Aleph-Naught

"Succumb" is, I think, too strong of a word because it implies inevitability: Certainly there is evidence that suggests Rayse was coming into conflict with the intent of Odium, but his motivations have--so far as I know--never wavered:

Odium didn't exist before the shattering, and you can't assume Odium is an intrinsic piece of Adonalsium (i.e. that Odium would have always been one of the shards produced by the shattering) because--if I recall correctly--Brandon has stated that different shards with different intents could have been generated by the shattering under different circumstances. But the real issue with the statement above is this idea that an agreement made by Adonalsium would somehow still be in effect or bind the shards after it has been, for lack of a better word, murdered. But your subsequent statement: fits with what I originally posted: Wit's comment was referring to Rayse thinking he could get out of the Rosharan system but discovered he couldn't. The idea that a pre-existing agreement/obligation made by Adonalsium before the shattering has been inherited by the shards requires a lot of assumptions to do the heavy lifting when we still know incredibly little about Adonalsium itself; I find that far more implausible and convoluted than Wit's comment simply being a mocking reference to how Odium/Rayse ended up bound in the Rosharan system. I find it much more plausible that all of these "rules" regarding agreements/promises by shards to be a by-product of the shattering: 17 people conspired to dismember a god-like being and divvy up its power, I can't imagine such a group agreeing to such an undertaking without some kind of paranoid negotiation putting rules in place about what they would be allowed to do with the power after they succeeded at the endeavor. We know of at least one of those agreements was for shards to remain isolated from one another, Devotion and Dominion's violation of that agreement is what allowed Odium to destroy them. It has already been explained why Rayse/Odium didn't want to take up another shard and it has nothing to do with him discovering some pre-existing condition Adonalsium made that now binds the shards: Odium didn't want his intent to be altered. A formal agreement/contract/obligation requires two different parties and--at least, in U.S. common law--a bunch of other things that would be rendered absurd if Adonalsium could make a formal agreement with themself such as "mutual assent" and adequate "consideration."

This makes it sound like Rayse inherited a promise from Adonalsium that he wishes he could break. I wonder what it is? Not harming Hoid or not harming former Dawnshards generally unless they break an oath? Not harming living things directly unless they break a promise? Like how Wit said Odium could wipe out all of Roshar if Fen broke the agreement. I think it's more simple than that: just a wry reference to Odium's agreement that resulted in him being bound to the Roshar system.

It's not an assumption, you literally said that: And, once again, your original claim was not about both sides of a contract agreeing to abandon/nullify a contract it was about one party unilaterally doing so "...under any circumstances [they] choose..." If you're going to blindly ignore your original claim because you, I don't know, have some ridiculous need to not be "wrong" in an internet debate about a work of fiction, I have nothing further to say to you.

But that's not what you said, you stated: The problem is you keep treating Taravangian and Odium as 'the same person'. Odium is not a person, and Taravangian taking up the shard of Odium doesn't make them indistinguishable from one another--this is so clearly demonstrated throughout the cosmere, and from what Brandon has stated about vessels/shards, that I feel like I don't have to explicate it here. This is why the analogy of shards to corporations works so well: certainly a newly minted CEO of a corporation could renege on an agreement/contract in which he was one of the original parties that bargained with the corporation, but that doesn't mean he can do it with clean hands: even though he's the CEO of the corporation, he's not the corporation itself, he is merely its representative.

I have always suspected that Cultivation is the real villain of the Stormlight Archive, and, like you, I think Taravangian is a fool to believe he will outfox her; the hubris of a moderately intelligent man suddenly inundated with massive amounts of power. The entry at the coppermind re: Taravangian's ascension suggest that his connections to the "Old Magic" were obliterated when he took up Odium, I don't agree with that at all (and if I recall correctly, Brandon has been coy about confirming/denying this). Taravangian didn't actually die, he's not a cognitive shadow holding a shard, he's still connected to the old magic, and I think that gives Cultivation a crucial advantage over him.

I think you're right, especially in light of this passage from the first Interlude (emphasis added):

Left-brain/right-brain distinctions like you describe above haven't been favored by neuroscience for some time, I don't think Brandon would go down that route; or, at least, I'd be disappointed if he did--might as well have the Cosmere equivalent of phrenology. Hypothesizing about Odium being a different shard from what he has been named seems like a fool's errand. I was originally excited about the prospect of the name "Odium" being some kind of Cosmere equivalent of a propaganda campaign to paint him as an enemy of "the good", as Rayse proclaimed he was the shard of Passion, but I'm pretty sure Brandon has made is clear that Odium is.. Odium--there's no hidden meaning, Rayse was deluding himself. Though I would be happy to be proven wrong about this, because while the name, "Odium", is neat, I have always had a problem with it because it seems too narrow in comparison to the intents of the other shards.

I am restricting myself to contract law as it has developed in the United States when I say this is not correct. Contract formation is an extremely elaborate process, and one party cannot unilaterally abandon the agreement/contract under any circumstances they choose--unless the defense is that an agreement/contract was never actually realized. An enforceable agreement/contract needs to have: 1. mutual assent (which is often broken down into two components: a valid offer, and acceptance), and 2. "consideration" (obligation is a decent substitute for that legal term of art) from both parties; legality and capacity are other factors but I don't think either of those are relevant here. Odium agreed to leave Kharbranth intact in exchange for Taravangian's help, Taravangian provided that help, fulfilling his side of the bargain, now Odium must "perform" his side of the bargain. When thinking in terms of goofy legal abstractions, it may be better to analogize Shards to Corporations and their vessels to some kind of executive officer. The contractual agreements/obligations of the corporation (Odium) do not expire simply because the old CEO (Rayse) has been replaced with someone new (Taravangian), even though this particular agreement is one that the new CEO personally supervised/has a personal stake in; it is not inconceivable for this new CEO, acting in his executive capacity of the corporation, to undermine that agreement themselves, for whatever reason, and be exposed to liability. The vagaries of all this is why I think Brandon, in chapter 14 writes: Having the terms of the contest be an actual contract/follow actual contract principles is excellent grist for dirtbag lawyers like myself, but probably would end up bogging down the story; they call it a "contract" because it's the closest analog our dumb, mortal, brains can comprehend.

