Child of Hodor

Since the Nightwatcher specifically offers Dalinar a sword that "bleeds darkness and cannot defeated" in OB the simplest explanation is Vasher went to The Valley to ask to be able to consume Stormlight in place of a Breath to keep himself alive and his bane ended up being he had to leave Nighblood behind. He dies if he doesn't have a Breath to consume every week other than his Divine Breath and Stormlight is a lot easier to get than Breath, he doesn't have to convince anyone to give it to him it just shows up with every high storm. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6177

More that he's unstable, but sure. I'll just whisper in different voices and he'll freak out and leave :). I'm very into this. What a challenge and an opportunity considering his personality changes day to day. If she's acting out of character for him they might chalk it up to his daily change. First she needs to figure out his Smart - Sociopathic, Dumb - Empathetic deal. Then if she wanted to be the smart one she'd have to take a photo memory of the complicated math questions, have people work out the answers, memorize those and use them.

He could be running the prison for all we know. He had some strong opinions about how prisons should be run in OB and Skybreakers are probably a good choice to run a prison. Being told to go somewhere is not the same as being sentenced. Keeping Szeth away from the frontlines is not a bad idea. How many times has he freaked out in battle? He ran away from Kaladin in their first fight, he gave up and tried to die in his second fight with Kaladin. He refused to go into the Thrill to help Dalinar in OB and made LIft do it instead. He's kind of unreliable.

The way he was discussing it, I thought he meant what the Endowment investiture was influencing him to do generally and not what specific thing he was to sacrifice his second life for a la Lightsong. He's a teacher giving back to society. As an Ardent he's someone who owns no possessions anymore, he gave them up. He gave up Nightblood.

Definitely sounds like it was created post-Shattering, which is new information. I would think Endowment made it, but maybe she accepted a "gift" some other Shard(s). Confirmation that Nightblood can perma-kill Fused. He perma-killed a Thunderclast, so that makes sense. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/355/#e10440

Ahahahahahah! Someone had to say it. Moar Zahel!

Hahaha! What Kaladin thinks when he sees Zahel surrounded by fabric: What Zahel actually is:

She is talking about the gemstone pillar at the center of Urithiru, how it has been used a power inhibitor against the Fused in the past, but she thinks she can flip it around to only inhibit Radiants of the 3rd ideal or lower. Doesn't this make it sound like the Sibling is Urithiru or at least it's core? I've seen people speculate that it could be the case, but this lend some support to it. The Sibling is described as "slumbering" or sleeping by some spren including the Stormfather, some spren have told Navani it is a permanent slumber. Others describe the Sibling as dead. We know the Sibling is a spren. The vein-like hallways add to the idea that the pillar is the heart and light is carried from it to the rest of Urithiru (see the picture in this WoB https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e14227). The pillar is the heart of Urithiru, The Sibling is needed for Urithiru to work. Urithiru has some things that work, like the air pressure, while heating to allow better crop growth is not possible right now. The tower is kind of in sleep mode, some basic functions still work, but a lot does not. It really seems like the Sibling turned itself into Urithiru or into the one giant fabrial (as Renarin described it) that makes Urithiru work. It would explain why Urithiru is OK to walk on according to Szeth. Because it is actually a spren turned into stone or a stone-like substance and not normal hallowed stone. Arguments Against The Sibling is a spren and spren do not have that much of a physical realm presence normally. We know spren can turn into objects, but we've only seen it done with bonded spren. We can assume the Sibling has been unbonded for a long time and even during the desolations there were probably times when the Sibling Bondsmith died without passing the bond on to someone else pre-death. This would cause some discontinuity and I would think it would cause problems with Urithiru. Especially if the Sibling were both the giant fabrial and the stone of Urithiru. If Urithiru became mist for even a second thousands of people would die. On the other hand, they are a Bondsmith superspren, they may have different rules. The Sibling could also be in the gemstone pillar and we just don't see it in there because it is sleeping / dead. That may be why the radiants were unsuccessful in infusing the pillar with stormlight. There is no more room.

