Analyzing the 12th stanza of the listener Song of Histories

[Farnsworth]

Alright, so here is the 12th stanza

Tis said it was warm in the land far away
When Voidbringers entered our songs.
We brought them home to stay
And then those homes became their own,
It happened gradually.
And years ahead 'twil still be said '’tis how it has to be.

So the first line refers to a land far away. What is this land? Is it another place on Roshar, or is it somewhere else in the Rosharian system? It was warm, so is it Braize  Ashyn (thanks @Andy92)?

The Voidbringers entered their songs at some point, so I guess the Voidspren came to the Parshendi while they were in the "land far away". I'm assuming that the homes they refer to are their bodies. Then, it says that "those homes became their own" which implies that gradually the Voidspren took over the bodies of the Parshendi. 

The last line says that it is necessary. Why is it necessary? Was this the best way between two bad choices, or was it something forced upon them?

Edited March 22, 2017 by Figberts

[vikorr]

That verse apparently explains why, when the Heralds returned, they had a year or more (probably somewhat more) to prepare the human race for the desolation to come (if you go by Taln's rambling about preparing humanity).

The question then, is how did the Everstorm occur? 

An even bigger question has always been, 'why couldn't Odium unleash the Everstorm during a prior desolation?'

My guess is that, while Taln was in the place of torture....with the oathpact still intact, but mostly broken, there has been a slow buildup towards this desolation, and Odium has put in a lot more planning as to how it would occur.

[platnumkid]

Great Questions, I got nothing.  I think we'll find out a lot more in the coming books as we get closer looks into Listener culture and history.

[Krandacth]

9 hours ago, vikorr said:

That verse apparently explains why, when the Heralds returned, they had a year or more (probably somewhat more) to prepare the human race for the desolation to come (if you go by Taln's rambling about preparing humanity).

The question then, is how did the Everstorm occur? 

An even bigger question has always been, 'why couldn't Odium unleash the Everstorm during a prior desolation?'

My guess is that, while Taln was in the place of torture....with the oathpact still intact, but mostly broken, there has been a slow buildup towards this desolation, and Odium has put in a lot more planning as to how it would occur.

This is not what I understood from this stanza at all, though it is vague enough to be possible. I read this as describing the overall origin of the Voidbringers (as Listeners bonded to Voidspren), rather than a description of how Voidbringers emerge in each Desolation. My main reason is that the stanza talks about a single (if prolonged) incident: Tis said it was warm in the land far away / When Voidbringers entered our songs. If it were describing a recurring pattern I would expect something more along the lines of: Tis said it begins in a land far away / Whene'er Voidbringers enter our songs.

10 hours ago, Figberts said:

So the first line refers to a land far away. What is this land? Is it another place on Roshar, or is it somewhere else in the Rosharian system? It was warm, so is it Braize?

The Voidbringers entered their songs at some point, so I guess the Voidspren came to the Parshendi while they were in the "land far away". I'm assuming that the homes they refer to are their bodies. Then, it says that "those homes became their own" which implies that gradually the Voidspren took over the bodies of the Parshendi. 

The last line says that it is necessary. Why is it necessary? Was this the best way between two bad choices, or was it something forced upon them?

I like your thinking re: Braize, but isn't there a WoB that Braize is actually frigid in the physical realm? Also, I believe that the Listeners have been confirmed as being native to Roshar, hence the Spren symbiosis being their default state. On the other hand, the pre-Desolations Listener culture may have been advanced enough to equal the arriving humans in terms of worldhopping; as such, they may have frequented Braize' Cognitive Realm (which is hot) in the past, and so encountered Odium where he settled rather than being approached on Roshar. In fact, in typing this I have come to really like that idea! :-P

In this interpretation, the Voidbringers may be the Voidspren themselves, encountered in the Cognitive Realm of Braize and brought "home" to Roshar, thereby giving Odium a presence on Roshar that he gradually strengthened. However the fact that the second reference to "home" is plural, does suggest that this is talking more about their bodies, yes.

