Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, we finished off Part Four, when Kaladin and Shallan returned from the chasms with their contributions for the upcoming expedition to the center of the plateaus. This week, we’ll take a step back and examine the letter comprising the epigraphs of Part Four.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. In particular, this discussion will contain spoilers for Mistborn: Secret History, as it contains particularly relevant information. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Part Four: The Approach
Epigraphs, The Return Letter
IN WHICH we find a response to the letter of the epigraphs in Part Two of The Way of Kings, and we still don’t know who wrote it.
The Text
I’ll address this letter to my “old friend,” as I have no idea what name you’re using currently. / Have you given up on the gemstone, now that it is dead? And do you no longer hide behind the name of your old master? I am told that in your current incarnation you’ve taken a name that references what you presume to be one of your virtues. / This is, I suspect, a little like a skunk naming itself for its stench.
Now, look what you’ve made me say. You’ve always been able to bring out the most extreme in me, old friend. And I do still name you a friend, for all that you weary me. / Yes, I’m disappointed. Perpetually, as you put it. / Is not the destruction we have wrought enough? The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium. Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain.
My path has been chosen very deliberately. Yes, I agree with everything you have said about Rayse, including the severe danger he presents. / However, it seems to me that all things have been set up for a purpose, and if we— as infants— stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem.
Rayse is captive. He cannot leave the system he now inhabits. His destructive potential is, therefore, inhibited. / Whether this was Tanavast’s design or not, millennia have passed without the death of one of the sixteen. While I mourn for the great suffering Rayse has caused, I do not believe we could hope for a better outcome than this. / He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become. / I suspect that he is more a force than an individual now, despite your insistence to the contrary. That force is contained, and an equilibrium reached.
You, however, have never been a force for equilibrium. You tow chaos behind you like a corpse dragged by one leg through the snow. Please, hearken to my plea. Leave that place and join me in my oath of nonintervention. / The cosmere itself may depend upon our restraint.
Commentary
First, a word of warning. As noted above, I will be referring to comments made in Mistborn: Secret History as I discuss this letter. I may also refer to various Words of Brandon, and I expect that both will be referenced in the comments section as well. I’m sorry, but there it is; we can’t do the job right without it. You stand warned.
Second, just in case you missed it or want to refresh your memory, you may want to review Carl’s discussion of the first letter; they are clearly connected.
Now, on to the letter. Word of Brandon has implicitly confirmed that Hoid is one of the correspondents; we still don’t know who the other is. He (and explicitly he) is from a world we haven’t seen yet, but that’s not much to go on. Sazed is ruled out, both implicitly (we’ve seen his world) and then explicitly. Khriss is also ruled out, being female. There is speculation that the character Frost, from the yet-unpublished book/series Dragonsteel, is the second person; I tend to agree, as Brandon has identified him as “the oldest character we know.” Not that we know much about him…
As to the contents, I’m completely baffled by the first query: “Have you given up on the gemstone, now that it is dead?” Is this referring to the same item as the previous letter, which referred to an “element”? That was, IIRC, confirmed to be the bead of lerasium Hoid swiped from Scadrial; is this supposed to be the same item? Because… I don’t get why it should be “dead”—or if the writer only assumes that it’s dead, perhaps because Leras is. I also don’t get why a bead of lerasium would be referred to as a “gemstone.” So, yeah. I don’t understand this one at all. Anyone else?
So then we have a bit of recriminatory fluff that will, someday, make perfect sense and be so meaningful… presumably. He pokes fun at Hoid calling himself “Wit” and then feels bad about his irritation and insult, but then we get into the meaty bits:
“Is not the destruction we have wrought enough?” I have to assume this refers to certain events described in M:SH—
“Anyway, there was a God. Adonalsium. I don’t know if it was a force or a being, though I suspect the latter. Sixteen people, together, killed Adonalsium, ripping it apart and dividing its essence between them, becoming the first who Ascended.”
“… Some wished for the power; others saw killing Adonalsium as the only good option left to them. Together they murdered a deity, and became divine themselves.” …
“So . . . my world, and everyone I know, is the creation of a pair of… half gods?”
“More like fractional gods. And ones with no particular qualifications for deityhood, other than being conniving enough to murder the guy who had the job before.”
It’s been verified that Hoid was actually present at Adonalsium’s Shattering; my guess is that the author of this letter was there too, and is still feeling guilty about it for more reasons than one. Side note: I also begin to suspect that, while the sixteen people referenced above (and perhaps some others) were instrumental in the Shattering, it may have been Adonalsium’s own plan they were carrying out, whether they knew it or not. Just a hunch, though, so I won’t try to defend it as a theory. Yet.
However… if that theory is correct, it’s possible that Hoid is on the wrong end of things with whatever he’s trying to do, and that the letter-writer is justified in admonishing Hoid that they are like children stumbling around in the workshop, and may well do more harm than good. Then again, it’s just as likely that whatever Hoid is trying to do is exactly what Adonalsium expected and intended to be done. Well, that won’t get us anywhere… we just don’t know enough about the long-ago.
Hoid is trying to accomplish something here on Roshar, and something that he thinks is the most important purpose he’s ever had; his “old friend” remains unconvinced. Note, though, that he says, “The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium.” Does this imply that Hoid has been on the planets Braize and Ashyn as well? Or merely that his friend thinks of them as a group? Or… something else, which is a good possibility too.
In any case, Rayse is somehow restricted to the Rosharan system of planets, seemingly due to something Tanavast did, and cannot at this time escape to destroy any more Shards. While this may indeed be a good thing, so far as it goes, I have to wonder if it actually goes far enough. I can’t help thinking that by the end of the Stormlight Archive, Odium will get loose… Here I have to insert the theory proposed by Naïve_masanthrope in last week’s discussion, because it’s been lurking around in my head and gaining a real foothold in this context:
What if it is possible for Odium to be defeated somehow—not just pushed back for a time but eliminated as a threat—but his defeat would also destroy Roshar? … Your heroes are false, your fight is never-ending, your victory would destroy the world.
The suggestion was made in the context of the Recreance, but it’s been itching at me while researching this letter. What if? What if fighting the battle against Odium, or taking it to the next level of confronting him on Braize, is exactly what’s needed for him to break free? This could indeed create the dilemma Hoid mentioned to Dalinar, about letting Roshar burn if that’s what is needed to accomplish his purpose.
I have a bad feeling about this…
Oh. Wrong universe. Sorry.
There’s also an interesting view into Rayse/Odium, which might create some sympathy—the kind where you feel bad about having to put a rabid animal down. “He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context.” The fact that Rayse wanted to become what he is, while it may mitigate the responsibility, apparently doesn’t reduce the guilt felt by one of those instrumental in making it happen.
We just don’t have enough information to be confident about any of this, but it sure makes for some fun speculation. I may have to make something of this in the Cosmere Speculation discussion… (and no stealing my plan, you other panelists!)
There’s a whole separate area of discussion to be had, regarding the relevance of each snippet to the chapter it begins… but I’m going to let y’all play that game. I’d love to see what you come up with! (Okay, I really meant to do that, but this is getting lengthy as it is. And you good people are likely to come up with great insights, so I’m putting you to work!)
