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As Sivera stared off into the blackness of space, where far above a battle for Roshar's future was taking place, one of her spanreeds activated, slowly revealing the following message. Sivera attuned the Rhythm of Resolve as well, slowly shifting to the Rhythm of Satisfaction. Soon, Roshar's rebellion would be bolstered by defectors no longer willing to enforce the Confederation's punitive new policies. With their help, the Confederation central government would be made to see that a galactic civilization should not function by forcing everyone to conform to one culture, one set of laws.

I have found my new love... BAGELS. I tried one for the first time ever a few days back and I totally fell in love with them.

I've been having really, really weird dreams in the last few weeks. Most recent was one in which @xinoehp512 made a Netflix comedy special. Xino, I'm offended you didn't tell me about your skill in sketch comedy. I was very impressed with what you pulled off.

So! I do have some thoughts. Or really more just my opinions on what I ended up doing as Tlag the inactive-incharacter, why I did things, etc. I do want to preface this by saying I didn't really have a problem with anything anyone did in the game, personally; although the events of D4 affected me indirectly I made a point of not getting involved in that because, well, that's part of what I'm here to talk about. I'm also going to spoiler box things because, well, I'm writing the first category before this game even started and it's already getting long and in desperate need of paragraph breaks. I'm just going stream-of-consciousness here. But TL:DR, I'm not mad at anyone here, I had a lot of fun this game, and spoilers are just for length and not content / memes. Although I might throw some memes in there. Idk. The Setup The Proposition The Incident(s) The Journey The Critique The Stand The Summary ... well, that's not done. Thank you, Shift+Enter command. That should be it. Ash out

Brandon released a video on his channel of him reading TLM chapter 1: youtube link

Not really a theory, but havent seen it disscussed alot. As we progress the cosmere our characters are beginning to understand the importance of Intent, and ive been trying to think of what role Vasher will play in stormlight. I would argue that the best use of Intent we have seen is Vasher telling his cloak to protect him. That is such a loose term open to interpetation, that it really needs 100% control over your Intent. Soo im hoping we will see Vasher not as a swordmaster, but as a teacher of Intent. Thoughts?

My mom is reading RoW, so she has had the book out recently. My 2 year old sister has developed a fascination with it, even falling asleep face-first on its pages. However, we’re starting to potty train her, and she peed on the book. Naturally, being the Sanderfan I am, this was my reaction.

*don't read unless you have read Stormlight Archive* Ok guys, someone is gonna die in Stormlight five and i gotta figure out who. My first guess was that Kaladin was gonna die in a dramatic explosion after swearing the fifth ideal, but then i read something about how Kaladin's arc is all about realizing that he deserves to live and be happy, and you just can't kill someone like that, which made sense to me. But if not Kaladin, who? I just can't imagine that it would make any sense for Shallan to go, and probably not Adolin either. If Dalinar died, that that would probably mean that Odium won, i just can't imagine that Odium winning the duel could work for SA. (Or maybe i'm being presumptuous. Lol.) But whooooo is gonna die? Renarin? Jasnah? Navani? Someone major is gonna die and i just gotta figure it out. Any theories are appreciated lol Also, should i put this in Stormlight Archive discussion?

Done with big project that took up all of my time! AAAAAAAAAAGH! *exhales* so anyway, While I was screwing around looking at memes instead of doing my homework I found this meme. This meme filled me with such profound joy, like I was infused with the sun.

Does anybody know where a picture of a spiked cookie could be found? I know there's one around here somewhere, but I can't seem to locate it.

Correct! And thank God the Almighty, because I was having trouble finding a fifth pun.

I had an orthodontic examination today and I need braces. I don't want braces. (Hopefully I can get Invisalign instead.)

@Illwei Hahahahaha xD Look, a polite way of saying you forget your actions :P.

I almost changed my profile name and picture to this when I found it. lol Tis a work of art. *sheds a single tear*

From Oathbringer chapter 26: Blackthorn Unleashed Dalinar swore that he would give way for Gavilar in all things.

