feruchemicalrockband

With the revelations the Sibling dropped this last chapter about the natures of the three bondsmith spren, as well as the info about the ancient spren, Wind, Stone, and Night, I wanted to share some of my thoughts about what exactly "Unmaking" a spren means. Here's my TL;DR: Unmaking is not exclusive to Odium, the Stormfather, the Sibling, and the Nightwatcher can all be considered "Unmade". The Unmade we already knew of were all originally parts of Wind, Stone, and Night. In the latest chapter, the Sibling brings a new perspective to what we knew about the Stormfather. Earlier books confirmed that he existed already simply as a Storm, but was later changed, presumably by taking in Tanavast's CS. We now know this isn't the case, the Storm was turned into the Stormfather *before* the Sibling was formed from Stone. Sometime after it fell asleep, the Stormfather was changed further. (I'm taking a few liberties with Storm and Stormfather, but since we know Wind still exists, the Stormfather must've been created from a portion of it which I'll be referring to as Storm.) We receive less information about the Nightwatcher, but we can glean that it was created after the Recreance. The specific wording used when referring to it's creation is "some of the same essence", meaning it might be pointless to look for hints about Night based on the Nightwatcher. The Sibling itself admits to being created through a similar process, a Stone spren of Cultivation and Honor. So how does this happen? It seems that Adonalsium left powerful spren on Roshar (and maybe elsewhere?) that were unattuned to any one particular Shardic Intent. At some point, Honor Unmade the Storm, creating the Stormfather, attuning one of Adonalsium's spren to himself, causing it to become "like a child". Being Unmade seems to be a sort of rebirth, killing the old spren and creating something new in its place, as the Sibling considered being Unmade as the same as being killed in RoW. After the Stormfather, the Sibling was Unmade from Stone by Honor and Cultivation. The Night eventually "left" (whatever that means) but it seems there was enough essence for Cultivation to Unmake into the Nightwatcher. So what of the actual Unmade? Yelignar seems pretty easy to place. It's also known as Blightwind, so it's likely Unmade from Wind Chemoarish is also known as the Dustmother, and gets confused with the Nightwatcher. Probably Night then. Moelach is likely Night as well. Future-sight may be a facet of Night, as indicated by the singer's future-seeing Nightform. Re-Shephir is also known as the Midnight Mother, giving another easy guess. The other 6 are hard to place, but I'd be willing to bet 2 are of Wind, and 3 are of Stone, assuming we don't find out about any other ancient spren. Sja-Anat makes me especially curious. Does the new information about ancient spren give us some insight about her goals? The whole idea makes me wonder about regular spren vs radiant spren. Are they maybe a similar concept? Windspren get "Unmade" into Honorspren? The Stormfather implies that he was not a conscious being before becoming what he is now. Is Storm to Stormfather the same difference as windspren to an Honorspren? There's also the greater question of why Honor would even Unmake a part of the Wind into a Sliver of Honor when it sounds like previous Bondsmiths could just bond to the Wind itself. It's not as if he would have wanted to make Bondsmiths more powerful than they were before, as he was actively stifling their surgebinding. We might be able to find answers by analyzing the strange things we've been getting about the Stormfather in this book, which ties into another (half-baked) theory I'm working on. But I'll leave that for another day.

