A gambit for Jasnah vs. Retribution?

[Ripheus23]

Assuming locale and/or metanarrative symmetry lands Jasnah in a final showdown-debate in Spiritual Kharbranth, with Retribution, at the end of the second half of the Archive, should she abandon her atheism and confess that a di-Shard is sufficiently close to being a "true deity" and so, rather than try to convince Taravangian that he's not truly divine, she should argue that he ought to change his Intent from Retribution to Redemption? Or would that be too difficult without, say, trying to force him to pick up a major fragment of Aona's Shard? (I think that it would be interesting if Retribution sought to absorb major fragments of all the other Shards whose Vessels were killed by Rayse, or at least he'd go after the more "evil-coded" Shard-fragments, but he'd arguably have a quite delicate time trying to disentangle Aona's factor from Skai's in the Dor.)

[MrHobbes343]

On 2/9/2026 at 5:03 PM, Ripheus23 said:

"at the end of the second half of the Archive, should she abandon her atheism and confess that a di-Shard is sufficiently close to being a "true deity""

So.......Burn down the character and have her compromise everything she believes and has worked for....for an unsatisfying ending?

If T-Odium is talked down from his megalomania I will feel cheated out of the series climax for a "lets all hug it out ending". T-Odium must die and it must be awesome, no alternative would be broadly palatable.

 

 

Also I don't think changing the intent of a shard is a easy as you make it out to be. I'm sure Ati would have loved to pivot Ruin away from destruction, the best he could do after thousands of years was shift Ruin from "Everything must be destroyed now" to "Everything must be destroyed...eventually" and even then Ruin was not a kind or gentle embodiment of entropy and got 99.9% of the way through chewing up Scadrial.

 

   

[Ripheus23]

17 hours ago, MrHobbes343 said:

So.......Burn down the character and have her compromise everything she believes and has worked for....for an unsatisfying ending?

If T-Odium is talked down from his megalomania I will feel cheated out of the series climax for a "lets all hug it out ending". T-Odium must die and it must be awesome, no alternative would be broadly palatable.

I don't think Jasnah accepting that in the cosmere, her atheism is seriously flawed, would be "burning down her character." She needs to grow, she even knows that she has this need after what happened with Thaylenah. We'd also be talking about a scene near the end of the entire latter half of the planned Archive.

I also don't see that it would have to be a "hug it out" moment. In The Neverending Story 2, Bastian wishes that Xayide had a heart. Does she gain a heart and apologize and so on and everyone dances off to Care-a-lot? No, she sheds a single tear and it kills her and her whole army of Nothingness-monsters.

But I myself wouldn't find it unpalatable if Retribution did Redeem himself. When I was a Christian, I was a universalist even about demons, even about Satan. As a non-Christian, I see no one as so evil, not even world-torturing monsters, that they might not make amends if given the appropriate chances. (Nor did I imply that this would be easy for Taravangian, here, at any rate: by saying that he might have to absorb a fragment of Devotion to reach this state, I also said that he would have to go through the trouble of either absorbing part of Dominion along with Devotion, in the Dor, or somehow separating a Devotion-fragment from the Dor while perhaps desiring instead to absorb only a Dominion-fragment.)

EDIT: I mean, if you want Retribution to go out with a bang, consider this possibility: Navani and Jasnah, the arch-believer and the arch-unbeliever, mother and daughter, confront Taravangian and somehow maneuver him into absorbing part of Devotion. But unlike how Warlight resulted from Voidlight and Stormlight, when Gracelight (or whatever we'd call it) fuses with Voidlight/Warlight, it has explosive consequences that shred a huge chunk of Retribution's substance, killing him or weakening him for a coup de grace(!). Would that be a nifty outcome?

