Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Alice dived deep into the mechanics of not being dead anymore. This week, we’ll watch my ship sink in a storm made of Shardblades and people being jerks.
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 34: Blossoms and Cake
Point of View: Shallan
Setting: Tyn’s tent in the Shattered Plains
Symbology: Pattern, Shash, Nalan
IN WHICH Tyn and Shallan learn that Highprince Valam is dead, throwing Jah Keved into chaos; Tyn spins plans for their future together as a team of thieves; Shallan contemplates what this means for her family; bounties for Vathah and his men emerge; Tyn insists on collecting, Shallan on keeping her word; Tyn launches into another one of her speeches on how the world works, bringing up unpleasant memories for Shallan; in the midst of this, the spanreed reports that Tyn’s mission was a success, Jasnah Kholin is dead, but her red-haired ward was named Shallan; things fall apart; Tyn tries to kill Shallan, but is thwarted by Lightweaving; Shallan’s Shardblade claims another victim; the former bandits show up, see Shallan’s Shardblade; hero worship intensifies; while her followers search the tent, the spanreed sends Shallan another message; Shallan accepts an invitation to meet the Ghostbloods; Part Two ends.
Quote of the Week:
I can’t escape, a primal part of her thought. Panic surged within Shallan, bringing with it memories of days spent completely impotent. Her father’s increasingly destructive violence. A family falling apart.
Powerless.
Can’t run, can’t run, can’t run . . .
Fight.
I’m speaking from inexperience, but it seems to me that Sanderson is trying to put into the words the feeling of being triggered or of having a PTSD moment. Shallan was primed for such an episode when Tyn dropped her wine on the rug, reminding her of the blood staining the carpet when she became a murderer. To back this reading up, consider that Shallan spends the rest of the chapter in an altered state of mind, speaking viciously to Tyn’s corpse and observing her own directions to the deserters as if from outside her body. Intense.
Commentary: Okay, so Tyn isn’t really as great as I might have made her out to be in weeks past, maybe, possibly. Turns out she’s maybe a hitwoman who kinda sorta got rid of tons of people who Shallan cared for deeply, which is what we in the shipping community call “a snag.” Sorry, y’all!
Frankly, she was getting on my nerves anyway. I know how mad Alice got about Tyn’s “Don’t worry, I’ll corrupt you” shtick (which, yes, has long struck me as puerile and useless, a way for moderately-worldly but infinitely immature people to snicker at those with different standards of dignity). What gets me about Tyn is how she insists on Shallan’s weakness and unworldliness. Shallan has been through worse than Tyn could possibly imagine, and her coping strategy is to bubble over with innocence and to try to make everyone laugh. She wants to be loved because she’s known hatred, wants people smiling because she’s seen the consequence of anger. It’s not Tyn’s place to intrude on that.
The text punishes Tyn directly. Triggering a woman with a Shardblade just isn’t smart, and by trying to put Shallan away Tyn ended up enhancing her legend with the men she’d wanted to sell out. Oh, also I guess her spine-soul gets burned out of her life-body. That’s a pretty good punishment too. Plus, like Mega Man, Shallan wastes no time in stealing her fallen foe’s power and making it her own. Tyn’s corpse isn’t even cool by the time Sallan’s taking over her network of contacts and con game style. What a champ.
Sprenspotting: Pattern is a champ this week. He distracts Tyn by mimicking Jasnah and alerts the deserters that Shallan’s in danger, saving her life. We’re also reminded that, unlike many (most?) spren, Pattern can never be fully invisible. Funny that a liespren can’t fully hide, isn’t it?
Ars Mechanica:
Calm, Shallan told herself. Be calm!
Ten heartbeats
But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it?
I’m not sure, but I think this is our first hint that Shallan’s Shardblade functions totally differently from other Shardblades. She doesn’t need to wait if she doesn’t want to, and she knows it. Like many other pieces of information, Shallan is hiding this from herself. The way the Blade shows up also seems different:
Shallan growled, thrusting her hands forward. Mist twisted and writhed in her hands as a brilliantly silver Blade formed there, spearing Tyn through the chest.
Shardblades have always been described as dropping into the hands of their Shardbearers, passively. I’m pretty sure that they’d be using this iaijutsu all the time if they had the option. Shallan’s also twists together out of mists, whereas other blades appear fully-formed.
Ars Arcanum:
She had spheres in her sleeve. As Tyn approached, Shallan breathed in sharply. Stormlight became a raging tempest inside of her and she raised her hand, thrusting out a pulse of Light. She couldn’t form it into anything—she still didn’t know how—but it seemed for a moment to show a rippling image of Shallan, standing proudly like a woman of the court.
Shallan has a long way to go before she’s a capable Lightweaver, but it’s good to see her development. At the moment her main mode seems to be self-insert fanfiction, though.
Shipwatch: No.
Go away.
I’ll cut you, shut up. Go away. Read some other column.
Oh Okay Then, Heraldic Symbolism: Shash is obvious, again. She’s creative and honest, representing the conflict within Shallan over how to wed these two powers. She’s also the patron Herald of Lightweavers, and Shallan is doing her best to become one of those. Nalan I don’t know so much about. He’s been associated with assassins in a number of ways? Maybe he just likes to show up when people are being dickholes. MAYBE THAT.
