Trell is Odium - The Sign of the "Red Eyes"

[cometaryorbit]

Maybe so, but given that Rashek - who started as an uneducated shepherd or bearer in an early 1800s tech or below society - figured out enough to genetically engineer ash-eating bacteria in a few minutes or less while holding only a portion of a Shard's power, I'm not sure how much would be left to learn after 300 years.

Now, we know other forces are working to limit Harmony's knowledge of the wider Cosmere, but I don't think that would keep him from learning how to use his own powers on his 'home ground'. It might well limit his ability to counterattack, though.

[Spoolofwhool]

10 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Maybe so, but given that Rashek - who started as an uneducated shepherd or bearer in an early 1800s tech or below society - figured out enough to genetically engineer ash-eating bacteria in a few minutes or less while holding only a portion of a Shard's power, I'm not sure how much would be left to learn after 300 years.

Now, we know other forces are working to limit Harmony's knowledge of the wider Cosmere, but I don't think that would keep him from learning how to use his own powers on his 'home ground'. It might well limit his ability to counterattack, though.

True. Hard to say either way. It's possible that manipulation of spiritual and cognitive powers are more complicated than physical, which is mainly what Rashek dealt with. Also, it could be a matter of experience. Just because Harmony has the power doesn't mean he understands the specific extents of it, of what he can do and can precisely achieve desired effects.

[Yata]

15 hours ago, PallonianFire said:

I still think the Threnodites moved to Threnody through the CR after Odium splintered the Shard on whatever world they came from, and the Investiture they used for the big move is plugging up the CR now/making the Shades phenomenon happen. Can't wait for Khriss' intro in AU, since Brandon hinted that it'll give us some answers about that when I told him my theory.

But the timeline doesn't fit in this way.

The movement from Homeland to Hell is quite recent histoy (three generations) and Odium is bound on Roshar for at least 4500 years. Of course is possible (timeline speaking) that Odium would be free in the end of SA5, flee from Great Roshar System and become "the Evil" but for the Shades....we have a reference to them in a timeframe when Odium was still kept in Great Roshar (during the Hero of The Ages's years to be more clear).

This mean that the Shades predate the Homeland's Evil

PS: Those kind of timeline problems destroyed my own theory on "the Evil"

Edited November 3, 2016 by Yata

[theuntaintedchild]

18 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

True, but Brandon's description of Minor Shardworlds seems to imply that Threnody was just created with some ambient investiture giving rise to shades. Also, in another one, he said that what is occurring on Threnody is non-shard based. 

Argh...There's so many of these to keep track of. XD Okay so it's non-shard based. So we've got to start asking ourselves what could cause a disconnect with the spiritual realm other than the shards. Maybe it's some sort of technology intended to mimic a shard's power. Like a fabrial gone out of control. Or maybe it's environmental like on Sel. Maybe something is blocking the path to the spiritual realm. 

[PallonianFire]

7 hours ago, Yata said:

But the timeline doesn't fit in this way.

The movement from Homeland to Hell is quite recent histoy (three generations) and Odium is bound on Roshar for at least 4500 years. Of course is possible (timeline speaking) that Odium would be free in the end of SA5, flee from Great Roshar System and become "the Evil" but for the Shades....we have a reference to them in a timeframe when Odium was still kept in Great Roshar (during the Hero of The Ages's years to be more clear).

This mean that the Shades predate the Homeland's Evil

I don't mean the move from continent to continent. I mean that, in the distant past, I think people migrated to Threnody after Odium killed their Shard.

[Pagerunner]

16 minutes ago, PallonianFire said:

I don't mean the move from continent to continent. I mean that, in the distant past, I think people migrated to Threnody after Odium killed their Shard.

Wait, do you view Odium's destruction of this hypothetical Shard as a separate incident entirely than the Evil's destruction of Homeland? Where do you see this first migration in the text? We get info on the destruction of and exodus from Homeland, but I don't recall anything about what came before.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Pagerunner

[PallonianFire]

I see it mostly as a catalyst for colonization for a planet that didn't have a Shard to create life, plus an explanation for the Cognitive Realm blockup (and a reason why Threnody is named Threnody).

[Spoolofwhool]

4 minutes ago, PallonianFire said:

I see it mostly as a catalyst for colonization for a planet that didn't have a Shard to create life, plus an explanation for the Cognitive Realm blockup (and a reason why Threnody is named Threnody).

