Child of Hodor

On Navani's Painrial: is it doing on a micro-scale what Odium does? It takes their pain and stores it up and can give it back later. In OB chapter 118 when Navani adjusts the knobs on her painrial so that it causes pain instead of removes it. It doesn't explicitly say that it needs to be charged up by absorbing pain first, but I think that's what it is doing. Where is the pain sensation coming from if not from what had previously been taken?

For sure, and as a former missionary it may be something Brandon feels very strongly about and has a personal connection to. It's just so beat for beat the same that it bugs me. She could have failed trying to do something slightly different. I feel like Raoden giving people purpose cleaning the city so that they stop laying around feeling terrible and Kaladin making his bridgemen practice to keep them from falling into despair are similar ideas, but they are executed differently enough it doesn't bother me at all.

I think they are essentially synonyms. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ingenuity Synonyms cleverness, creativeness, creativity,imagination, imaginativeness,ingeniousness, innovativeness, invention,inventiveness, originality ingenuity [in-juh-noo-i-tee, -nyoo-] ExamplesWord Origin See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com noun, plural in·ge·nu·i·ties for 3. the quality of being cleverly inventive or resourceful; inventiveness: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ingenuity?s=t

I think there has to be something like Invention or Ingenuity. The Shards are the powers of Creation. There needs to be an impulse or desire to create invent or experience new things if this was the being that created all this life in the Cosmere originally. We've got lots of shards that cover the middle and end of life things grow, stay the same, decline and end. (Cultivation, Preservation, Ruin). We are missing the beginning of the lifecycle, the part that desires novelty.

What do you think Dalinar is doing mechanically when he Ascends? Is he reforging spiritual bonds to more of the shard than is in the Stormfather, but not all of it?

I agree he held the power briefly, but most of the time the intentional splinter Honor created resides in the Stormfather meaning he didn't hold it fully. I don't agree that he had the power of the full Shard at his disposal. Why does Rayse bother splintering shards if it doesn't break their power up? If a person holds a piece of it automatically has access to all of it's power what is the point of splintering it and why does he keep doing it? He seems to think it is an effective way of preventing other from holding the full power of the shard. Although I agree with you that Honor put his splinter / cognitive shadow of Tanavast in a bondsmith spren with the idea of them bonding it back together eventually. Odium probably agrees with you as well. Odium tells Dalinar in Oathbringer "I cannot leave behind the Splinters of Honor, as I once thought I could. I can already see that going wrong."

I think it is less about misuse and more about not getting distracted by all that Honor represents and more focused on uniting. He knew he was losing and going to be splintered by Odium either way and he wanted to make sure the KR had access to at least some of his power. He put it in the Stormfather to safegaurd the splinter instead of in a person or a physical object. Spren don't die of old age and it can think for itself and choose who gets the power, unlike an object or location which anyone could stumble on. The visions and refrain of unite them where him trying to focus this bondsmith on what he felt was most important to defeating Odium. Dalinar keeps hearing "Unite Them". Tanavast wants him to be focused on uniting. I would argue Honor was inadequate to fight Odium because nearly everything Honor tried when he was alive failed and backfired horribly. The Oathpact failed, the Knights Radiant failed and took out ton of spren with them. Sheltering the humans fleeing Ashyn backfired horribly. Honor wants to fight "fair" and assumes humans will keep their word, honor their agreements. He has MAJOR blindspots someone as devious as Rayse/Odium could exploit. I'm not saying Honor was like "Honor sucks, l'm gonna kill myself and forge a different Shard". It was a last resort. Everything he tried failed and he was being killed and splintered by Odium. He was reflecting on where he went wrong and why he failed. Tanavast thought "I'm dying and going to be split into pieces. I should entrust a piece of myself to a Spren I trust and they can bond a KR. That way humans will have access to some of my power after Odium tears me apart. Where did I go wrong, what advice can I give to them? Focus on uniting."

I'm not sure what all Dalinar can do I am just saying what we have seen him do with the power. Vin absorbed the power directly into her being while Dalinar has his soul bonded to a spren that is also a Splinter/Cognitive Shadow of Honor. There is an extra layer of remove which may make a difference. Preservation wasn't splintered at the time and Honor is, even if Dalinar merged directly he wouldn't be as powerful as Vin & Lord Ruler were.

