YmYm

First Cultivation replaces boring, dry old Tanavast with Dalinar. Then she replaces broken Rayse with Taravangian. Next she’ll replace herself with Lift. And then they can all work together to replace all the crusty old vessels throughout the Cosmere (look what happened to Ati!) Maybe she thinks the Shards need a new vessel from time to time to keep things fresh and functioning because as Todium says, the Cosmere is being run by a bunch of fools. She and Todium might be in agreement for what comes next. Because what better to cultivate than the Shards themselves! (Apologies if this is obvious and posted elsewhere. I just thought of it.)

Omg omg omg might it’s here! Wow. All I read so far is the first three interludes (already read Part 1 from Tor) Soooo cool! Omg! Between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War I met and married my wife and had a baby! So whereas in the past I’d demolish the whole book as fast as humanly possible, now I have a 1 month old little girl! So I’m trying to savor each chapter I can read! Omg. So good!!!!!! Wow! I can’t even read this thread so I don’t spoil myself on Part 2 but I’ll be back!

Hey, I’ve been learning about the Enneagram chart and this just reminded me of Brandon’s radiant and surge binding charts. There are 9 types though. I wonder if each of these could map onto one of the Unmade? Probably not... But I was just wondering, for those who thought about the Cosmere way more than me, do Enneagrams or other personality type structures show up in Brandon’s work?

Listening to Leonard Cohen's "Anthem," I noticed that there were tons of connections to the Stormlight Archive. It even suggested a theory about what's to come! I know it's way off in tinfoil-land but still, I thought I'd put it together. See the lyrics below, followed by analysis: Ok, we're not off to a great start. Are there even any birds in Roshar? But just replace birds with Wind Spren! They don't dwell on what has passed away or what has yet to be, they just enjoy the moment. This is obviously about the desolation. The wars have literally been fought again and again. This is my favorite part - this is clearly about the Radiants. The crack in their soul lets them bond the spren and then literally lets Stormlight in! Szeth, Nan, Taravangian and others saw the signs that the Radiants were coming back. And the Holy birth of Jesus wasn't betrayed, but the Holy Oathpact sure was. Then, after Taravangian saw the signs, he had Szeth widow a lot of governments. This is all about Rlain (and hopefully Eshonai). They can't run anymore with the lawless Parshendi who have become killers singing their prayers to Odium and his spren, who have literally have summoned up the thundercloud to end all thunderclouds!!! I hope Eshonai manages to stop running with that lawless crowd. Dalinar is trying to strike up the march against Odium. But there's no drum - few are joining him or even believing him. The last line about love has no obvious connection that I can see. But it got me thinking. If Odium is the Divine Hatred Shard, shouldn't there also be a Divine Love Shard? I mean, how could Brandon not have a Shard representing Adonalsium's Love? And might Odium hate that Shard above all others? Might that Shard be fleeing the hatred, and perhaps at some point come into men's hearts as a refugee? I admit I don't know of any evidence for this, so it's pure tinfoil, but I mean, it just feels like there has to be a Love Shard, right? Ok, that's it. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think. I saw a previous post about this (link below), but I wanted to start a new post because I wanted to explore it more deeply.

This sounds like it could be Honor's story. We know his body (Tanavast) is dead. But his soul (or at least pieces of it) in the form of Stormfather and Honorspren are still flying and racing the wind. I could really imagine something like this coming up at the very end if it were telling a much bigger story about the shards.

Look at all these people that just happen to be pounding out the same rhythm. Are they Parshendi that all got plastic surgery? http://youtu.be/cmSbXsFE3l8?t=2m19s

Hey, that's a cool observation! So if Honor binds, is it Cultivation that cuts/separates and thus brings about shardblades? Sort of like a gardener giving out spiritual pruning shears?

Well, just like Ruin helped Vin to kill the Lord Ruler (which seemed like a good idea at the time) because it helped his plans along, I thought Odium might facilitate Dalinar figuring out how to bring the Radiants back if it's going to bring along the Final Desolation sooner. The Radiants and the Final Desolation seem connected and even though Nalan seems corrupted, he could be right that bring the Radiant-type-people back is going to cause all sorts of awful things to happen. But yeah, I doubt Odium actually picked up some chalk and wrote on the wall. I just thought he might be the brains behind the message.

It's been referenced that seeing the future is of the voidbringers. So I wonder, what if Odium influenced a Voidbringer or some other minion to leave the message for Dalinar. Maybe Odium knows what's going on with Dalinar and his visions and so he's trying to push Dalinar to do some crazy stuff to get the Final Desolation show on the road. Assuming that whatever changes Galivar was going through, Dalinar is going through too, then it'd be consistent with the Parshendi offing Galivar before Odium can influence him into doing something that won't turn out so good. Given the crappy bargain Honor somehow got the Heralds into, with those centuries of melting flesh and stuff, I guess I really just don't have much faith in his vision-advice to Dalinar.