Rainier

The wouldn't work for the same reason he didn't just kidnap a Radiant, a Mistborn, and a Returned. He needs the power, and he needs it for himself. The power attached to someone else isn't any good to him. I don't know, and neither do you. Rayse seems to keep tighter control on his power than Honor or Cultivation, or what we've seen on other planets. Maybe he's got more control over Sja-Anat than we know, but Hoid isn't fooled. Maybe Sja-Anat doesn't have a full spectrum of Odium's power, and thus won't work for Hoid's careful balancing of Intent. There could be a dozen reasons why Hoid needs to work with Rayse directly, and one of his minions wouldn't cut it. You and I must have different definitions of Big Bad. Hoid, even if he's playing the double-cross, is not the Big Bad. We've met the BBEG, and we know it's Odium. If Hoid were to be revealed as the BBEG, it would be because he brought Odium here in the first place, he trapped him here, and he's the one in control all along. If we get that twist, I'm here for it. I just don't expect it or think it is coming. Compelling, to be sure, and a reminder that Hoid respects Rayse, or at least his power. That doesn't mean he would refuse to ever work with him, although I could see how the grudge could get in the way.

I like this theory, since it meshes with my own theory about Hoid's Intent (which is really his desire to avoid anyone else's Intent). He needs a piece of Odium, just like he needed pieces of Preservation and Ruin and Endowment and Honor and Cultivation. When was he planning on acquiring this portion of Odium, since that is the shard most precious with its Investiture, only doling it out piecemeal instead of invested it entirely within a world and its inhabitants. So Hoid gets what he wants: pieces of all three Shards on this planet, but his words come back to haunt him, and he has to watch Roshar burn around him to get there.

That's what I noticed out in front. Here's the outline for the next two books, just casually dropped in our laps. Who is whispering in Jasnah's ear that she needs to go wage the war personally? I can't help but laugh. Dalinar is worried about the Highprinces. Meanwhile I just want to see Jasnah soulcast an entire army to smoke at once. "As involved as seems appropraite," says the woman who thought it was appropriate to lure thugs into attacking her so she could soulcast them into smoke as a demonstration to her ward. Yeah, "appropriate involvement," from Jasnah.

So, the Oathpact was intended to give humans the powers of surges, such that they could fight off the Fused, who did not have surges but did have reincarnation? Am I understanding that correctly? Here's the timeline I'm working with. Humans on Ashyn, singers on Roshar. Humans with surges on Ashyn destroy the planet, somehow Humans from Ashyn are resettled onto Roshar, in Shinovar. Humans invade rest of Roshar, conquer it Honor does little about this Singers despair, turn from Honor to Odium, as Honor won't help them Odium creates the Fused, immortal spren-singers who are reborn into bodies of other singers Humans get their ass kicked by Fused Humans make Oathpact with Honor (and Odium?) Honor creates Honorblades, gives them to humans (Heralds) This is the first surgebinding on Roshar Oathpact allows humans to use surges, but comes with this Braize/lock/reincarnation cycle similar to Fused Spren mimic Honorblades, become mini-shards of their own Ishar binds the spren and Radiants to oaths, limiting their power Heralds do something that allows one Herald to act as ten, nine abandon Oathpact I think this is more or less the events that I'm imagining, but I'm still having trouble keeping the timeline straight, and understanding who did what, when, and why. There are a few things I hadn't picked up on yet, mainly the fact that surgebinding was only gradually introduced to Roshar, and it came in bits and pieces, not all at once.

Yeah, I was confused by this connection. What we were told by Vasher is that the Intent of the Investiture affects the soul. All Investiture has Intent, or has since the Shattering, at least. That's the same whether it's the Heralds or Returned or Mistborn or Elantrian. So adding an additional Intent in the form of a spren bond doesn't counteract the others, it just adds to them. What I definitely think is happening is that Hoid is trying to get a piece of every Intent, so that way they all cancel out and he can remain Himself, while still wielding the power. Adding more Honor on top of Honor would be reinforce that particular cause of insanity, not reduce it.

Yes, we do, but we also had Odium cultivating Dalinar to be his champion, before Honor and Cultivation stole him away. I think it's perfectly reasonable that both Honor (as a Bondsmith) and Odium (method to be determined) were influencing Gavilar, in opposition to one another. The best connection we have between Gavilar and Odium comes from Yelig-nar. That is, both his daughter-in-law and his co-conspirator at one point decided to use/combine/merge/whatever with one of the Unmade.

