What happened exactly to Hoid's memory?

[Lightning]

There seem to be three possibilities.

1. Taravangian could only read Hoid's memories.

This would have been what I thought was the only possibility because how could messing with someone's memories not be considered harming them?

Moreover, it would be quite strange if Hoid's short-term memories were instantly stored in breath.  Taravangian suggests that he needed to store memories for the reason that he had lived so long.  So short-term memories wouldn't need such storage.  Then again, it might be an automatic function of relying on breaths.  Still, Hoid doesn't have enough breaths to have reached agelessness with them, only perfect pitch.

And yet, Hoid's short-term memory is clearly altered.  It is possible, as some have speculated, that Hoid (partially) did this to himself (through feruchemy, and the missing coin).  But wouldn't that raise Taravangian's suspicion, if Taravangian didn't also manipulate those short-term memories?

2. Taravangian could only alter or remove memories, but not read them.

But then how would he know which memories to take?  The fact that Hoid's perfect pitch is off suggests that, at the very least, some (but not all) of the breaths are gone/destroyed.  I suppose it is possible that only some of the breaths had memories, but that sounds implausible to me.

3.Taravangian could do both: read the memories and alter/destroy them.

In this case, why didn't Taravangian turn Hoid into his own instrument?  Or destroy all the memories?

It just doesn't make sense to me that Taravangian could mess with Hoid's memories without doing harm.  As other people have noted, the very idea of someone messing with our memories is one of the most terrifying thoughts imaginable.  It goes to the very heart of what makes us...well...us.  And clearly Hoid was terrified.

Bonus question: Why would Hoid expose this most vital part of himself to the most dangerous being in the universe?  We, as readers, already went through this when Sazed found he couldn't trust his own metalminds.  It was extremely scary.  Is Hoid really dumb enough to expose that most essential aspect of himself to manipulation?

[Shard of Reading]

5 minutes ago, Lightning said:

Why would Hoid expose this most vital part of himself to the most dangerous being in the universe?  We, as readers, already went through this when Sazed found he couldn't trust his own metalminds.  It was extremely scary.  Is Hoid really dumb enough to expose that most essential aspect of himself to manipulation?

This question is what makes me think that Hoid might have manipulated that conversation. But whatever happens it was a funky epilogue that I don't know if we will be able to truly know what happened until, at least the next stormlight book.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Ookla the Bored
Grammar is my kryptonite

[Spaceater]

In the book (in the italian translation) Odium explicitly says "i can see those memory" so i think that is what he can do, but then Hoid lose his perfect pitch so it seems that Odium toke Hoid's breaths in the act of "reading", but i don't think he can modify memories, since he had to make the same conversation again, BUT have the second conversation really took place or is a fake memory created by Odium? I don't think we can understand what really happened because we have Hoid's viewpoint and that is compromised. I really hope everythink is explained in the next book

On 15/12/2020 at 8:58 PM, Lightning said:

This would have been what I thought was the only possibility because how could messing with someone's memories not be considered harming them?

that is interessing. Odium says something about the "agreements" ha made with Honor before messing with Hodid's memory, maybe is because he is interfering with an Investiture that is not from the Roshar sistem? 

On 15/12/2020 at 8:58 PM, Lightning said:

Bonus question: Why would Hoid expose this most vital part of himself to the most dangerous being in the universe?  We, as readers, already went through this when Sazed found he couldn't trust his own metalminds.  It was extremely scary.  Is Hoid really dumb enough to expose that most essential aspect of himself to manipulation?

i think that he belived to be safe because he knew Rayse and could predict how he behave. Obiousvly he did't see Taravangian coming. In facts he just thinks " this went exaclty how i thinked, BUT that last part" (or somethink like that) just before Odium's attack.

also, Hoid took really good care not to be found by Odium, so he IS afraid to confront him, so why confront Odium at that point? What have Hoid to gain to make him take that risk? 

[Ixthos]

I think the one things that would make sense is that, as the memories destroyed were recent, damaging them wouldn't constitute harm to Hoid, as those memories hadn't yet become a part of who he is. Otherwise, taking all his memories, rewriting his personality, those would certainly be harm. It also is possible that, as Hoid is so tightly linked to his powers, his investiture automatically stores his memories, part of his mind being in them, and Odium could feel which parts were recent memories and which ones were locked in.

[Vissy]

What I wonder is why would Wit give any different of an answer if he'd only lost his short-term memories? Someone like him would have planned for an eventuality like that well in advance, right? 

[Chinkoln]

On 12/15/2020 at 2:58 PM, Lightning said:

.

This would have been what I thought was the only possibility because how could messing with someone's memories not be considered harming them?

.  Still, Hoid doesn't have enough breaths to have reached agelessness with them, only perfect pitch.

In this case, why didn't Taravangian turn Hoid into his own instrument?  Or destroy all the memories?

