Pattern

I like the theory, it is quite imaginative. There is one more problem though: Dalinar wears the clock-painrial around the outside of his uniform sleeve; to activate the painrial Dalinar would have to press his hand on it. There is no mention of Dalinar doing so. As soon as the sparring starts, Dalinar is stripped to the waist, therefore he would also have taken off the clock-painrial by then.

It's only chapter 18. As you might remember, I would be satisfied if that's all we read about Sadeas' murder. But i am fairly certain we are not done there yet. I have a gut feeling that you will get what you desire. Give it some time, the feeding of three chapters a week is painful for most of us.

Which new oaths? Szeth has not bonded a spren so far. He "only" carries Nightblood. Nalan may not have chosen wisely, but that is not surprising at all. This is a possibility. They have to hurry, though ;-)

Really, you don't see Szeth taking revenge with the Stone Shamans, carrying our well liked cheery Nightblood? I think they will have to take care of their own wellbeing for a while.

The moment she asks Pattern whether her brothers lived or not shows that Shallan is losing control. She cannot distinguish and remember with certainty anymore what is real and what is a product of her illusions. To create lies, Shallan needs to know what is the truth. If she loses that ability I fear she will lose herself. I love badass Veil, I don't really like Brightness Radiant. Both have their justifications, as long as Shallan knows that both personae are a product of her Lightweaving. Cosmere magics are too much about perception to dismiss Shallans problems recognizing the truth. The moment she views Veil as real and Shallan as the illusion, bad and permanent things might happen. I fear for my favourite spren... I don't really care that she develops Veil and perhaps Brightness Radiant to extremes. If she overdoes it, they will appear artificial and thus become less useful. Extremes might even help her to keep in mind that Veil and Radiant are products of her Lightweaving. I agree though that Shallans present state of mind is much better than even 1.5 years ago. But she is losing her coping mechanism of forgetting on purpose. Now she has to learn to endure the pain - without losing herself to Veil, Brightness Radiant or Horneater lager.

Agreed. That is something I also would like to know. A small child was cracked enough to bond a spren, so yes! House Davar was probably worse than we have seen until now.

@MulkWhen we first met Shallan in WoK, she had no traces of surgebinding abilities. The only remnant of her former Lightweaving were her mnemonic abilities in capturing pictures and drawing them at a later time. Perhaps those even are not related to Lightweaving but just a non-magical talent, which is later enhanced and supported by her use of Lightweaving. Her first new experience of Surgebinding - after her memory block - is her not quite intended trip to Shadesmar where she soulcasts the goblet to blood. Or if you want, her glimpsing the spren in Shadesmar who then appeared in her drawings. This is quite similar to Elhokar seeing things from the corners of his eyes. A subconcious glimpse into the Cognitive Realm with quite different results. Shallans first truth said to a spren thus is "I am terrified". I think this is a very weak truth, which possibly is just accepted because Shallan was much farther progressed as a Radiant in her childhood. Ok, I need to stray off now. An Idea struck me concerning Shallan's final truth: "My mother tried to kill me because Pattern cought her - cheating on my dad (replace with whatever) - thus revealing my developing Radiancy. Pattern is the reason for all my agonies."

If you take away all distinguishing properties of Investiture, sure what remains is the same. Some form of power enabling stuff that physics does not allow. Just to say if you hack away Intent, Connection and Identity all Investiture were the same, is no real argument for me. Nobody In-world knows how to do that, so Investiture from different shards is not the same. This is like saying all colors are the same, all you have to do is just put the light off. The reason for Odium not picking up any other shards but splintering them is that he does not want to merge /contaminate his Intent with that of any other shard. This should be indication enough that Intent cannot be hacked way with the wave of a hand. A shard should know how to do it.

@DSC01 You forget the differing Intents of the ... @Emerald101 ninjaed...just now I should go back and edit my previous posting where I said the main distinguishing trait is keyed/unkeyed to Intent. For tiny amounts of Investiture that would perhaps be insignificant, as soon as the Investiture starts to become sentient though... On a small scale we see that even in the specific behaviour of Radiantspren. Syl is based on Investiture of another Intent than Pattern, thus demanding very different kind of things from their pet knight. Surgebinding would not work with Odium's Investiture. What you get instead is Voidbinding.

