Hoid’s Unexplained Absence

[RedBlue]

Hoid wasn’t on Roshar during the Recreance or the events surrounding it.

It’s easy to brush past this fact because it’s a big cosmere and he has other stuff to do, but isn’t it weird? Hoid has a particular interest in Roshar and making sure the status quo there gets kept, and he apparently has magical means of knowing where he ‘needs’ to be. Why didn’t he come running at the first sign of trouble on Roshar? How could he miss the death of one of the original Vessels?

I don’t have a concrete theory on this, just a bunch of speculation.

• Maybe Fortune isn’t as reliable or consistent as we assume it is.
• Maybe Fortune has its own agenda, somehow, and kept Hoid away from the action this one time because he would have messed up Fortune’s plans.
• Maybe there was something else as huge as Tanavast’s death going on somewhere else in the cosmere, and Hoid opted to attend that event instead. (Was it Virtuosity’s Splintering? Or maybe Scadrial was having a previous Well of Ascension episode and Hoid helped to keep Ruin trapped? Or something we haven’t heard of?)
• Maybe Hoid just dropped the ball? (I hope not. That’s a really boring explanation.)

Does anyone else feel like there’s something going on here?

[Jult]

It's really hard to say considering we only have rough information on how exactly the timelines from different books add up. A couple more options might b

1. Hoid got stuck. Between getting 'cursed' in Tress and becoming a statue in Yumi.. I think we can safely say he's not always readily available to travel to Roshar. 
   Note: both of those specific examples take place long after the Recreance.
2. Dawnshard shenanigans. I don't think we exactly know when the Change Dawnshard arrived on Roshar. Or when exactly the Survive Dawnshard was/wasn't in Hoid's possession. But I think it's possible that Change arrived shortly before the Recreance and, if Hoid had Survive at that time, he maybe hadn't figured out a safe/stealthy solution for bringing Survive to the same planet as another Dawnshard.
3. Oaths. Maybe he made some kind of agreement between the Oathpact and the Recreance with either Tanavast or Rayse to stay out of their conflict. This would have become null and void upon Tanavast's death; allowing Hoid to return in later years. 

 

[Through The Living Ash he/him]

It's possible that Hoid was not able to feasibly travel fast enough to Roshar to make it to those events, or that those events were not important for him in particular to be at, since he might not have been able to impact their outcome. I don't think that it was due to Change as Hoid was shocked when he learned of it in Rysn. I also doubt he would take an oath with a Shard as he definitely tries to remain free and unaffiliated, especially one that might hinder his assistance of a place that he cares for so much. I think that the most likely reason is that some other important event was occurring in the Cosmere at those times. 

[MrHobbes343]

Another point is that while Hoid likes to scavenge invested arts and artifacts.

Until BAM was released recently, it was heavily implied that none of the "dead" blades or plate could be taken off world.  

No Spren were bonding any new Knights.

For Hoid it was an event without much upside to his cause. While he did have plans for Roshar, I don't think he would like to test his survival powers by being hacked appart by power seeking Rosharens with soul-cutting swords without some kind of long term upside. He can make his way to Roshar at any point he wants, why go for the fall?

Edited May 2, 2025 by MrHobbes343
missing an E

[+Oltux72 he/him]

The vincinity of a dieing vessel is unlikely to be safe. He might just have feared Tanavast who had nothing to lose anymore.

[Returned he/him]

We don't know what Hoid's designs really are, so it's possible that the Recreance was basically irrelevant to him (in that dimension of his schemes, at least).

To suggest that he should have been there requires us to think of reasons that the Recreance was bad for him, which we don't have. The OP's suggestion seems to me to be off:

On 4/29/2025 at 5:52 AM, RedBlue said:

Hoid has a particular interest in Roshar and making sure the status quo there gets kept

This strikes me as the opposite of what's presented in the books. The Shards away from Roshar don't appear to care much about what happened there provided that Rayse remained trapped ("Rayse is contained"). Hoid very much wanted some sort of intervention to deal with Rayse and struggled to persuade others to help with that, though the only specific actions in that direction that we know of took place in the timeframe of WoK-- that factor may not have been meaningful around the time of the Recreance.

We also know that Hoid was specifically afraid of Rayse and being caught by him on Roshar, and that is not the sort of thing which has concerned him much anywhere else. Roshar may have been uniquely dangerous and going there when Rayse's opposition suffered a serious blow (losing Honor entirely) may not have been an appealing or worthwhile prospect even if there were some benefit to be had.

So in summary I think that the "need" which Hoid's magic causes him to meet may not have had any relation to the Recreance, that Hoid would have faced extreme danger in trying to interfere with the event, and that the tenuous balance on Roshar was very much not something he wanted to preserve anyways.

At this point in the Cosmere works we know enough about Hoid's mode of operation, and that mode makes it hard for him to be anything but a plot device. He winds up where he's most needed when it's most necessary that he be there, and whatever that specific situation is, it is (so far) self-authorizing and decisive. Had it mattered, he would have been there. Therefore, empirically, Hoid's presence wasn't necessary and probably would not have been helpful, productive, nor meaningful.

[ChillPenguin]

On 5/2/2025 at 2:48 PM, Returned said:

We don't know what Hoid's designs really are, so it's possible that the Recreance was basically irrelevant to him (in that dimension of his schemes, at least).

To suggest that he should have been there requires us to think of reasons that the Recreance was bad for him, which we don't have. The OP's suggestion seems to me to be off:

This strikes me as the opposite of what's presented in the books. The Shards away from Roshar don't appear to care much about what happened there provided that Rayse remained trapped ("Rayse is contained"). Hoid very much wanted some sort of intervention to deal with Rayse and struggled to persuade others to help with that, though the only specific actions in that direction that we know of took place in the timeframe of WoK-- that factor may not have been meaningful around the time of the Recreance.

We also know that Hoid was specifically afraid of Rayse and being caught by him on Roshar, and that is not the sort of thing which has concerned him much anywhere else. Roshar may have been uniquely dangerous and going there when Rayse's opposition suffered a serious blow (losing Honor entirely) may not have been an appealing or worthwhile prospect even if there were some benefit to be had.

So in summary I think that the "need" which Hoid's magic causes him to meet may not have had any relation to the Recreance, that Hoid would have faced extreme danger in trying to interfere with the event, and that the tenuous balance on Roshar was very much not something he wanted to preserve anyways.

At this point in the Cosmere works we know enough about Hoid's mode of operation, and that mode makes it hard for him to be anything but a plot device. He winds up where he's most needed when it's most necessary that he be there, and whatever that specific situation is, it is (so far) self-authorizing and decisive. Had it mattered, he would have been there. Therefore, empirically, Hoid's presence wasn't necessary and probably would not have been helpful, productive, nor meaningful.

By Hoid not hiding anywhere else do you mean from other shards? We know for a fact he hid from Harmony at least - but of course he knew Ati and Leras but didn’t really know Sazed or what two shared would do. I agree with you on your other points though. 
 

That being said, there’s nothing to say Hoid wasn’t up to something somewhere else. Could he have been on Sel at that time? I guess Elantris was more recent than that.

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, ChillPenguin said:

By Hoid not hiding anywhere else do you mean from other shards? We know for a fact he hid from Harmony at least - but of course he knew Ati and Leras but didn’t really know Sazed or what two shared would do. I agree with you on your other points though. 

I didn't mean to imply that he hadn't hidden anywhere else. I meant that Hoid had expressed a specific fear of being caught by Rayse on Roshar, rather than a general sense of caution. We haven't seen a similar concern about other Shards, at least not that Hoid has given voice to.