robardin

Perhaps SA5 will see a Reverse Oathpact and "Final Recreance" that establishes Peace For All Time on Roshar by clearing the table of both Fused and Radiants in the wake of Dalinar's Championship Fight... But Adolin's strange bond to a not-quite-alive Maya will persist, and then be the seed to a new kind of Nahel Bond (Adolin Bond?) in SA 6-10 when Radiants are needed again after somebody figures out that Taravangian had played them all once again, this time as Odium.

She can't have been the first Pulser in Scadrian history, yeah? Could be anybody. And like I surmised, if Sixteen is from the Southern Continent, he might even be armed with technology to do the Pulsing rather than doing it himself, which would further explain both the extremely regular periodicity of his appearances and his apparent urgency in hurrying out and then dashing back into his little hut. Or an agent, Scadrian or not (but from another world appearing "Shin" to Shallan, but not Nalthis as she's just seen the caravaners from there and considered them having a distinct appearance), aligned with a worldhopping group like the Seventeenth Shard who has access to cross-Cosmere technology. Riino the Elantrian also appeared "Shin" to Kaladin, after all. That's another possibility, I guess: Selish technology powering the right Aon could probably duplicate a cadmium bubble effect?

I am pretty sure the arrogance and the cruelly domineering behavior that Gavilar exhibited just before his death in the Prologue was due to an Unmade - the same one that affected Lin Davar in the same way later. Navani even remarks to herself that it was a recent turn for Gavilar. He hadn't always been like this, nor even "like this but it's gotten so much worse lately". At one point in a WoR flashback, Shallan reflects on her father's "new anger, this cold anger that terrified her", and if you count the "N years ago" in the chapter heading back, it happens after Gavilar's death - so it's the same type of "turn" into the same kind of monster (Gavilar: "Jasnah will obey me and marry Amaram" - Lin: "This wouldn't happen if they all just obeyed!"). If Nergaoul and Moelach move around Alethkar, why couldn't whatever this Unmade is do the same? Chemoarish? Dai-Gonarthis? Those are the two we haven't seen in action yet (and wasn't trapped in a gem like B-A-M). There's a WoB that Balat's compulsion to tear apart living cremlings is due to this outside malevolent influence, as well. And I worried a bit about Shallan, or at least Formless, when she suddenly erupted to seize control, the way she talked to Pattern in RoW Ch. 93: Demands for obedience, belittling and haranguing but without directly assaulting a specific beloved target (physically). Saying things like "I've had enough of you", or "how tired I grow of your constant questions" to Navani, or what Lin Davar shouts at Balat as he beat him with the fireplace poker "Why. Can't. You. Do. Anything. Right?" Perhaps "Formless" was Shallan feeling she needed to suppress a part of herself not just for breaking the bond with Testament, but because of feeling the influence of that same Unmade? I fully believe Gavliar - having been going down the path of receiving the Stormfather visions that Dalinar would later receive - started out simply wanting to Unite humanity for the Final Desolation. But in learning more about the nature of the Heralds and the Oathpact in his involvement with the Sons of Honor and possibly the Ghostbloods, the megalomaniacal influence of this Unmade - the same influence that drove Lin Davar to be determined to rise from being a relatively minor Veden house to becoming a highprince through Soulcasting marble for profit? Does that not sound crazy? - he wanted to become as a Herald himself. That was not his original goal, but one he was twisted into pursuing.

OK, I read up on the Coppermind wikia about Rosharan date/time keeping and I think my Allomantic Pulser idea has more merit. My estimate earlier had inadvertently been using an Earthlike calendar, but a Rosharan year has 500 days, divided into 10 months of 50 days each; these are ten five-day weeks at 20 hours per day, and in total is equivalent to 1.1 Earth years. And presumably, being in the Shadesmar of Roshar, the honorspren of Lasting Integrity are using this same system. So if Sixteen has been in Lasting Integrity for 20 Rosharan months, that would be 2 years = 1,000 days = 62 "pulses" of 16 days. Not as many as I'd figured before. At 5 minutes per pulse, it'd only be a little over five hours of his time so far. Stretch it out a bit to like 7-8 minutes per time slice, and it's still pretty reasonable, he'd have been doing this for about 7-8 hours. Each "pulse" has him come out of his little hut to "hurry" (not "stroll" or "walk") through the sculpture garden to look for something, either recording data in his notes or comparing against them to look for something, before going back in for another sixteen day time skip. He's not out very long before Shallan grabs him, which if his mission were critical, he'd probably be more upset about making sure he completed his task for this time-slice before running back into his hut. In fact, maybe his allotted "time slice" to do what he has to do is also preset, like if he's not himself a Pulser, but has has some kind of Allomancy driven device (based on one of those Allomantic "primer cubes")? A device that can Pulse away a pre-programmed 16 days at a time, with a delay setting to give him a short window of time to do some task and return for the next Pulse (or else he's stranded for 16 days). He must have turned it on after arriving, and so can turn it off to leave Lasting Integrity when whatever he's doing is done with, but he also can't stop or adjust the timer without being at the device to do it. We see that he "hurried" out of his hut through the statue park, and shouted something at Shallan she didn't understand when she grabbed him by the shoulder, then "fled" (ran) back into his home. Perhaps what he shouted was basically "let go of me, I have to get back in there before the Pulser device fires again!"

