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[OB] Renarin's influence on the Diagram


Jofwu

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3 minutes ago, Song said:

I think the secret to any plan she has is not the diagram itself but Mr T's compassion.  He thinks his intelligence is what will save the world, but it is his compassionate, supposedly dumb days that I think will be the key.

While Mr. T is full of compassion, his future actions are also clouded from Odium's fortune.

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1 hour ago, Willshaping Crasher said:

Do we have a WOB that states that Renarin's ability to see the future is due to the corruption of Glys?

No, but it was that skill that led to Jasnah's deduction that Glys was not a normal Truth-watcher Spren. So it seems extremely likely.

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On 4/24/2018 at 3:29 PM, RShara said:

That's awesome!  Definitely put a tea-bearing plant (or would pot be inappropriate for the lols?) in the background.

13 minutes ago, RShara said:

The T is a plant should be in front, above the..plant...though.

Ok, here's the REAL Rshara version:

Spoiler

ShardShirts_T_Is_a_Plant_RsharaAlternate_Front.png.713658110db39a60fbba7a79a24c0470.png

ShardShirts_T_Is_a_Plant_RsharaAlternate_Back.png.9244becf3dfe534a72a350532331947f.png

 

Went back in time to get it right.

Edited by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
To put up the officially sanctioned Rshara version
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On 4/24/2018 at 7:05 AM, Jofwu said:

So I think this is what's happening with Renarin's blackness on "Odium's Diagram". Renarin's just one guy of course. Compared to Odium's future sight, he presents a relatively small margin of error. But it's enough to have an impact in one corner.

Theory:  Renarin Kholin's ability to see the future has caused events concerning Dalinar and the coalition to diverge from what Taravangian originally predicted.

I like this idea but it makes the assumption that the Diagram is accurate - a true prediction of the future, which Renarin has now changed because he bonded with a corrupted spren.  But I have always assumed that the Diagram is the work of Cultivation, and is intentionally misleading - in other words, she made parts of it deliberately false (or perhaps she wasn't totally sure about some things because she doesn't have perfect future-vision...).  This suggests that Renarin threw a wrench into not only the Diagram, but into the future that Cultivation specifically predicted - in other words, he would be unintentionally subverting her divine foresight.  I am more inclined to believe that Renarin is also a part of Cultivation's plan somehow  

On 4/24/2018 at 4:39 PM, Song said:

I am not convinced that Cultivations planning is as meticulous as has been suggested.  She just doesn't seem particularly calculating in the one scene where we met her. 

I agree that some people may give Cultivation too much credit for her ability to master-manipulate all her supposed pawns on Roshar (Taravangian, Dalinar, Lift, etc...) but somehow I don't think that Renarin Kholin is the main player who is throwing a wrench into her plans and predictions.  If Renarin's corrupted spren is the reason why the Diagram is false and the future is unclear, then did Cultivation know that his spren would become corrupted and that the future would turn out differently?  Or is Renarin altering the future in ways that Cultivation didn't anticipate?  

I like the idea of Renarin altering the future as proposed by the Diagram, but I think it leaves out Cultivation's part in the equation.  

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  • 1 month later...

 

On 4/27/2018 at 2:18 PM, teknopathetic said:
On 4/24/2018 at 9:05 AM, Jofwu said:

Their interpretations and predictions concerning Dalinar (and the politics for Taravangian to take over) have been repeatedly wrong. Is it just a coincidence that these pieces of the Diagram are written near the bed, which is where Renarin's impact on Odium's foresight is rooted?

I don't think the diagram has been wrong at all. I think the diagram told Mr.T to do what Mr.T needed to do. In a plan like the diagram you cant simply just say "go do this". Smart Mr.T knew that certain plans would fail, certain people would betray, and that certain goals woud be dropped. What the diagram does is give the information needed to get certain goals accomplished, but the diagram can absolutely lie about the truth or about what the diagram really wants in the end.

