[OB] Moash Theory

[Sherlock Holmes]

I have a theory about Moash that I absolutely hate. Like, hate enough to knock Kaladin over the head kryptonite (which is obviously his weakness). 

Here's the theory: Moash is going to be a Bondsmith. 

Sounds pretty insane, right? Well, Brandon writes fantasy books. All fantasy writers are inherently insane. Here's my proof. 

Moash talked about doing that one thing that Dalinar did back in the day; giving into Odium. Dalinar gave into the Thrill, but Moash straight up gave himself to the Fused and murdered an old drunken Jezrien, the founder of his old Knight Radiant class. So what Moash did is about ten times worse than what Dalinar did, but Moash still doesn't care. I think that Brandon, because he is insane, will bond Moash to whoever is Odium's mascot spren. Yeah, I know, I'm crazy, but what do people think? 

Also, I hope Kaladin kills Moash in a dramatic fight, like how he killed Szeth.  

 

[NoiseSpren]

Szeth was much MORE B.E.T.T.E.R. than Moash. Moash is a **** and **** and 'beep' 'beeeeeeeeep' at all. He is the worse ever. For now.

[+Ark1002]

Moash is annoying and a sniveling brat. I hate his character more than any other in the cosmere or other books by Brandon. 

Edited July 23, 2018 by Ark1002

[Bigmikey357]

Dude I just threw up in my mouth a little. I'm not the type of person to question an author's decisions as long as the work is a good one, but making Moash a Bondsmith may make me drop the series.

[Quantus]

I could honestly See it, if only because Dalinar's whole arc was one of redemption, of recognizing the worst in yourself and becoming better.  We might just be seeing Moash pre- Rock Bottom.  I have to thing we'd have hated the Blackthorn in many ways if we'd been introduced to him back in his heyday. 

I do not, however, think we'll ever see a Voidbinding equivalent to the BondSmiths, which I think is the missing Tenth Order that Voidbringing lacks.  I really dont see Odium having or creating that sort of top-tier Godspren, rather I think he intends to always keep the reigns of things in his own hands. 

[Unlicensed Hemalurgist]

10 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I do not, however, think we'll ever see a Voidbinding equivalent to the BondSmiths, which I think is the missing Tenth Order that Voidbringing lacks.  I really dont see Odium having or creating that sort of top-tier Godspren, rather I think he intends to always keep the reigns of things in his own hands. 

I agree. There's also the fact that "bringing people together" a la the Bondsmith Ideals doesn't really jive well with Odium's Intent of sowing hatred and misery. There do seem to be ten glyphs on the voidbinding chart, which makes me think that there is probably some tenth level/type of Voidbinding we just don't understand yet. I seriously doubt it would be comparable to the Bondsmiths, though.

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Dude I just threw up in my mouth a little. I'm not the type of person to question an author's decisions as long as the work is a good one, but making Moash a Bondsmith may make me drop the series.

I don't know about Moash becoming a Bondsmith, but I hope you have room in your head for a potential redemptive arc for Moash, the kind that was offered by Dalinar and refused by Amaram (where I really liked that he said the man whose forgiveness he could never earn for the acts he regretted was himself).

He's made the worst choices possible for any POV character.

Making him out to be the Bad Guy Who Does Worse And Worse Things And Then Gets His Comeuppance In The Climax is pretty predictable. Whatever it is I think will happen with him in the Stormlight Archive, I'm going to say pretty confidently that it's not going to be simple... Nor will it be a Gollum Moment, either, where he ends up saving the world exactly because he DIDN'T have a change of heart.

I just trust that it won't end up a massive "That was it?" moment like the fate of the massively foreshadowed "Tinker with a Sword" dude turned out to be for me in the Wheel of Time series.

Edited July 23, 2018 by robardin

[Sherlock Holmes]

I totally agree with all you guys on the fact that we all wish Moash eternal Damnation (or worse). But that's just a theory. A BOOK theory!

[BitBitio]

The third Bondsmith spren, the Sibling, is NOT of Odium. It is kind of a combo between Honor and Cultivation, but MOASH AIN'T GONNA BECOME A BONDMITH CAUSE IT AIN'T POSSIBLE. 

 

Moash isn't that bad, comparatively, to, say, Attica Smedry.

[Unlicensed Hemalurgist]

I really hope Brandon uses Moash's character arc to either show us some Voidbinding or either go all the way to making him a villainous Badass Normal-- sort of an anti-Adolin. I already hate Moash, but make me love hating him!

