theSurgeOfPhysics

A quick thought, but I realized that the orders themselves each have themes tied to Honor (Bondsmith— Unite/ cooperation; Windrunners— Protection; Lightweavers— Honesty; Edgedancers— Equity among others; Willshapers— Freeness of the individual . . . etc.). To add to this, the 5-Ideal-system is tied to Cultivation's progressive Intent. 

Makes me wonder, the POV calls Hoid the Trickster Aspect. Is he something fabricated directly by Adolnasium? Since shards have intent (Ruin, Honor, Autonomy, etc.), does Hoid have an intrinsic intent, and his true name could be something like Artifice or Guile? Not a shard, but something inhuman. Makes me wonder how much Hoid will contribute to SA5 and push the boundaries of non-intervention. 

Is Pattern a character on the autism spectrum? He has difficulty understanding social cues and communicating with others (iirc). I’m forgetting a lot from WoR with his character development, but please confirm with quotes, WoB. 

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"The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows." TWoK Ch. 75

The Night of Sorrows seems tied to Death Rattles that mention darkness. Perhaps the sun approaching the horizon is not a reference to a Shadesmar sun, as Honor wouldn't call that entity a sun but rather what it truly is (SR?). Instead, the sun could be stuck permanently on the horizon, like a twilight. This could happen if Odium wins and uses his power to tidally lock the planet. The singers can use rhythms to grow food, but the humans would struggle. 

Thoughts?

16 hours ago, alder24 said:

It's in SR, broken and mindless, but still accessible for some to draw from (like the Stormfather, or Bondsmiths). The power has to still be in SR because the Stormlight comes from SR.

Thanks for clearing up these points.

16 hours ago, alder24 said:

Rayse was enslaved by the power, but at the same time he kept pushing it to become the Shard of Passion - which brought conflict between the power and the Vessel

Interesting. So was Rayse’s Intent discordant with the Shard? Was Rayse trying to justify a shard of Passion over Odium, which went against the very nature of the Shard?

Odium Splintered Honor. However, Honor originally made some Splinters, such as honorspren, Stormfather, etc. way before Odium came on the scene. That being said, we don’t know where all of the Odium-shattered Splinters are currently.

I think some are in the Cognitive Realm, which is why we see some unique magic like the Purelake fish being a potential location-based magic. There may be other examples but this is the first that comes to mind. Other Splinters are likely in the Spiritual Realm. 
 

Here’s how Dalinar can reform Honor’s Shard. He taps into a ton of investiture, enters the Stormfather’s visions and is able to travel to every point on Roshar. This accounts for collecting any splinters in the physical realm. Then he uses someone like Jasnah or Venli to see into the Cognitive Realm at every point on Roshar and collect those splinters. Finally he throws himself into the Spiritual Realm through a Perpendicularity and finds the remaining splinters there. Since the SR acts as a singularity where all things are one, he can combine all the splinters into one and reform the shard of Honor. 
 

“Unite them”… unite the shards of Honor? 
 

Why Odium Chose Dalinar as His Original Champion:
 

We know Odium’s plan was that he used the Thrill and molded Dalinar to become the perfect champion. I think Odium wanted Dalinar because he is the optimal vessel for Honor. If Odium broke Dalinar and made him his champion, there would be no vessel to take up Honor.

It’s considered that opening the perpendicularity in that scene was Dalinar taking up a sliver of Honor and perhaps Ascending for a short moment, showing that he has the potential of being a full vessel. That is again why the contract in RoW involves Dalinar himself. Odium wants him specifically as a Fused, as it would likely be difficult/impossible to Ascend if he belongs to Odium. Rayse likely knew this and that’s why he formed the contract just prior to imploding (Odium’s vessel was cracking by the time of the contract) and allowing for Taravangian’s Ascension. Taravangian may not yet have figured out that Dalinar is a good candidate for Honor’s Vessel, and may not care, so Rayse’s contract is a way of ensuring Dalinar does not Ascend. 
 

All of this said, another champion can be chosen that destroys Dalinar’s honor and disqualifies him from being a proper vessel to contain Honor.
 

Thoughts? 

On 11/21/2020 at 8:58 AM, TheOneKEA said:

Here's my guess at Kaladin's Fifth Ideal:

"I will accept that others can protect themselves."

I like this one or a variation. I think the oath might be something like “I will protect, even if I must sacrifice that which I hold dear”. He wouldn’t sacrifice his life, as that would mean every Windrunner would die upon swearing the last ideal. Rather, he might have to give up the spear, learn ways of peace, since he started to do that in RoW, where he realized there were many ways to protect.  

So now that Taravangian has Ascended, what happens to his boon/curse? 

If he is free of it, will his release from the boon/curse be his downfall? We know that he lost to Odium merely to save Kharbranth, specifically his own family and grandchildren (whom he also spared of any details concerning his political plotting). Cultivation made it so that his intelligence and empathy would be inversely related on any given day, so if he acts with intellect and empathy/passion, will he break down at the end of Book 5 because of needing to save his grandchildren in one scene? 

We know at the end of RoW, he's drinking in all this power and blinding everything else out, including Cultivation's offer to guide and teach him. So maybe in Book 5, we see that overwhelming amount of knowledge clear up as he accesses his deep emotion for his own family. Selfish, but it might just save Roshar—and "save them all"—from Odium. 

Thoughts?

Can you soulcast a lightweaving image into, say, stone?

Totally missed this! I was thinking about the color, though, how both are red. Thank you for the link.

Why does Todium have to go through with the contest of champions? It was explained away in a sentence at end of RoW, but Todium is not Rayse at all. Why not just admit to Dalinar that he killed Rayse and took up the Shard of Odium? He's not the same person as Rayse and shouldn't be bound by Rayse's oath (at least how I see it). 

