The Broken One Reigns

[Observer]

DROPLETS

Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns!

-Collected: Chachnan, 1173, 84 seconds pre-death. Subject: a cutpurse with the wasting sickness, of partial Irali descent.

 

This quote has long been attributed to Odium as the Broken One, leading to the belief that there is another, unknown Shard on Roshar. However, thanks to WoB, we have the following quote.

 

Q:  The line about 3 of 16 reigned and now the Broken One rules.  Did Odium follow three other shards to Roshar, or is he the third shard?

A:  Odium is the third shard on Roshar.  

 

which means that The Broken One is not Odium. From this, we can draw the conclusion that not only is Odium off-planet, and Honor dead, but Cultivation has also faded into the background or gone MIA. This leaves the question I would like to answer: Who is the Broken One? Simple enough.

 

It's the Stormfather.

Let's take a look at some quotes:

 

"...but why is there a highstorm coming? This isn't the time for one."

"My father," Syl said, voice growing solemn. "He brought the storm, rushing its pace. He's...broken, Kaladin. He doesn't think any of this should be happening. He wants to end it all, wash everyone away, and try to hide from the future"

 

On top of this, I speculate that Stormfather has become corrupted by Odium, forsaking and ignoring honor in favor of pettiness and hatred.

 

Take care, Syl send. My father hates you. This is his domain, and it is mixed with something even more terrible, another storm. Their storm.

 

The Stormfather ignores all that is honorable, forbidding the spren from returning to stop the Voidbringers, trying to stop Kaladin from saving Elhokar, deciding to destroy the Alethi armies rather than actually acknowledge the coming disasters. The only reason he even sends Honor's visions is because he doesn't have a choice, and he makes it fairly clear that he wouldn't bother to warn the humans of the coming Desolations if it were up to him. I believe that Stormfather has become corrupted, either directly by Odium or by the hatred of the thoughts that form him.

 

Honor, Cultivation, and Odium once ruled Roshar, but now they are gone, and the Broken One, the Stormfather, reigns.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Observer

[PorridgeBrick]

Why exactly can't the Broken One be one of the three mentioned? I like your theory, but I don't think we should discount, a priori, that the Broken One could be Odium.

[Bramble Thorn]

Previous topic with the same conclusion, but that one has more Horrible Puns!

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7253-3-of-16-ruled-possibly-solved/

[Observer]

As per the usual, somebody else has touched on the topic. Still, I think I'll keep this going until I get a Word of Mod, if only for the quotes.

I suppose you make a good point PB on Broken referring to one of the three, but it's always required logical leaps to make Odium out as the Broken One. He isn't splintered, and he's not broken in the mind either. Honor is the only one we know to be broken, so he would fit the description better, if he actually reigned, which he doesn't. The way that Stormfather has so completely turned his back on his Investure's purpose leads me to the second, less supported idea of his Odious corruption, but I can't see how any true being of Honor would act the way that he is. He's known for ages that the Desolations were coming, and he never even tried to stop them. Not only that, but he did everything he could to wipe out the humans, knowing full well it wouldn't harm the Voidbringers in the slightest. I'm sure somebody else will come up with a stunning argument to shut me up, but for now I see the Stormfather as an enemy.

[Seloun]

Actually, the strongest evidence for Odium = Broken One comes from this quote in TWoK:

 

 

Something blew against him. “Wait!” Kaladin said. “Why is there so much war? Must we always fight?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. The questions simply came out.

 

The storm rumbled, like a thoughtful aged father. The face vanished, shattering into droplets of water.

 

More softly, the voice answered, ODIUM REIGNS.

 

The other possibility is that the death rattles so far all seem to refer to the future; this would imply that at some point in the future 'The Broken One' will reign.

 

I don't really agree the Stormfather is corrupted by Odium. All of this actions seem to be understandable as long as you accept that the Stormfather doesn't think Odium can be successfully defeated by mankind. He's trying to cut his losses and lose any more of his 'family' trying to help out Honor's Children; he's already lost a great deal due to the Recreance.

 

When the Stormfather tries to prevent Syl from helping Kaladin, it's clear his focus is not on screwing Kaladin, but trying to protect Syl. It seems pretty clear that the Stormfather is not acting particularly maliciously; he just doesn't want Syl to get killed too, and he's convinced Kaladin will end up killing her (for good reason, since, you know, he killed - or almost killed - her _the week before_, not to mention historical reasons).

[Observer]

And while I see where both you and the Stormfather are coming from, it doesn't explain or excuse what he pulled during the final assault. Deciding to stay neutral and hold back your spren is one thing, and somewhat debatable. Actively trying to destroy one of the sides is a bit of a step over the line.

[Seloun]

And while I see where both you and the Stormfather are coming from, it doesn't explain or excuse what he pulled during the final assault. Deciding to stay neutral and hold back your spren is one thing, and somewhat debatable. Actively trying to destroy one of the sides is a bit of a step over the line.

 

It wasn't trying to destroy one of the sides; he was trying to clean up the entire battle, as the quote in the OP indicates ('wash everyone away'). The conversation the Stormfather has with Dalinar indicates that the Stormfather thinks that Dalinar is going to lose, and the only thing he can do is bring a storm to wash everything away (when all you have is a hammer...).

It's absolutely a cowardly thing to do, and it's pretty clear it's being driven by a sense of despair from the perspective of the Stormfather, but the fact that he's despairing is really a good argument that he's not corrupted by Odium - why would he be upset about what will happen if he wants Odium to win? Now one could argue that he's being unconsciously manipulated (e.g. Thrill) by Odium or Unmade somehow (as much as a god-like spren could be manipulated in that fashion) but there's nothing to indicate that the Stormfather consciously wants Odium to be successful.