The effect of Shades on Threnody was not as a result of a shard's power though. It has been described more as a natural effect owing to ambient investiture from its creation.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Toaster Retribution]

Mistborn Era 2 is after Stormlight 5 timeline-wise, correct. Then, all Odium stuff would depend pretty much in how far Kaladin & co has come in wiping the Shattered Plains with him. He might be free. If so, he is probably trying to take over Roshar. That seems to be something he wants rather badly.

So I'd say that if Odium is at Scadrial, it will mean the Rosharans gave him good enough a beating for him to decide that a short vacation is good for keeping spirits up. In other words, he is scared away by the end of SA5, and then leaves Roshar. Maybe he needs something from Scadrial in order to prep a new attack, for SA6-10. 

If Odium is not defeated at the end of SA5, I find it wierd that he would just decide to abandon the Roshar business he has been up to for (intsert a number with many zeroes after) years, and take a trip to Scadrial. So if Odium is on Scadrial, he probably got bested on Roshar, and probably needs Harmonys swagbag or something similar to beat the Rosharans.

Why Bavadin though? What has he done for getting the reputation of being a violent douche probe to attacking others?

[Pagerunner]

26 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

Mistborn Era 2 is after Stormlight 5 timeline-wise, correct. Then, all Odium stuff would depend pretty much in how far Kaladin & co has come in wiping the Shattered Plains with him. He might be free. If so, he is probably trying to take over Roshar. That seems to be something he wants rather badly.

So I'd say that if Odium is at Scadrial, it will mean the Rosharans gave him good enough a beating for him to decide that a short vacation is good for keeping spirits up. In other words, he is scared away by the end of SA5, and then leaves Roshar. Maybe he needs something from Scadrial in order to prep a new attack, for SA6-10. 

If Odium is not defeated at the end of SA5, I find it wierd that he would just decide to abandon the Roshar business he has been up to for (intsert a number with many zeroes after) years, and take a trip to Scadrial. So if Odium is on Scadrial, he probably got bested on Roshar, and probably needs Harmonys swagbag or something similar to beat the Rosharans.

Why Bavadin though? What has he done for getting the reputation of being a violent douche probe to attacking others?

That's quite a bit of speculation as to Odiuim's intentions. You think he's trying to take over Roshar - I think he's trying to kill Shards. Honor had him trapped there so he couldn't kill any others, dragging him into a land war, but then Honor died. If Odium manages to take out Cultivation and free himself from whatever is trapping him in the Roshar system (i.e. winning the war), then why wouldn't Harmony be his next target?

Bavadin is thought to be in league with Odium because Hoid, in the First Letter, mentions holding a grudge against both of them. Many people infer that Autonomy and Odium are in league to destroy the other Shards because of their two Intents (although that itself involves a lot of speculation as to what exactly Autonomy means).

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Chull #445 said:

Why Bavadin though? What has he done for getting the reputation of being a violent douche probe to attacking others?

Because the metal Bleeder's spikes were made from was from a shard we are aware of and Autonomy is the only other shard we're aware of which we think could be there to influence events, other than Odium. 

[Toaster Retribution]

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

That's quite a bit of speculation as to Odiuim's intentions. You think he's trying to take over Roshar - I think he's trying to kill Shards. Honor had him trapped there so he couldn't kill any others, dragging him into a land war, but then Honor died. If Odium manages to take out Cultivation and free himself from whatever is trapping him in the Roshar system (i.e. winning the war), then why wouldn't Harmony be his next target?

Bavadin is thought to be in league with Odium because Hoid, in the First Letter, mentions holding a grudge against both of them. Many people infer that Autonomy and Odium are in league to destroy the other Shards because of their two Intents (although that itself involves a lot of speculation as to what exactly Autonomy means).

Who is the villain of SA6-10 if Odium just leaves for Scadrial without intentions of returning after SA5 though? Another shard? That would feel a bit cheap, unless it was a threat created directly by Odium.

Hoid disliking Bavadin sounds weak to me, but whatever. The Intents could work though.

[Spoolofwhool]

6 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

Who is the villain of SA6-10 if Odium just leaves for Scadrial without intentions of returning after SA5 though? Another shard? That would feel a bit cheap, unless it was a threat created directly by Odium.

Hoid disliking Bavadin sounds weak to me, but whatever. The Intents could work though.

