Odium can use the Oathgates

[Karger he/him]

So as of the end of Oathbringer we know that Honorblades can be used to open Oathgates, that Oathgates can transport directly between each other without having to go to Urithiru, that Odium has an honorblade, and that Odium has four Oathgates in his custody.  This means that he can use the Oathgates provided Moash sticks around one of them.  Will this have any effect on Rhythm of War's plot?

[rjl]

I imagine it should be a major plot point. Particularly if they can go gate to gate without going via Urithiru - directly attacking Thaylen City from Kholinar for instance would be nasty.

[Karger he/him]

5 minutes ago, rjl said:

I imagine it should be a major plot point. Particularly if they can go gate to gate without going via Urithiru - directly attacking Thaylen City from Kholinar for instance would be nasty.

Hmm.  Is that possible.  I know that they locked the gate from Urithiru's side but what about the Theylen side?

[Scion of the Mists]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

So as of the end of Oathbringer we know that Honorblades can be used to open Oathgates, that Oathgates can transport directly between each other without having to go to Urithiru, that Odium has an honorblade, and that Odium has four Oathgates in his custody.  This means that he can use the Oathgates provided Moash sticks around one of them.  Will this have any effect on Rhythm of War's plot?

Do we know that the Oathgates can go directly from city to city without going through Urithiru?  I vaguely remember a passage about discontent about Oathgate taxes being assessed from Urithiru, which wouldn't make sense if you could easily bypass it.  

[Karger he/him]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Do we know that the Oathgates can go directly from city to city without going through Urithiru?  I vaguely remember a passage about discontent about Oathgate taxes being assessed from Urithiru, which wouldn't make sense if you could easily bypass it.  

You can't bypasses a Radiant taxation of Oathgates unless you have a complicit Radiant at each Oathgate willing to operate it for you.  I imagine in the past when there were several hundred radiants guarding them was easier.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Karger

[Gilphon]

I don't think it's possible to bypass Urithiru- certainly there's no obvious mechanism in place to allow for that, and the Oathgate spren seem to be under an Oath that prevents them from letting the gate be used in any way that the builders didn't intend. Or, at least, I don't recall anything that clearly show that it's possible to bypass Urithiru.

Though maybe Sja-Anat's corruption can be applied in a targeted way- the Kholinar one goes to Shadesmar now because that was the plan for that, but maybe she could, for example, make the Kurth one go to Azimir instead. Except that that would probably require the Azimir one to be similarly corrupted. And since the ones in Urithiru can locked from that side... if my assumptions are correct, this can't be used offensively. 

But they very well might be able to 'jailbreak' the Oathgates until their control and instantly re-position their forces. Which makes Sja-Anat the most tactically important Unmade at the moment. A good reason to convince her to break with Odium, as the Ghostbloods suggested. 

[Karger he/him]

1 hour ago, Gilphon said:

 

I don't think it's possible to bypass Urithiru- certainly there's no obvious mechanism in place to allow for that

 

What makes you think this?  They have literally no idea what most of the controls do.

 

1 hour ago, Gilphon said:

Though maybe Sja-Anat's corruption can be applied in a targeted way- the Kholinar one goes to Shadesmar now because that was the plan for that

That is not true at all(as far as we understand).  That Oathgate just malfunctions.  It is supposed to kill whoever uses it.  Sja-Anat saved them(we think).

[Scion of the Mists]

7 hours ago, Karger said:

So as of the end of Oathbringer we know that Honorblades can be used to open Oathgates, that Oathgates can transport directly between each other without having to go to Urithiru

Now that I think about it more, I’m pretty sure that this is not possible. Aren’t there 10 different Oathgates in Urithiru, one for each city? And they just get swapped between the city and Urithiru. So you can’t go directly from city to city. 

[Gilphon]

9 minutes ago, Karger said:

What makes you think this?  They have literally no idea what most of the controls do.

There aren't a large number of controls in the Oathgates- just a slot to put a Blade into, and lanterns to provide power. There are lots of things in Urithiru that they haven't been able to get working, which is probably what you're thinking of, but the Oathgates are pretty simple, as far as we can tell. And I'm certain we would've been told if there was anything else obvious in there- at the end of WoR, we had Shallan and Renarin struggling to get it to work in a situation where everyone's lives depended on getting it to work; they definitely wouldn't have just ignored any mysterious devices.

Additionally, re-reading the relevant parts of WoR just now made me notice that the slot in the Shattered Plains Oathgate is under a depiction of Natanatan, which implies that that particular Oathgate is associated with that location in particular- if they were meant to be swapped around freely, that would a strange architectural choice, as well as something of a coincidence that it happened to be in the right city when the gates were abandoned. 

[Karger he/him]

57 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Now that I think about it more, I’m pretty sure that this is not possible. Aren’t there 10 different Oathgates in Urithiru, one for each city? And they just get swapped between the city and Urithiru. So you can’t go directly from city to city. 

 

23 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

There aren't a large number of controls in the Oathgates- just a slot to put a Blade into, and lanterns to provide power. There are lots of things in Urithiru that they haven't been able to get working, which is probably what you're thinking of, but the Oathgates are pretty simple, as far as we can tell. And I'm certain we would've been told if there was anything else obvious in there- at the end of WoR, we had Shallan and Renarin struggling to get it to work in a situation where everyone's lives depended on getting it to work; they definitely wouldn't have just ignored any mysterious devices.

Then which controls work to move just the control building as apposed to the entire Oathgate and why are their multiple settings for destination at each gate?

[Gilphon]

I don't think the mechanism for moving the control platform has been described- I've kind of been imaging that it's just an Intent thing- that you just will either the platform or the building to come with you. I could be wrong, as I can't currently find the passage in OB where they first discuss both things being possible- but Shallan isn't described as doing anything out of the ordinary when the plan abruptly changes in Kholinar. 

