Highstorms

[happyman]

hmmm...I think the point is that spren have the capacity to become sapient no?

Anyway it seems like technology based on spren and stormlight might be hit by the death of the Highstorms.

Some spren have the capacity to be sapient. Even if all Spren have that capacity (I sure hope not, given how many there are), we don't know what their needs or desires would be. Possibly being in a fabrial for eternity is a Spren's dream job or ultimate desire. They're just so alien in terms of basic "biology" (for lack of a better word).

These arguments have been bandied around previously as jokes, but I think there is a very serious side to them. My take is that we don't know enough yet to really study the moral implications.

But I do agree that without Stormlight, these technologies would be in trouble. I'm not sure if Highstorms are the only way to get it, though.

[CJ Feboris]

No one has brought up Kaladin's expulsion from the storm in his dream. Jezrien says to him that men no longer ride on the storms / the oathpact is shattered. I think this is very significant in the discussion of highstorms because they were also a means of transportation, there are several allusions to this in the text. Can Dalinar & Kaladin restore the oathpact and begin to reclaim some of the lost magic. Dalinar is asked to form the Knights Radient again, will this restore the oathpact? Can the spren like Syl teach the new knights how to use their power once they remember enough? It has taken a long time for a "child of Honor" to show up and the bond to be formed again, what will it take to make an army of Knights Radient again? Really I have more questions than answers, but they seem to be significant questions in relation to the Highstorm and all of its implications.

[Earendil]

Going back to the origin of the Highstorms, have you considered that they might be mostly caused by the extreme tidal forces Roshar is under? We know that Roshar is less massive than Earth, spinning faster, and has a number of moons, including some that are quite large. Those characteristics will combine to give you some wicked tides, and might also be the reason that the seasons change so "sporadically". If Roshar has n-body gravitational problems going on, even assuming a stable orbit, the period of that stable orbit could be long enough that it's almost impossible to realize (imagine if the pattern of the seasons only repeated every hundred years--it would be really hard to deduce the signal from the noise).

Obviously the Highstorms contain some supernatural component, but I think it's likely more a case of someone using the storms, rather than causing them.

[happyman]

I'm all for rational explanations of things that don't seem supernatural, even in fantasy works, but given the Highstorms very, very odd properties (such as causing spheres containing gems to glow, with this glow then fueling magic systems, people having the ability to ride the storms, Dalinar's visions occurring only during Highstorms, and other less obviously odd, but odd, features like the extraordinarily abrupt storm front), having any natural explanation seems like a low-probability event.

[Asha'man Logain]

Actually, This is a potential explanation in itself, and I can't believe I missed it. Maybe the storms don't go any farther than Shinovar.

I never said he wasn't dead. Tanavast is almost certainly dead. Because it was Odium/Rayse that killed him, there's a good chance that Honor was Splintered. Now, a lot of people are guessing that the spren are in fact the Splinters of Honor. We have seen that windspren seem to follow the storms west, and that Syl desperately wanted to. This solidifies the fact the multiple kinds of spren are drawn west by the storms. We also have a quote saying that Honor was in the west at the time of the building of Urithiru. Whether he is still there is up for debate, but let's assume for now that he is, albeit dead. If this is the case, it would seem that the spren are being drawn to his body. If these spren really are pieces of Honor, that means that they are regrouping at their original body. If one takes all of this for granted, it is pretty concievable that the reason for their gathering is that they are coming together again, reforming the Shard. Think of it like this: instead of the storms being pushed out by the east, they are being pulled in by the west. It has little grounds, but the mere fact that Honor is dead does not disprove it. In fact, if Honor was not dead, this would make no sense at all!

Maybe the Shin are holding honor's body under ground. It would explain why they feel stone is sacred, why there are no spren (being absorbed into whatever form Honor's body takes,(mistborn spoiler)

probably NOT atium)

It could be that Szeth did something like go underground, where he was not supposed to go. Perhaps he got the Shard from there, or disturbed the Almighty's recovering body.

[Earendil]

Maybe the Shin are holding honor's body under ground. It would explain why they feel stone is sacred, why there are no spren (being absorbed into whatever form Honor's body takes,(mistborn spoiler)

probably NOT atium)

It could be that Szeth did something like go underground, where he was not supposed to go. Perhaps he got the Shard from there, or disturbed the Almighty's recovering body.

