A GUT of Roshar(WE KILLED YOU, everstorm, and Roshar's OG purpose explained)

[Karger]

Alright this is going to be a grand unifying theory(pun intended) so let us first lay out some things we know.  We know that

• Adonalsium was a being of pure investiture that contained the power of all of the shards
• Adonalsium built Roshar with a specific purpose in mind. 

• Odium feared what Dalinar was doing during his final confrontation during OB
• Odium stated that "WE KILLED YOU" in regards to what Dalinar was doing.
• Dalinar replied that "We are Unity!" in response to the asked question "What are you?"
• The everstorm is "a new thing, but old of design."
• Roshar is absolutely filled with investiture
• All three realms tend to be easier to access on Roshar

Once we know that we can get down to theorizing.

Figuring out what is happening.

The bit that prompted me was Odium saying "WE KILLED YOU!"  As far as we know he had no accomplices in his murder of honor.  This has prompted a lot of theories but all of them involved either a fourth shard in the mix or Cultivation joining Odium against her partner.  Neither of those really made much sense in the context of the stormlight archive(which is only supposed to be more local).  The other half "We are Unity" indicates that Dalinar is claiming/invoking the power of Adonalsium but that did not make sense either as the being is shattered. 

What are his goals?

This brings us to our next point.  Adonalsium built Roshar with a specific purpose in mind. 

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

How is Ashyn Earth-like given its orbit? It should be even less habitable than Roshar.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Rosharan system was manufactured for a specific purpose. The position of the moons isn’t stable and even the continent itself might eventually vanish.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

This begs the question.  Why would a nigh all powerful being want to build anything?  Let alone build something for a specific purpose?  The only thing we actually know about Adonalsium is that he did like to build things.  As such the only reasonable supposition I can make knowing Roshar has a purpose is that he built it to make building other things simpler.  This assertion is supported by the fact that Roshar is a noticeably crowded system with three planets in the goldilocks zone and ten outside it. 

What this means

Assuming my belief that Roshar was built to make building other things easier let is correct then the how and the why become somewhat deducible.  As a being that exists in the spiritual realm Adonalsium would have a hard time accessing and understanding things from the cognitive and physical perspectives.  To him concepts such as time, death, and pain were probably abstract.  He existed in an state of ideals so pain was just a number to him.  There is this amount of pain here.  This would have lead to some difficulty if he wanted something specific to happen in the "real world."  As such it would have been beneficial for him to have cognitive and physical agents to handle the small problems he would create every time he wanted to do something.  On Roshar Adonalsium could direct the great spren directly and use the rhythms to have large number of singers build cities, alter the course of highstroms, and act as canaries looking for the fallout of his projects.  A complex ecosystem supports a vast amount of investiture remaining free thus allowing easy communication between the SR headquarters and the PR workspace.  If you want another gas giant but are worried about tidal strain just put it in see how distressed the singers get and if it is really bad they will tell you their problems(in song form!).  Once they have explained their problem you can either create a spren to deal with it(this is where some of the great spren might come from) or give them instructions and the aid of an existing spren on how to deal with it using rhythm communications.  If a singer or a group of them gets out of hand you can send a proto-unmade to hunt them down.  If they need extra help housing a displaced population you can give them the strength to build a city(possibly an uncorrupted thrill acting a bit like coffee).  This also explains why Adonalsium never bothered making Roshar viable long term.  By the time the place no longer worked he would just be able to move on with another project.

How the Everstorm

The singers creating the everstorm is a baffling feet.  A few thousand people with no special training manufacture a new storm that fundamentally transforms the way the entire world works and give sapience back to an entire race after two thousand years.  This is a lot.  The fact that they manage it indicates to me that Odium has co-opted some of Adonalsium 's old methods.  He sent "instructions" for the storm through the rhythms possibly using one or more unmade as an intermediary.  These instructions told the singers how to collect the free investiture of roshar in such a way that the everstorm could form.  This may have been aimed specifically at the free odious investiture.  Once the storm took form it gained a cognitive awareness that Odium shaped to allow him to control it better. 

Unity

Among Odium's fears is being part of a greater whole.  Despite repeated opportunities Odium has forgone taking up any additional power that would alter his intent.  He can't stand to be changed into something better.  When Dalinar opened his perpendicularity he connected with all of the investiture on Roshar.  This investiture contained pieces from all sixteen shards including Odium himself.  Odium was terrified that Dalinar understood him and embodied him at a higher level then he did himself.  Given a winning singer population and enough time Dalinar could probably have made fundamental alterations to Roshar raising a third storm or quelling the first two.  He could also have pulled Odium's investiture into the ecosystem making Odium himself serve the greater roshar.  Odium would find this "weakening" of himself terrifying.

Thanks for reading!  Feedback is welcome!

