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I think that one, in general, is because Shards are paired off and are by definition equally powerful. Here, we've got Odium vs Cultivation - Odium can't use his power to do much because otherwise C would kill him, and vice versa. (All cosmere spoilers, about shards and planets) So far, humans have cosmere-scale significance when they're the ones acting as a "tiebreaker" in fights between Shards.

When Shallan continues not telling anyone about her involvement with the Ghostbloods in part 1... oh no. Poor girl. When I saw Sja-anat's name as an interlude POV... OMG. When I saw that all the cryptics' names were "Pattern", just with different intonations (because of course, they're different patterns)... LOL When Taravangian describes his plan to betray Dalinar in Emul... hahaha, no, not gonna happen, bastard. You're gonna have a super-compassionate day and storm it up, I bet. ...and then he did have a compassionate day. And still went through with the storming betrayal. When Shallan is training the lightweavers, and Radiant is uncertain about the lightweaver spy being among their agents... yeah, that's when I made up my mind, Radiant killed Ialai. ...yep, and their interactions in Shadesmar, when Radiant feels guilty when Veil is chastised for taking control. Yep. Continued believing that even when Mraize mentioned corrupted gloryspren and implicated Beryl, it must have been a trick by Mraize. Continued believing that even as Pattern seemed to be a traitor. Turned out right. Kaladin inventing the field of mental health treatments... I did not see that coming! But hell yeah, you go! The part 2 epigraphs, canonizing lots of the Shards - I did NOT expect that. Should have. And of course, Adolin and Maya are adorable. I did not see where that new deadeye cryptic was gonna tie in. I figured that spren would be the reason Adolin's mission crashed and burned; I was so caught off guard when it was Shallan's first spren! The Fused taking Urithiru caught me by surprise. I thought the fight for Urithiru would be a climax, so I expected the plotting to last to part 5 and end with a big fight where the radiants won. I did *not* expect the Fused to take the tower immediately, and then for Navani, Venli, and Kal to have an insurgency over the course of the rest of the books. Lift being confirmed to use Lifelight (what we'd previously called cultivationlight) - yep, called it. The moment when Mraize turned explicitly evil - working with the Fused, caging Lift - was a surprise. Mraize and the Ghostbloods had lured me into the same complacency they lured Shallan into, of being kind of sneaky and ruthless but maybe not that evil... ...and then as soon as the Radiants weren't in charge of the tower, they immediately caged and sold off Lift. ...and the final reveals about how Thaidakar was the Lord of Scars, a cognitive shadow, and was punched by hoid... Kelsier?? Eshonai and Venli's flashbacks didn't really do much for me this book. Yeah, it was good to see Ulim's scheming and plotting, but I didn't feel it gave me that much new info, and not that much new insight into Venli either. It seemed a poor imitation of Dalinar's flashbacks in Oathbringer (horrible deeds in the past, getting better now). Taravangian killing Odium with Nightblood - well, in hindsight it was of course foreshadowed. That Taravangian on compassionate days could outwit odium so much better than Smart T. That he even PLANNED to get Szeth and Odium in the same room to see what happens. That Harmony, in the epigraphs, even called out that the shard Odium was the real danger, not Rayse, despite what the rest of the Shards think. And then T did it. And I did NOT expect Rayse to die here, I expected that to be the climax of book 5. (Again, like with the Urithiru plot, I keep expecting things to take longer than they do!) Kaladin's oath, though, happened exactly when I expected it, and it was awesome. And it managed to surprise me, because I'd thought it would be something more complicated than just "accept the ones I can't protect", so ironically, the simple straightforward guess that everyone had was the one that caught me off guard and surprised me. Did Shallan speak her fourth? I can't tell. Did Dalinar? We're gonna have a cosmere full of anti-villains, aren't we? Kelsier leading Ghostbloods, probably with some noble-sounding justifications for what he's doing. Taravangian trying to Save Everyone by conquering and killing everyone. Man.

