Golstar

I very much like this: Righteous fury. This makes the gold not regal and grandiose, but more akin to the gold associated with knights, paladins and righteous justice. Awesome. I do think that it's not exclusively Rayse that caused this, but rather caused by an inherent duality of the Shard. The wrath of god carries a duality of supreme righteousness vs total despair (depending on the observer), and also hatred doesn't make sense without context. A Vessel who is biased towards only passion and righteousness (Rayse almost channels mercy when talking to Dalinar and Moash) is acting against the intent, but equally I think a Vessel that acts without motivation and simply becomes 'destruction' would also be punished by the Shard. The justification for the Hatred doesn't have to be reasonable or fair - but wanton destruction is Ruin's intent, not Odium. So I could see a different Vessel having a different secondary color - an uncompromising zealot might dress himself in white for example, while a bitter husk of a great man might appear all black. What motivates the hatred of Taravangian? I'd say necessity. He destroys that which stands in his way, that which is broken and that which is weak. He is not righteous, not just, but something far more sinister. In his own mind he is not even pure, but deeply tainted. He would wear the gold for the image it projects - to give mortals an illusion of justice and righteousness. But I don't see him caring about this self-image for his own sake. In that way he is a much more dangerous Odium. Tempering the red-hot hatred with cold cynicism and fatalistic nihilism.

His god metal is golden, though. So it's more than just pretense/illusion, and I don't think we have any reason to assume investiture has to have a natural color. Stormlight, voidlight, etc. are just one form of investiture. Shardblades and Shardplate are also pure investiture, and they have all kinds of colors. But I think you have very good point about the impact of the Vessel/Shard 'self-control' on how the investiture manifests. Odium is a volatile shard, and it makes very good sense, that loss of control changes the manifestation, not just in color but in 'shape'. It's also interesting that corrupted (non-sapient) spren gain weird stretched/spiky outlines. Perhaps the shard has some kind of inherent destabilizing effect on manifestations of investiture.

Raysium is golden and his internal light is golden. I still hold to my hypothesis, that the investiture is golden when it's the "body" of Odium (ie god-metal or the shard itself) and stygian-violet when it's external. Voidlight can then be interpreted as the Divine Wrath, and Raysium+Odium-light is the Divine itself. The shard is (mostly) hatred, but not self-hatred. I think this contradictory intent causes the multiple colors. Endowment isn't monochromatic, and I don't think there is a Cosmere fundamental law that Shards must have a single color. Scadrial is all about metal and mist, Roshar is all about light and tunes, Nalthis is all about breaths. These are all aspects of how investiture connects to the physical realm, but I think it's being slightly myopic to expect the conventions of Stormlight to govern all investiture. While there could very well be a "Shardlight" for each Shard, investiture manifesting in the Physical realm is the result of interplay between all three realms. I see manifested investiture as sort of similar to the 3-dimensional projection of a 4-dimensional object. And note that this is not meant literally, but as metaphor: If we "rotate" the intent of a shard in 4D in a consistent manner for each shard and project it from spiritual to physical, we may get something which is similar in 3D shape but varies in color. However some shards could then be thought have multiple "configurations of intent" in 4D which yield the same shape but with different colors. Perhaps it's a poor metaphor - but my point is that the spiritual may be consistent and deterministic, while still being complex and not quite as predictable as 1-color-per-shard. Just like how observing the projection of a 4D object in 3D tells us something about the shape of the underlying object, but never the full picture. Or in 3D to 2D terms - the shadow of an object carries a lot of information, but depending on the angle can vary quite a lot. Maybe Honor is this very symmetrical intent that projects very consistently - while Odium is a weirdo that put bunny ears on other shards, so you think you're looking at a bunny, but it's just Honor and Odium's fingers. Sorry that sounds like more like Whimsy. Back to the point: Colors aren't arbitrary, I am not arguing that Odium has multiple colors for no good reason. But I am arguing that constraining investiture to being a single type of light, gas and metal is too simplistic. Maybe Whimsy has 1000 different kinds of investiture with different tunes and colors. Preservation likes to manifest investiture as nice chunks of metallic matter. The intent of a shard affect how they manifest investiture, and also what pre-shattering investiture and magic "belongs" to a Shard. Surgebinding can convince matter to change into fire, which is pretty wild considering the differences on a physical level. Investiture can do pretty crazy things - it's the magic of creation after all, not just a different kind of energy. Voidlight is definitely of Odium - we've been shown this in multiple ways. But does it come from Odium's perpendicularity? Is it modified Stormlight? Is it both? Is it something else entirely? We don't know. Can Shards share and/or co-opt investiture? Yes. Ruin acted through metals that were of Preservation if they were used as a Hemalurgic spike. Intent when creating the spike changed the investiture from being Preservation-aligned to being Ruin-aligned. So something like Iron on Scadrial is of Preservation until you go spike someone with and then suddenly Ruin can exert influence through the Iron (and the broken spirit-web). Investiture all comes from the Spiritual Realm. It can carry the "spin" of a Shard, but we've seen that this can change. So until we get to a point where Brandon shows us Voidlight manifesting, all options are open. So my answer would be: Yes, Voidlight is Odium's investiture, but it is not his only physical manifestation of investiture and it may or may not have originated as his investiture. The colors could be a hint as to these things.

