Letryx13

Kaladin was complaining about how the light eyes in kholinar were throwing parties despite being under siege. Scar and Drehy pointed out how dark eyed people did similar things, even while fighting was going on. They weren’t saying “not all light eyes”, they were pointing out that the groups weren’t so different.

The broth and meat line is very significant in my opinion, I actually have an entire theory about how it's connected to how the desolations began. However, the fact that both meat and broth are food suggests that higher spren are capable of feeding on the emotions of both humans and singers, but they can't do it as easily with the singers. I suppose it's possible the dawn singers had some level of power, but likely much less than what the radiants are capable of. Or maybe the dawn singers had that kind of power before, but the singers had lost it by the time the humans came to Roshar. Leshwi and the other heavenly ones probably were close to the Honorspren, and maybe even had some kind of connection to them, but since all fused imitate the power of a specific surge, there's no hard evidence they had that kind of power beforehand. Hard to say about whether or not they're all dead-eyes. But it seems unlikely that only the spren that spend time in the physical realm would know about the possibility of singers bonding spren. Or maybe they could form some kind of bond, but a much weaker one than the radiants. The storm father says that Odium tricked Ishar into experimenting with the surges back on Ashyn, so obviously there are multiple ways to surge bind. So either is possible. I suppose its possible. I don't think it's likely, but it'd be interesting to see what they looked like. Well the Koloss spikes were created specifically to create Koloss, likely the same with Kandra blessings. But considering how Ruin was able to spike Spook, almost any kind of metal stabbed through someone into another person would work in the inquisitor power granting method.

Hard agree. Even if Dalinar had been able to completely trust Kaladin's word, what was he supposed to do without evidence? Say that even though 17 people, light-eyed and dark, backed up Amaram's version of the events, that he really trusts this one dark-eyed soldier? Obviously, Kaladin being dark-eyed played into the bigotry in Vorin society, but look at it completely objectively. One side has nothing but his own word, while the other has over a dozen witnesses backing them up. It's not hard to deduce that Amaram persuaded those witnesses to lie for him, but still. As for telling Kaladin, well, we don't actually know when Dalinar heard back about those 17 witnesses. Perhaps he was planning on telling Kaladin after he'd finished investigating. He did have other things weighing on him at the time. I don't think it's fair to say that the issue was shoved aside, at least not completely. First of all, Kaladin finally came to feel like light-eyes weren't a different species due to his time with the wall guard in Oathbringer. For another, the fact that a dark eyed soldier was capable of becoming a battalion lord without being a radiant is very telling. Dalinar specifically states that he can't name Kaladin that in TWoK because it'll cause problems, depsite everything Kaladin just did. And in RoW, Kaladn mentions how the division between light eyes and dark eyes were less divisive under Jasnah's rule. I don't think they just ignored the issues between light eyes and dark eyes, I think Sanderson gradually started to build bridges between the groups. Partly because of the Radiants, it's likely well known that the first new generation of wind runners were originally dark eyes, but also because of people like Jasnah and Dalinar, who don't care what someone's eye color is. This is another good point. Dalinar has known Amaram for years, considers him a good and honorable friend, and trusts him. Even ignoring the evidence (or lack thereof), what do you do when two people you trust tell you opposing stories?

That's what would make it such a good literary twist. The Singers being stronger prevents them from gaining powers; their connection to the spiritual realm actually prevents them from forging a connection to beings made from divine power related to the cognitive realm. There's probably something to that, but it feels a little too easy to just say God made them that way,

