Aleph-Naught

I have really disliked the theory of children champions as well--and more generally Taravangian exploiting some kind of loophole. Some good reasons why, that allows us to escape accusations of being superficially critical, revolve around the hypothesis that the Cosmere seems to follow rules of contract law that are analogous to what we have in the English Common Law. ROdium makes an oblique reference in RoW about agreements made by Shards following the spirit of the contract rather than a strict reading of it; this coincides with the legal concept that a contract cannot be valid if there was no "meeting of the minds." Similarly there is the concept that a contract cannot be valid if some intervening event has made performance of the contract impossible or impractical to one of the parties, e.g. by having TOdium springing a surprise child champion on Dalinar. It seems to me that TOdium would be making a grave error by trying to monkey around with the agreement due to some imperfect wording because it should, theoretically, allow Dalinar to void the contract entirely and expose TOdium to an attack (ROdium says that any broken agreement would leave him vulnerable to being killed by a strike from Cultivation). Another well-known concept in contract law is that minors lack the capacity to make a contract; a minor who signs a contract can either honor the deal or void the contract. So I see no way for Oroden or Gavinor to be a part of any agreement, that wouldn't just involve them unceremoniously canceling the contract. There is some nuance to this: a minor can void a contract for lack of capacity only while still under the age of majority, but I don't see such a exception playing any serious part in the Stormlight Archive--it would be ludicrously anti-climactic. An old philosophy professor of mine used to say this: "You elect Utilitarians, you do business with Kantians (Deontologists), and you date Virtue Ethicists."

Squatter's don't take property unjustly though--they "adversely possess" land that was abandoned, disused, underutilized, etc. through a ridiculous and convoluted legal process. The "right of conquest", and underlying notions of "sovereignty" or "discovery" that comes with it, is also fraught with difficulties for reasons that have required entire dissertations; see, for example, John Thomas Juricek, English Claims in North America to 1660: A Study in Legal and Constitutional History, Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1970.

Thank you everyone, for that WoB! It's ridiculous, but I feel a palpable sense of relief knowing that the number of dawnshards is, definitively, four.

The direction of my thoughts, as laid out in the post below, are that Cultivation's influence on Taravangian--even as he holds the shard of Odium--endures and probably insulates her from any attack on her that he may be plotting:

Do you mean to say that we know Hoid was at the Shattering and it's possible that Frost was as well? This is something that gets said over and over again, but as far as I know Mr. Sanderson has deliberately avoided confirming the number of dawnshards. See, for example the following exchange: We know that the Sleepless think there are four dawnshards, and there is a very neat symmetry to the number of them being four--particularly with the way the mural is depicted--and the sixteen shards, but relying on that kind of elegance feels like a trap. So until I see a WoB definitively confirming the number of dawnshards as four, my sanity would really appreciate it if everyone would stop treating that number as definitive.

My dad's side of the family is LDS, my mom's side is Catholic, my wife is Lutheran, but I've always identified with the following quote: I joke that, "I'm an atheist, but I'm not an asshole about it."

My unsubstantiated hunch is that Cultivation regrets the Shattering and is working to remedy it in some way--Rayse as the vessel of Odium would have always been an impediment to that goal; revenge just strikes me as too narrow when it comes to someone of her vision.

This was on my mind again after seeing a couple of WoBs and re-reading Oathbringer to my wife. The WoBs went like this: In Oathbringer, when Dalinar goes to meet with the Nightwatcher but Cultivation takes over she makes a curious statement: (emphasis added) I think this provides a small but not insignificant piece of evidence that, even after his ascension, Taravangian is still vulnerable to Cultivation's boon/curse in some way--she has a piece of him, and that makes him vulnerable to her. So it could be that Taravangian will genuinely work with Cultivation--either willingly, or because she will make it clear to him that she has some power over him, even though they are both shards now--or he may try to destroy her and find himself unable to because of his prior deal with her.

