Felt

[KC Hammer]

I was reading through some WOB recently and came across this. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9429

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

You know Felt?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Felt, I know Felt.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Is Felt originally Scadrian?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yep.

Yes. You guys know about that, right? I don't think that's a big secret. But, he is, and that should be raising other questions.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

About his name? Or how he's showing up on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

About that and the fact that... He should stand out more.

The question at the end got me thinking, and all I can think of is that maybe Felt is a drab. I looked around a bit and did not see this theory discussed anywhere so I thought it might provoke an interesting discussion here. If he was originally born on Scadrial but shows up on Roshar, its plausible he went to Nalthis. We know that drabs seem to get overlooked some due to their lack of breath, and that would make someone a very good scout and spy. Does anyone have any other theories about this?

[Fezzik]

He stands out because of his extreme shortness on roshar, a lower gravity planet than scadrial.

[RShara she/her]

He can't be a drab, since he's from Scadrial, and only Nalthians can give away enough of their innate investiture to be a drab.

[Weltall]

Yeah, to provide some helpful WoBs:

Quote

NutiketAiel (paraphrased)

If a native of Sel or another Shardworld traveled to Nalthis, would they be a drab?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, they would not be a drab. But, no one would be able to take their Breath.

NutiketAiel (paraphrased)

If such a person died on Nalthis, could they Return?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, they cannot Return.

NutiketAiel (paraphrased)

If such a person received breath, could they use BioChroma?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes

source

Quote

Questioner

In the last panel we talked a lot about people from different planets using magic systems on other planets, one of the things I've been thinking about, we've been thinking about, talking about Breath, and people being born with Breath, is that something specific to Nalthis or do, technically, other people on other planets have a Breath as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question and that is a Nalthian thing. Now, everyone in the cosmere to an extent has Investiture, the Nalthian Breath is part what everyone has and then a little extra, plus the ability to share it around. So a person who gives up their Breath on Nalthis is actually going below what a normal person has. But a normal person on Nalthis has more than somebody-- So if you were for instance to pick a world like Sixth of the Dusk, where there's not a Shard in residence, and you compared them to a Nalthian, Nalthian has an Investiture advantage over them. When they've given up their Breath, they have an Investiture disadvantage.

Bystander

So we're not Drabs?

Brandon Sanderson

So we're not Drabs. That's exactly it. We're not Drabs.

source

In other words, a non-Nalthian is simply incapable of becoming a Drab because that's something unique to how Investiture works on that particular world. Whatever is up with Felt that prompted Brandon to say he should stand out more, it's not that.

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, Weltall said:

Whatever is up with Felt that prompted Brandon to say he should stand out more, it's not that.

3 hours ago, John203 said:

He stands out because of his extreme shortness on roshar, a lower gravity planet than scadrial.

Don't we also have a WoB that there is at least one kandra on Roshar? Hmm.

Felt stand out already to Dalinar as having a "Shin-like apperance" in his pale skin and not-quite-right eyes, and only coming up to Dalinar's chest in height, but he's not all-the-way Shin looking to him, so... Maybe he's Felt with a few tweaks.

TWoK takes place after MB Era 1, and most people from Era 1 on Scadrial perished - especially those in Luthadel, what with the koloss attack that killed Tindwyl, and later the Ruin-influenced rule of a spiked Penrod. What are the odds that Felt, a spy for House Venture, managed to get to one of the caverns? But if he'd died and left behind recognizable remains, TenSoon could easily make use of them, as he would have known Felt from their mutual service time to House Venture.

[RShara she/her]

I don't think a kandra would stick out like that, even to the low degree that Felt does. I think Felt is somehow tapping Connection to make himself seem more Rosharan.

Edited November 8, 2018 by RShara

[HSuperLee he/him]

6 minutes ago, RShara said:

I don't think a kandra would stick out like that, even to the low degree that Felt does. I think Felt is somehow tapping Connection to make himself seem more Rosharan.

Or he's using allomancy to lower people's suspicion of him.

[Quantus he/him]

28 minutes ago, robardin said:

Don't we also have a WoB that there is at least one kandra on Roshar? Hmm.

