Oltux72

January 8

On 1/6/2024 at 5:14 PM, alder24 said:

And is this something bad? I don't understand your point here.

It is good in the sense that using first aid techniques after a major accident is good. It is bad in the sense that the need to use these techniques exists in the first place.

They are picking the low risk/low reward option; thereby precluding getting a better deal later. Yet they are doing so by not using all incentives they have at hand, namely releasing Odium. They might have gotten Vedenar back.

On 1/6/2024 at 5:14 PM, alder24 said:

No they don't... Dalinar just wrote that down to spread information to other fractions via spanreeds and keep the details of it imprinted so they won't forget them. Do you expect Dalinar to verbally spread the terms of the contest to everyone? It's much better to analyze a document like that when you have a written copy of it, not something you try to pull out of your mind. Shards don't need any piece of paper.

I must disagree. Aren't they talking about adding adding Hoid as a protected representative to the treaty in Rhythm of War?

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

Taravangian still wants to continue Rayse's plans and get out into Cosmere, he wants to "save them all," and he clearly sees the flaws of the terms. Sure, there will be changes, but I think we can safely assume Taravangian wants to get out of Roshar just like Rayse wanted. Continuation of this war won’t bring him any closer to achieving this goal.

Yes. But it won't take him farther away from it, like letting the contest take place as planned would do.

January 6

On 1/3/2024 at 2:35 AM, agrabes said:

I think it's interesting - I'm approaching this with the idea that SA5 and the first SA arc should be about things that matter to Rosharans first and foremost. Hoid can want what he wants and he can help here and there, but (I really hope at least) this book is not about him achieving his goals. I hadn't been keeping up with the new readings but I did check out the one you mentioned. I don't really think there ever was an alliance between Hoid and the Rosharans. Hoid is out to achieve his own goal, but whatever that goal is, it's not the story of at least SA1-5. His story just overlaps with it a bit, like it does with all the other cosmere books.

That is a bit hard to do. The whole history of Roshar depends on Honor trapping Odium in the Rosharan system.

19 hours ago, agrabes said:

In terms of Odium and his overall strategy: the whole purpose of the Oathpact was to keep Odium trapped on Roshar. I don't think it's his chosen home territory, I think it's his prison. He wants to be out splintering shards which is what he was doing prior to being trapped on Roshar. So if he get the ability to leave, he's gone.

That very much raises the question why the Radiants do not make an offer to release him.

19 hours ago, alder24 said:

No 1000 years, permanent peace and imprisonment. Radiants won't lose anything more than what was already taken, most of those lands followed Odium freely except for Alethkar and Herdaz. The only contribution of Hoid in this contract was "keep Odium here" and even that was mainly because of Honor:

Yes, but they admit their position. The treaty acknowledges the realities on the battlefirld. And those are that the Radiants are losing. Hence they are reday to finalize their losses.

19 hours ago, alder24 said:

The only contribution of Hoid in this contract was "keep Odium here" and even that was mainly because of Honor:

Saying this is heretic, but that is the decision of a man selected by the being merged with the CS of Tanavast. A man bonded to that being. A man who has spent years in the presence of an emotional allomancer who shares that goal.
It is not in the best interest of Roshar. Jasnah or the other monarchs would not make that decision on their own.

15 hours ago, Master Silver said:

I just realized three things. 1) Odium only remains bound if Dalinar wins or Odium wins, not if it is a draw.

In case of a draw it would seem to me that the status quo before the contest would persist. The war would go on.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Intent matters, that's why the words said earlier are important too. That's what they had in mind when finalizing terms. This is the spirit of their agreement. OB ch 122:

The Jasnah and Hoid scene (Brandon's reading from SA#5 at Tampa)

That very much implies that they have a written contract.

January 6

5 hours ago, SheepAreFluffy said:

Kelsier is vrey open to ideas and suggestions from others... up until the point where he isn't. For his final plan of martyrdom, he didn't involve anyone else at all. It wasn't just that he was the one making the command decision. He made the command decision and didn't tell anyone else about it. That's the part that really stuck with me.

