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BraidedRose

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  1. @Alderant I had to come back after a long hiatus just to respond to your awesome post. I always appreciate how well thought out your points are and how well you support your point of view with quotes from the text. I think I could appreciate and respect that even if I didn't agree with your analysis and interpretation. In this case though I can only agree, particularly in your analysis of where Shallan and Adolin's relationship stands at the end of OB. If I only took one thing away from your post, it would be that with the depth of problems that these two have really cannot be satisfyingly resolved with a conversation or any other expedient confrontation, scene, etc. Maybe that will be done, but it would not be satisfying to sweep all that under the rug, so I hope not. If Brandon really wanted to I suppose he could take the next book to really dig in depth into all their relationship conflict and try to find a way to make a stronger, more compelling love story. But this is a very strange foundation to try to build that on, and it would take a lot of page time to do it in a believable way, even considering the time gap. The year time gap could well bring us into the middle of their growing problems, that at least seems plausible. I have my own preferences about where it could go from there, but that I won't go into in this post.
  2. Agreed. Maybe Wit. And at that point in the story I wouldn’t have been happy with her marrying anyone (Pattern and Wit included ).
  3. There were quite a number of people who were disappointed in this part of OB. I think a lot of them have been posting less or not at all recently. For me, I was very disappointed that Shadolin got married because it seemed so abrupt and not justified by the rest of OB, and Shallan seemed in such a bad state to be making a decision like that. Honestly I don’t really feel it was Shallan who made the decision, and I wish she hadn’t gotten married or chosen a partner at all given that both of them had doubts. And now she is married to a person who she continues to keep enormous secrets from and in my opinion hasn’t even shown her real self to. I can only hope that not all is as it seems and isn’t really over. If in the next book Shadolin are happy and everything is magically fine between them I will think this was very poor writing sadly.
  4. @Chaos and @WhiteLeeopard thanks for the acknowledgement, I appreciate that. As for the reason Adolin is so polarizing, I do agree that some of it is backlash. The people who love Adolin (at least some who do) are really passionate about it, and as this poll indicates Adolin is actually enormously popular on 17S so the few who don’t enjoy him as much may get wearied by the number of posts about him. I’d actually be curious how Adolin’s overall popularity compares with the major characters (I wouldn’t be surprised if it is overall more positive after seeing this poll). As for why Adolin brings out such extreme positive views on the other side, I am sure there is not just one reason. But one possibility is that he is the “normal” guy in the story which may make people relate to him more or connect him more to people they know or could know. Another reason is his viewpoints are not very internal. Some people may like the more action or external focus which is different. But on the other hand a lot of times even when we get viewpoints from him we don’t get a lot of his own thoughts (or his thoughts don’t tell us much about him). We’re not given nothing to go on with him but we’re also not given a lot considering the number of pages he has had. That makes it possible to insert our own assumptions or wishes onto him or make him what we want him to be more or less. Some people will love that and others will be frustrated by it (I often am). What this also leads to is wildly different interpretations of the character and that can lead to polarization as well. For me though, if I am looking for flaws in Adolin it’s actually my way of trying to like him better. I’m not as interested in reading about “perfect” characters. Case in point, I love me some Shallan, and my girl has issues . So if people object when I talk about possible flaws that could make me more annoyed with the character to be honest. I know I will likely end up enjoying his character more if he goes in a less expected direction.
  5. We definitely agree on that. I would like to understand why he is so polarizing as well. I could speculate but it’s time for me to call it a night!
  6. @Calderis maybe not that exact phrase in this exact thread. But this is an exact quote from this thread: “Adolin is an absolute GEM. GEM GEM GEM.” Honestly I could point to others as well but I’m not interested in calling people out for saying glowing things about Adolin. People have every right to do that, and I’m not here to criticize them for it. People should also be allowed to offer disagreement without being called hateful or the like.
  7. I know you are trying to be diplomatic here and to take a balanced position, so I don’t want to respond negatively but this bolded part seems to illustrate my point about exaggeration. No one in this thread has said anything like that. The worst criticism I have seen here is that he is not that important to the narrative or boring or cliche, etc. Of course, I can’t say that no one has said things like that ever, but what I have seen is people criticizing Adolin for the Sadeas murder. I can’t help but feel these two things are being conflated. It should be possible to discuss the murder, or Adolin’s response to the Thrill without it being taken as writing someone off as a monster. And I have seen people call Dalinar a monster literally without anyone seeming to be personally offended. So I agree with you that there is something about Adolin that seems to bring out overly emotional responses.
