Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

I think this is a fairly clear explanation for the passion/odium relationship. Passion is the lever by which Odium incites hatred/anger, and further it is the lever by which he manipulates the hatred/anger once it is incited. Riots erupted in Kholinar in response to the gluttony exhibited by Asuedan and her ardents. Passion of Excess is used to cause angry mob violence. Those in the clutches of the thrill, the passion of competition, kill indiscriminately. Passion of competition is used to create hatred of the other/opponent. Moash, is walking apathy with a caveat. He only saves the Parshmen from their oppressors because he wants the voidbringers to create a better more perfectly ordered society than the world created by the lighteyes. He is motivated, moved and controlled by his passionate hatred of Elokhar, and by extension his hatred of the ruling classes of all Roshar. Passion for vengeance used to possibly create Odium's champion. If Moash was a french Coal miner, he would have been the anarchist dynamiter from Zola's Germinal. I believe the intent of Rayse's shard is clearly Hatred, but that hatred has attached to the objects that give it greatest purpose/direction. The emotions that are at the root of all manner of different types of hatred were pulled along into the intent of the shard Odium. To use a programming metaphor, Passion is the Interface for the Hatred Functions.

This did make it a little difficult to follow, but I thought it was well worth it to hear the voice that Michael Kramer gave to the female Elhokar. Kaladin's disguised voice was not very good, he got the old country farmer voice, but holy crap, that warbly Elohkar voice was SO FUNNY! I think one thing to think about in regards to lots of errors, different voices, etc. is that Kate and Michael couldn't have possibly had the same kind of lead time on this project that they've had in the past. I know from the WoT days that sometimes the audiobook would come out as much as 6 months after the Hardback (and I also know, from WoT audibook days, that if you are having trouble with a cassette playing correctly you should rap it smartly against a table). I'm only midway through part 3 now, I see that the quality is little off because this project was so rushed, but the quality being slightly off makes this only better than 95% of the other audiobooks out there instead of Kate and Michael's reading being better than 99% of the other audio books out there. Sad about Roy Dotrice, that guy was the voice of Westeros. Peter Dinklage deserves much credit for his Tyrion Lanister, but I still think Roy Dotrice got that character better and does a better Tyrion. Just like Roy's Tyrion is the voice of Tyrion that I will always hear when I read the Song of Ice and Fire books, Michael Kramer is the voice of Dalinar, I will always hear his voice when I read SLA books. Back to work, with the Oathbringer audiobook playing, alternating with Christmas music.

@Rahhb I'm inclined to believe that Hoid thought that this stealing of Adonalsium would be beneficial to humanity/sapient life in the Cosmere, but that just like in the story there were unintentional consequences (like the creation of Cosmere villains Ruin, Odium, possibly Ambition). One of the facts that we know about Hoid is that he can't intentionally hurt anyone (I don't know the exact nature of this constraint, but it's mentioned a couple of times). He's also known by the Horneaters as the trickster god (Rock mentions seeing him coming out of the pool on the Horneater's peak which has been speculated to be one of (or the only one of) Cultivation's perpendicularities). Both of these facts strongly suggest that his role is to beguilingly help out the greater cosmere, while tweaking everyone's nose in the process. There are probably other theory pages on this, but here's a pretty solid case for Hoid's goal being the reconstruction of Adonalsium:Hoid's goal is..., and here's another good one with some informative WoBs: Hoid will become the new Adonalsium. We also know that Sigzil was Hoid's apprentice until Hoid declared him a full worldsinger. We also know that Hoid visited the Terris on Scadrial (also catalogers of ancient religions). My guess is that his incessant world hopping is an attempt to piece together the best way to reforge Adonalsium, an attempt to visit all of the planets in the Cosmere to see how each divine intent manifests and shapes a world and culture, and use these insights to create a better god.

