LewsTherinTelescope

I think he just got cocky. The only reason it didn't work is because Raboniel turned on him in the end and defended Navani long enough for her to bond the Sibling rather than letting Moash kill her and finishing the job. That's fair. Rayse no longer trusted Sja-anat, though. True, but iirc they start saying it as soon as Kholinar stops responding, before they know much about the status of the rest of the country. Been a while since I reread Oathbringer, though. There's a lot of smaller nations we don't have a status for, I think. They would have most of the powerhouses though, yeah. Oh for sure. It would be kind of funny if she tried and he simply yoinked her bond.

That's also a good point yeah. Turns out teleportation is useful for a lot of reasons! Definitely. I think this was always Rayse's next step—if the capture of the Tower had gone according to plan, Urithiru would've gone dark right as the armies arrived, leaving the Radiants unable to send support and blocking off an avenue of escape. If he could keep suspicions low for long enough, Rayse might have even been able to send his own forces through to hit each party from both sides. That's a lot less useful than controlling them themselves, though, and there's always a chance the Radiants can convince the corrupted spren to operate anyway. They're still intelligent beings with their own minds, as we see in Azimir. Yeah I alluded to that a bit with the last line, though maybe I didn't give it enough emphasis. Is that even a twisting of the agreement? Alethkar was considered "fallen" as soon as Kholinar was captured, that might just be the general understanding of all involved. We see at the end of RoW that he's pissed. Evidently he's made the best of the situation, but it seems like he really did think he could negotiate his way off Roshar. Agreed. Interesting idea. Can he do that, though? I feel like stopping him from picking someone would be a clear violation of the spirit of the deal, or even an outright violation of the letter since Dalinar is himself the champion and the terms say "allowed to meet at the top of Urithiru, otherwise unharmed by either side's forces". Even if he did manage to kill him without doing anything that makes him directly responsible, I figure the Stormfather could probably still pick someone else since oaths are bound to the power rather than person. If the Stormfather dies... maybe the Sibling could as well? For some reason they're automatically aware of the exact verbiage of Odium and Dalinar's contract, which could suggest they have a magical "in" to all this as well. I think if he could do that Odium would have sent him with the initial strike force. Taravangian personally ordered the Diagram's disbandment, is ten days enough to put that network back together? Plus, if he's in Urithiru then he's essentially immortal thanks to the infinite Towerlight, and the Sibling can see anything happening within its walls to warn him.

Someone on Discord asked why Odium's forces care so much about the Shattered Plains as to commit a thousand Fused—sure they want to crush the rebel listeners, but this seems excessive. That got me thinking... The biggest countries they own are: Jah Keved Iri Rira Babatharnam Alethkar (contingent on the contest) Their biggest targets are: Thaylenah Azir Shattered Plains Misc (you'll see why these countries in a second): Shinovar allegedly has fallen to the Unmade Aimia is uninhabitable lmao If they succeed in their invasions, win the contest, and formalize whatever's going on in Shinovar, that gives them all nine useful Oathgates. Towerlight can't leave the Tower, so if we assume the Stormfather is blocked/killed by eternal Everstorm later in the book then Windrunners won't be able to fly you anywhere and spanreeds outside Urithiru will all run out of juice. Any remnants of the coalition would be unable to communicate or collaborate (except Urithiru and Emul through the mountains I guess), leaving it to wither and die even with the ceasefire in place. Hell, who knows if the treaty would even hold once the alliance breaks apart? (As a bonus, those + Herdaz gives them the vast majority of old Silver Kingdoms-controlled territory, which no doubt fills the Fused with glee.)

We still don't know why it's named Everstorm...

Mostly because Brandon told us point blank "he's not a secret agent" lol. Apparently we never considered he could still be an unsecret agent!

We know it wasn't always disease-based, though we don't know when the change happened. The floating cities rely on the diseases, though, so either they transitioned from the old magic to this one or this one existed at the time. I've wondered if the disease magic is actually a result of experimenting with the Surges and it escaping is what led to the planet's downfall, would fit with Stormlight's "sci-fi in fantasy clothing" feel.