That’s it for this week, this chapter, and this part! Next week, Alice will handle wrap-up for Part Two, and we may finally talk about those pesky poems.
Carl Engle-Laird is an editorial assistant at Tor.com, where he acquires and edits original fiction. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Woot!
The epigraph just begs for loads of discussion. ::Sigh::
And then there’s the chapter title, which has me totally befuddled at the moment.
If we consider Tyn’s death as justice…another point for Nalan appearing in the header.
I got a weird feeling that Nazh was somehow involved with the Ghostbloods when the spanreed began writing about Tyn’s mission in Amydlatn. Nazh did, at great risk according to him*, recover at least one of Shallan’s drawings (of Pattern) from the Wind’s Pleasure at the bottom of the ocean. The GBs inquired if Tyn’s team had recovered the information they seek (probably on the location of Urithiru). I don’t really believe there’s a link, though. We have WoB that Nazh is working for Khriss, presumably for loftier (Cosmere) purposes than what the Ghostbloods are up to on Roshar. But I am having trouble rationalizing why the GBs commissioned Jasnah’s assassination just because she is also trying to find Urithiru. That’s pretty radical even if they were working toward different goals.
* Because he had to travel through the Cognitive Realm/Shadesmar to get to the sunken ship?
How would Shallan know that it takes 10 heartbeats for a regular shardblade to be summoned? I would think only shardbearers would know that, or is it just common knowledge?
Carl, in your comments you noted
“What gets me about Tyn is how she insists on Shallan’s weakness and unworldliness. Shallan has been through worse than Tyn could possibly imagine, and her coping strategy is to bubble over with innocence and to try to make everyone laugh. She wants to be loved because she’s known hatred, wants people smiling because she’s seen the consequence of anger. It’s not Tyn’s place to intrude on that.”
From Tyn’s perspective however, it is inconceivable that a seemingly innocent teenager is has suffered the pain Shallan has had. The great irony is that Tyn makes her living as a con. She pretends to be something she is not. Yet Tyn could not comprehend that somebody so naive as Shallan had a secret. Had Tyn beleived that Shallan was nothing more than a naive teenager with, then she may have handled herself better. (I do acknowledgge that from Tyn’s perspective, it would be inconceivable for Shallan to have her own Shardblade.)
As to the presence of Nalan, he is associated with justice. One could argue that Tyn’s death was a form of justice. Tyn orchastrated the death of Jasnah and the others onboard the ship. She admits such. In this chapter, Shallan “enacts” justice. During the interludes, we see Nalan act the same. Somebody determines that his marks are guilty (Ok, Nalan is the judge, jury and executioner. But for purposes of this analogy, just run with it.). Nalan then carries out the sentence (or in the case of Lift, tries to carry out the sentence). As long as the sentence is carried out (i.e. justice served), then Nalan does not care how it is accomplished. Yet when one of his lachies kills somebody who Nalan did not target, Nalan killed that person. As Nalan’s lackey did not have the proper papers to kill his victim, it fell to Nalan to carry out the justice.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
Ok, there’s something Tyn says in this scene that I think is hugely important. It’s during the bounty discussion:
Tyn: “The lies we tell, the dreams we create, they’re not real. We can’t let them be real.”
And that, I believe, is the difference between a conwoman like Tyn and a Lightweaver. For a Lightweaver, the lies that they tell are real. That’s what being a Lightweaver is.
To look at it another way, Lightweavers are created by the intersection of Illumination and Transformation. Tyn understands Illumination. She knows how to create lies. But it is Transformation that makes those lies become truth. And that’s what Tyn failed to grasp.
“She wants to be loved because she’s known hatred, wants people smiling because she’s seen the consequence of anger. It’s not Tyn’s place to intrude on that.”
This. So much this.
Well said.
This is my favorite chapter title in the entire book, just in case anyone cares.
Nick31 @2
Good question. Must be common knowledge.
Wetlandernw @5
Blossoms and Cake are certainly comforty, feel-good thingies. I suspect Shallan feels somewhat relieved after Tyn is summarily dispatched. But I’ll bet she has some internal guilt feelings about killing Tyn too. Perhaps the latter is the lie to fit the Lightweaver mold? Or am I completely missing the point?
The title: “Blossoms and Cake” is a reference to earlier in the book when Shallan told Tyn ” My life has not been all blossoms and cake.”
@7
Aha!
Edit –
How could I forget that scene (quoted by Wetlandernw @12 below)? It’s a memorable one. Doh.
Mega Man!!!
@2
Shallan’s a scholar and spent the last book studying all sorts of random things related to Desolations, Voidbringers, and Radiants. Even if the ten-heartbeat thing wasn’t common knowledge (although it wouldn’t shock me if it was; kids on Roshar probably play with sticks as shardblades and I can easily imagine the “have to wait ten seconds!” rules they’d shout at each other) she could conceivably have picked it up.
Re: summoning her Shardblade, maybe summoning a live blade works differently than a dead one? We haven’t seen much summoning of live blades really, at this point.
Chapter 32.
