happyman

Shaggai, while your interpretation isn't nonsense and debating the literalness of the death rattles is worthwhile, I think you are sticking a bit too hard to one possible interpretation when it is far more likely that a better interpretation will come along in future books. If you don't believe this, look at some of the early interpretations of the "person who killed my honor" in this thread. They were way off, trying to fit events from WoK to something that was much, much more satisfyingly fit in WoR. It seems to me that we should take your interpretation as possible, but I personally feel that its much more likely referring to something that we haven't seen yet. Most people arguing against your interpretation don't have anything sensible to fit the rattle too, and you seem to think that is a bigger weakness than it really is.

I think Steelheart had that power because it would make for an awesome setting. OK, so it's a bit meta, but that's how a lot of author's work. That said, he may well work it into the rest of his Steelheart metaphysics.

Atomic bombs as a weakness seems to be a tad bit overpowered. There are plenty of Epics who are weak against Atomic Bombs without it being their weakness!

I'd call those aspects (puns and listener songs) a very liberal interpretation of the translation convention. For example, in order for the songs to be properly translated, they have to have at least a hint of being lyrical by our lights. Otherwise beautiful music could come of as amazingly pedantic or dull. It's a hard choice for translators to make in the real world dealing with real-world documents. With fictional worlds you can get away with a lot more and chalk it up to the translation convention because it doesn't really matter!

We've already gotten the Stick's Interlude. http://brandonsanderson.com/words-of-radiance-deleted-interlude-stick/ Of course, true followers are hoping for more of this amazing insight.

I don't think any of the Shards are inherently good or evil. All of them are incomplete by themselves. I believe that even Odium can be good, given proper context.

I like the beginning and end, Patrick, but I'm not sure of the innovations in the middle. More seriously, good one.

Good, very good explanation, and upvote for writing it. I would note, thought, that I had a pretty easy time creating a function for which this explanation isn't sufficient by itself (I deliberately set out to do so). It's not relevant for this thread, but if any one out there is looking deeper, don't feel you're going crazy if the real mathematicians start using terms much more obscure but technically accurate. Mind, I think that any explanation should start with this explanation as a motivation. Reading the Wikipedia articles on Julia sets was far from useful.

My guess is that projection is the right term. The term shadow is a good intuitive term, but is only equivalent to a projection if the "light source" is much further away from the object than both the distance to the plane on which it is being projected and the original object itself. You could say that a projection is a shadow only if the light source is infinitely far away.

You're all wrong! The one true God is the Stick. May we rest forever in his holy shade.

There's a theory going around that you can't create Investiture using a different type of investiture. It seems like one possible natural limit of forging. So whether that is possible or not is up in the air.

No wonder he's always at odds with the 17th Shard. They got into a massive flamewar a couple of millenia ago about how Hemalurgy worked and haven't had a civil conversation since. Back on topic, I'd say that some words in languages, at least, have extremely long roots. I wouldn't be surprised if the root for axe and the root for hound had both come from extremely old languages dating back to human occupation on another planet. After all, Adolin recognized the pictures of lions as mythological beats. Hoid probably just spotted that and it amused him because he knew why it had happened.

A Kandra worldhopper? Yeah, about the best you can do with that is quite literally say "Probably looks human." Bit vague, what?

I've believed that Nazh was working for Khriss ever since I heard that Khriss was probably the most Cosmere-aware person around. I also suspect that Khriss writes the Ars Arcanum. As for the blurbs on the back? I suspect they are being written by Spren. Just call it a hunch based on style and attitude.

This. I get irritated when people say Adolin killed Sadeas in cold blood when nothing could be further from the truth. Sadeas had tried to kill Adolin in cold blood. That's what The Tower was all about, and he was extremely cold about it. Adolin killed Sadeas in extremely hot blood after discovering that he was still trying to kill him. Yeah. Moash and Elhokar, though, that's trickier. The fact that it was a conspiracy would probably affect its legal standing, but I'm not a lawyer.

