Is Cusicesh an oathgate spren?

[+Extesian]

Cusicesh fascinates me. A giant spren that appears at the same time every day with dozens of changing male and female faces. I've wondered if its a bondsmith spren that suffered an oathbreaking, or an unmade that got damaged, or an adonalsium spren that got messed up.

But an idea I had recently that fits a surprising amount of evidence is that Cusicesh is an Oathgate spren. So I'll call it a hypothesis rather than full theory. 

Quote

They called it by name, Cusicesh, the Protector. Some worshipped it as a god. Most simply accepted it as part of the city. It was unique. One of the few types of spren he knew of that seemed to have only a single member. But what kind of spren is it? Axies wrote, fascinated. It has formed a face, looking eastward. Directly toward the Origin. That face is shifting, bewilderingly quick. Different human faces appear on the end of its stumplike neck, one after another in blurred succession.

"What are you raving about Extesian", I hear you ask, "the Oathgate in Iri is in Rall Elorim".

It is. Which is why my hypothesis is that Cusicesh is the result of the Iri stealing the Rira Oathgate. Iri has often had a somewhat domineering relationship with Rira. Iri has two major cities, Rall Elorim and Kasitor. What a wonderful thing it would be to have Oathgates in your two major cities. So they stole the Riran one. 

Oathgates have oathgate spren in the corresponding Cognitive Realm location that control the gate. What may happen if you physical moved an Oathgate from one physical realm location to another? The spren would presumably not move in the Cognitive Realm. So what happens when you activate the gate then? I'm not sure but something that could happen is the gate malfunctions and traps the spren in some kind of limbo, or perhaps separates one from the other. Either way it causes some kind of short circuit. 

And say there are a few hundred people standing on that oathgate platform at the time it is activated. People that are about to effectively pop in and out of investiture to teleport. Perhaps they are trapped in some kind of limbo state.

Where is the Rira Oathgate supposed to be? Kurth.

And where does Cusicesh face? Origin, Axies says. Directly eastward. But what is also directly eastward of Kasitor? Yeah you guessed it. Kurth.

TLDR

Iri stole the Rira Oathgate and put it in Kasitor. As the spren remained in Kurth in the CR, when Iri activated the gate it short circuited, trapping one of the Kurth oathgate spren, and all the people being transported, in a hideous loop, like a ghost, looking out at the same time each day toward the place in the CR where the oathgate is supposed to be. 

I know it's a hypothesis looking for evidence, but I think there's some and I think its a fun idea. 

[Karger]

10 hours ago, Extesian said:

Kurth

is in the wrong kingdom no?  Also Oathgates have two spren.

[+Extesian]

Kurth is in Rira where I think they stole the oathgate from. And yeah there are two oathgate spren which is the complication. But I figure maybe one was torn away and screaming back at its mate. Or both and they combine to form Cusicesh.

[Ciridae]

I would love if this theory turned out to be true. I don't know how the Iriali would steal an Oathgate but I totally buy that they would if they could. 

I'll also buy that Cusicesh is looking at Kurth instead of the Origin, but maybe there are other reasons for it. Maybe instead of stealing the Oathgate they stole the spren in an attempt to build a new Oathgate. Odium says that as long as the spren aren't compromised you can rebuild an Oathgate. I think that the inky spren allows the Oathgate to transport into the Cognitive Realm while the pearly spren allows it to transport into the Spiritual Realm for instantaneous teleportation. Maybe the Iriali thought they only needed one spren to build their own Oathgate and decided to steal one. Then when they tried to engage it, (maybe at the time it always shows up at?) it got messed up or drawn I to the physical too far which made it go dumb. 

There is the issue of people feeling drained after it shows up. I always felt like the faces were the faces in the crowd and by imitating them he somehow took something from the people. 

But yeah very fun theory even if it's not true. 

 

[Toaster Retribution]

Hah, I like it. I don´t really see how the faces and the drained feeling fits into it though. And then there is the fact that stealing an Oathgate is no easy feat. Can it even be done? And in that case, I feel like Odium would have snatched one away. I think the idea about him being an Unmade is more likely (and also fun, because that basically means that an Unmade is being used as a tourist attraction).