Stormwatch
The “Stormwatch” isn’t actually relevant here, but I wanted to note that we really don’t have reliable information (at least, not to the best of my knowledge) regarding the timing of this letter. Given that the previous letter remarked on the author’s being chased by members of the 17th Shard, and we had an interlude in which Hoid was being sought by same, it seems logical to conclude that the first letter was written by Hoid sometime during the events of TWoK. It would seem equally logical to assume, for the time being, that this letter is the reply to Hoid, and that it was written and received sometime during the events of WoR. That’s the assumption I’ll hold to until I’m given a reason to believe otherwise.
Thus endeth Part Four: The Approach. Considering that it was in large part a novella chronicling Kaladin’s descent from aspiring Knight Radiant to broken, sprenless, ordinary spearman, “The Approach” seems either incongruous, hopeful, or terribly ominous.
Check back next week, when we’ll examine the next two Interludes with Lhan and Eshonai.
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader, and is inordinately excited about her upcoming first-ever JordanCon.
Alice (or anybody else), what is the timing of the storylines of each of the Cosmere books. How much time elapse between events in fist Mistborn trilogy, Warbreaker, and Stormlight Archive? Does one story take place before the other?
Do we think that the original holders of the 16 Shards, Hoid, the other participant of this letter, Khriss, are from the same home world? Is one world (or a few worlds) more advanced in the Cosmere than all the others? Do we know on which planet life began first? Or did life begin approximately at the same time and some worlds/societies became more advanced quicker than others?
Thanks for reviewing my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
The gemstone is likely Topaz, according to a WOB referenced on coppermind.net.
I am looking forward to the Cosmere Speculation Panel (already have many ideas for Oathbringer!)
@1 Going by a combination of searching WOB’s and the coppermind.net chronology page, SA takes place very shortly before the Mistborn Adventures Era (Wax and Wayne), while Warbreaker takes place between the first Mistborn Trilogy and SA (though that is a 300 year gap, and it is vague as to when in this time-frame that it is set).
Do we know if the power of each of the Shards are equal to the others? If so, wouldn’t that make Harmony our best bet for defeating Odium, since he holds two shards? I might be reading this wrong, I have not had the chance to read all of the Cosmere related books.
@1 The timeline of currently published books isn’t perfectly known, but it’s something like:
Elantris
(forward a thousand years or so)
Warbreaker
Mistborn Era 1
(forward 300 years)
Mistborn Era 2
Stormlight
As for the homeworlds of people, we do know that the 16, Hoid, and Frost are all from Yolen. Khriss is from Taldain, the world White Sand takes place on.
Some of the magic on other worlds that has been hinted at revolved around crystals, one of which we saw in Mraise’s lair. An argument against that, is that the gem was specifically identified as a topaz, and these magic crystals didn’t appear to be gemstones. Not that very much about them is canon. Or perhaps it is a bit of pre-shattering magic.
I feel this means the writer of this letter is talking to Wit / Hoid.
Thank you for the link to Carl’s post on the first letter. Wish he could join us for this conversation, since so much has come out since Aug. 2013.
@1 Khriss is definitely from Taldain; Hoid et. al. are, I believe, from Yolen, which is where things got started.
We can see in Sixth of the Dusk that some cultures are obviously more advanced than other – spacefaring civilization versus hunting/trapping. Not sure on when those cultures all originated, though.
@2 Yes, I read the part about the gemstone as being Topaz – a name Hoid called himself in Dragonsteel. Disclaimer – I haven’t actually read Dragonsteel, so that’s based on other people talking about it, and I have no idea what the context or significance is surrounding Topaz specifically.
@3 Shards are relatively close in power, which definitely makes Harmony one of the most powerful forces in the Cosmere. If I recall correctly, there is a WoB out there somewhere that says Odium is intimidated by Harmony.
@7 Yeah, Odium is scared of Harmony. He doesn’t at ALL like that somebody has two Shards. However, the conflicting Intents of Ruin and Preservation make it difficult for Harmony to act.
So, on the gemstone thing – since that line comes in the middle of a paragraph all about the identity and/or names that Hoid carries or presents himself with, I can’t help but read it as referring to another name that he has given or assumed in his travels, rather than a specific gemstone that he has tried to find or carried around. Thus, it adds weight to the WoB that WinespringBrother references –
Source: here
As for the significance of that, it seems to be up in the air. Why Topaz? I would assume that Hoid specifically avoided using that as a name on Roshar as it is one of the 10 gemstones that has a specific meaning/association – something he maybe wanted to avoid? (From the Ars Arcanum: “9 Tanat, Topaz, Talus, The Bone, Rock and Stone, Dependable/Resourceful” – Does he not want the people to think he is dependable? –> see his statement to Dalinar about world burning…)
For some reason, I never even thought of Topaz. My thought was about the stone that [Hidden Spoilers for MB:SH] the Ire used to make a connection to Leras. Of course, it is described as “a large yellow stone the size of Kelsier’s fist”, so it may actually be topaz.
@9 I concur. It is difficult to see how the gemstone refers to something other than one of Hoid’s names.
Hoid, as well as all sixteen Shardholders, are definitely from Yolen. It also seems very likely that the writer of this letter is Frost, given his stance on non-intervention.
I’d be very curious to see confirmation that Hoid’s “element” is indeed the lerasium.
Your hunch that the Shatterers were actually carrying out Adonalsium’s plan reminds me of an idea I had…I think I brought it up before. I was considering how being broken was a requirement in many different Cosmere magic systems, and how being more broken could increase your magical capacity. Perhaps Adonalsium wanted to shatter himself in an effort to let in more power? Except if Adonalsium is the source of all the power in the first place, that would be pointless…Maybe Adonalsium wanted to be shattered to further release his magic and give people access to it?
“The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium” makes me wonder if Hoid has trod worlds that don’t bear Adonalsium’s design. Say…Scadrial, that wasn’t created by Adonalsium but by Ruin and Preservation?
What about the crystalline sphere that Gavilar gave to Szeth? Could that be the dead gemstone?
Gavilar coughed, hand quivering, reaching toward his chest and fumbling at a pocket. He pulled out a small crystalline sphere tied to a chain. “You must take this. They must not get it.” He seemed dazed. “Tell…tell my brother…he must find the most important words a man can say….” Gavilar fell still. Szeth hesitated, then knelt down and took the sphere. It was odd, unlike any he’d seen before. Though it was completely dark, it seemed to glow somehow. With a light that was black.
Hmm. Shards have different natures and powers. Possibly it was just the interaction of Ruin and Preservation that caused Leras to die so slowly, instead of splintering as seems to happen in other cases.
What would happen if Odium died? Would it splinter, creating a bunch more Hate spren? Would it be slow and then the power would just choose someone else and we’d be right back where we started? It doesn’t seem like you can just get rid of that Hate force.
As for Odium being trapped in system, there was a comment in M:SH about how Leras couldn’t leave the planet and Ruin makes similar comments to Vin during the last book, saying that he wants to destroy the planet so he can leave. As such, I would assume that Odium can’t actually leave here while he’s tied to the place. Allowing any of the planets here to be destroyed might allow Odium to get free to go off and destroy everyone else.
I’m also wondering if Odium has sent minions off world and that the author of this letter is very, very wrong about how much agency Odium has. That said, I’m also wondering if Odium is still alive (we have Hate Spren around, after all), so my theories range all over.
#12 That theory about A. shattering to increase its power makes a lot of sense. In a certain unpublished novel, we know that Yolen had a Problem. Hold refers to it as a place where gods had died. It could be that A. needed more power to deal with this Problem and allowed himself to be shattered, to deal with this.
