Did the Stormfather kill Tanavast?

[Shacharma]

Did the StormFather kill Tanavast? is that the Shame he is trying to hide? The reason Odium said "**we** killed you"?

This also fits with the current stormfather usurping the Winds place, as clear from the Sibling's remarks about the change in him...

If not, what did he do that was so bad?

 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I think so as well - either just the Stormfather or, perhaps more likely the Stormfather along with his Bondsmith (Melishi) and possibly the other Radiants, as part of the Recreance. He said "our shame" after all, not "my shame". Another possible aide in the murder is Cultivation, whose suggestion that Dalinar pick up Honor was something Stormfather referred to as a "betrayal".

I think it's very likely  that Stormfather killed Tanavast somehow.

[Ailvara]

Is it possible that Tanavast himself participated in it somehow? That would tie in with the Recreance being a well-intended decision gone wrong. But the main thing that makes me think so is that if his cognitive shadow lives within Stormfather, and if he killed him against his will, I'd expect there to be some intense internal turmoil and inconsistency in how Stormfather behaves as these two entities at one.

[Ashbringer he/him]

I just made a thread on this - but "Our" shame definitely is an interesting piece. I interpreted it as a shame that the Stormfather and Honor shared - perhaps being that Honor was never actually killed in the first place, and has just been hiding from essentially everyone.

The Stormfather killing Honor is also a great theory, I didn't even consider that.

[coolsnow7]

2 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

along with his Bondsmith (Melishi)

Melishi was bound to the Sibling, and was the only Bondsmith in that era. If anything this suggests that if the Stormfather played a role, the Radiants did not. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Just now, coolsnow7 said:

Melishi was bound to the Sibling, and was the only Bondsmith in that era. If anything this suggests that if the Stormfather played a role, the Radiants did not. 

My bad, haven’t read the first four books in a while (should probably reread WoR at least tbh). Thanks!

[Quantus he/him]

I have an old theory I keep coming back to: The Story of Queen Tsa outlines a Green Celestial entity temporarily abdicating their power to experience a Day as a mortal, nearly getting tricked out of it, and instead seeing the Pale Blue celestial entity having a child with the temporary interloper (the 3rd Violet celestial entity plays no obvious role).  Boil it down and assume it's talking about the Shards, and I think Cultivation set things in motion (intentionally or accidentally) that sort of tricked and/or cornered Tanavast into an act of Infidelity, which clashed with his Shard's Intent enough to drive him Mad and make him vulnerable to Shattering.  

[Ninth of the Night]

I've suspected for a while that the death of Tanavast wasn't so simple as "Odium shattered him". It's always been a mystery how one Shard can kill another. Odium either had to be extremely tricky, or he had help. And yeah, "WE killed you" was a decently clear indication that he didn't do it alone.

I was suspicious of Cultivation more recently, but I now believe it to have been some combination of a group effort involving all parties. Stormfather, Radiants, the three Shards... Maybe not the Heralds though, they seem to have really gotten thrown under the bus. Several busses in fact.

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

5 hours ago, Quantus said:

I have an old theory I keep coming back to: The Story of Queen Tsa outlines a Green Celestial entity temporarily abdicating their power to experience a Day as a mortal, nearly getting tricked out of it, and instead seeing the Pale Blue celestial entity having a child with the temporary interloper (the 3rd Violet celestial entity plays no obvious role).  Boil it down and assume it's talking about the Shards, and I think Cultivation set things in motion (intentionally or accidentally) that sort of tricked and/or cornered Tanavast into an act of Infidelity, which clashed with his Shard's Intent enough to drive him Mad and make him vulnerable to Shattering.  

I feel so silly that I never put the moon colours to the God colours before! 

Could it be as soap-opera a reason as Tanavast had an affair with a mortal and that made Cultivation mad enough to help Splinter him? Seems petty of her though.

Unless, in keeping with the Cultivating theme, she chose to Cultivate the descendants of Tanavast into a new and better plant than Tanavast, and had to cut away to old to make room for the new? 

[+Child of Hodor]

I still think the "we" in "we killed you" is Rayse and Odium. The two were clearly not on the same page. Odium seemed to be trying to escape Rayse during RoW. Sja-Anat sensed two different responses to her defiance in her interlude one from the Vessel that didn't like it and one from the Power that did. After Rayse died the Power talked to Taravangian said he was "perfect". There were two separate minds in the Rayse / Odium dynamic. The font when he says "we killed you" a second time is a different font than the first time implying a different speaker. 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

2 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

I still think the "we" in "we killed you" is Rayse and Odium. The two were clearly not on the same page. Odium seemed to be trying to escape Rayse during RoW. Sja-Anat sensed two different responses to her defiance in her interlude one from the Vessel that didn't like it and one from the Power that did. After Rayse died the Power talked to Taravangian said he was "perfect". There were two separate minds in the Rayse / Odium dynamic. The font when he says "we killed you" a second time is a different font than the first time implying a different speaker. 

