Was Bent Nale Right? Does Surgebinding Bring on the Desolations?

[Confused]

This is great stuff! Keep it coming! Everyone’s been perfectly respectful. No worries, Kari, Kaellok, or anyone else. (And Kari, was that an exhaustion spren icon?)

 

Regarding Kari’s “Surges can’t imprison Odium” argument: First, the word the second letter writer uses is “captive,” not “prison.” Captivity does not require a prison. Szeth was a de facto captive of his Oathstone, but the prison was of his own making: “Stone walls do not a prison make/ Nor iron bars a cage” (Richard Lovelace).

 

Second, in my “Odium’s Plan” post, I cited the WoR Ars Arcanum statement that the Surges are not even Roshar’s “fundamental forces,” but merely the abilities that Honor gave the Heralds – “the bonds that drive Roshar,” according to the WoR Chapter 38 epigraph. I find these statements significant: the first for highlighting the unnatural essence of the Surges, the second for identifying them as “bonds.”

 

Third, I agree with you that the Surges are ten different “expressions” of Stormlight. As Kaladin says, Stormlight is “the Surges reduced to some primal form.” (WoR Hardcover, p. 469.) But why would that affect whether any one or more expressions can be temporarily diminished? System-wide, Stormlight in all its forms (expressions) is conserved, merely undergoing form changes, just like mass-energy conversions in our world. But any one or more forms (Surges) can lose its potency as it is being used.

 

The best evidence, as I mentioned in the “Odium’s Plan” post, is Honor’s fear that the Everstorm will cause Roshar to disintegrate. That is what one would expect to happen if Roshar loses the “bonds” – the Surges – that hold it together.

 

I also have a silly reason to think the Surges are involved: the pattern of the KR chart. We’ve all questioned why some of the lines extend across the chart from seemingly unrelated orders – Windrunners and Lightweavers, for example. When I look at the chart, I see a net, as if all the Surges acting together create this net, trapping something.

 

I do like your suggestion that the Surges may trap some essential part of Odium on Roshar. Another thread theorizes that Odium’s investiture in the Unmade is so massive as to keep him there. Perhaps the answer lies in some combination of these thoughts.

 

And I think that Shallan is a small Horneater because that’s what happens to Horneaters who move out from the mountains to become “airsick lowlanders…”

 

Seloun, you’ve come up with an elegant solution for why Desolations mirror the Heralds physical presence on Roshar. You may well be right, even if the Stormfather has yet to deny anyone’s request for an initial spren bond (or strengthened bond through the oaths), whether made by a KR or Eshonai. But maybe that’s because “maybe-Taln” is back on Roshar, according to your solution.

 

Your “gravity alone” theory for keeping Odium captive in the Rosharian system, however,  has the problem that Roshar’s gravitational field is likely not strong enough to extend out to Braize. I believe Forum calculations of Roshar’s mass show it to be relatively small.

 

Amendment: In my “Odium’s Plan” discussion of the Origin being on one of Roshar’s moons, I should have included a statement that I think Jasnah found, that Urithiru was built “in the place closest to Honor.” Urithiru seems to be in the highest place on Roshar – which would be the point closest to its moons. I’ll amend that post to add this as further evidence of the assertion.

 

Question: How come we have not seen any spren that personify the idea of the Heralds? Although the Heralds are human, each of them has also come to be an idea, certainly within Vorin religion. Shouldn’t some spren in Shadesmar personify that idea? In fact, maybe “Taln” is really the Taln-spren, just like the Nightwatcher is a combination Cultivation and Odium or Adonalsium spren (in my view).

 

Final Crazy Idea: The Desolations are really just a proxy war between the Honor/Cultivation spren and the Odium spren. Humans and listeners are the weapons. We know that “spren politics are complex” (Jasnah). And we know that “war is the continuation of politics by other means” (von Clausewitz). The Recreance was caused by the KR’s discovery that the spren were simply using them. [Not really serious, but I’m mulling this over and may post on it.]

 

Final Observation: I’ve been meaning to comment on Nale’s statement to Szeth that keeping one’s “word with perfection” is the only “genuine beauty” in this world (WoR Hardback, p. 1063). My response comes from Keats and Shakespeare:

 

“’Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ - that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

 

John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” last two lines.

 

“Did my heart love till now, forswear it sight!

For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”

 

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5, lines 52-53 (when Romeo first sees Juliet at the Capulet’s party).

 

Keats, one of my favorite poets, is the subject matter of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion SciFi/Horror/Fantasy novels, for which he won a number of awards including the Hugo Award. Three of the four books, Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion and Endymion, are named for three of Keats’ poems. One of the novels’ central characters is a resurrected John Keats. His poem “Endymion” begins with the famous lines, apropos here, “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness...”