It's really just speculation at this point. As this theory requires, there is a possibility that Odium wins at the end of SA5 or in some other way is freed from the bindings and goes to Scadrial. However, as you say, then there would need to be a change of villains in SA6-10. The other main possibility is Autonomy, though despite the reasonings, there does seem little probability for that, so really, we don't have anything firm since we don't know much. Hopefully Lost Metal will give us some better leads.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

My wariness in regards to reading too much into the red eyes being indicative of Odium's presence is that Brandon has a big Unifying Theory of everything in regards to magic and Shards and Investiture. And while we're still far from understanding just what that is and how everything works and connects together, my point is that we've seen (and been told by Brandon) many many times that there are reasons that so many different magic systems, all born from different sources, end up accomplishing a lot of the same effects, or working in a lot of the same ways. For instance, we know Lightweaving is a Yolish magic that predates the Shattering.....but we also know that it works similarly to the Illumination Surge on Roshar, which stems from the interaction of the Shards on Roshar. We know that the smoking effect created when a Shardblade from Roshar kills someone is similar to the effect created when Nightblood consumes Investiture, and that there are similar things happening in the Spiritual Realm in each instance.....just like we know that Nightblood's creation was inspired by the Roshar Shardblades. Yet Shardblades and Nightblood stem from completely different Shards and Investiture and aren't actually the same thing. They just create certain similar effects because of underlying realmatic mechanics we don't fully understand yet. As Brandon's put it, there are various ways to achieve the same ends in the cosmere, but they all follow the same underlying principles, so a lot of similarities appear.

So while I definitely agree that the red eyes are indicative of another Shard's influence.....I don't agree that by default that means that influence is more likely to be Odium's, just because that's where we've seen a phenomenon most like this so far. Personally, I think its far more likely that its just a similarity born from the underlying mechanics of the cosmere....that this is what happens/what it looks like when something in the cosmere is infected or corrupted on a Spiritual level by a negative Shard's investiture.

Edited November 5, 2016 by ROSHtaFARian2.0

[The Ninja Yodeler]

On 11/2/2016 at 6:35 PM, Jondesu said:

 

I think perhaps what @The Ninja Yodeler was suggesting is that the fact that it's red is due to Sazed choosing to depict it that way, not anything inherent about that force itself. That would seem to reduce the chances that we'd find a connection behind the red haze and other red things representing Shards (correct me if I'm wrong, Ninja).

That is exactly what I was suggesting.

[JUQ]

On 11/5/2016 at 8:53 AM, Pagerunner said:

why wouldn't Harmony be his next target?

Mainly because Harmony is stronger than him. I mean, if you were the big mean kid in the middle school playground that steals everyone's lunch money, would you go after the twins that are both as big as you? 

[Pagerunner]

3 hours ago, JUQ said:

Mainly because Harmony is stronger than him. I mean, if you were the big mean kid in the middle school playground that steals everyone's lunch money, would you go after the twins that are both as big as you? 

Odium isn't picking up any additional Shards. Harmony is a relatively young Vessel; the longer Odium waits, the stronger he gets. Either fight the twins now, or fight them next year after they spend a summer working on their uncle's farm. (The analogy breaks down at some point, but if Odium is behind the events of SoS and BoM, then he can't wait around; he needs to face down Harmony sooner or later. He can't just avoid him.)

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

8 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Odium isn't picking up any additional Shards. Harmony is a relatively young Vessel; the longer Odium waits, the stronger he gets. Either fight the twins now, or fight them next year after they spend a summer working on their uncle's farm. (The analogy breaks down at some point, but if Odium is behind the events of SoS and BoM, then he can't wait around; he needs to face down Harmony sooner or later. He can't just avoid him.)

But if Odium isn't behind the events of SoS and BoM, then it could very well be to his benefit to wait before confronting Harmony, even if/after he gets free of the Roshar system. If the force threatening Scadrial isn't of Odium himself, then it doesn't have to be in league with Odium to be useful to him. This third party and Harmony wearing each other down and weakening each other through their own conflict would only be to his benefit. 

After all, its entirely possible that Odium already tackled Sel because Devotion and Dominion were already engaged in conflict, and weakened each other to the point that Odium saw an opportunity to take them both out. If there are other forces out there that would be opposed to Harmony, Odium wouldn't necessarily be predisposed to go after Harmony next - not if there was a chance someone else could do some of the work for him. Also, it could be argued that each time Odium shatters a Shard, he gets better at it, or more skilled or practiced in the art of opposing and killing other Shards....there's no reason for him not to leave Harmony for last then, to give himself a better chance of success.

[Pagerunner]

48 minutes ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

But if Odium isn't behind the events of SoS and BoM, then it could very well be to his benefit to wait before confronting Harmony, even if/after he gets free of the Roshar system. If the force threatening Scadrial isn't of Odium himself, then it doesn't have to be in league with Odium to be useful to him. This third party and Harmony wearing each other down and weakening each other through their own conflict would only be to his benefit. 

