stormlight 5 prologue Gavilar and Jezrien's Honorblade - Stormlight 5 Prologue Spoilers

[+viengua]

I didn't spot a specific mention of this, and it might even be a mistake, but it's interesting to me that Gavilar identifies the "sinuous, curved Blade" as belonging to Jezrien. This seems a little at odds with existing descriptions of Jezrien's blade ("thin, silvery weapon... an unornamented blade" WoR Ch 187) ("long, slender...largely unornamented" OB Ch 122), but more in line with the description of Ishar's blade (in RoW Ch 111) as, "a sinuous Shardblade lined with glyphs."

Others noted that Gavilar doesn't seem to recognise Jezrien's blade when wielded by Szeth, which he ought to if he's seen the visions so many times. He also doesn't recognise Szeth using the powers of a windrunner, which I was also shown in the vision that featured midnight essence, IIRC. Furthermore, the SF reacts negatively (with a hiss) to Gavilar treating the blade cavalierly.

Thinking about this led me down a rabbit-hole of what-ifs, but I think the above is fairly evidence based, while the rabbit-hole is a lot more guessy, and I'm interested to here what people think of the above.

Edited April 21, 2022 by viengua
clarity

[Torol Sadeas]

Interesting observation! I am always amazed at the people who find these small details. 

[Rg2045]

It is a vary rough draft so it could have been a mistake by Brandon. Another possibility is that he assumed who each of the blade belonged to

[+viengua]

9 minutes ago, Rg2045 said:

It is a vary rough draft so it could have been a mistake by Brandon. Another possibility is that he assumed who each of the blade belonged to

Indeed, initially that's what I assumed! There were a few things that made me think again though.

It's explicitly mentioned that Gavilar thinks it's Jezrien's blade, but he didn't recognise Jezrien's blade when used by Szeth. If Gavilar had noticed it, but the description was a mistake, it being mentioned earlier would make sense as setting that recognition up. Instead, he didn't recognise it and instead ascribed Szeth's powers to being sent by Thaidakar. 

Gavilar also explicitly mentioned that he thought the missing blade was the one whose herald he would replace, so him not recognising Jezrien's blade along with

Spoiler

 there being a Jezrien-shaped vacancy in the Oathpact that opened just a few years after these events

(OB spoiler) felt like something consistent to me.

Edited April 5, 2022 by viengua

[ArchangelCaesar]

1 hour ago, viengua said:

but more in line with the description of Ishar's blade (in RoW Ch 111) as, "a sinuous Shardblade lined with glyphs."

Furthermore, the SF reacts negatively (with a hiss) to Gavilar treating the blade cavalierly.

Both of these are further building blocks for the "Ishar is the Susfather" theory. Theoretically Ishar might be able to imitate the Stormfather in the way we see him interacting with Galivar with the Bondsmith Honorblade, since we don't know when he nabbed it from the Shin. 

[Aon Tia]

Interesting observation. It is possible that stormfather is misleading him. He is given wrong information about which blade belongs to which herald. 
It would be consistent with the story since Gavilar realised that he has been lied to by stormfather. 
Also, do we really know how many of these visions Gavilar has actually seen? Has he even seen the midnight mother vision? 
why would he not recognise a windrunner? 
His comment about Nohadon implies that he has seen that vision but it may not be so. 
He has been reading the book, may be he just asked a bunch of questions about him to stormfather. 

[+viengua]

On 05/04/2022 at 8:04 PM, Aon Tia said:

Interesting observation. It is possible that stormfather is misleading him. He is given wrong information about which blade belongs to which herald. 
It would be consistent with the story since Gavilar realised that he has been lied to by stormfather. 
Also, do we really know how many of these visions Gavilar has actually seen? Has he even seen the midnight mother vision? 
why would he not recognise a windrunner? 
His comment about Nohadon implies that he has seen that vision but it may not be so. 
He has been reading the book, may be he just asked a bunch of questions about him to stormfather. 

We don't know explicitly how many he's seen, but the prologue does mention he's seen the Aharietiam vision dozens of times. It'd be weird to rewatch the one so much without seeing the others if they were on offer. WoB mentions that Gavilar "[saw] the same visions" which is sufficiently ambiguous, though I'd be comfortable inferring that he saw them all at least once.

SF apparently lying could mean that the visions are being manipulated by someone who knows the truth and is deliberately changing it, or someone who only knows parts of the truth and is trying to manipulate Gavilar. Almost like a bootleg/mockbuster copy of the true visions made by someone playing with the same magic Tanavast used to create the originals, but without knowing quite how it was meant to go.

Edited April 21, 2022 by viengua