[KandraAllomancer]

29 minutes ago, Karger said:

The other half "We are Unity" indicates that Dalinar is claiming/invoking the power of Adonalsium but that did not make sense either as the being is shattered. 

That was "I am Unity" if I remember correctly. I'm not sure if that necessarily implies Adonalsium's plan or involvement, although I agree that's a valid option

32 minutes ago, Karger said:

The singers creating the everstorm is a baffling feet.  A few thousand people with no special training manufacture a new storm that fundamentally transforms the way the entire world works and give sapience back to an entire race after two thousand years.  This is a lot.  The fact that they manage it indicates to me that Odium has co-opted some of Adonalsium 's old methods.  He sent "instructions" for the storm through the rhythms possibly using one or more unmade as an intermediary.  These instructions told the singers how to collect the free investiture of roshar in such a way that the everstorm could form.  This may have been aimed specifically at the free odious investiture.  Once the storm took form it gained a cognitive awareness that Odium shaped to allow him to control it better. 

I definitely agree that Odium used Adonalsium's design here, but I believe it could be way simpler than that. Singers might have the ability of linking their power (nice nod to Wheel of Time), to the point of being as powerful as a Dawnshard. That would explain why Honor was so reluctant about them using the Surges. Linking the power provided by thousands of Voidspren could allow them to accumulate enough Connection (I assume that the Stormform provides some kind of access to Adhesion) to bring Investiture from Braize to Roshar, a trick somehow similar to how Dalinar summons Honor's Perpendicularity

[Karger]

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

That was "I am Unity" if I remember correctly. I'm not sure if that necessarily implies Adonalsium's plan or involvement, although I agree that's a valid option

It is the most obvious one although of course there are other opinions. 

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

I definitely agree that Odium used Adonalsium's design here, but I believe it could be way simpler than that. Singers might have the ability of linking their power (nice nod to Wheel of Time), to the point of being as powerful as a Dawnshard. That would explain why Honor was so reluctant about them using the Surges. Linking the power provided by thousands of Voidspren could allow them to accumulate enough Connection (I assume that the Stormform provides some kind of access to Adhesion) to bring Investiture from Braize to Roshar, a trick somehow similar to how Dalinar summons Honor's Perpendicularity

Linking their power to what?  Each other?  How does that help?  Also how are the rhythms involved in that case?  Eshonai was pretty clear on feeling instructions passed the rhythms.  Dalinar opened a perpendicularity by just getting enough of Honor's investiture in one place.  I am not sure how that relates to what the singers are doing.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Karger

[KandraAllomancer]

23 minutes ago, Karger said:

Linking their power to what?  Each other?  How does that help?

To each other, yes - in order to multiply the power of a given Surge

24 minutes ago, Karger said:

Also how are the rhythms involved in that case?  Eshonai was pretty clear on feeling instructions passed the rhythms.

It's been a while since I read WoR, do you remember in which chapter (or at least which part) was that described?

27 minutes ago, Karger said:

Dalinar opened a perpendicularity by just getting enough of Honor's investiture in one place.  I am not sure how that relates to what the singers are doing.

Dalinar got the Investiture from the Stormfather, he explicitly mentions the Connection between them when he explains what he did to him. I think (although that's a hypothesis) that Singer-multiplied Adhesion was enough to transfer massive amounts of Investiture from Braize and that's what jump-started the Everstorm

[Karger]

44 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

To each other, yes - in order to multiply the power of a given Surge

While the concept has precedent in fantasy I don't really see how that works on Roshar.  Two Windrunners both lashing is the same as one windrunner lashing using twice the amount of stormlight.

44 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

It's been a while since I read WoR, do you remember in which chapter (or at least which part) was that described?

Quote

More than that, Eshonai said, "The winds obey me.  And Venli, I can feel something...something building.  A storm."  "You feel a storm right now?  In the rhthms?"  "Beyond the rhythms..."

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Karger

[Honorless]

This assumes rather a lot of things about Adonalsium.

There are theories regarding other Shards helping Odium in Shattering Honor. I would say they are quite plausible.

That being said, a greater system, one which could bind even Shards is an interesting prospect

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

This is an interesting theory, and it begs some of the fundamental unanswered questions of the Stormlight Archives. Namely what were the unmade unmade from? If the Unmade were unmade from preexisting spren, what was their function before they were unmade? Why was investiture given sentience on this one specific planet? Why are the moons in such a precise yet unstable (in astronomical time) orbit? Why is the Rosharan landmass built too, like the unstable moons, for a finite span of existence?

I think the notion that this was creation as an act if self-discovery on Adonalsium's part to be a very intriguing line of thought. Does the impermanence of the continent of Roshar and the orbits of the moon then suggest that Adonalsium had foresight about both his shattering and the ensuing conflict on Roshar,?

Does that suggest that possibly Roshar, with its finite span, was made to order to be the stage of the inevitable conflict that Adonalsium foresaw and prepared for?

