[OB] The Unmade are Heralds

[Bort he/him]

2 hours ago, Sira said:

I like this calculation a lot and it makes a lot of sense to me. 15 desolations sounds about right considering that the Final Desolation would be the 16th desolation and we all know that the number 16 is special...

This would make a lot of sense. Well spotted, I hadn't even considered this connection.

@Spoolofwhool - I think you're right about the Oathpact. I was thinking a few more, but @Sira pointed out the Cosmere constant - 16.

[Patrick Star]

4 hours ago, Bort said:

Odium has the Heralds on Braize and does horrible, obscene things to them, like using their fingers to pick his nose. 

Oh no, I knew Odium was evil when he started heading an attempted genocide of the human race, but this...

this...

this is awful.  I can't even comprehend such evil.

[Spoolofwhool]

6 hours ago, Sira said:

I like this calcutlation a lot and it makes a lot of sense to me. 15 desolations sounds about right considering that the Final Desolation would be the 16th desolation and we all know that the number 16 is special...

When you say Final Desolation, are you referring to the Aharehtiam, the Last Desolation when the Heralds abandoned their duties, or the True Desolation, which is happening right now?

[Patrick Star]

14 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

When you say Final Desolation, are you referring to the Aharehtiam, the Last Desolation when the Heralds abandoned their duties, or the True Desolation, which is happening right now?

He was definitely referring to the one going on right now

[Rainier]

16 hours ago, Patrick Star said:

Oh no, I knew Odium was evil when he started heading an attempted genocide of the human race, but this...

this...

this is awful.  I can't even comprehend such evil.

You can pick your god, and you can pick your nose, but pray to whichever god you picked you never have to pick a god's nose.

[Bort he/him]

13 minutes ago, Rainier said:

You can pick your god, and you can pick your nose, but pray to whichever god you picked you never have to pick a god's nose.

Truly words to live by.

[QuasarInTheMist]

On 1/14/2018 at 1:34 PM, Bort said:

I like what you guys are doing with my theory, but would just point out that I never said each breaking created a new Unmade, only that they were created when a Herald broke, using part of their, spirit, soul, or something. If nine Heralds broke, that's nine Unmade, however many times they actually broke.

Odium did seem very enthusiastic about taking peoples' guilt and pain in Oathbringer. What if this is something like that? Using Jezrien/Thrill as an example. Odium has the Heralds on Braize and does horrible, obscene things to them, like using their fingers to pick his nose. While doing all of this, he is whispering in Jezrien's ear, and showing him visions of all the people he failed to save, all the horrors he witnessed, innocents dead because he wasn't fast enough. (Side note, just think what this would do to Kaladin?). Then he puts Jezrien on a battle field, and forces him to fight on, and on, yet always not quite fast or good enough. And there sits Odium in the background, harvesting all of Jezrien's pain, anguish, torment, rage, and hate.

I really like this theory!  Of course the numbers work out really well: 9 Unmade, 9 Heralds who broke.  As noted here and by others, I don't think each Desolation has to involve the creation of an Unmade for this theory to work.  When the same Herald breaks for a second time, perhaps this creates a new Unmade that fuses with one of the others (as some here seem to be suggesting), or perhaps it adds power to their Unmade complement, or perhaps a broken Herald breaking again doesn't affect the Unmade at all.  

And the idea of breaking taking some aspect of who the Herald is seems to fit with the deeply flawed character we see in the modern-day Heralds.  The different levels of consciousness of the various Unmade may reflect which attributes were taken from the Heralds.  From some it was a part of their emotional selves, others from a more intellectual aspect.  To bring in Realmatics, it could be that the breaking process affected a part of their Cognitive self or their Spiritual self (this may be a stretch, but hey, we don't really have much information to go on).  

I don't care to weigh in much on which Herald matches with which Unmade, but I would suspect the attributes of the Unmade to reflect aspects of the Heralds taken to excess.  

Thanks for sharing this, it's a great idea and I've enjoyed pondering it

[Jimpy he/him]

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XS-Terrain [PENDING REVIEW]

Also, does each of the Unmade have a corresponding order of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Eh... Kind of.

XS-Terrain [PENDING REVIEW]

Ok. So there are nine Unmade right, so which one is left out?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Bondsmith. But it's not as one to one, there's some fuzziness in there.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/173-oathbringer-san-francisco-signing/#e8598

Sorry if I'm on the wrong track here, I'm a little busy but wanted to get some typing in.

