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The subtle hints - Shallan's Past


The 10 Fools

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Hey everyone,

Not sure if this is worth making a thread for but just read the below sequence from WoR Chapter 63 and was just blown away how I did not notice this.

Quote

  The madman didn’t react to the comment, or even Shallan, as she stepped forward.

  “Modern theory for helping the mad suggests dim confines,” Shallan whispered. “Too much light stimulates them, and can reduce the effectiveness of treatment.” That was what she remembered, at least. She hadn’t read much on this subject. The room was dark. That window couldn’t be more than a few fingers wide.

  What was he whispering? Shallan cautiously continued forward. “Sir?” she asked. Then she hesitated, realizing that she was projecting a young woman’s voice from an old, fat ardent’s body. Would that startle the man? He wasn’t looking, so she withdrew the illusion.

  “He doesn’t seem angry,” Pattern said. “But you call him mad.”

  “‘Mad’ has two definitions,” Shallan said. “One means to be angry. The other means broken in the head.”

  “Ah,” Pattern said, “like a spren who has lost his bond.”

  “Not exactly, I’d guess,” Shallan said, stepping up to the madman. “But similar.” She knelt down by the man, trying to figure out what he was saying.

Love how Shallan just casually drops what a spren who has had their bond broken in Shadesmar is supposed to be like.

Brandon with the "100 Sneak" in writing haha.

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On 1/11/2022 at 0:41 AM, KaladinWorldsinger said:

So you think she visited shadesmar and saw a deadeye after breaking her bond with testament? Or you think she saw deadeyes in shadesmar while she had her oaths?

I am more inclined to think that she understood she did something bad to Testament which is why it is a truth for her "Oaths".

As the Truths a lighweaver needs to say seem to relate, at least for Shallan, to something bad they have done in the past and are running away from, it must've meant Shallan understood what she did to Testament after she broke her bond with her.

If this isn't the case, then technically the Teatament Truth for Shallan couldn't have existed until at least they went to Shadesmar in Oathbringer and saw Maya for the first time.

I am not sure if you can begin the path towards becoming a Knights Radiant if you don't have enough issues to achieve all 5 Oaths from the get go. The feeling I get though is that you have to be broken enough already which would imply you've got enough damage to swear all 5 Oaths.

 

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I think the true revelation here is that it's PATTERN, rather than SHALLAN, who brings up the idea of a broken spren bond.  Shallan doesn't seem to really know what a deadeye would be like ("not exactly, I'd guess"), or to consciously recall what happened to Testament... but we now know Pattern was fully aware of both of these things.

Even back this far, Pattern is trying to lay the groundwork for Shallan to remember what happened with her first spren.  He really has become one of my favorite characters, as shown in this topic:

And I'm in full agreement with Brandon's 100-level author sneak!  LOVE IT.

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  • 2 weeks later...

totally agree, was rereading WoK about a month ago, and Brandon must have had so much fun coming up with epigraphs about the voidbringers that were really hints that the voidbringers were actually the humans, and also those times Taravangian blurts out how he's damned (because of his work with the diagram).

Edited by DiePie
more accurate explanation
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On 1/11/2022 at 8:10 AM, The 10 Fools said:

I am more inclined to think that she understood she did something bad to Testament which is why it is a truth for her "Oaths".

As the Truths a lighweaver needs to say seem to relate, at least for Shallan, to something bad they have done in the past and are running away from, it must've meant Shallan understood what she did to Testament after she broke her bond with her.

If this isn't the case, then technically the Teatament Truth for Shallan couldn't have existed until at least they went to Shadesmar in Oathbringer and saw Maya for the first time.

I am not sure if you can begin the path towards becoming a Knights Radiant if you don't have enough issues to achieve all 5 Oaths from the get go. The feeling I get though is that you have to be broken enough already which would imply you've got enough damage to swear all 5 Oaths.

 

Lopen would disagree

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On 1/11/2022 at 6:10 AM, The 10 Fools said:

I am not sure if you can begin the path towards becoming a Knights Radiant if you don't have enough issues to achieve all 5 Oaths from the get go. The feeling I get though is that you have to be broken enough already which would imply you've got enough damage to swear all 5 Oaths.

