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I was talking with my wife about whats in store Adolin. Theres theories that he will revive his blade and become an edgedancer. He fits an edgedancer. Remembering those who have been forgotten...his blade...and his interaction with the prostitute, such down to earth conversations with bridgemen. It fits, if not perfectly. I initially thought that Adolin reflects a stoneward. The best infantry, reliable, dependable, selfless in service to others as the coppermind points out. I've also seen that as an unparalleled duelist,a shardbearer, a tactical and strategic expert, and an heir to a princedom and not far from heir to Alethkar is suddenly outclassed in a world of voidbringers and radiants so he finds his humble way in the shadows of giants. I've also heard of him going darkside in search for meaning (least likely IMO). After talking about all of this a thought occurred to me. He remembers those who are forgotten, he protects those that cannot protect themselves, he locks himself in a dungeon on principle, he is as good as Dalinar without a past of war crimes, he transforms others into better people, he brings people together, he is passionate about his life, he ruins and kills when it is necessary, yet he preserves when it is wise, while progressing others when its needed. He is not a radiant because he is not broken, and never needed to be forged anew because he was forged a great way the first time. My wife constantly said he is the most balanced person of all of our cast of characters from Kaladin to Kelsier. I'm casting my chips on this, he is meant for something more than surgebinding or holding a single shard like Tanavast. Theres no evidence in the writings but I'll take a wild guess and say that if Adonalsium requires a host, he is a candidate. Besides this is Brandon.....like I saw Sazed being Hero of Ages....so Im learning lol. What are our thoughts?

We keep seeing WoBs about what happens when you become too invested. You ultimately ascend to become the vessel of the shard whose investiture you hold so much of. That much is established... But it makes me wonder... What happens if you get enough investiture to ascend... But the current vessel of the shard is still alive? Now, we have technically seen such an occurrence, when Vin ascended and took Preservation from Kelsier. On the other hand... In my estimation, Kelsier wasn't really holding the shard to full capacity. I do not think his example really counts at all. But it still raises questions. What happens? Would the current shardholder be killed? Just like that? That sounds like a surprisingly easy way to kill a shardholder. Or would perhaps the would-be ascendant be killed? For anyone here who has read the traveller's gate triology... I can't help but think of what happened to someone when they tried to become an incarnation of a territory when that territory already had a living incarnation in the real world. It wasn't pretty. No matter which way you cut it, this kind of ascension has some serious implications. And while Sanderson has said more than once that holding lots of investiture is a way to ascend, his silence on what happens to the existing shardholder sticks out to me as significant... I wonder if we will see such an ascension down the road.

So... The other day I was poring over the coppermind... And I saw one of hoid's lines in WoK. This one: “ Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldygrak. Isn't it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them—yet wholly unlike them at the same time? “I wonder if you could do that to a man. Pull him apart, emotion by emotion, bit by bit, bloody chunk by bloody chunk. Then combine them back together into something else, like a Dysian Aimian. If you do put a man together like that, Dalinar, be sure to name him Gibberish, after me. Or perhaps Gibletish. ” — Hoid to Dalinar (after namedropping Adonalsium) So... The upshot is... Considering he just brought up Adolnasium, does it seem to anyone else that Hoid is in fact talking about recombining the sixteen into a single deity again? I mean, pulling adolnasium apart is likely a reference to the shattering... But Hoid implies some kind of reconstitution of adolnasium following this. The resultant being would be different from the original adolnasium, but whole again... Is this, perhaps, Hoid's agenda? EDIT: Also, I can actually see Sanderson naming the resultant deity "gibberish". It would be in the same vein of humor as the second era Scadrial novel's "high imperial" language.

This is rather a lot of speculation. But I still think it is a fascinating idea. So I have mentioned earlier, I am pretty sure the way to splinter a shard is to have more investiture on hand than they do. So if one shard are more invested than another (for example, preservation being slightly more invested on scadrial than ruin), the more invested shard will eventually be able to splinter the less invested one. This is precisely how Ati killed Leras. This also explains why shards tend to fight indirectly (for example, the desolations and the heralds forming a kind of proxy war for odium and honor). How would this work on adolnasium? Not exactly sure, unless adolnasium invested so much in everything that people were able to overpower it. So anyway. We know that Rayse killed Tanavast. By the above reasoning, this means that honor would have to be more invested than odium. I predict that this piece of investiture honor did not have access to when being splintered by odium was the stormfather. I will pull the quote up later, but in WoR it says the stormfather fled when honor and odium fought. Perhaps this extra bit of power deserting Tanavast is what caused his death.

Adolnasium needs to be destroyed as well as its aspects. In The Lord of the Rings, the way everything was resolved was magic being taken out of the world. In this, magic, shards, slivers, and all, will have to be abolished throughout the universe for true peace to be acquired. The shattering of the Almighty was a mistake. The only way to fix a mistake like this is to get rid of it and maybe start over to do it better. This is just a theory, but I'm fairly certain that it will have to happen for a true resolution. Thoughts?