What do you make of the new information about the cause of desolations?

[Auger he/him]

Just thought I'd throw this in here:

 

Meaning of name Nahel

Etymology : Which(Who) sealed(quenched) his(its) thirst (Arabic).

[ram433]

I bet it has to do with perpendicularity. From what we know of world hopping you can only cross over from cognitive to physical in places with a large amount of Investiture. Remember how Syl called the amount of stormlight the honorblades used "dangerous?" Maybe that is what she means. Otherwise why would a magic that makes you stronger and heals all your wounds be dangerous in high amounts? A fully powered Radiant or group of Radiants might be able to release enough stormlight to create a perpendicularity allowing the void spren to cross over to Roshar from Braize. Cultivation probably already has perpendicularities (the Purelake?) but as she is alive she can probably keep the spren from using them. Khryss's comments in the anthology about Taldain and Autonomy imply a shard can do this. With Honor gone but his power still available, maybe its like an unguarded door to use too much stormlight.

[Spoolofwhool]

5 hours ago, ram433 said:

Remember how Syl called the amount of stormlight the honorblades used "dangerous?" Maybe that is what she means. Otherwise why would a magic that makes you stronger and heals all your wounds be dangerous in high amounts?

Syl called the amount of stormlight dangerous because the Honorblade was literally feeding on Szeth's stormlight give him surgebinding abilities, similar to how 

Warbreaker

Spoiler

Nightblood consumes breath when unsheathed.

In other words, if Kaladin and Szeth both started with the same amount stormlight internalized, and did the same lashes, and we assumed their consumption of stormlight with regards to surgebinding is the same (probably isn't), and they, in general, performed the same actions, Szeth would always run out of stormlight first because the honorblade would be consuming some of it, while Syl would not be (Or she would consuming it at a lower rate). What she said had nothing to do with a specific amount of stormlight being dangerous. The danger was the fact that you would run out of stormlight more quickly.

Other than that, I don't think it has to do with perpendicularities. I doubt stormlight outside of a highstorm can remain long enough for a perpendicularity to form. The other issues is that a perpendicularity isn't a gateway between two locations, it's just a weakening between realms. The voidspren would already have to be on Roshar within the Cognitive Realm to be able to use the perpendicularity, but we already know that spren can manifest to within the physical realm without need for a perpendicularity.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[thejopen27 he/him]

I suspect Nalan is wrong and Ishar is either wrong, or lying. The desolation don't come with the Radiants. They came for thousands of years before Radiants and none came for a thousands years after the last desolation and before the Recreance. The Desolations come when One of the Heralds gives in from their torture and some gateway between Braize and Roshar opens that allows the Heralds to return and for Voidspren to go through as well. I suspect it is part of the oathpact. The desolation cycle lasted longer this time because Talenelelat is a one tough SOB and he took 4500 years to crack, and since there were no other Heralds to break first nothing happened until Taln broke. Desolations are probably preceded by an sharp increase in Radiants, but I suspect the causation is the other way around. 

Edited December 8, 2016 by thejopen27

[vikorr]

16 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

I suspect it is part of the oathpact. The desolation cycle lasted longer this time because Talenelelat is a one tough SOB and he took 4500 years to crack, and since there were no other Heralds to break first nothing happened until Taln broke.

This is the best, and simplest answer to the cause of the desolations that I have seen.

To me, answers must answer each and every problem...and simple ones do this best. The only objection being that Nale believes KR bring on desolations, but that is also as simple as 'he's cracked in the head'

I don't think 'the KR's cause it' can get past:

- desolations occurring before their existence.

- hundreds of years of KR existence after the Heralds left, without another desolation.

- the desolation didn't occur until Taln broke

 

Evidence that Nale is cracked in the head - taken together as a whole (because individual points are always able to be argued, and it's the whole that shows who a person is), include:

- his utter dedication to Law of the Land (several aspects seen in the Lift interlude), including something like 'it is the only beauty in life'. It's quite cracked by itself.

