The Stormlight Archive/WMG

Shallan runs Torchwood

• And that's why they're so incompetent. The missing branch isn't missing; it's on Roshar, to look for new types of jam!

Shallan is Haruhi Suzumiya

• This page doesn't have one yet, and I always thought she reminded me of Shallan.

Hoid is a Time Lord

He travels across time and space to appear in The Stormlight Archive, Elantris, Mistborn, and Warbreaker. What other explanation is there?

The Shards are pieces of the "Almighty," just as he is a Shard of Adonalsium.

There is no way the name "Shards" is unimportant, and at one point Hoid offhandedly mentions Andonalsium. The Almighty himself also says something about a woman named "Cultivation," which sounds like another Shard.

• One of the seventeen shards of Adonalsium shattered, hence why the meta-Arc Number is 16. It's quite likely the shardblades and plate are made from that one; one of the chapter breaks even mentions sending the holders of the fragments after the writer.

The lighteyes are all descendants of the first Shardbearers, who took up the Shards abandoned by the Knights Radiant.

Although we haven't actually seen it happen, its been mentioned several times that a darkeyes who takes up a Shardblade gains lighteyes, and his children will be lighteyes as well.

• Some of them might be, but clearly not all of them are, as there were lighteyes before the Radiants' fall, though they were not considered superior to Darkeyes back then.
  • Of course, those could just be the children of Radiants.

The Lost Herald isn't dead at the end of the book.

He dropped his Blade and it didn't disappear, which is supposed to make us think he's dead. But those Blades are explicitly shown to work differently than normal ones; he still has brown eyes, for one thing, and in the Distant Prologue its mentioned that if they had died, their Blades would have disappeared.

• Could it be a Dawnshard? Teft thinks Kaladin is one of the Radiants or Heralds reborn. Syl and Kaladin both feel a revulsion for the shardblades, but the Lost Herald has some sort of blade that is magical. Did the Heralds use Dawnshards rather than shardblades?
  • Brandon has explicitly refereed to the Heralds' Blades as Honorblades, the Dawnshards are something else.
• Brandon has also stated that Taln will be a POV character later in the series, so I think it's Word of God that he's alive.

All the Spren are actually not the type they are commonly known as.

They are all, like Sil, various different types of spren that are actually connected with the radiants. However, with no Radiants, the spren revert to a base nature and lose all intelligence.

• Pain Spren have something to do with healing, and possibly with soulcasting.
  • Brandon Sanderson said in his latest interview that there are only 10 types of spren associated with the Radiants, we've seen more then 10 types, therefore they can't all be Radiant-associated.
  • They could have devolved into more than one group. Maybe the honorspen split into windspren and naturespren, for example.

Aimians, like the Parshmen and Parshendi are Voidbringers.

Chapter epigraphs constantly reference the Voidbringers' ability to change their shape, especially their skin. Axies can change his tattoos, as well as his sense of smell and pain. He also mentions a "Curse of Kind", which sounds quite suspicious.

King Gavilar's "message to his brother" was death-babbling.

It wasn't an actual message to Dalinar; it was just a message leaking through from wherever the rest of the death-babbling comes from.

• • if it was, that makes it even more important.

Spren are tiny shards of adonalasium

Adonalasium is split into (possibly 16) major God shards such as Ruin, Preservation, Endowment and Cultivation. These are all aspects of sentient existence combined with divine power, perhaps Spren are the same but on a much smaller scale. Whatever caused the splitting of the God Shards created Spren as a by-product just as dust is created whenever a large object is broken up. These minor shards have less defined roles and are drawn to and shaped by changes in the world. Smaller Spren change their nature, adapting into different forms such as painspren or flamespren, the longer they are of one form the stronger they are. Larger Spren such as Syl have become locked into a single type slowly gaining strength of sentience. (much like the small Gods of the Discworld)

• I think the spren are Splnters of the Almighty's Shard (Honor), the superspren, the ones that can form bonds were deliberately created, the others are the pieces the Shard got broken into when Odium killed the Almighty.

The Stormlight Archive will turn into a massive Crisis Crossover with the other Sanderson worlds.

Ten books is a really long time for Brandon Sanderson to send on saving one world from one god (Mistborn dealt with three gods in just three books!), and when The Almighty is describing the threat posed by Odium, he points at the stars and says they're all in danger, too. What better time to finally begin paying of this whole "Shards of Andonalsium" metaplot that has so far been advanced only by his blog? Getting to actually compare power between, say, Marsh and Susebron would be a side benefit.

• • Brandon has said he intends to write a series dealing with the metaplot, but that TSA is not that series, the series he intends to write is called Dragonsteel.

Odium is not the real Big Bad.

The initially introduced bad of a Sanderson book never is. Cultivation, perhaps?

• Or maybe Hoid?
• Or Andalsium?
  • Adolnasium is dead/shattered.

The Almighty's plan was for whomever received his visions to be guided to gain his power.

We know from Preservation and Ruin that when a God's consciousness is destroyed, its power remains, and can be claimed by another individual. These visions sought out the exceptionally honorable (and therefore affiliated with the Almighty, whom Sanderson has named as Honor) Dalinar Kholin, and are trying to guide to towards even more honorable acts. Of course, there's no guarantee that things will go as Almighty intended...

Elhokar IS responsible for the weakened gems in his shard plate but does not know it.

