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I just finished my first read. I wanted to give it a second before commenting on most points. But I can't wait for this one XD. "the capacity to save humankind." https://coppermind.net/wiki/Taravangian The twist where "Stupid" Taravangian would play a fundamental role in Ryse's defeat was expected. Now, Taravangian taking Odium's power I didn't see coming at all (wondering if there were more references like him attacking a lot of spren when "stupid" in previous books). However, that opens up a #@*load of new possibilities. What's Cultivation's deal? I assumed it was a way to stop odium. Now, with the power of Odium as part of the plan... I'm starting to think something much worse than the final desolation is coming. When Teravangian asked for the capacity to save "humankind" I'm starting to think that Cultivation took that a little bit farther than Rosharan humans. Cultivation's game is becoming dangerous, having affected the powers of Honor and Odium directly. However, the more I think about it, the more I see Cultivation wanting of Roshar too. I've never been able to get the "we killed you" statement Odium made on Oathbringer. I'm starting to believe Cultivation want's to "Grow" past Roshar.

Apologies if I'm very late to the party with this, it's been some time since I frequented this forum, so I'm a bit behind on the current WoB's and theories. With Rhythm of War's chapter headings, we now know that I am eager to see your responses. Remember that Sanderson has a tendency for obfuscation when describing things, as evidenced by Roshar's wines, and Aluminum's many descriptors.

Tl;dr I think the shard Honor will not be taken up by an individual, but by the United people of Roshar. I don't have a ton of specific textual evidence atm but I'm wondering if a shard could be held by more than one person, or something to that effect. Phrases like "honor is alive as long as he lives in the hearts of men" get a lot of emphasis in this book Jasnah and dalinar have a few convos and thoughts about decentralized power that feel a little sudden and out of place. It gives dalinars "unite them" command from honor a late game meaning: unite the peoples of Roshar to become the collective will behind honor. It will serve as an interesting point in the constant convos about what leadership is. And united roshar holding honor would make a perfect counterpoint to Tarvangian holding odium, and a way to fully refute his evil-utilitarian-dictator philosophy. What do yall think?

RoW Spoilers ahead! Stop reading now if you haven't finished RoW and don't want spoilers! So, we saw Kaladin swear his 4th oath and receive his plate. Then we saw him using his plate to protect others, and the plate flew around to protect different people which was wild. My question is, will living plate for different orders have different powers? If so, what do you predict those unique powers will be like?

I think all of the metals are weird. We have the base 16 allomantic metals, which seem to have much deeper properties than just accessing the allomantic arts. You can literally riot or soothe a spren inside gemstone. Another thing is... Isn't it weird, that anyone managed to shatter probably almost omniscient bring? adonalsium either had to plan it, or it was weakened by something. Ruin was weakened enough by not having its "body" (which couldn't be some enormous amount of metal, as it fit into relatively small hole in the ground). Also, why metals glow when observed by an Ascended beings as if they are full of power? My theory is that metals are the "body" of Adonalsium. Every god-metal has something special about it, but base metals are also weirdly powerful. That would explain the whole Shattering (even though I still believe it was a part of a plan). Adonalsium was just a mind without body like an super-advanced AI on a unplugged USB stick. It doesn't explain why Shards do have physical bodies. Maybe Vessels are the providers of both mind and body for the power? On somewhat unrelated note, do we know if Adonalsium created Cosmere, or merely existed in it? What do you think? Is it viable theory, or are there some gaping holes in it?

So, in the preview chapters of Rhythm of War, we've seen that Lopen is able to summon a Shardblade, meaning that he has currently sworn the third WIndrunner ideal. I'm really interested in this, because I think it would be neat to see what that process would be like for someone who isn't as troubled as someone like Kaladin or Teft, and I'm really hoping that we'll get to see this moment in Dawnshard, since Lopen will be a viewpoint character. The question is though, what would his third ideal look like? The basic ideal we saw Kaladin swear is "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right", but I have a hard time seeing Lopen swear something like this because he doesn't really seem to hate anyone. It's possible he could just say those words anyway, but that doesn't seem to make sense. Radiant ideals are very personal, and reflect growth that is significant to the individual Radiant in some way, so I can't see Lopen swearing this ideal if it doesn't really mean anything to him. We also know that there is some degree of personalization in this ideal, as Teft's third ideal is different from Kaladin, so this will likely be the case for Lopen as well. Looking at Kaladin's internal thoughts leading up to him swearing the third ideal, the core idea of this ideal seems to be something along the lines of continuing to protect people even when it isn't convenient or easy to do so. To fight even when you feel you don't have the right to, because regardless people still need you, or to fight for people who you morally oppose, because it's the right thing to do. It's hard to think of what this could be for Lopen, there doesn't seem to be anyone he wouldn't want to protect, and he can keep an optimistic attitude even in the literal apocalypse, so there doesn't seem to be situations where it would be hard for him to act. But I think what's likely in this case is protecting people, even if that means he has to hurt others. We haven't seen Lopen fight in the books yet, mostly because he only had one arm in the first two books, but we also didn't see much of him in the battle of Thaylen Field. The moment when he swears the second ideal is when he's comforting a wounded soldier in his own, Lopen way, rather than a dramatic moment of rescuing civilians (much to his displeasure) and I think that speaks a lot to Lopen as a character. I don't think Lopen is the type of person to want to hurt others, even if they are enemies, he always likes to see the best in any situation so perhaps his third ideal would be protecting others when he's forced into a situation where he can't.

Is anyone else getting major ‘Empire Strikes Back’ vibes from what we’ve seen so far? I know Sanderson has only released a few chapters, but every word I read of this book seems to carry a certain malaise about it. To make matters worse, all three of the previous books ended on some kind of a high note- and if we want some kind of suspense for the final book in the arc, then Rhythm of War is almost certainly going to have some form of downer ending. So, for those of you who are pessimistically inclined and have similar feelings, my question is: what do you think is going to go wrong? Who dies, what happens, how do you reckon it ends? And to our more optimistic Sharders- are we being TOO negative? I’m interested in hearing what y’all think.