- ignoring Sezth's muliple multitude of murders (which are breaches of Law of the Land that Sezth is in), justifying it by essentially saying it's the inner law that matters, not the outer law in direct and utter contradiction to the first point. The ability to hold two such polar opposites as values, using them willy nilly to justify his (Nales) agenda, shows a cracked mind.

- his hunting surgebinders for minor infringements of the Law of the Land (no matter how the surgebinders actions gelds with their inner law - which directly contradicts the 2nd point), with Nales intention to kill them, but still getting warrants of execution from the Nations government...is cracked. Btw, I'm not saying that a perverse logic can't be found in it - just that it's cracked.

- claiming that KR cause the desolations, hunting and killing them while training his own Skybreakers (who, as is seen in the Lift interlude, where one virtually murders thingamajig, don't necessarily follow Nale's values) is cracked.

[vikorr]

9 hours ago, vikorr said:

- the desolation didn't occur until Taln broke

That reminded me. There is evidence for this. The epilogue of Way of Kings, Taln says "The desolation has come.Oh God...it has come. And I have failed."

Taln may know by his mere return that the desolation has come, but why would he think he's failed? You cannot fail at something you have not one iota of control over. So the only possible inference being that he (or the heralds) had some ability to stop desolations from arriving.

Further, Taln knows that it is him that has failed, not one of the other Heralds (it's quite believable that the Heralds would be tortured separately, never seeing any of the others in damnation). And that his failure directly lead to his return to Roshar...

[Shlee]

There's also this:

Quote

INTERVIEW: Mar 19th, 2014

WoR Signing Report - darkanimereal1 and luke (Verbatim)

QUESTION ()

What caused a Desolation to end? Was it just the defeat of Odium's forces? Because the Desolations start when the Heralds break under torture.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Because the Heralds can no longer be in existence. There is a certain period of time that they can be there, and after that, if they're there, they will start a new one. So the Heralds do need to leave for a Desolation to end.

QUESTION

Oh. So they've got a time limit.

BRANDON SANDERSON

They do. Otherwise the Desolation will start again. What they discovered is not all of them have to. As long as one remains, the Desolation will not start again.

QUESTION

So, by the nine leaving, did that actually break the Oathpact for them? Did it change the cycle of Desolations?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They have not completely broken the Oathpact, despite what they may think.

 

If they all remain - a desolation starts again. This seems to say with certainty that all the Heralds being on Roshar triggers a Desolation after a certain time period. As to what makes them reappear on Roshar in the first place, that part can probably still be debated, but breaking under torture seems to be the commonly accepted theory. (I don't think this WOB actually confirms that one, since it just ignores that particular statement.)

The part that I cannot figure out is why Nale seems to think that Surgebinding can cause one, as being a herald, he should know more than most. I'm inclined to lean toward it (And also Ishar's "lies") being a direct result of their insanity.  We also now know that Heralds are essentially Investiture, more or less cognitive shadows. (Which begs the question of how can they go mad?? Outside influence causing corruption?) My personal theory after this:

Quote

QUESTION

Is Nalan using his original Honorblade, or did he bond a spren?

BRANDON SANDERSON

He's using his original Honorblade. But there's an asterisk here that will come up in Oathbringer

is that the asterisk is that the Heralds broke the bonds with their blades when they left them, and that left cracks in them that are either making them insane by not being filled, or got filled with something less savory. Nalan taking his blade back (especially since we have no idea WHEN that occurred) doesn't necessarily mean that he still has the same type of bond with it that he once did.

 

Quote

INTERVIEW: Dec 3rd, 2016

Little City Books-AU Tour (Paraphrased)

CCQ

Did Ishar intentionally deceive Nalan or does Ishar have bad info that he passed on?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes and no. All of the heralds are insane.

CCQ

So I clarified the question to being did Ishar know that he was lying to Nalan

BRANDON SANDERSON

got a RAFO but he added something that seemed to mean that Ishar could perhaps see the future and that each insanity was unique and that uniqueness played a part in the info. Not really sure on the last part.

