Roshar Is A Gemstone

[ElMonoEstupendo]

TLDR: Roshar is a gemstone, a trap for Investiture, and currently holds big parts of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

Time for some wild speculation! 

A question arose in an earlier thread: just where did all the Splinters of Honor go after Tanavast died? There should be insane amounts of Investiture floating around developing sentience. When Rayse trapped Devotion and Dominion's corpses in the Cognitive Realm, it was sufficient to set Sel's entire mental plane into permanent nuclear holocaust!

With Roshar, we get one erratic windy boi, ten erratic kooks, some neato swords, and a planet's worth of spren - almost all of which existed long before Tanavast died. Where is the rest of his phenomenal cosmic power? In an itty bitty living space, that's where.

So the hypothesis is: the bulk of Roshar is a titanic gemstone, big enough to trap gods.

Roshar is a weird place. Here's a few weird things about Roshar's geology:

1. No Plate Tectonics.
2. Low Density.
3. Super-continent (grown by Adonalsium, no less).

Having a gemstone core explains the oddities. There's no plate tectonics because there's no mantle - it's crystal all the way down. I crunched a few numbers - Roshar's density is about 4.3 g/m^3, roughly in line with certain types of zircon and garnet (and who knows what else), and much lower than Earth's 5.51 g/m^3. You'd expect some variation from the crem and the natural rock we see in places. Like spheres, it won't have to be all gemstone.

It's a possible explanation for why Adonalsium would take specific interest in it, although that's way beyond the scope of this post.

More than that, though, it explains why there are True Tones and Highstorms, why the Everstorm showed up, what happened with Ba-Ado-Mishram, why Odium still can't leave, and maybe a few other things.

1. True Tones:
   1. Investiture sings.
   2. Singers and spren can attune to the True Tones and the Rhythms of Roshar.
   3. Stormlight and Voidlight hold the note of their respective Shards, but can lose it once isolated.
   4. There must be an enormous amount of the three Shard's Investiture in Roshar itself to do this, but this isn't like Scadrial - they didn't make the planet.
2. Highstorms:
   1. Roshar isn't a perfect gemstone. It leaks.
   2. The highstorms are the manifestation of that leak, which Honor bound with the Stormfather to regulate.
   3. Cultivation's Investiture leaks in other ways, such as through crem and the ocean floor.
   4. The Everstorm is a result of a lot of Odium's Investiture getting trapped. Speaking of which...
3. Ba-Ado-Mishram:
   1. Old BAM made a big mistake Connecting with the singers, Roshar's original inhabitants.
   2. She ended up trapped somewhere.
   3. Odium's Tone joined the other two, and the Sibling lost track of Honor's.
   4. The Everstorm started appearing.
   5. I think the dots join together into a nice picture: Much Ado is stuck in Roshar itself, and with her a ton of Odium's power.
      1. This is why Tanavast was convinced that the Knights Radiant would destroy the planet with the Binding.
         1. That might be why he died - specifically to counteract the effect of Odium's power being introduced.
      2. Side-speculation: The Shattered Plains are a result of the Binding.
      3. This is why there's no indication of where BAM is.
4. Honor's Splinters:
   1. Finally, back to the first question. There aren't more Splinters of Honor because a big chunk of him is stuck in the planet.
   2. This is Odium's solution to his Splintering problem.
      1. He can't leave Investiture lying around because it gains sentience, gathers together, and can be reformed and reclaimed.
      2. He tried trapping it in the Cognitive Realm on Sel with imperfect results.
      3. He came to Roshar specifically because gods or pieces thereof could be safely trapped.

One last bit of speculation: when different Shards' Investiture is successfully mixed, it creates a new type (Warlight, Towerlight, etc.). Is that the purpose of Roshar?

[Frustration]

Honor's splintered form is still in the SR

[ElMonoEstupendo]

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Honor's splintered form is still in the SR

Just left lying around? Isn't that what Odium specifically wants to avoid? He wouldn't be so surprised at someone starting to take it up if that were the case.

[Bejarden]

The point of Splintering is to stop the Power from gaining sentience. As Frustration said it’s still in the SR just unable to become sentient 

And if it was an Invested Gemstone the plant life would be much more interesting I’d think

@ElMonoEstupendo

Edited July 16, 2021 by Bejardin1250

[mathiau]

11 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

A question arose in an earlier thread: just where did all the Splinters of Honor go after Tanavast died? There should be insane amounts of Investiture floating around developing sentience.

Why? When Devotion died it only created something like a hundred Seons and there are far more windsprens than that

Quote

and much lower than Earth's 5.51 g/m^3.

Isn't the earth's density higher than average for a telluric planet?

Quote

True Tones

Are a phenomenon common to every planet with a Shard

Quote

Highstorms

Existed before Adonalsium's death

Quote

I think the dots join together into a nice picture: Much Ado is stuck in Roshar itself, and with her a ton of Odium's power.

I don't see any reason to think that

9 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Honor's splintered form is still in the SR

Yes, the reason Dom and Dev aren't is because contrary to Honour they didn't have an efficient "pressure release" valve (the sprens) and they kind of exploded in the CR

Quote

Just left lying around? Isn't that what Odium specifically wants to avoid? He wouldn't be so surprised at someone starting to take it up if that were the case.

