Master Silver

Yeah I definitely meant shard blades not honor blades

Ahh.. I see I should edit my original post so that it is clear that this thread is about Dalinar's champion, although I am fine with a bit of bleed over. I don't see Moash becoming Odium's champion because he just hasn't had any impressive feats in combat. He has talent but lacks experience. Kaladin has been in many more battles and even his experience and training pales in comparison to Dalinar and Adolin. I think Adolin was built for the role of champion, but I do think that we don't know what being the champion all entails. From Dalinar and Odium's discussion, and the vision, it seems like the champion will conduct the war on behlaf of Odium or Dalinar. I don't think it ends in a duel. If it does end in a duel. Adolin or Szeth. Szeth with the same stormlight healing and lashing ability as Kaladin +a weapon that can change likely wins against Kaladin in a fight. On the other hand, right now Kaladin+Syl=better than everyone else. Have we seen Jasnah wield a blade at all? Mostly just soul casting a victory on the battle field right?

So, I know there is a thread for Odium's champion. This thread is for Dalinar's Champion. I know there will be bleed over, but that is ok. Also what does the contest entail? What does it mean to be champion? Some have said Kaladin. Others, Talenel'Elin Others, Adolin Others, Lift.. And the list goes on. So who do you think is going to get the job and why. Do you think they will fail or succeed and why? I think it will be Kaladin because he was our first character. No time to go into more explanation right now and sorry for butchering the names.

I hope when Kaladin starts winning at life, so does Bridge 4. I'd love to see a bunch of Bridge 4 in an epic fight swear the third idea all at the same time, so we see like 4-6 of them all get their blades ending with Kaladin gaining his plate.

It could have been light from the spiritual realm that the Sibling is somehow fueled by. For instance, perhaps the Sibling is powered or fueled by the spiritual connection between the Radiants and their Spren, or if you prefer the Spren and their humans (ha), These spiritual connections are then manifested by the Sibling, who is the cognitive incarnation of the Radiant and Spren relationship. When the recreance happened it shattered those connections, and rather than experience the pain of all those bonds being broken at once again the Sibling withdrew and cut itself off from those connections.

Yeah, would be sad for all the characters that we grow to love (and because the series is so long, it is really a life time, 20+ years of stormlight) to die off due to age and time skips. Also, in terms of romance between Syl and Kaladin, she is doing exactly what a wonderful wife does when her husband comes back with PTSD. The Greeks always broke love into three categories, agape, phillio, and eros. Agape is love towards a diety, or int eh Christian case, His love toward us. But marriage always has a combination of brotherly love (or the love between friends) and romantic love. Anyway, just saying love can take more than one form. And in terms of strengthening connections, yes Maya and Oathbriger getting revived and along with Syl helping revive the Tower would be great

So... I found that chapter super interesting. A bond smith made the heralds immortal. Does that mean Dalinar can do the same? Would be crazy if he can make himself younger. Why find a new champion when you can do the job fine yourself. A dash of youth For him and Navani, and immortality for top ten Radiants. Surely the heralds are just wasted investiture at this point (I know that sounds super harsh, but thinking about it like a chess game). Anyway, I love the chapter. I'm guessing this takes place after the first chapter with Kaladin, who likely had to kill a lot of Singers to get out of there.

I like the ten sub shard theory, in some way that would just be making them stronger versions of the heralds but bound by the intent of a Shard, or more likely their oaths in whatever order they are. In some ways Nale has taken the first step down that road having bonded a spren of the Sky Breakers and progressed to the 5th ideal. I'm imagine Seth with kill Nale and claim his honor blade. Somehow I think all ten blades will need to be recovered un-bonded or passed on and modified for the 10 sub shard theory to work. How heavily invested is a sub-Shard though? How does an Elantrian compare to a knights radiant of the 5th ideal? Do sub-shards have the same limitations as the Shards?

If Honor did rocket into the Shattered plans, his body was likely covered with crem within a couple of years. There is likely still a treasury of honor blades and plate hanging around somewhere too. Could be that Honor's death also sealed those away in an attempt to stop mankind from destroying itself.

Even if Dalinar is somehow able to take up the Shard Honor after it has been shattered, Odium will still be the stronger of the two Shards and he has thousands of years experience. It would be much like in Mistborn. But if Honor and Cultivation couldn't defeat Odium, I don't see how Dalinar picking up Honor gives them the win (not that it hurts their cause).

I actually really like that idea. I think we have been too focused in general with the divine attribute of protecting, but not of leading. Kaladin's failure in the palace was that his desire not to lose those he protects caused him to fail to continue to lead. So perhaps it will be, I will not fear loss, but will continue to lead to save the ones I can.

yeah honor blades allow healing... But I agree that the power of the honor blades needs to be used or passed on in some way. Likely a restored oath pact with the next 5 books being the final desolation.

Dalinar not getting armor ever seems to contradict the clear indication of the text though. Dalinar experiences the same thing that Jasina, Kaladin, and Shallan seem to. The cousin spren (glory spren in his case) spinning around him in great numbers. He does not has a shard blade, but the Storm Father is not against him wielding an Honor Blade. In fact, he kinda encourages Dalinar to keep the Honor Blade. So I would think Brandon's words mean, he hasn't gotten plate yet. The Bond Smiths are much like Queens in chess, far too valuable to not have them well protected.

