Aon Tia

Yes, and to add to this point, we must note that he had been hanging around Elhokar for years, and we know that for some of those years, Elhokar had attracted Cripticspren: Design! Hoid was around and I am 100% sure that he can sense potential knights radiants as he did with Shallan, Kaladin, Dalinar and Renarin. So, he did not help Elhokar at all with being a radiant. His goals were clear in that he wanted to bond a crypticspren which he did when El died in Kholinar. well thats true. In fact, to think about it, Tanavast being Honor, also it appears chose the 'honorable' thing to do and decided to let Odium come in and trapped him in the system, for the greater good of the larger Cosmere even if it made the life of Rosharans a living hell! I dont think any shard wants him free of Roshar! Rather I think that completely destroying Honor's power might make it easier for Odium to unchain himself. I feel that is Odium's goal. And also, In Oathbringer when Wit meets Shallan in Kholinar, in the restaurant: I have always found these words very ominous! Especially, when our heroes are full steam going in the direction of blindly trusting Wit with very important world-changing decisions!

I know we all have pondered upon this, every now and then! I know I have. But recently, as we move further in to the Stormlight series, it seems like Wit has been making a lot of mistakes lately. 1) His mistake with the contest terms. I know that it was not the most obvious loophole but like Fen said Dalinar could have insisted on freezing of the boundaries from the moment of the contest being set. 2) He told Shallan that she could trust Seon and that it is safe to use. 3) Atleast he finally figured out that Rayse is no more and someone else has taken the shard! May be it is just an attempt to show that he is not infallible and omniscient as we think him to be. Make him more realistic and human so to say. But what if, Wit just can not be trusted! What if some of these mistakes are just some kind of long con that he is pulling on the Rosharan Coalition! He has said multiple times by now to Stormlight characters namely Dalinar and Shallan, that they should not trust him. He would gladly watch this world burn, if it furthers his larger goals! just thought I will put this out there. Please share, what do you think?

At this point, I am not against the Stormfaker Theory, although it is weird that in the prologue, he seemed to be steering Gavilar farther away form the actual words and "I need it" was like, this was more close - clearly more odium-y! Also I like the irony of how Dalinar was genuinely worried about those visions being from Voidbringers and they turned out to be from Honor and stormfather whereas Gavilar, who never doubted once as to where these visions were coming from, was actually receiving from a voidbringer! Also, if stormfaker theory actually turned out to be true, in retrospect, it would make everyone 's concern like ardents and Kadash's concern over these visions to be so much more reasonable! However, what if the ultimate points to be taken from all of this, will be that Stormfather is far more manipulative, scheming and untrustworthy than Dalinar thinks. What if, he does have an ulterior motive! That according to me, would be much more fun!

And the after that: Szeth backflash! Love the Idea and I think they absolutely need a new way of doing things, especially after we know that Oathgate spren wanting freedom, they do feel trapped! May be they can get the spren to volunteer but have them rotating so no one spren is trapped for all eternity! Dalinar! Wit will be LIVID! Dont forget that Wit is on his way! Would love to see Wit and Cultivation interact! I dont think that you can let a Shard like Odium splinter! I think it will lead to devastating results! Day 2 has just started and it is already insane! So many people were not sleeping, Coalition is facing three-front attack, Wit has lost it, Adolin is like really angry and Gavinor is having nightmares- both indicating towards Odium Champion theories that I dont like. well atleast Cultivation is not wasting any time and already showed up at Urithiru! Atleast, Taravangians dirty secret will be out. Hope so!

I have long believed that this rattle means that Dalinar will fall and Kaladin will have to pick the fallen title ie bondsmith title. Earlier, I used to think that Kaladin will bond SF But SA5 has made me think that he might become 3rd Bondsmith, with SF remaining unbonded after Dalinar falls or may be SF will be trapped or something as I think was originally planned by Rodium at the end of OB. But I dont see him bonding Nightwatcher. We know that there can be more than 3 bondsmiths. I think if he becomes a Bondsmith, he will bond The Wind, who clearly is some ancient singer godspren.

I sometimes wonder that since Tanavast was holding Honor, Honor is all about making oaths and keeping them, Is it possible that when his Heralds abandoned the oathpact, their actions hurt Honor, wounded him and made him weak. I also believe that a new vessel is more capable of doing things that are not exactly in line with their shards Intent. But as 1000s years pass, it becomes more and more difficult for them to diverge. So, Tanavast was able to use whatever loophole existed to settle on Roshar with Cultivation but as time passed, that action also hurt him. I know that Honor was already dying or that he was going mad, but I wonder if The Recreance, where so many KRs broke their oaths, hurt him also to the extent that it proved to be the final nail on his coffin.

