Envisagers and others

[Zelly]

Has there been any connections made between the Sons of Honor and the Envisagers?    I'm wondering if maybe Galivar wasn't double dipping into multiple groups (though he seems rather antagonistic with the Ghostbloods).   We know that Jasnah suffered some traumatic event as a child which was then swept under a rug.  If she was showing signs of Radiance as child similar to how Shallan was, I could see Galivar trying to capitalize on that.

[RShara she/her]

I doubt there's a connection. The Envisagers thought that if they put their lives in danger, they would suddenly manifest Radiance. The Sons of Honor want to bring a Desolation so the Heralds will return and revive the faith of the people.

[CosmicSieve]

I swear Teft said that the Envisagers wanted to return the Desolations. Gave me a bit of a shock on a reread. It was that chapter in WoR where he was on rotation with Sigzil waiting for Kaladin to come out of the chasms. I can check for it later when I am near my books.

[RShara she/her]

Looks like they were wanting to return the Knights, yeah, but the Heralds aren't mentioned.

Quote

“All right, fine,” Teft said. “It was some kind of cult, you see, called the Envisagers. They . . . well, they thought if they could find a way to return the Voidbringers, then the Knights Radiant would return as well. Stupid, right? Only, they knew things. Things they shouldn’t, things like what Kaladin can do.”

Quote

“They thought,” Teft said, “that people were more likely to manifest powers if their lives were in danger. So . . . they’d put lives in danger. Members of their own group—never an innocent outsider, bless the winds. But that was bad enough. I watched people let themselves be pushed off cliffs, watched them tied in place with a candle slowly burning a rope until it snapped and dropped a rock to crush them. It was bad, Sigzil. Awful. The sort of thing nobody should have to watch, especially a boy of six.”

 

[King's Twit he/him]

I think what seems most likely is that the two groups share an origin, but there was a sectarian split at some point in the past over what methods should be used in attempting to bring back the desolations. Either the Envisagers split away from the Sons of Honor because they didn’t morally approve of the use of innocent lives the Sons of Honor seem much more willing to employ, or the Sons of Honor split from the Envisagers because they did not think the methods used by the Envisagers were ambitious enough to ever work.

[RShara she/her]

Well, and also this was when Teft was 6, so a good 20-30 years before Gavilar started having visions and forming the Sons of Honor?

[King's Twit he/him]

42 minutes ago, RShara said:

I doubt there's a connection. The Envisagers thought that if they put their lives in danger, they would suddenly manifest Radiance. The Sons of Honor want to bring a Desolation so the Heralds will return and revive the faith of the people.

The Heralds are definitely an important motivating factor for the Sons of Honor, but Gavilar, at least, seemed equally interested in the return of the Knights Radiant. He spoke at least once of wishing to return to when men were Radiant, and his dying message to Dalinar was, barring some patented Sanderson twist, about swearing the Oaths of the Knights.

[King's Twit he/him]

2 minutes ago, RShara said:

Well, and also this was when Teft was 6, so a good 20-30 years before Gavilar started having visions and forming the Sons of Honor?

Do we know that Gavilar formed the Sons of Honor? I’m not up to date on WoB, but I had assumed that he was just a recent prominent leader within the organization

[RShara she/her]

I always got the impression that Gavilar founded it or revived it.

Also, rather than double posting, you'll want to click the edit button on your last post to add any additional thoughts, if you're the last person that's posted so far, already.

[CosmicSieve]

17 minutes ago, RShara said:

Looks like they were wanting to return the Knights, yeah, but the Heralds aren't mentioned.

Quote

All right, fine,” Teft said. “It was some kind of cult, you see, called the Envisagers. They . . . well, they thought if they could find a way to return the Voidbringers, then the Knights Radiant would return as well. Stupid, right? Only, they knew things. Things they shouldn’t, things like what Kaladin can do.”

 

Seems I misremembered: It wasn't the Desolations but the Voidbringers that the Envisagers wanted to return. Though that is similar, and close to what what the Sons of Honor were trying. Maybe the remnants of the Envisagers formed the Sons of Honor.

I wonder where Teft was from originally. He was in Sadeas's warcamp, but he still could have originated anywhere in Alethkar, I suppose. It is odd to realize that anyone middle aged or older didn't grow up in a united Alethkar.