SP4 and what we know about wit

[drunkenbotanist]

So I decided to take what pieces of info we have on Hoid and try to fit together a narrative of events using just the info have to see if it could make sense

Starting farthest out at SP4 we know that Hoid wanted to prevent a huge calamity and didn't have many options and had to take the one that ruined Sigzil's life to save potentially the whole cosmere. 

 

It's pretty clear from context that this calamity involves at least one dawnshard. Because we know someone is hunting Sigzil for it, I think it's safe to assume that the calamity is that someone is trying to use the dawnshard (as opposed to something random like every 10,000 years the dawnshards have to be discharged or they blow up).

 

So from what we know about Hoid from the end of RoW is that Todium was able to mess with his memories. We know from WoB that he'll figure this out early into the next book. We also know that Sigzil's fate will be clear early on in the 5th book.

 

Not that they necessarily have to connect up together, but if these plots do then it could make sense that Hoid realizes his memories have been tampered with and now he doesn't know full extent of what info (we know from WoB that Todium didn't get info, just deleted memories) that Todium could have gotten. He's been hiding some important info about the status/location of one or more dawnshards, and now he's worried that they will be grabbed up by an agent of Todium. This could be the calamity he wants to prevent, and we know he had to work with what he has, so he has Sigzil go fetch it or otherwise secure it in a way that Hoid doesn't know about so the information can't be taken from him. The knowledge is safer with Sigzil because he doesn't need breaths to store memories because he's not thousands of years old, but he's still on the run from more physical threats anyways.

 

I doubt Brandon has given us all the info we need to put together a whole early plot line ahead of time, but I just wanted to see if it made sense this way if I assumed he had

 

 

[+Oltux72]

Or alternatively, Hoid had Sigzil use a Dawnshard as a weapon like Rosharans did in earlier Desolations. Somebody other than Hoid had to do it because Hoid cannot harm people.

[Dreamwa1ker]

I read it more as what Sigzil does saves Hoid specifically. Hoid being a bit full of himself or knowing his own plans has a take that this is saving the Cosmere because Hoid is doing things to save the Cosmere, but it sounds like what happens firstly saves Hoid's bacon.

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"I don’t have time for you, Wit,” Nomad said.  “The Night Brigade is out there.  Hunting me.  Because of what you did to me.”

“You may have saved the cosmere.”

“I absolutely did not save the cosmere,” Nomad snapped, finding a pebble in his pocket—mud washed away—he threw it through Wit’s head.  The illusion rippled then restored.  “I might have saved you though.”

“Same difference.”

“It’s not,” Nomad said.  “It’s really not.”  He stepped closer to Wit’s projection.  “If they catch me, they’ll be able to connect the Dawnshard to you.  And then, they’ll be on your tail.”

Now, I do agree that it likely is triggered by Hoid realizing about Todium and his memories, and it likely also has to do with concern about whether someone could trace the Dawnshard.

I was thinking that there is some sort of Identity or Connection hacking that goes on, where Hoid is swapping something with Sigzil (the connection to the Dawnshard maybe?). And I suspect messing around with Connection and Identity, which the bond relies on, could mess with the spren too:

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Questioner

If a Knight Radiant were to store Connection and Identity into the appropriate metalminds on a heavy basis, would it affect their spren bond, and how?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, right. Yes, but I won't answer the how, but it definitely has an effect. 

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

So my theory: Hoid swapped part of his Identity and Connection with the Dawnshard with Sigzil. We now see Sigzil has some of Hoid's attributes like the Torment, maybe some of his worldhopping or other abilities as well. In the process, Sigzil's spren bond was damaged, the aspect of him with his Oaths was excised. This is why we get:

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“Thought I did,” he said.  “Then my oaths ended, and I realized that destinations really are important, Wit."

And

Quote

I’m sorry, Nomad. But what oaths?

He doesn't say that he broke his Oaths, he says they ended. I think that wording was intentional. His Oaths were edited out (perhaps partially), and now his spren is altered, his bond is altered, and we get Auxiliary as not-quite-a-deadeyes but not a normal spren bond.

I say partially because it seems like by acting in accordance with his old oaths he is reConnecting or reforging his bond with his spren a bit, hence summoning the Shardblade once.

Anyway, I think all of this also fits thematically with the story we see here - his name is different (the spren name could be different too), he thinks several times of the man he used to be. While that is also a way people phrase things, it could more explicitly in this case referring to Identity shenanigans making him a bit of a different person.