Why did the Ghostblood try to kill Jasnah?

[Will of D Bridgeman]

I was thinking about this and realized I don't have a satisfying answer. I understand that the primary goal of the Ghostbloods is to move Stormlight off of Roshar. Did they want to kill Jasnah because she might potentially figure out how to do that? How would killing her help them get investiture off of Roshar? Is it just that they don't want competition for stormlight, competition for a seemingly limitless resource (stormlight)? And further if they don't want competition for stormlight access, doesn't that kind of make them enemies of the entire Knights Radiant?

 

I must be missing something because I don't really get why they would want to kill people in the first place. It also seems strange to deliberately makes yourselves enemies of the Knights Radiant if you don't have to. 

[Olmund High Prelan]

This will probably be explained/explored later. Gavilar had dealings with the Ghostbloods, and they seem to be pretty keen on sinking their hooks into powerful people in the cosmere. It's quite possible they tried to recruit her, and she managed to learn too much about them while also outright rejecting whatever they offered her -- so they decided they couldn't let her live.

Alternatively, Mraize could be telling the truth when he said Jasnah killed several of their members -- she's shown to be something of a vigilante, and assassination is definitely within her wheelhouse, so I could see her slaughtering a bunch of Ghostbloods that were engaged in a plot that she didn't like.

At any rate, the Knights Radiant weren't a living organization at the point when the Ghostbloods were trying to kill Jasnah; they seem to have backed off a bit since then (probably in an effort to win over Shallan).

Edited October 12, 2022 by Olmund

[Quantus Most Ancient]

She thought they were after her over he Radiant Oaths. And that's reasonable, they would have likely preferred the population to remain mostly ignorant of Shadesmar and the wider Cosmere, and taking out the only Elsecaller in Millenia would be be in line with that.  Even if they werent aware of Ivory, she was uncovering secrets they likely would have preferred to Control themselves.  

 

[Will of D Bridgeman]

18 minutes ago, Olmund said:

At any rate, the Knights Radiant weren't a living organization at the point when the Ghostbloods were trying to kill Jasnah; they seem to have backed off a bit since then (probably in an effort to win over Shallan).

I considered that but forgot to mention it! Hindsight is 20/20 there I guess. 

I totally forgot that she might have killed Ghostbloods. If Mraize is being truthful I guess that makes some sense as to why they might want to assassinate her. I hope we do learn some more details eventually!

[offer Oldblood]

The main goal of the Rosharan Ghostbloods is to get stormlight offworld (and trading it there so becoming very rich). To do so they need to control a way to go to shadeshmar so if they are the only people aware of urithiru they can control it by themselfs and have free pasage ther. If they let Jasnah find Urithiru they could assume that alethkar will control it and wont give them free passage (or at least not in the capacity they want).

 

Plus, as Olmund said Jasnah probably killed some of them which is a "personal" reason in addition to the geopolitical.

[ConfusedCow Arbiter]

            Assume for a moment you're the Ghostbloods after Gavilar's death.  You want to keep tabs on the Kholins and the sons of honor; find out what they knew.  You look to recruit someone in the Kholin's inner circle, someone with a penchant for assassination and spying, someone with a thirst for secrets, someone you know is hostile to your enemies.  Assume for a moment you're Jasnah after Gavilar's death, your asking your assassin friends what happened, you're desperate for knowledge about shadesmar, you're desperate for answers in general.  Maybe Jasnah found out about the Ghostbloods when researching her father, or through a mutual acquantince.  Maybe the Ghostbloods sought her out.  Either way they both would have wanted to work together.   They wanted each others secrets.  Jasnah was part of the Ghostbloods.  This explains why Jasnah and the Ghostbloods have so much of the same information and objectives.  This isn't randomly killing off the competition, Jasnah broke free.  Perhaps she killed her handlers premptively. Perhaps the Ghostbloods struck first.  The real question is, why did Jasnah quit the Ghostbloods?   Jasnah has a utilitarian view of the world.  I think she would be fine with most of the Ghostbloods activities.  I think the only thing that would really turn her stomach is if she discovered that the Ghostbloods were a threat to her family or the world.  

