Theory: Venli gave the black sphere to Gavilar

[shawnhargreaves he/him]

Stormlight is full of groups of people doing scientific research.  Navani and her ardents.  Venli and her group of scholars.   Taravangian (the epitome of individual genius) is assisted by academics who transcribe and decode the Diagram.  The closest thing we've seen to a solitary researcher is Jasnah, but even she spends time traveling to libraries where she is assisted by others.  This is a realistic (unusually so for the fantasy genre) portrayal of how research happens, with groups of smart people pooling ideas and building in small steps on the progress of others.

 

Which leaves me puzzling over where Gavilar got that black sphere.  He knew rather a lot about some rather important stuff, but has no obvious support group to have learned this from.   Navani and Jasnah are out - we've seen too much of their concerns and motivations to have missed if they knew what the black sphere was about.   There are the visions, but Dalinar has these too, and no mention of black spheres in those.   And Gavilar had ties to a surprising number of secret societies, but we've seen at least glimpses of what these societies are aiming for, and again no mention of black spheres.

 

My theory is based on rather slim evidence:

 

1)  Immediately before his assassination, Gavilar was off gallivanting around the Shattered Plains with the Parshendi

2)  We've seen that Venli knows how to capture Spren in gemstones

3)  In WoR interlude 13, Eshonai notices some things about Venli:

 

Venli smiled often while wearing this new form.  Otherwise, it didn't seem to have changed her at all.  Eshonai knew that she herself had changed.  But Venli...  Venli acted the same.  Something felt wrong about that.

 

And later:

 

Venli walked away, joined by her once-mate and many of her scholars.  They seemed comfortable in these forms.  Too comfortable.  They couldn't have held these forms before ... could they?

 

I think Odium got to Venli a long time ago, that she took on one of the other forms of power, learned things, met in secret with Gavliar, and gave him the black sphere.  The Parshendi killed him to prevent return of their gods, little knowing that these gods were already back and had set up this whole situation.  So Odium (via Venli and her group of researchers) is directly responsible for triggering the war and all that followed.  This also sets up an confrontation between the sisters as Eshonai proves stronger than Venli was, and I'm hoping will be able to someday escape this influence.

[kaellok he/him]

Possible, but there's a few problems that I think need to be addressed.

 

1.   The black orb, as far as we know, hasn't actually done anything.

1a. If the black orb contains one of the Unmade, such as Nergaoul (responsible for the Thrill), then he has had it longer than he's been in contact with the Parshendi.  At the very least, the Thrill was felt by Sadeas during the Alethi consolidation and unification, which occurred before they knew the Parshendi existed.

1b. Unless you are suggesting that Venli and Gavilar met in secret long before anyone else even knew the Parshendi existed, and this is the reason for his interest in them as a group.  There is literally no evidence for this, but seems a possible explanation.

 

2.   The various secret societies that Gavilar was working with had their own information, sometimes surprisingly accurate.  It's at least as plausible that he got the orb from one of them, rather than the Parshendi.

 

3.   The prologue seems to me as if Gavilar is concerned with making sure the Parshendi don't get the orb.  If this is the case, why would Venli have given away the orb in the first place, only to try and get it back later?

 

I don't think that any of these can be answered without more information.  Odium playing an active role in the long game is very interesting, though, and certainly in keeping with what we know about the Cosmere as a whole.  Setting up the war between the Alethi and the Parshendi right when Alethkar is on the verge of being truly unified, well--I'd not be surprised if Odium was behind that.  And that Venli was corrupted long before the first scenes with Eshonai.

[shawnhargreaves he/him]

1.   The black orb, as far as we know, hasn't actually done anything.

 

Other than be mysterious and seemingly important, true enough.  But I think Gavilar's plan (which he was killed to prevent) involved the orb.  So indirectly, it got him killed, started a war, nearly wiped out the Parshendi, and then brought the Everstorm.

 

 

1a. If the black orb contains one of the Unmade, such as Nergaoul (responsible for the Thrill), then he has had it longer than he's been in contact with the Parshendi.  At the very least, the Thrill was felt by Sadeas during the Alethi consolidation and unification, which occurred before they knew the Parshendi existed.

 

I don't have any specific theory about what was inside the orb (just that it was important and came from Odium via Venli), but I'm pretty sure it's not Nergaoul.   Taravangian comments in his WoR interlude on the Thrill being felt in Jah Keved as well as Alethkar, and thinks his scholars might be able to use this fact to pinpoint location.  I don't think that fits with a spren that's been captured.

 

 

3.   The prologue seems to me as if Gavilar is concerned with making sure the Parshendi don't get the orb.  If this is the case, why would Venli have given away the orb in the first place, only to try and get it back later?

 

At this point Venli was acting against the Parshendi as a whole, without the knowledge of Eshonai or their other leaders.

[Shaggai]

Possible, but there's a few problems that I think need to be addressed.

