Madness not precipitated by BAM

[Crucible of Shards]

So we all know that the heralds have a unique madness that is most likely linked to their divine attributes and how people perceive them. I’ve seen several threads theorizing that the capturing of Ba-Ado-Mishram is what caused their madness, but if you remember what Ishar said in his brief moment of clarity to Dalinar, he says that their madness retreats when they are around Radiants that swear ideals or when they are near the Spiritual Realm.

Now I’m not trying to pinpoint when their madness started, although Kalak’s epigraphs hint that it could be a result of their enormously long life. What I am trying to say is that if their madness retreats when around Radiants getting upgrades, and if the only Radiants left after the Recreance are the Skybreakers playing Radiant whack-a-mole, I wonder how many opportunities the Heralds would actually have after the Recreance to experience an Oathed-up moment of clarity. I think it is most likely true that they were quite mad before the Recreance and that they already knew what sort of experienced brought clarity.

 

So ya, there you go.

[Draigwyrdd]

I think it's a bit of both. There's some level of suggestion that the Heralds simply just don't know the workarounds necessary to be alive for thousands of years and remain sane. We know that one way Hoid stores his memories, for example, is in his BioChromatic Breaths - he probably keeps them "in" himself and in the various weird things he gives certain people (e.g. the flute, which has to be important for some reason). It's possible while Honor was still around he made it so the Heralds didn't need to do that kind of thing, and in the ~4000 or so years since his death, they've gone totally off the rails.

Although I think it's multiple things affecting them. There's the trauma of fighting, dying, and being reborn only to do it all over again, along with their long, long lives and lack of "memory storage", and BAM may have something to do with it.

[NotYourBuddy]

Could the death and splintering of honor have a part in their magical madness?

[Part of the One]

8 hours ago, NotYourBuddy said:

Could the death and splintering of honor have a part in their magical madness?

I definitely think that the splintering of Honor, the weakening of the Oathpact, and the Heralds' madness is all related. My theory is that the Heralds betraying the spirit of their oath (though not tge letter of it) led to the splintering of Honor, but the events could have been in reverse too where Honor's death weakened the pact and done something to their minds.

[apepi]

I believe that cognitive shadows have a hard time staying sane/true to their nature due what happens to their...spirit(?).

We have seen this happen to other beings besides just heralds, with the fused(Rabionel talks about the reason making her daughter fused was to see if it helps those have those close to them be more sane), and we have seen it somewhat happen to vessels, with the shard slowly morphing someone into that shards intent. Rashek also seemed to go more insane/unhinged after living for a long time.

I am not sure that we have seen it with the Returned, I don't remember any of that, and Vasher seems fine. Hoid has lived a long time, though we don't know if he is a cognitive shadow like the others. Nut it seems to me that their is some key to figuring ti out, though for some reason I feel like Vasher seems to know about the key to figuring it out(it might have been hinted in RoW?).

I think it has to do with the intent of the investiture that made them a cognitive shadow. Maybe Honor dying caused the Heralds to have the effects that they have. Maybe like a sort of withdrawal from his investiture, it caused them to rubber band and now they shot too far and the effects kind of make them want to do the opposite of what they were doing before? Just my take.

[apepi]

On 2/20/2021 at 6:02 PM, Part of the One said:

I definitely think that the splintering of Honor, the weakening of the Oathpact, and the Heralds' madness is all related. My theory is that the Heralds betraying the spirit of their oath (though not tge letter of it) led to the splintering of Honor, but the events could have been in reverse too where Honor's death weakened the pact and done something to their minds.

The real question might be if Talenel has the same illness as the other heralds, or he is just effected by the torture that he went through?

[mathiau]

1 minute ago, apepi said:

The real question might be if Talenel has the same illness as the other heralds, or he is just effected by the torture that he went through?

He was more sane at the moment Dalinar swore his third Oath