Heralds in the Current Era

[+honorblades]

First and foremost, what is the original purpose of the Heralds?

With Honor’s blessing, the Heralds established the Oathpact with the intention of locking the Fused on Braize. They returned each Desolation to assist humanity in rebuilding, and to serve as the main fighting force. They succeeded for a few thousand years, with a marked decrease in success leading up to Aharietam.

During the early Desolations, the Heralds existed with their minds largely intact. With the rise of the Knight Radiant Orders, the Heralds presumably took on additional duties: assisting the Radiants with the reconstruction of society, and teaching the Radiant Orders advanced use of the Surges. Each Herald became the patron of their corresponding Order, and could have led them in a philosophical manner as well. 
 

The Current Situation

However, with Jezrien dead and and advent of the Everstorm, the Oathpact is either crippled or worthless for its original purpose. The Fused aren’t going back to Braize, so even if one or more of the Heralds went back, it is doubtful any Fused would be trapped as they were before. 
 

Due to Taln’s supreme sacrifice & the betrayal of the other Heralds, humanity was given an enormous amount of time to recover. Although society has become more fragmented and no longer as cooperative than during the Heraldic Epochs (an assumption, given we know so little about them), technology progression has been astounding. Fabrial technology in particular is hugely more advanced than during the time of the Heralds. Humanity no longer has a need to relearn casting bronze, basic medical procedure, or many of the other duties the Heralds performed during their usual return for a Desolation. 

Furthermore, Brandon has explicitly stated that all their Heralds are insane. “Do not trust anything any Herald says. Ever.” So this takes away from the Herald’s other main reason for being in the story - their massive wealth of knowledge. Many of them have of course, been alive since Ashyn fell, have thousands of years of combat experience, and have a higher than average (for current Roshar) levels of Cosmere knowledge. 

What Comes Next

So, the Heralds cannot perform their original duty of upholding the Oathpact. They cannot be trusted fully to provide information or even opinion. They are too valuable to risk being used heavily - if at all - for fighting on the front lines. Clearly they are still somewhat of a danger, as the Fused want them dead, but seemed afraid of killing Jezrien themselves. So what else are they good for? 

 

Narratively, I think the answer to this question will be that the Heralds are valuable because of their flashback sequences. Looking back to the exodus from Ashyn, the time of the Dawnsingers and the First Desolation, this will be excellent exposition that would otherwise be impossible to attain (except for a Fused POV, I suppose). 

 

Practically speaking, I am having a hard time coming up with a good explanation for what the Heralds will be doing in Stormlight 4 and 5. I look forward to anyone’s prediction or analysis on this topic. 

 

I debated placing this in the Stormlight forum, but decided RoW would be safer. We don’t have much new info on the Heralds yet, but if we do get some, I’d like to discuss it.

As always, thank you for reading. 

[Chana]

Hmm I think Heralds (esp. Ash) still can be used as a source of information, we know from RoW that they did get some information from her and getting her PoV in OB was very interesting in my opinion. Like sure we have to kinda take her words with a grain of salt but I feel like Brandon can throw a lot of forshadowing there.

Idk if you mean just Taln and Ash who seems to be staying in Uruthiru for now cause other heralds seem to be more active. We know Nale joined Odium so he'll probably be an antagonist either in this book or the next one. Ishar is probably ruling a country (sorry forgot the name) as the god-king or whatever it was so he'll probably also be a minor antagonist at some point. From Navani's prologue we know that Kalak was somewhat involved with Gavilar but honestly who knows how active it was on his side. 

For others we know we saw all of them on screen but it's a wild guess what they're doing. We know Pailiah was last seen in Palanaceum but I honestly have no clue what she's up to now the desolation is here. Wouldn't be surprised if GBs contacted some of them and maybe that's how we'll get them on screen.

[+honorblades]

4 hours ago, Chana said:

Idk if you mean just Taln and Ash who seems to be staying in Uruthiru for now cause other heralds seem to be more active.

Right right, I should have made this more clear in my post: Nale, Ishar, and really any other antagonistic Herald will obviously have an interesting and important role to play. Who I am referring to in my above post are the Heralds who do decide to try and help humanity and the KR. 
 

It’s really hard to guess what could be in store for Heralds like Vedel or Chana, neither of whom I don’t think we have even seen yet. At least not confirmed sightings, like we have of Taln or Shalash. 

Edited October 4, 2020 by lightweaver spy

[Karger]

Most of the Heralds I think will be useful as antagonists or at least weird people that both sides have trouble predicting and dealing with.

