dantlee

The interesting bit to me that no one has really commented on yet is that the Aimians mention that This strongly implies that the Sleepless once were surgebinders, but lost that ability at some point, just like the Parshendi. I wonder if they were actually part of the KR before the Recreance? From what we've seen of Arclo and Axies, they're pretty Braize powerful already, so it would be pretty cool to see them glow too.

While this doesn't necessarily fit in with the "nine shadows" part (and personally, I think the correct answer there is the most straightforward one - the 9 shadows simply represent the unmade), my favorite theory about Odium's champion is that it is Oroden. I should note that the part about Odium's champion being a baby isn't my theory originally, and I unfortunately forget where I first read it in the forums (otherwise I'd link to it and give proper credit), but essentially it's based on this death rattle: If Kaladin is Honor's champion, wouldn't this fit perfectly? Based on everything we know about Kaladin, and his renewed oath to protect Oroden in particular, if he were faced with the choice of killing a defenseless babe to "gain us further breath to draw" (i.e. time, which the Stormfather revealed is all that the forces of Honor can gain by defeating Odium's champion), I find it very unlikely that he would kill the child even if that meant dooming all of humanity. I also subscribe to the theory that Odium actually wins on Roshar, making the Stormlight Archive a particularly tragic series - but an incredibly important one for the events of the cosmere, as Brandon has made clear on multiple occasions.

"More tongue, you dour idiot!"

Lots of questions, as usual. Dalinar, you poor, old fool. What is Mr. T going to do to you now? Was Dalinar referencing Szeth's old honorblade when he mentioned a workaround for not having the Dour Idiot around to fly to oathgates and open them from the other side? And the part about Voidbringer negotiations with the Azish is really fascinating. Specifically the idea that (see bold below) ”I wonder, is this just stormform or one of the other Unmade-associated forms (Decayform, Smokeform, Nightform) mentioned in the WoR epigraphs? The part about Adolin feeling a "pulse of Radiance" and seeing himself perfected is by far the strongest evidence I've seen so far that he'll become a KR. I know some people may think that's just Renarin using regrowth, but we never had any indication that the people Lift healed felt anything remotely similar. I wasn't a huge fan of Adolin becoming a KR himself, as I thought that would make the entire Kholin family too conveniently central in the future of Roshar. But alas. Finally, the fact that some Parshendi/voidbringers are negotiating, while others raided supplies, and others stole ships, makes me think that at least some of the Unmade are already leading their own separate factions and telling them exactly what to do. Not looking great for team Honor/anti-Rayse so far lol.

So we get a little bit more information on Tezim, the God-Priest of Tukar in chapter 8. His claiming to be an "Aspect of the Almighty" strongly implies he thinks he's a sliver of Honor - what are people's thoughts? I know some people had already been speculating that he might be a herald. Here are the quotes we have on Tezim, for those needing a refresher: So we know he's the leader of the Tukari, he's trying to conquer Sesemalex Dar, Mraize is worried about him and thinks he's probably not human, and he's a "god-priest" claiming to be an "Aspect of the Almighty." Update 10/18: And we know that he calls himself "Herald of Heralds and bearer of the Oathpact." And here are the WoB I could find: Thoughts with this admittedly very limited info? I personally think that him being Ishar or Jezrien is a bit too obvious for Brandon, although the aspect of the almighty line sure makes it sound like he's a sliver.

It seems like Renarin already knows what's going on with Adolin and Sadeas, and Shallan is absolutely going to find out. The real question is, who is going around murdering troops in the same way Sadeas was killed? Perhaps Ialai is organizing some form of revenge?

I need to find the few WoB we have on Tezim - he's clearly going to be a very important character/potential antagonist. Is there any way he's actually a sliver of Honor like he claims? (At least that's how I interpreted "Aspect of the Almighty") also, love that pretty much everyone's criticisms of shallan being mute to this point are entirely thrown out the window. Cmon y'all, stop doubting BS lol.

