Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Alice had a large quantity of family feels. This week I have a lot of tumblr feels. Boots! Ships! Beautiful conwomen! Men on horseback! Torn bodices! Wait, no, not that. I also go on a small rant involving the International Phonetic Alphabet. Caveat lector.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here. Click on through to join the discussion.
Chapter 28: Boots
Point of View: Shallan
Setting: The Shattered Plains
Symbology: Pattern, Shalash, Taln
IN WHICH Shallan talks with a mouth full of rocks, when she should have a mouth full of pebbles; Tyn explains the importance of unimportance and the unimportance of importance; Shallan doesn’t get it, predictably enough; Eye color, class, and nationality are proven to be disguisable; Stuff is immaterial for a thief; Tyn muses on jobs gone by; Four riders approach on horseback, but on Roshar that isn’t ominous or metaphorical or anything; Tyn and Shallan head out to handle them; At the last minute, Shallan becomes Horneater royalty; Kaladin and Shallan lock eyes across the hills and have nothing but contempt for each other; Boots.
Quote of the Week:
“Nah, it’s more like they have pebbles in their mouths. But they talk really slow, with overemphasized sounds. Like this. ‘Oi looked over the paintings that ya gave me, and they’re roit nice. Roit nice indeed. Ain’t never had a cloth for my backside that was so pleasant.’”
This uh… this isn’t… Okay, let’s all remember that no Bavlanders were harmed in the making of this chapter, to begin with. My main problem this is that the accent implementation is pretty lazy. Consider “Roit nice.” Right (rīt) and nice (nīs) contain exactly the same vowel sound in… well, just about every dialect of English I can think of. Prove me wrong here if you can, I’m eager to learn more about global pronunciations, but variation in that vowel, in the middle of the word, in two words that both begin with voiced consonants seems unlikely at best. (I only took one semester of linguistics, so please feel free to tell me how full of crap I am.)
Commentary: Gentle friends, can I just jump straight to shipping? No? Curse you all with your insistence on facts and thoughts and tumblr-unworthy feels!
Grumble mumble con artist lessons hrumble chumble boots.
One of the many things I like about Tyn is how she personifies the mutability of class and position in a way that Vorinism falls over itself trying to deny. A lighteyes can be mistaken for a darkeyes with just a few eyedrops. A servant may be armed, but as long as they sound like a no one and move like a no one and dress like a no one their master will never know. A woman can be as dangerous as any man, but the expectation of helplessness will let her move silently and lethally through the world. It’s really too bad she’s on the wrong side of history, because I’d have liked to see her exploit the changes that are about to hit Rosharan society.
Unless I’m very wrong, the events of Words of Radiance will result in cataclysmic, sweeping change throughout the Vorin kingdoms, and we’ll start to see that happen in the next novel. Women with magic swords, darkeyed soldiers leading armies, the slave class rising up as murderous waves of death, storms coming from the wrong direction, all bets are off. And who better to take advantage of that chaos than a con woman like Tyn?
As annoying as I found the Bavlander accent training, Shallan conning Kaladin out of his boots is undeniably hilarious. She wanted boots for so long, and she and Tyn so successfully turned all of Kaladin’s defenses into perceived insults, that you have to feel sorry for both of them. Shallan will pay for her deception in full, but at least she’ll do so with less-battered feet. Also:
“I will tell all who are to listen! When arriving, I will say, ‘Kholin is stealer of boots and taker of women’s virtue!’”
Kal sputtered. “Virtue!”
“Yes,” Shallan said; then she glanced over to Tyn. “Virtue? No, wrong word. Virtue . . . No . . . Vesture. Vesture! Taker of woman’s vesture! That is word I wanted.”
Shallan, that is such a bad pun, why did you think it was a good idea for your subtle con games.
Sprenspotting: “Storms! She was good. She actually managed to produce angerspren with the remark.” WHOA. WHOA. This totally blows up everything I previously thought about the effect of spren on society! During The Way of Kings I speculated that the existence of spren who could detect anger, fear, and joy would make for a far more honest and far more aggressive society, but all that is off the table if skilled enough liars can conjure up simulated emotions that are realistic enough to fool spren. Think of the implications for theater! The star actors are the ones who can consistently conjure appropriate spren! That’s… that makes for terrible theater!
