coolsnow7

Melishi was bound to the Sibling, and was the only Bondsmith in that era. If anything this suggests that if the Stormfather played a role, the Radiants did not.

This feels like quite a stretch. If it were an option then Rayse would have been waging attacks along these lines for the past year. I don’t think he can push the Everstorm with that much flexibility. That said I am certain there is a deeper strategy to all the attacks, and we’ll have to wait to see what it is.

Leecher bomb? Aluminum cage? Larkin? We’ve certainly seen options to deal with this situation.

I’m not ready to make even a weak prediction about how Odium will try to deal with this problem. But I agree that there’s Odium will try to deal with this problem. That said, I think this was only relevant for something crazy like an actual, imminent threat to Rayse. Other Shards, including Odium, were able to be outwitted and defeated despite their future sight - indeed, there was no Truthwatcher interfering with Odium’s attempt to convert Kaladin. It’s a problem for Odium but not necessarily an acute problem.

Well we have that scene where Odium wants to save the Riran child dying and Cultivation reminds him that he can not. So there are limitations placed on Odium’s interference that are different than Preservation/Ruin constantly blocking each other. Still, I agree with you that the objection isn’t strong - Taravangian was able to give himself over to Odium and thus negate Honor’s protections. I see no reason why Gavilar couldn’t do the same thing.

I think 5 prologues focusing on Gavilar’s death, culminating in one where we find out that everyone’s perception of him is completely wrong, that he’s much closer to Odium than Honor personality-wise, that he craves immortality, and titled “To Live” is some solid foreshadowing! To top that off, I direct you to the beginning of (IIRC) chapter 13, where Dalinar muses for a paragraph about how if Gavilar was here he could handle all this better, and then says “But Gavilar was dead.”

That would definitely fit child champion theory! There’s like… semi-foreshadowing. - We’re told Dalinar is the very best at fighting, and yet Adolin makes it out alive vs. 4 fighters. So he’s one of the few candidates to be a fighter that can give Dalinar a run for his money. - Adolin kills Sadeas in a fit of rage and hatred (justified, to be sure). His justification for doing so is “it had to be done for the good of the world” - awfully Taravangian-sounding… - as noted it would fit child champion theory very nicely, and I think there’s been enough (inconclusive, of course) clues in that direction that we could call it foreshadowing - Adolin’s mom is Riran, who have sided with Odium. More than enough times, we’ve heard that Adolin takes after her much more than Dalinar. I dunno. On the one hand there are some hints. On the other hand I agree with you that if Adolin took such a dark turn, saying it would feel jarring is an understatement.

I’m pretty sure this is where the Listeners come to the Coalition‘s rescue, along with the Heavenly Ones. But we’ll see.

A question we haven’t been asking is: which of these matters more to Odium? I’m not going to say I’m confident this is the case, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that only one of these (or some other objective entirely, like Urithiru) matters to Odium, and the other two are a bluff. (I hope it’s not Urithiru; too similar to RoW obviously.) If I were to guess, we might find that Dalinar has no standing to head the coalition without leading a kingdom. Alternatively, Odium might be angling to destroy Dalinar’s popular legitimacy, and one step towards that would be for the entire Alethi nation to be lost to Odium. Hence, the Shattered Plains may be where Odium actually tries to win, rather than distract.

I don’t know what to tell you. If you think that Brandon has Hoid do a whole digression about how he got scammed via this exact scam, specifically in the context of writing this contract, only for him to leave himself vulnerable to it - and then not to notice this when he’s explicitly looking for loopholes - then you have an extremely low opinion of Brandon’s writing and I find it strange that you like these books enough to post on a forum about them. There are other reasons why this theory is bogus (this is like a tie in a parliamentary election leading to total abrogation of that country’s constitution) but this reason alone should be convincing enough. This is not how Taravangian plans. Both as Taravangian describing (future) Odium, and as Odium, Taravangian is explicit that plans should be made so that “no matter the outcome, you are satisfied”. Counting on Szeth to lose, or on Dalinar to refuse to do heinous things, still leaves his plans vulnerable to Dalinar refusing, or Szeth winning.

They’re wearing shardplate in the visions, presumably.

Short answer (Stormlight spoilers) Long answer is that this analysis, while raising good questions, is mostly an exercise in assuming its own conclusion. “Sazed didn’t need to put Wax through that pain” well, what if he did? What if Sazed thinks he did? What if Sazed thinks there’s a 95% chance that he didn’t, but a 5% chance that not doing so will yield the destruction of Scadrial? All of these are entirely viable possibilities given what we know right now. Baldly asserting that Sazed or even Rashek did or didn’t need to do X to accomplish their goals requires evidence that we simply do not have.

The Shallan persona is going to die, insofar as she achieves her final Truth that she (Radiant) is Chanarach, Herald of the Almighty, betrayer of the Oathpact, and body swapper with the real Shallan. I agree with you in broad strokes, but I think it’s fair to say that if you told me at the beginning of Mistborn that Vin, Elend, and most of the crew would be dead by the end, I’d say “sounds like this series is heading in a dark direction.” Brandon clearly has it in him to massacre his protagonists, even if he’s been wimping out lately (see: Wax and Wayne, where somehow the only main character who dies is Wayne in the cheesiest way possible.)

This is like bringing a bucket of dirt and an axe to a peace conference so that participants can bury the hatchet.

