Bopushaq

That is correct. I misinterpreted your original comment about Odium not being able to manifest on Roshar. I thought you were saying that something changed which allowed Odium to manifest more fully, and the only potential candidate I saw was the Everstorm. It would've been cool if Honor somehow managed to bind the Fused and Odium to Braize, since that would give the humans more peace without his meddling, but as you've shown above, that probably is not what happened.

So we know that Honor trapped Odium in the Rosharan system, specifically Braize. (WoB shortened for length) Perhaps in the same way Sja-anat could not really think without the Connection to Odium restored, Odium could not manifest on Roshar without the Everstorm acting as a bridge, which would make his presence that much more noticeable for spren. Also, Syl was born before the Recreance, so she might be more keen to noticing Odium or his investiture, as she does with noticing the stormspren. Again, though, I'm so confused as to why Pattern notices. It's such a weird detail for Brandon to add, but it does have a nice narrative touch in that scene breaking up Kal's vision and Syl's sudden appearance to warn him. Perhaps that's all it is, but knowing Brandon it feels like too important a detail to overlook. Time to add to my list of questions once signings happen again. Actually I think Rayse was exceedingly clever. He's splintered four shards (maybe more), and has functionally destroyed a planet and turned the Singers and humans into a massive conflict , which possibly helped cause the death of Honor and maybe more. But I think ever since he got bound to Roshar, he's been getting more desperate (especially since we saw how much turmoil Rayse and the Shard were having), and chose to make a grand final play: Dalinar. But since we saw how incredible that failure was, as well as not getting Kal in RoW, we only think of Rayse as some moron (which I guess he was in the end). Regardless, I think he knew that Dalinar would survive this, as he would need to bond the Stormfather to act on behalf of Honor and release Odium from the Rosharan system.

Also another thing to note here, it seems that from Kaladin’s vision and maybe even Syl’s descriptions that they are referring to Odium, not Szeth, as Kal’s vision ends with the Everstorm engulfing everything. Perhaps this is what Pattern is reacting to as well, which makes a lot more sense given how Odium is a much easier “person” to identify and sense when he’s nearby. But then, this makes me even more confused, as this looks like Brandon is trying to show a connection between Szeth and Odium, almost as if Szeth is Odium’s champion coming to do his work.

In WoR chapter 32, we have Szeth’s assassination attempt on Dalinar. However, just before his attack, Kaladin has a dream where the Stormfather warns him of one who is to come. Soon after, Syl also appears panicked and confirms that something is wrong: Now reading this raises a few questions, namely why the Stormfather and Syl both know Szeth is about to attack. Maybe the Stormfather, with his massive amount of investiture and Connection to the Spiritual can see this happening, but why Syl? Maybe it is her bond to the Stormfather and Kaladin’s visions that allows her to know. Earlier in the book, Syl knows that Kal saw the Stormfather in his dream in tWoK while being strung up in the high storm, so this mostly makes sense. But then, why does Pattern know this is about to happen too? Pattern isn’t even an honorspren or a spren about to be attacked. I’m not exactly sure how to search up a WoB on such a random detail like this, if there even is one, so if anyone has any ideas or answers, they’d be much appreciated.

I think my mistake here was that I assumed that this was a condition of holding a Shard, instead of a Rayse-only type thing. Looking at it now, if all the Shards were held to such agreements, then they probably would have died when they broke the agreement to not settle together on planets. However, Taravangian is still bound by the previous contracts of Rayse so perhaps there is still something here. When Todium Ascends, he learns about everything that happened in the past with Odium, including all of Rayse's plans and "had access to some of his knowledge." So he should know about the Contract, but maybe not the full extent of Rayse and Wit's relationship, as you said.

