FirstSelector

Much of the plot of Oathbringer and now Rhythm of War has been driven by Odium's desire to free himself from Honor's shackles and escape to do Odium things in the rest of the cosmere.  His first plan was stopped dead by Cultivation's timely restoration of Dalinar's memory, and his second plan was rudely interrupted by Nightblood.  And now he is bound to an agreement with Dalinar that focuses exclusively on his release.  However, should he win that duel, I think Odium will be rather surprised!

THEORY: Odium is too Invested in Roshar to leave, just like any other Shard on their homeworld.  That is to say: he's stuck.

Interestingly, this theory also involves the details of the Recreance, of which several more have been revealed.  There was a theory post floating around somewhere that I will try to find and edit the link in where large parts of this were discussed, so this is not entirely my original work.  EDIT: Similar thoughts were noticed here, specifically the ten-centric argument.

The two three tones of Roshar

The first and most important step for this theory is an off-hand comment by the Sibling.  In RoW Ch 69, they specifically refer to the two pure tones:

Quote

I haven’t forgotten anything. The defenses no longer work because I don’t have the Light for them. I lost most of my strength when I lost the ability to hear the two pure tones of Roshar.

Obviously, given that this is the Sibling speaking, they are referring to the tones of Honor and Cultivation.  It is not hard to reason that when the Sibling was created, Honor and Cultivation both had become Invested enough in Roshar to start making great works.  This also comes with the necessary perpendicularities, the magic systems, and so on.  And, importantly, until now, they were only aware of the two tones and had no idea Odium was involved at all.

Another aspect of being significantly Invested in a planet is that Shards can't really leave.  I don't have the exact quote for this (I'm looking for it), but WoB tells us that Shards get stuck to their home planets and that their shardpool is actually a manifestation of this.  As it applies to Roshar, it is not hard to see that Honor and Cultivation are stuck.

Then why does the Sibling refer to two tones instead of three?  Well, the natural guess is that Odium was not previously Invested enough in Roshar to cause it to register as "home."

I propose that the introduction of the third tone is what caused the Sibling to forget his original tone, on account of everything shifting in the Spiritual Realm to accommodate the new tone.  This seems like it would be a vastly unpleasant experience in all three Realms, and indeed the Sibilng refers to it as such in RoW Ch 49:

RoW Ch 49:

Quote

I have . . . been wounded. Thousands of years ago, something happened that changed the singers. It hurt me too.
Navani covered her shock. “You’re speaking of the binding of that Unmade, which made the singers lose their forms?”
Yes. That terrible act touched the souls of all who belong to Roshar. Spren too.
“How have no spren mentioned this?”
I don’t know. But I lost the rhythm of my Light that day. The tower stopped working. My father, Honor, should have been able to help me, but he was losing his mind. And he soon died . . .

In summary, when Odium was suddenly Connected enough to Roshar to register his own tone, it changed the others enough that the Sibling forgot theirs.  Now, what sort of event would that be?

Ba-Ado-Mishram and the Recreance

The previous theory reference above made a rather elegant claim: the Recreance was caused by Melishi doing whatever was necessary to bind BAM into a gem and stop the False Desolation.  The Knights, seeing the damage done to the singers, decided that they could no longer continue on in good faith.  And, as RoW showed us, the spren agreed.  I propose that the damage was much more serious.  The first example of this is in Kalak's epigraphs (RoW Ch 97):

Quote

As one who has suffered for so many centuries . . . as one whom it broke . . . please find Mishram and release her. Not just for her own good. For the good of all spren. For I believe that in confining her, we have caused a greater wound to Roshar than any ever realized.

We also know that the Recreance changed something fundamental about spren and the Nahel bond (note the Sibling quote above, and here in RoW Ch 115):

Quote

Some of this, Kelek said, had to do with the nature of deadeyes. Before the Recreance, they had never existed. Kelek said he thought this was why Mraize was hunting him. Something to do with the fall of the singers, and the Knights Radiant, so long ago—and the imprisoning of a specific spren.

It's not hard at all to connect the dots here: Melishi imprisoning BAM led to the singers being Disconnected, the Sibling to losing their rhythm, and the creation of deadeyes.

