Dakwara, daccwaga, and Patji

[listerfeend]

Ok, soooo....why did the Dakwara actually stick around Cakoban's body? In the flashback, we're given essentially a brief window into Cakoban's life and his confrontation with the "Dakwara", which, at the time, was a Type whatever Entity, though in the flashback it's portrayed exactly the same as Type 1-6 Entity from earlier.

Cakoban tells Jope that if he bests it, it must follow him, "You know the stories. Best the monster, and it must serve you." To which Jope replies "I don't think that's a daccwaga". So, we know that their stories had not been able to influence the shape or nature of the Type 1-6 Entity that was chasing them. We also know that they only recently discovered First of the Sun, and, presumably, and that they hadn't been in the area long enough to tell the stories and build the belief that the monster would serve they who best it. 

So, why does it stick around? These entities actively avoid areas around populated portions of the CR specifically to avoid being caught up the consciousness of these areas, getting trapped, like the Dakwara did. Cakoban is resolute and steadfast in his belief that the monster should serve him if he bests it, and that is exactly what happens, but... I'm confused as to why. Frost obviously leaves at some point, but the monster doesn't seem to care about Frost, or his massive amounts of Investiture (we're also told that these Entities are one of the only things that can likely kill a dragon without crazy inventions and the like.)

I'm being told that Patji somehow influenced this, but I don't get the feeling at all that Cakoban even knew about Patji, or Patji Cakoban. Much less that Patji would care to set up this entire interaction. Nor am I very sure that Patji, still presumably an Avatar of Autonomy, would be able to set this up. 

During my reading, I sort of thought that a few things had come together to make this happen. They had stories of the daccwaga, stories about besting one and it serving you. Cakoban believed these stories to be absolutely true. Cakoban was also quite highly Invested at the time of the conflict, so much so that he wasn't immediately annihilated in a puff of Investiture when he was hit by the beast, the only real thing that we have indicating that level of Investment and that kind of interaction happening being with a Dragon, one of, if not the, most naturally Invested species in the Cosmere. So the way I read it was basically that, Cakoban and his people's stories, mixed with how highly Invested he was at the time, forced that to be true, causing the Entity to stay, trapping it there for many many centuries, long enough for the stories to take hold fully, changing the form and function of the beast. And it was this, and pretty much only this, that made all of this happen. 

 

[VersatileThrenodite he/him]

2 hours ago, listerfeend said:

We also know that they only recently discovered First of the Sun, and, presumably, and that they hadn't been in the area long enough to tell the stories and build the belief that the monster would serve they who best it. 

He told them to tell the story so it might have spread quickly. Who knows how long the Nephilim stuck around after killing Cakoban but if it stayed in the general area it may have been compelled to return to the body as the Identity imposed by the story solidified. Also Cakoban was juicing and heavily invested when he died whos to say he didn't have an outsized influence on the entity.

[listerfeend]

1 hour ago, VersatileThrenodite said:

Also Cakoban was juicing and heavily invested when he died whos to say he didn't have an outsized influence on the entity.

That was my general read of the situation, actually. We've been told by WoB that the "molding" of investiture to fit conscious perception takes upwards of thousands of years, however, and that seems to contradict that possibility. It was also stated that Dragons have died to these creatures, and they are as close to Shard level Investiture as it seems to get without actually holding a Shard. My thought on that was that Cakoban and his people already had stories about these creatures called the daccwaga, and Cakoban didn't know that wasn't a daccwaga, in fact, he believed it was one. Add that to how Invested he was at the time, I was thinking it might have been possible for him to essentially 'Soulcast' the Entity into the proto-Dakwara, drawing on his people's oral traditions and the stories they told, thus imposing some of the limitations he believed the creature should have, and then the legend of his deeds and the Dakwara continued to lay on those limitations over the vast time scales, till we met the Dakwara here, in the shape and form of the serpent.

The reason I bring up the Dragons and their amount of Investiture is that, they, being so Invested as they are, and so knowledgable, should be able to utilize these kinds of mental gymnastics to place limitations on these Entities in a similar manner. However, one of this book's consistent themes was very much about the difference between belief and knowledge. I was thinking, it could be that, because the Dragons know so much, they know the exact mechanics behind what one of these entities are and how thoughts shape thing, and how they are supposed to take thousands of years to be able to affect Investiture in this way, they simply couldn't do something like this, because they can't make themselves believe the entity is anything other than what it actually is. Cakoban, and Dusk, however, had no such limitation of knowledge. They didn't know what the thing was, but they believed it to be this monster from their mythology, and because of the strength of that belief, mixed with the amount of Investiture it seems Cakoban was dealing with, they were able to impose those beliefs on the entity...

