listerfeend

The phrasing Ed uses really trips me up. He says Calling a thing "the" implies a well known or formal name for something, like, someone would say "they performed the tango" or "the performed the Summoning Ritual™" Nothing I can think of would relate Harmony/Sazed/Discord to a "the" type of action that makes any sense to me

What if, after becoming Discord, he actually relinquished Ruin to Kels?

My biggest complaint with this book was over in book 1. The jarring, and constant, shifts from "present day" to "five years ago" was kind of annoying.

I would expect if that were true for most of them to be fair skinned and light haired, like the Rira. We know the golden hair and skin of the Irali are a dominant trait, and even the Rirans have light hair and skin on Roshar

Ah, thanks for that correction. It's been quite some time since I've read Elantris, or depictions of Elantrians, and I probably just knew they glowed and figured it was golden That could make a lot of sense, but part of the story about them riding a giant wave through the unsea sort of cements in my mind that it happened about the time the Dor was created. Could very well be the case that the Dor puts out some kind of "Investiture Wind" like the cosmic wind in our own universe though!

OK, so I've had some time to put together some of my thoughts on the legend of Cakoban and how he defeated the Dakwara and everything else. I think that Cakoban and the people he migrated with may have come from Sel. There may be a few holes in this, I'm well aware, but that's why I'm sharing it. Maybe we can shore up those holes, and maybe those holes do indicate that this isn't correct. So, what makes me think that? First, we'll start with the story as told by Frond. He escaped by sailing between two "great giants" of Epelli, who attacked each other, the resulting shockwaves of that battle propelling Cakoban and the Migration across the unsea. We know of exactly one clash between two shards, that resulted in the death of both shards, and that is Aona and Skai. I believe this must be what the great giants of Epelli is referring to. Their fight started the "waves of their falling clubs" propelling them out of the sub astral of Sel, before the final confrontation, which resulted in the Splintering of the Shards, and Odium forcing all of that Investiture into the CR. That forcing of their Investiture woudl be the "grandest wave of all", a massive surge of Investiture flowing into the Cognitive Realm, flinging them further out into the unsea. Now, we know from WoB that Odium wanted to take out Ambition first, seeing them as the most likely to grow in power and try to rival that of Odium. However, Odium found Aona and Skai first, and was somehow able to get them to fight each other, capitalizing on their conflict to get them to destroy each other, before trying to do something with their Investiture. He was really just figuring out his MO in this, which evolved by the time he hit Ambition, learning from his past mistakes. We do not know the time frame or length of time between Aona and Skai and Ambition, but, after taking everything we know into account, the closest I've come to a time frame for the death of those three shards is somewhere between 1 and 3,000 years post Shattering of Ado. There is nothing to say that they couldn't all have happened within the lifetime of Cakoban. Though it's also not entirely necessary that Cakoban even be alive for that, it's possible that the stories about Cakoban are an amalgamation of stories about multiple individuals, with Cak definitively only being a part of the fight with the "Dakwarra". Next we get the flashback chapter, in which we see Cakoban ingesting a "thick golden liquid" form of Investiture, and also him glowing with a golden light. Both of those sound Sellish to me, as Elantrians glow golden, and the purified form of the Dor we've had described to us is a thick golden liquid. Now, obviously, purified Dor wouldn't have existed back then, as the Dor itself is a result of how Odium tried to deal with the Investiture of their Shards. However, the comparison is there, and I think that perhaps "purifying" the Dor actually might revert the Investiture back to it's more original form, with the added benefit of "unkeying" it. Cakoban and Jope run into one of the Entities, with Cakoban believing it to be one of the daccwaga from their stories. So, if my theory is correct, some time between them leaving Sel, and finding Patji's Perp, Ambition gets killed. There are a few things that we know about Investiture and sentience, and these Entities don't seem to follow them. We know for a fact it takes thousands of years for Investiture left alone to begin to form sentience, the Entities are the Evil, which began attacking people pretty much right away, so they don't follow the rules of Investiture gaining Sentience. There is a topic on this thread that basically says maybe they got some of their consciousness from Uli-Da, becoming essentially Shard level Nightmares (as described in Yumi, another source of Investiture with a rudimentary consciousness that is highly susceptible to "thought molding" as I'm going to call it, from an Invested person). If they came from Sel, immediately post Aona and Skai dying, and are flung out into the CR, they would be able to run into this Entity, provided Uli-Da's death happened within a lifetime. With the vaguely defined time dilation properties of the CR, it's possible they were in the CR while many years passed in the PR as well. Now, the last bit of support for this theory is extracted from a WoB where Brandon basically says that at least one of the cultures on Sel is based on "Catholic Vikings", a group of people known the world over for their Navigation and seamanship. It seems logical to me, then, that maybe Cakoban and his Navigation ability comes from the planet with a society that is loosely based off the idea of Vikings. Not to mention, the "serpent whose tail stretches the entire ocean" being a pretty obvious reference to the Viking myth of Jörmungandr.