Yes, it is.

Edited July 16, 2021 by mathiau

[ElMonoEstupendo]

13 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

The point of Splintering is to stop the Power from gaining sentience. As Frustration said it’s still in the SR just unable to become sentient 

And if it was an Invested Gemstone the plant life would be much more interesting I’d think

@ElMonoEstupendo

Splintering doesn't stop it gaining sentience - if anything, the spren and the seons show it might even make it easier to develop sentience with smaller bits. Honor splinters himself to create the Stormfather. Splintering is not enough, otherwise Odium wouldn't have pulled Devotion and Dominion into the Cognitive Realm.

Roshar the continent is a crem and natural stone outgrowth on the planet, grown deliberately by God. Plus, isn't the flora and fauna weird and interesting?

17 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Why? When Devotion died it only created something like a hundred Seons and there are far more windsprens than that

It also set fire to the whole planet in one Realm.

18 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Isn't the earth's density higher than average for a telluric planet?

Good point. Mars is much closer to that density. But it's also tectonic.

22 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Are a phenomenon common to every planet with a Shard

Yeah, every Shard has a Tone. Why is Honor's still there, albeit shifted? Why did Odium's only show up after BAM was bound? It's the presence of huge amounts of Investiture.

23 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Existed before Adonalsium's death

(Highstorms) Indeed - there was Investiture in the planet before the Shattering. There's a WoB somewhere that all Investiture got associated with a Shard at the time.

25 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Yes, the reason Dom and Dev aren't is because contrary to Honour they didn't have an efficient "pressure release" valve (the sprens) and they kind of exploded in the CR

Rayse specifically put them there:
 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium locked the Selish Shards in the Cognitive Realm to keep them from achieving sentience or someone Ascending.

Footnote: taken from General Q&A
Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)

It seems to me that the Splintering of these Shards and the placement of their power in the CR are two separate events with the same motivation - if anyone has contradictory evidence I'd love to see it.

[mathiau]

1 minute ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

(Highstorms) Indeed - there was Investiture in the planet before the Shattering. There's a WoB somewhere that all Investiture got associated with a Shard at the time.

Rayse specifically put them there:
 

It seems to me that the Splintering of these Shards and the placement of their power in the CR are two separate events with the same motivation - if anyone has contradictory evidence I'd love to see it.

Yes and no

Quote

sufficientlyadvanced

It says that it's dangerous to travel to Shadesmar on Sel. Why?

Brandon Sanderson

It has to do with the Dor and the lack of an entity controlling much of the power Odium left in his wake on Sel.

Phantine

Woah, that's interesting. I had no idea Odium left little bits of his power on Sel... I guess it kinda makes sense for evil monks to be powered by pure hate, though.

Brandon Sanderson

Odium did not leave his power behind, one should note. He left several other powers which are now, to a large extent, mindless...

Windrunner

If you wouldn't mind answering, does Roshar have a similar problem, with Honor being Splintered?

Brandon Sanderson

No, Roshar does not have the same problem. There are some differences going on. (One reason being that the spren are far more extensive on Roshar, and provide something of a "release valve." The seons and the skaze on Sel are not numerous enough to fulfill a similar function. Though, of course, that's only one part of the puzzle. Raw power is dangerous.

It's one reason everyone should be thankful Kelsier was around on Scadrial.

General Reddit 2013 (March 11, 2013)

Quote

Yeah, every Shard has a Tone. Why is Honor's still there, albeit shifted? Why did Odium's only show up after BAM was bound? It's the presence of huge amounts of Investiture.

Honour's is there because Honour is still there, albeit broken. Do we have confirmation Odium's tone only became a true tone after BAM was bound?

[Jondesu]

8 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Do we have confirmation Odium's tone only became a true tone after BAM was bound?

I don’t believe we have solid confirmation. It’s heavily implied by The Sibling, but they could be wrong.

Edit: I like the Roshar is a Gemstone theory, but parts of this have been picked apart, mostly for good reason. I could buy the planet’s core being a gemstone and that being very significant without the other things you listed being true (BAM is almost certainly not imprisoned there, for instance, a regular albeit large perfect gemstone would be sufficient and in fact better if in fact Roshar’s gemheart isn’t a perfect gemstone as you suspect). I also agree that isn’t the reason for the Investiture from the high storms, we have confirmation that that comes from a perpendicularity and is from the Spiritual Realm, IIRC.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Jondesu

[mathiau]

39 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I don’t believe we have solid confirmation. It’s heavily implied by The Sibling, but they could be wrong.

I remember the Sibling saying he stopped hearing the Rhythm of Science after BAM's capture but nothing about Odium's Rhythm

[ElMonoEstupendo]

23 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Honour's is there because Honour is still there, albeit broken. Do we have confirmation Odium's tone only became a true tone after BAM was bound?

Exactly! The power's still there. In the planet. What else could be containing that much concentrated Investiture? The honorspren population? It doesn't seem dense enough if we're comparing it to perpetual armageddon.

