Dalinar must Unite the Cosmere

[Khmauv he/him]

I just finished a reread of The Way of Kings. Something in the last vision Dalinar receives stood out to me. He is obsessed through the whole book about uniting the High Princes, because of a vision he had. He has that same vision again at the end of the book but it is extended. In the extended version we learn that Honor is the one who sent them and that Odium has killed him. He is again told to "Unite Them". But who must he Unite?

Quote

 

[Honor] looked into the sky. “I don’t even know if anyone will ever see this. I am gone, you see.” Dalinar didn’t respond. He looked over the pinnacle’s sheer edge, down at a void, horrified. “This isn’t just about you either,” the figure said, raising his hand into the air. A light winked out in the sky, one that Dalinar hadn’t realized was there. Then another winked out as well. The sun seemed to be growing dimmer. “It’s about all of them,” [Honor] said. “I should have realized he’d come for me.”

The figure still stared into the sky. “I leave this, because there must be something. A hope to discover. A chance that someone will find what to do. Do you wish to fight him?”

“Someone must lead them.”

“Someone must unite them.”

“Someone must protect them.”

 

Note: I removed Dalinar's thoughts and dialogue for clarity. 

It is right after Honor points out the star systems being destroyed by Odium, while still looking at those star systems, that he tells Dalinar "Someone must unite them".

Honor is not just saying Unite the High Princes, or the Knights Radiant, or even all of Roshar. Honor is thinking on a much, MUCH bigger scale.

Unite the Cosmere!

 

Spoiler

Below is a sterilized transcription of the vision. I removed all of Dalinar's dialogue and thoughts so I could just look at the vision itself.

He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and found himself in a place of smoke. He turned about, wary. The sky was dark and he stood on a field of dull, bone-white rock, jagged and rough, extending in all directions. Off into eternity. Amorphous shapes made of curling grey smoke rose from the ground. Like smoke rings, only in other shapes. Here a chair. There a rockbud, with vines extended, curling to the sides and vanishing. Beside him appeared the figure of a man in uniform, silent and vaporous, rising lethargically toward the sky, mouth open. The shapes melted and distorted as they climbed higher, though they seemed to hold their forms longer than they should. It was unnerving, standing on the boundless plain, pure darkness above, smoke figures rising all around.

He frowned, stepping back as the figure of a tree burst from the ground close to him.

“You must unite them,” a powerful voice boomed.

all around, causing the smoke figures to fuzz and distort.

“Unite them. The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows. You must prepare. Build of your people a fortress of strength and peace, a wall to resist the winds. Cease squabbling and unite.”

The vision changed. He spun about, finding that he was still on an open plain of rock, but the normal sun was in the sky. The stone field looked like an ordinary one on Roshar.

he began to walk, passing cracked boulders and broken bits of shale, pebbles and rocks. There were no plants, not even rockbuds. Just an empty landscape filled with broken stones. Eventually, he spotted a ridge. Getting to high ground felt like a good idea, though the hike seemed to take hours. The vision did not end. Time was often odd in these visions. He continued to hike up the side of the rock formation, wishing he had his Shardplate to strengthen him. Finally at the top, he walked over to the edge to look down below. And there he saw Kholinar, his home, the capital city of Alethkar. It had been destroyed. The beautiful buildings had been shattered. The windblades were cast down. There were no bodies, just broken stone.

he could see the rubble of his own palace.

“I cannot fight him any longer,” the voice said. Dalinar jumped, glancing to the side. A man stood there. He had dark skin and pure white hair. Tall, thick of chest but not massive, he wore exotic clothing of a strange cut: loose, billowing trousers and a coat that came down only to his waist. Both seemed made of gold.

“You can see it there,” the figure said, pointing. “If you look closely. It begins in the distance.” Dalinar glanced in that direction,

yes, something was happening. There was a shadow in the air, approaching. A wall of darkness. Like a highstorm, only wrong.

“You’re probably wondering if this is a vision of the future.”

