Oaths of the Fused?

[Factfinder]

Hi everyone! Over the last week, I've been thinking about how the Fused are direct analogs to the Knights Radiant, to the point of having identical surges (albeit one of each rather than two).  So I thought perhaps that extended to the Fused swearing Oaths as well.  I couldn't find anything about this in the forums, so I decided to post my best attempts at coming up with potential Fused Oaths.

The inspiration for these Oaths came from what we've learned about the Fused in the early-release chapters for Rhythm of War, so I'm posting this here in the spoiler section.  Nothing below actually seems spoiler-y, but I figured it was better to be cautious.

 

Windrunner: I will protect.

Fused equivalent: I will destroy.

"Our people will never be safe so long as the enemy yet lives.  No cost is too great to see our foes ended.  If thousands of us must die today, so be it.  Our children, who by our actions will never know the cruelty we have endured, will one day thank us for our sacrifice."

 

Skybreaker: I will seek justice

Fused equivalent: I will have vengeance.

"Our people were betrayed, and our enemies have stolen what is ours.  For this they must be punished.  It matters not if the original perpetrators now lie dead, for their children yet live, and must pay the price of the crimes of their ancestors.  Only when they have suffered as we have suffered will we finally know peace."

 

Dustbringer: I will seek self-mastery

Fused equivalent: I will submit to my masters

"I couldn’t control myself.  I didn’t want to hurt them, but I was so angry, so afraid….  I lashed out, but I didn’t mean to!  Please, help me!  I fear it will happen again. The next time I see their smirking faces, hear their taunts and lies, I won’t be able to stop it!  I’ll follow your orders, do anything you want, just take from me the responsibility.  Let someone else bear the blame for what I do!"

 

Edgedancer: I will remember.

Fused equivalent: I will not forgive.

"Memories are so short; the next generation is always too quick to overlook the pains inflicted upon the last and then move on in the name of peace.  But I was there.  I saw, and I endured, and I will not allow the mere passage of time to allow our foes to escape just retribution.  I will remind my children – all of the children! – of what was done to us, so that when they see the face of the enemy their hatred will be kin to my own."

 

Truthwatcher: I will seek truth

Fused equivalent: I will forge my own truth.

"Today, it’s useful to me that everyone believes one thing, but tomorrow is a new day.  If some other truth is more useful then, I’ll see to it that everyone changes their mind.  A whispered word here, a mere hint dropped there, and suddenly the world is upside down.  A king stands in my way?  Spread the right rumor, and the mob will see him removed and now it is I that sits upon his throne.  No laws need ever bind me, for the truth is what I say it is."

 

Lightweaver: I will speak my truth

Fused equivalent: I will reject the past that binds me.

"It was simply too much.  The pain, the grief, the fear…  Can you blame me for just walking away?  It was so easy.   I‘ve made a new life for myself, in a new place, and I’ll never again have to remember what came before.  So what if I left friends and loved ones behind?  They would have left me eventually anyway, because everyone always does, one way or another.  Better to be the one that left.  And if anyone ever tries to hurt me again… well, I’m a new person now.  And I won’t be the  one who’s the victim anymore."

 

Elsecaller: I will reach my potential.

Fused equivalent: I will not be replaced.

"I’m the best.   Everyone knows it, and no one will ever take that from me.   But now this newcomer, she think she's so good, so skilled.  She think I’ve gotten weaker and slower since my victory, and that now she stands a chance against me.  I won’t have it.  I worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to allow some idiot child to claim it for herself.  I will tear her down and leave her broken in the dust for having the gall to think even for one moment that she could ever be half as good as me."

 

Willshaper: I will seek freedom

Fused equivalent: I will be in control

"Power and authority are mine by right.  I am stronger, smarter, and more capable than the fools that surround me.  I will not tolerate dissension, for the enemy will be sure to exploit the inevitable mistakes anyone else would make in my place.  Those who are reasonable will bow before my superiority, and they can be allowed some minor autonomy on less important matters.  But those that resist?  They threaten everything will their incompetence.  For the good of all, I will bend them to my will.  There is always menial work that needs doing, and slaves required to do it, after all."

 

Stoneward: I will be there when I’m needed.

Fused equivalent: I will rely on no one but myself.

