Jump to content

[Edgedancer Spoilers] Bridge building


CaptainRyan

Recommended Posts

This is from the epigraph of Chapter 89 in Words of Radiance [emphasis mine]:

"TherehastobeananswerWhatisthe answerStopTheParshendiOneofthem YestheyarethemissingpiecePushfor theAlethitodestroythemoutright beforethisoneobtainstheirpowerIt willformabridge

—From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the second"

I thought this was interesting as it matches with what Nale said about his fear, based on Ishar's lie/ confusion, that the Knights Radiant could form some sort of bridge that would trigger a Desolation. 

Now, the most obvious interpretation, to me, of this epigraph is that the Stormform parshendi formed a bridge using the Everstorm and Mr. T hoped that the Alethi would stop them. However, considering how cryptic the Diagram is and how unrelated information seems to sometimes be mashed together, are there any other interpretations this passage might be suggesting? What say ye, 17th Shard?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems to me that the line is referring to the Listeners creating the bridge and there isn't any reference to KRs in general. Also, I'm still slightly in favour that Ishar was lying and that Nale is wrong about the KRs causing a Desolation to occur, since it still seems to me that spren didn't start forming Nahel Bonds until after the Unmade became active again, which likely indicated the start of the True Desolation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Makes sense to me. 

Tragic that Nale feared a desolation and fought the proto Radiants, whilst ignoring the Parshendi who really could form a bridge. 

Although I'd suspect the bridge, in this case, is the Everstorm itself as it seems to carry (generate?) Hatespren.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's break this epigraph down into sentences using capital letters as the break point (ignoring proper nouns like "Alethi"):

"There has to be an answer.
What is the answer.
Stop.
The.
Parshendi.
One of them.
Yes they are the missing piece.
Push for the Alethi to destroy them outright before this one obtains their power.
It will form a bridge."

So, as I mentioned in the OP, the "jump off the page right into your face" interpretation of this is that the Diagram is suggesting that Mr. T push the Alethi to wipe out the Parshendi before they can summon the Everstorm. If that is the interpretation then the Diagrammists failed and... uhh, well hopefully there is a backup plan in the Diagram to cover this major failure on their part.

But! What if that is not the proper interpretation of this epigraph? Is it possible this epigraph contains a mixture of information? That some of the sentences refer to the Parshendi and the Alethi and some of them refer to something else? This epigraph was originally obtained by taking every second letter from a jumble of writing and stringing them together. Clearly, Mr. T was not concerned with mixing information while writing the Diagram and I wonder if this epigraph is an example of how certain information got mixed together. Either that, or the Diagrammists failed and, if that is the case, I am not sure what that means for their cause.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the last sentence of this part of the Diagram, there seems to be two ways to interpret it. First, as already mentioned, the "power" that "this one" is predicted to obtain. Second, though, is the Alethi "push [...] to destroy them outright." What if it's the Alethi act of genocide that is actually being predicted to form the bridge?

Edited by Corax
Typo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Corax said:

What if it's the Alethi act of genocide that is actually being predicted to form the bridge?

I mean, it was the act of attempted genocide which pushed them to stormform, along with Kaladin, who wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for the Vengeance Pact.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/10/2016 at 1:25 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

It seems to me that the line is referring to the Listeners creating the bridge and there isn't any reference to KRs in general. Also, I'm still slightly in favour that Ishar was lying and that Nale is wrong about the KRs causing a Desolation to occur, since it still seems to me that spren didn't start forming Nahel Bonds until after the Unmade became active again, which likely indicated the start of the True Desolation.

What is our main evidence of the Unmade activities? Death Rattles? Anything else?   Pattern showed up at Shallan's doorstep quite a few years in the past. Ditto for Jasnah and Ivory. And we do not know how many people Nale offed in the time being, but his visit to Ym was not the first time he was doing it.  We need to put the following events in chronological order:

 

 1. Mr. T. creates the Diagram

 2. Gavilar starts getting the Stormfather Netflix

3. Death Rattles appear

Then we will know what came first, the chicken or the egg.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/10/2016 at 1:26 PM, Savanorn said:

Tragic that Nale feared a desolation and fought the proto Radiants, whilst ignoring the Parshendi who really could form a bridge

Every single secret society seems to have its own idea of the cause-and-effect:  "Radiants => Desolation", or "Voidbringers => Radiants", or "(self)torture => Radiants" or "kill Parshendi => no Desolation".  

