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Ari

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Everything posted by Ari

  1. I'd have to dig deep to find it, but I recall there being a WoB about Spren on Roshar pre-dating the arrival of Honour and Cultivation, so that likely has something to do with why they're so visible there, too.
  2. he should clearly be an immortal worldhopper who is unsuccessfully trying to suicide, to explain why he shows up everywhere.
  3. Well, Odium has been to more places in the cosmere than readers have to date apparently, so it's possible some of these instances of the word "passion" cropping up relate to him, I'd caution against that somewhat as you still want things that either correlate to either things that involve hatred themselves or involve inspiring hatred in others. I'd also note that there may well be some religions around inspired by Odium that might actually not be under his indirect control anymore, as the downside of his strategy to move around a lot and to not tie his investiture too closely to any one planet is that he's probably relying largely on either splinters or minions to enforce his intent on his operations outside his current sphere of influence, and there's no guarantee his institutions won't just overthrow them if possible! While it might be worth digging up a couple of likely candidates to ask Brandon about at signings or in online Q&As/conversations with Brandon, this is probably something we'll RAFO about.
  4. This is one of those cases where the answer is old enough that it's probably gotten a bit buried! We have a WoB on this, and the answer is that dichotomy in meaning of the word odium between hatred itself and one who inspires hatred in others isn't supposed to be too ambiguous, as both apply to the Shard in question. See here: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105/#e1146 This is part of why he self-identifies as Passion in Oathbringer: he doesn't just want to further hatred. He has specific goals that will make him a figure to be hated, and he welcomes that consequence, similar to how certain modern politicians are when they attack the media. I'd say Hoid's statements on how dangerous (you could reframe this as "powerful" if you like) Rayse and Odium as a pairing are is reliable, and that Odium himself might even agree with it if framed in neutral terms. And the desire to smash all the other shards is almost certainly coming from Rayse, as the refusal to ever modify his personality by picking up a second shard seems more the sort of thing we'd expect from Autonomy's Intent, even though it's strictly compatible with Odium if you view it as hatred of other personality types.
  5. That was my first thought. My second, really crazy additional thought, was that Doomslug was the original pilot of M-bot and the empty space nearby is just a maintenance compartment for the pilot to work on the interface device.
  6. I thought it was really obvious that it was either (1) or (2), and my personal money was on (2), with Autonomy in mind, that he may have been addressing the Stormfather as essentially Tanavast's ghost, and this was Odium reacting to the invocation of Honour's perpendicularity, which he might have thought impossible with Tanavast dead. As to your objection to why Dalinar says he's Unity, I'll go back to the full context here: Dalinar is answering Venli's question when he says he's Unity, and he's referring to his role as a Bondsmith and unifier, not to any sort of Shard-related ascension, IMO. He arguably might be referring to the Stormfather's identity as a splinter of honour and therefore his role as the Stormfather's Bondsmith, but that's the closest you could get to any shard-related shenanigans here. I do think "the voice" is also obviously Evi forgiving Dalinar. I'm just not sure that Odium is responding to Evi in any way.
  7. Oh, sure, there's no doubt that plan was to end his prison, but it failed. What I'm saying is that Odium's prison being gone doesn't mean he isn't going to stick around on Roshar until all his business is concluded, and if he does leave before the Stormlight Archive is finished, I expect it to be in the intermission between the two halves of the series. Just like Dalinar et all aren't going to win anything too huge until book 5, they're also unlikely to lose anything too badly until then, either. @ZenBossanova: That's a very relevant WoB, cheers. Interesting that brandon is undecided on the question of whether it's hemalurgy, I would have said it's at least a roshar-local variant on it, but apparently he's thinking it could also be something a bit more fundamental either to Shards or to realmatics in general.
  8. Sure. He'll have long-term goals or plans, and short-term ones that are intended to last him through the Stormlight Archive. The long-term ones are only relevant if he survives SA, which we should wait and see about.
  9. Is Frost simply wrong then, when he refers to Odium as "God's divine hatred?" It could be that Frost is underselling the nuance to Odium's overall Intent, which includes some degree of wider emphasis on emotion, and I'm on-board with that in context of OB. But Frost specifically says (at least some of) the Hatred inherent to Odium as he is now comes from Adonalsium, so we need a Reason Why Frost Is Wrong to go any further than "Frost neglected to mention that there is more to Odium than just hate." (and the reason for the lesser hypothesis should be obvious: Frost and Hoid are both likely to already know that, so aren't going to discuss it in great detail unless they need to in order to make a point in their own discussion. The greater hypothesis you're claiming, however, would require Frost being mistaken or deliberately lying to Hoid) We have a WoB from well before OB that says that Odium's Intent is bi-directional: that is, he doesn't just hate others, he wants to inspire their hatred, too.
