Hello, there, friends of the Cosmere! Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread for this week’s installment, in which Shallan has some mighty sharp adventures. Also, many-layered disguises. Come on in, the shadows are fine everywhere, and really creepy. As are a lot of the people, come to think of it.
Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. There are no spoilers in the post this week, though we make no promises about the comments. But if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Shallan/Veil
WHERE: Kholinar city streets and palace (Lyn: As before, the below map is my best guess as to a route, especially once they get into the palace. It seems logical that that long hallway is the one they carried Veil down, but I have no real idea if it’s right or not.)
WHEN: 1174.1.10.2 (same day as the previous two chapters)
Veil wanders through the city of Kholinar on her way to the palace, observing the poor and the strange cult that has taken up residence in the streets. She assumes Lyn’s face and meets with Kaladin outside the palace gates, then goes in alone after assuring Kal that she’ll send Pattern back out if she gets into trouble. After delivering her message to the queen to one of the soldiers inside, the men promptly run her through and carry her down to dump her body with the others that have come before her. On their way down, she sees an unsettling image in a mirror.
Truth, Love, and Defiance
Title: Within the Mirror
And beyond that, deep within the mirror, something turned—the normal image fading—and looked toward Shallan with a sudden and surprised motion.
Alice: Well, that’s not disturbing or anything. Could it be that giving the chapter title to the image in the mirror is a hint that we’re not done with this apparition after one glance? (And did anyone think we were?)
Heralds
Palah
A: Palah is the patron Herald of the Truthwatchers, associated with the divine attributes of Learned and Giving and the role of Scholar. I’m not entirely sure why she was chosen for this chapter. Shallan seems to think she’s doing research and all that, but the only scholarly-ish things she does are nearly accidental or accomplished in such a foolhardy way as to look more like sheer luck. Maybe that’s the point? Help?
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Oathbringer
L: Your guess is as good as mine.
Icon
The Pattern icon tells us this is Shallan’s POV—though it turns out to be a lot of Veil’s POV, really.
Epigraph
I returned to the tower to find squabbling children, instead of proud knights. That’s why I hate this place. I’m going to go chart the hidden undersea caverns of Aimia; find my maps in Akinah.
—From drawer 16-16, amethyst
A: The amethyst tells us this was recorded by a Willshaper. Maps and charts and exploration, FTW!
L: Undersea caverns?! Color me interested.
A: No kidding!! Cool new info hints about Aimia? Tell me more! (Please?) Also, what’s this about maps in Akinah? Presumably, Akinah was still a functioning city at the time, so he or she really was planning to go there.
But about the person who wrote it… Their plans fit with the Words of Radiance epigraph description of Willshapers, where they were called “enterprising, erratic, capricious, frustrating, unreliable, [having] a general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity.” (I just took out all the commentary and listed the adjectives…) Come to think of it, this really fits with the speculation regarding Eshonai’s spren Timbre being a Willshaper spren. If that doesn’t describe Eshonai as well as this adventurous Willshaper, I don’t know what does! Could we possibly learn more about those maps and charts in the next book? (Okay, that’s a stretch, but I really do want to know more about Aimia in general and Akinah in particular.)
Thematic Thoughts
Today’s thematic thoughts are a sequence of events that don’t fit anywhere else as a group, and I wanted to keep them together.
She walked into a grand entryway, marked by marble and a brilliant sphere chandelier. No Unmade. No darkness waiting to consume her. She breathed out, thought she could feel something. That phantom eeriness was indeed stronger here. The wrongness.
A: The feeling of approaching something supernatural would definitely be unnerving. I wonder if her focus on the Unmade’s presence is what caused her to be less wary of the human dangers.
… She itched to be out of this place. To flee madly, if she were being honest. She had to stay. Whatever she learned here would be of—
One of the soldiers ran her through.It happened so quickly, she was left gaping at the sword blade protruding through her chest—wet with her blood.
A: That was… unexpected. It was just so casual. I’m reasonably sure that more than one reader jumped and/or gasped on the first read—I know I did. Is it standard protocol to execute all messengers, or just the ones who ask to actually see the Queen?
She reached for Stormlight, by instinct.
No… no, do as… as Jasnah did…
Pretend. Feign. She stared up at the men in horror, in betrayal, painspren rising around her. …
She let her eyes close, then took in a short, sharp breath of Stormlight. Just a tiny amount, which she kept within, holding her breath. Enough to keep her alive, heal the wounds inside…
A: Worth noting: Though we don’t see it on screen, Jasnah clearly explained to the others how she survived the assassination attempt on the Wind’s Pleasure. We can assume she also told them at least some of what she learned there, and will find out about that when it becomes relevant. Also worth noting: She apparently didn’t tell them much about what Shadesmar was actually like, with its travel, politics, and society! I’m guessing she didn’t expect any of the others to be spending time there so soon.
Pattern. Please don’t go. Don’t do anything. Don’t hum, don’t buzz. Quiet. Stay quiet.
A: That’s probably a good idea: Do not draw attention in any way.
Don’t shift. Stay perfectly still. Don’t even breathe. Stormlight allowed her to survive without air.
A: I just have to giggle—in the middle of the tension—at the way this has been set up for two and a half books, and now we finally see someone in a truly critical situation, using this minor detail. Whether the author had this in mind from a long time ago, or whether it just came in handy here and he used it, or something in between, I don’t know, but I love it when I see things like this come together. Breathing would definitely give away the game, but he doesn’t have to suddenly introduce this extra detail to explain not-breathing; it’s been in place, but it never mattered like this before. This kind of thing just makes me happy.
Stories & Songs
…men in dark uniforms whose colors and heraldry she couldn’t discern. In fact, when one glanced at her, she couldn’t make out his eyes. It was probably just a trick of the light, but… storms. The soldiers had a wrongness about them; they moved oddly, rushing in bursts, like prowling predators. They didn’t stop to talk to each other as they passed.
L: I’ve played way too many horror games because all I see when I read this is Silent Hill.
A: I’m clueless on that specific subject, but this started to get creepy real fast.
[The Oathgate] connected to the main palace by a covered walkway that rested atop a small wall.
They built that walkway right over the ramp, she thought with displeasure.
A: I’m trying to figure out why she’s so displeased about this. Because they connected the Oathgate to the palace instead of leaving the ramp to the city where people could get to it? Because they messed with “her” artifact? I’m trying to figure out why it matters, and I can’t come up with anything that makes sense.
L: If she were Shallan right now I’d say that maybe she was upset with them ruining the aesthetics, but since she’s Veil? No clue.
The guard carrying her passed a floor-to-ceiling mirror rimmed in a fancy bronze frame. In it, she glimpsed the guard with Lyn thrown over his shoulder. And beyond that, deep within the mirror, something turned—the normal image fading—and looked toward Shallan with a sudden and surprised motion. It looked like a shadow of a person, only with white spots for eyes.
L: Welp. Thanks for that, Brandon.
Relationships & Romances
I like him, Veil thought. An… odd thought, in how much stronger that feeling was to Veil than it had been to Shallan. I like that brooding sense he has about him, those dangerous eyes.
Why did Shallan focus so much on Adolin? He was nice, but also bland.
A: Heh. Nice link. Still, it’s easy to see in retrospect that Brandon was setting us up for the weirdest sort of “love triangle,” with one of Shallan’s personas interested in Adolin and another in Kaladin. (And both requited, at least to some extent. So which is it? A love triangle with four sides, or a square with three?)
You couldn’t tease him without feeling bad, but Kaladin, he glared at you in the most satisfying of ways.
L: Okay so. I know a lot of people don’t like the “love triangle,” but I really feel like this is an interesting take on the trope. If anyone’s going to have feelings for two distinctly different people, it’s someone with two distinctly different personalities. It makes total sense.
A: It does, and that’s why I think the whole thing worked for me. I’m an anti-love-triangle person in general, but Veil and Shallan are so different it makes sense they’d have different taste in men. (I still hate Shallan’s ever-widening gulf between bits of herself… in the sense that it’s awesome writing and I love that, but it’s painful to watch.)
Bruised & Broken
Veil enjoyed being in a proper city again, even if it was half feral. … Everyone talked about towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere as if they were uncivilized, but she’d found people in those places pleasant, even-tempered, and comfortable with their quieter way of life. … There was a tension to cities. You could breathe it, feel it in every step. Veil loved it.
A: This bothered me. Veil doesn’t know anything Shallan doesn’t, so she doesn’t have any more basis for comparison than Shallan—which is not very much. I think it’s meant to help us see how much Shallan is just making up knowledge for Veil; later on, this is going to come back around. Painfully.
These poor people. Even in this more affluent area, she could barely walk a quarter block without having to weave around huddles of people.
L: This brought up an interesting thought for me regarding Shallan and Veil. Thinking back over Shallan’s reactions to things, Veil appears to be more empathetic to the suffering of others, especially the downtrodden. As a relatively high-born lady, Shallan really doesn’t seem to see the pain of the poor very often, even when she really should. She, of all people, should understand. But maybe she just doesn’t want to see her own pain reflected back at her in the social mirror. Maybe she closes her eyes to it as an act of self-preservation, but Veil—not constrained by Shallan’s past—is free to really open her eyes and see it.
This is backed up by her reaction to seeing the bodies later in the chapter.
She focused on his voice, something familiar. Not the memory of a sword protruding from her own chest, not the callous way she’d been dumped here and left to rot, not the line of corpses with exposed bones, haunted faces, chewed-out eyes…
Don’t think. Don’t see it.
L: She’s not going to be able to keep going through life this way, burying her head in the sand whenever she’s faced with something like this. Not if she’s going to be a Knight Radiant. Lies may be important to her order, but she has to face the truth if she’s going to heal.
A: At the same time, I rather loved that moment. The horror of what she was looking at could have made anyone freak out, but her long experience with deliberate, intentional amnesia helps her to stay calm by blocking out the nightmarish scene, enabling her to figure out how to get out of there. I thought it was a great bit of writing—the moment when your self-destructive coping mechanism becomes the only thing that keeps you alive and (semi-) sane.
She left the park as Veil playing a part. She tried to keep this distinction sharp in her mind. She was still Veil. Merely in disguise.
