Jaconis

I’ve been thinking about protecting and what that means, and long had an idea that one of the oaths, as mentioned above would be related to independence. More specifically, I’ve been thinking something along the lines that he must let people make their own decisions, even it puts them in danger. When we think of protection, there’s a very easy path to lead to overprotection. A father who doesn’t let his daughter go out on dates, or laws that take away freedoms in the name of the protecting the many (not commenting on anything in particular here, as I’d prefer this not get into a political debate). I think we’ve seen Kaladin tend to the overprotection. Even in his vision/bond scene with Tien, Kaladin reprimands his brother for deciding to go with the other boys when he knew they would be in significant danger. This to me, is the final piece, that he must allow others to make decisions to protect, even if it puts them in danger.

True, we are in his head, and he is genuinely scared. I’m mostly looking for reasons to not be terrified at what just happened. I have no idea how he could have known it, but I don’t have any idea how he could have known a lot of things that happened, especially in these epilogues. Each one he has known things that he shouldn’t. Also, Hoid doesn’t do anything without a reason. I’m not sure what his bit about misdirection was about if the scene wasn’t a big misdirection. I don’t know that we know enough to ascribe motivations to any of the players as to why they would or would not have done these things. All that said, I don’t know that I believe it was misdirection as much as I want it to be. I shudder to think at what might cause Hoid to, for the first time a long, long time, feely “true terror”.

My initial reaction was very similar and thus annoyed/scared me. Rereading the entire scene makes me feel like Wit expected this, or at least something like this. His little show literally right before his interaction with Odium is about fooling people by making them focus on one thing while you do another. What was the point of all that if not to foreshadow that this was a plan by Wit to fool Odium.

To those above, I believe the confusion is arriving due to the difference between acceleration and velocity. Velocity is the measure of an object’s change in position relative to time, that is to say, how fast the object is moving. Its measured in units of length/time (miles per hour, feet per second, km per hour, etc.) Acceleration is the measure of an objects change in velocity relative to time, that is to say, how quickly is the speed of an object changing. It’s measured in units of (length/time)/time or length/time^2 (feet per second^2). Force is equal to mass x acceleration. Gravity and wind resistance are both forces, meaning we are dealing with accelerations here. As was pointed out above, the force due to wind resistance increases with velocity. This means that, in a free fall, the acceleration due to the gravity force will continue to increase velocity, increasing wind resistance until the force due to wind resistance is equal to the gravity force, resulting in a net zero force on the object and thus no acceleration and no further increase in velocity. This is called terminal velocity, and is not constant for all objects, as wind resistance is dependent upon a number of factors, such as shape and material of the object. In a vacuum, there is no wind resistance. Now, there is no force to counter gravity. Therefore, velocity continues to increase due to the constant acceleration due to the gravity force.

I’ve had a thought, one that is perhaps a little terrifying. A loophole that, while it would mean Odium is still trapped, he would have Dalinar. Would it be possible for Odium to select himself as his champion? Dalinar, in the meeting discussing terms, even admits that he is likely going to select himself. Nothing in the contract says that the champions cannot be the writers of said contract. This doesn’t fit with the rest of the context when the loophole is discussed, which is that it sets up a situation that, win or lose, you win. This would be better though. Guaranteed win for Odium.

I’m confused. What are you questioning? My statement says that T knew Renarin’s spren was corrupted, but Rayse didn’t.

I didn’t catch that either. Nice. Also of interest to me, considering that T knows Renarin’s spren is corrupted with Odium’s power, I wonder if he could influence him now? I think Rayse didn’t know this, and so wasn’t capable of said influence. Makes me wonder if Team Honor’s advantage of the Renarin future chasm will no longer be effective. That said, I don’t believe T knows about Rlain...

And...I’m not sure how I missed the thread with the exact same title just below. Move along...nothing to see here...

