[OB] Stormlight unanswered questions

[Timothy]

I read oathbringer a few months ago and I'm about to finish my WoR re-read. While I was trying to organize my questions and theories in my head I realized that I might as well post them here in case anyone has answers or likes the theories. I binge read a lot of WoBs a while ago too. I probably could have ordered this better and had a thousand other questions that I can't remember right now. Sorry for the wall of text.

Gaz

Is the way he lost his eye significant in any way? Do we know how he became indebted? He said it wasn't gambling debts.

Rock

We know that he has immense strength, is good with a bow, lied to bridge four about something and can see spren. Could he have always been a fourth son and a direct brother to his lord instead of a cousin? His wife mentions two names aside from the leader  and talks about how he now is something. The way there are three other people talked about implies he was a fourth brother instead of third, could he have taken cooking as a way to change his ways? Was he the one pushing for a fight perhaps? He shows great strength in book one when wielding a tree and in book three with the shardbow. Is this perhaps related to his ability to see spren and his having bathed in cultivation's shardpool? There are no visible spren near him, but could he have some sort of fabrial-like bond like the parsh have? Horneaters mixed with parsh, could they have gemhearts too?

Sigzil

He tried to kill a man who wasn't his master and failed, but I wasn't able to find anything else.

Jasnah

We know that she suffered from unknown causes as a child and that it was related to someone he loved, do we have any idea who could this be? Dalinar doesn't seem likely since she sees him as a great person. Could it have been Gavilar or Navani?

She also blames herself for the death of Gavilar according to Navani, could she have had something to do with the dark spheres he had? According to Jasnah herself he wasn't a scholar and he wasn't interested in fabrials, could Jasnah have been the one who "made" the spheres? Perhaps even been part of the Sons of Honor? She was searching for proof the parshmen were voidbringers, but she already knew this and wanted to find proof for everyone else. Maybe this is related to why the inkspren were trying to kill her at first? Is this why the Ghosbloods have been opposed to her for so long?

The Davar family

We know from a WoB that their negative traits were enhanced by Odium, but was this something general as with the Thrill or were they being specifically targeted? Maybe he has something planned for Shallan? But then again he does mistake her for an Elsecaller. Maybe we'll know something once she learns who she is thanks to Taravangian in the next book.

Why did Shallan bond a Cryptic when she was apparently unbroken according to a WoB? Maybe it's related to her mother's association with the Skybreakers and how spren and radiants attract their own?

Parsh and Spren

Eshonai recognizes the "stormspren" she bonds as angerspren and Syl calls these voidspren, but these are different from the angerspren shown by humans. Assuming is the same kind of emotion they are being attracted to could the different shapes of the spren be explained by the older spren having four genders and thus being different(originated from the parsh)? 

Is the fact that "negative","red" spren come from the ground significant? On Roshar's cognitive realm stone is a bead of seas and water bodies are stone. Is this just a quirk of the planet or something else?  Maybe related to how Parsh cognitive shadows can inhabit stone itself? Is Odium related to stone and the Shin worship of it?

Eshonai owns a shardblade personally, could this be significant?

Shallash and other heralds

Shalash knows Hoid by one of his earlier aliases and swears by Adonalsium when shocked, which implies she is from a pre shattering era. Could she and the other Heralds have been followers of Tanavast and travelled with him? On the other hand the Stormfather says that they were originally going to be nine instead of ten, could they have been related to Rayse instead? Maybe switched sides after watching Ashyn collapse or the humans invade the Parsh who helped them? Is Taln from the same era as them or did he join later when they joined Honor? 

Kalak knows that Szeth is carrying a honorblade even before he openly uses it, could this be because of their relationships with the Shin or maybe they are able to feel something about the hinorblades themselves instead of just other heralds?

Renarin

Is the name "He who is born into himself" significant? When did he bond Glys and where does he keep her? Oathbringer mentions her going inside his heart, could this mean a gemheart? Maybe some Rosharan's have gemhearts? Did he keep Glys in the box he had during all of the books? Is Glys an example of how Unmade are maybe stronger now? 

Radiants

Did they all simply break the bonds? WoR implies they might have been warring among them, maybe this is related to Ashspren being killed like Spark says?

Voidbinding and Fabrials

Do we know to which shard these belong to? Voidbinding seems like something from Odium, could fabrials be from Cultivation? Parsh seem very related to her and their forms and fabrials look very similar, even the fused.

Szeth

Is the voice he heard while young the same Highspren he bonds now? I couldn't find much about it in the books or WoBs.

