The Evil on Threnody is...?

[Borio Singaldi]

So I have wondered for a while what "The Evil" on Threnody is that ravages the Homeland and first banished the people of that world to the so-called "Forests of Hell". Even in Arcanum Unbounded, Khriss (who seems to know a LOT about the Cosmere and the Shards) states that very little is known of it by anyone. But then, after reading the other things mentioned in Arcanum Unbounded related to Threnody, a theory formed in my head that seems completely logical to me but is very likely a RAFO kind of thing to ask.

So here's the backstory: According to the essay written by Khriss/Sanderson in Arcanum Unbounded, Ambition inhabited the Threnodite System shortly after the Shattering, but was eventually found there by Odium, who was on his vendetta to become the most powerful being in the Cosmere. The two Shards clashed violently throughout the three Realms, and their epic battle resulted in the Splintering of Ambition and the death of its vessel. The entire system was affected by it, particularly on the planet Threnody, which has two main continents. The smaller one consists of the Forests of Hell, the normal people, and ghostly creatures called the "shades" while the larger one (the Homeland) is dominated by the Evil.

The theory: As seen in the form of the shades, Cognitive Shadows of people exist on Threnody due to the way their world works. What I wonder is if people come back as shades after death, why not a Shard of Adonalsium itself as well? My theory, to put it plain and simple, is that the Evil is the Cognitive Shadow, or shade, of Ambition itself. A Cognitive Shadow made from an entire Shard is not unprecedented, mind you. Take the Stormfather on Roshar, for example. After Odium Splintered the Shard Honor and killed its vessel as he had done to Ambition (and others), an enormously powerful Cognitive Shadow formed out of Honor in the form of its spren, the Stormfather. I believe that the Evil on Threnody is the same thing in regard to Ambition as the Stormfather is to Honor: a really big, really dangerous Cognitive Shadow. After all, what do the shades do on Threnody? They attack those who break the Simple Rules, devouring their souls and dissolving their bodies. Who's to say that the Evil, as a Cognitive Shadow of Ambition, isn't just a shade like all the others? It was a person who died, and on Threnody, those come back as the shades. But seeing as this one was so powerful (a storming Shard of Adonalsium), then wouldn't that make it an immensely powerful and really huge shade that can consume an entire continent and feast upon the souls of men in multitudes (as as it is described doing in Arcanum Unbounded)?

So there's my theory. The Evil is Ambition's shade. What do all of you think?

[Farnsworth]

Love the idea! One thing though. The Stormfather is not at all evil, and since this is the only other example we have of a Shard's Cognitive shadow, I wouldn't say that Ambition's shadow would necessarily be evil. Even a shade, which is a bit different, maintains some of the person's original identity as we can see with Silence's grandmother. Shades aren't even evil, unless you violate the three rules. I don't see how Ambition would manifest as such an evil thing.

[Calderis]

I'm not arguing for or against this idea, because we honestly no nothing about the evil.

I will say though, assuming this is correct, if a Shardholders Cognitive Shadow were somehow corrupted, even if not outright evil, it could be perceived as an "evil," as the shades in the forest are probably not viewed kindly by most. If it had it's own set of "simple rules" it might be able to strike fast and hard enough that no one was able to figure them out. Survivors have to exist for rules to be spread around. 

[Borio Singaldi]

On 3/12/2017 at 10:23 PM, Figberts said:

Love the idea! One thing though. The Stormfather is not at all evil, and since this is the only other example we have of a Shard's Cognitive shadow, I wouldn't say that Ambition's shadow would necessarily be evil. Even a shade, which is a bit different, maintains some of the person's original identity as we can see with Silence's grandmother. Shades aren't even evil, unless you violate the three rules. I don't see how Ambition would manifest as such an evil thing.

You actually have a good point there. But do we know whether or not Ambition was initially evil? Do we have any idea what it's "ambitious" intent was? For all we know, it could have been, but hey -- what do we know? And also, in regard to the Stormfather: while you're right that it isn't evil, I would say that the Stormfather is all that good either. I mean, he did summon a highstorm at the same time the Everstorm arrived at the end of Words of Radiance just in the hopes that he could simply wash away his problems, and he stubbornly refused to bond Syl to Kaladin unless Kaladin said the right words. So maybe a Cognitive Shadow (like the Stormfather or maybe the Evil) can possibly be corrupted by outside influences to do some less-than-good things that some could consider "evil", as has been mentioned. But I'm not going to deny that you do make a good point.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Firerust

[Yata]

This theory is unlikely. I explain myself Better:

- Ambition & Odium fighted also on Therenody's system. But the actual killing blow happened somewhere else.