The Everstorm and Voidbinding

A cosmere scholar might ask at this point: if Odium is now tied inexorably to Roshar, where is his corresponding manifestation?  Shouldn't there be symmetry here?  And the answer is yes, that's the Everstorm.  Honor and Cultivation both are involved in highstorms -- Honor's power and Cultivation's life-giving crem.  Odium, correspondingly, has a storm that allows his Fused to be reborn.  Now, the Everstorm cannot itself be the catalyzing event described above since it is too new, but it's not actually new (as we see in RoW Ch 73):

Quote

Yes. It’s been building in Shadesmar for centuries.

What I am proposing, effectively, is that the Everstorm has been building ever since the Knights inadvertently tied him to Roshar.  Actually getting it to cross over into the Physical Realm took time and planning, of course, but it stands to reason that a huge chunk of Investiture like the Everstorm can only exist if the Shard in question is tied down to the planet.

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of power employed by the Fused during the war does not appear to be of Odium.  Instead, they are using Voidlight to power Odium's corrupted (i.e., red) version of Surgebinding.  This is obvious from the fact that the Fused are merely imitating the magic system: no spren and access to only one Surge.  Assuming that this was true during true during past Desolations as well, Odium was not using his own Roshar-based Voidbinding.  We know that Voidbinding must be Roshar-based because it has ten levels (and Braize is nine-centric), so its existence means that Odium is Invested in the planet enough to form a magic system.

As an aside, a good question for Brandon is to ask if there is an Odium perpendicularity in the Everstorm.  Given that the Fused come out of the storm and inhabit new bodies, I would say that is is likely.

Conclusion

Originally, Odium was fighting a foreign war on Roshar, sending Fused who used Rosharan magic to fight the humans.  He was not originally Invested enough in Roshar to have his own tone or magic system, but this changed during the Recreance.  'Suddenly Odium' was a problem for the spren and specifically the Sibling, but it also means that Odium is too Invested in the planet to leave.

If he hasn't figured this out already, he's in for a rude awakening should he defeat Dalinar.

EDIT: Thanks to whichever mod moved this to the appropriate subforum

I basically nailed the entire Tower plot on the head.  As far as I am aware, I was the first person to synthesize all of that evidence (helped by a signing question about the Nightwatcher).  It was highly amusing to see it play out.

I really liked it, although I will admit that having guessed (while reading Skyward and due to a question on the Arcanum) that the slugs were powering the hyperdrives took a bit of the surprise away.  That being said, I'm really glad he didn't go with "FTL jumps powered by enslaved humans-in-boxes," which the scream seemed to portend.

Other than that, I was really giddy when Spensa figured out how to make the hyperjump work.  I'm really looking forward to seeing her use it more frequently in the next book!

Jorgen as a cytonic was a cool twist, and his training with Gran-gran made me laugh.

I agree that the Superiority is in a lot of trouble.  Not only are the humans centuries ahead in technology but they have sympathizers in the Superiority itself and among other races.  The human/figment alliance and Vapor's steadfast support suggest that the humans have powerful allies there already.  Oh, and the humans are miles ahead on actually running a military.

M-Bot's untimely demise was quite sad, although he seems to have survived enough to find a new home.  And, since we now know that M-Bot was built on figment/human tech, maybe they'll find him a better home than he had.

I really want to know what's on the other end of that portal.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Old Earth (which mysteriously vanished) is hiding in there somewhere, fortified and ready for round 4.

But, yeah, great book.  The ending was surprising but I'm definitely looking forward to both Spensa's adventures in nowhere and another galactic war.

Are we marking Defending Elysium spoilers?  I have been up to this point, since it's not strictly party of the series, but at the same time it's available for free and has been out for many years.

Here's a major question: apparently Old Earth vanished.  Was this intentional?  A cytonic research project gone horribly wrong?  It's unlikely to just be cloaked, since its gravitational influence would give it away.  My guess is that it's hiding in the nowhere, probably fortified and ready to drop back into regular space for round four.

My guess is that Jorgen is either a weak cytonic or just bad at the FTL communication part.  Spensa never hears the slugs, despite owning one.

I like the idea of delver politics, and I think that there is more to the whole delver/cytonic issue.  Why was Spensa able to convince the delver to leave?  Was it something special about her, or just a particularly curious delver?  Maybe early humans convinced one to leave and then got cocky, thinking they could order the delvers around.

