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[OB] Odiums endgame


Diomedes

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Thoughout OB we have seen Team Odium on a winning streak. They have basically rushed Alethkar and taken over most of Roshar. This sure looks bad on paper. But compare for a minute not the land that is under control, but the armies of Odium and the coalition. Then we come to a different conclusion altogether. On the one hand we have lots of Parshendi. Sure there are a lot of them. But they all had minimal training. Numbers are not everything in warfare. Then we have the Fused. The name alone sounds terrifing. But their battlefield performance is abysmal. We see multiple times in OB, how one Radiant fights off multiple Fused. And storms even Moash kills one of them, even though he just had few months of basic training. He sure is talented, but still this says a lot about the quality of the Fused as fighters. This is because they are not used to their new physical bodies. Then we got Thunderclasts. They are a tough nut to crack, but Radiants with their healing abilities don’t seem to have great problems taking them down.

So… what do we have on the other side? We got roughly 70.000 Alethi warriors, who are known across Roshar for their experience in warfare. They are veterans hardened by years of battles on the Shattered Plains. They also got shards, lots of them. And they are pissed that the Parshendi have taken their homeland. So it stands now lots of armed peasant Parshendi against the fiercest war machine Roshar probably has ever known. Then we got the Knights Radiants, who are only increasing in numbers. Did I mention that not a single high-tier Radiant has been killed in OB? These guys just have the habit of surviving.

You could make an argument that the Fused are just such brilliant commanders that they will win anyways. I have serious doubts about that considering that the ablest Fused have not even manifested yet. This might not be a coincidence.

What I am going to argue here is that subduing almost all of Roshar under Parshendi rule has never been Odium`s end game. Instead it has been to invoke Hatred inside the humans and the Alethi in particular. This makes a lot of thematic sense. Humans are his original people from Braize after all. They are the original Voidbringers. He also chose Dalinar, a human, as his champion.

Let me project a probable future that would happen, if Odium gets his way. The Alethi want to take back their homeland, they are constantly worrying what is happening to their loved ones back at home (and their property…..). So hatred begins to boil toward the Parshendi. After their initial campaign in Tu Bayla they march in direction of their beloved home. At the first encounters with the Parshendi at the border to Jah Keved they gain victory. They are surprised how easy these wins have been. The Radiants have kept Fused and Thunderclasts off and they, though outnumbered, could punch through the enemy lines quite easily. Then they see what the parshendi, who were motivated by Odium have done to the Alethi in the borderlands. Slavery might have been the gentlest fortune a Alethi civilian could have gotten. Also lots of horror stories about the Parshendi are being shared. Most of them are untrue, but some of them are not.

Now a then crazy seeming plan brought forth back a year ago by Jasnah Kholin begins to get supporters; To exterminate all Parshendi that the plague of the Fused may be stopped once and for all. At least this is how they rationalize their genocidal plans. If Odium had gotten his way then Dalinar would have been his champion feeding these ideas. Kaladin and all Radiants in their right mind quit the Alethi expedition. Still after their initial decisive victories even this mostly Radiant-less force, which posses still a significant amount of shards goes on and mobs up all Parshendi resistance left in Alethkar. This is a war of extermination. Parshendi are systematically killed by the enraged Alethi. When the mass-genocide has been completed all of the Alethi armies have fallen into Odiums hand. They turn their attention now to the rest of Roshar. With the help of the Thunderclasts and newly formed human voidbinder, they can subdue all of Roshar.

The Radiants make a desperate last stand but, ultimately, they are on the losing side. All living Parshendi on Roshar are hunted and killed. They merely served for Odium the purpose of being the object of human hate. After they had outlived their use, he could throw them away. And maybe he hates Parshendi himself beeing the shard of Hatred and all.    

So this has been my first post... It is really not a pleasent theory. But in my opinion it makes a lot of sense to see it this way, even if a lot or even all of the details are wrong. Ah, and english is not my native language, so I apologize, if this has been a bit hard to read.        

 

Edited by Diomedes
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It's well thought out. I'm not convinced it's the ideal end game for Odium though. If his goal is to inflame passion and/or hatred then I think what we're more likely to see is both sides fracturing into warring factions. A war between two sides is bad, a war between ten or twenty sides is absolutely devastating. I don't think Odium hates the Parshendi more than the humans, or has any particular love for humans, he wants to mess with them to antagonise his real targets - the shards. Humans are an expendable tool on the way to that outcome.

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If we're talking about Odium's actual end-game, then to quote Jasnah, Think Bigger.