Chapter 34.
gomiller @11 – You’re right – this is actually the first time we see a live Blade in action. We’ll learn more detail later:
Chapter 86
Thanks, Wetlandernw, for the citations. Tyns final words prior to reading the eye-opening information about Shallan are self-revealing. The things that you feel you must do which rip the soul apart and break the spirit must refer back to her own past, as evidenced by her distant expression. This sympathetic reading of Tyn’s remonstration is not cancelled by her violent reaction to the news about the real Shallan. She has been in such situations before and knows that she must finish her murderous task or face the wrath of the Ghostbloods. If anything, Shallan’s cold-blooded reaction to killing Tyn in self-defense and burning her body would elicit some distaste were it not for the realization that Tyn has made her kill once again – as if killing her parents were not a sufficient trauma.
@2 I would assume it is common enough knowledge (at least among lighteyes) or that Shallan as a scholar has learned this and/or discovered it while trying to find out how to use a Soulcaster. In any case in WoKs when Jasnah kills the muggers in the alley Shallan comments that she had a way to defend them that was only 10 heartbeats away so she knew it at that point too.
@1 I listen to the audiobooks of these and haven’t seen any of the book illustrations so I was like “Who the heck is Nazh?” and looked him up on the seventeeth shard website and then went “Oh… okay.” :)
I find it interesting that when the mercs find out she has a shardblade their immediate reaction is “Wow she could have killed as all instead of talking us into helping her!” but we know that unless you’ve got shardplate as well or are a surge-binder this isn’t actually true. A normal person with a shardblade could certainly have killed quite a few of the mercs/bandits but a couple of arrows would change the course of that fight pretty quick. So it’s kind of interesting tho to think about the mindset of people in regards to the blades. They also comment later (when Kaladin is sparring) about how some people just completely freeze up when someone comes at them with a shardblade.
Tyn’s final scene makes me wonder what in her past put her on her road in life – I get the feeling she was probably around Shallan’s age when she got involved in the conwoman world, but without Shallan’s harrowing childhood experience (basically, Tyn was in her youth what she projected on Shallan).
Shallan’s vicious line to Tyn’s corpse always disturbs me, it’s so very un-Shallan (because Shallan has retreated in her mind as much as possible, which is why she observes herself acting rather harshly with shock).
Blossoms and Cake is a great chapter title, but can I just say I also just really like that we have chapter titles? I always miss not having them in book series which just have numbers or separations – they’re relatively small pieces, a few words out of hundreds/thousands for each chapter, but I like having them.
Alice, in last week’s commentary, and Carl, in this week’s, both appear to hate Tyn for doing, in my view, what she thought was best for Shallan.
We readers know the horrific family life Shallan had endured to this point, we know she has proto-radiant powers, and we are confident she has the skills to survive in situations that most people would not. We know all this, but does Tyn? How was Tyn to know that Shallan was, indeed, the intended causal bride for Adolin, and that the Kholin family would welcome Shallan with open arms?
All Tyn sees is a fresh-faced teenage girl who claims that she is going into the war-camps to impersonate an expected bride-to-be of the heir to the most powerful Highprince in Alethkar. A teenage girl who appears to know very little about adult relationships, who repeats sailors’ curses without understanding their hidden meanings, and who blushes at the least hint of anything risqué.
In Tyn’s view, while Shallan had successfully conned the bandit soldiers into coming to her defense, trying to con the Kholin family is several orders of magnitude more difficult and potentially deadly. So, as she had grown to really like Shallan, she sets out to try and educate the girl into how to run a successful con, to teach her more about the ways of the world, so Shallan wouldn’t trip herself up right away and put herself in danger.
I am somewhat surprised by the hate directed towards Tyn, that Alice takes umbrage at what I think are Tyn’s good intentions towards Shallan and interprets Tyn’s actions to educate Shallan in the ways of the world as an intention “to corrupt” Shallan.
I would hope that my good friend Alice, who has in the past mounted a passionate defence for some really unpopular characters like Cadsuane, on the grounds that what many fans (like me) considered to be unforgivable behaviour by Cadsuane towards Rand could be excused because Cadsuane only acted that way out of her good intentions towards Rand, to “prepare” him to survive the trials and tribulations ahead, would reconsider Tyn’s actions in the same light.
@10 – Good point. I hadn’t considered Shallan’s scholarly training, which is just a wee bit of an oversight on my part. (In other words, D’uh. I’m an idiot. Of course that’s it.)
Shallan’s scholarly training and/or general knowledge seem like the best bet on why she knows about the ten heartbeats, but I’m also reminded of Shallan’s disappointment when Jasnah mentions how plenty of the Knights Radiant weren’t fighters but scholars, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if she learned it when she was young by asking her brothers or just looking on her own.
(I imagine li’l Shallan practicing with Pattern in that more innocent time before her flashback sequence of events, imagining herself as a future warrior. Because it’s both adorable and heartbreaking.)
The comment that stuck to my mind the most was Carl analyisis of Shallan’s shardblade and how it seems to differ then other dead-Blades.
Has anyone repertoriate all the manifestations of shardblades throughout both books so we could compare how Pattern materialize versus other Blades?
