[OB] Spoilers* Did We Just Spot the Kandra?

[Obnoxiousspren]

Alright, I'm thinking we just found our first kandra in Oathbringer in Chapter 25:

Quote

 

"A dark mass wriggled deep inside, squeezing between walls. Like goo, but with bits jutting out. Those were elbows, ribs, fingers splayed along one wall, each knuckle bending backward.

A spren, she thought, trembling. It is some strange kind of spren.

The thing twisted, head deforming in the tiny confines, and looked toward her. She saw eyes reflecting her light, twin spheres set in a mashed head, a distorted human visage."

 

Just saying, that sounds a heck of a lot like a kandra to me. That, or a form of Aimian we haven't seen yet. But I feel like that description sounds much more like a kandra. Thoughts?

[Bort he/him]

Well spotted. I hope you're right

Having just read today's chapters, I have to agree with the others. I don't think it's Kandra.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Bort

[What's a Seawolf?]

That was my immediate thought as well.

Then I remembered how Brandon said he wanted Stormlight to be stand alone.

Having a Kandra be an Unmade seems like a stretch in light of that, but that description sounds way too similar.

[Blacksmithki]

The Kandra mostly stayed in a complete form or in q complete blob, not halfway like that thing.

[Shadowfax]

I think it's an unmade, not a kandra. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

I didn't even think of Kandra. I thought of Shadowblazes from Rithmatist. 

[Aminar]

I doubt it's a Kandra. Kandra need bones. And It appears to shapeshift off of violence it reads. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. 

But it forms an interesting parallel with Shardplate. 

Like... Imagine you're sentient shardplate once owned by a radiant. And you're a little mad. So you know your job is to imitate a human doing violence. But you can't quite remember how. You'd imitate the violence done by humans. But on your own. 

Mind you, that is as Wild a Guess as can be made. But man would it be cool. 

[Aleksiel]

The kandra is supposed to be a worldhopper, why would s/he spend centuries trapped in Urithiru to only copycat murder random people? I don't think it's one of the nine unmade, why would Odium bother to create a splinter with such pointless power? I'm more inclined to think that's part of the Urithiru's defense system gone corrupt.

[Calderis he/him]

A Kandra requires bones to maintain a proper form. The mimic did not. 

This is not a Kandra. 

[Jess]

I don't think it actually is a Kandra, but Brandon might have some reason for making the description extremely reminiscent of a Kandra. What that reason could be though, I have no guesses at the moment.

ETA: maybe Odium was inspired by Kandra when it envisioned this spren?

Edited October 24, 2017 by Jess

[CodeMnke she/her]

Quote

 

A Kandra requires bones to maintain a proper form. The mimic did not. 

This is not a Kandra. 

 

It DID have bones.

 

Note: I really really dont think it is a Kandra, but the "thing" clearly did have bones 

 

Quote

A dark mass wriggled deep inside, squeezing between walls. Like goo, but with bits jutting out. Those were elbows, ribs, fingers splayed along one wall, each knuckle bending backward.

 

Edited October 24, 2017 by CodeMnke
Added quote from chapter

[Aminar]

59 minutes ago, CodeMnke said:

It DID have bones.

 

Note: I really really dont think it is a Kandra, but the "thing" clearly did have bones 

 

 

It had Bones. But it shapeshifted into something like Shallan without Shallan's Bones. 

[Subvisual Haze]

Kandra are infiltrators, but they take some time (hours often) to assume a form.  Whatever Shallan saw, it seems capable of shapeshifting on the fly and conjuring up the illusion of an outfit.

[Shadowmancer he/him]

Quote

A dark mass wriggled deep inside, squeezing between walls. Like goo, but with bits jutting out. Those were elbows, ribs, fingers splayed along one wall, each knuckle bending backward. [emphasis added]

Does this sound similar to kandra, or ... something like a kandra?

[Dahak he/him]

2 hours ago, Jess said:

I don't think it actually is a Kandra, but Brandon might have some reason for making the description extremely reminiscent of a Kandra. What that reason could be though, I have no guesses at the moment.

Magic A = Magic A. Just like Healing magic is similar in different systems so should shapechanging be.

