Clovermite

I loved it so much that I tried to tell it to one of my non Stormlight reading friends. Unfortunately, it went over about as well as when Sigzil tries to retell Hoid's stories. Seriously though, I thought it was a great story to drive home the moral about how easy it is to ignore one's victories if one is looking towards too high of an ideal. As someone recently learning about thought distortions in therapy (https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions#mental-filtering it hit a really personal note for me.

I mean, even if anyone could use the well to do the same thing, the fact remains that it was Preservation's vessel who explained to him how to use it and pushed him into the well. While it may not have been him using his shardic powers on Kelsier, you don't get much more direct of an intervention than a Shard literally pushing you into something.

I got the impression that Rayse would have been perfectly able to do the same thing, he just didn't have a mind to seek out and exploit loopholes in the same way that Taravangian does. I think this is a really good theory, and I bet you are correct.

The Ghostbloods have already infiltrated Roshar, and Mraize has firsthand experience of a Lightweaver that he has undoubtedly reported back to Thaidakkar. I'm seeing a lot of references to Navani, Szeth, and Shallan helping out in this thread. I see no reason why they would help Taravangian invade Scadrial. Dalinar will be forced to help, as that's part of his deal with Odium. Szeth, however, hates Taravangian, and I don't see that changing simply because he ascended to Odium. Likewise, Navani already dislikes Taravangian, and would likely hate him more for the pain that Dalinar's service as a champion will cause him. Perhaps she would agree to go with Dalinar so she could be with him, but I don't see her actively helping to conquer a world she has no beef with. Shallan has kind of declared war against the Ghostbloods, but the nature of his resistance seems to be resisting their efforts on Roshar. I don't see why she would decide to invade. She may even join up with team Harmony to help protect innocents, as I suspect many Radiants would.

I was originally thinking the same, but when I looked it up, it appears that the ichor alcohol is optional, to make the lifeless viable over a much longer time period. It seems that an awakener is perfectly capable of re-animating a lifeless fairly quickly. If it survives the battle, then the awakener can decide to inject it with ichor-alcohol

Thunderclasts were present at the battle of Thaylen Field. Having just re-listened to Oathbringer, the description suggests that they are either a particular kind of spren, or a particular type of fused that make their bodies from the rock in the ground. In RoW, the main focus was on a stealthy takeover of Urithiru, so it makes sense not to bring the giant, earth shaking rock monsters for that operation. We also see that many of the fused are still just waking up, so I would guess that many of the thunderclasts haven't woken up yet. I don't think the living ones do that as much anymore. Throughout RoW, we see Syl manifesting as a shorter sword or even a dagger if the situation calls for it. Adolin has that conversation with the stoneward where he brings several different kinds of swords, and the stoneward notes that his shard blade will reshape to whichever kind of weapon is most convenient and appropriate for the situation. I forget at which point, but one of the characters notes that he thought the dead shardblades manifested in such a flamboyant manner to just show off. When not needed in the battle, but simply needed as a symbol, the large overly ornate weapons work far more impressively. Since the dead blades were abandoned to make a statement, it makes sense that they manifested them in the "show off" form. After the baldes died, they became locked into that configuration.

Maybe he was a Dragon Man, with a big beefy arm coming out of the back of his neck.

To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal Light up a stage and wax a goat like a candle

Does the Chelonate remind you of the Reshi Isles? For the life of me, I can't think about one without thinking about the other.

If you have someone who's collected a vast amount of breaths as Vasher has AND has access to a large number of resources, yes your analysis checks out. An awakener can be a huge threat. It's much harder to collect a the large number of breaths required where you could throw away 100 of them and not be phased by it, than it is to bring a stockpile of metals or spheres. The perfect pitch will aid in singing the an anti-tone, but you still more equipment, including investiture of the shard you wish to oppose, in order to create anti-light. Thus far, the only process we've seen to create it involved vacuum tubes, which is rather unwieldy and not something that could be done on the spot in the middle of a battle. Even then, once you've created the anti-light, you need a delivery mechanism. Thus far, the only one we've seen is Rasyium daggers. I'm sure we'll see other methods of delivering the anti-light, but I doubt it will be something that awakeners have a unique edge in applying. You seem to be thinking that the mistborn or radiant will only ever use their powers directly on the awakener of their awakened objects, and that they are going to sit still long enough for the awakener to come up to them and donate breaths. Using electrum, the mistborn would be able to see when the awakener is about to hit them with the breaths, and could thus potentially dodge it You ruled abrasion out completely, but seemed to forget that for the lifeless army to advance on a battle field, they rely on friction in order to run at their opponent. The edgedancer could use clever application of their slicking ability to immobilize the army. It's also unlikely that the entire army is going to go without metal and just use awakened cloth for weapons, so the mistborn is probably still going to have plenty of anchors to play around with on the battlefield. The ability to awaken the dead as lifeless is indeed very powerful, but the awakener will have a slight moment of vulnerability while they are in the middle of awakening a lifeless. That's an opportunity for a radiant to get in with a shard blade, or an atium fueled mistborn to get in a lucky shot to the eyes or something. I think a highly heightened awakener is definitely powerful, but I don't think they are op in the same way that a fullborn would be.

