TheFoxQR

Just gonna leave this here in case this becomes relevant, but there is an odd coincidence regarding one of the Honorblades. Jezrein's Honorblade was the first to grant the Surges of Adhesion and Gravitation. Jezrein himself was known as the king of kings, and the attributes of Leadership and Protectiveness became the Divine attributes of the Windrunners later. So it's almost karmic that long after his fall from grace, his Honorblade was used to destroy and assassinate leaders all over the world. Now it rests in the hands of someone who has killed two kings. It almost makes me want to ask - can Honorblades be corrupted?

Dude. This is good! I know you posted this here first, and I don't know if I should say this, but make this your own topic, this is worth being that. Link it back here in your post.

You're missing @asmodeus's point. And then you make practically the same point. I don't think there is a quantifiable way you can say at this point that Brandon hasn't seeded in Voidbinding with the Unmade. In fact, one of the first WoBs used in the theory tells us that we hadn't seen much of Voidbinding pre-OB, and then we get to see much of the Unmade in the same book as the one we get to see Renarin's abilities in. Just like what happened with Mistborn, they're trying to figure out where Voidbinding is hiding in this one. It's as simple as that. If Voidbinding is to be shown in the first half, then the third book is exactly the halfway point to put it, and as you say, this is the same book we get to see Renarin's abilities in. Then there is also the matter that in Mistborn, we didn't know to look for the magic, here it was announced at the end of book one, so it doesn't make much sense for it to be hiding until Book 6-7, especially if there's gonna be a writing break in between. Also, we have a WoB that connects the Unmade and Voidbinding, by saying that it originates with the Unmade, if not always, then usually. There is enough there to be able go out and try and fit Voidbinding to the Unmade, we've accepted theories that hang by far looser threads than this. It's actually the opposite that seems unlikely - if not here, where? The Unmade are not Voidbinding, but it still usually originates with them? Like, looking at the Divine Attributes, it's hard to say how Honorspren are living Adhesion and Gravtiation of all things, if you go by their description of blue people. Or how Honest and Creative leads to cryptics being the living surge of Illumination. But they are those things. Windspren, a subspren, is well known for sticking things together, which is Adhesion. And atmospheric pressure is the cause of Wind. Looking at both the Stormfather and Nightwatcher, you would never say that they both grant Adhesion and Tension, but they do. Credit where credit's due, this does seem very consistent with what we know. I'm impressed with the sheer research that's gone into this. Also, I did a quick ctrl+f to see if I missed it, but there's no mention of Braize? The ten levels to Voidbinding may play into their own myths of Damnation, like how we consider there to be the layers of Hell, with one sin each.

My theory is that it is one of a trio of Realmic Neutral Metals - Aluminium corresponding to the spiritual, Silver to the Cognitive and something else for the Physical. Aluminium resists spiritual change, Silver resists Cognitive change, and so on.

There is also this:

There seems to be a little bit more. Or atleast those things seem to have more weight behind them than we give them. From Honor's perspective, whoever was being shown the visions was going to be someone the Stormfather had chosen to see them. This implies that the Stormfather had taken the first step to choosing his Bondsmith - the next step must come from this budding Bondsmith. And in a world without the organisational structure of the Knights Radiant, there wouldn't be anyone to guide this person on what to do. The book - Nohadon's Way of Kings - was later used as a basis for the first Oath of the Radiants. The journey described there can start one on the path to Radiance - the book is a guideline of sorts. It serves as a basis from which this person could start acting as, start being a Radiant - it serves as a basis from which the first Oath can be rediscovered. And considering that the version of the Stormfather this person would be bonding to would also be by some means Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow, and hold the remnants of the Shard of Honor, that's a pretty decent plan to make the power of the Shard available to someone who will probably use it responsibly. And this is before we get to the other visions, and what their potential source and purpose could be.

Another factor is the time scale. Odium may want to destroy Roshar for similar reasons to why Ruin wanted to destroy Scadrial (apart from being... ya' know... Ruin). We don't know how long Odium has stayed in each planetary system so far, but it is safe to say that he has been in and around Greater Roshar for significantly longer than Sel, Threnody, and wherever else he has been. So it may just be that by being around the Rosharan system for so long, his investiture has been seeping into it - and he may want this investiture back. Plus the Unmade, the Fused, the Voidspren, etc. There's also that thing he says after Dalinar's moment in OB - that he would just have left the system, but the mechanics of how the realms interact with the magic means that leaving splinters of the other Shards behind is no longer an option for him.

