Andrew C

Is it just me that half thinks books 1 to 5 will deal with the conflict between Honor and Odium, "resolving" this by them combining into a new dualshard, Wrath, then 6 to 10 deal with Wrath and Cultivation?

If Reya turns out to be Dalinar's wife's name, I will be very annoyed at Peter.

"Dual wielding" is just an invention of MMORPGs that are loot-based. There is almost no practical reason to have a weapon in each hand in a real fight. In real combat historically, most people wealthy enough to afford armor and fighting unmounted either used a sword and shield, a two-handed sword, or a one-handed sword with nothing in the offhand. The latter style was most common in duels.

I'm sure there are people on Roshar that believe that the strength of Odium's forces in a Desolation will increase for every Surgebinder on the planet. I'm certain that this motivates Darkness, from his words in Lift's interlude. It remains to be seen whether they are correct or not.

Ialai may take over. To damnation with traditions.

Been trying to work this out and don't see any evidence in the books so far. Was Tavanast killed by the betrayal of the nine Heralds 4500 years ago? Was He killed by the Recreance? Or was it a direct attack by Odium and/or his mortal agents at some time we have no evidence of? (The end of WoK has him state that "Odium has killed me" but I'm not sure if that implies a direct attack, or if He was killed indirectly akin to how Syl was dying in some of WoR; if the Recreance was Odium's doing then this may have been the case). Was the revisionism of the Heirocracy related to some of the ardentia discovering that the Almighty was slain? Or is Tavanast's death much more recent?

Is it just me that thinks this is exactly the sort of thing that Odium would seek to create? If your goal is to crush Tavanast so completely that He could never recover, what better way than to turn Tavanast's greatest protectors into traitors, and make it so that the reason for their betrayal is Tavanast's own sense of honor?

I had the same thought.

“He must pick it up, the fallen title! The tower, the crown, and the spear!” - This is fulfilled. Kaladin has taken the "fallen title" of Knight Radiant, reached the Tower, saved the crown, and taken his spear (his living Shardblade is a spear much of the time). “Above silence, the illuminating storms—dying storms— illuminate the silence above.” - The 'silence above' is no doubt a reference to Tavanast's death. “The death is my life, the strength becomes my weakness, the journey has ended.” - I have no doubt that this is a perversion of the Radiant oaths given by people who support Odium.

Of note regarding the "while the sun remains hot, I die" one: The sun in Shadesmar does not follow the same rules as Roshar's sun, and it is mentioned as being just above the horizon there. Presumably the sun is setting there, and this is a rare event.

I think she's been corrupted somewhat by Odium; enough to turn her into the Nightwatcher.

I think Taravangian will do the deed that is too dishonorable for Kaladin to consider.

Part of me hopes Jasnah survives this, only to die a totally meaningless death in the next unspoiled chapter after she gets run over by a horse and cart, or something equally silly. I'm a hopeless troll sometimes.

Ah, the old meaningless death of a beloved character trope. Love it.

Honor, Cultivated to an extreme at which it becomes vile and evil... How perfectly Odious.

I wonder if a sniper attack, carried out by a person unaware that they were firing on Steelheart, would work?

One thing coming from a post in another thread - possibly FF wanted to use the Reckoners to help her set herself up as the 'Emperor' of another city (maybe under some alliance with SH). Maybe she will still try to do this in book 2.

Had no idea about Firefight at all. Then started rereading and looking for the subtle hints. I still have no idea what her character was trying to achieve in the events of the story. Why try to dissuade the Reckoners from killing SH when you had ample opportunities to kill them all one by one in their sleep (suppressing the gunshot noises) and create illusions of them to fool the others?

It is a relatively silly name to choose, assuming SH was aware of his weakness at the time he chose the name. I was under the impression, however, that SH did not know his weakness until the first scene.

MAJOR SPOILERS for the book, so close this now. I'm curious as to how loyal Firefight was to Steelheart and to what degree the two of them communicated and planned. Intel from FF could have helped SH destroy the Reckoners on several occasions throughout the book. FF made statements that make you suspect she had a degree of loyalty to SH but as her existance was such a lie, it's hard to believe anything she said. What were SH's thoughts on FF being so central to killing Fortuity? How long had FF been infiltrating the Reckoners, and why? Was FF looking to use the Reckoners as her own power base or for some other reason? I'm more and more confused about the FF-SH relationship every time I think about it.

(I have finished the book) At the time of reading the prologue and the first few chapters, I believed noone could hurt SH unless they did not want to. I will not state anything in this thread about the accuracy of that guess.

I'm definitely suspicious that dust is her weakness. That said, I was convinced all through Steelheart that his weakness was that SH could only be harmed by someone that did not want to, and I was wrong on that.

On the pipe: I thought Rand has 'woken' from the 'dream' of life, and now treats the world as he would Tel'aran'rhiod.

So Egwene saves the world for something like the 5th and 6th times in the book. Once when she invokes the Flame of Tar Valon weave to undo the balefire damage and kill M'Hael, and again when (dead) she gives Rand the strength to not be broken by the Great Lord's strategy of breaking him by making him watch everyone die. Her words shatter that. Also I echo everything that's been said about how awesome Androl was.