Discuss the Stormlight 5 Prologue Here

[Jake al'Rober]

On 3/30/2022 at 9:59 AM, AmNike said:

We know that Honor went a little crazy before Tanavast actually kicked the bucket, so it's possible that the Stormfather-esque figure could be a byproduct of the splintering of Honor. We know that splinters can take on a mind of their own, and while Tanavast merged his Cognitive Shadow with the Stormfather, that doesn't mean that part of the Investiture didn't also take on sentience post-splintering. In other words, we could be dealing with a small portion of Honor's Investiture that mirrors his madness towards the end of his life. This would explain why he can also show the visions, but also why he lies: he's following the spirit of Honor's beliefs while breaking the law of the beliefs by lying.

We don't know when Honor truly died, right? We've seen that the "natural" death of a shard takes quite a long time. I wonder if this could be Tanavast himself "dead" in the same way Fuzz, or Preservation was dead and still trying to achieve his goals mindlessly. Honor was said to be angry and possibly vindictive towards the end and that seems similar to what we see here. 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Jake al'Rober

[Frustration]

13 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

Ishar was God-Kinging before he had his blade, so this makes me think he had access to some magic before then. 

He is immortal, so he could have just lived forever

13 minutes ago, Nathrangking said:

Maybe? We don't have an accurate timeline which makes things tricky.

He took it because of Unmade in Shinovar which the Diagram and Shinovar's broken trade confirm

13 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Wasn't it a Thundercast?

It was.

5 minutes ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

Yes

That falls under the territory of the God Beyond.

[Gilphon]

Another thing is that the Stormfather seems to indicate he never really understood why the Heralds would break until his bond with Dalinar let him see things from a human perspective. The spren is this chapter seems to understand that situation pretty well. 

[Infinity Sliver]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He took it because of Unmade in Shinovar which the Diagram and Shinovar's broken trade confirm

This still doesn't confirm a timeline. All we prolly know is that Ishar got his blade after Szeth was made Truthless

[AmNike]

4 minutes ago, Jake al'Rober said:

We don't know when Honor truly died, right? We've seen that the "natural" death of a shard takes quite a long time. I wonder if this could be Tanavast himself "dead" in the same way Fuzz, or Preservation was dead and still trying to achieve his goals mindlessly. Honor was said to be angry and possibly vindictive towards the end and that seems similar to what we here. 

This actually makes a lot of sense because of how splintered shards can't really appear all that well in the physical realm. While Preservation appeared as a mist-wraith-esque figure as he fades away, Honor could realistically appear as the not-quite-visable silhouette that Brandon describes.

[Nathrangking he/him]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He is immortal, so he could have just lived forever

He took it because of Unmade in Shinovar which the Diagram and Shinovar's broken trade confirm

It was.

That falls under the territory of the God Beyond.

That's what he claims. Forgive me if Ishar's word seems untrustworthy.

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

There was a lot of speculation that maybe Gavilar wasn't dead dead. This does not appear to be the case, and I for one am disappointed.

 

Because that means I can't kill him. At least not without swiping Nale's soul-stapling fabrial. I had my extra-hardcover copy of Nohadon's Way of Kings all ready to repeatedly whap him with and everything.

[teknopathetic he/him]

So what is your view on this, @Frustration? I dont understand what the "this is the Stormfather" side is suggesting. Could you clarify? To me it seems very clear we are not seeing Dailnar's Stormfather, but I could be wrong. Would you be able to say what you thought since you are sure the Stormfathers are one and the same? 

If this truly is the Stormfather, is he a double agent? Is the Stormfather lying to Dalinar? I dont understand how Dalinar's version can be rectified with Gavilar's unless the Stormfather is tricking a lot of people in a lot of ways. If these are the same Stormfathers, then Dalinar is in a lot of trouble. 

To be honest, the Stormfather being evil would be an incredible twist, but I dont think that is what you have been suggesting. 

Edited March 30, 2022 by teknopathetic

[Nathrangking he/him]

3 minutes ago, Necessary Eagle said:

There was a lot of speculation that maybe Gavilar wasn't dead dead. This does not appear to be the case, and I for one am disappointed.

 

Because that means I can't kill him. At least not without swiping Nale's soul-stapling fabrial. I had my extra-hardcover copy of Nohadon's Way of Kings all ready to repeatedly whap him with and everything.