First, as to your spoiler, you can go ahead and replace "probably" with "definitely". As to why...

First, Honor probably doesn't have a metallic physical (solid) component, since we haven't seen any particular connection to metals on Roshar. More importantly, though, Honor's physical component can't be Atium, since Atium is Ruin's physical component. For the same reason, Honor's physical component won't be Larasium--those metals are directly tied to their respective Shards, and Honor's physical component will be too.

Second, I'd be skeptical that the Shin are "holding" Honor's body. That would require a level of foresight that I'm not willing to grant anyone we've met on Roshar yet. It's possible that Honor's body is located somewhere in Shinovar, and the Shin might even revere the cavern, but I doubt they are consciously aware of what's going on--Odium will be working too hard to make sure that no one is.

However, I'll admit that a lot of my skepticism comes because I think that the reason that Szeth is Truthless is directly tied to him being a Shardbearer.

[CrazyRioter]

I got the impression that the Shardblade was part of his punishment actually. But that's a discussion best left to another thread lest we derail this one.

anyway, I agree that the storms are probably supernatural, but by way of playing devil's advocate I note that it's possible they were originally natural and the supernatural elements are a result of one or more of the Shards on Roshar co-opting them for their own ends. Nearly all-powerful entities can do that.

[happyman]

I got the impression that the Shardblade was part of his punishment actually. But that's a discussion best left to another thread lest we derail this one.

anyway, I agree that the storms are probably supernatural, but by way of playing devil's advocate I note that it's possible they were originally natural and the supernatural elements are a result of one or more of the Shards on Roshar co-opting them for their own ends. Nearly all-powerful entities can do that.

I agree with the sentiment in principle. It seems like the kind of thing Brandon would like to do. The real problem is that absolutely freaking nothing in real life behaves like Highstorms in any kind of detail. Hurricanes are only the broadest of fits, and that's in terms of power; very little else (structure, timing, etc) matches.

[Cuaiir]

The stormwall of the highstorms also resembles the eyewall of a hurricane, as do the progressively weaker waves of thunderstorm that follow the stormwall. For ease of thought, I try to picture Roshar as being in the center of a giant hurricane as it moves across the continent.

Actually, that could be exactly what happens, depending on the atmosphere of Roshar. A truly enormous hurricane forms on regular intervals, with its center over, say, the Purelake, and the tidal and atmospheric forces of the planet make it move in the same direction every time. As the eyewall (stormwall) of the giant hurricane passes over the continent, it loses force, much like real hurricane. And hey, coroborating this is the oddity that the coastline of Roshar is broken up in a lot of spirals.

I'm just spouting this off thoughts and a little bit of Wikipedia, but it seems plausible.

[FellKnight]

The stormwall of the highstorms also resembles the eyewall of a hurricane, as do the progressively weaker waves of thunderstorm that follow the stormwall. For ease of thought, I try to picture Roshar as being in the center of a giant hurricane as it moves across the continent.

Actually, that could be exactly what happens, depending on the atmosphere of Roshar. A truly enormous hurricane forms on regular intervals, with its center over, say, the Purelake, and the tidal and atmospheric forces of the planet make it move in the same direction every time. As the eyewall (stormwall) of the giant hurricane passes over the continent, it loses force, much like real hurricane. And hey, coroborating this is the oddity that the coastline of Roshar is broken up in a lot of spirals.

I'm just spouting this off thoughts and a little bit of Wikipedia, but it seems plausible.

An interesting idea, but I don't think that it's realistic. From my impressions of what I read, highstorms are large storms, perhaps the size of a city or a county/province, but not continental-sized, as they would have to be in your idea. Also, it seems like a regular continental sized hurricane would be so powerful as to destroy everything. Also doesn't explain why the continental highstorm would not affect Shinovar.

Fell

[jcole]

I read something odd when reading about Kaladin riding the highstorm. It says that he was in front of it.

He raged forward, the stormwall behind him his trailing cape, soaring above a heaving, black expanse. The ocean. His passing churned up a tempest, slamming waves into one another, lifting white caps to be caught in his wind.

So I went back to see what we find in front of the stormwall.