Not confirmation exactly, but there's a highly suggestive sequence:

1. Sibling lost its Light around the time Ba-Ado-Mishram was bound.
   1. It's also implied it was gradually losing it beforehand too - when BAM was dispensing Voidlight like candy to Connected singers.
2. Sibling only believed there were two True Tones.
3. Navani discovers that Tones in the presence of each other shift to harmonise.
4. She speculates that Odium's Tone becoming a True one caused the others to shift.
5. Navani restores the Sibling's Towerlight by providing the shifted Tone of Honor.

The logic works, right? But there may be other explanations for why Honor's Tone changed, why Odium's Tone got introduced, why the Sibling believed what it did, etc...

25 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

(BAM is almost certainly not imprisoned there, for instance, a regular albeit large perfect gemstone would be sufficient and in fact better if in fact Roshar’s gemheart isn’t a perfect gemstone as you suspect). I also agree that isn’t the reason for the Investiture from the high storms, we have confirmation that that comes from a perpendicularity and is from the Spiritual Realm, IIRC.

A large perfect gemstone was enough for Nergaoul, but Ba-Ado is on a whole other level to that chump. She's capable of dispensing forms of power and Voidlight to a whole race. It's possible a perfect gemstone of a size necessary to contain her doesn't exist. Or you're right, and she's stashed away in Feverstone Keep or that weirdly active part of the ocean. But it's still possible!

I think you're referring to this WoB;

Quote

Narkac

Where does the Stormlight in highstorms come from? Is there like a "rain cycle", but for the Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

The Stormlight in the highstorm is transferred from the Spiritual realm through the Stormfather into the highstorm.

Paris signing (Oct. 22, 2016)

Which for my theory would mean that the Stormfather would have to be partially trapped. Yeah, I can feel it falling apart there.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

Yes, the reason Dom and Dev aren't is because contrary to Honour they didn't have an efficient "pressure release" valve (the sprens) and they kind of exploded in the CR

Actually Odium did something, unless I misunderstand what you ment.

They did something to but we aren't sure what

[mathiau]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Actually Odium did something, unless I misunderstand what you ment.

They did something to but we aren't sure what

I think what he did was just fusing Dom and Dev

Edited July 16, 2021 by mathiau

[Leuthie]

3 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Just left lying around? Isn't that what Odium specifically wants to avoid? He wouldn't be so surprised at someone starting to take it up if that were the case.

First of all, Odium didn't exactly plan for Dominion and Devotion to be left in the Cognitive Realm. It was a happy circumstance (for Odium) that they ended up "exploding" there:

Quote

James Clifford

Science question!

Brandon Sanderson

Ohh science. Is it real science, or fake science?

Adam Horne

It is Brandon science.

Brandon Sanderson

Fake science!

James Clifford

With the discovery of anti-Investiture in Rhythm of War, would the correct form of anti-Investiture be usable to clear up the mess in the Sel Cognitive Realm. If so, would this completely destroy a splintered Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughs, coughs, and is otherwise stunned* That would not be a good idea. So why would that not be a good idea? So no, this would not clear up the problem. The problem that's going on in the Cognitive Realm in Sel is that a bunch of Investiture that should be in the Spiritual Realm has been packed into the Cognitive Realm instead, through a very weird circumstance of events. If you were to introduce a bunch of anti-Investiture of the right type there, you would just generate an explosion that would be a very bad thing. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, Investiture can't be either, so it's actually changing forms. It's going from Investiture into energy! Which you know, does not leave the system. So the investiture would eventually make its way back around, you can't destroy anything in the Cosmere, just like you can't destroy anything in our universe. But you can make it change forms. And so, what's going on there is just this hope by a certain individual that what has happened there will prevent the power from becoming self-aware.

It's basically Odium being like "alright I just murdered you people, I don't wanna have to come back and do it again". So he's trying to figure out a way to make this happen. As it currently stands (again, these things can change when I write future books), it was partially happenstance that he took advantage of rather than something that he was able to set up very intentionally from the beginning, but he was definitely a part.

YouTube Livestream 32 (June 3, 2021)

Odium isn't exactly able to do much about Honor's state. He's been stuck on Braize for about 4.5 thousand years. Honor's death isn't directly attributable to Odium (Odium was locked on Braize well before the Recreance and Honor died around that time) and Odium couldn't make something similar to Sel happen. 

There's really no evidence that Honor was actually Splintered in the same way Devotion and Dominion were. Tanavast died and the Shard hasn't been picked up. The narrative seems to indicate that the Stormfather commands or holds the bulk of the missing Shard. Considering Tanavast's other preparations prior to his death (the recording, giving more sentience to Stormfather, etc.), it's possible that Honor sacrificed himself for those preparations and Odium had little to do with it but likes to take credit anyway.

In any case, Honor is in the hearts of men, in Stormfather, in the various spren inhabiting the Cognitive Realm. He's Splintered, but the Investiture is busy being useful or in safe keeping.