RoW

I've been slipping this into conversations on Discord for a while now, but I don't think I've seen anyone sit down and write out a theory for it. (or just a proper prediction) Sometime in the wake of the RoW release I saw somebody on Reddit make a "what if Gavilar is still alive" post. I opened it up, and got about halfway through a reply about how that would be pretty dumb, but then the thought came to me that it made Gavilar a potential candidate for Odium's champion. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea--especially as someone who doesn't particularly care for the other champion candidates. The main thing I want to do here is break that thought process down. I'll start with some evidence on why it's possible, address some common criticisms, explain why I think it's a cool idea, and then speculate a bit. "Evidence" Yeah, "evidence" needs to be in quotes here because we don't have any hard evidence that Gavilar is still around or that he will be Odium's champion. Though I can hardly blame Brandon for giving us nearly nothing to work with here... I mean, think about it. If we had a tangible clue that Gavilar is alive, we would be all over it. If you want a secret to last for 5 books, you need to play it pretty close to your chest. Anyways, there's two steps here. First, Gavilar has to still be "alive" somehow. Second, there has to be a reason why he would be chosen as Odium's champion. How can Gavilar still be alive? So how is it possible that Gavilar is still alive? The only real possibility here is that he would need to become a Cognitive Shadow. His body was found to be very dead, and then Soulcast. He didn't slip into Shadesmar when nobody was looking. And how does one become a Cognitive Shadow? We won't get into full cosmere spoilers, but the general idea is that you need to be highly Invested. We know that Gavilar was a budding Bondsmith, but even a full Radiant is not Invested enough to be a Cognitive Shadow. I think it's probable that Gavilar's soul would stick around longer than the average dead Rosharan, as we've seen something like that for users of a different type of magic. The only real example we've seen in Stormlight Archive is Eshonai, though she was caught in the middle of a highstorm so it's possible the Stormfather sustained her longer than would be normally possible. We can only make wild guesses on all of this however. BUT we do know that Gavilar was involved into some highly suspicious activities, including but not limited to: Fraternizing with Heralds Competing with Thaidakar Experimenting with Light, even to the point of producing anti-Light Experimenting with Connection magic to send things to/from Braize Research into Ba-Ado-Mishram, and perhaps other Unamde We also know that he had a worldhopper working for him, Gereh, who was a Feruchemist with an Aviar. We don't know who close or aligned they were, but at the very least we can say that Gavilar was in close proximity to worldhoppers with knowledge and access to other forms of magic. When you list all of these things out... It seems to me that the story would have no trouble whatsoever in making a case for the possibility that Gavilar had become deeply Invested somehow. (or at least that he was Invested enough to hang on until he found other means, like a certain someone on another planet did) One other notable thing from the RoW prolgoue is the strange way he seems to sense her presence outside the room. The text specifically notes that it was kind of creepy, in the sort of way that would be classic "hindsight is 20/20" Brandon-style writing. That kind of awareness is specifically associated with Breath, or at least Investiture in general. What if he has a bunch of Breath? What if he is a Dawnshard? Lots of juicy possibilities wrapped up in this subtle line. Lastly, I want to mention this claim he makes to Navani: Maybe it's a bunch of big talk from somebody who's about to die, but given everything I've just gone over it seems pretty difficult for me to not take this seriously. Gavilar planned to become something like a Herald and literally never end. The bigger question to me isn't whether he's being serious here, but whether he was able to pull it off. When Gavilar tells Szeth to tell Thaidar he's "too late" in the TWoK prologue, I have to admit that part of me is wondering if that's what Gavilar might be talking about. Gavilar is REALLY egotistical if you haven't noticed. With that in mind, the level of composure he has while bleeding out in TWoK is... rather strange. This is a guy who was claiming a few hours earlier that he would live forever, a guy who spent his whole life fighting to be on top. And how he's just chatting with his killer while he dies? He's not trying to still fight or live with the kind of animal desperation I would have expected. On the contrary, he's fishing for information from Szeth, and making bold claims like "he's too late." It feels to me like the words and actions of a man who hoped to have more time... but who is not particularly phased by the speedbump of death. How can Gavilar be Odium's champion? Why? I don't think this one is terribly hard to see HOW, if he is still alive. Odium can pick whoever he wants, if they are willing. The real questions are "why would Odium pick Gavilar?" and " why would Gavilar be willing?" Recall that Taravangian and Gavilar were working together in some capacity prior to Gavilar's assassination. We still don't fully know the extent of their involvement. But there's room there for an established, important