The stormwall approached, the visible curtain of rain and wind at the advent of a highstorm. It was a massive wave of water, dirt, and rocks, hundreds of feet high, thousands upon thousands of windspren zipping before it.

Is he riding those windspren? Are they even windspren? We see Kaladin confusing windspren with honorspren earlier.

I guess I'm asking what it means to be riding the storms at all.

Edited June 29, 2011 by jcole

[happyman]

The stormwall of the highstorms also resembles the eyewall of a hurricane, as do the progressively weaker waves of thunderstorm that follow the stormwall. For ease of thought, I try to picture Roshar as being in the center of a giant hurricane as it moves across the continent.

Actually, that could be exactly what happens, depending on the atmosphere of Roshar. A truly enormous hurricane forms on regular intervals, with its center over, say, the Purelake, and the tidal and atmospheric forces of the planet make it move in the same direction every time. As the eyewall (stormwall) of the giant hurricane passes over the continent, it loses force, much like real hurricane. And hey, coroborating this is the oddity that the coastline of Roshar is broken up in a lot of spirals.

I'm just spouting this off thoughts and a little bit of Wikipedia, but it seems plausible.

It's an interesting idea, but it just makes my point.

A hurricane that size would not, repeat not, be natural, or even close to it, especially over land. Natural hurricanes are driven by heat transport which can only be created and sustained over water. It is impossible for a hurricane to form over a continent. Also, the eye of a hurricane is at most about 230 miles in diameter (according to Wikipedia). I have a hard time imagining that Roshar is less than 230 miles across. Even accounting for a different gravity, I doubt that the basic mechanics would change much.

No, Highstorms are like nothing we are familiar with. They are comparable with Hurricanes mostly in strength and a few superficial similarities, but I don't see a natural origin as plausible.

[Wonko the Sane]

An interesting idea, but I don't think that it's realistic. From my impressions of what I read, highstorms are large storms, perhaps the size of a city or a county/province, but not continental-sized, as they would have to be in your idea. Also, it seems like a regular continental sized hurricane would be so powerful as to destroy everything. Also doesn't explain why the continental highstorm would not affect Shinovar.

Fell

Do you have a quote for this? I think it is generally understood that the Storms span the entirety of Roshar. And yes, they do destroy everything, on a regular basis. The entire continent of Roshar, save for Shinovar, is a barren, rocky wasteland. Every single aspect of the world is a direct result of the Storms. The only living things that survive are those whose main evolutionary focus is to withstand these Storms. What more destruction do you want? And it should be obvious that Shinovar is protected from the Storms by the only major mountain range on the continent; a mountain range, I might add, that completely encompasses the border of Shinovar.

[FellKnight]

Do you have a quote for this? I think it is generally understood that the Storms span the entirety of Roshar. And yes, they do destroy everything, on a regular basis. The entire continent of Roshar, save for Shinovar, is a barren, rocky wasteland. Every single aspect of the world is a direct result of the Storms. The only living things that survive are those whose main evolutionary focus is to withstand these Storms. What more destruction do you want? And it should be obvious that Shinovar is protected from the Storms by the only major mountain range on the continent; a mountain range, I might add, that completely encompasses the border of Shinovar.

No, no quotes. However, I did just go back and check the map and read I-4 about Shinovar, and it seems to back up the position that the highstorms cannot be continent-sized. If they were, they would easy circumvent the mountain ranges to the south or north (depending on which direction the winds blow, clockwise or counter-clockwise). Also, I am talking about far more destruction than the highstorms do. If there was truly a continental sized hurricane, the winds near the edges of the storm would have to be traveling somewhere between 500-1000 mph, depending on how large the continent is. This would be like having a storm 100-1000 times the power of Katrina every few days. It would be impossible for almost any life to survive, and simply pointing structures toward the stormwall would be useless.

Finally, the map would not have the directions East and West as Stormward and Leeward if the winds blew in a circular motion depending on where on the continent you are. I think that the book's answer, that the storms originate in the East at a place called the Origin, travel westerly through some mechanism we cannot be exactly sure of, and consistently lose strength as they travel over land, is the one that makes the most sense at the moment.

