What he once was - overcoming his Torment

[Ixthos]

I theorise that Sigzil, Nomad, can override his Torment when we seeks to be what he once was - a Windrunner. I don't know if Aux is his original spren or not, but it seems he is dead, and by implication by Sigzil's own actions.

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It’s your Torment, the knight helpfully observed to his moderately-capable squire.  It has grown strong enough to deny you weapons.

Nomad dodged back again, while the ember man slammed his baton down in another near miss—making the ground tremble at the impact.  Storms.  That light was getting brighter.  Covering the entire horizon in a way that felt too even.  How…how large was the sun on this planet?

“I thought,” Nomad shouted, “that my oaths overrode that aspect of the Torment!”

I’m sorry, Nomad.  But what oaths?

[...]

You might be in trouble this time, Auxiliary said.

“You think?

Do I think?  I’m not sure.  Depends on your definition.

“You know, I liked you much better when you were alive.”

And who is to blame for that?

 

So, he suspects his old oaths let him summon weapons, even though at present he can't. Though it is puzzling that, if Aux is dead, why did Sigzil think his oaths still held? Are these different oaths, is Aux dead for some other reason?

Either way, Nomad can't seem to summon weapons. However ...

Quote

[...]

The crowd cheered as Glowing Eyes raised the second spear.  The poor captive screamed a piteous sound, pulling against his captors, trying desperately to escape.

Not my problem, Nomad thought, closing his eyes.

But he could still hear.  And somehow, in shutting out the light—there within the blackness of his own design—he felt something.  Of the person he’d once been.  And words he’d once spoken.  In a moment of glorious radiance.

Damnation, he thought as the man’s terrified shouts shook him to the core.

[...]

He whipped his hand forward then, throwing Auxiliary to spin—flashing and glorious—through the air.  Aux slammed into one of the pillars on the podium right next to Glowing Eye’s head: a six-foot long, glittering sword.  Auxiliary’s truest form.  It sank into the pillar up to Auxiliary’s hilt, then hung there, quivering.

The crowd hushed.

Huh, Auxiliary said in his head.  I thought you couldn’t do that anymore.

He intentionally hadn’t aimed for Glowing Eyes, as to not be a threat—and not trigger the Torment.  But it had been a while since Nomad had seen the full Blade, been able to access it in its glory.  The crowd hushed, and as Nomad hoped, Glowing Eyes gaped at the sword—forgetting his captive.  The gap-toothed man huddled in the grips of the officers, but hadn’t been touched by the spear, not yet.

Nomad resummoned Auxiliary, and tried to form the Blade again.  He failed.  The Torment seemed to have slipped that once, but now it was adamant.  No weapons.

Even taking into account he hadn't been trying to attack, only destact, it is significant.

 

and later, when with others who would suffer a terrible fate if captured:

Quote

Ahead of him, the pilot leaned down even lower behind a short windshield, the throttle—least, that was what he guessed the lever was—smashed forward as far as it would go.  The gap-toothed man that Nomad had rescued clung to his seat, eyes wide, hair fluttering the wind.

Nomad glanced ahead of them, hoping to see some kind of defensive force up there.  A fortress, or a line of fighters waiting for them to arrive.

[... he sees the rings, etc., but nothing that can help the others ...]

So Nomad took a deep breath, then stood up, dashed along the length of the hover bike, and jumped.

Wind against his tattered clothing.

An infinite expanse above.

Distant land below, looking up, aspirational.

It felt familiar.  Nomad and the sky weren’t currently on speaking terms.  But they’d been intimate for some time in the past, and he still knew his way around her place.

He felt…stronger now.  Where he’d struggled to make the leap onto that box earlier in the day, this time he soared.

Even the ember people seemed amazed by the distance he got with that leap, soaring over their heads, hitting their platform right behind them with enough force to shake the vessel. 

 

I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.

 

Whatever happened to Nomad, the Windrunner remains within him. I suspect that his oaths, dead though they may be, still have a shred of life within them, and that is enough for him to still cause harm - so long as it is in the service of saving others. To use shreds of the power that he once possessed and summon his blade as a weapon - provided he remembers the journey.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Ixthos

[RedBlue]

21 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

 

I theorise that Sigzil, Nomad, can override his Torment when we seeks to be what he once was - a Windrunner. I don't know if Aux is his original spren or not, but it seems he is dead, and by implication by Sigzil's own actions.

 

It makes a lot of sense that Sigzil’s Windrunning and Radiant oaths are the key to getting around his Torment. Makes me wonder if Wit was hoping to circumvent his own Torment problems when he bonded Design.