Also worth noting that colors in Mistborn are gonna be a bit weird, because of the omnipresent ash. There's a WoB example of how what they'd call "white" is probably what we'd call a light grey, which is as good as they could do under the circumstances. And of course, the humans had been biologically changed to live in a world of ash, so their range of normal hair colors might not have been the same as ours - who knows how "light" their "light blond" really is. So it's an even bigger range of possibilities than it seems at first.

Yes, I think like Siah amians (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Siah_Aimian), the Natan are related to spren. Not as closely as the Siah who seem half-spren and have shadows that grow in the wrong direction, but definitely the same idea.

There's a man in the prologue with many rings who is a steward, and then later in the Tower lift finds the body of an old retired steward who's been stripped of his rings and who had the red chicken (aviar?). I strongly suspect those two are the same person, and they are in fact a terrisperson. I don't know who he's working for, but whoever it is, the Ghostbloods didn't like him. The allegiances of these terrispeople are a good question. It sounds like there's external forces meddling in Roshar, but I don't know who they are. Maybe one of those is an agent of Harmony, and one is an agent of Trell or the Set?

Unclear if he'll even find out about Kelek = Restares! Shallan's mission to assassinate "Restares" was a secret, and nobody cares about the Sons of Honor anymore. She might not say anything about Kelek's alter identity in her reports back, and even if she does, unclear whether that'll be an important enough detail to get back to Kaladin.

Something about how "you'll find god in the hearts of men" was said in the Wit-Jasnah epilogue to WoR. is that what you're thinking of?

In his newsletter he mentions that it’s a sequence from chapters 105-110. So that’s probably the sequence that starts with Kal finishing his fight against Lezian, continuing through Teft dying, Lezian taking another swing at him and getting rocked, up through Kal speaking his fourth oath and saving Lirin. (Technically other stuff happens in those chapters since viewpoints shift around, but Kal’s fourth oath sequence is clearly the most dramatic thing that starts on chapter 105 and ends in 110.)

One way out is a draw. Dalinar does not kill the child. The child does not kill Dalinar. This possibility was not accounted for in the contract at all. It’s also the “third way” that TOdium wants, since he’s not happy with either the win or loss conditions of the challenge.

The moment where Shallan talks to the other lightweavers’ Cryptics and finds out they’re all named Pattern. They’re different patterns, you see, so it’s completely different intonations!

Hahaha, is that WoB just saying that “Thaidakar means “a leader”! “?? It’s a title. Sneaky AF answer.

Ooh, I really like that last bit about the emotionspren.

I love all these theories about BAM. Funny how the contest of champions feels overshadowed to me as a setup for book 5. I don't want a random fight between Dalinar and Moash or something! Let's restore all the deadeyes by releasing BAM and mass-bonding radiants to restore Honor!

Some possibilities: 1 - Nothing! Maybe the sleepless is succesfully infiltrating the Ghostbloods and they don't realize. 2 - Individual choices. Maybe Mraize is working with a sleepless even if The Ghostbloods as an organization would rather not.

Comments on the above excerpt, Mistborn, Stormlight Archive

So, in my mind, it has to be a loophole that works even with the spirit of the agreement and not just the exact words. I think it's pretty trivial to find a billion loopholes in the wording of things, because the English language (and Alethi by extension) is not precise enough to specify a contract unambiguously. If you can get around the terms with semantic workarounds (like defining "an asssassin you hire" to be not "part of your forces") then this whole thing is kind of pointless. So since the conversation is taking place with a being in the Spiritual Realm, I'm assuming that the contract covers the Intent of both participants in it and not just the precise spoken words. To me, it seems that the most likely loophole is the draw. The contract doesn't specify what happens if neither or both participants die. And this is something that isn't covered by the Intent of the people making the agreement, because it's quite possible that neither Dalinar nor Rayse were considering it at all. Rayse certainly doesn't seem like the type to play for a draw. Dalinar isn't either. So I wonder if the contest of champions is actually going to happen really early in book 5 (say, the end of Part 1) and will somehow end in a draw. And then there's gonna be a whole book of fighting against crafty TOdium.