With how much of an outline writer Brandon is, I find it unlikely that the character who makes a different decision at the end would be any of our main characters, Kaladin, Dalinar, Shallan, or Szeth. They are all poised to have decisions that make far reaching impacts (both based on where they are in the story as well as the summary of TWoK). It probably has to be some side character who's characterization evolved over the course of the books, or at least over the final book. Here are my picks for side characters whose choices wouldn't have a heavy impact on the main plot, and have enough relevance to be given a chance to grow. Sigzil: We already know that Sigzil takes on a life of his own after the events of book 5, and it would make sense if this started here. Maybe in some attempt to either step out of (or into) Kaladin's shadow he makes the opposite choice Sanderson intended. Maybe this is what led to The Sunlit Man? I'm not certain the writing timeline lines up however. Gawx: Gawx has already made more of an appearance in the preview chapters than I was expecting, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who made the different decision. His proximity to Adolin, who is already a wild card in the story, makes this more likely. Gawx might end up idolizing Adolin by the end of the book, maybe leading to some political decision at the end. Moash: We still haven't heard anything from Moash over twenty chapters in, which I'm somewhat surprised by as his situation at the end of book 4 left us on a cliffhanger in some ways. The blinded state he's in is reminiscent of Saul/Paul the Apostle, which means that maybe Brandon intended Moash to turn over a new leaf by the end of the book, but how events unfolded left Moash in some kind of neutral position instead of a positive one. (Holding out hope for Moash to lose the honorblade and go through the cosmere finding other ways to emulate windrunning). Lift, Renarin, Jasnah, Ash, and Taln seem unlikely, as two of the 5 have (probably) disappear at the end, and the others just don't get enough screentime for that kind of thing. Navani is another option but I can't think of anything. Adolin I don't think is likely for reasons others have stated. Maybe Venli?

While I don't think Gavilar exists anymore in the cognitive realm, I could see him existing in a lot of ways in the spiritual, where Dalinar will be going in book 5. Seeing as it blends time together, and some of Dalinar's other visions have taken place in a strange place outside of time, some kind of appearance by Gavilar will probably happen. Of course, we can't make any sort of guesses as to how the spiritual realm works yet as we really don't know anything about it. Dalinar's goal in book 5 will be to get to Honor's shard, and he'll probably be using the Stormfather's connection to Honor to get there, and since the Stormfaker theory is pretty dead it would be funny if we stopped by the prologue one last time.

This idea about Odium-aligned surgebinders being able to function within Urithiru has been passed around a ton, except we've seen that the Tower is able to repel them. Moash used the honorblade and Stormlight, but because of his connection to Odium he was cast out. You can assume that the same goes for Nale and the Skybreakers, as they are connected to him through the law. They may not have given him his pain, but they have certainly abandoned personal responsibility to the letter of the law.

That's actually some really impressive recall, kudos! Is it possible the song was created after the shattering? I'm not sure if we ever received confirmation which songs were created when. The events could have happened as either: Shattering of the plains --> Last Legion flees/songs created --> Mishram captured --> Listeners leave the city of Narak and live in the outskirts of the plains OR Last Legion flees --> Mishram captured/plains are shattered --> song of Wars is created and listeners leave Narak to live in the outskirts To be clear, I'm of the opinion that it was Honor's death that caused the shattering, even though that doesn't fit with events cleanly either, but there's always a chance that more information will be given to help us understand exactly how everything happened. Outside of Mishram and Honor I don't know what else would have caused it. Definitely not the Knights or Heralds, with Honor around to bind their powers it doesn't seem likely for them to have done it (though I could see the final reveal about the recreance and the Knights abandoning their oaths revolve around the reveal that a single knight at the 5th ideal caused the shattering). Adonalsium's shattering is also a possibility (since that was the original plan) but that puts the shattering over 3000 years before humans arrived on Roshar.

The Last Legion didn't flee to Stormseat though. The listeners didn't even live in Narak until the war with the Alethi. The Last Legion lived in a place called the "dark home" that we basically don't know anything about, its mentioned off-handedly only once.

This was probably Ba-Ado-Mishram. When they sealed her away, she was still connected to her city. Being sealed caused it to shatter as she lost her connection to the physical and cognitive realms. What if the Grand Knell in the cognitive realm is actually the cognitive version of the shattered plains?

