shawnhargreaves

No way will the finale of the entire Cosmere be fighting Odium. That would just be the Stormlight story continued, which would mean the 10 book Stormlight sequence didn't properly end. That's just not how Brandon works - he's never been afraid to wrap one thing up before moving onto the next. The obvious outcome would be someone somehow reforming Adonalsium, but I think this is too obvious. Mistborn 3 will be more scifi than fantasy. By then, technology will have commoditized access to magic. This is a development that we can already see the start of in the latest Mistborn books, and with fabrials on Roshar. The more the uses of investiture become understood and manipulable by science, and the more people are able to use these on a regular basis, the less they're going to like the idea of just 10 arbitrarily chosen people being in direct control of the vast majority of this investiture. I wonder if the final conflict will be over whether there should be Shards at all, as people attempt to splinter them all.

afaik the "loathsome, crafty and dangerous" statement about Rayse comes only from Hoid, who may not be entirely trustworthy. OB:

I think "mink" just means "small non-rat mammal" on Roshar, the same way "chicken" means "bird". The one Dalinar saw when he climbed up and looked into the ventilation ducts sounded a lot like a cat.

I don't buy that. The Recreance was a big enough deal that: The Radiants went down in history as evil betrayers of humanity The spren (and not just some spren: ALL spren) felt sufficiently betrayed that they wanted nothing to do with Nahel bonds for thousands of years The Stormfather is still livid about it That level of impact requires one huge cause, not just a bunch of things gradually adding up to a reasonable decision for peaceful disarmament.

I thought so at first, but then remembered Gavilar had at least two such stones. He gave one to Szeth (in the WoK prelude), and another to Eshonai (in the OB prelude). My new theory is that the missing Unmade is somehow trapped under Kholinar. This is why we see the Fused at the end of OB dismantling a particular part of the palace - they're trying to find and release it. Gavilar knew about this, and used the trapped Unmade to fill a number of black stones with Voidlight (for purposes as yet unknown).

This is my headcanon too. We've repeatedly seen Shallan in particular (and Kaladin to a lesser extent) do things that are clearly magical beyond what has been explained so far as the ability of their surges. At first I thought this was due to the "extra special something" resonances, but we know what those are now for both Lightweavers and Windrunners, and they don't cover everything we have seen. Being able to apply the surges in different Realms fits my understanding of Realmatics, and would open up great potential for existing characters to do interesting things in future books. It often seems possible for low level use of Cosmere magics to happen instinctively without an obvious power source. For instance Kaladin, while in Amaram's army, appeared to be using an immature form of his abilities to fight unusually well, without ever obviously (at least consciously) sucking in Stormlight. Similarly Vin at the start of Mistborn. So I think it's very possible that characters are able to do the fairly minor things we have seen so far without obviously glowing first. If so, after they learn what this is and how to control it, we can expect to see some truly amazing things happen! "<X> is to Shallan improving people through drawing idealized versions of them, as flying through the air is to Kaladin being a slightly better than average spearman..."

@Stairdweller, I agree all those are both highly suspicious and likely important. The crazy biological diversity, with associated cultural, religious, and linguistic differences, suggests that Roshar has seen multiple waves of immigration over a long period of time. Older groups like the Horneaters were pushed out into less desirable territory (Rock even tells us the tale of how that happened) - very much like how eg. the Picts ended up in the northern tip of Scotland when pushed out by the Celts, who in turn were being pushed by Saxons... I'm intrigued by how distinct each group has remained, though. There is some blending (eg. Horneater blood in some Veden family lines) but nowhere near as much as we'd see on Earth after such a long time period. Cultivation influence, perhaps? Gathering up interesting species, planting each one in a different corner of your garden, and pruning occasionally to make sure they stay put over time, is exactly what gardeners do. Shinovar in particular reminds me of wandering around Kew Gardens and marveling at how those Victorian engineers managed to build a heated greenhouse to keep tropical ferns alive in a climate that otherwise would have been far too hostile for them to survive. Multiple waves of immigration casts doubt on the human origin story we learned in OB, though. That sure seemed like Parshendi were writing about the very first humans they had seen. At minimum our understanding would be incomplete if there were later waves of different arrivals - and if not all humans came with Odium in that first batch, this would massively undermine the explanation we were given for what caused the Recreance! I have wondered before if multiple sets of immigrants arriving at different times correlates with the desolations? Each time was newcomers vs. everyone already there..