So, going through Oathbringer a 2nd time, I have noticed some things that lead to a new direction of speculation for the possible cause of the Recreance, and I think THIS MIGHT BE IT! There is another great thread on the cause of the recreance here, but I think that this is a different enough theory that it should have it's own thread. From the very edifying, yet not quite satisfying talk between Dalinar and the Stormfather in Chapter 38, Broken People (emphasis is mine): My feeling here is that the Stormfather is LYING. Specifically the part in BOLD RED from the above passage. From Vorinism we know that the highest calling is the Martial calling, and the reason this is the highest calling is because Soldiers will be needed to take back the Tranquiline halls in the afterlife. This always struck me as kind of a dumb basis for a religion, but whatever, I thought it also kind of a neat foundational precept for a warmongering people, which the Alethi most certainly are. Now the big reveal from OB was that Humans were the ones that came to Roshar and brought their God Odium with them. What if, and this is the big Duhn Duhn Duhn moment, the spren that are Voidbringers, the ones who come and Fuse with the Singers are really good Vorin super soldiers from the afterlife that have been corrupted by Odium. Vorinism seems like a great religion to train and shape a people that, unfortunately due to the bad luck of the draw on which shard got their planet, they happened to get tied great cosmic wheel of Rebirth to fight perpetually. Maybe, when people give themselves to Odium (like Amaram, like Moash) they create a bond that is similar to the Nahel bond, and after their body perishes their cognitive and spiritual beings can be recycled in the great Odium war machine. What if Vorinism is the first native religion of the people that brought Odium to roshar? Could this be the ancient ancestors of the Alethi? So Honor and Cultivation created a set of Deathless champions, likewise bound the cosmic wheel of perpetual death and rebirth to keep the Ghostly forces of Odium at bay. But, the native spren of Roshar saw the heralds (and probably, overtime the ideals symbolized by the heralds became Sapient spren) and these spren were able to bond with the humans. So here is the kicker, what if the Nahel bond makes one more susceptible to be corrupted by Odium? What if also, when a Radiant dies, due to the Nahel bond, Odium can claim them too for his legion of Deathless warriors? What if the true reason for the Recreance is really that the Voidbringers are composed largely of Fallen Radiants, and that radiants that realize that if they keep fighting they can end up as Odium's newest recruits? There is that part in the Epilogue where Hoid casually mentions how he had danced with one of the Fused before, would he likely have danced with one of the Ancient listeners? Another supporting detail is that some of the Fused are more awake than others ("EACH REBIRTH FURTHER INJURES THEIR MIND."). Why would this be if it was just the first and foremost leaders of the Singers that were the voidbringers? More likely, those that proved their skill in battle but fell, Odium claimed, and got fresh recruits each Desolation. He might have even claimed them from both sides (but I think it more likely that he is just able to claim HIS people). Love to hear what y'all think.

Nice catch @Rahhb about seeing Hoid in the chapter engraving. I mentioned this previously on this thread as well, that I believe that Hoid is the Girl Who Looked Up, the fact that the girl's hair changes to white without Shallan intentionally changing it is very telling. I think that this is the Roshar specific retelling of the Cosmere wide myth of Adonalsium being taken from wherever he was, prior to the shattering, and I think that Hoid was the one who stole Adonalsium. On roshar they have changed taking the powers of all divinity into their local manifestation of Investiture, namely the high storms. In the chapter 42 letter Epigraph it says: Cephandrius is Hoid, and the First Gem, I believe was actually Adonalsium. I actually asked Brandon at the Portland book signing if Hoid was the Girl who looked up, he didn't confirm or deny it, but he did look up sharply when I asked him (I thought he looked suprised).

Freaking awesome, sign me up!

@Toaster Retribution One other thing to think about in regards to Jasnah's character is that we saw how she was broken in OB, she had a spell of seeming insanity as a kid, so one of the reason's she might come off as so cold is that it requires a lot of willpower for her to keep it together. All KRs are flawed humans, some KRs wear their flaws more visibly than others (like the storming bridge boy that's always glaring at people), but there are hints that her baseline controlling demeanor is in some manner an overcompensation for the moment in her life when she lost control of the what she considers the most important aspect of herself, her mind.

Granted! Meet your new attack lizard. His name is tiger. I wish that Burgess Meredith's character from the twilight zone found another pair of glasses that weren't broken and that corrected his eye sight so he could spend the remainder of his days as the last man on earth reading as many books as he wanted to, because the other ending is just too sad.

