mdross81

I think this is the one you’re looking for:

Not just that they were invaders, but the reason why they were in a position to become invaders - that humans had destroyed Ashyn using Surges.

What if the five spears are a reference to this passage just before Kaladin heads to the climactic fight sequence in RoW: What if the spears represent: Kal the innocent youth (who first picked up the spear) Squadleader Kaladin from Amaram's army (who mastered the spear) Kaladin the slave (who rediscovered the spear training Bridge 4 in the chasms and picked it up again to save Dalinar and become a Radiant) Highmarshal Stormblessed; and Whoever Kal is now following the events of RoW or will become in Book 5 (the person who picks up the fallen title?)

Couple of points on this. Regarding Ulim, he was able to escape into the barrier storm blocking the way to Braize in the cognitive realm, a portion of which was later broken off and would become the Everstorm. That barrier storm corresponds with a location in the southern seas of Roshar in the physcial realm. I'm pretty sure that, as we see happen later with the stormspren, Ulim hitched a ride on some lightning when a highstorm passed by the location of that barrier storm, and he was caught by Axindweth or her associates with a gem. I base this on how later on Venli is able to collect stormspren after Odium has moved the Everstorm through the cognitive realm to a location corresponding with the shattered plains. She notes that the stormspren come through the lightning during highstorms but have to be captured in a gem or they get pulled back to the cognitive realm. And regarding moving a cognitive shadow in a gem, I think Mraize pretty much rules this out in his discussion with Shallan in RoW 13:

This was the point I was going to make. I think your timeline makes sense so long the zircons discussing the Sibling's failing systems take place after the imprisonment of BAM. Seems a little odd they'd be number drawer 1 if they were some of the later ones in time, but that's not a super big problem. Maybe the drawer numbers were assigned earlier but the gems were not placed in the drawer until later. But I think it does make sense that some folks would attribute the failing systems to the pre-imprisonment falling-out/banishment of humans as opposed to the imprisonment of BAM as author of the zircons later learns by investigating the cognitive reflections of the spren at the tower. I wonder if there are any others that have to have been recorded after the imprisonment. Will have to look at them all again.

Now I’m imagining Shallan and a bunch of Stormlight illusions of her singing a big cheesy pop ballad “We Are Shallan” set to the tune of “We Are the World”

I've begun to wonder if it's possible that the capture, alone, of BAM wasn't what ultimately caused the Singers to be lobotomized and the Sibling to begin to fail. Maybe BAM had been captured, but some additional step - a step that was debated over for a while - was taken once she was captured that resulted in all of the negative consequences. This is in part based on the quote from WoR about Melishi's role in all of this: If the different strategem was presented just the night before, does it suggest that maybe they already had access to BAM, but just hadn't decided what to do with her yet?

I mean, there's Tanavast himself in WoK: I feel like there is another reference at some point - a Fused bragging about working with Odium to kill him - but I can't find it right now. Notably, Raboniel claims to not know how Honor was killed in RoW 76: To be fair, this could just be Raboniel baiting Navani and trying to keep her interested in pursuing anti-Light. I've been coming around to this idea for a while now too. Part of me wonders if he and Odium had some sort of non-interference pact about the conflict on Roshar that Honor violated. It might explain why the Stormfather seems so reluctant to intervene at times. See, for example, RoW 107:

I've had this idea simmering for a while that the tower, crown and spear might somehow apply to each time Kaladin swears a Radiant Ideal, but I can't seem to make the crown part fit for the fourth Ideal: 2nd Ideal Tower - the plateau where they're fighting Crown - Dalinar and Adolin are highprinces Spear - what Kaladin picks up to fight with 3rd Ideal Tower - the Pinnacle where Kal faces off against Moash and Graves is tower-like Crown - Elhokar Spear - Syl becomes a Shardspear 4th Ideal Tower - Urithiru Crown - ??? this is where the theory falls apart a bit. In the other two it's a reference to the person Kal is saving, but I can't think of any way in which crown might refer to Lirin (unless there's something about him we don't know); maybe it's something to do with Kal's slave brands finally healing or his Shardplate helm? both seem like a stretch Spear - while diving off the tower to save Lirin, Kal is described as "piercing the blackness like a spear, a lance of light" It would work rather nicely if, upon swearing the fifth Ideal, Kal does in fact become the King of Urithiru.

