Explain the Death Rattles and the Thrill

[The Night Watcher]

It...has to do with the Unmade, right? That's about all I know.

[Nathrangking he/him]

Each are caused by a different unmade Moleach causes the death rattles which seem to the best of our knowledge to be a moment of precognition before death in certain individuals. The thrill is caused by Nergaoul. In battle it causes a blood frenzy and adrenaline like effect.

[RShara she/her]

As Nathrangking said, Moelach causes the Death Rattles. He seems to grant them a glimpse into the Spiritual Realm, which is time-independent, and forces them to speak (though apparently this can be resisted).

Nergaoul causes the Thrill by removing the inhibitions that normally people have, reducing them to barbarian bloodlust.

[Karger he/him]

We are not realy sure of the function that Odium intended Moelach to serve though.  The thrill can be used either to prompt reckless behavior on the part of the enemy or to empower your own troops but why would you want to give dying people visions of the future.  I suspect that this is only a side effect of what he is supposed to do.

[RShara she/her]

5 minutes ago, Karger said:

We are not realy sure of the function that Odium intended Moelach to serve though.  The thrill can be used either to prompt reckless behavior on the part of the enemy or to empower your own troops but why would you want to give dying people visions of the future.  I suspect that this is only a side effect of what he is supposed to do.

I think Moelach can have many uses.

1. Freak people out

2. For people who are paying attention, he seems to be telling the future.

3. For people who are really paying attention, that seems to be an odd thing for your enemy to be giving you.

4. For the people who are utterly paranoid, that means that the Death Rattles are predicting a specific future that the enemy wants you to believe in, or wants you to think would be desirable.

[Karger he/him]

Considering all the other unmade, fused and ordinary singers that Odium has access to I don't think that my dying friend is going to do much to scare me even if he does spout some random prophecy at his death.  Odium can scare people way easier he should not need to split his soul to do it.

He is clearly giving useful information but why would he?  These people are his enemies.

Exactly

But as Dalinar points out you can learn way more from an enimie's lies then from no information whatever.  So why is Odium apparently helping his enemies by giving them (admittedly limited) access to the spiritual realm?  Access that limits his own ability to anticipate the future should his opponents study closely(I am assuming that a close reading would function like Atium future sight blocking).

[Scion of the Mists]

The Coppermind (the Cosmere Wikipedia) is a great resource for these kinds of questions:

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Death_Rattle

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Nergaoul#The_Thrill

[RShara she/her]

19 minutes ago, Karger said:

Considering all the other unmade, fused and ordinary singers that Odium has access to I don't think that my dying friend is going to do much to scare me even if he does spout some random prophecy at his death.  Odium can scare people way easier he should not need to split his soul to do it.

I didn't say scare people. I said freak 'em out. Unnerve them. A lot of people were noticing the odd things people said while dying and getting disturbed by them. It's mentioned in WoK.

[Karger he/him]

Just now, RShara said:

I didn't say scare people. I said freak 'em out. Unnerve them. A lot of people were noticing the odd things people said while dying and getting disturbed by them. It's mentioned in WoK.

Yes people noticed which is exactly what I would not want if I was an evil god bent on destroying the world.  Telegraphing your intentions to the enemy is the opposite of what any military strategist would recommend which indicates that either this an extremely elaborate misinformation campaign or something else is going on.

[RShara she/her]

Not if you want people to notice, and then use your supposed leak.

[Calderis he/him]

I'm still in the camp that says the death rattles are a byproduct of what moelach does. 

I think its a tool for information gathering, using the souls of the dying to fuel precognition... Which just happens to be a two way street. You get to see into the future, but so does the victim. 

The alternative is just to convoluted to be useful. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Calderis

[+Child of Hodor]

16 minutes ago, RShara said:

I didn't say scare people. I said freak 'em out. Unnerve them. A lot of people were noticing the odd things people said while dying and getting disturbed by them. It's mentioned in WoK.

We also don't know if this is it's primary function or a side effect.