Edited February 13 by Ripheus23

[bmcclure7]

On 2/9/2026 at 5:03 PM, Ripheus23 said:

Assuming locale and/or metanarrative symmetry lands Jasnah in a final showdown-debate in Spiritual Kharbranth, with Retribution, at the end of the second half of the Archive, should she abandon her atheism and confess that a di-Shard is sufficiently close to being a "true deity" and so, rather than try to convince Taravangian that he's not truly divine, she should argue that he ought to change his Intent from Retribution to Redemption? Or would that be too difficult without, say, trying to force him to pick up a major fragment of Aona's Shard? (I think that it would be interesting if Retribution sought to absorb major fragments of all the other Shards whose Vessels were killed by Rayse, or at least he'd go after the more "evil-coded" Shard-fragments, but he'd arguably have a quite delicate time trying to disentangle Aona's factor from Skai's in the Dor.)

Nice thought, but I don’t think he is capable of changing retribution into redemption. Just because two words are similar that does not mean that they describe similar concepts. And while vessels can have some influence on their shards intent, they cannot change the overall intent 

 

19 hours ago, MrHobbes343 said:

So.......Burn down the character and have her compromise everything she believes and has worked for....for an unsatisfying ending?

If T-Odium is talked down from his megalomania I will feel cheated out of the series climax for a "lets all hug it out ending". T-Odium must die and it must be awesome, no alternative would be broadly palatable.

 

 

Also I don't think changing the intent of a shard is a easy as you make it out to be. I'm sure Ati would have loved to pivot Ruin away from destruction, the best he could do after thousands of years was shift Ruin from "Everything must be destroyed now" to "Everything must be destroyed...eventually" and even then Ruin was not a kind or gentle embodiment of entropy and got 99.9% of the way through chewing up Scadrial.

 

   

I failed to see how she would be compromising on anything she hasn’t already compromised on. But I do agree it’s unlikely to be successful even if she were to try.

 

14 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

I don't think Jasnah accepting that in the cosmere, her atheism is seriously flawed, would be "burning down her character." She needs to grow, she even knows that she has this need after what happened with Thaylenah. We'd also be talking about a scene near the end of the entire latter half of the planned Archive.

I also don't see that it would have to be a "hug it out" moment. In The Neverending Story 2, Bastian wishes that Xayide had a heart. Does she gain a heart and apologize and so on and everyone dances off to Care-a-lot? No, she sheds a single tear and it kills her and her whole army of Nothingness-monsters.

But I myself wouldn't find it unpalatable if Retribution did Redeem himself. When I was a Christian, I was a universalist even about demons, even about Satan. As a non-Christian, I see no one as so evil, not even world-torturing monsters, that they might not make amends if given the appropriate chances. (Nor did I imply that this would be easy for Taravangian, here, at any rate: by saying that he might have to absorb a fragment of Devotion to reach this state, I also said that he would have to go through the trouble of either absorbing part of Dominion along with Devotion, in the Dor, or somehow separating a Devotion-fragment from the Dor while perhaps desiring instead to absorb only a Dominion-fragment.)

EDIT: I mean, if you want Retribution to go out with a bang, consider this possibility: Navani and Jasnah, the arch-believer and the arch-unbeliever, mother and daughter, confront Taravangian and somehow maneuver him into absorbing part of Devotion. But unlike how Warlight resulted from Voidlight and Stormlight, when Gracelight (or whatever we'd call it) fuses with Voidlight/Warlight, it has explosive consequences that shred a huge chunk of Retribution's substance, killing him or weakening him for a coup de grace(!). Would that be a nifty outcome?

Hasn’t she already admitted that she believes that there are gods (she just doesn’t believe in God) that seems to me that she has already compromised on her atheism. I’m not sure we can even call her that anymore.

[MrHobbes343]

4 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Hasn’t she already admitted that she believes that there are gods (she just doesn’t believe in God) that seems to me that she has already compromised on her atheism. I’m not sure we can even call her that anymore.

What are we defining Atheism as?

 

If we are defining it in the strictest terms possible, as a full and complete denial of the supernatural.

