Child of Hodor

One loophole is the 10 days. Odium can push to conquer everything before the contest and he gets to keep it win or lose. The other is the agreement is void if either of them breaks their word and Odium can boss Dalinar around if he wins. Odium could order Dalinar to do something that violates the agreement and Odium could leave the system. The top of Urithiru is not neutral ground, it’s weird Odium agreed to it now that voidbinding doesn’t work there and Moash can’t fight for him now. I guess he could pick Nale. I’m sure it won’t be just a fight to the death, it will be some weird spiritual, cognitive mumbo-jumbo.

Lol, great reference. A polaroid of Kelsier with “Don’t believe his lies” written on it. It’s weird that his short term memory goes into his Breaths, but I guess Hoid’s head is full up so he is always actively storing in the Breaths. Taravangian not only viewed the stored memories and deleted some, he also altered some. Hoid remembers Design chasing away the two Sja-Anat spren, but that’s not what happened. Hoid told Design to go bother someone else and she ran off then the two “enlightened” spren followed after her. It’s the reverse of what Hoid remembers. Who knows what else he changed.

Yeah that was weird, Adolin and Shallan get in halfway through part 2 and basically that entire plot line isn’t returned to until Part 4 and then it’s only Adolin and Shallan. That said, it’s good he cut some characters out eventually. I think this book was too unfocused as it was. Too many viewpoint characters pulling focus. Brandon compared its structure to Way of Kings, but that book was veerrry clearly Kaladin’s book with Dalinar slowly getting more viewpoints until the two intersect at the end and there’s one other thread with one viewpoint character, Shallan. Who’s book is this? Even the flashbacks are split. It’s the Navani/Raboniel/Diehard: Urithiru book with Venli getting some flashbacks, but also Eshonai who we never knew real well and has been dead for two books. Shallan’s portion get hijacked by Adolin’s trial and her having 4 personas and two spren. It’s a lot of characters for a story thread that disappears for 300 pages. I enjoyed the book, but the other three Stormlight books are better. It’s less than the sum of its parts because there’s way too many parts.

Not to disagree with a god like Harmony, but I think having multiple Shards gives one access to more investiture in the physical and cognitive realms at any given moment and can make a vessel more powerful all other things being equal. Shards have infinite investiture only because on a long enough timeline it eventually recycles back to the spiritual realm and then flows out to the other two realms. But Shards rely heavily on what’s in the physical and cognitive realms which is finite in the short term. The reason Sazed holds Ruin now is because the Atium mistings burned all that Atium up. Ruin lost access to it until it recycles which takes time. Ruin couldn’t just pull as much investiture as he wanted out of the spiritual realm, this lack of available investiture weakened him and he couldn’t finish off Preservation because of it. Also, Preservation putting more of himself into humans than Ruin made Preservation weaker than Ruin. Because he can’t pull infinite investiture from the Spiritual realm at will.

After Rayse is killed and right before Mr T becomes Big T (I refuse to call him Todd) the power of Odium talks to Taravangian and tells him he’s “perfect”. That hasn’t happened when a shard is picked up in other instances in the Cosmere. We haven’t seen it a lot, but we’ve seen it. Investiture left alone long enough can develop an intelligence, but it wasn’t left alone for more than a few seconds. Then consider the golden light in Odium all book that seemed like it was trying to escape his body. Very odd. Is this why Odium is referred to as “the broken one” by the Stormfather in WoK? There’s something wrong with it? Dawnshard spoilers: It seems Harmony was right about ruling the Cosmere by killing all the other Shards being something about Odium the power and not solely a Rayse thing. Mr T immediately buys into “I can do better than these other gods!”. That’s how he was in life as well, but that’s why the power told him he was “perfect”.

