Hoid in a Tree

[Oudeis he/him]

In Chapter 45, Middlefest from Words of Radiance, Part 3, Shallan sees Hoid in a tree. As soon as he moves, the leaves and branches all retract.

 

 

He rested up on a tree limb, wearing his black outfit. He moved as she saw him, and the spiky leaves around him retreated in a wave of vanishing red and orange.

 

I find this notable. How did he get up in the first place without prompting them to withdraw? Which magics do we know of which could account for this?

 

I considered allomantic pewter. It strikes me that however light you move, however gentle you are, there's simply no way for an almost 200 pound man (or more, he is after all quite tall) could sneak so quietly an entire tree wouldn't hear. This is not cultivated plant; it lives in a basin. There's no water to draw it out. Plants are shown to be incredibly sensitive on this planet. It's possible, but I think very unlikely, for someone to simply move so quietly they literally don't alert the tree they are in that they are in it. That seems like a preposterous stretch. This is modified slightly by the fact that he might also be using iron feruchemy to reduce his own weight... but there would still be his clothes, the metalminds themselves, and the fact that he still has to physically grasp and step upon the tree to get where he is. Our impression from Shallan is that the fronds of this tree are simply too numerous and dense for a man to make it in without brushing them, even a little.

 

I'm not sure allomantic bendalloy would be much good. He could get in before the tree reacts, but it would still react. I suppose maybe he was standing behind the tree, saw the axehound, put up his bubble (which is only, what, five feet across? How big a bubble can Wayne make, again?) and then climb barely off the ground, before dropping the bubble and speaking so quickly he draws her attention... yet still, it's not until he starts moving that they retract. Clearly after he talks and she looks.

 

Allomantic brass? Can you Soothe a tree into complacency? (Someone ask Kwaan if trees can think).

 

Do the trees use any manner of Investiture to detect people to retract from? Could allomantic copper help him? That seems needlessly complicated.

 

My personal bet is on feruchemy. Either aluminum or duralumin. Could storing your own identity, or storing your connection to others, make even a plant not realize you exist?

 

The possible application of iron feruchemy has already been considered above. Steel feruchemy is much like bendalloy above. Who knows what "luck" does. It could have worked, but how do you control something that nebulous? I suspect Hoid tries to rely on something as unpredictable as "luck" as rarely as he can.

 

I don't see any specific uses for hemalurgy, unless Hoid secretly has so many spikes he's turned into a hemalurgic creation with the power to climb a tree without causing it to retract until he wants it to. Noted as a possibility.

 

That's Scadrial mostly taken care of, but if anyone can think of something I've missed, point it out to me.

 

Nalthis? Being a Drab might help, see copper above, but I don't think Hoid can be a Drab. I don't think you can give away your personal "Breath" unless you're a Nalthian. It's possible he's found a way to hack the system, however. I don't see how Awakening or any of the other Heightenings would help.

 

Sel? Who knows. AonDor is almost certainly incapable of being practiced off-world; if Hoid can, he officially does not need any other magic, because AonDor can do literally anything. Forgery... erm, I suppose it could possibly replicate these effects? Seems like an odd way to go about it. Bloodsealin? ChayShan (Or whatever the Jindoese clearly-Tai Chi is)? I would be surprised if he has Dhakor bones.

 

An Aviar? I feel like that would be conspicuous, and would rely on a principle like copper above.

 

I can't think of any arcanum we've seen from Threnody which might help.

 

Roshar itself? This doesn't seem to be under Progression's purview. Lightweaving, perhaps? Can you use Lightweaving to trick a tree into thinking you are nothing? What we've seen of Transportation makes it seem like a jarring enough experience that it would shake the tree, but perhaps it could be done with more finesse. Gravitation could theoretically be used with careful skill to move your body slowly through the air until it's in the right position, but there's still the matter of actually getting through the fronds; however little you weigh, getting through a solid wall of fronds with no man-sized gap isn't a function of weight. Abrasion? Again, I feel like however slick you are, this doesn't change the fact that you're touching the fronds.

 

He clearly was not wearing Shardplate, not that I think it would have helped. I guess just "a fabrial" which is sorta starting to be Rosharan code for "you can do pretty much anything, like AonDor" or the Old Magic, I'm not seeing a Rosharan arcanum that would bring about these effects.

 

So, in conclusion, my personal suspicion is that it's feruchemical duralumin, or an arcanum we've simply never seen before (I'm pretty sure we have it confirmed that he has magics we know naught of.

[Newan he/him]

I think he climbed the tree, then sat very still and waited for the fronds to come back out.

[Oudeis he/him]

Hrm... how did he know exactly which tree Shallan would end up underneath so he could sit there waiting for her?

 

I'm not asking rhetorically; I absolutely believe that this is a thing Hoid can do. He pretty much did it with Kaladin in the chapter Wandersail. This is 100% an excellent way he could have done this thing. I just wonder which power he has that lets him do it. Is it whatever feruchemy Mr. Sanderson has said lets him know where and when he "should" be?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I think he climbed the tree, then sat very still and waited for the fronds to come back out.

