AquaRegia

What @Chinkoln said; I think you might be conflating "The Pursuer" with "He Who Quiets". The text did not make clear who the "new" holder of the title was, and we had a spirited discussion about it... then Brandon ruined all the dramatic tension by just blurting it out in January, as noted above. I heroically resisted the urge to say "I told you so". I don't recall any mention of "The Pursuer" having been bestowed on anyone else.

I often imagine what it would be like to write a novel. I'm a competent writer, I've written some short fiction just to entertain myself and friends. But a NOVEL? Daunting. It would be very stressful for me to juggle all the different components that go into a good fantasy novel - backstory, character arcs, foreshadowing, pacing of reveals, etc... and the idea of not only doing all that but ALSO providing a real-time progress bar to the impatient masses would send me screaming for the hills. It's insane.

@Frustration it was in the original post of this topic:

I think the answer to the question is "no". The Sibling was never a deadeye. They CHOSE to remain hidden and thought dead. Dabbid didn't seek out The Sibling. How could he? No one in the tower even knew they existed. THEY chose to contact him, which indicates that they were awake, aware, and capable of action. I'd argue that The Sibling helped to rehabilitate Dabbid, rather than the other way around.

Everything in @ElMonoEstupendo 's post sounds right to me, and I really like this: Speculative, sure... but it makes a lot of sense. Well done.

We seem to be having a fundamental disconnect about forgiveness. Some of us see forgiveness as something to be ASKED FOR by the perpetrator, and GIVEN to the perpetrator by the victim. Others (myself included) do not see forgiveness as a transaction. It is a powerful spiritual remedy which happens completely within the one who was wronged. I forgive those who wrong me not to benefit them, but so that I can live my life free from anger and resentment. If my forgiveness helps someone else, that's a wonderful side effect, and it does sometimes happen - but it's not the purpose. Forgiving ALWAYS helps me. Dalinar did not seek the Nightwatcher for forgiveness; he is wise enough to not expect forgiveness. Nor does he require forgiveness in order to be "worthy" of redemption. We are all worthy, all the time. No one has gone so far into darkness that they may not turn back toward the light.

Thank you for this thought-provoking topic. We all have ideas which are shaped by our own experiences. Some things I have learned on my journey so far: 1) None of us is worthy of anything. I'm not personally religious, but I see value in many religious tenets, and this is definitely one. Many religious traditions stress the idea of "undeserved gifts from God", and things like "grace", "serenity", "forgiveness" and "redemption" are often among them. I didn't do anything to deserve the country I was born into, or the loving parents I had. I didn't build the modern hospital I was born in or any of schools I attended. I was not and CANNOT be "worthy" (or "unworthy") of these gifts I received. To assert that any person is "worthy" or "unworthy" of the things they have strikes me as dangerously presumptuous... and leads to meritocracy and other unsavory worldviews. 2) The benefit of forgiveness is experienced by the one doing the forgiving. If you wrong me, the way YOU experience that event is entirely up to you. You are also responsible for how you experience my forgiveness. But I have two choices for ME: I can remain angry and hurt and harbor a resentment for my whole life, or I can forgive you your flaws and mistakes, and thus be able go on with my life without that emotional burden. This quote was specifically about Dalinar, but it applies to all of us: Jesus taught "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." As imperfect, flawed humans, we spend all day, every day, stepping on each other's toes. Forgiveness is the only way to live without being consumed by resentment. I saw a quote recently along the lines of "anger is a punishment we give to ourselves because someone else made a mistake."

Opinion is strongly divided on the agreement made between Taravangian and Odium: I'm with you, @Ixthos - I believe the terms of that deal were upheld and that it is still in effect, and that it WILL have an important influence on what TOdium will be able and/or unable to do in the future.

My understanding is that Shards cannot directly physically harm mortals. Thus we get all the manipulation, influencing and deal-making. If Odium could use all his god-level power directly on his enemies, why would he need a Champion? He wouldn't even need an ARMY.

