coolsnow7

I haven’t seen this discussed in the forums yet, maybe it has been and I missed it. But I find this simply baffling. Anyone have a clue what this could possibly be about?

I can’t believe I forgot about that. Great call!

Why would he feel “true terror for the first time” then?

I don’t see how this is relevant. If you’re used to having a hyperactive child in your head 24/7 and they suddenly shut up for several days in a row, you (ie Szeth) are gonna notice.

I think you’re on to something, and in particular I think the angle is that Odium needed a solution to Honor’s remnants. At the end of Oathbringer when he’s talking to T he says something along the lines of “I can’t just leave Honor’s remains here.” Perhaps Raboniel’s research was going to lead him to a solution for those.

I think you’re right, for the simple reason that it would be very weird for them not to figure out they’re dealing with Taravangian throughout the whole book, and this is a very plausible basis for them to start questioning what the hell happened. But I don’t think they’ll figure it out in time for it to make a difference.

In which case the entirety of the first 5 books is buildup to... a deus ex machina from Cultivation? I think that would be a worse ending than Dalinar the Fused.

That thread title makes this sound more confident than I actually am, so sorry for the clickbait. My prediction is based on the following: 1) the fact that we’re dealing with T and not Rayse anymore. Rayse would try to win the “conventional” way, because winning the sneaky underhanded way wouldn’t “prove a point” as Wit said. But T is not so limited; he would see that the best way to beat Dalinar isn’t to find a better fighter than Dalinar, but to use Dalinar against himself. And what better way to do that than to force Dalinar to either lose, or kill the person in the world he feels the most responsible for? And a child no less. This much I am confident about: T is not going to use a conventional champion; he’s going to try to turn Dalinar against himself. 2) the deathrattles: And We still don’t know what these refer to, in contrast with a whole bunch of other deathrattles. I think that the first one has to refer to some pivotal/climactic moment of this arc given the way it’s written. And the second one hints what I strongly suspect for narrative reasons: TOdium wins, Dalinar loses, and we set the stage of books 6-10 investigating the nature of oaths and how to safely free Dalinar from the consequences here. What ties them together in my opinion is this choice: to kill the “suckling child” or to choose life. “The night will reign” in my reading refers to reigning across the Cosmere, rather than on Roshar specifically. 3) well I kind of specified this already: narratively it just makes sense. We know that books 6-10 focus on the Heralds, and in my reading Dalinar becomes a Cognitive Shadow just like them. The Heralds want to get out of their oathbound existence, as would Dalinar. And it just fits well for us to have a temporary resolution at the end of books 1-5 without a full resolution that would make books 6-10 disconnected. Reasons for skepticism: a) I mean, I hope I’m wrong. It would be extremely depressing for Dalinar to be consigned to this fate, even for just 10 years. And to wait something on the order of that long in real life until Brandon even begins showing us how he’ll be rescued in books 6-10 is gonna be brutal. trying to use the deathrattles to support a prediction is extremely dicey, especially when there’s a whole book 5 worth of material that we still don’t know about. c) How would Gavinor be a “willing” champion? Dalinar in RoW ch. 112: To answer this specific point, Gavinor seems like a pretty traumatized kid. It’s plausible to me that if offered the “gift of silence”, like Moash got, that he would take it. Is this a stretch? Very much so. But that’s better than the prediction that, say, Adolin would be willing to be TOdium’s champion, which is just ridiculous. Anyway I’m putting this out there both to be able to claim credit on the off chance that I’m right, and to pressure-test the prediction, so fire away!

Pretty sure Zahel just told us why the Recreance happened: for some reason the Radiants worried that continuing to use Stormlight would turn them into Fused for the other side. This is obviously somewhat speculative, but it aligns nicely with what we do know about the Recreance. It also aligns with the little that Odium said when Dalinar asked him: that the Radiants gave up because they feared losing their passion. (And he elaborates to confirm that he doesn’t mean “passion” in the Odium sense, but rather actual passion.) It also aligns with the changes they see in Honor along exactly these same lines. And mechanically it just makes sense: die when you’re invested too much and you generate a Cognitive Shadow that will degrade over time. Radiants feared this eventuality, because it would entail the mental degradation and loss of purpose that the Fused currently exhibit - and as we saw last week, the Fused are more likely than not to destroy Roshar the way the Humans destroyed Ashyn. The things that are missing right now are what about the False Desolation - and specifically how cutting off the Parshendi from Ba-Ado-Mishram created the Parshmen - led the Radiants to worry about this; as well as how Dawnshards have anything to do with it. But I’m pretty confident that this is what the entire Recreance is about.

I exist! Hi everyone. I’ve been reading the content of this forum for the last year but haven’t brought myself to make an account and participate - until now! Looking forward to telling all you people why your whacky theories are wrong - and then having R’Shara and Karger tell me why my whacky theories are wrong!