Child of Hodor

Honor resents humanity because they broke their oaths repeatedly. After arriving on Roshar they promised not to go on the stone and not to use the surges, but they went on the stone to conquer the Singers using surges in the First Desolation. The Heralds were supposed to keep the Fused bottled up on Braize, but they let the Fused pass many times before 9 of them outright quit. The Knights Radiants of the Recreance broke their oaths en masse. That's a lot of broken promises to stomach for a god of oaths, laws and bonds. The Stormfather is the largest remnant of the Power of Honor remaining, per Odium, and he is super salty about broken oaths and humans generally. He's really hung up on it. He's made it his entire personality

Good to know I didn't imagine it. I guess Nale took part in the strike (getting BAM in the gem) and didn't stick around for them shoving the gem into the spiritual realm. Maybe he was busy convincing the Skybreakers to only pretend to take part in the Recreance which would have begun very soon after this battle.

In my mind he was there as well, but I think I just assumed that because Nale and Kalak hang out a lot. Kalak said he was the only person alive who knows what happened to BAM in Ch. 3 of WaT.

They did try to murder Shallan in WoR. They only killed her carriage driver because Shallan faked being in the carriage. They also tried to kill Amaram at the end of WoR, but Taln caught Iyatil's darts out of mid-air. Mraize killed that Feurchemist in RoW.

The MB Era 2 novels take place between SA 5 & SA 6.

I've long thought this was the description of a real event that's been mangled by being passed down orally through time. I am fairly confident this is describing Urithiru If you look at the bottom right image it very much looks like a giant staircase. It wasn't built for Heralds it was built for Radiant's who were inspired by the Heralds I could see this getting confused for built for heralds. As for the Temple above, there's been two weddings conducted up there by the remnants of the god. The sky is kind of a Temple to Honor. I say all that to say I don't know if the timing works out. The Radiants abandoned Urithiru before the strike on BAM yet Melishi would need to be in Urithiru for this poem to apply to him. The Oathbringer Epigraphs for the gem archive discuss planning for the strike on BAM but not the aftermath and nothing about a Dawnshard being used. It does mention them needing Melishi and their theory of trapping BAM in a perfect gem like Dalinar did to the Thrill. Oathbringer/Epigraphs - The Coppermind - 17th Shard We know they stuck the gem in the spiritual realm which is crazy and we have no idea how they did that. They could have trapped BAM then flown Melishi back to Uirithiru to put it in the Spiritual Realm with a Dawnshard, but I don't know why they would bother going back to Urithiru. All this relies on my assumption that the poem is describing Urithiru which might not be the case. Still, I think it is Urithiru and I have a hard time placing Melishi at Urithiru during or after the strike on BAM.

I still think the "we" in "we killed you" is Rayse and Odium. The two were clearly not on the same page. Odium seemed to be trying to escape Rayse during RoW. Sja-Anat sensed two different responses to her defiance in her interlude one from the Vessel that didn't like it and one from the Power that did. After Rayse died the Power talked to Taravangian said he was "perfect". There were two separate minds in the Rayse / Odium dynamic. The font when he says "we killed you" a second time is a different font than the first time implying a different speaker.

Chasmfiends endure countless highstorms out on the shattered plains. They probably get hit by boulders launched by the wind routinely. They can take a hit. I don't know that they can solo a Thunderclast, but they have more bulk and limbs. They'd be tough to bring down. It would be a family feud of sorts. Both Thunderclasts and Chasmfiends are gigantic with arrowhead-shaped faces. Thunderclast's non-corporeal forms look like big, mangled clumps of red. I theorize they are Singer and Chasmfiend souls merged somehow.

