[OB] Rosharan Genocide

[Confused]

Scadrial shows us class warfare. Sel shows us religious warfare. I think Roshar shows us race warfare.

Quote

There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice. Oathbringer, Chapter 4.

I read the Stormfather’s statement as one of racial superiority and arrogance towards the listeners. The Stormfather believes only “beasts” bond with “subspren,” presumably pre-Shattering sentient spren. Oaths are not involved in such bonds.

The Stormfather claims non-oath bonds don’t require “intelligence, free will, and choice.” While his statement also refers to greatshells, skyeels and other native lifeforms that bond spren, I believe listeners are his target, since the Stormfather lumps all “beasts and subspren” together. He sneers at non-sapient spren and the “beasts” they bond with.

Maybe Honor imparted a sense of racial superiority to the Stormfather through his cognitive shadow. Maybe humans personified the Stormfather to embody this attitude. But I think Odium “corrupted” the Stormfather. This is a “hateful” attitude. I believe Odium somehow inserted his Investiture into the Stormfather to effect subtle changes in his makeup.

There’s only scant evidence for this. Syl calls the Stormfather “broken,” although that can mean many things. We have examples of voidspren “corrupting” other spren. Brandon says, “many of these spren have that kind of ‘hole’ in them, and that’s what allows Odium to take control of them.”

I agree with @zandi that the “Fleet” chapter (WoR, Chapter 59) foreshadows the SLA ending. This also provides some evidence of Odium’s corruption of the Stormfather. I think Kaladin’s race with the “storm” (never identified as a highstorm) is the true duel between Honor’s and Odium’s champion. (I think Dalinar’s belief he’s seen “Odium’s champion” may be wrong.) Kaladin races the storm into Shinovar, where it loses its Investiture (including Odium’s), and becomes "normal" again. I don’t know why Kaladin would have raced the storm to his death and resurrection (assuming this is the ending foreshadowed) unless the race ensured Roshar’s survival.

My main point, though, is that the Stormfather expresses an attitude that leads to division and hatred. He expresses Odium’s attitude, not Honor’s. It is the attitude that leads to racial warfare and genocide, as we see on Roshar.

[bookspren]

While I think there are certainly plenty of Rosharans that view the Listeners as subhuman (calling them savages, for instance), I don't think the Stormfather was implying anything like that in the quote you mention. Listeners obviously do have intelligence, free will, and choice as shown by their interactions with the Stormfather when they go out into the storms to change forms. "Subspren" are things like ordinary windspren. To say Syl is a step above them is not hateful, it's a fact. They only act on instinct (as far as we've seen), while she is capable of thought.

[Yata]

I don't think think the Stormfather meant the Oath as magical element but rather the mundane Oaths.

So the ability to "make a promise and restrict myself to follow my own words" is what that make the difference between Humans and Beasts.

As a little clue, notice how gently and worry was the Stormfather when Eshonai was in the Highstorm to change into Stormform

 

PS: By the way, The Listeners are probably (as people) a more Honor-centric society than the Roshar's human.

[Confused]

@bookspren, I agree with your view of Roshar’s objective reality. As @Yata says and Kaladin observes, listeners are more honorable than humans. But IMO the Stormfather presents a racist attitude, not reality. (Great name, btw.)

Quote

“[Oaths] are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren.”

I interpret this to mean “true spren” are Radiantspren, the only spren that bond with “men” through oaths (other than maybe the godspren themselves). Because listeners don’t bond through oaths, the Stormfather calls them “beasts.” That’s classic racist propaganda. Even the phrase “subspren” IMO is offensive, in the same way being called “subhuman” is.

Dalinar himself puzzles over the Stormfather’s “extreme opinion”:

Quote

Dalinar chewed on that, and found he was not surprised by the extreme opinion. Spren should be extreme; they were forces of nature. But was this how Honor himself, the Almighty, had thought?

@Yata, it is a pleasure seeing you again! I hope we can be friends even when we disagree.

I agree the Stormfather means oaths “make the difference between Humans and Beasts.” I think in some ways his comment is even worse if he does refer to mundane oaths rather than magical. Non-human listeners make oaths and promises to one another. Yet the Stormfather considers listeners “beasts” because their oaths don’t bind their spren.

