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Hi, so huh never done this before, i searched a bit but didn't find it discussed so i hope i'm not overstepping on someone ele's ideas. You know that theory that Shallan's mother is the herald Charanarach ? ( and that killing her may have sent her back to Braize, making her the indirect cause of the True Desolation ) I've been thinking about it and there is something i've been wondering if we were taking everyting into account. We know Chanarachresembles Shallan and that shallan has something more than other Lightweaver. Maybe it's tied to the Mistspren she may have been playing with in her childhood ( Sanderson's has confirmed that an Unmade had meddled with the Davar's affairs, maybe Sja-Anat had sent an enlightened Mistspren to shallan ? ) Notably that she can see possibilities/ potential futures. She drew Gaz as "how he could have been" i think ? And one of the sailor she drew having escaped the shipwreck. Sanderson has stated that she had a stronger connection to the Cognitive Realm than most and that she could ... i don't know, maybe peek into it ? It has been theorized that Shallan being a Herald's daughter would have given her a bit more investiture of made her special ( i don't think we know of any other cognitive shadow having a kid ) I wonder if Charanarach could be Lin Davar instead of his wife. I've read somewhere on reddit that the murder of Shallan's father is peculiar because he resists a very potent poison and even starts to recover fairly quickly before being finished off by shallan using a necklace made of Aluminum. I'm not sure we know how aluminum interacts with investiture and stormlight and stuff ( Having abandoned his/her Honorblade, Charanach would not have access to stormlight i think ) but could it be a stretch that it's actually the aluminum that killed Lin Davar ? I'll admit my evidence for Charanarach gender might be a bit weak, since it refers to something not in the text of the books. Look at Chanarach's art. We were always told that the Heralds are 5 females and 5 males, and their depiction in illustrations. Chanarach's safehand is uncovered, and she is the only female herald depicted with an unprotected safehand. Could it be that she was depicted as a woman in Vorinism because of gender roles and the obsession with symmetry ? Like she was not considered as a "real" woman because of transphobia, or something. tl;dr : the idea is that Charanarch might be transgender/ genderfluid and is actually Shallan's father, Lin Davar. One of the things i see that contradicts this idea is that people seem convinced that the herald who died the same night as Gavilar is Chanarach because she was killed by shallan. Shallan's mother would have been killed in 1167-1168 according to the Coppermind, which is much closer to Gavilar's date of death ( 1167 ) than Lin Davar's death ( 1172 ) Have i missed something ? Is this a good post or did i do something wrong ? I'm sorry if that's the case, please correct me Have a good day

Question the first: Is Shardplate alive (or perhaps more accurately, undead)? I was struck by the similarity in description between shardplate and the skin of Nan Balat's axehound, which got me thinking. Shardplate seems to have many of the characteristics of Roshar's native fauna. Shardplate requires gemhearts to move and function, just like the greatshells. Shardplate will regenerate if broken. Earth crustaceans can regenerate -- I'm not sure if we've heard specifically that Rosharan ones can, but it seems likely. Its natural color is "slate gray" -- perhaps a reference to the geologic physiology of Rosharan wildlife? We know that chasmfiends and the like have symbiotic relationship with spren that allow them to defy the usual laws of biology.The strength and speed shardplate lends the wearer could be the effect of this relationship. Unlike most matter, shardplate can't be cut by shardblades. Shardblades cut the physical aspect of inanimate matter and the (cognitive/spiritual? I forget which) aspect of living matter. If shardplate were neither alive nor dead, but some sort of stormlight-animated husk, then it stands to reason it would interact strangely with shardblades. There has to be some sort of logical reason for this, since artifabrians are able to partially replicate the effect in half-shards. When a surgebinder has breathed in stormlight, they don't have to breathe air (and they can also heal faster, I think?) -- which suggests that stormlight has life-sustaining properties. Back in the days of the Heralds/original radiants, armor didn't need gems to function, right? Maybe back in those days, the plate was still alive in its own right. In modern Roshar, you have to power up your plate with infused gemstones (trapped spren). Wasn't there some scene where Syl reacted uncomfortably to shardplate? I could see why she would be upset with humans cramming random spren into an empty husk with no regard for the natural order. Has this theory been explored? Question the second: Did Lin Davar's secret soulcaster ever really work, or was he actually a radiant? He was in deep with the Ghostbloods or something, right? Maybe like Jasnah, his soulcaster was just for show as well. (Oh, the irony!) Sure, the steward claimed to have been trained to use it -- but did he ever actually accompany lord Davar and the surveyor? Maybe his "training" was just for show. The whole thing just seems fishy.

I'm referring to Shallan's father, if it's unclear. Of all of the revelations in WoR, this is probably the one that bugs me the most. Is Shallan's father a hero, or a villain? Now, the cheap answer is probably 'both', but his characterization is interesting enough that I think it's worth examining in some detail. The argument on the villain side is pretty easy, of course - he's abusive, violent, and ultimately murderous. Plenty of examples from the flashbacks to support that side. However, the last revelation changes the picture drastically. He makes an enormous sacrifice so that Shallan is not implicated in either death. If he gets his way, no one (except Shallan) will ever know what he did for her, and instead will be scorned and hated forever, even by his other children. At no time that we see does he seem tempted to give up the burden, and he never seems to blame Shallan for his state or the family's misfortunes. Re-reading the flashbacks seem to indicate that this is the stone around his neck that drags him down. It seems like a hugely heroic thing to have done, doubly so because no one will ever (presumably) learn of it. Basically, he's the anti-Amaram. I can think of two possible alternative readings that make it seem less heroic. The first is that, well, he's scared of Shallan (girl's got a Shardblade, after all, and she doesn't seem to have a whole lot of compunctions about killing people in self-defense). This kinda sorta works but I don't really ever get that vibe from what we see. The second is that it's just an extension of his possessiveness; Shallan is _his_, and no one gets to take her from him. Also sort of fits what we see, just not very strongly. It's worth noting that Hoid implies that there's something unnatural going on here: So perhaps her father's degeneration has a supernatural element, though that almost seems to take away from his arc. I want to say that her father's arc is supposed to be a classic greek tragedy (note: I am not an expert on greek tragedies, classic or otherwise); ultimately his great, heroic act is what ends up dooming him. I think I'd have to call him a hero, but I'm curious how other people interpret this. A side note - What will happen when/if her siblings learn what really happened to their mother?