Child of Hodor

I kind of want to see this now Imagining religious customs they could come up with inspired by Dalinar's life. Dress code at services will be incredibly strict. During services there is a call and response where the priest asks the practitioners if he can have their pain and they say no, you cannot. For the once a year, week long holiday they get extremely drunk several days in a row and then go into a room filled with plants (fake or real) to sober up. Can't grow that much on Roshar so most people won't have a forest or jungle to wander into. Pilgrimage involves going to the Rift and burning a prayer . People will try to go to the Valley, but Cultivation (regardless of who holds the power at this point) or the Nightwatcher will get fed up with that real fast and put a stop to it. At the end of services everybody does one simultaneous clap.

The Black Fisher might be the best nickname of the bunch. Plus they are rumored to be involved with the scouring of Aimia somehow. Intriguing!

I was gonna say this. They won every time. What made the Heralds quit was all the torture in between. This time it's easier because the humans had more time in between to recover and the Singers were all virtually braindead so they are building armies and societies from scratch. Humans had standing armies at the start of this desolation, Singers were all slaves with no armies.

For a being that is constantly moving around the planet the Stormfather is a real stick in the mud.

I've been rereading / listening to the series again for the first time in about 8 years (I've read the first 8 or so books many times). I just got through The Dragon Reborn where Faile and Perrin meet and I am onto The Shadow Rising where they get married. It's much less argumentative than what I remember it as. I'm actually enjoying their chapters. With all the WoT romances and even male - female friendships I was always thinking "do you hate each other?". Constant, hostile arguments between characters who supposedly like each other. I get it. Couples argue, opposites attract etc. but they don't argue all the time. I think some of it has to do with the length of the series when things slowed down and characters would be mad at each other for hundreds of pages when it would have been a couple chapters in the early books. Perrin - Faile is the one I remember most strongly from when I read it originally and I'm enjoying them so far on reread.

LOL Final Fantasy X spoilers:

I voted Re-Shephir for superficial reasons. As you can see by my avi, I love the look and even the way its name sounds, Ray-Shafear. It's very satisfying to say. The Death Rattles are easily my favorite Unmade "power", but otherwise Moelach is largely unknown so I didn't go with it. Ba-Ado-Mishram is interesting, but it's hard to have her as my favorite when she hasn't shown up yet.

What about his personality has to do with lights? Would the Pursuer be afraid of a guy who used to be titled "Voice of Lights"? Brandon flat out saying on the Shardcast that Moash got El's old name doesn't count, huh? "He accepted, took the singer name Vyre, which meant He Who Quiets" https://coppermind.net/wiki/Moash#Servant_of_the_Fused

4th Bridge is just a giant barge. This is perfect.

Seemed about the same during the modern day. He is at the treaty signing, drunk and rambling, he says "have you seen me?" to Szeth during WoK prologue. In WoR Lift Interlude Nale refers to Jezrien and says "if he ever stops drooling". The earliest we see him is in an OB flashback when Dalinar drinks with him near the beggar's feast and he's drunk, rambling. He'd been really far gone for a while. 4,500 years is a long time, I don't think he changed much recently. I think the thousands of years of torture and war plus the 4,500 of feeling guilty over abandoning Taln did most of the damage. Their nature as cognitive shadows is making their madness more magical and specific to their attributes.

Yeah, Honor did not see this coming. The Heralds presence on Braize engages the lock. The Heralds needed to be immortal for the Fused to be locked up forever. They were never meant to come back.

Fascinating! I never knew that. I'm curious what Brandon will do with Moash in book 5. I've always seen him more as a physical villain than a philosophical one. There isn't a great debate between Moash and Kaladin in their points of view like there is with Dalinar and Taravangian. Moash gave into his self-pity and hate while Kaladin didn't. Is new Odium going to fix Moash's eyesight or give him super hearing to compensate for lack of sight? Make him Bat-Moash? I don't see the point of blinding him to immediately undo it. Book 5 will probably cover more than 10 days, but it seems like the bulk of the book will be in that 10 day period. Is he going to have a 10 day redemption arc where he becomes a radiant? Is he going to sit around feeling bad for 10 days and not really be involved? Is he going to be cured by Odium? I don't love any of these options.