In chapter 80 (The Dog and the Dragon), Hoid makes this protective bubble and tells Kaladin a story that inspires him to keep going. At the end, Hoid says From this quote, it seems as though Odium can only take action if he directly noticed Hoid violating the agreement. However in OB, when Dalinar and Odium make their deal for the Contest, Odium says that he’ll honor the agreement in spirit, and that is something he cannot break (don’t have the exact quote right now). Also, in chapter 112 of RoW, Odium confirms this by saying that Dalinar would be in Odium’s power if he were to break the contract. So now my question is, how was Hoid able to break the spirit of the contract with Odium and get away with it? My theory is that he actually didn’t get away with it, and this is what opened up Taravangian to manipulate Hoid’s investiture in the epilogue, which leads me to believe that this isn’t just some mastermind plan by Hoid and that he has (for once) failed here. But then, why would Taravangian not just destroy Hoid there? What do you guys think?

I know a lot of people have been looking at the "I hold the suckling child in my hands" Death Rattle, but as I went through them again I saw another that might indicate the outcome of the Contest. From my perspective, it seems that this rattle is referring to the death of Dalinar with Kaladin being his sucessor. The tower refers to Urithiru, the crown is Dalinar as highking, and the spear is Kaladin's own position as the soldier. If Dalinar does die/become a Fused, and if Kaladin survives the next book/swears his Fifth Ideal (relating to leadership), then this could be a good fit. My one issue is that Kal has been a soldier his entire life, and so I don't know if he would be a good king, but this does seem like the next logical step for him (as we saw in RoW he's stepping away from the battle to assume greater duties. Don't forget Dalinar had the same line of thinking with his Bondsmith abilities). I know this was the assumption of many on the forums previously, but I just wanted to remind everyone that this was still here. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Something that really peeved me from the end of RoW was when Cultivation and Taravangian were talking, and Taravangian realizes that Cultivation's plan was a big risk as she could not know how Taravangian would react/change as a person: So assuming that Cultivation isn't lying here (I'm pretty sure she would have a lot better future sight than Odium), this raises into question some other details of her plans. When Dalinar visits the Nightwatcher, she offers him Nightblood as a boon, so I think it's safe to assume that Cultivation had it and then somehow it got to Nale. For Nale to give it to Szeth and then he subsequently kill Taravangian, Cultivation would have to realize that Kaladin would return to his Oaths (seeing the hearts of men) to then kill Szeth, then Szeth would be taken by Nale (maybe this was part of a deal she made when giving Nightblood to him), and then Szeth would eventually have to kill Taravangian. I think Szeth killing Taravangian can be somewhat forseen given their history, but this is still like so many details that would have to come together, and if any of the people changed in a way that Cultivation didn't expect, then her plan would not work. So my questions, then, are: is Cultivation just lying to not alert Taravangian that she has a backup plan in case he doesn't turn out the way she wants him to, or something else? Is there something I missed here? What is the point for Cultivation setting up Taravagian as Rayse's successor? She says she led him to take the power with honor, but then wouldn't Dalinar have been a better option as she knew he would literally bear the power as a man of Honor? Seeing how crazy some Shards' plans have been, this plan seems too luck-based for Cultivation, but I'm not too sure where my issue is exactly.

I was rereading an interesting passage from OB, and I noticed a very weird comment by Notum that I’m not sure has been mentioned before here (if it has I’m sorry about that, I’m on my phone right now and just wanted to get this out there before I forgot). In Chapter 108, Kaladin is arguing with Notum, trying to get Syl out of the cell. This struck me as odd, as wouldn’t Syl become a deadeye if this happened? Being a deadeye would probably be a worse state to be in than a Nahel Bond, and Notum knows this, so I see two possible explanations for this: 1) As we learned in the spoiler-filled Stormlight YouTube QnA, since Kaladin wouldn’t be breaking Oaths, Syl might not become a deadeye, and thus she could recover from this. This is the less fun option, but it does raise an interesting question about how BAM was Connected, since somehow only breaking oaths would create a deadeye. 2) There is something incredibly special about this bond in particular. I think the Son of Tanavast and Ancient Daughter theories play a part here, as somehow Kaladin is able to retain his Connection with Syl even though he broke his bonds (“I was only as dead as your Oaths” is a possible nod to this), is able to use “Honor’s Truest Surge” while no other Radiant is active, and more. I think this gives more credence to Kaladin picking up Honor, but that’s all I got. What’s everyone’s thoughts on this?

