Theory: Ba-Ado-Mishram's role

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Something I've been thinking about is what role could BAM play in the Stormlight Archives. What will she be doing, why will she be around.

I have a decent guess, she'll be TarOdium's replacement once he frees himself from the bindings of Honor and ditches Roshar to focus on the Cosmere. TarOdium has pretty good odds of accomplishing this, and his main goal is now to get off Roshar and start 'saving' the Cosmere, he can't do that very well if he's still stuck on Roshar.

But once he leaves, where does that leave Roshar? He'll get Dalinar's soul perhaps, but the Radiants won't stop fighting him. Once he leaves then what's stopping the Radiants from building up, advancing their technology and going after him wherever he goes?

He'll need a counterbalance, he either won't want or be able to destroy Roshar, either because he'll still want to 'save' it and chucking it into the sun isn't very conducive to that, or Cultivation will be too much of a threat and he'll need to avoid her.

So a counterbalance to keep Roshar from being at peace enough to start focusing off-world. The most likely answer? The Unmade, they've already had one go around at starting their own Desolation before and seemed to give as good as they got. BAM was pretty important to that whole fustercluck so I think that TarOdium will want to free the currently trapped Unmade like BAM and Nergoal in order for them to continue the Desolation in his place.

So that way we still have a big bad for Roshar and a much bigger bad for the entire Cosmere.

As a side-note, if BAM is freed and immediately sides with Odium (Why wouldn't she? She started a Desolation without Odum for Stormfathers sake!) and the Unmade are given the wheel again she'll probably cause Voidbinders to pop up since they tend to originate from the Unmade, and BAM has been able to bond with a large number of beings before...

[alder24]

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I have a decent guess, she'll be TarOdium's replacement once he frees himself from the bindings of Honor and ditches Roshar to focus on the Cosmere. TarOdium has pretty good odds of accomplishing this, and his main goal is now to get off Roshar and start 'saving' the Cosmere, he can't do that very well if he's still stuck on Roshar.

Or he can do what Rayse wanted to do and just send his agents and armies trained on Roshar out there to fight for him, while he stays on Roshar. Just what Cosmere spoilers:

Spoiler

Autonomy is doing

 

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

So a counterbalance to keep Roshar from being at peace enough to start focusing off-world. The most likely answer? The Unmade, they've already had one go around at starting their own Desolation before and seemed to give as good as they got. BAM was pretty important to that whole fustercluck so I think that TarOdium will want to free the currently trapped Unmade like BAM and Nergoal in order for them to continue the Desolation in his place.

So that way we still have a big bad for Roshar and a much bigger bad for the entire Cosmere.

As a side-note, if BAM is freed and immediately sides with Odium (Why wouldn't she? She started a Desolation without Odum for Stormfathers sake!) and the Unmade are given the wheel again she'll probably cause Voidbinders to pop up since they tend to originate from the Unmade, and BAM has been able to bond with a large number of beings before...

Here is a big problem with that - they kind of tend to get stuck in a gemstone a lot. There is nothing stopping Radiants from trapping them again and if that were to finally end the war for good, it's very likely they would do this again - this time there would be no Odium on Roshar anymore. Mishram also proved not big enough to uphold bonds with the entire race of people - by Ulim's works she was too small of a god for that. She isn't large enough to act as Odium.

I'm also not convinced that spending 2500 years in a cramped gem after getting violently ripped off Roshar did something good to her mental state. I doubt Odium would leave a potentially insane Unmade, too small to lead the entire war effort, with a massive vulnerability that already was used against her as his replacement. I think Odium will stay on Roshar because leaving is hard and it will weaken him significantly. RoW ch 73:

Quote

Eventually the Unmade decided to start a war without us. That turned out to be exceedingly stupid. In the past, Odium granted forms of power, but Ba-Ado-Mishram thought she could do it. Ended up handing out forms of power as easily as Fused give each other titles, Connected herself to the entire singer species. Became a little god. Too little.
“I … don’t understand.”
I’ll bet you don’t. Basically, everyone relied way too much on an oversized spren. Trouble is, spren can get stuck in gemstones, and the humans figured this out. End result: Ba-Ado-Mishram got a really cramped prison, and everyone’s souls got seriously messed up.

 

Spoiler

Questioner

When one of the shards, like Odium, move from world to world in the cosmere, does their presence, like the metals they leave behind and their magic, leave with them?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium never really settled on a planet.  He is now settled on Roshar and his magic has permeated things.  Leaving would be very difficult for him. It would either involve leaving behind some of his power or ripping that out, which would be a difficult process.  So yes it is very tough to leave.

Phoenix Comicon 2013 (May 24, 2013)

 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

19 hours ago, alder24 said:

Or he can do what Rayse wanted to do and just send his agents and armies trained on Roshar out there to fight for him, while he stays on Roshar. Just what Cosmere spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

Autonomy is doing

 

Here is a big problem with that - they kind of tend to get stuck in a gemstone a lot. There is nothing stopping Radiants from trapping them again and if that were to finally end the war for good, it's very likely they would do this again - this time there would be no Odium on Roshar anymore. Mishram also proved not big enough to uphold bonds with the entire race of people - by Ulim's works she was too small of a god for that. She isn't large enough to act as Odium.

I'm also not convinced that spending 2500 years in a cramped gem after getting violently ripped off Roshar did something good to her mental state. I doubt Odium would leave a potentially insane Unmade, too small to lead the entire war effort, with a massive vulnerability that already was used against her as his replacement. I think Odium will stay on Roshar because leaving is hard and it will weaken him significantly. RoW ch 73:

 

  Hide contents

Questioner

When one of the shards, like Odium, move from world to world in the cosmere, does their presence, like the metals they leave behind and their magic, leave with them?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium never really settled on a planet.  He is now settled on Roshar and his magic has permeated things.  Leaving would be very difficult for him. It would either involve leaving behind some of his power or ripping that out, which would be a difficult process.  So yes it is very tough to leave.

Phoenix Comicon 2013 (May 24, 2013)

 

ROdium definitely wanted to destroy as many (if not all) Shards as he could. I don't know if that is still a goal of TOdium or not, but if it is, he's going to have to get out of the Rosharan system to do it. If there was a way for Shards to make/train/create Shardkillers, then I don't think there would even be an Era 4, in that, that sounds like the Cosmere equivilant of full-scale nuclear war. And Sense we've already read canon stories from several hundred (and/or thousands) of years ahead of SA, I'm going to assume that's not where all this is going.

Still, that was a lot of words to say, maybe TOdium still wants out of the Rosharan system and maybe he doesn't.

[Dofurion]

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

I'm also not convinced that spending 2500 years in a cramped gem after getting violently ripped off Roshar did something good to her mental state. I doubt Odium would leave a potentially insane Unmade, too small to lead the entire war effort, with a massive vulnerability that already was used against her as his replacement. I think Odium will stay on Roshar because leaving is hard and it will weaken him significantly.

This is something I think we haven't explored enough. If Ba-Ado's confinement is what happened to the existence of the Deadeyes, couldn't she also be one? After all the rebound from the breakup with Roshar she must have also experienced it.
It could be an interesting narrative thread for the future.

[+robardin he/him]

GUYS GUYS I THINK I FOUND BA-ADO-MISHRAM

[ScavellTane]

I think being confined would have greatly limited BAMs growth/"progression".