Heraldic Symbolism: So, if Shalash represents Shallan and Taln represents Kaladin, as he sometimes has, they both appear in this chapter because the soldier and the conwoman have finally met.
Shipwatch: Y’all can’t stop me now!
“Tyn laughed, tossing her head back, jet-black hair falling free around her shoulders.”
Uh-huh?
“Tyn smiled. She was so relaxed, so . . . free. Not at all what Shallan had expected after their first encounter.”
Shallan is experiencing so many things she never expected, you say?
Tyn eyed her […] “You know, kid, you get kind of mouthy when you let your mask down.”
Shallan blushed.
“I like it. I prefer people who can laugh at life.”
Hmmmmmm. You can try to deny this if you really want to, but I’m telling you the femslash writes itself.
Meanwhile, she and Kaladin have exactly the same equine terrors: “Shallan found horses intimidating. The large brutish things weren’t docile like chulls. Horses were always stomping about, snorting.” Sound familiar? I admit, I don’t see KalaShallalamadingdong as a successful long-term ship, but they do have a great set up for romcom misunderstandings.
That’s it for this week! For more on what I’ve been working on all week, go check out Tor.com’s inaugural novella list. It’s good times for all.
Carl Engle-Laird is an editorial assistant at Tor.com, where he acquires and edits original fiction. You can follow him on Twitter here.
I just want to know what happened when Kaladin got back to the war camp minus a pair of boots and with holes in his socks…
I actually wondered if Tyn might be a lesbian. It’s never really made clear, and certainly never stated outright, but it is implied that she has had multiple “apprentices”, and I assume they were always young women, likely drawn from the lower classes. Maybe she just likes having someone work for her, and maybe it’s never sexual at all, but it did get me wondering…
But I am NOT shipping ShallaTyn (though if Tyn had lived, maybe JasnaTyn?)
I always imagined the Bavlander accent as being like Cockney. And heavy accents don’t always treat the same vowel sounds identically. New Englanders may say “Pahk yeh cah in hahvad yahd”, but “pahk” and “cah” don’t sound identical, really (car is pronounced more nasally, in my experience, than park is).
As far as the accent goes, I think what Brandon was trying to do here was write out how most people think the stereotypical low-class English accent sounds. It’s a trope, but he’s using it effectively.
The angerspren showing up for good acting makes sense, because a really good actor will actually have those feelings. They aren’t faking the anger, just the reason for the anger. (Or they’re Method actors and aren’t even faking that.) A real con man is successful because he believes his lies are true, at least until the con is over. If the spren are just drawn by the emotion itself, then a good actor or con man wouldn’t have to worry about the spren (or lack thereof) betraying his true feelings.
Roit nice! As a Brit, this made me think of a Newcastle accent, which would, phonetically sounder near to “roit noice!”, but that’s just quibblin’ innit. :P
After the events of WoR, where Kaladin and the rest of Bridge 4 have a positive impression of Shallan, I would love to hear Shallan tell the boot story to Rock, Lopen and some other members of Bridge 4. It would even be better if Kaladin was present when she told them the story.
It was so funny that Shallan would not have to imbellish any part of the story. Also, I would like to hear Syl’s commentary to Kaladin as Shallan related the story (and Bridge 4 laughed as I think they would).
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
@5 STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME SHIP IT
(dont stop)
One of my biggest pet peaves in (non-humorous) fantasy novels happens to be English-based puns. As English is not a language in the setting , it completely breaks the immersion. I feel Brandon relies on it a little to much.
When I read this accent all I heard was Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind chapter “Pegs”. Apparently all good fantasy authors have the same idea about localized accents :)
Honestly, I found Shallan’s antics with Kaladin obnoxious on the first read (funny I guess, but mostly obnoxious), and I still don’t like them after the 5th or 6th re-read. As Kaladin put it much later, she was really taking advantage because she could, with no thoughts of the consequences. Imagine that the anti-bandit patrol would actually find bandits and have to fight. Having no boots could (and most likely would) get Kaladin killed, and it was all because she wanted to have some fun… Bad Shallan.
Also, Kaladin + Jasnah forever.