You make a great point about how the Stormfather treated Eshonai. Two possible explanations:

1.  Odium may have Invested the Stormfather after that scene, when highstorm met Everstorm. Syl says the Stormfather is “broken.” Those cracks in his soul may have allowed Odium’s Investiture to enter him during the “Battle of the Storms.”

2. Eshonai already had an incipient bond with the comet spren. Maybe this made her a “man” to the Stormfather.

I’ve always though it odd the Stormfather allowed Eshonai to bond a voidspren. He calls oaths “The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.” Yet not once does the Stormfather refuse a requested bond. He gives me this feeling of “Okay, if you insist…” I understand he intends his comment to refer to “men.” But does the Stormfather himself have free will?

[Calderis]

@Confused I honestly think you're reading to much into this.

The Stormfather respects all oaths, the ability to make a vow and stand by it, as the mark of a sapient creature. 

His treatment of Eshonai reflects this. 

"Man" in this instance is being used in the same way "person" is used by Brandon. I don't think this excludes the Listeners. 

When I see him call the Parshendi beasts, I'll agree with you, but for now I just don't see it. 

[Yata]

14 hours ago, Confused said:

it is a pleasure seeing you again! I hope we can be friends even when we disagree.

Yeah, I spend very few time on the Shard now, my weekend's routine has very little free time.

Returning to the topic, probably we see that sentence greatly different but I read "men" in a loose meaning. I know in our real world terms say "humans" and "men" is almost the same thing because we are the only know sapient race on the planet.

But in a Multi-Racial context (as the Cosmere and Roshar in the specific is) I think the "men" include all the physical Sapient beings so Humans, Aimians, Listeners, Ryshadium, Santhid and probably some other being I am forgetting at the moment.

Similarry He see all the Sapient Sprens regardless of her type to be true spren above the vast amount of spren who are not sapients enouth

I also don't see any clue on a possible Odium's influence in Stormfather (well rather than be in War with Rayse of course)

Edited September 10, 2017 by Yata

[Nymeros]

17 hours ago, Calderis said:

@Confused I honestly think you're reading to much into this.

The Stormfather respects all oaths, the ability to make a vow and stand by it, as the mark of a sapient creature. 

His treatment of Eshonai reflects this. 

"Man" in this instance is being used in the same way "person" is used by Brandon. I don't think this excludes the Listeners. 

When I see him call the Parshendi beasts, I'll agree with you, but for now I just don't see it. 

 

23 hours ago, Yata said:

I don't think think the Stormfather meant the Oath as magical element but rather the mundane Oaths.

So the ability to "make a promise and restrict myself to follow my own words" is what that make the difference between Humans and Beasts.

As a little clue, notice how gently and worry was the Stormfather when Eshonai was in the Highstorm to change into Stormform

 

PS: By the way, The Listeners are probably (as people) a more Honor-centric society than the Roshar's human.

Err, what they said. I'm sure Stormfather was making an objective statement on sapience and not disparagingcertain groups.

[Farnsworth]

"Subspren" is not offensive when Rotspren is so clearly inferior to Honorspren. It's like calling a scoop of jello "subhuman."

Edited September 10, 2017 by Farnsworth

[Erunion]

There's no reason to believe that he refers to Parshendi as beasts. More likely he's referring to actual beasts here (chulls).

[treblkickd]

On 9/8/2017 at 6:03 PM, Confused said:

Scadrial shows us class warfare. Sel shows us religious warfare. I think Roshar shows us race warfare.

I read the Stormfather’s statement as one of racial superiority and arrogance towards the listeners. The Stormfather believes only “beasts” bond with “subspren,” presumably pre-Shattering sentient spren. Oaths are not involved in such bonds.

...

There’s only scant evidence for this. Syl calls the Stormfather “broken,” although that can mean many things. We have examples of voidspren “corrupting” other spren. Brandon says, “many of these spren have that kind of ‘hole’ in them, and that’s what allows Odium to take control of them.”

I agree with @zandi that the “Fleet” chapter (WoR, Chapter 59) foreshadows the SLA ending. This also provides some evidence of Odium’s corruption of the Stormfather. I think Kaladin’s race with the “storm” (never identified as a highstorm) is the true duel between Honor’s and Odium’s champion. (I think Dalinar’s belief he’s seen “Odium’s champion” may be wrong.) Kaladin races the storm into Shinovar, where it loses its Investiture (including Odium’s), and becomes "normal" again. I don’t know why Kaladin would have raced the storm to his death and resurrection (assuming this is the ending foreshadowed) unless the race ensured Roshar’s survival.

