Lightdancer

Wow, this is so fascinating! And relatable! Thanks for sharing, guys!

I'm excited.

I agree that they probably wouldn't want to be reduced... though if it was played right, that could be insanely awesome.

No problem!

There's been a lot of discussion over the possibility that Todium will choose Gavinor as his champion, crippling Dalinar. There are several death rattles that are often cited to support this theory. (This thread explains the theory pretty well.) In this thread, I'm working from the assumption that this theory is correct, although there are plenty of objections. Personally, I think this theory makes a lot of sense. It fits Taravangian and Dalinar's conflicting principles, gives significance to Gavinor's subplot, and fulfills some Death Rattles. However, there's one plot thread/theme that isn't addressed by this theory: the fallibility of futuresight. We see this first in Oathbringer. Renarin has a vision of his own death by Jasnah's hand, and of Dalinar becoming Odium's champion. This does not happen. Jasnah does not kill Renarin, Dalinar shouts "You cannot have my pain," and awesomeness ensues. A lot of us on the shard (myself not excluded) often take Death Rattles as near-perfect predictions of the future. They may be; it's certainly fun to theorize from them. However, we have to remember how futuresight works. It is based on possibilities, not certainties. Jasnah didn't kill Renarin. Dalinar didn't become Odium's champion. Of course, we still have Todium's scheming and all the other evidence for this outcome. However, I don't think that Brandon showed us this detail about futuresight for nothing. After all, a plot twist needs foreshadowing. If, say, we discovered in book 5 that all these predictions had just been wrong all along, it would be unsatisfying. But because of Oathbringer, we have that foreshadowing. That in mind, here's my outline for a possible, more hopeful contest of champions. Dalinar arrives on the top of Urithiru for the contest of champions, expecting to face Moash or perhaps a powerful Fused. Instead, he is confronted by Gavinor. (Taravangian might reveal himself. I think not- gloating isn't really his style.) Again, Dalinar is faced with was seems like an impossible predicament. We see this Death Rattle: "I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat." We see his angst, since this is SA. The next step depends, at least, on Gavinor and Dalinar's character arcs. Dalinar is going to have a greater role in SA 5, which means more character development. And if Gavinor becomes Odium's champion, he has to have a character arc. Unfortunately, I don't have enough futuresight to know what their arcs will be or how they might tie in to this situation. I will issue an ultimatum though: Dalinar will not kill Gavinor. I could see a world in which that is false- but seriously, who wants that? We may very well see the fulfillment of this Death Rattle: "So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life..." However, this is where the futuresight fails. Somehow, the night will not reign. Maybe Gavinor chooses not to kill Dalinar. Maybe he rescinds his consent to be Odium's champion. Maybe Dalinar just physically restrains him, preventing either of them from killing the other and drawing out the conflict for years while the Knights Radiant regroup? Who knows? Whatever it is, I expect it will draw gloryspren, since Brandon is writing it. Regardless, futuresight fails in predicting the triumph of Odium. The Sanderson avalanche proceeds, tying up whatever plot ends Brandon needs to tie. Maybe this is just me trying to believe that Dalinar won't become a Fused, that Roshar won't turn into a crustacean version of pre-catacendre Scadrial. But something tells me that Brandon wouldn't show us that futuresight is fallible and then never pay that off. Thoughts?

Okay, that is awesome. I'm a creative person too, but I love the Edgedancer oaths. I also enjoy ice-skating, though fear of falling dogs my glides. I suppose Stormlight would help with that...

Why yes, I am! You are too?!

Hi! I joined the shard recently, and keep drifting towards this corner of fellow creators... So I figured I'd jump in with an obvious question. I ask because I hear a lot of people and authors talking about this like it's a concrete process. Specifically, many of them rush to debunk the "myth" of the "idea fairy". Hilariously, most of my ideas are the result of the "idea fairy". I get ideas constantly like many of these authors describe, but sometimes I'll all at once get an idea- and I look up and there's a whole first act and a shiny new world sitting in my head. So how do you get your ideas? Slow, steady percolation, or as sudden and unexpected as an atomic bomb?

I noticed that as well. When I first heard this Death Rattle I thought it referred to Rayse-Odium. But that makes no sense. Rayse was not broken, Cultivation was still around. I think there are two ways we can interpret "broken". The first: Personal brokenness. That wouldn't be surprising in SA with so much emphasis on trauma. Cultivation is still around though. For this to be the case, I'd expect to see Cultivation die and Taravangian's "brokenness" beginning to show more strongly. The second way to interpret "broken" would be physically broken. (Or, well... spiritual-realm broken.) Honor has been Splintered- it is broken. However, "Odium reigns", and Cultivation is still around. So here's a possible theory- Odium and Cultivation die/leave/abdicate from whatever "ruling" is, and someone reassembles Honor and ascends. Either "the Broken One" is just a sentimental epithet, or the shard of Honor still retains some damage. Brandon has told us that the end of SA is hidden in WoK... I'd prefer it be this rather than "Oh, Stormfather! He has beaten us" or one of those cheerful rattles. Still, after the developments in RoW I'm getting more and more convinced that the solution isn't to excise Odium from Roshar. (Could "Broken One" encompass some combination of the shards? Anyways.)

