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Identity of Baxis' mistress


Dryone

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It's Shalash, one of the heralds. She's destroying all pictures and statues of herself, that's why her statue is missing in the prologue. Apparently she's revered as "Lady of Dreams" by the Emul.

It also explains why Baxis can't decide her race.

Thought's?

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You are right, I can't find any mention of female heralds. At least two of the heralds faces in the chapter headings look feminine, though (at least to me. But I also thought that the picture of Nalan'Elin depicted a woman).

OTOH it nowhere explicitly says that all heralds were men, either. So I stand by my theory!  :(

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You are right, I can't find any mention of female heralds. At least two of the heralds faces in the chapter headings look feminine, though (at least to me. But I also thought that the picture of Nalan'Elin depicted a woman).

OTOH it nowhere explicitly says that all heralds were men, either. So I stand by my theory!  :(

Five of the chapter faces are female. Six are male, and one only appears when Hoid/Wit is in the chapter. So assuming the other ten are the Herald's faces (which I think is pretty solid; you can see my thoughts about it here), that would mean there are five female Heralds. All five male Heralds are named (Jezrien, Nalan, Kalak, Talenel, Ishar), so it's a pretty safe bet that Shalash is female.

And I really like the idea that Shalash might be the woman destroying the artwork. When I read that chapter, I thought it was just there to give a solid explanation of the Old Magic, but I was utterly bewildered by Baxis' mistress. This theory is as good as any, though I would like to point out that Shalash=Shash (theoretically) and the Primary Attribute of Shash is creativity. Kinda odd that she'd be destroying art, which could be considered the height of creativity.

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Not sure if anyone else noticed this, but his Mistress had the same type of eyes as the Knights Radiant.

If you look at the various times we see a Knight Radiant, they all have "almost white" or "nearly white" eyes. She is the only person we see in the book who'd not a Radiant that has the eyes.

Which makes me think that the idea that she's one of the Heralds is a pretty good one.

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Not sure if anyone else noticed this, but his Mistress had the same type of eyes as the Knights Radiant.

If you look at the various times we see a Knight Radiant, they all have "almost white" or "nearly white" eyes. She is the only person we see in the book who'd not a Radiant that has the eyes.

Which makes me think that the idea that she's one of the Heralds is a pretty good one.

Except that Talenel has dark eyes.

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That being said, this is a truly awesome theory. Now that we've gotten past the Dula drama, we should start pestering Brandon with questions about whether we've seen heralds other than Taln in Way of Kings (not counting the prelude) and then try to work it down from there.

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Except that Talenel has dark eyes.

After looking at this I noticed that none of the Heralds we meet use Shardplate. Its the Shardplate that seems to give them their almost white eyes. I'm assuming its because Radiant shardplate is more powerful than the plate we see in WoK's.

So either the Mistress used to be a Knight Radiant or if she was a Herald she used shardplate.

I still think the idea of her being a Herald is a good one. I'm betting that shardplate just gets in some of the Heralds way, depending on their powers.

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Also, it could be that she's ashamed of what she did on some level, and actually wants to eliminate herself from history as ever having existed. She's trying to make it appear that there were only ever nine heralds. Granted, that seems like it'd be near impossible to do, and you would think that with Vorinism as widespread as it is it actually would be impossible, but it sounded like decent motivation to me. I doubt that she'd actually care enough about making the point that she's turned her back on being a herald  to do something as pointless as going around destroying art, especially 4500 years after turning her back on being a herald.

It could also be possible that she's trying to avoid being recognized, though since no one actually recognizes her, that doesn't seem like a good possibility.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I'm sorry to be a bother, but my copy will not be returned to me until Thursday, and I cannot for the life of me remember who Baxil was? Could anybody please tell me? It did'nt say anything in the wiki.

Baxil is from the Interludes. He's the hired bodyguard/helper of a woman who breaks into places to destroy art.
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You mean the one in the prologue?  It doesn't seem likely.  Especially since in the epilogue, he doesn't seem to know what's going on.  If he'd been hanging around for several months, he would know that everybody thinks the Desolations are over.  He also seems confused that they don't know who he is.  So, no, I don't think he's the drunk guy that Szeth meets.  Where ever he's been for the past 4500 years, it seems apparent that he got out just in time for the epilogue.

Also, I concur with the Shalash theory, to get this back on topic.

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Is the theory that the drunk man Szeth met was Talanel still being considered by this honourable circle?

*Slight spoilage*

I personally think it's Hoid pretending to be drunk (or maybe really drunk. Even World-Jumping Immortal peoples have to have a break sometime). But that's mostly my gut speaking. Oh! And When I said this when we only had this, Peter said something suspicious. Curse the TWG forums downage!

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  • 8 months later...

It's Shalash, one of the heralds. She's destroying all pictures and statues of herself, that's why her statue is missing in the prologue. Apparently she's revered as "Lady of Dreams" by the Emul.

It also explains why Baxis can't decide her race.

Thought's?

First of all let me say that I love this theory. I hadn't the slightest guess who she could during either of my readings of WoK.

But I'm not bumping this old thread just to say that. I noticed further evidence for this theory. From one of the "death quotes" given at some chapter starts.

.“A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of kings and winds, the vandal.”—Dated Palahevan, 1173, 73 seconds pre-death

References to a female vandal stratching out her own eyes... and didn't Baxil's mistress destroy the eyes of a bust during her vandalism?

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First of all let me say that I love this theory. I hadn't the slightest guess who she could during either of my readings of WoK.

But I'm not bumping this old thread just to say that. I noticed further evidence for this theory. From one of the "death quotes" given at some chapter starts.

References to a female vandal stratching out her own eyes... and didn't Baxil's mistress destroy the eyes of a bust during her vandalism?

“A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of kings and winds, the vandal.”—Dated Palahevan, 1173, 73 seconds pre-death. Subject: a beggar of some renown, known for his elegant songs.

I was wondering about that back in September, I think it was before I even understood it was Shalash. http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=7820.msg171844#msg171844

I couldn't make sense of most of those death quotes, some must be referencing events we haven't seen. Kaladin's bridge/chasm leap is clear enough.

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