Discuss the Stormlight 5 Prologue Here

[+Harrycrapper]

I haven't seen anyone mention it unless I glossed over some comments, but one of the things "Gavilar Prologue Stormfather" said just cannot be reconciled with the Stormfather we know; what he said about Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

Quote

She created your parshmen, he said. On accident. Long ago, after the Heralds’ final visit but before the Recreance, Mishram tried to rise up and replace the God of the Voidbringers. She gave the common voidbringers forms, Voidlight, abilities. To fight for themselves.

“Curious,” Gavilar said. “And then?”

And then...she fell. She was too small a being, not strong enough, to uphold an entire people. It all came crashing down, and so some brave men and women—Radiants—did something that had to be done, trapping Mishram in a gemstone to prevent her from destroying all of Roshar. The side effect of that event created the parshmen.

The Stormfather here seems to have a positive opinion of the Radiants who imprisoned her and thinks it was both necessary and right. These are the same Radiants who kickstarted the Recreance which killed so many spren which he considered his children. Not only that, but it deeply wounded The Sibling, and we know he blames humans/Radiants for that when Dalinar inquired about The Sibling and he shut him down with "YOU HAVE HURT THEM ENOUGH." 

I'm still not entirely convinced this is somehow Ishar, but I can imagine that exact explanation of events coming out of Ishar's mouth. 

[+robardin]

6 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

But the madness interferes specifically with their "thing", the aspect they represented as Heralds. Sure, she knows how, but the madness would specifically interfere with her ability to fight.

And the best fighter in the history of any universe at the top of their game could be killed by their young daughter wielding a shardblade. There's surprise, then there's your own young daughter killing you with a shardblade.

Especially one who'd never summoned a Blade before. That was the first time, right? Even a Herald might not recognize which Ideal Shallan had reached, just recognized her using Illumination.

[agrabes]

I'm a bit late to the party, so I'm sure these theories have already been thoroughly discredited.  But, I loved this prologue.  It made Gavilar's actions and attitude toward the people in his life not sympathetic but understandable.  He's not just an evil caricature that we are supposed to feel good about hating, he's a person with motives and reasons that make sense to him and could be justified in a certain twisted way within the messed up confines of his own mind, but to outside observers it's clear he's crossed into doing really bad things.  Makes him feel like a person.

 

In terms of the StormFather, I think there is definitely something different with him during this prologue.  My theory while I was reading it was that we know the original Stormfather was merged with the remnants of the Honor shard.  So, could it be that at this time that remnant had partial control of the Stormfather spren?  Sort of a two minds occupying one "body" situation where sometimes the Honor cognitive shadow has control, other times it's the Stormfather spren's "mind"?  This would explain why at times the goal is to restore the Oathpact at all costs, including lying, while at other times the goal seems to be more in line with the Stormfather we see in the series interacting with Dalinar who is just looking for a good Bondsmith candidate and not looking for new Heralds.  Honor's shadow could be considering that the most honorable thing is to honor the Oathpact, justifying things like lying, etc.  Then, with the mystery Herald's death, something snaps in the Shadow and it either dies or loses enough power that it can't take control anymore.

I do also like the idea that sometimes Ishar or some other unknown person is impersonating the Stormfather sometimes too, but haven't read enough of the thread to see if there's a lot of evidence against that by now.

[+robardin]

10 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

I haven't seen anyone mention it unless I glossed over some comments, but one of the things "Gavilar Prologue Stormfather" said just cannot be reconciled with the Stormfather we know; what he said about Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

The Stormfather here seems to have a positive opinion of the Radiants who imprisoned her and thinks it was both necessary and right. These are the same Radiants who kickstarted the Recreance which killed so many spren which he considered his children. Not only that, but it deeply wounded The Sibling, and we know he blames humans/Radiants for that when Dalinar inquired about The Sibling and he shut him down with "YOU HAVE HURT THEM ENOUGH." 

I'm still not entirely convinced this is somehow Ishar, but I can imagine that exact explanation of events coming out of Ishar's mouth. 

That's a good point and now I'm even more inclined to think this is Cultivation doing another "pruning" (of the Stormfather, in this case)

In fact, if Cultivation is able to (and inclined to) "prune" godspren like the Stormfather, why not also Ba-Ado-Mishram. How did Mishram suddenly gain the ability to become "a little god" to empower the "parsh" with forms of power, Voidlight, and so on? Would that not be a kind of "changing and growing"?

