[Felisin Fatter]

So, I don't see any theories on this anywhere (please point me to them if there are any). Or is it super obvious to everyone and am I just the slow one?


What actually is the Empty Hold? Where did it come from? Why is it empty?


This is the list of Tiles associated with it, copied from the Wiki:

• Empty Throne, the throne that knew no King
• Wanderer Knight
• Mistress, who waited still, alone in her bed of dreams
• Watcher, who witnessed all
• Walker, who patrolled borders not even he could see
• Saviour - Brys Beddict, whose outstretched hand was never grasped
• Betrayer - The Errant, whose loving embrace destroyed all it touched

Note: I am not entirely sure about Saviour and Betrayer. Those seem more like temporary roles than like actual postions in the Hold (The Errant is also one of the Fulcra). But that's debatable,

We also know about the Empty Hold:

• It can be used as a weapon, and that looks like white lightning, bright light and fire. It burns everything it touches to ashes. It can also be used for more subtle purposes, but I don't think we see much of that as pretty much all the sorcerers get slaughtered real fast.
• It only exists in the 'preserved area', in and around Lether. It is an ancient Hold.
• It is not the Hold of Ice, Beast, Azath, Dragon or Fulcra (Fulcra appears to be ancient presences - Eres, Kilmandaros, Knuckles - and shapeshifters, likely a later addition due to the First Empire Ritual).
• It is also not the Hold of Death, as that one is explicitly absent. (Something to do with the War on Death?)

I can only draw one conclusion from all this: the Empty Hold is the Hold of Fire, also known as Tellan. That's the one missing from the list. That was definitely still a hold when Gothos did his ritual. It became Empty soon after, when the Imass did their ritual. Because of Gothos' ritual a fossilized version of Tellan remained in that area. Tellan never had a king. No one can sit its throne now - or this could even refer to Shadowthrone (not) taking that throne. The lonely dreaming mistress is Burn - who is very much MIA among the Tiles. And we know she dates from before Gothos' ritual. Wanderer, Watcher and Walker could be characters from FoD too, hard to say, but plenty that could fit the role. (Edgewalker is a strong candidate for Walker, as he is now in Shadow wich likely bordered Tellan before the Tellan Ritual. Also, his name. Arathan I can see become the Wanderer Knight. Or it could be Kilava, maybe even Tool. Or many, many others. Same for Watcher; lots of witnessing in these books... Saviour/betrayer could in other contexts be Silverfox & Itkovian.)

This also might explain what happened to those Imass in the Refugium. They arrived on Lether and found Tellan instead of T'lan, and that allowed them to become sort of alive again and lost in memories. It is actually stated that in the Refugium 'The ritual of Tellann never happened'.

[nacht]

Very Interesting theory, especially the fact that it is focused around Letther.
Some possibilities
Wanderer Knight - Icarium or Quick Ben (who probably is Arathan :-)
Watcher - Maei or maybe the Old Man or maybe Krul
Walker - Edge Walker(also Arathan :-)) (who might be patrolling Shadow to keep all the bad things from getting out)
Mistress - Burn sounds likely (especially considering that the world might be a manifestation of Burns dreams) but dreams might also refer to Queen of Dreams.

but something feels wrong about it being Tellan. Tellan is always described as full of forests etc. and certainly does't feel empty.
Empty hold feels more like Space,
One hypothesis is that Empty Hold is the original hold, the hold of the Azathanai.
The Azathanai never had a king. Also nicely places FoD locations in Lether continent.

Azathanai lived in - Lether
Khakanas/Kurald Galain - Near Bluerose
Jaghut Odhan - Ice Fields
Forkful - Kolanse

This post has been edited by nacht: 05 April 2016 - 12:53 PM

[Andorion]

nacht, on 05 April 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

Very Interesting theory, especially the fact that it is focused around Letther.
Some possibilities
Wanderer Knight - Icarium or Quick Ben (who probably is Arathan :-)
Watcher - Maei or maybe the Old Man or maybe Krul
Walker - Edge Walker(also Arathan :-)) (who might be patrolling Shadow to keep all the bad things from getting out)
Mistress - Burn sounds likely (especially considering that the world might be a manifestation of Burns dreams) but dreams might also refer to Queen of Dreams.

but something feels wrong about it being Tellan. Tellan is always described as full of forests etc. and certainly does't feel empty.
Empty hold feels more like Space,
One hypothesis is that Empty Hold is the original hold, the hold of the Azathanai.
The Azathanai never had a king. Also nicely places FoD locations in Lether continent.

