"A Blind Man Awaited the Era of Endings"

[rhaiynebow Ardent]

Again, I searched the forums, but didn't see this topic specifically unless it was commented on in the body of other threads.

 

In WoR epilogue when Wit is talking to the "ugly lizard-crab-thing" he states:

"A blind man awaited the era of endings," Wit said, "contemplating the beauty of nature."

 

Silence

 

"That man is me," Wit noted. "I'm not physically blind, just spiritually. And that other statement was actually very clever, if you think about it."

 

 

Then he goes on to have a very interesting conversation with the ugly lizard-crab-thing about art which I suspect is more important than I can fathom at the moment BUT, it made me wonder about the blind man story that he had with Shallan earlier on. Does this statement mean that he's also the blind man in THAT story? It's from the end of chapter 45:

 

The messenger whispered. "Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world's highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing."

"Huh?" She looked to him.

"'Can beauty be taken from a man?' the first asked the second.

"'It was taken from me,' the second replied. 'For I cannot remember it.' This man was blinded in a childhood accident. 'I pray to the God Beyond each night to restore my sight, so that I may find beauty again.'

 

 

There's more to that story, but I didn't want to type it all out. These quotes/points may have been brought up in another forum or thread specific to Wit/Hoid or maybe the Cosmere, but thought I'd bring it up here since these passages are WoR specific.

 

Questions:

 

1. I think it's safe to assume that Wit is one of the blind men in the story that he tells Shallan. Any ideas which one?

2. Do we know who the blind men are?? I doubt it, but thought I'd ask since I have absolutely no idea. I LOVE the cosmere, but it hurts my brain most of the time thinking about it!

3. When he references "that other statement" is he talking about the "contemplating the beauty of nature." part? If so, any ideas why that statement is so important? He makes a point to italicize very stating that it's a very clever statement. I'm not sure why that would be. Unless he saying that it's clever because that's what he's doing at that very moment??

4. If he's spiritually bind, does that mean he can access/see/interact with the cognitive realm and physical realm, but NOT the spiritual realm? Or does he just not believe in spirituality anymore??

 

 

[Argent Splinter]

That's a good catch. It does seem like one of the men is Hoid himself and he is telling a story he was involved in - with flourish, of course. 

 

I must think about it...

[tigvsben Ardent]

I don't have any speculation on any of the Cosmere implications of his stories, but the "beauty of nature" is a joke. In the original story he told Shallan, he spoke of two men contemplating the nature of beauty. Now that he's stuck in the middle of the wilderness waiting for Jasnah, Hoid is left to instead contemplate the beauty of nature. He's just a little too pleased with his own sense of humor.

[Ryshadium Silent Gatherer]

I get the sense that he's looking at an ugly crab thing, yet contemplating "beauty" which is somewhat ironic.  But it's Hoid, so there's always the chance for multiple meanings. 

[ranstang94 Awakened Object]

in the first story I had assumed that Hoid was the one explaining that Beauty cannot be stolen, I pretty well assume that there is an anti-Hoid running around somewhere in the Cosmere. I would guess that they were friends at the start and have very different world views now. I would hazard the guess that the two men sitting on the cliff are most likely the authors of the two letters. One of which is probably written by Hoid. 

[Gyth Pahn Kahl]

I prefer to think he is contemplating the nature of many different things.

 

The nature of spren. The nature of Dalinar, and Kaladin, and Shallan. 

 

Many cool ideas in that simple statement.

[Cheese Ninja Arbiter]

I wonder it this is going to be a running theme in Stormlight Archive books.  Way of Kings also tied parallels between Wit's conversation with Kaladin on the Shattered Plains to his comments in the epilogue.
 

What is it to be witty, then?”
“To say clever things.”
“And what is cleverness?”
“I…” Why was he having this conversation? “I guess it’s the ability to say and do the right things at the right time.”
The King’s Wit cocked his head, then smiled.

