The Everstorm was Inevitable

[Atlas333]

I was rereading Words of Radiance and found an interesting quote when Eshonai attempted to convince the Parshendi to take up Stormform.

Quote

She raised her hands above her head, humming to Resolve, and summoned a storm.

A tiny one, a mere trickle compared to what waited. It grew between her hands, a wind coursing with lightning. A miniature tempest in her palms, light and power, wind spinning in a vortex. It had been centuries since this power had been used, and so - like a river that had been dammed - the energy waited impatiently to be freed. (page 858, bold added)

This stood out to me because it sounds exactly like how the Dor was described when Raoden drew his first Aons, which means a similar thing was happening to Odium. His power was essentially trapped like the Dor is. 

This means that the Everstorm is a natural consequence of having thousands of years with no desolation. It also explains why Odium didn't create the Everstorm during any earlier desolation and how the singers were able to do such an incredible feat despite just recently obtaining Stormform.

This also means, if you wanted to point fingers, that the heralds are technically the ones to blame because their attempts to end the desolations technically worked for a time, but that doesn't seem particularly insightful. 

As for how this theory could be applied to future events, I think it means that there is no future where you can neutralize Odium. Even trapping him on Braize just builds up his power. That means the solution is to either incapacitate him (such as shattering him) or integrate him (such as absorbing his shard or maybe allowing the Everstorm to continue rather than ending it). 

So, what do you guys think?

Was the Everstorm a consequence of Odium's power building up, or is creating something like the Everstorm within the scope of a shard's ability to create? 

[bmcclure7]

8 minutes ago, Atlas333 said:

I was rereading Words of Radiance and found an interesting quote when Eshonai attempted to convince the Parshendi to take up Stormform.

This stood out to me because it sounds exactly like how the Dor was described when Raoden drew his first Aons, which means a similar thing was happening to Odium. His power was essentially trapped like the Dor is. 

This means that the Everstorm is a natural consequence of having thousands of years with no desolation. It also explains why Odium didn't create the Everstorm during any earlier desolation and how the singers were able to do such an incredible feat despite just recently obtaining Stormform.

This also means, if you wanted to point fingers, that the heralds are technically the ones to blame because their attempts to end the desolations technically worked for a time, but that doesn't seem particularly insightful. 

As for how this theory could be applied to future events, I think it means that there is no future where you can neutralize Odium. Even trapping him on Braize just builds up his power. That means the solution is to either incapacitate him (such as shattering him) or integrate him (such as absorbing his shard or maybe allowing the Everstorm to continue rather than ending it). 

So, what do you guys think?

Was the Everstorm a consequence of Odium's power building up, or is creating something like the Everstorm within the scope of a shard's ability to create? 

Well we know that the odium's storm is trapped in the cognitive realm so liking it to Dor is fair. 

Not sure how this is the heralds fault. Could you explain that?

 

[Argenti he/him]

30 minutes ago, Atlas333 said:

Was the Everstorm a consequence of Odium's power building up, or is creating something like the Everstorm within the scope of a shard's ability to create? 

I think that, yes, an undirected gathering of power would make a storm in whatever realm it's left in, BUT it would not have crossed the realms into the physical without help from the shard or from some magic system. It also probably wouldn't have left the Braize subastral without Odium's directive. If I remember right, the Everstorm is a piece of the storm around braize, pushed out to Roshar.

 

7 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Not sure how this is the heralds fault. Could you explain that?

 

They caused the pressure build-up by not having any desolations, but this managed to hold Odium off for a while instead of just desolation after desolation. I think they did the best they could.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Argenti

[bmcclure7]

20 minutes ago, Argenti said:

I think that, yes, an undirected gathering of power would make a storm in whatever realm it's left in, BUT it would not have crossed the realms into the physical without help from the shard or from some magic system. It also probably wouldn't have left the Braize subastral without Odium's directive. If I remember right, the Everstorm is a piece of the storm around braize, pushed out to Roshar.

 

They caused the pressure build-up by not having any desolations, but this managed to hold Odium off for a while instead of just desolation after desolation. I think they did the best they could.

Why would not have desolation cause the pressure to build?

[Atlas333]

20 minutes ago, Argenti said:

They caused the pressure build-up by not having any desolations, but this managed to hold Odium off for a while instead of just desolation after desolation. I think they did the best they could.

Yeah, exactly. I don't mean to say it was a mistake or anything. It was a very complicated situation, and we don't know all of the details yet. I just meant to say they were the cause of the build-up. 

[alder24]

46 minutes ago, Atlas333 said:

I was rereading Words of Radiance and found an interesting quote when Eshonai attempted to convince the Parshendi to take up Stormform.