We have this WoB which indicates that there is a connection the Unmade, but it seems to indicate that Voidbinding can originate elsewhere. Personally, I think that it is relatively simple: Voidbinding is just bonding a corrupted spren. A "regular" Nahel Bond gives access to manipulating surges. Bonding in itself is a thing of Honor, but the corrupted spren are of Odium. So I agree it is of Honor+Odium, but I think it's really just another facet of what Nahel Bonds. Another interesting WoB: So maybe focusing on Voidbinding as a whole is missing the point: each type of voidbinding is unique to the type of bonded spren. I think this makes sense given the central role of the Nahel Bond. A final WoB: If Spren are living Surges, Surgebinding may just be binding surges literally. The pre-Radiant/Roshar Surgebinding being a way to bind surges without an oath, and perhaps not even using a spren, but non-sentient surges (the diseases?). I think 'Void' represents alien/foreign on Roshar, so Voidbinding is binding the unnatural forces of the universe. So really just any spren touched by Odium's investiture - or perhaps even any non-Honor/non-Cultivation investiture.

Yes, I think that was me, and I agree with your theory. It would be very interesting to see what a Seeker (or a Mistborn burning bronze) would hear on Roshar and Nalthis. Come to think of it, hasn't Hoid ingested Lerasium during his stay on Scadrial? I seem to remember that during his first meeting with Shallan, she sees him ingest a metal. Could Seeking be used to detect Nahel Bonds perhaps? Also, when used for Hemalurgy, Bronze steals Mental Allomantic powers (Copper steal Mental fortitude and ability). In Feruchemy, Bronze stores wakefulness (Copper stores memories). Or more briefly it is a Cognitive metal. Reference: https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Feruchemical_table.jpg I'm not quite sure what to make of that, but perhaps it is related to how the spiritual (investiture) manifests not just as matter (metal, liquid, gas) but also as energy (light, waves, heat). Interestingly a Cognitive metal, Brass, acts as a Feruchemical store of heat (kinetic energy).

We've been told that investiture and magic existed pre-shattering, and was "distributed" according to intent (although things have been added and changed since then as shards have been active around the Cosmere). These metal properties may just be a fundamental aspect of creation, which is highly visible in Allomancy, but also relevant for other magic systems. Aluminium has a similar isolating effect across systems - it seems very much a fundamental property of the metal, and not tied to any shards. Color has also been shown to have meaning across magic systems and shards. Vibrations are part of allomancy and surgebinding both - in different ways but still related to identity (allomantic seekers identify using pulses, which are essentially rhythms of vibrations). Spiritual DNA is a thing across systems. Shards may have a strong influence in their native system and incredibly power on worlds they're heavily invested in, but they still exist in a Cosmere that had a pre-existing cosmic order.