  10. You don't think it'd be easier to break humanity knowing that they can never end his desolation? If his goal is escape, (unclear at this point whether he'd up and leave if he was let free, given his convos with Dalinar in OB I'm less inclined to that idea than I was after WoR) there's no guarantee he doesn't want to "win" on Roshar to see if he can't undermine or shatter Cultivation while doing so.
  11. Ah, I see, we were talking about gemstones because you were dictionary-bashing. Gemstone is a word that includes two things- minerals that are gems, and stones that look nice that are used in jewellery. Those stones called gemstones exist, but you will note that none of these are called out as being containers for Stormlight. It's not an impossible theory but you'd/Brandon would really be pushing things to get there based on gems being "stones." That's a bit like claiming water is a salt because of seawater.
  12. Thanks for the correction, I had assumed she was simply unmentioned. Well, she doesn't actually say that she's looking for him in connection with Nightblood's transport, but it's a reasonable implication. It's not 100%, but it is well over 90% IMO.
  13. How would stone be the focus on Roshar? All signs point towards the relevant factors being highstorms as sources of gaseous investiture, gemstones as repositories for it, and Spren bonds as the relevant factor for initiation, or possibly even the focus itself.
  14. While I'm inclined to agree that Odium probably intends to keep the spirit of the agreement, I will note that just because he says he'll keep the spirit of the agreement doesn't mean he isn't lying. Also, by saying that Odium will keep the spirit of the agreement, that implies he likely expects Taravangian to do the same: Those born as Kharbranthians and ONE spouse each will be saved, lol.
  15. Yeah, this was my guess elsewhere- Odium is making a play to make the desolations permanent by trapping the souls of the heralds so that they can't ressurect, essentially a direct opposite of Jasnah's strategy, and a counterpart to what Dalinar did to Nergaoul. Could be! It's entirely possible that this is actually compatible with the theory above- Odium's recruitment of human collaborators has allowed him to go after the dawnshards when he previously couldn't.
  16. As for Moash using the dagger: It's entirely possible that Odium is bound by an agreement he made with Honour, and is not able to directly attack the oathpact himself, (despite being able to traditionally "kill" the heralds, then torture them to speed up the next Desolation) through his Spren and Thunderclasts, or through his Singer followers, but the recruitment of human collaborators has finally allowed him a loophole to get around that binding. This is my operating guess at the moment as to why there was so much ceremony around Moash wielding that Raysium fabrial-dagger. Vivenna/Azure does ask the Roshar gang to warn Zahel for her, so while it's not 100%, it's entirely possible this means he's the one who brought Nightblood with him and that she's ended up chasing him, but I'm open and marginally hopeful for the idea of some other target, and that "warning" Zahel was intended to simply refer to her being around on Roshar, or that she's simply wanting them to warn him of the danger, but on checking back into that passage after discussing it with my brother, I think assuming she's after Zahel is probably a reasonable call and the leading assumption. I don't expect any particular answers to your next two questions, if you're really curious, how Gavinor was saved might be a good signing question. Dalinar was referring to the ten Orders of the Knights Radiant. If you count Taln as a Stoneward (which he may be if Nale is wrong about himself being the only Herald who swore his own oaths) and presume Malata is in attendance at the battle, then the Willshapers are the one Dalinar thinks are missing. Of course, we know that Venli is now secretly a Willshaper, and has turned against Odium, even if she's arguably just as against the humans. Do you have a quote for the powerful Spren? I take it this wasn't one of the ones that inhabited the Thunderclasts, and I assume you don't mean Nergaoul?
  17. It could also simply be about making the best short-term decision, and that the Aimians are actually a more difficult group to attack than the human cities are, and/or Odium wants to recruit more collaborators from the human parts of Roshar before he goes after them, assuming there is actually anything worthwhile to plunder from them, like the Dawnshards.
  18. I'm open to it, but Brandon really does need to let us into his head a bit more when he's feeling that way if the pain is already there, because he never seems emotional about any of it. Lopen you can tell he's overcompensating pretty easily, lol.
