robardin

The editor of the Bilming tabloid newspaper, Sentinel of Truth, mentioned "those people with the golden hair living on the east side" who she suggested were "some kind of fairy creature". This right after Wayne had entered the building with the paper's offices while eating a new street food called "chouta". To me that meant Iriali late of Roshar had dropped in at Bilming and set up chouta stands, LOL. As for the non-glowing Skybreakers, that was only a vague hint, but it was an "activated" group sent by Kelsier to assist Steris as "eight men and women in nondescript clothing" whose leader inquired first, "you are certain this is legal, the mass sinking of private ships?" and only agreed to help do so after the governor stated it was by his authority to act in the city's best interests, and to pay for losses incurred to the owners... Who then launched into the air. And whose leader had the Ghostblood tattoo. Steris assumed they were Coinshots, and maybe they were, but not "official" ones who were already accounted for. Hmm. The question about legality seemed Skybreaker-ish, that's all I had to go on. Why don't they visibly glow? Well, who said they're still powered by Stormlight? If they are flying based on having had some of that Dor-in-a-Jar stuff, maybe that doesn't leak out as quickly? Really? I'd like to see that one!

My impression on reading that scene for the first time is that Hoid was going through all his caches of Investiture -- i.e., exercising all Cosmere magic forms involving Investiture that he had on him -- to kind of do a "reconciliation and systems check" scan, once he realized his Breaths-as-memory-store had been tampered with, checking for any further inconsistencies. And part of that operation involved temporarily rebooting whatever magic he's using to modify his appearance to be more Alethi (notably, his height). After all, at least some of you should be old enough to remember doing this if your Windows installation started going funny, back in the day:

Good point, Hoid is only now suspecting that Rayse "has changed", he hasn't yet gotten to the point where he'll put it together that it's Odium that has changed (Vessels, that is!). That said, Hoid has suddenly realized there COULD be some kind of flaw in the agreement to the Contest of Champions, and if he's worried that a suddenly more subtle Odium might have seen it with only eight days to go, if Frost is an expert that Hoid would consult, there's a great urgency to do so now, isn't there? Perhaps that's what Cultivation showed up to drop on Dalinar in the same chapter. And then hey, even if she's not "on speaking terms" with Hoid, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.

Yeah, knowing that TLM comes after SA5, there are numerous hints there that something big went down and it was bad and Iyatil was perhaps near the center of it (or else has gone rogue during it, or in its wake). What appear to be refugee Horneaters in Shadesmar; recently arrived Iriali and chouta vendors (same people?) in Bilming; Ghostblood Skybreakers in Elendel; and Roshar being a system that could possibly be included ("if you count...") in a list of "primary systems we can't visit without extreme danger", apparently linked to something about accessing the system via "perpendicularities".

My first thought was Frost as well, as there aren't many beings in the Cosmere who Hoid would consider an "old friend" considering his own age, and somehow consulting with another Shard about the contract terms with Odium doesn't seem wise (other than Cultivation, who is on Roshar and apparently has a vested interest in opposing Odium, but that's who I would assume is implied to be the one with whom Hoid is "not on speaking terms"). In Frost's reply to Hoid's letter to him, he names Hoid as an "old friend", and dismisses Hoid's concerns about the threat Rayse/Odium poses to the Cosmere as he was "contained" to Roshar. So out of fear that that containment could be at risk, based on there being a new, more subtle, and therefore more dangerous new Vessel of Odium, will be how Hoid gets Frost to assist in the review. Is it, though, Frost? IS IT???

I will say this, as I had said even since the end of RoW: Taravangian, who Ascended to Odium specifically due to the machinations of Cultivation, still thinks he knows more / can plan around Cultivation. You have no idea what you've done. O Rly? When you were all but groomed -- pruned, if you will -- to reach this point, just as Dalinar's actions threaded a very narrow needle's eye in not becoming Odium's Champion, as so many future paths foreseen had led to? That's a great description, LOL. I think she and Kell would get along quite well, if they were aligned. As for what her end game/goal is, well, I don't think it's to Bring Back Adonalsium (else why Shatter Ado in the first place...?), but we'll see!

