Penultimate(?) Release Chapters - 33

[+robardin he/him]

21 hours ago, TwinStorm said:

So on Brandon's podcast he has a bad story idea called Weekend at Vader's with an Actual Zombie, about these people who accidentally kill Darth Vader and have to pretend he's still alive, and I think Brandon is doing a spin on that idea with Wit and Lift having to pretend Dalinar is still there with Lightweavings and stuff. 

I mean yeah, it's intrinsically funny that Wit and Lift can pass visually for Dalinar and Navani, but know they can't pass if they actually were to speak (whether it's because Wit couldn't alter their voices well enough or they just knew they'd be out of their depths immediately), so all they're doing so far is shrugging and eating.

And because it's Lift, she's eating a lot and more variety than Navani ever would have done. Hahaha! The Queen of Alethkar born and raised, eating messy Herdazian street food with her hand(s)! (Can one even eat chouta with a sleeved safehand? Seems like it might require a glove at the least. One that would get greasy. Hmmm)

I also like the "reveal" that the jarring sudden use of IRL expletives by Lift (e.g. "the S-word") turned out to be a representation of her picking up Zahel's off-world cursing that got literally translated by his Connection magic. Also interesting is that that wasn't even the kind of cursing they did on Nalthis in Warbreaker or TES, so Zahel probably picked it up from yet another world, LOL.

12 hours ago, IntentAwesome said:

Hmmm, is it possible that the remnant of Honor’s power has taken over Ishar, and it’s manifesting and gaining sentience through him?

Also, is adult Gav gonna come back and lead Teft’s squires in their vengeance pact against Moash?

Gavinor double-Ascends to Odium AND Honor and becomes the Shard of War, the big baddie (?) of the back five of Stormlight and the remaining Cosmere storyline

All because Dalinar couldn't find ten minutes to play swords with him before trying his Perpendicularity stunt

[FollowYourMuse she/her]

9 hours ago, Calten_Gnomercy said:

Is it possible that Ishar was compromised years ago by whatever Unmade were hanging around Shinovar at the time?

 

I dont think we know what powers those Unmade have.

I can see a scenario where Ishar is compromised and is forced to push Szeth into action as Truthless. Setting off all of the turmoil he brought.

Now he’s back, and Ishar is talking about how he’s sapping the pain and darkness from the other Heralds. Providing them sort of lucidity. We’d expect it to make things tough on Ishar, but what if the Unmade that has him is powered on that darkness making Ishar and the Unmade more powerful?

I was super confused when Lift was acting as Navani. The careless shift made me laugh.

 

 

 

I think this is possible, my guess is it is Dai-gonarthis, Ishar's words of "taking their pain" fits with this death Rattle. 
The question I have is for how long has be been under the influence of an unmade, and how much of the Heralds actions for 4000 years on Roshar has been Odiums doing?
 

Quote

"Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it!"–Tanatesach 1173, 28 seconds pre-death. A darkeyed female street juggler. Note similarity to sample 1172-89 
The Way Of Kings 

 

[Namle84]

2 hours ago, elihaun said:

This might be because the burden was not 'his' but one he assumed.  The oath pack were not innately something that they HAD to do, but took willingly.  So, ishar might have always thought of it as 'I am carrying a burden for others'. he sees himself as a hero, so he does not consider 'his' burden his 

This only works if he took on his own share at the same time as the other 8.  But that is not the case… the death rattle doesn’t say “the burdens of eight become mine, on top of the one that I already carry, such that I now carry the burdens of 9,” which would be an accurate description of Ishar’s situation 

2 hours ago, elihaun said:

This might be because the burden was not 'his' but one he assumed.  The oath pack were not innately something that they HAD to do, but took willingly.  So, ishar might have always thought of it as 'I am carrying a burden for others'. he sees himself as a hero, so he does not consider 'his' burden his 

2 hours ago, elihaun said:

This might be because the burden was not 'his' but one he assumed.  The oath pack were not innately something that they HAD to do, but took willingly.  So, ishar might have always thought of it as 'I am carrying a burden for others'. he sees himself as a hero, so he does not consider 'his' burden hi

Edited November 26, 2024 by Namle84

[Anxietyspren]

I'll be honest I am not really on board with the semantic arguments about how that death rattle 'could not' be talking about Ishar.

