[OB] Be wary of anyone who claims to be able to see the future

[lordofsoup]

I understand why this is such an important point in regards to Roshar.  Seeing the future is of Odium which is why Vorinism is against it.  However in the cosmere other Shards can also grant this ability.

Is this Hoid being intentionally cryptic to Shallan similar to what he told Dalinar last book about not trusting him, or is it more about the ability to see the future as being somehow corrupted by whatever Shard is granting the power?  

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, I was hoping someone else could run with it.

[yulerule]

Regarding seeing the future. I keep wondering - are emotionspren sensetive to the future. In the PR, they pop up (seemingly out of nothing) when someone has a strong emotion, but as we see in Shadesmar, the emtionspren creatures move about - they don't randomly teleport - so they would need to go to where someone WILL have a strong emotion to be there at the right moment. Any thoughts on this?

[AerionBFII he/him]

I've never really seen tha taboo of it, because Odium can see the future but it's described: "He can see the future, though only cloudily.  "

Honor could do it to a degree and so could Cultivation though she was better at it: "I cannot see the future completely. Cultivation, she is better at it than I. It’s as if the future is a shattering window. The further you look, the more pieces that window breaks into. The near future can be anticipated, but the distant future… I can only guess."

Maybe it's just a thing ordinary men are not supposed to dabble in?

 

[PhineasGage]

I agree that this is strange, given that I would hypothesize that Cultivation would be better than Odium at fortelling. I mean, the whole basis of cultivating thins is that you predict how they will turn out in most circumstances. Perhaps she has trouble predicting major events that fundamentally impact progres - much like a farmer may choose to farm a specific crop each year - it usually works just fine because he can predict how the environment will work to help him, but if a disaster strikes (eg drought) the crops will fail. Perhaps Cultivation is better assuming normal situations - I'm guessing a desolation would not be included in that.

[Steeldancer he/him]

8 hours ago, yulerule said:

Regarding seeing the future. I keep wondering - are emotionspren sensetive to the future. In the PR, they pop up (seemingly out of nothing) when someone has a strong emotion, but as we see in Shadesmar, the emtionspren creatures move about - they don't randomly teleport - so they would need to go to where someone WILL have a strong emotion to be there at the right moment. Any thoughts on this?

I think there are just a lot everywhere. They don't need to travel far. 

[kmosiman]

I think part of the aversion is the risk of despair. If you buy in to something happening then you are less likely to prevent it.

Renarin was crouched on the floor waiting for the deathblow to come before he was proven wrong. He had given up hope and KNEW that his father would become Odium's champion. 

If he believed that his visions could change then he could have fought against them.

[StormingTexan he/him]

2 minutes ago, kmosiman said:

I think part of the aversion is the risk of despair. If you buy in to something happening then you are less likely to prevent it.

Renarin was crouched on the floor waiting for the deathblow to come before he was proven wrong. He had given up hope and KNEW that his father would become Odium's champion. 

If he believed that his visions could change then he could have fought against them.

Yeah kind of takes away mans free will in a sense luckily he learned it can be changed. The Vorin see Cultivation as a pagan God right? The one thing I was really hoping to learn more about in OB was Cultivation.. I guess next book. 

[Shuffel]

I think anytime there is foretelling of the future/prophecy the shards can influence it.

Ruin is a good example.

[Bacon]

I think Hoid was warning her not to put too much trust in him since he just got done telling her how he always knew where he needed to be, if not what to do when he got there

[Rainier]

Hoid warns people because he knows that his interests do not align with the interests of the characters that he's interacting with. He knows that he'll sell them all out to die, as he ha before over his countless lifetimes. He probably sees the pattern of strong and noble people being attracted to him somehow, before he betrays them for his own purposes, like he always has done and always will do.

Obviously, while we've been given so much about Hoid in this most recent book, we still know barely anything about him. 

[Sigsyl]

9 hours ago, AerionBFII said:

Honor could do it to a degree and so could Cultivation though she was better at it: "I cannot see the future completely. Cultivation, she is better at it than I. It’s as if the future is a shattering window. The further you look, the more pieces that window breaks into. The near future can be anticipated, but the distant future… I can only guess."

Maybe it's just a thing ordinary men are not supposed to dabble in?

 

That particular simile that Honor uses is particularly interesting given the way that it appears that Renarin sees into the future. Maybe it’s more literal than it first appears.

[GarnetandBlack]

8 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

I think there are just a lot everywhere. They don't need to travel far. 

Agreed.  They're probably not even readily visible.  Spren don't have to breath, so they can be right down in the beads where you wouldn't see them.  I think the implication is that they're everywhere down there - with some clearly being much bigger than others.  I have some thoughts on this and the type of spren that live "above the beads", so to speak, but it isn't really relevant to this thread.

