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I think Hoid might be evil but I can't quite figure out why.


Datan Nomlibash

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Okay not "evil" evil, but I sometimes get that he is potencialy an antogonist but "evil" is so much eisier to type on a touch screen.

For a while now I have suspected that Hoid is evil, mostly because if I was an author and was trying to hide a villan I would make them witty and charming and friends with protagonists. Of course he really might be that and I'm more paranoid than Vin but it's something to keep in mind.

The closest I have come to a semi coherant theory is the list below which is mostly circumstancial.

1: All of the cosmere books besides maybe Emperor's Soul and some of the ebook only ones have an "ars arcanum" in the back, further more the arcanum seems to be written by someone in world and that they are an outsider as far as I can tell, it is also known that Hoid is a world hopper and would see things by an outsiders view.

2: The entry on hemalurgy describes it as being one of the most potentially usefull arts in the cosmere, WOB has stated that hemalurgy can steal more than just mistborn magic.

3: At the end of the Elantris 10th anniversary (I am taking this on word of mouth since I mavent read it myself... yet.) It has

Spiolers++++++++++++++++++ until I figure out how to do it the official way.

Hoid talking to a Skaze about a deal he had with it and how that deal fell through since he didn't get what he wanted. To become an elantrian. Also Hoid is wearing bandages. Why would he be wearing bandages? See point 2.

End of spiolers+++++++++++++

MINOR POINT 4: Hoids old buddies seem to be at odds with him (the letter) and the seventeenth shard is looking for him, a group which includes demoux and galladon. What are thier reasons?

Thays all of the theory that I currently have. I might have more to add at a later time period after some rereading. Also I don't think hoid is really evil, I just wonder if he will be an antagonist at some point.

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The person who writes Ars Arcanum is NOT Hoid, there is WoB on this.

Somebody who is a villain doesn't say things like

And while I am your friend, please understand that our goals do not completely align. You must not trust yourself with me. If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so. With tears, yes, but I would let it happen


He may be many things, but he is definitely trying to do something good.

Edit: Ninja'd by Voidus. Oh, it's the first time I was ninja'd, kind of a milestone of being a Sharder, isn't it?
Is it really confirmed that it's Khriss?

Edited by Oversleep
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The person who writes Ars Arcanum is NOT Hoid, there is WoB on this.

Somebody who is a villain doesn't say things like

He may be many things, but he is definitely trying to do something good.

Edit: Ninja'd by Voidus. Oh, it's the first time I was ninja'd, kind of a milestone of being a Sharder, isn't it?

Is it really confirmed that it's Khriss?

Tis indeed something of a milestone, the next milestone is whether or not you can be meta-ninja'd by someone above you suddenly diverting the conversation to ninjas a scant few seconds before you do :P

I don't think we have absolute confirmation but it's pretty much guaranteed at this point.

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one of the planned cosmere series still to write is about hoid. brandon wrote, like, 100 pages of the first book, then set it aside because he felt it wasn't working. Also, he now has to finish all the other cosmere before he can reveal hoid's backstory.

 

But! those 100 pages are available to read (i don't remember where i found them, or I'd post the link; but surely someone else will). I read them, and hoid is certainly not a villain.

 

Though, while he is not a villain in the common sense, he may still end up opposing the protagonist of some book to get his goals. Well, he already did actually. In the emperor's soul, he framed I-forgot-her-name while he stole the thing that she was after.

 

While hoid  is a good person, he views the various people in the various worlds as simple pawns to his (unknown) plans. I suppose it would be a common side effect of being tens of thousands of years old and dealing with powers that shape the cosmos on a regular base.

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Lets find things that support your theory:

Hoid is probably trying to put Adonalsium back together, that may make the other planets less invested and rob them of their magic.

Galladon and Demoux are chasing him, now neither are paragons of goodness, but apparently they see some danger in what he is trying to do, enough that they have to cross time and space to stop him.

He set up Shai to be captured, jerk.

