A cult of Odium

[Diomedes]

In this post I am going to argue that the Ardents are Odium worshippers.

Hear me out, it makes more sense than you would believe.

It is obvious that Vornism started out as a genuine belief in Honor a few thousand years ago. But nowadays? What kind of ethics would a genuine belief in Honor entail? It would mean journey before destination: it is more important how you fight/live then what you fight/live for. It is not even important that you win in a fight (or in life). Everything that matters is the journey.

Now, what the Vorin church teaches is the exact opposite of what a genuine belief in Honor would look like. They don`t even have any set of ethics, actually. It is only important that you do your job as a soldier/ farmer etc. well. It is only important that you win. Subsequently, Alethi culture is all about the game, the victory, the Thrill. This set of ethics is, well, of Odium.

I would argue, therefore, that it does not matter that they pay lip service to the Heralds and that their faith started out as worshipping Honor. The Ardents of our time are Odium worshippers.

The best example are the “Sons of Honor”. They claim to want to restore Honor. Yet, they only want to possess the power associated with a god and restore the power of the Vorin church. They don`t care about Honor. It is not surprising that the only known son of Honor, Amaram, ends up on Odium`s side.

The Ardents will soon join their actual god and lord, almighty Odium, led by Restares, who is probably someone high up in the hierarchy of the church.        

[Calderis he/him]

I, unfortunately, have to disagree. 

This is predicting the idea that Honor functions under our typical portrayal of "honor" which is clearly not the case. 

The Skybreakers make my case for me.

None of the shards are good or evil, and honor stripped of morality amounts to basically jut keeping your oaths, regardless of the value or morality of those oaths. 

Edit: I have gone off at length before about how the first oath does not mean what it seems to. 

While the writeup is pre-ob, and much of the later speculation in the thread is outdated, the point is still valid. See these two WoBs for the heart of the argument. 

Quote

AndrewHB (paraphrased)

Is Niccolò Machiavelli's political theory--the ends justify the means--incompatible with the Knights Radiant's First Oath?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. Although many of the Orders of Knights Radiant would find Machiavelli's theory, that the ends justify the means, incompatible with additional oaths and/or values of that Order, there are some Orders who could accept a Machiavellian. (Brandon said that the Skybreakers are where a Machiavellian could find a home.)

Footnote: A follow up question was asked in the signing line.
source

Quote

AndrewHB

I wondered if I could follow up to that Machiavelli question. Would Elsecallers be a-- one of those other, uh-- one of those...

Brandon Sanderson

So, yeah. Elsecallers are fairly compatible. Like, Elsecallers feel like the journey is... the journey is the entire species, right? And that the journey is the destination. *inaudible*

Footnote: Referenced question was asked in the General Q&A.
source

 

Edited November 24, 2018 by Calderis

[Diomedes]

18 hours ago, Calderis said:

The Skybreakers make my case for me.

None of the shards are good or evil, and honor stripped of morality amounts to basically jut keeping your oaths, regardless of the value or morality of those oaths.

Fair point. 

Honor in itself is not "good" or ethical on its own.

But it is about promises, oaths and the journey. Vornism, as it is today, is about none of these things. The power of the church is the only thing that matters. It does not care about oaths or the journey.   

Best Example might be Aesuadan`s Ardent in WoR. He justified everything that the Queen did by saying: well we like to do it, why stop doing it? That sounds very Odium-ish to me.

Skybreakers might be Machiavellians, but they are a very specific type of Machiavellians that is hypersensitive about oaths and laws. 

[Calderis he/him]

Except those ardents aren't the norm. They were a corrupt and self-indulgent group who favored their own comfort over what Vorinism actually teaches... Which we've actually seen very little of.

This is precisely why Pai writes out her condemnations of Aesudan and is executed fog it, which spawns the Kholinar riots. Pai is an actual devout Ardent. 

Vorinism does care about oaths and promises. They're the reason that despite Vorinisms strict gender roles, same-sex marriage is not looked down on.

The problem Vorinism has, is that after the Hierocracy, it's confined only to the Ardentia. Everyone is basically living under these arbitrary rules that they've all accepted... But the ardents are the keepers of faith, while the majority of people just... Live. 

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

On 11/25/2018 at 10:53 AM, Calderis said:

The problem Vorinism has, is that after the Hierocracy, it's confined only to the Ardentia. Everyone is basically living under these arbitrary rules that they've all accepted... But the ardents are the keepers of faith, while the majority of people just... Live. 

The ardentia says to live, let them take care of all the messy work of maintaining faith. Dalinar gets to rampage all across Alethkar but it's fine until he starts to question things. Both Odium and the Ardents seem to be about passing off responsibility.

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

The ardentia says to live, let them take care of all the messy work of maintaining faith. Dalinar gets to rampage all across Alethkar but it's fine until he starts to question things. Both Odium and the Ardents seem to be about passing off responsibility.

Again, look at Pai and her condemnations of Aesudan.

Just because people fail a religion does not mean that they are examples of what that religion teaches. 

An argument can be made that Vorinism is changing into the religion you describe... But that's not what Vorinism is supposed to be. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Calderis

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Pai's Rosharan recreation of Martin Luther's 95 Thesis is a refutation of how Vorinism is practiced at the time. What's going on in Kholinar is an extreme example of how it's practiced elsewhere. Your tense is wrong. It's not what Vorinism is becoming, it's what Vorinism became. And what it is now is a religion that encourages one to heap all responsibility unto the Ardents. Odium seems to have co-opted Vorinism generations and generations ago. In retrospect it seems logical that Amaram went to Odium's side. The way he operates is familiar to what he's practiced his entire life.

[Calderis he/him]

I disagree, but fair enough.

Your analogy seems correct to me in one way though. There is a strong divide in Vorinism, between the way it is practiced by high society, with the lighteyes waging war and shunting responsibility to the side, and the way it is practiced in more rural areas. For example, Shallan seems to have had a much more devout upbringing even in her isolation. The almighty and the tenants of Vorinism actually seem like they used to be important to her. 

[Solant he/him]

Another thing to keep in mind as well is that Aesudan's ardents were probably under the influence of Ashertmarn at the time of Pai's interlude, due to their close proximity to Aesudan. It just hadn't yet built to the level we saw in OB.

[Diomedes]

17 hours ago, Calderis said:

and the way it is practiced in more rural areas. For example, Shallan seems to have had a much more devout upbringing even in her isolation

Shallan`s family might be an exception. I got the impression that mainstream Vorinism is pretty corrupted, regardless weather this concerns high society or not. Our closest view of rural Vorinism would be at Hearthstone. There is not even an Ardent in town as far as I can remember it. There are exceptions of course like Kadash (Dalinar`s ardent). But on the whole the situation seems to resemble that of the catholic church of the 15th century.