[SoS Spoilers] Metal Theory

[iBambam]

Okay, so I've mainly been a lurker on here so if I'm doing something wrong with my theories format let me know!

 

So here is my short version of the theory: The metal found by Wax at the end of SoS is sent to Scadrial from Odium.

 

How I came to this conclusion:

1. Harmony doesn't know what the metal is, or what it does. This is unusual considering that when Sazed became Harmony he gained a vast amount of knowledge. He would know of every possible alloy and what it does to the person using it on Scadrial.

 

2. Harmony did not understand how Paalm was able to hide from him. He stated that even with only one Hemalurgic spike, he should still be able to locate her. This tells us that at the very least the metal is not of this world.

 

3. The mutated (for lack of a better term) humans that attack OreSeur and Wax in the Kandra Homeland. They are not like Koloss, they aren't like anything we have seen on Scadrial. The key thing about these creatures is their behavior. They seem angry, angry beyond any reason. This could be because of many reasons, most likely because anger is what Paalm is making them feel through however she is controlling them, if she is controlling them. Which leads to my next point.

 

4. Paalm's behavior. Paalm, throughout the entire book shows a vast amount of anger and hatred towards the people of Scadrial. It goes far beyond trying to overthrow the government and "free" the people. It is through this anger that I feel we get our best clue as to what this metal is. Anger is the most common personification of Hatred. This is why I feel that the metal that Paalm uses to spike herself is from Odium.

 

5. My last reason isn't necessarily a reason, but I tweeted Brandon the question of whether or not it is possible that the metal was sent by Odium and he responded by simply saying, "Yes, it is possible."  

 

So whether or not it is true, I think it's a pretty good possibility. I don't know if it will play out as a sliver of Odium in this trilogy or it will remain a mystery for some time.  Anyway, this is my first real big post, so hopefully I didn't embarrass myself.

 

As for the theory itself, what do you guys think?

Edited November 18, 2015 by Moogle

[Shardbearer he/him]

Good job on that WoB. It confirms that Odium is not locked into the Greater Roshar System in such a way he couldn't send his Godmetal over.

 

But that begs the question: How would he form a Godmetal in the first place? Metals are important on Scadrial.

[iBambam]

The exact question and answer went like this: 

@BrandSanderson is it possible the unknown metal at the end is related to odium? It seemed to cause a lot of hatred in the people it mutated

 

@Me(removed my twitter handle for privacy) It is possible.

 

I think that it's more Odium's Will or Investiture that he would send, not necessarily creating a Godmetal on purpose, but that would be the form that his Will would take on Scadrial, since metals are so important there?

[Moogle]

Good job on that WoB. It confirms that Odium is not locked into the Greater Roshar System in such a way he couldn't send his Godmetal over.

 

But that begs the question: How would he form a Godmetal in the first place? Metals are important on Scadrial.

 

Shardblades are made of metal. I don't see a problem with any Shard creating a godmetal - I imagine it's the most common material the Physical form of a Shard is made of.

 

---

 

I renamed the thread title to be less spoilery.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Moogle

[iBambam]

Thanks moogle, didn't even think of the title being a spoiler!

[natc]

Shardblades are made of metal. I don't see a problem with any Shard creating a godmetal - I imagine it's the most common material the Physical form of a Shard is made of.

---

I renamed the thread title to be less spoilery.

Considering how the majority of chemical elements are metal as well, that's probably true.

[Charononus]

Okay, so I've mainly been a lurker on here so if I'm doing something wrong with my theories format let me know!

 

So here is my short version of the theory: The metal found by Wax at the end of SoS is sent to Scadrial from Odium.

 

How I came to this conclusion:

1. Harmony doesn't know what the metal is, or what it does. This is unusual considering that when Sazed became Harmony he gained a vast amount of knowledge. He would know of every possible alloy and what it does to the person using it on Scadrial.

 

2. Harmony did not understand how Paalm was able to hide from him. He stated that even with only one Hemalurgic spike, he should still be able to locate her. This tells us that at the very least the metal is not of this world.

 

3. The mutated (for lack of a better term) humans that attack OreSeur and Wax in the Kandra Homeland. They are not like Koloss, they aren't like anything we have seen on Scadrial. The key thing about these creatures is their behavior. They seem angry, angry beyond any reason. This could be because of many reasons, most likely because anger is what Paalm is making them feel through however she is controlling them, if she is controlling them. Which leads to my next point.

