coolsnow7

I’m going to sketch out this theory and maybe get around to providing quotes and stuff to substantiate it later. And I don’t love time travel mechanics. Just too messy. So I’m not thrilled with where the evidence is leading me. But a couple of thoughts, all paraphrased: * Cultivation to TOdium: “you’ve been on this path for a long time” - ie before you asked for a boon from me - “I just tried to help you learn to wield the power with honor.” This is in response to TOdium shocked that she would try something so audacious like putting him in position to because Odium - which would absolutely include the Diagram. In other words, the Diagram was NOT part of her boon+curse. I take this to be explicit in the text - that T’s path to TOdium-hood started long before Cultivation got involved directly, and that that path kicked off with the Diagram * Speaking of the Diagram, Taravangian: “thinking that the Diagram was about anything more than saving Kharbranth was dangerous.” Dangerous why? I think we know the answer especially when we reach T’s last days: “he cried over the lies [about trying to make utilitarian sacrifices to save a seed of humanity] he told Dalinar - because the truth was much more shameful”. Yeah the truth - namely that you were doing all this with the goal of usurping Odium - is pretty shameful. Finally, there’s that moment that I’m struggling to recall in detail where he says “you don’t understand, Odium sets things up so that if he loses, he still wins.” Does that sound like the Odium we know? L O L. Our Odium loses without winning left and right. Our Odium is almost a beautiful loser: he prioritizes sending a message about doing things his way over actually winning. (This was during his last conversation with Dalinar.) You know who sets things up so that if he loses, he wins? In fact you might say “the only way to agree to a deal is to make sure that no matter the outcome you are satisfied”? That level of craftiness I’ve only seen from T - especially as TOdium, when he makes fun of Odium’s foolishness and says this! One more related piece of evidence: the epigraphs in WoR: ”You must become King. Of Everything.” 1) Taravangian was still able to achieve his primary goal without being king of more than Jah Keved 2) Everything contains quite a bit more than Roshar! But it is consistent with trying to save the entire Cosmere from incompetent shards, and waging a “war for everything”. “You must destroy the Parshendi if this one starts to explore their powers it will form a bridge” Why destroy the Parshendi if they might form a bridge between the Singers and the Listeners? That would be bad for Odium if he loses the Singers as an ally! But it would be GOOD for TOdium who clearly does not want whatever is happening between Leshwi, Venli, Thude, Rlain (+Renarin perhaps), Sja-Anat, and their associated followers - very bridge-like. At a minimum, the Diagram contains information about Odium with Taravangian as the vessel. But I would go so far as to say that the Diagram was a vision Taravangian got of himself - not Rayse Odium - from the future, and that Cultivation was certainly not involved.

People keep thinking that shard’s vulnerabilities are overextending their investiture - but their power is always referred to as “infinite” or “essentially infinite”. By contrast, the one clear cut example we have of a shard being vulnerable is Odium as a result of divergence between the vessel and power’s intents. Shards are vulnerable through connection, identify, and intent. Not from pouring too much investiture into a box.

We know very little about Shard vulnerabilities. But we do know that a shard whose vessel’s intent diverges significantly from the power’s intent, is extremely vulnerable. Another thing we know is that Honor died to save humankind. (I’ll see if I can dig up the quote.) To me the clearest story is that the power’s intent would have been, for whatever reason, to harm or exterminate mankind, but Tanavast resisted, giving him the opening to die. We also know that somehow he “severely wounded” Odium in the *process* of dying, which was a wound that Odium carried with him til he died. But not a whole lot of information there. Finally, my own out-there theory: I think Cultivation was the one who helped kill Honor. It’s very Brandon for that to be the case; we don’t know much about Cultivation; and it’s easy to imagine, similar to how Mercy might help kill Ambition. The idea would be that Honor wants humans to stagnate too much, *is* too stagnant himself, refuses to grow - therefore his intent is opposed to Cultivation’s, and he must be taken out to preserve growth on Roshar. Do I have much more evidence than this? No. But I’m sure I will soon!

