Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

To tree, or not to tree, that is the question Whether 'tis nobler of the grapevine To suffer the toast and bagels of Retributive Toasters Than to bury this precious folio backst 'neath yon yew tree. etc, etc. Ok, I buried it.

Granted! The Nightwatcher gives you this little beauty: Unfortunately she also makes it so you have no anal opening, but the upside is that your new hat functions as a stylish colostomy bag. I wish Rosamund's last bane was reversed (sounds awful) and that the Nightwatcher give's her a functional hat that she/he can drink beverages out of in a hands free manner.

There's this recent WoB from the Skyward AMA that goes a long way to confirming this, usually: Our favorite crypto Elantrian, Riino, has a fortune viewing device in his lighthouse in Shadesmar, looks kind of like a crystal ball, but it definitely allows Kaladin to glimpse the future, not sure what the underlying mechanic is (seemed like access to the Spiritual Realm), but it was triggered by the passing Shadesmar manifestation of the Highstorm. I like this idea, like you could have a worn fabrial that has essentially the same effect as creating Electrum shadows. Basically a limited proximate effect that masks the future of a single agent. Pretty freaking awesome idea!

Perfect! The writing commission for Pancake girl has been awarded to @John203! You will paid in upvotes, many many upvotes and felicitations, lots and lots of felicitations.

Eat Lavis polyp swirl, just you and me Pancake girl.

I think this is super funny, sounds like you should take some Maalox if you feel Shallagaz coming on. Am I the only one who has thought about pairing Shallan with the bad boys from SLA? Shallavangian? Shallamaram? Shalladeas? Shallishar? Shallezim? Shallanalan? Moashallan? Shallavyre?

I loved your twisted sister parody! "Anarchy In Roshar" By the Sex Pistols would be fun. Or maybe "One-eyed Gaz" by the Clash, to the tune of Jimmy Jazz. Or how about a Lift song, "Pancake Girl" by the Dead Milkman, to the tune of Punk Rock Girl.

That's incredibly well phrased, and I think a great description of what's actually going on. I like this a lot, and I think that it's pretty awesome that Odium, in his attempt to gloat about his superior knowledge of the future to a mentally simple Taravangian reveals a tactical piece of information to T that he, Odium, is completely blind to and which T would never have known about if Odium hadn't gloated. Yet another reason why Odium messed up by coming to T on a dumb day. This is the part I disagree with. I think the Diagram was meant to be a self-correcting roadmap, with cultivation's agent, T, in charge of it's maintenance and implementation. The Diagram can never be wrong, because it's simultaneously a feint along multiple simultaneous lines and a continuously adjusted through-line for Cultivation's plans. Renarin while possibly invisible to all future sight, is still just a singular actor in a planet wide chain of events, and his disruptive actions and the possibly unforeseeable actions by Odium are exactly why Cultivation needs an active agent like T to continually monitor and adjust her plan. Sometimes the modifications will be purely for misdirection, sometimes it will be to control T's intelligence to just the right degree that he presents the proper mischaracterization of the Diagram that is needed in a given situation, and sometimes (like when he steps up working on the Eila Stele bomb) it will be to set in motion a complex chain of events that push things along a particular line at a particular point. I get why you wouldn't want this to be true, future sight to this degree seems a little Deus Ex Machina-y, but Odium also doesn't exist in a vaccuum, he has plans I am sure that are invisible to Cultivation, and by extension, the Diagram. I think the Diagram is just one battlefront in an epic struggle that will be waged across all 3 realms, this is just an incredibly awesome metaphor for the 3-Dimensional chess game played by god-like actors with the power to see in the future. Rad stuff to be sure.

(Said grapevine twirls his mustachios and laughs superciliously) Forsoothe, I prayest that this doth not portend That in this forum, with a Toaster's voice Thou shalt cry "Havoc" and let slip the toast of war; That this foul deed involving thine oryginal folio Shouldst cause thee with carrion men, to bury yon dastardly scheming grapevine.

@Jofwu, I had to pull out my copy of OB, here's the part that mentions Renarin in the meeting between T and Odium (with the prelude about his grandchildren included, so you can see the full thread of compassion): Looking at the coppemind diagram page, there's no explicit mention of Renarin, and the above is the only explicit mention of Renarin in the diagram that I am aware of, and it does seem to underscore your point. It seems to be that Odium is able to see the future possibilities unfolding from the diagram, almost like Kelsier's vision of the future from MB:SH, and the black words branch from the golden root of Renarin Kholin. The implication being here (like your OP) that Renarin's futuresight is messing up Odium's future sight. Very interesting. One thing that might be related to Renarin is the North Wall Coda: This is a sequence of dates corresponding to the last ten highstorms leading up to the arrival of the everstorm. The name Renarin is mentioned as being on the wall behind the bed, and this one specifically deals with the coming everstorm (which Renarin was having visions). That's a pretty tenous link, and not something beyond the battle of Thaylen fields, so I think in the main your assessment is better inline with the facts. I was thinking that the black words extending from Renarin's name were part of the existent diagram, but it looks like they are just future contingencies invisible to Odium.