I’m not entirely sure if this has been put out there yet. I hop in only occasionally between book releases, so I apologize if this is a long-standing theory. I’m just going to come out and say it. Thaidakar is Kelsier. This passage from Chapter 115 of RoW is as explicit of proof as possible short of full confirmation. Lord of Scars? Obviously reference to the scars on his arms. Wit’s comment to him? Who else has Wit “slapped around”? Very few people considering he can’t harm others. Not to mention, the comment about “dealing with [his] own planet” - Scadrial isn’t exactly full of sunshine and rainbows at the moment, since this takes place before Era 2. Finally is the fact that we know of at least one very high up member, just one level below the big boss, who is from Scadrial in Iyatil. I haven’t dug around too much, and it’s possible this can be refuted somewhere in the text, but I think this links are set up too perfectly for Thaidakar to be anyone but Kelsier. Standard disclaimer that this could be red herrings, but it feels...too perfect to be that. Thoughts?

Gav has been my thought as well. The question of his “willingness”....it’s very hard to know. I think it would require Intent, which a child is absolutely capable of possessing. Whether this should be allowed is absolutely debatable, but from a technical and cosmere-magical perspective, I think it’s possible. Shallan was able to make oaths/truths at an age not much older than Gav for her first bond after all. This also brings us to the “draw” scenario in my opinion. Dalinar won’t kill Gav, Gav can’t kill Dalinar. The bigger issue I have with this option is would Gav actually be willing? It depends on how much he knows. If he knew he had to fight Dalinar, then I think absolutely would not be willing. How much could he be tricked to join the enemy of the only people than the largest role models he has had lately. In contradiction to that, this is almost the quintessential dilemma of Dalinar and T’s philosophical differences - what cost is worth paying to help the many? This makes it feel poetic and foreshadowed. Although, it wouldn’t have to be Gav or a child, just someone innocent to meet this criteria.

I find it very hard to believe (meaning I don’t believe for a second) that this is natural. Odiummist coming out? Will the “fog” become a more prevalent thing?

I was thinking about this, and given the rest of the Gavilar scenes and what else happens with Aesudan, I think we can make some assumptions and draw some conclusions as to what’s really going on here. 1. Given that Gavilar is playing with a “box” that seems to be some sort of fabrial or something, I think its reasonable to assume that this master fabrial artisan is there to help with this. 2. Given some comments Aesudan makes in OB, I think it’s reasonable to assume that she, either with Gavilar’s knowledge or not, was in on what he was doing. If those two assumptions are correct, than a reasonable conclusion is that Aesudan was talking to the artifabrian about this Gavilar stuff, and she was intentionally distracting/keeping Navani away from him.

I wasn’t expecting this. I’ll take it though.

The progress bars aren’t showing up for me anymore. Anybody help me out with why? I thought he just got rid of them. I’m on chrome on phone, I’d that matters.

My current theory is that the sword Oathbringer is the Sibling.

Unless he was her masseuse, I’m pretty sure the below quote shows Ash and Taln were romantically involved.