Odium is an angry and vicious god, who killed a god his equal in power even while he himself was outnumbered.  Based on clues in SA and other novels, and what Sanderson himself has said at signings, Odium will not be satisfied with something as paltry as conquering a planet.  When has a conqueror ever said, "This is enough?"  Humans affected by the Thrill cannot say that, and the Thrill is directly caused by a literal Splinter of Odium, suggesting that he himself feels it oh so much stronger.

As far as his plans for conquering Roshar go, I'm sure he has a few thousand, depending on how the people act.  Yours seems very plausible to be one of them.  We certainly don't see Odium showing any particular care for the Parshendi; in fact, time and again we see the disdain Odium has for them in the way that he treats Venli and how he addresses the others.  Contrast that to the conversations that he has with Dalinar and Mr T.  

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I understood his cosmere-level endgame to be the conquest of the cosmere with the intent to remake it according to his preferences. He more or less tells Dalinar and Teravangian that he would kill Cultivation and remake Roshar. So, I think this is a likely pattern for his larger plans as well.

He seems to be attacking the Shards that are most likely to want to oppose or interfere with his plans... Ambition, Dominion, Devotion, Honor, Cultivation. His other motives seem to be to attack dishardic worlds because of the potential for Harmony-styled consolidation, and/or to exterminate the shards that might want to consolidate in an effort to reform Adonalsium (or who might be willing to consolidate as that would likely threaten his ability to be the last Shard standing). We know from WoB that Odium is intimidated by Harmony.

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Odium's chances of successful conquest are not as unreasonable. It has been mentioned, that not all of the Fused & Voidspren have arrived yet, and that their best warriors are still absent. I expect once the veteran Fused arrive, Knights Radiant would have much harder time fighting. And the  trick of fusing humans and voidspren would certainly make things complicated - clearly it's an experimental weapon, still being tested, but once perfected it gives Odium potential to make both obedient human armies, like palace guard in Kholinar, and champions capable of fighting Knights Radiant (granted Kaladin wasn't full KR). Plus a lot of KR seem to be shifting to Odium's side and he has Diagram, which is powerful conspiracy, in position of trust to Odium's enemies.  

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17 hours ago, aemetha said:

It's well thought out. I'm not convinced it's the ideal end game for Odium though. If his goal is to inflame passion and/or hatred then I think what we're more likely to see is both sides fracturing into warring factions. A war between two sides is bad, a war between ten or twenty sides is absolutely devastating. I don't think Odium hates the Parshendi more than the humans, or has any particular love for humans, he wants to mess with them to antagonise his real targets - the shards. Humans are an expendable tool on the way to that outcome.

I disagree. An all out free for all 100 factions against each other would blurr the lines between Parshendi and humans. Humans would need to ally themselves with Parshendi and vice versa. This would diminish racial tensions. It has been said somewhere,that Sel is the setting of religious conflict, on Scadrial the focus is on social conflict and Roshar is the setting of racial conflict. And attempted mass genocide of an entire race would be the ultimate feat of Hatred. I do think this would be the ideal "end game" for Odium.  

We do not know how Odium feels about anyone for sure. We do know, however, that Odium speaks to Taravangian in an amused paternal manner. He even seems to be somewhat proud of the feats of Dalinar and Taravangian. The voidspren, who are of the essence of Odium, treat the Parshendi like cremlings. They simply do not give a damnation. Best example is how the one voidspren reacts to Eshonais death.     

12 hours ago, Fulminato said:

odium want be free from the oathpact, killing and splintering cultivation, (probably) destroy roshar and go to another shard world and repeat.

he accept the dalinar challenge because winning will set him free.

yes, obviously. The question is, how he plans to get there. And in the scene with Taravangian he seems still pretty confident that everything goes more or less according to plan. 

 

12 hours ago, kaellok said:

If we're talking about Odium's actual end-game, then to quote Jasnah, Think Bigger.

Odium is an angry and vicious god, who killed a god his equal in power even while he himself was outnumbered.  Based on clues in SA and other novels, and what Sanderson himself has said at signings, Odium will not be satisfied with something as paltry as conquering a planet.  When has a conqueror ever said, "This is enough?"  Humans affected by the Thrill cannot say that, and the Thrill is directly caused by a literal Splinter of Odium, suggesting that he himself feels it oh so much stronger.

As far as his plans for conquering Roshar go, I'm sure he has a few thousand, depending on how the people act.  Yours seems very plausible to be one of them.  We certainly don't see Odium showing any particular care for the Parshendi; in fact, time and again we see the disdain Odium has for them in the way that he treats Venli and how he addresses the others.  Contrast that to the conversations that he has with Dalinar and Mr T.  