relationship that was never explored. Sure, it's possible that the SA5 prologue will briefly explain it and be done with the whole fact, but I think it's fertile ground for possibilities. Certainly enough for Taravangian to consider Gavilar. (Also, this also presents a reason for why Rayse never tapped Gavilar. They didn't have a relationship) Why would Gavilar be willing? This is hard to say considering we still don't fully know what Gavilar's ultimate plans were. And even harder to say without knowing what Taravangian's ultimate plans are, now. We DO know that Taravangian wants to "save them all" and that some "greater war of the cosmere" appears to be inevitable. We know that Gavilar was super into empire building and having some notable legacy. He wanted to live forever and... do what? Maybe conquer the rest of the Cosmere? Is it possible that Roshar was looking too small? I think it's pretty easy to see how their goals might be aligned, even if we don't have enough info to make arguments either way. Common Criticism The most common complaint I hear with this idea is that it isn't sufficiently foreshadowed, and this was the argument that I started to make as well. My response two this is twofold. First, as I said before, I think foreshadowing on such a twist would have been nearly impossible. That's why there's not much of it. Second, is that I would actually disagree... He TOLD Navani that he would persist. He TOLD Thaidakar that he was too late. And he was working with Heralds and all kinds of wild magic. It's not evidence... But it's the sort of thing that, if read AFTER a hypothetical explanation for all this, will have people saying "OMG, he said it right here in the prologue and we missed it." The second most common complaint that I hear is with Brandon going overboard on resurrections. But guys. We haven't had a real death fakeout in Stormlight Archive since Words of Radiance. When Stormlight 5 comes out, that will have been 3 books and nearly 10 years ago. We didn't have any death fakeouts in Oathbringer or Rhythm of War, though we did get some pretty hard-hitting true deaths. (Eshonai, Elhokar, Evi, Jezrien, Teft & Phendorana...) If you ask me, Brandon has earned another opportunity for a resurrection. Particularly if it's a pointed one that does something interesting in the story.... Of course people often bring up the issue of how he could still be alive, but I've addressed that rather thoroughly. The only other big hole in the idea is the question of... what has Gavilar been up to all of this time? But I'll speculate on this more below. I don't think this is an issue with the idea of Gavilar still being alive and becoming Odium's champion. It's just a gap that we don't know enough to make a good guess about. Why this is a fantastic idea! Okay, here's the fun part. Because, yeah, this is absolutely all more a bunch of wild supposition than a theory built on firm points of evidence. To me, all of the possible explanations of "how" and "why" were driven by the fact that the end result is amazing. Gavilar surviving I mean, the first thing is that we simply have to acknowledge how CRAZY it will be when we're reading Gavilar's prologue, and get to the part where he dies... and it keeps going. Now, to be fair, we can still sort of get this without Gavilar sticking around long term. We can have a few moments of Gavilar in Shadesmar before he dies all the way. But I just love the idea of reading that prologue thinking that we know how it ends (with Gavilar's death) and then SURPRISE, he's not dead and the story is not done with him. I mean, this alone is nearly worth the death fakeout! Other champion candidates Before I get into why Gavilar would make an awesome champion, let's talk about why all of the other champion candidates just... mostly aren't that exciting, in my humble opinion. I'm going to go through MOST of the possibilities I've seen mentioned before, in no particular order. "Child Champion" / Gavinor - Please nooooooo. Moash - Moash is Kaladin's business. There's no way Moash and Dalinar will face off in the contest. Moash only works as a chapmion if things go way off the rails and Dalinar can no longer be his own champion. It's possible, but I think it's pretty unlikely considering the effort RoW made to tell us that Dalinar would be his own champion. Weird reversal. Szeth - Szeth is basically the only other champion candidate that I don't dislike to be honest. I'll admit that Taravangian using Szeth once again to accomplish his goals (more specifically, tasking him with killing Dalinar) has a twisted poetry to it. So I won't make weak arguments against a decent idea. My only major issue with Szeth is that I think the contest of champions is going to be a very Spiritual affair. Remember how Ishar tried to steal the Stormfather's bond from Dalinar? (Or how Re-Shephir tried to tear Pattern from Shallan for that matter?) Remember how Dalinar memory-bombed Nale in RoW part 3? THAT's what I'm expecting to see in this contest. And I have a hard time seeing how Szeth is the right kind of person for such a battle. He's cool for the physical combat, and that would be mostly wasted here. El - He gets thrown around as a possible champion, but... I just don't see how that's supposed to work with so little setup. The climactic confrontation of this 5-book story arc is going to come down to a character that we basically didn't even know before opening the 5th book? Nah... a Herald - The Heralds aren't... terrible options here. Some of them. Jezrien