AndreHB@1:
Well, we know that some planets (and solar systems?) are older than others, because some existed pre-shattering, while others, like Scadrial, were later created by the Shards. Roschar belongs to the former group, as some of it’s spren are splinters of Adonalsium entire, per WoB. Which reminds me that humans of Scadrial might/should differ from humans from other worlds, particularly the pre-Shattering ones, as they have been created by only 2 specific Shards.
WuseMajor @14:
But Odium’s situation is likely different, as Roschar’s existence pre-dates him, so he didn’t have to invest himself in it’s creation and bind himself thereby, like Ruin and Preservation had done.
Sheesania@12:
This theory would also agree with Iriali beliefs, wouldn’t it? I always thought that they had an interesting insight there.
But what is completely new to me, as I didn’t notice it previously, is that Hoid’s correspondent says that the pair of them were responsible for the Shattering – and possibly to a greater degree than the individuals who actually took on the Shardic power. So, not only were there more than 16 individuals involved, but the actual architects and engineers of the Shattering may not have become Shards. Which is fascinating, IMHO.
@12 that’s kinda what Ym was saying before he died.
“Ym said, “you and I are One.”
“One what?”
“One being,” Ym said. He set aside that shoe and got out another. “Long ago, there was only One. One knew everything, but had experienced nothing. And so, One became many— us, people. The One, who is both male and female, did so to experience all things.”
“One. You mean God?”
“If you wish to say it that way,”” – WoR interlude 2
Maybe in this way Adonalsium can learn how to defeat Odium.
If Odium was part of Adonalsium, why would Adonalsium want to defeat Odium?
@@@@@ Several
On Odium, Harmony, and the power of the Shards:
Do we actually know if Harmony has a larger quantity of power respective to Odium? Or does holding two Shards merely change the quality of his power by changing its Intent?
Changing the quality may allow Harmony to act in different ways than either Preservation or Ruin alone could, but it would not necessarily mean he could win in an outright battle against Odium–whose intent is focused on destruction and personal, enduring hatred.
That Odium is intimidated by Harmony could mean that Harmony’s numbers are bigger, but then again, Odium went out of his way to splinter Shards instead of taking them up because he didn’t want his Intent to change. That points to the possibility that two Shards are not automatically “better” than one.
I would ask Brandon about this at JordanCon, but I’m not going to get to go this year. Alice? Ways? Braid_Tug? Little help…?
@@.-@ That timeline isn’t quite accurate. The timeline is more like this:
Elantris
(hundreds but not thousands of years)
Mistborn Era 1
Warbreaker (happens some time between HoA and WoK)
The Stormlight Archive 1-5
Mistborn Era 2 (where this falls in terms of Stormlight may change, it falls after 5 at the least but Brandon hasn’t 100% nailed down the timing)
@1 to add a little to the timeline. Sixth of the Dusk story happens during Mistborn Era 4. Which will not be written for a number of years.
@17: I like that idea. Lots of room for theories. By being split, he ensured humanity would travel farther too. Since some of the Shards created humans (or sentient beings) on planets they were not already on. Or added them to the mix on Roshar.
@19: I’ll try to ask. Start posting questions for con attendees. I’ll collect them and see if Brandon, Peter, or Isaac is willing to answer them. I’m bringing food bribes for them all. :-D
Anyone know Brandon’s favorite? I know the other twos.
Actually, the extreme cracking->power is what I suspect will happen with Taln. He has lost all identity, but is still honorable. He will bond all the spren, and reunite Honor (is that possible?), kick Odium’s butt, take his Shard as well.
Just my theory.
Re: the gemstone: I think this WoB is pretty clear –
@14 WuseMajor: In M:SH Khriss seems to find it odd that Leras isn’t being Splintered:
(I suspect it’s because part of Ruin was bound up in the atium, so as she suggests he didn’t have the strength. But AFAIK that isn’t confirmed anywhere.)
About Odium being trapped: Ruin and Preservation were in a special case because they had created the planet, so they were very heavily Invested in it. As far as we know Odium didn’t create Roshar, and we do know that he isn’t actually on Roshar, so like Isilel said he isn’t quite so tied to the planet. That being said, though:
“Very tough to leave” is different from “impossible to leave”, though, so I suspect there’s something else keeping him from leaving the Rosharan system. Or maybe not…Perhaps his magical ties to Roshar are what’s keeping him tied down? In that case, entirely destroying the Voidbringers, Odium-spren, &c would probably help him leave. Could this have something to do with the terms of the Oathpact…?
Oh, and BTW you can have Splinters without a Shard having been Splintered. (Confusing terminology…) So we could have hatespren around whether Odium was alive or not.
@16 Isilel: Yes, the business about people other than the original Shardbearers being responsible is quite interesting. I found Frost’s comment “He is what we made him to be, old friend” especially intriguing. So…are Frost and Hoid just responsible for the Shattering? Or are they somehow responsible for Rayse getting the Shard of Odium in particular?
@16, 17: Yes, thanks for pointing out the connection to Iriali beliefs there. That hadn’t occurred to me… It’s funny actually – that theory, as well as Iriali belief, is quite reminiscent of some mythology I made up a while ago for a story of my own, before I started the SA. (I had a legend about a god who created human beings, then sacrificed himself to give them free will.)
@19 wcarter: Hmmm. Looking at the WoB I’ve got in my notes, no, there isn’t confirmation that Harmony’s two Shards would automatically mean he has more power than the one-Shard Odium. There is this:
And there’s this rather cryptic comment:
So Odium feared them being intermingled? Why? Could he be afraid of Adonalsium being re-created?
FWIW, here’s the other possibly relevant ones that I found:
Source
Source
So I think the implication is that Sazed has more power, and that’s (part of?) why Odium is afraid…but there isn’t clear-cut confirmation.
@22 ZenBossanova: Ooh, interesting theory. I do have a hunch that Taln will be the last flashback character.
@21 Braid_Tug: Brandon loves mac and cheese! Also, “some variety of chocolate chip” cookies. Though unfortunately I don’t have any firsthand experience with food bribes…
As for questions, I have a pile. Here are some if you’re interested:
-When was the 17th Shard founded?
-What does Hoid think about whatever Sazed is doing? (This is a kind of vague question, so you might have better luck with “does Hoid like” or “does Hoid support” or something like that.)
-Does this concept of the “God Beyond” that we’ve seen in multiple Shardworlds have Cosmere significance? Is it rooted in a true phenomenon? Or is it just natural evolution of religion or something along that line?
-Does Yolen still exist?
-Is Nazh’s knife from Secret History made of aluminum?
-Is there currently atium anywhere in the Cosmere besides Scadrial?
@24: Being a Threnodite, Nazh’s knife is almost certainly silver, to ward off the shades.
@25: I was curious because Nazh’s knife didn’t glow, which would fit with it being magically-inert aluminum.
ZenBossanova @22:
Taln as a future new Honor is a great idea! I have been pretty sure that the Honor Shard is going to be reassembled for some time and The Secret History strengthened this notion even more. I have been thinking Kaladin (the stereotypical choice) or Dalinar would do it, but Taln (if he is indeed former Herald Talenel) is practically an ideal Vessel!
But a big “Nope!” from me concerning combining Honor and Odium into one Shard. IMHO, it would be a truly frightening and dangerous combination – a Lawful Evil cosmic power. Don’t want. Odium needs to be fused with it’s opposite to restrain it, just like Ruin was, IMHO.
