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A prediction of what's to come


nimvin

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So I have been thinking about what it is that Taravangian saw in his deal that he thought could be a loophole he could take advantage of. I have heard several people talk about the "child champion" as a possibility among others and I think we're not thinking deep enough. 

I keep going back to the bargaining scene between Dalinar and Odium and how breaking the contract would put Odium within Dalinar's power and vice versa. Then I go back to Taravangian's deal with Odium at the end of Oathbringer and how he specifies the spirit of the deal is what is binding not the wording (although I am sure it plays a role).  

Then I think about Brandon's promise at the end of the book, how Kal and Szeth are to fly to Shinovar and Kal is to bring Ishar back to help Dalinar with his bondsmith powers and Ishar says he can repair the Oathpact.  

I think if they succeed at such a task (repairing the Oathpact) that would be Dalinar reneging on his end of the bargain to have a contest of champions in 10 days time because it would prevent Odium from being able to send a champion to fight on his behalf. Therefore his champion was not unmolested on his journey to Urithiru. 

This would result in Odium being freed, because Dalinar  would be within Odium's power.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy or does this argument hold water?

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I like the cleverness of this thinking, but I spot two main issues that make this seem unlikely to me.

1:

3 hours ago, nimvin said:

I think if they succeed at such a task (repairing the Oathpact) that would be Dalinar reneging on his end of the bargain to have a contest of champions in 10 days time because it would prevent Odium from being able to send a champion to fight on his behalf. Therefore his champion was not unmolested on his journey to Urithiru.

I am not sure how this would be the case. Even if we assume that reinstating the Oathpact can prevent Odium’s champion from getting to Urithiru, Dalinar and his team would see the problem and fix it. 

2:

4 hours ago, nimvin said:

So I have been thinking about what it is that Taravangian saw in his deal that he thought could be a loophole he could take advantage of.

The loophole that Taravangian saw is too subtle for Rayse to have noticed. Taravangian notes that Rayse allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a situation where he can’t win. If the solution Taravangian has found is to wait for his opponents to mess up all by themselves - well, that’s not what I would call a loophole, and it’s not the sort of subtle play Taravangian seemed to be describing.  

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As to your first point I agree Jasnah & Hoid for sure and likely Dalinar and/or Navani would see the problem but trying to "recruit" Ishar puts him on our heroes side and if he does something on his own I think that could definitely trigger the bad outcome I described.

 

For the second point, I agree that Taravangian isn't going to just sit on his hands, but we have seen him help others implement their own destruction. (Jah Keved)  And now he has a Herald he can use to go influence Ishar so who knows what other shenanigans may happen.

Bits of this are lawyerly and Odium said it's the spirit of the agreement, but I think the words have weight as well.  But there seemed too much emphasis on restoring the Oathpact at the end of the book, and I don't see how if that happens, it doesn't trigger a violation of the contest of champions.

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12 hours ago, nimvin said:

So I have been thinking about what it is that Taravangian saw in his deal that he thought could be a loophole he could take advantage of. I have heard several people talk about the "child champion" as a possibility among others and I think we're not thinking deep enough. 

I keep going back to the bargaining scene between Dalinar and Odium and how breaking the contract would put Odium within Dalinar's power and vice versa. Then I go back to Taravangian's deal with Odium at the end of Oathbringer and how he specifies the spirit of the deal is what is binding not the wording (although I am sure it plays a role).  

Then I think about Brandon's promise at the end of the book, how Kal and Szeth are to fly to Shinovar and Kal is to bring Ishar back to help Dalinar with his bondsmith powers and Ishar says he can repair the Oathpact.  

I think if they succeed at such a task (repairing the Oathpact) that would be Dalinar reneging on his end of the bargain to have a contest of champions in 10 days time because it would prevent Odium from being able to send a champion to fight on his behalf. Therefore his champion was not unmolested on his journey to Urithiru. 

This would result in Odium being freed, because Dalinar  would be within Odium's power.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy or does this argument hold water?

I have said this before in other threads, while I think the above scenario is unlikely I agree that Todium would want to find a way to make Dalinar renege on the agreement as this is the only way Todium actually gets free.

As going by terms of the agreement whether Dalinar wins or Todium wins Todium is still bound to Roshar. 

Now if Todiums champion wins he is alot more "free" then his current state, but it is far from "free". So his end goal has to be to get fully free, which would imply the subtle way he saw amounted to achieving this.

Also from a narrative sense, the back 5 books will be much more interesting if Todium got free so I hope this happens, I see ways Todiums champion winning can still provide an interesting back 5, but would be limited in how much can happen but if Dalinar wins I just see the back 5 being boring (like OB and RoW).

I don't agree with the child champion theory, and not sure how it has so much traction on here being honest, also that wouldn't constitute being subtle. Also believe Dalinar would kill a child champion if it ever was the case.

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I like it! It's way better than the child champion theory at least. Odium & Dalinar's deal is very specific in Odium not being free regardless of who wins, and I don't think getting a draw would result in the contract being null & void. So that does leave Odium letting Dalinar break the terms of the deal somehow being the most feasible course of action as far as I can tell.

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15 hours ago, nimvin said:

I think if they succeed at such a task (repairing the Oathpact) that would be Dalinar reneging on his end of the bargain to have a contest of champions in 10 days time because it would prevent Odium from being able to send a champion to fight on his behalf. Therefore his champion was not unmolested on his journey to Urithiru. 

This would result in Odium being freed, because Dalinar  would be within Odium's power.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy or does this argument hold water?

I don't think it's crazy, but I also don't think Dalinar would do that unless he finds out that Odium himself would do that. And contrary to what other people think, I'm not sure whether or not Odium actually could. Rayse talked about Intent mattering, but does that matter to the Shard or the Vessel? Because of the Vessel registers the Intent, but the Shard only registers the words, then Taravangian doesn't need to follow the spirit of the agreement - and in a case like that, then Dalinar reforging the Oathpact would be a good idea. 

If Taravangian is still bound to the intent, then I think the Contest of Champions will stand, and Odium will use a child Champion. (Dalinar can still end up breaking the agreement if he refuses to kill the the Champion, but the Champion isn't strong enough to kill him. A stalemate that neither Dalinar nor Rayse predicted, giving Taravangian a certain amount of wiggle-room.)

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On 6/6/2021 at 8:33 AM, Use the Falchion said:

 (Dalinar can still end up breaking the agreement if he refuses to kill the the Champion, but the Champion isn't strong enough to kill him. A stalemate that neither Dalinar nor Rayse predicted, giving Taravangian a certain amount of wiggle-room.)

I could see the book going past the 10 days because one of the Champions escapes from the start of the battle, extending the fight.  I'm not sure I believe that it will go down this way, but I can see it as a possibility.

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This is a clever theory.

And I tend to agree that, if the contract is broken by one side or the other, it will be the provision stating that the champions must be allowed to meet atop Urithiru “otherwise unharmed by either side’s forces” that will be violated.

I’m not sold yet on a particular theory of who the champions will be and how they might be harmed, but I like how @nimvin is thinking creatively about what it might be.

One thought that recently occurred to me is what if Taravangian names Moash as his champion but then has him surrender himself to Dalinar’s forces in advance of the contest. He would essentially be daring Dalinar to try to keep that storming’ cremhole safe from the myriad people who’d like to see him dead. (This could even allow a role for little Gavinor to sate all the people who think he’s going to factor into the book 5 endgame).

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