This is making some pretty enormous assumptions about what it takes to Enlighten a spren...

I think this is strongly correct. Emphasis on what Thaidakar said (paraphrasing): "we didn't really do much. This was probably going to happen without our efforts." True for his efforts, but also for Chanarach breaking the Oathpact, and maybe even true of the Everstorm. We've seen Shards - specifically, Ruin - line events up extremely precisely, exactly along these lines. No one should be surprised when an event that seems like it was a happy accident (for Odium) turns out to be him lining things up to coincide with his best opportunity at freedom. Ultimately we don't know what killed Honor. And that is going to be much, much more consequential for any of this than these random contingencies.

I haven't read far enough down the thread to see if anyone has suggested this, so apologies if I'm not the first: I think the Stormfather has been Enlightened (or whatever the word is) by Sja-Anat. Either that, or this is Sja-Anat pretending to the be the Stormfather or something like that. Reasons are the things you mentioned, plus the Stormfather looking like Sja-Anat does when the Herald dies. I'll dig up quotes if someone presses, but otherwise the similarities should be clear enough. I also think that what the Stormfather doesn't want the Heralds to know/see is this Enlightenment. But that's more speculative obviously.

I think this theory might actually be right

This is correct. “He’ll notice - and then he’ll kill me” = he’ll notice me, not he’ll notice that I violated our agreement.

That’s a very interesting angle. It implies that if Hoid knew about TOdium’s strategy, he could take steps to prevent him from pulling it off. I think you’re overemphasizing “doesn’t know”. TOdium might know who he wants his champion to be; he just doesn’t want Hoid to think it’s something he actually thought about. There’s some obvious champion that Rayse had in mind, and TOdium diverting from that choice is what he wants to hide. This also fits the theme of Hoid’s monologue perfectly - this is the sleight of hand. Tangentially it also supports the Gavinor theory. The Gavinor theory has its own strengths and weaknesses, but the fact that Hoid’s knowledge of the champion could derail TOdium’s plan is supports the possibility that it’s Gavinor.

We do?

Oh great point, this is definitely the right answer.

To be honest this seems a lot more like trying to fit the evidence to the theory (really to the proposed Cosmeric phenomenon of Cultivation+Odium) than it does a theory emerging from text. I could offer more specific criticism but a) I need to go to sleep and b)) it would all just elaboration on that one point.

Well, like, also her father trusted her not to kill him in cold blood. So there’s that.

I think you’re just underestimating the size of Roshar. Bridge 4 is like 30 people. The Recreance itself consisted of <400 Radiants. Ok, now Roshar is a planet that easily has 10’s of millions of people. Is it really that different if a Radiant is one-in-a-million versus one-in-a-hundred-thousand?

Odium is bound by agreements made by past holders of the shard. Rayse agreed with Taravangian to preserve Kharbranth no matter what. But now Taravangian holds the shard. Is he bound by that agreement? The simplest, and most likely, answer is that Taravangian can represent himself to himself and abrogate the agreement. But this still might not be so clear-cut. If that is the case, though, the tragic irony is that all that work and treachery and evil that T put into protecting Kharbranth was a complete waste of time.

What sparked my thinking was the following: Hmm... sounds familiar, but not something we’ve heard about Rayse... Contrast that with what we see Rayse doing constantly: sacrificing the optimal strategy - and his stability with the Shardic power - for victories that, as Wit says, “mean something”. If Taravangian saw in the Diagram that Odium was always going to win because of his craftiness and ruthlessness, he wasn’t seeing Rayse as holding Odium! One last point on this subject: we’re constantly confronted with the Diagram being wrong. Every time Rayse tried to make an important move, he - and the Diagram predictions - fail. As Dalinar points out: this is not a source of truth that I would put much stock in! If I were Taravangian I would have ditched the Diagram if I thought that that’s the big bad villain it was warning me about. I would only keep relying on the Diagram if there was a much deeper understanding embedded within it - one which presented Odium held by Taravangian the ruthless, cunning, brilliant manipulator, rather than the (frankly) quite hapless wannabe-show off Rayse. The interesting implication here is that the fatalism that drove Taravangian was actually not his understanding of Rayse, but his understanding of his future self - a self that existed after Cultivation’s plans to have him hold the Odium shard were already complete. In other words the Diagram is really about TOdium’s destructiveness, which Cultivation clearly did not foresee (or she wouldn’t have arranged events this way in the first place.) This leads me to the whacky speculation that TOdium, not Cultivation, was the instigator of Taravangian’s Connection to the Spiritual Realm which brought about the Diagram. Even whackier and/or more speculative: Dalinar the Fused Connected him.

