Andy92

El seems to make the most sense currently imo. He’s even trying to get on Taravangian‘s good side quickly. Couple this with the fact that El doesn’t want to destroy humanity, he wants to repurpose them as an army to (seemingly) conquest the Cosmere with, it fits right into Taravangian’s motives to “save” everyone.

Taravangian is kind of like Thanos.

Cause he’s the Stormlight Archive’s Winter Soldier character. You see him fight because he thinks he has to and then he actually wants to change when given the chance.

Maybe there is a proper contest of champions that Dalinar wins, and the plot twist comes in some loophole Taravangian found in the deal that allows something to happen when he loses that was not accounted for. I don’t have any real theories for this other than thinking it would leave an interesting ending if things look good for everyone at first and a twist happens after the duel.

This is the concept other sci-fi writers use for “fast travel” around the universe. The problem you run into is explaining how you can travel to the correct space within the correct time. It’s one thing to move from Ashyn to Roshar. It’s another thing to make sure you don’t pop out 10,000 years in the future lol

And it also ties back into The Way of Kings when they’re watching Dalinar trapped on the plateau at The Tower. That’s a question that comes up in the first book from Syl, are spren attracted to things or are spren the ones who create things? To me the answer always seemed to be that spren were attracted to things. Cryptics are attracted to Shallan because she lies, but Shallan is the one creating the lies. Honorspren are attracted to honor, and Kaladin lived in such an honorable way that he attracted Syl.

Just to have some fun with the theory and roll with it, I’ve always been a fan of the theories that there’s something more to the Kaladin and Child of Tanavast references. Assuming your theory is true, it’s possible Kaladin has become a larger Splinter of Honor due to the way he’s lived his life. I think something like that would be cool because it wouldn’t mean Kaladin is special because he has the same bloodline as Tanavast himself or someone like Nohadon, but it would also set Kaladin apart a bit and explain some of the things he’s done, like move the wind itself during a storm.

I like this theory. It’s been a theme of the book series so far. Reminds me of another one of Wit’s conversations with Jasnah in the WoR epilogue. It’ll be interesting to see if Honor did something like you’re suggesting as contractual protection or if it’s just a thematic part of the series, but I like the theory.

If The Sibling doesn’t care whether humans live or die then the bigger concern is the spren, not the Bondsmith lol. I personally don’t believe The Sibling will continue to be as against humanity moving forward. We saw them on screen being attacked after a centuries long slumber, so of course they were going to be on edge. The circumstances have changed now.

The part of the argument against Navani I do follow is that we’ve seen how devastating Bondsmith powers can be, so you obviously want to be cautious about who these Radiants in particular are. The reason I’m not as worried about this is because I think there’s a temptation to apply what Ishar can do to what Navani may do, when Ishar is mainly scary because his powers are unchecked through an Honorblade (and he’s gone insane). We’ve already seen on screen what happens when a Radiant bonded to a spren uses their powers in a way that disregards their oaths. Kaladin nearly killed Syl due to this. I’m not so worried that Navani can just circumvent her bond with The Sibling to do whatever she wants. She’ll have plenty of power, but she won’t be unchecked like Ishar. If she starts ripping Connections apart from people as a weapon, that goes against the entire “I will unite instead of divide” oath that she’ll eventually have to say.

And I really like Dalinar’s journey from the beginning through Oathbringer. I think he’s easily become a worthy Bondsmith, but I also think Navani has been a strong character. The moment that sticks out the most to me for Navani was how she held everything together in Urithiru when Dalinar’s memory flooded back to him. He locked himself away and couldn’t function once he remember what he’d done to Evi, and Navani was the one who saved the coalition from collapse during that moment. I remember reading tons of “Navani will bond The Sibling” theories post OB, and now that she has, it’s like a bunch of people think it wasn’t foreshadowed any lol

Honestly Dalinar probably wouldn’t be a Bondsmith either if he wasn’t explicitly given visions and told “unite them.” He was kind of hand picked for the role. I feel like he’s held to a lower expectation because of this. The Blackthorn maybe unified through fear but I wouldn’t call that true unity.

I feel like the Fused lost a step after not fighting a Desolation for 4,500 years. We really have no idea what ended up happening all those years when they were stuck with just Taln. It’s like watching a professional athlete that used to be the best in the league come out of a 5 year retirement and realizing that are way out of practice. And in RoW it also seems like many of the Fused are just as eager for the war to end as anyone else. They’re all sick of fighting endlessly, just like the Heralds were.

Edited this into a spoiler tag since we’re in the SA only thread. Not really any major Mistborn spoilers but just to be safe:

I don’t think he’s going to have Odium completely lose after just giving the Shard a new Vessel, but there’s the other option that Odium meets his demise in book 5 and Cultivation becomes the antagonist... I think Taravangian will be around for a while though. His story has been setup too long through The Diagram to not continue playing a key role into the rest of the series imo.

Oh yeah that sounds familiar. Was that on one of the Kickstarter perks for the Stonewards or did I doze off during a part of a book lol

^ That sounds like the second ideal for Stonewards.

There’s a difference between vengeance and justice. Moash killing Elhokar was vigilantism, not true justice, and not very honorable.

There’s a line in the book where Navani realizes the lights and anti-lights are producing identical tones. In sound mechanics this is happening when the waveforms are running at the same frequency, but they’re 180 degrees out of phase. Same waveform, but they cancel each other out due to the opposite phases.

Good points. It’s been a while since I’ve read the exact scene closely, but the whole deal about her mother’s soul was always kind of confusing. I do think there’s something more to her mother that we don’t know, even if she wasn’t a Herald.

That was part of my biggest question too, as much as I like the theory in general. When Shallan’s mother died, there was still a body there. I’m not sure if we know the exact mechanics of what used to happen to a Herald’s body immediately after death during desolations. Did their bodies disappear upon death? We know Heralds have to be able to “die” because that’s how they got sent back to Braize during desolations. But who knows how that whole mechanic has worked ever since the other 9 abandoned their Honorblades and walked away.

There has been a group of Cryptics watching Shallan for a while. That’s why Pattern was sent when she abandoned Testament, and it’s also why he’s told her before that if she kills him, they’ll send another.

Yeah, I know some are less cryptic than others. I still think in the case of his 3rd Ideal and the situation at hand, his Stormlight returning was the big deal given that he had lost it. And it could be a mix of both. I just always read it more in the Stormlight way.

Given the circumstance I think it fits. We hadn’t seen a character regress in their oaths “on screen” like that before. Losing his ability to use Stormlight was a huge plot point to the story. Plus, death rattles are rarely written super explicitly. Having “I raise my hand. The Stormlight responds.” as the death rattle sounds a bit too on-the-nose.

I’m pretty sure the storm responding is the Stormlight returning to him, not a literal high storm.