And yes, maybe Cultivation was working to trick Gavilar into (a) bonding the Stormfather and thus taking up the power of a Bondsmith, and then to (b) renew the Oathpact?

And the last comment to Gavilar, "I will never trust your family again. I made that mistake once." That "again" could refer to Dalinar's visit that has also already happened, right? Because why else say "made that mistake once" in talking to Gavilar, if the mistake in question is Gavilar? Seems like it must mean "once before (you)".

Also, we see Taravangian shaken by Gavilar's verbatim echoing of his own other's Death Rattle, foretelling the Everstorm. Might that not be what precipitates him to go to the Nightwatcher asking for the "capacity to stop what is to come", this validation that that truly was a divinely inspired vision of the future and not the mumblings of a dying woman?

Meaning, Cultivation's long game wrt him and Odium hadn't yet been put into play?

Edited March 31, 2022 by robardin

[+Harrycrapper]

1 minute ago, robardin said:

And the last comment to Gavilar, "I will never trust your family again. I made that mistake once." That "again" could refer to Dalinar's visit that has also already happened, right?

Dalinar went to visit the Nightwatcher shortly after Gavilar's funeral, not before his death. But, she's definitely a candidate that could be pulling Gavilar's strings here. Gavilar seems to be directly responsible for Taravagian visiting her, so it' entirely possible she's at the root of this. 

[+robardin]

15 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

Dalinar went to visit the Nightwatcher shortly after Gavilar's funeral, not before his death. But, she's definitely a candidate that could be pulling Gavilar's strings here. Gavilar seems to be directly responsible for Taravagian visiting her, so it' entirely possible she's at the root of this. 

Right, I forgot the order of events there.

So if my theory here were correct, her comment about "never trusting your family again" refers to trusting them to take up a re-energized Oathpact?

And yet here we see Dalinar intending to try doing just that at the end of RoW. After this spren that speaks in italics to Gavilar had observed, He has potential you do not see, that one. He could be more than you think.

And I am more certain that ever that Taravodium's exultation "you have no idea what you have done" is 100% wrong.

As for putting her long-term plan for swapping in Taravangian for Rayse as the Vessel of Odium, .... how the heck did she end up with Nightblood? Implied to be in her possession already by the time of Dalinar's visit soon after this?

Edited March 31, 2022 by robardin

[NameIess]

9 minutes ago, robardin said:

As for putting her long-term plan for swapping in Taravangian for Rayse as the Vessel of Odium, .... how the heck did she end up with Nightblood? Implied to be in her possession already by the time of Dalinar's visit soon after this?

My best guess is that Vasher went to the Nightwatcher at some point. Either that or she was just going to steal him from Nale with magic.

[+Harrycrapper]

5 minutes ago, robardin said:

Right, I forgot the order of events there.

So if my theory here were correct, her comment about "never trusting your family again" refers to trusting them to take up a re-energized Oathpact?

And yet here we see Dalinar intending to try doing just that at the end of RoW. After this spren that speaks in italics to Gavilar had observed, He has potential you do not see, that one. He could be more than you think.

And I am more certain that ever that Taravodium's exultation "you have no idea what you have done" is 100% wrong.

As for putting her long-term plan for swapping in Taravangian for Rayse as the Vessel of Odium, .... how the heck did she end up with Nightblood? Implied to be in her possession already by the time of Dalinar's visit soon after this?

Technically, what Cultivation did to Dalinar shows she didn't trust him. She didn't give Dalinar anything like she did for Lift and Taravagian. She took away the pieces that made him unreliable and susceptible to manipulation by Odium. 

Also, now that I think about it, the "He has potential you do not see, that one. He could be more than you think" sounds very Cultivation-y, like she's thinking "I can prune that."

[Rg2045]

I think that gavilar line that was close to the words “I need it, give it to me now” (I think I’m going off memory) is interesting because how different bondsmiths can be. An oath to unite not divide. Has many different applications. There’s multiple ways to “unite”, one is conquest. So gavilars words could have been “I will conquer the people in order to save them though the coming desolation” or other related words

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

the keepers of the copper mind have officially died of Brandofandonitis.

