Seloun

This is really an Exact Words problem more than anything else (in particular, you are assuming 'average' is the current, instantaneous average over living individuals; it's not really accurate to say 'by definition' the average is based on the current living population). One of the obvious solutions (as several others have described) is that the 'average' is not a moving value, but a colloquial term for a static value, either determined at the beginning of the program, historical norms or by definition (e.g. IQ = 100). The other obvious solution is that the 'average' is not 'average in Jah Keved', but 'average over the entire continent', in which case you can in fact have a floating cut-line while not going into infinite regress.

The phrasing, especially in context, does not suggest that Shallan is not an independent agent, merely that Kaladin is able to unilaterally decide that he will not pursue a relationship with Shallan. Mentioning that Kaladin may choose to do so without conferring with Shallan and choosing to do so due to Adolin's relationship with Shallan does not denigrate Shallan's ability to choose.

That's an interesting theory. It actually works pretty well upon reflection. The problem with the epigraph regarding the Skybreakers has always been in the odd wording. In particular, it talks about "The considerable abilities of the skybreakers for making such" which does not flow well for guilt-determining things. Maybe they're making 'judgements'? Or laws? But it's a weird way to describe it if that's the case (for the latter, it would almost sound sarcastic). It fits much better if it's talking about a physical thing or class of physical things, something that doesn't require a highly subjective value judgement. The quote also talks about the skill as something that fit oddly with the overall Skybreaker mentality. If it's something that's already in the 'law' purview, I don't know why it would ever come up as a question. As a similar example, what does dodging things (or the wind in general) have to do with Honor? The other fragment from the same page isn't really evidence against, since we have no idea what came in between or the overall context of the page (for example, it might have started with how the Skybreakers were able to find the guilty party, and it turns out it was through a fabrial - one outstanding question is how the heck Nale was able to get to Szeth so quickly after his fall). The fact that Navani does not appear to have made the fabrials she's interested in and the fact that modern fabrials are different from ancient fabrials appear to be evidence against when taken separately, but taken together actually is good evidence for, instead. The skill in the quote suggests that whatever it was was mostly intuitive rather than formulaic (otherwise it's unclear why you would call it 'almost divine' if it's something everyone could learn) while modern fabrials certainly seem to be engineered in the literal sense of the word. A reasonable explanation is that Navani is indeed fascinate by fabrials, but modern fabrials are completely different from KR-style fabrials and therefore Navani doesn't have any special skill in designing or building those. If Nale is at least a facsimile of a Skybreaker, it's likely that Skybreakers were more interested in the letter of the law rather than the intent. Remember that this is exactly the argument Navani gives about her relationship to Dalinar: In general we see that Navani is unconventional but there does not seem to be any hint that she does anything actually illegal. She also mentions that she was 'never unfaithful' while Gavilar was alive, which is sort of the precise language and justification one might expect from someone with a lot of concern about the letter of the law. That said, I'm not sure that Navani is really a good candidate to be a KR. It also seems pretty clear at that point Szeth is going to be the Skybreaker representative for the KR. However, 'making fabrials' being the skill referred to for Skybreakers is an interesting one and explains the big question about the way the WoR epigraph is phrased.

The specific quote strongly implies it is one of the orders rather than just one in ten: In particular it says 'nine of the ten'. Though I'm not sure anyone seriously considered otherwise. So Stonewards are highly unlikely to be the remaining Order given the Feverstone keep quote. Skybreakers are probably the most likely candidates at this point for the ones that did not abandon their arms, though this is mainly due to the existence of Nale's organization. We can rule out with pretty high certainty many of the other orders - Windrunners, Edgedancers, Lightweavers, Elsecallers, Bondsmiths and Stonewards are probably safe to rule out, leaving Dustbringers, Truthwatchers, Skybreakers and Willshapers. Truthwatchers are arguably the least likely of the likely candidates, since Renarin is a Truthwatcher, but the behavior described in the quote above seems Truthwatcher-ish to me, and we actually have no idea what Renarin has been told (unlike the other Radiants, who have explicitly been told by their spren that they are the only representative of their spren in the Physical - of course, it's not impossible that they're wrong or lying). We've also possibly have seen 'on-screen' two Truthwatchers (Renarin and Ym), which is so far unique. I don't think it would be a big surprise if it turned out that the Truthwatchers are the ones that remained.

