coolsnow7

Well done! I think this was entirely correct at the time, but that’s the thing with making predictions about books: the whole point of the book is for new things to happen that throw your assumptions off!

In the RoW scene where Dalinar Connects with Nale, we learn that of the 9 remaining Oathpact members, one’s connection was severed entirely, whereas one was still fully strong. Obviously the strong one is Taln. I feel pretty comfortable believing that Battar is the one who fully disconnected from the Oathpact by betraying it. At an absolute minimum, she knew her work on the Diagram was contrary to the purpose of the Oathpact; more likely she also knew that the Diagram was going to bring Taravangian to power, and made a conscious decision to fully break the Oathpact. (It’s worth noting that the way the broken Oathpact gets described by Kelek in RoW is different than just restating obvious things: The implication - both here and in the earlier quote, is that it wasn’t Honor dying or Jezrien dying that broke the Oathpact - and the cause of the Oathpact breaking wasn’t something obvious to the Heralds.) Where that leaves us is: it’s not at all clear to me that the “mind healing” that took place put Battar back to her original Heraldic self. Far more likely, IMO, is that she is now a fully deliberate double agent for Retribution and is going to cause major problems in the back half, along with the other people Odium reached out to: Moash and El.

I think Honor rebels against violating the contract. The contract was made between Odium and Dalinar. The original agreement binding Odium to Roshar was made between Odium and Honor. Retribution can now “violate” his agreement with Honor because he now incorporates Honor. But Dalinar, representing humanity, still holds him accountable to the contract. Unrelatedly I remember arguing with someone at length about why Odium could obviously destroy Kharbranth if he wanted to, and them simply refusing to understand. What a waste of time but at least Brandon proved me right as comprehensively as possible.

I tend to agree with you that she contributed to his death behind the scenes. The details (like whether she wanted to get off the planet) are squarely in “I’m not gonna get an answer for a freaking decade so I’m not even gonna bother thinking about it” for me.

Who do we think is lying: Edgli or Sazed? I lean towards Edgli.

Some more questions (apologies if these have been raised further down in the thread): “We killed you” - still don’t know what this means, even after getting Honor’s death from his own perspective. El’s Powers & Backstory - why is he so important, why did we hear so much about this guy? What kind of Fused is he anyway? How does he have a Shardblade? And why did he turn from being the Singer most opposed to Odium, to being the most fervent supporter of his philosophy? Singer religion and ideology - the Singers and Fused were committed to this ideology focusing on Passion and such. How does that change now that Odium is gone and Retribution is the new sheriff in town? Seems nontrivial to reorganize Singer society around a new religion A bunch of unresolved Deathrattles - self-explanatory. I mean we got the good ones, but there are others left over. Speaking of which, in what way is Retribution “the Broken One”? I believe this is still to be revealed. Some unresolved Unmade questions - we still have never encountered Chemoarish. We got a tantalizing hint about Dai-Gonarthis but nothing more. What’s the deal with Sja-Anat - what does her enlightenment entail, why are early Radiants so afraid of her spren? What do the Ghostbloods want, and why is Hoid so opposed, anyway? - still no answer here at all. We just know Iyatil thought that with BAM they could somehow manipulate Shards, but that Kelsier didn’t see things that way. Gavilar - this is less a question than a complaint: we got all this Gavilar backstory and basically no payoff. Seems unlikely that Brandon is just going to drop him now. But I have no idea how or why he’d make a new appearance. Why are Surges so dangerous - still nothing in this book suggests how unbound surgebinders could destroy a planet. Indeed we hear that with the Honorblades alone that’s a possibility. Not a clue why. How did Odium take over Shinovar? Who betrayed the Oathpact? - in RoW, we see evidence that one Herald (and not Jezrien) has betrayed the Oathpact, kind of the opposite of Taln upholding it. Who specifically? Oh and, uh, we saw Battah sign up to Odium’s team, and yet she also showed up for the new Oathpact. Having a traitor/double agent on Team Herald seems to be setting us up for, uh, problems in the back half. The Dog Who Became a Dragon - did Ishar write this story too? I think the implication is they can Return on their own terms now.

