A salute to Auxiliary

[+robardin]

Highspren have come off as rather weird and distant in the Stormlight books so far - in fact, I don't think we'd ever seen or heard a highspren talking to their Radiant yet, and Szeth mentioned that his spren "rarely showed itself" to him, much less converse with him constantly as most other spren do with their Nahel bonded person.

And their approving and enabling of hundreds of years of Skybreakers hunting down and eliminating all other spren bonds under direction of a mad Herald has always made the whole group of them seem bonkers. And we see them through the POV of how the honorspren and all other Radiant spren regard them for siding with Odium in the Final Desolation. 

But Auxiliary... Even as a monotone fragment of a highspren, he comes off very, very well.

Quote

I am the leftover strength of oaths sworn. I am the truth you once knew. ...

I will burn away only myself, my personality. That should leave you with my body, the weapon, to still use. This is my destination, not yours.

You don't get to decide. I know about consequences.  ... I also swore to be better than I was. I became a Knight Radiant. I spoke the words.

And whatever you did, I never betrayed my oaths. 

This is even more moving than Maya's declaration of WE... CHOSE! to the court of honorspren in Lasting Integrity.

Aux chose. HE CHOSE. Not "with" his Knight, Sigzil, but FOR him.

Edited October 2, 2023 by robardin

[Eran of Arcadia]

To Aux, may he rest in peace. Or whatever happens to spren.

[therunner]

To Aux.

I think that it is telling that he considers himself Knight Radiant. Sigzil thought that Aux was jokingly calling himself Knight and Sig his squire, but I think Aux meant it.
He decided to be a Knight and to hopefully re-teach Sig to believe in the Oaths. And in the end he did, even though the cost was great.

Truly a great spren and friend. We could all use someone like that.
 

Edited October 2, 2023 by therunner

[a Faceless Immortal]

I was absolutely devastated in that moment. I think I had subconsciously expecting Sig to renew his oaths for the climax of the book (which I guess is what Brandon wanted...), but, I have to admit, this does make more sense character-arc wise.

Still, I hate that it had to happened.

RIP Aux.

[The Stormfather]

Aux was the best character. I also like how we know that you can bond two spren as long as the oaths don't break each other, because he was a windrunner, and Aux is not an honorspren.

[+robardin]

6 hours ago, The stormfather said:

Aux was the best character. I also like how we know that you can bond two spren as long as the oaths don't break each other, because he was a windrunner, and Aux is not an honorspren.

According to Sigzil's recounting of his past to Rebeke, he'd given up his Windrunner oaths before (perhaps as a part of) taking up the Dawnshard, and somehow bonded with Auxiliary while holding it.

[Treamayne]

RIP Auxiliary

So hard not to respond to this thread with "Aux."

[teknopathetic]

Anyone else get the feeling that Nomad met Aux off of Roshar itself? Maybe Braize or Ashyn? 

The way Nomad described meeting Aux on another world made of obsidian seemed odd to me. I know Shadesmaar was described as obsidian, but I really don’t think a Nomad would consider Rosharan Shadesmaar another world. 

We also know that Nomad has at least been to Ashyn, so it is possible Aux was living on a different planet in the Rosharan system. 

[Trutharchivist]

To Aux. The highspren who sacrificed himself not because some sort of law dictated it, but because it was the right thing to do.

Also, I think I agree with Tekno that they met off Roshar - though it does sound odd.

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Anyone else get the feeling that Nomad met Aux off of Roshar itself? Maybe Braize or Ashyn? 

The way Nomad described meeting Aux on another world made of obsidian seemed odd to me. I know Shadesmaar was described as obsidian, but I really don’t think a Nomad would consider Rosharan Shadesmaar another world. 

We also know that Nomad has at least been to Ashyn, so it is possible Aux was living on a different planet in the Rosharan system. 

I did not get that impression - it seemed to obviously point at Shadesmar to me. The impression I had, however, was that they "met" long before they bonded. Maybe even while he was still a Windrunner. Maybe Nomad made enough impression that years after "meeting" Aux discivered he was no longer bonded and then sought the bond. (TSM CH 15):

Spoiler

But sunrise wasn’t deadly on other planets, and twilight had never felt quite so ominous to him as it did here.

