Tracking Odium

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

So when and where has Odium been? Is it possible to put together a rough timeline based on the known chronology thus far? The question came up on the Stormlight Archive boards of just when Honour was shattered. If it was the Last Desolation that splintered Honour, then we're looking at 4500 years on Roshar. We know at some point before that he was on Sel to splinter Devotion and Dominion.

 

Now the events on Sel during Elantris and Hope of Elantris are noted as being hundreds of years but not thousands before Mistborn, and those are roughly 340 years before Way of Kings. If we assume a reasonably bounded high end, we can say that Elantris is roughly 1000 years before Way of Kings. Now if we assume that Honour was splintered in the last desolation, that means that Odium has not been on Sel for at least 3500 years before the events of Elantris.

 

I know there are a lot of assumptions in here. I'm kind of hoping that there is some more information buried in a WoB that I missed that might help here. Any other thoughts or info that can be used?

[Voidus]

The chronology for Sel is really bad at the moment, and not likely to get better until we get another book there, I was doing Sel for the Copperminds chronology at some point and combed through every WoB I could find and there was nothing, that hundreds not thousands is the only one we have.

[Moogle]

There's a WoB that Odium has been pretty much everywhere:

Kogiopsis
Given that we now know that Odium can 'make it possible' for people to use magic that draws on him on other planets, has he done this anywhere besides Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson
Odium has been active on all other planets, including several we haven't seen yet.

(source)

 

So that answers the where, and as Voidus says our chronology is just plain awful at this point. Which is to be expected - Brandon didn't have a timeline set down in stone for a long time, and only started setting things down in WoR iirc, hence the whole Hoid temporarily visiting Scadrial between WoK and WoR thing.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Moogle

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

i would think that his activity to a planet is probably short lived so he doesn't invest too much of himself on a planet, otherwise he'd be super weak compared to other Shards who are only invested on one planet at a time. 

 

So basically we know that he's been everywhere... I wonder when he was on Scadrial? Maybe the bloodrage of Koloss had/has something to do with Odium's influence? 

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

i would think that his activity to a planet is probably short lived so he doesn't invest too much of himself on a planet, otherwise he'd be super weak compared to other Shards who are only invested on one planet at a time. 

 

So basically we know that he's been everywhere... I wonder when he was on Scadrial? Maybe the bloodrage of Koloss had/has something to do with Odium's influence?

That would fit with the theory that he causes the Alethi Battle Thrill on Roshar. Similar effects. And rage isn't really entirely in the domain of Ruin.

[Moogle]

That would fit with the theory that he causes the Alethi Battle Thrill on Roshar. Similar effects. And rage isn't really entirely in the domain of Ruin.

 

Nergaoul, an Unmade, is responsible for the Thrill. If Odium hasn't left behind any of his power (which he hasn't by WoB) on other planets, then it's unlikely he's responsible for the koloss.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

Aren't the Unmade extensions of Odium's power as his splinters in the same way that the Stormfather and other spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation? 

 

I phrased my question as "had/has". Just because he never left it behind, doesn't mean that it wasn't present at any point. the Koloss blood rage seemed out of proportion to me even with hemalurgy in the mix on my first readings of the Mistborn trilogy.

 

Harmony has calmed most of the bloodrage in "fixing" the Koloss as an independent race, but maybe Odium's withdrew his power as Harmony ascended so Sazed couldn't find traces of him? So therefore, the Koloss would have calmed down immensely even without Sazed's intervention.

 

Odium hasn't been able to travel to other planets and shatter Shards since Sel (that we know of), but he is able to get people on other planets to use his magic system per the WoB that you quoted Moogle and Brandon's response was "he's been active everywhere", that would mean that at some point in Scadrial's history someone has used Odium magic. Doesn't mean it was the Koloss necessarily, or when he was powering it, but it happened per that quote, so why not the Koloss? 

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

Also, he wouldn't necessarily needed to have "left behind his power" to have affected things. If he made a slight modification to something, it seems more consistent to me that without investing more of himself it would simply make that thing easy to undo for another Shardholder.

[Windrunner he/him]

Harmony has calmed most of the bloodrage in "fixing" the Koloss as an independent race, but maybe Odium's withdrew his power as Harmony ascended so Sazed couldn't find traces of him? So therefore, the Koloss would have calmed down immensely even without Sazed's intervention.

 

Odium hasn't been able to travel to other planets and shatter Shards since Sel (that we know of), but he is able to get people on other planets to use his magic system per the WoB that you quoted Moogle and Brandon's response was "he's been active everywhere", that would mean that at some point in Scadrial's history someone has used Odium magic. Doesn't mean it was the Koloss necessarily, or when he was powering it, but it happened per that quote, so why not the Koloss?

 

I personally find Odium being behind the koloss's rage pretty unlikely. Their rage leads to destruction, which is at least as Ruin-y as it is Odious. Also, it's pretty definitely not due to Odium.

KAIMIPONO (15 OCTOBER 2008)

Also, are koloss just naturally bad-tempered, even without Ruin's influence? Cause the koloss are still taking swipes at Sazed immediately after the merger. (And, does Sazed zap all the koloss? Did they all get toasted by the sun? But what about Human and his friends underground? Are there still koloss around? Just wonderin'.)

BRANDON SANDERSON (15 OCTOBER 2008)

Koloss were bad tempered before Ruin's influence, though he certainly made them worse. They were designed by the Lord Ruler to be aggressive, so aggressive that they would destroy themselves if they got loose and away from him. (This was intentional. Note that he didn't give the spark of humanity in them enough credit, and they managed to overcome this and 'evolve' in a way to keep their species going, even after he died.)

Source

Odium has been involved in all the worlds. But I don't think that's necessarily his magic. He could have agents on other planets, spies, or even be covertly manipulating other people with his servants or allies. None of these require someone using his magic.

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

Odium has been involved in all the worlds. But I don't think that's necessarily his magic. He could have agents on other planets, spies, or even be covertly manipulating other people with his servants or allies. None of these require someone using his magic.

Very true. I think that we often are looking for too direct an influence when looking for the workings of Shards.