My “other” vote was for Nale

Hmm. I didn’t get that impression and I don’t see where they say they are scrapping it. Seems to me they used Hoid’s contract as a starting point from which to negotiate. Odium pointed out certain terms that he couldn’t agree to from that proposal and they went back and forth from there. I mean he does “wave dismissively” at it, but the next line is about how he doesn’t want any more talk of delays or half measures, meaning they scrap the 1,000 year portion of the original. But otherwise the crux of it seems the same.

What makes you say that 1) they scrapped it, and 2) Hoid is unaware? It seems that the line protecting Hoid is still applicable even though it wasn’t part of the final discussion of terms. Because Todium seems to understand that he can’t hurt Hoid (unless he’s just showing restraint and faking like he can’t harm him). I took it that Odium basically accepted the framework and ancillary portions of Hoid’s contract but haggled over the key terms: the results if each side wins. And there, Odium is still chained to the Rosharan system, win or lose. And wouldn’t Hoid have spoken with Dalinar and Jasnah after the negotiations? Or did he take off before then and I missed it?

This seems exactly right to me. So it’s worth thinking about just what would constitute reneging on the contract; what Dalinar and Todium are required to do or refrain from doing under the agreed upon terms such that failing to do so would be failing to perform on the contract. Seems to me there’s three things: On the tenth day of the month Palah, tenth hour, they each send a willing champion; They have to refrain from doing anything to harm the other’s champion before the day/time of the contest; and the champions have to then participate in a contest to the death So reneging would look like one of these: Failing to send a willing champion; harming the other side’s champion before the day/time of the contest; or A champion refusing either to begin the contest in the first instance or to continue the contest to the death of one of the champions With these options in mind, and bearing in mind that Shards cannot see the hearts of those who act, what did Todium see that he thinks will put Dalinar in a position where he will inevitably break the terms? I really mean that as an open question to everyone because I can’t see what it might be. One thing that I’ve seen in these discussions that I do want to clarify, however, is what I see as some incorrect/imprecise language in referring to the child champ theory, which is all about number 3 above, as a draw. The contract doesn’t speak to a draw at all; it has no provisions for what happens in the event of a draw. Refusing to begin the contest - or to finish the contest once it’s begun - because the opposing champion is a child is breaking the contract, not a draw. (I’m skeptical of the child champ theory, but I do think that if it happens it will constitute breaking the contract) This is not to say that a draw isn’t possible. A draw would be a situation where both champions participate in the contest but neither are able to kill the other, not because of a refusal or unwillingness to do so, but because of some reason beyond their control. Something like impossibility or mutual incapacitation. But again, the contract just doesn’t say what happens in this instance, so it’s not correct to say that a draw would void the contract and free Todium.

I’m not a fan of the child champion theory. I think it’s mostly based on the “suckling child” death rattle. I’m skeptical of that for two main reasons: 1) it has to be a willing champion and it’s hard to imagine a suckling child having the agency to be a willing champion 2) there are a lot of death rattles that are still unexplained, so I don’t think that the meaning of that one has to be revealed in Book 5

That’s what’s driving me crazy. Because the description in the zircon - the withdrawal and the ceasing of functions, and not “by intent” - sounds exactly like what we heard in RoW when the Sibling described why various aspects of the tower weren’t working. But trapping BAM can’t be the reason if the zircons were recorded before the strike team carried out its mission. If the falling out was about something else, we get only a few clues: Similar is this: In this one there’s a reference to a betrayal: This one at least gives a small indication of the Sibling’s beef if Melishi thought that putting up the glass shield around the pillar might restore trust. Presumably the Sibling feared something humans might do to the pillar. Last one I can think of is this: This one, together with the line above about the betrayal suggests Melishi bore some responsibility for the Sibling’s falling out with humans. Cant really make much out of these quotes in the end. There’s just a lot we still don’t know.

This makes me think of Brandon’s suspicious laugh in this WoB: Probably shouldn’t read too much into it, but it has just always stuck out to me.