I had some similar thoughts shortly before OB came out:

Dalinar bonded the Stormfather, who is literally the cognitive shadow of Honor. Most present day political leaders don't really appreciate what that means, but it seems the Shin know far more about such things (not just that Szeth was able to somehow predict the return of Voidbringers, but we also know the Shin have most of the Honorblades, and in OB we learned that Szeth had used these to train with all of the Surges).

I think everything we see in the interludes is Very Important (tm). They are Brandon's way of presenting things that we don't necessarily need to focus on right now in order to follow the immediate story, but that will become massively important later on. This structural mechanism lets him prepare for future books without distracting from the current storylines. So yeah, Axies will be way more than just some neat background worldbuilding.

New favorite place I'd like to be a fly on the wall: when Hoid offers these truths to his new spren!

Hoid collects access to magic systems everywhere he goes. We don't know why, but he's done this on Sel, Scadrial, and Nalthis (plus probably more that we don't know about yet) before Roshar. This is a strong enough pattern for him that we can be confident he wanted the bond, not just to save the spren.

These books are full of symmetry and mirror image character arcs. Dalinar put journey before destination, and overcame the Thrill. Amaram put destination before journey, and was overcome by the Thrill. It's no accident that Rock succeeded at killing the replacement version of the very same Shardbearer that his cousins previously failed to duel. Remember why his cousins were attempting that? Rock is now the Horneater king!

I'm pretty sure my ancestors from 4,000 years ago carried out human sacrifices on a regular basis. I feel zero responsibility for this :-)