This is not true. You cannot use every Investiture for every magic system. There are hacks enabling to use different kinds of Investiture in some systems, but there are inherent differences. The main distinguishing factor is whether the Investiture is keyed to Identity or not. Feruchemical charges and Breath are examples for keyed Investiture while Stormlight very likely is unkeyed (uncertain if another Radiant can suck up bound Stormlight (e.g. from Shallan's illusions) or only the one who did the surgebinding). Vasher/Zahel found a hack to use Stormlight to feed instead of Breath, however that does not mean any Returned would be able to do so. Stormlight is not the same as Breath, both are different kinds of Investiture. The opposite character of Devotion's and Dominion's Investitures creates the rather unpleasant Cognitive Realm on Sel. They don't simply mix but create a pressure which make them even leak into the Physical Realm when encouraged gently (AonDor, soulstamps, etc). So there is no reason to assume that Cultivation Investiture is the same as Honor Investiture. Spren both of Honor and Cultivation (and mixes) enable surgebindings powered by Stormlight. Stormlight itself is Honor's Investiture (as are many spren) and stuffed into the Physical Realm (into the Highstorms), Cultivation also invested on Roshar but she is still alive and therefore the bulk of her Investiture should be in the Spiritual Realm. As a correlary, the amount of Stormlight in Highstorms should have increased significantly after Honor's death. Perhaps we will find out about that in the few pages yet to come. Your example of a metalmind not resisting further storing is explained as follows: Feruchemical charges are in general keyed to the Identity of the feruchemist who stored his attribute in it. He can fill and tap it until it is full or empty respectively. It cannot be accessed by another feruchemist at all - except you consider the newly discovered unkeyed metalminds. We simply do not know how the Nightwatcher modifies her visitors. Might be she removes or just alters sDNA. Perceived as an injury these alterations would be subject to Stormlight healing. There is WoB that even ripped out parts of the soul (via Hemalurgy) can be replaced by Investiture, therefore healing the person (if he/she survived the spiking at all). I suspect Dalinar to have uttered another oath unknowingly, therefore increasing the efficiency of his stormlight ("I accept the authority of the Heralds"). In the aftermath Dalinar's "curse/boon" were healed.

Yes, that is why Kaladin still has his scars although he has used a lot of Stormlight.

I looked it up, terrification does indeed exist -and means what I intended it to mean. BTW, nice soul-car analogy. I am not sure whether Dalinar remembering Evi will turn out beneficial to his mental health, though.

This might be true. None the less Investiture resists other Investiture, for example it would be quite hard to steelpush a shardblade and Szeth is not able to wear shardplate and use the Honorblade simultaneously. So it is possible that Dalinar holding Stormlight while Navani mentioned Evi made the Investiture he held able to remove the Nightwatchers boon and/or curse. This does not explain Lift though, who draws Stormlight and keeps her boon and curse.

Lift got the ability to metabolize food to Stormlight. Stormlight healing would have taken away that ability practically after her first meal, if it had been treated as an injury. Edgedancers are closer to Cultivation though, so possibly Honor's surgebinding heals Nightwatcher's curses while Cultivation's does not.

As mentioned above: "I am terrified". This seems to be a very temporary and cheap truth for a level-up though. It practically becomes void as soon as she is not terrified anymore. Let's hope for Shallan this does not lock her into a permanent state of terrification (is that a word?).

I am not sure whether "I am terrified" counts as a truth raising her radiant level. It was a very temporary truth just used to enter Shadesmar once. Her last said truth "I killed my mother" enabled Pattern to appear as a sprenblade, effectively establishing the same level Kaladin is on with Syl and his third Oath. Shallan could have progressed even further during her childhood but her denying has thrown her back.

I don't agree. Shallan is obviously not the curled up girl, destroyed by her past. That is a picture of what she would likely have become without her coping mechanisms. She is able to laugh, to feel joy, even to light up the mood of others. Her lies enabled her not to be totally destroyed. The dangerous part for her now is that this coping mechanism is taken away slowly by her telling the truths to progress as a Radiant. And how long is a lie still a lie? When does pretense become true? (Compare with Kaladin questioning the honor of Dalinar's trade of Oathbringer for the bridgemen).If Shallan perceives herself to be Veil too deeply, she could become Veil for real, the lie would become the truth. Of course, there is a safeguard mechanism preventing Shallan from becoming stuck in an illusion. Somewhen her Stormlight would run out or Pattern could intervene as long as he is not killed in the process of Shallan losing herself. The running out of stormlight could be very prolonged, since holding up an illusion only takes a trickle of Stormlight and Vasher/Zahel is able to obtain his weekly one-breath-amount of Investiture on Roshar much more easily than on Nalthis (the reason for his presense in the first place). What is someone's true personality? Is there such a thing? I think we all are different personalities meshed into one human, the prominent one depending on the surroundings we are in at the moment. Different personality traits take over in different situations. The key lies in acknowledging the different traits and understanding when and where which one comes to prominence. As long as you can control that, you are yourself.