2 hours ago, animalia said:

Lopen would disagree

The idea that "you have to be broken" / "no, you don't, what about the Lopen?" has been re-tread a lot by others; I tend to think that the Oaths/Truths/what have you, they are more like movement in the story. Shallan has suffered a great deal of trauma, and I see her movement through the story as a journey of recircling that trauma, gaining strength and power every revolution until she can address it fully. Once I began to view her story as a spiral, instead of an arc, I got a lot more out of it! When I revisit certain passages after a reveal, new things stand out, especially the cryptic (lower case c) things that Pattern says constantly throughout WoR. "You remind me of her, more and more of her" "remember" "the first time we did this" "a better lie, Shallan." etc, including the passage above. I find that repeated recontextualization to be really exciting to read about! 

Lopen hasn't internalized his trauma to the same degree (or maybe at all), but it's not like he's a perfect person who doesn't need to work on himself. I feel the comedic characters often have their development overlooked in favor of their quirky behavior. (Thinking of Pattern here, as well.) I see Lopen as someone who takes the lumps in his life in stride and is really good at protecting his own peace of mind, but doesn't realize or acknowledge that other people don't necessarily do that. Lopen's issues aren't connected to his traumatic backstory. If he gets more development, I wonder if that self-protection is maybe too powerful, if that lack of vulnerability prevents him from experiencing true depth of feeling, and if that could be the direction of his Ideal 4, in contrast to a Windrunner like Kaladin. 

And within the Lightweavers, I argue that Ishnah isn't seriously traumatized or at least doesn't present that way, but she isn't perfectly happy with her circumstance, either. My take on her is that she joined Shallan/the Lightweavers to gain power and knowledge, and her Truths might have something to do with why being a power player is so important to her--if that really is why she does what she does, or if that is the lie she presents to hide her true wishes. I'm thinking of her comment about "living in the light" here. I love this because it tells a little story about each individual Radiant without taking up a ton of page time, while also making it more reasonable that lots of people are joining the orders and bonding spren. (That said, I would still lose all my chill over an Unseen Court novella. The absolute dream.)

To go back to original post, something fun that I caught on a re-read is in WoR Chapter 64 in that same "Shallan infiltrates the devotary and talks to Taln" sequence was this:

Quote

It had been a long time since she'd seen Helaran, now. And Balat had a point in that her older brother had abandoned them.

WoR Chapter 64: Treasures

But in the flashback sequence where she has that conversation with Balat, this is the actual text:

Quote

“I can’t be [Helaran], Shallan.” 

“You don’t need to be.” 

“He’s brave. He’s strong.”

 “He abandoned us.” 

Balat looked up, tears running down his cheeks. “Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s the only way, Shallan.”

WoR Chapter 61: Obedience

I guess it could be an inconsistency, but to me, it highlights how Shallan is capable of subtly altering her memories to leave out things she doesn't like about herself. Shallan made that point, but when she remembers it later, she transfers that resentfulness and anger towards Helaran to Balat, and makes it sound like Shallan was only agreeing with him. It's a lot of foreshadowing. Shallan vaguely agrees with Pattern about what a spren with a broken bond might look like; and Shallan misremembers details that cause her to remember difficult truths about herself, her feelings, and her actions in the past. (And at the same time, Kaladin is starting to go back on his own Oaths, causing Syl to regress.) It's really cool how it ties together.

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On 10.1.2022 at 4:32 AM, The 10 Fools said:

Love how Shallan just casually drops what a spren who has had their bond broken in Shadesmar is supposed to be like.

Spren need a bond to stay sapient in the PR. I am afraid you are overinterpreting that line.

 

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There is something that still doesn't add up for me, about the time she killed her mother. I realise that the details have been covered in Shallan's flashback chapters, but something about it feels off. Approximate timeline of events:

1. A friend of Shallan's mother pulls a knife and tries to kill Shallan. Shallan's father injures him, but is pinned down.

2. Shallan's mother grabs the knife and tries to kill Shallan. Shallan kills her with Testament.

3. Shallan then kills her mother's friend... With Testament? We would assume so, but I don't recall there ever being a description of his burned out eyes, and it's only ever Shallan's mother described as being turned face down so Shallan didn't have to see the eyes.

I'm not sure what it is about all of this, but I feel we're still missing something vital from this scene.