I thought the whole "disease given powers" on Ashyn was (a) still non-canonical, and (b) something that has developed there AFTER the cataclysmic breaking of that world that resulted in large scale dispersion of the population there to Roshar. Ishar was mentioned as already being a "binder of gods" before becoming a Herald, and being largely responsible or heavily involved in using "the Surges" (which just means "Cosmere magic") that "destroyed" Ashyn, but that could mean quite a few things - not that he was a Bondsmith or wielded the same two Surges that he would later gain via the Honorblade. For example, he could be called a "binder of gods" in terms of negotiating or somehow forcing Odium, Honor, and Cultivation to agree to the oaths that now bind Odium to Roshar: we just don't know what the exchange was, or the broader terms. Also remember that Odium came to Roshar WITH humanity -- as led by Ishar -- and that he was their god when they arrived. The fact that allegiances shifted/flipped at the same time as Odium being bound, and then the Heralds gaining Honorblades via an Oathpact linked to a cycle of Desolations, cannot all be a coincidence, and to find that Ishar was somehow at the center of it all (either as agent or chief pawn between gods) is hardly to be wondered at.

Right, Autonomy gave "hints of what is to come" but not the mechanisms, i.e., not technical explanations, blueprints, etc. Same thing as Harmony dropping a hint that "if you think a projected evanotype is awesome, wait until they start moving". Just knowing something is possible, and a few steps beyond what you've already got, is a big propulsion, but not the same as full-on giving the tech to them. And other than providing her own godmetal, she didn't give or send them any off-world resources the way the Ghostbloods have with their imported jars of Dor, presumably Breath, what seem like maybe Skybreakers, and so on. Her MO is to reward initiative, and while one of the reasons Moonlight hates Autonomy is the hypocrisy of calling "going where you pointed" as "initiative", Telsin did explain that Autonomy was basically testing the Set at the same time as using them to take over Scadrial, to see if they'd be worthy of it. As such, the Set were supposed to use Scadrian resources and knowledge, to build off of their existing understanding to reach her goals. Sending off-world "shapeshifter equivalents", even if they were much more like kandra than the abilities of Dysian Aimians to simulate or a Returned to change human appearance, would be "going too far". That's why I think Edwarn's visitor was a kind of "trellium kandra" (t-kandra). They clearly knew about giving the right kind of spikes to mistwraiths to bring them to sentience -- it's in the Words of Founding, and they knew to remove the spikes from ReLuur and MeLaan. And we saw their monstrous trellium hemalurgic "experiments" when TenSoon first goes with Wax in SoS -- perhaps those were part of them figuring out how to create t-kandra. And just as "normal" kandra have a direct comlink to Harmony, so did the t-kandra to Autonomy, as it's clear that the ragged visitor spoke with the full authority of Trell. As for the tell of the softly glowing red eyes, either a t-kandra can ordinarily hide them (because, you know, kandra) but was intentionally giving the signal to Edwarn since it was just the two of them there (my theory), or they just go around wearing sunglasses or contact lenses if they have to? LOL Good point to remind us all that Edwarn was promised that he'd be "allowed to serve in another Realm". So yeah. An Autonomy version of the Fused? Because he sure didn't Return!

I think the specific “Faceless Immortal” form of shapeshifting, one that requires “stealing a beggar off the street” for a body (obviously not bound by any Contract forbidding the killing of humans), strongly suggests they are much more kandra-like. Not ACTUAL kandra who turned, like Paalm - hence my thinking they were mistwraiths made sentient using trellium spikes for Blessings, which we’d already seen Paalm doing. And the Set seems to always have been “representing” Autonomy with their local Scadrian magic/tech. They explored deeply of hemalurgy and the Metallic Arts, aggressively researched stole Southern tech as soon as they could, and pushed the “steam age” tech of Era 2 Scadrial in the direction that Autonomy probably suggested was possible, even as Harmony had hinted (projecting pictures and sound - no moving pictures yet, though). But other than somehow being given trellium as a godmetal, we see no evidence that they ever were provided with off-world technology or magic, unlike the Ghostbloods. It was their way of “proving themselves” to Autonomy, with a competition to select one of their leaders to become an avatar on Scadrial. And just as whatever trelium was transmitted to Scadrial remained there as a stockpile, so too whatever “Faceless Immortals of the Set” must also ahve done, whether you agree that was trellium spiked mistwraiths or not.

