Wind and Truth Chapters 21 and 22 now available!

[The Stick]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Wrath:

1.  strong vengeful anger or indignation
2.  retributory punishment for an offense or a crime : divine chastisement

I like Wrath more than Vengeance, it's stronger, but Vengeance fits well too. 

I agree with this, but I, as other have stated above, think that the difference in words just doesn't ostensibly communicate enough of a difference.

I was thinking that Nale could be considered a great example for the new Intent. It is a mixture of pure oaths and law, combined with utter hatred for breakers of oaths, or inversely, it could be utter hatred reinforced with oaths. I would say the Intent is something closer to Vendetta, which ties in quite well with the Alethi Vengeance Pact traditions.

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

25 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I think the Stormfather's "first form" was way back as Storm (or Wind) when the highstorms were first created by Adonalsium - and that was waaaay before Ashyn. But he wasn't particularly sentient back then. (The Sibling also didn't exist, presumably.)

My focus is more on the Sibling thinking the Wind became the Stormfather, when we see the Wind talking to Kaladin as still Wind and in a different voice than the Stormfather speaks.

There is a Death Rattle that the Night will reign...

Something is very strange, that's for sure.

I mean, I just read Aether of Night, so any of my theories bout that are gonna be biased.

[Namle84]

A few thoughts:

- I haven’t seen anyone connect the Night (apparently an ancient spren of Adonalsium like the Wind)to the Night of Sorrows, but I wonder if there is a connection here.

- I wonder if the Stormfather’s shame is connected to the “betrayal of spren” in the listener songs, which seems to have something to do with how the ancient singers switched sides to Odium.  And it’s never been clear who betrayed who…

[Njvodin]

12 hours ago, alder24 said:

This means it can be only Dai-Gonarthis or Chemoarish, but because the latter is mindless, I think it has to be Dai-Gonarthis.

I think it can be Chemoarish, but it could equally certainly be Dai-Gonarthis too. Chemoarish isn't mindless as per Hessi, who said that Nergaoul, Moelach, and Ashertmarn were the three mindless Unmade (I think)

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

10 hours ago, Namle84 said:

A few thoughts:

- I haven’t seen anyone connect the Night (apparently an ancient spren of Adonalsium like the Wind)to the Night of Sorrows, but I wonder if there is a connection here.

- I wonder if the Stormfather’s shame is connected to the “betrayal of spren” in the listener songs, which seems to have something to do with how the ancient singers switched sides to Odium.  And it’s never been clear who betrayed who…

Interesting. Another thing is that one of the unmade controls Aether creatures like the Midnight Spores… I’m not convinced that they are even of Adonalsium. Why couldn’t they have been Aethers? *cough* *cough*

Wasnt the spren bond only established with the Radiants? There were bondsmiths before, it might have been an Aether bond. Remember, even the Heralds were surprised with the Radiant bonds.

[alder24]

14 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I think the Stormfather's "first form" was way back as Storm (or Wind) when the highstorms were first created by Adonalsium - and that was waaaay before Ashyn. But he wasn't particularly sentient back then. (The Sibling also didn't exist, presumably.)

My focus is more on the Sibling thinking the Wind became the Stormfather, when we see the Wind talking to Kaladin as still Wind and in a different voice than the Stormfather speaks.

I think the Sibling said enough to say that the Wind/Stone/Night didn't become the Stormfather/Sibling/Nightwatcher, but they were made out of the essence of those ancient spren, without killing them or changing them. They still exist. The Night was even said to leave and then Cultivation created the Nightwatcher out of her essence. I think it's more or less the same process that True Spren use to create new Spren - the parents don't become their children, they don't disappear. WaT ch 21:

Quote

"The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception."

 

7 hours ago, Njvodin said:

I think it can be Chemoarish, but it could equally certainly be Dai-Gonarthis too. Chemoarish isn't mindless as per Hessi, who said that Nergaoul, Moelach, and Ashertmarn were the three mindless Unmade (I think)

Huh, you do have a point. Chemoarish wasn't considered as one of the mindless spren and moreover she wasn't active since Aharietiam. On the other hand Hessi wasn't sure if Dai-Gonarthis was an Unmade at all, but she speculated he was involved in the Scouring of Aimia (which was some time after Recreance). There is little to no information about either of them so that could be caused by them being hidden in Shinovar. 

However, unlike Dai-Gonarthis about whom there is nothing but speculations in Mythica, Chemoarish was noted to have a wide range of different stories, so the lack of information comes from inability to tell truths from lies, rather than from having truly no sources on her, like it’s the case with Dai-Gonarthis. I think Dai-Gonarthis still fits better because of this, but Chemoarish is a more valid candidate now.