[+mdross81]

35 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

Also, now that I think about it, the "He has potential you do not see, that one. He could be more than you think" sounds very Cultivation-y, like she's thinking "I can prune that."

This is a good catch. Also, on multiple occasions in this prologue, Gavilar thinks about or talks about how he has "outgrown" things:

• He was one of the trusted, a member of the Sons of Honor. A group that was yet another knife that Gavilar kept balanced, for they could never know that he had outgrown them and their plans.

• Deliver him to my agents, then we’ll give you what you said that you wanted: a return of the ancient days you’ve hungered for. A chance for the powers to come back.” “I’ve grown beyond that,” Gavilar said.

• He regretted how things had been between them lately. That coldness growing—well, grown over—their relationship.

• Amaram liked to keep them around, to teach him their script. Something that allowed Amaram to pretend he wasn’t learning to write, preserving some semblance of Vorin devotion. That was important to him. Gavilar had, of course, grown beyond that.

 

[bmcclure7]

On 3/30/2022 at 0:39 PM, KandraAllomancer said:

Good to know, I was just starting a new topic

Not what I've expected, really. Gavilar seems to be dead, with no plans made of surviving as a Cognitive Shadow. 

This chapter humanizes him (and Sadeas) to some extent - his final reaction to the Stormfather's lies is still extremely satisfying, though.

Apparently Gavilar has been working with Thaidakar on starting a Desolation - assuming the math done by @CROSSENuUP here is correct, it seems that Shallan managed to do it before them.

The original goal of the visions seems to have been tricking someone into taking Taln's place. I still wonder - what words (or attitude, or actions) did the Stornfather expect from Gavilar? The First Ideal? What was the thing about Gavilar's demand being close about, then?

We get Taravangian's origin story, kind of. I'm not sure if the new Death Rattle is a general warning against the Desolation, or something that will actually happen in the books.

Gavilar's last words make much more sense now.

 I'm not so We can count Gavelar out yet.  He kept talking about his backup plan, Just in case you didn't become a Herald another path to immortality. I dont think that would have been brought up if it didn't come to play later.

[+Harrycrapper]

52 minutes ago, mdross81 said:

This is a good catch. Also, on multiple occasions in this prologue, Gavilar thinks about or talks about how he has "outgrown" things:

• He was one of the trusted, a member of the Sons of Honor. A group that was yet another knife that Gavilar kept balanced, for they could never know that he had outgrown them and their plans.

• Deliver him to my agents, then we’ll give you what you said that you wanted: a return of the ancient days you’ve hungered for. A chance for the powers to come back.” “I’ve grown beyond that,” Gavilar said.

• He regretted how things had been between them lately. That coldness growing—well, grown over—their relationship.

• Amaram liked to keep them around, to teach him their script. Something that allowed Amaram to pretend he wasn’t learning to write, preserving some semblance of Vorin devotion. That was important to him. Gavilar had, of course, grown beyond that.

 

Interesting pattern. I'll add one more thing; the "Stormfather"'s reaction when Gavilar said "Give me the power. I need it." Cultivation is somewhat known for receiving requests and granting them. That isn't too far off from Taravangian asking for capacity. 

[bmcclure7]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

Right, I forgot the order of events there.

So if my theory here were correct, her comment about "never trusting your family again" refers to trusting them to take up a re-energized Oathpact?

And yet here we see Dalinar intending to try doing just that at the end of RoW. After this spren that speaks in italics to Gavilar had observed, He has potential you do not see, that one. He could be more than you think.

And I am more certain that ever that Taravodium's exultation "you have no idea what you have done" is 100% wrong.

As for putting her long-term plan for swapping in Taravangian for Rayse as the Vessel of Odium, .... how the heck did she end up with Nightblood? Implied to be in her possession already by the time of Dalinar's visit soon after this?

 I'm not entirely sure he was talking to the storm father. I mean he thought he was  But then again The whole point of that story was that the Spren was lying to him.  Perhaps honors cognitive shadow? 

[bmcclure7]

2 hours ago, agrabes said:

I'm a bit late to the party, so I'm sure these theories have already been thoroughly discredited.  But, I loved this prologue.  It made Gavilar's actions and attitude toward the people in his life not sympathetic but understandable.  He's not just an evil caricature that we are supposed to feel good about hating, he's a person with motives and reasons that make sense to him and could be justified in a certain twisted way within the messed up confines of his own mind, but to outside observers it's clear he's crossed into doing really bad things.  Makes him feel like a person.