 

I concur.  In the Stormlight 3 Kaladin reading

 

when he is in the field and the grass is retracting around him he points out that if he remained motionless it would creep back out and completely conceal him.

[Oudeis he/him]

Ah. I have not read, nor do I plan to read, the pre-release stuff for SA3. Thank you for leaving it behind a cut, and in case there's something there you were expecting me to respond to, I wanted to let you know I will not be doing so. Sorry!

[king of nowhere]

no need for prerelease stuff. already in wor the horses  are showing to be feeding by staying very still, waiting for the grass to relax, then they take a few quick bites, and they go back to stillness. thhe horse kaladin was riding, who was licking the rockbuds to trick them into thinking it was raining, was an exceptions.

so yes, hoid could just climb there and stand still for a while. yes, that arises the question of how he could know shallan would pass under that tree, but it can certainly be explained in a variety of conventional means; furthermore, we know hoid  has the magic ability to sense where the plot will happen and be there for it. it's certainly a much simpler explanation that assuming some new capability.

 

Sorry to shoot down your theory like this after you obviously put so much speculative effort into it.

[RawToast225 he/him]

What if Hoid knew Shallan would be there because of one of them fancy birds from SoD? He wouldn't have had to show Shallan the bird, so it wouldn't be in the book. I know that the bird can only tell the future deaths of the person it wants to show, but what if there was another bird that showed more of the future?

[Blaze1616 he/him]

What if Hoid knew Shallan would be there because of one of them fancy birds from SoD? He wouldn't have had to show Shallan the bird, so it wouldn't be in the book. I know that the bird can only tell the future deaths of the person it wants to show, but what if there was another bird that showed more of the future?

 

I do not think the Aviar are responsible. First off, Hoid would have to bring the Bird with him when Worldhopping, and there has been no evidence showing that a worldhopper can taxi someone or something else with them. Second, when Rock witnesses Hoid emerging from the shardpool, he has no bird with him. Third, there has not been a Hoid appearance in which he has a bird in tow. Finally, the Aviar's powers, from what we have seen, seem to be proximity based, so Hoid would need to have the bird with him to gain any benefits. Given Hoid has never been seen with a bird, mixed with the fact that I doubt an Aviar would have complied to sitting still for the time required, I don't think an Aviar is the correct explanation.

 

Fun pointless conjecture: What if Hoid himself ate some of the worms on First of the Sun so that he would manifest powers?

[Redbird he/him]

I do not think the Aviar are responsible. First off, Hoid would have to bring the Bird with him when Worldhopping, and there has been no evidence showing that a worldhopper can taxi someone or something else with them. Second, when Rock witnesses Hoid emerging from the shardpool.

 

Was the lake that Hoid came out of a shardpool? I though it was just a lake in a crater.

[A Joe in the Bush]

It's commonly accepted to be a Shardpool of Cultivation, but as of yet we have to WoB's on the Subject. (Other than RAFO's.)

[Redbird he/him]

That would just support the argument of horneaters being something special, they see spren and swim in shardpools.

[Oudeis he/him]

I just read that whole scene and now I'm trying to parse it... The Unkalaki were being persecuted for something, and had to flee somewhere. We know that the Unkalaki have listener blood. (Question 9). They see spren as gods, and Rock's myth (Oof. True story! I mean true story! Now Rock, put that log away...) mentions that they went to the greatest of the gods for help.

 

So they... went to the greatest of the spren, asking for a boon...

 

I think that originally, the horneaters were simply listeners. I think after they were defeated, several pockets of them suffered different fates. The Last Legion lived in the Shattered Plains, and became the listeners as we know them. I think another group sought the Nightwatcher and the Old Magic. I think what they wanted was to survive. What she gave them was to make them human.

 

Part of the definition of two things being different species is that they cannot mate and produce fertile offspring (typically). We know that unlike the difference between Alethi and Makabaki, which is simply racial, listeners are an entirely non-human species. Maybe the Rosharan defintion/understanding of species is simply different, maybe Mr. Sanderson was just using a shorthand when he said they weren't human, and meant that they were the same species, just very very different... but if he meant exactly what he said, then there should not be Unkalaki or Veden families with listener blood, because that should be impossible.

 

Unless the Shard responsible for deciding how and when things grow and reproduce took a direct hand to things...

 

So yeah, that's basically my theory and my interpretation.A bunch of listeners used the Old Magic to turn human enough to avoid the real human persecution for the crimes of the Voidforms, and as a side effect gained the ability to interbreed with humankind. Their Curse, I would suppose, was to lose their Songs, their Forms, their ability to attract and bond Spren. This also explains how they are "not originally" of Cultivation.

[Khyrindor he/him]

It's commonly accepted to be a Shardpool of Cultivation, but as of yet we have to WoB's on the Subject. (Other than RAFO's.)

KHYRINDOR

Hoid went through Cultivation's Shardpool to get to Roshar as opposed to Honor's. Yet, he notes he never got along well with Cultivation. Why did he choose her Shardpool rather than Honor's?

BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

You're making assumptions!

(I asked if it's possible that it was Honor's and he said it's possible.)