@20
Pattern—Chapter 34
Shallan growled, thrusting her hands forward. Mist twisted and writhed in her hands as a brilliantly silver Blade formed there…
Ivory—Epilogue
She stabbed her hand out in the blink of an eye, mist twisting around her arm and snapping into the form of a long, thin sword pointed at Wit’s neck.
Syl—Chapter 84
… Syl’s ribbon of light became mist, a form she often took. Silver mist, which grew larger, coalesced before Kaladin, extending into his hand. Glowing, brilliant, a Shardblade emerged from the mist, vivid blue light shining from swirling patterns along its length.
The first two have the same mist twisting, all three appear from the bonded person’s hand, not like a dead blade which appears in the air and then falls into the bearer’s hand.
Regarding the 10 heartbeats, Shallan, in a few chapters, will recognize a Shardblade that Amaram shows her. It belonged to Helaran, her oldest brother. If she knew the blade it is my guess that she also knew the 10 heartbeat requirement.
One thing I found interesting in this chapter is the line “It was my spren,” Shallan said. “That is all you need know.” My question is, how many people on Roshar have their own “pet” spren? Other proto-Radiants do not count. She has given a big clue to most that she is a lot more than she appears to be. She is not good at hiding that at all. She thinks that in the Oathgate scene when she draws in the Light from the Ardents’ lanterns.
@21: Great, however it would be great to compare it to the manifestation of the dead-Blades. The only passage I am able to find right now is this one:
Adolin and his unamed Blade – chapter 50
The white fog appeared – manifesting as little vines sproutimg in the air – before snapping into the form of a Shardblade, which suddenly weighted down in his hand.
It is not so much different than Ivory snapping into Jasnah hand… It does not seem as the Blade fell from thin air either, it materialize into the hand, directly. It started as fog, which is pretty much the same thing as mist… If there is different, please someone explain it. I fell to see how Adolin calling his dead Blade is much different than the proto-Radiants…
Do we have similar passages for Dalinar and Oathbringer or his second Blade towards the end of WoR? I cannot remember….. It would help if we did.
You are correct. Just checked the seen at the end of WoR and, for both Dalinar and Amaram, their blades did appear in their hands.
Somewhere in one of the books I must have picked up that falling into the hand thing, but I do not have time to search both books now to find it.
Alisonwonderland @17 – Well, for what it’s worth, the word choice was Tyn’s (okay, Brandon’s), not mine.
There’s also this:
To be perfectly honest, I liked Tyn at first. I thought she was mostly fun and snarky, which is often a good bet. I began to dislike her for the way she talked about corrupting Shallan – mostly because I’ve had people like that in my own life. (At the time it was embarrassing, in retrospect it’s grating and makes me want to bite. Why do people think they’re “doing you a favor” by exposing you to the dregs of human nature? “Here, you’re all nice and innocent. I’ll do you a favor by destroying all your innocence and teaching you how to be as crass and as foul as I am.” Thank you so much.) Tyn’s complete refusal to believe Shallan about her identity, even though Shallan spoke only the truth, didn’t help, but at least that was (originally) only a minor irritation, and I could call it “understandable.”
It was when I found out she was not only a con woman, but a murderer, and quite willing to murder again, that my antipathy for her was really solidified. She had been responsible (okay, no, not solely) for Jasnah’s death, and now she was going to murder Shallan for simply being who she had always claimed to be. Yes, Tyn was prepared to “mentor” Shallan in the art of the con, and probably would have done reasonably well by her… as long as her assumptions were upheld, and Shallan proved to be a good student, and the powers above (a.k.a. the Ghostbloods) didn’t object, and she didn’t become inconvenient in some other way…
I don’t believe for a skinny minute that Tyn really had Shallan’s best interests in mind. She had her own best interests firmly in mind at all times. Shallan was the de facto owner of the combined caravan, so it was totally in Tyn’s personal interest to “befriend” her; when she saw the opportunity to twist it so that Shallan was in a subordinate position to her, she took it. She was clever about that part, I’ll grant you, but I don’t think Tyn cared the slightest bit about whether Shallan lived or died or succeeded in her supposed con, except that it would be fun to see if she could pull it off. And, of course, if Shallan succeeded in the “con,” Tyn would have a hold over someone in a high position, opening possibilities for information and money.
Somehow, the fact that she seemed to enjoy having Shallan’s company as well as having a new protege to train… just doesn’t compensate for Tyn’s willingness to kill Shallan the instant she realized that Shallan a) hadn’t been lying to her, and b) knew that she’d been responsible for Jasnah’s death. It will take more than the “good intentions” of trying to turn Shallan into a good conwoman to make me defend her.
@20-23 – Here are a couple of other Blade-summonings:
(Interlude 2, Ym)
(Chapter 14, Ironstance)
Alice, thank you. So the discriptions are different. Starting to think that there is no difference on how the blade appears, it is just Brandon mixing things up. No doubt I will be proven wrong again, thanks Brandon.
This is puzzling… I do see where Carl is going as most dead-Blades are described as falling within the hand of their owners… Brandon distinctively used word “fell” to describe the summoning of dead Blades whereas he used the words “snap”, “formed” and “emerged” to describe the appearal of live Blades.