[Shacharma]

If Honor is indeed alive - Could the WoB about there being a Shard who is in hiding that everyone interpreted as the final shard be referring to him?

[BinarySecond]

18 minutes ago, Shacharma said:

If Honor is indeed alive - Could the WoB about there being a Shard who is in hiding that everyone interpreted as the final shard be referring to him?

Absolute 6 Dimensional Chess from B$

[Smye]

1 hour ago, Shacharma said:

If Honor is indeed alive - Could the WoB about there being a Shard who is in hiding that everyone interpreted as the final shard be referring to him?

I love this theory so much right now. We know to ALWAYS expect the redirect, another secret from BS... but this would be yet another massive misdirection that none of us saw coming in the best way.

[NameIess]

Lots of cool Shard lore in this one, but while reading this, what stuck out to me was Gaz. He seems like the #1 suspect for being a mole to me. He was in debt, and if I remember right in WoR when Shallan asked if he was a gambler, his response was along the lines of "sure. Doesn't make any difference." Now, however, he's got a gambling addiction (which could definitely be true, but it seemed like there was something else that was going on with his debt) and he's the only member of the Unseen Court that doesn't want to attack the Ghostbloods right now? Seems suspicious to me.

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

Yeah, everything about this attack on the Ghostbloods is screaming bad idea. Happened in such a rush, minimal information, knowing that the organisation is sneaky. I know they have to act fast to get the drop on them, but if this goes well I will be surprised. 

[Etedbert he/him]

I’m not 100% on this connection, but the discussion of The Night “leaving” made me think of the girl who looked up story, and how she stole the light and then followed the storms that brought light to the shadowed land.

The girl came from a land of shadow (Night) then crossed the wall (Stone) and when she returned there came after her storms (Stormfather) which destroyed the wall (Stone) and cast away the shadow (Night).

Maybe the story is representative of the creation of the godspren, and the decline of the old gods.

The story structure roughly follows the timeline The Siblings gives. (Even if Jasnah complains of inconsistent veristitism). Stormfather is formed, then the Sibling is formed from Stone, and then Night leaves and Cultivation takes that essence, and creates the Nightwatcher.

Story goes: Storm -> breaks wall -> light comes to the girl’s village.

Godspeed creations: Stormfather -> Sibling -> Nightwatcher

I assume that Night “leaving” regards some change in people’s perception, causing “Night” to lose their cognitive identity, and that lessened essence is what Cultivation used to make the Nightwatcher. 

This connects nicely to the another theory, that being that The Girl Who Looked Up, represents the first desolation when Humanity first left Shinovar, and when the spren changed sides. It could make sense that soon after that was when the Godspren were formed. 
The First Desolation was -6,080, right about 7,000 years ago, in-line with when the Stormfather says he was created. The Sibling’s 6,000 year age would place their creation around -5000, coincidentally in-line with the founding of the Knights Radiant and Urithiru. This gives a soft 1,700 year gap before the Last Desplation for the Nightwatcher to be created, probably leaning closer to the start of that gap of time.

My main question now, as others pointed out, is what caused the Night to “leave”?

Looking at it in reverse, what was different about the night pre-desolations that put it on par with Wind and Stone?

a crackpot theory: there used to be some astrological feature in the Roshar system that caused long periods of darkness on Roshar, ala total eclipse. This feature caused the Dawnsingers to view these long periods of “Night” with the same awe as they did Stone or Wind. These sun-less times were fine for native biology, which could feed on Stormlight. When humanity settled in Shinovar however, a shard or shards (Cultivation likely) adjusted the system to remove these long eclipse periods. Ending the long periods of “Night” and slowly causing the collective thought regarding Night to wane, slowly resulting in their departure, particularly when the desolations began in earnest and the Fused, locked away on Braize regularly, became the only ones to properly remember the Night as it used to be pre-Ashyn-exodus.

[anna she/her]

41 minutes ago, Etedbert said:

My main question now, as others pointed out, is what caused the Night to “leave”?

I'm wondering what it means for the night to leave. We know it's hard for spren to leave the system, so the night is probably still one one of the plantes in the Roshar system in some form.

My crackpot theory: Honor and Cultivation offered up the Night as bait to Odium to trick him into Investing in the system.  They became the first Unmade, but somehow made it possible to trap Rayse with the Oathpact.

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

Just a thought after re reading some facts on The Sunlit Man

Spoiler

Sigzil held his Dawnshard (not the one Rysn has) at some point when he was already bonded to Aux, and he only held it for a short time. So if he picks it up in SL5, that means that at some point in this book we are going to get Aux in his original form.