“What is it we value?” Wit whispered. “Innovation. Originality. Novelty. But most importantly… timeliness. I fear you may be too late, my confused, unfortunate friend.”

 

“What think you? Can beauty be taken from a man? If he could not touch, taste, smell, hear, see . . . what if all he knew was pain? Has that man had beauty taken from him?”
“I . . .” What did this have to do with anything? “Does the pain change day by day?”
“Let us say it does,” the messenger said.
“Then beauty, to that person, would be the times when the pain lessens. Why are you telling me this story?”
The messenger smiled. “To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way. Tell me, what is the most beautiful thing you can imagine?”
....
“I see,” the messenger said softly. “You do not yet understand the nature of lies. I had that trouble myself, long ago. The Shards here are very strict. You will have to see the truth, child, before you can expand upon it. Just as a man should know the law before he breaks it.”

“Expectation. That is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life. If you can create an air of anticipation and feed it properly, you will succeed.
 
“Conversely, if you gain a reputation for being too good, too skilled . . . beware. The better art will be in their heads, and if you give them an ounce less than they imagined, suddenly you have failed. Suddenly you are useless. A man will find a single coin in the mud and talk about it for days, but when his inheritance comes and is accounted one percent less than he expected, then he will declare himself cheated.”
 
Wit shook his head, standing up and dusting off his coat. “Give me an audience who have come to be entertained, but who expect nothing special. To them, I will be a god. That is the best truth I know.”

I'm not entirely sure how to relate those last two quotes from WoR.  Some big mash up of Art, Beauty, Expectation, Lies, and Truth

[Argent Splinter]

Yea, I suspect Hoid's words, at least so far in the series, will require some pondering, preferably by literature majors.

[Ryshadium Silent Gatherer]

Or philosophers.

Edit:

That being said, I think some of The end of WoR comments could possibly be describing the struggles of writing a highly anticipated sequel!

Edited March 14, 2014 by Ryshadium

[zandi Grand]

 

“What think you? Can beauty be taken from a man? If he could not touch, taste, smell, hear, see  .  .  . what if all he knew was pain? Has that man had beauty taken from him?” “I  .  .  .” What did this have to do with anything? “Does the pain change day by day?” “Let us say it does,” the messenger said. “Then beauty, to that person, would be the times when the pain lessens. Why are you telling me this story?”

 

 

here I thought he was referring to the suffering of the heralds between desolations.

 

but the theme of blindness is an interesting one especially since it seems important to Hoid. If he is referring to himself as 1 of the 2 blind men  

I worry that everything that has happened in the cosmere has been this attempt of one  to prove to the other that beauty can be experienced through existence and that the other to find it or recover from his blindness....

[Ryshadium Silent Gatherer]

I actually can see some ties with the beauty conversation and with the Fleet story he tells. Both indicate that giving up isn't the right course, humanity.

[Seloun Scadrian Waffle Cook]

Might be overthinking it, but the phrasing of the two sentences is somewhat different:

 

- 'Awaited the era of endings' implies the era of endings isn't there yet.

- 'Waiting at the ending of an era' implies the end of the era has already arrived.

 

Meanwhile, the phrase 'They sat atop the world's highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing' reminds me a bit of the epigraph from WoK:

 

 

“A man stood on a cliffside and watched his homeland fall into dust. The waters surged beneath, so far beneath. And he heard a child crying. They were his own tears.”

 

and also the vision from the last chapter of WoK:

 

 

Around it, the land was gone. Kholinar was gone. It had all fallen away into unplumbed darkness below. He felt vertigo, standing on the tiny bit of rock that—impossibly—remained.

 

which makes me wonder if the story he tells Shallan is about the future.

[Nick11 Ardent]

here I thought he was referring to the suffering of the heralds between desolations.

 

but the theme of blindness is an interesting one especially since it seems important to Hoid. If he is referring to himself as 1 of the 2 blind men  

I worry that everything that has happened in the cosmere has been this attempt of one  to prove to the other that beauty can be experienced through existence and that the other to find it or recover from his blindness....

