Jump to content

[OB] Odium (and Dalinar) (and Honor) (and Cultivation)


Leyrann

Recommended Posts

On 15.11.2017 at 9:35 PM, Leyrann said:

Let's be real. Odium wasn't what we expected.

Yes, he was the bad guy and people had to fight him. But he also claimed to not simply be the Shard of hate, and if we assume that a Shard cannot lie when showing someone his 'true self' like he did with Dalinar (and I think that's a safe assumption) then indeed, he is not simply hate, but rather, as he himself also sees it, Passion. Caring. I still don't trust him one inch - even if only because we know Rayse was "among the most loathsome, crafty and dangerous indiviuals I [Hoid] had ever met". Sounds like a bad guy to me.

What, however if this Shard were held by someone who can only be described as honest, caring and strong? Someone like, say, Dalinar. And the thing is - we've already seen something special from Dalinar. Something he did in Thaylen City seems to have granted him a bit of Honor's power. At the very least, Odium Passion recognized something from Honor in there, and Dalinar managed to bring Honor's Perpendicularity there, even infusing all spheres. I personally believe that he has, in a way, ascended like Sazed has done. However, because Honor is splintered, he only ascended with one or maybe a couple of splinters, meaning he is nowhere near as powerful. But what if he starts gathering splinters, building up more and more power and - in the process - making Honor whole again with him as the Vessel? We know, after all, that a splintered Shard can be mended.

So what if Dalinar were to restore Honor this way, and then, maybe through help from the Knights Radiant, maybe with help from Cultivation, or something else, manages to defeat Rayse (not Passion, but Rayse) and then pick up Passion himself? We'd have a shard of Honor and Passion, which I think would be a Shard that would do well as the god of a world and which would align pretty well with who Dalinar is right now already.

And one last thing, Cultivation's holder is still alive, but what if she were to somehow die (maybe to kill Rayse?), and Dalinar would pick up Cultivation as well? Not only would we have a god with Honor and Passion, but also Cultivation. I don't know what we'd call that shard, but I do think that it would make for a 'god' that I wouldn't mind governing my world. Not only honorable and passionate, but also cultivating the world to make it better. Let's call the shard Guidance.

I don't think is that simple. Odium is of passion, sure, but he's also of void. He feeds other passions to the point they can't sate them, leave them fighting for more and more, and then takes it, leaving nothing but void in them - as he tried with Dalinar. Most passions he represents are kind of self-destructive or impossible to sate. (Jasnah conversation with Dalinar at the end of the book I made a mistake - but it was said in both Dawnchant and by Syl) He's also Shard of bond-severing, something said in WoB and presented in Dalinar's vision. 

I'm not saying good old Odium doesn't have a bright side, but he's definitely something bigger and darker than just Passion.

[EDIT PART 2]
I just quoted wrong person by an accident. To Damnation with me

Edited by Beatsmorn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that description fits pretty well with the second definition of Odium.

Quote

The Shard's intent, Odium, means two things: the feeling of strong hatred, and that which provokes hatred from others.[7]

All the passions mentioned seem to be those types of emotions that would easily lead to provoking hatred from others.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Odium is emotions without any restrain. For example we consider love to be a positive emotion, but taken in excess it can mean stalking, murderous jealousy, trying to make the other person love you, against their will. Anger is good, if it's anger at injustices and evil, but in excess it's hatred. Joy is good, until it's taken too far into addiction and hedonism. There aren't good or bad emotions - it's all matter of balance and self-control. 

In this, like the balance of Ruin and Preservation, Odium's counterpart is Honor - the ability to restrain/bind your raw desires and emotions. Odium and Honor united may create a paragon - Dalinar Kholin, a man of both Odium and Honor, made powerful and driven by his passion, beholden to righteous course by honorable intent.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, Kessler said:

I think Odium is emotions without any restrain. For example we consider love to be a positive emotion, but taken in excess it can mean stalking, murderous jealousy, trying to make the other person love you, against their will. Anger is good, if it's anger at injustices and evil, but in excess it's hatred. Joy is good, until it's taken too far into addiction and hedonism. There aren't good or bad emotions - it's all matter of balance and self-control. 

In this, like the balance of Ruin and Preservation, Odium's counterpart is Honor - the ability to restrain/bind your raw desires and emotions. Odium and Honor united may create a paragon - Dalinar Kholin, a man of both Odium and Honor, made powerful and driven by his passion, beholden to righteous course by honorable intent.   

