robardin

I absolutely get what you're saying here, and even would agree that it's true to a degree. But I will add that it's exacerbated, a lot, by reading it piecemeal. These flaws start becoming more pronounced, the fact that it's an "outlined plot" book with character development and dialogue writing sort of filled in like spackle. It's what gets us the rapid pace of writing/publishing from Sanderson that we do, and it's the only way the entire Cosmere cycle could possibly be written and dome by the time he's 72-ish?, which in turn gives me (at age 53 right now) an outside chance at actually reading the whole thing, LOL. I had this same reaction to Oathbringer in particular, and less so for Rhythm of War, but for me, both criticisms fell away quite a bit on re-reads. In part because you can skim over rather than dwelling on flaws like that when you're not reading for 15-20 minutes every week, but also because the pacing is more natural to his kind of "Sanderlanche" writing.

I seem to recall (but can't readily find) either a passage in one of the SA books or a WoB that basically said that lost Shardblades (of the deadeye variety) ... EDIT: I've been apprised that the reason I couldn't find the passage with a text search in my eBooks is that it is from one of the early release chapters of WaT, so, spoilering my previous mention!

Well there are multiple plans going on, it would seem. Iyatil refers to Thaidakar coming around eventually, after the fact, after they've captured Mishram for "my (Iyatil's) purposes" -- their direct orders being to figure out how to transport Stormlight out of the Rosharan system, which they apparently already have (via Identity stripping, somehow). So this hunt for B-a-M is purely an Iyatil thing... ...and whoever she's talking to, that Shallan is posing as, who is also a Scadrian and yet was posted to supervising door-checking duty (which maybe is a fairly important job...?), has yet different plans that Iyatil hopes it would dovetail with. "Will this fit your plans as well?" is a direct question, and not seemingly rhetorical.

Not sure what "stupid plotline" you're referring to, but the Ghostbloods... Are a Cosmere-wide organization. And they're not going to get extirpated from Roshar in the first 1/8 of Stormlight Book 5, I don't think. As later Cosmere books in all series will increasingly cross-reference each other in a shared universe way, the Ghostbloods will only become more, not less, prominent, I think.

Breakdancing? To what was obviously.... ROCK music?!

Hmm, I may have to reconsider my assessment of the "masked woman in charge at the door to the Ghostblood Staff Meeting" being a fake, at least a little bit. The sketches Shallan received from Wit were AFTER she returned to Urithiru -- so Ala wouldn't be able to pass on which ones they were, I don't think? They were first mentioned in Ch. 3, when she spoke to Wit via seon (i.e., the GBs know all about this conversation): And as for what those drawings were like, going back to re-read Ch. 16, So Hoid sent drawings of twelve GBs that he had "identified", i.e., he knew they were GBs from having seen/tracked them on or off Roshar in his wider travels, and saw them recently enough to call them "reinforcements" since Shallan's break with them. "Most of these faces were familiar", such as his sketches of Mraize and Iyatil, but she focused on two, a man and a woman, "who wore hoods and masks", who had "caught [Stargyle] watching them". Placing one of the two that the GBs know or suspect that Shallan has spotted and likely identified as the door guard still smells like a "honey trap" to me, but it seems Shallan may have a bit more of an edge of surprise here than I originally thought. Not much, though.

Yeah, I agree, despite what Shallan assumes I don't think she's a target for elimination -- it's not like they can prevent her from sharing what she already knows about them with either Dalinar or Hoid. In fact, having their own "spy on the inside" in Ala was PERFECT for the latter concern, from their POV. OTOH her family could be targets for either capture, or some other form of being used to apply pressure on her in terms of doing something for them in the best interests of the Ghostbloods, while pitching it as a common goal. And if this does turn out to be a honey trap, as I hope it does, it smells like a Kelsier setutp.