Draws are not the loophole. Hoid is literally the inventor of the “draws are the loophole” strategy. If Hoid, the inventor of this strategy, failed to guard against it in the contract he himself wrote, much less failed to detect it when he was looking for loopholes, then we should all just stop reading Stormlight because Brandon thinks we’re dumber than rocks.

GREAT call! I should have read that section more closely!

No I agree, particularly Szeth is ripe for some development (and retroactive development, via his backstory) and Shallan could have another secret exposed. But I would be surprised(/upset at the writing) if Kaladin has 2 life-transforming revelations about the meaning of everything in the span of 10 days, it would be a bit much.

I think Battar is in the Purelake? I was hoping we’d get more from her artwork since they saved it to the end. I have no idea what those rocks hanging from her belt are. Does Taln perhaps look like he’s in Urithiru? Tanavast’s floating platforms remind me of scenes we’ve seen of Dalinar in various visions of destruction, standing on a platform above the void. In particular at the end of Way of Kings/beginning of Oathbringer, and when he brought Venli in in Oathbringer.

It’s a 10 day book. There shouldn’t be more than a few, if any, major character developments.

He’s been uh pretty explicit that his goal is to dominate the Cosmere as its sole god. whether or not that includes saving Roshar is tbd I suppose. Even if it does, I don’t think he’s settling for anything less than freedom.

The theories around Chana literally being Shallan have floated around, all these questions have been answered. That is incorrect - this is just confirmation. The arguments themselves are found across a bunch of other threads, for example this one.

I will be quite shocked if this is the only loophole. In fact my hunch right now is that this is a distraction (why would it be so important to Taravangian to conquer all of Roshar, as opposed to just most of it? How does that get him freed from the system?) Taravangian said that he would arrange things so that he would be satisfied no matter the outcome. And we also know that what Odium rushed to erase from Hoid’s memory was him asking who Hoid would choose as champion. Let’s be patient - we’re not even 20% done with the book, and I’m certain Taravangian holding a Shard has far more tricks up his sleeve.

The key is going to be the bottlenecks at each point of access: the Oathgate at Azimir, the ocean at Thaylen City, and whatever the Fused use to cross the canyons of the Shattered Plains. The simplest should be Azimir: this gigantic army is throttled by the rate at which it can cross from Shadesmar. It should be relatively simple to turn that point into a killing field. Odium will need another trick up his sleeve to make this assault work. I would add Stonewards here to continuously shape the Oathgate area into a set of obstacles for the invaders. Thaylen City’s assault will consist of attacking ships, disembarking soldiers, with 200 Skybreakers supporting them. If I have access to the Listener Chasmfiends (though, I don’t think I do) this is where I would use them: they would represent a serious obstacle to disembarking troops, and would be impervious to whatever warships could fire at them. The concern would be the Skybreakers - but the Chasmfiends could be supported by the Windrunners to prevent them from cutting down the Chasmfiends from the air with Blades. Combine these armies with Warform Listeners and I think this is a viable defense for a while. But I don’t think I’m getting the Listeners - I think they’re staying at the Shattered Plains realistically. Here I would try to use Elsecallers doing that Jasnah “rain of fire” trick, or similar ones, from RoW. The Thaylen coast is too broad to concentrate on a specific spot with foot soldiers or archers; you’d want the equivalent of artillery hammering into any troops that get off their boats. You’d also want to be able to deny air superiority to the Skybreakers. I would send Dalinar with a team of Elsecallers to continuously rain fire and death on the coast for 10 days, with conventional troops fortifying Thaylen City to prevent any breakthroughs from mattering. IMO the hardest is the Shattered Plains. Here Edgedancers would do best, since they could cover plateaus efficiently, sprinting from one bridging mechanism to another. But I still don’t see how they’d deal with a thousand Fused. My guess, though, is that the Listeners + Chasmfiends will be lending support here, and some number of Listeners will be Willshapers and (enlightened) Truthwatchers. I would support them with Windrunners to deny the Heavenly Ones air superiority and to try to pick off chasm-crossing attempts from the sky. I would also concentrate conventional troops here since “Shardbearers don’t hold ground” and the Fused are, functionally, Shardbearers on steroids. But ultimately I still don’t know how I defend what amounts to a wide open area with 360 access from a thousand Fused. This would be a good time for some Navani fabrial technology to turn the tables or something.

Guys it’s over. Shallan is Chana (aka Radiant). If Chana ever was Shallan’s mom, then some sort of switcheroo took place. I think we know enough to credibly suggest: “too much more” = learning that the purpose of the Oathpact, the Knights Radiant, and the battle against the Voidbringers wasn’t for Honor to protect humanity from Odium - it was for humanity to protect Honor (and the Cosmere) from Odium. The current last ditch goal is for Dalinar to take up the Shard before Odium can destroy it; and for some reason, conquering Roshar is necessary to do so. Stormfather is worried that, especially with no Honor around and no Heralds to guide them, that if humanity knew the truth, they’d abandon the quest - like Sigzil eventually does.

You could probably then go to Dai Gonarthis and Akina. And possibly Sja Anat and Feverstone Keep. Yeah I like this theory. I think it’s a bit of a stretch, but we can speculate that Honor and Cultivation “reverse-unmade” the Sibling to protect it from unmaking and that’s why it has the special characteristics it has.