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Theory: How Gavilar got the Evil Sphere of Doom


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In Interlude 3, that one guy mentions the he stole a sphere from the Nightwatcher. Then Szeth is reminded of Gavilar's sphere. (I'll get quotes later if anyone wants them.) Who else has gone to see the Nightwatcher? Dalinar. I'm assuming that there's a connection here, which involves the Nightwatcher hoarding these spheres.

Allow me to present two possibilities:

1. Dalinar received the sphere from the Nightwatcher along with his memory wipe. For some reason, he gave the sphere to Gavilar, who realized what the sphere was. To make this possibility seem more plausible, he could have used the sphere to zap some Parshmen into Parshendi (Dalinar was said to be the one to first come into contact with them), and then lent it to Gavilar, who was intrigued by it. Alternately, he saw it as worthless and was going to throw it away, only for Gavilar to ask to see it.

OR

2. Gavilar and Dalinar went to see the Nightwatcher together. Gavilar received the sphere, while Dalinar got his memory wipe. Gavilar realized the importance of the sphere and had his "OMG!" moment.

While we're on the subject of the Nightwatcher, I wonder why Dalinar went. When I was reading The Way of Kings, I was sure that he was shamed by the time he attacked Gavilar, so he went to the Nightwatcher. However, the timeline doesn't match up (he attacked Gavilar because they were fighting over Navani or something), so now I believe that it was due to the pain of his wife leaving him (he did spent three years courting her, and he is human). If so, his wife is most likely either Malise Gevelmar (Shallan's deceased stepmother, who Jasnah somehow knows about), or Shalash. (That's how she managed to get the statue in Kholinar. See the theory about Shalash being Baxil's mistress.) I'm not sure if Shalash would match up with the timeline of my theory unless it was taking a really long time for Gavilar to replace her statue, or he hadn't noticed. Also, I don't know enough about the timeline to be sure if it was Malise. Whatever.

Feel free to support, be neutral on, or point out holes in either of my theories.

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In Interlude 3, that one guy mentions the he stole a sphere from the Nightwatcher. Then Szeth is reminded of Gavilar's sphere. (I'll get quotes later if anyone wants them.) Who else has gone to see the Nightwatcher? Dalinar. I'm assuming that there's a connection here, which involves the Nightwatcher hoarding these spheres.

Allow me to present two possibilities:

1. Dalinar received the sphere from the Nightwatcher along with his memory wipe. For some reason, he gave the sphere to Gavilar, who realized what the sphere was. To make this possibility seem more plausible, he could have used the sphere to zap some Parshmen into Parshendi (Dalinar was said to be the one to first come into contact with them), and then lent it to Gavilar, who was intrigued by it. Alternately, he saw it as worthless and was going to throw it away, only for Gavilar to ask to see it.

OR

2. Gavilar and Dalinar went to see the Nightwatcher together. Gavilar received the sphere, while Dalinar got his memory wipe. Gavilar realized the importance of the sphere and had his "OMG!" moment.

While we're on the subject of the Nightwatcher, I wonder why Dalinar went. When I was reading The Way of Kings, I was sure that he was shamed by the time he attacked Gavilar, so he went to the Nightwatcher. However, the timeline doesn't match up (he attacked Gavilar because they were fighting over Navani or something), so now I believe that it was due to the pain of his wife leaving him (he did spent three years courting her, and he is human). If so, his wife is most likely either Malise Gevelmar (Shallan's deceased stepmother, who Jasnah somehow knows about), or Shalash. (That's how she managed to get the statue in Kholinar. See the theory about Shalash being Baxil's mistress.) I'm not sure if Shalash would match up with the timeline of my theory unless it was taking a really long time for Gavilar to replace her statue, or he hadn't noticed. Also, I don't know enough about the timeline to be sure if it was Malise. Whatever.

Feel free to support, be neutral on, or point out holes in either of my theories.

Wait, isn't Dalinar a widower?

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Yes, or, at least, we assume he is. For all we know she left or ran away. Thanks to the Nightwatcher, we'll never know.

Actually, it seems that Navani knows what happened to Dalinar's wife, and I suspect that the court has at least some if not all of the information. I'm fairly sure Brandon will let us know a little more about her, or otherwise he'll just have a random loose-end.

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Yes, or, at least, we assume he is. For all we know she left or ran away. Thanks to the Nightwatcher, we'll never know.

My assumption is that all memory was erased from his brain, and she vanished. Is she, perhaps, a prisoner of the Nightwatcher?

Although perhaps his wife died and he was so grief stricken that he asked the NW to make him forget about her.

Both options are doubtable.