As for the future being of the enemy:  I think the diagram is a good example for this statement.  It's basically made of death rattles from an unmade and some clear influence from Odium - and it definitely leads that group to do some pretty evil things.  The Nightwatcher's influence is tied up in this somehow though.  Maybe she's got a surprise baked into Taravangian's diagram that will throw Odium's plans off the rails.  Hopefully so.

I think it is different with Honor and Cultivation being able to see into the future as well.  They may be able to see, but they don't share what they see.  Only Odium shares his own twisted version.  Therefore, if someone is claiming to see the future on Roshar, it is of the enemy.  

Another example would be Kaladin seeing that Dalinar was in danger.  To me, that seemed like a clear trap set by Odium.  Herd them to a place where they can't go back and the way forward is blocked by hordes of evil spren and fused...  it almost killed all of them, actually - they were just able to survive long enough for Dalinar to do his thing (which Odium clearly didn't account for).

There's more examples, but yeah.  I firmly believe if someone on Roshar who isn't a shard (or Hoid, I guess - not certain on this one yet) says they can see the future, they're pretty clearly being manipulated by Odium.

[AerionBFII he/him]

4 hours ago, Sigsyl said:

That particular simile that Honor uses is particularly interesting given the way that it appears that Renarin sees into the future. Maybe it’s more literal than it first appears.

That's what i thought!!

This particular except has stayed with me since i first read WOK

[Matt Snow he/him]

I took Hoid's statement to be more of a general warning, considering that anyone who claims to see the future is either lying, or being manipulated/influenced by a Shard. Of course in the book it works to help increase tension because we know Renarin can see the future, but I don't think Hoid is talking about a specific event in this case.

On whether Hoid was warning Shallan away from him, with this particular statement at least. If I remember correctly Hoid can't see the future, he uses something else to know where he has to be, so I don't think it would apply to him.

 

As to how Honor describes viewing the future and how Renarin sees it, these are my ideas (assuming they're connected):

A. Everyone who views the future sees it like this, as different images fracturing in glass, with more fractures the farther you look. The better you are at looking at the future and interpreting the present the fewer fractures there are.
OR
B. Renarin is actually viewing the future through some Honor related investiture and not something Odium related. This is why he sees it the way Honor did (this is unlikely IMO after the Finale of OB).

[Subvisual Haze]

I read this as a moral commandment against letting your own or other's claims of future-visions guide your actions.  Even the gods of the cosmere can see the future only as through a glass darkly, and can be surprised by the strange twists of fate.  Visions of the future are probability based guesses at best and should not be extensively relied upon to dictate your actions.  This isn't even taking into account that the person claiming visions of the future might be lying to others about what they saw.

Glimpsing the future naturally leads to changing your current decisions based on perceived future consequences.  Doing the morally right thing gets ignored and actions such as Ritualistically killing children and other innocent civilians in your hospitals becomes A-OK because THE FUTURE.

[Jaconis]

19 hours ago, GarnetandBlack said:

Agreed.  They're probably not even readily visible.  Spren don't have to breath, so they can be right down in the beads where you wouldn't see them.  I think the implication is that they're everywhere down there - with some clearly being much bigger than others.  I have some thoughts on this and the type of spren that live "above the beads", so to speak, but it isn't really relevant to this thread.

As for the future being of the enemy:  I think the diagram is a good example for this statement.  It's basically made of death rattles from an unmade and some clear influence from Odium - and it definitely leads that group to do some pretty evil things.  The Nightwatcher's influence is tied up in this somehow though.  Maybe she's got a surprise baked into Taravangian's diagram that will throw Odium's plans off the rails.  Hopefully so.

I think it is different with Honor and Cultivation being able to see into the future as well.  They may be able to see, but they don't share what they see.  Only Odium shares his own twisted version.  Therefore, if someone is claiming to see the future on Roshar, it is of the enemy.  

Another example would be Kaladin seeing that Dalinar was in danger.  To me, that seemed like a clear trap set by Odium.  Herd them to a place where they can't go back and the way forward is blocked by hordes of evil spren and fused...  it almost killed all of them, actually - they were just able to survive long enough for Dalinar to do his thing (which Odium clearly didn't account for).

There's more examples, but yeah.  I firmly believe if someone on Roshar who isn't a shard (or Hoid, I guess - not certain on this one yet) says they can see the future, they're pretty clearly being manipulated by Odium.

I don’t know that I agree. I think it’s pretty clear Odium’s futuresight got outplayed. Odium DIDN’T win the Battle, he DIDN’T get Dalinar as a champion (but is now forced into the agreement of Champions), AND lost one of his unmade! One could argue that this was somehow all part of his plan, but he’s an academy award winning actor then, based on his reaction.

Let’s take a closer look at the final Battle, and determine just what pieces were in place based on who’s future sight. 

1. The big one, Dalinar was able to resist Odium. In my opinion, this is largely because Cultivation’s interference allowed him to become a better man without the memories of Evi, but was prepared for the mental and emotional assault put on him because he got the memories back before the confrontation.

