Jaconis Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I suppose things just work differently with the Lightweaver, but as Kurkistan just pointed out a broken soul is a must. So it's too big of a thing to miss what broke Shallan's soul in her book. What's the point of having flashbacks if not to reveal the most important things about the character? Perhaps it's another truth Shallan will have to confront before becoming a Radiant, if she ever do. However, I am not happy it was left out of the book. If Brandon didn't want to reveal it so soon, he shouldn't have made WoR Shallan's book imo. Yeah I would tend to agree, it's a pretty big question mark to be left after her flashback book, and I'm a little frustrated by it too. That said, there's still stuff about Kaladin we don't know. Who is Tarah and what happened to her? What happened to Tukks? Two characters off the top of my head Kaladin has mentioned in both books and we've been given little information on. Part of me can understand leaving stuff out of the flashbacks this early, no matter who's they are. Otherwise, that character would have nothing left to reveal about themselves for 8-9 books. Another part of me, like you, is frustrated that we didn't learn that stuff, especially when there is other, seemingly insignificant bits that were included in those scenes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleksiel Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Yeah I would tend to agree, it's a pretty big question mark to be left after her flashback book, and I'm a little frustrated by it too. That said, there's still stuff about Kaladin we don't know. Who is Tarah and what happened to her? What happened to Tukks? Two characters off the top of my head Kaladin has mentioned in both books and we've been given little information on. Yeah, but Kal's story works perfectly well without those. They are more of a details rather than big part of what made him who he is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaconis Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Yeah, but Kal's story works perfectly well without those. They are more of a details rather than big part of what made him who he is. Sure they do. He's said that he failed them, and his failures are huge part of Kaladin's broken soul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleksiel Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 (edited) Sure they do. He's said that he failed them, and his failures are huge part of Kaladin's broken soul. They are part of the big sequence of his failures. It's interesting to see what happened with Tarah, but we know enough to make sense of Kaladin. I don't think you can compare this to leaving out how Shallan became a surgebinder and her early experience with Pattern including turning him into a Shardblade. Edit: With Kal all major points were covered: his knowledge on medicine, how he ended up in the army, why protecting is so important to him, how he became a slave and why he hates lighteyes. However, I felt like Shallan's story was left untold. Edited March 10, 2014 by Aleksiel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AerionBFII Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I thought she was good and we got to see her grow as a character. I hated the fact of that she just blanked out her past but she overcame it and grew a spine she has now moved up in my personal character ranking pole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dahak Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Honestly I don't get why having a broken soul is a prerequisite to become a radiant, was there WOB about that? IIRC all the magical systems in the cosmere require damage to a spirit web. Allomancy has Snapping, Hemelurgy and Biochroma disrupt spirit webs by their use, etc. The magic needs a crack in your soul to be inserted into. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeJay Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 It's on the back cover of WoR. How reliable are cover blurbs? I've always been under the impression that, like cover images, they can vary in terms of how reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 It's written in-universe, so I hazard this particular blurb is fairly trustworthy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrono Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I love Shallan after this book. Way of Kings was excellent, and I liked Shallan then, but I love her in this book. Her character development did seem a little rushed, especially with the whole Ghostbloods subplot, but that's a minor thing to me. Where her character really shined is in confronting her past and forcing herself to acknowledge that she can't pretend to be the innocent little girl anymore. She has to man up, so to speak, and face herself. And I suspect that it will not be an easy journey at all. Also, in regards to her being rude towards Kaladin, she was embarrassed to meet him, desperate to talk to Dalinar, and all around nervous about meeting her future betrothed. It also didn't help that Kaladin was also acting rudely towards her too. In those circumstances, I would have snapped too. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy moon Posted March 11, 2014 Report Share Posted March 11, 2014 Hey, not really sure where to post this but does anyone know why in Shallan's drawing of Chasm life, (827) the text isn't in her handwriting? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke.spence Posted March 11, 2014 Report Share Posted March 11, 2014 I feel a sense of deja vu with this topic lol. Here is my take on Shallan (mainly through the interactions with her father in her flashbacks). This was copied off one of my GR comments since this best explains my feelings. Shallan's father: His wife, who we are assuming he loved, was killed while trying to oust his beloved daughter. Killed. By. His. Daughter. The single largest representation of innocence and beauty that the father knows, killed the woman he loves. And what does he do? He subtlety takes the blame for it knowing that it will doom their house most likely.He loses his own son, the only one not broken, to a second secret society (the theories suggest that Shallan's mother was originally part of the Ghostbloods against her father's wishes). He loses his son because he chose to protect his daughter. He carries the burden of his wife's death so far, that even his own children despise him.His house hurdles towards financial, and emotional ruin and he desperately grasps for straws to keep them all together. He fails. He reaches out to the only people powerful enough to save them-the Ghostbloods. In the end, he became what people expected him to become, a broken murderer. A man who killed his second wife even though he had nothing to do with the first wife's death. But he had been a murderer in his peers eyes, in his peoples' eyes, in his childrens' eyes for too long. He became what they made him to be. What he had to be for his daughter.And Shallan killed him for it. /rant Anyways, that's my take on her. I still like her character, and I don't begrudge her of some of her choices or actions. That's just how everything looked to me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 11, 2014 Report Share Posted March 11, 2014 Hey, not really sure where to post this but does anyone know why in Shallan's drawing of Chasm life, (827) the text isn't in her handwriting? I believe the assumption is that she drew on the back of the page from one of Jasnah's notes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csarmi Posted March 11, 2014 Report Share Posted March 11, 2014 I found the flashbacks meaningless and boring mostly. But then again I have no clue what most of the things in them refer to (for instance, who Hoid is) so that might be a problem. Is there some sort of database/wiki well all these little quirks are listed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 11, 2014 Report Share Posted March 11, 2014 Hoid is largely irrelevant for the flashbacks - he makes only one appearance, and his role there is more important to himself than to Shallan. If you want to get yourself acquainted with the ways of the cosmere, you can start reading things on the Coppermind Wiki. There is also the Events, Signings, and Stalking subforum, where most interview and Q&A transcripts with Brandon are posted (first). Finally, the Cosmere Theories forum has a couple of introductory threads, as well as pretty much all of the theories we've come up with in the past (except for the ones specific to Words of Radiance, of course - which are here). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zizoz Posted March 15, 2014 Report Share Posted March 15, 2014 Hey, not really sure where to post this but does anyone know why in Shallan's drawing of Chasm life, (827) the text isn't in her handwriting? That's a mistake, and has been mentioned in the typos thread already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeAgain Posted March 15, 2014 Report Share Posted March 15, 2014 I liked Shallan in tWoK; I loved her in WoR! Her flashbacks very much added to her character, and she grew quite a bit. To those who thought she seemed to develop too quickly, that's really more that the book did not dwell on the timeline; as you can see here (Thanks, Cheese Ninja!), she traveled for several weeks with nothing to do but practice and grow with quite strong motivating factors for doing so. In fact, now that she, a character who prefers to work behind the scenes, is in the spotlight, I'm eagerly looking forward to how her growth continues from there. Will she suffer moments of regression (a la Kaladin)? Will she wind up at cross-purposes with Jasnah? Her interactions with Kaladin were enjoyable, but I am NOT on board that ship. Let that sucker sink like the Wind's Pleasure! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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