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Jasnah's Bandolier


Kobold King

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Hello there. This is my first main board post, so don't hesitate to correct me on any rookie errors I might make.

 

WoR spoilers follow, so please be advised.

 

OK, here goes. Take a look at this quote from the epilogue:

 

In the center of it appeared Jasnah Kholin, standing tall.

Her clothing was ragged, her hair formed into a single utilitarian braid, her face lashed with burns. She'd once worn a fine dress, but that was tattered. She'd hemmed it at the knees and had sewn herself a glove out of something improvised. Curiously, she wore a kind of leather bandolier and a backpack. He (Hoid) doubted she'd had either one when her journey had begun.

 

As a bandolier is specifically an item meant for carrying cartridges of firearm ammunition, the presence of one in the possession of Jasnah Kholin is quite odd. My interpretation of this is that she has used the Surge of Transportation as a means of travelling to Scadrial. The Stormlight Archive is roughly contemporary with The Alloy of Law, and so she would easily be capable of procuring a gun while she was there. Hoid's thoughts that she had picked it up while on her vaguely defined travels seem to support the idea, at least in my own mind.

 

Has anyone else noticed this? Do you have any other supporting evidence, or perhaps a rebuttal of the theory?

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She could just have it for carrying spheres. Controlling the Shadesmar beads seems to require Stormlight, so she would want to have a lot with her. And spheres are roughly the same size/shape as old bullets... I know nothing about guns, though, and actually didn't know what a bandolier was until you defined it, so my opinion is far from definitive.  :)

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Hoid is the PoV and knows what a bandolier looks like. What she had on looked like a bandolier. I would lean toward it carrying spheres rather that Shadesmar acquired projectile weaponry.

Unless BS plans to jump the shark completely in book three with guns AND talking swords.

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My only thought is that this scene is from the point of view of Hoid, who would be knowledgeable of different plant techs to describe something as a bandolier even if it technically wasn't.

Edit. I was ninja 'd.

Edited by The Rooster
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There are precedents in fiction for "bandolier" being used to describe all sorts of across the chest belts with pouches to hold things like money, bells, potions, poisons, what have you, so I'm not sure we can speculate much from "a kind of leather bandolier"

 

But I like that it gives an excuse to theorize worldhopping Jasnah!

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Thoughtful posts, but I would like to make a couple of points:

1. From an out-of-universe perspective, there is no clear reason for Brandon Sanderson referring to the pouch as a bandolier, unless it was actually a bandolier. Remember that several odd, seemingly meaningless details have proven to be important later on--for example, think of Zahel's colorful metaphors and how they were ultimately proven to be essential to uncovering the swordsmaster's identity.

2. As Colby Jack pointed out, it seems unlikely that spheres could be easily carried in anything resembling a bandolier. In addition, Kaladin, who uses Stormlight while in active, rough-and-tumble settings, doesn't ever feel the need to carry sources of Stormlight on his chest.

3. Hoid's thoughts expressly indicate that the bandolier was not an item she would be likely to procure while on Roshar. If it were an ordinary pouch worn across the chest, why would it seem so out of place?

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Bandoliers don't only hold ammunition.  That's merely what we're most used to seeing them associated with.  A bandolier is any strap that goes diagonally across the chest.  They're typically used as a convenient point to attach things to, though that's not a requirement.  I used to own a bandolier that was meant to hold the canteen that it was sold with (although I never used the bandolier to do so).

 

 

Edit -

 

2. As Colby Jack pointed out, it seems unlikely that spheres could be easily carried in anything resembling a bandolier. In addition, Kaladin, who uses Stormlight while in active, rough-and-tumble settings, doesn't ever feel the need to carry sources of Stormlight on his chest.

 

While there's no mention of anything actually attached to the bandolier, there are likely small pouches or similar containers hanging off of it.  And something like that could easily carry spheres.  Though imo a more likely place for any spheres would be the backpack, since she doesn't need to touch them to draw stormlight from them.

3. Hoid's thoughts expressly indicate that the bandolier was not an item she would be likely to procure while on Roshar. If it were an ordinary pouch worn across the chest, why would it seem so out of place?

 

That's not what I got out of it.  What he says is that she didn't start out with it.  i.e. she didn't have it when she entered shadesmar (probably when she fled the ship after being attacked).  A culture like Roshar will have people who do lots of traveling and need a way to keep lots of things close at hand when they do so.  The optimal solution to such a problem is a wagon or cart, but not everyone can afford such a thing.  The alternative is things like backpacks and bandoliers...  and that appears to be exactly what we see here.  Jasnah has spent a lot of time away from her usual conveniences (at the very least, she's spent a lot of time in Shadesmar).  She's needed a way to carry supplies such as food, and likely writing implements.  The backpack allows her to carry lots of stuff easily.  But she has to take it off and unpack it to get something being carried.  The bandolier allows her to make sure that some things are readily available in the event that she needs something in a hurry.

Edited by junior
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I love the idea about Jasnah possibly having gone to Scadrial -> get a gun -> use a handy bandolier.

One point I'd like to make is that Soulcasting needs specific gem types for the material you intend to change an item into. Going through a pouch to find what you need wastes time. So, segregating spheres for specific soulcasting needs might be a good reason to utilize a bandolier.

