Child of Hodor

@Chaos *voice* "What IS a secret society?" an organization whose members are sworn to secrecy about its activities. 1st Rule of The Diagram is you don't talk about The Diagram. I like Khriss's University, but it's hard to say if that's a secret society. It's secret from Rosharans, but they (presumably) have a home base at Silverlight that is like a University where they gather and analyze knowledge then publish and teach it to others. Compare that to the Ghostbloods who probably are on the downlow everywhere they operate. Khriss and Nahz keep their worldhopper status a secret, but all worldhoppers we've met try to keep that a secret. Yeah, the Stone Shamans or a subset of them seem to be in charge of the Honorblades. That's another tough one because Shinovar is so isolated by geography and conscious choice that their whole society is nearly a secret one. They are a society that is keeping a huge secret, the Honorblades. However, I don't know if it's much of a secret in Shinovar. That merchant in Rysn's WoK interlude knew all about Szeth the Truthless. Although he was the one who traded the Oathstone to send Szeth out into the rest of Roshar so he may not be just a random merchant they picked. Shinovar as a whole would almost have to be the secret society forbidden from discussing it's activities with the outside world. Then again we have only met 3 Shin: Szeth who is insane, a merchant that didn't say a lot and Sixteen who only exits his room in Lasting Integrity to check his notes in the statue garden once in a while. It's hard to say who all knows what in Shinovar.

I don’t think Taravangian will be more Passion than Rayse was. Rayse was in denial about the nature of the Shard, it is more than hatred, but it’s mostly hatred. Rayse pretending it’s Passion is part of why he couldn’t control the Shard very well and it developed a mind of its own. Taravangian doesn’t have the same hang up. When Hoid senses he’s not talking to Rayse he asks Taravangian who he is. Taravangian just says “Odium”.

I think we can piece it together by using dates of death of major characters. Looks like the events of each book takes place over less than a year with a year or so in between. Lord Ruler dies at the end of book 1 in 1022 https://coppermind.net/wiki/Rashek "Siege of Luthadel" which is basically the first 4/5th of book 2 takes place in 1023 and that ends with the "Battle of Luthadel" also in 1023. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Siege_of_Luthadel; https://coppermind.net/wiki/Battle_of_Luthadel Vin dies in 1025 https://coppermind.net/wiki/Vin

I wonder if it's a misunderstanding of the Unmade Dai-gonarthis, the Black Fisher. The people experiencing the Death Rattles don't always fully comprehend what they are experiencing. https://stormlightarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Fisher Both Piper and Fisher imply a luring of people. The Death Rattle where Dai-gonarthis is named also talks about holding people. "Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it!" ” –Tanatesach 1173, 28 seconds pre-death. A darkeyed female street juggler. Note similarity to sample 117

Honor investiture tastes like medicine. On Brandon's answer to the Stormfather SA5 prologue question I don't take it as confirmation of anything other than that Brandon deliberately wrote him to be different from how we've seen him act. He didn't accidently write him with a very personality on accident. Whether this is another aspect of the entity, like the Tanavast cognitive shadow, or something else I don't think we can say.

It really does all depend on what Brandon was thinking of in that moment. The "Hide and Survive" shard is the one he's asked about the most because it's one of the few he gave a specific hint about. He gets asked about Wisdom as a shard a decent amount. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/398/#e13231 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/398/#e13239 https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=Wisdom+Shard The only other one that he kind of let slip in recent years that I can think of is "Ingenuity" which I am confident up being Invention. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/123/#e3299

I also think the Fused and Odium made a deal. He’d alter them to stick around and help them retake their homeland if they agreed to serve him. Odium is saying IF that Fused doesn’t do as Odium says then the Fused is breaking the agreement and Odium can kill him permanently, Odium liking conflict with explains why some Fused who rebelled aren’t killed. It doesn’t explain why he doesn’t kill the insane Fused that are useless and make new Fused. Like the one that just stares into space and smiles that Venli met in OB isn’t doing much to help the war effort. Recycle that investiture into a new Fused. I don’t think Odium can. The catatonic Fused aren’t breaking their agreement to serve Odium they just aren’t very useful for anything. As long as they still serve, even in a diminished capacity, Odium can’t prema-kill them directly. Then again New Odium has El perma-kill the Pursuer indirectly. Odium may have wriggle room or there may not be a binding pact after all.

Shallan is her own mother who is Chana. Chana put her soul in a child version body of herself and the Mother she stabs in the flashback is an elaborate Lightweaving. Just to make her backstory as complicated and baffling as possible.

Stormfather: Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Yeah Vorinism's idea that life on Roshar is training to retake the Tranquiline Halls after they are dead is almost exactly what Rayse lays out to Dalinar in RoW. But, it's also exactly what the Fused are doing now. It could have filtered in indirectly. The Fused are spirits of the dead with lots of combat experience trying to retake their homeland, the "Tranquiline Halls" which the Voidbringers (humans from Ashyn) drove them out of. Eventually the knowledge that humans came from another planet and were the initial aggressors was lost. The humans cast themselves as the protagonists in the conflict and essentially swapped themselves in for what the Fused are actually doing.