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Timothy

[Govir]

43 minutes ago, Timothy said:

Sigzil

He tried to kill a man who wasn't his master and failed, but I wasn't able to find anything else.

I was under the impression that Sigzil tried to kill his master for some reason, and failed (probably because it's Hoid). But then ended up changing his mind about his master needing to die sometime after his failed attempt. I'd have to look for passages to back this up though.

47 minutes ago, Timothy said:

Why did Shallan bond a Cryptic when she was apparently unbroken according to a WoB? Maybe it's related to her mother's association with the Skybreakers and how spren and radiants attract their own?

I don't think people need to be broken to bond a spren. Every time this comes up, I vaguely remember a WoB saying that it requires an expanding of the soul and the easiest way to expand a soul is to break it and fill in the cracks. I can never find it though, and it makes me wish he did more east coast stuff so I could maybe eventually ask him about it.

51 minutes ago, Timothy said:

On Roshar's cognitive realm stone is a bead of seas and water bodies are stone. Is this just a quirk of the planet or something else?  Maybe related to how Parsh cognitive shadows can inhabit stone itself? Is Odium related to stone and the Shin worship of it?

This is a quirk of the Cognitive Realm. The substance things are made up of depend on how the Investiture powers manifest (e.g. Spheres hold Stormlight => Spheres represent power). The inverse land mass is because of human minds clustering on land in the Physical Realm, causing their thoughts and beliefs to manifest as multiple distinct things on the Cognitive Realm side. Whereas on bodies of water in the Physical Realm, not many Human minds are around and so it's just a solid mass of one thing.

Mistborn Secret History spoilers (very light spoiler)

Spoiler

The Cognitive Realm near Scadrial is made up of Mist (instead of beads), and also has the inverse land mass thing.

 

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, Timothy said:

I read oathbringer a few months ago and I'm about to finish my WoR re-read. While I was trying to organize my questions and theories in my head I realized that I might as well post them here in case anyone has answers or likes the theories. I binge read a lot of WoBs a while ago too. I probably could have ordered this better and had a thousand other questions that I can't remember right now. Sorry for the wall of text.

No worries, we're all used to the experience of finishing a new work by Brandon and having tons of questions and a burning desire for answers. Anyhow, on to yours:

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Gaz

Is the way he lost his eye significant in any way? Do we know how he became indebted? He said it wasn't gambling debts.

Brandon has RAFO'd how he lost his eye but he's confirmed that Gaz wasn't heterochromatic and no hemalurgical weirdness was involved. There may or may not be significance to it but we can at least rule out those options. I think all we know about his debts (aside from that his owing people money is why he deserted) is that he was considering taking out a loan in order to keep gambling with the rest of Shallan's men during that scene in the book, so it may well have been a gambling addiction.

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Rock

We know that he has immense strength, is good with a bow, lied to bridge four about something and can see spren. Could he have always been a fourth son and a direct brother to his lord instead of a cousin?

This is entirely possible; there's a lot of hints that he started out a fourth son or lower and thus trained as a warrior and his wife implies that there's something very significant about the recent death of his brothers. Whether he was actually a brother to his nuatoma or whether he really was a cousin but is still the closest in line of succession, it seems like he should be the leader of his people now.

Rock's ability to see spren and almost hearing the Rhythms is probably not anything special about him, all Horneaters have some singer blood, so do Herdazians.

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Jasnah

We know that she suffered from unknown causes as a child and that it was related to someone he loved, do we have any idea who could this be? Dalinar doesn't seem likely since she sees him as a great person. Could it have been Gavilar or Navani?

She also blames herself for the death of Gavilar according to Navani, could she have had something to do with the dark spheres he had?

Jasnah's childhood affliction is a mystery, one we may not get explained for a long time since she's slated to get her book in the back half of the series and apparently one of the last ones. But yeah, given the relationships we see her having with Dalinar and Navani it seems like she's refering to Gavilar when she thinks about people she loves hurting her. On the guilt, it may be that she didn't put together clues about the Parshendi/Voidbringer connection fast enough and feels responsible but it could also be that she feels directly responsible because she caught his attention just before he fell from the balcony. It's possible she thinks that if she hadn't been there, he might have been more focused and been able to either avoid the fall or survive it?

I don't think that Ivory was trying to kill her, despite the riskiness of what happened in the WoR Prologue, I think that was just part of how one bonds an inkspren.

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The Davar family

Why did Shallan bond a Cryptic when she was apparently unbroken according to a WoB? Maybe it's related to her mother's association with the Skybreakers and how spren and radiants attract their own?
 

Do you have this WoB handy? I'm curious and I can't find one right now that implies this.