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I seriously doubt Jasnah went to Scadrial. Scadrial is a paradise compared to Roshar, and Jasnah is worried about protecting her kingdom from the Everstorm. If it was as easy as just teleporting people along, I believe she'd have left long ago, leave the Voidbringers for the others to deal with.

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I seriously doubt Jasnah went to Scadrial. Scadrial is a paradise compared to Roshar, and Jasnah is worried about protecting her kingdom from the Everstorm. If it was as easy as just teleporting people along, I believe she'd have left long ago, leave the Voidbringers for the others to deal with.

 

Jasnah doesn't strike me as the type of person to abandon those she cares about to certain death.

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I seriously doubt Jasnah went to Scadrial. Scadrial is a paradise compared to Roshar, and Jasnah is worried about protecting her kingdom from the Everstorm. If it was as easy as just teleporting people along, I believe she'd have left long ago, leave the Voidbringers for the others to deal with.

A Roshar-wide relocation effort would probably be inpossible to manage. If she cannot convince world leaders to give up parshmen, how would she convince people into fleeing to an alien planet? (Assuming the Elendel authorities would allow Rosharan refugees, which I find doubtful.)

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This is what a bandolier looks like:

 

4389-RB-2T.jpg?1375688218

 

 

Do you think you can actually use it to carry spheres without it falling off? Wouldn't a pouch be better?

 

This is the only way I will imagine Jasnah looking and dressing in any reading I ever do of any Stormlight book from now on.

 

...Except for the bathtub scene.

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Jasnah's been gone for quite a while now.  Is it likely that she would still have infused spheres?  I guess we could claim a difference in time in different realms, but otherwise her spheres should all be dun.  Also, she's all burned, so maybe she went to one of the other planets in the vicinity of Roshar.  Are the moons the other planets?

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I think it is easy to work out a potential scenario.     She Elsecalled from the ship in the middle of the ocean to Shadesmar which would be in the middle of land there.     It was the middle of the night & Shallan's view did not mention her body clutching any pack or anything, so the most that she would have on her would have been a few spheres which could well have been used up just getting to Shadesmar & maybe healing herself a little.    So she has to find food and spheres to live there & to get back.     Are either of those readily available in Shadesmar?     Then she needs to get from there to the point where she came back (Where Wit was) which would have been in the middle of Shadesmar's ocean of beads.     To get across the beads to that point, she would have needed a significant amount of Stormlight to hold the beads together enough so she could walk across them to that point.    The backpack and bandolier were probably full of the thousands of nearly depleted spheres that she needed to complete that task.    Plus a little food that she was able to scrape up.

 

Makes room for an very interesting story about how she could accomplish that without a food source or a Highstorm to give her energy.

 

Can't wait to see what BS actually tells us about it!

 

I can't wait TWO Years!!!!

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Wow.  Didn't even think about it at the time, but you are absolutely on to something.

 

Look at this Brandon quote from a Q&A a few years back:

 

 

 


MCALTON2
Can we expect to see a fight between a Windrunner, an Awakener, and an Allomancer in one of the Stormlight books?

BRANDON SANDERSON
I've said before that it's unlikely that the Stormlight books will ever delve strongly into the connections between worlds. There will be some cool things happening for the cosmere-literate, but this series isn't focused on those concepts. I want it to maintain its plot cohesion for those who aren't aware of all of the behind-the-scenes stories. Epilogue to Book Two should excite you, though.  

 

 
So, obviously we aren't going to see SA viewpoints traveling to other world's, but after saying the books won't dive strongly into other worlds he states that the Epilogue of WOR should excite us.  Why would there be any excitement for the Cosmere literate if all Jasnah had done was access Shadesmar?  Clearly IMO the bandolier is exactly what it looks like.
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Ok, What I think you are all forgetting is that stormlight is just investiture.  If Jasnah was on another shardworld (possible reasons for this include exploration, got lost, or ran out of stormlight while deep within Shadesmar and got kicked out on another shard) she would need investiture to elsecall back to Roshar.

 

With this in mind, there are a few possibilities.  The bandolier might hold lots of metal from scadrial which she could eat the metal and use it as she would stormlight, or it might contain something similar from an unknown shardworld.

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If I remember correctly, metals (with exception of atium) are not investiture, they are spiritual pathways or something which grant access to a part of Preservation's power. All the investiture is already in the person or spike.

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Hmm, if Brandon won't make characters aware of the other Cosmere worlds yet, perhaps Jasnah met with a worldhopper who gave her the bandolier rather than going herself to Scadrial to get one. I doubt there are bullets in it though, there hasn't been any foreshadowing of Jasnah having combat training or access to something more powerful and unusual than soulcasting.

 

Perhaps the spren gave her whatever is in the bandolier, because she spoke of meeting with highspren and Hoid said they aren't used to dealing with someone as demanding as her, so she could have mm...persuaded them to give her some means to deal with the Voidbringers, so that's why she was worried why things are different now than they happened in previous Desolations - because whatever she currently carries might not be helpful in this new circumstances.

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She clearly went to Garth Nix's Abhorsen universe and became a necromancer ;D

+1 for you my friend for that AWESOME comparison/reference.

Also, agree with the guys who say the bandolier is too just hold stuff. I find it pretty unlikely she worldhopped to Scadrial.

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