.  Is Hoid really dumb enough to expose that most essential aspect of himself to manipulation?

1. Messing with memories isn’t physical harm, which is what the contract forbids.

2. We don’t actually know how many breaths Hoid has, there was plenty of time for him to gain breaths off screen.

3. Taravangian can see the future. He probably knows what will help him the most in the long run.

4a. He may have thought that Rayse wouldn’t interfere with or notice his breaths, sadly for him Taravangian was now Odium.

4b. It was intentional. Taravangian now thinks he is in control, but Hoid had backup memories somewhere and he somehow predicted what had happened.

[NameIess]

Well, Taravangian couldn't see Hoid's memories:

Quote

Katelyn Gigante

After the epilogue, when Odium took Hoid's memories, did he gain them or just remove them?

Brandon Sanderson

He removed them, he did not gain them. He excised them, he performed a little surgery on the Breaths. You have seen this happen before in the books, though I will not give spoilers to another book. It happened on a different world.

YouTube Livestream 23 (Dec. 17, 2020)

And he did destroy some of Hoid's breaths:

Quote

Paulo Henrique

Did Odium destroy some of Wit's Breath, or did he mess with it in some other way?

Brandon Sanderson

What Odium did to Wit could be noticed. There is something missing there. It left an imprint, something noticeable, and he did actually remove and excise a little bit of Breath.

YouTube Livestream 23 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

[Leuthie]

From WOB, the only thing Taravangian did was remove the memory of the previous conversation where Wit figured out that Odium was no longer held by Rayse. He did this a bit clumsily, as Wit remembered several things that would provide evidence that memories were removed. Judging by the lack of perfect pitch at the end, Hoid was carrying just enough Breath to have perfect pitch. Brandon confirmed that TOdium didn't read any memories.

So it's just an interesting exchange between two of the most powerful entities in the Cosmere, one brand new and the other very very old.

[AquaRegia]

4 hours ago, Leuthie said:

From WOB, the only thing Taravangian did was remove the memory of the previous conversation where Wit figured out that Odium was no longer held by Rayse. He did this a bit clumsily, as Wit remembered several things that would provide evidence that memories were removed. Judging by the lack of perfect pitch at the end, Hoid was carrying just enough Breath to have perfect pitch. Brandon confirmed that TOdium didn't read any memories.

As far as I know, we have no way to tell how much Breath Hoid was holding at the time, other than it must have been at least enough for the 2nd Heightening.  It may have been much more.  The above WoBs show memories were removed and destroyed, not "stolen" or "read". 

This scene horrified me on first read... but Leuthie's comments give me a slim hope.  Todium didn't learn anything, except that Hoid was, in fact, on the Shattered Plains, and that he's still a wise ass.  I would LOVE to think Hoid had anticipated this possibility, planning ahead by holding JUST enough Breath to leave evidence if any - any at all - were removed.  Perhaps Hoid is crafty enough to use himself as bait in order to learn something about his "old friend's" state of mind.  The sooner Dalinar learns about Odium being under new management, the better... and this event just might be the first step towards that.

Even better: the whole build-up to the meeting was Hoid musing on the need for concealment, misdirection, and misrepresentation in telling stories.  Now I have hope that this very intentional meeting was designed purposely to hold Odium's attention in one place, while someone else did something important somewhere else - something that Hoid really doesn't want Odium to know about.

Edited January 7, 2021 by AquaRegia
another idea!

[Spaceater]

8 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

Even better: the whole build-up to the meeting was Hoid musing on the need for concealment, misdirection, and misrepresentation in telling stories.  Now I have hope that this very intentional meeting was designed purposely to hold Odium's attention in one place, while someone else did something important somewhere else - something that Hoid really doesn't want Odium to know about.

i really like this idea

[SecondPlace]

This scene bothered me a lot, and I was very confused about why Hoid would open himself up to Odiums attacks after being so careful before. But after reading this topic, I think that it may have been intentional, I agree with AquaRegia that he probably had just enough breaths to gain the second heightening to he would know if anything was changed, it would explain his rant about misdirection and why he decided to risk so much to talk to Odium.

[Djerf]

Intentional or not, planned or not, clever it stupid. I do not think that the alterning/reading/destruction of the memories stored in breath is counted as harm any more than a similar event done to my computer, it could be a sever loss of work but nothing more. 

[Sara Stormblessed]

First, @Lightning Could you please mark this thread as containing Warbreaker and Mistborn spoilers or put it in the title? There is a lot of information in here that is not from RoW or SA. 