I really don't want to see Honor and Odium merge Shards without at least a third Shard more to balance it out. It sounds horrifying. Take Nale at his worst then add a helping of Odium...no just no.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

I really don't want to see Honor and Odium merge Shards without at least a third Shard more to balance it out. It sounds horrifying. Take Nale at his worst then add a helping of Odium...no just no.

It seems to me like most of the Shards should not be fool-proof anyway. Context and moral luck can easily turn what seems like good pairings of virtues into vices.

I am 50-50 about Odium being Passion. There's definitely more to the story, but then there's the question of why the WoR Letter Writer talks about Odium bearing the weight of god's own divine hatred, which seems to suggest that is a bit more dominant in Odium's makeup. Plus: most of the Odium-and-Dalinar sections read like Odium is trying to get Dalinar to swap teams (or to join his team.) In which case, you market and put the best spin on things you can. You don't mess up your PR because no one wants to join your team then. 

He wants Dalinar so he wants to appear attractive to Dalinar and is clearly trying to go to some effort to talk Dalinar over. Maybe the bigger deal is with what Odium is not saying, or exaggerating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Kessler said:

I think we've actually seen the result of merging Odium and Honor's influence - Dalinar Kholin. And he is indeed terryifing. Though a bit of Cultivation's spice in the mixture may have helped. 

I think with Dalinar the smallest part of him is from Cultivation, but its also the most important part. I don't think he could have ever turned his back on Odium to become of Honor without Cultivation providing the push.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/17/2017 at 4:44 PM, QuantumHarmonix said:

I think that description fits pretty well with the second definition of Odium.

All the passions mentioned seem to be those types of emotions that would easily lead to provoking hatred from others.

 

Agreed - nobody hates someone else because that person is in love.  The passion that people may hate is lust.  Nobody hates someone because of victory, they hate them because of bloodlust.  Odium may *think* he's passion, but IMO he's being deceptive.  Whether or not he's trying to deceive himself or just others is the open question, to me.   The Champion that Odium wanted Dalinar to be was the version that the other rulers feared and hated

Edited by Shaker
cleaning up wording
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me The idea of Odium consuming passion is really strong. Perhaps he isn't passion its self but the need for passion. To me this explains the description of him as a Void and as a force for passion. He feeds off of the passion of humans and singers and uses his power to instigate more passion, through the unmade.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Odium is Odium. He is not Passion. He is Hatred. Passion is not the void, as Odium is often likened too. Hatred is the void. After you have stopped hating something, or have acted upon it, you feel empty. Odium is Odium, or Hatred. He sucks up emotion and leaves nothing behind, like hatred dies. That's why he is so often referred to as the void and things related to him have void in them. Voidlight, Voidbringers, Voidbinding. When he revealed his true self to Dalinar, the text literally said, "It was the sorrow of loss, the joy of victory. And it was hatred. Deep pulsing hatred with a pressure to turn all things molten. " The joy of victory and sorrow of loss that it speaks of?  Lust and Loss and triumphant joy? These are Odium as well. For odium is not only hatred, but the causing of hatred. Loss, lust, sorrow, these things can be intrumental in provoking hatred. Bu joy you say? Surely joy cannot cause hatred. There you would be wrong, for it is not joy, but the joy of victory, the challenge, the glorious moment when you finaly prove yourself better...than the others. That is not happiness, and can cause hatred just as easily as loss, lust, or sorrow. 

All of that, is the Shard of Odium. 

 

Some say that Odium may be lying here. When a Shard shows its true nature, it cannot lie. Ruin did not lie to Vin at the Well of Ascension. It did not show Vin its true nature.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/15/2017 at 1:45 PM, Ookla the Leyspren said:

I don't think it is as much Honor tempering the negative in Passion, however, as I think it will be Dalinar as Vessel doing so, just like how I believe Rayse magnifies the negative.

Usually vessels become overpowered by the shard over many years. If you recall, Rayse refused to assume any other shard because he didn't want to dilute who he had become.  Over time Dalinar would succumb to the same shortfalls. He'd definitely have to restore and assume honor before killing Rayse and taking up his shard as well. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Watchcry said:

Usually vessels become overpowered by the shard over many years. If you recall, Rayse refused to assume any other shard because he didn't want to dilute who he had become.  Over time Dalinar would succumb to the same shortfalls. He'd definitely have to restore and assume honor before killing Rayse and taking up his shard as well. 

Yes, Vessels become overpowered by Shards, but Vessels do filter a Shard's Intent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly, I was pretty bummed out by Odium in this book, even after 2 reads. (Stick with me here--this doesn't stay negative!) He seems illogical within the larger workings of the Cosmere. "Passion," which is what he identifies with, is not really an aspect of god(s). It's more a failing humans have that needs godly guidance to control. Why would Adonalsium shatter into a non-godly shard? It seemed like it had to either be a huge misstep in the series that could throw off the larger logic of the Cosmere or it was misdirection that resulted in a shard who claimed a name that sounds kinda silly.

