Dalfiatach

Haha just want to add to the general positive vibes, please keep us informed on developments.

Also, "Rock Lobsters" should become the generally-accepted fandom term for chasmfiends from now on.

On 30/01/2020 at 11:42 AM, asmodeus said:

A Windrunner's powers may be Pressure and Gravity, but a Windrunner (by character) and Honorspren (by nature) also represent an elemental combination of those two things. So it only goes to say that this will also extend to Voidbinding and the Unmade - as they are also spren, and consequently living ideas.

The Un- was a bit of wordplay, honestly. I do think the Un- there is similar to the Un- in Un-holy, or Un-dead, kind of, where it's not really meant to convey a sense of "taken apart," but more... sort of... wrongness, or falseness. And so Unmagics. Unholy magics, or magics of a God that is not our true god. False, dark, magics. That sort of thing.

Ah! Yes I understand. I like this, I like it a lot.

The broader theory too makes a lot of sense where each of the Radiant orders + Odium wrongness gives you the Voidish equivalent - and that each of the Unmade are some sort of personification of (or elemental expression of?) the Voidbinding perversion of the original. Curious why you think Odium himself is the tenth, and maybe not that there is a "missing" Unmade though?

Or is it the other way round.....are the Radiants what you get when you subtract Odium/Unmade and add Honor/Cultivation - some of our scholars may have a better understanding of the hints we've been given of the early history of surgbinding whether radiant or voidish? Which came first, Singer bonds with spren that the humans somehow copied or the other way round? I'm just spitballing here but it sounds like the kind of curveball Brandon might decide to throw

What immediately struck me reading that passage was that Odium very carefully specifies the city itself (and why destroy a perfectly good city, his Singers will have to live somewhere after all), anyone in the city currently who was born in Kharbranth and their spouses.

But not their future children.

Odium can stick strictly to the letter of this agreement, and Kharbranth could still cease to exist eventually, as those currently alive grow old and die while Odium disposes of any future human children born? Has Mr T doomed his city anyway...just more slowly?

11 hours ago, Gilphon said:

As a side note, and one that isn't directly related to questions of how this started but I do feel is very important: How exactly did the Singers become so dependant on Ba-Ado-Mishram? Like surely things couldn't always have been like that, since they weren't always Odium-aligned, but their minds were destroyed when she was sealed. Except for the Listeners, I guess because they were mostly in Dullform when that happen. Something weird but very important that we don't fully understand going on there, is what I'm saying. 

Wasn't that the False Desolation?

It happened long after Aharietiam and Taln was still upholding the Oathpact so no Fused were involved. Ah here we go, from the gemstone library:

Ba-Ado-Mishram has somehow Connected with the parsh people, as Odium once did. She provides Voidlight and facilitates forms of power. Our strike team is going to imprison her.

And so the Radiants came up with the plan to imprison BAM, and this led to all the parsh losing the ability to think, and the horror of what they had (inadvertently) done led to the Recreance.

I don't think we have any info on exactly how BAM figured out how to make a bond with the parsh and provide voidlight though. Or indeed, why - could Odium still pass instructions to the Unmade from Braize somehow, or was it more an instinctive drive by the Unmade to find a way to continue the war?

You're right, there's lots more to be revealed about that particular episode yet.

BTW I loved the suggestion upthread by Fractalfire that the weirdness of the moons is because...well.... "that's no moon" 

4 minutes ago, Honorless said:

During the False Desolation, Ba-Ado-Mishram somehow bonded to the Parshendi and granted them access to Voidlight. Melishi, the only Bondsmith of that time stopped them somehow, with unintended consequences, like turning them into Parshmen and hurting the Sibling (though it is noted it was already "changing" from one of the gems retrieved from the gem library in Urithiru). It is suspected that he used the Sibling in some manner to imprison Ba-Ado-Mishram 

Just some wild speculation here but...what if that gemstone column in Urithiru is missing a gem - a perfect gem.

Could account for pain caused to the Sibling causing it to hibernate, the imprisonment of BAM, and the non-functioning of Urithiru.

Probably way too easy though 

15 hours ago, Honorless said:

Invigorators?

I think LopentheHerdazian meant the Envisagers - the Radiant-worshipping cult Teft's family belonged to.

It would make sense if one of them had attempted to gain Radiancy from the Nightwatcher. We may never find out yay or nay though.

Navani wakening and bonding the Sibling makes sense, seeing as Urithiru seems to be a gigantic fabrial

Fascinating discussion.

I was thinking Kaladin v Moash myself, even though it is obvious, but Stormlight is the only Brandon books I've read so far (I do plan to remedy that, don't shoot me!) so I don't know if he deliberately subverts the obvious Just Because. If this Battle Of Champions takes place as the climax of Book V then....is there time to swerve away from the build-up towards Kaladin v Moash?

I don't think the champion will be Dalinar because Dalinar now is Honour (or Unity?) in a certain sense and thus Dalinar and Odium are the "kings/generals", not the actual chosen fighting champions.

But this discussion has made me think......how about Adolin vs Renarin? Adolin is on the way to being an Edgedancer and Renarin can heal himself from mortal wounds. And no matter what happens Dalinar loses a son. All the action! All the feels!

There've been too many references in flashbacks already to Jasnah's "illness" as a child. It's been solidly set up as the "thing" that was done to her that Shallan wonders about. No  need to introduce some random rape plot.

We also know from Shallan's backstory, what we know of Nale's activities since Aharietiam, and from some of the Interludes, that some spren have been trying to create bonds with humans throughout, this didn't just suddenly start like the week before we first see Kal and Syl in the slave wagon. When Jasnah sees into Shadesmar in the corridor the night of Gavilar's assassination, doesn't she think "Not again"?

It's possible Ivory was trying to bond with her in childhood, she told adults of the things she was seeing, and was then horribly tortured in some way under some misguided notion that it was going to "cure" her. That has all been set up already, and is more than enough to explain Jasnah's backstory.

I'm not sure how this fits into the theory, but reading this thread I was reminded of the moment, back on the Shattered Plains at one of Elhokar's feasts, when Wit leans over to Dalinar and says "Adonalsium"

Dalinar of course has no idea what he is on about. But if Hoid sees Dalinar as a means to reassemble Adonalsium (or something more-or-less like Adonalsium, maybe with missing bits or with Intents mixed in different proportions)...could it be possible in the Cosmere for the re-forged Adonalsium to reach backwards in time to Dalinar, to plant seeds in the mind of its own future vessel, and that's what Hoid was checking for?

Or to go way off the reservation into Tinfoil Hat Land: what if Dalinar's visions are not about uniting the human kingdoms of Roshar, or even about uniting the humans and Singers, but instead saying the only real way to defeat Odium and end the Desolations is to re-unite the Shards? And/Or aren't even actually from Tanavast at all, but from Adonalsium II?

Maybe I've just got sleep deprivation and starting to babble