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[OB] What was the Hog?


Unhinged

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Alright so this is something that's been bothering my in one of the interludes of oathbringer we are treated to the pov of a Aliethi officer who is about to be executed for Rape he is given three options he can be beheaded he can get Hammered (not in the good way) or he can wrestle the Hog  he picks option three and after seeing a massive claw burst out of the ocean he wonders if maybe the term Hog is a nickname. So what do you think our mystery greatshell is? could it be our mysterious storm walker who Dalinar, Kaladin and Shallan have seen glowing while walking around in a high storm? could it be the a survivor from Aimia? or could this be our first look at a full grown Chasmfiend? I'm leaning towards option three here's why. First it's living in the ocean and Shallan thinks that Chasmfiends might have a relation to the aquatic Yu-Nerig from the seas around Marabethia (I actually suspect these are Chasmfiend babies but I don't have any evidence for this so I'll hold off theorizing for now). second we don't know where the Chasmfiends go after they pupate they could easily head back to the ocean where they can continue to grow until they reach truly gigantic sizes. third I just can't see there being enough food on land even, Shallans comment about there being herds of wild Chull seems like it wouldn't be enough to sustain a reasonable population. however oceans are capable of supporting truly gigantic lifeforms and it would alow them to cover a muchwider area without being detected, note this doesn't necessarily disprove Shallans theory however, a more believable idea is that the adults hunt both on land and sea depending on where the food is. this also makes the idea that no one has found the Chasmfiends before (beyond a few vague legends) a little more plausible. I just have a hard time believing that no Chasmfiend ever wandered out of the unclamed hills in search of food, surely someone would have seen one or had a young newly molted chasmfiend move into populated areas in the search for a territory of it's own (granted they could be social with many different Chasmfiend's living together rather than territorial but based off what we see on the Shattered planes they don't appear to be social). so anyway what do you think the hog was?

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I seem to recall the herdazian captain say he had managed to wrestle a hog though it's not easy. I tend to think that it's not a Chasmfiend that has grown larger, since Shardbearers are needed to kill the non-pupated ones. That dosnt discount that the hog might still be a pupated Chasmfiend, we simply don't know what they look like post chyrsalis.

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Some kind of amphibious greatshell. Roshar is a single continent confined to basically one quarter of the globe in a world that's primarily ocean. There are definitely varieties of life that Rosharans aren't even aware exist, so I don't think it's anything special beyond something we haven't seen before. 

Considering the Tai Na, I actually wonder what some of the sea life is like. There must be some truly massive undersea creatures. 

2 minutes ago, DocHoliday said:

I seem to recall the herdazian captain say he had managed to wrestle a hog though it's not easy. I tend to think that it's not a Chasmfiend that has grown larger, since Shardbearers are needed to kill the non-pupated ones. That dosnt discount that the hog might still be a pupated Chasmfiend, we simply don't know what they look like post chyrsalis.

Either that captain is a proto-radiants, and "escape" counts as wrestling, or it's much smaller than I remember. 

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He didn't wrestle the hog, he managed to get out of the manacles before the Hog ate him (which means he escaped the manacles REALLY quickly). During the interlude scene where he is giving the aforementioned options of unpleasant death to the squad captain that sent Tien to his death he is escaping from handcuffs. This is just something that the Herdazian general likes to do, like a Herdazian Houdini.

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10 hours ago, Unhinged said:

could this be our first look at a full grown Chasmfiend? I'm leaning towards option three here's why.

We've seen the last stage of their life-cycle already though. And in the first two books, that'd mean "on land"

This doesn't mean that Chasmfiends can't migrate into the water later, but I'd personally kinda like this to be something new.

10 hours ago, Unhinged said:

might have a relation to the aquatic Yu-Nerig from the seas around Marabethia

Out of curiosity, where does this interlude take place? The Reshi Sea isn't too big of a place, so seeing a Yu-Nerig around the shores of Rira or Northern Jah Keved wouldn't be too unreasonable. His "options" also seem similar to the Marabethian story, which seems interesting.

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Marabethian criminal code allows the prisoners condemned to capital punishment to be used as a bait for the yu-nerig in order to be pardoned. The criminals are dangled over a seaside cliff when the water is at high tide with a cut sliced in each of their cheeks, and told their crimes will be pardoned if they hang there for a week and are not eaten by the yu-nerig.

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10 hours ago, Calderis said:

Roshar is a single continent confined to basically one quarter of the globe in a world that's primarily ocean. There are definitely varieties of life that Rosharans aren't even aware exist, so I don't think it's anything special beyond something we haven't seen before. 

Considering the Tai Na, I actually wonder what some of the sea life is like. There must be some truly massive undersea creatures. 

This is what I'm thinking of. The continent of Roshar doesn't span the globe at all, as is really confined to one hemisphere both North/South and East/West (quartersphere? semihemisphere?). That leaves the vast majority of the word as untamed, unexplored seas. We've already seen the Reshi Isles are actual greatshells, living in what is essentially a sheltered sea, but out in the open oceans there's space enough for truly terrifying creatures of similar size and scope. 

