How Blind Is Odium?

[+Child of Hodor]

In this chapter Venli can look into the cognitive realm and see what’s in a gemheart which helps her distinguish between Fused and other Singers.

Timbre is within Venli’s gemheart imprisoning the void spren, has been for a year. 

Is Odium just not paying attention to Venli or what? Is this one of his long cons where he is aware and using her?

Surely he can see through multiple realms at once. He’s “shackled” but can interact directly with people when the Everstorm is near. 

Can he not see into gemhearts? Mistborn:

Spoiler

Are the Shards “gem blind” on Roshar like the Shards are metal blind on Scadrial?

 

[Innovation]

12 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

In this chapter Venli can look into the cognitive realm and see what’s in a gemheart which helps her distinguish between Fused and other Singers.

Timbre is within Venli’s gemheart imprisoning the void spren, has been for a year. 

Is Odium just not paying attention to Venli or what? Is this one of his long cons where he is aware and using her?

Surely he can see through multiple realms at once. He’s “shackled” but can interact directly with people when the Everstorm is near. 

Can he not see into gemhearts? Mistborn:

  Hide contents

Are the Shards “gem blind” on Roshar like the Shards are metal blind on Scadrial?

 

Maybe Odium cannot see any signals from the Spren because it is trapped, and he thinks the Spren is fine. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Innovation

[Karger]

34 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Is Odium just not paying attention to Venli or what? Is this one of his long cons where he is aware and using her?

A number of possibilities exist.  I however can only think of one rational for keeping Venli alive if Odium does in fact know.  It is not like another person can reach her her position and she is not working for another power she is instead leading a movement that will do at least minor damage to Odium's cause.  I will get to one reason later but in the the meantime let us assume Odium cannot see.  If this is true Odium must either have some kind of limited capacity to see or something is blocking him.  Possibilities for that include the gemheart itself, Venli's physical body and soul, and Timbre.

Lets start with the gemheart.  I don't think this one will function as a particularly good block unless infused.  Metals are like light because power from the spiritual realm desires to push through into the physical realm.  Gemstones only seem to behave similarly when infused.   As to Venli's physical body.  I think an argument for some level of interference could easily be made.  Listeners do drink water with metals in it and living beings act like blocks for steelsight as well.  I don't doubt that Odium could see through this given his raw power level but that would imply that he is paying attention to Venli specifically.  As to Timbre.  It has always struck me as odd that Odium can't just point out where the soulcaster and spandreeds in Kholinar were.  He even invented screamers specifically to deal with this situation.  So he apparently is unable to notice spren fast enough to account for them even when he wants to.  As such if Timbre is running interference I don't think Odium will know.

The only reason so far that I can think that Odium would leave Venli around is because he wants to divide opposing forces.  Spren and humans in full cooperation sounds like a problem especially if Dalinar is in the mix.  If Venli prevents any new human radiants then it allows him to isolate and where down Dalinar's forces.

[Honorless]

I think Odium can't see through a soul and has to be let in, the Listeners had to open themselves up in order to be taken by the Fused or Voidspren. Odium seemed to use the Voidspren as a hole, like Ruin did with Hemalurgy.

Quote

zas678 (paraphrased)

Can Odium influence people the same way that Ruin can?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, you see, the kandra and the koloss have a "hole" in them that allows Ruin to come in and take over. The Parshendi naturally are protected from this, but when they expose themselves to the storms, and the spren come in, many of these spren have that kind of "hole" in them, and that's what allows Odium to take control of them.

Orem signing 2014 (Dec. 6, 2014)

 

[Aon Tia]

May be odium can not see spren? Honor and cultivation’s spren. He did not know that shallan is not an elsecaller. He does not know about Renarin at all for some reason. He can not tell that Venli has bonded timbre. He had thought that dalinar and stormfather’s bond has been severed completely at the end of OB but it was not. 
May be it is once spren form the nahel bonds that he can not sense them?! Or also the spren trapped in fabrials. May be that is why he had to create those secret spren. But even the secretspren are only partially successful. They can sense fabrials and they can sense some radiant powers but not all! 
 

May be Odium has some inherent restrictions to sense these or it may be that he is trapped still on Roshar so may be he still does not have full use of his powers. It is also possible that since he is most likely based on Braize there is only so much that he can see on Roshar. 
 

I think, traditionally he could not directly influence Stuff on Roshar but only via his unmades. But now, with everstorm she has brief windows when he can be personally involved. 
But even a god can sense only that much during such brief windows. 