Or it is a Kandra and the heroes may never know.

Currently I think it might be the Faceless but not normal Kandra that was in contact with the Set.

1 hour ago, Aminar said:

It had Bones. But it shapeshifted into something like Shallan without Shallan's Bones. 

TenSoon and Paalm are capable of improvising forms similar to other people (Pa'Alm did at least one person who didn't have an intact skull for example). MeeLann has that scene where she's discussing with the others what breast size she should have while changing them on the fly and the one where she forms mouths in her hands.

While there probably aren't many Kandra of that skill level around we know some of the low generations weren't Sazed friendly, and there is suggestion of Kandra renegades before Final Empire.

We don't actually know when Paalm started going rogue.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Dahak

[Aminar]

12 minutes ago, Dahak said:

Magic A = Magic A. Just like Healing magic is similar in different systems so should shapechanging be.

Or it is a Kandra and the heroes may never know.

Currently I think it might be the Faceless but not normal Kandra that was in contact with the Set.

TenSoon and Paalm are capable of improvising forms similar to other people (Pa'Alm did at least one person who didn't have an intact skull for example). MeeLann has that scene where she's discussing with the others what breast size she should have while changing them on the fly and the one where she forms mouths in her hands.

While there probably aren't many Kandra of that skill level around we know some of the low generations weren't Sazed friendly, and there is suggestion of Kandra renegades before Final Empire.

We don't actually know when Paalm started going rogue.

Yeah. But those transformations took time. Shallan's thing took no time and flowed through pipes while transforming on the fly. That's not Kandra territory. 

[Calderis he/him]

3 hours ago, CodeMnke said:

It DID have bones.

True. Let me rephrase that. Kandra are reliant on existing bones to create a skeletal structure that allows them to move properly and naturally. 

If this thing is a Kandra, it's... Extremely skilled. It rearranged its bones into a structure that allowed it to move in a form that the bones were not built for remarkably quickly. Depending on the size of the bones, and the size of what it was moving through, it may have actually needed to break down and reform the bones, which a Kandra couldn't do. 

I personally think this is a product of an Unmade similar to the Midnight Essence. 

[treblkickd he/him]

15 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I personally think this is a product of an Unmade similar to the Midnight Essence. 

 

That was my first thought as well. There seems to be a persistent wave of Cosmere/worldhopper-hysteria these days that follows any new character (or creature/shadow) that we see in OB.

[ScavellTane]

Like if you were not cosmere-aware and read that Zahel no longer hears a voice in his head, your first thought would have been that he was a KR.

[Lightspine]

Wait what if this is a nightform listener? Hiding and slipping between men... sure sounds like it's doing that.

[Zalocx he/him]

I highly doubt it's a Kandra because continuity. We know that this first half of SA happens at roughly the same time as the Wax and Wayne books, which are set 300 years after the Final Accension, which itself was a thousand or so years after the dawn of the Final Empire. Ergo Kandra came into existence in the Cosmere ~1300 Scadrialian years ago. Whereas the last desolation according to the prologue in WoK was 4500 Rosharan years ago. And Rosharan years are longer than "Cosmere standard" years too. True, we don't know when the city was abandoned after the recreance, but it was probably longer than merely a 1000 or so years before the events of these books. So assuming this thing has been in the city since before or around the time humans left it, it easily predates Rashek taking  a dip in Preservation's perpendicularity in the first place. 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Zalocx
Obviously W&W are *after* HoA and not *before* :)

[Rasha]

Even if this thing is not a Kandra, I would guess it possess similar properties : being able to copy bodies and faces seems well within his range of abilities. 

 

Similarly, it is also drawn to mimetism : it never initiated the murders or stabbing, but only replicated them on a 1:1 scale, without being interested in mass reproduction, even if it would not be a stretch to say that it is within its capacity. It kinda reflects the old behavior of Kandra often using bones that belong to dead people, and do not murder people to obtain bones (Paalm excepted). 

 

Sure it is a lot faster than a Kandra to change forms, but if it was active during previous desolations, it had more than 4500 years to hone its craft. I would be betting that at this point, it is far more deadly than any Kandra we have seen, even if it seems (so far) to be bounded by rules or a mindless instinct.