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Your theory begs more questions than it answers. To me, this means, it is probably not correct.

Because this is something Shallan has a big problem with regardless of whether Odium is doing a man-in-the-middle attack on her.

The explanation that Shallan's subconscious has chosen Wit's voice as a conduit of the message is simpler and requires fewer complicated assumptions.

But you are making the assumption that he got enough to mimic Wit's voice and send a message to Shallan. You cannot really have it both ways.

If Rayse had access to the content and the context of the conversation Shallan had with Hoid, Rayse would have little doubt about who is talking to Shallan.

So your idea is that Odium has spied on the conversation Shallan had with Wit, and did not realize who Wit was even though anyone who understands Cosmere can figure it out right away? I just do not buy it. Also the "let's use the voice of this random dude who spoke to her a week ago" makes little sense. He could've brought back the voice of her father or her mother or whatever....

This depends on what Ghostbloods really want. Despite them being after my favorite character in the series, of all the secret societies on Roshar, they, thus far, have been the most effective. Given the WoB about Kelsier and the Ghostbloods, I have a feeling that they are a branch of an organization that essentially opposes the 17th Shard (the latter is all about observation and non-involvement, Ghostbloods appear to be all about leveraging things). One thing that is somewhat attractive about them is that Mraize thus far has been pretty straightforward in his dealings. But I agree with you absolutely about your reading of his MO.

Probably gives easy access to the local Investiture.

This, I think, seals it. Hoid is explicit that Rayse does not know where is he, and more importantly, has no idea Hoid is on Roshar, because if Rayse knew, Hoid would become the #1 Wanted Man. I think that the "Wit's" voice in the second scene is Shallan's subconscious filtering her interaction with the Unmade.

1. Jasnah. As I mentioned in another thread, she manages to steal pretty much every scene she is in. She gets to be the one in the book, on whose scene the tide turns. She also has this little conversation with her mother and Fen on the wall of Thaylen City, which is one of the best scenes in the book. Basically, she continues to be smart, badass, and continues to look ahead. And now, she comes with compassion. And a crown. 2. Lift. She is an annoying little snit, and most of the time she is completely overboard. But she gets to be the one who joined Dalinar during his "I am all alone against the enemy moment", and this alone wins her the second spot. 3. Adolin. Because he is the badass normal Roshar needs. Because he is the one person in the whole gang who never stopped ticking. Because he is just a really nice guy. 4. Evi. Because she is practically a hippie saint. 5, Elhokar. I predicted his arc up until the moment he was killed. That I did not see. For all his weaknesses, the man did try to be better and almost succeeded. Honorable mentions: Nightblood, Navani, Rock, Wit, Szeth.

Despite the Old Reptile not wanting to interfere, I still trust Frost: God's divine hatred. Not betrayal.

No. Selecting Heralds is the way Honor approached the problem, because his powers were to enter into binding agreements and hold other parties to it. So, Honor had an agreement with the Heralds and also some agreement with Odium that is still binding for Odium (as he wants Dalinar to release him from it). Cultivation's powers have nothing to do with making agreements and watching that people follow their oaths. She is the power of transformation (see a recent WoB) - essentially the middle ground between Preservation and Ruin. So, Cultivation very well may be playing a long game, and setting up some of the characters for certain actions - in fact, we know she is doing it - but it ain't going to be new Heralds and new Oathpact. Additionally, note that the Oathpact was an imperfect solution selected by a somewhat desperate Shard. From the point of view of meta-reasoning I do not see ten books in the Stormlight Archive all leading to basically the status quo from 5000 years ago. We are now looking at the True Desolation. There will be no more Desolations, no more cycles. Either Odium wins, or Odium loses.

He named it, so technically he spoke it. "These words are accepted" isn't coming for a while, but we did hear what his Ideal/Oath is.

We are yet to see anyone say the Fourth Ideal on-screen (well, perhaps with the exception of Szeth, but it is rather anti-climatic for the Skybreakers). At this point Dalinar has successfully one-upped Odium in a battle of wills and neutralized one Unmade. One. out of nine. The Releasers appear to be on the verge of outright betrayal. Skybreakers have chosen to side with the singers (hopefully not with Odium). Willshapers will only bond the singers. Alethkar is overrun. It is overrun by Alethi. They are just Alethi of a different species. A direct military solution (kill'em'all) appears to not be on the books. The mundane singers are really pissed at humans. They are also enslaved by Odium via powerforms and the Fused. The humans still think of the singers as their enemies, and it will take a while for them to figure out the difference. There are whole peoples who have sided with Odium already. And we are yet to see any sort of mass coming out of the Knights Radiant at the time when there is certainly no lack of the Fused. As badass as Jasnah is, she can only be at one place at one time. You think all of this cannot be turned into an epic ending of book 4?