Defending Elysium spoilers:

I wonder what the delvers look like on the nowhere side?  Clearly there is something on the other side of the portal, because you can mine acclivity stone.

One thing that I would like to understand better is how and why human technology is distributed weirdly.  M-Bot's (old ) ship is beyond even what the Superiority has access to, which is weird because the figments are citizens and they helped design it.  But this never disseminated, so either the Superiority didn't capture much in the way of human ships or something else.  On the other hand, Vapor seems quite pro-human, so maybe the figments are just biding their time and sitting on the tech.

This also applies to the delver training facility: it seems to be about the same age, tech-wise, as the nowhere portals.  And the Superiority doesn't seem to understand either, at least completely. 

More DE spoilers:

I also have a lot of thoughts!

The obvious question is `what is a delver and why are they so destructive?'  Also, is there one delver or several?  The text seems to indicate that these humans were hiding from a specific delver.

I think we can guess that the delver was what scoured all life off of the planet, and left it totally barren.  I assume the rats arrived, as they are wont to do, with the most recent ship.

I seem to recall a guess that humans are special because they have a very low density of cytonics, unlike the other species which are entirely cytonics.  Do they not see the delver?  Do they not care?  Does this one have a grudge on humans in particular?  Are they trying to kill Spensa because she might attract a delver?  Is this the reason the war was fought?  Maybe the delver is a weapon/consequence of that war?

As for the last line, I agree that there is something special about cytonics and technology.  When Spensa and M-Bot are reliving the Battle of Alta, she reaches out with her powers and starts to hear the stars.  However, when M-Bot turns off the simulation, they vanish immediately instead of going away.

Defending Elysium/Starsight spoilers:

A good question would be to ask if it looks the same for Spensa/M-Bot teleporting as the woman getting sucked into the blackness.

What is a nowalk?  Is it somehow related to the extensive life support and technology underground in Detritus?

An interesting thing about FTL is that once you leave the forward lightcone, there is a change of reference frame that makes it so you travel backwards in time.  Now, this is a weird quirk of our spacetime and likely has nothing to do with Skyward's universe.  But I would not put it past Brandon to have stumbled on this and finally decide to incorporate time travel into one of his stories.

@Honorless The thing with the alternate ending of WoA is that four mist figures show up and it's strongly implied that they stop Ruin from having Marsh kill Sazed.

After asking Brandom about this several times, he finally admitted that the mist figures are other Shards, and that one of them is Endowment*.  The star is likely that Shards manifesting on other planets is not as simple as "they showed up and yelled at Ruin."

While we note that this is not canon, it nevertheless suggests that Endowment has sufficient foresight to know that killing Sazed -- happening halfway across the galaxy -- would be a Bad Idea.

It is also worth noting that Endowment seems utterly unperturbed by Odium possibly getting free.  Maybe she has some huge ace-in-the-hole located at the anomaly, and thats also how she was able to interfere on Scadrial.

I don't believe this at all (personally my guess is Silverlight or similar) but it is interesting to consider. 

Just now, RShara said:

Or he has a Connection medallion.

Oh yeah, those exist

The nicrosilmind doesn't seem to "run out" after many uses, so I can see it as a long-term plan.  And, in the three hundred-ish years between times we see him, that is likely enough time for Felt to procure one.

On 11/9/2018 at 0:24 PM, RShara said:

I think it means that he's tapping Connection to fit in and feel like he belongs on Roshar.

So, this is my first thought.  The problem is that he was born before the thinning of Terris bloodlines that led to Ferrings, so either he got a spike or he was always a full Feruchemist.  Or, possibly, he was given the abilities by Harmony specifically to scout.

As for standing out, it's possible that it's intentional.  Roshar is quickly becoming a hotspot for worldhoppers and cosmere-wide organizations, and maybe Felt is sending some sort of signal.  Similar to how Mraize doesn't hide -- anyone who wanted to push on Ialai and would recognize him would immediately have second thoughts.

Personally I think he's doing some sort of Connection trick, either from Feruchemy or something else.

On 10/29/2018 at 1:59 PM, sonwarrior01 said:

I think it's also interesting that the spren this time round are more interested in preserving spren life than human life.