The "beggar stolen off the street" who visited Edwarn in prison and exploded them both at the end of BoM, with softly glowing red eyes and a determined, purposeful stride, was described as a "Faceless Immortal". I took that to mean, just as they had spikes of trellium (bavadinium?) that could function as hemalurgic spikes "with a twist", the Set must have had trellium spikes that could be used as kandra Blessings. And had done so, multiple times ("the Set had Faceless Immortals of their own", plural). Spikes used on mistwraiths, I suppose? If any kandra other than Paalm had "gone rogue" and turned from Harmony, surely we'd have learned about that in TLM, right? In which case, even as Trell/Autonomy departed from Scadrial at the end of TLM ("for now"), those spikes and any remaining red-eyed kandra would still be there, left behind. And we already know that kandra are able to leave Scadrial, as MeLaan has done. So... Just remember... The "suspected kandra" you see out there in various Cosmere stories, could be one of Autonomy's!

He couldn't have done that without reclaiming his Honorblade to be able to use the Bondsmith surges, and we know that that must have happened fairly recently: after Szeth had been sentenced to being Truthless, given his dialogue with Ishar in RoW, which in turn was only a year or two before the death of Gavilar in of TWoK. How do we know that? Because in TWoK Interlude 4, where we read about Rysn for the first time, she is with her babsk Vstim in Shinovar, where a Shin man he's trading with named "Thresh" refers to the "soldier" Vstim had acquired from him "nearly seven years ago" as Truthless, and that the token payment Vstim had pressed upon him had ended up thrown into a river, as "I could not take money for a Truthless". That had to have been Szeth. Meanwhile, a few chapters earlier in I-3, Szeth was reflecting on how he had worn white to assassinate the King of Alethkar "over five years before". Assuming the two Interludes were roughly cotemporaneous, that means Szeth had been Truthless for up to two years before that killing, given to Vstim and then somewhere/when acquired by Liss, who sold him, but Nalan knew he was bearing Jezrien's Blade and directed the Parshendi to buy him, etc. So about seven years before Szeth began wreaking terror under Taravangian's orders, seven Honorblades were still in Shinovar (minus the one he himself bore, Nale's reclaimed Blade, and Taln's that had never been there), with the Bondsmith Honorblade in Szeth's father's keeping. But Ishar's been talking - and advising/directing - Nalan and Kalak at least, for many years. Nalan referred to working "for thousands of years" to prevent a Desolation, under advice from Ishar to prevent Nahel bonds from forming, even as (hey, cuckoobananas much?) it was OK for highspren to be bonding new Skybreakers.

Yeah, and yet, exactly because his Gathering was successfully Silent, it didn't really divide the people of Kharbranth. It just further dehumanized Taravangian and the Diagram. I mean, Taravangian knew exactly where they were coming from: an Unmade. And he did that anyway.

Diet, exercise, and eight hours of sleep a night! He has definitely been asked this, and has definitely avoided giving a clear answer other than to say "there are several different ways worldhoppers have lived across eras" (Khriss, Demoux/Felt, etc.).