 

 

Hoid is probably an anti-hero of some kind. We dont know his motivations other than making fun of people yet.

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Lets find things that support your theory:

Hoid is probably trying to put Adonalsium back together, that may make the other planets less invested and rob them of their magic.

Galladon and Demoux are chasing him, now neither are paragons of goodness, but apparently they see some danger in what he is trying to do, enough that they have to cross time and space to stop him.

He set up Shai to be captured, jerk.

 

 

Hoid is probably an anti-hero of some kind. We dont know his motivations other than making fun of people yet.

Does he need any other motivations? I've always thought he was only trying to put Adonalsium back together in order to have an immortal who owed him a favor so he could just sit around making jokes all the time.

Or to try to Ascend so that he can make fun of EVERYONE!

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Thousands of years old, but he hasn't lived all of those years. He has regenerative abilities, at least 300 breaths, some form of Feruchemy, Allomancy, and Yolish Lightweaving. We know because of the excerpt in the Elantris 10th anniversary that

He failed to become an Elantrian.

Hoid was present at the Shattering, and is effectively immortal. In the letter, it is implied that he somehow gained his immortality rather than being born with it. However, WoB states he does not use Hemalurgy.

Also, he has that staff that lets you translate Aons and other Elantrian magic. But I don't think we know where The Emperor's Soul sits in the sequence yet.

Edited by khyrindor
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Hoid seems most like the Chessmaster, not evil but not conventionally good either, something of an antihero.

I think this is probably the best description of Hoid we have so far. He definitely prefers to work behind the scenes and is willing to manipulate people to meet his own goals. But I certainly wouldn't call him evil.
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Brandon has said Hoid will be a main character in the 4th era mistborn trilogy. I sincerely hope he's not an antagonist, but it is entirely possible. It's also possible he will be a Kelsier type figure, by that I mean he could be either protagonist or antagonist, depending on how you look at it.

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For posterity to this thread, relevant WoBs:
 

Hoid does not use Hemalurgy:

 

Interview: Jan 17th, 2015Question
Aha! Yes! Uh, ok, second thing. My brother and I have been debating about Hoid and how he got his abilities. We have a couple theories. One of them is Hemalurgy.
Brandon Sanderson

Ok…

Question

The other has to do with the portals into the worlds themselves, because the birds in Sixth of Dusk-

Brandon Sanderson

Ok, he does not have Hemalurgy. He has powers that predate the Shattering of Adonalsium. Not all of his powers predate, but he does have powers that predate.

 


 
Hoid's Age:

 

Interview: Aug 31st, 2011
Reddit AMA 2011 (Verbatim)
Eric Lake ()
Can Hoid jump through time? If so, can Shards jump through time?
Brandon Sanderson
Hoid, so far, has only moved forward in time. He has not 'lived' all of those years, but has used some time dilation techniques. That said, he is far older (both in relative and real time) than a normal person can live.

 

Edited by Iron Eyes
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  • 3 weeks later...

Brandon has said Hoid will be a main character in the 4th era mistborn trilogy. I sincerely hope he's not an antagonist, but it is entirely possible. It's also possible he will be a Kelsier type figure, by that I mean he could be either protagonist or antagonist, depending on how you look at it.

 

I always hear Obiwan in the back of my mind when I read Hoid. What he's saying is true...from a certain point of view. Most "Evil" people are the hero of their own story.

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Brandon has said Hoid will be a main character in the 4th era mistborn trilogy. I sincerely hope he's not an antagonist, but it is entirely possible. It's also possible he will be a Kelsier type figure, by that I mean he could be either protagonist or antagonist, depending on how you look at it.

 

Sorry but, do you have a source on this? Somehow it's the first I've heard of it and I'd love to see where it came from.

 

I agree with the thought process being passed around that basically no, Hoid's not evil, but very very well may be the antagonist. As already mentioned, he's outright said he'll do whatever it takes to reach his goals and since no one knows what those goals are, things could really go either way. It's rare that people see their own goals as villainous.

