Welcome back to the discussion! Last week, we saw Kaladin’s arc take an abrupt turn into the unknown. This week, assuming you’ve already read the new chapter, we’ll focus on Shallan. As she deals with internal struggles, we see the events of the previous day turning to a set-up of the next part of her journey. Come on in and discuss!
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now—if you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of the Stormlight Archive, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
In this week’s discussion we have to address Cosmere-relevant lore and speculation. I can’t even say “skip this section” anywhere, because if you read this chapter, you’ve already got the Cosmere-level view of what’s going on. We don’t talk about plot-level spoilers for anything outside Mistborn: Secret History, but … well, other worlds are mentioned and magic systems briefly addressed.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Shallan
WHERE: Urithiru
WHEN: Day 2
After taking care of administrative duties, Shallan visits her brothers. Her peace there is disturbed when Balat brings home a friend, “Gobby,” who turns out to be Mraize. Later, she goes to meet him in the garden below, where they exchange information and he gives her a new mission.
Overall Reactions
A: Virtually everything we need to talk about directly in this chapter addresses either Shallan’s mental health (including a lengthy ramble on DID and personal perceptions), or her interview with Mraize. Those fit more with “Bruised & Broken” and “Secret Societies”—although the latter could just as easily have been put in “Cosmere Connections”—so that’s where we put them.
Here, I’ll just point out what was mentioned in the Intro: this is the chapter where Shallan’s adventures with the Sons of Honor take a different turn. It turns out that, while her previous chapters did apparently wrap up the story of Ialai Sadeas’s subversive plans, we were actually being set up for her next arc. (Keep in mind that, according to Sanderson’s “plot outline” posts on reddit, there are three stories going in this book. According to the back-of-the-book blurb, “As more and more deadly enemy Fused awaken to wage war, no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.”)
So. In Ialai’s little notebook, she was keeping track of information she gathered on the Ghostbloods. While Mraize doesn’t seem to mind Shallan knowing this stuff, and in fact expands on it quite a bit, I’m betting that he wouldn’t have told her any of it if she didn’t already have some clues. With her new Cosmere awareness, Mraize sets her a new task—and one that looks to tie in to the Shallan’s arc for this book. Obviously, one of the afore-mentioned “three story arcs” is the trip to Lasting Integrity. It also looks like Shallan will again be pursuing two goals on this mission: the overt purpose of persuading the honorspren to join the humans’ cause, and the covert one of finding and identifying Restares… and whatever it is that “she’ll know” to do when she finds him.
L: The “splitting up the party” trope is one that we see over and over in epic fantasy novels, so this isn’t a big surprise, to be honest. It’s interesting that Sanderson focuses on the one with Shallan and Adolin exclusively on the back cover copy, though. Is this the most important story arc of the book? Or is there something about the other two that he’s trying to keep under wraps? (Obviously we know the answer to this question, but I pose it to you, the readers, to speculate.)
Relationships & Romances
Jushu was no longer the plump, readily smiling boy from her memories. He was an overweight man with a full beard who had to be watched almost constantly, lest he steal something and try to pawn it for gambling money. They’d twice caught him trying to remove the heating fabrial.
A: Still a git, in other words. As I recall, there’s one thing in all the books so far that presents Jushu in a relatively good light. (From Words of Radiance, ch. 48: “Our mother was murdered,” Shallan said. “That night, as I cried, Jushu held me.” It was all she had.) Somehow, I just cannot like any of Shallan’s brothers, even though I know that their teen years were full of abuse and I feel very sorry for them. But here we are, with the baby sister still taking care of them all.
L: For how much nurturing she did as a child, I’m not entirely surprised that she seems to have gone in a much more independent route as an adult. When you’ve spent your whole childhood caring for others, I feel as if you’re either going to continue down that road and keep caring for all the people around you, or rebel against it. Shallan really isn’t what anyone would consider “nurturing,” I don’t think. And that’s not a bad thing! Having independence isn’t bad. It’s just interesting to look at character archetypes, especially when it comes to women in fantasy novels. There are a number of specific “types” that women in fantasy usually fall into, and Shallan is a clear outlier, which I love. She’s a very unique, complex, and believable character.
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
A: It’s interesting to see her internal conflict over this. She half-way feels like she still ought to be looking out for them, but even her visit today is forced; she only goes to them because family is important, not because she actually enjoys their company. And to be fair, they really need to grow up.
L: There’s something to be said for the old adage “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the blood of the womb.” I.e., your blood family might not necessarily be those who deserve your love. I’m not saying that this is the case here, but… Shallan’s brothers sure don’t seem to be doing anything to support her lately. Good thing she’s got Adolin!
Over the last year, Shallan had grown surprisingly fond of the young woman. As a child, Shallan remembered being jealous of anyone who might take her brothers away— but as an adult, she saw better. Eylita was kind and genuine. And it took a special person to love a member of the Davar family.
A: And there’s the one thing I can say for Balat: Eylita loves him, so there must be something good about him. I guess.
Damnation. Shallan hated talking with him. She found herself wanting to nod, to agree with him, to learn from him. Radiant whispered truth: Shallan had lived her childhood with a father who had been paternal in all the wrong ways and none of the right ones. In Mraize, a part of her saw a substitute. Strong, confident, and—most importantly—willing to offer praise.
A: GAAHHH. No, Shallan, Mraize is not a good father figure. He’s every bit as manipulative and demeaning as Lin Davar was, and quite possibly less interested in her good. What a horrible thought.
L: This is so realistic, though. It’s something that we see over and over in real life, so it makes complete and total sense to me to see Shallan gravitating towards a father figure.
Bruised & Broken
… home in Jah Keved. In her fantasy, a fire crackled in the hearth. Nearby, her stepmother and her father chatted together with some visiting ardents … Good days. Warm days.
…
In truth, those days at home had been terrible times. Times of tears, and screams, and a life unraveling. It was also the last time she could remember her entire family together.
Except… no, that wasn’t the entire family. This memory had happened after… after Shallan had killed her mother.
A: Every time she does this, with the fantasy memory vs. the real memory, it hurts all over again. Such heartbreak in her young life.
L: I can’t even imagine how painful it was. My best friend in high school lost his mother at a very young age, and I remember him using some of the same coping techniques that Shallan does—namely, a wicked sense of humor.
Confront it! she thought at herself, angry. Don’t ignore it! …
She’d been only eleven years old. Seven years ago now—and if that timeline was correct, she must have begun seeing Pattern as a young child. … Shallan didn’t remember her first experiences with Pattern. Other than the distinct image of summoning her Shardblade to protect herself as a child, she had excised all such memories.
No, they’re here, Veil thought. Deep within, Shallan.
She couldn’t see those memories; didn’t want to see them. As she shied away from them, something dark shifted inside her, growing stronger. Formless. Shallan didn’t want to be the person who had done those things. That… that person could not… not be loved.…
A: Last week, in the comments, someone expressed disappointment that we could be so understanding of Kaladin’s depression, while – at least to this person – being very hurtful about Shallan’s DID (comment 33, if you want to go back and read their exact words). I’d like to address that comment a little, though I’m not sure I entirely understand what they were hoping for. (Side note: Taryn – it’s very good to hear from those who live with DID, and see where Sanderson hit the right beats, as well as learning where he didn’t. It’s especially good when, like last week, we say “I don’t get it, does that really work?” and you can say “Yep, right on” or “Well, mostly” or whatever. Constructive critique is always good.)
First, Lyn and I both know what depression feels like from both sides – from being the one with depression, and also from trying to help or support a loved one with depression – so we can’t help being sympathetic to that experience. While I can’t speak for Lyn, I don’t know anyone with DID; the closest I come to anything like Shallan’s situation is that I was able to completely block memories of early-childhood molestation for decades.I don’t think you could really say I did it by creating a different persona, except perhaps in that I lived all that time as someone who hadn’t had that experience. Dissociation, definitely, because when I did face it, it was always as though it had happened to “that little girl” rather than “me,” even though I have distinct visual and tactile memories of it. But I don’t think that’s the same thing as DID.
L: A friend of mine has DID, and I’ve had many discussions with them on the subject. But I haven’t experienced it firsthand, and their condition didn’t derive from trauma, as Shallan’s seems to have. It’s something they always had. They have two distinct personalities that, while they are aware of one another, do not interact and (honestly) don’t get along terribly well. One is not generally aware of what happens when the other is in “control.” It can be a bit of a learning experience, interacting with them, as you need to pick up from subtle clues which you’re speaking to (they sometimes will wear a bracelet and switch it from one wrist to the other depending on which personality is in control, but not always). So I can empathise with Adolin on this! But, again. It’s not something that I personally have experience in, as I do with depression. So yes… I relate more to Kaladin’s struggles. As in most fiction, you’ll find that certain characters resonate more with certain people than others, and that’s not a bad thing! I’m very thankful that there are people out there who see some of themselves in Shallan. That representation is so very important. If our comments have come across as dismissive of her struggles, it was not our intent, and I can’t speak for Alice, but I’ll do my best to look closer at my wording in regards to her in the future, in this regard.
A: I’ll certainly be more aware of what I say about her, though I’d never intended to be dismissive of her in the first place. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll always say the right thing… I’m pretty good at not doing that. But I’ll do my best.
Moving on… I think we’ve always been clear that Shallan experiences a real mental illness; what is less clear is whether this is a condition we want to see “fixed” – or more accurately, if it’s something we should treat as “fixable.” Remember, I’m not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist. I don’t know anyone with DID. I don’t know what causes it for different people IRL. All I can do is look at Shallan’s backstory (as far as we know it) and how that is playing out in her current situation, and see what the implications are.
L: That’s a big distinction for me, anyway. The question of “is this healthy, or not?” isn’t something that Alice or I have the knowledge to adequately assess. As Alice said, I’m not a psychiatrist or even a therapist. I don’t have the years of education to be able to say whether segmenting one’s personality and blocking memories is a productive coping mechanism for trauma, or not. All I can base my reactions on are my own feelings and emotions, and those are based in concern and empathy. Not science.
A: Exactly. In Shallan’s case, we know that her DID is trauma-induced, and it’s very definitely a coping mechanism for childhood horrors. And… there’s something we don’t know yet. Back in Chapter 9, there was this moment:
What he would do if he knew the real her. If he knew all the things she’d actually done.
It wasn’t just about him. What if Pattern knew? Dalinar? Her agents?
They would leave, and her life would become a wasteland. She’d be alone, as she deserved. Because of the truths she hid, her entire life was a lie.
A: It seems obvious that there is something more in Shallan’s past, something she not merely fears¸ but is convinced would make everyone reject her. That’s reflected again this week in the idea that “That person could not be loved.” There’s something going on here that we don’t know. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the “something” is a huge factor in causing her mental illness. Whether the illness can be cured by confronting the cause, I don’t know. Shallan seems to think so – but she also fears that the cure might be worse than the disease.
L: (Aside: I reject the concept that mental illness needs to be “cured;” sometimes, it becomes an integral part of who we are. It’s a very personal thing, and varies widely from person to person. But a blanket statement that being neuro-atypical is “wrong” and must be “fixed” is a dangerous overall precedent, in my opinion.)
A: True. Hence the question: should it be fixed, or treated as fixable? I don’t think there’s a “right” answer to that in general; there may be a right answer for Shallan. In her case, she’s got a still-buried memory that, for some reason, she perceives as unforgivable. Combine that with the way we saw the personas of Veil and Radiant developed: Back in WoR, Veil started as merely a disguise for her Ghostblood-related activities, pretending to be an associate of Tyn, so there would be no connection between “Veil the dark-eyed accomplice” and “Brightness Shallan, ward of Jasnah, protégé of Sebarial, fiancée of Adolin.” In Oathbringer, Veil started to become a separate person rather than a disguise. Veil became the person who could do the dangerous and daring things that Shallan couldn’t. Later, Radiant was overtly created to be the one who could learn to fight with the Patternblade. She was necessary presumably because that aspect of being a Lightweaver was inextricably tied (in Shallan’s mind) to the use of that Blade to kill her mother. (Interestingly enough, using Pattern to open Oathgates or other non-fighting purposes doesn’t bother her much.)
Now we have “Formless” starting to emerge, which both Shallan and Radiant seem to think is dangerous to their balance, as well as to Shallan herself. (I don’t recall hearing Veil make any comments on Formless, though I could just be forgetting.) So I think it’s fair to say that Shallan does not have her DID fully under control; she is not only broken, she is breaking further. I don’t know how this plays out with RL DID, but it seems from my perspective that she is going to continue to splinter unless she can face down and deal with that (last?) past trauma, whatever it is. And I can’t help thinking that, while I don’t want a “magic fix” for her DID, it would be so lovely for her to not need to break herself into separate pieces to deal with life.
L: This we can agree on, to a point. Seeing her find a stable balance seems important. The splintering seems to be a reaction to trauma that hasn’t been dealt with/addressed. If it takes another personality to confront and process that, I wouldn’t mind seeing one—providing it helps Shallan to find stability and balance in her own mind.
A: (That said, I have to admit to a little envy over that “division of labor for her duties” paragraph. If I could have a separate persona to do all this lovely fandom work, and a different one to take over doing speech therapy, etc. with my son, and another to take care of home maintenance projects, maybe life wouldn’t feel so overwhelming… Gotta say, it’s tempting!)
One other aspect which a couple of people mentioned in comments here and elsewhere: her marriage. While this is more related to last week than this, there’s an ongoing question about the relationship of the Three to Adolin. On one hand, I have nothing but respect for the guy’s ability to love his wife with all of her issues – even knowing that she hasn’t yet trusted him with all her issues. And yes, he totally married her knowing that she had at least three different personas, and that they were really very different from one another. He is clearly committed to doing whatever it takes for his wife to survive—and better yet, thrive. However…
Last week, we saw that he very clearly distinguishes between them, when he flat-out told Veil “you’re not my wife.” I have no idea how people whose spouse has DID handle this, but I’ll bet there’s a lot of variety. I would guess that there are some who would accept all the personas as “my wife;” some who (like Adolin) see only one as the actual wife, and the others as mutual friends; and probably a whole spectrum of other carefully-balanced relationships, each one unique to the individuals involved.
L: For what it’s worth, my friend who has DID considers themselves to be polyamorous, with each personality having separate (multiple) relationships. Their partners are well aware of this, and while of course there are complications that need to be resolved over time, it works well for them. This is not to say that this is how everyone with DID handles it, but because this is what I’ve seen personally, Adolin’s reactions ring very true to me.
A: A couple of weeks ago (yesterday, for them) we saw Adolin express some concern about that, though. He worried that Veil might decide to get involved with someone else, and he was clearly not sanguine about that possibility. Shallan assured him that she wouldn’t let Veil do that, which he seemed to accept.
L: Mmhmm. And that’s super important for successful polyamorous relationships, consent on all sides. So I’m very glad to see that Adolin is honest enough with his feelings to bring this up, and that they seem to be on the same page—all of them, Veil included.
A: Aside from physical/romantic liaisons, though, Adolin is seeing the difficulty his wife is having in her own mind. Again, from last week:
“This isn’t right, how she is. It hurts her. Over this last year I’ve seen her struggling, and I’ve seen hints that she’s sliding—if more slowly now—toward worse depths. She needs help, the kind I don’t know if I can give her.”
Their table hummed. “You are right,” Pattern said. “She hides it, but things are still wrong.”
A: However it works for “most people” in real life, Adolin is specifically concerned about Shallan’s condition, and desperately wants to help her. I have to go with what he has said, when I talk about what he wants for and from her. He loves her and wants the best for her, and – right or not – he sees “the best for her” as at least getting some help to keep her from developing more personas, and possibly even healing to the point that she doesn’t need them at all.
Going forward, I don’t know that I’ll necessarily be able to meet the expectations for handling Shallan’s illness in a way that can please everyone who has RL experience with DID. I’m reasonably confident that I will step on someone’s toes quite unintentionally, because (as always) my comments are a combination of my own experience, and what I see in the characters. You can be sure, though, that any perceived insensitivity is not active hostility; it’s just a limitation of being human.
L: We do our best to be respectful of everyone’s life experiences, but we can’t be perfect (unfortunately). The varied opinions and viewpoints of those who have more life experience in certain matters will always be welcomed in the comments, though!
A: As for Shallan’s own perspective…
She’d buckled down and forced herself to read studies on other people with fragmented personas. She’d found only a handful of mentions in medical texts, though the accounts implied people like her were treated as freaks even by the ardents. Oddities to be locked away in the darkness for their own good, studied by academics who found the cases “novel in their bizarre nature” and “giving insight to the addled mind of the psychotic.” It was clear that going to such experts with her problems was not an option.
Memory loss was apparently common to these cases, but the rest of what Shallan experienced seemed distinctly different.
Importantly, she wasn’t experiencing continued memory loss. So maybe she was fine. She’d stabilized.
Everything was getting better. Surely it was.
A: Yeah, no. She knows she’s not getting better. At the same time… Wow. Lovely things to find, there, when trying to research your own condition. “Freaks.” “Oddities.” “Locked away in darkness for their own good.” “Bizarre.” “Addled.” Good grief. The poor girl. No wonder she doesn’t want help, if that’s what help looks like! Better to stay as she is, than get “help” that would surely drive her completely insane. I wonder if she told Adolin what she found; that would provide an interesting background for his conversation with Kaladin last week.
L: It’s so sad that Roshar seems to deal with this sort of thing the same way that asylums around the turn of the century (and earlier) did. If you ever want to see some real horror stories, look into real life accounts of how people in asylums were treated. It’s terrifying, and it makes me so sad to see that even in fantasy worlds, such misunderstandings are prevalent.
A: On a bet, Sanderson did that on purpose, though, because of our own history. Let’s just hope he gives Roshar a better way forward!
He knew the truth about Shallan’s past. There were holes in her childhood memories. If they did what he asked, Mraize would fill them.
And maybe then, at long last, Veil could force Shallan to become complete
A: Again, I don’t know how the personas of a person with DID feel about the whole thing. Here, though, we have evidence that Veil, the persona that seems most dominant so far, wants Shallan to face her memories and “become complete.” I dare say there may be differing interpretations of that; my interpretation is that Veil wants Shallan to reintegrate her splintered personalities and become a single, complete person. If you have another read on that, please share it in the comments!
L: Yes, this is an interesting distinction. In the case of my friend, they definitely view their personalities as part of themselves. They are “complete,” in their perspective, and don’t require “fixing.” Losing one of those personalities would be like killing someone. However… those personalities were not born of trauma. So for Shallan, it may be different.
Secret Societies & Cosmere Connections
The deal is set and arranged. The spren will come.
She held this one for a moment, then burned it.
A: I’m not sure if this is “Secret Societies” so much as just “Secrets”… What deal? What spren? (We’ll learn more in a few minutes, though.)
Ialai’s spies had caught members of the Ghostbloods talking about a new route through the Sea of Lost Lights. … Indeed, an entire three pages were filled with locations from the mysterious world of the spren.
A: This is interesting, not so much for the information itself, as for the knowledge that the Ghostbloods know a lot about Shadesmar, and the Sons of Honor (or at least Ialai) were trying to figure out what the Ghostbloods knew.
L: From what we’ve seen so far, I’m not at all surprised. With all the Cosmere knowledge the Ghostbloods have, I’d be shocked if they didn’t have extensive knowledge of Shadesmar too!
Maps, names of places, discussions of the cost of moving items through Shadesmar. …
Veil saw the pieces of something grand in Mraize’s moves: find the Oathgates, attempt to secure unfettered—perhaps exclusive—access to Shadesmar. Along the way, try to remove rivals, like Jasnah. Then recruit a Radiant who could look into Shadesmar. Finally, attack other factions who were trying to discover the secrets.
A: So far as it goes, that’s a good start.
Veil didn’t try to sneak up on him; she knew he’d sense her coming. He seemed to be able to do that no matter how little sound she made. It was a trick she’d been trying to replicate.
A: Wait a minute. Does Mraize have enough Breath to have increased life sense? (see Warbreaker) Or is this a more natural awareness of everything around him, like the way he always positions himself so he can watch the entrances?
L: Again, wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it were the former.
“It’s about power, obviously.” … He took out a diamond broam, then handed it to her, wrapping her fingers around it. Her fist shone from within. “Power,” Mraize said. “Portable, easily contained, renewable. You hold the energy of a storm in your hand, Veil. That raw energy, plucked from the heart of the raging tempest. It is tamed—not only a safe source of light, but of power that those with… particular interests and abilities can access.”
…
“Nalathis,” Radiant said. “Scadarial. What are they?”
“Nalthis. Scadrial.” He spoke the words with a different accent. “Where are they. That’s an excellent question, Radiant. Suffice it to say they are places in Shadesmar where our Stormlight—so easily captured and transported—would be a valuable commodity.”
A: He’s using a different word, but he’s talking about pure Investiture, thinking that if only he could find a way to get it there reliably, it would be usable on any world.
L: Interesting, too, that he says that they’re in Shadesmar. Is he only saying that because he thinks that it would be easier for Shallan to accept and understand? Or is he mistaken? I have to believe that it’s the former, because with all the information that Mraize has, I can’t believe that he’d be so badly mistaken as to think that these other worlds are simply different parts of Shadesmar. (Though… do the other planets have their own versions? They must, right? Since this is the cognitive realm, each planet should have their own. Do they all look the same, with the dark sky and the reversal of ocean/land, and the beads? I recall having seen a glimpse of Scadrial’s in Mistborn: Secret History, but I can’t recall any specifics.)
A: Well, yes, every planet has their own version of Shadesmar. M:SH has a whole section of wandering around the Cognitive realm, so we get a good look. On Scadrial, the land is all covered in mist, rather than beads, but it can at least be walked on. Like Roshar, the Scadrian Cognitive realm has rocky ground with plants growing wherever there is water in the Physical realm. We don’t know much about other planets yet, except that the Cognitive realm around Sel (Elantris) is very dangerous because of the way those Shards were killed.
L: Oooooh yeah, that’s right! It’s been a good long while since I read M:SH.
A: I’m a little confused about the “places in Shadesmar” question, though. I cannot believe that Mraize really thinks that they’re in Shadesmar; he’s got to know that they’re actual planets. Then again, since you can travel from one to another in Shadesmar, maybe he’s just referring to their presence in the Cognitive realm, and would equally refer to Lasting Integrity (for example) as being part of Roshar.