I don't think that part is true, because of the spren bond. I doubt an honorspren would choose such a person to bond with; and someone drifting to that kind of morality would lose their bond ("You're not supposed to be a Skybreaker, Kaladin"). Other orders, perhaps; in one of Dalinar's visions, Nohadon considered honorspren the most "discerning" of Radiant spren, while mentioning one Alakavish as a Surgebinder "who should have known better" (and whose spren was apparently not an honorspren). Kaladin's Third Ideal was to protect even those I hate, so long as it is right. That was his own Windrunner Third Ideal, because he had a special hangup about being reluctant to protect people from harm who he didn't like for their past deeds (though several of Elhokar's and of course, Roshone's past deeds directly or potentially directly affected him most negatively). What the Third Ideal is about for Windrunners isn't about "doing what [the Radiant thinks] is right" but pushing through "deep hangups" to commit to protecting people in need of it. Kaladin's "out clause", I think, was more about not being obligated to protect someone who was an active combatant against him or something. Teft's object was himself, and did not mention anything about "so long as it is right". [Minor spoilers: in Dawnshard we see how else the "deep hangups" can be interpreted.] Protecting Elhokar from being murdered isn't the same as deciding on the spot that he's off the hook for what he'd done to him or to Moash's family, it is simply that. He shouldn't be killed while unconscious. He shouldn't be killed in surprise, by people he had entrusted with his life. As for Windrunners killing in passion, we already saw what might happen in that situation, albeit as a hint. In Words of Radiance (Ch. 18), when Adolin comes to "the lighteyes training ground" and sees Kaladin and other Bridge Four folks (including Moash) beginning training under Zahel. He tries to encourage Kaladin, as the head of the Kholin bodyguard crew, to train with the Blade, but Kaladin won't touch one, insisting he does just fine without Shards. Adolin tells Kaladin to spar him while he's wearing Plate to prove it, and his surprising effectiveness in that scenario causes Adolin to lash out with more Plate driven strength than would have been wise (possibly fatal) against a normal human. Kaladin lay dazed on the ground, then healed with some Stormlight, picked up a spear, and charged back at Adolin, so enraged in visage that Adolin viewed him as an actual threat: And then later, he asked Syl about it: ---- Edited to add: I get what you're saying, though. It gets into a gray area, eventually, like if he were to see someone being formally executed for crimes they were known to be guilty of - say, in OB Interlude 10 with that greased up Brightlord Sheler being chained to a post, by his own choice of punishment, to be eaten by "The Hog" (more of a nickname). Would Kaladin feel obligated to save him, if he happened to fly by at that point? Probably, right? Well, what if he had been there the whole time and had been present for his judgment? Would Kaladin be able to refrain from acting to save people sentenced to death if he felt "they deserved it for their crimes", but then be compelled to act to protect people sentenced to death if he did not (like Ym, where Nale had somehow procured a writ of judgment and sentencing against him before moving to kill him)? And if so... At some point doesn't that make Kaladin effectively applying himself as arbiter of "what is right"? Of course you can extend this POV to any traditional "superhero" of the comics, like Superman, as the canonical example. And a being of great power absolving themselves from moral decisions to place in the hands of a higher authority seems like an even worse scenario (see: Szeth being used as the Assassin in White). Nale considering that a good and admirable thing for a Skybreaker is supposed to be indicative of his particular brand of insanity.

I thought it was Spiritual vision Tien lingering on. But yeah. Teft would be right there.

Excellent

The simplest explanation as to why Stormlight healing isn't healing Moash's blindness is the same one as why Kaladin carried those slave brands for so long: he feels he deserves it, at a spiritual/cognitive level. Simplest in that we've seen this mechanism at work already in SA. The next simplest one would be that it has to do with the new (to him) kind of Light that Navani fried him with in the face. Towerlight. Maybe Stormlight doesn't heal Towerlight burn. For example, wasn't it said somewhere, like from a Szeth POV when he was the Assassin in White, that Jezrien's Honorblade wouldn't allow him to heal from Shardblade severing with Stormlight the way that a Nahel bond allowed Second Ideal Kaladin to do, or even new Windrunner squires to do, like Bisig and Hobber? So maybe it's something like that. It's a kind of damage beyond the Physical level that Moash can't heal from with the Honorblade, but perhaps a Fused or Radiant could.

