spoilers Odium Bound

[Forerunner]

This is my first time posting a theory, so please be merciful! 

Spoiler

 

Something has been bothering me ever since I finished WoK / WoR for the second time. The leading theory behind Odium being trapped in the Rosharan Systems is somehow Honor bound Odium to it (Oathpact, Desolations, etc.), but I don't believe that is the complete extent of it. 

My theory is that Cultivation helped Honor bind Odium in all three realms to prevent Odium from leaving the system AND put measures in place to prevent any other shards from interfering. Cultivation wants to help grow/cultivate Odium's hatred to watch it blossom (and possibly he/she enjoys rebuilding after each desolation). However, I don't believe he/she has malicious intent (aka help Odium do any damage). The intent of the shard has just completely taken over.

Now, this theory also assumes that individuals can slip in and out of her safeguards, like Vasher and Hoid, but a shard holder could not.

 

Feel free to poke holes in it or tear it apart. I'm always up for a lively discussion/debate.

 

I trust you will find this post satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully,

Forerunner

Edited July 13, 2017 by Forerunner
King Cole pointed out Shard Bearer vs. Shard Holder issue

[Calderis]

4 minutes ago, Forerunner said:

This is my first time posting a theory, so please be merciful! 

  Hide contents

 

Something has been bothering me ever since I finished WoK / WoR for the second time. The leading theory behind Odium being trapped in the Rosharan Systems is somehow Honor bound Odium to it (Oathpact, Desolations, etc.), but I don't believe that is the complete extent of it. 

My theory is that Cultivation helped Honor bind Odium in all three realms to prevent Odium from leaving the system AND put measures in place to prevent any other shards from interfering. Cultivation wants to help grow/cultivate Odium's hatred to watch it blossom (and possibly he/she enjoys rebuilding after each desolation). However, I don't believe he/she has malicious intent (aka help Odium do any damage). The intent of the shard has just completely taken over.

Now, this theory also assumes that individuals can slip in and out of her safeguards, like Vasher and Hoid, but a shard bearer could not.

 

Feel free to poke holes in it or tear it apart. I'm always up for a lively discussion/debate.

 

I trust you will find this post satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully,

Forerunner

Well from a WoB we know that Hoid refers to Cultivation as "slammer" so there's support for the idea that she is in a sense Odium's jailer. 

The means by which she did it though... *shrug*

[King Cole]

Its an interesting idea. However I believe that Odium is bound to the planet of Braize, not the system.

I do like the idea that cultivation wants cultivate odium, I just don't thing its plausible.

Also, why couldn't a shardbearer leave the system? I mean their plate would run out of stormlight but I'm sure they could still leave.

Ok, I'm done, glad to see your first theory

 

[Forerunner]

6 minutes ago, King Cole said:

Also, why couldn't a shardbearer leave the system? I mean their plate would run out of stormlight but I'm sure they could still leave.

Sorry, I used the wrong term. I meant a Shard Holder (like Rayse), not Shardbearer. Thanks for pointing it out.

And I'm thinking that asteroid belt, in the Arcanum Unbounded drawing of the Rosharan system, ties into binding the Shard Holder to the system. It can't be just there for aesthetics.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Forerunner

[King Cole]

2 minutes ago, Forerunner said:

Sorry, I used the wrong term. I meant a Shard Holder (like Rayse), not Shardbearer. Thanks for pointing it out.

And I'm thinking that asteroid belt in the Arcanum Unbounded drawing of the Rosharan system, ties into binding the Shard Holder to the system. It can't be just there for aesthetics.

But then Cultivation would have trapped herself with the Shard of Divine anger, whish wouldn't go well. Also I think the asteroid belt isn't that significant 

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

1 minute ago, King Cole said:

But then Cultivation would have trapped herself with the Shard of Divine anger, whish wouldn't go well. Also I think the asteroid belt isn't that significant 

Unless you have a situation similar to the Preservation/Ruin one. Honor filled Preservation's shoes in making the prison. and Odium is the prisoner. The difference is that where with R&P, it was only a matter of time before Ruin went free, in this case Cultivation can make it much more permanent by personally keeping the door locked.

