Thunderclasts vs Chasmfiends

[Argent]

I am not sure how Stormlight infusion would work. We know that moneylenders have some sort of "safe houses," where they infuse dun spheres. There is a scene where Gaz goes out after a highstorm to collect his freshly-infused spheres, and Kaladin notes that he is collecting them from baskets. Considering the scary raw power a highstorm has, leaving the basket open would be an economical suicide - it would need to be secure in place AND closed in order to prevent the storm from just blowing the spheres away. So I am going to assume direct exposure is not mandatory.

There are problems with this though. First, if a basket doesn't stop gems from being infused, why does a building do? The only thing that comes to mind is the amount of "stuff" between the highstorm and the gems. And if this is true, a chasmfiend's skin is probably thick enough to be considered wall-like for the purposes of this example... And second, why do chasmfiends need to climb out of their chasms? We know plenty of rainwater falls inside the actual chasms, the wind blows there as well, and with the neglibible exception of the permanent bridges, nothing serves as a real roof over them.

[Satsuoni]

To CrazyRioter - You are right, of course. Might just be my poor understanding of English language, in that "skeletal" to me means "something similar to a body plan suggesting internal skeleton, usually with mammalian/reptile body plan"

To Argent: IMO, the stormlight is a kind of light/radiation, so to infuse the gem it must reach it through a medium transparent to the stormlight-specific "wavelength". Apparently, a glass coating does not stop spheres from infusing. Maybe a glass wall, thick enough to withstand the storm, will allow charging too. And the basket usually have enough small openings to let some light through. Your point about going out of chasms is entirely valid, though.

[Kuri Shardweaver]

I am not sure how Stormlight infusion would work. We know that moneylenders have some sort of "safe houses," where they infuse dun spheres. There is a scene where Gaz goes out after a highstorm to collect his freshly-infused spheres, and Kaladin notes that he is collecting them from baskets. Considering the scary raw power a highstorm has, leaving the basket open would be an economical suicide - it would need to be secure in place AND closed in order to prevent the storm from just blowing the spheres away. So I am going to assume direct exposure is not mandatory.

There are problems with this though. First, if a basket doesn't stop gems from being infused, why does a building do? The only thing that comes to mind is the amount of "stuff" between the highstorm and the gems. And if this is true, a chasmfiend's skin is probably thick enough to be considered wall-like for the purposes of this example... And second, why do chasmfiends need to climb out of their chasms? We know plenty of rainwater falls inside the actual chasms, the wind blows there as well, and with the neglibible exception of the permanent bridges, nothing serves as a real roof over them.

Again, I'm just making an educated guess that there might be something involved in a highstorm that is the equivalent of lightning and follows the same principles thereof, being attracted to the highest available point first. Ergo, it would climb to a plateau to pupate to attract the most stormlight. What's more, it's entirely possible that a chasmfiend might molt or pupate multiple times to increase its size before undergoing a final transformation into a thunderclast, and it's only this final transformation that requires the stormlight infusion.

Furthermore, while a chrysalis might very well be a 'wall' against infusion, we are again dealing with magic. The chrysalis may very well be organically designed to channel stormlight into the gemheart.

Also, something can have an exoskeleton and still look skeletal. Ever seen a 'walking stick'? Very slight and long.

[Satsuoni]

Hm.. Maybe..

From Kaladin's time out it looked as if the appearance of the face was related to the charge somehow:

In that darkness, an enormous face appeared just in front of his. A face of blackness, yet faintly traced in the dark. It was wide, the breadth of a massive thunderhead, and extended far to either side, yet it was somehow still visible to Kaladin. Inhuman. Smiling.

Kaladin felt a deep chill—a rolling prickle of ice—scurry down his spine and through his entire body. The sphere suddenly burst to life in his hand, flaring with a sapphire glow. It illuminated the stone roof beneath him, making his fist blaze with blue fire. His shirt was in tatters, his skin lacerated. He looked down at himself, shocked, then looked up at the face.

At least it was charged instantly at the same time the face appeared. My guess would be more "Facial shockwave" (the same shockwave that carries the face also carries concentrated stormlight) than lightning, but we just do not know enough. For all we know, the chasmfiends may morph into the Unmade in the end. I still think they become like this: Shallan sketch that was sent to Dalinar (sorry about ripping an image out of ebook), which we know looks kinda like chasmfiend. But we'll just have to wait and see. Probably Brandon will surprise us anyway.