My main point, though, is that the Stormfather expresses an attitude that leads to division and hatred. He expresses Odium’s attitude, not Honor’s. It is the attitude that leads to racial warfare and genocide, as we see on Roshar.

 

Great post! I had the same eerie feeling when I read that line from the Stormfather. For one thing, the Stormfather makes a statement here that seems, to me, to be absurd. Of course there can be foolish oaths, and oaths that can/should be abandoned/betrayed. An oath sworn in ignorance is a simple example. I would be generally disturbed by any ethical framework that uses "keeping all oaths, full stop", or equivalent, as its core tenet. 

 

I think that this kind of broadly dismissive thought coming from the Stormfather highlights the fact that Tanavast/Honor has never explicitly been a force for "good". The intent behind Honor is specific and exclusive; it's about binding oaths and following codes of conduct (i.e., the behavioral constraints on Radiants' powers), and the specifics of a given code of conduct are not all that important. It's already clear from what we know about the history of the Knights Radiant, and the conflict b/w different orders, that significant conflicts resulted from the different ethical codes of conduct of different orders. These conflicts would arise naturally from different orders of Radiants, all equally empowered by their spren bonds, but beholden to significantly different codes regulating what constitutes "good" or "right".

[djammmer]

On September 8, 2017 at 3:03 PM, Confused said:

Scadrial shows us class warfare. Sel shows us religious warfare. I think Roshar shows us race warfare.

This is the most astute most concise observation I've seen here.

[Calderis]

56 minutes ago, treblkickd said:

Great post! I had the same eerie feeling when I read that line from the Stormfather. For one thing, the Stormfather makes a statement here that seems, to me, to be absurd. Of course there can be foolish oaths, and oaths that can/should be abandoned/betrayed. An oath sworn in ignorance is a simple example. I would be generally disturbed by any ethical framework that uses "keeping all oaths, full stop", or equivalent, as its core tenet. 

Would you describe it as more or less foolish than existing to enact or cause hatred in yourself and others? 

This is what the Shards are. They are one dimensional aspects of a whole personality. 

If you remove morality and judgements based by it from Honor, what is left but maintaining your word and your code? Under the intent of the Shard of Honor, an oath is something to be maintained. Your understanding of that oath, and it's moral implications are irrelevant. You gave your word. You keep it. Full stop. 

It's why the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact, it's why the Skybreakers can commit atrocious acts as long as they follow the law, and it's why the Stormfather believes all oaths are equal. 

[treblkickd]

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

Would you describe it as more or less foolish than existing to enact or cause hatred in yourself and others? 

Personally, "foolish" isn't the one of the words I'd use to describe the existence of Odium. More like "extremely dangerous", but this thread wasn't started in reference to anything about Odium. I understand that it makes sense to see the Honor side of things (including the Stormfather) as being the side of the Honor-Odium conflict that is clearly more aligned with "good" than "evil", but the point I was making above is that it is important to keep in mind the distinction between being capital-g Good (i.e., an ethical good), and being more closely aligned with Good (relative to Odium, for example). Roshar is probably of the places where it is most important to remember this distinction because of just how strongly Odium lines up with what most people would consider Evil, which makes it very easy/tempting to default to make the mistake of simplifying things so as to think about opposition against Odium as being equivalent to Good.

 

This is what the Shards are. They are one dimensional aspects of a whole personality. 

If you remove morality and judgements based by it from Honor, what is left but maintaining your word and your code? Under the intent of the Shard of Honor, an oath is something to be maintained. Your understanding of that oath, and it's moral implications are irrelevant. You gave your word. You keep it. Full stop. 

It's why the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact, it's why the Skybreakers can commit atrocious acts as long as they follow the law, and it's why the Stormfather believes all oaths are equal. 

I couldn't agree more! This is exactly my point! The Shards on Roshar, and everywhere in the Cosmere, are power that is tied to certain emotions/ideals/intents, distilled. Those intents do not line up directly with the ethical dichotomy of Good and Evil. It is, therefore, important to distinguish between the distilled intent of a shard---even one that represents an ideal that seem largely positive, like Honor---and the ethical ideal of doing what is right (vs wrong).

