Aon Tia

i think this could be because he is a returned and has probably been trained in the arts for hundreds of years. Arsteel was also very close to how Denth fights. So, that would suggest that Arsteel was also allomancer? not likely. Besides like said by others, seems too convoluted to me. This idea of yours seems to have some merit to me. I also thought during a recent rereading of Warbreaker that it is totally weird that when Vivenna gets kidnapped by Vasher, she immediately starts thinking In a eralier chapter, she suddenly got very aggravated also. She starts talking about i want to destroy this city, these people, yada yada. i am not quoting that here. So i do think that something weird is happening here. it may not be emotional allomancy but could there be some way by using breaths/awakening through which emotions can be manipulated? There could be other magic systems that allow this to happen.. We also dont know that what type of scholarly research Denth was involved in.. I also found it weird that Denth mentions that he has lived as a drab before... if he is a returned, that would kill him. so may be he is lying. But how is he surviving without extra breaths? Vivenna does not sense any extra breaths from him.. is he also hiding them from Vivenna like Vasher can?

ok i may have misread then. thanks

good decision and he is finished writing them too awesome!!

very good point actually. In fact i think it speaks volumes about this body of work for having such complex characters and complex situations. Not everyone is going to like Dalinar, Szeth, Venli etc and not everyone is going to hate characters like Odium, Mraize, Moash etc.

Dalinar is not saying that he was not under any such influence. He is saying that even when a person is under such an influence, they have some choice and they are still responsible. A drunken driver causes an accident, can not hold the alcohol or the bar that served him responsible. The actions are still his and he is responsible. He is not trying to explain away his actions though justifications, which is exactly what amaram and sadeas are doing. To give justifications for your actions is the easiest thing. None of these guys are getting affected by what they have done. Sadeas does not even question himself once, he just wants to be king and he is doing what he wants and explaining it all in the name of Greater Good. and he keeps insisting that i will do so again. Amaram has killed his men and men who saved his life for a shard. He wants power and to gain it, he is willing to let desolations happen. When that does not work, he switches side amid battle, because Odium promised him great powers. I do not think that it is really justified to place dalinar in the same category as such villains. Dalinar was unable to live with himself for many years. He could not find a way to justify these actions to himself even after many years. He literally went to meet nightwatcher, a being who was promising glory, power and what not, and what he asked her was "forgiveness". From there on, he has completely changed his life, his beliefs, his actions. He has overcome his addiction to thrill, violence and alcohol. He has become such a strong person that he went to face an entire army and fused and an enemy God, alone unarmed, to save a foreign country. And when that god offers him forgiveness so to speak, by telling him that give me the responsibility, give me your guilt, Dalinar refuses it. He is able to stand there and accept his responsibility for his actions. Note that no one thought, odium or stormfather or cultivation that Dalinar could withstand this. but he did. ultimately, i feel that there is no black and white. Dalinar has done horrible things but nothing is really irredeemable. your actions from there, does matter.

They should not have such delusions. That is an additional reason why honorspren would want that windrunners understand that they are not omnipotent and require this as their fourth ideal. not every windrunner is like Kaladin, he would never have such delusions but it might be a necessary lesson for many

i thought he had confessed in front of a bunch of people when they were discussing the succession of the throne. were not Sebariel and aladar etc already present? so question on family honor has already been raised, i thought moreover, szeth has killed many people including the King, if he is not being hanged but only jailed, as has been confirmed then i dont know why a similar treatment can be given to Adolin... It may still be hush hush, may be not jailed but exiled for some time ostensibly (which may be horneater peaks actually a mission with Shallan, may be)

Yes I think it has something to do with failure. That you can try to protect everyone but sometimes you may fail. Or as you put it I can not always protect everyone, some I may fail to protect. I believe this because every time kal is close to swearing his 4 the ideal he is thinking in his head, I failed tien, elhokar, or I have failed so many. Whenever in shadesmar he started thinking of failure, wind spren would start popping / shimmering around him and syl would say that you are close to swearing your 4th ideal. So it has something to do with failing.. and I guess it makes sense that it is most difficult for him to swear because failing and then accepting his failure is something that kaladin has struggled with since his childhood. Going back to his father saying you have to learn when to care and when to let go. accept that you can not save everyone Litin might actually help him finally learn this first lesson that he has trying to teach him since he is a child. And he is close. Because in OB, he had accepted that he had failed elhokar and bunch of other people, he had even accepted that he had failed tien but it was at the idea that he can fail dalinar is where he refused to accept. That is when he balked