The exception being Adolin calling his Blade when pacing nervously.
Do we have any other examples of dead Blades being summoned without the word “fell” being used?
Don’t forget some Blades are Honorblades and we don’t always know when those are being used. The one quoted above, for example is Nalan (does he have his own Blade, or is he using a dead one? Also, there is a missing Honorblade, right?)
How is it described when Szeth summons Jezrien’s Honorblade?
Szeth WOK prologue:
It’s kind of hard to imagine the blades “dropping” into their hands. It seems like that would be risky in combat.
Do any of the live Sprenblades have water condensing on them?
Also, in my opinion, there really isn’t any defending Tyn who jumps immediately to murder in this scene. It’s like the difference between the regular thieving crews in Mistborn and Kelsier’s crew. In the former, no one is really your friend or ally.
(1) Teaching people reality is a good
thing, to survive is to be hard. I am surprised the people here who have gotten as far as to have a blog here and survive in big cities have kept any innocence – be careful you are not taken advantage of. Many will want to.
(2) Tyr’s death is justice – no need to feel bad about it OR about Shallan’s words – she is NOT innocent it is an ACT. Expecting her to be is wrong. Her words after she kills are among the first time we see the real Shallan we will begin
to see much more of later in this book and I expect in others.
(3) How has this not been seen before. Illumination – this is the power
of the lightweavers. If you are Illuminating something you are not making a “lie” you are shinging light on a truth. It may be a hidden truth – but it is still a truth. It may also not be a “good” truth (hence the corrupting) but it is still a truth. For all patterns talk about lies – what shallan has done always is show hidden truths. This is EXACTLY the meaning of illumination.
@13 Wetlander
Something I didn’t notice until you typed out the quote was syl said the “10 heartbeats” thing is primarily something of the dead. And that she could form a blade right away if she was there with him.
She said primarily. Not only.
So this makes me wonder, would it still take Kal, Shallan, Jasnah, etc. 10 heartbeats to summon their blades if their spren were off galavanting somewhere else?
Would the heartbeat count possibly get shorter or longer based on distance?
For that matter, if the spren was distracted and/or far enough away in the physical realm, could their respective partners summon them as blades at all?
wcarter @32. I thought I recalled somewhere in WoR Shallan implying that bacuse Pattern was otherwise occupied, she could not summon her Shardblade. However, it is possible I did not remember correctly or misinterpreted the scene I thought I remembered.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
zaldar @30 – There’s a difference between innocence and ignorance. In something near a half-century, I’ve been around in the world, and I know how to guard myself. I’ve obtained college degrees, a career, a family, and a second career; I am not ignorant of the world. That doesn’t mean I have to give up my innocence – my not-guiltiness – by filling my mind and my speech with all the foulness available in our culture. People like Tyn equate innocence with ignorance, and call the corruption of innocence “education.” Shallan understands reality all too well; she won’t be improved upon by a complete removal of any and all moral standards.
Shallan certainly learned things from Tyn; she also learned things from Jasnah. For her purposes, some of the things she learned from Tyn (mostly disguise-related, plus some intel) were useful, but I don’t think she could have learned a lot more from Tyn that was of any value. The things she learned from Jasnah were often a lot harder, but they were also of much greater value – and Jasnah didn’t seem to think it was vital to her eduaction to introduce her to people who would make her jokes dirtier.
Andrew @33 – You might be thinking of this one, when Shallan was making illusions to distract the chasmfiend while Kaladin was fighting it:
The paragraph breaks off there, but in retrospect we know that the reason she couldn’t send them on Pattern is that Pattern was the Blade Kaladin was using to fight. I think the implication is that when the spren is doing something involving a physical form, it can’t also do something else that requires a physical form. I’d guess Wyndle wouldn’t have been able to be both vines to climb and a Blade to cut at the same time.
zaldar @31: in regards to your number 2, Shallan’s innocence is not an act – her exaggeration of it is, but a part of Shallan is innocent, just like a part of her is callous, which is the part tha takes over after killing Tyn (numb, desensitized/separated are all also classic symptoms of mental shock as well). I doubt a person is really being the “real” version if their emotional state is so disturbed that they experience an altered state of mind (i.e. mental shock).
Very off topic. I was looking at the characteristics of wood for wands in the Harry Potter universe (Pottermore wiki). I thought the description of the characteristics of a blackthorn wand align very nicely with Dalinar’s characteristics (who, of course is nicknamed the Blackthrone):
“Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior. This does not necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts (although it is undeniable that those who do so will enjoy the blackthorn wand’s prodigious power); one finds blackthorn wands among the Aurors as well as among the denizens of Azkaban. It is a curious feature of the blackthorn bush, which sports wicked thorns, that it produces its sweetest berries after the hardest frosts, and the wands made from this wood appear to need to pass through danger or hardship with their owners to become truly bonded. Given this condition, the blackthorn wand will become as loyal and faithful a servant as one could wish.”
I thought the above was interesting. I guess we know what type of wand Dalinar would have if he were “magically” transported to Harry Potter universe.