Exactly! This is huge news. Who made it? How? Where? When? Is this something Gavilar found himself, or is it something he was given? Is this a relic from ages lost to time, or is this a new piece of technology developed within the lifetimes of our main characters? Did it come from Braize? If you can create a perfect gemstone that can hold investiture, could you create one without the same Connection to one world? Could this be the perfect vessel for transporting Investiture off of Roshar, and making it available for export? So many new questions, which means we're getting answers for old questions, soon.

Is this true, or is it more like putting it on the top of a mountain?

If it's not one of the Unmade, it's almost certainly one of the Fused. We've even had them worry over exactly this fear: being trapped forever in a gem. What I'm interested in is the provenance of this gem. It couldn't have been harvested from a gemheart, you say? Does that mean artificial creation of gemstones? Mraize might be very interested in that.

I like this detail, but we've got precious little to explain why or how such dilation could have occurred. I think my initial reading of that part was the typical one, that they lost track of time in the Revel, not that they spent less time than the rest of the world. However, time dilation is prevalent throughout the Cosmere, and anything you can do with one magic you could do with another.

It's time for new mysteries to be explored, which means our old mysteries need to be wrapped up. There's 100% chance that the gemstone contains one of the Unmade, the only question is which. Here are our options: Ba-Ado-Mishram Chemoarish Dai-Gonarthis That's it, that's the list. Every other Unmade has been accounted for somewhere else in the interim. BAM is the big-bad of the Unmade, so that makes sense. We know pretty much nothing about the other two, which also makes sense. Chemoarish is known as the Dust-mother, and Dai-Gornarthis was said to be involved with the scouring of Aimia. Very little to go on. I wasn't feeling that until you mentioned it, but now that you have, yes. I can see that happening. What's Navani's role this book? Explore the nature of spren and fabrials. It certainly would be easier if she had a bonded spren to info-dump onto her, and us the readers. I still wouldn't bet on it, but I hadn't even considered it until now. I'm glad someone else said it. I just want chapter 17. And chapter 18...and 19... Argh!! Is it November yet? Twenty-eight days remaining...

I think it has to do with ego. Vasher, and the other Scholars, were all Returned, and their thinking reflects a certain arrogance, or selfishness. The main reason why I think this is how Vasher acts in chapter 15. He put himself as the type 1, but then realized he's more like the Lifeless than anything else, and that the spren are truly distinct from both the Returned and the Lifeless. It makes sense, after all. The Returned are worshipped like gods, while the Lifeless are used as slaves. Of course they're two different things, and deserve two different classifications. When he went to Roshar, he couldn't call anything Awakened, because there was no Awakening, so a distinction is right and proper. At some point he realizes how connected and similar everything is, and eventually his ego allows him to realize he's been wrong the whole time. So Type 1 Invested Entity is power becoming aware on its own, spontaneously. Type 2 Invested Entity, Returned and Lifeless, Vasher and Szeth, are the soul of something that once lived, stapled to a dead body. Type 3 Invested Entities would have to include Awakened objects, as that was the original Type 3, but what else would it include? Fabrials and gemstones? Who knows. Vasher will have to inform us. What I wouldn't give for his lecture as epigraphs. Maybe I'll get that, too, in the Warbreaker sequel.

Or, drawing the attention of Odium is what makes Taravangian the fool in the first place. Mraize isn't interested in getting caught up in the game of gods, and anyone who does get caught up can be no better than a fool. I'm really glad more people are coming around to Yesteel-as-Thaidakar. Right now he's Chekhov's Realmatic Scholar. Of the Five Scholars, he's the only other one who's unaccounted for. To paraphrase Chekhov, poorly: remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the pseudo-prequel novel that there is a fifth realmatic scholar biding his time, in the second or third (or fourth, Chekhov didn't really have epic fantasy series in his time) book he absolutely must show up. If he's not going to show up, it should have been Four Scholars. Yes, I'm with you here, although we can't know exactly what his reaction was to the end of the Manywar. What little we know of his comes mostly from the Warbreaker annotations, and there's precious little there. Although, think for a moment. Five scholars: Vasher, Shashara, Yesteel, Arsteel, and Denth. Shashara, Arsteel, and Denth were all killed by Vasher. Let me repeat: the only person who has ever killed one of the Five Scholars is Vasher, who has killed three of five. Based on the track record, I'd say Yesteel has more to fear from Vasher than the reverse, and we should instead wonder why Vasher has let Yesteel live this long. We've seen inside his head, so we know he's not bloodthirsty or hell-bent on revenge, but still. Three out of five is a damning track record.