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Honestly, I'm hoping for something of an antagonist role for Hoid! I think he would make a really interesting villain. What's killing me is wanting to know his motives uGH--

 

Also, never forget how uneasy Hoid made Vin feel. I dunno about you guys, but I trust Vin Instincts™ and when my girl won't even get near someone (literally runs the other way) me thinks that's some kind of heavy hinting/foreshadowing. 

 

BUT who knows! Maybe I'm just too suspicious of Sanderson details.

Edited by Guru
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Sorry but, do you have a source on this? Somehow it's the first I've heard of it and I'd love to see where it came from.

 

I agree with the thought process being passed around that basically no, Hoid's not evil, but very very well may be the antagonist. As already mentioned, he's outright said he'll do whatever it takes to reach his goals and since no one knows what those goals are, things could really go either way. It's rare that people see their own goals as villainous.

Question

When will we see a Hoid book?

Brandon Sanderson

It’ll be a little while. He’s playing around with things in the Stormlight Archive if you couldn’t tell, he’s decided to—Hoid is fiddling with things, more than he usually does. But Hoid as a major part of things doesn’t really show up till the third Mistborn trilogy, which is the outer space Mistborn, the sci-fi Mistborn.

If you didn’t know, Mistborn was pitched to my editor as a trilogy of trilogies. I told him I wanted to do a trilogy of epic fantasy books, then the same world in a modern setting, which we’re not to yet, but it’s going to be Allomancers in the 21st century-equivalent technology. It’s an urban fantasy series. Then I wanted to do a Science Fiction series in the same world, using the Epic Fantasy world as kind of a mythology to this new world, and the magic system becoming the means of Space Travel.

MEMBER OF AUDIENCE

Whaaa?!

BRANDON SANDERSON

And so that’s how I pitched Mistborn to my editor.

Alloy of Law is actually a deviation from that, because I didn’t want people to forget about Mistborn, I wanted them to keep reading Mistborn, so I wanted them to keep releasing things, and we’ll eventually get to that second trilogy—

Hey there you are Mark! I heard you got number one.

MARK

Yep.

BRANDON SANDERSON

You’re crazy (laughter). You’re awesome though. He even beat the 17thshard people, which is really a hard thing to do. (oohs and aahs) Two hours. Beat them by two hours.

So Alloy of Law I wanted to set up things for the second trilogy. I didn’t want to do the second trilogy yet, because the second trilogy, like the first trilogy is kind of bigger books, with a very involved storyline evolved across three books, and I didn’t want to be releasing that parallel to Stormlight Archive, which is the same sort of thing. Very evolved books where you tie a lot of things together, and so I wanted a series of Mistborn novels that were more independent.

Alloy of Law is intended to be a “read it, have fun.” Eventually I may end up doing more with those characters, but when I do, you won’t have to remember that much about this one. It’s not like you have to remember a cast of 500 characters. You can just keep track of the main characters. They’re more of an episodic adventure. I kind of imagine Alloy of Law being—I’m not totally sure how to describe it. It’s like you have the giant movie that comes out, and then you have a TV show that’s based off of it, and then another big movie series, or something like that, if that makes any sense.

So that’s what Alloy of Law is. So Hoid is very involved in the third Mistborn trilogy, he’s also very involved in Dragonsteel, which is actually the first book in the sequence, long before Elantris happened. So eventually I will tell that story. You can read a draft of it at the BYU library. It’s the only copy that I know of in existence. It’s almost always checked out. It’s my Honors thesis, and it’s not very good. It really is not very good, but basically it’s involving the ideas that eventually will become Dragonsteel once I write it again. But I stole the Shattered Plains and put them in Roshar instead because the fit better there.

(source)

Question

When are we going to get Hoid’s book?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid has 6 books, they are the 3 books of Dragonsteel, which are prequels and the last Mistborn trilogy of the nine book arc will have him as a main character.

(source)

Edited by yurisses
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