Cultivation isn't necessarily very nice

[Tarion]

So I was thinking about this earlier, and I think that the Intent of Cultivation could go in a couple of different ways and the best fit isn't nearly as nice as the most obvious.  

The first is where my mind originally went - The D&D Druid cliche. About putting life and nature before everything else. Essentially a turbo-hippy

But that's not really what's implied by Cultivation. If it was the Shard of Growth, then maybe, but Cultivation implies an active hand. She's not nature. She's the Shard of controlling nature with purpose. 

This came to mind while reading the chapter with the worming season in Hearthstone. It is, if I'm remembering correctly, the biggest look we actually get on farming. And it's about the importance of killing. 

It was worming season. A single worm could ruin an entire polyp’s worth of grain. It would incubate inside, slowly eating as the grain grew. When you finally opened up the polyp in the fall, all you’d find was a big fat slug the size of two men’s hands. And so they searched in the spring, going over each polyp. Where they found a burrow, they’d stick in a reed tipped with sugar, which the worm would latch on to. You pulled it out and squished it under your heel, then patched the hole with crem

It's shortly followed by a bit about potentially destroying your crops if they're not growing right, and starting again

“Old Tarn found a patch of polyps that ain’t growing right,” Jost finally said, shooting a glance at Laral. “Let us go for the day while they talked over whether to try another planting there, or just let them grow and see what comes of it.”

To me, this speaks of a fairly balanced sense of Cultivation. It's growth, yes. But it's the right growth. It's the ability to both create something new, and to turn around later and burn it down if necessary. 

I don't think that we can downplay the importance of scenes dealing with cultivation on Roshar. They're rare enough (Basically here and stories about the Shin, IIRC) that I think we need to at least consider that they might reflect deeper truths of Cultivation. 

I feel that this also fits with the Nightwatcher - She doesn't just grant boons, but curses you as well.

Not much deeper to this, just a thought that was bothering me. I've been holding Cultivation up as too similar to Preservation in my mind, whereas I think she has teeth. I don't think she'd have any problems stabbing Elend, for example. Sure, it's not nice, but killing is just something you have to do to cultivate (The other thought I'd had was of culling, but interestingly enough, it's not a word that appears in tWoK or WoR). 

[Stark he/him]

This makes me think of the gardener, clipping the rosebush, or hedge maze, or bonzai tree, or whatever, just so, so that it grows according to plan.  Sometimes you clip healthy branches as well as dead to get the result you want.  

 

Also, many times in films or books where the villain is a gardener, a past time that allows them to cultivate a perfectly controlled system according to their plan.

 

I agree completely, Cultivation is not necessarily good.  Sometimes you have to martyr a hero to preserve a city.  I don't think Cultivation would hesitate much to do things for the greater good of what she is cultivating...

[The Invested Beard]

Yeah cultivation is all about the end result. Pruning a plant, especially a tree around the base/trunk is killing young offshoots to ensure the tree grows into the shape you would like it to be.

[DefiantBurrito]

Good points.

I wonder if Cultivation can also maybe be more abstract, and not about nature/life/gardening at all. You can "cultivate" a skill, or a plan, etc.  

Maybe Cultivation is sort of the shard of "scheming"?  Like, "cultivating" lots of plans?

[Tarion]

3 hours ago, DefiantBurrito said:

Good points.

I wonder if Cultivation can also maybe be more abstract, and not about nature/life/gardening at all. You can "cultivate" a skill, or a plan, etc.  

Maybe Cultivation is sort of the shard of "scheming"?  Like, "cultivating" lots of plans?

That might be within her purview, but I think it's fairly safe to say that Wyndle (Who is, after all, cultivationspren) shows that there's a distinctly nature-y aesthetic to Cultivation. He's both a gardener and a vine, after all.

[Yata he/him]

Cultivation (and Honor) to me is well rappresentated by her thematical Surge... Progression, it's a force of improvement. An actual Anti-Ruin

[soyperson]

Cultivation could just be biding her time, waiting for her garden to bloom?

Maybe we'll get one of those uber-cliche "every rose has its thorn" lines from her.

[Vissy]

IIRC WoB stated that Cultivation is one of the Shards best suited for foresight; is the most powerful or one of the most powerful at looking into the future. It's a Shard that embodies long-term planning

[cometaryorbit]

17 hours ago, DefiantBurrito said:

Good points.

I wonder if Cultivation can also maybe be more abstract, and not about nature/life/gardening at all. You can "cultivate" a skill, or a plan, etc.  

Maybe Cultivation is sort of the shard of "scheming"?  Like, "cultivating" lots of plans?

Sounds likely. The Lightweavers not having Oaths after the First Ideal, but instead "personal growth" truths, is probably a Cultivation thing.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Seeing this thread makes me happy. So! Here we go. Do forgive me but I feel it necessary to advertise my theory here. I posted it a few months ago and the more I think about it the more I think it might actually end up being true. The original thread is here...

 

On 1/4/2017 at 0:45 PM, Tarion said:

So I was thinking about this earlier, and I think that the Intent of Cultivation could go in a couple of different ways and the best fit isn't nearly as nice as the most obvious.  

