Blacksmithki

I'm fairly sure that's his name, not just what he was dubbed.

I think that you may be partially right, I definitely don't think it's going to be an outright victory, but i just don't think it'll be a defeat either. I think that as you said, a pyrric victory is the most likely result. A bloody, expensive victory to buy them time to either confront a new threat, or to prepare for Odium's next play in 10 or so years. He did say after all that if he lost he would be able to focus more on his agents on other worlds. Could be that this is the threat of the back 5. What would be absolutely fascinating is the question of whether or not a champion actually has to be willing to fight for you? I don't think this has ever been explicitely stated. It might just be that Rayse was playing only to win, and wasn't thinking about how he could turn a defeat to his advantage. Think about how completely it would break the spirits of the alliance if Taravangian chose Kaladin as his champion, and Kaladin was forced to either fight for Odium or to let himself be killed. Taravangian knows that the fuzed will keep coming, and that he can still possibly draw in threats from other worlds, so if he just breaks the spirit of the defenders he may win the war even as he loses the battle. Obviously he wouldn't do this if he thought he had champion who could actually win, but just think about what an absolutely evil twist that would be. Also, if Taravangian can manage to get into a position where he feels like he has an advantage, he could also feasibly set up a situation where the fight to the death doesn't end because neither side can/will kill each other. There's nothing stated a truce must be formed other then for the 2 individuals fighting.

There's a thread currently near the top about epilogue implications. I know i'm in the minority but i think that there might have been more going on, and Hoid might not have been so completely fooled as it appears. If nothing else, there's 3 key reasons. 1. Hoid mentioned to Jasnah that once the deal was agreed on he would be free to help fight Odium. As he can't fight, he presumably is referring to information and deceit. 2. He was just monologuing moments ago about making people think you have lived thousands of lives you haven't actually lived. 3. He lost a lot of breath, but seemingly only his short term memories. I'm not certain he wasn't fooled, but there are a few key things that seem strange here, and i can't help but doubt the assumption we are clearly lead to believe. Obviously, believe what you will, but you might want to look at that thread if you liked the epilogue.

While it's possible that the heroes will lose book 5, it doesn't quite seem to fit with Brandon's other work. Yes, we've seem situations where the protagonists are worse off then when they started, like WoA, or this book, but it's never bleak per say. It always ends with an ending that makes you feel like things are good. having the protagonists just objectively lose, get soundly defeated, or whatnot, just doesn't quite fit with the way that Brandon writes his stories. What i think will instead happen, is that the book will in fact take place over more then 10 days, and that something will go horribly horribly wrong, and the end of the first arc of the book (he writes each book like a trilogy) will be the heroes suffering some form of defeat for them to dramatically struggle back against for the rest of the book, ending on either a draw, or a somewhat positive note, leaving us with a clear view of what is going to happen in ~10 years in the back half of the series. We've seen that Brandon is willing to write the protagonists being defeated, but he does it more often in the middle or start of the book. Like Oathbringer, in the end of part 3 was when everything went wrong, or in this book, where the tower was captured at the end of part 2. Both books still ended on a fairly positive note, despite the stakes being raised for the future.

Still, Autonomy is also creating new avatars that seem to think independently. It just seems that someone would have stumbled across such an idea within the past 10 000 years.

Here's my problem with all of the theories i've seen so far. For the most part, they don't explain why every single radiant, of every single order (except skybreakers), decided to abandon their oaths more or less at once. For example, people have suggested that they were horrified at the damage done to the singers, but there would have been elsecallers, who with a 'ends justify the means' (macivellian right?) mindset would have seen it as a means of ending a war that threatened to destroy both humans and singers. People have suggested it was because of the stormfather ranting about them destroying Ashyn with the dawnshards, but surely some stubborn fools would have thought themselves above such problems. If it's because of the dangers of the bondsmiths, unless the only way to stop them was for everyone to abandon their oaths, why would they? And why would that stop the threat? Why not just the bondsmiths leave their oaths? If it's loosing the trust of the sibling and being kicked out of the tower, sure some people would leave, but not all? I mean, i just don't see why it would be such a coordinated, united action based on the theories i've seen.

One further reason to think the ending might have actually gone well is that in one of the letters from Hoid he refers to Rayse as 'one of the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals i had ever met'. Sure, he was weakened by his 10 000 years as Odium, but with how much he hates Hoid you can only imagine if 'hurting' him was as simple as interfering with his memories and breaths he would have realized at some point that it was possible. Or even if not Odium, why wouldn't Hoid be absolutely terrified of Autonomy? surely he/she could do the same thing, and appears to be not nearly as damaged by her time as a shard as Rayse is.