 

Language isn't perfect and especially in cases like this where Brandon was clearly going for a certain vibe, a poetic feel, a *rhythm* if you will, to the death rattles you have to accept at least a small amount of license.

 

In essence you could absolutely say that "the burdens of nine become mine" is functionally no different (albeit more ambiguous) that "the burdens, which had previously been split among nine including myself, have become mine".

 

I'm not saying it's 100% talking about Ishar or anything but I feel that claiming it *can't* be about Ishar is ...I guess proscriptive and pedantic in a way that doesn't mirror how language is actually used? Just my two cents on the matter.

Edited November 26, 2024 by Anxietyspren
Edit, changed a typo from does to doesn't.

[GudThymes he/him]

I don't think that the death rattle is referring to either Taln nor to Ishar. Here it is for us all to review:

Quote

The burdens of nine become mine. Why must I carry the madness of them all? Oh, Almighty, release me.

First, if it is Ishar then he cannot have 8 additional burdens. Taln's burden is bored by himself and Jezrien is now dead, so there is no burden of Jezrien to carry.

Second, if it is Taln (on Braize) then why would he be carrying the other Herald's madnesses? Taln is bearing the other's agonies, but they live with their own madnesses.

Third, the last line says "Almighty, release me". Literally in that chapter Ishar says that he has "ascended to the Almighty". If the death rattle applies to Ishar then presumably he says it in a moment of clarity (like when someone swears their next Ideal), but then still why would he reference the Almighty?

My belief is that the death rattle likely applies to something that happens in the back half after the time gap.

[Master Silver]

I have a thought on this herald madness. Ishar says when an oath is sworn near them, they regain their sanity briefly. But don't their honor blades give them that resource? Essentially infuse themselves with stormlight to counter the madness. They must have had a way to function in the past. The other thing might be because they are cognitive shadows when they break their oaths they become the ten fools till they re-swear their oaths.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

20 hours ago, alder24 said:

And with that Mraize, Shallan and all who were on the other side were sucked into the SR. I would like to know why this collapsing perpendicularity did what Nightblood couldn’t. I simply thought that the release of energy from annihilation would push everything outwards, as a normal giant explosion would do.

I suppose because the perpendicularity Nightblood collapsed was not in the process of being used to travel to the Spiritual Realm.

I kind of expected it to act the way it did, and offered some thoughts on the previous chapters threads about why I predicted that. Essentially, in my mind, it's because Nightblood was consuming and drawing out stormlight from a practically infinite pool. Not too different from how the nearby gemstones suck in stormlight from the perpendicularity or how radiants do as well. But Nightblood was too intense and it disrupted the 'structure' of the perpendicularity which takes effort from Dalinar to maintain. Therefore it just collapsed on itself and needed to be re-created by Dalinar if he were to open it again.

The anti-investiture didn't pull out or absorb investiture, but instead instantly obliterated a portion of it. so instead of the perpendicularity pushing out investiture, it was left with a hole where the investiture was supposed to be, which created a vacuum effect that sucked in the nearby people/items. 

TLDR: Nightblood disrupted and collapsed the perpendicularity, while the anti-investiture destroyed investiture and left a void that needed to be filled, hence the vacuum effect as it collapsed.

[Rorzikel]

I'm not sure about the sourcing of the claim, but the coppermind and the fandom seems to think "They come from the pit, two dead men, a heart in their hands, and I know that I have seen true glory." refers to Kal and Shallan surviving their fall into the chasms and their return to the warcamps with a gemheart. If so, not even gender can be accurately assumed from Death Rattles.

[Darvys]

2 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

TLDR: Nightblood disrupted and collapsed the perpendicularity, while the anti-investiture destroyed investiture and left a void that needed to be filled, hence the vacuum effect as it collapsed.

The more rationalizations I read, the less this makes sense, Nightblood can instantly vaporize and absorb entities whose investiture dwarfs the amount held in that tiny sphere, but somehow extended contact with the sword had a far milder effect than the loss of a sphere's worth of light ?