This initially bothered me too, but it fits with Janah's Socratic style of teaching. She knows that having Shallan scribe their meetings is beneath Shallan, but she is forcing Shallan to come to this realization herself and to stand up for herself. This is similar to her frustrating method of having Shallan come up with her own explanations for things and not just providing easy authoritative answers, by making her work towards the goal of determining things on her own she helping her on the path to true scholarship, which is all about coming to your own conclusions. I agree though, it was frustrating her slipping into the previous Teacher/pupil relationship. If she had been a little less close minded about Shallan, they could have done some interesting things together (like maybe train in Shadesmar, talk about Jasnah's travels to the Spren Cities, talk about the Ghostbloods (Shallan's infiltration or the reason they want Jasnah dead), use soulcasting to resuscitate moldering fragile manuscripts from the Urithuru library, etc). Some lost opportunities here in this relationship, but there are still 2 books to go in the back 5, so I'm not too worried.

Just having a conversation with myself really, but here is the rough Framework for the works in the Cosmotologyere: Wigbreaker (Major Characters: Lightsong the Bald, Brushweaver, Brusher (one of the first returned who invented such amazing endowed hair accessories as the self-flowbier, the topsy-tailer, and who made a lifeless out of shaving scum and hair mousse), and Nightwig of course. Yesteel and the Riddle of the Awakened Clippers (tentative title to book 2 of the Nightwig series, could also be called "Yesteel need a haircut?") The Highlights Archive (the major all inclusive series that ties all of the Cosmotologyere together) Book 1: The King of Ways (all about different ways to trim men's unwanted hair, a must read to understand the intricacies of the interconnectedness that is the Comsotologyere, and the first time you meet the master beautician Haired, he's like Paul Mitchell on Earth, his hair care products are on every planet in the Cosmotologyere) Book 2: Lots of Radiance (lots of descriptions about beautiful hair, its sheen, its glow, descriptions of it fluttering, etc. This book is notable for Kaladin's swearing of the 3rd ideal, "I will cut peoples hair, even if I hate the hair cut they want" when all of his cosmotology students want to get mullets and civil war mustaches). Book 3: Stachebringer (This is one is truly epic, Dalinar Kholin, the man with the most attractive mustache on all of Roshar, creates a perpendicularity when he bonds a mustache wax spren, and with one side of his mustache in the Cognitve Realm and the other side of his mustache in the spiritual realms, combines all 3 realms in a brilliant glowing mustache that everyone still agrees is the most attractive mustache on all of Roshar) Book 4: Pates Unhallowed (this one is the crossover novel where Nightwig really shines, or really decreases the shine as he is spends most of his time covering a lot of bald pates) Book 5: The Song of Permform (this one is all about how hard it is to give Parshendi perms) The back 5 haven't been outlined yet....

This is a very funny way to put it (the bolded part). For some reason this made me think that Rockbud gardens in Roshar have cute little Shin statues (kind of like Lawn Gnomes) and people probably rub their cute little bald heads for good luck.

So when Kaladin finally finds Skar and Drehy, they have ash on their foreheads to obscure their bridge 4 tattoos (meaning they snuck out of Kholinar), but they have probably sworn their second ideal as Windrunners, they show Kaladin that they have Elokhar's son and say that they promised to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. What is ignoble about this? How could two squires without their KR hope to fight off 40,000 Singers, a legion of Fused and Aesudan's strange Yelig-nared amry with no access to surges? Dalinar admits that Kholinar is lost from his position of strength in Urithuru, what would have been gained if Skar and Drehy nobly died in Kholinar mounting a useless resistance? I personally was very happy with how this storyline wrapped up and was glad that Scar and Drehy weren't just grist for the mill of Kill off characters to increase tension line of writing that is popular in morally grey fiction. I was glad that they were alive, and very glad that they achieved the limited but important objective of saving Elokhar's son. Freaking awesome if you ask me.

Interesting, had forgotten about that bit. Seems like being the world's only source of horses would be a convenient thing for a people who might want to conquer but who also can't step on unhallowed stone. Interesting indeed.