The theory currently seems to be that Taln doesn't have an unmade buddy because he never broke, but this sorta says that it's more that Ishar doesn't have one. I don't think this theory is a hit unfortunately, it'd have been cool though.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

8 minutes ago, Jimpy said:

The theory currently seems to be that Taln doesn't have an unmade buddy because he never broke, but this sorta says that it's more that Ishar doesn't have one. I don't think this theory is a hit unfortunately, it'd have been cool though.

Point well taken, but I think this has more to do with the mechanics of Voidbinding. You can't have an opposing force ALSO bonding the god spren of Roshar, and Odium's number is 9, which means that one order has to be not invited to the party (kind of sad, but that's life).

I think the bigger question, which Dragonsteel Inc. is trying hard right now to figure out the philosophical/real world implications of, is why do the Voidbinders not have a Bondsmith analog?

I'm pretty sure that time and 7 more Storm Light Archive books will tell, but until then, these are incredibly good questions to ask.

[Tobbzn]

 

 

Some added bits, specifically about Ba-Ado-Mishram:

Adoda = Light

Mishim = A Moon, the Third Sister

Epigraph from the chapter "Mishim", which also features Hoid's story about the Queen and the Moon:

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This generation has had only one Bondsmith, and some blame the divisions among us upon this fact. The true problem is far deeper. I believe that Honor himself is changing.

Official art of Ishar: https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Ishar_Endsheet.jpg (Featuring the blue moon Nohon, with whom the Princess, Tsa, had a child with while she had taken the place of Mishim in the story)

What Mishim learned: Loss.

What Tsa and Bo-Ado-Mishram are describes as: Queen/Highprincess.

What Mishim is described as: The most clever of the moons, eager to escape her duty.

SO MUCH BONDSMITH -> MOON ICONOGRAPHY

What if the "new" Ishar is so zealous because he's lost his ability to feel loss?

Edit: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/117/#e1654 and https://wob.coppermind.net/events/64-firefight-phoenix-signing/#e916

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Questioner

Roshar has three moons that orbit it, and I notice that these orbits somewhat collide. I was wondering if the moons have anything to do with...

Brandon Sanderson

The moons are a little bit of a hint, but it’s not about what you’re thinking. They are not in a stable orbit on astronomical terms. They’ll last tens of thousands of years before they degrade. But it is a little bit of a hint of things. The fact that Roshar has three moons in a very specific orbit is a hint about things.

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ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

I asked if knowing the positions/orbits of the moons would be enough to predict the [highstorms].

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said not enough. You need the historical records of storms as well because there is a pattern. You need that pattern and the tides, to correctly predict the timing of the storms. He said it was more than a simple beat.

ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

I then turned back and asked, "Are you saying the highstorms are music?"

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He replied, "I didn't say they were music. You said that."

Is the picture of Ishar *directing* the Stormlight, like a highstorm musical? Is that how he provides Stormlight?

Is that the other thing he has lost, which now lets Ba-Ado-Mishram supply Voidlight?

Edited January 18, 2018 by Tobbzn

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

19 minutes ago, Tobbzn said:

Some added bits, specifically about Ba-Ado-Mishram:

Adoda = Light

Mishim = A Moon, the Third Sister

Epigraph from the chapter "Mishim", which also features Hoid's story about the Queen and the Moon:

Official art of Ishar: https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Ishar_Endsheet.jpg (Featuring the blue moon Nohon, with whom the Princess, Tsa, had a child with while she had taken the place of Mishim in the story)

What Mishim learned: Loss.

What Tsa and Bo-Ado-Mishram are describes as: Queen/Highprincess.

What Mishim is described as: The most clever of the moons, eager to escape her duty.

SO MUCH BONDSMITH -> MOON ICONOGRAPHY

What if the "new" Ishar is so zealous because he's lost his ability to feel loss?

I feel like you are close to approaching something important here, but I can't quite square the circle. What do you think this all inplies?

[Tobbzn]

4 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I feel like you are close to approaching something important here, but I can't quite square the circle. What do you think this all inplies?

I edited my post with more information, and *now* I feel like I'm on the cusp of something... but it's 4 am and I really have to sleep. When I wake up you guys better have figured out the rest so I can take credit for it

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

4 minutes ago, Tobbzn said:

I edited my post with more information, and *now* I feel like I'm on the cusp of something... but it's 4 am and I really have to sleep. When I wake up you guys better have figured out the rest so I can take credit for it

@Varion had a very cool theory about what the moons signify. Check it out, pretty awesome stuff. BTW it's only 7 pm where I'm from, so the night, relatively speaking, is still young. (Also, why don't you go out and get a slurpee at 7-11 or something, this is important stuff)

[Tobbzn]

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Natanatan is one of the Silver Kingdoms on Roshar.

