Stormlight 5 and Harmony's War

[Chiberty]

Harmony's War

This theory has two different levels.

1. Broad consequences of the end of SA5 that may fit into a new theme in future-era cosmere
2. Possibilities of specific events in SA5 that may allow those broader effects to come about

For the most part, I am suggesting the broader level will come into play, since the events on the specific level are, well, specific, and I don't expect all of them to actually come about. Mostly, they are just to provide examples and possibilities.

The Theory - The future cosmere era will largely explore a conflict between the Shards of Harmony and War. Of course, that would not be all taking place, but would provide a backdrop for many of the conflicts.

Support for the theory comes from two sides: the Mistborn side and the Stormlight side.

(All spoiler boxes - except the very last one - are just for length)

Mistborn

Trell is the most significant factor at play here. I agree with the common belief that Trell is an avatar of Autonomy. This is not my focus, so I won't dive deep into it, but Paalm's ideals in SoS, the existence of Trell the foreman in WS, and this WoB on Trell's identity all support that being the case.

However, I am also arguing that Trell/Autonomy is being supported by Odium. This WoB implies that Rayse has worked with Autonomy in the past, and although Taravangian now holds the Shard, he is still aware of some of Rayse's past actions, and may see Autonomy as a potential ally. Here are some other possible supporting factors:

Spoiler

At the end of AoL, Miles says:

Quote

One day, the men of gold and red, bearers of the final metal, will come to you. And you will be ruled by them.

This evidence is not very strong, but the color gold in particular has been associated with Odium in SA, and the fact that they are "bearing" the "final metal" sounds to me more like a Radiant use of metal than the use of metal in other magic systems.

Another point is the Set's faceless immortals. When Suit is confronted by one of these creatures at the end of BoM, there are a few significant things to note. One, obviously the the red eyes. Two, Suit believes they "stole" a body off the street. And three, the immortal had no fear of an explosion. From these, we can draw that these immortals use corrupted Investiture, are body snatchers, and have either extremely strong healing or are cognitive shadows. Something like a corrupted kandra might have fit, if not for that last point, and it could also be a creature that we have just not seen on screen before, but there is one we know of that fits all three of those - the Fused.

Stormlight

Tying directly into those points from Mistborn, lets look at Dalinar's final negotiation with Rayse.

Spoiler

Most relevant is the greater war:

Quote

Odium shook his head, staring into the infinite golden distance. "I need soldiers. For the true battle that is coming, not for one people or one miserable windswept continent. A battle of the gods. A battle for everything.

Roshar is a training ground. The time will come that I unleash you upon the others who are not nearly as well trained. Not nearly as hardened as I have made you."

"Bearers of the final metal," anyone? Odium's plan in their eventual agreement also talks about him sending his fused out:

Quote

"I can accept this, so long as you are still trapped on Roshar, as Honor wished."

"I will, " Odium said, "though I will be able to focus my attentions on sending agents to the rest of the cosmere, using what I've conquered here as enough for now. However, if I win ... You will be the one I send to the stars to serve my interests in the cosmere."

Either way the contest goes, he plans on sending out agents.

Now, Rayse may have been planning these things, but what about Taravangian?

Spoiler

Conveniently, El gives pretty strong indication of Taravangian's intentions.

Quote

And so I am not at all dissatisfied with recent events.

Roshar will be united in its service of the greater war.

And I will march proudly at the head of a human legion.

Yep, seems like that's still part of the plan. Why does Taravangian still want this?

Quote

Taravangian knew the cosmere was in chaos. Ruled by fools. Presided over by broken gods.

...

He finally had the freedom to do what he'd desired.

And now, Taravangian was going to save them all. 

Taravangian has always wanted to save people, but his methods have been... ruthless. Now, as Odium's Intent starts to drive him more and more, that "saving" will come even more ruthless than before, with the entire cosmere at play.

So it seems that a war is coming to the rest of the cosmere. But it might not be solely Odium's fault:

Spoiler

Oh, Shallan, you should really be more careful. 

Quote

"I'll be returning to the tower soon," Shallan said... "When I do, I expect to find you and yours gone. Perhaps if you cover yourself well, I won't be able to track you down. Either way, I am going to find that gemstone before you do. And if you get in my way...well, it will be a fun hunt, Wouldn't you say?"

"This will not end well for you Shallan," Mraize said. "You make an enemy of the most powerful organization in all the cosmere"

...

"Know that in doing this, you have moved against the Ghostbloods in the most offensive of ways. We are now at war, Shallan."

"You've always been at war," Shallan said. "I've finally picked a side. Goodbye, Mraize."

