The nature of the unmade and their relationship to the heralds

[hoidhunter he/him]

So...I'm really just looking to start a fresh discussion about the Unmade.  I've got several theories and am very interested in hearing some of yours as well.  Many of you are also way better and referencing WoBs and other cannon material than I am so I am eager for your input.

 

By the way...I hate having to do the whole spoiler tag thing so just assume that every post could possibly contain spoilers...

 

To get started, I'm just going to put some stuff out there for you guys to pick at.

 

- The Unmade are slivers of Odium...true or false?

- There are 10 Unmade that are the opposite of the 10 heralds...?

- The giant figures that Kalidin and Shallan see striding the storm were Unmade.

 

It is my personal theory that the Unmade are somehow fuelled by...created by...tied too...the heralds' torment in damnation between desolations.

 

I've also seen it tossed around that the mysterious Black Sphere may somehow be tied to the presence of one of the unmade. 

 

Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it!

 

We know that Moleach causes the Death Rattles.

We know that another one (not sure of the name) causes the Thrill.

 

-Are there any other unusual phenomenon that could potentially be attributed to the presence (proximity) of Unmade? 

 

GO!

Edited July 19, 2015 by hoidhunter

[Atkion he/him]

Well, If the Unmade are slivers of Odium, doesn't that make them kind of the opposite of the Stormfather? Since he is the only remaining sliver of the Almighty

[Moogle]

The Unmade are Splinters of Odium, and there are not ten of them.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I'm guessing, seeing as the Parshendi view them as gods, a few of the Listeners of them made a Form/bond with odiumspren on par with the StormFather/Nightmother/Cusicesh, elevating them to that level.

 

I like the idea of the Unmade being tied to the Heralds torment. It goes nicely with the idea someone else posted that as part of the Oathpact, Odium must focus all his hate onto the Heralds instead of Roshar.

 

my personal idea/theory is that that Black Sphere is a Dawnshard that has bound one of the Unmade, hence its dark appearance, seeing as we know from in-book they can bind anything voidish or mortal.

[hoidhunter he/him]

Thanks for the links Moogle.  upvote on me.  Also appreciate the correction on terminology.  (I've been off shard for a while now)

 

Also appreciate the input Paradox.  I also considered that the Unmade may be who the Listeners refer to as gods...but after reading through all of the Listener songs describing the different forms...one of them seems to refer to the gods and the unmade as different things...

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Well, it could be that originally their gods were just odium spren of Stormfather/Nightwatcher/Cusicesh level but for them to have proper influence/direction, they bonded with a small group of Listeners.

 

EDIT: Going by this quote from the Diagram

 

 

"The Unmade are a deviation, a flair, a conundrum that may not be worth your time. You cannot help but think of them. They are fascinating. Many are mindless. Like the spren of human emotions, only much more nasty. I do believe a few can think, however."—From the Diagram, Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer: paragraph 14

 

I think either two things;

• perhaps this could be the first parallel to the Nahel bond of spren and humans, akin to how these spren gain the capacity for thought/intelligence (as is rumored in one of their songs)
• or my original assumption could be correct and the inherent Listener bonding process is the cause and the Unmade were the result of a few Listeners bonding those of megaspren level (but lacking more in cognitive awareness), which could explain why the Unmade have a such a large prevalence/influence and the ability to think of sorts

EDIT 2: Perhaps edit your OP with rumoured/nearly confirmed names of the Unmade

Brandon seems to have adapted names inspired by Demons/False Gods used in Abrahamic teachings (from coppermind) so in that vain i managed to find a couple of possible ideas, highlighted by <>

• Nergaol is suspected of causing the Thrill - Nergal (Babylonian War God)
• Moelach is Death Rattles - Moloch (Carthaginian God who liked the sacrificing of children)
• Re-Shephir - Midnight Mother - <Resheph> (closest I can find is a Canaanite God of war and protection from plague, but perhaps I might be linked more to a fertility God, I'll do some more digging)
• Yelig-nar, the Blightwind (sounds Cthulhu-ish but nothing on that front)
• Dai-gonarthis - The Black Fisher - <possibly Dagon> (East Semitic Mesopotamian God of fertility who later evolded into a Northwest Semitic God of grain and fish/fishing)