  8. I really hesitated about jumping into this, seeing how contentious it has been, which, unfortunately is what I expected from any thread relating to Adolin. The last thing I am looking to do is stir the pot again but I do want to offer a perspective from the other side. Adolin is not my favorite character. Prior to OB I would say I was probably mostly positive to neutral about him but OB didn’t do his character any favors in my view. If Adolin were a person, I’m sure I would like him. As Kaladin says, you almost have to like him. But as a character he leaves some important things to be desired. That may change for me, depending on where his character goes from here and what his overall purpose in the narrative ends up being, but for now my feelings have swung more negative. The problem I have observed though is often there are reactions to any criticism of Adolin that seem over the top, that exaggerate what is being said or seem to take the criticism of Adolin personally. To the point where I have extreme trepidation about posting this. But from my perspective it’s not just one side that leads to escalation of tensions. If someone offers some criticism or disagreement and then it is overreacted to it seems to easily escalate from there, but often it feels like an overreaction to reasonable criticism is where it starts. You’ve used some extremely strong words to describe criticism of Adolin. To be honest, a lot of the words you used feel like an exaggeration and are the kinds of things that could lead to an escalation of tensions (sheer hatred, Adolin-bashing, spewing poison). To be clear, I know you weren’t directing that at me and this is the first time I have even posted in this thread, but this just illustrates why I haven’t. But I do want to be able to disagree with an Adolin theory or offer some criticism of his character without being accused of such things (or even just responded to as if I had bashed him). And honestly, though I may not do this myself, if someone wants to “bash” Adolin, I have a hard time understanding why that is taken so personally. As long as it isn’t turned around on the person holding a different opinion, I don’t see why all opinions on a character shouldn’t be welcome in an open topic.
  9. Despite my earlier post arguing that we don't have enough information to be sure what Adolin's motivation is for stepping aside, I still think this is actually the most reasonable and balanced interpretation of it that I have seen so far. Bringing his past failures in relationships into it makes sense since that is at least something we have known for sure about Adolin's character from the beginning. Interpreting it as a mix of both makes sense because most people have a mix of selfish and altruistic reasons for doing things the majority of the time, and there is nothing wrong with that. Besides, in books it would be both boring and unrealistic to only read about characters that are purely selfless or purely selfish
  10. I want to emphasize this point that you made. Regardless of what one thinks Adolin is thinking in that moment it is interpretation and speculation because the text doesn't allow us to see Adolin's viewpoint on ending things with Shallan either in that moment or before/afterward. We have a couple instances where Adolin seems to notice Shallan looking at Kaladin and he doesn't seem to like it (though he seems to think it understandable in some way). That seems to have played into his decision since he mentions it, but beyond that we can't be sure of much. Is he heartbroken thinking Shallan loves another man? Does he just not want to play second fiddle in his relationship? Is he using it as an excuse to get out of a complicated relationship? We just don't know. So it's a moment that almost invites the reader to insert their own assumptions or wishes. I wish we had been given a clearer sense of Adolin's feelings towards Shallan but Brandon chose not to spell that out. I'm not really believing the argument I have seen that it is a lack of page time for Adolin that caused this lack of clarity because I think it could have been done in the pages we had. For instance, one completely minor change that would have made things clearer is when Shallan offers to be anyone for him and he says, "I don't want anyone. I want you" - if he had even just said "I love you" there instead of "I want you" that would have shown stronger feelings. Adolin has strong motivation to follow through on the marriage once she makes her case that she wants him. Both Shallan and Adolin were willing to agree to an engagement even without the presumption of love, because there were other advantages in it to them. It ended up that they got along and were attracted to each other as well. Adolin does seem to care about Shallan and I would also say he admires the person she has shown him. But he was still willing to walk away. I'm not convinced that he did a purely selfless thing in giving her up because he loves her and is choosing her happiness over his own. Is that possible? Sure, but there's not much in the text to support it to the exclusion of other possibilities. Again, I just come back to Brandon could have chosen to make things clearer. As an example (Mistborn 1 spoilers): I know some people may say Brandon may have thought he didn't need to make it clearer. I can't agree with that, however, because Brandon certainly must have been aware at how much he had built up the possibility of Shalladin. He has spoken about fulfilling and breaking promises to readers in a way that makes it believable. He needed to make a stronger case for Shadolin being right for each other and Shalladin wrong for each other if he wanted it to end there believably and in a satisfying way (or else he could have just never brought Kaladin's feelings into it in the first place since so far that has gone nowhere). There's too much explicitly in the text to cause doubt and there's too much conspicuously absent from the text (as in the case of Adolin's feelings, and interactions that we could have seen between Shallan and Kaladin but didn't). Of course, there will always be some readers who are convinced and happy with what we have regardless and there will always be some readers who aren't so we can't really go by reader reaction alone. That's why I've been focusing on the text as much as I can, because I think it is the better guide, especially after the initial reaction fades and I am able to look at it more carefully.