TL;DR: Dalinar and Taravangian debate The Way of Kings to the death as the contest of "champions". My guess as to what the contest of champions will be is that there will be no champions. There will be Taravangian and Dalinar appointing themselves and they won't physically fight. They'll debate the stories in the Way of Kings. Like how they debated in OB except instead of sitting there they will metaphysically create the scenarios and act them out like the Visions or like how Rayse took the Diagram and then recreated the room it was written on originally. My reasoning for no Champions is Dalinar has insisted he do it himself and we see on the WaT cover that Dalinar is alone atop Uirithiru with his special book, the Way of Kings, in one arm looking at the Everstorm approaching. We don't see Odium's champion and they wouldn't give it away on the cover anyways, but the reason I think there will be no champion is Taravangian's ego. It was never enough for the world to be saved; HE must be the one to save them all. He has an inferiority complex from the note about his potentially diminished capacity when he was a baby. He doesn't want to be worshipped like Rayse, but he wants to rub it in everyone's face that they were wrong about him. Why debate the Way of Kings? The book is there on the cover, they've debated it in the past with Taravangian disagreeing with the actions of Nohadan. Taravangian may want to prove Dalinar wrong. Psychologically break him and get him to concede. Why act it out via visions or similar recreations? It's more interesting than them standing there talking. This could also fulfill the death rattle about slitting a child's throat to save the world. Taravangian doesn't have to persuade a baby to fight for him he can just create a vision for Dalinar to experience. It could also be Taravangian holding the knife in a vision, and he has a hard time doing it because of his compassionate side. If I were Dalinar I'd just beat the old man to death with the book, but in RoW Dalinar has expressed the desire to once again sit by a fire and debate with Taravangian. The concentration required for and frustration from the debate eventually causes Taravangian to slip and lose control of Odium which will either result in him dying or the sapient, but insanely angry shard taking over and doing something that violates the agreement. Like smiting Dalinar who is his own champion which violates the agreemeent that the Shard would not interfere with the other's Champion or it turns out Dalinar's mom or a grandparent was from Kharbranth which violates Odium's deal with Taravangian because Dalinar is within 2 generations of someone born in Kharbranth.

There might not even be Champions. Dalinar is insisting on being his own champion and WaT cover shows him atop Urithiru alone looking at the approaching Everstorm. I'm expecting the contest to be some wild philosophical, metaphysical contest between Taravangian and Dalinar. Will Taravangian destroy Dalinar with facts and logic? Do facts care about Odium's feelings?!? Maybe Dalinar beats Taravangian to death with his book literally or figuratively or both!

They got that Chasmfiend on their side as well. Chasmfiend vs Thunderclast would be a lot of fun. She could maybe make Anti-Stormlight, put it in a dagger and perma-kill Nale with it. Although I think it's more fitting if Szeth kills Nale with Nightblood.

Yeah, this has been a contract law seminar at times. At least they are smart enough to continue to look for loopholes because this capture the capital loophole doesn't help Odium with the larger problem. No matter how much land the Singers control it doesn't free him from abiding by the terms of the agreement he made.

The Sibling's anti-Odium measures wouldn't work on the Skybreakers. That's smart. And yeah, they won't leave Navani with nothing to do all book. I hope it's not another occupation I had enough of that last book. Maybe it will be more of an assassination attempt on the Sibling via anti-Towerlight. I assume the Skybreakers can't unmake the Sibling and anyone who could can't get close now that it is at full power. Have to kill them.

Thanks! I forgot that. Frost not helping, but giving Hoid help by passing the request on to his sister seem like violating the spirit of his non-intervention stance. Not that there are any larger implications for him I just think its hypocritical. Speaking of broken promises This makes it sound like Rayse inherited a promise from Adonalsium that he wishes he could break. I wonder what it is? Not harming Hoid or not harming former Dawnshards generally unless they break an oath? Not harming living things directly unless they break a promise? Like how Wit said Odium could wipe out all of Roshar if Fen broke the agreement.

Who is the female friend who Wit reached out to? My guess is Valor. This RoW epigraph has Harmony suggesting Wit talk to her.

As Dalinar's heir Kaladin gets it after Dalinar.