Edited July 22, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[hoser he/him]

The way I see it (but with very little textual support):

• The Unmade were once physical but are now mainly investiture.  This is based on the name: Unmade.  Which implies that they were once "made" or real.  While they are effectively now spren (pure investiture), they have a different history and were not born out of thought. 
• The Vorn mythology has an expulsion from the Tranquilline Halls and the Unmade were around before the Knights arose (and therefore before Odium enlisted the Listeners).  So I think the Unmade were Odium's agents in the expulsion from the Tranquilline Halls and his counterparts to the Heralds during Desolations and became the voidbringer gods. 
• The giant figures that Kaladin saw in the Highstorm seemed very physical and so I do not believe them to be Unmade.

[Blightsong he/him]

The way I see it (but with very little textual support):

• The Unmade were once physical but are now mainly investiture.  This is based on the name: Unmade.  Which implies that they were once "made" or real.  While they are effectively now spren (pure investiture), they have a different history and were not born out of thought. 
• The Vorn mythology has an expulsion from the Tranquilline Halls and the Unmade were around before the Knights arose (and therefore before Odium enlisted the Listeners).  So I think the Unmade were Odium's agents in the expulsion from the Tranquilline Halls and his counterparts to the Heralds during Desolations and became the voidbringer gods. 
• The giant figures that Kaladin saw in the Highstorm seemed very physical and so I do not believe them to be Unmade.

Wait... Are spren made out of investiture? I haven't seen a WoB on that, so if you have one enlighten me.

[hoser he/him]

Wait... Are spren made out of investiture? I haven't seen a WoB on that, so if you have one enlighten me.

Well, I thought it was obvious.  But how did I reach that conclusion?

• Syl says shes a piece of a god. The real gods are people combined with a Shard, in Roshar: Honor, Cultivation Odium.  Syl is not a piece of Tanavast's corpse.  Shards are investiture plus maybe some stuff.
• Honor was splintered, leaving lots of investiture unfocused.
• Since the splintering of Honor there are many more spren
• Read items 3-5 and 8 from this search for supporting quotes

If you doubt the conclusion after that, please get back to me with your thoughts.  If my conclusion is incorrect, I'd like to figure that out sooner than later.

[DreamEternal]

• The Vorn mythology has an expulsion from the Tranquilline Halls and the Unmade were around before the Knights arose (and therefore before Odium enlisted the Listeners). So I think the Unmade were Odium's agents in the expulsion from the Tranquilline Halls and his counterparts to the Heralds during Desolations and became the voidbringer gods.
• The giant figures that Kaladin saw in the Highstorm seemed very physical and so I do not believe them to be Unmade.

1. How do you know if the voidbringer listener forms aren't older than the KR? The supposed betreyal of spren indicates surgebinders, but the Knights Radiant came way after that.

2. The description of the figures was terribly vague. They were luminous and had limbs. So what? Syl is luminous and generaly has limbs.

Edited July 22, 2015 by CognitivePulsePattern

[hoser he/him]

1. How do you know if the voidbringer listener forms aren't older than the KR? The supposed betreyal of spren indicates surgebinders, but the Knights Radiant came way after that.

2. The description of the figures was terribly vague. They were luminous and had limbs. So what? Syl is luminous and generaly has limbs.

What is your evidence for the Radiants coming way after Surgebinding?  As I see it, Surgebinding was new in the Nohadon vision and the Knights formed during his lifetime as they were involved in the creation of Urithiru and he went there.  So the spren started copying the Honorblades, then Ishar constrained them to limit the power they provided to their bondees within one or maximum two Desolations. 

 

Since some spren can imitate anything, anything can really be a spren, so that is an argument that cannot be refuted.  By the same token, it is a pointless and meaningless argument to make. 

