Understanding the epilogue

[Passion]

Having recently read the wob that odium didn’t get to change any of his memories only remove things and also where he confirmed that it can be figured out exactly what happened, I went back and reread every detail very carefully. Here is how I interpret what happened.

the scene opens up with the lines being exactly the same as before then he drops the coin and then the scene resumes with the lines being only  similar to before but not the exact wording. So far the major change HAS NOT happened yet. All the words he says exactly as before we’re untouched by Odium. He merely excised the memory of the encounter from just before he encountered hoid. Hoid comes back to himself and is flustered by the tampering with his memory and dropped the coin. He is back in the PRESENT and it is actually taking place. Odium takes a minute before making his appearance so that it would appear to hoid as if he’d just arrived. At this point the conversation resumes and Brandon clues us in to the fact that it really happens by all the things hoid says that have no  real change other than hoid uses different words to say the same thing (odium is basically word for word because he makes sure to be exact in everything but the one thing he wants to change so hoid has nothing else to notice)

now Brandon is absolutely right the only real change is obvious. The second go around odium changes his question so that he doesn’t tip off hoid that he doesn’t have a champion picked yet. He also cuts off hoid and yells(I think for distraction) about his champion and minions winning this time talking not about who ever he picks winning but about his champion(already been chosen) winning

this then is what he wants to hide: he doesn’t want hoid to know he doesn’t have plans yet for his champion because this is something hoid can exploit.

im pretty confident that there is no other way to read this.(until you all tell me why I’m wrong; of course;)

[Kyn]

18 hours ago, Passion said:

this then is what he wants to hide: he doesn’t want hoid to know he doesn’t have plans yet for his champion because this is something hoid can exploit.

Huh, I must be pretty slow. I had assumed it was only the personality change he was trying to hide – the fact that he wanted to know who Hoid would pick as champion, when Rayse wouldn’t have cared. I thought the rewording was an attempt to sound more like Rayse after resetting the scene in order to keep Hoid from wondering who he was (which means knowing the Vessel has changed).

However, it makes more sense that this is also an attempt to remove any hint of something Hoid could use.

[whattheHoid]

Ok so how I interpreted the epilogue is that T-Odium (Taravangian/Odium) was trying to hide that he wasn't in fact Rayse as the thoughtful ponderings/questions were very unlike Rayse's personality and we can presume that Hoid is very knowledgeable and aware of Rayse's personality and quirks. It seemed to me that Hoid was questioning and perhaps if given a moment longer would have realized that Odium had changed Vessel's. And perhaps Taravangian isn't quite ready for himself to be known yet? We do know he is a schemer, perhaps he has planned out this eventuality through the Diagram and further cemented his plans during his Ascension? 

 But I am a slow Hoid and it takes me a reread or two to get things. Either way neat interpretations!

 

[coolsnow7]

On 1/12/2021 at 0:25 AM, Passion said:

Having recently read the wob that odium didn’t get to change any of his memories only remove things and also where he confirmed that it can be figured out exactly what happened, I went back and reread every detail very carefully. Here is how I interpret what happened.

the scene opens up with the lines being exactly the same as before then he drops the coin and then the scene resumes with the lines being only  similar to before but not the exact wording. So far the major change HAS NOT happened yet. All the words he says exactly as before we’re untouched by Odium. He merely excised the memory of the encounter from just before he encountered hoid. Hoid comes back to himself and is flustered by the tampering with his memory and dropped the coin. He is back in the PRESENT and it is actually taking place. Odium takes a minute before making his appearance so that it would appear to hoid as if he’d just arrived. At this point the conversation resumes and Brandon clues us in to the fact that it really happens by all the things hoid says that have no  real change other than hoid uses different words to say the same thing (odium is basically word for word because he makes sure to be exact in everything but the one thing he wants to change so hoid has nothing else to notice)

now Brandon is absolutely right the only real change is obvious. The second go around odium changes his question so that he doesn’t tip off hoid that he doesn’t have a champion picked yet. He also cuts off hoid and yells(I think for distraction) about his champion and minions winning this time talking not about who ever he picks winning but about his champion(already been chosen) winning

this then is what he wants to hide: he doesn’t want hoid to know he doesn’t have plans yet for his champion because this is something hoid can exploit.

im pretty confident that there is no other way to read this.(until you all tell me why I’m wrong; of course;)

That’s a very interesting angle. It implies that if Hoid knew about TOdium’s strategy, he could take steps to prevent him from pulling it off.

