My problem with the Contest of Champions.

[Slappyface]

I know we are not supposed to know everything yet, but as I laid this out I feel we don’t know anything yet.

Cultivation and Honor is on Roshar with the Parshendi as their people.

Odium enters system and is allowed to settle with the humans on Ashyn.

At what exact point honor and cultivation locked Odium to the system we don’t know.

Odium tempts Ishar to mess with the surges and destroy Ashyn. They are at the point of arrival on Roshar still Odiums main guys as he is brought over with them.(Original human voidbringers)

Humans get to live in Shinovar on the condition they stay there and not use any surgebinding.

The Parshendi is at this point still backed by Honor and Cultivation as I understand it.

The humans leave Shinovar and slaughter Parshendi to the point that the Parshendi ask Odium for power and become the fused.

Why didn’t cultivation and honor shatter Odium the moment “his” people broke their oath of staying in Shinovar. 

Why not help the Parshendi in any way?

Then when the humans gets slaughtered by the fused, honor helps the humans with 10 heralds to seal the Fused away aka his former people.

Why switch sides at all?

It then escalates to the point that Odium and his Fused are able to kill Tanavast.

Its even said he died defending mankind so he was willing to die for the humans but not the Parshendi.

Tanavast got killed by Odium with full Honor power and Champion options.

He then sets up visions to find a new champion and he says in the visions that the most important thing the humans can win is Time.

How can more time get them any closer to defeating Odium? Why is a contest even important? 

Odium would never agree to terms that would destroy him, proven by the fact that he can’t agree to certain terms with Dalinar or it would destroy him. 

So I’m left to believe Honor and Cultivation never wanted/tried shattering Odium.

Honor and Cultivation can’t have seen shattering odium as a good option.

So to my understanding team Honor and Cultivations only real win condition is merging Odium with another shard. Which a contest of champions won’t help them do.

And that leads me back to why is the contest of champions this important when the chances of Odium sneaking in a release term is this high and “the good side” basically doesn’t have a winning term.
 

Thoughts?

[CtrlAltDepressed]

1 hour ago, Slappyface said:

And that leads me back to why is the contest of champions this important when the chances of Odium sneaking in a release term is this high and “the good side” basically doesn’t have a winning term.

I agree the contest is not the most important. The most recent chapters are starting to touch on this. Dalinar is very powerful but he is just a man. The humans are very powerful (collectively), but they dont respawn when they die. This is what Tanavast meant by time being the most important thing humans could get. It is my belief he had no idea how to shatter Odium. Theoretically he would know how, but having an actual opportunity is different. This is evidenced by Cultivation still existing. Odium told us multiple times he wants to kill Cultivation, but he hasnt yet. Why? Well, he cant. She hasnt made herself vulnerable. 

 

In the same way, Odium has been playing a very careful game. He only invests when he absolutely has to and has done everything to not reveal a weakness. The moment that he was weak, Cultivation orchestrated his downfall. 

 

I think both Cultivation and Honor know that the Odium problem is not one that is easily dealt with. I dont think either one of them was super excited about the idea of absorbing Odium for multiple reasons. Once you have had a certain intent for thousands of years, the idea of becoming something different would be terrifying. Not to mention that its totally possible a C + O combo shard,  O + H combo, or C + H + O combo would still want to shatter all the others. 

 

Tanavast gave them time so that someone else could figure out the problem / someone would show up who is suited to control these intents and keep Roshar from being destroyed over and over again. 

[Slappyface]

Yeah I agree with you that time is really valuable but I still feel there’s a lot missing here.

I think Odium hasn’t killed Cultivation yet because can’t as long as he’s bound by the agreement, but the moment he’s free he says he will kill her, not try. So he’s pretty confident in his ability to at least kill the vessel. 
And investing something doesn’t seem to make him vulnerable as he has made the fused and unmade while not opening himself to an attack. Breaking of an oath seems to be the key for letting him get attacked.

He is so invested in Roshar at this point that he is a part of Roshar. Proven by Navani. 
So I don’t feel his been that careful in his investing.

And Cultivation set the plan for the Odium switch a long time ago so I don’t feel she just used a moment of weakness. And she was also prepared for it not working as future stuff is iffy.

I agree that they never shattered cause the opportunity never came. But I feel there are a lot of moments where they should have had an opportunity, like his investing of the Parshendi to the point of immortality and creating the unmade. Or when the humans left Shinovar but that you could get around if the humans made the oath and not Odium.