Well, this is all pretty hush hush right now, but I think Nightwig is going to be one of the first novels set in the Cosmotologyere.

Awesome, excited to see the Arcanum entries for those once they get OKed by Peter!

Awesome! Did you record everyone asking questions during their signings or just during the general Q&A? I had one of the last red tickets, didn't get out of there until 12:30 am and had a 2 hour drive back to Eugene, but I saved enough of the end of Oathbringer to listen to it in audiobook form on the way back. I didn't record my singing questions because I wanted a picture with Brandon, but I asked him the following questions: Is Hoid the girl who looked up? (at which point he looked up with a shocked Brandon look). Is this the story of the shattering of Adonalsium, and did the group shatter adonalsium to figure out analytically the nature of Divinity. Was this an attempt to separate the different components of god to understand the unitary whole better? He said that this was not quite right but thinking along the right track (which leads me to believe that the original shattering, at least for some parties, was an attempt to make a better god after seeing what god is truly composed of, making Hoid's actions somewhat clearer, because he is visiting each world and studying the world, it's religions, and it's forms of investiture). I also asked if Mraize had enough breaths to have achieved the 4th Heightening giving him perfect life sense, and if this could explain his infallible ability to kill cremlings and other hidden fauna with his blowgun during the GB meeting in the Unclaimed Hills, and he said RAFO (he might of been tired of Mraize questions at that point). I also asked him if Nightblood were in the cognitive realm and was used to stab a bead that was the cognitive representation of a castle, would the castle be destroyed in the Physical Realm? He said if you could get Nightblood into the cognitive realm, then yes. I asked him what would happen to people who were in the castle at the time, and he said that they wouldn't be affected (other than possibly plummeting to their death). I then asked him how about a carpet that had been in the castle for 50 years, and he said that no, 50 years most likely wouldn't be enough time. I asked him if this was like the ship of Theseus and he said yes. I think that there is a reciprocal relationship between the object of cognition and the cognizant beings that perceive the object of cognition. The Object begins to see itself as it is perceived, and the longer it is perceived as a specific thing, the more durable and unalterable that self-perception is, and the more it is able to influence the perceptions of the observer. Did you ask Brandon any questions?

I was at the Oathbringer reading in Beaverton, and I got to ask Brandon a question from the audience, I had a spoiler free question ready: With enough breaths and given the proper command, could an awakened toupee be commanded to behave like real hair, and would it believable. Brandon said yes, that should work. I then asked would if it be able to respond to different conditions, like a strong breeze and still be believable as real hair, and he said yes it would. Then I asked if a toupee could be awakened and given the command to protect, and he said yes but that would be weird. So I did this little sketch of what could possibly be the best thing to happen to the Cosmere since Kelsier punched god in the afterlife: Nightwig, a fully awakened toupee, given the command to "Live Beautifully, and Fix Ugly".

Doing Illustrations. I did the illustration of R2-D2 I use for my Profile photo for Make: Magazine while listening to Words of Radiance. It was a 45 hr-ish illustration, and it's the perfect kind of work to do with a good story going on in the background. I also like listening to audiobooks when I'm going to bed, but sometimes I end up losing out on some sleep (especially with re-listening to Oathbringer).

This is very pertinent to my theory about the Recreance (a couple posts above this post), this is a consolidation of the Gem archive epigraphs from Oversleep's great post [OB] The Gem Archive that deals with Melishi, the Singers and (what I believe to be) the real cause of the Recreance. In my theory of the recreance above, I mistakenly said that it was Dai-Gonarthis that was the bridge on Roshar to Odium's investiture, but it actually is Ba-Ado Mishram. This is very much inline with the idea that the act of Melishi that denied the parsh their forms of power had the unintended side-effect of robbing them of their mind as well. The mechanism of this is discussed in my previous post. As further proof, here are the relevant passages about Ba-Ado-Mishram from Hessi's Mythica: And this My guess is that Melishi and the Scholar KRs knew what effect this capturing of Ba-Ado-Mishram would have on the parsh (or Singers), and they made the wrong moral choice. They chose to consign an entire people to a life of mere perception, only existing in the physical realm (cut of from Connection and Identity) like Lifeless on Nalthis or Koloss on Scadrial, and when the other orders of KRs found out what Melishi had knowingly done they abandoned their oaths (interesting to note that the Windrunners, who would probably have the most problem with this were "primary among those would forswear and abandon their oaths"). This seems like the REAL root cause of the Recreance.