  11. I think you are right that something like this would have to happen before Jasnah and Shallan could be friends. I think as long as they have a mentor-ward relationship it would be very hard to get past that. But I also think not just Jasnah but Shallan as well would need some kind of push before she would open up to Jasnah. Jasnah tried to get her to open up a bit and tell her some of the secrets she knew Shallan must be hiding but Shallan didn’t even bite a little bit. She currently seems to have some major baggage where Jasnah is concerned that she would have to get over for it to work. I’d love to read it, if it goes that way though.
  12. She absolutely needs one! I can’t think of any obvious candidates. There aren’t a lot of young female named characters around (Ishnah? Lyn? Lift?). Syl likes her so there is that! I know this will probably never happen but I would love her to meet and make friends with Rysn.
  13. I know you said you would never change your mind on this subject so I'm not trying to question your overall conclusion, but I did want to open up the point I think you are making here. If I understand you correctly, I believe you are saying that you think when Kaladin sees Shallan's darkness and her smile, he is coming to a false understanding of her or making assumptions that aren't true. In a small way I agree. I think the Shallan we saw in the chasms is not the same Shallan we saw in OB. In OB she does pile further torment on herself and is not able to deal with her pain. I think Shallan did already have some unhealthy habits of pushing things out of mind prior to OB but it's on a whole new level in OB. In the chasms she seemed most closer to her true self and specifically much closer to the image of herself that Wit shows her and tells her is who she has always been. The Shallan that Kaladin sees in that moment seems very similar to the image of Shallan that Wit shows her. To compare the text: To me these two ideas of Shallan are very much the same. Darkness underneath and something covering it (a smile, forgiveness) that allows her to go on, to stand up. Wit tells her she is the woman who stood up. Kaladin sees her as the woman who smiles anyway. I think these are two different ways of saying the same thing. So I don't think Kaladin gets the wrong idea in the chasms. The mistake he made was in assuming that's still who she was when he spoke with her in Shadesmar. At that moment she isn't the same woman because she has "piled on more torment" as you said or found new ways of hiding from herself. But if we believe Wit (and I do) that's not really her, she has always been the one who is standing up (or the one who smiles anyway). You mentioned one other thing that is interesting which is the idea that Kaladin might see Shallan as a "talisman," something that he would rely on to keep his own darkness away. You bring up a good point and that would not be healthy. He would need to see and treat Shallan as much more than that if they were to have a healthy relationship. It's probably way premature to assume that is or is not what would happen if they ever get together. One counterpoint to this is that Kaladin seems to be actively working on dealing with his own depression without Shallan in OB. He won't ever be rid of it entirely of course and he had another tough episode after Kholinar but he seems miles beyond where we have seen him before in being able to recognize it and think through it. And he was able to pull himself out of that episode with some help from Syl but also through working through it on his own. I found that impressive and I think it hopefully shows he will not need a talisman to rely on.
  14. I’ll try to address what I think Adolin should have done. For starters I think a big part of the issue for me is that he just doesn’t question Shallan on this enough. He says she becomes “other people.” She kind of implies that so that’s where he gets the idea and then she never corrects him because at some point she seems to think that herself. I’ve already gone into detail on why I don’t believe Veil and Radiant are “other people.” But the problem with that is, if he thinks she is just playing roles, why doesn’t he question why one of the roles is in love with another man? He thinks Shallan is in love with Kaladin and she claims she just likes looking at him and it’s all Veil who is attracted to him. I guess he assumes she just gets so deep into the role but it doesn’t make any sense. Veil is not a person that exists outside of Shallan so there would be no need for her to emulate someone else’s feelings. Those feelings do come from her. Adolin just accepts that rather lame excuse and Shallan manages to overwhelm him into marrying her despite his doubts. He should challenge her more, ask her more questions, try to actually understand what is going on, rather than just taking her at her word. Essentially that is what I think Kaladin would do if he knew Veil and Radiant existed. I just can’t see him letting that go and not trying to understand more. As @SLNC said he has good reason to believe that Shallan sometimes acts like Veil and Radiant because he has seen her with those traits (ones Shallan admits she hides from Adolin). He does notice a difference in her attitude towards him between Shallan and Veil once she starts splitting that in Kholinar but he doesn’t have enough information to even guess at what is going on nor is he in a position to demand answers from her as Adolin is. People may bring up how Kaladin seems to admire her ignoring her pain (based on the conversation they have in Shadesmar) but I think the reason that conversation went so sideways is because he doesn’t know Veil and Radiant exist. What he is thinking of is the Shallan he saw in the chasms who was far more whole, not the fracturing she has been doing since which he is unaware of. He saw a woman who had experienced pain that would be crippling for most (as it had been for Kaladin at times), but she was able to smile and go on living. That’s what he admires and that fits with the image Wit shows Shallan of the Shallan who stands up, who has all the painful memories underneath but covers that with forgiveness for herself.
