alder24

It's the name for Rosharan subastral, but it's often used to mean Cognitive Realm in general, because this word just means Cognitive Realm.

She was redhead at first (because Shallan didn't want Adolin to realize she was switching personas), but later Shallan changed it to make it recognisable for Kaladin and Adolin. OB ch 15: RoW ch 12: That certain Scholar is around 400 years old, the Royal line on Nalthis is 700 years old at best, while Chana is more than 7000 years old. It's kind of hard to be a father for someone older than you. Way too much kool-aid. How do we know this? The Manywar happened around 300 years before Warbreaker, the first Returned Vo Returned around 600 years before Warbreaker and the book itself takes only a few generations before WoK - let's assume at most 100 years. And of course, Kalak said in RoW 7000 years had passed since the first Desolation.

Zahel joined Kholins way earlier, he was Adolin's teacher.

Considering that Singers in a Warform, who also have a Nahel Bond with lesser spren, don't feel anything when touching a Shardblade, it seems you need to have a specific type of a Nahel Bond to hear the blades scream - a much deeper one. All mentioned above won't be enough.

Hello, welcome to the Shard. Knowing how much Harmony is trying to suppress the knowledge of Hemalurgy on Scadrial alone, I don't think it will spread fast across the entirety of Cosmere. We can expect covert uses of it happening here and there more frequently by the Set, Ghostbloods or organizations like this, but for now I doubt it will become a common knowledge in the near future. Eventually it probably will, starting with Scadrial and then it will get only slightly more popular among worldhoppers. Breaths or the Dor are a common knowledge for anyone Cosmere aware, yet we don't see a lot of people Awakening or relaxing with a glass of Dor in their hand. Until the space era of Cosmere, I don't expect Hemalrugy to get super popular and common in Cosmere. Which means this is the prime time to spike people and get away with this Unless some Shard wishes for this - any Shard can gain a basic understanding of Hemalurgy and spread it among their people, if he only searches for this. RoW spoiler WoB:

Theoretically they can (except for the Sibling as they are the Tower), but it's highly improbable and would probably have some consequences. They had squires, just with no powers: Because it wasn't the Stormfather who accepted those words, that's why he was surprised. They just got accepted, possibly by Dalinar himself, just like he accepted Kaladin's 4th Ideal. At this moment Dalinar was Ascending to Unity and Adonalsium only knows what this even meant. That's an interesting theory. Yeah, I can buy this. However it would also mean that she didn't get any powers (just like traditional Bondsmith squires) - only her increased Connection to Dalinar allowed her to see into SR/CR when Dalinar was opening a perpendicularity. However Rushu felt something, a tone - just like Navani did, so I think this isn't the case. RoW ch 6:

There definitely was a discussion about this in the Chana topic, but If Chana was to be immediately transported to Braize, got caught and broken, Heralds and Voidspren would have returned to Roshar 6 years before WoR. This didn't happen so Chana didn't break immediately after getting killed. But I doubt Fused and Voidspren could have inhabited Parshmen with a broken mind, as they have to be willing and open to a new form. Without their mind being restored Odium might have been incapable of even starting this Desolation, even if he had an earlier opportunity.

She could have done it to herself subconsciously, but that's why I brought up Kaladin. He was surrounded by the Bridge Four after climbing out of the chasms just a few hours after killing a Chasmfiend and Dalinar looked directly into his eyes from very close - they would have spotted a change in his eyes color. He became Truthless around 2 years before Gavilar's assassination and Shallan's mother died around the same time as Gavilar. It's always fun to discuss new theories Don't be scared of being wrong, it's part of the fun and learning experience and with theories like this it's quite hard to say with 100% certainty that it's true or false, yet it always provides a new insight and perspective, which can spark a new idea.

