theory [OB] Were the Fused originally created by Honor?

[shawnhargreaves]

I've been thinking about something for a few days, and decided I believe in this enough to want to share it.

Before the release of OB, there was much speculation that the Unmade might be Odium's equivalent of the Heralds, or perhaps some kind of shadow created when a Herald broke under torture. I found this line of thinking plausible at the time, but it doesn't hold up particularly well now that we've learned more about the Unmade.

But you know what does seem REALLY similar to the Heralds?  The Fused.  At first I thought they were more like a voidish equivalent of the Knights Radiant, but:

• They are ancient and immortal (via resurrection, as they can be killed).
• They somehow end up on Braize in between reincarnations on Roshar.
• Their return is linked to the Desolations.
• Over the millennia, many of them have become insane.

So I started thinking we had some Rosharan symmetry going on between the forces of Odium vs. Honor:

• Fused <-> Heralds.
• Parshendi forms of power <-> Knights Radiant.

But after further consideration, I now believe there is more hidden here.  Consider the sequence of historical events as I understand it after OB:

1. Parshendi are native to Roshar.
2. Honor and Cultivation arrive after sometime after the Shattering of Adonalsium.
3. Humans and Odium arrive, and are settled in Shinovar.
4. Humans invade and conquer the rest of Roshar. This is the first Desolation.
5. Somehow a switcharoo happens: Odium takes over the Parshendi, while humans turn to Honor.
6. Odium creates the Fused to seek vengeance against humans. This is the second Desolation?
7. Honor creates the Oathpact, Honorblades, and Heralds to defend against the Fused.
8. Desolations continue.
9. Knights Radiant are formed when spren imitate the Honorblades.
10. Aharietiam.
11. KR learn about #4, which leads to the Recreance.

Several things about this feel off (for instance there is a long thread questioning the given explanation for the Recreance) but there's one I haven't seen discussed yet:

If the Fused came before the Honorblades, and the Fused were created by Odium, why are they so similar to the Heralds?  Why is their magic seemingly almost identical to the Surgebinding created by Honor and Cultivation?  And why do their eyes glow red, given this WoB:

Quote

Q: Does red in cosmere signify one Shard co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic?

A: Yes.

I'm also intrigued by an earlier WoB:

Quote

Q: How many parties were there to the original Oathpact?

A: The Heralds and Honor.

So Odium was NOT a party to the Oathpact?  Huh.

It's also interesting to think about what the Fused really are.  Revered ancestors, who are somehow bound to a goal and unable to Pass Beyond until they have achieved it.  Reincarnated when one of their descendants agrees to sacrifice their life for the greater good of the tribe.  This process is dark and uncomfortable, especially viewed through the lens of modern day Westernized morality, but it's all about honor, not hatred or passion.  A very different form of honor to what we are used to, but these books are full of the idea that honor can be interpreted in many ways, and (increasingly as of OB) that "honor" and "good" are not necessarily the same thing.

So here's my revised theory:

1. Parshendi are native to Roshar. Like all native Rosharan species, they have gemhearts which can hold spren. These spren grant abilities which form a core part of all Rosharan lifecycles. Only lower spren are used for this, because the higher types of spren (which have individual consciousness) are not interested in letting themselves get trapped in someone else's gemheart.
2. Honor and Cultivation arrive after sometime after the Shattering of Adonalsium.  Honor works out how to grant Surgebinding to the Parshendi, by extending their existing gemheart+spren mechanism but using the soul of an Ancestor instead of a lower spren.  This may occur before or at the same time as:
3. Humans and Odium invade.  The First Desolation.  Honor creates the Fused to fight against it, and they swear something similar to the Oathpact.
4. Eventually this first wave of immigrants are absorbed (like immigrants always are in the end).  But more arrive in waves.  As usually happens when a country experiences multiple waves of immigration, group N-1 are the most virulent in opposing the arrival of group N.  Each arrival stirs up a fresh round of conflict, aka. another Desolation.  Odium feeds off all of this.
5. As earlier waves of human arrivals are absorbed into Roshar, they develop ties to Honor.  He realizes he can do for them the same thing he previously did for the Parshendi, but because humans have no gemhearts, a different mechanism is needed.  Thus the Honorblades are created.  The Heralds swear the Oathpact, joining the Fused in the cycle of eternal reincarnation while they defend Roshar (+ possibly keep Odium trapped within this system).  It's possible that the Heralds (except perhaps for the odd one out Taln?) were actively serving Odium right up to this moment.
6. At some point during all of this, Odium manages to take over the Fused.  Their eyes turn red.
7. Higher orders of spren observe the Honorblades, and realize they can do a similar thing by bonding with a human.  Unlike being trapped in a gemheart, they have something to gain in return from this arrangement (sentience in the Physical Realm) so the Knights Radiant are created.
8. ... something something Recreance something ...