 

In terms of the StormFather, I think there is definitely something different with him during this prologue.  My theory while I was reading it was that we know the original Stormfather was merged with the remnants of the Honor shard.  So, could it be that at this time that remnant had partial control of the Stormfather spren?  Sort of a two minds occupying one "body" situation where sometimes the Honor cognitive shadow has control, other times it's the Stormfather spren's "mind"?  This would explain why at times the goal is to restore the Oathpact at all costs, including lying, while at other times the goal seems to be more in line with the Stormfather we see in the series interacting with Dalinar who is just looking for a good Bondsmith candidate and not looking for new Heralds.  Honor's shadow could be considering that the most honorable thing is to honor the Oathpact, justifying things like lying, etc.  Then, with the mystery Herald's death, something snaps in the Shadow and it either dies or loses enough power that it can't take control anymore.

I do also like the idea that sometimes Ishar or some other unknown person is impersonating the Stormfather sometimes too, but haven't read enough of the thread to see if there's a lot of evidence against that by now.

 It definitely sounded different. So much so That I 1st I thought it was odium impersonating him. But the cognitive shadow of honor makes more sense. Especially with that 1 comment where gavilar caught him in a contradiction

[+mdross81]

13 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

Interesting pattern. I'll add one more thing; the "Stormfather"'s reaction when Gavilar said "Give me the power. I need it." Cultivation is somewhat known for receiving requests and granting them. That isn't too far off from Taravangian asking for capacity.

Yes, people do tend to go to her (or her agent the Nightwatcher) begging. It’s what makes them desperate enough to accept the curse that comes with the boon. 

[bmcclure7]

4 hours ago, Karger said:

It is an interesting idea but it has several problems.  A herald loosing in a fight to an eight year old girl and an ordinary man is pretty hard to get your head around.  Also I have a hard time understanding how physical death would matter.  Wouldn't it just send them to braize?  If Channah broke right afterwards wouldn't that start the desolation instantly?

 Presumably would be sometime before the void found her. 

[king of nowhere]

I would not read much into any italicization, capitalization, or lack thereof. the text we have is a transcription of an audio recording. the guy who wrote it down could not know whether brandon wanted those words italicized or not. and i've seen a few mistakes on capitalization, like one word is not capitalized. unless it's meant to represent an accent subtly slipping, but it's a huge stretch.

 

regarding shallan's mother as chanarach, there are enough coincidences that it can be considered almost certain. and it does explain why she'd be so adamant in trying to kill her daugther when she bonds a spren.

However, I don't see the narrative point of it all. an herald taking up a normal life as wife of a noble? she doesn't behave like any herald we saw. in the few scenes with shallan's mother, she never seem unhinged - well, except when she tried to kill her daugther, of course. and all for what? a revelation that would pile a bit more trauma on shallan because she didn't just kill her mother, she *gasp* started the desolation personally! Nah, I'm not seeing it.

I'm confused. On one hand, it's highly unlikely that there was the exact coincidence of the death time and the specific mention of hair and all that was not done intentionally. On the other hand, I can't see how this plot twist could make the story any better, and I can see many ways it would make it worse.

[Lego Mistborn]

2 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I haven't seen anyone mention it unless I glossed over some comments, but one of the things "Gavilar Prologue Stormfather" said just cannot be reconciled with the Stormfather we know; what he said about Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

The Stormfather here seems to have a positive opinion of the Radiants who imprisoned her and thinks it was both necessary and right. These are the same Radiants who kickstarted the Recreance which killed so many spren which he considered his children. Not only that, but it deeply wounded The Sibling, and we know he blames humans/Radiants for that when Dalinar inquired about The Sibling and he shut him down with "YOU HAVE HURT THEM ENOUGH." 

I'm still not entirely convinced this is somehow Ishar, but I can imagine that exact explanation of events coming out of Ishar's mouth. 

He says they did what they must, which implies he is not pleased, yet accepts it begrudgingly

14 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

I would not read much into any italicization, capitalization, or lack thereof. the text we have is a transcription of an audio recording. the guy who wrote it down could not know whether brandon wanted those words italicized or not. and i've seen a few mistakes on capitalization, like one word is not capitalized. unless it's meant to represent an accent subtly slipping, but it's a huge stretch.

