Yelig-nar

[Dawnshard]

I wanted to mention somthing no one has brought up. What are the unmade? Yelig-nar was mention twice in The Way of Kings once when Daliner was talking to Nohadon and once before the beginning of a chapter.

Nohandon said "all of my wordsmen were slaughteed when Yelig-nar broke into the chancery." who is Yelig-nar because he was mentioned before one of the chapter number 45 "Yelig-nar, called Blightwind, was one that could speak like a man, though often his voice was accompanied by the wails of those he consumed."

-The Unmade were obviously fabrications of folklore. Curiously, most were not considered individuals, but instead personifications of kinds of destruction. (pg 617)

I think they might be a voidish creature that has to do with voidbinding. Thoughts?

[darniil]

I don't think there's enough information yet to even let us guess.

(And shouldn't this be in the General Theories board? >_> )

[Chaos]

I will move it to the Stormlight Archive board since it is specific to that series.

[Sunblesser]

for some reason, yelig-nar, and the two references he gets, gives me the impression that he, and the unmade, might be something like the inchoroi from bakker's second apocalypse. the mention of the 'wails of those he consumed', even the name 'unmade' shares an aesthetic with the meaning of inchoroi which is 'people of emptiness'.

it's interesting, because if sanderson is the light side of brilliant characterization, awe-inspiring plotting and worldbuilding, and unique and thought-provoking religions and magic systems, then bakker is the dark side. the dark, dark, dark side.

the unmade definitely sound as though they're voidish, and the opposite of what surgebinders would be about. honor binds things, odium unmakes them. this would still be distinct from ruin however, as unmaking something is quite a bit different from breaking something down into smaller and smaller pieces. it's a reversal, and this fits with odium's intent, because if you hate something through and through, i think you would be trying to take it completely out of existence, as if it never were. you would want it to be unmade. in this, it is quite a bit more devastating and unstoppable than ruin, which accounts for why hoid would consider it the most dangerous and terrible of the shards.

the unmaking of things is probably odium's ultimate goal, but before you mention it, this doesn't preclude odium doing hateful things in the interim. like torturing heralds in fire and brimstone for thousands of years while they wait to fight against your minions, hopping around killing your old rivals, and just generally being a twat.

edit: ruin is a rational, calculating destruction, and odium is an irrational, savage destruction.

Edited September 29, 2011 by Sunblesser

[Argent]

Wasn't he one of the Ten Fools?

[Satsuoni]

@Argent: No. I think, of them , only Cabine is ever mentioned by name.

The unmade are probably creatures created by voidbinding out of raw materials. I think the Thunderclast are also of the same type (made out of rock infused with Void/Darklight).

[Xavien]

Nohandon said "all of my wordsmen were slaughteed when Yelig-nar broke into the chancery." who is Yelig-nar because he was mentioned before one of the chapter number 45 "Yelig-nar, called Blightwind, was one that could speak like a man, though often his voice was accompanied by the wails of those he consumed."

-The Unmade were obviously fabrications of folklore. Curiously, most were not considered individuals, but instead personifications of kinds of destruction. (pg 617)

"most were not considered individuals" and "was one that could speak like a man" reminds me a bit of Syl.

Could it be a type of spren? So far most of the spren we have seen have been linked to nature or strong emotion: flamespren, windspren, gloryspren; but then we have Syl who is attached to an ideal (honorspren). We have also seen spren attached to negative things: rotspren, angerspren, painspren & deathspren. And finally we have spren like Cusicesh the Protector who is massive, can show human faces and leaves people feeling "drained."

If there are spren attached to positive ideals and emotions, why not spren attached to negative ideals and emotions?

Edit - wiki listing of types of spren that we have seen or are theorized: http://coppermind.17thshard.com/wiki/Spren

Edited September 30, 2011 by Xavien

[Satsuoni]

@Xavien: You may be onto something here. Maybe they are spren bound by Voidbinders and gaining a kind of body and sentience from it. Hm..

[Windrunner]

I've heard a pretty good theory on this but I can't remember where it was or who proposed it. Some people believe that Yelig-nar and the other two Unmade, Re-Shephir the Midnight Mother and Dai-Gonarthis, are the Voidbringer counterparts to the Heralds. Persumably there are 7 more Unmade that have not yet been mentioned.

[Sunblesser]

Well if there are ten unmade, I would look to the ten fools to find clues as to their identities. Both of them seem like the opposites of the heralds. The ten fools as the theological opposite, and the unmade as the literal

[LightReader]

I can see the Ten Fools simply being the modern folklore version of the Unmade, and I like the idea of them being Odium's version of the Heralds. And them being known as "personifications of kinds of destruction" makes me think they are regarded something like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. However, I still think they were real individuals, like the Heralds, who are similarly each associated with specific honorable ideals.

[Zas678]

This is what Brandon said about the Ten Fools:

The number 10 seems to be a recurring theme in this world. Are the "ten fools" the antithesis of the ten orders of the knights radiant?

Have you ever killed off a character and later regretted it?

When writing a battle scene in which thousands die do those deaths affect you in any way?

First Question: Yes, ten is a number of mythological import in the world. The Ten Fools are, essentially, the opposites of the Ten Heralds--who each represented an ideal. (Those ideals were later adopted by the orders of Knights Radiant, so yes, there is a connection--but there's a step between them.)

