theRealHoid

I believe a result of the weapon to destroy Adonalsium is that decaying plague/blight we see in LoP chapter 1. As others have said, it's not cannon, but it points to a world threatening force prior to the shattering so it's reasonable to believe there's something like that. The weapon itself could be something that infected Adonalsium with the intent of destroying it. Except a way was found to counter this weapon by shattering Adonalsium, thus foiling the plot, though at the cost of a shattered Adonalsium. However, I have a feeling that the shattering that took place didn't quite work out as planned. The anti-adonalsium force could have caught wind of the intent to neutralize their weapon via shattering and influenced matters in such a way that Odium and Bavadin's shard would be created. Those shards could then be used to shatter all the others, which would further weaken Adonalsium's overall power, allowing this anti-adonalsium force to resume its goal, whatever that happens to be. I remember Brandon saying that if Adonalsium were to shatter again, it wouldn't necessarily shatter the same way. But what if that diffence is due to specific circumstances and that there was a way to influence which intents it would shatter into? Perhaps the "intent mix" of the shattering was something more overall balanced such that an Odium shard wasn't supposed to exist, but interference in the process altered the intent mix to something more desirable for the anti-adonalsium force.

This could be plausible, though not for the same intent being proposed. I have a theory that Adonalsium was shattered to counter whatever anti-adonalsium force was out there. Though definitely not completely cannon, there is some threat prevalent in the Liar of Partinel snippets we've seen. Perhaps Adonalsium was shattered to counter that threat because the nature of the threat rendered a whole Adonalsium incapable of countering it..or a complete Adonalsium is what was enabling the malevolent force to begin with. Maybe Adonalsium became infected or just incapable of moving against it because of it was a part of Adonalsium also. Either way Adonalsium shattered to counter this since the threat could not coalesce amongst divided, and some times diametrically opposed, intents, though I don't think it shattered exactly as it needed to and by allowing Adonalsium to shatter into Odium, it creates a huge problem.