L: Yet another in the ongoing list of Problematic Shallan Behaviors.
Squires & Sidekicks
Away from potential prying eyes, she used Stormlight to overlay Veil’s features and clothing with those of Lyn.
L: Back when we did the beta, I noted that I was curious as to whether or not Shallan has some sort of supernatural ability to understand the inner thoughts of real people she mimics, or if she’s just extrapolating based on her observations and what she thinks they’re like.
(Also I feel I should mention that now, as when I first read it, this totally weirds me out.)
A: Heh. Nothing like a major character playing an imaginary character playing a character based on you… Is your head spinning? Seems like it ought to be!
If I remember right, this is the first time Shallan disguises herself as another real person for any length of time. (She changed her face, at least, to Adolin, a random cleaning woman she’d drawn, and a soldier back when she was convincing Elhokar to bring her along.) I don’t recall that we ever got any hint one way or another whether she has any supernatural Connection with someone she mimics. I… would guess not, but I can see a viable argument for either theory.
Places & Peoples
Soulcast out of bronze, the statue depicted a figure in Shardplate rising as if from waves.
L: I wonder if this is a statue of a Herald, one of one of the Knights Radiant from back before the Recreance, or a more modern statue of someone in “dead” Shardplate…
A: Such a curious image, and not one I can recall being associated with any of the historical figures so far. It reminds me of Aphrodite rising from the sea, except that the subject is… a bit different… (!!) It also reminds me of Cusicesh rising from the waters of Kasitor Bay. Odd, indeed.
They were too theatrical—and there were too many of them—for all to be truly deranged. This was a fad. A way of dealing with unexpected events and giving some shape to lives that had been turned upside down.
A: Ah, the good ol’ Cult of Moments folk. We had some discussion of this in last week’s comments, wondering whether these people were specifically being controlled by the Unmade and/or Voidspren, or whether they were just people being weird. Or something in between.
The only other paths up onto the platform were sets of steps cut into the rock, and those were guarded by people in spren costumes.
A: Drawing from the beta comments again, here’s a question: Is it possible that there were real, sapient spren—either natural Rosharan spren, corrupted spren, or Voidspren—hiding among the cultists? It was a little too reminiscent of the masquerade/parade in The Great Hunt, where some of the “trollocs” in the parade turned out to be real trollocs.
As mentioned in the comments last week, since it never came up again, I assume the answer is no—they’re just people. Frightened people doing weird things, but still just people. However… what are they doing here? Are they actively involved in the stuff going on with the Heart of the Revel? (We do find out a lot more about them before the end of Part Three, but I’ll wait to talk about that until we get there.)
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“Hey,” she said softly. “It’s me. Do you like the boots on this outfit?” She raised her foot.
“Do we have to keep bringing that up?”
“I was giving you a passcode, bridgeboy,” she said. “To prove I’m who I say I am.”
“Lyn’s face made that clear,” he said…
A: I think Shallan is trying to force a little humor into the situation, in that ever-so-slightly-hysterical fashion we sometimes have when we’re extremely nervous. Kaladin was Not Amused. He’s right that her disguise is plenty of identification, of course; I have to grant him that.
Readers seem divided on this one: Is the “boots” reference funny and Kaladin is just being grumpy, or is it really not funny and she should drop the subject? Personally, I think she sees it as what could be a shared joke (and I agree), and he’s being overly touchy about it. (To be fair, he’s never had reason to find out how off-balance she was by Tyn introducing her as a Horneater princess; he saw the scene as “lighteyes toying with the darkeyes,” but she saw it as mortifying.) I suspect my thinking it should be a joke they share may be colored by her wedding gift from Kaladin and Bridge Four, though.
She smiled at him. “You could say, um, it made that point quite clear.”
L: See, this one works for me because she smiles before she says it.
A: I think this one would work whether she smiled or not, because it’s just a straightforward pun, not a joke at someone else’s expense. The smile probably helps Kaladin understand a little of what she’s doing, though, so there’s that. What really grabbed me, though, was the part that followed:
Smile. I need you to smile.
I need what happened to be all right. Something that can simply roll off me.
Please.
“Well…” Kaladin said. “I’m glad we … took a stab at this anyway.” He smiled.
It was all right. Just another day, another infiltration.
I can just feel her desperation here. She’s (understandably!) freaked out by what just happened, on so many levels. She just blocked out what she was seeing so she could function. Now she still needs to get back to the tailor’s house and keep functioning, and in order to do that, she needs something that at least purports to be humor.
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The Ruin of Kings
The beautiful part is the way it reflects the scene in the chasm. That time, he was amazed that she could smile with all she’d been through. This time, she desperately needs him to smile—and however awkward he feels about making puns with her at this point, he does it. And he smiles. And I could just reach in and hug him for it.
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
This covered her as she breathed out Stormlight, transforming her features and hair to match those of Veil, instead of Shallan.
No spren came, screaming to warn of what she’d done. So Lightweaving was different from using fabrials.
A: Such mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it might be good to do this at a distance from their safe place. On the other hand, what was she going to do out there by herself if the screaming spren did come? Might have been handy to have an extra soldier or two around if one of the Fused came looking!
On a more scholarly note, this is the first test on the screamer-spren. This technically only proves that Lightweaving doesn’t draw them, rather than Surgebinding in general, but at least they don’t see every access to the Surges. I’m betting it’s got more to do with the trapped spren than the Surges, but I can’t prove it.
Anticipationspren rose around Veil, and she jumped. While two of the spren looked normal—like flat streamers—the others were wrong. They waved long, thin tendrils that looked like lashes to whip a servant.
A: Well, that answers one question. Not all spren of a single kind are affected by Sja-anat, and it’s not a lasting area effect. I really think (but this is speculation) she touches each spren in order to corrupt it, probably in the Cognitive realm. I would also bet that certain types seem more affected because more of their type have been drawn to activities, emotions, or events taking place in her immediate vicinity. Types who have not had reason to be attracted to people near her are less frequently—or not at all—affected. Maybe?
At the door she finally heard Pattern, who had been talking, though his voice had seemed distant.
L: Well that’s odd. Was it just because she was so near death? Or was there something weird going on with their bond? Proximity to the Unmade, perhaps? Something to do with the specific illusion she was using, and/or her state of mind?
A: I took it to be panic and a resulting inability to consciously hear him even though he was right there. I’m not 100% sure on that, though. It reads… oddly.
Quality Quotations
- “Storms!” he said, kneeling beside her. Pattern slipped off his coat, humming happily.
A: Awwww. The image of Pattern riding around on Kaladin’s coat just makes me smile.
- He helped her to her feet, then looked to check on her wound, and she slapped his hand. The cut was not in an appropriate location.
Welp. That was full of shenanigans, I must say. Join us in the comments to discusssss. Next week we’ll be returning to Urithiru and Dalinar in Chapter 64, with lots of fun Stormfather conversation and the beginning of a quick trip to Azir.
Alice is having fun watching those Sanderson progress bars, and is now eagerly awaiting the Starsight beta read.
Lyndsey’s life is about to be taken over by Kingdom Hearts 3. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
My best guess for the double Palah is that Truthwatchers are the closest order to Sja-anat, who the chapter appears to have been named after. That sentence was a mess. Palah = Truthwatchers = Sja-anat = the presence “within the mirror”. Not exactly equals, but I hope you can catch my meaning.
@1
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe Palah/Truthwatcher is foreshadowing connecting Renarin and his corrupted spren/order to Sja-anat and the corrupted spren.
You know, now that I think about it, This whole assumption that Kaladin is” mister grumpy” is kind of harsh to him. If you remember from way of kings, Kaladin pretty much had to force him self to laugh, alot, to get Bridge Four to open up. The guy does know how to laugh, how to put on a good face, to inspire people, like Shallan does. I’m beginning to think maybe it’s because of Shallan’s upbringing that…she comes off as self centered if you do not think about her issues. That she’s just another light eyes who does not think of the dark eyes and her attitude does come off as haughty, espeically the way her jokes come out. Of course, humor is subjective, the sailors just loved her jokes, while Kaladin usually takes them at face value, just like he took Adolin’s teasing in words of radiance after he saved his life. Kal just sees all of the jokes as mocking, and everyone has this assumption that he’s “Mister Grumpy”
I think it’s pretty clear that the thing in the mirror was Sja-anat, especially after appearing in a mirror to Shallan later on.
I don’t know. Off balance or not, the “boots incident” was a jerk move on her part, and while I can definitely see why she would view it as a defensive, quirky joke… jokes don’t work when they’re punching down. And that’s effectively what demanding his boots was — treating someone with less social standing as less of a person, for laughs.
Maybe from Shallan’s perspective, this was merely a clever girl getting the drop on a surly guard, but in the context of their culture, it was a lighteyes demeaning and devaluing a darkeyes who was just trying to do his job. And now she’s coming back and expecting him to laugh about it with her.
As much as I like Shallan, she’s not super great at empathy.
That said, Kaladin is obsessively focused on “lighteyes vs darkeyes”, and thus assumes by default that lighteyes are always trying to mock him. He doesn’t exactly have a fair perspective on this either.
I think the displeasure over the walkway/ramp was from an infiltration perspective. There’s one less entrance/egress to the platform so less spreading of guards and fewer options for Veil.
Don’t have anything of immediate import to add except the portion regarding the lightweaving attracting the screamers. I think this confirms, at least to me, that lightweaving has a natural similar effect as copper clouds to mask investiture used. Makes me wonder if Shallan were to make a large illusion, like when they were hiding in the boulder, and Kaladin were to use adhesion, would the screamers detect it? I cannot recall if they test that. Either way as mentioned before, it makes sense that lightweavers would have this capability as if they didn’t it would effectively neuter any means of them being useful with their illusions. Otherwise great reading and once again thank you for the map! Great job!
The comment about Veil noticing the suffering of dark eyes while wandering through the city reminded me of Lyft of all people. Can anyone image Veil as what Lyft looks like as a grown-up, albeit with the actual street smarts that Shallan only pretends she has? And one more thing. If there were anyone that could bond multiple Radiant spren I would think Shallan could pull it off. Shallan as the Lightweaver obviously, Veil as the Edgedancer, Brightness Radiant as either Elsecaller or Stoneward.