Ok, nobody said it so I guess I'm going to have to suggest it. Hoid vs. The Sovereign Hoid has a proven track record of enjoying dishing out pain to Kelsier, Kelsier is still technically a cognitive Shadow stapled into a body, so let's just assume that this is still the case and that Hoid could take out Kelsier without feeling any pain. The Sovereign has held the powers of a shard (and has the expanded consciousness that entails), spent some time experimenting with his buddy Spook to figure out the intricacies of Hemalurgy, and is quite possibly a hemalurgically enabled full feruchemist (or could get the full power set with the Southern Scadrial tech that he helped pioneer). Let's say for the sake of this battle that Kelsier 2.0 has the Bands of Mourning, has one hemalurgic spike that staples him into a physical realm body, and one additional hemalurgic spike that grants him the swiftness of a Ryshadium...just kidding, that grants him a nahel bond with an Edgedancer spren. What do you guys think would happen?

Oh, that didst make me snigger behindeth mine own hands, like a merry little school girl evenst. (am out of upvotes, but will get you one for that you sly toaster you)

@Jofwu, responded to your the Renarin bit on your Renarin thread: Totally see your point, and it is a very valid point clearly expressed, I just personally like to speculate along different lines. I can agree to disagree on this one.

I won't dig into it in detail here as the theory isn't entirely relevant to this topic. (And it is of course just a theory.) My short response is that I don't see why this is any reason to doubt the theory. I'm not saying Renarin is pulling the future in a different way than was predicted. I'm saying there are events around him which were once 99.9% likely to happen a certain way, and now he's unknowingly shifting those odds. (by having the powers he does and being the person he is) I think it's pretty clear that he's the reason Odium is having a hard time predicting events surrounding Dalinar, and I think it's no coincidence that the Diagram is having a difficult time there as well. I'm continuing this discussion on your thread. That is a very good point, but the point I was trying to make is that the Diagram has conjecture / information about Renarin that extends into the future past the point where he should have been killed by Jasnah (which is why it's black and doesn't show up to Odium). This implies that Diagram at the time it was created was aware of this possibly contigency (namely that Jasnah wouldn't kill Renarin) while Odium is not aware of this. I do like your point about Renarin being a wildcard, and also possibly being a smoke screen for Dalinar, but I think that might be diminishing Renarin's full role. I really like the idea that Odium has just brought an Assassin on board (in the form of T) and that Renarin is T's hidden knife.

That makes sense, but this is a question of magnitude. Dalinar's case required direct shardic intervention, this is significant. The nature and complexity of the goal are material, and the Nightwatcher was not up to the task to prune and prepare Dalinar to little a "ascend" to Unity. If the Diagram is her ultimate game plan and secret roadmap to defeating Odium, then likewise I believe that this would also require direct shardic intervention, especially if the surmise that she is using Taravangian to course correct the diagram is correct.

I havest the orygnal folio, that I couldst shew thou, if thou doth desire it.

