The secret behind the Rosharian Gas Giants [Theory]

[Spoolofwhool]

53 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

They can still be important to the mechanics of imprisoning odium without being important to the main story line.  It would be difficult, but doable, to leave odium's problems out of the main story line.

Consider Brandon is the type of writer who gives hints on the ending of the series at the very start of the series, I don't think he would just left field something this major at this point. With no attention pointed to the gas giants at all at this point, I'm fairly certain that they will not be relevant in the first arc of SA. I'm not discounting their relevance in the second arc however.

[The Voiceless One he/him]

My point exactly.  They do not need to be important to this arc of story, but they can still be tied to imprisoning odium.

[Spoolofwhool]

54 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

My point exactly.  They do not need to be important to this arc of story, but they can still be tied to imprisoning odium.

Only if freeing Odium isn't the crux of this arc.

[The Voiceless One he/him]

Is there anything so far that indicates that it is the crux?

[Jofwu he/him]

Lots of people think Arc 1 will end with Odium escaping. It makes sense. He's clearly the big baddie of Stormlight, and if there's no change in the status quo then it doesn't make a very good story.

That said, there's also an argument to be made against it. Unless he just wants to hang around and destroy Cultivation (but can't do so easily for some reason), I would expect him to just pack up and leave Roshar for the time being. Surely he has higher priorities. He's also packing a lot of power, and at this point we're a long way from our protagonists being ready to even TRY fighting back against a Shard.

Seems more likely to me that facing Odium will be book 9/10 thing. I'm expecting the end of Arc 1 to be the climax of the True Desolation. The world will be hurt badly, but they'll limp out of it. The downside being that something in that process severely weakens whatever is holding Odium down. So Arc 2 will be about where they go from there.

[Spoolofwhool]

I'm of two minds on this. The first is that if Odium is freed this arc, then it would be a fairly rapid moving story, which I don't mind, to reach it. I think this because looking at what is probably planned for the fight against Odium is: bringing about the True Desolation and showing off all of the voidbringer forces, then defeating them and convincing Odium he can lose, then appointing a champion to fight his champion. A lot of stuff, and we only have three books (huge books mind you). So it does feel like it should continue through the ten books.

At the same time though, looking at what is left to be done, I feel like dragging it on until book 10 would be a bit too long. The books are big, and the story looks to be progressing fairly well. In addition, the time skip in-between 1-5 and 6-10 makes it feel a lot like a shift in gears is planned, like they beat Odium, then are picking up the pieces when something else occurs that shakes Roshar. Also, the story does have a rushed feeling, like a race is in progress. Humanity is pushing to survive a world-ending event, and the only people with firsthand knowledge on the matter and who were the prime line of defense are mad. I feel like it can be run fairly well.

Personally, I would be more interested in Odium's leaving/defeat being the climax for 5, then 6-10 is building up the pieces and discovering what other secrets left behind. However, I agree that a book 10 ending for the whole Odium arc makes more sense. In any case, I'm still of the opinion that if the gas giants are important to the ending climax, Brandon would've seeded them already, which by all accounts he has not. Therefore, I will be surprised (pleasantly) if they end up being relevant to the greater SA storyline.