And why not help the Parshendi but die for the humans?
 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2024 by Slappyface

[listerfeend]

I very much agree that the entire timeline seems so weird. Honor and Cultivation switching from Singer to Human, Odium switching from Human to Singer, all of it seems super suspect, and I'm not sure that what we have been told is even half true. 

[Kfish]

We are missing a lot of the details of the background - especially since there was some betrayal by the Singers of the Spren. Was this going to Odium? If so, then why did they make that choice? It's odd. 

 

 

With that said, there's also something weird going on with Honor in general. We've seen vessels die and leave the shard intact (Preservation) which sounds more like what happened with Honor then a shattering of the shard itself but it's hard to tell. Cultivation wanted Dalinar to go after Honor's power but the way the Stormfather reacted made me think there was something else with it that we don't know. He was dodgy and defensive about Dalinar wanting to take up the power which didn't make much sense given how we have seen him before this. 

[elihaun]

4 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

The humans are very powerful (collectively), but they dont respawn when they die

This is the think I think is wrong with the assumptions.  Odium wants to make dalinar a fused that will serve him forever.  That implies that humans CAN be fuzed.  so, maybe all of the fuzed are humans?  I have thought for a long time that the fuzed are hiding something.  When the parsmen see the voidspren they have noted that they take the form of men. I think that is the thing people are missing: the servents of odium ARE men.  

[CtrlAltDepressed]

16 minutes ago, elihaun said:

so, maybe all of the fuzed are humans?

This would be a wild twist considering their racism

[elihaun]

8 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

This would be a wild twist considering their racism

I wonder if it is racism against humans in general, or humans that serve Honor?  I think some of it (the desire to wipe them out) has to do with the fact that humans are unpredictable.  they cant control them like they can the singers.  I am not 100% set on how it would work, but we DO have a president for it (dalinar, and the void-spren that appear human).  

 

As for the Contest of champions, Dalinar would be an avatar, right?  so, by winning Odium gains the abilty to leave the system without leaving the system.  Also, since Dalinar is defacto leader of the coalition and leader of Urithiru, if Odium wins doesnt that also mean he kind of wins those by default?

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

Interesting topic! I have a few thoughts:

• I think Honor and Cultivation allowed Odium to enter/join their system under the condition that he would be bound to it and unable to leave. That was the trade off: they had to deal with him, but at least he was stuck in their system and could not continue to wreak havoc on the other parts of the cosmere
• There's a WoB about Honor 'going down swinging' when Odium finally did attack him, so I think that implies that Honor did something that opened him up to Odium's attack. We don't know what that might be.
• We also know that the stormfather is/contains the cognitive shadow of Tanavast as well. They are kind of a dual being and it gets murky which memories or intentions belong to the original spren vs Tanavast himself
  • My thoughts here are that Honor intentionally attached himself to the SF so that he would be involved in the selection and development of the next bondsmith, who he knew would be unchained. This was probably a last-ditch effort to create an opportunity for someone to forcefully merge the powers of Odium and Honor (and maybe Cultivation?) together as one

[Dofurion]

11 hours ago, Slappyface said:

The humans leave Shinovar and slaughter Parshendi to the point that the Parshendi ask Odium for power and become the fused.

I think there is something fishy here.

I don't think all the interactions between Humans and Singers were entirely violent, I mean there are the Horneaters and the Herdacians for a reason. Additionally we have the "dance" that the Fused and Hoid were in.

[Slappyface]

9 hours ago, Dofurion said:

I think there is something fishy here.

I don't think all the interactions between Humans and Singers were entirely violent, I mean there are the Horneaters and the Herdacians for a reason. Additionally we have the "dance" that the Fused and Hoid were in.

Yeah I agree, I think a lot happened in that time but I can’t get over why honor and cultivation didn’t do more for the Parshendi, he could have given them 10 “Heralds” to deal with the humans..

14 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

Interesting topic! I have a few thoughts:

• I think Honor and Cultivation allowed Odium to enter/join their system under the condition that he would be bound to it and unable to leave. That was the trade off: they had to deal with him, but at least he was stuck in their system and could not continue to wreak havoc on the other parts of the cosmere
• There's a WoB about Honor 'going down swinging' when Odium finally did attack him, so I think that implies that Honor did something that opened him up to Odium's attack. We don't know what that might be.
• We also know that the stormfather is/contains the cognitive shadow of Tanavast as well. They are kind of a dual being and it gets murky which memories or intentions belong to the original spren vs Tanavast himself
  • My thoughts here are that Honor intentionally attached himself to the SF so that he would be involved in the selection and development of the next bondsmith, who he knew would be unchained. This was probably a last-ditch effort to create an opportunity for someone to forcefully merge the powers of Odium and Honor (and maybe Cultivation?) together as one

Good point about honor opening him self to an attack.