I bet this is the key.  Like others in this thread, I was also pretty bothered by Malata's willingness to go along with Taravangian's plans.  If you take "Life before Death" to mean preventing another organization of Radiants from mass-murdering the spren again, then her actions aren't that strange.

The Nohadon quotes have always bugged me because the Ideals are supposed to be based on his book, but the Surgebinders arrive before he writes it.  What we could be seeing is the proto-Knights, where the spren were granting Surges but before Ishar was able to reign them all in properly.

I do wonder, however, about Spark's longer-term plans.  While the Diagram may honestly believe that they are going to pull a fast one on Odium somehow, there's always the chance that it goes wrong.  The scenario I imagine is that the Diagram cripples Dalinar somehow, allowing Odium to destroy the planet and everything associated with it.  Then, lots more spren die, which is clearly in conflict with Spark's goals.

Ah, I misread a bit  I'm sure that the various other names Nightblood has picked up over time are interesting (probably many of them are curses...), I meant that the most relevant one was the first.

I think OP meant the original name for the sword.  Vasher named it "Nightblood" after killing Shashara with it.

6 hours ago, robardin said:

She had acquired Szeth as a slave at one point, and had even mentioned him to Jasnah prior to their meeting in the prologue in WoR, but soon sold him (to the Parshendi) because she found him creepy.

This is actually a point in favor of her being a Herald, and something that has bugged me for a while.  in fact, I can't believe I'm just now realizing this.

Based on the discussion between Nale and Kalak, it is pretty clear that they arranged the assassination somehow.  Two things about this bugged me:

1) How they managed to position Szeth so perfectly

2) How they knew Gavilar, Eshonai, and the other listeners would behave

The second point I can't yet explain.  It might be foresight, it might be that Gavilar was encouraged by the Heralds somehow, etc.  But the first point is neatly solved by the Heralds making it so that Szeth is given the Honorblade, kicked out, and then they picked him up just before he was necessary.

The Ghostbloods being from Threnody is both thematically fitting and has interesting cosmere significance.  Since Ambition was the first Shard Odium went after, it stands to reason that any people on Threnody would be the first group to feel the damage caused by inter-Shard conflict.  And while they don't have access to their own magic system per se, I can nevertheless imagine that they would be quite interested in understanding why the shades exist.

This also may give a hint as to what Mraize is up to.  If they're still angry about the whole Odium thing on Threnody, then they probably didn't have much to do except prepare for Odium's next play.  Mraize is nothing if not prepared and well-informed; perhaps he isn't at Hoid or Khriss' level, but he's probably in the next tier down.

Moreover, given that their actions have been a series of well-placed thumbs in Odium's eye, this sort of backstory fits quite well.

I have written about this before, specifically how the Sibling is related to Urithiru.  Down in the comments there's some discussion about the connection to stone.

It is, I think, possible for both of these ideas to be true.  That is to say, Urithiru was shaped out of the stone of Roshar.  The Sibling, being the spren of Urithiru itself, was likely the biggest stone-like spren around.  The Shin religion was likely shaped by this fact, and the fact that Urithiru was probably wrought in one piece by Honor and Cultivation.  This makes the stone of Urithiru holy (as Szeth mentions) and the most obvious manifestation of Honor's goodwill towards his people on Roshar.

I like this theory quite a lot, and I think that it explains quite a bit of the trickiness with the Recreance.

I think it a not-unreasonable assumption, based on what we have seen concerning Skybreakers and the epigraph about the fourth Windrunner oath, that not all of the Knights would have achieved the Final Ideal of their order.  Since there are "ways," as you point out, for a spren to separate from their Knight prior to the Final Ideal, it seems reasonable to conclude that their spren nevertheless went along with the plan.

As for point #9, I think that the free will of the spren is an important part of Honor's built-in regulator for the power of the Knights.  The Nahel bond can't be a two-way agreement if only one party has the ability to walk away.

The "Ancient of Stones" as referenced by the Diagram is almost certainly Talenel.  It references how he "must begin to crack" and start a Desolation.

However, I do agree that there might be something to the Sibling having a particular relation to stone.  After all, Urithiru was wrought from the stone directly.  It is worth noting that Shinovar pre-dates the construction of Urithiru, and thus so might their religion.

