Dros

Here's the thing, though, Desolations are too effective at killing. 90% of the world's population is wiped out; 90%! Will the 10% remaining have some hate for the aggressors? Sure, but it is much more effective to induce hate by killing small amounts of influential people or causing emotional harm to the vast majority of the living. Odium is a Shard so I think he could think of something and I would think causing anguish to as many people as possible would be much more effective at inducing hate than killing as many people as possible. In terms of the Desolations as a tactic to induce as much hate as possible, it's a terribly ineffective tactic. Now, it's possible the whole thing got out of hand, but I doubt something called a Desolation was ever meant to be anything smaller than, well, desolation. Interesting view on Bavadin though, Elwynn. To add a little to that...just because Hoid holds a grudge against both Shards doesn't mean they're working together. IIRC, Hoid knew all the Shardholders before they picked up their respective Shards, so the grudge may be aimed at what the individuals Rayse and Bavadin did before they picked up the Shards. EDIT: It could be that Dragonsteel will explain a bit of this.

Hmm...I'll have to do some digging to back that up, but I was pretty sure he said Honor's death wasn't the reason.

There's a good possibility you're right. But I'm still trying to figure out why Odium is doing this in the first place. I know he loathes everything, but that doesn't necessarily translate into action. The goth girl in the back of a room hating the other kids is a form of odium too, but that doesn't mean anymore than an emotion. You don't have to act on that emotion to retain that emotion. By the simple fact that Odium isn't picking up the Shards of his victims, shows he doesn't wish to change his Intent. So why kill anything? Killing, even by evil people, is a means to an ends. It's used to resolve something. Rayse isn't trying to stop hating...killing the Shardholders won't necesarily make him hate any more than he does and, if he doesn't want to change his Intent, even after killing them, he's still hating them. Nothing in his actions does anything to progress the Intent of his Shard. Hate is an emotion, which is different than the other Shards. Ruin, Preservation, Honor, Cultivation, Devotion, Dominion...these all have actions associated with them. In order to satisfy the Intent of Ruin...things must be destroyed or broken down, in order to satisfy the Intent of Cultivation...things must be given a way to become better, etc. However, you don't really have to do anything to hate, even if you really hate something, i.e. in order to satisfy the Intent of Odium...all you have to do is just not like things. He could sit on his Shardcouch, eating Shardcheetos, talking Shardsmack about Honor all day and night and that would satisfy his Intent the same as anything else. So... You think maybe Rayse went nutso crazy? I mean, playing with feces type crazy? Charlie Manson crazy? You don't have to kill to hate, but hateful crazy people can do some scewed up stuff. Maybe that's why Hoid thinks Odium is the most dangerous Shard out there. Maybe he knows Rayse has lost it and he's ganking other Shards. EDIT: Wanted to add one last thing...if Odium hates everything so much he refuses to Invest his power in anything...then where are the Voidbringers/Unmade, etc. getting their abilities?

A lot of folks believe that it happened, at the earliest, sometime after the Recreance. Honor states in his last vision to Dalinar that the many of the scenes he has shown Dalinar, he witnessed directly. The Recreance, in my opinion, seems to be one those. It's one of the less "abstract" visions. Brandon has also said, the Recreance was not in response to the death of Tanavast. He didn't say exactly why it happened, but that wasn't it.

Which always makes me wonder...if Tanavast and Rayse were enemies, why wasn't he ready for Odium to come after him? At least set some type of defense up; he's a Shard, certianly he could have figured something out.

Well, isn't Soulcasting Roshar's equivalent of alchemy? Except it works on Roshar. Seems Brandon found a way around the problem of alchemy on Roshar. You simply enter the Cognitive Realm and ask the thing to change, and it must agree to do so, correct? That implies every object has a sentient, or at least semi-sentient, cognitive aspect. Can an object refuse to do what the soulcaster asks of it? Or is my understanding of how it works completely off?

I, of course, approve, and like it. There's also the point in Dalinar's vision of Honor that never sat well with me if Odium is supposed to be the Big Bad. Honor's comment that Dalinar might be able to get Odium to choose a champion seems to be a throw away comment; like a suggestion ona whim and not really the most important thing he was trying to tell him. If Odium was the main enemy, I think he would go into a lot detail maybe giving Dalinar some intelligence on their enemy, but honestly, it didn't seem Odium was his main concern for the visions, it was a big part, of course, because Odium killed him, but there was some thing moire important to tell it seemed. Kind of like, "Everstorm is coming and that's bad. Oh yeah, Odium ganked me. Odium, Odium, Odium, what to do about that guy? I dunno, make him choose a champion? In any event, there's something bad coming...blah, blah, blah."

Ugh. Thinking on that for awhile, the only thing I could come up with is people breeding them like a rancher would breed cattle. That does not paint a pretty picture. However, I did come up something that might act as a slight counterpoint, Eshondai(sp?) states the slave form is a chosen form that she finds distatsteful, so it might be possible for the Parshmen to change forms...if they wanted to. There's no mention of that in the book by other POV chars, so that can't really be verified. However, this does confirm that Parshmen are the same race as Parshendi, just a different form. So, if the Parshmen aren't mating, it's possible the Parshendi are replenishing the Parshmen ranks, unbeknowest to the rest of Roshar.