is gone obviously. Taln and Ash seem pretty darn unlikely, just seeing how they fit into the story. All the rest of the women fall into the same issue as El, more or less. We already saw Dalinar face off against Nale and come out on top, so I don't think that's happening. Kalak is just a pushover at this point, so that's not happening. So... Okay, I take it back all of the Heralds except for Ishar are pretty terrible options. Ishar - Ishar is... possible. We've seen that he's threatening. He's not entirely underdeveloped. He works well for my image of the contest of champions. But he's just... not super compelling I guess? We know him better than El, but that's not saying much. And while Ishar IS totally off his rocker, he hasn't turned over to Odium's side yet. He's just kind of on his own weird, delusional side. Gavilar as Odium's champion But if we're looking for the PERFECT character for Dalinar to face off with... Look no further than Gavilar. In some ways, Gavilar started all this--or at least, the story started with Gavilar--so he's a great person for it to circle back to. We've spent 4 prologues slowly peeling back what he was up to, with one more to go. Will the fifth prologue simply give us an answer and then move on? How will that answer MATTER though? If he gets pulled back into the story, the answer to that is easy. Gavilar is a RICH character with so much potential... And all we're going to get is one more prologue about how he's mostly not relevant any more? Making him Odium's champion means all of that setup has a payoff. More than that, Gavilar is the beginning of Dalinar's story, and in some ways he's at the heart of it as well. Most of Dalinar's life was about supporting his brother. Even after Gavilar's death it was about supporting Gavilar's legacy in Elhokar, until something bigger came along. Gavilar was there in the start walking with Dalinar in his darkest moments. He was a bit of a rival before Dalinar had to shove that hunger for power down. He was the one who stole Navani. He was the one or had Dalinar marry Evi, and the one who sent Dalinar on the mission that ended in Evi's death. They went to the Shattered Plains together. And Dalinar's failure to save Gavilar from Szeth, plus Gavilar's words for Dalinar that night, is what drove Dalinar to the Nightwatcher. We can go on and on. I mean, they're brothers. Obviously they are important to one another. Sure. That's the point! Szeth as the champion had some cool poetry to it... But so does Gavilar and Dalinar. Remember how Odium's Unmade nearly drove Dalinar to kill his brother, and he had to promise himself NEVER to challenge his brother's position again? Remember how that served as a major point of conflict for Dalinar as he struggled to work with Sadeas to support Elhokar before ultimately taking over as "high king", or how he was uncomfortable with Navani before eventually marrying her? How fantastic would it be to have Dalinar come back around to that "promise" he made himself, but now in wildly different circumstances. In fact, I'd say this has much of the same sort of energy as the Gavinor theory... while also making more sense. And Gavilar is just a fantastic person for Dalinar to have to duel. The Connectedness should allow for some fantastic Spiritual struggles: Gavilar knowing who Dalinar was at his darkest, and wanting Dalinar to join him in some grand plan to conquer the cosmere; Dalinar who has rejected all that he once stood for, now wanting to call his brother to join him in a better way. I really just think that, of ALL the potential candidates for Odium's champion, Gavilar serves as the best foil for Dalinar by a longshot. He's also got some physical combat prowess, in case they need to trade a few blows, and he is uniquely positioned to make for an interesting confrontation when it comes to the Spiritual side of things. Allow me to speculate... So there's a lot of ways that this COULD all fit together. Here's my wild guess. We see in the RoW prologue that Gavilar and some Heralds were experimenting with a fabrial that allowed for transportation of... something... between Braize and Roshar. Voidlight perhaps? I'm going to propose that, in the moments after his death, Gavilar used that fabrial to transport himself to Braize. There, he becomes suffused with Odium's Investiture and he's able to stick around long term. He is, for all practical purposes, a human Fused. But the Fused are bound to Braize by the Oathpact. Maybe Gavilar thought he could get back. Maybe getting there in the first place wasn't quite what he intended. Regardless, he's there, and now he's stuck. The Fused probably liked having a human around that they could chase or torture or whatever. Rayse probably just didn't care about him. We don't have a clear idea of how the Fused travel from Braize to Roshar, but we know that some of them were STILL slowly filtering back at the time of RoW, over a year since the Everstorm was summoned. So it's not unreasonable that Gavilar wasn't able to get back to Roshar sometime soon after Words of Radiance. So when Taravangian Ascends, and takes a quick survey, he sees his old buddy Gavilar... The PERFECT person to defeat Dalinar and recruit him into their cosmere war plans... Thoughts? You can direct all your hate mail to the person on Reddit who planted the seed of this idea in my head. (Good luck finding the post, I had no luck.) [Edit: found it!] Anybody have any specific favorite reasons why Gavilar would make such a good champion for Dalinar to face off with?

