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The Voice in the Storm revisited


Andrew the Great

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So, let's get the requisite quoting over with.

CHILD OF TANAVAST. CHILD OF HONOR. CHILD OF ONE LONG SINCE DEPARTED. The sudden voice shook Kaladin; he floundered in the air.

THE OATHPACT WAS SHATTERED.

The booming sound made the stormwall itself vibrate. Kaladin hit the ground, separating from the storm. He skidded to a stop, feet throwing up sprays of water. Stormwinds crashed into him, but he was enough a part of them that they neither tossed nor shook him.

MEN RIDE THE STORMS NO LONGER. The voice was thunder, crashing in the air. THE OATHPACT IS BROKEN, CHILD OF HONOR.

"I don't understand!" Kaladin screamed into the tempest.

A face formed before him, the face he had seen before, the aged face as wide as the sky, its eyes full of stars.

ODIUM COMES. MOST DANGEROUS OF ALL THE SIXTEEN. YOU WILL NOW GO.

Something blew against him. "Wait!" Kaladin said. "Why is there so much war? Must we always fight?" He wasn't sure why he asked. The questions simply came out.

The storm rumbled, like a thoughtful aged father. The face vanished, shattering into droplets of water.

More softly, the voice answered, ODIUM REIGNS.

So this passage is absolutely loaded with information. Just saying.

First of all, up until now, I've been very firmly in the camp of "The face in the storm is Jezrien." However, examining this a little more closely, I'm not so sure. The problem is the phrase, "Child of Tanavast, Child of Honor," etc. This, at least to me, implies that the person addressing Kaladin is not a Child of Tanavast/Honor (who for now, at least, I am considering to be one and the same entity). However, Jezrien, as one of the Almighty's Heralds, most likely would be considered a Child of Honor, in that from everything we've seen, the Heralds were created by Honor.

I've also thought that Child of Honor might not refer to the fact that the people of Roshar were created by Honor, but rather to the fact that Kaladin is a magic user. If you agree with me that magic users=Splinters, then Kaladin actually holds a piece of the Almighty. Even using this classification, however, the Heralds were magic users as well, albeit of a slightly different nature than the Radiants. Therefore, Jezrien would technically be considered a Child of Tanavast.

I also have problems with the face itself. Kaladin describes it as like a thoughtful, aged father, as wide as the sky, with eyes full of stars. This doesn't really sound like Jezrien, though admittedly, we have pretty much no physical description of him.

The other problem with this is that Jezrien abandoned the Oathpact. He really doesn't have any reason to be warning Kaladin, nor does it seem likely that he'll just be riding Highstorms on the off chance that he's going to run into someone - no one ever goes outside in highstorms.

My problem is that I can't think of anyone else likely to be saying anything either. Most other Shards don't have any real motivation to say anything. So far as we know, no one in the Seventeenth Shard has the power to project their face into a storm, and how would they know to do so? Hoid could just visit Kaladin personally, as he does later, and we don't know the extent of his abilities either, though he may be able to do the storm projection thing. No one else that we know of would refer to Kaladin as a Child of Honor, though.

We also run into problems of who actually knows about the Oathpact, and that it was Shattered. The 17th Shard could, conceivably know this, as could Hoid, but it seems almost beneath the notice of the other Shards. I suppose that if the Oathpact were a method of binding Odium, as seems implied in the Prelude, they might know of it as the method of binding used.

Kaladin mentions having seen this face before. Does anyone remember when this is? I don't recall it, and that could be useful.

My thoughts are starting to get incoherent, so I'll just leave it at that and let all of you go to town on it.

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"Child of Honour" could simply refer to the fact that Kaladin's nature bonded him with an honourspren, too, rather than implying that he's a Splinter. I've always considered Splinters to be more likely to be highly magical people or beings, like perhaps the Returned or the Elantrians or Seons, than just your regular magic users.

