Theory: Yelig-nar (and the Unmade) are Stormfather Analogues

[PorridgeBrick]

After around 400 posts or so, I've realized that I still haven't made a single thread of my own. It's probably time to change that. So behold, my baseless speculation in grand, likely typo-filled, thread form.

Now, like many of you, I at first thought that the Unmade were the counterparts of the Heralds. It just made a lot of sense that way: the Honor gets his über-powered men to lead his forces, and Odium gets his own mega-powered monsters to lead the Desolations. But a recent WoB has changed that.

Q: Is the number of the Unmade fixed?

A: Yes.

Q: Is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten?

A: Is it ten? No, it's not ten.

Now, if there are not the same number of Unmade as Heralds, then they cannot be direct counterparts to them. So what are they? Taravangian actually tells us in WoR.

"'Do not spend too much effort on that. I'm not sure what we would even do if we found the thing.' An ancient, evil spren was not something he had the resources to tackle."

This is in reference to Nergaoul, the Unmade responsible for the Thrill. Now, before you ask, I am aware that Brandon is famous for unreliable characters. But Taravangian is one of the most knowledgeable characters in SA we know of. His information comes from an intelligence that completely, and utterly, transcends normal human thought. Barring any strong evidence to the contrary, we should take his word for it. But there is more.

The Unmade were obviously fabrications of folklore. Curiously, most were not considered individuals, but instead personifications of kinds of destruction.

This is a section of Jasnah's personal notes in WoK. It's completely consistent with Taravangian's comment– the Unmade are forces, ideas given life like spren.

But Unmade are much, much bigger than ordinary spren. Nergaoul's Thrill covers all of Alethkar. Moelach's Death Rattles occur all the way from Taravangian's hospital in Kharbranth to the Shattered Plains. And Yelig-nar can rip roofs off a building iirc (if anyone could find the quote for this one, I'd be very grateful). Only one spren so far can match this level of power: the Stormfather. He controls an enormous hypercane great enough to span more than the entire supercontinent. He's the Father to the Honorspren. The Nightwatcher, too, is likely this sort of spren, referred to as Mother by Wyndle. Interestingly, Re-Shephir, a likely Unmade candidate, is also called Mother.

“Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother, giving birth to abominations with her essence so dark, so terrible, so consuming. She is here! She watches me die!”

So the same relationship holds with the Unmade. The Unmade are 'parents' to the voidspren, who are just smaller splinters of Odium. These spren bond with a variety of things, like Parshendi, stone, and smoke(?) to form the Voidbringer troops. And, as we saw so epically with Dalinar, the über-spren can be bonded with too, with both the Stormfather, and the Unmade too.

Q. Can the Unmade be bonded?

A. Wow … plausible. Er, possible, I should say.

And here's one last quote to close this off.

"Our gods were born splinters of a soul, / Of one who seeks to take control, / Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite. / They are his spren, his gift, his price.

Now on to the far more theoretical portion of my theory (That sounded much less stupid in my head). We now know that the Everstorm is Odium's version of a Highstorm. As the Highstorm is led by the Stormfather, it follows that the Everstorm has its own über-spren, one of the Unmade. One of the Unmade we've seen so far stands out in particular for this:Yelig-Nar.

“Yelig-nar, called Blightwind, was one that could speak like a man, though often his voice was accompanied by the wails of those he consumed.”

First off, he's called Blightwind.With how little we have to go on, this is probably enough. But I'll add more anyway, because this post isn't long enough already. Yelig-Nar is also the most physically active Unmade so far. He kills Nohadon's men, rips a roof off a building (very stormy, right? Oh, and again, a quote for me, upvotes for you) , and doesn't seem to do the subtle, mental influences others like Dai-Gonarthis, Sja-Anat, Moelach, Nergaoul, et cetera are known for. Similarly, the Stormfather goes around smashing things with giant Highstorms, as opposed to someone like the Nightwatcher, who just screws around flipping people's vision and giving them bizarre eating disorders. And those "wails"? What sounds more "wail"-ish than the storm winds of a malevolent hypercane?

Edit: Shoot, I posted before I finished. Give me a second to edit the rest in.

Edit 2: Good enough.