This was always the other interpretation. I think WaT lends some support to this theory. Alternatively, Cultivation did play a role in his death, but was so subtle about it that he never found out. Certainly it was clear that their intents were opposed, and her intent was opposed to how things were going on Roshar. That said, we got so much wrong leading up to WaT that I don’t even want to bother trying to figure this out until we have Book 9 in hand. As it is, we’ll be waiting a decade before we even start getting answers to any of the questions we have after this book.

She wasn’t trapped by anything. She withdrew because if she did not Retribution was going to immediately annihilate her. We even have WoB’s that she will have difficulty extricating herself and will lose something substantial in the process.

It is very explicitly not going according to her plan. Did we read the same book? The book made clear that these Shards are operated by bumbling, fallible humans who barely even understand what they’re doing half the time. The Heralds are not locking Taravangian. They are protecting the Spren. Taravangian is, explicitly, free. I really do not get how anyone read this book and convinced themselves that what Cultivation wanted was for a shard who hates her and all others and is more powerful than any of them to take over the planet with the strongest fighting forces and be free of all restrictions. Like, seriously I wonder if someone sent you all copies of fan fiction in the mail/to your devices wherein Cultivation is revealed to actually be Adonalsium wearing a hat. But in the book I read, Cultivation got the opposite of what she wanted and looks like a fool.

I think we can be certain that the answer is yes. Like 99.9% probability. Brandon has said Stormlight Arc II will take place about 10-15 years after WaT, and that it would focus on Aharietiam, Heralds, and the Oathpact. That would be about 85 years on “Cosmere standard”. I think it’s more than safe to say that the technology - and technological awareness - that’s evident in Sunlit Man is quite a bit more than 85 years post-“budding skyscrapers and firearms”. I don’t think that bears much on whether Sigzil would know Kaladin is alive because the Heralds have returned and made that evident - who knows if Sigzil has any access to information about what’s going on on Roshar. Or if anyone does. But we can be quite sure that by the time Sunlit Man is happening, Stormlight Arc II has at least begun, if not fully wrapped up. Well he still would, because Aux got dead-eyed before Retribution even showed up, much less before Ishar and Kaladin worked out the Oathpact solution.

Some of these are a bit more off the wall than others, but hey, there’s no penalty for writing down theories I have 5% confidence in. So here goes: - Szeth winds up with Honor and is the Broken One who reigns over Roshar. - Radiant turns out to be Chana, betrayer of the Oathpact and co-inhabitant of Shallan’s body - Cultivation helped kill Honor, on behalf of the Spren collectively - Adolin dies - Syl dies - Moash founds an Odium-esque version of the Knights Radiant, a religious movement based on giving Odium your emotions and thus transcend your human fallibility - Hoid reveals that he’s willing to destroy Roshar and all its people in order to solve the Odium problem - the Ghostbloods get what they want from BAM, and Shallan has to chase them across the Cosmere to stop them from doing whatever it is they want to do

I just want to point out that this is always wrong. Brandon has another 6 books of Stormlight alone to reveal new Cosmeric mechanics. We’re never in a position to say “x is confirmed by process of elimination.”

The main reason I approve of this is that Kaladin is not a spear! They haven’t been metaphorical that way a single time in these back covers. It is definitely not referring to Kaladin, and therefore is almost certainly referring to Syl. Which suggests that Kaladin is going to kill her, and find a way to bring her back from Deadeye-hood.

The process of creating anti-Stormlight is pretty intensive. The Ghostbloods are a small group of thieves literally on a different planet than their own. So how do they have an anti-Stormlight factory running in the background? I don’t think that they could have already known about anti-light, and then come to Roshar equipped with it - if that were the case, they’d have been using it befor Navani’s discoveries. I think it’s more likely they have knowledge of a more efficient process of creating it.