I think you are on the right track. This seems like a hint at the nature of the big picture conflict in the Cosmere.

 

"To be human is to seek beauty Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way. Tell me what is the most beautiful thing you can imagine?" Shallan then describes a loving family. What is beauty in this context? It is not just art, it is the embodiment of mankind's greatest ideals. Love, selflessness, life before death, strength before weakness, and journey before destination.

 

"What if all that remained to you was pain? You could not know beauty then. It can be taken from a man." - Second blind man on the cliff

 Love and selflessness were taken from him.

 

 “Does the pain change day by day?” “Let us say it does,” the messenger said. “Then beauty, to that person, would be the times when the pain lessens." So if you have beauty taken from you, all that is left is pain, and what you look forward to is lessening the pain, how would you do it? In the Wheel of Time Moridin had a very drastic way to lessen the pain by ending existence.

 

So we have Blind Man 1 trying to convince Blind Man 2 you can still find beauty, love, happiness, and great ideals even if there are thorns in the way. So how would Blind Man 1 (who may be Wit) lessen pain? The answer may in this next quote.

 

"Expectation. That is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life...Conversely, if you gain a reputation for being too good, too skilled . . . beware. The better art will be in their heads, and if you give them an ounce less than they imagined, suddenly you have failed. Suddenly you are useless. A man will find a single coin in the mud and talk about it for days, but when his inheritance comes and is accounted one percent less than he expected, then he will declare himself cheated.Wit shook his head, standing up and dusting off his coat. 'Give me an audience who have come to be entertained, but who expect nothing special. To them, I will be a god. That is the best truth I know.'"

 

So beauty in art, in idealized human nature gives us what? I'm going to say happiness or peace. People who do not get what they want are unhappy, even people who get exactly what they want still suffer. The journey, not the destination, is what brings us happiness. "How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished".People must learn how to live, before they die. In Wits musings the greatest truth he knows is about expectation. This is tied closely to happiness. If a man gets  more or less than he expected in an inheritance will that make him happy? Will an inheritance at all make him happy? Now apply this concept to all human interaction. So does lowering expectations or standards the key to happiness? I think it's more on finding the truth in reality and aligning one's expectations with it.  If Kaladin is looking for the perfect leader without flaws and does not find one he will be unhappy, closer to hateful. However if he realizes a great leader is less than perfect his perspective will change, he will follow the Ideals more closely, and his entire world will change. That is from Hoid's greatest truth.

 

 We have Blind Man 2 who can only experience pain and he wishes to end it. Blind Man 1 is trying change his perspective or expectations so he can find beauty. So if the blind men were metaphors for the Cosmere shaking forces we have a very odious blind man (perhaps not Odium who knows) hellbent on bad things and someone who is trying to stop these bad things by helping him find beauty again. Since Sanderson is the type to not have pure good and evil I find it appropriate that to destroy your enemy you make him your friend.

 

Or I could be full of rust. You decide.

 

 

 

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 281018368 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 444201264 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

[sonNeturo Noble-Blooded]

I don't know........Hoid is complicated 

[Seloun Scadrian Waffle Cook]

Another possible item of interest is that Tyn makes a similar joke that Hoid tells in the epilogue, in Ch. 28:

 

 

“Nah, it’s more like they have pebbles in their mouths. But they talk really slow, with overemphasized sounds. Like this. ‘Oi looked over the paintings that ya gave me, and they’re roit nice. Roit nice indeed. Ain’t never had a cloth for my backside that was so pleasant.’”

 

vs.

 

 

“Anyway, as this story is a comedy, the man is invited to the palace for a reward. Various nonsense follows, ending with the poor farmer wiping himself in the privy with one of the finest paintings ever painted , then strolling out to find all of the lighteyes staring at an empty frame and commenting on how beautiful the work is. Mirth and guffaws. Flourish and bow. Exit before anyone thinks too much about the tale.”