Something that's cropped up every so often in the Stormlight Archives is that Singers have a much harder time bonding higher spren than humans. In WoR, Syl flat out says that Parshendi can't become surgebinders. Before RoW, I didn't really have any ideas as to why this was. But during RoW we got a clue that helped me come up with my first theory, and I recently came up with another. The first theory is suggested by Rhabonial. During her conversation with Venli on the way to Uritheru, she mentions how humans are much more externally focused, while singers are internally focused. This might be part of why Singers line up better with Odium's power while humans can bond with Honor's more easily. Emotions are more of an internal concept, while Honor is more external. These matchups may explain why both races can synch up with each Shard's power, but each race favors one or the other. But I think there might be a better explanation. I think that the Singers might have sturdier souls than humans do, thanks to their stronger connection to the Spiritual realm. In a WoB, Sanderson confirmed that the ability to hear the Rhythms is basically a connection to the Spiritual realm. And while Navani proved it's possible to humans to perceive the tones, and likely rhythms, Singers have a much stronger connection. I think it's likely that this stronger connection results in a stronger spirit web and soul than a humans would normally be. Less easily damaged and cracked. And since spren bond with humans by filling in the cracks of their spirit webs with power, it makes sense that they have a harder time bonding with a race that don't have as many cracks in their souls. Of course, we know of three singers who have bonded higher spren; Eshonai, Venli and Rain. But two of them swore the first ideal after taking a Regal form, and Rlain bonded a spren touched by Jah-Anat, likely making it easier for him to form a bond. All three had Odium's power in the mix. Of course, singers bond lesser spren to take different forms, such as war form, work form, and so on. But since those are more basic spren, like gravity spren or pain spren, it makes sense that they'd be able to bond them more easily. Part of why I like this idea is that it means that the Singers having stronger souls actually prevents them from gaining the same kind of bond that humans can as easily. It puts part of the first radiant ideal, Strength before Weakness, into new perspective. Thoughts?

I think the Diagram meant to prevent the Listeners from gaining the power of Voidspren, and summoning the Everstorm.

It's more like she baited him into starting the fight, in fact Dalinar uses that exact word. But I agree, she made the first move. This was absolutely my favorite chapter in the book. Part of it is that I just love how the audio book reads the phrase "Jasnah was making herself into bait. And Ruthar bit. Hard" But the other part is how I like that a story doesn't have to be over the top to be engaging. Some political intrigue and admittedly some violence, and I was completely hooked. To paraphrase Jasnah's own words, her goals are usually laudable, but her methods have been questionable, even brutal. That's how I interpret her. To be fair, Ruthar totally overreacted, but Wit did accept the challenge. He could have refused. I don't like trials by combat or duels to the death either. I think the best way to look at it was they tricked/baited him into starting the fight. Ruthar probably couldn't have legally had a trial by combat without Wit agreeing to it. Agreed. Dalinar even told Renarin that Jasnah probably would have gone along with her plan even without Renarin's help. Actually, I think Dalinar said he found how Jasnah handled the situation was distasteful. He thought it would be effective, but he didn't like it, or that she hadn't told him about it in advance. I think being willing to let go of power, or something related to that, would be a perfect Fourth Ideal for the BondSmiths, or maybe Fifth. I agree with this to a certain extent. I actually like that Sanderson has a major POV character that hasn't become a radiant (yet). One of the things I didn't like about Harry Potter was that there weren't any muggles that played prominent roles, except the Durseleys. Part of me would like to see Aodlin become a radiant, if only to help Maya, but there's some truth to what you're saying in that he's is too undamaged for the Nahael bond. On the other hand, up until we got a good look at Navani's past, she didn't really seem damaged either. And Adolin's actions toward Sadeus coupled with his anger toward his father could be enough to start the process, especially since he already has some kind of connection with Maya. Or, and this is an idea my brother gave me, maybe because Maya is a deadeye, bonding with Adolin will create something entirely new.

I always took that as an explanation regarding the Everstorm restoring the singers. But since you brought up the idea of Ulim and Venli's conversations, I think there was another part where he mentions needing the Everstorm to pull the fused to Roshar. So yeah, that's how they did it, not breaking the heralds.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't any of the heralds breaking that triggered this desolation. The Everstorm just provided a back door way around the Oathpact. I don't remember where, but someone else posted about that. I think it was confirmed.

