Quote Originally Posted by Milea View Post
My guess is it actually has nothing to do with winter as that would be too on the nose.

Rather it is the meaning of riding out a period of hostile environment or storm somewhere else. The idea of wintering is to go to a place that is warmer cause you don't like the cold bitter winter.
So it doesn't have to be the cold bitter winter, it could any such season that is unappealing or hostile in this context.
Birds fly to warmer places in the winter.

So it could be people from the 9th who went to other shards to escape the lightning flood while they came up with a solution.
Or it could be the other Ascians or Ascian adjacents who didn't like the idea of a rejoining but couldn't stop Emet and co and were hiding from them.
This is my thought as well… everyone seemed to jump on Emet’s comments about Blindfrost, but like you say, the whole point of being a Winterer is to get away from the cold, and in this case that could either be literal or metaphorical.

I think (and hope) we’re being led south, to Meracydia. There’s a couple different things that point to it, among which is the Milalla involvement in the key that might take us to the South Sea Isles for a more in-depth exploration than we got from Aloalo. From there, it’s a short trip to Meracydia…

Also liked Divinemights’ idea about a 3rd faction of ancients, that may or may not see Azem as an inspiration of sorts, which could lead to some more lore about what Azem was doing during the first Final Days.