Get in line. There's a long list of people who would like to have "words" with him.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Nathrangking

[+Bzhydack he/him]

2 minutes ago, Necessary Eagle said:

There was a lot of speculation that maybe Gavilar wasn't dead dead. This does not appear to be the case, and I for one am disappointed.

 

Because that means I can't kill him. At least not without swiping Nale's soul-stapling fabrial. I had my extra-hardcover copy of Nohadon's Way of Kings all ready to repeatedly whap him with and everything.

We had literal words about hero dying before. Even few times. So im still not sure, soul hangs in Cognitive Realm for a while after death.

[Gilphon]

Personally, I was on the fence at first, but reading this discussion has convinced me that it makes a lot more sense for this to be Ishar than for it be the Stormfather. 

[+Harrycrapper]

I'm not really sure where to land on whether that is the Stormfather or not, but I figure I'll throw in a couple of observations. First, if that is indeed the Stormfather and he did lie to Gavilar, then he's equally capable of lying to Dalinar. The whole thing where he doesn't seem to know stuff until Dalinar does it or really pins him down on a point could be him withholding information, but being incapable of stopping Dalinar from figuring certain things out. Second, the whole "I won't trust the Kholins" again might be a misdirection for someone/something elses benefit. Recall that the Sleepless from the OB interlude didn't want the doomed crew from learning too much lest they reveal certain secrets in Akinah to someone/something that could interrogate them or their cognitive shadows upon death. He may have been trying to obfuscate who his next candidate was, as he had stated that Dalinar had potential. 

A point in favor of this being a fake Stormfather is that it would not be impossible to fake the visions. It always occurred to me that the visions seem like extremely lifelike Lightweavings. The people who see the visions move around in the physical world exactly as they do in the visions, so someone could be deceived into believing a Lightweaving is one of the visions. Dalinar can't be deceived like that at the point he is at because he seems to have learned to see the visions without moving, but Gavilar may have never learned to do that. The Stormfather might have sent him some visions, but gleaned that he wasn't a good candidate and moved on. Then someone else manipulates Gavilar into thinking that he's talking to the Stormfather and feeds him bad information. 

Edited March 30, 2022 by Harrycrapper

[Gilphon]

Come to think of it, if this is Ishar, that's a way for Gavilar to be 'on the path to becoming a Bondsmith' without bonding a Bondsmith spren. Like if Ishar was intending for Gavilar to replace himself, or even just give his Blade to Gavilar. 

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

1 minute ago, Nathrangking said:

Get in line. There's a long list of people who would like to have words with him.

Hmm... if only there was some way we could take turns killing him.

I suppose we could turn him into some sort of auto-resurrecting Cognitive Shadow. Have words, new body poofs into existence, then the next person has words.

I mean, man wants to be a Herald. An unending cycle of pain and reembodiment is close enough, right? Practically the same thing.

[Frustration]

25 minutes ago, Infinity Sliver said:

This still doesn't confirm a timeline. All we prolly know is that Ishar got his blade after Szeth was made Truthless

Vistim's visit means that the Unmade was not in control until years after Gavilar's assassination.

Ishar said there was an Unmade and that Szeth's father was dead. Taravangian said the same thing.

24 minutes ago, Nathrangking said:

That's what he claims. Forgive me if Ishar's word seems untrustworthy.

See above.

22 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

So what is your view on this, @Frustration? I dont understand what the "this is the Stormfather" side is suggesting. Could you clarify? To me it seems very clear we are not seeing Dailnar's Stormfather, but I could be wrong. Would you be able to say what you thought since you are sure the Stormfathers are one and the same? 

If this truly is the Stormfather, is he a double agent? Is the Stormfather lying to Dalinar? I dont understand how Dalinar's version can be rectified with Gavilar's unless the Stormfather is tricking a lot of people in a lot of ways. If these are the same Stormfathers, then Dalinar is in a lot of trouble. 

To be honest, the Stormfather being evil would be an incredible twist, but I dont think that is what you have been suggesting. 

I think it's the same Stormfather, however after seeing what Gavilar does he decides to approach bonding differently. I'm assuming replacing the Heralds will become a big point of SA 5.

