[OB] Was Eshonai mind controlled?

[LevenThumps]

Put the OB tag so people can use this book as well if they need it to explain their point

 

So I got into a somewhat heated debate on Reddit about whether Eshonai was mind controlled by stormform in WoR, and I was curious what everyone here thought.

My opinion, no.  It's been established that all forms change the way you think and listeners should not let the forms control them.  Stormform is a very powerful form, and I always thought that Eshonai wasn't able to resist the form and couldn't act like she normally does.  This could be considered mind control, but then wouldn't mateform be considered mind control if you can't do anything but mate?  Please respond if you have a thought as I'd like to know what others think on this matter.  

[deeptheory]

I don't think they get 'mind controlled'  I think it is more like people/beings who hold shards.  Their personality/identity is warped by the power they are holding.  So when the listeners are holding forms of power, they are generally warped towards that powers intent/purpose/power.  Since the listeners are so in tune to Roshar and the 'Rhythms'(whatever these relate to... my guess is cultivation somehow) it would make sense that they are vulnerable to being controlled by investiture, similar to some of the beings on Scadrial who have been altered by hemallurgy.

 

And since the idea is that most of their 'new' forms of power are due to Odium and his power, then they get shaped by his will/intent, and why the 'new songs' seem to be more 'violent' or 'passionate'.

Edited February 4, 2018 by deeptheory

[LevenThumps]

I never made the Shard comparison, but that makes a lot of sense, especially when you look at Ruin and Preservation.  

Edited February 4, 2018 by LevenThumps

[deeptheory]

Yea, but basically the Parshendi are beings that were shaped to easily accept spren/investiture due to their gemhearts.  Thus their entire being is tied to the forms/spren/investiture and is why they can take different forms.  To me this has a lot of comparisons to Kandra, Inquisitors, and even Koloss.  It's also interesting to note that most native beings to Roshar have gemhearts...  Gemhearts that we still know very little about.

Edited February 4, 2018 by deeptheory

[LevenThumps]

So, my follow up question to that (and the Reddit user's primary argument), is how can Eshonai be influenced so much by stormform at the end of Words of Radiance, but Venli is able to resist enough to swear the First Ideal.  

My thoughts (I know it may be weird to answer my own question but I'm also looking for other input) is that Venli simply was able to resist over time and through the events that happened in OB.  Eshonai probably would have been able to resist the influence of stormform more if she had survived.  

[deeptheory]

Because when Venli swears the first ideal she isn't in Stormform which was supposed to be like a more powerful warform.  She was in Envoyform which seemed to be a less powerful form of 'power' and really just changed her shape and ability to communicate/think.  Each form has it's attributes and abilities, a form like Stormform doesn't 'need' logic and reason therefore the mind is a bit stunted while using it (we can see Eshonai fighting stormform internally but the surface Eshonai just dismisses it because she can't understand).  However a form like envoyform would support reasoning/logic as well as more 'open ended goals'.  So... if Venli was in stormform it's possible she wouldn't have been able to swear the ideals, but in Envoyform she is more like a human.

[Calderis he/him]

@LevenThumps

Yes, she was. It was more than just a new way of thinking, stormform allowed for direct control of the listeners.

Mistborn spoilers. 

Spoiler

It is the exact same situation as Ruin controlling Marsh through his spikes. 

And a relevant WoB, (which only answers this because he misunderstood what was being asked.)

Quote

zas678 (paraphrased)

Can Odium influence people the same way that Ruin can?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, you see, the kandra and the koloss have a "hole" in them that allows Ruin to come in and take over. The Parshendi naturally are protected from this, but when they expose themselves to the storms, and the spren come in, many of these spren have that kind of "hole" in them, and that's what allows Odium to take control of them.

zas678 (paraphrased)

No, I'm talking about how Ruin was able to push people, place things in their minds, stuff like that. Can Odium do the same thing?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, Odium wasn't around when those people were created, so it's a little different for him than Ruin. So if he influences people in that way, it's through the Unmade.

source

Edit: as to Venli, I think Timbre will protect her from further influence... As to how she resisted I think it's a matter of Odium's attention. In Mistborn, we saw that the control slackened when the controlling entities attention was focused in another area. Odium hasn't exactly cared about what Venli has been doing. 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Calderis

[deeptheory]

@Calderis I disagree that it was really 'mind control', or if it was, Odium was doing a good job of pretending to be Eshonai.  I only think this mainly because when we see Eshonai in some of her reflective moments where she hears her internal self screaming to be let free, she acknowledges it and can't understand why she would feel that way.  If I am recalling it correctly...  So while I don't disagree that the void/everstorm-spren certainly give odium a better channel of influence over the listeners, I don't think he directly takes control of them.  I think they are just so completely reshaped by the power of the new spren that their identity becomes lost/shrouded.  Since we can see this in their 'original forms' with Mateform and how it can be difficult to think/be ones-self while using it, and how slave-form also removes the 'mind' essentially.