So... who is at war? The Ghostbloods and Shallan... but... war with the Ghostbloods is a war against Kelsier, and Kelsier has some strong connections. Namely, being worshipped by the members of a major religion on Scadrial, as well as being revered as the Sovereign by most of the southerners. That's a disturbingly large portion of a planet on his side. And Shallan... not only wife of Highprince Kholin, but part of the official envoy of the Coalition, representatives of the alliance comprised of the largest non-Odium countries on Roshar. Poor Kelsier, he's been holding back for far to long against these nobles.

But how does War the Shard come into play?

Spoiler

Here's where we start getting into that more specific layer of the theory that I was talking about. Before I dive into that though, there's a bit more on the thematic level. Here's what Cultivation says her goal was with Taravangian:

Quote

"You were heading this direction - all I could do was hope that if you succeeded, my gift would work. That I had changed you into someone who could bear this power with honor."

That's a lowercase "honor," but it's certainly associated with it's uppercase counterpart. I believe this may be a hint that Taravangian will literally bear the power with Honor.

And if this does take place, and the Shard of War comes about, Taravangian's goals of saving people will be even easier to twist towards pursuing the greater war. With both Honor and Odium, using wars to "save" other people from their "broken gods" is an even more natural result of the Intents, where Odium on his own might be tempted for an option with even less rules than war.

Now into the specifics for how this may come about. Again, I'm not suggesting that all of these events will take place, but they are examples for how it might take place.

Spoiler

• We reach the battle of champions in SA5. Odium reveals his champion as someone Dalinar will refuse to kill, possibly Gavinor as suggested by the child champion theory. Dalinar surrenders, and Odium begins to turn him into a Fused. Szeth is there to witness the battle, back from his Crusade with Kaladin. He realizes what is happening, and swearing his fifth Oath, does what he believes Dalinar would want him to do, based on his ideals, rather than what Dalinar's will in the moment is (as he is under Odium's control), and deprives Odium of his most sought-after servant. Szeth kills Dalinar with Nightblood, but not before Odium has Dalinar use his Bondsmith abilities to try to reforge Honor. With Dalinar no longer there bonded to the Stormfather, and Honor having been reforged from him, Odium is free to take up Honor and Ascend to War.

Renarin's vision of the future in RoW may hint towards some parts of this. He sees Dalinar in white Shardplate pierced by a black arrow, holding his sword high, but pointed away from Odium. Renarin believes that this is because Dalinar is not focused enough on Odium, but what if it is instead because Dalinar has become a Fused? Renarin offers no explanation for the black arrow, but connecting to the ideas above, the arrow may represent Nightblood. 

The most essential part of those events would probably be Dalinar losing the battle of champions, and the others are less significant (aka I'm not trying to discuss the child champion theory in this thread).

So what are we left with? The Shard of War is stuck on Roshar, but is sending out his agents throughout the cosmere, attempting to save everyone by freeing them from the other Shards. He gives some support to Trell in the form of faceless immortals as of Era 2, and across the next Era, almost the entirety of both Scadrial and Roshar are drawn into conflict against each other, until it comes to a head in Era 4.

 

Here's an extra bit for you who like reading all of the preview content - spoilers to the excerpt from the sequel to Sixth of the Dusk:

Spoiler

I couldn't really not mention this; the relevance is pretty obvious. There are clearly some "political tensions" between Scadrian and Rosharan forces going on in the future. I don't want to focus on this much though, due to its spoilery nature, and if you've read the excerpt, the ways it connects to my theory are probably pretty clear even without discussion.

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Chiberty

[Mr. Misting]

I love all of this, amazing theory. I think I know how the war will start though. 

Scadrial will start striking out at Autonomy's avatars after killing or dealing with Trell, seeing Autonomy as a big threat to the cosmere. A lot of people will be mad at Scadrial because these Avatars are worshiped as gods on many planets. Odium who I think is working with Autonomy will retaliate and start the war with Harmony. 

[+Kolten]

Cool theory! You lay out a very strong case for scadrial and roshar being the driving force of the competing factions in the space age. Your point about both the odium and honor sides of roshar having seeds of contention with scardrial is really good.

I think the weakest part of the theory is probably that odium will be able to become war, just because there is less evidence in that direction. I always thought the point of splintering a shard was to make it nigh impossible to pick up again, and "bondsmith abilities" is a pretty vague handwave for reforging it. I suspect that whatever method you use to put the shard back together after splintering it would require killing a lot of spren and detaching their consciousness from the investiture. I could be wrong about that though. 

If we need to reforge honor, then I wonder if a dawnshard could maybe do it? There is a pretty strong theory that one of the dawnshards has a command like "bind" associated with it, and apparently the dawnshards can have some pretty spectacular effects.