Azathanai lived in - Lether
Khakanas/Kurald Galain - Near Bluerose
Jaghut Odhan - Ice Fields
Forkful - Kolanse

I was thinking of Edgewalker as well. Could the Empty Hold be a portion of Emurlahn?

[Nevyn]

It is referred to be being the original hold, and at the centre of it all. More or less, I think of it as the hold of the Azathenai.

[Felisin Fatter]

But there already is an Azath Hold in the Tiles, beside the Empty Hold. And 'Space Hold' doesn't have a warren equivalent, or does it? And it wouldn't manifest as white lightning and fire, but cold crushing darkness. Going by what we see in FoD.

I could see it being ' the original Hold' and that being whatever the Eeres drew power from. 'Time Hold'? 'Raw power/magic/life Hold'? Or it could be the Forkrul Hold, before it became a more focused warren? I still believe it's Tellann, but maybe there is a case to be made for some of those.

I'd in fact argue the Eres probably used (a precursor of) Tellann as well. 'Stealer of fire' and all that. Both the Eres'al and Apsalar are called that at some point.

[Gorefest]

I always thought that the Empty Hold referred to either Kurald Emurlahn (as a lot of the positions could be filled in by known shadow-aspected characters: betrayer - Scabandari; wanderer knight - Trull; walker - Edgewalker; etc; the continent of Lether is also the central continent for the Tiste Edur) or, more likely, it is actually Empty.

Gothos' ritual froze a lot of stuff on Lether, including the progress of magic. The Letherii didn't have a particular God that they held above any other. Instead, they worshipped money/capitalism. I think that the Empty Hold was capitalism and it had filled the 'God' void that was left after Gothos' ritual.

Or maybe it is a bit of both. When the ice started melting, Feather Witch got visions of all the positions in the Empty Hold existing in duplicate. So perhaps this indicates that the world magic is flooding back into the Hold and the empty/capitalist spaces war with the original hold that it was superimposed on (Emurlahn, due to the vicinity of the Edur).

[Nevyn]

I suppose the empty hold could also be Kharkhanas ... or put another way, the hold of the Tiste BEFORE the civil war. The Letherii discussions of holds notably did not have darkness, shadow, or light that I recall.

[Abyss]

I always thought it was Meanas/Shadow. Doesn't Feather Witch's early foretelling even say 'The Empty Hold has found two rulers` or something similar?

[Nevyn]

Abyss, on 05 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

I always thought it was Meanas/Shadow. Doesn't Feather Witch's early foretelling even say 'The Empty Hold has found two rulers` or something similar?

It could be, but it doesn't seem to fit with the Letherii using it against the Edur, nor with how it gets used.

It would fit in that there is a reading at some point that seems to link White Crow (Silchas) with Betrayer (Scabandari) and Seed (Finnest).

[nacht]

Felisin Fatter, on 05 April 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

But there already is an Azath Hold in the Tiles, beside the Empty Hold. And 'Space Hold' doesn't have a warren equivalent, or does it? And it wouldn't manifest as white lightning and fire, but cold crushing darkness. Going by what we see in FoD.

I could see it being ' the original Hold' and that being whatever the Eeres drew power from. 'Time Hold'? 'Raw power/magic/life Hold'? Or it could be the Forkrul Hold, before it became a more focused warren? I still believe it's Tellann, but maybe there is a case to be made for some of those.

I'd in fact argue the Eres probably used (a precursor of) Tellann as well. 'Stealer of fire' and all that. Both the Eres'al and Apsalar are called that at some point.

I think the azath are different from the Azathnai.


This is a quote by Errastas

Quote

They call the houses the Azath, and from this the Tiste name us, but we are not all worshippers of stone, are we, Setch?

and this is from Draconus

Quote

'Azathanai, of course,' Draconus replied, and then sighed. 'I know, the name is meaningless. No, it is more than that: it is misleading.'

[nacht]

Also, Sagander mentions an Azath house and it might match up with the dying Azath house we see in Lether.