  19. The issue is that Adolin has shown no obvious pain, or signs of trying to hide his pain, about any of these things. Compared with my earlier MB example, who had a less severe experience, but clearly suffered by it. (I'd also say you're stretching on "not wanting to be a soldier," or "giving up dueling." Adolin's preferred the duelist's path, sure, but his father gave him quite a lot of freedom to pursue it, within his responsibilities. This is a superficial problem. And don't talk to me about him trusting his tailor so much, that's just Adolin being obsessed with fashion, lol) Some of these could absolutely be enough, if he was ever shown to respond emotionally to them- losing his mother, if he felt hated by his father, (his father did hate him, sure, but there's no evidence he bears a grudge or was profoundly hurt by this in any way) or losing so many of his men. (if he took every death personally, like Kaladin does) But he has shown no emotional impact of these struggles on-camera. I know he's a very composed person, but if he is supposed to be struggling to contain pain on one of these, he should have let his guard down to someone on-screen by now, surely? He should have talked to Renarin, or to Shallan, or to his Father, depending on the issue? When has he actually suffered for any of these? The closest we get is his confession to not feeling like he deserves Shallan, and having murdered Sadeas, but even that confession conveyed no profound remorse or suffering. Those feelings of remorse or unworth might be deeper. But they need to be explored before we can be sure Adolin has enough to qualify, which to me says Brandon is in no hurry to have him qualify as a radiant. (partly because it's useful to have a character like Adolin, with an excuse to be in the action sequences, who truly appreciates how extraordinary what all the Radiants can do really is)
  20. Dalinar may be involved, but it's much too narratively cheap for the answer to simply be "Adolin holds hands with Dalinar who Connects him to his blade, poof of stormlight and done." Adolin needs to have thoroughly earned doing this thing that every Radiant and Spren think is impossible before it happens, IMO, and that means doing it the hard way. All of his treating his blade like a person has only got him 20% of the way there already, and he's long-established that tradition. Dalinar should be little more than a bridge in this process, if he's involved at all- the rest is Adolin's hero's quest. Also, as the reticence of many Spren to bond new Knights is around their fear of a repeat desolation and their despair at how the humans have killed their relatives, showing that the deadeyes spren can be revived is an important step to convincing the relevant Nahel spren to bond more humans so that Dalinar's faction of radiants can hold off Odium successfully for at least, say, the next two books. I expect Adolin to achieve this in Book 5. For a mistborn (era 1) comparison: For SA examples, Teft is a drug addict. Lyn's selection as a squire follows her feeling severely oppressed by gender norms and constantly penned in as a scribe. Jasnah has that and there are indicators that she may have suffered some sort of relationship- or sexual- trauma or abuse. Shallan is literally lying to herself about who she is, and Kaladin is a depressive ex-slave with a chip on his shoulder about the entire structural power dynamic of his home country. Dalinar murdered his own wife, was an addict to supernaturally enhanced emotions, and then had his memories edited to forget about both, before almost dooming the entire world because of it. The lowest bar of all of these is Lyn's, and that's a bar Adolin has not been seen on-screen to clear yet. There's hardly even any emotional fallout yet from his murder of Sadeas, not that it might not be coming. (having him be prosecuted for it, or called out and dueled by Ialai's champion, would be a good start to upsetting him enough...) I'm not saying he isn't already broken enough and we just don't know it. I am saying we don't know him to be broken enough, yet, but that this doesn't permanently rule him out, because he could have simply not thought about his trauma/issues/etc... on camera, like Jasnah normally doesn't, or because they could be yet to come, and make him even more interesting. I am open to Adolin developing in new and exciting ways. I've laid out a few of them already. But I challenge you to name something that clearly exceeds Lyn's struggles that Adolin has clearly referred to going through in any of the three books so far. I'll wait for a quote or a tag, but I expect you won't find anything worth replying to me with. (edit: to be clear, I'm perfectly open to it being a different type of trauma than any of these, it just needs to be of comparable emotional import to one of the similar cosmere examples, IMO. Being comparable to a full Knight Radiant is probably best, as it's quite possible the degree to which you need to be "broken" varies by magic system)
  21. @WhiteLeeopard: One heir is never enough to secure the succession in a monarchy where the right to rule is established by family lines. Even if they decide that Elhokar's son being alive gives her a primary heir, a monarch is expected to provide multiple heirs to ensure stability, or to provide an alternative should the eldest/first in line prove unsuitable for some reason. (like being a heretic, lol) But yeah, an autistic king attached to a corrupted Spren (if we're terming odious spren in general Voidspren, then we may want to be careful that Sja-anat's sons and daughters actually precisely count as voidspren under that particular classification, and that they're not their own category of re-purposed sentient investiture rather than sentient investiture that started out of Odium) is a terrible candidate and is even worse than someone who rebels against the idea for personal reasons that don't actively disqualify them, ie. Adolin simply not wanting to be king. Also, to mis-quote the Dark Knight, Jasnah may not be the Queen Alethkar wants right now, but she's the one it needs and deserves.