 

Certainly could be wrong, but I think mind-control is too strong of a term. 

Spoiler

Mind control would be more like an allomancer taking direct control of a Koloss or Kandra... or Ruin and an Inquisitor... but even in the case of an Inquisitor we see that Marsh is still 'conscious', as he talks about the experience of being controlled by ruin.  I guess against the idea of shards being able to straight up mind control people with investiture because it's just too simple.

 

[LevenThumps]

@Calderis I'm not so sure it's just like in Mistborn

In Mistborn, Marsh couldn't do much more than lift a finger without Ruin's permission.  Odium had to essentially scare Venli into submission to remind her who was in charge.

I do agree that having a voidspren increases Odium's influence over you, but not full on mind control.  I agree with @deeptheory that mind control may be too strong a term for what's happening.

[Calderis he/him]

@LevenThumps @deeptheory

"mind control" isn't really the right word, because the, just like in Mistborn, they still think as themselves. They are themselves, but their will has been usurped. The stormform are all being subtly directed. You can even see a few moment in Eshonai's perspectives that she beings to question what she is doing and immediately changes direction of her thoughts.

Its not possession. It's control. 

And Deep, it's no just a simple "shard can take over" thing. They can't unless their given a way to do so. Like the WoB I posted earlier shows, enough spikes from hemalurgy, or the voidspren, provide a hole that allows the takeover. It can't happen normally. 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Calderis

[deeptheory]

@CalderisCan we think of it more like 'pressure', I like this more.  They are being heavily pressured by a being far more powerful than they to act, but they still see it as acting on their own (even if there is some mental/cognitive dissidence).  I think the the mistborn cases are more similar to 'control' because they have been altered by Hemalurgy in a direct, meaningful way.  It could be the same in Stormlight but it isn't totally spelled out how the whole gemheart and spren interaction works.  This is why I think of it more like being pressured, and losing oneself, rather than being straight up controlled.

 

And to your edit, I just don't like the idea that being invested by a shard gives them access to your mind/body for control.  Each system might have a way to do what I detailed below in their own magical systems (say hemalurgy for Scadrial)  but I guess my point is that it won't ever (at least I don't want it to) be straight up mind-control, but rather a complex use of magical mechanics to 'pressure' beings into desired outcomes.

 

To expand on my -THEORY- , we have the Parshendi, who when they aren't bonded to a spren are in dull form(correct?)... meaning they have an 'empty' gemheart, or at the very least it is a non-sentient spren?  My theory goes on to be that when a spren enters a gemheart it 'pressures' the Parshendi body to change, and adapt to meet the needs of the spren inhabiting.  At the same time, the spren entering somehow expands the Parshendi to have more cognitive function (even workform was 'smarter' than dullform, mateform... debatable).  But this would only be with the 'regular' spren that I imagine are linked to cultivation... or something.  Anyways, then we have their forms of power, which SO FAR only seem to be Odium/Void-spren.  These spren offer up more powerful abilities/forms and thus exert a more powerful pressure on the Parshendi to adhere to the sprens intent/power.  Given time the parshendi could theoretically adapt to these new forms of power and come into their own under their pressure but I would imagine the first time experiencing it would be overwhelming and intoxicating.  This new experience would have the Parshendi drinking in and welcoming the experience (POWER!) and thus letting themselves be changed/pressured into new thoughts/forms.  I am stretching a little bit to backup my dislike of the mind-control idea, but of course at some point extreme pressure isn't much different than direct control... it's just the mechanics behind it.

Edited February 4, 2018 by deeptheory

[LevenThumps]

@Calderis I read that scene like a lazy person thinking they should be doing homework, but then deciding not to and instead play games.  I know that's a very simplistic analogy, but Eshonai's inner thoughts believed her actions to be wrong but she still did it anyway because of the pressure of stormform.  

[Calderis he/him]

Think of it however you want. The "hole" the voidspren provide is the same mechanism as the "hole" in hemalurgy, per Brandon. 

The stormform listeners aren't aware of it, but they are being controlled. Eshonai was smart enough to notice at times and resisted and would have eventually broken free in my opinion. Ulim even mentions Eshonai's resistance when Venli comes out of the Everstorm as a Regal and not a Fused like the others.

Eshonai would never have done the things that she did in Stormform. Call it pressure, call it whatever you want. Her will was not her own. 