I got goosebumps just reading that post. It's such a great moment, such a great reveal... I don't ever want its emotional impact lessened for ANY future reader! Thanks for continuing to share. Soon she's going to be stuck waiting for Brandon, just like the rest of us. ;-)

I'm assuming that the most- and least-amount-of-time questions refer to the FIRST time through. ;-) I'm glad I have good company in getting through tWoK most slowly. The combination of lots of worldbuilding (which is cool, but slows readers down) and just being unfamiliar with the characters and setting probably accounts for that one being the slowest going for plenty of first-timers. My son is a big fan of Elantris, Warbreaker and the Mistborn series, but he couldn't get into tWoK. He says it simply starts out too slow - for too long - to really grab him. I'm not a fast reader, preferring to savor rather than gobble; plus, what's going on in the rest of my life will affect how long it takes for me to get through a novel.

Welcome to the asylum Shard! If you love Sanderson's work, I'm sure we will be great friends. Since it seems you have not read everything yet, I won't spoil anything in the Stormlight Archive... but your statement of pronoun preference is timely, as we've had a lively discussion of the English gender nonbinary pronoun problem in the SA forums recently. Some people have strong feelings about it.

I suppose, if one ignores the Way of Kings prologue, the Words of Radiance prologue, the Oathbringer prologue, Dalinar's entire flashback arc in Oathbringer, the Rhythm of War prologue, and the Venli/Eshonai flashback arc in Rhythm of War... then I guess this is correct. Even better: just ignore the first 3 novels, and only read the last 300 pages of RoW; then it's clearly true. LOL

Most excellent. Thank you for taking the time to share this terrific analysis. Like you, I find Taravangian to be one of the most interesting, compelling, and believable characters in SA. Not unlike Venli, his insecurities, struggles and self-doubt make him among the most HUMAN of a cast of great characters. It's one big reason I'm confident TOdium will not be defeated in book 5 - Brandon has put way too much work into crafting this fully-realized and amazing villain to waste him on one single book. I have no doubt he will continue to be a force in the back half of SA.

Warm... Getting warmer... There it is. The obvious choice is Gavilar. You want Dalinar to be conflicted about fighting Odium's Champion? How about his brother, whom he idolized and swore to defend... and whose widow he's now married to? We've got literally 4 entire books threaded with foreshadowing, pointing to Gavilar's return. Rationale here:

My head hurts when I try to wrap it around the history of Roshar... but what @LewsTherinTelescope says here makes sense to me.

So it's accelerated MAGICAL evolution! Thank you for sharing that! This lets Brandon explain relatively rapid changes in living things, while presumably not affecting geological processes like erosion, sedimentation, or the formation of fossils... but how can we be sure? Given that magic is involved, any "normal" scientific approaches to understanding - making predictions, testing hypotheses, etc. - will necessarily be less reliable than they would if the Cosmere worked by natural laws alone. I still think that while "science" may help characters like Navani and the Ardents figure out some things in the present, long-time-scale things like evolution and geology are unlikely to play an important role in the Cosmere stories. I'm as excited as anyone to find out what happens on Scadrial in upcoming Eras, but I temper my expectations with the fact that the Cosmere runs on a different set of laws than our universe, and ultimately what happens there is solely dependent on the whims of one man.

That would be very exciting, if true - what evidence is there of this?

In the Cosmere, where plants, animals - and, indeed, entire planets - can be magically created and changed, does it make sense to look at ANY living things and assume "this is the result millions of years of evolution"? In fact, I think the safe assumption is the opposite: things on Roshar are just the way Adonalsium made them, patterns and systems included. You are of course correct that neither we nor Vasher know for sure. But I'm betting evolution is not going to be a factor in any Cosmere stories. I love science too, in the real world... but in the Cosmere, science always takes a back seat to magic.