“Prove me wrong here if you can, I’m eager to learn more about global
pronunciations, but variation in that vowel, in the middle of the word,
in two words that both begin with voiced consonants seems unlikely at
best.”
Well, it’s a moot point since “right” and “nice” also both end with voiceless consonants, but Canadian raising affects /ai/ differently depending on whether it’s followed by a voiceless consonant, e.g. “rise” and “nice” would have subtly differently vowel sounds.
If I had to guess, I’d say it depends on stress. The way I read it, the “right”s are strongly stressed, while the “nice”s are not. So perhaps the “oi”s are lengthened, causing the following syllable to be shortened to compensate, and thus preventing the sound change.
Also, I want to point out that “I’m going to strangle you, woman” reads somewhat differently after events later in the book. Chapter 34, obviously, but also Chapter 73, the last flashback chapter.
The chapter title made me think of “Boots” from Towers of Midnight, another BWS work obviously. Both chapters are lighthearted, calm before the storm, though the jokes were much more amusing in WOR. Tyn seems to be a shoutout to Matrim in some ways, a self-mocking, noblish con artist with a heart of gold.
Well, except that Tyn didn’t exactly fit the “heart of gold” part of that billing…
Let me rephrase that, then. Tyn has a “heart of gold” at least as part of her persona in “mentoring” Shallan.
I was still not liking Shallan here….especially here. I thought she was being a brat. As VladZ@8 stated, she was having fun with Kaladin, “because she could.” To no good purpose.
I can’t really fault Shallan for her Horneater princess pretense since she was forced into that mode by Tyn. Her act as an imperious princess is just that – an act. As to the boots, she really needs them to be able to walk properly. She later voices misgivings to Tyn about having placed Kaladin in possible danger, as a result. Tyn scoffs at the idea of a softhearted ‘con woman’.
I can’t help thinking that Shallan swiping Kaladin’s boots only hits some people as such a negative thing because it’s Kaladin; if it had been some random soldier in a group of random soldiers, that reaction would be non-existant. She’s out here in rough country, trying to get to the Shattered Plains where she must make a good impression, and all she’s got are flimsy indoor shoes. She already ripped her feet to shreds fourteen days ago, and despite her inadvertent and poorly-understood Stormlight healing, she has an understandable desire to protect them.
Wet, you are right. I was pissed at Shallan for the way she behaved, especially because it was Kaladin. For the last 27 chapters I was looking forward for the two characters meeting at last and then this. …
@14 I think that is the whole joke here, since you can legitimately say that on various levels Shallan is indeed a soft-hearted con woman. First, she tried to con Jasnah, though she ended up confessing since she was out-conned (by Jasnah’s fabricated soul-caster), then she did actually (AFAIR) con Tyn into thinking she was a con artist. Pattern has taught her very well.
Maybe this chapter should be called “Conception”.
Zizoz @9 and don’t forget that other place where Shallan says “I am going to strangle … ” I guess I did kill Tyn, didn’t I? When she later regrets the Boots incident.
ETA: Re: it was Kaladin. If anyone can handle it, its Kaladin, right? If it was just a normal soldier, that could be bad, but is Kaladin really going to lose a fight with common bandits merely because he is barefoot?
Xaladin @18 – Quite true – if anyone can handle a fight barefoot, it would be Kaladin! The “it was Kaladin” was far more about reader reaction than about character ability to cope. :)
I am an avowed Kaladin fan and a believer that a Kaladin-Shallan pairing would be good for both and for the saga. Yet, I have no problem with their initial negative feelings towards one another. If you think this first meeting was a disaster, wait for the next meeting which degenerates into a loud trading of insults in the royal palace. You need to patiently wait for well into the chasm episode towards the end of WOR to find that these two finally get to understand and admire one another. Life can spring surprises in reality as well as in fiction. Nor is the author of fiction bound to our own imagined continuation of their story. A case in point is the discovery of a manuscript by Harper Lee that actually preceded her writing of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Some people appear to be upset at the projected publication of this manuscript that deals with the young girl of the Mockingbird book, now appearing as an adult. As if their imaginings of Scout’s later life will be ‘spoiled’ by the author’s necessarily different description.