The Sibling is my guess. The Stormfather is of the storms / sky, the Nightwatcher is of plants and the Sibling is of stone. I wouldn't be surprised if it is able to move that half-gem for the spanreed on its own. Yeah, it's dead and slumbering, but the other dead spren we've seen like Maya aren't really dead and The Sibling is one of three Bondsmith spren, the other two of which seem far more powerful than the other radiant spren.

Please delete

Eureka! I love this topic and your idea about brinksmanship. I wrote a bunch of stuff recapping what we know below then at the end had a thought: what if the agreement between Odium and Honor / Cultivation was "You have to stay on Braize as long as one of us is alive and in the system". Or something to that effect he has to either kill Cultivation or drive her off. Maybe that is why he influenced humans to play "the floor is lava" on Ashyn and Tanavast shows Odium trashing the surface of Roshar in WoK "This is what he wants." He's struggling to kill her directly so: he's turned the Singers against her, he's killed her husband souring her feelings on humanity, destroyed Ashyn's surface and will destroy Roshar's giving her nothing to grow. I know Cultivation is about more than trees, but come on she stormin' loves plants and great varieties of lifeforms. Odium's on Braize, if she goes there she's dead because she won't win a straight up fight, the other ten planets are gas giants. She's still a Shard driven by her Intent. With nothing to grow or cultivate the Shard Intent would win out over the Vessel and cause her to seek out planets capable of sustaining life. Her only alternative would be to expend a bunch of effort to make a planet in the system habitable again and that would give Odium a chance to kill her. Can't Just Be Fused vs. Heralds For one, why did Tanavast record Visions urging the appointment of champions in a proxy battle if one had already been agreed to? He wouldn't, besides the Heralds were undefeated. The Heralds and the Oathpact came after the Fused already existed and the cycle of Desolations was never meant to happen, Honor thought the Heralds would stay on Braize forever (OB Ch. 38). That means it couldn't have been a "contest of champions" of Herald vs. Fused. As you point out, it doesn't seem like "we'll let you go if the Singers wipe out humans", The Fused have been mostly anti-genocide, "The Lady of Pains" was kicked out of the nine and was meant to stay asleep, in Leshwi's mind" for the latest cycle because she wanted to wipe all the humans out. In addition, from Visions in OB we've seen The Fused had humans on their side in some Desolations. When Was He Trapped? We don't even know this. He may have been stuck on Braize since very soon after he arrived in the system. Like before Ashyn was trashed. He had something to do with what went down there per Brandon. He may have had some spren or spren-like minions influence people on Ashyn which nudged them towards destroying the planet in order to get some pieces on the board of Roshar. The humans did "bring the void" with them. He may have been stuck acting indirectly even then. The Desolations Have To Matter It does seem like the Desolations post-Oathpact were always meant to free him, somehow. Stormfather does say "convince him he can lose. Stormfather does say "convince him he can lose. He will take that chance instead of risking defeat again, as he has suffered so often." He has to be referring to Odium losing on Roshar, Stormfather has little knowledge of things beyond Roshar. He doesn't remember specifics about the past on Roshar all that well either. Besides that, Odium hasn't taken many loses outside the Rosharan system, he couldn't find Ambition, went and killed two other Shards, found and killed Ambition then got stuck on Braize. Besides that from a story perspective, 6,000(?) years of Desolation cycles has to have been for an important reason. He was trying to accomplish something and it didn't work. I can't see these Shards agreeing to something as intangible as wagering on the corruption of people's souls or morality. It must be something tangible. I like your idea about making one side or the other desperate enough to agree to his plans. It fits with his M.O. both on large scale with Ashyn humans and then Singers and on small scale with The Thrill encouraging people to do terrible things and then swooping in with offers to take away the pain. Substantial Transformation Regardless of how, if Odium were to get free he will now have obliterate most of the system to free up his investiture. He's been in the system and for many thousands of years and that must have caused his investiture to permeate the system, along with intentional investment like The Fused, The Unmade and voidspren. He'll need that investiture to take on the other Shards. I guess he'll have to fulfill his agreements, but I'm sure he has some wiggle room in what he promised The Fused and Taravangian. At the end of WoK Tanavast shows the surface of the planet literally crumble into nothingness and said "This is what I fear could happen. This is what he wants". I'm taking his word for it.

