mawaschwa

Yeah, this is a great question. I agree with you that, at a surface level, it's not really apparent what Hoid accomplished/was trying to accomplish. The Breaths that were available for Odium to exploit are suspect--why expose himself to his enemy with this obvious vulnerability? I like the theory that he might have planted false memories there, but I'm not sure to what end. Where I stand at the moment: Hoid didn't know about the Rayse/Taravangian switch. When he realized something had changed about the Vessel, he felt true terror. This terror comes from the unknown element that is a new Vessel holding Odium. Hoid knew Rayse the person, and clearly thought he could outplay him. Now that advantage is gone. Hoid knew his Breaths would be a potential vulnerability and either had accepted they might be tampered with or planned for them to be used in some way by Odium. I just can't accept a character as Cosmere-aware as Hoid willingly confronting Odium without considering all potential vulnerabilities first. Whether or not he expected Odium to tamper with them the way he did, or if his plan for them actually worked out—I don't think we can ascertain the truth of the matter here quite yet. Hoid must have had some motivation for confronting Odium other than taunting him. Something else was intended to happen during that conversation beyond the words—and after the second take at the convo, Hoid thinks that whatever was supposed to happen did in fact happen. But we can't be sure it actually did, without knowing what Hoid intended and what Odium actually did to the Breaths (destroy them? alter them? it's not entirely clear). Regarding theories that the coins were some kind of unkeyed metalmind--not sure there's really much evidence in the text to support this. It's possible, but my gut feeling is they were just coins. Given that I believe Hoid didn't know about Taravangian and his true terror, I think logically that means that whatever Hoid's plan was for this encounter did not happen quite the way he wanted to. I think this true terror at Odium having changed indeed shows us that Hoid isn't all-knowing: to many previous reply's points, it's our first evidence that Hoid isn't infallible. I accept this. But I think there's enough implication in the surrounding text, and the fact that (I believe) Hoid knew/wanted his Breaths to be tampered with, that Hoid got something out of this exchange. Perhaps Toadium intentionally gave Hoid the impression he got what he was expecting to get—in which case, Hoid was truly played like a fiddle. But narratively this feels unsatisfying to me. I'd rather read about a Hoid who knew he'd been outsmarted somehow, and have to deal with that—rather than a Hoid who thinks he won and is complacent.

I was following up until about here. Cultivation is a Shard--she holds infinite Investiture. I don't think Honor's Perpendicularity--which no longer even exists in a stable form--is of any particular use to her. I'd be willing to be their Connection pre-Shattering had some impact on them settling in the same system. The Everstorm didn't exist pre-Shattering, the Highstorm did. Several characters in the books tell us the Everstorm is a new phenomenon. Either way, I don't think Honor/Cultivation "nabbed" the Highstorm--I think it's more likely that human perception of the storm as a foundational force on Roshar was later conflated with their concept of divinity, which might have made it possible for Honor's cognitive shadow to merge with the Stormfather spren after Honor's death. Odium has clearly had the goal of shattering the other Shards (to make himself the single-most powerful entity in the cosmere) for a long time. I think he wanted the humans on Ashyn for the same reason he wanted the humans now on Roshar: to serve as his minions in the war for the cosmere. He let the folks on Ashyn experiment with the surges in some way that rendered the planet inhospitable, hence their mass exodus to Roshar. I don't think Odium needs to destroy the Fused. Something either about the Oathpact or Honor's death has bound Odium to Roshar--and the one holding Honor's power can release him (Odium pretty much tells Dalinar this during their first confrontation). Not sure how anti-Light means Odium has a way out. I don't think anti-Light could destroy a Shard, but I guess we don't really know enough about it yet. I don't think Cultivation views the Fused and Heralds as weeds, nor of Odium as a bull in her garden. And I definitely don't think she's "calmed" the bull--I think people are universally agreed that Taravangian being Vessel to Odium is certainly a more dangerous prospect. Rather, I think you're right that Cultivation views the current stagnation on Roshar--this repetitive war that never ends--as counter to her Intent. The seeds she's planted--via her touch on Dalinar, Lift, and Taravangian (and possibly others we don't know about yet) look to be successful in ending this stasis. We'll have to wait and see how these seeds bear further fruit.