This stood out to me because it sounds exactly like how the Dor was described when Raoden drew his first Aons, which means a similar thing was happening to Odium. His power was essentially trapped like the Dor is. 

This means that the Everstorm is a natural consequence of having thousands of years with no desolation. It also explains why Odium didn't create the Everstorm during any earlier desolation and how the singers were able to do such an incredible feat despite just recently obtaining Stormform.

This also means, if you wanted to point fingers, that the heralds are technically the ones to blame because their attempts to end the desolations technically worked for a time, but that doesn't seem particularly insightful. 

As for how this theory could be applied to future events, I think it means that there is no future where you can neutralize Odium. Even trapping him on Braize just builds up his power. That means the solution is to either incapacitate him (such as shattering him) or integrate him (such as absorbing his shard or maybe allowing the Everstorm to continue rather than ending it). 

So, what do you guys think?

Was the Everstorm a consequence of Odium's power building up, or is creating something like the Everstorm within the scope of a shard's ability to create? 

I don't agree. While the similarities to the Dor are a good catch, I don't agree that the Everstorm was unavoidable. We know that Everstorm is a broken off fraction of the barrier storm surrounding Braize in CR - Odium broke off part of this storm and slowly moved it to Roshar, for somebody to summon it into PR. But it won't jump between realms on its own, nor will it gain more power just out of nothing. RoW ch 86:

Quote

She didn’t quite understand his explanations of what was happening. But she knew a storm was mounting in Shadesmar. In fact, the storm had been building for generations—growing in fury, intensity. It barred the way to Damnation.
That storm was where Ulim had originally come from. There were also thousands of another kind of spren in the storm: stormspren. Mindless things like windspren or flamespren.
Venli had to find a way to pull those stormspren across and capture them. To that end, a large portion of the roiling storm had been broken off by the god of gods, the ancient one called Odium. This storm was his strength, his essence. Over painful months, he’d moved the storm across the landscape— unseen—until it arrived here. Kind of. Almost.

RoW ch 89:

Quote

“Could … I visit them?” Navani asked. “These other worlds?”
“Likely—though I’d stay away from Braize. You’d have to get through the storm to travel there anyway.”
“The Everstorm?”
Raboniel hummed to an amused rhythm.“No, no, Navani. You can’t travel to Braize in the Physical Realm. That would take … well, I have no idea how long. Plus there’s no air in the space between planets. We sent Heavenly Ones to try it once. No air, and worse, the strange pressures required them to carry a large supply of Voidlight for healing. Even so prepared, they died within hours.
One instead travels to other worlds through Shadesmar. But again, stay away from Braize. Even if you could get through the barrier storm, the place is barren, devoid of life. Merely a dark sky, endless windswept crags, and a broken landscape. And a lot of souls. A lot of not particularly sane souls.

 

Also this Diagram quote for me is another thing:

Quote

There has to be an answer. What is the answer? Stop. The Parshendi. One of them. Yes they are the missing piece. Push for the Alethi to destroy them outright before this one obtains their power. It will form a bridge.

In my opinion it talks about the "missing" Radiant Order. Lightspren decided to bond with Listeners, not humans, and Taravangian couldn't locate these order members, until he realized what would happen. If Listeners were to get Willshaper powers, they would turn away from Stormspren and forms of powers, and would never summon Everstorm, thus never forming needed "bridge". That's why Alethi had to be pushed to destroy them, forcing them to use Stormform, preventing Eshonai from becoming a full Willshaper, and other Lightspren from bonding with Listeners.

 

There is an upper limit on how much power a Shard can use at once (and that includes everything they're invested in) and just leaving Odium imprisoned won't build up his power above that limit. Odium can't really use his power when he's trapped on Braize - what's in use is his power in Void spren, Fused, the storm around Braize and that's unchanging. Most of his power is binded and he can't do much with it, it won't build up. The same goes with the Dor on Sel - it won't build up till infinity. The Dor that used to be used up by Elantrians, AonDor and the city itself was left unused after Reon, and this energy was slowly returning back to CR near Elantris, but nobody was extracting it anymore, thus it was building up a bit - but it would just build up until every last bit of investiture that used to be used would return and then the Dor would reach equilibrium - nothing extracted, nothing gained. But on its own it would not burst into PR just like that - Raoden had to draw first correct Aon to ease up the pressure that was accumulating there, and make the Dor return to the cycle (like Atium cycle takes 300 years for Atium to be spawned after the Pits were destroyed). 

Spoiler

Questioner

For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed?

Brandon Sanderson

The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that.

Questioner

What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity...

Brandon Sanderson

So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)