Has anyone ever asked if the Knights Radiant pre-Recreance were aware that the Heralds had attempted to give up the Oathpact? I've never even seen that question RAFO'd I don't think. I know we have WOB that they didn't abandon their oaths as a direct result of what the Heralds did.  If they did know, I could see the Radiants attempting to replace the Heralds and then finding out that the Heralds were causing the desolations by being on Roshar. I think what Nalan and Ishar are referring to is that if a Radiant could gain enough Investiture to basically count as a Herald (which we know from some very recent WOB that I don't have sources for, are basically cognitive shadows which in turn, as I understand it, are mostly Investiture) that it might trigger a desolation. 

Quote

Then men will naturally discover the greater power of the oaths. Without Honor to regulate this, there is a small chance that what comes next will allow the Voidbringers to again make the jump between worlds. That would cause a Desolation.

Perhaps there is a threshold on how much Investiture Roshar can have and the Oaths make it possible to access or concentrate enough of it without Honor around to restrict it and that either causes some kind of realm combining like a perpendicularity that allows Odium access to the planet. Shallan also "pushes" stormlight into Pattern at one point.....maybe it's possible to make a new honorblade with your spren, a la nightblood style, by shoving investiture into it?  If Odium is seeking a way around the Oathpact, maybe it's constructed in such a way that if someone gains enough Investiture to "equal" a Herald, it would count. Seems plausible, and even more so from a madman's perspective, especially since they obviously are unclear on how it even works. We know that the Desolation has started regardless, but I can see how perhaps Ishar and/or Nalan made that jump in reasoning.

Tinfoil hat: The Recreance was caused by a group of Radiants attempting to become Heralds - the thing of great eminence that required the Skybreakers' help in sorting innocent from guilty, and after dealing with the miscreants, the rest of the Radiants decided it was too much a danger to the planet to keep existing, except the silly Skybreakers who insisted that Honor had given them a mandate that they MUST follow at all costs......

I shouldn't have listened to that darn signing report tonight, now my brain is running in circles!!

 

[kari-no-sugata]

Going back to this quote from Darkness:

Quote

Then men will naturally discover the greater power of the oaths. Without Honor to regulate this, there is a small chance that what comes next will allow the Voidbringers to again make the jump between worlds. That would cause a Desolation.

I don't think we should trust what Nale/Ishar say too much but some of what they do say is probably true.

Let's start with the assumption that the "root cause" of a Desolation is Odium spren jumping from Braize to Roshar. I don't know if it's the root cause but it seems logical to me that it's at least part of it. Note, the problem is to "jump" - the spren have to go from one planet to another in one go. The Odium spren (desolation spren!?) are not hovering just next to Roshar waiting for a hole to open - they're all the way over on Braize.

I don't think by itself that just having a highly Invested person around is going to cause such a jump to happen. If that's all that was required then the remaining Heralds would cause such events purely by themselves - the Heralds should be WAY more Invested than any Radiant should be able to hope to achieve. Maybe enough Radiants acting together could cause such a thing though.

Maybe a highly Invested person (or group) having a particular emotion (despair?) can do something? Ie it requires a combination of circumstances?

Anyway, going back to the "jump": while the Cognitive Realm doesn't exactly match the Physical Realm, distance still matters. ie the proximity of the planets of Roshar and Braize should matter. Meaning, the easiest time to start a Desolation is when they are closest. When are they closest? How about during the Weeping? Has Brandon confirmed that the 500 day year is actually Roshar's proper orbital year? Since Roshar doesn't have normal seasons, the year is measured based on the Weeping. If the relative orbits are such that they regularly come close every 500 days and that event directly or indirectly causes the Weeping then that's probably where the "500 day year" comes from, even though it's technically incorrect by how we'd measure the year on Earth.

It's probably not a coincidence that the Listeners triggered the Everstorm in the middle of the Weeping. It's quite possible that was the only time they could do it. (Any WoBs on this?)