Fell

[Wonko the Sane]

No, no quotes. However, I did just go back and check the map and read I-4 about Shinovar, and it seems to back up the position that the highstorms cannot be continent-sized. If they were, they would easy circumvent the mountain ranges to the south or north (depending on which direction the winds blow, clockwise or counter-clockwise). Also, I am talking about far more destruction than the highstorms do. If there was truly a continental sized hurricane, the winds near the edges of the storm would have to be traveling somewhere between 500-1000 mph, depending on how large the continent is. This would be like having a storm 100-1000 times the power of Katrina every few days. It would be impossible for almost any life to survive, and simply pointing structures toward the stormwall would be useless.

Finally, the map would not have the directions East and West as Stormward and Leeward if the winds blew in a circular motion depending on where on the continent you are. I think that the book's answer, that the storms originate in the East at a place called the Origin, travel westerly through some mechanism we cannot be exactly sure of, and consistently lose strength as they travel over land, is the one that makes the most sense at the moment.

Fell

Remember, the concept that the storms are actually spiral hurricanes is just speculation. I personally disagree, as give the percentage of the planet that the continent covers, a hurricane large enough that the eye covers the continent simply would not fit on the planet, much less be possible to form. I have to agree with the in-world view: that the storms are just massive straight lines that move from east to west. Given that nothing like this exists in nature, I have to disagree with the idea that they are not entirely supernatural. As stated before, I believe that they might in fact form a circle around the globe, traveling from one point to another. think of it like our own lines of latitude. the ending point would be Honor's corpse, the beginning point just the point opposite him.

[Joe ST]

Remember, the concept that the storms are actually spiral hurricanes is just speculation. I personally disagree, as give the percentage of the planet that the continent covers, a hurricane large enough that the eye covers the continent simply would not fit on the planet, much less be possible to form. I have to agree with the in-world view: that the storms are just massive straight lines that move from east to west. Given that nothing like this exists in nature, I have to disagree with the idea that they are not entirely supernatural. As stated before, I believe that they might in fact form a circle around the globe, traveling from one point to another. think of it like our own lines of latitude. the ending point would be Honor's corpse, the beginning point just the point opposite him.

So you think they are pulses from the Origin that expand out around the whole world? the problem there is that the contraction after the equator to the antiOrigin would lead to backlash, I'd hate to live there lol... and Shinovar will cause refraction?

[happyman]

In this discussion, why hasn't anybody brought up Kaladin's experience of the Highstorms when he was riding it? I don't have WoK with me, but I definitely feel like he experienced it as a big cloak covering the continent traveling from East to West, getting weaker as he travelled west. This is probably the best description we have of the actual Highstorms considered as a whole; I seriously doubt Kaladin was hallucinating any of it. If this description is accurate, describing the Highstorms as anything besides 100% supernatural seems unlikely, to say the least.

[Wonko the Sane]

So you think they are pulses from the Origin that expand out around the whole world? the problem there is that the contraction after the equator to the antiOrigin would lead to backlash, I'd hate to live there lol... and Shinovar will cause refraction?

As stated before, my theory is that the Origin is actually meaningless, and that Honor's body is actually pulling the storms inward. if this is the case, it would be absorbing the excess energy as it reformed. Aditionally, Honor could well be in Shinovar, so it does'nt necessarily block the storms on the other side. I understand that little of this is likely to be the case, but the fact that more than one kind of spren are following the storms west must mean something.

[pdxtrent]

Last fall when Brandon signed in Portland, I asked him about the Highstorms. I wanted to know if there was 1 Highstorm, or multiple Highstorms.... I was RAFO'ed. I suspect that the Highstorm(I think there is only one), is likely either the remains of the body of Honor.

Which explains the presence of the spren in the storm, why the stormlight powers all the magics, and why the visions Dalinar sees come with the storms. I further think that the Stormfather Kaladin sees in the storm is basically the 'ghost' of Honor, the shard, not the bearer(who is dead). It doesn't look like Jezrien, it doesn't look like the Almighty from the visions.... because it is the Honor unbound to any shardholder.

[CrazyRioter]

I don't think the Shards have any coherent intelligence of their own, which is why they need a holder in the first place.

[Xavien]

I do not see how the Highstorms could be related to Honor's body for two reasons:

1) Highstorms existed during the period of Desolations (Dalinar's first onscreen vision)

2) The visions are a "recording" from just before Honor died. Only the last vision was speculation of the future, the others were all events that had already happened.

