AquaRegia

Agreed. I don't have too much to add, except to say that I will be thoroughly unsurprised if we eventually find that Ulim has been around for as long as - if not longer - than the Heralds. I will be similarly unsurprised to find that Ulim had a hand in the ruination of Ashyn. That said, I find him to be refreshingly human. Sure, he's self-centered, grandiose, and manipulative... but in a very entertaining way. He's like the weaselly neurotic D&D party member who always has a new plan: "trust me, it's gonna be GREAT! All we have to do is..." and next thing you know, he's sneaking out the back door with all the treasure, giving you a thumbs-up, while you are surrounded by angry town guards.

It might be more accurate to say that RoW provided more - and stronger - clues, and that Brandon himself then CONFIRMED it.

I think we might be overthinking. Brandon is not an atmospheric physicist or a geochemist. But if it makes anyone feel better, here are some thoughts: Atmospheric energy budgets are HORRIFICALLY complicated - so much so that we, with all our satellite measurements and supercomputer models, still don't understand everything that's going on in Earth's atmosphere. Small particles high in the atmosphere can produce cooling no matter what color they are - they absorb visible light, get warm, and radiate infrared straight back out into space. Black particles might actually be BETTER at doing this, as they would get warmer faster. @cometaryorbit is right about sulfate aerosols. But... Volcanic ash is NOT uniform in color on Earth. Just like all rocks, it can vary from white to black, and every shade in between, depending on chemical composition. I have some ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980, and it's a pale grey, almost like chalk dust. There is a WoB which says the ashmount ash on Scadrial was ferromagnetic in nature, and part of its activity was somehow due to that. (Again, Brandon isn't a scientist LOL) At some point, even the most critical reader should probably just say "well, it IS a FANTASY novel." I've had to get there myself on multiple topics.

It took some convincing, but I am now 100% on Team “Gavilar is definitely coming back”. I’m not going so far as to predict he will be Odium’s Champion, (although I think it’s quite likely)... but I will be SHOCKED if Gavilar does not make some kind of present-day (non-flashback) appearance in the next SA novel. Consider the overwhelming preponderance of groundwork that has been laid: We see the day of his assassination in the prologue of every single novel. We’ve had POV accounts from Szeth, Jasnah, Eshonai, Navani, and also, in a RoW flashback chapter, Venli. We’re obviously supposed to infer that this event – and thus Gavilar himself – is very important. I fully expect that the prologue of Book 5 will be Gavilar’s own POV of that day, setting the stage for us to see how exactly he avoided permadeath, and his return to a physical body. He’s a huge part of Dalinar’s flashback arc. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Gavilar is the single most important reason Dalinar is the man he is today. A confrontation with his brother is the obvious pinnacle of Dalinar's journey. Gavilar has also had direct and important influences on Navani, Jasnah, Elhokar, Venli, and other critical viewpoint characters. We know that he was trading information and making deals with Heralds; that he was involved with the Sons of Honor, whose goal was presumably the return of the Desolations – which we still don’t fully understand; that he knew about Thaidakar and the Ghostbloods, another hot topic we have MUCH to learn about; that he had access to both Voidlight AND Antivoidlight years before anyone else knew about them. Finally, we know that he was Cosmere-aware, likely importing items and/or Investiture from offworld, and learning about the Cognitive Realm and Realmatic Theory. Mraize claims, in talking to Shallan, that Gavilar travelled to Braize himself and brought back Voidlight, and that he was "testing the movement of Light between worlds". He obviously knew Thaidakar wants this knowledge. What other reason would he have to assume it was Thaidakar who had him killed? There are multiple reasons to think he was Invested when his body was killed, and we all KNOW what THAT means. He is literally THE CENTRAL FIGURE of just about every mystery in this entire 5-book series, despite never (yet) having a single POV chapter. I don’t see how anyone can even doubt that he’ll turn up somehow.