Whilst I am not a huge fan of love triangles in general, I thought this one was an interesting take on the trope. For me, as well, even if it hadn’t been a new and interesting take on it, the triangle wouldn’t have bothered me as it’s really a pretty small part of the overall narrative. It just crops up here and there. It’s not a major plot strand.
Do people who dislike it in Oathbringer dislike it because they find it particularly obtrusive here, or is it more that they’ve had so much of the trope in the past that they’ve become particularly sensitised to it? I’m curious because this isn’t a trope I feel over-sensitised to, but there are other tropes (eg falsely accused) that make me reluctant to continue reading a book even when it’s fairly obvious from the context that this isn’t something the entire plot is going to centre around.
I, for one, am glad that the triangle is over. I’m glad Shallan chose Adolin. I’m still rooting for Kaladin & Syl ;)
Unlike many readers, I never were against the love triangle. I have nothing against love triangles, provided they do not over-extend their welcome and, truth to be told, I thought the tension Brandon had inserted in between Shallan, Kaladin and Adolin was actually quite interesting. As such, I was initially surprised to see the fandom react so negatively towards the early hints of a love triangle and, part me thinks, it was this strong negative reaction which perhaps prompt Brandon to significantly tone it down for Oathbringer. Now, of course, we do know our qualms as fans tend to have limited impact on the overall narrative, but my comment is meant to highlight how negative I personally perceived the various readers reaction to the love triangle.
Hence, Oathbringer is the denouement we got and, as far as long triangles are concerned, it wasn’t a spectacularly well handled one. It was… OK, not a disaster, but not great either. It’s most redeeming quality is the fact it didn’t last and got resolved rather quickly, but in between now and the ending, there is much confusion as to what is happening precisely. Alice’s comment above, about whether it was a square or a triangle, summarizes it nicely and I would add: “What was it?”. That by itself has been the lingering issue with the love triangle, the inability to state in clear terms what exactly happened out there.
What is Veil? How important are Veil’s feelings? How much correlation is there in between what Veil thinks and feels with what Shallan thinks and feels? How much of a lie Veil is? How much of a lie Shallan is? What feelings were the “real ones: the ones she has for Adolin or the ones Veil has for Kaladin? And, the very important, where do we go from there?
So yes, what is Veil? My personal interpretation is Veil is Shallan’s Deam Girl. She is everything Shallan hope she were: she isn’t stupid nor naive enough to have actually loved her parents, she is street savy, she has no responsibilities save the ones she chose to have, she has no duty, no one depends on her, she is completely free. She has the strengths Shallan perceives in herself, none of the weaknesses. Veil cares for nothing about art and while we know Shallan is an artist through and through, she also thinks this is a useless, meaningless skill. Not worthy of being a Calling. So she rips it off Veil because Veil is too smart to waste time with art and drawings: this is a crude expression of how much Shallan hates herself as she even hates the fact she loves drawing!
And the more Shallan indulges herself in pretending to be Veil, the more she strengthen her background.
In this chapter, she talks as if she knew other cities, as if she were a city girl when we know for a fact Shallan grew up in a rural area, we know for a fact Shallan has no idea how it feels to be within a city. This scene, right here, seems like the first indication Veil is getting out of control, the persona Shallan created starts to have a mind of her own or, to put it more blunty, whenever Shallan becomes Veil, the transformation is so throughout she adopts the thoughts this made-up persona would have. The Veil Shallan created, if she were real, would love being in a city, so Shallan adopts this line of thought.
But none of it is Shallan. The greastest clue Veil has nothing to do with Shallan, I find, is Veil’s great disdain for art. This… This is not Shallan. Shallan doesn’t think this, she loves art, but yeah, she perhaps think it isn’t a good think to enjoy, hence her Dream Girl is void of the interest, but this fact alone is enough to convince me Veil has nothing to do with Shallan.
Veil is a creation, born out of magic, which earns a mind of her own. An incomplete mind as she never lived the life she pretends to have lived, she does not have the skills she pretends she has, but the illusion is so perfect, no one sees through it. Until she fails.
Thus, I do think Veil is not more real than Shallan’s supposed romantic feelings for Kaladin. Those feelings exist because this made-up persona would want Kaladin. If anything it shows how, deep down, Shallan thinks she ought to prefer Kaladin, she ought to choose him, but she doesn’t. Adolin might be handsome and rich, Kaladin is smarter, more scholarly, more dark and mysterious, more intense, more vivid and he’s a Radiant. He has suffered, so he understands suffering whereas Adolin doesn’t and the list never ends. My thoughts are thus Shallan believes she ought to be prefer “more intense and more interesting Kaladin to bland, uninteresting, but nice Adolin” and Veil has been built to reflect those thoughts.
On the side note, I need to point out the ressemblance in between Shallan volontarily blocking the nightmarish scene unfolding before her eyes in order to keep a hold over herself and Adolin’s “move grief later” inner motto which allows him to later skim over his cousin’s dead body with a cold head. I noted how, in one case, the behavior is deemed sad and borderlining on unhealthy, a direct manifestation of deep trauma, while in the other case, it is applauded and saluted as the “desirable thing to do”. However, from my perspective, both scenes read similarly as both feature a character finding a way not to freak out in front of a devastating situation. So why the discrepency within the readers reactions? Shouldn’t characters try to stay calm in the face of adversity? So why is it Shallan should have panicked here? How is it she has to panic to be deemed OK, but it is considered admirable when Adolin never does panic?
And Shallan needing to smile… it reminded me, again, of Adolin doing the same: smiling to Renarin to hide the fact he was worried about Sadeas. Pretending. There are lot of mirroing going on in between those two characters, I find is fascinating to dig into every one of those mirrors.
@9: As a rule of thumb, based on the reactions I have seen, a majority of the readers who really *disliked* the love triangle where either those who hated reading Shallan and Adolin’s characters for various reasons and/or readers who were actively passionately shipping Shallan with Kaladin.
Other reactions I have seen fall in between the “I am glad it is over” and the “I really love how she chose Adolin” with a few “it was OK, but it could have been done better” mixed in the middle.
I would place myself in between the last two, it was OK, I am generally positive about it, but there is room for improvements.
@11 Gepeto Actually, I think this is the main reason why I, and a lot of other readers, get frustrated with Shallan’s narrative in this book. It is Veil. Before, she was just a neat trick, but now that Veil is becoming her own character, and kind of inserting herself into the narrative AND into Shallan, and the things that we liked about her, her curiosity, her love of art, her naitivity are kind of just tossed aside because big bad veil is here and she is so cool that Shallan wants to be her all the time, that it frustrates me. Yes, she isn’t getting better, but Veil is taking a life of it’s own, and kind of shoving away the character development that Shallan has had, and should be getting more.
The thing I find most fascinating (and did not catch in my initial read or re-read) is that Sja-anat (which I believe is what Shallan saw in the mirror) was surprised to see Shallan. Why was Sja-anat surprised? Was it because she could see Pattern and thus she knew Shallan was a KR? Was it because of Shallan was a Lightweaver? Or (least likely), was it because it was Shallan herself (as opposed to any other KR). I do not have a guess as to why Sja-anat seemed surprise. However, I think it likely we will find out the answer in Book 4. The Ghostbloods want Shallan to try to have Sja-anat defect; more particularly, defect to the Ghostbloods; not to Team Dalinar. And if Shallan cannot get Sja-anat to come willingly, then Shallan will have to get her to the Ghostbloods’ control forcefully. Thus, I think we will see a lot of Sja-anat in Book 4. Perhaps, we will get a POV from Sja-anat.
I wonder if at the time the Willshaper made his/her comments (the epigraph for Chapter 63), Aimia and Akinah had the curse/protections that we see in the earlier Interlude.
Alice: At this point in SA, I think Kaladin is still annoyed at the boots encounter when they first met in WoR. By the end of OB, Kaladin has come to accept that Shallan and Adolin are meant for each other (or at the very least, he and Shallan would not be a good romantic pair). By that point, he can look back at the boot scene as humorous. That is why he gave or the boots as a wedding gift. Alternatively, he could be still upset with her and thought she would get mad at receiving boots as a gift. Instead, Shallon thought it was a great joke and appreciated the jester. I think it is the former (they both see that encounter as humorous by the end of OB).
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Gepeto @11. I appreciate your analysis of Shallan’s reaction and how it is similar to Adolin’s reaction after Elhokar dies. Yet, many fans criticized Shallan’s attitude while praising Adolin. Perhaps they viewed Adolin’s reaction as that of a soldier in battle whereas they did not view Shallan in battle. If that is the case, I would disagree with that distinction. Shallan was every bit as much of a war zone as Adolin was when the King was killed. Shallan was on a reconnaissance mission. A reconnaissance mission is every bit as much a military action as a pitched battle.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
The article says Shallan assumes Lyn’s face. I read it as being “Lin’s” face … her father, Lin Davar. It was momentarily very confusing.
Anyone else wonder about the great importance of eyes in the Stormlight Archive? Lighteyes, deadeyes, Sja-Anat’s featureless white eyes, Shin large eyes, and a one-eyed man who Kaladin bullies, and who later becomes Shallan’s servant, to name some. Maybe because Honor’s Investiture manifests as light? Note that Sja-Anat seems to be a reverse deadeye, with featureless white ocular holes, instead of black.
It didn’t work for me because I’m a rationalist and a real-world skeptic about so-called “Dissociative Identity Disorder”. I couldn’t perceive Veil as anything but Shallan play-acting.
I would insist that she does. It’s in the story (I believe Pattern says it) that she has a Connection to anyone she draws, much less becomes (even superficially).
@Gepeto, I think readers on average react worse to Shallan’s coping mechanism vs. Kaladin’s because it’s perceived as a symptom of mental disease, not a tactic.