So why would the proximity trigger the Weeping? I can't think of a direct cause but I can think of one indirect one - it's probably to reduce the amount of Investiture floating around on Roshar at the time of most risk. ie it's more of a safety measure by Honor/Stormfather.

I'm not going to speculate on exactly how Heralds can trigger Desolations or why Ishar thinks Radiants might possibly somehow be able to do the same. But if the "jump" assumption is correct then the distance between Roshar and Braize probably matters.

[Zmann966 he/him]

So, this partially came up at the Chicago signing, probably spurred along by the talk of Honor's Perpendicularity and how Elsecallers... Elsecall...

My thought for the "bridge" allowing "Voidbringers to make the jump between worlds" was the Everstorm.
It's been so far described as very... lackluster for the end of the world right? Even Tashiik just kinda put their parshmen out in the storm and then nothing really happens afterward. Well, if the storms are high concentrations of investiture, and the Highstorm is Honor's perpendicularity, then the Everstorm could be Odium's right?

And all of a sudden we have an Odium-powered perpendicularity into the Cognitive Realm. 

There's far more intricacies to it, but essentially the remaining Parshendi are harbingers of the Voidbringers, and their summoning of the Everstorm was opening the portal allowing Voidspren and other Voidbringers to cross over to Roshar's physical. 
If they need a perpendicularity on Braize to form the other end of the bridge, that could be where the Heralds come in. We know that the Heralds are considered "Cognitive Shadows" and Shadows just recently got redefined (since it's such a broad term) as "someone's who's spirit/body has been [mostly] replaces with pure investiture." Especially since the Heralds are quite powerful, there's a good bet they have a lot of investiture tied to them. (Coupled with the fact that we know Spren are splinters/cognitively-sapient investiture entities, and Taln's manifestation at WoK has him "wet" just like shardblades when they manifest physical bodies, {but not all Shadesmar passage results in wetness or condensation, Jasnah in WoR isn't wet, nor does Shallan seem to get wet moving in and out of Shadesmar... It seems to be more a result of investiture manifesting a physical presence on the "real" realm} there are a lot of small bits of proof that Heralds are invested shadows, their physical bodies manifestations rather than true bodies.) It makes sense that (if the Heralds are imprisoned and tortured on Braize alongside Odium's ilk) When they want to leave, they could simply create a perpendicularity to flee to Shadesmar. This could open the conduit for Voidbringers to get off Braize.
 

The breaking of the Oathpact changed this cycle... hence the big gap. But everyone has stated that this "Last Desolation" is different. The Parshendi creating the Everstorm is a very different perpendicularity than the Herald's Desolations... And this piddly "wrong direction storm" suddenly has a lot more looming disaster.


Sidenote: The Stormfather who hangs out int he Highstorms could be a Splinter who is the "gatekeeper" of that perpendicularity, Tanavast's last lingering intent to prevent Odium and his ilk from invading Roshar using that access point

There's a lot more to consider and discuss, but that's where my thoughts were going.

[kari-no-sugata]

Is a Perpendicularity needed on Braize though? Odium's forces there are spren. They shouldn't need to transfer to the Cognitive Realm in the first place.

Also, whether or not there's usable Perpendicularities on Braize or Roshar, would that make any difference to the actual leap between worlds itself?

[Spoolofwhool]

43 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

Is a Perpendicularity needed on Braize though? Odium's forces there are spren. They shouldn't need to transfer to the Cognitive Realm in the first place.

Also, whether or not there's usable Perpendicularities on Braize or Roshar, would that make any difference to the actual leap between worlds itself?

Yeah, they're spren and already in the cognitive realm mostly. Also, perpendicularity don't have any affect on travel within the cognitive realm. They would still have to move from Braize's cognitive space to Roshar. 

[Zmann966 he/him]

7 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Yeah, they're spren and already in the cognitive realm mostly. Also, perpendicularity don't have any affect on travel within the cognitive realm. They would still have to move from Braize's cognitive space to Roshar. 