The first is where my mind originally went - The D&D Druid cliche. About putting life and nature before everything else. Essentially a turbo-hippy

But that's not really what's implied by Cultivation. If it was the Shard of Growth, then maybe, but Cultivation implies an active hand. She's not nature. She's the Shard of controlling nature with purpose. 

This came to mind while reading the chapter with the worming season in Hearthstone. It is, if I'm remembering correctly, the biggest look we actually get on farming. And it's about the importance of killing. 

 

 

It's shortly followed by a bit about potentially destroying your crops if they're not growing right, and starting again

 

 

To me, this speaks of a fairly balanced sense of Cultivation. It's growth, yes. But it's the right growth. It's the ability to both create something new, and to turn around later and burn it down if necessary. 

I don't think that we can downplay the importance of scenes dealing with cultivation on Roshar. They're rare enough (Basically here and stories about the Shin, IIRC) that I think we need to at least consider that they might reflect deeper truths of Cultivation. 

I feel that this also fits with the Nightwatcher - She doesn't just grant boons, but curses you as well.

Not much deeper to this, just a thought that was bothering me. I've been holding Cultivation up as too similar to Preservation in my mind, whereas I think she has teeth. I don't think she'd have any problems stabbing Elend, for example. Sure, it's not nice, but killing is just something you have to do to cultivate (The other thought I'd had was of culling, but interestingly enough, it's not a word that appears in tWoK or WoR). 

I have had similar thoughts. Cultivation's intent is not perfectly nice and perfect (to be fair, Preservation's intent wasn't perfectly "nice" either, after all Preservation in many ways approved of Rashek... I don't think any shards are a perfect embodiment of good, because different facets of morality have been split across the different shards. But I digress).

I also reasoned that, chances are, Cultivation isn't just sitting on her hands. We have probably already seen her influence in some pretty major ways on the book. Also, before anyone thinks to point this out, yes, I understand that Cultivation quite possibly contributes to the nahel bond. Just because Cultivation is a factor in the magic doesn't mean that all surgebinders are a perfect embodiment of Cultivation's agenda, indeed I think the oaths bind them closer to Honor's agenda.

So... A powerful but maybe not-so-obvious force on Roshar, with some connection to Cultivation... The conclusion I reach is none other than Taravangian.

Future-sight powers granted from a splinter of Cultivation, the desire to save the world, and the willingness to make steep sacrifices for the greater good. Feels a lot like Cultivation's intent.

 

On 1/4/2017 at 1:00 PM, Stark said:

This makes me think of the gardener, clipping the rosebush, or hedge maze, or bonzai tree, or whatever, just so, so that it grows according to plan.  Sometimes you clip healthy branches as well as dead to get the result you want.  

 

Also, many times in films or books where the villain is a gardener, a past time that allows them to cultivate a perfectly controlled system according to their plan.

 

I agree completely, Cultivation is not necessarily good.  Sometimes you have to martyr a hero to preserve a city.  I don't think Cultivation would hesitate much to do things for the greater good of what she is cultivating...

!!!

On 1/4/2017 at 1:54 PM, The Invested Beard said:

Yeah cultivation is all about the end result. Pruning a plant, especially a tree around the base/trunk is killing young offshoots to ensure the tree grows into the shape you would like it to be.

!!!

14 hours ago, Rob Lucci said:

IIRC WoB stated that Cultivation is one of the Shards best suited for foresight; is the most powerful or one of the most powerful at looking into the future. It's a Shard that embodies long-term planning

!!!

 

I think the evidence here is actually pretty strong.

[emailanimal he/him]

On 1/5/2017 at 11:33 PM, DefiantBurrito said:

Maybe Cultivation is sort of the shard of "scheming"?

The Shard of Scheming appears to be Autonomy.

 

To the original OP's point: I've been saying as much in the past. I would though distinguish between terms like "has teeth" and "good/evil".   Every Shard has teeth by definition, and thinking of Cultivation or Endowment (or the late Devotion) as all about fluffy bunnies, flowers and shiny happy people is wrong. They all wield terrible raw power, they just wield it in their own ways.  

The Nightwatcher is an entity that bears a heavy mark of Cultivation. It is far from being "nice" or "benevolent". It can do rather cruel and terrible things to people's cognition (just think of Taravagnian as  exhibit 1 of this peculiar brand of cruelty).  Cultivation also influences religions like Stone Shamanism, which has truly rigid tenets, and those who violate them wind up holding Honorblades and their stones at crossroads. Does this sound like a nice religion to anyone?

Cultivation is a Shard of controlled development, with "controlled" being as important as "development". We see her in terms of growth, and plants and gardening because this is where the civilization on Roshar is at the moment. But she would also be involved in such non-agricultural endeavors as scientific progress - controlling it as much as she controls what can grow where and under what circumstances.

 

[emailanimal he/him]

20 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

Just because Cultivation is a factor in the magic doesn't mean that all surgebinders are a perfect embodiment of Cultivation's agenda, indeed I think the oaths bind them closer to Honor's agenda.