You've got it backwards. I think that any argument you make about any theory should reflect that character's arc, because it's only through the arc of a character that we get a story at all. So maybe I'm wrong about what Adolin's arc will be, but he's got one going for him, and it's going to come to a conclusion. I might be wrong about when the conclusion is coming, but I guarantee you that there will be. Take Elhokar. After WoK I could say that his arc is to realize he's been a bad king, acknowledge it, work to get better, then bond the Cryptic that was hinted following him. I'd have been mostly right, and wrong in some important ways, and certainly wouldn't have predicted the conclusion. He has an arc, it ended, the arc served the story. The entire story is a series of arcs: promises that deserve payoff. Elhokar's promise was that he'd see how bad he was, and try to get better. We got that. Adolin's promise is that we get to see him revive Maya. Before you protest, we've already seen this, revival isn't all or nothing. Adolin is slowly increasing Maya's awareness through his Connection with her. So we know his arc, and we know it's going to serve the story. We don't know how, exactly, and we don't know when or how it will end. First, you're right that we don't know the details, but the Fused think deadeye and Stormfather says sleeping but won't comment. In the interest of framing it in arcs that serve the story, I think the main way the Sibling will affect the story is by exploring the nature of fabrials, and specifically the nature of trapping spren in fabrials in order to exploit them. I'd guess that will be revealed to be the reason the Sibling left, and that will need to be the obstacle overcome in some fashion. Just like with Maya, this has already happened. The Oathgate spren are not trapped, they are bound by oaths, demonstrating for our characters a different way to make fabrials than the one presented by Navani. I simply thought the Fused were more right than they know, but if they knew what we did, they might be more cautious.

"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years. Starting with Tukar, then Emul, Marat, Tashikk, Liafor, Steen and finishing off, Azir." "The truth is about Roshar is, had there been no Stormlight there, it would be like Sel. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Sel. The problem is the opposite, we keep asking for someone to intervene and fix it. There's no question that the presence of Stormlight throughout the planet has sparked Great Power involvement."

Brandon said something on his livestream yesterday, relevant to this. For him, books should have a promise, and a payoff. That payoff is based on the what happens to the characters, and what their arc is taking them towards. That doesn't mean predictable, but there should be some kind of closure to the arc, and it should be satisfying, if not predictable or obvious. When multiple character arcs come to completion at once, that's your book's ending. The relevance to Adolin and Maya should be obvious. Adolin's arc has to do with reviving Maya, so I think Maya will get revived. I think Maya will get revived so that way they know it can be done, because it needs to be done again for the Sibling, and then the Sibling will enter Urithiru willingly and be confined as if inside a fabrial. So Adolin reviving Maya is secondary, while reviving the Sibling is primary. Your point is well made, though, and makes me think it's going to be Dalinar who actually does the reviving, or whose perspective we are in when it happens. Adolin just needs to be stubborn and show a proof of concept, he doesn't need to do everything. In that way, it's more like Lopen regrowing his arm was proof of concept of Stormlight healing what should be permanent wounds. Lopen is a tertiary character, at best, and once he regrew his arm he returned to the place whence he came: comic relief. I can see the same for Adolin.

Also, what do you call the surge of power Kaladin gets each time he's sworn an oath, that surge of power he was counting on in Shadesmar? Tiny bit of divinity, tiny bit of Ascension.

Yes, Silverlight could be Athens, or Rome. If you prefer a more modern example, maybe Singapore. But I don't think there's any reason to think they're a bunch of scholars sedately exploring the universe. Yes, they study, and yes, they explore, but I would also expect them to expand, extract, and exploit, just like any other interested party. We know Adonalsium can be split in half, four times in a row. Why not a fifth time and make it 32 shards? Why not a sixth and make 64? Why not recreate the original conspiracy, with the same payout: a shard of divinity, all to yourself. All you have to do is shatter a shard and be ready when you do. I don't think they have any authority other than action, force, and will. Maybe they're from Silverlight, or another city in Shadesmar. Maybe they're a rogue group of Returned trying to stop living like vampires on the people of Nalthis. Maybe they're just people who can recognize a fulcrum when they see it, and are rushing to get to the long end of the lever before anyone else knows what's happened. If the Ghostbloods aren't the East India Company, then the Ones Above (Sixth of the Dusk) probably are.

How could you leave out my boy Kaladin? He's different: he's reforming an entire order of Radiants with no Herald in sight, with no Honor to control him. That's probably the reason we're seeing so many strange, never before seen Radiants. If Honor were still with us. he wouldn't allow it. Since he's gone....all is fair game.