I know, it's a long-shot, I just want to hope that it's a genuine expression of gratitude--which doesn't necessarily mean he considers it an altruistic act. Whether a plan succeeded or failed is a pretty impoverished way of examining whether it was a good one or not in the first place, especially when there is a confounding variable you have no idea exists.

Not necessarily, now we have Rlain as a possible confounding variable as well.. if the spren corrupted by Sja-Anat is what makes his future unknowable.

I was worried about his thoughts upon meeting up with Cultivation as well. I initially read it as, "you poor thing, you have let me into your house and now I'm going to kill you." But I suppose it could also be read as a genuine expression of gratitude towards Cultivation for bringing him to this moment where he was finally free of the frailty of his old body. Bringing up the Lord Rule is a good reminder, because I think too many people are operating under the assumption that Taravangian's ascension has somehow made him infinitely more dangerous in his craftiness and plotting--but that isn't necessarily the case because his ascension didn't grant him omniscence, it didn't change his knowledge, just like how ascending didn't stop Rashek from screwing up Scadrial due to his incomplete knowledge of how to fix things. In fact, one thing I am very curious about (and can't help but wonder if Cultivation built it in as a fail-safe) is if his "capacity" has changed: does Cultivation's boon/curse still afflict him? Taravangian's human foibles are immediately on display as he blithely assumes that Rayse's plans were all flawed, and that he now has the answer--dude has been a shard for all of five minutes and he thinks he's got a superior grasp on things in lieu of the man who was thousands of years old, wasn't even born on Roshar, was part of the original sixteen who started this whole mess in the first place, and had widely traveled the Cosmere; Taravangian himself will be blind to whatever Renarin and those around him are doing, and Odium's missteps are largely the result of this anomaly, so he should probably take a moment or two before stroking himself off about how much of a genius he is in comparison.

As a dirtbag lawyer I find the talk about this contract to be very fascinating. I've been contemplating doing a lengthy compare/contrast between concepts in U.S. contract/tort law to draw parallels and explore ways in which this contract may operate but this may depend heavily on whether such a deal/agreement in the cosmere is strictly ruled by the wording or if its more about principles of equity--the 'spirit' of the arrangement. But even when you're stuck in a situation where a strict reading of the contract is going to dictate what happens--and may give rise to ambiguities/loopholes--in boring human law there are still defenses that can call into question whether a valid agreement exists at all, or if it's voidable. A few examples, and I'm just spit-balling here so I am not listing them on the basis of how strong or weak the merits are: By keeping Dalinar around, after their initial attempt to negotiate didn't work out, did Odium force him into some kind of agreement "under duress"? Since Wit is considered a "contract liaison", does any tampering at all by Odium infringe on any third-party benefits he may have in the contract? Does Odium's tampering with his memories constitute a tortious interference with the contract? Taravangian may have blundered by having inadequate knowledge about what a deal/agreement/contract requires: a "meeting of the minds". Having "absolute control" over an agreement would turn it into a "contract of adhesion" which is vulnerable to attack based on the unequal bargaining power of the parties. Taravangian may also be blundering by exploiting a loophole (and this is where the distinction between whether the strict wording of the agreement, or the spirit of it may heavily come into play). By doing so does he make the contract impossible or impractical to enforce? Does the fact that the vessels have changed, or exploitation of any ambiguity/loophole "frustrate the purpose" of the contract? Contract formation/enforcement is often governed in the real world by sometimes ludicrous/arcane rules, and I hope that Brandon has opted for the same kind of complexity in the cosmere instead of a strict reading of the agreement; because, to me, it just would feel cheap if, in the end, the issue was that Dalinar/Wit weren't clever or careful enough about how they worded the agreement/contract.

My impression (mostly from the latter chapter where she's interacting with Wit) is that Jasnah isn't necessarily homosexual but pansexual/sapiosexual, or maybe even asexual.

