Odium's way of splintering Shards

[+TheFoxQR]

Do we have any theories on what Odium's way of splintering a Shard is?

My suspicion is that one of the reasons he doesn't like investing in planets is because that is his avenue of attack. Presumably, once a Shard begins investing in a place, they give up some control over this invested power, and make it available for whatever/whoever they invest in to utilise. 

Odium, then, corrupts or co-opts a Shard's invested sources and turns them against their own Shard. In effect, he turns a Shard's outgoing invested power inwards towards itself to weaken and shatter it into splinters. This works similar to how condensed Atium, when taken away from Ruin, weakened him. Except in Odium's case, his corruption of the Shards invested sources makes those sources actively fight their own Shard. So not only does the Shard weaken by loosing access to it's own power, but that power is actively working against it's own intent, drawing more and more power from the Shard, inevitably leading to eventual splintering.

Now Odium seems to have been forced to invest in Roshar. And Cultivation has seen him shatter Honor. Odium literally is about to potentially invest in Taravangian and Moash.

What's your take on this?

Edited July 27, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[RShara]

I think he's used different methods for each Splintering so far. He shoved D&D into the Cognitive, wasn't even present for Ambition's, and then whatever he did to Honor.

[Dunadan Windrunner]

I think the real problem with that hypothesis is, when investiture is co-opted or corrupted, it turns red. I can only think of one thing on Sel that might be due to corrupted investiture, and that is a Bloodsealer's eyes. On Roshar, none of the Radiants have red spren or have their eyes turn red. I think however that on Threnody (with Ambition) he could have used that method. 

[+TheFoxQR]

19 minutes ago, RShara said:

I think he's used different methods for each Splintering so far. He shoved D&D into the Cognitive, wasn't even present for Ambition's, and then whatever he did to Honor.

Yes... but shoving D&D in the cognitive seems like a separate thing. It's like... once he splinters a Shard, he also needs to make sure that someone else doesn't pick it up. That's what the Selish situation feels like. Maybe, since that was technically his first time using said method personally, it seems he didn't pull it off quite right. Maybe the pieces afterwords weren't small enough, so he just mixed the investiture and dumped them in the Cognitive to prevent them from gaining sentience or picking a new vessel.

By the time he went after Ambition, he seems to be much better at it. So he just set up his draining-inversion mechanism and left, knowing it will kill Ambition eventually and the pieces will be small enough to not be a challenge/problem later. In other words, he seems a lot more confident and better at it by then.

9 minutes ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

I think the real problem with that hypothesis is, when investiture is co-opted or corrupted, it turns red. I can only think of one thing on Sel that might be due to corrupted investiture, and that is a Bloodsealer's eyes. On Roshar, none of the Radiants have red spren or have their eyes turn red. I think however that on Threnody (with Ambition) he could have used that method. 

I really don't think Sel is an ideal example, simply because he seems to still be... almost practising there.

On Roshar, look for red spren, or redness around the Fused or the Regals, as those seem more co-opted. The Knights Radiant are still un-corrupted - they seem to still be using Honor-Cultivation affiliated investiture without any co-opting. Except Renaris, where Glys does produce red visuals iirc, because Glys does seem to be on an Honor-Cultivation-Odium spectrum - a corrupted spren. Similarly, Sadeas-Amaram's men have red eyes at the Battle of Thaylen, when they are forcefully turned by Odium.

Edited July 28, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[Dunadan Windrunner]

He went after Ambition first though. 

[+TheFoxQR]

4 minutes ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

He went after Ambition first though. 

He did, but found it later.

Quote

Argent

Some of the few Shards Rayse Splintered included Ambition, I believe, Dominion, and Devotion.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

And those were all way back, in the history. So, we know that the Shards' personalities overrides the Vessel's personality over time?

Brandon Sanderson

Strongly influence, and depending on the individual, override.

Argent

Okay. So did Rayse choose those Shards because--

Brandon Sanderson

He went after Ambition first, but didn't find Ambition until after going after Devotion and Dominion. But Ambition was number one on his hit list.

