Chapters 16, 17 & 18

[listerfeend]

15 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

The theories around Chana literally being Shallan have floated around, all these questions have been answered.

You say that they've been answered, but what they've been answered with has been... pretty definitively against Shallan being Chana, in my opinion. I've been on that thread before, and I remain not only unconvinced, but convinced that the theory doesn't hold up, and Shallan's line about "finding some pieces of herself" doesn't change any of that.

You still have to contend with entire flashback sequences needing to be thrown out completely, Shallan not reacting when Jezrien died, none of the Illusion Honorblades being missing from Shinovar for Chana to even be able to do this, and many many more issues that are NOT solved by Shallan being Chana, but ARE solved by Shallan's mom being her. For instance, we know Taln didn't break. We know a Herald died the night of Gavilar's assassination We know that Shallan's mom died extremely close to that event, we just don't have exact confirmation that she died that very night. Everything, so far, points to Shallan's mother being the Herald Chana. 

 

10 hours ago, Palindrome said:

I actually think the biggest loophole is the “unharmed” part. If Odium sends a champion that is harmed before he reaches the fight then Dalinar’s side has broken the agreement.

That would technically break it on Odium's part, too. They are each to send a champion who is unharmed by either sides forces. Since Odium has not, to my knowledge, chosen a Champion at this time, even choosing a Champion that has been harmed should break the agreement, no?

[alder24]

29 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

That would technically break it on Odium's part, too. They are each to send a champion who is unharmed by either sides forces. Since Odium has not, to my knowledge, chosen a Champion at this time, even choosing a Champion that has been harmed should break the agreement, no?

No, the terms say that neither side can harm a chosen champion before the contest. The loophole might be not about a champion that is already harmed, but a champion that will be harmed when trying to reach the top of Urithiru, like choosing Moash - Navani, Gavinor and all of the Bridge Four would love to kill him. But I also think if Odium's champion were to intentionally provoke Dalinar's side to harm him, it would count as Odium breaking the terms. RoW ch 112:

Quote

We each send a willing champion, allowed to meet at the top of Urithiru, otherwise unharmed by either side’s forces.

 

[listerfeend]

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

No, the terms say that neither side can harm a chosen champion before the contest. The loophole might be not about a champion that is already harmed, but a champion that will be harmed when trying to reach the top of Urithiru, like choosing Moash - Navani, Gavinor and all of the Bridge Four would love to kill him. But I also think if Odium's champion were to intentionally provoke Dalinar's side to harm him, it would count as Odium breaking the terms. RoW ch 112:

I read what they were saying as "Odium picks someone who has already been harmed" which I think would break the rules, but I think what you are saying is more along the lines of what Palindrome was intending.

[Master Silver]

14 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Honestly, the more I think about Cultivation and how frustrating her actions, or inactions, have been I now am genuinely of the opinion that Cultivation, or rather her Shard, cannot actually Splinter another Shard.

She had Rayse killed and replaced with Taravangian, which is in line with her intent, Odium has been cultivated to be better, even if it's for the worst. But she could have tried to kill the nascent Vessel before he gained full control and understanding over his powers but she didn't even try. Because she can't, she can only help things grow in the long term, she can't just cut things down without the act being to help it grow. 

She could perhaps have taken up the power herself (would that be self-growth)?

[+robardin he/him]

23 hours ago, the_archduke said:

Someone is going to be a new holder of Honor by the end of the book.  Dalinar, Kaladin, or Taravangian are my guesses.

Can an existing Shard take up another one? We'll find out!

So far we've seen two Shards picked up at the same time in Sazed, but not a Vessel already en-Sharded picking up a second one; you would think the Intent of the second Shard might not like that

In which case would that make a putative Taravangian the Shard of War? From TOdium to T'War (like a Dragonrider name, LOL)?

Oh, and since nobody else has commented or picked up on this:

Shallan assumes the GBs don't know where Mishram was hidden (Spiritual Realm), but of course they do, because Ala was the hidden GB spy the whole time (with Felt as the hidden muscle). And we already saw that he's passed that info along to both Kelsier and to Iyatil.

What does this mean? Well, I think the Ghostbloods that Shallan is spotting and tailing... Is a ruse.

They know that she will be trying to preemptively strike at them, so instead of pre-preemptively striking (directly) at her and hers, they're going to draw out her attention and her resources so that she WON'T be as able to prevent them from interfering in the play for Mishram, because who won't know that they know about Mishram.