It's sort of a mistaken prediction, but when the pre release chapters were coming out, there was a fair amount of debate over Jasnah was actually in a relationship with Hoid, and a lot of people thought it was unlikely. I remember one person commented something along the lines of 'when Kaladin is even mentioned with someone else this community ships them, but when there are actual in world rumours about Jasnah everyone goes "hold on, let's think about this logically"'. Also, I know that it was pretty much agreed on what Kaladin's fourth oath was but it's nice to see it confirmed. Also, I'm kind of proud of predicting that the singer invasion would struggle to take the tower because it was still full of very well trained soldiers, but was partially wrong thinking Kaladin would be one considering how gifted he is even without powers. But then he did fight later.

To the last part, Gavilar was working in an organization lead by a herald, with multiple scholars and artifabrians, and is a king himself of one of the largest kingdoms. If someone were to propose the existence of such a thing he absolutely had an incredible amount of resources to get it done.

If formless is truly formless, it should probably be using 'it' (I'm not certain on this one), but 'he' or 'she' would not be competely out of place (I think).

The trouble is, it seems like something like that would have caused massive numbers of people to break their oaths, but not a coordinated abandonment by every single radiant. I mean it could be, but it feels too organized and complete to just be people worried about destroying the world. Surely some people would stubbornly hold on thinking they were above that or something? Also yes the vast majority of radians would have been horrified at what happened to the singers, but we know some Elsecallers would be fine adopting an 'ends justify the means' morality, so there would have been some willing to see this terrible event as a means of ending a massive war that threatened the extinction of both the singers and the humans.

I agree with the idea that cultivation might be grooming new vessels in general. What possible way could cultivation work on a grander scale then cultivating the vessels of the shards themselves? It would also work to tie into the greater cosmere as surgebinders may be powerful enough to pose a threat to the existing vessels on other worlds, whilst also not threatening to overlap too hard with mistborn because it already has a new vessel so cultivation does not need to get involved.

I'm actually fairly hopeful from this epilogue, despite how scary it is. It seems to me that it is very likely that hoid pulled off an incredibly clever trick on Taravangian. So there are a few things we know happened. 1. Hoid lost a lot of breaths if he appears to have lost perfect pitch. He may just be able to recover them without too much difficulty but that's not too relevant. 2. Hoid was talking about how to deceive people, and how to convince them that you have lived countless lives you haven't. 3. Hoid has only lost his short term memories, or he would have absolutely noticed something was wrong. Losing too many memories is too significant to just not notice, or for him to notice between books. What I think may have happened, is that Hoid managed to store fake memories in his breaths for Odium to see and steal. Taravangian knows relatively little about the greater cosmere, so this is the absolutely perfect time to provide him with a few key falsehoods that could cripple him later. Renarin probably knows Taravangian is Odium, Hoid may have a way to know that as well, or maybe he saw the effects of nightblood, or recognized Rhyse. He may have even sent away Design, so Taravangian thought he could get away with it. Brandon loves to foreshadow and whatnot, so the discussion about deceit and stories would be a perfect way to foreshadow this. Even gives the epilogue name extra relevance, with both sides playing a massive trick on each other. And thinking on it, it'd even be Brandon playing a trick on the Audience. The only thing that really detracts from this is that Hoid appeared to be very scared, but who knows? Maybe Odium has some ability to sense emotion or can just read people very very well. It fits with so much of him being themed around passion and emotion. And besides, Hoid told Jasnah he would he free to help her to the extent he could, and what can he possibly do better then information? What better way to cripple a new shard? Honestly I probably should have just made this a whole independant post/thread.

I now absolutely love Design, from the dog and the dragon, and the epilogue. Clearly she would like shakespearian plays, where you would get a synopsis before you watched it. Also, Wit insulting pattern was funny, clearly he liked talking to him.

Well that's far less likely as we do know era 2 is between books 5 and 6. So we can safely assume if the name is because of Scadrial, not the shards, they would have appeared. Hey, offhand does anyone recall if Demoux was described as shin when he was looking for Hoid in the purelake? Because if he was that's a solid hint it might be Scadrial, if not, probably either shard related or (Yoshar?) related.

Imagine if Kaladin was correct, and the windrunners were waiting on him to swear the fourth oath. You could just have hundreds of wind runners just swearing that oath in front of Ishar one by one to give him lucidity.

Well the trouble is, he may not have appeared in any other books. If he's related to Scadrial, sure he probably has. But if he's related to the shards or pre shards, he may not have appeared yet.

Well the key other sources of significance for the number 16 are shards and Scadrial metals, so unless someone can think of another significant 16 it may be one of those. Or it could be another individual from before the death of Adonalsium. The name probably provides a bigger hint then anything else, there's probably more reasons why he might not need to come out often then there are reasons why he would be called 16.

