Equilibrium - Back half spitball

[strmncr]

I think it's being telegraphed that Kaladin is going to help redeem the heralds. This will help in a way restore honor, which is already at odds with the shard of Odium.

At some point Kaladin and remaining Heralds return to Roshar, where Kaladin runs into Moash and spends time working to redeem him and repair his damaged mind. Moash gradually begins to exhibit signs of Honor which causes the Odium part of Retribution to freak out and assert control over Moash and his actions (Moash is Odiums version of a Herald basically, and Moash's redemption would upend the balance), which causes Honor to freak out because Odium is inhibiting Honor.

I think leading up to this point the book(s) will telegraph that Odium and Honor are constantly at odds with each other reminiscent of Ruin and Preservation in Harmony, and that Honor is fascinated with the near universal trend of people becoming more honorable through self improvement and redemption (especially after it's time with Dalinar).

Following Odium asserting itself to suppress Moash Honor immediately splits believing the differences to be irreconcilable. Now at this point I think we're most likely to see Kaladin take up Honor, but I've been turning over another idea in my head.

You see, why on earth would Scadrial and Roshar be in direct conflict? Taravangian would be unlikely to seek out such direct conflict with him being new shard in general, acclimating to his new powers, and building his power base. I struggle to believe he'd push for that conflict even 200 years in the future when we know the two planets are at odds (though we are still unaware when the conflict kicks off).

What if the war begins because Harmony is sick of being held in a powerless standstill? What if he somehow reinterprets his shard as Discord- which gives him the barest ability to function and take action (though it's chaotic and unreliable). Attempting to take advantage of Taravangians weakened state Discord invades with his army. I think this would be cool to be set up in Motion in Mistborn Era 3, and then play out over SA6-10.

SA10 ends with Discord absorbing Honor to become Equilibrium- Balancing destruction and creation within the framework of principles and oaths. This will allow Sazed as Equilibrium to function within the confines of his power with a system of principles that he interprets (which was his goal all along). Sazed is uniquely suited to this shard (for all the reasons he was already suited for Harmony). The final scene of SA10 is Equilibrium hiding away the shard of Odium for unknown purpose.

There was some kind of line in the books about how it feels like Adonalsium is present whenever there are significant and sufficient quantities of investiture. After absorbing his third shard and surpassing the previous record for most invested entity by a factor of 1.5 (a record he was already the previous record holder of) Sazed feels a strong compulsion to reunite all the shards and reform Adonalsium. Mistborn Era 4 is about Sazed reuniting all the shards, and is a true space opera. He had set Odium aside at the end of SA10 because he only wants to absorb shards when he has matching ones to mellow them out and ensure he can still operate with minimal restriction/side effects.

 

Things are very unlikely to happen like this, but I do feel like we're going to experience these main beats through to the end of the Cosmere as a collective literary work.