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Hoid is very upset about something


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Alright, here goes:

1: When Wax saw Hoid on Scadrial disguised as a beggar, he was drinking perfume to get drunk. This is something that serious alcoholics do, and Hoid must be really miserable to do that.

2: Hoid beats the crap out of Kelsier in Secret History. He is incapable of harming living people, so that's out of the question for him. But, when he gets the chance to hurt a dead person, he does. Something is really hurting him enough to drive him to get sadistic pleasure out of Kelseir's pain.

3: Hoid disguises himself as Wit while on Roshar. When he does, he spends his time insulting everybody because he can. It's as if he can't physically harm the living, but he is trying to as much as possible. This one could be unrelated, but added to the first two it could mean something.

 

Ideas?

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He probably is upset about something. Due to a little short at the end of Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Edition with Hoid talking to a dark seon, we know he wanted to become an Elantrian. At least, that's what I got out of it. He also has the Seventeenth Shard chasing him. And he keeps disappearing. Hoid is weird, people.

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Given the way he started when Steris brought it up, I assumed it was a part of his previous disguise that he forgot to wash off.  (Of course, the fact that he left that tell in the first place is indicative of something throwing off his game something fierce)  Besides, doesn't display alcoholism on Roshar, or, indeed, anywhere else we've seen him.  Something could have changed which drove Hoid to drink between WoR and BoM (there are 3 Stormlight books and two Mistborn books between the two, BTW, more than enough time for massive status quo changes to occur), but given that we saw him drive a carriage stably enough for him to eavesdrop on Wax's convo with Harmony and carry on a conversation with Wayne simultaneously, while going fast enough that no one notices the carriage moving at a crawl, I don't think he's really become an alcoholic.  

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It's true that he doesn't display it on Roshar, so I think you're right about something between WoR and BoM. And it could be temporary. I don't think that Hoid would be susceptible to something like that for a very long time, since he can heal his soul.

Also, he was at the Shattering:

Quote

INTERVIEW: Mar 17th, 2012

QUESTION

How about a confirmation one? We have a secondhand report from Miyabi actually, that says that Hoid was at the Shattering of Adonalsium. Was he there?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes he was.

 

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10 hours ago, Figberts said:

2: Hoid beats the crap out of Kelsier in Secret History. He is incapable of harming living people, so that's out of the question for him. But, when he gets the chance to hurt a dead person, he does. Something is really hurting him enough to drive him to get sadistic pleasure out of Kelseir's pain.

Your conclusion that something is hurting him to drive him to sadistic pleasure is making an assumption we simply do not know. Albeit unlikely, it is possible that Hoid would be harming people left and right if he were capable of it. For all we know, he is a homicidal sociopath and his magical block (for lack of a better term) is all that is stopping him. I don't actually believe this is the case, but for all we know he might be.

The way he describes his inability to cause physical harm reminds me of the Oath Rod from Wheel or Time where it because physically impossible for him to go against it.

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I think he was just playing a role. We do not even know if he can get drunk at this point magic, etc. because he has changed so much magiclly.  And Kelsier is about as arrogant as they come, so not hard to imagine wailing on him. Kelsier is the one that chose to intervene and got what was coming to him. And that pool was a dangerious place for Hoid, so it's not like he wants to stick around. Beating up Kelsier gets him on his way faster.

And based on Liars of Partinel, Hoid is not exactly a saint and he's a Jesk -- think bard and court jester -- so Wit fits in perfectly with that. And it's hard to fault him for making fun of idiots too caught up in petty squabbles to see the signs of imminent doom for Roshar, Sadeas being an obvious example. It's probably like a vacation for him. That and he does poke and prod the people that he feels he can help. He even says as much in a conversation with Dalinar about Renarin.

If he's an alcoholic then it's recent because no alcholic could function as well as he does for so long. But we have no evidence to suggest he is. Like I said, he may not even be able to get drunk. For all he know, the perfume was part of an act, possibly even a cover for drinking metals.

Sorry, but I think you are reading too much into things.  

Edited by Argel
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I am with @Argel on this one. 

17 hours ago, Figberts said:

1: When Wax saw Hoid on Scadrial disguised as a beggar, he was drinking perfume to get drunk. This is something that serious alcoholics do, and Hoid must be really miserable to do that.

Simply a disguise imo.

17 hours ago, Figberts said:

2: Hoid beats the crap out of Kelsier in Secret History. He is incapable of harming living people, so that's out of the question for him. But, when he gets the chance to hurt a dead person, he does. Something is really hurting him enough to drive him to get sadistic pleasure out of Kelseir's pain.

Kelsier attacked Hoid. Hoid defended himself and did what he needed to do to get out of the Well. Also, as @Yata mentioned, Hoid could have done serious harm to Kelsier but did not.

17 hours ago, Figberts said:

3: Hoid disguises himself as Wit while on Roshar. When he does, he spends his time insulting everybody because he can. It's as if he can't physically harm the living, but he is trying to as much as possible. This one could be unrelated, but added to the first two it could mean something.

The role of Wit gives Hoid unparalleled access to the most powerful people in Alethkar and also gives him complete freedom of movement. It is a great job to have if you need to keep an eye on what is happening on Roshar but you also need the ability to disappear at times.