[teknopathetic he/him]

Another connection to Ishar being the Stormfaker:

Coppermind:
The nations of Tukar and Emul have been in the state of on-and-off conflict for centuries, with the main point of contention being the city of Sesemalex Dar.^[10] The latest iteration of this conflict was Eighty's War, which at the time of the True Desolation had been going on for six years.^[11] The war was likely initiated by the Tukari god-priest, Tezim, who came into power around the same time. 

Six years? Isnt that exactly when the Vengence pact started? This really lines up with Ishar IMO. Ishar abandons the Kholin's and decided to be his own God-King in Tukar. Those dates are near exact. It explains why Ishar suddenly goes active. He lost Gavilar and knows that a herald has died. Ishar has to move fast because his timeline got messed up. 

Edited March 30, 2022 by teknopathetic

[+mdross81 he/him]

Assuming @teknopathetic has the right of it about Shallan's mom (and I think he does) the question of Chana dying versus the Everstorm was responsible for the return of the Voidbringers seems to be addresssed by Thaidakar saying:

Quote

"Restares is not what you think he is. None of this is what you think it is. Deliver him to my agents and we’ll give you what you said you wanted. A return of the ancient days you’ve hungered for, a chance for the powers to come back."

…

"The things we’ve started are in motion, and to be honest I don’t know that we did that much. I think the tide was coming whatever we did."

 

[Infinity Sliver]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Vistim's visit means that the Unmade was not in control until years after Gavilar's assassination.

Ishar said there was an Unmade and that Szeth's father was dead. Taravangian said the same thing.

The Unmade could have been not totally in control but manifesting by when Vstim was still contact with the Shin(1173) .And we know Taravangian was straight up lying when he was referring to the other honorblades. 

[Frustration]

Just now, Infinity Sliver said:

The Unmade could have been not totally in control but manifesting by when Vstim was still contact with the Shin(1173) .And we know Taravangian was straight up lying when he was referring to the other honorblades. 

When Taravangian refers to the Unmade he is speaking to himself, so no one to lie to. Additionally Shin trade has been weird lately adding to the evidence.

[Dracnor he/him]

I noticed that Gavilar *never* recognizes Szeth blade as Jezrien blade... maybe it will be changed in the final version ?

[Infinity Sliver]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

When Taravangian refers to the Unmade he is speaking to himself, so no one to lie to. Additionally Shin trade has been weird lately adding to the evidence.

I don't recall Taravangian mentioning an unmade,only referring to the honorblades. And again,this doesn't really narrow the timeline. The Unmade could have been simmering there for a while. There's more evidence of Ishar claiming his blade at around the same time as Gavilar's death than much later

[Trutharchivist he/him]

2 minutes ago, Dracnor said:

I noticed that Gavilar *never* recognizes Szeth blade as Jezrien blade... maybe it will be changed in the final version ?

Yeah, I kind of expected that too. The irony...

I'm kind of in favor of the StormFaker theory, since the Stormfather does act weirdly, but on the other hand, it's unlikely to be the case.

And of course, I'm curious about the Herald dying. Was it a final death, like Jezrien? Or just moving to Braise?

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Infinity Sliver said:

I don't recall Taravangian mentioning an unmade,only referring to the honorblades. And again,this doesn't really narrow the timeline. The Unmade could have been simmering there for a while. There's more evidence of Ishar claiming his blade at around the same time as Gavilar's death than much later

How does an Unmade simmer without making its presence known?

Edited March 30, 2022 by Frustration

[Dracnor he/him]

Just now, Trutharchivist said:

Yeah, I kind of expected that too. The irony...

I'm kind of in favor of the StormFaker theory, since the Stormfather does act weirdly, but on the other hand, it's unlikely to be the case.

And of course, I'm curious about the Herald dying. Was it a final death, like Jezrien? Or just moving to Braise?

I love that theory too. Let's just remark that Dalinar too didn't recognize the blade... But in Dalinar's case we can say that he didn't spent hours playing with the blades, so he can be excused.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

How does an Unmade simmer without making it's presence known?

It can first influence just few people, is actually very possible that started Influencing people with Honorblades, as they are most dangerous and maybe even have ability to resist, then Stoneshamans, and then rest. This can take few years.

Also, why assume Ishar was using his Honorblade? He could use other magic, maybe Fabrial, or even offworld magic.