Does Cultivation exercise influence by blocking futuresight?

[coolsnow7]

We have a more than a few instances of pivotal moments on Roshar being driven by an unexplained failure of futuresight. There are more that I'll add later as I remember them from my rereads, but here are two major ones:

• The Recreance: Tanavast explicitly expresses surprise that he did not foresee that capturing Mishram would lead to the Parshendi losing their forms. And he explicitly notes that the power of Honor rejected him (and ejected him) because of the consequences of his betrayal. The power would not have ejected him absent his blindness to those consequences.
• Ishar and Kaladin: Ishar expresses wonder that he didn't notice Kaladin in all his plans. Ishar's "planning" sure seems a lot like futuresight. Now of course, it might not be - we have another 5 books minimum to develop new mechanics and such. But if it is, it failed him spectacularly if he was able to pick out Szeth but not Kaladin as noteworthy.

Now let's consider Cultivation's role:

• We keep hearing about her "subtle touch" on events. What is more subtle than preventing someone from foreseeing the consequences of their actions - especially a Shard?
• By the time of the Recreance, Tanavast only senses coldness and revulsion from Cultivation - she clearly has no problem with him being ejected from Honor.

Obviously there can be alternative explanations - this is extremely speculative with little in the way of evidence. But it would be quite delicious, thematically, if the way Cultivation tries to influence things is by using her superior - but clearly still fallible - futuresight to inhibit others' inferior futuresight. And it would fit the accusations/descriptions of her intervention deliciously.

[Schizoposting]

You seem to be working on presumption that prescience is perfect, and that its failure can only be attributed to Cultivation's influence. The far simpler explanation is that both Ishar and Tanvast have imperfect future sight that's liable to failure. There's absolutely no reason to invoke her influence, other than for the sake of having a cheap twist.

[alder24]

Yes, she did have an effect on Tanavast and Ishar's future sight, just like Odium, Renarin, Rlain, Ishar, Moelach, Mishram and all others who have the ability to see the future. Every time someone sees the future, it sends a ripple effect on someone else's ability to see the future, making it much more unpredictable (like Odium couldn't predict anything that was happening around Renarin). It's not like Cultivation wanted Honor to be blind to the true effects of Mishram imprisonment, it's just due to Honor's own shortcomings in predicting the future and others who looked into it causing a disruption, he was unable to accurately predict what was going to happen. Also Honor said in visions that he isn't that good at predicting the future and that Cultivation is better than him. Predicting the future is just hard.

As for Kaladin, just being near someone who can predict the future makes your future harder to predict. And because Kaladin often sticks around Renarin or Rlain, they will have a clouding effect on his future, which made it harder for Ishar to see him in his future sight. 

 

[Returned he/him]

I like the idea, though I'm not sold on it being what is happening here. It's in line with what we currently understand about how Cultivation works: not really direct, and not hard-stopping others' plans but rather nudging their development in directions she can respond to. She acts in the present to mold the future in ways that provide options for herself, as opposed to trying to follow specific paths to specific outcomes based solely on guidance from her "knowledge" of "the future".

If nothing else this would be an example of someone in the Cosmere using futuresight in a way that relates to how it actually works rather than depending on it when it's known to be very unreliable, which would be refreshing. Most futuresight in the Cosmere kind of sucks, outside of era 1 atium and Sak the Aviar.

Edited January 16 by Returned

[Nitpicking]

BTW, I assume everyone knows why Brandon has precogs interfere with each other? [he asked mysteriously]