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Hey, it's another Cultivation Post


mdross81

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I know there are already a couple of threads discussing Cultivation's scheming and motives, but indulge me as a run through some observations, questions, and a theory.

Shattering to the Expulsion

I think Cultivation's story is, while sparse, largely agreed upon up until the arrival of humans on Roshar. Koravellium Avast takes up the Shard, moves to Roshar with Tanavast, with whom she's romantically involved, and per WoB the two of them invest equally in the planet. At some unspecified later time, Rayse shows up in the system, tempts the humans on Ashyn to experiment with the Surges. Said experimentation (and Dawnshards) result in Ashyn being destroyed, and the humans needing a new home. Honor and Cultivation take them in on Roshar, giving them Shinovar, which was likely transformed so that it would be habitable for the humans. Odium follows the humans to Roshar and is likely involved in sparking conflict between humans and the singers bringing on the Desolations.

Desolations & Conflict with Odium

So now we've got the conflict between the humans and the singers and the conflict between Odium and Honor. Here's a rundown of what we know to be Cultivation's contributions in these battles:

  • Odium is sealed in the Rosharan system by the powers of Honor and Cultivation
  • Cultivation works with Honor to create the Sibling and Urithiru (Raboniel says the Sibling was created to fight Odium)
  • Presumably Cultivation allowed the Nightwatcher to be bonded as a Bondsmith spren
  • Cultivation was (possibly) involved in creating the intelligent spren that would later be capable of forming Nahel bonds (there's one WoB mentioning that they may have been 'cultivated')

That's the full extent of what we know, I think. The Heralds and the Oathpact: that's all Honor's doing. Honor loved mankind and died defending them. But what about Cultivation? Raboniel at one point calls her a god of creatures, not people. And Wyndle is of the belief that once Tanavast died, Cultivation gave up on mankind.

Then there's the fact that, in all of the visions left behind by Honor that we've seen, Honor never once suggests that humans might seek out Cultivation for help. Doesn't that seem weird? I mean, there's another living Shard on Roshar, but Honor doesn't suggest that she may be of help. I suppose there are several possible explanations for this. It could be that he was not sure that she would still be alive. It could be that he was trying to protect her. But I think it most likely that he did not think humans would find a receptive audience in Cultivation.

After Tanavast's Death

Fast forward thousands of years and we get the first hint that Cultivation is taking an interest again. She meets with Dalinar, the first time in centuries that she's come to speak personally with someone seeking the Old Magic. She takes an interest largely because of the attention that Odium is paying to Dalinar, and she gives him a pruning. We know that thereafter she also meets with and tweaks Taravangian and Lift. With the former, she claims to have been grooming him to potentially take up the Shard of Odium and wield it with Honor. With Lift we don't know what her motives are, although the Stormfather thinks she's been given the ability to metabolize food in Investiture specifically to frustrate him. Both Wyndle and Sja-anat express the view that Cultivation has been subtly using the tales of Old Magic to draw people to her as part of some long-term plan.

We also got two mentions of the threat Cultivation represents to Odium. The Stormfather notes, after Odium invades the vision Dalinar used to speak with Venli, that Odium could have splintered him as he tried to hold Odium back. The Stormfather says that the only reason he didn't was because he feared exposing himself to an attack from Cultivation. Then, in RoW, responding to Dalinar's question about what happens if Odium breaks their contract, Rayse responds:

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Then the contract is void, and I am in your power. Same, but reversed, if you break the contract. You would be in my power, and the restrictions Honor placed upon me – chaining me to the Rosharan system and preventing me from using my powers on most individuals – would be void. But that is not going to happen, and I am not going to break my word. Because if did, it would create a hole in my soul – which would let Cultivation kill me.

So, with all of that as background, I have...