Sheesania @24:
Surely, Hoid has a private stash of atium somewhere. But is _new_ atium (or lerasium) being still formed on Scadrial? Or do they now have sazedium, a different god metal with different properties? Given that Harmony is basically a new Shard that can’t be easily broken into it’s constituents, the latter seems likely.
Since everyone above me is doing a great job of discussing the cosmere implications of the epigraph, I’m going to dive into how I think each epigraph relates to the chapter it precedes.
Which I was going to start with a general overview of Part 4 and how it ties into both its title and the letter as a whole – until I realized how…general the definition of approach can be that I was dealing with. The word itself has a good four or five just for its use as a noun, give or take a couple special ones. And I was working from approach in the sense of the way someone does a certain action – sure I could pull a lot of conclusions out of that, since motivation is something any good character has! So instead I’ll just work purely from a chapter to chapter basis.
Chapter 59 – Fleet:
The letter refers to Hoid by a relation/role because of how he changes his name. This ties into the nature of identity, unsurprisingly, which is important because this is the first chapter of Kaladin’s imprisonment, where Kaladin slowly sinks into his depression and begins to lose himself. The chapter itself reinforces this – when Hoid first talks to Kaladin he calls him bridgeboy, but by the end of the story of Fleet (who obviously mirrors Kaladin), Hoid asks him what he thinks by his name directly, specifically Kaladin of Bridge Four and Kaladin Stormblessed. Hoid changes his name easily because he’s comfortable in himself, in who he is – but Kaladin is still a young man finding himself, and can lose himself to weakness long enough that he is effectively another person. Which is shared by Shallan, speaking of…
Chapter 60 – Veil Walks:
So the letter is continuing on about how Hoid changes his name, and while we have jumped to Shallan the title itself is named after her created persona of Veil and her accomplishment with it here. This both mirrors the previous chapter Fleet and helps reinforce what the chapter is about: identity and how fluid it can be. In this very chapter Shallan forms an image of herself completely broken and rejects it, telling Pattern that she still can’t accept the truth of what happened. So Pattern gives up on pressing her and they then focus on what she can achieve with Veil – on what she can learn to make her dark-eyed persona do. And that’s not even counting how the letter goes through the three names of Hoid that can easily apply to different phases of Shallan’s life. Giving up the name of a gemstone now that it is dead – like the years Shallan didn’t even remember Pattern, when she suppressed her Radiant nature. Then there is hiding behind the name of an old master – Shallan partly gets where she is because of being Jasnah’s ward and using that wisely, and she only gets into the Ghostbloods by using Tyn’s name early on. And finally, naming yourself for a virtue? Doesn’t apply so much to Shallan, but Veil is a bit on that nose in that respect (named for being a disguise…I’d be irritated with Shallan if it wasn’t for the fact I’d have done the same, it’s quite cheeky).
Chapter 62 – The One Who Killed Promises:
Alright, this one is a bit harder – a skunk calling itself after its stench. On one level the relation is obvious – Kaladin is starting to stink, both literally and metaphorically, as his imprisonment goes on longer. Kaladin isn’t actively releasing a defense mechanism, but he’s still putting people off and driving them away. He even scares the servant and bothers Dalinar, who leaves the prison looking more weighed down than when he entered.
Chapter 63 – A Burning World:
Now this one is kind of fun. “Look at what you’ve made me say,” immediately draws my thoughts to when Shallan begins to Surgebind next to Taln, who leaps at her, slams her against the wall, and talks a little about when the Knights were founded. By seeing someone Surgebinding the most extreme is brought out of Taln – it reminds him of his old friend Ishar who gathered the Knights. Similarly, the chapter ends with Amaram showing up down the hall – Amaram thinks of himself as a good person, but he’ll do what he things needs to be done – “the most extreme” – in service of his ultimate goal of bringing back the heralds, which could be called “old friends.” And of course the Letter ends with saying that the recipient is still a friend even though he wearies the writer, in the chapter where Shallan makes use of Iyatil’s presence in a way that wearies her, but this is the beginning of the successful mission after which Shallan will be “friends” with Iyatil and the rest of the Ghostbloods (in fact, I suspect Iyatil gives Shallan what goes for a glowing report afterward). A bunch of more literal connections than some of the other parts of the epigraph, but amusing I think.
Chapter 64 – Treasures:
This is interesting, because the epigraph mostly fits the beginning. Speaking of disappointment the chapter starts with Kaladin, who is sinking further into his depression. It speaks to what I think a lot of people felt as Kaladin continued to lose himself, but the Letter also mentions that it is “perpetually disappointed,” to remind us (in a breezy manner) that this is part of the reality of Kaladin’s life, that he has depression that he lives with (and is just in one of the low points of a bad spell). But interestingly, the majority of the chapter is filled mostly with the opposite of disappointment: Amaram is very gleeful that he’s found a Herald, even if he wouldn’t repeat that information about a cache of Honorblades, and Shallan is proud of having gotten into the Ghostbloods and earning Iyatil’s respect. This is intentional: Amaram and Shallan both should probably feel more disappointment for what happens. Amaram still doesn’t appreciate the eventual cost of the goal he’s been working towards (one that is less achieavable than he suspects and most assuredly not as worthwhile as he believes), while Shallan’s association with the Ghostbloods will likely go further than she wants.
Chapter 66 – Stormblessings:
The Letter speaks of interference causing nothing but pain…and Kaladin gives his Shards to Moash. That…basically explains itself I think. Although Moash was really happy with the Shards up until he betrays Kaladin so it’s not strictly one-to-one.
Chapter 67 – Spit and Bile:
This is an interesting one, a chapter I feel less confident assessing in this regard. The Letter speaks of a path chosen very deliberately, which speaks to how Dalinar acts in this chapter: when he learns of Sadeas’s manipulation of Navani’s notes about the visions he methodically goes around to fix the insult by making it a promise as Hoid points out (as Wit). The letter then explains that he agrees with Hoid about Rayse and the danger he represents – which is touched on at the end by Hoid bringing up that he is also fighting Odium in his own way (well, calling him the “father of hatred” of course, can’t be direct). The most direct comparison, I suppose, is that Hoid is telling Dalinar something similar, that he recognizes the same ultimate threat as Dalinar, although Dalinar still only has a vague notion of what it is he’s fighting against. But similar to the overall Letter, Hoid also lets Dalinar know that his plan doesn’t overlap with Dalinar’s and that he’s doing his own thing.
Chapter 68 – Bridges:
On a meta level, this is commenting on how Shallan and Kaladin are being set-up for some necessary forced bonding time. More significantly, Kaladin is still clumsily stumbling in his growth as a Knight Radiant which is his problem in this chapter as he struggles to figure out what is wrong with Syl. And I suppose on a literal level, it’s what happens for the assassin: Kaladin stumbles forward (because he recognizes the danger too late and is rushing) and messes up what the assassin set up. But looking at it that way also implies that the text itself is refuting the letter, as ultimately Kaladin’s stumbling does work out.
Chapter 69- Nothing:
Obvious literal comparison: Rayse is captive and stuck in Roshar’s system like how Kaladin and Shallan are stuck at the bottom of the chasms far away from camp. But more interesting is how the Letter speaks of Rayse’s destructive potential being limited. This also rings true for Kaladin and Shallan: they are trapped in the chasms yes, but by being trapped together their destructive potential is ultimately limited. By themselves they would have self-destructed: Kaladin would have probably accepted death (and was incapable of surviving on his own), while Shallan needed a presence to push her to not be paralyzed by worry/doubt or lost to repressing her memories.