To be fair, do you think his plan would have worked, if he had told the crew?

January 4

The Lost Metal saw quite some usage of purified Dor? That raises a question. Do the Ghostbloods make it themselves or do they purchase it from the Ire?

January 4

Leshwi knew a Honorspren. And it looks to have been from her youth, before she became a Fused. I think we can assume that. Honorspren and servants of Odium really don't mix. This is a problem. Honorspren are modelled after humans, not Singers. They must postdate the arrival of refugees from Ashyn. Raboniel, however, hails from a time a few decades after the arrival of the Ashynites. So how quickly did the Spren adapt and how long is the period over which Fused were created?

January 3

Can the bearer of Yelig-nar use Reverse Lashings?

January 3

7 hours ago, SheepAreFluffy said:

There's one thing that's really stuck with me about Kelsier right from the start. He always talked up the importance of his crew and working together and all that stuff, but when it came down to his final plan in The Final Empire to get himself killed and then stage his resurection, he worked alone (except for OreSeur, who was integral to the plan). So that's who I think he is at heart: someone who is only going to trust himself when the chips are really down. Nothing I've seen of him since has changed that opinion that I've had from the start.

Kelsier trust his crew in the sense that a good general makes sure he can trust his staff. But that does not mean that they are a democracy. In the end he makes the command decisions.

January 3

12 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

May I make another suggestion perhaps it is To threaten fused.

I am afraid I fail to see the need. Odium already threatened to take away a Fused's immortality in Oathbringer during the battle of Thaylen Field. Are you saying that that was an empty threat?

January 3

8 hours ago, agrabes said:

I like your idea and think it would be a good story, but I was personally thinking more along the lines of Dalinar winning the contest of champions and then breaking the agreement. The agreement says Dalinar will let Odium keep the lands he controls (not sure if this is at the time of the agreement or at the time of the contest) minus Herdaz and Alethkar. I could easily see a situation where something like this happens:

The problem I see with that very plausible situation is that it is quite conventional an issue when drawing up a ceasefire, hence Dalinar must have considered it.

January 3

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

I think it's interesting - I'm approaching this with the idea that SA5 and the first SA arc should be about things that matter to Rosharans first and foremost. Hoid can want what he wants and he can help here and there, but (I really hope at least) this book is not about him achieving his goals. I hadn't been keeping up with the new readings but I did check out the one you mentioned. I don't really think there ever was an alliance between Hoid and the Rosharans. Hoid is out to achieve his own goal, but whatever that goal is, it's not the story of at least SA1-5. His story just overlaps with it a bit, like it does with all the other cosmere books.

Let's look at the contract. There is a limit to how much a battlefield under preindustrial conditions can can change in ten days. The contest is in essence about Herdaz and Alethkar. Hence the results, win or lose, amount to:

the Radiants lose at least about 1/3 of Roshar
Odium remains bound to the system for 1000 years

I am sorry, but that is essentially what Hoid wants, not the Radiants (I don't want to write Rosharans, as the people in Jah Keved and elsewhere are also Rosharans)
Why do they agree? They get peace. Yet a deal that would give Odium a chance at freedom for more territory would be better for them.

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

So, I think what Dalinar is doing is basically saying he will handle the Contest mostly on his own because at the end of the day no one else can help him anyway. He's already on to the next thing and putting contingency plans in place by getting things going with BAM and Ishar. We haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure he and Navani also come up with plans for how to build on what they've done so far at Urithiru and how the Sibling is now awake, etc.

I would say that Dalinar is not confident to survive this. He knows that the Radiants will have less need for generalship in the future, yet they will need Bondsmiths.

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

From the readings, we do know that Adolin and Shallan report in, but do we know it's about something urgent? I think they are just reporting in to say "Mission Complete, here's what we learned. Now what should we do next? Here's what we think we should do."

