coolsnow7

The problem is you keep making this assumption. Anyway are you claiming with a straight face that, in American law, if both sides of a contract agree to nullify that contract, they cannot do so?

Yes, like I said: if both parties mutually agree to abandon the agreement/contract, there are no restrictions. Yes and if Taravangian decides “you know what, Odium, I’m fine if you no longer ‘perform’ your side of the bargain” then Odium is off the hook. Conveniently for Odium, Taravangian and Odium are the same person.

Not entirely relatedly, do you have any idea what this questioner/Brandon are getting at?

… unless you don’t. Unless Odium has something up his sleeve to make this a viable offer for everyone except Dalinar. Would that surprise anyone? We have a whole ~1,000 pages left for that to be developed, which by contrast is not nearly enough to set up the nicest guy in the series killing his father in service of the God of Hatred.

Jezrien was definitely as far gone. Still I think you’re correct that he’s much further gone than the others we’ve seen.

What frustrates me is that there’s a much weaker theory that’s easier to accept but suffices for all the good observations here: namely that Adolin turns his back on Dalinar and rejects his leadership. Adolin doesn’t need to literally fight his father - whom he does love and revere - to the death, in the service of the biggest bad guy in the Cosmere, to do a lot of damage. He just needs to conclude that his father isn’t worthy of his reverence and that his ideals aren’t worth following. To reiterate: I support all these observations. But why leap to a borderline nonsensical character arc to explain them? I’m impatient to figure out who the champion will be too.

Brilliant. We are certainly building towards a dark ending. And I think this supports theories based on an ecological disaster related to stones disintegrating.

They would not have to switch sides. They would simply have to give up. We already know from The Sunlit Man that the leader of the Windrunners does so at some point. If he’s willing to do so, I don’t think it’s such a stretch for the other monarchs who joined the coalition reluctantly in the first place to do so.

We started off this chapter with a monologue from Dalinar about “oh if only Gavilar was here, he’s so much better at this than I am” - after the reveal in the Prologue that, in fact, Gavilar is NOT better than him at any of this, and is just a Dunning-Krueger megalomaniac of epic proportions. And that monologue ends “But Gavilar is dead.” After 5 prologues focused on Gavilar, culminating in one titled “To Live” wherein Gavilar craves immortality at any cost, I think that screams that Gavilar is making a comeback. I did not speculate about the mechanism. And I absolutely do not think there’s anything to be said about whether he will be champion or not. For what it’s worth: there’s something to that theory in that a) thematically it works very well b) it ties into the possible mechanism “Dalinar loses legitimacy as leader of humanity => Dalinar can no longer constrain Odium” and c) Gavilar is a perfect representative of Odium’s intent. But that’s not nearly enough for me to say “I’m confident he will be champion” especially since for him to be some sort of human Fused, Odium would have had to have been planning that for years for no apparent reason.

That, I certainly agree with!

Come on everybody. I expect better from the premier theorists of this forum. Odium isn’t about to convince Adolin to be his champion. That’s like speculating that Dalinar is going to pick Cultivation to be his champion - it makes no sense, and would have required some sort of character development in that direction spanning the past 4 books. Kaladin’s depression translating into hatred of lighteyes was developed since the absolute first moment we met him, all so that he could be an abortive champion - not even the actual choice! Now while Adolin might not fight his father to the death, it’s not implausible that he’d wind up rejecting his leadership. And we have a whole bunch of vulnerabilities to Dalinar from that direction, particularly if Gavilar makes some sort of comeback. And, we have Hoid pointing out in RoW that the contest isn’t really a fight but a battle for “the hearts and minds of men” - which is to say that Dalinar losing the allegiance of his side would spell defeat. I think this is building up to a rejection of Dalinar as leader of Roshar, leaving him truly alone when he fights Odium.

I just want to register that, just in case the foreshadowing that Gavilar will make some sort of comeback in this book wasn’t clear enough, Brandon is absolutely screaming to us that that’s happening in this chapter.