And there aren't multiple settings for destination, I don't know where you're getting that. There are murals of all of the cities in there, but the slot itself is fixed below the one for the city it's associated with. The murals presumably being there as an artistic representation of the way the gates unite the cities.

But, more broadly, you're kind of putting the burden of proof in the wrong place here. You just kind of said that OB shows they can bypass Urithiru, as if that was a thing that somebody did at some point and it would be obvious to us all that it was possible. But nobody has done that. The only time the Oathgates have done anything other than take people to and from Urithiru was Kholinar, which we know isn't how they're supposed to work and still wasn't transport to a different city. So I have to ask: What makes you think that they can go to any city?

Edited September 11, 2019 by Gilphon

[Elsecaller_17.5 he/him]

10 hours ago, Gilphon said:

So I have to ask: What makes you think that they can go to any city?

I’m also curious 

[Elwynn]

Quote

"Though I was due for dinner in Veden City that night, I insisted upon visiting Kholinar to speak with Tivbet. The tariffs through Urithiru were growing quite unreasonable. By then, the so-called Radiants had already begun to show their true nature."

I wouldn't call it definitive, but CH. 46 epigraph is also pretty suggestive that you had to go through Urithiru.

[rjl]

I recall a comment somewhere in Oathbringer about trying to find out how to go to other destinations rather than just swapping with Urithiru - implying that the in-world characters believed it possible. But I can't remember where it was; perhaps something to look out for on a re-read.

[Randallbabbage]

I am pretty sure at the end of WoR it ahows any oathgate can go to any other location. 

 

Quote

The inner wall of the building was like a ring inside a tube—it could rotate, while the outer wall remained in place. The sword moved the inner wall as she pushed on it, though it stuck at first, the fallen blocks of the cut doorway getting in the way. Adolin threw his weight against the sword with her, and together they pushed it around the circle until they were above the picture of Urithiru, half the circumference from Natanatan where she’d begun. She pulled her Blade free.

Words of Radiance

This to me seems like she had to select Urithiru as an option. 

[Atrias he/him]

On 11/09/2019 at 8:14 PM, rjl said:

I recall a comment somewhere in Oathbringer about trying to find out how to go to other destinations rather than just swapping with Urithiru - implying that the in-world characters believed it possible. But I can't remember where it was; perhaps something to look out for on a re-read.

I recall that same comment and am trying to find out where it was mentioned precisely... nonetheless you are correct inasmuch that they assumed it must be possible to travel without the need to pass through Urithiru. Whether or not this proves to be actually possible will, of course, remain to be seen.

[Pathfinder]

So just a third possibility to think on. What if it is possible to go directly between oathgates (Jah Keved to Shinovar for instance), but since you need a spren blade, the radiants limited travel to have to go through Urithiru to benefit from taxes. We see the exact same thing happen in Era 2 Mistborn Spoilers below:

Spoiler

Sazed made the rivers all flow to Elendel which unintentionally put all trade with that city as the hub. When trains got developed, Elendel enforced to keep the rails next to the river lines, so once again, all commerce had to go through them as a hub. Other cities tried to lobby to get rails built that would connect the cities directly, but Elendel kept crushing it due to their monopoly. 

 

[Atrias he/him]

14 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

So just a third possibility to think on. What if it is possible to go directly between oathgates (Jah Keved to Shinovar for instance), but since you need a spren blade, the radiants limited travel to have to go through Urithiru to benefit from taxes. We see the exact same thing happen in Era 2 Mistborn Spoilers below:

  Reveal hidden contents

Sazed made the rivers all flow to Elendel which unintentionally put all trade with that city as the hub. When trains got developed, Elendel enforced to keep the rails next to the river lines, so once again, all commerce had to go through them as a hub. Other cities tried to lobby to get rails built that would connect the cities directly, but Elendel kept crushing it due to their monopoly. 

 

That sounds plausible... so, it could be theoretically possible within the functions of the Oathgates themselves but such behaviour was limited by their controllers (i.e. the Radiants)... I could see that being a way that the resource of Stormlight was maintained through taxation. This would tie in nicely with the aforementioned epigraph quotation about the Radiants beginning to show their "true colors"; their hold on power and their own internal politics starting to waver towards the time of Recreance.

[Karger he/him]

6 hours ago, Randallbabbage said:

I am pretty sure at the end of WoR it ahows any oathgate can go to any other location. 

Thank you for finding that quote it was what I was looking for.

4 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

So just a third possibility to think on. What if it is possible to go directly between oathgates (Jah Keved to Shinovar for instance), but since you need a spren blade, the radiants limited travel to have to go through Urithiru to benefit from taxes. We see the exact same thing happen in Era 2 Mistborn Spoilers below:

 

3 hours ago, Atrias said:

That sounds plausible... so, it could be theoretically possible within the functions of the Oathgates themselves but such behaviour was limited by their controllers (i.e. the Radiants)... I could see that being a way that the resource of Stormlight was maintained through taxation. This would tie in nicely with the aforementioned epigraph quotation about the Radiants beginning to show their "true colors"; their hold on power and their own internal politics starting to waver towards the time of Recreance.

They could just levy taxes when you walked onto the gate.  After all forcing or cheating your way past the Radiants seems pretty unlikely. 

Regardless.  Odium does have an honorblade.  This means he can use the oathgates assuming that he has oathgates is in his possession that are still functional.  Odium also has the ability to fix a broken oathgate(per theylen field statements + he is kind of a god).  Retaking Kolinar when both sides can summon thousands of reinforcements at any time sounds like a bloodbath.  Additionally Odium has some nice travel options for his forces(he can get them across most of northern Roshar without much trouble).