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On 11.01.2022 at 4:10 PM, The 10 Fools said:

I am not sure if you can begin the path towards becoming a Knights Radiant if you don't have enough issues to achieve all 5 Oaths from the get go. The feeling I get though is that you have to be broken enough already which would imply you've got enough damage to swear all 5 Oaths.

I think overcoming flaws is a very Lightweaver-specific mode that other Knight Radiant orders don't fit.

Like, sure, for the Orders that actually have oaths, the oaths beyond the first tend to be personalized to the person's weaknesses. But that doesn't necessarily mean the weaknesses existing are a *strict requirement*.

I think it's also telling how spren interact with their Knight. Ivory likes Jasnah because she's dispassionate and calculating, not because she lacked those attributes and got them later. Syl likes Kaladin because he's honorable and protective, not because he became that way from a different mindset (she is *sympathetic* to his flaws, sure, but that's not the same thing as actively wanting the flaws). Highspren like people who understand and respect the law ceteris paribus; if someone was "not there yet" their reaction wouldn't be "Nice, I like flaws and growth!", their reaction would be "you're not worthy of me bonding you, call me when you're more lawful". Cryptics are the ONLY spren we've seen so far who pick who to bond based on a combination between their flaws and virtures, a combination of their damaged inner self and willingness for self-openness (also, let's be honest, if being a Lightweaver was purely about self-openness rather than this hybrid, Lopen would've been a level 4 Lightweaver rather than a level 3 Windrunner by now XD).

So yeah, I am making an empirical prediction here: I predict that if a non-cryptic spren finds a human that just happens to psychologically fit the ideals of that spren's order to a T, the spren would be like "cha-chiing".

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2 hours ago, Bort said:

3. Shallan then kills her mother's friend... With Testament? We would assume so, but I don't recall there ever being a description of his burned out eyes, and it's only ever Shallan's mother described as being turned face down so Shallan didn't have to see the eyes.

I'm not sure what it is about all of this, but I feel we're still missing something vital from this scene.

Lin killed him, not Shallan.

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13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Lin killed him, not Shallan.

That's not what Coppermind says.

Her mother and a friend confronted Lin, trying to argue that something must be done about Shallan. The argument became a fight after the unfamiliar man drew a knife, apparently intended for Shallan. She watched as her father and the man struggled, her father scoring a cut on the man's arm before being pinned to the ground. Her mother seized the knife and moved for Shallan, prompting Shallan to summon Testament as a Shardblade in self-defense. After killing both her mother and the associate, Shallan dropped the Blade and fell into a state of intense shock. Lin placed the Shardblade in his strongbox and held Shallan while singing "Sleep My Baby Dear" to soothe her.

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9 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The coppermind is not always accurate.

I figured as much, but unfortunately, I don't have easy access to the books here to double check, so I have to rely on Coppermind.

But, rather than just tell someone they're wrong, perhaps you could provide the proof.

Hang on... That sounds very familiar for some reason...

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9 minutes ago, Bort said:

I figured as much, but unfortunately, I don't have easy access to the books here to double check, so I have to rely on Coppermind.

But, rather than just tell someone they're wrong, perhaps you could provide the proof.

Hang on... That sounds very familiar for some reason...

Are you just going to continue to attak my character or are you going to attack my arguments?

And like yourself I do not have Words of Radiance on me, I will later in the day so I'll get it to you then.

Edited by Frustration
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1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Are you just going to continue to attak my character or are you going to attack my arguments?

And like yourself I do not have Words of Radiance on me, I will later in the day so I'll get it to you then.

What arguments? For there to be arguments, you need to provide details, not simply tell people they are wrong.

And it's a little bit of sarcasm to remind you that you could provide fuller answers than the ones you are leaving, not "attacks on your character."

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3 minutes ago, Bort said:

What arguments? For there to be arguments, you need to provide details, not simply tell people they are wrong.

And it's a little bit of sarcasm to remind you that you could provide fuller answers than the ones you are leaving, not "attacks on your character."

How about here where you call me an idiot?

23 hours ago, Bort said:

To make that argument is idiocy, because you are saying that no-one can change the way you act or the decisions you make. That's very simply not true. Life proves this time and time again every single day.

 

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5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Spren need a bond to stay sapient in the PR. I am afraid you are overinterpreting that line.

 

Yes that's true, but that doesn't imply anything about how this should affect them in Shadesmar or if this creates deadeyes.