Wetlandernw @34. Thanks. That was the scene I was thinking about. I guess my memory is not as good as I hoped. But it does raise the question: if a KR’s spren is otherwise occupied, can the KR produce a Shardblade. For example, if Kaladin had been far enough along to produce a spren Shardblade but Syl was off getting the leaf like she did in WoK, would Kaladin have been able to summon his Shardblade.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
AndrewHB @36 – IIRC Brandon has said from time to time that he builds his magic systems to work with physics for the most part. If that is true I would assume that a spren far away in the physical world would take time to become a shardblade. Unless it could shorten the travel time by traveling through shadesmar. If that was a thing to do.
Nice Harry Potter tie in as well. :-)
Then again, spren are basically living ideas, and ideas can come to mind in an instant. Dang it! Now I’m back to square one.
AndrewHB @@@@@ 36: That’s neat about the blackthorn wands, it does sound a lot like Dalinar.
I agree with Wetlandernw @@@@@ 34 that the spren are probably limited to one manifestation – this is especially important because in very active scenes where a lot is going on, the speed at which the spren can move is important. I can only imagine that at some point we’ll see this come into play with summoning a spren as a Shardblade: there are just too many times when people send their spren away to go observe something for them or do some small activity.
Complete change of topic and just some random thoughts after reading the chapter…
1) I was just thinking a bit more about the soulcaster that Shallan is wondering about in relation to the Ghostbloods and whether they would be coming back to claim it. I suddenly realized how unlikely it is that house Davar was given this soulcaster, just to make very infrequent use of it, hoping that it would give them a (somewhat remote) chance to make a play for the highprince position. These soulcasters are incredibly valuable, worth a kingdom almost and here it is, kind of half forgotten with a minor house… This means that the plan with house Davar must have been very important in the bigger scheme of things. What were they planning to do once Davar would haven been in position? I am afraid we don’t know enough about the goals of the ghostbloads, but it is another clue.
2) This chapter says that Vathah is worth double the bounty of the others, but no more information. I am curious what he was or what he had done that made him much more valuable than the others. I don’t remember reading much, if anything, about his past, but this does make me curious. I wonder whether we will hear more.
3) The thoughts of Shallan about lying are interesting in terms of simple morality, but also in light of her order of radiants: “Just because you learned how to lie didn’t mean you had to let the lie rule you”. This is a key moment that finally allows her to get over the block, but I believe it also sets the framework of what a lightweaver does: using lies to serve the truth.
4) Finally a totally random and unimportant point for the ars mechanica: it says when she answers she twisted the fabrial setting in order to answer, but that is missing a few paragraphs before when changing the page. I would guess you would need to do something similar when changing pages… the process described for changing pages doesn’t seem to be complete and I wonder who does what to make it work smoothly.
AndrewHB, very cool about the Blackthorn, thank you for Sharing.
Wetlander @34
So “foul speech” makes someone “guilty”? Of what exactly?
Of foul speech, of course.
@40 Windedrunner
Vathah is the defacto leader of the deserters group. If he was a non-com officer or squad leader roughly equivilent to Kaladin’s old rank or a little higher, his bounty could be set higher by simple virtue of having organized the initial desertion. If he personally killed someone–especially a light eyes or a guard–to facilitate their escape that could certainly explain it. Or even if he is suspected of having ordered the killings.
Militaries will often press more severe charges against officers and/or the leaders in group who commit a crime.
Kah-thuurak @42 – To give a slightly fuller (and less snarky) response… have you ever heard the quotation, “Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks”?
If you think of guilt/innocence only in terms of committing crimes, this isn’t entirely relevant. I’m thinking less of ethical/legal issues and more of moral issues. In Shallan’s case, the thought of (for example) uncovering her safehand is too immoral to seriously consider; in spite of her unwitting use of a very foul sailor’s curse, she is innocent of that type of moral compromise. Tyn, on the other hand, knows exactly what the word means and is a bit gleeful about the opportunity to “educate” Shallan and, effectually, create exactly that mental compromise, with or without physical compromise. “I’m going to teach you what all the dirty words mean, and teach you a bunch more you’ve never heard, so your mind can wallow around in the gutter like mine.” I find that attitude offensive.
I’ve always found this attitude confusing. How would knowing the meaning of a word in any way alter the mind that knows it? How can a word itself be dirty? They’re all written with the same letters from the same alphabet, and pronounced using the same set of sounds.
Words are merely signposts, pointing at an idea, concept, or object. If I, for example, made the claim that the city dump is dirty (which is demonstrably true in the case of a dump, unlike most words) people would get me mental help if I started tearing down every street sign pointing to the city dump because they were dirty by association. This same confusing action, however, is widely accepted with words.
Learning what the words mean would only have helped: Should Shallan not like the meanings, she then knows to avoid the word – a choice born of knowledge she would not have had in ignorance (which you rightly separated from innocence, though I do not believe that innocence and morality are that closely related. I think that true morality must be chosen, which someone truly innocent would be incapable of doing, but that is getting into a 3000+ year old philosophical debate, which would be pointless to rehash here. Also, I digress.)
In summery, what I’m saying is “The word is not the thing.”
Which certainly sounds snappier than “Sticks and stones may break my bones but learning the definition of words and expanding my vocabulary will not lead to a shift in moral character.”