I love this! I think you nailed it. I had assumed the child of Queen Tsa was the Sibling prior to RoW, but after RoW I kind of forgot about Queen Tsa entirely . I really like the idea that BAM was The Sibling before the Sibling. They both make Light her entrapment hurting all spren of Roshar fits with her being of both Honor & Cultivation like the Sibling. Connecting Mishim from the Tsa story to how the Heralds call BAM "Mishram" really cements it to me. The Betrayal of Mishram that Kalak mentioned being humans using the powers (or at least the Light to fuel the powers) she gave humans to conquer Singers makes sense to me.

Hoid doesn’t have it and didn’t switch out Taln’s blade according to Brandon. I think Taln still has it, Hoid just got him to dismiss it and gave him a second blade. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/224/#e6885 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/217/#e7282

True. I was just thinking he would not have to decide who was getting the flashbacks or whose book it was like he has had to in the other ones. He ended up flipping Szeth from book 3 to 5. That’s a huge change.

I apologize. I think I came across as more grumpy in text than I actually. In a post last year I said I'm only looking forward to W&W4 and SA5 because anything beyond that is so far out it's not worth getting too excited for. I'm at peace with never reading the entire Cosmere saga. https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/98408-enough-with-skyward/?do=findComment&comment=1250911 I know adaptations are inevitable and I know it will split his focus. I was just hoping SA5 (the last of his work I allowed myself to be hyped for) would not be impacted by it. I had convinced myself that SA5 would be the smoothest one to write since whatever didn't happen in the first 4 and doesn't happen in 6-10 has to happen here and he outlined it while doing 4. I was really hoping it wouldn't get delayed. I was a fool . My point on White Sand prose is he offloaded the story to other people in graphic novel form as a way to help him focus on other stuff while still getting a version of the story out there. But now he's going to do a full rewrite anyways. He just keeps adding stuff to his to do list even stuff he intentionally took off and gave to someone else because he "didn't have time". https://wob.coppermind.net/events/285/#e9157. I don't think he doesn't like Stormlight. I think he lowkey dreads the process because it takes more out of him than anything else. I believe he really wants to write all these Cosmere books AND do a million other things. Now that he's so successful he has more opportunity to do the million other things. Even for him I think there is only so much extra stuff he can add to his to do list without having to drop things off. Like I said, not my problem, after SA5 I'm good. I'll read what he writes after whenever that will be. I was just really looking forward to 5 *shrug*

His work ethic isn't in doubt. He's going to continue to do stuff, no question about that. Will he be writing books, scripts for tv shows, story bibles for videogames? He posted a video where he does an in-depth analysis of that's wrong with the the Bumblebee movie script recently. If he's script doctoring the Bumblebee movie I don't think he'll be hands off on his own adaptations and as the post makes clear he doesn't need the money so he has leverage to get final say. I've been calling him Brandon "I accidently wrote a book" Sanderson long before the 4 extra books jumped ahead of Stormlight 5 in publication. https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/98408-enough-with-skyward/?do=findComment&comment=1250911 He's going to keep thinking of other things he'd rather be doing and now it isn't limited to writing other books. But on the subject of books did you catch that he's recently been thinking of doing a big revision of White Sand prose so he can publish it? After doing those graphic novels and an omnibus revision of the graphic novels which were done specifically to free him up from doing a massive revision of the prose? https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15642 Stormlight 6 release: 2031

The beginning of the end. He won’t become Martin, but he’s not super eager to write more stormlight. Stormlight is exhausting work that burns him out, per him and Adam, while 4 unplanned books and scripts, a new challenge for him, are much more fun. The break he takes between 5 and 6 is gonna be double whatever he’s said it will be. That’s OK, he doesn’t owe me anything.

No in preproduction he’d be tinkering with scripts and approving concept art and such. He recently did a video analyzing why the Bumblebee movie script wasn’t good. He’s tearing apart the Bumblebee movie script! He’s gonna be so hands on with an adaptation of his own books.

It feels inevitable that Brandon will complete his metamorphosis into a multi-media mogul, his final form. It's what he wants, he's had so much success as a writer and he got a foot in the door of Hollywood as an executive producer on WoT. I just hope he finishes SA5 before wings start exploding out of his body and his hair turns purple or whatever. SA5 is almost certainly not coming out next year given the 4 secret novels he wrote have jumped the line and need to come out next year when the Kickstarter said they would. I'm hoping SA5 comes out in 2024. If he's working on scripts and spending a lot of time on movie and tv sets (hovering over them in the sky while little balls of energy orbit him) I can see that setting it back into 2025. Stephen King was able to crank out tons of books while writing scripts, and having pretty much yearly adaptation of his work come out in the 1980s. He even directed a movie, Maximum Overdrive (it's terrible), while wrapping up writing IT. So not everyone has a major drop in publication rate when they have a bunch of adaptations going on, but I think it's extremely hard.

