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Okay, so it seems that I'm not the only person who's come up with a version of this idea (hi, @Truthless of Shinovar!), but I presented the theory at JordanCon during the Cosmere Speculation panel, and it seems as though I should codify it in some sort of organized fashion so that all my crazy details can be seen. And also so I can go on record with this thing so when it actually happens you can all hate me. We all know Brandon has been moving the plot forward faster on Stormlight than most of us expected. So I think that Stormlight 5 is going to be the Knights Radiant vs. Rayse, final round. Rayse has freed himself from his entrapment on Braize and is ready to wreak some havoc on Roshar to make sure nobody there can challenge him (and root out Cultivation in the process). Ultimately, he will be defeated. I think he won't be re-trapped, though; I think he'll be killed. However, there is one important detail when it comes to killing Shardholders: Dropped Shards will Splinter naturally if not picked up. (Correction here: It's not an automatic given that a Shard will Splinter when dropped. There is a WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/132/#e1877) that states a voluntarily dropped Shard could Splinter, or become self-aware, or any number of other things. None of them if applied to Odium are going to create Super Happy Fun Time for Roshar.) Imagine the chaos that would inflict upon Roshar's entire Investiture biome. That much Hatred Investiture (and no, I do not believe Rayse's nonsense about Passion) spreading out throughout the planet, loose, leaking into everything? It'd be a disaster. Cultivation has more than enough knowledge to be aware of this; certainly the Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the Sibling are as well. I'd bet money that most, if not all, of the Radiant spren have a pretty good idea of it. So it's reasonable to expect that the KR will be aware of this danger when they take on Odium. They may even have a plan in place to try to re-trap him, but I expect that ultimately to fail. They'll have to kill him. There will be no other choice. What then happens when the Shard of Odium drops, ready to Splinter into a million pieces of Hatred and leak into the planet's Investiture irrevocably? Or become a self-aware monster spren? Or get absorbed by one or more of the Unmade? Or any number of other potentially apocalyptic results? Dalinar picks it up. He doesn't do it to gain power. He does it to protect his friends and family. He does it for Honor (though his decision may involve his bond with the Stormfather being broken) - because humans brought Odium to Roshar; it's only proper for a human to fix that mistake. Most of all, because he has managed to deny Odium's power before, he does it because he believes he's the best person to do so. He believes that he can resist the Shard's intent better than any other person on Roshar. He might even be right. So he picks up Odium, rips every last shred of power that Rayse Invested into Roshar, and leaves. There are several reasons why I think Brandon will take this route: 1. It's an interesting full circle to take for the character. He starts out life as the perfect scion of Odium, though he doesn't know it at the time. He's ruthless. He's violent. It's through a huge amount of experience and development that he learns to control and reject that side of him. He becomes a better man. Then as a result of becoming that better man, he takes on the embodiment of what warped his past in an attempt to shield others from the evil that tainted him. That's some serious heroic tragedy. 2. Brandon likes to hurt us. 3. So far, our experience of the "negative" Shardholders has been pretty after-the-fact. We never saw Ati before he picked up Ruin; likewise we don't know exactly how awful Rayse was before he picked up Odium. We've seen Harmony, yes, but he's been pretty Light Side so far. It will be much, much more interesting to take a character that the readers have a strong emotional investment in and have him take up an "evil" Shard. The impact of seeing our hero Dalinar slowly corrupted by Odium's influence as he becomes an overall Cosmere Big Bad will cause internal reader conflict, and that's a good way to tell a story.