Eh, I'm not quite so negative on GRRM. I think he's quite overrated as a writer - his prose tends to drag on for pages at a time describing nothing more than scenery or food, but overall I think he's a brilliant worldbuilder and a master at subverting expectations. His character development is also excellent. And this is unrelated to his fantasy writing, but I have also rarely read any author more adept at writing food porn.

Plot twist, those are actually Lannister troops - Brandon is laying the groundwork for integrating ASOIAF into the Cosmere, since GRRM will never finish the books and BS will have to step in like he did for WoT.

This is interesting, but I'm slightly confused; what similarities do you see here to Scadrian high imperial? Ivory's speech in this excerpt (before your changes) seems nothing like it, in my opinion. The most common feature of high imperial is turning verbs into gerunds unnecessarily (usually identified by an -ing ending). But Ivory's speech is for the most part grammatically correct: When he does err, it's usually because he's removed a verb or a direct object entirely ("A junction is not, Jasnah"); not because he's adding in unnecessary gerunds or repeating verbs (i.e. wasing the was of not).

A lot of people (and I agree) have speculated that the last one is actually Nale at the end of Edgedancer.

We do already have the answers to some of those questions. There is a WoB that if the heralds linger for too long after a desolation ends, a new one will begin. It's strongly implied in the prologue that if they die, they're sent to damnation/braize automatically. So the remaining heralds that survive have to choose to return to damnation/braize (though it's still unclear how that process actually works; my guess is that they worldhop/go through shadesmar), which they didn't do last time. It's also clearly stated in the prologue that it's very rare for most/all of the heralds to survive a desolation. On the topic of OP's post; I do agree with others that you're being way too harsh on the heralds. If you'd ever spoken to a victim of torture (I have unfortunately spoken to and interviewed many in the course of my professional life), you'd know that extended periods of physical and emotional distress, often with very little human interaction, can severely damage - sometimes permanently - one's mental state. I've seen previously courageous, outspoken, and self-sacrificing individuals become deathly afraid of even leaving their own homes to go to the supermarket after enduring months of torture. I just don't think you understand how deeply that kind of experience can storm someone up (and I pray you never have to). Now imagine having to endure several millennia's worth of torture, over and over again, and the few moments of respite you ever get are to fight a brutal, total war that usually wipes out most of the planet's population and civilizations, after which you have to willingly volunteer yourself for several thousand more years of torture. I think even the strongest-willed human beings would break at some point, just as the heralds have.

But what attribute would a hemalurgical spike even have to steal for Renarin to have these kinds of visions? It seems very different from everything we've seen vis-a-vis Ruin's whispers (as well as Sazed's use of hemalurgy with the Kandra and Wax), in my opinion.

I highly doubt it; Brandon almost never uses simplistic binaries of "good" and "evil." I'm sure once we meet Odium/Rayse in person, he'll be a more nuanced character that some may even sympathize with. There's been a lot of separate theorizing about each planetary system/shard's "number" and what each could mean.

I think it's likely Elhokar will be a surgebinder. From what we've seen from Lift, Kaladin, and Shallan, all of them underwent some kind of severe trauma before beginning to manifest their surgebinding abilities. It's similar for all the Mistborn we saw in Era 1 (see: snapping). Gavilar's death could very well have been that trauma for Elhokar; but I don't really agree that he's mentally ill. I think his paranoia is fairly reasonable given the role he was prematurely thrust into, and the multiple assassination attempts he survived. If your father had been brutally murdered, you knew that several groups of people were trying to kill you, and you also constantly saw weird mysterious spren out of the corner of your eye, wouldn't you be pretty paranoid?

I've been wondering about this for a while, too. I'm hopeful we may get some answers in Oathbringer - I was reading one of the Dalinar flashbacks from Unfettered II, and the giant stormstriders are mentioned there too (meaning it's extremely unlikely these are voidspren or thunderclasts): This is in Alethkar, not the shattered plains, so I also find it very unlikely that they are chasmfiends as Argent suggested.