First Theory Taravangian uses the phrasing What if: Dalinar wins: Odium can't work against Dalinar's allies or kingdoms, but I don't see anything about him working *for* them. He could wage war on behalf of Alethkar, he could recruit willing individuals from those realms to invade other worlds. Also he can wage war against anyone not allied with Dalinar. Odium wins: He still only has to cease hostilities against Dalinar's allies. If Dalinar now serves Odium, doesn't that mean anyone not allied with the Odium-serving Dalinar is fair game? Doesn't this deliver all of Roshar to Odium? This may be too much against the 'intent' of the agreement, but then again it might not. Second Theory Dalinar is a Bondsmith - he has sworn an Oath to Unite and not Divide. Didn't he just agree to an outcome that divides Roshar between Odium and Dalinar/Honor? Isn't signing away entire kingdoms to Odium permanently against his Oath? Among other things, Dalinar breaking his Oath could probably make Szeth go bonkers.

Pierced by a black arrow... or is that a sword?

That's a fair point. It could be they just don't see a point. Spren aren't particularly forthcoming - the Stormfather doesn't tell Dalinar even very important things until asked. Nale probably knows what happened during the Recreance, and he very likely doesn't want anyone else to know. So my devil's advocate question would be - "are they hiding anything, if noone is asking?".

Radiant spren that aren't bonded seem to know very little about what's going on in the physical realm, and they also to be rather forgetful. I'm not sure they are even capable of remembering events in the same manner as mortals. I think it can be boiled down to the unbonded spren seeing the bonded spren as dumb and/or frivolous. Then when they all suddenly become dead-eyes, the unbonded spren immediately assume humans are to blame (they were already likely biased against humans as they weren't bonded and fighting Odium). Those who did learn about the truth probably forgot or don't bother communicating it to other spren. Spren in the cognitive realm are sentient bundles of investiture representing an idea. When a mortal dies and leaves behind a cognitive shadow, they begin sliding into insanity - Zahel describes this as becoming 'spren-like'. The spren are essentially insane and without a Nahel Bond it's probably worse. If you send a former resident back into an asylum for the insane to tell them about the world outside, that's going to have a limited effect. When a whole bunch of former residents show up mute and without eyes, and the asylum residents know these were in the care of specific individuals outside - they're going to blame the outside people. Regardless of what they were told prior to the incident. They probably don't even remember any such stories correctly.

I don't think this is odd at all. Ruin has the color black, but Atium is silvery. The lines Allomancers see when burning Iron and Pewter are blue, but Preservation has the color white. It would be odd if the colors were seemingly arbitrary. But Gold for the divine being and Stygian Violet for the wrath/power of said being makes a lot of sense. There is also this WoB, which has a much simpler explanation, which Brandon doesn't confirm, but he also doesn't really reject it either.

Odium's influence overwhelms and dominates at an emotional level. The hatred is fueled by passion and emotion - but eventually consumes this fuel. That's also how I reconcile Odium being connected with the concept of Void - which doesn't seem to resonate at all with overwhelming and burning hatred. Odium's investiture is a volatile and voracious power which co-opts emotion, guilt, pain, passion and even love. So I don't see it as greed in the sense of someone lusting for wealth or power - but more as the greed of a chemical reaction. Honor is cold fury and just retribution, Odium is hot rage and bitter vengeance. I think this also makes the storms an interesting "battleground" for the two Shardic intents. The Storm of Honor is majestic, relentless but also indiscriminate and uncompromising. The Storm of Odium is tyrannical, furious and destructive. There is a lot of overlap between the two Shards, which I think makes Odium uniquely poised to tempt the servants of Honor - and vice versa. I think there is an interesting parallel between Moash and Kaladin. Honor helps Kaladin cope with his psychological anguish - not by taking away the pain, but through integrity, purpose and meaning. Odium relieves Moash of psychological pain by applying a nihilistic suppression of self, selectively applied to emotions that are painful. Interestingly, he is not left exclusively with Hatred (although it dominates) - MoashVyre feels respect, perhaps even twisted love, for Kaladin. I think that eventually Odium would feast on those as well, but it's not simple voiding of emotion. Just the ones that hurt. Which will eventually be all of them. I would argue that Rayse fell prey to this himself - his pride and egotism eventually becoming shame in the face of defeat - and Odium the Shard does not tolerate self-directed negative emotion, and was thus rejecting Rayse.