They powered down the cycles to conserve their batteries and kept watch—ignoring that looming light to the left. The rocks here were dark and glasslike. Obsidian, maybe. It reminded him of another place, another world he’d once traveled. A place where he’d met Auxiliary.

The way the "ground is made of obsidian" just screams Shadesmar to me. Jasnah and Shallan have both referred to Shadesmar as "another world" - though I agree that this use here is suspect.

[+robardin]

5 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Anyone else get the feeling that Nomad met Aux off of Roshar itself? Maybe Braize or Ashyn? 

The way Nomad described meeting Aux on another world made of obsidian seemed odd to me. I know Shadesmaar was described as obsidian, but I really don’t think a Nomad would consider Rosharan Shadesmaar another world. 

We also know that Nomad has at least been to Ashyn, so it is possible Aux was living on a different planet in the Rosharan system. 

"The rocks here were dark and glasslike. Obsidian, maybe. It reminded him of another place, another world he’d once traveled. A place where he’d met Auxiliary."

When I first read this, I took it to mean Braize: as an unbonded highspren he'd have been bound to the Rosharan system, implying it was Braize, unless however it is oathed Radiants can now leave Roshar by this time also allows unbonded sentient spren to do so as well.

I don't think he was referring to Shadesmar, as by then he'd be super familiar with the Cognitive Realm and would just have thought "this reminds me of the sea of glass beads in Shadesmar". Besides, the "glassy beads" there are not only small and numerous, they are not dark (like obsidian) but glowing with the spren of the physical thing or being they represent.

He might have met Auxiliary somewhere else on Roshar where the landscape is similarly dark and rocky, but then as a native of Roshar, he'd most likely think of the location's name on Roshar as opposed to "another world he'd once traveled".

[Treamayne]

26 minutes ago, robardin said:

I don't think he was referring to Shadesmar, as by then he'd be super familiar with the Cognitive Realm and would just have thought "this reminds me of the sea of glass beads in Shadesmar". Besides, the "glassy beads" there are not only small and numerous, they are not dark (like obsidian) but glowing with the spren of the physical thing or being they represent.

It's not the beads (SA and M:SH Spoilers)

Spoiler

OB 89

Quote

Slowly they approached the strip of land, which turned out to be made of a deep, glassy black stone. Kind of like obsidian. Adolin got Kaladin across onto the land, then settled him with his spren.

OB Ch 91:

Quote

Kaladin sat on a chunk of stone that looked like melted obsidian. It grew right out of the ground in Shadesmar, this place that didn’t seem real.

The distant sun hadn’t shifted in the sky since they’d arrived. Nearby, one of the strange fearspren crawled along the banks of the sea of glass beads.

OB Ch 112:

Quote

The jungle-style trees had given way to taller, more statuesque ones with deep crimson trunks and limbs like burnt-red crystals that, at the ends, burst into small collections of minerals. The rugged obsidian landscape was full of deep valleys and endless towering hills. 

M:SH Ch 3-2:

Quote

In fact, the lake was like a low island rising from the sea of mists. What was solid and what was fluid seemed somehow reversed in this place. Kelsier stepped up to the island’s edge, the ribbon of Preservation’s essence curling past him and leading onto the island, like a mythical string showing the way home from the grand maze of Ishathon.

Kelsier stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and kicked at the ground of the island. It was some type of dark, smoky stone.

“What?” Preservation whispered.

Kelsier jumped, then glanced at the line of light. “You . . . in there, Fuzz?”

“I’m everywhere,” Preservation said, his voice soft, frail. He sounded exhausted. “Why have you stopped?”

“This is different.”

“Yes, it congeals here,” Preservation said. “It has to do with the way men think, and where they are likely to pass. Somewhat to do with that, at least.”

“But what is it?” Kelsier said, stepping up onto the island.

Preservation said nothing further, and so Kelsier continued toward the center of the island. Whatever had “congealed” here, it was strikingly stonelike. And things grew on it. Kelsier passed scrubby plants sprouting from the otherwise hard ground—not misty, inchoate plants, but real ones full of color. They had broad brown leaves with—curiously—what seemed like mist rising from them. None of the plants reached higher than his knees, but there were still far more than he’d expected to find here.