So now we have the Unmade coming in, and somehow their job is to find a way to counter Cultivation and free Odium.

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, King Cole said:

But then Cultivation would have trapped herself with the Shard of Divine anger, whish wouldn't go well. Also I think the asteroid belt isn't that significant 

Seeing as she's invested into Roshar, him being trapped accomplishes this regardless of the method. 

[Forerunner]

1 minute ago, Lord Maelstrom said:

Unless you have a situation similar to the Preservation/Ruin one. Honor filled Preservation's shoes in making the prison. and Odium is the prisoner. The difference is that where with R&P, it was only a matter of time before Ruin went free, in this case Cultivation can make it much more permanent by personally keeping the door locked.

So now we have the Unmade coming in, and somehow their job is to find a way to counter Cultivation and free Odium.

I was beginning to type something something similar about the parallel to Ruin & Preservation and the Unmade when I saw your reply...

Honor may have created the Oathpact/binding with the full intent of Cultivation being a referee of sorts. Tanavast had every intention of 'fighting' cleanly but wasn't stupid. I'm sure he expected Odium to do something underhanded and needed Cultivation to ensure the 'honor' of their deal was upheld. That's why Cultivation is the jailer (slammer), keeping Odium trapped now. She could have a oath/bind with Honor in that aspect. So long as she is able to Cultivate (Odium's anger, the land after desolations, etc.)

[Calderis]

I hadn't considered it, but the idea of "cultivating" Odium's intent is actually a good one. 

While Odium remains trapped, Cultivation of the intent increases the pressure of that intent on Rayse and pushes him closer and closer to succumbing completely. 

It's a long game, with no real idea of when Rayse would succumb, but once he died, he would become much more predictable as he would, like Ruin, be allowed only actions that completely align with the intent, without the moderating influence of the Vessel to try and bend the rules. 

Once something becomes predictable, it can be countered. 

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

Just to throw in another couple ideas to support that:

 - It is possible that there is a relationship between the plan to trap Odium and the plan to trap Ruin. I'm not sure which one happened first, but considering that there are at least a couple thousand years between Ruin's lockup and MB Era1, I think Ruin got trapped first. So, what if Honor and Cultivation became aware of Ruin being trapped and based their plan on that? It's a stretch, but possible.

 - I had a conflict with this in that I'm not sure how Odium could have broken the Heralds while locked up, but I actually am starting to think that the Unmade are the ones who broke the Heralds. In a way this makes sense in a lot of ways. I think Odium may have intentionally created the Unmade when he realized he was trapped. And he created them with the ability built in for him to communicate with them even while within his cell. Thus everything Odium has "done" on Roshar has actually been done by the Unmade. This would explain why the Listener's songs speak so much of the Unmade, but not of Odium. The Unmade would make a lot of sense as the listener's terrible "gods" in that case.

[Calderis]

@Lord Maelstrom which came first is debatable. 

I'll search, but we know that the well filled previously to TLR's use of (I think twice, but not sure) so assuming that the well took the initial millennium to fill your looking at 4000 years prior to Mistborn for Ruin to be trapped minimum. 

The last Desolation was 4500 years before tWoK. And Odium was already well and truly trapped at that point. 

Without more information, on how many times the Well filled, or the number and time between desolations... I don't think we can actually answer that question. 

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

16 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Without more information, on how many times the Well filled, or the number and time between desolations... I don't think we can actually answer that question. 

I agree completely. My point was that with the similarity of timeline between the two lockups, there might be a correlation/causation somewhere, which would reinforce the idea that Odium was locked up using similar means to the way Ruin was locked up.

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

7 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

I like the idea of cultivating Odium hatred to Subsume Rayse.  This could be fleshed out more....maybe so that he self deconstructs allowing cultivation to at with more of the cosmere?...

That could be scary. i just pictured a Cultivation+Odium dual shard. What would that be? Something to the extent of Inflaming conflict and hate among others?