I agree that his use of specific kinds of language, and specific words, IS noteworthy. We don't know exactly why, but Brandon seems to have reasons for every choice he makes, even relatively minor things like this. I expect we will, at some point, see some important reasons for these minor things. Another topic with similar musings:

Getting back to the original question, I will make two additional observations: 1) El and Lezian are certainly speaking their own language in that scene, not Alethi or any other human tongue. So what we are reading is (as it ALWAYS is in the Cosmere) a translation of another language into English, with Brandon acting as "translator". It may not pay to read TOO much into a single curse-word choice. 2) That said, we can assume that the most ancient beings on Roshar - i.e., the Heralds, the Fused, and sentient spren from way back like Sja-Anat, Ba-Ado-Mishram, and Ulim - have known each other for a long time and have a lot of shared history: on Roshar, on Braize, and possibly even on Ashyn in some cases. It would not be surprising to find similarities in the ways they speak which reflect both their age and their common "culture".

OK, I accidentally misrepresented my experience. We did NOT listen to the Michael Kramer audiobook, we listened to the Graphic Audio dramatization. I did a quick Google search and found some online comments that made it clear we were not alone:

You had better hold on to that book - it might be worth a billion dollars some day! Sorry to hear you missed some of the story, and no, I have not seen any discussion of this. If you are near a library you might check out a copy.

I think it's definitely a Braize thing. I've noted many of the characters who spend the Desolations locked away on Braize have noticeably different speech patterns from the "full-time" Rosharans... and they definitely read as more "contemporary"... in other words, more like modern earthling idiomatic English speakers. Examples include Ash, Kelek, and Ulim. I have NO idea whether this comes through in the audiobook version. My wife and I tried a few chapters and we COULD NOT GET PAST Kaladin-as-a-redneck-hick LOL

I've been wondering about those faces for YEARS. I even started doodling ideas on paper in a halfhearted attempt to "crack the code"... but nothing like @Smye has done. (This was, of course, before I found this amazing community and saw that others had compiled the data far more completely than I could ever have been bothered to do.) I'm glad to see some official confirmation that it's a complex and deliberate artistic choice, rather than some arbitrary pattern or cipher. Hats off to Lurcher, for making such excellent progress, and to @Weltall, for finding and posting it!

Agreed. Rather than "manipulate" or "corrupt", the effect might be better described as "amplify". I found this in RoW ch. 31 (Raboniel, to Venli): Certainly, support for the idea that the characters see Voidlight as capable of increasing the emotions of those infused with it.

Nale doesn't strike me as someone who cares about good vs evil. His only ideal is LAW over CHAOS. He directly states to Szeth his belief that humans (himself included) are incapable of judging what is "good" or "right", which is why following external law is the only correct path to action. My impression is that not only would he never ask for a way to "end evil", he would be unwilling to accept any definition of evil. He may be crazy, but he's CONSISTENT. That said, I do think it makes sense in terms of Nightbood's path - from Nalthis to Szeth - for Cultivation to be involved somehow.

NOW you're talking. I had some burning Rosharan moon questions when I joined a month ago, and then I found THIS: Welcome to the Shard!

You mean like Wyndle the Shardfork? LOL "I wanted to get some work in the garden done... but that rusting rake just won't shut up!" In this sense, it could only be a living spren bond, right? Do we have any reason to think that can happen on Scadrial? I thought we were confident that spren can't leave Roshar. Regular Shardblades don't talk, plus, a deadeye Shardblade would always be a blade. Which IS certainly a "tool", but not what the average civilian thinks of when the word "tool" is mentioned. The ad showed a picture of a hammer saying "hello!" I do love the idea of a rake that talks your ear off. I think it might make more sense if they are actually looking for Hemalurgic spikes, which might be allowing Harmony, or Trell, or (insert godlike being here) to speak to the holder. We know Khriss is deeply interested in Hemalurgy and thinks it will be of great use in the Cosmere.

Thanks for recognizing my composition... but I meant exactly what I typed. I think Gavilar makes a lot more sense than Gavinor. Odium's Champion is, I think, going to be a character we already know very well, not a 7-year-old we've seen on screen twice.