If it's accurate that the Heralds had to actively shift the locking mechanism to Taln, then it makes Ishar and Nale seem more reasonable in their concern over surgebinders "undermining certain ... measures we took" (OB Ch. 106), which could trigger a desolation. It also makes them seem worse to me. In essence it's the same, they put it all on Taln, but imagining them standing around and being like "Hey, maybe, maybe we don't have to go back and it will be ok?" is better to me than them actively working together to change the Oathpact once they noticed only Taln died. I do feel bad that, according to Leshwi, the surviving Heralds would travel to Braize by killing themselves. Again in essence it's not that different from being violently killed in battle then horribly tortured on Braize, but to be survive and have to kill yourself so you can be tortured on Braize feels rougher emotionally.

Especially considering Odium seems to be blocking Singers like Venli from comprehending what the Nine are singing to Odium in their special song. It is very suspicious. We saw Odium torment Venli cognitively because she wasn't telling the story the "right way". He could be giving some Fused detailed instructions to carry out in the privacy of his golden room. On that note, this whole meeting turned on the "Lady of Wishes" showing up with a detailed plan for capturing Urithiru involving Taravangian and using the coalition's ignorance of Urithiru's nature and capabilities against them. The last thing Odium did onscreen in Oathbringer was order Taravangian to find out what the Alethi have discovered about "that tower". It seems like this "Lady of Pains" was voted out or fired from the Nine by other Fused in the last desolation and meant to be kept asleep on Braize in the next cycle yet here she is with a brand new plan.

ODIUM: ANY OF THE OTHER SHARDS: ODIUM:

The unintended consequence was the Parsh having a piece of their spirit web torn out, a spiritual lobotomy of sorts. The guilt over this act, them thinking the enemy was vanquished for good and Honor raving about how the Surges destroyed Ashyn and would desroy Roshar led directly to the Recreance, which seems like it began either the same day as the strike or soon after. The breaking of the bonds creating "deadeyes" seems to do a very similar thing to the spren as what was done to the Parsh. They still are alive, but part of them has been torn out and it left them severely brain damaged. Seems like there were two things going on with the Sibling. It was "withdrawing" before the strike happened causing Urithiru not to function properly which made it too hard to live there, which is why the Radiants abandoned it. Whatever "withdrawing" means the Sibling had to have been bonded to Melishi during the strike otherwise it would not have succeeded. The Recreance began very soon after the strike which created the rest of the deadeyes. Either Melishi broke their oaths or the strike itself damaged the Sibling causing them to be "dead". I broke down what we know about the timeline of events here and explained why I think something was going on with the Sibling before the strike or the Recreance:

Yeah not totally clear on what Thunderclasts are. Singer Cognitive Shadow + Chasmfiend cognitive shadow is my guess. The bodies they create have humanoid forms, but they are giant and have arrowhead shaped heads like a chasm fiend. Venli sees them as giant mangled red investiture in OB. Either way that one Nightblood killed is gone for good according to Brandon. I would think he can kill a Fused permanently.

Yeah they seem to have decided on it since "The Nine" is subject to change, but them being a encased does not. The "Lady of Pain", who scares Leshwi, used to be one of them and now isn't so she can walk around and such. "The Nine" aspect of it must be a thing that happened after the Shards switched sides and the Singers ended up with Odium 9 Fused, 9 Unmade 9 is the "magic number" on Braize. But the leaders being literally a "pillar of the community" must predate that. I wonder if they are imitating something else, like this is the derivative of how Singer leadership used to be. Were singers at one time actually able to transform into living stone? Were they led by "spirits of the stone" that the Stone Shamans refer to, but probably don't really understand? I hope for a really weird origin to this practice.