“This power is something we call Investiture,” Mraize said. “Investiture manifests in many forms, tied to many places and many different gods. It is bound to a specific land—making it very difficult to transport. It resists. Try to carry this too far, and you’d find it increasingly difficult to move, as it became increasingly heavy.
“The same limitation restrains people who are themselves heavily Invested. Radiants, spren—anyone Connected to Roshar is bound by these laws, and cannot travel farther than Ashyn or Braize. You are imprisoned here, Radiant.”
“A prison as large as three planets,” Radiant said. “Forgive me if I don’t feel confined.”
…
“This gemstone cannot go where it is needed. A more perfect gemstone could contain the Light long enough to go offworld, but there is still the Connection problem. This little flaw has caused untold trouble. And the one who unlocks the secret would have untold power. Literal power, Radiant. The power to change worlds…”
“So you want to unravel the secret,” Radiant said.
“I already have,” Mraize said, making a fist. “Though putting the plan into motion will be difficult. I have a job for you.”
A: We’re already at the point where any conversation involving Mraize could just as easily be put in Cosmere Connections as Secret Societies; hence the decision to combine the two! So basically, Mraize thinks he knows a way to take Investiture from one world to another, using perfect gemstones, but there’s a missing link. Something he needs Shallan to do. Another thing he needs Shallan to do. (It makes me guess that if she thought about it with both hands, she just might realize that he needs her peculiar abilities, and she should be driving a much harder bargain.)
L: Interesting, too, to note that while Shallan is trapped here due to her Investiture, the same does not seem to apply for those who carry Breath (Azure/Vivenna, Wit/Hoid, Zahel/Vasher). We’ve also seen other Invested items carried here to Roshar… such as the white sand. So what is it about Stormlight that’s so directly linked to Roshar? Is it just that Worldhoppers have figured out ways of transporting the others and haven’t figured this one out yet? Or is there something integral to Stormlight that makes it more resistant to inter-world travel?
A: Oh, I wish I knew! Connection is a slippery property; every time I think I start to understand it, I discover something else that proves I don’t understand it at all. I wonder… would you be able to carry Breath between worlds if it were stashed in an object, or only if you yourself are holding it? The white sand can be transported, but IIRC, that’s because it’s actually a bacteria attached to the sand that reacts to Investiture. (And I really need to think to wrap my head around that one.) I’m guessing that one of the special things about Stormlight would be that if you can get it to another world, it can be used by anyone who knows how (or has the right SDNA or whatever). I’m not quite sure how that’s different than the others, though. The thing that’s bugging me is that once it’s used, it’s used, and you’d have to go back to Roshar to reinfuse the gemstone. Are there places where Investiture is just so hard to come by that it would be worth developing this trade? I’m honestly a bit confused, but if ever there was a topic for Cosmere speculation, this is one such!
L: Not to mention… does one type of proclivity towards Investiture carry across the board? We know that allomancers need something specific (pretty sure it was a specific gene) in order to use different types of Allomancy, or Feruchemy. Could, say, someone who’s a steel-pusher be more inclined towards being able to use Stormlight like, oh, I don’t know. A windrunner could?
“Sja-anat contacted me while I was away. She agreed to your terms, and is sending one of her spren to the tower, where it will investigate your members for a possible bond.”
“Those weren’t the terms,” he said. “She was to promise me a spren to bond.”
A: Well, there’s arrogance for you, thinking you can give orders to one of the Unmade. Also, this is probably what that first quote in this section was all about: a message from Sja-anat that she would send a spren to seek a bond. I can’t help seeing a parallel here. A few chapters ago, Kaladin directed Yunfah to consider Rlain for a bond (after reading all the comments I decided that I was too hard on Kaladin, since he only ordered Yunfah to try to work with Rlain). That sounds awfully similar to this conversation: Mraize expected a spren to be ordered to bond, and Shallan says only that the spren will look at the possibility.
“I don’t need to worry about two spies then,” Shallan said. “Only the one you have watching me, the one who killed Ialai. It’s one of Adolin’s guards, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be silly. We have no interest in men such as that. They offer us nothing.”
“Who, then?”
“I cannot betray this secret,” Mraize said. “Let’s just say that Lightweavers fascinate me, and leave it at that. And you should not fear if I did keep someone close to you. Such a person could be an… aid in times of need. Iyatil did the same for me.”
A: Well, okay then. He’s certainly implying that it’s one of the Lightweavers… Is it true, or is he just trolling?
L: Honestly I always kind of look at Mraize like this anyway, so I’m continually suspicious.
“Iyatil has reported to Master Thaidakar,” Mraize said, “and he has accepted—after some initial anger—that we will not be able to control the Oathgates. I explained that there at least is a calming wind in this, like the riddens of a storm. With Dalinar controlling the Oathgates, he can prosecute the war against Odium.”
“And that helps your cause?”
“We have no interest in seeing the enemy rule this world, Shallan. Master Thaidakar wishes only to secure a method for gathering and transporting Stormlight.”
A: Ah, the mysterious Master Thaidakar. Nope, I’m not going there. (But feel free to speculate in the comments.)
L: I have my suspicions about who this is, after reading some excellent speculation on the topic. I hope it’s true, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter.
“The secret has to do with Gavilar. The old king. What was he doing?” …
“He recruited others, promising them a return to the old glories and powers. Some, like Amaram, listened because of these promises—but for the same reason were as easily lured by the enemy. Others were manipulated through their religious ideals. But Gavilar… what did he truly want?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“Immortality, in part. He thought he could become like the Heralds. In his quest, he discovered a secret. He had Voidlight before the Everstorm—he carried it from Braize, the place you call Damnation. He was testing the movement of Light between worlds. And one close to him might have answers. At any rate, we couldn’t risk Ialai or the Sons of Honor recovering these secrets.”
A: I … honestly don’t know what to say about this. Was Gavilar looking for a way to become a Cognitive Shadow like the Heralds? Or was he after some way to not die in the first place?
L: Wouldn’t be the first fictional character to turn into a villain on a search for immortality, certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“This is your mission,” Mraize said. “Find your way to Lasting Integrity. Get in, then find Restares. There should be no more than a handful of humans in the city; in fact, he might be the only one. We don’t know.”
…
“We will hold nothing back,” Mraize said. “Everything we know becomes yours after this.”
A: That’s… an interesting promise. I tend to doubt him, but I suppose we’ll see!
L: Yeah, again… I don’t trust Mraize as far as I could throw him. But I hope he’s being honest in this case, for Shallan’s sake.
What We Missed (In the Timeskip)
Considering Shallan’s Radiant duties, they’d put several trustworthy women in control of finances—their husbands overseeing police and guards. The meeting mostly involved Radiant dispensing a few decisions and Shallan auditing the accounts.
A: Just noting that the administration of a highprincedom, even in exile, involves a lot of paperwork. Apparently Adolin & Shallan have stepped into their roles, at least to the extent of putting trustworthy people in positions of authority. I’m assuming they do more than just delegate, but … delegating tasks to qualified people is definitely part of good leadership!
The Oathgates—though primarily used to quickly move troops and supplies—had another function. They had the ability to send people back and forth into Shadesmar, a usage that Dalinar’s scholars and Radiants had slowly managed to unlock during the past year.
A: Well, there we have another answer. Remember Navani saying something about going into Shadesmar via the Oathgates (ch. 9)? Yeah, that’s a thing they’ve figured out. Perhaps we’ll learn more soon.
Fabrial Technology & Spheres
Advanced fabrials are created using several different techniques. Conjoined fabrials require a careful division of the gemstone—and the spren inside. If performed correctly, the two halves will continue to behave as a single gemstone.
Note that rubies, and flamespren, are traditional for this purpose—as they have proven the easiest to divide, and the quickest in response times. Other types of spren do not split as evenly, as easily, or at all.
A: I’m still wondering how this relates to the amethysts used in the reversers, but we won’t answer that here. But why are flamespren the easiest to split evenly? I can readily believe that some gemstones are easier to divide evenly, but… what is the difference in the spren? I have a sort of vague hand-wavy notion that it might have to do with the way flames in a fire (not a lamp or candle flame, really) are constantly dividing and flickering, but I can’t even get hold of it enough to define it as a theory. Thoughts?
L: It’s easy to “divide” a flame by simply sticking in something flammable and then taking it away, to start a fire elsewhere. So I can see this. You wouldn’t be able to do that with, say, water, as water is a distinct physical mass and you can’t “create” more of it, whereas flame is a reaction and can grow. It feeds on mass rather than being mass itself, if I’m remembering my chemistry/physics correctly.
A: Oh, good point! That makes a lot of sense, and may be what my addled brain was searching for in the first place. I can pretend, anyway.
We’ll be leaving the speculation to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others!
Alice is currently enjoying a brief reprieve in the PNW autumn; it’s sunny this week. Having got through Smoke season, it’s apparently now Spider season, preparatory to The Long Dark Wet season.
Lyndsey is missing her faire family dearly. In these bylines, she’ll be giving some shout-outs to fellow local performers or vendors who could really use the support. This week, check out Hildebrand Magic, and prepare to have your mind blown (and toss him a congrats, as he got married this week!). If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.
Really nice chapter, can’t wait for full book.
Just so you guys know, DID is generally conceptualised AS a trauma disorder. Idk what’s going on with your friend and it’s really none of my business, but yeah, DID is a coping mechanism to deal with extreme trauma in very early childhood. All dissociative disorders are a response to extreme stress in general – even when it manifests in other disorders such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety. It’s your brain’s way of essentially nopeing out of a situation it feels like it can’t handle.
Treatment goals for DID vary a lot for different people. Some want to fully integrate all of their alters, others aim to increase functionality by improving communication between alters, reducing the level of amnesia experienced between alters, and decreasing distressing symptoms through trauma processing and learning coping skills.
As much as I appreciate that you guys seem to be trying, DID is an incredibly complex and stigmatised disorder, and I think you should maybe start by doing some reading to ensure you’re not spreading misinformation. There is a wealth of information available on the internet, and it won’t take long to find something.
I’m not sure if Brandon is doing himself a favor by trying so hard to have a 1:1 correlation between real world mental health disorders and what people experience on Roshar. I find it troubling that he’s trying to deal with issues that people don’t necessarily want to see cured by setting it in a magical world when a cure could, conceivably, be viable. Shallan’s DID, for instance, seems to me to only be partially based on real world DID. It feels more magical than anything. So how closely should Brandon model it on real world DID and is he doing a disservice to people that actually have DID?
If I were a fantasy author, I would steer clear of 1:1 correlations between disabilities. If magic exists and can cure stuff, I would most certainly avoid putting myself in that uncomfortable position.
What’s different about Roshar? Odium is trapped there. I Would bet money that no one else being able to carry investiture out is a side effect of odium being kept in.
my assumption on veils comment at the end is that she hopes that Shallan will face her past and be able to incorporate Her childhood memories into Shallan, so she can recognize that in spite of whatever happened to her as a child she is still worthy of love, rather Than foisting those memories onto a new persona….
This has to be a deliberate contrast to early Oathbringer Shallan dodging meetings and refusing to take notes.
I think not. I believe Mraize is completely sincere in appreciating Shallan. Yes, manipulative, but then Lin Davar doesn’t read that way to me. He was controlling, which is different. Not saying Mraize is the ideal paternal figure, but I have never seen him be demeaning to Shallan once. If anything (as Radiant points out) he constantly praises her, sincerely.
Everything below here is a SPOILER for some part of the Cosmere.
And Midias is also an allomancer, and Talaxin is a Returned. And we’ve seen at least one Elantrian and one Sand Master on Roshar. I think the idea that Invested people can’t worldhop is simply incorrect. Radiants are likely trapped because their spren can’t leave, the same way Cognitive Shadow Kelsier was stuck on Scadrial.
Gavilar had been to Braize himself?
Great chapter, loads to digest and think about. I like both @@.-@ – Odium is stuck in the Rosharan system, so Investiture sourced there cannot be moved out and @5 (no spoilers) the Nahel bond is required for Radiants to Invest, and spren can’t leave the Rosharan system.
I hope we get to learn more about the Ryshadium in this book. Wild theory: Kaladin bonds one and we end up with a Pegasus.
@3 Brandon has talked about how earlier on Shallan’s condition was more magically based, but as things went on, and especially as he started on RoW, he felt if he was going to do it he needed to do it right and shift the portrayal to more accurately reflect the actual condition, like he does with Kaladin’s depression. How successfully he’s doing that is a question I’m not able to answer.
I have 2 theories for who the Ghostblood spying on Shallan is. 1 theory is the Spy Lady that Shallan recruited who’s name i forget right now. The Ghostbloods essentially told Shallan that the woman was not a threat and not a part of the organization, but that is what they also might want Shallan to think. Other theory is that Shallan has a secret 4th personality, maybe that formless one, im not sure, but that personality is actually working working with the ghostbloods. But overall i really dont know.
I think the Stormlight not being able to go to other planets is mostly due to the general leaky quality of Stormlight in gems and people. He does indicate that perhaps with a perfect gem you would have more success. I believe what they are looking for is a more efficient battery to store Stormlight
> So what is it about Stormlight that’s so directly linked to Roshar?
I immediately assumed that this was connected to the fact that Honor bound Odium somehow to the Rosharan system, and this little info drop could indicate that either on purpose, or by consequential accident, Honor’s binding actually affectively bound all people Connected to the local Shards’ Investiture to the Rosharan system… huge connotations.
> I’m guessing that one of the special things about Stormlight would be that if you can get it to another world, it can be used by anyone who knows how (or has the right SDNA or whatever).
I’m not sure how this would work… as to properly use Stormlight you need to at least have the First Ideal, and the use of Stormlight is linked to the native spren and oaths… UNLESS somehow once Stormlight leaves the Rosharan system, it loses its bounds of usage (don’t know why that would happen though)… OR are the regulations of using Stormlight something that was done by Ishar & Co. (we know they formed the KRs, but that there were still Nahel Bonds before then, just not structured) to order the Surges and such, but originally there was no spren/oaths requirement to be able to access and use Stormlight? As opposed to many other Investitures in the Cosmere (e.g. Scadrial magic doesn’t necessarily need local metal, just the right consistency; Taldain’s & Nalthis’ Invesiture is carried with objects or people off planet and has no tie to the native land), the use of Stormlight is directly linked to specific local spren…
The Ghostbloods attempt for “power” being control of freely usable Investiture as a commodity makes a load of sense, especially with their Cosmere awareness. (I too think Mraize knows that Nalthis and Scadrial are planets and not just Shadesmar locations, but that it was easier to explain it to Shallan that way).
Otherwise, for reasons that I can only partially put my finger on, I found the read of the first half of this chapter to be very jarring at times in sentence structure and flow, as well as the narration voice… while the second half was very enjoyable and surprisingly straightforward with multiple reveals!
@8 that was my theory on who killed Ialai, one of the last things we see happen before she collapses is Shallan touching her arm to apply the lightweaving. It’s not apparently not uncommon in DID for some of the personas to be unaware of the actions of the others, or the time they spend in control. As a follow-up to my earlier comment though I don’t know enough about the actual condition to know how plausible it would be for something that quick, though Shallan’s confusion immediately after over whether or not she did it seemed to point that way to me.
It’s sad that only Kaladin and Shallan have character arcs and personal journeys.
Thought this was a great chapter. Does anyone else have guesses on who Master Thaidakar could be? I keep thinking Kelsier, but he gave up the BoM, which would probably be the one item he should keep if he was power hungry enough to lead the Ghostbloods.
@@@@@ 5 Carl; @@@@@ 6 Allinka:
I think Laura (@@@@@4) is on the right path. It has to be because of Odium. Seons – very similar to spren – can allegedly travel to other Shardworlds, so I imagine spren, whose magic isn’t location-based, can travel as well, in normal conditions. Pretty sure this revelation also explains why the Five Scholars ended up creating Nightblood, insteading of just trying to get a spren.
WOB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/58/#e736
Funny enough, now that Hoid has a spren, it’ll be interesting to see if he’s also stuck in the Rosharian system, with a more active Odium.
Alright, I have one negative comment for this week’s chapter: I was not able to read what comes next! Seriously, this was a really good chapter. The plot thickens and the background for the Shadesmar mission is taking form. At least, we know why Shallan will go. Adolin, I guess, will just tag along. I will be curious to read their dynamic through this arc since Shallan, well, often isn’t Shallan and Adolin is obviously not OK with this. I am curious to see how that will play out, Shallan will have a double mission Adolin will not know about. She worries over her brothers, I think the blow will come to Adolin. Mraize is quite clear: he does not care about Adolin, so he won’t care if he is collateral damage.
Speaking of which, yeah, DID. So I personally do not bother myself much on whether or not it is realistic, I am in for the story: so long as the denouement feels realistic for the character I am reading, I’m good. Of course, it won’t match everyone’s perception of DID nor personal experience, but so long as it matches readers’ expectations purely based on the written narrative, then I am good. I certainly do not think readers should be reading scientific articles about DID nor doing research to enjoy this series, they should be able to just enjoy and develop their expectations based on the actual words in the book. I would rather read what Alice/Lyndsey are thinking based on the textual, not based on “personal research” they felt they had to do. I am interested in readers’ reactions, not in treating the book as if it were a serious psychological essay. It is fiction. I will treat it as fiction.
What are those expectations? Well, they aren’t clear, yet. Veil wants reintegration. I interpret it this way. Shallan does not want reintegration because to do so, she will need to face this thing she still refuses to face. Hence, Shallan wants the balance to work because so long as it works, she does not have to go *there*. This is how I read it. Hence, my expectations are Shallan will have to go there and it will either completely destroy her (not a great denouement for a protagonist) or she will reintegrate all aspects of her personality.
About Adolin in this relationship… My two cents are Adolin thinks Veil/Radiant are temporary. He understands Shallan has a problem, he wants to fix it (he always thinks he can fix sick people, he did the same with drunken Dalinar), but he genuinely believes once it is fixed, the personas will be gone. He might have married Shallan knowing she had this problem, I doubt he understood how big the problem was. I do think he believed this was a problem that could be solved, hence if he tolerates Veil/Radiant, right now, he only does so because he believes the end game is reintegration.
Adolin is absolutely not on-board with a polyarmorous relationship where Veil would sleep with other people because while he treats Veil as a separate person, he knows she isn’t really. In the long run, I do think Veil will be unfaithful. Even if she isn’t, Adolin clearly is not OK with watching her leering at other people. The fact he is not OK is why I think the relationship cannot stay as it is. It isn’t fair to Adolin. It isn’t fair to him Shallan spent their wedding night being Veil of all people, so while Adolin knew, he did not know the extent of the issue. He did not know how severe it was nor did he know Shallan’s dominant personality would be Veil, the one he dislikes the most. My thoughts are if reintegration is not the endgame, Adolin will walk out of the relationship, for his own sanity. Or he will stay and be very unhappy about it. It’ll eat him on the inside until he can no longer take it. Shallan is the one he wants, not Veil nor Radiant, but Shallan. If she is not real, then he married a lie. All this is why I think it is wrong to say Adolin got married while knowing everything. He didn’t. He jumped in half-blind.
On the side note, no one else noticed this small tip bit? Adolin is riding Gallant! Looks like my wishful wish, back in OB, came true. Gallant ditched Dalinar to let Adolin ride him. I hope will see an Adolin/Gallant moment in RoW.
This is not a response to either the read-along discussion or any particular post, but something I feel I have to say in general:
Syl cannot be a proxy for Honorspren in general. Pattern cannot be a proxy for Cryptics in general. Jasnah cannot be a proxy for atheists in general. Kaladin cannot be a proxy for soldiers in general or for people with depression in general. Shallan cannot be a proxy for people with DID in general. A single person cannot be a sort of voodoo doll where any change to that person forces changes on everyone they are a proxy for, or vice versa. To insist otherwise is to deny them individuality, is to deny them the freedom to choose, is to require that everyone must perfectly fit into pre-determined boxes, is to declare that our current understanding is the only valid understanding for all time.
Putting it another way: even experts disagree. We should accept that there will inevitably be disagreements about how to treat any illness. A treatment that worked for one person will not necessarily work for another. If one person (in real life or in fiction) makes one choice it does not mean that that is the only valid choice and it is not an attack on those who made a different choice.
I’m going to go ahead and say that I completely called the Ghostbloods as an interplanetary smuggling operation looking to preserve or create a monopoly on trade out of Roshar.
@@.-@ Laura:
Yeah, there’s definitely a plausible reading that Shallan, as a personality within the larger balance, is incomplete. She had trouble keeping her own motives and desires straight in Oathbringer in a way that neither Veil nor Radiant ever seem to have, and she’s also had and having noticeable difficulties reconciling her past (generally flashback or WoK) self with her present self (from when she arrived on the Shattered Plains, loosely), whether it’s here with her very different relationship to her brothers or back in Oathbringer with her difficulties after Jasnah showed up and renewed her wardship. It also seems like it’s really only Shallan who has a problem seeing the memories that she’s blocked out; Veil clearly knows they’re there and wants Shallan to confront them. It makes me want to come up with some sort of metaphor where Shallan is constantly dropping pieces of her personality which are then picked up by Formless. Anyway, Shallan becoming “complete” would almost certainly involve her accepting her early memories of Pattern and confronting and perhaps reintegrating Formless into herself, but there’s no reason to assume that this would involve the loss of Veil or Radiant. If anything, those two seem to be acting very similar to Adolin in all of this – deeply concerned for Shallan and doing what they can to help her deal with a crisis she refuses to acknowledge.
I’m going to try and articulate why Shallan’s POVs thus far have been difficult for me to get excited about, without implicating her DID. I don’t know anyone with that disorder and can’t speak intelligently on that topic.
Okay.
Both Kaladin and Shallan are their own worst enemy in this arc. Kaladin’s battle is in active terms. He actively feels depressed. He actively fights it. True the fight is internal, but he is actively doing what I want him to do: fight the darkness. Even if he does it poorly, he is trying. Shallan’s battle is in passive terms. She cannot or will not remember her past. She cannot or will not work towards healing (whatever that looks like, she’s avoiding it). She also will not make herself worse. Creating Radiant wasn’t good for her but it was something she chose to do and it was interesting to read about. The only thing Shallan actively does is deny me what I want: to find out her past. Thus I do not like Shallan, as much, and it is not because of her DID.
