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Question about Jezrien


mdross81

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2 hours ago, Ba-Ado-Fisherman said:

I'm also guessing that El was punished and had his Rhythms taken from him precisely because he used anti-investiture against Rayse's will.  

In addition to what Kingsdaughter said, we're told by El himself why his Rhythms and title were taken in the chapter 99 epigraph.

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I had my title and my rhythms stripped from me for daring insist they should not be killed, but should instead be reconditioned. Repurposed.

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2 hours ago, Ba-Ado-Fisherman said:

I'm almost certain that some Fused, such as El, knew exactly how to create it, seeing as he had a dagger to kill the Pursuer (Defeated).

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

El knew because Raboniel sent a copy of their studies to Kholinar.

@Kingsdaughter613 is correct.  The text (ch. 116) strongly supports the position that El is using Anti-Voidlight for the very first time, and The Pursuer Defeated One is the very first test subject:

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".. you were the sole appropriate subject."

"Subject for what?"

"Oh, to see if this really works."

Neither Raboniel nor El were aware of the existence of Anti-Investiture before the event of RoW.  We have no way of knowing yet how Gavilar came in possession of both Voidlight and Anti-Voidlight, but it seems clear to me that it WASN'T from the Fused.

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19 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

@Kingsdaughter613 is correct.  The text (ch. 116) strongly supports the position that El is using Anti-Voidlight for the very first time, and The Pursuer Defeated One is the very first test subject:

Neither Raboniel nor El were aware of the existence of Anti-Investiture before the event of RoW.  We have no way of knowing yet how Gavilar came in possession of both Voidlight and Anti-Voidlight, but it seems clear to me that it WASN'T from the Fused.

Ok, I stand corrected.

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  • 8 months later...

Pardon the necro of my old post, but I wanted to pose a couple of questions that are directly related.

In his journal, Kalak says that:

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I felt it happen to Jezrien. You think you captured him, but our god is Splintered, our Oathpact severed. He faded over the weeks, and is gone now. Beyond your touch at long last.

Kalak also says:

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The bond is what keeps us alive. You sever that, and we will slowly decompose into ordinary souls—with no valid Connection to the Physical or Spiritual Realms. Capture one of us with your knives, and you won’t be left with a spren in a jar, foolish ones. You’ll be left with a being that eventually fades away into the Beyond.

He seems to suggest two different factors that played a role in Jezrien being left without a valid connection to the Spiritual Realm. 1: Honor being Splintered; and 2: the Oathpact severed.

But he says that BAM would remain indefinitely imprisoned. As others have pointed out earlier in this thread, an Unmade, as a spren essentially made of Investiture is a different type of being than a cognitive shadow, and I get why BAM would retain a connection to the Spiritual. Plus spren don’t really die except for anti-Light.

But what about a Fused? At another point in RoW, Raboniel seems to suggest that a Fused would also be trapped indefinitely if captured in a gem:

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“They imprisoned some of the Unmade in these, Leshwi,” Raboniel said. “How close do you think they are to discovering they could do the same for us? Can you imagine it? Forever imprisoned in a gemstone, locked away, able to think but unable to ever break free?”

A Fused trapped in a gem would, like Jezrien lack a valid connection to the Physical Realm. But I take it from Raboniel’s statement would retain a sufficient connection to the Spiritual. Is this simply because Odium remains whole but Honor was splintered? Or to put it another way, if Honor had still been whole when Jezrien was captured, would he have remained trapped instead of fading?

Alternatively, considering the other factor Kalak mentions, the severing of the Oathpact, suppose a situation where Honor is still splintered but Jezrien was rescued or escaped from the gem shortly after being captured. Setting aside for now the issue of how he would get a body, would his connection to the Oathpact still be severed? In other words, did something about either the Raysium dagger or the state of being entrapped in a gem irrevocably sever his connection to the Oathpact?

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1 hour ago, mdross81 said:

But what about a Fused? At another point in RoW, Raboniel seems to suggest that a Fused would also be trapped indefinitely if captured in a gem:

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“They imprisoned some of the Unmade in these, Leshwi,” Raboniel said. “How close do you think they are to discovering they could do the same for us? Can you imagine it? Forever imprisoned in a gemstone, locked away, able to think but unable to ever break free?”

A Fused trapped in a gem would, like Jezrien lack a valid connection to the Physical Realm. But I take it from Raboniel’s statement would retain a sufficient connection to the Spiritual.

I'm not sure how much the Fused actually do or don't understand about what was happening with Jezrien, especially the ordinary ones who aren't super involved in the sciencey stuff. So Raboniel might a.) not know that's why that happened, or b.) be fearmongering to push them to go with her plan. Or c.) it might actually be accurate and a Fused wouldn't die.

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1 hour ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I'm not sure how much the Fused actually do or don't understand about what was happening with Jezrien, especially the ordinary ones who aren't super involved in the sciencey stuff. So Raboniel might a.) not know that's why that happened, or b.) be fearmongering to push them to go with her plan. Or c.) it might actually be accurate and a Fused wouldn't die.

Fair enough. But for the moment, trust that Raboniel knows what she’s talking about and she is accurate. The only reason why the Fused would survive is because Odium is whole, right?

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18 minutes ago, mdross81 said:

Fair enough. But for the moment, trust that Raboniel knows what she’s talking about and she is accurate. The only reason why the Fused would survive is because Odium is whole, right?