I feel like "Belief" is the most powerful thing, rather than story telling. It's not so much that the stories have power, but the belief in the accuracy of those stories. It seemed, to me at least, that that was the main thread and theme of this book. We are pretty constantly shown throughout that what Dusk, and by extension the people of the First of the Sun, believes to be true and accurate is far more powerful than what the more knowledgable people know. "That's a Type 1-3...6....4... Entity" says Starling. "Nope, that's the mother freaking Dakwara" says Dusk, and because he and all of his people believe and think that to be true, it is.

Fair enough, I have so many troubles remembering all the WoB's and outside of the books lore lol.

Yes, that seems doubtful to me as well...Yolen has been portrayed as a pretty advanced society/planet in general, even at the time of the Shattering, which doesn't lend itself very well to the oral traditions/stories that Cakabon and co were reliant on. That's actually a pretty major theme throughout this book, the difference and power of belief versus knowledge. I would expect a group migrating from Yolen would have knowledge, rather than belief, and that would kind of ruin the entire "Cakoban defeats the Dakwara" story in its entirety. It's extremely difficult to even make guesses at where in the timeline the migration even occurred, other than "after Ambition died" and "at least several generations after settling on First of the Sun". My current hypothesis is that Navigation is an Invested Art from whichever home world they came from, which makes me want to try to draw comparisons to other places we've been. The closest thing I can come up with is actually Aona and Skai, as you mentioned, and maybe you could share that WoB that you say contradicts it. I know that Aona and Skai happened before Ambition, but I also don't have a great sense of exactly how long before. If we're looking at timelines, I seem to recall that Odium has been bound to Roshar for at least 6,000 years as of SA era 1, which leaves 5,000 (at most) years before him being bound to Roshar and after the Shattering. So, he was kind of doing a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Another thing that strikes me as potentially pointing towards Sel, Aona and Skai, is the description of the liquid Investiture he is using, "A thick golden liquid", which is pretty much exactly how purified Dor is described. On top of all of that, Brandon has said that one of the inspirations for one of the cultures on Sel was "vikings with a unified religion similar to Christianity", with Vikings being pretty well known for their sea faring capabilities, and navigation. edit: found the WoB All that to say, maybe it is possible that their people started on Sel. With the way oral traditions and legends go, maybe Cakoban wasn't even the one that escaped the "great giants of Epelli", but they were on their own long trail of sorts, wandering the CR for a few hundred years or so, before finally finding Patji. Alternatively, Aona and Skai, and the death of Ambition, may have all occurred within Cakoban's lifetime?

I just had a thought: it could also refer to an astronomical calamity of some sort. Perhaps they migrated from a world with two moons pushed into an unstable orbit, or something of the sort.

Ahhh, yes, I'm sorry, I mistook what you were saying. I did notice that after re-reading both Frond's story, and the flashback chapter. It kind of feels like we already know of all of the major clashes between shards, unless two or more of the "in hiding" Shards (Mercy, Valor, Whimsy, or Invention) ALSO clashed together, I'm trying to figure out which of the clashes they may be talking about. Or maybe it's possible this is some other myth? There are a lot of interesting tidbits in this entire thing. The Winged Statue, obviously referring to Frost, who, for as long as we've known about him, has been a staunch anti-interventionist. Could this be the reason Frost decided to stop intervening in things? It seems obvious that the Navigator ability comes from Cakoban's homeworld, so is this pre-shattering magic? Did their people come from a planet already Invested by a different avatar of Autonomy?