Points favoring the Unmade being the monsters in the Highstorms:

• Assuming that the Unmade have an appearance, we don't know what they look like.  We don't know what the monsters in the Highstorm are, so they could be the same.  Of course, you could use the same argument to believe that the monsters are larval Chasmfiends, Dawnshards or any other unknown thing, so this is not really a point in favor.

Points opposing the Unmade being the monsters in the Highstorms:

• The name "Unmade" suggests a lack of physicality
• The only thing we know about the monsters is their physical description
• While some spren can imitate physical forms, they tend to imitate existing forms.  Many spren cannot do even do that.  
• The Unmade are described as working individually, whereas there are multiple of these monsters together.  
• Mr. T apparently believes that the Silent Gatherers are only effective when a particular Unmade is nearby.  If said Unmade were a monster in the middle of the Highstorms, then the Gatherers would only collect during Highstorms and none of the death rattles that we have seen between Highstorms could have occurred.  

[EvilNuff]

 

...

• Since the splintering of Honor there are many more spren

...

Apologies if this is known but I have not seen a reference or WoB on this subject.  Are we sure that the splintering of Honor made *more* spren or could that have made *all* spren?  Related, is any information about when Honor was splintered known?  Thanks for any references or links.

 

Edit: Nevermind, I found the answer myself with minimal looking     Sorry!

For anyone else confused like I was spren were around before Honor was splintered, see #22 here.

Edited July 22, 2015 by EvilNuff

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

 

 

INTERVIEW: Mar 6th, 2014

WoR Signing Report - Bartbug (Verbatim)

QUESTION

Were there spren bonds before Aharietiam?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I'm not going to answer that one either but we will delve much more into this. The spren were around back then but they're not nearly what they are now they've changed over the course of the book obviously. I think the cosmere theorists have figured it out. They are much more prevalent following Honor and what happened to him, but there were some spren on the planet before even that happened.

 

There was another that more or less explicitly stated the fact, but i'm having trouble finding it#

 

As for when he splintered, it was sometime after the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact

 

 

 

INTERVIEW: Nov 10th, 2011

Alloy of Law Signing Report - Green Hoodie Mistborn (Verbatim)

QUESTION

Was the Almighty still alive when the Heralds packed it in, and did the Radiants pack it in in direct response to what the Heralds did?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Radiants did NOT abandon their post as a response to the Heralds. The Radiants abandoned it for some other reason which will become evident eventually. The Almighty was still around when the Heralds did their thing.

Edited July 22, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[Blightsong he/him]

Well, I thought it was obvious.  But how did I reach that conclusion?

• Syl says shes a piece of a god. The real gods are people combined with a Shard, in Roshar: Honor, Cultivation Odium.  Syl is not a piece of Tanavast's corpse.  Shards are investiture plus maybe some stuff.
• Honor was splintered, leaving lots of investiture unfocused.
• Since the splintering of Honor there are many more spren
• Read items 3-5 and 8 from this search for supporting quotes

If you doubt the conclusion after that, please get back to me with your thoughts.  If my conclusion is incorrect, I'd like to figure that out sooner than later.

Nowhere has it said that shards were pure investiture, as far as I'm aware. As they exist on all 3 realms, and investiture is of the spiritual, it is more safe to assume that shards are more than just a collection of a unit of one realm.

[Edgedancer he/him]

Nowhere has it said that shards were pure investiture, as far as I'm aware. As they exist on all 3 realms, and investiture is of the spiritual, it is more safe to assume that shards are more than just a collection of a unit of one realm.

Investure transcends the realms just as Shards do, so as far as we know Shards really are just big masses of Investure with an intent attached to it.

 

Interview: Mar 11th, 2014

WoR Signing Report - Awesomeness Summoned (Verbatim)

Question

What is the Realmatic composition of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Investure is intended to be the building blocks of the cosmere so I would say for the most part it transcends the different realms. Probably more of the Spiritual if anything but more accurately it transcends them.

