Awesomness

I am pretty sure he became violent after Sallan killed her mum. It is implied that something strange happened to him. Yes, maybe he just escalated is violence after that event. Buy I have a feeling there's another secret.

Hello! So I read this thread and tried to do the puzzle. Many things I say have already been discussed, but I think putting it all together may help make some sense. So I ended up with a sort of "Uncomplete and Unreliable History of Roshar", and some final questions. That said, I'm not native english speaker, so thank you in advance for your patience. Here we go Human Kind i´s arrival on Roshar Originally, human´s god is Odium. Odium is the shard of their planet. Investiture is provided by him, in the form of “void binding”. Spren are Voidspren —> and that’s why Ulim and Yixly look human. Once upon a time, humans arrive on Roshar. They say they destroyed their planet with Voidbinding. (much like the listeners running away from their ancient gods). Honor and Cultivation (probably knowing how problematic is Rayse) adopt them and urge the Downsingers (AKA parsh, listeners, singers) to do the same. They settle in Shinnovar, from there they start wandering Roshar (Shin Invasion???) and mixing with the Dawnsingers (Horneaters and Herdazians have some mixed blood from this period of ancient history?). The problem is, Odium follows them to Roshar, and brings the Desolation (destroying is his thing). Its safe to assume the first desolation consisted in Unmade + “human-fused”. We know odium corrupts everyone, so at first the desolations were powered by corrupted humans, then singers? or maybe Odium realized singers where more easily corrupted because of there gemhearts, that make it easier to bond with spren… who knows… This is when the Heralds and Honor created the Oathpact. Honor gives them the Honorblades that work very similar to the void binding . They stop the desolation by returning to their planet to hold the voidbringers, or fused. The spren start bonding humans using the surges as the Honorblades to help fight the desolations. Ishar realises this power is very similar to the one that caused the destruction of Humans Planet (?) and comes up with the idea of the oaths, the Knights Radiant were born. Or maybe he just wants to settle some limits. Honor and the heralds were supposed to guide and control the Radiants. Meanwhile, the dawn singers feel betrayed by the spren and changed sides. Fast forward —> Aharietiam The Heralds leave the Oathpact and tell everyone that They Won. No more Desolations. We know they didn’t won, just survived. Odium is still there, the fused are torturing Talk, who is the only thing holding them. The unmade are still roaming throw Roshar. The Recreance. Parsh and KR are still there. The parsh continue to make war with the humans, probably trying to recover their land or/and get vengeance. Mishram leads them and in the False Desolation. Honor is dying, the Heralds aren’t there. This generation of Radiants has only one Bondsmith and its hinted that there was some problem with the siblings. Urithiru is not safe, the Radiants don’t know how to work the fabrials that keep the city working. Probably an unmade is making trouble there. So they are at war, they are in trouble in their homeland, Honor ´s behavior is erratic, there’s something going on with the siblings, the Heralds left, plus the natural troubles between the orders. And this supposed desolation is happening, when their gods told them they had won, and would´t have to go throw that any more. They are clearly facing crisis in various fronts. Now it is important to remember that the Radiants are all about morality and honor. It is implied that in the past Oaths were controlled by Honor, so now he’s not there, perspective is more important, but in the recreance this could have been another catalyst for the crisis. They discover that they are fighting for a land that doesn’t belong to them, protecting people that used the downsingers welcoming, betrayed them, eventually conquered them. Allied with the parsh previous gods and spren, that now are supporting them. AND, in doing so, they are endangering the planet. I certainly can see how this demoralized them. But, they didn’t simply left their oaths, they also trapped Mishram, turned the parsh into mindless slaves, and killed hundreds of spren, leaving shard blades behind. Why?! My guess, they were throughly lost and demoralized, but they couldn’t just let the parsh win, kill every human, while odium and the unmade reign. So they: - Trapped Mishram/enslaved the parsh. That secured the victory, but was throughly against everything they stood for - Killed hundreds of bonded spren: I see 2 reasons why: 1- They betrayed the spren so there would be no more surgebinders, avoiding the evantual destruction of the Roshar on their hands. 2- Leaving their shards was a way of leaving some sort of power, a chance for the humans to defend themselves from the unmade. Some radiants left their oaths progressively, others did it the way Dalinar saw in his vision. But altogether, they simply stopped believing in themselves. They chose death, weakness, destination. Quiestions: Humans original planet, is Ashyn? or Braise? Is it what they call Damnation? Are Damnation and the Tranquiline Halls the same thing? Something is not quite right with the timeline regarding the horneaters and herdazians. I’m sure I read somewhere this predates Honor and Cultivation ascension, so when? What happened in Urithiru, that forced them to leave? What about the siblings? Malishi probably wasn’t bonded with the Stormfather. Probably the third sibling, the dead one, as the oaths were broken? Why the H / C sided with the humans, and Odium with the singers? When exactly did the Listeners leave? How can surge binding destroy a planet? Was it what happened in the shattered planes? Why Feverstone Keep is important? Ok there are many more. Lets leave it for now.