I think you’re overemphasizing “doesn’t know”. TOdium might know who he wants his champion to be; he just doesn’t want Hoid to think it’s something he actually thought about. There’s some obvious champion that Rayse had in mind, and TOdium diverting from that choice is what he wants to hide.

This also fits the theme of Hoid’s monologue perfectly - this is the sleight of hand.

Tangentially it also supports the Gavinor theory. The Gavinor theory has its own strengths and weaknesses, but the fact that Hoid’s knowledge of the champion could derail TOdium’s plan is supports the possibility that it’s Gavinor. 

[hskeeter]

I think you are missing a key thing Hoid/Wit lost in the epilogue.  It is related to a WoB from the Stuttgart signing.  I suspect this is very important, even though in the RoW epilogue it might appear as a throw away line.  Hoid's worldhopping is important to his function in the cosmere.  I will let you find out the clues yourself, as I think that is the fun of these forums. 

[Leuthie]

9 hours ago, hskeeter said:

I think you are missing a key thing Hoid/Wit lost in the epilogue.  It is related to a WoB from the Stuttgart signing.  I suspect this is very important, even though in the RoW epilogue it might appear as a throw away line.  Hoid's worldhopping is important to his function in the cosmere.  I will let you find out the clues yourself, as I think that is the fun of these forums. 

Is it this:

Spoiler

• Questioner: Now that Hoid has bonded a spren, is he locked on Roshar?
  Brandon:Yes, that is a problem. Something will happen that is relevant. RAFO

 

[Bejarden]

11 hours ago, hskeeter said:

I think you are missing a key thing Hoid/Wit lost in the epilogue.  It is related to a WoB from the Stuttgart signing.  I suspect this is very important, even though in the RoW epilogue it might appear as a throw away line.  Hoid's worldhopping is important to his function in the cosmere.  I will let you find out the clues yourself, as I think that is the fun of these forums. 

Are you referring to Perfect Pitch?

This could mess with his storytelling but not much else

[hskeeter]

On 3/11/2021 at 4:56 PM, Leuthie said:

Is it this:

  Reveal hidden contents

• Questioner: Now that Hoid has bonded a spren, is he locked on Roshar?
  Brandon:Yes, that is a problem. Something will happen that is relevant. RAFO

 

Yep, that would be what I am talking about.  Good observation!  The question becomes is this on purpose from Wit's point of view or is it the cosemer putting Wit back on his path?

[Bejarden]

I think he is well aware of the restrictions Design makes him have

He just doesn’t care,  he wants to be on Roshar right now

He could end the bond/pass the bond at any moment 

So I don’t think this would hinder him to much

[hskeeter]

On 3/11/2021 at 6:42 PM, Bejardin1250 said:

Are you referring to Perfect Pitch?

This could mess with his storytelling but not much else

To me the perfect pitch is fairly straight forward, it is how you know breaths are gone.  We could debate the significance of that part for a long time, but it is just a small clue.  I figure Wit has a lot more breaths kept somewhere else.  Perfect pitch level is not very high and as old as Wit is I would suspect he has a lot of breaths at this point in time.  I figure the loss of breaths/memory is so Wit can recognize that Odium/Vessel has taken them and to let the reader know as well.  The question to me is more what is Wit up to by meeting with Odium?  There are clues, I am just not sure I have enough info and background on the cosmere to really dig deep.

Leuthie above has figured out my clue of important significance.  The question on this part being the major significance of the WoB information.  Wit/Hoid is a major player from the beginning of the cosmere, how does his world hopping play out for the Roshar story at this point? 

The "powers that be" does seem to care what Wit wants. The impression I get so far on why Wit travels is because "fate" wants him somewhere else to influence the bigger picture.  We have not gotten into the Spiritual Realm part of the cosmer very much, at least not from the Stormlight Archives standpoint.  

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by hskeeter

[Bejarden]

4 minutes ago, hskeeter said:

To me the perfect pitch is fairly straight forward, it is how you know breaths are gone.  We could debate the significance of that part for a long time, but it is just a small clue.  I figure Wit has a lot more breaths kept somewhere else.  Perfect pitch level is not very high and as old as Wit is I would suspect he has a lot of breaths at this point in time.  I figure the loss of breaths/memory is so Wit can recognize that Odium/Vessel has taken them and to let the reader know as well.  The question to me is more what is Wit up to by meeting with Odium?  There are clues, I am just not sure I have enough info and background on the cosmere to really dig deep.