The whole interaction between light and its opposite stinks of plot device material, inject a body that's suffused with light and it just smokes a bit as the soul is slowly destroyed but put the two in a sphere and you've got yourself a bomb, where does the extra energy come from ? Magic I guess. At most it should crack the gem or something, not blow up a damn room. 

In RoW it was just a silly interaction that I ignored for being harmless and kinda cool, but now that nonsensical gimmick is used to explain an even crazier interaction which is this time central to the plot ... not cool at all.

I won't even get into the disproportionate pull effect that followed that up, I can't even begin to come up with an explanation for it that wouldn't fall apart even with my very limited knowledge of physics.

So yeah, it was magic, I'd rather not even think about it again, it was a plot device and nothing more, I doubt it'll ever be explained in a satisfying way, so whatever, it's just a new feature of perpendicularities, accept it and move on I guess.

Edit: One more thing, if anything the effect should be reversed, the tone of the anti-light sphere should be what disrupts the portal, which is what it did to Mraize's illusion with its mere proximity

Edited November 26, 2024 by Darvys

[Master Silver]

Speaking of Death Rattles, the one that says, so the Night will reign... What if the true big bad is not Odium, but one of the old gods. Not the Wind, nor the Stones, but the Night. Perhaps, both Odium and Honor kill each other only for this ancient god to convert some of their power for itself. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, Rorzikel said:

I'm not sure about the sourcing of the claim, but the coppermind and the fandom seems to think "They come from the pit, two dead men, a heart in their hands, and I know that I have seen true glory." refers to Kal and Shallan surviving their fall into the chasms and their return to the warcamps with a gemheart. If so, not even gender can be accurately assumed from Death Rattles.

The people uttering the rattles are not speaking English. The English feature of not having a simple word with the meaning "human being" or "adult human being" is not universal.

[Rorzikel]

9 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

The people uttering the rattles are not speaking English. The English feature of not having a simple word with the meaning "human being" or "adult human being" is not universal.

My point being in response to the debate of the Burdens of Nine rattle's grammar.

Still, I'm not sure I agree with you that this is meant to be a translation error between Rosharan and English rather than the in-world flaws of Death Rattle accuracy. There are simple English words (two dead humans, two souls) in place of men, and the rest of it as vaguely fitting. Shattered Plains cracks=the pit, two living people who were thought missing=two dead men, a crystal gem usually specified as a gemheart=heart. All very poetic, all loose.

[the_archduke]

What this means is that Brandon has been trolling us for years.  The deathrattles sort of matched things we saw in Book 1, so we assumed that we knew what they meant.  Book 5 is showing us that we were wrong.  

"3 ruled, now the broken one reigns"  We thought that meant Odium.  It actually means Taravangian

"Two men in the pit" was tortured into refer to Kaladin and Shallan in the chasms.  It will be blindingly obvious later that it was not referring to that.

“So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life . . .”  We are seeing in book 5 things this could mean, I have no idea what people were guessing before, but it was based on too little evidence.

We need to go back and revisit all of the deathrattles to see what Brandon hid right in front of us.

[+Child of Hodor]

5 hours ago, GudThymes said:

I don't think that the death rattle is referring to either Taln nor to Ishar. Here it is for us all to review:

First, if it is Ishar then he cannot have 8 additional burdens. Taln's burden is bored by himself and Jezrien is now dead, so there is no burden of Jezrien to carry.

Second, if it is Taln (on Braize) then why would he be carrying the other Herald's madnesses? Taln is bearing the other's agonies, but they live with their own madnesses.

Third, the last line says "Almighty, release me". Literally in that chapter Ishar says that he has "ascended to the Almighty". If the death rattle applies to Ishar then presumably he says it in a moment of clarity (like when someone swears their next Ideal), but then still why would he reference the Almighty?

My belief is that the death rattle likely applies to something that happens in the back half after the time gap.

Jezrien didn't die until well after the death rattle was recorded and presumably the person was witnessing the shifting of the burden at the time it was shifted, which was 4,500 years in the past when the 9 heralds refused to go back and abandoned Taln. 

