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Cultivation Motivation


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Yes I rhymed on purpose. 

So Cultivation has suddenly become one of the biggest influences on the Cosmere, in literally the space of a chapter or two. She doesn’t necessarily have control over Tod, but she’s a giant influence and could easily guide him where she wants. And she’s maybe a dragon.

All that to say, what is she going to do next? She could easily keep trying to do good on Roshar, contain Odium in some fashion, etc. Or... she could begin a conquest on the Cosmere. Prune the “fools in charge”, as Tod says. Which likely means bloodshed. A lot of it.

Thoughts, theories, or speculations?

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I felt like she wanted someone who could be more Passion than Odium. She tried todo that by connecting Tod on the day he was most Emotional. However, something went very wrong. The Tod we see, to me, is in no way anything like the Terivangian we say during his final days in the cell...

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I’m trying to figure out whether she wanted to save Roshar and thought Taravangian as Odium would choose to stop the war since he asked for the capacity to stop what’s coming. Is she that bad a judge of character that she didn’t realize he is a machiavellian megalomaniac? I mean he believed that the best way to save the world was to take total control and become the emperor of everything by murdering a bunch of people. Now he’s smart and passionate at the same time, minus the sympathy and love emotions. What makes her think he won’t do that same thing as Odium? Maybe she’s playing a longer game and foresaw a path for the heroes to win without setting Odium free if she went this way.Or maybe she’d be ok with setting him free if it protects Roshar.  Maybe she thought T would be easier for her to influence? She does seem to want T to work with her as an ally, but I don’t think he’ll be amenable to that at all. I mean, he never once considered the possibility of working with Dalinar to save the world, even once Dalinar proved he wouldn’t become Odium’s champion he still thought the best thing was to take over as the head of the coalition and make a deal with Odium. 

I’m not totally on board with the idea of evil Cultivation though because I think Cultivation still loves her singer/listener children and she did help Dalinar. I think she’s the Chasmfiend who helped the listeners: the whole dragon who has changed her form to fit in/hide thing. I also think it was her voice that Venli heard when her oath was finally accepted. It seems like it would be in her nature to want the humans and singers to join together, it would be an opportunity to cultivate more hybrids like the Horneaters or Herdazians. 

Edited by LightReader
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I believe that we’re seeing Cultivation being true to her Intent: everything needs to change and grow, including vessels, endless wars, and Cosmere politics. Ans she’s happy to be the “gardener” who prompts such growth.

I don’t think this is a master stroke so much as part of a plan to cultivate new vessels for the powers (including her own) and to attempt to change the future via her “pruning”. She sees the future better than Odium does, and I doubt she is being hoodwinked nor trying to use him as a puppet. 
 

I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t want Odium freed from Roshar, but I envision this being part of a plan of growth and not destruction, per se. 

 

I do doubt whether T is precisely the “perfect” vessel that he thinks he is—we have copious evidence this book that Odium is chaotic, with an underlying logic, and I don’t think the power will quite bend to his “will of protection” the way he thinks it will, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were freed at the end of book 5.

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So, I think we've all been wrong about Cultivation, in a lot of ways.

We've been assuming that since Odium is the Bad Guy, then whoever opposes him is the good guy. If there's an "Evil God" there must be a "Good God". Cultivation. And she even fits the "Earth Mother" god archetype.

But... now that we think about it... what evidence do we actually have that Cultivation would be a good steward of Roshar? We don't. It's just a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" conclusion. And that's just not enough.

Cultivation has goals, but, as she says herself, she's the mother of all that live, including the thorns. And now it's clear that she's been the one in charge of the Diagram all along - including all the horrors that the diagram has perpetuated. She's set up this new Odium, but there is really, really no good reason to believe that just because things are going the way Cultivation wants, that it's going the way the Protagonists want.

I don't see any reason - yet - to believe she "made a mistake" in helping Taravangian ascend. I do see a reason to believe that she is nowhere near as benevolent as we've been assuming. Taravangian+Odium is exactly what she's been trying to achieve, and that is definitely scary.

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Odium may have been speaking more truth than we gave him credit for back when he said:

Quote

“Honor cared only for bonds. Not the meaning of bonds and oaths, merely that they were kept. Cultivation only wants to see transformation. Growth. It can be good or bad, for all she cares. The pain of men is nothing to her. Only I understand it. Only I care, Dalinar.”

Sanderson, Brandon. Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive (p. 551)

Cultivation wants to see progress.  If the poor must be processed into soylent green to push humanity forward, that A-OK to Cultivation.

(I would note though that these are the goals of the shards themselves.  A vessel of a shard might well redirect the shard towards other interpretations of the intents.)

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