The diagram has restored the nights radiant, assassinated everyone in power that opposed Dalinar, united the nations, ascended Dalinar, and put Taravangian in a position to learn Odium's plans and betray Odium. Odium THINKS he knows Taravangian's plans because Taravangian himself is blind to his own scheme. The diagram knows that Odium would tempt Mr.T, so the diagram was written in a way that would trick Odium and trick Mr.T himself. Mr.T has also secretly leaned that Odium cant see Renarin. If the diagram had written that down, then EVEYONE would know that Mr.T knew this secret, and Odium would likely kill the Diagramists.  

The diagram is a long con and not a flawed map.

That super smart day could have also been a confirmation of faith thing for Mr. T. as well. The Diagram was spot on in nearly every instance until it tangled with Alethkar and the Blackthorn. Then it got spotty, to the point where he was actively wishing for another once-in-a-lifetime day to course correct the creation. Too many more failures and either he or more likely his followers would lose faith in the master document. Basically the Diagram needed a win. It got one.

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I agree that the Diagram is doing exactly what it is intended to do.  Even its seeming failures and setbacks are part of a greater plan.  Unfortunately nobody has any idea what the true plan is, outside of Cultivation.  

Mr T and the gang read a passage stating that if Dalinar sues for peace they should assassinate him.  They try to do this, but fail in such a way that it only encourages personal growth for Dalinar and Kaladin.  This sounds like an immediate failure, but maybe the failure itself served a deeper plan?  They performed their required role in the play without understanding that they were intended to fail in their task all along.  The Diagram plays everyone as unknowing pawns, including Mr. T himself.

I think Mr. T getting that past message from himself when negotiating with Odium pretty strongly confirms that everything is still going according to the true plan...whatever the true plan actually is.  Everything that appears to have gone wrong has gone wrong in the way it was intended to, else how could the Diagram possibly account for such a specific possibility?

I especially liked stupid Mr.T's thought that it was kind of blessing that he met Odium on a stupid day.  If he was more intelligent he would have tried to read and interpret Odium's predictions of the future and probably mess up the plan.  Because he was slow though, he was able to stay focused on what he needed to do.

...or maybe it's all nonsense and the moral lesson here is simply that the future is inscrutable and the ends never justify the means.  

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  • 5 months later...

Special thank you to whoever asked this one! I think it supports my theory really well. :D

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Is the reason Renarin's name is greyed out due to a conflict of Fortune with Odium, similar to a *inaudible* user fighting an atium...?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Edit: lol... two at the same signing apparently. :lol:

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So the scene at the end of Oathbringer, when Odium is confronting Taravangian and he uses futuresight to expand upon the Diagram, we have this blacked out section with Renarin's name linked to it.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Is that because Renarin's abilities interfere with Odium's futuresight similar to how electrum interferes with atium?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Any time that someone else is seeing the future in the cosmere, it's going to have ripples against your ability. Like they are-- you can't-- It's the same sort of thing that if... someone who has access to atium is going to mess up anyone else's futuresight in any way, because once you use that it's going to cause you to act differently, which then-- And remember futuresight is not very good in the cosmere anyway. But yeah, it's just gonna mess things up.

 

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I ALSO think it’s important to note that Cultivation is a bit of a Gambler, she takes riskes risks. But they are ALWAYS CALCULATED risks.

 

The reason she says things may not work out, is because ultimately the choice resides with those she places her bets on. In a way I guess you could say she is a Goddess who has as much faith in people, as people have faith in her.

 

Does that make sense?

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  • 1 month later...

3 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

(quoted from this post)

24 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I don't necessarily agree with this. Renarin was spared by Jasnah as an act of compassion and there was an alternative future where Renarin was killed by Jasnah that Odium still sees.

I won't dig into it in detail here as the theory isn't entirely relevant to this topic. (And it is of course just a theory.) My short response is that I don't see why this is any reason to doubt the theory. I'm not saying Renarin is pulling the future in a different way than was predicted. I'm saying there are events around him which were once 99.9% likely to happen a certain way, and now he's unknowingly shifting those odds. (by having the powers he does and being the person he is) I think it's pretty clear that he's the reason Odium is having a hard time predicting events surrounding Dalinar, and I think it's no coincidence that the Diagram is having a difficult time there as well.

I'm continuing this discussion on your thread. 