Very true, I did say it was an incomplete theory...

Hmm... What if Roshar's spren cultures and their "Spren Cities" also protect Roshar from attacks on the Cognitive? Perhaps the Nahel bond's effect on the spren has something to do with the Desolations. The Nahel bond grants the Radiant power over surges, but what does it do to the Spen other than pull them more into the physical? (Or perhaps moving more into the physical reduces their effectiveness in defending the Cognitive...)

Lots of ways all these pieces fit together, Desolations, Perpendicularities, Spren, Nahel Bonds, Listener Bonds, Braize, The Heralds... >_< Can't get Oathbringer fast enough!

Edited December 10, 2016 by Zmann966

[Spoolofwhool]

13 minutes ago, Zmann966 said:

Very true, I did say it was an incomplete theory...

Hmm... What if Roshar's spren cultures and their "Spren Cities" also protect Roshar from attacks on the Cognitive? Perhaps the Nahel bond's effect on the spren has something to do with the Desolations. The Nahel bond grants the Radiant power over surges, but what does it do to the Spen other than pull them more into the physical? (Or perhaps moving more into the physical reduces their effectiveness in defending the Cognitive...)

Lots of ways all these pieces fit together, Desolations, Perpendicularities, Spren, Nahel Bonds, Listener Bonds, Braize, The Heralds... >_< Can't get Oathbringer fast enough!

Possibly, but the issue is that it explains the Desolations occurring when the KRs are a thing, but they don't explain the fact that the Desolations began before that, when there was only the Heralds and regular Rosharans.

[Shlee]

The bigger question, I would think, in the wake of that signing audio (which was fantastic of you guys to get by the way!) is how are Odium's spren leaving Braize, since it sounded like the Nahel-bonded spren, at the very least, are tied to Roshar in the Cognitive. So something has to be bypassing that mechanism, since we also know from Nale's comments in Edgedancer that the voidspren aren't really native to Roshar (he references pockets of them being left behind, and how they can't possibly be new ones coming over). Which makes the question of where Venli got all those blasted stormspren in the first place pop back up to pester me yet again.....

@kari-no-sugata - you make some valid points, but I can't see distance as being a major factor simply because we what we know about world hopping doesn't really seem to imply that at all - we've heard nothing about it being easier to cross from one planet to another if they're closer (at least not that I'm aware of). Instead, it seems to have much more to do with things like amount of Investiture in a given place, the presence of shardpools, and the status of the cognitive realm in that place. I would hazard a guess that inter-solar system hopping functions similarly to intra-solar system hopping in the absence of space flight.

I also think that that whirlpool in the Uvara myth is involved. There's a WOB somewhere that some parts of that story are more than just myth, and I've been wondering about it for a long, long time. I think it interesting that "the Origin" is so involved in the mythos of the planet, seemingly in ALL of the cultures, including the maps, and I can easily see it being a conduit or something where the storms can pull more Investiture out as they pass by (or something haha). That potentially makes the Everstorm more devastating, if it's invested with a voidish version of stormlight and also has the capability of using the Origin to recharge. I guess I think of the Origin as a lot like 

Mistborn:

Spoiler

The pits of Hathsin, where power more or less reappears after it's used/burned by the magic system. I know that stormlight seems to be more analogous to the mists than to the metals, but it has to be going somewhere when it's used and the storm is obviously full of it.

Of course then there's all that new info about Honor's perpendicularity being mobile so that may blow that completely out of the water. The obvious follow-up to that tidbit, is if the storm is a mobile perpendicularity (I know that part didn't get confirmed) does that mean that the Everstorm functions the same way? Scary thought that, mobile conduit to Odium!

 

Edit:

Ha, totally missed that this is basically exactly what zmann said above me. My bad. But yeah, that storm has definitely got to have some things going on we haven't seen yet. I'm also fond of the it's-invested-with-Voidlight-instead-of-Stormlight theory, but we don't even know if Voidbinding works like that yet...