Anytime someone quotes "there's always another secret" I'm in. I like how this theory ties the Ghostblood's motivations to Kelsier's character. He's definitely not a calm, conniving puppet master- well, he is conniving and a puppet master, but not calm. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that motivations like "no more shard-wars on my front lawn" influenced his plans and thus, the Ghostblood's plans.

Guess not bindspren, then. I really like the luckspren theory. Concentrationspren makes a lot of sense for Truthwatchers- I wish we had a list of when they have appeared! (Interestingly, Urithiru is one of their hotspots.)

I would prefer it would be Testament too. My thought process is this: if Maya can talk to Adolin, surely Testament can talk to Shallan. They are, after all, both extremely special circumstances.

That... huh. Anyways, I like the Mink theory. Part of me wants to hijack the thread to talk about Kaladin, but I'm not going to. I think Mink-Nightwatcher would be hilarious.

I believe they're referencing a theory that some or all of the Unmade were once Bondsmith or godspren.

Okay, I'm looking at the Coppermind. Cutting out emotion spren (which turns out to be a difficult distinction), and cutting out unlikely candidates like alespren, here are our options for Truthwatchers and Skybreakers. Anticipationspren, Awespren, Bindspren, coldspren, concentrationspren, gravityspren, groundspren, heatspren, laughterspren, luckspren, musicspren, rainspren, rainbowspren, riverspren, snowspren, "stormstriders", wavespren. (I cut out a lot that didn't look likely to me... this is a more comprehensive list: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Spren) Among those, bindspren stick out for the Skybreakers. According to the coppermind, "Spren that appear around objects bound with a Full Lashing. They appear as small splashes of dark blue ink. Their relationship to the Lashings is not fully understood -- Kaladin believes they are what hold the objects together, while Sylphrena disagrees, saying they could be attracted to the Full Lashing Kaladin had created." I can't remember if a Full Lashing requires Adhesion- if so, RIP this theory. Maybe gravityspren, although that would be dull. I'm guessing we can rule out musicspren, since we know they bond with Rhyshadium. Dawnshard spoiler below. I'd also rule out rainbowspren and snowspren, maybe even wavespren and rainspren. I'd rule out all the "weatherspren" if not for windspren. Too bad we don't have "skyspren". That'd make it easy. Crack theory- Stormstriders make up Bondsmith plate...

What happened after Navani used this word, plotwise? Could there be a connection there? By the way, I think it's hilarious that the anagram thread basically restarted here. STORMS please no. I think it's five years, and I'm still going to be, like, forty by SA 10.

I agree with gloryspren being the Bondsmith plate. Part of me wants Bondsmith plate to be special... but I'm just having flashbacks to Oathbringer climax. Anyways. I don't know a ton about this- I'm bad at paying attention to the small details of spren. Anticipationspren for Truthwatchers sounds right. Looking at that list, there aren't any emotion spren... is that significant? (Maybe they only showed up after Odium? They do "feed" on emotion, and angerspren especially are considered dangerous in the cognitive realm... but I guess gloryspren might be considered emotion spren. Storm it.) Any ideas on the Skybreaker plate?

Nobody's mentioned it yet, but the Shin won't walk on stones. It seems like they worship them in some way? Szeth does seem to ascribe them some sentience (he says that, as Truthless, his soul "would be given to the stones" for torment after death). He also says that Urithiru is the only stone that he can walk on? (I'm working all from memory, here.) Anyways, from what I've seen, the Shin know way more than Roshar gives them credit for, so it doesn't surprise me that stones have significance.