[Wandering Investor]

As Calderis put, it is a form of control. I think the important point to make here is how much control. Ruin's control was basically complete, but this seems different. When Odium's attention is fully there it's likely to be total control, but this method seems less effective than Ruin's. So I would argue this is partial mindcontrol, If the everstorm had already passed, and the number of regals was larger, Eshonei would probably been better able to resist because Odium's attention would have been split among a larger number of agents.

[Isilel]

2 hours ago, LevenThumps said:

So, my follow up question to that (and the Reddit user's primary argument), is how can Eshonai be influenced so much by stormform at the end of Words of Radiance, but Venli is able to resist enough to swear the First Ideal.  

Well, it did seem to me that stormform affected Eshonai and Venli differently and that while the former was mind-controlled/ brain-washed, the latter was just made more callous and power-hungry, with core personality largely unchanged.

Eshonai in WoR:

"There was no fighting against what she had become. The eyes of the gods were too strongly upon her" - I-11 "New Rythms"

"That didn't feel like her. Not at all. None of this feels like me. I... The new rhythms beats surged in her mind"

And, most significantly, this, from I-13, "A part to Play":

"Venli smiled often while wearing this new form. Otherwise it didn't seem to change her at all. Eshonai knew that she herself had changed. But Venli... Venli acted the same"

and prior to that, in the same chapter:

"That voice deep within Eshonai still screamed. Even when she didn't attune the old Rhythm of Peace. She kept herself busy to quiet it..."

Nothing like that ever happens to Venli in OB.

Perhaps it was because Eshonai's bonding with the voidspren didn't happen properly, as she recognized at the last moment that it was terribly wrong:

"In a moment of panic, she cast from her mind the preparations that Venli had given her. No!" I-5 "The Rider of Storms".

Or maybe it was her very attempt at resistance that caused Odium to push particularly hard at her mind and to basically imprison her true self, which was screaming impotently at the back of her head?

 

Quote

 Eshonai probably would have been able to resist the influence of stormform more if she had survived.  

Didn't Ulim say that Eshonai was about to break free when she died and good riddance?

Edited February 4, 2018 by Isilel

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

And, most significantly, this, from I-13, "A part to Play":

"Venli smiled often while wearing this new form. Otherwise it didn't seem to change her at all. Eshonai knew that she herself had changed. But Venli... Venli acted the same"

I'm gonna be honest here. I always read that as Venli having experienced Stormform before(somehow). Eshonai had to adapt to a whole new form/mentality, while Venli had already done that in the past, so it came to her more naturally.

You make a valid point near the end of your post though, so maybe you're onto something.

[RShara she/her]

Okay, so what is your definition of "mind controlled"?  Were thoughts and actions directly inserted into her head so that she had no control or sense of self at all?  No.

Was she being forced against her essential self into actions that she would not normally do, by an outside influence?  To the point where she betrayed her people and everything that she believed in?  Absolutely yes.

Her thoughts and emotions were twisted to the point of breaking.  She had no choice in what she was doing.  You could hear her true self screaming and fighting against the actions of her controlled body and thoughts.

 

I think this fits the definition of mind controlled sufficiently to say that yes, she was being controlled.

[hypatia she/her]

There's also a difference between p.e. mateform and stormform - if you don't want it anymore, you simply change it.

I don't know if this can be called "mind control" , but it's rather clear that Eshonai was regretting her decision to believe Venli, but she couldn't change with the next storms.

Her free will was taken from her - not in the form itself, but in her ability to choose another form.

[Strifelover]

23 hours ago, RShara said:

Okay, so what is your definition of "mind controlled"?  Were thoughts and actions directly inserted into her head so that she had no control or sense of self at all?  No.

Was she being forced against her essential self into actions that she would not normally do, by an outside influence?  To the point where she betrayed her people and everything that she believed in?  Absolutely yes.

Her thoughts and emotions were twisted to the point of breaking.  She had no choice in what she was doing.  You could hear her true self screaming and fighting against the actions of her controlled body and thoughts.

 

I think this fits the definition of mind controlled sufficiently to say that yes, she was being controlled.

Agree with everything you say. This isn't a debate over what happened to Eshonai, but rather a debate over the definition of 'mind control.' If we all agree on what happens, but prefer to use different words to describe it, then go nuts! 

[RShara she/her]

Here is a relevant WoB on the issue:

Quote

Questioner

And does [Odium] control the Voidbringers through the spren in the same way that the Inquisitors were controlled by Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

There are definitely-- In fact what you have just seen with Eshonai shares an awful lot with what happened in Mistborn. source

 

[Isilel]

On 5.2.2018 at 0:35 AM, hypatia said:

I don't know if this can be called "mind control" , but it's rather clear that Eshonai was regretting her decision to believe Venli, but she couldn't change with the next storms.