There's 10 Surges. And I don't think this gonna happen. This is a fair write up, but we don't know the circumstances of the original Oathpact. The one instance we do have can be considered a case of an unreliable narrator. We don't know if the Oathpact was meant to be a permanent solution, or even if it was - did Honor really come up with it, or was it Ishar and the Heralds? The Oathpact was functional at some point - while it held, it did stop the Fused from recovering. The torture came from parties that weren't directly involved in the Oathpact - namely Odium and the Fused. For all we know, the Oathpact was only meant to be a delaying tactic, if not to the Heralds, then to the Shards. Not to mention that a new Oathpact doesn't have to he the same - it _could_ deviate in a lot of ways. Basically, what I'm trying to say is a.) don't assume what we know about it is all completely true and unbiased, and consequently, b.) reswearing it may or may not mean what we think it does, and this is before we get to the idea that reviving it from it's weakened state may or may not allow someone who knows what they're doing to change things about it This doesn't mean he's going to find it. Sure, it also doesn't mean he's not gonna find it, but that's a neither here nor there thing. Remember, Odium was caught off guard at the end of OB. Things didn't go the way he planned them to because of Cultivation's intervention years ago. And he was very surprised by what happened to Dalinar, whatever that was. He will be a _lot_ more vigilant and careful going forwards, so things may or may not be as easy next time. I wouldn't put it quite like that, but this is pretty accurate. What the Oathpact (atleast at it's inception) did was essentially create an equal playing field between both sides. Now the Fused didn't die and just immediately come back. Now, there was a consequence to their dying.

Controversial, but I think it means the Honorblades. The Honorblades were the mark of the Oathpact. The model of speaking Oaths to get access to Radiance and Shards stemmed from the Honorblades. The Oathpact was the Heralds' collective Oath. When they were abandoned, and the Heralds' refused to go to Braize, the Oathpact was weakened. Abandoning the Oathpact at the end of Aharietam was, in a sense, the Heraldic Recreance. Or the Recreance was a Knight Radiant version of what the Heralds did at Aharietam. And one has to ask - how would the Heralds have kept their Oath? How would they have returned to Braize? It doesn't seem too farfetched to think that the Honorblades also served that purpose - to allow the remaining Heralds to retake or keep their Oath at the end of a desolation, and consequently served as a means to return to Braize. And since all the Honorblades were originally the mark of one Oath, it doesn't seem infeasible to think that uniting them into one place together, with 10 people bonded to them, and them collectively (re)swearing the original Oath would renew the Oathpact and stop the desolation.