The figure squinted at the horizon. “I cannot see the future completely. Cultivation, she is better at it than I. It’s as if the future is a shattering window. The further you look, the more pieces that window breaks into. The near future can be anticipated, but the distant future … I can only guess.”

“That is what could happen,” the figure said, nodding into the distance. “It’s what I fear will happen. It’s what he wants. The True Desolation.” No, that wall in the air wasn’t a highstorm. It wasn’t rain making that enormous shadow, but blowing dust.

The figure turned to him. “I am sorry to do this to you. By now I hope that what you’ve seen has given you a foundation to understand. But I can’t know for certain. I don’t know who you are, or how you have found your way here.”

“Most of what I show you are scenes I have seen directly,” the figure said. “But some, such as this one, are born out of my fears. If I fear it, then you should too.” The land was trembling. The wall of dust was being caused by something. Something approaching. The ground was falling away. Dalinar gasped. The very rocks ahead were shattering, breaking apart, becoming dust. He backed away as everything began to shake, a massive earthquake accompanied by a terrible roar of dying rocks. He fell to the ground. There was an awful, grinding, terrifying moment of nightmare. The shaking, the destruction, the sounds of the land itself seeming to die. Then it was past. Dalinar breathed in and out before rising on unsteady legs. He and the figure stood on a solitary pinnacle of rock. A little section that—for some reason—had been protected. It was like a stone pillar a few paces wide, rising high into the air.

Around it, the land was gone. Kholinar was gone. It had all fallen away into unplumbed darkness below. He felt vertigo, standing on the tiny bit of rock that—impossibly—remained.

The figure looked about, sorrowful. “I can’t leave much. Just these few images, given to you. Whoever you are.”

The figure looked into the sky. “I don’t even know if anyone will ever see this. I am gone, you see.” Dalinar didn’t respond. He looked over the pinnacle’s sheer edge, down at a void, horrified. “This isn’t just about you either,” the figure said, raising his hand into the air. A light winked out in the sky, one that Dalinar hadn’t realized was there. Then another winked out as well. The sun seemed to be growing dimmer. “It’s about all of them,” the figure said. “I should have realized he’d come for me.”

The figure still stared into the sky. “I leave this, because there must be something. A hope to discover. A chance that someone will find what to do. Do you wish to fight him?

“Someone must lead them.”

“Someone must unite them.”

“Someone must protect them.”

The figure was silent for a moment. Then he spoke in a clear, crisp voice. “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. Speak again the ancient oaths and return to men the Shards they once bore.” He turned to Dalinar, meeting his eyes. “The Knights Radiant must stand again.”

“Men must face them together,” the figure said, stepping up to Dalinar, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You cannot squabble as in times past. He’s realized that you, given time, will become your own enemies. That he doesn’t need to fight you. Not if he can make you forget, make you turn against one another. Your legends say that you won. But the truth is that we lost. And we are losing.”

“I wish I could do more,” repeated the figure in gold. “You might be able to get him to choose a champion. He is bound by some rules. All of us are. A champion could work well for you, but it is not certain. And … without the Dawnshards … Well, I have done what I can. It is a terrible, terrible thing to leave you alone.”

“I am … I was … God. The one you call the Almighty, the creator of mankind.” The figure closed his eyes. “And now I am dead. Odium has killed me. I am sorry.”

 

Edited February 2, 2017 by Khmauv

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

Woah. This is... wow. I never noticed this before, but it does seem that Honor is asking Dalinar to unite all the worlds against Odium. If this is true, it would be the most amazing story ever. Do you think the later Oaths of the order of the Bondsmiths could hint toward this? Could this be a hint that Dalinar will be the character to have an effect beyond the Greater Roshar area?

[Itchy Savant he/him]

Brandon has said that the third bondsmith bonds another shard that isn't tied to roshar hasn't he?

Endowment seems like a good fit due to all the cross over and the spren "endowing" people with crazy powers.

Perhaps the unification has already begun.

 

 

On second thought i think he has said that the third bondsmith is usually a worldhopper and his bond doesnt have to do with the Roshar shards or something like that.