I’m pretty sure Brandon literally highlighted this “contradiction”. I have a hard time seeing how any of his writing constitutes Brandon making a philosophical argument. At best, you could say that this is a literary exploration of the implications of a few theological arguments. But ultimately that’s still not Brandon making anything like an argument. And again, it’s Brandon that’s even bringing it up for us to talk about in the first place!

I am 90% sure that emotional Taravangian knew where this was headed. Smart Taravangian used his intelligence to shield himself from that inconvenient truth.

In TWoK epilogue with Wit, Wit says he fears Taln is too late. Similarly in WoR, Taln’s interlude, he says “I fear I might be too late this time”. When we read these naively when they first came out, we didn’t know very much: we didn’t know that there even was an Oathpact, how it functioned, or what it was meant to do. So we thought Taln must be too late to stop the Desolation, or something to that effect. Well, now we know that Taln’s arrival was never going to stop the Desolation. We also know that he isn’t too late to “teach people to soulcast bronze” or whatever, because (as he observed in Oathbringer) technological development has had a chill 4500 years to leapfrog ahead of whatever was cutting edge back in his days. I want to emphasize, before I give my best guess, that the question is better than the answer. Taln and Wit’s reaction to his timing are not simply a reaction to an impending desolation; they’re reacting to something that is fundamentally different this time. Moreover, we don’t really understand Odium’s goal for the war against humans on Roshar: if he’s trying to train them to be shock troops in a Cosmere-wide war, then is he just never trying to win during the Desolations themselves? If we knew the answer here, we might know what Taln is normally trying to accomplish when he comes back from Braize, and why he’s too late this time. Anyway my best guess is the Everstorm. That is what makes this Desolation unique, and we also know that it was building up in the Cognitive Realm for a long time - hence Wit would have been aware of its impending actualization. It also got a lot of buildup as a component of various prophecies regarding Odium’s threat and eventual victory, but so far hasn’t seemed terribly significant - it caused a lot of physical and economic damage and woke up the Singers, but otherwise hasn’t done much? Well, presumably there’s something it can do that has existential risks for humanity, and we’ll find out what that is.

When Odium says: Cultivation's response is... silence. She doesn't claim otherwise. Let's consider a few things: All the Odium dialogue with Dalinar in Oathbringer: Rayse claims over and over and over that he's the only one who cares about humanity, that Honor and Cultivation are simply not interested in human suffering. We've treated this as pro-Odium propaganda, but... what if he's right? Taravangian is right when he refers to Cultivation's arguments as "elementary theological arguments". The letters in response to Hoid from Autonomy and Endowment: they are similarly consistent with the description of the Shards as "warlords who consolidate power so that no one will kill them". Indeed, the rules that Shards should avoid co-mingling in the same systems are too. By contrast, Sazed - who we know cares very much - is also the Shard that replies positively to Hoid. The exceptions: The two past Shards that, so we have heard, truly loved humanity - Preservation and Honor - both died. Sigzil's dillusionment: It's also consistent with Sigzil's disillusionment with the concept of honor that we learn about in The Sunlit Man: he claims that honor is a sham which mostly serves to motivate people to fight for a cause that doesn't benefit them. What if that cause is literally to fight for a Shard's self-preservation? Odium's claim about the Recreance This sounds an awful lot like the Knights Radiant rejected the mission of fighting and dying to preserve Honor. Conclusion I believe we're going to learn that Odium's accusations are more correct than not. And his solution to the problem - namely that humanity can only thrive under a single god - will be what's at issue in the future Grand Cosmere Clash. And, that Hoid is pursuing a solution to the same problem.

I'm going to be contrarian and say: I'm not sold. "Divided" and "broken" are not the same. If Brandon wanted us to know that that's who this refers to, he would have used the same language. And if he specifically wanted to hide this connection, well, there was no need to refer to Odium as "the divided one" at all. It could be that Odium is going to progress to some further, scarier state wherein he is "broken" rather than merely divided (I lean towards this - for example, if Renarin's vision of the spark of Taravangian going out comes true). Or, it could be this will wind up referring to some other Shard who undergoes/has undergone breaking. Either way, I actually think this is evidence that the Deathrattle does not refer to Odium as he is now.