[ElMonoEstupendo]

39 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

First of all, Odium didn't exactly plan for Dominion and Devotion to be left in the Cognitive Realm. It was a happy circumstance (for Odium) that they ended up "exploding" there:

Odium isn't exactly able to do much about Honor's state. He's been stuck on Braize for about 4.5 thousand years. Honor's death isn't directly attributable to Odium (Odium was locked on Braize well before the Recreance and Honor died around that time) and Odium couldn't make something similar to Sel happen. 

There's really no evidence that Honor was actually Splintered in the same way Devotion and Dominion were. Tanavast died and the Shard hasn't been picked up. The narrative seems to indicate that the Stormfather commands or holds the bulk of the missing Shard. Considering Tanavast's other preparations prior to his death (the recording, giving more sentience to Stormfather, etc.), it's possible that Honor sacrificed himself for those preparations and Odium had little to do with it but likes to take credit anyway.

In any case, Honor is in the hearts of men, in Stormfather, in the various spren inhabiting the Cognitive Realm. He's Splintered, but the Investiture is busy being useful or in safe keeping.

Oh yeah, this is a whole other pet theory to chew on!

Let me open with this:

Quote

Argent

I thought, like, at one of the signings you told me that when Odium was on Sel and Splintered the Shards there, the reason he did the Cognitive Realm hack was because he was not yet experienced in Splintering stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. He did not want what happened to happen, but he didn't know that he didn't want what happened to happen.

Argent

What I was getting at is, I could never find a recording of you saying "He was not experienced. He didn't want the power to be taken by anyone, and that's the only solution he could figure out." Does that sound like something you would say?

Brandon Sanderson

That is something I would say, yes... There are better ways to do what he wanted to do, which he later did a better job with. But there's not a lot of experimenting he could do.

Argent

Limited number of subjects, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

JordanCon 2018 (April 20, 2018)

Odium didn't want the whole perpetual planetary explosion thing, didn't know it would happen, wouldn't do the same again. But he did deliberately pack them into the Cognitive Realm, whether he knew that's what he was doing or not, and he did it to stop them either being taken up or forming their own sentience. He's since found a better way of preventing that, but the important detail is that just Splintering them and leaving the Investiture in the Spiritual Realm is not enough.

I was neck deep on a hypothesis about who (Cultivation?) actually Splintered Honor for a while (and he definitely was Splintered, not just dead, per WoB). While there's plenty of evidence that Rayse or his minions or an ally killed Tanavast, I can't find anywhere that outright says straightforwardly that it was him that actually Splintered Honor. Somewhere there's a WoB explaining that being bound to Braize just means he's trapped in the Rosharan system, and that pretty much killed that theory, but damned if I know the keywords to find it again.

Nevertheless, Rayse and the Stormfather are shocked that anyone, even someone bonded to the Stormfather, could be manifesting anything close to what Honor is capable of. They both think that power is inaccessible. Rayse did something or arranged for something to happen to lock it up - a better version of what he haphazardly managed on Sel.

Hey, perhaps arranging for the Stormfather to take up most of the Shard was Rayse's plan. Stormfather is confined by all sorts of rules, far more than any normal Vessel. Dalinar is breaking the rules by helping Stormfather change.

Edit: The trouble with saying all his Investiture is in the hearts of men, spren, the Stormfather etc. is that all those existed long, long before he died and none of them changed much after Honor was Splintered. Perhaps that was his protracted, maddening death - slowly voluntarily fracturing into millions of Splinters.

Edited July 16, 2021 by ElMonoEstupendo

[LewsTherinTelescope]

8 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

With Roshar, we get one erratic windy boi, ten erratic kooks, some neato swords, and a planet's worth of spren - almost all of which existed long before Tanavast died.

We do know that there's a lot more now than there were before:

Quote

Questioner

Spren bonds: there was some intimation somewhere that I read that there might not have been spren bonds before [Aharietiam, the day the Desolations ended]?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not going to answer that one either but we will delve much more into this. The spren were around back then but they were not nearly what they are now: they've changed over the course of the book obviously. I think the cosmere theorists have figured it out. They are much more prevalent following Honor and what happened to him, but there were some spren on the planet before even that happened.

Footnote: It seems that Brandon is referring to the Expulsion and/or the arrival of Honor on Roshar, not Aharietiam

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/224/#e6879

And of course, the Stormfather is a pretty large Splinter, though not on the level of the Shards. 

8 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

There must be an enormous amount of the three Shard's Investiture in Roshar itself to do this, but this isn't like Scadrial - they didn't make the planet.

Imo, this is the reason for the Stormfather and Nightwatcher. The Shards come into the system, and they take these crucial pieces of the world, and make them part of themselves, injecting themselves into everything, gaining Connection to things all over the planet, distributing their Investiture everywhere, etc.

(More specifically, I think they were once avatars and actually genuinely part of the Shards' and Vessels' souls, not just Splinters that have a kind of weird relationship with the Shard, and that Splintering the Stormfather off is what finally allowed him to become sapient instead of "just a wind".)