@20
People are upset about the Harper Lee publication because Harper Lee herself actively fought against publishing any follow-ups for years. Her friend/lawyer who protected her estate is dead, and Harper is rumored to be senile, making this look like a case of exploitation.
First time posting in the Storm Cellar!
@carl
can’t argue with the femslash :P
Walker @7
Since the author is probably not thinking in an alien-fantasy-language when they are writing books, I think language conversions is just something that you have to live with. Personally I assume language in fantasy/SF novels are translated to the nearest English/Earth analog for the benefit of easier reading; I really hate it when the characters are throwing around alien words that I have no idea of and breaks my flow of reading…
(Bad translations is a can of worms that shall be kept closed)
Hmm, looks like there is nobody else from Taipei down here?
People following Brandon’s schedule will know he is here for a signing tour (and maybe insights for a sequel to Emperor’s Soul), so it seems it is up to me to ask some questions on behalf of the Storm Cellar!
Does anyone have a shortlist of things to ask? I lurk around enjoying the discussions, but not really good at remembering unresolved issues…
In addition to the point about it being Kaladin, is it definitely known that people always walk around in shoes/boots/sandals? And that no one, particularly of lower classes, might not wear shoes regularly enough to have hardened feet? I’m thinking somewhat of Kvothe here, who wears shoes when he has them but seems to slip back into shoeless mode with relative ease. Kaladin wore sandals during bridge runs, to be sure. But is it a certainty that people wore them all the time, such that walking or running on stone would be a complete impossibility?
My thought on reading was that Kaladin would be mostly inconvenienced by lacking boots — not that he would be partially incapacitated by it. Besides, he was on a horse, wasn’t he? Not his ideal mode of travel, but certainly that would also help with the bootless condition.
Desnet, I agree with you 100% about the language thing. Sometimes when I read puns that obviously only work in English, I tell myself that the character said a pun equivalent/isomorphic to the one in the text.
@7 I completely disagree with you and think you’re complaining about something for which there would not be a better solution.
I’m not sure how exactly a fantasy author is supposed to make puns in the language the people would actually be speaking since none of us speak that language. I suppose if they are Tolkien and actually create the language in which case only a handful of people would get it and he’d have to write it in Elvish and then write a translation for English speakers in that case you could do it. But what would be the point in them even trying to? It would just sound like an ordinary sentence in English but for some reason the characters would suddenly laugh or groan but we wouldn’t know why unless they completely broke the 4th wall and made the character somehow explain the pun every single time. So if you can think of some way that an author could accomplish this without completely destroying the immersion then go ahead and post it because I can’t.
I disliked the boot scene here because it reminded me of the one with Mat in WoT that I hated.
I also don’t like English puns in a fantasy world that wouldn’t work in a different language.
@@@@@Wetlandernw, I was not necessarily thinking about Kaladin in particular when I was going over Shallan’s actions. The fact that the soldier she chose to “con” happened to be one able to take care of himself should be irrelevant, because she didn’t know that.
And the soldier dying was the least of the problems. What if they encountered bandits robing someone, had to fight, lost because of boots and not only they, but the people they tried to help were hurt? Granted, it’s a stretch, and it didn’t happen, but it could have. And for someone in her position (who just been through almost this exact thing) she acted with no thought or care for the consequences of her actions. Sure, it all turned out ok (and somewhat funny for the reader) but there could have been real consequences. And the fact that she needed the boots should not matter at all; they weren’t hers for the taking. Most thieves are convinced they NEED the stuff they steal (for different reasons).
This being said, I actually ended up liking Shallan by the end of the book and she does stop later on and thinks about what she did here and realizes it was bad. But when this chapter takes place, even (or especially after) combining it with what we found out in Way of Kings, Shallan seems like a spoiled little girl who does whatever she wants with little to no care for consequences (stealing Jasnah soulcaster leading to war for another example). I think we can agree that how she was raised and the events in her life lead to her behaving in this fashion but that doesn’t excuse or justifies the behavior.
As far as the puns / language specifics go, I believe the authors should get a lot of slack.