Questions

  1. Did Cultivation truly support accepting the human refugees from Ashyn? The main evidence we have for this is in the Eila Stele, which is ancient and which some have suggested may be Odium propaganda.
  2. Do you think Cultivation was more involved than we know in either the battle between Honor and Odium or the battle between humans and singers? If not, why? Was there some agreement that it would be a one-on-one contest? (that sounds like something Honor would do)
  3. Why didn't Tanavast suggest that the humans seek out help from Cultivation?
  4. What's up with the Nightwatcher serving as a Bondsmith spren? We know she was one because the Stormfather tells Dalinar that in the past his Bondsmith and the Nightwatcher's sometimes had relationships. But Wyndle says that "Cultivation created her to be apart, separated from mankind, un-Connected." That doesn't sound like a spren she would allow to bond a human.
  5. Why would Odium trying to splinter the Stormfather have created an opportunity for Cultivation to strike at him? Is this one of those hole-in-the-soul situations where Odium would be breaking some agreement he had made? Or is it just that trying to splinter the Strormfather would take a significant amount of time and focus during which Odium would be vulnerable to an attack?

Crackpot Theory

Cultivation is a villain. Ok, so the theory itself isn't so crackpot. It's more that the couple of lines I found that made me think she might be are probably reaching.

First, in WoK, Chapter 67, just before Kaladin does his super-awesome hero stuff, he thinks:

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Was there no hope for men? They killed those they should have loved. What good was it to fight, what good was it to win, if there was no difference between ally and enemy? What was victory? Meaningless. What did the deaths of Kaladin’s friends and colleagues mean? Nothing. The entire world was a pustule, sickeningly green and infested with corruption.

Something about the description of the world as sickeningly green and corrupted, makes me feel like Cultivation herself has been corrupted somehow.

The second is more jokey, but would be hilariously on the nose if Cultivation does turn out to be villainous. In OB, Chapter 21, Adolin and Shallan have the following exchange:

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“So … wait. You could survive all kinds of nasty murder, but you still…”

“Get menstrual cramps?” Shallan said “Yeah. Mother Cultivation can be hateful. I’m an all-powerful, Shardblade-wielding pseudo-immortal, but nature still sends a friendly reminder every now and then to tell me I should be getting around to having children.”

Interested in others' thoughts and theories.

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16 minutes ago, mdross81 said:

Cultivation was (possibly) involved in creating the intelligent spren that would later be capable of forming Nahel bonds (there's one WoB mentioning that they may have been 'cultivated')

If Cultivation wasn't involved in creating cultivationspren there's a problem^^

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That's the full extent of what we know, I think. The Heralds and the Oathpact: that's all Honor's doing. Honor loved mankind and died defending them. But what about Cultivation? Raboniel at one point calls her a god of creatures, not people. And Wyndle is of the belief that once Tanavast died, Cultivation gave up on mankind.

Cultivation is very good at making people belive she doesn't care. Though she does seem to protect Listener more directly than humans

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But I think it most likely that he did not think humans would find a receptive audience in Cultivation.

Or he knew she would never stop helping from the shadows and didn't need anyone asking her. Also it allowed Cultivation to fake that she wasn't acting at all which is very usefull when you work the way Cultivation does

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Why would Odium trying to splinter the Stormfather have created an opportunity for Cultivation to strike at him? Is this one of those hole-in-the-soul situations where Odium would be breaking some agreement he had made? Or is it just that trying to splinter the Strormfather would take a significant amount of time and focus during which Odium would be vulnerable to an attack?

Probably the latter, I doubt he splintered Dom, Dev and Amb by using the hole-in-the-soul thing

26 minutes ago, mdross81 said:

Cultivation is a villain. Ok, so the theory itself isn't so crackpot. It's more that the couple of lines I found that made me think she might be are probably reaching.

That's not a crackpot at all, literally half of the Shard believes it :D

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Something about the description of the world as sickeningly green and corrupted, makes me feel like Cultivation herself has been corrupted somehow.

The world can be corrupted without Cultivation being currupted :)

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9 minutes ago, mathiau said:

 I doubt he splintered Dom, Dev and Amb by using the hole-in-the-soul thing

...

