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[OB] It lives!


sctfn

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This would bring a nice answer to the WoB that says "Once there was a plot to destroy Adonalsium. It failed." 

Fascinating also because in the Spiritual Realm, nothing is really bound by time, so Adonalsium's Spirit Web should technically still be around with an imprint of the original in it.

Also, Hoid's chat with Dalinar about "cutting someone up and putting them back together" has always seemed to me like a talk about Adonalsium, especially since Hoid name dropped Adonalsium just before.

Upvote for you, sir! I'm not totally sure I agree yet but it's good food for thought and is certainly possible and would explain things.

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Just one thing to keep in mind: More than just his Physical Aspect was Shattered. Remember, the 16 shards are composed of immense amounts of investiture, which is kept in the Spiritual Realm. That doesn't mean that Adonalsium is dead, and it doesn't mean that his Spiritweb doesn't exist anymore, but it does mean that the explanation for why is going to have to be a little more involved.

I personally have already seen someone mention a similar theory that the "We killed you" was talking about Adonalsium, and I really like it, as do a few of my friends that I've talked to. It would be a very Brandon thing to do. My personal twist was that Dalinar was going to reunite all of the Shards and remake Adonalsium. But Adonalsium never having completely died would be a very interesting way to do it.

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That's a great observation, and probably the best explanation I've heard yet for why Odium used the plural pronoun there. I wonder if there's any connection to the end of Secret History, where Ati looks at Kelsier and seems to call him "Vax"?

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I think it's possible Odium is referring to Adonalsium here, but I think it's more likely Honor.  The Fused Rine also uses "we" when talking about the "enemy", presumably Honor.

Quote

We will need to watch the humans constantly. At any moment, any of them could manifest powers from the enemy. We killed him, and yet he fights on through his Surgebinders.

If this interpretation is correct then Rine includes himself in the group that killed Honor, so perhaps the Fused and/or ancient listeners worked with Odium somehow when Honor was killed.

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1 hour ago, Ryder said:

I think it's possible Odium is referring to Adonalsium here, but I think it's more likely Honor.  The Fused Rine also uses "we" when talking about the "enemy", presumably Honor.

If this interpretation is correct then Rine includes himself in the group that killed Honor, so perhaps the Fused and/or ancient listeners worked with Odium somehow when Honor was killed.

That still doesn't explain why Odium cowered. He killed Tanavast at the height of his powers. Surely, killing Dalinar 30 seconds after he'd taken up Honor wouldn't be a challenge. Look at Ati vs. Vin.

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@sctfn alright. I like it. Quite a bit. And it made something coalesce in my brain, so here's a lengthy response with a theory I've talked about before mixed in that you just happened to expand in my brain.

I've said before that I don't believe that Adonalsium had a Vessel, but developed sapience on its own, as we've been told that investiture will do without a mind to guide it. In developing in this way, the mind was a part of the power itself rather then a separate mind that could be killed. So when Adonalsium was shattered, the mind was ripped apart and became the intents. 

That is the theory in a nutshell that I've had for a while now. This just made my brain explode, because as OB told us with spren in the Cognitive Realm "they were apparently easy to injure, but extremely difficult to kill." If portions of Adonalsium's mind still exist in the Shards themselves, then if they are reformed, would the mind reform as well? 

Gives a completely different meaning to "unite them." even if Dalinar isn't the one to do it.

I managed to keep that relatively short. 

 

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I really like this theory, cause if Dalinar is simply becoming Honor 2.0, why wouldn't Odium be convinced he could win again. He's done it once, he can do it again.

Also a part that kind a supports the idea that this is Adonalsium is right before Dalinar unites the three realms, when the gloryspren are flocking to him it says.

"Beyond it, Odium stumbled back. So small, Dalinar thought. Has he always looked that small?" OB p.1136

If Dalinar was merely being influenced why would one shard think the other shard was small? Especially when Odium clearly has the power to kill Honor as he's already done it. I think the reason Odium seems small is Dalinar is somehow tapping into the power/influence of Adonalsium.

Maybe, there could be something we're not seeing here though

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52 minutes ago, Torchwood17 said:

Dalinar is somehow tapping into the power/influence of Adonalsium.

I think this idea might be relevant:

Quote

mooglefrooglian

Eshonai mentions that the Stormfather (rather, the Rider of Storms to her) was one of the spren who betrayed the listeners for the humans.

  • Was the Rider of Storms around before Honor and Cultivation arrived on Roshar?

  • Is the Stormfather composed partly of Cultivation's Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. :)

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100-rbooks-ama-2015/#e3478

 

It's possible that the Stormfather is a spren of Adonalsium, who is also merged with the Cognitive Shadow of Tanavast, which would explain his "honor" based side. But could also give Dalinar a direct connection to Adonalsium, not just Honor.

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8 hours ago, Ookla the Altruist said:

I think this idea might be relevant:

It's possible that the Stormfather is a spren of Adonalsium, who is also merged with the Cognitive Shadow of Tanavast, which would explain his "honor" based side. But could also give Dalinar a direct connection to Adonalsium, not just Honor.

I mean, the Stormfather did describe Honor as "infusing" him, not creating him. We know spren were there before the shards, so yeah, OB does confirm that. 

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We know that the highstorms and spren did predate the arrival of Honor, Cultivation and Odium to Roshar so it'd make sense that the more powerful ones at one time were tied or connected to Adonalsium somehow. Do you think the Stormfather would be a spren created by Adonalsium or did he form because of the thoughts of Adonalsium, like how Syl describes some spren were imagined by humans and some by the listeners. 