 

There's also a reference to an apprentice of hers named 'Si' who apparently was a problem:

 

 

Another one, Tyn? the reed wrote. After what happened with Si? Anyway, I doubt they’ll like meeting with an apprentice.

 

It's extremely tenuous, but maybe a connection?

[Pechvarry Ferring]

Should maybe be in a different thread, but this makes me think of Mraize. I don't find it a coincidence that Shallan immediately thinks of Hoid when she first meets him. Hoid mentions "the hunt" to young Shallan, which is also obviously a thing with Mraize. Basically. I think he's the anti-Hoid mentioned earlier with his relics that appear to be from other planets.

If he's the second blind man, he's probably the friend Hoid seeks, but now spends his time hiding from.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Pechvarry

[darkanimereal1 Babsk]

We have Blind Man 2 who can only experience pain and he wishes to end it. Blind Man 1 is trying change his perspective or expectations so he can find beauty. So if the blind men were metaphors for the Cosmere shaking forces we have a very odious blind man (perhaps not Odium who knows) hellbent on bad things and someone who is trying to stop these bad things by helping him find beauty again. Since Sanderson is the type to not have pure good and evil I find it appropriate that to destroy your enemy you make him your friend.

 

Or I could be full of rust. You decide.

 

I'm on the fence. I really like this idea, although I'm not quite sure if I'm behind it 100% yet. One reason that I really love it, however, is because it could align with this epitaph:

 

 

I suspect that he is more a force than an individual now, despite your insistence to the contrary. That force is contained, and an equilibrium reached.

 

p. 855 (Hardcover)

 

So we know that Hoid apparently still believes that Rayse exists as an individual person rather than just a force of hatred. And the author of the letter seems to be implying that Hoid is attempting something that will upset the balance of equilibrium that Tanavast achieved by containing Rayse.

 

Based on those two things, it almost makes me wonder if Hoid is going to attempt to persuade/rationalize with Rayse. Which sounds like a crazy chull move, if you ask me.

 

However, Hoid did also tell Dalinar that they have two different goals that do not quite align. Obviously Dalinar doesn't know the full picture, but the end that he's working toward is to stop the desolations and protect mankind, which would mean somehow stopping Odium's influence on Roshar. If Hoid is hoping to reason with Rayse (or at least persuade him), then that could explain the discrepancy.

 

That being said, Hoid does not strike me as the kind of person who would hope to reason with someone to achieve an end... >> Just saying. 

[Veil Oldblood]

I was flipping through WoR earlier and came across another parallel that I think is worth considering here.

 

Compare Chapter 45...

 

 

"Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world's highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing."

 

with Interlude 10...

 

 

Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, sat atop the highest tower in the world and contemplated the End of All Things.

 

(Also, bearing in mind that Urithiru is completely flat on the east side, making it essentially an enormous cliff.)

 

There's a marked similarity between these two quotes, from the world's tallest tower/cliff to the contemplation to the "end." Too many for me to believe that these two quotes are unrelated. Now, I'm not saying that Szeth is the other blind mand in Hoid's story (he does sound a lot like the disillusioned blind man, but I don't know when or why he would have had a conversation with Hoid.)

 

I do think Urithiru is significant. Could Hoid have had a conversation with someone atop Urithiru at some point? It's been abandoned for ages, aside from Szeth's occasional visits. I doubt anyone else could have reached it, except perhaps Nalan/whichever Herald still has his/her Honorblade (assuming it grants the Surge of Gravitation or Transportation, or functions enough like a living Shardblade to operate the Oathgates.)

 

So perhaps the conversation happened a long time ago. Say, in a previous Desolation? That would certainly qualify as "the end of an era," and could explain the part about "overlooking the land and seeing nothing." There wouldn't be much left to see after a Desolation.

