[OB] Pain Spren and Odium

[+Child of Hodor]

My theory is that Odium is really what everyone else has always said he was, the shard of hatred (more or less), but Odium is able to absorb other emotions from people and give them back much like the pain spren in Navani's painrial do. All the emotions that Dalinar saw in the fiery inferno version of Odium, other than hatred, Odium collected from others and were not innate to the shard. 

Odium claims that he is not just hatred, but Passion. When Dalinar sees Odium's fiery inferno form he senses a lot different emotions, not just hatred. Later Odium tries to talk Dalinar into giving Odium his pain. 

Towards the end of OB Moash remarks to one of the Fused that he doesn't feel anything and the Fused tells him that Odium has taken his passion and will return it to Moash later. 

Navani's painrial's have pain spren in them. These spren are able to take the pain away from the wearer. The pain seems to be stored in the painrial because Navani is able reverse the flow of pain when she defends Queen Fen by disabling the would-be assassins in OB chapter 118. The assassins are only in pain temporarily, as if the fabrial only had so much stored up. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Painrial  

How can Odium do this and other shards haven't done it? It seems to have something to do with him being "The Void" an emptiness that allows him consumes the emotions of others. How does that relate to hatred of others for what they do or inspiring hatred in others? Perhaps there is an innate emptiness in hate, I don't know.  

[Farnsworth]

I love the idea that Odium is mostly hatred, but claims to be passion, and the idea that Odium can take emotions. That is probably similar to what he was promising Dalinar at the end of OB.  Here is one issue I have with this theory though: we don't know If  Painspren are really of Odium. If they are for sure, then I'd say their ability to take pain comes from the same place as Odium's. If not, then I think it's just a Shard thing. Do we know of any other Shards that can do this?

[RShara she/her]

Well, hatred, in one of its worst forms, really does devour everything--love, joy, etc.  There's a reason it can be called "All consuming hatred".  And people who have exacted some form of hatred-based revenge often describe it as "feeling hollow afterward."  So yeah, consuming emotion and passion sounds like it's all part of being Odium.

[+Child of Hodor]

14 minutes ago, Ookla the maladroit said:

I love the idea that Odium is mostly hatred, but claims to be passion, and the idea that Odium can take emotions. That is probably similar to what he was promising Dalinar at the end of OB.  Here is one issue I have with this theory though: we don't know If  Painspren are really of Odium. If they are for sure, then I'd say their ability to take pain comes from the same place as Odium's. If not, then I think it's just a Shard thing. Do we know of any other Shards that can do this?

Pain spren, which seem to be non-sapient spren, probably existed pre-shattering. We know that Roshar was created by Adonalsium pre-shattering and the Parshendi were created by Adonalsium. Some spren could come from Adonalsium who, of course, had odium within along with everything else. 

This WoB confirms that most non-sapient spren existed on Roshar pre-shattering.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2-jordancon-2016/#e141

 

#12

Questioner

Spren. The phenomenon that creates spren. Is that Roshar-specific or is that a general effect?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, yes and no. So the question is, the effect that creates spren, is that Roshar-specific or is it general. The general fundamental rules that create spren are cosmere-wide. Spren are pieces of Investiture, usually pieces of Investiture that come straight from one of the Shards of Adonalsium, split off in some way, that because of human or other sapient creatures thinking about it or interacting with the power, the power starts to take on a life of its own. Develops personalities and comes alive, so to speak. And this can happen on any pla-- in any place where there is Investiture. So it could happen on any planet in the cosmere with significant amounts of free Investiture. The places you've seen this happen most commonly are on Sel and Scadri-- err Roshar. You haven't seen it on Scadrial, and you've seen little kind of hints at it on Nalthis, but not quite. And so-- But it's possible for it to happen anywhere. Seons and spren are basically the same thing with different powers-- powers kind of pushing them in different-- growth out of them-- That said, the non-sapient spren, so the spren that are not quite as-- They're not going to stand up and talk to you. Those all existed-- not all, but most of them existed on Roshar before the Shattering of Adonalsium.

 

#spren

[.S.A.M.K.M]

The black fisher description sounds like it's domain is pain, like sadness, grief or depression.