Tags

investiture, realmatic theory,

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

What i think Hoser is trying to get is that, while Shards inhabit all three realms, they are more Spiritual than Cognitive or Physical and Investiture filters down from the Spiritual. As to the original point of 'spren are comprised of pure investiture...I'm not quite sure but i'd say they're mostly are, with possibly a slash of cognitive intent

 

EDIT: Ninja'd by Edgedancer

Edited July 22, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[Blightsong he/him]

Investure transcends the realms just as Shards do, so as far as we know Shards really are just big masses of Investure with an intent attached to it.

Hmmm, I still would be cautious to assume that Shards are large masses of investiture, and by association, Spren. It wouldnt make sense for beings of pure investiture to be formed by human thought, and for them to reside in the cognitive realm even if they are closer to the spiritual. It especially doesn't make sense for being that transend all realms to be restricted access from the physical realm without a nahel bond.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Blightsong

[Edgedancer he/him]

Hmmm, I still would be cautious to assume that Shards are large masses of investiture, and by association, Spren. It wouldnt make sense for beings of pure investiture to be formed by human thought, and for them to reside in the cognitive realm even if they are closer to the spiritual. It especially doesn't make sense for being that transend all realms to be restricted access from the physical realm without a nahel bond.

Going down to the very detail everything is made from Investiture, even something like a stick or the capacity for sapience, just in different forms of it. Meaning that, as far as we know, it's impossible for something that's part of creation not to be made from Investiture. Just not all of it is in that raw spiritual form most people tend to think of when using the term.

 

Edit: I'm pretty sure there's better WOB on it but for now here's something from the Hero of Ages Epigraphs

It may seem odd to those reading this that atium was part of the body of a god. However, it is necessary to understand that when we said "body" we generally meant "power." As my mind has expanded, I've come to realize that objects and energy are actually composed of the very same things, and can change state from one to another. It makes perfect sense to me that the power of godhood would be manifest within the world in physical form. Ruin and Preservation were not nebulous abstractions. They were integral parts of existence. In a way, every object that existed in the world was composed of their power.

Atium, then, was an object that was one-sided. Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half Preservation—as, say, a rock would be—atium was completely of Ruin. The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away during the betrayal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn't truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, for they would have regrown eventually—in a few hundred years—and continued to deposit atium, as the place was a natural outlet for Ruin's trapped power.

When people burned atium, then, they were drawing upon the power of Ruin—which is, perhaps, why atium turned people into such efficient killing machines. They didn't use up this power, however, but simply made use of it. Once a nugget of atium was expended, the power would return to the Pits and begin to coalesce again—just as the power at the Well of Ascension would return there again after it had been used.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Edgedancer

[hoser he/him]

My point relevant to this thread was that I think that neither the Unmade, nor spren have much in the way of bodies, but are composed of the stuff of Shards.  They can also have memories, programming and personality. The programming may be hardwired by the Shard that they came from.  I believe that they are historically different in that the Unmade were once "made", but are effectively spren now.

 

Nowhere has it said that shards were pure investiture, as far as I'm aware. As they exist on all 3 realms, and investiture is of the spiritual, it is more safe to assume that shards are more than just a collection of a unit of one realm.

I stated that spren were "pure investiture" and in the post that is being responded to, I stated that "Shards are investiture plus maybe some stuff." 

It seems to me that you are misquoting me and then quibbling about the definition of vague terms using the straw man you created by misquoting. 

I fail to see how this advances the thread to the purpose of the original poster.  I am grateful for the actual information provided by Edgedancer, so there's that

 

Hmmm, I still would be cautious to assume that Shards are large masses of investiture, and by association, Spren. It wouldnt make sense for beings of pure investiture to be formed by human thought, and for them to reside in the cognitive realm even if they are closer to the spiritual. It especially doesn't make sense for being that transend all realms to be restricted access from the physical realm without a nahel bond.

I said that the spren were composed of the stuff of Shards.  I did not say that Shards are spren.  In the splintering of a Shard something can be lost and size matters. 