Right, but then why hook up with a group of people who have been harvesting chasmfiend chrysalises for ages? You have to think that would be kind of upsetting to them, if intelligent creatures?

I loved how Rlain decided to "do his best Teft impersonation" when settling the respective hashes of the human and Fused factions defending the unconscious Radiants. He swears by Kelek's breath about Venli getting a Nahel Bond before him after all he's been through, then thinks, "Maybe too much Teft." He probably smiled a bit inside picturing Teft's reaction, then died again to see his burned-out eyes on the floor.

... I missed this, where is that?

Have you read Dawnshard? It outlines the nature of Chiri-Chiri in some detail (while of course, raising yet further mysteries). But reasons for her sentience or intelligence don't seem to translate in any signaled way to chasmfiends to me... Would be very interesting if that was what was getting set up.

Or, as I just realized in a reply in another thread: maybe this uniquely sapient and sympathetic so-called chasmfiend is the dragon on Roshar that Hoid casually mentioned as having taken on another form while telling Kaladin "The Dog and the Dragon". The dragon in Hoid's Lightweaving strongly resembles a chasmfiend to Kaladin anyway, who has seen one very up close and personal for comparison. So it wouldn't even be a far stretch for a dragon to pose as one.

But all the Shards we've seen appear to people in visions do so in forms that reflect their Vessel. I'm sure that's a "default avatar" and they could disguise it if they had a reason to do it, like Ruin presenting as Kelsier to Spook or I suspect Vargodium will as Rayse for a while to the right people; but would Cultivation bother to do this, and who would be the model? What about that chasmfiend that helped the listeners escape the chasms near Narak during the double Ever/Highstorm? Dragons are shapeshifters, yeah?

Yeah, the “suckling babe” theory. We've always wondered what that Death Rattle was about. Though those rattles came before Rayse got shivved with Nightblood, he sure didn't see that coming, so maybe that particular prophetic vision is off-track now?

The Recreance must have happened BEFORE the death of Honor. Why? Because there was an Honorvision recording left with the Stormfather for the Bondsmith of the Final Desolation to view that included it, the one at Feverstone Keep. However, I think you're thinking along the right lines. Something about what Melishi intended to do to bind B-A-M was something that upset the Sibling enough to break their bond before it happened, resulting in their "slumbering". And according to Kelek, who was there with Nale when it happened (according to a spren in Shadesmar, was it?), that binding not only had the side effect of zombifying all parsh Connected to B-A-M (but sparing the listeners, who had rejected that bond and fled service), it somehow also affected the Radiants because deadeye spren from broken oaths had never happened before (and surely, Radiants had broken or backslid on oaths before then). And when Maya spoke of the Recreance as a joint decision, she said they had not realized "death" would be the result. Only "pain". There's a big ball of Connection in there with B-A-M that has to do with "the power of oaths" - something about the Oathpact, or something like it, that had a symmetry to it, such that it pulled in that which bound the parsh to B-A-M for Voidlight but also pulled in some part of that which bound the Radiants and their spren to their oaths. And I think you're right - somehow, Melishi's act crossed a line that ought not to have been crossed, and perhaps was not previously able to be crossed; a line that Honor used to maintain but no longer did, being in death throes and instead "raving about the Dawnshards". I guess with the parsh cut off from forms of power, continued Nahel bonds would upset that balance so much that some kind of runaway spiral of Surgebinding might happen? I mean, Nale sure seemed confident that humans forming Nahel bonds would certainly mean a balancing effect in Fused and Regals. Maybe that's not the crazy part of him being insane.

Or rather, the chasmfiend that apparently has bonded (if that is the right word) with Thude and the other listeners who had escaped Narak. What is THAT going to be about? I literally have no idea. Thude's words to Venli indicate it's not something related to any Surges... And yet, the listeners had been hunting chasmfield chrysalises just as intently as the Alethi had done, to get the gemhearts needed to grow their Stormlight-fertilized crops. Is this chasmfiend special? Perhaps there is a sentient spren in its gemheart?