That is a very good point, but the point I was trying to make is that the Diagram has conjecture / information about Renarin that extends into the future past the point where he should have been killed by Jasnah (which is why it's black and doesn't show up to Odium). This implies that Diagram at the time it was created was aware of this possibly contigency (namely that Jasnah wouldn't kill Renarin) while Odium is not aware of this.

I do like your point about Renarin being a wildcard, and also possibly being a smoke screen for Dalinar, but I think that might be diminishing Renarin's full role. I really like the idea that Odium has just brought an Assassin on board (in the form of T) and that Renarin is T's hidden knife.

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12 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

That is a very good point, but the point I was trying to make is that the Diagram has conjecture / information about Renarin that extends into the future past the point where he should have been killed by Jasnah (which is why it's black and doesn't show up to Odium). This implies that Diagram at the time it was created was aware of this possibly contigency (namely that Jasnah wouldn't kill Renarin) while Odium is not aware of this.

I do like your point about Renarin being a wildcard, and also possibly being a smoke screen for Dalinar, but I think that might be diminishing Renarin's full role. I really like the idea that Odium has just brought an Assassin on board (in the form of T) and that Renarin is T's hidden knife.

My point is that the Diagram was written before Renarin became what he is. Prior to Glys, Jasnah never would have had any reason to kill him in the first place.

That said, I'm not entirely sure it holds up to close scrutiny. It's certainly possible that the Diagram says something that's hard to reconcile with my theory, but I'm not aware of any such thing. Do you know what the Diagram predicts/says about Renarin? Particularly concerning the time after the Battle of Thaylen Field? Nothing comes to mind and the Coppermind page doesn't mention him.

I don't mean to say that he's JUST a smokescreen for Dalinar. That's sort of what he is at the moment, as he's just coming into his powers. Definitely don't mean to say that's all he is or all he will be. I think that black infinity that Odium sees is going to grow much larger in the coming books, and play into Renarin's very important 2nd arc role. :)

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It doesn't specify. It merely states at its root is Renarin. So what rippled could have been Renarin being born, could have been the corruption of glys, could have been jasnah not killing Renarin. Could have been a number of possibilities. 

 

page 1215

A section of words that had faded from golden to black. What was that? AS he drew near, Taravangian saw that the words were blacked out into eternity starting from this point on his wall. As if something had happened here. A ripple in what odium could see....At its root, a name. Renarin Kholin. 

Edited by Pathfinder
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@Jofwu, I had to pull out my copy of OB, here's the part that mentions Renarin in the meeting between T and Odium (with the prelude about his grandchildren included, so you can see the full thread of compassion):

Quote

My grandchildren, he thought. The people of Kharbranth. The good people of the world. He trembled to think what might happen to them all.

Somebody had to make the difficult decisions. He slipped off his golden seat as Odium studied another portion of the Diagram. There. Behind where the bed had stood. A section of words that had faded from gold to black. What was that? As he drew near, Taravangian saw taht the words were blacked out into eternity starting from this point on the wall. As if something had happened here. A ripple in what Odium could see.

At it's root, a name. Renarin Kholin.

Looking at the coppemind diagram page, there's no explicit mention of Renarin, and the above is the only explicit mention of Renarin in the diagram that I am aware of, and it does seem to underscore your point. It seems to be that Odium is able to see the future possibilities unfolding from the diagram, almost like Kelsier's vision of the future from MB:SH, and the black words branch from the golden root of Renarin Kholin. The implication being here (like your OP) that Renarin's futuresight is messing up Odium's future sight. Very interesting.

One thing that might be related to Renarin is the North Wall Coda:

Quote

North Wall Coda

Windowsill region
1173090605 1173090801 1173090901 1173091001 1173091004 1173100105 1173100205 1173100401 1173100603 1173100804
—Paragraph 2[16]

This is a sequence of dates corresponding to the last ten highstorms leading up to the arrival of the everstorm.

The name Renarin is mentioned as being on the wall behind the bed, and this one specifically deals with the coming everstorm (which Renarin was having visions). That's a pretty tenous link, and not something beyond the battle of Thaylen fields, so I think in the main your assessment is better inline with the facts. I was thinking that the black words extending from Renarin's name were part of the existent diagram, but it looks like they are just future contingencies invisible to Odium.

