Vasher's history

[Dr. Joe]

So I just finished my....Nth+1 reread of Warbreaker, and for some reason I had a completely new theory (wild conjecture) pop up in my brain about Vasher.

(Disclaimer: I am relying on personal memory of some things that I'm pretty sure have been confirmed via WoB, but I haven't taken the time to track them all down.  Links to confirm or disprove anything I posit are welcome and appreciated!)

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So Vasher is a pretty accomplished and knowledgeable guy.  One of the Five Scholars, Returned, and a worldhopper.

As one of Nalthis' Five Scholars, he's extremely well-versed in the mechanics of Awakening and BioChroma.  As of Warbreaker, he and Shashara are the only ones known to have created a BoiChromatic Entity Type 4 (Nightblood), ever.  Khalad's Phantoms are also a pretty noteworthy accomplishment.  He may not be the best teacher (yet), but he clearly understands the subject, and probably figures out quite a lot intuitively when he's actually trying to break new ground.

As a Returned, we know he's hundreds of years old, and currently functionally immortal.  However, he still doesn't remember anything from before his Return.  This...opens up a LOT of possibilities.

As a worldhopper, we know he has knowledge of the greater Cosmere, experience studying and utilizing other forms of investiture (see Zahel living on Roshar and surviving off of Stormlight instead of requiring a weekly Breath infusion), and has even attempting to mimic foreign magic systems via Awakening (Nightblood being based on a shardblade).  To that last point in particular, we know he was a worldhopper before the events of Warbreaker.

Now, let's put aside Vasher for a moment and take a quick look at Lightsong the Bold.  At the climax of Warbreaker, Lightsong's high priest Llarimar gives Lightsong a complete, unabridged info dump about his former life - something that is absolutely forbidden by the tenets of their religion.  But it serves to prove that there's nothing actually preventing Returned from obtaining this knowledge, beyond custom.  Without the religious restrictions in place, there's nothing stopping a Returned from reacquainting themselves with their past lives (by being informed by others...or perhaps by studying the extensive notes of their life's work that a great scientific mind would undoubtedly have kept?!)

Back to Vasher.  The Iridescent Tones did not exist at the time of his Return, so it's entirely possible that he reacquired knowledge from his past life.  At the end of Warbreaker, he tells Vivenna that he does not remember anything from before his Return, and he also promised her early in their relationship that he would never lie to her.  I'm actually inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was being sincere about never lying to her outright...however, I could definitely see him misleading her with such a semantic loophole, and also being hesitant to share such information with her at that time.

So what does all this mean?  Well, what if Vasher had become Cosmere-aware before his Return?  What's to say he hadn't already worldhopped before then?  That he was even a "normal" human before then?  Did he have a standard human lifespan? Did he possess other forms of Investiture?  It might explain his significant talent for exploring the mechanics of Awakening, or his willingness to attempt emulating foreign magic.

Could he have been around for other major pre-Warbreaker events?  Heck, could he have been present for the Shattering?

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Dr. Joe

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

It could also be that he had purposefully forgotten the stuff.

[Treamayne]

17 hours ago, Dr. Joe said:

Heck, could he have been present for the Shattering?

This has been mostly debunked
 

Spoiler

Showing Vasher went to Roshar after the Recreance

Quote

Zas678

Did Vasher visit Roshar before the Recreance? Because he had-- *Brandon mumbles question* Because he had to see Shardblades, and... presumably live ones.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah... I'll RAFO that. I'll RAFO that. It is an assumption that he had... He doesn't necessarily have to have seen alive ones. He could have heard records of them.

Quote

Questioner

So, you've told us that Vasher had knowledge about Shardblades before he created Nightblood...

...Can you tell us if Nightblood was created before the Recreance? 

Brandon Sanderson

I'd have to go look at the notes... I don't think-- No, he was not. No. Definitely no.

 

But mostly the timeline doesn't add up:

• the False Desolation occurred around the same time as the Recreance--about 2,000 years prior to the present day
• Hoid's story tells us “Those are the events we focus upon, the ones men know the best. To speak only of them, however, is to ignore the history of three hundred years that led up to them" so Vo and the foudning of halandren was 300 years before the Manywar (Warbreaker Ch 32)
• The Manywar was a global conflict on Nalthis that involved the nations of Hanald (the original name of Hallandren), Kuth, Huth, Pahn Kahl, Tedradel, and Gys.[2] It occurred about three hundred years before the Pahn Kahl rebellion (Coppermind excerpt)
  • “Five kings,” she said. “In three hundred years?” (Warbreaker Ch 32) Siri mentioning how long it has been since Idris split from Hallendren at the end of the Manywar

 

So, if it has only been 600 years since Vo, the First Returned and Vasher returned sometime between that and the Manywar (300 yrs ago); then Vasher could not have visited Roshar before the Recreance (2000 yrs ago).

Edited June 4, 2022 by Treamayne
SPAG