Chapter 70 – From a Nightmare:
The Letter speaks of mourning what Rayse has done, but that it doesn’t think they could hope for a better outcome; hope being the operative word here. This chapter is mostly driven by Kaladin losing their way and causing communication issues because of his depressive dwelling. And they seem to be getting on alright, making progress – until Kaladin realizes that he is continuing to lead them astray. The Letter is optimistic about the effect of non-intervention and that the problem is solved, but the chapter itself paints a different picture: Kaladin and Shallan being content with both Kaladin leading and dwelling in his dark thoughts is *not* sustainable.
Chapter 71 – Vigil:
The Letter speaks negatively of how they made Rayse into what he became as Odium, which is what he wanted to be. Which is juxtaposed here with the opposite: we start with Bridge Four who faithfully await Kaladin, we have Shallan bringing Kaladin out of his depression in the middle, and we have Shallan giving Kaladin the instrument to keep him alive at the end. All of these are separate elements that come together to make Kaladin the man he wants to be who can protect others. And all of this is for Kaladin who bears the weight of his depression; admittedly not as great a weight as God’s own hatred, but one that still weighs down on Kaladin and twists him as a person.
Chapter 72 – Selfish Reasons:
So, Rayse being more a force than an individual is possibly literally paralleled in the text by Pattern: I’m making the assumption he can’t chat with Shallan when he’s physically distant from her as a Shardblade, so he goes from being her individual spren to being the force that keeps Kaladin alive (a bit of a forced literal connection but it’s there). But what it really feels evocative of is the chasmfiend. Even if the chasmfiend isn’t directly affected by Odium (I don’t think we can be sure one way or the other exactly, but the arrow spren seem innocuous at least), just its portrayal here coveys sheer force, but it’s also contained by the physical dimensions of the chasms. And it’s this containment of it that limits enough that it reaches an equilibrium with Kaladin and Shallan where they were able to kill it (albeit it barely and with severe injuries on Kaladin’s part).
Chapter 74 – Striding the Storm:
A corpse dragged by one leg – Kaladin isn’t that bad off, but both his overall state after fighting the chasmfiend and specifically his very bad leg are an obvious way the Letter relates to this chapter. But in general, the Letter is basically describing the plight of most protagonists, so of course it applies to Kaladin and Shallan as well, who both had substantial impacts on the equilibrium of the Shattered Plains (Kaladin moreso as of this point, but Shallan is getting there now that she’s had time to work). And in a final aside, the Letter ends this part asking Hoid to join them in an oath of non-intervention – and this is the chapter where Kaladin realizes that Shallan is a Knight Radiant and she’s why they had magical help that kept them alive. So the chapter where the Letter asks Hoid to join it in an oath is the same one as when Kaladin realizes he shared an oath with Shallan (with the First Oath obviously)…but he thinks he’s lost that status himself. Which is still sad even now.
Chapter 75 – True Glory:
Of all the epigraphs this one felt the least like it fit in relation to its chapter – the combination of its brevity and the scope of its statement makes it a bit hard to read. I’m first reminded of the end of the chapter, where Dalinar listens to Shallan and doesn’t bring the parshmen – but it’s simultaneously still bold of Dalinar to trust Shallan at this point. Similarly, in their later interactions Shallan and Adolin aren’t very restrained: Shallan doesn’t explain herself fully to Adolin, but she does let him know when she needs him to back off (and Adolin is *more* unrestrained physically because of the joy of seeing Shallan back). So my best bet is that this serves as another example of the text suggesting that the Letter is possibly wrongheaded: it may have judged Hoid’s methods as wrong but so far similar methods are working out alright for the Stormlight Archive characters.
And that’s…a lot more time and words than I thought it would be. And that wasn’t all of it, I just wanted to offer the first couple of things I thought were strongest. Taken as a whole, I think reading the text in relation to the epigraph paints a picture that is sympathetic to the recipient and not the sender. But that’s just my read of how the two relate.
@Braid_Tug, Can you ask Brandon how the Everstorm is going to affect other life on Roshar? Basically, will anything be converted to a Voidbringer other than the Parshendi. You’ll probably get RAFO’d, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
@27 Isilel: I keep feeling hesitant about expecting Honor to be re-formed…On the one hand, it would be a good ending, quite magically interesting, and potentially a powerful character climax. On the other hand, it feels too obvious to me. From book one we keep hearing “Honor is dead”, so the natural thing to expect (to me) is that Honor will be resurrected. But I don’t expect Brandon Sanderson to do the obvious thing. Even if he did, I’d bet that he’d twist it by introducing an unforeseen cost: destroying Roshar, or removing the spren, or something like that. This is all just a feeling, though. Why do you think Honor will be reassembled?
On the atium: Indeed, I wanted to ask partly to see if it’s possible Hoid has an atium stash off Scadrial. (And because I have some other theories brewing, too.) Sanderson has said that it would possible for Harmony to create atium, and it seems likely that sazium exists in some form, but he’s been very cagey about the whole thing. I can’t keep straight what’s been RAFO’ed or confirmed or denied.
@28 FenrirMoridin: Wow! Awesome work!! I didn’t realize there were such distinct connections between the epigraphs and the actual chapters. So interesting! I’ll hopefully have something more substantial to say later, but for now, thanks for writing that up.
@24 and @27 I’m just cut and pasting some of what I wrote about in the Shadows of Self review. I asked Brandon a question about atium at the signing:
OLD QUOTE My midnight signing question started out intended to figure out if Bloody Tan was burning atium when he jerked Lessie into the bullet, but the ending of SoS puts that into doubt….
I asked if atium existed before Ruin was confined somehow by Preservation and/or would it have have existed if he had won. Brandon replied “There are some timelines in which it could have existed in that case.” Whatever that means. =) I followed up with “So does it exist now seeing that the Ruin part of Harmony is free?” He said “Ati (Ruin) no longer exists, so atium doesn’t exist. Just as lerasium no longer exists because Leras (Preservation) no longer exists.”
I’m betting some of the 17th Shard folks knew this, but it blew my mind, and I clarified for a few seconds. He said something to the effect that some atium that was already made could still exist, but no new atium would come into existence. This obviously made tons of sense once Wax climbed through the Pits of Hathsin, and leaves some possibility open that Tan’s actions could still have had something to do with atium.
So I finally asked, “So does Harmonium exist?” He answered “That’s a very good question,” with one of his Cheshire Cat grins…
So IF Harmonium exists…and IF it were somehow made available to ingest/burn (e.g. would new atium have been formed once Ruin claimed it all and won, or would the mists have existed if Preservation were not reduced to a lesser state of existence?), what would be the effect on that human? Become a Mistborn who can see the future? Or some greater combo as hinted by the combined power effect in the Ars Arcanum? I kind of think that “Harmonium” and new powers may have to play into defeating whatever other god is making its play for Scadrial. END QUOTE
Others then pointed out that following the same convention as atium and lerasium would mean the metal would be called “sazedium” as Isilel used the term earlier.
So no new atium; very valuable atium still in existence probably; sazedium’s existence a near certainty in my opinion.
@31: Brandon’s been asked about the naming convention, and he said that “Harmony didn’t like the sound of ‘sazedium.'” Or something to that effect.
27. Isilel
I am not sure you want to knock a Honor/Odium paring. They balance each other some what.
An Odium isn’t evil per se, any more than Ruin was. Rayse may be evil, but Odium is not. It is “God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context”.