You can go ultra-realistic: Roshar is a different world that has its own spoken languages and the author should create those languages and write the book in them, this way all the puns will make sense, and they will look the same no matter the country on Earth we’re reading the book in. Of course, we’ll have to learn to read / speak Rosharian and any other dialect / language there but that’s a small price to pay for a good book :P
Or you can realize that most authors write in his / hers native tongue and the book is mostly meant to be read in it. That includes all artifacts of language, from accents to phrasing, to even sayings (a good author will have in-world sayings, swear words, etc. but even then some real life stuff will interfere). Translators (even great ones) can only do so much. So the end result will be a matter of compromise, first between what the author would like to do and what he can realistically do and secondly (and maybe the most important) between what the reader expects (or would like to get) and what he actually gets.
I truly think Brandon is great at delivering close to perfect worlds so I’m happy enough without nitpicking when he choses to use a weird accent or word.
For Captain Kaladin, being forced to take off his boots and hand them over to a woman in front of a group of his men was probably extremely humiliting. Factor in the amount of teasing he must have got from bridge four when he was forced to explain why he returned to camp minus any foot wear, and it isn’t so suprising that he didn’t see the funny side.
The Horneater princess pretense and the taking of his boots certainly fueled Kaladin’s rather intense dislike of Shallan in addition to his general prejudice against Lighteyes. Her lies and behavior lead him to consider her an opportunist who might even be an assassin. After all, the information that he had was that Jasnah’s boat sank with no apparent survivors. Suddenly this woman appears and claims to be Jasnah’s ward and Adolin’s would-be betrothed. Her verbal jousting forays against him certainly didn’t help, either. His suspicions were only put aside in that chasm episode after Shallan swore that she had no ill intentions towards the Kholins. When he began to regard her as a well-intentioned but naively optimistic person who had never experienced the cruelties in life in her youth, she illustrated some of her feelings in that supposed protected bubble called the Davar home. Only then did Kaladin appreciate the tenacity of spirit which enabled her to overcome such seemingly impossible obstacles to a normal life. So, dislike and even hatred turned into fascination and infatuation. She is equally fascinated by Kaladin’s story and character. We’ll just have to wait and see how BWS continues their saga.
Everyone seems to be thinking British, I was actually thinking Australian.
Wetlander @15:
I can’t help thinking that Shallan swiping Kaladin’s boots only hits some people as such a trivial thing because it’s Shallan; if it had been some random light-eyed woman who browbeat an honest dark-eyed soldier into giving up part of his equipment (an act that could put his life in danger), that reaction would be much stronger.
Never posted in one of these before, but I’ve been enjoying the reread a lot so here goes.
I remember during that first, frantic reading of this book, just enjoying this chapter for the comedy that it was. It was only the second time around that I realized, while still funny, Shallan was getting into her bad habit of letting people push her around/dictate her pace. So it’s kind of unsurprising that, like Jasnah, Tyn had to go pretty quickly for Shallan’s development.
And while I don’t ship it, I enjoy Shallan and Kaladin interacting and how they play off one another, it’s kind of like sibling banter to me (a connection I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to draw, especially with how Kaladin will compare Shallan to Tien, albeit briefly, when we get to the Character Hatred Anti-Sustainment Measure chapters).
And no I’m not sorry for that horrible acronym.
FenrirMoridin @32
Welcome to the
nut houseStormcellar. Acronyms like that might get you a pass to the front of the line for chasmfiend stew. ;-)I just reread the chapter and found an addition for the sprenspotting section:
“Once they were out of earshot, Shallan looked at the boots, then started laughing uncontrollably. Joyspren rose around her, like blue leaves that started at her feet then moved up in a swirl before flaring ut above her as if in a blast of wind. Shallan watched them with a big smile. Those were very rare.”
Everyone’s been commenting on the specifics of Tyn’s Bavlander accent, but did anyone else notice that her silly line sounds a lot like Wit’s story in the epilogue of WoR?
Also, I just started a re-re-re-read of WoK, and I had to laugh when Tozbek tells Shallan “Besides, that’s a right nice likeness of my wife you gave me for my cabin. Right nice.”
I’m going to have to disagree with Carl. While a lot of Shallan’s puns are groan worthy, I really like the virtue/ vesture one.
No room for Agent Preston from the current Deadpool run? She starts off as something of an Amanda Waller analog, but we get to know her as she gets to know Wade and we find she’s also got a charmingly mundane family side to her.