I don’t think it works that way. If odium can just taunt a shard into dying, then that would super easy for him. I don’t think honor could do anything against his intent at the point. I do wonder though if broken oaths by heralds could have weakened him somehow.. and then recreance, even more broken oaths, was the final nail on the coffin so to speak. The only thing that can be more to the story that I can think of, is if Nale the supercrazy dude was actually right. If having Radiants somehow really weakened the oathpact and caused desolations to be more frequent. But I highly highly doubt that. And there are wobs that says that nale is just crazy

But we are following the journey of KRs through their oaths with Kaladin only. He will be the first one that we actually see swearing his 4th ideal. This is how it was in wor also. Shallan already had a blade but we saw it through kal

Is it ? Explicitly mentioned somewhere that in alethkar punishment for murder is hanging? I can’t seem to recall... the only time I remember hanging mentioned was when kaladin challenge d Amaram but that was coz he is darkeyes. I even recall kal mentioning that if a bridgeman killed another it is not death but if you refused to run in a bridgerun then only it is punishable by death. Dalinar or Jasnah will judge him.

Plus they thought that they have won the war for humans. Radiants actually believed that odium and fused have been defeated. There was no reason to endanger their world for these surges are dangerous!!

Yes I think that likely. In fact if spren were really in on it then it makes sense that they left one order to do the dirty work.

Kaladin swearing his fourth ideal and gaining a cool blue brand new shardplate. more of bridge 4 members become radiants including Rlain some progress on Sjanat front Renarin do some illumination (i hope he can) See exactly what the surges of Cohesion can do Jasnah getting some anwsers from the two heralds, well ash mostly, i think she should be able to atleast tell us where all the heralds are and what are they doing. Iyatil is back Urithiru alive again and navani learning some totally pathbreaking new techniques in the field of Fabrials Szeth in jail and Adolin too doing some penance for murdering Sadeas. i mean your actions should have some consequences at least. not for too long though. and in terms of places, i want to see Horneater peaks and IRI, Rira etc nightblood and zahel in the same room and i want Rlain to find the missing Listeners and bring them to Urithiru.

oh.. and by the way may be read Warbreaker as well before diving into Oathbringer if you have not. I had not and i regret it to this day

one more reason for their decision about recreance which is often neglected is that the Radiants at the time genuinely believed that the desolations had ended. That Odium and Fused had been defeated. They only saw the parsh of the time as the remaining threat. so once they entrapped BAM and lobotomised all the parsh, not only would they feel extremely guilty about it and scared of their own powers but they also thought that the humanity was safe. There was no longer a need for the humans to have so much dangerous powers. it was a sacrifice as they saw it to save the world from destruction. Also i think that their spren have to be in on it. i can not imagine that Radiants killed their spren without telling them about it. May be it is as Kaladin said that once a KR and his spren perceives that they broke their oaths, then their spren is begining to die anyway. And dropping the shards was a mere formality or they actively decided that this is way to stop it forever. i feel that a Pact as you suggest would not work because: a. future spren generations may not abide by it b. also i question how much will these spren remember? suppose kaladin and syl make this pact aand they break their bond without killing her, she goes back to Shadesmaar. how much will she remember after going back? will she forget and then go back to physical realm and try to bond someone else years later? what if she does not go back to shadesmar? what if she breaks the bond and remains in the Physical realm? she will definitely forget that she is not supposed to form a new nahel bond. So, i think they(KR & their Spren) broke their oaths and broke it in a way that a. these spren will remain trapped in the Physical Realm in a way that they can not form new bonds. they agreed probably to be killed by their KRs in a way. their KRs i agree will not have survived much longer after that. b. other spren remaining in shadesmar and all the future generations of spren will stay away from humanity and will not even think of forming these bonds again. it almost worked too. For nearly two thousand years, there were no radiants and there may not have been any Radiants ever, if it were not for the fact that Desolation is coming again. Today spren are bonding accepting the risk that they will die but today this risk and the danger that these surges pose is worth it. Ofcourse, there is always a chance that there might be a few deviant spren who will still try to bond humans and there may be some who gain surgebinding, well then it is not like there is a crazy Knights Radiants Order working like a secret organisation picking these few ones up and killing them as and when they appear.