Then Jasnah is not an Athiest. She can slide through dimensions and alter matter at the axion level. She has spoken to a shard and known to some extent it's power. She has seen the SR and experienced it.

 

If we define Athiest in a more moderate ways, as refusal to worship any higher entity. Atheists who say that the shards don't deserve to be called god, because of their manifest and numerous flaws.     

Then Jasnah may define herself as an Atheist not because there are not powers that call themselves gods, but because no power currently manifest in the Cosmere has any moral claim to leadership and respect. I don't care if a tyrant king calls himself god, If he is not omnipotent and omniscient then he is just a powerful dirtbag, shard or no shard. 

 

It all depends on degrees and context. 

[Frustration]

21 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Hasn’t she already admitted that she believes that there are gods (she just doesn’t believe in God) that seems to me that she has already compromised on her atheism. I’m not sure we can even call her that anymore.

She said she accepted the word 'god' as a useful description for particularly powerful entities.

That isn't a rejection of Atheism anymore than calling nuclear weapons godlike or calling the Higgs boson the god-particle.

Both things Atheists IRL do.

[bmcclure7]

3 minutes ago, MrHobbes343 said:

What are we defining Atheism as?

 

If we are defining it in the strictest terms possible, as a full and complete denial of the supernatural.

Then Jasnah is not an Athiest. She can slide through dimensions and alter matter at the axion level. She has spoken to a shard and known to some extent it's power. She has seen the SR and experienced it.

 

If we define Athiest in a more moderate ways, as refusal to worship any higher entity. Atheists who say that the shards don't deserve to be called god, because of their manifest and numerous flaws.     

Then Jasnah may define herself as an Atheist not because there are not powers that call themselves gods, but because no power currently manifest in the Cosmere has any moral claim to leadership and respect. I don't care if a tyrant king calls himself god, If he is not omnipotent and omniscient then he is just a powerful dirtbag, shard or no shard. 

 

It all depends on degrees and context. 

I see and I think you are correct atheism is ultimately a useless word as it only tells you what someone does not believe in not what they believe in. 
It’s better to divide it into two categories, spiritualist, and materialist. 
 

She obviously is not a materialist as she lives in a world we’re inmaterial is merely a matter of course. She would probably fall under the category of spiritualist. She believes in the immaterial the spiritual but doesn’t believe in divine authority or follow any divine law other than her own preference . Or something like that at least. Honestly, I’m not sure we have categories for her. She does seem to believe in some kind of divine authority (the title god is a title of authority after all) she just seems to ignore it. 

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

She said she accepted the word 'god' as a useful description for particularly powerful entities.

That isn't a rejection of Atheism anymore than calling nuclear weapons godlike or calling the Higgs boson the god-particle.

Both things Atheists IRL do.

Except for most atheist, don’t use those terms seriously. As it would imply that both nuclear weapons and particles are thinking agents. Are you implying that she doesn’t believe that Todum is a thinking agent?

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Except for most atheist, don’t use those terms seriously. As it would imply that both nuclear weapons and particles are thinking agents. Are you implying that she doesn’t believe that Todum is a thinking agent?

Whether they can think or not isn't the determining factor. It's power, not intellect that makes the distinction.

 

A weapon that is inordinately powerful could in that sense be a god-weapon.

A particle that is inordinately powerful can be called a god-particle.

A person who is inordinately powerful could be called a god.

Now, I personally do not use the word in that sense, but that's the way that Jasnah uses it.

[bmcclure7]

8 hours ago, Frustration said:

Whether they can think or not isn't the determining factor. It's power, not intellect that makes the distinction.

 

A weapon that is inordinately powerful could in that sense be a god-weapon.

A particle that is inordinately powerful can be called a god-particle.

A person who is inordinately powerful could be called a god.

Now, I personally do not use the word in that sense, but that's the way that Jasnah uses it.

So you’re saying that she means it metaphorically? Because that is what we mean when we use god in that context 

Edited February 14 by bmcclure7

[Ripheus23]

I wonder what Jasnah will think of Adonalsium when/if she ever becomes more familiar with its history. Her atheism might survive in a philosophical sense as "no God Beyond as far as she's concerned" but "maybe a God Within" will become her go-to sentiment in this regard.

[Nitpicking]

Consider: I am an atheist. I do not deny that the Roman Emperors and Egyptian Pharaohs existed, yet they were worshiped as gods.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

On 2/9/2026 at 4:03 PM, Ripheus23 said:

Assuming locale and/or metanarrative symmetry lands Jasnah in a final showdown-debate in Spiritual Kharbranth, with Retribution, at the end of the second half of the Archive, should she abandon her atheism and confess that a di-Shard is sufficiently close to being a "true deity" and so, rather than try to convince Taravangian that he's not truly divine, she should argue that he ought to change his Intent from Retribution to Redemption? Or would that be too difficult without, say, trying to force him to pick up a major fragment of Aona's Shard? (I think that it would be interesting if Retribution sought to absorb major fragments of all the other Shards whose Vessels were killed by Rayse, or at least he'd go after the more "evil-coded" Shard-fragments, but he'd arguably have a quite delicate time trying to disentangle Aona's factor from Skai's in the Dor.)

I think this is a neat prediction and would be pretty great.

On 2/12/2026 at 2:50 PM, MrHobbes343 said:

So.......Burn down the character and have her compromise everything she believes and has worked for....for an unsatisfying ending?

In my opinion, that's what we got for Szeth. 

Eshonai also got what I consider an unsatisfying ending.

One of the costs of caring about a character is risking that the author will do this sort of thing.

On 2/12/2026 at 2:50 PM, MrHobbes343 said:

If T-Odium is talked down from his megalomania I will feel cheated out of the series climax for a "lets all hug it out ending". T-Odium must die and it must be awesome, no alternative would be broadly palatable.

One of the costs of having investment and hype is risking that the author will do this sort of thing.

At the very least, there's still the books that already exist.  People have often told me that sequels, remakes, or adaptations don't make the original stop existing, and that if an ending bothers or upsets you, there's still everything up to that point.  It's not enough, I think, but it's more than nothing.

Whatever ending the series has, mister Sanderson is unlikely to give his most popular series an ending that would be unpopular.  Whatever he does, I think it will be done as well as he can, and he's said that he is deeply concerned with portraying atheists respectfully and fairly.

[Ripheus23]

3 minutes ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

I think this is a neat prediction and would be pretty great.

Oooh, what if Aona and Skai are mother and daughter and that would have Spiritual relevance to having Jasnah working directly with Navani in a process here? Sanderson could have them experimenting on some piece of the Dor, not the full Shards at all (if he has some restriction on bringing more other Shards into the Archive proper), so like a positive mirror of the tragic Raboniel situation (on both its levels).

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

  

40 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

Oooh, what if Aona and Skai are mother and daughter and that would have Spiritual relevance to having Jasnah working directly with Navani in a process here? Sanderson could have them experimenting on some piece of the Dor, not the full Shards at all (if he has some restriction on bringing more other Shards into the Archive proper), so like a positive mirror of the tragic Raboniel situation (on both its levels).

Huh, I always assumed that Aona and Skai were siblings, but if it's a mother-daughter relationship then Cultivation and The Sibling might be relevant to this.

(Personally, Navani gives me the willies, she's got those Scientist-putting-things-in-other-things vibes that make me want to go run through loop-de-loops and jump on fabrials to let the spren out.)

Edited February 14 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[Nitpicking]

I believe there's a WoB that Aona and Skai were a couple.

[Ripheus23]

11 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

I believe there's a WoB that Aona and Skai were a couple.

On this list of WoBs returned for ["Aona" "Skai"] I didn't find one that specified their relationship. Also, my own memory was that I read somewhere that they were mother/daughter, so my memory is askew... Also the trivia sections for Aona and Skai are not revealing on this count. So at this point I'm just making a guess based on thematic intuition.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

On 2/9/2026 at 6:03 PM, Ripheus23 said:

should she abandon her atheism and confess that a di-Shard is sufficiently close to being a "true deity" and so, rather than try to convince Taravangian that he's not truly divine, she should argue that he ought to change his Intent from Retribution to Redemption?

No. I don't think she should do that. Thinking that someone is worthy of being seen as a God just because they have a bunch of power does not fit with Jasnah's deal. Somehow, probably because Mr Sanderson has only encountered atheists who are really honed on Christianity, she thinks that a true and worthy God is only one who is all powerful, all knowing,  and all good. I have a small rant in me about the oddness of her focus on omniscience in WaT, but I will hold it.

Maybe someone with enough Shard and/or Dawnshard power could attain a supreme power to shape the Cosmere, but that power will not come with innate goodness.

There is probably a theme to be had with the whole Retribution vs Redemption thing. Every time I think of redemption in this context, I find myself recalling how the word is used in chapter 6 of certain versions of the book of Exodus, especially since the Great Leader of the Faithful tropes Dalinar had going on are very Mosses vibes to me.

Quote

² God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. ⁴ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. ⁵ Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

⁶ “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus 6&version=NIV

And since the context of all of this is slavery, another idea also going on, it all does have a certain ring to it.

I think the better version of this is for Jasnah to suppose she simply has a virtue that Taravangian lacks that is part of being a good bearer of power: She is capable of forgiving people. She can let harms done to her pass. Can Taravangian call himself Retribution but also do the same? 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 2/10/2026 at 12:03 AM, Ripheus23 said:

Assuming locale and/or metanarrative symmetry lands Jasnah in a final showdown-debate in Spiritual Kharbranth, with Retribution, at the end of the second half of the Archive, should she abandon her atheism and confess that a di-Shard is sufficiently close to being a "true deity" and so, rather than try to convince Taravangian that he's not truly divine, she should argue that he ought to change his Intent from Retribution to Redemption?

This fails the most major prerequisite - a reason.

Why would Jasnah seek to confront a di-Shard without any Shards on her side? After the Fused will have years to establish Singer civilization? After her coalition has fractured? At the cost of many of the Knights Radiant seeing her as an oathbreaker, if she does so?
At the risk of destroying the only source of Investiture left to Roshar's ecology?

In other words, she'd have to be desperate to confront Retribution. Hence her behavior is most likely totally shaped by the source of her despair.

[Ripheus23]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

This fails the most major prerequisite - a reason.

Why would Jasnah seek to confront a di-Shard without any Shards on her side? After the Fused will have years to establish Singer civilization? After her coalition has fractured? At the cost of many of the Knights Radiant seeing her as an oathbreaker, if she does so?
At the risk of destroying the only source of Investiture left to Roshar's ecology?

In other words, she'd have to be desperate to confront Retribution. Hence her behavior is most likely totally shaped by the source of her despair.

I'm assuming Kal and Syl will restore the highstorm as of/around the same time. But I don't see that there'd be no reason for her to argue with Taravangian again, it would be a reprise of her failed argument in W&T. That's a good enough reason for me...

[Jult]

On 2/13/2026 at 12:47 PM, MrHobbes343 said:

Then Jasnah may define herself as an Atheist not because there are not powers that call themselves gods, but because no power currently manifest in the Cosmere has any moral claim to leadership and respect. I don't care if a tyrant king calls himself god, If he is not omnipotent and omniscient then he is just a powerful dirtbag, shard or no shard.

I believe Jasnah's stance would be to call the tyrant king a powerful dirtbag even if he is omnipotent and omniscient. She's antidogmatic.

I think even if Adonalsium Himself returns and He turns out to be a perfect example of a benevolent God with full omniscience, omnipotence, and indisputable proof that he created the Cosmere and all things in it (which the Aethers dispute btw), Jasnah would still say "That's nice, but no one has any obligation to worship or serve you". It would undermine the universal freedoms that she values above all else to do otherwise. Relevant WoB:

Spoiler

Robert W

Does Jasnah still consider herself to be atheist and what would she have to see in order to change her view?

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah would stop being atheist if she got definitive proof of an omniscient and caring and omnipotent God. She does not, and I kind of agree with her, consider the Shards to be Gods (capital G). In her realm these are beings that, you know, everything is Invested, they're Invested more. Atheist means she does not believe that there is, in these terms, an omnipotent God. It doesn't necessarily have to mean loving, I might have said that. She means that there is no omnipotent, capital G God. She doesn't think one exists. She would need to have irrefutable proof that they do or that they did and then she would believe. It doesn't mean she would worship, but it does mean she would believe.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

On 2/12/2026 at 9:49 PM, Ripheus23 said:

I don't think Jasnah accepting that in the cosmere, her atheism is seriously flawed, would be "burning down her character." She needs to grow, she even knows that she has this need after what happened with Thaylenah.

I agree she does need to grow. But I don't think abandoning her values would be growth. Her atheism, even with the existence of Adonalsium in the Cosmere, hasn't been shown to be flawed yet. And probably never will since Brandon has repeatedly said that he'll never definitively answer such questions (WoB). 

That being said, I don't think she needs to abandon her values to make an argument like the one you are describing. It shouldn't matter if she believes Taravangian is divine. What matters is that Taravangian sees himself as divine. She wouldn't have to have the same beliefs as him to convince him that he should practice what he preaches.

This would be a good debate tactic. But it doesn't feel to me like one that Jasnah would want to use. Not sure how to put it into words... But it feels more like tricking Taravangian, so she gets what she wants on a technicality instead of a proper win.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 4/14/2026 at 2:50 PM, Ripheus23 said:

I'm assuming Kal and Syl will restore the highstorm as of/around the same time. 

So Jasnah Kholin, the ultimate realist, ready to do genocide and murder Heralds, is supposed to trust some people who operate without the aid of a Shard to pull that off? Trust it, knowing that failure would doom the Rosharan ecology? Something which there is no precedent for? Something the other side would absolutely try to prevent?

It would also mean that she agrees to a plan that would destroy a lot of the infrastructure built for the conditions of the Everstorm since the Night of Sorrows. And frankly, what would she gain? This is the main question nobody ever answers. What is Jasnah's motivation for effectively seeking to restart the war? A war they lost in the first place.

Furthermore why would she thwart a plan her uncle, who did have access to a Shard at the time, died to implement? Dalinar sacrificed himself so that somebody else, not the Rosharans, would need to deal with Retribution.

Why?

[Ripheus23]

9 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So Jasnah Kholin, the ultimate realist, ready to do genocide and murder Heralds, is supposed to trust some people who operate without the aid of a Shard to pull that off? Trust it, knowing that failure would doom the Rosharan ecology? Something which there is no precedent for? Something the other side would absolutely try to prevent?

It would also mean that she agrees to a plan that would destroy a lot of the infrastructure built for the conditions of the Everstorm since the Night of Sorrows. And frankly, what would she gain? This is the main question nobody ever answers. What is Jasnah's motivation for effectively seeking to restart the war? A war they lost in the first place.

Furthermore why would she thwart a plan her uncle, who did have access to a Shard at the time, died to implement? Dalinar sacrificed himself so that somebody else, not the Rosharans, would need to deal with Retribution.

Why?

If there was a rationally discernible way for a new Herald and his proto-Stormmother spren companion to restart a highstorm system, I'm sure Jasnah could discern it in advance. With five books of events that would lead up to the confrontation, I'm sure they could find a motive for it on that preceding basis. Maybe Dalinar's strategy doesn't pay off so well. Maybe Jasnah makes a way for future Rosharan interstellar shenanigans. I'm not predicting the confrontation on direct reasons but because if the back half is symmetrical with the front half, then it would make sense in Jasnah's book to have a reprise of her scene arguing about theism and atheism in Kharbranth, only this time in Spiritual Kharbranth (and which is a reprise of Jasnah's failed argument with Taravangian besides).

I mean, trying to get Retribution to mutate into Redemption could be like Jasnah herself trying to redeem herself. If she can argue the Shard into a new Intent, this would be a deed that would make amends for her own wrongdoing (supposing that Redemption would do good where Retribution is willing to do evil, even if it doesn't at the time view its wrongdoing as evil).

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

10 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why?

I always figured the Sun King's Gambit meant something like "My heirs, their allies, and those forces from beyond Roshar will undo your evil" instead of just waiting for allies from the stars. It might be the case that Kaladin and Syl returning means the high storm pattern of weather must return. Perhaps the ecology of Roshar needs that pattern of magic juice flow to be healthy, and the Singer society will be miserable because of Taravangian's closing of the skies.

The Night of Sorrows world being sunless feels to me like an allusion to various ideas of what a bad world is like. I once heard that an important figure in the LDS movement compared the heaven of faithful christians as being like the sun itself and the afterlife of people who do spit in the face of God stuff (not the exact terms, forgive my inaccuracy) is like a cold and sunless place, while everyone else gets something in between pending some further act of divine love and mercy. Taravangian has made the world of the Singers a cold sunless place. He has done something worse than Rashek's ashmounts. I actually think he did this on purpose so that the Singer society would be utterly dependent on him for all forms of light, and not just Light, so they would have to give him legions for his cosmic ambitions.

Essentially, the Listener, Radiant, and Unoathed alliance would hope to eventually be understood as liberators alongside their foreign allies.

This all goes out the window if the world of the Night of Sorrows is like, a fine enough place that just has normal society shaped problems and not hellworld problems. Unless someone wants to write fanfic about it, we are not going to get to find this out until 2030.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 4/16/2026 at 4:32 AM, ParaTulip said:

The Night of Sorrows world being sunless feels to me like an allusion to various ideas of what a bad world is like. I once heard that an important figure in the LDS movement compared the heaven of faithful christians as being like the sun itself and the afterlife of people who do spit in the face of God stuff (not the exact terms, forgive my inaccuracy) is like a cold and sunless place, while everyone else gets something in between pending some further act of divine love and mercy. Taravangian has made the world of the Singers a cold sunless place. He has done something worse than Rashek's ashmounts. I actually think he did this on purpose so that the Singer society would be utterly dependent on him for all forms of light, and not just Light, so they would have to give him legions for his cosmic ambitions.

How would he avoid killing the whole rest of the plants and thus the ecology? It would seem to me that the sunless state is temporary.

And why would Taravangian need to pressure Singers into his armies? Singers ultimately depend on Roshar. No forms, no Singers. And his intended warlord is the semispren of a human and he put a Singer friendly to humans in charge. That indicates to me that he plans to integrate both species into his armed forces.

And on the gripping hand, the simplest and safest way for the rest of the Cosmere of dealing with Retribution is to take out his power base. I am sorry, but logic should point Jasnah to collaboration, just as it did for Fen.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

How does he avoid killing the ecology? Why should he care about plants and animals that do not serve him, praise him as the savior he knows himself to be? Kill it all and supply Light to those who offer the correct prayers so they can live in a dead world. His name is not Cultivation. 

Singers cannot change forms without being on Roshar? Then his soldiers simply remain in one form while on campaign or doing foreign garrison and returns home to change. Mastering a single form as if it were a particular weapon and using it exclusively in war seems really sensible to me.