I hadn't seen this theory before, and it seems to make a lot of sense to me. 

 

Personally, I hope that it is not the vessel and shard simply because it would be an awesome twist for SF or Cultivation to have been involved. 

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

I think that Honor and Cultivation had a plan. They trapped Odium to their system to prevent him from continuing on his rampage and killing more shards and causing more destruction. And then Honor gave up his shard intentionally, attaching his cognitive shadow to the SF. Then he planned to get a bondsmith so that they could bind the power of Odium, Honor, and Cultivation into one shard, with the intent that it would mellow or balance out Odium's intent and create a more manageable shard to protect the cosmere. Similar to how the creation of Harmony sort of nullified the Ruin shard, if just temporarily.

But I think it goes wrong and only Honor and Odium end up getting merged together, with Taravangian at the lead. I think Dalinar loses the contest of champions on a techinicality, which means he will be stuck as Taravangian's fused, destined to return over and over again as his agent in the cosmere. I think the combo of Honor and Odium creates a shard that is filled with more of a righteous indignation and is hell bent on bringing justice to the cosmere by destroying the other shards and trying to be the only one left so he can create what he thinks are the best systems.

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

11 hours ago, Quantus said:

I have an old theory I keep coming back to: The Story of Queen Tsa outlines a Green Celestial entity temporarily abdicating their power to experience a Day as a mortal, nearly getting tricked out of it, and instead seeing the Pale Blue celestial entity having a child with the temporary interloper (the 3rd Violet celestial entity plays no obvious role).  Boil it down and assume it's talking about the Shards, and I think Cultivation set things in motion (intentionally or accidentally) that sort of tricked and/or cornered Tanavast into an act of Infidelity, which clashed with his Shard's Intent enough to drive him Mad and make him vulnerable to Shattering.  

And then perhaps that "child of Tanavast" becomes a line of people descended from him, including Kaladin?

[The Stick]

14 minutes ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

And then perhaps that "child of Tanavast" becomes a line of people descended from him, including Kaladin?

I don't like this really at all. The whole point of Kaladin's arc is that he is a random person who steps up when he is needed. I think some important lineage would degrade that part of his arc. I also recall a WoB that there was nothing special about Kaladin's family, except the whole Aesudan relation thing with Hesina. If Alder wants to chime in with WoB's on either side, feel free.

[Quantus he/him]

10 hours ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

And then perhaps that "child of Tanavast" becomes a line of people descended from him, including Kaladin?

Or it got UnMade and provided the Void side with a previously unprecedented power once upon a time...

[listerfeend]

33 minutes ago, Quantus said:

10 hours ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

And then perhaps that "child of Tanavast" becomes a line of people descended from him, including Kaladin?

Or it got UnMade and provided the Void side with a previously unprecedented power once upon a time...

This statement is confusing to me.... Are you suggesting that a lineage of people was Unmade? I don't quite see how that would give Odium or the Void any kind of power. Or how a line of ancestry is unmade, other than by killing them, and that's obviously not what has happened...

[Quantus he/him]

58 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

This statement is confusing to me.... Are you suggesting that a lineage of people was Unmade? I don't quite see how that would give Odium or the Void any kind of power. Or how a line of ancestry is unmade, other than by killing them, and that's obviously not what has happened...

No, Im suggesting that the Child itself became an UnMade.  Per WOB, the child of an active shard would have Oddities, so it might have been a unique enough being (or just Connected to Honor in a unique enough way) for Rayse to have tried to capitalize on them.  Specifically, I think BAM could have been said Child, and that being the Child of Honor is what let them Connect (via some use Spiritual Adhesion, presumably) to the Singers during the False Desolation and provide Forms of Power and Voidlight in a way that previously Odium had to do directly.  Something about the War changed to allow the False Desolation to happen, and I think it was the Child of Honor being made into, UnMade into, or maybe Merged into, etc. the UnMade we know of today.  

[spaidapig he/him]

41 minutes ago, Quantus said:

No, Im suggesting that the Child itself became an UnMade.  Per WOB, the child of an active shard would have Oddities, so it might have been a unique enough being (or just Connected to Honor in a unique enough way) for Rayse to have tried to capitalize on them.  Specifically, I think BAM could have been said Child, and that being the Child of Honor is what let them Connect (via some use Spiritual Adhesion, presumably) to the Singers during the False Desolation and provide Forms of Power and Voidlight in a way that previously Odium had to do directly.  Something about the War changed to allow the False Desolation to happen, and I think it was the Child of Honor being made into, UnMade into, or maybe Merged into, etc. the UnMade we know of today.  

Doesn't seem implausible, considering this WOB:

Quote

LewsTherinTelescope

Does "Ba-Ado-Mishram" mean "child of the light of Cultivation and Honor"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, but you're doing a pretty good job picking apart the linguistics of that.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e14590

 

 

So there seems to be a connection to Honor

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

15 minutes ago, spaidapig said:

Doesn't seem implausible, considering this WOB:

Quote

LewsTherinTelescope

Does "Ba-Ado-Mishram" mean "child of the light of Cultivation and Honor"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, but you're doing a pretty good job picking apart the linguistics of that.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e14590

 

 

So there seems to be a connection to Honor

Yeah I was theorizing from this one that Ba-Ado-Mishram was like a first attempt at the Sibling which was then Unmade since the Sibling is considered a child of both.