This is obviously subjective, but to me it’s clear that if Dalinar hadn’t been prepared, or if he had been forced to live with the guilt his entire life, he would have almost assuredly fallen. One point for Cultivation.

2. Kaladin’s sight into the future led them to Thaylenah, where there was an army of Fused and voidspren waiting for them. Pretty big win for Odium, right? I mean, Adolin almost dies in the Shadesmar fighting.

Except...almost is the key word here. The end result is that Adolin lives to keep a Thunderclast from destroying the Oathgate, Kaladin is there to keep Amaram and half a dozen Fused from killing Dalinar while the Unmade is dealt with, and Shallan is there to distract the entire freaking enemy army while the rest of The A-Radiant Team accomplishes all their tasks. Without that vision, these three would have been on the other side of the world, almost definitely resulting in a much different result of the battle. 

I’d argue that we can’t even be sure of the source of the vision, given just how badly this ended for Odium. This is either major negative points for Odium’s future sight ability, or major bonus points for whoever did send it, if it wasn’t Odium. 

3. Odium foresees the use of the Oathgate to bring reinforcements from Urithiru, so he attacks the tower from Kholinar. He wouldn’t have been able to get there, if not for Mr T’s Cultivation-touched Diagram. Again, this ends up hurting Odium, rather than helping him. This attack, and the sight of his fellow Bridge Four members dying, is what pushes Teft to speak the Third Ideal, giving him a shardblade and allowing him to transfer a squad of freaking Windrunner squires to Thaylenah. Aside from the obvious bonus for the good guys of those significant reinforcements, this group just happens to include Rock, who just happens to kill Amaram, who just happened to be about to give a killing blow to our Captain Brooding Eyes. One could argue this attack cultivated Teft into becoming a better man, not unlike what a lot of the Diagram has ended up doing...

This brings up another point: do we know what happened to Yelig-Nar? That may be a SECOND unmade that’s captured/killed. Really looking like Odium could learn a thing or two about looking into the future...

There’s probably more, specifically about Szeth, Lift, and others from the gang, but that’s all I have off the top of my head, and my lunch break is over. All in all, I’d say it almost seems as though Odium looked to the future, then decided his course of events. Then Cultivation looked at what Odium saw, then threw in subtle changes just to mess with everything Odium was planning. 

These leads to furthering my belief that not ALL future sight is Bad or of Odium. With that in mind, Wit’s warning may be more what some above have suggested. I think it’s a warning against putting too much stock in sights of the future, because none of it is certain, and it’s so difficult that even a god who is known for his strength in future sight gets things monumentally wrong at times. Best to live in the present type of thing. 

[GarnetandBlack]

On 11/21/2017 at 0:05 PM, Jaconis said:

I don’t know that I agree. I think it’s pretty clear Odium’s futuresight got outplayed. Odium DIDN’T win the Battle, he DIDN’T get Dalinar as a champion (but is now forced into the agreement of Champions), AND lost one of his unmade! One could argue that this was somehow all part of his plan, but he’s an academy award winning actor then, based on his reaction.

All fine points being made here.  That said, in my mind it seems that the future sight is still being provided by Odium and no one else - it's just that his sight is at the best heavily flawed and, at the worst extremely susceptible to influence from the other shards.

Your first point, however, isn't really related to any vision of the future (corrupted or otherwise) that Odium provided.  This is just his plan unraveling because of Cultivation's (and Honor's?) schemes.  It is definitely evidence that Odium's ability to see the outcome of his plans - his future - is heavily dependent on things going perfectly for him.  I agree that Cultivation clearly had a hand in providing Dalinar the ability to withstand Odium's corruption, but not through any specific vision of the future - no.  Indeed, Cultivation's plan hinged all on showing Dalinar the past.

Point two, again, seems to be more that Odium's "future" didn't go as he planned.  Due, in this case, mostly to heroics the of Dalinar (and thus Cultivation's scheming).  It still seems clear that, if this vision was of Odium (and I believe that it was), and if it had gone according to plan, this would have been a big win for him.

Point three could definitely indicate Cultivation directly touching the Diagram.  Still, I lean more towards this part of the diagram being schemed against perfectly by Cultivation rather than Cultivation actively providing this part of the diagram knowing that the attack would cause Teft to speak the words.  Odium actively went into Urithiru believing it to be relatively unguarded.  His "future" did not account for Teft becoming radiant at that precise moment.

It is definitely open to debate, but again, I'm not sure I see evidence of anyone other than Odium providing visions of the future.  It is just that Odium's version of the "future" incorporates only the outcome of his plans.  It doesn't (and probably can't) account for another shard actively acting against his interests.  

I think we're essentially making the same points.  Odium looked into the future and planned accordingly, but his plan was derailed by Cultivation's masterful plays.  To be clear, I'm not saying that the other shards can't see into the future, I'm just saying that they don't share their views with others.  They simply make plans to exploit the cracks in what odium is planning.  With that, In my opinion, it still holds true that any vision of the future is, as they say, "of the enemy".