[OB] The nature of the Fused

[OTC]

I have been considering the nature of the Fused, and I have come to the belief that they did not originate from Listeners, but from humans, and are in fact the original Voidbringer humans.

When speaking to Dalinar about the origins of the fused, the Stormfather said the following

Quote

MY VIEW OF EVENTS IS DISTORTED. I DO REMEMBER THAT ONCE, LONG BEFORE THE DAY YOU'RE SEEING NOW, THERE WERE MANY SOULS OF CREATURES WHO HAD BEEN SLAIN, ANGRY AND TERRIBLE. THEY HAD BEEN GIVEN GREAT POWER BY THE ENEMY, THE ONE CALLED ODIUM. THAT WAS THE BEGINNING. THE START OF DESOLATIONS. FOR WHEN THESE DIED, THEY REFUSED TO PASS ON.

A few important things here. One, the Stormfater admits that his knowledge  of what happened is unreliable. Two, the nature of the base creatures is not specified. Three, whatever it was was already powered up by Odium.

As far as I can see, he never explicitly says the fused are dead parshmen, he always says souls of the dead.

Next bit from the Stormfather

Quote

THEY ARE THE SPREN OF PARSHMEN LONG DEAD. THEY ARE THEIR KINGS, THEIR LIGHTEYES, THEIR VALIANT SOLDIERS FROM LONG, LONG AGO.

This seems to be widely interpreted as it being the souls of powerful Parshman that became Spren to and then became Fused. I did the same, initally. However, unless I have missed something, we have no evidence that Parshmen become Spren upon death. When the Listeners talk about their Spren, they are referring to the one occupying their Gemheart.

I beleive that this particular passage refers to the fact that the fused bonded with parshmen, now long dead, and became their leaders and top soldiers through the powers granted by the forms.

Even Ulim speaking to Venli does not refer to the fused as being the souls of Parshmen.

Quote

"I said," Ulim hissed, "that you were opening yourselves up. I didnt say what would enter. Look, your gods need bodies."

Quote

"Those are the Fused: ancient souls reborn."

I consider that the Fused can use surges as further evidence that the began as Humans, as it has been repeated often in the books that the  parshmen were not granted surges. 

 

So, my theory on the events that led to this.

The first Human refugees fled to Roshar from their homeworld after destroying it with surges. They abided by the rules set out by the dawnsingers, and were being rehabilitated from Odium by Honor and Cultivation.

Odium finds out, he sends human surgebinders to the new world, cue first desolation.

Odium has limited troops to use, and his humans that he was counting on side with the parsh instead of him, now strongly tied to Honor.

Without external reinforcement Odium gets creative. He sees the Parsh bond with Spren through the gemheart, and starts converting his fallen soldiers to "spren" that forcefully take over the Parsh when they open themselves to  new Spren. They then demonstrate ther new powers, and convince/force the other Parsh to take a voidspren into their gemheart. 

The humans catch on to what has happened and fight back. Any unconviced Parsh are now convinced, and take in voidspren, further desolations occur.

The whole timem the 'Voidbringers' are the same, human invaders turned to malicious spren occupying Parsh.

 

Thoughts?

[Calderis he/him]

My only questions are, if they were originally humans, why were they ever accepted by the Singers, and why speak with rhythms? Why do their bodies change to a specific marbling pattern for the identity of the individual Fused if they aren't singers? 

[digitalbusker he/him]

I would imagine the original crop of Fused must all be crazy by now, so even if this theory is true it's still possible the Fused we hear from in the books are all parshpersons.

If at some point we meet a Thunderclast who answers to Jeff or Linda we'll have a strong clue.

[Wandering Investor]

An interesting idea, but there are a few problems with it. When Odium tells the Fused they have a new leader in Dalinar, they're outraged that its a human. Second, Hoid mentioned dancing with one of they fused a long time ago. Unless he has the ability to see the soul, not impossible, he would have had to recognize her by the body she was wearing, indicating that she was originally a dawnsinger.

[Strifelover]

It's worth keeping in mind that in-world characters will use their respective in-world terminology. Brandon has mentioned this several times in different contexts, for example they would've referred to Honor and Cultivation as Spren, even Nightblood and Adonalsium as well (relevant WOB). Also when asked about the knife that stabbed Jezrien, he was asked if that was hemalurgic in nature and he said it used the same fundamentals and people in-world would call it that, but that he wouldn't (other WOB).

That's all to say that the specific words that our characters use, even ones like the Stormfather, may be chosen more because of their in-world familiarity than their technical accuracy. It seems to me that the Fused are more like cognitive shadows than sapient investiture, but unless you're a cosmere-aware arcanist that may be too subtle a distinction to grasp so you just call everything a Spren because it's what you know.

[Bort he/him]

3 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

If at some point we meet a Thunderclast who answers to Jeff or Linda we'll have a strong clue.

I know a Jeff that could be a thunderclast.