The tower, the crown, and the spear.

[BridgeBoyBestBoi]

Hello to the Seventeenth Shard!

I've been lurking here for a while, and I think it's time for my own pet theory.

As the title suggests, it's focused around this death rattle:

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He must pick it up, the fallen title! The tower, the crown, and the spear! 

—Collected on Vevahach 1173, 8 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a prostitute of unknown background.

I was pretty happy with my interpretation of this referring to Kaladin picking up the title of Knight Radiant - the spear is obvious, and the tower and the crown form the badge of Dalinar's side of the Kholins, which again fits nicely. However, that's been more or less disproven recently, via WoB:

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The "Crown, Tower, Spear" Death Rattle has not happened yet, either on-screen or off-screen.

That throws a rather large metaphorical spanner in the works.

Instead, as of RoW, we have a character in perfect position to be "the tower" - Navani. The crown? Dalinar, prince all through his life, and now Highking of Urithuru.

And the fallen title? Honour, from Shard of Roshar, to raving madman, to splinters of power.

What if these three were to pick up, together the shard of Honour? Not as a whole, of course, after the splintering, but taking up the three largest shards that remain.

Dalinar becomes Unity. He helped to reforge Alethkar, to form the coalition and reunite humanity for the first time since perhaps as far back as the Desolations. He says it himself, capitalised, at Thaylen Field - "I am Unity".

Kaldin becomes Oathkeeping (Yes, the name isn't perfect, but you get the idea). He has shown the most complicated relationship with his Oaths, choosing to cling onto them despite everything. Also, this is some explanation for the cryptic Child of Tanavast stuff that keeps getting thrown around, and for why he didn't fall unconscious during the Fused invasion of Urithuru.

Navani becomes... Bridge-Building? (I told you the names needed work). In essence, the idea of forming new alliances, as well as remaking old ones. Her work with Raboniel, and what seems like her being set up to bring in a new era of co-operation between spren and humans, alongside the Sibling.

There's a bit of overlap between each of these, as would be expected by them originating from the same Shard, but I believe they're distinct enough that they can be individual.

Of course, there's... a flaw, in that it's not appropriate to refer to these three by "He". I can't put it down to some kind of translation error, either, as Brandon has stated fairly explicitly that this won't occur:

(Spoilered for length)

Spoiler

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R'Shara

I was wondering if we can take the Death Rattles as written? So night is night, not knight. Reigns is reigns and not rains or reins, etc? Since they're written down by someone who is listening to someone else speaking, there could be confusion there. Then again, they're speaking Alethi, or the local tongue, and being translated to English, so their homonyms would be different. Also, are they always about the future, or can they be about the past?

Brandon Sanderson

So, this is a tricky one. I was tempted to go into it during the reigns/rains one--but since there is a follow up, let me see if I can explain it.

You note the mechanism I've said before that I rely upon, that of the idea that the books are done "in translation" from their original tongues. This is to give us another layer of plausibility in the linguistics--but it does introduce a kind of wildcard here in the interpreter. (Who is me.)

I am not against using word usages similar to homonyms as plot points, so long as the characters themselves are capable of making the misunderstanding. (The ending of the Mistborn trilogy involves some of these types of word and definition related issues.)

So you're not wrong to asking questions like this. I use them very sparingly, but I do use them. In that specific case, however, I was not intending there to be confusion.

 

But I feel like the rest of this fits together too well to just ignore it despite that one inconsistency. Maybe one of you can see what I'm missing! (Or worse, prove it wrong (or worse, say it's been posted already!))

[cometaryorbit]

Maybe the "tower, crown, spear" interpretation is correct, but "the fallen title" is not Honor but Unity.

Unity could be a Dawnshard. If one of the Dawnshard Commands is Change, another could be Unite.

Dalinar could then use the Unity Dawnshard to help Navani do the Bridge Building stuff you suggest, and help Kaladin become the Vessel of Honor or a large portion thereof (by Uniting Splinters of Honor).

--

Or, hmmm... maybe the Tower = Navani, Crown = Taravangian (he was a king), and Spear = Kaladin, and all three will become Shards. Taravangian has now picked up the "Fallen title" of Odium from Rayse; maybe Kaladin will re-forge Honor and Navani will somehow become Cultivation after Koravellium Avast's death.

[teknopathetic he/him]

To me the crown always seemed like Jezrian (he wears a crown in his images), so I thought a spearman might become the new Jezrian. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by teknopathetic

[Olmund]

Yeah, I think the "he" combined with the WoB (it "has not happened yet") doesn't sound quite like what you propose, since Dalinar has already had his (first?) "I am Unity" moment.

That doesn't mean that Dalinar, Navani and Kaladin won't play a role in the fulfillment of this death rattle -- I think the tower almost certainly refers to the sibling (and Navani by proxy), and the spear probably refers to Kal/Syl. The crown could refer to any number of things/people, though Dalinar is a prime candidate.

The "fallen title" could well be Honor (or Honour if you prefer), and the three items could be the largest remaining splinters/slivers of Honor. Alternatively, there are many actual titles in the SA -- perhaps the Stormfather is killed and Dalinar's "Bondsmith" title is what is lost, or perhaps Gavilar is attempting to reclaim his "fallen title" by taking back everything Dalinar took from him (since Gavilar was the Stormfather's tentative bond, perhaps he considers being the Radiant King of Urithiru to be his birthright).