I am either suspicious, surprised, or disappointed at how the "Ghostblood Staff Meeting" is shaping up. Remember, the Ghostbloods know what Shallan was trying to keep hidden from them (about B-a-M and whatever else Kalak and Wit discussed with her after she broke it off with Mraize), AND they know that she doesn't know that they know. But, they also would probably figure she'd try to move on them and not wait for them to move on her, because they liked her enough to recruit her, and that's what they'd do, right? And what they know she knows, that she doesn't know that they know, is that Wit gave them drawings of a bunch of GB agents on Roshar. In fact, because of Ala, they probably know exactly who those drawings are for, too. So getting those agents to apparently go to some kind of in-person "All-Roshar Ghostblood Conference" ... in an underground meeting room in one of the Alethi warcamps... SHOULD be an easy ruse to set up. And that "masked figure" who's not Iyatil, that Shallan so easily subdued? Really, there's another Southern Scadrian that just happened never to have been mentioned? And whose mask came off easily, leaving only indentations on the face, when we've been told repeatedly (including in Mistborn Era 2 books, by Allik I believe?) that those guys NEVER remove them and DO "grow into them" in some way? Isn't that more likely to be the bait for "Hey Shallan, we are blocking your ability to Lightweave your way into this meeting you really want to be in on, that you don't know we know you know about, and hey lookit, one of the people we posted AT THE DOOR is WEARING A PHYSICAL MASK but it's not Iyatil who would recognize you, ... hint hint hint hint... Hey you, junior offworld Ghostblood, put this mask on and look imposing out there" If this ISN'T a Ghostblood honey trap, I will be very surprised, and depending on how it plays out, rather disappointed (if it turns out all to be just as Shallan imagined it going/working). OTOH I don't think Mraize, having entrapped Shallan, would actually kill her. I think he's going to make one more push, if not to recruit her, then to work together for yet another common goal. EDIT: I just realized, given the prologue, instead of seeing Mraize in there, Shallan may well get that "one more push to join, or at least to work together on this" from Thaidakar himself, in projection form. I mean, come on... From what we've seen, isn't this honey trap thing much more of a Kelsier type job than a Mraize one? Also, auto-concatenated to my post in reply to another one: "I'm thirty-seven! I'm not OLD!" (-Dennis the Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant)

Odium was clearly trapped on Roshar by some kind of binding oath. That's not ambiguous. It's about Wit's comment on how Rayse discovered that PREVIOUS oaths made "by the power" carried over after the death of the Vessel.

I concur, my first reading of that statement is that Rayse -- the first Vessel of Odium after the Shattering -- "discovered" that he was still bound by agreements or oaths that "the power" had already been bound by, before his taking it up. That implies it's something of Adonalsium, or even older?!, and therefore something that also binds ANY of the Vessels of all of the Shards. But that also boggles the mind, who would Adonalsium have made a "formal agreement" WITH? There's another possibility: to read the statement in reverse, or rather, emphasizing the other half of it. "...a formal agreement like that binds the power, not just the individual, something Rayse himself discovered long ago." Perhaps that means that Rayse thought he could end the "formal agreement" with Honor by killing Tanavast, i.e., "I made that agreement with Tanavast but he's dead so I'm free", only to find that as long as the power of Honor existed (perhaps stashed in bulk and in enough quantity somewhere, as Cultivation implied, that it could still be taken up?), that Odium was still bound, whoever its Vessel was?

I don't think you have to ascribe some kind of feedback from Dalinar to explain the Stormfather's changes from before the Sibling "went to sleep" -- we know that happened just before the Recreance, for which Honor was still alive but dying as he "did not support" the Radiants but "raved about the Dawnshards". Honor then set about preparing for his demise, upgrading the Stormfather to be able to create new honorspren (formerly reserved to Himself) and recording the Honorvisions while requiring the SF to find a Bondsmith to show them to as the True Desolation and the Everstorm approached. As Cultivation said to Dalinar in Ch. 16 of WaT, What if Tanavast gave up most of the Shard of Honor and stuffed it himself into the Spiritual Realm to avoid it being Splintered, as Odium had managed to do with several other Shards (but in the SR instead of CR as happened with Dominion and Devotion)? And the "part of Honor" that attached to the Stormfather is, as a WoB would confirm explicitly, essentially Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow, like "Fuzz" was of Preservation in Mistborn: Secret History. Which would explain his darker turn. I mean, Tanavast DIED and was also "going mad" towards the end. It does make it interesting to consider why/how the Stormfather was so insistent that "Odium reigns" and actively trying to kill the Alethi army at the Battle of Narak with a highstorm, while deriding Second Ideal Dalinar with "GO, BONDSMITH. LEAD YOUR DYING PEOPLE TO FAILURE. ODIUM DESTROYED THE ALMIGHTY HIMSELF. YOU ARE NOTHING TO HIM."

That's why I think it's a distraction ploy on Taravangian's part, because something still doesn't add up... The three-prong attack on Azimir, Thaylen City, and Stormseat -- including a massive force of singers, the "ships full of common soldiers" (not Fused), waiting to break through from Shadesmar -- clearly took longer than 1-2 days to physically coordinate, as the Mink points out. So Wit saying "Rayse would never have done this" cannot be true: Rayse had to have been the one to set up the pieces for this move. That, or T'Odium has been REALLY on the ball and did that "use a lot of Stormlight to make physical ships from idea-beads in Shadesmar" (and moving all those singers into Shadesmar how? Via an Oathgate they control and which allows them to pass, like in Kholinar?) in just two days' time. The 3D map of Roshar is a mix of the Bondsmith power pulling on a Lightweaver while using information seen by the Stormfather as the highstorms roll across the lands. As such, if it's not something previously seen by the Sibling (who's seen a lot of Stormfather-bonded Bondsmiths in Urithiru in their time!), I think it has to do with Dalinar's bond to the Stormfather being different from all previous Bondsmiths bonded to the SF: he's the first one to do so after Honor "died" and a large Splinter attached itself to SF. As Odium put it to Dalinar, "You are the first to bond the Stormfather in his current state. Did you know that? You are deeply connected to the remnants of a god." The Sibling also comments on how the Stormfather isn't like he used to be, that he used to be "happier" (?!) instead of "angry all the time".

