Leuthie

Prophecies are usually completely correct, just not in the way that's most obvious. Since you called the first part obvious, you're probably wrong. BTW, this line could apply to ANY CLIMAX in any epic series. There's always a "day that was ours" that was taken away. There's always a rasping enemy and lights going out. Hell, this line could apply almost perfectly to the end of WoR. Also, you conveniently ignore the hope in the middle of the line: "You cannot have it. The day is ours." That's not a rallying cry. That's a statement of fact. "The day is ours". Despite the rasping enemy and the lights failing, they "cannot have it." I speculate that the first half with end with a pyrrhic victory. The "good guys" will win but at huge cost. The intermittent 15 years will be stable but difficult. Sure, this death rattle might be specifically aimed at the events leading to that pyrrhic victory, but it could just as likely be aimed at parshmen at the Battle of Thaylen Field as Dalinar closes Honor's Perpendicularity and the gems on the field begin to go dark.

Would definitely be narratively difficult to have a contract issue determine the results of the Contest. Fighting over whether or not Dalinar or Todium was actually responsible for harming one or both Champions on the way to the top of Urithiru would most likely turn into an anti-climactic mess. Not that it isn't possible, and maybe that's the challenge Brandon wants to take on with this Contest.

The deal was between Rayse and Taravangian, not Odium and Taravangian. Shards don't make deals, their Vessels do. However, with Rayse dead, Rayse won't be taking over Roshar or anywhere else, so Rayse won't be making any decisions regarding the future of Kharbranth. The contract is moot due to one of the parties being dead and incapable of affecting their end of the agreement.

So we're speculating that he had a spren bond the whole time? Why? Because he heard a voice like Nightblood? Totally possible, but would be a strange and barely relevant reveal at this point. We've already done the "previously had a spren/had a spren the whole time" with Shallan. Of course it's possible that Szeth had a spren. He could have been followed around by the Rosharan version of Santa Claus. I guess I spoke in absolute terms, but anything is possible. There's only something weird with the current spren because it's different from other spren. Lopen's spren doesn't speak to him (literally wrote on itself as a blade to inform Lopen that he reached 3rd Ideal). Spren aren't copies of each other, and we already know that highspren are considered strange even among spren. Personally, I believe the voice Szeth heard in his youth was a different spren, whether a Radiant spren or an Unmade.

The voice in Szeth's head when he was young was not his current spren. He's literally died since then. His current spren was basically given to him by Nale. Unmade or some previous spren looking to bond him (the potential bond might be what actually led to him being deemed Truthless).

They also wrote the blurbs on the back of the books. They seem to have a future sight that's similar to Moelach's visions and most fantasy trope prophecies: vague enough that when they're found to be untrue, they can be called misinterpretation; when they're found to be true can be called coincidence. Pretty much like the Diagram.

Gavinor has been groomed since birth. He was being obviously groomed in the throne room when we first see him, being mentally tortured by void spren (if I'm remembering right). He's been cultivating his Hate for those who killed his father as he's grown. All T has to do is convince him that Dalinar is responsible for his father's (and mother's) death. "If only Dalinar hadn't taken everyone to Urithiru, your father and mother would still be alive and well in Kholinar" But like you, I don't see the pay-off there. I see Gavinor as a back 5 antagonist, or a back 5 protagonist with backsliding issues. Then again, there are too many important Kholin characters. Removing a few before the back 5 starts would be prudent.

Please explain? How do Ashynites have a connection to Sel?

What if Taravangian as Odium is the suckling child? The analogy would be apt considering he'd be 10 days into being a Shard when the Contest occurs. Dalinar gets the chance to take Taravangian out entirely, and chooses not to... Gavinor as champion is likely. The character exists for a reason. While that reason could easily be in the back 5, it could also be in this Contest. A challenge that Dalinar can't win.

Szeth didn't kill with detachment. He intentionally felt each death to its fullest, believing he deserved that as a part of his punishment. He went so far as to create a Connection to each person he killed. These Connections haven't disappeared, and it's through these Connections that he gets messages that he interprets as screams. I think his "mindfulness" at the moment of killing resulted in his hearing these screams and, like Kaladin's brands disappearing, they will stop when he fully forgives himself for his original sin (which he's very close to doing, since he has dismissed his people's view of him as having sinned) and for allowing his people to set him up as the assassin (and for which he's on a current quest to expunge). Book 5 will see Szeth stop the screaming.

