Vissy

The way I understand Autonomy, she's very twisted. It's all ultimately meant to empower the Shard's own autonomy - many tiny pieces making avatars to gather more power.

On 2/10/2021 at 2:42 AM, robardin said:

Well played, sir! Not sure if I'd posted theories to this effect, but I had long considered that Odium was likely to be defeated in the "first five" story arc of SA as the Roshar-specific antagonist (despite what happened on Sel and to Ambition), rather than him being some kind of ultimate Cosmere-spanning antagonist that would be introduced/dealt with in the "back five". In which case, someone else taking up the Shard of Odium could be anybody - and I did think Cultivation was playing a long game with Taravangian, just as she had been with Dalinar, so that didn't really surprise me quite so much.

No, what surprised me was when and how it happened. In book FOUR, I got blindsided; and in such a casual way, too. I kind of assumed it'd happen at the Contest of Champions in Book Five. So, score another on the long list of Well Played, Brandon, I Was Looking For Your Twist And Still Got Twisted items.

Now, mark me down for Team "Don't Underestimate Cultivation" in terms of what Taravangian may now do as Odium. It's part of Taravangian's nature as the Vessel (and fed into by the Shard's intent) to think, Oh, you wonderful creature... You have no idea what you have done in engineering his Ascension. But she's been planning two or three steps ahead of another Shard, over the course of lifetimes... Do you really think she didn't fully appreciate the nature of Taravangian, who she understood deeply enough to manipulate into forming the Diagram, employing Szeth, and ultimately into becoming Odium, in terms of how that would play out once he became Odium?

Another problem for TOdium is that Cultivation is absolutely stronger than Odium as a Shard right now because of the way Odium is invested into the system. If she wanted, she could destroy Odium right now albeit at great cost. She's drawn her entire deck into her hand while Odium is just beginning the game. Odium the Shard is still locked together in some kind of death grip with Honor's remnants.

Okay, so this obviously introduces the idea: can you form a Nahel bond with Marsh? Have your very own Death spren? Form him into your very own Death Shardblade? I want to see it now.

SA5

I think Kelsier's viewpoint makes the most sense from a human perspective, ironically considering he's a Cognitive Shadow now. (Though who knows if he'll get his body back in the future!). I just hope there will be some deep Kelsier content in the future of Cosmere books - from his own viewpoint. 

I'm mostly just interested in Kelsier's personal journey - it seems to me that regaining his powers is actually a huge thing for him on a personal level, hugely important. It was such a significant part of his identity in his life, and without those powers he'll probably always feel like he is missing something. 

Kelsier vs. Sazed seems to be a theme that is increasingly becoming relevant now and in the future. I don't like everything I'm seeing from Discord!Sazed (hiding things from Kelsier isn't a good idea, in my opinion) and it seems to me like there might be some conflict between the two in Era 3. I mean, there already is - because Sazed is actively obstructing Kelsier. 

Of course, the sad thing for Kelsier in any such conflict would be that there's no Vin or Sazed or even a Breeze around anymore to tell him different. I really just want more Kelsier chapters and his own introspection. He was so deeply touched by Vin especially.

8 hours ago, Letryx13 said:

I doubt he knew for certain, but he was probably suspicious.  He definitely knew Sazed was lying to him when he said that there wasn't a way for Kelsier to come back to "life" in SH.  So he knows that Sazed can be deceptive when he wants to be.   And don't forget Kel's infamous saying, there's always another secret.  Even if he does believe Sazed, he'll probably push to try and figure out how to produce Lerasium on his own.

What really interests me is what Kelsier will do if and when he figures out how to make Lerasium.  The words "MistBorn Army" come to mind.

I'm curious when Kelsier will figure out how to give himself Allomantic powers again. I kind of felt bad for him because he misses his Allomancy a lot - it's a significant part of who he is! I think him getting that power back and displaying it is definitely a scene that can't be off-screened. With all of his powers, Kelsier is basically the third-most talented and accomplished Allomancer in Scadrial's history, behind Vin and the Lord Ruler.

I can't see Kelsier taking it well when he realizes that Sazed lied to him multiple times - especially because he didn't catch him in the lies. 