This is an impressive understatement. Yeah, they delivered tea to America. Why them? Because they were the only ones allowed to do so. How is that? Because they had the monopoly on imports from the East Indes (India). Who gave them this monopoly? The British Crown. Why did they do so? How much time do you have? The EIC was basically God Almighty for India. They were the colonizing force, and their job was to run the country smoothly so that trade could flourish. Their job was not to play nice with the locals, it was to make money, and they exploited their role as sole British envoy to the East to become one of the most powerful corporations to ever exist. There are two board games, both by the same guy, looking into this. One is about the opium trade into China, specifically, and is called An Infamous Traffic. The other is about the EIC in India, and is called John Company, as this was a nickname for the company. One of the unique things about these games is that the wealth and money you acquire through trade is not how you win the game, you are competing for prestige back in London, and must convert your money into status in order to win. If the Ghostbloods are the equivalent to the East India Company, then they'd have the imprimatur of some ruling body on their own world, and would be given the monopoly on inter-Cosmere trade, as well as given the task of making the Cosmere safe for (their) trading. Presumably that's what they're doing on Roshar: laying the foundation for a lasting occupation, such that they can rely on exports of Investiture from Roshar.

The most obvious explanation is that Teft's stature never recovered from his part in the theft of the Honorblade (and death of a member). Sure, he used to be more important, but he stormed up badly, so even if he's doing better now, even if he still has a connection with Bridge 4, he's still living with the consequences of previous actions.

For those like me who need a moment: Cosmere? CosMORE!

I think you're right about this, and fortunately chapter 15 didn't do squat to squash it. So the 17th Shard says Shards should be separate like everyone Intended, Hoid and Vasher by contrast combine the Shards and muddle their power together. Vivenna is either pursues Nightblood or Vasher off-world, presumably to bring them back. Listen to this: This sounds exactly like the kind of bounty the 17th Shard would offer, given their known Intent. Bounty on the item, and the smuggler. I think Nightblood is the fugitive, more than Vasher. It's the single most heavily invested thing in the Cosmere. Plus there's some wiggle room. "The one who brought it to your land," almost certainly Vasher. Almost.

I had a similar thought: This is the single best piece of evidence I could possibly hope for. It's too perfect. I'll just throw out something I remember from the Warbreaker annotations about Yesteel. If the coup had gone on successfully, Yesteel would have reacted, probably with more swords like Nightblood. Either way, he's been waiting just over the mountains for quite some time.

You're not the first to suggest Rlain as Bondsmith, but I think you are the first in this chapter discussion. What does a wedge do? Divide. What do we like? Unite! Whoever is going to bond the Nightwatcher is going to be someone dedicated to Uniting someone or something. For Dalinar it was first Alethkar, then it grew from there. For Rlain, it could very easily be that by trying to find Unity with humans he's living the oath before it's ever sworn. It could be progress to unity between Honor itself and the Singers, exploring the original schism and flip of the gods that came after. A new description of the Oathpact: a deal between humanity and Honor requiring the latter to abandon the Singers. Maybe that's what is required of him to swear his third oath, and we get it in later books. That would leave Navani as the one to revive the Sibling and then coax it back into its fabrial (Urithiru) by bringing Unity between humans and spren, and we'll have three Bondsmiths again by the end of book 4. I'm still partial to her as a Truthwatcher, but if she thinks Urithiru is a fabrial, then she knows it needs a spren. Her attempt to bond the spren and convince it to willingly confine itself inside a fabrial is her arc, and she becomes disconcerted by the relative maltreatment of the spren in fabrials. Thus can character serve story in a satisfying way. Why would you be so cruel as to taunt me with the yet-unwritten sequel, Nightblood, although personally I'm hoping Brandon has the guts to name it Type Four Invested Entity, instead. In all seriousness, yes, I've read it, and yes, I'm expecting something really bad to happen to Vasher that completely changes his philosophy. Something that, as he says to Kaladin in this chapter, causes him to truly hate the fight itself. That sounds exactly like the kind of sequel Warbreaker deserves. Maybe seeing his best and brightest protege follow in his footsteps and recreate his greatest folly and shame by creating a highly invested weapon would do the trick. Or seeing his old friend Yesteel do the same, and come for him. Vasher is talking about himself, here, and speaking from experience. He's retired before, but found it unsatisfying and eventually left. This put him in a worse position than if he'd never tried in the first place. This time it has stuck for a while, and he's got a cushy spot Maybe he's about to be drawn back in, but that is what remains to be seen. If it does happen, I don't expect it until the back 5, which should be after Nightblood, sequel to Warbreaker, is published.