Personally I see all a bit of all 3 Shards at work in the Highstorms:

Immense destruction = Odium

Regrowth/Life in the rains = Cultivation (plants do better with water from Highstorms than normal water)

Either Stormlight, unity, or it represents a challenge from Odium to overcome = Honor

The last of the 3 is a little weak I know, but it also makes sense in how those three Shards would coexist on Roshar. Think of it as another contest between Odium and Honor from something that may have initially been started by Cultivation. Cultivation created an ecosystem in spite of it and Honor used the power of the storms to unite people (Dawncities)

We know 'Three ruled but now the broken one reigned' (paraphrase) so something as important to the world as a whole sounds like it would be a product of all three.

[Dros]

Going back to the origin of the Highstorms, have you considered that they might be mostly caused by the extreme tidal forces Roshar is under?

I don't seem to recall anyone in Dalinar's past visions ever mentioning the Highstorms. If that is so, it would make them a relatively "recent" phenomena.

[Xavien]

I don't seem to recall anyone in Dalinar's past visions ever mentioning the Highstorms. If that is so, it would make them a relatively "recent" phenomena.

Dalinar's first vision. Highstorms are not mentioned explicitly but in describing his surroundings he mentions rockbuds and crem. The first exist as an evolutionary (or Shard created) response to the Highstorms, the later is a direct byproduct of those storms.

On the other side of the spectrum we have what Dalinar didn't comment on. In our brief interlude to Shinovar we see an easterners first experience with real grass and her response to it. Grass is only possible in Shinovar because the Highstorms don't reach there. The first vision takes place in Nanatanan, if their was real grass there I would expect Dalinar to have made note of it. Other than recognizing that he was near what would become the Shattered Plains, the world itself is familiar to him, not foreign.

[CabbageHead]

I don't seem to recall anyone in Dalinar's past visions ever mentioning the Highstorms. If that is so, it would make them a relatively "recent" phenomena.

There is ample evidence in them that the storms are not a recent thing. In the stormdream involving the midnight essence, Dalinar is described as being

in a small lait—a wide rift in the stone with good enough drainage to avoid flooding and a high stone outcropping to break the highstorms. In this case, the eastern rock formation was shaped like an enormous wave, creating shelter for a small village.

Granted, he does not see a storm directly, but he sees that people have built their dwellings in a manner familiar to him for avoiding storm damage, and the land is also descibed as being stone, evidence that storms are preventing the development of topsoil. The woman Taffa, wife of the person in whose place Dalinar experinced the past, also made direct reference to the storms:

“Get the girl, woman.”

“‘The girl’? Seeli, our daughter. And since when have you called me woman? Is Taffa so hard to say? Stormwinds, Heb, what has gotten into you?”

Taffa makes reference to stormwinds at least twice during the sequence, indicating the importance of storms in the culture she was from. We can reasonably infer from this that Highstorms existed then.

On an unrelated matter, when re-reading this part of the book for this post, I found this line from Tanavast speaking through Taffa at the end of the scene to be very interesting in light of the fact it is part of a set of visions sent from the dead holder of the Honor shard to anyone capable of hearing it in the future:

“This is important. Do not let strife consume you. Be strong. Act with honor, and honor will aid you.”

Is this the dead shardholder telling Dalinar that despite the fact he is dead, and the fact that the Shard may be splintered, the Intent of the Shard will be sufficient to let it aid those who espouse it's ideal, even bereft of a guiding intelligence?

[IvoryRoad]

Not to mention that all animal life has been evolving for thousands or even millions of years to better cope with an occurence that's become completely normal for the world of Roshar. Highstorms are not a "recent" development by any stretch of imagination.

This is probably just me being naive, but I always had the impression that highstorms were just an interesting planetary "feature" that sets Roshar apart from the multitudes of other fantasy continents out there. As in, the ashfalls from Mistborn. They were there for a reason, but it was not necessarily a central aspect of the plot.

That said, I completely expect to see some sort of voyage toward the origin in future books. A windrunner could probably do it; just lash toward the origin and fall toward it at terminal velocity. Would shorten the journey somewhat, I expect.

Edited September 16, 2011 by IvoryRoad