[MasterGhandalf]

My two cents: my theory is that the Unmade were the most powerful form of Voidbringer and that they corresponded to the Heralds, and probably functioned for Odium similarly to the Forsaken for the Dark One in Wheel of Time (albeit, from the way they're referenced, probably significantly more inhuman). Whether they were empowered humans, some variety of parshmen/parshendi, or malevolent superspren is something that I think we can't figure out until we learn more about what being a Voidbringer means, though Dalinar's vision of Nohadon would indicate that they were recognized as having distinct identities. I also like the idea that they were the inspiration for the Ten Fools.

About Yelig-nar him/itself, I have to wonder- attention is specifically drawn to this particular Unmade twice, and he's noted as being unusual for being able to "speak like a man". Was he the most important of the Unmade, a dark counterpart to the Stormfather and a sort of Voidbringer Ishamael? Or is it just the fact that he can talk and killed Nohadon's wordsmen that made him noteworthy? I can't imagine that he got referenced twice so comparatively early for no reason.

[Unworldly]

The quote from Brandon in Zas' post above makes me think that these Unmade are linked to the Almighty's final message to Dalinar, about Shardholders being able to be bound to their Champions: the Unmade would be the Champions that Odium is bound to, just as the Heralds appear to be bound to the Almighty. I wonder if this means that the Almighty got the Unmade to mess with, just as the Heralds appear to have spent hundreds or thousands of years being tortured between Desolations.

Also, this might allow us to more conclusively 'date' the Almighty's death in a way. He could only record the message about Champions either before the Heralds took on the Oathpact, or after they abandoned it - since, while the Heralds existed, there would be no need - there were already Champions in play, so why tell someone that?

Since the messages reference the fall of the Knights Radiant, they could only be recorded after the Knights Radiant gave up too.

This would mean, I think, that the Almighty was still alive when the Knights Radiant fell - his death is thus fairly recent.

As a side note, if the "Unmade are Odium's Champions" thing is true, then my brother is going to be very happy: his favourite part of the Wheel of Time novels is watching what the Forsaken get up to. Another series with a similarly well-fleshed out set of 'bad guys' should appeal too

[Thor]

The quote from Brandon in Zas' post above makes me think that these Unmade are linked to the Almighty's final message to Dalinar, about Shardholders being able to be bound to their Champions: the Unmade would be the Champions that Odium is bound to, just as the Heralds appear to be bound to the Almighty. I wonder if this means that the Almighty got the Unmade to mess with, just as the Heralds appear to have spent hundreds or thousands of years being tortured between Desolations.

Also, this might allow us to more conclusively 'date' the Almighty's death in a way. He could only record the message about Champions either before the Heralds took on the Oathpact, or after they abandoned it - since, while the Heralds existed, there would be no need - there were already Champions in play, so why tell someone that?

Since the messages reference the fall of the Knights Radiant, they could only be recorded after the Knights Radiant gave up too.

This would mean, I think, that the Almighty was still alive when the Knights Radiant fell - his death is thus fairly recent.

As a side note, if the "Unmade are Odium's Champions" thing is true, then my brother is going to be very happy: his favourite part of the Wheel of Time novels is watching what the Forsaken get up to. Another series with a similarly well-fleshed out set of 'bad guys' should appeal too

The Almighty's time of death being placed after the KRs fall seems to be also corroborated by the Highstorm visions: there aren't any visions that take place (chronologically) after the KR disbanding (excepting a vision of the Everstorm, which is only a hypothetical.)

[Zas678]

It's after both the Oathpact and the Fall of the Knights.

"The Knight Radiants must rise again."

This implies both that the Knights have risen (which means that it's after the Oathpact started), and after the Knights have fallen (which is after the breaking of the Oathpact). So that means that the vision must be very recent. (In the time of Shards)

[happyman]

It's after both the Oathpact and the Fall of the Knights.

"The Knight Radiants must rise again."

This implies both that the Knights have risen (which means that it's after the Oathpact started), and after the Knights have fallen (which is after the breaking of the Oathpact). So that means that the vision must be very recent. (In the time of Shards)

Maybe. On the other hand, Shards can see the future, to some extent. If some things are inevitable, they may actually be able to know terms that would happen long after they died. After all, the Kandra prophecies, despite some corruption, managed to keep some enormously accurate details for several millenia after Preservation's sacrifice.

[hoser]

This thread seems to harbor some great and up-to-date speculation.

There is another long-dormant thread here that has the chapter heading quotes in the opening post.

This post is just to make a reference to the quotes, but I wonder whether some administrator might want to combine threads just to make things easier to find.

[Arcanist Lupus]

This thread seems to harbor some great and up-to-date speculation.

There is another long-dormant thread here that has the chapter heading quotes in the opening post.

This post is just to make a reference to the quotes, but I wonder whether some administrator might want to combine threads just to make things easier to find.

All the epigraphs can be found in the wiki here.

[Aeshdan]

Something else to consider: Yelig-nar's other name is Blightwind. This sounds to me like a dark title, sort of like "Stonesinew" or "Stormfather"

More importantly, it also indicates a connection to the First Essence.

One more piece in support of the Unmade-Herald Connection.