1 minute ago, the_archduke said:

What this means is that Brandon has been trolling us for years.  The deathrattles sort of matched things we saw in Book 1, so we assumed that we knew what they meant.  Book 5 is showing us that we were wrong.  

 

My general theory on the Death Rattles is that they will recur. More than one event will fit these descriptions through the 10 books. That's why the True Glory one mostly fits Kal and Shallan but they get Shallan's gender wrong. You could look at it as trolling I look at it as this is his big secret foreshadowing: we cross them off the list as they come up, but they will happen again. 

[GudThymes he/him]

7 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Jezrien didn't die until well after the death rattle was recorded and presumably the person was witnessing the shifting of the burden at the time it was shifted, which was 4,500 years in the past when the 9 heralds refused to go back and abandoned Taln. 

This interpretation doesn't make any sense to me. Every other death rattle that has an interpretation accounted for is referencing some future event. Why would there be a death rattle about something that happened 4,500 years prior? I think that there are so many parallels throughout all of Stormlight archive and Sanderson's books generally that this is just another misdirect. We think it's about Taln but it is really about some future decision.

I could see an interpretation of that rattle that the "burdens of nine" is about what Taln did in the past but then the "future"  part of the rattle would be the "Almighty release me" and could be foreshadowing the end of the Oathpact itself rather than Taln leaving Braize.

[teknopathetic he/him]

36 minutes ago, the_archduke said:

What this means is that Brandon has been trolling us for years.  The deathrattles sort of matched things we saw in Book 1, so we assumed that we knew what they meant.  Book 5 is showing us that we were wrong.  

"3 ruled, now the broken one reigns"  We thought that meant Odium.  It actually means Taravangian

 

As far as I can tell, there is reason to see Taravangian as broken though? Taravangian has a set of principles he follows, and Odium is a real and non-moral force. Taravangian is just a dude holding the power. Raize was broken a bit because of his conflict with the shard and a bit of damage taken in a previous fight, but I dont think Mr.T has gotten to that point yet. 

I still think "the broken one" is going to end up being something weird, like the Stormfather or something. 3 original god spren, now the crazy Stormfather is in charge after usurping The Wind.

Or maybe they revive Honour and we realize Honour was an absolute mess of a Shard for some reason; book 6-10 is them trying to kill it again.  

Edited November 26, 2024 by teknopathetic

[Ashbringer he/him]

9 hours ago, Isilel said:

Another thought - Wit and Lift are playing Dalinar and Navani, but shouldn't someone impersonate Gav, too? Because he is important enough for his absence to raise hue and cry? Or will they just say that they'll keep Gav with them and Hoid will create a Lighweaving to mimic him? Also, they'd need to keep the Lighweavers away from Urithiru, in case one of them idly looks into the Cognitive. And probably discreetly inform Jasnah?

Seeing as Lift has taken Gav on mini excursions through the ventilation shafts before... he's clearly not being watched too carefully. I don't know if they'd have an idea where he'd gone, or if he'd gone wherever "Lift" was supposed to be while Lift is playing Navani.

The Lightweavers might figure it out, but there's a decent chance they'd figure it out anyway, if Lopen/Rua did. I think they'd be smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

[Wanguu He/Him]

1 hour ago, Darvys said:

The more rationalizations I read, the less this makes sense, Nightblood can instantly vaporize and absorb entities whose investiture dwarfs the amount held in that tiny sphere, but somehow extended contact with the sword had a far milder effect than the loss of a sphere's worth of light ?

 

How I think about it:
Nightblood is simply drawing the investiture away, at a very fast rate. This draw of investiture away caused the perpendicularity to destabilize and then close. It's like destabilizing a vortex in a sink by putting a stick in it. 