Thought of another question about events around the time of the imprisonment and the Recreance. it concerns the three zircons in the Urithiru gem archive discussing the Sibling’s withdrawal and the cessation of certain functions of the tower. In light of the Sibling saying that they lost the ability to make Towerlight when they lost the ability to hear Honor and Cultivation’s tones, and that this was a result of the same thing that changed the singers, do we think that the changes referenced in the zircons were the result of the imprisonment of BAM? Or were those changes the result of the “falling-out” between the Sibling and humans referenced here:

Pretty sure this mention of Wit’s name being in the contract just Wit referring to the line they added naming him a contractual liaison of Dalinar to afford him protection.

Since this thread is seeing life again, I wanted to pick folks’ brains about some other questions tangentially related to this timeline. So we know that during the False Desolation, Ba-Ado-Mishram provided Voidlight and forms of power to the singers. But for how long was she doing that? Was it a matter of weeks? Months? Years? And before she started providing the forms of power, were the common form singers keeping up the fight? I know humanity had a lot of rebuilding to do. But they had Urithiru and the Radiants. Seems like the singers would have been at a major disadvantage. I have a hard time thinking they kept up the fight for thousands of years between Aharietiam and the False Desolation. Lastly, were the singers on board with BAM’s plan or did she force the forms on them? That would be even more tragic than I had previously thought.

Nice! Haven't seen that line before. Thanks for pointing it out. Maybe a reference to emotional allomancy powers?