I think a Honor/Odium or Honor/Odium/Cultivation pairing would be good. Just as long as there is some other virtue to give context to what is hated.
If you want a question for Brandon, I really want to know, if Harmony made another Shard a Mistborn, would that mean their powers would start to mingle?
Sheesania @30. What if instead of becoming a Knight Radiant, Adolin is able to reform Honor and becomes the new holder of that Shard. That would be an interesting twist. A minor part of the second 5 book Stormlight Archive series would have Adolin, as the holder of Honor, dealing with a marriage to Shallan, a Knights Radiant.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Consummation of the pairing might be difficult to pull off once Adolin’s a highstorm (Much like Vin couldn’t exactly play cuddle-bug with Elend after she Ascended, although admittedly she had higher things on her priority list). He can make an avatar in the Cognitive Realm, but it’d be more difficult to pull off in the Physical Realm.
@31 Patillian: Okay, thanks for the quote. I was thinking atium was possible because of something Brandon Sanderson said way back in 2008, pre-AoL: “It’s theoretically possible for atium to appear in the future, but right now Sazed has no plans to release any of it to the people. It is, effectively, now something of myth and legend.”
@34, 35: Preservation and Ruin were both able to make Physical avatars in the Mistborn books: Preservation made the mist spirit, and Ruin made “Reen” as well as a fake mist spirit. I can’t remember, though, if we saw evidence that these avatars could be truly physical. But regardless, Adolin-as-Honor would have much bigger things to worry about than a relationship with Shallan. Sazed, at least, seems to have turned his attention away from normal human relationships in order to focus on larger issues. And I don’t know, Adolin just doesn’t seem to me like the kind of person who’d wind up as a Shardholder. He’s too…down to earth, I guess. Sazed, Kaladin, Dalinar, and, it seems, Taln all deal with Big Questions and powerful magic. Adolin hasn’t so much. There’s nothing wrong with that; it just means it would strike me as odd if he wound up being the effective God of his planet.
I can’t help but wonder what a Shard’s children would be like, though…
Huh Adolin has the future holder of Honor would be among my least preferred arc for him… Adolin isn’t even on the side of Honor, so I don’t see any plausible reason why he should be the one. I also agree with sheesania, he isn’t the kind of person to dwell endlessly on Big Questions.
Plot twist…. Shshshsh was a Shard holder :-O
On the topic of possible Shard combos:
Odium plus Harmony should be interesting – wrathful against things that upset the Balance? Sort of an aggressive True Neutral?
Odium plus Honor might be Wrath – righteous anger against that which violates its preferred code of conduct. Throw in Cultivation and what would you get? Justice?
@28: Wow… that took some serious time on your part. I had to read it in several blocks.
The Chap. 63 parallel really struck a note with me. It triggered a great thought, that sleep has erased.
Now I am left wondering what Brandon wrote first – chapters or letters. My guess is the chapters. He probably had an outline for the letter. Then he crafted the letter and the breaks to best reflex or reinforce the chapter.
@29: I’ll try to ask a question that will address your question. Asking it as a it stands is a massive RAFO. But there is always another way to ask.
Thanks for the questions, I will try. Keep sending them.
@24: Thanks! I can take chocolate chips cookies. Can’t do anything about mac & cheese at a hotel. Since handing him a box of mix just seems wrong.
So Dalinar’s visit to the nightwatcher: what if his memory loss of shshshshsh was the boon? Everyone assumes it was the curse (for pretty good reasons), but if it was the boon, what would that mean? The only scenario that seems logical to me is if it turned out shshshshsh tried to do something evil/bad and Dalinar stopped her and wanted to make sure everyone remembered her for the good things she did and not the evil so he had the memories ripped out of his head. The main thing I have against this scenario is it too closely mirrors Shallan’s “journey”. So, here is my theory I refute in the same post.
I’m reasonably certain we meet a young Shshshshsh in a Book 3 Dalinar flashback read by Brandon on one of the Calamity tours stops.
@40: I think the key pertaining to Dalinar’s wishes is the timing. He didn’t seek the Nightwatcher right after her death, but several years later. I thus have a hard time believinghe suddenly thought, 3-4 years later, the memories were too painful or he needed to cure himself from guilt…
The moment at which he seek help has to mean something.
@41: Is there a transcript somewhere of this read?
@36: I don’t know if a Shard can produce children, but there are a group of beings on Roshar called the Unmade. They have only been mentioned a couple of times in passing in the two Stormlight books so far, but according to Word of Brandon, they are Splinters of Odium. So, would they be lesser gods to Odium’s greater godhood? Any ideas?
@38: As for possible Shard combinations, I have came up with a few myself.
Odium + Dominion = Tyranny. Basically like Bane of the Forgotten Realms.
Autonomy + Dominion = Democracy. Rulership mixed with independence in equal parts. There is a form of authority, but it a representation of independent people.
Honor + Ruin = Vengeance. This shard would want to destroy but also maintain honor, so it would deal destruction to those who behave dishonorably.
Cultivation + Endowment = Charity. These two shards would work together quite well. It would give people what they needed to cultivate and improve themselves.
The nine shards that we know of so far are Honor, Cultivation, and Odium (Stormlight Archives); Preservation and Ruin (Mistborn, currently merged together into Harmony); Devotion and Dominion (Elantris; both Splintered); Endowment (Warbreaker); and finally Autonomy (White Sand). If anyone can think of other cool combos that these shards could form, please post them!
Good stuff here, folks! I’m really enjoying following the comments this week. Also, huge kudos to FenrirMoridin @28 – I guess I know where to turn when I need help!!
I think there were a few other things I intended to contribute, but I’ve either forgotten them or someone else already covered it all. Nice.
(So, yes, I’m basically commenting to keep this in my Conversations list…)
@37 Gepeto: Ha! The idea of Shshsh being a Shardholder is especially amusing given that she wasn’t supposed to be particularly bright…
As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a transcript anywhere of the reading, but there are a few videos on YouTube. (I’m not sure which one is the best quality.) In the reading I heard, we didn’t actually meet Shshsh, but we heard somebody mentioned briefly who I suspect is her.
(Tangent: Shshsh is such a pain to say. My sister and I always call her GAPF instead, for “Geminated Alveolo-Palatal Fricative”, which is what I thought the technical phonetic term was for the sound shsh. It’s actually a geminated palato-alveolar fricative, but oh well, GAPF is easier to say than GPAF.)
@43 Jeff: I think the Unmade are probably along the lines of powerful spren, since all spren are Splinters of Honor, Cultivation or Odium. I have a theory that they don’t have as much independent sentience as the Honor-based spren, though, since the Shardholder they originate from is still alive.
Oh, and for Shard combinations: Preservation + Odium = Oppression. A force trying to keep everything the same that hates anybody who steps out of line.
I wonder how the letters have been written and delivered… and also how they’ve been discovered.
I wonder that too, but we have frustratingly little information even vaguely related to those details to speculate from. I wonder even what language they’re in. Some ancient Yolish variety? Hoid does seem to have an astonishing ability to speak many Cosmere languages so fluently that he’s taken for a native speaker…
Poking around for a great Hoid quote I found this on the Stormlight wiki. Can we take it as confirmation the letter is from Frost, or still just speculation?
@47: well, Hoid has had centuries to learn new languages and accents. He just tries harder than Vasher to blend in I guess. Is Hoid a Returned too? How is he living so long?