The world can be corrupted without Cultivation being currupted :)

I’m not so sure that the hole-in-the-soul wasn’t what gave Odium an opening to kill Devotion and Dominion. We know that some of the Shards took the agreement that shards shouldn’t cohabitate more seriously than others. Possibly to the point of creating a binding agreement, the violation of which would put them at risk.

And in most circumstances I would agree that the world can be corrupted without an invested Shard being so. But Honor and Cultivation do seem uniquely tied to the very nature of Roshar.

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1 minute ago, mdross81 said:

I’m not so sure that the hole-in-the-soul wasn’t what gave Odium an opening to kill Devotion and Dominion. We know that some of the Shards took the agreement that shards shouldn’t cohabitate more seriously than others. Possibly to the point of creating a binding agreement, the violation of which would put them at risk.

That is exactly what I was saying actually :)

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And in most circumstances I would agree that the world can be corrupted without an invested Shard being so. But Honor and Cultivation do seem uniquely tied to the very nature of Roshar.

Roshar can easily have been corrupted by Odium

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On 3/4/2021 at 6:55 PM, mdross81 said:
  • Odium is sealed in the Rosharan system by the powers of Honor and Cultivation

My small theory on this, is what ever is binding Odium, is also binding Cultivation. Which is why spren can not leave the Rosharan system.

And maybe Cultivation wants out of this deal, to be able to go to more systems. Her lover died, she was fine with staying only on the planet while he was alive, but with him dead she is grieving. She also has been on this planet for a long time, and feels that she has cultivated it enough, there are other gardens she can grow elsewhere.

This is why she wants out, this is why she put Taravangian in place of Rayse, she didn't think he could win. And if he didn't win then she can't get out because she is also defined by the same thing that keeps him there. I don't think she is evil, she is just in a bad position and wants out of it.

Edited by apepi
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59 minutes ago, mathiau said:

That part is not unique to Roshar, sprens and CSs are also trapped in the Scadrial system

But perhaps if Cultivation was free to move to other systems, the spren's Connection to her would be strong enough to let them move to those worlds' CRs and become Connected to those planets, with time, and... cultivation. ;)

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2 minutes ago, apepi said:

I don't remember there being spren in Scadrial? Was something in the secret history that I missed?

There are probably none (technically there's Kel's seon but they don't really count) but they would be trapped, there are basically no differences between a CS and a spren

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4 minutes ago, mathiau said:

There are probably none (technically there's Kel's seon but they don't really count) but they would be trapped, there are basically no differences between a CS and a spren

I don't think they are the same, a spren is a piece of investiture that materializes based on a cognitive beings thinking about them(not the best description). And a cognitive shadow is someone who...uses investiture to fill in parts of their's soul with the bits normally they need to exist without a normal body...or something like that(I am not the best describer....).

While it might be possible for a spren to be a cognitive shadow, not all spren are cognitive shadows.

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7 hours ago, apepi said:

I don't think they are the same, a spren is a piece of investiture that materializes based on a cognitive beings thinking about them(not the best description). And a cognitive shadow is someone who...uses investiture to fill in parts of their's soul with the bits normally they need to exist without a normal body...or something like that(I am not the best describer....).

While it might be possible for a spren to be a cognitive shadow, not all spren are cognitive shadows.

they are functionally the same.

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16 hours ago, apepi said:

I don't think they are the same, a spren is a piece of investiture that materializes based on a cognitive beings thinking about them(not the best description). And a cognitive shadow is someone who...uses investiture to fill in parts of their's soul with the bits normally they need to exist without a normal body...or something like that(I am not the best describer....).

While it might be possible for a spren to be a cognitive shadow, not all spren are cognitive shadows.

Too different way to obtain the same thing: a mind and soul without a body

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3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Not really even for Scandrian CS they function almost identically to Spren, Kelsier could even bond someone.

Their similar, but not the same. Like, we haven't seen a spren go insane for 'living' for a long time.

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13 minutes ago, apepi said:

Their similar, but not the same. Like, we haven't seen a spren go insane for 'living' for a long time.