This is very similar to the story of Tantulus. He cooked up and served his son to the Gods, and he is the also the Apical branch of the Atreus Dynasty (and the tragedy that Agammenon, Menealaus, the Greeks and Trojans in the Trojan war, and Orestes experience is a result of the curse that he caused to come down upon his family). I don't know if there are any parallels to this king in Jah Keved other than cooking his relative and then choking on them other than it's fitting retribution that he dies because he has eliminated everyone around him and has no one to help him out.

I think that the reasons given for the Recreance in Oahtbringer are a red herring, a patchwork of conveniently assembled facts, orchestrated by Mr. T and the Diagramatists to shatter Dalinar's fragile coalition, they have useful information, but it is not the REAL reason for the Recreance: I agree with this, the revlelations we got in Oathbringer are calculated to achieve a specific politic end, not an explanation. I think the KR were inherently aware of the dangers of their powers, as they did have to swear increasingly specific oaths in order to access more investiture. Now for what I think the real reason for the Recreance is: Here are the relevant passages from the in world WoR book about the Recreance: This shows the necessity of putting bounds on the powers of the KR (due to the revelations in OB), and explains the understanding that Ishar and Nale came to about dealing with KRs after honor was dead. Hmmm...What could this be? This seems to me like an historical record of a KR bonding an unmade...The Nahel bond makes this possible.... Hmmm, thus engaged, possibly by actions at Feverstone Keep which is near Rall Elhorim the City of Shadows...And the windrunners were "primary among those would forswear and abandon their oaths"...Interesting. So this act of great villiany is most likely related to this wicked thing of eminence, and furthermore was dealt with (most likely) by Melishi the bondsmith using powers related to the Unique abilities of the Bondsmiths (also related to the very nature of the Heralds and their divine duties, which means the Heralds probably understood exaclty what happened and would, while still fairly lucid and not completely insane, devise a couter strategem for). So what was the plan that Nale and Ishar came up with to keep the Desolations from Returning? Here is my theory. One of the Unmade, specifically Dai-Gonarthis (the one we get the least information about from Hessi's Mythica), is the agent or bridge for Odium's power to be manifest on Roshar. Previously, in past desolations, I believe that this agent of Odium probably bonded a KR, and like Dalinar in the Unity Chapter, was a proximate source of Investiture. The thing that is different about this desolation is that instead of being bound in a single vessel, Dai-Gonarthis rides the Everstorm. This splinter of Odium that gives Voidish investiture could be one of the other Unmade, but I think it probably most likely the one we have the least information about, here's the passage from the Mythica from OB chapter 113: The thing that caused the recreance, if this theory is true, was that Melishi bound Dai-Gonarthis (like Neragoul was bound by Dalinar), but this binding severed the Spiritual Connection of all of the Singers that had bonded a spren (so that would include all of the Singers that were in any form other than dull form, which is the unbonded state for Listeners). This would have affected all of the Listeners who had taken forms of power and all of the fused, felling all enemy combatants in one fell swoop. But I think, the Parshendi, the remnant of the Singers aka the Listeners, intentionally had assumed dull form to escape from their gods, and hence their Spiritual connection was not affected. There is a quote in the OB chapter 20 where Sah is talking to Kaladin: Something happened to the parshmen that robbed them of their Identity. I think that this was because their spiritual connection was severed, and without spiritual connection Identity becomes not unlike the life of a fish or some other less sentient form of life. The higher truths are spiritual, the world of mere perception is to be trapped solely in the Pyshical realm. Certain Knights Radiants (as evidenced by the windrunners being "primary among those who forswear their oaths) would have a harder time with the morality of condemning an entire people to a insensate life of mere being, which would be especially hard on Listeners who by their nature were more aware and participant in the Cognitive realm than Humans, so the idea of them living as beings trapped in the physical realm without connection to either the Cognitive or the Spiritual realm is worse than genocide, it's the destruction of their very essence. I think the morality of this action, a thing that could not any way be construed to have been done with Honor, caused the Edgedancers and the Windrunners especially to abandon their oaths. I think this also played into Nales and Ishar's long term strategy of denying the unmade Nahel bonded vessels to bond with, to limit their affects to proximate effects and further to stop the wicked thing of Immenence (Dai-Gonarthis) from having a vessel to use to spread odium's voidish influence. Further, I think that this might be the cause of the death of Honor. I think when the Heralds abandoned Taln to bear the full fury of Damnation by himself, this was the initial crack in Honor, and that the Recreance was a further widening of the crack to the point were honor was almost dead, but the actual splintering of Honor didn't happen until the populace at large stopped believing in Honor as an Ideal. Here is the causal chain: Heralds Act without Honor>Singers are robbed of their spiritual connection unhonorably>Knights Radiants abandon their oaths, thinking Honor is dead>General population turns against KR and think them dishonorable>Honor Truly dies. I think Bradon specifically set up OB to give an unsatisfying underlying reason for the Recreance, we all love the big reveals, and part of setting up tension is to have the moment of revelation, where all of the small pieces fit together in a truly satisfying whole. I think OB just revealed knowledge that was common knowledge to the KRs at the time, and that we are still learning the more nefarious details of the this truly interesting and truly epic event.