M:SH Ch 4-4:

Quote

Kelsier stopped at the edge of the new land of dark stone, like the lake that had become an island. This one was even larger. The ocean had become a continent.

“I will kill Vin while you’re gone,” Ruin whispered. “I will kill them all. Think about that, Kelsier, on your journey. When you come back, if there’s anything left, I might have need of you. Thank you for all you’ve done on my behalf.”

Kelsier stepped out onto the ocean continent, leaving Ruin behind on the shore.

 

Also, just because he may be referencing Shadesmar, doesn't mean he's referencing Rosharan Shadesmar - it could be a reference to the space between worlds. 

[+robardin]

Wow, some deep references I'd totally forgotten about in Shadesmar! I agree then, it's possible - and perhaps Sigzil "met" the highspren in Shadesmar to begin with.

[JohnnyKaizen]

On 10/2/2023 at 10:42 AM, robardin said:

Highspren have come off as rather weird and distant in the Stormlight books so far - in fact, I don't think we'd ever seen or heard a highspren talking to their Radiant yet, and Szeth mentioned that his spren "rarely showed itself" to him, much less converse with him constantly as most other spren do with their Nahel bonded person.

And their approving and enabling of hundreds of years of Skybreakers hunting down and eliminating all other spren bonds under direction of a mad Herald has always made the whole group of them seem bonkers. And we see them through the POV of how the honorspren and all other Radiant spren regard them for siding with Odium in the Final Desolation. 

But Auxiliary... Even as a monotone fragment of a highspren, he comes off very, very well.

This is even more moving than Maya's declaration of WE... CHOSE! to the court of honorspren in Lasting Integrity.

Aux chose. HE CHOSE. Not "with" his Knight, Sigzil, but FOR him.

Im not crying, you're crying!

Yeah..that was truly special. He truly loves his friend, and wanted the best for him.

[Cocoa]

Something that really got me about Aux's fate is the bitter irony that he arrived at his destination before we ever saw his journey; his whole arc as both a character and as a Knight Radiant has been twisted around to play out backwards.

It's not necessarily a bad writing decision, but man, it's gonna be a gut-punch and a half whenever he's on-page from this point onward.

Then again, I suppose maybe there's meaning in that. After all,

Quote

“Then my oaths ended, and I realized that destinations really are important, Wit. They are. No matter what we say.”

“Nobody ever implied they lacked importance,”

 

[Sparks]

So bear with me... is Auxiliary all-the-way-dead?  Because even Auxiliary says there will be a small piece of him left.  Not enough to give him personality or communication, but enough to power Auxiliary's corpse as a weapon.

If Mayalaran can be awoken (at least partially) by Adolin, as a mostly-dead-but-still-present Shardblade/spren, I guess I have to ask, why can't Sigzil do the same with Auxiliary's corpse?

Best guess is something about a spren using it's own essence to be burned as Investiture-fuel instead of being garden variety killed by oathbreaking renders the death different, as in the damage is irrecoverable. 

[JohnnyKaizen]

On 10/12/2023 at 8:34 PM, Sparks said:

So bear with me... is Auxiliary all-the-way-dead?  Because even Auxiliary says there will be a small piece of him left.  Not enough to give him personality or communication, but enough to power Auxiliary's corpse as a weapon.

If Mayalaran can be awoken (at least partially) by Adolin, as a mostly-dead-but-still-present Shardblade/spren, I guess I have to ask, why can't Sigzil do the same with Auxiliary's corpse?

Best guess is something about a spren using it's own essence to be burned as Investiture-fuel instead of being garden variety killed by oathbreaking renders the death different, as in the damage is irrecoverable. 

Honestly with Brandon, it could go either way. My spideysense tells me that he wrote it that way for a comeback. That's just my belief, but I don't think Aux will come back the same way Maya is. Either way, it'll probably be 5-15 years before Im proven right or wrong. *chuckle and sigh*

[Edema Rue]

To Aux.

To a tired hero, who refused to let them die.

To a brave spirit, who fought so hard.

To the journeys, and the destinations.