 

[Cocoa he/him]

On 10/14/2024 at 8:47 AM, CtrlAltDepressed said:

The stormfather came from the wind. So how is the wind a separate being?

Could be a bit like taking a cutting from a plant. You start off with a broken off piece of something, and then you feed it until it becomes a distinct entity but made of the same 'substance' as the original.

On 10/14/2024 at 10:21 AM, The Stick said:

Next, while I think him letting the Mink retake Herdaz was incredibly stupid, I believe it is a necessary step to the fourth ideal, which will go something like, I shall put oaths above what is good.

On 10/14/2024 at 11:31 AM, Toaster Retribution said:

Also, I wonder if the Minks Herdaz-adventure is going to be another plotline, or just something that screws things up for our heroes. 

This feels to me like one of those karmic payoff sort of things. Dalinar allocates forces to help the Mink because it's the right thing to do even if it's not easy, and it has disastrous consequences for one of the three battlefronts (most likely the Shattered Plains). But then the Sanderlanch hits, Dalinar loses the contest of champions, but the Mink has managed to quietly secure humanity an extra foothold by reconquering Herdaz and possibly even Alethkar while everyone else's attention was focused elsewhere. Maybe not that exact sequence of events, but that kind of feeling.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

21 hours ago, Smye said:

I love this theory so much right now. We know to ALWAYS expect the redirect, another secret from BS... but this would be yet another massive misdirection that none of us saw coming in the best way.

LIRIN.

We all know Lirin is honorable to the extreme - especially with his oaths to protect/save lives and to do no harm. He is stubborn and won't back down easily. What if Lirin WAS tanavast... he dropped the shard, abdicated the throne, and left to mix among the mortals like a regular human. What if he attached a portion of himself with the bulk of his memories to the stormfather so they could take things from there, and then he went to go have a normal life or a few of them?

This would make Kaladin the literal son of Tanavast. And it's possible that Lirin himself doesn't remember all the details (perhaps he stores copies of his memories elsewhere and lets himself fully lean into his regular life) and/or that no one else is aware of his former role...

[BinarySecond]

Just now, CognitiveShadow said:

LIRIN.

We all know Lirin is honorable to the extreme - especially with his oaths to protect/save lives and to do no harm. He is stubborn and won't back down easily. What if Lirin WAS tanavast... he dropped the shard, abdicated the throne, and left to mix among the mortals like a regular human. What if he attached a portion of himself with the bulk of his memories to the stormfather so they could take things from there, and then he went to go have a normal life or a few of them?

This would make Kaladin the literal son of Tanavast. And it's possible that Lirin himself doesn't remember all the details (perhaps he stores copies of his memories elsewhere and lets himself fully lean into his regular life) and/or that no one else is aware of his former role...

Kaladin being a literal Son of Tanavast. Dang.

[The Stick]

No, we know Kaladin has no particularly special background per WoB. I think Lirin greatly reminds SF of Tanavast, but Tanavast is dead and gone.

[The Sovereign]

1 hour ago, The Stick said:

No, we know Kaladin has no particularly special background per WoB. I think Lirin greatly reminds SF of Tanavast, but Tanavast is dead and gone.

This is the WoB you are referring to:

Quote

AlwaysTheNextOne

Does Kaladin have a mixed heritage. Like maybe Yolish and Rosharan?

Brandon Sanderson

One thing I wanted to be very careful about in writing the Stormlight books is to stray away from people needing some kind of past or heritage to be special—it's okay for this to be for some characters, but it becomes a crutch. So your answer is no, he doesn't have much secret to his heritage. (Though his mother grew up wealthy for a darkeyes, and that's a little odd.)

Footnote: Brandon has mentioned Hesina's comparatively wealthier background several times, including mentioning that one of her parents are not darkeyed.
General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 16, 2020)

This one further proves Lirin isn't Tanavast as Tanavast is from Yolen:

Quote

kingbirdy (paraphrased)

Is Lirin a worldhopper?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, I'm going to quash that theory

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 15, 2022)

 

[coolsnow7]

11 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

This is the WoB you are referring to:

This one further proves Lirin isn't Tanavast as Tanavast is from Yolen:

 

Thank [insert favorite Shard here] because these theories were getting more and more drug-addled by the minute. 

[The Sovereign]

13 minutes ago, coolsnow7 said:

Thank [insert favorite Shard here] because these theories were getting more and more drug-addled by the minute. 