I like the interpretation, but it does raise some even more interesting questions. Like, how could a "death rattle" - a vision derived from Moelach, one of the "Mindless" Unmade along with Ashertmarn, whose power derives ultimately from being a splinter of Odium - predict a "future Odium" with a different Vessel, where Rayse/Odium himself couldn't see it? I also have always wondered how death rattles served Odium's interest at all. With Ashertmarn, "The Heart of the Revel", we could see both a certain kind of "passion" being exhibited (lust and gluttony), and a kind of mind-numbing effect thereby that prepared Kholinar's population to follow Aesudan's voidspren and Odium-influenced actions. And it was also mentioned that Moelach seemed to have moved to the Horneater Peaks, which have "destabilized" as a result. So what is it about death rattles that destabilize things? Is it that some people, like Taravangian, may be driven to wholesale murder to accumulate them?

Well the reverse also boggles the imagination. That they would commission a Big Ask of Shallan, such that they'd "tell her everything" after she completed it, and also given a very rare, offworld Invested object (the seon in a box), for a plan with multiple stages, each predicted ("you'll know what to do when you find him" / "he's the Herald KALAK?" / "Yep, toldja, you would know what to do, and that was to call me")... And then the final stage, "push the button and reveal this knife, that will capture him in the gemstone so our master Thaidakar can learn from him"... Was a blind ruse, meant to give Felt and Ala the big assist in the operation? OK let's say the whole thing was SUPPOSED to scare Kalak and not kill him, which could be plausible. The implausible part is not cluing in a knife-wielding Shallan to that effect, and in fact straight up telling her the opposite. Because why then would her orders, meant to induct Shallan fully into the Ghostbloods (which Mraize, by all accounts, genuinely wanted and expected to happen), be to do exactly that? And her telling Mraize that she hadn't done so, been met with anger and disappointment? If she HAD stabbed Kalak with it, as she came close to doing as Formless, and he HADN'T been drawn into the dagger, ... what would have happened? He dies a normal "death" and goes back to Braize? That doesn't set Shallan up to join the GBs. And note that, while grooming Shallan for Ghostbloodthirst (a word I just made up), Mraize has never lied to Shallan. Only withheld information. Feeding her just enough truths to lead her deeper into their organization.

While she phrased it as "action against", if Odium actually cannot reach out to heal a random child and she cites that oath as the reason, it must be that the intent/phrasing is direct action "upon" and it was just kind of assumed that with Rayse at least, a direct action of Odium to touch someone "not fully his" was disallowed as "an action against"? Odium is supposed to act on Roshar through his direct minions, e.g., the sapient Voidspren and the Fused, or someone like Moash/Vyre, Amaram, or Taravangian. Though he can talk to someone to convince them. And I think there must be extra clauses about the "direct minions" of Honor, that is to say the Heralds, being off limits even for Odium's "direct minions", as they had to get Moash to stab Jezrien with the Raysium dagger while the Heavenly Ones floated overhead to observed, a murder that "seemed a thing that they dared not do themselves".

That's how I read it as well: Felt was "Plan B" in case Shallan opted out at the last minute, and they didn't really want to kill Kalak but to capture him for information about B-a-M. And now Felt/Ala have gotten the info about BAM's whereabouts without having to do that, and passed that along to Iyatil as well as Kelsier. At the same time, I am reading in (and yes I agree, it is ambiguous, but I feel still telling that it's even ambiguous) to Felt's words and attitude in talking with Ala in that Interlude that Felt doesn't fully trust Iyatil/Mraize to be doing what Kelsier really wants. Whether or not that is shared by, or comes from Kelsier himself is even more ambiguous, but in line with what we briefly see of Kel's own POV thoughts in TLM regarding Iyatil. EDIT: I went and re-read that passage from TLM and it's actually TwinSoul's description, not Kelsier's. And the fun thing about writing in the past tense, "TwinSoul hated being unable to get a full read [on Dlavil's expression, as he] -- like his sister who ran amok on Roshar -- [wore a mask he never removed]", is that we don't know if Iyatil "ran amok" (in the past of TwinSoul's POV) or if it's "ran amok" in the concurrent past tense, agreeing with TwinSoul being described in the past tense. That is, if by the time of TLM, if Iyatil is done running amok one way or another, or still is.

