alder24

I think they will start by being indifferent towards each other, no hard feelings, no friendliness as well. Just two soldiers on a mission. But sending a Windrunner and a Skybreaker together on a mission is a bad idea. There will be a conflict between them when Szeth will try to cleanse Shin leadership out of unjust leaders and Kaladin will try to stop him because that's morally not right. KoWT readings spoilers: Yes, because nothing gives more hope for the future than sending a heavily depressed person after two suicidal attempts to be tortured for an eternity in literal hell. No? Dalinar needs Ishar, Ishar is in Shinovar, Szeth is a Shin with a mission to accomplish there, he knows the terrain and Shin culture, he knows people living there. Sending him to Shinovar is an obvious choice. Kaladin is Stormblessed. He almost always wins and recently he's overcome the hardest struggles imaginable. He started to get interested in mental health problems, he is a surgeon and Ishar is mentally in need. Plus he is 4th Ideal. Another obvious choice. Truthfully, at the end of RoW Dalinar thought he was wrong in relieving Kaladin from duty. He thought Kaladin proved him wrong, showed him that he is capable of fighting and leading, that his mental problems were solved. Dalinar didn't choose Kaladin because he thought Kaladin is a liability, he sent Kaladin because Dalinar thought he was wrong about Kaladin. RoW ch 116:

I've said it earlier here, there is no deadline specified in the terms, no mention of 1000 years - those terms were rejected first by Odium, then by Dalinar. Final terms are meant to end this war between Honor&Cultivation and Odium. No repetition, a true ending. Humanity can't win the True Desolation because of the Everstorm. Fused can freely respawn without going to Braize at all, Voidspren can freely provide form of powers to Singers. All of this without the need of Odium's involvement. To win this war you would literally have to kill every single Singer on Roshar. Restoring the Oathpact isn't any solution because Fused don't return to Braize anymore, they just go into the Everstorm, not to mention that the Oathpact failed to contain them in the first place. At best that would bring back the previous status quo from before Aharietiam, with Desolations eventually returning year after year. Radiants simply can't win this war, they can only prolong it, which will ultimately lead to their demise. Radiants themselves aren't even united now. There are 2 Orders that work for Odium - Skybreakers and Dustbringers (while not openly, Dustbringer's spren want only to revenge the Recreance), Willshapers are now a neutral faction, Inkspren categorically refused to join, just like Honorspren up until the Adolin's trial (which doesn't fully solve this problem, because it revealed that ancient spren feared the Surgebinding powers will destroy Roshar and Blended thinks that's a bigger problem than a simple betrayal). That's basically half of Radiant Orders being against Honor's side, neutral or only granting limited support to it. Dalinar's coalition is at disadvantage when it comes to prolonging the war, because his Radiants grow way slower then they used to in the past (with only 4 Orders growing in numbers), while more and more Fused are Returning and more Regals and Warforms are gaining fighting experience. Tbf most of Roshar is already under Odium's control - almost the entire east and north is either conquered or allied with Odium. Dalinar's situation isn't that good at all. Yes he won at Thaylen City in OB after losing Alethkar, now he won at Emul and regained Urithiru. Yet Odium gained more land than he lost. Iri continued their conquest eastwards around the Purelake, Herdaz fell and Jah Keved switched sides - the second military power on Roshar after Alethkar. Dalinar despite his victories is still losing the True Desolation. Therefore, sitting at the negotiating table with Odium right now is probably the best Dalinar can do. Prolonging this war will either lead to stagnation or even more losses for Dalinar in the long run. Even if everything goes well on battlefields, this Desolation can't be stopped, Fused will be returning every 9 days just like Regals while losses will be mounting up. The True Desolation can't be won by Honor's side, it can't be even stopped. Odium wants to have Roshar. Yes, he wants to be freed of it, but he doesn't want to abandon all what he created through millennia. Roshar is his training ground for his army that will conquer the entire Cosmere. He needs Roshar because Rosharans are the best fighters, prepared for 7000 years for combat. Now he is finally fully invested in Roshar and getting out is not as easy anymore. Setting Odium free is also not a solution like you proposed before, he wants and needs Roshar. OB ch 57:

Which would most likely end just like every other Desolation. The idea of this contest was to show Odium that this Desolation will be the same as others, that he won't win again, and that will make him willing to risk to agree to the contest. Radiants can't win Desolations for good. Vedenar joined Odium by their own decision. They were talking about it in RoW, this was likely included in Wit's terms, but those weren't accepted, there was no mention of Hoid in the final terms, he is still lacking protections.