Interesting connections with the garnet gem: both the Sibling's strata and spanreeds are garnet, and both are used for communication. What other gems have more specialized purposes?

Illumination is the Surge of "Light, sound, and various waveforms". So, have we seen all the waveforms yet? I'm thinking another could be energy in the form of heat. 

It would likely be something we’ve seen hinted at before, like her Shadesmar journey. Jasnah is a great character, but after WoK, we don’t see too much of her. Her story is planned to be Book 10, so Brandon would likely only give more and more hints before he drops the big reveal of her past at the end of the back half of the series. 

Chapter 100 of RoW is titled “Watchers at the Rim”. Why is this so familiar, and what is its meaning?

May have been discussed before, but why is the Sibling called the Sibling? Why not the Child? I feel that this is hinting that Honor and Cultivation created more than one spren together. Perhaps they made 10 children, all siblings of each other, and 9 of them fell to Odium as the Unmade. 

Sja-Anat calls the Sibling her cousin. She also says Odium can unmake spren:

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… and unmade them to lose their minds and memories…

RoW, Interlude 2

She mentions that their memories are lost, and we saw the Sibling slowly losing control in the chapters after all nodes were destroyed. 
 

Will there be a way to remake an Unmade, as Book 5 will deal with BAM? 

Zahel mentions something interesting regarding Cognitive Shadows:

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"Grand ideals," Zahel said. "Optimism. Yeah, you'd make a terrible swordmaster. Be wary of those Fused, kid. The longer one of us exists, the more like a spren we become. Consumed by a singular purpose, our minds bound and chained by our Intent. We're spren masquerading as men. That's why she takes our memories. She knows we aren't the actual people who died…”

RoW, Ch. 15

Going back to this scene after the book, I see that it ties in nicely with the idea of Heralds being like spren. So who is “she” here? Is it Ba-Ado-Mishram (BAM)? I’m wondering because Kalak mentions something similar in his last epigraph, and we know BAM affects the memories and thinking of spren and natives of Roshar (singers): 

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As one who has suffered for so many centuries ... as one whom it broke . .. please find Mishram and release her. Not just for her own good. For the good of all spren.

For I believe that in confining her, we have caused a greater wound to Roshar than any ever realized.

RoW, Ch. 97

If it is BAM, how does Zahel know so much?

On 2/13/2023 at 7:22 AM, The Sovereign said:

Moash's eyes do not heal because he views the damage as part of himself

Yes, also because he may subconsciously realize that Odium blinded his thinking and brainwashed him. If he wants to remain blind in that regard, then so too physically. 

What exactly is happening here? This is when Moash is in the burning manor basement with Kaladin. Moash is taunting him when a pure, concentrated light explodes into the room: 

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Moash growled, spinning around, shading his eyes against the source of the light—which came from the doorway. The figure behind it wasn’t visible as anything more than a shadow.

Moash shied away from the light—but a version of him, transparent and filmy, broke off and stepped toward the light instead. Like an after-image. In it, Kaladin saw the same Moash—but somehow standing taller, wearing a brilliant blue uniform. This one raised a hand, confident, and although Kaladin couldn't see them, he knew people gathered behind this Moash. Protected. Safe.

The image of Moash burst alight as a Shardspear formed in his hands.

"No!" the real Moash screamed. "No! Take it! Take my pain!"

Ch. 8, RoW

The figure in the light was Renarin, so is this his attempt at lightweaving? Does he lightweave possibilities (as he is able to see them), and he saw Moash’s alternative path which would’ve led to him living as a respectable Radiant Windrunner? Why does this cause Moash to feel pain again (he says to take the pain away)?
 

This also ties in with Moash at the end, when he begins to feel pain:

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… a terrible sound. It had pushed away his Connection to Odium, forcing Moash to feel pain for the things he’d done— pain he didn’t want. Pain he’d given away.

Ch. 111, RoW

Is this weakening of the Connection similar to the scene in Ch. 8? 
 

Thoughts? 

Wit and Jasnah are discussing warfare that will soon become obsolete when he says:  

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“You think your powers are unfair because you slay dozens, and they cannot resist? What happens when a single individual can kill tens of thousands in moments—assuming the enemy will kindly bunch up in a neat little pike block. Things will change rapidly when such powers become common."

"They're hardly common."

“I didn't say they were,” he said. "Yet."

RoW, Page 759

A few pages later, Raboniel describes the outcome of combining Anti-Light with its positive as:

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"Destruction," Raboniel said. "Instantaneous annihilation."

RoW, Page 766

We know that a compressed reaction will cause an explosion, seen earlier in the tower laboratories. Now that Navani’s journal has been sent to Kholinar for study, will we see a frightening new method of warfare by the Fused? This seems a bit too  much like science-fiction, but it is not impossible in the plot given that we’ve seen flying airships. 

Thoughts?

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

They have a regular heart. Their gemheart is located in a sternum, fused with it, it doesn't replace a heart

That answers this nicely. Thank you 

A bit more scientific than previous questions: 

I love how Venli, when overcome with emotion such as anxiety or elation, mentions Timbre pulsing in her gemheart, similar to a human heart beating faster.

This made me think: singers don’t have a muscular heart that can contract to pump blood. So, how does singer blood work? Either there is a separate heart pumping system that singers just don’t call a heart, or the blood acts like the lymphatic system, which relies on gradient flow rather than a pumping mechanism. 

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[bold emphasis mine]:

Would it not be better to accept what she really was? Become the person she deserved to be? Formless—who had been hiding deep inside these last few days—stirred. She'd thought him forgotten, but he had been waiting. Watching…

Rhythm of War, Ch. 26

Why does Shallan name Formless as male? Is it just another coping technique to distance herself from who she was?