So ever since I read RoW I saw a potential loophole that Odium could exploit if he won the contest of champions. So the stakes of Dalinar losing are basically that Dalinar must serve Odium (either as a cognitive shadow fused, or alive) and that Odium still cannot leave the system regardless of the outcome. Anything else is less relevant to this theory. So the idea I had was that if Odium is able to win the challenge without killing Dalinar, then Dalinar should still be bonded to the Stormfather. At this point, what stops Odium from ordering Dalinar to speak for Honor's power and release Odium from the system? It was seen in previous books that Dalinar has this ability, when talking to Odium in the visions he almost accidentally did it as an example. The problems with this theory would mainly come from how the Stormfather's bond is affected by Dalinar aligning with Odium and if the bond breaks before the contest somehow (such as Ishar stealing it). I don't think losing the fight would directly break the bond between the Stormfather and Dalinar since he is still upholding an oath/deal he made with Odium.
Anyways I'd love if anyone could pick holes in this idea as this was just my gut reaction/thought to Dalinar wording the deal the way he did. I haven't seen this idea talked about anywhere else, but I have only recently gotten into 17th shard stuff.
This is my first post here, so sorry if I messed something up with rules about spoilers, I tried to word everything in a way to have minimal spoilers, just in case.