Another thought, that perhaps, keeps this theory alive. The translations of the Elia Stele were prepared and released by Taravangian's people specifically to create an existential crisis. What if the stele was an artifact that was created after the humans and the singers were both on Roshar. The singers are an oral history people, they rely on the oral tradition (or sung tradition in their case) to transfer information from one generation to another. What if the dawnchant, the original written form of communication was brought with the humans that Honor brought to Roshar? The Stele could then just be a transcription of the history that the singers told to the humans, and the diagramatists organized the released bits to look as damning as possible (conflating the two extraplanetary exoduses into one single event). The reasons for the recreance, as explained in Oathbringer feel wrong, there are an abundance of clues that link the shin to Odium, and there is a path where this all ties together. Please, again, show how this is wrong. But for now this is theory for me that ties as many of the loose ends together as possible, and provides the vacuum for the big Aha moment coming in book 4 where the REAL reason for the recreance is spelled out.

That it is problematic to the point where this whole house of speculative cards topples. So poof goes another theory, you got an upvote for the effort. I guess this is just an attempt to stitch some very peculiar things together, why does Odium appear to Dalinar as a Shin man? Why do the seeminly unbound void spren manifest as Shin? Why are the Shin a pacifist people when they have a known conqueror in their history? Why are the alethi so repetitively referred to as Sons of Honor/Tanavast? And really, what the heck is going on with their relationship to stone? I thought this "the humans as voidbringers" revelation was a medium term obfuscation, giving a red-herring reason for the recreance and also hiding the real reason right in plain sight. Brandon excels at that, but is never predictable. He is, to be sure, a genius. The reason for the recreance still rings false though.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it has been explicitly stated that it was Humans that came to Roshar as voidbringers (bringing Odium). In the Eila Stele the people that came to roshar are referred to as "They" and as "a people", I do believe that this is a case where the wording is intentionally vague and that characters in the book assumed it referred to humans. The diversity of lifeforms on Roshar is as close to Mois Esly space station of any of the planets we have seen on in the Cosmere so far. This is meaningful I think. If you have a word of Brandon or direct textual proof (that isn't an assumption made by a current Rosharian) then I would love to see it. Otherwise, I think this is still valid speculation. Also we know that Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar post shattering (so the Singers were the indigenous population at the time) but we also know that Odium came to Roshar after Honor and Cultivation. What were honor and cultivation doing with the Singers during this gap of time? Obviously not teaching them how to play cards (Squires can't capture reference).