I don’t know that I agree. I think it’s pretty clear Odium’s futuresight got outplayed. Odium DIDN’T win the Battle, he DIDN’T get Dalinar as a champion (but is now forced into the agreement of Champions), AND lost one of his unmade! One could argue that this was somehow all part of his plan, but he’s an academy award winning actor then, based on his reaction. Let’s take a closer look at the final Battle, and determine just what pieces were in place based on who’s future sight. 1. The big one, Dalinar was able to resist Odium. In my opinion, this is largely because Cultivation’s interference allowed him to become a better man without the memories of Evi, but was prepared for the mental and emotional assault put on him because he got the memories back before the confrontation. This is obviously subjective, but to me it’s clear that if Dalinar hadn’t been prepared, or if he had been forced to live with the guilt his entire life, he would have almost assuredly fallen. One point for Cultivation. 2. Kaladin’s sight into the future led them to Thaylenah, where there was an army of Fused and voidspren waiting for them. Pretty big win for Odium, right? I mean, Adolin almost dies in the Shadesmar fighting. Except...almost is the key word here. The end result is that Adolin lives to keep a Thunderclast from destroying the Oathgate, Kaladin is there to keep Amaram and half a dozen Fused from killing Dalinar while the Unmade is dealt with, and Shallan is there to distract the entire freaking enemy army while the rest of The A-Radiant Team accomplishes all their tasks. Without that vision, these three would have been on the other side of the world, almost definitely resulting in a much different result of the battle. I’d argue that we can’t even be sure of the source of the vision, given just how badly this ended for Odium. This is either major negative points for Odium’s future sight ability, or major bonus points for whoever did send it, if it wasn’t Odium. 3. Odium foresees the use of the Oathgate to bring reinforcements from Urithiru, so he attacks the tower from Kholinar. He wouldn’t have been able to get there, if not for Mr T’s Cultivation-touched Diagram. Again, this ends up hurting Odium, rather than helping him. This attack, and the sight of his fellow Bridge Four members dying, is what pushes Teft to speak the Third Ideal, giving him a shardblade and allowing him to transfer a squad of freaking Windrunner squires to Thaylenah. Aside from the obvious bonus for the good guys of those significant reinforcements, this group just happens to include Rock, who just happens to kill Amaram, who just happened to be about to give a killing blow to our Captain Brooding Eyes. One could argue this attack cultivated Teft into becoming a better man, not unlike what a lot of the Diagram has ended up doing... This brings up another point: do we know what happened to Yelig-Nar? That may be a SECOND unmade that’s captured/killed. Really looking like Odium could learn a thing or two about looking into the future... There’s probably more, specifically about Szeth, Lift, and others from the gang, but that’s all I have off the top of my head, and my lunch break is over. All in all, I’d say it almost seems as though Odium looked to the future, then decided his course of events. Then Cultivation looked at what Odium saw, then threw in subtle changes just to mess with everything Odium was planning. These leads to furthering my belief that not ALL future sight is Bad or of Odium. With that in mind, Wit’s warning may be more what some above have suggested. I think it’s a warning against putting too much stock in sights of the future, because none of it is certain, and it’s so difficult that even a god who is known for his strength in future sight gets things monumentally wrong at times. Best to live in the present type of thing.

This isn’t perfect, but could this be the end Battle, when there are 10 representatives from the orders? They don’t all use or have shardblades, but it’s the closest so far.

As people above have said, surges likely is referring to magic in general. The timeline is a bit confusing to me though. Seems like something Brandon would answer at a signing too. 1. Humans have some form of magic on native planet. Odium is with them. My theory is that he influenced the humans to destroy themselves, making them have a nuclear war so to speak. 2. Odium and humans come to Roshar, and singers agree to let them have Shinovar. This is where it gets murky to me. Somewhere in here we have the following events: 3. Humans try to conquer more than they were given, likely through influence of Odium. Desolation 1. 4. Honor and Cultivation aid the humans, potentially just trying to break them free of Odium. 5. The singers are angry, both at the humans for taking more than agreed upon, as well as at Honor and Cultivation for the seeming betrayal. 6. This anger sets them to eagerly accept the help of Odium, who agrees to revive their best and brightest after each death until they destroy the humans. My theory here is that this invests Odium enough in this system that he can’t leave. Desolation 2. 7. In an effort to keep the singer spirits from continuing to possess people, the Heralds approach Honor and they create the Oathpact, serving two purposes. 1) The singers most powerful can’t fight anymore, 2) Odium is trapped because the humans can’t be destroyed without the help of the Fused. The rest seems to be well spelled out. 8. The Heralds don’t do so well with the Oathpact, and thus desolation’s recur again and again when they break. Desolations 3-?? 9. Spren bond humans, granting surgebinding, and eventually the Heralds institute the organization of the Knights Radiant to restrain them. 10. Somehow, Odium makes a death blow to Honor, the Radiants find out about the history of Rosharan humans, and Deathly Honor convinces them they are bad, thus the Recreance. The confusing part is the order of events 3-7. This seems logical to me, but we have little confirmation other than that these events happened, not their causes or effects.