Edited July 3, 2025 by listerfeend

[earthexile]

We see in Starling's interaction with the cthulhu entity that it responds strangely to a lack of fear. It's possible that Cakoban's Investiture and his determination to protect the people were enough to gain some kind of influence over the Not-Yet-Dakwara.

The entities miss being 'alive' and the connections they once felt, but maybe that means if you started treating one like a god, depending on it, needing it to be there for you, it might find that experience satisfying. It might even decide you're pretty cool, and crush invaders for you. It's found an arrangement that no longer torments it, and it will resist further change. Autonomy's influence might be behind that, if a Shard can influence anti-Investiture entities at all.

Lots of weird clues. I'll be puzzling over this for awhile.

[RedBlue]

I think we have enough info to speculate more on the evolution of the words and the myth.

The original myth was likely about a type of monster known as daccwaga, and there were pre-existing stories about them serving the heroes who defeat them. As Cakoban’s greatly embellished story was passed down the generations, ‘the daccwaga’ shifted to ‘the Dakwara,’ and the belief shifted from a category of monsters to one unique monster. The earlier stories of the earlier heroes were gradually forgotten or engulfed by the more popular Cakoban myth.

The parts of the Cakoban myth that don’t fit into the actual events of his story, such as the ‘giants of Epelli,’ are likely fragments of those earlier myths.

The shooting star guide might also be a motif from those earlier myths that got transposed onto the Cakoban myth when the Current was too hard to understand or depict.

[lacrossedeamon]

Interestingly enough the "can't kill a god, but can defeat in other means" is echoed in Horneater culture as we see with Cord trying to trick the Sleepless. It's a rather common cultural hero mytheme in many real world mythologies but it is interesting that both of these cosmere cultures are heavily influenced by Polynesian culture.

 

We have examples of cognitive entities being rather susceptible to short-term perception such as the Nightmares and Midnight Essence. The Type 1-6 Threnodite entities share many aspects with them but souped up so Cakoban also being souped up might be all that's needed.

 

"Giants of Epelli" seems to be some other Shardic clash or a contest of champions which could have interesting implications for the timeline, especially if it was something that happened during the migration.

 

I wonder if the shooting star is meant to be Autonomy since we know she heavily invested main system's star and has a magic called starmarks.

 

One of the big take aways for me is that the timeline of the myth as told by Frond doesn't match up with Dusk's dream. Dusk's dream implies to me that they only encountered what would become the Dakwara after having settled First of the Sun and not during the actual migration.

Edited July 6, 2025 by lacrossedeamon

[listerfeend]

On 7/6/2025 at 2:34 AM, lacrossedeamon said:

One of the big take aways for me is that the timeline of the myth as told by Frond doesn't match up with Dusk's dream. Dusk's dream implies to me that they only encountered what would become the Dakwara after having settled First of the Sun and not during the actual migration.

My read on that was they had only very recently found First of the Sun, so, it's possible that it was just after the migration was 'complete'

[lacrossedeamon]

2 hours ago, listerfeend said:

My read on that was they had only very recently found First of the Sun, so, it's possible that it was just after the migration was 'complete'

Right but even then in the vision it didn't sound like Cakoban knew about the Dakwara until after reaching Patji and then going back out to explore more while in the myth the Dakwara is chasing them from before they ever reached Patji.

[listerfeend]

46 minutes ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Right but even then in the vision it didn't sound like Cakoban knew about the Dakwara until after reaching Patji and then going back out to explore more while in the myth the Dakwara is chasing them from before they ever reached Patji.

Ok, I read that differently, it seemed to me like Cakoban definitely had stories of the daccwaga that he was basing everything off of, and I'm assuming that the name gradually changed overtime to Dakwara. So it seems like:

Cakoban had stories of the daccwaga from their homeland.
Cakoban (and/or some unnamed other Navigators) found First of the Sun (Patji's Perp)
Cakoban and co helped their people migrate to First of the Sun
Cakoban and Jope (and the three other Navigator ships) went to explore more
Cakoban and Jope ran into the Type 1-6 (assuming, based off the description, though the numbers could be referring to the amount of Investiture present in the entity) Entity, and assumed it was a/the daccwaga
Over time, that name changed to Dakwara (or perhaps they already had a myth about the Dakwara which was maybe like, the "king/queen" of the daccwaga?)

It didn't seem to me like they'd been on First of the Sun long enough to have stories about this entity from discovering FotS, as they basically said in that flashback that they had just dropped the last of everyone off, so it seemed to me like Cakoban and Jope had brought those stories with them from their Homeland, where ever that might be, and applied them to the Entity, because they didn't actually know what it was, so they assumed it was this thing from their mythology/folklore. 