We've established that the broken bonds leading to the sprens' deaths was mutual, correct? We've also established that the spren did not know they would die. We've also established that the goal wasn't to kill spren (assumption: the spren bond would inform the spren of this intent). While news doesn't spread instantly on Roshar, the discovery that breaking bonds leads to a dead spren should spread fast enough for some members of some orders to avoid that fate. Even if it wasn't everyone breaking bonds at once, it was at least quick enough that news couldn't spread to other areas. Only the Skybreakers were spared, and I contend they weren't part of the first wave to be an enforcement team. My point is, the Recreance was effectively all at once.

They all broke bonds at once, by agreement. All Radiants and spren decided to end the Knights Radiant. To make sure no one kept their powers, they all broke at once. The Skybreakers were to break after assuring that all others did before them, a police force bound by Oath and Law, with 5th Ideal Skybreakers the final group to break their bonds. Of course, they didn't break their bonds after seeing that spren were dying. Hence, the Skybreakers remained behind. Actually, the Skybreakers may have been left behind to make sure that no one ever tried to be a Radiant again, with no intention for that order to break bonds. Hence Nale's crazy quest to kill all budding Radiants.

I don't see why Hemalurgic princples wouldn't be relevant or related to other type of Connection manipulation. Even if you can access the Spirit Web from a distance using surges, having direct Physical access should make the access even easier. Easier access would mean more precise manipulation and more complex abilities. There are definitely hints at mixing known magic systems, and Bondsmith powers and Hemalurgy would be particularly complimentary.

You're being disingenuous, which is probably why I always end up arguing with you too often. Arguments in her favor are much stronger and more nuanced than "She's smart, and she's good at being in charge". The fact that all you get out of them is that makes you sound like a child. I haven't even been arguing with your position that she shouldn't be a Bondsmith. I'm arguing how you characterize my position. How stupid and childish does that make me? "She's smart" -- She made conclusions and developed processes that no one we know of has done before. This development should be completely nullified because Galivar had an example and Fused must be stupid to think that Navani is smart. Okay. Let's call this a tie and since it's all on my side to prove that Navani has some worthiness, you win on this point. "She's good at being in charge" -- Dalinar was considered crazy. His best friend turned on him and every other house alienated his house. He and his house were left almost entirely alone save a couple of High Princes who basically felt sorry for him. Kaladin saved the day, Shallan found Urithiru. Dalinar said the words and Stormfather accepted him. There was absolutely no reason to think Dalinar was a unifier prior to bonding the Stormfather. And the Stormfather didn't want to be bonded. Had the Everstorm not been unleashed, the Stormfather would never have bonded Dalinar. It was a different kind of duress, but if you're going to argue that Navani is unworthy, you have to concede that so was Dalinar. Every bit of unification that Dalinar has achieved since his bonding was with Navani's support. Every. Single. Step. Dalinar's unity is Navani's unity. Please refute without filtering it down to "Navani made suggestions to Dalinar."

Actually, someone is arguing that she's completely unworthy. You came in with a more measured argument that there are others. There are always others. That's an easy argument to see both sides of. Dalinar wasn't exactly a unifier when he bonded Stormfather. His House stood alone after his best friend turned on him and everyone turned against him because he was considered crazy. He became more worthy over time. With Navani's help. There are others arguing that she's completely unworthy. Which is wrong.

Thank you. Didn't have time to comb through the book. Every scene she's in she's helping Dalinar, keeping things that should fall apart from doing so, getting more out of others than they would be able to get out of themselves, etc. She's not the prime example of Bondsmith, but saying she's completely unworthy is pure tripe.

Good point. You're totally right. She doesn't get credit for the things she brought people together to create because she just brought them together. Yet all she did was tell them what to do. So did she just get people to implement her ideas by telling them what to do (in which case, she'd get credit for the creation of those things as her telling them what to do resulted in their creation), or did she unify a group of minds to create these things (in which case she doesn't deserve credit, but she was a unifier)? Challenge: Find me a scene in ROW where Navani wasn't bringing people together to achieve common goals. Find me a scene where she was leading a group and "telling people what to do".

Navani unified scholars and others into a unit to create the flying thing. She kept her team together and convinced Raboniel of her and her team's value long enough to stay alive. She worked together with her enemy toward a common cause. She helped the Sibling discover their missing tones, giving the Sibling the ability to create the Bond with her. When in a position to unify, she has always done so. Rhythm of War starts with her leading a team of cooks, servers, housekeepers and soldiers to put on a huge party that keeps getting bigger by the minute. She's not in the same position to show her unifying nature that Dalinar is, but go through every scene she's in it shows her working to bring people together toward a common cause. Every single one. Try it; look through her scenes. If the definition of Bondsmith is a unifier, she's as good an example as any.