I do not think we've learned this: Cultivation says "you cannot take action against anyone who hasn't given themselves over to you". Without further context, healing them would not constitute action against them. My guess is that he wants to heal a Tu Baylan child which would constitute supporting the war effort against the Azish - and hence action against them. (And you can understand why: if Odium can just permaheal every fighter on his side without violating his Oaths, why wouldn't he?) This is a good callout! Interesting question as to whether "divided" and "broken" are the same thing - could be they are, could be there's some progression from his current state to an even scarier one yet to be seen. (For example, if what Renarin foresaw - that the spark of Taravangian could eventually go out - will constitute him being broken.)

You know, an interesting angle here is that Ala does not act like other Seons and how we've been taught to expect them to act. What he/she reminds me of is... an enlightened Spren. I wonder if there's a connection here between Sja Anat's enlightenment and a similar movement on Sel via Autonomy.

I'll go out on a limb and offer an unpopular opinion: I was underwhelmed by these interludes. I think we learned exactly 2.5 things: That the Ghostbloods are specifically after BAM (... and I think we kind of already knew that?) The .5 thing is that there may or may not be a schism forming between the Kelsier and Iyatil wings of the Ghostbloods That Odium was willing to reveal his plans - which he very clearly was already set on at the end of RoW - to Cultivation Otherwise, this was empty of new insights? I guess the fact that Odium is still trying to retain his sense of Taravangian self is somewhat interesting but not new - the Taravangian interlude with Renarin in RoW already told us this would be a thing. Given the subjects of these interludes, I'm kind of bummed by how little we learn. By contrast, the writing itself and the direction this is all going is awesome and I can't wait for the full book. I've long thought that the exchange between Dalinar and Odium in Oathbringer, where Odium keeps saying "I'm the only one who cares about how you feel" warrants more scrutiny. I think this makes perfect sense: he thinks Rayse was incompetent. And I think it's quite hard to argue with that claim. I completely disagree: Cultivation thought she was getting someone with her temperament and her approach to the world - someone focused on building systems and willing to accept some short term suffering in exchange for long term prosperity - in the Odium seat. Instead she got a far more capable megalomaniac. This sequence is building towards strong confirmation that Hoid's story of the boulder and the 3 people is about the 3 shards of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium, and that Cultivation is the one trying to shift the boulder's path - and hence "the most dangerous".

So in your mind, everyone’s living together happy and peacefully, then BAM shows up… and the Singers immediately transition to bloodthirst? You’re gonna need to do better than that.

It is far more likely that the humans literally enslaved the Singers. For one thing, otherwise there’s a much better question to ask: why did the Singers fight once Ba-Ado-Mishram offered them forms of power? In any case, leaping to the conclusion that Singers and humans coexisted happily is wild.

The evidence brought here is woefully inadequate to justify the theory.

I dunno, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But it’s difficult for me to imagine anyone reading tWoK or even Oathbringer and saying the writing has held up. I’ve already registered above that I think this isn’t how the whole book will be. But it’s important to note that if it is, it represents a pretty severe deterioration in this series’ writing since even Oathbringer.

I absolutely completely agree with you. And I think there’s a point to this. I wrote this in another thread: everyone here gushing over how nice it is to see Kaladin heal/Shallan grow/Syl put the moves on Kaladin is getting scammed by Brandon. He’s about to plunge them into chaos. The relevant vibes are “one last ball for Elend and Vin where they finally get to dance together”. We’re going to get some seriously dark endings for these characters in some form or another, and this is the last breath of fresh air before plunging into the depths. Of course, the flip side of this prediction is that if that’s not the case, then jeez Brandon deteriorated as a writer in a major way in the last few years. But I’m pretty confident that’s what this is.