The last line technically says that it "will be said" that it is necessary, which is very much not the same as it being necessary. Also, it isn't that it will be said that it was necessary, rather that it will be said that it is necessary: not that "this series of events was unavoidable," but that "this situation is now inescapable/necessary"?

This second interpretation actually foreshadows the decision to adopt Stormform in WoR, which is stated to be something they must risk to avoid total destruction by the humans. It is easy to see how, because of the original occurrence of Voidbringers, conflict with humans is inescapable and that the Listeners will therefore always, eventually, reach this conclusion.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Krandacth

[vikorr]

3 hours ago, Krandacth said:

This is not what I understood from this stanza at all, though it is vague enough to be possible. I read this as describing the overall origin of the Voidbringers (as Listeners bonded to Voidspren), rather than a description of how Voidbringers emerge in each Desolation. My main reason is that the stanza talks about a single (if prolonged) incident:

Why should there be much difference at all between how the voidbringers arrived the first time, and how they arrived at each subsequent desolation? They still have to transfer from Braize (barring any that get left behind, if that at all happens). One would think it would happen in the roughly the same way each time.

So, in describing the time it takes voidbringers to transfer / establish themselves on Roshar, the stanza explains why the Heralds had time to train humanity before the desolation fully arrives. 

Put another way - as the arrival of the Heralds 'heralds' the start of a desolation - can you offer any other explanation for why the Heralds have time to train humanity (rather than facing a full on, immediate desolation)?

Edited March 22, 2017 by vikorr

[Rasarr]

5 hours ago, Krandacth said:

I like your thinking re: Braize, but isn't there a WoB that Braize is actually frigid in the physical realm?

Taln's interlude does mention everything being on fire, but you have a point here, too. It makes me wonder, what if "it was warm in the land far away" refers to "it was the time Odium broke out the fires and the Heralds were starting to break"? Granted, though, that's a pretty weak connection.

Or it has nothing to do with Heralds and might refer to something like Odium's arrival on Braize causing some sort of global warming that's since subsided (I don't know if that's what would happen, but we've never seen a Shard arrive on the planet). Maybe he was trying to heat Braize up to blow it up. In this case "it was warm in the land far away" could refer to "it was soon after Odium arrived".

 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Rasarr

[Andy92]

AU Spoilers concerning Braize:

Spoiler

Braize is farther away from the star it orbits around than Roshar is, so logically speaking, Braize would have lower average temperatures than Roshar does. Now, other things play into this besides distance from the star. It's possible Braize could have an atmosphere that traps in heat more (greenhouse effect), but it would make more since if Ashyn was the the warmest planet. 

The essay about the Rosharian system in AU actually says Braize is cold and inhospitalable in the Physical Realm. Ashyn is described as "the burning planet." It also says that Ashyn suffered a cataclysm long ago which is interesting. It wouldn't surprise me if the warm land far away is actually Ashyn, but I don't know much about that planet.

 

[Krandacth]

6 hours ago, vikorr said:

Why should there be much difference at all between how the voidbringers arrived the first time, and how they arrived at each subsequent desolation? They still have to transfer from Braize (barring any that get left behind, if that at all happens). One would think it would happen in the roughly the same way each time.

Quote

 

The betrayal of spren has brought us here.

They gave their Surges to human heirs,

But not to those who know them most dear, before us.

’Tis no surprise we turned away

Unto the gods we spent our days

And to become their molding clay, they changed us.

- Song of Secrets, 40th stanza.

 

We know that after the Listeners first turned to the Voidspren, they were fundamentally changed, so anything said of the original acceptance of Voidspren does not necessarily apply to the others.

6 hours ago, vikorr said:

So, in describing the time it takes voidbringers to transfer / establish themselves on Roshar, the stanza explains why the Heralds had time to train humanity before the desolation fully arrives. 

Put another way - as the arrival of the Heralds 'heralds' the start of a desolation - can you offer any other explanation for why the Heralds have time to train humanity (rather than facing a full on, immediate desolation)?

