Is Odium as cool as the Dark One?

[Ripheus23]

He seems, to me, at least a little cooler than Lord Foul, but not as cool as the Dark One. (I'm comparing just these three owing to their "you're an evil god, Harry" aspect; other super-evils that I can easily recall from books I've read, haven't been evil gods, except maybe the Crimson King but he will not be further named  and then there's Brooks' Void, which might or might not be self-aware.*) At least, not yet.

You could also compare Odium and Ruin as such, of course... But I believe the battle scene with Odium, if there is one, will probably be more involved than the one with Ruin, so...

*EDIT

In The Familiar, there's the Versal Apex Predator, which might be deity-level, though created by others. In The City at the End of Time, there's the Typhon, which is also god-ish, but killed by a horde of cats IIRC.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Ripheus23

[kaellok]

Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are, in my opinion, really really bad.  Not necessarily poorly written, but the MC does some truly awful and horrendous things early in the novels and seems to never once pay the consequences for them, nor even acknowledge that he is a despicable person; everyone just goes along with him because he's the chosen plot-lord.  So for me, Lord Foul instantly loses every contest.  As the source of 'all evil in the land', he is not interesting, and is in fact boring.  All such 'source of all evil/good' are inherently boring.

I also think that The Dark One had a lot of potential in WoT, but then when we start to learn more it's just all wasted and bad.  I remain highly disappointed in the overall ending of the series, and regret having spent so much time invested in reading the books.  So, again, The Dark One tends to instantly lose.  He's a complete bore, in much the same way that Lord Foul is--but with so much less personality.  On top of that, in the WoT series, he works exclusively through tools and catspaws that are equally boring and ineffectual.  What does one of the Forsaken say?  "In a time when we should be as gods, we are dropping like flies"?  Yeah.  Those are his strongest servants, being destroyed by people who barely know what they're doing.  Maybe if the series took place in the original War of Power I'd change my mind, but he's not a badass.

Odium, on the other hand, has actual character and motivations.  His power is immense to the point of unimaginable, and yet there are still discrete limitations.  These make him interesting.  He has successfully destroyed enemies as strong and powerful as he, even when they had allies.  This makes him badass.

Let's evaluate each using the well-known formula of Cool = Interesting + Badass

Lord Foul: Not Interesting + Badass = Not Cool

The Dark One: Not Interesting + Not a Badass = Not Cool

Odium: Interesting + Badass = Cool.

[galendo]

I agree with @kaellok in that I couldn't stand Thomas Covenant and can hardly believe I read six books about him.  I almost stopped after that scene in the first book, and in retrospect I kind of wish I had.  Other than for a very brief period during the second book (which was actually not that bad on its own, as I recall) when it looked for a brief while like he might repent and grow a spine, the rest of the books were...not that great.  I don't remember Lord Foul at all, really, so I can't comment on him explicitly.

On the other hand, I see an awful lot of similarities between the Dark One and Odium:

1) Both are embodiments of evil and destruction

2) Who are both vastly more powerful than the heroes supposed to fight them, but

3) Both have been trapped in a prison by their polar opposite

4) Forcing them to rely on their multitudinous legions

5) Which are led by ancient, near-immortal supermen,

6) Who have the advantage of a world unprepared for their coming,

7) Because past actions by the Big Bad tainted the old order

I can't really go much farther than that, because we're only three books into SA, but...yeah, lots of similarities.  To weigh each one:

1) Dark One vs Odium: I'll give the nod to Odium here, because pure evil has been done so much before.  So has pure hatred, too; but at least Odium has a personality. (+2 coolness points for Odium)

2) Another close one, but I'll give the nod to the Dark One here.  Pure evil is just more threatening than pure hatred. (+1 coolness points for the Dark One)

3) The Creator vs Honor: Gonna go with Honor here, for the same reason as in 1) (+2 coolness points for Odium)