How did Gavilar get it? If there is one of something, is that proof that there's an easily and humanly (no Shard involved, no off-Roshar magic involved, etc.) reproducible method to create that thing (yes, I added "easily and humanly" to the definition) If no one in a story who matters knows how to do something and someone within that story develops a way to do that thing, does the hypothetical fictional inventor get credit or do we assume that the method to create the thing already existed somewhere else and they just got the information to create it via telepathic osmosis or something? The Aztecs created pyramids in Central America around the same time the Egyptians created pyramids in North Africa. Which one gets credit? Bernoulli developed L'Hôpital's rule. Why did L'Hôpital get credit? I'm sure you're positioning that a future source of conflict will be someone close to Gavilar telling Navani that she didn't discover anything, that others already knew how to make anti-Light but were smart enough not to let the enemy get it. That would be a great future storyline and I'd welcome it. However, as it stands right now, that isn't a storyline and I can't use it as evidence that Navani didn't develop something completely new.

You're absolutely right that Navani didn't discover anti-Light. I've never said she did, and you saying it again doesn't really add to the conversation. 1) There was no known way* to create anti-Light prior to Navani and Raboniel working together in WoR. 2) Raboniel didn't actually know about anti-Light, thinking that Stormlight and Voidlight would cancel each other out. 3) Navani and her scholars accidentally discovered that the bead they had contained some form of anti-Stormlight (or anti-Voidlight, I don't remember which) when they accidentally combined them and caused an explosion. 4) Navani used her knowledge of how Light works and reacts to tones, how gems and Lights interact, etc. to develop a reproducible process to create anti-Light that no one known* had ever created before. This she gets full credit for. She didn't create the idea of anti-Light, and anti-Light existed prior to her process, just as the first human to figure out how to create fire on demand didn't invent the idea of combustion and probably had seen fire before, maybe even made use of fire to keep warm or fend off enemies. I hope this clarifies my point. I don't mind someone disagreeing with me. I love when someone brings new, interesting information to the table in the process of telling me I'm wrong. But when they present arguments to things I haven't said and continuously misinterpret my points, I want to make sure that it isn't my fault that the person arguing against me keeps misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. TL:DR: Navani didn't invent anti-Light, she invented a reproducible way to create anti-Light and gets full credit for that invention. *Known to the reader, or the characters involved in the story we're reading. The way to create it may have been discovered elsewhere and may even be common throughout the Cosmere. Hell, they may sell portable anti-Light pens in convenience stores on some planet we've never heard of. None of that pertains to the story we're reading because no one involved in this story, aside from the dead king and peripheral individuals around that king, know that anti-Light exists, much less a way to create it. We don't even know if the dead king and his cronies know what they had was anti-Light.

She's not. She's 1st Ideal. She's worthy of holding Stormlight and starting the process. Maybe she'll be the first example of a Radiant who never makes it past 1st Ideal because she's so unworthy? Elon musk was an example to counter a completely different argument. He deserves some credit for the developments at Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company among others because he provided the direction and the resources to make them happen. Individual people rarely make great innovations on their own, and groups of individuals can rarely pool their abilities well without someone directing them and providing resources. Navani deserves the same level of credit that Elon Musk deserves. You may still think she deserves none, in which case, I contend you don't understand how innovation works. What Navani discovered was a reproducible process to create anti-Investiture. That's an innovation, a discovery, and no one else gets credit for it, no matter who she was once married to or what she saw on his desk. (BTW, I'm not often vocal about feminism, but giving the dead husband credit for a woman's discovery is just completely messed up, especially when you have no idea how he obtained the things he had or whether or not he actually knew what they were) Maybe you don't consider Raboniel a scholar, but Brandon Sanderson took great pains to describe her as such, and she considered Navani an equal after their time together. Given time, maybe Navani can even put her rich donor life aside, become an ardent, and devote her life to study long enough for you to consider her in a better light than her husband did during his tirade at the beginning of the story.