I'm not saying Dalinar is a Shard. I am saying he can wield some power of the Shard, specifically summon what Syl identifies as Honor's perpendicularity briefly. He is much more than a bondsmith he is bonded to a spren that holds / is a splinter of Honor's power or remnants. "His remnants, your soul, my will" OB Chapter 119 Unity. He is a conduit for a splinter of it's power, but isn't the Vessel of it. From this WoB about Mistborn we know that a Vessel of a Shard can resist the Intent for many years. A Vessel is under constant influence of it's full power. Dalinar isn't the Vessel, is only bonded to a spren holding some of the power and only needs to focus on uniting long enough to get Odium to agree to a battle of champions and see his champion defeated.

TLDR; Tanavast wanted a bondsmith who can wield Honor's power without being the Vessel. That way they aren't overwhelmed by Honor's Intent and can remain focused on uniting people because uniting people is the best counter to Odium's strategy of creating constant war/strife. I wonder if this is Tanavast's idea. Odium feeds off of passion that is generated by the constant fighting he inspires. Uniting the people of Roshar (including the Parsh) would end the constant fighting which is Odium's main strategy. The Oathpact was meant to end the constant fighting by sealing the endlessly reincarnating fused, but it failed. The Knights Radiant also broke their oaths. Men making oaths wasn't enough, a different strategy was needed. He sees a flaw inherent in Honor being too focused on individual oaths. He can't change it because he's the Vessel of Honor and has been for a long time. He knows he is dying and needs to give humanity the best chance he can. He gives a significant portion of his power to his bondsmith spren and gives them visions including the one where he tells the potential bondsmith "you must unite them" and about appointing a champion. That bondsmith isn't a full-time Vessel of Honor, so they won't be fully under it's influence constantly. However, they can summon a significant part of the power briefly, but repeatedly. The result is a bondsmith who is focused on uniting through the nature of their order and being told "unite them" over and over in their head, but they can access Honor's power without it overwhelming them and causing them to lose focus on "uniting" to counter Odium.

One beef I have is how Shallan's food supply subplot in Kholinar in OB is a recycling of Sarene's food supply subplot in Elantris. Both involve: A city blocked off from the outside world, people can't leave and supplies are scarce. A young noblewoman visiting from a foreign land. Young noblewoman wants to help ease the suffering in the city, so she regularly delivers bags of food. Young noblewoman doesn't know about violent gangs that swoop in, brutalize the people she gives the food to and take the food as soon as she is gone. Young noblewoman is resented by the people she is trying to help because she is causing more violence by delivering the food. It felt like the author needed Shallan to fail at something so that Hoid could give her a pep talk and recycled a subplot from an earlier book.

I was just doing a reread and this line from Navani defending Dalinar stuck out. -OB Page 973 it doesn’t mean much in-world. Navani does not know about Dominion, but Brandon does. it is interesting that he chose to reference unity and have a character directly compare it to dominion, a known Shard. I’m not concluding anything, but I found it noteworthy.

This WoB made me laugh given the complaints on the podcast. Zane was designed to be "edgy". He is the Poochie of the Cosmere. Zane died on the way back to his home planet.

Kaladin would be a good holder of Odium (maybe someday he will be ). A lot of his story arc is about him dealing with his own overwhelming hatred and anger towards others for things they've done. That's not to say he's a bad person, but nearly everyone who encounters him remarks on how brooding and angry he is.

My crazy theory is that Passion is an aspect of Adonalsium that could have been a separate shard if Adonalsium had shattered differently. Instead it is still part of the existing shards. Not sure why some would talk about their intents in terms of passion and some wouldn't. Perhaps the Shards with intents that are closely associated strong emotions have more interest in passion. Ruin as a term doesn't sound emotional, but death elicits strong emotions.

Agreed, I guess I was thinking someone could screw it up when cutting it into a shape. My point was that the sphere could be a perfect gem despite being smaller than Honor' Drop.

I think this is a key point. The important aspect of a perfect gem is that it is cut flawlessly so that it doesn't leak, not necessarily it's size. The Unmade are spren and the size of a spren is mutable in the physical realm. Honor's Drop was large, but still could be carried with one hand. The Thrill was MASSIVE, it covered an entire battle field and yet it "fit" into a gem Dalinar could hold with one hand. From a storytelling perspective, why set up this Chekov's black sphere and have Szeth hide it away like if it's not going to be used later in a significant way? If it's not a perfect gem and just contains Voidlight it's not going to be that useful to anybody. I guess if Szeth retrieves it and Navani studies it they might learn significant things about what Gavilar was up to and that might be it's story purpose.