We have an official copy from Sanderson's website, which we can assume is taken directly from his draft and therefore the formatting is accurate. The italicization is used to denote ethereal, deific speakers anyways.

[+Harrycrapper]

8 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

I would not read much into any italicization, capitalization, or lack thereof. the text we have is a transcription of an audio recording. the guy who wrote it down could not know whether brandon wanted those words italicized or not. and i've seen a few mistakes on capitalization, like one word is not capitalized. unless it's meant to represent an accent subtly slipping, but it's a huge stretch.

To be sure, are you reading the transcription Pagerunner made or what was put out in the newsletter this morning? Presumably, what was in the newsletter is what Brandon was reading from. 

11 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

regarding shallan's mother as chanarach, there are enough coincidences that it can be considered almost certain. and it does explain why she'd be so adamant in trying to kill her daugther when she bonds a spren.

However, I don't see the narrative point of it all. an herald taking up a normal life as wife of a noble? she doesn't behave like any herald we saw. in the few scenes with shallan's mother, she never seem unhinged - well, except when she tried to kill her daugther, of course. and all for what? a revelation that would pile a bit more trauma on shallan because she didn't just kill her mother, she *gasp* started the desolation personally! Nah, I'm not seeing it.

I'm confused. On one hand, it's highly unlikely that there was the exact coincidence of the death time and the specific mention of hair and all that was not done intentionally. On the other hand, I can't see how this plot twist could make the story any better, and I can see many ways it would make it worse.

I feel it explains things pretty nicely. There are questions to be answered about Shallan's family/childhood. Why are the Ghostbloods, the Skybreakers, an Unmade, and the Cryptics all so interested in this backwater noble family? What is Shallan's final Truth? Radiant still hasn't been integrated, and she seems particularly modeled after Chanarach. Presumably Radiant will related to her final Truth much like Veil was her most recent. 

As for why she's there; she's probably just trying to live a normal life. The noble life is obviously better than most, but she can't be in a family that has too much notoriety or she may be found out. Then, she finds out her daughter is a Radiant, which could threaten to drag her secret out. On top of the fact that Ishar told the other Heralds that new Radiants would bring back the Voidbringers, her reasons for trying to kill her are clear. 

As for what it does for the story; one of the Heralds needed to die. Taln returned before the Everstorm was summoned, it couldn't be the cause of the Return. And Brandon seems to want Taln not to be the one who was broken. So, this was his way of showing us the Herald death that started the cascade of events starting in TWoK. It either works for you or it doesn't, the concept of it making a story better or worse is subjective and therefore entirely up to the reader.

[DiePie]

4 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Shallan sniped an unprepared Herald with a Shardblade. We dont know what can kill a herald, but we do know that the heralds did often lose members each desolation. A shardblade to the heart might make sense. We also dont know if heralds are easier to kill without their blades on them or not, or if or how a herald can draw in stormlight or remain invested on their own. 

And in terms of physical death, Chana would have returned to Braize. We know the herlads dont go directly to Odium because the heralds talked about being able to hide on Braize for a time before being caught. We dont know what the "hide and seek" event looks like on Braize , but maybe her return was unexpected and she managed to hide from Odium longer than usual? As well, we dont know how strong Chana's will was. It is possible she took some time to break after being caught. 

The other thing from my theory was that Shallan claims Lin put her mother's soul into a Safe, and that the Safe continued to glow for about 5 years. In my original theory, the glowing soul in the safe was my #1 interesting item. I think the glowing soul and Lin's rush to shove it into a safe are still important aspects to whatever happened on the day Shallan's mother died. Many people discounted this as Shallan's delusions, but i very strong believe that unexplained glowing lights pulled out of corpses  are likely important in a book series all about lights, gems, and souls. 