After all, its entirely possible that Odium already tackled Sel because Devotion and Dominion were already engaged in conflict, and weakened each other to the point that Odium saw an opportunity to take them both out. If there are other forces out there that would be opposed to Harmony, Odium wouldn't necessarily be predisposed to go after Harmony next - not if there was a chance someone else could do some of the work for him. Also, it could be argued that each time Odium shatters a Shard, he gets better at it, or more skilled or practiced in the art of opposing and killing other Shards....there's no reason for him not to leave Harmony for last then, to give himself a better chance of success.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you say; there are a lot of possibilities, given the vague info we have on Odium's abilities and motivations and the state of the cosmere in general. I, personally, don't think that Odium is the one attacking Scadrial. But, I don't think it's because he wouldn't pick Harmony for his next target; I lean more towards the metatextual approach, that Stormlight is supposed to be more self-contained while Mistborn and Dragonsteel will deal with the larger cosmere. But in the conversation in this thread (which, granted, has been all over the place), there was a suggestion that OP's suggestion (Trell is Odium) wouldn't make sense for Odium to go right for Harmony after he got free from Roshar, which I do not think is a valid argument.

On 11/2/2016 at 7:45 PM, BlackYeti said:

Might I ask your reasoning for thinking this? When Brandon described the world, he specifically described the Homeland and Hell as being different continents and said that the people moved across the ocean from one to the other by ship, which makes me seriously doubt this.

I didn't see anyone else answering this, so, hey, better late than never. A careful textual analysis of the story shows that the specifics are actually a little vaguer than you say. Hell is referred to as a continent, yes, but Homeland is never confirmed as being on the same planet. They have ships (think of Lastport, the major settlement), but the specifics of how they escaped Homeland and reached Hell aren't ever gone into. Brandon has said the world was modeled on the American Pilgrims, which is why the natural assumption is that they're just crossing an ocean, but he has never said that they crossed the ocean by ship. The few concrete references in the text do not eliminate the possibility of the Forescouts actually being worldhoppers, not merely sailors.

[Moridin997]

On 04/11/2016 at 7:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

That's quite a bit of speculation as to Odiuim's intentions. You think he's trying to take over Roshar - I think he's trying to kill Shards. Honor had him trapped there so he couldn't kill any others, dragging him into a land war, but then Honor died. If Odium manages to take out Cultivation and free himself from whatever is trapping him in the Roshar system (i.e. winning the war), then why wouldn't Harmony be his next target?

Bavadin is thought to be in league with Odium because Hoid, in the First Letter, mentions holding a grudge against both of them. Many people infer that Autonomy and Odium are in league to destroy the other Shards because of their two Intents (although that itself involves a lot of speculation as to what exactly Autonomy means).

As per WoB, Bavadin gave some unspecified help to Odium's splintering of Dominion and Devotion.

Which makes sense to me: Autonomy should oppose Dominion about as much as Odium should oppose Devotion...

 

Thus, there is precedent for some type of colaboration between Bavadin and Rayse, lending weight to Hoid begrudging them both and not solely Rayse (Odium)...

[Yata]

I am becoming always more pointed on the possibility that Trell is Autonomy, but He is already dead, Splintered and someone else is using his leftover power...

Edited November 10, 2016 by Yata

[TheBlueShifting]

On 11/5/2016 at 3:27 AM, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

So while I definitely agree that the red eyes are indicative of another Shard's influence.....I don't agree that by default that means that influence is more likely to be Odium's, just because that's where we've seen a phenomenon most like this so far. Personally, I think its far more likely that its just a similarity born from the underlying mechanics of the cosmere....that this is what happens/what it looks like when something in the cosmere is infected or corrupted on a Spiritual level by a negative Shard's investiture.

You are right on this point. Further reflection after the post I made has brought me to another conclusion. If you are right that different shards manifest in similar ways despite the difference in their callings, then I would agree that Odium is not the most likely choice. Remember the motivation behind Bleeder, and Miles Hundred Lives were both motivated by fighting the restrictions that others put on them. They sought freedom from rules and oppression and control. This MO better fits with Autonomy, who would find these people good and willing disciples. So I amend that if the pattern I noticed is not significant, then Autonomy is most likely Trell. 

[Ari]

On 10/11/2016 at 9:25 PM, Yata said:

I am becoming always more pointed on the possibility that Trell is Autonomy, but He is already dead, Splintered and someone else is using his leftover power...

That would kinda suggest that Trellium is Bavidinium, but that Trell isn't Autonomy, as we're kinda using "Trell" as a shorthand for "whoever was behind Bleeder's weird actions."