[goody153]

I cannot accept Moash in the good side anymore. It's headcannonically impossible for me even if Sanderson wrote it that way. I refuse to accept Moash again. I'd rather Szeth kills him anticlimatically or something 

Seriously if Sanderson plans a redemption arc for him i hope he doesn't rehash Dalinar's turn back to the light. I hate rehashing similar plot.

10 hours ago, AxeliustheGreat said:

Sounds pretty insane, right? Well, Brandon writes fantasy books. All fantasy writers are inherently insane. Here's my proof. 

Careful with that. You know he holds the life of your favorite character you know ? xD

Edited July 24, 2018 by goody153

[Sherlock Holmes]

Actually, Kelsier is already dead.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Also, it isn't necessary for the Sibling to be involved in any way. Maybe Odium makes a new Unmade, and Moash bonds that.

[StrikerEZ]

6 hours ago, Quantus said:

I do not, however, think we'll ever see a Voidbinding equivalent to the BondSmiths, which I think is the missing Tenth Order that Voidbringing lacks.  I really dont see Odium having or creating that sort of top-tier Godspren, rather I think he intends to always keep the reigns of things in his own hands. 

Voidbinding isn't lacking an order. Like Unlicensed Hemalurgist said below, the voidbinding chart has the little order symbols. Even in the Ars Arcanum, Khriss herself says that's voidbinding has ten orders as well.

6 hours ago, Unlicensed Hemalurgist said:

I agree. There's also the fact that "bringing people together" a la the Bondsmith Ideals doesn't really jive well with Odium's Intent of sowing hatred and misery. There do seem to be ten glyphs on the voidbinding chart, which makes me think that there is probably some tenth level/type of Voidbinding we just don't understand yet. I seriously doubt it would be comparable to the Bondsmiths, though.

Now, here's kind of where I think you're both getting tripped up: I don't think that the Fused have been voidbinding (I'm not the only one who believes this, by the way; just ask @Calderis). What we've seen of their powers feels way too similar to surgebinding to be voidbinding. Voidbinding should be something completely different from surgebinding. I believe that the Fused are just using surgebinding, but hacked to be fueled by voidlight.

EDIT: As for the actual topic, I could definitely see a redemption arc for Moash. Part of me wants to keep hating him no matter what, but the rest of me really wants to see him redeem himself. My personal philosophy is that no one is ever too far gone, so it'd be cool to see even Moash get redeemed. Or at least have a sort of Darth Vader-style death.

Edited July 24, 2018 by StrikerEZ

[galendo]

I could see Moash as some sort of Bondsmith.  Not to the Stormfather or Nightwatcher, probably not to the Sibling (though really we don't know much of anything about that particular spren), but if it's possible to bond, say, one of the Unmade, I could see it happening.

Mind you, Moash has taken a lot of shortcuts to power, and I'm not sure that a normal Nahel bond, even to one of the Unmade, would really do much for him or his character, which is admittedly somewhat stagnant just now.  Still, Neither a bond nor some sort of redemption arc would seem particularly out of place.  I think I'm voting for the redemption arc, actually, and I'm a bit surprised more people aren't on the same boat..

I get that there's a lot of hate on here for Moash, but, to be fair, what's he done that's so bad?  He:

1) Betrayed Kaladin/Tried to assassinate Elhokar.  Then again, he kind of had justification.

2) Went over to Odium's side.  I was kind of disappointed about this, since I was hoping/expecting some cool Diagramist stuff to come out of Moash's defection, and Odium's armies are just kind of boring, but the defection itself was kind of a Stockholm thing.  It wasn't like he actively sought out Odium in order to defect.  He got captured and made (arguably) the best of it.

3) Trained up the Parshendi, kind of like Kaladin did.  There is good in him still, I can sense it.

4) Finally killed Elhokar. In battle.  Where stuff like that happens.  Better than assassinating him, at least.

5) Assassinated Jezrien.  Not great, but opposite sides and all that. 

Basically, nothing that Moash has done is really all that bad compared to say Nalan or Szeth or Venli or even Dalinar.  Redemption kind of seems to be a theme of the Stormlight Archive -- maybe the Cosmere in general -- and it would neither surprise nor disappoint me to see Moash get his opportunity.

