Thoughts and Theories after reading WoK

Thoughts on way of kings

***DISCLAIMER: PLEASE NO SPOILERS. THIS IS MY FIRST SANDERSON BOOK I HAVE NOT READ OR KNOW ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE COSMERE.****

Initial thoughts:

I love the world building and magic systems. Super unique and nice it’s less euro/western centric. The book overall was long but I understood why, really getting us steeped in the lore and buildup and contexts of the world and characters. I like how there’s such a rich and deep history that no one in the world even seems to fully understand it, at least not yet.

First off I want to make sure I understand the god/supernatural hierarchy, bc I thought the heralds and knights radiant were the same thing for a while.

> The Almighty - God with a capital G, the Creator- created heralds

>>the Ten Heralds - supernatural/immortal beings created by The Almighty, they have the Dawnshards which are NOT the Same as a shardblade. No one has a Dawnshard, they are lost when the Heralds left roshar bc they could not win and broke the oathpact. Taln is the only herald who “stayed” or was forced to suffer to combat the true desolation in whatever hell place he’s in.

>>>then The Knights Radiant - order of human knights created by the heralds to help their cause. Heralds gave ShardPlate and stormlight powers and bonds to honorspren to Knights to help them with their stormlight and lashing powers. The knights also failed/fell apart as time went on.

The big bad is Odium who has voidbringers and the Shardblades are from Odium. People now in roshar covet them as powerful/priceless artifacts but don’t understand what they are really.

Also I don’t know if I’m supposed to know this just from WOK but I saw that fabrials work by trapping Spren in them. I think that’s a spoiler or if I read it in WOK I brushed over it.

Theories and Predictions:

The whole alethkar class system built around light eyes and dark eyes is derivative from the knights radiants eyes glowing from stormlight and being “light” - not “light” as in a lighter color like blue violet green etc. when the knights radiants fell this light eyes importance developed into to eye color class system.

When Dalinar was told to “unite them” he wasn’t talking about Alethkar kingdoms but uniting the lost dawnshards/knights radiant.

the shard plate is supposed to be used with a radiant to maximize its full capabilities with stormlight.

Also I KNEWWWWW something was going on with jasnah bc I was like why is she researching mythologies and stuff if she is such an atheist she is looking for some real proof to disprove God or explain why something supernatural is happening to her. I thought she must be having visions like dalinar. Turns out she can soulcast without a soulcaster the same as Shallan so maybe they are both knights radiant too???? I don’t know how the Shadesmar ties in exactly with everything, I did notice that the shadesmar map at the back of the WOK book is an inverse of roshar so I think it’s some kind of connected supernatural dimension?

Also I don’t buy that the parshendi are the “bad guys” or void-bringers. their culture and humanoid appearance makes me think they are running from the actual void-bringers and bad guys and there’s a whole mess of communication.

ALSO if high storms are the only way to charge gems to pull storm light from I think the highstorms were the only way that the heralds or someone could help humans and radiants keep their powers when the oathpact was broken. before the heralds left maybe there was something more innate in nature rhe radiants could draw power from without high storms? Honorspren? Idk.

The humans aren’t built for a world with highstorms the way else is so maybe they weren’t always there or the highstorms weren’t always a thing idk. Maybe I’m reading into it too much it’s somethin that bothered me from

The start.

So anyways that’s what I think about WOK. Excited to read WoR! After