That's why I'm asking where would you place Marsh who gets periodically invested by Harmony. No, because remnants of Honor are still attached to that Cognitive Shadow. It's a CS of Honor itself. Stormfather holds the pieces of Honor. Another thing to consider, if you're talking about divinity as continuity and the relationship to Adonalsium, then wouldn't that place Aethers on the same level as Adonalsium? What I mean by this is that they are not related to Adonalsium, they were not created by him, some claim they even predate Adonalsium. Their investiture didn't come from him, was not affected by the Shattering (as far as we know) and they predate the Shattering and rules of it doesn't apply to them. They consider themselves equal to Adonalsium. If their investiture didn't come from Adonalsium, thus they have no relation to Adonalsium, no continuity here. This means that either they don't belong on this list (because it's about the relationship with Adonalsium, and they have none of it), or they are equal to Adonalsium . Like two separate kingdoms, Adonalsium is the Holy Roman Empire while Aethers are like the Ming China - two completely separate countries, unrelated to each other, each with their own "line of continuity," both ruled by the emperor, both have their own, unrelated power.

Drastic change? Natan people have blue skin because they are a hybrid of Aimian and humans, just like Herdazians and Horneaters are hybrids of humans and Singers. Something like that doesn't happen overnight, it's a gradual change over hundreds of years. The whole kingdom of Natanatan later entirely collapsed - and that's a drastic change. If Iriali came later, after Silver Kingdoms were already established by Heralds according to myths, they would have settled in a place that already had a name, and that Silver Kingdom would not be named Iri. Because it was thousands of years ago in the middle of the night while he was fighting for his lif, during one of the earliest Desolations (338th year of the 8th Epoch, which means it was around 8th Desolation, there were more than 15 less than 50 Desolations in total per WoB)? Do you expect him to be able to perfectly recognize every single location on Roshar in whatever time period he is thrown into? What is your source on that? We don't know when the WoK map was made and the same goes for the OB map. It's possible they were both made during the Heraldic Epoch, when the Silver Kingdoms were the most important. Those two events happened more or less at the same time. The Recreance was most likely a direct response (or rather the last link in the chain of events) to the imprisonment of BAM and the effects it had on Roshar and Parsh. And I agree, it's a very interesting question, what was happening with Singers in between Desolations? There was some contact between them and humans, not only because of intermixing resulting in Herdazians and Horneaters, but also Radiants during Recreance knew that Singers call themselves Parsh now. They most definitely were part of existing human kingdoms - after all Roshar was conquered by humans. You also don't see Singers in Dalinar's vision, does this mean they are a later development? Visions are meant to teach Dalinar a lesson, not to give him a tourist trip around Roshar, showing him every land and race living there. Not every person in Ire even is Iriali, and only one vision was in Ire (we actually don't know that for sure, we know it was in the direction of Ire's capital) - the Feverstone Keep vision, which happened during the False Desolation, 2000 years into the Era of Solitude. I see no issues here. We don't know why Iriali decides to leave in search of the next Land but it looks like it's not their decision to make. But this is happening even before TLM as that's what's written in Ars Arcanum:

Did they? They saw this as an opportunity to conquer Rira and other nations around the Pure Lake - why would they do that if they knew it's time to leave? All of their conquests are useless anyway. It was Cusicesh who decided it's time to leave and nobody seemed to expect that at all. Iri claimed Rira is their vassal, while Rira didn't accept that. Perpendicularity appeared in every major city, we don't know how long they will stay open, it might be just long enough for everyone in the area to reach one. I don't think any Iriali will be left behind because, Cosmere spoilers:

More or less yes, WoK ch 19: The Starfalls vision is set during the Heraldic Epoch. First evidence of this is "the 8th Epoch" where Epoch is a period between Desolations. The Heraldic Epoch ended with Aharietam, when the Era of Solitude started. Here it was even said that the Desolation is near. We also have the names of Alethela and Natanatan, which are two Silver Kingdoms. Iri was one of the Silver Kingdoms too, and that means Iriali were not only pre-Aharietam but further back in the past, possibly when Radiants were first established and the Silver Kingdoms rose. They wouldn't call it Iri if there were no Iriali there.