[Coltaine -]

Abyss, on 05 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

I always thought it was Meanas/Shadow. Doesn't Feather Witch's early foretelling even say 'The Empty Hold has found two rulers` or something similar?

It wasn't the Empty hold, it was the Beast Hold. Togg and Fanderay. But this is again messing with the timeline as T+F come back in MoI, but MT should have happend before.

Hm,

Dragon Hold - Starvald Demelain
Ice Hold - Omtose Phellack
Azath Hold - Azanthai/Azath Houses
Beast Hold - Toc + Fanderay => Original Hold of the Imass? My impression from some thinks I vaguely remember from MoI

Life, Death, Dark, Light according to Heboric

Empty Hold = ?

So Shadow and Fire are missing. Could be both of them. Or none. I never had the feeling that it could be one of them.

[Coltaine -]

Wasn't the whole prophecy in MT about someone ascending to the throne of the empty hold?

Rhulad becomes the King of High House Chains. So the empty warren maybe becomes the warren of the crippled god? Did he not use a fragment of emurlahn aside from his tent?

[lobo the wolfman]

Wouldn't the original hold be Chaos? We know there is a warren of chaos, could the letherii be using a watered down version of that due to Gothos's ritual.

[Abyss]

Coltaine93, on 05 April 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

I always thought it was Meanas/Shadow. Doesn't Feather Witch's early foretelling even say 'The Empty Hold has found two rulers` or something similar?

It wasn't the Empty hold, it was the Beast Hold. Togg and Fanderay. But this is again messing with the timeline as T+F come back in MoI, but MT should have happend before.

...

Exactly. I may have the two rulers ref wrong, but it's too early to line up with MoI but roughly on time for NoK.

Of course prophecy can play fast and loose with time, so either could work.... actually, I invoke amazon look inside function...

mmpb p 44...

"The Empty Hold - the heart of Letherii worship - home.... to the Walker, who patrolled borders not even he could see."




...I defy anyone to tell me tell me that isn't a ref to Edgewalker.

[Nevyn]

Abyss, on 06 April 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

Coltaine93, on 05 April 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

I always thought it was Meanas/Shadow. Doesn't Feather Witch's early foretelling even say 'The Empty Hold has found two rulers` or something similar?

It wasn't the Empty hold, it was the Beast Hold. Togg and Fanderay. But this is again messing with the timeline as T+F come back in MoI, but MT should have happend before.

...

Exactly. I may have the two rulers ref wrong, but it's too early to line up with MoI but roughly on time for NoK.

Of course prophecy can play fast and loose with time, so either could work.... actually, I invoke amazon look inside function...

mmpb p 44...

"The Empty Hold - the heart of Letherii worship - home.... to the Walker, who patrolled borders not even he could see."




...I defy anyone to tell me tell me that isn't a ref to Edgewalker.

and who is the dreaming mistress of Emurlahn?

who is the Watcher?

The Walker certainly seems to be Edgewalker. But it doesn't say that the Walker patrols borders of the hold he belongs to, does it?

[Abyss]

Nevyn, on 06 April 2016 - 02:14 PM, said:

Abyss, on 06 April 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

Coltaine93, on 05 April 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

I always thought it was Meanas/Shadow. Doesn't Feather Witch's early foretelling even say 'The Empty Hold has found two rulers` or something similar?

It wasn't the Empty hold, it was the Beast Hold. Togg and Fanderay. But this is again messing with the timeline as T+F come back in MoI, but MT should have happend before.

...

Exactly. I may have the two rulers ref wrong, but it's too early to line up with MoI but roughly on time for NoK.

Of course prophecy can play fast and loose with time, so either could work.... actually, I invoke amazon look inside function...

mmpb p 44...

"The Empty Hold - the heart of Letherii worship - home.... to the Walker, who patrolled borders not even he could see."




...I defy anyone to tell me tell me that isn't a ref to Edgewalker.

and who is the dreaming mistress of Emurlahn?

who is the Watcher?

The Walker certainly seems to be Edgewalker. But it doesn't say that the Walker patrols borders of the hold he belongs to, does it?

It doesn't have to, those are the only borders he patrols and he`s been solidly established as some sort of guardian of Shadow.

