Unmade Origin Theory

[Raven Wilder]

What if the Unmade come from the Heralds? I just got to thinking, being "Unmade" could also be phrased as "broken", and the Heralds giving into torture and releasing Odium is consistently referred to as them "breaking". So I got to thinking, maybe each time one of the Heralds breaks on Braize, they give up some hard-to-define part of who they are, which Odium could then shape into a unique form of spren. And Odium could only make nine Unmade to oppose the ten Heralds, because only nine of them ever broke and gave Odium something to work with.

[Treamayne]

16 minutes ago, Raven Wilder said:

What if the Unmade come from the Heralds? I just got to thinking, being "Unmade" could also be phrased as "broken", and the Heralds giving into torture and releasing Odium is consistently referred to as them "breaking". So I got to thinking, maybe each time one of the Heralds breaks on Braize, they give up some hard-to-define part of who they are, which Odium could then shape into a unique form of spren. And Odium could only make nine Unmade to oppose the ten Heralds, because only nine of them ever broke and gave Odium something to work with.

We do not know for sure - but it is unlikely as Unmade are considered to have come from Spren (such as Raboniel trying to unmake Sibling) and Unmade are more invested than a Shard's vessel would be - which puts them well "larger" than a Herald (much less a small part of a Herald). It's been theorized that some of the Unmade actually were brought by Odium from other Shardworlds where he fought other Shards (Devotion, Dominion, Amition, etc.) as a kind of war trophy (like he wants to do to Dalinar by making him Fused).

WoBs.

Spoiler

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Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

We have now seen Midnight Essence on Lumar and as part of the Unmade on Roshar, should we assume that all the other Unmade have connections to Odium’s other conquests like maybe Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Midnight Essence is more like Lightweaving in that multiple magic systems will reach the same conclusion. When something is done to the magic to corrupt it, it becomes like Midnight Essence. So while there are similarities between the two and they work the same they may not have the same point of origin.

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

So there is no meaningful connection between Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You weren’t going to let me off the hook. You are theorizing in a very interesting direction. RAFO!

Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 (July 28, 2023)

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Questioner

Assuming you have a way to siphon out a Vessel from a Shard, how much hemalurgic metal would be required to contain that Vessel?

Brandon Sanderson

An astronomically large amount. Oh, the Vessel? Or contain a Shard? The Vessel, just a little dude... not that much. Basically, like a decent-sized gemstone would hold an Unmade, and that's more Investiture than we're talking about.

Questioner

Can hemalurgic metal hold around the same amount of an Invested creature as a pure gemstone?

Brandon Sanderson

No, gemstones can do more.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

Hope that helps