New enemy to Roshar?

[Mistcloak]

Ok so I was reading The Way of Kings again and I got really interested in the death rattles. A ton of mention a lack of light and enemies that burn with fire. Also in Dalinars last vision Honor mentions the Night of Sorrows. At first I thought these were just metaphors for the Voidbringers and the Everstorm and so on but the sheer amount of death rattled that mention this caught my attention. We have not seen any mass darkness or burning Voidbringers. I got a lot of this info from Lost in Discovery on YouTube particularly this video.

This got me thinking. Could there be a new enemy to Roshar. Is it possible for another Shard to be interested in taking it over? We know that there is a Shard who is behind the scenes at Scadrial who uses minions with corrupted investiture. Trell. We don’t know for sure yet which Shard it is yet but I’m pretty sure is Autonomy. She seems to be pretty interested in Scadrial right now. I also seem to remember Hoid talking about how a lot more Shards would be interested in Roshar once they knew about Surgebinding. 

As for the Night of Sorrows we know that there will be a lack of light throughout the land from the death rattles. Hmm what could be that light they are talking about? Well obviously Stomlight Lifelight and Towelight. Or maybe only Honors Investiture will be gone and only the Bondsmiths and Lift will be able to Surgebind. We know that Lift will have a very important role in the future because of her gift but we don’t know yet. Is it possible for Autonomy to come to Roshar with burning creatures and also with that somehow block the Investiture from the Knights Radiant? 
 

Please let me know your thoughts on this 

[Lunu’anaki]

We have not seen the Fused' version of dustbringers yet and the surge of division is heavily associated with fire. If I had to put my money on those flaming people being off-worlders or fused... it would be on the fused.

That's not to discount this theory by any means... because I think there are a lot of things that point toward more shards coming to/interfering with Roshar eventually, as you've suggested. There just might be more threads to tug at and I like where you're going with the "dying light" business. 

[Weltall]

I wouldn't expect Autonomy to come messing with Roshar any time soon, she seems pretty busy right now trying to meddle on Scadrial and we know that's happening during the timeskip before the back half of SA. Also, at least some of the Death Rattle references to burning seem (post-Oathbringer) to be from the perspective of the humans who were the original 'Voidbringers' so talk about burning is likely a reference to Ashyn which Khriss even calls 'the burning planet'. It's possible that this one:

Quote

"They are aflame. They burn. They bring the darkness when they come, and so all you can see is that their skin is aflame. Burn, burn, burn…."

is also a metaphorical reference from a singer perspective to the humans bringing the darkness of Odium and the flames refer to their arrival from Ashyn. Or as Jasnah and Shallan discuss at the end of WoK, it was from a human perspective and referring metaphorically to the marbled skin of the singers.

I mean, the way things are shaping up now and with Brandon going from 'all of SA is intended to be (mostly) self-contained' to ''the back half of SA is going to open things up more' it's likely we'll see more interactions with the wider Cosmere in the back five (especially since I doubt T-Odium wants to wait six books to make with his grand plans to 'save' everyone) but I don't think that necessarily means these particular Rattles are foreshadowing that.

[Frustration]

8 hours ago, Weltall said:

I wouldn't expect Autonomy to come messing with Roshar any time soon, she seems pretty busy right now trying to meddle on Scadrial

unconfirmed

[Weltall]

57 minutes ago, Frustration said:

unconfirmed

Not officially but when you take the WoBs on Trell we know that it's a Shard we knew at a particular point in time and Harmony's letter in this book name-drops a number of Shards and makes it clear that whoever is interfering with Scadrial isn't one of the ones he's been talking about, and can't be Odium because that was the whole subject of the letter and it would have been the perfect evidence to use to get other Shards invested in Hoid's plea for help. Note how the one Shard he doesn't mention is Autonomy...