(Tampa Bay Comic Convention - Reading from SA#5)

Spoiler

A man with discretion to match his general poise, she trusted him as much as she trusted any, so she wasn’t bothered as he glanced at Wit as he approached. “What?” she said to him, light spilling from the guardroom into her quarters.

“Radiant Shallan and Highprince Adolin have something to report,” he whispered. [Brandon: I’m gonna cut that out so you have some anticipation for what’s coming.] “Your uncle has called for a meeting immediately, despite the hour.”

The scheduling is quite indicative of urgency. That said, do you think they are physically present or have they just made a report via Seon?

The obvious think that they could have found out is that Rayse is dead. Is Sja-Anat in Lasting Integrity, asking for sanctuary?

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

What I honestly think is that Odium does get his loophole. It would make a ton of narrative sense. Odium leaves Roshar and runs out into the greater cosmere. That leads to really cool stories and really starts shifting the conflict to a cosmere scale. Odium "wins" and scrams out of Roshar/Braize.

Why? Why would he forgo securing his home base? I must admit I see no obvious way for Odium to get his loophole and yet the war to end in SA#5. That means a lot must happen in SA#5 and other readings did not show threads being closed, but new threads of action starting.

The loophole has been talked about so much, that it not being taken would be disappointing. Hence a lot of new stuff needs to happen. Hence I expect the contest or a decision to find a way to avoid it to come almost immediately. I cannot help fearing an SA#5 whose Sanderlanche starts in chapter 4, figuratively speaking.

January 2

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Not really. if this was about a bomb, the same result would be achieved if he mixed anti-light with Voidlight. He wanted to specifically test if Pursuer's soul will return or not. If Anti-Light kills permanently.

He already knows that from Rabionel's daughter and Raboniel herself. Though granted, he may consider Raboniel to have been captured rather than killed. In terms of basic research the question should be clear. If he is still testing this then it looks to me like he wants confirmation that the stuff his people are making is genuine anti-Light.

3 hours ago, Duxredux said:

It also might be as simple as resource management as Stormlight is extremely easy to acquire but diminishes relatively quickly but Odium seems to have been selective on where he Invests Voidlight. There's a resource disparity where Voidlight persists much longer than Stormlight, which means that every time the Coalition captures Voidlight spheres they can accumulate more and more anti-Voidlight to permanently kill Fused. If Odium's forces can keep Voidlight out of the hands of the Coalition, they will have a significant advantage as even if the Coalition has the knowledge to create anti-Light, they still need the resources to do so. Actually, because the very Light that enables each side's abilities also it what allows them to be permanently killed makes planning warfare very different in general. It's the equivalent of using guns that can only permanently kill your own side but can put your enemy temporarily out of action. It adds an unusual degree of risk.

The shelf-life of Light and anti-Light becomes even more important in Shadesmar. Adolin and Shallan's trip to Lasting Integrity showed how travel time becomes much more important. There may be places in Shadesmar that would be very difficult to invade with anti-Stormlight.

Hasn't that point turned moot by the discovery of how to use vacuum tubes and the three pure tones? They mean that you can covert lights, don't they?

January 2

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

TSM spoilers:

Hide contents

Nomad was 38 years old when he became a Dawnshard, ch 11:

He doesn't look 38 in RoW, but we don't know what his current age is. I think, based on the threads in the TSM section discussing the timeline, we can't expect him to become a Dawnshard in SA5, but we can expect him to break his Oaths in SA5. Something will happen that will trigger this response.

But we should stop discussing this here, we should not turn this into TSM topic.

(Sunlit Man)

Spoiler

I would take that as the Dawnshard needing considerable time to kick in.

January 2

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

But there is a problem with this Death Rattle. In this context choosing not to be Anakin is the choice of honor, but it means freeing Odium, it means "death" not "life." It's an honorable choice, but worse than killing kids. But the night will indeed reign if kids aren't killed.