I'm pretty sure she has at most only one out of the two. Oh, metaphor. Never mind.

I just view Adolin hearing Zahel's voice as a very common form of recalling a memory. He's his trainer and Adolin is remembering what he is being taught. No need to read too much into it.

A vital skill if I've ever heard one. More seriously, I am certain that Hoid is an Allomancer after Shallan's little "Is he poisoning himself?" episode, but I think we are too focused on the Lerasium bead for that. That's one way he could have become an Allomancer. Somehow he became a Feruchemist and he's not even of Preservation or Ruin the way most Scandrian's are. There is more to the world and magic than we have seen! Edited to add: Also there is no reason to assume he has the same lightweaving as Shallan. As noted, he has probably kept the Yolish version. I also suspect that he has some magics that we haven't seen yet. If nothing else, I'm dead certain he has used Soothing/Rioting on Kaladin, if not something more obscure. Check out the interactions where Kaladin isn't sure why he's doing what he's doing when Hoid is there. Sounds like emotional allomancy to me.

Upvote for being sensible about being corrected.

Let me rephrase this: Amaran believes that Gavilar wanted the desolations to return. The Parshendi believed that Gavilar wanted to bring their gods back, which seems to also involve the desolations returning. So this is decent evidence that he was trying to get the desolation to return, but it is still second-hand and there is a lot we don't know. There were obviously tensions, not to mention misunderstandings, going on. Gavilar's pre-death confusion makes that very clear.

I am absolutely rock-solid certain that the Listeners are not of Odium. The aspect of the Voidbringers that are of Odium are the Spren they have bonded. My personal pet theory is that the Voidbringers are either of Adonalsium or come from even further back.

Wonderful questions. If I had answers, I wouldn't be sitting here on a random Thursday debating this kind of thing. I would be actively making the world a better place as a full-time job using those insights. I think one key point here, though, is that protecting Elhokar really didn't mean letting people get killed. It had been made abundantly clear that Elhokar was a threat to those around him if somebody didn't do something, but Dalinar and Kaladin together could do that something, and it didn't have to be by killing the king. That was pure vengeance and deep down Kaladin knew it. Edited for clarity of my last point.

I suspect that this has a strong part on it. I personally suspect that there is somewhere in the cognitive realm the idea of honor (or more likely, the overlapping set of concepts known as honor). This objectively exists in his world. The different spren are actual manifestations of these ideas. However, aspects of it may well be influenced by the other cognitive entities present. In this case, Windrunners would have to adhere to not only their own sense of honor, but also how the rest of the world views it, on a deep subconscious level. This would then be an analogue to the Natural Law concept; unconscious moral democracy. In other words, Kaladin is becoming not only the person he wants to be, but the person a lot of other people deep down want to be as well, although it is far from the only ideal version people can imagine (that's what the other orders are). Or maybe he is only becoming the person many people want to believe in. If this is true, then the Windrunners would not be nearly as chaotic as some people in this thread suggest. They wouldn't be holding themselves only to their own sense of morality, but to some sort of Cosmere-wide "consensus" of one particular brand of morality. One specific ideal, as it were. That others are possible is a fascinating study, by the way.

I think Sadeas is actually dead for all the reasons people list above. It seems to me that Sadeas and his death is going to cast a very long shadow, but that the person that Sadeas actually was had run out of steam. In some ways, he is probably going to have a bigger influence by being killed than he would have alive. Alive, he would have tried his stupid scheme to bring down Dalinar which would have made him even less important to the various players. Dead, though, a good propagandist can have him ready to do whatever the speaker thinks would have been a good idea, as long as it would have been acting against Dalinar in particular and the Kholin's in general.

As far a number 3 is concerned, it not being true would involve Wit having visited a world where a dangerous new type of magical weapon (but probably not an actually evil type of weapon) was invented, and him having not gotten one. It really does seem in character for him to have gotten one if it was feasible, and for Wit, feasible is a pretty broad definition. Even if he can't kill people, he can probably find a use for it.