P.S.: I have seen a 'walking stick'. Always thought of it as spindly rather than skeletal, though. But then, I DID learn English by reading WOT without dictionary, so I am no expert.

[LightReader]

I'm thinking of the description in the Prelude that the Thunderclasts had to rip themselves out of the stone for the battle. It makes me think that they were dormant somehow, having fused with the stone around them. No one has ever seen what the Chasmfiends turn into and there's no reference to how long it would take for a chasmfiend to transform into whatever it is they become. What if that's because they seem to actually turn into the stone, and only break out of their chrysalis when it comes time for them to fight. Maybe they would stay there on the plateaus, basically becoming a part of rock around them until they were called forth by Odium to fight in the desolations. Crem and sediment from the storms would build up around them, and they would feed on stormlight to keep themselves alive in their dormant state. I imagine that before the war, there were not many people on the Shattered Plains, and the pupating chasmfiends would have been left alone there for a long time. There could be dormant thunderclasts all over that area without anyone realizing it.

[Kuri Shardweaver]

I like it! Makes a lot of sense, natural camouflage and all .

[Arcanist Lupus]

My thoughts:

1. The creature from the picture is not an accurate representation of a thunderclast. It's not in any way skeletal, and it has claws, not hands. It could possibly be an inaccurate representation of a thunderclast.

2. I support the chasmfiend-pupating theory, although I'm not convinced they pupate into thunderclasts. see #3.

3. I think that the picture is a picture of a pupated chasmfiend. It may be a thunderclast, in which case (as I said before) it is an inaccurate representation, probably created by someone who hadn't seen a thunderclast, but who knew that they were the pupae of chasmfiends, so drew a chasmfiendish monster.

4. There were hints that the Parshendi regard the chasmfiends as gods. This doesn't mean they worship them (think of Ruin), just that they think they are gods (or slivers/parts of god). If they thought that chasmfiend-pupae were part of their enemy god, then they would try to hunt down and kill them before they can transform.

5. I'm in favor of the idea that the Parshendi are on the side of Honor (seeing as they fight honorably), which supports the idea that they are opponents to the chasmfiends-pupae, which (especially if they are thunderclasts) very likely creatures of Odium. My theory is that they've hunted the chasmfiends for a long time, but recently the rate of pupating has escalated, due to the approaching Desolation, so the Parshendi "enlisted" the help of the Alethi in hunting the chasmfiends.

6. Assuming that the chasmfiend-pupae are intelligent, the relationship between them and the chasmfiends reminds me very strongly of the relationship between mistwraiths and kandra. Take a non-sentient animal, add magic, and produce a sentient person.

[Satsuoni]

To Sir_Read-a-lot: So that is where the picture were. Thanks!

#3- Exactly what i was saying.

#4,5,6 - That is an interesting and plausible theories. Although i wonder how that meshes with the possibilities of Parshendi being Voidbringers. Maybe they just bring Void as opposed to actively using it. Also, insofar as their tactics is concerned, they seem to mimic Alethi almost exactly. I wonder if that is a kind of Honor or there is another reason.

[Argent]

5. I'm in favor of the idea that the Parshendi are on the side of Honor (seeing as they fight honorably), which supports the idea that they are opponents to the chasmfiends-pupae, which (especially if they are thunderclasts) very likely creatures of Odium. My theory is that they've hunted the chasmfiends for a long time, but recently the rate of pupating has escalated, due to the approaching Desolation, so the Parshendi "enlisted" the help of the Alethi in hunting the chasmfiends.

I think this is one of the more interesting theories I've read. It certainly fit. The Parshendi wanted the Alethi to know that they had killed Gavilar. They didn't originally live in the Shattered Plains (though they were close, just a little to the south), so maybe their retreat to the Plains was strategic - they wanted to get Alethkar's armies there, close to the chasmfiends whose gemhearts they wouldn't pass on. Gavilar's sphere that shines darkness doesn't sound like an artifact of Honor, so maybe they he was a convenient target in more than one ways - the Parshendi stopped Gavilar from messing with something that potentially comes from Odium, AND they got their help with the chasmfiends issue.

[lordofsoup]

That doesnt seem possible. Before the discovery of the Chasmfiends everyone thought that the last GreatShells had been killed off. If people had known that there were still ones left, hunters would have come from all over. And these ones are easy to kill while they are pupating.