hahaahah great! But it doesn't always apply. Radiants, and specially proto-radiats, are not inmortal. Elokhar being the most recent example (for now...he may pop up again).

A little, naive, imaginative, inoffensive boy, proto surgebinder or not, fighting a war... He was already doomed, why would the skygrakers intervene? Probably they were just keeping Tiene in their radar, just in case.

I'm totally buying this theory. If Urithiru works as a big big fabrial... could this Sibling be the one that allowed ancient fabrials, like soulcasters and regrowth, to be created? Navani is close to discover how this fabrials work

We should start a thread about this thread. 5 stages of grief applied to this topic. Plus memes and best moments.

Are we speaking of the "Amian´s traitor"?, or this traitor: The Diagram´s Traitor seems to be Sja-anat, as this section of the Diagram speaks about the unmade. Amian´s traitor should have been Eshonai but BUM, its Venli.

I´m certain Tien was a proto lightweaver. What intrigues me is how Criptics choose their Radiants. - We know Shallan was already advanced in her Truths when her mother tried to kill her, and her father went dark after that. What broke Shallan so much at such a short age?? - We know Kal and Tien had hard times due to the problem with the spheres and the people in Hearthstone. Was it enough to brake Tien so? Maybe Criptics are drown to people who see things in a different light, and this, in their understanding, is a lie. Thus children are more attractive (its hard to imagine a 6 year old skybraker, isn't it?)

No idea, buy as you are mentioning this, my version (Amazon for Kindle) doesn´t recognize paragraphs and came without the Ars Arcanum...

I think it could go way more liberal, there are no limits to liberal-ness, you summer child

I wonder how Moash´s arc ties with this... He left Bridge 4 for the Diagram, then ended up with the Singers and now he has de Honorblade T. stole.

He was selfless, he didn't have the responsibility, nor the most relevant competencies. I´d like to thing he didn't do it for Ash, that would be undermining his work. I can't´wait to see more of him. He went to be mildly intriguing to best-character-ever/watch-out-Kal in half a page.

I've been thinking along this line too, but the windspren seem to point in the direction of prioricing the living. Besides, Mal doesn't have trouble leading, on the contrary, he's kind of a force of nature. Drawer 10-12, sapphire (Windrunners) My spren claims that this recording will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people? I interpreted this as an evidence that Honor was losing it. SF said Honor was putting the oath before the principles, and that you needed first be radiant, then reach the stormlight. So I thought this windrunner was having a crisis, but as he had said oath and was supposed to be ready, then he would say the words and step up anyway. Though what this thread is saying makes more sense...

Ok I'm going to go full edge dancer now and confort you all poor souls: This Is Not Over. Sallan made a decision, and she seems decided because she is an unreliable narrator. She still has a long way to go before being mature and mentally stable, and its clear she took all her attraction for Kal and threw it under the carpet. I wouldn't like her to be with Kaladin right now, I don't want her with Adolin either, on account of her being deranged. (Anyway courting the guy who unwillingly killed your brother is not simple thing). We will see what happens when she resolves her issues. Shaladin is Mostly Dead - we shall have some sort of closure. Wait and Hope.

Remember Kaladin is close to the fourth ideal, but also he is beginning to understand how hard it is to live up to the oaths and knows it will be very difficult. That moment when he attracts windspren in shadesmar, and communicates with Syl in his mind, he was thinking about his previous oaths and the responsibilities implied. It must be something deeply personal. I'm really intrigued.

Could this be related with the Shin Invasion?

Shallan and her safehand (and safehands in general) should be mentioned here.