Those are my guesses as well. I think it will be either an older character like Dalinar or a major character that isn't one of the main POV characters (Szeth has had very little POV compared to the others). There's a sweet spot in my mind where the death(s) will be sad but not too sad. I just don't think Brandon has it in him to do too many major deaths. Of course, in MB era 1 he killed off almost all the main characters by the end. But that was one or two per book over 3 books. One caveat is if Dalinar becomes a Fused or other characters become Heralds as cognitive shadows they technically died and stuck around. Same with Taravangian he was killed by Szeth, but Ascended a few seconds later. A similar thing could happen to Dalinar. We could have a bunch of major "deaths" where the characters are not actually gone from the story. A rundown of why I think other characters won't die: Venli: what's the point of killing this substitute "main" character? Renarin, Lift and Jasnah: I don't see him killing the 3 younger (compared to the Heralds) back 5 main characters now. Half the fun of the back 5 is seeing how they've changed 10-15 years down the road. Kaladin: he spent most of the series wanting to die. Death is too easy for him. The hard thing for him is to continue to live. Shallan I just don't think will die here. I am fully in on Chana being her mom and if that's the big reveal toward the end of this book then Shallan needs to be alive for it and Chana returning the favor and stabbing Shallan doesn't seem likely to me. The spren aren't on the poll but they are fair game and someone like Syl or Pattern getting killed would be a major death. Shallan's got a spare so Pattern could go. That could be part of her story having to revive Testament with Pattern gone.

My guess is that this will be Szeth. The mountains to the west of Shinovar that block the ocean will be destroyed and the waters will surge in "cleansing" Shinovar. To add to your theory more generally in the final vision in WoK Honor shows the ground literally being destroyed and says "it's what he wants" referring to Odium.

Renarin, his spren and Szeth's spren might be able to figure it out. I say the spren because in WoR Syl notices that Odium is paying close attention right before Szeth attacks Dalinar for the first time. If Syl can notice Odium is just watching closely then Szeth's spren should notice Rayse visiting Taravangian. Not like they saw the interaction, but they should be able to sense that Odium was paying close attention. This may not be how our heroes figure it out, but some of the nearby spren should have noticed Odium paying attention to that area. Especially when their radiant is in the same room with what Odium is angry at.

That's a good point. Bondsmiths each have special radiant spren that are extremely distinct from each other as far as whether they are more of Honor or Cultivation. They aren't really one subtype of spren like Honorspren or Cryptics. It would make sense for them to have different platespren.

I think Bondsmith platespren are gloryspren. An "impossible" number of them swirl around him as he creates the perpendicularity in OB. They could be showing up just because he's doing something glorious, but they usually ring around a person's head briefly. These were swirling around his whole body in a pillar. Before that as Dalinar is kneeling on the ground trying not to give into Odium a single gloryspren swirls around him and Odium swats it away. I can't think of another strong candidate for bondsmith platespren as far as spren that hang out around Dalinar a lot other than angerspren and that's more to do with his beserker raging youth.

They probably didn't have a monarch back then, I agree. I would imagine the Sibling bondsmith, when they had one, oversaw the day-to-day operations of Urithiru. With a strong connection to the Tower itself and that they can't leave for very long without breaking the bond the Sibling bondsmith is well positioned to run the place. They got nothing better to do. That doesn't mean they ran the Radiants though. I imagine the radiant orders had a hierarchy based on who swore the most oaths.

I really enjoyed the ___ was not asleep repetitions. Cultivation being direct, I assume, with our main characters is refreshing. I guess Dalinar and then Hoid will find out about the change in Vessel shortly.

Yes, but I would add that Rayse and Odium had a very similar schism that was further along. Rayse insisting he's Pasison instead of Odium and in RoW we see light inside of Ryase trying to break out of him. They both fit. In WoK when Kaladin asks the Stormfather about all the war in the world Stormfather says "Odium Reighs". The Broken One has arguably been ruling Roshar for a long time now.

I love the chapter icon for Odium. Brandon killed Rayse off and really built up Taravangian to have a new credible threat for finale of this arc, but I don't think he's going to last very long. It is Day 1 and he is already having problems and doing a similar thing to what Rayse did: not call himself Odium. For Rayse it was passion now Taravangian is actively rejecting that he is Odium and thinks of himself as Taravangian. A Shard divided against itself cannot stand. My guess is by the end of this book he either embraces it and we get him calling himself Unity / the United One or he loses it, and we get Odium a sapient shard running wild with no Vessel.