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[OB] Cosmere Crossovers, and the deal with Hoid


Naerin

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Hoid is there to make you want to understand him. To make you want to read the rest of the books. To appreciate all the bits and details of the Cosmere and the lore it's surrounded by.

To understand Hoid is to earn all of the Achievements in the game, so to speak.

 

Personally, I've read a lot of BS books but not all of them, so I do not even know if my original assumption of Hoid is correct.

My personal theory is this:

Hoid has existed even before the Shattering so maybe he is trying to reverse that Shattering. Maybe merge all the Shards. Maybe he wants to bring the Almighty back. Maybe restore a universe without magic. The fact that he opposes Odium might mean he is trying to merge the power together instead of destroying it. But he obviously cannot do it actively, but only guide the forces and the people involved into merging together by themselves.

 

On 11/17/2017 at 7:02 AM, Naerin said:

Is it just me or do the Rorsharan characters act strangely casual about the mysteries Azure presents? Sword that is not an Honorblade and not a Shardblade, defying everything we thought we had figured out about how these things are made? Cool. Oh, it kills differently from a Shardblade, meaning that it might involve some magic other than Surgebinding? No need to follow up on that. You say you aren't a Herald? That's cool. No need to press for who you actually are. What's that? You're implying that you're from another world, upending everything I had previously thought about the nature of reality and how humans came to be on this planet? Neat. Let's carry on.

I love this bit! xD

Edited by insert_anagram_here
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One of Brandon's beta readers Nathan put it this way and I think it sums it up pretty well:

" I tend to think we should look at those parts of the story as invitations to read more from the Cosmere. In any case, if there aren't Cosmere connections that, at some point have to be significant, then the Cosmere won't end up existing. "

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I only skimmed the post (a little TLDR for me..) but you are 100% right from what I read. As a new person to the Cosmere and only having read the Stormlight books and the first Mistborn I was incredibly confused by Azur and her “surgebinding.” To be completely fair a bit of it I had to listen to on audiobook and probably missed a little but for the most part I got the gist and did read the part where Azur joined up and I’m currently at their journey through Shadesmar and I literally found this post because I was trying to figure out This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules was going on with Azur not having a Spren hanging out too. At first I thought the eyeless Spren was hers and then finally figured out that it wasn’t and was completely confused. Like where’s her Spren? How can she surgebind? I don’t think she has an honorblade or anything right? Or does she? You’d think that’d be a bigger deal in Shadesmar right? Oh it’s not an honorblade.... okay so she can surgebind now with no bond and no honorblade... why isn’t everyone freaking out?! Thank goodness I finally figured it out after having to dig and dig because I was wrongly googling “Azur’s surges” or “Azur radiant Spren” etc. I’m sure it’s really cool to people who know the background to it. I’m a huge fan of the Dark Tower series and King does a ton of those little crossovers and Easter eggs and I love them but they are never at the level of something that seemed so important. Like they wouldn’t leave me thinking “Since Azur is some sort of super Radiant why doesn’t she just save them all?!” the entire time... 

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Haven’t read all the replies, but I just want to add one thing.

I think that at the level in Oathbringer, being Cosmere Aware isn’t extremely important. But, Brandon is putting those more obvious elements in to push the average reader to think that there are other worlds, if they didn’t know it before.

In other words, I think he’s making it a bit more obvious so that it isn’t a surprise to casual fans when these things actually do become important.

I’m personally excited about that.

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 Share
Play/Pause
 

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Why so many characters from Warbreaker [in Stormlight]?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

'Cause Warbreaker is a prequel to Stormlight. I wrote Stormlight first, and then I actually went and wrote Warbreaker about Kaladin's swordmaster, but then that portion of Stormlight didn't get published, and this one did, but they're very interconnected to me.

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On 12/2/2017 at 10:24 AM, Firelasher said:

I only skimmed the post (a little TLDR for me..) but you are 100% right from what I read. As a new person to the Cosmere and only having read the Stormlight books and the first Mistborn I was incredibly confused by Azur and her “surgebinding.” To be completely fair a bit of it I had to listen to on audiobook and probably missed a little but for the most part I got the gist and did read the part where Azur joined up and I’m currently at their journey through Shadesmar and I literally found this post because I was trying to figure out This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules was going on with Azur not having a Spren hanging out too. At first I thought the eyeless Spren was hers and then finally figured out that it wasn’t and was completely confused. Like where’s her Spren? How can she surgebind? I don’t think she has an honorblade or anything right? Or does she? You’d think that’d be a bigger deal in Shadesmar right? Oh it’s not an honorblade.... okay so she can surgebind now with no bond and no honorblade... why isn’t everyone freaking out?! Thank goodness I finally figured it out after having to dig and dig because I was wrongly googling “Azur’s surges” or “Azur radiant Spren” etc. I’m sure it’s really cool to people who know the background to it. I’m a huge fan of the Dark Tower series and King does a ton of those little crossovers and Easter eggs and I love them but they are never at the level of something that seemed so important. Like they wouldn’t leave me thinking “Since Azur is some sort of super Radiant why doesn’t she just save them all?!” the entire time... 