[+Oltux72]

On 4.10.2020 at 5:56 AM, lightweaver spy said:

FFurthermore, Brandon has explicitly stated that all their Heralds are insane. “Do not trust anything any Herald says. Ever.” So this takes away from the Herald’s other main reason for being in the story - their massive wealth of knowledge.

No. You just need to question Heralds separately and compare answers. You can also seek independent verification. For example if they tell you where an ancient fortress was located, you look for traces undeer the crem. Like questioning prisoners, basically. A hassle but doable.

On 4.10.2020 at 5:56 AM, lightweaver spy said:

So, the Heralds cannot perform their original duty of upholding the Oathpact. They cannot be trusted fully to provide information or even opinion.

Especially not opinion.

On 4.10.2020 at 5:56 AM, lightweaver spy said:

They are too valuable to risk being used heavily - if at all - for fighting on the front lines. Clearly they are still somewhat of a danger, as the Fused want them dead, but seemed afraid of killing Jezrien themselves. So what else are they good for?

Scientific study.

 

[Black_Shoshan]

On 10/4/2020 at 6:56 AM, lightweaver spy said:

Practically speaking, I am having a hard time coming up with a good explanation for what the Heralds will be doing in Stormlight 4 and 5. I look forward to anyone’s prediction or analysis on this topic. 

I don't think they will be doing much in Stormlight 4 and 5. Brandon even confirmed that Taln and Ash don't have any PoVs in RoW. We will probably see Nale again, if not in RoW than for sure in book 5, for Szeth's storyline, but other than that I think it'll be just minor roles and hints that will all be expanded on in the second arc.

Brandon said in the past that the second arc of Stormlight will deal much more with the heralds, and we'll have two books of heralds flashbacks. I expect that whatever ending book 5 will be and whenever the second arc opens, it will have a connection to the Heralds in a way that will make their backstory even more relevant to the conflict than the first arc is. 

[+Bliev]

1 hour ago, Black_Shoshan said:

I don't think they will be doing much in Stormlight 4 and 5. Brandon even confirmed that Taln and Ash don't have any PoVs in RoW. We will probably see Nale again, if not in RoW than for sure in book 5, for Szeth's storyline, but other than that I think it'll be just minor roles and hints that will all be expanded on in the second arc.

Brandon said in the past that the second arc of Stormlight will deal much more with the heralds, and we'll have two books of heralds flashbacks. I expect that whatever ending book 5 will be and whenever the second arc opens, it will have a connection to the Heralds in a way that will make their backstory even more relevant to the conflict than the first arc is. 

Agreed. I don't think they have much of a role in the current war, outside of what we've already seen them do. I think there will be moments with them reminding of us of the stakes and the history, but they will be less plot-relevant in books 4 and 5. As we zoom out to see the broader Cosmere story, their history becomes really relevant: how did Honor bind Odium, how did the Oathpact occur, what happened next, etc. That's where the Heralds' experiences become  more plot-relevant, imo. I wonder how many will be "left" at that time, though. Will more of them get murdered by Moash's knife before we get to the back 5? 

[Master Silver]

I know Gavilar was seeking immortality, would killing the heralds and truly claiming their blades grant immortality? As was stated so well, they are broken and insane. Their spirit webs have been smashed repeatedly. The spren bond seems to help with that, but even Nale is insane or highly unstable. So would hearalds with radiant spren bonds hold up better? But regardless of any of that, you seemingly need a shard to kill a shard. 

[Rorzikel]

I don't know to what degree knowledge can be gained from the Heralds who join the Radiants at Urithiru or at least ally with them at some point, but I'd say that the humans need to give them the honor and respect that I don't see in a lot of mindsets- they aren't lab rats or archives or pawns- they're the greatest heroes on the planet. Even the ones like Ishar and Nale. They fought and were tortured willingly for thousands of years to protect humanity and every drop of blood in a Rosharan's veins only flows because oceans have been spilt of the Heralds'. Every thought and deed, every nation and culture, every language and people exists on the backs of the Heralds' suffering. Every song may be sung only because of the Heralds' screams, every lover only knows their partner's body because every inch of the Heralds' has been violated, every child may play only because the Heralds' burdens never ended for thousands of years. They're heroes and their brokenness and frailty doesn't lessen their deeds, it only exemplifies a debt owed to them that can never truly be repaid.

[Master Silver]

Don't think less of us for only talking about the intricacies of waging war against Odium. Were we the people of Roshar, I'm sure we would feel differently. We speak as generals during a warfighter exercise.