These are both valid points. However, I want to make it clear that this is not just a "Brandon as an author" issue, not just a "shortcomings of English" issue, not just a "politically correct offended America" issue. This is a real-life present day social and cultural issue which is having real effects on real people all over the world. Brandon is fully aware of this and is consciously taking a position on it through his fiction; I believe it is the correct position, and that "they", while imperfect, is the best option. If you honestly think referring to people as "it" is harmless, try it with your friends' children and let me know how it goes. "Your baby is so cute! Is it sleeping well?" People who are already struggling with gender issues don't need the added weight of unintentional dehumanization... and while you may not be aware, plenty of hurtful and small-minded people DO use "it" to refer to gender nonbinary people - on purpose - knowing full well how it "un-persons" them. Read a few posts on social media about Dr. Rachel Levine and you'll see what I mean. "A few generations" of vulnerable people being further victimized? No, thank you. The fact is that people DO exist who do not fit into black-and-white binary genders, and who prefer to not be referred to as either "he" or "she"; I know several myself. We need SOMETHING. There are really only three options: "It" is widely understood to refer to inanimate objects and NOT people. As I noted before, evil stems from treating people as objects... and it's ALREADY happening. It needs to stop. We could invent new pronouns, and people have tried. None have caught on widely, and all seem weird and unfamiliar - adding rather than removing barriers to understanding. "They" already exists, and has (yes, incorrectly) been used colloquially as singular for some time. Every gender nonbinary person I know prefers 'they/them". The same argument made about "it" applies here; if we do it for a while, the wrongness will wear off. "You" is both singular and plural in English. Annoying, yes, but we all got used to it! I apologize if my tone seems confrontational or makes anyone feel picked on - I promise that is not my intention. But I have strong feelings about this... and from what I've read, I believe Brandon largely shares my feelings.

Todium's Champion will be Gavilar. I'm willing to bet every last one of my spheres.

It is possible to expect something to happen, to be prepared for it, and also be terrified when it does. Anyone who has ever experienced military combat will verify this. I think Hoid's conversation with Design makes it clear what his goal is - misdirection. He is intentionally attracting Odium's full attention so someone else can accomplish something without being noticed. Who and what will be revealed in the next novel... and I predict it will be awesome.

I very much doubt I will change your mind, but I'm not buying the "Dalinar is a Dawnshard" idea. If my logic is sound, there are three possibilities: 1) Dalinar encountered a Dawnshard at some point in the previous novels and "became" it (or whatever the right term is). 2) Dalinar became a Dawnshard at some point NOT shown in the novels. 3) Dalinar has never (yet) become a Dawnshard. If you have any evidence for 1) I'd love to hear it - I don't see any. 2) would be incredibly bad storytelling; Brandon is too good a writer to make an arc-climax event like that be a surprise to the reader by having it happen offscreen where we can't see it. I think it's safe to bet that Oathbringer gave us the entirety of Dalinar's backstory, and it did not include any Dawnshards. Therefore we are left with 3). I'm not saying it's impossible for Dalinar to become a Dawnshard... but it has not happened yet, and I really don't think Dawnshards will be a big part of Stormlight 5. Not enough groundwork has been laid - in the novels - for them to become a plausible plot point that soon. My guess is they will become important in the back half. I interpret the "we killed you" line as a reference to the Vessel of Honor, toward which Dalinar's arc seems to be moving.

I stipulate that the Unmade are not identically the same as the Fused... but the degree to which the Amaram/Yelig-Nar bond paralleled that of Radiants and Fused is considerable, in my opinion. Given the amount of magic abounding in this world (it is FANTASY, right?), it seems presumptuous to rule out anything, ESPECIALLY things quite similar to what we've already seen happen. Additionally, I'd add that textual evidence supports that many animals - including skyeels, chasmfiends, larkins (all native to Roshar) and Ryshadium (imported by humans) - engage in bonding with spren to some degree. The idea that Fused could bond with hosts other than singers seems absolutely reasonable to consider, and impossible to refute based on what we know so far.

I have several thoughts: I think it's probably not wise to put too many eggs in the evolution basket with regards to the Cosmere. Brandon is a great writer, and he does his science homework to a reasonable degree, but evolutionary biology is certainly not his area of expertise. I recommend not getting your hopes up too high for clever evolutionary explanations for things. I'm reasonably sure it's already canon that both Horneaters and Herdazians have singer heritage, so clearly Brandon has no problem with interspecies genetic mixing, despite this not making a lot of evolutionary sense. We also know that the entire Rosharan system was wholly created by Adonalsium, and is too new to have a fossil record. I think that likely rules out any kind of normal evolutionary processes, which require tens or hundreds of millions of years. We did see Meridas Amaram gaining access to Surges via a bond with Yelig-Nar, and all he had to do was SWALLOW a gemstone. So I think that's a big YES to your final question.