Edited June 29, 2021 by Weltall

[Frustration]

19 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Not officially but when you take the WoBs on Trell we know that it's a Shard we knew at a particular point in time and Harmony's letter in this book name-drops a number of Shards and makes it clear that whoever is interfering with Scadrial isn't one of the ones he's been talking about, and can't be Odium because that was the whole subject of the letter and it would have been the perfect evidence to use to get other Shards invested in Hoid's plea for help. Note how the one Shard he doesn't mention is Autonomy...

And yet "the men of Red and Gold" are related to Trell and increadibly important, Odium has plans to deal with Harmony, and so on give ample evidence to support Odium.

[Weltall]

Except that Rayse makes it clear that he currently can't dedicate much if any effort into meddling in other worlds (which is also explicitly why other Shards aren't willing to intervene) because getting the freedom to do so is one of the conditions he and Dalinar eventually agree to. Per Harmony, whichever Shard is messing around with Scadrial is doing it at the time he's writing the letter and all indications are that the letters are being written or received during the events of the book in which they appear. That would mean that Odium is meddling in another world at a time that he by his own admission can't do so as he'd like.

And like I said, Harmony is aware of Odium and the threat he poses. I'm pretty certain that since he believes that it's a Shard he doesn't know that is doing the interfering, it's not Odium; If he even thought that was a possibility that it was Odium's work there's no reason he wouldn't say so to the one guy who agrees with him that Odium is dangerous and the other Shards need to take the danger more seriously.

As for the "men of red and gold" there's no reason that he has to be referring to people from outside Scadrial. The southerners could easily fit the other criteria you omitted from that line (they're the bearers of harmonium, the final viable metal native to Scadrial) and with their technology they probably could dominate the rest of the planet as of the end of BoM if they really wanted to. The Set also has access to harmonium and their soldiers wear red so the line could refer to them, if they have some gold association we haven't seen yet

Edited June 29, 2021 by Weltall

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Weltall said:

Except that Rayse makes it clear that he currently can't dedicate much if any effort into meddling in other worlds (which is also explicitly why other Shards aren't willing to intervene) because getting the freedom to do so is one of the conditions he and Dalinar eventually agree to. Per Harmony, whichever Shard is messing around with Scadrial is doing it at the time he's writing the letter and all indications are that the letters are being written or received during the events of the book in which they appear.

And like I said, Harmony is aware of Odium and the threat he poses. I'm pretty certain that since he believes that it's a Shard he doesn't know that is doing the interfering, it's not Odium; If he even thought that was a possibility that it was Odium's work there's no reason he wouldn't say so to the one guy who agrees with him that Odium is dangerous and the other Shards need to take the danger more seriously.

As for the "men of red and gold" there's no reason that he has to be referring to people from outside Scadrial. The southerners could easily fit the other criteria you omitted from that line (they're the bearers of harmonium, the final viable metal native to Scadrial) and with their technology they probably could dominate the rest of the planet as of the end of BoM if they really wanted to. The Set also has access to harmonium and their soldiers wear red so the line could refer to them, if they have some gold association we haven't seen yet

Harmony not being able to tell doesn't tell us much, several factors are activly limiting his sight.

[+Oltux72]

Cultivation is a friend of Roshar, because she has to. She resides there. No other Shard is. Harmony and Hoid are forming a coalition against Odium, not for Roshar. They are trying to pull in other Shards. They are perfectly willing to fight Odium to way you control an epidemic in veterinary medicine. You deprive it of its hosts

I am sorry to formulate it that way, but I am afraid this shows a fundamental flaw in understanding the aims of Hoid and the Shards.

[Jondesu]

On 6/29/2021 at 1:59 AM, Oltux72 said:

Cultivation is a friend of Roshar, because she has to. She resides there. No other Shard is. Harmony and Hoid are forming a coalition against Odium, not for Roshar. They are trying to pull in other Shards. They are perfectly willing to fight Odium to way you control an epidemic in veterinary medicine. You deprive it of its hosts

I am sorry to formulate it that way, but I am afraid this shows a fundamental flaw in understanding the aims of Hoid and the Shards.

Yep, Hoid explicitly says at one point that he would let Roshar burn if needed to keep Odium contained.

I do wonder how much it any that changes with the change of Vessel.