I'd love to see Ralain bond the Nightwatcher, and gain a new form, and win at life forever. He would go from spy to slave, to body guard to the peer of Dalinar storming Kohlin. It would also be interesting to see what forms of power are granted when not bonded to a void spren, but one of the ten spren of the Knights Radiant.

@Oltux72 I don't remember who, likely the Storm Father, but someone mentions that men unlike spren and shards can break their oaths. To me this indicates that Tanavast didn't foresee that problem and he thought the oath pact was a permanent solution. And being a Shard does warp their minds, as Odium indicated

Also, Honor did not realize that humans could break their oaths, unlike Shards and Spren. This was untested at the time. And likely when this contest began both Singers and and humans were loyal to Honor. The Singers feeling betrayed in turn abandoned Honor, after the humans started to expand. At which point Odium promised to give the Singers the power to defeat the humans. This in turn led Honor and the Heralds to make the Oath Pact. After realizing it wasn't a permanent solution, the spren of Honor and Cultivation began bonding humans, which eventually led to the Knights Radiant being founded. A continual escalation of force with Shards putting more and more of their power into the contest. Odium however doesn't really need to pour power into rebuilding after a conflict. Leading him to conserve more power. He eventually sees and opening and kills Honor.

I think Odium must have convinced Honor (Tanavast) to have a contest over the Roshar system, agreeing to remain bound in the system until he won. Odium knew he couldn't win in a direct confrontation 1 vs 2, so he used honor against Honor, knowing Honor would want to protect the other shards, some of whom were likely his friends. So then the cycle of desolationa started. Honor and Cultivation put systems in place to win the contests at the cost of more investiture. As more and more spren awoke, this further weakened Honor and Cultivation. Syl says spren are a little piece of Honor's and Cultivations power. Well, that isn't a ton of power when there are only a couple hundred, but once their are 10s of thousands of spren, think of how much weaker the Shards would be. eventually there was a tipping point allowing Odium to kill Honor. Even if Odium is being drained in the same way Honor and Cultivation are, if Odium started making void spren much later than them, and creates them at a slower rate with long breaks in between making them, he still would get stronger comparatively. Once he kills and shatters Cultivation, he can destroy the Roshar system and reclaim his investiture.

One interesting thing, at least for me, is that Elhokar becoming radiant/ nearly swearing the first idea, might have made it harder for him to fight. The screams. In a 1v1, put both of them in plate with blades Elhokar would stomp Moash into the ground. Elhokar just had so much more training, and fighting well was in his blood. Additionally, you might say he was a bad king, but really, he just had two bad advisors, whom he should have been able to trust. His wife and Sadeas. Imagine if Jasenah had been left as the steward in Kolinar. The city would not have fallen. And they would have still been able to hold Thealan city. Also, Sadeas was supposed to be one of Elhokar's dad's best friends. Imagine if he had acted like it. So bad advisors and a semi-weak will.

Not sure if this would go here, but it is big level strategic stuff. How much more of their investiture did Cultivation and Honor pour into Roshar and fighting the endless wars against Odium. It was a 2v1 so originally it must have been very lopsided. But they must have kept getting weaker or something otherwise Honor would not have been killed. Doing that would have exposed Odium, but for some reason Odium was able to shatter Tanavast without Cultivation doing the same thing to him

I have viewed the Storm Father absorbing Tanavast's cognitive shadow as enhancing him as a spren in much the same way that the nale bond does. The Storm Father was always a powerful large spren, but absorbing Tanavast's cognative shadow gave him the capacity to think and also made him more aware and more invested. Now as Dalinar swears the ideals, the Storm Father and him will continue to uncover or unlock more of the abilities of Tanavast, the Storm Father already has the power

Just had a thought reading this. Sja-anat joins team Radiant, but team radiant has lost a Herald and Nale has joined Odium (or maybe he has just joined the Singers still not sure if that is the same thing or not). Jezrien and the thrill have been removed from the playing board, so now it is 8 Heralds vs 7 Unmade. I wonder if the numbers will keep going down on both sides.

So then, as many have said. gem with Jezrien's spirit web+honor blade=all of Jezrien's abilities, but with a sound mind. Maybe even better because two souls is better than one. Would not surprise me if Moash helps Kaladin, Shallon, and Lift infultrate Odium's camp and get away with the gems containing the heralds that have been slain/captured.

And in my humble opinion Eshonai was one of the best listeners. She was by all accounts on her way to becoming Radiant. I sort of think that Radiancy is the only true way for the Listeners/Singers to protect themselves against the Everstorm, void spren and forms of power. I think the strategy has to be to help the Singers who want to remain free resist Odium's influence. No matter what happens it will be a blood bath. Or in Kaladin's words, "it will be messy".

I do think that the humans have a better chance now in many places to strike an accord with the Parshmen now turned singers. Many of them share the same culture of peaceful peoples, like the Aisish. Not only that but by conquering Alethkar, the Singers have a huge empire. The Singers are in a position where they could likely get a peace treaty with great terms at the moment and have the rest of the world build them whatever they want through reparations.

It seems like the only way to truly end the conflict or what the Radiants should have done after stripping the Singers of their intelligence is completely wiped all of them out. Horrible beyond words, but the alternative is all mankind getting wiped out. I don't see how you beat an enemy that keeps returning after they die. This story is a novel, which is the only reason why I'd suggest such a thing. It in no way reflects my actual morality (before someone gets triggered and tries to hunt me down)