Now for something completely different. Hoid didn’t seem too worried about being “imprisoned” on Roshar when he bounded a cryptic. And, I assume (haven’t read it yet) he shows up on Scadrial in Mistborn Era 2. Did he kill his cryptic to do it?
In regards to this (Spoilers for M:SH) Kaladin was able to walk on the ground as he was a cognitive shade. No one else was able to without some sort of conveyance method. Hoid was “rowing” on a man to get to the Well of Ascension. The two from Taldain were camping on a lake, since water was also inverted on Scadrial’s Cognitive Realm.
This chapter was crazy! I loved how many subtle things there were and how Mraize is just playing with her but giving her quite a few big secrets. I do think he’s got breath. I also think it’s interesting how bringing the investiture in a pure form or in the most concentrated form is difficult to do, but clearly possible as Vasher, a cognitive shadow made his way over. It’s so exciting to start to see these worlds come together and intersect more and more after so many books where it was just little hints! And as much as I love Hoid I do enjoy seeing the other worldhoppers and other people start to figure things out, and call things by their cosmere aware names like investiture. The ghostbloods have been building up for a while but it’s cool to see that come out more and more. I also think it’s interesting how Shallan hasn’t told Jasnah yet, even though with all of her illicit activities and cool logic, I think she’d be more upset that Shallan hadn’t told her than what she’d actually done. And she’d probably be able to offer some help and support!
@15 ChrisRijk
I was preparing to say something similar, but I couldn’t find the words. Thank you for your comment; you articulated it skillfully. I agree wholeheartedly.
It’s been difficult to contact her lately; I think she’s worried about how people are treating Renarin.”
Aww, Sja-Anat cares about Glys and his human! A surprisingly warm fuzzy moment for a storming Unmade.
As always Shallan is being manipulated by Mraize…
@Gepato
To enjoy? No. You’re right that readers should be able to take the text on its own merits, and Branderson has made it clear that he has put a lot of work in trying to portray the real issues present in Stormlight in a way that isn’t harmful.
There is a difference, however, between reading something for enjoyment’s sake and discussing it on a small scale, and commenting on what is and isn’t healthy for someone with DID and what recovery should look like, in the one place that pretty much every cosmere fan gets to see. Doing so without a minimum amount of very basic knowledge (seriously just asking them to Google DID and spend 30 minutes reading is not that big of a deal, especially in a fandom based around 1000 page books with a reputation for complex worldbuilding and theorising) is irresponsible and undoes a lot of the hard work Branderson’s clearly put into making sure this book is as respectful as possible to a real and incredibly marginalised group of people.
@18 Vexis – good catch about M:SH! (white text): Cognitive Realm does work similarly in that the land is equivalently reversed with water being solid ground and land being flowing matter that requires a boat-type thing to travel <-
I notice that in the moment Shallan ceded control to Veil, her colour perception became less fine. Shallan could identify the particular shade of red she was looking at, but to Veil it was just…red.
That could just be a way for Brandon to distinguish between the two personalities – Shallan’s an artist, and Veil isn’t. But could it mean that Shallan has…enough Breath to reach the third heightening and Veil somehow doesn’t? I wonder how Identity would work with an individual with DID. Would each personality have their own spiritual identity?
I’m kind of surprised that after that long discussion of trying harder to understand DID and what a healthy life might look like with the condition, our commentators unquestioningly interpret Veil’s comments as meaning Shallan has to resolve all her issues and become a whole, single person in order to be healthy.
I’m not saying that’s definitely a bad thing that no one would want to happen under any circumstances, but this feels like a situation when it’s really important to consider alternative interpretations. It seems to me that equally likely that, like many other characters in the book, Veil is motivated by concern for Shallan – perhaps more pointedly, since Veil’s own safety depends on Shallan’s decision-making! Shallan dealing with the trauma of her past would make life easier for Veil, because she could rely on Shallan more!
I think it’s important to note that Shallan doesn’t actually have DID. She’s got hell of trauma, and she certainly had suppressed memories, but the personas she has created have much more to do with her Lightweaving than any real world mental health issues.
Also, all that Cosmere knowledge made me squee.
Mraize definitely has enough of a heightening for lifesense. Which is interesting in and of itself, since we mostly saw Awakening explored in Warbreaker. But of course being able to sense life would be ideal for a hunter.
For Breaths being transported, I think it’s most likely that they’re Connected to the person rather than the land. Consider the shard, Endowment, and the Command is ‘My Breath to yours’. This, incidentally, is yet another reason Nalthis needs to be heavily fortified. Because once the Cosmere goes interplanetary someone is going to want to start harvesting the natives in bulk. Whether Endowment would interfere is a question of course, but I’m sure there are loopholes. Shards are pretty inhumane at times.
For transporting the sand from Taldain, I bet they just carry the sand when it’s discharged. Then they leave it out in a storm like spheres. Boom, done. Though if I were them I would be doing lots of experiments to see if I could start growing that stuff on sand that wasn’t native to Taldain, it’s interestingly weird.
If you had Stormlight on Scardriel I REALLY want to know if you could do your allomancy without any metal at all. I bet you could. I’m also sure you could all kinds of weird stuff with Feruchemy.
I wonder if Kandra are too Invested to leave Scadriel.
In any case, there are tricks with Feruchemy that let you store Connection. They would be able to leave without a hitch, and be able to blend into their destination world besides. I assume Elantrians have a way to replicate that, and Forgers of course can do all KINDS of things to their Connection and Identity IFF they’re on the right part of Sel. And there’s the catch 22 isn’t it.
Actually, I do know how to get someone unbound from a particular world. Hemalurgy, steal someone’s Connection. If you know the right metal and bind point… that’s definitely a One Weird Trick that would be of staggering value in the Cosmere. Especially if a Forger could do something really strange and actually use it to nail IN their connection to Sel… don’t know if it would work, but it’s worth a shot.
Gepeto, Adolin rode Gallant in Words of Radiance. The hourse doesn’t belong to him.
The more we learn about Shalan’s childhood, the more I feel anger and frustration over what was done to her. We know spren bound with people who are “broken.” If Pattern was with Shalan when she was a young child, she must have suffered a trauma that allowed Pattern and her to bond. I think she was killing or abusing animals, critters, maybe even people, after her initial trauma using Pattern. And her mother tries to kill Shalan when she discovers this behavior. This is the only thing I can think of that could be more traumatic and something Shalan doesn’t “want to be the person who had done those things.” Adolin already knows that Shalan killed her parents, which are justified in a way. What other thing could be so horrible that Shalan thinks make her unlovable.
Shalan doesn’t know, however, that this behavior was likely magically enhanced similar to what was happening to Balat (WOB: “What’s happening to Nan Balat is magically enhanced.”)
It also ties into Shalan’s memories following the death of her mother that Shalan is aware that her father should be hitting her and being angry at her over the death of her mother. I wonder if the initial trauma was caused by her father, and the reason that the father does not target her for mother’s death is his guilt over what he had done to her.
@6, Allinka:
You just made me think of something: have we seen a Ryshadium bond a non-lighteyes?
@9, John:
Mraize specifically says the problem is not with leakiness, because perfect gems do not leak.
@10, bridge4kufer:
SPOILER: By this time in the Cosmere, all the Shards seem to be bound to planets with the exception of maybe Autonomy. Anyway, why would Odium being bound restrict Honor’s investiture (Stormlight)?
No, you don’t. Kaladin used Stormlight without swearing any oaths at all (as someone pointed out to me in a previous comment thread). So did Gaz, for that matter.
Well, to spren, it seems, except for the times it is not (like that healing fabrial).
@12, Trell:
I suggest making that judgment when you’re more than, say, 7% of the way through the book. Even in the bits we have read, Navani and Venli have had serious development, by the way.
@13, Keyblazing:
I also thought of Kelsier.
That same WoB says spren can travel off-world. (See spoiler below for proof.)
@ChrisRijk: well said.
Right now, I have no idea what other, even worse, trauma Shallan is hiding than killing both of her parents. It almost feels like it’s going into comedic territory, ala Billy Mays infomercials “But wait, there’s more!”
@23 Mmmmm.Chris @15 said it better than I could say it. We are reading fantasy, not a psychological essay. Shallan does not have to be a proxy towards all real-life individuals suffering from DID. In fact, she does not have to be a proxy towards anyone since her issues are so entangled with magic, it is hard to get what is real and is induced by her powers.
So the bottom line is, we are reading fantasy. Fiction. It does not have to follow the great lines of readily available articles on the Internet and I would prefer if readers did not improvise themselves psychiatrists based on a few readings. I much prefer reading what readers think based on the textual, based on what they read out of it, not based on how they perceive it has to happen because they interpreted some google researches as hard facts thinking their interpretation is the right one without having the actual pedigree to make such statements. I would honestly prefer if “online articles” stayed out of the discussion because none of us actually is a trained psychiatrist: we are not qualified to discuss what is the treatment for DID, what is the end goal, and how does it usually plays out.
Also, let’s not forget Brandon Sanderson is an author, not a doctor nor a psychiatrist. He has no medical background. What he writes is for entertainment purposes and it should not be taken as anything more than that. It should not be used as validation for a treatment for any illnesses and individuals having those issues should seek professional help: not the opinion of a fantasy author. No one should seek treatment in a fantasy book.
So let’s focus on the story right now and what it is telling us. So far, it seems to be telling us the goal seems to be reintegration. It may not end up as straightforward as this, but the current status cannot stay because it is not working.
@27 Danny. Adolin only wore Gallant because Dalinar negotiated with Gallant to let Adolin ride. He said the experience was odd and Gallant would kick in out the moment he smelled danger.
Rhysadium have only one rider: so Gallant allowing Adoion to ride him, on his own volition, is a Big Deal. It means Gallant might have chosen Adolin as his new rider, no longer Dalinar.
@31 Gepeto – 100% agree. Well said.
In my last post on the previous chapter I’d written out some speculation for upcoming chapters:
https://www.tor.com/2020/09/22/rhythm-of-war-read-along-discussion-chapter-twelve/comment-page-3/#comment-884932
So I was rather amused to see that all invalidated in the very next chapter. Well, that just means I have whole new things to speculate on! Great chapter.
I’d gotten some interesting vibes from RoW in terms of Shallan’s possible character growth – it reminded me of WoR. The conversation between Shallan and Mraize was certainly an interesting reminder of their conversations in WoR, but I guess that instead of Shallan making incremental steps forwards for most of the book like in WoR, instead it’s going to be something rather different. I’m not sure what yet.
I had thought it’d be nice to see some initial conflict in RoW between Shallan and the Ghostbloods and for that to then escalate into a bigger conflict in book 5. At the very least, I felt that we were overdue getting some tangible developments for the Ghostbloods’ story. We’ve gotten some at least, with a fairly strong indication that there’ll be more by the end of the book – Restares and the spren Sja-anat will send. Side thought – given that we see Sja-anat contact Shallan by spanreed is it possible that Sja-anat was the one who contacted Navani in chapter 9?
I find it fascinating that Veil and Radiant seem keener for Shallan to fix her problems than Shallan herself is. I don’t think I would have ever guessed that. Shallan is basically taking the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” angle. Veil and Radiant both see someone broken or someone that is about to break. I’d say that Shallan’s fundamental problem is she hates herself / can’t love herself / feels that she doesn’t deserve love. Putting it another way, just about any persona would be better than herself, in her own opinion. We still don’t have any solid information on the original cause of all this. I’m not sure I’d trust Shallan’s self evaluation on how others would react to her if they found out about this original cause – she does come across as a bit paranoid regarding others leaving her. She might be right but given this is about an incident from her childhood, that could simply be the perspective/feelings of a child.
Mraize opens up a bit and gives us a lot to speculate about. I’ll probably need to re-read this a few times to understand it better but it’s almost like when he’s saying “power” he actually means “energy” as in magical energy. It’s like the Ghostbloods have the noble aim to create a way to transport and exchange magical energy (Stormlight specifically) between worlds. Energy merchants, basically. Surely something that would benefit all if done openly and honestly. But that very much doesn’t seem like their style. They certainly aren’t interested in sharing with others in general – hence their attempts to remove the Sons of Honor and Jasnah.
Looks like the trip to Lasting Integrity will start when Dalinar brings up the problem of no new Honorspren coming to bond – if he’s talking about it with Kaladin he’s likely to talk about it in any general meetings. Shallan could then propose a diplomatic mission to Lasting Integrity, somewhat through gritted teeth.
PS Forgot to add: Shallan switching her hair colour around reminds me of Siri from certain chapters in Warbreaker. Leaking a bit too much information perhaps?
@31 Gepeto: I don’t wholly disagree with you, but Brandon has said he’s trying to depict real life DID (or real life DID if you could magically change your appearance) , and as such, has invited us to judge him on the extent to which we degree he has.
i assumed the reasons Radiants are bound to the rosharan system are because they are bound tontheir spren, and the spren can’t leave…
@@@@@ 26 Darkstarling:
If Shallan could ever learn to Forge, that would be a very interesting proposition.
@@@@@ 29 Carl:
Yes, but I meant currently. Hoid would clearly have some idea if there was any “natural” restriction to having a spren. He did try to become an Elantrian and that’s more “locked” than not.
SPOILER: Regarding bridge4kufer’s point: Ruin and Preservations pact had a similar effect. The specific ways that their investiture was released is a direct effect of their agreement.
Since no one has mentioned it yet, I recall that Vasher indicated that one of the reasons he settled on Roshar was the fact that the planet has so much free investiture, which he can use to feed his Returned state without requiring breaths. This demonstrates a clear arbitrage that the Ghostbloods will be able to make money off of as soon as they figure out a way to get Stormlight off Roshar, though exploiting the arbitrage will probably be complicated for a while since it is caught up in the local religion. It would at least be attractive to the Idran offshoots as a way to keep their Returned alive for a while instead of requiring them to die in a week.
@34 (and others)… Or (and call me crazy if you want), we can buck the general trend that everything that is written must validate and check with all of the nuance of our crises and instead, we could consider that Sanderson is not a master psychologist with decades of experience, that he is not intimately versed in all of the intricate details of psychological disorders, and he doesn’t have to be.
I mean, if you want to judge authors and creators according to just how well-versed they are in the latest academic literature on a given subject, that’s your prerogative. I’m just happy to get an interesting character in a fascinating world in a gripping plot. I don’t need to let it keep me up at night that my favorite author got something wrong, or that someone on the internet got something wrong, about a real-world situation or circumstance. C.S. Lewis depicted Mars all wrong, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying his imaginative book on the subject. Tolkien depicts aborigines in an unflattering way, but I would still consider The Return of the King a landmark work in fantastic literature.
There’s little merit to be had in making reading fantasy and science fiction an excruciating exercise in assessing the proficiency of authors in validating the academic literature of the ‘real’. I don’t read fiction to do that; I read it to enjoy the fiction. I don’t consider it irresponsible for authors to attempt to write about challenging things and get it wrong. I think it’s commendable that they try at all.
Concerning worldhopping – being invested, I think the difference is in whether or not the investiture is inside you or outside…
I.E. Vasher, nighblood, Vivena, their investiture is stored inside their bodies… and part and parcel of themselves…
The knights aren’t able to be invested without the bond and the spren… like the spren act as an anchor, keeping them tied to Roshar…
I’m not positive this is right, but it’s how i envisioned it.
@34 xander. For all he says he is attempting to do, Brandon Sanderson has no medical background. He is not a medical authority. I do not believe individuals can substitute a Ph.D. in psychiatry with a few readings on the Internet and a few interviews with a handful of pre-selected people. I certainly do not think Brandon Sanderson thinks he is a medical authority nor that his work should be used as a medical authority on any aspect.
Sure, Sanderson is trying to depict a character that would read as accurate and realistic, all good authors try to do the same. There is however a world between stating Shallan reads like a real individual with an issue other real people could have and saying Shallan is a representation for this specific mental illness and should be used as a scientific example of how things are/should be for individuals with DID.
By all means, Shallan remains a fictional character evolving in a work of fiction. She has a problem causing specific issues some real-life people might have. The author is trying to write this as realistically as possible, but that’s it.
SA is not a psychological essay and it should be read under this lense. It will not be accurate over everything nor does it have to be. It certainly won’t correlate with everyone’s experience with this specific issue nor does it have to. It isn’t trying to offer a treatment nor is it meant to suggest one or even imply anything: it is pure fiction and Sanderson is not a psychiatrist.
All of those reasons are why I think we should not treat SA as if it were a psychological essay nor Sanderson as if he actually were the ability to pose medical diagnostic. He writes a story. He wants Shallan’s character to be better written, less confusing, and to write like a more realistic individual than in OB. That’s a great goal, but that’s all there is to it and that’s more than enough for me.
@39 Cosmere. I agree. Let’s not give Sanderson qualifications he does not have. He wouldn’t want us to anyway.
@31 Gepeto
I think you’ve misunderstood my point. I’m not saying Shallan should be a proxy for all DID sufferers – I am thoroughly in agreement with the fact that she is one individual and it isn’t possible to perfectly represent the experiences of an entire group of people with a single character. Nor am I saying that authors are proffessional psychiatrists, or that readers should treat works of fiction as self help books.
What I AM saying, is that if someone is going to publish an article discussing the depiction of a character who canonically has a serious and highly stigmatised mental illness in a novel, they should at least have done enough very basic background research to know that it’s caused by childhood trauma. By all means talk about Shallan and her character arc in general, but it’s important to have at least a very basic understanding of the subject matter if you’re going to specifically be talking about her journey with regards to her DID.
@39 – Again, it’s because Sanderson has said “I’m trying to depict to a sensitive real life thing in the best way I can”. That sort of invites a reader to think about…if he has?
In your examples…I don’t think CS Lewis was *trying* to depict a scientifically accurate Mars, and besides, there are no real life Martian readers on whom his writing could have any impact.
It probably is worth looking at Tolkien and race, because…there are issues there. It’s possible to believe that Tolkien wasn’t ‘a racist’ in the sense of agitating for people of different ethnicities to him to be disadvantaged in some way, but he grew up in times that were, in ways, more overtly racist than these ones and that seems to be reflected in his work. It’s good to be aware of that so that when you’re enjoying what I agree is a landmark work in fantastic literature, you’re not accidentally sucking those racist tropes and making them part of you.
It is possible to enjoy books *and* think about how they relate to the real world. Some books can contain tropes that reinforce real life judgements and prejudices. You can talk about that, identify them, say they’re not great and still enjoy the book. You can think. It’s allowed. It’s still fun.
@42 – I think what Gepeto’s point is, is that they shouldn’t be discussing Shallan’s DID in a real world way. Rather, just discuss based on what is actually in the text. This is magical DID, so doing research and trying to bring that into the discussion just muddies the water. We should all just discuss her condition based on what’s in the text of this fictional book set in a magical world.
Im starting to believe with the chapter epigraphs that the warning Navani received was on the judicious use of splitting gemstones and spren to create the air ship, and that their proximity and size creates something really nasty on the shadesmar side of things. The direction of the epigraphs just gives me a feeling that fabrial science might have some icky pollutants that need to be figured out/ done the right way……..
@43 Xander, forgive me if I do not find it ‘fun’ to gripe, complain, and criticize others for not meeting my arbitrary expectations. I would be hard-pressed to call that ‘thinking,’ even.
I think most of these concerns would be alleviated if we took our fantasy worlds with a Hefty Grain of Salt that these are fantastic settings, that there is magic involved, and that the authors do not magically turn into experts on subjects just because they write about them.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried being a writer. I would not find it particularly amenable to that pursuit to add to it the pressure of being a reliable and well-read expert on every subject matter that I choose to write about. Some readers–especially of epic fantasy–seem to assume that writing big books means that you have an encyclopedic knowledge about every subject of the sun: economics, class, morality, philosophy, geology, engineering, architecture, culture, aesthetics, politics. Also that you can juggle all of those things perfectly. Also (apparently) that you can do so in a way that does not challenge the latest cultural trend of ‘validating others.’
Good gravy. Back off a little and cut the man some slack.
@46 CosmereFan
Thank you for so eloquently stating what I have been thinking throughout this entire discussion.
With all of the fabrial information that we are learning it would not be surprising to find out that a fabrial could be used to help transport a filled gemstone through shadesmar in a fabrial made like aluminum container…maybe not unlike NightBlood’s sheath ?
Maybe an aluminum ‘coffin’ could be made to get a radiant out.
Stepping in with a reminder to keep the tone of your comments civil and be constructive in your criticism and disagreements. The goal here is to exchange ideas and opinions, so please be aware of our moderation guidelines and keep them in mind.
@49 Certainly, I apologize if my responses were getting out of line.
Personally I like understanding things better. When we talk Kaladin using gravitation in his lashings, it provides depth, and greater understanding to look up how gravitation functions. Same thing with light. There are even more examples across Brandon’s other books that I don’t have the time to reference and white out in accordance with spoilers. My point is, Brandon tries to keep his books as grounded in reality as possible, so his readers can understand, and learn about it better. That is why his magic systems and world building is the best there is in my opinion. So when the writer says he is portraying a character with as accurate as possible DID, doing research, as well as speaking with someone with it, then I think we can learn, and gain deeper understanding of the character through the lens of real life. So for myself at least, I think voluntarily reading up on DID only serves to enhance the story. not diminish it.
@46Cosmerefan. I find it interesting that this actually started as someone mentioning to one of Tor’s readers that they’d got a detail wrong about real life DID and it would probably be worth reading up on it if they were going to discuss it in the comments.
As it’s a real life condition that affects people significantly, and they can be caused real harm or upset but people whose understanding of the condition is based on flawed representations in the media, *and* our chief readers have, in this week’s read-along literally undertaken to do better at their discussions of this mental health condition, it doesn’t seem out of place to pick up a point where their understanding is flawed and suggest a little more reading. Does it?
On the wider point of how we should read fantasy books…again, interesting that you’re only able to think of that as “to gripe, complain, and criticize”. That it’s an inherently negative thing, and that it’s impossible to even notice a way in which you disagree with the writer without that ruining the whole work is an assumption you’re bringing to the table.