Out of interest, why did you think she could surgebind at all? I'm pretty sure she never overtly does anything attributable to surgebinding or implicative that she would have a living Spren. She does some prep that readers of Warbreaker will know are implicative of intent to Awaken, but we never see her use any of her powers at all on screen, nor is it implied that any other characters have seen her do so off screen...

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On 11/17/2017 at 5:15 AM, aemetha said:

The idea that power is a synonym of freedom is fallacious in the cosmere.

I think there may be some accuracy to this, but I don't think it's nearly as axiomatic as it is in, say, The Dresden Files, where it's virtually hard-coded. Mistborn have much greater autonomy than virtually any normal human in their world, and Rashek could do basically whatever he wanted for a millennium (and it could have been far longer if he'd ever considered compounding steel as well as gold and atium), with the only concern being that he'd die if Ruin destroyed the world. Accumulating Breaths does not restrict freedom (Returning does, but a case could be made that a Returned is a different person).

It does seem that Intent limits autonomy, as in the case of Shards and Radiant spren, but that's a different animal entirely.

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15 minutes ago, Heir of the Void said:

I think there may be some accuracy to this, but I don't think it's nearly as axiomatic as it is in, say, The Dresden Files, where it's virtually hard-coded. Mistborn have much greater autonomy than virtually any normal human in their world, and Rashek could do basically whatever he wanted for a millennium (and it could have been far longer if he'd ever considered compounding steel as well as gold and atium), with the only concern being that he'd die if Ruin destroyed the world. Accumulating Breaths does not restrict freedom (Returning does, but a case could be made that a Returned is a different person).

It does seem that Intent limits autonomy, as in the case of Shards and Radiant spren, but that's a different animal entirely.

Could it be that the reason Wit is wandering around collecting different types of investiture is to modify the Intent that restricts his freedom? He might be working on the theory that having investiture from all 16 shards might actually provide him with total freedom.

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On ‎11‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 0:01 AM, taxilian said:

Having occasionally read books in the "wrong order", I don't think this would be as big of a deal as you think. We've run into a *lot* of characters in these books that have veiled backstories that we don't know a lot about, and some we learn more and some are just there to move the story along.  Azure has some definitely weird things about her, but there are much more important things to focus on for the characters.

I find Hoid amusing and interesting; I guess I can kinda see your perspective, but don't really share it. You don't need to know anything about him to appreciate the story; as for Warbreaker, reading Edgedancer is *way* more important than reading Warbreaker.  The only reason you need to read warbreaker first is if you want background on nightblood, which -- let's face it -- doesn't *really* tell you that much anyway.  We get hints in Warbreaker about nightblood but not a lot of concrete information. You won't understand as well why he is so weird if you didn't read it but you won't miss anything important in the story, because it's pretty apparent right off when he gets used how powerful he is -- in fact, we didn't see him used half as much in Warbreaker anyway.

You can't please everyone, and I think he erred on the side of making fans who have read all his books happier with the cameos turned up a bit... and it's hard to blame him for giving people who spend more of their money on his books what they want. I might blame him if he'd made it so you couldn't enjoy it otherwise, but I really don't think he did.

Just my $0.02.

I agree completely. Azure is a mysterious character. There are mysterious characters in lots of novels. One doesn't have to know anything about Vivenna for her character to be believable. The same goes for Wit and Nightblood. I think Sanderfans are a little spoiled on how much information he tells his fans. Not everything has to be answered in one book. If we didn't have the information he gives us we'd work it out eventually ourselves and be kicking ourselves for not figuring it out sooner. So maybe the issue is not that he's overdoing the cameos but more the fact that he spoils us by warning us of them ahead of time.

I actually really liked the slow reveal of Azure being Vivenna. I was searching. From the very start of the book. I knew she was supposed to be in it somewhere, so every female character I was like "oh that could be her, I have to see if she shows up again." by the time Azure was introduced I jokingly thought "what if it's her" and then there were more and more subtle hints until finally I just knew. Other things like the Voidbringers=humans reveal took me completely by surprised.