Since Szeth wasn't supposed to ask questions of his master, it's very unlikely he knew anything of what Taravangian was actually plotting. And don't even get me started on Taravangian. His real goal was never moral; he wanted to prove to everyone that he was the smartest and most capable of all.

I think Moash's reaction to Renarin relates more to how Odium can't see Renarin's future, or those around him. WHich means that as soon as Renarin is close enough to Moash, Odium can't keep up the connection to Moash, which is why Moash got overwhelmed and ran. Similar to to what happened to him at the Uritheru (I think Hoid mentioned something about how Odium can't see people at the tower when it's protections are up), so Renarin's obscuring probably has the same effect. The anti-voidlight tone probably played a role, but I think the tower's defenses did too. I agree with this. Illumination seems a surge closer to Honor while Progression matches Cultivation. The Sibling referred to Adhesion as Honor's truest surge, which suggests that there is varying level of alignment among the ten surges to the two Shards. And if Odium's power was going to influence Honor's or Cultivation's, it makes sense to me that it would impact Honor, since Odium and Honor are both power's related to emotion and mindset. So Odium's power would impact Illumination instead of progression. To your other point, if it were a Corrupted/Enlightened (I like the term Blended myself) cultivation spren, I also think there would be one altered surge, but I'd lean toward it being Abrasion, not Progression. I hope it happens in the back half of the series so we can see a few other raidants of this type.

Considering that Szeth is going to Shinovar to "cleanse" the Shin, it seems likely to me that his history as a Truthless is bound to come up. But that's just me. That's kind of my point. During one of Szeth's conversations with Nightblood, he mentions that he had a choice all along, since he wasn't really Truthless. But even if he had been Truthless, he should still have had a choice. Does the blame fall on Szeth for not rejecting orders to murder, or on the Shin society as a whole, since it teaches a Truthless has no autonomy, as you suggest? That's an interesting way of thinking of it. I usually end up taking a middle ground approach to things, so I can see where your mind is at. I think there's plenty of blame and guilt both to be shared in the situation. But I get where you're coming from. There's definitely truth in that. Honor is what we define it to be. That was part of the whole debacle with Adolin at Lasting Integrity. I don't think it's universally applicable because there are some things that are just morally indefensible. But that raises the question. Should the Shin society or leaders be held responsible, since they sent someone with an Honorblade out into Roshar, bound to obey the wishes of whoever held his oathstone?

Regardless, anything more than 15% of the Honorspren alone is more than the number of known dead-eye blades. And that seems like a very low number to me. Which means there are a ton of them unaccounted for. BAM being freed is one of the possibilities for restoring the spren that I considered. It's been stated that there were no dead-eyes before the recreance, hinting that they exist partly because of BAM's imprisonment, and the damage that imprisonment did to Roshar. If the Everstorm is about equal to the highstorms, which are the power of the storm father, and the unmade are spren in the same league as the storm father, it's not outside the realm of possibility that freeing BAM could have a significant impact on dead-eye spren. The only other large scale act that makes sense to me is something similar to the everstorm, perhaps from the restoration of the shard of Honor, or perhaps something from one of the other shards. The other idea I've had is that it won't be a large scale act that revives the dead-eyes, but many individuals restoring them specifically, like Adolin did with Maya. But while that's the logical course to take for the characters, the similarities to the parshmen are too much to ignore.

This kind of connects with my theory about how the desolations actually started. The Eila Stele says humans betrayed them, but never specifically state what the humans did to betray them, kind of like how nobody knew exactly what the lost radiants did at the recreance. I think what happened is that humans are much more naturally in tune with spren of honor and cultivation than the singers are, and because of that, spren can feed off of their emotions much more easily. Because of that, the spren "abandoned" the singers for the humans. The stone and wind part feels like a reference to Roshar itself. You could probably substitute it for land and sky in regard to most worlds, and the meaning would hold the same. If the spren are considered part of Roshar, then the singers probably felt that Roshar itself had betrayed them. I think that jealousy is what started the desolations.