It does seem like an odd choice. If we assume that Kaladin was supposed to be making an optimal or near-optimal decision (given his instinctive combat ability, not a huge stretch), we might conclude that repairing a Shardblade wound is easier for him than repairing broken bones (he's done both, and while both takes a lot of Stormlight, it's unclear which is more expensive). While we know Szeth can't heal Shardblade wounds, Kaladin doesn't know that (as far as he knows at that point, Szeth can do everything he can do). Against other Surgebinders with rapid healing, massive trauma might deplete Stormlight faster than a Shardblade cut.

1. There are certainly possibility of weirdness going on with the visions. At the very least, the visions cannot be literal reproductions of history since they adapt to Dalinar's choices. The fact that they are mutable at all implies the possibility of tampering. Furthermore, Dalinar receives a 'vision' at the end of WoR which apparently did not come from the Stormfather; all of this does allow for the possibility of Gavilar's visions being altered by e.g. Odium or at least different from what we see from Dalinar. However, there's no direct evidence of any change and all of the evidence we do see regarding Gavilar's visions suggest they are similar if not identical. All of the things people remember Gavilar saying about the visions are directly traceable to visions Dalinar has had: This still opens up the possibility that the visions may be the same, but the source of the visions might not actually be Tanavast, or that the visions Dalinar has been seeing has been altered, too. The point is that there isn't really any evidence to that currently, while there is pretty good circumstantial evidence suggesting that Dalinar's visions are the same as Gavilar's, and they come from Tanavast through the Stormfather. 2. I don't think the Heralds actually thought abandoning the Oathpact would stop the Desolation. Instead, not returning means that they might be able to act to do something to stop the cycle of Desolations; in particular Jezrien mentions that it's important that someone remains bounds by the Oathpact: Furthermore, they don't talk about binding Odium - they talk about ending the Desolations, which is not necessarily the same thing (e.g. if Odium was free to leave Roshar, that would end the Desolations, too). Second, re: Stormfather vs. Heralds vs. Tanavast relationship Maintaining the highstorms appears to have been Tanavast's task which the Stormfather essentially inherited: Either the Stormfather was bringing the highstorm at Tanavast's command, or Tanavast was doing so himself, originally. In both cases the ultimate responsibility comes from Tanavast. The most likely reason Odium hasn't used the Everstorm earlier is because he was stopped from doing so: It's 'old of design', which suggests that it's either been tried before or known about from before. It takes the Parshendi a long time to bring up the storm and it would have been relatively easy to stop them (as they're helpless while doing the summoning) with anything resembling a full set of KR or a couple of Heralds (remember that the Voidbringers would not be allowed to bind to Odiumspren until the Heralds are all back). There's also probably limitations as to how much binding the Odiumspren can do at a time - given an alert KR/Herald force, it would probably usually be necessary to commit more forces to defense rather than investing everything into bringing the storm (consider that if the Alethi had been a day earlier, they would have stopped the Everstorm; it was a huge gamble on Odium's side). Alternatively, it's because Odium's focus has shifted; see below. Third - If we assume that this particular Desolation is Odium's attempt to get free of the Rosharian system (since Tanavast is dead at this point and Cultivation is apparently inactivated somehow), there's an alternative route to stop the Desolation: let Odium go. This would not have been an option while Tanavast was alive. If Surgebinding is what's responsible for keeping Odium in place, then the Heralds might reason that stopping surgebinding will eventually allow Odium to leave, if they understand that Odium is not really interested in Roshar but in the Shards. Once Tanavast is dead, it might be understandable for the Heralds to decide that there's no real point in trying to defeat Odium to protect Roshar (perhaps some of the Heralds acted to cause that to occur...since that might be the best way to 'protect' Roshar). Then their best shot is to do what they can to let Odium leave; perhaps the act of Surgebinding also strengthens whatever measures are in place to keep Odium in the system.