This is true. Though it is important to note that I only give possible interpretations, not the exact correct one. The only thing I'm fairly confident in is that it's a story of someone temporarily ascending for a specific purpose. Yellow-Gold is not the color of Odium. His color is intense Yellow-White, intense enough to burn you out. Intense enough that Voidlight straight up appears appears Stygian Blue. On only one instance does he appear as anything else - in the Vision where he gives Dalinar the Passion speech, iirc. And that instance is debatable, because it's a spiritual vision where he we know he's not being fully honest with even himself. This situation is similar to Dustbringers - there, the Red isn't caused by co-option/corruption. Similarly, the Yellow-Gold of Bondsmiths isn't indicative of Odium. It's a situation where you have two very similar colors that could point in one direction or another, and the details would dictate which way they go. The lack of a mention of intensity, and the presence of Yellow-Gold as opposed to Pale Yellow is what makes me think Bondsmiths as opposed to Odium. This is also fair, and I don't clearly explain my entire thought process for Tower -> Investiture Construct in the post itself. Once I took the Heavens and Land as allusion to the Realms (Heavens being a relation to the Spiritual, and Land being Cognitive/Physical. We don't technically know the nature of the Spiritual, yes, but what we do know makes it fair to say that it exists very differently to Shadesmar and the Physical.) The next thing would be to look at the towers, and see what they would represent. They probably aren't literal towers, so what do they allude to? And the idea that they might be trying to convey is of some endeavor that the Natan people, under Tsa, were undertaking. Something that they would be well known for, and Wit does say that in this time Natanatan was a place of great culture. This endeavor would also need to be of a kind that could be perfected by ascension - requiring the kind of knowledge of Realmatics that a Shard would instinctively have. The other thing to keep in mind is the nature of getting invested. In the Cosmere, the difference between a regular person and someone who has ascended is the difference in the magnitude of power that courses through them. Someone who is an Allomancer burning a metal, say, or a Surgebinder holding Stomrlight, is closer to the state of ascension than a normal person. True, it takes a lot more to ascend, but the fact remains that by the very virtue of having investiture coursing through them, they are closer to ascending than regular people. In other words, having investiture pushes you towards the heavens, even though you are still firmly grounded on land. What we have so far is that the Towers are an allusion to an endeavor that requires certain Realmatic knowledge which would come naturally with ascension. The fact that the Tower is what is used is indicative of the nature of the endeavor - something that approaches the domain of divinity. Combine this with the word Radiant used to describe it, which on Roshar would be a word you would use to describe anything that uses the investiture if Stormlight inherently. And the fact that "Mishim" says they were trying to impinge on her domain, that is what pushes me towards Fabrials, or some other kind of invested construct if that kind. Yes, this is longwinded, farfetched. But none of those correlations are infeasible.

Hoid's stories - especially ones that have lightweaving involved - have almost always been allusions, though we don't know which specific events he's alluding to all the time. It's sort of a prerogative to the illusary capabilities of Lightweaving and the nature of lies - art needs truth, but it also needs to interpret it. All of his stories would be anchored in (or reflective of) something true and relevant. All he does is bring it forth, and let his audience draw what meaning from it they may. There's just enough creativity involved for it to be a lie, and yet there is always truth somewhere in it. Now, the conclusions I'm drawing from the story - those can be wrong. But the story is based on something though - and it seems hard to accept the literal involvement of the moons themselves.