[Dryone_2]

OTOH there is this quote:

Quote

Odium smiled. “You will follow me, Turash, or I will reclaim that which gives you persistent life. I care not for the shape of the tool. Only that it cuts.”

Turash bowed his head.

So apparently Odium gave the eternal respawn capability to the Fused and Honor gave the same to the Heralds. I could imagine that Honor created the oathpact as a reaction to the Fused, because otherwise the humans would have been doomed. 

[CosmereAvair]

Maybe Honour thought it was unhonourable to have an unfair fight with the fused against regular humans, and gave the Honour blades to the humans. Or even crazier theory was that Honour agreed to help the human refugees as an oath, and then when Odium switched sides he was bound by oaths to help Humans.

[shawnhargreaves]

If the sequence 1. humans arrive -> 2. Odium creates Fused -> 3. Honor creates Oathpact, is correct, then Honor did basically nothing in immediate response to the arrival of Humans + Odium on Roshar, despite already being there along with the existing Parshendi inhabitants.  That's a big hole!  I think we'd be seeing some remnants of whatever original defenses Honor helped the Parshendi to create, and the Fused are a likely candidate for that.

[Dryone_2]

I don't think there was an immediate war when Odium and the humans arrived. 

Obviously the humans had to surrender the dawnshards and my guess is they were given to the Aimians for safekeeping. Then there was a three gods phase on Roshar that finally went wrong and resulted in the first Desolation. 

[shawnhargreaves]

Do we have evidence that the dawnshards came with humans?  If so I missed it.  Since Dawnsingers = Parshendi, I was assuming Dawnshards were also pre-human.

[Dryone_2]

Ch 113:

Quote

[Honor] raved, speaking of the Dawnshards, ancient weapons used to destroy the Tranquiiline Halls. Honor ... promised that Surgebinders would do the same to Roshar. 

 

[shawnhargreaves]

1 hour ago, Dryone_2 said:

Ch 113:

 

I don't think that tells us who used the Dawnshards, or which Shard created them.

Big picture here is I think we (plus everyone in world) are underestimating the impact of the big humans-were-voidbringers reveal.

Before OB, we believed:  humans are good and of Honor.  Parshendi are evil and of Odium.

After OB, we are told:  humans were once voidbringers, and Parshendi of Honor, but then they swapped, leading to evil Fused/Parshendi/Odium and good Heralds/KR/Honor.

In other words, way back when things used to be different, but after the swap of allegiance we ended up with exactly the same situation that was understood to be the case prior to the OB reveal.  That's, ahem... underwhelming?  We should be seeing far more remnants of the previous allegiances, and consequences from the switch.

So what have we got that might be such remnants?  The Fused are by far the oldest Parshendi we've seen, and the Heralds the oldest humans.  I'm increasingly convinced that current assumptions about both these are off the mark.

[DocHoliday]

We've been given contrary information. Dalinar's visions have Tanavast claiming to be the creator of men. At the same time, in contemporary Vorinism: Men oppose the Voidbringers during Desolation. The Stormfather repeatedly refers to several humans as "children of Honor". Yet we see humans fighting for Odium in Desolation as well.

In present day we have Singer Radiants, Human Radiants, Singers serving Odium, and singers serving Honor. Humans willingly serving Odium, and Humans opposing Odium. The lines have been blurred so badly that any previous allegiance cannot be counted upon.

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

How about this?

What we know (or at least, can assume): The Listeners predate the Shattering and are of Adonalsium. Honor and Cultivation arrive. Eventually, Mankind arrives with Odium. Mankind starts conquering (as it always does) and the listeners start dying off.