From my understanding, there is no firm number on how many dawnshards there are, though Nikli seems to think there are four of them this could be his understanding of how many there were before the shattering: So we probably shouldn't have the crux of any hypothesis be that there are only four dawnshards. Rysn's dawnshard, "change", intrigues me a lot though: we know that the dawnshards were used in the shattering somehow, and they involve "primal" commands; if they could be used to shatter Adonalsium, they must have some power over shards of Adonalsium. So I'm wondering if the "change" dawnshard could be used to manipulate a shard's intent--not singularly, like change Odium to some other intent entirely, but bend it in some way to where Odium could actually resemble what he claims to be, i.e. Passion. Could Rysn's dawnshard also be used by Dalinar to take up the remnants of Honor's shard and "change" it into something else? Or could it be used to take up the remnants of Honor and be combined with Odium or Cultivation if either of the vessels are killed?

Has anyone had success with requesting it thourgh ILL? I imagine the copy that is loaned out is never on the shelf long enough to succeed, or that BYU may have a waitlist that they prioritize over any ILL requests.

Odium: *goes to Sel* Bavadin: *notices, does nothing* Odium: *splinters Devotion/Dominion* Bavadin: *shrugs* TOTALLY HELPED ODIUM OUT.

Since we know Odium fears Harmony, that Harmony is more powerful than Odium, something I've been wondering about is how Odium's fears are couched. How did he come to know about Harmony? Was there some sort of Cosmere equivalent of a disturbance in the force, a disturbance in the spiritual realm, perhaps? If there was, I am assuming that's how he may have known that a more powerful shard has ascended. When he became aware of Harmony was he able to discern Harmony's intent, or is that unknown to him (and part of what he fears)? When talking about Harmony's intent it seems uncontested that he is in conflict and having difficulty acting. But I'm wondering if this is just because his focus is too narrow right now (he still seems to have retained a significant part of his humanity - thus, such a potential foible - from what we've seen in his interactions with Wax and from the letter in Oathbringer). Maybe Odium asked Autonomy (who I am convinced is the "red haze" surrounding Scadrial) to interfere to keep Harmony's focus narrowly focused on Scadrial because if Harmony starts to look at the grander, cosmere, picture he may see a very unharmonious situation and start to meddle or challenge shards that he interprets as being the problem (i.e. Odium, possibly Autonomy) - maybe Autonomy has interceded in Scadrial of their own accord for the same reasons. It seems inevitable that, as Sazed becomes more and more subsumed into the intent of Harmony, his focus will start to venture out from the Scadrian system, and that is what promotes Scadrial's future space-faring.

I've heard this mentioned a couple of times now but without reference to where it was implied, do you have a link to it?

Good lord. I congratulate you on having what I consider to be the most controversial opinion in this thread, and in the running for most controversial opinion ever.

Breaking things can be an artistic endeavor - there is no practical limit on what can be considered art; aesthetics in philosophy is very fascinating/amusing for this reason.

What happened with Aesudan/Yelig-nar (or rather the complete lack of what happened) was probably the most jarring/aggravating thing about Oathbringer for me. After bonding with Yelig-nar it seems like she's going to be some new big-bad but then it's just completely brushed away in part five. I imagine the gap there is ripe for/intended to be the subject of a future novella but it is my exhibit A in the argument that Oathbringer needed a bit more editing.

I thought the book was boring - I find this guy's journey through reading it hilarious - and that Cline completely botched the ending. But it is really well-suited for movie adaptation so I'm looking forward to seeing what Spielberg does.

I dunno man, I've never really liked that kind of reasoning, and it's way too common in arguments about authorial intent re: their stories. An author will, typically, write what best serves the story, even if it's a trope that has been employed before - and there's nothing to say that there couldn't be a twist to the familiar, there's more than one way to skin a cat, etc.

Yeah, I agree with all of the above and am on board with this hypothesis. I would add to it that there are a couple more indicators in OB that suggest Honor, potentially foreseeing his impending demise, may have been making some back-up plans: Odium says to Dalinar when they first meet: I think all of this suggests that Honor purposefully imbued the Stormfather with a significant portion of his power before his death. Maybe Honor and Cultivation had a plan much like Preservation had one in Mistborn.