  15. I think the point you are making here is actually the same point I tried to make in my original post in this thread: that how you read the ending and whether you think it is over depends largely on whether you believe that the Shallan we see at the end is her whole/true self or only one of her personas. In other words, whether you believe that Veil and Radiant are part of Shallan or as you put it "invaders." I know you're mostly playing Devil's advocate here so I won't lay it all out again, but in that first post of mine I included a lot of the evidence as I see it in the text as well as WoB that Veil and Radiant are part of Shallan. Or another way I've seen it explained that makes sense to me is that, Shallan is only allowing herself to express certain parts of herself while wearing either the Veil or Radiant mask, but underneath she's always herself doing those things. The lie she tells is that she is not herself when she does or feels the things she does as Veil or Radiant. Wit tells Shallan that she is the one who "birthed" Veil and Radiant, they come from her. When Shallan is poised to try to give up on Veil after her breakdown in Kholinar, Wit gives her Veil's hat back (a significant gesture from someone who is trying to get her to accept herself). If Wit, who I believe truly understands what is happening with Shallan, thought that Veil was just escapism, a fantasy or a fake, why would he encourage her to hold on to Veil with that gesture? When Shallan leaves Wit and is temporarily feeling more herself she notices that she is dressed as Veil but looks like Shallan. For a moment she thinks it feels uncomfortable but then realizes that it actually feels right. She is actually a combination of all three. So needless to say it is obvious that affects how I view the "without you I fade" line as well as Shallan's decision to marry at all. I will add though that even if I am wrong and Shallan really is only herself without Veil and Radiant then I still would have a problem with "without you I fade" and Adolin having to choose which "one" she really is. That is simply a story I would not enjoy. Let's just leave gender out of it, I wouldn't enjoy either a woman or a man being dependent on their partner to tell them who they are and to keep them from losing themselves entirely. That is not romantic to me. And a person in that condition really isn't in any frame of mind to make life altering decisions. I hope and believe that Brandon is a better writer than that. In real life could a couple perhaps overcome such fundamental flaws in the foundation of their relationship? Maybe, but it would be extremely difficult. But we have to remember this is literature and Brandon is writing in subtext and foreshadowing with some intention. Again, why give us such an odd pre-wedding scene (and not show the wedding) if he was trying to tell us Adolin and Shallan are right for each other? I believe he intends to show that Shallan is actually ambivalent about Adolin (part of her loves him, part of her does not and is drawn to another man). Adolin's own feelings are in question since Brandon chose not to make them explicit. When Shallan is inevitably forced to accept and forgive herself as Wit has encouraged her and when she therefore stops pushing so much of herself into Veil and Radiant, there will be a reckoning about how she really feels. My guess is then we will find out if there is enough there between Adolin and Shallan to weather it. And hopefully we will eventually get a much more satisfying romance than we have so far!
  16. @GarrethGrey unfortunately, I interpret the “without you I fade” line in much the same way. It is far too close to literal. It seemed like the Shallan personality/mask/persona (take whichever word you pick, Brandon has used them all) was starting to become very weak at the end as she put more and more of herself into Veil and Radiant. Adolin picking the Shallan persona seemed to give that one the strength to shove Veil and Radiant into the back of her mind. Meanwhile the lie that they are not her remains a huge problem because she is basing her choice on that. So “without you I fade” does seem to suggest that without Adolin the Shallan persona might all but disappear. Perhaps you are right that if that happened she would be forced to face that Veil and Radiant are her as well and accept the pain as Wit advises her to do. I struggle with the idea that “without you I fade” could be healthy in a relationship in any context but particularly so in this case for Shallan, who has not accepted herself and is continually looking for outside approval and guidance for who she should be.
  17. We can definitely agree to disagree on this scene. And I get it, I’m a mom as well so seeing or reading about kids being abused or neglected is more viscerally painful than it was before having my son. This scene didn’t trigger me (maybe because we see Dalinar’s perspective so his warring emotions, including love, are evident to me). On the other hand, watching Elhokar try to protect Gavinor while he died: yeah, I lost it. So I do get it. Several people mentioned downplaying the trauma of Adolin’s childhood and I did not mean to do that. I agree that losing Evi would be devastating and Dalinar was largely absent with varying degrees of affection, and that seems to have led to hero worship from Adolin to Dalinar. But I think it takes it too far to say that Dalinar did nothing but criticize, diminish and push Adolin away. There is more in the text than that. Saying that Dalinar didn’t love Adolin or abused him also takes it too far and isn’t justified by the text. I am also bothered by downplaying of Shallan’s traumatic childhood and I think it serves no purpose to compare one person’a pain to another, since everyone is affected differently. Like many, I have a more emotional response when I first read something. A second read usually allows me to be more analytical and look more carefully at the text. In the case of the love triangle I have tried very hard to look past what I want to happen as well as what my initial reaction was and analyze where the text seems to be leading. It’s almost irrelevant whether Adolin would be able to relate to Shallan’s childhood trauma at this point because she doesn’t trust him enough to tell him and I don’t think it bodes well that so much of who she is had to be shoved into the back of her mind in order for her to decide to marry him.