I think this story is an allegory to some sequence of events that happened in Natanatan at some point. I'm going to be describing the story on two levels - on the level of Cultivation, Honor and Odium, and on the level of Nightwatcher, Stormfather and BAM (who is not the Sibling). The earlier parts of the story fit the former set better, the latter parts the latter set. The Moons of Roshar are Nomon (brightest, blue), Mishim (slowest, Green), and Salas (darkest, Violet). Of note are the colors that Hoid uses thoughout. So far, for the Rosharan Shards, the colors that can be best associated are White-Blue for Honor (Stormlight is white, Honorspren are Blue), Green for Cultivation (the mist at the Valley), and Yellow-White for Odium. (Voidlight is technically Stygian Blue, which is a fatigue response to bright, intense yellow on black - most probably this fact is a commentary on the nature of Rayse-Odium) Let's jump straight into the story then, shall we? Subtext: Cultivation is cleverest of the three Shards on Roshar. Or, the Nightwatcher is the cleverest of the three spren the moons are most likely to represent. Subtext: Honor and Odium are content sit in the spiritual and manifest avatars, powering the magics of Roshar through their respective lights - Stormlight and Voidlight. Honor has the Highstorm, and a high place on Roshar was called "closest to Honor", whereas Odium is literally on a different planet, and now has the Everstorm. As opposed to these two, Cultivation's influence can be seen in all the flora and fauna of Roshar, and she takes a more hands on approach, if only through the Boon-Curse magic. The reign in the sky could then be a realmatic metaphor, with Honor and Odium always staying away, whereas Cultivation being super invested in the Valley, and personally taking interest whenever she could. On the Nightwatcher level, we don't quite know the nature of the Sibling enough to be able to relate it like this with the sky and light. Indeed, I've been suspecting the domain of the Sibling is "stone", or Crem, so I don't know if it would hold with the reign in the sky. I've been suspecting that BAM is to Voidbinding what the Stormfather is to Surgebinding, and in that case she could be the sister to the Nightwatcher who is also content to stay away and "grace the lands with her (Void)light," whereas the brother, Stormfather, would also be cotnent to drive the Highstorms and "grace the lands with his (storm)light." I don't know what Hoid specifically means by this, other than maybe a sly referral to why Cultivation is training the Nightwatcher to be her heir, of some kind. Yep, Mishim is the green moon, and green is the color most associated with Cultivation, and by extension the Nightwatcher. Take the towers to be an allegory to something else, say... Ancient Fabrials. The Natanatans would, in this case, be leading scientists, trying to maybe autopsy and study the biology of Greatshells to understand how fabrials would work realmatically. The Natan people were trying to make artificial Fabrials, and impinging on the domain of Cultivation - whose system is this integrated Fabrial magic in the ecosystem of Roshar. It also makes sense in a different way, because the Aimians would eventually be providing Soulcasters to the rest of Roshar, and the end of this story strongly indicates that the Siah were born as an outcome of what happens here later. The towers could also be an allegory to a lot of different things and not just Fabrials. If you consider the sky and the lands to be the Spiritual and Physical realms, then the tower would be some kind of invested constructs - the metaphor relies on the same description Brandin has previously given to perpendicularities, something that is "heavier" than normal in the physical and stretching it a bit to reach into another realm. A tower is something that is built on land but reaches for the sky. Translation: I am mortal, my domain the Physical and Shadesmar. The Spiritual is yours. Divinity, yours. Interesting use of color here - why the white pillar? The description is similar to the description of Honor's perpendicularity that Dalinar summoned at the end of OB (to be fair, they're both described as white pillars, which isn't exactly a spectacularly detailed description, but still), but I don't know if that's what Hoid is actually alluding to or not. Also, why would you need Honor's perpendicularity to ascend to Cultivation? Except, the allusion is to the fact that Bondsmiths can do it, and this can be used for specific purposes. The answer to that would of course depend on whether the ability to manifest Honor's perpendicularity was a thing Dalinar could do because of the special circumstances involved with Honor's remnants and the Stormfather. Even if it was, that particular ability could be achieved by other Bondsmiths, just not necessarily in that manner, or by those circumstances. As always, Cultivation was using her Futuresight and her intent/motivation to see how best she could... well, cultivate. Her intent dictates that she constantly be doing that - constantly be looking to cultivate. Especially after holding the Shard for as long as she has, she would be reaching for some Preservation or Ruin levels of singlemindedness. Unlike Honor and Odium, she rarely makes an active play in events, preferring quiet nudges that may yield results favourable to her sometime in the far future. To mortal eyes, this isn't always apparent, her changes may not always be individually beneficial even, and because she uses the Nightwatcher as a substitute, she is culturally characterized with the attributes "loathes her duty" and "lazy". Another element at play here is that it was Honor that was pro-humanity, while Cultivation's own feelings towards them can, at best, be described as lukewarm. Take this from the perspective of a Shard - for whom looking at all of this in the physical would be trivial. Even Odium, who - unlike Cultivation - is actually trapped, can show Venli visions of Roshar from space, implying that is a perspective a Shard could see through if they so wanted. Also, yes, if you looked at Stars up close in mortal form, you would truly burn away from the heat of it. Another thing is that Stormlight infused