First off, I agree with @Calderis and @teknopathetic that the diagram is a master work of Cultivation, and that it required the intervention of Cultivation to pull it off. His variable intelligence is probably not random at all, but is rather the key to how the Diagram functions. As the architect, primary interpreter and only one allowed to modify the diagram, Taravangian is the Living Key to the complex cipher that is the diagram. This seems to me that Cultivation created the Diagram with her futuresight, and built in the capacity for self-correction with T's boon/bane. When the Diagram is humming along as it should be, T has one of his weeping and drooling days, when small course corrections are required he get's a highly intelligent day to make annotations / minor corrections to the course of the Diagram, and when the causal chains of events have spun severely out of line with the overall plan he gets a brilliant day (like the day that he changes his plans about Dalinar). I don't necessarily agree with this. Renarin was spared by Jasnah as an act of compassion and there was an alternative future where Renarin was killed by Jasnah that Odium still sees. T met with Odium during one of his compassionate dumb days, and was thinking about his grandkids when he struck the new deal with Odium. It seems highly significant to me that T knows about the one person who exists outside of Odium's futuresight (who is still alive because of a compassionate act), sounds like a hidden dagger to me. I've speculated before that maybe Odium is blinded by Compassion, and maybe that's the secret to why T, on his dumb days is extra opaque to Odium. I don't think this is true, and the proof for this being not the case is that the version of the Diagram that Odium brought up contained part of the Diagram that Odium himself couldn't see. I think it's more the case that Odium drew forth the whole diagram in toto, and then possibly attempted to muddy the waters by the future additions (which Taravangian would have obsessed over if he had been having a more brilliant day). I actually don't agree with this at all, the second WoB you quote shows that they are distinct and disparate entities, this line in particular (emphasis added): If they are virtually the same thing, then what lesson is the Nightwatcher learning by bestowing boons/banes? This is inline with a speculative theory of mine, the foundation is solid but the superstructure is a little shaky. My theory is that the Nightwatcher is a "Remade", that she is actually Chemoarish, and Cultivation is rehabilitating her after her Unmaking from Odium. The descriptions of the Nightwatcher from OB are super creepy, and the fact that Cultivation is supervising the Nightwatcher while she dispense boons/banes is odd unless there is a reason that the Nightwatcher might need to supervise the NW. I know the full text of the above WoB says that Cultivation doesn't intervene to change the NW's boons, but this could be because at this point the Nightwatcher is rehabilitated enough that she only needs supervision and not intervention. And there's this WoB that says that the green mist that is suffusing the Nightwatcher is actually Cultivation investiture: The fact that Cultivation is described as a warm soft brownish color (and not green and misty) implies to me that the Nightwatcher is suffused with and not necessarily composed of Cultivation investiture. The connection to Chemoarish is more tentative, here's the only information we get about which is from Hessi's Mythica: And like the follwing WoB, it's always struck me as peculiar that there are 3 Invested shards and 3 Bondsmiths on Roshar: The parity between God level spren and shards seems significant, and I think that it worked out like this (total speculation here, but almost to the level of reasoned conjecture). We know from WoBs that were existent spren on Roshar before the 3 were Invested in Roshar and that the magical ecology of Roshar predates the arrival of the Shards. So I think that there were already god level spren on Roshar pre-splintering and that they were responsible for maintaing the Ecology of Roshar: The Stormfather for distributing Investiture to accomplish singer transformations and to distribute Crem. The Sibling (most likely LifeBrother) who was responsible for infusing the Crem with additional investiture to make plants grow on the Rocky soil of Roshar. The Nightwatcher, responsible for the Old magic that flows out to creatures on Roshar (magical purelake fish, Floating Island great shells, Chasmfiends, etc). When Investing on Roshar, the 3 shards got one of each of these ecological god level spren, and the Bondsmiths were able to bond these god level spren. Honor got the Storms to distribute Stormlight, Cultivation got LifeBrother (aka the Sibling, who I also think is a collection of StormStriders that move with the Highstorm) to infuse crem with investiture to aid life on roshar (I think it's a magical side effect that plant's can move on roshar) and Odium got the Nightwatcher (and then Unmade the Nightwatcher to turn her into Chemoarish). One of the problems with the 3 Bondsmiths bond the 3 god spren theory is the obvious question of why would Odium's god spren bond a KR? I think the answer to this is that the KR bondsmith responsible for bonding the Odium controlled god spren bonded the spren forcibly and was necessary to contain Chemoarish. The Dustmother (there is definitely a naming parallel with Stormfather there) is a pretty frightening name and she was probably a pretty horrible force when loose on Roshar. How did Cultivation rehabilitate the Dustmother and turn her into the Nightwatcher? Well, she has had the 4,500 years since Aharietiam to Un-Unmake Chemoarish, and most likely convinced her to sign up because the Nightwatcher loves giving out freaky banes (Check out that guy that walks on his hands because I made him see the world updised down, green misty tendril high five cultivation).

James Booker. Grab a Schlitz tall boy*, and come on over to the Sunny Side of the Street: Or if you're feelin a little blue, grab a Shclitz tall boy* and Go Down to St. James Infirmary: In the bathetic roller-coaster ride of life, one thing's for sure, you can't lose with James Booker. *or if you are under 21, grab a cool refreshing < insert whatever you like here>

Cal, you might have to update your Diagram spiel, I think it's pretty conclusively worded in this Skyward pre-release AMA WoB that what's going on with Lift is due to the Nightwatcher, not direct Cultivation intervention (the wording in this typed AMA response is very specific). Let me know if you think I'm wrong. This post by @teknopathetic is great and is probably the one you're thinking of. There's some good discussion about the Diagram on the rest of that thread too: and So the timing on this is very suspicious, Dalinar did have his first vision right before going to see the Nightwatcher and there's this WoB that Jofwu got from the Skype Q&A last October: Brandon's response heavily implies that this gap in the visions should stand out as something significant and states clearly that this was intentionally meant to be this way. Seems to me that this is part of Cultivation's plan, to forestall Dalinar from seeing the visions until he is ready to progress in his ideals as a Bondsmith. With her personally sending tendrils of power into his mind, seems reasonable to surmise that she would have a fair idea when Dalinar would be in the proper mental state to progress with his ideals. During this in depth plumbing and pruning of his mind and memories, it's also reasonable to assume that she would put in place some means of monitoring Dalinar's mind/mental state going forward, and that she would also be able to control when specific pruned memories would come back. It's highly suspicious that the memory of Rathalas and Evi's death comes back when Dalinar is in Jah Kaved, and that causes him to utterly break down at a point in time where he has enough time to recover mentally before Odium tries to make Dalinar his Champion. This is some serious foresight, and some good gardening. It would be interesting to do a reread and focus on what's happening immediately before he gets each specific memory back and look for a possible deeper seated motivation for why a specific memory was returned at that specific time.