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I always thought it was Cultivation. Honor's dead, so it's not him, since the face/voice was clearly interactive. Given what he says, it's probably not Odium either, unless he's just trying to be exceptionally sneaky. Since those are the only three shards on Roshar, that just leaves Cultivation.

Given the power, and the knowledge of shards, it pretty much has to be a shardholder or someone like Hoid, but I think Cultivation fits better.

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Kaladin mentions having seen this face before. Does anyone remember when this is? I don't recall it, and that could be useful.

I believe the first time he saw the face was during the high storm he was strung up in, right before his spheres were recharged.

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I always thought it was Cultivation. Honor's dead, so it's not him, since the face/voice was clearly interactive. Given what he says, it's probably not Odium either, unless he's just trying to be exceptionally sneaky. Since those are the only three shards on Roshar, that just leaves Cultivation.

Given the power, and the knowledge of shards, it pretty much has to be a shardholder or someone like Hoid, but I think Cultivation fits better.

Except that Cultivation is a woman.
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New fun quote of the day for you:

"People are discord," Syl said.

"What does that mean?"

"You all act differently and think differently. Nothing else is like that -- Animals act alike, and all spren are, in a sense virtually the same individual. There's harmony in that. But not in you -- it seems that no two of you can agree on anything. All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that's why you so often want to kill each other."

Emphasis mine, of course.

This struck me while re-reading. The gist of my thoughts are the moment are in agreement with Darius. I'm thinking that it's entirely possible that Spren are either Splinters (I'd say of Honor, though other shards are possible, I suppose), or they're directly related to them. This also could go a ways toward explaining why Kaladin's bond with Syl allows him to use magic.

Of course, that doesn't explain all the different types of Spren, but then, maybe they're just different aspects of Honor? Granted some of them don't really fit with honor, but I can't remember anything that would directly contradict honor on a basic level....

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New fun quote of the day for you:

Of course, that doesn't explain all the different types of Spren, but then, maybe they're just different aspects of Honor? Granted some of them don't really fit with honor, but I can't remember anything that would directly contradict honor on a basic level....

I'm thinking it's slightly more complicated than all Spren being splinters of Honor.  We've seen in Mistborn where there was a group of Splinters that seemed to have aspects of more than one Shard (Ruin and Preservation had their own powers, and there was a third that seemed to be made up of aspects of both).

So, I'm thinking that Spren are probably Splinters of multiple Shards.  Honor and Cultivation seem to be the most likely suspects, but I'm not ruling out a Shard we haven't met yet.

On a less thread-hijacky topic, there's no reason that the voice in the storm can't be Honor/Almighty.  I'll grant that it seems to be interactive, but Honor's chats with Dalinar seemed to be interactive at first as well.

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New fun quote of the day for you:

Of course, that doesn't explain all the different types of Spren, but then, maybe they're just different aspects of Honor? Granted some of them don't really fit with honor, but I can't remember anything that would directly contradict honor on a basic level....

I'm thinking it's slightly more complicated than all Spren being splinters of Honor.  We've seen in Mistborn where there was a group of Splinters that seemed to have aspects of more than one Shard (Ruin and Preservation had their own powers, and there was a third that seemed to be made up of aspects of both).

So, I'm thinking that Spren are probably Splinters of multiple Shards.  Honor and Cultivation seem to be the most likely suspects, but I'm not ruling out a Shard we haven't met yet.

On a less thread-hijacky topic, there's no reason that the voice in the storm can't be Honor/Almighty.  I'll grant that it seems to be interactive, but Honor's chats with Dalinar seemed to be interactive at first as well.

I'm going to make an objection many of you have heard before. Magic Users are not Splinters. Some (like Returned) are, but normal allomancers, awakeners, and Elantrians aren't. I think that Splinters are pieces of the Shard that are endowed with the Shard's own power.