In Rhythm of War, both the Sibling and Kalak claim that the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram not only impacted the singers, but also impacted all of the spren. Here's the Sibling in RoW 49: And here's the relevant passages from Kalak's journal in the epigraphs from Part 4: Note how the quotes suggest that BAM's imprisonment caused damage to Roshar itself, and by extension to those entities who souls were Connected to Roshar. To me, this suggests that the method BAM used to connect to the singers somehow exploited their Connection to Roshar. I tend to think that it was their Connection to the rhythms/songs of Roshar. Consider this WoB: There's also this line from the final Eshonai flashback, when the Stormfather lets her ride the storm: Note also that the rhythms are a cosmere-wide phenomenon that manifests in a particular way on Roshar: Ok, so this all makes me think that BAM must have connected to Roshar itself in some way and it was through that Connection that she was able to Connect with the singers. The singers are Connected to the rhythms, and the rhythms are Roshar. (This fits with the listeners being spared because they were in dullform and had only a tenuous Connection to the rhythms, which we've been told are difficult to hear when in dullform). So what about the spren? They are little pieces of Honor and Cultivation. Honor and Cultivation have Invested in Roshar. So the spren are clearly Connected to Roshar. But BAM's imprisonment did not tear our the Connection and Identity of the spren like it did the singers. How did it impact them then? What part of themselves are the spren missing with BAM still imprisoned? Whatever it is they are lacking, could it's absence be what causes them to become deadeyes now when Radiants break their oaths? (The book is not real clear on this. Kalak says deadeyes never existed before the Recreance. But we know the Recreance happened shortly after the imprisonment of BAM and shortly before the death of Honor. A lot of crem went down around the time of the False Desolation). The only real hint we get about what's missing is from the Sibling, who says that when BAM was imprisoned they lost the ability to hear Honor's and Cultivation's tones. I had once thought - then abandoned - but have come back around to the idea that BAM's imprisonment somehow cut off the signal or broadcast of the pure tones. In other words, before the imprisonment the pure tones emanated from Roshar itself. And entities with enough Connection to Roshar or one of the Shards could hear them. This would include the Sibling, spren more generally, the singers, and maybe Knights Radiant as well? But now, with BAM imprisoned, it's as if the tones are trapped in the Spiritual Realm and can't get through, so you need some other means of touching the Spiritual Realm in order to hear them. Here's a rundown of the times when characters are able to hear the pure tones (without someone singing them or playing them on a tuning fork or metal plate): Eshonai and the other soldiers who are the first to adopt warform hear Honor's tone during their transformation Eshonai mentions that there are stories that the first listeners to adopt workform heard Cultivation's tone Eshonai hears Honor's tone (along with Odium's and the Rhythm of War) when she bonds with Timbre right before her death Navani and Rushu catch hints of a tone and "thump" early in RoW when Dalinar opens a perpendicularity Venli hears an unspecified tone when she sees Rlain in the cell ("Venli felt all the rhythms freeze when she saw Rlain in the cell. Like the silence following a crescendo. ... In that silence, all of Roshar changed ... And in that silence, Venli thought she could hear something distant beyond the rhythms. A pure note.") Venli hears Cultivation's tone while thinking on the history of the listeners as told in her mother's songs; then she hears Odium's tone and its harmony with Cultivation's while communing with the stones of Urithiru and practicing her stoneshaping The Sibling is able to hear Cultivation's tone again during the climax of the battle of Urithiru, but can't find Honor's (I suspect the Sibling was able to hear Cultivation's tone again because Venli had been able to hear it while interacting with the stones of the tower) Navani finds Honor's tone within her just as she's about to bond the Sibling I think that's all of them. And I think that in each instance there's something happening to bring the character into contact with the Spiritual Realm. It's definitely the case with the transformations, with the characters bonding or about to bond a spren, and when the perpendicularity is opened. The borderline ones are the two Venli ones and the Sibling. But I think that with Venli, in those moments she's feeling an intense connection to her people and their history, helped along by communing with the old stones of Urithiru. And as I mentioned above, I think that the Sibling was picking up Cultivation's tone because of Venli finding it while communing with the stones. Could also have been the bond forming with Navani. (Or maybe Cultivation herself helped out? The Sibling does say that Honor should have been able to help her when she lost the ability to hear the tones, but that he didn't because he was losing his mind). Here's another thing. Aside from the Sibling and the stones of Urithiru, I don't think we ever hear a single spren talk about the pure tones. Doesn't that seem weird? Here's the stones in Urithiru noticing Odium's tone when Venli is using Voidlight to practice her surgebinding: They also mention the tones once later, but we don't get any sense one way or the other of whether they can actually hear Honor and Cultivation's tones: That's it. It just seems odd to me that we never see any other spren talking about the tones. (If I missed instances, please let me know) The main piece of evidence against the theory that BAM's imprisonment cut off the signal of the pure tones is the fact that Infused gems are able to pick up and echo the tones. But it's very faint and requires intense focus to hear. And given that it's really the Light that is picking up and and echoing those tones, and that the Light is itself Investiture brought forth from the Spiritual Realm, I don't think it completely destroys the theory. It would be weird if Investiture itself completely lost the ability to echo it's associated tone. As for what continuing impact the muffling or silencing of the pure tones might have on the spren, I don't really have any good theories. But if color is like flavor for spren, then maybe tones, especially the pure tones, carry some significance for them as well. I started this post genuinely questioning what impact BAM's imprisonment had on Roshar and the spren, but in the course of writing sort of convinced myself that it has something to do with a silencing of the pure tones of Roshar. But who knows, maybe I've got it all wrong and there's some other way that BAM's imprisonment damaged both Roshar and the spren. Do folks have other theories? I'd be interested to hear them.

Collaboration for the win! If we run with this interpretation of Mishram for a second, and take into account the WoB suggesting that it might trace back to the Dawnchant, I’m curious whether that would change your view of how to interpret Ado in the name. I mean, the question presumes that all three components of the name existed then, which is by no means certain, but do you think it would make it more likely to refer to Adonalsium than to light? If so we could be looking at a meaning along the lines of the soul of adonalsium’s combined song. Which would be pretty interesting in light of what Brandon has said about Roshar being created in a specific way by Adonalsium.

Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen that WoB before. Nice catch.

Here’s a link to a sanskrit dictionary entry for misra, https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/macdonell_query.py?qs=मिश्र&searchhws=yes That one just defines it as “mixed.” Also, here’s my earlier post which contains a link to the usage of misra as mixed song: It was actually your response to that post where I got the Mish & Ram interpretation so thanks.

I probably should have been more explicit that I’m talking about converting one form of Investiture to another more generally (as in the process and how to deal with Connection/Identity issues) not necessarily specifically Stormlight into Voidlight. Maybe? They weren’t around in the False Desolation though, so maybe not if that’s when it was figured out.