...which at the same time, as noted in the OP, is an extremely Elsecaller thing to be. So put me down now for SA5 seeing a releasing of B-A-M (where deadeyes were only A Thing after its Connection-entangling imprisonment), combined with Adolin doing the Deadeye Whisperer thing, resulting in a restored Mayalaran bonding Adolin. Where some Bondsmithy action by Dalinar (or Temporarily Sane Ishar) is needed in some way as well. BTW, I wonder who Notum will end up bonding. After his outburst at Adolin's trial, surely he was one of the honorspren who decided to Go a-radianting... You'd think he would want to bond Adolin, but his Lehan Bond (as I called it somewhere) with Maya probably precludes that. Or maybe it doesn't? People with dead Shardblade bonds have bonded spren - Dalinar when he bonded the Stormfather, Elhokar was about to, and most likely Renarin only bonded with Glys after gaining a Blade (seems doubtful he'd have spent the ten days needed to gemstone-bond a dead Blade hearing that screaming the whole time). So if this Lehan Bond is like that, maybe Adolin bonds Notum... Then revives Maya... And becomes our first dual-Order double-bonder (where Shallan is apparently a double-bonded Lightweaver)?

So Venli reached her Second Ideal - I will seek freedom for those in bondage - by "freeing" her mother's mind from the morass of dementia she had been trapped in, right? ...by bringing a lightspren to her to bind into her gemheart, while singing the Song of Mornings to trigger enough volition in her mother to begin a Nahel Bond? That also means her mother is now a Willshaper too, right? Were all the "hundreds" of spren that accompanied Venli to Camp Listener lightspren, or have other types of spren decided to bond listeners as well? I'm assuming they're all lightspren, but maybe not? After all, a mistspren (albeit one touched by Sja-anat) chose to bond Rlain.

Nice. That's a detail I hadn't noticed. At the end of Ch. 113, when Odium arrives to accuse Taravangian of conniving with Sja-anat and somehow ruining his plans for taking Kaladin as his champion, he's interrupting a Very Special Moment between him and Szeth: and just then, Taravangian is pulled into the bubble of Odiumvision in the Cognitive Realm: And then after the Ascension of Vargodium, in Ch. 114, So what to make of this? It seems incredible that Taravangian could draw Nightblood physically, across the boundaries between the PR and CR, such that Szeth had to resheathe Nightblood in the Physical Realm. I mean, what was it from Szeth's POV? How had he ended up on the floor? He stabbed Taravangian with a regular knife, then Tarvangian went up in smoke and an explosion of light that knocked him off his feet, and when he recovered he saw nothing but a mostly-eaten, burned-out corpse and an unsheathed Nightblood? I guess so - how else would Cognitive Nightblood have gotten resheathed? Lots of questions for WoBs and RAFOs are in our future on this one, I'm sure!

I really do not think his shock and surprise that Odium was no longer Rayse was feigned. "Who are you?" He had thought simply to taunt and to tweak Rayse. He did not expect a new Odium. How could he have foreseen that?

I was trying to imagine what this combination would be - it was not addressed in RoW itself, I don't think - but this image is probably pretty accurate.

I suspect Odium's ability to fiddle with memories externally contained in Investiture (Breaths) would be limited to removal; changing memories feels like something of another Shardic intent, such as Ruin or Cultivation. Especially since the memories he'd have altered or removed were Connected to himself (what he had just said/done with him).

I think Odium's later rant to Taravangian about how he'd lost his champion, AGAIN, meant that Vyre's biggest goal at Urithiru was to push Kaladin to give in to Odium (with suicide, removing him from the board, being the fallback outcome). That Kaladin once again Leveled Up and found his own path was very frustrating for him. So Kaladin's eyes being yellow-red when he went HAM on all those Fused, was that him almost falling to Odium? If so, what pulled him back from the brink? It's like he didn't "surrender" to Odium - to "give him his pain - instead, he embraced his pain and used it like a mini-Thrill. And make no mistake, he went terrifyingly berserker, as you put it. I just went back to read it and when The Purs -- er, the Defeated One went to try to slit his throat with a carapace dagger, from Venli's POV, Kaladin "let loose a howl that seemed to vibrate with a hundred discordant rhythms" -- was that the Rhythm of War? And then he rapidly used Navani's fabrial to decapitate Lezian with a Reverse Lashing, pushed past Leshwi who was trying to console or to congratulate him, and then casually killed two other Heavenly Ones who tried to stop him going after the one who had flown off with his father. So quickly and casually that the narrative doesn't even give any action description to the first one. "He landed facing a Heavenly One who tried to block his path. ... He left that Heavenly One broken and dying, then tore through the upper chambers." No Shardspear. No Gravitation. No Stormlight healing to speak of, as by that time the Sibling's corruption had been so advanced that healing from an injury that normally would be instantaneous had taken ten minutes. Just Adhesion, a surgical scalpel, and that "Flying Fist of Fury" fabrial. Yet Regals and Fused alike flee before his terrible visage, or fall like chaff before him.

OK, that's true enough. I just liked the humor value of having a Shard called Cowardice. It does have a certain bite. Like maybe, some people call the Shard "Cowardice" but its Vessel insists on "Prudence" the way that Rayse wanted to be called Passion. LOL. Consider it... Whimsy on my part.