I ordered the omnibus May of 2023, directly from Dynamite--I never heard anything from them. I sent a follow-up email in November of 2023 inquiring as to the status of the order--they never responded. It is now March of 2024 and I'm starting to get extremely irritated.. and there's little that is worse for a company than an angry/frustrated lawyer, who doesn't have to worry about the costs of litigation because it's what they do for a living.

I think this is an interesting question as well. It may be that since he can't hurt anything, reforming all the 16 shards could create a "god" that would not be able to meddle with people the way the current shards are able to; a way to be the kind of god imagined in a mechanistic philosophy of religion: setting the universe in motion then stepping aside.

The first thing that came to mind with the "bone spore" reference was the Fain on Yolen. Overall I liked the book. Like some people I was a bit concerned about how the narrative name dropped colloquial terms / ideas that I always felt Brandon tried to avoid as much as possible. This concern was ameliorated a bit when he mentioned The Princess Bride inspiration for the book--if I recall correctly, that book also had a tendency to purposefully let modern day references seep into the narrative; talking about the "felony murder rule" was probably the most egregious (and I think unnecessary) example of this. My gripe could just be the criminal defense attorney in me having a fit, but there was a better way to get to the same result without simply name dropping the "felony murder rule". Brandon could have talked about the concept of transferred intent, something that this book points out is very important to realmatic theory. The felony murder rule isn't applicable in all states, England abolished it, Scotland doesn't have it, and it suggests that the Cosmere: 1. has an equivalent to English Common law, and 2. that the law most likely has a hierarchy when it comes to the alleged seriousness of the criminal behavior (i.e. misdemeanors vs. felonies). But English Common Law isn't the only possible system of jurisprudence, and it feels like a constraint on the possibilities within the Cosmere to so blatantly suggest that's the system in place. But this may be a necessary evil because there was also more hints about what "contracts" may entail in the Cosmere, and despite the arguments I have made in the past about the misunderstood malleability of a contract--how they're formed, defenses to the formation, defenses to enforcement of them, etc.--it looks like Brandon is choosing to be more rigid when it comes to their creation/enforcement, most likely as a narrative necessity. Oh well, I'll still devour the prose regardless.

Ursula K. Le Guin is phenomenal. I read A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time just last year and it was incredible to realize just how influential that book has been.

Life is random, cruel, and stupid--the bad almost always outweighs the good. I inevitably find myself contemplating others who have commented on this far better than I ever could hope to. Seneca the Younger wrote that: But trying to live the life of a Hellenistic Stoic philosopher kind of makes life suck even more. And y'know what? People should be able to complain about their material conditions--especially if those condition's origins can be easily and directly traced to being the victim of an utterly unfair and imbalanced system that has exploited you and enriched itself in the process. So then I think about Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote: Granted, Kurt Vonnegut then went on to rightfully say that: The past couple of days--as I struggle to endure the noble misery of my job and things outside of it that threaten to overwhelm my family--I have found myself thinking of David Milch, who managed to summarize the struggle against life's relentless awfulness in a monumentally succinct way when his character from the show "Deadwood", Jane Canary, simply stated:

I'm currently trapped in Spokane, Washington, USA.

I think of it in this way: a person holding a single shard is able to access investiture, like a person opening a door or window slightly, but a person holding two shards is able to open that door/window a little bit more; ultimately, the amount of investiture is the same, but perhaps Sazed/Harmony is able to access/utilize more than a singular shard can.

Since the prologue's in the books are incredibly similar, I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed.

Username checks out. Shallan looks like my type, but I get very annoyed by conversation that is more interested in being clever/sarcastic than earnest/sincere. I like Steris a lot.. but Raboniel intrigues me as well..

Completely dropped the ball/missed the boat on this, and it is very frustrating.

To keep the metaphor going, you'd be surprised: to most people inside a prison, it is their whole world--it may as well be an entire planet--and it definitely has an impassable "storm" barrier, of guards and automatic weapons.

Most jails/prisons have telephones.

I don't think it's Mercy. The Coppermind entry on Trell lays it out: (emphasis added) I feel assured that the shard laying siege to Scadrial is Autonomy, with help from TOdium (since Wax and Wayne takes place after Stormlight 5).

Unless something changed dramatically on Braize in the intervening 8 years after this flashback takes place (such as, as this thread's hypothesis posits, another Herald shows up on Braize after being killed), the following exchange between Ulim and Venli seems to be pretty solid evidence that Taln did not break, and that the Everstorm was created to circumvent the Oathpact out of a concern that Taln would never break: -Rhythm of War, Chapter 73, "Which Master To Follow"

Legally, if you are manipulated into entering a contract, then the contract is almost certainly not binding. There are numerous defenses to contract formation, especially if you have been manipulated into entering it; a contract doesn't have to specify that coercion isn't allowed, just like how a contract doesn't have to specify that you're not supposed to break the law to perform it--being coerced into signing a contract specifically would fall under the defense of entering into a contract under duress. Your example about parents threatening to disown their children if they don't enter into a contract may not, necessarily, be illegal--it's kind of ambiguous--but it almost certainly wouldn't be a valid contract. Source: I am a lawyer.