Argent

Was it because of the Shard or because of the Vessel? Like did he hate the person?

Brandon Sanderson

In this case it was the Shard, primarily, that drove him--

Argent

Oh, he was maybe afraid the Shard would grow too powerful and take over--

Brandon Sanderson

He was afraid that this Shard that would rival him. And so he's like "This one is number one on the hit list. We're taking down Ambition." But then he got trapped in the Rosharan system.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[Dunadan Windrunner]

Okay then. That leaves Honor. If Devotion and Dominion were practice, and Ambition was ideal. what happened with Honor? I suppose Honor fought back more cleverly, imprisoning Odium instead of trying to splinter/kill Rayse. 

Odium did mention in his first meeting with Dalinar that if he were released from Braize he would kill Cultivation and take all the investiture away from Roshar.

[+TheFoxQR]

1 hour ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

Okay then. That leaves Honor. If Devotion and Dominion were practice, and Ambition was ideal. what happened with Honor? I suppose Honor fought back more cleverly, imprisoning Odium instead of trying to splinter/kill Rayse. 

Odium did mention in his first meeting with Dalinar that if he were released from Braize he would kill Cultivation and take all the investiture away from Roshar.

That is the question. He even mentions later that he initially thought he could just leave, but the budding Knights Radiant and Stormfather seem to be becoming big enough threats that he will have to take them out.

[+ILuvHats]

On 7/27/2019 at 9:01 PM, TheFoxQR said:

That is the question. He even mentions later that he initially thought he could just leave, but the budding Knights Radiant and Stormfather seem to be becoming big enough threats that he will have to take them out.

You know, I’d actually assumed that Odium intends to “transform this realm substantially” for a different reason, the same one Dunadan Windrunner mentioned where he removes all investiture from Roshar. After all, neither the knights radiant or the Stormfather by themselves are really a significant threat to a shard. The only reason Odium doesn’t instantaneously eradicate all of them is because he fears Cultivation’s counter strike, and his imprisonment on Braize limits him. Personally, I think he can’t just leave after killing Cultivation because he’s realized that even shattered as Honor is, the pieces are beginning to coalesce. So my head canon is that Odium won’t completely destroy Roshar upon victory like we see in the one vision Dalinar has where the land literally implodes. Instead, he’ll further shatter every remaining spren to indefinitely prevent the remains of Honor and Cultivation from reforming the whole shard (or a large portion of it. And of course the destruction of all the spren will in turn cause an ecological collapse, meaning every living thing on Roshar will die in a mass extinction event.

[+Ark1002]

On 7/27/2019 at 5:08 PM, Dunadan Windrunner said:

On Roshar, none of the Radiants have red spren or have their eyes turn red.

*coughs*

Actually, Releasers have their eyes turn red.

[Dunadan Windrunner]

I guess I missed that, and now you mention it, the thrill also is red. But my point was that the investiture was not turned against itself to splinter it in this case because there is not enough red to have much impact. Some unmade, the Fuzed and the Releasers.

Do you have the reference for the Dustbringers?

[Dunadan Windrunner]

On 27/07/2019 at 7:09 PM, TheFoxQR said:

On Roshar, look for red spren, or redness around the Fused or the Regals, as those seem more co-opted. The Knights Radiant are still un-corrupted - they seem to still be using Honor-Cultivation affiliated investiture without any co-opting. Except Renaris, where Glys does produce red visuals iirc, because Glys does seem to be on an Honor-Cultivation-Odium spectrum - a corrupted spren. Similarly, Sadeas-Amaram's men have red eyes at the Battle of Thaylen, when they are forcefully turned by Odium.

The redness in Amaram’s men is due to the thrill, it disappeared after Dalinar captured Nergaoul. 

[+TheFoxQR]

30 minutes ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

The redness in Amaram’s men is due to the thrill, it disappeared after Dalinar captured Nergaoul. 

And tell me - what is Nergaoul?

[Dunadan Windrunner]

The thrill, one of the unmade. 