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Anyone think that had Renarin died at Jasnah's hand the section with Renarin's name would not have been greyed out? Also, how long has Sja-Anat been planning her defection from Team O? Did she go to Cultivation in an attempt to do the equivalent of turning State's Evidence? Did the Unmade target Glys on purpose because she knew exactly what powers he would have gained?

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@hoiditthroughthegrapevine I think it's pretty cool. :)

One thing that I realize now I probably wasn't very clear on, and this is a lot of assumption on my part... In the scene at the end of Oathbringer where Odium pulls Taravangian into the virtual Diagram room. We see the Diagram as it was written, then the room drops away, and then we see what Odium sees...

My interpretation is that Odium is just extrapolating further. I don't think we're dealing with two separate views of the future. I think they match up, and the Diagram is just very limited compared to what Odium sees.

It's like the Diagram is a single sentence written out. Then Odium comes along with a transparent page of golden text and overlays it on that single sentence. They match up perfectly, with Odium's version just revealing more/further. And when I say perfectly I mean almost perfectly. There's this one portion in the middle of the sentence that repeatedly seems wrong in some way, frustrating the people interpreting it. On Odium's overlay, that portion is just a jumble of words overlayed on one another to the point that it's illegible.

I think that the reason the Diagram seems wrong is because it is. It predicted one branch which was once very likely, but now there are several possibilities propagating from Renarin (Odium's blindness). And in this particular case, the Diagram guessed the wrong one. Brandon basically confirmed Renarin's interference with Odium. So my theory is basically that if the Diagram is a work predicting the future then Renarin should be affecting it in basically the same way. The difference is that the Diagram is a static creation while Odium is seeing all of the possibilities as they currently exist. (If Odium looked into the future before Renarin bonded Glys, he probably would have seen with clarity what the Diagram predicted.)

THAT SAID... I imagine Cultivation is much better at seeing the future than Odium. I figure it's possible that she has an easier time seeing all of the branches created by Renarin. So it's possible that the Diagram isn't wrong because of Renarin, but because Cultivation is manipulating people (maybe even Odium) by presenting a future that she knew would be wrong. Does that make sense?

I'm personally skeptical that the Diagram is... coming from Cultivation to this degree. I think it can still be a tool of hers for the purpose of manipulation without needing to take things this far. But who knows...

Sorry, I'm rambling. :)

 

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Anyone think that had Renarin died at Jasnah's hand the section with Renarin's name would not have been greyed out? Also, how long has Sja-Anat been planning her defection from Team O? Did she go to Cultivation in an attempt to do the equivalent of turning State's Evidence? Did the Unmade target Glys on purpose because she knew exactly what powers he would have gained?

Personally, I think he'd still be greyed out because he's already had some influence that has stirred things up. BUT I DO think that this greyness would fade in time with Renarin dead, as his influences work themselves out and move from there. With Renarin alive, it will continue to grow, I think.

Very hard to guess how long Sja-Anat has been leaning that way. Definitely a major question mark. I don't imagine she went to Cultivation. I think she's been more slow, and subtle, and careful. Afraid to move in the open, which I imagine would be required to visit Cultivation.

I do expect that Glys was a weapon she planned for this purpose. A way to help out the other side. I don't know that she saw exactly what would happen with Glys... But I think she saw some of it. Less "here, this will cause X, Y, Z to happen and help you guys out" and more "here's a powerful tool, it will probably help"?

Talk of Unmade reminds me... I can't remember if it comes up in this topic or not. In the Diagram epigraphs in Words of Radiance, there are three references from the "Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer." Two of them are explicitly about the Unmade, and I think they're suggestive about the relationship between Unmade and future sight. They are described as "a deviation". They have "relevance to precognition". The third epigraph is the traitor one: "One of them is most certainly a traitor to the others." The Diagram predicted Sja-Anat's treachery. So that's a clue perhaps to when that happened? Then again, maybe too ambiguous to be helpful there. Regardless, I think this soft connection between the Unmade and how they might influence the future is interesting, especially given the sequence of events that begin with Sja-Anat creating Glys...