Testament is the only instance of a dead Shardblade that's still in the hands of their original Radiant. To revive a dead Shardblade, their original Radiant needs to reswear their Oaths, and Shallan is doing that. She said the 1st Oath already, "I'm terrified" was probably her 2nd or maybe even 3rd Oath, and she most likely reached the 4th Ideal with Testament before breaking her bond (the plate that showed up on one of her illusions during the climax of OB). She's close, she's on her way to restore Testament. And that's what makes Testament unique because it's more alive than any other dead Shardblade, and that's why it most likely can open the Oathgate. She was using Surgebinding powers before she bonded Pattern and if she was able to do that, then Testament can behave differently than a normal dead Shardblade - Maya is the proof of this too and she isn't even bonded with her original knight.

No? When? He's never Ascended. He just used the Oathgate to travel physically to CR. I don't think Marsh was doing that because he was meant to meet souls of people and those appear for a short while and disappear - Marsh would need to act like Leras in SH, appearing next to every soul, or at least traveling from one to another very quickly, something that can't be done with a physical body, thus he needs to be so invested that he transcends realms, like Vin in the Well. He needs to act like Leras. That's not Ascention. Don't focus too much on my use of the word "mini-Ascension." The point is Marsh is likely getting significantly invested to levels above those possible to mortals. He did, when he became Unity at the end of OB. That's the only time he did that. Just looking, beeing or peering into CR/SR isn't Ascension. Ascension means getting ahold of a significant fraction of Shardic power. They don't pierce realms, they exist in both PR and CR at the same time and they are so invested that their presence warps and has an impact on those realms. Like Re-Shephir changing Urithiru. RoW I-2: Yes. That's my point, he's above that classification. He is still a Splinter but also a CS who is bound to the biggest piece of Honor. No. A Sliver is someone who once held the power, but since then he released it and it left permanent changes to his soul. Dark Matter is a term for something we can't see directly but interacts gravitationally with matter which we can see. We don't know what it is, but we have observable evidence that it exists. It doesn't even need to be something new, it can be made out of regular matter we failed to account for in our models. It can be anything from primordial black holes to WIMPs. We observe its effects that's why we know it exists whatever it may be. It's like when you hear thunder but you don't see any lightning - you still know there was something that made this sound. The God Beyond isn't like that, there is nothing that was ever observed which hinted at the possibility of his existence. People just believe he is real, but they have no evidence for it. By this logic you should include every single deity in Cosmere... It's your topic, you make the final call. I disagree with your decision, I tried to argue but I've failed to convince you. Let's drop it here because the more you try to explain your decision the more it proves your list is about "beliefs" thus it should include every deity that was ever mentioned.

Taravangian still wants to continue Rayse's plans and get out into Cosmere, he wants to "save them all," and he clearly sees the flaws of the terms. Sure, there will be changes, but I think we can safely assume Taravangian wants to get out of Roshar just like Rayse wanted. Continuation of this war won’t bring him any closer to achieving this goal. We don't know how Fused are made, it might not be that simple if the process involves something more than just investiture, like fusing the souls of Singers with True Spren or something else suggested by other theories. The only way Dalinar can win this war is by killing every single Singer that lives. That's the only way to make sure they will stop fighting, that Fused and Voidspren won't have any hosts, and the war will end. There is no other way of winning this war. Every Fused they kill will be reborn, while every Radiant they lose won't. Heralds don't want to participate, they are broken. This would be comparable to Desolations just before Aharietiam - humans won all of them, but each of them brough massive destruction and pushed their back technologically to the point when they were using bronze, not steel. This isn't sustainable.

Was he? I don't agree. In my opinion he was talking about the end of Desolations as the whole. Current hostilities are just a part of the same war that has been going on for 7000 years. It's the same war, one war, even Fused and Voidspren call it that way. RoW ch 76: OB I-3: For them it's one long war. For Odium it's the same.