Another path to a similar setup would be if somehow odium is able to unmake the stormfather. The stormfather could end up being a sort of link between honor and odium like the sibling is between honor and cultivation. There would be a lot of fallout from that I am sure, but by the space age I bet that roshar could have worked through it and would be able to put up a unified front against harmony/scadrial

 

 

[coolsnow7]

Frankly I think this theory is wrong because it’s too easy to see coming. There’s a fine line between foreshadowing and giving the big reveal away, and this is just to Linear A path. 
 

We have one good example of an era ending: we have Mistborn 3. That stuff was so out there, so far removed from anything anyone could have guessed, that I have to believe Brandon is going to make things much more interesting than just this Michael Bay Transformers clash of the titans situation that we could see a mile away. 

[SpinningSky]

Very well put together theory and post!

I am convinced that a bondsmith will be putting Honor back together, and I woldn't be surprised in the Bondsmith himsel will be able to put together shards, thus creating "War", or, as some corrupted bondsmith, divide the shards, thus diving Harmony again.

I think the general idea of this is correct and it makes a whole lot of sense to me, the later Cosmere will have a background of combined shards fighting in the greater war, and I think more clear hints ofthis will come in SA 5. 
There are a couple of  details that I think will turn out differently:

1) I think that War's vessel will be either Dalinar, fantastic god of war, or Szeth, just because he's not Dalinar\Taravangian\Lift but he has a depth and contradicting nature that allows him to bond several shards, and is not as obvious.
Or Nightblood, that'd be fun, quite an intentful shard

2) I don't think it'll be necessarily as linear as Honor+Odium= War, there's a good chance, as to not make it as clearly parallel to Mistborn as coolsnow7 was saying, that it'll be a bit more complicated and involving Cultivation as well. in this regard,  there's for instance a more interesting connection between "preservation+cultivation+ruin" than "cultivation+hor+odium", but now I'm just putting shards together like legos and see what fits, then again I expect a very advanced bondsmith\corrupted bondsmith to be able to do just that, 

[bmcclure7]

On 9/12/2022 at 1:36 AM, Chiberty said:

Harmony's War

This theory has two different levels.

1. Broad consequences of the end of SA5 that may fit into a new theme in future-era cosmere
2. Possibilities of specific events in SA5 that may allow those broader effects to come about

For the most part, I am suggesting the broader level will come into play, since the events on the specific level are, well, specific, and I don't expect all of them to actually come about. Mostly, they are just to provide examples and possibilities.

The Theory - The future cosmere era will largely explore a conflict between the Shards of Harmony and War. Of course, that would not be all taking place, but would provide a backdrop for many of the conflicts.

Support for the theory comes from two sides: the Mistborn side and the Stormlight side.

(All spoiler boxes - except the very last one - are just for length)

Mistborn

Trell is the most significant factor at play here. I agree with the common belief that Trell is an avatar of Autonomy. This is not my focus, so I won't dive deep into it, but Paalm's ideals in SoS, the existence of Trell the foreman in WS, and this WoB on Trell's identity all support that being the case.

However, I am also arguing that Trell/Autonomy is being supported by Odium. This WoB implies that Rayse has worked with Autonomy in the past, and although Taravangian now holds the Shard, he is still aware of some of Rayse's past actions, and may see Autonomy as a potential ally. Here are some other possible supporting factors:

  Reveal hidden contents

At the end of AoL, Miles says:

This evidence is not very strong, but the color gold in particular has been associated with Odium in SA, and the fact that they are "bearing" the "final metal" sounds to me more like a Radiant use of metal than the use of metal in other magic systems.

Another point is the Set's faceless immortals. When Suit is confronted by one of these creatures at the end of BoM, there are a few significant things to note. One, obviously the the red eyes. Two, Suit believes they "stole" a body off the street. And three, the immortal had no fear of an explosion. From these, we can draw that these immortals use corrupted Investiture, are body snatchers, and have either extremely strong healing or are cognitive shadows. Something like a corrupted kandra might have fit, if not for that last point, and it could also be a creature that we have just not seen on screen before, but there is one we know of that fits all three of those - the Fused.

Stormlight

Tying directly into those points from Mistborn, lets look at Dalinar's final negotiation with Rayse.

  Hide contents

Most relevant is the greater war:

"Bearers of the final metal," anyone? Odium's plan in their eventual agreement also talks about him sending his fused out:

Either way the contest goes, he plans on sending out agents.

Now, Rayse may have been planning these things, but what about Taravangian?

  Hide contents

Conveniently, El gives pretty strong indication of Taravangian's intentions.

Yep, seems like that's still part of the plan. Why does Taravangian still want this?

Taravangian has always wanted to save people, but his methods have been... ruthless. Now, as Odium's Intent starts to drive him more and more, that "saving" will come even more ruthless than before, with the entire cosmere at play.