Ok, I read that differently, it seemed to me like Cakoban definitely had stories of the daccwaga that he was basing everything off of, and I'm assuming that the name gradually changed overtime to Dakwara. So it seems like: Cakoban had stories of the daccwaga from their homeland. Cakoban (and/or some unnamed other Navigators) found First of the Sun (Patji's Perp) Cakoban and co helped their people migrate to First of the Sun Cakoban and Jope (and the three other Navigator ships) went to explore more Cakoban and Jope ran into the Type 1-6 (assuming, based off the description, though the numbers could be referring to the amount of Investiture present in the entity) Entity, and assumed it was a/the daccwaga Over time, that name changed to Dakwara (or perhaps they already had a myth about the Dakwara which was maybe like, the "king/queen" of the daccwaga?) It didn't seem to me like they'd been on First of the Sun long enough to have stories about this entity from discovering FotS, as they basically said in that flashback that they had just dropped the last of everyone off, so it seemed to me like Cakoban and Jope had brought those stories with them from their Homeland, where ever that might be, and applied them to the Entity, because they didn't actually know what it was, so they assumed it was this thing from their mythology/folklore.

My read on that was they had only very recently found First of the Sun, so, it's possible that it was just after the migration was 'complete'

That was my general read of the situation, actually. We've been told by WoB that the "molding" of investiture to fit conscious perception takes upwards of thousands of years, however, and that seems to contradict that possibility. It was also stated that Dragons have died to these creatures, and they are as close to Shard level Investiture as it seems to get without actually holding a Shard. My thought on that was that Cakoban and his people already had stories about these creatures called the daccwaga, and Cakoban didn't know that wasn't a daccwaga, in fact, he believed it was one. Add that to how Invested he was at the time, I was thinking it might have been possible for him to essentially 'Soulcast' the Entity into the proto-Dakwara, drawing on his people's oral traditions and the stories they told, thus imposing some of the limitations he believed the creature should have, and then the legend of his deeds and the Dakwara continued to lay on those limitations over the vast time scales, till we met the Dakwara here, in the shape and form of the serpent. The reason I bring up the Dragons and their amount of Investiture is that, they, being so Invested as they are, and so knowledgable, should be able to utilize these kinds of mental gymnastics to place limitations on these Entities in a similar manner. However, one of this book's consistent themes was very much about the difference between belief and knowledge. I was thinking, it could be that, because the Dragons know so much, they know the exact mechanics behind what one of these entities are and how thoughts shape thing, and how they are supposed to take thousands of years to be able to affect Investiture in this way, they simply couldn't do something like this, because they can't make themselves believe the entity is anything other than what it actually is. Cakoban, and Dusk, however, had no such limitation of knowledge. They didn't know what the thing was, but they believed it to be this monster from their mythology, and because of the strength of that belief, mixed with the amount of Investiture it seems Cakoban was dealing with, they were able to impose those beliefs on the entity...

Ok, soooo....why did the Dakwara actually stick around Cakoban's body? In the flashback, we're given essentially a brief window into Cakoban's life and his confrontation with the "Dakwara", which, at the time, was a Type whatever Entity, though in the flashback it's portrayed exactly the same as Type 1-6 Entity from earlier. Cakoban tells Jope that if he bests it, it must follow him, "You know the stories. Best the monster, and it must serve you." To which Jope replies "I don't think that's a daccwaga". So, we know that their stories had not been able to influence the shape or nature of the Type 1-6 Entity that was chasing them. We also know that they only recently discovered First of the Sun, and, presumably, and that they hadn't been in the area long enough to tell the stories and build the belief that the monster would serve they who best it. So, why does it stick around? These entities actively avoid areas around populated portions of the CR specifically to avoid being caught up the consciousness of these areas, getting trapped, like the Dakwara did. Cakoban is resolute and steadfast in his belief that the monster should serve him if he bests it, and that is exactly what happens, but... I'm confused as to why. Frost obviously leaves at some point, but the monster doesn't seem to care about Frost, or his massive amounts of Investiture (we're also told that these Entities are one of the only things that can likely kill a dragon without crazy inventions and the like.) I'm being told that Patji somehow influenced this, but I don't get the feeling at all that Cakoban even knew about Patji, or Patji Cakoban. Much less that Patji would care to set up this entire interaction. Nor am I very sure that Patji, still presumably an Avatar of Autonomy, would be able to set this up. During my reading, I sort of thought that a few things had come together to make this happen. They had stories of the daccwaga, stories about besting one and it serving you. Cakoban believed these stories to be absolutely true. Cakoban was also quite highly Invested at the time of the conflict, so much so that he wasn't immediately annihilated in a puff of Investiture when he was hit by the beast, the only real thing that we have indicating that level of Investment and that kind of interaction happening being with a Dragon, one of, if not the, most naturally Invested species in the Cosmere. So the way I read it was basically that, Cakoban and his people's stories, mixed with how highly Invested he was at the time, forced that to be true, causing the Entity to stay, trapping it there for many many centuries, long enough for the stories to take hold fully, changing the form and function of the beast. And it was this, and pretty much only this, that made all of this happen.