Fantasy authors *do* deal in fantastic settings, but authors are real people? No book appears in the world by some kind of divine grace. Everything is coloured by a writer’s opinions and knowledge, and we can pick up on that stuff and it can reinforce (or make us question) our own unconscious biases and prejudices. That’s one of the reasons why literature is so powerful and worthwhile? And why it’s worth engaging with in exactly the kind of deep, constructive way that we tend to in these comments.
You come back a lot to the question of accuracy – but not all subjects are equal in that regard. Inaccurate engineering in a fantasy might harm our sense of immersion but isn’t likely to have a real world impact, precisely because architects work from a long education, not The Malazan Book of the Fallen. Thoughtless or incorrect depictions of mental illness, or depictions of what good, evil or untrustworthy people look like might actually change our behaviour, in the aggregate, in the long term so it’s worth thinking about.
Tolkien himself, to go back to the Lord of the Rings, was racked with the difficulties of how to depict evil in his work. He needed Sauron to have evil armies at his command, and used the orcs for that, but was also never happy with the idea that a race could be inherently evil. He kept reapproaching the idea, trying to find a way for orcs to be overwhelmingly evil in a way that was consistent with his own beliefs and principles, and as far as I know, he died without ever quite cracking it. Brandon Sanderson has taken on the project of writing an epic fantasy book with a broad cast of what you might collectively name neuro-diverse characters, or those suffering from mental health issues. *Authors* think about this stuff! It’s not hostile or inconsistent with having a good time to also think about it.
The plot thickens. Of course Mraize knows that Nalthis and Scadrial are worlds – there is a WoB that he visited other worlds and Nalthis is the easiest one to get to. Not to mention his “chicken”, that given his personality he must have obtained personally. Perhaps acquiring the scars in the process? He surely has some Breath, but he also must have other powers, given that he worms his way into people’s confidence so easily, despite not being all that good an actor, according to Shallan.
I am rather uneasy about her providing Mraize with a corrupted spren – as seen with Renarin, bonding one would allow him to open the Oathgates and then he won’t need Shallan anymore. Hopefully the spren rejects him. Oh, yes, and Sja-Anat is now a very likely candidate for Navani’s secret correspondent. T
I don’t have a high opinion of the Ghostbloods initial plan as presented here. How did they expect to operate the Oathgates without a Radiant or to make them open into Shadesmar without the significant effort mustered by Dalinar during the gap year. For that matter, I expect that Dalinar’s own status of being “Honor’s heir” played a vital role. Hm… maybe they were aware of little Shallan’s Radiancy and that’s why they backed Lin Davar? So they thought that they only needed to find Urithiru? But surely someone must have spoken to the Oathgate spren and learned that the Oathgates had been sealed by Honor against travel to Shadesmar?
I wonder why he is so fixated on perfect gems for transportation of stormlight, when an airtight aluminum container would work just as well? In fact, shouldn’t it solve the problem of stormlight getting “heavier”, as it seems to insulate Connection? I.e. like it is used to diconnect gems moving the airship without interrupting the movement itself? Could this be the secret of transporting the spren off-world too? It is probably too simple, but it may be part of the answer.
So could the honorsprens refusal to bond have something to do with Restares? Who is not the only human in Lasting Integrity, because Azure surely must be trapped there too.
Nice to see Adolin remembering Gallant, while Dalinar is distracted by other things. Speaking of a spy close to Dalinar, I suspect Highprince Hatham, who has a trusted ardent which is clearly a worldhopper. Said ardent made a very odd ouverture to Dalinar back in WoK, that seemed very much like a Ghostblood recruitment spiel. I don’t believe Mraize that his spy and whoever killed Ialai – if she was indeed murdered, are the same person.
@@@@@ 46 Cosmere,
I think you’re a little harsh on xanderwatts here. I get the gist of what you are saying, but he’s not wrong either. While certain depictions should be taken with a grain of salt, as you said, that doesn’t mean that’s it’s terrible to bring them up. We’ve had maybe 6 or 7 comments on DID since the reread started. On the other hand, we’ve had constant remarks about character flaws and where the story should be going. This is a trickle – and a tougher subject – compared to that barrage. So yes, give them some slack, but this is really mild compared to other stuff. (Even if it reads a little like an attack on Alice and Lyn, unfortunately. I do commend that they put so much thought into their response, as opposed to not addressing it at all)
Secondly, he isn’t wrong with his example about Tolkien and race. I mean J.K Rowling is also a clear retrospective example.
@46 Cosmerefan.
I have tried being a writer a bit, by the way. I’ve written short stories for my own pleasure, and then turned them into a stand up show I performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2015. I didn’t find I was weighed down by the need to be perfectly correct about everything I wrote about, just tried to…be decent. To not have easy targets and cheap punchlines. It seemed to work out alright.
Well,I guess we know where Kaladin is taking a ”Vacation”. Syl is most likely the one to get them into that Honor city. Pretty sure Mraize is talking to Shallans 4th personality when he says you’ll know what to do once you find him.
@51 – Fantasy books are not meant to educate, though. In fact, that could do more harm than good, as the purpose of any knowledge portrayed is to further the story. Shallan’s DID, in particular, is concerning because it is NOT real world DID. For one thing, Shallan is in partnership with her other personas. She is consciously aware of what is happening and call up her personas at will. This is NOTHING like real world DID. Real DID people have no memory of what transpired when another personality was in control. They do not call up the other personalities at will (at least, not in the effortless way that Shallan bleeds into another persona). So, if you think Brandon is educating you on DID, then that is concerning. You can’t read fiction books set in magical worlds and expect to be properly educated on topics that are influenced by the worlds in which they happen.
There’s a lot to digest in this chapter, and I think most of the earlier comments have covered the big parts, so I’ll just give a bit of Insight/scientific speculation on the white sand bacteria question instead. Obviously, some cosmere spoilers and a lot of molecular biology ahead.
Autonomy’s investiture seems to be directly transferred through ultraviolet light. Numerous bacteria and archaea species photosynthesize, and many others require light for similar reactions to live.
The bacterial species present on Dayside likely possesses some form of a photosynthetic metabolism, but generates an invested form of sugar, or similar energy storing substance, which produces a light spectrum as it is consumed. This sugar is burned (and likely the poor little bacteria colonies with it) leaving behind black sand. As the area repopulates over the next few hours, the new colonies will produce more of the white sugar, and the same turns grey, and eventually white again.
There is another option which involves a bit of metal chemistry that is also quite possible, but I think the pseudo-photosynthetic version is more likely. This kind of cyanobacterial photosynthesis sustains most of the life in the ocean on Earth, and is theorised to be common throughout our known universe on planets that can sustain life.
Good luck on your bio exams! :P
@44 Branderson has explicitly said she is supposed to have actual DID, Lyndsey and Alice explicitly talked about real life DID. It’s not intended to be ‘magical DID’, it would be fine if it was, but it isn’t. It’s ‘person with DID gets magic powers’, the same way Kaladin is supposed to be ‘person with depression and ptsd gets magic powers’. Personally I’m finding watching the way their illnesses interact with their magic and more fantastical elements of the world, and how magic responds to mental illness, to be incredibly engaging, and I’m very glad that it’s being written the way it is. I for one am incredibly sick of the cop-out ‘magic makes you crazy’ plotline that is used more often than not to give writers an excuse to write ‘edgy’ characters without actually having to put the work in. I’m grateful to Brandon for doing this the way he has, and I think it makes for a much more interesting exploration of the themes he seems to be going for. That work is, however, ruined, when professional articles perpetuate misinformation because of a lack of VERY basic fact checking. Like, seriously, this could’ve been fixed with a google search. Or by just not saying anything at all.
@46 Branderson himself has said he wants to get this particular topic right, and even in his lectures, he tells students that, where subject matter has the potential to harm real people, it’s important to do your research. There is a difference between geology and something that real human people have to go through. It is well accepted within most writing communities that, when you’re writing about sensitive topics like mental illness, it’s vitally important to do your research to avoid accidentally perpetuating harmful myths and stereotypes. Particularly when it comes to something like people with DID, who the media frequently likes to portray as being ‘unstable’ or ‘dangerous’. I think Branderson’s efforts to portray characters with mental illnesses not just as ‘not evil’, but as some of the most heroic characters in the books, is incredibly refreshing.
@Gepato, I completely agree with you. We need to enjoy this as a fantasy book. Trying to diagnose and cure any disorder without us having the background is pointless. Though this series has a lot of personal development arcs and mental disorders with main characters, we have to take this as a part of fictional story.
Anyway, I always relate more with Kaladin and Dalinar than Shallan. Chapters of Shallan usually makes me wander off . I would love to see how interesting I will find the new story arcs ( Venli and Gavilar?). But, I doubt I will relate to them more than kaladin and dalinar. Their story arcs moved me like never before.
This Chaper did give a lot of info on cosmere. That part I liked.
@57 Austin
I am not sure where I wrote that Sanderson’s book is educating me. I said if the author says they are going to try and portray something as close to the actual thing as possible, then my innate curiosity and love of understanding, results in me going out to understand the topic better. I do this for just about everything. Which is why I used to gravitation and light example. It causes me to learn something new. Just like memory loss can be a component of dissociation, but not necessarily the identity component. Alters can and do share information. I find learning interesting. I have no intention of using Brandon’s novels as “how to” books, but if he brings up subject matter that he states he is trying to get right, then out of curiosity, I am going to look it up to learn more. Just how I am. I really don’t see how that causes problems. If anything it only results in further informing.
At the end of the day, everyone can certainly have their own opinion and likes and dislikes on a subject matter, but if an author states he or she is going to try and get as accurate a real retelling of a condition as they can, then when discussing said character, the traits of the very real condition I think should be on the table to better understand the character.
But at the end of the day to each their own. I am enjoying the book and where it is going, so no sweat off my back.
@52 and @54, I subscribe in many ways to ‘the death of the author’–or, in other words, the separation of the author from their work. I recognize that there is a large contingent of consumers who believe in conscientious consumption, or that their choice of where to spend their money is a moral decision. Buy organic, purchase ethical products, and invest in artists who align with your moral convictions.
I don’t really go for that. Everyone has different beliefs, and experiencing books or other media from people who have different beliefs or values than you is not just normal–it is inevitable. Because, really, at the end of the day, authors are individuals. They may have a larger cultural footprint than many, but they are still individuals. The problem with Rowling is not her individual transphobia, but rather the transphobia of the many, many others who she resembles. Boycotting Rowling’s products is not going to stop those many others who are aligned with her views. Indeed, boycotting her products will likely cause those others to deepen their resolve to hold onto their values.
Anyway: back to Sanderson. I don’t think it matters if Sanderson, himself, misrepresents DID in a fantastical setting. I think it’s inevitable for a non-expert like himself to fall short in some way. I don’t think it reflects worse on him as an author to have gotten it wrong; I don’t think that an inaccurate media depiction is particularly problematic. I think (emphasis on *I* think) this is because Sanderson himself isn’t really the important thing. He is not ‘speaking through’ Shallan. He’s made it pretty clear in his commentary that he does not write books in order to preach values or ideas.
The problematic thing, itself, is the wider cultural and societal position on those who struggle with DID. In this instance–The Stormlight Archive–I don’t think that the books are going to be a very useful piece of media for addressing this issue. In part because Shallan/Veil/Radiant’s journey is so fantastic in nature. If you want a book or a series that is going to do that, you will probably need to look elsewhere. It is probably not going to happen here.
Hmmm, how’s this for an example? Lightweavers manipulate Light. If I google about light, I find out light has mass, and how it can be focused into lasers. Someone then theorizes that lightweavers can shoot lasers. Guess what? They can! We have not seen that on screen, and we may never see it on screen, but that is a really cool idea to me. I like imagining how that could happen and be used. And that all came from being curious about how light works because it was used in Brandon’s books. Same stands for DID with me.
I love all the discussion! I wish I could interact with each one, but that’s impossible with this volume. Which is probably a good thing… :D I do want to address a few things, though.
Mmmm @2 – “As much as I appreciate that you guys seem to be trying, DID is an incredibly complex and stigmatised disorder, and I think you should maybe start by doing some reading to ensure you’re not spreading misinformation.”
Um, nope. I’ll agree with you on DID being an incredibly complex disorder; that given, there’s no way we can become sufficiently knowledgeable on the subject to present comprehensive information about the real-life condition. We’re not professional therapists, and our task here is not to pretend to know more than we do about complex mental issues. As noted in the post, we know we aren’t experts on real-life DID. Also as noted in the post, Shallan does not have a standard case of real-life DID; she has a magically-triggered trauma-induced coping mechanism of intentional amnesia, which has since grown into the development of multiple personalities which she can turn into people with completely different physical characteristics. That’s not real life DID, though it bears some resemblance to some cases.
We’ll do our best to be sensitive to readers who have, or have loved ones with, DID; in turn, those people are also going to have to accept that we are not omniscient and cannot possibly understand, much less address, every existing permutation of a complex issue. But beyond that, no, I won’t be doing extensive research on DID. I have no desire to become an amateur shrink who thinks that because she read something on the internet, she knows all about mental health. Professional therapy is beyond my capacity, and IMO pretense would be insulting. My job here is to talk about Shallan: what we know of her past, what we see in her mind, what others observe about her, and how that fits in the story.
Carl @5 – Out of curiosity, who is propounding “the idea that Invested people can’t worldhop”? Obviously it’s incorrect, because we know several who can.
Allinka @6 – I personally don’t think Gavilar has been to Braize. I’m not sure he’d be capable of surviving there; it’s not a very hospitable place. Whether Mraize believes Gavilar went there in person, or just that he had a means of moving Voidlight from one planet to another, is a matter of interpretation.
bridge4kufer @10 – “I found the read of the first half of this chapter to be very jarring at times in sentence structure and flow, as well as the narration voice” – That’s a fascinating observation. I hadn’t really thought about it (at least not this time around; not sure about the first read), but I wonder if that’s deliberate on Sanderson’s part. Shallan’s mind is a somewhat bizarre place right now, and it may well be that we’re supposed to be made uncomfortable by her introspective moments. I’ll have to watch for this now.
Gepeto @14 – “…not in treating the book as if it were a serious psychological essay. … Veil wants reintegration. … Shallan does not want reintegration because to do so, she will need to face this thing she still refuses to face. Hence, Shallan wants the balance to work because so long as it works, she does not have to go *there*.
Exactly. (Sorry for eliding so much.) I think this is eminently clear from the text, and I think it’s a mistake for us to expect Shallan’s experience to perfectly reflect RL DID – as if there were only one way for that to play out, in any case. (No comment on the rest of the speculation…! we’ll discuss it when November rolls around.)
One question, though… Where did this come from: “It isn’t fair to him Shallan spent their wedding night being Veil of all people.” I don’t recall that.
ChrisRijk @15 – “ A single person cannot be a sort of voodoo doll where any change to that person forces changes on everyone they are a proxy for, or vice versa.” (and all the rest)
Thank you. This happens way too much in fandom. Sometimes, it’s people seeking validation of their own experience through representation in a work of fiction. Sometimes it’s a demand that a character represent all possible aspects of one part of their identity. I’ve seen this come up in dozens of different contexts, dozens of different identifications… and it’s always a mistake. Not only would it be impossible for a single character to adequately portray the myriad experiences of the readers, it would destroy them as a valid character and make them useless to the story.
Vexis @18 – Fair point. We only saw the CS form walking on the land. So… yeah, maybe living people can’t walk in/on the mist any more than they can the beads.
xanderwatts @25 – “I’m kind of surprised that after that long discussion of trying harder to understand DID and what a healthy life might look like with the condition, our commentators unquestioningly interpret Veil’s comments as meaning Shallan has to resolve all her issues and become a whole, single person in order to be healthy.”
We can only say what we see, and as I said above, I’m not going to go “armchair shrink” and try to figure out all the permutations of what a RL person might want in this situation. To me, it’s clear that Veil wants Shallan to resolve her issues; to someone else, that might read differently. That’s why we have comments and discussions.
@many – WoB is that a highly Invested being will find it difficult to leave their world… but difficult is not the same as impossible. :P
Also, here’s something that just occurred to me… Is Breath the only Investiture in the Cosmere that gives you life sense? Are there other forms, or other magic systems, that with sufficient Investiture of any kind will give the same sense? Not entirely sure what I’m asking here, obviously, but it’s food for thought.
I’m really interested to know what’s the current speculation about Thaidakar! (Please send link)
About Mraize, we shouldn’t take anything he says for granted right? It all depends on what Shallan will ‘find out’ when she meets Restares. It’s probably a trap for all we know. They certainly don’t seem morally confined by anything when they kill anyone that steps in their way.
Also, Gavilar wanting to become immortal doesn’t add up with Stormfather sending him visions; that’s not proto Bondsmith potential. It seems more likely that he would want to capture Unmade and send them back to Braize maybe?
And since its not possible to carry Investiture out of Roshar, maybe having it invested into a person is the best way to carry it out? People like the Radiants who are the only ones that bond spren?
Maybe the Ghostbloods actually want to manipulate Shallan into getting at the right spot on the right time. Her hidden persona could be the reason they picked her.
Think about it. Mraize has known about her inclination towards personas since WoR, he practically pushed her towards the split. And if the Davsr family was being groomed for a dacade it means they could’ve known that Shallan was becoming like this since the beggining.
Let me note here that we have evidence that Formless existed back in OB drawing Unmade in her books in Urithiru, before even coming in contact with them. And if Formless is Unmade aware or even inclined to meet them (even join them back to being Made again) Veil is on point for pushing Shallan to remember why that side of her ‘should never be loved’.
Another reason why I like Shallan. Visiting close family does not mean talking to them the entire time. That is true with me and my family. Otherwise, I would not survive when I visit my family.
It is important to remember that as of RoW, Shallan is only 18 years old. While she has been through a lot (more than your average middle-aged adult), she is still only a teenager/young adult. She makes the type of mistakes that many of us her age make in RL.
Shallan says: “And it takes a special person to love a member of the Davar family.” How true. I hope Shallan remembers this about Adolin. I think Shallan does; others might disagree. YMMV.
How interesting. Balat’s captain is Captain Talanan. I am sure he is related to the Talanan’s that Dalinar killed at the Rift (both the younger and the older). I also do not believe that is a throw-away. I predict we will see a lot more of this Captain. It would not surprise me if this Captain is a member of the Ghostbloods.
Mraize knows a lot about Shallan. He knows about her different personas. He knows that Shallan has what in our world today we would call DID. I wonder who her has close that allows him to know the personas’ different names and characteristics. I cannot just be that he always has someone close watching her. I wonder if Mraize has his own spren who acts as an unseen spy.
I did not see this coming. Shallan has been in contact with Sja-anat. I guess. She and Shallan have been having conversations in the past year.
Restares is in Shadesmar under the protection of the Honorspren. I think this is the true purpose of Shallan’s efforts to go into Shadesmar. I think the reason many of us thought would be why she wnet (to convince more Honorspren to bond humans) is a cover story that Shallan will fabricate to convince them she should go into Shademar. Interesting Brandon, very interesting.
That last sentence sounds very dangerous: “Veil could finally force Shallan to be complete.” I find it bey unlikely, but is it possible that Veil is the real Shallan and the Shallan we see as Shallan is a construct that the real Shallan’s mind created to protect Shallan from the horrors of her childhood? I think we will learn the answer to this question by the end of RoW.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Initial Observations:
This was a great chapter! Sooo informative, yet hinting at so much more!
Shallan is less of a fan of the heavy drinking, or better yet, the results. Which brings up the question: why doesn’t Veil just use Stormlight at the end of the night to burn off the alcoholic effects? Clearly she/they are self-medicating for some reason. Also, Shallan claiming that she’s not having any memory loss is almost 100% foreshadowing that she is indeed suffering memory loss, and that “Formless” (or possibly Veil) likely engages in activities that Shallan doesn’t remember. Which could make her arc in RoW VERY interesting. I just hope she’s not the one that “…will destroy us” as the Way of Kings’ back cover text predicts; Shallan’s role as “The Liar” continues to grow, after all. And we receive concrete proof that Shallan still hasn’t told Jasnah; that won’t end well. Also, a stronger hint (via Mraize) that one of Shallan’s personalities is acting separate from the Three and is the spy. Although I still hold out the possibility that Ishnah is not only Shallan’s squire, but also Iyatil in disguise somehow.
Balat as a guardsman and the comment Shallan makes about him enjoying the pain of other creatures too much drew a rather close comparison of real world issues with police brutality and misconduct, for me.
So, it would have been a bigger surprise if the guard ended up NOT being Mraize, right? Also, Mraize knows about the Three; so I guess the question is: how common is that knowledge? And the “chicken” hunting the mole was meant to be such an obvious analogy, right? Radiant’s astute observation about Mraize filling in some paternal role was a good one, though. Of course, Shallan killed her actual father, so hopefully that observation doesn’t protect him too much.
Okay, once again I dislike Mraize as a character but really appreciate his presence in a chapter. Finally, a bit more broad insight into the value of stormlight throughout Shadesmar and the Cosmere. Connection between Rosharian investiture and its inhabitants, along with the restrictions! And Mraize claims to have found a way around the restriction (kinda like what Gavilar was trying to do, despite what Mraize intimates here). Discussion about Thaidakar, and there stance on Odium! A comment on Gavilar and his “desire” for immortality (although I don’t think Mraize was fully forthcoming about everything Gavilar was trying to do). Discussion about the voidlight spheres! I wanted so much more, but this little bit of info was far more than I expected to get, so I’ll take it! Which is probably similar to how Shallan felt. Brandon did a great job of showing Mraize bait the hook for Shallan, here.
Sja-Anat update! Nice. I don’t trust her for a second, but I think she’ll make things even more interesting. Let’s see what her spren is and what the bond can do.
Restares is in Lasting Integrity, huh? I wonder how he managed that? Or how Gavilar managed transportation to and from Braize. Clearly, there are other methods of transportation to Shadesmar that we are just not aware of yet. Also, now we find out the impetus for Shallan heading there, as opposed to a Windrunner, which would have been the logical choice.
@29 Your last spoiler about the time frame in which this takes place, is there a WoB conforming that or did I just miss some info in a book?