[BinarySecond]

5 minutes ago, robardin said:

Well, I think the Ghostbloods that Shallan is spotting and tailing... Is a ruse.

Yeah I have to agree, Shallan is being very naïve here - Mraize knew the GBs were rumbled the moment she called him up to smack talk. He strikes me as the kind of man with a back up plan and he's had time to implement it.

I can only assume that she's going to walk straight into a trap via over confidence or being tricked - Like a lightweaver being a mole.

[the_archduke]

To become the king of everything, you can't have any rival kings around.  Now that he is a Shard, Taravangian either has to splinter the other Shards, or take them himself.  Since Rayse was already on the splinter-everyone-else rampage, it makes little sense thematically that Taravangian would do the same thing.  Why replace Rayse, then have the replacement do the same thing?

So, yes, I think Taravangian holding War would be a likely outcome of the end of book 5.  It may be how he sidesteps the contest.  If he holds both Honor and Odium, he could release himself from the agreement reached with Dalinar as a representative of Honor.  It also sets up an epic second series and possibly the late cosmere stuff we've seen.  T'War won and is set on a collision with the other Shards, Harmony not least among them.  

[BinarySecond]

4 minutes ago, the_archduke said:

To become the king of everything, you can't have any rival kings around.  Now that he is a Shard, Taravangian either has to splinter the other Shards, or take them himself.  Since Rayse was already on the splinter-everyone-else rampage, it makes little sense thematically that Taravangian would do the same thing.  Why replace Rayse, then have the replacement do the same thing?

So, yes, I think Taravangian holding War would be a likely outcome of the end of book 5.  It may be how he sidesteps the contest.  If he holds both Honor and Odium, he could release himself from the agreement reached with Dalinar as a representative of Honor.  It also sets up an epic second series and possibly the late cosmere stuff we've seen.  T'War won and is set on a collision with the other Shards, Harmony not least among them.  

Honestly T-Odium seems to be on the same plan for different reasons. Shard holders are hoarding power and that's bad for the Cosmere so they should all go rather than "I want to be the only one in charge" - Same results different motive.

I think Odium could splinter every other shard and then self splinter to democratise investiture.

[alder24]

13 minutes ago, robardin said:

Can an existing Shard take up another one? We'll find out!

They can:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium wants to be the only Shard. Odium could pick up other Shards if he wants to, but, he doesn't want to. His Shard is a good match for his personality and he doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

[+robardin he/him]

2 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

Honestly T-Odium seems to be on the same plan for different reasons. Shard holders are hoarding power and that's bad for the Cosmere so they should all go rather than "I want to be the only one in charge" - Same results different motive.

I think Odium could splinter every other shard and then self splinter to democratise investiture.

Hmm, my takeaway from Taravangian's accusatory monologue to Cultivation wasn't that he wanted to get rid of all Shards, but -- similar to Rayse before him, but for different reasons -- wanted there to be one guiding "god" in the Cosmere that took an active managing role, instead of passively and defensively guarding their power against other Shards while begging off on the how to deal with mortals.

He doesn't want nobody in charge; he most definitely wants someone he trusts to be in charge, and that's himself.

That said, he may not be all in on the "Splinter all other Shards and be the last one left!" interpretation. He'd be open to either taking up other Shards, or simply dominating (or manipulating) them into doing what he wants to get done.

[bmcclure7]

2 hours ago, robardin said:

Can an existing Shard take up another one? We'll find out!

So far we've seen two Shards picked up at the same time in Sazed, but not a Vessel already en-Sharded picking up a second one; you would think the Intent of the second Shard might not like that

In which case would that make a putative Taravangian the Shard of War? From TOdium to T'War (like a Dragonrider name, LOL)?

Oh, and since nobody else has commented or picked up on this:

Shallan assumes the GBs don't know where Mishram was hidden (Spiritual Realm), but of course they do, because Ala was the hidden GB spy the whole time (with Felt as the hidden muscle). And we already saw that he's passed that info along to both Kelsier and to Iyatil.

What does this mean? Well, I think the Ghostbloods that Shallan is spotting and tailing... Is a ruse.

They know that she will be trying to preemptively strike at them, so instead of pre-preemptively striking (directly) at her and hers, they're going to draw out her attention and her resources so that she WON'T be as able to prevent them from interfering in the play for Mishram, because who won't know that they know about Mishram.

