Words of Radiance Reread: Prologue

Not the ship I’m into, but just for the bonus points – they both have roughly the same style of conflict resolution?

Anyway, you’ve hit all the tidbits I could find in this intro. I’ll have to wait for someone with a new interpretation before theorizing anything beyond what you have.

Ah, Words of Radiance reread! Excellent. Put me down on the side of those who really like the new format, but need a bit more of a summary. Brandon has a LOT of stuff happening in his chapters, which makes it very difficult to summarize, I know.

C0ngratulations Carl and Alice on your new Tor assignment. The reread should make the wait for the 3rd installment in the series go by faster. To begin, I don’t believe that Gavilar’s parenting style vis-a-vis Jasnah is reflected in Jasnah’s mentoring of Shallan – at least, not initially. Gavilar is more tolerant of his daughter’s attitude, than Jasnah is of Shallan. Even his criticism of his daughter is offered in a mild fashion. Jasnah, however, is too arrogant to temper her criticism of others. Her attitude towards religious belief is such that there is no way that she would consider the Vorin enthusiast (Sons of Honor), Amaram, as a potential spouse – even if she would be interested in a man. Their similar brutal reaction to resolution of some conflicts does not make for compatibility in a relationship. Jasnah appears as an unsympathetic character who is willing to stoop to assassination to eliminate potential threats or obstacles to the would-be Kholin dynasty, regardless of cost or hurt. Nor does she have an expressed rationale of thereby saving the world. We’ll have to wait for the 3rd book to find out if she tempers her ways, based on new experiences. Her attitude towards Hoid (Dust) at the epilogue doesn’t lend too much hope there.

Brandon did say that each prologue in the first five books are a different POV for the night of the assassination. I think the next one may be in the view of Eshonai, since the past stories I think are of her as well, at least that’s what Brandon was planning.

I’m glad to see that others have taken up the task of attempting to interpret the Herald icons. I started doing that on the Way of Kings reread, but it wore on me.

I haven’t seen any mention of the target of Jasnah’s contemplated assassination, who as I read it, is Elhokar’s wife Aesudan, or why she was contemplating it. It is evident that Jasnah decided against going through with the assassination, since Aesudan survives to mismanage the affairs of the kingdom while the menfolk are off playing capture-the-gemhearts on the Shattered Plains. We already know, from her treatment of the thieves in Kharbranth, that Jasnah has a ruthless streak and few qualms about acting outside the law if she sees a need, but now I wonder if she knew something more about them that gave her a deeper motive than she ever told Shallan about. This careful weighing of the pros and cons of an assassination and the decision here not to take an irrevocable action in haste suggest that there may have been something more going on than we have yet been told. Jasnah is a woman of many deep secrets.

As far as concern with the affaris of the kingdom, the events surrounding Gavilar’s death, her adventures in Shadesmar, and her researches into the Parshmen/Parshendi seem to have turned her concerns in entirely different directions.

@44 yes, that’s right. But I still think the POV will be Eshonai for the prologue.

@82 Heh. His observations were at least as good as mine would have been, when they weren’t better.

I’m surprised at the relative lack of discussion about the morality of Jasnah’s use of assassins to ostensibly protect the Kholin family and throne. In the case of Liss, the instructions were changed to one of spying on her sister-in-law, out of caution. However, Jasnah had commissioned numerous other assassins. Is this the kind of behavior expected from someone later claiming to save humanity on Roshar from the impending desolation? After all, Taravangian also claims such a goal which is supposedly furthered by his draconian methods. Does she also exemplify Taravangian’s observation that the more intelligence he exhibits on a given day, the less sympathy he has for others? For me, Jasnah is a very unsympathetic character to this point, and I felt little loss at her ostensible slaying in Chapter 7 of the book once she had imparted the theory that the Parshmen would become Voidbringers, and had given Shallan her mission of finding Urithiru in the Shattered Plains.

@89
I don’t think we can reasonably believe Jasnah’s hands are clean. In fact, the Ghostblood captain (blowgun guy, I’m spacing his name at the moment) claims that Jasnah assassinated a number of their members. He may well have been lying to Shallan, but add in the fact that Jasnah comes really close to actually ordering the murder of Elhokar’s wife makes me think she’s done it before, despite it being ‘distasteful.’ Especially since the reason she changes her mind isn’t due to any sort of morality qualm, it’s just that she thinks the murder may not be needed yet.

@95 I hadn’t quite picked up on Gavilar and Jasnah being at opposite ends of the spectrum, but now that you mention it, yes. Szeth mentioned that Gavilar was devout in his Vorinism and some thought he was too devout, while Jasnah had just publicly outed herself as a heretic. No wonder he didn’t want to confide his discussions with Amaram with her.

It’s not clear to me that Jasnah was so concerned about the Voidbringers at that point. It appears to me that her concern about that evolved as a result of her researches into the Parshendi and Parshmen, following her father’s assassination. But he and she were already going in opposite directions. It occurs to me that Gavilar may have thought that Jasnah’s heresy stemmed from her intellectual arrogance, and if so, his comment to her about it may have carried even more bite than it sounds. It may also be that we as readers know more about the gap between the pretensions and the conduct of Taravangian and Amaram than Gavilar did.