The antilight is a different mechanism - it is actively annihilating light via destructive interference. This is far more energetic (but not as energetic as annihilation between matter and antimatter) and is more like an actual explosion. As for why things are drawn in, I suspect we will learn by the end of the book, but I hypothesize that it is like a vacuum instantly forming, drawing things in (not accounting for any sort of shockwave)
 

2 hours ago, Darvys said:

The whole interaction between light and its opposite stinks of plot device material, inject a body that's suffused with light and it just smokes a bit as the soul is slowly destroyed but put the two in a sphere and you've got yourself a bomb, where does the extra energy come from ? Magic I guess. At most it should crack the gem or something, not blow up a damn room. 

I think it has to do with the pressure, as stated by Navani in RoW. A gemstone is stuffed full of light (which behaves something like a gas) and is more concentrated. In a radiant shallan who had breathed out all of her stormlight, it does nothing, because there is nothing for it to annihilate with.

If you take the explosives out of a grenade and set them off with no containement, it will make a loud noise but not cause much damage. The danger of explosives comes from all of the energy being contained, causing it to release in a short time. Think a pressure cooker, which can explode violently.

 

2 hours ago, Darvys said:

Edit: One more thing, if anything the effect should be reversed, the tone of the anti-light sphere should be what disrupts the portal, which is what it did to Mraize's illusion with its mere proximity

I think the antilight probably does disrupt it slightly, but there is so much investiture and it is (relatively) far away that it does basically nothing. Bring it close, then the damage happens. Many fields and such in physics have an inverse square decay.

[Subvisual Haze]

4 hours ago, Master Silver said:

Speaking of Death Rattles, the one that says, so the Night will reign... What if the true big bad is not Odium, but one of the old gods. Not the Wind, nor the Stones, but the Night. Perhaps, both Odium and Honor kill each other only for this ancient god to convert some of their power for itself. 

Isn't that just the Nightwatcher?  Seems to fit with Cultivation seeking a third way.

[Confused]

First my weekly limerick summary, then observations and comments in no particular order.

Shallan and the Kholins are lost.
The Knights’ path and Ishar’s have crossed.
If Dal does not learn
The way to return,
The cosmere will pay the full cost.

What Happens to Gavinor?

In my last post, I speculate Dalinar and Navani might jointly Ascend to a combined Honor/Odium:

On 11/25/2024 at 10:31 AM, Confused said:

Maybe before Ascension Dalinar merges (bonds) the Shards into one indissoluble Shard. Navani can teach and help him to use the rhythms of each Shard to combine them. Like others have posted, I think there’s a decent chance Dalinar Ascends to the merged Shard jointly with Navani.

Now that we know the exploded perpendicularity sucks Gavinor into it (with Dal, Navani, Shallan, Iyatil, and Mraize), I begin to think Gav may join his grandparents in their Ascension. If both do Ascend, I can’t imagine they’d leave Gav behind. A New Trinity! A joint Ascension ensures Odium will never leave Roshar. Why break up the family?

Jasnah remains to run the political stuff. She will turn Alethkar into a representative government and maybe do the same for all Roshar. I think Lift will bond the Sibling to replace Navani. I still believe Lift ultimately Ascends to Cultivation. Wind replaces the Stormfather, whom Kal as Fleet defeats.  

Why Is Lift So Invested?

Lift is highly Invested because she converts food into Investiture. The Investiture sustains her instead of food. Her blood circulates Investiture to her cells rather than nutrients. Investiture runs through Lift’s systems constantly. This ability probably means Lift holds more than a Radiantspren’s worth of innate Investiture – she bonds Wyndle but has this additional ability other Radiants don’t have.

Purplish cremlings are hordelings? Doh!

Contract Interpretation

Quote

“This complicates everything,” Wit said. “The contract has provisions for Dalinar’s death before the deadline, his stalling for time, or if his arrival is prevented by another. But if he doesn’t show up because of his own choices… I believe that will be a forfeit.” [Bold added.]

Dalinar didn’t “choose” to get stuck in the Spiritual Realm. Mraize’s anti-Light gambit “prevented his arrival.” Is there a Shardic Supreme Court who can decide this? What is the contract’s remedy when this happens? Note the provision says, “by another,” not “the other party.” Mraize qualifies as “another.”

I’m sure Dalinar will show up at the last nanosecond to save the cosmere. “Fortune” favors the bold. But just in case... C’mon, you lawyers out there! What do you think?