I think you hit it directly on the nose. Shallan underestimate to ghost bloods they’ve been doing this this far longer than she has

[FollowYourMuse she/her]

35 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

I think you hit it directly on the nose. Shallan underestimate to ghost bloods they’ve been doing this this far longer than she has

I agree, though because this is so obvious, I start to wonder how Sanderson will flip it to be unexpected, - because it's Sanderson! 
My guess is it is a trap, and GB will force Shallan to do something for them, or try to break/bribe her with her past.  
 

[+robardin he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

They can:

  Reveal hidden contents

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium wants to be the only Shard. Odium could pick up other Shards if he wants to, but, he doesn't want to. His Shard is a good match for his personality and he doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

I still have to think it depends on the Shards in question. We saw in MB:SH that when Kelsier first tried to pick up Preservation, it resisted him because of his clear Connection (by nature) to Ruin, which "it didn't like at all".

I would have to think that someone actually already holding Ruin (e.g., Ati) would find it basically impossible to pick up Preservation -- to hold both of those Shards, as those Shards were then constituted (as polar opposites), required a trick like getting a Vessel who was balanced between the two in place to pick them both up simultaneously.

OTOH we can see that Honor and Odium are NOT opposite Shards, as they can "harmonize" to become the Rhythm of War and to form Warlight in a similar way to Honor and Cultivation combining to form the Sibling's Song and Towerlight -- perhaps that would not have been possible with Preservation and Ruin before?

[Nesh he/him]

I couldn't help but chuckle when Shallan said she was going to steal from the Ghostbloods.  Kell really would love Shallan, too bad Mraize an Iyatil fumbled the bag so bad. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Nesh

[the_archduke]

21 minutes ago, robardin said:

I still have to think it depends on the Shards in question. We saw in MB:SH that when Kelsier first tried to pick up Preservation, it resisted him because of his clear Connection (by nature) to Ruin, which "it didn't like at all".

 

I thought he couldn't fully pick it up because he was a cognitive shadow and needed a physical anchor to fully hold it.

[bmcclure7]

3 hours ago, robardin said:

Hmm, my takeaway from Taravangian's accusatory monologue to Cultivation wasn't that he wanted to get rid of all Shards, but -- similar to Rayse before him, but for different reasons -- wanted there to be one guiding "god" in the Cosmere that took an active managing role, instead of passively and defensively guarding their power against other Shards while begging off on the how to deal with mortals.

He doesn't want nobody in charge; he most definitely wants someone he trusts to be in charge, and that's himself.

That said, he may not be all in on the "Splinter all other Shards and be the last one left!" interpretation. He'd be open to either taking up other Shards, or simply dominating (or manipulating) them into doing what he wants to get done.

I suspected desire to destroy all other shards is built into the shard, not the vessel. That’s why each vessel find some reason to do it.

[+robardin he/him]

22 minutes ago, the_archduke said:

I thought he couldn't fully pick it up because he was a cognitive shadow and needed a physical anchor to fully hold it.

That was why he couldn't wield the "full power" of Preservation, according to Ruin, after picking it up. "Look at you, Kelsier! You haven't form or shape. You're not alive, you're an idea. A memory of a man holding the power will never be as potent as a real one with ties to all three Realms."

However, picking it up required that "Connection bomb" that the Ire left behind after some rogue shnookered them into abandoning it in terror, giving him the ability he otherwise would not have had to Pull in the Shard to him as the Vessel.

Which I don't think had to do with him being dead and a Cognitive Shadow -- rather his "Ruinous" nature:

Quote

 

The power resisted. He didn't know why -- he had only a rudimentary understanding of what he was doing. Why did the power attune to some people and not others?

... Kelsier took to trying to acquaint himself with the power. Unfortunately, each thing he tried was met with resistance -- both from Ruin's energy and the power of Preservation itself. He could see himself now, in the Spiritual Realm -- and those black lines were still there, tying him to Ruin.

The power he held didn't like that at all.

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by robardin

[LewsTherinTelescope]

10 hours ago, Sedside said:

Had she? She had sworn the truth about her mother after the discovery of Urithiru, but if she had sworn three before, this one would be the Fourth, and she either would have her Plate in OB and RoW, or she is of the Fifth already now in case Lightweavers get their Plate at the Fifth Ideal.