(Why this might work with the Stormfather is obvious, he's the highstorm, but what exactly the Nightwatcher is is open to debate still. Imo, she might be the continent or something like that, Navani swears by "Father of Storms and Mother of the World", someone curses with "Stormfather above and Nightwatcher below", the Eila Stele mentions "their betrayal extended to our gods: to spren, wind, and stone", it's mentioned by Dalinar when speaking to Odium that some associate Cultivation with the spren of Roshar itself, etc. Whether it's that specific thing or not, I think she's SOMETHING important, because Brandon has emphasized repeatedly that they are parallel entities, and even at one point after Words of Radiance saying he has to RAFO whether she predates the Shattering or not because the answer would spoil reveals about the Stormfather's nature in Oathbringer.)

As for Ba-Ado-Mishram: I think that she was also part of this, and was similarly an important spren, and that's why her capture took the tones away from the Sibling and in general had such wide-reaching effects, because it partially broke this process, and is why the Shards needed to be properly alive to fix it (the Sibling says Honor would have been able to help, but was dying, and by now can hear Cultivation's tone but not Honor's, so I think Cultivation's put some sort of workaround in place somehow. wonder if this is why Odium was able to properly kill and Splinter Honor, because Culti was focused elsewhere already and couldn't retaliate while he was weak... but there's probably some holes in that, literally just thought of it while writing this). I also think her corruption is how Odium became a tone associated with the planet (the Sibling denying it was one doesn't work as a counterargument for me, because the Sibling STILL denies that it is one, so that could simply be them refusing to accept it rather than it not being the case).

8 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Why is Honor's still there, albeit shifted?

Do we know that Honor's tone is shifted from how it was before? I don't recall any mention of that.

7 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Navani discovers that Tones in the presence of each other shift to harmonise.

Navani discovers that when you merge two Investitures, you have to shift the tones to harmonize. I don't recall any mention of them naturally doing so, but admittedly I may have just missed it so I'd appreciate a reference (if you have the time to track it down, of course, these books are huge).

Edited July 17, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope

[apepi]

How does Honor/ a deal with Honor make Odium tied to Roshar if it is a gemstone? Why does their need to be some duel or w/e if it is just the planet who traps them? I feel like I am missing this part in this theory.

 

7 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Oh yeah, this is a whole other pet theory to chew on!

Let me open with this:

Odium didn't want the whole perpetual planetary explosion thing, didn't know it would happen, wouldn't do the same again. But he did deliberately pack them into the Cognitive Realm, whether he knew that's what he was doing or not, and he did it to stop them either being taken up or forming their own sentience. He's since found a better way of preventing that, but the important detail is that just Splintering them and leaving the Investiture in the Spiritual Realm is not enough.

I was neck deep on a hypothesis about who (Cultivation?) actually Splintered Honor for a while (and he definitely was Splintered, not just dead, per WoB). While there's plenty of evidence that Rayse or his minions or an ally killed Tanavast, I can't find anywhere that outright says straightforwardly that it was him that actually Splintered Honor. Somewhere there's a WoB explaining that being bound to Braize just means he's trapped in the Rosharan system, and that pretty much killed that theory, but damned if I know the keywords to find it again.

Nevertheless, Rayse and the Stormfather are shocked that anyone, even someone bonded to the Stormfather, could be manifesting anything close to what Honor is capable of. They both think that power is inaccessible. Rayse did something or arranged for something to happen to lock it up - a better version of what he haphazardly managed on Sel.

Hey, perhaps arranging for the Stormfather to take up most of the Shard was Rayse's plan. Stormfather is confined by all sorts of rules, far more than any normal Vessel. Dalinar is breaking the rules by helping Stormfather change.

Edit: The trouble with saying all his Investiture is in the hearts of men, spren, the Stormfather etc. is that all those existed long, long before he died and none of them changed much after Honor was Splintered. Perhaps that was his protracted, maddening death - slowly voluntarily fracturing into millions of Splinters.

For the pet theory, I actually looked pretty hard into this already. Take a look at Sja-Anat's chapter in RoW, it talks about how Odium purposely placed her and many Unmade, in between the physical and cognitive realm. This is what I think Brandon was talking about there are better ways to do what he did.(and to addon to more theories, is that the Unmade that he doesn't trust are not his investiture, he corrupted/Unmade those Unmade and decided to try to use them against war on other shards)

As for Honor's death....his death reminds me of Leras. Dude went insane and slowly died, same thing happened to Honor but there was no body to pick up the pieces when he died. But like Leras, Honor has some lucid moments, was able to try part of himself with the Stormfather, made those storm visions happen and etc. His death was slow, it wasnt fast.

[ElMonoEstupendo]

2 hours ago, apepi said:

How does Honor/ a deal with Honor make Odium tied to Roshar if it is a gemstone? Why does their need to be some duel or w/e if it is just the planet who traps them? I feel like I am missing this part in this theory.

So Odium ended up trapped in the Rosharan system in variety of ways:

1. First by some inter-Shard agreement with Honor and possibly Cultivation. This is the one he pretty clearly wants to get Dalinar to free him from.
2. Secondly by the Oathpact, forced upon him and his minions by Honor and the Heralds. This is one he's found a way around with the Everstorm, although it seems there may be hope yet for it. It's unclear whether it actually applies to the Shard himself, but it's imperfect one way or another.
3. Thirdly, by becoming heavily Invested in the system. This is why he's furious with Ba-Ado; her actions ended up trapping him a third way.

