[Full Book Spoilers] Venli and the Source of Her Knowledge

[Moogle]

She turned to her sister.

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew exactly what this form would do to me. You knew this before you took the form yourself.”

“I  .  .  . Yes.”

Eshonai grabbed her sister by the front of her robe, then yanked her forward, holding her tightly. With Shardplate it was easy, though Venli resisted more than she should have been able to, and a small spark of red lightning ran across the woman’s arms and face. Eshonai was not accustomed to such strength from her scholar of a sister.

“You could have destroyed us,” Eshonai said. “What if this form had done something terrible?”

Screaming. In her head. Venli smiled. “How did you discover this?” Eshonai asked. “It didn’t come from the songs. There is more.”

Venli did not speak. She met Eshonai’s eyes and hummed to Confidence.

 

“The Alethi will come,” Venli said, strolling at Eshonai’s side and absently bringing energy to her fingers and letting it play between two of them. Venli smiled often while wearing this new form. Otherwise, it didn’t seem to have changed her at all. Eshonai knew that she herself had changed. But Venli  .  .  . Venli acted the same. Something felt wrong about that.

...

“Foolishness,” Eshonai said. “This is a tool to use in battle. If we produce an unexpected storm now, the Alethi won’t come, and we won’t win this war. We must wait.”

Venli seemed thoughtful. Finally, she smiled, then nodded.

“What do you know that you aren’t telling me?” Eshonai demanded, taking her sister by the shoulder.

Venli smiled more broadly. “I’m simply persuaded. We must wait. The storm will blow the wrong way, after all. Or is it all other storms that have blown the wrong way, and this one will be the first to blow the right way?”

The wrong way? “How do you know? About the direction?”

“The songs.”

The songs. But  .  .  . they said nothing about  .  .  .

Something deep within Eshonai nudged her to move on. “If that is true,” she said, “we’ll have to wait until the humans are practically on top of us to catch them in it.”

 

Something is up with Venli. She knows things that could not have come from the old songs. Taking on stormform didn't change her personality.

 

So... theories!

 

I predict that Venli is the Lightweaver Unmade. She killed the real Venli, took her place with illusions, and has since been manipulating the Parshendi.

 

We've had hints that the other Unmade are around. One Unmade is apparently responsible for the Thrill.

 

There are huge issues with Venli being an Unmade. For one, it really seems like she took on stormform. The lightning crackling from her fingers could be an illusion, but it feels real to me.

 

Did I miss any huge revelations on this front?

Edited March 5, 2014 by Moogle

[skaa]

This looks very interesting. I can't wait to finally devour the whole book!

 

Anyway, I saw this in the epigraphs thread:

 

Scholarform shown for patience and thought.

Beware its ambitions innate.

Though study and diligence bring the reward,

Loss of innocence may be one’s fate.

 

 

I know from the released Eshonai Interlude that Venli and her associates were supposed to be researching Scholarform. Here's a theoretical scenario: It's possible that they did find the secret to Scholarform, but their newfound ambition made them want to keep the form a secret, lest some other Listener outside their group discovered new forms before they do; they wanted to be the most celebrated form-experts in the history of the Listeners and they didn't want competition. This ambition could have corrupted them enough for their "gods" to influence their thoughts and actions even before they actually took Stormform.

Edited March 6, 2014 by skaa

[Aminar]

Gavilar! Venli learned this from Gavilar. Before he was killed. She wanted this from the start... And was on his side. The Black Sphere might play into this. Holy crap. And off to another thread to hypothesize the black sphere is involved in the thrill.

[Tarion]

Rather than her being an Unmade, what if she's Bonded with one, or with a corrupted spren?

If there was something of Odium in the spren she bonded with to go into Nimbleform, then she'd have been under the same influence as the Stormform Parshendi, ever since they first discovered Nimbleform, 3 years before Words of Radiance.  

[junior]

Scholarform shown for patience and thought.

Beware its ambitions innate.

Though study and diligence bring the reward,

Loss of innocence may be one’s fate.

 

To me, this looks suspiciously like Taravangian's more intelligent days.

[marianmi]

* She's not one of the unmade, everything points to the unmade being not that... intelligent, more like... forces/spren. I don't think they bond that easily, if they do bond at all (if stormfather bonded, then they might bond as well). The implication is that, if bonded, they can be killed...

* She could very well be influenced by one of the unmade, like humans are influenced by the Thrill, but then she would exhibit a personality change, so this does not fit...

 

* Since she is not exhibiting a personality change, and changed forms, and not being one of the unmade... the only thing that make sense to me is that she's actually in smokeform - another power form, where she can create illusions. The other alternative that would work is that she is bonded to one of the unmade, which means that it can be killed

[Numb]

What I don't quite understand is that Venli initially wants to be the first one of them to get the new form but if this actually happened I doubt she would have been able to get the rest of them to change as Eshonai would be even more against her. Also when Venli takes on the new form Eshonai notes that she hasn't changed like Eshonai had which could point to her not actually being in that new form.