And that's my point. There is very little time for Dalinar to swear an Oath, that he doesn't need to swear because he believes war will end in 10 days. Again, there is no reason for him to swear such an oath and Odium can't exploit it because he is meant to maintain peace and not attack Dalinar's allies in any way. Odium would need to conquer that place before the duel but there is no such place binding Dalinar with an Oath. Sure, I agree there are ways to break the oath after the duel, such as the one proposed by Oltux, but this is not one of them. If Odium makes the first move, he is breaking the terms. It doesn't. No side even needs that. It's for them to decide. It's called border control.

We don't know. Probably from experience. They've done this before and know it takes 20-30 people to fully invest a spike like this, thus a single person can invest it only by around 5%. But there are ways in Cosmere to measure investiture, Cosmere spoilers:

It's rusty expensive and in AoL Wax was broke. Miles would still be mostly fine, sure he would have had an aluminum bullet in his head, but he can heal everything around it and function properly until it's removed. He would have to use healing constantly but this isn't a problem for him. SA spoilers:

And is this something bad? I don't understand your point here. Actually it is a pretty good deal. Peace is guaranteed no matter who wins. Both humans and Singers will have their place on Roshar. Desolations will end. I doubt Jasnah would do better, she even admitted Dalinar knows Odium better. She isn't against those terms in the reading of KoWT. No they don't... Dalinar just wrote that down to spread information to other fractions via spanreeds and keep the details of it imprinted so they won't forget them. Do you expect Dalinar to verbally spread the terms of the contest to everyone? It's much better to analyze a document like that when you have a written copy of it, not something you try to pull out of your mind. Shards don't need any piece of paper. I would say this is a quite big deal for Dalinar. It's not that he will die, he will become a Fused, leading Odium's army into Cosmere. That's huge. True, that's why I don't think the contest will happen at all. That's what Odium said. "A true ending," "an end to the war," etc. His words were very clear that he wants to end this war on Roshar and finally focus on Cosmere, sending his agents out there. Disagree. SA 5 happens 10-15 years after KoWT.

Taln. WoT slight spoilers WoB:

It does. Earlier they said "next month" and this is the spirit of the contract. Not to mention El counting 10 last days - "Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days." That's not possible. Odium promised Dalinar not only a peace, but also maintaining this peace and not working against Dalinar's allies and their kingdoms in any way. Earlier he also promised to withdraw to his holdings, so attacking neutral kingdoms is also off the table. Intent matters, that's why the words said earlier are important too. That's what they had in mind when finalizing terms. This is the spirit of their agreement. OB ch 122:

It seems like it is still a romance, but written from a male's perspective, WoK ch 8: Or it was just Shallan being sarcastic. No indication that it's classic literature. I don't think this will be a title for Jasnah's book. Jasnah will probably write her own book, like Dalinar and Navani, and that will be the title of her SA book. She is a very accomplished scholar and now a ruler and I don't expect that she will be interested in a fictional, romantic novella, nor that she will draw inspiration from a work like that. We're talking about the last book of the Stormlight Archive series, it's going to be grand, it's going to be special, revolving around Shards, Heralds and the future of Roshar and Cosmere. Nearer the flame is not even related to any of this, it's not even personally related to Jasnah. Chapter or quote? There is no mention of Stones Unhallowed as a title of a book, the only 2 mentions I've found are those:

Yes, you need less Lerasium for an alloy to become a Misting of comparable strength. But it seems like there still is an upper limit on how strong your Allomancy can be and that's the power of the Lord Ruler, who instead of Lerasium used the power of the Well to make himself a Mistborn. So if you have a lot of Lerasium it's better to just use to become a Mistborn and not waste it for alloys.