Okay, awesome. This is really awesome. Obviously a cool magic system doesn't automatically make a great book, but if you can do that this sounds amazing. Anyways, I'm the theme person, so here are my two cents. Theme is often a good way to flesh out magic systems. People brought up futuresight/telling the future earlier, and it's a good example. Brandon's use of futuresight- seeing possibilities rather than certainties- highlights themes of free will. On the other hand, I'm writing a story (sci-fi- it's complicated but I basically have a prophecy using time-travel) where the future cannot be changed. This forces the characters to struggle, as they feel like they've been saddled with a destiny they don't want. In other words, the way that these magic systems use prophecy influences the themes (and therefore the characters and character arcs!). Taking a look at teleportation- you linked it to emotional connection, which is awesome, but also rife with thematic opportunities. Do these connections change as your emotional connection changes (say, as a relationship shifts from friendship to nemeses to love to hatred...)? Will different sorts of emotional connections result in different "forms" of teleportation- say, would a character's connection with say, their high school crush, be different from their soulmate? Or the villain who tortured them? Or the abusive friend? What constitutes an emotional connection? What is the role of emotion in relationships? What if someone is in a relationship without emotion (arranged marriage? forced foster parent?)? Does this emotional connection change with mood, or is it an "overall" connection? Would it be different for a bipolar person? Would you have a usable connection to someone you haven't met yet, say, your future spouse? Anyways, those are the thoughts that went through my head. Thematic implications in magic systems are my bread and butter, so there you go.

Yes! @Ramona Tehradin Preach it! I agree with everything on here, but I'd like to elaborate on Teft (just to make you all sad). He wakes up thinking he's been on moss. He struggles with self-hatred but decides not to let it cripple him. But then... That moment... As they keep making plans, we see Teft settling into a healthy mindset. Helping the others. Having a calm, happy relationship with Phenodorana. Forgiving himself. And then Teft confronts Moash. And then Moash storming kills Phenadorana... and then kills Teft... That whole scene was horrific, but knowing that Teft died with hope gives me peace. That's how character deaths should be. I knew Teft was going to die as soon as he began to think about how his life was finally alright. I can't believe Phenadorana died- STORM MOASH. And I'll miss Teft as part of Bridge 4. Still, as sorrowful as it was, a sadly beautiful part of this book.

Interesting speculation. I would really like to see the shard of War. However, I don't think I want Taravangian to be the vessel... but I don't want him to hold Odium, either. Maybe becoming the shard of War would impose Honor on him and curtail some of his more villainous tendancies? Alternative thought- Dalinar seems like a good fit for the shard of War. This isn't as true now as it was in the past, but Dalinar has been a terrifying warrior/tactician/leader. Depending on what his goals would be, I'd like him taking up that shard. (It does seem a little more suited to him than Honor, for instance.)

I really like this theory. I like the idea of Cultivation as a crafty, cosmere-scheming dragon. I also have been a fan of the Odium-Autonomy pair-up. One of the reveals that surprised me the most in RoW (besides, well... everything) was that Mercy was the other shard involved with the splintering of Ambition. I always assumed that it was Autonomy. The idea that Odium and Autonomy teamed up to splinter Ambition was the main point that made me believe in the Odium-Autonomy pair-up. Since that's not the case... I still like that pair-up. However, I might as well suggest a possible Odium-Mercy pair-up. I really like the idea of Mercy as an antagonist/villain, with an overt and intentional role in Ambition's death. However, that's literally all we know about Mercy, whereas Autonomy has been a looming presence over the cosmere. Finally, I like the idea of Lift as a final contingency plan. I am a little confused- if you think that she isn't Cultivation's heir, then what is her role?

I don't really know actors, but I agree with this.

So I saw this theory about Shallan's oaths as a Lightweaver in another thread: There was some joking around about the "pattern" in Shallan's Pattern-oaths, but I wanted to take it seriously for a second. All of Shallan's Pattern-oaths are murder-related (the third truth is questionable, but I like it.) More broadly, they're all action-related: what Shallan has done. My first impulse was to extend that to her Testament-oaths. We only have one of those- "I'm terrified"- and we don't know if that's a real truth. However, assuming that it is, and assuming that the Testament-oaths follow a pattern like the Pattern-oaths, then I propose that Shallan's Testament-oaths were related to her identity: who Shallan is. In this framework, the Testament-oaths would all be related to who Shallan's identity, and the Pattern-oaths would be related to Shallan's actions. I think this would reflect the dichotomy between Shallan's identity and her actions. She consistently struggles with the idea that she has murdered her mother and father. Part of Shallan's arc throughout the Stormlight Archive is understanding that she is not defined by what she has done. The fact that Shallan struggles with her identity becomes even more significant when we realize that Shallan broke her oaths with Testaments- oaths relating to her identity. Perhaps the act of breaking her bond set her on a path of questioning who she is and conflating herself with her worst actions- kicking off her whole character arc. There are some issues with this theory. Like I mentioned, we don't know if "I killed my first spren" is actually Shallan's third Pattern-oath. Worse, we only have one (possible!) Testament-oath. (I think this is a real truth, due to the arguments in the original thread. If you want to check it out, it's here: Even if that is a real Testament-oath, I extrapolated an entire theme for Shallan's Testament-oaths out of one truth. So this might be pretty flimsy. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Wow. Great job!