Some of your messages sent multiple times, probably a result of lag or accidentally double-pressing the send button. I've removed the duplicates.

Just moved it for you.

Moved to the Cosmere Discussion forum. I can also move it to the Mistborn forum if you aren't fully caught up on the other books. Also, welcome to the Shard!

To be clear I don't think it was literally unrelated nonsense, more like: Not that it's literally nonsensical words, but that Jezrien assumes Dalinar's unfamiliarity with the question means maybe he was just seeing things because of his insanity, when actually he was right on the money.

I can see that read, but it's not how I took it; to me it simply sounded like Dalinar asked "the hell are you on about?" and Jezrien said "idk cuckoo bananas".

But imagine if it had come out that this city everyone views as a peaceful center of healing knowledge is using its hospitals for this... Plus, most of the top surgeons of other eastern nations probably can trace their learning back there—how much doubt would that sow in the system, how many ill or wounded would refuse treatment out of paranoia? It didn't pay off this time, but it doesn't need to always work, only often enough. That too, yeah. Great way to ease people into "maybe Odium can be useful for us after all..." Okay fair lol, though that wasn't from the Silent Gatherers anyway I presume. Isn't that more Ashertmarn's duty?

Honor only went mad toward the end of the Radiants, two thousand years after last time Abidi was on Roshar. That is the whole premise of Honor and Radiants, that morals are demanding and costly to hold to but worth it for themselves anyway, yes. Good thing Windrunners didn't have it, then. Why are we assuming an immortal being capable of seeing the future would not consider the long game? (Not even long really, medium game perhaps is more like it.) Always possible he wasn't, yeah, but so far our only precedent is for these rules to be from Honor, so it's what I'm running with for now. The Stormfather speaks of Honor's "laws" as something he had to "enforce". Again, this is the whole premise of the series. Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying we know there definitely isn't anything deeper, just that I think we have a perfectly good simple explanation already and I don't think there's much reason as of yet to assume it has to be something more, personally.

I think it's along these lines, yeah. See also the legend of Extes (tWoK 49): The Death Rattles drive people to behave in ways that divide them from others, and are so vague that realistically most won't even get anything useful anyway and rather will just muck things up based on what they assume it means. Like... for all his Silent Gathering, do we actually know of a single useful thing Taravangian got out of Moelach rather than the Diagram?

And what happens to the singers when the humans realize they can attack them endlessly at no risk to themselves? The whole philosophy of Honor, Cultivation, and Radiance is that the easy path isn't always the path you should take. Which the Radiants were also prevented from doing.

Might be as simple as "it's way too dangerous left unchecked", like blocking Cohesion from splitting atoms the way microkinesis could. Shallan created an entire army of illusions with slight mass in Oathbringer—what if she went all the way? Now realize any Lightweaver could do this on the spot, given enough Light and possibly the Fourth Ideal. That would be utter chaos if even one went rogue, and the Lightweaver oaths have the least moral guardrails of any order (minus maybe Elsecallers).

As the quote alder brought up earlier says, Honor binds them: They want to allow Shallan & co through, but they aren't allowed to. Is it unbelievable that these same rules would prevent them from aiding Odium's forces, even if they had the desire to be free from the war?

To add to this: "Liberation" is not "ceasing being a fabrial", it's "no longer being bound to one side".

Why can't they just have wanted it?

That's flipping the cause and effect, they agreed to what Sja-anat did because they wanted freedom:

Hard to find (SH 3-2):

Dalinar's glyphpair is the tower and the crown.

This was my first thought, but why is Yolen so hard to find then?

Here ya go (green guy = employee):

Someone pointed out on the Discord that she could have created the beads through substantial illusions. It being a creationspren taking the form of a bead also makes sense, though. According to the RPG writers, Brandon told them the armor itself doesn't actually have unique properties and putting it around an ally is something any of the orders can do.