guys, I think I am buried right now. I am now a part of what, three or four rpgs and am conversing on several theories, weirding the world in several clan/groups/more and am a part of most forum games. HELP ME!!!!!

yeee

No, not everything that Kaladin does most be tested, but the stormstopping is clearly different from his other powers. Syl is surprised by it and doesn't seem to think of it as a normal power, and it uses windspren. Do you think that every fourth ideal radiant can summon hundreds or thousands of windspren whenever they want in order to stop storms? I'm not saying that they can't, just that we shouldn't assume they can just because Kaladin can.

Do we know whether or not an aluminum gnat can vaporize the viable metals that they can't burn? Because I feel like whether they could or not would have significant implications on this theory.

Toh!

He seems to have a closer connection to Honor and the wind than other Windrunners, and Syl does seem surprised that he could do it. He also uses windspren to do it, particularly in RoW, and we don't see any other windrunner do that. We can't say for certain that other Windrunners can't do it, but we also can't say for certain that they can do it. Even if modern radiants can do it, it doesn't confirm that ancient radiants could. Things might be different now that Honor is dead. So using it in a powerscaling argument could be like saying every Edgedancer can metabolize food into investiture. We don't know enough to verify the ubiquity of the power.

Thanks! One thing we can be sure of is that Brandon is a master of clever twists. I'm pretty sure this is going to happen, but If this twist isn't it, we can be sure whatever he does come up with will be just as amazing!

Oh! That's nasty!!! That's like white-chocolate-shrimp-sauce nasty. But genius!!! Todium gets screwed by a promise he himself had made while mortal... I kinda think you're onto something here, and we're going to see Dalinar trapped, but if it backfires and gets Todium, then brilliant.

Yup I think we're probably going to have Dalinar stuck between oaths - does a private oath, made to oneself when one needed something to reign them in, still apply when the person you swore to give way to is actually a monster? I think there may be some Szeth parallels, too, as Szeth likewise felt himself unable to choose not to disobey. We'll probably see Taravangian seeming to get the last laugh, and then ... BAM! Taravangian's promise when he was a mortal with Odium turned about on him. The trap used on Dalinar suddenly applied to himself.

Don't Stop RPin': Just a RPer I signed up for an SE game Picked my character, prepared this RP arc Just a Village boi Gotta find those hiding Spiked Wrote some RP but I gotta analyse Runaway train with no CW Is this signal or some noise It's now a game of vote chicken It goes on and on and on and on Village waitin' For the flip after rollover Analyse Posts and voting patterns Lurking players Posting just to dodge the filter Hiding somewhere out of sight Workin' hard to find the Spiked Everybody contributes No more ties, we cannot roll the dice Just analyse Some will ML Some get NKed Sometimes we even post RP Oh, the MLs never end It goes on and on and on and on Village waitin' For the flip after rollover Analyse Posts and voting patterns Lurking players Posting just to dodge the filter Hiding somewhere out of sight Don't stop RPin' Gotta keep on enjoyin' Village people Don't stop RPin' Keep on Don't stop RPin' Don't stop RPin' Gotta keep on enjoyin' Village people

