JohnnyKaizen

Oooook...this got me good

Ooooooooook. The point you make about Mistborn makes a lot more sense to me now. I had long wondered what was "special" about that situation, and if this principle holds true, then that is really cool.

I did, and I got excited at the idea of time being wonky when it comes to the Radiants (or anyone touching the SR). Technically, no it isn't time travel, but as you pointed out, effect preceding cause is what I was getting at.

Could it be a form of time travel? The SR is what allows those with access the ability to see the future..but the SR has no time, and is all time. Is it possible that they had access to investiture in the same way that Syl "has always known" Kaladin? Did they heal back then, because they would heal in the future, and if they didn't heal back then, they wouldn't be there in the future?

@Treamayne I've been operating under the assumption that you are at the level of the first oath if you're exhibiting the traits of a Radiant and a Spren has accepted those traits..giving one access to stormlight. That's what I meant by Dalinar not being "Officially" accepted. So, either the first oath isn't necessary for initial access to investiture on Roshar..or Honor being splintered and the safeguards/limits he set not being active is causing this? Or a third thing I haven't thought of?

I still feel that if this is what TOdium does, it will be a huge letdown for me. T has staked his life (at least the last 6-7 years we've seen him) on being THE smartest guy in the room (actually on Roshar, because his ego is just that big, but that's not the saying) and for him to ascend and then go, "Hey! I can just have his grandson beat him!" Instead of something actually brilliant, would be a bummer. If it happens, it happens, and there won't be anything I can do about it. But I expect more from Taravangian, now Vessel, more than I do of just about any other character in the Cosmere. He hasn't shut up about his capacity in his entire adult life (according to his best friend) and now he has infinite capacity...and if that's what he comes up with? Yeah..I don't like it.

So when does he have the thought about having healed with investiture before his official first time, on the battlefield? I know it's in there, I just don't know where. That's not to say I'm certain that there isn't some qualifier to it..because I've forgotten little details like that before.

Mi español es realmente malo, así que usaré el traductor de Google y espero que haga un buen trabajo. No tengo a RoW frente a mí en este momento, pero estoy casi seguro de que ROdium le dice a Dalinar que será su sirviente después de la muerte. Eso podría ser misterioso para Dalinar, pero él sabe que Odium tiene poderes verdaderamente masivos, y supongo que simplemente tomaría la palabra de ROdium. Quiero decir, ¿Odium no tiene motivos para mentirle? ¿Estoy bastante seguro de que Dalinar tiene alguna idea de lo que está en juego aquí?

Umm really? Politicians..their children..CEOs..Generals..etc? I find this circumstance to be as realistic as can be.

I would be stunned if this title was exclusively because he is Dalinar's son. Renarin is definitely one of, and there is an argument that his is the most, important character(s) on Roshar. And I agree that it feels reductive to name Renarin based on his father, but even if this title was only because of that, he will most definitely be given other titles in the coming days.