Here is what I suspect:

Around this time humans have been around enough that spren figure out how to bond with them. Due to the bonds being tied to oaths, this attracts Honor's attention and approval (thus the "Children of Honor" comment.) Odium starts to relate to the Listener's frustration and hate. Since the Listeners tend to use investiture throughout their lives, they might linger a little in the Cognitive Realm. So Odium starts to approach some of them giving them a bargain: becoming Voidspren. Essentially, they get to stick around as Cognitive Shadows, and they can now bond with the living Listeners, allowing them to make them stronger. The downside is that they have to be imbued with Odium's power. At least some of them accept. Thus the Fuzed come into existence, and the Listeners stop losing ground. At this point, it becomes a war between Mankind and the Listeners to see who will survive. Humankind starts losing. Honor is on the side of Mankind because of their use of Oaths (unlike the Listeners) and as such decides to create the Oathpact and the Heralds to counter the Fuzed. Odium creates the Unmade to counter the Heralds. The Spren learn how to become blades and give mankind surges in imitation of the Herald's Honorblades and the Fuzed's Surges. Odium learns how to create spren that will give the Listeners the forms of power. This eventually leads to the end of the first Desolation. All of the Voidspren are locked away, and the dying Listeners have stopped accepting Odium's offer after seeing how much his influence has twisted the Voidspren's minds. Thus we move on to the Cycle of the Desolations, as described in Oathbringer.

The reason the Fuzed and the Forms of Power have Red eyes is that Odium corrupted the Listeners, who weren't of Honor at all, but of Adonalsium.

[Leyrann]

41 minutes ago, Brightlord Maelstrom said:

How about this?

What we know (or at least, can assume): The Listeners predate the Shattering and are of Adonalsium. Honor and Cultivation arrive. Eventually, Mankind arrives with Odium. Mankind starts conquering (as it always does) and the listeners start dying off.

Here is what I suspect:

Around this time humans have been around enough that spren figure out how to bond with them. Due to the bonds being tied to oaths, this attracts Honor's attention and approval (thus the "Children of Honor" comment.) Odium starts to relate to the Listener's frustration and hate. Since the Listeners tend to use investiture throughout their lives, they might linger a little in the Cognitive Realm. So Odium starts to approach some of them giving them a bargain: becoming Voidspren. Essentially, they get to stick around as Cognitive Shadows, and they can now bond with the living Listeners, allowing them to make them stronger. The downside is that they have to be imbued with Odium's power. At least some of them accept. Thus the Fuzed come into existence, and the Listeners stop losing ground. At this point, it becomes a war between Mankind and the Listeners to see who will survive. Humankind starts losing. Honor is on the side of Mankind because of their use of Oaths (unlike the Listeners) and as such decides to create the Oathpact and the Heralds to counter the Fuzed. Odium creates the Unmade to counter the Heralds. The Spren learn how to become blades and give mankind surges in imitation of the Herald's Honorblades and the Fuzed's Surges. Odium learns how to create spren that will give the Listeners the forms of power. This eventually leads to the end of the first Desolation. All of the Voidspren are locked away, and the dying Listeners have stopped accepting Odium's offer after seeing how much his influence has twisted the Voidspren's minds. Thus we move on to the Cycle of the Desolations, as described in Oathbringer.

The reason the Fuzed and the Forms of Power have Red eyes is that Odium corrupted the Listeners, who weren't of Honor at all, but of Adonalsium.

Problem is that the Nahel bond is a direct imitation of the Honorblades. There was no spren-bonding before the Honorblades. It's a nice theory though.

[FuzzyWordsmith]

1 hour ago, Brightlord Maelstrom said:

What we know (or at least, can assume): The Listeners predate the Shattering and are of Adonalsium. Honor and Cultivation arrive. Eventually, Mankind arrives with Odium. Mankind starts conquering (as it always does) and the listeners start dying off.

As a point to this: There were humans before the Shattering. Or at least, humanlike humanoids who were human enough to be called humans and give birth to a race of humans. WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/188-general-reddit-2015/#e3922

HorseCannon

I didn't realize horneaters had parshmen blood, didn't even realize that was possible. How closely are humans and parshmen related, do they have a common ancestor? Or is one an artificially created version of the other?

Brandon Sanderson

There was intermixing long ago. Horneaters and Herdazians are both a result. (Signs of this are the stone carapace on Herdazian fingernails and the Horneater extra jaw pieces--in the back of the mouth--for breaking shells.)

Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

ccstat

Are there Aimian-Human hybrids as well? (Either type of Aimian) If so, are the Thaylen people one of these?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Blightsong

*via private message*

Some of us believe that you are saying that humans and listeners existed pre-Shattering while some of us believe that you are saying that Horneaters and Herdazians existed pre-Shattering (you have mentioned that humans had been on Roshar since before the Shattering recently). What were you trying to say here?

Brandon Sanderson

Humans (other than those on Yolen) existed pre-Shattering, as did parshmen.

 

[shawnhargreaves]

10 hours ago, Brightlord Maelstrom said:

The reason the Fuzed and the Forms of Power have Red eyes is that Odium corrupted the Listeners, who weren't of Honor at all, but of Adonalsium.