This, I think has to do with the size of Sylpherina in Shadesmar, which is essentially her true form.

Not disagreeing with how this entire thing looks like to the singers, but disagreeing with the actual interpretations. I think that Honor and Cultivation have made a conscious decision to "convert" the humans who resettled on Roshar. From the perspective of the singers it may have looked like "stealing", but I would be careful at assigning humans more agency than they deserve in this. The true agency here belongs to the Shards. They pursued the humans. The question still remains of what specifically Odium did in response. It looks like some singers were sufficiently pissed to be convinced to take on voidspren and enter their first power forms. My current semi-theory is that Odium appealed to individual singers, converted them to powerforms and made them attack the humans. He then somehow gained the ability to retain the Cognitive Shadows of the singers in powerform who were killed by the humans (or other singers?) as part of the chaos that ensued. following that, Odium figured out a way to bond the Cognitive Shadows of the singers to actual living singers in lieu of actual forms (either benign or strom). This is how the Fused were created. Once Honor saw the Fused, he realized that all previous agreements with Odium aside, he has a problem. I am not certain why he specifically chose 10 people to fulfill the Oathpact, and I am not certain what is the specific mechanism by which the ability of the Heralds to be tortured in Damnation prevents singer ancestor Cognitive Shadows from descending upon Roshar and infiltrating. Hoid interestingly enough recognizes some of them. The distress, I think came from the "these powers were used to destroy a planet" part, not from the "you are invaders in other people's world" part. The Knights Radiant appeared to be very scared that their use of the powers will lead to such breaking of a planet reasonably soon. This may be because they just created the Shattered Plains, or because they terraformed (rosharformed) something, or because of any other reason. But they must have believed that they are on the verge of destroying Roshar with their powers. This probably means that they were very advanced with those powers, and had some examples of the sort of devastation Surgebinding could do from very recent past. Then, they simply decided that they needed to not just stop using the powers, but to actually prevent others from using them as well. They did two things. They abandoned their Ideals, and became incapable of further Surgebinding. They also traumatized/destroyed/severely offended the sapient spren and with this prevented the spren from seeking new Nahel bonds. It's a bit of a sacrifice, but this appears to be a conscious decision. Orders like Eslecallers and Truthwatchers probably would not have done something like this without a significant amount of deliberation. So, at least part of the Recreance was thought out at least somewhat ahead of time and agreed upon.

Humans as original Voidbringers is probably more of a shock to the current crop of actors. Humans using Investiture (recorded as Surgebinding) to destroy a planet (and btw, this is pretty much telegraphed since like page 50 of the book - the moment we get a Vorin view of the Tranquiline Halls) to rip apart a planet is something that makes a terrifying picture to the Knights Radiant circa end of the False Desolation. PLus, as the Stormfather points out, Tanavast is literally no help at that moment. The key difference between the emerging KRs of now and the established KR structures of way back when is that way back when I think there was a sort of established culture. KRs knew what they were all about, understood their powers, and understood their role and the role of the Heralds in the Desolations a bit better. The information that folks using their powers doomed a planet was probably quite a revelation, and I can see how the KRs would just opt to prevent themselves from using the powers.

The root, I think was the "you live here and do not venture beyond the mountains" agreement between the humans fleeing from the "Tranquiline Halls", Dawnsingers, Honor and Cultivation, and, possibly, Odium. The Shin made the stone holy so that they do not leave Shinovar like the other tribes of humans did. Think of them as the People of the Original Covenant who still hold onto it. There are some distinct parallels with Judaism here.

This probably has a straightforward explanation - the only way out of Shinovar without stepping on the holy stones is via the Oathgate, and as someone mentioned, the platform and the tower in Urithiru don't count as holy.

Ok. This makes sense.

I thought the consensus was that Letter 2 were some of Bavadins, and Letter 1 - Endowment?

Woe is me. I forget how Rule 34 works sometimes.

Done. My bad.

But it is spread over at least hundreds of years. Not much by Cosmere standards, mind you, but still. Now, why would Hoid be writing to that specific aspect of Bavadin?

I am simply confirming it.