Karger

I would also add 3. He is not their absolute leader and 4. He has a Herald's madness meaning his behavior can be super inconsistent without him actually being incompetent in the traditional sense.

You are putting a mid level radiant against a technologically proficient coinshot. Roshar should have guns soon themselves anyway and would develop them much faster if exposed to an enemy that carries them in such large numbers.

She is the shard that makes things grow. Remember we are looking at things from a divine perspective. It would be acceptable to say that the things cultivated by god were natural or that they grew according to the natural process of cultivation.

Radiants would quickly stop wearing metal in any prolonged conflict. That would be rule one.

Preservation loved TLR not necessarily his kingdom.

Unless hemalurgy or southern medalions.

Necessary no. The easiest method probably. Getting any combination of twinborn is super difficult. Double steel is a really good one for physical combat and paired with a gun it does provide a good chance of victory. However of the one in one hundred thousand chances you have of getting a twinborn only one in two hundreed and fifty six are the ones you think and once that individual twinborn dies you can't recover them or train a new one. Scadrail's problem is not that they will loose every single match up. Their problem is that on the balance they will probably loose more fights then they win. Thinking an opponent is not inventive is a common mistake made by loosing armies everywhere. Sure mistborn can be inventive but that does not mean that they have a monopoly on that quality. Clever uses of powers are just as accessible to surgebinding as they are to the metalic arts. Additionally tricks run out. You can't expect one to work forever as your opponent will eventually wise up and train against it. Successful campaigns rely just as much as figuring out new tricks and adapting against old ones. Yes your stealrunner will be a problem until a carefully prepared trap lands him in a field with an edgedancer who has applied abrasion to the entire floor sticking the compounder to the ground. Your next stealrunner will learn from that mistake but the radiants will be improvising as well.

Roshar is a Julia set. We have actually known this for quite some time. The land seems to have been created according to a fractal pattern repeated a bunch of times. I hope one of you can demonstrate it with a video because I have not been able to find one. Thanks to RoW we have confirmed that the continent started at Ur(the modern day tower city that still caries the name). In the released chapters Venli hears this line that got me thinking. A number of answers come to mind but one sticks out to me. Despite the existence of shinovar the continent is still broadly symmetrical. The area directly across from the human nation would be modern day alethkar. It has always bothered me that shinovar exists. Why would Adonalsium put a place that humans can live in his crab people paradise? Also would it be fair for Honor to ask a large group of singers to vacate their ancestral lands? The answer creates itself like the next stage of a mathematical function. The rosharan shards used an old function of the continent to expand it in the way the wanted creating shinovar and modern day alethkar as a byproduct. More interestingly the name implies that the shards did this on more then one occasion. They expanded the continent advancing the land itself on two separate occasions.

I also thought Kvothe but we will have to ask Brandon if this was intentional or if he and Rothfuss are drawing on the same spiritual ideal.

In any of those statements the speakers are clearly wrong. Invincibility in war is a myth. War is instead about making the best possible use of your advantages while minimizing your disadvantages. In a direct matchup without atium a mistborn is going to have an extremely hard time against a forth ideal radiant. Cracking plate is a difficult and time consuming process and one good hit by a shardweapon can immobilize the mistborn permanently while it will take several hits for the mistborn to start doing damage to the radiant. Add in the fact that the radiant can heal and you have a major problem in an extended match. The mistborn either has to survive until their enemies stormlight runs out or rely on a carefully planned tick/trap. The problems with the first are obvious and the problem with the second is that traps can only be used to full effectiveness once or twice. With a substantial atium supply things become much more even but the shear power available to radiants is still a problem. You can easily come up with scenarios that allow even a mistling victories but you can't always rely on pulling them off.

It was hinted pretty strongly in the line "Cultivation's truest form remained hidden but she portrayed herself as human."(I am paraphrasing but it is from Odium's perspective).

This is the one part of your theory I know is at least partially untrue as the Honorspren existed prior to human arrival(Syl's interlude). That is an interesting possibility. It does beg the question "why did Odium agree to the contest?"