I'm for kind of option 1 of the contest itself, but option 3 swoops in the aftermath of the contest. Whenever Brandon has characters tell us we "This is what's gonna happen" I assume it won't happen. So I don't think either end state that Rayse and Dalinar hashed out will be where we leave things at the end of book 5. I think Dalinar repairs Honor and Taravangian dies. Leaving the power of Odium without a vessel. Cultivation and Dalinar both have Connection to Odium and they tear the Shard apart and both Ascend to their piece of it. Cultivation has Connection to Odium because she took a piece of Dalinar, who Nightwatcher called "Son of Odium", saying it would be useful. Also, she's been angry about her lover being murdered by Rayse for a couple thousand years. She's been deep in her feelings which would establish some Connection to Odium. Dalinar has Connection because was groomed to be Odium's Champion. In RoW Rayse brags about not needing the Everstorm to appear to Dalinar now because their connection has deepened. End state is Cultivation + Part Odium and Dalinar as Honor + Part Odium as the two gods. Less overtly dangerous than Odium by itself, but both total wildcards. Singers and Humans live in the cities they've claimed. Part of why I like this is we have to learn about Voidbinding somehow, we've learned nothing so far. If Odium becomes a part of the two Shards powering the Knights Radiant then that changes the magic system fundamentally. That doesn't mean the existing Radiant spren all become "enlightened", but now Odium is a part of their "parents" they may be more open to it. There are sure to be other weird effects on the magic of Roshar from the nature of the Shards changing.

I agree he has embraced the full Shard which is mostly anger, perhaps "righteous anger" in it's original context. Rayse was in denial about it and that's why he didn't control the Shard well, leading to it developing a mind of its own. There is passion in there, Taravangian senses all sorts of emotions when he picks it up. But hatred of others for what they have done is the primary, overwhelming core of it. This lines up with what Dalinar experiences when he first encounters Odium in OB, a plethora of emotions are briefly encountered before the purple-black flame of hatred overwhelms Dalinar. I've wondered if the other emotions serve as fuel for the hatred. Odium is the void after all, vacuuming up emotions from others.

I think most of book 5 will take place in the 10 days. The big climax will be day 10 and the falling action may take place later. Right before RoW was released Brandon said he did something in book 4 that will make book 5 a “headache” for him and Karen. Karen is the continuity editor. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/442/#e14287 Here is Karen talking about how much work goes into tracking the timeline and continuity in a Stormlight book. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/292/#e7832 They will have to keep careful track of when all the different POVs happen in relation to each other, where the storms are at that time, what moon is in the sky all that stuff. If most of the book unfolds in 10 days that’s a ton of stuff happening at virtually the same time.

The Stormlight books are getting to be a bit too long. He cut or skipped big emotional scenes from Oathbringer like Jasnah and Navani reuniting after Navani spent all of WoR buried in grief over her "death", Shallan's wedding occurs off page and Dalinar / Navani confronting Szeth after the battle isn't shown. Szeth's suddenly her bodyguard after killing her first husband and trying to kill her second husband twice. This seems like the result of trying to cram too much in, he had to omit these because they aren't that plot important, but they are extremely character important. He recycles some big plot arcs quite a bit. Shallan's Oathbringer plot of feeding refugees and it backfiring is a recycled Elantris plot where they the naive noblewoman is ignorant of gangs that control the area of a closed off city under siege/ guard and she gets people hurt / killed by giving away food. It's like he needed a reason for Shallan to be in need of a Hoid pep talk. Taravangian being revealed to be performing human sacrifice is a better done version of Iadon in Elantris. Both were monarchs who seemed kind of stupid and had a hidden chamber where they performed human sacrifice to gain something from supernatural beings. Bridge 4 and Kelsier's crew coming together are very similar to Raodon's "building a community" plot. They all realize they need to do something to make life worth living. Cooking, cleaning taking pride in the small things. Kelsier, Kaladin and Raodon all fake smile and laugh to keep other people's spirits up. Since Bridge 4 is a transplant from Dragonsteel prime the other two are reiterations of Bridge 4 really.