 

As to who the other blind man might be, my only guess is Nohadon. Mostly because he's this mysterious figure of legend living in eventful times. Seems like the kind of person Hoid would seek out for a conversation or two.

[Ren Ardent]

The second blind man mentions he's praying to the God Beyond, that should narrow the possibilities, I think.

[Maximus Prelan]

"A blind man awaited the era of endings," Wit said, "contemplating the beauty of nature."

"Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty"

there almost seems to be a ketek here:

era of endings | end of an era <--- what the blind man/men waited for/at

beauty of nature | (nature of) beauty <--- what they contemplated while waiting

[Veil Oldblood]

Interesting theory... and I wouldn't put it past Wit to phrase his cleverness in keteks just to be frustrating. Unfortunately, it doesn't help me figure out what the significance is.

[pdavidc222 Spren]

I just noticed that this is used again when Shallan is meeting with the Ghostbloods for the first time. The man she meets reminds her of the messanger, and she recalls the phrase "Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty."

[Shaggai Seer]

I don't have any speculation on any of the Cosmere implications of his stories, but the "beauty of nature" is a joke. In the original story he told Shallan, he spoke of two men contemplating the nature of beauty. Now that he's stuck in the middle of the wilderness waiting for Jasnah, Hoid is left to instead contemplate the beauty of nature. He's just a little too pleased with his own sense of humor.

I agree. I don't think that story has many implications for the Cosmere. The whole "spiritually blind" thing, maybe, but not the story.

[kaellok Truthless]

There's a marked similarity between these two quotes, from the world's tallest tower/cliff to the contemplation to the "end." Too many for me to believe that these two quotes are unrelated. Now, I'm not saying that Szeth is the other blind mand in Hoid's story (he does sound a lot like the disillusioned blind man, but I don't know when or why he would have had a conversation with Hoid.)

 

Hoid could very well have been what led Szeth to become Truthless to begin with.  I mean, the man does seem to get around; appearing in Shinovar and speaking with Szeth seems no more unlikely than meeting Shallan when she was a child.

 

Regarding the Cosmerical importance of some things that Hoid has said, specifically regarding beauty and et. al, well: when an author says something once, perhaps it is of no more importance; when they say it twice, you should pay attention; when it's mentioned three times or more, it is either a vital clue or a very, very red herring.  Given who Hoid is, I find it incredibly likely that there are two different layers to the discussion of beauty, one important to Roshar and one important to the Cosmere as a whole. 

 

The two blind men of Roshar could easily be Hoid and Szeth (although I think it more likely to be Kaladin and Szeth), while the two blind men of the Cosmere would be Hoid and someone else (not Rayse; Hoid is very anti-Rayse, and the story implies that there is a mutual connection between the two that seems utterly absent between Rayse and Hoid.)  My guess is that the two blind men of the Cosmere are Hoid and "the old reptile" he exchanged letters with, except that Hoid is the blind man who no longer sees or experiences beauty.  His friend can see the wonder and beauty inherent in the Cosmere as it is today, and so is against forcing change; Hoid, on the other hand, is constantly reminded of the loss of Adonalsium, and this constant pain is what drives him in his personal quest.

[Gaelan Pahn Kahl]

The messenger whispered. "Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world's highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing."

"Huh?" She looked to him.

"'Can beauty be taken from a man?' the first asked the second.

"'It was taken from me,' the second replied. 'For I cannot remember it.' This man was blinded in a childhood accident. 'I pray to the God Beyond each night to restore my sight, so that I may find beauty again.'

 

I'm sorry to bring this up, but having read MB: Secret History, I'm almost inclined to believe that this actually refers to the ending, when two people are talking atop of a hill (Sorry for not being more explicit, I don't know how to open a spoiler bar, though if you have read the scene I guess you will probably know what I'm talking about).

 

I mean, they do of course NOT have this dialogue (neither of them knows about the God Beyond at the time of MB:SH), but I read it and seemed somewhat familiar to what Hoid says. Any thoughts or have I just gone mad?