@64 Alice. I applaud. None of us are therapists and I certainly do not think a few readings on the Internet are a great substitution for a Ph.D. There are more than enough self-made shrinks in this world, I have no desire to add one more nor do I think it was Sanderson’s goal.
I, for one, intend to read, evaluate, and comment on Shallan as per the textual allows me to. Right now, it seems Shallan’s personas are not all in-sync with what the next step should be. While I have no idea what it’ll turn out to be, I can say what I am hoping for. I do not know why it is Veil, the persona I hate the most, that seems to want reintegration, but I am sure we will find out.
About Veil and the wedding night, I was referring to this line:
I interpreted as Shallan having spent a fair portion of her own wedding evening being… Veil and the thought sicken me because it is so unfair towards Adolin. Even during his own wedding party, he had to tolerate Veil, and last week, it’s been pretty obvious he does not enjoy spending time with Veil. He does not like her, he tolerates her because Shallan wants him to, but that too is part of the precarious balance, now isn’t it? Shallan keeps on thinking it is all her problem, her balance, but Adolin has become a part of it, whether she wanted him to or not. And this double mission to Lasting Integrity, a mission I have no doubts to believe Shallan will avoid mentioning to Adolin, will cause problems. For him.
That’s my prediction. While Shallan worries over her brothers, over herself, over the Ghostbloods, while she seeks her secrets, the one that’ll end up being hurt is the one she thought could never be hurt. I mean, the blow always comes from where we aren’t looking, right? So there, Adolin will take the blow. He’ll be the collateral damage for Shallan’s lies and ambitions. Let’s see how this holds up comes November.
Still, this line cements my thoughts Adolin did not entirely know what he was getting into. Oh, he knew Shallan had problems and secrets, but I doubt he expected *this*. I can’t wait to read his viewpoint! It should be good.
@@@@@ 62 CosmereFan:
You are extrapolating a bit more than I intended in my comment. I partially subscribe to the ‘death of the author’ as well. I have no problem with that concept or cognitive dissonance. My comment about Rowling was solely about some of her societal depictions in the books – ala Cho Chang. I meant to imply that a person can still enjoy HP, all other issues aside, and still cringe on the smaller points that stand out on a personal level*. That doesn’t mean that you can’t comment on those smaller points at all. Dissatisfaction about the accuracy of DID falls into that category for me (as a subject, not as a personal issue). On the whole though, I don’t disagree with you.
@Gepeto
Isn’t that referring to the wedding party they attended in the last chapter? I guess you could extrapolate off the “again,” but I would assume that just refers to Veil’s habit of heavy drinking, not to Veil having drunk heavily at Shallan’s personal wedding party.
Interesting that Veil is the one most interested in integration. I won’t speculate too much because I think Shallan’s situation is a combination of a fantasy condition, as well as DID. I think this does confirm at least that the personalities are not necessarily a part of normal Radiant-hood. I personally would like to see her integrate and accept herself. The focus on the sentence about memory loss makes me wonder if there really IS memory loss going on. Something maybe in line with @8’s theory that the spy is…Shallan herself (or some other aspect).
Both with her hair, and the way she describes seeing colors, I definitely get a ‘Nalthian’ feel to her magic :)
Possible thoughts for Thaidakar – I’m thinking Hoid, Kelsier or maybe the mystery villains in the Mistborn Wax and Wayne books (if the time line matches up…). It’s hard to say right now if this is a good motive or a bad motive. Is Mraize really just like Nikola Tesla wanting to make power free for everybody? And yet somehow I doubt it…somehow this is also ringing some bells with the Wax and Wayne books as didn’t those also involve basically ‘Connection-less’ investiture?
@@.-@ – so, maybe the Oathpact is something that is making it difficult for Investiture to travel?
@58 – former microbiologist here and I love this :) (I also love midichlorians :) )
Been thinking about it, and I think Restares is Kalak.
@42, Mmmm:
You are stating as absolute fact something that neither psychiatrists nor self-identified people with DID agree on: that all cases are caused by childhood trauma. You may be influenced by highly fictionalized accounts like those of “Sybil” and “Eve”.
@57, Austin:
Again, this does not accord with the experiences of those identified as having DID. Some are as you describe, and others are not.
@64, Wetlandernw:
Yes. I actually gave examples myself. It’s Mraize who says (or implies) this, and I was specifically posting to say that it is not correct.
@65, Shiagram:
He says so to Navani in the prologue, or nearly so.
@68, Will:
https://coppermind.net/wiki/Cosmere#Chronological_Order
Comes with references.
@69, Gepeto:
That’s the bouncer’s wedding (the one we witnessed in the Kaladin chapter), not her own, which was the previous year.
@71. Oh. I see my mistake. For some reason, I thought the passage was referring to Adolin and Shallan’s wedding party…
@75 Carl. Sounds like I misinterpreted the passage. @71 pointed it out too. My mistake. So let’s erase what I have said though I still believe Adolin didn’t entirely know what he was really getting into and he really did not seem to appreciate spending the evening with Veil. Let’s see where that goes.
AndrewHB @66 – Captain Talanan isn’t the same name; the lord of Rathatlas was Tanalan. Similar, but not likely related.
Gepeto @69 – Thanks. Also, re: wedding party – Oh, okay. I read that differently – I assume she’s referring to the party in the tavern the previous night, when they were celebrating Jor & Kryst getting married.
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Carl @75 – “It’s Mraize who says (or implies) this, and I was specifically posting to say that it is not correct.” Oh, okay. I was reading it as though you were addressing fans who think that, when you were talking about in-world characters. Thanks for the clarification; it makes more sense now!
@70 Keyblazing, sorry about the extrapolation. Sometimes I get ahead of myself a bit. The latest furor about Rowling was on my mind… I made an incorrect assumption. I appreciate your patience.
@75 Carl – Yes, I think he said something along the lines of transporting a box from/to Braize wasn’t it? I mean, yeah Shallan is supposed to fall for Ghostblood manipulation, but we, as readers, should know Mraize is full of crem by now. :p
so wait are the ghostbloods basically just an interplanetary magical gas company looking for cheap easy access to magical power to transport to other worlds to use magic where magic isn’t easy to acquire like dark side for the world of white sand or similar worlds? That is not a thing I had thoght about. it does make it a thing I thought about that a human would do
“As more and more deadly enemy Fused awaken to wage war, no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.”
Is Kalladin the “coalition’s envoy”? I like the Shallan/Kalladin/Adolin teamup, but it would seem odd to me for all three of them being in a group together again for a 2nd book in a row. At the same time, I have a hard time seeing the journey to Lasting Integrity not also involving Kalladin.
Haven’t read the comments yet but this was a huge info dump!!!!! I was not expecting this big of a jump into cosmere related information and what we now know for sure about Gavilar. I’m overwhelmed.
@75
Scientific consensus seems to be that it is associated with either trauma or induced by clinicians/popular media. You’re right that there is some controversy over this, but it is genuinely conceptualised as a trauma disorder outside of that literature which aims to disprove its existence in its entirety. Implying that Shallan’s case being caused by trauma is unusual is not in keeping with how the disorder is currently seen.
As for Shallan’s reintegration, I’m fine either way. But it is Veil, who pursues it, and You always get what You want (especially not Veil).
As for Mraize’s bird, do You agree, that that was an aviar? But it was certainly not brought for show. I have two ideas. The simpler would be to make Shallan more amenable. The more further out means to give a hidden part of Shallan’s personas instructions, what to do, when meeting Restares.
(“When you find him, you’ll know what to do.””)
I am more and more convinced, that she has dealings with the Ghostbloods, that her three personas do not know about. That would also explain the written orders, that appeared at the time of OB in her satchel without her knowing how.
Likewise I begin suppose, that Mraize already knew her before the death of her mother. I think his words at the end of WoR should be interpreted that way.
Re: Vail on Shallan becoming “whole”
I am in the camp that does not believe Veil is implying Shallan/Veil/Radiant merge into 1 single person/personality. I think what Veil is implying is that Shallan needs to accept those parts of her childhood to become the “whole Shallan”, before the new(-ish) 4th personality evolves from that aspect of her childhood.
A 4th personality would not only be concerning from Shallan’s mental health point-of-view, but I see Shallan/Veil/Radiant at times operating on a majority vote system when making some decisions – this is their a coping mechanism (leveraging the needs / desires / experience of all 3 personalities) to reach a consensus.
Introducing a 4th person may perhaps create a problem in their ability to make (consensus or majority rule) decisions, creating a chaos or paralysis that sends Shallan spiralling further into crisis mode.
I also do not think her 4th personality has evolved a “consciousness” yet, as some believe. Therefore, I do not think that 4th personality is in league with Mraize (if it has evolved).
I would not be surprised if (at least) one of Shallan’s brothers (or Eylita) has/have been recruited into the Ghostbloods, secretly.
Mistborn spoilers: Vin seemed to have some form of life sense when burning metals. Not exactly the same. Of course, Seekers burning bronze can detect allomantic pulses, but there were other times that suggested Vin could sense people, IIRC.
So some treatments DO seek to fully integrate! So those saying a joining isn’t a RL solution may be wrong? As for any mental illness, each person has individual experiences. No one treatment works for everybody. Therapy is a process to find the most effective treatment for an individual. That’s true of physical ailments as well. No one treatment is a blanket cure for everyone.
For Shallan, maybe integration is the solution. Or maybe when Veil seeks to make her whole, it is because there are still gaps, and The Three don’t fully fill those gaps. Veil maybe isn’t looking for an integration, rather something that fills those gaps and makes them whole. That could be a new form, or it could be facing truths that round out The Three to “complete” them. I guess we’ll RAFO!
Or maybe Formless IS an Unmade, trapped somehow within Shallan?
Finally, my thoughts on discussions about “real life science” in fantasy:
I’ve read comments by Sanderson that suggests his approach is along the following lines (I’m paraphrasing): I figure out what I want to do, then I talk to my science friends and ask, “How do we make this work?” Sometimes there is a way to make it work without violating scientific principles, sometimes he has to just say, “This is the way it’s going to be.” Because that’s what he wants to do.
So in the discussions about DID, depression, etc: Sanderson is going to try and make things work in his stories as close to RL as possible, but in the end, if things don’t align, he’s going to do what he wants. Especially since we are talking about different worlds, even a different universe, where things may not work exactly the same. And, hey, magic!
This is really the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction to me. SF starts with science and says, “where do we go from here?” Fantasy approaches it the other way. Fantasy is “I want to do this, now how can I support that with science or real life experience?” And in Fantasy, if science doesn’t exactly align? It’s okay, because magic!
(I will say, in my personal opinion, the best magic systems are those that do have rules and regulations on them that are well thought out and “scientifically” based. But that science does not have to be real-world science. This is what I love about Sanderson. Every one of his systems of Investiture are thought out and governed by rules of some kind, even if we don’t know all of them yet.)
Could Formless be an Unmade?
Could Formless even be the Sibling ???
@6 That’s my new favorite wild theory. #Kalshadium.
I agree that the ambiguity about the spy, and Shallan’s own comments about not being sure what she did at the moment of Ialai’s murder, are pointing to Shallan working against herself, with either Formless or Veil playing the willing Ghostblood operative.
Combining what we saw from Navani’s prologue and Mraize’s comments, it seems more likely that Gavilar just transported Voidlight somehow between worlds (some other type of Voidlight fabrial?) rather than physically travel to Braize himself.
From his comments, I also think Gavilar understood the shards better than typical Rosharans, specifically that the host of the Honor shard was dead. He had received the visions and saw the opportunity to retake the lost power of Honor through a process that included his twisted version of “uniting them.” I think he could have received the visions by mistake or apathy on the Stormfather’s part as posited in some comments above. Or maybe he was a different person at the beginning of the visions, a person with great power, charisma, and potential for positive or negative change–kind of like Dalinar, Kaladin, and Moash–who made a self-justifying, power-seeking, Taravangian-like choice about how to respond to the knowledge he gained. (That scenario would also play into the Stormfather’s anger about Syl’s trust in Kaladin. He claims it’s all about the past, but really he was the first one to try and restore a Radiant and got burned big time when his chosen candidate used the knowledge to actively further Odium’s return to power.) I think Gavilar had a plan to become functionally immortal by purposefully assuming the Honor shard. His confidence probably extended to feeeling that he wouldn’t “lose” a shard battle to Odium. This plan was beyond and different from the Sons of Honor wanted, and he suspected they would try to kill him if/when they found out he was using them for his own ends.
Thinking about implications from that, I have questions about two loose ends. I am especially interested in textual clues I have missed, but also Words of Brandon or theories.
1. We can reasonably infer that the Void sphere given to Eshonai led to the spren corrupting Venli, but do we have any clues about the one Szeth took beyond that he hid it “safely?”
2. Do we have any insight into what “the most important words a man can say” are and why he wanted to specifically pass that to Dalinar?
I’m also wondering if there’s something with the ‘mole’ discourse that Mraize is giving that will turn out to be somehow foreshadowing/symbolic – all the stuff about it escaping and burrowing where it’s not wanted, etc.
On Shallan and DID:
From the way Brandon writes her, from the way she’s represented it could go either way. She could be someone with a preexisting condition who got magic or she could have gained magic and used it to create her current condition by intent or as a side effect. There are tantalizing consequences for either but I’m content to let it play out, confident that our author has done the research and will put together an endgame that mostly works. I can accept that it will not map 100% with real-world DID and I am not certain that I would want it to.
Something that I find interesting is that the impetus for change isn’t coming from Shallan, the alpha persona, but from the alters. Shallan is more than happy with the status quo. Veil is the one pushing Shallan to remember so she can be complete. Radiant is discussing their mental state, crying out for help from those closest to Shallan. So that leaves me with a couple questions. The first is, how strong are the alter’s senses of self-preservation? That will give us a clue about what Shallan’s endgame looks like. If it’s strong then the alter’s have reason to believe that they will survive Shallan’s reintegration intact. The Three will be stronger because their alpha is no longer a weak leg in the tripod. If it’s weak then it really isn’t them speaking, it’s Shallan shunting off her desire to be whole on her alters. Another question is what is the motivation for them bringing this up? Do they wish to disappear or do they want to maintain the balance and fight against further fragmentation? What do they know that we do not? That Shallan has chosen to bury? November cannot come soon enough.
It makes sense that Shallan’s other personas are better at dealing with her past than she is. She created them to deal with things she didn’t want to face herself.
Just because the author can’t be an expert in everything doesn’t mean people discussing real problems shouldn’t try to get it right. For many readers these discussions are their first time thinking about these illnesses. If they “learn” wrong information that could be a problem when they deal with real people who have those illnesses.
I thought Shallan can see more colors than Veil because she has four kinds of color receptors while Veil only has the usual three. If people like Vasher can influence their body maybe Shallan’s changes are more than just illusion.
Mraize doesn’t want free trade, he wants a trade monopoly. If he is the only one who can sell easily accessible Investiture that gives him a lot of power (and money).
@knuti 86
I also think Shallan is either already a Ghostblood or, at the very least, not who she thinks he is. Mraize is FAR too confident that Shallan will do what he wants, and on top of that Shallan is right that despite coming up with rationalizations (increasingly strained ones) she has indeed been acting exactly like a deep cover agent of theirs. I want to get some Aluminum around her head Stat.
But Mraize says he has always been interested in Lightweavers. I have two theories. First option, that Shallan’s first trauma (which we really should have seen coming honestly, it’s not like we didn’t know how Radiants work) was engineered by the Ghostbloods to force her to become a Radiant. The trouble with this is that Pattern would remember that, and it doesn’t explain why she thinks she is so horrible.
My second thought is that she was already an adult Ghostblood who literally stole Shallan Davar’s identity. Thoroughly enough that Stormlight ‘healed’ her into her present body. Maybe with lightweaving, maybe with Hemalurgy. I doubt the second though, if she had a metal spike in her body Adolin would have noticed by now.
@90: I was at first going to agree that may your idea had merit, but as I though about it I don’t think that’s possible. The Sibling would be on the level of the Stormfather and Nightwatcher. I just don’t see how you can trap an entity like that inside of a single individual. Bind them to an individual? Yes. But elements of that entity would still be outside. Stormfather exists independently, even though he is bound to Dalinar though the Nahel bond.
With the Unmade, however, we have already seen that they can be trapped. The one in Urithiru, trapping Nergaoul in the gem at the end of OB (did I get that name right?) Enough evidence suggests the Unmade can be trapped or imprisoned. Why not in a person? I just don’t see how that is possible with entities like Stormfather and Nightwatcher, and I assume the Sibling is like them. The Unmade I see as Odium’s lesser versions of the three Great Spren.
OK, it ocurrs to me that Mraize knows so much about what happened to Shallan at such a young age because he caused it. Or at least the Ghostbloods caused it, they were there. I just can’t think what she could have done as a child that was so horrible but someone could have made her think she did something.
Am I the only one thinking the chicken is actually an Aviar?
Descriptions of Mraize with his Aviar (confirmed as such in a WOB cited on the Coppermind Wiki) keep making me picture Sanderson with his macaw despite the differences in his appearance.
“You know the word, mole? An informant? Comes from these creatures, which live in Shinovar and dig into places they’re not wanted. They’ve made their way across Azir over the centuries, then into the mountains.” Whaaaat. How the storm did burrowing creatures spread through lands that lack soil? Do they dig through rocky substrates or something? What do they eat? How did the Aviar catch one? I want to know everything about moles on Roshar now, storm it!
(OK, I want to know everything about all the ecology on Roshar. But this little facet of it was most unexpected.)
Mraize beguiled me right alongside Shallan. I want her to do his bidding, whatever it is, so I can watch her learn All Of The Things about other planets and forms of Investiture. Though even if that actually happens, we probably won’t get to see it in detail because boring battle portrayals will take higher priority.* I also would have liked to watch Mraize and other worldhoppers (but especially Mraize because he’s Rosharan) firsr explore the worlds beyond their home planets, but that’s not happening. Grumble.
*Not a knock on Sanderson. Almost all battle protrayals bore me, when they’re not revoltingly gory or overwhelmingly sad, and most fantasy authors favor them in page-time. It’s an inevitable feature of the genre, which I tolerate for the sake of more enjoyable elements.
I’m a fan of the “4th personality as a secret Ghostblood” explanation. I saw Mraize’s comment about Lightweavers in the light of what my view of them has been all along: The reason that they use Truths rather than Oaths is that because of their power set they are predisposed to identity issues—probably not to the extent Shallan is dealing with, but more along the lines of the trope of the long-term undercover agent who finds themself taking on the personality of their cover identity. The Truths help anchor them to one persona rather than just constantly adapting whatever is most convenient.
It certainly could be a different Lightweaver (or just a throwaway line meant to distract), but I like the 4th personality angle.
So my initial thoughts were that Shallan did something else either before or when she killed her mother. Theory time – her deep secret is that her mother was pregnant and she knew nd childishly didn’t want a new young sister,stabbed her anyway. Or poisoned her mum to miscarriage and she tried to kill her for it, kid was with the ghost blood servant, possibly planned for some purpose. Also, separately, what if her mother found out the ghost bloods ultimate plan for Shallan and was so horrified by it or what she would become that she tried to kill her/stop them.
Yea I agree that there’s a good chance that formless or another identity is the spy. Even worse what if its the original identity,with the Shallan we know being the first personality made. That could be why none the rest know, was before any existed.
Odium can’t leave, so that bond holding all invested travellers insystem also. Mraize knows how to transport stormlight, just not passed the boundary/distance barrier. Maybe Shallan is only half rosharan, a parent could of had breath, from that world originally, dunno.
I’m assuming Restares helped gavilar travel to braize. Most likely this is the trauma in jasnahs younger years. They used her somehow to channel him there. The end result scarring her, needing time to recover(her illness).
Now that I have a minute, allow me to elaborate on my comment above (#74). I think Restares will be someone that we already know, and that is why Mraize said that Shallan will know what to do when she sees him.
Now, Shallan would recognize any number of people, but who would mean anything to us, the readers? The “someone-we-thought-was-dead” option doesn’t work for anyone I can think of. Helaran, Kabsal, her father… None make any sense as the secret Restares.
I think it has to be a Herald. After all, who could find a way into Shadesmar, make their way to a spren city instead of immediately getting killed, and then convince the honorspren to grant him asylum? That has to be a Herald or a worldhopper, but Restares can’t be a random worldhopper. That does not add up with Shallan recognizing him and then knowing what to do.
So that leaves Heralds. We know that Nale, Jezrien, Ishar, and Taln are not hiding out in Shadesmar. Kalak is the only remaining male Herald, who definitely was meeting with Gavilar and knew the details of his plans. Mraize says that there is only one living person with such knowledge, so if Mraize knows that Kalak was involved with Gavilar, then he has to be referring to him here.
How does Sja-anat operate a spanreed? Is she corporal enough to manage one on her own? I thought she can only “enlighten” spren? Did she enlighten a spren that somehow could affect physical things? The only other explanation I can come up with is that Shallan is working with Renarin. But that raises a whole host of questions, least of which she has to tell Renarin that she is working with a group that somehow wants to use Sja-anat’s power? There is way more than we have been told in Chapter 13.
Alice and Lyndsey. What is wrong with Wikim? I personally have no issues with him. I think he would be a good friend. Balat is also a generally good person. He tries his best. True, when he gets in one of his moods, he can be destructive to cremlings and axehounds. Yet, I think he is making progress. His marriage with Eylita will also help control such impulses, I believe. Jushsu, on the other hand, is trouble; with a capital T. I agree with you. I would only trust him as far as I could throw him. As I am not a strong person, I am unlikely to be able to pick up and toss an overweight young adult. Thus, I cannot trust Jushu.
I think Balat is trying to support himself. He did take a position as one of Sebarial’s guards/soldiers. It may not be much. But I do not think that Balat has many skills or abilities. Had he and Eylita escaped Lin before Lin discovered Balat’s plan, then the best Balat could have hoped for was probably a life as a low-level dahn (most likely a 10, possibly a 9, and with luck an 8). I think you need to give Balat a little more credit for trying. Certainly trying much more than Jushu, who is living off the rest of his family.