Shallan's not progressing as discretely as most Radiants:

Spoiler

enceladus_47

Does Shallan's "I killed my spren" count as a truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna leave up to theorizing, figuring out the timeline that's going on with Shallan. What we can say is that Shallan is reconstructing, in many cases, oaths she has said before. And it is working slightly differently than someone who is saying new oaths. And indeed, saying she killed her spren is one of those steps. I'll leave it to you to try and parse through that. It's actually pretty complicated. We have a nice big page explaining all of this stuff internally, to make sure that we're keeping it all straight. Because she has violated oaths and reconstructed them, is basically what's happening. And she is regressing, and she's doing a... 1.1 steps forward, 1 step back, sort of thing, kind of frequently.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

I doubt you can lie for a truth, so while the admission about her mother was a step forward I don't think that it actually took her all the way to the next Ideal, because she was still pretending Pattern was the sword.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

I disagree. I still think "I'm terrified" from WoK was said to Testament, it was her voice Shallan heard and because she tried to summon Testament as a Shardblade, she was able to Soulcast (WoB). This means that "I killed my mother" said at the end of WoR was her 3rd Ideal and ever since then she used Pattern as a Shardblade. 

I disagree with the premise that there are separate tracks. @Jofwu did a good job laying out one reason here, TL;DR it doesn't make sense for any other order. If Kaladin bonds a second honorspren, does have to stop protecting some group so he can swear a new Third Ideal about them? Except wait, wouldn't that just break his bond to Syl? It requires saying a bond to a Cryptic is fundamentally different from a bond to the other spren.

Beyond that, we know squires can swear Ideals to their Knight and then have them automatically carry over when they bond a spren. In fact, Skybreaker acolytes swear their First Ideal to literally nothing yet it still counts! This implies that the target of the oath doesn't matter, only that it's been made, which would suggest if you bond two spren of the same kind then oaths should count for both. Plus, Shallan never swore the First Ideal to Pattern—this is an inconsistency if you assume the bonds have separate "levels", but makes perfect sense if they share the same "level" because it simply carried over from when she swore it as a child (now that she's returned to living it out again).

[alder24]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

I still have to think it depends on the Shards in question. We saw in MB:SH that when Kelsier first tried to pick up Preservation, it resisted him because of his clear Connection (by nature) to Ruin, which "it didn't like at all".

What stops a Shard from brute forcing Connection to a new Shard, creating their own Connection Orb? Or maybe their shared Connection to Adonalsium is enough to allow them to pick up other Shards? It wasn't the only WoB in which Brandon talks about Odium and Rayse's unwillingness to pick up a Shard, so I think Shards can do it, Rayse just didn't want to because it would change him. Ruin and Preservation were a very unique case where powers were in conflict for so long that they polarized.

Spoiler

Questioner

You've mentioned before that Odium is scared of Harmony. Is it only because of the raw power of the two Shards? Or is he scared of what Harmony represents? (Meaning the possibility of merging two Shards.) Was he aware that this was possible?

Brandon Sanderson

He, on one level, was aware. But it was more of awareness of this as a possibility. It actually happening is part of what has him scared. It's the idea of the two merging Shards both being more powerful and finding a harmony. (Which Sazed is actually having way more trouble doing than Odium realizes.) Those two things really have Odium scared. Because, partially, this means he has to find a way to destroy or split Harmony without taking up a second Shard himself, because Odium knows if he takes up a second Shard, terrible things will happen. And so he doesn't want to do that. (Terrible things as he views them.) And so he's gotta find a way to split this apart, or somehow otherwise defeat.

Now, the more he learns about Sazed's actual state, the less afraid he'll probably be. But that's an advantage that Sazed has right now.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Argent (paraphrased)

Ruin and Preservation were often represented in the Mistborn trilogy in terms of black and white. Is this imagery limited to that series, or do other Shards also have an associated hue?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This (Ruin & Preservation's colors) was because of the specific world and their perception of the world and themselves. Essentially, because of the dynamics of the interplay between Ruin and Preservation, they "chose" to view themselves as black and white respectively, so that's how they were represented. Also, because the only two Shards on Scadrial, and their natures were opposites, after the long period of time they spent on the same planet, they kind of "polarized." If similar thing happened on another world, similar coloring effect could happen.

Steelheart Chicago signing (Oct. 1, 2013)

By the WoB further below, it's specifically Rayse who made Odium afraid of being changed, I think Taravangian is different enough to accept Odium changing into something else, thus combining it with other Shards will be his goal. Taravangian already separates himself from the power, so for him it doesn't really matter if the power will change, because he won't be affected by it that much.