  18. @maxal it seems we are both looking at the same passages but coming to some extremely different conclusions. Just to take one example, we both were referencing a section of Chapter 88, and I think it comes down to what you choose to emphasize. I'm copying the relevant section and highlighting the parts that show that Dalinar's feelings for Adolin were far more complex than not being able to bear him. Okay, so I do understand how you get some of your reading of this, but a lot depends what you bring to it. I have a very different reading (not saying there's a an absolute right or wrong but it is subjective). Dalinar seems to be struggling here because on the one hand he has fond memories of Adolin but Adolin also reminds him of Evi and thinking of Evi is devastating for him currently. The reason why he seems to struggle so much with Adolin at this moment is not that he has disdain for his son, but that his son stirs up both happy and painful memories and right now the pain is winning out. Dalinar thinks of Adolin as "so genuine" and that he wouldn't trade him for "a hundred soldiers in proper uniforms." That is not disdain but fondness. And it shows that he doesn't actually care more about the uniform than what is underneath. He may criticize Adolin's appearance but it hasn't affected his opinion of Adolin. When he says, "Storming child. Who could deny him?" I take that to mean that even though he is attempting to harden his heart because he can't face the pain, Adolin gets through to him anyway and he can't resist giving in to his request (not that he can't find a way out of it, I'm sure he could come up with an excuse if he really didn't want to see Adolin duel). And he specifically says he is proud to watch him. Dalinar walking off so quickly is again an indication of the warring emotions. He thinks his son's smile is wonderful but it also brings him pain. Fathers criticize sons at times, but it doesn't mean they don't love them. And I think the subtext is clear that Dalinar does love him. This is also only one example of a scene where Dalinar is critical of Adolin. I can't think of many more but I can think of many others where Dalinar praises him. Also, I pointed out the one example of Adolin dealing with Dalinar drunk, not to suggest that was the only time that happened. It likely isn't. But I think there is also suggestions that Dalinar tried to hide his drunkenness and that it wasn't a constant. He says he had good days and bad days. So I don't think Adolin spent his entire youth dealing with a drunk father. I'm not saying it wasn't a problem, it surely was, but again it does not erase the good times that are also referenced in the text. Finally, Adolin may believe he doesn't live up to Dalinar's expectations but I believe we primarily see that in OB, after he has killed Sadeas and that seems to be the primary cause of his doubts. Which frankly is understandable and at least injects some small degree of consequence for Adolin's action. Dalinar does have high standards for Adolin but he also seems to think Adolin is meeting them up until he finds out about the murder at least. Once again, I'll try to end a little more on topic. I don't think the foundation of lies in Shallan and Adolin's marriage proves any specific future outcome. It's just one more reason that there should be more concern than rejoicing at the outcome of a wedding at this time. Who knows what will happen once Shallan inevitably confronts those lies but the fact that feelings for another man were part of what she denied and refused to face is certainly one piece of evidence that there are problems that Shallan and Adolin may not be able to overcome.