Ok, this might take a little bit of time, but it's worth the preamble I think. Known facts: The Eile stella, written in dawn chant tells of the advent of the voidbringers, a people from a different planet whom the Gods of Roshar commanded the sentient beings who wrote the stella to take in. These voidbringers destroyed there home planet (most likely Ashyn) somehow through the use of the surges These people brought their god (Odium) with them. Humans are referred to by the stormfather as Sons of Honor (Kaladin, Dalinar, all very Alethi) There is an inworld myth told by Hoid about the origin of the Natan people's blue skin where a princess begets a child with Nomon, the blue moon associated with Honor. The yellow void spren have shin like eyes or have strange eyes. (Yellow also being the trademarked color of Odium) The void spren that Kaladin talks to, Yixli, is always walking on stone. When she wants to get up to eye-level with Kaladin she pushes herself up on a column of stone. The shin are a peaceful people that keep to there own section of Roshar, and use humility like Herdazians use bragging. The most revered citizens in Shinovar are the farmers, the least revered are those who pick up weapons (pretty interesting taboo, this). Mentioned in the same breath by Gavilar at the feast where Dalinar meets Evi for the first time are Sadees the Sunmaker, hopeful Alethi uniter of all Roshar and Shubreth-son-Mashalan, which I am pretty sure is a shin name. Now to add the suppositional meat to the known skeleton of the theory (the following is all total speculation): Suppose that when Honor and Cultivation invested Roshar, each brought their favorite form of life to this planet. Honor brought humans from Yolen, and maybe Cultivation used her investiture to create divergent forms of life (based loosely on humans) for Roshar. Honor is father to the humans and Cultivation created the Aimians, modified the human stock slightly to produce the Thaylens (might have a thing for long eyebrows) and the blue skinned Natans. The Singers were already on Roshar, they had been since the planet was created/formed by Adonalsium, but after the first influx of sapient higher forms of life, they interbred with the humans, resulting in Horneaters and Herdazians. The horneaters interbred with the original sons of honor (the alethi lets say) and you get the variety of life as it currently exists on Roshar. So, the humans and the Singers shared Roshar before the Voidbringers came, before the people of Odium who destroyed their own planet with powers they were unable to control, before the Shin came to Roshar. To accommodate the refuges from a broken planet, Cultivation carved out a special section of Roshar, and made it more like the planet that they fled, causing the Misted mountains to rise to block the force of the Highstorm, creating Shinovar. After resettling on Roshar, the Shin realized what their previous actions had done to their home planet and renounced the power of surges and instead developed a Pacifist religion, honoring mostly the shard of Cultivation, because her actions of Terra forming roshar (and creating Shinovar) saved her people. The shin, though, brought their god with them, and over time void spren began to develop as all cognitive thought on Roshar manifests as sentient beings. The voidspren realized that they could use the Gemhearts of the Singers to allow their god Odium to once again influence the world. Conflict always happens, borders are always disputed, ethnic diversity leads to ethnic clashing. War began to stir, and in this new war the Singers were granted forms of power by the now sapient voidspren. Honor saw what was at stake and splintered his power to create the honorblades for the heralds to marshal the forces of Roshar to stop the forces of Odium (at this point these would have probably been the Ancients of the Listeners and some secret Sect of Shin Odium worshipers, and maybe some secret Thaylen sect heavily into the Passions religion). Desolations come and Desolations go, the shin continue on in their pacifist non-interventionist mode (like switzerland, I wonder if there are nice places to ski in Shinovar), and the further removed they are from the initial planetary exodus, the more they begin to believe the lie that they are truly the peace loving people that tried to reforge themselves to be. What if Dai-Gonarthis, mentioned in the quote below: Is really head of the supreme council of the shin? The plural their implies a group, but Dai-Gonarthis is probably a god spren, one of the 3 god sprens perhaps, and possibly this Odium god spren can only bond to a shin. This might be the possible positive side to what otherwise seems like a HORRIBLE 5th ideal for Szeth (his crusade ideal) to cleanse the Shin of their false leaders as long as Dalinar Kholin agrees. There are a ton of unanswered questions after OB, but the shin have always struck me as, as Aragorn would say paraphrased a little, a people that look fair and feel foul. I have some ideas about how this all ties into the recreance, but want to see what you all think about this first.