[goody153]

Interesting i always thought that voidbinding is simply another version of surgebinding (which also lead me to believe that what the fused used was really voidbinding like there is a  difference between the surge of gravitation of the fused and the flying radiants) and what the fused used is essentially that. Sanderson doesn't seem to be the type to recreate a completely different magic system when there's an existing ones associated to the current setting.

Like for example in Mistborn 

Spoiler

Hemalurgy while is completely different from Allomancy since it's basically stealing magic so in overall cosmere context it's completely different but in the similar setting context the end result is basically just using the existing allomancy/feruchemy

or maybe on WoT(i know Sanderson didn't create WoT just finished the last books or that it has no relation to cosmere but still the series has influence over him)

Spoiler

True power is basically just another version of One Power. It's not really that different

I could be wrong tho that voidbinding is not the surgebinding that the fused used. But until said or showcased otherwise i think i'll assume that voidbinding was what we saw Odium's forces mostly used in Oathbringer.

3 hours ago, AxeliustheGreat said:

Actually, Kelsier is already dead.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Edited July 24, 2018 by goody153

[Calderis]

I swear the minute that the spoiler board dies I'm going to make a thread titled "The Fused aren't Voidbinding."

Rather than type out the arguments here again, I'm just going to quote myself from another thread. 

Spoilered for length

Spoiler

Alright, this is going to be a rant. 

The Fused, in my opinion, aren't Voidbinding. There's a few reasons for that. What they do mimics Surgebinding almost exactly. And according to Khriss, that should not be the case. 

From the Rosharan Ars Arcanum. 

Voidbinding should not fit easily with Surgebinding, and yet things seem remarkably well aligned if that is what the Fused are doing. 

Next I'll draw attention to Renarin, as I believe that he is so far the only Voidbinding we've seen, even if his means of access is not typical to it. 

His use of Illumination seems to function differently than Shallan's. To the point that no matter how hard he's tried he says that he can't make illusions. This is the young man who jumped head first off of a building in Shardplate because he was told to. When he was told to practice his abilities, I doubt he just gave up after a couple failures. 

The Voidbinding chart in the back of tWoK has the ten surge glyphs with their symmetry altered to be rotational rather than simply mirrored. I think this is a representation of the surges themselves manifesting differently. The exact same glyphs with an altered expression. 

And that ties in to the last thing. On Scadrial the focus of the magic is metal. All three systems use metal for drastically different expressions. The most similar of the two are Allomancy and Feruchemy which have similar powers with similar metals, expressed in very clearly different ways. Hemalurgy reproduces these... But that is not the magic system of Hemalurgy. That system is the theft itself of the other powers. You use it to gain the other systems. 

I don't believe that Voidbinding, called by Brandon a different system, is going to just mimic surgebinding. We already have a magic system on Roshar that can reproduce the surges of both surgebinding and Voidbinding in fabrials. 

Quote

Questioner

Is, like, fabrials that can imitate, I mean, very specific forms of Surgebinding... Are there fabrials that can imitate the Surge-- <stages> of Voidbinding?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That is theoretically possible.

source

So I believe that Voidbinding should, as the altered glyphs of the Voidbinding chart show, reproduce the same surges with completely different expressions. So far, I think the only thing we've seen from that is Renarin. 

How Voidbinding is traditionally accessed I have absolutely no clue, but the Fused are too clearly using the same system in my mind to be Voidbinding. What minor differences there are, I think are a result of the fuel used to power it, and not the powers themselves, which I discuss here. 

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by Calderis

[MountainKing]

32 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I swear the minute that the spoiler board dies I'm going to make a thread titled "The Fused aren't Surgebinding."

Rather than type out the arguments here again, I'm just going to quote myself from another thread. 

Spoilered for length

  Hide contents

Alright, this is going to be a rant. 

The Fused, in my opinion, aren't Voidbinding. There's a few reasons for that. What they do mimics Surgebinding almost exactly. And according to Khriss, that should not be the case. 

From the Rosharan Ars Arcanum. 

Voidbinding should not fit easily with Surgebinding, and yet things seem remarkably well aligned if that is what the Fused are doing. 

Next I'll draw attention to Renarin, as I believe that he is so far the only Voidbinding we've seen, even if his means of access is not typical to it. 

His use of Illumination seems to function differently than Shallan's. To the point that no matter how hard he's tried he says that he can't make illusions. This is the young man who jumped head first off of a building in Shardplate because he was told to. When he was told to practice his abilities, I doubt he just gave up after a couple failures. 