@13 AndrewHB
Perhaps the reason Sja-anat was surprised about Shallan was Odium and Co thinks she is an Elsecaller so Team Kholin shouldn’t have had a means to infiltrate Kholinar without Sja-anat knowing. So once she does notice Shallan, she is surprised to see that she was able to get in without detection. Totally just throwing ideas out to see what sticks. Got nothing to pack it up. I also think we will see more about Sja-anat, and I look forward to learning more about her. Could give us some amazing insights into the origins of the Unmade.
Although I do not think the protections on Aimia existed at the time of that Willshaper, I will admit even if they were in place, given what we know of the Willshaper’s power set, those protections would not stand in his or her way.
Building something on part of the transport platform of an Oathgate makes it more difficult to use for mass transport because you have to transport the building. They would need more Stormlight to bring their army to Kholinar.
The statue of the Radiant raising from the ocean fits the quote in the beginning from the Radiant who wanted to explore underwater caves. Not having to breathe would be useful for that.
I hated Shallan’s boot scenes from the beginning because they reminded me of Mat’s endless boot talk in WoT. I don’t know if I would think differently about them without WoT coming first.
@12: I agree. I don’t like Veil and the more Shallan insisted on becoming Veil, the more I disliked her viewpoint. Everything I once loved about Shallan’s character disasppears whenever she becomes Veil. Now, of course, that was the point of her narrative, how she hates herself, how this hate made her yearn to be someone else, how her powers allowed her to achieve it unknown to all, but the end results remains being stuck within the perspective of a non-existing character with a rather bland personality (IMHO Veil is bland not because of any fault on the author, she is bland because she is not a real person, so she lacks what makes an individual… someone).
As a result, those chapters can be hard… to enjoy to their full potential.
@14: Thanks. I’ll admit I did not see the parallel until I read Alice/Lynsey/Aubree’s recap of the chapter. It was their thoughts which made me link Shallan’s behavior here to Adolin’s behavior towards Elhokar’s death. He is often criticized for not having had more of a reaction and I always found it unfair. He has a reaction, he sees the dead body and what does it do? He shoves it deep inside him, saying how he cannot allow himself to think about what had just happened… He cannot take the time to deal with it, a fact he later reflects on.
So yes, all in all, I do agree Adolin being a soldier (and a man) had for results of having soldier praise him for a behavior Shallan is criticized for within another chapter. Of course, being a soldier, you expect him to “man up”, not to freeze (only Kaladin and Radiants are allowed to freeze), to keep his head cool and yeah, he does it. And of course, if the traumatized girl does something similar, it is a by-product of deep trauma, not a mean to move through a war zone. In her case, it is negative, in Adolin’s case, it is positive, but it is the exact same reaction.
I have wondered if reality perhaps wasn’t more complex.
@15: I don’t think what Adolin (it was Adolin not Kaladin) is doing is more healthy than what Shallan is doing, but it gets mostly ignored because none of it is linked to a well-defined past trauma. Shallan, of course, has pushed the behavior to an extreme most people will never reach, but I find Adolin has a very similar way of dealing with difficult situations or complex emotions: he refuses to process them and focuses on the immediate need. Just like Shallan in this very scene.
I would go further and argue what we see in Adolin’s behavior is typical male stoicity (or the refusal to deal with the emotional toll of events) in the face of adversity, a characteristic often displayed within men of the older generations. In here, I saw glimpses of the never-ending stereotype of “men do not cry”, “men are strong”, “men can deal with it” compared to its reverse “women always cry”, “women can’t handle it”, “women are not made for this stuff”. In our example at hands, Shallan adopts the male behavior: she shoved it insight, she keeps her head together and she pretends it wasn’t as horrible as it truly was. Had Adolin done the same, I bet we’d be reading a commentary on how amazing it is this narrative has one character able to keep it together, able to not be affected by the pile of dead corpses, capable of not having any emotional response.
Except when Shallan does it, it is because of trauma, not because it may be, just may be, she is much stronger than she thinks she is and it may be she actually…. dealt with the situation like a pro? That putting on a stoic smiling face might, sometimes, be the way to go? If Adolin is to be praised for not allowing his cousin’s dead body to incapacitate his judgment, then why shouldn’t Shallan be praised for having gotten herself out of a difficult situation?
Just food for thoughts.
I’d like to go chart hidden undersea caverns.
“If anyone’s going to have feelings for two distinctly different people, it’s someone with two distinctly different personalities.” It makes total sense. Really? I’ve simultaneously crushed on distinctly different people many a time, and I don’t have distinctly different personalities like Shallan does. Well, I had the role of a harpy in a stage production of The Tempest during one of those times, and got to unhappily feeling like part of me really was a harpy in mind and behavioral capability particularly toward one of those people. So it can sometimes happen that way.
I have only admiration for Shallan in this chapter, the stoic mental strength with which she managed to play dead long enough to get abandoned and escape. And I see nothing shameful in trying to avoid the sight and thought of seven rotting corpses in the vicinity. Her endeavors in Kholinar will become a harmful sidetrack, but I don’t think staying calm in such a horrific situation counts as head-burying.
It’s true that a city most likely would rapidly “devour itself” if cut off from imported food supplies. But some rural areas, like subsistence farmland, are in a perpetual state of being only slightly farther (one failed crop) away from starvation too.
If I got costumed as a spren, I probably wouldn’t choose to be a rotspren. Those people are weirdos. :-p
I had forgotten the mention of Stormlight enabling a person to live without breathing.
When Pattern called Shallan by name, it occurred to me that Wyndle is the only spren we know who calls his bond-partner a title, “Mistress,” instead of by name. I wonder why he does that.
@18 Gepeto I actually see it as just further of Shallan’s mental problems, with her retreating and bottling it all up inside, in order to avoid it, and not just because “she’s a woman.” now, I don’t know if the other people complaining about it see it that way or not, but I find it is more speaking to her problems more than “Man is stronger than women, women feel more than strong man so women are weak” bull. Looking back, all of the main characters do at least once hide their emotions to get through tragedy. Kaladin with saving Bridge Four, Dalinar with the battle at the tower, where he had to only think about the living and getting out to try to survive rather than worry about the men he was leaving behind to die, Even Jasnah in pretty much everything she does, to put on a strong face despite the pressure and worries about the desolation. The big difference between all of these examples, and Shallan, is that she has a tendency to bury all negative memories and to put on a strong face all of the time, and it is clearly hurting her, and it frustrates the readers because we know that is self destructive. She is doing more than just putting on a strong face to get out of a tough situation, because she retreats and doesn’t contemplate the past, hurting herself and breaking her more apart than any of the other characters.
Regarding Adolin vs Shallan putting off feelings for later. Perhaps we give Adolin more leeway because Shallan has previously demonstrated a tendency to make “later” be “never.” A casual reader might assume that Adolin really is going to have a good cry about it as soon as it’s tactically sound to do so.
Regarding Wyndle calling Lift by a title: as far as we know, he’s the only higher spren who didn’t choose his own human. He was assigned to her, so maybe that’s why he is more formal. Or it’s a cultivationspren thing and we’ll find out later that they all do it.
I cannot remember, did Ivory call Jasnah by a title? and I always assumed that she was assigned Ivory after she impressed them of getting out of Shadesmar for the first time. Also, Wyndle is kind of a stick in the mud, heh I mean, can you see Syl calling Kaladin milord…unironically ?
@22 Steve Hedge
Ivory calls Jasnah by her name. Ivory bonded her in defiance of his own kind, so he was not assigned to her by his people. Just letting ya know. No worries.
Shallan v. Adolin dealing with grief
I believe part of the reason they’re treated differently by the fandom for similar reactions of grief repression is, in addition to what many of you guys have written on the subject, is that the impression we get from Adolin is that he really will deal with his issues later while Shallan will bury those problems so far down she’d forget there’s any problems at all. Even with that it probably wouldn’t be looked at so negatively if her powers were not directly related to lies and truth. Her repression stunts her progression.
@Scáth i need your powers of search again.
When Sanderson said that book 4 was going to take place a year later, didnt he he also say something about how Shallan and Kaladin may have changed a little in that time? like Shallan will not be as insane as she is in Oathbringer? or am i making it up in my head?
@26 smaugthemagnificent Off the top of my head the closest I can recall to that subject matter is him saying that Hoid feels she made progress, but she still has a lot of work to do, but I will dig. Give me a little bit, will do my best!
@25 and mods: I didn’t mean to flag that post! I have the phone close to my face to read it, and my nose touched “Flag” and “inappropriate” on the same bit of the screen. (Heh. Nose-flagging: the new butt-dialing.)
@11 Gepeto
Ah, interesting that the negative fan reaction to the love triangle started before Oathbringer came out, and was based initially on the ending of WoR. I discovered Sanderson comparatively recently, so although I had read WoK and WoR and was eagerly awaiting OB when it came out, I wasn’t tuned in to fan reaction at that point.
Gepeto / AeronaGreenjoy – I agree that in the palace Shallan handled herself admirably in an horrific situation. This does seem to be a time when her ignore and suppress tactics are entirely appropriate – in the short term at least.
@26 smaugthemagnificent
So I put in “Shallan” into the search, and went from most recent back. I went as far back as 2016 so far and unfortunately no luck. I also did a brief search on “book 4” and all of them were regarding the book structure. I included below the closest WoB I could find so far regarding what you said. Can you recall potentially any key words in particular?
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
Will Shallan and Wit have a good mentor relationship.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yes, they will. It will continue as you have seen it in the books so far.
kari-no-sugata [PENDING REVIEW]
…In her final scene, she seems like she kind of summons her personas– as if she’s fully in control, and they’re not coming by themselves anymore, is that correct?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
No.
kari-no-sugata [PENDING REVIEW]
So, they still come and go as they want?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yes, she’s much more in control, but still has a way to go.
kari-no-sugata [PENDING REVIEW]
Would Wit basically approve of what she’s done?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
He would give her a “that’s a step forward, but you’re not there yet.”
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
Is Shallan’s truth, “It’s okay that I can be happy?”
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
I’m going to dig into that, but this is a big part of it. Let me RAFO that because I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to express it as it goes along, but that sentiment is a huge part of what’s going on with Shallan.
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
I was expecting her to manifest Shardplate in the middle of her wedding because she had spoken such a core truth of her identity.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Let’s just say that I’m being very careful about how I show off the first manifestations of Shardplate for narrative reasons.