He will want to conquer other planets and splinter all shards. But this is all past SA, I think? This is still seven SA books and many more cosmere books ahead. We cannot reasonably theorize about so far in the future.

We should probably change the threat name to Odiums endgame in SA. How do I do this?

Sure he has a few thousand plans, but what would be the ideal plan, that serves as a backdrop for all the others? I think it is invoking a fierce hatred for all Parshendi in as much humans as possible. 

 

6 hours ago, Kessler said:

Odium's chances of successful conquest are not as unreasonable. It has been mentioned, that not all of the Fused & Voidspren have arrived yet, and that their best warriors are still absent. I expect once the veteran Fused arrive, Knights Radiant would have much harder time fighting. And the  trick of fusing humans and voidspren would certainly make things complicated - clearly it's an experimental weapon, still being tested, but once perfected it gives Odium potential to make both obedient human armies, like palace guard in Kholinar, and champions capable of fighting Knights Radiant (granted Kaladin wasn't full KR). Plus a lot of KR seem to be shifting to Odium's side and he has Diagram, which is powerful conspiracy, in position of trust to Odium's enemies.  

Yes I think it would be possible for Odium to brute force his way against the Alethi and their allies with all his forces, that he got, be it human or Parshendi. But it is still a battle that he could  very well lose. Why take that risk? Odium had 4000 years to plan for this war. Consider in contrast to Ruin, Hatred is long and calculating. I think he did not want to leave anything to be decided by luck.

I also got the feeling in OB that our characters are beeing swept away by the plot. Like they were witnessing the plot happening to them rather than acting according to free will. This might be worth exploring in a new threat. I think this is due to them not knowing what on Roshar is going on and being mere pawns in Odiums plan.      

Edited by Diomedes
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On 11/23/2017 at 9:01 PM, Diomedes said:

Throughout OB we have seen Team Odium on a winning streak. They have basically rushed Alethkar and taken over most of Roshar. This sure looks bad on paper. But compare for a minute not the land that is under control, but the armies of Odium and the coalition. Then we come to a different conclusion altogether. On the one hand we have lots of Parshendi. Sure there are a lot of them. But they all had minimal training. Numbers are not everything in warfare. Then we have the Fused. The name alone sounds terrifying. But their battlefield performance is abysmal. We see multiple times in OB, how one Radiant fights off multiple Fused. And storms even Moash kills one of them, even though he just had few months of basic training. He sure is talented, but still this says a lot about the quality of the Fused as fighters. This is because they are not used to their new physical bodies. Then we got Thunderclasts. They are a tough nut to crack, but Radiants with their healing abilities don’t seem to have great problems taking them down...

I think this lacks the incredibly important context of the time that has passed since the last desolation; Taln is ecstatic at the technological progress that has happened.

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10 hours ago, Aleph-Naught said:

I think this lacks the incredibly important context of the time that has passed since the last desolation; Taln is ecstatic at the technological progress that has happened.

So this makes my point even stronger, doesn`t it? Through the new technological advances the role of "normal" combattants is enhanced, while the advantage of the supernatural powers can be diminished. At the end we see a new fabrial that can block shardblades. That is a huge deal. And again if we go only according to conventional weapons... then the Parshendi are toast. 

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So this makes my point even stronger, doesn`t it? Through the new technological advances the role of "normal" combattants is enhanced, while the advantage of the supernatural powers can be diminished. At the end we see a new fabrial that can block shardblades. That is a huge deal. And again if we go only according to conventional weapons... then the Parshendi are toast.

It's likely that Parshmen would use the same technological advancements as humans. Jah Keved is under control of Diagram and Taravangian knows how to make fabrials that block shards. It's likely his deal with Odium would include transfer of all knowledge, including the secret to its manufacture. What we've seen of Fused, makes it clear, they are the sort to use every advantage - both technological advances and supernatural powers.

I agree, if humanity united and organized, they could likely defeat Parshmen. But Odium and his agents aren't going to allow that to happen. The possession of Amaram's Alethi was as much about seizing the city, as it was about portraying Alethi as treacherous or susceptible to Odium's control. Even with his victory, Dalinar would now have to persuade others it wasn't his fault and that his troops can be trusted not to fall to Odium again. 

As far as Odium's plan, I think, he need whoever is in charge of the world (by some unknown definition, but likely political/military control) to release him from Oathpact. Right now Dalinar by virtue of being Honor's champion and world theoretically being controlled by "Honor's Children" has this authority. If Fused succeed in their conquest, they'll be legitimate masters of the world and thus able to release Odium. 

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