Display Name

Taravangian does call it passion, but that's not really the point since, most deeply, he sees fury. Dalinar sees other things in it. Why would the shard of hatred and fury have a bit of "the moment of most sensual touch and ecstasy" inside of it? Wrath, fury, and hatred are the easiest things to inflame with passion, so most deeply it will be those. Cultivation told Taravangian it was a dangerous power and she had to change him into someone who could control it. If Harmony's power were to be described there would be bits of harmony, but most deeply it would be discord. Harmony struggles to control it just as Taravangian will and his wanting Hoid's opinion shows he's succeeding to some extent.

I worded that terribly and likely won't do much better now. The power isn't really emotions themselves, but the overwhelming passion behind a fervent emotion and is concerned will all emotions and not just hatred. Devotion is love, but it's more a deliberate kind of love than something that would be described as passionate love. Valor could be a synonym for bravery, but I would consider it more restrained (not really the right word). Valor would better describe a soldier standing in formation holding their spear and not breaking rank when a stronger force is charging down on them than the passionate bravery in the image of the viking berserker charging into battle. Most of the spren were already there before Cultivation and Honor. Adonalsium created a table setting for three. Cultivation and Honor came along, sat down, and put their coats and bags on the empty seat. It's much easier to get people to hate something passionately than it is to get them to care passionately about something and that's the trap Rayse fell into when he took up the power of passion and became Odium. The Boon/Curse that Cultivation gave Taravangian wasn't a spectrum between emotion and intelligence because smart Taravangian wasn't an emotionless robot. He had the contempt and fury when he was smart and when he was emotional he had the passion minus the odium part. Smart Taravangian (Odium Jr.) failed to best Odium and it wasn't until both ends of his spectrum worked together (Passion Jr.) did he beat Odium. So he learned the lesson Cultivation was trying to teach and became "someone who could bear this power with honor." and wouldn't let it rule him and drive him to destroy as it did to Rayse. @LewsTherinTelescope 's quote from Sja-anat about the power liking questions and arguments is in line with the Hoid and Taravangian conversation. Hoid knows Rayse would never ask his opinion just as Taravangian, on days he was smart and odious enough to translate the diagram, didn't want the opinion of the contemptible stupid people around him. Someone who didn't follow Rayse in becoming Odium might not think everyone is too far below him to think of anything worthwhile and might speak in a "soft and thoughtful" manner. In that chapter if the storyteller gets everyone looking in the wrong direction, like at Hoid's memories and Breaths, the audience won't pay so much attention that Hoid knowing Rayse wasn't himself and the power having something horribly wrong with it were two separate ideas. If you're walking away from Discord, even if you knew something isn't right with the vessel, you'd be shocked if you get hit in the back by Harmony.

Teravangian knows where Rayse went wrong so the contest is going to result in numbers 2 or 3.The death rattle "I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw." might be predicting it. Dalinar refusing to fight may count as a forfeit and we get number 2 or neither Dalinor nor the baby killing the other disqualifies both and we get number 3. The contest will be part 1 of the book with parts 4-5 about the fallout. I think Taravangian is Passion and not Odium. Where it ends with "And now, Taravangian was going to save them all." was misdirection to make the reader think he's Odium, but 'them all' includes Cultivation,Honor, and Roshar itself. Book 5 will end with Dalinar ascended as Honor and Passion investing in Roshar bringing Roshar back in balance with the 3 moons and the ancient singer gods "of spren, stone, and wind". Singers and humans will have their own kingdoms and squabble amongst themselves. One of the last scenes will be Dalinar and Taravangian chatting by a hearth. The last 5 books will be about the Dawnshards. It'll involve whatever Ishar and Kalak are up to, Sja-anat's ultimate goal, and the off-world groups like the Ghostbloods and 17th Shard.

The lines right before the quote about Taravangian being being the perfect vessel for the power are : Hatred is part of it, but the power also loves fear, shame, awe, and bravery. The power is all emotions. Taravangian was never characterized as extremely hateful when he was stupid, but compassionate. He only reads the words the surgeon said at his birth when he's smart and has no emotion. When he's filled with emotion he feels bad about how he treats the people around him when he's smart. The day he ascended he was perfectly emotional and the only hatred he felt was briefly and directed at himself. The emotion that overwhelms him and lets him kill Rayse (and it's repeated several times to make it clear) is bravery. He had reasons and excuses to hate Odium, so it would've been possible to write it so that Taravangian is full of hatred while killing Rayse. Szeth is also right there and if anyone at that moment perfectly represents Odium it would be Szeth. The scene where Taravangian is trying to plan how to save the world and is overcome with fury ends with a visit from Cultivation and she tells him: “Come. Let me teach you about what you’ve been given. I realize the power is overwhelming, but you can control it. You can do better than Rayse ever did.” Cultivation wouldn't orchestrate to have a capable vessel take over a power that only wants to kill her. Rayse was broken at the end by losing Dalinar and being forced to agree to a contest of champions. For Cultivation, a broken Odium is better than a crafty Odium, but Passion is much better than the other two. It ends with Taravangian thinking "You have no idea what you have done.", but I think that's intentionally misleading and more ambiguous than it sounds. There's also Roshar itself. It was created by Adonalsium with three moons (green, blue, and violet). The Eila Stele has the line "For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind." If that was what the Singers worshiped before Cultivation and Honor came along you have the three parts of itself Adonalsium used to create Roshar. The green moon and stone for Cultivation and the blue moon and wind for Honor. Odium is associated with violet, but odium doesn't represent spren. On his final day Taravangian had such strong emotions that spren were swarming around him. If he were Passion he would fill the place of the god of spren. The Eila Stele isn't a dry historic record, it's a polemic telling the other Singers to hate the Humans and reads as if Odium had a large part of writing it. All we could be reading is Singer Mein Kampf with no other context and deciding that Gemhearted Hitler did nothing wrong. For all we know the Humans didn't leave the Shinovar until well after the first desolation and the past started to be forgotten. It's entirely possible that the humans who wound up on Roshar were the victims of the ones on Ashyn and the First Desolation was the Singers who would go on to become the Fused attacking the Shinovar refugee camp. The fused named El was stripped of his title and rhythms for insisting the humans shouldn't be killed while Jasnah is the only human we hear talking about genocide.