Jump to content

[OB] Shallan and drawing Urithiru


Darkness

Recommended Posts

I've seen a few comments from people that seem to be thinking there's something funky (reads: magical) going on with either Shallan or Urithiru that makes her unable to draw it.

I have to side with Shallan herself on this one, guys.

'She couldn’t get an angle from which to view the entire tower'... and, '"I’ve been trying to draw the tower,” Shallan said, “but I can’t get it from the right angle.” Maybe when Brightlord Brooding-Eyes returned, he could fly her to another peak along the mountain chain."'

I think her unease is an understandable, non-magical response to her being unable to fathom something that is so alien to her. It's just a really, REALLY tall building that has 10 levels, each one tall in itself and much wider than the one above. Makes sense that the rims of the lower tiers would cut off the view of the tiers above them from a person standing on the ground.

That's my reading of it anyway. Would be cool if Urithiru was made of super-special 'unhallowed stones' that somehow resisted magic and was messing with Shallan's ability, but I kind of doubt it in this case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, kari-no-sugata said:

Which is why she wanted "Brightlord Brooding-Eyes" to act as her personal photography drone...

Or maybe she just wanted "Brightlord Brooding-Eyes" to put his arms around her and fly away with him!

Ok, sorry.  I don't 'ship Shalladin, but it was too good to pass up.  Interesting that she references his new status (notably, seeming to be within the extant hierarchical system) in her internal monologue.

My first thought on reading this segment, since so many 'normal people' get confused and Shallan herself can only draw the place with surrealistic styling, makes me wonder if all the surgebinding and spren/spren-bonded occupants have pulled Urithiru partially into the cognitive realm.  I am envisioning subtly non-Euclidean geometry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, redbishop said:

My first thought on reading this segment, since so many 'normal people' get confused and Shallan herself can only draw the place with surrealistic styling, makes me wonder if all the surgebinding and spren/spren-bonded occupants have pulled Urithiru partially into the cognitive realm.  I am envisioning subtly non-Euclidean geometry.

Wouldn't this mean a lot more spren? It could also result in the spren at Urithiru changing forms between their Physical and Cognitive versions all the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Wouldn't this mean a lot more spren? It could also result in the spren at Urithiru changing forms between their Physical and Cognitive versions all the time.

I have got to start triple-checking my posts for missing words.  I meant "all the surgebinding and spren/spren-bonded occupants over the years have pulled Urithiru partially into the cognitive realm."

The idea I failed to express was that the city of the KR was also a city of spren, and that took a toll on Ry'leh...  erm...  Urithiru.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, The Invested Beard said:

Since everything technically has a spren...I wonder what Urithiru's spren is like in the CR and what sort of impacts it's size/importance would have...

Very high, I imagine.  It falls just below the Stick.

"I am... a city!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm one who thinks this is a magical effect. Shallan has an incredible ability to reproduce what she sees, with or without a taking a Memory first. She has drawn images of Shadesmar itself so I think it can't be cognitive realm slippage. 

The chapter 9 title references the hallway where the striations in the truck looked like threads on a screw, and Shallan takes a conscious Memory of it to draw later. I think this is setting up for scene where she is unable to sketch from that Memory, leading to more clues about the city.

The alternative explanation I would accept is that Shallan is distraught after speaking her truths and can't draw anything. But that seems unlikely to me since we have seen her messed up before, and she took refuge in her art then.

Edited by ccstat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also think it's realmatic, though not magical. I think something is strange about urithiru in the cognitive realm. Someone even mentioned the idea of defences in the cognitive realm. My first instinct was that the stones are invested, but this WoB may say otherwise (though of course he could just mean that Hallowed is a cultural concept)

Quote

AHOYMATEY

Why does Urithiru not have hallowed stones?

BRANDON SANDERSON

That'll be answered eventually. It's cultural, not magical.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/13/2017 at 5:30 AM, WhiteLeeopard said:

I was kind of hoping Urithiru would be welcoming and appealing to radiants, while alien and strange to everyone else. Was a bit dissappointed to see Shallan struggle. I'm 50-50 with too distraught to grasp it and magical issue.

Well, it is probably going to be one of the last holdouts of humanity if things start going poorly. Wouldn't really be that great if the Radiants spent most of their time living in a giant, safe tower while the people they are supposed to save are down in the danger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On September 12, 2017 at 11:16 AM, ccstat said:

I'm one who thinks this is a magical effect. Shallan has an incredible ability to reproduce what she sees, with or without a taking a Memory first. She has drawn images of Shadesmar itself so I think it can't be cognitive realm slippage. 

The chapter 9 title references the hallway where the striations in the truck looked like threads on a screw, and Shallan takes a conscious Memory of it to draw later. I think this is setting up for scene where she is unable to sketch from that Memory, leading to more clues about the city.

The alternative explanation I would accept is that Shallan is distraught after speaking her truths and can't draw anything. But that seems unlikely to me since we have seen her messed up before, and she took refuge in her art then.

I agree and suspect something magical.  An incredible immense and complex building that was somehow built by radiantly cross using thier powers (or whatever you call what Dalinar did to Shallan.). Just like he amplified the light weaving to make vr video.  Some how the past radians did that with soul casting to form the tower.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, nervousnerd said:

Well, it is probably going to be one of the last holdouts of humanity if things start going poorly. Wouldn't really be that great if the Radiants spent most of their time living in a giant, safe tower while the people they are supposed to save are down in the danger.

Yes, but Desolations last what, a few years, a couple of decades? Radiants would have lived there all the time, even between Desolations. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Argent changed the title to [OB] Shallan and drawing Urithiru
  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...