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Showing results for tags 'child champion'.
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Here's a bit of a prediction -- and let me preface this by saying that while I've been doing a bit of lurking here, I haven't done a thorough search through all the contest of champions topics. If someone else has already come up with something along these lines, I apologize for a redundant theory. I've been thinking about setup for Odium's champion; narratively, how will Brandon produce Odium's champion in just 10 days (not counting flashbacks)? I feel that the simplest way to give Odium an active role in producing that champion will be to use visions -- it's an established part of his power set, and it's something Rayse already tried with Kaladin. Rayse's methods were very different from Tanavast's; his visions were a raw and brutal attempt to mentally and emotionally shatter a target (not unlike the methods employed with the heralds on Braise), whereas Tanavast's visions were designed to warn, enlighten, and perhaps transform someone by offering them a chance to accept a higher calling. I'm willing to bet that the shard's intent played a large role in how the visions were used, and Rayse was limited due to how long he had held the shard (which is not to say that his attempt to break Kaladin was necessarily a poor choice -- it almost worked, after all). Now we have a new vessel, Taravangian. Based on the RoW epilogue, he wants to do something unexpected for his champion selection -- which I think partially precludes El or someone else with established loyalty to Odium (though i admit I could easily be wrong). I predict that he will use carefully edited visions of the past and/or future to create his champion, and here's how I see it happening for a few of our frontrunner candidates: Szeth - based on his established mental instability, his impending crusade against his own people, and Taravangian's past experience with manipulating Szeth, I think Szeth is the most obvious choice for a turncoat champion (despite his current oath to serve Dalinar). I think that visions involving people from his past (especially people he killed) would prove useful to TOdium, especially if he plants new words into their mouths similar to what Tanavast did at the end of each vision. For example, despite his unwillingness to forgive himself, Szeth still seems vulnerable to someone seeding the idea that he can correct past mistakes by doing X (X being whatever TOdium wants him to do). TOdium could even seek to accelerate Szeth's progress as a radiant, in an effort to help him reach his fifth ideal and thus divorce him from his oath to Dalinar (this is something Rayse would likely never do, which is the main reason I consider it here). Alternatively, he could simply seek to fully break Szeth -- make him turn to Odium for relief from his agony -- though I think that's more of a Rayse method. In any case, we know that we're getting Szeth's flashbacks, which could easily provide in-book context for a TOdium-induced vision to capitalize on. Gavinor - I include him here (despite the fact that I don't like the child champion theory) because he does have a rather direct route to accepting the role of Odium's champion. Imagine how Gavinor would react if TOdium forced him to watch Dalinar pummel Elhokar and shatter his shardplate, without offering the context necessary to realize that Dalinar was not attempting to assassinate the boy's father? What if that was the final vision in a string of visions where he saw the Blackthorn brutally slaughtering his foes (and sometimes his allies) thanks to the thrill? The boy has a hero complex, and TOdium has plenty of material to work with if he wanted to make the boy believe that his great uncle is a villain. The usual merits of the child champion theory apply, as well (forcing Dalinar to renege on the terms, thus giving TOdium much more freedom and damaging Honor's remaining power -- possibly even killing the Stormfather and making Stormlight difficult or impossible to acquire). Nalan - You could basically copy and paste my thoughts on Szeth here; he's similarly unhinged and vulnerable to the manipulation of his ideals. He's even working for Odium at this point. The biggest issue with Nale as champion is that I'm fairly certain Taravangian is hoping to achieve more than merely winning the duel. Anyhow, those are my thoughts for now. Feel free to comment, criticize, and/or offer further speculation.
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