I would think it's really hard to make a "perfect gem" or one that Navani think looks just like a gem we know to be a perfect gem. Seems like a rare skill and Gavilar had a lot on his plate as king. Wouldn't think he became a master gem maker in his spare time. Maybe he made the glass sphere exterior that holds the actual gemstone and affixed the necklace to it. Like putting the Mona Lisa in a glass frame and saying I "made it". Even so, Brandon has successfully muddied the water and I am now buying into his "Man who calls himself Taln"-esque misdirection. I'm less confident that BAM is in that particular black sphere. Still think it could be BAM. Gavilar wants Szeth to make sure they don't get it when, if it's just Voidlight, they already have it because he gave them another gem earlier in the day. Maybe he regrets that now that they murdered him and he doesn't want them to have more of it. *Shrug*

You might be right on that. It bothers me that she said "Gavilar made it". If Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured by the radiant strike force during the false desolation and that is what trapped the Parsh in slave form, then Ba-Ado-Mishram can't be trapped in something Gavilar made. Navani could be mistake or Gavilar lied to her, but let's assume she is correct, Gavilar made it. If Gavilar made it then it must not have contained any spren or Voidlight until after he made it. Without the Everstorm and before Taln broke there was only one reliable source of Voidlight on Roshar: Ba-Ado-Mishram. In order for Gavilar to fill up this gem he made during his lifetime with Voidlight he'd have to have access to Ba-Ado-Mishram and get her to fill it for him, maybe just by being near her. I always assumed Gavilar found those gems already filled. If he is making them and filling them himself that's something else.

Oathbringer chapter 121 When Dalinar gives Navani the "King's Drop", the ruby gemstone that trapped the Thrill, Navani says: "Dalinar, I've seen something like this before, much smaller, like a sphere. Gavilar made it." Whether it is Voidlight or an Unmade the black sphere would be irrelevant to the plot if it was not a perfect gem. It's been over 6 years since we last saw it, whatever is in there would have seeped out of an anything less than a perfect gem. Ordinary gems lose their stormlight within weeks. Even if Voidlight seeps out at a slower rate and the gem was a really good one 6+ years is a really long time for a non-perfect gem to hold anything. They have access to Voidlight now, we see the fused use it. I don't know why the fused would be tearing apart the palace look for some more Voidlight and not want to tell Moash about it. “I guess I am curious, Ancient Singer,” Moash said. “Is there a reason you’re ripping apart this section of the palace? More than just to clear away the rubble?” “Yes. But you do not yet need to know why.” Oathbringer Chapter 121

Brandon has to be messing with Chaos when he tells him Gavilar's sphere might not hold an Unmade. Brandon has said multiple times that the black sphere would be explained in book 3. Brandon thinks we should know what it is after we read book 3. Well, in book 3 we had: Shallan confront an Unmade, Re-Sephir, that was afraid of her because it had previously been trapped by a Lightweaver. (P.S. the art for this coppermind article is GORGEOUS!) https://coppermind.net/wiki/Re-Shephir Aesudan Kholin swallowed a gem that contained Yelig-nar and begins to emit black smoke. Odium later confirms that she did the same thing we see Amaram do. "But be warned, the queen at Kholinar tried this, and the power consumed her" Oathbringer chaper 118 https://coppermind.net/wiki/Aesudan_Kholin#cite_ref-Oathbringer-84-chapter_6-0 At the battle of Thaylen City Odium tells Amaram to swallow a gemstone that can act as a vessel for Yelig-nar. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Yelig-nar The battle of Thalyen City end with Dalinar trapping an Unmade in a gem. As Dalinar does this he remembers Taravangian telling him how Rosharans trap spren in fabrials. In the WoR Epigraphs the Diagram refers to the Unmade as spren. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Unmade#Nergaoul https://coppermind.net/wiki/Words_of_Radiance/Epigraphs#Chapter_81 Epigraph for chapter 80 talks about imprisoning another Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and how this particular Unmade was able to provide Voidlight to the Parsh https://coppermind.net/wiki/Oathbringer/Epigraphs#Chapter_80 In the epilogue Wit observes the Singers tearing through the rubble of the palace at Kholinar as if they were looking for something. Perhaps one of the other gems Gavilar had. I feel like a major theme of book 3 was that Unmade can be trapped in gems and not so much "voidlight can be contained in a gem". There may be voidlight in the black sphere, but if so it's because the Unmade that is capable of supplying Voidlight is trapped in there. It could be a different Unmade, but it's not just some Voidlight in there. If Brandon doesn't feel like confirming or canonizing exactly what is in the black sphere, that's cool. But I will not be thrown off by the "Man who calls himself Taln"-esque misdirection .

