Final Pre-Release Chapter

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

46 minutes ago, dvoraen said:

With respect to what we learned about Dai-Gonarthis, I don't think it's a matter of extracting a price from the Vessel of Odium, but rather Taravangian saying he will pay her price "again" ("another time" as in "this is another time I am doing this, because it's happened before"). That is, I took it to mean that deploying Dai-Gonarthis has effects that will be as detrimental as this Elsegate is useful. In other words, I think this means the Black Fisher is very destructive by default.

Considering that she allegedly caused the Scouring of Amia, yeah I'd think it's safe to assume that she's very destructive indeed.

Almighty knows what will happen when she's deployed on the Shattered Plains, maybe she'll turn off all the Fabrials? Destroy the Natanatan Oathgate? 

Edit:

I wonder if the 'Price' has anything to do with her Death Rattle? Consuming sorrow from people?

What if she turns a bunch of people into what Moash is? Unfeeling sociopaths?

Edited December 3, 2024 by JustQuestin2004

[Ewery1]

5 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

El is in the forbidden 10th name of the almighty. Regular people aren’t allowed to say it out loud. Only ardent can. 

Elithanathile: he who transforms. 

This always sounded like a Fused name to me, but maybe it’s a “dawn singer” name for him. I don’t think Honour could have been a Parshendi (though Parshendi did exist at the time of the shattering, so I guess a worldhop is possible ish) 

This is so clearly true now… it’s even the 10th name, just like how El is an addition/counterpart to the Nine.

[teknopathetic he/him]

Though “el” is supposed to be related to the “el” in the the term “nahel”. Nahel means “bond to divinity”. 
 

Since we have Nahel and Luhel bonds,  “el” should mean bond seeing as bond should be in both terms. Nah-bond and Luh-bond
 

Or, hilariously, “el” means “the/a/le/la”

Edited December 3, 2024 by teknopathetic

[Morty]

53 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

Though “el” is supposed to be related to the “el” in the the term “nahel”. Nahel means “bond to divinity”. 
 

Since we have Nahel and Luhel bonds, “el” should mean either bond or divinity. Likely “el” means bond seeing as bond should be in both terms. 
 

Or, hilariously, “el” means “the/a/le/la”

“El” for sure means “god”—https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)

It’s a root of ancient Hebrew words like “ELohim” and “hallELujah”, as well as Hebrew names that have “El” in them (NathanaEL, ELijah, etc.). Also linguistically related to the word “Allah”.

Also, perhaps ironically, in its ancient Hebrew sense “El” is a title, not a name (and could have applied to any number of gods). Funny that the guy who hates titles uses that as his name.

But what does it mean? Is it somehow related to the Singers’ Old Gods?

Edited December 3, 2024 by Morty

[SheepAreFluffy]

4 minutes ago, Morty said:

I think we can be pretty confident that “El” means “god”—https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)

Agreed. Furthermore:

• The "el" morpheme is present in multiple names, such as Elhokar and Raboniel.
• It shows up across cultures in the Cosmere, not just on Roshar. As two extremely prominent examples, it's also in Elantris and Elend.
• We know that Elantris was originally going to be called Adonis; that is containing part of the name of Adonalsium.
• Theophoric ("god bearing") names are pretty common in the real world, including many that contain "el" (Daniel, Elizabeth, Nathaniel, etc.)
• Aon Ela means "focus, center", which to me seems closer in meaning to "god" than to "bond".

[Ashbringer he/him]

13 minutes ago, SheepAreFluffy said:

Agreed. Furthermore:

• The "el" morpheme is present in multiple names, such as Elhokar and Raboniel.
• It shows up across cultures in the Cosmere, not just on Roshar. As two extremely prominent examples, it's also in Elantris and Elend.
• We know that Elantris was originally going to be called Adonis; that is containing part of the name of Adonalsium.
• Theophoric ("god bearing") names are pretty common in the real world, including many that contain "el" (Daniel, Elizabeth, Nathaniel, etc.)
• Aon Ela means "focus, center", which to me seems closer in meaning to "god" than to "bond".

Two things to note on El:

Cosmere characters tend to be named with in-world and out-world ideas: Adonalsium/Adonis are both 'theophoric' in the out-world sense, but in-world Adonalsium isn't named after anything in particular. Thus El as a name might have a meaning in-world in addition to out-world, but they're probably not the same meaning of God.