Edited July 7, 2025 by listerfeend

[lacrossedeamon]

8 hours ago, listerfeend said:

Ok, I read that differently, it seemed to me like Cakoban definitely had stories of the daccwaga that he was basing everything off of, and I'm assuming that the name gradually changed overtime to Dakwara. So it seems like:

Cakoban had stories of the daccwaga from their homeland.
Cakoban (and/or some unnamed other Navigators) found First of the Sun (Patji's Perp)
Cakoban and co helped their people migrate to First of the Sun
Cakoban and Jope (and the three other Navigator ships) went to explore more
Cakoban and Jope ran into the Type 1-6 (assuming, based off the description, though the numbers could be referring to the amount of Investiture present in the entity) Entity, and assumed it was a/the daccwaga
Over time, that name changed to Dakwara (or perhaps they already had a myth about the Dakwara which was maybe like, the "king/queen" of the daccwaga?)

It didn't seem to me like they'd been on First of the Sun long enough to have stories about this entity from discovering FotS, as they basically said in that flashback that they had just dropped the last of everyone off, so it seemed to me like Cakoban and Jope had brought those stories with them from their Homeland, where ever that might be, and applied them to the Entity, because they didn't actually know what it was, so they assumed it was this thing from their mythology/folklore. 

No. This all seems correct. Daccwaga seems to be something from the Eelakin homeworld's culture and predates the migration. What I am pointing out is the myth has Cakoban encountering and defeating the Entity that would become the Dakwara before finding the perpendicularity while the Dusk's vision shows that he only learned about the Entity being in the area after having found the perpendicularity.

[listerfeend]

12 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

No. This all seems correct. Daccwaga seems to be something from the Eelakin homeworld's culture and predates the migration. What I am pointing out is the myth has Cakoban encountering and defeating the Entity that would become the Dakwara before finding the perpendicularity while the Dusk's vision shows that he only learned about the Entity being in the area after having found the perpendicularity.

Ahhh, yes, I'm sorry, I mistook what you were saying. I did notice that after re-reading both Frond's story, and the flashback chapter. 

 

Quote

"Giants of Epelli" seems to be some other Shardic clash or a contest of champions which could have interesting implications for the timeline, especially if it was something that happened during the migration.

It kind of feels like we already know of all of the major clashes between shards, unless two or more of the "in hiding" Shards (Mercy, Valor, Whimsy, or Invention) ALSO clashed together, I'm trying to figure out which of the clashes they may be talking about. Or maybe it's possible this is some other myth? There are a lot of interesting tidbits in this entire thing.

The Winged Statue, obviously referring to Frost, who, for as long as we've known about him, has been a staunch anti-interventionist. Could this be the reason Frost decided to stop intervening in things?  

It seems obvious that the Navigator ability comes from Cakoban's homeworld, so is this pre-shattering magic? Did their people come from a planet already Invested by a different avatar of Autonomy? 

Edited July 8, 2025 by listerfeend

[lacrossedeamon]

58 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

It kind of feels like we already know of all of the major clashes between shards, unless two or more of the "in hiding" Shards (Mercy, Valor, Whimsy, or Invention) ALSO clashed together, I'm trying to figure out which of the clashes they may be talking about. Or maybe it's possible this is some other myth? There are a lot of interesting tidbits in this entire thing.

So my first thought here is Aona and Skai but that contradicts a WoB about that being before Ambition's splintering although it's possible but unlikely that the migration started before that with both occurring during it. If the migration took multiple generations the mythic Cakoban could be a composite character of multiple historical migration leaders but only named after the final one. Alternatively the giants clashing could be some form of war between two superpower cultures.

[listerfeend]

1 hour ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Alternatively the giants clashing could be some form of war between two superpower cultures.

I just had a thought: it could also refer to an astronomical calamity of some sort. Perhaps they migrated from a world with two moons pushed into an unstable orbit, or something of the sort. 

[lacrossedeamon]

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

I just had a thought: it could also refer to an astronomical calamity of some sort. Perhaps they migrated from a world with two moons pushed into an unstable orbit, or something of the sort. 

Hoid talks about (assumedly) Yolen similarly but I don't think the Proto-Eelakin are from Yolen.

[listerfeend]

2 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Hoid talks about (assumedly) Yolen similarly but I don't think the Proto-Eelakin are from Yolen.