"Life is filled with disappointments.  Allies betray you, friends forget about you, and even lovers grow tiresome eventually.  You can’t rely on anyone, so why pretend otherwise?  Look, you say you need help but I don’t owe you anything.  Solve your own problems and leave me to mine.  I’m not about to do you any favors.  Call it selfish if you want,  I honestly don’t care.  This is just how life works.  At least I admit it."

 

Bondsmith: I will unite.

Fused equivalent: N/A

Note: There are only 9 types of Fused, and like many others here I suspect it is the Bondsmiths that don’t have an equivalent.

[Gilphon]

So I broadly agree with the of the Fused having Oaths of some kind, but I don't think they're directly reversed from the Radiants ones like this. Like the Heavenly Ones, who appears to broadly analogous to the Windrunners, aren't focused on destruction. I would say that the Heavenly Ones seem to focused on competition. They like to prove that they're better than their enemies by fighting fair as along as their enemies agree to do the same, and have a particular affection for 1-on-1 duels.

I couldn't say much beyond that though; Lezian and Radoniel are only Fused from other Brands where I feel like I understand them as individuals, and we don't have enough information to say how representative they are of their Brands. 

[+robardin]

I definitely don't see the Fused as "polar opposites" to the Radiants; you only need look at someone like Leshwi to appreciate that, as one of the ones who are still sane, and reflects on how far most of the Fused have drifted from their original motivations/selves in terms of what they're willing to do. By and large they're caught up in just wanting to finally win at all costs - but they weren't originally like that, rather they were mostly originally like she is now.

When Raboniel speaks of how the humans haven't yet learned "the power of oaths" I don't think she is referring to oaths that the Fused themselves have made:

Quote

They have made great strides in understanding the prisons of spren, but they know little about the bond, the power of oaths, the nature of the tones of the world. They are cremlings building a nest beneath the shadow of a great temple. They take pride in what they have done, but cannot grasp the beauties around them.

"The bond" = the Nahel bond, which she knows (or thinks she knows) something about "the deep mechanics" that the current crop of autodidact Radiants do not, and "the power of oaths" I would think is something of the Nahel bond, of Honor. Or perhaps of massive fabrials involving sentient spren, like the Oathgates are - ever wonder why are they called that?

You might say, because it requires a Radiant of the Third Ideal with a living Shardblade to operate them - but Odium also said that his forces would be able to use/repair the one at Thaylen City if it were accidentally destroyed by Thunderclasts, so long as the gems were recovered. Isn't that interesting? And this is before they had either Malata the Diagram Dustbringer in hand, or Jezrien's Honorblade that the Diagram managed to steal.

"The nature of the tones of the world" = not just the rhythms of Roshar, but something that ties in with "cymatics", the formation of great cities like Kholinar.

[LordTheodore]

The notion of the Fused swearing oaths is ridiculous since the shard of Honor has dominion over oaths and they are literally opposed to Honor. The idea that Odium would put oaths into the Fused would be contradictory to everything we know about him.

Edited October 28, 2020 by LordTheodore
capitalising Honor

[IcaroRibeiro]

Fused aren't bonded to spren, as such I don't think any ideals are required

Besides Honor is the shard of oaths and liaisons, shards magical manifestation of investiture are generally related with shards own intent, II'm sure Odium grant access to power through emotions. Fused gained their power trough through hatred against mankind developed over many centuries of war

Edited October 28, 2020 by IcaroRibeiro

[Cheat Commando]

46 minutes ago, IcaroRibeiro said:

Fused aren't bonded to spren, as such I don't think any ideals are required

Besides Honor is the shard of oaths and liaisons, shards magical manifestation of investiture are generally related with shards own intent, I'm sure Odium grant  access to powers trough emotions. Fused gained their power trough deep hatred against mankind developed over many centuries of war

If there is something like this, perhaps each Brand is associated with a particular Passion, a specific desire they must continually nurture and feel?

[treblkickd]

Great thread - I've been looking for a discussion about the Fused and their powers! There are a few things about the fused that really puzzle me, and I'm kind of amazed at how little we actually know about them and their abilities. Based on the things that we do know I've started to wonder if the Fused are more like analogs to the Heralds than the Radiants. Specifically, consider the following:

 

1) The Fused seem to be fixed in number - Odium made them at some point in the past and we have no evidence (that I'm aware of, at least) of their ranks increasing over time.