Even if it is the primary function, it is not a good idea to try to predict the future in this world. Even Hoid thinks it's a bad idea and warns Shallan. Odium is better at reading the future than Honor was, it's more of Odium than Honor. Cultivation may be great at it, but it doesn't seem like she shares with the ability with the radiants that much.  

They can easily be misinterpreted and the people speaking don't totally comprehend what they are seeing / experiencing.  

6 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I'm still in the camp that says the death rattles are a byproduct of what moelach does. 

I think its a tool for information gathering, using the souls of the dying to fuel precognition... Which just happens to be a two way street. You get to see into the future, but so does the victim. 

"I cannot speak, even to sate a dying demand. There are those who could pull secrets from your soul, and the cost would be the ends of worlds." - OB I-4 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Child of Hodor

[Ahriman he/him]

I always wondered if the future visions might be a way to encourage people to kill each other so they could see the future. It doesn't seem like a great plan to me, but it did work on Taravangian. Maybe it's supposed to make people obsessed with the Death Rattles and depend on Odium's power. Or maybe it originally had another purpose and was then co-opted by Odium, and that caused weirdness. I'm not sure how the Unmade were formed.

Y'know, that made a lot less sense when I typed it all out.

[Karger he/him]

57 minutes ago, RShara said:

Not if you want people to notice, and then use your supposed leak.

After several thousand years I suspect that the Heralds would catch on. 

55 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I'm still in the camp that says the death rattles are a byproduct of what moelach does. 

I think its a tool for information gathering, using the souls of the dying to fuel precognition... Which just happens to be a two way street. You get to see into the future, but so does the victim. 

The alternative is just to convoluted to be useful. 

I agree that death rattles are a byproduct but Odium already has precog why would he diminish his power and possibly leak useful Intel just to gain something he already has?

 

24 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

I always wondered if the future visions might be a way to encourage people to kill each other so they could see the future. It doesn't seem like a great plan to me, but it did work on Taravangian. Maybe it's supposed to make people obsessed with the Death Rattles and depend on Odium's power. Or maybe it originally had another purpose and was then co-opted by Odium, and that caused weirdness. I'm not sure how the Unmade were formed.

Y'know, that made a lot less sense when I typed it all out.

I thought the same at first with the hole Odium wants opportunistic humans to kill each other but those that Mr T does kill are those that would not be useful in a war effort. Those who are already dying or who would not be missed not exactly useful to remove.

[Calderis he/him]

38 minutes ago, Karger said:

I agree that death rattles are a byproduct but Odium already has precog why would he diminish his power and possibly leak useful Intel just to gain something he already has?

It's the difference between being stuck at a window, looking out and not being able to do anything else, and having a camera set up that you can look at the recording whenever you wish. 

From everything we've been told, future sight takes effort. Moelach would be a one time effort for perpetual payoff. 

[Karger he/him]

8 minutes ago, Calderis said:

From everything we've been told, future sight takes effort. Moelach would be a one time effort for perpetual payoff. 

Effort for ordinary humans but Shards exist in the spiritual realm does it take effort for them? 

[CrazyRioter she/her]

8 minutes ago, Karger said:

Effort for ordinary humans but Shards exist in the spiritual realm does it take effort for them? 

I don't think it does take an appreciable amount of effort just to look, the effort is in interpreting, which given how cryptic the Death Rattles are, Moelach doesn't help with.

[Calderis he/him]

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

Effort for ordinary humans but Shards exist in the spiritual realm does it take effort for them? 

The Shards power exists in the Spiritual. 

The mind of the Vessel is still time and location dependent. This is why they can be bound to a system. It's also why I think they need a Vessel in the first place. A purely spiritual being wouldn't understand causality because time would be meaningless. 

This is very indirect support, but I don't have time to look for something stronger at the moment. 

Quote

Millennium

Can a Shard tell the difference between itself and its current holder?

Brandon Sanderson

Tricky question. Depends on the circumstances. The power as a whole, no. Pieces of it, yes. (Ala Spinozism.)