Also El having his names and titles stripped but being able to have God as his one remaining name... doesn't make too much sense to me. (It could work, though, in a rather terrifying way.)

 

It also sounds like Dai-Gonarthis has the abilities of an Elsegate almost as an aside. Her talents are what would allow El to break through the Peaks and then to overwhelm the Shattered Plains - her being able to teleport almost sounds like an extension of her being a giant pile of Investiture, similar to BAM (and perhaps Sja-anat).

I do like the earlier comparison, El does seem a lot like Thrawn - he will certainly be an interesting opponent. He seems more visceral and more unbalanced, though.

A few other things:

The other Shards consider Cultivation a problem? I guess I can see it - she seemingly didn't speak with Harmony, and she did orchestrate Rayse's demise (and possibly the unleashing of super-Odium).

Two missing Shards - Valor may be doing something to prepare for Odium and hiding from him intentionally. The other is probably Virtuosity or our missing Wisdom-esque Shard. 

Letting each side rule in turn... sounds like Roshar would become very complicated. It does give Honor a chance to meld with Odium, though (and the mention of Harmony does as well).

[Calten_Gnomercy]

I was waiting for Odium to take out Cultivation when she was trying to persuade him. Talk about a shocking end to the preview!

 

So they’re going to be sending Odium’s forces (DG?) to the Horneater Peaks? That’s not great for Rock&friends. Hopefully he’s ok, and doesn’t have some untimely calamity arise.

 

El feels like a great match for working with Odium. They’re passion to accomplish what they see fit regardless of any outside details is scary…

 

Do we know who is writing the novel yet? Is it El?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

The idea of Odium letting his 'Logical' and 'Emotional' halves rule in turn. It makes me wonder if he'll eventually form Avatars to represent both sides, taking a page from Autonomy's book.

[BinarySecond]

10 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

It's fun to see Taravangian screw around with things almost as an afterthought while he's talking. I'm not sure how different it is from before.  Rayse could do stuff he struck Dalinar's copy of The Way of Kings with lightning in the climax of OB and he swatted away a gloryspren that was swirling around Dalinar. He did favor pulling people into his golden mind palace instead of showing up in person, but when he did show up he could interact. 

I wonder about two things, could Rayse have done such minor things but didn't. He was 10,000 years into being a Shard and probably very disconnected from "humanity" in subtle ways. A God does not close the door.

Alternatively, Taravangian is more Connected to Roshar so has the capacity to do it?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Cosmere characters tend to be named with in-world and out-world ideas: Adonalsium/Adonis are both 'theophoric' in the out-world sense, but in-world Adonalsium isn't named after anything in particular.

Maybe. The name may be built on the "adoda" root for light.

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

The other Shards consider Cultivation a problem? I guess I can see it - she seemingly didn't speak with Harmony, and she did orchestrate Rayse's demise (and possibly the unleashing of super-Odium).

That can be seen as a simple conflict of interest. The other Shards want Odium to be confined to Roshar. Cultivation alone would suffer the cost of that. There is no reason to go for Intents or moral reasoning here.

[BinarySecond]

This just confirm Adolin will reunite all the shard and we'll get Adolinalsium.

 

Edit: Can I just start the book from part 2 on Friday without missing anything?

Edited December 3, 2024 by BinarySecond

[+Child of Hodor]

3 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

I wonder about two things, could Rayse have done such minor things but didn't. He was 10,000 years into being a Shard and probably very disconnected from "humanity" in subtle ways. A God does not close the door.

 

Yeah, that's a good point he had not been a mortal for a long time. Conversely, Taravangian was very recently a feeble old man who could barely do anything physical. Being powerful enough to slam a vault door shut might be refreshing for him. 

[elihaun]

19 hours ago, The Stick said:

El was so cool, and he murdered Jezrien, so Kalak was partly wrong. However, he viewed it as a mercy killing, but also a service? What a mentally disturbed character.

What confused me was ashe/Taln said in Oathbringer that Jezerien was dead already (don't remember the exact quote), but this made it seem that he was merely imprisoned?  Was this an oversight, or perhaps a way for restaries to leave the system (it killed his connection to the oathpack, not his soul)?  

[BinarySecond]

6 minutes ago, elihaun said:

What confused me was ashe/Taln said in Oathbringer that Jezerien was dead already (don't remember the exact quote), but this made it seem that he was merely imprisoned?  Was this an oversight, or perhaps a way for restaries to leave the system (it killed his connection to the oathpack, not his soul)?  