You mention several times how Raboniel lies and shouldn't be trusted. Navani knows that if she is not useful to Raboniel then her life is useless. Her people are absolutely under threat because Raboniel has no use for them. The Singers have not slaughtered people who surrender, for the most part, but everyone in between Raboniel and the pillar was killed without hesitation, and most of those people were absolutely no threat to the Singers physically. They were killed because they could have called for help..nothing more. They aren't doing any real work. Navani knows this and Raboniel knows this. So why is Raboniel keeping them all directly down the hall from Navani instead of locked up anywhere else in the tower? Because they are a constant reminder to Navani that if she doesn't produce some kind of results, they can be slaughtered at any moment. They both allude to this fact in their conversations. She tries every means she can to stall and delay, and Raboniel suffers it for a time because it's all a part of the psychological warfare. And eventually, she implies quite clearly that Navani had better start producing, or be deemed useless. Her people down the hall were already useless, their only value was their ability to coerce Navani by being alive. If Raboniel kills the Sibling, the war is effectively over. Odium's forces have the oathgates..they can travel with ease and show up behind enemy lines with overwhelming numbers. Dalinar's forces could have destroyed the physical gates, but it would only be a relatively short amount of time before they were surrounded and starved into submission. So literally anything to stop the Tower's fall is a more rational choice than sitting there and letting it happen. You mention she has a loving family who supports her..who would most likely all die in battle if the Tower fell. I don't know about you, but faced with that reality, there's almost nothing I wouldn't try to stop or even delay that outcome. Aside from that, Navani was close to a breakthrough. It was like an insect burrowing into her brain. She knew something was there, and felt compelled to discover it. I do believe that in her near frenzied state, she probably thought she could hide anti-light better. One thing that Sanderson demonstrates and describes, over and over, throughout their collaboration is the truly deep connection Raboniel (and by extention all Singers) have to the Rhythms of Roshar, and just how much Navani underestimates that fact, because they have never done any research into it. I don't know how many folks with a PhD who actively do research, that you met (I personally know about a dozen) but if you haven't, then you probably don't know just how blind to facts outside of their fields people like that can be. Navani is fluent in many, many fields of study, but due to internalized bigotry and prejudice from thousands of years of the belief that Parshmen have no value outside of their labor, she hasn't spent any time researching who the Singers are and what they can do. Navani demonstrates throughout all four books that she learns through careful and meticulous examination of whatever subject she is interested in, and the Singers are a huge blind spot in her considerable knowledge. She seems surprised by a lot of what Raboniel does, and it may seem stupid to you, because you have been given some rather intimate descriptions of the Singer's Connection to Roshar. Navani has none (or almost none) of that information. If someone had sat down with Navani at the beginning of RoW and described everything we know about the Singers and the Listener's Connection to the planet, the Rhythms, the pure Tones of Roshar...do you believe she would have acted in the same way? I sure don't. She acted based on the knowledge she had, and was very often surprised by the knowledge she didn't have. Very true, Raboniel cannot be trusted, and could (and probably would) kill all of Navani's people eventually because leaving human scientists alive is a tactical error. She had always been planning to murder all of the Radiants, and I am confident that as soon as Raboniel was sure she could get nothing more from Navani, she would have killed her scientists and locked Navani away..as I imagine she would not execute someone whom she'd given a Title to. Correct. And as I've said, that's the end of the war. Not immediately, but there is no victory (in Navani's mind) if the Tower falls. It doesn't just cut her off from her allies..it cuts her allies off from everyone and everything they need to continue fighting this war. That's true. She is hoping that Kaladin will save the day. From her viewpoint it's a slim hope but hey, he's Kaladin Stormblessed..miracle worker..so maybe. And as has been stated by me and others, she wasn't entirely in her right mind at this point, she had always been working at a disadvantage in knowledge, and she was trying any desperate thing she could to stop the fall of the Tower. I am glad that you feel that way. Coupled with the fact that she truly didn't understand the Singers, that's a kind response. By then, she had made the decision to lean into her scholarship and hope for the best at the end. Because ultimately, the war was almost over. If the Tower fell, that was it. No Raboniel coudn't be trusted, and yes it was extremely dangerous to proceed, but everything she knew and everyone she loves was going to be destroyed if Raboniel succeeded in corrupting the Tower, that was a guarantee..working on anti-Voidlight was a chance. Granted, about the chance of winning the powerball to get you out of utter financial ruin, but hey, she'd seen miracles before, and she still believes in them..so she tried for that, and to some extent succeeded. Again, Navani had very little choice. She could sit and watch the Tower fall and that be it, or she could try to go along with what Raboniel was doing and hope for a chance at besting her. There was no hope of actually besting her (both because I don't know how someone could best a 7,000+ year old genius who knows way more about what you're doing than you do) and Navani alludes to that more than once, but it's better than nothing. And no, factoring in her trauma to all of these events isn't reductive. It absolutely plays a role in the decisions that Navani makes, and the way she executes those decisions. Just like all of us. Everything that happens with Navani in RoW comes down to either doing nothing, and knowing that's the end, or doing something and hoping for any other outcome. That seems like a fairly logical choice to me? What else was there for her to do? How is that not "actually plausible"? I don't recall if Raboniel explicitly threatens Navani's people or not, but the implication is very very clear. Raboniel doesn't need Navani's people, and their intelligence is a threat to the Singers. While they could speed up scientific discovery for the Singers, they aren't necessary in the long run. Raboniel keeping them down the hall is the ever present threat to Navani. Raboniel could at any moment, have everyone in the room executed without anyone to stop it from happening. And again, Navani stops to think, (Im paraphrasing but it's blatantly obvious to her) "If this Tower falls, that it. That's the end of all of this. The humans lose, and Odium wins." Everything that she attempts from the invasion of the Tower onward, as to stop that from happening, because any loss of a weapon is better than the loss of the war. You can't argue that the Singers having anti-Stormlight is a worse outcome than taking the Tower and grinding the humans down to defeat. There is no scenario where Dalinar loses the tower but manages to win the war. The only way for them to win, as has been stated over and over and over, is for a contest of champions, and there is a 0% chance of Odium agreeing to that with the Tower permanently in his control. The only people who really have a worse outcome from this, are the Spren..and yes..it's bad. It's real bad. The Spren will now know death in a way they never have before, but the Spren of old knew this was a possibility and they fought against it. The Spren of today will, by and large, (I assume) do the same thing now. I understand your frustration with Navani in RoW. Personally, I am far more frustrated with her and Dalinar over not researching the history of the tower and what it can do. If nobody else could help, Wit should have been able to, but he didn't. And, as far as I can tell, nobody seriously considered the vulnerabilities of the tower, even after Taravangian allowed a small force into the Tower (well, outside of it). That's a gaping tactical error that isn't explored. They knew there were tunnels down to the base of the tower but never asked why..or looked into what the significance of those tunnels could mean..tactically or otherwise. But specifically to Navani, Sanderson put her in the Kobayashi Maru (for anyone not familiar, it's a well known No-win training scenario at Star Fleet acadamy, in Star Trek) There were no good options for Navani, by design. But Sanderson had to get Navani to the role of Bondsmith, and he had to have anti-Light out in the world. And, this was the way he got us there. I would have preferred a different route for a lot of reasons. That said, I still don't think it is a fair representation of Navani to call her stupid, and to ignore the facts of her life up till now, and the choice she was given once the Tower was taken. It wasn't much of a choice, but she tried her best. She failed in a lot of ways, and that sucks and it's deeply frustrating, but she did what she could. I don't think that you or I could have done any better in her place. I know I couldn't have. I also know that I would have tried the same things she did..in her place..with her knowledge (and the lack thereof). Because I would not have simply sat and watched my world end. Because that's what was at stake..the whole world. @Green Hoodie Mistborn I didn't see your post until after I wrote this, and it's spot on. Thank you for that.