We don’t know if CS do that either the Heralds might be a special case because of the Oathpact and millennial of torture 

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3 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

We don’t know if CS do that either the Heralds might be a special case because of the Oathpact and millennial of torture 

We have seen it with the fused as well, it is possible these effects could be just the war, but I disagree. Raboniel talked about it, the reason she brought her daughter to being a Fused was to test to see if family that are also Fused could keep each other sane. To me it seems to read that she was talking about the side effects of becoming a cognitive shadow, not of fighting in war.

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I think that’s the constant Returning

if a spren was constantly being killed it would probably also go insane

Like something that has been reused to many times

3 minutes ago, apepi said:

We have seen it with the fused as well, it is possible these effects could be just the war, but I disagree. Raboniel talked about it, the reason she brought her daughter to being a Fused was to test to see if family that are also Fused could keep each other sane. To me it seems to read that she was talking about the side effects of becoming a cognitive shadow, not of fighting in war.

I think she started working with Essu after she went insane not before

It was a last ditch attempt of getting her daughter back

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54 minutes ago, apepi said:

Their similar, but not the same. Like, we haven't seen a spren go insane for 'living' for a long time.

We also have never seen a CS become insane just from living a long time

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11 minutes ago, mathiau said:

We also have never seen a CS become insane just from living a long time

Just to add something...

We have also never seen a CS that lived along time that wasn’t crazy, right?

All the old ones are exceptions and the normal Fused are going to go crazy soon enough 

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2 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Yeah but they are also slowly losing their humanity 

slowly becoming spren and all that having a single minded purpose

I don’t know if that is good for this theory or bad...

With how humans the Sprens have proven to be, I wouldn't give much mind to Vasher saying CSs become more spren-like

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13 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

I think that’s the constant Returning

if a spren was constantly being killed it would probably also go insane

Like something that has been reused to many times

I think she started working with Essu after she went insane not before

It was a last ditch attempt of getting her daughter back

That is not how I read it:
 

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That was another hypothesis of mine that was disproven. Long ago. The thought that a mother and daughter, serving together, might help one another retain their sanity.

To me, it seems like her daughter was made a Fused because of Raboniel, to test to see if a cognitive shadow would not go crazy.

There is another cognitive shadow that we are forgetting, Returned. But I don't know if they really live long enough to see those effects. Vasher doesn't seem like he is suffering from it, but he might have solved it or something?

But lets look a closer look on the Returned...they basically live in their small mansions, not really doing anything, having to really care about anything. Free of stress.

Maybe the Returned are saner because of this? What if it has to do with a cognitive shadow's 'soul' having to deal with a lot of stress of effect like things? Maybe they(insane cognitive shadows) are like the Heod, but instead of their physical connection being messed up(their bodies can't heal and etc) it messes with their cognitive one? Their souls for some reason can not heal the pain being inflicted upon it. It is why the Returned are living in such lavish places, they might go crazy if they did otherwise, it is why Vasher isn't fighting anymore.

And maybe Investiture can help their souls or something? The Heralds being tied to Honor are starting to go crazy because they no longer have their direct source to Honor, it is why a Returned have to get a breath each week. And it explains when Taln regained his sanity for a little during the Battle of Thaylen.



Although this doesn't explain the Fused going crazy, you think they would have investiture to heal their souls being with Odium, but it might not be that simple.

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6 minutes ago, apepi said:

That is not how I read it:
 

To me, it seems like her daughter was made a Fused because of Raboniel, to test to see if a cognitive shadow would not go crazy.

I think that she was starting to go insane, and Raboniel was trying to stop it to be far more likely

7 minutes ago, apepi said:

There is another cognitive shadow that we are forgetting, Returned. But I don't know if they really live long enough to see those effects. Vasher doesn't seem like he is suffering from it, but he might have solved it or something?

The Stormfather is a shadow as well, and he's been around since before the Shattering. But he is a spren too, so he's weird

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