Ishar

Brandon wants us to believe Ishar is worm-ridden with Odium. Ishar calls himself the “conflux of darkness and sorrow,” the chapter title. Maybe a red herring, maybe not. It just sounds so Everstorm-y and "Night of Sorrows"-like to me.

I think Ishar is like Kelsier only (more) insane and megalomaniacal. Kelsier could not hold Preservation because he was too Connected to Ruin. Ishar wields Honor but his passions mark him as Odium’s too (IMO).

*   *   *   *   *

That’s it for now! C.

[the_archduke]

14 minutes ago, Confused said:

 

Jasnah remains to run the political stuff. She will turn Alethkar into a representative government and maybe do the same for all Roshar.

Much more likely that she fails in the attempt, is deposed, and goes worldhopping.  Jasnah is a visionary that approximately no one agrees with.  How is she going to change the entire world in the middle of a Desolation?

Quote

 I think Lift will bond the Sibling to replace Navani. I still believe Lift ultimately Ascends to Cultivation. Wind replaces the Stormfather, whom Kal as Fleet defeats.  

 

Except we are in book 5 of 10.  None of that is going to happen.  The good guys can't win half way through the story.

[Calten_Gnomercy]

15 hours ago, FollowYourMuse said:

I think this is possible, my guess is it is Dai-gonarthis, Ishar's words of "taking their pain" fits with this death Rattle. 
The question I have is for how long has be been under the influence of an unmade, and how much of the Heralds actions for 4000 years on Roshar has been Odiums doing?
 

That’s my thought. He’s been involved in Shinovar for quite awhile.

 

He starts planting voices in Szeth’s head, corrupts the city leadership, maybe has his hands in things millennia prior? I dunno.

Ishar is corrupted, agrees to give his pain to Odium, uses his bondsmith abilities to creates the connections, and siphons the darkness from other Heralds which in turn gets picked up by the unmade and/or Odium. That would explain why he doesn’t show advanced symptoms of taking all that pain on?

Heck, Odium tried to get Dalinar to give him his pain. Maybe Ishar did while corrupted and will be Odiums’ champion.

 

I dunno. It’s late. Hah

[FollowYourMuse she/her]

10 hours ago, the_archduke said:

Except we are in book 5 of 10.  None of that is going to happen.  The good guys can't win half way through the story.

While I agree in principle, I do not see it being quite that straight forward, with a gap in when the next books come out, there will need to be some kind of resolution, that makes this first 5 books have some sense of completion, though with enough dangling threads and questions for the next part of the series. 
I do not think either "side" is going to win. I do think the theme of walking away, stepping down is going to be part of it. 
Much like the Original Listeners, abandoned their "gods"  and walked away. 

[Master Silver]

12 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Isn't that just the Nightwatcher?  Seems to fit with Cultivation seeking a third way.

No, in the preview chapters it was mentioned that there were gods on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation. Those gods were the Wind, Stone, and Night. If the new gods leave or are killed, the old gods may return with vengeance. I don't think Cultivation turned the old god Night into the Nightwatcher, maybe someone else knows.

[Storm-It he/him]

On 11/25/2024 at 12:22 PM, Isilel said:

Speaking of Lift - is there something special about her mother? It would be very funny if it turned out that _she_ is a daughter of a Herald, instead of Shallan.

It seems like we are getting some very heavy foreshadowing that we should be thinking about who is Lift's mom and why she's no longer in the picture. There may be a number of reasons why Lift is so awesome, it seems like it's more than just Cultivation's touch. Perhaps she isn't in the picture anymore because she's a bit unstable? Perhaps she was involved with whatever the mysterious problems are in Ral Elorim? It seems reasonable that Lift's mom could be a herald.

This doesn't preclude Shallan's mom as a herald too. Shallan's extra abilities may be due to her bonding multiple spren and it also involve her lineage.

There isn't any reason to think that radiant abilities are likely to be similar in families. We know that the Davars and Kholins both include multiple orders, but Lift's fond memories of her mother in addition to their shared surges, make me wonder if Vev may be a strong candidate as her mother. What has Vev been up to lately?