Child of Hodor

I'll be going as myself . Too lazy and unskilled to make a costume. I jokingly said Winds of Winter announcement in another thread. Some sort of MTG collab is a good guess.

I think it is more interesting if he's telling the truth about siphoning the pain. It's very interesting to me because it is basically what Odium does for people like Moash although Ishar does not take it all. I also think he is telling the truth about ascending to Honor, but just a piece of it and a smaller piece than what Dalinar is connected to. I do think he is delusional in his own way but is being truthful in what he said to Kaladin. Like he did ascend to a piece of Honor, but that doesn't make him the equal of the vessel of a full shard which is how he is acting. He's not as powerful as he thinks he is. Him not being able to see Kaladin as important to events despite Kaladin saving the day in 3 out of 4 books is proof of that.

"He won't remain bound by this. The enemy. He'll find a way around it. You know he will" Kalak in the prelude. The everstorm is the "barrier storm" in the cognitive on Braize as mentioned in RoW. It is presumably the mechanism that kept the Fused locked on Braize. It was meant to contain the Fused there (for)ever. But a piece of it was broken off and moved to Roshar connecting it and the Fused to Roshar serving as a bridge to Roshar. Right now, even Odium could not contain the Fused to Braize if he wanted to, he says as much to Dalinar in RoW. However, if that piece of the everstorm on Roshar was either moved back to Braize or destroyed it might be enough to break the connection. I think we do get a new Herald, but it is Dalinar as both Herald and Vessel of Honor and they modify the Oathpact to apply to Odium himself. Cognitive Shadows (heralds) were enough to trap Cognitive Shadows (fused). Now Vessel traps Vessel. The Oathpact was between Honor and the Heralds Dalinar would be both Honor and Herald so he can agree with himself so that as long as he remains on Braize Odium is stuck there as well. Even if Dalinar loses the contest and becomes one of the Fused, Fused go back to Braize automatically which would engage the lock.

That's probably right. He wins, but Dalinar figures out a new way to trap him. LOL for whatever reason this Jay Cutler meme popped in my head as world-weary, chain smoking, cynical Gavinor. He's seen some things. I think he ascended to a little bit of Honor. Shards usually only start to think for themselves if they are uncontrolled. If Ishar is controlling the remnant well then it wouldn't gain sentience. If he was controlling it poorly, like Rayse with Odium, then the remnant of the shard would gain a mind of its own. Long way of saying maybe you're right.

So is the idea that Tanavast quit being Honor to be Nohadon and then as Nohadon he quit being king too? What a loser. Just unreliable really. Then he went back to being Honor in time for Rayse to kill him?

I think he did. Odium certainly thinks he splintered Honor Tanavast/Honor made some contingency plans before his death that are allowing for a new vessel potentially. The plan involved the Stormfather being modified and ordered to find a Bondsmith to show the Visions to Tanavast was setting up a succession plan. Bondsmiths are good at forging bonds which includes putting things back together like Dalinar did with the statue in OB. It's a lot harder to put a shard back together, but I think that's the plan. Whoever the bonds the Stormfather is "deeply connected to the largest remnant of a god" (Odium - OB Ch.57) which puts them in a good position to repair the shard.

Winds of Winter release announcement

Now, now he heard a voice, got a flute lesson and learned about grass ... yeah, OK he's not really done anything. A lot of tantalizing setup so far. Kal and Szeth going into the Unmade controlled temple, Dalinar & Navani in the spiritual realm. Previously unknown godspren like Wind. Moar Visions this time about the Heralds. Multiple capital cities about to be attacked at once. It's setting up to be awesome once it really gets going.

One word at a time :). I'll reread the sample chapters or at least most of them prior to release I'll want to dive into the remainder of the book as soon as it is released.

I forgot about that. He's so important to Dalinar. He wrote his favorite book, he was alive for the founding of Urithiru, the symbol he wears as a young man became the symbol of the Knights Radiant, he showed up in Dalinar's dreams and took him shopping. I would expect something more to be revealed about him or for Dalinar to have another conversation with him or whatever that was Dalinar talked to. I don't think he's Tanavast though. Nohadon was around and seemed to play a role in the founding of the Knight's Radiant and Tanavast said he had nothing to do with it and was surprised by their creation. Now we could say he's lying or from a "certain point of view"-ing it, but I just don't think so. I think Nohadan was just a guy doing his best who wrote a book. A king, but not a god. If abdication comes into play in this book it will probably be one of the current vessels who does it.

Mraize, you big dummy, now how are you going to get to the spiritual realm? Dalinar next chapter:

I'm going to put a couple things together. Little Gavinor thinks his mom is dead but isn't sure and is vowing to kill everyone who hurt his father. His mom, Aesudan, was consumed by Yelig-nar. Yelig-nar can speak, supposedly, and is often accompanied by the wails of his victims. What if Yelig-nar can speak in the voice of his victims? We don't know that he can. We haven't heard him talk, as far as we know that was Aesduan and Amaram talking the two times Yelig-nar was inside someone. But if he can talk, he could impersonate Aesudan, Gavinor's mom. Dalinar usurped power from Gavinor's dad which hurt Elhokar. I could see Yelig-nar impersonating Aesudan and convincing Gavinor to turn on Dalinar and be the child champion for Odium. Besides, Dalinar said he would play swords with Gavinor and then he didn't. What a jerk.