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Parsh and Spren

Eshonai recognizes the "stormspren" she bonds as angerspren and Syl calls these voidspren, but these are different from the angerspren shown by humans. Assuming is the same kind of emotion they are being attracted to could the different shapes of the spren be explained by the older spren having four genders and thus being different(originated from the parsh)? 

I think it has more to do with Eshonai's people being closer to the Cognitive Realm and thus being able to see more of the spren as they appear 'over there', so what she sees and what a human normally sees wouldn't be exactly the same thing.

But yeah, Brandon has mentioned pre-Oathbringer that spren can have other genders and linked this to the Parshendi having four, so it's fairly clear that those spren were 'created' by the Parshendi's thoughts rather than being shaped by human thought.

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Shallash and other heralds

Shalash knows Hoid by one of his earlier aliases and swears by Adonalsium when shocked, which implies she is from a pre shattering era. Could she and the other Heralds have been followers of Tanavast and travelled with him? On the other hand the Stormfather says that they were originally going to be nine instead of ten, could they have been related to Rayse instead? Maybe switched sides after watching Ashyn collapse or the humans invade the Parsh who helped them? Is Taln from the same era as them or did he join later when they joined Honor? 

Kalak knows that Szeth is carrying a honorblade even before he openly uses it, could this be because of their relationships with the Shin or maybe they are able to feel something about the hinorblades themselves instead of just other heralds?

Brandon has said that all the Heralds are from the same place but he's RAFO'd whether they're native Rosharans. However, since the timeline doesn't really fit the idea that they came to Roshar with Tanavast (humans didn't arrive until after he'd settled in) they're probably not pre-Shattering. That they know about Adonalsium is interesting but doesn't have to be terribly significant' it's entirely possible that Tanavast explained the whole thing to them at some point during the thousands of years they were his Heralds. Similarly, knowing one of Hoid's aliases is interesting but he's gone by so many and it's possible he simply reused one, or that Brandon wanted to shift his use of 'Midius' to later in the timeline so that whatever he was calling himself during Liar of Partinel is now something different.

Since the Heralds are all connected to one another, they might be able to sense the presence of the Honorblades. Or they could have learned independently that one of the Blades the Shin were keeping was given to Szeth without having a special connection to the country. Unfortunately, Szeth's book is planned to be the fifth so we probably aren't getting answers for a while.

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Renarin

Is the name "He who is born into himself" significant? When did he bond Glys and where does he keep her? Oathbringer mentions her going inside his heart, could this mean a gemheart? Maybe some Rosharan's have gemhearts? Did he keep Glys in the box he had during all of the books? Is Glys an example of how Unmade are maybe stronger now?

His name was the result of a non-Vorin mother trying to give him a Vorin-styled name while also incorporating some of her own culture and resulting in something that doesn't actually make sense in traditional Vorin terms. It's probably not significant in terms of its meaning, just as one more thing poor Renarin had to deal with growing up. For the other questions, I wish I knew. Glys seems to have some way of hiding since Rock never sees him but it's probably not a gemheart thing.

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Radiants

Did they all simply break the bonds? WoR implies they might have been warring among them, maybe this is related to Ashspren being killed like Spark says?

All the evidence we have is that every non-Skybreaker Radiant broke their oaths. That would include killing all of the then-bonded ashspren.

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Voidbinding and Fabrials

Do we know to which shard these belong to? Voidbinding seems like something from Odium, could fabrials be from Cultivation? Parsh seem very related to her and their forms and fabrials look very similar, even the fused.

Voidbinding is related to Odium albeit we don't know all the details of it. Speaking generally, all the Shards on Roshar are using the same fundamental system of magic, with the Radiants drawing on both Honor and Cultivation, even if the former's influence predominates. Fabrials seem like they would be 'of' whichever Shard is associated with the captured spren, which in practice means that most of them would be some mixture of Honor and Cultivation.

Here's a WoB on the subject.

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Szeth

Is the voice he heard while young the same Highspren he bonds now? I couldn't find much about it in the books or WoBs.

I'll have to take a look at the books later, I don't remember what we have on this offhand.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Weltall

[The One Who Connects he/him]

2 hours ago, Timothy said:

Radiants

Did they all simply break the bonds? WoR implies they might have been warring among them, maybe this is related to Ashspren being killed like Spark says?

If Malata/Spark is to be believed, Ashspren are Dustbringer Spren. Which means that the mass killing of Ashspren should be from when the Dustbringers broke their bonds, rather than something targeted on them.