Ok, so Investiture, like energy, cannot be created or destroyed, so it is definitely not destroyed. Light/Anti-Light interactions mirror matter/anti-matter in our own universe, essentially, the Investiture/Anti-Investiture, when they come in contact, annihilate and release a tremendous amount of energy (thus the explosions in RoW). We don't see this happening with Nightblood at all, Nightblood does not create explosions every time it eats Investiture. I think the generally accepted and prevailing theory is that all of the Investiture that "leaks" out of the sword basically "evaporates" and is reabsorbed into the Investiture Cycle.

Frankly, I had forgotten that saying. I sort of feel like hiding and discretion are maybe different things, but there is a lot in that about avoiding conflict when conflict doesn't serve the end goal, so, this is a possible caveat to what appears to be cowardice.

Valor is NOT the Shard that no one can find. We have multiple sources (namely in the letters in the epigraphs of several of the previous books) that Endowment, Harmony, and others have been able to confer with Valor. Even Honor, at one point, was able to reach out and contact Valor. While I agree that hiding from Odium seems antithetical to Valor, I believe this is one of those situations where the Vessel is going to be in conflict with the Shard. Reason is the Shard that is hiding. I'm just happy that we finally have a name for all of the Vessels, and a name for all of the Shards

My read on this was: that promise was made by the Vessels before they picked up Shards. There was a line in one of the Honor POV chapters that said as much, I'll see if I can find it.

That has been a thought I've had as well. The Pure Tones of Roshar should just be the Rhythm of War at this point. Cultivation, Honor and Odium are gone, and only Retribution remains. I should think that this will have a dramatic effect on pretty much all aspects of life on Roshar

I think we are going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Linguistically and semantically, the statement doesn't make sense if it is to be considered to be taken from Ishar in this context. The issue with the rocks analogy is that rocks are not an internal attribute of the person carrying them. If I am supporting a friend through a hard time, I wouldn't say that I am taking on the burden of two people's negative emotions. I bring my own burdens with me everywhere I go, supporting another person isn't adding 2 to the burden.... I don't have a better way of explaining it honestly. It's my opinion this death rattle exemplifies what Kaladin is meant to do with helping the Heralds with their madness FAR more than anything Ishar is doing. But, that's just my opinion. It could also very well be the case that, when that Death Rattle was given to us, Taln was meant to be included in the group of Heralds Ishar was doing this for, but that changed.

I sort of agree with what you are saying, the problem I have is that these are not external things to the person doing the carrying, like it would be for rocks. I also don't think that I would say "the burdens of 9 become mine" if I was taking rocks from 8 other people. I was already carrying a rock, so only 8 burdens became mine. Including yourself in the count of things like that is very very strange. “the burdens of nine become mine” works if it means: "I’m taking the load of nine people in addition to my own." It stops making sense if they count themselves because they can’t “take on” what they’re already holding. They started with their own burden—adding nine others would logically refer to the rest of the group. I think there are two possibilities with this. Either the death rattle is a continuity error, or it actually refers to Kaladin, therapizing the 9 mad Heralds.