@48 – Hoid cannot be a Returned as he is not from Nalthis, and actually predates the existence of the Shard Endowment (the Shard responsible for the Returned returning), as he was at the shattering of Adonalsium. We know he was acquainted with those who eventually became the Vessels of the Shards (even friends with some of them).
As for how he is living so long, there are not firm answers AFAIK – only vague WoBs that he has somehow achieved extended lifespan and time dilation and is very, very hard to kill. It could be any number of combinations of the magic abilities he has gained or something we don’t know anything about yet.
@30 sheesania, @39 Braid_Tug, @44 Wetlandernw: Thanks, I had a lot of fun with it. There were a few chapters that stymied me quite a bit and others where I had a lot more thoughts, but I tried to be mostly consistent between what I pulled out. I suspect Sanderson definitely at least fine-tuned portions of the Letter to fit each chapter he connected it with, if not simply writing it afterward: in large part because it’s probably the easiest one to work with, since the Letters are in a more relaxed voice compared to, say, the Listener or Diagram epigraphs.
@Hoid speaking: You know I’ve never wondered about that. We saw in Bands of Mourning that some magic can help with that (Feruchemical usage of Connection), but even that would still make you stick out since Alik spoke with a distinctive accent. My gut instinct is that Braid_Tug has it, where it’s more Vasher just doesn’t bother blending in as much (Hoid, I imagine, enjoys being able to fool people by blending in).
Also, yay at the Stormlight Archive 3 progress bar going up! At 45% on the first draft now~
@48 Braid_Tug: Well, there’s no citation about it being from Frost with further information. But given the WoBs we have I think it’s fairly certain that Frost is the writer.
True, Hoid has had a lot of time to pick up languages… Does he really spend years just hanging around a place in order to learn the language properly, though? I guess it’s probably some combination of magic and plain old-fashioned effort.
@50 FenrirMoridin: Your analysis of the epigraphs on the chasm sequence started me thinking…There seems to be a parallel there between Rayse trapped in the Rosharan system under the weight of God’s hatred, and Kaladin trapped in the chasms under the weight of his depression. It got me talking with my sister about other symbolism with the chasms. They’re often associated with Kaladin and his struggles; back in TWoK he even makes a direct parallel between the Shattered Plains and broken men like him. The chasms are deep down, away from the sky, filled with death. He does much of his desperate scheming to save Bridge 4 down in them, trying to figure out how they can escape. In WoR, he finally accepts his powers while practicing in the chasms and then can fly with Syl, away from them.
That was a high point; the chasm sequence in Part Four is a low point. He’s trapped in the chasms again, but this time he’s too broken and he can’t escape with his magic. However, Shallan intervenes. This is the first time she sees the chasms, and this is also the first time she sees Kaladin for who he really is. She gets a taste of his brokenness even as she sees the broken chasms and the death in them. However, her attention is all on the beauty of the plants and even the chasmfiend (!) – beauty Kaladin has often failed to notice. It reminds me of the “she smiled anyway” moment – Shallan sees brokenness, but she finds beauty despite it. We see her doing that in her own life, and also in the chasms (thus metaphorically in Kaladin’s life, too). Seeing Shallan, Kaladin realizes that there can be beauty despite brokenness, both literally in the chasms and figuratively in his own life.
Anyways, this doesn’t have so much to do with the actual epigraphs… It was just an interesting bit of symbolism that occurred to me as I was thinking over the part and the epigraphs’ relation to it.
The Unmade are definately Odium spren.
I asked Brandon for a spren name, for my new phone. He asked if it was ok to have an evil spren’s name, and I was happy with that. He said that the Unmade were spren. So my phone is named Ulim.
I was wondering – did Shallan ever use her Lightbringer “I can improve people” power to bear on Kal during their time together in the caverns? I’m half-thinking that his path to recovering Radiant powers may have been helped along by a +1 boost by a fellow Radiant.
sheesania @@@@@ 51
Actually, you don’t need magic to pick up languages, at least here on earth. :-) Cases in point – If you are a native English speaker (as in American) but has been exposed to Spanish at a young age (as in living in Texas or California), you are bi-lingual from the get go. And since Spanish is one of the romance languages, it will be very easy to pick up Italian. In fact, if you can speak Spanish, you can count in Italian. You even know the days of the week. There are some variations, but it is is to see it. Once you speak Italian, speaking French is actually easy because there are so many similarities too.
The important thing though is practice. That’s how actually you internalize a language which is not your own. At least that is how it is for me.
@54: The same principle applies to the Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Polish, Bulgarian, etc.).
Hoid could simply have a natural flair for learning languages. There are confirmed accounts of people in our world being fluent (or at least proficient) in twenty or even thirty languages.
Since Brandon has confirmed that Hoid was present at the Shattering of Adonalsium, he must be several millenia old. not just a few centuries old. Hoid is said not to have lived through that entire amount of time; that could mean he’d somehow “skipped forward” in time, or possibly spent some of that time in hibernation or suspended animation.
@54 sheiglagh, @55 Jeff Weskamp: All very true, but I doubt the languages of the Cosmere are that closely related or that Hoid had much exposure to them during the critical period of his childhood. The Romance languages started to diverge only about 1,500 years ago, if Wikipedia is right, and they’ve continued to have a lot of cross-pollination. The languages of the Cosmere probably started to diverge (if they even came from a single source) a much longer time ago, and I would imagine they’ve had very little influence on each other.
Also, Hoid is able to pass himself off as a native speaker, which is much more difficult than just being able to speak a language fluently. He’s got to be able to get down minutiae of pronunciation and style to do that. My father, for example, has been studying and speaking Arabic for 20+ years and uses it constantly and fluently, but he still doesn’t come across as a native speaker. People don’t even take him for a native speaker of an Arabic dialect from another country. So even if Hoid is good with languages, some magic would definitely help in getting him to native speaker status.
Hoid uses a bit of magic to solve the language problem, I understand. I would say more, but you might want to read the latest Wax and Wayne book first.
Some things to consider on Hoid’s linguistic abilities. While magic might help, it’s definitely possible for someone to be taken for a native speaker even if it is a second language.
1. My sister lived in Brazil for a number of years. Within a year or so, no one who spoke with her in Portuguese would realize that she was not native to the country.
2. My cousin decided he wanted to learn 25 languages by the time he hit 25. He didn’t make it, but at that point he was fluent in Polish, French, Spanish, Russian, German, and… something I’m forgetting… and of course English – even though he didn’t start until after high school. He did it by going and living in the country whose language he wanted to learn (he started with Poland), with people who spoke no English. After a year in Poland, he was indistinguishable from a native speaker, and was correcting his friend’s Russian pronunciation. By now (30 years later, maybe?), I have no idea how many languages he speaks, but he’s added Arabic languages and some of the African ones, as well as both European and South American styles of Spanish and Portuguese, and IIRC more of the Eastern European languages. Not sure if he’s done Scandanavia or east Asian yet.
In both cases, there are two common factors: immersion, and an ear for music. The latter, in both cases, is natural, and was fostered by musical training.
So think about it. Hoid clearly has an ear for music – we’ve seen him playing various instruments, etc. – PLUS he has perfect pitch gained from Endowment. I’d say it’s not hard to imagine him picking up languages, including perfect accenting, very quickly, even if there’s no magical enhancement beyond Breaths. (To be truthful, though, I do suspect he has other magical enhancement.)
