Jess

Team Odium all the way. I keep coming back to the Eila Stele's description of him as "...the void. The empty pit that sucks in emotion", the way he encourages Dalinar to dull his own emotions ("Give me your pain"), and this exchange in Ch. 121, right before the Fused pass on Odium's command to kill Jezrien: Odium may speak of passion very... passionately... but his actions are those of someone who views it as merely a tool. I hadn't seen the "I don't think Odium is capable of being honest with himself" WoB until I listened to this episode, but since I've never bought into his claim to be Passion, I felt somewhat vindicated upon hearing it. Really though, I do think it casts serious doubt on Odium's self-concept (or Rayse's concept of the shard he holds, perhaps). So while I'm on the topic of Odium being a liar: in the same speech where Odium claims to be Passion, he makes some other claims which, to me, are obvious falsehoods: 1. "I am emotion incarnate." - As noted in the podcast, while Dalinar's desription of Odium covers more than hatred, it still does not cover the full gamut of human emotion. 2. “Honor cared only for bonds. Not the meaning of bonds and oaths, merely that they were kept." - The Stormfather explicitly refutes this in Ch. 111: 3. "Cultivation only wants to see transformation. Growth. It can be good or bad, for all she cares. The pain of men is nothing to her." - Admittedly there is more wiggle room on this one since Cultivation is mysterious, but her scene in Ch. 114 certainly did not leave me with the impression that Dalinar's pain meant nothing to her. 4. "Separate the emotion from men, and you have creatures like Nale and his Skybreakers. That is what Honor would have given you.” - I would argue that the order most representative of Honor is the Windrunners. Also, I don't think Nale's current state is representative of what Skybreakers are "supposed" to be like; Odium's reference to him and the modern Skybreakers as if they are "normal" Skybreakers strikes me as deliberately deceptive. Something else that, to me, casts doubts on Odium's purported relationship with emotion/Passion, is that Honor has been associated with human emotion at least once: Emphasis mine. Granted, "ideal human emotion" is not quite the same thing as passion-as-framed-by-Odium, but this three-way juxtaposition of nature vs ideal emotion vs void is, I think, a more accurate picture of Cultivation, Honor, and Odium than something like nature vs bonds vs passion would be. Without getting into a giant rabbithole about the complexity of Honor's nature, we do at least have to account for the fact that Roshar's various non-sapient emotion spren are tied to Honor. Oh, and one last thing: I don't think we can rule out the idea that Dalinar's description/vision of Odium was manipulated by Odium himself. I don't really think this is the case, but the possibility still seems worth mentioning.

Yeah, I got the same idea after reading SoS, hence why I asked the question (and also this one)

I had a question that didn't get recorded. Unfortunately I have to paraphrase Brandon's answer, but fortunately it was pretty unambiguous. Me: In one of the Mistborn epigraphs, Alendi quotes the prophecies about the Hero of Ages, and one of the lines is "His name shall be Discord" with a capital D. Was that line in the original prophecies? Brandon said yes, and then to clarify, he asked something like, "You're asking if Ruin added that line." Me: Or altered it. To which Brandon said no, he did not.

Oh cool! I'm also in Bozeman actually, but this'll be the third time I've gone to Miscon (and I only missed last year because of a good friend's wedding) and knowing what the Con is like, I'm not at all surprised it's happening there instead. I too am staying at the Con hotel! I would definitely be down for some kind of 17s mini-meetup or something. I definitely know the first question I want to ask, but beyond that I'm not sure how many would be reasonable to prepare...

Only a week away and still no thread! Surely there are a few more Montanans lurking here?

In this volume, everybody was exclaiming "Shella!" In vol. 1, only Darksiders did; Daysiders used "Aisha!" instead.

I'm gonna give an honorable mention to losing Beard, Sah, and Noro all in one fell swoop. Even though they were minor characters, the way that scene unfolded, one dying right after the other, was brutal to read. For sheer surprise factor, Eshonai.

I don't really understand the question. Elhokar was there because he was trying to save his family and reclaim Kholinar. Hoid's chapter wasn't to see the fused looking for something, it was to see him picking up the Cryptic. Those two things don't have to be related just because they are at the same location. I can see from a narrative perspective that it might be confusing that a couple different plot points all piled up on the Palace, despite being unrelated. But considering how deeply involved the Kholins have been in these events, it's really not a stretch.

I think the Fused are looking for something else. As for how Hoid knows things, anyone's guess is as good as anyone's. Hoid collecting different forms of investiture is some kind of longterm plan that we may not understand for a looooong time, but him gaining a Nahel bond is really not surprising to me (and imo being a Lightweaver, specifically, fits him well).

When I say they came from Ashyn, I don't mean they ultimately originated there, just that they were there immediately prior to migrating to Roshar. For instance, they could have gone from Yolen to Ashyn, then Ashyn to Roshar thousands of years later (see: the Iriali Long Trail myth). That said, I think it's premature to assume that Scadrial is the only instance of shards creating de novo humans. It is said that Ruin and Preservation couldn't create life on their own because of their intents; that doesn't mean a different shard couldn't do it. And even if it does take two shards, there are still multiple shards completely unknown to us that could have teamed up to do it.

This thought occurred to me too, but I haven't really finished thinking about it. For now I suspect that Jasnah et al are calling all magic "Surgebinding" (cf "chickens" "wine") and whatever the migrant humans destroyed their previous world with was probably different. However, two things: 1. I think the ancient humans arrived from Ashyn, which is just next door, so to speak. I think it's entirely plausible that the whole Roshar system, not just the planet that Honor and Cultivation are most involved with, has some overarching theme/mechanic underpinning its various magics. Thus, the pre-migration magic could very well have resembled Surgebinding significantly. 2. The migrant humans are said to have brought Odium with them. The answer could be as simple as "It was actually Voidbinding, not Surgebinding".