 

On 1/6/2021 at 0:41 PM, Nameless said:

Well, Taravangian couldn't see Hoid's memories:

And he did destroy some of Hoid's breaths:

 

I just finished reading Warbreaker, and I really cannot understand these WoB. In Warbreaker, you cannot take breaths and memories from someone who is unwilling to give them. Even the one time we see Vasher alter someone's memory (the child), it requires the child to verbally agree to the exchange. How could Todd take Hoid's breath or memories without his consent? Also, there is very little in Warbreaker about memory being stored in breath, just two scenes. I dunno why Brian says, "He excised them, he performed a little surgery on the Breaths. You have seen this happen before in the books," as if it was a commonplace thing in another book. Nothing like this happened in Warbreaker, no breaths were surgically removed; they were always given with consent. Is Brian suggesting that Todd somehow knew all about biochroma and forced Hoid to give up his memories via that secret command that even the reader never knew?

 

On 12/15/2020 at 11:58 AM, Lightning said:

  It is possible, as some have speculated, that Hoid (partially) did this to himself (through feruchemy, and the missing coin).  But wouldn't that raise Taravangian's suspicion, if Taravangian didn't also manipulate those short-term memories?

Is there another thread where people are discussing the missing coin? If not for these WoB and the perfect pitch, I would have expected that the coin was a metalmind and that it is what Todd took, not breath.

 

@AquaRegia I like your theory, and I hope it is correct! If Cephandrius was in complete control, that would explain everything; he would have agreed to let Odium take his breath because that was the plan all along!

Edited January 18, 2021 by Sara Stormblessed

[+robardin]

On 1/6/2021 at 3:41 PM, Nameless said:

Well, Taravangian couldn't see Hoid's memories:

And he did destroy some of Hoid's breaths:

 

Right, that fits in with what I thought was implied when I first read it, which was not one of the three options in the OP: that Odium could read the memory contents of his Breath store, and could act to destroy them (that surprised me a bit) but not to "edit" them (to insert false memories) as we've seen another Shard do with another Investiture based memory storage technique. And Hoid had used enough Breath to store them that he wobbled a bit under the Second Heightening, or maybe just felt "unbalanced" wrt his Breath store, after the excision.

How destroying Hoid's Breath store doesn't fall under "harming" him is pretty questionable, and highlights one of the tremendous implications of having squidgy-dodgy semantics-threading Taravangian now be the holder of Odium's Shardic oaths and debts. Whatever else Rayse was, he appeared to have taken seriously the idea of holding to the spirit, not the letter of a promise.

And hey. Perhaps this was something he personally took on as an oath or a binding measure prior to Ascending, perhaps as part of whatever happened to Shatter Adonalsium, similar to how Hoid's inability to harm another person is tied to something he did back in those days as well? Something that doesn't apply to Taravangian.

[stonewalker16]

On 1/7/2021 at 1:00 PM, Truthless16 said:

This scene bothered me a lot, and I was very confused about why Hoid would open himself up to Odiums attacks after being so careful before. But after reading this topic, I think that it may have been intentional, I agree with AquaRegia that he probably had just enough breaths to gain the second heightening to he would know if anything was changed, it would explain his rant about misdirection and why he decided to risk so much to talk to Odium.

I don't think he would have thought that he was putting himself at risk. After all, he probably didn't think that Odium would know to remove his Breaths. I think TOdium just tried to remove the memories to cover up that Rayse was dead, because Dalnier, Hoid, and Jasnah were kind of discussing a trap for ROdium based on their knowledge of the Vessel. I think TOdium is crafty enough to notice this, and so was trying to make it seem like Rayse is still alive.

[Gilphon]

Oh, it clearly didn't occur to Hoid that Odium would be able to mess with his Breaths. Either he didn't know Odium could do that, or he thought it would count as harming him. 

What's really troubling to me is at the end, he doesn't say that he's lost perfect pitch. He's says that something's interfering with his perfect pitch. That makes it sound like Odium did more than just remove a few minutes worth of memories. But equally, surely he can't have done anything too dramatic, given that he couldn't do anything he considered harmful. 

[AquaRegia]

As several others have pointed out, Breath - the Investiture of Endowment - can only be given freely, not taken without consent.

I'm going to choose to believe that 1) Hoid set this meeting up on purpose for a really good reason, 2) he anticipated and planned for some of his Breath to be "stolen", and 3) he has the whole thing under control.  I freely admit that I may turn out to be wrong on all these counts.  But, for now, it sure is making me feel better! 

[StanLemon]

As with many in universe beliefs regarding the limits of magic systems, the belief that Breaths can't be forcibly taken may very well be wrong. I'm almost positive Hemalurgy could be used to take them for instance. Also, for a Shard it might be trivial to remove Breaths.

[Jack33210]

Been away from 17th shard for a few months, didn’t realize people were referring to Taravangian/Odium as Todd now. 
 

Hearing about the evil “Todd” harming Hoid in someway was confusing. Especially since I think of Todd Howard when I hear the name. 