Interesting lines of speculation to be sure.

[Karger]

47 minutes ago, R J said:

This assumes rather a lot of things about Adonalsium.

I realize that.  I think they are all reasonable suppositions but it will be a while until we know.

47 minutes ago, R J said:

There are theories regarding other Shards helping Odium in Shattering Honor. I would say they are quite plausible.

They might be but I don't like them.  Involving more shards in roshar's history just feels like a cop out.

[theTruthshaper]

31 minutes ago, Karger said:

They might be but I don't like them.  Involving more shards in roshar's history just feels like a cop out.

There is some evidence for one more shard on Roshar:

Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns. ”

—Collected on Chachanan 1173, 84 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a cutpurse with the wasting sickness, of partial Iriali descent.

 

Unless the three here includes Odium, this implies that there was one more Shard.

[Karger]

19 minutes ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Unless the three here includes Odium, this implies that there was one more Shard.

But that could easily include Odium. 

[Frustration]

Are you going to change "We are Unity!" to the correct or "I am Unity!" ?

[Crusadeus]

"She let the work consume her. The familiar sound of pencil on paper, the focus of creation. Beauty was out there, all around. To create art was not to capture it, but to participate in it." - Shallan, Words of Radiance, Ch.47, pg. 554.

I really like the idea that Adonalsium was using Roshar as his creative playground. I find that Hoid gives the best idea of what was happening with Adonalsium in conversation with Frost in The Traveler:

“Is that soot in your hair?”

“Maybe.”

The elderly man sighed, walking across the short clearing and settling himself down on a large protruding tree root. “You can’t keep doing this.” The Traveler continued to eat his seeds, though he had started to chew them up rather than spitting out the pits. “You will just make things worse.” 

“Ati and Leras are dead,” the Traveler said, picking a piece of seed out from between his teeth. The elderly visitor said nothing, and the Traveler eyed him, leaning in closely, studying the man's eyes. The pupils were rimmed with a silver far too metallic to be natural, at least for a human. 

“You sly old lizard!” the Traveler said, pointing. “You already knew! You were watching! And here you were chastising me.”

“I did NOT interfere,” the elderly man said. ”You meddle in things we promised to leave alone. Things that we—”

Traveler held up a finger, interrupting him, then slowly he pointed at the older man. ”I. Made. No. Promise.”

“You made your choice. Why now seek for things you so eagerly denied? My friend, it’s the dangerous desire, the lust for power best untouched, that created the situation in the first place.”

The Traveler did not reply. The two sat for a time, listening to the winds through the garrulous trees."

This does seem to support your creation theory. It seems like that is a very possible reason for the sixteen to have shattered Adonalsium. They wanted the power of creation. This is not the first time this theme has popped up in literature, The Silmarillion and The Bible to name a few off the top of my head. 

You get thumbs up from me on this theory.

[Karger]

5 hours ago, Crusadeus said:

I really like the idea that Adonalsium was using Roshar as his creative playground. I find that Hoid gives the best idea of what was happening with Adonalsium in conversation with Frost in The Traveler:

That is a much simpler way of putting it.  It was sort of an art studio.  For an all powerful being.

[RShara]

On 7/6/2020 at 11:03 PM, The_Truthwatcher said:

There is some evidence for one more shard on Roshar:

Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns. ”

—Collected on Chachanan 1173, 84 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a cutpurse with the wasting sickness, of partial Iriali descent.

 

Unless the three here includes Odium, this implies that there was one more Shard.

Brandon has actually said that Odium is the third Shard on Roshar, and that there have only been three Shards on Roshar.

Quote

Questioner

The line about "three of sixteen [ruled] and now the Broken One reigns" - did Odium follow three other Shards to Roshar or is he the third Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium is the third Shard on Roshar.

Footnote: The questioner is referring to the epigraph of Chapter 11 of The Way of Kings: "Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns."
Words of Radiance Washington, DC signing (March 20, 2014)

Quote

Chaos (paraphrased)

How many Shards have existed on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Three.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

On 7/6/2020 at 2:49 PM, Karger said:

The bit that prompted me was Odium saying "WE KILLED YOU!"  As far as we know he had no accomplices in his murder of honor.  This has prompted a lot of theories but all of them involved either a fourth shard in the mix or Cultivation joining Odium against her partner.  Neither of those really made much sense in the context of the stormlight archive(which is only supposed to be more local).

I'll be boring here, and point out that the Fused consider themselves to have helped Odium kill Honor.

Quote

“There are those among us who agree with you, child,” Rine said.

“You do not?”

“No. We will need to watch the humans constantly. At any moment, any of them could manifest powers from the enemy. We killed him, and yet he fights on through his Surgebinders.”

Surgebinders. Foolishly, the old songs spoke highly of them. “How can they bind spren, Ancient One?” she asked to Subservience. “Humans don’t … you know…”

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by RShara