So again, you seem to be misinterpreting what I have said and then quibbling about your misinterpretation and the vague terms we are using. 

Not only do I fail to see how this advances the discussion, but I experience being misquoted, being misinterpreted and pointless quibbling as annoying. 

[Blightsong he/him]

My point relevant to this thread was that I think that neither the Unmade, nor spren have much in the way of bodies, but are composed of the stuff of Shards.  They can also have memories, programming and personality. The programming may be hardwired by the Shard that they came from.  I believe that they are historically different in that the Unmade were once "made", but are effectively spren now.

 

I stated that spren were "pure investiture" and in the post that is being responded to, I stated that "Shards are investiture plus maybe some stuff." 

It seems to me that you are misquoting me and then quibbling about the definition of vague terms using the straw man you created by misquoting. 

I fail to see how this advances the thread to the purpose of the original poster.  I am grateful for the actual information provided by Edgedancer, so there's that

 

I said that the spren were composed of the stuff of Shards.  I did not say that Shards are spren.  In the splintering of a Shard something can be lost and size matters. 

So again, you seem to be misinterpreting what I have said and then quibbling about your misinterpretation and the vague terms we are using. 

Not only do I fail to see how this advances the discussion, but I experience being misquoted, being misinterpreted and pointless quibbling as annoying.

I think you read my quote wrong, but regardless, I was just trying to clarify. I'm sorry if I came off douchebaggy I was simply trying to understand that portion of the comment.

On a side note, isn't everything made up of the stuff of shards? I'm pretty sure that preservation had to use more of its power than ruins when creating human with ati, and that's why it was weaker, that seems to indicate that human life is made of shards power/investiture maybe?

[hoser he/him]

I think you read my quote wrong, but regardless, I was just trying to clarify. I'm sorry if I came off douchebaggy I was simply trying to understand that portion of the comment.

On a side note, isn't everything made up of the stuff of shards? I'm pretty sure that preservation had to use more of its power than ruins when creating human with ati, and that's why it was weaker, that seems to indicate that human life is made of shards power/investiture maybe?

Apparently, according to Edgedancer (and Edgedancer seems authoritative to me), everything is made of Investiture.  Vocabulary aside, the point I was trying to make is that I think the Unmade are like the spren in their projection into the Physical Realm.  The Heralds, Listeners and humans like Kaladin have much more physical presence. 

The phrase I used for the sprenlike class was "pure Investiture," and I guess that is wrong on a number of levels as everything is apparently "pure Investiture" and spren do have a minimal projection into the physical realm (Syl can push on things, Wyndle leaves a slight residue and Pattern can pick locks). 

I am still confused about the limits of Investiture as souls travel to a place beyond the reach of Shards, there are agents beyond Adonalsium and there could even be a more monotheistic God or purpose interacting with multiple Adonalsium-scale beings. 

Ponderings about the meaning and limits of Investiture aside, does the distinction I was trying to make about the Unmade seem clear?  And what would be a good way to say the thing I so horribly bungled?

Edited July 23, 2015 by hoser

[hoidhunter he/him]

Well...on the topic of the unmade...during the first of Dalinar's vision's that we get a chance to see...the black monsters he encounters are referred to as Midnight Essence. One of the Unmade is named Midnight Mother...

 

Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother, giving birth to abominations with her essence so dark, so terrible, so consuming. She is here! She watches me die!

 

This leads me to believe that Re-Shephir is somehow tied to the creation of these monsters.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

 Interview: Aug 9th, 2014

When Worlds Collide 2014 - Khyrindor (Paraphrased)

Khyrindor

Are the Unmade and the Stormfather the same "class" of being?

Brandon Sanderson (Paraphrased)

Technically no, but they are on a similar level. It is a good analogy.

 

 

Just found this on Theoryland. So it could be said that the Unmade aren't technically god/superpsren but are still Splinters, and are on a similar level

Edited August 2, 2015 by ParadoxSpren