So it seems that a war is coming to the rest of the cosmere. But it might not be solely Odium's fault:

  Reveal hidden contents

Oh, Shallan, you should really be more careful. 

So... who is at war? The Ghostbloods and Shallan... but... war with the Ghostbloods is a war against Kelsier, and Kelsier has some strong connections. Namely, being worshipped by the members of a major religion on Scadrial, as well as being revered as the Sovereign by most of the southerners. That's a disturbingly large portion of a planet on his side. And Shallan... not only wife of Highprince Kholin, but part of the official envoy of the Coalition, representatives of the alliance comprised of the largest non-Odium countries on Roshar. Poor Kelsier, he's been holding back for far to long against these nobles.

But how does War the Shard come into play?

  Hide contents

Here's where we start getting into that more specific layer of the theory that I was talking about. Before I dive into that though, there's a bit more on the thematic level. Here's what Cultivation says her goal was with Taravangian:

That's a lowercase "honor," but it's certainly associated with it's uppercase counterpart. I believe this may be a hint that Taravangian will literally bear the power with Honor.

And if this does take place, and the Shard of War comes about, Taravangian's goals of saving people will be even easier to twist towards pursuing the greater war. With both Honor and Odium, using wars to "save" other people from their "broken gods" is an even more natural result of the Intents, where Odium on his own might be tempted for an option with even less rules than war.

Now into the specifics for how this may come about. Again, I'm not suggesting that all of these events will take place, but they are examples for how it might take place.

  Hide contents

• We reach the battle of champions in SA5. Odium reveals his champion as someone Dalinar will refuse to kill, possibly Gavinor as suggested by the child champion theory. Dalinar surrenders, and Odium begins to turn him into a Fused. Szeth is there to witness the battle, back from his Crusade with Kaladin. He realizes what is happening, and swearing his fifth Oath, does what he believes Dalinar would want him to do, based on his ideals, rather than what Dalinar's will in the moment is (as he is under Odium's control), and deprives Odium of his most sought-after servant. Szeth kills Dalinar with Nightblood, but not before Odium has Dalinar use his Bondsmith abilities to try to reforge Honor. With Dalinar no longer there bonded to the Stormfather, and Honor having been reforged from him, Odium is free to take up Honor and Ascend to War.

Renarin's vision of the future in RoW may hint towards some parts of this. He sees Dalinar in white Shardplate pierced by a black arrow, holding his sword high, but pointed away from Odium. Renarin believes that this is because Dalinar is not focused enough on Odium, but what if it is instead because Dalinar has become a Fused? Renarin offers no explanation for the black arrow, but connecting to the ideas above, the arrow may represent Nightblood. 

The most essential part of those events would probably be Dalinar losing the battle of champions, and the others are less significant (aka I'm not trying to discuss the child champion theory in this thread).

So what are we left with? The Shard of War is stuck on Roshar, but is sending out his agents throughout the cosmere, attempting to save everyone by freeing them from the other Shards. He gives some support to Trell in the form of faceless immortals as of Era 2, and across the next Era, almost the entirety of both Scadrial and Roshar are drawn into conflict against each other, until it comes to a head in Era 4.

 

Here's an extra bit for you who like reading all of the preview content - spoilers to the excerpt from the sequel to Sixth of the Dusk:

  Hide contents

I couldn't really not mention this; the relevance is pretty obvious. There are clearly some "political tensions" between Scadrian and Rosharan forces going on in the future. I don't want to focus on this much though, due to its spoilery nature, and if you've read the excerpt, the ways it connects to my theory are probably pretty clear even without discussion.

 

 A proxy war, With the set serving as a proxy for roshar,  And that goes blood's approxy for  Scadrial.  I like this theory it's certainly possible and lay possible and it makes a sort of sense. It would be amazing if we got a reveal that the leader of the set was somehow connected to roshar similar to how  We got a reveal of the ghost bloods master in Rythm of war. 

Edited October 1, 2022 by bmcclure7

[ZenBossanova]

There was a reading that I remember from years ago, from the sequel to Sixth of the Dusk, that strongly implied Scadrial and Roshar were in a state of opposition - not all out war, but working against eachother. 

[Arkangel]

I like this theory.

I personally believe that the entire Cosmere sequence will end with the reunification of all Shards into Adonalsium. Harmony was just the first. Since OB, I've believed that Honor's Splinters would be bonded and picked up by Dalinar but, after RoW and TOdium, this seems like a more likely outcome.

Tinfoil hat theory: Odium takes up Honor. Taravangian's "fresh" Intent over his Shard + Honor's Intent tempers War into more like Crusade - seeking to bind all other Shards and Splinters together once again.