Not trying to argue, as I mostly agree, but I want to provide some context. Cultivation would have been really stupid to try to intervene after Recreance to save Singers, because direct intervention exposes Shards and with Odium literally breathing down her neck, right after he killed Honor, such action would have brought death to her. Not to mention that we don't know in what circumstances did Singers turned to Odium and humans to Honor and Cultivation. You suggest it was just a whim of Honor and Cultivation to betray Singers, yet the text seems to suggest otherwise. Leshwi's words upon discovering that Venli is a Radiant strongly suggest that it was ancient Dawnsigners who first betrayed Spren, which in consequence turned Spren towards humans. This later forced Singers to turn towards Odium for power (as the Song of Secrets said). At the time of Recreance, Singers had been a sworn enemy of Cultivation for more than 2500 years - she had no obligation to help them. And no, Cultivation didn't create Dawnsingers, they were made before the Shattering by Adonalsium himself. With the recent revelation about the ancient Old Magic spren, we also had even less idea what gods did Dawnsingers worship and if they worship Shards at all. The Eila Stele said that "for their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind," which we are now quite certain that those are all ancient Old Magic spren, not Honor and Cultivation. We have no idea what happened around the very first Desolation, what caused gods to switch sides, therefore it's really hard to judge Honor and Cultivation actions towards Dawnsingers, if we lack any context. TLM ch 66: RoW ch 109: The Song of Secrets: Shards are stuck in an infinite trolley problem. They all know that their action or inaction will always cause death and suffering for someone else. For them it's the matter of choosing the path where the least amount of people suffer. That's what Harmony did with Wax. He could have left Wax alone, but that would end up with the total annihilation of Elendel and 5 million people living there - then everybody would have asked questions why Harmony didn't do anything to save them. Is Taravangian right about blaming Shards for this - yes, they should take responsibility for the misfortune they create, even if they can't avoid it (which Taravangian even admitted). Is Taravangian right about his solution to this problem - absolutely not, restricting free will is not a solution, it's a dictatorship which sooner or later has to collapse causing even more suffering. So then is there any good solution to this? I don't know, but I don't think Brandon is chickening out of this thread. No, he's only starting to explore it. We still are waiting to learn what happened around the First Desolation, how Odium got stuck on Roshar, what was the whole deal with Heralds and the Oathpact (which was Heralds' idea, not Honor's) etc. Harmony is growing into Discord and who knows what that will bring to Cosmere. Autonomy is regrouping and there is already a sizable opposition against her. Shards are meddling with human affairs everywhere and this dilemma of them taking responsibility for their actions will only grow. Is there even such a thing as a good Shard? No, Brandon said it multiple times. Honor might seem like a good guy, but Nomad realized that's a lie to make people kill each other - the groundbreaking revelations are only ahead of us. The whole concept of Shards is that people with flaws can hold near infinite power, so the questioning of their responsibility will play a big role in the future - and Taravangian's words are only a foreshadowing of this.

Well, it hasn't appeared in any book yet, but Brandon is quite consistent in his description of this magic system. And yes, the destruction of Ashyn affected the magic system in some way, but we don't know in what way - we know however that this system existed before the destruction of Ashyn. This magic system is also related to the Old Magic, it is a Cultivation-based system and it is made by a symbiotic bond between investiture and microbes. While we don't know the details yet, I don't think that the very fundamentals of this system changed (but everything is possible considering that Dawnsingers were able to use Surges without the Radiant Nahel Bond).