Journey before destination.

Sorry, I could not resist.

January 2

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Or do you suggest that Dalinar will refuse to kill kids because of his moral code, and thus he will disobey Odium's orders and break the terms as he was meant to be Odium's servant by those terms?

Exactly. And we even have a prediction of what will happen then:

Quote

So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life...

January 2

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If they wanted to make a bomb they would just mix it with Voidlight, not kill the Pursuer.

You have a point. However, it seems to me that Taravangian is thorough. That is, as the Radiants have reconquered Urithiru he cannot be certain that he is following the procedure correctly. Thus he would test the product as thoroughly as possible before he dares use it in the contest. And that means using it to kill a Fused.

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

The last option is the most likely, but there can be another - kill as many True Spren as possible. Odium already has forces stationed in CR, they control several towns and cities - they can strike with no warning and kill spren en masse.

Doesn't that require mass production of Raysium?
Wouldn't he force the reluctant spren into bonding Radiants thereby?

January 2

3 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Wouldn't that mean it was Taravangian who broke the terms because it was his servant who attacked and broke the promised peace? I don't think it would count as Dalinar/Honor breaking the contract, because Dalinar will obey Odium's commands.

No, because he can send him out into the Cosmere to conquer some hapless litte world or do this to the population of the lands he still holds, as the Radiants have lost the contest. Killing your own subjects is not breaching the peace.

January 2

12 minutes ago, alder24 said:

True, it's smart to have one, but relying too much on something you're familiar with, makes you blind to possibilities offered by something more powerful that you have but don't know yet. Even Dalinar said "it won't be a swordfight," he knows just having a Shardblade won't be enough, RoW ch 116:

The problem with that line of reasoning is that it must be based on his acquaintance with Rayse. In fact Taravangian knows him. He may predict that. What really prevents Odium from turning this into a physical fight?

January 2

4 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Reading spoilers:

Hide contents

You assume that they will figure out that Rayse is dead and Taravangian Ascended. What if that's not true? What if they will think that Rayse is still in control, talk with a person who knows him and find a loophole Rayse would have used, but then be totally surprised on the day of the Contest that Taravangian is Odium and they will miss the loophole Taravangian saw?

(Reading spoilers)

Spoiler

Then they will suffer a catastrophe.

Though isn't that the precise reason they want to contact an external specialist?

Let's list the possibilties

They find the loophole(s) and SA#5 is about closing them -> contest is at the end of the book
They find the loophole(s) and conclude that they must avoid having the contest -> I would say then the contest must be very early, for an alternative must be found
They fail to handle the loophole(s) for whatever reason -> contest must be early to deal with the consequences

13 minutes ago, alder24 said:

TSM spoilers:

Hide contents

That's far ahead in the future, he needs to be 37 years old first and he doesn't look that old yet.

Why? Could you elaborate?

January 2

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

It's restrictive, he doesn't have much time to prepare, but Dalinar wields the most powerful weapon there is on Roshar outside of Dawnshards, he can still use it and kill, just like a peasant with a crossbow can kill a knight with years of experience.

True, but not a reason to forgo more conventional weaponry.

For all we know, Dalinar's opponent could be a chasmfiend whose children Dalinar killed for their gemhearts.

January 2

Quote

I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw.

First of all, a big thanks to @agrabes for reminding me that the contract about the contest can be broken even after the contest. You just fail to follow its provision for your side if you lose.

One of the provisions in case the Radiants lose is that Dalinar will become a Fused doing Odium's bidding. The interpretation of this death rattle is that it is about the contest of champions. That is derived from it being a way you could make Dalinar refuse to fight. But Taravangian would rather have him break the contract than lose. Are those goals mutually exclusive?

So what if this is from after Dalinar's defeat?
I would put it bluntly, no use in sugar coating this, it will stay extremely dark in any case:

Can this be from Dalinar's perspective, whom Taravangian wants to make break the contract by ordering him to slaughter infants?