He's found a way around #2. #3 it's implied he could reclaim his Investiture, probably by destroying an awful lot. But to do that he'd have to violate the agreement in #1, so that's the critical one for him to break free of.

It's also worth pointing out that the duel won't resolve any of these (directly). The stakes are 1,000 years of imprisonment vs. Dalinar's soul. I think even if TOdium could manipulate Dalinar into breaking their pact, it wouldn't free him of his previous bonds, because they're not part of the arrangement.

2 hours ago, apepi said:

For the pet theory, I actually looked pretty hard into this already. Take a look at Sja-Anat's chapter in RoW, it talks about how Odium purposely placed her and many Unmade, in between the physical and cognitive realm. This is what I think Brandon was talking about there are better ways to do what he did.(and to addon to more theories, is that the Unmade that he doesn't trust are not his investiture, he corrupted/Unmade those Unmade and decided to try to use them against war on other shards)

Oh yeah! I really really like that parallel. I like that we're still in the dark on what exactly they are - corrupted Splinters of other Shards? Splinters of Odium himself? Or like the Stormfather, ancient mechanisms given sentience and harnessed. Either way, they can't be new Splinters after Honor's Splintering, because they long predate that. It's not quite a direct progression either, because one of his purposes on Sel was to avoid them becoming sentient, whereas it seems the Unmade are sentient to begin with. Perhaps that was his new solution, but it also seems to be causing him some degree of trouble.

8 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Do we know that Honor's tone is shifted from how it was before? I don't recall any mention of that.

Navani discovers that when you merge two Investitures, you have to shift the tones to harmonize. I don't recall any mention of them naturally doing so, but admittedly I may have just missed it so I'd appreciate a reference (if you have the time to track it down, of course, these books are huge).

Yes, I want to do another read-through and pay close attention to exactly what happens and what is speculated upon. Trouble is, for me that means starting with WoK again. I'll get back to you in a few months.

[Serack]

Excellent theory here.  You really go into the weeds on a lot of details and I could pick at some of those, but the idea that Roshar has gem qualities that trap shards runs parallel to my own thoughts.  More on that later though, first I'll respond to some of the discussion in the comments.

 

20 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Yeah, every Shard has a Tone. Why is Honor's still there, albeit shifted? Why did Odium's only show up after BAM was bound? It's the presence of huge amounts of Investiture.

Someone else brought this up, but where does the idea that Honor's tone has shifted?  When would this shift have occurred?  What is the evidence?  Its an interesting concept that could have really cool implications but I want more support before I use it for further theorizing.  

 

20 hours ago, mathiau said:

Honour's is there because Honour is still there, albeit broken. Do we have confirmation Odium's tone only became a true tone after BAM was bound?

Here's something I wrote on that subject for a theory I'll link later:  The Rosharan system resonates with the "pure tones" of the three shards involved with the system, and consdering WoB is that "the moons existed before the gods came" I think it's likely that those "pure tones" of Roshar, tuned specifically for those shards were there beforehand too.

 

4 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

It's also worth pointing out that the duel won't resolve any of these (directly). The stakes are 1,000 years of imprisonment vs. Dalinar's soul. I think even if TOdium could manipulate Dalinar into breaking their pact, it wouldn't free him of his previous bonds, because they're not part of the arrangement.

Hold up.  The 1,000 years was in the original written terms, but not in the final terms.  Those just say "bound to the system."  It sounds permanent.  The exchange was basically just for control of Alethkar and Herdaz.  

 

4 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Oh yeah! I really really like that parallel. I like that we're still in the dark on what exactly they are - corrupted Splinters of other Shards? Splinters of Odium himself? Or like the Stormfather, ancient mechanisms given sentience and harnessed. Either way, they can't be new Splinters after Honor's Splintering, because they long predate that. It's not quite a direct progression either, because one of his purposes on Sel was to avoid them becoming sentient, whereas it seems the Unmade are sentient to begin with. Perhaps that was his new solution, but it also seems to be causing him some degree of trouble.

There is a fantastic theory here that the Unmade were originally the spren of the major cities of Roshar that have the cymatic patterns.  

 

Ok, done with my thoughts on the comments.

Your theory actually has some things in common with my own theory here that Aldonasium created/engineered Roshar to be a shard trap, specifically for these 3 shards.  I even said:

Quote

These resultant tones of Roshar affect the shards on the planet resonating with their investiture and making it more potent on the physical realm, but also enhancing their connection to the planetary system, making it so that they can't leave.  Trapped like a spren in a gemstone.  

I didn't however consider that the planet is a literal gemstone.  Although I also concluded that forcing the shards to integrate is the purpose of the planet.  

 

[ElMonoEstupendo]

44 minutes ago, Serack said:

Excellent theory here.  You really go into the weeds on a lot of details and I could pick at some of those, but the idea that Roshar has gem qualities that trap shards runs parallel to my own thoughts.  More on that later though, first I'll respond to some of the discussion in the comments.

 

Someone else brought this up, but where does the idea that Honor's tone has shifted?  When would this shift have occurred?  What is the evidence?  Its an interesting concept that could have really cool implications but I want more support before I use it for further theorizing.  