What we know so far is that Iyatil and Mraize are interested in BAM because they want to “control the Shards”. In this way (they claim) their goal is aligned with Kelsier’s, because it’s to ensure survival. I don’t see how becoming the vessel of a demigod helps them control the Shards. I think that it is much more likely that, however BAM was captured, the Ghostbloods want to replicate that on a much larger scale, vis full-blown Shards.

The “magic number” of Roshar is 10. I would expect 10 “OP” spren. I don’t think we need to assume that all of the Unmade (or the Sibling) were originally OP spren. I like this idea. Nothing to support it yet, except Sja Anat being Shallan’s best friend, but it would fit nicely.

I don’t think this is right, I think those warnings are about the prospect of Spren and the like becoming disconnected from humans for long enough that they become antagonistic and dangerous to humanity.

I mean the books have made clear that Shallan is brilliant intellectually. I thought your other points about her lack of experience were more reasonable. I think this points to Shallan having a more interesting (and longer, in terms of years) past than she’s currently aware of. There are a lot of theories and speculation about what lines like “Shallan was the biggest lie of all” and such mean, and I am partial to many of them - but the point is that I think there’s a critical mass of evidence that Shallan’s past involved building some of these skills that she’s forgotten. (For example, Radiant is somehow a competent fighter despite Shallan never having trained to fight - how did that happen?) And there’s reason to speculate that she’s a lot older than 16 (or whatever the number is as of the latest books) years old now.

I think the starting point for El should be: why did Rayse not bring him back, but Taravangian did? I think this is the relevant frame because a) he’s introduced after Taravangian Ascended - and more importantly, after Taravangian revised Rayse’s plans b) we have the epigraphs of him monologuing about humans to Taravangian c) we know he had a unique perspective on the Final Solution to the Human Question - so unique that he lost his title and access to Rhythms (whatever that even means). I’m sure we’ll get an answer to this question in due course. But I’m confident that this is the question upon which El’s relevance rests. He ragdolls Lezian. I’d say he’s a killer. I don’t think this is some broad “oooh he’s a scary killer” title. So far Moash’s uniqueness has been that he has “given his emotions” to Odium, and his role has been to proselytize his new way of life - in particular to Kaladin, but also to anyone else he encounters. Recall that El’s epigraphs were all about humans and how they have so much passion. I think it’s safe to say that the “quieting” that El did was along the same lines as Moash now.

You’re asking the correct question. Because everything we’ve read up until now has made it abundantly clear that the cause of the Everstorm and the True Desolation was not Shallan doing an oopsie when she killed her mom who turned out to be a Herald. But a whole lot of people are so wedded to the mechanics they know that they will hold on to this theory more tightly than they already did to the Stormfaker nonsense.

There is plenty of room for more revelations. We have a whole book (and then the back 5) ahead of us. Don’t skate to where the puck is, skate to where it’s going to be. Anyway based on how the Ghostbloods meeting is going - and how Mraize doesn’t know Shallan as well as he thinks he does - I’m getting vibes that are counter to this theory.

Well RIP that idea, and thank you for pointing out my error. I can’t believe that I missed that on my rereads of RoW! I’ve been dwelling on this for a long time thinking it was going to be a major plot point, and instead it was just hiding in plain sight. I have to say I also don’t like what Brandon came up with - I don’t think “freedom” is much implied in either Odium’s or Cultivation’s Intents. But whatever, not only was I wrong but I was completely the opposite of what Brandon had in mind.

I agree, and consistent with Odium’s indictment of the other Shards, the theme of this book may turn out to be “the dead good guys turn out to be extremely overrated” (see: Gavilar).

If Shallan doesn’t get out of that room of her own free will, all of this comes to nothing.

I get what you’re saying and I would completely agree if it weren’t specifically Sja Anat, a being that could actually know whether Shallan is pregnant before she does, and furthermore is not the sort of being that would speak that way - she didn’t say “your future children” or “your people’s children”, and we know she would if that’s what she met.