There’s also the fact that all of the Shardholders originally spoke the same language, and for many centuries on the planets we’ve seen, the Shardholders were in some form of communication with the people they created or found there. There’s a good chance the languages of the created ones haven’t diverged all that much from the original; the greater issue would be with non-human people who were created by Adonalsium with (presumably) their own distinct languages. This would be people like the Listeners, the Aimians, and… (Huh. I can’t actually think of any other non-human peoples at the moment. There must be some, though.)
There are two major arguments against this last idea:
The first is White Sand, where the dark-siders and the light-siders have different languages, and several of them. It’s more of an earth-style variation, I suppose – though if you accept the Bible as history, Earth’s different language groups are artificial anyway. Brandon never gives a reason for the different languages on White Sand, but you can only do so much in the course of a novel, and it was an early (and still unpublished, until June) novel at that.
The other is Mistborn Era 2, where the Southerners speak a different language than the northerners. It seems, however, that Ruin and Preservation tended to ignore those people, so… I don’t know what that says. Either the idea of languages not diverging widely due to Shardic reinforcement is wacko, or the two Shards focused on the northern hemisphere from the beginning, and left the southerners to their own devices. But there’s a LOT we don’t know about Scadrial’s southern peoples; I’m not sure we can draw any reliable conclusions from them.
Anyway, just some other things to think about while we’re waiting for the next post.
… Uh… Speaking of which, I should probably be working on that, instead of this…. Oops. ;)
@57 ZenBossanova: Yes, I’ve read BoM, I know what you’re talking about. :) Connection Feruchemy might be part of it, but as FenrirMoridin said, Allik still had an accent when he used it. So maybe Hoid has figured out a better way to use Connection, or perhaps there’s just some other magic he’s using.
@51 sheesania, Your discussion of the symbolism of the chasms as they reflected the mental states of Kaladin and Shallan was insightful. I would add that Shallan’s early ability to find beauty even in threatening and painful situations was encouraged by Hoid in his first meeting with the 14 year old. He deliberately posed that question about finding beauty even in horrendous situations. Shallan’s positive response was something that reflected a deep-seated need that was exhibited even under dire circumstances in the chasm.
Back to the subject matter of this post. Count me as being in Hoid’s corner vis-a-vis his dispute with Frost, the dragon. Frost is, apparently, content with the situation where mankind on Roshar is threatened with destruction, and doesn’t want outsiders like Hoid interfering with unfolding events. Hoid, on the other hand, does his best to encourage proto-Radiants who are to lead the fight against the Voidbringer threat. Frost appears to believe that the status quo is better than what could follow if Hoid succeeds in Roshar, while Hoid is determined to do all that he can to counter Odium’s designs on the planet. Frost also exhibits some contempt for Hoid despite calling him ‘old friend’. The analogy of Hoid calling himself ‘Wit’ among the Alethi to a skunk naming himself after his stench is hardly complimentary, Nor is the analogy of the chaos that Hoid’s efforts have allegedly brought, to a body being dragged in the snow, either appropriate or refined.
@51 – have you read the Wax & Wayne books? Wayne picks up speech patterns and accents like pennies off the ground. Takes him about 3 sentences to learn the accent.
And as sheiglagh said, if you know one related language, picking up it’s cousin is easy. (well, easier.) Hoid is probably one of those types that it is easy. It is not easy for me (hearing issues), so I admire people able to be bilingual.
Vasher, as we see in Warbreaker, just doesn’t care about much. So why bother to blend?
Edit: Ugh. I thought this posted earlier, now I see other comments.
@58: wow…25 languages? My mind boggles, but I wish more people would try. Good point about the music playing into the ability to learn. I have a hard time with languages because of an inability to hear and reproduce the differences between vowel sounds. Having perfect pitch would be a major advantage.
Humans created by Shard holders probably do share a root language. There were some humans and others not created by Shard holders, so their root language would be different. We all know that languages drift. But as @57 said, there is some shortcuts Hoid can take.
@53: I doubt she changed him like she did the deserters. But I think the chip she knocked off his shoulder gave him a +1 anyways. The whole trip was the boot to the head he needed for mental growth and maturity. It was not a growth that would have happened while he was Stormblessed surrounded by Bridge 4.
@58 Wetlandernw: Very interesting stories! Thanks for sharing. I like the idea of perfect pitch or other sense enhancement from Breaths helping in language learning…
I’d be surprised if the Shardholders’ language influenced the languages on their planets that much. We’ve seen some communication between Shardholders and humans, but IIRC there hasn’t really been a large amount and it hasn’t been with the population at large, just with a few people. So unless the Shards were purposely trying to keep language from changing, I think the languages of the Cosmere would diverge quickly once everybody was separated. Besides, I would imagine that Shardholders have the capacity to speak to people in their own languages, if only because they’ve watched the languages change over the centuries.
@60 STBLST: Thank you! I wonder how much Hoid’s understanding of Shallan there might come from his being a fellow Lightweaver?
@61 Braid_Tug: I have a joke with my sister that Wayne needs to found the science of linguistics (or at least phonology and sociolinguistics) in the Cosmere, and then worldhop and study all the languages. And Marasi could do all the statistics! :)
At any rate, it seems that I’m underestimating the ability of a clever and gifted person to learn languages quickly, so perhaps Hoid wouldn’t need language magic quite as badly as I thought. It would still be helpful, though, especially if he doesn’t want to spend a lot of time learning and practicing before he can pass himself off as a native speaker. (And a very eloquent one full of puns and wordplays, to boot.)
ZenBossanva @57, Sheesania @59:
But didn’t Alik in BoM have an accent because he had a regional accent in his native tongue and _knew_ himself to have an accent? IIRC, he even explained this to Our Heroes. To me, it seemed more like Kaladin and his brands, i.e. physical mirroring a person’s cognitive idea of himself.
And yes, there absolutely are people who can learn to speak foreign languages accentlessly relatively quickly, even as adults. It is a gift.
@63 Isilel: I was curious and looked it up myself – Alik’s argument is that, while it connects him to their land/language, his soul remembers his lineage and that it’s different, so he has the accent because it’s what he would have if he learned it naturally. So yeah, because Alik thinks he would have an accent, he does. So it’s possible Hoid could overcome that, if anyone could lie with their soul it would be him.
@58 Wetlandernw: Wow, kudos to your cousin. That’s an admirable level of dedication to improving oneself which seems mostly absent nowadays (and personally I’ve failed multiple times to properly learn another language, mostly because it’s one of those areas of learning I struggled with most unlike the sciences).
Admittedly, while it’s not unheard of for someone to be able to learn a lot of languages to complete mastery, I still feel like it’s more consistent for Hoid to at least have a minor way to cheat at it…but he could collect languages like magics.
@51 sheesania: Yeah, it felt weird to draw any comparison between Kaladin and Odium, but it’s definitely there. It makes me wonder about how Rayse actually is – how bad was he? Hoid seems confident he was very bad even before getting Odium, and Hoid is very rarely wrong…and we saw how twisted Ati became when he was Ruin.
As awful as it will be, I can’t wait for when we actually get to see Odium.
I just hope Roshar survives!
Can’t believe I didn’t notice this earlier, but when the author writes that now that Odium is bound it’s been several millennia since one of the Sixteen died… is he completely unaware of the events on Scadrial? Or is he simply leaving off an unspoken “at Rayse’s hand”?
@65 Mason Wheeler: Perhaps he’s talking about the death/Splintering of a Shard, not just a Shardholder? This is what happened in Sel at Rayse’s hand, after all, while the events on Scadrial just involved the death of Shardholders.