I think trapping his investiture in the gem cut him off completely from the Oathpact; which would give the same impression as that investiture disappearing forever. I wonder if they had a perfect gem stone; or a way to reinforce a spirit web they could trap a herald permenantly.

[elihaun]

18 hours ago, the_archduke said:

As for Taravangian letting each side rule in turn.  What if each side held a shard separately?  Smart Taravangian with Odium and compassionate Taravangian with Honor?

What if its the opposite?  Compassionate Taravangian with Odium and Smart Taravangian with Honor?  What would put a damper on odium, no?

17 hours ago, StanLemon said:

I think there is an explanation to be had. It very well could have been that Odium revived him early to be used as a test subject to show the Fuzed that the new weapon works, but that El took it upon himself to do said test. Once confirmed, he went to the vault and this scene played out. Afterwards, El has his musings. 

^This

It feels like EL was supposed to be the lab mouse, but due to the Pursuers fall from grace he decided to flip the roles on his own.  that would also explain why the guards were not warned about him: he was supposed to be dead from the anti-stormlight

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, elihaun said:

What confused me was ashe/Taln said in Oathbringer that Jezerien was dead already (don't remember the exact quote), but this made it seem that he was merely imprisoned?  Was this an oversight, or perhaps a way for restaries to leave the system (it killed his connection to the oathpack, not his soul)?  

The Heralds are Cognitive Shadows. The question when they are to be considered dead is a philosophical one. They most likely need a minimum of Investiture to sustain human cognitive abilities. But there is possibly a range where they in a sense still exist but don't have enough Investiture to sustain their personalities and memories.

[alder24]

2 hours ago, elihaun said:

What confused me was ashe/Taln said in Oathbringer that Jezerien was dead already (don't remember the exact quote), but this made it seem that he was merely imprisoned?  Was this an oversight, or perhaps a way for restaries to leave the system (it killed his connection to the oathpack, not his soul)?  

As a Cognitive Shadow, Jezrien needed a Connection to Physical or Spiritual Realm to live. His Connection to the Spiritual Realm was probably mostly gone by now (because of the broken Oathpact or Honor's death), so imprisoning him in a gemstone severed his Connections to the Physical Realm and he could no longer remain as a  Cognitive Shadow - thus he started to slowly fade into the Beyond, a place where normally all souls go after death. He was gone by now - mostly. El was able to destroy only a tiny fraction of what once was Jezrien as the rest faded into the Beyond. RoW ch 92/93 Epigraphs:

Quote

"The bond is what keeps us alive. You sever that, and we will slowly decompose into ordinary souls—with no valid Connection to the Physical or Spiritual Realms. Capture one of us with your knives, and you won’t be left with a spren in a jar, foolish ones. You’ll be left with a being that eventually fades away into the Beyond."

"I felt it happen to Jezrien. You think you captured him, but our god is Splintered, our Oathpact severed. He faded over the weeks, and is gone now. Beyond your touch at long last."

Also, as a Cognitive Shadow he needed to feed on power as well. Heralds were probably Connected directly to Honor and feeded directly from his essence, just like Fused do. What little remained of his Connection to Honor was probably disrupted when he was imprisoned, or that alone was not enough to sustain him without anchoring Connection to the Physical Realm. That's another reason why he faded - he couldn't feed on investiture anymore. RoW ch 15:

Quote

“Is there a … way to kill something like you? Permanently?”
“Lots of ways. For the weaker ones, just kill the body again, make sure no one Invests the soul with more strength, and they’ll slip away in a few minutes. For stronger ones … well, you might be able to starve them. A lot of Type Twos feed on power. Keeps them going.
“These enemies of yours though, I think they’re too strong for that. They’ve lasted thousands of years already, and seem Connected to Odium to feed directly on his power. You’ll have to find a way to disrupt their souls.

 

[+robardin he/him]

A few thoughts/observations on the El interlude:

This clearly happens before the "musings on the last ten days" that he records or composes in his head as the chapter headings towards the end of RoW, and also before the epilogue where El kills Lezian with an anti-Voidlight dagger as an "experiment": one sanctioned by the "new Odium", who had pulled him back to Roshar bypassing the Everstorm, "the way we used to do it".

So how did he have an anti-Stormlight gemstone already? Raboniel had only just discovered the means of production and he's got one already (which he admires as "Raboniel's handiwork"), even though he's supposedly "frozen out" by the Nine from interfering with the war plans (more on that later)? So... Had she sent one to him directly? Were they somehow in cahoots?

