YKDG22

To me, it seems like Odium is way overpowered so far. The Unmade have been active between desolations influencing the history of Roshar, whereas the Heralds have been fools doing things that undermine mankind's chances of fighting Odium. The Fused have thousands of years of experience/knowledge fighting in desolations, whereas all of the previous Radiant spren are incoherent deadeyes. The Fused can only be temporarily killed. There seems to be an unlimited supply of voidlight versus limited amounts of stormlight. Taravangian is constantly undermining the chances of mankind and is commited to being a traitor. Some of the nations of Roshar are just siding with Odium. Odium now can kill the Heralds, negating the advantage of the ability to capture unmade. Odium has control of the Cognitive realm or at least the shardpools. The everstorm can move faster than the stormfather. The Unmade corrupted Urithiru and the KR don't know how to properly use it.

I believe this convergence of parshmen isn't going to go as we expect. I think this may be an honorspren and she's corralling the parshmen together to be slaughtered by a passing human army or an heavily fortified city. I can't see this playing out as obviously as it seems.( the forming of a parshmen army to attack Alethkar)

For some reason, I get the feeling that Shallan's father died in the fight with her mother and friend. Then Shallan reanimated (lightweaved) his corpse and did all the abusive things to her brothers for some reason. I don't really know what other grand lie there would be after admitting she killed her parents. Didn't Pattern say that she lightweaved sound in the past or something?

This is an oathgate right? "They passed into the Circle of Memories, a round room with ten lamps on the walls, one for each of the ancient Epoch Kingdoms. An eleventh lamp represented the Tranquiline Halls, and a large ceremonial keyhole set into the wall represented the need for ardents to ignore borders, and look only at the hearts of men . . . or something like that. He wasn’t sure, honestly."

The first section I can read pretty clearly. A new storm has come. Ash and red lightning sweep the land, awakening our ancient enemies. The Unmade- Shadows of the Enemy's soul- stir, while the eyes of men open. This war is real, and never was what they thought it to be.

I get the feeling that Adolin is going to die by the end of book 5. Either redeeming himself publicly to the high princes against the Voidbringers or on the run(in exile). I think this is the easy way to allow the Kaladin/Shallan romance, because no love triangle and no Dalinar/Kaladin awkardness or bad blood over the relationship. Adolin seems like a likely good guy character to be killed off. He's significant, but not necessarily important. Sanderson can kill off a good guy that will sting readers(maybe not all) that doesn't really seem to have a large effect to the primary characters of the story. His biggest role was killing Sadeas and I believe it will lead to his demise(one way or the other). I think Kaladin/Shallan have a pretty decent shot of working out. They could have their viewpoints and not be terribly repetitive(always in same place). Kaladin could be out on the warfront for significant chunks of time and Shallan could be with Dalinar/Navani working on the finer points of learning about the voidbringers/strategy and ghostblood activity. I think it was significant that in the chasms Shallan(a liar) told Kaladin truths about her past and he knows her better than Adolin. Shallan/Kaladin may end up a strong friendship but romantic relationship seems more likely to me at this point. I don't think they will be romantic for a while though, just more getting to know each other in the interim.