Well hey, long time no posting here, but I just read The Lost Metal.

As a huge Kelsier fan, I am naturally obsessed about Kelsier again. I'm mostly wondering about the ending sequence... did Kelsier know that Sazed lied to him about lerasium?

If he did know, wouldn't it be pretty simple to put two and two together for him to figure out how to produce it?

And if so, aren't we pretty darn close to Kelsier potentially achieving a major breakthrough for his ambitions?

Navani and Raboniel is one of the more plausible and realistic ships, if anything, in RoW. They were very cute.

I think that the encounter -did- go as Wit planned it, even though he lost some Breaths in exchange. (It's something he could quite easily figure out regardless after the fact, and that would once again tip him about a change in Odium.) He gained a lot of information, and presumably whatever else Design or somebody else was doing while Odium's full attention was on Wit.

Cultivation! I feel like I would have the most fascinating conversations with her.

Hoid knows something is off and he definitely gained something from that conversation, even if Odium did not literally give himself up to him instantly.

I agree completely! 'Honor', in general, is not a good thing to rely on. It's not the equivalent of 'good'. Look at any number of 'honor systems' in the world that come with the unfortunate side-effects of endless blood feuds. 

In general, this is more just a weakness of Sanderson's writing. His characters don't tend to act like people would, and there is largely not a lot of contemplation of factors the actual people dealing with these issues would consider, but rather a focus on... 'the greater evil', more cosmic evils, 'true evil' as that Kaladin quote reads. Of course, all evil is true evil, whether it is a 'small-time' abuser destroying peoples' lives or a mass murderer like Dalinar (and yet these so-called small-time abusers and small-time evils are mostly what all of us encounter in our lives)

Very little of it makes sense to me, but at the time of reading I just sort of swept it under the rug and didn't pay much attention to it save a fleeting annoyance.

Navani/Raboniel had a lot of tension between them, sexual and romantic, enough for me to note it in my head -several times- during the reading of the book. 

On 2/18/2021 at 8:45 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I’d suspect it was the Spren. The Ghostbloods have only been around for 300 years. That makes it highly unlikely that they could have removed such stones in great volume.

Worth noting though that IRL the larger the gemstone, the more flawed it tends to be. So tiny gemstones that can only hold small amounts of light are far more likely to be perfect than bigger ones. Large perfect gemstones are extraordinarily rare.

 

This is something I thought as well. Additionally, if gemstones can be manufactured, and made more 'perfect', then it would make sense that the gemstones kept getting smaller and smaller over time. As a bit of an aside, but this is how I would imagine space age Rosharans transported light. Tiny tiny gemstones that are near-perfect.

I'm convinced of this, now, as @AquaRegia said - Gavilar will not only return, but he will be Odium's Champion.

It fits TOO perfectly. It would be TOO satisfying for this not to happen. The foreshadowing, the logical progression of prologues all depicting that single event, we -naturally- came to this conclusion and so many of us -naturally- feel that this makes too much sense for it not to happen. For it not to happen at this point would be a mistake in storytelling and writing, I feel, and Brandon Sanderson is a very experienced writer. He's well aware of the foreshadowing he does.

So both on a story-level and meta-level, this makes entirely too much sense for me not to be 100% on board with this theory.

On 12/22/2020 at 3:37 AM, Brgst13 said:

I'm going to do some wild theorizing here, so hold on:

First, spren exist mostly in the Cognitive realm.  When they bond a Radiant, the spren is pulled into the physical realm.  This mechanism is clearly still working.

Second, when a Radiant dies, the spren either returns to the Cognitive realm or bonds a new Radiant.  We saw this with the one Honorspren in WoR.

Third, when an oath is broken, the spren's body materializes as a Shardblade.  At least part of the Cognitive aspect returns to the Cognitive realm as a deadeye.  We see this with both Maya and Testament.

Fourth, this separation of physical and Cognitive did not occur prior to the Recreance.  The spren expected pain, but not death.  

Fifth, this is roughly the same time at which Cuseicash the Protector began to appear.  This megaspren appears at the same time every day, and looks toward the Origin.  It drains something from each person who views it.