P.S. Not saying that further association with Tyn would have been good for Shallan: that nutjob obviously had darker things planned than dictionary browsing, even if she had not decided to kill Shallan.
@46 velinion, sorry but I agree with Wetlandernw. Words have power and associations, and are not just symbols and signposts. Some words linger on the mind and bring it to undesirable areas of thought. Other words are demeaning to the speaker/thinker. While it is of importance to be aware of and to understand how people behave, it is best to not dwell on the seamier side of life.
The issue of spren turning into swords and similar weapons/armaments is interesting. Syl doesn’t turn into a weapon/shield until Kaladin utters his 3rd Windrunner oath. Pattern, on the other hand, has done so when Shallan was a young girl of 10. He repeats that feat when Tyn attempts to kill Shallan, and is ultimately summoned by Shallan in the chasm to enable Kaladin to confront the chasmfiend. In other words, the capability of converting Pattern into a shardblade has been Shallan’s since childhood. Wyndle, in contrast, doesn’t turn into one when Lift’s life is in the balance and she has uttered the 2nd Edgedancer oath (I will remember those who have been forgotten). It seems that Honorspren (Syl) and Cultivation spren (Wyndle) require a full activation of Knighthood before they can transform.
@47: I recall Brandon stating Radiant orders did not all get their Blades at the same time. Windrunners get theirs after the 3th oath (it seems) whereas Lightweavers gets their immediatly (it seems).
Lift has said to the very least the second oath (Do we have confirmation it was indeed the 2nd oath? Her use of surgebinding seemed advanced for someone having said only the first oath. Kaladin did not do much after the first oath) and yet she has no Blade. Edgedancers must be getting their Blades at a later time. I would not say they need full knighthood to get their Blade: Lift seems rather new to this. As for Kaladin, he is not a full knight either, just a level 3.
Jasnah has her Blade as well. How many oaths has she said? This is unsure. She has been working on her bond for years now: it seems strange she is not more advanced. Brandon also stated Shallan was the more advance knight. So either Jasnah is a level 3 or a level 4 as Shallan or Brandon missed her and she reached level 5. We do not know which oath triggered her Blade appearance.
It is safe to assume we are going to see some characters go without Blade for a long time whereas others will get theirs very soon.
@wetlander
To be “guilty of foul speech” is exactly as relevant as being guilty of opening a door or whatever else. The act has been done, but it doesnt mean anything by itself.
The difference between one person saying “This is shit” and another “This is the worst thing that happened to me for years” is nonexistant really, as they both express the same emotion. They think the same and within their frame of mind act in the same way. The ban on the use of certain words is a good example for relatively nonsential codices of behavior that serve no other purpose but to reassure the members of a group that they are in fact members of that group. We, the good people of XY do not do YZ, for it is bad. A basic human trait really.
That being said, I dont really care if someone uses swear words or not. Neither is better than the other, it is not important. It just does not signify what most people think it does.
Kah-thurak @49 – Obviously I disagree; see STBLST @47. Words have power and meaning, and they reflect your mindset. It can be artificial, but most of the time it really isn’t.
But… I have some epigraphs to dig into, so I’ll drop the debate. For now.
@Wetlandernw
Words can have power and meaning… the tricky thing is to know what they mean to the speaker and to the one spoken to.
Kah-thurak @51
You are right that it is tricky to know what the words mean to the speaker and the one spoken to. That is why I believe it is better to elevate one’s own speech and encourage the elevation of others as well. If one wants to tell dirty jokes and swear with ones friends, because it is acceptable among the group, then that is their right. I would caution that that type of speech could creep into other settings and cause embarrassment, or
a black eyeoffense.@46
If words were just letters strewn together and could not alter the mind of the listener or reader then why would we enjoy literature; or rally to a cause? I know the meaning of obscene words that are homonyms with normal, common words, and it is an assault on my senses.
Shallan is guilty of ignorance toward the severity of an ugly sailors obscenity. Tyn could edify and educate Shallan to never say that again without learning what the word means. Shallan gets to keep her innocence and rid her ignorance at the same time. Tyn instead wants to teach her so many more debasing things. Not cool Tyn. Not cool.
No words have objective meaning, any language only has as much “power” as you’re willing to give to it. No word inherently carries any sort of negative value or meaning.
The only moral judgement you can give based on whether someone swears or not is how much they give thought they give to societal expectations and keeping up an “appropriate” appearence. Some of the most vile human beings I’ve ever met have refused to swear, and some of the best curse more than an HBO special.
Moderator note: message edited to remove personal attack. Please refer to our moderation policy for further info, and please be aware further messages like this one will result in being banned from this site.
rumetzen – Thank you so much. Clearly you’re a wonderful human being and I bow in your august presence. .~
(ETA: If that’s the attitude you take into a job interview someday, then Heaven help you – because your vocabulary certainly won’t.)
@@@@@ 53
rumetzen. I rarely post but could not hold my tongue today.