That makes sense. The new Vessel allowed for a reset, unplug the Shard and plug it back in . I was thinking that just by imprisoning Ruin's mind he was breaking his promise. Ruin certainly felt that way. I guess given that the Well of Ascension would automatically unlock itself every 1,000 years unless someone used the power makes it only a temporary impediment for Ruin and doesn't break the promise outright.

Yeah, I was disappointed with how he went out in Oathbringer. I was expecting more for him to do. Brandon said that Amaram was originally going to die in WoR, but then Brandon decided to kill Sadeas off in WoR instead. Brandon was done with Amaram in WoR. He kept him around to swap him in for Torol Sadeas' as leader of House Sadeas for a book. Amaram didn't have much to do that was unique to him. Moash is being set up as Kaladin's personal antagonist, possibly in the contest of champions. I found Amaram more interesting as a character. I don't think he was working for Odium until after WoR. Ialai Sadeas mentions to Adolin and Shallan early in OB that Amaram was caught out in the Everstorm on his way to Urithiru and he needed time to rest up from it. It seems like Amaram may have had a face to face with Odium for the first time there and Odium turned him at that point. Aside from that he was influenced by Odium via the Thrill like Dalinar and so many others. Prior to getting caught in the Everstorm he was trying to return the Heralds and prepare to fight Voidbringers as a member of the Sons of Honor. I did like his last exchange with Dalinar before he turned into a monster where he admits he can't forgive himself. He couldn't face the guilt and probably gave his pain to Odium. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/132-faqfriday-2017/#1876 From WOB #9: Brandon Sanderson ETA: Szeth originally died permanently in the end of Words of Radiance. I also changed my mind to let Amaram live in the scene with the poison dart. Adolin killed off Sadeas instead.

I was just listening to this again and thought about something. In Oathbringer, when the Stormfather tells Dalinar about the Oathpact he says "Honor let power blind him to truth.. spren and gods can't break oaths, but men ..." In the final Way of Kings vision Honor says of Odium "He is bound by some rules. All of us are." Preservation (Leras) totally broke his promise to Ruin (Ati). They had a deal!!! " This, then, was their bargain. Preservation got mankind, the only creations that had more Preservation than Ruin in them, rather than a balance. Independent life that could think and feel. In exchange, Ruin was given a promise—and proof—that he could bring an end to all they had created together. It was the pact. — Sazed's explanation of the creation of mankind on Scadrial[11] " https://coppermind.net/wiki/Scadrial Sazed doesn't call it an "oath", but he calls it both a promise and a pact and as Harmony he would be in a position to know better than most. Ruin, a biased source, also calls it a promise in Hero of Ages. Preservation made a pact / promise to another Shard and he totally broke it! First he trapped poor Ruin's mind with the Well of Ascension and then set up Vin to inherit the Shard and kill Ruin with Sazed being set up to take both Shards after that. He did all this to make sure Ruin didn't get what was promised him by Preservation. So ... what the heck :). Clearly, Odium agrees that he is bound by the champion challenge he accepted. He is convinced by Taravangian to accept his help because of this in their meeting at the end of Oathbringer. "You have agreed to a battle of champions. You must withdraw to prevent this contest from occurring, and so must not meet with Dalinar Kholin again. Otherwise, he can force you to fight. This means you must let your agents do your work. You need me." I am not suggesting this is a plot-hole or a retcon or anything to get upset about. I just find this disconnect puzzling and wanted to point it out.

Yeah, I usually go with how Kramer and Reading pronounce things in the audio books and I know that's not how everyone says it on the podcast and is not always how Brandon says it. One time it wasn't consistent in the same book. In the Way of Kings audio book the two narrators pronounce Sadeas differently, because isn't in any female POV chapters until Navani's near the end, so Reading didn't have to say it much and they weren't on the same page. When in doubt I just go with what sounds best to me.