 

I would speculate that this distinction was at the heart of what caused the Recreance. Specifically, from Dalinar's vision of the Recreance it appears that the Knights Radiant were caught up in wars on Roshar that were clearly unrelated to the fundamental fight for survival against Odium/the Desolations. It is also clear from Dalinar's vision that the Radiants made a very conscious choice to abandon their oaths, kill their spren, and cease being Knights Radiant, which begs the question, what could make them do such a thing? My guess is that the Radiants became more and more disillusioned with what they were fighting for as their role became more and more political, and that they eventually reached a breaking point where many/most Radiants decided that they were doing more harm than good by participating in wars/conflicts between human factions on Roshar. Effectively, this would mean the Radiants coming to a realization that they, themselves, were participating in war/killing on large scales for reasons that have nothing to do with any real ethical Good. I haven't been a frequent user of these forums in recent years, and I'm definitely not caught up on all threads, so this idea is probably repeating ideas that have others have already posted (and I tip my hat to any such posts).

[CaptainRyan]

On 9/8/2017 at 3:03 PM, Confused said:

I read the Stormfather’s statement as one of racial superiority and arrogance towards the listeners. The Stormfather believes only “beasts” bond with “subspren,” presumably pre-Shattering sentient spren.

I read this in entirely a different way.

To me, the Stormfather is saying that being able to make "oaths" is a hallmark trait of sentient beings. As the Parshendi are capable of making oaths then they would have this "mark".

As others have brought up, the Stormfather did not treat Eshonai in a "racist" manner. If anything, the Stormfather seems far more racist against humans (due to the Knights Radiant abandoning their oaths).

[Confused]

I agree with you all that a literal parsing of the Stormfather’s statement means oaths mark sapient beings. You all may be right and maybe I am “reading too much into this.” But I think word context and connotation justify my conclusion. To me, this is such an odd and unnecessary statement for the Stormfather to make.

1. I start with the presumption Brandon chooses his words carefully. The Stormfather could have said, “All oaths are the mark of sapient beings,” if that was the point Brandon wanted to make. He didn’t. Instead, he compared “men” with “beasts” and “true” spren with “sub”-spren. You may think his word choice is accurate and appropriate. I think it is pejorative.

2. Even Dalinar thought this was an “extreme opinion.” He questions whether it’s the Stormfather’s opinion or Honor’s and “chews” over this. If the opinion were just an obvious comparison between sapience and sentience, it shouldn’t have bothered Dalinar.

3. Most importantly, I don’t think the Stormfather was saying only sapient beings can make oaths. Radiantspren don’t make oaths; their KR do. The KR oaths bond them to their spren. That’s why I read the Stormfather as saying, “Oaths mark the relationship between men and true spren.” “Beasts and subspren” also bond symbiotically, just not through oaths.

@Calderis, I noticed you say in another thread that bonds are central to the cosmere, not just to Roshar. I understand why you think bonds are Roshar’s Focus. Can you point me to a post where you lay out your cosmere-wide bond theory? If not, perhaps you can begin a topic or state that theory here? I’d find it helpful if you can also define what “bond” means to you. Thanks!

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

@Calderis, I noticed you say in another thread that bonds are central to the cosmere, not just to Roshar. I understand why you think bonds are Roshar’s Focus. Can you point me to a post where you lay out your cosmere-wide bond theory? If not, perhaps you can begin a topic or state that theory here? I’d find it helpful if you can also define what “bond” means to you. Thanks!

It just seems to me that the foci are all essential aspects of the magics itself made prominent. 

Nalthis focus of commands is a specialized focus of intent, which is important everywhere. 

Sel's focus of form is a specialized on the structure that produces the effect, which we also see in the atomic structure keying into metal on Scadrial. 

Bonds are especially prominent on Roshar, but the Seons and Nightblood are also capable of bonding, and 

Mistborn spoilers 

Spoiler

Ruin and Preservation formed a bond with their respective champions in the Marsh and Elend fight at the end of HoA

I think that all foci are based on fundamental elements of the magic, and that they are just given greater prominence on their respective Shardworld. 

Edit: I will actually go make a new post on this. This is the type of topic that's bound to derail the thread, and belongs in Cosmere Theories for the wide ranging subject matter. 

Edited September 12, 2017 by Calderis