 

23 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

I suspected desire to destroy all other shards is built into the shard, not the vessel. That’s why each vessel find some reason to do it.

I think you're onto something, but it's not a desire to destroy other Shards, it's selfishness - Odium is by nature selfish so it will always push their Vessel to become the only god.

Spoiler

Autarchk

If I can ask a question, I just read the Mistborn trilogy and, were Preservation and Ruin two different shards or a single one with their power split somehow? If they were two shards, does that mean a single person can hold more than one, since Harmony apparently holds both now?

Brandon Sanderson

They were two shards.

Yes, one entity can hold more than one. Remember that holding a shard changes you, over time. Rayse knows this, and prefers to leave behind destroyed rivals as opposed to taking their power and potentially being overwhelmed by it.

Nepene

I have a question, if you are willing. Would Ruin be more compatible with Rayse, would he pick up that shard had he visited Scadrial and shattered him? All the shards we have seen that he has shattered seem rather different in intent than him- Honor, Cultivation, Love, Dominion. But Ruin seems more in line with Odium. Rayse has ruined the days of quite a few people.

Brandon Sanderson

Technically, Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation. Ruin's 'theme' so to speak is that all things must age and pass. An embodiment of entropy. That power, separated from the whole and being held by a person who did not have the willpower to resist its transformation of him, led to something very dangerous. But it was not evil. None of the sixteen technically are, though you may have read that Hoid has specific beef with Rayse. Whether you think of Odium as evil depends upon how much you agree with Hoid's particular view.

That said, Ruin would have been one of the 'safer' of the sixteen for Rayse to take, if he'd been about that. Odium is by its nature selfish, however, and the combination of it and Rayse makes for an entity that fears an additional power would destroy it and make it into something else.

General Reddit 2013 (March 14, 2013)

[+robardin he/him]

Those are some mighty good WoBs to have dug up there @alder24

[alder24]

12 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I disagree with the premise that there are separate tracks. @Jofwu did a good job laying out one reason here, TL;DR it doesn't make sense for any other order. If Kaladin bonds a second honorspren, does have to stop protecting some group so he can swear a new Third Ideal about them? Except wait, wouldn't that just break his bond to Syl? It requires saying a bond to a Cryptic is fundamentally different from a bond to the other spren.

I'm gonna read that later, thanks. If Kaladin were to bond another Honorspren, he would be able to say all 4 Ideals at once, because he already is living by them (there was a WoB about it, that it's possible to bond and be ready to swear all the way up to 5th Ideal, can't find it now). Shallan however doesn't just bond another Cryptic, she's bonded with a Deadeye - she has to re-swear her broken Oaths to revive Testament. Shallan's situation is just vastly different than if someone were to try to bond another living spren. She broke her bond, she broke her Oaths and Truths.

Spoiler

Questioner

The dead Shardblades, could you possibly get Stormlight into them to reawaken them?

Brandon Sanderson

Dead Shardblade, could you pump enough Stormlight into them? That alone would not be enough.

Questioner

So you would have to find someone to re-swear with oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something broken on the Spiritual Realm because of the broken oath and simple Stormlight will not fix that.

Questioner

So say--

Brandon Sanderson

If the person were still alive and could re-swear the oath then yes.:

Questioner

But someone like [...] could go [...] the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not outside of reason but it would be very, very, very difficult.

Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

 

26 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Shallan never swore the First Ideal to Pattern

Just like Kaladin, Dalinar, Eshonai and maybe even Lift - they never said the First Ideal before they were able to use Stormlight. Dalinar remembered using Stormlight before swearing his Oaths, Kaladin was obviously using Stormlight and Reverse Lashing before Teft told him about the First Ideal, Eshonai never said the First and Second Ideal - she couldn't say the Second Ideal because he was underwater, she said it in her mind and most importantly she died embodying it. We've never seen any of them saying the First Ideal before using their powers for the first time. 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

19 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If Kaladin were to bond another Honorspren, he would be able to say all 4 Ideals at once, because he already is living by them (there was a WoB about it, that it's possible to bond and be ready to swear all the way up to 5th Ideal, can't find it now).

Okay at least we agree about that part lol, makes discussion easier.

14 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Shallan however doesn't just bond another Cryptic, she's bonded with a Deadeye - she has to re-swear her broken Oaths to revive Testament.