Leuthie above has figured out my clue of important significance.  The question on this part being the major significance of the WoB information.  Wit/Hoid is a major player from the beginning of the cosmere, how does his world hopping play out for the Roshar story at this point?    

 

I didn’t think Perfect Pitch is important I was just fishing for your meaning 

Nor do I think his loss of Worldhopping is significant 

He can get it back at any time and he’s obviously very interested in Roshar right now so why would he leave?

If he thoughts things would be getting dangerous he would break the bond and hightail it out of there

[Emurii]

So, the epilogue made me extremely anxious, and sort of soured what had been an amazing book experience (but in a good way, I guess, in an "oh great now there is this huge cliffhanger that won't resolve for two years" kind of way). I agree that Mr. T's only *intended* goal is to cut out their recent interaction, because I don't think T understands who and wait Hoid is yet, but right before the Breath is erased we are told that Hoid is terrified of this happening, because a /lot/ of his memories are stored in Breath.

I'm not worried about him losing perfect pitch, he can get that back. But what did T delete along with the interaction? If you think about it like computer packages when you download or send a file, the data is all sort of hodgepodged into different packages (...is my understanding, pardon me if this is an incorrect analogy), and isn't necessarily related chronologically, etc. The fact that Hoid's spren is missing is supposed to clue us into the fact that something is /very/ wrong. 

So... I wouldn't get too comfy yet.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, Emurii said:

The fact that Hoid's spren is missing is supposed to clue us into the fact that something is /very/ wrong.

Isn't that just because he sent her away right before the conversation began, but because his memory of it was wiped, he didn't remember that he had?

[Emurii]

 

1 minute ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Isn't that just because he sent her away right before the conversation began, but because his memory of it was wiped, he didn't remember that he had?

I think I completely missed this, I checked back and you're right. Thanks for that, that makes me feel better, haha. We've been pretty clear that messing with the Nahel bond is physically painful, so I'm sure Hoid wouldn't miss this.

[Parzival]

I'm pretty sure his loss of perfect pitch is just a byproduct of Odium removing the breaths he used to store memories. I also thought Odium just wanted to hide from Hoid the fact that he was no longer Rayse because it is to his advantage if they still don't know he is Taravangian

[+Oltux72]

 

On 12.1.2021 at 6:25 AM, Passion said:

this then is what he wants to hide: he doesn’t want hoid to know he doesn’t have plans yet for his champion because this is something hoid can exploit.

im pretty confident that there is no other way to read this.(until you all tell me why I’m wrong; of course;)

The implication would be that Hoid could get Dalinar to choose another champion. As that does not look likely , I would say that Taravangian wants to hide that the shard has changed its holder because Taravangian can predict Hoid's action while he thinks that he is opposing a known holder, but only as long as that applies. Or, one more step of indirection, Taravangian hopes that Hoid will be forced to take a belated, hence inefficient step to react to the change of vessel.

The Diagramm showed that Taravangian was well aware of the influence of chance and prepared plans for multiple options and took actions that would be beneficial in most cases.

[Bejarden]

16 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

 

The implication would be that Hoid could get Dalinar to choose another champion. As that does not look likely , I would say that Taravangian wants to hide that the shard has changed its holder because Taravangian can predict Hoid's action while he thinks that he is opposing a known holder, but only as long as that applies. Or, one more step of indirection, Taravangian hopes that Hoid will be forced to take a belated, hence inefficient step to react to the change of vessel.

The Diagramm showed that Taravangian was well aware of the influence of chance and prepared plans for multiple options and took actions that would be beneficial in most cases.

I think he’s just doesn’t want Hoid to know because Rayse wasn’t smart

Taravangian can figure things out that Rayse never would, like the alleged loophole in the Champions Duel

Hoid actually realizes this and tries to get away but fails.

[apepi]

I was going through some WoBs and I found this:
 

Quote

PallonianFire

If a Shard were to heal the cracks in someone's spiritweb, like Sazed did with Spook, and that person who was getting healed has a Nahel bond, would that break the bond?

Brandon Sanderson

No, because the Nahel bond is already filling in those cracks, so you would have to rip it off to put something else in there.