While I'm all for Odium being a more complex antagonist than just pointless hatred, his claim to represent Passion does not sit right with me. I would expect a true Passion shard to revel in life, in the drives and emotions of people. But Odium is angling to kill most of the humans on Roshar. All that passion (and he himself says that passion "defines men"!), extinguished. In fact, we see on-screen Odium encouraging people to dull their passion... by feeding it to him. A Passion shard would not only be passionate themself, but fan the fires of everyone else's passion too, positive and negative. But Odium? Give me your pain, don't blame yourself, you don't have to hurt, never feel guilty again. Moash outright states he has no passion, only numbness. Leshwi responds, "You have given him your pain." This tactical, seductive draining away of negative emotions is not the act of a shard that truly values passion. Passion is a tool to Odium. He feeds off it and uses its power. But it is not his Intent. He is "[t]he empty pit that sucks in emotion" (Ch. 111), dangerously disguised as emotion itself.

"Pattern is a Vulcan" is almost certainly this bit: And "Well that’s one way to get a ride" is probably Syl turning herself in to the other Honorspren to get on their ship. There were a few more I was pretty confident of so I'll collect them and edit this post in a second... ETA: Made guesses for a bunch of them. Under a spoiler tag for length:

I think there is an outside chance that both letters 1 and 2 are from Autonomy—just different aspects/personas of Autonomy. Seems like the kind of trick Brandon would pull, expecting us all to assume that three letters=three shards, and then doing something different, and a couple years from now we realize we could never nail down letter 1 because all our guesses were based on the implicit, unquestioned assumption that Autonomy was ruled out by letter 2.

I don't have much to contribute to this fantastic summary, but for me "We killed you!" and Odium's claim that Dalinar capital-A Ascended were the biggest "Whaaaa???" moments of the book. It's hinting at very long-term implications I think. For now I tentatively subscribe to the theory that Dalinar has gathered up and is holding a small bit of Honor's power, a few Splinters perhaps. He's still mostly Dalinar, though.

I had the opposite reaction; they seemed a bit too connected to the main plot and thus not "interludey." 1. Puuli - The least connected of the interludes. The Natanatan myths about sailors from the origin with Light in their pockets, who come to destroy, is fascinating. It's probably foreshadowing but of what I can't say. 2. Ellista - Seems unconnected at first but those Dawnchant translations come back to discredit Dalinar. 3. Kaza - The Sleepless aren't big players in the main plot yet, but Brandon's definitely in the process of introducing them to us. And I bet that Oathgate will come into play sometime in the future. 4. Taravangian - He's a major character, nuff said. Also directly foreshadows his agreement with Odium at the end of the book. 5. Mem - Ends with Mraize telling Ash about Taln. 6. Sheler - This one isn't that relevant but it does show the Alethi being displaced by the Parsh on a large-scale, and the effect on bordering nations. 7. Rysn - The theft of King's Drop is a pretty big plot point. 8. Teft - Another significant plot point: theft of the Honorblade. Also, without Teft's arc, Kaladin would have died.

Sometimes, your first reaction, your immediate instinct, is not who you truly are. Sometimes, who you truly are is the person who reconsiders the obvious knee-jerk solution and finds a different way.

I don't think it actually is a Kandra, but Brandon might have some reason for making the description extremely reminiscent of a Kandra. What that reason could be though, I have no guesses at the moment. ETA: maybe Odium was inspired by Kandra when it envisioned this spren?

Agreed; I was confused when the original newspost described this art as displaying Shallash's "Makabaki skintone" because imo it's way too light for that. Of course, since it's an in-world depiction, it makes perfect sense for Dandos to have Alethized her appearance (and quite likely he didn't know what she or any of the other Heralds really look like anyway).

Is it just me, or is this a really weird thing for Jasnah to say? People don't claim she's a heretic; they know she is. She's a professed atheist. She's not shy about it. But the language here is almost defensive, like the author doesn't consider themself a heretic and doesn't like being considered one by others. I just can't shake the feeling that the hints toward Jasnah being the epigraph author are red herrings. The details are incongruous. Seeing "beyond" Shadesmar, "I thought that I was surely dead"... if that is Jasnah I think it is referring to an event we haven't seen yet, and not anything in WoR.

Since the Recreance, the KR order that didn't participate (probably the Skybreakers) has been hoarding shardblades or otherwise "removing them from circulation", perhaps even destroying them.

Harmony will become Discord

I see a lot of people here qualifying their opinions with "Graphic novels have never been my thing..." but I actually do read a lot of long-form comics (albeit of the indie and web variety, which are probably less constrained in some ways) and I still didn't think this was very well done.

By my count there were five instances where White was indicated to be Cynder the linguist and/or Blue was indicated to be Jon the anthropologist, and five other instances where it was the other way around... I do think the Ch 4 panel you mention is simply Kenton addressing each of them in turn, not the same person by two different names. But even so, in Chapter 5 when they are arguing about linguistic vs. cultural enclaves it switches off within the space of a single page, which is almost as bad. Anyway, I noticed the inconsistency pretty much immediately on my first readthrough and am honestly pretty annoyed by it. ETA: Completely different non-typo possible error: was anybody else really confused by the line "He knows I'm a Sand Master. Changing my robe wasn't enough to confuse him." As far as I can tell, Kenton is still wearing his Sand Master robe when he thinks this...

I would guess Devotion = sapphire blue based on the color of the shardpool. And I also think Odium is red.