If that was the case, we'd be seeing far more red eyes in other places.  For instance when Vin used Allomancy (Preservation's magic) to take control of Koloss armies (which were created by Ruin using Hemalurgy) their eyes did not glow.  The Inquisitors, Zane, and Spook did not have glowing eyes, despite being Scadrial humans (created jointly by Ruin and Preservation) who were then controlled by Ruin.

(yes, Ruin had a partial role in creating the Scadrial variant of humanity, but Odium was once a part of Adonalsium too...)

There has to be more to it than this, and red eyes strike me as a massively important clue.  If "entity created by X, now controlled by Y" was enough to cause red eyes, we'd have seen those in other places before.  So I think the cause must be something more like "entity given magic by X, where that same magic is now taken over by Y".

 

16 hours ago, DocHoliday said:

The lines have been blurred so badly that any previous allegiance cannot be counted upon.

For sure.  Also there is free will in the Cosmere, so it's unlikely to ever be as simple as all of a given race having the same allegiance at the same time.

 

10 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Problem is that the Nahel bond is a direct imitation of the Honorblades. There was no spren-bonding before the Honorblades.

At least not with humans.  The Parshendi appear to have been capturing lesser spren in their gemhearts all along  (higher spren, apparently not, but I don't think we have 100% proof of that yet).

[Leyrann]

5 minutes ago, shawnhargreaves said:

If that was the case, we'd be seeing far more red eyes in other places.  For instance when Vin used Allomancy (Preservation's magic) to take control of Koloss armies (which were created by Ruin using Hemalurgy) their eyes did not glow.  The Inquisitors, Zane, and Spook did not have glowing eyes, despite being Scadrial humans (created jointly by Ruin and Preservation) who were then controlled by Ruin.

(yes, Ruin had a partial role in creating the Scadrial variant of humanity, but Odium was once a part of Adonalsium too...)

There has to be more to it than this, and red eyes strike me as a massively important clue.  If "entity created by X, now controlled by Y" was enough to cause red eyes, we'd have seen those in other places before.  So I think the cause must be something more like "entity given magic by X, where that same magic is now taken over by Y".

Exactly. The WoB says that the red signals "co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic". So the magic needs to be changed by the Shard that "stole" it.

[insert_anagram_here]

12 hours ago, Brightlord Maelstrom said:

The Listeners predate the Shattering and are of Adonalsium.

 

11 hours ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

Eventually, Mankind arrives with Odium.

 

How do we know both of these points exactly?

[FuzzyWordsmith]

@insert_anagram_here That second bit wasn't me, BTW. It was

12 hours ago, Brightlord Maelstrom said:

What we know (or at least, can assume): The Listeners predate the Shattering and are of Adonalsium. Honor and Cultivation arrive. Eventually, Mankind arrives with Odium. Mankind starts conquering (as it always does) and the listeners start dying off.

 

As to the first bit, there's WoB, with links in my post.

[shawnhargreaves]

3 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

Exactly. The WoB says that the red signals "co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic". So the magic needs to be changed by the Shard that "stole" it.

It's too bad this question included the "co-opting or corrupting" wording, so we don't know whether Brandon's simple "yes" response referred to co-opting, corrupting, or both.

But either way.  The Fused are clearly working for and powered by Odium in the present day of OB, yet their abilities look almost exactly like Surgebinding.  The way I read this WoB, there are two possible explanations:

1. Fused were originally created by Honor, then later co-opted by Odium
2. Fused were created by Odium, who somehow co-opted Honor's Surgebinding abilities for them to use

I find the first possibility more likely, for several reasons:

• The Fused have much in common with the Heralds, who we know were created by Honor.
• The nature of the Fused (revered ancestors committing to a cycle of being endlessly reborn until a goal is achieved) is more Honory than Odiumy.
• Honor creating and then Odium co-opting fits better with what we know of the timeline.  If the Parshendi switched allegiances to Odium before the Fused were created, why aren't we seeing remnants of earlier Honor+Parshendi magic system usage?
• We've already seen multiple examples of individuals switching allegiance between Honor and Odium, but none of one Shard somehow co-opting the entire magic system of another to give to their minions.

[insert_anagram_here]

4 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

@insert_anagram_here That second bit wasn't me, BTW. It was

As to the first bit, there's WoB, with links in my post.

Wow, Sorry about that! I have no idea how you got linked there, I just used "Quote this".

11 hours ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

There were humans before the Shattering. Or at least, humanlike humanoids who were human enough to be called humans and give birth to a race of humans. WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/188-general-reddit-2015/#e3922

Can we assume that these humanoids are the ones that spoke Dawnchant and the original inhabitants of Roshar?