If Shallan killed her Channarach (I hope I spelled that right) with a Shardblade then why would her Mother's soul still be in the safe? She would have needed to capture her mother's soul somehow right? The only realistic way (at least until we know more about the circumstances surrounding Shallan's mother's death) would be in a Gemstone*, which would require for Shallan to a; intimately know the entity in question and b; intentionally try to trap her mother, which I don't think is too far a stretch. If Shallan had already been playing around with Stormlight her making her mother "go there" as a method of getting rid of her. Which is like you would do with Stormlight, while people often "breath" it in, it's been established that it's the intent that's necessary not the actual physical actions; and Shallan as a child (and as a Lightweaver) might have been more willing to accept and internalize that than adults that we see in other orders. Well, that or use Raysium but that might help cause the cut of Jezrien's soul from the Oathpact that we see, or more importantly I don't think Shallan would've had access to any Raysium.

I can't remember how the suspicious the phrasing actually was, but this might be corroborated in OB when Shallan fends off Re-Shephir. Any "like she had already done this before", or use of the word "familiar" during that scene could be a sign that she had trapped Channarach in a Gemstone. While perhaps she had blocked out the event itself, she might have remembered it subconsciously.

 

*while there are other methods, such as devices sold by the IRE mentioned during OB and potentially copperminds used by nicrosil(?) ferrings, I think it's reasonably to assume that Shallan didn't have access to any of them

[AquaRegia]

18 minutes ago, DiePie said:

If Shallan killed her... with a Shardblade then why would her Mother's soul still be in the safe?

There was never ANYTHING in the safe.  It was always a visual metaphor - young Shallan visualizing the "fruit of her sin" or whatever.  Nobody else ever saw it.

I'm still not happy with the "Shallan's mother was a Herald" thing, despite the increasing preponderance of evidence supporting it... but I'm at least open to the possibility now.  I agree with @king of nowhere above - it doesn't seem to add much to Shallan's arc and strains credibility.  If it does turn out to be a thing, I hope we get more details that make it make more sense.

I'm also not convinced of the "StormFaker" idea (although I LOVE the term "StormFaker"!).  I have no problem believing that the Stormfather would behave differently with Gavilar than with Dalinar.  I also have no trouble with the concept that a Godspren could be changed by interaction with Gavilar and other possible candidates before Dalinar.  The Stormfather admits on multiple occasions that his Bond with Dalinar is changing him.  I strongly dispute that he "lies" to Gavilar in the prologue; show me ONE instance of a direct lie onscreen.  Allowing someone to believe an erroneous conclusion they have jumped to is not "lying", and he does this to Dalinar as well.

While it's POSSIBLE that someone has piggybacked their own message onto Gavilar's communication with the Stormfather (I like Cultivation best as a suspect), I don't think it's necessarily a slam dunk.

[teknopathetic]

40 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

There was never ANYTHING in the safe.  It was always a visual metaphor - young Shallan visualizing the "fruit of her sin" or whatever.  Nobody else ever saw it.

Shallan catches her father looking towards the safe a few times throughout the years as well. It is unclear if he sees the light too, nd this is left openly referenced and ambiguous in the text. Thinking a child is going to psychosomatically hallucinate light as a representation of sin is a little complex for my liking. Shallan represses things; she does not hallucinate them. As to why can only she (and maybe Lin) see it? Maybe they have a connection to the event that makes that possible. Maybe they are more connected to Chana for some reason.

I dont see Brandon writing it in a way that has a child psychosomatically hallucinating. More likely he would put something in plain sight he knew most people would dismiss. We have been trained to dismiss Shallan, so this twist works pretty well.

I also think there may be some sexism going on here as well when it comes to believing Shallan's flashback. I wonder if people would be so quick to dismiss Dalinar's memory or Khaldin's if they had seen blinding light after the killing of an expected Herald. Heck, we read Szeth's screams as likely a manifestation too. Sure, Shallan has repression issues, but something feels - more extreme in readers' willingness to dismiss her initial experience, to conflate repression with hallucination, and to discount her flashbacks about the blinding light that span nearly 5 years. 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by teknopathetic

[Nef]

I think the Storm father changed when the Herald died.

For the whole prologue he was actively working/scheming to stop Desolations, then once the herald died he was like, let whatever is going to happen happen. My guess is before the Herald died , whatever part of the Stormfather is a cognitive shadow Tanavast/Honor had more agency, but this side retreated and let the force of nature side have more agency.

[Rg2045]

Could the light be a seon? To me that seems the most likely answer, also I’m sure that the father kept looking at the safe because he put the shard blade in there. So he was always kinda threatened by her or maybe he saw the safe as a reminder of most of his problems