Haha, if pressed it would probably be Odium. Not to belittle people's ideas, but in general I think people need to ask themselves two simple questions before they dive down the rabbit hole of their theories; First, does this make sense logically? And second, is this too convoluted to be good storytelling? Not that Brandon can't get lost in the sauce like anyone else, but the way he outlines and plans typically makes anything too convoluted unlikely to be right. 

A couple of recent examples: The Stormfaker theories just break down in the faces of logic and storytelling. On the hand, the Chanarach is Shallan's mother and is the Herald who broke this time around theories make sense both narratively and logically.

Edited October 16, 2024 by The Sovereign
Grammar is important.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

15 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

This is the WoB you are referring to:

This one further proves Lirin isn't Tanavast as Tanavast is from Yolen:

 

Man, I'm bummed. I was hoping there would be something interesting related to the whole Child of Tanavast stuff, but it sounds like it's just gonna be something symbolic and boring.

Found another couple of WoB's that destroy the premise even further:

Quote

Questioner

Is Honor still alive?

Brandon Sanderson

Honor? Honor's dead.

Questioner

What about Tanavast?

Brandon Sanderson

So, um, you can assume that there is no funny business going on there.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

Quote

Wetlander

Did the Splintering happen before the Recreance?

Brandon Sanderson

I will reveal this as we go. However, be aware that in the past, when a Shard was killed, the person holding it, it is a slow burn to actually kill someone; because power cannot be destroyed. So, what it means to be killed means something a little different in these cases.

Hoser

Did Tanavast survive Honor's splintering?

Brandon Sanderson

Tanavast is dead. Good question. However, that is as of the start of The Way of Kings.

Hoser

So he could have survived the Splintering...

Brandon Sanderson

He could have survived the Splintering.

Hoser

...as a mortal...

Brandon Sanderson

Well, he could have survived for a time, but then he could not have then...

Hoser

...passed away in his sleep...

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

Steelheart Seattle signing (Oct. 14, 2013)

Just now, The Sovereign said:

Haha, if pressed it would probably be Odium. Not to belittle people's ideas, but in general I think people need to ask themselves two simple questions before they dive down the rabbit hole of their theories; First, does this make sense logically? And second, is this too convoluted to be good storytelling? Not that Brandon can't get lost in the sauce like anyone else, but the way he outlines and plans typically makes anything too convoluted unlikely to be right. 

A recent example: The Stormfaker theories just break down in the faces of logic and storytelling.

I would refer you back to Shallan's entire backstory and existence as exhibit A of why these theories aren't actually that outlandish lol without the WoBs I still think the Lirin/Tanavast theory would work and be pretty interesting.

8 minutes ago, coolsnow7 said:

Thank [insert favorite Shard here] because these theories were getting more and more drug-addled by the minute. 

I will happily admit that drugs were used in the development of my additions to these theories lol

[coolsnow7]

3 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

Haha, if pressed it would probably be Odium. Not to belittle people's ideas, but in general I think people need to ask themselves two simple questions before they dive down the rabbit hole of their theories; First, does this make sense logically? And second, is this too convoluted to be good storytelling? Not that Brandon can't get lost in the sauce like anyone else, but the way he outlines and plans typically makes anything too convoluted unlikely to be right. 

A recent example: The Stormfaker theories just break down in the faces of logic and storytelling.
On the hand, the Chanarach is Shallan's mother and is the Herald who broke this time around theories but make sense narratively and logically.

Strongly agree with this. I’m tempted to write a meta-post “characteristics of good theories” along these lines, but no one will listen and the only purpose it serves is a borderline negative one. Still… phew, sometimes the vibes around here get nuts.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

6 minutes ago, coolsnow7 said:

Strongly agree with this. I’m tempted to write a meta-post “characteristics of good theories” along these lines, but no one will listen and the only purpose it serves is a borderline negative one. Still… phew, sometimes the vibes around here get nuts.

Meh. I think it's ok for people to be able to shoot from the hip with their theories. If it is outlandish and you can show that it's unfounded, then you just share the WoB's or other info that shows the theories are incorrect. We should encourage people to share all their ideas and thoughts. This at least gives us the opportunity to see theories that we never would have thought of or considered ourselves.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

7 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

Meh. I think it's ok for people to be able to shoot from the hip with their theories. If it is outlandish and you can show that it's unfounded, then you just share the WoB's or other info that shows the theories are incorrect. We should encourage people to share all their ideas and thoughts. This at least gives us the opportunity to see theories that we never would have thought of or considered ourselves.

Plus, insanity is fun to read (as long as people don't get super defensive over it)