[OB] Shallan celebration thread

[Obnoxiousspren]

Hoid likes her, and he doesn't like that many people, so that's good enough for me!

OK BESIDES THAT, I REALLY DO HAVE SOME GOOD THOUGHTS TO SHARE. I am EXTREMELY impressed with how Shallan is written for several reasons, even though I might get along with her as an actual person (but she is fictional soooooo.....) Anyways, I study psychology and Brandon showed amazing knowledge as to the workings of mental illness, especially when it comes to Shallan. We can see pretty clearly in Oathbringer that she is developing a sort of multiple-personality-disorder when she starts to shift between Veil, Radiant and Shallan at different times. Brandon does an excellent job writing her with this disorder because:

• 95% of those diagnosed with multiple-personality-disorder experienced some sort of severe abuse/trauma as a child (Shallan definitely falls into that category)
• The personalities are aware of each other and can even interact with each other
• The personalities are formed specifically as a way to cope with situations. When Shallan feels like she isn't good enough or able to cope with a scenario, she forms a personality that can cope with it. This is in line with many current theories regarding multiple-personality-disorder.
• Sometimes a personality will take over without prompting
• Shallan experiences confusion when it comes to which personality she should pick

So, overall, I really like reading about Shallan because of how well she is written. Sure, she may not be the most likable person (even though she does make awesome puns) but she is a young 18 year old who has gone through a lot and has to cope with a lot. I'd be surprised if she wasn't super messed up. All in all, great character.

[MonsterMetroid]

The thing I like about Shallan is that when I come to her chapters it reminds me that it is 3 in the morning and I should probably go to bed.

[treblkickd]

I think Shallan is the best character that Brandon has ever written, by a wide margin.

The Stormlight Archive (and to some degree, most Cosmere novels) feature a ton of characters with serious psychological and emotional issues. In all cases it's pretty clear what Sanderson is going for (e.g., Kaladin is manic-depressive, Jasnah relies on strict behavioral crutches to handle emotional trauma, Renarin is Renarin) but I've found the execution many of these characters' personalities to be wooden at times (Kaladin being the worst offender, I think). Shallan, on the other hand, is a joy to read. I think my favorite piece from Oathbringer might be this bit of Shallan PoV from Chapter 30:

Quote

She didn’t attack like the prim, excitable girl who had been trained by cautious Vorin society. She attacked like the frenzied child who had murdered her mother. The cornered woman who had stabbed Tyn through the chest. She drew upon the part of her that hated the way everyone assumed she was so nice, so sweet. The part of her that hated being described as diverting or clever.

 

Edited December 6, 2017 by treblkickd

[kaellok]

It's lovely seeing a thread like this when there's a few with hundreds of replies seemingly doing nothing more than attacking Shallan.

I like Shallan a lot because we have had similar childhood experiences and developed similar coping mechanisms.  (OB she went quite a bit beyond me, though, so there is that.)

What I consider to be the best scene Sanderson has ever written, and I think one of the finer scenes that anyone has ever written, was because of Shallan.  Of course I'm talking about the Chasm scene in WoR.  Take anyone else, real or imaginary, and replace Shallan with them--and the scene suffers for it.

As @Ookla the Grey said, Shallan continually inspires people by showing them who they can be.  What an amazing thing!  When I have been the most depressed in life, one of the main thoughts was "I don't know how to be other than who I am" (which is actually sad-funny, because who I am changes depending on the situation and who I am around, but mostly I was meaning that I don't know how to not do that). I imagine that I'm hardly unique with those thoughts, and here comes Shallan showing people that they can be different and better.  

Shallan is driven to do.  Even as a child she was doing things to make life better for her brothers.  Now she is doing things to make life better for most of Roshar (sorry-not-sorry Fused).

Oh, and Pattern.  Still the best spren, and I don't say that lightly-- Syl was my favorite character in WoK.

[kari-no-sugata]

8 hours ago, Willow said:

Yes, I liked this in book 1, and I thought it was a shame this disappeared a bit in Oathbringer, where I think her sudden disinterest in learning scared even herself. I was glad to see the spren drawings near the end of the book.

Shallan came up with quite a lot of improvements with Lightweaving over the course of OB, but it was a shame that a lot of them were simply presented as-is. The only times where we saw her actually working on improvements were her disguises (practising Veil, including voice) and the trick to get her illusions fed by gems instead of herself or Pattern.

 

8 hours ago, Willow said:

I'm very curious to see why you would say this, as I think a lot of the evidence points to the fact that Shallan is actually quite religiously conservative (I find the different religious stances held by the main cast a very interesting part of the story), especially compared to most Alethi, who are much more hands-off in their worship.

Vedens (and thus Shallan) seem to enforce the gender divide much more, and Shallan mentions long periods of praying and memorizing religous texts. In the beginning of WoR, Jasnah's atheist musings made her nervous enough that she started praying, and in OB (at least in part 1) she holds very strictly to the feminine side of Vorinism (no swords, and she thought it was weird Alethi 'drag their women out on the battlefield and to murder scenes').

I found these differences very fascinating, and while I am not really religious, I am very curious to find out how her opinions on Vorinism  have changed after the events of the past few books, and staying in a different country with people who seem to practice a different form of the same religion.

We see Shallan thinking about religion a fair bit but her feelings did not come across as being particularly intense. It feels like something she turned to for comfort, particularly after killing her father. She makes cultural comparisons and similar in her head but almost never speaks about it and she never tries to push her religion onto anyone and is accepting of those with different opinions and traditions, even if they sometimes make her nervous. I don't get the sense that daily rituals are ingrained into her, for example.