Re: Gavilar: Basically I interpret Gavilar as Dalinar, except a bit smarter and a lot less lucky. He ends up confiding in the wrong individuals, and he's the one that ends up with giant bull's eyes and essentially takes the bullet to kick off the rest of the story. Dalinar survives mainly because he stumbles across Kaladin (and it's not really so much that he stumbles across Kaladin as Kaladin stumbles across him). There appears to be a pretty short window between becoming 'honorable' based on interpreting the visions and someone (probably many interested parties) hunting them down. The Heralds at Gavilar's assassination are unlikely to be a coincidence, and it's only when Dalinar starts to live the ideals from the visions and the Way of Kings that he's fully targetted (by Taravangian first, though again he's probably not the only with an agenda regarding the Desolation and the KR). Dalinar ends up being extremely fortunate in that he has several allies he can rely on, many of them Surgebinders or otherwise above reproach, while Gavilar's closest allies appear to be Sadeas, Amaram and Taravangian. Essentially Gavilar is Dalinar if you replace Adolin, Kaladin and Shallan with the former. Re: Everstorm and True Desolation: The main key about the Everstorm is that it can empower Parshendi (and possibly other Rosharian life) to Roshar-bond spren without the intervention of the Stormfather and the Highstorm. I believe the Stormfather has some restriction on who he can empower the bond with (and restrictions on who he can't, e.g. Eshonai's scene), and under certain circumstances I think the Stormfather could deny the Parshendi the ability to bond with the Odiumspren. I believe this is one of the aspects of the Oathpact - while the Heralds are all on Roshar, the Stormfather has to allow the Odiumspren bond with the Parshendi (and this is how the Heralds returning causes the Desolation, normally). This is the 'True Desolation' because the Everstorm can empower the Odiumspren bond with the Parshendi (and probably other native life) without the Stormfather; this in turn means that it doesn't matter if the Heralds leave Roshar, since the Everstorm will still empower Voidbringers, causing the Desolation to never end.

It's noted that the plateaus to the east are more worn due to the highstorm activity: Among other things, being more worn would imply the Parshendi probably could not navigate them, even if the greatshells pupated on that side (they're capable of jumping on the western side, but even on that side there are jumps they can't make). The locations the greatshells select to pupate also don't seem to be randomly distributed: So there probably is some reason why the greatshells prefer the western edge of the Plains for pupating. The secondary reason is that the Parshendi appear to have a reason to engage the Alethi, probably because if the Alethi do make a concerted attack towards the center, they don't have the numbers to prevail. If they aren't constantly engaging the Alethi scouts or expeditions, the Parshendi risk the Alethi finding the center, in which case they're pretty much guaranteed to be wiped out. It's true that the Parshendi do not pursue a more total war. This appears to be intentional. As Kaladin notes: In particular, the Parshendi never press their advantage when the Alethi retreat: From the perspective of just winning, this is pretty silly. The Parshendi appear to win at least half the time, and by harrying whenever they win at the chrysalis, they likely could wipe out the entire Alethi force each time they win. It's arguably poor strategy, but in this case strategy is probably being overriden by what would essentially be called political reasons; Estonai wants to negotiate with the Alethi. It's also not clear what the Alethi would have done if the Parshendi pursued a more ruthless war; for example, they could have done what Dalinar and Sadeas did late in the war, with a forward capture army and a second army to prevent Parshendi counteradvances and such changes in strategy might have been worse for the Parshendi in the long run. Most likely though it's probably not in the Parshendi nature to be that ruthless, and being less top-down organized than the Alethi it probably would have been difficult for the Parshendi leadership to convince all of their soldiers to pursue such a tactic.

That would be me confusing 'Confusion' with 'Confused'. Somewhat ironic, really. Right - I still think it's probably accurate to say that the Rosharian bond is not the same as the Nahel bond, and that the Rosharian bond does apply more control over the bondee (assuming the spren is the bonder), just that it's probably not absolute control, depending on the degree of self-possession of the host. We have examples of how the bonding affects Parshendi: The forms generally make a significant, direct impact on the personality of the Parshendi, though it's not a complete control. This is quite different from how the Nahel bond works, where there appears to be no direct personality interface; all of the communication done by the Nahel bondee and the spren is verbal. The Parshendi bond is more intimate or direct than the Nahel bond (sort of like a direct brain interface versus a radio). Estonai's behavior before and after bonding with the stormspren gives us a direct example of how much the Rosharian bond can affect the Parshendi (an argument could be made that being an odiumspren the result is not necessarily representative, but we know that non-odiumspren can have similar if not identical results). We know that the Parshendi forms are the Rosharian bonds (or at least one kind of bond) as expressed by a (presumed) Rosharian native. It's probably not too much of a stretch to extrapolate that all or most native Rosharian bonds work in a similar way (e.g. perhaps there are only a few 'core' variety of greatshells, with the spren bonding providing the differentation in 'form'). For something not so self-aware as one of the Parshendi, the personality transfer is probably pretty close to being complete simply because there's not likely a lot there to conflict with. Chulls are described pretty similarly to Parshmen: And if humans enslaved Parshendi, why not Greatshells? It also seems like a simpler explanation to assume that bonding 'evolved' or was created in a single general way on Roshar rather than positing that the bonding is different for each species.