- Indeed It's possible Ambition's Vessel could remain as Cognitive Shadow but:

(1) Probabily Odium Will Simply crush him/her

(2) this Shadow Will be not a relevant entity. Just someone Ghost, unable to influence directly the physical...If you read SH. Our Ambition's Vessel Shadow Will be like the SH's Main character (at least for half of the book)

Don't make your knowledge of the Stormfather tricks you.

Tanavast's Shadow merged with an already present "powerful spren" (the rider of the storm). He maybe gained some margin from the Shadow but the actual Power was already there.

Little recap:

In the end if Ambition's Vessel remained as Cognitive Shadow It would be not in Therenody and He Will be not a powerful entity at all.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Yata

[Felt]

@Firerust the Terris Gyorn You shouldnt downvote people just because they shredded your theory to bits, its just not nice.... I mean this is the Shard, your theories WILL get shredded, most of the time  

Have an upvote @Yata, for shredding with finesse 

[AeonaRin]

Lol, someone recently downvoted me for a comment under fanart saying that the font choice is terrible but the art is good. Talk about not nice

[Windrunner]

Stay on topic here, downvotes are not relevant to the conversation at hand. I can see upvotes and downvotes and Firerust did not downvote Yata, so I would cease making unsubstantiated accusations. Feel free to continue discussing the topic, but the conversation on downvotes ends here.

[Borio Singaldi]

4 hours ago, Windrunner said:

Stay on topic here, downvotes are not relevant to the conversation at hand. I can see upvotes and downvotes and Firerust did not downvote Yata, so I would cease making unsubstantiated accusations. Feel free to continue discussing the topic, but the conversation on downvotes ends here.

Thank you. At first, I had no idea what downvoting was or what people were talking about, and I can guarantee that I have not upvoted or downvoted anything I've read (I think). If I did, it wasn't purposefully.

[Borio Singaldi]

20 hours ago, Yata said:

This theory is unlikely. I explain myself Better:

- Ambition & Odium fighted also on Therenody's system. But the actual killing blow happened somewhere else.

- Indeed It's possible Ambition's Vessel could remain as Cognitive Shadow but:

(1) Probabily Odium Will Simply crush him/her

(2) this Shadow Will be not a relevant entity. Just someone Ghost, unable to influence directly the physical...If you read SH. Our Ambition's Vessel Shadow Will be like the SH's Main character (at least for half of the book)

Don't make your knowledge of the Stormfather tricks you.

Tanavast's Shadow merged with an already present "powerful spren" (the rider of the storm). He maybe gained some margin from the Shadow but the actual Power was already there.

Little recap:

In the end if Ambition's Vessel remained as Cognitive Shadow It would be not in Therenody and He Will be not a powerful entity at all.

You make some really good points there that sink my theory, and I actually appreciate the evidence you've provided. Now it's gotten me thinking that it could be something else, but who knows? After all, it's only a theory. There's always another theory...

[+Extesian]

Good on you @Firerust the Terris Gyorn for having a go with the theory and taking the scientific method approach - learning from the input of supersharders like Yata and being happy to be corrected. Not everyone on this site is so open to that. Your theory has some good thoughts even if it's probably not spot-on.

You may be interested in a similar thread that goes over some of these issues.

 

[Borio Singaldi]

4 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Good on you @Firerust the Terris Gyorn for having a go with the theory and taking the scientific method approach - learning from the input of supersharders like Yata and being happy to be corrected. Not everyone on this site is so open to that. Your theory has some good thoughts even if it's probably not spot-on.

You may be interested in a similar thread that goes over some of these issues.

 

Hey, I just read what you said on that "Source of the Evil" theory, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who's wondered about this before! Great minds think alike, I suppose, right?

[Yata]

3 hours ago, Firerust the Terris Gyorn said:

You make some really good points there that sink my theory, and I actually appreciate the evidence you've provided. Now it's gotten me thinking that it could be something else, but who knows? After all, it's only a theory. There's always another theory...

Notice I said "unlikely" not "impossible" because in the great schema really a few things are 100% impossible. Some weirdness may always happen with the Cosmere's inner rules.