That doesn't make much sense to me, as I think someone else has pointed out, "the burdens of nine" in Ishar's case would actually be the burdens of eight, as he specifically said he isn't taking Taln's, and it makes no sense for Ishar to consider his own burden amongst the burdens he is taking. Also, now, it would technically speaking on be the burdens of seven, as Jezrien is dead dead. That was my immediate thought when reading that section as well! Seems very very Odium-esque to me, though I don't think Dai Gonarthis was involved with Moash, so I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Possibly under influence from the same Unmade". Do you mean that you think this is the Unmade causing issues in Shinovar? That seems likely, as we only have, really, two options for the Unmade in Shinovar: DG and Chemoarish. (Though, it could very well be both of them in Shinovar, there were three in Kholinar) This makes WAY more sense than any of the other candidates bandied about: The Mink and Lift. Lift has literally no reason to want to give the GB's anything at all after being captured and traded to Raboniel by Mraize. And The Mink never made much sense to me as a spy for the GB's as he's already extracted promises from Dalinar to get what he wants out of them. The only reason I was even remotely interested in that theory is just the fact that we know very little about the Herdazian King. Him being the spy hasn't sat well with me from the jump, however. We know, since RoW, that there is a Sleepless allied with the GB's on Roshar, and most of us seem to have forgotten that tidbit until now. But OF COURSE it was a Sleepless spying on them. It's too perfect. Gavinor being sucked in the SR is an interesting new issue for everyone to deal with. This could lend credence to the child champion theory, though I still don't see it being super likely. Some SR shenanigans could cause him to age in the time that he's in the SR, or maybe his mind ages and his body doesn't, that would suck really bad I think. Hopefully he gets to visit with his parents a little bit in the SR, or at least, Connections to them.

But they didn't know that Deadeyes were going to be the outcome of the Recreance. That is told to us by Maya during Adolin's trial in Lasting Integrity. So I don't know why they would plan on this at all. The Recreance scene in the vision, at Feverstone keep, makes this slightly confusing, as they showed up, and then formed ranks, and all broke their Oaths at the same time, dropping their blades and armor. However, that could have just been a symbolic thing from the Radiants at the time, a way to let everyone know that they were done. So, maybe that's why? But I would figure that Radiants would have summoned their Spren as the weapon they are most used to using, and not specifically as Blades. As I mentioned, there are definitely some orders who would have likely used Spears, or Polearms of any kind, far more frequently than any type of sword. Arial combat with a sword is very silly. A Windrunner, in combat with anything, whether they can fly or not, would prefer a Polearm of some kind over a sword, any day. We also have Lighteyes with Plate in the present tense that use war hammers. I think "tradition" doesn't really make sense as an answer here, as, swords are really only preferred by nobility because their weapons can't change form at a mere thought. In the real world, knights would use lances, maces, and all manner of other weapons, depending on the foe they were facing, and the type of fighter they were. Swords were extremely expensive to make, taking far more time due to the amount of steel required, and the expertise required, to make them functional. Plus all of the training required to use one effectively. This is why they were reserved for nobility and the like, not because they were "better" weapons. In fact, many historical texts, irl, talk about the efficacy of the spear or quarterstaff over a sword. I really don't think that anyone would have cared what kind of magical super weapon they would have been able to get their hands on. This makes very little sense to me. "Ugh, there are only indestructible spears capable of slicing through armor, stone, and people as if they weren't even there left... I guess I'll just leave that where it is" seems so extremely unlikely to me as to be an impossibility. I would say the same of the Radiants only using swords due to some kind of tradition or social pressure. A combatant uses the most effective weapon for the job at hand, and when your weapon can be literally any weapon that you know of, you don't stick to a single shape due to some kind of misguided following of tradition. This is another thing that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but is a bit of a different topic.

Ok, this has been nagging at me for a while now. I'm told by some that it's just because the sword is the most versatile weapon form, but that doesn't jive with me. We know that Living Blades as used by Radiants can be literally any shape and form. We've seen a Shardfork! Why are all of the Deadblades swords? It seems very strange to me that there aren't even any historical mentions of Shardspears or anything else, and there are at least two orders where I can see something like the Spear being FAR more effective than any Sword, those being Windrunners and Skybreakers. Using a sword from the sky, or against the Heavenly Ones, who favor their own lance/spear like weapon, is just not very practical. My theory on this is that, since the Spren were apparently trying to mimic the Honorblades when they decided to form Nahel bonds, that the sword shape is just the default "shape" of what they manifest as in the physical realm, but then, they are all so highly unique and stylized, every one being distinct enough that it's possible to track the swords lineage into history. Does anyone have any better ideas/theories on this?