In that WoB, what Brandon says about the complexity is that she's kind of progressing 1.1 steps and regressing 1 step a lot, not necessarily that she's got two whole separate sets of oaths tracking separately. Also, again, she's lying in the oath about her mother—would that really fully count as a truth? I think it was a necessary step but not the whole deal, and that's why the math is weird.

3 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Dalinar remembered using Stormlight before swearing his Oaths, Kaladin was obviously using Stormlight and Reverse Lashing before Teft told him about the First Ideal

I don't mean saying it before using powers, I mean Shallan never says it in the modern day at all.

Side note: Shallan seems to get a burst of Light when swearing her Ideal this book, even though we haven't seen that with her before. Perhaps she got it for her truths in Book 1 but used it all up immediately to transition to Shadesmar? That would then support my idea that none of the other things she said in between have been fully Ideals on their own, since we don't see a similar burst of Light for any of them, but that is adding a layer of speculation to things.

[Elder]

I’m hanging up on Tarevangian’s exploitation of loopholes.  Wit says Rayse wouldn’t and couldn’t because he promised not to.
 

Spoiler

“Yes,” Wit said. “And that’s why I’m an idiot. Not because I missed the intricacies of the legal code—but because this isn’t something that Rayse could ever do. It’s not only against his nature, it’s something he promised he would not do. Even without a formal covenant, a god cannot break that kind of promise without dire consequences.”

Shouldn’t Tarevangian still be bound by that?  Or is Tarevangian just too new to be afraid of the “dire consequences”? Like Vin, able to overcome Preservations Intent and kill Ati by virtue of being new to her power?  Or is he counting on the dire consequences?  Does Tarevangian not necessarily care if he survives this (which would make him even more like Vin)?

 

 

[Rorzikel]

5 minutes ago, Elder said:

I’m hanging up on Tarevangian’s exploitation of loopholes.  Wit says Rayse wouldn’t and couldn’t because he promised not to.
 

  Hide contents

 

“Yes,” Wit said. “And that’s why I’m an idiot. Not because I missed the intricacies of the legal code—but because this isn’t something that Rayse could ever do. It’s not only against his nature, it’s something he promised he would not do. Even without a formal covenant, a god cannot break that kind of promise without dire consequences.”

Shouldn’t Tarevangian still be bound by that?  Or is Tarevangian just too new to be afraid of the “dire consequences”? Like Vin, able to overcome Preservations Intent and kill Ati by virtue of being new to her power?  Or is he counting on the dire consequences?  Does Tarevangian not necessarily care if he survives this (which would make him even more like Vin)?

 

 

Wit makes the distinction that the promise was not a formal covenant (somehow) compared to the oath. It would seem that only formal covenants carry over from vessel to vessel. I'm not sure what distinguishes something in the negotiations being included in said covenant versus being only a promise, but this is my read.

[Elder]

57 minutes ago, Rorzikel said:

Wit makes the distinction that the promise was not a formal covenant (somehow) compared to the oath. It would seem that only formal covenants carry over from vessel to vessel. I'm not sure what distinguishes something in the negotiations being included in said covenant versus being only a promise, but this is my read.

Maybe, but Wit makes that distinction pointing out that even breaking an informal promise carries dire consequences.  Though, in the interludes, Cultivation does point out that formal oaths are particularly binding, so you may be right. 

Spoiler

“You are forbidden,” Cultivation said, “from taking direct action against any who are not fully given to you.”

“Because of the pact my predecessor made,” he spat. “I can break it.”

“In so doing, you would be vulnerable to outside attack,” she said. “The powers bind us to our promises, particularly those made and sealed with a formal oath.” She crouched by him.

 

I think it more likely that we’re seeing what we’ve already seen with Rashek, Vin and even Sazed: gods make mistakes with their powers early on.  

Moreso, I think that Tarevangian is being particularly reckless with his power.  He is fighting to not become Odium, to not become fully integrated with it, perhaps not completely bound by it. Which I think is why he feels he can play fast and loose with the rules.

Spoiler

 

The divided one knelt, and let himself feel. He was not Odium. He held Odium. He would notlet it rule.

He was not Odium.

He was Taravangian.

 

Which may be the fatal flaw in his plan. If Tarevangian doesn’t fully integrate with his power, someone like Dalinar, Adolin, or even Kaladin, Szeth or Moash could take it from him, being more attuned to Odium. It wouldn’t be easy, but I think he’s leaving himself vulnerable.

Edited 4 hours ago by Elder