[Blightsong]

Odium is definitely keeping Venli alive on purpose. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned the moment in the books where this is all but confirmed, right as she's about to be taken by a Fused:

Quote

Pain seared her insides, as if someone had set fire to her veins. She screamed, and sand bit her tongue. Tiny coals ripped at her clothing, singeing her skin. And then, a voice. WHAT IS THIS? It was a warm voice. An ancient, paternal voice, kindly and enveloping. “Please,” Venli said, gasping in breaths of smoky air. “Please.” YES, the voice said. CHOOSE ANOTHER. THIS ONE IS MINE.

He definitely is not blind and is just keeping Venli, in his own words, as his.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Blightsong

[ftl]

Well, there's another reading of that though - that he kept Venli around as an envoy, to be the Last Listener and to evangelize listenerhood. He picked her to do exactly what she was sent to do afterwards.

She hadn't bonded Timbre at the time yet, Timbre was still just flitting around. Doesn't mean Odium knows what happened later.

Or it could be that he plans to try and use her to take over another Knight Radiant order maybe, like he did with Skybreakers? Still, I figure if he knew about her then Leshwi and the other Fused would too, or at least Leshwi would be somehow being used differently. Basically, it's not particularly obvious that Odium knows about Timbre+Venli until he actually *does* something with that knowledge.

[Michael Portz]

10 hours ago, Karger said:

I however can only think of one rational for keeping Venli alive if Odium does in fact know.  It is not like another person can reach her her position and she is not working for another power she is instead leading a movement that will do at least minor damage to Odium's cause.  I will get to one reason later but in the the meantime let us assume Odium cannot see.  If this is true Odium must either have some kind of limited capacity to see or something is blocking him.  Possibilities for that include the gemheart itself, Venli's physical body and soul, and Timbre.

Lets start with the gemheart.  I don't think this one will function as a particularly good block unless infused.  Metals are like light because power from the spiritual realm desires to push through into the physical realm.  Gemstones only seem to behave similarly when infused.   As to Venli's physical body.  I think an argument for some level of interference could easily be made.  Listeners do drink water with metals in it and living beings act like blocks for steelsight as well.  I don't doubt that Odium could see through this given his raw power level but that would imply that he is paying attention to Venli specifically.  As to Timbre.  It has always struck me as odd that Odium can't just point out where the soulcaster and spandreeds in Kholinar were.  He even invented screamers specifically to deal with this situation.  So he apparently is unable to notice spren fast enough to account for them even when he wants to.  As such if Timbre is running interference I don't think Odium will know.

The only reason so far that I can think that Odium would leave Venli around is because he wants to divide opposing forces.  Spren and humans in full cooperation sounds like a problem especially if Dalinar is in the mix.  If Venli prevents any new human radiants then it allows him to isolate and where down Dalinar's forces.

3 hours ago, Blightsong said:

Odium is definitely keeping Venli alive on purpose. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned the moment in the books where this is all but confirmed, right as she's about to be taken by a Fused:

He definitely is not blind and is just keeping Venli, in his own words, as his.

I think, @Karger is talking about a different kind of blindness (Odiums presumed blindness towards Venlis spren) than @Blightsong (Odiums presumed blindness towards Venli herself). Or?

But of course Odium distinguished Venli by preventing the Fused to take her.

[Aon Tia]

3 hours ago, ftl said:

Well, there's another reading of that though - that he kept Venli around as an envoy, to be the Last Listener and to evangelize listenerhood. He picked her to do exactly what she was sent to do afterwards.

She hadn't bonded Timbre at the time yet, Timbre was still just flitting around. Doesn't mean Odium knows what happened later.

Or it could be that he plans to try and use her to take over another Knight Radiant order maybe, like he did with Skybreakers? Still, I figure if he knew about her then Leshwi and the other Fused would too, or at least Leshwi would be somehow being used differently. Basically, it's not particularly obvious that Odium knows about Timbre+Venli until he actually *does* something with that knowledge.

I agree. I think he wanted to use Venli to propagate to the larger singer population how listener sacrificed themselves to bring back their gods. He planned to use her as a boy form only and there need not be any hidden agenda and does not indicate that he knew anything about Venli bonding timbre or even the possibility of it. 
He spared Venli when she had barely met timbre. And I also do not see how a singer becoming a regal and also getting radiant powers and also retaining free will, could be in odium’s favour. 
 

He did not really do anything to take over Skybreakers though, did he? They just kind of fell in his lap of their own ! 
Would love to know what they have been upto though since last year. And what is their equation with the Shanay-ims?

Edited September 16, 2020 by The Traveller