Isn't the frost effect so far exclusive to Kaladin/Szeth and (depending on the interpretation) summoning Shardblades? I don't think there's any indication of it whenever Shallan is using Stormlight (is there?) or in the Lift section. Maybe it's dependent on the Order or something regarding the Honor-Cultivation axis? Alternatively we may just not have had any appropriate occasions from anyone besides Kaladin or Szeth using tons of Stormlight, though it looks like fairly minor applications cause the frost effect for Kaladin.

For the purposes of the OP theory, it's a moot point since the evidence being used for the theory is speculation that Gavilar had thought a KR surgebinder could trigger a Desolation. It's not directly relevant whether or not Gavilar was trying to cause a Desolation (though if he wasn't, that would also invalidate the evidence). That said, there are lots of ways to interpret the existing evidence. Two immediate ones are that Gavilar did not know of an association between Odium/Desolation and the Parshendi gods (given the visions, if he had been aware that the Parshendi gods were associated with the enemy of Tanavast, it would be pretty puzzling why he would be trying to bring them back) or that Gavilar did not directly mention the Parshendi gods, but instead his plan would have the consequence of causing their return (in which case he may have been completely unaware of the Parshendi gods in the first place). He may have been explaining that he was bringing the Heralds back (heck, maybe the stone is/was Taln's prison). It's also not clear why he thinks it's 'too late' for Thaidakar to stop his plan, or why that necessarily is evidence that Gavilar is trying to cause an apocalypse (he certainly says it's too late for some reason, but it's jump to suggest that implies Gavilar is trying to cause a Desolation). One straightforward alternative is that Gavilar is saying it's too late to stop him from telling the Parshendi about what they'd found, or showing them the artifact, without presupposing what he thought to consequences would be. We also don't know that the black stone is 'evil' or really anything much about it at all (it's a pretty far stretch to say that because it glows black that it must be evil). It doesn't appear to be 'used up' since Gavilar is still concerned (while dying) about keeping it out of the wrong hands (if its only value had been that it had held an Unmade, it's unclear why he would be concerned about continuing to protect it). Gavilar's last statement about it is not about holding onto it, but not letting certain individuals get at it.

While Gavilar may have been a Son of Honor, that's a distinct point from whether or not he would have approved of the actions/direction the organization (and Amaram) have taken since his death. The original argument was addressing the chain of reasoning that went Amaram worked with Gavilar -> Amaram wants to start a Desolation to return the Heralds -> Gavilar wants to start a Desolation to return the Heralds My argument is that the latter connection is fairly tenuous and isn't very consistent with what we know of the visions that Gavilar probably experienced. In other words, while Gavilar may have been a Son of Honor (or whatever organization), I don't think it's a given that Gavilar was starting a Desolation because he wanted the return of the Heralds despite what Amaram has been doing recently. This is relevant since one of the lines of reasoning offered by the OP for the original theory is that Gavilar is interested in KR + Gavilar wants to start a Desolation => KR are involved in causing Desolations But if that only holds if we actually know that Gavilar wanted to start a Desolation and if there's no alternative reasoning for Gavilar being interesting the KR. So the point is that it's unclear Gavilar wanted to start a Desolation and there's a much more natural reason why he would be interest in KR (because, again, Tanavast told him so).

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6717-words-of-radiance-timeline/ Don't mean to be a smartass about it, but it shows up if you search the forum for 'timeline'.