 

8 hours ago, Willow said:

I think it's very refreshing to see a main female character who wants to be part of things, but who finds a different way to do this, rather than doing this by learning to fight, I was a bit disappointed to see Brightness Radiant, actually.

I think it's quite reasonable for Shallan to learn some combat skills given her situation. Nothing much actually came out of it though.

[Willow]

3 hours ago, kari-no-sugata said:

Shallan came up with quite a lot of improvements with Lightweaving over the course of OB, but it was a shame that a lot of them were simply presented as-is. The only times where we saw her actually working on improvements were her disguises (practising Veil, including voice) and the trick to get her illusions fed by gems instead of herself or Pattern.

Yes, after WoR, where she spend a lot of time trying different things and learning Lightweaving this sudden 'oh she can make sounds now' seemed a bit of a shortcut, even if logically it probably meant she practiced with it. I was actually specifically talking about a series of scenes in Part 1 and 2, where she spend her time sitting in the corners, being irritated at everyone who tried to involve her in meetings/research. At one point she considered making a scholar persona in order to be interested in the proceedings, when she suddenly worried that Shallan was the persona that was already an scholar.. which is what I meant when she scared herself. In WoK she specifically said she choose natural history over art, because it's not just the art that's important to her, it's the study that leads to the art, which is not what was shown in the beginning of OB. Even with her portraits, she tries to understand, which is what gives her the ability to see the best in people. But her studies came back in part 4.

3 hours ago, kari-no-sugata said:

We see Shallan thinking about religion a fair bit but her feelings did not come across as being particularly intense. It feels like something she turned to for comfort, particularly after killing her father. She makes cultural comparisons and similar in her head but almost never speaks about it and she never tries to push her religion onto anyone and is accepting of those with different opinions and traditions, even if they sometimes make her nervous. I don't get the sense that daily rituals are ingrained into her, for example.

Hmm. She definitely talks about long periods of religious contemplation before killing her father was well, so I am guessing it was something she turned to after her mother died and her father became abusive. Because it gave her comfort, while also being a 'perfect daughter activity', since her father seemed quite conservative (at least socially) as well. I wonder if Vorinism has a lot of relatively short 'daily rituals/prayers' (well, the Jah Keved version has looong ones, but she might be too busy for those at the moment) that she could practice during the books. It doesn't seem to be that way. I think for most Vorins, their calling is how they practice their religion in real life, and well, we can't say Shallan doesn't draw enough in the books.

Conservative might not be the right word, since it's a very loaded term in English. But a conservative Vorin might look very different from a conservative from Earth-religions (Navani is an orthodox theist). Shallan might simply not be the type to push her convictions on other people, and she's definitely more tolerant than her father was. Her more conservative view could also be because well, that was the type of religion practiced in rural Jah Keved, and she had no access to other types. If that's the case, I wonder how she feels now, after coming into contact with various types of Alethi religious people (Navani & her small army of ardent-researchers, Dalinar). But I called her conservative in my earlier comment, because at least for herself, she seems to want to hold very strictly to the rules set up for women by Vorinism.

But on the other hand, her stated opinions about this (to herself, to others during conversations) don't really match up with her actions in the last two books. Which could turn into an interesting conflict for her later.

 

[treblkickd]

After reading through this thread and thinking on it a bit more, I had a new thought. As we've progressed through the Cosmere we've recognized more and more world-hoppers appearing in Sanderson's books, with most of these still being at the "easter egg" level of importance. How awesome would it be for Shallan to become a world-hopper, appearing in future non-SA Cosmere books? She'd be an entertaining addition to all kinds of scenes, and her connections to world-hoppers on Roshar, plus her lightweaving ability, make it pretty easy to imagine her as one who eventually traverses the Cosmere. She's also the kind of character that would pretty easy to identifying off of dialogue, alone, even if she were to always be lightweaving-up new costumes.

[aemetha]

6 hours ago, treblkickd said:

How awesome would it be for Shallan to become a world-hopper, appearing in future non-SA Cosmere books?

I can think of at least one shard who would be very receptive to Shallan as an agent.

[Song]

There is so much room for her to grow! And I like that- I think she will be one of the most interesting POVs in books 4 and 5. She went from naive and scared to cocky and over-confident, and I can't wait to see more of her relationship with the Ghostbloods as she finally discovers she is out of her depth.

And I love her puns! My kind of humour.

She also brings out the best in both Adolin and Kalladin. 

[Tabiyume]

I love Shallan, I genuinely love her. People seem to point at her disasters as a way of saying she's a bad character but to me it's excellent and relatable writing. She's such a heart-rending representation of anxiety in huge part because it leads her to bad choices and horrible consequences. Like, welcome to why mental illness is unbearably unpleasant. Hmm, personally I think she's an amazing character and her accomplishments are inspiring. Shallan's tenacity keeps her going through impossible circumstances, and I feel like that applies to a lot of young people today trying to make it in the world. She's kind to worst everybody, a living sister when she could've easily blamed her brothers as well, bright and preppy and always learning. I genuinely love her, okay?

I do think Shallan kind of demeans people sometimes, often because underneath it all she's quite conventional. Like how she always sees Renarin as the odd one, or how she throws possibly hurtful insults at people without thinking twice - but honestly that's realistic. It fits with her personality. And I love that she has the power to grow out of that. That when it comes down to it, she'll defend Renarin and save people's lives whatever it takes.

Her mistakes are, for me, often heartbreaking rather than sth to criticise. I think her perspective and input as a character is invaluable to SA.

Edited December 12, 2017 by Tabiyume