Darth_Hel

There was a possible hint. One of the Ghostbloods sent has only the question of whether its legal to sink private ships. It would be weird in an emergency if a covert group like the Ghostbloods would care about the legality here unless that is tied up with whether they could do it. Might be at least one Skybreaker in the group. This doesn't mean there weren't other Ghostbloods in the group that were also Scadrians. But, Scadrian Ghostbloods might have already been swept up in helping by being already known as allomancers. Just because there were in a secret group doesn't mean they had to have publicly hid their powers.

Todium might be a good one to reveal this to Dalinar if it played into his plans. Between Odium's powers and the diagram, its possible he would know/guess.

Just a question, since it came up here. Are we sure the "Honor Blades" are actually a gift directly from Honor, or at least solely from him? The Oathpact seems to bind Odium as well, and they had surgebinding on Ashyn before seemingly meeting Honor. Could the surges have been granted to Roshar from Odium, and the "Honor Blades" more of a War Blade mixing Odium and Honor's powers?

WoB is that there wasn't that much fighting between desolations because of how far society falls. So, humans on their own deciding to lash out in a genocidal way could make someone like Honor horrified. Previous desolations had humans playing defense against Odium's forces in an actual war where humans were generally at a disadvantage. The current Singers at that point were not responsible for the attempted genocide over a thousand years prior. We see with Sja-Anat that not all servants of Odium seem to truly want to serve Odium, and Honor had once been a God of the Singers. He might feel responsible for them still even if they had turned to Odium and still wanted to help them. He didn't need to get current spren to bond them, just give power to Mishram to enable voidspren to bind them again. Two groups that Honor had given power to and tied himself up in doing dishonorable things could be considered dishonorable by him and thus weakened/wounded him. Ruin needed Preservation weakened in order to kill him, and Odium would have theoretically needed a way to weaken Honor before he could do so if he did deal the final blow. The problem with the Stormfather comparison is that Honor already seemed to know he was dying when he created him. But, had he created him earlier, tied a ton of his power into him, then had him captured and severed I think that would have also weakened him. There's still some secret there about Mishram. The Radiants of the time were confused about how she manifested this new power, and after capturing her they quit being Radiants and laid down their blades. They still seemed bound by oaths, and the spren seem to consider breaking the oaths a major part of becoming a deadeye, so not sure why the surges would be considered "unbound". I'm also not buying that 7 orders suddenly all decided they were too dangerous. It feels like another secret behind a secret that Brandon does. A cover that only sorta holds up but serves to hold that space as a filler to blindside you with the actual answer later. Kind of like the parsh as the voidbringers, then no wait it was the humans.

I do wonder if Hoid would actually have trouble with truths, or if he's the type of character who can lie easily to others but has trouble lying to himself. He may be someone who has already spent ages digging down to who he is. The main line that makes me think of this is when he was talking to Dalinar (I think). He said something to the effect of him liking people but that he would burn the world to the ground to get what he wanted. This doesn't strike me as someone who has deluded themselves into believing they are better than they actually are. Although, depending where Brandon wanted to go with it, the Truth could be the opposite. "I'm weak. I'm not willing to let Roshar burn just to aid my goals". If Hoid was lying to himself about how determined he is.

Been trying to work out in my mind how all of these can be connected, and have a basic idea I think that could work. Please correct me if anything is clearly wrong, or couldn't work this way. It would all start with the breaking of the Oath Pact, which considering Honor's basic ideal would be anathema to him. Since they were heavily invested by Honor, this could have dealt some damage to him but not enough to really kill him. But, he would have lost at least some trust in humans. Then the False Desolation happens. There's two basic ways I could see it starting that would highly damage Honor. 1. Humanity has advanced enough that they can really wage war again and declares war on the Singers. This may have devastated Honor because the powers he had inspired and were being used in his name (using the Oaths devised by his Heralds to bind the Radiants) were being used to attack another group that could not defend themselves against the onslaught, and might seem to Honor like a repeat of the destruction the surges caused. 2. Ba-Ado-Mishram connected the Singers and started back the desolations from previously without provocation. Humanity then needs to defend itself, and the false desolation occurs. Where does the major damage to Honor come though in both these situations? It would lie in the mystery of how Mishram gained the ability to link to the Singers. In the first scenario, upon seeing the Singers being slaughtered, Honor could have felt compelled to aid them, and gave Heraldic Bondsmith powers to Mishram. Greatly wounded by the humans actions using his power he would start his ranting and raving that surges would destroy the world again. In the second, perhaps after losing faith in humanity, or seemingly no desolations, Honor could have decided on his own to try to end the desolations or that it would be Honorable to extend the surges to the Singers as well. Ba-Ado-Mishram then using them to start the desolations again would greatly wound Honor. He again starts his ranting and raving stage. Finally, the humans capture Mishram, taking a huge piece of Honor's power as well as having Honor's actions basically labotomize an entire people. The Radiants discover Honor's actions and feel betrayed, leading to all but the Skybreakers deciding to be done with their connection to him. These two actions are the death wound for Honor. It was protracted, but like Preservation, Honor died. Just an additional piece of information. Brandon has been cagey about Bond Spren. He has been clear there have never been more than three (at one time), but refuses to go further. If the three were once the sibling, the nightwatcher, and mishram during this period it would still fit. As long as the Stormfather was made a bond spren after Mishram was captured and severed from Honor then there would still only ever have been three.

This theory would make sense, especially given this WoB. So, some of Shallan's truths are going towards her new bond with Pattern, but some might be remnants of the old bond with Testament, and thus were going towards salvaging that bond. I'm not sure if its possible to bond two spren fully at once, so reviving Testament might weaken or break her bond with Pattern, or vice versa. This could be the step back and complicated part.

