Prymalfire

I have a hypothesis: Shards do not have free will. They are deterministic.

This is informed by the fact that a Shard's future sight is impaired by a person seeing the future (Renarin), but we see no sign of Cultivation's future sight having any blotting out affect of Odium's future sight.

Now, this could be explained by saying that Cultivation is subtle, and able to mask her intentions from even Fortune from the spiritual realm, but I think it more likely that the Intent of a Shard is so overwhelming that all actions of a Shard are predetermined, but with the ability to see the future can easily look considered to a mortal.

Possible exception: a newly ascended vessel may have greater free will. Vin's ability to strike at, and destroy Ati suggests this. If this is true, then Cultivation may be practically blind to the future at the moment, due to Taravangian's combo of future sight, cosmic power, and free will. And Taravangian would not be suffering from the same blindness.

I think the secret sauce is Ishar, Bondsmith Unbound.

If Ishar, or anyone really wielding the Honourblade, strips Odium from the contest and replaces him with another participant, then Dalinar is still bound win or lose, and Odium suffers absolutely 0 consequnces, win or lose.

This ups the stakes of Kaladin and Szeth's Shinovar adventure.

I'd put money on this.

Without getting a proper pov of The Sibling, most of this discussion is speculation.

True, The Sibling did not consider Navani worthy. That was when they first met. In the story, I believe that The Sibling begins to

1) Trust Navani

2) Appreciate Navani's intellect

3) See that Navani is willing to work with 'the other' for the good of her people

They bonded through necessity, but they bonded successfully. They are more likely to try to work through their differences together than abandon the bond because of poor first impresssions (especially as a child of Honor himself)

"I will make a world that no longer needs my protection."

The Radiants of the 5th Ideal would be the paragons of their order. A 5th Ideal Windrunner can't be concerned with flying off to their hometown to save it from a storm. They need to train their squires and uplift them to be protectors of their own. They need to coordinate logistics, assign missions. Kaladin had been given this role preemptively, but was not ready to take it up.

Other ideas, considering that people may not want protection, I feel like is a Willshaper ideal. A Windrunner will save who they can first, and consider the consequences later. (Emphasis on can, though)

(Side note: I think that the 5th Ideal will let a Windrunner 'Ride the Storm' like Kaladin did once, as its boon)

I'm calling it now: On Valor's world, only Heroes have magic. Perhaps the means by which one shows their Valor influences what kind of magic they manifest.

On Valor's personality, I think calling them aggressive is premature. I would go with 'bold'. I think that Valor will influence the Vessel to be a bolder, more extreme version of themselves. If the Vessel were moral and just, they would become a Paragon of Virtue. If they were aggressive, then they would become the ultimate Warmonger.

I think the oath will be related to understanding how the nature of the spren bonded connects to the ideals of the order. For Skybreakers: How does Nobility (My assumption for what Highspren represent), link to Law?

For Windrunners: What is the link between Honor and Protection?

For Lightweavers: How do our lies create our perception of Reality?

etc.

And the understanding allows the Radiant to fully manifest the ideals. Eg. 'I am the Law', and possibly 'I am Protection', 'I am Reality'

I also wonder how much the Rythym of War is a result of Navani and Raboniel both looking for a Weapon. Would a different intent produce a different harmonylight? Could they create a Disciplinelight? (As in, the act of disciplining) An  Eradicationlight? Dominationlight? This is somewhat supported by the WoBs that imply that shardblades are all alloys of Tanavastium and Cultivationmetal, but not the same alloy. In the same way, there may be multiple instantiations of blended Light.

I expect the Stoneward's lesser spren will be the ones that are used to make Half-Shards. I've been calling them Substancespren in my head, but there's probably better names

In RoW, the combination of Voidlight and Stormlight is described as 'snapping into harmony'. Warlight is the 'harmony' of Odium and Honour's investitures. This leads me to wonder: Is Sazed's Intent really Harmony, or is he simply holding a harmony of two shards, and the harmonized intent has yet to be revealed?

4. Cultivation grew to consider the situation on Roshar to be stagnant. Rayse was innefective as a Vessel. Cultivation aims to disrupt the status-quo (perhaps part of her intent) by cultivating both Taravangian and Odium into something stronger (definitely part of her intent). I think it unwise to consider Cultivation to be 'good'.

This might be a subset of 2, now that I think of it.

I think it's likely he can Connect to Fortune, but he could also just be absurdly skilled.

3 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Using Fortune would seem to be as un-Vorin as you can get.

 

We have no reason to think Vorinism holds sway over any of the Heralds. They predate it, and Ishar in particular considers himself God, he wouldn't care about any prohibitions.

54 minutes ago, Golstar said:

Syl is the Ancient Daughter. Honor lives in the hearts of men. Honor was splintered. She was the first splinter created by Honor. She is the "daughter" of Honor, not the Stormfather. She can return from death (Kaladin's dark days with Moash did kill her - without making her a deadeye).

So Kaladin's secret sauce could be that constant investiture from the first splinter of Honor is connecting him every more tightly with Honor - who already lives, albeit splintered, in the hearts of Rosharans. He is Stormblessed. Who knows how much investiture Honor gave up in creating Syl? Shards can invest tremendous amounts of power without even using splinters (ie Scadrial shards).
 

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That the phrase "honor lives in the hearts of men" could hurt Kalak so badly is perhaps because it reminds him of where his surgebinding powers come from - given by Honor contingent on the oathpact, which he broke. Breaking an oath can sever a nahel bond. Violating the oathpact probably did something similar. The heralds did not go mad from the torture on Braize - they went mad from each betrayal of the oath restarting the cycle of desolation. And so did honor.

 

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Syl was Honor's first splinter. We know she was among the very few Honorspren that the Stormfather created. Perhaps being pre-recreance does connect her more strongly to Honor, but I don't think she's more invested than other Honorspren.

We really don't know enough about how suppresion works to know for sure, specifically how it targets the powers to suppress. Perhaps Lift generates a mix of Stormlight and Lifelight; using Lifelight as fuel for Progression. Perhaps, given Cultivation's proximity to the tower, she was fueling the Regrowth herself, using Lift's intent as guide of where to use it. I'm also interested in how Regrowth woke up Teft.. Would it have worked on the non-Windrunners?