Then I started thinking about one of Brandon's writing-related quotes/rules that I've seen pop up repeatedly: "Everyone is the hero in their own story." In OB, he had to start showing us a lot more of Rayse/Odium as the hero in his own story. (This must be a difficult thing to do.) Given this quote/rule, I'm trying to understand the "new Odium," starting with: What do we know outside of Odium's personal heroic narrative?:

  • Odium wants to go after the other shards and destroy them.
  • He's trapped in the Roshar system and unable to continue destroying shards (as much). 
  • He is called Odium by multiple characters from multiple worlds with multiple affiliations in the Cosmere
  • He is associated with hate and being hated.

There are others, but we get the idea. These make sense to us as the actions of a "Big Bad," but how does the "Big Bad" see himself and others' reactions to him? What is Rayse/Odium's personal heroic narrative? It's hard to separate out what's true and what's a lie based on what we learned in OB.

  • He sees himself (or claims to see himself) as much more than hate. And maybe it's hard to see yourself as a hero if you see yourself as hate and hated.
  • He acknowledges that others see him as "Odium."
  • He claims to have a different, more accurate name or intent: "Passion."
  • He--and/or his followers--exploit and possibly require extreme emotion for some reason.
  • He wants to get rid of Honor's remnants and Cultivation, continuing his pattern of destroying shards.
  • He claims to want to remake Roshar, but his conversation with Dalinar (and his history) suggests he wants to leave.

I speculate that Odium sees himself on some sort of mission that (in his mind) makes him the hero of his own story. It likely involves destroying shards (and those who get in his way) for reasons that seem worthy to him but not to most of the characters in the Cosmere. The exploitation or need for extreme emotion may be somehow related to the godly aspect of controlling or punishing humans for the acting on extreme emotion.

Other thoughts on how we can look at OB from a different perspective if we think of it as our first real taste of Odium's heroic self-narrative?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have at least 3 (fairly) reliable confirmations that Odium is Hatred.  We have Frost's letter.  We have the Parshendi songs, and we have Syl's description.  I think these are reliable enough to confirm that Odium is Hatred.

Quote

He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context.

-WoR epigraph Ch 71

Quote

"The one who hates," she whispered.  "The darkness inside."

-Syl, Wor Chapter 32: The One Who Hates

Quote

Our gods were born splinters of a soul,

Of one who seeks to take control,

Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.

They are his spren, his gift, his price.

But the nightforms speak of future life,

A challenged champion.  A strife even he must require.

-Listener Song of Secrets, final stanza

-WoR epigraph Ch 34

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, RShara said:

We have at least 3 (fairly) reliable confirmations that Odium is Hatred.  We have Frost's letter.  We have the Parshendi songs, and we have Syl's description.  I think these are reliable enough to confirm that Odium is Hatred.

 

I actually do think that he's hatred because that's the only thing that really fits, given the quotes you brought in and the logic and theology aspects. It was the assertion in OB that he was "Passion" or "emotion incarnate" that didn't make sense, and I was trying to figure out why Brandon would make Odium's "debut" so much about passion. Once I started thinking about the idea of Odium/Rayse as a shard of hatred who sees itself/himself as a hero in his own story (and as more than hatred), this narrative choice made more sense. But yes, I agree.  :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/15/2017 at 3:35 PM, Ookla the Leyspren said:

What, however if this Shard were held by someone who can only be described as honest, caring and strong? Someone like, say, Dalinar. And the thing is - we've already seen something special from Dalinar. Something he did in Thaylen City seems to have granted him a bit of Honor's power. At the very least, Odium Passion recognized something from Honor in there, and Dalinar managed to bring Honor's Perpendicularity there, even infusing all spheres. I personally believe that he has, in a way, ascended like Sazed has done. However, because Honor is splintered, he only ascended with one or maybe a couple of splinters, meaning he is nowhere near as powerful. But what if he starts gathering splinters, building up more and more power and - in the process - making Honor whole again with him as the Vessel? We know, after all, that a splintered Shard can be mended.

I think so too. Odium mentions that Dalinar has ascended. The only other ascendants I can recall within Stormlight world are those who collected the original shards. It is mentioned that the holders sometimes take Shard powers. So if Dalinar is proven honorable, then he can enhance and probably bring together Honor, sealing the splinters. 