This is one of the "Child of Tanavast" explanations I like. Either Stormfather senses he could be the successor or Kaladin just strongly reminds Stormfather of Tanavast in his personality. Stormfather is kind of dumb and extremely pessimistic, as soon as the Everstorm comes he tries to kill Dalinar with a highstorm. He assumes all is lost and wants to give Dalinar a quick death as courtesy. I don't think the Stormfather consciously thinks anyone will succeed in becoming the next Honor, but he may sense that possibility in Kaladin. That's a great pull on Syl hearing the pure voice! It would make sense for the voice to be Cultivation since she is still alive. There is an outside chance that it's Tanavast either from beyond the grave or the past/all times spiritual realm mumbo-jumbo. The whole first part of what Syl is saying about knowing Kaladin before she knew him is spiritual realm mumbo-jumbo the voice could be too. I think Kaladin is also an obvious choice for Honor. I think he'd be a good Honor + Odium and possibly as good of an Odium as one can expect, especially if Syl and he are still one on the Spiritual level. Shallan thinks of him in an interesting way in OB: If he is Odium's new vessel with a little bit of Honor through being bonded to Syl he might be the best odium vessel we can hope for. Probably still would be a problem as we've seen before the Shard's nature will win out in the long run. I doubt that's where the series is going especially not in book 5, but who knows.

Yeah, a combo of "lost" and at least one group hoarding them. Maybe some radiant orders, aware of the chaos caused at Feverstone Keep, decided not to drop their shards in front of a bunch of soldiers. Instead they stored some away in a cave or abandoned them, sticking the blades in the ground, in a barren area far from civilization and they've since been covered in crem. As to who is hoarding, I think at the very least the Skybreakers collected a bunch. My guess is Nale and other Skybreakers took a bunch of them and he has them in a trove to give out to proto-surgebinders he recruits. Kalak was present at the strike against BAM, Kalak and Nale are still buddies of a sort and hang out once in a while at least, Nale could have been there. He may have helped influence the Skybreakers to secretly not break their oaths and had them grab as many shards as they could for safekeeping. They can fly, so it wouldn't be as hard to go around scooping them up as it would for other orders. That said, I don't think they anywhere near all the missing shards. Nale gave plate and blade to Helaran Davar according to both Helaran (he says tells his father he is a member of the Skybreakers) and the Ghostbloods (who lie, but this seems true). Nale seems in the habit of giving magic swords to new recruits i.e. Szeth and Nightblood. The Honorspren have been caring for as many deadeyes as they could at Lasting Integrity. But in RoW Adolin observes a ton of deadeye standing near the coast outside the fortress and the guard he's talking to is shocked by how many new ones showed up more recently. So many that they've out of room to take anymore in. These are blades no one has bonded. This could be that they are drawn there because of the Recreance "trial" that hadn't started yet. Somehow they sensed it, I dunno. That seems the implication because they are watching the fortress. Alternatively, or perhaps, in concert with this idea, it has been pointed out that Lasting Integrity's location and the Emuli battle front in the physical realm are close to each other. So we've got both Nale and Ishar's forces somewhat near. If one or both has a bunch of blades that they are keeping near their armies the spren would have followed their blade to near Lasting Integrity and then somehow sensed the recreance trial and went there to stare at the fortress. I don't know if it makes a ton of sense for Nale to have a bunch of blades he hasn't given out, yet he keeps them in like a stormwagon he takes with his army so he can keep an eye on them. Maybe he keeps them close by in case he finds someone "blade worthy" to recruit, but he can fly and so can his minions. Nale could send someone to get a blade from a secret trove if he wanted. Heralds be crazy, but it's kind of odd to go to war, take a bunch of magic swords with you, but don't arm your allies with them. Maybe he and his Skybreakers need to stay at the battle front and can't go back for them, yet he still wanted a bunch close by in case he finds new proto-surgebinders so he took them on the road. Ishar could also have a bunch. Ishar may have been at the strike of BAM or otherwise known the recreance was happening and collected a bunch of blades. Again you'd think he'd give them out in war. Especially considering how warlike he has become. He is different from Nale, I don't think he'd have the same hang ups about who gets one.

