The Girl who looked up, How Hoid's stories are a Chekhov's gun

[I Am A Fish he/him]

A while ago, I posted a thread, in the RoW area, asking what landmasses people thought could exist. My evidence chief evidence for another landmass was this:

1. Puuli's interlude Hello there! Remember Res. The next clue is at work, you know... A shop.
2. The story of the Wandersail Spiked Chasmfiends anyone?

Now most people agreed with me, that there probably was another landmass, but that's irrelevant. Today I want to talk about the tales Hoid tells in SA, and like the wandersail, how I believe that they are relevant, to the plot of SA... OoOoH You found a link

At first glance, Hoid's stories seem to be nothing more than little Easter eggs. But... 

We know that's not the case, because of the Girl Who Looked Up.

The Girl Who Looked Up seems to be directly relevant to early human history in the Rosharan system. Probably telling of the consequences of Surgebinding, or the humans venturing out of Shinovar. 

I've already shared my thoughts on what I think the Wandersail is, and quite frankly the tales of Fleet, and the clever moon continue to stump me. 

What do you think?

Post thoughts below: 

Edited January 7, 2021 by I Am A Fish
Adding the moon

[Shard of Reading he/him]

Fleet was relevant to Kaladin's character growth.

You also forgot the story about the clever moon.

[I Am A Fish he/him]

9 minutes ago, Shard of Reading said:

Fleet was relevant to Kaladin's character growth.

You also forgot the story about the clever moon.

Being added now.

[+Bliev she/her]

I feel like the Fleet story, while a vehicle for Kaladin's character growth and an allegory for "journey before destination", also is a message about humans besting the storms, and signaling the importance of Shinovar to winning the war. Fleet has to go through the mountains and it's not until he gets to Shinovar that the storm wears out--but the catch is, that Fleet dies when he gets there. Maybe it means nothing...or maybe it means that unlocking the secret of Shinovar can win the war, but it will cost him his life?

The clever moon. I LOVE that story. I actually read it to my daughter as a bedtime story once. :-) I'll have to think about that one some more. 

[Use the Falchion]

Yeah, I'm more on the side of The Girl Who Stood Up as being the story of the first Desolation. Heck, maybe that girl was Shalash. We don't know if Ash was born on Roshar or Ashyn (although the latter is more likely), and she's been depicted as having white hair more than once. And the idea of Ash's history inspiring one in the order she's the patron of isn't too far out there. If Syl can connect to Shallan walking on the beach, then why can't Hoid's story connect to Ash's history?

I have no idea about the other stories, but I'll enjoy the connections when they pop up. 

[Valigus]

I’m certain the girl who looked up is ash, in one instance where shallan tells the story the girls hair randomly

turns white without her doing it, and ashes hair in herald images is shown to be white.

[MGershone]

The story of Nomon and the Natanatan queen seems like the kind of ancient origin myth you get in Greek or Norse mythology, but could actually be based on some weird thing with an early Natanatan queen and a magical moon related thingy - I can't think what exactly

[starman2995]

So I just had an idea after rereading the story of Fleet. I'm going to create my own post about later, but my theory is that Fleet was an actually person, and when he died, he became the stormfather. We know that when someone dies and are able to take in a large amount of investiture, they can remain alive. The highstorm is Honor's perpendicularly, or is at least described as a place where all three realms meet. There is also clearly enough investiture there to create a cognitive shadow. And the end of the story, talking about him continuing to ride the winds, just seems to fit so perfectly. I imagine Honor was the one controlling the storm back then, but when he saw this display from Fleet, he probably decided to give him this gift of riding and guiding the storm.

[MGershone]

6 minutes ago, starman2995 said:

So I just had an idea after rereading the story of Fleet. I'm going to create my own post about later, but my theory is that Fleet was an actually person, and when he died, he became the stormfather. We know that when someone dies and are able to take in a large amount of investiture, they can remain alive. The highstorm is Honor's perpendicularly, or is at least described as a place where all three realms meet. There is also clearly enough investiture there to create a cognitive shadow. And the end of the story, talking about him continuing to ride the winds, just seems to fit so perfectly. I imagine Honor was the one controlling the storm back then, but when he saw this display from Fleet, he probably decided to give him this gift of riding and guiding the storm.

That is a very cool theory, and it would fit with having each story being some reference to Rosharan history

[Nellac]

18 hours ago, MGershone said:

The story of Nomon and the Natanatan queen seems like the kind of ancient origin myth you get in Greek or Norse mythology, but could actually be based on some weird thing with an early Natanatan queen and a magical moon related thingy - I can't think what exactly

Could be something with the queen and a worldhopper or someone from Braize before the full evacuation.

[MGershone]

On 1/7/2021 at 4:36 PM, Nellac said:

Could be something with the queen and a worldhopper or someone from Braize before the full evacuation.

Is it possible that there are somehow people on the moons of Roshar, or something like that? Not necessarily human people, but people?

[+Harrycrapper]

5 hours ago, MGershone said:

Is it possible that there are somehow people on the moons of Roshar, or something like that? Not necessarily human people, but people?

Not sure about that, but maybe there are large sapient spren that represent various humans' deific perception of the moons. 

[MGershone]

1 hour ago, Harrycrapper said:

Not sure about that, but maybe there are large sapient spren that represent various humans' deific perception of the moons. 

So like a starspren, but a moonspren? Cool idea. So then what happened when they switched? The spren came to the Physical Realm, and the queen went to the location of Roshar's moon in Shadesmar?

[Could Be Fire]

 

 

 

 

On 1/6/2021 at 7:13 PM, MGershone said:

The story of Nomon and the Natanatan queen seems like the kind of ancient origin myth you get in Greek or Norse mythology, but could actually be based on some weird thing with an early Natanatan queen and a magical moon related thingy - I can't think what exactly

My best guess is that if it has serious relevance then it's about how humans first made a deal with Honor. 

At the most basic the story details how one of the great powers tries to trick a human, and she ends up tricking them and hooking up with the other two powers to gain a little bit of their magic for herself. 

You could take Mishim as Odium who tries to trick the humans and originally makes a deal with them.  Nomon as Honor, it's even called Honor's moon, who realizes he actually likes the humans after all (Salas and Nomon welcoming Tsa with feasts and treating them better than they did Misham) and gives them permission to access forbidden magic (Tsa looking at the starspren vs. humanity access to surge binding/oathpact).

Hoid says the story explains why "still crafty Mishim" hasn't tried to leave her place again. It could be that Odium isn't still trying to make deals with the humans because they screwed him over and joined Honor/Cultivation last time. That's why he's focused on the Singers now. 

Of course, if we go off coloration then Mishim (green) should be Cultivation and Salas (violet) Odium. Which doesn't fit as well with my theory but is interesting considering how much we know about Cultivation and her goals.