A second Nightwatcher?

[Ammanas]

So we are all familiar with the wish granting Nightwatcher of the old magic yes?

In ch58 of WoK Dalinar is reading from Way of Kings and says, "Whether we find ourselves in a hallowed sepulcher or a paupers ditch, all save the Heralds themselves must dine with the Nightwatcher."

Nightwatcher in this sense seems metaphor for death a grim reaper figure. It sounds nothing like the Nightwatcher we are familiar with. Any ideas?

Edited July 4, 2017 by Ammanas

[+Extesian he/him]

Hmm I distinctly remember that passage but I’ve never seen a discussion on it. Interesting. My best guess is that we know Shards can (and sometimes do) talk to people after death, as they pass through the Cognitive Realm to the Beyond. Given the speculation that the Nightwatcher is related to Cultivation in some way (whether its vessel, spren or whatever) the line could be referring to the fact that all people die, and will be greeted by Cultivation in the Cognitive Realm (except the Heralds who are instead reborn). The writer is simply referring to Cultivation by the persona Rosharans know her, Nightwatcher. (nb I'm not saying that they're right in thinking they're the same, just that could be the reason for the line)

[Calderis he/him]

Not really trying to dispute your theory here, though I do think that the Nightwatcher is unique. just adding in that if the Nightwatcher were more openly associated with Cultivation, and she fulfilled the role of meeting people in the Cognitive, near death experiences may have created a link

Edit: @Extesian beat me to it, with the exact same reasoning. 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Calderis

[Ammanas]

@ExtesianSo if I understand you correctly the people of Roshar think that Nightwatcher has two personas but one being? One persona is manifested as a aspect of the old religion and one as greeter of death (who the cosmere savy believe is Cultivation)?

[Calderis he/him]

4 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

@ExtesianSo if I understand you correctly the people of Roshar think that Nightwatcher has two personas but one being? One persona is manifested as a aspect of the old religion and one as greeter of death (who the cosmere savy believe is Cultivation)?

I look forward to Extesian's response, but I think this one is just a matter of changes due to time. The old magic is frowned upon by the Vorin church, so information that may have connected the Nightwatcher to the role that Cultivation played and/or plays was most likely suppressed during the Hierocracy. 

So I don't think it's separate. I think the role of the Nightwatcher in mythology has just been diminished due to Vorin interference. 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Calderis

[+Extesian he/him]

14 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

@ExtesianSo if I understand you correctly the people of Roshar think that Nightwatcher has two personas but one being? One persona is manifested as a aspect of the old religion and one as greeter of death (who the cosmere savy believe is Cultivation)?

Not quite, more along the lines that @Calderis described. I think the Nightwatcher was simply the Rosharan name for Cultivation (irrespective of whether Cultivation was known) and that somehow the word got back to living people of Cultivation greeting people after death. But the name Cultivation wasn't known so they attributed it to the Nightwatcher. 

That's entirely speculation though. 

[Agent34]

I'm not sure if this adds anything but I recall Jasnah mentioning Cultivation when discussing spren with Shallan.

EDIT: Found the passage/quote

Quote

Honor, who became Vorinism’s Almighty, was created by men who wanted a representation of ideal human emotions as they saw in emotion spren. Cultivation, the god worshipped in the West, is a female deity that is an embodiment of nature and nature spren.

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Agent34

[Azul he/him]

I really like the  'greeting people after death' idea!   I always tied the Nightwatcher and Cultivation together and felt she was seen as a nature / life cycle deity. So having death associated with her never felt off to me.   Our own mythologies have several gods that were tied to both life and death.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Accoording to Coppermind, there is an Unmade named Re-Shephir aka the Midnight Mother. Maybe Nohadon mixed up the names. For some reason, I just feel like the Unmade should have something to do with death. 

Another thing I just thought of: shouldn't Nohadon know stuff about the Nightwatcher that we dont? Which means, if common theories (or is it even confirmed?) that Nightwatcher is a Bondsmith spren are true, then Nohadon should know this, since he lived during a Desolation, when there were Radiants. Someone should have had a bond with Nightwatcher, and Nohadon should be aware that she is not a goddrss of death or anything similar.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Maybe Nohadon mixed up the names. [..] shouldn't Nohadon know stuff about the Nightwatcher that we dont?

Might I inquire what brought Nohadon up?

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Someone should have had a bond with Nightwatcher, and Nohadon should be aware that she is not a goddrss of death or anything similar.

11 Years of Worldwide Desolation. 9 out of 10 people dead.  I can easily imagine that said Bondsmith died during that time, or have been embroiled with combat somewhere else the entire time, so Nohadon would have never met him/her. Additionally, according  to Taln: Jezrien is the one who would teach men leadership. Nohadon may have interacted with mostly Windrunners and not seen a Bondsmith during that time. It may have been taboo to talk about Godspren(out there, but possible)

Edited July 4, 2017 by The One Who Connects
Edit: 1,700 Posts!