Here's my speculation on the guy that calls himself Hoid. Much of my inspiration is drawn from the fact that much like Robert Jordan, Sanderson likes exposing readers to the flawed and inaccurate thoughts of his characters and using those thoughts in a bit of misdirection. This is especially potent when the thoughts comes from what the reader might consider "a subject matter expert" character that we wouldn't think to question until perhaps later in a book or series. Kelsier's knowledge of Allomancy is a good example of this. It serves as the reader's foundation of Allomantic knowledge until later on we find out that it was far from complete and accurate. Anyway, we can apply that type of skepticism about the characters invested and interested in Hoid's pursuits. One fact needs to be established though: Hoid wrote the letter in WoK and was the recipient of the reply in WoR. While it's possible that it wasn't Hoid, it's also possible I could belch fire and burn down my cubicle, but highly unlikely. Applying Occam's razor and a little common sense really leaves no viable alternatives. There's no reason for Brandon to be exceedingly clever with these passages. It's enough that these are Cosmere related easter egg morsels intended to keep those of us who are Cosmere aware drooling for more. Your average SA reader with no cosmere awareness probably still considers it a bit of a mystery (and it's probably how a good number of readers end up becoming cosmere aware). With that said, to me it seems Hoid is up to more than what the 17th shard, or that presumably Yolish dragon, believe him to be doing. To them, he seems like a loose cannon pursuing his own personal vendetta against Rayse and Bavadin. He's trudging across the cosmere to stick it to them and in doing so, could screw a lot of things up. I'd imagine it'd be somewhat like negotiating a contract with a client delicately for months when some idiot hothead in your organization shoots off his mouth and ruins everything, even if they were somewhat justified. Except this is on a cosmic scale. So to them, his personal quibbles are selfish and he needs to be brought to heel before his actions lead to terrible damage. Yet, there's more to it, even though Hoid does admit his beef with Rayse and Bavadin in the letter. Hoid's motivation isn't out of revenge as the 17th shard thinks. It's out of true fear and worry at what Rayse is capable of doing. I believe part of that fear is also based on whatever interaction occurred between the two pre shattering, combined with Rayse's actions on Sel, that leads Hoid to believe that Rayse's threat, that being the desire to shatter all other Shards and become the dominant force in the cosmere, is a real one. Even then, there's still more to it and is where it gets a bit more tinfoil hat. I believe there's a WoB out there somewhere indicating there's a force out there that was (maybe still is) opposing Adonalsium. So what if the shattering was intended to be a counter to this opposing force, but somehow it went wrong. And that something wrong turns out to be an anti-adonalsium influenced Rayse and Bavadin deliberately screwing up the shattering. And perhaps Hoid noticed something amiss and was deceived and/or neutralized by them. Maybe they locked him out of the shattering, not only preventing him from receiving his shard, but causing Adonalsium to split in a way that granted Rayse Odium and Bavadin whatever he has (which I suspect is not a very nice intent as well). In other words, if Hoid had been the 17th shard (slight pun intended), Rayse wouldn't have received Odium at all and the "intent mix" would have been something far more beneficial to the cosmere and able to counter anti-adonalsium. Instead, the intent mix produced paves a way for anti-adonalsium, via Odium's shard shattering rampage (and whatever Bavadin is up to), to become the dominant force in the cosmere. Hoid might or might not be aware of an anti-adonalsium influence, but he knows something went wrong and who's to blame. And sadly, no one else is listening to him because they're writing it off as jealous revenge for getting tricked out of a shard. Knowing something went wrong, he's out to do what he thinks is the right course: somehow reassembling adonalsium so the correct action against anti-adonalsium can be taken. But he doesn't have a shard and doesn't dare stand against a shard in order to take one up. So he does the next best thing: gather their investiture in hopes that it could create something similar to adonalsium that could fix the problem of both Rayse and the incorrect shattering. Now whether that IS the right course is up in the air. It could make things worse. But, it's what Hoid believes to be the right (or only) course. Something at the shattering could have made him feel guilty that it was his fault. And it could be something as simple as "how could I be such a fool for trusting those two?" or being an unwitting accomplice to their deception (this would be an interesting development seeing as witty as he is now). Either way, I think he somehow feels responsible for what happened and he's seeking to fix it. As to the reply stating that Rayse is trapped where he is, I do not think Hoid is quite convinced, which again is probably due to whatever happened pre-shattering. He feels he has "inside knowledge" of Rayse's capabilities and therefore doesn't quite believe that Rayse won't find a way out of his entrapment that the writer of the reply is certain will contain him. He's too dangerous to leave alone. So, to paraphrase: there's a mess to clean up, he believes it's his so feels compelled to do the cleaning, whichever way it needs to get done. No one believes him and instead believe he's out for revenge, so they're trying to stop him.

Taln's PoV doesn't really give us much. His inner dialog is pretty much all about what it was like in Damnation. His words are Heraldish, yes, but as Bordin points out, he keeps saying them over and over like a broken record. And the words themselves seem to have an "automated" quality to them that does not relate to the current age such as teaching men to soulcast bronze because the stone tools they have will be useless. By tools, I'm taking that to mean weapons to use. But doesn't modern Roshar already have metal weaponry as well as Shard Blades? What I'm getting at is his pov sounds like someone, or something, that has been instilled with what Taln would say on a Return. And with 4500 years worth of torture in Damnation, someone could have extracted this stuff out of him. Of course, I wouldn't even be considering this a possibility if it weren't for the quote I mentioned combined with the other WoB regarding something being very wrong with the story we've been told. It just screams that we shouldn't be taking what we've seen at face value.

Whenever I think about Taln and the blade Dalinar had at the end of WoR, I remember back to something that Argent said in this thread: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5588-the-last-herald/#entry88592 Given what we know about Honorblades and their differences with Shardblades, is it possible that the Taln we've see isn't really Taln at all, but just a dude with a Shardblade?