Gemstones glow, and that perfectly cut Stormlight infused Gemstones would glow for a long time. So yes, without explaining the deep physics of everything, in a story, to say that the Stars are gemstones cut by the finest of gem cutters wouldn't be exactly be an inaccurate metaphor. Take the Heavens here, to be a state that you attain be Ascending. Yes, the sheer amount of information you would parse then would drive you mad in your non-ascended state. Moreover, as a scholar of Realmatics, Queen Tsa would know this. No clue what the Starspren mean though. Whatever these towers represent, investiture is definitely a big part of them. Or it could be taken figuratively in a different manner - the societal pillars and domes of that city could literally hold membership with the Knights Radiant - they could literally be Surgebinders, and thus Radiant. The Yellow-Gold smoke is interesting, as Yellow-Gold is the color of Bondsmiths. The green involved could imply this is a Nightwatcher Bondsmith. The Queen was Pious, which is a Bondsmith trait. And the Shard of Cultivation, or the Nightwatcher herself, is described as crafty. Also not an inaccurate descriptor. They're trying to achieve something by Applied Realmatic Theory, but something is missing. They're missing a clue. Something in their equations is wrong. And here they try to convince a Shard to help them. Queen Tsa asks to ascend - to pick up enough of the Shard to be capable of achieving what she wants to. Whether this is something Cultivation also secretly wants to come about, or whether this is really Queen Tsa tricking Cultivation is - atleast according to me - a question the story does not have an answer to. This is probably over analysing (well, technically so is the entirety of this post :P), but why the Orange? Why a random fourth color? I have only one unlikely conjecture - Odium does appear as the entire spectrum of Yellow to Dalinar in one of the Visions, so the Orange could be him. The fact that the word intense is mentioned could be indicative that the Orange represents something related to Odium, if not directly Odium. The Shard is temporarily passed from one vessel to another. Or, the Nightwatcher and her Bondsmith somehow swap places. No clue if this is even possible, although theoretically this could be achieved by rewiring one physical body from one Cognitive and Spiritual aspect onto a different Cognitive and Spiritual aspect. Probably unlikely, but not impossible. hmmm. So after what was ages, Cultivation's vessel, got a chance to be not a Vessel. Of course, she enjoyed however she could. Or the Nightwatcher is enjoying being mortal. I do not know what this part of the story means. The Shardic level was working better so far. But the superspren level makes a better fit from this point on. I don't quite know the exact mechanics/events this story is alluding to. There's something happening here and I don't quite know what. It is however interesting to note the qualities that are associated with each moon - kindness to Nomon (Honor/Stormfather), and thoughtfulness to Salas (Odium/Sibling/BAM). It's interesting to know that the color of Tsa is White, as opposed to the Green of Mishim, Blue of Nomon, and Violet of Salas. White is the one color common to all Radiants. Queen Tsa broke her word. Not very honourable. It is also interesting that that idea - the idea of her breaking her Oaths, is what gets Tsa to relent. This could be a cultural folk based decision in the story if it is not alluding to anything. But it fits this subtext surprisingly well. Roshar does have a significant focus on the ability to "hear" spiritual ideals, like the Rhythms. In that vein, this is interesting. Blue (and White) have so far been associated with Honor. So this is interesting. The first Siah? It is interesting that this was a new song. This is... I already laid out my feelings on this. I don't quite think that Queen Tsa could have tricked Cultivation herself, and this would be a ploy by Cultivation to make it seem like this, but in actuality, the fact is that some of her goals are also being achieved. These goals could be anything ranging from the creation of the Siah so that they could fulfill some specific purpose in the future, to something like letting go of her Shard for a while to potentially delay or decrease the overpowering effect that it's intent could be having in her consciousness. Maybe both, and more. I also don't know what "loss" means to Cultivation, save perhaps a kind of nostalgia on what she had been a long while ago - an understanding that a life like this with Tanavast is what she gave up all those millenia ago. If however, the Nightwatcher is the one in question, then this kind of makes better sense? Especially the parts where she didn't know mortal life, or the fact that she couldn't know loss. Cultivation would have allowed it in this case because she would have thought it would ultimately be better for the Nightwatcher to understand mortal existence, particularly if she was being trained as an heir to that Shard someday. This could make even more sense if Tsa was a Nightwatcher Bondsmith, and pulled something akin to what Dalinar managed at the Battle of Thaylen City, but different by circumstance, skill, and motive. A Child whose mother ascended while she was potentially pregnant, or something else was done by Tsa with her expanded understanding, capabilities, and perhaps most importantly, Honor's (maybe via Stormfather) investiture. Maybe the creation of a certain kind of Slivers was the point of the whole endeavor, or maybe the Siah hold a secret in their genetics/existence that Tsa was looking for all along. (by secret, I don't necessarily mean lore, but rather the fruit of Tsa's endeavors - art of a kind) Read above on what I feel about this. So... yeah. Had to get this out, though it would have been fun if I could have gotten to this before the Myths of Roshar Shardcasts.

Gotcha covered.

I didn't connect this to the Shardic Colors! Also, Odium's color is technically Yellow-White, or Intense Yellow. Even Voidlight is Stygian Blue - which is technically a fatigue response to bright yellow on black.

the answer is you do go splat in front of someone with Progression, and then regrow yourself.