[Argent]

The Parshendi may have known they were still around. And all communications with them has been non-existent until about 6 years ago.

[Unworldly]

If I remember correctly, Dalinar says that they discovered the Parshendi whilst on an extended hunt for Greatshells. I don't imagine it's a coincidence that they were looking in almost the right place for them.

[Catchfraze]

I'd like to point out that on the first bridge charge after Kaladin decides to stop being emo (the one where he switches with Rock to be in the middle of the front), Kaladin notices that the Parshendi are also going after the Gem heart. This could be why we haven't seen any Thunderclasts, for some reason the Parshendi are stopping them from pupating completely.

[Tortellini]

To be fair, Dalinar was rather preoccupied with other things. He was frantically trying to get information from the king, and also to get him to write his book. He was also so stunned by the destruction he saw before him that he momentarily forgot to stay in character. I wouldn't fault him for not remarking on the similarity of thunderclasts to chasmfiends.

So, I just reread the passage, and an important clue is actually coming a page later, on 851. Dalinar is talking to Navani to find further proof whether his vision is real or not. He says: I think I saw the aftermath of one (a desolation). I... I may have seen corpses of Voidbringers. Could that give us more proof?

So in this moment, Dalinar was specifically searching for a way to connect the image of the Voidbringers he saw (Thunderclasts) to anything he'd seen in real life. If they had looked like a chasmfiend, he would surely have brought it up, either right then or when Jasnah is sending over the sketch. He doesn't though, ever. Furthermore, since he describes his vision (off-page) to Navani, she should have a good idea what the Thunderclasts look like as well. She never makes the connection either.

Personally, I never saw the descriptions as similar anyway, but this shows that even to Dalinar and Navani, Chasmfiends and Thunderclasts don't look anything near alike.

And on the pupating thing - I'm not buying that either. Remember, there used to be other greatshells in Aimia that were hunted to extinction, and some aquatic greatshells still exist in the sea (they're mentioned in the "eyes of red and blue" story). So Chasmfiends are not that unique, and if greatshells hatched into Voidbringers, you'd be seeing some actual Voidbringers... My opinion, anyway. Speculate what you want, of course

[Satsuoni]

To Tortellini: My thoughts exactly. There may be some connection between Chasmfiends and Voidbringers, but Thunderclasts are not it. To recap my opinion: Thunderclasts: golems created/summoned by Voidbinding, Chasmfiends - just greatshells that may or may not be tamed/used by voidbringers during Desolations.

[Nathan]

It's an interesting theory, but differences in the two creatures don't necessarily eliminate them from being connected. Any living creature that we know of which undergoes a pupate-type metamorphosis generally drastically changes in both size and form. For example, look at the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. The 'end result' is very dissimilar to the original form. This is further compounded upon by any of the 10 million species of beetle, all beginning life as small grubs before transforming into much larger, fascinating creatures.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Thunderclasts were the final form of the chasmfiends, there is much supporting evidence to it, even in the behavior of the chasmfiends. After all, this is what we know about them:

They live down in the chasms, feasting on whatever living material might fall down there, arguably to fuel growth and prepare for its pupating phase. Then, it climbs to the top of a plateau and forms its chrysalis. This part is particularly important for one major reason. As quoted above, Voidbringers were said to hold Stormlight perfectly, and chasmfiends have gemstones of immense size for hearts. Assuming that there is something identical or akin to electricity involved in a highstorm that equates to gathered stormlight, lightning will always strike the tallest available object first. Climbing to the top of a plateau and already being so massive, a pupated chasmfiend would be a veritable magnet for 'stormlightning'.

So arguably, the chasmfiends climb to plateaus to pupate because they need a massive amount of stormlight to complete their transformation into a Thunderclast, and that's the best place to gather it. But of course, along come the humans to hack open their chrysalis, harvest the gemheart, and boom, no Thunderclast. And think about it, even the name 'thunderclast' supports them being born of a supercharged stormlight source such as a massive gemstone. Thunder always follows lightning, after all.

Just my two cents, at least.

I find this post very, very convincing.

I'd also just like to throw this quote in to the mix,

Jasnah, page 991 Chapter 74 (soft cover)

"There are some things about the histories I don't yet understand. Tales of creatures fighting alongside Parshmen, beasts of stone that might be some kind of greatshell, and other oddities that I think may have truth to them..."

Edited November 8, 2011 by Nathan