El was willing to kill the singer guardians of the vault to gain access to Jezrien's gem (Gemrien? Jezrigem?), but was glad not to have to do so; "he never liked to kill mortals who served well".

And then, even more interesting than referring to Jezrien as an "old friend" while ending what remained of him in the gem as "a mercy", he refers to the Nine evidently having forgotten to instruct the guards not to follow his orders, as   being "distracted with their war".

THEIR war. Not "our" war.

He also reflected on what may have been lost with the former Alethi parshman guard, Heshual né Govi, in giving up the human culture they had been born into (albeit as mindless slaves) for an ancient one imposed on them by the Fused as singers.

It's clear that El had long since decided that a struggle to eradicate, or to overcome and to evict/oust, all of humanity from Roshar was going nowhere useful, and that there was much to admire in the humans, and to seek some way to cohabit.

And yet, whatever his nature, he had no fear of waltzing into the Vault of the Nine guarded by four Regals, and even the reborn Lezian had tempered his attitude in speaking to him. So... He's dangerous. Like, really and personally dangerous.

And now he's actually the chief of Team Odium, the Nine now report to him!

He refuses being given a title again: cutting T'Odium short in his pronouncement of one, as a test of how much the inherent "rage" in the Shardic Intent the new Vessel had. It was there, but not so much as to immediately start ranting about it as Rayse likely would have done.

And yet... How is it (never mind why is it) that he was "forbidden" rhythms, yet still be able to identify them in other singers? And why not ask for them back?

Last observation: the vault was full of gemstones the size of a fist, which Odium idly filled with Voidlight by tapping them in turn. Is that what this vault is for, in part? A voidlight gemstone reserve that Odium can fill directly for his minions?

But then surely He could fill them without manifesting in person and tapping them one at a time? Or was talking to El so boring that this was the Taravangian/Odium equivalent of pulling out a fidget spinner? LOL. 

 

[BinarySecond]

21 minutes ago, robardin said:

How is it (never mind why is it) that he was "forbidden" rhythms, yet still be able to identify them in other singers? And why not ask for them back?

My guess is it's like "You're not allowed to sing anymore" doesn't mean you can't hear other people singing. I wonder if something like a Connection edit has been done to El.

I think he is probably content with losing them as he stands by his actions. It seems he defied Rayse or something? His conviction remains and the Power respected it so much that Rayse couldn't destroy him maybe?

[feruchemicalrockband]

18 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

El is in the forbidden 10th name of the almighty. Regular people aren’t allowed to say it out loud. Only ardent can. 

Elithanathile: he who transforms. 

This always sounded like a Fused name to me, but maybe it’s a “dawn singer” name for him. I don’t think Honour could have been a Parshendi (though Parshendi did exist at the time of the shattering, so I guess a worldhop is possible ish) 

Hmm. We know Taln wasn't originally supposed to be a Herald. And Elithanithile is the "Forbidden" 10th name...

 

Maybe a singer was originally meant to be the 10th Herald? But something led to him being forbidden, or cast out?

[teknopathetic he/him]

2 hours ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

Maybe a singer was originally meant to be the 10th Herald? But something led to him being forbidden, or cast out?

I lon g thought the 11th herald candidate was Ba Ado Mishram since she seems more sentient than the rest of the Unmade. But now I think maybe it was El. I can see El having been in love with Human culture and having been a Rlain type character. At somepoint before the herlands were made, El decided that he in fact wasn't comfortable with what was happening. 

So either El or Ba Ado Mishram seem likely to me to be the 11th herald candidate. Both candidates seem to have been closer to the heralds than we would have expected, and both could have had a similar path. 

I won't give actual specific spoilers, but there is a plot point in Dragonsteel Prime where a character in the Shattered Plains plot:
 

Spoiler

someone not the race you would expect them to be fighting in the shattered plains. I feel that this plot point should have been lifted or reused in Stormlight in some form. The herald who wasn't makes sense to me as a rehash of that. 

 

Edited December 3, 2024 by teknopathetic

[eriwancoselyn]

On 12/3/2024 at 3:29 AM, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Cultivation tells Taravangian to do the right thing. Im guessing right now that is to take up the shard of Honor. Taravangian knows that Odiums plan is horrible, although effective. He will need to make the choice that Rayse never could - to intentionally restrict himself by taking on another intent. Will he actually make that choice? I dont think he will, personally. Perhaps this is the decision Brandon said he changed last minute? 

tbh, I'm not convinced that Toduim could even hold honor right now.