Also, remember that Taln is pretty crazy. He was known for taking difficult stands against the enemy and often winning but dying in the process. His fighting style and tactics do not seem the type that would be able to hold off capture for very long.

Was some stuff on another thread about Deadeyes, but I'll write here what I mentioned there. It was pointed out that without gems attached, Shardblades couldn't be unsummoned. So, what they lost might have been attachment to the cognitive realm. Stuck in the physical realm only as a blade. Gems might restore enough of that connection to the cognitive to send them there but not enough for them to fully manifest as they were before, losing their sense of self and most of their consciousness. It would explain how Maya is being healed by Adolin, as the Cognitive is based upon ideas and how intelligent creatures see things. Adolin's sense of Maya as an individual could be restoring that part of her.

I think Science makes sense depending what you take as the essence of each shard. For it to be Science then the Essence of Honour is the rules like the scientific method. The part of Cultivation it takes is more complicated, taking both the advancement and the culling aspects. So, it would be saying that advancing using a set of rules to continue good methods and cull bad ones is Science.

Does this explain Deadeyes at least partially then? They've lost all connection to the Cognitive Realm and while the gems on the blade restore a bit of it, its not enough for them to fully gain back their consciousness. Would explain how Adolin is restoring Maya. The Cognitive is all about thoughts and ideas, so Adolin's mental image of Maya as a full person and not just a blade or a Deadeye might be fixing that issue in the Cognitive and restoring her slowly.

No, I was just using known magic systems to show the general idea.

Overall, a good write-up, but knowing Sanderson's habit of always having more secrets in plain sight I'm not sure we can just assume the devils are the singers. What if something that happened ended with Spren pulled fully into the physical realm. These would probably look like devils to people with their strangely human inhuman looks. Might explain what Ishar is up to, even in his insanity he might be trying to figure out exactly what effect was causing it. Not saying there's any evidence there, just been thinking recently about various information and assumptions that people make that perhaps they're meant to make but its a misdirect.

I was actually wondering if maybe Autonomy was doing the opposite of investing where instead of heavily investing in an area where he could then tweak the magic systems, he created an Avatar to exist as an individual within an area to gain connection to other magic systems. Like, instead of investing heavily on Roshar to create spren, could he create an Avatar that could possibly bond a Spren and use Surges in that way, or create an Avatar that could swallow a bead of Lerasium and be both of Autonomy and Preservation, etc.

Autonomy seems to have several avatars, but are they "pure" Autonomy? Is it possible that Autonomy having many avatars is a way of allowing those Avatars to become connected to other worlds and Shards? Might explain why Trell's metal is unknown if its actually a mixture of Autonomy and another Shard's power. Autonomy could even be sort of an anti-Rayse. Seeking to mix their intent, and create avatars as much as possible as a way of avoiding being controlled completely by it. Or, maybe, in its view of the World, the only thing that truly has full autonomy is God, and so seeks to reforge itself as Adonalsium.

Odium's number is 9, and his shard is based upon hatred. I'm not sold on the idea that he could naturally make his own Bondsmith, which might be why he seemingly hasn't had one before. So, it might be that pure voidlight doesn't have a chance at one, but Warlight and the Lifelight+Voidlight (my guess for this one would be Sja-Anat) could each have one .

Could fit in with my theory that Sja-Anat went to Cultivation and gained her ability to "corrupt" True Spren from her. Cultivation could have given her the Bondsmith powers of an Odium/Cultivation hybrid. Also, it seems like everyone that Cultivation's old magic gets used upon needs to consent so far, which might be why Sja-Anat needs consenting True Spren to use her magic upon them. My original post questioning about Sja-Anat was here

Perhaps, or Uli Da was doomed and Mercy came in to deal the killing blow rather than it be a long strung out death.

The best I could come up with is that she can boost sentient spren now, but her curse is perhaps that she has less overall control. The need for it to be their choice instead of something she can just do.

Sja-Anat is showing with Glys and now others the ability to modify True Spren which she couldn't in the past. So far, Dalinar and Taravangian were major parts of her plan that she used the Old Magic to cultivate, but Renarin seems to be one of the most important. It seems interesting that Cultivation wouldn't have used the Old Magic to cultivate Renarin's path in some way. Could Sja-Anat have went to the Nightwatcher and been granted a boon/curse by Cultivation herself? Sja-Anats new abilities seem like they could be Cultivation linked, allowing her to help sentient spren change their paths. Also, letting some children die so that others may live seems a Cultivation type approach. If its possible, a long view of Cultivation's plan could mean she helped link BAM to the Parsh and cause the False Desolation leading to everything happening now, but mainly curious if she could be responsible for Sja-Anats boosted abilities.

I don't think co-existence is why she helped Navani to survive. She wants the war to end and can't be sure that it will if she only gives the information to her side. If both sides have these massive advances, then one will probably use them to their fullest and defeat the other side completely, so even if her side botches it then still a chance it ends. I'm not sure she'd be upset if a truce happens, but I don't think even in the end she believed it could happen. Had she survived, I still think she would have stuck with the Fused and come up with more terrifying ways to use anti-stormlight.

Yea, I added more to it in another thread. Dalinar could also still stop Szeth killing the child if he used his powers of connection to make himself Odium's Champion again. Then Szeth ends the first Arch of Stormlight Archives similar to how it started with him killing a Kholin King.

Kaladin could be the descendant of their child. Perhaps all descendants of Tanavast are drawn toward strict codes like Kaladin and Lirin.

Whether God has Whimsy is kind of a theological question, and whether Divinity is Whimsical.

Melishi could have died during the capture plan, or perhaps used Bondsmith powers to sever their connection in lieu of abandoning oaths.