[OB] Shallan's Three Personas

[Ashspren]

Quote

“‘Mad’ has two definitions,” Shallan said. “One means to be angry. The other means broken in the head.”

“Ah,” Pattern said, “like a spren who has lost his bond.”

-- Words of Radiance

Or maybe like a Knight Radiant, pre-Nahel Bond.

Interesting that they should be having this conversation, seeing as Shallan herself, in the loosest definition, might be considered mad- in fact, three times so. Each of Shallan's personas seems to be majorly flawed in their own way:

• We all know how Shallan is broken. She killed her mother. Her father treated her like she was untouchable, and she had to watch those around her tortured because of her father's rage.
• Brightness Radiant was modeled after Jasnah, who has her own set of problems. This is shown through the fact that she is a Radiant, and they need to have some “cracks” in order to form a Zahel bond with a spren.
• Veil might be the least broken out of all of Shallan’s personas. However, she does come off as a bit aloof, which might make it hard for her to make friends and acquaintances. 

Thinking about this lead me to a question: Many of the Cosmere characters, specifically the KR in the Stormlight Archive, are characterized majorly by flaws. Do each of Shallan’s personas have different souls?

If each of her personas had a different soul in the Cognitive Realm, this could lead to some interesting possibilities. Maybe the "master persona" named Shallan could end up bonding with three different spren, making her some extra-powerful tri-spren radiant. (That's a total stretch, though.) Or, maybe because Brightness Radiant is modeled after an Elsecaller, conflict occurs between Brightness Radiant and Shallan, as Shallan is a Lightweaver. 

Also, I'm curious to see how Brightness Radiant and Veil appear in later Stormlight Archive books, especially because Shallan is going to try being herself more often than her other personas:

Quote

"But that's the thing, Shallan. I don't want anyone. I want you."

"That might be the hardest one. But I think I can do it, Adolin. With some help, maybe?"

-- Oathbringer

Brightness Radiant and Veil might interfere with that plan...

Just a theory, though. Thoughts?

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Ashspren said:

Do each of Shallan’s personas have different souls?

 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Shallan's personas. How would they be viewed in the Spiritual Realm? Would they be an individual? Or would they be seen as being slightly separate?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

They would be seen as an individual.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262-oathbringer-glasgow-signing/#e8785

Souls reside in the Spiritual Realm and it is there where the Nahel bond is formed. So, sorry, no, they are one soul.

 

[Angsos]

Well shallan created Veil to deal with stuff she didn't want to so she would naturally be the best. I think Veil is what shallan wants to be as a person whereas brightness Radiant is the ideal KR percieved by Shallan. Veil is clearly the sanest one of the bunch.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Angsos said:

Well shallan created Veil to deal with stuff she didn't want to so she would naturally be the best. I think Veil is what shallan wants to be as a person whereas brightness Radiant is the ideal KR percieved by Shallan. Veil is clearly the sanest one of the bunch.

They're all Shallan... All of them are equally bonkers. She's good at lying to herself but it's just illusion augmented dress up. 

[Diomedes]

 

People always forget that "Shallan" the persona, is also a lie. She created her before she went to the Shattered Plains, she is not "real" Shallan: 

Quote

"(She) started another drawing. A ball gown, a woman at court, surrounded by the elite of Alethkhar as she imagined them. Tall, strong. The woman belonged to them. 

Shallan added her face to the figure." 

WoR. ch. 17. p. 252.    

Now, she does not completly morph into this new persona. While being at court for the first time she states:

Quote

"The image she`d drawn came to her rescue. She could be that woman today- and that woman, while not emotionless, could push through the loss." WoR ch. 38., p. 437.

The "today" signifies clearly that on other days she is not that person. I called this persona somewhere else "Princess Shallan", but the courtwoman might actually be a more accurate description. The courtwoman is also quite snobbish, is infatuated by superficial beauty and can`t stand to see blood. No wonder Kaladin really hates her in WoR displaying this persona. The courtwoman is as much not integrated Shallan, as is Veil or Radiant. They are all (true) lies. 

 Integrated, "real" Shallan, is all three personas together and more. This base identity is the cloth from which she can create new personas. Theoretically she could create more than those three, and at some times during OB she almost does.  

On 28.3.2018 at 4:26 AM, Ashspren said:

We all know how Shallan is broken. She killed her mother. Her father treated her like she was untouchable, and she had to watch those around her tortured because of her father's rage.

 This discription fits the integrated actual Shallan, not the courtwoman. Her main characteristic is that she hates herself for seemingly bringing destruction to everyone she is close to. This is why she almost has a mental breakdown in Kholinar. Her selfhatred is the reason she flees from herself into these personas. I really wish she learns to accept herself in the next book.     

Edited April 10, 2018 by Diomedes

[Strifelover]

On 3/27/2018 at 10:26 PM, Ashspren said:

We all know how Shallan is broken. She killed her mother. Her father treated her like she was untouchable, and she had to watch those around her tortured because of her father's rage.

