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Lerson

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  1. I have a fairly lengthy theory about how Odium shatters Shards, and this ties into Autonomy being Trell. So rather than typing it all out, I'll just throw in my 'quick' two cents here. Firstly, we have WoB that Odium is terrified of Sazed. I think there's more to this than people immediately give credence to- we know that Odium splintered Devotion and Dominion, right? Given that they were both on Sel, he can apparently take on two Shards at once, so why is Harmony so scary? Especially given that Sazed apparently finds it difficult to act due to his opposing Shards. This, I think, suggests that it's not the raw power of the Shards that Odium finds scary. Rather, my theory is that in some way the intent of a Shard can be 'imposed' upon another in some fashion, and if the intents are not congruent it forces one of the Shards (I'd guess the more-invested one?) to splinter. So Devotion is obviously incompatible with the sheer loathing of Odium, and from what we understand of Dominion and Dominion's relationship with Devotion I suspect that Dominion was expressed in a benevolent way that was also incompatible with Odium. This ties into Odium, Autonomy and Trell because Odium very likely can't really do anything to Sazed. Sazed is Harmony, a balance between destruction and preservation, and impressing hatred into that would be fine, I imagine, as the destructive part would just take on a less pragmatic viewpoint and simply turn into hate. It'd still be balanced. This is where Autonomy comes in. Why is Odium working with another Shard, anyways? He wants to be the strongest shard, right? Well, I suspect that working with Autonomy is his first step in defeating Harmony- after all, what better way to deal with the Shard that's two Shards than to send the Shard whose intent directly involves working independently at him?
  2. I'm not suggesting that Iyatil's people had a mass exodus, but rather, that some of came to Scadrial at some point. Presumably, a mass exodus would mean that there were no remaining people from the original homeland, which I doubt. Remember, Brandon makes the Japanese American comparison, and while there isn't a huge amount of Japanese people in America, in the cities where they're prevalent they do make up a decent amount of the population.
  3. I have a question regarding a theory I've been brewing up: What, if anything, do we know about the process of splintering a Shard?
  4. Given that the Hunters' apparently 'grow into' their masks, and Iyatil's looks decidedly like carapace to Shallan, does anybody suppose that the Hunters aren't actually native to Scadrial? There's the mention of Iyatil not being from the original home planet of her people, perhaps the Hunters are the ones that immigrated to southern Scadrial for one reason or another? Perhaps because it was easier for them to hide their odd carapace-face-growing-stuff in a society that naturally wears masks all the time?
  5. It doesn't seem impossible to me that the Unmade are matched to specific societies even though there's less (or more) than 10 Unmade, and 10 Silver Kingdoms. Seems that each Unmade could be placed in an area capable of exploiting heavily the prevailing social mores of said areas- ergo, Nergaoul gets placed in Alethkar and sort of meanders about in it to exploit their war-based society. I think the idea of Unmade having weaker effects until they are bonded is interesting. It seems likely to me that they're at least capable of being bonded purely because it would be awesome for a reader to experience that. Since there's no precedent against it until he makes it, I imagine Brandon would want to jump on that. Now, having every one be bonded? Hard to say.
  6. One thing I've been pondering as I've been reading is that I feel that the Unmade we know to be active at present (Moelach and Nergaoul) seem a tad... innocuous? Don't get me wrong, I get how Nergaoul is bad with the The Thrill and all, but Moelach- as already stated- seems a bit 'whatever'. Even if Moelach was, I dunno, say, causing people who would otherwise live from near-fatal wounds to simply die instead, it all seems a bit odd when compared to what we know of Yelig-Nar, and, I would argue, Re-Shephir. We know Yelig-Nar apparently consumes souls, has killed specifically on his own, and uses the souls of the dead to wail in some capacity. Re-Shephir, it stands to reason, makes Midnight Essence which we've seen to be some sort of soldier for Odium. Seems incomparable to Moelach and Nergaoul. I'm of the opinion that perhaps we're seeing the Unmade in somewhat of a dormant state, malevolent but not at full capacity. Perhaps once a desolation starts in earnest, Nergaoul would whip people into a frenzy and cause them to turn on each other? No idea what Moelach would do. Perhaps drive people insane. Just a thought.