Yes, I would assume that Shallan had really been using Ala-in-a-box as a seon communicator to talk to Mraize earlier - if it was not "the real thing" how had that been done? And that's my point about Felt's comment about "I don't trust [the dagger], it came from Iyatil" and "Iytail/Mraize might contact us for more explanations" - note that he's anticipating how to handle them wanting "more explanations", not "more information", as if they'd say "justify what you said earlier in light of what we knew or believed earlier" and not just "can you tell us more about...". If he really is directly reporting to Kelsier and disregards and mistrusts Iyatil and Mraize, it's not hard to think that maybe that comes from or is shared by Kelsier, at least a little bit at this point. (And by the time of TLM, which is set a bit later in time than this, Kelsier full-on regards Iyatil as someone who has "run amok" - not hard to think that Kelsier had already seen a trend in that direction by this interlude)

The more I think about it, the more intriguing and suggestive it is that Ala / Felt were in cahoots the whole time. First, remember how Shallan even got the seon box? She was given it as a “communication cube” by Mraize before leaving Urithiru, as a way to contact him even from Shadesmar. However, opening the box up - that was something they needed Kelek to do “without harming the thing inside”, which Wit identified for them as a “seon”. Whereupon Ala was sure to act like the “abused and neglected” seon we’d seen in a box as used by Hrathen in Elantris. (Which was never named - hey, maybe this IS the same seon!) The fact that Ala was fully ready to present that act - as it apparently was - while functioning as a passive “communication device” as Hoid expected a seon-in-a-box to do, and to await contact with Felt, means that was always a plan within a plan. And the Raysium dagger was originally in a hidden compartment of the seon box, too. It seems the Ghostbloods always anticipated Shallan possibly backing out after discovering “Restares” was the Herald Kalak, and engineered Felt being on their team (possibly through something like emotional Allomancy) to do exactly what he did - step in to take over. But, he has enough independent authority from Kelsier himself to disregard Iyatil and Mraize’s standing mission order to use the dagger to “absorb” Kalak. Possibly only after hearing (and believing) Kalak’s explanation about why he wouldn’t be gem-trapped but simply killed, the way Jezrien was. And think about amazingly clever it was to have Ala ready to be a passive communication box for Shallan! She used it to talk to HOID, as well as schmoopie-boopie talking with Adolin! Aside from putting one over even on Hoid — not so easy to do — it definitely reads like Felt/Ala are Kelsier’s “insurance” against his own agents in Iyatil/Mraize, What is “the mission” that may yet “go as planned” (hasn’t yet failed - i.e., the en-gemming of Kalak in the dagger)? And him commenting on how “Mraize and Iyatil might contact us for more explanations” - meaning, for information they withheld, and plan to continue withholding or forestalling? Was the fact that the dagger was procured through Iyatil the REASON for Felt’s mistrust, and Kelsier’s warning to “be careful”? Do they think Iyatil is actually somehow going over to Odium for a personal power play of some kind? Not to mention that Felt would surely have been in a great position to kill Shallan and/or Adolin before they left Lasting Integrity. Shallan maybe a bit more difficult to kill as a Radiant, but Stormlight isn’t exactly abundant in Shadesmar… If he can Awaken curtains and nobody else there even knows it’s a thing, he could probably have strangled Shallan until she ran out of Stormlight, and then just had the curtains go back to being curtains. In other words, Kelsier (and Felt/Ala by extension) are not “at war” with Shallan (with deadly intent) the way that Mraize/Iyatil appear to now be. (At the same level as them having tried to kill Jasnah earlier.)

Hmmm, when we see Sja-anat "enlightening" spren they have a reddish cast to them afterward, so I don't think it's that. I think it's more that somehow Ala is "unbounded"? Or else bonded to Kelsier, who treats him as as crewmember instead of a servant? How did Felt end up in a room alone with Kalak, the seon box, and the Raysium dagger anyway? Kalak was in his own quarters, had Shallan and Co. left the box and dagger with him? One more thing to note, when the curtains leaped off and bound him, his first thought (being unfamiliar with such tricks of Awakening from Nalthis) was to wonder if it was "some art of Stonewards". We haven't seen any Stonewards using Surges yet, so this is a hint as to what they can do... Manipulate matter to that degree?!