Edited December 10, 2016 by Shlee
I'm an idiot.

[Spoolofwhool]

53 minutes ago, Shlee said:

The bigger question, I would think, in the wake of that signing audio (which was fantastic of you guys to get by the way!) is how are Odium's spren leaving Braize, since it sounded like the Nahel-bonded spren, at the very least, are tied to Roshar in the Cognitive. So something has to be bypassing that mechanism, since we also know from Nale's comments in Edgedancer that the voidspren aren't really native to Roshar (he references pockets of them being left behind, and how they can't possibly be new ones coming over). Which makes the question of where Venli got all those blasted stormspren in the first place pop back up to pester me yet again.....

The stormspren probably returned when the Unmade did... but you're right that there is still a question of how they came over. My current guess is that they are cognitively tied to both planets? It likely has to with the constraints of the Desolations, and maybe the voidspren are more tied to the Unmade, and the Unmade are powerful enough to make the crossing. That could work, though I think I read somewhere that the Unmade aren't all necessarily sapient so it might not actually work. 

Of course, the simple answer might be "Odium is using his powers to move them", which probably be possible.  

[Shlee]

I'm not personally on board with the theory that the Unmade have only recently returned to Roshar. We theoretically know, if Taravangian is correct, that one of them causes the Thrill. If the Thrill were as new as 6-7 yrs ago, I'm convinced someone would have mentioned it. These people who have been doing battle basically their entire lives would certainly notice a weird force driving them to bloodlust if it came out of nowhere. Instead, they act as though it's natural, normal. And Sadeas hints of feeling it in his youth, Adolin speaks about training himself to resist it (and not recently), and 

Dalinar Flashback spoilers:

Spoiler

We see it in Dalinar as a young man.

So either he's wrong, and the Thrill isn't caused by an Unmade, or something else besides the popular "everything came back at once 6 or 7 years ago" is going on. I'm inclined to take Taravangian's comment about Moelach "slumbering" to mean that the Unmade don't necessarily leave Roshar, but that they can be either dormant or active somehow. Or are in some way limited in their manifestation on Roshar, but in a different way than the voidspren seem to be. Pure speculation, regardless.

As for Odium using his powers to move them....possible, but he must be bound by something somehow, or why not just have them there all the time? 

[Spoolofwhool]

11 minutes ago, Shlee said:

I'm not personally on board with the theory that the Unmade have only recently returned to Roshar. We theoretically know, if Taravangian is correct, that one of them causes the Thrill. If the Thrill were as new as 6-7 yrs ago, I'm convinced someone would have mentioned it. These people who have been doing battle basically their entire lives would certainly notice a weird force driving them to bloodlust if it came out of nowhere. Instead, they act as though it's natural, normal. And Sadeas hints of feeling it in his youth, Adolin speaks about training himself to resist it (and not recently), and 

Dalinar Flashback spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

We see it in Dalinar as a young man.

So either he's wrong, and the Thrill isn't caused by an Unmade, or something else besides the popular "everything came back at once 6 or 7 years ago" is going on. I'm inclined to take Taravangian's comment about Moelach "slumbering" to mean that the Unmade don't necessarily leave Roshar, but that they can be either dormant or active somehow. Or are in some way limited in their manifestation on Roshar, but in a different way than the voidspren seem to be. Pure speculation, regardless.

As for Odium using his powers to move them....possible, but he must be bound by something somehow, or why not just have them there all the time? 

Good point about the Thrill, and it's definitely weird, but there's a WoB which apparently implies that states that both the Thrill and Death Rattles started at around the same time, and according to Taravangian, the Death Rattles started around the time when Gavilar started exploring the Shattered Plains. The WoB is from 2 years ago so it's entirely possible that Brandon has revised it. Maybe I should see if there are any more signing events and ask if someone can drop that question if possible.

Quote

GPMUSHU

Has the Thrill existed longer than the Death Rattles or have they both been occurring for about the same period of time?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Thrill and the Death Rattles started around the same time, but the locations for the two fluctuate and have been since they appeared.