This is great and I fully support this idea. It’s something that’s been brewing in my mind for awhile (before OB), and I haven’t gotten a chance to write it down since we more or less got confirmation of it in OB. I second those above, and think a lot of Kaladin’s leadership skills are based on spiritual and/or cognitive adhesion and gravitation. At first we could have assumed it was a fluke, when he just did it with Bridge Four, but he’s shown repeatedly he can do it with disparate groups, with people he’s never met, and do it quickly. Likewise, I wonder if the “tugging” Shallan felt from Dalinar was an aspect of adhesion? I feel like we need an entry from the Ars Arcanum about tension or cohesion, whichever Dalinar’s other surge is. I was expecting one in OB, since a Lightweaving one was added in WoR, but no such luck.

I think it’s interesting that the two orders who have members we see are fine with siding with Odium, or against someone who has called himself Unity, are the two that have access to the surge called Division. Coincidence?! Probably... To the main point I agree I think Ash will be or is already a Dustbringer. The OPs points are strong, but I’ll add another point not in the text but from what we know of the series as a whole. Each book so far has had a Knight radiant order symbol on the front of the books hardcover, as well as matching coloring. This has matched the flashback character for the respective book. Could be a coincidence that it works out so well for these first three, but let’s look at what the flashback characters are set to be, last I checked: Kaladin (Windrunner) Shallan (Lightweaver) Dalinar (Bondsmith) Eshonai (Willshaper, through proxy of Venli) Szeth (Skybreaker) Jasnah (Elsecallers) Renarin (Truthwatchers) Lift (Edgedancers) Taln (Stonewards) Ash Before this book, I was confused because it seemed to line up well with an Order per flashback character, except for Ash. Now it would make sense.

Does anybody else find it odd, a coincidence, or a deeper meaning that the two orders of Knights Radiant (Skybreakers and Dustbringers) who, for the most part, are willing to oppose this new entity, Unity, are the two that have the Division surge? On to be topic at hand. And I’m still not sure I understand her meaning. I think it’s clear her intent was to remove the memories, let him grow to be a better man, then return them when he was able to deal with them, but before his meeting with Odium. How could this have made Dalinar be a weapon for Odium then? Like, if the memories returned and Dalinar wasn’t able to cope with them, he would be ripe for Odium? But wasn’t he already set to be Odium’s? Not sure which theory this supports, if any, but there’s also this, at the very end of the book. Whatever the source, he seems to be better connected to it now.

I think people are being a little harsh on T. I think it’s clear his original goal (at least the non brilliant version’s) from the meeting with Odium was to save the entire world. This dialogue is clear to me that T wanted to make the deal that he help Odium in exchange for Odium preserving those that T ruled, and T was trying to rule everyone. Odium saw through this, and agreed to only Kharbranth. Now, this seems like something brilliant T would have foreseen, so it’s entirely possible brilliant T only wanted to save Kharbranth. That said, it’s also possible he has a bigger plan to save all of Roshar, and getting into a deal with Odium was just part of it.

I think the theatrics had a different purprose. I think he was trying to convince Dalinar his only hope of winning was through the contest of champions, so he could make Dalinar his champion. The only reason it didn’t succeed was because Dalinar managed to resist.

I think the last quote is the biggest one in favor. Not sure Shallans is relevant. The problem I have with the theory is that I fail to see how that could be used to destroy a world. It holds a lot of Stormlight (Investiture) for a long time. From what we know now, that’s great, but hardly earth shattering (pun!). If we find out that, say, Nergaoul’s stone could be used to control him, like with a fabrial, that changes things. And as I wrote this I now realize that’s exactly what it might be, and that’s terrifying. Makes me wonder what the Stone of Ten Dawns is though. Perhaps that’s the dawnshard? Big enough to hold one of the 16...to be used by anyone... Ok, that’s a big deal. And could definitely destroy a planet. Though, our current Radiants, and the Recreance generation, don’t exactly have the same potential.