I’m leaning towards thinking that Aux is Sigzil’s original spren. Firstly, they apparently knew each other quite well when Aux was alive, which isn’t common between spren and humans who aren’t bonded. Secondly, Sigzil is implied to have killed Aux, which would be difficult to do if they weren’t bonded when Aux was alive.

I suppose it’s possible that Sigzil could have bonded a second spren and then killed him, but a Windrunner bonding a second spren seems unlikely given what’s going on in Stormlight. There aren’t enough spren to go around as it is. 

[Ixthos]

7 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

It makes a lot of sense that Sigzil’s Windrunning and Radiant oaths are the key to getting around his Torment. Makes me wonder if Wit was hoping to circumvent his own Torment problems when he bonded Design.

I’m leaning towards thinking that Aux is Sigzil’s original spren. Firstly, they apparently knew each other quite well when Aux was alive, which isn’t common between spren and humans who aren’t bonded. Secondly, Sigzil is implied to have killed Aux, which would be difficult to do if they weren’t bonded when Aux was alive.

I suppose it’s possible that Sigzil could have bonded a second spren and then killed him, but a Windrunner bonding a second spren seems unlikely given what’s going on in Stormlight. There aren’t enough spren to go around as it is. 

I agree it seems most likely Aux was Sigzil's original spren. Something I'm wondering is, as we know Rysn was forbidden to bond a spren after becoming a Dawnshard, if that has anything to do with Aux's state? Sigzil was told he had to take up a Dawnshard for the good of Roshar or the Cosmere, but that he had to let his spren die to do it, and so both reluctantly killed him, though with the BAM issue sorted the death wasn't as damaging?

[Brgst13]

I had a very different take.  I read Aux as a Cognitive Shadow that Sigzil had bonded.  This is partially based on my theory that Kaladin has taken up Honor and changed how Oaths work.  It seems odd to me that Sigzil would call himself the squire for his spren.  It is even odder that the spren would call himself a knife.  Is it not possible that humans have learned to do as spren do and form Nahel bonds as a Cognitive Shadow?

[Dreamwa1ker]

3 minutes ago, Brgst13 said:

I had a very different take.  I read Aux as a Cognitive Shadow that Sigzil had bonded.  This is partially based on my theory that Kaladin has taken up Honor and changed how Oaths work.  It seems odd to me that Sigzil would call himself the squire for his spren.  It is even odder that the spren would call himself a knife.  Is it not possible that humans have learned to do as spren do and form Nahel bonds as a Cognitive Shadow?

Almost at the very end, in chapter 10, Aux is explicitly referred to as a spren

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Nomad sighed. He expected a wisecrack from Auxiliary, but the spren stayed silent as well. 

Maybe Aux refers to himself as a knight and Sigzil as his squire as Aux's take on their present relationship.

9 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

agree it seems most likely Aux was Sigzil's original spren. Something I'm wondering is, as we know Rysn was forbidden to bond a spren after becoming a Dawnshard, if that has anything to do with Aux's state? Sigzil was told he had to take up a Dawnshard for the good of Roshar or the Cosmere, but that he had to let his spren die to do it, and so both reluctantly killed him, though with the BAM issue sorted the death wasn't as damaging?

This is along the lines I was thinking, but I hadn't considered BAM. Stormlight RoW spoilers

Spoiler

I was wondering about this situation in relation Shallan and Testament and Adolin and Maya, if they could get their spren more awake like this as well

.

[RedBlue]

29 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

Something I'm wondering is, as we know Rysn was forbidden to bond a spren after becoming a Dawnshard, if that has anything to do with Aux's state? Sigzil was told he had to take up a Dawnshard for the good of Roshar or the Cosmere, but that he had to let his spren die to do it, and so both reluctantly killed him, though with the BAM issue sorted the death wasn't as damaging?

 

16 minutes ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

Spoiler

I was wondering about this situation in relation Shallan and Testament and Adolin and Maya, if they could get their spren more awake like this as well

.

This seems very plausible to me. Sigzil needs to take up the Dawnshard, but can’t do it while bonded to a spren. So he breaks his oaths. After the Dawnshard business is done with, he forms a new and different kind of bond with his deadeye spren. The rules for deadeyes are now different, because Ba Ado Mishram reasons, and whatever Adolin and Maya are figuring out. 