So for example to try to twist your theory a bit:

Ambition died in an unknown Place. Probably not on a Planet...For some reason Odium choose to not strike down the freshman Dead Vessel (too tired or Ambition runned away in a Place where another Shard was and Odium could sustain another Battle or again Odium's mercy).

So we have a Cognitive Shadow in that Place (because Ambition's Vessel chose to remain). Now if we assume Ambition stayed a lot of time in Therenody, we could ipotizate his connection to Therenody allows him to return there.

Now we have Ambition's cognitive Shadow on Therenody. Unless he manage to recover a decent amount of power there. It would be only a Ghost.

Also as a Ghost (if we assume It was a jerk or have something aganist local people). He starter to influence people (the madmen through their Soul's crack) to start an actual social calamity.

This social calamity is the Evil (something that could happen also without magical interference). Who Force the Scouts to leave Homeland for the Forests of Hell.

As you can see. This is not impossible, but I Need to make a good Number of speculations and Realmatic hypotesis only to make It possible.

Notice also It is hard to understand Why the Evil didn't follow the Scouts. Maybe It's a physical manace and the Sea is a real obstacle. Maybe It's Cognitive in nature and the Evil is afraid of the Shades (I think a Shade could infect another Cognitive Shadow...It is a Nice question for Brandon).

Lastly, this is a Place of discussion and speculation. Don't be afraid of expose your idea, but don't be fossilizzate in them either. Just to make you laught, in my signature, there is a old theory of mine about the Evil ;-)

[Cosmere Savant]

I think that the Evil being the shade of Ambition is unlikely especially because it says in Arcanum Unbounded that the clash between Odium and Ambition took place in 'the vast reaches between planets.' But I do think that their initial clash on Threnody could have partially splintered Ambition causing a little piece of Ambition's power to fall off and invest itself in someone. That person then unleashed it's power on others and fulfilled all of it's wildest dreams by taking over an entire continent. 

[Aisur]

On 3/13/2017 at 1:43 AM, Yata said:

(2) this Shadow Will be not a relevant entity. Just someone Ghost, unable to influence directly the physical...If you read SH. Our Ambition's Vessel Shadow Will be like the SH's Main character (at least for half of the book)

Is SH really relevant here? On Threnody we have shades of normal people lingering and causing physical damage to the living. Aren't they cognitive shadows that got stuck before passing into the beyond?

[Djarskublar]

4 minutes ago, Aisur said:

Is SH really relevant here? On Threnody we have shades of normal people lingering and causing physical damage to the living. Aren't they cognitive shadows that got stuck before passing into the beyond?

Of course SH is relevant... the entire thing is about a cognitive shadow. But I'm not sure what you are saying, so maybe clarify your stance?

Since I don't want to clutter up the forum with yet another "what's the Evil?" thread, I will just post mine here to see what people think.

I think that perhaps the ripped off chunks of power from Ambition eventually coalesced into the Physical Realm as a gas form of Investiture, and without a mind controlling it, it acted like Ruin's Deepness. In other words, the Evil is basically a mist that was killing people, so the people left. Just a wild guess, though, with no real support for it off the top of my head.

[Aisur]

20 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

Of course SH is relevant... the entire thing is about a cognitive shadow. But I'm not sure what you are saying, so maybe clarify your stance?

I meant that since the shades of the departed appear on Threnody and not on Scadrial, there's likely some weird Physical/Cognitive blending going on on Threnody that doesn't happen on Scadrial, so the fact that cognitive shadows on Scadrial don't appear in the physical realm (as in SH) shouldn't necessarily pertain to Threnody. I may be misunderstanding something from SfS, though, and the shades may not be cognitive shadows at all, but at the moment I think they are.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Aisur

[Djarskublar]

Ah, I see what you are saying now. That's actually a fair point. We don't know what the deal is with the shades. They are definitely cognitive shadows, though. Nazh says so, and cognitive shadows are an in-world explanation for things, so what the in-world scholars say goes.

Also, when you say SoS, do you actually mean Shadows of Self? I don't remember cognitive shadows mattering in that book at all. Perhaps you meant SfS- Shadows for Silence?

[Aisur]

9 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

Also, when you say SoS, do you actually mean Shadows of Self? I don't remember cognitive shadows mattering in that book at all. Perhaps you meant SfS- Shadows for Silence?