It was also known as the Granite Kingdom and the area became the Unclaimed Hills and the Shattered Plains.^[2]

The Natan people had pale blue skin, wide noses and wool-like white hair.^[3]

The Natan people's blue skin is a result of their Aimian ancestors.^[4]

 

The above is from the Coppermind.

Meanwhile from https://wob.coppermind.net/events/131-general-reddit-2016/#e3977

 

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IneptProfessional

Since you mention languages on Roshar, are there any languages that are completely unrelated to any other on the planet?

Brandon Sanderson

Our basic language families are:

Vorin: Alethi, Veden, Herdazian, and more distantly Thaylen. Nathan is close to dead, but shares a root, and Karbranthian is basically a dialect. Other minor languages like Bav are in here.

Makabaki: Azish is king here, and most the languages around split off this. There are around thirty of these.

Dawnate: A varied language family with distant roots in the dawnchant. Shin, parshendi, Horneater. They share grammar, but they diverged long enough ago that the vocabulary is very different.

Iri: Iriali, Reshi, Purelake dialects, Riran, and some surrounding languages.

Aimian: These two are lumped together, but are very different. Probably what you were looking for.

That isn't counting spren languages, of course. I might have missed something. Typing on my phone without my wiki handy.

 

 

So Nohon could represent the non-cremling version of the aimians. If we accept the spaceship theory, then *they* would be the ones to arrive by moonship, not necessarily humans!

Edited January 18, 2018 by Tobbzn

[+TheFoxQR]

As has been pointed out before, each "breaking" of a Herald need not be associated with the creation of an Unmade. Rather, I think each time a Herald broke, a part of their soul was ripped and given to their corresponding Unmade. I'm not sure how much I agree with the Hyphen-in-the-name indicating the break count because it would mean that at the beginning of each Desolation, everyone had to scramble to figure out which Unmade had just changed and gotten stronger, and I doubt Odium would have let his creations be studied that closely. And there's just too much hard information about the Unmade, and not any mention of this inherent growing capability of theirs for it to be that overt. But it's definitely interesting.

What's also interesting is that Odium seemingly only went after (the rest of) Jezrein's soul after the Thrill giving Unmade got captured.

Throwing another curveball: What if this is related to Honor dying? As in, with each breaking, Odium took away some part of that Herald's own soul, forcing Honor to invest more in that Herald to fill in the gap. Eventually, Honor had invested enough in the Heralds that their breaking the Oathpact and acting honorlessly had an impact back on Honor.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

32 minutes ago, Tobbzn said:

So Nomon could represent the non-cremling version of the aimians. If we accept the spaceship theory, then *they* would be the ones to arrive by moonship, not necessarily humans!

Totally love where you are going with this, get some sleep (unless your cremlings never sleep) and dig a little deeper, would love to see what you come up with.

[Bort he/him]

5 hours ago, TheFoxQR said:

What's also interesting is that Odium seemingly only went after (the rest of) Jezrein's soul after the Thrill giving Unmade got captured.

I think this is because, if Jezrien and Nergaoul had the opportunity to bond, it would fix the damaged Herald. This is pure speculation though.

Edit:

Also, in response to something @QuasarInTheMist said, if all of this is correct, then I think the breaking of the Heralds was Spiritual in nature, or at least, broke something in the Heralds' spirit web (which I think is the Cosmere-y term).

Edited January 18, 2018 by Bort

[Tobbzn]

6 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Totally love where you are going with this, get some sleep (unless your cremlings never sleep) and dig a little deeper, would love to see what you come up with.

Well, I dreamt that Ba-Ado-Mishram was be a the first Siah Aimian, the "Returned" offspring of Tsa and Ishar, invested with Ishar's investiture rather than Endowment's.

Could Tsa have taken the place of one of the Heralds during a desolation based on Ishar's conjectures (he thought the Oathpact might hold with just Taln too) and ended up turning to Odium and being rewarded with Ishar's soul "reviving" her stillborn son? We know some Returned traits can be inherited, like the Royal Locks, so that Aimian could be the progenitor of all the Siah.

Or perhaps Tsa was simply a corrupted Bondsmith (the Mishim Bondsmith, assuming there's a Bondsmith for each moon) that was given Ishar's soul and bonded it to their baby?