It's been a stressful week and I apparently deal with stress by channelling my energies into creative efforts. Here's another game based off a comment/brief exchange with Araris last year: MRXX: Helvegen Årle ell i dagars hell enn veit ravnen om eg fell —Helvegen, Wardruna The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. The small village of Helgen is sheltered from the Blight by the mountains of Kandor and the swords of the Borderlanders. This is not your war: most of you have grown up in Helgen and will die there as well. That was until last morning. A grey morning, seemingly unremarkable. Then everything you knew shattered like the thin crust of ice in the horse trough. This was where they found the body. Someone had murdered Gamen, and left him in the horse trough, to be discovered by the innkeeper in the morning, a snarled tracery of black thorns growing out through his skin in a macabre display. “Light shelter us, it’s happening again,” Wyden mutters and then he clams up and refuses to say anything more. He glares daggers at the Dragon’s Fang scrawled on the inn door. An ill wind blows from the Blight, and the fog creeps in towards Helgen. Last night, one of Tema’s goats sickened and died. The stranger, Kaim, claims to have heard ravens calling at dusk. The Shadow, it seems, has fallen across even Helgen. Can you find the Darkfriends hidden in your midst before it is too late? Or will even Helgen be claimed by the Shadow? General Rules: Win Conditions: Roles: Dragon's Fang: Thoughts/Comments:

Yokska?

here y'all go

Who would win, an mistborn slightly empowered by drawing upon Preservation's mists or a fullborn with 1,000 years of experience and massive metalmind stores? Who would win, a Shard or a dying old man who just happens to be within reach of Nightblood? Who would win, an uninvested man with a deadeye, a horse, and a big sword or twenty armed and brutal men? Have I made my point?

The best bet any radiant has is to soulcast the fullborn from the cognitive realm. No radiant would win against a fullborn in open combat without a huge advantage like the fullborn being an idiot. Steel compounding is just too broken.

Oh boy. You know I'd say, first talk to the mom about the rumours and explain that they are just rumours (i know it will get awkward, but it's better than her getting the wrong idea.) And then just ignore what everybody is saying. You don't owe anybody an explanation and as long as the right people know the truth, does it really matter what everybody else thinks? I hope this helps

each breath is a piece of investiture put into people by endowment, the main difference between it and stormlight is stormlight does not continuously remain.

Personally I just don't get other people's expectations of Era 2. It's a fairly logical progression from Era 1, and it's built more like urban fantasy than high fantasy. Something I was expecting from the moment I started reading it with the wild west setup of the first chapter. Those typically don't have, or at least don't start with, the grand scale of high fantasy works. I also find the Metallic Arts to be far and away the most interesting of Brandon's magic systems. There is just enough vagueness for mystery and surprise but mostly being consistent. The fun part is all the ways clever characters use it in spite of its limitations, and thinking about interesting implications of what each thing can do.

If there was a Shard of Drunkeness, it’s Light would be Budlight!

That's to be expected. I probably need to cut it down a bit. But it does seem to have done what it was supposed to! Great! Sure, "they" is probably right. This is actually one reason I'm using only passive tense in these sections. I can completely avoid referring to "a being" at all and leave what exactly this consciousness is amorphous. Is it the accumulation of all the parts? Is there a separate consciousness? I want it to be a completely foreign type of existence. Poor D... ;-( Nice! Thanks @shatteredsmooth

That's like saying who would win, a guy who can warp reality by thinking or the guy who stabs him in his sleep. Without some even more broken ability like Plot armor, and being the Protagonist, The Fullborn wins against most 4th ideal radiants 9 times out of ten. The only real exceptions being Bondsmiths and Elsecallers.

Hello everyone! Just stopping by to introduce myself as the IM this game. Don't forget that if you have concerns, problems, want to vent, or just want to share funny memes, I'll be around. Feel free to PM me or ping me if you see a problem coming up. I will try to keep a close eye on things, but likely won't be able to read through every post. In case I happen to do any RP, I'll be Nightowl, an epic with the ability to fly and go invisible in darkness.