Edited March 25, 2014 by PorridgeBrick

[Argent]

Before I address your theory, I should point out that Brandon, on several occasions, said talked about how there aren't always direct counterparts of things on Roshar. A lot of what we've seen about this world has been symmetrical, so we've went and made everything symmetrical - and I don't think this will end up being the case. The reason for the number 10 showing up everywhere (and I need to add this to the Chicago signing thread) is because of what Brandon called "Honor's purposes (Purposes?)." He repeated the word a couple of times as he was talking about something marginally related, so I believe it's important; I've been treating it as "Honor's aspects," though that might be a little different. 

 

The reason I bring this is up is because he was quite clear that 10 is tied to Honor and his Purposes - Odium is a very different being, so he probably wouldn't be "bound" to the same number. 

[Thought]

First, has anyone else noticed that the unmade have fairly lovecraftian names? Re-Shephir, Nergaoul, Moelach, Yelig-nar (ia! ia! the black wind of the woods with a thousand young! ia!)

 

Second, if the symmetry we see is the result of Honor's purpose, then perhaps we have flipped things around. That is, Honor might be responding to Odium (trying to keep the fight fair), whereas Odium keeps trying to tip things in his favor. Or to put it another way, Odium might have created ten "Harbringers," honor responded by creating ten Heralds, then Odium made three more. If such an interpretation is correct, then Odium's, not Honor's, number might be 10.

 

And finally, third, it is interesting that the Parshendi gods are called splinters of a soul, whereas the Stormfather calls himself a sliver. Honor seems to be big on getting champions, whereas from what we know of Odium, it's unlikely that he'd ever trust his power to another.

[Argent]

Well, by definition almost, there can only be only one active Sliver per Shard at any one time (such as the Stormfather), so the Unmade can't be direct opposites to that. I have to wonder though, is the Stormfather using the word realmatically? Because that would create a weird precedent - a Splinter that is also a Sliver. 

[Leuthie]

If Stormfather was a splinter until the power was ripped away by Odium when he killed Honor, sliver would apply.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Leuthie

[Thought]

Well, by definition almost, there can only be only one active Sliver per Shard at any one time...

 

To my understanding, the term "active sliver" is a bit of an contradiction in terms: isn't a Sliver someone who had held a Shard in the past, but no longer? The Lord Ruler, for example, was a sliver, as was Kelseir and Vin, but not Sazed. Wouldn't an "active sliver" just be the person currently holding the shard (and hence, the Shardholder)? Or am I misunderstanding you.

 

It seems that there is no particular limit to the number of slivers of a particular shard that there could be, provided that each person was willing to give up the power.

 

Of course, a problem with the Stormfather being a sliver is that means he is (or was, at one point) human, whereas Spren are splinters, and thus never human, and as far as we know only spren can bind with humans.

[Argent]

No, you were on the right track. We just don't have a word for "a person who currently holds most of a Shard's power"  - because that's not a Shardholder. Neither Vin nor the Lord Ruler were Shards or Shardholders in the moments after their ascension, while they were still deciding what to do with their newfound power. The distinction lies in where the power goes when you use it - "active Slivers," as I call them, either hold the power (and don't do anything with it), or send it back to the Shard by using it (slowly or quickly); Shardholders don't lose their power - if a Shard spends all of his or her power, it will come back to them sooner or later. So there has to be a different term, and "active Sliver" sounds best to me.

[Magnanimous Taz]

Iirc TLR was never a sliver. He had use of the well but he never held preservation's power. Vin became a sliver when she absorbed the mist, not when she was at the well. Or did I miss something. Cool theory btw. Not sure I buy into the symmetry of the unmade vs ???, but it does make me wonder if we are missing something.

[Aleksiel]

Mm, interesting. The death rattles were daid to have started around the time Gavilar made it to the Shattered Plains where he met the Parshendi, who killed him because he was trying to bring back their gods, so you might be right in saying the Unmade are related to voidspren. Though I don't see prove of the Unmade bringing back to Roshar voidspren.

 

How did Eshonai sister provide those stormspren for her transformation? It could be related.

[Argent]

Iirc TLR was never a sliver. He had use of the well but he never held preservation's power. Vin became a sliver when she absorbed the mist, not when she was at the well. Or did I miss something. Cool theory btw. Not sure I buy into the symmetry of the unmade vs ???, but it does make me wonder if we are missing something.