Jasnah almost certainly does and hides it like she did with her other abilities given the geometric shapes Adolin sees fading around her in the climax of OB. Shallan probably did and made herself forget like with the other three. She probably has 5 and forgot. Why not at this point?

Is this the new name for Alethkar or an old one? I'm thinking it's new, like the First Advance was humans taking over the planet, using Shinovar as their base then pushing outward. Now Alethkar is the base for the Singers to do their own Advance and take over?

Good call, although humans can’t live up in the mountains either without spren help. They can barely grow grow anything without the Sibling. The horneaters needed 3 “gods” (bondsmith spren?) working together to make the peaks live able. Humans and human-singer hybrids didn’t adapt, they made the spren adapt the mountains for them. He’s also trolling Shallan about the fact that they have a spy who killed Ialai Sadeas. Mraize likes to troll.

I agree, Mraize seems like he knows who Restares actually is. His "you'll know what to do" when Shallan sees him line implies there is something unusual about him or that straight killing him isn't the best option / necessary / possible for Shallan. This seems to imply he knows Restares ID and perhaps something about either his background that Shallan will be able to exploit or his nature (Human, Singer, Sleepless, Siah Aimian, Cognitive Shadow, Spren, Dawnshard, whatever) .

Yeah, it doesn't make a lot sense if Restares was trying to return the Voidbringers, although Gavilar thought Restares may be the one who sent Szeth, That speaks to a disagreement. Sons of Honor with Gavilar joining and basically co-opting the group may have had different goals than they did before. Mraize thinks Restares was the founder of the group. There is, of course, the little issue of Gavilar and Kalak meeting in person in the prologue and Gavilar clearly knowing Kalak and Nale are Heralds. It's possible Gavilar never met Restares or never met him when Restares wasn't under a mask for their goofy initiation rituals and doesn't know Kalak = Restares. The theory sprang to mind because I had previously been speculating that the reason the Honorspren aren't bonding more radiants is that someone is hanging out at Lasting Integrity influencing them, maybe a Herald or Unmade. If Restares is a Herald he'd have to be either Kalak or Ishar because the other three are dead, hanging out with Ash and Jasnah or siding with the Fused and while limiting the # of Windrunners is helpful for the Fused, Nale was already the head of the Skybreakers secret society, narratively it doesn't seem like he should be running two for all those years. Ishar is still running a nation as far as we know so he's busy. It could be someone else. Mraize telling Shallan he's not necessarily ordering her to kill Restares "you'll know what to do" when she gets there makes me think Restares is something special. Herald or spren or something that needs to be dealt with another way. Unless it's someone Shallan has known personally for a long time which will help her in connecting with them. Which is a little too contrived for me on paper, but could work in practice (this being a book "in practice" is also on paper ) if the reveal is well done and Brandon's usually are.

I see what you are saying. If it's any consolation Brandon's latest annotation describes it more as a "careful mixing".

Did she soulcast someone into fire as a child? Obviously not her 4 brothers, one Kaladin stabbed through the eye, the other three are still alive. But somebody. Sounds like Restares is the source of the Honorspren not bonding anymore people. He ran to and sought asylum in Lasting Integrity. Sounds like something Kalak would do, run and hide. Also, he is the Willshaper Herald and this is the Willshaper (Venli) book. I take this to mean the other 9 highprinces (still alive) rule the other 9/10ths. Alethkar rules all of Urithiru? The other members of the coalition don't get any taxes or whatever? I know Alethkar doesnt have a homeland anymore, but seems like it would ruffle some others. I assume they all agreed to it. I still think this is not quite right. I think Gavilar who, like Dalinar, was bonding the Stormfather aspired to be a Shard. He may have not understood it all, but Herald seems small. Plus he met Heralds and presumably knows how terrible their existence became.

That's a cool thought! IMO there have been too many in-world myths of people living across the ocean for there to be no payoff. There is no whirlpool where the ocean drains, but there are some people out there on an island chain or something that we'll meet eventually.