As for the KR of old: Yep, nearly all of them broke their bonds. And before you ask why, know that there were so many things that led up to the Recreance, it's not a simple answer. (If you want the whole thing laid out, click on the "Recreance Cause Elaborated" link in my sig)

2 hours ago, Timothy said:

We know from a WoB that their negative traits were enhanced by Odium, but was this something general as with the Thrill or were they being specifically targeted?

Odium usually influences humans through the Unmade, so it could go either way. They may just be in the same area as one of the Unmade(non-targeted), or they could be the reason Odium has that Unmade in the area(targeted). We don't know.

2 hours ago, Timothy said:

Shalash knows Hoid by one of his earlier aliases and swears by Adonalsium when shocked, which implies she is from a pre shattering era. Could she and the other Heralds have been followers of Tanavast and travelled with him?

(Edit: this segment was ninja'd by Weltall, but I'm keeping it anyway)
Adonalsium: They were Honor's chosen, and have spoken with him on at least one occasion. He could very easily have provided explanations for himself and Odium.
Midius: Hoid goes by a lot of names, at a lot of times. For instance, Leras refers to him as Cephandrius, so you'd think that'd be an older one, but it's not necessarily older than "Hoid," which he is currently going by. Vasher knows him as Dust, despite him going by Hoid during Warbreaker. There's also Topaz, which Frost references in the Letter. The name that someone knows him by means little in terms of when they learned his name, because he both reuses them and seems to go by multiple names at once.
Pre-Shattering: I highly doubt it. The Oathpact happened after the Fused became a thing, which was after Odium came to Roshar. Odium was out doing other things for roughly 3 millennia or so. I don't think a group of 10 immortals would have stuck together for 3K+ years across multiple planets.

[Patrick Star]

I'm pretty sure Glys hid inside Renarin's stomach since he didn't have a gemheart.  Kind of like how Syl hid in Kaladin's hair with the Parshmen.

[Timothy]

19 hours ago, Govir said:

 

Sig says it wasn't his master in WoK, does he contradict this somewhere else?

Yeah, I've read some WoBs where he explains how being broken and the spren bond filling the cracks is the easiest way but not the only one. We've seen Elend and mabe Hoid do it in other ways, but I don't know enough to speculate much on this.

Thanks for the information about the cognitive realm, I didn't know that. How would the Reshi isles appear then? They are treated as islands by outsiders but they are living beings too.

18 hours ago, Weltall said:

Do you have this WoB handy? I'm curious and I can't find one right now that implies this.

Brandon has said that all the Heralds are from the same place but he's RAFO'd whether they're native Rosharans. However, since the timeline doesn't really fit the idea that they came to Roshar with Tanavast (humans didn't arrive until after he'd settled in) they're probably not pre-Shattering. That they know about Adonalsium is interesting but doesn't have to be terribly significant' it's entirely possible that Tanavast explained the whole thing to them at some point during the thousands of years they were his Heralds. Similarly, knowing one of Hoid's aliases is interesting but he's gone by so many and it's possible he simply reused one, or that Brandon wanted to shift his use of 'Midius' to later in the timeline so that whatever he was calling himself during Liar of Partinel is now something different.

Since the Heralds are all connected to one another, they might be able to sense the presence of the Honorblades. Or they could have learned independently that one of the Blades the Shin were keeping was given to Szeth without having a special connection to the country. Unfortunately, Szeth's book is planned to be the fifth so we probably aren't getting answers for a while.

His name was the result of a non-Vorin mother trying to give him a Vorin-styled name while also incorporating some of her own culture and resulting in something that doesn't actually make sense in traditional Vorin terms. It's probably not significant in terms of its meaning, just as one more thing poor Renarin had to deal with growing up. For the other questions, I wish I knew. Glys seems to have some way of hiding since Rock never sees him but it's probably not a gemheart thing.

All the evidence we have is that every non-Skybreaker Radiant broke their oaths. That would include killing all of the then-bonded ashspren.

Voidbinding is related to Odium albeit we don't know all the details of it. Speaking generally, all the Shards on Roshar are using the same fundamental system of magic, with the Radiants drawing on both Honor and Cultivation, even if the former's influence predominates. Fabrials seem like they would be 'of' whichever Shard is associated with the captured spren, which in practice means that most of them would be some mixture of Honor and Cultivation.

Here's a WoB on the subject.

I'll have to take a look at the books later, I don't remember what we have on this offhand.

I hope this is the right way to paste the link here: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8418

I took Shallash using those names at face value because she was in a deep state of shock when she used Adolnalsium, which made me think that she went back and used words that were rooted deep within her. I have no idea how that matches up with the heralds aside from them being from Odium or even Rayse before though, hence why they were supposed to be nine. 