  7. Hello there. New poster, but long-time lurker. I have been mulling this theory over since shortly after the first time I read Way of Kings, but now I feel as if I have enough potential supporting evidence to at least warrant posting it. So, my theory essentially revolves around Odiumspren- or the lack thereof- and Voidbinding. The initial start of my theory was when I read that Odium has not invested himself in Roshar as heavily as Cultivation or Honor. My confusion then was that if Voidbinding is a thing, which it appears to be, would it not be less powerful than Surgebinding which is powered either by Honor, who has heavily invested, or both Honor and Cultivation (more likely, given recent information) who themselves are both said to have invested more heavily than Odium. I do not claim to be an expert on realmatic theory or shardic magic systems, but it stands to reason that Surgebinding would be stronger than Voidbinding, though even if my logic here is flawed, it was only the instigator for the theory and not the meat of it. So. Surgebinding power is granted through the Nahel bond in most cases, the bond between human and spren. Szeth appears to be an oddity, but I find it unlikely that he is representative of Voidbinding given his similarity to Kaladin's powers. If he is a voidbinder, it means that voidbinding is the same as surgebinding minus a spren, which seems unlikely simply from a storytelling perspective, nevermind anything other than that. So how does one become a voidbinder? We don't have any information to go from here other than to make vague guesses, but some of the information we've obtained from readings of Words of Radiance have caught my eye. Namely, Eshonai's interlude. We learn within it that the Parshendi bond with spren to enter different forms- war form, mating form, etc. They are also terrified of their 'gods' returning. So, with Jasnah's theory that the Parshendi are actually the voidbringers, I get to the thesis of my theory: A desolation is not an event where Odium sends his monsters out into the world to fight humanity A desolation is where Odium temporarily invests himself further in the world, creating a propagation of Odium's spren. Hatredspren, murderspren, liespren. The parshendi are either inadvertently or forcefully- perhaps by the Unmade- bound to these spren, creating horrible Voidish parshendi. Furthermore, humans form a Nahel bond with these spren, creating further forces of Odium. I don't have a lot to substantiate this theory, and there are holes. We have seen spren that could arguably belong to Odium- fear, anger, rot- but I write that off in that Odium is partially invested, just not fully. Further, another initial progenitor of this theory is my curiosity as to the difference of Ruin and Odium. Both at face value seem like they would be about destruction- we do know that Odium is going around splintering the other Shards, and we know he is responsible for Desolations. But I think Odium's destruction is more subtle, about corruption. Look at the ideals upheld by the Alethi- they seem to stand for honor, but are in reality incredibly dishonorable (see: Sadeas, Amaram) and experience an odd form of bloodlust (The Thrill). As well, the Heralds we think we have seen seem to have been corrupted into twisted forms of the ideals they uphold. Look at the Alethi reaction to the Way of Kings, derision. Further, Cultivation herself seems to have been warped into something distinctly un-Cultivation, the Nightmother. I think Honor's insistence to Dalinar that he prepare for the Desolations by making people uphold the ideals and whatnot is not purely because that would make more soldiers to fight, but because it would prevent Odium from having more soldiers under his command as well. Odium, while not fully invested, uses the investment he does have to subtly corrupt and warp ideals so that once his spren become unleashed upon the world, the more easily obtained mindstates of anger, hatred, deceit and lust are even more prevalent within the populace than it would be normally, causing mass destruction as terrible people gain the powers of the Voidbinders and the Parshendi whose minds are dominated by their relation to their spren begin to go on a rampage across Roshar.
  8. Yeah, I'm in a similar boat, living on Vancouver Island in BC in Canada. I've got a bunch of stuff signed by Brandon on the mainland once, but it's rare that he comes here.
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