Yes, there is usually a buildup to Desolations, but there are WoB stating that Odium's influence is held off by the Heralds' resistance to torture on Braize: Heralds' therefore necessarily arrive back on Roshar at the beginning of Odium's influence, because Odium's influence cannot begin until they return.  Odium's influence would then mean the arrival of his Spren, and, as we see in WoR, the arrival of his Spren does not immediately spawn armies of Voidbringers.

@Rasarr, according to the Coppermind wiki, Khriss (author of a set of essays in Arcanum Unbound) says that Braize is "cold and inhospitable." The Heralds have been confirmed to be Cognitive Shadows between desolations, and they exist in the cognitive realm, not the physical. As what is PR sea is CR land and vice versa on Roshar, it stands to reason that cold might be hot and vice versa on Braize, which fits with both the Heralds experiences (as seen through Kalak in the prologue and Taln since his return) and Khriss' description in AU.  Given that worldhopping is only really done via the cognitive realm, at the moment, however, it would make sense that the "land that was warm" was the cognitive realm of Braize.

[Farnsworth]

Do you think Ashyn was the "land far away" or was it a warm place like Roshar? Or was it the Cognitive Realm? The Parshendi are closer to the Cognitive Realm than humans, did they come from there originally?

[Andy92]

I hadn't really thought about the verse referring to the Cognitive Realm, and that's possible. The land far away is probably something we just won't know for certain until future books.

[vikorr]

4 hours ago, Krandacth said:

Heralds' therefore necessarily arrive back on Roshar at the beginning of Odium's influence, because Odium's influence cannot begin until they return.  Odium's influence would then mean the arrival of his Spren, and, as we see in WoR, the arrival of his Spren does not immediately spawn armies of Voidbringers.

[vikorr]

Ahh, so, you roughly agree with me.

(had a problem with formatting, hence the twin post)

I do think though, that the latest desolation has followed a very different path that previously trod for Odium's influence.

Edited March 23, 2017 by vikorr

[Krandacth]

6 hours ago, vikorr said:

Ahh, so, you roughly agree with me.

I do think though, that the latest desolation has followed a very different path that previously trod for Odium's influence.

I agree that Desolations never have struck with immediate full force, but i don't agree that this stanza provides any indication as to why: just as you believe this Desolation has followed a different path, I believe the first probably did too. To an extent, each one was probably different, though it does seem like there were common signs.

9 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I hadn't really thought about the verse referring to the Cognitive Realm, and that's possible. The land far away is probably something we just won't know for certain until future books.

That is very true! It is fun to speculate, though, and see what might fit :-)

@Figberts, if we assume that the Listeners could worldhop at the time of the Shards' collective arrival in the Greater Roshar system, then the "land far away" could feasibly by anywhere in the Physical or Cognitive Realm of any of the 3 planets. However, there are reasons to narrow this down:

# Ashyn has not been linked to any of the Shards, so why would Void-/Odiumspren be encountered there?

# Most of Roshar (barring Iri, the Purelake, potentially Shinovar*) isn't particularly "warm", and the PR of Braize is inhospitably cold.

# Braize is the place that Odium settled, and its CR is, by all accounts, very hot.

None of these things prove that the Listeners first encountered Void-/Odiumspren in the CR of Braize, but they are enough to make it my working hypothesis :-) 

*Admittedly, there has been a thread revived recently that links Shin Stone Shamanism to Odium-worship... I'm not too sure that's the case :-P but can't disprove it, so maybe the "land far away" is just the other end of the continent.  On the other hand, the suggestion is that some of the Listener songs are older than Desolations, and it seems incredibly unlikely that the Listeners were limited to the area that would become the shattered plains until the end of the last Desolation. So Shinovar would not have been unilaterally "far away" when the "Voidbringers entered their songs".