Windrunners's oaths certainly aren't of Cultivation.  But Lightweavers... there is Honor in telling Truths, for sure, but in case of Lightweavers it appears that telling Truths teaches them how to lie better.  We do not know many other oaths (Edgedancers, Bondsmiths). The jury is out whether "I will remember those who are forgotten" are of Honor or Cultivation.  "I will listen..." sounds Cultivation-y to me. "I will unite..." appears to be of Honor.  

 

Now, this is interesting:

20 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

So... A powerful but maybe not-so-obvious force on Roshar, with some connection to Cultivation... The conclusion I reach is none other than Taravangian.

Taravagnian is an excellent champion for Cultivation. I agree wholeheartedly. Just as Rashek was a great champion of Preservation.

Dalinar is the chosen of Honor (now that Gavilar is no longer in the picture) and we like him and assume that just because he is a positive character (now), so should be other champions of other "good" (i.e., opposing Odium) Shards. Not really.

Notice that in both cases of Rashek and Taravagnian - they appear to be champions of Shards, not of people populating the planet.  Dalinar's case reflects perhaps the relationship between Honor and humans that was different from that of other Shards.

 

[Jondesu he/him]

On 1/7/2017 at 10:59 PM, emailanimal said:

The Shard of Scheming appears to be Autonomy.

To be fair, I think that scheming is probably not a distinct Shardic trait, and that the schemes we see from Autonomy are perhaps more likely due to Bavadin's personality from the clues Brandon has given us.

[emailanimal he/him]

1 hour ago, Jondesu said:

To be fair, I think that scheming is probably not a distinct Shardic trait, and that the schemes we see from Autonomy are perhaps more likely due to Bavadin's personality from the clues Brandon has given us.

You may very well be correct. The Vessel of Scheming appears to be Bavadin.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

On 8 januari 2017 at 4:59 AM, emailanimal said:

The Shard of Scheming appears to be Autonomy.

Beat me to it.

Cultivation being a "means justify the ends" person is interesting, and I hope that is the case, since it is a lot more interesting than "nice Shard lady hiding from Odium".

If the Diagram-Cultivation theory is true, then I wonder if Cultivation will try to influence some of the radiants (Lift for example) into joining up with them. That could potentially increase Taravangians power and influence. If he tries to fight Dalinar without any Radiants, he might find himself getting steamrolled pretty hard.

[teknopathetic he/him]

The Desolation always struck me as perfect for Cultivation.

 

The world grows, populates, an epic battle ensues, and the souls and cultures are reaped and cultivated: rise and repeat after every desolation. The cultivations sound just like a farmer tilling his field and reaping the rewards. Combine this with the Devotaries (personal cultivation), and you see A LOT of cultivation's influence. The Crem is even mobile-fertilizer! 

 

This cultivation obviously would be devastating on the Physical Realm, but would it maybe strengthen the Cognitive realm? We have hints of battles occurring elsewhere when a certain character in a certain book is told "You will continue to serve us in the next realm". Maybe Cultivation is stockpiling Cognitive Warriors something akin to a grain silo? The Radiants certainly could be more her doing than honors with this perspective in-mind. And their religion hints at Cultivated Individuals being given a chance at an afterlife (Much like in Norse Mythology).

Edited January 10, 2017 by teknopathetic

[emailanimal he/him]

1 hour ago, teknopathetic said:

 

The Desolation always struck me as perfect for Cultivation

 

My current theory about Desolations is that this is something Honor traded to Odium to have Odium bound to Roshar/Roshar system. Voidspren are Odium's Investiture into Roshar itself.  Without them, Odium can leave the system and wreak havoc elsewhere. So Honor agreed to subject Roshar to Desolations periodically (see below), to make sure that Odium remains bound.

The periodicity (this is the new thought here) is determined through the Heralds. Looks like Heralds being in Damnation by itself potentially binds Odium, but when Heralds are out, Honor has to let voidspren come back again, lest Odium is no longer bound.

[Stark he/him]

I can even see this being taken a step further, where Cultivation and Harmony would not get along, as their intents would come into conflict.  Harmony has outright stated that he made a mistake, providing the Northern Scadrians with a bountiful garden to grow in where they have become almost technologically stagnant (especially when compared to the southerners).  He created a Garden and let it grow wild and do as it pleased with no plan, as long as the balance was maintained.

 

Cultivation would have pruned the heck out of the Northerners and given them suffering to force them to learn and evolve according to her plan.  It would not surprise me to find that the Highstorms were of Cultivation - a periodic, rhythmic scouring of the world to that would remove the weak or foolish, leaving the strong and innovative behind.  It would not surprise me to find her as the guiding hand behind fabrial research.

 

I really don't see Harmony and Cultivation getting along.  One would have the wild, overgrown garden with everything growing as it could.  The other is neatly arranged rows of flowers according to a planned design.  

 

As for scheming, well, all of the original vessels have to be schemers to one extent or another.  No group is going to get together to kill god and not have some sort of plan.  And they likely wont keep someone incapable of planning or plotting in the group for long.  (Like Kelsier's team on a more cosmic scale.  The 16 made up the core crew.  Anyone else was the Skaa rebellion, a distraction not in on the core plan)