Hexagonal

Shards cannot usually take direct action due to this leaving them open to being attacked by another shard. In this scenario, Honor was not in that great of a position to counter Odium's actions. I am not entirely certain if we have a true answer to your question, but at least part of it is due to how unwilling Honor and cultivation were to counteract Odium. Side note, due to thread topics being able to be seen from the home page, I would recommend renaming the thread to something else. Could be something like "Odium's direct action"

That's a fair statement, but I am fairly certain that it is being used in the manner of a curse. There have been other examples, especially before the Stormfather becomes a character we meet, of using his name in a similar manner.

One of my favorite quotes is from Kaladin and Amaram's fight in OB, where Kaladin remarks that he is the spear that did not break. It is such a powerful line that really builds up his character of determination.

That is a very interesting theory, and it makes sense. Taln remarks that his whole existence is fire and pain, which suggests he was tortured a fairly heavy amount. To build on what you said, it's possible that Taln was initially imprisoned to give the fused and Odium time to prepare and once they were ready, they tortured him. The torture could be immense for a long time, but as Taln was not breaking(and did not break as per WoBs), they sought a new way to get to Roshar(The Everstorm).

This likely would have left him open to a) losing Honor(which he just got) and b) taken a lot more power. Urithiru is a giant shardcity made up of a bunch of manifested spren, so the new oathpact and retribution having Honor likely stopped that. As well, it is a lot of investiture(yes, Hoid/Wit is heavily invested, but probably not as much as all of Urithiru) that would likely have been a much more difficult and strenuous task. Retribution was on a sort of time crunch with all eyes being on him now.

Retribution went into hiding as of the end of WaT(IIRC), as the whole cosmere was now aware of him. I think it is reasonable that Retribution going into hiding while roshar got back on the right time scale left an opportunity for Autonomy to attack her only other main threat(Harmony, as a dual shard). It would seem reasonable(to me at least), that Roshar being all timey-wimey and retribution being gone allow Autonomy to ignore him, for now.

It seems more likely to be the soul and body being disconnected. We are not entirely sure if cognitive shadows are the soul or a copy or some mix(I am personally of the camp that they are the soul with a bit of extra investiture, but I can see the copy argument too), so Kaladin's transformation into a herald could be seen as death in some interpretations. The burning of the eyes resembles Nightblood cutting into things and popping them into smoke. I think the smoke could be an attack in all three realms, as few things have smoke with their attacks.

I Really agree with you on this, WoK and WoR were so character driven that they really made you feel. Part of why I prefer RoW over OB(OB isn't bad, but it b=puts a lot into the war)

I picked Whimsy myself, as Brandon has said it is most dangerous to one's self worth and decorum. I think it could be really fun to just be full silly.

I think there is a mix of the deal and innate shardic powers. There is a WoB that says some shards cannot just smite people. As well, Ruin was missing some of his power(all the Atium that eventually got burned). While we don't really know if Ruin can just smite people, it seems likely that it would have left him open to attack.

They all seem pretty close to them. I would agree with you for a real world actor or actress for the characters, but the in world characters are a phenotype that is very rare IRL. Kaladin is pretty tan and has epicanthic folds, and while Shallan is described as being light skinned within roshar, just about everyone on roshar is fairly tan.

I think you're right, and the way that Sigzil did it was through his dawnshard nature. I bet a regular radiant could use stormlight to help their spren manifest larger with some training and/or an additional MoI. The possibilities(maybe using armor spren and radiant spren to manifest different parts for like a shard engine or something?), could be fascinating and practically endless.

Considering that part of Dalinar and the Stormfather's bond was that Dalinar would not have shards, it would seem that Syl as a blade wouldn't change. She could be more invested now, which might change her ability to change in size, but I doubt that would be too noticeable.

Adolin outright states that Shardblades do not bend, so I think having some kind of thin sword could definitely work. The size limit was suggested in TSM, with Aux using some of Sig's investiture to grow larger(dome at the end of the book). To me it seems like shardblades do definitely have a size barrier, and Aux was only able to overcome it because of Sig's dawnshard nature and/or Aux being consumed a bit. There is likely a different way to help invest a spren to manifest as a larger size in the PR, but as of now they are unknown.