I disagree The human that first developed the method to create reproducible fire didn't discover fire, either. However, the method created was extremely important and no one had discovered that method before...therefore credit. Elon Musk is unworthy of any credit for the things developed by the companies he founds, funds and controls? If that's not a worthy argument: Navani wasn't doing any financial backing during the occupation of Urithiru. Raboniel, an actual scholar, gave her full credit for her part in their discoveries, considered Navani an equal, and even got a better perspective of human abilities based almost entirely on their interactions. On top of that, as with Elon Musk above, she took the tools and resources available to her (including people with more knowledge and experience than her) and directed them toward the discoveries that were made. This seems to be the exact role of a Bondsmith. In fact, Dalinar's huge contribution to the one fight we've seen him in was as a financial backer (provided unlimited Stormlight) and a director of resources (was given a precious stone and used his experience and networking abilities to make a deal with a rival). Navani's character arc isn't over, and she's only 1st Ideal. She has a long way to go to get real Bondsmith powers. The struggle she'll have with her own worthiness and with the Sibling's perceptions of her should be an very interesting side story and something we haven't really seen from Brandon, so narratively it is a good turn. You can hate her all you want, after all she is rich and privileged and she took the position that you thought the poor, oppressed Parshendi (Rlain) would get. But there are many other people less worthy of Radiant status than her.

In the past desolations, Heralds went through and prepared the humans, Fused came in and took over the singers, and the two armies clashed as equals and decimated each other until the Heralds died and went back to Braize. This one is different for several reasons. In previous desolations, the human and singer forces were more balanced. Heralds were able to return first and prepare the humans and add to the ranks of the Knights Radiant. Balanced wars are brutal. In the current war, humans have grown substantially, but have no real defensive answer for the Fused. Since the Heralds didn't come back early and prepare the field, human cities have fallen easily to the Everstorm, Fused and Regals. Oh yeah, the Everstorm is completely new and presents an insurmountable obstacle to mounting a defense against the Fused. Lopsided wars aren't nearly as brutal. On the other side, the singer army is not nearly as ready and malleable as it was in the past. They grew up around humans, empathize with their previous slavers. Getting them to fight against humans has been more difficult than Odium anticipated. Radiants are building up their power and learning how to make use of it, and a few of them seem to have greater power than they did in Desolations past. However, human leaders have been hesitant to create collateral damage, so the real war hasn't really started yet. Then Dalinar makes a deal to end the war in 10 days. The power and knowledge of each side is evening out and these final 10 days will be balanced and brutal. Just clarifying: Odium had to actively return dead Fused from his prison on Braize. Now, the Everstorm does the returning so the Fused never have to make the journey back to Braize. Heralds are orders of magnitude more powerful than the Fused. There aren't enough of them and the Fused keep returning until they're locked up again. Once the Fused are locked up, the remaining singer forces without Fused still battled the remaining human forces without Heralds. So the Heralds made sure the humans were up for the battle, tried to battle back the forces and create defensible space while they were there, then got killed and returned to Braize to remove the Fused threat. Humans and singers would then fight until exhausted, then retreat to their corners to lick their wounds until the next Return. I'm certain Heralds died on accident sometimes, but I'm willing to bet that most of the time they waited until every possible human defense was set, then picked a time to all die and return to Braize.

I don't think anything majorly consequential happened. If my far fetched theory is true (Design was being "corrupted" while Hoid kept Odium busy), there will be a little mention of Design being different and/or Hoid being able to see some future events. Anything else that occurred will be left to us to decide on. Just like Hoid watching Taln arrive at the end of WoK, Hoid watching Jasnah arrive at the end of WoR, Hoid getting Design at the end of Oathbringer. Nothing momentous (Jasnah was momentous, I guess, but not because Hoid was there, and you could take her out of the main story and nothing much would change). This won't be any different. The main story won't change, just some side detail somewhere.

If Dalinar wins, Odium goes back to Braize and gives up the land his forces hold, but his forces remain. If Dalinar loses, Odium keeps the land he holds but stops the fighting and stays on Roshar. Both outcomes result in a Cold War situation. The stalemate condition simply keeps the status quo with Odium and Dalinar locked in the Contest. All of those are pretty anti-climactic for the front 5 but are conducive to a pause in the fighting long enough for conflict to generate in Book 6 through 10. However, actions external to the results of the Contest may create a failure, success or pyrrhic victory condition that will create a front 5 climax without the Contest resulting in some magnificent change. Stormfather dies, BAM's release severs Odium's forces' connection to the Everstorm, Ishar slams the door shut on Odium using Kaladin and Szeth and Dalinar and the remaining Heralds somehow, etc.