The fact that after thousands of years, Nale is apparently not very smart or Cosmere-aware is actually sad. Look at Khriss and what she achieved with less. The bottomline is that all of these are indicators of the true reasons (latent variables if you will): at certain times Odium is capable of coming back and messing with Roshar. Is his ability to do so determined by the ability/desire of spren to form Nahel bonds? Pretty certain, not. So, the reasonable logical conclusion for an outside observer should be that KRs are a useful defensive mechanism against the inevitable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

What is our main evidence of the Unmade activities? Death Rattles? Anything else?   Pattern showed up at Shallan's doorstep quite a few years in the past. Ditto for Jasnah and Ivory. And we do not know how many people Nale offed in the time being, but his visit to Ym was not the first time he was doing it.  We need to put the following events in chronological order:

 

 1. Mr. T. creates the Diagram

 2. Gavilar starts getting the Stormfather Netflix

3. Death Rattles appear

Then we will know what came first, the chicken or the egg.

 

Oh true, good point. I forgot that Pattern appeared for Shallan quite some time ago. I'll have to think about that. Our main evidence of the Unmade activity is the Death Rattles and the Thrill. To put your other points in perspective.

I don't know whether 2 or 3 came first, though I think 3 came before 2. 1 came definitely after either 2 or 3 as we know that Taravangian visited the Nightwatcher after Gavilar's assassination.

Edited by Spoolofwhool
Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Our main evidence of the Unmade activity is the Death Rattles and the Thrill.

Right, the Thrill. Forgot it. If we go by that, then you may be right regardless.

Spoiler

The Thrill can be attested to before other evidence of either unmade or spren activity. This may be just a bit spoilery, but Dalinar's first flashback was available for reading for about a year and a half now. This puts the Thrill before other sightings we have.

 

Edited by emailanimal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Oathbringer Spoilers (I'm assuming)

Spoiler

Right, the Thrill. Forgot it. If we go by that, then you may be right regardless. The Thrill can be attested to before other evidence of either unmade or spren activity. This may be just a bit spoilery, but Dalinar's first flashback was available for reading for about a year and a half now. This puts the Thrill before other sightings we have.

Yeah, I've heard some things. Probably would be better to at least put that in spoilers though since it isn't published, just because something is officially out doesn't make it okay to openly reference. In any case, if it was occurring at least that long before, then the Death Rattles should've been happening since then since WoB is that they started at the same time. It's kind of weird though because Taravangian said, IIRC, that they only had been happening for years, though since the effect since to be regionally-bound to the Unmade causing them, it's possible that it had been in a distant location before approaching Kharbranth and the Shattered Plains.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Yeah, I've heard some things. Probably would be better to at least put that in spoilers though since it isn't published, just because something is officially out doesn't make it okay to openly reference.

Fair enough. Put it under the spoiler tag. This has been officially published as The Thrill in a collection, and the specific episode I am referring to is available from either Brandon's web site or Tor's.  But you are right, this is past Edgedancer, so spoliers are warranted.

Death Rattles are also difficult to detect if one has no idea what they are.  Random people die and say something right before their death. It starts looking strange only if someone is watching for these. Otherwise, it is random noise of dying people. So, they could've been out there much longer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, emailanimal said:

Fair enough. Put it under the spoiler tag. This has been officially published as The Thrill in a collection, and the specific episode I am referring to is available from either Brandon's web site or Tor's.  But you are right, this is past Edgedancer, so spoliers are warranted.

Death Rattles are also difficult to detect if one has no idea what they are.  Random people die and say something right before their death. It starts looking strange only if someone is watching for these. Otherwise, it is random noise of dying people. So, they could've been out there much longer.

Ah, okay, I was unaware that it has been officially published. And yeah, they definitely could've been out and no one noticed because they didn't look unusual.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Ah, okay, I was unaware that it has been officially published. And yeah, they definitely could've been out and no one noticed because they didn't look unusual.

Here is a link:   http://grimoakpress.com/product/unfettered-ii-edited-by-shawn-speakman/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

Regarding putting the 3 major events in order; Didn't Taravangian imply that he was motivated to go see the Nightwatcher by Gavilar confiding in him?

I was under the impression that he was motivated by Gavilar's death, but that was sourced from Gavilar confiding in him, so yes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 4:04 PM, CaptainRyan said:

... the Stormform parshendi formed a bridge using the Everstorm and Mr. T hoped that ...

Ok, it took me a minute to realize that the "Mr. T" referred to in the OP was not this guy:

MV5BMTQ5Nzg2MTgwMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTA0

Then once I realized we were talking about Taravangian, I couldn't shake the above image of the A-Team character, but the fact that the King of Kharbranth is supposed to be elderly bothered me. So, I Googled "old Mr. T" and I found this:

wpid-Andres-Gardin-550x297.jpg

This is now my mental picture of Taravangian. Thanks @CaptainRyan.

 

Edited by KidWayne
remove duplicate photo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry to double post. On a more serious note (and to actually contribute to this thread), my biggest question is who is being referred to as "their" here:

14 hours ago, FiveLate said:

Push for the Alethi to destroy [the Parshendi] outright before THIS ONE obtains their power.

