Only Ishar....

[platnumkid]

TLDR: Ishar has always been nuts and Nale is right he survived with his mind just as it has always been.

For some reason Nale and Ash both think that Ishar is the only one of them that has not gone insane.  Nale even tells Szeth at the end of OB that "Only Ishar survived <the torture> with his mind intact". Everyone assumes the Heralds are just misguided and blindly trusting one of their leading thinkers and scholars.  But what if they are not wrong?  What if they've been right all along and Ishar has survived with mind intact?

What if Ishar has always been a megalomaniacal psychopathic bastard?! 

• It was his idea to ditch Taln. 
• It was his idea to put rules on the Radiants, but maybe it was out of jealousy of their growing power displacing him as a deity.  With the destruction of Ashyn they knew very well the dangers of surgebinding.  What took them several Desolations to realize precautions were required, if that was in fact the reasoning for formalizing the Orders.
• Look at the endpage art of him

Any takers on this nonsense?  =) Just trying to shake things up with a different angle.

Edited March 16, 2020 by platnumkid

[Karger he/him]

2 hours ago, platnumkid said:

It has idea to ditch Taln. 

I personally have always seen this as Ishar's madness.  He is supposed to be the pious one but now just believes what he wants to believe or what is convenient for him(that things will turn out fine if they abandon Taln).  I also do not think that a megalomaniacal psychopathic bastard would be willing to dam himself to save the world which according to the stormfather is what the oathpact was designed to do and Ishar's idea.  As to the reason that the other Herald's think he is still sane.  I think that is the other half of his madness.  He is supposed to be the one with the plan or with ideas but now he manipulates people because he wants to seem like he does or wants to feel in control.  Decent theory though.

Maybe he was always a high functioning sociopath?

Edited March 15, 2020 by Karger

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I like it, but I think @Kargers comment raises a good point: he was once willing to damnation himself for everyone else. 
 

I do think you might be right in that he went mad before the other Heralds did though.

[Gilphon]

It is odd that Nale and Ash think he hasn't gone insane, considering that from our perspective, his insanity is far more obvious and prominent than any of the others Heralds. Like it seems very odd that they'd look at everything he's doing and saying as Tezim and think 'yep, he's still got his head screwed on properly. He's the only one among us who hasn't lost themselves.'

Like, Ash, Kalak and Nale all have problems, but they're not so far gone that they'd be dismissed as dangerously insane after a single conversation, like Dalinar did to Ishar. 

I can only think that he must be a better at putting up a friendly persona where he's talking to one of his supposed equals in person. Possibly he spends a lot of effort of convincing them that he has good reasons for everything he does. Convincing them that he doesn't beg the Stormfather to kill him every night.

[platnumkid]

9 hours ago, Karger said:

I also do not think that a megalomaniacal psychopathic bastard would be willing to dam himself to save the world which according to the stormfather is what the oathpact was designed to do and Ishar's idea.

Regarding the Oathpact all we know for sure is that Ishar came up with an idea that granted him and his friends immortality with the chance of torture.  There's a lot we don't know about many of the Heralds.  Maybe Pailiah is a known slow poke, maybe Kalak really was a coward, maybe Battar sucks at hiding.  Maybe Ishar always broke immediately after getting caught so he was never really tortured.  We know that at first there were long gaps between desolations, but maybe Ishar just avoided capture in the beginning.

Also I think you're being very generous calling this a decent theory.  =) 

[Karger he/him]

5 minutes ago, platnumkid said:

Regarding the Oathpact all we know for sure is that Ishar came up with an idea that granted him and his friends immortality with the chance of torture.  There's a lot we don't know about many of the Heralds.  Maybe Pailiah is a known slow poke, maybe Kalak really was a coward, maybe Battar sucks at hiding.  Maybe Ishar always broke immediately after getting caught so he was never really tortured.  We know that at first there were long gaps between desolations, but maybe Ishar just avoided capture in the beginning.

We don't actually know that Ishar was down for the torture.  The Stormfather could be wrong or Ishar may have made a mistake about who was to be tortured. 

7 minutes ago, platnumkid said:

Also I think you're being very generous calling this a decent theory.  =) 

On the internet it is generally a good idea to be nicer then not and this does have ideas that could become a decent theory.

[Karger he/him]

4 minutes ago, Debarra said:

It's a possibility. I've always just thought Nale used the third oath on Ishar myself but it is possible that they really just been he's always been nuts.

Ash agrees with Nale although what his oath three is is an interesting question.

[Gilphon]

Surely Nale's third Oath is to obey the law of land. Like that's why he switched sides, because if the land changes owners, then the laws he's sworn to follow also change.

[Nuatoma]

15 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

Surely Nale's third Oath is to obey the law of land. Like that's why he switched sides, because if the land changes owners, then the laws he's sworn to follow also change.

This brings up a question I had the other day.  I'm not sure we know the answer.  I was always under the assumption that the Heralds were super old and predated the desolations.  This must be incorrect though, because if the Heralds were around since before the 1st desolation, they would've known that humans were not the original owners of the land.  Right?  So did the Heralds come after the first or a couple of desolations had passed?

[Frustration he/him]

6 minutes ago, Nuatoma said:

This brings up a question I had the other day.  I'm not sure we know the answer.  I was always under the assumption that the Heralds were super old and predated the desolations.  This must be incorrect though, because if the Heralds were around since before the 1st desolation, they would've known that humans were not the original owners of the land.  Right?  So did the Heralds come after the first or a couple of desolations had passed?

The Heralds came from Ashyn so they know. Nale just didn't have his oaths before now so that's what changed.

[Nuatoma]

12 minutes ago, Booknerd said:

The Heralds came from Ashyn so they know. Nale just didn't have his oaths before now so that's what changed.

