fairly likely to be proximate under a large number of initial conditions). Mr. T can't really fix the Diagram, and he recognizes that - that's what his chapter is about: how he desperately needs another supremely brilliant day so he can fix it. Without it, he's probably screwed and taking the world with him. That's the main issue because there's probably far more ways for his plan to go bad than there will be for his plan to go well. No matter how good his original intent was when creating the Diagram, if he can't control the outcome of his plan, it's much more likely to end up somewhere bad than it is to end up somewhere good. It's like trying to hit a bull's eye with a badly inaccurate gun; it doesn't really matter if he's aiming at the bull's eye or somewhere else, he's probably still not going to hit the bull's eye. It's unlikely the interpretation issue is in of itself a problem with the Diagram; we can probably assume that Taravangian accurately accounted for everything he knew about (which is the big issue). In particular, he may have written his plan in the way he did because he needed them to be interpreted at the correct time by the right person; if we assume most of the 'team' was already available before the Diagram was made, he probably could have accounted for the interpretation issue (it's worth noting however at least some of the team joined after - in particular the ardent Dova; if she is actually a hidden Herald or another major player and is involved with the Diagram...). If he failed to account for things he already did know, he wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

The original poster's reply is in fact indicative that the usage was not in reference to Kaladin claiming ownership or possession of Shallan. Specifically, the object of 'dibs' is pretty readily understood not to be 'Shallan', but the 'priority on courting Shallan'. Further, It only 'prioritizes Kaladin and Adolin negotiating who gets a shot with Shallan' when taken by itself out of context. The context is specifically about Kaladin's decisions: It's unsurprising that in the context of discussing what choice Kaladin will make, the choices Shallan might make is not directly considered. Because the initial post was a pointless digression off the topic (I admit to the irony). That alone wouldn't have necessitated a response, but the reply to king of nowhere's post (mistaken or otherwise, his intent seems honest) was incredibly condescending and ad hominem:

Spanreeds don't appear to be described with metal, though that might just be a lack of a clear description. WoK Ars Arcanum also appear to suggest the action of the spanreed is entirely due to the gemstone (in particular, if one cracks, it seems unlikely it could simply be replaced since it suggests the procedure requires an initially-whole ruby). The bigger issue is that it's unclear what they'd make the fabrials out of if not metal. It's not like they can soulcast plastic, and given the existence of soulcasters (to make easier-to-manipulate materials into metals) it's not clear why they'd ever choose a different type of material to make soulcasters if they have an option. Of the solid choices, rocks and crystals are likely to be much less tough than metals, and wood has the problem of being degradable (and is less tough than metal).

Based on Dunny's eye color, 'light-eyed' appears to be a function of a secondary pigment rather than color (i.e. there's a dark and light version of each appropriate chromatic shade). So focusing just on the shades, there are 6 represented on the list. These appear to be representable by the Honor-side Orders plus Truthwatchers: - Windrunner: Blue - Skybreaker: Grey - Bondsmith: Yellow - Stoneward: Brown/Tan (not on the list, but Amaram and Moash) - Willshaper: Violet - Truthwatcher: Green Truthwatchers don't fit the pattern (Truthwatchers never seem to fit the pattern), but otherwise they're all 'Honor-side' Orders. Also making this complicated is that the color of Elsecallers are unclear (looks kind of blue-ish or indigo-ish). Still doesn't explain Shallan or Jasnah, but it's possible for whatever reason they haven't had an event to 'switch' their eyes.