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From reading all this, I have come to the conclusion that Renarin is most likely the wild card which Cultivation/ Mr T couldn't account for. Not only to agree that Cultivation probably gave Mr T his boon or at least had some say but purposely gave false information to misdirect Odium. But she could do nothing in relation to Renarin so she couldn't steer Mr T either or way. Some of the diagram had to work otherwise Mr T will realise how much of a fraud he was

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43 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

It's like the Diagram is a single sentence written out. Then Odium comes along with a transparent page of golden text and overlays it on that single sentence. They match up perfectly, with Odium's version just revealing more/further. And when I say perfectly I mean almost perfectly. There's this one portion in the middle of the sentence that repeatedly seems wrong in some way, frustrating the people interpreting it. On Odium's overlay, that portion is just a jumble of words overlayed on one another to the point that it's illegible.

That's incredibly well phrased, and I think a great description of what's actually going on. I like this a lot, and I think that it's pretty awesome that Odium, in his attempt to gloat about his superior knowledge of the future to a mentally simple Taravangian reveals a tactical piece of information to T that he, Odium, is completely blind to and which T would never have known about if Odium hadn't gloated. Yet another reason why Odium messed up by coming to T on a dumb day.

43 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

I think that the reason the Diagram seems wrong is because it is. It predicted one branch which was once very likely, but now there are several possibilities propagating from Renarin (Odium's blindness). And in this particular case, the Diagram guessed the wrong one. Brandon basically confirmed Renarin's interference with Odium. So my theory is basically that if the Diagram is a work predicting the future then Renarin should be affecting it in basically the same way.

This is the part I disagree with. I think the Diagram was meant to be a self-correcting roadmap, with cultivation's agent, T, in charge of it's maintenance and implementation. The Diagram can never be wrong, because it's simultaneously a feint along multiple simultaneous lines and a continuously adjusted through-line for Cultivation's plans. Renarin while possibly invisible to all future sight, is still just a singular actor in a planet wide chain of events, and his disruptive actions and the possibly unforeseeable actions by Odium are exactly why Cultivation needs an active agent like T to continually monitor and adjust her plan. Sometimes the modifications will be purely for misdirection, sometimes it will be to control T's intelligence to just the right degree that he presents the proper mischaracterization of the Diagram that is needed in a given situation, and sometimes (like when he steps up working on the Eila Stele bomb) it will be to set in motion a complex chain of events that push things along a particular line at a particular point.

43 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

I'm personally skeptical that the Diagram is... coming from Cultivation to this degree. I think it can still be a tool of hers for the purpose of manipulation without needing to take things this far. But who knows...

I get why you wouldn't want this to be true, future sight to this degree seems a little Deus Ex Machina-y, but Odium also doesn't exist in a vaccuum, he has plans I am sure that are invisible to Cultivation, and by extension, the Diagram.

I think the Diagram is just one battlefront in an epic struggle that will be waged across all 3 realms, this is just an incredibly awesome metaphor for the 3-Dimensional chess game played by god-like actors with the power to see in the future. Rad stuff to be sure.

Edited by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
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Just a thought that occurred to me while reading this:

1. Futuresight counteracts other people's Futuresight. 

2. Futuresight is a (corrupted?) surge. 

3. Fabrials replicate Surges. 

4. Mass production of Futuresight Fabrials, even cheap bare-bones ones, could effectively blind Odium's Futuresight. 

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9 hours ago, ZenBossanova said:

Just a thought that occurred to me while reading this:

1. Futuresight counteracts other people's Futuresight. 

2. Futuresight is a (corrupted?) surge. 

3. Fabrials replicate Surges. 

4. Mass production of Futuresight Fabrials, even cheap bare-bones ones, could effectively blind Odium's Futuresight. 

At first, I disagreed with this, but after some consideration, I'm on board. Especially since (Mistborn spoilers): 

Spoiler

Fortune, which I think we can all agree is the central mechanism behind future sight, is directly manipulatable by feruchemists on scadrial. I bet this will actually be a common topic in the future of the cosmere.

 

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