Most magic users don't actually use the Shard's power. They use the Shard as a "pathway" to the Power of Creation (or at least that's the case for allomancy) and use that. The only confirmed Splinters that we know of is what makes the Returned Returned.

Here's sources:

The goal of those paintings
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Understood that it's not confirmed that all magic users hold splinters. I just believe it to be the case, and tend to theorize along those lines. Sorry if I'm wandering too far into the realm of speculation. It's a bad (read: exceedingly awesome, yet easily-getting-out-of-hand) habit of mine.

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Understood that it's not confirmed that all magic users hold splinters. I just believe it to be the case, and tend to theorize along those lines. Sorry if I'm wandering too far into the realm of speculation. It's a bad (read: exceedingly awesome, yet easily-getting-out-of-hand) habit of mine.

For the sake of clarity, I suggest you not talk about it that way. It's not how anybody else uses the term, and from the actual evidence quoted, there's no evidence for it. If Returned can see into the future because they have part of a Shard in them, the fact that normal Awakeners cannot is a good argument against all magic users being Splinters. In fact, in Warbreaker, anybody can, in principle, become an Awakener, although for practical reasons it tends to happen mostly to the wealthy or powerful. Does this make all the humans created by Endowment Splinters? That dilutes the term far too much, methinks. You've got your work cut out convincing anybody else, so if that isn't the topic, don't use the terminology!

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For the sake of clarity, I suggest you not talk about it that way. It's not how anybody else uses the term, and from the actual evidence quoted, there's no evidence for it. If Returned can see into the future because they have part of a Shard in them, the fact that normal Awakeners cannot is a good argument against all magic users being Splinters. In fact, in Warbreaker, anybody can, in principle, become an Awakener, although for practical reasons it tends to happen mostly to the wealthy or powerful. Does this make all the humans created by Endowment Splinters? That dilutes the term far too much, methinks. You've got your work cut out convincing anybody else, so if that isn't the topic, don't use the terminology!

Although it has not been specifically it's way to premature to completly discount someone elses thoughts or theories. You could simply disagree with him but telling someone to not say something their way isn't too cool man. Speculation at this point is more what we have than hardened facts.

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No, he has a valid point. It's not the speculation that he's taking issue with, but rather with the fact that I assumed that my own speculation was correct to the point where I stated my point in such a way that it was consistent with what I believed, but not necessarily how everyone else interpreted it. He's simply asking me to state my point in such a way that everyone else will be sure to understand it the way it was stated.

As to the portion of his post where he gives arguments against my theory, that's just standard discussion. And it was actually very helpful, as it made me really step back and look at where each magic system fits in under my theory. But we've already thread-jacked this discussion too much as it is. I'll leave that discussion for a bit later when I give this issue its own topic.

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Except that Cultivation is a woman.

why wouldn't she be able to imitate a man? I'm pretty sure its in her power, after all they are kinda pretty powerful. No idea why, maybe because the characters would believe a man more than a woman?

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Andrew,

Thank you for your civility. I really am enjoying the discussion, and I appreciate your thoughts, even when I don't agree with them. If I have any more thoughts, I'll add them to your thread on the subject. (Actually, I have, although I need to put some more thought into it.)

But why would she want to imitate a man? What's the point of it? It's not like Kaladin would listen to her less.

Agreed, especially since the speaker is apparently part of the Highstorm. Things with that kind of power don't usually need to worry about prejudice from puny mortals; only from other comparable powers. (E.g. the ancient Greeks thought it was a terrible idea for any normal human to mess with the female goddesses, but they viewed the gods as dominating the goddesses the same way men dominate women.)

Since the Nightwatcher is apparently considered female, I'd suspect Kaladin wouldn't dismiss a female diety (or whatever) out of hand. Especially since half the Heralds were female.

Also, there are apparently rules binding the Shards. We don't know what they are, but I'm not at all certain they can imitate absolutely anybody. The Almighty wasn't able to make most of his messages consistent or responsive to Dalinar, for instance.

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