Will the Heralds be able to return with the Everstorm?

[Quantus]

In prior times both the heralds and the Fused got one chance per Desolation, but if they died in the war they remained on Braize until the next time a Desolation began; both were restrained together by the Oathpact. Now, the Fused are free to return after the next passing of the Everstorm.  Can the Heralds get on that same train and come back every few days?

 

Per this WOB it is still undecided until the narrative needs play out, so this is mostly to discuss what we expect to happen and/or think the lore would imply.  

 

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ArgentSun

Prior to the arrival of the Everstorm, what happened to the Heralds who died? Were they immediately sent back to Braize to wait until the rest arrived and started the Isolation, or could they return to Roshar, similarly to how the Fused can return multiple times?

Brandon Sanderson

So, the mechanics of this I've been dodgy on on purpose because I know I'm gonna want some wiggle room in the books when I write them. Right now they can't return. They go, they're done. I have to make sure that works with the magic and with the narrative as I write them, so you can take this as one of those Words of Brandon that the books might contradict, but the original outline has, you die, you're there, you can't go back. But there are various incarnations of this where they were holding the Fused back by doing that, from being reborn, if that makes sense. And that's one of the parts that I'm not 100% sure where I'm going to go with, because when I came up with all this stuff, I wasn't working with the realities of the books, where I was writing the Fused, and things like this. And now that I have, this is very natural to be like, alright, let me do a reset, and make sure that the lore and worldbuilding all is consistent now that I've done five books-- I haven't done the fifth one yet, but you know what I mean. It's one of the reasons I have the break in between, is to give myself a chance to go to my outlines and make sure. Originally they were holding back... you could kill Fused and they wouldn't return, because Heralds were holding them back, the Oathpact was. But that meant when the Heralds died, they couldn't return either, and so the war could actually happen. But the Everstorm and things like that have changed that. Anyway, that's the answer until I write it in the books and get you some canon in the flashbacks of the Heralds we will be writing eventually.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

 

[NameIess]

With the Everstorm? Probably not. However, if my understanding of the mechanics is correct, then the Heralds can come back at any time. Unlike the Fused, they can return on their own, and are not locked to Braize. The only reason they'd stay on Braize after being killed is to keep the Fused contained.

[Quantus]

19 hours ago, Nameless said:

With the Everstorm? Probably not. However, if my understanding of the mechanics is correct, then the Heralds can come back at any time. Unlike the Fused, they can return on their own, and are not locked to Braize. The only reason they'd stay on Braize after being killed is to keep the Fused contained.

So you're saying they are no longer being locked to Braize, same as the Fused, but that they have a separate mechanism for Returning and will not need/use the Everstorm for it?  I could buy that, especially since I still cant figure out what happens to their bodies throughout their transitions.    

[NameIess]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

So you're saying they are no longer being locked to Braize, same as the Fused, but that they have a separate mechanism for Returning and will not need/use the Everstorm for it?  I could buy that, especially since I still cant figure out what happens to their bodies throughout their transitions.    

I don’t think the heralds were ever locked to Braize. They only needed to stay there to keep the Fused contained.

[+Harrycrapper]

That WoB doesn't quite jive with what Raboniel told Venli. It's been a bit since I read that, but I seem to recall that Fused who were killed could return as long as the Heralds remained on Roshar. It was up to the Heralds to initiate the "Isolation" and they usually wouldn't do it until some sort of big battle happened where enough Fused got killed that the human defenders of Roshar could clean up what was left once the Heralds went back. I think, but am not 100% certain, that a Herald dying would jumpstart that process, but in the later Desolations all of them but Taln would do their best to avoid getting killed because they didn't want to go resume the torture. 

[Arsteel]

I could imagine the Everstorm also working for the Heralds (although I also think their seperate mechanic still works), but I think Odium would be guarding the entrance to it in the Cognitive Realm.

Also have I missed something? I thought they were still on Roschar (Physical or Cognitive).

[+asmodeus]

... bloody hell, never thought about that. Awesome question!

[+robardin]

On 7/21/2022 at 1:14 PM, Harrycrapper said:

That WoB doesn't quite jive with what Raboniel told Venli. It's been a bit since I read that, but I seem to recall that Fused who were killed could return as long as the Heralds remained on Roshar. It was up to the Heralds to initiate the "Isolation" and they usually wouldn't do it until some sort of big battle happened where enough Fused got killed that the human defenders of Roshar could clean up what was left once the Heralds went back. I think, but am not 100% certain, that a Herald dying would jumpstart that process, but in the later Desolations all of them but Taln would do their best to avoid getting killed because they didn't want to go resume the torture. 

You recall quite accurately except that it was Leshwi talking to Venli, including the term "Isolation" that she uses in Ch. 14 of RoW (specifically, how it was that Lezian the Pursuer was able to "kill any enemy who'd killed him" each Return):

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"I thought in the past, you were exiled to Braize once you died? How could he return to hunt the one who had killed him?" ...

"You mistake the cycle, simplify it," Leshwi said softly. "We were only locked on Braize once the Heralds died and joined us there. Until then, there would often be years or even decades of rebirths during a Return - during which time the Heralds would train humans to fight. Once they were confident that humans could continue to stand, the Heralds would give themselves to Braize to activate the Isolation. The Heralds would need to die for this to work. ... [Lezian] always managed to find and kill any humans who had bested him. As soon as the Isolation was begun, he'd kill himself, so he'd never return to Braize permanently after having died by human hand."

So Fused could and did return repeatedly with each Desolation, not through the Everstorm but via some other means implied to be a direct act of Odium (as Lezian is surprised to have happen to him, coming back "the old way", at the end of RoW).

And the Heralds could and did "give themselves to Braize to activate the Isolation" with Fused still left on Roshar, as Lezian would immediately kill himself to avoid being in the position of needing vengeance with no way to pursue it until the human was long dead (unless the time to the next Desolation was within that person's lifetime, a rarity until near the very end).

What is not clear is if or how the Heralds were able to "come back" within a given Desolation. In the Prologue to The Way of Kings, Kalak is the POV who seems stunned not only that "I actually survived this time", and that "when he died, he was sent back, no choice. When he survived the Desolation, he was supposed to go back as well. Back to that place of pain and fire. What if he just decided... Not to go?"

And then later, Jezrien told him, "You might call it a miracle. Only one of us died this time [Talenel]. ... A decision has been made. It is time for the Oathpact to end. ... Ishar believes that so long as there is one of us still bound to the Oathpact, it may be enough. ... Our Blades must be left. The Oathpact ends now."

It's clearly implied that any Heralds who were dead when a Desolation was over was automatically enrolled in the Oathpact's Isolation Shield. And Jezrien's wording - "only one of us died this time" - strongly suggests that each Herald had only one life per Desolation, versus "only one of us was dead this time [at the end]". And the expected act for the surviving Heralds was to meet at the designated, pre-agreed upon point and then to kill themselves, to go lend support to those Heralds already on Braize.

So when was a Desolation "over"? Per Leshwi's description, it was possible for one to end, and the Isolation to begin with all ten Heralds on Braize, with Fused still left on Roshar (with humans and Radiants tasked with "mop-up duty"). And that until the Isolation was invoked, Odium could summon Fused back to Roshar.

Yet per that Prologue, it seems like the Isolation was auto-triggered - maybe that was something dependent on all Fused being killed at the same time?

We also have it as a WoB that Taln "didn't break" to start the Final Desolation. Which is very interesting.