[+TheFoxQR]

3 minutes ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

The thrill, one of the unmade. 

Aha! Yes. And why is the Thrill red? Odium's own colors are Gold-Violet.

[Dunadan Windrunner]

It is red because it is corrupted investiture or co-opted from another shard, making a twisted intent. I don’t think we know what shard it came from. I don’t think it is originally from Odium though because it gives passion, it doesn't take it away like Odium does. 

[+TheFoxQR]

57 minutes ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

It is red because it is corrupted investiture or co-opted from another shard, making a twisted intent. I don’t think we know what shard it came from. I don’t think it is originally from Odium though because it gives passion, it doesn't take it away like Odium does. 

My point exactly. What Odium seems to be doing in that sequence is using Nergaoul to induce a specific cognitive effect in the minds of Sadeas Amaram's men, and as a result of the nature of that state, his spren are able to take over.

The Radiant Group in Shadesmar sees the spren Odium has prepared for this on that Shadesmar, which promptly start disappearing as Amaram's men's eyes start glowing red. The Spren of the Oathgate say that these spren have been using ancient pathways that they cannot stop - making me think that the pathways those spren use are the same as Radiantspren when they first go over into the physical, attracted to their Radiants, and the same pathways utilised by other spren to bond with the Fauna of Roshar.

Edited August 3, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[Dunadan Windrunner]

To me, this part of the book looks like Hemalurgy. Sadeas’ men accept the thrill, and as a result they open their spirit webs up to the control of Odium. Odium can then confuse their weakened minds, looking for combat, to attack the other Alethi.

I think the path the fuzed (and spren) take from shadesmar is Odium’s perpendicularity, riding on the Everstorm. Like how Honor’s perpendicularity rides the Highstorm infusing spheres as it passes. Radiant spren use Honor’s. Before the Everstorm was summoned, the listeners could only change form during Highstorm. 

[+TheFoxQR]

14 minutes ago, Dunadan Windrunner said:

To me, this part of the book looks like Hemalurgy. Sadeas’ men accept the thrill, and as a result they open their spirit webs up to the control of Odium. Odium can then confuse their weakened minds, looking for combat, to attack the other Alethi.

I think the path the fuzed (and spren) take from shadesmar is Odium’s perpendicularity, riding on the Everstorm. Like how Honor’s perpendicularity rides the Highstorm infusing spheres as it passes. Radiant spren use Honor’s. Before the Everstorm was summoned, the listeners could only change form during Highstorm. 

Hemalurgy requires metal spikes - this ain't that. Though I agree there are similar principles at play.

And no, Radiantspren don't use the Highstorms. This is why Elhokar's spren was trapped - it crossed over when Elhokar was about to speak his Oath (or maybe a bit before), but then got stuck there without anything to anchor it back.

[ZenBossanova]

The more I have thought about this, the more sense it makes. It reminds me of thin little book I read once, called Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. It is light reading. I highly recommend it. It is seriously one of the best books I have ever read. 

One of the things the book discusses is Godel's theorem and self contradictory systems. You might assume that a Shard does not contradict itself, but it is unclear if that is possible. Any sufficiently powerful logical system can not prove it doesn't contradict itself. For example, you can NOT prove mathematics is true. (Yes, I am simplifying things, but this is entirely true. )

I remember a conversation in the book, where one character continued to purchase new record players, and another character would buy records whose sole purpose was destroying that record player. The question was raised, Could you make a record player sufficiently powerful and tough, that could NOT be destroyed by any possible record? The answer was no, you could not. It is impossible. 

Now, I also suspect that Cultivation understands this, and she will use it against Rayse/Odium. In other words, mixing magic systems isn't a trivial part of Roshar. This is really what the entire war is about. This may have also been how he splintered Adonalsium. 

 

tl;dr  Odium is using an mathematical theorem, to make a Shard fight against itself, or in math terms, contradict itself, as a way to splinter Shards. 