Alice. I agree with your take on Veil’s last thought in this Chapter. Veil, at least, wants the Three to congeal into one single persona, with characteristics of all three personas remaining: Shallan, the artist and researcher; Veil, the hands on doer; and Radiant, the warrior (and probably the Soulcaster when we see Shallan Soulcasting. By the way, I hope Shallan is been able to at least find some time in the past year to work with Jasnah and practice her Soulcasting. I know that Shallan had her undercover assignment has her duties as the Highprince’s wife and probably has other Knight Radiant duties and Jasnah has her own Queen duties, but still. I hope Shallan did learn something.
Speaking of learning, I wonder how Szeth is progressing with his learning of Dustbringing surge. I would like to hear Nightblood’s comments about that surge.
Alice and Lyndsey. I find Mraize to be like an Aes Sedai. I do not believe we have heard him lie to Shallan. However, what he says/promises may not be the same as what Shallan (and the reader hears). Both walk a razor’s edge as to lying, but do not cross the line. At least that is my opinion of Mraize.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Couple of random thoughts now that I’ve had more time to think about the chapter.
Shallan is now pen-pals with an Unmade. How cute!
To be honest, I found there a bit of a discrepancy between these two bits:
It’s odd comparing this “thrill from Veil” with this from chapter 7:
Unless we’re going to say that Veil is some kind of “tsundere” (blows hot and cold) then that doesn’t really seem to match up to me. Alternatively, it could be a hint that Shallan’s personas are not quite as robust/distinct as we had thought.
To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed that Shallan didn’t resist more given that she seemed reasonably set against Mraize in her previous POV. That being said, I was also fairly sure that any meeting would go badly if Shallan decided to just wing it, rather than planning things in advance – a skill we haven’t seen much of since WoR.
I totally would not trust Mraize’s word to Shallan about her being able to leave if she really wanted to. It’s clear that the Ghostbloods want exclusivity. If Shallan knows everything that would be a huge risk. And since Shallan has made it clear that she’s not going to “officially” join the Ghostbloods, Mraize can kill her at any time without any repercussions. If Shallan did officially join, she might actually be a threat to Mraize’s position – he might well be happier that she doesn’t join, which is why he’s giving her a lot of leeway.
I think it’s highly likely that Shallan will tell Adolin about her position with the Ghostbloods sometime during the book – the stress is clearly getting to her. I doubt Adolin will be happy. That being said, I doubt it’ll lead to any kind of breakup though it might lead to some kind of row / serious tension.
I wonder if Restares might know more than Mraize bargains for, or in general that Shallan can find out more on her own than Mraize bargains for. If Shallan can find out certain secrets without Mraize telling her she’ll probably be able to break away.
Finally, I think it’s quite clear that Shallan would very much enjoy world-hopping in future. I’d love to see her and Adolin jet-setting around the Cosmere… or just the idea of it, even if we don’t get that much in the books.
“And the one who unlocks the secret would have untold power. Literal power, Radiant. The power to change worlds…”
Is this maybe a hint that the Ghostbloods goal isn’t just getting access to investiture trade, but something entirely different? He does talk about literal power/energy to impact whole worlds. I think this whole investiture acquisition thing could be just a means to an end. It would make sense if a powerful group like the Ghostbloods had a more lofty goal, no? It would be kinda anticlimactic if their only goal was trading, and I don’t think their true goal would be revealed so soon in the book.
Just some thoughts, correct me if I misinterpreted something.
@95, birgit:
The tetrachromat thing is mostly a myth. Even those women* with four types of cone can’t distinguish more colors than us trichromats. It may give a slight ability to distinguish more shades of very similar colors, but nothing as dramatic as the Veil/Shallan thing. Also, why would Shallan and Veil have different retinas? She isn’t shapeshifting, she’s casting illusions.
@104, AndrewHB:
She has servants with hands, presumably. It’s worth mentioning, perhaps, that even very minor non-sapient spren like windspren can, in fact, manipulate physical objects (and use rather weak Lashings).
@106, Hz:
Yes, I think there are certainly ramifications. Consider SPOILERS
… in Mistborn: Secret History, the Ire are trying to gain control of the Shard Ruin when its Vessel, Ati, dies. And they’re carrying around spherical containers of pure Investiture! We all thought it was some kind of concentrated Dor, but maybe it was Stormlight! I just thought of this as I was typing, but I think it fits.
There’s a member of the Ire in Shadesmar, the Elantrian Kelsier meets with the painting from Nalthis. Are the Ghostbloods the local chapter of the Ire?
People keep thinking Adolin would be upset at Shallan’s Ghostbloodery. Remember, part of the job of a Highprincess is specifically spymaster. She’s doing her duty!
*Only karyotypic females can be tetrachromats. It requires two X chromosomes. Or more, I suppose, but triple-X people are rare.
Gepeto, no it doesn’t. That’s not a Big Deal because Adolin rode Gallant since book two. But he’s still bonded to Dalinar and remains Dalinar’s horse. I understand you dislike Dalinar and want this to happen, but it doesn’t mean he ditched Dalinar and chose a new rider.
The fact that it’s heavily suggested the Ghostblood spy is one of Shallan’s personalities makes me lean towards it not. Mraize seems to have a pretty good idea of what’s in the book already, and Shallan hasn’t really shared it. My out there guess is going to be that Pattern is the spy.
Since Honor has to do with oaths, I’m assuming that whatever he did to bind Odium also bound all the people of the Rosharan system. The issue with moving Stormlight isn’t because of Connection per se (although maybe Honor supercharged everyone’s connection to Roshar?). Rather, as part of Roshar it is similarly bound. I think we’ve seen every other focus for Investiture make the trip to Roshar, so it’s not that.
There’s also an interesting implication in that line of thought – if Dalinar does manage to reunite the Honor shard, would that free Odium and the residents of Roshar to travel?
okay what do we know about flamespren….well from one of the interludes in the second book i think, we had a pair of married ardents working on measuring the flamespen and much like certain quantum particles the observer effect was apparent ( that while it was being observed it couldnt actually change size) so i am apt to think of spen as “quantum” things and when you split flamespren, i hink that actually there are multiple flamespren there at all times and when you split it all you have done is quantum entangled the two spren. so flamespren are gonna be called “fermion spren” now And i bet since it is a lesser spren, i bet the higherspren (Honor, Crypics, High) are more of a “baryon spren”
Firstly, Lyn and Ali, it’s obvious to those paying attention that you are well intentioned and, while I understand and appreciate your going to such lengths to address being fair-minded, I agree that it will be impossible to avoid offending some people, sometimes. I’m glad that almost everyone in the Cosmere community that I’ve encountered does seem to understand that people are usually giving a good faith effort to be sensitive to other’s feelings and experiences.
I did want to address something that was stated here, “L: (Aside: I reject the concept that mental illness needs to be “cured;” sometimes, it becomes an integral part of who we are. It’s a very personal thing, and varies widely from person to person. But a blanket statement that being neuro-atypical is “wrong” and must be “fixed” is a dangerous overall precedent, in my opinion.)” and also, something I see a lot of in the comments. I don’t think Shallan’s experience should be considered “unique” just because it is a fantasy realm, or just because she is being written by a man who doesn’t have her issue. I think it’s fair to say that every person has a unique mixture of neuro-chemistry, trauma, and history, that makes their experience of any issue “unique”. I mean, my best friend (someone I am so close to that others often describe us as having a “mind-link”) and I don’t even experience “color” the same way.
I myself have bi-polar disorder, AND trauma. While the trauma is not necessarily connected to the BPD (and would have happened no matter what), it is informed by it. As a result, my experience of BPD is different from every other person with BPD. This is true for all of us.
Am I “broken” because I have BPD, no, of course not. Actually, I would argue that I am the most “me” when I am hypo-manic. The problem is, I am “broken” because my BPD means that when I am done being hypo-manic, I literally want to die. So I take medication that “fixes” me. This means I never actually get to be the most “me” (sorry, I’m using a lot of quotes and parentheticals, but it’s how I organize things) while I am medicated, but it also means that I don’t either go so manic that I have to do another 10 years in prison (yes, another) nor so depressed that I want to die.
Medication and TWOK literally saved my life. Is this because Kaladin experiences exactly what I experience? No, obviously not. But what he did go through standing at the Honor Chasm, and what he continues to go through battling the Wretch, are close enough that his experience helped to literally heal some of the more broken parts of me. I read TWOK while I was in the early part of a 10 year prison stretch and it genuinely kept me from giving up. Kaladin’s struggles with something similar to my own, and his understanding of the First Ideal, literally (and literarily, eh? Eh? Anybody?) gave me the strength to get through all 3270 days (Yeah, for those doing the math, I got some time off for good behavior.) and back to the people I love and start making up for lost time.
I apologize for the lengthy testimonial, but clearly these books mean a lot to me, as I have found they do to many, and I just wanted to say that the thing that makes us “broken” is whether or not our issues are having a negative impact on our lives. NOT the things that make us unique. I would have been a much different person without the trauma, but I would still have had BPD, and I consider BPD a part of myself, but then, I consider the trauma a part of myself too. I would still not choose to give either one to my son, so make of that what you will.
I always found curious the fact that Shallan has quit even trying to soulcast. Maybe she has a fear connected to her past like and she pushes the ability into the Formless persona? She could’ve poisoned Ialai by Soulcasting (alluding to Kabsal’s attempt). I wonder if Pattern has turned quiet, trying to preserve the Formless lie. Oh and I’m sure that Veil pushing her towards realising her truths is the only one that remembers how to become a stronger Lightweaver.
@@.-@, Laura: “What’s different about Roshar? Odium is trapped there. I Would bet money that no one else being able to carry investiture out is a side effect of odium being kept in.”
Personally, I would assume that it is a symptom of Honor’s Ivestiture more than anything else. Is not the very nature and substance of Honor that of bondage and boundaries? Perhaps we should look back to this exchange in TWOK with Syl the honorspren:
Something occurred to Kaladin. Something, perhaps, he should have asked long ago. “You’re not a windspren, are you?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
“What are you, then?”
“I don’t know. I bind things.”
The small chicken … with a curved beak … and shimmery green feathers … that sits on Mraize’s shoulder … and mimics human speech … is described as a tiny PARODY.
…
…
That is a sneaky sneaky pun, Brandon. Brandon, No. Sanderson must be stopped.
Allinka @6. A flying Ryshadium. That would be amazing. I never thought about a Windrunner or Skybreaker lashing a Ryshandium and have it fly.
Wild theory. Mraize wants to transport Stormlight out of the Rosharan system so he can use that as the fuel for interstellar travel. A way to travel between systems that does not involve going through Roshar. I wonder if Stormlight (or any other type of Investiture is the fuel that allows interstellar travel, would Stormlight cause a craft to travel faster than the speed of light? If not, then travel by space would be impractical. Travelers would eventually grow too old and die during the journey.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
My prediction -Thaidakar is Sebarial. Sebarial was angry that he couldn’t be responsible for the trade through oathgate, and nobody suspect him :)
Question: how can you tell if someone is a Cognitive Shadow? Other than Kelsier. People seem so sure that the Heralds are CSes. Taln seems solid enough to me, from what we’ve seen of him, if of dubious sanity. What exactly does CS even mean?
Regards,
Ben M.
@77 Alice. Looks like I was wrong about the party. I had forgotten about Jor’s wedding party. So this is less an argument for my claims, but still do think Adolin didn’t get into the relationship will all the details he needed. I don’t think Adolin expected Shallan would spend so much time being Veil, nor that he expected Veil would be a drunken flirt, nor that he wouldn’t like Veil, nor that the situation might be…permanent.
I find there is naivety when I hear some readers argue Adolin is just a good guy, he loves Shallan, so he accepts her issues as they are. My insides, they cringe. Should really Adolin be accepting all of Shallan’s behaviors just because she has this illness and should his love be enough? Should a man accept watching his wife spend drunken evenings in taverns openly flirting with all people just because she wanted a night out and let the Veil persona took over? Should Adolin keep on tolerating Veil because he loves Shallan? At what point does Shallan have to start pulling her weight into the relationship? When should Shallan be held accountable for what she allows Veil to do? And if she can’t, then is it really OK to state Adolin is such a nice guy, he shouldn’t care? Should Adolin just tolerate everything when it comes to Shallan, the personas, the lies because Shallan should have someone who tolerates her? When does Adolin needs and wants come into play? It seems to me the relationship is built around what Shallan needs so of course, she is happy with it, she does not have to make concessions. Adolin makes all of them for her.
We are only at chapter 14, but what I have seen concerns me greatly. This relationship is just not healthy and I cringe each time hear other readers finding it super healthy because Adolin is “nice”. It is just not working, it feels like watching a train about to get wrecked.
@107 Carl. I have a feeling of foreboding doom when it comes to Adolin. I cannot ask other readers to share this feeling, but I’ll admit each time I read Shallan or Kaladin describe Adolin as this fantastic human being, my gut wrenches each time. I can’t explain it, but I keep on feeling something bad, really bad will happen. Like when a story introduces this really too good to be true nice guy only to have a car ram into him moments later because, of course, no story can focus on such a character… I can’t come up with a decent example, but with Adolin, I have had this feeling he is one step away from tragedy.
Hence, I somehow doubt Shallan’s refusal to tell Adolin the truth will inconsequential. Shallan isn’t just spying, she is choosing to be a Ghostblood, she wants to soar out of Roshar, she wants freedom. She thinks of putting her brothers in a safe place, but Adolin… he did not cross her mind.
This is where I think Adolin is where the problem will be: he’ll be the price Shallan pays for her lies, the one she will hurt. Why? Because this is where Shallan is not looking, this is where no one is looking. Something’s got to give and I just do not think Shallan’s decision not to tell Adolin about the Ghostbloods will not rock ball into a disaster. They are going to Lasting Integrity, together, and Shallan has this secret mission.
I don’t know. Maybe she tells him in the next chapter, but this gut feeling, it won’t go away. Adolin is too good to be true and too good to be true characters, they die. Horribly. This is why I don’t think Shallan’s lies will have no consequences, not this time.
@109 Danny. It is a big deal because in WoR Gallant had needed strong persuasion to allow Adolin to ride him this one time only whereas now Gallant allows Adolin to ride him on his own free volition. In other words, Gallant did not accept Adolin as a rider back in WoR and only grudgingly did so because Dalinar convinced him to, this one time, because Adolin had to meet Eshonai and taking Adolin meant protecting Dalinar. Adolin never rode Gallant on a regular basis so it is wrong to say he has been doing so since WoR.
Now, Gallant accepts Adolin as a regular rider. Back in OB, Adolin couldn’t even comb Gallant and wondered if the horse would eventually allow him to do so. Now he rides him.
Knowing Rhysadium bonds are exclusive and no one can ride a Rhysadium besides his own rider, it is a very big deal. This would be the first time we see a Rhysadium bonded to someone else allow another rider to ride him on a regular basis. So yes, the question of what it means to the Gallant/Dalinar bond is a valid one.
Rhysadiums choose their riders. It seems Gallant unchose Dalinar and choose Adolin in replacement. Hopefully, we get more on this in another chapter.
@119 – Brandon himself has said they are Cognitive Shadows. Cognitive Shadows are basically ghosts with physical bodies. There’s debate as to whether it is the actual person, or just a photocopy that stayed behind while the essence, or soul, of the actual person went to the Beyond.
It’s clear that Brandon is doing a fantasy riff on both the so-called Uncertainty Principle and the infamous Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky Effect. He might be mixing up quantum superposition with the Uncertainty Principle, actually. As a one-time physics teacher, I find this stuff annoying. It isn’t actually much like the real quantum mechanics stuff, it’s just described using similar words.
Austin @121
Oh, I didn’t know that a CS could have a physical body (aside from Stormfather, I guess.) That explains it.
Thanks,
Ben M.
@106:
Interesting. I wonder if the Ghostbloods are seeking for one of them to Ascend to be a Shard. Possibly to replace Honor. What they want after that, I don’t know.
Ben M.
On a separate note, though I don’t like Mraize… for all his faults, he actually opposes Odium. So many villains don’t care if they enable the destruction of everything, as long as they get what they want. Not saying he’s a good guy. It’s just a surprising non-negative, that’s all I’m saying.
Ben
@117 Been thinking more about Kaladin and Ryshadium (mostly daydreaming about a Valkyrie style flying attack!). I’ve read that animal therapy is sometimes used for depression, and that some people with the condition have registered support animals. Could a Ryshadium bond be part of Kaladin’s future therapy?
I’m curious to see how investiture works across worlds. It’s fairly clear that Stormlight is roughly equal to Breath, but it’s interesting that there’s no mention of heavy Stormlight usage resulting in the Heightenings the way they happen on Nalthis. Could it restore normalcy to a bland? In the sense that Stormlight is the fuel and the Nahel bond enables its usage, it’s not clear what Stormlight could accomplish on Sel or Scadrial. I like the idea someone said above about Stormlight enabling Allomancy without burning metals, but would it have any effect on Feruchemy or Hemallurgy? Could a full feruchemist store Stormlight in a metalmind for investiture? I wonder whether these sorts of mapping questions will get full answers.
I feel like there are probably hints about what Shallan is still hiding, but I’m not sure what they are. Could be the weird things she draws, but I’m not convinced. I wonder if she did some very young soul casting with dangerous effects, and that’s why she still doesn’t do much soul casting.
I now think Adolin is going to die in this book. He’s a good guy who is not that important in himself, more because of his relationships with other people. He’s going to go along on the trip because of Shallan, and there are going to be some consequences to Shallan’s failings. I can’t decide whether I think she’s then going to get with Kaladin.
This is probably nonsense, but what if Ryshadium are spren from radiants who reached the 5th ideal? It seems odd that the radiant would then lose their shardblade and weird that all or many spren would turn into horses. It would explain a lot about Ryshadium, it would fit in with the notion that the nahel bond pulls spren more and more into the physical realm, and it would fit into the idea that the farther along a radiant gets, the more they get magically awesome versions of things we expect knights to have. I’m not at all convinced that the Ryshadium is the spren, but the more I think about this, the more I think Ryshadium are related to the 5th ideals.
The chicken comes from the book “Sixth of the Dusk” right. I think Mraize likes to flaunt items from other worlds in front of others who have no idea what they are.
@120:
You got all that from one paragraph that in no way mentions the horse as belonging to Adolin now? You think that would have been mentioned. I think you are reading way to much into this. Of course, releasing the chapters like this invites people to overreact to the smallest details, so I guess it’s not unexpected. We just have to wait for the whole book. That’s why I try to avoid forming any type of assumption about the rest of the book.
AndrewHB @104 – re: Shallan’s brothers. Balat is a weak but cruel person who hates being weak, and takes it out on those weaker than him. Not people, fortunately, but animal cruelty is still cruelty. He may be getting better, and I believe Eylita has been a strong force for good in his life, but he still comes across (to me) as weak and easily manipulated. I can hope that Eylita’s influence will be stronger than Mraize’s; she actually wants his good, while Mraize only wants to use him as leverage on Shallan. Jushu, as we agree, is a degenerate slob who has no sense of gratitude and no self-control. We haven’t seen Wikim since Shallan’s flashbacks, other than him complaining about being hugged too much when they showed up for her wedding, so I can’t say anything about him.
Incidentally, we pretty much agree on Mraize. He won’t lie directly, because he could potentially be caught lying, but he can twist the truth like a pretzel and use it for his own ends. And he never tells the whole truth, so I don’t buy his “all the answers” line for a skinny minute. I imagine he’ll find some way in which Shallan fails to do everything he expects, and use that to continue withholding some tantalizing information that is key to understanding all the “answers” he’s willing to give. (Can you tell? I don’t like Mraize very much…)
ChrisRijk @105 – Inconsistent as it may seem on the surface, I don’t have a problem with Veil’s apparent conflicting reactions. She doesn’t trust Mraize and hates being manipulated by him, but at the same time she admires his skills and knowledge. A compliment from him is high praise, particularly since she’s the persona that is supposed to have the kinds of skills she admires in him. She doesn’t have to like or trust him to recognize that.
Carl @107 – “The tetrachromat thing is mostly a myth.” Yes, but this is a fantasy, so why could there not be verifiable tetrachromacy on Roshar? I agree that in this case, it’s probably more a matter of priority than any physical change – as in, Veil cares about who’s in the room and what’s going on, while Shallan cares about details of color and texture as only an artist can. Just saying that your first point isn’t really a valid argument. :)
Grim @113 – Thank you for sharing that. Not only was your statement moving, it was also very insightful. It reminded me of a question I’ve asked from time to time: If being free from depression also meant lowering the “max level” of happiness I can experience, would I do it? And I don’t have an answer. (See also: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon)
Your last comment reminded me of something a WWII vet I knew used to say. “I wouldn’t trade [my experiences] for a million dollars – but I wouldn’t give you a nickel to do it over again.”
Brin @116 – Bahahahaha! I never even noticed that.
Gepeto @120 – I personally think you might be reading too much into these early chapters. We knew already that Shallan was spending a lot of time as Veil during the SoH infiltration mission, but IMO the implication of that is “more time than normal” – meaning that when they’re at home in Urithiru, Veil isn’t typically as dominant as she has been in these chapters. I also don’t think it’s fair to say that Adolin dislikes Veil; he just firmly refuses to acknowledge her as his wife, because she’s not the persona he’s in love with.
I think it’s pretty obvious that Adolin doesn’t “accept her issues as they are” – he’s actively seeking ways to resolve her issues. As for the rest of your questions, I know too much so I can’t respond.
Re: Gallant & Adolin, the first episode you reference is hardly a fair comparison. At that point, not only was Dalinar still riding Gallant frequently, Adolin had his own Ryshadium; I think it may be fair to guess that Rhyshadium respect the bond as much as humans do. By this point, Adolin has lost Sureblood, and Dalinar hasn’t had much need to ride anywhere. Gallant needs what Adolin can give him right now, just as much a Adolin needs what Gallant can give him. Whether it will go beyond that in future, we don’t know; all we can say for sure is that since the loss of Sureblood and the move to Urithiru, Gallant has become more accepting of Adolin. We don’t know what his relationship with Dalinar is right now.
Mraize wanted Sja-Anat to send a spren to bond with him. I had thought she only corrupted spren. So what type of spren would she send? Truth Watcher? It also seems odd that he believes that Radiants are bound to the system but that he wants a spren????
@123, benpmoldovan:
SPOILER ANSWER
Austin maybe overstated. Returned and Heralds and Fused are CS with physical bodies, which they get in various ways. (Returned are “stapled” back to their own original bodies. Heralds get a new body when they are recreated after dying. Fused occupy the bodies of singers.)