59 minutes ago, Bort said:

I think this is because, if Jezrien and Nergaoul had the opportunity to bond, it would fix the damaged Herald. This is pure speculation though.

But it's excellent speculation!

[Varion he/him]

6 hours ago, Tobbzn said:

So Nohon could represent the non-cremling version of the aimians. If we accept the spaceship theory, then *they* would be the ones to arrive by moonship, not necessarily humans!

BAM!

Now that is something I hadn't considered, but makes a huge amount of sense. It gives a very plausible explanation for Hoid's story about the moons: it is a mytholigised account of first contact between the people of Roshar and the alien Aimians, and the interbreeding between them. 

If this is true, I wonder if the three moons (three spaceships) indicate that there were originally three races of Amian, but one has been lost. No evidence, just a random thought.

[Tobbzn]

1 hour ago, Varion said:

BAM!

Now that is something I hadn't considered, but makes a huge amount of sense. It gives a very plausible explanation for Hoid's story about the moons: it is a mytholigised account of first contact between the people of Roshar and the alien Aimians, and the interbreeding between them. 

If this is true, I wonder if the three moons (three spaceships) indicate that there were originally three races of Amian, but one has been lost. No evidence, just a random thought.

While it's possible an Aimian race was lost during the Scouring by Dai-Gonarthis, remember that "Aimian" simply refers to someone from the subcontinent of Aimia. I don't think they are otherwise related at all, and I think the Sleepless being made of cremlings suggests that they are native to Roshar.

I'm starting to doubt the literal spaceship theory though. What if it's just a representation of the three different forms of power on Roshar, with Nohon representing Honor's power? Mishim is the Third Sister, the clever and scheming one, and Odium was the third to arrive on Roshar, and he's been scheming ever since. Then Siah Aimians could have, as I previously suggested, come from being given parts of Ishar's soul (of Honor and represented in iconography as associated with Nohon).

Edit: OR! Siah Aimians could be corrupted Nalthian returned?

 certainly seems to imply so!

Edited January 18, 2018 by Tobbzn

[Bort he/him]

 

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XS-Terrain [PENDING REVIEW]

Also, does each of the Unmade have a corresponding order of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Eh... Kind of.

XS-Terrain [PENDING REVIEW]

Ok. So there are nine Unmade right, so which one is left out?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Bondsmith. But it's not as one to one, there's some fuzziness in there.

 

So, Ishar was the Bondsmith Herald, and although he broke, he doesn't have an Unmade. This does make my theory wrong on at least one level. It wasn't the breaking of the Heralds that gave Odium the tools to make the Unmade. I still think they are connected though.

What if instead, it was the Oathpact itself that took something from the Heralds, and this was used to create the Unmade? It could explain why there is no Bondsmith Unmade, as Ishar was the one bonding everyone into the Oathpact, and so didn't have to give up anything of himself.

More Brandon Questions:

1. You once answered that each Unmade 'kind of' has a corresponding order of Radiants. Would it be more accurate to say instead that, each Unmade has a corresponding Herald?

2. Which part of themselves did the Heralds sacrifice when the Oathpact was formed?

3. Were the Unmade all created at the same time? ('Same time' defined as the interval between two desolations.

4. Was Jezrien killed because of Nergaoul's capture?

5. (Paraphrased from conversation on page one) Is this the 16th Desolation?

[Tobbzn]

1 minute ago, Bort said:

3. Were the Unmade all created at the same time? ('Same time' defined as the interval between two desolations.

I think this question would immediately get RAFOed, and it's likely to be hard to answer - there are several parts of an Unmade's history that are important to their creation. They were first Made, then Unmade. Which does "Creation" refer to in that case? What defines the identity of the current iteration of the Unmade, if they are changed whenever there's a desolation?

To make an analogy, I would say that while my body was created during my mother's pregnancy, much of my personality was shaped by important events as an adult causing upheaval in my identity. When dealing with something like the Unmade, the distinction would be more than just poetic, since their unmaking is essential to their being as we know them. Still, judging by Sja-Anat, they may not see themselves that way.

Perhaps a better question would be if they were all unmade in a similar manner?

[Varion he/him]

49 minutes ago, Tobbzn said:

While it's possible an Aimian race was lost during the Scouring by Dai-Gonarthis, remember that "Aimian" simply refers to someone from the subcontinent of Aimia. I don't think they are otherwise related at all, and I think the Sleepless being made of cremlings suggests that they are native to Roshar.