They have a "mating form" so I imagine that's what they use to make babies. Brandon's reading made it sound like most of them change forms at certian times for certian tasks and the POV char doesn't understand why some Parshendi keep forms for such long periods without embarrasment, so although they have a choice to change forms, I don't think we know why they decide to do it.

That's pretty interesting. How do they refer to specific times of day? I can't seem to remember how they did that.

I was also thinking along the same lines, Pledge. Holes abound in my theory below, but whattaya gonna do? My own thoughts from another thread below:

I've seen the Ishi theory a few times, but it's been nothing but conjecture. The point about ethnicity is kind of interesting, though. In terms of evolution, Baxil's mistress, who probably is a Herald, is a mixture of the current races on Roshar...usually it would be the other way around, no? Usually over such a long period of time, one would observe a mixture forming and sharp contrasts between races begin to disappear. That doesn't seem to be the case on Roshar. If anything, the contrasts seem to be getting more sharp as time moves along. Might this have something to do with the Shards' realtionships on Roshar?

Shardblades disappear, but Honorblades do not. You picking up what I'm putting down here?

Yes! That's it exactly!

I was thinking more along the lines of knowing the history of the Radiants, not really having the predisposed DNA to become one. If the KRs had family, I imagine they didn't just leave them too. And if they didn't, wouldn't those children have grown up with some stories of life before, during and after the Recreance? As fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, nieces, etc, certianly someone in their family would have at least observed some behaviors or conversations of particular interest. Unless they really did just vanish without a trace.

True, but the others still seem to be handling it a bit better than him. I'm not saying he's not manly enough because he doesn't want to die, but as the monarch of a society based on warfare and a vicious code of soldierly life, he doesn't seem very hard.

I don't think that's ever been mentioned or asked, actually. Interesting. I'm trying to remember what the name of the group is that is awaiting the return of the KR, but I'm coming up with nothing. One of Kaladin's Bridge 4 mates used to be tangentially involved with the group, but I can't remember his name either. In any event, maybe such a group was founded by children/grandchildren of the Radiants?

Someone , I believe it may have been dj, made a great point in another thread about this. If the Heralds are still around, they're probably carrying around quite a bit of guilt and after enduring hell, literally hell, they've probably got a nasty case of PTSD and a dose of madness. So destroying statues and images celebrating your visage might easily be something a guilt-ridden, half-crazed person might be driven to.

.Oh. Understood.

Have we been told that specifically? We've been told he doesn't pick up the Shards he splintered because he knows they would change his Intent. We were told he killed the Shardholders on Sel and we know he killed Honor, but it was my understanding we were never really told specifically why he did it. I agree that definitely makes sense, but I don't recall ever hearing that confirmed. If it has been confirmed...yeah, I agree, major flaw.

The numbers 1-16 are significant in the Cosmere and certian on es are for the Shards, I thought. The nature of that significance is unknown...except to Brandon Sanderson, I imagine.

I always wondered that about Elohkar. He just always seemed way in over his head.

Technically, Honor didn't break it. His chosen champions did. Anyone in a leadership position knows it doesn't matter what the troops screw up, you get blamed.

I thought Nohadon founded them with the Way of the Kings as their guide. I might be wrong on that, though. I was thinking the Way of the Kings just changed the way people accessed Honor's power and created the KR. They did it before, but not the same way as a KR would. And that's a HUGE assumption on my part. Also, boons and curses are a theme in the book, as well. Old Magic will do something great for you...but not without a price to pay. Regaining the power of the KR is great, but now you have the Desolations to deal with. For background though, I have a somewhat...different view of the Oathpact. I think we are looking at the Oathpact like it was treaty between warring Shards. That might be slightly off, in my opinion. Brandon had said Shardic power interferes with one another. If that's the case, three Shards allowing people to access their powers on one planet might be a bit hard to control without cooperation. One might need a bargain...or a compact, or say, an Oathpact, i.e. each party has certian obligations to fulfill, to make sure the magic on that planet has the desired effect. When all three parties were fulfilling these obligations, Roshar might have once been a flourishing planet...that had to fight a vicious war against an unknown enemy at regular intervals. Making the Oathpact really, really important to the defense of the planet. Also, I don't think Odium is the Enemy during the Desolations (something many, many...many people don't agree with). I think he got pissed at Honor because his guys broke the Oathpact and messed everything up. This makes sense to me, because it's hard to believe that Honor said he should've known Odium would come for him. If you're warring with someone and have a brokered peace that you break, why wouldn't you think the enemy is coming for you. I think Honor's saying, my guys messed up, Odium is hate incarnate, I should have known he would've been really upset about this. I think Odium killed the Shards on Sel, because they interfered in some way on Roshar and he just got mad as hell about it. I think when we see the quote, "Three of sixteen ruled, now the Broken One reigns." it means Honor, not Odium. I think the guy in the sky telling Kaladin he can't ride the storms anymore is a recording from Odium. "Honor broke the Oathpact, pal, GET OFF MY LAWN!" His quip at the end, "Odium reigns"? It's his way of saying "O'Doyle Rules!" in my opinion. A reminder that he's still around. Taking all of that and applying it to the new reading of the chapter is somewhat how I got the above idea. I usually don't put it out there, because it's messy and I'm not quite sure I believe it myself. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted folks to see where I was coming from.

It would be one heckuva twist, though, wouldn't it?