Shardcast: Taravangian

So here is my take on what happened to Hoid’s memory.  Taking Ian’s idea that the breath’s memory storage is an external drive, then Odium stepped in prior to the “file” moving from short term memory to long term breath storage.  He prevented the transfer from happening. But not being able to cause harm and not wanting Hoid to see the hole in his memory during a routine defrag, he had to repeat the encounter so that the file still got put in place.  If he could fully alter, there would be no reason to repeat the scene.  This “hiccup” in the data transfer caused a pinwheel spin that was fiddling with perfect pitch.

One thing that I think you could have discussed in the episode but didn't bring up (No problem, we have years to discuss this), but what does the change in Odium effect the way we perceive the Set? The Set and the Diagram seem to have a lot of similarities... 

This was the first time it occurred to me that we know that the afterlife on Roshar is weird, and that lines up really well with Odium’s plan of training an army of humans to fight for him if he’s keeping their souls around in the cognitive or spiritual realm.

I feel Taravangian is done after book 5. That doesn't make him a 1 book villain though, he's a 5 book villain. He's been murdering people since before WoK. 

He's actively been an antagonist to Dalinar specifically throughout all the books. He orders Szeth to kill Dalinar at the end of WoK. He send Szeth to kill Dalinar a second time in WoR. He backstabs Dalinar in OB. He has his army turn on Dalinar in book 4. 

I really feel Taravangian should be gone after the next book while Szeth and Dalinar are still main characters since those are the two people Taravangian has a real relationship with. 

So, in relation to the "Vyre as Avatar" convo, I am thinking of White Sand (I know, I know, but IT IS CANON, RIGHT):

[white sand and mistborn spoilers]

This would fit with the definition as we see it now, in some ways. If a human is identified as being particularly important to a shard, they can shape it and invest is as a tool, perhaps, creating an "avatar" of the power. So Vyre is using a word that he doesn't really know what it means (he's just repeating "avatar") where Rayse is thinking of the term as *we* see it, and is like, yeah, no, bro, you're not getting any real powers. ha!

I am only about halfway through the episode, so forgive me if this was brought up. But the early talk about new Fused set off alarm bells for me with Mistborn Era 2 spoilers.

A thing is that I've never really trusted Cultivation's intentions. I trust that she wants to improve Roshar in the long term. And I trusted that she saw Rayse as an enemy. Those two things were enough that she could be considered an ally to our heroes in the broad sense, but now that Rayse is no longer relevant, well, I really don't know if fulfilling her plans is in our protagonists' best interests anymore. 

What she sees as good for Roshar as a whole could very well be a bad thing for individual good people. That's very much the mindset her manipulations instilled in the man she hoped would become Odium; and it seems entirely plausible to me that her goal was to make Odium into someone who would be willing to cooperate with her.