Ah, the love triangle/square. So happy it’s over, though it wasn’t as terrible as some others I’ve read. I’m so glad she ends up with Adolin. Not because Kaladin is a bad dude, but that would be an explosive way to live with the traumas they’ve both lived through and dealt with.
The stabby stabby totally shocked me the first time. I wasn’t expecting it to go well, but it was SO abrupt. Likewise with the mirror and Sja-Anat. Seriously creepy stuff going on, and I’m not much a fan of horror at all. But trusting in Sanderson I kept it up and the ending of part 3 paid it off so well.
Another good chapter recap… should have more to say but I’m tired and done. Loved the gifs Lyndsey, as always.
@20: I knew as I typed it this commentary would create a reaction. I first need to make a few statements. I do agree the good old “men are stronger than women” is complete bull just as most gender associated stereotypes are. Unfortunately, just today, I read how suicide rate were three times higher for men than they were for women. The article in question spoke of how men still seldom speak of their feelings, still keeps things bottled up, still go insist on pretending they are strong at all times up until it becomes unbearable and death seems like the only avenue.
On a lighter note, I must mention how my young son once told me how pink was for girls and blue was for boys, despite my best endeavors not to ingrain any gendered notions of colors and toys towards my own children. Where did I fail? How is it the day-care told my boy about colors having a gender? Hence it was, at the tender age of three that my son spoke his first gendered conception of life, albeit my attempts at this not happening.
All of this to say, stereotypes such as “men are stronger than women”, “men don’t cry” and so on are strong within our society and we, as individuals, often view others through those lenses without even realizing we are putting them on. In the scope of this chapter, I felt it was appropriate to wonder if how readers are reacting to both Shallan and Adolin, inside very similar scenes, wasn’t perhaps the unfortunate by-product of those lenses.
So while yes, other characters have acted in a stoic manner inside the narrative, I thought Shallan and Adolin mirrored each in ways other characters don’t. Only those two have moments where they tell their own self to ignore what is happening, to not process what is happening: Shallan’s “I need to smile” is too similar to Adolin “I always try to plaster a smile so that others won’t worry” for me to ignore just as Shallan’s refusal to deal with the corpses is a reminder of Adolin doing the same with Elhokar’s corpse.
And readers react very differently to those scenes depending on whether they are Shallan’s or Adolin’s scenes. I do agree there is the under-lining assumption readers have of Shallan not dealing with it and Adolin presumably dealing with it, but this seems like… an assumption. What was it in the scene which Shallan should have dealt with later? How was this scene count as a “problem” Shallan is ignoring? I did not feel she did ignore it, but she had to stay calm and she wasn’t going to achieve this by allowing herself to be horrified at what was happening.
So why are readers always thinking everything single behavior Shallan adopts is negative and detrimental towards her person? How is it readers feel her “mirror” in those scenes is having a positive attitude which has no negative consequences whatsoever? Wouldn’t it be right to think Adolin is acting exactly as the men this article I read talked about? By always being strong? By never showing a weakness? Is this healthier?
@21: This is a fair point. Adolin does have a “moment” where he mourns Elhokar while Shallan never thinks again of the corpses in the palace. But should she have? Honestly, what was there to later process? She never knew those people, she did not kill them, it was unsettling and terrorizing to be there, but did the scene really needed her to deal with it in more depth at a later time? Aren’t the things Shallan struggles to deal with truly personal and hard to process for anyone? Such as killing her parents?
Seems to me Shallan has made a lot of steps to deal with a lot of things by the end of Oathbringer.
@26: I do not like saying Shallan is insane. She is not insane. In fact, she is very sane, she however have very difficult things to deal with and no therapist to help her navigate through it. I like Shallan, but I never related to her. I did not hide how the arc revolving on Veil/Radiant wasn’t my favorite one in the book. I will also say it is considerably easier, within the fandom, to find comments from readers hating Shallan than the opposite.
I have however found a few individual who stated how they could relate to Shallan wanting to be other people, how had they have the same powers, they would have done the same. I took a very long time to reflect on those words (months) and I came to realize the powers Shallan has, the ability to *really* become someone else would be terribly attracting to basically any teenager. I tried to morph myself back into my 17 years old self. Wouldn’t have use the opportunity to try, without consequences, without being caught, at being someone else in an attempt to find out who I really was?
The answer was… yes. I might have actually done it. And I might have ended up preferring being one of my alter ego over, well, myself. Hence I do not find Shallan is insane, she is terribly sane, but she has an ability it is easy to lose control of without a mentor and a teacher.
@29: I can’t say all of the reactions were negative, there certainly were those interested in discussing the love triangle. My perception (and please note this is my perception, I did not run an official survey) was there were many readers who hated the idea of a love triangle. Ever since OB was released, I read more than one reader saying how what they liked about it was the fact it was over…
Personally, I love romance so yeah, I wished this arc had been stronger. I would have loved to read Adolin’s perspective on the romance and on Shallan. What is he thinking? How can he agree to marry Shallan after he saw her ditch him for Kaladin? How were Shallan’s short praise enough? What is in store for them? OK, this one is for book 4.
And yes, I loved the fact Shallan kept it together in this scene, stayed calm and walked out of it. Yes, she still has many things to process, but she is stronger than she thinks.
A general comment about Shallan’s arc in this book. I see a connection between a lot of readers’ frustration with Kaladin in WOR (which I did not share) and their frustration with Shallan in this one (which I somewhat shared – I loved her fascination with nature and her general academic curiosity in earlier books and was sad to see that largely disappear in this one). In both cases, the character has made major steps forward in the previous book and ended on a note indicating that progress will continue (Kaladin becoming a Windrunner, rescuing Dalinar and leading Bridge 4 as part of Dalinar’s guards; Shallan finding Urithiru and admitting the truth about her past). And in both cases, the character spends most of the subsequent book falling apart, instead of exhibiting the awesomeness we expected.
I think this is intentional. All the Radiants are broken people to a degree, and even their steps forward are painful and challenging for them to deal with. This trend makes me thing we’ll similarly see Dalinar breaking down in Book 4 – his decision to reveal his past to the world is going to have major implications for both his relationship with other rulers and his relationship with his sons (who will learn he’s responsible for their mother’s death). That’s not going to go smoothly.
To finish my thoughts, some of those gender politics are involved with those differing reactions to Shallan and Adolin’s repression coping mechanisms. How could they not be? But there is more to it than that. Adolin is an important character but not central to the narrative. If he breaks down under the weight of repression it would be tragic but ultimately unimportant. Shallan though? She’s an integral figure in the coming apocalypse. And since repression of her memory is linked to her powers any step she takes in that direction is a chance for her to lose her powers at a time when Roshar needs them most. She’s got a greater responsibility so she gets graded more harshly. Being a woman, and a young woman at that, just adds more strikes against her. If their importance were reversed I do not believe the vitriol against Shallan would be nearly as intense given her contributions.
32 @Gepeto But she did ignore it, I do not recall her bringing up the corpses to the rest of the team (if i’m wrong, that’s my bad) and that is more dangerous than Adolin’s situation because Shallan keeps doing it. that’s an major aspect of her character, to ignore things, and bury them down so deep that it could actaully cripple her powers just like Kaladin making various oaths that contradict nearly killed syl. Shallan is broken, and this is just another thing she buries deep down, while Adolin’s situation is something he just gets upset about later, when there is time to possibly process. Readers are assuming the worst for Shallan holding it down because that’s what we have been told to expect through the entire narrative. This particular situation isn’t just because she’s female, but because her as a person (or character) is broken inside, and this can only lead to more self harm (aka Veil and Radiance)
@11
I thought Shallan trying to get her near-death experience in the palace out of her mind was the one time I was okay with her doing that. Unlike the “truth” about her parents, and avoiding her responsibilities etc, her getting backstabbed isn’t a truth or an event that will have any bearing on her future. It’s something that she should forget about as quickly as possible to focus on the task at hand. If this were to keep happening, however it could lead to deeper PTSD, which she already has. But for a once-off I thought it was okay.
@12
I share this opinion, which I talked about a few months ago – Veil was a cool little hustle for Shallan to do her intel gathering and to get into the Ghostbloods etc. Veil was a disguise. She was never meant to become an identity on the verge of taking over the real Shallan.
@Gepeto: “Personally, I love romance so yeah, I wished this arc had been stronger.” I’m not as big a fan of romance as you., (“Love” romance … I see what you did there!) However, the complaint is precisely that it wasn’t a very strong arc, for most complainers I’ve seen. Not that a romance subplot was bad, that it wasn’t very strong.
@Gaz: actually forgetting trauma is exactly what therapists recommend for PTSD. It’s obsessing about it that’s pathological. Mind you, that scene is sort of flat for me because of my personality and background: corpses are … lumps of meat. I just don’t care. OK, getting stabbed would be pretty shocking. And the smell would probably bother me, but not traumatize me.
@34: How could they not? I agree, how could they not come into play. I however find, once it has been established a given lense has been used to interpret a given scene, it is easier to try to remove it and see if one’s perspective changes. This isn’t an easy process: there are line of thoughts I required years to manage to see differently or, at least, to agree other people’s views weren’t as *off* as I initally thought they were.
I remains an interesting exercise, so while it may be removing the lenses will have most readers still reach the same conclusions, for all the points you and others have raised, it may also be some will start to see things under a different light.
I am not sure I agree with the last part of your argumentation. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are arguing Shallan being a more central character (which is true) has for effect of having readers being more concerned about whether she breaks down or not. If I have read your words properly, then I am unsure if I agree with them. My perspective has been the… opposite. Because he is not a central character, Adolin is not allowed to have *strong emotions* nor to *break down* because the narrative reserves those moments for the main Radiants only. I would argue it is imperative for the narrative to have Adolin remain strong at all time, to never falter because the narrative will have Shallan/Kaladin/Dalinar stumble. So him, Adolin, the less central character, needs to be the contrast.
Now this being said, as a reader who love Adolin, I do wish for the tables to turn slightly and his stoicity has made me wonder what would it take for him to lose it. I haven’t come up with an answer yet as it seems his character bounces off anything.