4) Trollocs/Mrydrael/Grey Men/Darkfriends/etc. vs. the Parshmen and I guess thunderclasts?  Definite win for the Dark One's hordes of evil here, in both variety and overall coolness. (+5 coolness points for the Dark One)

5) Forsaken vs Fused: The Forsaken, by a mile.  Partly because there's only thirteen of them, partly because each had his/her own personality, partly because learned ancients who sold their souls for power and immortality and who represent the apex of what the protagonists could ultimately grow to become are way more compelling than a bunch of half-mad dead Parshendi. (+5 coolness points for the Dark One)

6) The Third Age vs. Roshar.  Definite win for Roshar here. (+5 coolness points for Odium, though I'm not entirely sure he deserves credit for all of Roshar)

7) Tainted saidin vs. the Recreance.  Definite win for the Dark One here.  Driving all your enemies mad and making them break the world is way more awesome than tricking some Radiants into abandoning their Oaths.  The Recreance still doesn't seem believable to me, and it's nowhere near as cool. (+4 coolness points for the Dark One)

On the whole, I think the Dark One comes out significantly ahead, at 15 coolness points to 9, and that gives Odium credit for the awesome worldbuilding that is Roshar, which almost seems to be a whole other topic.  Take that out, and it's 15 coolness points to 4, which is an even more lopsided victory.  Odium had better do a lot of digging himself out of this hole during the next seven books, or it's going to be the Dark One by a mile.  (And I actually liked the confrontation between Rand and the Dark One.  I found it much more satisfying that some purely physical confrontation.  I had some issues with the last book, but the final showdown wasn't one of them.)

[+ILuvHats]

1 hour ago, galendo said:

5) Forsaken vs Fused: The Forsaken, by a mile.  Partly because there's only thirteen of them, partly because each had his/her own personality, partly because learned ancients who sold their souls for power and immortality and who represent the apex of what the protagonists could ultimately grow to become are way more compelling than a bunch of half-mad dead Parshendi. (+5 coolness points for the Dark One)

I think it would actually be more fair to compare the Forsaken with the Unmade.  There’s a LOT of fused, and although they’re much more powerful than ordinary singers, I’d still place them in the middle of the pecking order as opposed to being the most elite of Odiums forces.  Like the Forsaken, the Unmade are each unique, and though they’re not all sentient, I still think each one is incredibly interesting on their own.  Also, at this point, we don’t know everything about them.  There’s still a lot of mysteries surrounding them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they prove to be equally badass/cool as the Forsaken, or more so by the end of the series.  Of course, it’s all just opinions anyways.

[kaellok]

You make some excellent points, @galendo, however I think that the Forsaken need to be compared to the Unmade, rather than the Fused.  I think that gives a +5v3 advantage to the Dark One, simply because we don't know a lot about the Unmade at this point, but they are inherently far cooler than the Fused. 

I also think that Odium absolutely gets to count current Roshar as his, as he is pretty directly responsible for its current outlook and how it has been shaped.  The Dark One gets a lesser credit for the 3rd Age, but some nonetheless, as he has continued to affect the world even beyond his prison.

Your point 7, Recreance v. tainted saidin is one where I agree that the Dark One gets an overwhelming victory.  I honestly don't think that myrdraal are cooler than thunderclasts, and put the fused as better than trollocs by far, so point 4 I also disagree with the metric you are using, and would give a 5v3 advantage to Odium.

I think that I would give it a +13 v +10, advantage Odium.

 

[goody153]

Odium is definitely better and cooler than the Dark On so far.

I highly disagree with Odium being far better than Ruin tho maybe colorful but i never felt the sense of dread from Odium unlike Ruin(even Ruin's speech about him being the shopkeeper or the I AM THE END paints him a far more frightening color than Odium) . 

[Ripheus23]

16 hours ago, kaellok said:

As the source of 'all evil in the land', he is not interesting, and is in fact boring.  All such 'source of all evil/good' are inherently boring.