This is a post of two parts. Part 1: Attuning Praise Of the many things I love about Oathbringer, a big one is Brandon's mastery of pacing. As fans of epic fantasy, we appreciate the depth and complexity that can only be developed when a story spans many thousands of pages and is revisited over many years as successive novels are added to a saga. But we've also seen countless examples of just how hard it is for a writer to keep control of a story of this magnitude. Most often, giant stories sag in the middle. They open strong as characters, challenges and worlds are introduced. Things slow as these existing elements are maneuvered into position, ready for the finale to pay out with an intensity far beyond what a shorter, simpler story could achieve. We're all used to (and generally forgive) trilogies where book #2 is the weakest of the three. Some writers try to overcome this by resolving plot elements early and often, then introducing new ones to replace them. The danger is this can devalue everything: here lies soapyness. You end up with many small stories strung together, rather than the epic scale we crave. Others overlap large numbers of simultaneous elements, so that some can periodically be resolved while others continue. The risk here is overwhelming or confusing the reader, who can no longer tell which things are most important to pay attention to (here's looking at you, last couple of ASOIAF books). Now that we are three books into what is by far the largest and most complex story Brandon has attempted to date, I love how masterfully he has avoided these pitfalls. Important developments and massive revelations occur all the way through the book, but everything felt earned to me. I never found myself confused, or emotionally underinvested because something important came out of nowhere, or unsure where the story could go next because too much had been resolved too quickly. I've been thinking about why pace feels so right to me in Brandon's writing, and believe there are two main elements: Moving big things forward slightly faster than I expect. Momentum = excitement. Having even bigger things waiting to replace them, which have already been carefully prepared, but in a subtle enough way that they did not distract focus too early. The interludes are part of this, giving a structural mechanism for presenting information in a way that makes it clear this is background richness for now, even if it may become important later. But Brandon is also just very good at hiding things in plain sight, writing what appears to be neat worldbuilding flavor but later combines with some other detail to become a Plot Critical Big Deal. A tour de force of pacing in this book was the speed at which he moved from disclosing that humans were the original voidbringers, to showing this in action as Odium took control of Amaram's army, then taking the same idea further as Odium attempted to make Dalinar his champion. All of this occurred in rapid succession during the avalanche, but each step was so well prepared that it made total sense and the twisty/revelatory aspects enhanced rather than distracting from the emotional impact. Well done, sir. Part 2: Mistrust Anyone Who Claims To Predict The Future We got so much new stuff in this book: Multiple people interacting directly with Odium. Seeing not only the Nightwatcher, but also Cultivation in person. Learning what she was up to with Dalinar, plus major clues that she is attempting something along similar lines with Taravangian. What's up with listeners and Stormform and being controlled by Odium. Cause of the Recreance. Who Odium picked as his champion. Meeting, fighting, and defeating several of the Unmade. Confirmation of many popular theories (Oathpact, Desolations, Skybreakers, Sons of Honor, Helaran...) Meeting multiple Heralds. How squires work. Spending time in Shadesmar, and seeing how society functions there. Watching a Larkin in action. Lift joins the main stage! I can't even remember what else. So, so much. We are now 30% of the way through the Stormlight Archive. But let's ignore that for now and consider only the first 5 book arc. We can assume that Brandon will not reduce pace - if anything it will probably increase. He's certainly not going to quit with the Big Reveals to focus purely on character development or resolving existing challenges. So we can expect two more books, each containing at least as much as the above list. I started enumerating the obvious remaining "known unknowns": Aima and Aimans. Scouring thereof. What secret is hidden there which could "destroy worlds"? Voidbinding. How exactly does it work and what can it do? (fwiw I believe the Fused are using Surgebinding, not Voidbinding at all...) Dawnshards. Braize and Ashyn. The Ghostbloods. Ryshadium. What shattered the plains? Why is one of the Unmade missing? (is it captured beneath Kholinar?) How, why and when were the Parshendi enslaved? Of course we still have more Heralds to meet, and surges to learn details about, and oaths to be spoken. That's a decent list, but not twice as much as what was revealed during OB (and nowhere near to 7x as much, if we also include the second Stormlight arc). So, basic math says there are more secrets yet to be discovered. Knowing Brandon, many of these have already been extensively foreshadowed, or are hiding in plain sight. Some wild guesses about places I suspect they might be lurking: The death of Honor. This appears to have happened some time after the Recreance, but the only real mention of it is information from OB that in the time before he died, Honor became unstable and told the Knights Radiant they might destroy everything. Surely killing a Shard who is invested on a planet is a massive deal that would be hard for anyone living there to miss? Other big events from Roshar's history (the Desolations, the Recreance) are reflected in its history, religions, and myth, but not the splintering of a Shard? Huh. Odium in OB was not what I expected, and Honor appears to be darker than I expected. Are there deeper misunderstandings about the nature of these shards? I was chilled by the moment when Dalinar finally remembered the Rift (one of the worst things I have read about in quite some time!) and Stormfather says "sure, I have no problem with that - they attacked you, so you killed them - this is honorable." I also noted how Odium placed a high value on getting Venli to spread misleading propaganda to the former parshmen. History is written by the victors, and all that? Cultivation. She played a key part in Dalinar's victory over the Thrill, and appears to be behind the Diagram as well, but this is a full active Shard we are dealing with here. What else is she up to, and what's her end goal? What really caused the Recreance? There's already a thread speculating that we didn't get the full story in OB (or possibly not the truth at all). If humans arrived in Shinovar first, then later broke an agreement to invade the rest of Roshar, why are Shin a different ethnicity from all other Rosharans? We don't know the details of how humans and singers switched allegiances between Honor and Odium, or how the Oathpact was set up. Devils may be hiding in these details. Rosharan biology is weird. There are strange connections between things like sky eels and santhids. The chasmfiend lifecycle is not understood. Parshendi have gemhearts - does that mean they pupate like other Rosharan species? Brandon spends significant page space on these things without fully explaining any of them. Seems important beyond just background worldbuilding color.

Agreed. I don't think we understand what voidbinding is yet. Perhaps what the Stormform listeners did, and very likely Renarin's visions, but the mechanics of these are still unexplained. Voidbinding manipulates the same underlying surges as Surgebinding, but I expect its abilities and results will be far more different than what we saw the Fused do. Hemalurgy is not a good analogy for this. That is about stealing powers, rather than the powers themselves - and can in theory be used to steal any magical ability.