I like it. Makes sense. also agree with @BinarySecond could explain why he is said to be (by SF) and sure is "the maddest of them all" Also, i think that BAM has some Connection related powers and Ishar being the Unchained Bondsmith, clearly has some Connection/Adhesion related powers, so yes makes sense that he tried to help other heralds but doomed himself.

I feel that it is a very interesting statement coming from T'Odium. Humanity can thrive under a single god - probably true but the way to achieve this for T'Odium is very conveniently and hilariously selfishly that the one god is him! Hence, the shard of Odium has designs to kill all the other shards, splinter them, not take them up and alone survive and alone rule and be worshipped. Very selfless and caring of him indeed! I also take issue with Odium's claim of being not Odium but Passion, it is only pure propaganda, because even if the shard is "emotion incarnate", it certainly does not encompass all emotions but all the negative emotions: hatred, anger, lust, vengeance etc. may be some other shard got all the positive ones may be devotion or some other shard? So, he may be right that all the shards are cowards or selfish or self aggrandizing but Odium still is not a better option. He is also equally bad if not worse.

I agree that the only real solution is for the shard to not be Odium. As you suggested, splintering the shard is one possibility, but whichever way you splinter it, there will be some part of the shard that will get the negative emotions in its Intent, and that will continue to pose the same problem. Shard splinters are still infinitely powerful entities and therefore equally dangerous. I think that it will be far better solution to combine odium with others shards, this would lesson the impact of the odium side on the vessel and will help dilute its impact and give the "divine hatred" some context. The more shards combined to it, the better.

I have always believed that to mean kaladin. The fallen title is Bondsmith bond, The tower: Urithiru, The crown: King/Leader of radiants and the spear: Sylspear But now after the introduction of The Wind, who could potentially be another godspren level entity, I think that kaladin the Windrunner will bond the Wind and become a bondsmith and windrunner as well.

The translation from Elia stele mentioned: Clearly, @duladen you seem to be making a similar point. Spren : Nightwatcher, coopted and turned away from singers Wind: replaced by Honor, muted by Odium Where is stone god? It seems that The Wind was some earlier extremely powerful godspren that rulled Roshar. Wind was betrayed but how? Odium/Rayse muted her powers? So, how old is Stormfather? I used to think that he had always been on Roshar, but could that be untrue? This SF says about the time of recreance. how old is SF? I thought he must have been here from the begining but now i doubt that Oathbringer: suggests to me that he was created much later, presumably by Honor. And SF worship grew and he gained more importance/power over the Wind. all very interesting stuff really!! also, there have been many mentions: Both feels like the mention of The Wind. Also it is strange that their is a Stormfather but Stormspren are voidspren! There are Windspren and i always thought that they belonged to Stormfather, but it seems that they actually belong to The Wind, which appears to be some ancient godspren that was replaced by SF.

I also think that this is Jasnah! or the historian and philosopher thing has been put their specifically to make us think of Jasnah! I did not know of their quest could also mean that since she was not with them, she did not know every detail about their quest.

Since this is close to the Azimir Oathgate, I think it could be related to Spoilers to the Stormlight Novellas

Interesting observation. It is possible that stormfather is misleading him. He is given wrong information about which blade belongs to which herald. It would be consistent with the story since Gavilar realised that he has been lied to by stormfather. Also, do we really know how many of these visions Gavilar has actually seen? Has he even seen the midnight mother vision? why would he not recognise a windrunner? His comment about Nohadon implies that he has seen that vision but it may not be so. He has been reading the book, may be he just asked a bunch of questions about him to stormfather.

Shallan’s eldest brother is named Helaran, a very “herald son” type of name….

That actually makes sense. and it seems that Shallan knows about the identity of her mother. Chapter 93, RoW:

@Kitch I have to agree that at first, I also thought that SF is merely following a different approach with Dalinar to how he had done things with Gavilar. But the differences are too big, too many to the point that SF sounds like a different person entirely. Unless it really is a Tanavast CS vs SF scenario, which also may be possible, It is most likely either a Herald Stormfaker, or an unmade or even a Voidspren like Ulim. Also to be noted that Ulim offered to make Venli a Queen, give her forms of power etc to get her to do what they needed her to do in order to hasten the Desolation. It is remarkably similar to how this Stormfaker is offering Gav immortality. May be it was a long con that an unmade or a voidspren was pulling on Gav just like the one that was pulled on Venli. Both Venli and Gav ended up bringing voidspren and voidlight from that storm in the Cognitive Realm under their respective influences. Too big a coincidence, dont you think. I dont think that all the gemstones that he had contained Anti Void-light, I think it was only in the one that Szeth took, the rest were simple Void light. Did he really get the anti light from the shadesmar storm? even if he did, i think the chances of getting anti light that way is far less as to that of getting void light. Making it a very impractical way.