 

4. Paalm's behavior. Paalm, throughout the entire book shows a vast amount of anger and hatred towards the people of Scadrial. It goes far beyond trying to overthrow the government and "free" the people. It is through this anger that I feel we get our best clue as to what this metal is. Anger is the most common personification of Hatred. This is why I feel that the metal that Paalm uses to spike herself is from Odium.

 

5. My last reason isn't necessarily a reason, but I tweeted Brandon the question of whether or not it is possible that the metal was sent by Odium and he responded by simply saying, "Yes, it is possible."  

 

So whether or not it is true, I think it's a pretty good possibility. I don't know if it will play out as a sliver of Odium in this trilogy or it will remain a mystery for some time.  Anyway, this is my first real big post, so hopefully I didn't embarrass myself.

 

As for the theory itself, what do you guys think?

This has always been my theory as well.  Many others think the metal is from autonomy but I see it the same way you do.

[iBambam]

Everything points to Odium in my opinion, and now the fact that we know Odium isn't trapped in the Roshar system I feel it strengthens my theory even more.

[An evil 545lighteyes he/him]

He's probably trapped in the sense that he can't leave. It would be like throwing something while your feet are stuck.

[iBambam]

That could very well be it.

Although he's trapped in Roshar in the SA timeline, not necessarily the SoS timeline. I think that's important to keep in mind as well.

[Stormgate he/him]

Actually, from a nonlinear, nonsubjective viewpoint, the timeline in the Cosmere is a big ball of wibbly wobbly, Shardy-wardy stuff.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

It started well, that sentence.

[Ari he/him]

Everything points to Odium in my opinion, and now the fact that we know Odium isn't trapped in the Roshar system I feel it strengthens my theory even more.

 

As of WoR, Odium is still, as far as we know, trapped and can't relocate any power that's still attached to his mind outside of the greater Rosharan system. That doesn't stop him from disconnecting some of his power from his consciousness, and making some solid investiture into Raysium to send it with an agent to Scadrial, but then again, Autonomy could also have done the exact same thing with Bavadinium, so the fact that it's possible Odium sent metal to Scadrial still doesn't mean it's the most likely explanation.

 

Brandon has referred to the creatures in the Kandra homeland as hemalurgical Chimeras. There have been some interesting speculation that they've been spiked with animal essence which lead to their dramatic change from a single spike. We don't really know enough about these creatures to come to a solid conclusion, but if there needed to be a godmetal involved to pull off this type of transformation, this is the area I'd be most sympathetic to invoking Raysium, as it seems really inconsistent with Autonomy's Intent to spike living creatures into something so dramatically changed without their consent, so I can't imagine any loyal agent of his taking such an action.

 

I actually think Paalm's behaviour is a much better argument for Autonomy as "Trell" and/or the donor of the alien God metal. Sazed's inability to detect her spike, and Paalm's sudden and over-riding desire to free Scadrial from Harmony seems like the sort of thing Autonomy would go for as a shard, and unlike her venture into liberation, Paalm's anger has a thoroughly simple and non-magical explanation: Harmony manipulated her and the man she loved, tried to take over her body, and is still using Wax as a tool, and to control her again nonetheless. She has every reason to be naturally angry and no influence from Odium is required to explain this.

[Titan Arum]

Brandon has referred to the creatures in the Kandra homeland as hemalurgical Chimeras. There have been some interesting speculation that they've been spiked with animal essence which lead to their dramatic change from a single spike. We don't really know enough about these creatures to come to a solid conclusion, but if there needed to be a godmetal involved to pull off this type of transformation, this is the area I'd be most sympathetic to invoking Raysium, as it seems really inconsistent with Autonomy's Intent to spike living creatures into something so dramatically changed without their consent, so I can't imagine any loyal agent of his taking such an action.

Ari, you're making a very strong assumption here given the fact that we know so little. I will not advocate one way or the other on the source of the new metal without new information, but we don't know that the Chimera humans didn't give their consent. They could have easily given consent to become those creatures, especially if they made the autonomous choice on their own for the love/belief in their god. Take for example self-flagellation for adherents of Opus Dei. They make this choice on their own, but they do it for/because of their beliefs. 