I can't look for the WoB right now but hopefully someone has it

Edited February 2, 2017 by Itchy Savant
Remembered something

[Pagerunner he/him]

9 minutes ago, Itchy Savant said:

Brandon has said that the third bondsmith bonds another shard that isn't tied to roshar hasn't he?

Endowment seems like a good fit due to all the cross over and the spren "endowing" people with crazy powers.

Perhaps the unification has already begun.

 

 

On second thought i think he has said that the third bondsmith is usually a worldhopper and his bond doesnt have to do with the Roshar shards or something like that.

I can't look for the WoB right now but hopefully someone has it

I don't recall having heard anything of the kind. He's implied that the three Bondspren correspond to the three Rosharan Shards (unless they're not). We also received a specific "no" for whether or not it had to do with Ambition. I recall him speaking of how it'd be difficult to worldhop with a spren, since they're tied to that planet's region in the Cognitive Realm, so I don't think it's likely the third Bondsmith would be a worldhopper (especially considering the Radiants are helping the Heralds, who are tied to the Rosharan system, and that Stormlight is only available on Roshar).

[Tsidqiyah he/him]

Hasn't Brandon said that it won't be until Mistborn era 4 that we get overt overlap between systems? I suspect that while the events of the SA effect the cosmere we will be able to enjoy the whole SA by itself without significant knowledge from other worlds being needed.

[Itchy Savant he/him]

My bad, I thought I recalled something about the third bondsmith not having anything to do with Odium and instead having something do in the larger cosmere.

Must have made it up.

[theuntaintedchild he/him]

This is so cool! This is my favorite theory right now.

 

[Jofwu he/him]

I don't think this will play out in Stormlight... But I wouldn't be surprised if he survives Stormlight in some capacity, and goes on to play a bigger role in the Cosmere. Maybe Honor will be put back together somehow and he'll take it up? That's my best guess.

[Ciridae]

I really like this theory too, but from the parts highlighted in the OP it almost sounds like the stars winking out are representations of the shards Odium has already destroyed. I dont know about lead, but uniting and protecting the rest of the shards could definitely be a long term goal for Honor. I'm not a fan of the 'reassembled Adonalsium' theory for how the cosmere's story will pan out but I do like the idea of Honor's unsplintering. 

[1stBondsmith he/him]

It is possible that the lights that wink out "that he hadn't noticed before" are the gas giants of the Roshar system, not all the Cosmere. Just a thought.

[Khmauv he/him]

On 2/3/2017 at 0:29 PM, 1stBondsmith said:

It is possible that the lights that wink out "that he hadn't noticed before" are the gas giants of the Roshar system, not all the Cosmere. Just a thought.

What about his own sun dimming? In my mind that connected the lights winking out to other stars being extinguished

[1stBondsmith he/him]

Don't you think that anything that would extinguish the planets of a system would also affect the star of the system or shade its light (like dust clouds from the ruined planets blocking the light. At a minimum, the dimming of their star would make the reflected light dim. I think it is more sinister than this though, and I was noting that the effect could be either local to the greater Roshar system, or broader. We just don't have evidence either way yet.

[dionysus]

Dalinar is Brandon's favorite character. I also don't think this will happen in Stormlight, but I think the evidence is strong and it just fits. This is my head cannon. I also didn't notice the emphasis on the stars, good catch.

Edit. Thinking on it more, I find it likely the stars are the planets Ashyn and Braize. Arcanum Unbounded spoilers:

Spoiler

Ashyn is post apocalypse and Braize is controlled by Odium.

 

Edited February 8, 2017 by dionysus

[grasshoppa]

On 2/2/2017 at 0:56 PM, jofwu said:

I don't think this will play out in Stormlight... But I wouldn't be surprised if he survives Stormlight in some capacity, and goes on to play a bigger role in the Cosmere. Maybe Honor will be put back together somehow and he'll take it up? That's my best guess.

That's my pet theory as well.