We have a bit more information on Rosharan history, culture, and "ecology" now and that has assembled an arrangement of facts that look something like a picture in my head. I figured I may as well get it on the page so here it is. Rosharan myth starts with the human exodus but one thing notably happens before it. Odium tempts Ishar to experiment with surgebinding. Reconstructing this exact series of events is difficult as we don't really have anything beyond an offhanded comment by the Stormfather. We do know that these experiments eventually turned Ashyn into a wasteland and that the majority of humans had to leave. Also the Eila Stele and Stormfather both indicate that Odium was not bound by Honor at this point(although we have no proof it does say they brought Odium with them). This makes sense given that he was able to tempt Ishar. If I had to guess I would say Odium arrived in the system after careful consideration but knew he could not challenge the two resident shards directly. As his gambit he tempted the humans of Ashyn into their experiments knowing what the resulting disaster would bring. The panicking humans(probably including Ishar) go to him for help and he helps them crack the method they use to escape the disaster and arrive on Roshar. This puts the foreign humans on Rosharan soil. We know that the singers were commanded to take in the refugee humans and that the humans were given Shinovar. I think it reasonable to assume that conflict did not instantly break out. The humans were a broken people and the singers were commanded to take them in. It would not surprise me to learn of a period of coexistence. The trouble is that humans are not a monolith and that Odium is still around. Individual acts of violence, theft or betrayal could escalate quickly between peoples who did not share a common language or history. In this xenophobic environment reactionary singers might demand action from their gods but be refused substantial aid. I would not think it surprising that diplomatic coups by early humans were responsible for this line. In human history violence puts a certain kind of leader at the forefront of human society. They are charismatic, bold, aggressive, yet seeming to care deeply for those under them and refuse to see conflict as unwinnable. This could be a descriptor of a Windrunner or in other words Jezrien. Something that has always baffled me is the relative size of Makabakam and the position of its oathgate. I might just be projecting here and it is hard to put into words but looking at the map I can't help but get the impression that it was the best established of the ten silver kingdoms. I am also pretty sure that the human followers of Jezrien conquered it. The only actual proof I have though is from Dalinar's Nalen vision. Nale has always been a stickler for rules but learning that he and Jezrien were enemies puts this into context I am pretty sure a group of humans concluded that creating a buffer state would teach the singers that humans were here to stay and that making peace was the best option. Unfortunately things rarely turn out this way when you attack them. In this case the singers must have been horrified. I seriously doubt that a singer government controlled all singers everywhere. However knowing people I am also pretty sure Jezien treated them as if they did. Another layer of escalation in this war and so the singers did the unthinkable. They betrayed their spren. The singer betrayal of spren is what started me thinking about this in the first place. What could the singers have done that was so bad that the spren would chose the humans over their partners of millennia? Even the human betrayal did not turn them off humans forever. This interesting line caught my eye. Where do the unmade come from? It is a long unanswered question but here is my theory. The singer's only allies were unwilling to help them and they were facing what looked increasingly like a superior military force. Thinking they were out of options the singers went to Odium and he offered them a solution. "If the spren won't help you we will make them help you." Whichever group of singers did this were at least in my mind probably not representing all of singer society. I actually thing the Stele was made as propaganda created to rally support against the human threat. Either way singers unmade several of the great spren and the spren peoples reacted by abandoning the singers. The result was that humanity gained a horrifying set of new enemies but singer society was devastated. Without spren help the singers could not build homes, make tools, potentially even change forms. The survivors of such a calamity would not have much left but hate. Odium could not ask for anything more. Worse still the singer war effort would have collapsed completely invigorating the human's in their push to force concessions. When your enemy is down for the count it always seems like a good idea to make them cry uncle. It is no wonder that the singers would go to Odium one more time and so the fused would have been created. Back on the human side things would have looked great. They were finally going to get the singers to concede to humanity. Spren were becoming more pro human. The war would be over soon. Until the fused enter the field. The fused and unmade might not be able to kill all the humans but they could certainly keep everything going forever. Sooner or later the humans would realize that this was not a game they could win. Intelligent ones start looking for a game changer. Odium is waiting with his latest option. I imagine his last exchange with Ishar before the first desolation ended went something like this. Odium: "I have this cool thing that can solve all your problems!" Ishar: "Seems great. I just have one question." Odium: "A worthy passion. Tell me what is your question?" Ishar: "Why is it that every time I go to you for a solution it gets me out of the pan and into the fire?" Odium: "UNPRINTABLE then tries to BS his way around things." Ishar: "I have been talking to some old friends of yours.." Scene direction Crowd pleasing entrance by Tanavast. Tanavast: "Hello Rayse" Well feel free to pick this one apart. I can't promise it is right I have nowhere close to enough of the requisite evidence. Thanks for reading though. I needed to get this one out there.

OK? All of them have a cognitive aspect. When they don't have a body they can move around as a spren. Assuming I am correct then they do have a body while using the surge of transportation it just does not have a location. Thunderclasts are not completely insane though. Odium is able to give one orders it understands. Also Venli differentiates between it and the normal fused.

Bodies. Those were definitely not fused. They don't have bodies on Braize. And? They all did that. Each brand only gets one surge and one of them does get the surge of transportation.

Not really. The petrifying investiture is still breath in their case. It just manifests a bit differently.

I agree. Firstly I am very very mad at a spren bonding so young without understanding what they were doing. Secondly the cryptics believed that bonding a human was a suicide mission anyway. Thirdly Shallan is still alive meaning the effects are not necessarily permanent. Finally expending children to be that responsible is ridiculous.

Yes but I am not sure you want to. It basically involves reading so much cosmere that you dream it.

You think he still wants to kill all the other shards?

I may as well paraphrase Hoid. Just because they know almost everything does not mean they know any particular piece of information. They might also know but have just concluded Zahel won't work with them. He is immune to most forms of bribery, blackmail, and intimidation. Also he would make a really nasty enemy. No problem. It is a bit confusing I admit. As a fun side note Mraize probably has breath himself(he seems to have a life sense).

Genocide of entire races of people who happen to be the best friends of the sacrifice is a bit more dramatic then choosing to serve a god who will help you fight some invaders.

He did not need to. Breath does not stay bound to its system. Endowment's investiture sticks to the soul of the person it is attached to. How do you know they are? They also just might not know about him.

I tried to simplify this time around for convince but in general terms "increasing the total amount of good in the universe" is the broad characteristic. I think it is looking for a source. Like finding and understanding a reason why.

Odium does not have a bondsmith traditionally.

This theory is dated. I made it before that info was published. All of these are in need of an update. Sorry but that doesn't work. You need a compound word.