Yes, seems possible. Especially since stormfaker could sense when a herald died. Something that SF can not do, I think. Ishar or Shallash as a friend of mine @Honorless suggested. Seeing that stormfaker might have lightweaving ability. Kelek has said that he was there at the time of trapping of BaM, he might have played a more direct part in her trapping, like sharing of crucial information on how to do it, etc so yea does not surprise me that he feels responsible. This one is very curious. But this would make more sense if stormfaker is an unmade. then he is saying about BaM their other god, who could rival stormfaker unmade. May be this stormfaker unmade betrayed BaM out of jealousy. Because she was amassing too much power.

I think what is happening here is that Stormlight is lying to or not telling him the whole truth to Gavilar. the words in the Wya of Kings are clearly the first oath for becoming a Radiant. But if Gavilar had found the words, he would have become a Bondsmith. and we know that a Bondsmith, if and when learns to use his full powers, can re create Oathpact, can replace the original Heralds. That is literally one if the things that Dalinar is going to attempt in book 5, it seems. that is probably what SF meant when he said to Gavilar that you can become a herald. in a very round about way, but hey! you can do it, if you want to. Also, the prologue has completely blown my mind. Untill yesterday, i had no idea that we had a theory about the whereabouts of Chanarach. Reading this, and that another Herald had died in the same year as Gavilar, probably same month, or same week even, also explains how Brandon has confirmed that Taln never broke! wow!! consider me mind blown. Also hats off to the foreshadowing, chapter 10, WoR: Chapter 93, RoW and finally I am very happy to see that Gavilar was ultimately just a narcissistic fool who figured out so much but could not even figure out the words! I also totally disliked how he manipulated Dalinar and kept him drunk because deep down he knew that his brother had the potential to be more and that scared the hell out of him.

The pure Rhythm i thought simply implies that it was one of the three Pure Rhythms of Roshar, that she heard Cultivations Rhythm or something.

yea that true, there is room for changing the sequence, also sometimes he changes the character altogether! like instead of Eshonai we got Venli but as of now that is what we know. The Secret History is really one if my favorite short stories. It was amazing to read it and learn of so much more that was happening in the background of era 1. I mean yes there were subtle hints that something more is going on, but i had not paid much attention to any of it and i had not expected to get everything answered! Although i dont know what I feel about Kel after Secret History but Man! was it fun to read!

Do we know the fourth Ideal of a bondsmith? Did I miss it somewhere? I do think however that Dalinar atleast is about Uniting the splinters of Honor and make it into a shard again. Atleast i would love to see a splintered shard reforged into a single shard!!

I must say that Elhokar's arc is one that i did not see going the way it went. I had my suspicions about him being a potential Radiant as early as book 1. He mentions the shadows and after Shallan, I had realised that something similar is happening to him. In book2, when he tells kal that the symbolheads went away i thought that may be he failed to attract their attention. but then after three books, just when my long held theory was proven, instead of making him a radiant, Elhokar is killed!! i was devastated. i did not see that coming and that scene is one of the most hurtful scenes to read. I have also wondered about the lies that attracted cryptics to him and also the truths that he may have required to speak. being a bad king is one and his bad relationship with his wife and that she is not a good person is another. Also, it is interesting to note that He was not going to be a windrunner who are all about Leadership or even a BOndsmith who are about Unity and are leaders of Radiants. So no matter what, even if he had become a Radiant Lightweaver, his arc probably would have still followed accepting not becoming a good king and giving up his Kingship in the favour of someone more capable.

i thought that book 6 is about Lift and book 7 will be Renarin Is the sequence in which you mentioned relevant?

Oathbringer followed by Hero of ages. My favourite magic system is surgebinding! Knights radiant! Come on people, mistborn and feruchemists are mythical beings now! Whereas KRs have a bestie spren and shard blade and shardplate!! And investiture just rains down from the sky. Well Cyto has not read era 2 so does not really know about compounding, now, does she? Anyways, Any or if you many then your favourite fabrial idea ?