This is a good WoB re: our discussion. Clearly I’m in the “misunderstanding Kelsier” group. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/455/#e14601

I am saying that in order for this perspective to make sense, we need more information. Either El is wrong/lying and he was stripped of rhythms and title for other reasons, OR suggesting that humans be conquered rather than exterminated has more significance than we think. Everyone’s focused on a draw, as of yesterday I think the real answer is that TOdium wants to force the humans to tear up the contract. Given the foreshadowing of “the health of the planet” or whatever that’s been going on through Rhythm of War; and given El’s unique relationship with the rhythms; I’m pretty confident that if El is T’s champion, it’s because he can threaten the planet even if he loses. This

Sure but there’s a difference between “doesn’t like him much for personal reasons” and “convinces Jasnah that his decentralized organization poses an existential threat to the Cosmere.” Your points about the trust in the crew are stronger I think.

That’s a) just El’s perspective and b ) a very narrow explanation. Kind of like saying “WWI started because the Archduke Ferdinand got shot”. Technically true, but doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s not obvious to me why merely suggesting the humans be conquered rather than destroyed would warrant such a severe punishment, especially when it also means sidelining an incredibly powerful Fused (he makes Lezian look like a joke in the final scene.) And to reiterate: that was just his perspective. We’ve seen Cosmere characters report false information before. To the extent that we know anything, we know this, insofar as the “thoughtfulness” that triggered Wit’s terror and subsequent wiping of his memories was the question “who would you choose as champion?” That makes it as clear as it can get (without just giving it away) that the choice of champion is the key to TOdium’s plan.

I think this is probably right, and connected with the Rysn interlude.

Umm if TOdium wins and Dalinar is running rampant as a Fused throughout the Cosmere? I’d say there’s a pretty big need for another 5 books!

This is not true, and there’s WoB to that effect. I’ll see if I can find it. EDIT: I think this is the one, but if not, there’s one that R’Shara and Karger cite every time we go down this dead end. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/332/#e12312

At the root of a lot of narcissism is hatred IMO. So on some level I actually think they’re compatible in an unconscious way. Still the purpose of the Sazed epigraph is to tell us “you don’t need to worry about the personality being compatible with the intent, what you need to worry about is the personality arming the Shardic intent with the tools it needs to succeed.” The question (at a minimum, according to Sazed) of the compatibility of Odium with T is interesting but kind of irrelevant. TOdium is set up as basically the most dangerous force for destruction that a Shard can be.

To me the biggest difference is that when Kelsier went to take down the Final Empire, whatever atrocities he committed had a “greater good” motivating them, and he also didn’t, say, kill anyone for no good reason. The Ghostbloods don’t seem to be motivated by a mission that’s good for the Cosmere as a whole - indeed Wit thinks their goal is extremely dangerous - and they also feel comfortable just killing whoever whenever. Another aspect: Kelsier built his crew around a deep unconditional trust. That’s not what we see in the Ghostbloods. When Mraize starts to realize that Shallan has manipulated him, his response is “that’s fine, ambition is a good quality, just be careful not to overdo it.” The Ghostbloods as an org just seem incongruous with what Kelsier was about when he was alive. Either he changed his attitude or he’s done fighting for the good guys now that the good guys didn’t kill his wife. Or maybe Wit is wrong and the Ghostbloods’ vision is actually a good one! I guess we’ll find out but that’s why I was very surprised.