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

The shard itself, can't tell the difference between itself and the person wielding it... But a piece of that shard, a Splinter like the spren, could. Because it's developed a mind and is linked to causality through the time dependent nature of the Cognitive Realm. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Calderis

[Karger he/him]

I still doubt that Odium would weaken himself out of laziness at the same time surrendering one of his greatest advantages.  (He is one of the best of the known shards at looking into the future.)  I doubt that the cost is worth it so I am going to have to come down on the side that Moleach is doing something else.  Perhaps mining his victims for information or investiture?

[Ahriman he/him]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

I thought the same at first with the hole Odium wants opportunistic humans to kill each other but those that Mr T does kill are those that would not be useful in a war effort. Those who are already dying or who would not be missed not exactly useful to remove.

Yeah, that's my main beef with it. But I suppose it's possible that he wants to encourage people to separate everyone into the useful and the useless, and prey on the useless. I can see that fostering powerful people who are more aligned with Odium's will. And maybe that could be used to instigate the kind of despair we've seen Odium take advantage of, where he goads a follower into surrendering responsibility for their actions, giving him blame and accepting his control over them (Now that I think of it, Autonomy would hate that. Why would they ever work together?).

Maybe we shouldn't just be asking why it gives these visions. Could there be any significance to which people get Death Rattles? We're looking at the people who hear them as the main target, but what if we look at the people who say them? Other than being on the cusp of death, is there something that makes one person more likely than another to have a Death Rattle, assuming Moelach is however nearby it needs to be?

[+Child of Hodor]

8 minutes ago, Karger said:

I still doubt that Odium would weaken himself out of laziness at the same time surrendering one of his greatest advantages.  (He is one of the best of the known shards at looking into the future.)  I doubt that the cost is worth it so I am going to have to come down on the side that Moleach is doing something else.  Perhaps mining his victims for information or investiture?

Not out of laziness, it's an intentional splinter. He wasn't on Roshar itself before the Everstorm, the Unmade were his way of influencing Roshar even during periods when the Fused were sealed up with Odium on Braize. 

I don't know why Moelach does what it does, if it's gathering info and the rattles are a side effect or if Odium likes the rattles. This hints at maybe it gets info from the recently deceased: 

"I cannot speak, even to sate a dying demand. There are those who could pull secrets from your soul, and the cost would be the ends of worlds." - OB I-4 

I think Odium doesn't worry because the rattles really don't give away his advantage much. Odium sees Waaaaay more than even the Diagram with all it's rattles and Nightwatcher aided insight can figure out. 

Quote

 

OB Ch. 122:

"Allow me to show you how far I see." Golden words exploded outward from the ones Taravangian had written in the Diagram. Millions upon millions of golden letters burned into the air, extending into infinity."

...

"All that writing loomed over Taravangian, blocking off the landscape with millions of words. A smarter him would have tried to read it, but this dumber version was simply intimidated. And ... could that be for his ... good? Reading that would consume him. Lose him."

...

"Dalinar was not supposed to ascend." 

 

Odium can see a great deal more than these vague foreshadowings and even he is wrong sometimes. Renarin derives his power to see the future from a spren corrupted by Odium and those were wrong about Jasnah killing him and Dalinar giving in to Odium. 

Taravangian does better in his meeting with Odium when he doesn't try to read the future. A lot of people in SA including Hoid think it's a huge mistake to rely on pre-cognition. 

[Calderis he/him]

49 minutes ago, Karger said:

(He is one of the best of the known shards at looking into the future.)

 

23 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Odium can see a great deal more than these vague foreshadowings and even he is wrong sometimes.

That's just it. "best" is an assumption. The wording of "attempting to see the future" implies that it's something that he likes to do, and feels is useful enough to make a habit of... But we've seen nothing to gauge his accuracy by. He was outplayed masterfully by Cultivation concerning Dalinar in that Regard 

The death rattles, in my opinion, are part of why the association between future sight and Odium exists. It seems like exactly the type of thing he would want to do to facilitate his "Diagram."