OTOH, Kelsier in Secret History is an incorporeal CS, and the Shades of Threnody are incorporeal screwed-up Cognitive Shadows that can most certainly affect living people. (I believe Kelsier is the only one ever actually called “Cognitive Shadow” within the story, the rest of this is from WoBs and fannish discussion.) There are entire Shardworlds where we never see a Cognitive Shadow (First of the Sun and Sel, to name two), or at least I don’t remember any.
Note that the Stormfather is not a Cognitive Shadow. He’s a Splinter of Honor. Cognitive Shadows are the Cognitive aspect of a former sapient physical being. The Stormfather was never a human or singer, he was always a spren.
@131, goddessimho:
Mraize explicitly says he’s expecting to find a workaround for the “trapped in the system” problem. He’s pretty self-confident.
@130 Alice. I find it hard not to read too much into… after all that’s half the fun of the re-read… You tease us in having read the rest of the booK! I am dying to find out where my favorite dysfunctional relationship will go. I might be drawing hasty conclusions, but one thing I think shines through is that Adolin is not OK with how it is currently going. Shallan, on the other hand, is more than OK and wants the status quo. I would argue Shallan thinking Veil is Adolin’s drinking buddy merely is her telling herself what she wants to hear: she wants to hear Adolin is buddy-buddy with her personas and is happy with them. He isn’t, but she does not want to acknowledge this, so she distorted the truth to have Adolin be Veil’s buddy. Last week though, I did not see two buddies drinking, I saw Adolin being ill-at-ease with Veil, not enjoying her presence and not being friends with her. Maybe that’s not dislike, but I read it as quite close to dislike.
I may have read only fourteen chapters, but this sounds like a recipe for disaster. The relationship is only working one-way: it works for Shallan. It does not work for Adolin, but he is too nice to actually tell Shallan. He still hopes he can fix it, but can’t, now can’t he? And more importantly, does Shallan want him to fix her? This is why I have a feeling of doom….. for Adolin because he’s not the protagonist and because he’s the one that… does not like how things currently are.
I am dying for an Adolin viewpoint… I hope they don’t come too far out in the book.
On Gallant: Well, we were told Rhysadiums had only one chosen rider. Gallant allowing Adolin to ride him sounds like a pretty big deal given the fact Gallant had previously chosen Dalinar as his rider. The rest is speculation on my part: if Gallant now spends more time with Adolin, allows Adolin to ride him after we were told those beasts couldn’t be tamed, then my go-to conclusion is Gallant no longer see Dalinar as his chosen rider. He seems to have switched to Adolin, but time will tell us, providing we see Gallant again. I hope we will!
Sja-anat just has to corrupt a spanreed spren to communicate with Shallan (and Navani?)
Mraize only doesn’t want to have Odium rule Roshar because having an evil god in charge of the place where he wants to get a valuable resource could make things more difficult for him.
Ryshadium are horses that have developed a spren bond like native Rosharan animals.
Gallant and Maya both were originally bonded to someone else, but now Adolin takes care of them. Is there a connection beyond Adolin’s tendency to take care of everyone?
Wellness is a tricky topic. In regards to mental health it really does depend on the modality of treatment, which is one of the reasons a therapeutic relationship agreement form contain the type(s) of counseling theory or therapy the counselor intends to utilize: Biological take, it’s all about the brain and symptom reduction (so long multi-axial system, we hardly knew ye), practical methods like solution focused entails positive reframing and doing what works to increase functionality, acceptance and promotion of personal values to increase tolerance and normalize feelings then ACT is for you, frustration tolerance then enjoy some PET, medicinal compliance and mood tracking are helpful for bipolar, cognitive reframing towards emotional regulation (really handy with increasing functionality during psychosis or with depression, mostly relies on CBT techniques and active listening skills), intrapersonal integration is old school but some people get a lot out of it, etc.
With what wellness entails for Shallan look no further than her conversation with Wit. Kaladin too for that matter. The in world explanation is the most appropriate interpretation.
DID as well as memory gaps and trauma are a contentious topic in psychiatry, psychology, and even neurobiology. We shall see how it all shakes out. The brains of mice and rats are helpful, but they don’t have near the horsepower of the human brain and the hard question (consciousness) is the wildcard in all this. That being said here’s a course of research that may lead somewhere about trauma based memory consolidation pathways with rodents, key takeaway, it’s rodents. So take this one with a grain of salt.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/08/traumatic-memories-hide-retrieve-them
I’m reminded of John Candy in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles during these types of interactions in these forums and with these books. It’s okay to like who you are and it’s normal that who you are doesn’t work for everyone or even glosses over certain foibles or sharp edges. A
@132 – This is not a spoiler, as it’s already been discussed in the books, but the Stormfather is, in fact, Honor’s Cognitive Shadow. Not sure what that means, but Honor somehow infused the Stormfather, who was originally just a powerful spren, with his CS. IIRC, the Stormfather tells Dalinar this. Either in WoR or OB.
I was quite baffeled by Shallan’s answer, that indicates that she knows “Ashyn & Braize.” Are planets (“A prison as large as three planets,”)
I don’t remember that this was ever mentioen in the SA books, only off-book. Am I wrong? Are those planets near enough to Roshar to be seen and have been named? Do I just not remember?
In the same context i wondered, when Mraize later says “Braize, the place you call Damnation.” – if Braize is widely known as a planet, why would they call it damnation?
I know Odium resides there, but the Rosharans don’t – or do they? Since when? Can someone help me?
I said it before as a crackpot theory, but I think this chapter reveals more evidence of the possibility…
that Shallan is Ba-Ado-Mishram
My theory is that Formless is Shallans fourth personality. Formless is already doing things including murdering Ialai and Formless is also the informant for Mraize. Hence the person close to Dalinar is Shallan (Formless) herself. She excises all memory of it including what Formless did during Shallans childhood.
I’m sure that parts of this chapter will be discussed for many years to come. Lots to analyse for sure. Yummy.
If we consider what it means for Shallan right now though, I have a certain sense of sadness. Essentially, that Shallan peaked in WoR and we’ve not seen her surpass that. I’m not referring to her Radiant abilities but her ability to achieve the things she wants to achieve as well as having clear goals. During WoR, Shallan was desperate and driven for various reasons and pushed herself hard. She was making careful plans when she could and winging it when she had to.
So far in RoW, Shallan had showed some signs of progress since her lows of OB but it’s now clearer that her ability to fool herself is still handicapping her, and hurting those around her. Right now, it doesn’t feel like there’s any big sources of pressure on Shallan herself. She is helping Adolin rule a princedom but can leave most of that to others. She can leave running the war to Dalinar. Ialai was one potential threat but is now removed. She tells herself that she is stable. The Ghostbloods are a worry for her but Mraize was far from threatening. Formless is a worry but a vague one.
In short, from her perspective there’s currently no looming crisis and no big goals. She has been given a task by Mraize but there’s no specific timeline and no big pressure. Surely this situation will change at some point. We know that her Shadesmar mission will be one of the major plot elements of the book and so far it seems like it’ll be just her and Adolin as major characters there. So if anything critical comes up during the trip that is high stakes, it’ll likely fall on Shallan’s shoulders more than most. This is probably what she needs. Something to push herself hard and something to create a sense of crisis. This would most likely be due a combination of factors, both external and internal. I’m sure we could guess some of them but I’m sure there’ll be some surprises as well.
Fingers crossed for some interesting developments there. Please show us a new peak, Shallan!
I think I agree for the most part with @Gepeto’s assessment of Adolin and Shallan’s relationship. I think Adolin and Shallan are great together, and are very much compatible. But Adolin can’t help wanting Shallan, without Veil and Radiant.
It isn’t working for Adolin as it is. The fact that he’s super understanding and that he loves her doesn’t change the fact that he’s uncomfortable with the arrangement. At the end of the day, you can love someone passionately, but if the relationship isn’t right for both people then it can’t work.
Integration may not be what is right for Shallan. Continuing the way things are doesn’t seem to be right for Adolin. It needs more time but neither can help it if it ends up being irreconcilable.
I don’t know if I’d say Adolin dislikes Veil, but I read tension and discomfort in their exchanges so I can certainly see how it would seem that way.
I’ve been lurking to avoid getting caught up in discussions I can’t properly contribute to, but I just want to say that the wider Cosmere implications in this chapter have sparked my curiosity! Also, I can very much sympathize with Shallan fighting the urge to regress to her old persona around her brothers, and how exhausting it can be to deal with an addict that you love and distrust at the same time. I’m hoping we see Wikim more, and I think he and Renarin would get along nicely. It can be such a relief to find someone who’s also quiet, studious, and not prone to unwanted physical contact. A slim basis for a friendship, maybe, but the first time I found a friend who didn’t insist on breaking me out of my shell but quietly sat there in their own was such a nice thing I can’t help wanting to see it for both of them. Renarin has plenty of the more outgoing friends, in his brother and Bridge 4, and those are important, but I’d like to see him find someone more like himself to hang out with, too.
The parrot hunting a mole threw me off a little bit. Some parrots will eat insects if they get the opportunity, but I don’t know of any parrots that would hunt small mammals in this raptor-like way. (Yes, I know we don’t have chulls IRL either, but I was under the impression that Mraize’s “chicken” was basically identical to a real parrot.)
It was very cool to see such explicit acknowledgment of the rest of the Cosmere by Mraize. I’m really interested in the Ghostblood thread of the plot. I’m also reading Warbreaker right now, and my current theory is that [spoilers] Peacegiver’s Treasure will be used to send Vivenna to Roshar.
Okay, I think I’ve figured it out. Laying out the facts:
Mraize’s organization is called the Ghostbloods. His babsk is Skadrian. Shallan has a terrible secret, from before Pattern, which she is convinced would mean that no one could love her. Her last secret is worse than the fact that she killed both her parents. Her mother tried to kill her because she was “one of them.” Her family has been neck deep in the Ghostbloods for a long time. Mraize’s attitude, and her actions, imply that she may be a Ghostblood sleeper agent and be completely unaware of this fact. She has a new identity emerging based on this secret, which is called Formless. Kandra can be Knights Radiant.
Shallan is a Kandra who replaced the real Shallan Davar more than six years ago. Being a horrifying alien shapeshifter who abducted, interrogated, killed, and ATE a little girl? That’d do it.
The rest of the senior Ghostbloods, including Mraize, are also Kandra.
@143
It may look like a parrot, but it’s an animal from Patji on First of the Sun. Of course it’s a predator given the option.
Agreeing with a few of you here that Shallan is a sleeper Ghostblood agent. In fact, the word GHOSTBLOOD itself says it all!! (Ghost in the blood/body/soul). Whether the Ghostbloods planted a kandra, or Ba-Ado-Mishram, I don’t know, but either would be a mega cool reveal :-o !!!
@134, birgit:
“I will remember those who have been forgotten.”
@137, travyl:
It isn’t clear how Shallan knows this, or how much Rosharans know, at least to me, but: Ashyn and Braize are in the same system (orbit the same star) as Roshar. There were three Shardworlds and three Shards in the system once. I personally wonder if Ashyn was Cultivation’s world, Roshar Honor’s, and Braize Odium’s, before the death of Honor and the devastation of Ashyn. I have mentioned before that I think the always-egotistical Vessel of Odium named the world after himself. Rayse and Braize rhyme (and Mraize has to be related to Braize).
Why did the Vorin call Honor “The Almighty”? Why do they call Nale “Nalan”? Because they like making poetic nicknames for things, then forgetting the original name.
@143, Nina:
As @darkstarling says, it’s actually a birdlike alien organism that is a lot like a parrot. First of the Sun has animals that are very unlike Earth’s–almost as different as native Roshar life, come to that. Shinovar’s life is clearly either taken from, or a direct copy of, Earth life, with “regular” plants and animals, so that was probably a “real” mole.
As it happens, Earth parrots will hunt. It isn’t their specialty, but they have been known to eat sheep. Okay, one parrot–do a DDG search for “kea AND sheep” some time. It’s worth mentioning that on Roshar (outside of Shinovar) the parrot’s normal seed-and-nectar heavy diet would be impossible, since Rosharan “plants” are very different from Earth flowering plants.
@141 Chelsea. I agree. I agree Shallan and Adolin are great together and are very compatible. It is Shallan/Veil/Radiant and Adolin that isn’t working…
It is an unfortunate situation, really.
Adolin is super understanding and patient, so he does not voice out his discomfort. He does not express how he feels with the arrangement and the one time he did open up, expressing worries over Veil’s flirting, he is rapidly told he has nothing to worry about. I noted how Shallan holds exactly the same discourse when Adolin expressed personal issues over being married to a Radiant while not being one: he has nothing to worry about. Hence, the very few times Adolin did try to broach the topic of his growing discomfort in the relationship, his feelings are rapidly dismissed. And since he is a nice, understanding guy, he never presses the issue.
On her side, Shallan likes the arrangement. She loves Veil and Radiant: it isn’t crossing her mind other people might be uncomfortable with her personas. It seems natural to her Adolin would just go with it and appreciate Veil as a drinking buddy and Radiant as a sparring partner. So long as she perceives he theoretically enjoys spending time with Veil/Radiant, she sees no incentive to further press the issue. Also, Shallan loves Veil: it never crossed her mind Adolin may not enjoy being around Veil and Veil has no interest in pointing out how crisp he is around her. Also, Adolin not really communicating his feelings, he generally comes across as such a nice, understanding, patient man, the very few times he does try, Shallan thinks it is benign and readily brushes them away. No one thinks Adolin might have feelings about the situation, even Kaladin, when he asks, does not ask how Adolin feels with the arrangement. He just assumes he is perfectly fine with it.
So really, it is unfortunate. Shallan isn’t paying attention to Adolin’s external behavior with her personas nor to the many signs indicating he is not enjoying this arrangement She likes things as they are. She does not want not to have Veil and Radiant around, so she is blind to Adolin discomfort. On his side, Adolin is not communicating very well and the few times he does communicate, he drops the issue too quickly, never really going to the depth of it.
I agree something’s got to change if they are to make it in the long-run. Adolin may love Shallan. Shallan may love Adolin, but Veil and Radiant are too much to handle. Hence, if Veil and Radiant are the end game, then I do not see Shallan/Adolin working out. Adolin will not ignore his feelings forever and I doubt he is ever going to enjoy the arrangement. Shallan may never want to change the arrangement because it suits her.
And if Shallan ever has to choose between Veil and Adolin, who will she pick? Right now, the answer is Veil.
As far as cosmological knowledge goes, rather than Cosmere knowledge, Rosharans do have quality lenses and plenty of academics studying all sorts of random stuff. Whether or not they’ve got a handle on heliocentricity to the point of understanding the way they’re all orbiting a sun/star in the same system, I have no idea. But even geocentric models on Earth recognized that increased movement meant decreased distance, noting the planets as something separate from and closer to us than the stars beyond them. So it wouldn’t be surprising that they’d at least have identified the two notable astronomical objects and have names for them, and it even makes sense by either actual devolution of information into myth or just typical astronomer/scientist’s poetic naming conventions that they’d get named after the two religiously significant places that are said to exist outside of Roshar. Also pretty sure I recall Kaladin’s POVs at some point in a previous book including both the line “Damnation, sometimes called Braize” as well as some ruminating about stars, though this is still probably the first Rosharan (aside from Gavilar in the preview prologue) acknowledging Ashyn and Braize as referring specifically to real physical things out in space.
The trip to Lasting Integrity reminded me of a quote from Oathbringer when Adolin was fighting the Thunderclast, “As he lay there in agony, he felt something — a faint panic on the wind.” This was just before two flying fuzed attacked. Why would the winds be speaking to him? I think that Mya is an Honor spren and the journey back to Lasting Integrity will lead to her “awakening” and Adolin will gain Radiance. (I am guessing that Mya had helped kill that thunderclast before and may have been prominent among the Honor spren, why was the thunderclast so focused on Adolin, but I digress). I don’t know, a making of Dalinar’s champion?
Shallan and Adolin’s marriage: Let’s just say that when they were dating and even when they got married, Shallan was a lot more Shallan than the other personas. A year later she is spending a lot more time divided. Of course Adolin is looking for resolution and not just living with the situation. I don’t know who the real Shallan is, maybe she was someone different when she was 10, but I wouldn’t say I would jump right into giving full “weight” to each persona, Shallan purposefully created those personas to accomplish specific tasks and then incorporated them as a way to deal with her struggles. I certainly hope within this book or at lest the series that she would be able to resolve and address the pain and be able to use her abilities and not be used by them (she is a main character arc not Veil, not Radiant, not Formless, I am not looking at this as realistic DID in any way). Otherwise, Formless will become Odium’s champion.
I am not sure why in the read-along discussion, there was concern about Mraize lying to Shallan in his promises. I may be wrong, he may be creepy at times, ruthless in his quest toward his goals, definitely veiled, but I do not recall him ever being dishonest or attempting to deceive Shallan.
@150 Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t come close from Mraize with a 100-foot pole, much trust his words. My personal thoughts are he is manipulating Shallan, he is tethering her on the possibility of new knowledge: he is using her natural curiosity against her and her dislike of herself that makes her underestimate all bad people. In other words, Shallan is attracted to bad people and has a tendency to trust them more than, well, good people. I don’t know why, I am just observing Shallan seems to trust Mraize more than, say, Jasnah or Adolin.
Hence, while I don’t think Mraize is lying nor would lie on purpose, I do think he is certainly telling the truth that serves his purposes. He certainly is presenting his truth in the manner that will make Shallan do what he wants her to do. He also keenly aware Shallan will not tell anyone about her involvement with him, so he is secure she will remain the perfect pawn.
I think Mraize is obviously playing with Shallan’s desire for status quo, desire to be Veil which directly plays into her relationship with Adolin.
On Shallan/Adolin: All the time there were dating, Shallan was only Shallan. She created the personas only in OB and only started to actively use them during the Kholinar arc. Hence, while Adolin did notice, it wasn’t as if Shallan had spent half her time being Veil from the start. The situation was rather new when they got married, hence Adolin believing it can be fixed is plausible.
The question now is, can it be fixed, should it be fixed, and if it can’t be fixed, what of Adolin?
@151 yes, totally agree. I would not trust Mraize for many reasons, I am just saying lying or not fulfilling a promise is not one of those reasons.
Totally think Restares is someone from Shallan’s past.
@152. I think Mraize will fulfill his promises in the manner he sees fit which may not be what Shallan expects. He will not tell her all of his secrets without having good leverage with her: a plan within a plan or a means to reach his end.
@137
Aslyn, Roshar and Braize all orbit within the Goldilocks Zone of the same star. So they are probably visible to the naked eye, much like Venus and Mars are.
Kaladin tells us in Words of Radience Chapter 32.
Couple of theories:
1.) Shallan (and her family) are from Nalthis. The hair changing gives evidence here. Veil’s seeing muted colors gives evidence. Various “parts” of Shallan have various levels of awakening. One of her forms will have white hair “Formless” maybe.
2.) The “girl who looked up” is Shallan’s origin story. “The wall” is shadesmar. The one side is Nalthis while the otherside is Roshar. Something about her going from Nalthis to Roshar caused a catastrophe to occur on Nalthis. The storms knocked down the wall. “Formless” may hold this story.
3.) These are the secrets that Mraize will share with her after she completed her mission to Lasting Integrity.
@156, It’s more likely that “the girl who looked up” has more to do with the act of humans crossing from the area they were given (Shinovar), over the Mountains into Roshar as a whole. To me it seems more of an allegorical story of moving from a sheltered place into the lands of storms and light.
Shallan and Adolin are heading for a tough time regardless of whether Shallan reintegrates or not. He loves Shallan, kinda likes Radiant and tolerates Veil. He considers himself married to Shallan only. But here’s the thing. Those other two entities sharing Shallan’s body are also Shallan. Looking at her in IT terms, Shallan is the operating system and she has put in place a couple of hard drive partitions. But it’s still all the same machine. The partitions were created out of the resources of that hard drive.
Now most all of us have been screaming out for Shallan to realize that she doesn’t need Veil to be tough and resourceful, she doesn’t need Radiant to be noble, responsible and diligent. Those are all qualities she possesses, else she could not have created her alters with those characteristics in the first place. But what happens if she reintegrates and all her qualities are contained within one Shallan? Yes she’ll be whole, yes she’ll be a less shallow person, yes she’ll be better equipped to face what is coming. What she won’t be is the person who Adolin fell in love with. She will change, and our golden boy may not like what directions that change takes her. What if a whole Shallan leans more towards the part of her that is Veil personality-wise? I can imagine Adolin being happy that Shallan is more mentally healthy (as in not fracturing, or at least not fracturing further). I cannot imagine him actually being in love with that person.
@154 EvilMonkey. You bring in good points. What if reintegrated Shallan fundamentally differs from the girl Adolin fell in love with?
Still, as a reader, I would have a hard believing being a drunken flirt is part of Shallan’s core personality given she never exhibited those traits prior to creating the personas. As a reader, I do feel there is the Shallan before the creation of Veil/Radiant and the Shallan after. “Shallan” never really changed, but whenever she is Veil or Radiant, she literally changes and becomes someone else that has very ittle relevance towards, well, who she was for the first two books.
I am not a fan of the “the character you have read since the beginning is a lie and a fraud” trope, hence if Shallan turns out not being Shallan and being the drunken flirt, I am afraid this would breach the credibility of the story.
My thoughts are thus whenever Shallan becomes Veil or Radiant, she goes on a tangential. She becomes what a person with the key characteristics she gave them would be. Veil is a ruffian. Impolite. Drunken. Care for nothing and no one. Hence when Shallan is Veil, she becomes this ruffian.
Hence, the question for me is not how much of Veil is the real Shallan, it is more how much of the Veil persona’s behaviors Shallan will want to adopt for herself once she drops the disguise. So I think I am not disagreeing with you, I am just concerned about how it will be handle. I think I generally agree Shallan, once reintegrated, might become more like Veil, less like the girl Adolin once loved. She might want to adopt many of the Veil behaviors, the careless impolite behavior, the endless flirting. We never seen Shallan be this way, but would having spent so much time as Veil fundamentally change the girl she once was towards someone that’s less… likable? I personally strongly dislike Veil, she isn’t a character I would like in any story. Veil is mean, selfish, and quite unlikeable, but then again she has traits Shallan finds incredibly likable because Veil is independent.