It was a good idea Figberts but I think the more obvious answers are, in this case, the right ones.

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6 hours ago, Figberts said:

If he was at the shattering though, wouldn't he feel very guilty about the goings on? That would explain why he wants to kill Odium.

That was over 10,000 years ago. Even factoring in time dilation, he's not going to stay wracked in guilt to that level for that long. And at this point he may regret what Rayse has done since then more than the shattering. 

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On 7/31/2016 at 10:24 PM, Figberts said:

1: When Wax saw Hoid on Scadrial disguised as a beggar, he was drinking perfume to get drunk. This is something that serious alcoholics do, and Hoid must be really miserable to do that.

I always assumed that he was using that to cover the fact that he'd been disguised as someone else just prior, and knew that he'd still smell like perfume from that; drinking the perfume provided a convenient excuse, but he may not have even actually been drinking it and most likely wasn't drunk.

That said, Hoid definitely seems to feel angry and/or guilty about something, and we see it in his little moments with people like Dalinor and Kaladin in addition to some of the other things stated.  I have a feeling it's more than just the Shattering, though; most likely related to something he did to someone else, or a loss like a loved one.

jW

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Not to discredit the theory...but i'd guess that Hoid could probably wrangle up some bourbon or something if he wanted to.  He does have the magical ability to find his way to the right place at the right time...I assume that could be used to find a liquor store while it's open.  Just sayin'....

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On 2016-08-01 at 4:39 PM, Argel said:

Like I said, he may not even be able to get drunk.

I don't think he can. Alcohol is a poison, and he's likely immune to those (and sure, healing in the cosmere can be tied closely to cognitive perception, but I doubt it would be easy to convince yourself that a poison wasn't harming you).

I think you may be right in general though. Hoid probably has a traumatic past, and his Yolish friends are either long dead, unreceptive (ie shards), or currently hunting him (Frost). He has lived a long time, never really being able to settle down and form relationships and friendships for long. On top of that, he's pretty much always playing some kind of role, probably even to himself. So... yeah. Despite being seemingly immortal, he doesn't seem to be living a healthy life.

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He's driven at this point. Maybe to an unhealthy extent, but it's hard to say with all the magical stuff going on it's hard to say what's unhealthy -- e.g. leave Odium alone so he can wipe the other shards out or do your best to intervene doesn't seem so extreme.

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I can agree on this one but this is based on a assumption that Hoid is inherently not evil himself. I myself believe he is pretty selfish and focused on his goals and do not care about the people of cosmere at all. He does not seem to be a force of good, may be not pure evil too but somewhere in middle. Yes, I still can not forgive him beating Kelsier :)

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I would lean towards putting Hoid in the anti-hero category. We haven't seen anything to indicate he's inherently evil, but we have seen him help others when he can. If we believe him when he says that it's very dangerous for him to be on Roshar, then the reason he is there seems pretty clear -- to try and save what can be saved. Yes, he will destroy Roshar if he has to, but it's not the first option. 

Given the amount of power Hoid has amassed, if he was evil he could be doing much more damage. He certainly wouldn't need to e.g. spend so much time with Kaladin or the Kholinars. If he was evil, one would think he would have been spending more time with Sadeas or Mr. T.

I also have a hard time believing Frost would be writing letters to Hoid and maintaining his non-interventionist policy if Hoid was evil. More likely, Hoid and Frost have similar goals/hopes, and there is a difference of opinion in how to let those come about -- Frost thinks Adonalsium put a plan in place and has faith in that plan and Hoid either does not believe there is a plan or has less faith that it will play out.

It's worth noting that it may be worth the cost of destroying Roshar to destroy Odium, if the alternative is Odium eventually destroys everything anyway.

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On ‎8‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 0:49 PM, CaptainRyan said:

Kelsier attacked Hoid. Hoid defended himself and did what he needed to do to get out of the Well. Also, as @Yata mentioned, Hoid could have done serious harm to Kelsier but did not.

That scene (Hoid attacking Kelsier) makes me thing of the Matrix, where Morpheus tells Neo "Do you think that's air you're breathing?"  I like to think of it as a training exercise; or a VR video game.  He couldn't really hurt him by attacking him physically.  And he used the moment to teach Kelsier something.  You don't feel pain here.  You only feel pain because you think you should... ala "do you think that's air you're breathing?"

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After rereading that scene, I don't believe he was drinking the perfume in the first place. I lean towards he was wearing it for some other reason, and when Steris pointed it out, he pretended that he was drunk on it to give himself cover. Because what kind of beggar would wear perfume? He had to say he was drinking it, regardless of whether he was or not. After saying he was drinking it, he also seemed to pretend to be slightly drunk. I agree that it is unlikely he could get drunk in the first place, so this seems the most likely scenario.

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  • 3 months later...
On 8/2/2016 at 8:13 AM, Jondesu said:

I always assumed that he was using that to cover the fact that he'd been disguised as someone else just prior, and knew that he'd still smell like perfume from that; drinking the perfume provided a convenient excuse, but he may not have even actually been drinking it and most likely wasn't drunk.

I agree with this one completely. When Wax smells cologne coming from the beggar and asks him about it, the beggar temporarily looks surprised. He said he was drinking it to throw Wax off.

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