So I just reread some parts of RoW that seemed relevant, and I found one piece of evidence that supports that Kalak is a traitor and one that refutes it. For Kalak being a traitor, in chapter 115 Shallan tells Mraize that Kalak “would do practically anything to escape that fate” of Odium torturing the Heralds again, and perhaps he had bargained Odium for the final step to leave. Maybe his Connection to the Oathpact was keeping him here, and forcibly breaking it is allowing him to escape (he says he thinks he’s close to finding a way off-world). This also might tie to what he and Gavilar were doing in moving Investiture off-world as seen in the prologue. However there’s some evidence against that in chapter 79, in Kalak’s epigraph. He says “the Oathpact was broken already, but the Connection remained. Each of us can sense the others, to an extent.” Unless he’s lying here, it seems he can also sense the lines that Dalinar saw extending from Nale. Weirdly though, he doesn’t mention that one is broken, so perhaps this is him lying. Just some food for thought.

I really like the points you made about the SoH @Kingsdaughter613, but I find it really hard to believe Kalak is a traitor. The biggest piece of evidence is the epigraph where he mocks the Fused for only now realizing they can trap Heralds in a gemstone (after 7000 years). Assuming the betrayal isn’t recent, I feel that Kalak would’ve shared this information with Odium in exchange for protection from such if he really was a traitor. I think we’re going about this broken thing the wrong way. Although it seems super reasonable for the Heralds to completely break and surrender to Odium in exchange for release from their torture, we don’t really know the exact details of the Oathpact, and perhaps there’s something else there that caused a Herald to break off when the others are still loosely Connected.

There's a livestream on his YouTube channel tomorrow, and he will allow any RoW or Dawnshard spoilers as questions. I'm not sure about the time or the method of asking questions, though. Maybe you have to donate? (but that seems very unlike Brandon). I find it so weird that Kalak, in his insanity, would somehow spot Kaladin as a threat, but Nale, the Herald hunting radiants, would not be able to see the truth in front of him. Also, given what we saw of Kalak's insanity, he seems very passive, whereas Restares was clearly very active in trying to return Desolations. And about Ash, I feel that there isn't enough time in the next book for all of these events. Personally, I feel that the 10-day period until the Contest will only be be a small portion of the book, as I find it super weird that either Kaladin or Shallan could progress enough to swear an ideal within that time (would feel super cheap to me) or that Szeth could cleanse Shinovar within 10 days as well. Even if this book somehow spanned another like 6 months or something, though, I don't think there's enough time and enough previous development that Brandon would have this massive Herald betrayal in the middle, which leads me to think that this was something from the past. Maybe it could be revealed that one of the Heralds helped cause the Recreance, and this act (and maybe removing BAM and her Connection to Roshar) is that truly severed them from the Oathpact?

I think Ash is far too in love with Taln to do something traitorous and distance herself from him, so Kalak might be the answer from process of elimination. Though I'm not sure what would constitute as treacherous enough for someone to fully lose Connection to the Oathpact, considering other Heralds have helped bring the Desolation in their own way and they're just weakening it. Also, I wonder if this Connection was severed over the millennia, or something happened at Aharietiam specifically to cause this. But once again, this should mean that the other Heralds all have broken Connections, not just weak ones. Classic Brandon giving us just enough but also no info to confuse us as much as possible. Random side note I thought of at the end (this is probably super unlikely) but maybe Ash's Connection to the pact was through her father, and now since Jezrien is dead, she lost her Connection to the Oathpact too.

I really like this idea. I think it would be super ironic if the broken one ended up being Ishar, the bondsmith and the one that Ash says is the most sane. It would also lead to an epic Dalinar moment where he shows that his Connection with Honor is even greater than the honorblade nexf book if like Ishar cannot himself restore, but Dalinar can. Perhaps this is a question we could ask Brandon for tomorrow, though it’s probably an instant RAFO.

I don’t think this is a bondsmith thing traditionally. It’s probably more likely that Honor used to regulate this power, but now with him being dead, Ishar can do it because he’s had the honorblade and experimented with it (Bondsmith unchained and all) and Dalinar can do it because he’s a bondsmith/connected to a splinter of Honor.