I thus can picture Adolin no longer loving the person Shallan chooses to become because this person might fundamentally differ from the girl he fell in love with. There might not be enough of this girl left for him to love. On the reverse, people rarely fundamentally change… we keep our core personality throughout our life so this is unprecedented and it has to be handled with tack.
I wouldn’t want Adolin to stay with Shallan if Shallan becomes permanently more like Veil. I wouldn’t want Shallan to force Adolin to stay with her if she truly becomes more like Veil. Sadly, Shallan is oblivious to the fact Adolin dislikes Veil. She loves Veil so much, I think she cannot picture anyone NOT liking Veil.
All in all, I find this narrative super interesting, but I wish for a realist outcome, not one where Adolin just accepts everything tossed at him because he has to be the place-holder for the nice guy who unconditionally loves his wife. All people have thresholds, even nice selfless people.
@Gepeto
Although I believe you’re being a little too harsh on Veil I can see where you are coming from. Me personally, I think a reintegrated Shallan skews more closely to Radiant on the spectrum than Veil but whoever she becomes it will be different than the Shallan we met in the first two books. Then again that would be true even if she never had her alters problem. It would be unrealistic for a country noble thrust into a world of intrigue and danger not to change. Even Evi changed. And while it is true that core values rarely change because they inform the choices you make, what we do not know is what Shallan’s core personality really is. She has buried her core, first through intentional memory editing and now through personality creation. Who is Shallan? That’s one of the many things I anticipate reading about in RoW.
Speculation time!
One thing I didn’t see any discussion on here was this paragraph:
We’ve never seen creationspren do this before – they’ve always imitated things in the local area, not what’s in Shallan’s mind (or anyone’s mind). To me, this suggests that Shallan’s bond to Pattern has become stronger and also that this is not a new thing from Shallan’s perspective. If we see it stop happening it could be a sign of her bond weakening. If we start seeing it more often or evolve further I suspect it’ll be a sign of Shallan being on the threshold of gaining Shardplate.
Or at least, I subscribe to the theory that’s been doing the rounds for a number of years that Shardplate (loosely speaking) comes when a huge number of the minor spren associated with the particular Radiant order come together at once. These minor spren being creationspren for Lightweavers, windspren for Windrunners, gloryspren for Bondsmiths etc. I dunno if we’ll see this during the book but it’ll be something to look out for at least.
One final speculation: Brandon has said that there’s a scene with Wit at the epilogue that he’s wanted to write for a long time. I’d guess it’s Wit speaking a Truth to his Cryptic that he got at the end of OB. Something like “I broke the Cosmere”…
I just binged these 13 chapters. I find the reveal that there was more to what Gavilar was doing is interesting. Probably looking at conquering all three planets or maybe even beyond. Mraize and wanting to control the supply of stormlight…it’s not just monetary power. That basically turns the ghostbloods into a force that can control MILITARY force across multiple worlds – many of which wouldn’t even know what was happening when someone with access to another shard’s powers showed up.
Shallan didn’t know what the other worlds were but there was a ton of cosmere knowledge dropped here and she didn’t seem that confused. Feels a little off but maybe I’m forgetting how much of the cosmere she knows about.
As for “curing” mental illness, Brandon has made it pretty clear he isn’t doing that. They have access to healing stormlight and yet both Shallan and Kaladin suffer from mental illness. They may feel a surge of elation when they get stormlight but the mental illness remains. While Shallan’s DID is clearly influenced by real world I can’t help but think a large part of it is magical similar to her memory. Kaladin’s writing is honestly the best writing of someone with depression I have ever seen.
@161. ChrisRijk: I believe Midius would say, “I broke God.” If that is the Truth he speaks, I mean. Considering that we don’t know everything yet, and how many things Brandon is revealing in this book, it might be something we have never had so much as an inkling of.
@161, suddenly, I’m thinking that the clue here is really the necklace. There was that necklace in Shadesmar also. And didn’t she use a necklace to strangle her father? That memory could certainly explain the cold feeling she gets looking at that moving necklace.
@162 KCF – it’s been a year since the end of OB and it’s possible that Shalash (the Herald) has been talking. Shallan is not necessarily fully “Cosmere aware” but she seems to be aware of the greater Roshar system (the various planets around a common star) and how that ties into mythology.
@163 Carl – my “I broke the Cosmere” suggestion was more to get the ball rollings on discussion and ideas. I dunno what we’ll get but something a bit more multi-layered would be possible and also something that would give more insight into his personal journey. Perhaps “I broke Adonalsium not to save the world but because I thought it would be more interesting”.
@Several – Knowing the names of the planets is not the same as knowing that those actual planets are the origin of the mythological Tranquiline Halls and Damnation. Those connections are becoming known now, but haven’t been for at least the last millenium or so.
RunningLikeTheWind @150 – Maya is a cultivationspren, like Wyndle except deadeye. We first got confirmation of that when Sanderson was asked if the way Adolin’s Shardblade formed, looking like vines of mist, meant that it belonged to an Edgedancer, and he said that was correct. Then in the trip through Shadesmar in Oathbringer, her appearance is clearly that of a cultivationspren rather than an honorspren.
Today I managed to connect a lot of dots to come up with a theory for the Shadesmar trip that I consider plausible. Highly plausible. Dangerously plausible. So please don’t blame me if it turns out to be correct and you feel spoiled. That being said, the last time I had a brilliant idea that I thought would explain a lot, it turned out to be dead wrong. To be clear: this is purely based on my own reasoning and I don’t have any knowledge about the book that isn’t already public.
Starting point: back in OB, Azure made a deal with the honorspren to go to Lasting Integrity to explain how her Shardblade worked. The honorspren were interested since this allowed for Shardblades but without spren bonds – they’d no longer have to risk death or enslave themselves. Let’s assume that Azure successfully reached Lasting Integrity and that the honorspren were convinced that this was a plausible alternative. Wouldn’t that explain why they’ve stopped bonding humans now?
I doubt that Azure is Restares, who has been with the Sons of Honor for 6+ years. Azure has been on Roshar for only a year. Restares is always described as being male as well. But it’s possible that since Restares has knowledge of other worlds he might be able to trade info to the honorspren to help them with their plan to make Shardblades using Azure’s method. That could explain how he got asylum. In the prologue Galivar is discussing the transport of Light between worlds too.
But that leaves a problem. To make a useful number of Shardblades using this method would require transporting large amounts of Stormlight to Nalthis and converting it into Breaths. It could also be done with huge amounts of money by paying lots of people on Nalthis to give up their Breath – but if it takes say 10,000 Breaths to make a decent Shardblade that’s probably not going to be viable. But the Ghostbloods do have a solution to all this, apparently.
Let’s consider another point though: Ialai was able to intercept some communications between the Ghostbloods. Is it possible that Shallan was mentioned in these communications? Sure. It might explain why Ialai seemed to trust Shallan and was so certain why she was here – it’s plausible that Ialai knew that Shallan was involved with the Ghostbloods but also that she was unreliable. So perhaps she decided to gamble that Shallan could be persuaded to turn on the Ghostbloods and/or help out the Sons of Honor. Note that Ialai tells Shallan that she’ll be asked to go kill Restares next. This is pretty much true except that Mraize doesn’t tell her what to do with Restares. (I don’t have an explanation for that yet)
Ialai was trying to get in touch with Restares but we don’t know if she was successful. Either way, it’s possible that Restares is also aware that Shallan is a Ghostblood agent. If she turns up at Lasting Integrity, I doubt he’ll be willing to take a gamble like Ialai did, particularly with Ialai dead. In short, it’s highly likely that Shallan and everyone in the group will be arrested the moment they arrive at Lasting Integrity for being Ghostblood agents out to kill Restares. Instant, multi-layered crisis! (I’d bet that Shallan hasn’t told Adolin about her involvement with the Ghostbloods by this time)
However, if Shallan can figure out all of the above then it’s possible that she’ll realise that there’s an opportunity here. She knows there’s a way to solve the problem – the Ghostbloods know how. Restares seems to have figured out some of it too. If they can pool their knowledge and resources to solve this then they’d be able to create lots of Shardblades and without relying on the Ghostbloods or honorspren. This doesn’t help with the honorspren but maybe they’ll be able to come to some compromise – eg to bond just 1 human in their lifetime to help in the war against Odium. This would also set up a conflict with the Ghostbloods later on. I guess it’s also possible that Restares is a double-agent or had gone over to the Ghostbloods and this is all something Mraize set up but I’m pretty sure Restares wasn’t with the Ghostbloods during WoR, given how Mraize refers to him at the time (WoR chapter 54).
PS Either way, when the group set off for Lasting Integrity, I’d guess they’ll arrange for transport in advance, which will require some planning. I doubt they’d go out into Shadesmar and then simply wait until a boat turns up. So the journey to Lasting Integrity might be relatively simple.
My theory on the shadesmar trip and what Mraize said about shallenknowing what to do. I think it’s someone she knows, maybe from her past that she doesn’t what to remember that she loathes or hates and will kill that person. Thats why mraize didn’t tell her to kill restates he expects her to do that when she’s sees him or her.
ChrisRijk@@@@@ 167. One minor correction on your analysis. Azure did not make a deal to reach Lasting Integrity. The Honorspren ship was gonig to Lasting Integrrity anyways. Had the Fused not appeared and Captain Notum agreed to release everybody else, Captain Notum would have sailed to Lasting Integrity. Azure’s deal was once they reached lasting Integrity, she would trade the knowledge of creating a Shardbalde which required no spren with journey to Cultivation’s Perpendicularity. Azure had championed reaching Cultivation’s Perpendicularity as a way of leaving Shadesmar.
I think the next time we see Azure in a Stormlight Archive work is in the planned Rock novela (which story wise would take place between the end of RoW and the start of Book 5).
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
There have been multiple mentions about Shallan having other worldly-like powers, which is cool because during the past few chapters of Shallan, I have had this crazy theory that one of her secrets includes her actually being from another world. I am not sure how it fits exactly, and I know she looks similar to her family and all Jah Kevedians. Still, it’s been slowly creeping into my mind, but feel free to disprove. (Also sorry if someone else mentioned this already. Some comments I only glanced at because they were so long.)
: Last week, in the comments, someone expressed disappointment that we could be so understanding of Kaladin’s depression, while – at least to this person – being very hurtful about Shallan’s DID (comment 33, if you want to go back and read their exact words). I’d like to address that comment a little, though I’m not sure I entirely understand what they were hoping for. (Side note: Taryn – it’s very good to hear from those who live with DID, and see where Sanderson hit the right beats, as well as learning where he didn’t. It’s especially good when, like last week, we say “I don’t get it, does that really work?” and you can say “Yep, right on” or “Well, mostly” or whatever. Constructive critique is always good.)
Thank you for taking on board those comments and concerns! And thanks for reading what I wrote – Shallam’s character and especially the new RoW chapters have given a lot of new opportunities for me to explain/give my perspective on DID and I’m really grateful to Brandon for that.
In terms of Shallan being “fixed” re her DID, and to address some aspects of the comments, I tend towards the idea that when in doubt, look at what people with that neurotype express. For me, DID is more like autism than say depression. If I could snap my fingers and get rid of my depression I would in a heartbeat. I’m medicated for that, my management of it revolves suppression/getting rid of it as much as possible. My autism/DID on the other hand feel more part of me. They aren’t “mental illnesses” I have, they’re fundamental parts of my identity. If you remove my depression I’d still be me. If you removed my autism or DID I wouldn’t. If that makes any sense at all. As far as I know most folks with DID/Autism are p happy as they are and don’t feel the need to be “fixed”.
DID isn’t a mental illness like anxiety or depression. It’s a coping mechanism. For me, and Shallan, it’s a way to cope with childhood trauma. Her headmates protect her and help her function/cope day to day.
Integration is a very tense and difficult subject in plural communities. It’s often expressed as the ultimate goal in the ‘treatment’ of DID – it’s something general forced on plural folks. Our society bas a very narrow view of what a “normal” person looks like, and too often, ‘treatment’ for neurodivergent people involves a lot of forcing them to be/appear as “normal” as possible, whether or not this actually helps the person or not. Integration, for us, is horrible to consider, absolutely awful. We balance and function generally well and being plural is how and who we are normally.
Personally I don’t want Shallan to integrate. Some plural folks DO want this, but in the case of a fantasy novel where a DID character is being written by someone without DID, integrating them feels too much like sterile, neurotypical doctors forcing people with DID to integrate to align with their personal idea of what a “normal” person should look like.
In terms of how this ties in to “one character with depression/DID shouldn’t be a proxy for all those people” yes that’s very true. And yes this is fiction. It is fantasy. It is entertainment. I accept all of that. But media representation is incredibly important and, in terms of DID, usually incredibly damaging. How many horror films are there with DID characters who have violent alters who harm others? How has that affected the general perception of people with DID?
No one character’s depiction SHOULD become synonymous with that one aspect of their identity but it so often does. Someone who watches a film with a violent person with DID who doesn’t know anyone with DID, or know anything about it suddenly has everything they know about DID be that media depiction of them, and that’s how they then see all people with DID. That’s what their idea/association with DID becomes.
The idea that Shallan is going to be some people’s first/only perception of someone with DID is incredibly comforting and important for me. Because her headmates clearly support her, they protect her, they care for her, they feel more like how my own feel. They aren’t a stereotypical hollywood representation.
No Brandon isn’t a doctor, but you can understand and represent someone’s struggles without having studied them. The RoW depiction of Shallan clearly shows me the work Brandon has done listening to actual plural people, not doctors. As has been noted, doctors don’t always have a patients’ best interest at heart/understand them as deeply as the people themselves.
His improved autistic representation hasn’t come from listening to doctors or autism organisations (many of which are actually incredibly damaging) but from listening to actually autistic people. Shallan is the same.
I don’t expect a casual reader to go and research DID after reading about Shallan. But I do expect Brandon to do so (which he’s clearly done) as his portrayal of it will potentially influence hundreds of peoples’ awareness of DID/plural folks through Shallan.
It’s easy to sit and say “X character shouldn’t stand in for all characters with X condition” but they so often do in the mind of a casual reader. Because ofc you’re not expected to go and research a condition a fictional character has – but you’re reading an experience you don’t have, and it may be your only experience of it. And that’s incredibly powerful and meaningful to the people who do have DID. It’s why fictional representation is so important.
You read for entertainment, for escapism, for whatever else, of course. But seeing yourself in that entertainment or escapism is so important and so powerful. Especially if you’re hardly ever portrayed in a good light.
The Stormlight Archive is a revolutionary series for me, and so many others, because it’s taking conditions and experiences which are often pitied/side-lined at best, and demonised or stereotyped at worst and it’s making them the heroes of this world. People with depression, and PTSD, and addiction issues, and autism, and DID are the ones who are going to save them all. It’s giving them power,.and it’s giving them a voice, and a space in a genre which has so often revolved around cis, able-bodied, neurotypical white men. It’s pushing boundaries, it’s expanding worlds and horizons both fictional and in the real world, and that’s an incredibly powerful thing. And honestly? It’s about fucking time.
Taryn @171 – Thank you! Again, your input is both insightful and helpful. There are SO many questions I want to ask, but I’m afraid I’d leak spoilers if I asked them. So… I’ll just shut up, for now. Thanks again.
@172 Wetlandernw – Thank you and you’re welcome. If any folks have questions on this/future chapters I’m happy to try and provide some insight based on our experience (though we are ofc only one system!)
Forgot something I wanted to mention re Veil and Shallan “becoming whole”. I don’t think it means re-integrating. Most headmates, and Veil and Radiant included in this from what they’ve said, and how Shallan prefers for them to be interacted with as individuals, consider themselves “whole”/”real” already. Identity re DID with headmates is super complicated and I could get bogged down in a lot of philosophical ramblings about it, but suffice it to say: I don’t think Veil thinks Shallan being whole = Shallan being integrated.
I think she means “whole” in terms of not having fragmented pieces of her past missing. There are memories Shallan won’t acknowledge/allow herself to remember. I think Veil is pushing Shallan, as she usually does, out of her comfort zone in order to grow.
Shallan’s Truths so far have been about admitting to things she’s done that she’s repressed/refused to allow herself to remember or acknowledge: like killing both of her parents. I suspect whatever she’s blocking out now will be her next truth/ideal to allow her to progress, and Veil wants to encourage her to do that above all.
Also something to note, I suppose this is more what I think than definite canon, but: Veil and Radiant both existed before Shallan officially named them/drew them/knew them.
Believe it or not late diagnosis of DID is, as far as I know, not uncommon. I only discovered it recently, in fact, at the ripe age of 24. But Taryn, you cry, how can you possibly have multiple other people in your head and not notice!? An excellent question! I have no idea!!!
But in all seriousness, I kinda do. The purpose of DID, largely, is as a coping mechanism. The brain creates different headmates to deal with different situations and just kinda support the host and allow them to function day to day. This sort of falls apart/fails at step 1 if it’s super obvious what’s happening. Contrary to Hollywood belief, shifts of fronting individuals isn’t that obvious – this is why Shallan uses her hair colour to indicate the change to those around her.
As such I, and Shallan, and other plural folks had headmates when they were younger but didn’t notice, or even know/name them for a while.
In book terms this theory might be a combo of a) me projecting (highly likely) plus b) Brandon not fully commiting to Shallan’s DID rep until RoW.
But, in rereading the first 3 books at the moment, it’s obvious for me to be able to pick out places Radiant and Veil emerge before Shallan officially names/creates/recognises them on a drawing page.
Radiant is who Shallan is for much of the journey with Tvlakv, the poised noblewoman, and, even before that, the one who uses logic to plead for Jushu/tries to employ the teachings of her tutors/Jasnah.
Veil, I believe, emerges when Shallan needs someone scrappy, practical, and sometimes ruthless, the pragmatic survivor and protector of the group. She’s the one who kills Tyn, telling her she’s already learned harsh life lessons, and who confronts the mercenaries afterwards. I also suspect she’s the one who occasionally @s Shallan to remind her that they have access to a Shardblade in times of stress or trouble – like Jasnah’s delightful philosophy lesson in Kharbranth. Also, likely, the one who took over with pragmatism and cold logic when killing both Shallan’s parents.
Regardless, I don’t believe Shallan on-the-spot created Radiant and Veil. I think those are just the moments she solidifies their identities and combines them with her Lightweaving.
Formless is more complicated, from a narrative and a DID perspective. From a narrative POV I hope Formless isn’t an Unmade/the spy in Dalinar’s inner circle. It feels like a cheap twist to me, it stinks too much of traditional (harmful) media representation of DID where there’s one headmate the others aren’t aware of who goes on vicious killing sprees then turns back into the sweet unknowing host a la Jekyll and Hyde. It would also undo a lot of the work Brandon has done in portraying DID well/realistically/as something that aids and protects the host, and that isn’t dangerous/something that can’t be balanced and stable and functional – Which Radiant/Shallan/Veil ultimately are, for the most part.
In my experience a lot of folks with DID have a Formless, or a ‘void’ headmate. They represent a darker part of the system, the existing gaps, the dark spots, the memories too damaging to be shared or known, what the system is truly capable of doing in order to survive/protect the others.
I think this is what Formless represents for Shallan – that thing in her memories she can’t access or acknowledge because it was too traumatising and dangerous. (Heck Brandon, what else have you done to her? What’s worse than having to kill both her father and mother in self-defence, sheesh. We say Kal needs a break from Brandon’s relentless campaign of angst of soul-wrecking havoc but Shallan does too tbh).
Hope these don’t come across as too preachy – It’s rare we get the chance to explain about DID/educate a willing audience and we may have gotten carried away….
What if Pattern is a ghostblood, and that was all planned to by them form the start: Bringing pattern to bond Shallan was planned as a tool for the ghostblood.
So when Shallan gets to Restares , Pattern will kill him.
I think it would be interesting to see Formless trying to “absorb” or become Shallan. Perhaps only 3 personas will fit or something. I don’t know exactly how it would work. But Shallan would have to either confront her memories or have her persona replaced by Formless. I think that’s kind of where her story arc so far is headed.
Does anyone else think that Shallan’s last secret could be that :
She’s a Kandra planted into house Davar as a child? It explains her disposition towards DID and acting talents. I suspect the Davar house steward could have replaced the real Shallan at a young age before Pattern found and bonded with her. If her real mother found out about the switch through her Ghostblood connections (or suspect relations with the Skybreakers) it would be a good a reason as any to try to murder her. It also makes sense from a naming point of view with this new persona “formless”… to me it literally sounds like what a Kandra would describe itself as or appear as without bones i.e. in their natural state.
In Oathbringer there’s a conversation between Shallan and Wit during the confrontation of Ashertmarn:
“She became a new person with every heartbeat. The voices seemed thrilled by this. They assaulted her, growing to a frenzy. Shallan was a thousand people in a moment. But which one was her?
All of them. A new voice. Wit’s?
“Wit!” she screamed, surrounded by snapping eels in a dark place. “Wit! Please.”
This feels like the truth of her trying to come out, her Kandra-ness. I’ve always felt the imagery of ‘eels in a dark place’ alludes to the formless or the Kandra Homeland.
The last question I have on the topic is, what powers would a Kandra with a True Body made of a perfect gemstone have? Could this be a way to move investiture between worlds?
What ever the secret it, it has to be pretty massive given her fears of everyone hating her when it comes out.
I apologize if this has already been mentioned, but just thought I would toss out a crazy theory that perhaps Shallan does not have as good a handle on her alter alter personalities ad she claims. What we do know is:
1. Shallan had some unremembered past childhood trauma.
2. Someone close to Dalinar is Informing for Mraize (Ghostbloods)
3. Shallan’s family has a history with the Ghostbloods
4.Someone close to Shallan (close physical proximity) poisoned Ialai.
loosely putting all of these together, perhaps Shallan has a personality that she is. It consciously acknowledging. Perhaps this alter personality has previously pledged to the Ghostbloods and is actually both the assassin that killed Ialai and the informant close to Dalinar. Perhaps this will be the truth that she has to confront.
Just a thought and I apologize if this has already been discussed.