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

24 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Might I inquire what brought Nohadon up?

He wrote the Way of Kings and the passage came from that, accoording to OP :-)

24 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

11 Years of Worldwide Desolation. 9 out of 10 people dead.  I can easily imagine that said Bondsmith died during that time, or have been embroiled with combat somewhere else the entire time, so Nohadon would have never met him/her. Additionally, according  to Taln: Jezrien is the one who would teach men leadership. Nohadon may have interacted with mostly Windrunners and not seen a Bondsmith during that time. It may have been taboo to talk about Godspren(out there, but possible)

This is all true, but I do want to point out that as a king, Nohadon should have more information than most. And also, rumors can spread like wildfire.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Toaster Retribution

[The One Who Connects he/him]

5 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

He wrote the Way of Kings and the passage came from that, according to OP.

So it does. A most interesting parable.

5 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I do want to point out that as a king, Nohadon should have more information than most. And also, rumors can spread like wildfire.

I'm arguing against your point using video game logic(what has the world come to..)

With those kind of casualty numbers over the course of 11 full years, the chain of information will have almost certainly broken down. He may be privy to higher level information, but if no-one is around to give him that info, his security clearance means little. Same goes for those rumors.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

19 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I'm arguing against your point using video game logic(what has the world come to..)

With those kind of casualty numbers over the course of 11 full years, the chain of information will have almost certainly broken down. He may be privy to higher level information, but if no-one is around to give him that info, his security clearance means little. Same goes for those rumors.

That video game logic is hard to beat (though AC is also the game where you cant kill people with a spiked club). However, it is possible that Nohadon received information before nobody was there to notice. We dont know when he became king, and it is possible that he learned something before the Desolation came in full power, and everything got destroyed.

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Toaster Retribution

[The One Who Connects he/him]

21 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

though AC is also the game where you cant kill people with a spiked club).

The logic is originally from Skyrim. The AC image was simply the first to pop up in the google search.

19 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

it is possible that he learned something before the Desolation came in full power, and everything got destroyed.

Which was why I mentioned that perhaps the specifics of Godspren was something of a taboo topic to discuss. Fact of the matter is that he said what he did, and there has to be a reason why he didn't know what you believe he should have known. The taboo idea is the best I've got, because it could work irrespective of the timeline.

/lightbulb   We know that the Stormfather was known to the Listeners under a different name. Is it not possible that the "Nightwatcher" is a modern title, and she was known by another name previously? Fragments of an old legend being merged into a newer one isn't so farfetched given how much knowledge is lost between Desolations. There could have been belief in some grim reaper type figure in days long past called the Nightwatcher, and with the appearance of the gift/curse Spren, people "expanded" the legend to include this, and as time passed, the the reaper bit was lost to time. There is a minimum of 4,500 years for this to happen, including the "book-burning" Hierocracy.

The Nightwatcher could have remained in hiding long enough after the Recreance for the old legends to fade entirely, and was only rediscovered recently by some random explorer, which could be why she started the boon/bane tradition. By best estimates, the Recreance was 2,200-2,500 years ago, so there's more than enough time for legends to be lost, even without the Hierocracy.

[Chinsukolo]

So there is still no written or WoB confirmation that Nightwatcher is Cultivation or a godspren of Cultivation.

I do generally subscribe to the idea that she is, as do I think most people.

However, every now and then I get a wild hair up my bum and wonder if Nightwatcher is actually Odium.

Mostly because the "Old magic" is always described as kind of pre Vorinism ( you could kind of take that to mean pre-radiant).  The Parshendi sought out the Old Gods and Old Magic, and even the Stormfather describes it as Old and he's of Honor (which to me implies it's been there before Honor/Cultivation - thought that does argue against it being Odium).

I could see Odium "luring people" away from Honor with deals that have bad outcomes/effects on their lives, and may give him a crack to exploit with future sight (i.e. Diagram).

 

Anyways - just a wild chull idea that probably inst true, but is still fun to consider sometimes.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

11 minutes ago, Chinsukolo said:

So there is still no written or WoB confirmation that Nightwatcher is Cultivation or a godspren of Cultivation.

The Nightwatcher is to Cultivation what the Stormfather is to Honor. Wyndle refers to the Nightwatcher as "mother," and he is a cultivationspren. These are not a direct confirmation, but they're very close. They also more or less preclude an Odium connection.

[Chinsukolo]

1 minute ago, The One Who Connects said:

The Nightwatcher is to Cultivation what the Stormfather is to Honor. Wyndle refers to the Nightwatcher as "mother," and he is a cultivationspren. These are not a direct confirmation, but they're very close. They also more or less preclude an Odium connection.

Bah from 2015 too!,  Stupid search function.   Well like i said I still subscribe to the idea of Cultivation/Nightwatcher, the other one was a harebrained thought experiment.