Hello, welcome to the Shard. No need for spoiler boxes in this part of the forum. Check out Sharder FAQ for some useful tips. Testament is still bonded to Shallan. She already started to re-bond Testament. In WoK 46 she swore the Truth "I'm terrified" to Testament. This is because she started to summon Testament (without which she would be unable to Soulcast) and then she heard the voice - that wasn't Pattern, that was Testament. This also means that somewhere in the past Shallan started to recreate her broken oaths and resworn the First Ideal to Testament. Moreover, despite breaking her bond with Testament, Shallan never abandoned it. There must have been some left over of Nahel Bond, connecting them together, allowing Shallan to use Testament as a deadeye blade, or maybe even possibly access some Surges. WoK ch 46: Yes, she said this in RoW ch 115: This is because she had Testament with her all the time and a deadblade with their original knight might function a little differently (after all, an original knight who broke their bond can revive his deadblade after reswearing their Oaths). Somewhere before WoK, she started to reconstruct her Oaths with Testament and that allowed her to regain some of her former Radiant powers. Unlikely, because of your point 4. Chana didn't have her Honorblade with her. She had broken her bond with it and abandoned it during Recreance. She would have to reclaim it and rebond it to have it with her and because Szeth knew it was still in Shinovar when he was named Truthless, it's highly unlikely that she did it, especially considering the fact that Shins didn’t plan to return Honorblades to Heralds at all. Also, you can't inherit an Honorblade, you need to bond it. And because this Honorblade was in Shinovar, it's almost impossible for Chana, or Shallan to have it. The simplest explanation is that it was just because of Testament, which Kalak confirmed (quoted above). There is also another problem with Shallan having an Honorblade. Whenever she would have summoned it, her eyes should have changed to pale reddish (ruby), just as the Dustbringer glyph color. Honorblades change their owner's eye color when held. Szeth's eyes were changed to pale sapphire whenever he summoned Jezrien's blade. Shallan's should have changed as well, yet nobody ever noticed this and her eyes remained blue. The same would go for Kaladin's eyes in the chasms, if he was given an Honorblade. Just holding it changes your eye color. Someone would have spotted that Kaladin's eyes turned to bright red after returning from chasms. OB ch 64: Most likely, every time when Shallan summoned her Shardblade in WoK and WoR, she summoned Testament - that includes the Oathgate scene. All other Radiants can summon their blades after swearing the 3rd Ideal and while Brandon stated long years ago in a WoB that "it differs from Order to Order," except for Shallan, we haven't seen anyone gaining the blade before the 3rd Ideal. So most likely this WoB was a red herring, to turn away our attention from the fact that Shallan shouldn't be able to summon her Shardblade before saying that she killed her mother. There are two proposed reasons why it didn't scream in Kaladin's hands. First one is that by this point, Kaladin's bond with Syl was nearly broken and it's the bond that allows a Radiant to hear deadeye scream. Secondly is that Testament was most likely content with his state. That's a weird statement to make, but that's the reason why dead Shardplate don't scream - they are content, not in pain (RoW I-1). Why would Testament be content with her death? Because she knew what she's getting herself into. She knew she would be most likely killed by Shallan at some point - just like Pattern knew this. Cryptics were willing to send new spren to Shallan no matter how many of them Shallan would have killed - and that says a lot. If they were willing to die trying and keep trying even more, Testament would most likely not hold any grudge and not scream. She knew very well what she was risking and she accepted that price when she decided to bond Shallan. And the Testamentblade might be able to open an Oathgate because Shallan already started to reconstruct her Ideals with her - I'm terrified. Because of that Testament would function differently than a normal deadblade. It's fine here, but you can just report your first post and ask mods in the message box that will appear to move this thread to the Stormlight section (three dots menu in the upper right corner of your post).

I'm guessing it's in the Spiritual Realm. The gemstone already contains part of the Shardbearer spirit web or his innate investiture, so it's not a stretch to suggest that because of this, the gemstone would be pulled into SR, sticking to spren's spirit web, when dismissed.

Well, not exactly. Spren grants access to Surges. But Spren ARE living Surges, they are manifestations of those Surges in living bodies. Each spren type has a different makeup of investiture, that's true, but how does this correspond to Surges? We don't know. Even Surges aren't of Honor or Cultivation. Surges are fundamental forces which exist in the entire Cosmere. Surgebinding just filters them through the Shardic intent, but any Shard can access any Surge - Surges don't belong to Shards, just like gravity doesn't belong to Honor. For example Glys most likely is accessing Surges through the filter of Odium, but it's still the same fundamental power he's using. God Spren are simply different from True Spren. They are massively invested and are strongly tied to their Shards. They represent something greater than Surges and ideals, yet they all give access to the same Surges. There is nothing that would prevent Nightwatcher from accessing Adhesion through Cultivation's filter.

A Shardbearer with no Radiant powers? Just with dead Shards? Well, it depends who's the Inquisitor? Kar? Maybe with some luck. Marsh? A Shardbearer stands no chance against Death himself. Having magical and healing powers is a huge advantage during a fight with a normal person, even in a mech suit. A Shardbearer has only his blade and plate - once he runs out of Stormlight in his plate, he's basically a sitting duck. A single coin shot into his visor can kill him. A smart inquisitor is faster than a Shardbearer and wouldn't engage in melee combat because of the Shardblade - he would try to exhaust a Shardbearer and constantly shower him with coins and metal objects, cracking his plate and allowing his Stormlight to run out faster. And it's quite easy to keep your distance when you can fly. And this is all without considering Atium. Any inquisitor with Atium will win a fight with any Shardbearer. Seeing the future is such a massive advantage that not even a Shardplate and Shardblade can equalize this. With Atium inquisitor can fight in close hand to hand combat, avoid any Shardblade swings, or Shardplate punches and stab his opponent in the eye. And Atium is generally a standard power of inquisitors.

Yes, we know that all Bondsmith have access to only Adhesion and Tension, but their application may or may not differ depending on the god spren. We know this because of the Surgebinding table from WoK. Navani was able to create Towerlight, while Dalinar can create Stormlight - we have one example of differences between Bondsmiths. But Navani, just like Dalinar, can open her own perpendicularity - that's the Bondsmith power.