@35: She did tell the team. She later reflects on how neither Elhokar nor Adolin seemed sad to find out Kave Kholin had been killed. My point is there is nothing to cope with nor to repress when it comes to this scene: yes it was horrific, yes it was a difficult situation but it wasn’t one Shallan had any hands into nor was it one which impacted anyone close to her.
I honestly do not think there is anything to bury here for Shallan. She isn’t going to have a breaking down moment because of this event at a future time just as other difficult situations she was in didn’t cause any lasting effects. Not everything with Shallan turns into a prolonged trauma, only the events having to do with the death of her parents.
Adolin’s situation is considerably more different because the man who died was family, was his cousin and not once does he broach the topic with anyone except Navani and even with her, it was him consoling her. It was about Navani grieving (understandably so), not so much Adolin though he did grieve some. Adolin lost someone close to him, worst someone he was supposed to protect and help whereas Shallan saw the dead corpses of people she never met nor cared for. Thus, upon my perspective, the scene with Adolin is considerably worst and more emotionally taxing than the one we read here with Shallan. And I never read any reader, on no platform I have browse onto, ever comment stating this ought to have been difficult nor worrying over Adolin always pushing dealing with emotions to a later time. As others have said, it is just assumed he will deal with them and nothing will ever cause a lasting effect on him. This may be true.
And yes, readers always assume the worst out of Shallan, they depict her as considerably more fragile than she is, more vulnerable, weak, unable to deal with reality, broken beyond repairs, but is it true?
Didn’t Shallan successfully leave her small mansion and managed to get Jasnah Kholin, the world’s most renown scholar to take her as her ward?
Didn’t she find a way to tell the truth to Jasnah about her family situations thus securing her help to sort it out?
Didn’t she manage to escape a sinking ship despite being a fragile little girl unable to deal with events?
Didn’t she manage to get the slave traders to not only protect and escort her, but to eventually do her binding?
Didn’t she manage to drag Sebrarial onto her side of things thus securing an unlikely alliance?
Didn’t she find the way towards Urithiru?
Didn’t she figure out how to open the Oathgate, on her own while a devastating storm raged outside?
Didn’t she make her way through the chasm without crashing down nor sinking into the ball of tears she insists she must be?
Didn’t she hunt and fought Re-Shephir, on her own?
I could go on.
Thus, it seems to me Shallan isn’t this broken beyond repair fragile flower who can’t handle the harsh truths of life (this is a hyperbolis, I don’t mean to infer you personally said those things in those words). She can’t handle one truth: the fact she killed her mother, but seems to me she handled difficult situations with a cold head. As such, I don’t understand how she keeps being depicted into this light. Because of Veil and Radiant? She hates herself, so she yearned to be someone else. Haven’t we all gone through a phase in our life where we might have had similar thoughts?
So bottom line is I am starting to think Shallan is considerably stronger than many readers make her ought to be. This chapter was a good example. Yes, she has problems accepting the horrors of her childhood (who wouldn’t?), but seems to me not every difficult situation she went through is a repressed memory and not all times she shuts down her thoughts serve to worsen her state.
Shallan had to not think of the corpses to get her own self out of there. On the reverse, I also think Adolin had to speak up to Shallan/Kaladin about losing Elhokar and not play it as if nothing ever bothered him.
@36: Shallan avoids responsibility in Oathbringer this is true. Can we blame her? Which 17 years old wouldn’t freak out upon having Dalinar Kholin aka the Blackthorn start to treat her as if she had all of the answers? He literally put her on the spot, asking her about foreign politics, he demanded her to become someone she wasn’t ready to be for the mere fact she now had “powers”.
This being said, while Shallan does avoid responsibility, she does realize her mistake by the end of the book and she asks Jasnah to take her back as a ward for as long as she deems necessary. She had a hick-up, a bump in the road, but I disagree Shallan has always been avoiding responsibilities. In fact, she took them quite to heart when it came to her family it was just this Radiant business, that was too much for her to deal with on the spot. She needed some fresh air.
I mean, yes, Radiants are *broken*, but they have all reforged themselves, they have all grown outside of their issues, they have all become stronger, not weaker. Shallan is no exception. Being a Radiant is harsh, it forces you to look into yourself, your issues and to deal with them, but in the end only the strongest of them all have in them to achieve just this. By this logic, Shallan is not weak, she is incredibly strong.
@37: LOL. I have read all sorts of complaints…
I have read complaints there was too much of it or how useless it was (what’s the point of a love triangle if nothing was ever going to happen in between Kaladin and Shallan, why have it at all?). I have read complaints it wasn’t well explained enough as some reader do not believe Shallan and Adolin love each other. Some will argue Adolin only marries Shallan to make it work “for once”, not because he has real feelings for her as we never get to read his viewpoint, so they aren’t explicit enough. I have read complaints on how Shallan choosing Adolin and him knowing the “real her” came out of nowhere and was a cheap denouement thus implying they will, of course, divorce thus freeing Shallan for Kaladin.
There are just about as many comments as there are readers. Many are just glad it is over. Some are arguing it can’t be over because introducing Kaladin as the third wheel turned out being pointless. Many are saying it is impossible for Adolin and Shallan to last for various reasons.
As for myself, my greatest gripe with the romance in Oathbringer is how Brandon didn’t manage to sell his readers towards his chosen ship. My impressions are the majority of the readers who like the pairing were those who liked it before Oathbringer. The book changed no one’s perspective which is where, I think, the romance failed. We all saw in Mistborn how Brandon managed to have readers drop the favored Wax/Marasi ship to jump into the Wax/Steris one. He didn’t pull it off this time around.
And yeah, I do like romance, but I like it when both characters have a view on the relationship. So Adolin’s viewpoints is a great omission here, hopefully fixed with the next book. I really hope Brandon will spend more time to develop the Shallan/Adolin romance and won’t let it fall into background like he did with Dalinar and Navani. A good romance sub arc needs some tension, some ups, some down, some odds.
On the corpses: I think what Shallan went through would have been more traumatizing to most modern day people because we aren’t used in dealing with death, corpses and violence. Just like I don’t expect Adolin to feel queasy stomached upon seeing a corpse, I do expect Shallan to feel slightly faint, at first, but get through it as she too is experienced with death and corpses.
@Gepeto
Adolin is an important player in-world, a much more important one than he realizes. But from an outsider perspective it’s different. You are hyper focused on Adolin and so made an observation about his problem avoidance that was both true and not readily apparent to most readers. When Addie avoids problems it’s an interesting side note. When our girl wonder does it that becomes much more significant due to her history, her central placement in the narrative, the nature of her powers and yes, her sex. If Adolin were the Lightweaver with the weight of a desolation on his shoulders I suspect that he’d be getting more grief on the boards. Not as much as Shallan but more than he typically gets.
Btw, difficulty coping with an issue does not make one weak. I’m sure that a subsection of the fandom considers Shallan to be so but I am not a part of that subset. That doesn’t mean reading the indications of her struggle aren’t painful to read. It just makes a stronger narrative at the end.
@38- Gepeto
Yes, Shallan has done all of those things. But she is also repressing emotional traumas in unhealthy ways. We have seen the bad effects of ignoring/hiding her feelings, even if it is totally understandable to not want to confront horrific events. It is important for her sake to recognize that what she is doing is not working, and that she needs to find a healthier way of dealing with her problems.
In Oathbringer, Shallan is so mentally damaged or confused that she sees no problem with stabbing herself more than one time. It doesn’t even register to her how terrible that is.
Additionally, Shallan has very important knowledge about the Ghostbloods and has failed to share it with anyone. She knows how dangerous and how active they are in current events. The fact that they had her brothers does make a difference, but still.
@38, 39
Yes, I agree that Shallan is not weak. However, I think it would be good for her to be able to tell others some of what she is going through, rather than just hiding it. If others know she is hurting, then they can help.
@39: I absolutely do not disagree with you, you are raising very valid points. Looking into the various ways Shallan and Adolin’s characters mirror each other has been something I have enjoyed in Oathbringer. I also found, for the reasons you aforementioned, there weren’t many readers who made those parallels. As a rule of thumb, the majority of discussions I have found on the matter of the Shallan/Adolin relationship had been geared towards trying to prove either how insane/unstable Shallan is and/or how toxic Adolin is to her. Few readers have tried to note the ways into which their character arcs mirror one another. Few readers have noted how Adolin seemed particularly well-placed to understand Shallan’s trauma and copying mechanism. Few readers have noted how he literally asks her to help him figure it out: their relationship isn’t just about Adolin being the solid anchor, it is much more nuanced and reciprocal. Here we have two young people who, both for very different reasons, have ended up in situations where they needed to be someone they weren’t. As a result, both aren’t sure about who they are and while one seems more destructive, I don’t think the other one is as benign as it looks upon first glance. And I am not sure about who will help whom the most in the end.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how ill-at-ease I was at reading how Shallan was constantly being “babied” after having spend energy fighting a battle. I ranted against the blanketing, the feeding hot tea, the nurturing, the palaquin… It seemed… a lot and not something most readers noted on, I suspect, because Shallan being a girl, her needing this comfort is… expected? I also noted how male characters weren’t given the same leve of concern when they suffer actual life-threatening wounds (as opposed to merely being tired).
Then you say this:
That’s exactly the point I was trying to get at. Even if Adolin were a character of equal importance to Shallan (I understand he isn’t and it explains much), within this narrative, then why wouldn’t he get the same level of attention when exhibiting a very similar behavior?
@41: True, but the traumas she repressed were particularly horrifying. How does an 11 years old girl even begins to start rationalizing it wasn’t her fault her mother tried to kill her? She can’t. It is a horrible situation and, true enough, not thinking about it probably was the sanest of all copying mechanisms. After all, Shallan was a functional human being able to inter-act, live and thrive within society while she had those repressed memories. Was there really a need for her to go back there, re-open this box of Pandora apart then to allow her Nahel Bond to grow?