  22. I am an unabashed Jasnah fanboy, and as much as I was hoping for significantly more screentime from her this book, I can understand it needed to be sparing to give Shallan specifically time to sort out her own problems, and to avoid spoiling the Big Reveal of the cause of the recreance while still keeping Jasnah's frustratingly cool near-omniscience intact by letting her figure it out ahead of time. I'm optimistic that we'll see her viewpoint a lot more in the future so long as she's figuring out problems with the other characters, rather than simply being in a position of automatically knowing everything. (edit: and I don't think that was exactly what Brandon was doing here, he was rather continuing the expectation of Jasnah being an amazingly smart character, and will probably backsplain why she figured out the secret at a later date, but that's certainly how it can feel when you're frustrated that the plot keeps having us see less of Jasnah) And I think her literally being Queen is going to put her in that position, and also create interesting character tensions where she's pushed to find herself a husband she probably doesn't want to secure the succession, and where she's going to want to be studying but can't because she needs to be leading, etc... Overall, I really like where she ended up, and I think Brandon has finally cleared out the character problems which made her simultaneously highly compelling but also too much of a Gandalf to ever let us significantly get too far into her head before.
  23. As to (1), you don't need to find the original owner of the blade to revive a deadeyes-spren, iirc. It's just that the easiest way of reviving a deadeyes is for a radiant to progress to their next Ideal within their order. (I have no idea if any fifth-level radiants who "kill" their Spren this way have an easy shot at reviving them. I would assume not, and that once you're at the fifth level you need to be very careful about staying someone who can keep your spren alive) This is the most relevant WoB: (And because it's a perennial curiosity at signings, there are also: one involving a cut off guess about the spiritual realm, which might be trying to find the ghost of their previous Knight, and somehow taking custody of their oaths for them? And this one that swearing another oath is "the traditional way" to revive a dead-eyes spren, and one suggesting that deadblades and zombie elantrians are similar magical situations) My interpretation, given Kaladin's experience with Syl in WoR, is that the cut off bit, where he says "That would be the-- Yeah." is Brandon stopping himself from revealing too much information/over-complicating the answer by saying that would be the easiest/best-known way. He doesn't rule out that there's another way for Adolin to revive a dead blade that involves re-swearing the Edgedancer oaths and taking other additional steps. We just don't know for sure yet how that would be possible, and he's said quite clearly that to date, everyone would think it's impossible, so I'd say he's definitely setting Mayalaran up for revival now, but he's also giving this plenty of time so as to continue the arc of Adolin feeling like he doesn't deserve Shallan and doesn't know what to do with himself around so many Radiants. I think @SLNC's point about Adolin not being mentally broken enough to be a Radiant, yet, as far as we can tell, is probably accurate. This doesn't permanently rule him out though. If the poor guy starts developing a complex about the only one in his family not yet a Radiant, that might even be enough to do it if he takes it badly enough, or he could be tortured by Odium's fanclub, or Shallan could leave him, or all sorts of things. I'd say wait and see where he goes on this one, especially as there are several clues that Brandon is setting up his journey in a way that this will be an option.
  24. Yeah, I just disagree with Brandon/"Sazed." This, incidentally, is why I said not to get me started.
  25. Yes, this is absolutely a legitimate theory now that this WoB has clarified that red eyes (the only confirmed time we've seen red-coloured magic IIRC? I'm excluding that one scene in BoM where Sazed may or may not be showing something like a diagram) are not a specific feature of Odium, and in fact a cosmere-wide effect. It could be any type of creature that is using some sort of investiture corrupted or re-purposed by another Shard.
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