For what it's worth, the last four books were supposed to include/focus on an assessment of the Despiser's psychology. Whether they really did so is a point of contention among the audience, though. (I think Donaldson read Answer to Job once upon a time and that was the background for the Creator and the Despiser being "shadows of" each other, so there was supposed to be something about a Christian-style God being good and evil instead of just good, etc., but who knows...)

The Dragonball Z kind of battle at the end of the third book of the first trilogy, I liked. I still don't understand how a bunch of ghosts laughing at him, liquidated the Despiser for the time being, but the prose for the evil emerald's destruction I still think is some of the most epic I've ever read. I also enjoyed the sacrifice/Sunbane sequence at the end of book 6. The end of book 10... IDK... it seemed rushed.

Also I don't like the term "Lord Foul." I usually go out of my way to refer to the character as "the Despiser"... And sometimes the way he talks grates on my nerves, like he's a weird mutant inhabitant of the Pride and Prejudice form of the English language, or what. However, in general, his "I'm gonna trick the saviors into destroying the world" methodology makes for some interesting moral psychology/gamesmanship.

16 hours ago, kaellok said:

On top of that, in the WoT series, he works exclusively through tools and catspaws that are equally boring and ineffectual.

I know you said you don't like the end of the WoT series, but I liked it a lot, and at the least, we get an example, finally, of the Dark One directly fighting someone (although I still have little clue how Rand physically survived the confrontation). I also liked Moridin...

16 hours ago, kaellok said:

He has successfully destroyed enemies as strong and powerful as he, even when they had allies.

Odium does have this going for him, that he's a real character, not an archetype. So from a literary standpoint, he has literary coolness to him. It remains to be seen if he is metaphysically as cool, too, though, otherwise-speaking.

12 hours ago, galendo said:

The Recreance still doesn't seem believable to me,

The fate of the Heralds and the humans being offworlders might not seem disheartening enough, but do we know whether the KR ever learned that Tanavast helped kill God back in the day?

10 hours ago, ILuvHats said:

I think it would actually be more fair to compare the Forsaken with the Unmade.

The Unmade win by default for me, here. The evil horse-swarm image... Incredibly cool.

EDIT:

But so no one else has read The Familiar or TCatEoT? I can't really explain the Typhon that well, except to say, imagine if, after cosmic heat death nearly ran its course, quantum chaos took over, and somehow had a mind of its own. The Versal Apex Predator, now... Possibly the most ominous entity in fiction (fiction that I am familiar with  anyway). Again, on the edge of cosmic heat death, except now people made up of as much energy as stellar masses, sacrificed one trillion or so of their population, to send the VAP back to the Big Bang to try to reprogram the universe, with Them in control as a result, annihilating free will (if possible) in the process. Meanwhile, another one of those star-people turned into a cat that befriends God (who is a little girl in the 21st Century), which cat goes on to become possessed by the VAP itself...

Edited November 13, 2018 by Ripheus23

[kaellok]

Very fair points made, @Ripheus23.  I think I only read the first 2 books of Thomas Covenant, so the Despiser might have become more interesting/badass with a more detailed look.  I mean, I did read several synopses over the years of the series to try and find what it was that other people enjoyed that I was missing, but even what you have said in explanation does not change my mind much (although I do appreciate it).  An entity that represents all evil in the world is just inherently un-cool imo.

I actually have had The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear on my shelf for a few years, but haven't got around to reading it yet.  The Typhon, while ranking up significant badass points (I mean, c'mon, it's eating all of time), doesn't seem to actually be cool, though, unless the Wiki page is missing something   It seems like it's a mostly impersonal force of nature, rather than an intelligent and malevolent being acting of its own volition. 

Based on what we saw of Preservation and Ruin on screen I would say that they are also not cool; we're essentially just seeing natural forces acting.  We get a little bit of personification of them, which I maintain is required for full cool-points.  Typhon seems to fit in this same category, though.  A hurricane might be badass and destructive, but unless it's sapient it's not cool--even if you ramp it up to reality-ending.