Something I took note of was Ishar nearly stealing the connection to the storm father. Could something similar be why the fuzed appear so terrified of Dalinar? Could he somehow take or destroy their connection to Braize and kill them? Or could he possibly even manipulate their connection to Odium and do something more extreme?

I think that Odium represents the biggest direct threat within this series, but is not neccessaraly the most dangerous antagonist. It's quite possible that cultivation has a whole plot of her own, or some other shard also comes to interfere, or the ghostbloods gain a terrifying amount of power. Also, we don't know what truly caused the recreance, it could be something else terrifying. So I think that Odium represents the biggest threat that the protagonists face, but there's a solid chance that Cultivation or someone else represents a bigger actual threat that we may not know about until something very bad happens.

Hey man, unless I'm blanking hard on my names you might want to recall this is the part four spoiler board. Oh no I swear I hit quote but it doesn't seem to have done so. I need to figure out how to mention you.

Sadly i don't have the time to read over everything that has said before, so probably a lot of this has already been said. I might as well start out with the one thing i know every single person has mentioned. Wow. Taravangian, that was unexpected and absolutely terrifying. Mixed with the epilogue that's stressful. I find it hilarious that while the pre release chapters were out, everyone was questioning the rumours about Jasnah and Hoid so much. I remember reading someone who said something along the lines of "If Kaladin is even mentioned with someone else this comminuty ships them, but when there's actual rumours about Jasnah everyone goes 'hold on, let's think logically about this' ". I seriously, seriously wonder what could have actually caused the recreance. What could have scared all these people into doing what they did, and why were the skybreakers the only ones who didn't? What was up with the strange glow in Kaladin's eyes when he killed the pursuer? It was described as yellowish red, something of Odium perhaps? Or maybe something else interesting. There's so many other things i would love to mention, but if i tried to mention half the stuff i wanted to, this would be pages long. This book is absolutely fascinating for the greater cosmere! Though one last thing, we now know what Kelsier has been up to all this time.

So part four had so much new information, and everything going forward is going to seriously change! Suddenly, all at once, a war lead by two functionally immortal groups suddenly developed the ability for both sides to permanently kill each other. Does anyone else absolutely love Design? That whole story was great, and i wonder who the dragon is? I suppose it could be cultivation, i think brandon has mentioned that at least one shard is a dragon, but with the sheer number of off-world characters in Roshar it might well not be her. But i think the most interesting thing is that the spren chose the recreance, and clearly it was not just because of the news the humans were the invaders. What in the world could have scared them all off so much? Was it possibly that they learned the same thing Nale feared about allowing the voidspren to cheat their way back? But if so, why would the skybreakers not have been the first to abandon their oaths? And if it's something else, still why did the skybreakers alone remain? I wonder what drew all of the deadeyes? I wonder if they all heard about the trial and came to protest and hope, or if someone reached out to them? How in the world did the ones under the ocean learn about the trial? Can the deadeyes communicate to each other? Or did someone organize the entire thing? I think it was part 3 but the view of the dawnsingers was very interesting. What was up with them just naturally using their powers? Oh and interestingly enough none of the other windrunners appear to have said their 4th oath so far, i wonder if Kaladin was right about them waiting or if really they just haven't cracked it yet?

The fused seem confident about their ability to capture the tower with what seems to just be a strike force. Even if they can get to the pillar and suppress the powers of the radiants, i suspect they may not be able to hold it, as it's still a tower full of trained soldiers. It would no doubt be a costly fight, but it would also provide a good opportunity for Kaladin to fight again, seeing as he is one of the most skilled fighters with or without his powers, and would probably stay in the tower even if the army heads off for a battle somewhere else. If i had to guess what is going to happen, I think the fused will capture the heart of the tower, suppress the powers of the radiants inside, and Kaladin and maybe Adolin will end up needing to lead a force to take it back. This would lead to the humans realizing that they need to learn more about the tower, and the nature of their bonds, as well as giving Kaladin something to do, he can train radiants in fighting without their powers. It would pretty effectively set up the human coalition investigating the nature of the tower, to stop it from being used against them again. It also makes more sense for the humans to end up in control of the tower then the opposition, and i think we've even seen an interlude or two taking place in the tower?

I'm not up to date on WoBs so I don't know if anything has popped up, so I'm going to assume nothing has. Also, is the Lerasium and Atium alloys confirmed? I have no idea. If it is, since we are using Cesium as our basis, how well does Cesium alloy with the metals used for the base 16? Would the increased reactivity change that? This seems like it could help resolve the question of whether it is Cesium with increased reactivity or another metal that acts like an akali metal due to it's instability. I'm sorry I'm not looking it up myself, but I have no idea how I would find out information on what metals can alloy with others.