A sound argument. I suppose it's possible Adonalsium is "dead" but not in a way that we would consider typical, even among the shards. Maybe he's able to influence things, even while in the beyond of the spiritual realm. I guess what I think is that whatever state he's in, it's not something that's so far gone that he couldn't be revived. Part of the reason I hold to this theory, is because that's what I think Hoid is trying to do.

I kind of like the idea of the fifth ideal creating some kind of bond with Ryshadium. They’re described as the “third shard” by Adolin in Oathbringer, and it’s mentioned in WoR that radiants had access to them. The only issue I have with it is that two, or debatably four, orders wouldn’t need them. Gravitation and abrasion would make them redundant.

I bet it wouldn’t make much difference if they did. Szeth didn’t really defeat Ishar, but he was powerful enough to intimidate him into retreating, and Ishar holds the most powerful honorblade. Between his and Kaladin’s storm light efficiency and night blood, they can probably beat anyone wielding an honorblade to attack them. If the Shin sent multiple honorblades, it would be more of a problem.

In Roshar's ocean, or under ground are the two best guesses I've got. Shinovar is another option too, which play well into Stormlight 5, since that's where Szeth and Kaladin are going. The Shin are said to be very fearful of outsiders, protecting the secrets of the honorblades, but possibly the dead-eye blades too. Also, during Adolin's trial, it was stated that there were nearly 2,000 honor spren killed during the recreance. Assuming at least half of them were bonded to WindRunners of the third ideal, that's about 1,000 shardblades from that order alone. I've wondered about this too, partly because of Dalinar's vision, and partly because I've got a hunch that the dead-eye spren are going to play a very significant role in book 5. Their situation is extremely similar to what the singers were like when they were parshmen, and the singers all managed to wake up because of one big event. It wouldn't surprise me if something similar happens with the dead-eyes. So wherever they are now, I'm betting they won't stay missing forever.

One of the things I like most about the Stormlight Archives (and possibly what makes them so popular) is the moral questions is forces readers to consider. What is the right thing to do in a given situation? Szeth's biggest role in the story so far has been his work as the Assassin in White, killing King Gavilar and many other rulers across Roshar. As we all know, he did this because he was sworn to obey whoever held his oathstone, part of his punishment as a Truthless for raising the alarm that the VoidBringers were returning. His people believed it was a false alarm, and punished him. As we also know, he was actually correct the entire time, and the VoidBringers and Knights Radiant really were returning. Kaladin making him realizing this is what made him stop fighting at the end of WoR. Just before Kalading ends the fight, Szeth makes the comment that he was never Truthless, that he could have stopped the murders at any time. Kaladin counters that he's using the oath as an excuse, and that he's being a coward for not accepting that he had a choice. Presented from Kaladin's viewpoint, it's hard not to see the validity of his point. Szeth always had a choice. But in RoW, Dalinar makes the argument to Taravangian that keeping promises and oaths are part of honor. As far as Szeth knew, he was bound by a promise as part of his punishment (at least, as far as we understand how being a Truthless works), so he was honorbound to commit the terrible acts he did. But he always had the option to choose to reject the orders. Even if he had truly been wrong, and he truly was a Truthless, would it still have been honorable for him to reject the orders he'd been given? The SkyBreakers might be misguided, but they are still an order of Knights Radiant. I think it's fairly certain that this conversation is going to come up during Stormlight 5, considering that Szeth and Kaladin are travelling to Shinovar together. The two haven't interacted since their battle in the highstorm, which I suspect is a deliberate action on Sanderson's part. Honor (not the person) is obviously a subjective concept, but what do you think? How will the conversation between them go?

I made this exact argument when I posted about destroying the honorblades. Szeth's skill notwithstanding, someone who was wielding an honorblade (and the knowledge of how to use it) would be next to impossible to beat. I don't think anyone short a knight radiant would stand a chance.