Both valid points, and I can’t disagree with you on either. I do think Wit lost in some aspects, I guess my argument is it was a calculated loss (though of course I won’t dismiss the possibility I just really really don’t want Wit to have been bested and am trying to rationalize it post-fact). I guess my only rebuttal would be, I don’t think Wit feeling true fear wholly negates my points. His emotion might be entirely genuine—he couldn’t have predicted the absolute twist that is Taravangian ascending—and thus his fear might be totally raw and damning. Perhaps this is Odium truthfully hitting Wit where he wasn’t expecting. But Wit still is a master of the dirty tricks of storytelling, and I think despite his fear he was prepared for something unexpected. His fear tells us how much danger we’re now truthfully in—but Wit has valuable info now, despite the blindside.

Fair point. I wholly agree Wit did not know (had no way of knowing) that Taravangian had taken up the Shard. But I also don’t think that negates the fact that Wit was preparing for something unexpected—even if the scope was so much bigger than he anticipated. Re: being a reference to Brandon himself—sure, I mean I think it’s pretty clear Brandon has frequently used Wit (and his monologues in particular) as a way to inject his own musings about storytelling and art in general. But I don’t think this precludes those musings from also serving a narrative function.

"The challenge...is to make everyone believe you've lived a thousand lives. Make them feel the pain you have not felt..." (from Wit's monologue earlier in the epilogue). I guess my answer to that would be, he's fulfilling his role as a willing audience member, letting Odium believe that he's made Wit feel this fear, and thus "letting [his] willing energy [vibrate] in tune with [Odium's]," so that Odium fully believes he's played Wit like the ten fools. But yeah, either way that "true terror" Wit feels is scary as a reader!

Just a thought I've had about Cultivation's plan re: preparing Taravangian to take up the Shard of Odium. Cultivation has held her Shard for thousands of years at this point, so I think it's safe to assume at this point that the Intent of the Shard restricts her ability to act with her power in ways that contradict that Intent. When Vin took up Preservation, she was so new that she could use the power of Preservation to attack Ruin more directly--she hadn't been molded by the Intent of the Shard quite yet. But Cultivation does not have this liberty--she can only Cultivate, and this seems pretty counter to her being able to Splinter Odium once Rayse was killed. Knowing this, I believe her only option was to Cultivate someone who could replace Rayse as Vessel to Odium. Her touch on Taravangian was exactly this--she says as much at the end of RoW when she greets Taravangian as he ascends. We still don't know her true motives or endgame, but I've got to say I'm impressed with her ability to work within the confines of her Intent to counter Odium (even if, in doing so, she's created a bigger monster).