That is an excellent point, but I don't see Retribution making SprenThorn(great name from the community btw) live through too much immense pain. We still don't know much about the training that Gav underwent besides is being visions of the past and battle training(the memory of Dalinar almost killing Elhokar seems to have had a big effect on him[maybe experienced it many times in the 20 years of SR training]), so the limits are not known. I think it would be possible for Retribution to have SprenThorn train in his own memories of battle with specific weaknesses(to help make life ending mistakes to learn from in the way that Brandon describes Taln having).

That would have been disastrous. I'm not sure if Retribution would have gained their memories(Nothing about T-Odium getting Wit's memories), but this could have caused them to go more insane than they were in actual SA.

From my understanding of how this compounding worked, wouldn't it make Maniac into preservation. There is a WoB that says a lerasium savant would become Preservation, and another that compounding could be used to become a feruchemical savant. I would think, if the premise that you could store and then compound the lerasium investiture(which I think is reasonable), that you could become preservation if you were able to compound enough.

I think another really awesome scene was Adolin's rescue of the Azish shardbearer, literally storming through the enemies and using a corpse as a weapon. It was insanely brutal, but it reminded me a bit of some of the Dalinar flashbacks in OB, and just how dangerous someone with plate really is.

I think that there is not too much physical attraction between Renarin and Rlain(only the occasional hand touching and the like), and they are more romantically interested. It would make sense to me that singers can be romantically inclined, even not in mateform, which would allow them to have relationships outside of it. The warpairs are a good example of this, so I think it is not completely impossible. I can see what you are bringing up though, like how they experience sex and romance very different from humans.

I think that is a pretty valid criticism. We don't really know much about how listeners(or singers as a whole species) perceive romance and relationships. We know that mates usually stick together as a war pair, but is that due to a romantic reason or something else? I hope we get to see some singer citizens who are just living their life in SA6, it'd be cool to sort of show us how they do relationships as a precursor for Renarin and Rlain.

@Voidmaker, you make a good point. I think, especially with the WoB, that pieces of the cosmere(which is made up of investiture and matter and energy), are keyed to certain shards. We do know that when Ado was shattered, all existing investiture becames labeled as part of one of the new shards. It would follow, that Nightblood(originally invested with Endoment's investiture), could change to be more keyed to Ruin's(the literal destroy shard.

That is something I also have felt. I read the chapter where both Kaladin and Szeth swear their 5th ideals, and it just didn't have the same relative weight. I think part of it is that there is so much weighty stuff going on throughout the book, especially the last third, that big moments are popping up a lot. Not to say that WaT was too full and crammed together, but more that things that in the past would have been the focal build up of a few scenes(both dalinar's and kaladin's 3rd ideal, kaladin's 4th ideal) just are part of the bigger weight of the story as a whole. I completely get the (small) disappointment with the book not having as (relatively) powerful scenes. The first(and so far only) book to make me cry was RoW with Kaladin's 4th ideal scene. I think we as a fan base may have hyped up the book(and maybe the series) to an unobtainable level of quality. These are good books, but they are made by people, and sometimes people fail(which is one of the points of the book).

I do agree slightly, but due to the deal being made with honor's power, breaking these deals could have left T-Odium potentially open for attack. This opening could have been ignored though, as he still would have been trapped.

I love this term for it I have a feeling that it might start like this, but in some states the singers and humans will be relatively similarly treated. Similar in the way higher dahn darkeyes and lower nahn lighteyes, but still similar ish. I do have qualms with the claim of a divine dictator, as we know a number of countries made a deal to maintain their (relative) autonomy. I think it is likely going to be similar to how the Azish empire was, with one main ruler who actually only rules one state(likely El in alethkar or something along those lines) and a number of states that are under that rule, but not totally. From what we saw in Rira, it seems like humans will be lower class, but not by too much.

That seems pretty reasonable. Syladin was always a ship I was against, and then Kaladin became a herald. I think it's a possibility that them being 5th ideal and now Kaladin being a herald that he could come to see her less as a spren. The physical differences(including the fact that Syl is immortal, while Kaladin was not) made me shy away from them being in a relationship. I think now that they are immortal and beings of investiture they can understand each other more(though I do worry that them being together could undo some of the growth Syl was having about not living for just Kaladin in WaT though).