Couple of points - First, the most likely explanation as to why Gavilar was interested in the Knights Radiant is because, well, Tanavast told him he should be. We know that Gavilar had visions, and that they're very likely to be similar if not identical visions Dalinar received. In those visions, Tanavast effectively says that without the KR, the world is doomed (the world may be doomed anyway, but the KR are necessary to have a chance). I'm not sure it's necessary to assume that Gavilar had an interest in Surgebinding (or even the Heralds, necessarily) beyond what Tanavast likely told him. Also, it's not at all clear that Gavilar would have approved of what Amaram or the Sons of Honor have been doing. What the passage says, specifically, is: And that's it. All it says is that Amaram thinks Gavilar would have been proud of them achieving their goal (based on the visions, this goal is likely 'unify them'). It says nothing about whether or not he would have approved of the means they took to achieve that goal; Amaram as we well know is not above using shady methods to accomplish what he thinks are worthwhile objectives. Amaram's vision of the goal: Remember that Dalinar has similar misgivings about his visions in TWoK: It's quite easy to see how someone, after hearing what Gavilar said about his visions, might interpret them in exactly the same manner - that the Church needs to become dominant once more. Amaram's interpretation in the letter, plus Dalinar's thoughts, suggests to me that Amaram is not accurately interpreting what Gavilar was trying to do. Second, the idea of Heralds bringing back Voidspren with them due to investing Odium-light (or Odium-dark?) is an interesting one, but doesn't explain why the Desolation will continue (or restart) if the Heralds don't leave Roshar. It also doesn't explain why one Herald going back would be sufficient to stop the Desolation if e.g. Heralds had to return because they were voidspren portals or something. Finally, it's unclear that Odium is really being clever in any real sense (besides the fact that since he's effectively immortal, he has far more information at his disposal than anyone else possibly could). Tanavast implies that Odium is frustrated by the fact that he's been losing constantly and that it should be possible to prey on that frustration for a chance to defeat him: While Tanavast might be underestimating Odium, this suggests that Odium's original plan(s) wasn't really as long-term as hypothesized in the OP. It seems unlikely that the current result is what Odium really wants, rather than effectively a long-term grinding (and losing) until he wins.

Re: Confusion (the pronoun): 1: What I meant by the 'class' thing here is that most likely, the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher are both Splinters of (or is otherwise strongly imbued by) a Shard; I don't think they're a good example of what to expect from spren in general. We haven't seen a spren that has taken on the persona of anyone yet - even the Stormfather, who's probably the closest to that description we've seen, is pretty distinguishable from Tanavast. It's unclear what 'Taln-ness' would be if it didn't somehow encompass Taln's personality - just taking on the associated virtues seems somewhat indistinguishable from the Stoneward equivalent of the Honorspren. 2: How spren evolve and mature/change in personality is still an open question, certainly, but we do know that bonding appears to grant spren sentience (or sapience, or some sort of what we'd probably call cognitive capacity) in the Physical realm. Also, while it's not explicit, it certainly seems like spren _like_ being bonded or otherwise find it important (otherwise, why risk death? Or, why bond at all?). It might be something like the spren encouraging a certain trait in the Physical is reflected in the Cognitive as more 'undifferentiated' spren becoming that type of spren (which seems pretty reasonable), which effectively is reproduction of a sort. It's also probably worth considering that if Jasnah and Shallan are correct, there are at least two major categories of spren (effectively Honor-based and...I'm not sure if it's Cultivation or Adolnasium-based) which may operate under different principles. 3: 'Controlling' is not precisely the right term, I think, but instead a symbiosis (consider Estonai and her description of what bonding is like for Parshendi). Also, are you sure about the WoB? The closest I can find is and I presume the statement in parenthesis is an aside by the questioner rather than WoB (also, not requiring <> does not possess). We do know that aquatic greatshells, in at least one case do pupate in a similar manner as the Shattered Chasm greatshells, though this is pretty indirect, several-steps-removed evidence that they may also have a similar relationship with spren. Chull may also be effectively Parshmen-ized greatshells (i.e. native rosharian life somehow detached from spren symbiosis). 4: Well, the interesting thing to note is that in all of those cases (restrictions on healing, restrictions on changing form, restriction on how long a Blade takes to summon) what is demonstrated is _not_ new capabilities, but rather not using an existing, demonstrated capability. This is different from e.g. assuming perception can remove restrictions as well as add them. I'd also assume that in those cases they are effectively self-imposed; this is certainly the case for the human cases, while the flamespren example is a bit more roundabout. Somehow the flamespren appears to be aware of a semantic connection between a written figure and the measurement made of itself by a sentient being. Note that just measurement is not enough - it has to be written down, which implies that it's not necessarily just a matter of thinking really hard about it. There's something about the action of recording the value in a (semi-)permanent manner that removes the ability of the flamespren to change sizes. It's unclear that this is a matter of perception (in which case it should occur before it's written down) as opposed to...archival? I don't have a good grasp of an alternative justification (if those researchers were _really_ serious, they could measure->write->kill the people who measured and wrote and see if the flamespren change shapes...alas, restrictions on human experimentation). Also, Re: P.S.: You mean triple-digits... Edit: Some funny flamespren experiments: 1) What happens if two people measure the flamespren at different times, get different values, but both of them write their measurements down (after both measure)? 1a) Does it matter the order they write down their measurements? 2) What happens if a second person measures a 'fixed' flamespren with a different instrument, gets a different value (I can't imagine measuring the height of a flickering flamespren is an exactly reproduceable activity) and writes it down? 3) Does bounding the height of the flamespren also bound its width or size in other dimensions? 4) How long is the measurement valid for? I.e. what happens if a week passes between measurement and writing down? 4a) Does this provide a means of identifying a *specific* spren much later? 5) What happens if you measure the measurement? I.e. note the measurement as it's written down (specifically noting that it's the size of the flamespren), destroy the original measurement document (freeing the flamespren), then re-write the value. 6) Are measurements good for any number of writings? i.e. write down the measurement (locking), destroy the measurement document (freeing), then write down the same measurement again (???) 6a) Are measurements multi-locks? i.e. write down the measurement twice (locking), destroy one (???). 6aa) Does the order matter?