I think learning what Felt can do and who he reports to - and all the implications thereof - was fascinating. As was Kalak thinking of constrictor serpents from "the oold world", something Roshar doesn't have, presumably Ashyn did (or even Yolen?). He's not a "refugee" from Scadrial, and we already had WoB's that he's a kind of "free agent" who has worked with multiple worldhopper groups over time, and now we see he has Breaths, can Awaken, talks casually to a seon (who we've also never seen dissemble for sympathy before!), etc., - yet he's been on Scadrial for a long time, since he was already a very trusted and respected person in Dalinar's service when he went to visit the Nightwatcher. As for Odium - I think first-person POV learning what it's like for a person with as powerful a personality as Taravangian taking up a Shard and still trying to "remain himself" was very interesting. We've had an inkling of this from Sazed/Harmony talking to Wax or Kelsier in Mistborn Era 2, but only a few glimpses, and not first person (from Sazed's own POV). I think learning that the Shard of Odium feels people's pain constantly, throughout the Cosmere, and anger at their mistreatment, injustice, fate, etc., lends a lot of flavor to why it's so difficult to bear that Shard. And we got our first glimpse of the actual oaths involved in the Oathpact that binds Odium to Roshar. One that had been hinted at before by Odium, that he could not take direct action against most people, but now we learn it includes any action at all (including helping/healing someone) "who isn't fully given" to Odium. And it makes me wonder, seeing as pacts are a form of deal that go both ways - what did Honor and Cultivation have to agree to, in order to effectuate this binding?

Felt, the man we first saw in TFE working as a spy for House Venture and who trailed Vin and Sazed to their "skaa thieving crew" safehouse and reported such back to Elend... ...is a worldhopper to Roshar who also has Breaths, knows how to Awaken curtains, now possesses a Raysium dagger (how did he get that from Shallan again, or do we know?), and works for/with the Ghostbloods reporting directly to Kelsier (while rejecting the notion that he works for "that masked witch" Iyatil, who is the nominal local head of them on Roshar -- though we do see in TLM that Kelsier considers her as "running amok"). And Ala the seon was a GB seon all along? A willing one. LOLOL. Does that mean Felt's wife Malli is also a worldhopper? I'd hate to think he had a completely sham marriage on Roshar! And she was also part of the party to Lasting Integrity, right? And Odium's "feeling the agony, the passion, the hatred" of all the oppressed, downtrodden, and victimized people in the Cosmere, definitely lends a new flavor to the Shard.

It's also the epitome of being a Windrunner, isn't it? I will protect those who cannot protect themselves. All of them. Forever. Until my soul wears thin and I go mad.

I also like the contrast between the other two 4th Ideal Radiants with Plate that we’ve seen. Jasnah just summons and dismisses them without comment - though we haven’t seen a first-person POV of her doing so - and Kaladin just sort of unconsciously directs the windspren to become/do what he wants them to, like when they fly around protecting different people during the fight at Urithiru. Meanwhile I’m picturing Shallan (note that they are addressing her directly as “Shallan! Shallan! SHALLAN!”) being the reason they’re so puppylike. It’s like a child making her dolls go. Remember, at Thaylen Fields, when she first created/manifested Radiant as one of her three personas holding hands in a circle to peform the massive Lightweaving job of creating a whole illusory army to engage with Sadeas’ forces, Radiant had glowing garnet plate. Implying that Shallan, before suppressing it all as a child, had reached at least the Fourth Ideal. I don’t think that’s a coincidence!

Ooh, yeah, I suppose it does rule out Jasnah too then! I guess it’s back to “Gaz became a philosophical historian” then. LOL Or some ardent we’ve seen before (one of Jasnah’s correspondences who helped decipher the Eila Stele, perhaps? Or Rushu?)