Good points. Sleepless do seem to be of Roshar. So IF the spaceship theory has any truth to it, then it's most likely the Siah Amians who arrived that way. 

49 minutes ago, Tobbzn said:

I'm starting to doubt the literal spaceship theory though. What if it's just a representation of the three different forms of power on Roshar, with Nohon representing Honor's power? Mishim is the Third Sister, the clever and scheming one, and Odium was the third to arrive on Roshar, and he's been scheming ever since. Then Siah Aimians could have, as I previously suggested, come from being given parts of Ishar's soul (of Honor and represented in iconography as associated with Nohon).

I said "IF" above in acknowledgement that this is a low probability theory. I've said elsewhere that migration from Ashyn to Roshar via the CR is much more likely. The same is probably true for Siah Amians. But it's a fun idea to play with (and a nice tip of the hat to Anne McCaffery). 

I really like your earlier post, listing the links between Ba-Ado-Mishram and the moon Mishim. And I agree that there seems to be a suspicious amount of connection between Ishar/Bondsmiths and the moons. But I can't get on board with you theory that Ba-Ado-Mishram was the product of some unholy corruption of Tsa's offspring, and/or somehow the first Siah Aimian. It simply requires too many unlikely or completely unsubstantiated things to occur to even be possible. It is also makes for a very messy, haphazard origin theory for the Unmade, which leaves lots of questions about how the other Unmade came to be. 

This thread has convinced me that the theory that the Unmade were built using pieces broken off the Heralds is the best explanation we currently have. I am particularly swayed by the idea that the hyphenated names refer to the different pieces taken from the Heralds. It's a clean theory which, with some more data, has the potential to explain a lot about the natures of the Unmade and the madnesses of the Heralds. 

 

[Tobbzn]

1 hour ago, Varion said:

It simply requires too many unlikely or completely unsubstantiated things to occur to even be possible. It is also makes for a very messy, haphazard origin theory for the Unmade, which leaves lots of questions about how the other Unmade came to be. 

I mean, I only brought it up because I dreamt the "Blue" connection to Siah Aimians, and come to think of it... the thing with their shadows going the wrong way. If the "9 shadows" are the 9 unmade, then it'd make sense if the unmade tossed shadows in different directions, and their offspring might as well. It's far from confirmed, but it feels to me that it fits Brandon's style.

And I think the point of Sja-Anat's words to Shallan is that the Unmade should have messy origins - they should each be treated as having their own individual backstory that happened to interact with the Heralds and Odium, and that's why they're so vastly different, not only in personality but also in form. That still fits the broken Herald theory - the investiture that would have made the first Siah Aimian should have come from somewhere, so why not the moon that shares their color and is associated with a Herald?

Of course, perhaps the story really is just about the Natan, but considering The Girl Who Looked Up, I think we should be looking for alternate interpretations. The Mishim chapter even has its epigraph about the Bondsmiths, so it feels like there are too many coincidences for this to not be related to Ishar, at the very least. Perhaps the Siah aren't related to it, though - but my core interpretation is this:

Some Queen-like authority figure somehow tricked a divine entity, who was connected to the Shards and known for being clever, into giving her something connected to Ishar, thereby starting some important historical event involving blue people.

Some ways of filling in the unsubstantiated part of the interpretation is that the Queen is Bo-Ado-Mishram, Mishim is the third Bondsmith or Cultivation, Nohon is Ishar or Honor, the thing given is the ability to provide Light or the ability to feel Loss, and the blue child is Siah or Natan.

I can't see Tsa being anything but the villain if the moons represent Shards or Bondsmiths.

For what it's worth, I also have a gut feeling that Chemoarsh is literally Chanarach, the Dustmother of the Dustbringers, but that really is unsubstantiated  

Edited January 18, 2018 by Tobbzn
Spelling

[+TheFoxQR]

I think that just because Brandon said the Bondsmiths don't have an Unmade parallel doesn't imply that Ishar has no corresponding Unmade. Remember, no one other than Nale joined their own Order, so if Ishar joined an Order other than the Bondsmiths, he could still have an Unmade equivalent. Also, this could be why there's fuzziness between the Radiant Orders and corresponding Unmade, since each Patron Herald might theoretically represent more than one Order - the one they are a patron of and the one they will eventually join. There could be overlaps here, and Bondsmiths, with their high standards and tough entrance requirements, could easily end up being the least represented.