On any other forum I would probably assume this is a troll, but something about here makes me more generous about ascribing purer intent to oddly written questions... There's been a huge amount of stuff written on the forums about this very topic, with the biggest thread likely being http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6519-shallans-relationship/ tl;dr is that the top reason for most people who dislike Shalladin for disliking it is that it seems too 'obvious' (Shallan and Kaladin are easy to interpret at this point of being the main protagonists, and it seems too 'easy' to just pair them together). There many, many other arguments (e.g. some people prefer Shallan and Adolin, which generally if not absolutely makes Shalladin unlikely) but that's the main one that seems to come up. Note that disliking or liking a pairing is (very, very, very) different from finding textual support for a pairing.

My initial guess would be that people assume that this is what Adolin wants: As far as anyone can tell, Adolin is acting the way he does because it's what he wants to do - he doesn't really give off the impression that he's looking for the 'right' one, but that he's enjoying the chase. Even Renarin makes fun of Adolin's inability to stick to one girl: That suggests that even Renarin (who likely knows him better than anyone else) doesn't really understand Adolin's desire to find the right person instead of just playing the field. It's more obvious to us, the readers, since we're privy to Adolin's thoughts, but likely all of his acquaintances assume that Adolin is acting the way he wants to act and the results are what he wants. Adolin can't really admit he doesn't know what he's doing (he's got a reputation of being a lady's man, a great - not precisely a seducer, but someone well familiar with women) without looking pretty silly, so he has to carry on like he knows precisely what he's doing. So no one gives Adolin advice because no one thinks he needs any advice; he appears to be a suave, somewhat spoiled rich kid who likes to flirt more than to get involved, and as far as anyone can tell, that's exactly what he wants. He can't admit otherwise without looking completely inept, so he pretends that he likes jumping in and out of relationships. Since that fits almost everyone's expectation of him, no one has any reason to dig deeper.

I'm inclined to think that the Stormfather and (maybe) the Nightwatcher are exceptions rather than a class. Honor and Cultivation are pretty special above and beyond even the Heralds. The Stormfather also describes himself as a spren of Honor more as an analogy than an exact representation. Based on how Estonai describes the Stormfather, the Stormfather as an independent entity appears to have existed before Honor in any case (otherwise I'm not sure how he becomes a 'traitor') and mostly likely existed as something somewhat different before becoming Honor's Splinter (or decided to work with Honor). As to why the spren bond with humans, I suspect it has the same answer as to why spren e.g. inhabit greatshells or Parshendi. My guess is that it's somehow related to the lifecycle of the spren - somehow their maturation process or reproduction cycle requires bonding and acting in the Physical realm. The Nahel bond sprens are essentially mutated Rosharian spren that have adapted to bonding with humans instead of Rosharian natives. But the bond with humans works differently from with Rosharian lifeforms - the Rosharian bond appears to provide the spren with much more control over their host compared to the Nahel bond (this may be why the KR can kill their spren, which we haven't seen an analogue in any Rosharian bonded creatures). I think Pattern's answer is essentially a narrower form of that - he can't 'advance' without bonding a human and progressing along the spren equivalent of a lifecycle.