2) Vasher basically tells us point blank in RoW that in "realmatic" terms the Fused are the same thing (cognitive shadows) as the Heralds.

3) We now know that the fundamental purpose of the Oathpact is to use the Heralds to bind the Fused on Braize. There is no evidence that I'm aware of that directly pits the Heralds' existence against the Unmade (rather it seems that the Unmade are spren-like forces that never leave Roshar).

4) There's a natural tendency to compare the Unmade to the Heralds, but many (most) of the Unmade are force-of-nature-like spren, and doesn't that make them more similar to the "great spren" associated with the Bondsmiths?

 

Now, there are obviously no clear equivalents to the Honor blades among the Fused, but that could just reflect Odium's preference to divest less of himself into his minions. In any event, I'm super excited to learn more about the Fused and where they came from.

 

[IcaroRibeiro]

1 hour ago, Cheat Commando said:

If there is something like this, perhaps each Brand is associated with a particular Passion, a specific desire they must continually nurture and feel?

This theory is more likely than oaths, that's for sure. Singers orders seems to be different so I guess the singer passion defines what orders they are most fit, but it's hard to tell exactly which passion represents each brand  as many of them display different levels of insanity (Fannahn-im for instance are mostly crazy and live on the purpose of soulcast resources)

Edited October 28, 2020 by IcaroRibeiro

[Aon Tia]

10 hours ago, LordTheodore said:

The notion of the Fused swearing oaths is ridiculous since the shard of Honor has dominion over oaths and they are literally opposed to Honor. The idea that Odium would put oaths into the Fused would be contradictory to everything we know about him.

I agree. Although I don’t think the idea is ridiculous.
 

An oath based investiture is something that a shard Honor has, makes total sense. Cultivation is also seen in the system where they are required to be cultivated or steered in the desired direction by spren and that causes them to progress along. 
 

But odium is all about emotion, or rather giving up of all emotion for odium. And in this surrendering their self, they are chosen by odium. 
So different bands of fused are more like focusing on different emotions rather than swearing opposite oaths. 

[Realmatic Shadow]

There is probably a relation between the inverse oaths that you've mentioned and the specific Passions they need to exemplify. While Honor's system is based off of oaths, and Odium's likely is based off of emotions, they both access the same powers (or at least ones that work off of the same basic principles).

[Solant]

I agree that the oaths are strictly Honor, but the Fused are originally Singers, who were of Honor, so the oaths could be something that Odium co-opted when making the fused. The oaths could actually be identical with just a very different interpretation than the KR. I don't really believe it, since they lack spren bonds that we know of (I'm not convinced they don't bond voidspren or corrupted spren yet) but it's something to consider. Plus, the fused would have to predate the KR oaths since the KR were probably created in response to them. You can ignore me talking now.

[SomeRandomPeasant]

On 10/27/2020 at 4:58 PM, LordTheodore said:

The notion of the Fused swearing oaths is ridiculous since the shard of Honor has dominion over oaths and they are literally opposed to Honor. The idea that Odium would put oaths into the Fused would be contradictory to everything we know about him.

I don't think the original poster was arguing that Odium's Investiture is solely concerned with swearing oaths.  They were simply theorizing about the link between the Passions and the Oaths. 

This isn't Ruin(Hemalurgy) versus Preservation(Allomancy) where both shards had distinctly unique systems of Investiture.  The Passions are too similar to the Oaths, right down to the precise type of surges that are being used.  It would be far too much of a coincidence if there was no connection between the Passions and the Oaths  If I had to guess, Odium's Investiture has to do with corrupting other manifestations of Investiture.

[+robardin]

On 10/27/2020 at 9:51 PM, treblkickd said:

Great thread - I've been looking for a discussion about the Fused and their powers! There are a few things about the fused that really puzzle me, and I'm kind of amazed at how little we actually know about them and their abilities. Based on the things that we do know I've started to wonder if the Fused are more like analogs to the Heralds than the Radiants. Specifically, consider the following:

1) The Fused seem to be fixed in number - Odium made them at some point in the past and we have no evidence (that I'm aware of, at least) of their ranks increasing over time.

2) Vasher basically tells us point blank in RoW that in "realmatic" terms the Fused are the same thing (cognitive shadows) as the Heralds.