Honor says that to Dalinar. something along the lines that i am terrible at it and cultivation is much better than me at futuresight. i dont think we have enough information to come to any conclusion here. Preservation was clearly better than ruin i would say even if only slightly. but Cultivation has also proven to be pretty good at it. and moreover, as per certain wobs, we dont even know 1 % of what she may be upto. that is kind of what i was trying to say. Do you think the two of them have designed a plan together to thwart odium? Did cultivation know the importance of Dalinar beforehand. or Did she somehow by influencing Dalinar, indirectly also influenced Stormfather into showing interest in Dalinar? because right now, Dalinar has a unique position of having been influenced by all the three shards. was it pre-planned by cultivation? could it be? or it just a happenstance?

How much did cultivation know I wonder... dalinar went to see her 6 yrs ago before twok, he had hardly started listening to the book and was not seeing any visions at the time. So that makes me wonder how much did cultivation know when she met him. She says I am interested in you coz of the great interest others show in you. Did she mean only odium and thrill here or honor too. Could she have foreseen the possibility of dalinar being chosen by stormfather as a potential Bondsmith? I always thought that when someone has the influence of nightwatcher on them, it opens up their soul enough so that they are technically broken, that they are likely to be radiant. They might attract spren easily. Like lift. I think wyndle and the gardeners chose her also because it was easy to bond her. Dalinar also In a similar fashion I thought. Did stormfather chose him because he had cultivations influence or cultivation personally visited him because of the interest stormfather was going to show in him in the future? The “others” she refers to as showing interest in dalinar includes honor too or not. Was honor also influencing dalinar in the past? I don’t see any evidence of that as of now.

Ambition + dominion= tyranny I think devotion + dominion could be patriotism but it could be obsession too odium + devotion = fanatical

@TheFoxQR thanks for the explanation. I now can see a lot of merit to your suggestion. And you have made some very valid points regarding the lack of information about the path Pact. In fact it reminds me that it was a legit solution suggested by Jasnah in OB too. So may be it can be used especially to give humanity time to recover and KRs time to train etc.

Well I feel that lightweavers are very powerful. They have soul casting which is most powerful as jasnah has proved and illumination which as shallan has proved is not at all useless in a fight. Plus they would be amazing spies and assassins and what not. And they have awesome memories plus all the other healing, strength, shards that come anyway. No doubt that wit bonded a cryptic

Yup I like this idea too. Could not have put in better words. And in doing so, Rlain might win over a sizeable singer population to join the good team! I also feel that singers would be miffed a little especially fused ones that a human was given so much importance. That their god just pretends to hate humans but does not miss any opportunity to bestow huge powers over them whenever he gets a chance to do so.

also i wanted to ask that there seems to be some speculation regarding Azure being a returned Vivenna... but is it not true that returned can not do awakening? secondly, if Vivenna or siri were to return, then do you think their hair would still change color. wont they lose their original color-changing divine breathe and instead get your normal returned divine breathe? and may be Vasher just has some commitment issues and he ran away...

i really like the idea of the planet becoming sentient enough to act as a vessel of the shards. The Wob above is very relevant too but it could be word play. Land itself would not count as a vessel but if the planet becomes sentient enough, would it manifest itself into some kind of Seoul/Skaze, you know like spren on Roshar? Would such a manifestation then capable of acting as a vessel? Has not stormfather's holding the largest remnants of honor prove that it should be possible. how is a sentient spren of the Highstorms any different? and do not have a vessel in the same way that other shards do, also does not discount that there may be a new vessel already but a different kind of vessel. I also thought the two shards had splintered on Sel... is that not true?