How Well Did We Predict Wind & Truth, Based Only on Cosmerelists Posts?
[Obviously, big BIG spoilers for Wind & Truth in this post!!!]
[If you're tagged in this post, it means that you said something interesting in one of my prediction polls, so I'm REALLY sorry if I tagged you but you haven't read the book yet--I'd still recommend waiting until you finish reading it to take a look at what I said about you sorry]
In the runup to Wind & Truth, I published a number of prediction posts & polls trying to guess what would happen. Now it's time to step back and assess how I -- and all of you, via the polls -- did!
1. The Length of WAT (This entry is NOT a spoiler)
Before I get to the actual predictions, shout out to @gekho who used math to accurately predict the length of this book! In my post about Cosmere-themed math problems, I had one asking people to use the previous books to predict the length of Wind and Truth. I didn't think it was actually solvable, but gekho used a graphing program and came up with 1360 plus or minus 45 as the result....and the actual length was 1344! Holy shit!
2. The Windrunner Fifth Ideal
In this post/poll, we tried to guess what the Windrunner Fifth Ideal would be. In the poll, two answers were tied for first place with 19.9% of the vote: "I will protect what is right" and "I will protect more than people's lives." In those guesses, we were...quite wrong! The actual ideal was "I will protect myself so that I can protect others." The closest option offered was "I will protect everyone, including myself," which was the second post popular guess at 15.7%.
3. My Wife Tries to Predict the End
In this post, my wife, who has read 0% of any Sanderson, tried to predict what the ultimate fates of Kaladin, Adolin, Shallan, and Szeth would be.
She guessed that Kaladin would die, and in that, she was wrong! He's immortal, even. Everyone just...thinks...that he's dead... :(
She got Shallan correct, saying that she would merge personalities! RIP Radiant.
She also got Adolin correct, guessing that Adolin would "have a power with his buddy" (=get some sort of special ability with Maya) and that Maya "wouldn't scream too much." And yeah! Adolin & Maya are now the super cool Unoathed Squad, and Maya now talks.
But she failed to predict Szeth's fate, predicting that he would become a Worldhopper when in fact he...just settled down and got married. I don't think any of us saw THAT coming.
In this post/poll, we tried to guess who would pick up the Shard of Honor. The number one choice was Kaladin, with 32.5% of the vote, so we sure got that one wrong. BUT Dalinar was second with 21.3% of the vote, and he did hold it for a hot second, so I think it counts. Sadly, the most correct choice, Taravangian, was not on the poll because who the hell would guess that. ...Other than @godless-of-the-hunt who friggin' NAILED it and guessed EXACTLY that in the tags, and @violet-snail-sfw who agreed.
5. Dalinar Not Being Homophobic
In this passionate post, I argued that when Renarin & Rlain got together, Dalinar would NOT respond homophobically. And in the end...he died before he ever found out they were dating so....
I still think I (would have been) right. As a final piece of evidence, we discovered that Renarin was worried about Navani's reaction. That's...something? I guess?
In this post/poll, we tried to guess who the third Bondsmith candidate would be. As it turned out, we still don't know...and maybe there won't ever be one, now. The top guess, with 16%, was "Someone who is currently a child, like Gavinor or Shallan's future kid," but since this didn't actually happen, I'll call this a bust.
7. General WAT Predictions
In this post, I just threw stuff at the wall. Honestly, I didn't do too bad! Let's do it rapid-fire:
Shallan getting pregnant: WELL, it depends on whether anyone else is reading too much into her "clutching her stomach" at the very, very end, two months after her shower sex with Adolin.
Rlain & Renarin getting together: Hell yeah.
Kaladin swearing the fifth ideal: Hell yeah.
Szeith wearing the fifth ideal: Hell yeah.
Adolin healing Maya & becoming an Edgedancer: Nope. But what actually happened was cooler
Finding out the truth about the Recreance: Yes! Finally
Kandra shows up: I mean, *I* didn't notice any
Someone bonding the Nightwatcher: Nope. :( Should have been Leshwi :( :(
In this poll/post, we tried to guess Kaladin's fate but, uh, the actual answer was not an option, as I did not guess that he would become a Herald. The top answer is kind of correct, though: with 31.9% of the vote, the top answer was that Kaladin would simply live and be in Arc 2. Which does TECHNICALLY count, I think!
However, shout out to the people who predicted the whole Herald thing, @actual22plus and @lexiwhatwegot!
In this post/poll, we tried to predict the outcome of the duel. The top answer with 37.2% of the vote was that Dalinar wouldn't actually be the champion at all. So we were wrong about that. But, like, my basic choices were "win," "lose," "tie" or "no duel" -- I didn't predict that Dalinar would break the terms of the Contest of Champion themselves, bond Honor, break his oaths, and die immediately. How could I have been so foolish.
10. Who will be Odium's Champion?
Honestly, we nailed this one. The top guess, with 18.6% of the vote, was that Odium's Champion would be "baby Gavinor." And, okay, it wasn't actually a toddler holding a sword and crying like I expected, but it WAS Gavinor, so. We got it.
11. And finally....That Travel Games Post
This one wasn't even meant to be a serious prediction post, guys...and it started going around again pretty much as soon as Wind and Truth came out...and I just feel SO bad...for making a joke about Szeth having a pet sheep named Sweep, and then Szeth really did have a pet sheep which he saw get murdered and eaten and it was so traumatic....
That joke really did not age well. Sorry, Szeth...
