Heralds madness - corrupted purposes

[IndigoAjah he/him]

So I think we've seen enough of our Heralds to tell this: the brand of madness for each broken Herald is a corruption or subversion of their role and their focus. 

 

Nale was a mad Javert who abused justice to hunt the most minor of criminals, and has now expanded that to a global bizarre interpretation of law. 

Ishar, a leader and Bondsmith, has created an unfair empire and disunity.

Jezrien, a King and Leader and Protector, his away in a position of no responsibility 

 

Shalash destroying art, where images and art and inner truth are all linked to her Order.

Kalak the Willshaper leads to Singer enslavement rather than liberation.

So what do we think our missing Heralds will be doing?

 

 

 

[Karger he/him]

So yes this is one we have known for a little while.

Quote

Questioner

The Heralds seem to be insane in the ways of their Divine Attributes, at least somewhat. Is this because they're Heralds? As Cognitive Shadows, they're subject to people's perception, like how spren are?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a very astute question, and yes, that is influencing them quite a bit. I'm doing something here with the Heralds. Like, I want the Heralds "madnesses," as we call them, to be magical diseases. And the contrast of something like Kaladin's depression, which I'm trying to treat very real-world. I'm trying to treat them as these things that couldn't exist in our world. They're fantastical mental diseases, like we have fantastic physical diseases in Elantris. So I did make them thematic, and I would say part of the reason for that is people's perception of them and their mental state reacting against that. And that should be a theme among all of the Heralds.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

We have some idea of what is going on with Nale, Kelek Ishar, Tan, Ash and Jes.  Battar is in Karbranth.  Her advice may be behind some of the diagram's crazier schemes(She is the Herald of good council).  Pailah in my mind spends her time researching insane topics that are of no use to anyone.  Vedel is probably a serial killer and I think Chana might be an assassin(Liss is an obvious choice).

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

  Vedel is probably a serial killer

THAT's a DELIGHTFUL image.

I'm just grateful she doesn't have her Honorblade for it...

[Karger he/him]

13 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I'm just grateful she doesn't have her Honorblade for it...

Yikes!

[Flyingbooks]

I think that this might be the result of some sort of system that was meant to keep them from getting too Intent-bound overreacting. It was originally meant to stabilize their mental states by "tugging" in the opposite direction from the effect of people's perceptions, but it tugged too far. There's no evidence of such warping happening before the Oathpact was abandoned and Taln doesn't seem to be reacting against people's perception of him the way that the others are (though he does have his own problems, which are probably the result of the thousands of years of torture he went through unaided), so it's likely a direct result of the lack of a Connection to the Oathpact.

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

15 hours ago, Flyingbooks42 said:

Taln doesn't seem to be reacting against people's perception of him the way that the others are (though he does have his own problems, which are probably the result of the thousands of years of torture he went through unaided), so it's likely a direct result of the lack of a Connection to the Oathpact.

Dalinar's Oath at the Battle of Thaylen Fields does bring him back to himself for a short while, so he has to be sharing some aspect of their madness. Though I agree that his different experience means we can't extrapolate anything from him to the other Heralds.

[Alcatur]

14 minutes ago, Necessary Eagle said:

Dalinar's Oath at the Battle of Thaylen Fields does bring him back to himself for a short while, so he has to be sharing some aspect of their madness. Though I agree that his different experience means we can't extrapolate anything from him to the other Heralds.

Taln appears to have two separate issues:

His general state of mental exhaustion by the millenia spend in Braize

More supernatural thing, maybe a disconnect from Honor  due to loosing his Honorblade that he occasionally briefly recovers from 

21 hours ago, IndigoAjah said:

Kalak the Willshaper leads to Singer enslavement rather than liberation.

 

This was accidental though? His issue is inability to make a decision or even fight. Enslavement of the singers was an accident as I understand - they didn't realise the extend of damage BAM imprisonment would do, and ended with lobotomized slaveforms who couldn't decide for themselves.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Alcatur

[quackquack]

I find the similarities between the Heralds and Fused interesting.  

I assume the Fused existed before the Heralds were made immortal/creation of the oathpact.   

I'm going to assume a non trivial amount of fused have lost their mind.  As have the heralds, in their own way, perhaps it's the differences between Singer and Human.  

This makes me wonder if Hoid will eventually unravel.   

[Master Silver]

What if the Heralds madness is due to not being reincarnate. So we know they are all cognitive shadows right? So their cognitive selves take physical form. Honor knew they would die over and over again. So, what if them dying was supposed to act as a reset button, taking them back to the time when they were their best selves. They retain their memories, but their cognitive shadows upon reincarnation are the selves that took up the oath pact. The further they stray from the oath pact and their noble sacrifice the more they become the inverse of what they were. And perhaps Talin's madness is also due to them eventually not killing him anymore and just going around the oath pact. So I wonder if a normal death would reset them so to speak. 

 

No idea when I wrote the above ^^^^ I was just wondering how much of a power shift having (9 now) Heralds healed of their madness and fighting for team Radiant. Do you think the humans could win even with the Everstorm? 

[Aspiring Writer]

On 11/29/2020 at 8:57 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

THAT's a DELIGHTFUL image.

I'm just grateful she doesn't have her Honorblade for it...

That we know of. We didn't know Ishar had his.