 

A reasonably analogy is that the Stormfather is where Kaladin was, pre-Honor Chasm in TWoK; he wants to protect, but he's been burned too many times before, and he thinks the outcome is inevitable, so why risk anything? Bringing the storm is a low-risk option even if it's unsuccessful; so what if the humans die from it? They're doomed anyway, and hey, this way you don't risk losing the rest of your already decimated family. In a sense Dalinar becomes his Syl, trying to prove that it's still worth fighting for the survival of mankind, and that it's not inevitable - or even if it is, it's still worth trying.

[b4dave]

Once I found out that the Stormfather was a Splinter of Honor, this is what I immediately thought when I remembered that quote.

[garlick]

I never questioned that the broken one was odium. Three of the 16 ruled, honor, cultivation, and odium. If im not mistaken i think in one of Dalinars visions tanavast said odium reigns. might of been talenet its been a while since I read TWoK, but i do remeber that statment. To me I think your reading into the WoB to much, He had alot of room to hedge his answer even possibly didnt understand the point you were after. If odium is the 3rd shard that could be saying honor is the 1st cultivation is 2nd odium is 3rd, the broken one reigns meaning the 3rd shard . change the order and its still truehonor is 1st odium is 2nd cultivaion is 3rd. The broken on reigns could still be odium. Three kings of equal power rule over a world for 50 years. But every 10 years they declare war and fight. they stay even for 40 years but on the 50th one prevails over the others and now rules the world. You would say the 3rd one reigns. Thats how i see those statments.

[Stalagmite]

Actually, the strongest evidence for Odium = Broken One comes from this quote in TWoK:

 

 

The other possibility is that the death rattles so far all seem to refer to the future; this would imply that at some point in the future 'The Broken One' will reign.

 

I don't really agree the Stormfather is corrupted by Odium. All of this actions seem to be understandable as long as you accept that the Stormfather doesn't think Odium can be successfully defeated by mankind. He's trying to cut his losses and lose any more of his 'family' trying to help out Honor's Children; he's already lost a great deal due to the Recreance.

 

When the Stormfather tries to prevent Syl from helping Kaladin, it's clear his focus is not on screwing Kaladin, but trying to protect Syl. It seems pretty clear that the Stormfather is not acting particularly maliciously; he just doesn't want Syl to get killed too, and he's convinced Kaladin will end up killing her (for good reason, since, you know, he killed - or almost killed - her _the week before_, not to mention historical reasons).

The death rattles are some kind of foretelling right? Then maybe "but now the Broken One reigns!" refers to the shard of honor which (after the desolation) reigns meaning that mankind has won.

DROPLETS

Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns!

-Collected: Chachnan, 1173, 84 seconds pre-death. Subject: a cutpurse with the wasting sickness, of partial Irali descent.

 

[Windrunning]

I personally think that the Broken One is Odium.

[Eejit]

I suppose you make a good point PB on Broken referring to one of the three, but it's always required logical leaps to make Odium out as the Broken One. He isn't splintered, and he's not broken in the mind either. 

 

WoB is that if Odium were to leave Roshar now he'd leave a large portion of his power behind. Which implies that he is not whole.

 

Also there's this:

 

 

 

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.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Eejit

[Wolven]

Except that we know that the Stormfather himself has claimed that Odium Reigns. He said this to Kaladin in one of his dreams.

[BrindIf]

Couldn't the broken one be... a stick?

[loke13]

I didn't really think there was so much confusion over this. I thought it was pretty clear that Odium is the "Broken One".

[Mr Maker]

I have always liked to think of it as honour, being splintered, is in fact the broken one.

[HydrogenAlpha]

I'm going to quote myself on that. Please note that the following is highly speculative and the is not a single piece of evidence for my theory.

 

 

There are 16 Shards of Adonalsium and somehow 3 of them happened to end up in the Rosharian System ( we should ask for the name of the star, it's weird to refer to a system by it's planets name ).

I guess Tanavast choose Braize to play around with and Cultivation made some Parshendi/ enhanced the already existing Parshendi race on Roshar. Both ruled over their chosen planets and everything was fine until Odium, Shard of Hatred, came along and decided to do what he does the best - break stuff.

So he turned Braize into something so hellish that people are calling it Damnation now. Tanavast flees to Roshar and makes a deal with Cultivation:  he can bring his humans, but he has to protect her from Odium - the Oathpact is born. Odium agrees to this little game, because he's sure he will win and gets somehow trapped in the system.

Rayse rules over Damnation, Honor and Cultivation rule over Roshar. 3 of 16 rule. Somehow the Oathpact gets broken and Honor splinters, Tanavast dies and Cultivation either flees with the tail between her legs/ hides somewhere or she makes a deal with Rayse ( Odium doesn't seem like someone who makes deals, but maybe his Shardholder has something going for Cultivation's Shardholder ).

In the end Odium is sovereign. The broken one rules. But Humans are still around, Roshar is still there .. maybe the Oathpact isnt as broken as it seems. The old Oaths return with the spren and Odium arms himself for a final battle.

But why is Odium called the broken one ? He splintered Honor, Dominion, Devotion and maybe more Shards. He seems to be good at breaking stuff and I think we have a WoB that he's a pretty hateful dude ( but I'm no sure, sorry ). Hoid's letter states that Rayse was never a chill dude and now with Odium as his shard he's extremly dangerous. What makes us think that he can control his feelings/powers? He could hate himself as much as the other Shardholders and could've somehow broken himself a to some degree.
The whole Odium as Shard of Hatred feels a little weird to me .. we have a Shard that hates and breaks, but no one that is pure Love, we have just aspects of such love like Devotion. I think there is much more behind the Shard Odium than we're able to grasp right now.