[OB] What *were* the Heralds guarding?

[sword_nimi]

It's been a super quiet week at the office, since everyone else has vacation time to use, which means I get to cosmere-dream!

Let's chat about Braize, perpendicularities, and the Oathpact, shall we?

All of the shards have shardpools, and our intrepid worldhoppers use those shardpools to traverse realms. Shardpools are perpendicularities, but I'm not entirely sure if all perpendicularities are shardpools. In OB, Cultivation's perpendicularity is revealed to be in the Horneater Peaks, and Dalinar recreates Honor's perpendicularity. 

Where is Odium's shardpool?

Was Honor's perpendicularity closed when he died? Or was it sealed, bartered away, when the Oathpact was engendered to seal up Odium's perpendicularity?

Here's my thought: the Listener dead grew angry and refused to pass from the Cognitive Realm to the Spiritual Realm, and Odium smelled an opportunity. I think Odium's perpendicularity is on Braize, and it's how the souls of the Fused returned to the Physical Realm to bond new bodies after they died. There was no way to defeat the Listeners at that point - they would just continue to regenerate, reincarnate. The Stormfather talks about how the souls of the Heralds were worn thin by the time they abandoned the Oathpact. I think the Heralds were returned to Braize, to Damnation, but not on the Physical Realm - I think they guarded Odium's perpendicularity in the Cognitive or Spiritual Realm (not sure which, tbh), and that's how they held back the Desolations.

What do you think? Were the Heralds guarding Odium's shardpool? Were the Fused using it to cross between realms?

[StormingTexan he/him]

1 minute ago, sword_nimi said:

Where is Odium's shardpool?

From how I understand it he wouldn't have one unless he was fully invested in a planet which he is purposefully not doing so he can travel the Cosmere and kill other shards in the effort to be the most powerful being in the Cosmere. He is though bound to Braize by something that happened between him, Honor and Cultivation. 

[Leuthie]

The Everstorm is Odium's Perpendicularity.  It allows direct access go Odium's Investiture.  Honor's Perpendicularity is part of the Highstorm, fully usable by Dalinar when he achieved a strong enough bond with the Stormfather.  Normally, Honors Perpendicularity is only partially open in the Storm, passing out Stormlight, Honors Investiture.   

[sword_nimi]

9 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

The Everstorm is Odium's Perpendicularity.  It allows direct access go Odium's Investiture.  

I think the Everstorm is set up to mimic the Highstorm, creating access to those perpendicularities, but how else do we explain the Fused being able to return to the Physical Realm from the Cognitive Realm, if not through a perpendicularity? If Odium didn't have a perpendicularity until the Everstorm, how were the Fused souls returning in Desolations prior?

[RShara she/her]

The Heralds couldn't have been guarding the shardpool, because they were being tortured

[StrikerEZ he/him]

I would like to point out that Odium tried to not Invest in the Roshar system, but ended up failing (probably because Shards tend to accidentally Invest in places when they stay there too long). And we do know that Odium wasn't involved in the Oathpact (which was just between Honor and the Heralds) and is trapped in the Roshar system because of some other reason. 

As for why the Fused are able to travel back, I assume it's because they are Cognitive Shadows fueled by Odium's Investiture, and since they are basically spren, they're able to "bond" the Listeners and take over their bodies. 

Also, the Spiritual Realm is not the same thing as the Beyond, so the Fused never could've gone there. Time and space don't really exist there, except through Connections. 

[Crylorenzo he/him]

From reading these comments, I have a couple questions: Perhaps part of what Honor and Cultivation did was somehow force Odium to invest? Which raises the question - how does a shard invest or divest from a planet? We know investing can be accidental or purposeful, but divesting isn't really talked about. If one day, for instance, Harmony wanted to leave Scadrial to help in cosmere related events, short of turning the whole planet into a starship, how would he leave the planet to help? 

Odium's goal has to be twofold:
1. Shatter Cultivation

2. Leave the planet.

If his shardpool is linked to Braize and he is, therefore, invested there, how can he sever that connection? As far as we know, no one living is in the physical realm there (correct me if I'm wrong). The souls of the singer ancestors are hanging out in the cognitive realm we've theorized, but why are they there? how did they get there from Roshar? If the Everstorm is Odium's perpendicularity, how was it summoned and, again, how does it connect to Braize?

As for shardpools and perpendicularities maybe or not being always the same, I agree with the original author. Wasn't what Jasnah did to make it back to the physical realm described as making a mini-perpendicularity? Don't remember where I heard that, but I think that is so.

Also, I think Heralds guarding Odium's shardpool is a valid thought - until we hear from Taln I doubt we'll understand fully what was going on with the Heralds on Braize - "tortured" is such a broad word and how is was done and why it was necessary is still very much up in the air.