If this is the case, then wouldn't Nale have been trying to help the Parshendi bring back their gods instead of actively trying to prevent a new desolation?  That doesn't add up to me.  Seems to me he'd want the original owners of  the land to rule as that would be just.

[Karger he/him]

4 minutes ago, Nuatoma said:

If this is the case, then wouldn't Nale have been trying to help the Parshendi bring back their gods instead of actively trying to prevent a new desolation?  That doesn't add up to me.  Seems to me he'd want the original owners of  the land to rule as that would be just.

This is a new course of action for Nale based on a newer revelation.  Remember he has sworn the fifth ideal.  He knows where law comes from and why it should be obeyed or not.  He fought to prevent a desolation because he thought it would preserve some greater principle or more important consideration.

[Gilphon]

The Parshendi didn't want to bring back their gods, so their law hardly forces Nale to cause a desolation. If anything, they'd tell him to work to prevent that from ever happening.

But generally he didn't seem to consider the Parshmen as capable of defining the law of the land, so the law of the land was what the humans said it was. Until the Everstorm showed up and made it so that the Singers could start having strong opinion what the law should be again. 

[Karger he/him]

4 hours ago, Gilphon said:

The Parshendi didn't want to bring back their gods, so their law hardly forces Nale to cause a desolation. If anything, they'd tell him to work to prevent that from ever happening.

That refers only to the listeners and I am not sure that Nale knew about their preferences in the matter.  The fused however did want to come back and are sort of the masters of the land who still have their lease.

[Gilphon]

I really don't think Nale is thinking of the Fused that way- I'm pretty sure that it's the Singers he feels are rightfully in charge. As in the living ones who haven't been body-snatched by ancient ghosts. Which I don't think is a point the Fused would argue, for whatever that's worth; they talk about how they're just taking charge temporarily until the whole 'human infestation' and how they're totally going to just leave and let their descendants take over as soon as that's dealt with. 

And from a legal perspective, which is almost certainly how Nale would think of it- when you die, your wealth is distributed among your heirs, so ghosts can't legally be landowners unless they acquired the land after their death. And even if they did, they'd lose that land if they died again. So the Fused don't have any particular claim on the land, because any claim they might have had would belong to their descendants instead.

And, really, I dunno why you're trying to claim he's acting on some mysterious high ideal of law. He explains his rationale pretty clearly; the Everstorm giving the Singers their minds back meant that he couldn't justify treating the humans as the rightful owners of the land anymore. There's nothing particularly mysterious about it. 

[teknopathetic he/him]

Are we convinced Ishar was always sane? What if he was particularly flawed even before he became a herald? 

Edited March 17, 2020 by teknopathetic

[NightbloodforPM]

I kinda think all the heralds survived the last desolation and then one of them actively killed taln to send only him back. Was thinking it was jezrien but could be ishar too

[DiePie]

1 hour ago, NightbloodforPM said:

I kinda think all the heralds survived the last desolation and then one of them actively killed taln to send only him back. Was thinking it was jezrien but could be ishar too

I feel like Taln would be more bitter if he was killed by another Herald than we see him in (Oathbringer I think?)

It's also mentioned in the prelude of WoK that Taln died sacrificing himself defending the pass, and the other heralds took the opportunity to let him go back to Braize alone

[Goatbringer he/him]

I've felt like it's going to be something out of left field that shows us why the other Heralds trust Ishar the way they do. Something like Ishar being Tanavast's brother in real life or something that even if he is absolutely insane, the Heralds would trust him.

[Gilphon]

2 hours ago, NightbloodforPM said:

I kinda think all the heralds survived the last desolation and then one of them actively killed taln to send only him back. Was thinking it was jezrien but could be ishar too

Ooh, I like this idea. It does seem awfully convenient that the only Herald who died was also the only one who hadn't broken. That things would work out that perfectly for them during the same Desolation where they reached the limits of their willpower is quite the coincidence. 

I mean, Kalak certainly didn't have anything to do with that, and I feel like Ash wouldn't have agreed to that. But I can imagine Ishar convincing Jezrien and Nale- and perhaps some of the others- that it was for the best.

[NightbloodforPM]

7 hours ago, DiePie said:

I feel like Taln would be more bitter if he was killed by another Herald than we see him in (Oathbringer I think?)

It's also mentioned in the prelude of WoK that Taln died sacrificing himself defending the pass, and the other heralds took the opportunity to let him go back to Braize alone

he has been tortured for some 4.5k years. There was a death rattle about standing over the body of a brother " I'm standing over the body of a brother. I'm weeping. Is that his blood or mine? What have we done?" which might refer to it from any potential murderers pov. Likewise the one about "You've killed me. Bastards, you've killed me! While the sun is still hot, I die!" could be from talns pov. They just jumped out at me at possibly being this when I read them. No proof, just wild speculation!

[NightbloodforPM]

Doubled up by accident

Edited March 17, 2020 by NightbloodforPM
Double post

[DiePie]

14 minutes ago, NightbloodforPM said:

he has been tortured for some 4.5k years. There was a death rattle about standing over the body of a brother " I'm standing over the body of a brother. I'm weeping. Is that his blood or mine? What have we done?" which might refer to it from any potential murderers pov. Likewise the one about "You've killed me. Bastards, you've killed me! While the sun is still hot, I die!" could be from talns pov. They just jumped out at me at possibly being this when I read them. No proof, just wild speculation!

perhaps, it would be cool if it worked but I personally don't think that it really fits as well as the story we've been told by Jezrien in the Prelude to WoK, I guess we just gotta read and find out...

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

I think Ishar has to have told the others that his crazy god-king persona is part of a Plan of some sort, that it's all a means to an end. That he isn't really pants-on-head crazy.