I thought the gemheart stuff after remembering that people in  Roshar interbred with the parsh, but maybe that's going a bit too far into crazy. Rlain does mention that some humans can hear the "rythms of Roshar" though.

17 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Odium usually influences humans through the Unmade, so it could go either way. They may just be in the same area as one of the Unmade(non-targeted), or they could be the reason Odium has that Unmade in the area(targeted). We don't know.
Adonalsium: They were Honor's chosen, and have spoken with him on at least one occasion. He could very easily have provided explanations for himself and Odium.
Midius: Hoid goes by a lot of names, at a lot of times. For instance, Leras refers to him as Cephandrius, so you'd think that'd be an older one, but it's not necessarily older than "Hoid," which he is currently going by. Vasher knows him as Dust, despite him going by Hoid during Warbreaker. There's also Topaz, which Frost references in the Letter. The name that someone knows him by means little in terms of when they learned his name, because he both reuses them and seems to go by multiple names at once.
Pre-Shattering: I highly doubt it. The Oathpact happened after the Fused became a thing, which was after Odium came to Roshar. Odium was out doing other things for roughly 3 millennia or so. I don't think a group of 10 immortals would have stuck together for 3K+ years across multiple planets.

If it was one of the non sentient unmade everyone in the area should have felt it I think. That's why I thought they might have been targeted specifically.

The Heralds could have been there before the oathpact as invested beings, but I definitely don't know enought about to make theories on it. It could be just what you say and that they were taught about Adonalsium, but how she screams the name when she's surprised strikes me as odd.

13 hours ago, Patrick Star said:

I'm pretty sure Glys hid inside Renarin's stomach since he didn't have a gemheart.  Kind of like how Syl hid in Kaladin's hair with the Parshmen.

Why the stomach? I can't check right now, but I seem to remember somthing about her going inside his heart.

 

Thanks everyone for answering my questions and replyin too!

[Xtafa]

I just wonder if Gaz will regain his eye eventually

[Wandering Investor]

On 4/17/2018 at 3:38 PM, Timothy said:

Rock

We know that he has immense strength

Others explained most of the Rock question, but it is currently unknown how he used the shardbow. He's strong, but the bow shouldn't be usable without plate, and there is no indication that Rock can normally equally a man in shardplate.

On 4/17/2018 at 3:38 PM, Timothy said:

Why did Shallan bond a Cryptic when she was apparently unbroken according to a WoB?

Investiture has to be able to get into a soul, but a cracked soul is not the only way. I have a theory that children have flexible souls and an open mind, allowing them to more easily accept new investiture into their souls, which allowed for the initial bonding with Pattern.

On 4/17/2018 at 3:38 PM, Timothy said:

Parsh and Spren

Eshonei might have been describing the spren as angry since it is made of Odium, while angerspren are attracted to anger. 

On 4/17/2018 at 3:38 PM, Timothy said:

Voidbinding and Fabrials

Do we know to which shard these belong to? Voidbinding seems like something from Odium, could fabrials be from Cultivation? Parsh seem very related to her and their forms and fabrials look very similar, even the fused.

The principles of the magic system existed before the Shards. Dawnsigners are essentially fabrials, and they existed before the shattering, so it is hard to say that fabrials are of Cultivation. Even the surges aren't of Honor/Cultivation, its the spren-bond that is (sorta) of H/C, which in turn allows for accessing the surges.

On 4/17/2018 at 3:38 PM, Timothy said:

Szeth

Is the voice he heard while young the same Highspren he bonds now? I couldn't find much about it in the books or WoBs.

I think its implied here that he heard the Highspren, or perhaps a different Highspren, when he was a child. This would match up with other radiants experiencing spren moments in their childhoods.

[Song she/her]

On 4/18/2018 at 6:38 AM, Timothy said:

 

Renarin

Is the name "He who is born into himself" significant? When did he bond Glys and where does he keep her? Oathbringer mentions her going inside his heart, could this mean a gemheart? Maybe some Rosharan's have gemhearts? Did he keep Glys in the box he had during all of the books? Is Glys an example of how Unmade are maybe 

 

We only get Renarin's name explanation from Dalinar's POV. Dalinar tended to assume Evi was culturally backward and didn't understand things, but she comes across as brighter than everyone says. It is possible she named him not just after her and Dalinar but that she knew the meaning and liked the idea of Renarin being an individual, different from Alethian culture she despised. Reguardless of the in-world reasons, I suspect Brandon was very deliberate in the choice of name.