The thing is I don't think it has to be that comprehensive. All the girl would have to be is willing to tolerate Adolin's 'side adventures' (frankly, this is hardly unfounded in history). In return, she's marrying into one of the most powerful houses of the most powerful kingdom in the world, with likely two full sets of Shards to be inherited by her children, with about as much influence as you could hope for. Shallan suggests that just merely being seen as associated with the Kholins might be enough to save her house; while Shallan might be wrong, this indicates what the general perception is likely to be (and despite her inexperience, it seems clear that she's actually quite politically astute). And it's not just the girl, it's her family. Again, it feels like the Highprinces and the high ranked brightlords are surprisingly tolerant given that apparently not one of them has tried to enforce a pairing (no matter how old-fashioned the Kholins may seem, their wealth and power is undeniable - and again, two full sets of Shards). From a political perspective, it seems like a no-brainer unless there are plenty of other viable options. It's not like Adolin is total monster, either. At worst, he might be viewed as weak - but from a political perspective, this is a good thing for the marrying family (e.g. Sadeas controlling Elhokar). It's just really surprising that not one noble family with a daughter came to conclusion that it might be worth indulging Adolin a bit (and again, it's not like the man eats babies or drowns puppies) to have an opportunity to basically win a Highprincedom with relatively little effort. Based on what we've seen, it seems like Adolin would have been perfectly content (if not necessarily happy) with a wife who was reasonably pretty but mostly never put any particular restriction on his actions. With respect to Danlan, my guess is what she said to her friends is that

Yes, that was one of the reasons I found that observation interesting. I would have thought of all of the women who tried to court Adolin that there'd be at least one who'd put Adolin's rank (or appearance, or being a full Shardbearer, or...) ahead of any of his (arguably rather minor) personal deficiencies. I was wondering if this was due to the fact the women are mostly high ranking anyway (so any improvement in their station would be small) but I don't know if that really works as an argument (it's unclear how it would work if men 'marry up' or women 'marry down' for example). It might speak well of gender equality in Alethekar (marrying well is not the end-all be-all even for women), it could be just a big fluke (though there seems to be a lot of women involved to make it just a coincidence) or maybe there's some will behind what's occurring (perhaps something Adolin is doing unconsciously). The highborn girls seem surprisingly autonomous in this regard (i.e. no parents pushing them to suck it up and deal with Adolin anyway) which is kind of odd given that Dalinar's willingness to let Adolin make his own choice is implied to be something unusual at his rank (something unusual even at Shallan's rank, at least in their region of Jah Keved). After writing the post I realized that there is at least one instance of where Adolin breaks up with the girl - Danlan: it makes me wonder if Adolin knows subconsciously that each of his relationships aren't going to work out, and ends up sabotaging them sort-of accidentally. If we knew what Danlan said that caused Adolin to break off that relationship, this would be easier to decide.

While this continues to derail the thread, Adolin actually spends a lot of time thinking about his relationships. Part of the confusion might be that this is much less the case in WoR, mainly because it occurs immediately after Sadeas's betrayal and there isn't really time for Adolin to get involved with anyone (besides the obvious). But in TWoK he spends almost every one of his chapters thinking about his relationships (note - the following are AFAIK all of the sections where Adolin has a POV, i.e. where the text reads something like 'Adolin thought' and is part of a 'Dalinar' chapter): Ch 12: (plus others) Ch 13: - none, life or death struggle against giant monstrosity does take precedence, even for Adolin Ch 15: - Indirectly: Ch. 18: - this one is actually involves Adolin dragging around his current ladyfriend while investigating the broken strap: Ch 24: Ch 28: Ch 54: - None, but Adolin's POV is only a small, initial part of the chapter where he's worried that he's sabotaged Dalinar. Ch 58: - Adolin hanging out with his friends and Danlan: Ch 64: - None, but Adolin only has a short POV at the end as they talk with Sadeas about attacking the Tower. Ch 68: - None, but Adolin has only a tiny POV and this is the Tower battle. So the only section Adolin has where he doesn't end up thinking about his relationship are sections where he's literally in combat and 1) a short POV when he's worried about sabotaging Dalinar and 2) another short POV when he's hoping Dalinar will agree to attack the Tower with Sadeas. Besides combat and his relationship with Dalinar, this is almost all he thinks about. The interesting thing to note is that based on what we see, it seems like in general it's always Adolin's girlfriend that ends up dumping him, rather than the other way around (though it's implied this is often due to his roving eye). There aren't any scene of anyone trying to get back together with him, and virtually every ex-girlfriend he runs into appears to hate his guts (and there are many). In particular Adolin doesn't seem to have ill opinion of any of his ex-girlfriends (suggesting both that he generally never found their behavior particularly wanting, but also that he's unlikely to have invested much into the relationship).