Yeah, I wondered about that hint/reference as well. What did Rayse (not Taravangian) learn about having to respect oaths that "the power" had already bound itself to? Hoid was only under personal protection from Odium's direct wrath as a result of a clause in the contract he wrote up for Dalinar for the Contest of Champions -- until then, he had been terrified of being discovered by Odium on Roshar, because Odium would had destroyed him in an instant. So it's not something like that. It could have something to do with his being on Roshar and how he got trapped by Honor to end up bound to the system, though. We know Adonalsium created Roshar with a specific design in mind.

Oh, I like that. So far we haven’t seen Renarin’s Odiumvision do much for Team Dalinar, after all. He foresaw the arrival of the Everstorm, which didn’t really give any insight as to how to stop it; He foresaw “most likely” but ultimately false futures, of Jasnah striking him down and Dalinar succumbing to Odium at Thaylen Fields, and he was overjoyed to find that what he saw “could be wrong” — that “the future is not set” And apparently he foresaw something about Taravangian’s fate when he passed him that note. Any other Renarin visions we know about? He says to Dalinar that he mostly keeps them to himself, as he’s not sure how much of what he sees is influenced by what Odium (consciously or more likely, unconsciously) wants him to see, or at least desires.

Gavinor? He's what, six years old? He's gonna pick up Odium? Pfah! You want a "GOd" for Odium, you need to go to the Original G in Stormlight Archives, from TWoK. That's right. I'm talkin' GAZ-Od!

I agree. This "loophole" they've found so far, in terms of Team Odium "keeping what we've gained" in the days before the Contest meaning "if we can seize the capital, the 'seat of power', we can claim their entire country under the Alethi Rules of Acquisition", feels like a ruse unto itself. I mean yes, it's still a worthwhile thing to pursue on the surface. But it doesn'f fit the description of Taravangian thinking to himself that "the way to win was to ensure that whatever the outcome, you were satisified? ... Dalinar had set himself up to fail." Not "Dalinar had given him a chance to control all of Roshar even if his Champion lost, except for Alethkar and Herdaz per specific agreement, and via a specific interpretation based on the fact that the Bondsmith who agreed to the terms is Alethi". No, Taravangian's real insight has yet to be revealed, or I'll be quite disappointed. Besides, there's a fairly obvious loophole to the loophole. If the "Alethi Legal Codes" really are the implied and (Shardic Oath level enforced) parameters for this agreement, then why not move their "seats of power" to Urithiru? "Alethkar, Azir, and Thaylen are now declared to have their 'seats of power' be wherever the Queen/Prime is seated", that being in that conference room in Urithiru. That would definitely hold out longer than ten days. And regarding why Colot went from Windrunner squire to "normal lighteyed Captain in the Cobalt Guard" again, I wonder who he had been squire to. What if it had been Teft, or another Windrunner who died in action, and he lost the squire bond when the Radiant died and couldn't bring himself to form that kind of attachment to another person again?

Those are some mighty good WoBs to have dug up there @alder24

That was why he couldn't wield the "full power" of Preservation, according to Ruin, after picking it up. "Look at you, Kelsier! You haven't form or shape. You're not alive, you're an idea. A memory of a man holding the power will never be as potent as a real one with ties to all three Realms." However, picking it up required that "Connection bomb" that the Ire left behind after some rogue shnookered them into abandoning it in terror, giving him the ability he otherwise would not have had to Pull in the Shard to him as the Vessel. Which I don't think had to do with him being dead and a Cognitive Shadow -- rather his "Ruinous" nature:

I still have to think it depends on the Shards in question. We saw in MB:SH that when Kelsier first tried to pick up Preservation, it resisted him because of his clear Connection (by nature) to Ruin, which "it didn't like at all". I would have to think that someone actually already holding Ruin (e.g., Ati) would find it basically impossible to pick up Preservation -- to hold both of those Shards, as those Shards were then constituted (as polar opposites), required a trick like getting a Vessel who was balanced between the two in place to pick them both up simultaneously. OTOH we can see that Honor and Odium are NOT opposite Shards, as they can "harmonize" to become the Rhythm of War and to form Warlight in a similar way to Honor and Cultivation combining to form the Sibling's Song and Towerlight -- perhaps that would not have been possible with Preservation and Ruin before?