PallonianFire

So it wouldn't really be-- the Shard wouldn't be able to heal--

Brandon Sanderson

Well, the Shard-- Like, here's the thing we have to get at with this, what we're getting at, which is the question of, for instance, is Kaladin's depression a flaw in him that needs to be healed? And that is a question for philosophers. There are certainly people, cosmere and outside the cosmere, that say "Yes, this needs to be healed" and things like this. But what about somebody who's-- say, someone who is autistic, and their mind just works in a different way, and this way allows a certain bond to happen that couldn't otherwise happen? Is that a flaw, or is that-- is it a bug or a feature, to speak in coding terms? Is what's up with Kaladin a bug or a feature? I know that my wife would probably get rid of her depression if she could, but it's also been fundamental in how she sees the world and who she is, would that change her into a different person? And things like this. So, I want you when you discuss this, to be very careful about treating mental illness as a flaw as opposed to an aspect of a human personality that allows certain different things to happen. Does that make sense? *applause*

PallonianFire

The way I was sort of thinking, was, could Odium say, "Oh, I'm just going to fix this" and then you can't Surgebind anymore?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, right, yeah. If he-- if there w-- that is possible, but it would be hard to do without the consent of the person, but that is possible… You can fix somebody in a way that they didn't want to be fixed, and it would ruin things.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

This mildly reminds me what happened to Hoid, but more to his investiture I guess.

[Emurii]

Someone just needs to ask Brandon how Odium is going around destroying breaths, because Investiture stemming from Endowment doesn't seem like it should be in Odium's power to straight up delete - I mean, in general I don't understand how a shard could just disinvest someone, unless it were their own power - because this is super confusing 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

25 minutes ago, Emurii said:

Someone just needs to ask Brandon how Odium is going around destroying breaths, because Investiture stemming from Endowment doesn't seem like it should be in Odium's power to straight up delete - I mean, in general I don't understand how a shard could just disinvest someone, unless it were their own power - because this is super confusing 

I mean, you can cut someone's arm off even if it's not your arm. 

[SpoonKnight]

I have a theory that Wit is not exactly that old. He even says that:

Quote

“The challenge,” he said, “is to make everyone believe you’ve lived a thousand lives. Make them feel the pain you have not felt, make them see the sights you have not seen, and make them know the truths that you have made up.”

I think when he is not acting he is sleeping/hibernating for hundreds/thousands of years somewhere to accumulate Luck. Maybe he is a feruchemist.

He does not need the breaths to store his extra memories. Because he does not have extra memories. He was just pretending.

[Bejarden]

Ya I’m pretty sure there’s a WoB about Hoid not living all the years of his life. There’s some time dialattion going on there.

But he is in white sand and Elantris which were thousands of years prior to SA I believe

WoB:

How old is Hoid? Or better yet (to avoid any trickiness), how many years has he lived through?

Brandon Sanderson

He's been alive since Dragonsteel. However, he may not have spent all of that time awake and alert.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Bejardin1250
To add WoB

[Emurii]

7 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I mean, you can cut someone's arm off even if it's not your arm. 

Yes, but Investiture is not physical matter. It can't be directly destroyed, and when it's co-opted, we see red show up. If Odium could just run around zapping out everyone's Investiture, this battle would be pretty easy. 

I googled again and there's a great thread here rehashing all of this. Tl:dr; most likely explanation is that the breaths were stored in a physical object (one of the coins? It felt like he didn't have both anymore) and that object was taken. 

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/93219-hoidodium/

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, SpoonKnight said:

I have a theory that Wit is not exactly that old. He even says that:

He's around 10,000 years old.

6 hours ago, SpoonKnight said:

I think when he is not acting he is sleeping/hibernating for hundreds/thousands of years somewhere to accumulate Luck. Maybe he is a feruchemist.

He does not need the breaths to store his extra memories. Because he does not have extra memories. He was just pretending.

He probbly is a feruchemist, and Fortune is unlikly to be luck.

Odium could tell there where memories there.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

6 hours ago, Emurii said:

Yes, but Investiture is not physical matter. It can't be directly destroyed, and when it's co-opted, we see red show up. If Odium could just run around zapping out everyone's Investiture, this battle would be pretty easy. 

It's mentioned that Odium, via various agreements, isn't able to directly act much on most people. The agreement protecting Hoid appears to be a different agreement, which I guess allows for the wording to be looser and allow more loopholes than the protections for everyone else?