I agree with Wetlandernw and others on this post. Words have power and meaning and are more often than not indicative of one Character. You have made, a very disturbing personal accusation of Wetlandernw’s Character. There is plenty of evidence in this post, as well as many others on this forum that prove that you are wrong in your estimation. As well, your personal attack against Wetlandernw is out of bounds and has no place in this forum. Please do not digress to personal attacks simply because someone else does not share your world view. You run the risk of finding yourself guilty of your own accusation.
@53
You’re correct that society sets the standard of what is acceptable and what isn’t. Certain words might not be a demeaning or disrespectful in 50 years, but society says that it is right now. A person’s character obviously is more than simply what they do or don’t say. But one’s speech does impact how others will perceive them. It is one justifiable facet of many, by which to judge whether people want to interact. I believe the expression, ” I shall return again, for I like myself more when I am with you.” has value and can still apply to someone that swears. How much better could a good person who swears be if he gave it up? If he spoke in a manner that was uplifting?
Wetlandernw’s original issue had to do with Tyn wanting to debase Shallan with vulgar language. Rid her of the shackles of innocence. That is a terrible thing to do. That is not uplifting and will not make Shallan’s life better.
Wow, I leave for two days and come back: to this?
I am usually pretty chill when people use “language” around me, but there is a threshold where enough is enough.
>How much better could a good person who swears be if he gave it up? If he spoke in a manner that was uplifting?
None at all.
In fact, I’d say it’s an act of dishonesty and hypocrisy to say ‘heck’ when you mean ‘hell’.
Moderator note: I’ve edited #53 to remove the offending section. Normally we’d just erase the whole message, but by now so many people have reacted to it that it would only result in confusion.
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And with that, let’s put this entire episode behind us and go back to discussing the novel, shall we? :)
Sorry Stefan @59 moving on.
This chapter gave us an amazing glimpse into just how far down Shallan has repressed her past, and how far she is willing to go to keep it hidden from memory. Even after choosing to fight once she realized she couldn’t escape, she does everything in her power to not have to use her shardblade. It is interesting that Pattern is the one to help her overcome her self-imposed mental block in the end.
I’m very excited to read what everyone has to say about the Listener songs.
Airsicklowlander @60 – “I’m very excited to read what everyone has to say about the Listener songs.”
Me too! No way the blog is going to come close to touching everything that’s buried in them.
Count me in as excited for the Listener lyrics as well.
The next set of Interludes should be interesting: they’re short but powerful, and interesting in regards to their Cosmere relevance (well, the middle two are more because of the characters being more Cosmere-savvy I suppose).
I find that the lyrics are sophomoric (sorry, if I offended some authors). I recollect that BWS commissioned this version of verse (I’m not referring to the more significant lullaby lyrics composed by his father-in-law). Were these Listener Lyrics specifically designed to appear that way as a sign of the non-poetic ‘soul’ of the Listeners? Perhaps I’m being too judgmental seeing what passes for lyrics in some contemporary songs.
I thought part of the point of the Listener songs are that they are somewhat awkward and simple considering their content: they were a last ditch effort to create a way to preserve their knowledge before they all adopted dullform for generations to protect themselves from their gods. Although we could be seeing the original versions, I imagine what we’re getting is the songs after they were transferred through generations of dullforms until the Listeners found the other forms and preserved that version better (at least I imagine any other form is better for that task than dullform) – specifically I always imagined it was Eshonai’s mother performing them, or that perhaps it is Eshonai’s memory of them we’re getting – although, there’s always been an in-Roshar presence of the epigraphs, so these could be transcriptions from Venli’s scribes (in fact that seems most likely now, but I prefer my first interpretation).
Actually, the Listener songs don’t annoy me as much as the lullaby did. YMMV.
In any case, I find their meaning fascinating enough to easily make up for any poor wording. These other forms sound endlessly dangerous and terrifying.
Just a note on Tyn: if any one thinks she was going to stop at corrupting only her words, I have a bridge I can sell you.
Just an interesting off-topic note, the major scientific magazine Nature has an interesting article on dragons.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/520042a.html
April Fool’s begins (or at least it’s started in other places)! Batten down the hatches and prepare for the highstorm of tomfoolery.
I wonder how Hoid would feel about it? It’d probably make his job as Wit too easy for a day.
FenrirMoridin @67. I could see Hoid (in his Wit persona) doing the opposite. He would be completely straight laced and proper. To the extent that he did talk to anybody, he would provide them with genuine compliments. As I interpret Wit’s character, that would be more of a “joke” than the typical April Fool’s jokes he would play. As you aptly noted above, Wit acts every day as some RL’s do only on April Fool’s Day.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
That said, 17th Shard is reporting that Brandon accidentally wrote the 8th Stormlight book.
I was a good way in to the article before I realized which day it is today.
@@@@@ 69, your summary was better than the article. Much more plausible that Brandon would write the book by accident rather than in secret. I could just see him working on the flashbacks and then going, “this is from book 8. Darn.” Then being unable to get back to book 3 and finishing book 8 anyway.
@67 and 68 My guess is that on a Roshar equivilant to April Fools Day, Hoid/Wit would probably be nursing a drink(s) and grimacing at all of the pathetic attempts of the High Princes and other nobles to prank him and/or each other.
@71 This image is wonderful and probably exactly what would happen.