So while yes, Shallan has trauma, on the pantheon of traumas, seems to me she adapted quite well. Mind, this doesn’t mean she has no work to do nor that her traumas is meaningless, I just meant to try to highlight the fact Shallan isn’t as destroyed by her past as most readers and herself are assuming her to be. What happened in Oathbringer would have never happened without the pressure to be a Radiant. Had she had the quiet time she needed to process the truth, instead of being shove in one place or the next, asking to take leadership and to participate in meetings, then she may have dealt with it in a more healthy manner.
Yes, the stabbing is worisome, but it turned out being a one-time event. Many of us thought it would escalade, grow and become a problem. Young people can cut themselves, usually in an attempt to transfer an emotional pain into a more manageable physical one. There is some of this with Shallan, but she didn’t repeat the exercise. She ends the book admitting she deserved to be happy and to have a nice wedding which was a good step in the right direction.
As for the Ghostbloods, I think this is different. IMHO, Shallan has very good reasons not to share the information she has. It is subtle, but reality is Mraize has literally enslaved her to his cause. He is using the stolen soulcaster and her family’s unpaid debt (which she will never be able to pay off, like slaves debts) as a means to force her to work for him. He then rewards her with small tip-bits of information he could have given her readily, were he a good person, but oh no. He uses those to make her believe she is here on her own free-volition.
All this say, Shallan has fallen into a trap. She could tell others, but really, how does one start a sentence to explain she has secretly been working with the very same organization responsible for the attempt on Jasnah’s life? How can she tell the truth without losing the edge she thinks she has with their group and, more importantly, without jeopardizing her family?
Hence, for me, the Ghostbloods are a very different problem, one Shallan falls into without really wanting to, without realizing how much of a problem it is. Not surprising she hasn’t find the way to tell anyone yet, though I suspect she will tell Adolin (she says she would). And I had wondered what kind, rich and sometimes naive Adolin would do upon hearing his wife has an unpaid debt towards a secret organization giving her misery?
This plot line hasn’t been ready to explode in OB, but I expect it to explode in book 4. My suspicions are book 4 will be the book of all revelations… I could be wrong, but that’s my current hunch.
Gepeto @38 and others. Another factor in why Adolin did not want to process Elhokar’s death: Adolin knew that with Elhokar dead, Adolin is the de facto king. Even if Elhokar’s son is rescued, he is much too young to rule. Adolin would have to be the regent. By not processing Elhokar’s death at that moment, he does not have to admit that he is the next king. Adolin does not believe he is qualified to be king (due to his murder of Sadeas).
(Note, I do not think that the fact that Adolin murdered Sadeas disqualifies Adolin from being king. Rather, Adolin himself thinks that his murder of Sadeas disqualifies him form being king. That Adolin is somehow not worthy enough to be king.)
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@42
Except that Shallan did it twice. The first time was when she was investigating the murders and put the knife through her hand and the hand of the guy whose seat she stole. I don’t expect to see more of it, but it showed a worrying disconnect to me.
I definitely think (and hope) that Shallan will be better in book 4. I don’t think the Ghostblood issue will be resolved, but I think her mental state will be better, though not perfect.
Which Unmade is controlling the guards? Is it the Heart of the Revel? I haven’t reread far enough ahead to compare the guards’ weirdness with the people on the platform. The narrative here suggests that it is Sja-Anat who has control, as she is the Unmade who puts in an appearance, but can she mind control people around her? Yelig-Nar is upstairs, but , again, it isn’t known if it can control minds of people who are nearby. It seems probable that each could have some sort of influence, but it is not clear to me what happened to the guards and which Unmade caused it.
@43: Andrew, I have a different interpretation of Adolin not wanting to be a King. Later in the book, he internally thinks on how, while he always knew kingship could come his way, he desperately hoped it wouldn’t. At the time, he blamed his hesitation by wanting to “have fun”, but after he murders Sadeas, he realized what he previously pinned on mere immaturity was in fact a dissonance in between the man his father made him to be and the man he really is. And the more time passes, the stronger those feelings become, the more obvious the cleavage is.
In other words, up until he murdered Sadeas, Adolin had allowed himself to think he could adhere to his father’s ideals, to his father’s expectations. He believed he could do his father’s binding, be his father’s perfect son, the son this great amazing wonderful man who is Dalinar definitely deserved to have, but Sadeas was the one moment where he realized he just wouldn’t prioritize honor above all else like his father does. It was a sharp clash in between who Adolin has been told he had to be and who Adolin really is. He realizes this, but he has no idea how to break the pattern. That’s basically what he tells Shallan on the ship: “Once you figure it out, please tell me.”.
On the matter of the kingship, he just finally acknowledged he wasn’t this son born out of honor to live a life made of rules, obeying to orders his father wanted for him. He is not this man, but the problem is both Adolin and Dalinar believe to be a good person you need to be what Dalinar wants (confirmed by WoB). Hence what other conclusion can Adolin reach than he isn’t a good person? He isn’t a good man? Whoever he is, that’s not enough, not enough to stand next to Dalinar, not good enough to be a Radiant (anyone else noted how Adolin never wonders if he could be one whereas half of Urithiru does) and definitely not good enough to be king.
Adolin refuses to be King because he genuinely believe he isn’t a good choice, a good person and thinks anyone else would be better suited than him. Those thoughts exist because murdering Sadeas, lying about it made him realize he truly isn’t the man his father thought he was. And that man, he doesn’t think he is a good person nor worthy of anything. He isn’t even worthy of travelling through his father’s light nor wearing his colors. He is nothing more than a name, wealth, a killing machine who owes his reputation through the Blade he has savagely used. Those thoughts he has them, later in the book.
This being said, when Elhokar dies, Adolin isn’t focused on what happens next. During his train of thoughts, he does latch onto his cousin’s corpses, he starts to think about it, but stops himself right here. He literally forces himself not to think about it, to ignore it in ways which are very reminiscent of Shallan in this chapter. Hence, it was the event by itself he tried to block. Later, in Shadesmar, he realizes Elhokar dying, Gavinor being lost meant he was going to be King, then he angst. In silence. Unknown to all.
@44: She does it twice, but the second time she did it to get a memory of the pain spren. She was focused on how different the sprens look.
I agree about Shallan’s mental state being better. I can’t say about the Ghostbloods: I could see it as an arc Brandon wraps in the next book or not. All I am currently quite certain of is the truth about Shallan’s involvement will come out, just as the truth about Dalinar will. That’s why I said I felt the next book would be about revelations and truths and how people react to them. How will Shallan get out of her mess? What will it mean for the world to know Dalinar burned the Rift willingly? What were those words Kaladin wouldn’t say?
IIRC, whenever Adolin pushes some horror to the side it is always followed by “and deal with it later when there is time to grieve”. He is doing what a soldier needs to do. When Kaladin fails and freezes in the middle of battle it is life threatening.
Shallan doesn’t follow up with doing something later, she is shutting the door on the mausoleum and not looking back.
I had forgetten the stabbing scene completely and now it reminds me of Claire being thrown out of Wentworth prison into the pile of dead bodies in Outlander.
At any rate, I would likely have run screaming into the next county.
@47: He does say this, but does he really put it into real action? Or does he move onto the next task at hand, the next monster to slay, the next battle to fight? That’s what he does with Sadeas, he represses it, never thinks of it, ignores it and just hopes it will all go away.
Shallan is learning how to deal and yeah, well, she has a long way to go, but seems to me she dealt with a lot given the scope of the horror she was forced to live. It may seem like “not much” or that Shallan is just “hiding from the truth”, but she is 17. She’s faced the truth about her mother a few weeks ago. She ends the book in a better place, understanding and comprehending she needs to stop harming herself and it is time to deal with her pain. I say that’s great progress for someone so young having literally no support whatsoever.
Indeed, the scene was the same as in Outlander! I would have screamed my head out and run as fast as possible without looking back, I would have likely tripped and killed myself or something. I can hard handle losing my keys…. Just the fact Shallan managed to keep it together, I find it admirable. This girl is so much tougher than we give her credit for.
DID is a real condition. A natural progression and combination of Depersonalization and Derealization. I’ve worked with enough people to recognize how fuzzy intrapersonal and interpersonal disconnects become sharper over time and can really take someone for a ride.
And memory consolidation and memory shaping are two important strategies that help to bring all of a person to a sense of structure and competency in regards to past wounds rather than leaving a part behind that can flood back and invade or intrude on the present. Maybe Peter Levine’s books and works might be of interest to some of the readership here.
And count me in for a spiritual connection with Lightweavers. Her followers become more and more like what she visualizes them as (e.g., Gaz cutting a more heroic jib after she draws him).
Everyone is missing another Shallan self-harm, when she cut her wrist in Way of Kings as part of her attempt to deceive Jasnah. That many times can’t be a coincidence, because BWS is too good a writer. For that matter, twice she makes joking references to taking absurdly long falls (and surviving): the cliff near Urithuru, and when Kaladin uses her as a “test passenger”.
@Gepeto: yes, I’ve wondered here at Tor.com why Adolin hasn’t even thought about taking the First Oath, which I think would continue Mayalaran’s progress toward recovery (as Kaladin’s Third Ideal restored Syl, and Dalinar’s repaired his bond with the Stormfather).
@50 carl
I would add to your reference that when she slit her wrist then, she didnt know she could heal with stormlight and realized as she did it she may have done so too deeply. She could have very much died then.
@50: Carl, good catch on pointing out Shallan slit her wrists in WoK! I would have to re-read the scene to get the context again as this isn’t fresh at all in my mind, but I definitely forgot about it. Still, I can’t say we have seen Shallan use the behavior in a compulsive manner, at least not yet.
On Adolin not having thought of swearing the First Oath: My explanation to this one is rather simple: because he doesn’t believe he is worthy of being a Radiant. In his mind, becoming a Radiant is not a possibility. It isn’t a matter of not having attracted the right spren yet nor a matter of him not having said any other oath, it is a matter of Adolin being utterly convinced, to his core, he is not worthy to be one of the new Gods. It’s like… Like normal people aren’t dreaming, expecting nor even considering the possibility they might, one day, become Hollywood’s best renown,most beautiful actor/actresses. This… This happens only to a handful of people and for the greater majority of people, it isn’t even a dream nor an ambition nor something they could achieve. It is not a possibility. Not for them.