FOOTNOTE

This note is from the forums: (This is just a way of confirming that the Unmade have been active for about the same amount of time. Both started around the time Gavilar started to explore the Shattered Plains according to Taravangian.)

[Source]

Good thought about the Unmade. It would also make sense that they belong to Roshar and were just slumbering. Why they can't be over there if Odium could use his powers to move them? Might be because his powers are constrained, per the Oathpact and the Cognitive Shadows of the Heralds in Damnation.

[Zmann966 he/him]

11 hours ago, Shlee said:

The bigger question, I would think, in the wake of that signing audio (which was fantastic of you guys to get by the way!) is how are Odium's spren leaving Braize, since it sounded like the Nahel-bonded spren, at the very least, are tied to Roshar in the Cognitive. So something has to be bypassing that mechanism, since we also know from Nale's comments in Edgedancer that the voidspren aren't really native to Roshar (he references pockets of them being left behind, and how they can't possibly be new ones coming over). Which makes the question of where Venli got all those blasted stormspren in the first place pop back up to pester me yet again.....

...

What if that's exactly it? They're stuck to Braize due to something similar to the Nahel bond which has them forced into the Physical? Subsequently, them leaving Braize is very difficult due to to connection to Braize itself and due to the 3d/2d overlay of the physical cognitive?
And something about all these pieces together removes their ties to Braize and lets them make the jump. Perhaps the Heralds' Oathpact is literally just like the Knights Radiants pact that forms the Nahel bond. But their pact is with Voidspren/Odiumspren and ties them together. So when the Heralds "do the right thing" and go to Braize for a thousand years of torture, they "save" Roshar and force the voidspren/voidbringers to go with them, allowing Roshar to know peace... Until the Heralds are broken and the process repeats.


Who knows? Maybe it's a simple fact of Odium is trapped like Ruin was, and the Desolations come when his well refills every thousand years or so... /shrug

[Dahak he/him]

On 01/12/2016 at 8:20 PM, kari-no-sugata said:

Secondly, whether or not Ishar has gone over to Odium, gone insane, gone paranoid or whatever, I don't think we can trust his arguments - he's either deliberately lying to Nale/Darkness or blind to reality.

Wyndle implied that transfering from Shadesmar to bond with Lift was easier than expected. (Which presumably is compared with around the recreance) which might mean that the surge in the number of nahel bonds before a Desolation was due to it becoming easier for Spren to cross over as a side effect of whatever it is Odium does to initiate them.

i.e, Ishar could be confusing correlation for causeation

On 01/12/2016 at 10:24 PM, ZenBossanova said:

Word

All the Heralds are actively avoiding their responsibility (9 of them, anyway). Even Nale is using his job to avoid his real responsibility. 

So, if you get a shardblade with the 3rd oath, shardplate (maybe) with the 4th, what do you get for the 5th oath? 

A shardhorse.

 

Though I suspect it is usualy blade at 3rd Oath (i.e. what appears to be the second relating to the first principle, i.e protection and loving for Windrunners and Edgedancers respectively), armor at 5th (second of the second principle Leadership for Windrunners, Healing for Edgedancers). With qualifing for the first Oath being what Ryshadium look for in riders.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Dahak said:

Wyndle implied that transfering from Shadesmar to bond with Lift was easier than expected. (Which presumably is compared with around the recreance) which might mean that the surge in the number of nahel bonds before a Desolation was due to it becoming easier for Spren to cross over as a side effect of whatever it is Odium does to initiate them.

i.e, Ishar could be confusing correlation for causeation

It might also have been easier for Wyndle to cross because Lift is more in the Cognitive Realm than normal though, so we can't say for certain.

[Shlee]

23 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Good point about the Thrill, and it's definitely weird, but there's a WoB which apparently implies that states that both the Thrill and Death Rattles started at around the same time, and according to Taravangian, the Death Rattles started around the time when Gavilar started exploring the Shattered Plains. The WoB is from 2 years ago so it's entirely possible that Brandon has revised it. Maybe I should see if there are any more signing events and ask if someone can drop that question if possible.