[Forerunner]

11 hours ago, Lord Maelstrom said:

That could be scary. i just pictured a Cultivation+Odium dual shard. What would that be? Something to the extent of Inflaming conflict and hate among others?

Perhaps Cultivation + Odium would be War or Torment?

[Melriken]

22 hours ago, Calderis said:

@Lord Maelstrom which came first is debatable. 

I'll search, but we know that the well filled previously to TLR's use of (I think twice, but not sure) so assuming that the well took the initial millennium to fill your looking at 4000 years prior to Mistborn for Ruin to be trapped minimum. 

The last Desolation was 4500 years before tWoK. And Odium was already well and truly trapped at that point. 

Without more information, on how many times the Well filled, or the number and time between desolations... I don't think we can actually answer that question. 

Well vorinism teaches that there were 100 desolations, and we know that the Heralds taught the people metallurgy each time, sometimes basic, sometimes advanced based on what they had, and that each time the prior desolation was more myth than history.  So I think it reasonable to say a minimum time between desolations would be 1000 years.  It is also implied fairly heavily that the last desolation was much longer ago than the typical time between desolations... so at most 2000 years?

100,000 years as a minimum figure seems to put Odium's binding well before the oldest estimates of Ruins binding... so if one inspired the other I would say Odium's inspired Ruin's.  But we are talking about SHARDS here... they can see the future so even with definitive timelines we would still just be guessing which influenced which.

[Calderis]

2 minutes ago, Melriken said:

Well vorinism teaches that there were 100 desolations, and we know that the Heralds taught the people metallurgy each time, sometimes basic, sometimes advanced based on what they had, and that each time the prior desolation was more myth than history.  So I think it reasonable to say a minimum time between desolations would be 1000 years.  It is also implied fairly heavily that the last desolation was much longer ago than the typical time between desolations... so at most 2000 years?

100,000 years as a minimum figure seems to put Odium's binding well before the oldest estimates of Ruins binding... so if one inspired the other I would say Odium's inspired Ruin's.  But we are talking about SHARDS here... they can see the future so even with definitive timelines we would still just be guessing which influenced which.

We know that those numbers are a product of Vorinism, and not actual fact. 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1146#7

Quote

SHAWN M. HALVERSON (HTTPS://WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/270545169744383/PERMALINK/731811053617790/)

So I just got back from the book signing Brandon held today, I asked him about the time between each of the original 99 desolations.

BRANDON SANDERSON

It turns out that the number 99 in the stories was made up, and that there were much fewer of them. He also then stated that the cosmere runs along a 10,000 year gap and that Roshar falls right into the middle of the timeline. He ended with "That should give you a perspective of the timeline and events of the desolations". I figured that if anyone wanted to know a bit more of Roshar's history they might find this interesting

 

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

22 minutes ago, Forerunner said:

Perhaps Cultivation + Odium would be War or Torment?

In this thread they discuss various dual shard name ideas. I really like the idea of Corruption. Spreading Hate wherever you can. Torment sounds more like Endowment and Odium. And a lot of shards could lead to War. Like Dominion and Odium, or Dominion and Ambition.

6 minutes ago, Melriken said:

Well vorinism teaches that there were 100 desolations, and we know that the Heralds taught the people metallurgy each time, sometimes basic, sometimes advanced based on what they had, and that each time the prior desolation was more myth than history.  So I think it reasonable to say a minimum time between desolations would be 1000 years.  It is also implied fairly heavily that the last desolation was much longer ago than the typical time between desolations... so at most 2000 years?

100,000 years as a minimum figure seems to put Odium's binding well before the oldest estimates of Ruins binding... so if one inspired the other I would say Odium's inspired Ruin's.  But we are talking about SHARDS here... they can see the future so even with definitive timelines we would still just be guessing which influenced which.

I'm really liking the idea that there have been 9 desolations in the past, and that this one will be the 10th. This goes really well with how 9 of the Heralds left, how there are expected to be 9 Unmade, and how 10 is a very important number to Roshar (10 external planets, 10 orders, 10 surgebinding types, etc).

[Melriken]

9 desolations doesn't really jive with the end of WoK, for that speech to be rote memory he would have needed to have given it more than 9 times.