My bet would be Mommy Dark for the Mistress... at root Meanas is spun off KG via KE, and she was still disengaged from the Andii at that point. Alternately Sheltana, an Edur, was still napping in the Azath at that point, but she seems an unlikely candidate.

Watcher... no clue and amazon lookie has its limits. There`s a Knight and a Betrayer there too iirc.

[Nevyn]

Abyss, on 06 April 2016 - 02:41 PM, said:

It doesn't have to, those are the only borders he patrols and he`s been solidly established as some sort of guardian of Shadow.

Yes, he patrols shadow. Doesn't mean he is from it. Awaiting details on that. The Errants conversation with Knuckles seemed to imply that he was an Elder God ... maybe an Azathenai? Who knows? This is an old hold, what hold did he belong to before Rake assigned/cursed him to guard the borders of Emurlahn?

See my point. Just because he is guarding Emurlahn doesn't mean that is his native hold

Quote

My bet would be Mommy Dark for the Mistress... at root Meanas is spun off KG via KE, and she was still disengaged from the Andii at that point. Alternately Sheltana, an Edur, was still napping in the Azath at that point, but she seems an unlikely candidate.

But this would point to the hold being older than Emurlahn, and being the original Tiste hold before the civil war. KE may be a spin off, but it has spun off. And MD having a non-leader role in another Hold/House would be odd, no?

Quote

Watcher... no clue and amazon lookie has its limits. There`s a Knight and a Betrayer there too iirc.

Betrayer is easy for your interpretation - Scabandari (also works for the original Tiste Hold interpretation). There is even Ceda's reading I mentioned above that puts Betrayer with White Crow and Seed
Many candidates for Knight.




To complicate things further, here is what Aranict says about the Empty Hold in Crippled God (makes it sound like Mockra, sigh):

'It is the Hold of the Unseen, the realms of the mind. Perception, knowledge, illusion. Faith, despair, curiosity, fear. Its weapon is false believe in chance, in random fate.'


Then on "why is the hold empty?" we get

'Because it is home to all which cannot be possessed, cannot be owned. And so too is the throne within the Hold empty, left eternally vacant. Because the very nature of rule is itself an illusion, a conceit and the product of a grand conspiracy ....'




At some point we should just list all reference to the empty hold, and then piece out the clues.

This post has been edited by Nevyn: 06 April 2016 - 03:38 PM

[Abyss]

All of those refs could encompass Meanas, Rashan or Mokra... even Thyr, and we know those are all linked.

Leth being frozen at a pre-warren stage, the Empty Hold would seem to be the stray chunk of KE that hasn't evolved yet.

[Felisin Fatter]

"Nevyn: Thanks for that quote from Aranict, who'd know. Though it kind of crushes my theory. So: Chance, Fate, Mind.

I think it can fit neatly with the 'original Eres Hold' option. It sounds like it could originate from the first conscious beings, the first to attempt to influence fate. It is said the Eres were all Bonecasters, which likely means they threw literal bones to predict the future or something. This is the origin of Knuckles maybe, also the Errant (and later Oponn?). Complicated of course by their versions in Forge of Darkness...

I strongly lean this way, because when the colonists came, the continent was full of Nerek, who claim the Eres'al as Mother. They must have mixed with the humans,

It could make the roles:
- Empty throne: it represents the concept of inequity, not any one person. (The birth of civilization.)
- Sleeping mistress: the Eres'al (about to wake).
- Wanderer knight: I'd say Trull if he is the indeed the Nerek's father. Or it could be someone older.
- Watcher: Maybe the Errant? Maybe a general representation of the person that reads the bones/tiles?
- Walker: Edgewalker?
- Saviour: 'whose outstretched hand was never grasped' Could also fit Trull (the outstretched hand part, but he doesn't actually save anyone), maybe even Tehol (he saves a lot of Nerek, but remains anonymous). But I favour Udinaas, because he is heroic yet ever alone. No one ever comforts him.
I don't like Brys for this role, because lots of people loved him and helped him.
- Betrayer: 'whose loving embrace destroyed all it touched' -Hull Beddict fits perfectly. Maybe, if you squeeze a little, Hannan Mosag is a candidate?
I dislike the Errant, because I don't read any love in his embraces. Unless it refers to his embrace of Letheras, then maybe... But he just seems too indifferent.