That'd be an interesting question.....I'd also be inclined to be curious as to whether or not Taravangian is correct here. Them starting at the same time doesn't really prove anything to me about when that time actually was....the part about it being at the same time as Gavilar exploring the plains is from an in-world source, and Chana knows we've seen those be wrong/misleading before!! Either way, something doesn't quite add up with the information we have currently.

 

@Zmann966 - Oh my haha I just had a vision of how many heads would explode after almost seven years of theorizing about Heralds and Knights if it turned out that the Desolations were just simply on a refill clock and that clock somehow got disrupted with the abandoning of the Oathpact!!  Tinfoil hat! Once the Heralds return to Braize, it triggers the refill, and after 500 years the Desolations return. If only one returns and 9 are missing, it takes nine times as long which is why we haven't had one in 4500 years!!! (haha this math is wonky and I'm a crazy person, but whatever, I'm entertained.)

[Spoolofwhool]

The Desolations are definitely tied to the appearance of the Heralds. There's a WoB that if the Heralds remain on Roshar too long, then another Desolation would start immediately. I don't think the timer clock theory is correct as I believe that they didn't follow a set interval, and it had been implied that the 4500 has been because of the will of Taln.

[Shlee]

Oh I wasn't serious and I think z was being more or less facetious and just saying we really don't have a solid answer.  But the concept would be amusing. Even if it just turns out to be something completely unrelated to what we've all thought for so long. Brandon's books are so well foreshadowed that that rarely happens completely. Especially since somebody's almost guaranteed to have at least gone out on the crazy limb and called even the most unlikely of options. The mass brain explosion of the forums would amuse me to no end if it ever happened though..

[FiveLate]

14 hours ago, Shlee said:

That'd be an interesting question.....I'd also be inclined to be curious as to whether or not Taravangian is correct here. Them starting at the same time doesn't really prove anything to me about when that time actually was....the part about it being at the same time as Gavilar exploring the plains is from an in-world source, and Chana knows we've seen those be wrong/misleading before!! Either way, something doesn't quite add up with the information we have currently.

 

@Zmann966 

I'm new and just made an account, but did Taravangian state that the death rattles started then or that there had been a large up tic in them and they had become aware of them?   Brandon is usually very careful on his wording, he says they started at same time.....not when that time is....

[Shlee]

3 hours ago, FiveLate said:

I'm new and just made an account, but did Taravangian state that the death rattles started then or that there had been a large up tic in them and they had become aware of them?   Brandon is usually very careful on his wording, he says they started at same time.....not when that time is....

Welcome! Hope you enjoy it here!  Yes he certainly is careful with his wording which is why I'm curious since some of the information we have now is contradictory. When that's happened before, it's often meant that something we thought we knew from in-world was wrong, but it's also possible that that one WOB is outdated and Brandon has changed something since then, as @Spoolofwhool suggested. 

Here is the quote from Way of Kings - it's in the chapter where Szeth goes to kill Taravangian and finds out that he's the one who's actually ordered the murders:

Quote

“We do not know why some speak when others do not,” Taravangian said. “But the dying see something. It began seven years ago, about the time when King Gavilar was investigating the Shattered Plains for the first time.” His eyes grew distant. “It is coming, and these people see it. On that bridge between life and the endless ocean of death, they view something. Their words might save us.”

So the only source we have for when the death rattles started is that sentence. I can't find any WOBs or anything else in the books to corroborate it (except that one a few posts up where Brandon says that they started at around the same time). Taravangian obviously believes it's true.   

I started looking more into this after this conversation and there are some mentions in the books about "the strange things men have started saying when they die" and other such oblique references, all of which implying that the Death Rattles are a more-or-less recent phenomena and people are noticing the oddity. Not so for the Thrill. I can't find a single mention of someone thinking it odd or out of place.