I think he probably fixated on it in damnation, however it needed to be a memorized and non-shifting speech before the last desolation for that.  Even assuming he gives it several times each desolation because he talks to multiple people groups I would expect a fair bit more than 9 desolations.

That all said the more I think on it them more I think 1000 years between is a max figure, not a min figure.  A few hundred at least, a thousand at most seems right.  So 500 x 9 gives 4500 years, or 9k total between the first desolation and modern roshar (actually 8,500 because the first desolation doesn't get the 500 years).  1000 x 20 gives 23,500 as a 'max' figure. Either estimate puts Odium's binding before Ruin's.

As for Brandon's statement of a 10,000 year timeline with Roshar right in the middle... that puts the start as 5,000 years before the primary events of way of kings, 4,500 of those are after the final desolation, so... 500 years for the other desolations, the splintering of several shards by Odium, and the events leading up to the shattering of Adonalsium... that doesn't seem to fit... but wait, isn't a Roshar year about half of an earth year? (Edit: no, no it isn't... 1.1) Isn't a Scadrial year shorter after TLR moved the planet then it was before (and again after Harmony moved it back)?

What is the conversion between 4,500 Roshar years and 1,000 Final Empire years? What about Earth years (the likely figure Brandon is using)?

Edited July 14, 2017 by Melriken
Marked and spelling of Adonalsium

[Calderis]

@Melriken a Rosharan year is 1.1 of ours. They have 500 20 hour days

[Melriken]

Roshar has 10 months of 10 weeks of 5 days, 500 days per year, though each day is shorter than earth's so it's year comes in at 1.1 earth standard. (About 19.25 hours per day) so 4,500 Roshar years is 4091 earth years. 

Coppermind doesn't have data on Scadrial's year.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Melriken said:

Roshar has 10 months of 10 weeks of 5 days, 500 days per year, though each day is shorter than earth's so it's year comes in at 1.1 earth standard. (About 19.25 hours per day) so 4,500 Roshar years is 4091 earth years. 

Coppermind doesn't have data on Scadrial's year.

4500 Rosharan years is 4950 of ours, and would be the same for Scadrial, as it is essentially an earth analog. 

[Melriken]

7 minutes ago, Calderis said:

4500 Rosharan years is 4950 of ours, and would be the same for Scadrial, as it is essentially an earth analog. 

Yes... Roshar is longer... so fewer of them... so multiply Roshar to get earth... obviously...  (aka: I'm an idiot)

Scadrial during the final empire had a shorter year than it did before or after TLR (both of which should be roughly earth as you commented) and the 1,000 year figure was during The Final Empire... so less than 1,000 years.

the correct conversion shows that the timeline starts with the preprolog of WoK, not the shattering, so the 10,000 year figure Brandon listed does not limit when Ruin and Odium were bound.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Melriken

[the winter system]

1 hour ago, Lord Maelstrom said:

In this thread they discuss various dual shard name ideas. I really like the idea of Corruption. Spreading Hate wherever you can. Torment sounds more like Endowment and Odium. And a lot of shards could lead to War. Like Dominion and Odium, or Dominion and Ambition.

I'm really liking the idea that there have been 9 desolations in the past, and that this one will be the 10th. This goes really well with how 9 of the Heralds left, how there are expected to be 9 Unmade, and how 10 is a very important number to Roshar (10 external planets, 10 orders, 10 surgebinding types, etc).

Eeeh someone linked to my thread

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

9 hours ago, winter devotion said:

Eeeh someone linked to my thread

I'd already discussed a couple dual names in other threads, so it was nice to have one where all the name ideas could be brought together.

[The One Who Connects]

@Melriken Here. Have the timeline I attempted to reconstruct.

On 2/10/2017 at 3:02 PM, The One Who Connects said:

6,000 years before Prelude in Stormlight. [2]
Debate about how long the Desolations took ensues... I'm siding with the "there were only 9 Desolations" camp and using the Heraldic Epochs for this.