HyBriDe Dd
@Ways: Are humans being put in a stew fed to Chasmfiends or are Chasmfiends being put in a stew fed to humans?
It is straight out of this recipe book entitles, “To Serve Man”.
That sounds safe enough, right?
I’m going to have to side with the comment on stealing the boots not bothering people because it was Shallan who did it. I like Shallan as a character but it shows a very understandable light-eyed tendency to place her needs ahead of others. But it was nice to see that carefree joyful moment in such contrast to the flashback.
@38 & 39
Heh.
Elusive ambiguity ™.
What ambiguity? Chasmfiends as hunters and scavengers are hardly in need of cooked food. In fact, stewing may throw kill their apetite for ‘manflesh’. Yea, Yea, I know it’s a joke. Just trying to boost the comment count
Shallan is abusing a position of power, power that she dosen’t really posses, for fun and some small comfort, there’s nothing fun about it!
When Nan Balat feels the urge for some relaxing torture he at least has the good taste to choose mindless critters.
To steal and inflict harm on others for her own amusment is twisted, to do it in a way so that her victims can’t protect themselves is evil.
I’m sure bullying is great fun as long as someone else is on the reciving end, but to find out that adults find it “hilarious”.
Abuse is taking it a bit far. It was a prank.
It was a prank taken further than it should, but let’s not call it malicious. Shallan might occasionally be an idiot, but she isn’t malicous by nature.
So I’ve been musing about this a little – about my suggestion that much of the negative reaction is because it’s Kaladin, and the counter-suggestion that it’s only viewed lightly because it’s Shallan, and here’s what I’ve concluded for myself.
I don’t take it too seriously for three primary reasons:
One, it’s Shallan. After all she’s been through, I just can’t grudge her a little protection for her feet. If she knew more about this whole Radiant thing, and how self-healing with Stormlight works, it might be different; until she does, I can’t blame her for wanting to protect her feet a bit, even if it’s only with poorly-fitting boots.
Two, it’s Kaladin. Aside from taking himself too seriously sometimes, the guy has been running bridges in sandals. With all my affection for him, I don’t honestly think Kaladin is going to be more than mildly inconvenienced if some fake Horneater princess kypes his boots.
Also: he’s riding a horse, he can heal pretty much anything that might happen as a result of not wearing boots (except maybe his pride), and if his horse bolts he can always stick himself to the saddle with Stormlight again. Dude’s going to be fine.
So, yeah. If we didn’t know any backstory on either one, I can’t say how I’d react. Woman wearing slippers in the middle of nowhere demands boots from soldier riding horse, leaving him in socks? Not enough information to determine who needs them more, or who can replace their footwear most readily. But I do know their backstory, so I don’t have a problem with finding it a funny scene. The first time I read this, I was far more concerned about what would happen when they met again than I was about Kaladin being deprived of his boots.
Was it a well-thought-out decision on her part? Of course not. It was totally spur-of-the-moment, brought on by a combination of discomforts – flimsy shoes, rocky ground, trepitation, and weird role-playing, to name but a few. It could be seen as foolish, selfish, and thoughtless… but she harms no one (except, again, perhaps Kaladin’s pride), there was no malice, and it certainly comes back to embarrass her later – which is every bit as funny as this scene.
(Three: They’re fictional characters…)
Pfff…. reason 3
(Yeah, I know. I have to remind myself periodically, though.)
I think taking Kaladin’s boots is an interaction-specific outcome. Their repartee created a natural progression toward Shallon taking Kaladin’s boots, in part, I think, because his questions were getting too close to what she wanted to not discuss and it was a diversion that popped into her head because her foot coverings were on her mind after stubbing her toe just then. It was really Tyn, IMO, who was the snotty, obnoxious one, pushing both Kaladin and Shallan for the fun of it and with malicious intent, too.
Accent note!
I’m from Atlantic Canada. We pronounce “right” as “rate” but don’t, as far as I am aware, change any other i sounds to a sounds. Possibly this is because right begins with a r and we have pirate accents (really). Fun fact – Brandon has been to Atlantic Canada and has heard our accents….
…
Oh no. Am I a Bavlander?