Toxic waste and radioactive depleted Uranium rounds are now routinely stuffed into the earth's crust under every Pizza Parlor in the nation, but the upside of this is that there are way more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now. The latest batch were named after famous thinkers from the Enlightenment. There's Diderot (with the Bo), Montesquieu (with the Num Chucks), Rousseau (with the Sai's) and of course, no collection of enlightenment thinkers would be complete without a fearless leader, Sir Tortoise Newton (with the Katanas, and for some reason he's always throwing apples into the air and then cutting them with his katanas as they fall). I wish I had time travel powers, like in the critically acclaimed Disney series "Best Friends Whenever", but I wish that, unlike in the show, that my super best friend time travel powers were activated when I was petting my dog, and he or I thought about a time in the past or the future. I also wish that if either of us was thinking about sleeping in the past or future, and then we decide to go back to the normal timeline after sleeping in the alternative timeline that we would both retain the benefit of having slept more in the alternate timeline. I think I made that sound more complicated then it actually is, but I'm ok with you getting Cultivation if this is too hard for you to get right Nightwatcher. And thanks for all you do to make the world just a little bit weirder, really it's nice.

Awesome, nice twists Ashpren! I think I found some of that Toaster, and it was definitely a Shakespearean Tradgedy: GIMMEL: 'O Hotdogeo, Hotdogeo! Wherefore art mine Hotdogeo? KELSIER: Shall I hear more, or shall I soothe yon crazy loon? (Kelsier suspended underneath the balcony, burps, then listens as Gimmel keeps talking to himself) GIMMEL: A rose by any other name is still a rose, but no rose doth taste as sweet as mine Hotdog-eo. Filings of iron, dustings of pewter, a solitary piece of atium didst adorn my fair Hotdogeo. Oh miserable wretch am I, I am lost without mine Hotdogeo I've got good news and bad news for you Gray. First the good news, your nemesis is dead...which leads directly to the bad news, I think you're on your own on this one... Super excited for this, I think this is going to be an awesome round!

Dear Fed up with Memes, I think you should try telling your friend that he is a senior member of the ghostbloods, possibly even Thaidakar. If that doesn't work for you guys then maybe you should have been helping him out with wispy green onions used in conjuction with the highest quality materials to get a free trial of the planetary hand out. By this I am telling you to stick with it and not just giving you a broad understanding of his thinking about the timing of the events that led to the Dark Ones prison or something like that. Hopefully we can do to his house whatever they want to do with their own sanctimonious egos. Memes are the basis for probably the most profound and amazing books ever written by the end of the novel chain of command line. Brandon doesn't write a letter to you by the way, so I believe that he wouldn't relegate the whole population to arbitrarily assume privileges that you can put in the physical manifestations of my favorite drinks. Hope that clears things up with you telepathically, Sincerely Google Reader of my life and death. Dear Siri, I love lil' smokies, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't part of a heart healthy diet. What can I possibly eat that lets me stay in flavor country but that won't clog my arteries? Sincerely, Lil' Worried About My Health

Tell her that her shardblade stance is the secret wind stance known only to a few, to be used during close-in fighting to give the shardbearer an unexpected tactical advantage. No one expects Dalinar to catch the sword, just like no expects Adolin to break the wind.

Hahaha, tell your wife she's right, that's some explosive gas brother. Can-some-body-get-me-a-beer form. This form is notable for the singer's ability to mold their posterior to any chair/couch they happen to sit on. Swiss-army-knife form. This form comes with lots of useful built-in carapace tools, like corkscrew thumb, serrated edge saw finger, bottlecap opener chin, etc. And, a new form of power, Air Guitar Form: Featuring the following enhancements, A large guitar shaped bit of carapace projects from the torso, a patch of chest carapace grows to simulate a beefy patch of chest hair, and when the Singer in Air Guitar Form attunes a Rhythm and plays air guitar to said Rhythm it makes a super cool lightshow in the Everstorm. At the Jewelry Store: Hey Meridas, you know that just because that's 20 carets worth of Gems, you still shouldn't eat them like they're a salad. Silly Amaram.