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Thanks to the Glasgow signing we can not definitely say that wasn't an oath (pending review of course) 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262/#e8803

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

In <that one> rejection of Odium, how many Oaths did Dalinar swear before merging the Realms? And is "I am Unity" the fifth.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No, that is not an Oath. He swore one ideal in that experience.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Okay. How many Oaths is he on?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

The number you think. So, he should have just finished three, right? Or maybe four. I'll have to go look. It's the number that you think it is. I'm not being sneaky on you. There's nothing sneaky there. He doesn't get armor, so... I can't remember where he is. He should be at three. "Life before death." "I will unite instead of divide." "I will stand up each time I fall." Yeah, so he's done three.

 

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The God Beyond is in the Beyond, where dead humans (listeners too?) go. This is different from the Spiritual Realm, where shards live, and human souls live. 

So here is my theory: the God Beyond is dead Adonalsium’s spirit in the Beyond. When Dalinar brought the three realms together to make the perpendicularity, he also connected the Beyond. That’s how Odium saw Adonalsium.

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4 hours ago, Ookla the maladroit said:

So here is my theory: the God Beyond is dead Adonalsium’s spirit in the Beyond. When Dalinar brought the three realms together to make the perpendicularity, he also connected the Beyond. That’s how Odium saw Adonalsium.

As far as I know, even shards can't reach the Beyond, so I seriously doubt that Dalinar somehow did. Unless Adonalsium somehow still has the power to influence the real world, and he powered up Dalinar for some strange reason. I just doesn't seem plausible, if at all possible.

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Isn't the reason Odium retreated explained in his meeting with T ? That if he ever finds himself in front of Dalinar again the latter could compel him to fulfill the challenge he agreed to ? Even Dalinar's comment about Odium looking small isn't very convincing in my opinion, he went from being unable to fathom the magnitude of the Shard's power to being connected to something as grand, of course his perspective would change, doesn't mean he's tapping something greater. Will need some more to buy into this theory.

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There's an interesting tidbit from the Stormfather at the beginning of OB ch.34, when he's talking about the place of endless white stone before the first vision Dalinar takes someone else into. 

Quote

"I Imagined it." the Stormfather said more softly, as if he were admitting something embarrassing.

"all things have a soul. A vase, a wall, a chair. And when a vase is broken, it might die in the physical realm, but for a time its soul remembers what it was. So all things die twice. Its final death is when men forget it was a vase, and think only of the pieces. I imagine the vase floating away then, its form dissolving into the nothingness."

I'd say this broken vase is analogous to the Shattering, and is a pretty strong argument for Adonalsium's non-death, being that people (at the very least, Hoid and the remaining original shardholders) remember him/her/it.

It may be far more complex given the massive chasm of difference between an item of pottery and a god / sentient mass of investiture / whatever Adonalsium is - and I don't know if a vase's soul would linger and remember itself as a vase in the spiritual realm, or move to the beyond,  or somewhere else. 

But it's really weird that the Stormfather says this here, unless there's something significant about that place of stone or it has a much wider context, because I don't really see this sentence as having much to do with what is actually happening in the scene.

---------

As a partial aside, in Glasgow there was a somewhat comical question about whether cake has a soul. Brandon's answer went off into ideas of an object gradually gaining a soul as a cognitive awareness of how it was perceived by people. But he never went into what happened to the souls of the flour and eggs, nor what happened after the cake had been eaten. (full audio source in the Arcanum)

Would the vase's soul die, but each piece of the vase gradually gain their own souls?

Can you put a vase back together and suddenly those pieces die and the soul of the vase is rejuvinated? 

Or is it a whole new vase-soul?

Would it be Adonalsium if the shards reformed, or something new?

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2 hours ago, Darvys said:

Isn't the reason Odium retreated explained in his meeting with T ? That if he ever finds himself in front of Dalinar again the latter could compel him to fulfill the challenge he agreed to?

1

Well, Odium's reaction was too strong for that. If he was going to have a reaction in the moment based on being pinned into the challenge, then it would have happened as soon as it was obvious that Dalinar wasn't going to become Odium's champion. No. Odium's reaction was straight up fear, and it was immediate and in direct reaction to Dalinar forming the Perpendicularity.

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42 minutes ago, Ookla the Altruist said:

Well, Odium's reaction was too strong for that. If he was going to have a reaction in the moment based on being pinned into the challenge, then it would have happened as soon as it was obvious that Dalinar wasn't going to become Odium's champion. No. Odium's reaction was straight up fear, and it was immediate and in direct reaction to Dalinar forming the Perpendicularity.

I didn't read fear in that passage, only disbelief and even anger. I recall reading somewhere ( book or WoB ? can't recall ) that Odium doesn't dare to invovlve himself too directly as it would leave him open to a strike from Cultivation, it's understandable that upon discovering that Honor's power was still a factor in the game, he'd want to pull away and rethink his position.

@Hoidonalsium Not even Hoid knows the answer to that, and you're asking us ?

Edited by Darvys
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The only problem I see with this is that Odium itself is a piece of the original Adonalsium. If there were some sort of special connection that Dalinar made to some Spirit form of Adonalsium just by partially ascending to Honor, why would that not be the case for Rayse who has been a vessel for a shard since the original shattering?

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