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What has happened to Vivenna's religion?


Oltux72

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In Warbreaker we saw her kind of doubting central tenents of her religion.

It look to me like the classic tale of country bumpkins coming to the big city and losing their religion. But that loss is usually without replacement.
Yet in Shadesmar she talked about our gods predicting the future from pictures. What has happened? Even if she worked for Endowment she could say something like our Invested or our mages. But gods? What has happened to her?

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29 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

It look to me like the classic tale of country bumpkins coming to the big city and losing their religion. But that loss is usually without replacement.
Yet in Shadesmar she talked about our gods predicting the future from pictures. What has happened? Even if she worked for Endowment she could say something like our Invested or our mages. But gods? What has happened to her?

Pretty sure she said "the gods of my homeland."  Kind of a difference.  Talking about returned in technical terms would just get confusing.

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6 hours ago, Karger said:

Pretty sure she said "the gods of my homeland."  Kind of a difference.  Talking about returned in technical terms would just get confusing.

Quote

Even the gods of my land catch only glimpses of the Spiritual Realm

But why gods? If you want to reduce confusion likening the Returned to Honor and Cultivation is exactly what you should avoid.

Plainly read this implies apostasy and treason.

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If I had a guess, Azure(though also likely Brandon) didn't want an entire conversation explaining pretty much everything we learn about the Returned over the course of Warbreaker. Without that explanation, I have no clue how she would have conveyed what she meant without confusing the Shadesmar party. The "Cognitive Shadows that were infused with a Divine Breath and stapled back onto their bodies to fulfill some as of now unknown purpose" just seems like a mouthful that begs further explanation, one they probably wouldn't completely believe. She probably could have gotten away with just saying spren instead of gods, but I have no clue how long Azure has been on Roshar, she might not be knowledgeable enough to make that connection in that moment.

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Vivenna isn't sure how Cosmere-aware her companions are so she either has to explain the mechanics of the Returned, Endowment and how they relate in copious detail or she can just handwave it with 'gods' and trust that they'll understand the important part. Bear in mind that in the context of Roshar we've seen the singers use the term gods to refer to Invested people like Radiants and others refer to spren as gods, so Vivenna could reasonably assume that calling the Returned 'gods' would be enough explanation for their limited futuresight and she could dispense with the lectures.

As for what she believes, who knows? Just calling the Returned gods doesn't necessarily mean she believes in them as such because it's just a convenient shorthand and she knows Vasher well enough that I doubt she'd ever really think of him (or any other Returned) as a god. Kind of hard to do that once you've nicknamed one of them Wartlover the Ugly.

Edited by Weltall
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54 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

But why gods? If you want to reduce confusion likening the Returned to Honor and Cultivation is exactly what you should avoid.

Plainly read this implies apostasy and treason.

She has probably spent several years away from her homeland.  As such she starts using their terminology.  Plenty of non Jews say Kosher because it is a useful word rather then because they are a member of the faith.

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Another thing to consider is that each of these books is written in the native language, and "translated" into English, so there may be some difference in word choice that Vivenna would have used in a Nalthis based book. For example, Galladon always punctuates his sentences with words like "kolo", or "sule", but when he appears in The Way of Kings, he uses the words "understand" and "friend". The words he's saying haven't changed, but because he's speaking in the native language of the Purelake, it's all translated into one language, rather than a mix of Arelon and Duladel languages.

The Alethi don't have Returned, the closest they have are the Heralds, but those are a very specific thing, so Vivenna probably uses the term "gods" because its the closest word the Alethi would have to understand what she's talking about. They also don't know about different planets, so she may be saying "my land" as a simplified way of communicating "home planet".

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Yeah, "gods" is the closest way to convey what the Returned are on Nalthis. And one of the religions even worships them as such! She could of course get into clarifying "OK, they're not my gods, but they're the gods of people in a land I spent some time in but I don't personally worship them" but that's longer than just saying "our gods" and moving on.

Another thing to think about - the more comfortable with her beliefs she is, the less she'd care about precision here. Immediately after coming to Hallendren - or immediately after leaving Hallendren, even - she would NEVER have said "our gods" about the Returned. She would have made the distinction that she worships Austre, not the Returned. But after another decade of traveling, seeing gods of other lands, other religions, then seeing the Cosmere... sure, she can just handwave the Returned as "our gods, close enough".

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11 hours ago, ftl said:

Yeah, "gods" is the closest way to convey what the Returned are on Nalthis. And one of the religions even worships them as such! She could of course get into clarifying "OK, they're not my gods, but they're the gods of people in a land I spent some time in but I don't personally worship them" but that's longer than just saying "our gods" and moving on.

Another thing to think about - the more comfortable with her beliefs she is, the less she'd care about precision here. Immediately after coming to Hallendren - or immediately after leaving Hallendren, even - she would NEVER have said "our gods" about the Returned. She would have made the distinction that she worships Austre, not the Returned. But after another decade of traveling, seeing gods of other lands, other religions, then seeing the Cosmere... sure, she can just handwave the Returned as "our gods, close enough".

The Returned are certainly "gods" in the same way that the Fused and the Heralds are, or even to a large extend that The Lord Ruler was. They're immortal beings elevated from mortal origins by divine power, made immortal for a purpose imparted to them by a Shard, a purpose that involves going around ordinary mortals and making them do (or to prevent them from doing) certain actions, to further that purpose. Vivenna can objectively acknowledge that, but that doesn't mean she worships them now.

It's like how Jasnah is fully capable of acknowledging Honor, Cultivation, and Odium as "gods", as the divine sources of supernatural powers and effects - but ones that can be killed or destroyed, that Roshar pre-existed them, and that dealing with them as such doesn't require worshiping them in the sense of "doing whatever they want me to do, even if said directly to my face rather than by proxy or received tradition passed down by other people, is by definition the right thing to do".

Or how Szeth acknowledged Nale as "Nin, the Herald of Justice" when he named himself "one of your gods" to him, yet also tells him to his face in Yeddaw that Nale was "wrong; so, so wrong" about the return of Voidbringbers and the Final Desolation not being real.

In terms of "what has happened to Vivenna's religion", the better question would to wonder what Vivenna now thinks of the principles and precepts of the Austrism she was raised with. Already in Warbreaker she moves past it enough to become an Awakener; by the time we see her again in Oathbringer as Azure, she's had ample time for Vasher to have explained to her the meaning behind his cryptic comments about how the followers of Austre didn't used to hold Breath as sacred and collecting them from people for Awakening purposes as profane. He's lived long enough to see that doctrine arise, and quite possibly to have been there when Austre was alive or (most likely) was a Returned in the first place.

Talking to someone who is literally older than the founding of your religion and personally knew the people who founded it, even the one it venerates as divine, and possibly in pre-divine form - well, that must be pretty -- well, it's like a Rosharan talking to Hoid, I guess, eh? ("Tanavast was a fine fellow, bought me drinks once, but he was not the Almighty.")

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On 9/5/2020 at 1:05 AM, ftl said:

Yeah, "gods" is the closest way to convey what the Returned are on Nalthis. And one of the religions even worships them as such! She could of course get into clarifying "OK, they're not my gods, but they're the gods of people in a land I spent some time in but I don't personally worship them" but that's longer than just saying "our gods" and moving on.

I was thinking, how many Greeks didn't see the Pantheon as dieties. If they left, not considering the pantheon to be their God(s), they would still probably refer to the entity as the god(s) since they are commonly known by that name by the populace. 

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