Adolin, I read in the same manner. Becoming a Radiant is not for him (at least in his mind). We see it when Shallan creates an illusion of him as a Windrunner. He can’t look at the illusion, he can’t deal with it. He doesn’t believe there is even the slightest possibility he could become a Radiant, so when it comes to Maya.. Yeah, he sees her as his friend, he apologizes to her, he tells her there is nothing he can do for what has been done to her and merely promises to always try to use her to do good things.
He isn’t however considering the possibility she might be coming back to life nor that she might want to bond him. And if I am reading this right, the hardest step, for Adolin, will be the easiest step for all others: saying the first oath because to say it, he’ll need to believe he is reviving Maya, he’ll need to believe he can become a Radiant.
I have no idea what it would take for him to reach those conclusions. He has little self-worth, this isn’t going to improve as Radiants start to pop around everywhere close to him. His father is a God. His wife if a Goddess. His brother is a God. And he is nothing. Nothing doesn’t get to be a Radiant, so what needs to change for him to realize this.
@15, Carl
We share both of these traits, plus the fact that – this is where I wave the autism flag again in case anyone has not yet noticed – I am somewhat empathically challenged, and I do not see Veil as Shallan playacting. The reason? I’ve done a lot of solely text-based roleplaying, as part of where I “learn” people (together with, among others, a guy with a dissociative personality disorder of a magnitude that he’s backtracking his emotions from his physical reaction). We have little difficulty of understanding our characters’ emotions, and for me, some of them have come to life to a degree where it’s almost a benevolent case of split-personality.
It’s nowhere near as bad as it is with Shallan, of course. I’m fully aware of the fact that they aren’t real and I’m the one in charge. But somewhere in the back of my mind, there are personality-bubbles, and sometimes I have a stray thought how one of them would react to a certain situation. (It’s actually great, I can outsource stuff to them. One of them is great at writing reports!)
For example, if you see me running, you best catch up, because I’m running for my life. I have a character who greatly disapproves of my physical fitness. He’s not in charge, though, but I am aware of the fact that it irks him tremendously. If it was my feeling, I’d be getting fit already ten times over (it’s a rather strong emotion).
So, even if Shallan is pretending hard, it is still, as I can testify, real enough. :)
@Gepeto:
I interpreted that scene very differently. I read it as his hating to be compared to his perceived romantic rival, Kaladin.
@54: Ah a good interpretation too. We’ll get to discuss the scene sometimes in the next months :-) It may be you are right. Still, I do think Adolin not thinking of the first oath is linked to him not thinking becoming a Radiant is even a possibility for him.
@53 Manavotex can you teach Shallan this control? but seriously, It is good to here that such therapy does help people!
@56, Smaug, I hope she’ll learn. But Veil is carrying her through stuff that she can’t cope with, so – it’s helping her too, even if she is hiding.
Ugh. Again, so much I wanted to interact with here, and I just didn’t get there. Now I’m going head-down in the Starsight beta read, so who knows when I’ll get back to commenting.
(Never fear, tomorrow’s reread was already uploaded before the Starsight beta arrived. You get your fix tomorrow, though it’s mostly me musing through an infodump… Lyndsey and Aubree had other commitments that restricted their participation somewhat.)
@58: Have fun beta reading Starsight Alice! Does the Starsight beta-read means the Oathbringer re-read will be put on-hold for the time it lasts? I mean, you guys are all beta readers and from what I have heard, those are highly time consuming.
In the mean time, it is the first week of February, so Brandon should be ready to release the outline for book 4 and 5 within the next 2-3 weeks, hopefully! I am really curious about how the next books will be organized.
@59 Gepeto
I don’t remember Brandon ever releasing outlines. Are they available somewhere?
@60: YES! He has released two of his outlines on Reddit during the writing of Oathbringer.
You can find the outlines he released for Oathbringer here (look for the link to the visual outline inside the post):
Oathbringer Update 2
And here:
Oathbringer Update 5
Those are super fun, but if you look at the last one he published and if you compare it to Oathbringer, you will see some differences. So, those aren’t fixed in concrete, but they give us an idea of what to expect.
For SA4, the current updates are available here:
SA4 Update 1
And here:
The Rhythm of War (TBC) Update 2
So yes, book 4 has a name now, The Rythm of War, though it isn’t final, yet. Not much within the last update, the outline should be published in about a month from now.
@61
Thanks. I haven’t seen those before (I’m just on the email list and check his website). I think I misunderstood what you meant by outline. I thought you were referring to the ones that show plot points, character arcs, etc. rather than something more structural.
Still, interesting.
@62:
Unfortunately no, he doesn’t give us more in-depth outlines. Still those were really interesting to glimpse on as they showed us the character break-down he was planning.
For instances, we could see there would be three main characters: the primary character (Dalinar) and the two secondary main characters (Kaladin and Shallan). What we did not know, at the time, was whom, in between Kaladin and Shallan, would get to be the first secondary character and whom would be the second. The outline allowed us to see how the second secondary character didn’t have viewpoints in all parts: readers argued on whom it would be though I think most guessed it would be Kaladin as he had yet to skip a part whereas Shallan skipped a few in WoK.
We also knew Adolin was one of the tertiary characters, but we did not know which one, though most readers guessed he’d just retain the spot he previously had which was “tertiary character 1”. In between the two outlines, still for Oathbringer, we can see how Adolin lost his planned viewpoints within part 2: I was most disappointed when this happened :-(
We knew the other tertiary characters would taken among: Jasnah, Navani, Eshonai, Szeth. There were four of them and only 3 spots. Of course, at the time, no one knew Eshonai would be dead and, as a result, not use one of those spots. Some wondered if Jasnah would get one of the novella instead of a tertiary character spots.
We knew there was a “mystery novella” featuring a “mystery character” which turned out being Bridge 4. Readers could speculate on whom they thought it would be, though no one guessed it right.
So going into Rythm of War, the outline should be very interesting to see, especially now we have a new primary character. The first three books were pretty basic, Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar merely swapped places within the first three spots. There was no suspense here. This won’t happened within book 4 because Venli is taking one of those spots. We already know Dalinar is the one who will drop and no be in the focus, but does it mean he’ll be one of the tertiary characters or will Brandon add a “third secondary character” to house Dalinar? If he becomes one of the tertiary character, is he going to take Adolin’s spot (please, no) or is he going to slip further down?
Are there any chances neither Kaladin nor Shallan will get the very large first secondary character focus? Will Brandon have more, but shorter focuses?
So many questions, which the first outline will allow us to answer, at least in part. At the very least, I’ll get a better idea of where Brandon is putting Adolin into the list which is something I am personally most interested in.
@15 Here’s an essay that might intrest you. Brandon himself wrote it for Altered Perceptions
I am one of those who grew up without a lot of experience with mental illness—in fact, I’d say that my upbringing instilled in me a skepticism regarding the realities of mental illness. If you’d found me in high school, I likely would have been one of those, “It’s all in your head” or “What do you mean you’re depressed? Just be happy” types of people.
I owe a lot of my understanding of this—and indeed, my understanding of life itself—to some very good friends in college who struggled with mental illness. They opened my eyes to the issues people deal with by giving me as close to a firsthand experience as you can get without suffering from these issues yourself. This was very important, for the woman I eventually married would be one who struggled with depression.
It horrifies me to think of what might have been if I’d met her earlier. It also, hopefully, proves that those who don’t understand mental illness are more ignorant than malicious.
The chapters I’m including in this book are particularly poignant along these lines. For years after writing The Way of Kings in 2002, I knew that something major was wrong with Kaladin’s character. (Then named Merin.) He was a generic fantasy protagonist in a vibrant, well-built world full of amazing wonders. He felt bland, like a streak of grey on a gorgeous canvas.
I would spend nearly ten years reworking Kaladin, drilling down to who he was and who he needed to be. At the same time, I met my wife and fell in love. I began to see how people with depression are treated in the media and books, and I started to wonder. Where are our fantasy heroes with depression? This disease affects a huge percentage of the population. Does every character with depression need to be relegated to being in a story only about their illness? Couldn’t we have a character who was heroic, dynamic, interesting—and, oh, by the way, he has depression. Not something for the story to be about, just something that—like exists in so many of our lives—is another aspect of who he is, that reflects his worldview.
The person Kaladin became was shaped by two major changes, his psychology being one of them. (I’ll talk about the other one in my formal introduction of the piece.)
Mental illness is real. It’s a real part of my life, and I suspect that most people with no experience are unaware of people in their lives who are haunted by it. It can strike as swiftly, and unexpectedly, as cancer. (Rob is an excellent example.) It can be as chronic as diabetes, and as debilitating as something like ALS. I feel the more open we are about this, the better we will become—as a society—at helping those who need it.
That is a great essay, and thank you for sharing it :)
Gepeto, I love your analysis of Veil vs. Shallan. I’m also reminded a little bit of the Elantris novella with the magic that allows a person to basically rewrite their own history/memories.
I generally don’t mind love trianges, but I don’t like when the drama of it starts to outweight the rest of the plot, especially in the fandom. So I’m glad that it’s resolved in that it hopefully tones down some of the ship wars.
And while Shallan has a lot of problematic behaviors, I don’t think that her zoning out while thrown into a pile of corpses is one of them. That seems like eminently reasonable behavior. Nor do I think even a healthy person really needs to ‘process’ it. There are a lot of times where Shallan compartmentalizes unhealthily, and that, ironically, gives her the ability to do it so well here – but I don’t think this specific scenario was wrong.
@@@@@ Gepeto 11
I think the difference is one of character context. I’m pretty sure most readers would agree that Shallan blocking this particular scene is a good thing to do, just like Adolin blocking his grief for Elokhar because he doesn’t have time to break down. What worries readers is that we’ve Shallan has a habit of abusing this tactic of repression, taking it to psychologically unhealthy extremes (i.e. blocking her trauma over her parent’s death instead of working through it, fleeing into alternate personas when that block breaks down), whereas we have never seen Adolin taking this tactic of repression to such extremes. So Shallan blocking out the trauma in this scene probably was the best option, but we’ve seen that it’s a dangerously slippery slope for her.