Of course. It is escapism at its finest. Her lies are a way of evading the hurt and guilt associated with her real personality. When forgetting the truth does not work anymore (because it's Lightweaver's pendant to an Oath), Shallan goes deeper into her illusions. Because she doesn't want to be herself, because she cannot suffer being herself. Brightness Radiant and Veil will eat Shallan from both sides now, while Shallan/Veil were somewhat balanced. This obstacle she needs to overcome in order to progress further as a Knight Radiant, and her current path does not seem to be the most healthy one. Horneater lager, really. Stabbing her hand seems irrelevant compared to that. I guess the phrase "black on white" is quite universal, as it is a metaphor for text (black) printed/written on paper (white). Where was it they wrote with white ink on black slate? White Sand spoiler: Warbreaker spoiler:

This is a nice idea, it does not account for Jasnah believing that particular Oathgate being open, though. Jasnah would have got her information from old texts - as this is her modus operandi - after finding the Kholinar gate closed. If Jasnah found reasons for the gate to be open in old books, it could not have been Szeth. The most likely explanation for me is that Stormseat was destroyed/abandoned more then two millennia before the Recreance and thus has been forgotten. How it is possible to forget an Oathgate on the Urithiru side, being right in front of your eyes, is a riddle for me, though. If you lock nine oathgates, why not the tenth just to be on the safe side?

Dalinar's clockrial shows the time with three hands, even seconds - which he finds totally unnecessary. The fabrial development is too recent to have influence on language, though, so "Just a sec" might be a bit off.

Hoid. He uses his form of Lightweaving to assume a new persona. He would get bored with Jasnah, eventually. His comments would be fitting.

Wayne also would have no problem imitating local accents. But still, timelines don't work, as AoL is placed between Stormlight 5 and 6. Timetravel (backwards) is not a thing in the Cosmere, is it? My first reaction was Nazh. But he does not seem to play with stuff like coins or spheres. He did appear in Bridge Four to get a look at their tattoos though, so this could be some other worldhopper from Khriss's entourage, trying to get more information on what's going on there.

Good morning everyone. I made it to page 7 of 9 yesterday evening before falling asleep in front of my laptop. Well, now I've finished reading all 11 pages and I think nearly everything that came to my mind reading the last three chapters has already been addressed. Some additions now: Chapter 16: Odium has been wounded before with scars that don't heal. He also has been refered to as The Broken One. What is his current state as a Shard? Damaged badly near to be spintered? We will see... The Honorblades seem to be the thing holding up the Oathpact which is thought by the Heralds to be broken, but in fact is not. Does someone see a problem in Szeth travelling to Shinovar to take revenge on the Stone Shamans accomanied by Nightblood? Can Nightblood "eat" Honorblades? Dalinar refuses to use the Thrill during his practice session and recognizes it as something Evil. Shortly after he remembers Evi. And no, I don't think Evi is evil. Rial. He fiddles with a sphere in a way that is annoying to others. I think we should know him, I just cannot place him, yet. Chapter 17: I expected Kaladin trying to bandage the parshgirl's feet. Well, he takes a slower approach in befriending the free Parshmen and I have a gut feeling that this will end in his fourth oath. "I will protect even potential enemies, as long as they are innocent" In the end, he could be able to convince the free Parshmen to abandon the voidspren to avoid becoming slaves to Odium. This would be the last thing they would want to become now, having finally been healed. That Kaladin can relate to the Parshmen is not surprising for me, he already found more honor in the Parshendi way of fighting than in the human armies. Either he will lead this group away from Odium or he is taken in by their revenge on lighteyes so that he (nearly) changes sides. Chapter 18: Brightness Radiant. Shallan. Veil. Pattern is concerned that something is wrong with Shallan's lies. Her reaction is going deeper. Where is Hoid when you need him? (Flashback chapter from WoR comes to my mind where he encourages and lightens up Shallan). I am not certain who I find more disturbing, though. Veil or Brightness Radiant? Veil has her purpose, even if it tends to go a bit dark. Brightness Radiant is just another way to suppress her truths from affecting her, she uses Brightness Radiant even with Adolin (who Pattern may not marry, totally unfair!). Between those two the real Shallan might be eroded away over time, over a short period given the current pace she sets. To all those of you who fear Shallan is not far from the breaking point: I think she is years beyond that. She broke when her mother tried to kill her. All the rest of her story is coping with that truth, living on with it, including Investiture entering the cracks to keep her together. Now with Veil and Brightness Radiant those cracks seem to widen, though. Will losing herself kill Pattern?

In the purelake, fish supposedly giving the ability to predict the time of visits by relatives are considered lucky. @Elena is just not Vorin. This is the great question. I would bet it has to do with Dalinar dismissing the Thrill entirely and seeing it as something bad. Other options are Stormlight healing or, perhaps, fiddling around with the Honorblade.

Only a short comment now: What have you done to Kaladin, and who are you, imposter? Your mainreason NOT to become a Radiant: Never privacy again. Ever. Serious comments tomorrow ;-)