Yes, that seems doubtful to me as well...Yolen has been portrayed as a pretty advanced society/planet in general, even at the time of the Shattering, which doesn't lend itself very well to the oral traditions/stories that Cakabon and co were reliant on. That's actually a pretty major theme throughout this book, the difference and power of belief versus knowledge. I would expect a group migrating from Yolen would have knowledge, rather than belief, and that would kind of ruin the entire "Cakoban defeats the Dakwara" story in its entirety. It's extremely difficult to even make guesses at where in the timeline the migration even occurred, other than "after Ambition died" and "at least several generations after settling on First of the Sun".

My current hypothesis is that Navigation is an Invested Art from whichever home world they came from, which makes me want to try to draw comparisons to other places we've been. The closest thing I can come up with is actually Aona and Skai, as you mentioned, and maybe you could share that WoB that you say contradicts it. I know that Aona and Skai happened before Ambition, but I also don't have a great sense of exactly how long before. If we're looking at timelines, I seem to recall that Odium has been bound to Roshar for at least 6,000 years as of SA era 1, which leaves 5,000 (at most) years before him being bound to Roshar and after the Shattering. So, he was kind of doing a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Another thing that strikes me as potentially pointing towards Sel, Aona and Skai, is the description of the liquid Investiture he is using, "A thick golden liquid", which is pretty much exactly how purified Dor is described. On top of all of that, Brandon has said that one of the inspirations for one of the cultures on Sel was "vikings with a unified religion similar to Christianity", with Vikings being pretty well known for their sea faring capabilities, and navigation.

edit: found the WoB

 

Quote

Argent

Some of the few Shards Rayse Splintered included Ambition, I believe, Dominion, and Devotion.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

And those were all way back, in the history. So, we know that the Shards' personalities overrides the Vessel's personality over time?

Brandon Sanderson

Strongly influence, and depending on the individual, override.

Argent

Okay. So did Rayse choose those Shards because--

Brandon Sanderson

He went after Ambition first, but didn't find Ambition until after going after Devotion and Dominion. But Ambition was number one on his hit list.

Argent

Was it because of the Shard or because of the Vessel? Like did he hate the person?

Brandon Sanderson

In this case it was the Shard, primarily, that drove him--

Argent

Oh, he was maybe afraid the Shard would grow too powerful and take over--

Brandon Sanderson

He was afraid that this Shard that would rival him. And so he's like "This one is number one on the hit list. We're taking down Ambition." But then he got trapped in the Rosharan system.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

All that to say, maybe it is possible that their people started on Sel. With the way oral traditions and legends go, maybe Cakoban wasn't even the one that escaped the "great giants of Epelli", but they were on their own long trail of sorts, wandering the CR for a few hundred years or so, before finally finding Patji. Alternatively, Aona and Skai, and the death of Ambition, may have all occurred within Cakoban's lifetime?

Edited July 8, 2025 by listerfeend

[lacrossedeamon]

9 hours ago, listerfeend said:

Yes, that seems doubtful to me as well...Yolen has been portrayed as a pretty advanced society/planet in general, even at the time of the Shattering, which doesn't lend itself very well to the oral traditions/stories that Cakabon and co were reliant on.

Actually Brandon has described Yolen as Bronze Age at the time of the Shattering, at least for IRL tech level but supplements it with generally high arcana level.

[listerfeend]

11 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Actually Brandon has described Yolen as Bronze Age at the time of the Shattering, at least for IRL tech level but supplements it with generally high arcana level.

Fair enough, I have so many troubles remembering all the WoB's and outside of the books lore lol. 

 

[aetherbound he/him]

I think Cakoban might be doing something similar to a nightmare painter when he turns the Evil into the Dakwara.

[listerfeend]

14 hours ago, aetherbound said:

I think Cakoban might be doing something similar to a nightmare painter when he turns the Evil into the Dakwara.

I'm not sure if it was your theory that I read that made me think this, but, I agree. There is a thread on here talking about how the entities have at least a bit of Uli-Da's consciousness in them, and comparing them to super juiced Nightmares. We are given the impression that, after drinking all of the liquid investiture he had, Cakoban was pretty highly invested at that time, maybe enough to give him the juice needed to force the "Nightmare" into a daccwaga, or at least into a thing bound by the rules of the daccwaga as he knew them. Over time, after the story had been told through generations, this solidified the creature into the Dakwara. 

[MyDood]

Only thing I have to add as I’m rereading the Cakoban vision part currently, is that it states the entity chasing Cakoban had been eating every skull snake they had come across while running from the entity. This may have given the entity its form, and the willpower from a super invested Cakoban could have been a final push. I agree that it sounds similar to what Painter does to Nightmares. The remains of Ambition and the remains of Virtuosity sounds like they have similar rules and “wants”