Maybe? Depends on a few factors:

  • How the Heralds are immortal vs how the Fused are immortal. Don't know enough to speculate.
  • The nature of the Oathpact. The Heralds' souls are bound together and also out making a prison, somehow. This might leave them more stretched out or more entangled, in which case trying to trap Jezrien's soul might not have been a very clean move and might've ripped off and/or left behind bits tied to the rest.
  • What happens when the raysium does what it does. Raboniel seems to think the humans will work out a method more similar to how Nergaoul was trapped (though she doesn't really seem to know how she thinks a Fused will be trapped that way, which does make me think she's more exploiting others' fears than making a real argument), which may be less invasive than ripping a soul out of a body through a small knife.
    • Also, the blackened wound + black smoke may indicate that the raysium caused damage and leaked out bits of soul, which probably is unhealthy.

Additionally there's the fact that part of what Kalak attributes as a cause is the Oathpact being severed, but Jezrien's death itself is what severed it, so Kalak might not quite know the mechanics at play here as much as he acts like he does (which does make sense, as he hasn't really had a shot to play around with these things much).

I'm also not fully sure if I think Honor being Splintered even should affect them or not, because the fact the Stormfather can still pull through Stormlight constantly and the Sibling can still pull through Towerlight shows there's still plenty to draw on in the Spiritual Realm. Plus, the other Heralds haven't pulled a Returned and dropped dead over the past couple thousand years, so I'm inclined to think they're still getting their juice.

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10 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Maybe? Depends on a few factors:

  • How the Heralds are immortal vs how the Fused are immortal. Don't know enough to speculate.
  • The nature of the Oathpact. The Heralds' souls are bound together and also out making a prison, somehow. This might leave them more stretched out or more entangled, in which case trying to trap Jezrien's soul might not have been a very clean move and might've ripped off and/or left behind bits tied to the rest.
  • What happens when the raysium does what it does. Raboniel seems to think the humans will work out a method more similar to how Nergaoul was trapped (though she doesn't really seem to know how she thinks a Fused will be trapped that way, which does make me think she's more exploiting others' fears than making a real argument), which may be less invasive than ripping a soul out of a body through a small knife.
    • Also, the blackened wound + black smoke may indicate that the raysium caused damage and leaked out bits of soul, which probably is unhealthy.

Additionally there's the fact that part of what Kalak attributes as a cause is the Oathpact being severed, but Jezrien's death itself is what severed it, so Kalak might not quite know the mechanics at play here as much as he acts like he does (which does make sense, as he hasn't really had a shot to play around with these things much).

I'm also not fully sure if I think Honor being Splintered even should affect them or not, because the fact the Stormfather can still pull through Stormlight constantly and the Sibling can still pull through Towerlight shows there's still plenty to draw on in the Spiritual Realm. Plus, the other Heralds haven't pulled a Returned and dropped dead over the past couple thousand years, so I'm inclined to think they're still getting their juice.

Thanks for humoring me. I think you’re onto something in thinking that the natures of Herald and Fused immortality may be different in some significant way. 

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The way I see it, Jezrien's oathpact-fueled immortality was destroyed because the oathpact was designed to send him to Braize upon physical death. He died, but he was immediately drawn into a gemstone -- thus the oathpact could not serve its usual function and his link to the oathpact was severed. This is what the heralds felt immediately after he died; it was akin to an if->then statement in a computer program that calls for a variable that can no longer be accessed, thus breaking the program.

I think the jury's still out on whether something similar would happen to the Fused, who also return to Braise upon physical death. Raboniel thinks that they would be simply captured, but that was her conjecture regarding the heralds (which was proven false). I think their respawning mechanic has a bit more leeway (as evidenced by the expedited resurrection of The Defeated One), and the fact that (as @mdross81 mentioned) Odium is "whole" and has a living vessel could definitely explain that. To bring back the programming metaphor, unlike the Oathpact, Odium has a programmer (the vessel) sitting at the computer, ready to debug any errors thrown up by the program (such as "unable to find [insert fused]") and alter the connection to keep the fused alive rather than just let the connection be severed.

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2 hours ago, Olmund said:

The way I see it, Jezrien's oathpact-fueled immortality was destroyed because the oathpact was designed to send him to Braize upon physical death. He died, but he was immediately drawn into a gemstone -- thus the oathpact could not serve its usual function and his link to the oathpact was severed. This is what the heralds felt immediately after he died; it was akin to an if->then statement in a computer program that calls for a variable that can no longer be accessed, thus breaking the program.

I think the jury's still out on whether something similar would happen to the Fused, who also return to Braise upon physical death. Raboniel thinks that they would be simply captured, but that was her conjecture regarding the heralds (which was proven false). I think their respawning mechanic has a bit more leeway (as evidenced by the expedited resurrection of The Defeated One), and the fact that (as @mdross81 mentioned) Odium is "whole" and has a living vessel could definitely explain that. To bring back the programming metaphor, unlike the Oathpact, Odium has a programmer (the vessel) sitting at the computer, ready to debug any errors thrown up by the program (such as "unable to find [insert fused]") and alter the connection to keep the fused alive rather than just let the connection be severed.

This is a pretty logical explanation that I could totally see being correct.

Your idea also highlights the differences between how Ishar/Honor set up transportation between Braize and Roshar in the Oathpact (basically automatic upon certain conditions: death = soul returned to Braize; break from torture = return to Roshar with a battle-ready body) and how Odium set things up with the Fused (at least pre-Everstorm), where it's fairly heavily implied that Odium was personally involved in returning each Fused.

Very on brand for Honor to have rigid, fixed approach that maybe lacks the flexibility one might want to have to adjust to changing circumstances. And similarly on brand for Odium to have his mechanism give him all the control. Note how, even though the Everstorm was necessary to work around Taln, Rasye didn't necessarily seem happy about the fact that he could no longer control the mechanism by which the Fused Returned.

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