Edited November 27, 2017 by insert_anagram_here

[Ryder]

On 11/25/2017 at 6:33 PM, shawnhargreaves said:

Parshendi are native to Roshar. Like all native Rosharan species, they have gemhearts which can hold spren. These spren grant abilities which form a core part of all Rosharan lifecycles. Only lower spren are used for this, because the higher types of spren (which have individual consciousness) are not interested in letting themselves get trapped in someone else's gemheart.

Regarding this point specifically, it seems like the higher spren, up until Timbre, hold some sort of grudge against the Parshendi for reasons unknown:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Sapient spren have a choice of whether they get bonded or not, unless you entrap them some way. But simply attracting them...simply going into the Highstorm with one wouldn't work, what you said is 'attracted a spren', so, to answer that actually... The thing is, honorspren, all the spren of Honor and Cultivation, not honorspren capital, Honorspren or whatever... The spren that create the orders of the Knights Radiant have not, in the past, been attracted to Parshendi because of certain events in the past.

 

[Xavien]

My take when reading OB was the corrupting of Parshendi is the Fused inhabiting a Parshendi's gemheart instead of a spren from Honor.  Basically it's a corruption of Honor's mechanism to give Parshendi their forms.

[shawnhargreaves]

2 minutes ago, Xavien said:

it's a corruption of Honor's mechanism to give Parshendi their forms.

That's not Honor's mechanism, though, because the Parshendi predate the Shattering.

If any Shard applying their magic over the top of things that date back to Adonalsium was enough to cause red eyes, we'd be seeing red all over the place!

The red has to come from Odium co-opting something that another Shard did.  Which means that something about the Fused (and something different from the regular pre-shattering Parshendi lifecycle) came from Honor or Cultivation.

[Xavien]

12 minutes ago, shawnhargreaves said:

That's not Honor's mechanism, though, because the Parshendi predate the Shattering.

Do we actually know that?  Whatever Adonalsium based mechanism would no longer work, you are assuming that the post-shattering Parshendi lifecycle isn't putting honorspren in Gemhearts, just as I am assuming that it is. Honor & Cultivation have been their for a while, just because they didn't create them doesn't mean they didn't change them.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Xavien
Formatting/spelling

[shawnhargreaves]

27 minutes ago, Xavien said:

Do we actually know that?  Whatever Adonalsium based mechanism would no longer work, you are assuming that the post-shattering Parshendi lifecycle isn't putting honorspren in Gemhearts, just as I am assuming that it is. Honor & Cultivation have been their for a while, just because they didn't create them doesn't mean they didn't change them.

We don't absolutely know this for sure, but here are some relevant WoB (bolding mine):

"Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium."

"Humans (other than those on Yolen) existed pre-Shattering, as did parshmen."

"That said, the non-sapient spren, so the spren that are not quite as-- They're not going to stand up and talk to you. Those all existed-- not all, but most of them existed on Roshar before the Shattering of Adonalsium."

Of course it's possible that the parshmen existed, as did the non-sapient spren, but they didn't start their symbiosis until Honor or Cultivation arrived.  Seems really unlikely though!  Rosharan biology relies heavily on spren + gemhearts to make all kinds of things possible, and Brandon has told us that native Rosharan species predate the Shattering.

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

OK. Guys, this is simple. With listeners, bonding spren is a normal thing. As far as I can tell, originally it was only spren of Adonalsium. Eventually, both spren of Honor and spren of Cultivation started bonding with Listeners. This is still normal. Where it got corrupted (thus red eyes) is when Odium put in the Fused and the forms of Power. It seems clear to me that the bonds for both of those are different from the usual ones. They do something outside the normal scope of what the parshendi normally have.

[shawnhargreaves]

1 minute ago, Brightlord Maelstrom said:

Where it got corrupted (thus red eyes) is when Odium put in the Fused and the forms of Power. It seems clear to me that the bonds for both of those are different from the usual ones. They do something outside the normal scope of what the parshendi normally have.

Sorry, I don't follow how that satisfies what we have been told signifies "one Shard co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic".  What other Shard's magic do you propose is being co-opted here?

I agree that bonding spren is a normal thing for listeners, and that this was originally Adonalsium spren but later broadened to include Honor and Cultivation spren.  If this is a normal thing which can apply to spren of several different types, how does Odium creating his different kind of bond satisfy the red eyes requirement?  Whatever the explanation is, it must also cover why we did not see red eyes for so many situations in Mistborn...