 

No, I am afraid you are wrong.

zas678

Also, would the Elantrians and the Lerasium-mistings be considered Slivers? Or is just the Lord Ruler and Vin Slivers (Via the Well)? Or do you need more power to be considered a Sliver?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON (GOODREADS)

Elantrians are not slivers. Mistborn trilogy spoiler warnings follow! The Lord Ruler was indeed a Sliver. So was Vin. For the rest, I would say probably not.

 

What defines an actual Sliver of Adonalsium is not as clear-cut as you might think. It's a term that in-universe people who study this have applied to various existences and states. Every single person on the world of Scadrial has a bit of Leras in them—a bit of the power of Preservation. Every single person has a bit of Ati in them. There's a certain threshold where these scholars would call you a Sliver of Adonalsium. But I would say that any regular Misting is probably not a Sliver. A full Lerasium Mistborn is getting closer, but people who have held one of the powers are what would probably be termed a Sliver by the definitions. If you hold all the power that makes you a Shard, but the Lord Ruler held a little bit of it and then let it go. From then on they referred to that change in him—the residue, what was left—as a Sliver. When he held it he became the Shard for a short time, and Vin was a Shard for a short time. After Vin gave up the power, what Kelsier is at the end of the trilogy—that's a Sliver of Adonalsium.

 

Source

 

And, of course, I prove my previous reply wrong, as well... Turns out both the Lord Ruler and Vin were Shards for a short period of time...

Edited March 25, 2014 by Argent

[PorridgeBrick]

Before I address your theory, I should point out that Brandon, on several occasions, said talked about how there aren't always direct counterparts of things on Roshar. A lot of what we've seen about this world has been symmetrical, so we've went and made everything symmetrical - and I don't think this will end up being the case. The reason for the number 10 showing up everywhere (and I need to add this to the Chicago signing thread) is because of what Brandon called "Honor's purposes (Purposes?)." He repeated the word a couple of times as he was talking about something marginally related, so I believe it's important; I've been treating it as "Honor's aspects," though that might be a little different.

The reason I bring this is up is because he was quite clear that 10 is tied to Honor and his Purposes - Odium is a very different being, so he probably wouldn't be "bound" to the same number.

Ooh, interesting. So essentially, Honor, as the intent is interpreted by Tanavast, has ten goals/subintents? And then each bonding spren, being a splinter of Honor, has only one of those subintents?

As for the rest of your post, I should probably clarify my theory a little. This here is exactly what I mean. The Unmade are not ten beings, and they're not direct correlations to any beings of Honor (though Yelig-Nar, in particular, is serving the same role as the Stormfather). Instead, what I'm saying here is that they're the same type of being as the Stormfather, Nightwatcher, et cetera– they're über-spren, not Heralds, and there aren't necessarily an Honorsplinter equivalent for each and every one. So I agree with you here.

@Sliver talk: that has been confusing me too. I don't see how the Stormfather could be both a spren that is a remnant of Honor's power and a former holder of Honor– the two seem mutually exclusive to me.

Edited March 25, 2014 by PorridgeBrick

[Seloun]

From TWoK:

 

 

“The world as we know it has quite nearly been destroyed,” Nohadon said. “Barely a family exists that hasn’t lost half its members! Our best men are corpses on that field, and we haven’t food to last more than two or three months at best. And I’m to spend my time writing a book? Who would scribe it for me? All of my wordsmen were slaughtered when Yelignar broke into the chancery. You’re the only man of letters I know of who’s still alive.”

 

Note no hyphenation. This quote anthropomorphizes Yelignar quite a lot; I'm not sure you'd refer to a storm as breaking into the chancery.

[PorridgeBrick]

If the storm talks, though, I think you very well might.

[Magnanimous Taz]

@Argent I stand corrected. Thx for the info.

[Argent]

Ooh, interesting. So essentially, Honor, as the intent is interpreted by Tanavast, has ten goals/subintents? And then each bonding spren, being a splinter of Honor, has only one of those subintents?

 

I think that's taking it too far, I am not ready to start splintering him just yet.