I don't really think it's a thing. I think it's a myth that the Fused bought into so Odium wouldn't have to explain why he doesn't want to give them access to the adhesion surge. In allomancy, we see a lot of powers that are very un-preservation. It seems to me that the shard's intent tends to determine HOW someone can access its investiture to fuel abilities, not WHAT the ability they can fuel with the shard's investiture. I think there is an old WoB saying something along those lines, but I had trouble searching it down.

I chose Team Harmony, mainly because the Roshar team was labeled under Cultivation and included Dalinar. I'm pretty confident at this point that Dalinar is going to end up as Odium's champion. While less confident, my current pet theory is that Cultivation wants this to happen, and ends up being an antagonist in the coming intergalactic shard war. At this point, I'm definitely more attached to the Rosharans and the Knights Radiant than I am to the Scadrians...but I choose Harmony over Cultivation.

Which feruchemist dying are you referring to? I can't recall that event at the moment. Also, which power do you think he got spiked with? I'm pretty sure he has some level of breaths, based on Shallan commenting that he always seem to sense her coming and she can't figure out how. Unless his ability to sense her is based on his aviary. I've been wondering what his bird granted him.

I'm definitely with you that Cultivation will end up being a big enemy, and that she is cultivating people to become shards. Teravangian thinks he's about to pull one over on Cultivation, but I believe she wants him to go out into the cosmere to act as her pruning shears. I don't think she wants to Lift to be her replacement though, nor do I think that cultivation is just about change, but about pruning weeds and creating as perfect as possible crops (ie getting the best fits into the shards). Thinking back to Lift's wish - not wanting to change, it seems to me that the shard that best fits that intention is Preservation. Preservation no longer exists on it's own, however, as it has been merged with Ruin into Harmony. And I think Lift fits the intention of Harmony very well - she contains both a very chaotic nature in her tendency for stealing food and general disregard for tradition, as well as a very protective nature in wanting to keep people like Gawks from getting killed. I think that Cultivation might be trying to set up Lift to take over the shard of Harmony, with Teravangian being the weapon she uses to deshard Sazed. I think Cultivation is a good contender for the final big bad, and it would be a good twist, I'm just leaning more towards Hoid right now as that is a bigger twist in my opinion. But I definitely believe she is going to be one of the big players in the final 5 as a co-antagonist with TeravOdium.

I'm a fan of the theory that Dalinar becomes God of war. As I mentioned in the other thread you had posted this though, I don't think he does it right away. I think he spends a book or two as Teravangian's intergalactic champion of terror.

Why do you think that becoming a Fused means losing his bond? I was thinking that he was going to become a Fused, but remain a Bondsmith unbound the limitations that Honor had previously set on Bondsmiths...and Teravagian would send him out as a harbinger of doom to other planets. I tend to agree with Dannex - I don't think Kaladin will play much of a role in the second half. Either he dies or, as I've heard others theorize elsewhere, he ends up joining in a new Oathpact. Or possibly, he simply lives his life out on Roshar while we join Dalinar on his crusade across the Cosmere, perhaps with Wax and Wayne, maybe even Marsh and Spook as the protagonists.

I think Dalinar is a middle of the story antagonist. I think TeravOdium wins, uses him as his champion to invade other worlds, and Dalinar resorts to being the blackthorn, having lost all hope. Eventually, TeravOdium gets desharded and Dalinar takes up Honor and Odium to become War. I think, at that point, Dalinar as God of War actually reverts to being one of the good guys, as he wages war against Kelsier, the Ghostbloods, and Autonomy. I think we have one more big surprise bad guy at the end, per my earlier post in the thread.

I'm not sure if this has spoken about elsewhere on the forums already, but I've been nursing a theory as I've been re-listening to SA as a whole. We know that red represents corrupted investiture. We also know that most of the spren associated with Odium, and labeled "voidspren" by characters in the book are red. Yet we also know that red isn't one of Odium's colors - his colors are white and gold, and his voidlight glows a kind of purple. The fused all have red eyes, and their powers seem to simply mimic the radiant powers, just in slightly different ways and fueled by voidlight instead of stormlight. Yet Renarin's ability to see the future doesn't really seem to mimic the normal illumination surge. On my most recent listen to Oathbringer, I noticed it spoke of yellow spren, and Syl also labeled those as voidspren...but yellow, a paler form of gold, is actually one of Odum's colors. Since they aren't red, we know those aren't corrupted. We also know that the unmade got their name because they were corrupted by odium, and turned red. With all of this together, I started thinking - what if the characters are all mislabeling the red spren? What if they are all simply corrupted spren associated with Honor and Cultivation, and the only real voidspren are the yellow colored ones. The fused mimic the radiant powers, because they are using Honor's and Cultivation's spren/abilities that have been corrupted to be able to use voidlight. Therefore, we really haven't seen much voidbinding at all, as we havent' seen many actual voidspren bonding with singers OR humans. I'm currently theorizing that storm spren are corrupted windspren, I'm not sure on any others though.

