When Was Odium Trapped?

[+Child of Hodor]

When did Odium first get "trapped" in the Roshar system? It seems like it may not have been long before the Oathpact, which was within a couple decades of the destruction of Ashyn. 

Like Odium was trapped in the system after Ashyn was ruined, but before the Oathpact. Which was a surprisingly short period of time. 

It had to have predated the Oathpact because the Stormfather says:

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AS ODIUM IS SEALED BY THE POWERS OF HONOR AND CULTIVATION, YOUR HERALDS SEALED THE SPREN OF THE DEAD. - OB Ch. 38 Broken People 

I infer from this that what H&C did with Odium is the inspiration for what the Heralds did to the Fused. 

Odium's Limitations

We have this WoB that seems to say that Odium had visited Roshar before and was capable of getting around before the humans migrated. In modern SA, Odium hadn't manifested on Roshar directly until the Everstorm. He influenced indirectly through the Unmade, but it seems like he could not show up directly. He is not exactly shy once the Everstorm comes. He's talking to people early and often. 

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Hoidonalsium

What was the order of the Shards coming to Roshar and changing allegiances? Did humans come with Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

So... you're talking about on Roshar specifically? So, Odium had visited Roshar. The humans gave him more of an ear... The Dawnsingers would have considered him the god of the people who had come, but-- I mean, it wasn't like they necessarily brought him. He was capable of getting around before that. I mean, he did kinda come along with them, he was instrumental in what happened there.

Hoidonalsium

Okay, but he was separate, and after Honor and Cultivation had really settled there?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he was after Honor and Cultivation had settled.

Oathbringer Glasgow signing (Dec. 2, 2017)

His absence can't be an Oathpact effect because that only traps the Fused and Taln had been back for months before he showed up at the gates of Kholinar. Odium's absence from Roshar itself must be part of his being bound by H&C.  Even now he only appears when the Everstorm is very close by. I think most of him is still on Braize (to the extent a Shard can be in a place, spiritual realm blah blah blah) and the Everstorm allows him to stick a hand out to touch Roshar. 

"That Escalated Quickly" Ashyn Migration to the Oathpact 

We know that not a lot of time passed between the migration from Ashyn and the first desolation because all the Heralds were born on Ashyn, except maybe Shallash.

 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/372/#e11945

They did not become Heralds until after they were on Roshar and they became Heralds at around the age they look like they are. Spoilered for length:

Spoiler

Questioner

I have a bit of a problem with the first Desolation timeline. I'm wondering how old were the Heralds when they became Heralds.

Brandon Sanderson

The age that you would see them as when you met them. They basically are the age they look. When they became Heralds, they are the age that they appeared.

Questioner

So they were like in their younger middle age?

Brandon Sanderson

Some of them. I mean Ishar is older.

Questioner

So that means that the entire timeline of the first Desolation happened within a single lifetime?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of the ancient chronologies are wrong and you won't get the actual answers until the Heralds themselves explain it in their flashback sequences in the back five. 

Questioner

You've said that the Heralds came over from Ashyn. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Okay. How old were they then?

Brandon Sanderson

Younger than they were when they became Heralds.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

Shallash is Jezrien's daughter. In the prelude Jezrien is described as looking like he's 30. Let's assume he was young looking for his age (when his looks became locked in) and he's 35 or so. He couldn't have fathered Shallash before he was a teenager, so her upper age limit is very early 20s. Let's say she's 20 when she becomes a Herald. Brandon says it's possible she was not born on Ashyn, but she might have been. If she wasn't born on Ashyn would be born not too long after. That puts the likely gap between the migration and the Oathpact at 20 - 25 years at most. 

Could Odium Create The Fused While Imprisoned? 

It seem like Odium became trapped after the Ashyn migration and maybe after he created the Fused. My understanding of the Fused is Odium interacted with their cognitive shadows after the Singers died, but before they went to the beyond. If they died on Roshar and Odium was trapped on Braize it seem like it would be harder to catch these cognitive shadows. Location still matters in the Cognitive Realm. 

That said Cognitive / Spiritual mumbo jumbo. Maybe Odium could make Fused on Roshar while being trapped on Braize. He did manage to kill Tanavast and splinter Honor while imprisoned. The "We Killed You!" implies it was a team effort, but Tanavast (in Visions) and the Stormfather both credit Odium with the kill. Odium takes credit for it when Dalinar confronts him about it in the OB chapter "Passion". 

Tsk Tsk Tsk

Honor and Cultivation were a little slow to react if they didn't trap Odium until after he helped humans wreck one planet in the system which caused a mass migration to Roshar then likely encouraged humans to attempt to wipe out the Dawnsingers on Roshar, then made some of the dead Dawnsingers immortal bodysnatchers so they could get revenge on the humans. 

 

 

 

 

[Gilphon]

I think it makes the most sense to assume that he can't create Fused while bound, because that would explain why he's stuck with his initial crop of them and not created any from Singers who died in any of the subsequent Desolations. Like, we know he could revoke their immortality if he wanted to, and some of them are visibly past their expiration dates, so it can't be a matter of keeping the total below a certain amount. 

Which, yeah, suggests that he was bound between the creation of the Fused and the formation of the Oathpact. 

I don't think it's fair to call Honor and Cultivation slow to react though- what we know about how these things work suggests that the only way Odium could've been bound would be if Honor had somehow convinced him to let himself be bound. I can't imagine that would've been an easy sell.

[Frustration]

39 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

I don't think it's fair to call Honor and Cultivation slow to react though- what we know about how these things work suggests that the only way Odium could've been bound would be if Honor had somehow convinced him to let himself be bound. I can't imagine that would've been an easy sell.

it's simple offer him Daliar's pain.

[Weltall]

 

42 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

I don't think it's fair to call Honor and Cultivation slow to react though- what we know about how these things work suggests that the only way Odium could've been bound would be if Honor had somehow convinced him to let himself be bound. I can't imagine that would've been an easy sell.

I think it might have been an easier sell than you think, because we know that to a Shard time is something they have an effectively infinite supply of. Meanwhile we know that the kinds of 'wounds' a Shard receives do not heal in the same way they do for mere mortals and Odium would have known going in that he was at a numerical disadvantage. Agreeing to a set of terms with Honor and Cultivation that reduced his own direct exposure to danger probably wouldn't be too hard of a deal to sell, especially if Odium was pretty confident he'd win quickly. Even under the circumstances that transpired with him getting stuck for some six thousand years or more, in his long-term view it's only a matter of time until he clears whatever the winning conditions are, then he's free to go after Cultivation on a one-on-one basis instead of fighting at a disadvantage.

3 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

That said Cognitive / Spiritual mumbo jumbo. Maybe Odium could make Fused on Roshar while being trapped on Braize. He did manage to kill Tanavast and splinter Honor while imprisoned.

I suspect that part of the terms Tanavast offered to entice Odium involved deliberately leaving himself vulnerable to attack in some way. This way Odium gets a shot at one Shard regardless of the current state of their contest and is more likely to agree to something that potentially traps him for a long time.

As far as the creation of the Fused go, we know there's something at work in the Oathpact which causes the Heralds to return to Braize when killed rather than Roshar and which causes the Fused to go there when killed even though they also 'died' on Roshar. Well, before the Everstorm anyways. We know that Shards can influence things across a solar system even when they're bound to one particular world in it, so Odium having some ability to affect Roshar even when he's 'located' on Braize isn't really a huge stretch.