Sixth, this is similar to the Shaod, where the Elantrians were trapped midway through transformation.

Seventh, this all began at approximately the same time as BAM was captured.

Eighth, Honor's tone was silenced that day.

Based on this, we can draw a few conclusions: 1. Whatever happened has blocked the ability of a spren to fully transition back to the Cognitive realm when oaths are broken.

2. This is related to the capture of BAM.  In order to do this, Melishi had to understand BAM to  a very large degree.

3. At roughly the same time, Cusiecash began appearing and displaying a series of faces. This spren faces the Origin, which is connected to the highstorms and by extension to Honor.

4. Therefore, we can conclude that the capture of BAM somehow damaged the Connection of all spren to Honor's tone.

5. My theory out of all this is as follows: Melishi swapped BAM's Connection to Odium for Honor, and used that to imprison her.  When doing so, though, Melishi unknowingly damaged the conduit that Connected the spren to Honor, prohibiting their return to the Cognitive Realm.  The part of the spren that was not able to return formed Cusiecash, where they display the faces of their Radiants.  These spren are trying to draw out Investiture to rebuild the Connection to Honor.

The Recreance occurred because this severing also removed Honor's restrictions on Surgebinding.  The spren, seeing what was to come and what had happened on Ashyn, chose to break their bonds rather than allow unchecked Surgebinding.

So theoretically if Dalinar opened a Perpendicularity at Cuseicash, everything would get fixed?

On 9/15/2020 at 2:49 AM, Innovation said:

I still maintain that Leshwi and the other Heavenly Ones are planning some kind of trick or trap with  this “honorable duel” thing. Something is off here, and Leshwi is in the center of it. 

It would have been a more prominent plotline in RoW if there was a trick to it.'

And I support the Venli-Leshwi ship!

Die Hard: Urithiru could have been done differently. Defense nodes felt very video-game-y. I would've liked it more if the story was more 'human' - you can't fight an entire army, it's simply impossible. Kaladin just casually slapping around Fused seems like a level of power he's reached now, and I'm not sure I like that! I would have preferred the Kaladin Urithiru stuff having contained very little combat and simply a lot of dialogue / conversational character interactions. 

21 hours ago, Honorless said:

Welp, this is sort of confirmed by Brandon in the 17S interview. Kelsier is seen as something like that or at least a cult of personality like a spiritual guru by some of the Ghostbloods. Iyatil is Southern Scadrian, Mraize follows Kelsier's creed of Survival, interpreting it as survival of the fittest, predator-prey stuff. He was highly offended (his own words) by Shallan's rejection of the Ghostbloods' Master.

Could you link the interview?

It would be supremely disrespectful writing towards Cultivation as a character (and turn her into the ultimate jobber of the Cosmere) if Taravangian beats her when she has a complete upper hand on him. So I think there's a lot more to this than just "TOdium will become the next big bad of the Cosmere". It's the reason why I don't think he will survive Book 5, in fact, or if he does, it'll be different than what most people think it is.

On 1/22/2021 at 2:35 PM, daypast17 said:

Hoid to Kelsier at the well 

"But you are not supposed to be here. You did what I needed you to , but you're a loose end I'd rather not deal with right now."

With Wit having some sort of forsight, I have always thought it was really interesting that he is surprised to find Kel there

I don't think this is in reference to Stormlight Archives happenings, though. Hoid is referring to Kelsier destroying the Pits of Hathsin and thus freeing the Perpendicularity for use for Worldhoppers. And remember that Mistborn Era 1 happened much earlier than we begin the Stormlight Archives.

4 hours ago, daypast17 said:

I find the question of Kel's motive far less intresting than his goals. That and his goals contrasted with Wit's goals.

Gavilar who wants to return the desolations says Thaidakar is too late. Was Kel trying to stop the everstorm?

Wit tells Kel he shouldn't be here.. that he finnished his part in Wit's plan and he consider's Odium being trapped on Roshar as an eternal desolation a win or non loss.

I see these two as some of the main forces opposing the shard's. 

Wait, where did Wit tell Kelsier that? That seems like it needs a citation.