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Shalash is mentioned in the Words of Radiance prologue


Chaos

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So, story time. Today I was catching up on all threads on 17th Shard, especially ones in this board. This involved me going through RShara's wonderful Word of Brandon thread, and I saw this:

 

Q: Can you confirm the real names of the Heralds for me?

A: Jezrien, Nale, Chanarach (nickname: Chana), Vedel, Paliah (nickname: Pali), Shalash (nickname: Ash), Battar, Kalak, Talenel (nickname: Taln), Ishar.

Meanwhile, I go looking on my Words of Radiance term sheet for new wiki articles, because, y'know, I'm a giant nerd.

So I go searching for the terms that don't have wiki articles. One near the top? Ash. And what do we have in the Prologue?

 

Words echoed in the hallway, coming from up ahead. "I'm worried about Ash."

"You're worried about everything."

Jasnah hesitated in the hallway.

"She's getting worse," the voice continued. "We weren't supposed to get worse. Am I getting worse? I think I feel worse."

"Shut up."

"I don't like this. What we've done was wrong. That creature carries my lord's own Blade. We shouldn't have let him keep it. He--"

This passage is way the heck more weird when you know that Ash is the nickname of Shalash. And they suspect she's getting worse.

On first reading with this revelation, I want to say that the others are Heralds too, but then they are refer to, presumably, Szeth carrying "their lord's" Blade. I don't know what to think about that.

However, this can't be coincidental. There are lots of mentions of "Ash's eyes" in the book, which now we know refer to Shalash thanks to that quote above. These people knew Shalash. That much is certain.

EDIT: It occurs to me that the "my lord" could refer to Jezrien, as he was the King of Heralds, and Szeth holds his Honorblade.

Edited by Chaos
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I suspected that they were talking about Szeth holding Jezrien's Honorblade, but I didn't get the Ash connection, nice.

I didn't really put it together that they might be Heralds, only that they at the least knew of them. But looking at this analysis has gotten me thinking...

Edited by Kal Dell
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I hadn't seen such speculation, so forgive me. I avoided the Words of Radiance board for the most part for reasons you can surely suspect.

Let me continue the passage a bit.

 

The two passed through the intersection ahead of Jasnah. They were ambassadors from the West, including the Azish man with the white birthmark on his cheek. Or was it a scar? The shorter of the two men--he could have been Alethi--cut off when he noticed Jasnah. He let out a squeak, then hurried on his way.

The Azish man, the one dressed in black and silver, stopped and looked her up and down. He frowned.

"Is the feast over already?" Jasnah asked down the hallway. Her brother had invited these two to the celebration along with every other ranking foreign dignitary in Kholinar.

"Yes," the man said.

His stare made her uncomfortable.

Okay, so. Important to note the shorter, "Alethi" man was the one talking about the lord's blade. This makes sense. It has long been discussed that the Azish dude is Nalan. Obviously, Nalan would have an intense stare and say "shut up".

Nalan might not refer to Jezrien as a king, but this other Herald might. And as I type this, I grow more convinced that he is in fact a Herald. He referred to them as "we".

EDIT: Thanks to Tempus, this has indeed been discussed before: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7475-heralds-in-the-prologue/?hl=shallash Multiple times, in fact. This board has too many dang posts :P

Edited by Chaos
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Sorry, I am a little tired right now, but haven't we been assuming that Ash is Shallash for, like... since the prologue was released? Or was that just me?

 

You can't assume everyone else is the brilliant surveyor of sentences you are, Argent. :P

 

This is a cool find! I'll definitely read this part differently now.

Edited by Kobold King
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