r0cketm00se

Shard safety-scissors

Reading this made me realize that Dalinar specifies returning Alethkar and Herdaz "to me" even though he has never been the recognized ruler of either and is currently a monarch of Urithiru only. The wording shows him thinking of himself as an emperor, and I think you're right that if a kingdom was no longer allied to Dalinar, things could get interesting. It would very much be in keeping with Dalinar struggling to give up control when he thinks he knows what's best.

Shard air horn? I wonder if spren can compress air when they transform

Shard cheese-grater

Of course Sigzil isn't even on the list. And that is why he's my fav.

Yep, that's part of what I was thinking. There is also kind of an Elantris connection mentioned in the Elantris annotations [Elantris spoilers]

Rereading Oathbringer and when I got to the letter about the Calligrapher's Guild in Ch. 53, something stood out to me: I've always wondered at the structure of the names of the Unmade, many of them being hyphenated. Well, there are 4 one-part names, 4 two-part names, and 1 three-part name (Ba-Ado-Mishram). The structure of the names seem to line up very well with the structure of glyph writing. So perhaps each part of a hyphenated Unmade name corresponds to a glyph. There is also this quote: So, the letter is suggesting that glyphs were in use by the Dawnsingers. The Unmade are described as "ancient" and were likely named by the Dawnsingers (although it is possible they were "unmade" at a later time). If the names and the specific glyphs in them are that old, they may be related to terms used on other Cosmere worlds. In particular, others have pointed out the similarity between "Ado" and "Adoda", which Dalinar explains means "light". If "Ba-Ado-Mishram" means something about "light", it would fit well with BAM's ability to use Light, for example, granting forms of power using Voidlight. So what would this mean? It might give us some hints as to the nature of the Unmade, and we might eventually get some glyph-based artwork for the names of the Unmade, similar to the Radiant orders.

Adolin flights a shardbearer and is disarmed. He tries a lastclap but is too slow. At the very last moment, Shallan makes a pun so cheesy it stops the shardblade.

This makes sense. So the contest is between Honor's champion and Odium's champion, and it can't be the shards themselves. I do still wonder what would happen if Odium named a fused, or Nale, or a highspren as champion. There are plenty of potential champions in the Cosmere for whom "death" is a fuzzy concept.

The idea that there's a loophole in Dalinar and Odium's contract is especially interesting to me because it seems like it can't be based on tricky wording, so it should be obvious, but somehow Wit can't figure it out. I'm really interested to see how Brandon resolves this. A few things I've noticed that might be important: 1. It is a contest "to the death." Can Odium name himself? And if so, what would have to happen for Odium to "die"? And how could Dalinar hope to do it? 2. Rayse-Odium promised to spare anyone born into Kharbranth, and apparently TOdium is still bound by that. If Dalinar chooses someone from Kharbranth as champion, will it be impossible for Odium to win? 3. Another part of the agreement is that the champion is allowed to meet at the top of Urithiru unharmed. If Odium names himself champion and shows up as Taravangian, is it possible he gets harmed by Dalinar's forces because they don't realize he's Odium?