[Will of D Bridgeman]

12 hours ago, ConfusedCow said:

            Assume for a moment you're the Ghostbloods after Gavilar's death.  You want to keep tabs on the Kholins and the sons of honor; find out what they knew.  You look to recruit someone in the Kholin's inner circle, someone with a penchant for assassination and spying, someone with a thirst for secrets, someone you know is hostile to your enemies.  Assume for a moment you're Jasnah after Gavilar's death, your asking your assassin friends what happened, you're desperate for knowledge about shadesmar, you're desperate for answers in general.  Maybe Jasnah found out about the Ghostbloods when researching her father, or through a mutual acquantince.  Maybe the Ghostbloods sought her out.  Either way they both would have wanted to work together.   They wanted each others secrets.  Jasnah was part of the Ghostbloods.  This explains why Jasnah and the Ghostbloods have so much of the same information and objectives.  This isn't randomly killing off the competition, Jasnah broke free.  Perhaps she killed her handlers premptively. Perhaps the Ghostbloods struck first.  The real question is, why did Jasnah quit the Ghostbloods?   Jasnah has a utilitarian view of the world.  I think she would be fine with most of the Ghostbloods activities.  I think the only thing that would really turn her stomach is if she discovered that the Ghostbloods were a threat to her family or the world.  

I can definitely see that! Not to sound rude or anything, but this is all a theory at the moment, right? Is there some textual evidence that she was a part of the Ghostbloods at one point? I can certainly see it happening, I just don't know if it for sure did or not. 

[Will of D Bridgeman]

19 hours ago, offer said:

The main goal of the Rosharan Ghostbloods is to get stormlight offworld (and trading it there so becoming very rich). To do so they need to control a way to go to shadeshmar so if they are the only people aware of urithiru they can control it by themselfs and have free pasage ther. If they let Jasnah find Urithiru they could assume that alethkar will control it and wont give them free passage (or at least not in the capacity they want).

 

Plus, as Olmund said Jasnah probably killed some of them which is a "personal" reason in addition to the geopolitical.

I definitely did not take into account the Oathgates! Do we know how they get in and out of Shadesmar at the end of RoW? And maybe I'm being dumb, but what's the difference between an Oathgate and a Perpendicularity? I remember Shallan and Adolin get to Shadesmar via Urithiru's Oathgate in RoW but can they all do that?

[offer Oldblood]

1 hour ago, Will of D said:

I definitely did not take into account the Oathgates! Do we know how they get in and out of Shadesmar at the end of RoW? And maybe I'm being dumb, but what's the difference between an Oathgate and a Perpendicularity? I remember Shallan and Adolin get to Shadesmar via Urithiru's Oathgate in RoW but can they all do that?

I might be misremembering but I don`t remember them coming back from shadeshmar at the end of RoW.

To go through a oathgate to shadeshmar you need the oathgate`s spren to allow it and not all of them do - those at Urithiru do because the stormfather`s bondsmith asked them but there is another oathgate spren (I dont remember which one) that dont accept his authority.

In a perperdicularity you always can go to the cognitive realm.

[Will of D Bridgeman]

1 hour ago, offer said:

I might be misremembering but I don`t remember them coming back from shadeshmar at the end of RoW.

To go through a oathgate to shadeshmar you need the oathgate`s spren to allow it and not all of them do - those at Urithiru do because the stormfather`s bondsmith asked them but there is another oathgate spren (I dont remember which one) that dont accept his authority.

In a perperdicularity you always can go to the cognitive realm.

Yeah you're right. I checked the coppermind too. It's a little confusing to me how similar Oathgates are to Perpendicularities but I think the gist is that the Oathgate spren can choose to let you pass or not whereas a Perpendicularity is basically just a portal. 

 

Anyway, I can see why the Ghostbloods would want to control at least one Oathgate if they can't control a Perpendicularity. Too bad for them the Knights Radiant want them all working now!

[Lego Mistborn Silent Gatherer]

7 hours ago, offer said:

I might be misremembering but I don`t remember them coming back from shadeshmar at the end of RoW.

To go through a oathgate to shadeshmar you need the oathgate`s spren to allow it and not all of them do - those at Urithiru do because the stormfather`s bondsmith asked them but there is another oathgate spren (I dont remember which one) that dont accept his authority.

In a perperdicularity you always can go to the cognitive realm.

I believe Thaylen City's don't.