Confutus, the existential danger represented by the Voidbringers is very much part of the human culture in Roshar. It is only a question of when and if they return. Gavilar apparently wished to induce the return of those creatures as is intimated later by Amaram who exults upon learning of their return. Such an ambition would have been a great shock to Jasnah who was well aware of the potential danger. She would certainly have attempted to thwart her father’s goal. That is why he was keeping secrets from her. What means she would have used had she known is, of course, purely speculative. It may be, however, that Gavilar would have had to fear from her reaction as much as from the unexpected Parshendi reaction.

Wetlandernw, while I am away from home where I keep the Stormlight books and Kindle, I do recall some mention of Voidbringers in a non-legendary context. For one, Lift mentions shardblades such as those borne by ‘Darkness’ and his associate as being crafted to contend with Voidbringers. If a totally uneducated 13 year old girl (she can only count on her fingers) accepts the reality of Voidbringers (since shardblades are clearly ‘real’), then such a connection between shardblades and Voidbringers must also have filtered to the intellectuals such as Jasnah. Another instance is the conversation between the Aimian, Axies, and the alley denizen. Are you a Herald or Voidbringer, the alley man asks. While the man is clearly abnormal in believing various pieces of alleyway trash to be buildings, his citation of Voidbringers suggests a more general belief in their former existence. A search on “Voidbringers” should be sufficient to provide the various itations in The Way of Kings to either confirm or dispute my contention. Of course, their former existence doesn’t, ipso facto, suggest an expectation of their return. However, a serious attempt at producing such a catastrophe would be regarded as dangerous dabbling by people such as Jasnah – much like the attitude of ‘Darkness’ (Nale) to the use of Stormlight by individuals such as Lift and Ym.

Mythical VBs? Delusion. Restoring the Hierocracy and giving political power back to ardents who historically manipulated the people with lies and fables? No, no, and NO!

wetlandernw, I see that we’re unlikely to convince one another of our view in this matter. So be it. I was a bit sloppy in language and didn’t mean to convey the impression that the Parshendi originally lived in the Shattered Plains. They lived near it, however, and the Parsendi group that Dalinar discovered was Eshonai leading an exploratory party – as I recall. However, Jasnah is certain that Urithiru (or at least an entrance) is to be found in the Shattered Plains. That implies clearly that she believes it exists. She also clearly believes that the Voidbringers are an impending menace to Roshar. The only question is when she started to believe in such matters – at least as possibilities. I opted for an early belief (at or before the time of her father’s assassination). You take the later option. The former existence of Voidbringers as an existential menace is indicated by the author in the To Kill prologue of WOK as a common belief of the Alethi. “Here in Alethkar, men often spoke of the legends-of mankind’s hard won victory over the Voidbringers”. Jasnah is known to consider even children’s stories as containing a germ of truth. Why would she not be concerned about the possible reincarnation of the legendary VBs (as you dubbed them)? The stone that her father possessed is similar to, but more sinister (it produces a black light), than that of Venli, Eshonai’s sister (the instigator of the later Stormform transformation of Eshonai and the Parshendi). I assume that it is even more potent; you don’t. My contention is that Gavilar believed it to be potent and therefore hid its existence and his plans from his daughter. We’ll just have to see how it plays out later in the series.

As to the Alethi culture vs. the other human societies, the existential threat once posed by the VBs was common to all societies. Why should the Alethi exhibit less of a fear of them than other humans? If they can be said to be more influenced by the Vorin religion, which discounted any further threat of the VBs, than others – that would not account for Jasnah’s likely attitude.

No one (except possibly Shin Shamans) apparently knew the possible forms that the VBs could take at the time of the assassination – including Lift. She was left apparently with the impression that anything exhibiting unusual powers (greater than hers) could be a VB. She’s a simple, good-hearted girl who is reduced to stealing in order to survive. Jasnah is a very well read grown woman of high intelligence who is naturally suspicious and determined to protect her family at whatever cost. As a historian, why would she disregard the lessons (or even legends) of the past as to possible future dangers?

We also have this:

Shadesmar, she thought. That is what it is called in the nursery tales. Shadesmar, the mythological kingdom of the spren. Mythology she’d never believed. Surely she could find something if she searched the histories well enough.

The indication is that Jasnah’s studies into the possible historical basis of mythology began after, not before, her last conversation with her father.

I’m extrememly late commenting here, I just happen to be re-reading the book now.

One thing I will say is that I took Gavilar’s comment to Jasnah as a bitingly sarcastic reprimand both the first time I read it and during this re-read. I think I assume that because we know she had announced her heresy just that evening and I assumed that her father, as a devout Voran, was likely to be extremely annoyed and possibly quite distressed at this turn of affairs (even if he was already well aware that she had heretical tendencies, I doubt he’d be happy that she’s announced it to the whole court). It’s interesting that most people take it as a much milder rebuke, though.

I don’t know if its the worst reread format ever, but it is the least useful to me. Without the short chapters summery, it is useless. I was using the reread to remind myself of what happened (withour reading the book again) not to read your smart insights