Edited by Stroniax
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I think the sphere has something to do with Odium, however, and the Nightwatcher is probably not associated with him. This comes into could the Nightwatcher grant boons/curses that play with the other magic systems? I'm inclined to say no, that the sphere was found maybe in the dealings with the Parshendi, maybe before that. Also no one mentions Gavilar leaving Alethi for awhile. It may have not been important enough to bring up, but the king taking a journey out of the country when it's really pretty fragile internally seems unlikely.

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  • 7 months later...

I think the sphere has something to do with Odium, however, and the Nightwatcher is probably not associated with him. This comes into could the Nightwatcher grant boons/curses that play with the other magic systems? I'm inclined to say no, that the sphere was found maybe in the dealings with the Parshendi, maybe before that. Also no one mentions Gavilar leaving Alethi for awhile. It may have not been important enough to bring up, but the king taking a journey out of the country when it's really pretty fragile internally seems unlikely.

 

I really think that the sphere has to do with Odium. It reminds me of Mistborn....

 

A physical manifestation of Odium into a bead, just as Ruin and Preservation each had beads of metal in Scadrial as Atium and Lerasium. It seems a bit out of place, since as far as we know no one can burn metals on Roshar (because that just doesn't seem to jive with Brandon's theme of different magics on different planets/worlds), but it still reminds me a lot of it.

 

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  • 5 months later...

Couldn't that black sphere have been taken from Shadesmar? We know that Gavilar's daughter, Jasnah, can go there and we have evidence that Gavilar was seeing the strange symbol-headed "spren" when he looked in the mirror.

 

“... a place with a black sky and a strange, small white sun that hung on the horizon ... Flames hovered nearby ... Like the tips of candles floating in the air and moving with the wind ... An endless dark sea, except it wasn't wet. It was made of the small beads, an entire ocean of tiny glass spheres”

— Shallan Davar Link
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Did Gavilar see Cryptics in mirrors too? We know Elhokar did, and his sister (Navani) probably does as well (she recognizes the spren, but we don't have a hard confirmation that she sees them in mirrors, or even in the Physical Realm), so it's possible that Surgebinding has a hereditary component and they both got it from their father. But I don't actually remember anyone mentioning Gavilar talking about this stuff.

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Did Gavilar see Cryptics in mirrors too? We know Elhokar did, and his sister (Navani) probably does as well (she recognizes the spren, but we don't have a hard confirmation that she sees them in mirrors, or even in the Physical Realm)

 

I think you mean Jasnah, not Navani who is his mother.  I also highly doubt Jasnah sees Cryptics.  We know she is a different order from Shallan and it has been implied that each order had its own kind of spren.  Also Jasnah was surprised by the Cryptics when Shallan showed her drawings of them.  She says something along the lines of "I had thought... But no" which I interpret as her believing Shallan was part of her order which proved false when it became apparent she had a different kind of spren.

 

As for the sphere being taken from the Cognitive Realm... I doubt it.  Those orbs are the cognitive aspects of objects in the Physical Realm, so I don't know how that would work.

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I keep seeing people mention that we know Jasnah is a different order than Shallan. May I ask someone to link me to this evidence? I didn't see anything in the book to suggest it.

You might want to read the chapter Veristitalian. It's not explicit but it's heavily implied.

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In Interlude 3, that one guy mentions the he stole a sphere from the Nightwatcher. Then Szeth is reminded of Gavilar's sphere. (I'll get quotes later if anyone wants them.) Who else has gone to see the Nightwatcher? Dalinar. I'm assuming that there's a connection here, which involves the Nightwatcher hoarding these spheres.

Allow me to present two possibilities:

1. Dalinar received the sphere from the Nightwatcher along with his memory wipe. For some reason, he gave the sphere to Gavilar, who realized what the sphere was. To make this possibility seem more plausible, he could have used the sphere to zap some Parshmen into Parshendi (Dalinar was said to be the one to first come into contact with them), and then lent it to Gavilar, who was intrigued by it. Alternately, he saw it as worthless and was going to throw it away, only for Gavilar to ask to see it.

OR

2. Gavilar and Dalinar went to see the Nightwatcher together. Gavilar received the sphere, while Dalinar got his memory wipe. Gavilar realized the importance of the sphere and had his "OMG!" moment.

While we're on the subject of the Nightwatcher, I wonder why Dalinar went. When I was reading The Way of Kings, I was sure that he was shamed by the time he attacked Gavilar, so he went to the Nightwatcher. However, the timeline doesn't match up (he attacked Gavilar because they were fighting over Navani or something), so now I believe that it was due to the pain of his wife leaving him (he did spent three years courting her, and he is human). If so, his wife is most likely either Malise Gevelmar (Shallan's deceased stepmother, who Jasnah somehow knows about), or Shalash. (That's how she managed to get the statue in Kholinar. See the theory about Shalash being Baxil's mistress.) I'm not sure if Shalash would match up with the timeline of my theory unless it was taking a really long time for Gavilar to replace her statue, or he hadn't noticed. Also, I don't know enough about the timeline to be sure if it was Malise. Whatever.