@Sasukerinnegan I agree on your points regarding Moash and Dalinar, but I think calling it a "misallocation of responsibility" isn't quite right. It's frankly realistic, and emphasizes that Dalinar's choice to accept responsibility and start to reveal the flaws in the Alethi society (maybe unintentionally) that led him to make the choices he did shows that he does take that seriously. Dalinar is currently the most powerful person on Roshar, with an important role and position. Suddenly forcing him into prison won't resolve anything, and (as far as the characters know) would only harm innocents by removing a force that countered the enemy. Moash and Dalinar are both victims of a society with deep religious roots that promote a class system, and deify violence and trickery. Obviously, this system benefitted Dalinar, but it also taught him terrible values and enabled all of his bad choices. The church itself gave him absolution, which he rejected. Now Moash is making every wrong choice, and using a new system to find moral absolution. It rings hollow to say that Moash expected to take more responsibility than Dalinar, when Dalinar is trying to make up for what he did by stopping an immortal army and God from killing a bunch of innocent people then going on a murder spree through the cosmere, while Moash really just needs to admit he's killing people out of vengeance and not social change. On the matter of Honor and Cultivation, I think we just don't know enough. In the end of RoW, Leshwi says something about about being "forgiven" by the spren, which implies that there was more to the human-singers/Odium-Honor switch than we know. But that all comes down to us not really knowing enough about the shards. Although, it's pretty telling that the Stormfather didn't really care that Dalinar burned the rift, and only cares about broken oaths. Honestly my biggest problem with the books is how much focus was given on unfair class systems, with no actual resolutions to the problems. I'm assuming there'll be something in the back half when fabrial science starts getting really crazy, as social change usually follows technological advancements (when machines are cheaper than slave labor), but we'll see. We see this start to get addressed in the Taravangian interlude, where he condemns Cultivation, so hopefully we'll see more developments there. Also it's worth noting that we'll probably see more consequences for Dalinar, as book 5 was initially going to be his flashback book.

I'm not sure how Brandon has "chickened out" when it comes to answering the question of how much responsibility does a God have. It's pretty clear that it's something he's exploring and continuing to explore, and it's being kicked off in the newest interlude. We don't have the full book yet, so it's too early to make claims on what he will or won't explore. Also, while the shards do have infinite power, they very clearly don't have infinite influence. That being said, I'd be very disappointed if he doesn't end up exploring this further. People have said that Mistborn Era 2 is a clear statement that Brandon believes a true utopia doesn't exist, and struggles/conflict is necessary for progress, but the cosmere is still in the early/mid stages. I don't think we've even hit the halfway mark yet. It doesn't make sense for him to answer this question so early on when he probably wants to explore a lot more about the nature of shards. Whatever the outcome of this book, we can take it as a certainty that the back half of Stormlight will have shards taking a much more proactive role. Whether that means the Roshar shards combating an outside force (Autonomy), an new internal combat between Odium and Cultivation, or something else entirely, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The Unmade causing the problems may have been technically Bah-Ado-Mishram. Kalak says something along the lines of how imprisoning BAM brought repercussions to everyone on Roshar, even the Heralds IIRC. Maybe due to Shallan's half herald biology it caused her problems/inflamed them.

I don't really see someone absorbing the Highstorm as it would be too similar to what happened in Mistborn. However, the Highstorm being controlled by someone is probably bound to happen at some point in the series. It's too important a feature of Roshar for that not to be part of some sanderlanche down the line, and "controlling the storm" has been brought up by a couple of different characters already. For that to happen though the Stormfather would have to be either dead or reduced to some kind of mindless state.

Well, the ghostbloods wanted two things that we know of. 1. Control over outgoing investiture from Roshar. 2. A way to remove Connection from investiture to move it and cognitive shadows away from their home systems. If we can assume that Gavilar was able to accomplish something, and put it in motion before the ghostbloods, we have to look at which of these would be possible. First is sending investiture from Roshar into shadesmar. This is only possible through a perpendicularity. At the time, the only existing/active shardpool was the one in the horneater peaks, cultivation's. Seeing as it's very unlikely that Gavilar could have set up an entire operation up there when the horneaters are still chilling in the peaks, this is unlikely. The second option has to do with removing Connection. Likely, anti-investiture may be key to removing Connection from regular investiture. There may be a way to use them together without causing an instant reaction. The last option is that Gavilar was able to accomplish something that makes their assassination attempt moot. Considering that Navani's prologue had a ton of stuff about Gavilar "living forever" and him "not being able to die", he may still be alive somewhere as a CS without connection.