He has some kind of power similar to his sister's which uses up the power of the gems in his plate causing them to crack. During one of his paranoid rants he mentions seeing "faces in mirrors. Symbols, twisted, inhuman..." He is somehow seeing the spren that appear in Shallan's drawings but not understanding what they are is feeding his paranoia. Presumably he does not have the exact same power (soulcasting would be pretty noticeable), but something more subtle (different orders had different powers). Once Jasnah returns she may realise what is happening or maybe Elhokar will recognise the figures in Shallan's sketchbook.

Jasnah's theories have it backward in at least one respect:

The Parshendi aren't unnaturally wild and uncontrolled Parshmen; instead, Parshmen are unnaturally docile, bound Parshendi. The culture (or at least level of sentience) of the Parshendi is the natural state of the race. When the Voidbringers were defeated in the past, and forced to become the Parshmen slaves, some of the race were not bound. Those are the Parshendi.

Each order of the Knights Radiant gains its power from a Shard of Adonalsium.

There are sixteen shards. We know Scadrial was home to two, that there are two shardholders associated with Sel, and we know of one for Nalthis. We know for a fact that Ruin and Preservation each were the source of a magic system, so it stands to reason each shard can do this. It's also fairly reasonable to assume Sel and Nalthis were each home to two Shards. This leaves ten for Roshar, the same number of orders of the Knights Radiant, who each have a unique system. It's a Sanderson has mentioned that The Almight was a shardholder for the shard Honor, and we know that Kaladin is bonded with an honorspren.

• • Brandon has said there are only 3 Shards on Roshar Honor, Odium, and Cultivation.
  • Hardback edition, page 157, the line from the dying person. If more people had caught that sooner, he wouldn't have needed to confirm it. It says, "Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns." I only caught it on my third read through.
  • There dosen't need to be a Shard per magic system. The interaction between Shards cause magic systems as well as on Scadrial, two Shards but three systems. Fairly sure Sanderson mentioned that somewhere unless this troper is completley wrong...

A Shard of Knowledge, Intellect, or some such resides on Earth.

Specifically in the Free Kingdoms from the Alcatraz books.

• Alcatraz is specifically not part of Sanderson's greater Cosmere. (like Mistborn, Elantris, TLA etc.) Read more here ^{[dead link]}

The shard on earth is called "Articulation".

And it's presence resulted in the magic system and world of Harry Potter.

The Parshendi aren't Voidbringers.

It could be that the Voidbringers were controlled by an outside source. Parshmen are Voidbringers who have simply had that control transferred in order to enslave them, while the Parshendi are free, not just of the enslavement of their cousins, but from the outside control as well. It might explain why that Parshendi Shardbearer was so interested in seeking out and talking to the guy who's been experiencing visions from the Almighty.

Renarin is Not So Harmless.

He just doesn't get to show it because Alethi culture isn't kind to a man like him. He's probably some sort of budding tactical super-genius who'll manipulate everyone some day...if he's not doing it already.

Shallan will eventually become an Action Girl and Badass Bookworm

Because it's pretty obvious if you read closely that she has a shardblade, probably taken from her father and it would be a real shame if she never learned to use it.

• Heck she doesn't even need a Shardblade, she can Soulcast and Jasnah demonstrated that Soulcasting is perfectly adequate for ass kicking. Although she'll probably learn to use the sword eventually too.

The Shards only work properly when the wearer is bonded to a spren

Each of the Orders of the Knights Radiant were attached to a type of spren. In Dalinar's visions we see that the shardplates and blades glowed and in fact at least some Shardbearers could fly in their plate. So it might be possible that surgebinders had their own bound plate and blade (like Szeth, whose blade is much smaller than others). I think also this ties into Syl's disdain for at least Dalinar's blade. She doesn't like it because its not bonded to a human/spren. To her it might be like somebody using a person's limb as a weapon.

• Alternately each of the orders had their own type of Shardblade. Syl didn’t like it because it doesn’t match her and she thinks Dalinar is better without it as he very much belongs to the Order, and associated spren, of Honor.

Someone or something is hording Shardblades

It is implied in Dalinar’s visions that the Orders of the Knights Radiant had at least one thousand Shardblades yet he states that less than a hundred are accounted for.

The Shardblades are Odium

So, Odium is apparently called The Broken One, Shard#17 is shattered and a large number of people had some of it, the Shardblades are weapons and Odium causes war, and it is a law of things written by Brandon Sanderson that the initial Big Bad isn't. The theory, therefore, is that someone shattered Odium(possibly holding the shard War) into a bunch of pieces, which then became Shardblades and Shardplate, which were then used to kill Honor and Cultivation by the real Big Bad.

• Odium is the name of the Shard in question, the holder is Rayse and given the fact that Honor (aka the Almighty) tells Dalinar in his last vision that Odium killed him, I think we can be fairly sure that Odium killed Honor (or more accurately the holder of Honor, and is still the most likely Big Bad, also we don't know whether Cultivation is dead or not.

Kaladin is Jezerezeh

The ruler of the Heralds and the Stormfather.

• He gets depressed when there are no Highstorms.
• He is able to use Surgebinding
• He has had a vision that he was a highstorm himself
• He instinctively knew the second ideal of the Knights Radiants, specifically the first suborder.
• The appendix lists the 10 essences and there associations. The first essence, Jes (Jezerezeh) has the divine attributes of Protecting and Leading. Kaladin excels at both.