One crazy idea that did occur to me during the course of this thread (and the other referenced thread) was to take the concept of Surges trapping Odium in a literal sense. What if...Odium is one of the moons (the 'that's no moon' theory)? Maybe gravitation is literally what's holding Odium in the system. Eliminating the majority of the mass of Roshar would 'free' him from its bindings. Also, some thoughts about the Desolations. Based on the events of WoR, we can probably conclude the main, defining difference between Desolations and not-Desolations is the presence of Voidbringers, which appear to be effectively Odiumspren-bonded Parshendi. The interesting this is that the process of generating Voidbringers appears to simply be the presence of Odiumspren near Parshendi when a highstorm comes. This begs the question why then we never see Voidbringers outside of the Desolations. One possibility is that somehow all the Odiumspren have to be eliminated for the Desolation to be over; this seems like an overly strict requirement, since it seems possible to 'bottle' Odiumspren to be used later (though this is suggested to be a relatively new development). Instead, it seems more likely that the Stormfather may have the ability to 'deny' bonds to Parshendi, but are under some restrictions as part of the Oathpact in letting the bonds form as long as the Heralds are on Roshar. So when the Heralds return, the Stormfather has to allow Odiumspren to bond Parshendi, thus beginning a Desolation; once majority of the Voidbringers are eliminated, the Heralds leave and the Stormfather can stop the generation of new Voidbringers. This would explain why the Everstorm is so inevitably deadly, and why this is the 'final' Desolation: the Stormfather and his highstorm are no longer required for the generation of Voidbringers (since the Everstorm can empower the change as well). So regardless of whether or not the Heralds leave Roshar, Voidbringers will keep being generated, and the 'Desolation' will never end (at least until someone hits the exhaust port on the Odiumoon and depowers the Everstorm...).

Not in exact terms, no. But it's probably after the Recreance. WoK: However, Axies considers a few centuries to be a reasonable length of time, so this alone only helps a bit. Jasnah says: which makes it sound like the scouring of Aimia is relatively well-documented, while we know that events as far back as the Recreance are practically legendary. Vstim also seems reasonably familiar with the scouring: Note Vstim's word choice - 'a treasure that very few know still exists' rather than 'a treasure very few still know about' or something similar. The word choice implies that it's something more than 'very few' know about, but only a 'very few' know that it's still around. He also says in present-tense that 'kings pay fortunes for them' (presumably the corpses - i.e. the frozen one Elhokar has) which also seems to imply the scouring must be relatively recent (it's possible it's referring to only preserved ones, but even so it seems unlikely to last millenia). So while not conclusive, it's probably reasonable to think the scouring of Aimia was some time after the Recreance, and in relatively recent history (probably no more than a few centuries, and possibly less).

Huh, I completely missed that connection. I remember thinking it was just another indication of how un-Alethi Amaram was (i.e. the stormwarden script). Given where Amaram's been hanging out during WoR, I can definitely see Amaram ending up with Hoid's flute. I would be surprised if this is anything more than serendipity though (i.e. option A). Don't think anyone else has brought this up; nice catch.

The only real evidence of this appears to be from Kaladin not hearing any screaming during his training - however, this is non-evidence, since Kaladin never touches a Shardblade during training: From WoR, 'In to the sky', Ch. 52 (this is shortly before the 4 Shardbearer duel, during Kaladin's solo training in the chasm): After this scene comes the duel, and Kaladin doesn't have a training opportunity with the Blades after that point. The 'Shardblade' Kaladin swings in during practice is a wooden, practice Shardblade: What you are probably remembering is the following, but it states clearly that Kaladin is using a practice Shardblade: