The Current State of Roshar

[Raelynn]

It will probably be another six-ish years until the next books for the Stormlight Archive come out, but I was thinking about what could possibly happen. But essentially, everything had gone to Damnation, so I really have no clue what they’re going to do.
Dalinar has died and become some sort of evil spren thing, the stormfather is dead, Stormlight no longer exists, meaning radiants are either stuck in urithiru (with navani in a coma inside some sort of glass-gel-crystal thing) or unable to use their powers, unless they have a corrupted spren, Adolin still only has one leg, Kaladin is having an extended therapy session with the heralds (of which he now is one), Venli’s creating a chasm fiend-listener-singer-Fused society, Shallan, Rlain, and Renarin are trapped in Shadesmar, and Odium has taken Honor’s power and become Retribution, while Cultivation has fled. In addition, Szeth is doing who-knows-what, Wit/Hoid is offworld, Sigzil and Rysn have dawnshards, and I’m not entirely sure where the latter is. And to top it all off, Roshar is in a time bubble and will be for a couple decades, which will be seventy or eighty years to the rest of the Cosmere.

So the question remains: How are they possible supposed to defeat Retribution? I think they need to start by finding some way to unmake him back into Odium and Honor. Retribution is probably going to try and conquer the rest of Roshar, though he rules a lot of it, so they need to stop or at least hold it off until they can find a better way to fight him. How do you fight a god? There are some helpful tips in The Hero of Ages (Mistborn), but it doesn’t quite work the same in Roshar.

I’d love to hear other people’s ideas!

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Fighting Retribution is not the main goal, Dalinar learned this, just fighting forever won't work and direct conflict with another god will just lead to Roshar and probably the entire solar system being utterly destroyed.

The biggest part, I feel, is doing what Dalinar figured out in the last Vision with Nohadon. Make the Shards themselves want to stop fighting and causing war. Honor was left alone for thousands of years and now has a mind of its own, an immature mind that only interprets it's own Intent in one way, keeping one's word no matter what.

The key will be having TaRetribution pay very close attention to the actions of his enemies, which will let Honor take a close look as well and learn. With the other Shards in the Cosmere finally willing to act against Odium, he won't be able to act directly without the rest of the gods coming down on his head, so he won't be able to just snap his fingers and kill all his enemies without revealing himself to the other Shards and be victim to the Cosmere's biggest jumping. Which will give our heroes the breathing room they desperately need. 

I suspect Taravangian's need to know everything and be in control of everything will help Honor the most, allowing it the most information possible to grow. But also be able to see just how much of a loop-holer and rules-lawyer Taravangian is, it was already unsure of Taravangian treating Gavinor the way he did. 

On the smaller scale though, the Radiants and those aligned with them are indeed in a very tough spot. The Surgebinders are stuck in Urithiru for now, and even when they do find a way out they'll have no Stormlight for their abilities. But there is still hope, another source of Light that Taravangian has no control over, Lifelight. Specifically the Nightwatcher, and her Bondsmith, being able to produce Lifelight like Dalinar did by opening a Perpendicularity.

Still, there are upsides. There are now Unoathed, people who can wield revived Shardblades and Plate like Radiants do, and it seems like they will be composed of the thousands of Deadeyes that are now recovering. With Venli's people taking the Shattered Plains, they are able to both give the more peaceful Singers who aren't totally on board with the Voidbringers a place to be free and get in touch with Listener culture, and a place for the more tired Fused to just finally retire. Plus they have control over Roshar's now singular Perpendicularity, which will definitely come in handy.

Then there is Ba-Ado-Mishram, now recently freed and full of conflicting feelings and intent, but it seems quite clear that she is not willing to just shack back up with Odium ever again, new Vessel or no. She will be the true Wildcard in all this, as she once wanted peace and nearly achieved it, but now is driven into madness through her millennia of imprisonment. She not only could have 'usurped' Odium due to being a better Vessel, but also is 'chosen' by the Tones of Roshar itself somehow. Hard to say how this will play out, but it will definitely be important.

In conclusion, I know that many people think the ending is too bleak, but personally I think its just like the Empire Strikes Back, the heroes are down and wounded, but they aren't out by a long shot. There is still hope, still options, still a possibility for a new victory even in these dark times.

[Returned he/him]

Retribution's main focus (once the time dilation is over) is likely to be on the broader Cosmere rather than Roshar, or at least it seems so to me. He has to worry about proactive interference from other Shards, his plans all involve expanding into other places, and I imagine he feels like he's won pretty handily on Roshar. I think that the initial stages of the back five books will be the Radiants dealing with the control Retribution's followers will have established, increasing their ability to act and ending their siege-like situations. Only later on will they be contending directly with Retribution again.

Opposing Retribution will be difficult. I think that his greatest weaknesses are that he is overconfident in his abilities (especially now that his emotive reasoning is backed by Odium's influence, and his intelligence has some flavor of finding arguments to justify his emotional conclusions rather than independent, rational reasoning), his fondness for gloating over his opponents, and the independence of Honor. Odium degrading his will and mind will cut against his scheming, and Honor having a mind of its own seems like it will be hard for him to deal with as he pursues what he wants rather than what his Shards demand. I suspect that his ultimate defeat will involve not being able to dominate his Shards as he has been able to in the early days of his ascension, though whether or not he is made more impotent (like Sazed), is affected by adding another Shard to his mix, or he is replaced by another Vessel as the Cosmere's game of musical Shards continues I cannot say. It seems likely that this will be tied in with the Cosmere's ultimate conclusions, though at this early point who knows?

After WaT my thinking has been that ultimately all of the Shards are going to be separated from Vessels until they start to gain their own sentience, like Honor has, removing the human pettiness and failure from the picture and leaving the underlying forces of the Cosmere untampered with. Whether or not they're recombined again I don't know, though I lean towards yes.

[Nitpicking]

20 hours ago, Raelynn said:

So the question remains: How are they possible supposed to defeat Retribution? I think they need to start by finding some way to unmake him back into Odium and Honor. Retribution is probably going to try and conquer the rest of Roshar, though he rules a lot of it, so they need to stop or at least hold it off until they can find a better way to fight him. How do you fight a god? There are some helpful tips in The Hero of Ages (Mistborn), but it doesn’t quite work the same in Roshar.

They don't. Why do you assume T. is overthrown or destroyed?

SPOILERS for the greater Cosmere:

Spoiler

We know Roshar is an expansionist imperial power in the Space Age, because we've read Sunlit Man and Emberdark.

 

[Raelynn]

On 7/1/2026 at 12:59 PM, Nitpicking said:

SPOILERS for the greater Cosmere:

  Reveal hidden contents

We know Roshar is an expansionist imperial power in the Space Age, because we've read Sunlit Man and Emberdark.

 

I actually have not read these yet so I did not know that…

There are a lot of great thoughts here! Thanks for replying!