I call it that way because of the effects it has - Marsh is getting Invested by Harmony to the point when he transcends the realms and can meet dead people in CR. This is a lot of investiture. Being invested doesn't make you transferred into CR with potential to meet souls everywhere on Scadrial at once - thus I call it mini-Ascension. It might not be accurate, we don’t know the details of it but it seems this is happening more or less. I wanted to simply say that at that point Marsh is more than just an "invested mortal," he's closer to Vin and Rashek when they Ascended at the Well. You're making a fundamental mistake. We actually can measure it - we see its effect all around the universe. We see and measure that galaxies are heavier than they should be, we see that they spin faster than they should be and many other things - we see and measure the effects of the Dark Matter all around us, we know there is 5x more of it than regular matter. We know it interacts only gravitationally with matter, not by other means. We can't directly detect it, but we know it's out there, we see its effects, we can measure it. We have observational evidence of its existence. The God Beyond is not measurable, there are no effects of him anywhere, nothing that can be observed, it's just a religious figure people think is out there, but we will never know if that's true. We don't even know and won't ever know if the Beyond is a real place. You said it yourself "belief is not a good basis for the theory of divinity," so why do you include a being who is only found in beliefs? If you do that for him, you need to do that for every religion - you need to involve every god on Scadrial, who is "theoretically possible to be real," and Trell is the proof of this. What about Iriali's One? What about gods of Shins - the spirits of stone, stars and the sun, who is the god of gods? What about Austre? What about the Pahn Kahl religion with their 5 gods? I agree, belief is not a good basis for the divine hierarchy. That's why you can't include the God Beyond in your tier list because he exists only in people's hearts. There is no investiture, no continuity, we have only speculation and that's not good enough.

Actually, yes. He is worshiped in several societies (it was said somewhere), Horneaters for example.

What contract are you talking about? Odium outright rejected Hoid's contract because he can't keep it. The real terms are as following RoW ch 112: No 1000 years, permanent peace and imprisonment. Radiants won't lose anything more than what was already taken, most of those lands followed Odium freely except for Alethkar and Herdaz. The only contribution of Hoid in this contract was "keep Odium here" and even that was mainly because of Honor: The Oathpact is separate from Odium's imprisonment on Roshar. Honor did that. Oathpact traps Fused and Voidspren on Braize and possibly limits Odium's reach to Braize mainly.

Shallan isn't a reliable narrator. I believe that every time she summoned her Shardblade in WoK/WoR, it was Testament who responded. This includes the Oathgate scene too. Just because she called for Pattern doesn't mean it was Patternblade.

Dalinar is not Kaladin. He understands there are casualties in the war and there are things he can't protect and even shouldn't protect. A random city taken by Odium won't change Dalinar's decision because he knows what's at stake. Sure, if it's possible he will avoid it, but he as a leader and general knows he sometimes needs to bleed to win. It's the nature of war. What specific Oaths did Dalinar make about protection? He only swore to the Herdazian general that he will retake Herdaz if possible - which he is doing. That's my point, he doesn't have to allow any passage. The terms don't speak about this. If Odium can't get to his forces in some random place which he conquered in the last days, they will have to abandon this position because it's unsustainable. Then it's simply the will of people that will decide to rejoin the country they used to belong to or remain neutral and Dalinar simply can deny any involvement in this - he bears no responsibility for Odium's inability to hold the territory he conquered. It's not breaking of the contract if Odium abandons this position first. There would also be too little Fused to control that population and they can simply leave the city and avoid occupation entirely. Shardbearers can't hold the ground. All Dalinar has to do is sit and watch.

We still don't know answers to most of those questions. We suspect it can be done. As long as the plate has access to Stormlight it will heal itself. A segment which was destroyed can probably be summoned again if there is Stormlight to heal the damage. The Spren is fine, it should probably be near the Radiant somewhere, it can't be killed by this. RoW ch 64: It should. It basically is the same as with a dead plate. It weighs the same but because it makes you stronger you don't feel it. It uses Stormlight to heal the damage done to it. No Stormlight means the damage will stay. But the plate doesn't need Stormlight to function. In RoW ch 64 Jasnah ran out of Stormlight and her plate was fine - it's made out of living spren, responding to her wishes. We don't know. But Radiants did lend their armor to lower rank knights: Well, I think Shallan swore the 4th Ideal with the Testament, but she broke her bond with her thus it no longer works. With Pattern we don't know if "I killed my spren" counts as a Truth. Szeth didn't say the 4th Ideal. He knows what it is but his spren hasn't accepted it yet. RoW I-7: We don't know. But this is a popular theory and most likely Bondsmiths have the Gloryspren Shardplates.