I don't think any of Brandon's books or stories have ever had a "Heroes lose" ending. There's been "heroes win... but at what cost?" and "Heroes win... but it turns out that was the easy part, and what's ahead is even harder". They've taken Emul... but turns out this war isn't gonna be decided by straightforwardly controlling territory. They kept Urithiru... oh, but now both them and the enemy know how to permanently kill each other, raising the stakes. And Teft died. They've convinced spren to bond... ...but the contest of champions is in 10 days so there's no time for a big recruitment campaign, and besides it's revealed that there was some fundamental important reason the Recreance happened that they don't know. Oh, and turns out their Big Bad (Odium) is killed... but replaced by someone craftier, whose plans they're absolutely not anticipating.

There is the implication that in general, worldhoppers have some way to dilate time to age slower. It doesn't have to be bendalloy, it could be that. I like the idea of it being a time-delaying sentry of some kind, though.

There's been a "talking chicken" in Stormlight before - in Shallan's past, at a traveling fair, there's a "weird chicken from Shinovar" that's being shown off that can say its own name (Jek-son-of-none).

Yes, and it was even in the name! Veil was always the veil over her past. When she remembered everything, she merged with veil. Radiant is still there for now, though.

Probably not contributing. His whole discussion with Kaladin is about how he retired because he hates fighting now. Sees it as pointless, wants to quit, left for the Ardents. When Kal was complaining about being sidelined, Zahel's response was "great, not your problem anymore, enjoy." So regardless of where he is - in Emul or in the Tower - it's perfectly in-character for him to just not do anything.

Yeah, I definitely had "Rayse dies, someone else takes up Odium" as my guess at the most likely ending to book 5, and "Taravangian betrays odium on a super-compassionate day" as one of the top twists I was expecting, and possibly super-compassionate T as a new vessel for Odium... ...but I never expected Odium to die yet. And for T to become the new antagonist, for at least this last book. (Book 5 which will, potentially, take place over just 10 days???) Yep. I've seen people argue that Cultivation "screwed up" or "made a mistake" by letting someone as ruthless as T get Odium. But we can't tell if it's a mistake because we don't actually know what she's trying to accomplish. If her main goal was vengeance against Rayse, not against the shard Odium... well, she's done. Successful. Doesn't care what happens next. And if she's got longer-term plans... well, without knowing what they are, we don't know whether Odium brutally destroying things is good or bad for those plans. After all, Cultivation IS who set up the Diagram, via T's genius day. That should give us some insight on how she operates. And, um, it's not pretty. If Taravangian is acting exactly as she always wanted him to, perhaps he's the perfect vessel - for her ends, not necessarily for our protagonists' or for Roshar or for the Cosmere.

That might still happen! Odium's still there; the Shard's just got a new Vessel steering it (or acting as it's impotent figurehead; TBD). The contest of champions is still on, with the same stakes as before.

Same! I suspect that'll be more likely in the back 5 books. The heralds are kind of in the background now, as resources/obstacles for the main characters, but some (Taln and Ash, at least) are supposed to take a more leading role in books 6-10.

I understood it as Shallan bonding Testament, then using Testament to kill her mother, and then breaking her oaths because of it. First, she bonded the spren, and tried to protect her family. Then,she killed her mother in self-defense, the first time she summoned her blade: And then finally breaking her oaths. By the way, while Shallan's truths are now complete (I think), we still don't have the full picture of Shallan's childhood. We still have the old quote from Wit, that "the things you fight are not entirely natural", and here the comment that "“The Cryptic encouraged her to become strong enough to help her family, to stand against the terrible darkness spreading through it.” There was still some unspecified antagonist (possibly an unmade?) that young Shallan lost to and older wiser Shallan might beat in round 2/book 5.