The Sleepless sleeping the final sleep?

[Nitpicking]

Let me invert my question: Why would Retribution not kill every single sleepless hordling in the Roshar system?

You might say, he can't. And I might answer: why not? Yes, he seems to be respecting the "don't hurt mortals directly" thing, but why can't Taravangian send Fused with oil and torches to incinerate every last one of them? (Do the Sleepless count as mortal?)

[alder24]

12 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Let me invert my question: Why would Retribution not kill every single sleepless hordling in the Roshar system?

You might say, he can't. And I might answer: why not? Yes, he seems to be respecting the "don't hurt mortals directly" thing, but why can't Taravangian send Fused with oil and torches to incinerate every last one of them? (Do the Sleepless count as mortal?)

I would guess it's simply not worth the effort. They are really good at hiding and even Taravangian, with all his godly powers, might struggle spotting them, while his Fused would be totally unable to do that. Moreover, they are mostly neutral, they aren't allied with Urithiru, they aren't participating in the war, they aren't hurting Odium's war effort so why even bother with killing them? He doesn't know they are protecting a Dawnshard, he is oblivious to their importance on Roshar. From his perspective they are just those weird bug creatures that want to blend in human society and do nothing else. Why make an enemy of something that's really hard to kill? If Taravangian was fine with losing Reshi Isles, then he's fine with allowing Sleepless doing their things as from his perspective they don't have anything - no country, no resources, no army. There are just 20 of them anyway.

[The Sovereign]

The Sleepless seem to think he is going to destroy them:

Quote

"The time has at last come for our stewardship to end."
"Obviously, the passing of the Dawnshard was the first indication that this event was near. However, we find many other signs."
"The impending events in Iri are another sign. The age of transitions has arrived."
"I believe, sincerely, that the winds blowing in from the future indicate this will be the final confrontation of Honor and Odium."
"The Heralds are essentially no more. They are rejected by their Blades."
"We must travel to the Well of Control, within the shroud of the fragments of the dead moon."
"There, we will find our destiny. We cannot stop him from destroying us. It is time."

 

[AquaRegia he/him]

Yes, I'm dredging up this ancient topic (25 days later LOL) because I'm MAD.

I agree with @alder24 there doesn't seem to be a reason for Taravangian to care one tiny bit about the Sleepless... they haven't done anything!

All the prophecy, all the mystery, all the "we're so powerful you don't even know" and "we know so much more than you dumb mortals", and for what?  NADA!  BUPKIS!  One very concrete disappointment I had in Wind and Truth was the lack of Sleepless; I was looking forward to them finally getting off their collective hordeling asses and DOING SOMETHING USEFUL.  We've known for a long time that the back-cover blurbs were, in-universe, authored by Sleepless, so we know they are watching everybody and seem to really care.  We learned quite a bit in Edgedancer and Dawnshard, and they promised to get more involved.  I was hopeful.  We got early indications they were watching the Listeners and Urithiru - both Venli and Lift noticed "purple cremlings".  I got excited.  Then? One five minute Interlude with Rysn and Nikli - one that is largely unconnected with the major plotlines - a few more vague epigraphs (collected above, thanks @The Sovereign), story over.  The End of the World as we Know it™ comes and goes without a single rusting Sleepless doing a single rusting thing.

That's it?  Storm that.