 

Here's something I wrote on that subject for a theory I'll link later:  The Rosharan system resonates with the "pure tones" of the three shards involved with the system, and consdering WoB is that "the moons existed before the gods came" I think it's likely that those "pure tones" of Roshar, tuned specifically for those shards were there beforehand too.

 

Hold up.  The 1,000 years was in the original written terms, but not in the final terms.  Those just say "bound to the system."  It sounds permanent.  The exchange was basically just for control of Alethkar and Herdaz.  

 

There is a fantastic theory here that the Unmade were originally the spren of the major cities of Roshar that have the cymatic patterns.  

 

Ok, done with my thoughts on the comments.

Your theory actually has some things in common with my own theory here that Aldonasium created/engineered Roshar to be a shard trap, specifically for these 3 shards.  I even said:

I didn't however consider that the planet is a literal gemstone.  Although I also concluded that forcing the shards to integrate is the purpose of the planet.  

 

Ooo, thanks for the links. I was looking for just that sort of speculation! I must have focused on the wrong keywords. 

You're right, I misremembered the terms. The stakes of the duel are even smaller fry! The final terms specify that Odium "remains bound to the system" in either case - as in, this agreement doesn't nullify a previous one. 

Honor's tone changing is one part of my speculation. The Sibling needs to hear both Honor and Cultivation in order to generate plentiful Towerlight. It can hear Cultivation fine, but it lost Honor's. Navani restores it by finding Honor's song and singing it.

So one explanation could be that Tanavast is dead, there is nothing singing the song of Honor, the Tone didn't change it just disappeared and dissipated, and Navani was a "loud" enough source to bring it back. But Roshar is literally sloshing with Honor's Investiture. Stormlight must carry the Tone. All the old singer Rhythms are still around, attunable. The Stormfather is dispensing Light left, right, and centre. Honor's Tone is still around.

Add to that the discovery that the Tones can be shifted in the right circumstances and it seems a neater answer that Honor's Tone changed when Tanavast was no longer around the hold it, and what the Sibling needed was to find where it went, rather than for it to just start again. Everything that was just of Honor simply followed it, but a child of two Shards needed to hear their relationship to each other, which had altered.

As for the timing of it, it would have started during the False Desolation and culminated with either the Binding of Ba-Ado-Mishram (dumping a lot of Odium's Investiture into the planet, making his a True Tone) or with Tanavast's death (when he could no longer do as Cultivation must be doing, holding it steady). The Sibling starts to lose its Light just as BAM is making dangerous Connections and distributing Voidlight? Just as Honor is getting nuttier and nuttier? No way these are coincidences.

[TranslucentPhilosopher]

21 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Exactly! The power's still there. In the planet. What else could be containing that much concentrated Investiture? The honorspren population? It doesn't seem dense enough if we're comparing it to perpetual armageddon.

While it may be in the planet as well (I kind of like the theory), the Honorspren also have an entire vault full of perfect gemstones filled with Stormlight. No way that's not going to play into this as well.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

As for the timing of it, it would have started during the False Desolation and culminated with either the Binding of Ba-Ado-Mishram (dumping a lot of Odium's Investiture into the planet, making his a True Tone) or with Tanavast's death (when he could no longer do as Cultivation must be doing, holding it steady). The Sibling starts to lose its Light just as BAM is making dangerous Connections and distributing Voidlight? Just as Honor is getting nuttier and nuttier? No way these are coincidences.

More specifically, the Sibling attributes it to the binding of Ba-Ado-Mishram, saying it wounded them. 

Quote

The Sibling fell silent for a time, and Navani wondered if she had pushed the spren too far. Fortunately they spoke again, softly. I have … been wounded. Thousands of years ago, something happened that changed the singers. It hurt me too.

Navani covered her shock. “You’re speaking of the binding of that Unmade, which made the singers lose their forms?”

Yes. That terrible act touched the souls of all who belong to Roshar. Spren too.

“How have no spren mentioned this?”

I don’t know. But I lost the rhythm of my Light that day. The tower stopped working. My father, Honor, should have been able to help me, but he was losing his mind. And he soon died …

(Her imprisonment also resulted in deadeyes forming when Ideals are broken where that never would happen prior, which is weird and I have no idea what the heck the cause of that would be.)

Edited July 17, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope

[ElMonoEstupendo]

4 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

(Her imprisonment also resulted in deadeyes forming when Ideals are broken where that never would happen prior, which is weird and I have no idea what the heck the cause of that would be.)

Oh yes, that's a whole other set of conspiracy theories.

I think it's further evidence for Honor (or its Tone) being changed - the parallel example on Sel is that Elantris and the seons got severely messed up when a critical component of their Connection to the Dor slightly shifted. It's just that in Roshar's case it's not the landscape changing, it's something else.

Deadeyes are like maddened seons. After the Reod most humans and their seons in Arelon were fine. It's only when the Shaod takes them, when they're unwittingly Connected to the Dor and unable to access it, that they get messed up. The singers when they're Connected to BAM but suddenly unable to access her, get messed up in a very similar way.