  19. Let me preface this by saying that overall you made some good points in your post about how Adolin grew up with some circumstances that are objectively traumatizing. Losing a parent at a young age is traumatizing. Having a parent with an addiction would in most cases lead to some damage in the parent-child relationship at a minimum, and so on. But I'm honestly not seeing the part I quoted above in the text. I just didn't at all get the sense that Dalinar "constantly diminished him, criticized him, demolished his every efforts to please him." Can you give some examples from the text that led you to this? Even in the flashbacks, I think we saw that Dalinar was arguably distant at times from his sons (more so Renarin than Adolin I would say, because he seemed to have a hard time connecting emotionally with Renarin). We certainly saw Dalinar do some monstrous things on the battlefield, etc but that was not with his children around. We do see one instance where Adolin has to deal with his father drunk, when he is nearly 17 and Dalinar yells at him to get out (that seems to be the worst moment we see on the page). Up to the point where Adolin is about 12, nearly 13, right before Evi's death, they seem to have a good relationship. We see them interacting, Dalinar teaching Adolin and Adolin not wanting to leave Dalinar. After Evi's death there are some big time skips, but in those chapters we see that Dalinar struggles a little more with being a father to Adolin because he reminds him of Evi, but he still tells Adolin he is proud of him. There is a chapter when Adolin is 18 (shortly before Dalinar goes to the Nightwatcher) and he admits he has been a poor father the last few years (Adolin contradicts him) and Dalinar again tells him how proud he is of Adolin. His thoughts tell us more, that he honestly admires the man that he sees Adolin to be. So there is friction in their relationship after Evi's death, but there is love underneath. Certainly by the time we see them in WoK, we see nothing but admiration and pride from Dalinar towards Adolin. He genuinely believes that Adolin is a better man than him. The only thing that finally seems to cause some doubt about this is finding out that Adolin killed Sadeas. I'm not sure how it can be argued that there are impossible standards for Adolin to live up to, because he seems to be living up to Dalinar's standards, again with the possible exception of murdering their political enemy. I'm not going to get into comparisons with the childhoods of other characters because that gets into trying to rank or compare trauma and pain and that's just impossible. Everyone experiences events differently and there's no need to downplay one character's experiences to make a case for another. I will however say a little bit about Shallan because there are some things that have been downplayed about her experience that I think miss the boat entirely. Saying that she grew up as a rich lighteyes is really irrelevant. Money is not really what provides any comfort; security does that. In Shallan's case having money (for a time) meant nothing because her place in Veden society was not secure and there was intense fear of being displaced. The other thing pointed out is that she was treated as her father's favorite, and this is argued to be something that would lighten the burden of her childhood, but this couldn't be more wrong. Being treated as a favorite added to her trauma, because she had to see her brothers constantly be abused while she was protected and she carried intense guilt for that. It is very analogous to the way Kaladin feels about always living when the ones he tries to protect are killed. She actually says this to Kaladin when they are in the chasms. Finally, to try to bring this back around to the original topic of this thread, if Adolin is struggling with pain from his childhood we really don't see it, and more importantly he doesn't share that with Shallan. Shallan we know struggles intensely with the pain of her childhood and she doesn't share that with Adolin. In fact she scrupulously hides it from him because she doesn't want him to see how broken she is. Of the characters we have seen her interact with since leaving her home, only Kaladin and Wit (and Pattern) know the Shallan she hides from the rest of the world. The marriage of Shallan and Adolin is built on so many lies of omission that it is hard for me to see how that leads to a happy future for them (not at least without some serious reckoning to come).
  20. @insert_anagram_here I can concede that the voice she thinks is Wit’s is the most open to interpretation (so Ashertmarn is possible even though I think there is a stronger case for Sja-Anat as I laid out in my OP). But let me see if I can convince you that she does hear Sja-Anat as a second voice the first two times at least. In both of the first two cases Shallan seems to hear two different voices. The first time she doesn’t say there is a second voice but she finds the last line “jarring” and says it “stood out” compared with the rest. The second time she definitely thinks she hears two different voices. So just to play along for a minute, let’s assume she is right and there are two separate voices. Below is everything the second voice says: Shallan, I am not your enemy. Shallan, listen to me. I’m not your enemy. But the heart is a trap. Take caution. One thing that seems wrong with this right away if it is Ashertmarn is that he would be warning Shallan against his own trap. Ashertmarn is the heart. That would be some next level stuff if he is both setting a trap and warning Shallan against it. The other reason why these words seem to fit with Sja-Anat is when Shallan later sees her and knows she is talking to Sja-Anat, she says exactly that. She repeats that she is not her enemy and that the heart is a trap. So it makes more sense to me that it is Sja-Anat speaking all of those times. Especially since Shallan clearly thinks there is a difference between the voice that tells her this and the voice (or voices) that tell her to let go and indulge. What you pointed out about “voices” is interesting and it may be that when Ashertmarn speaks it sounds like the voices of many but that would be different than making his voice sound like another voice entirely and changing from encouraging revelry to warning Shallan against his own trap at the same time. Now, the voice that Shallan thinks is Wit is more interesting and less clear. We both agree that having it just be Wit doesn’t seem to fit. I think my above case for Sja-Anat also speaking to Shallan and taking what we know of Sja-Anat and Ashertmarn that there is a stronger case for Sja-Anat. I took Ashertmarn to be less crafty than Sja-Anat with a simpler focus on nearly mindless indulgence. I understand what you are saying about there being a kind of indulgence in not facing the reality that her personas are really her underneath. But everything else we’ve seen from Ashertmarn seems more base and less complex than that. So taking all the evidence above and knowing Sja-Anat’s crafty nature and tendency to corrupt as well as the likelihood that she and Shallan will interact in the future I think she is the candidate that makes the most sense to have twisted Wit’s words.