You're right, I got my acronyms mixed up. Yeah, I meant Shadows for Silence. I'll edit it.

[cometaryorbit]

On 3/13/2017 at 0:43 AM, Yata said:

(2) this Shadow Will be not a relevant entity. Just someone Ghost, unable to influence directly the physical...If you read SH. The our Ambition's Vessel Shadow Will be like the SH's Main character (at least for half of the book)

Well, Cognitive Shadows seem to work differently on Threnody. I'd think a Shard Vessel's Cognitive Shadow, if it happened to be on Threnody, would become a shade too - able to kill people*.

And since the mind and soul of a Vessel seem to be expanded, it could easily be a super-powered shade.
I doubt that's what the Evil actually is, though. I think the people on Threnody would recognize a super-powered Shade as a Shade -- the Shades seem to have been known to exist in the Forests of Hell before the Evil happened.

You're probably still right about influencing the Physical directly - Shade withering is likely a consequence of a spiritual attack, in the same way that the physical changes of turning into a Koloss are a consequence of Hemalurgy's effects on the spiritweb.

[Yata]

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Well, Cognitive Shadows seem to work differently on Threnody. I'd think a Shard Vessel's Cognitive Shadow, if it happened to be on Threnody, would become a shade too - able to kill people*.

And since the mind and soul of a Vessel seem to be expanded, it could easily be a super-powered shade.
I doubt that's what the Evil actually is, though. I think the people on Threnody would recognize a super-powered Shade as a Shade -- the Shades seem to have been known to exist in the Forests of Hell before the Evil happened.

You're probably still right about influencing the Physical directly - Shade withering is likely a consequence of a spiritual attack, in the same way that the physical changes of turning into a Koloss are a consequence of Hemalurgy's effects on the spiritweb.

The Shades are a subset of Cognitive Shadow. They happen like a "tumoil Forged" (for the One Who read Emperor Soul") and there is a Investiture injection from Shade to a probably new Shade.

Not all the deadmen return ad Shade. Only the "infected" One.

So our Hypotetical Ambition's Vessel could be a Shade. But he Need to be infected from another Shade (something I honestly believe possible. If this two entities actually meet in the Cognitive)

But AV's Shadow Will be overwrite by the Shade so I really dout He would be some "super Shade"....It is possibile but I don't think he/She would be nothing (Investiture's Speaking) compared to being like Stormfather or probably also the Unmades.

I just wanted to point out how the "stormfather-like" beings aren't the default Shard's Cognitive Shadow, but instead an exception possible only thanks to a couple of weird exceptions

[Borio Singaldi]

On 3/14/2017 at 0:28 AM, Yata said:

Notice I said "unlikely" not "impossible" because in the great schema really a few things are 100% impossible. Some weirdness may always happen with the Cosmere's inner rules.

So for example to try to twist your theory a bit:

Ambition died in an unknown Place. Probably not on a Planet...For some reason Odium choose to not strike down the freshman Dead Vessel (too tired or Ambition runned away in a Place where another Shard was and Odium could sustain another Battle or again Odium's mercy).

So we have a Cognitive Shadow in that Place (because Ambition's Vessel chose to remain). Now if we assume Ambition stayed a lot of time in Therenody, we could ipotizate his connection to Therenody allows him to return there.

Now we have Ambition's cognitive Shadow on Therenody. Unless he manage to recover a decent amount of power there. It would be only a Ghost.

Also as a Ghost (if we assume It was a jerk or have something aganist local people). He starter to influence people (the madmen through their Soul's crack) to start an actual social calamity.

This social calamity is the Evil (something that could happen also without magical interference). Who Force the Scouts to leave Homeland for the Forests of Hell.

As you can see. This is not impossible, but I Need to make a good Number of speculations and Realmatic hypotesis only to make It possible.

Notice also It is hard to understand Why the Evil didn't follow the Scouts. Maybe It's a physical manace and the Sea is a real obstacle. Maybe It's Cognitive in nature and the Evil is afraid of the Shades (I think a Shade could infect another Cognitive Shadow...It is a Nice question for Brandon).

Lastly, this is a Place of discussion and speculation. Don't be afraid of expose your idea, but don't be fossilizzate in them either. Just to make you laught, in my signature, there is a old theory of mine about the Evil ;-)

Thanks for your input. These are even more really good ideas/theories. I like this website already.