Feel free to support, be neutral on, or point out holes in either of my theories.

I find it highly unlikely that the sphere is from the Nightwatcher with the current information available on the Nightwatcher.

 

I also think it is unlikely Dalinar was married to Malise Gavelmar or Shalash.  It seems other characters remember Dalinar's wife, I don't think Shalash one of the heralds would randomly get married have two kids then run-off, there just isn't any evidence to support that.  I don't think there is really any evidence to support her being Malise Gavelmar although it was curious that Jasnah knew she was Shallan's step mother.

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Jasnah apparently does not see the Symbolheads but can soulcast. By inference, she's in an adjacent order.

 

Her reaction to the Truthspren confused me. In her first sentence, she implied she didn't know them, but before Shallan could get more than a few words out, she was giving Shallan the downlow on them. I'm not totally convinced that this is proof that she's a different order.

 

Also, do we have it confirmed that this is how Surges work? I was under the impression that it's possible that your "access to two surges" grants you one unique powerset. So, for example, Kaladin's Three Lashings is what you get when you mix Gravity with Atmopsheric Pressure. The Order to one side would mix Atmospheric Pressure with the Surge of, I dunno, Disco, and get one unique powerset based on the combination. By this theory, Soulcasting would be one powerset that you get when you mix whichever two Surges that order has access to.

 

I've seen those two theories postulated. Do we know which, if either, of them are correct?

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Her reaction to the Truthspren confused me. In her first sentence, she implied she didn't know them, but before Shallan could get more than a few words out, she was giving Shallan the downlow on them. I'm not totally convinced that this is proof that she's a different order.

 

Also, do we have it confirmed that this is how Surges work? I was under the impression that it's possible that your "access to two surges" grants you one unique powerset. So, for example, Kaladin's Three Lashings is what you get when you mix Gravity with Atmopsheric Pressure. The Order to one side would mix Atmospheric Pressure with the Surge of, I dunno, Disco, and get one unique powerset based on the combination. By this theory, Soulcasting would be one powerset that you get when you mix whichever two Surges that order has access to.

 

I've seen those two theories postulated. Do we know which, if either, of them are correct?

 

It's debatable, I read is as her being surprised to see the Cryptics, not that she didn't recognize them, because she expected Shallan to be the same order as her.  When she learns that Shallan sees Cryptics she realizes, no she is a different order.  Though one of the recent q&a's has pretty much confirmed them being different orders.

 

Yes, as far as we know it is how surges work.  The Basic/Reverse Lashings are associated with gravity while the Full Lashing are associated with atmospheric pressure.  We know that two orders have access to Solcasting

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Do you have links to things that support either of these?

 

For the former - http://lunarubato.tumblr.com/post/63708891840/alright-so-ellie-lisa-brittany-and-i-went-to They showed Brandon a mock-up of a surgebinding table and Shallan and Jasnah being separate orders is not one of the things he said was wrong.

 

For the latter - The book, Jasnah says two orders have access to soulcasting maybe a couple paragraphs after Shallan shows her the Cryptic sketch.

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Hey A Fabrial has a lot of sides and how you cut it makes it how it works? So If you cut it with INFINITY SIDES then it means that you have THE MOST power?

Maybe That is the trick to how the sphere works. Or Maybe the sphere is likea pokeball and when he got it the first time nothing was in it but now something is in it.

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I'm not sure how you would be able to cut it to have an infinite number of facets or faces.  I assume you are speaking of a spear and essentially identifying each point on the surface of the sphere as being a facet.  But this wouldn't really fit since a facet is a two dimensional plane.  I also don't see the number of facets correlating with the power level of the gem, but rather a configuration of facets providing a particular effect in much the same way that in allomancy the metal focuses or filters the power rather than actually provides it.

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I agree. I briefly touched (or intended to?) on the idea that since Vorinism makes a big deal out of symmetry (in shapes, cities, names...), and since the second page of Navani's notebook shows only symmetric cuts for the gemstones that can hold spren, one has to wonder what properties a spherical gemstone - one with perfect symmetry - will have. But the number of sides, that sounds too... basic.

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So here's my hypothesis on how Galivar got the black marble.

 

Galivar was riding through Alethkar enjoying a fine summers ride when he came across a small boy named Tien outside of a small village named Heathstone. He asked the boy if he knew about any good hunting in the area, and the boy shook his head, but offered him a strange black sphere instead. Galivar took the odd looking sphere and thanked the boy, then rode off into the countryside.

 

My evidence is that Tien liked rocks and he liked to give them away. A big warrior on a horse deserved his best rock, so Tien gave him the black glowy black rock he found in the stream.

 

Now before you get to critical about my idea of how Galivar got the stone please go back and find me better evidence for your personal hypothesis than what I've presented for mine.

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