Mostly unrelated to your theory, but I'm really curious to know what happened to Shallan BEFORE the trauma of killing her mother. Typically (Lopen notwithstanding) potential radiants need to be broken, and the bond with their Spren helps to fill in those gaps. We think for most of the first few books that the thing that broke Shallan was the death of her mother and her father's subsequent abuse. But then we find out Shallan had already bonded Pattern and manifested him as a Shardblade in order to kill her mother (and the nameless Skybreaker).

So what caused her to already be so broken, and at such a young age, that she attracted a Spren to bond with? Tough life Shallan's had.

[MountainKing]

1 hour ago, Strifelover said:

Mostly unrelated to your theory, but I'm really curious to know what happened to Shallan BEFORE the trauma of killing her mother. Typically (Lopen notwithstanding) potential radiants need to be broken, and the bond with their Spren helps to fill in those gaps. We think for most of the first few books that the thing that broke Shallan was the death of her mother and her father's subsequent abuse. But then we find out Shallan had already bonded Pattern and manifested him as a Shardblade in order to kill her mother (and the nameless Skybreaker).

So what caused her to already be so broken, and at such a young age, that she attracted a Spren to bond with? Tough life Shallan's had.

We know there's another way to bond a spren with out beingbroken enough to normally bond a spren.

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Strifelover said:

So what caused her to already be so broken, and at such a young age, that she attracted a Spren to bond with? Tough life Shallan's had.

I believe due to this WoB... 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

How was Shallan able to bond with Pattern before she was broken?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

She was open to him even before she went through a lot of that turmoil

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

I thought everybody had to be broken in order to--

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Well, that's their philosophy in-world. But I'm not going to say whether it's correct or wrong. I will imply that there are other means as well.

source

That children can bond without the need for cracks. Think of it like grafting a tree. The spiritweb is still growing, and so the Spren can bond and the soul will grow to accommodate it, like a tree growing around a foreign object. 

[Zea mays]

Here’s a thought: there are 3 shards influencing Roshar. Is each persona more in tune with one of the three? I can see “radiant” leaning towards honor, and nature-scholar “shallan” beaing cultivative. With Veil... it kinda breaks down.

[YungDankBlast]

I've thought it would be interesting if Shallan's final ideal was something along the lines of:

"I am a lie"

Not only is she stating a truth, but this ideal is similar to the final skybreaker ideal of "I am law" (though lightweaver ideals are different from the others, so...)

[Ashspren]

7 hours ago, CayJoBla said:

I've thought it would be interesting if Shallan's final ideal was something along the lines of:

"I am a lie"

Not only is she stating a truth, but this ideal is similar to the final skybreaker ideal of "I am law" (though lightweaver ideals are different from the others, so...)

I really like this idea. Also, with that she might be able to start changing her life to something more solid, like the truth. It would be important for her in later life.

Also, another quick question— I’ve heard that the second story arc in SA is 20 years in the future. Does that mean that it could potentially include characters like Shallan and Adolin’s children? That would be super exciting to see...

[Toaster Retribution]

17 minutes ago, Ashspren said:

Does that mean that it could potentially include characters like Shallan and Adolin’s children? That would be super exciting to see...

Yeah, it could. Oroden could be a part of it too.

[Strifelover]

18 hours ago, Calderis said:

I believe due to this WoB... 

That children can bond without the need for cracks. Think of it like grafting a tree. The spiritweb is still growing, and so the Spren can bond and the soul will grow to accommodate it, like a tree growing around a foreign object. 

That's really interesting. My kneejerk reaction to seeing that WOB is that it felt weird thematically that most all of our radiants are broken, struggle and the bond is part of the process to start 'fixing' themselves, but not her. Shallan (and maybe Kal) seems like the most extreme version of this, and so it wouldn't fit with this narrative.

But maybe that's exactly the point - Shallan wasn't broken, accepted the bond and started to heal, she accepted the bond, and really was broken because of it. Her storyline of putting the pieces back together, which at first seems like it exemplifies this theme, may actually subvert it rather than confirm it. Will be interesting if/when we get any more back story on her around the time when she first met Pattern.

[Jofwu]

23 hours ago, Diomedes said:

People always forget that "Shallan" the persona, is also a lie. She created her before she went to the Shattered Plains, she is not "real" Shallan: 

I think that I disagree with this. Been working through a reread and Shallan's whole situation has been one thing I keep thinking about.

First, I think there's a difference between a simple illusion/act and a "persona". Brandon has explained that this whole development of personas is about a means for Shallan to use magic to escape the weight of the truth that she killed her mother, right? A big portion of OB Part 1 is about showing us how that problem developed. We catch up with Shallan very broken after her last truth in WoR, and then begin to see her use the personas to escape from the weight of it. I disagree that she was doing this before. The whole point really is that she needed a way to cope after what happened at the end of WoR. Before this, she simply avoided confronting the truth, and she can't do that the same way.