Given the land/water changes in Shadesmar, I'm curious what an overland expedition through Shadesmar might find, especially in terms of symbiotic spren. 

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  • Greywatch changed the title to [OB] What was the Hog?
14 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

We've seen the last stage of their life-cycle already though. And in the first two books, that'd mean "on land"

well that puts a big old hole in my theory still it isn't impossible that once they complete their metamorphosis into adults they enter the ocean and continue to grow, kind of like how frogs will continue growing after they transform from tadpoles.

 

14 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Out of curiosity, where does this interlude take place? The Reshi Sea isn't too big of a place, so seeing a Yu-Nerig around the shores of Rira or Northern Jah Keved wouldn't be too unreasonable. His "options" also seem similar to the Marabethian story, which seems interesting.

It takes place on the coast of Herdaz 

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Possibly off-topic, but this interlude was the first one involving more herdazians, not just the Lopen and his family members.

And even if it's farfetched, could it lead to more Herdaz? Will we get to know if the Lopen was truly to become a king? 

I think this magic capitain was great and would love to read more about Herdaz (and obviously, this creature they simply nicknamed the Hog)

 

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I've been wondering about this interlude as well, mainly about its purpose. Was it to add a bit of world building, show some of Herdaz and a new greatshell or are we going to see more of the captain? The escape acts made me wonder if he may be using abrasion, maybe without knowing what he's doing yet. 

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8 hours ago, Unhinged said:

It takes place on the coast of Herdaz 

Alright. Bit further east than Northern Jah Keved, but in the grand scheme of things... as Calderis/Rainier mentioned, the continent only fills a quarter of the planet. Could still be a Yu-Nerig, but it's far enough that I could see it being something else.

6 hours ago, Mestiv said:

My money is on young Tai-Na.

I don't know how many of the "islands" are Tai-Na vs actual land, but the Reshi Isles do have smaller landmasses near Herdaz... maybe you're right.

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I like to think it's a young chasmfiend. As Brandon said at the Chicago signing, we've seen phases two and three (coccoon and giant monster) of the chasmfiend life cycle. Obviously he's thought the whole thing through, and he's deliberately holding back that first stage for a later book.

And why, after all these years camped on the Shattered Plains, has no Alethi ever seen stage one?  Maybe because the larval chasmfiends are born somewhere else, hundreds of miles away, and they don't migrate to the Plains until they're ready to pupate. It's a stretch, but it's the only way I can imagine this interlude being significant.

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7 hours ago, Ciridae said:

I've been wondering about this interlude as well, mainly about its purpose. Was it to add a bit of world building, show some of Herdaz and a new greatshell or are we going to see more of the captain? The escape acts made me wonder if he may be using abrasion, maybe without knowing what he's doing yet. 

The purpose was to show both a bit of world building, and Karma. 

Sheler, the man being bound to "wrestle the Hog" was the company leader of the troop that sent Tien to die. 

In Kal's flashback to Tien's death he finds out that Tien has been pulled into fighting in "Sheler's company." 

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2 hours ago, recneps said:

Do we know that Tai Na and Chasmfiends are separate?

We've seen stages 2 and 3 of Chasmfiends, and the Chrysalis counts as a stage.
The chrysalis cannot be stage 1 because we haven't seen that stage. There's an ecological price to not letting them finish pupating, so the chrysalis can't be the end, thus making it stage 2.
The live Chasmfiends we've seen cannot be stage 1 either, for the same reason. Stage 2 is now taken, so they have to be stage 3.
Brandon has said we've seen their final stage, and that we've seen stages 2 & 3. Thus, Stage 3 should probably be the final stage.

I'd consider the Chasmfiends we've seen as a few stages away from the Ta-Na.

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22 hours ago, recneps said:

Except do we have any WoB about the Tai Na?

There's 1 WoB containing "Tai-Na," 4 with the "Greatshells" tag, and 17 containing "Greatshell." They don't tell us much.

On 2/19/2018 at 0:12 AM, Calderis said:

Considering the Tai Na, I actually wonder what some of the sea life is like. There must be some truly massive undersea creatures. 

Have no fear Calderis.

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Questioner
Are there any Greatshells in Roshar's oceans larger than the ones we've seen?

Brandon Sanderson
No.

Questioner
So the Reshi Isles--

Brandon Sanderson
The Reshi Isles, that's the biggest, and even with that I'm doing major fudging on the square-cube law. They've just spren-bonded, we'll talk about this. But even with the Spren, those are a stretch. That's as big as it gets. They could exist in the oceans because the square-cube law doesn't apply the in same way, with buoyancy and things. But I think we don't need anything larger than islands.

Oh wait.. have a little fear.

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Brandon Sanderson
Larger than a Chasmfiend... the ones that wonder around out in the islands of Reshi could go on land.

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