Felt stand out already to Dalinar as having a "Shin-like apperance" in his pale skin and not-quite-right eyes, and only coming up to Dalinar's chest in height, but he's not all-the-way Shin looking to him, so... Maybe he's Felt with a few tweaks.

TWoK takes place after MB Era 1, and most people from Era 1 on Scadrial perished - especially those in Luthadel, what with the koloss attack that killed Tindwyl, and later the Ruin-influenced rule of a spiked Penrod. What are the odds that Felt, a spy for House Venture, managed to get to one of the caverns? But if he'd died and left behind recognizable remains, TenSoon could easily make use of them, as he would have known Felt from their mutual service time to House Venture.

Id say that if Felt were a Kandra I would entirely expect him to adapt his features to match one of the Rosharan ethnicities, rather than being this hodge-podge that doesnt quite fit any.

Regarding how he might have survived the end of Era1,  I see two possibilities:  1) he made it to one of the caverns; since he had been assigned to guard the Lord Ruler's Eastern Storage Cavern during the Siege of Fadrex City he certainly knew were one or more of them were; 2) logically speaking one of the few available ways to have survived besides the cavern would have been to WorldHop away and evidence suggests he has some means to do that. 

[+robardin he/him]

2 hours ago, RShara said:

I don't think a kandra would stick out like that, even to the low degree that Felt does. I think Felt is somehow tapping Connection to make himself seem more Rosharan.

We don't know what the "Connection trick" is that worldhoppers seem to do, but the easiest way to seem Rosharan is to be skilled at learning a local language, customs, etc., all while living a role for a long time.

Doesn't it seem unusual that Felt isn't just a "Scadrian on Roshar" the way Demoux was seen to be at the Purelake, with his compadres of the 17th Shard, or like Azure? They're people who had a reason or a mission to accomplish on Roshar, were "popping in", and in Azure's case, kind of got stuck longer than she intended to do, what with getting sidetracked with the Wall Guard at Kholinar. And their use of local language via Connection, like Allik's speech in The Bands of Mourning, still have accents and turns of phrase that seem strange or foreign to the locals.

Vasher/Zahel has "gone to ground" with a longer, open-ended identity as an ardent on Roshar, and would be more likely to have learned Alethi "the hard way", yet even he stands out as "odd" due to his use of color-based turns of phrase identical to what Azure says ("like white on black"), suggesting he's still using a Connection trick at least sometimes.

Felt does not. He stands out physically to Dalinar, but in almost no other way. And, he's integrated into Alethi society for the long haul - he was already in Dalinar's service when he visited the Nightwatcher, and was still in Dalinar's scouting team at the Battle of Narak, spanning many years. He didn't just "pop in" like a worldhopper on a mission, and appears to have "gone native" at a deeper level than Zahel the "worldhopper gone to ground". He's even married.

He's from Scadrial, and it's a little odd how a House Venture spy would survive the Catacendre to become not just a worldhopper, but one that would be a long term one like that... But  it's exactly the origin planet, skillset, and modus operandi of a kandra.

 

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Id say that if Felt were a Kandra I would entirely expect him to adapt his features to match one of the Rosharan ethnicities, rather than being this hodge-podge that doesnt quite fit any.

Regarding how he might have survived the end of Era1,  I see two possibilities:  1) he made it to one of the caverns; since he had been assigned to guard the Lord Ruler's Eastern Storage Cavern during the Siege of Fadrex City he certainly knew were one or more of them were; 2) logically speaking one of the few available ways to have survived besides the cavern would have been to WorldHop away and evidence suggests he has some means to do that. 

I was going to say that Felt would also be suspiciously long-lived, but we don't really have an official cosmere timeline placing the events of SA versus MB Era 1, plus obviously Demoux has done it, so why not Felt?

I'm just pointing out that at the same time as we've been asked to consider how unusually not unusual Felt is for a worldhopper, we're also looking around for who might be the kandra on Roshar that we've also supposedly seen; and hey, "fitting in far better than your run-of-the-mill worldhopper" is exactly what one would expect from a kandra, yeah?