If Odium wins Dalinar serves him and presumably still is connected to Honor’s remnants. Dalinar can still free Odium from his bonds and Odium can order him to do it. He can also void the new agreement of staying for a thousand years. Dalinar could maybe avoid this by passing his bond and Connection on to someone else while he’s dying. Like how Ishar tried to use Bondsmith powers to take the bond from Dalinar, but voluntary. Or someone like Ishar could just rip it away from Dalinar to prevent Odium from getting it.

Ooooh I hadn’t thought about the 2nd point. He could alter Hoid’s stored memory making him give bad advice to Jasnah and co. He thinks he is giving good advice based on his past experience, but those experiences didn’t happen like he “remembers”. The other thing is this new vessel is now far better informed than Sazed. He was able to rummage through the memories of a being who knew the original Shard vessels and was alive pre-Shattering. Plus Hoid meddled on seemingly all the Shard worlds post-shattering. He also wrote to and received letters from Shards. New Odium has a much better understanding of the Cosmere than any new shard previous. Probably more so than the original vessels. With the benefit of hindsight I think it’s clear that Frost was correct. Hoid should have stayed away.

How many battles has Szeth freaked out in an unproductive way now? Ishar mentioning his father makes him fall to pieces for most of the battle leaving 5 Windrunners to try to deal with and lose handily. He did block one strike with Nightblood eventually, I’ll give him that. He freaked out and ran away from Kaladin in WoR. In the second Kaladin fight he allowed himself to be killed. He refused to go into The Thrill to give the King’s Drop to Dalinar, who he just swore an oath to follow and made Lift do it instead. He AGAIN disobeyed Dalinar, who he swore an Oath to follow when he killed Taravangian. Which worked out in the short term, but Taravangian seems like he will be a more dangerous vessel than the badly wounded Rayse was.

It was confirmed in this book that Cultivation personally intervened in 3 Valley visits Dalinar, Taravangian and Lift. Mr. T is the new Vessel for Odium. Dalinar is bound to Honor’s remnants and can create his perpendicularity. Lift? New Cultivation someday? She has a back 5 book, currently slated to be book 6, I wouldn’t expect it to happen for her anytime soon, but someday. No proof of this just sensing a pattern. She was given the ability to use Lifelight instead of Stormlight which connects her to Cultivation more than the other two.

I think he decided Invention is the name he liked better for that shard. Inventiveness and Ingenuity are pretty much the same thing. Definition of ingenuity 1a: skill or cleverness in devising or combining : INVENTIVENESS

Hey that’s my tinfoil hat theory! Kalak is a coward who was involved with Gavilar so the leader of the Sons of Honor running away and hiding fit Kalak quite well. I read someone recently wrote of Brandon that he often does what you expect he just gets to it way faster than you’d ever expect. Odium getting a new vessel was coming, but wow that was fast. Goodbye Rayse we hardly new ye. I think we are still missing 2 shard names unless I missed them. We were missing 6 and got 4. Whimsy is the most surprising.

All the artwork handwriting, is near impossible to read. Even Shallan’s writing on the spren is hard to read. “Is this Mistpren? Let me put my face right put to the page and squirt maybe I can make out the writing.” My goodness they might as well put it in all in glyphs it would only be slightly less understandable to me.

It has to be. People have been theorizing he led the Ghostbloods for a while. His status as a ghost who got a new body through hemalurgy which relies on spikes in blood is where the name probably came from.

Is Hoid Odium’s champion now? I felt like that’s what Mr T wanted from him. He kind of coyly asked “hey who would you choose?” which seemed like a set up. It’s not clear. it does sound like he stored memory in Breaths. We didn’t know that was possible but all the magic systems can probably do similar things if one knows how. I assume Hoid stores older memories for the most part. Things from long ago he didn’t want to forget. I guess that’s his way around the issue Kalak and the others struggle with. Then again Hoid immediately forgot his convo with Odium so Mr T could get a do over. So not just old memories were taken.