 

(I have a different - and much worse - idea, as well. The current Radiants still haven’t figured out why the past Radiants all broke their oaths during the Recreance. When they do learn the truth, what if they realise they have to do it again, for the same reasons? What if Sigzil broke his oaths as part of a second Recreance? Will all the Radiants have to do the same, hoping to afterwards nurse their deadeyed spren back to health?

I apologise for this terrible, horrible idea.)

[Brgst13]

I see where I am wrong and Aux is a spren.  The part that interests me is that he is dead...but not a Deadeye.  Did Sigzil break his Oath?  Or did the bond break with the Dawnshard?  The other odd thing is Sigzil remembers being a Windrunner...but Aux is manipulating Connection in ways we have only seen with a Bondsmith.

[teknopathetic]

Could what is happening to Sigzil be something related to "the curse of kind"?

[Karger]

49 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

Could what is happening to Sigzil be something related to "the curse of kind"?

Probably not since Sigzil blames Hoid.

[Kandrafish]

1. I agree. It seems that Sigzil/ Nomad can overcome the Torment as a result of doing things that pertain to his old oaths.

He seems to even say this with his comment about his oaths protecting him from the Torment.

2. My interpretation is that the Torment is the Dawnshard that stopped Hoid from killing people not "the Curse of Kind" (but I still really want to know what that is).

It seems clear that it only prevents him from harming other people, but also lets him convert between different kinds of investiture, which would have been something that was very useful to Hoid.

 3. This is more of a wild guess, but I thought that Aux referring to himself as a Knight could mean that Sigzil might have stored some of his memories as a Knight Radiant in Aux, like how Hoid can store memories in Breath.

No evidence

 

[Lego Mistborn]

3 hours ago, RedBlue said:

(I have a different - and much worse - idea, as well. The current Radiants still haven’t figured out why the past Radiants all broke their oaths during the Recreance. When they do learn the truth, what if they realise they have to do it again, for the same reasons? What if Sigzil broke his oaths as part of a second Recreance? Will all the Radiants have to do the same, hoping to afterwards nurse their deadeyed spren back to health?

I apologise for this terrible, horrible idea.)

Well, the spren were in on it the first time so...

[RedBlue]

1 minute ago, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

Well, the spren were in on it the first time so...

So they could be in on it a second time ...

oh no

[teknopathetic]

7 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

I see where I am wrong and Aux is a spren.  The part that interests me is that he is dead...but not a Deadeye.  Did Sigzil break his Oath?  Or did the bond break with the Dawnshard?  The other odd thing is Sigzil remembers being a Windrunner...but Aux is manipulating Connection in ways we have only seen with a Bondsmith.

I wonder if this is a return to how Broken Oaths work before Mishram's imprisonment? We know deadeyes were not a thing before them, so maybe the bond remained in same way when things were normal and connection wasnt all messed up? 

Edited March 25, 2022 by teknopathetic

[Wyndle88]

Maybe Torment is the way to go forward to keep checks on unfathomable power. Maybe 'Torment' will be worked into the 'Oaths'/Bonds to prevent humans and Singers from using powers to normally defend instead of going into offensive with Godmetal weapons against normal ordinary foes.

[DiePie]

It seemed to me that Sigzil just refers to the Dawnshard as his "Torment", because of how much pain it's brought to him. He constant curses his inability to harm others as a Torment because it's a direct manifestation of his struggle, something he didn't ask for, didn't want, something he sees himself as being tricked into.

Though getting further from what we know, I think that Aux died after he took up the Dawnshard. Sig may have been told that his oaths as a Radiant would negate some of the Dawnshard's effects -- which would help explain why he thought he was tricked -- but it didn't. Now he's on the run from the "Night Brigade", and has been for what seems to be a while (I think a few years, but all we know for certain it could be anywhere from a few, seemingly long, weeks and centuries spent running, with the Dawnshard preventing his Spiritweb from changing significantly), and during that time he was forced to break his oaths to survive, get away from the Brigade, etc.

[HOIDS BROTHER'S FATHER]

Sigzils original spen may die in SA5. He could say oaths with AuX and that is how he ends up in this position. Many things could have lead to AUx dying but it's definitely apparent that he knows Namad well and shared a bond for a while before oaths were broken. Maybe you cannot have a spren bins if you take in a dawnshard. Still too many unknowns. There has to be more affects to the dawnshards

Edited March 27, 2022 by HOIDS BROTHER'S FATHER

[+Oltux72]

8 hours ago, HOIDS BROTHER'S FATHER said:

Sigzils original spen may die in SA5. He could say oaths with AuX and that is how he ends up in this position.

In that case Aux's question about oaths just makes no sense.