Also the thing about Nightblood is he's not the only weird sword on Roshar. There are living spren blades, dead spren blades, Honorblades, all of which act a little differently from each other. One more weird sword doesn't make me freak out about not knowing how or why it works the way it does. If I hadn't read Warbreaker first I would probably think that Nightblood was some kind of Odium bonded blade.

Edited by theuntaintedchild
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The way I understand the whole power and freedom thing it isn't so much magical as human. Having power, in general, is typically tied to having responsibilities, which restrict freedom. Power also attracts attention, which can also restrict freedom. There are other things, but the general idea is that the vagabond has more freedom than the king.

Of course, this would depend on your definition of freedom, and whether you are talking about positive freedom or negative freedom.

Let me see if I can explain it this way: Positive freedom is the physical ability to do something. If I own a Ferrari, then I have the positive freedom to drive it around. If I don't own the Ferrari, then I don't have that positive freedom. Negative freedom has to do with being allowed to do something. I have the negative freedom to drive a Ferrari, even if I don't have it. However, if someone were to make a law saying that driving a Ferrari is illegal, then I wouldn't have that negative freedom anymore.

So with the whole power and freedom, an increase in power would mean an increase in positive freedom, but a decrease of negative freedom. You might have more Ferrari, but you also have less time to drive them around and stuff.

And so when you think about it that way, you can see how Hoid is trying to gain magical abilities (Increase of Positive freedom), while also avoiding responsibilities (which would restrict Negative freedom). Meanwhile, the more power he gets, the more things he changes, etc. the harder it gets for him to avoid attention, which means that he has less Negative Freedom.

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23 minutes ago, GoddessIMHO said:

Does't seem like we may actually get a WB 2? The reason why Nightblood is on Roshar? At least a novella????

The book "Nightblood" has been in the State of the Sanderson for quite a while now.

Edit: Sorry for the double post. I had this thread open in two different tabs, one with more recent posts and one without, and hadn't realized they were the same thread.

Edited by Ookla the Altruist
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Gotta side with the people saying Hoid wants to help but doesn't want to die.

 

When you are fighting against someone that can literally see (probablistically) the future you stay clear of them and where they might pay attention.  And you don't just personally stay clear, you keep your direct influence clear too... last thing you want is Odium noticing dalanar reading '10 things you should know about defeating Odium'... also Hoid's power level is such that Dalanar can't really help him, so Hoid doesn't stand to gain much by helping Dalanar, and loses a lot if he gets caught.  And at his age... Dalanar will be long dead within a short plan Hoid is working on on the side.

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I kind of wish Brandon never said the thing about not needing know about the Cosmere to enjoy each series. I mean in a way it is true (although I'd argue you dont get the full extent of enjoyment if you don't) and I get he didn't want people to think they had to read every book to enjoy the individual series but it is also something people will constantly criticize as more is introduced. He should have left it as it is a story within the story and if you want to get to know more about it read all the books. The Cosmere is a thing. It will be in the stories and more so as we go. SA is a huge chunk of the Cosmere books so yeah there will be a lot of Hoid and such. Now I totally get if someone just doesn't like Hoid. I love him but he is like the crazy grandpa that shows up and tells some incoherent story while you are trying to watch the football game. There is all kinds of crazy stuff going on in SA is Hoid really any crazier? As far as Vivinna, Vasher and Nightblood go they are part of SA we just got to peep their backstory. I'll put it another way. Think about Elantris and the minuscule amount of Cosmere knowledge dropped there. If Brandon continued with that level no one would care about the Cosmere. It has been a gradual build in my opinion but it is and will continue to build. I had no idea after reading Mistborn Era1, AoL and Elantris that the Cosmere was a deal. I liked the books a lot and then read about it on his website and now I am a Cosmere junkie. I do not think it overshadows the main stories at all it simply gives us more to enjoy. /rant

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So people have mentioned that Nightblood cuts all 3 realms, but is anyone else thinking this is a big answer to the Evrestore revival issue.  I mean you take out some Fused with him and they should not be coming back around.  They didn't really get into that much in the book. And you wouldn't be able to take them all out, but a few non crazy leaders would be key.  And where did Vasher go in OB. I'm surprised Hoid hasn't shown interest in Nightblood since he has to know the sword is out there.

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2 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

Think about Elantris and the minuscule amount of Cosmere knowledge dropped there. If Brandon continued with that level no one would care about the Cosmere.

Well, Elantris is chronologically the first published cosmere work. It's literally impossible for it to have crossovers with any other published work. I think what we will see is as the timeline progresses there is increasing potential for crossovers. In this respect you might consider the works that come earlier in the timelines as prequels for the later works, and in fact Warbreaker is a prequel for Stormlight, it just happened to get published before a re-imagined stormlight.

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