Edited November 8, 2018 by robardin

[RShara she/her]

I've gotten into this argument before, and I don't really feel like rehashing it in its entirety But here are my main points

1. Kandras are infiltrators. They are trained to be perfect spies. Standing out in any way, even as little as Felt does, would not be in character for a kandra.

2. There's no reason for a kandra to retain Scadrian bones or Shin eyes. The epicanthic fold is just a fold of skin. A kandra could fix that in seconds, even without taking new bones. But given the decades of war, there's plenty of spare bones around. A spy would want to blend in perfectly, not retain conspicuous bones.

3. A scout is generally sent off on, well, scouting missions. Not near where decisions and events take place. That's not a good position for a spy. A servant or scribe or something would make more sense.

There are more that I don't remember off the top of my head, but I really don't think Felt can be the kandra. Mrall is my suspicion of choice.

[+robardin he/him]

Well TenSoon was the first "double kandra" in history, maybe he's just going even further now.

Maybe Felt is TenSoon pretending NOT to be a kandra, in order to fool the OTHER kandra on Roshar, because NOT doing those things would make other kandra assume he's NOT a kandra?

OK, I'll stop now.

[RShara she/her]

Ah, here is the old thread https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/68892-ob-is-felt-a-kandra/?page=2

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

I was going to say that Felt would also be suspiciously long-lived, but we don't really have an official cosmere timeline placing the events of SA versus MB Era 1, plus obviously Demoux has done it, so why not Felt?

We don't have an exact timeline but we do know that MB Era 2 happens after Stormlight 5 (Brandon hasn't nailed down exactly where it's going to fall, but definitely after SA5) and we know that happens about three hundred years after MB Era 1, hence Felt would be 300+ years old at the time of his appearance on Roshar.

This by itself doesn't mean all that much vis a vis Felt since the trick that most Sevententh Shard members use to extend their lifespans can be used by people from multiple worlds, including people who aren't specially Invested like Baon. So Felt being long-lived doesn't tell us anything one way or another.

[KC Hammer]

23 hours ago, RShara said:

He can't be a drab, since he's from Scadrial, and only Nalthians can give away enough of their innate investiture to be a drab.

 That is a very good point and I should have realized that. Oh well. 

 

Edit: I also agree that its unlikely he's a Kandra. Now i just want to know what Brandon meant by that line about him not being noticed more. Maybe just an interdimensional crossover from the WoT and he's actually a Grey man?

Edited November 9, 2018 by KC Hammer

[RShara she/her]

I think it means that he's tapping Connection to fit in and feel like he belongs on Roshar.

[Quantus he/him]

Wild Speculation:  Dragon.  He's a shapeshifting dragon the met a girl and got real married and is trying to settle down somewhere with an established Investiture economy.  After Scadrial went full Apocalypse and burned off their Atium reserves, he decided to try someplace with more abundantly available flavor, and is probably unhappy that Interesting Times have found him again. 

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Wild Speculation:  Dragon.  He's a shapeshifting dragon the met a girl and got real married and is trying to settle down somewhere with an established Investiture economy.  After Scadrial went full Apocalypse and burned off their Atium reserves, he decided to try someplace with more abundantly available flavor, and is probably unhappy that Interesting Times have found him again. 

You'd think that if he wanted a nice quiet place to retire he wouldn't pick the world that's known to be trapped in an Apocalypse Moebius Strip, even if at the start of SA it's been thousands of years since the last Desolation. I mean, Odium's in the system, you've got to know that's potentially a problem with your sweet retirement setup. Vasher may be doing exactly that but he doesn't really have much of a choice; he needs a steady supply of Investiture and the only other world where we know he could easily obtain it is the inaccessible Taldain. And even without factoring in Odium or access to Investiture, I have to imagine that Roshar isn't most people's idea of an ideal vacation spot. See Hoid's referring to the place with the parable of the 'piece of wet slime and a disgusting crab thing with seventeen legs (slinking) across the rocks together on an insufferably rainy day'. xD

Edited November 9, 2018 by Weltall

[Quantus he/him]

19 minutes ago, Weltall said:

You'd think that if he wanted a nice quiet place to retire he wouldn't pick the world that's known to be trapped in an Apocalypse Moebius Strip, even if at the start of SA it's been thousands of years since the last Desolation. I mean, Odium's in the system, you've got to know that's potentially a problem with your sweet retirement setup. Vasher may be doing exactly that but he doesn't really have much of a choice; he needs a steady supply of Investiture and the only other world where we know he could easily obtain it is the inaccessible Taldain. And even without factoring in Odium or access to Investiture, I have to imagine that Roshar isn't most people's idea of an ideal vacation spot. See Hoid's referring to the place with the parable of the 'piece of wet slime and a disgusting crab thing with seventeen legs (slinking) across the rocks together on an insufferably rainy day'. xD

Sooo, this starts getting into the even less supported theory I have that Dragons feed on Investiture the same way Larkin (aka "Dragon Bugs") which would put a dragon in much the same boat as Vasher in the sense of needing a stead supply of Investiture to survive.  Scadrial Era1 would have been attractive to such a person for it's realmically ignorant population along with it having an established economy based on the trade of a Godmetal (something I have to assume qualifies as a significant raw Investiture source), while on Roshar it literally falls from the sky. 

And based purely on the undeniable fact that Dragons always Equal Awesome, it may be that such a person would be willing to risk it between desolation.  Of Course, the Everstorm marks this as something else, something Vasher at least is supposed to be worried about.  Dragon-Felt might be in the same boat on that side of things as well.

[Vargo Seldon he/him]

5 hours ago, Quantus said:

Sooo, this starts getting into the even less supported theory I have that Dragons feed on Investiture the same way Larkin (aka "Dragon Bugs") which would put a dragon in much the same boat as Vasher in the sense of needing a stead supply of Investiture to survive.  Scadrial Era1 would have been attractive to such a person for it's realmically ignorant population along with it having an established economy based on the trade of a Godmetal (something I have to assume qualifies as a significant raw Investiture source), while on Roshar it literally falls from the sky. 

And based purely on the undeniable fact that Dragons always Equal Awesome, it may be that such a person would be willing to risk it between desolation.  Of Course, the Everstorm marks this as something else, something Vasher at least is supposed to be worried about.  Dragon-Felt might be in the same boat on that side of things as well.

I actually kind of like this theory.  I mean, the dragons wife my not want to leave roshar, and what's a desolation to a dragon? 

Also, what if felt is Wal-Do the kandra?  You know, from that thread that kobold king started?  It would be great for harmony to learn about other shards by putting a kandra on a world that has a shard-war.  To answer @RShara's arguments, felt isn't trying to spy on men, his goal is observe shards.  I would also be pretty easy for a kandra to gain the connection ability.

[RShara she/her]

4 hours ago, Kaladin78 said:

I actually kind of like this theory.  I mean, the dragons wife my not want to leave roshar, and what's a desolation to a dragon? 

Also, what if felt is Wal-Do the kandra?  You know, from that thread that kobold king started?  It would be great for harmony to learn about other shards by putting a kandra on a world that has a shard-war.  To answer @RShara's arguments, felt isn't trying to spy on men, his goal is observe shards.  I would also be pretty easy for a kandra to gain the connection ability.

We don't know what the kandra's mission is, let alone Felt's mission. Saying he's there to observe Shards is speculation at best.

[Vargo Seldon he/him]

True, but it's pretty good speculation...

[Scion of the Mists]

18 hours ago, Kaladin78 said:

I mean, the dragons wife my not want to leave roshar, and what's a desolation to a dragon? 

What's this about a dragon's wife?

[Vargo Seldon he/him]

2 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

What's this about a dragon's wife?

A theory says that the dragon (felt) found himself a girl and settled down on roshar.  It's not a very good theory, but there you go.

[Scion of the Mists]

6 minutes ago, Kaladin78 said:

A theory says that the dragon (felt) found himself a girl and settled down on roshar.  It's not a very good theory, but there you go.

Oh, I totally missed that post and was really confused.  

I think that Felt as a Dragon has the same issue as Felt as a Kandra.  If you can shapeshift, why would you stand out at all?  

[Vargo Seldon he/him]

What I thought was this:  Felt is spying on the shards, he doesn't really care how much he stands out to the people.