  21. @insert_anagram_here just clarifying, do you think the second voice that Shallan thinks is different is actually Ashertmarn all three times? I’m not sure if you are saying that or only the time when she thinks it is Wit.
  22. On three separate occasions when Shallan is in Kholinar she hears at least two different voices in her head. One of the voices she thinks might be Wit. The other voice(s) she does not put a name to. I want to examine the text in more detail to see what the context tells us about who these voices are likely to be. The first occasion occurs when Shallan makes her first (unsuccessful) attempt to infiltrate the Revel as Swiftspren. As she gets pulled into the crowd of cultists she hears “whispering in the back of her mind.” Surrender. Give me your passion. Your pain. Your love. Give up your guilt. Embrace the end. Shallan, I am not your enemy. “That last line stood out, like a scar on a beautiful man’s face. Jarring.” On this occasion she does not specifically think she hears two different voices but she does note that the last line stands out and is jarring. All of the previous lines are about encouraging hedonism while the last line seems different and includes Shallan’s name. The second occasion occurs when Veil actually does get into the Revel and again she “began to hear the voice.” Let go. Give up your pain. Feast. Indulge. Embrace the end. Later in the same chapter as she gets into the control building and sees Ashertmarn she again hears: Give in. Join the revel. Shallan, listen to me. “She shook herself. That last voice had been different. She’d heard it before, hadn’t she?”… I’m not your enemy. But the heart is a trap. Take caution. I’ll get to the third occasion but before I do I want to discuss who the two voices are likely to be in these first two occasions because they seem a little more straightforward. First, one more crucial piece of evidence for the second voice. After Shallan finally confronts Ashertmarn and he flees, she sees a mirror and someone else in it. That figure in the mirror says, “Radiant, my name is Sja-Anat. And I am not your enemy.” So in both of the previous occasions she hears a voice that in short, simple sentences tells her to indulge. This fits with what we know of Ashertmarn, from Hessi’s Mythica, “he leads people to indulge in excess.” On both occasions at the end a voice comes in and calls Shallan by name and says it is not her enemy. The second time she is clear that it is a different voice and she thinks she has heard it before. So the pattern fits that on both occasions there is a first voice, which is Ashertmarn, and a second voice, which is the same both times. Given that when Shallan actually meets Sja-Anat she says “I am not your enemy,” it seems most likely that the second voice on both of those occasions is Sja-Anat. Finally, let’s look at the third occasion when Shallan hears voices, which is less clear but most interesting. When Shallan touches Ashertmarn she hears, “Give it all to me. Give me your passion, your hunger, your longing, your loss. Surrender it. You are what you feel.” This voice again seems to be Ashertmarn. It fits the pattern from before and she is actually touching him this time. At this point Shallan starts flashing from one person to another and getting confused about which one is her. Then she hears: “All of them. A new voice. Wit’s?”…”You’re all of them, Shallan. Why must you be only one emotion? One set of sensations? One role? One life?” “They rule me, Wit. Veil and Radiant and all the others. They’re consuming me.” “Then be ruled as a king is ruled by his subjects. Make Shallan so strong, the others must bow.” So the question is who is this second voice that she thinks is Wit? Even she questions that it is him and I think we should too. It would certainly be odd for him to be able to speak in her mind but to only do it on this one occasion. We never see her hear Wit’s voice at any other time. Later, in Part 4, she actually does think of Wit’s words, but in that case it is obvious that it is Shallan remembering the words, not hearing a voice in her head. And in that case the words match nearly exactly with what Wit actually said as opposed to being something she has never heard from him before. Wit tells her she is only one woman and here the voice tells her instead she is “all of them.” Wit tells her to accept and forgive herself. This voice tells her to rule over the others. The advice really is not the same but instead twisted just enough. So what I think is happening is that Shallan, in a crucial moment when she is losing track of herself, tries to remember Wit’s words. We know that she is near to both Ashertmarn and Sja-Anat and that apparently both have been able to speak into her mind when she has been near them before. Sja-Anat we know is more intelligent, seems to address Shallan by a name when she speaks to her, and is known for “corrupting.” I think she is able to essentially corrupt Wit’s words in Shallan’s mind and that is what Shallan hears. It originated with Wit’s advice, which is why she thinks it is him, but Sja-Anat twists it just enough into something fundamentally different. This also fits a pattern that has been established of Ashertmarn talking to her first and then Sja-Anat second. Why Sja-Anat would do this isn't clear yet. We just don’t know enough about her motivation at this point to do more than speculate. Maybe she is just influencing Shallan in any way that she can because she seems to gain her trust and get something from her, judging by their subsequent interaction. But what I think more likely is that this may be setting up something for the next book. At the end of OB the Ghostbloods want Shallan to try to bring Sja-Anat to them, so it is a good bet that Shallan and Sja-Anat will be interacting more. This could simply be a lead in, and her intentions will make more sense once we see how they interact in book 4. It would be interesting for Shallan to discover that Sja-Anat has been subtly influencing/corrupting her and to see how she deals with it.