I agree with you on all this but the unchained bondsmith part. Honor placed those restrictions so he should be able to remove them at will. But a point in your favor is, it could be the agreement that opened him for an attack, and a self sacrifices was necessary to be able to have a bondsmith unchained.

Cause I think what Odium excels at is just that, manipulating other shards to make an agreement they can’t keep and open them self up for an attack.

Even more reason to stay far away from contracts with this Shard.

Edited October 18, 2024 by Slappyface
Formatting

[Alcatur]

20 hours ago, Slappyface said:

 

Humans get to live in Shinovar on the condition they stay there and not use any surgebinding.

The Parshendi is at this point still backed by Honor and Cultivation as I understand it.

The humans leave Shinovar and slaughter Parshendi to the point that the Parshendi ask Odium for power and become the fused.

 

This is actually unsupported.  Its something that a lot of people assume have happened, but actually there is no evidence in books that humans started the war or attacked the Singers. And if you look at people who lived at this time - they don't mention any human agression. Raboniel or Leshwi are silent on the matter, even though it would make sense for Raboniel to talk about human agression. Even Eila stele doesn't actually mention humans waging war on Singers first, at best talking about "minds that lust for blood. " which is rather vague. 

 

Instead direct evidence points to humans bonding spren and Singers going to Odium side because of that. Leshwi directly talks about them betraying the spren. Jezrien words seem to imply something was done to achieve this:  “I used to think it wasn’t my fault. But you know, we can’t escape what we did? We let them in. We attracted them, befriended them, took them out to dance and courted them. It is our fault. You open yourself to it, and you pay the price. Same for the stele - For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, Stone & wind.

[Slappyface]

5 minutes ago, Alcatur said:

This is actually unsupported.  Its something that a lot of people assume have happened, but actually there is no evidence in books that humans started the war or attacked the Singers. And if you look at people who lived at this time - they don't mention any human agression. Raboniel or Leshwi are silent on the matter, even though it would make sense for Raboniel to talk about human agression. Even Eila stele doesn't actually mention humans waging war on Singers first, at best talking about "minds that lust for blood. " which is rather vague. 

 

Instead direct evidence points to humans bonding spren and Singers going to Odium side because of that. Leshwi directly talks about them betraying the spren. Jezrien words seem to imply something was done to achieve this:  “I used to think it wasn’t my fault. But you know, we can’t escape what we did? We let them in. We attracted them, befriended them, took them out to dance and courted them. It is our fault. You open yourself to it, and you pay the price. Same for the stele - For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, Stone & wind.

Very good points! And the we let them in quote I had totally forgotten about. I really don’t think half of what we are told is true. Cultivation even said it after Dalinar went to the ardents for truth, they told you the truth you crafted for yourselfs or  something.

[Markolius]

Maybe agreement between Odium and Honor/Cultivation that locked him in the system has something to do with intelligent life in the system? Something like "you will not leave this system while there lives creatures that don't accept you". This will explain why he want destroy or subjugate everyone.

So he manipulated people of Ashyn to destroy they homeworld and after survived flee on Roshar and decided not to use any surgebiding, he started manipulate some singers (they will become his first fused) with same purpose, and when Honor and Cultivation find out about this first desolation begun. 

We know probably nothing about times of first desolation, but i think that people and singers fighted on both sides, like in Last Desolation, for example we have Rlain fighting on side of Honor and Moash on other side.

Again, we know nothing about this time, so we can speculate a lot.

 

[Chirolina she/her]

On 10/18/2024 at 3:19 AM, Alcatur said:

 yourself to it, and you pay the price. Same for the stele - For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, Stone & wind.

Where is this quote from? Anyone else think it's interesting that Stone and Wind are mentioned and not Night? 

[logicless.bt]

6 minutes ago, Chirolina said:

Anyone else think it's interesting that Stone and Wind are mentioned and not Night? 

That definitely is interesting, because the old gods are said to be different than just spren like the Stormfather. Since nighttime is the time for imagination, fear, and storytelling, maybe Night was the original god of spren?

[alder24]

10 minutes ago, Chirolina said:

Where is this quote from? 

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Eila_Stele

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 10/27/2024 at 9:30 AM, Chirolina said:

Where is this quote from? Anyone else think it's interesting that Stone and Wind are mentioned and not Night? 

The Sibling mentions that people didn't really care about her:

Quote

“It has been confusing,” the Sibling said, “to learn of all that has happened while I slept. I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.”