Edited March 23, 2017 by Krandacth

[dionysus]

Since real land is water in Shadesmar and vice versa, perhaps cold on Braize is hot in Braize's cognitive realm. And voidspren would be primarily cognitive beings even if they manifest in the physical... The syntax doesn't really tell us what the relevance of the warm land is. It is unclear if it is implying that it was the land of the voidbringers or not. Since it says "land far away," I conclude they are not talking about the origin of the Listeners.

[Sworn-Defender]

I wonder if that's the reason frost/condensation that always accompanies the summoning of a Shardblade.

It's bringing a piece of the Cognitive realm fully into the Physical realm yes? So since Roshar is warm enough to support life it's Cognitive realm would be cold?

Edited March 29, 2017 by Sworn-Defender

[Farnsworth]

Also, when Shallan was freezing and went to the cognitive realm it was warmer. I like this idea!

[+Extesian]

1 hour ago, Sworn-Defender said:

I wonder if that's the reason frost/condensation that always accompanies the summoning of a Shardblade.

It's bringing a piece of the Cognitive realm fully into the Physical realm yes? So since Roshar is warm enough to support life it's Cognitive realm would be cold?

Quote

 

We got a WoB on this a couple of signings ago, it's just phase changing basic physics unfortunately.

Quote

Q: Why does Stormlight make things cold?
A: It’s not the Stormlight, it’s condensation because something is going directly from a gas into a solid. The coldness is caused by that, it’s not necessarily that the Stormlight is making things cold, but that the Shardblade is condensing.

When something goes from gaseous state to solid state basically. Kinda disappointing but makes much sense!

[Garglemesh]

17 minutes ago, Extesian said:

We got a WoB on this a couple of signings ago, it's just phase changing basic physics unfortunately.

When something goes from gaseous state to solid state basically. Kinda disappointing but makes much sense!

My understanding of phase changes is that when things go from gas to solid, heat must leave the system and thus the blade would be hot, if anything. That's why when you spray any pressurized liquid, it cools things down as it vaporizes. The phase change requires energy (in this second case) and pulls it from its surroundings, making them colder and causing condensation. So either something is off or he's fallen for one of the classic blunders.

[+Extesian]

19 minutes ago, Garglemesh said:

My understanding of phase changes is that when things go from gas to solid, heat must leave the system and thus the blade would be hot, if anything. That's why when you spray any pressurized liquid, it cools things down as it vaporizes. The phase change requires energy (in this second case) and pulls it from its surroundings, making them colder and causing condensation. So either something is off or he's fallen for one of the classic blunders.

Merciful Trell you're right. I read the WoB and didn't think the basic physics through in my head properly. It should be exothermic. I can't imagine Brandon, with continuity checking and Peter at his side, getting phase change physics wrong. What are we missing? I wonder if the laws work differently with investiture phase change? Because it's not really gaseous matter turning into solid matter. It's gaseous investiture changing to solid matter (or perhaps solid investiture). Could be that changes it to endothermic? 

I am intrigued now whether there's a physics explanation to it or if it's investiture having different laws.

How about this? Deposition usually requires heat to be released because gaseous matter needs less energy to become solid. Maybe gas form is the 'natural' state of investiture and turning it solid requires more energy. So the process takes heat from the environment to create a solid rather than releasing it.

[ScavellTane]

My theory..

Humanity are the voidbringers..

The arrival of humanity caused the spren to favor them, causing the parshendi/listener to loose the ability to change forms aka bond with spren.

Essentially bringing the void to the parshendi.

Edited April 5, 2017 by ScavellTane

[Farnsworth]

@ScavellTane

While it's possible that humanity is the reason that Parshendi have many fewer forms than they used to, and that could certainly be due to humanity, I don't think that makes humans the Voidbringers. I'm pretty sure that we have confirmation that the Parshendi in Stormform are Voidbringers.

[Jack33210]

On 4/5/2017 at 11:16 AM, ScavellTane said:

My theory..

Humanity are the voidbringers..

The arrival of humanity caused the spren to favor them, causing the parshendi/listener to loose the ability to change forms aka bond with spren.

Essentially bringing the void to the parshendi.

Very close prediction!