I like this theory quite a lot, though I am also suspicious of the timeline.  Regardless, I think it is quite clear that Melishi is involved with both B-A-M's imprisonment and the Sibling leaving.

There is an interesting connection to Syl's backstory.  When her first Knight died, she was hurt and went into a long slumber.  The Stormfather uses almost exactly the same words to describe his Sibling.  Perhaps Melishi died in the attempt, in a way that was particularly damaging to his spren.

However, your argument about B-A-M not going willingly is quite clear.  I find it extremely unlikely that the Sibling, who requires a massive gemstone pillar to house their Investiture, would fit into a sphere.  Thus, wherever they are trapped is probably quite large.

My phone is home safe and sound!  The recorded successfully saved the audio files, but I will check that it saved properly this weekend.

On 11/18/2017 at 8:44 AM, OrinCordus said:

I really like the idea of the Sibling being related to stone for several reasons.

This is pretty interesting idea, but there is a small problem.  If we look at WoR I-10, it appears as though the Shin Stone Shamans can communicate with the spren of stones:

Quote

The Voidbringers are no more, they had told him.
The spirits of the stones themselves promised it.
The powers of old are no more.
The Knights Radiant are fallen.
We are all that remains.

Now, this is far from conclusive evidence, but the tense structure seems to imply that the "promising" happened relatively recently.  We might reasonably guess that the Sibling went into hibernation about the time of the Recreance, so that this quote means that it was possible to talk with the stone spirits after the event.  If the Sibling was indeed revered by the Shin as a "god" for being connected to the stones, it would be strange indeed that their "god" would have vanished more than two thousand years ago.

9 hours ago, Ytsken said:

I just reread the chapter 'Strength ' and it struck me.... wouldn't Navani be the perfect person to bond the Sibling?

I have actually been kicking around the "Navani becomes a Bondsmith" idea for a while.  I more or less agree with your points, plus adding the part where Navani herself thinks that (OB Ch 104) "had some practice holding a kingdom together."  I would not be surprised to see Navani going on a grand quest to get Urithiru running so that the grand coalition doesn't fall apart, and this attracting the Sibling.

There's also the symmetry between her and Dalinar's "forbidden" relationship (supposedly offensive to the gods) and Honor and Cultivation's "forbidden" relationship (actually offensive to other gods).

Perhaps, though it's still relevant here.  Urithiru was the stronghold created by Honor and Cultivation for the Radiants, and a big part of being Radiant is Shadesmar.  Actually, that painting could be for both Perpendicularities - it's just difficult to find and use Honor's.

5 hours ago, sword_nimi said:

I assumed it was to avoid indicating the spren’s gender, honestly. 

I agree entirely.

As for the blue disk, I think that it is instead a representation of Cultivation's Perpendicularity.  Recall that (Elantris spoilers):

2 minutes ago, WeiryWriter said:

On the magic system thing, I don't know that there really has to be a formal link between the magic on the two worlds. We know that the shardworlds themselves play a role in how Investiture manifests, so two worlds Invested by the same Shard might have vastly different manifestations of Investiture. First of the Sun is also only mildly Invested so it would probably have more in common with other low-level Invested planets than with Taldain itself.

While I agree, I think that there should still be some commonality, given that it is the same Shard.  At the very least, they should both reflect the Shard's Intent somehow.  Taldain's magic has always confused me in that regard, but it kind of works for FotS; the trappers are a solitary bunch, and getting the Investiture requires a high degree of keep yourself alive.

5 minutes ago, WeiryWriter said:

Brandon has said that this perpendicularity is much smaller in scale than other perpendicularities, which could potentially be because it is the result of a Splinter rather than a full Shard. At this point I don't think we know enough about how Autonomy creates these aspects of herself to really say whether they even count as Splinters or are something entirely new...

That's... really interesting.  A related question is how much Investiture you need to go from temporary, unstable Perpendicularity (like Elsecalling) to stable.  So maybe Autonomy just has to set down a minimum amount, give it a bit of a personality, and move on.  I would imagine that we're beyond Splinter-level power... maybe someone should ask how long a Perpendicularity powered by a single Divine Breath would last.

Of all of the scenes in the cosmere, I want to see the one where Hoid and Jasnah discuss the fate of Roshar.

On that note, I wonder if she will retain him as the Queen's Wit?  She hardly needs it...