Personally, I really love this theory from Runyan FT (from a different thread):

Warbreaker spoilers below, but I freaked out and quite literally jumped out of my chair during my first readthrough of WoR when I realized that

Personally, and I have no evidence for this other than Vasher's advice to Kaladin in WoR ("do what helps you sleep at night, that's what I wish I'd done"), but I think she's dead, perhaps at his own hand. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

What's a couple milennia to shards, anyway?

Little did we know until Arcanum Unbounded 2 that Jove has his own shardworld, called Jupiter. Khriss tells me that it is very cold and weird gaseous giants live there.

So, something that's been tickling my mind ever since AU came out... in the Roshar essay, Khriss notes that I think it's fair to say that most of us had surmised that Braize was Odium's shardworld, colloquially referred to as "Damnation," where the Heralds were sent to be tortured for thousands of years between Desolations. We also know from the prelude and Taln's viewpoint chapters that one of the more prominent and lovely features of Damnation is being burned alive and having your charred flesh ripped/seared off repeatedly. So, while I still think that the Braize = Damnation theory is correct, perhaps it is not in the physical realm. Could it be that Damnation is actually the cognitive aspect of Braize, one that is particularly awful and risky to traverse? That would also explain why Khriss says that "research here is difficult and dangerous." If the Cognitive Realm of Braize is this horrible, burning hellscape occupied by evil voidspren who enjoy torturing people's souls, it would probably dissuade most curious worldhoppers from poking their noses around, I really don't think Ashyn is Damnation, by the way. I haven't read the Silence Divine, but we do know that no shard occupies Ashyn, and that there are still people living there in floating cities.

On an unrelated note, I think it's really funny that they accidentally spread diseases around from shardworld to shardworld. I've always loved the possibilities of worldhoppers (intentionally or not) introducing new technologies, culture, etc. throughout the Cosmere. For whatever reason, I imagine that Hoid would like chowta, and I have this very goofy image in my head of just munching on chowta in their robes.

All fair points. One of the reasons I think it's more likely that he actually betrayed the heralds, instead of being motivated by self-preservation, is that he seems to be by far the most knowledgeable regarding the Oathpact, surgebindings, and Desolations among the heralds. Both Nale and Jezrien are surprisingly deferential to his advice, There's a big difference in his potentially malicious intent between the prelude, when he was theorizing that Taln alone might be able to hold the Oathpact, and the present day, when he is promising and convincing Nale that everything is okay, even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Ishar would at least have to consider the possibility that he's wrong, and the consequences if he is, but he not only denies this possibility, he actively encourages Nale to kill anyone displaying surgebinding abilities. This is particularly strange behaviour considering the second ideal of the Bondsmiths ("I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together.") and the heavy implication that the Bondsmiths had a specific leadership role within the KR.

I've seen a few comments here and there but thought it would be a good idea to pull them together as a separate discussion topic. So, it's pretty clear that Ishar was blatantly lying to Nale about being able to stop the desolation by just going around slaughtering surgebinders left and right. And a few pages later: It's thus very heavily implied that he has betrayed the heralds, and may have been working for Odium for quite some time. After all, it was at his suggestion that they decided to break the Oathpact in the first place: My question is, why? Nale obviously has nearly unshakable trust in Ishar, despite massive amounts of evidence contradicting everything he said. We also know that Ishar was instrumental in the original creation of the Knights Radiant: Finally, I think it's very plausible, if not likely, that this part of the Diagram is referring to Ishar as well: I'm guessing that his betrayal happened sometime after the creation of the KR, possibly after the Recreance? But I have no idea what his reason, and what the implications for Dalinar and the Bondsmiths, could be. I encourage and welcome any and all rampant speculation on these topics.