After discussing it with @Fifth of Daybreak, he pointed out that Brandon is probably referring to Sadeas in that post, as Brandon does a good job keeping it a mystery as to whether Sadeas is ultimately going to betray Dalinar until the moment that he actually does. I agree with his assessment. It still led to thinking that Hoid might ultimately be the final Cosmere villain, and that the final Cosmere story, detailing the shattering of adonalsium, reveals us to how he set up his evil scheme from the get go, after we've seen him defeated in Mistborn 4 (or whichever the book planned to be released before the shattering book).

To add to what you're saying here, Vin hears specific pulsing when the "shadow person" (preservation or ruin impersonating preservation, depending on the scene) draws near. She also hears drum like pulses that lead her to the well of ascension. I personally believe that the pulses she hears from the well of ascension is Preservation's rhythm I believe that Rhythms and "lights" are a fundamental nature of the cosmere. On Roshar, the stormlight is just so easily accessible to everyone that getting Honor's light is as simple as hanging a sphere out in the highstorm. Getting Harmony's light will be much trickier, as normally it doesn't directly manifest in the physical realm. Allomancers channel the investiture through the metal that they burn, and it gets immediately used up in the effect that the given metal directs it towards. I think one pathway to getting "Harmony Light" would be to store investiture in a nicrosil metalmind, then find some way to convert that raw investiture into "light". I think, as others have alluded to in this thread, that this is due to the nature of breaths being a pre-packaged container and interface for investiture, while Stormlight is raw investiture itself. The best analogy I can think of it is a motor (breath) versus gasoline (stormlight)., It's much safer to handle a motor, but you are restricted to what the motor is designed to. Motors are very versatile and modular though, so that's not usually a problem. The gasoline is much more versatile. It can be directly used as a weapon itself. It's also more volatile, and therefore dangerous - usually requiring pouring it into some kind machine (like a motor) to get the most effective use out of it. It can be used in a motor, but it can also be used to fuel many other machines - pumps, internal combustion engines, gas lamps (a bit of a stretch, I know, as usually this takes Kerosene). Motors can also be used to create pumps and internal combustion engines, but it usually requires setup than taking an existing pump or ICE and fueling it with gasoline. Beyond this though, I think it also comes down to the intent of the investiture. Stormlight actively pushes people to act - the intent of Honor generally requires direct action. Breaths, on the other hand, don't seem to nudge their holders into any kind of direction. The nature of endowment is to provide a gift that the recipient chooses to use however they like.

Personally, I'm starting to suspect that Hoid is the big bad at the end, after reading this WoB https://wob.coppermind.net/events/455-youtube-livestream-24/#e14604 On a re-read, I realized that Brandon had said "at the end of The Way of Kings" instead of "at the end of the Stormlight Archive," but even so, it started to make sense to me. We're already seeing Hoid saying a lot of "don't trust me, I will do bad things to get what I want," Right now, it seems to only be a willingness to throw Roshar under the bus in order to keep Odium trapped. I'm wondering, however, if there isn't more to it. Seemingly none of the shards who knew him pre-shattering trust him, even if some of them are fond of him. He also seems very determined to acquire as much investiture abilities as possible, in spite of having declined becoming a shard. I suspect he realized that there would be restrictions on his freedom for becoming a shard, so he declined it to allow him to act as he pleases. I think RoW heavily implies/directly speculates by in-book characters that Gavilar's plan was to create enough anti-void light to kill Rayse and take on Odium's shard. I don't think there are "anti-shards", but I do think that a given shard's anti-light will do damage to it, if gathered in enough quantity and put into contact with the shard. I don't think that anti-light exists naturally though, as it takes intention to get the correct anti-rhythm.

I don't think that Hoid is bound by oaths in the same way that shards are, and I think that's part of the reason why he declined to take up a shard in the first place - greater freedom in his capacity for directly meddling with affairs. Thus, any enforcement of the oath would need to be external - from Odium. As others who have already posted have mentioned, Odium didn't catch on to Hoid's breaking the oath, and since Odium isn't aware of it, his shardic nature still prevents him from harming Hoid. Also: and I believe Dracnor is correct - Hoid is further covered by the new agreement, which allows him to interfere without the repercussions he would experience under the older agreement Hoid had with RaysOdium.

I was referring to a spren that is bonded and is now in the physical realm. Sorry for the late response, I haven't been checking my email for notifications, and haven't been regularly checking the site. Rereading your original post, I see that I misunderstood what you were saying, or I wasn't thinking straight.

I think we've already seen this when Shallan entered the coginitive realm on her first time soul casting the goblet into blood. They look the same as how we've always seen them in the CR

I always kinda saw Wit as asexual - more tied up and concerned with the politics of the shards to be much interested in anything sexual. I thought that connection was a very indirect attribute, and didn't think you could steal abilities by manipulating connection. From what we've seen now, connection does seem to be one of the most powerful attributes to be able to manipulate. I expected we'd finally see the skybreakers using their powers of division in depth in this book. So far, division has been kind of relegated to obscurity - the more impressive acts with it occurring off screen. I really want to see division used in the full force on screen.