Shardlet

I think it is a result of a spren-bond. I think his voidshadow is an effect of that bond as well.

That only works if you are Azish.

Disclaimer: I am one of the few on this site who is not convinced that Darkness is Nalan. The word 'creature' gives me a lot of pause in being on board with them referring to Szeth. I don't see what you mean my look closely at Nalan's right eye. It looks pretty much the same as his left (Note: Nalan is the face associated with order two, the Skybreakers, on the KR chart). Also, this may be semantics, the Parshendi did not "hire" Szeth. They had his oathstone, which they left abandoned on the side of a road. I would offer one more thing, the Eshonai reading seems to me to suggest that the Parshendi made the choice themselves.

Seems to me that if it was part of the picture, it would also be on the chapter headings. I also note that there are several other cracks in the 'stonework' of the border.

Yeah, I think it is an artifact of the 'stone' look of the background of the surgebinding chart. Looks like a crack to me.

Well, we got magic lots to theorize about. Thank you for sharing this with us Weiry!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Emag for sharing with us.

Whoosh, that is freaking awesome! The question is, who? Jez is the obvious choice since he was the last one at the circle of blades. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of one of the others having come back and retaken theirs. Edit: I liked Brandon's clarifying afterthought, 'What, wait, did I just essentially tell him that Jezrien picked up his blade and walked off whistling after Kalak left?'

Lol. Thanks. I know, I have googled many. I just had not cared enough yet to google that one yet.

IDK, it depends on what level of sentience Brandon has given them and what level of Sentience he meant when he discussed his sentient beings are people comment. It was a side comment to combat the quivering of someone who jumped to conclusions when Brandon used the word "person" (or 'people', I can't recall which off the top of my head). It might be worth asking a question about to get a more fleshed out understanding of 'people according to Brandon'.

People, to Brandon's way of thinking, refers to sentient beings. So, even Parshmen, as evidenced by Shen, are 'people'. Also, as I'm sure you are aware, SF/F writers commonly use 'lesser' races as a mirror for our interactions and treatment of other races. I have no doubt that your meaning is clear though. I think that your comparison to Kandra is very apt. The Kandra are indeed 'people'. They are a species though which has a cognitive block which is breached by their spikes. This raises many philosophical questions in Brandon's works. By all appearances, we would normally term mistwraiths as animals, not people. However, they are people, they are just very cognitively impaired. The Parshmen are regarded as little more than animals. But, we see that they are people who are apparently cognitively impaired. There is even suggestion in the Rysn interlude that the greatshells in the Reshi Sea are sentient, via a spren bond, and are therefore people. Does this signify a broad implication that much of the animal life on Roshar is potentially people with with some kind of similar cognitive impairment? If so, what is the reflection of that on us?

Here is the best quote we have on this issue:

You got to be careful with that line of thought, though. That suggests, at least loosely, that Parshendi are less 'people' than humans are.

Where did you see a description of Shallan's blade? I only recall vague mentions of it.

Cremlings? On second thought. I don't like the secondary implications of that joke. How about...Aimians? Nope, there would be lots and lots of Aimians that turned up in the last five years. Umm...I think they turn into happy thoughts or nice music.

It has been theorized that when killed by a shardblade, one is 'reborn' or respawned as a parshendi, though. It is not something I personally subscribe to, but you are not terribly far off in your idea with what some others have thought. Your idea just had more flare and style .

Not necessarily coincidental. Although Kelsier was definitely not spiked, Brandon has said that Kelsier was essentially a psychopath and that Ruin had the ability to influence people who are unhinged. Couple Kelsier's psychopathy with what happened to him at the pits (where he snapped) and you have a recipe for unhingedness. I think it is more than coincidental that Kelsier comes back to Luthadel with a plan to topple the biggest hindrance to Ruin's plans. I think Ruin influenced Kelsier's plan and strengthened his need to accomplish it.

Thanks for stepping into the light, IllNsickly. Welcome. I look forward to hearing more from you.

Most importantly, Eshonai was contemporary with Gavilar.

Intent is a key aspect of hemalurgy. If you were to stab a mistborn through the heart with a piece of steel, it would only create a hemalurgic spike if you intended to create one. The ability that is stolen is determined by the metal the spike is made of coupled with which ability you intend to steal.

Your point, hoser, that some leeway should be given to people when using mushy terminology (Note: Not the case here with marianmi. I am speaking generally), I wholeheartedly agree with. There is somewhat of a learning curve here with what we do here. However, knowingly using such terminology when there is more accurate and precise terminology available (again, not the case here since we have not yet, as a community, established accepted definition and differentiation between cosmere-aware and realmatically-aware) does little more than sow confusion and misinformation. Obviously we should avoid speaking in an exclusionary way, but the means are there for people to learn terminology. I was able to learn fairly quickly what realmatics was and that is about the most ivory-tower-type terminology that we have. Other things like fMetal or aMetal and our many many many acronyms are generally easily gathered via context (the acronyms I have a more difficult time understanding are the net-speak ones. I still haven't figured out FWIW ). One of the more confusing ambiguities I have seen is using the word shards to refer to plat and blades. While TWOK indeed uses that term, it is confusing for it to be used in that manner. I think my next project is going to be to begin a 17S glossary of terminology where the first post is an ever-expanding glossary and the overall thread is a means for establishing agreed upon conventions. Maybe we can avoid confusion in the future as well as establish a useful tool for new sharders.

I would say lightweaving, likely. I suspect at least an eye-color change is in order for Wit. While the last scene is probably his true appearance.

So far, a number of people have suggested a backlighting effect due to being infused with stormlight. As for me I don't have much of an opinion about it except that the eyes are going to be important. They are mentioned too frequently, are too much a part of the Alethi culture, and show up as symbols in key places for them to not be an important feature of the plot.

I concur with hoser. The healing of the spreading infection indicates to me regrowth rather than growth.

I think I agree with Darnam on this one, hoser. I look at cosmere awareness being an awareness not necessarily of worlds beyond the present setting, or even knowledge of a Shard or Shards which are particularly pertinent to the present setting, but more as an awareness of the fact that there are more Shards beyond the one(s) pertinent to your world and that they are/were all part of a greater whole. So, while the Kandra knew a fair amount about Ruin and Preservation, I would not put them very high on the scale of cosmere awareness because they don't seem to place any significance to Ruin and Preservation beyond Scadrial. The same goes for Wyndle, he is rather familiar with Honor and Cultivation (and presumably Odium based on Syl's reaction to hearing Odium's name), but there, so far, has been no indication of any knowledge of any significance beyond their pertinence to Roshar. Now, that is not to say that he has no cosmere awareness. He and presumably other spren are more cosmerically aware than anyone that we met on Sel. There was no apparent knowledge (though the seons, and by extension, the skaze, may be excepted from this) of Dominion or Devotion much less any knowledge of anything beyond Sel. On the other end of the spectrum, of course, you have Hoid and the Shards who each have a rather complete knowledge of things of cosmeric importance.