Yeah, I think they are likely descendants of human - Siah offspring. I don't think we know much about them other than Sigzil couldn't resist touching strangers blue-patterned skin and got arrested then Hoid had to bail him out

TL;DR: Siah Aimians were Honorspren that came over to the physical realm like Ishar is trying to do. That's why they are all blue and that's why Aimia was where all the ancient Fabrial's, spren turned into objects came from in the Silver Kingdoms. Axies can change his skin at will is the physical realm, this is a remnant of Spren like Syl changing her appearance in the physical realm. Axies is documenting every possible spren in the physical realm, building a family tree of sorts. Axies has been alive for a loooooong time, spren live theoretically forever. Ishar is trying to convert or "translate" Spren cognitive realm humanoid bodies into physical realm bodies. It's not going well. The Radiant spren type that lasts the longest in the physical realm are the Honorspren. Ishar is insane, but he is not ignorant. He thinks this can be done and he's had some success with Honorspren. I was chatting with @HoidvsVoid about the origins of all the different varieties of humanoids. Some were native like the Singers others came from Ashyn others came from other systems in the cosmere (Iriali) and others are a result of interbreeding between these humanoids. The Siah Aimians (the blue guys like Axies) we don't know a lot about. The Dysian Aimians (Seepless) came from somewhere else, but we don't know much about the blue ones. The two types are both called Aimians because they lived in the same place, but they have little in common. Then I saw a picture of Axies. It's fan art, but it jogged something in me. In my head Axies was a darker blue, but that's just in my head. This color is what I would call Syl Blue or Honorspren blue. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Siah_Aimian Axies fan art vs official Dragonsteel Syl artwork hidden for size: What do we know about Aimian's? Well they were masters of ancient Fabrials, which we learned in RoW are spren transformed into physical realm objects. They were fabrial central of the Silver Kingdoms, in other words they were the "Spren turn into something in the physical realm other than a blade" central. What else do we know about Siah Aimians? Axies can change his skin at will to jot things down. We see Syl constantly change her physical realm appearance in the books. What if this is a remnant of that ability? They can't fully change shape, but they can change things within that shape at will. Axies himself has dedicated his life to seeing every spren in the physical realm and documenting them. Building a family tree kind of. Regardless, this reinforces the Siah Aimian - Spren connection. Axies has been alive a looooooooong time. Spren don't have a natural lifespan, although we do know they can be killed under certain circumstances. Axies wasn't wearing any clothes in his interlude. He comments that this happens a lot, he gets robbed or otherwise loses all his possessions. It's funny, but it could also link back to how spren don't have clothes in the cognitive or physical realm they just change part of their body to look like clothes. Wearing clothes doesn't come naturally to a spren, you'd think Axies would adjust after thousands of years, but maybe it feels unnatural to him. EDIT: Credit to @some punny username on Discord. Axies shadow casts the wrong way which we know is a thing that being's close to Shadesmar do.

Yeah, you shouldn't feel bad for missing it. They are very lightly implied in text, but you'd have to make some leaps to connect it. Herdazians having extremely hard finger nails, like stone or carapace. The Horneaters have super strong jaws, the anatomy is different from humans, allowing them to chomp on the native carapaced creatures, as if they too were native to Roshar or had picked up some traits from humanoids who were. Some things make more sense when you realize what the Horneaters are. Rock says they moved to live on the peaks because every hated them for being too good at fighting. Really it was that they were too Singer for the humans and too human for the Singers. Once the Desolations started neither side trusted them and they had to find an unassailable location to retreat to.

They did long ago. Horneaters are Human-Singer hybrids. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Unkalaki#Appearance_and_Anatomy Herdazians are as well. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Herdaz#People

Did Cultivation Encourage Enlightenment? You discussed how critical Glys is to Taravangian's plan working. That means it was also critical to Cultivation's plan working. You mentioned the WoB saying the Truthwatcher spren were the most willing. Were they willing because Cultivation told these two spren to allow Sja-Anat to change them? Or at least the first one that bonded Renarin?

I stand by my stupidity Speaking of ... I refuse to believe Gavilar will come back as a cognitive shadow. I see all the potential foreshadowing, it could be what happens, I just don't think it will. I think we get PoV prologue and spiritual mumbo-jumbo Connection vision of him talking to Dalinar, Navani or both. I don't think Brandon will repeat himself with the Kelsier thing so directly. Guy who wants to save the world and is also an egomaniac gets killed and finds a way to stick around. My interpretation of his "realm of the gods" and immortality talk is he was going to Ascend to become Honor as Dalinar has in his place in a very roundabout way. He was getting Visions from the Stormfather, he probably had begun to bond with the Stormfather. He probably didn't swear the oaths, it's not clear. But, he was deeply connected to the remnants of a god, or beginning to be. He seems to know a LOT more than our main characters about the Cosmere. He understood the old holder of Honor was dead and he had an opportunity.