Syl doesn't start to regress until after this point in WoR either. It is only near the end of the book with the chasm crawling and the Stormfather later stating that Kal had killed Syl did we know of the consequences for breaking your bond. 

In this scene, Pattern give us the information on what a broken bond does to a spren for the first time. This being that broken bonds makes  deadeyes (in Oathbringer) and that they are . Replying by saying that it's similar but different shouldn't be a reply to new information provided to you IMO. 

This information is also provided while they are trying to investigate Talenel and become exposed to his mental state. This state is more closely related to a deadeye than say Syl's behavior when Kal first started noticing her IMO.

So if this answer is implying that Shallan knows what a broken bond does to spren it begs the question as to how she knows this prior to Pattern telling us, which i believe could be related to the truth she has most recently provided.

 

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1 minute ago, The 10 Fools said:

This information is also provided while they are trying to investigate Talenel and become exposed to his mental state. This state is more closely related to a deadeye than say Syl's behavior when Kal first started noticing her IMO.

Yes! And for much the same reason, if my personal suspicions are correct.

Each being has three aspects, physical, cognitive, and spiritual. With Deadeyes, you've got the Blade which is the physical, and the Deadeye, which is the cognitive. The heralds will be much the same, just in reverse. Their "deadeye" shape is in the physical realm. Makes you wonder what their cognitive presence in Shadesmar would be like.

But in both cases, they've been split from their spiritual aspect, which is why, when Dalinar opens the perpendicularity, Taln wakes up and is able to think and talk, while Maya is able to stir enough to send thoughts and feelings to Adolin.

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4 hours ago, Bort said:

There is something that still doesn't add up for me, about the time she killed her mother. I realise that the details have been covered in Shallan's flashback chapters, but something about it feels off. Approximate timeline of events:

1. A friend of Shallan's mother pulls a knife and tries to kill Shallan. Shallan's father injures him, but is pinned down.

2. Shallan's mother grabs the knife and tries to kill Shallan. Shallan kills her with Testament.

3. Shallan then kills her mother's friend... With Testament? We would assume so, but I don't recall there ever being a description of his burned out eyes, and it's only ever Shallan's mother described as being turned face down so Shallan didn't have to see the eyes.

I'm not sure what it is about all of this, but I feel we're still missing something vital from this scene.

 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Lin killed him, not Shallan.

It's deliberately unclear what happened in the text, in my opinion. These lines that talk about the position of the friend, a character with no confirmed name and no lines who occupies an unreasonable amount of my brain: 

Quote

Little blood there. It was the man who bled. Mother lay facedown, so Shallan couldn't see the eyes. The horrible eyes.

WoR Chapter 10: Red Carpet Once White

Then he saw what she was drawing. Bodies, facedown, on the floor with--

WoR Chapter 19: Safe Things

Her mother's friend lay on the floor, bleeding from the arm, though that wound hadn't killed him.

WoR Chapter 88: The Man Who Owned the Winds

Two things that have always bothered me about this scene is that there is "little" blood where the man is, the only one who got cut; but Shallan has blood on her face (?) maybe, that Lin wipes away? How did the white carpet become red? Is she talking about just a patch of it? Did she Soulcast the whole carpet?

And the other thing is that Shallan describes her father as "barging in" after hearing her mother shouting (but not visibly describing her.) From a line in RoW, it sounds like they had a history of fighting ("a girl who suffered parents who constantly fought over her future." RoW 93) despite Shallan's fond imaginings of a happy time before. Her mother also has just returned from somewhere else with that friend. But Shallan may have been already inside the room with the friend and the knife while they fought, because the friend meets Lin immediately and they struggle. That's where he gets cut, but not enough to die from it. It's not even enough to slow him down, although he can't keep a hold of the knife himself for some reason. Shallan also seems to know who this guy is, if her mentioning the name "Dreder" to Wit means anything at all. Maybe she overheard it somewhere?

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Spren need a bond to stay sapient in the PR.

The honorspren Yunfah stayed pretty cogent after his Radiant died, although there was implied to be a time limit on him. It seems to me like it's the initial transfer that involves the traumatic loss of memory. But I don't think it's critical if Testament was sapient in the Physical Realm without a bond. Shallan was able to peek at Cryptics in Shadesmar while she was studying with Jasnah in Kharbranth, so it's not unlikely that she could have seen Testament wandering after her.  

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