[listerfeend]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

No, Im suggesting that the Child itself became an UnMade.  Per WOB, the child of an active shard would have Oddities, so it might have been a unique enough being (or just Connected to Honor in a unique enough way) for Rayse to have tried to capitalize on them.  Specifically, I think BAM could have been said Child, and that being the Child of Honor is what let them Connect (via some use Spiritual Adhesion, presumably) to the Singers during the False Desolation and provide Forms of Power and Voidlight in a way that previously Odium had to do directly.  Something about the War changed to allow the False Desolation to happen, and I think it was the Child of Honor being made into, UnMade into, or maybe Merged into, etc. the UnMade we know of today.  

I'm struggling to see how this ties into Kaladin being called Child of Tanavast by the SF. Which was kind of why I was confused. I think it definitely could be the case that BAM was related to Honor in some way, that seems to make sense, given her ability to Connect with all the Singers and give them forms, I just struggle to see how that relates to Kaladin. Perhaps you weren't thinking of Kaladin when bringing this up, but he's pretty much the only thing that has been called "Child of Tanavast" 

 

[Quantus he/him]

20 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

I'm struggling to see how this ties into Kaladin being called Child of Tanavast by the SF. Which was kind of why I was confused. I think it definitely could be the case that BAM was related to Honor in some way, that seems to make sense, given her ability to Connect with all the Singers and give them forms, I just struggle to see how that relates to Kaladin. Perhaps you weren't thinking of Kaladin when bringing this up, but he's pretty much the only thing that has been called "Child of Tanavast" 

 

Yup, what I was offering was an alternative to the Child of Tanavast connection that @Dreamwa1ker mentioned, not an extension of it.  

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Yup, what I was offering was an alternative to the Child of Tanavast connection that @Dreamwa1ker mentioned, not an extension of it.  

That doesnt make sense though because the use of the term "Child of Tanavast" is only used for Kaladin.... we don't see that phrase used anywhere else. So the question is - why does Kaladin get this name/title when no one else does? Other's only get son/child of Honor, never Tanavast.

After recent discussions here, I am starting to think that there could be an answer. Maybe Tanavast gave up his power (part of a larger plan that culminates at the contest of champions) and then 'abdicated' his godhood and became a regular person. Of course he'd be immortal in the sense that he would not age much and would live on without dying from old age. I'm even wondering if he attached most of his memories as Honor / Tanavast to the Stormfather, truly giving himself as normal of a mortal experience as he could.

The abdication story in the Way of Kings seems to be something that could be a parallel to Tanavast/Honor. If he did do this, who have we seen that might be a possible candidate for being this semi-mortal Tanavast? Lirin. He fits all the characteristics of someone who held the shard of Honor. He won't cause harm to anyone, won't stand for broken oaths, etc. This would explain why Kaladin would be referred to as Son of Tanavast specifically.

[Quantus he/him]

5 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

That doesnt make sense though because the use of the term "Child of Tanavast" is only used for Kaladin.... we don't see that phrase used anywhere else. So the question is - why does Kaladin get this name/title when no one else does? Other's only get son/child of Honor, never Tanavast.

Not to nitpick, but the Question is "Did the Stormfather kill Tanavast".  The whole "Child Of Tanavast" topic is just a tangent coming off of one proposed answer, and it's a theory that's pretty much been shot down by WOB (see below).  

5 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

After recent discussions here, I am starting to think that there could be an answer. Maybe Tanavast gave up his power (part of a larger plan that culminates at the contest of champions) and then 'abdicated' his godhood and became a regular person. Of course he'd be immortal in the sense that he would not age much and would live on without dying from old age. I'm even wondering if he attached most of his memories as Honor / Tanavast to the Stormfather, truly giving himself as normal of a mortal experience as he could.

I dont think that's possible for two reasons: I dont think it's literally possible since the Stormfather has been confirmed to have merged with Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow and I dont think that would be possible if he had survived. Also he's married to Cultivation and she certainly seem to think that Rayse killed him, so I dont think he'd have walked out on their relationship like that (thought it's admittedly hard to guess her mind in so many ways).

5 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

The abdication story in the Way of Kings seems to be something that could be a parallel to Tanavast/Honor. If he did do this, who have we seen that might be a possible candidate for being this semi-mortal Tanavast? Lirin. He fits all the characteristics of someone who held the shard of Honor. He won't cause harm to anyone, won't stand for broken oaths, etc. This would explain why Kaladin would be referred to as Son of Tanavast specifically.

 

WOB has confirmed that Kaladin has nothing secret or unique with his heritage, he doesnt want these characters to needing some special past or heritage to be special.  

 

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.
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