I think the 4th ideal is going to have been the hardest for him, he's always struggled with a lot of survivor's guilt, "I couldn't save them" type stuff, and he seems to have done just about everything he can to majorly improve himself. He's a natural leader and exemplifies everything there is about Windrunners as a group. I think Jasnah will either swear off-screen, or during her book in the back 5. Brandon has avoided focusing on her for the front 5 (to the point of giving her a POV in shardplate and not even bringing up how shardplate works. While I'm not going to comment much about whether or not Kaladin is going to swear his 5th ideal in the 5th book (I think he will, but I don't have anything to support that besides for it would be relatively easy for him and that I really want it) but I hope he survives. His arc to me has been less about surviving these situations, but living on past them. Not about how he couldn't have saved Tien, but how to live with the guilt of not being able to. He has depression, just living is enough of a struggle for him. I think killing kaladin off just undermines that, it strikes me as the easy way out. He doesn't have to do anything important other than be there and support the idea that you can keep going. That it's ok to live on.

Isaac and Clint look similar. Art by Botanica The meme format just dropped into my lap with the YouTube recommended. All memes by me.

Why on Roshar did Wit give Kaladin his flute? And why did Kaladin find it again at the end of RoW? What is being set up here? Well, I've been wondering these things and instead of coming to any logical conclusions, I have dreamed up a very whacky Battle of Champions theory that is utterly wrong but could it be so wrong that it is right? The whole last book we've been learning about Tones and Rhythms, Kaladin has a flute, and there's a really weird Death Rattle that makes me think of El for no other reason than that he gives me "black piper in the night" vibes (and, well, he is into human art forms which would include musical instruments, and the whole "no man can hear" kind of echoes his previous Vyre/'He Who Quiets' Fused title: So Dalinar and co meet TaravOdium at the Battle of Champions. They're all like WOAAAH and already thrown off. Dalinar declares himself his own champion, then El rocks up as Odium's champion, pipe in hand. Odium cackles and says MWAHAHAHA you didn't think I'd face the Blackthorn in a battle of swords!! This is a battle of wind instruments... to the death... mwahahaha. Dalinar is looking freaked out, but Kaladin steps up and says, hey I kinda found my old flute again 10 days ago and I've never actually played it but it's a wind instrument and I'm a Windrunner so it can't be that hard right? And Dalinar is like, yep son, I think you should go for it. So Kaladin and El face off, Kal is blowing into his flute like a kid in elementary school who is forced to learn the recorder, face red from lack of oxygen, fingers flying wildly over the holes, and hey it's kind of working cause those Fused are covering their ears from the horror of the sound. Hoid is mortified at the blasphemy that is the noises coming out of his beautiful old flute. El is playing his pipe but we can't hear a thing cause Kaladin is just too loud - hence the "playing a tune that no man can hear" part. But it brings the stone to life and forms into a giant hand that lifts El and Kal up above the storm clouds - "holds us in his palm" TICK. What happens next, is a mystery. They are in the sky and the sky belongs to Kaladin, and no one else can see... Does Kal throw the flute aside and claim El's life with his Syl spear? Would the dishonor of such an act kill what is left of Honor, dooming them all? Was that Odium's plan all along? Does El have some mysterious tricks up his carapace? Feel free to continue the story in the comments below! But could this also solve the mystery of book five's title? The final part of the ketek WoK-WoR-O-RoW-? The one that no one saw coming? Keening of Windpipes!

Wow, can't believe nobody saw this version of the battle coming! So obvious now that you say it

A few more I made over the past couple years but did not yet share:

That was before Taravangian ascended Tododium doesn’t seem to interested in the spirit of the contract when he excises some of Hoids Breath

The "aahh" sound effect in the first Harry Potter movie when the food magically appears on the table. IT TICKS ME OFF SO MUCH. Everyone sounds so surprised by the food suddenly appearing there, but the world is scudding magic, storm it! The first years, maybe, but the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, even eighth years if you're like Harry and Hermione? They have no excuse to act as though the most amazing thing has ever happened to them! It just... AGHGHHHH!!!

Here's a very short theory for you. I've always just accepted that Allomantic savants are a thing that can exist, but this recent quote, I feel, directly explains the mechanism for how savants happen. Burning metals makes an Investiture: In Alloy, in the thing about the Three Metallic Arts in the Ars Arcanum, it says: So it seems to me that if you constantly flared your metals and constantly having this Investiture running, then eventually that Investiture would begin to warp and change you. That's exactly what we see happening in savants. Nothing major, but I thought it was an interesting observation.