3) We now know that the fundamental purpose of the Oathpact is to use the Heralds to bind the Fused on Braize. There is no evidence that I'm aware of that directly pits the Heralds' existence against the Unmade (rather it seems that the Unmade are spren-like forces that never leave Roshar).

4) There's a natural tendency to compare the Unmade to the Heralds, but many (most) of the Unmade are force-of-nature-like spren, and doesn't that make them more similar to the "great spren" associated with the Bondsmiths?

Now, there are obviously no clear equivalents to the Honor blades among the Fused, but that could just reflect Odium's preference to divest less of himself into his minions. In any event, I'm super excited to learn more about the Fused and where they came from.

Good points all, but especially the bolded ones.

The "fixed in number" thing about the Fused (and I would imagine, the Thunderclasts) is strongly implied. The Fused all know each other by name and pattern for many millennia now. Many of them - maybe not a majority, yet - are now insane, to different degrees: some to the point of inaction, others simply "going off the rails" like how Leshwi views the Pursuer and Raboniel as having done.

Similar to the Heralds'... Enheraldment?, it seems like the Fused were all created at the same time.

Yet the Fused must have come first, before the Heralds formed the Oathpact, as you point out that the main point of it was to be able to hold back the Fused on Braize in between Desolations. And as evidenced by the False Desolation, it's not like the "parsh" didn't continue to resist and to fight without them; they were simply without immortal leaders with many lifetimes of experience, and without their power of Surges and Thunderclasts, until such time as one of the Heralds "broke" and "their gods" were able to return to them.

And both Fused and Heralds being "Cognitive Shadows" in nature must be linked both to the mechanics of their immortality, and to how they function (or no longer quite function) as time goes on.

[treblkickd]

On 10/29/2020 at 2:50 PM, robardin said:

Yet the Fused must have come first, before the Heralds formed the Oathpact, as you point out that the main point of it was to be able to hold back the Fused on Braize in between Desolations. And as evidenced by the False Desolation, it's not like the "parsh" didn't continue to resist and to fight without them; they were simply without immortal leaders with many lifetimes of experience, and without their power of Surges and Thunderclasts, until such time as one of the Heralds "broke" and "their gods" were able to return to them.

Agreed on all points, though I am still trying to get a clear understanding in my head of how the Fused came to be, and also how the Fused came to control surge (and also why they only seem to have access to nine of the ten surges).

Two potentially related pieces of information that seem to complicate things are:

1) the Fused did not initially have access to the Surges according to the Stormfather (Oathbringer Ch 38), and specifically on this topic the Stormfather says, "...even before the Fused learned to command the surges...", which make it sounds like their surge-related abilities are learned skills that they picked up on their own (???)

2) it is still not clear what "voidbinding" actually is - does it refer generally to using voidlight to power surges, or is it a a specific mechanism for gaining access to surges (which could be powered by voidlight or stormlight)? I guess the other side of that question would be, "technically speaking, what is surgebinding?" Is it a mechanism (bonding with a spren) to gain access to surges, or is it the use of a specific source (stormlight) to use surges. For example, Renarin has some weird abilities, but how are we supposed to characterize them? Does he both voidbind and surgebind? He seems, so far, to exclusively use stormlight, so if he's doing any voidbinding then that would seem to imply that voidbinding can be powered with stormlight or voidlight (this makes sense to me in that different forms of investiture can power different systems, sometimes via "hacks" along the lines of Vasher substituting stormlight for breaths). The other pieces that must fit in here somewhere are the Regals, which seem to me to be the most likely cases of "pure" voidbinding (i.e., you become one by binding a voidspren in your gemheart). This would make the Regals the natural counterpart of the Knights Radiant, but it all feels very nebulous based on the available information.

I'll also note that re: the Unmade, I just noticed that there is in fact a WoB that directly relates the Unmade to the "Great Spren", indicating that the analogs to the Unmade are indeed spren like the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher:

 

Quote

 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

1) The Nightwatcher and Stormfather are parallel entities such that Nighwatcher:Cultivation :: Stormfather:Honor.

2) There is sort of a parallel for Odium, but the parallel is the various Unmade instead of a single entity.

3) They are parallel in that they are all Splinters.

4) The Unmade are voluntary Splinters, because Odium ("like almost all of the other Shards") voluntarily Splintered part of it's power.

5) The Stormfather is different from the others because it's a Sliver.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by treblkickd