You are falling into a classic Brandon trap: just because the CHARACTERS believe something does not make it true. Yes, it's common knowledge on Roshar that bonding a normal deadeye Shardblade requires gemstones... in exactly the same way that it's common knowledge among spren that deadeyes can't think or talk. Surprise! Turns out neither one is the whole truth. Do you deny the fact, explicitly stated, that Shallan now has two Shardblades? If not, what's your explanation of how she is bonded to Testament NOW? Things characters "know" often turn out to be wrong, or only part of the story. There is always another mystery. It's one of the things that make BS's writing SO GOOD.

The Fused have known about Raysium and some of its properties for a while, but only in the last Desolation did they learn about the possibility of capturing Cognitive entities inside gemstones. This is the first opportunity they have had to try it on a Herald, Moash had shown himself - by killing Elhokar - to be a trustworthy servant, and I'm sure it made more sense to have a human do it, rather than a Fused striding into the Beggar's Banquet and stabbing someone. I expect Leshwi knew, but didn't want Moash to know, that a "cognitive capture" was the actual objective, preferring for him to view it as a simple murder.

I don't think we have ANY evidence of the existence (or lack thereof) of eternal souls for ANYONE, human, animal, spren, or otherwise. Nor do I expect any.

Yes, thanks for reminding me about that. Another reason why it seemed strange and unreasonable to me. Indeed, I think we are forced to accept this as the most likely explanation. EXACTLY! I feel like there have been some odd inconsistencies in SA regarding language barriers; when are they important, and when are they completely nonexistent? I'm experiencing some Cognitive Dissonance here. I look forward to seeing more spren and learning how many have their own (nonhuman, nonsinger) languages.

I think many of us have concluded that the most likely candidate is Gavilar. At least, I know I have.

I agree with @LuckyJim and @Kyn. Yes, it's going to end, and probably awkwardly. I mean... HOID. But Jasnah isn't the type to get bent out of shape by something like that. If anything, she will be the "yes we had a relationship and now it's over but I'll still be formally polite and treat you as an important ally" type.

People have already put A LOT of thought into this question, for example: There is a big difference between "breaking a bond" and "breaking an Oath"... and there are degrees of each, they are not simply black and white. Unlike the Recreance, Testament did not want to break her bond with Shallan, and I think the text makes it clear that Shallan's bond to Testament has remained in effect, to some degree, for all the past 10 years. Many of us feel that the Testamentblade was probably NEVER really behind the painting; it was dismissed, and was nowhere in the Physical realm. It was Shallan's guilt, shame, and imagination which conspired to make her "see it glowing". Also, many of us feel confident that it was Testament that she used to kill Tyn. Regarding the original question: Shallan's father was unstable, but he was sane enough to recognize that you can't just TAKE a Shardblade from the person it's bonded to - they can always simply resummon it.

Card probability problem from real life: my wife and I are playing a variant of Pinochle. 4 players, 48 card deck, 9-10-J-Q-K-A only in 4 suits, so two of each card. Each player holds 12 cards and bidding team pass 3 cards to each other before play begins. If I need one specific card from my partner (say, an ace of clubs), what is the probability they will have it? My thoughts: I already know the card I need is NOT in the 12 I have, so it must be in one of the other 3 hands. P=1/3 that it is in my partner's hand, yes? That means P=2/3 that it is in one of my opponents'. But there are TWO aces of clubs, and I only need one. So the only BAD outcome is if BOTH of them are in my opponents' hands. Pbad = (2/3)(2/3) = 4/9 = 44.4%, therefore there is a 1 - 4/9 = 55.6% chance my partner has at least one of the aces I need. Is this the correct solution? And how would I extend this work to cover the case where I need TWO cards (say, K and Q of clubs)? Is it just (5/9)(5/9) = 25/81?

That's awesome, thanks! Humans are pretty smart. We're also littering the solar system like a boss.