I don't think it will happen, but I think he could possibly manipulate Adolin's anger at his father into controlling him. Unlikely, but possible. If I had to guess, much of the structure will be the exact same time from different character's perspectives. Until now, even as we've gone from one character's perspective to another's, the story has always gone in one direction. Forward. There are times when the exact time lineup is unclear, but for the most part, the story keeps moving forward. If it were me, writing about such a short time frame of ten days, I'd write one part of it from Kaladin and Szeth's perspective in Shinovar. Then go back to the first day and tell it from Adolin and Shalan's maybe helping more dead eye spren. And then go back again and tell it from Dalinar and Nvani's perspective, preparing in Uritheru. You get the idea. Having said that, having the champion battle earlier than the grand finale with something even bigger afterward would be a good twist. But given all the buildup to the champion contest, that's a very tall order.

As entertaining as that conversation would be, I doubt many people would be able to do that. But I do think that Taravangian will end up revealing himself at a specific moment in an effort to sway Dalinar. Maybe even presenting himself as someone trying to do what Gavilar did. Considering that spren are partly made up from Cultivation's power, and the possible plot line of her passing the power to Lift, I doubt Cultivation will ever be a true adversary to the Radiants. But I do agree that she might be something of a complicating force in the future. She seems to be the type to plan things out patiently, waiting for the exact moment to make her moves. That doesn't seem to be the type to engage in direct conflict as an antagonist. Also, another point. The other way I can think of to defeat Odium would be to turn the singers against him. The only way I can see that happening however, is if Rayse was somehow behind the whole scheme of turning Singers into Parshmen in the first place, and if that secret were revealed. I posted a theory about this a while back too. Taln being the champion would be good, considering that Dalinar himself belongs to the devotary that follows Taln. And considering that his willpower (and possibly some supernatural shenanigans) was strong enough to last 4500 years of torture. I might be wrong on this, but I don't think it's going to be a "good guys lose ending". Most of the first two books didn't directly relate to the Honor vs. Odium conflict, but were still fantastic stories. I think using the Roshar setting to deal with other types of conflicts could be good. Like the Hierocracy returning, or trying to establish equality between humans and singers. Things like that. On top of that, we still haven't seen all the Shards, and one of them could easily start making trouble on Roshar. I don't think it's going to be a perfectly happy, sunshiny type of victory, but I think things will be hopeful for those that survive.

I have a theory. I'm pretty sure that the important part of the terms is that Odium has to return Alethkar and Herdaz if he loses. That he has to commit to a very specific action. I made my own post about this a while back. If you combine the two above points with a little imagination, you might see the way to defeat Odium permanently, despite what Taravangian says about being satisfied no matter what the outcome. The important points are that if Dalinar or his champion wins, Odium has to return Alethkar and Herdaz and second, if Odium breaks his word, he is in Dalinar's power. Well, if Odium doesn't control Alethkar or Herdaz when the contest is over, then he will be unable to return them, essentially having committed to an act that he can't perform. Which would be a promise broken, placing him under Dalinar's power. And Dalinar could command him to return to Braize and never communicated, influence or otherwise interact with anyone ever again.

Szeth is the flashback character, I think. Which honestly is all the more reason why I think he'll be the champion.

I agree that it seems unlikely that Dalinar will be his own champion. Pretty much everyone assumed Kaladin would be the champion. But this feels like one of Sanderson's misdirects like the Hero of Ages in Mistborn. I like the idea of Taravangian attempting to persuade Adolin to fight for him, trying to use the rift between father and son, but I don't think Adolin would fight as Odium's champion. Part of what Adolin is struggling with is his own self worth in a world where princes are less needed than Radiants. Someone dealing with that might be tempted to take the offer of someone promising them power, but Adolin strikes me as the main "muggle" character to use a different fantasy story term. I think there needs to be at least one major character that's non-magical, so I hope he continues to fill that role. As for Dalinr's champion, I would love for it to be Szeth. His own struggles with what he's done, and why he did it, his conflict with his people that is almost certainly going to come up, and the fact that he's the flashback character for the fifth book all suggest to me that he could end up being Dalinar's champion. It could be a great way for Szeth to redeem himself for all the chaos he caused.