The idea is that the process of forming a Nahel bond and swearing the Ideals Connects not just spren and human but also the Shard (or perhaps whatever accepts the Words, the source of Light). When the oaths are broken, both sides still retain that Connection, but after the Binding (and my proposed change in Honor's Tone), the spren are like the Sibling - they no longer recognise Honor's Tone. The Sibling narrowly avoided being a full-on deadeye because it still had Cultivation's Tone.

For whatever reason, though, human's kept track of Honor's changed Tone. We all think "Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men!" isn't just a catchphrase, right? Something made humans able to do what spren and Sibling could not - keep track of the change. That is: reconcile Honor with the presence of Odium. Something something War, yeah?

Incidentally, I suspect that that whole thing about it being a three-way Connection of human/spren/Shard might explain why Dalinar is capable of doing such surprising feats - he's bonded with only one other being, one thing which is both the Nahel spren and the entity/Lightsource which accepted the Words. He and Navani will probably be the only ones to have done that, ever, as there hasn't been a Bondsmith since Melishi. I expect shenanigans in Urithiru in Book 5.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

The idea is that the process of forming a Nahel bond and swearing the Ideals Connects not just spren and human but also the Shard

Interesting, could be

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

(or perhaps whatever accepts the Words, the source of Light)

Worth noting that these two things don't seem to be related, as far as we know. Kaladin hears Stormfather for one of his Ideals (but not the other three, though he hears Dalinar for one), and Lopen hears SF for at least two (we don't know if his First had a voice or not), and both use Stormlight, yes, but Venli hears a femalen voice (presumably Cultivation or Nightwatcher?) and uses Stormlight and Voidlight, and Lift hears no voice but uses Lifelight. I don't believe any other Radiant PoV has heard any voice (besides their spren in a few circumstances), but they all still use Stormlight.

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

I think it's further evidence for Honor (or its Tone) being changed - the parallel example on Sel is that Elantris and the seons got severely messed up when a critical component of their Connection to the Dor slightly shifted. It's just that in Roshar's case it's not the landscape changing, it's something else.

I don't see how this is evidence towards the tone change specifically? (Personally, what it makes me think of is that Mishram herself was in some way relevant to the bonds, but I have no idea in what way.) But yeah, it's an interesting parallel for sure, I agree.

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

The idea is that the process of forming a Nahel bond and swearing the Ideals Connects not just spren and human but also the Shard (or perhaps whatever accepts the Words, the source of Light). When the oaths are broken, both sides still retain that Connection, but after the Binding (and my proposed change in Honor's Tone), the spren are like the Sibling - they no longer recognise Honor's Tone. The Sibling narrowly avoided being a full-on deadeye because it still had Cultivation's Tone.

Shouldn't the spren already be Connected to Honor, considering that all of them are part of the Shard?

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

We all think "Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men!" isn't just a catchphrase, right?

Tbh I've just assumed it to mean they have innate Investiture from Honor the way Nalthians have it from Endowment and Scadrians have it from Ruin and Preservation, but it could totally be something more and I'm just making incorrect assumptions.

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

That is: reconcile Honor with the presence of Odium. Something something War, yeah?

I feel like Navani would've reacted to the anti-tone of Odium if this were the case, personally.

41 minutes ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

He and Navani will probably be the only ones to have done that, ever, as there hasn't been a Bondsmith since Melishi.

Iirc, Melishi was starting to become capable of some of what we see Dalinar do (though presumably not all of it), which is attributed to Honor going mad and not being there enough to enforce the rules he'd placed before.

Edited July 17, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope

[mathiau]

22 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Shouldn't the spren already be Connected to Honor, considering that all of them are part of the Shard?

The sprens are splinters and therefore not a part of the Shard anymore, if they still were they'd be Avatars

Quote

Iirc, Melishi was starting to become capable of some of what we see Dalinar do (though presumably not all of it), which is attributed to Honor going mad and not being there enough to enforce the rules he'd placed before.

The SF said he was seeing the white lines so that's a fair assumption

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

The sprens are splinters and therefore not a part of the Shard anymore, if they still were they'd be Avatars

Eh... I think Brandon probably meant Vessel there, because he's talked about Splinters still being part of the Shard before. For example:

Quote

Right, but you've got to keep in mind that-- um... So in Scadrial, Ruin and Preservation did the same thing. Their bodies are part of the world. They-- if their exist-- like, the things on the Spiritual Realm don't matter where they are in relation to each other and things like this. All those <piece> spren are still Honor, when he was alive. Does that make sense? Like, yes those are little Splinters of Honor, but they are still Honor. It's not like he's diminished, because his whole essence is the world, right? There is no diminishing that. And so that thing is we're talking about the fracturing of the mind and the killing of the Shard. That's the distinction between whole and not whole as I was making it for you there.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

And in general, I think what he said makes much more sense if you replace "Shard" with "Vessel", since he talks about how avatars are "a god roleplaying" in a way. (And conflating Shard and Vessel is certainly something he does sometimes, since at the start he actually did just use the one term to refer to both instead of having a separate word, and Brandon tends to get a bit stuck in old terminology sometimes.)