[Ixthos]

On 3/25/2022 at 11:48 PM, DiePie said:

It seemed to me that Sigzil just refers to the Dawnshard as his "Torment", because of how much pain it's brought to him. He constant curses his inability to harm others as a Torment because it's a direct manifestation of his struggle, something he didn't ask for, didn't want, something he sees himself as being tricked into.

Though getting further from what we know, I think that Aux died after he took up the Dawnshard. Sig may have been told that his oaths as a Radiant would negate some of the Dawnshard's effects -- which would help explain why he thought he was tricked -- but it didn't. Now he's on the run from the "Night Brigade", and has been for what seems to be a while (I think a few years, but all we know for certain it could be anywhere from a few, seemingly long, weeks and centuries spent running, with the Dawnshard preventing his Spiritweb from changing significantly), and during that time he was forced to break his oaths to survive, get away from the Brigade, etc.

What may be interesting is if Sigzil has been running for a few years ... from his perspective. But in actuality every time he Skips, he's actually travelling at the speed of light, not instantaneously, and so when he arrives on a new planet, depending on how far away he's travelled, decades or centuries pass. That would certainly add an interesting twist to the story, as it seems Scadrians (Ghostbloods or the society as a whole) have somehow build underground facilities on at least one other world.

 

I read something in another thread, I need to find it again and upvote it if I haven't already, but someone suggested something along the lines of Sigzil now in a sense being the "spren" to Aux - the Dawnshard in Sigzel - if he still has it rather than just carrying an imprint - is what gives Aux the power to alter his Connections, etc., and so while Aux can still function as a living blade despite being dead, his other powers are in a sense reversed. The use of "squire" to refer to Nomad does put this in some question though.

[+Oltux72]

48 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

What may be interesting is if Sigzil has been running for a few years ... from his perspective. But in actuality every time he Skips, he's actually travelling at the speed of light, not instantaneously, and so when he arrives on a new planet, depending on how far away he's travelled, decades or centuries pass. That would certainly add an interesting twist to the story, as it seems Scadrians (Ghostbloods or the society as a whole) have somehow build underground facilities on at least one other world.

The problem is that timing and placement of his emergence are too peculiar to be explaining by chance. Yet chance would be the result of the timing being explained by distance. You do not emerge by chance during an ongoing execution.

In fact if you think this through, almost every place on that world would have been fatal within a few days, if it hadn't brought him into contact with people. He wouldn't outrun the sun on foot, assuming he'd know that he has to try,  and dayside would have been fatal.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Oltux72
typo

[Konaka]

On 24/03/2022 at 11:36 PM, RedBlue said:

It makes a lot of sense that Sigzil’s Windrunning and Radiant oaths are the key to getting around his Torment. Makes me wonder if Wit was hoping to circumvent his own Torment problems when he bonded Design.

This places an interesting question in my mind. If we assume acting in accordance to his windrunner oaths (mostly about protecting) grants Nomad greater access to his powers, how would this situation work with a lightweaver?

Shallan for example would get a boost acting in ways that make her face the events of her past?

Wit even might have been in this situation.

[drunkenbotanist]

2 hours ago, Konaka said:

This places an interesting question in my mind. If we assume acting in accordance to his windrunner oaths (mostly about protecting) grants Nomad greater access to his powers, how would this situation work with a lightweaver?

Shallan for example would get a boost acting in ways that make her face the events of her past?

Wit even might have been in this situation.

I assume it's not because he is acting in accordance with his oaths but very specifically the oaths of a windrunner are probably very compatible theoretically with the dawnshard.

 

Holding it even after giving it up prevents Hoid from harming people 

 

Windrunner oaths are about protecting people

 

He might've hoped his oaths would prevent the dawnshard effects from regarding his actions as a threat or something. 

 

 

 

[A Traveler]

It’s also interesting that his Torment is getting worse. The enforced non-violence wasn’t automatic as of him picking up the Dawnshard, it’s happened over time. Possibly a lot of it. I would have assumed that it was instantaneous, but even though it’s been years, he still generally expects to be able to commit violence, and is surprised when he can’t. I wonder if his oaths DID override the non-violence, but when his oaths “ended” and Aux became dead (whatever that means for spren post SA5), it started to become dominant over his “ended” oaths. 
 

Edit: Meant to also add that the oaths overriding the non-violence would also explain the moments where he’s acting in accordance with his oaths and can suddenly manifest Auxiliary as a Blade, or can suddenly make a spectacular leap from one ship to another. 

Edited March 29, 2022 by A Traveler
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