Dalinar's vision with Midnight Essence gives us a lot of things. Midnight Essence are a sign of an impending Desolation. The date is the Eighth Epoch, 337.
   -If I combine those 2 things with the assumption that after each Desolation is a new Epoch, I can assume (for theoretical convenience) that each Epoch lasted around 350 years.
   -350 years x 9 Desolations (so that Aharietiam was #10 for you Vorin people) is 3,150 years, give or take a few decades.
      -This would give Odium about 2,800 years for Ambition and D&D

Mistborn Era 1 takes place around 300 years before Stormlight(because Alloy happens around that time)
Elantris takes place "far earlier. It's quite... It's not thousands" compared to Hero of Ages. I'll use 1,400 years because it'll be convenient in a minute.
That puts Elantris a few centuries before Rashek's Ascension. The physical city of Elantris was built "hundreds of years if not over a thousand years" before the book takes place. If we put that at another 1,400 year gap, that puts the total time-gap at 3,100 years before Stormlight Archive. (Around the same time Odium got trapped, see? Convenient)

And this one.

On 6/3/2017 at 9:07 PM, The One Who Connects said:

•                   0 AS (After Shattering):                      The Shattering Happens
•               Date Completely Unknown:                D&D go to Sel at some unspecified time after the Shattering
•               Date Completely Unknown:                Odium visited Sel and killed D&D, creating the Dor
•        Roughly 2,800 AS, Roughly 6000 BE:        Odium gets trapped on Roshar
•               6,000 AS, Roughly 3,000 BE:               Stormlight Prelude, Final Desolation
•         Unknown AS, 10 BE(Before Elantris):        The Reod
•           Unknown AS, 0 AE(After Elantris):            Elantris(Book) happens
• B/w 1,000 and 1,400 AE, 0 AH(After Harmony):  Ascension of Harmony
•               Roughly 10,500 AS, 300 AH:                Stormlight Archive(Books) happen

Ok, this one needs some explaining. There is a Cosmere Standard for planetary weight and gravity, so it stands to reason that a Worldhopping community like SIlverlight would need a standard "year." Unless Silverlight somehow orbits a planet while in the CR, they need to mark the passage of time in their own way.

My biggest assumption is that they used the Rosharan year. We know the most details about the Rosharan timeline, so they are at the root of any timeline reconstruction, so I used theirs. Disclaimer: I know that the standard year should probably be the Yolish one, but nobody save Hoid and Frost should really know that. (meaning that Khriss can't use it. We can use Earth years, and it might be, but..)

One last thing, regarding the timeline on Scadrial, they used pre-Ascension calendars during the Lord Ruler's reign. Their adjusted "year" is no different than their current one in the eyes of the people. This combined with the fact that I can't justify the math for the 1K/1,024 discrepancy relative to the altered orbit makes Scadrial annoying(and not in the timelines).

Quote

Q: Did the length of a year (as measured by the people on the planet) change when Scadrial was moved by The Lord Ruler/Harmony?
 
A: I mentioned in another post that I'll wait a bit to give you exact numbers, because I want to make sure Peter has run all the right calculations. But yes, changing the orbit had an effect on things--though official calendars didn't need to change, as they'd been used since before the original shift happened anyway. When we talk about 'Years' in the Final Empire, it's original (pre LR) orbit anyway. I knew I was going to go back to them later in the series, and when characters were actually aware of things like the calendar, it would be close to earth standard.

Though, since you mention it, all numbers mentioned in their respective series are in-world numbers. This makes things tricky, as Rosharan years (with the five hundred days) are blatant enough to start the average reader wondering about these things.

Mostly, Roshar is the big one (not in actual deviation--I think a Roshar year is only 1.1 Earth years--but in how the scope and terminology of the novel will make people start to notice and ask questions.) Other planets have deviations from Earth, but it's not as noticeable. We'll give specific numbers eventually. I promise.

The orange text is the basis of all of our problems, and the biggest loophole Brandon has used in a while. His WoBs are not series specific when talking about timeline. Odds are it's an Earth year, but we won't know for sure what his "Cosmere Standard" year is until he tells us.

Edited July 15, 2017 by The One Who Connects