I, like many others I think, came away from my first reading of the RoW epilogue with a sense of dread: Hoid, our confident, seemingly untouchable Cosmere guru had just been bested. While we've never really been privy to Hoid's true motivations, we've always just sort of trusted him--especially due to his more proactive nature in Stormlight, where he often gives our main characters the wisdom (and compassion) they need exactly when they need it. Seeing Odium mess with Hoid's Breaths/memories was genuinely scary. However, after a couple days to ruminate and giving the epilogue a reread, I'm beginning to come around more to the idea that Wit might have actually outmaneuvered Odium in the end. The whole monologue Wit gives before the confrontation is about the dirty tricks of storytelling: how the audience is actively engaging in a shared lie with the storyteller, which enables the storyteller to "make [the audience] know the truths that [the storyteller has] made up." While at first I took this to mean that Wit was talking about himself as "the storyteller," I think in retrospect within this scene Taravangian/Odium is the storyteller and Wit is the willing audience. Why is this distinction important? Because of what Wit later tells Design: When Wit says that his first meeting with Odium in over a thousand years had gone "exactly as he imagined," he's not referring to Odium acting like a pompous evil prick; rather, he's referring to the fact that Wit knew Odium was going to lie to him in some capacity. And so, brilliant as ever, Wit actively went into the confrontation as a willing audience ready to accept whatever lie Odium, the storyteller, was going to present. When Wit leaves, after the redo of their conversation following Odium's Men-in-Black memory erase flash, he first feels like something is wrong before telling himself: "Don't trouble yourself. This is working." Wit is the audience walking away from the story, with Odium's performance lingering in his mind. He knows he can rip it apart, and figure out how it was done--discover the flaws, signs, and secrets. Wit might not know precisely in that moment what those secrets are--but he knows he has enough information to puzzle them out, and I'm confident he will be able to do so. With this in mind, I think it's fair to assume the memories held in his Breaths were willingly offered up as a sacrifice to play out Wit's role as a willing audience to Odium's lie. Wit knows Odium can't hurt him directly due to the agreement Dalinar just made, but I find it doubtful Wit wouldn't have imagined Odium would take any shots he could at Wit within the consigns of that agreement. Wit knowingly exposes himself to Odium (before both conversations, the text says Wit "made himself available--visible, easy to reach," probably meaning Wit is turning off whatever he does to hide himself from Shards). He's smart enough to know the risks, and while the lost memories and Breaths will probably be missed--I think Wit must have felt their loss would be worth whatever information he would gain by confronting Odium directly.

An interesting connection that occurred to me, that I haven't seen discussion about in the wake of Dawnshard: I think we might now have all the puzzle pieces to put together the origins of Soulcasters (the fabrial-like devices). They are ancient tools that modern artifabrians have been unable to replicate. We know based on Jasnah's hypothesizing that the ancient humans did not have long lost knowledge: Shardblades, Shardplate, Soulcasters were not created by humans but received via some other, magical means. We've known there is some tenuous connection between Soulcasters and Akinah based on the Kaza interlude from Oathbringer: the Liaforan Soulcaster thinks about a rumor amongst Soulcasters that links them to the abandoned city. She believes there might be some knowledge or power there to cure her of the effects that prolonged use of a Soulcaster has on an individual. In Dawnshard, Nikli tells Rysn that the Soulcasters are kept “out of reverence, as they were offerings to the Ancient Guardians long ago.” So, again we have a connection between Soulcasters and Akinah (via the larkin, which are linked to the island as evidenced by their needing to return and bond the specific mandra variant that exists there). Now, this might be the source of the rumor that drives Kaza to seek out Akinah (I don't think it is, but can't be sure)--but either way, it opens up another question: why do the Sleepless view Soulcasters as offerings to the larkin (I don't imagine the larkin can use them, except for maybe eating the stormlight within the gemstones). I don't have a good answer to this, but it further strengthens the link between Soulcasters and Akinah/the Ancient Guardians. And this is central to my theory: because now we know that the secret hidden on Akinah, the thing the Ancient Guardians were protecting, is one of the Dawnshards; specifically, the one that encapuslated “The will of a god to remake things, to demand they be better.” And what is it that Soulcasters do? Well--pretty much that, if only at a smaller scale! So here's my theory: this Dawnshard of Change was used to create the Soulcasters. Someone (or some divinity) wielded the Dawnshard to imbue the power of Change into these devices, enabling individuals to use the power of transformation without requiring the Nahel bond or Honorblade. Tinfoil hat theory extension: I'm thinking Honor was the one who used the Dawnshard to create the Soulcasters. Based on a comment from Brandon on the Dawnshard megathread: "Soulcasting via a fabrial is way, way less dangerous than Radiant soulcasting--which is in turn far less dangerous than unbound soulcasting (meaning without oaths.)" It seems like the degree of "oaths" or perhaps bonds on the usage of Soulcasting makes it less dangerous. The Honorblades that grant the Soulcasting ability require no oaths to use, and so have great power; Radiant Soulcasters are bound by their oaths, rendering their ability safer; but the Soulcasters are much more limited in their application, often only able to perform one type of Soulcasting. So, it makes sense to me that Honor had some role in creating the Soulcasters, making them safer to use.