We're shown with Sazed that he was able to hold both shards in tandem due to being able to intimately understand both intents. But the newer misborn books have shown that Sazed's power is a very hard thing to reconcile. He's struggling to keep the shards unified and the intents focused towards harmony. And he has the advantage of actually getting both of them on a deep level.

I'm happy to hear responses, but I don't think Todium has a personal understanding of Honor. Throughout all the books, he's never even remotely tried to work in an above the board or honorable way. He unleashed the assassin in white, causing mass chaos. For obv reasons, this is against Honor's intent. He's always working in secrecy, trying to undermine the people that put their trust in him at the war council. To me, him holding Honor would be like Kelsier taking Preservation, the power is on a completely different wavelength from the person.

Also, though it's hard to know what a unified war shard would want, I'm not convinced that the power of Honor would like the idea of a crusade to become the only shard. It feels like it would want to maintain the other shards, not breaking apart their power.

At worst, the conflicting forces of Honor and Odium inside him would combine with his logical/emotional issue to create something even more impotent then Harmony, completely unable to take even basic actions.

Edited December 4, 2024 by eriwancoselyn

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

11 hours ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

Hmm. We know Taln wasn't originally supposed to be a Herald. And Elithanithile is the "Forbidden" 10th name...

 

Maybe a singer was originally meant to be the 10th Herald? But something led to him being forbidden, or cast out?

He even refers to the Heralds as his friends.

So there is absolutely a history between El and the Heralds. 

Honesty, I feel like El is meant to be some kind of foil to Rlain. Both liking humans and wanting coexistence between humans and Singers, but very different methods to achieving that.

Rlain wants proper peace, where the Singers will be allowed to live as they want without humans trying to conquer them, while El wants to dominate humanity and rule over them.

[teknopathetic he/him]

9 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Honesty, I feel like El is meant to be some kind of foil to Rlain. Both liking humans and wanting coexistence between humans and Singers, but very different methods to achieving that.

Rlain wants proper peace, where the Singers will be allowed to live as they want without humans trying to conquer them, while El wants to dominate humanity and rule over them.

Maybe El started off like Rlain but eventually gave up. Surely Rlain isn’t the first Parahendi to have human friends. Rabonial said peace treaties and pacts had been tried before and had failed, so who knows. 

[eriwancoselyn]

14 hours ago, robardin said:

And yet, whatever his nature, he had no fear of waltzing into the Vault of the Nine guarded by four Regals, and even the reborn Lezian had tempered his attitude in speaking to him. So... He's dangerous. Like, really and personally dangerous.

And now he's actually the chief of Team Odium, the Nine now report to him!

He refuses being given a title again: cutting T'Odium short in his pronouncement of one, as a test of how much the inherent "rage" in the Shardic Intent the new Vessel had. It was there, but not so much as to immediately start ranting about it as Rayse likely would have done.

And yet... How is it (never mind why is it) that he was "forbidden" rhythms, yet still be able to identify them in other singers? And why not ask for them back?

 

 

I'm not sure what to make of his lack of rhythms. it's worth mentioning that he's absolutely a fused but (to my knowledge), we haven't seen him use any of the nine fused surges. it may be that removing his connection to his powers have somehow damaged his rhythms, since we know that the rhythms are based on a connection to roshar. but at that point, you could just kill him and remove him as an issue altogether. handicapping him seems like a strange and unusual punishment. my only assumption can be that he's got some absolutely crucial knowledge or benefit that can't be given up. but if that were true, what is the point in handicapping him?

also, and I'm sorry if this is too obvious, but the interludes have also given us another clue about the unmade. el says that dai gorathnis is the only method for teleporting if they don't have a corrupted elsecaller or an honorblade. the use of 'corrupted' is really interesting given that the corrupted radiants do different things from their normal radiant variants. renarin has some permutation of moelach's death rattle ability. the unmade seem to be a more extreme expression of a corrupted radiant. this will be really interesting to see because some of the unmade act nothing like the radiant orders they imitate. the heart of the revel and the thrill both effect emotions in a really non-radiant way. also, does this mean we could see corrupted radiants of some order making more corrupted spren like sja-anat can?

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2024 by eriwancoselyn