The only other "ascendant" within Cosmere will be Sazed/Harmony who gains powers of Preservation and Ruin and ideally becomes God. So we can ideally expect another human in Dalinar to gain Honor and I expect him to get Odium's powers in the end too. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, RShara said:

It's highly unlikely, for the reasons outlined above :)

That he's hatred? 

I still doubt it since there is an actual quote from Odium himself "I'm emotion incarnate. I'm lust, joy, hatred, anger and exultation. I am glory and I am vice" In his own words he claims to be far more than hatred alone....and more evidence that he is Passion, all emotions put together. No wonder he was able to splinter Honor (despite all shards of equal strength). I believe due to Rayse being the holder, hatred come to the fore, but Odium imo is Passion. 

The clincher for me is Odium waged a war against Honor on Roshar and killed Tanavast eventually......but let Cultivation live. Why?

I don't recall him being at odds with her. Becaue there is a quote on Cultivation that "she's  only interested in transformation. Growth. It can be good or bad, for all she cares". She how that can co-exist with Odium's Passion (but not hatred alone). More proof that Odium only destroys Devotion, Dominion and Honor...all which are against "free passion" and not Cultivation, which he can co-exist with. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, TequilaJack said:

That he's hatred? 

I still doubt it since there is an actual quote from Odium himself "I'm emotion incarnate. I'm lust, joy, hatred, anger and exultation. I am glory and I am vice" In his own words he claims to be far more than hatred alone....and more evidence that he is Passion, all emotions put together. No wonder he was able to splinter Honor (despite all shards of equal strength). I believe due to Rayse being the holder, hatred come to the fore, but Odium imo is Passion. 

The clincher for me is Odium waged a war against Honor on Roshar and killed Tanavast eventually......but let Cultivation live. Why?

I don't recall him being at odds with her. Becaue there is a quote on Cultivation that "she's  only interested in transformation. Growth. It can be good or bad, for all she cares". She how that can co-exist with Odium's Passion (but not hatred alone). More proof that Odium only destroys Devotion, Dominion and Honor...all which are against "free passion" and not Cultivation, which he can co-exist with. 

Because of Frostlander's excellent explanation, and the quotes that I pasted above.  We have three different, unrelated sources, stating he is Hatred.  We have one very unreliable source, who could easily be lying, claiming he's Passion.

I'm going to believe Frost, Syl, and the Listener songs :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, RShara said:

Because of Frostlander's excellent explanation, and the quotes that I pasted above.  We have three different, unrelated sources, stating he is Hatred.  We have one very unreliable source, who could easily be lying, claiming he's Passion.

I'm going to believe Frost, Syl, and the Listener songs :)


:lol:

 

Well RAFO then! Curious to why you think it's unreliable, Any other instances where Odium has lied or found unreliable? 

Also I think Hatred and Ruin are way too similar to be different shards. But Passion isn't.

 

Edited by TequilaJack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, TequilaJack said:


Well RAFO then! Curious to why you think it's unreliable, Any other instances where Odium has lied or found unreliable? 

Also I think Hatred and Ruin are way too similar to be different shards. But Passion isn't.

 

Think of the mix of lies that Ruin told to Vin.  I see Odium as doing the same thing to Dalinar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, TequilaJack said:


:lol:

 

Well RAFO then! Curious to why you think it's unreliable, Any other instances where Odium has lied or found unreliable? 

Also I think Hatred and Ruin are way too similar to be different shards. But Passion isn't.

 

I've said this elsewhere, but basically to say he is passion you have to discount the word of Frost, Hoid, Honor, Syl...all of whom are probably more honest and reliable. It comes down to do you trust a guy who is trying to wipe out people or do you trust those opposed to him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, RShara said:

e Frost's letter.  We have the Parshendi songs, and we have Syl's description.  I think these are reliable enough to confirm that Odium is Hatred.

Quote

 

20 minutes ago, Ookla the Mulkfather said:

I've said this elsewhere, but basically to say he is passion you have to discount the word of Frost, Hoid, Honor, Syl...all of whom are probably more honest and reliable. It comes down to do you trust a guy who is trying to wipe out people or do you trust those opposed to him.

The quote from Syl "The one who hates" pertains to Assassin in White, right? It takes place when AiW tries to kill Dalinar. Not related to Odium at all imo. 

As to Frost, we have next to nothing who he is. Sanderson has requested to avoid previous Dragonsteel books and wait for Book 3 to be the beginner of the arc. 

The Parshmen song imo is just way too vague to make sense either way. 

 

I'll leave this to RAFO as both theories hold some water and let's see how Sanderson takes this forward...

Edited by TequilaJack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...