Edited November 13, 2018 by kaellok

[NoiseSpren]

Most cool is Cultivation, though.

Imagine her picking also Odium shard.

The best Great-Evil E.V.E.R.!!!

[Ripheus23]

On 11/13/2018 at 10:56 AM, kaellok said:

The Typhon, while ranking up significant badass points (I mean, c'mon, it's eating all of time), doesn't seem to actually be cool, though, unless the Wiki page is missing something

Oh, it's missing something. The Typhon is like a hybrid born of the classical Abrahamic God and a Lovecraftian hyper-monster.

On 11/13/2018 at 10:56 AM, kaellok said:

so the Despiser might have become more interesting/badass with a more detailed look

You're right, though, he doesn't. At least, not in the canon. (I wrote fan fiction set in the time of the Ritual of Desolation Desecration  that painted a cool portrait of how he infiltrated the Council of Lords, but of course that was more an inferential gloss of his overarching personality, applied to those circumstances, than an actual clear statement of his mindset.) Worse, he possesses Covenant's grown-up son at the end, which could've been a thematically-strong plot point, but... eh...

Edited November 15, 2018 by Ripheus23

[goody153]

12 hours ago, NoiseSpren said:

Most cool is Cultivation, though.

Imagine her picking also Odium shard.

The best Great-Evil E.V.E.R.!!!

Nah a Combination of Ambition and Ruin would be far more terrifying. 

Or maybe Ambition and Dominion

Or Ruin and Odium.

 

OK just anything with  Ambition and Ruin cause the intent will sound too deterministic and just daed for everybody

Edited November 16, 2018 by goody153

[eltari]

Quote

7) Tainted saidin vs. the Recreance.  Definite win for the Dark One here.  Driving all your enemies mad and making them break the world is way more awesome than tricking some Radiants into abandoning their Oaths.  The Recreance still doesn't seem believable to me, and it's nowhere near as cool. (+4 coolness points for the Dark One)

Also, this ignores the breaking of the Heralds.  Odium broke them horribly, and they've lived for the thousands of years, to keep interfering with the new heroes.  I mean, Nale just murders surgebinders hoping to stop a new Desolation, people that should be his ally. 

[+Croaker's Apprentice]

On 11/13/2018 at 5:36 AM, galendo said:

On the other hand, I see an awful lot of similarities between the Dark One and Odium:

1) Both are embodiments of evil and destruction

Odium isn't an embodiment of either of those things is he ? Odium isn't evil, he is a piece of God -  "God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context" - as Frost writes to Hoid. 

Odium may certainly be the Enemy, but he is explicitly *not* an Epic Fantasy "Dark Lord" (and neither were Ruin, or the Lord Ruler for that matter, despite superficial resemblances).

[kaellok]

13 hours ago, Croaker's Apprentice said:

Odium isn't an embodiment of either of those things is he ? Odium isn't evil, he is a piece of God -  "God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context" - as Frost writes to Hoid. 

Odium may certainly be the Enemy, but he is explicitly *not* an Epic Fantasy "Dark Lord" (and neither were Ruin, or the Lord Ruler for that matter, despite superficial resemblances).

You are technically correct that Odium is not the actual embodiment of evil or destruction in the greater scheme of things, and it's probably a bit reductionist for us to argue that he is--but that was also the smallest point that has been made in this thread.  I also think that you are conflating 'actual supernatural force of evil' "Dark Lords" such as the Dark One from WoT and The Despiser from Thomas Covenant with the Evil/Dark Lord trope that exists; that's really just an option, rather than a requirement. 

As to whether he is the Epic Fantasy Dark Lord or not, Odium really, really does fit the trope in more than superficial ways (and the Lord Ruler is the deconstructed Dark Lord trope, like it or not). 