I love that speaking the oaths did not magically cure Teft's addiction, any more than they did Kaladin's depression or Dalinar's alcoholism. It's so easy to use this kind of character issue as backstory color, then forget about it once the plot starts moving and characters start growing. Or to let such characters become one-dimensional cutouts defined only by their problems. Brandon writes people who have massive challenges and are awesome at the same time. It's real and beautiful.

Mistborn spoilers:

Have you read the Wax & Wayne (Mistborn series 2) books yet?

Counterargument: "Look for those who survive where they should not." (from the Diagram)

This thread contains many great arguments about why the Recreance explanation given in OB seems insufficient. Another aspect to think about is the trustworthiness of where that explanation came from. I've been giving it increased credibility because I thought it was confirmed by multiple in-world sources, but thinking about it more, I'm not sure that is actually the case. First, Jasnah learns the secret from Hoid, but she won't share it because it would destroy the other Radiants. I trust Jasnah here, and mostly Hoid as well (although I'm not sure why - this is instinctive rather than having any particular reason behind it). One oddity is that Jasnah herself doesn't seem particularly destroyed by the revelation. Takes a big ego to be ok with something yourself, yet convinced that it would be too much for others. Later on, Taravangian arranges for a secret to be broadly communicated. He is certainly NOT a reliable actor! And the interesting thing is, he's the only one that really seemed to care about that particular piece of information. The Azir and Thaylens were focused on other information, which was carefully tailored to their individual concerns. So why did Taravangian bother to release that Dawnchant translation at all? I think it was cover. This wasn't necessary to break up the coalition, but to give him a plausible excuse for backing out of it while retaining moral high ground, so he could step in later and pick up the pieces. Nale takes Taravangian's information seriously, but he's already crazy (starting with, how did a Herald of all people not already know this?). None of the other Radiants seem particularly bothered by it. So why did Jasnah think this would be so damaging? I think Jasnah's information is different from what Taravangian released. I can't recall seeing confirmation they are the same, and she wasn't exactly about to speak up: "no, this damaging information is not true. I can prove that because I know this other thing which is so much worse..." The Stormfather does kinda seem to confirm Taravangian's account, but re-reading I think that is misdirection. His memory of these events is flawed and seems to fill in only as Dalinar learns things. So if Dalinar learned a partial (and therefore highly misleading) account, I suspect Stormfather would 'confirm' just the part that Dalinar had already heard.

I love your theory, DimChatz. This exactly satisfies what I've been looking for - something that mirrors history rather than exactly repeating it. So many things fit. So in these mirrored relationships, who is the present day equivalent of Gavilar? His key ties were: Dalinar: brother and commanding officer. They have similar although not identical abilities, and Gavilar was Dalinar's role model. Evi: introduced her to Dalinar and arranged their marriage, mostly for strategic gain (to get access to her brother's Shards) but also because he thought this would be good for Dalinar. Navani: spouse. I've never bought this as a possible relationship before, but dang if Jasnah isn't a match: Shallan's mentor - they have similar although not identical abilities, and Jasnah is Shallan's role model. Adolin: introduced him to Shallan and arranged their marriage, mostly for strategic gain (to get access to Shallan's Radiant powers) but also because she thought this would be good for both Adolin and Shallan. Kaladin: spouse?

This. Also, the Skybreakers don't seem the type to covertly assassinate someone, or to arrange for them to be up front during a battle so they get killed "by accident". Their MO is to find some existing crime that the person is guilty of under local law, then show up all above board and documented to punish this crime to the maximum extent allowed by that law. Doesn't fit with how Kaladin saw Tien die. But, it does seem that Tien was on the path to becoming a lightweaver. Maybe the Skybreakers were watching, and looking for an excuse to execute him, but hadn't acted on that yet when Tien died for unrelated reasons? The wording: "we have records showing the only member of Amaram’s army to have bonded a spren was long since eliminated." is unclear whether that was a passive or active elimination.

My experience reading Brandon's work is that when something doesn't smell right, it usually isn't right. And this doesn't smell right. We are missing too many important pieces, and I don't trust that the information we received in OB is accurate (or at least, not complete). There is always another secret...

Ouch, yes. Shallan's reaction to learning that Kaladin killed Helaran (which many were expecting to be a big issue, but so far at least has just been "well, he was doing his duty") will have nothing on that!