[Leuthie]

On 1/21/2021 at 0:12 PM, Gilphon said:

Oh, it clearly didn't occur to Hoid that Odium would be able to mess with his Breaths. Either he didn't know Odium could do that, or he thought it would count as harming him. 

What's really troubling to me is at the end, he doesn't say that he's lost perfect pitch. He's says that something's interfering with his perfect pitch. That makes it sound like Odium did more than just remove a few minutes worth of memories. But equally, surely he can't have done anything too dramatic, given that he couldn't do anything he considered harmful. 

WOB has confirmed (more or less) that Odium didn't read any Breaths. Since he didn't identify Breaths by what memories they held, he must have excised Breaths based on another criteria. The only criteria that makes any sense is temporal. So Odium removed Breaths that held the last few minutes of Wit's memories to remove the conversation. That's it.

I suspect that perfect pitch doesn't just snap into place with the 200th Breath. At 200 Breaths, your pitch recognition and creation ability is perfected. Breaths prior to that improve those abilities. Wit is old enough and experienced enough to recognized his current level of pitch recognition. He can probably identify how many Breaths he's holding (up to and including 200) by how well he recognizes pitch. Hence his use of the word "interfering" instead of "lost".

Basically, the time after the final encounter is just meant to inform us that Wit is aware of the loss of memory without spelling it out.

[StanLemon]

19 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

I suspect that perfect pitch doesn't just snap into place with the 200th Breath. At 200 Breaths, your pitch recognition and creation ability is perfected. Breaths prior to that improve those abilities. Wit is old enough and experienced enough to recognized his current level of pitch recognition. He can probably identify how many Breaths he's holding (up to and including 200) by how well he recognizes pitch. Hence his use of the word "interfering" instead of "lost".

You're correct on the point of Heightenings. The number is only an average marker. You gain the abilities on a spectrum and the amount of Breaths marking the Heightenings is what is usually needed to be considered to fully have the abilities of that Heightening. Because Breaths have different levels of quality (such as a child's Breath being better than an aged person's) this actual number can vary

[Thaumium]

On 7/1/2021 at 2:05 AM, AquaRegia said:

This scene horrified me on first read... but Leuthie's comments give me a slim hope.  Todium didn't learn anything, except that Hoid was, in fact, on the Shattered Plains, and that he's still a wise ass.  I would LOVE to think Hoid had anticipated this possibility, planning ahead by holding JUST enough Breath to leave evidence if any - any at all - were removed.  Perhaps Hoid is crafty enough to use himself as bait in order to learn something about his "old friend's" state of mind.  The sooner Dalinar learns about Odium being under new management, the better... and this event just might be the first step towards that.

Even better: the whole build-up to the meeting was Hoid musing on the need for concealment, misdirection, and misrepresentation in telling stories.  Now I have hope that this very intentional meeting was designed purposely to hold Odium's attention in one place, while someone else did something important somewhere else - something that Hoid really doesn't want Odium to know about.

As much as I would like to believe that Hoid somehow planned this in advance, a part of me would be disappointed by that, as it seems obvious from the text that Hoid is expecting to be dealing with Rayse in that meeting and his false confidence is born from his deep knowledge of the character he is going to face. He would never expect Rayse to think of something smart as messing with his Breaths because, let's face the truth, Rayse was dumb and Hoid is well aware of that. 

At the end I think Brandon wants us to feel disturbed by what happens in the epilogue, and disturbed we feel. I wouldn't wish for anything better.

[TheSprengineer]

On 1/21/2021 at 9:43 PM, StanLemon said:

As with many in universe beliefs regarding the limits of magic systems, the belief that Breaths can't be forcibly taken may very well be wrong. I'm almost positive Hemalurgy could be used to take them for instance. Also, for a Shard it might be trivial to remove Breaths.

And new Shards are supposed to have a certain freedom, even if it results in them flailing and misplacing, maybe, a whole continent in the process. Perhaps the Intent still hadn’t blocked him entirely off from being able to do wild stuff yet, hence the clumsiness the WoB mentioned in Teravangian’s excising.

[Realmatic Shadow]

I feel something this whole thread is having a little trouble remembering is the reason that you can't forcefully remove someone's Breaths: Identity. The Identity the Breath is bound to restricts who can command it, but we have seen these Identity restrictions on Investiture be ignored by Shards previously, so I don't think it would be too far out of course for Todd to be able to destroy or remove those Breaths, regardless of the laws of BioChroma that stop people from stealing each others Breath.

An important distinction I would like to make is also that Todd didn't steal the Breaths, he excised them. I think it is more indicative of him corrupting and removing them, though his relative inexperience with his Shard's power meant that he was not able to do this without damaging the memories stored inside them.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Realmatic Shadow
Mistborn spoilers

[Frustration]

@Realmatic Shadow WoA spoilers