Her free will was taken from her - not in the form itself, but in her ability to choose another form.

Well, yes and no. From everything we have seen, I think that Venli would have been able to take another form if she so chose, even without Timbre's influence. Voidforms affected her yes, but they did so by enhancing the tendencies that were already there and generally making her more callous. But core personality was still the same. We shouldn't forget that the ancestors of the listeners had been able to formulate and prepare their escape plan, while some/many of them were in voidforms. Venli's scholars still followed her and cared about her while in stormform. Etc.

That's not what happened to Eshonai - her personality was pretty much replaced with something completely different, and her true self could only scream impotently from the back of her mind. Obviously, her case was special in some way.

[hypatia she/her]

@Isilel

Yes, I was talking only for the case of Eshonai.

Is it possible that because she really wasn't like Venli and the difference between Eshonai's core personality and the intension of the voidspren was too great the voidspren had no other chance than to forcefully imprison her inner self?

After all with her there was nothing to enhance only to overpower.

[WhiteLeeopard she/her]

After reading OB I no longer think that Venli had felt stormform before, although I used to think that after WoR. Now I simply believe Eshonai was overwhelmed, and to an extent mind pushed just like Marsh because she was for all intents the Listener leader. The voidspren focused on Eshonai as once they got control of her even for a few weeks they could kick start the Desolation. Then they could (and would have) gotten rid of her for someone more pliable. Venli was likely left alone because she had "proven her loyalty" to the cause.

It is quite likely they could have controlled Venli through her voidspren if they had wanted to, but why bother? She was fully loyal to them on WoR, and I think to an extent Odium/Fused respect some kind of free will and strong minds... so long as they choose their side. My reasoning for this:

1. The Fused smiled creepily and gave Moash their blessing to do whatever he wanted when he was with them after he demanded to speak with the bosses.

2. When at the end of OB Venli shouted at a Fused to leave her alone as she choose not to fight, the Fused walked away happily. 

3. Hoid at the end of OB thinks "the parsh with their bowing and scraping still hadn't figured out that did not impress the Fused", or something along those lines.

4. I think at some point in OB they say the Fused didn't act subservient to Odium, respectful yes, but not ridiculously so.

Overall I think Eshonai was mind pushed/pulled, but it may not have been the Fused's preferred choice under normal circumstances. Venli was likely left alone this long as they were grudginly grateful to her and trusted her. However I'm sure they will try to control her in the future when she starts making too many waves. Let;s hope she has an escape/fighting plan for when that happens and fails thanks to Timbre .

[lu-tze]

On 2/4/2018 at 9:23 AM, deeptheory said:

mainly because when we see Eshonai in some of her reflective moments where she hears her internal self screaming to be let free, she acknowledges it and can't understand why she would feel that way.

So far we know

1) Parshendi (old listeners) acquired alternative forms by going into the storm and taking a spren into their hearts

2) Spren can scream (Syl, shardblades)

3) Some sort of spren follows Venli around -- and she first noticed it when recovering the shardplate from Eshonai's corpse. One that still blinks to the old rhythms.

Given this I suspect that the screaming Eshonai heard was the spren she had taken into herself, displaced by the stormform voidspren. I'd wager that hearing the rhythms is granted (or enhanced) by the spren -- and hence why the voidspren songs differ from the old songs. This is probably old water to tread; but this would suggest that Eshonai was driven (but not mind-controlled) by a voidspren, and the influence (or symbiotic relationship?) with her original spren dominated by the voidspren (in such a way as to be painful for the original spren).

Also at the end of OB, don't we see (what I'm calling) Eshonai's spren dominate (or snuff out) a voidspren?

[RShara she/her]

Nope, the spren is released.

Quote

Questioner

What happens to the spren the Parshendi bond when they switch form? So say if they're in soldier form, and they switch over to mate, what happens to that spren?

Brandon Sanderson

The spren is released.

Questioner

So when they took on void, they didn't kill their previous spren?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they don't kill when they-- No. That's a good question. Nope.

Questioner

Do those spren evolve in any way into something else?

Brandon Sanderson

Those spren that they are bonding with are generally what we call non-sapient spren, and so, no, and also the spren are barely aware that they-- they're bonded--- those spren, the non-voidspren, right? Like when they're bonding, generally what's happening is how... It's a symbiotic relationship, right? And the spren that gets bonded to them, it's just kind of like, "Oh, this is my life now! This is just normal. This is what's happened." The same thing happens with spren involved in greatshells and things like this. This is a natural part of the natural cycle for those spren.

source