[iBambam]

As of WoR, Odium is still, as far as we know, trapped and can't relocate any power that's still attached to his mind outside of the greater Rosharan system. That doesn't stop him from disconnecting some of his power from his consciousness, and making some solid investiture into Raysium to send it with an agent to Scadrial, but then again, Autonomy could also have done the exact same thing with Bavadinium, so the fact that it's possible Odium sent metal to Scadrial still doesn't mean it's the most likely explanation.

Brandon has referred to the creatures in the Kandra homeland as hemalurgical Chimeras. There have been some interesting speculation that they've been spiked with animal essence which lead to their dramatic change from a single spike. We don't really know enough about these creatures to come to a solid conclusion, but if there needed to be a godmetal involved to pull off this type of transformation, this is the area I'd be most sympathetic to invoking Raysium, as it seems really inconsistent with Autonomy's Intent to spike living creatures into something so dramatically changed without their consent, so I can't imagine any loyal agent of his taking such an action.

I actually think Paalm's behaviour is a much better argument for Autonomy as "Trell" and/or the donor of the alien God metal. Sazed's inability to detect her spike, and Paalm's sudden and over-riding desire to free Scadrial from Harmony seems like the sort of thing Autonomy would go for as a shard, and unlike her venture into liberation, Paalm's anger has a thoroughly simple and non-magical explanation: Harmony manipulated her and the man she loved, tried to take over her body, and is still using Wax as a tool, and to control her again nonetheless. She has every reason to be naturally angry and no influence from Odium is required to explain this.

I feel like the argument of odium being trapped "as of WoR" isn't a good argument, consisting SoS takes place so much farther into the future than SA. I will concede the point, which I've done in a thread about Bavadin, that Paalm's behavior leans more towards Autonomy than Odium. However I don't think we can count out the possibly of Odium being involved.

Where did you see Brandon reference the Human Chimera's?

[Kaymyth she/her]

I actually think Paalm's behaviour is a much better argument for Autonomy as "Trell" and/or the donor of the alien God metal. Sazed's inability to detect her spike, and Paalm's sudden and over-riding desire to free Scadrial from Harmony seems like the sort of thing Autonomy would go for as a shard, and unlike her venture into liberation, Paalm's anger has a thoroughly simple and non-magical explanation: Harmony manipulated her and the man she loved, tried to take over her body, and is still using Wax as a tool, and to control her again nonetheless. She has every reason to be naturally angry and no influence from Odium is required to explain this.

 

A nitpick here - it was actually specifically stated that Harmony had NOT tried to take her over or control her before she pulled her spike and descended into madness.  He was only willing to take that extreme action after she had gone on her in-book murderous rampage.

[natc]

If you believe his claim to his own innocence at least.

Which we have no reason not to, because as far as I remember he has yet to lie in this era. Withhold information, dodging questions, yes, but not lie.

[DreamEternal]

If you believe his claim to his own innocence at least.

Which we have no reason not to, because as far as I remember he has yet to lie in this era. Withhold information, dodging questions, yes, but not lie.

True. If someone is openly not giving you answers, it is because they don't want to lie, and if they don't want to lie, they are at least half-honest when they tell you something.

Half-joking aside, I agree.

[clyguy]

I also have to reference Brandon's favored method of giving us lots of bits of information in such a way that we are encouraged to draw the wrong conclusion. With that in mind, if instead of following the trail of bread crumbs and instead evaluate each bit as it on it's own and how it relates to the big picture. Here are some mid level connections I believe in.

 

1. Any shard who chooses to manifest itself on Scadrial is likely to be in a way that interacts with the three arts (especially now that ruin and preservation are merged). WoB that investiture and magic systems would manifest and interact differently from one world to another (vasher eating stormlight - for instance).

 

2. Odium is possible thought not as plausible an enemy here. The only thing that he has going for him (in my mind) is to provide a place for him to be introduced as "the bad guy" on a smaller scale to show us his power and the difficulty in defeating only a small part of him.

 

3. I think that Autonomy or another shard might be possible. I think we only have a confirmation of 8-9(?) intents or names of all 16 shards.

 

4. Brandon has been intentionally dodgy on timelines of where books are on the cosmere timeline. Some of the only specific verification that we have had is the mention of One's Above in Sixth of Dusk (possibly Scadrians - because Brandon has confirmed that they will have a space sci-fy trilogy at the end). Beyond that, we only know (correct me if I'm wrong) that time is distorted when world hopping so ordering books based on who is in them is a surefire way to mislead ourselves.