"They" could be the Parshendi or the Alethi. If FiveLate is correct and "this one" refers to Taravangian, then "they" would presumably be the Alethi since he intends to conquer the world in order to unite humanity. It doesn't make a lot of sense for "they" to be the Parshendi because I'm unaware of how Taravangian would obtain their power.

However, if "this one" refers to an individual Parshendi, then "they" would presumably be the Parshendi and this section of the Diagram is warning that the Alethi must be pushed to destroy the Parshendi before "this one" / "one of them" obtains their power.

Another interesting thing here involves a conflict between classical grammar rules and contemporary usage of the term "their" as a singular possessive pronoun that can used for either gender (or when the gender of the person referred to by the pronoun is unknown or ambiguous). Classical grammar dictates that "their" is always a plural possessive pronoun and that the phrase "he or she" should be used when the gender of the person referred to by the pronoun is unknown or ambiguous.

Either way it leaves us with a few possibilities; the Diagram is saying that...

  1. the Alethi should be pushed to destroy the Parshendi before this one special Parshendi obtains the power of his/her people,
  2. the Alethi should be pushed to destroy the Parshendi before this one special Parshendi obtains the power of the Alethi
  3. the Alethi should be pushed to destroy the Parshendi before Taravangian gains the power of the Parshendi, or
  4. the Alethi should be pushed to destroy the Parshendi before Taravangian gains the power of the Alethi.

Finally, the Diagram appears to say that one of these things could result in the formation of a "bridge." This result appears to favor possibility #1 since Eshonai's transformation into Stormform resulted in the summoning of the Everstorm which appears to have enabled voidspren to enter Roshar en masse. So, it would be possible to view the Everstorm as a sort of bridge or portal which allows the return of the voidbringers.

However, there's still a lot we don't know. This is simply the best interpretation based on the data we have so far and the actions of the Heralds give us reason to wonder about what the "bridge" is, how it is formed, how Desolations are connected to murdering proto-Radiants, how the return of Taln affects Desolations, how the summoning of the Everstorm makes this Desolation different from previous Desolations, and how the Everstorm allows voidspren to invade Roshar when Highstorms do not appear to have a similar effect on other spren (except for windspren).  

Edited by KidWayne
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/10/2016 at 6:19 PM, CaptainRyan said:

"There has to be an answer.
What is the answer.
Stop.
The.
Parshendi.
One of them.
Yes they are the missing piece.
Push for the Alethi to destroy them outright before this one obtains their power.
It will form a bridge."

I meant to say this awhile ago, but why are you separating "The" and "Parshendi"? Doesn't it make more sense as a complete thought that they would go together? You be ignoring the "capitalization is the start of a new line" rule since Parshendi is a name for a group of people, just like Alethi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/13/2016 at 6:50 PM, Botanica said:

I once asked about the wording in this line, and here is the answer I got from Peter:

TherehastobeananswerWhatistheanswerStopTheParshendiOneofthemYestheyarethemissingpiecePushfortheAlethitodestroythemoutrightbeforethisoneobtainstheirpowerItwillformabridge
Paraphased: There has to be an answer. What is the answer? Stop. The Parshendi. One of them. Yes they are the missing piece. Push for the Alethi to destroy them outright before this one obtains their power. It will form a bridge.

What does "It will form a bridge." actually mean? Should I take it literally?

Peter

This is a metaphorical bridge. Basically, the Diagram says it would be super dangerous for their plans if one of the Parshendi formed a Radiant spren bond and became a Radiant. They would be able to bridge the gap between the cultures and throw a wrench into the sequence of events that the Diagram thinks needs to take place.

The answer is almost one year old, and I hope it still works...

Whoa! @Botanica! This is big! It provides a whole new perspective! This means the Diagram DID work! Or, at least, if my assumption that Eshonai was possibly going to be a Radiant then pushing the Alethi to fight the Parshendi caused her to, instead, become infected (infested? bonded?) with a Storm-form spren. Wow.

Ok people, what does this little nugget of information tell us?! Any other ideas about what Peter's explosive revelation could mean?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/10/2016 at 1:25 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

It seems to me that the line is referring to the Listeners creating the bridge and there isn't any reference to KRs in general. Also, I'm still slightly in favour that Ishar was lying and that Nale is wrong about the KRs causing a Desolation to occur, since it still seems to me that spren didn't start forming Nahel Bonds until after the Unmade became active again, which likely indicated the start of the True Desolation.

Yeah let's not forget that Ishar was the one who first came up with the idea that all but one Herald quitting the Oathpact could keep the desolations at bay and we all know how that turned out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...