Why didnt Ishar go to Urithiru?

[Toaster Retribution]

He seemed quite bummed when Dalinar and co settled there, and considers it his by right, according to the letter he sent Dalinar in Oathbringer. So why didn't he just move in there first? He should know its location from his Heralding days, and he should be aware of the Oathgate locations as well. Just have Nale unlock one for him and its done. Yet he sits around in Sesemalex Dar instead. Any thoughts on why he never claimed Urithiru?

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

He seemed quite bummed when Dalinar and co settled there, and considers it his by right, according to the letter he sent Dalinar in Oathbringer. So why didn't he just move in there first? He should know its location from his Heralding days, and he should be aware of the Oathgate locations as well. Just have Nale unlock one for him and its done. Yet he sits around in Sesemalex Dar instead. Any thoughts on why he never claimed Urithiru?

He probably also knew Sibling no longer had Tower Light, and it was nigh uninhabitable. He probably also knew Midnight Mother was settled there (and probably had no way to know she was rousted - but that was after Dalinar and co arrived).

By the time it was discovered, he was already happily making his little cult-kingdom and more focused on whatever experiemtns he is running on Spren. Since we can guess he needs his cult of humans to go to Shadesmar and capture spren for him, living alone in Urithiru wouldn't let him accomplish those goals; and I doubt he thought he could care for a cult in Urithiru without the Sibling. 

PS: He should have his own honorblade, based on his displays of surgebinding so he could unlock a gate on his own (if nale unlocked the Urithiru side); but would he really want to be activating Oathgates in public. IIRC, all but the one on the Shattered Plains and Aimia are in large cities/public areas; and he thought the SP gate destroyed and could not access the Aimian one either. . .

[Toaster Retribution]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

PS: He should have his own honorblade, based on his displays of surgebinding so he could unlock a gate on his own (if nale unlocked the Urithiru side); but would he really want to be activating Oathgates in public. IIRC, all but the one on the Shattered Plains and Aimia are in large cities/public areas; and he thought the SP gate destroyed and could not access the Aimian one either. . .

Right, I forgot that Ishar did use surgebinding in RoW. And if he really wanted to, I doubt he’d care too much about people seeing him activate the Oathgate. It could help attract people to his cult for all he knows.

[Returned]

The points made in this thread are good, and correct, I think. But the Heralds are going to be tough to understand for a while. They have an incredible amount of knowledge about the world, the different realms, the nature of magic on Roshar, risks and benefits of different things, all tempered by varying shades of undefined insanity. Their decisions and actions can range from precise, prescient, and perfect, all the way down to totally baseless and irrational, and I don't know that we will (generally) have the context to identify where any given action falls in that range.

[Ixthos]

I think Ishar, despite his power, is still somewhat vulnerable - if he went he would need some method of getting there with enough of his forces to take over. If he tried to go by himself he would have to climb the mountains - I don't think he can get in unless he also unlocks the corresponding gate in Urithiru first, and once he is there he needs to fight against many Radiants from multiple orders. And this all would also require he goes himself, as he is the only being in his forces that we know of who stands a chance of taking the Tower, and he may not be able to leave his kingdom yet for whatever reason.

[Steeldancer]

8 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

He seemed quite bummed when Dalinar and co settled there, and considers it his by right, according to the letter he sent Dalinar in Oathbringer. So why didn't he just move in there first? He should know its location from his Heralding days, and he should be aware of the Oathgate locations as well. Just have Nale unlock one for him and its done. Yet he sits around in Sesemalex Dar instead. Any thoughts on why he never claimed Urithiru?

Toast! You live! Huzzah! 

[Weltall]

4 hours ago, Ixthos said:

I don't think he can get in unless he also unlocks the corresponding gate in Urithiru first, and once he is there he needs to fight against many Radiants from multiple orders.

I think the intent of the question was more 'Why didn't he go there before Team Honor rediscovered it?', meaning he wouldn't need to worry about fighting anybody, unless he just happened to show up at the same time as one of Szeth's visits.

And at this point we have no idea what Ishar's motivations are for playing god-king in Tukar or what he's been doing for the other ~4490 years since Aharietiam so figuring out why he does anything is going to be close to impossible, especially for the reasons Returned noted. For all we know, it's possible he didn't really care about Urithiru until he realized someone else had found it again after the Radiants abandoned the place.

It's also possible he had plans to do something about Urithiru but never got around to it because like all the other Heralds his awareness of the passage of time is... tenuous. He might have had the notion to go seize the city once the Radiants left and never got around to it because in his mind it just happened yesterday and a day or two of waiting won't make a difference. A thousand years later...

Or yet again, it could be that he was interested but had specific reasons for staying away (Unmade presence, whatever interests him in the place can't be done without the Sibling) until confirmation that the place was inhabited again reached him. We really can't be sure.

[Ixthos]

9 hours ago, Weltall said:

I think the intent of the question was more 'Why didn't he go there before Team Honor rediscovered it?', meaning he wouldn't need to worry about fighting anybody, unless he just happened to show up at the same time as one of Szeth's visits.

Ahhh, I missed that part. Looking back I see the line now: "why didn't he go there first." Thank you for the correction.

I think my last point still holds - he may not feel able to claim it yet as he is needed elsewhere, and perhaps he needs something to be completed with his ... other work first. It could be that he fully intended to claim it later but thought waiting until he was ready was best, as what were the odds of someone else finding it first? So when it was claimed by another he only then made his intentions towards it known.

[+Invocation]

My bet is that he was saving it as a coup de grace for when people inevitably didn't believe him when he revealed himself to be Ishar, like "You don't believe me? What if I lead you to a lost city that only I would know about?"

[alder24]

He's insane, sometimes there just isn't any reason for madman actions. However in this case it's much simpler - if he truly believed that Radiants return could cause Desolation, then rediscovering and settling down their abandoned and ancient city could quicken that as well. That's just bad idea when you try prevent Desolation in your wicked way. And why would Nale even open gates for him? 

[Toaster Retribution]

17 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

Toast! You live! Huzzah! 

Steel! You back! Huzzah!