Odium is not above torturing people and Taravangian really believes in the necessary evil. Dalinar needs to serve Odium if he loses and wishes to heed the contract. I cannot help myself. It is logical.

January 2

Taravangian got El a test subject by extraordinary means. It is obvious that Odium wants to test anti-Investiture weapons. Killing Radiant spren is a huge boon to his side. It is not clear why he is in a hurry that makes every day count, unless of course that test has a connection to the upcoming contest of champions.

Yet if he wants to get Dalinar as his slave, annihilating his soul would be counterproductive. If he wants to kill a Herald, there is no point. He already could do that, as Jezrien's fate has shown.

If he wants to kill Radiants, why the hurry? He is not going to mass produce Raysium to hand it out to his troops, is he? And why test with anti-Voidlight? So

Odium does not know or believe that Dalinar will fight for himself.
This is for a bomb and the knife is just coincidence
Odium wants to kill or threaten to kill the Stormfather

What do you make out of this test?

January 2

On 12/29/2023 at 3:47 PM, alder24 said:

As Ishar proved, a Bondsmith Unchained is even more dangerous than any Shardblade. A Bondsmith is able to steal a bond between a Radiant and their Spren. This is the power that Dalinar needs to master, he doesn't need any Shardblade, he himself is a weapon far more powerful than that.

No. He doesn't have the weapon. He has a potential capability. Dalinar has never done this. He has ten days to train, not knowing what kind of enemy he will face. Odium is under very few restrictions on that.

On 12/29/2023 at 7:23 PM, Master Silver said:

It is exactly this power that Ishar displayed that I think Dalinar should use to revive Oath Bringer. Even though Jasinah or another could possibly lend Dalinar plate and blade, the decades of experience that Dalinar has with his plate and blade can't be replaced. They know him and he knows them. I think this is foreshadowed in The Way of Kings, when we see Dalinar do superhuman feats like stopping the Chasm Feind from squashing Elohkar. Like Maya, I think they have revived a little bit. I do agree that his powers are his best weapon, but the Fused have ways of making powers not work. Although, Dalinar has so much investiture that I find this unlikely to work on him the way it did with Kaladin at the beginning of RoW.

So you want him to face an unknown enemy with a Blade in a state nobody has ever tested out?

After spending his very limited training time on a venture that nobody has ever attempted?

January 2

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

I think it's a good point to bring up that there might not even be a contest. It would honestly be cool if there wasn't, IMO. As I was writing this response, I was thinking about why the Contest seems really lame to me. I think it's because the stakes just don't really make a lot of sense from the point of view of the Rosharans. The idea behind it was to try to stop Odium/Fused from destroying Roshar in war by tempting Odium with something he wants. Good idea. But now, the agreement means that basically nothing changes either way for the Rosharans. So why should they care?

Alethkar and Herdaz are major things to the Rosharans. They are not major gains to Hoid. His triumph is the contract they got Odium to agree to. Strategically, sorry to repeat a point, Hoid is using up the Rosharans to fight a delaying action against Odium. Now, it may be that the Hoid/Jasnah chapter Brandon read out of marks the beginning of the end of the alliance between Hoid and the Rosharans.

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

There might be a throwaway line in the falling action about how Shallan figured out some things about the Ghostbloods, the Cosmere, etc but it's not going to be center stage.

You have a point. Maybe we should ask what has immediate relevance:

Odium's armies attacking one last time to shift the borders before they are frozen
Finding the loophole
Sja-Anat (Taravangian must very much suspect her of disloyalty)

The problem is that if I look at it that narrowly, I fail to see a justification for sending Kaladin & Szeth to Shinovar. Reforging the Oathpact is a long term priority. Dalinar isn't an idiot. He will not dream that Ishar has the one world-shaking secret of Bondsmithing, which he could learn in a few days well enough to use in the contest. Neither is finding Ba-Ado-Mishram. She has been stuck in a gemstone for over a thousand years. This going on for a few more months makes no difference. Neither is there a point in Adolin and Shallan even returning home, provided Lasting Integrity can supply so many humans. Or for the Honorspren they recruited to hurry to Urithiru.