To the life…and the death.

I mourn you. Sig mourns you. So many others mourn you.

And we are grateful.

You will be remembered, always.

[Rashek's PR Manager]

RIP Aux… I was so confident that Sig would reclaim his oath until THAT moment…

[Duxredux]

I'll toss this in here. Someone pulled it up on another thread but I thought it was fitting to place it here as well.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Twelve

Lightsong Hears Petitions

The concept of petitions—and the gods being able to heal someone one time—grew out of my desire to have something about them that was miraculous. Something obvious, something more than just an ability to make vague prophecies. Their Breath auras are amazing, true, but an Awakener with a lot of Breath can replicate that.

I took the idea of being able to die in order to heal from an idea discarded from Elantris. If you look at the deleted scenes (Caution: Spoilers for the ending of Elantris), you can read about how there was originally a subplot to the story where the Seons (the floating balls of light) could expend the Aon at their center and create a miraculous event one time. However, doing so would kill them. I eventually ended up not using this plot structure in the final draft, and so I cut all references to this ability from the book. I felt that it was too contrived in that novel.

I've always thought it was interesting conceptually, however, so I developed it into this book as an aspect of Returned that makes them different. They can create one miracle—and in this world, that one miracle has to be a healing. They can expend their divine Breath to heal someone.

Warbreaker Annotations (Sept. 9, 2010)

Looks like this idea may have seen use in Aux's sacrifice and it fits the original concept much more closely than Lightsong's sacrifice. It's a mark of how wise of an author Brandon considering at how long he waits to use some of his most powerful moments.

[IndigoAjah]

On 10/13/2023 at 1:34 AM, Sparks said:

So bear with me... is Auxiliary all-the-way-dead?  Because even Auxiliary says there will be a small piece of him left.  Not enough to give him personality or communication, but enough to power Auxiliary's corpse as a weapon.

If Mayalaran can be awoken (at least partially) by Adolin, as a mostly-dead-but-still-present Shardblade/spren, I guess I have to ask, why can't Sigzil do the same with Auxiliary's corpse?

Best guess is something about a spren using it's own essence to be burned as Investiture-fuel instead of being garden variety killed by oathbreaking renders the death different, as in the damage is irrecoverable. 

He's gone as far as Zillion can tell in the Cognitive which is different to Syl and Maya imo (the former seemed when "dead" to basically be what Aux was, the latter was present in Shadesmar and thus the Cognitive).

 

However: this story kind of emphasized the unknowable aspect of the Spiritual at points and that's a life line. Is he recoverable on that plane?

[Soulcaster05]

(Just throwing in here that I just finished reading Aux's sacrifice and it's left me crying. What a powerful scene! )

[Voidlit Man]

Aux's sacrifice made the Secret Projects for me as an event that I would have payed double for.  What a way to cap off the book, and the year! I would actually rather Aux never get's revived, I feel that would cheapen the sacrifice for me.  Maybe Zellion could contact him for a little through the Shardblade, but much farther than that, and I feel that it would just make the book worse.

[Ninth of the Night]

I don't think Aux will return from his sacrifice, but luckily we'll still get to see him again once Sigzil stumbles upon him in the present timeline. Can't wait!

I'm amazed at how attached we all got to this spren who we never even knew before this book. He already cracked my top 3.

1. Pattern

2. Windle

3. Auxillary

[fievelgoespostal]

I'm leaning towards Aux not being dead dead.  I think he is likely dead in the way Maya was dead.  If Aux was dead dead, I find it highly unlikely he would remain in the physical world as Blade/Armor that can be summoned (We have seen other spren outright permanently killed and they don't leave a body ( blade) behind).  Maybe he would leave his body behind as a permanent blade or armor.  The fact that he can be summoned and dismissed leads me to believe he still exists in Shadesmar as something like a deadeye like Maya.  It would make sense that Siz can't hear him/talk with him , just like Shardbearers can't hear the dead spren of their blades. 

 

I could totally be wrong about this. Maybe Brandon has a mechanism or explanation for how a permanently dead ( non-deadeye) spren could leave a body behind that can be summoned/dismiss and be bonded to someone. 

 

Edited January 14 by fievelgoespostal