Hello! this are my random thoughts about this (I'm not a native english speaker, and my thought are still all over the place with this book, so this will seem a little messy): I felt like BS was totally trolling us with this Veiladin / Radiolin /SallaWTF issue. Kaladin ´s and Adolin ´s reactions were very mature. Shallan is just a mess. She is not ready for a relationship, so I'm worried for Adolin right now. I´m glad Kaladin is starting to cheer himself up, and not relay on someone else to do it. Adolin is just adorable. Imposible not to like him. Mildly related topic: proto-lightweaver-Tien keeps being implied. Brandon probably will pull a Gavilar-Navani-Gavilar thing here in the future. I´d like to see more of Shallan and Tal as friends. Can't get enough of Adolin - Kaladin friendship (why do some of you guys keep talking about "bromance"?) Altogether I'm glad it didn't take a dramatic turn. I found this plot line mostly funny, but I don't think this is over.

Taln saying "what a gift..." almost made me cry.

I´d like to point out that when Kaladin started to walk away from the Windrunner´s oaths, he started to lose abilities progressively, as Syl started to behave more and more like a windspren. If the radiants were becoming corrupt, wouldn't they lose their abilities progressively too? In the Recreance vision, the Radiants are wearing their shards and can summon their shardblades. It seems to me that they decided to abandon their oaths in that moment. Once they "froze" their shards, they did´t care to keep on living, so that (along with the fact that they betrayed their best friends) suggest the secret was something huge, and they could´t find a better solution. I also believe they left their shards so humanity wouldn't be defenseless against the voidbringers, maybe without realizing the shard would end up corrupting man.

We have a reference to Ishar in Edgedancer: He is guiding, but in a wrong (or impious) way. What would you make or it?

That´s what they were doing there. I bet they orchestrated at least in part, al of this to avoid Gavilar to bring the voisdbringers back (he´s a son of honor, very ironic as someone pointed out before). If not, how did the listeners find the most powerful killer in Roshar with such a convenient timing? I think at least Nalan is involved, and maybe Kalak. Ash was there for her own reasons, and Jezrien just to drink and be there on an important event.

Amaram wants to bring the voidbringers because he believes the Heralds will show up too. Nalan (obviusly) knows no herald will come to save the day (well, Taln may try, if he actually is who he claims to be). So he want´s to kill Amaram to stop him. I think Nalan didn´t go to kill Amaram himself because he was busy chasing and killing surgebinders, and Amaram is just a human, a minor threat.

Exactly! And what strikes me as odd is that He Is the living proof that an Epic can be good. So why is it so difficult to him to believe Regalia or Megan can be good to? He`s attitude toward Regalia is similar. He wants to kill her because he thinks she can`t hold back any longer and she wants to be killed.But she is completely in control. Even Tia believes that. On the other hand, He seems to think he and Edmund aren`t destructive monsters because they are givers (Can`t find the quote), but that does`t make much sense. And then we are led to think Edmund is good because he confronted his fear for dogs.

It definitely is related to failure, in some way (fear of failing someone, fear of contest or luck games, of things going wrong, whatever). I´ve been thinking of another possibility: fear of someone being better than him (at least to his standards: Epic weaknesses are very subjective). I was very intrigued, during Firefight, with his aversion for Megan. She infiltrated in his Reckoner Cell, fooling him and his team. So he has reasons to hate her. After that she killed Sam, but it was in a way that wasn´t exactly a cold blooded murder, as the video proves. And she repeatedly helped his team (she saved Abraham and David) and Prof knew it. On the other hand, David spent a whole book claiming that Megan could resist her Epic evil urges and was a good Epic. Every time they had that discussion, Prof ended up on edge. My question is: why when Megan fell into his tramp, proving that David was right all along (she was good, she had told the truth), did he “killed” her anyway? But then I think about Prof´s profile. This is a guy who believes every Epic is evil except himself. And so he kills them. He believes he´s the only one who can hold back his evilness. I think that´s what bothers him so much about Megan. Besides, he has an exaggerated love for planning and control, he doesn´t like losing, he don´t get involved in random games or anything he can´t control. He´s hard with people and has some patronizing attitude toward his team, tending to underestimate them. I realize this theory falls apart the moment Prof´s powers doesn´t disappear when fighting with Megan, but I think there´s some kind of connection. He felt fear when they fought, and that fear wasn´t exploded because Megan just took David and disappeared. Maybe this wasn´t exactly his weakness, but it was close. Another train of thoughts: how exactly are affected the Epics by their weaknesses? David´s father wasn´t afraid of Stealheart, but his bullet only scratched him. So, how much No-Fear do you need to have to kill SH? The presence, even the contact with Kool-Aid affected Sourcefield´s powers but only drinking it negated them… Let me know what you think!