I happened upon this WoB by chance: And this reddit post: The parshmen are protected from Odium's influence (except via spren). I think this is due to them being heavily infused by Cultivation. The Iriali are blonde and not from Ashyn or Roshar. I suspect they are from Yolen. Their religion of the One has strong similarities to Adonalsium, and the Iriali have been strongly hinted at as being part of the space age Cosmere stories (ie MB era 4). They've sided with Odium in the current conflict. From Mistborn books we know that spiritual DNA is a thing in the Cosmere. The Horneaters ability to see spren might an example of such. Could there be a similar thing with the Ashyn heritage? Capacity for surgebinding? Could there be a spiritual DNA unique to Yolen? Could that have implications for Renarin and Adolin? Finally the Jah Kaved have a tendency to have red hair and violet eyes. Violet is the color of Odium, but I can't recall seeing it associated with anything except Voidlight. However, it might hint at a past involving Odium somehow.

That was extremely poor wording on my part. I meant that Voidlight is certainly of Odium now, but we don't know whether the investiture making up the light started out as Voidlight. The reference to Towerlight and Warlight was to illustrate that light can be produced from other types of light. Voidlight may be Stormlight or 'rawlight' that has been co-opted using the rhythm of Odium. When mortals can manipulate light with relatively simple technology, it would be expected that a Shard could easily manipulate it in a similar fashion. That being said, I think the more likely explanation is simply that Odium has two colors: Gold for the aspect of the bringer of divine wrath and vessel of great passions, and stygian violet for the aspect of delivering said wrath and using hatred/passion as a power source. Perhaps one could even take it as far as to say this also illustrates the split of how Rayse-Odium views himself as a majestic, passionate and grandiose being - but the rest of the Cosmere experiences his influence as destructive, violent and odious.

That doesn't preclude that the light was initially "tinted" differently. Towerlight and warlight was once something else. It is certainly of Odium now, but as it investiture manifested as light we have no way of knowing where it came from. I think most agree that Stormlight originates from Honor's Perpendicularity. We don't know where pure lifelight (if it even occurs "naturally") comes from, and we don't know where voidlight comes from. Maybe it originates from Odium's Perpendicularity (which we know nothing about yet), but there is no light associated with the Perpendicularities on Scadrial, so it's not a given that all perpendicularities generate investiture-light. I guess what I'm saying is - Navani has discovered properties and methods of manipulation of specific manifestations of investiture. There is no guarantee that they all have the same origin or that all shards have a way to generate such light. Navani has quite possibly discovered a way to do this, but doesn't that lend credence to the idea that Odium can do something similar? He understands these things on a very fundamental and intuitive level. He think he could quite easily turn Stormlight into Voidlight. There may exist Hatelight which is golden and has a pure tone also of Odium (maybe even the same). I am not saying it does, just that investiture is complex, and we can't from what we've been shown so far deduce that it's as simple as one color per shard and one vibration per color. And as we've seen golden yellow as Odium's color on several occasions, we just have to assume he could very well have more than one color, depending on the nature of the investiture. Perhaps different colors for different aspects. Gold for his body and violet for his "breath". That would actually suit his intent well I think - expressing the distinct nature of his 'wrath' from his permanent identity. The deliverer of divine wrath is golden but the wrath itself is stygian? Kaladin had yellow eyes as he was acting as an extension of Odium's intent and not merely empowered by Odium's voidlight?