[Ripheus23]

On 8/9/2019 at 5:31 PM, ZenBossanova said:

tl;dr  Odium is using an mathematical theorem, to make a Shard fight against itself, or in math terms, contradict itself, as a way to splinter Shards. 

Quote

Questioner

Odium has, as I understand it, something like the meaning of God's divine wrath. How is wrath on its own able to cause such terrible destruction? I  mean, he primarily attacked di-Shardic worlds like Sel and Roshar, so could he just have sowed discord between Shards there to an extent of them actually fighting against each other and then just *inaudible*.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good theory, that he got them to fight against each other. I won't tell you whether it happened or not, but it is a very valid theory. It's fully within his capacity; that's the sort of thing that he does.

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

Quote

Questioner

How does Odium kill Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

OOOh that's a big ol’ RAFO. It's a RAFO I've promised to answer in the books eventually.

Questioner

We've got a theory… He kills a Shard by destroying the idea of the Shard into a population with hate. So on Sel he replaced the idea of Dominion with hatred of other people…

Brandon Sanderson

That’s a very good theory... I will say-- Yeah.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

 

[Wander89]

Odium as a Rioter/Soother confirmed

[Ripheus23]

I just want to note that he can't ALWAYS be sowing discord between Shards as his method of attack. We know per WoB that Cultivation fought for Honor and against Odium, and Ambition died without apparent "political" relation to another Shard as such. Also, Ambition seems to have died as a result of an actual battle between Rayse and herself, which counts against the "slowly change the story of the Shard and its world" image of attack. But who knows? "There are some rules we all have to follow" (or however Tanavast said that) sounds like there's a principle in the cosmere that requires Shards to work through story-like Connection sequences on Invested worlds, or something.

Also, recurring intra-Shard discord is still an option, here, more or less.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Ripheus23

[+TheFoxQR]

On 8/12/2019 at 8:08 AM, Ripheus23 said:

I just want to note that he can't ALWAYS be sowing discord between Shards as his method of attack. We know per WoB that Cultivation fought for Honor and against Odium, and Ambition died without apparent "political" relation to another Shard as such. Also, Ambition seems to have died as a result of an actual battle between Rayse and herself, which counts against the "slowly change the story of the Shard and its world" image of attack. But who knows? "There are some rules we all have to follow" (or however Tanavast said that) sounds like there's a principle in the cosmere that requires Shards to work through story-like Connection sequences on Invested worlds, or something.

Also, recurring intra-Shard discord is still an option, here, more or less.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying Odium turned Devotion against Dominion. I'm saying he turned Devotion against Devotion.

In that specific case, I'd argue that he mixed the two and turned them against their Shards. As in, there were three "entities" - Devotion and Dominion as individuals on one side and on the other side Odium influenced Devotion + Dominion fighting against Devotion and Dominion.

In case of Ambition, it was Ambition on one side, and then Ambition's invested sources corrupted by Odium fighting against Ambition on the other. In fact, you can still see this corruption on Threnody. (We don't know the exact nature, but it is safe to say that the red eyes imply some kind of corruption)

Edited August 13, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[Ripheus23]

5 hours ago, TheFoxQR said:

Just to be clear, I'm not saying Odium turned Devotion against Dominion. I'm saying he turned Devotion against Devotion.

In that specific case, I'd argue that he mixed the two and turned them against their Shards. As in, there were three "entities" - Devotion and Dominion as individuals on one side and on the other side Odium influenced Devotion + Dominion fighting against Devotion and Dominion.

In case of Ambition, it was Ambition on one side, and then Ambition's invested sources corrupted by Odium fighting against Ambition on the other. In fact, you can still see this corruption on Threnody. (We don't know the exact nature, but it is safe to say that the red eyes imply some kind of corruption)

Given the way Sanderson qualifies his appreciation for the conflict theory mentioned to him per the WoB, maybe he's hinting at what you're saying? I do think that Odium might have corrupted Honor, for instance, at least enough for Honor to go insane and die. OTOH the description of the battle with Ambition (AU territory I think?), though vague, refers to some kind of space combat IIRC.