Edited April 23, 2019 by Toaster Retribution

[Elegy]

Cusicesh being an Unmade is indeed an amusing thought, and a bit creepy. Who knows, maybe he was the one who destroyed a certain island state.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Elegy

[supersmith]

I think it's the other way around, cause like, how do you go about stealing an entire flipping oathgate? sneak in at night? I think instead they captured one of the spren, and were maybe trying to make a brand new platform. They might have only taken one spren, and figured that it might work with only one spren (But I'm pretty sure one oathgate spren lets people enter, and one helps people exit, so for this they got the one that helps enter) so presumably they tested the oathgate, but because they only had one spren, and nothing to help them exit, they got stuck. 

As to how they captured the spren, I'm pretty sure they could just use a big gemstone, like trapping an unmande. 

[+Invocation]

6 minutes ago, supersmith said:

As to how they captured the spren, I'm pretty sure they could just use a big gemstone, like trapping an unmande. 

Then you'd need to know how to attract one of the giant Oathgate spren, which is...unclear.

[supersmith]

Well yea it's unclear to us, but so are a lot of things. 

I'm sure they had a lot more knowledge about these things. Maybe an Iri (I forget the word, whatever order of Knights Jasnah is) was doing this. It seems like something they would do. 

Edited April 23, 2019 by supersmith

[Wandering Investor]

I like it. I do not think it is right, as I lean more towards Cusicesh being either unique or related to the sibling, not an unmade or anything. But its not impossible, and would definately make for an interesting story.

You wouldn't have to attract the oath gate spren. When Odium tried to steal the Oathgate in OB, he targeted the gemstones, which the spren reside in. So while difficult to steal the entire gate, you could steal the gemstones and rebuild the gate. That said, I very much doubt the people at the time would have the knowledge to know to tear the gate apart for the gemstones, or the knowledge of how to rebuild the gate, in which case why bother?

[Scion of the Mists]

We've seen the Oathgate spren in Oathbringer.  They're enormous, humanoid spren - one white and one black.  That doesn't match the description of Cusicesh, which is blue and has four arms.  

[supersmith]

50 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

You wouldn't have to attract the oath gate spren. When Odium tried to steal the Oathgate in OB, he targeted the gemstones, which the spren reside in. So while difficult to steal the entire gate, you could steal the gemstones and rebuild the gate. That said, I very much doubt the people at the time would have the knowledge to know to tear the gate apart for the gemstones, or the knowledge of how to rebuild the gate, in which case why bother?

I would actually make the argument that they had MORE knowledge about these things then they have in modern times, because remember, they had hundreds of radiants, and probably a bunch of elsecallers that were doing research in the cognitive realm. They also had Honor around. 

[Wandering Investor]

@supersmith I was assuming this theft went down after the recreance. For it to happen before that would be very unlikely as the radiants would have an interest in keeping the oathgates spread out.

[supersmith]

Well what if the radiants were trying to make more oathgates? or maybe not all of the radiants were on the same side, or maybe just someone from Iri who wanted another oathgate, and who knew about them stole it, or maybe it was a worldhopper trying to get off world. My point is that there are lots of possibilities of how this could work.  

[Naurock]

8 hours ago, supersmith said:

I think it's the other way around, cause like, how do you go about stealing an entire flipping oathgate? sneak in at night?

Stoneward and an Elsecaller, maybe? Convince them that logically your city needs it more and that without it your city will die. Other than that, I got nothing.

7 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

We've seen the Oathgate spren in Oathbringer.  They're enormous, humanoid spren - one white and one black.  That doesn't match the description of Cusicesh, which is blue and has four arms.  

This is also what I thought when I read this. Interesting theory but Cusicesh would have to be severely broken and changed. Oathgate spren are also very obedient, they were not swayed by Shallan's pleas.

[ND103]

Has there been a WOB about the age of the spren? When it shows up would be a great way to figure out what if anything led to it?

[Elegy]

1 hour ago, ND103 said:

Has there been a WOB about the age of the spren? When it shows up would be a great way to figure out what if anything led to it?

There's this:

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So, when did Cusicesh the Protector first appear off the coast of Iri?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Um, a while ago.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

About 2,000 years ago?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

It's not a recent event.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

[ND103]

Well that was helpful... 

[+Extesian]

My working theory had been that it happened close to, but after, the Recreance using either an honorblade or a skybreaker, but could be before with any radiant. But it would be a startling thing to get away with with radiants around.