Let's compare Sauron, the archetypal epic fantasy Dark Lord, with Rayse/Odium (even though Morgoth v. Odium is probably a far better comparison in terms of power and personality).  Both have great power, and both use that great power for death/destruction and subordination of others, and both have specific goals that are not compatible with the typical understand of 'good'.  Neither are inherently evil, but are instead evil through the choices they have made and the actions they take.  Sauron started the Second Age with positive intentions, taking those who had been bereft and left alone as his own people, to offer them succor and guidance; Odium aided the Singers after humans were invading their lands and breaking treaties.  Sauron has powerful and corrupted men that serve him (the Nazgul) while Odium has the Unmade.

Both make seem to make their stronghold a Hellscape: Sauron has Mordor, and its choking desert waste with the fortress of Barad-dur, and Odium has Braize, considered by the major religions of Roshar to be literally Hell.  Sauron has hordes of orcs and other fell and twisted creatures, and Odium has the Fused.  Do they both use methods that would be considered evil by most to work their will?  You know, torture, fear, murder, mind control, etc.?  Yep, they both do all of those things (see: orcs, see: Singers).   Are they evil personified?  Yes, but because of the choices and actions they make, not because they are inherently required to be evil. 

There is one major difference between the two of them, other than their scale of power: Sauron starts as a builder, and is obsessed with order and coordination, hating disorder and confusion.  We don't really know what's up with Rayse, except that he was probably a hateful person at the time he picked up the Shard.  So while Sauron is determined to remake Middle Earth in his own image, Rayse wants to be free to go around murdering people who could be a threat to him (see: Ambition, Dominion, Devotion, Honor).

[Fanghur Rahl]

It always irritates me when I hear people bad mouthing the Thomas Covenant series for what are in my opinion entirely misguided reasons. Yes, in the first book Thomas Covenant in a moment of complete mental breakdown commits an act that can only be described as evil. And that action continues to haunt him for literally the entire rest of the series. The fact of the matter is that Covenant being written as a decidedly unlikable character is NOT a flaw of the series. On the contrary, it’s an essential aspect of many of the most fundamental underlying themes of the entire series, the most important of which being how broken people can come to terms with themselves (“There’s only one way to hurt a man who’s lost everything: give him back something broken.” “Only the damned can be saved.”) Plus, can anyone honestly say that Dalinar used to be any better? At least Covenant only hurt one person (like that anyway), rather than countless thousands.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, in my opinion, is and always will be one of if not the single most brilliant pieces of literary work I know of, and whether you like it or not, if you actually read the whole thing and still think it’s badly written, then you clearly missed the entire point of the series. I’m sorry, that’s simply the objective fact of the matter. I agree readily that it isn’t for everyone, but it’s still an amazing series. 

 

[Ripheus23]

4 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

if you actually read the whole thing and still think it’s badly written, then you clearly missed the entire point of the series. I’m sorry, that’s simply the objective fact of the matter.

Although I technically agree, it's still upsetting that backwaters peasants living in a village that doesn't appear to increase in size over a 7000-year period (despite being the most important village in the world!), eventually learn and decide to use the word "frangible."

[Fanghur Rahl]

12 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

Although I technically agree, it's still upsetting that backwaters peasants living in a village that doesn't appear to increase in size over a 7000-year period (despite being the most important village in the world!), eventually learn and decide to use the word "frangible."

Honestly, given the nature of the Land as such that literally everything is sentient to one degree or another and the people of the Land sense this, I don’t really think that the absence of any advanced technology is all that unusual given the circumstances. Pollution, destruction of the land and forests, etc. would likely make the people cringe at the thought.

[Ripheus23]

I know, it's still a little weird, though. Like, Mithil could've become a dual village, Stonedown and Woodhelven; or a new Revelstone; or something... OTOH they had the war between Mhoram and Foul, and later the Sunbane, to contend with on the path to demographic growth so...