In book 5 Dalinar becomes both a Herald and vessel of Honor. The Oathpact is between Honor and the Heralds yet it trapped the Fused to Braize. As both Herald and Honor Dalinar modifies the Oathpact to be able to trap Odium on Braize as long as Dalinar stays on Braize. So even if Odium gets out of his original bonds he is trapped via another mechanism. Through the Oathpact the Heralds (cognitive shadows) could trap the Fused (cognitive shadows) and voidspren on Braize. despite the Fused not being a party to the Oathpact. If CS can trap CS then Shard can trap Shard with Herald/Shard Dalinar doing it. This could also work if Dalinar "unites" Honor permanently and hands it off to another character that is a Herald (either old or a new person). The Everstorm is dealt with some other way and the Fused are no longer a threat because some decide to give up on their vengeance some are killed by anti-voidlight and/or Ishar making them pure physical realm beings like he did to the spren. End state of book 5 is Dalinar and Taravangian together on Braize debating philosophy a call back to RoW when Dalinar visits Taravangian for the last time and they both say they wish one day they could sit and debate like they did in OB. I posted this in a previous thread and someone wrote a very funny example of their debate on Braize. https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/107059-discuss-the-stormlight-5-prologue-here/?do=findComment&comment=1335424

Absolutely! Good call.

The Iriali built Elantris and then left. That's why Elantris was found fully built but abandoned. They up and left. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Elantris_(city)#Discovery. A big thing about Sel and Elantris in particular is the Aon Dor and all the Aons. Each Aon is three letters. We don't know many Iriali related names, but we know a few like Iri, Evi and her brother Toh. This seems like something the Iriali picked up from spending time on Sel. Braize is 9-centric instead of 10 like the rest of Roshar because Honor made Adhesion inaccessible when he and Cultivation trapped Odium. That's why the Fused can't use Adhesion. Not a lot of support for this, it's a crack theory . I just think it's the simplest answer as to why Braize is 9-centric and Odium tells the Fused that Adhesion is a fake surge. Honor turned Adhesion against Odium when trapping him on Braize. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2745

That's a great catch by you! It is weird. They were done by people who never met the Heralds so they aren't exact in the details, like the exact shape of the face, but they get the broad strokes correct and things like Nale's birthmark. Still it is notable that they depict 3 female Heralds conforming to a religious custom and one not doing that. Even in modern times the Heralds are revered as basically Angels or Gods themselves (in Azir & Shinovar). To show one violating the norm may have some significance. Or no one at Dragonsteel caught it in time to fix, which is understandable I never noticed it before reading this thread . .

TL;DR The Old Magic is reminiscent of Ashyn’s disease-based Magic. Ashyn Magic is the mysterious Voidbinding. As we all know the Old Magic is a “cousin” to Voidbinding and it’s “10 Levels”. OK no one but Khriss seems to know this. (WoK Ars arcanum) I think this helps us figure out what Voidbinding is and who was doing it. Old Magic is when Nightwatcher gives you something good, a Boon, and something bad, a Bane. Ashyn’s semi-canon Magic system is diseased-based. You can get something good, Magic, only if you have something bad, a disease. Brandon already confirmed they are related. Although one could always push back and say he meant “In any way”. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/390/#e12681 Why Call It Old Magic? Early humans on Roshar encountered the Nightwatcher and it reminded them of Ashyn magic because you have to get something bad in order to get something good. Odium made the Fused and humans aligned with Honor and Cultivation. As part of their effort to bury their history as the Voidbringers the humans would of course not refer to the Nightwatcher’s Boon/Bane as Voidbinding (both the Spren and Cultivation would not appreciate it. So they called it the Old Magic instead. 10 Levels? Yes, 10 because for all of the Roshar system except for Braize the “magic number” is 10. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2745 Voidbinding was on Ashyn where Odium tempted a “Bondsmith” to experiment with the surges (per Syl in RoW interlude 1). Thus not limited to 9. Odium is trapped on Braize which is limited to 9. That’s why the Fused orders / surges are capped at 9. Binding? We associate binding with Honor and Honor was not on Ashyn. Why call it voidbinding? Well we know Dawnshards we’re involved with Ashyn’s destruction (OB ch. 38) and Rosharan history speaks of a Dawnshard that could “bind any creature voidish or mortal” (WoK ch 36) epigraph. Who did the voidbinding? The voidbringers of course! Using the Dawnshard that binds on Ashyn

The Singers (and Roshar) were created by Adonalsium and if the Heralds know the name the Fused would too I would think. If Raboniel meant BAM she’d have said mishram like Kalak does. It’s weird to shorten someone’s name to the chunk in the middle. I like this a lot.

He was a selfish, cruel man much of the time. There were glimmers of him not being terrible, but too few of them unfortunately. I think John C. Reilly sums it up.