The mental health definitely feels like more of a set up and character flavor then anything else. We'll likely see some form of established mental health facilities in the back 5, but Kaladin will think of himself as a patron of these facilities rather than it being his actual job. To me, it's pretty likely that the mental health arc Kaladin has gone through is going to be the linchpin in bringing the heralds back. At least on the non-magical side of things.

I would put Valour in the SURVIVE section since valour is seen as great courage in the face of danger, no just courage itself. It's courage when courage is needed to survive. Maybe instead of "To Leave A Mark", the last section could be DIVINE/DIVINITY? This idea came about because of the description given to Odium in one of the epigraphs. "God's own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context". That's a really weird and specific way to describe Odium. So going with the theme of godly shards, my immediate picks are: - Mercy seems a good pick. The mercy of God would be a good match to Odium's "divine hatred". Found a definition that says "a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion." - Endowment. The magic system on Nalthis is literally based on a "Divine gift from God". The slivers on this planet literally subsist on Divine Breaths. Seems a given. - Not certain on the last one. Maybe something to counter Endowment seeing as Odium and Mercy might be good counterparts. Invention?

The breath trick Vasher pulls off at the end of Warbreaker only works on awakeners who have lost their breath for a significant amount of time. There's a huge difference in Vivenna's reaction to gaining breaths when you compare when she first gets them to when she regains them from her shawl/carpet. Using it against an enemy invested in a different magic system would just make them back off from the new sensations, not what happens to Denth and Vivenna. And like others have stated, Kal was easily able to rip through the blankets Basher used against him in part 1, and those were probably more invested than a lifeless.

I think those dragons might actually be Larkins. Which kind of makes sense since they're the natural enemies of surgebinders.

Just as a disclaimer I'm assuming you mean the name of God of the Abrahamic religions. I did some research and found “He Who Makes That Which Has Been Made” and other similar names. Is that correct? If that is the case then I'll agree with the others that it's more likely that it's simply an effort to show that Evi didn't understand much of Alethi culture and was a bit dim. It was one of the few times we were shown this and not just told, so I'm considering it characterization more than anything.

In RoW we saw Kaladin's first arc come to a close. As Kaladin is SA's main protagonist it's pretty hard to believe that he'll be killed off in the next book or completely written off in the back 5. I'm theorizing that Kaladin will be taking the role of Bondsmith in books 6-10, maybe as early as partway through book 5. It's pretty clear that Dalinar is setting himself up for failure in book 5. He'll be competing against a much more competent version of Odium who will be playing on a separate level compared to the old one. He's also going into the contest of champions from a really odd perspective. Dalinar claims that he's the greatest warrior in the Knights Radiant, but throughout RoW he's been trying to step away from the warrior role and take on a supporting role. While he does have a powerset with high versatility, he has a limited knowledge/experience with it. 10 days is not enough time to learn higher Bondsmithing techniques, even if he's sending Szeth and Kal out on a road trip to get Ishar. So I think Dalinar is going to lose his position as Bondsmith by one of: Becoming a Fused Dying The Stormfather dying Ascending Losing the Stormfather's bond Kaladin, on the other hand, has been set down a new path. The end of RoW sees him come to terms with his status as a soldier, forgiving himself for his past failures and accepting that he'll make more in the future. At the same time, he's begun to see himself as a person who can help people with PTSD and similar conditions. Book 5 might have Kaladin start the healing process with Ishar, and maybe Szeth as well. His fame has taken on a life of it's own, giving him legendary status in Urithiru and perhaps other places as well. It's Syl most of all that makes me think things are going to change for Kaladin in a big way in the next installment. For those that don't know, Syl was given her own icon for her interlude chapter. Character icons are important as they illustrate scenes that have happened or will happen. There's a wob somewhere explaining this but I couldn't quite manage to find it. Syl's clearly shows her wearing some kind of pack (Which is a really odd thing for a spren to do), looking behind her. To me, this provides extra credence the the 'Syl becomes fully corporeal in the physical realm' theory. This might cause Kaladin to lose the bond in some form, leaving him open to some other bond, ending with him as the Bondsmith. Here's a few separate ideas on how that might happen: Bonding to the Stormfather after Dalinar loses his bond Syl bonds to the Highstorm after the Stormfather is killed Kaladin finds Taln's blade (He would have gravitation, adhesion, cohesion and tension allowing for bondsmithing stuff) Kaladin takes Ishar's blade Kaladin bonds Bah-Ado-Mishram and unites the two storms (honestly this is a whole other thing) There's a few reasons I think Kaladin makes sense as the next lead Bondsmith. I'll list them here. Kaladin's first steps in dealing with mental health have begun as highlighted in RoW. Since Kal is about to go on a journey to find one such person with mental health problems stemming from battle shock, it might inspire him to continue it. In the gap between books 5 and 6 Kaladin might go on to unite the Heralds once more. Another group that needs uniting are the humans and the singers. Having someone revered by singers as the head of the Knights Radiant could go a long way to uniting the two groups. Or at least opening up talks between them. Kaladin is the only other character besides Dalinar who has received Highstorm visions. This indicates that Kaladin might have been a candidate for the Stormfather had Syl not taken him first (I'm aware that Radiants can bond multiple spren, Brandon just says it's highly unlikely). Feel free to poke holes in this, it's just an idea I've had bouncing around in my head for a few days. To be honest it's mostly because I can imagine a scene at the end of book 5 after the Radiants have pushed back Odium for a time with Kaladin brooding at the top of Urithiru looking out to the horizon and then the last line we just get : Unite them.