I didn’t put together that Thaidakar is Kelsier although I should have. Lord of Scars and Hoid having slapped him around before makes it obvious and that he’s a CS that’s struggling with his limitations. Mraize saying he sent an avatar is annoying and makes it sound like he’s a Shard, but I don’t think he is right now. Kelsier continues to be a huge jerk. On the Glyph page before Ch 73 we find out Cultivation’s name, I think. “Koravari” or Koravellium Avast “She who brings the dew at dawn”. Some speculated that her name was Dawn, it’s not but that weren’t far off in a way. Also she’s a dragon. Hoid says he knows only 1 dragon on Roshar and she keeps her form hidden. New Odium Big T sees her after ascending and senses she has a true form she’s hiding deep down. We know Hoid knew all the vessels pre-Shattering so he probably meant her.

That is really smart ... precisely how do you change your account to be Australian? Change the address or something else?

It’s a retail thing. If it was released Monday it would have to get to stores Friday and take up space in storage over the weekend without generating revenue because they can’t sell it yet. They don’t do it Friday because that’s movie release day (pandemic has changed that but even Netflix and still Disney+ drop new shows on Fridays) Thats why most books, games and such have Tuesday release dates. Why not Wednesday or Thursday? I dunno.

COMMAND may be more than the order, it may also be command as in mastery. The Shard or Intent is the power and the Command is the will and understanding to use that power to it's potential. I think these COMMANDS were once a part of Adonalsium, aspects of his cognition. His will to use and understanding of his power. They somehow became separate from him before the Shattering and were used against him in the Shattering. It could be that his emotions were somehow lodged in the Dawnshard because they were used to Shatter him, but I think it fits better if they were a part of him first and then used to rip him apart.

COMMAND may be more than the order, it may also be command as in mastery. The Shard or Intent is the power and the Command is the will and understanding to use that power to it's potential. I don't think Command is the new Focus. Focus is a way of accessing the power/ intent. Rysn is/has a Command now, but has no access to any magic system. She gets passive boosts to her senses from holding the investiture of the Dawnshard, but no magical powers she can actively use.

I like Inspire a lot as a category. It fits with a creator god they are inspired to create and they would want to inspire their creations. I think Ingenuity is the missing Change shard. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/123/#e3299 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/352/#e10288 "the quality of being clever, original, and inventive." The creation/invention of something new part of the lifecycle. It's a change because it changes the Cosmere by adding something new.

Who are the invisible enemies the Sleepless are so afraid of? It’s not the Shards. Keeping the Dawnshard away from Odium and others is a good idea, but Odium isn’t exactly hard to find. Most Shards aren’t Ruin, so describing a group of Shards as all bent on destroying the Cosmere doesn’t fit. It’s exciting to have a new villain to ponder.

I had a similar-ish thought sparked by Ahu's mention of the Unmade. My theory is wrong (there are only 9 Unmade and the number is finite per Brandon), but the thread has a lot of discussion of the Unmade, Heralds and what Ahu was going on about. We don't know for certain that the Unmade stay on Roshar in between the early desolations, but I feel it's implied. In WoK ch. 19 Starfalls Dalinar has the vision where he fights some of Re-Shephir's Midnight Essence creatures. One of the radiants he talked to says The Raidant saying it was "released" is interesting, but in OB Shallan learned Re-Shephir was previously imprisoned in a gem a long time ago.

He's interesting. Hopefully we get a bit of Odium through him since Odium doesn't seem to talk to Venli anymore.

Yeah, he'll be needed. It will be a motely crew left at the tower. Zahel, Kaladin, Szeth, Renarin, Rushu and Navani. I'm guessing the Fused will succeed in taking the tower and these people will have to figure out how to take it back. That's the most interesting thing that could happen. it would also give Venli and Leshwi opportunities to interact with Kaladin. Moash will want to try to persuade Kaladin into giving up like he did earlier in the book.

So Navani, Kaladin & his family and Szeth & Nightblood will all be at the tower when the Fused try to take it. I assume Hoid goes with Jasnah to Emuli.