 

1.   The black orb, as far as we know, hasn't actually done anything.

1a. If the black orb contains one of the Unmade, such as Nergaoul (responsible for the Thrill), then he has had it longer than he's been in contact with the Parshendi.  At the very least, the Thrill was felt by Sadeas during the Alethi consolidation and unification, which occurred before they knew the Parshendi existed.

1b. Unless you are suggesting that Venli and Gavilar met in secret long before anyone else even knew the Parshendi existed, and this is the reason for his interest in them as a group.  There is literally no evidence for this, but seems a possible explanation.

 

2.   The various secret societies that Gavilar was working with had their own information, sometimes surprisingly accurate.  It's at least as plausible that he got the orb from one of them, rather than the Parshendi.

 

3.   The prologue seems to me as if Gavilar is concerned with making sure the Parshendi don't get the orb.  If this is the case, why would Venli have given away the orb in the first place, only to try and get it back later?

 

I don't think that any of these can be answered without more information.  Odium playing an active role in the long game is very interesting, though, and certainly in keeping with what we know about the Cosmere as a whole.  Setting up the war between the Alethi and the Parshendi right when Alethkar is on the verge of being truly unified, well--I'd not be surprised if Odium was behind that.  And that Venli was corrupted long before the first scenes with Eshonai.

 

If it was an unmade, I would suspect more that it was Moelach, not Nergaoul. The Death Rattles started around the right time, and were apparently very strong in Jah Keved (where Szeth left the sphere). It seems that Moelach is free now, of course, but escape is certainly possible.

[Patrick Star]

I think that the black orb held Yelig-Nar, or Blightwind.

 

Moelech and another unmade were moving through the shattered plains, so he wasn't in the sphere.

 

We've seen Szeth hear the screams of those who he killed, which is exactly how Yelig-Nar communicates.

 

Coincidence?  I think not.

 

Good theory, by the way.  Take an upvote.

[Shaggai]

I think that the black orb held Yelig-Nar, or Blightwind.

 

Moelech and another unmade were moving through the shattered plains, so he wasn't in the sphere.

 

We've seen Szeth hear the screams of those who he killed, which is exactly how Yelig-Nar communicates.

 

Coincidence?  I think not.

 

Good theory, by the way.  Take an upvote.

Moelach is moving as of I forget which chapter of WoR, sure, but it probably escaped. The Death Rattles started around the time of Gavilar reaching the Shattered Plains, so it started to have influence at that point and slowly escaped over more than ten years, culminating in WoR where it's fully free and moves of its own volition.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Heh. The black orb reminds me of the Tesseract from the not-so-recent Marvel movies (Thor and the Avengers, mainly). It's important, it's powerful, and you have no idea what it does or why it's even important in the first place.

[Kobold King he/him]

Heh. The black orb reminds me of the Tesseract from the not-so-recent Marvel movies (Thor and the Avengers, mainly). It's important, it's powerful, and you have no idea what it does or why it's even important in the first place.

 

Maybe that's how Hoid worldhops? Doors open on both sides, after all.

[Chaos he/him]

I'd buy this theory. The Everstorm is entirely Venli's doing, and I am terrified of her. I would not be surprised if this was the case.

[Patrick Star]

Moelach is moving as of I forget which chapter of WoR, sure, but it probably escaped. The Death Rattles started around the time of Gavilar reaching the Shattered Plains, so it started to have influence at that point and slowly escaped over more than ten years, culminating in WoR where it's fully free and moves of its own volition.

 

That sort of takes the whole mystery factor away from the sphere.

 

As a plot device and for forshadowing, I'd say that it's still very much intact and that whatever's in it is left just as it was when Szeth put it in Jah Keved.

[Frostlander]

I'm thinking Venli gave him Midnight Essence, the force behind the creatures Dalinar fought in a vision in WoK:

 

“ReShephir, the Midnight Mother, giving birth to abominations with her essence so dark, so terrible, so consuming. She is here! She watches me die!” —Dated Shashabev, 1173, 8 seconds pre-death. Subject: a darkeyed dock-worker in his forties, father of three.

 

We know from Dalinar's vision that Midnight Essence (perhaps ReShephir herself) can be released, perhaps by a person, before a desolation even occurs:

 

“The Desolation,” he said. “That means the Voidbringers, right? Those are what we fought this night?” The knight sniffed dismissively. “Voidbringers? These? No, this was Midnight Essence, though who released it is still a mystery.” She looked to the side, expression growing distant. “Harkaylain says the Desolation is close, and he is not often wrong."

 

I agree that Venli was corrupted a long time ago (perhaps while in scholarform?) and it seems likely that Gavilar got the sphere from Venli. Given that Midnight Essence seems to be something actively released, often before a Desolation, it is actually strange that we haven't seen any yet. Perhaps because Szeth buried it in WoK:

 

[szeth's master tells of] the time when he’d seen the Nightwatcher herself and stolen a sphere that glowed black at night. That tale always discomforted Szeth, as it reminded him of the strange black sphere Gavilar had given him. He’d hidden that carefully in Jah Keved. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t want to risk a master taking it from him.

 

We should have seen it by now. Perhaps the Everstorm will unearth it when it hits Jah Keved.