I'm open to the idea that there are actually multiple shards or shard-aligned forces involved. So we have the individual with the red eyes, which is quite possibly a Parshendi agent of Odium, and possibly Odium, if free after SA5, is spending some energy attacking Sazed to keep him distracted, while the shard that provided the Trellium is probably Autonomy, who was making a play to liberate the Northern scadrians from Harmony's influence.

 

[Yata]

@Ari yes you are right in your interpretation. I simply didn't call it Bavadinium to not create a new uncanon name, because for example we have no proofs Bavadin is still the Autonomy's vessel (new vessel or splintered shard....the naming based on the Vessel is nice but may be a bit confused).

[VirtuousTraveller]

On 11/1/2016 at 3:58 PM, TheBlueShifting said:

He (Odium) creates mimics who use twisted versions of a shard's power, using the powers and investiture of his foes. This somehow gives him an advantage and might be the key to a shards destruction, using their own power against them somehow. 

So let's play this out explicitly:

On Sel, there are seons, which contain splinters of Devotion.  Do we know for certain that the skaze similarly contain splinters of Dominion, or could this be an Odium-twisted copy of a seon?  They've been referred to as "evil" seons which are obviously messing with life on Sel.  Also, the svrakiss are here, which seem unrelated to either Devotion or Dominion, so they could be part of Odium's handiwork too.  Do svrakiss have red eyes that we know of?

On Roshar, we have an incredibly limited view (despite a lot of information) of Odium's twisting.  Voidbinding could be a perversion of Surgebinding, just as the spren that bond with the Parshendi could be a twist on the spren that bond with the KR (or the spren that bond naturally with animals).  The Heralds, which we don't quite understand yet, could somehow possess splinters of Honor (i.e. their Honorblades), or (very unlikely) they could be splinters themselves.  The Unmade are splinters of Odium, which we know are influencing things around the planet (similar to how Honor wanted the Heralds to influence things around the planet).  There is also the odd black sphere that Szeth took from Gavilar in the beginning of TWoK which could contain a perverted version of Stormlight.  Parshendi eyes, when they transform into stormform (i.e. voidbringers?) are red.

On Scadrial, there is Hemalurgy, fueled by Ruin, which is used to create the Kandra.  It seems that The Set have "red eyed faceless immortals too," (i.e. non-Harmony Kandra?) as well as the monsters that chased Wax in SoS.  Miles Hundredlives let out what sounded like a death-rattle when he died, which if it was, we know this occurs under the influence of Odium.

I don't know that the red eyes are so much the sign of Trell/Odium as much as the obvious signs of his meddling with the investiture of other shards on a planet.

On 11/7/2016 at 6:13 PM, JUQ said:

Quote

Why wouldn't Harmony be his next target?

Mainly because Harmony is stronger than him. I mean, if you were the big mean kid in the middle school playground that steals everyone's lunch money, would you go after the twins that are both as big as you? 

I have a working theory that Odium went to Sel because two shards there combined into one shard (i.e. Unity).  He didn't want this newly fused (and doubly powerful) shard to bond with any other shards, so he went there and shattered it.  He went to Roshar because two other shards (Honor and Cultivation) went there too.  I think I remember a WoB that indicated that Tanavast and Cultivation's Vessel were in a romantic relationship (similar to Aona and Skai on Sel), which could have made Odium fear their eventual fusing of their shards into a doubly powerful single shard (let's call it by its Hollywood couple name, "Honivation").  Unfortunately, he got stuck in the Roshar system in the process of stopping this potential fusing before it could even start.

Though stuck in the Roshar system, Brandon has said that Odium is afraid of Harmony, so he's obviously aware of other things in the cosmere.  It would make sense (and follow his pattern) for Odium to want to go to Scadrial and destroy Harmony, a doubly powerful fused shard, as quickly as possible.  Why?  Brandon has said that Odium wants to be the single most powerful force in the cosmere.  If a Vessel is able to see other events in the cosmere, it's very likely that fused, super-powered shards would eventually catch onto Odium's plans and take action to destroy him or to otherwise safeguard themselves from his influence.  He doesn't seem out for self-protection; he wants to be #1.

 

As much as I want to believe Odium is a red herring to the real force of evil in the cosmere (maybe the disgruntled Cognitive Shadow of Adonalsium, or the opposing force/weapon against Adonalsium before it was shattered), a lot of this evidence points to Odium.  His motives and patterns of behavior are sorta clear, but just not enough for me to sell the farm and buy it yet!   May the knowledge we gain from Arcanium Unbounded guide our way through all that we don't know yet!

Edited November 18, 2016 by VirtuousTraveller