Roshar’s Freudian Mind

[Confused]

Mind and magic mingle on Roshar, a world of living ideas. Roshar’s Shards IMO resemble pieces of the Freudian mind. Honor is Freud’s super-ego; Odium is Freud’s id; and Cultivation is Freud’s ego. I think the Freudian mind provides a useful metaphor for the Shards’ conflict. Hear me out.

Brandon says Honor is “the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by.” Honor sounds like Freud’s super-ego: “The super-ego…reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence….” Think Szeth’s oathstone.

Odium’s “passion” sounds like Freud’s id: “the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives.” Says Odium, “I am lust, joy, hatred, anger, and exultation. I am glory and I am vice.” (OB, Chapter 57, Kindle p. 551.)

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The super-ego works in contradiction to the id. The super-ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner, whereas the id just wants instant self-gratification. The super-ego controls our sense of right and wrong and guilt. It helps us fit into society by getting us to act in socially acceptable ways. (Source.)

You see this interplay most clearly in the Heart of the Revel scene (OB, Chapter 78). Revelers embrace pleasure heedless of super-ego-imposed duty. Likewise, Odium as id blasts away Dalinar’s super-ego – the culturally iconic, rule-making Way of Kings. (OB, Chapter 118.) In Freud’s terms, Desolations are super-ego-repressed compulsions of the id that periodically resurface.

Cultivation “prunes” for long-term growth. This is the ego’s role:

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The ego is the organized part of the personality structure that…separates out what is real…The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions...It’s task is to find a balance between primitive drives and reality while satisfying the id and super-ego. (Source.)

Freud says the ego is like a rider seeking to guide and restrain a willful horse (the id): “The super-ego's demands often oppose the id’s, so the ego sometimes has a hard time in reconciling the two….” (Source.) IMO, Cultivation created Radiant spren (through the Nightwatcher) as super-ego-like cultural ideals to help bind society, the antidote to basic instinctual drives.

I think the Freudian mind analogy is interesting even if Brandon doesn’t intend it. The words “fiery surge,” “red lightning and impetuous rage,” and “desolation, void of light,” appear within eight lines of each other in John Milton’s description of Hell. (Paradise Lost, Book 1, lines 173-181.) Does Brandon intend that allusion? You don’t always know with authors.

@Bigmikey357 gave me the idea for this topic when he said, “So basically Odium was Adonalsium’s id before they split up.” If you like the idea, credit him.