Hmm, my takeaway from Taravangian's accusatory monologue to Cultivation wasn't that he wanted to get rid of all Shards, but -- similar to Rayse before him, but for different reasons -- wanted there to be one guiding "god" in the Cosmere that took an active managing role, instead of passively and defensively guarding their power against other Shards while begging off on the how to deal with mortals. He doesn't want nobody in charge; he most definitely wants someone he trusts to be in charge, and that's himself. That said, he may not be all in on the "Splinter all other Shards and be the last one left!" interpretation. He'd be open to either taking up other Shards, or simply dominating (or manipulating) them into doing what he wants to get done.

Can an existing Shard take up another one? We'll find out! So far we've seen two Shards picked up at the same time in Sazed, but not a Vessel already en-Sharded picking up a second one; you would think the Intent of the second Shard might not like that In which case would that make a putative Taravangian the Shard of War? From TOdium to T'War (like a Dragonrider name, LOL)? Oh, and since nobody else has commented or picked up on this: Shallan assumes the GBs don't know where Mishram was hidden (Spiritual Realm), but of course they do, because Ala was the hidden GB spy the whole time (with Felt as the hidden muscle). And we already saw that he's passed that info along to both Kelsier and to Iyatil. What does this mean? Well, I think the Ghostbloods that Shallan is spotting and tailing... Is a ruse. They know that she will be trying to preemptively strike at them, so instead of pre-preemptively striking (directly) at her and hers, they're going to draw out her attention and her resources so that she WON'T be as able to prevent them from interfering in the play for Mishram, because who won't know that they know about Mishram.

So, IF that method were possible (and that was just me repeating a common fan theory), the GBs would still need some willing highspren to enter the gems; probably not such a tall order, given they seem to have been able to convince Ala the seon to join them of their own free will. I doubt that a coercively trapped highspren would be open to forming a Nahel bond with a Ghostblood agent!

No, the Honorblades did not grant "squiring". Just as well - can you imagine Vyre squiring up Regals or singers who could wield TWO surges (even more than the Heavenly Ones)? And I did propose one possible mechanism for Skybreakers in Elendel in TLM: that they had no spren bonds but were "long distance squires". We have seen that Windrunner squires require being close to "their Windrunner" to gain Surges, but we don't know that that's also true, or as true, for Skybreakers. As for being "freakishly tall" by Scadrian standards, that's really an Alethi thing. They could be Skybreakers from elsewhere on Roshar. Shallan also finds them "freakishly tall" and she's from just one country over! And "becoming a Skybreaker on Scadrial itself" is just as problematical as a Skybreaker from Roshar getting away from Roshar in the first place: it's the SPREN that is bound there, the Radiant is then tied down by having the spren JB-Welded into their soul. The spren not being able leave on its own is the big limitation. If some kind of "perfect gem inside an aluminum box" thing is worked out between RoW and TLM that allows sentient spren to leave, then why wouldn't that also work to let their Radiant leave with them? So I'd say that that WoB that says "as of this point in continuity" they haven't figured that out yet, would preclude bringing unbonded highspren to Scadrial.

Do we really need to spoiler WoBs ... in an all-Cosmere spoiler forum? LOL So, Brandon apparently nixed those guys as being Skybreakers, while also being delighted by the suggestion (as by someone picking up on the cue), by stating that "at this point of continuity [presumably meaning TLM, which is after SA5], the only Radiant who's managed to get off of Roshar and maintain powers is Hoid". (Also caveating repeatedly that "you can't hold me to this too much.") But that's pretty specific wording. The only Radiant. Because it's difficult to escape the Rosharan system with a Nahel bond to a spren that is deeply Cognitively tied to that system. Well, what if these were not Skybreaker Radiants, with Nahel bonds? What if they were Skybreaker squires, and somehow that squiring doesn't require as much physical proximity as we've seen the Windrunner squires requiring? Like, what if a Skybreaker Master could "formally transfer" his squires to a designated proxy Master, like Kelsier or another Ghostblood, with the Spiritual Connection nature of Skybreaker squiring continuing to grant the Surge of Gravitation (it seems only full Skybreakers of the Third Ideal can use Division, based on what Nalan says to Szeth), something that can operate at any distance in the Cosmere, if the squire can obtain the Investiture? (Note also that Szeth is working on becoming a Fourth Ideal "Master" in WaT... Just sayin'.)

That's an interesting point. But she clearly considered Rayse holding Odium dangerous enough to engineer his replacement as its Vessel -- besides, Odium openly acknowledged that the first thing he'd do after being freed from whatever is binding him as a result of Honor, he'd go after Cultivation. She'd have to believe that Taravangian would not have the same intent if he were freed, and based on their brief conversation earlier in WaT, I don't think she believes that at all.