The Voidbinding chart in the back of tWoK has the ten surge glyphs with their symmetry altered to be rotational rather than simply mirrored. I think this is a representation of the surges themselves manifesting differently. The exact same glyphs with an altered expression. 

And that ties in to the last thing. On Scadrial the focus of the magic is metal. All three systems use metal for drastically different expressions. The most similar of the two are Allomancy and Feruchemy which have similar powers with similar metals, expressed in very clearly different ways. Hemalurgy reproduces these... But that is not the magic system of Hemalurgy. That system is the theft itself of the other powers. You use it to gain the other systems. 

I don't believe that Voidbinding, called by Brandon a different system, is going to just mimic surgebinding. We already have a magic system on Roshar that can reproduce the surges of both surgebinding and Voidbinding in fabrials. 

So I believe that Voidbinding should, as the altered glyphs of the Voidbinding chart show, reproduce the same surges with completely different expressions. So far, I think the only thing we've seen from that is Renarin. 

How Voidbinding is traditionally accessed I have absolutely no clue, but the Fused are too clearly using the same system in my mind to be Voidbinding. What minor differences there are, I think are a result of the fuel used to power it, and not the powers themselves, which I discuss here. 

 

Do you mean the Fused aren't voidbinding?

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, MountainKing said:

Do you mean the Fused aren't voidbinding?

LOL. Yes. That's what I mean *facepalm*

I'll just go edit that now. 

[Toaster Retribution]

I don’t get the Moash hate honestly. I disliked him more in WoR than in OB. The only thing he knows is being failed and betrayed. He hates society for some fair reasons (the darkeyes-lighteyes system isn’t that great guys) and this is what makes him turn to Odium. He looses all hope. That doesn’t make him a bad or horrible person. 

[LadyLameness]

I don't think Moash will become a Bondsmith simply for the fact that his character up till now doesn't fit the Oaths that we have heard for the Order. Sure, there's some discrepancies between Oaths depending on the person but they're all based around the same theme and I can't see Moash as fitting with what we've seen so far for the Bondsmiths. 

I don't really have a preference for his character arc at the moment as for most of OB, except when he tore out a part of me by killing Elholkar, I just didn't really find him interesting. I could see him going either way, but for now would be happy enough just to get more info on the Singers and the Fused (which presumably we will through Moash's storyline) 

 

[Quantus]

10 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Voidbinding isn't lacking an order. Like Unlicensed Hemalurgist said below, the voidbinding chart has the little order symbols. Even in the Ars Arcanum, Khriss herself says that's voidbinding has ten orders as well.

Now, here's kind of where I think you're both getting tripped up: I don't think that the Fused have been voidbinding (I'm not the only one who believes this, by the way; just ask @Calderis). What we've seen of their powers feels way too similar to surgebinding to be voidbinding. Voidbinding should be something completely different from surgebinding. I believe that the Fused are just using surgebinding, but hacked to be fueled by voidlight.

EDIT: As for the actual topic, I could definitely see a redemption arc for Moash. Part of me wants to keep hating him no matter what, but the rest of me really wants to see him redeem himself. My personal philosophy is that no one is ever too far gone, so it'd be cool to see even Moash get redeemed. Or at least have a sort of Darth Vader-style death.

Ya, I realize now this was an old misunderstanding of the Odium side that I never fixed in my head after those diagrams disproved it.  I'd previously equated the nine Unmade with the Ten Heralds, and so Id made the assumption that Voidbringing was going to carry theme of Nine throughout, including lacking one order (of which Bondsmith made the most sense).  But those diagrams make it look like there will be ten full orders and all the same(ish) surges.

 

RE. Moash, I actually really enjoy his arc as a point of Comparison: to me he is precisely what Kaladin would have become without Syl, so exploring how dark a path that can become is interesting to me.  Also, his new blade is one of the top three most interesting objects in the book, if I didnt know better Id say Odium knows how to do Type-IV awakening...

[Matias]

Am i the only one who likes Moash?, or at least don't hate him, he is a nice character

[Toaster Retribution]

1 hour ago, Matias said:

Am i the only one who likes Moash?, or at least don't hate him, he is a nice character

As said above, I think he is interesting as well. I don’t like him though: he always felt like a douche in WoR. But I get his actions in OB, and I don’t hate him (and I am a major Elhokar fan).

[The Sovereign]

14 hours ago, AxeliustheGreat said:

Actually, Kelsier is already dead.

You may have some homework to do mate.

11 hours ago, goody153 said:

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Hmmmmmm indeed.