I finally finished WoK's. What a great book!
I had a lot of thoughts/questions/ideas after reading it. I'm sure some of these have been gone over before, but who knows, maybe I noticed something that hasn't been spoken about yet...
1. Shallan possesses a Shardblade. She used it to kill her father, cutting up the Soulcaster he possessed during the fight, which is why the chain and crystal were cut.
2. The Death visions come form Talenel while he was suffering in agony in that damnation place. But not all of them, I think a few of those are just ones Brandon threw in there to throw us off. They are just the random things people said as they died that ended up getting recorded too.
3. I'm thinking that Dalinars gift from the old magic was either to make Navani love him or to become the Blackthorn.
4. I really want to know what this paragraph is hinting at:
Holding his breath, he clung to the Stormlight. He could still feel it leaking out. Stormlight could be held for only a short time, a few minutes at most. It leaked away, the human body too porous a container. He had heard that the Voidbringers could hold it in perfectly. But, then, did they even exist? His punishment declared that they didn’t. His honor demanded that they did.
-Szeth, Prologue
5. Someone named Thaidakar leads the Ghostbloods and he and the previous king were in some sort of conflict, Gavilar thought he was the one that had sent Szeth.
6. Someone named Restares leads another group who King Gavilar was also in conflict with, Amaram works with or for him. Restares convinced Amaram to take Kaladin's Shards.
7. The Radiants never betrayed anyone. After the last desolation they grew tired of pointless battles for greed and power and abandoned their armor. Those who took up their armor afterward were mistaken for Radiants and are the source of their bad reputation/legends of betrayal.
8. The face Kaladin saw during the Highstorm was the Stormfather.
9. Highstorms are the source of most magic on the world and Spren are sort of the imbodiments of that magic. That's why there are no spren in Shin.
10. Is it just me or are those Aons in the picture of the Shattered Plains at the start of part two? Near the top, within the round shapes.
11. Surgebinding seems just like Allomancy to me except with stormlight as a focus/power source instead of metals. Lashings are this worlds version of pushing and pulling on metals and when filled with stormlight a surgebinder has the strength, speed and healing powers of a mistborn.
12. I thought it was very interesting that each of those cities had a glyph associated with them. It reminds me of Elantris. Could each of the cities be a focus for the different powers out there, like Elantris is for the Dor?