Brandon's humor writing is always very hit or miss for me. His "funny" characters like Lift, Lopen and Wayne are best in small doses for me. I did like the Sibling telling her she has little organisms all over her. I'm with you on the Shinovar chapters. Part of it is the sample chapter week wait in between but I'm like "Come oooon. Don't make camp and talk about plants. Go in the temple I wanna see the Unmade!".

BAM after over 1,000 years of imprisonment:

The Heralds were patterned off the Fused who were a byproduct of the First Desolation (humans invading Singer territory) so the humans traveling to Roshar had to come first. The Fused kept returning taking over another Singer's body. The soon-to-be Heralds and Honor saw that and countered it with an improved version: souls that regrow their own body instead of having to take someone else's. There weren't nearly as many Heralds as Fused, but they were given Honorblades making them far more powerful. The Honorblades were a "gift of a god" according to the Stormfather in OB ch. 16 According to Brandon the Honorblades were a gift symbolizing them standing up for mankind and when the Heralds were no longer willing to do that they left the Honorblades behind because they didn't deserve them. All this heavily implies a noble purpose to the Honorblades and not just conquest.

It's possible it had an effect on them. They are definitely insane because of something more than the torture. Some kind of magical inversion is going on. Their insanity manifests as an inversion of what they were known for as Heralds, their divine attributes. Shallash is known for Art and Beauty, she spends her time destroying art, especially art of herself. Ishar was Pious and Guiding he's declared himself a god demanding to be worshipped and gives out terrible advice. Nale was Just now he uses the law to murder people. Kalak was Resolute now he can't make up his mind. I think it is in part because they are so full of Honor's investiture and 9 of them broke their oaths repeatedly by letting the Fused escape and then they outright quit which is not very honorable. It sort of curdled their investiture or something. I dunno.

They need to do the secret handshake of Transportation in order for it to work.

Mraize has got to go in this book. He has outlived his usefulness to the plot. Mraize isn't even really the boss of the local Ghostbloods he's basically an apprentice being trained by Iyatil from Corporate HQ to run things eventually. Now it turns out those trophies are Iyatil's too. They are still a more imposing and Cosmere-aware group than the Sons of Honor. I'll give them that. SA has a lot of people who seem interesting and formidable then it turns out they weren't that good at what they did after all. Gavilar, Rayse, Amaram and Mraize off the top of my head. It wouldn't shock me if Taravangian gets owned in this book as well.

I'm not at all convinced they have spren either or at least haven't bonded them with a nahel bond. We know Mraize didn't have a spren bond as of a couple days ago in story as the one sent to Urithiru picked Rlain instead. It's unlikely he got one so quickly after the last one rejected him. Shallan jumped to the conclusion that they bonded radiant spren really fast, understandably, but that's how Brandon gets us. He has a major character present an assumption as fact. Maybe I'm totally off and they bonded spren, but it seems like a classic Brandon misdirection.

Well put. I didn't like RoW, TLM or Sunlit Man that much, but it's not really the prose or polish on the writing itself. With RoW I didn't think the big structural swings he took worked (split flashbacks, having a climax to a book we didn't read in part 1 etc). Overall, it felt like a setup for SA5 more than anything. Lost Metal was the conclusion to a series he didn't plan and that's probably why its underwhelming to me. It's a setup for Era 3 and feels like it. I also didn't like that both RoW and TLM had a plot important lab experiment explosion very early on. Sunlit Man: Another structural swing with it being one long chase. I never want to hear about Breath Equivalent Units (BEUs for short!) again. He's really leaning into the science of his magic systems more recently. It reminds me of him ranking fantasy authors on his podcast with Dan Wells and Dan did his ranking based on just what he thinks while Brandon came up with categories and gave numerical values and weights to the categories for each author. He kept saying "I haven't run the numbers on this author" and I kept wanting to yell at him "there are no numbers, you made this all up!!" which is how I feel about the BEU counts in Sunlit Man :). All that said I have enjoyed the Wind and Truth sample chapters and don't have any major issues with the writing. I do get annoyed at the week wait in between and it makes the experience a little frustrating, but that's all it is for me. I can always opt out and wait for release.

It would definitely make the shard more reasonable. Wrath that only gets unleashed on people who violate a code or something like that. Question is whether not wanting to pick up another Shard was a Rayse thing or an Odium thing. This Shard has enough of a mind of its own to speak to Taravangian "You're perfect" after Rayse died I wouldn't think that goes away after a few days. If the Shard is the one that doesn't want to change I wonder if Taravangian will be able to wrangle it into allowing him to pick up another Shard. Or maybe Dalinar forces the bond on him "tag, you're it!".

They call that getting a "revenge body" so these go together nicely

Tanavast was dying and "insane" according to the Stormfather. We've seen a shard dying before. Presevation was not always lucid in SH. Tanavast didn't "switch sides" he lost hope in humanity after many many broken promises. His bad attitude is reflected in the Stormfather who is likely partially Tanavast at least.

I was going through the Stormfather's dialogue in SA and I thought of him as "Debbie Downer" from the old SNL sketches. I pictured him making the face she does as he delivers all his pessimistic lines. Hidden for SA spoilers.