4 hours ago, agrabes said:

Ultimately, I think you have it right - Odium doesn't care about winning the contest. His goal is to trick Dalinar into violating the agreement, which would free him to move around the Cosmere and do what he wants. I think it's more interesting if he does that after Dalinar has already won the contest. Or possibly before, if it happens without spending huge chunks of the book dwelling on the ten days. I just don't really see a good story in spending the whole book preparing for a contest of champions where the result ultimately isn't relevant (if Odium succeeds in tricking Dalinar into violating the agreement) or isn't interesting (if Dalinar wins or loses and then everyone goes home to sit on their hands for 1000 years while Odium sends his agents out into the Cosmere).

We know from the readings that

something import and urgent happens, which Adolin and Shallan report in (do you think they are physically in Urithiru or is somebody sitting in front of a Seon all the time?)
the Radiant side understands that there is a loophole in the contract

If Hoid and his associate can find the loophole, they will need to draw conclusions from it. That raises the question what they'll do if they find the issue unfixable?

And that leads me to a very dark corner, where my inner ruthless pseudo-Ghostblood wakes up. Can and should the Radiants abort the contest by killing Dalinar or having him unbond the Stormfather, if the issue is unfixable? Would Navani be bound by the contract?

January 2

10 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

The question came up on Shardcast: when during book 5 will the contest of champions begin? I am very confident it will start early on in Part 5 similar to how the battle of Thayen Field started early in part 5. In other words most of the book is taking place over the 10 days between the end of RoW and SA5.

I am sorry, but that avoids the elephant in the room. Will a contest take place at all?

10 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

1) This contest of champions was mentioned as far back as book 1 and agreed to in 3. It's the climax of the front 5 he isn't putting it in part 2 of the book.

Brandon subverted a lot in Stormlight Archive. Jasnah spent years researching the voidbringers. It turned out to be useless.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't even think the contest will be the end of SA, or that it will be as simple as “Dalinar wins or Odium’s champion wins the fight” - the best loophole for Odium is the make Dalinar break the terms and that's what I think Taravangian is aiming for.

That is indeed his logical goal. We have Brandon's earlier reading:
Wit discovering that memories are missing

Hence the Radiant side won't be surprised. That raises a question. If they find the loophole, will they still want to carry on?

9 minutes ago, agrabes said:

I think you're right. The contest can't be the climax of the book because it feels way too straightforward and it leaves no time to set up the state of Roshar and the cosmere going forward. Part 3 makes sense per Sanderson's SA book structure like you said.

If the contest is not the solution of the Stormlight Archive, then we have a huge pile of loose ends. For example Kaladin should soon tell Dalinar/Jasnah/Navani that his/her uncle's/her husband's slave is an undead immortal from another world. Shallan and Adolin will have learned incredible things.

(Sunlit Man)

Spoiler

A certain highly invested object needs to be found and taken up

By that logic Brandon should pull another Rhythm of War. The ten days then are the first part where the Urithiru crew is busy conferencing via Seon with a specialist on shardic contracts. (Do we call such a specialist an arcane lawyer?). The rest of the book then deals with finding the true end of the first five books.

January 2

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

My apologies for misreading that as "space between systems" (as in, not in the Threnodite system) - such as the proposed reason for Taln's Scar.

There is nothing in the essay that would rule out that would rule out Taln's Scar to be the site of Ambition's death. It does not confirm it either.

We are not seriously discussing that Nazriloff is thousands of years old, are we? So the question is the nature of the Evil.
Yes, the essay tells us that there have been consequences of the battle. But it does not tell us that all consequences happened at the same time.

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