  23. @Greywatch that’s a fair point and I didn’t mean to say that was exclusively the case by any means. Admittedly I’m going mostly on what I’ve seen on this and other related threads on 17S so I know less about the views of fans elsewhere. And of course it was not meant to be universal just a very rough generalization, which I may have stretched too far. So you believe this arc is resolved, but you say you ended OB disliking both Shadolin and Shalladin. So did you feel that it was resolved satisfactorily? Did it give you an enjoyable arc as someone who enjoys romance? Because I do think there is a distinction with some people believing it is over but who were not satisfied with it and others believing it is both over and well done. And then there are those like me who think it isn’t over. By the way, if it isn’t over I do think this would end up being far more subtle and complex than love stories I have seen from Brandon in the past. I can see how the simplicity of his previous romances would introduce some doubt that he would take on something like that (and that did make me doubt previously). But I can believe that in his most ambitious work to date he may have wanted to challenge himself.
  24. There is some really interesting discussion going on about how Brandon failed to convince the segment of the readers that he needed to as @maxal and @Dreamstorm have pointed out. This really is the fundamental question. Since such a significant segment of readers didn't think this storyline was satisfying and those who did are largely those who are less interested in romantic arcs, the question is did Brandon fail or is there more to it? As explained before, I initially thought Brandon failed but I changed my mind. I think Brandon knows he set up some expectations that Kaladin and Shallan would have a love story. Brandon has said himself that when subverting expectations you have to really sell the audience on your alternative and make them believe it is even better. An important scene for doing that would have been the scene immediately before the wedding. I want to examine it in detail, because it seems to indicate a different intention entirely. I've quoted most of it and spoilered it for length. I left out two sections, the first is most of the reunion with her brothers and the second is the letter from Mraize since these didn't give much to go on (I included ellipses where those sections were left out). First, several times it is clear in the beginning that Shallan is low-key dreading the wedding itself. She “didn’t feel ready,” and thinks of it as “an ordeal and a hassle.” She “suffered” through the preparations and thinks about how she doesn’t want this attention. When there is a knock on the door from her brothers and she thinks she is about to be called to the ceremony her immediate thought is “What? The time wasn’t up.” Most telling of all is this: Shallan is looking at herself in the mirror in all her wedding finery and then, “She wanted to shrink from it.” That is not the thought of a woman focused on love or happiness or the man she is about to marry, that is the thought of a woman who has doubts. Then there is the conversation between Pattern, Shallan, Veil and Radiant. Pattern saying, “This is a good you, Shallan,” mirrors the many times he says “a good lie.” It is an odd thing to say if Pattern thought she was truly herself, why “a good you” in that case? Why would there be multiple “yous” if Shallan was her true self? Shallan’s response is, “We’re decided on this.” Again an odd thing to say, like she needs reinforcement that this is the right decision. None of the responses she gets from Radiant or Veil are glowing; though they support her decision it seems clear that this is all about Shallan. Radiant gives Veil a look when she says, “He is good for you, I suppose. And he knows his wine. We could do far worse.” None of those are compelling reasons to marry someone. Veil then follows up with, “A celebration. A celebration of you.” This reinforces the idea that this is not about Veil or Radiant or even Adolin but only Shallan. Shallan thinks little of Adolin throughout, other than that Adolin must be suffering through gifts from the men and assuming he had come to steal a kiss. Once she decides it is a celebration of her she suddenly feels okay with enjoying this, and that sentiment is what gets repeated to herself for the rest of the scene. At one point Shallan describes herself as “giddy,” which is an odd word in this context but implies that she is not in a clear state of mind (the definition most relevant in this case is “excitable and frivolous”). The bottom line for me is that it is hard to imagine why Brandon would choose to write this scene and have it be the last word we get in the love triangle if he was trying to sell the idea that Shallan made a healthy choice to get married and that we should consider the issue resolved. In Brandon’s other romances he has made clear that the couple is in love and choosing each other wholeheartedly, he has not introduced doubts and then failed to resolve them by the crucial moment. Why would he include lines like, “She wanted to shrink from it,” if he wanted this to be the end of it? I’m not buying it.
  25. Love the idea of this topic. And it would be a good place to update if we actually get answers to some of these. For now I just have a few spren related questions: - Why does Syl push Kaladin towards Shallan so persistently in OB? - Our understanding is that Honorspren and Cryptics don’t typically get along. Why do Syl and Pattern seem to break this mold and get along well? - If you had to describe each of the major spren-human relationships by the end of OB in one word, how would you do it?
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