Sorry I don't really understand your point I guess. Also, Vin was able to create a future shadow with skill only. Seeing the future would probably create more. Either way we probably won't know more about this until SA 7.

It's not what Renarin knows that he can't see, it's Renarin's future itself. When Taravangian meets Odium at the end of Oathbringer he sees Renarin's name with rest of Odium's plans when he's trying to be intimidating, but his name is blacked out and from his name the rest of the words in the enhanced Diagram are blacked out as well. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but all the futures Odium is able to predict are depicted in gold but Renarin's name "blacks out the words into eternity". I'd say that's more than just what one or two odd visions are able to do. Plus, in RoW it's stated that the people close to Renarin are being affected by this too.

It's not the visions Renarin has that I'm talking about, it's his ability to constantly cancel out Odium's future-sight. This should work the same with atium. The cosmere has consistent rules, and any ability that affects one future seeing ability should do the same to another.

Haven't read through the entire post yet, but something I have yet to see someone mention is how Enlightened Truthwatchers may be hard counters to atium. From what we know about how future-seeing abilities work in the cosmere, any time two abilities that have the potential to change the future (or negate future-sight) interact, they simply nullify each other. Seeing as Renarin (and now probably Rlain) are immune to Odium's future-sight, Enlightened Truthwatchers (Enlighteners? Futurewatchers?) must have some kind of innate anti-future ability, like electrum does for allomancy, except always on. Adding their enhanced healing from progression and living shardplate as an incredible defense, E-Truthwatchers nearly take the battle against a mistborn every time. The only way to counter this is probably using ranged attacks while burning atium, constantly wearing away stormlight before the E-Truthwatcher can get in range. This is assuming, of course, that all E-Truthwatchers are unable to create illusions like the regular ones, taking away the option of laser beams (really hoping we see this in SA 5).

I don't think T is going to let it come down to a battle of champions at all. At least not one that lets either him or Dalinar win. The terms were that either way Odium is stuck on Roshar. Before they set the terms they did talk about what would happen if either of them broke their word. T's plan is probably to make Dalinar and co think everything is going to plan, then subvert them causing Dalinar to break his word. This will cause to Dalinar to fall completely into Odium's control, and T will be able to start working his way into the rest of the cosmere.

He has the bridge 4 symbol "tattooed" onto his shardplate, so at least there's that. Pretty sure the rest of bridge 4 still has their tattoos.

Haha, no I don't think I'd mistake that scene. Someone definitely has said the same line Notum did though. Syl maybe?