I seriously hope there are several such discussions in the years ahead.

There is a lot going an with Navani in RoW. Not least of which is the constant threat to the lives of her people (literally right down the hall) as well as the Sibling's approaching death. So, torturous conditions to begin with. On top of that, add decades of trauma from Gavilar..who verbally beat her down into believing that she is really kind of stupid and definitely not worthy of being a "real scholar." Navani is a genius. She may have one of the keenest minds in all of the Cosmere, and yet she'd been made to feel worthless for a very, very long time. I don't know if anyone on this thread has dealt with that kind of trauma personally, or even tangentially through someone you care about sharing what it's like, but calling Navani the stupidest character in SA as if her life is a vacuum and none of what she has, and is experiencing, are relevant is deeply offensive. It disregards the realities of regular trauma, not to mention the trauma of war. On top of all of that, her opponent was a femalen who is over 7,000 years old and also happens to be a genius. I don't think anyone on this thread could take what Navani did and come out on top. As far as not destroying the notebook..it's a literary device. The enemy was going to find anti-light eventually and Sanderson blended Navani into that plot. Personally I would rather her character not be subjected to psychological torture for weeks on end, but it's a book about war, so it is what it is. Navani most certainly made mistakes, no question, but to come out swinging that she's stupid and should have done better while simultaneously ignoring her life and lived experience is juvenile at best, and cruel at worst.

I would imagine that the history of the Yuki-Hijo is at play with the link of art and spirits. The people who survived would have talked about them for generation, if for no other reason that to speak of something better than the shroud. Humans do this. But it's been 1700 of their years, so clearly all of that history was lost to the populace. But it could be that some shadows of the past remain. Also a totally valid point. Occam's razor should never be disregarded just because Brandon likes to be complicated.

Yeah, I would like to print them out and see how it runs. I think that would be fun. If I have any feedback, I'll let you know:)

This clears up most of what was bugging me, thanks. The various WoB put together give me more context. @Underwater_Worldhopper you're making me wonder how the 16 made that deal and then Odium could go splinter shards anyway? Odium said if he breaks an oath, he'd open himself up to attack from Cultivation..but he's seemingly done that with his rampage across the Cosmere? Was the deal made pre-ascending maybe?

Personally, I'd like to see from the end of RoW

So I was just reading over a post in the Stormlight Archives section..here..and it got me to thinking something. Why could Ruin destroy Scadrial (Or at least do his best to try)? Is Odium the only Shard who can't wipe out civilizations? I thought all the Shards had some level of non-interference cooked into them from before the Shattering? I think I also just accepted Harmony's decreasing ability to act as, at least in part, a rule/prohibition on Shards from planetary/systemic destruction? Thoughts/Enlightenments?

Raboniel tells Navani that they have taken the tower of few times in the past, but were never able to hold it. So there is already precedent that it's not a great idea. The only reason they went for it this time, is what you said in the OP. They had a shot because the defenses were down.

Somehow, the Stormfather feels so much bigger in the second, bluer one (to me). I honestly like the way the first one looks bettter, but I get a visceral reaction to the second piece. Truly fantastic.

Wow! I just went through this entire thread and 11/10 for you. This is amazing! I would definitely play that..all the accolades to you

But Odium claims that he was "there" with Dalinar all through his life at various tragedies? So was he actually present through the Thrill or is he lying?

I feel like that right there is the crux of it. The sharp knowledge of the freedom you used to have in contrast with captivity. That at least makes sense to me much better. Thanks

Dalinar was also of the first oath then, even though he hadn't been "officially" accepted. My reasoning for that is the first time he healed with Stormlight that he was conscious of, there was the internal comment that was along the lines of "He had done this before..on the battlefield?" or something to that effect. There is something weird about several of the current Radiants having powers before it seems like they should have? At least with Syl, she always knew Kal but it feels very much outside of time as if the connection to the SR is backdating itself?

Just a clarifying question..but what exactly attracts captivity spren? It seems like it's the depression that comes with feeling that there's no way out..no escape. Because Kaladin was in captivity for a long time when we met him and he never drew them, presumably because he was fighting for escape? Or maybe because he was outside by the time he stopped fighting that he still didn't feel the "proper" way to draw them? It's fairly obvious that someone like Axies would be nearly incapable of attracting them with his cheery outlook on life.