So in Words of Radiance, Shallan isn't manifesting any personas, I think. This isn't Shallan creating a Shallan persona. (same for her confrontation of Tozbek or the mercenaries by the way) It's simply an illusion with a bit of acting. Veil is the same situation. Veil doesn't become a persona until Oathbringer. In Words of Radiance, Veil is simply a disguise that Shallan uses.

I dunno how much this distinction matters... It just feels to me like we're going to far in questioning "who is the real Shallan." I think we know the real Shallan, more or less. As much as we can know anybody. Yeah, she still has some secrets in her past. But I don't think we're facing some big conspiracy where the "real Shallan" has been hidden from us all this time.

I DO think there is a "Shallan persona", but I don't think it develops until sometime in OB. She gets so deep into Veil and Radiant. Pair that with the simple fact that she's a teenage girl who barely understands herself in the first place and it's easy to she why she would convince herself that "Shallan" is just another persona to tamper with.

Basically she just has normal identity issues, compounded by a very broken childhood, and a very unhealthy magical way of dealing with them. 

Slight tangent... I don't think Shallan's healing means that she needs to "reintegrate" these personas. I don't think Veil or Radiant (or "Shallan") are splinters of some true identity that need to be fitted back together. They each contain pieces of who she really is, but only because she created them that way. They're just false identities that she created to hide from the truth of her past. I think her healing won't be about accepting "I am all of these people". It will be about... well, about what Wit explained in Girl Who Stood up. She doesn't need to draw all of these personas back into herself. She just needs to confront past. The use of personas will disappear when she no longer has need for them.

[Calderis]

@Jofwu in the middle of a reread myself, and I agree. At the beginning she's already looking at Veil as more of a "real" person than she was in WoR, but there definitely less of a segregation.

It's just her trying to hide more and more deeply as the book progresses.

[Vissy]

Shallan, Veil and Radiant are all masks / personas that she puts on to escape from having to be herself. None of them are necessarily true or even partly true, but to me it seems like she has to take what's true from each of these masks and allow them to manifest as they come, instead of only when associated with a made-up past and personality. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Vissy

[Diomedes]

On 11.4.2018 at 4:47 PM, Jofwu said:

I think that I disagree with this. Been working through a reread and Shallan's whole situation has been one thing I keep thinking about.

First, I think there's a difference between a simple illusion/act and a "persona". Brandon has explained that this whole development of personas is about a means for Shallan to use magic to escape the weight of the truth that she killed her mother, right? A big portion of OB Part 1 is about showing us how that problem developed. We catch up with Shallan very broken after her last truth in WoR, and then begin to see her use the personas to escape from the weight of it. I disagree that she was doing this before. The whole point really is that she needed a way to cope after what happened at the end of WoR. Before this, she simply avoided confronting the truth, and she can't do that the same way.

So in Words of Radiance, Shallan isn't manifesting any personas, I think. This isn't Shallan creating a Shallan persona. (same for her confrontation of Tozbek or the mercenaries by the way) It's simply an illusion with a bit of acting. Veil is the same situation. Veil doesn't become a persona until Oathbringer. In Words of Radiance, Veil is simply a disguise that Shallan uses.

I dunno how much this distinction matters... It just feels to me like we're going to far in questioning "who is the real Shallan." I think we know the real Shallan, more or less. As much as we can know anybody. Yeah, she still has some secrets in her past. But I don't think we're facing some big conspiracy where the "real Shallan" has been hidden from us all this time.

I DO think there is a "Shallan persona", but I don't think it develops until sometime in OB. She gets so deep into Veil and Radiant. Pair that with the simple fact that she's a teenage girl who barely understands herself in the first place and it's easy to she why she would convince herself that "Shallan" is just another persona to tamper with.

Basically she just has normal identity issues, compounded by a very broken childhood, and a very unhealthy magical way of dealing with them. 

Slight tangent... I don't think Shallan's healing means that she needs to "reintegrate" these personas. I don't think Veil or Radiant (or "Shallan") are splinters of some true identity that need to be fitted back together. They each contain pieces of who she really is, but only because she created them that way. They're just false identities that she created to hide from the truth of her past. I think her healing won't be about accepting "I am all of these people". It will be about... well, about what Wit explained in Girl Who Stood up. She doesn't need to draw all of these personas back into herself. She just needs to confront past. The use of personas will disappear when she no longer has need for them.

Good point! I largely agree with you here. In WoR she still seems to realize that Veil and "Shallan" are lies. In OB she forgets more and more that "Shallan" is a lie and so does the reader. This is exactly what Tyn had warned her about.

Names are important in this matter. She does not give "Shallan" a specific name. This way she can pretend that "Shallan" is her "main" identity, while the others are just deviations. At times during OB she manages to control her lies and see them for what they are: 

Quote

"I thought Brightness Shallan was the persona. But the spy - that`s the false identity."

"Wrong," Shallan said. "They are both equally false." OB. ch. 61, p. 627.  

   This is the point I originally wanted to make: "Shallan" is not the main identity but a persona just like Veil and Radiant. I also don`t think that her personas will ever outlive their usefulness, she will always keep them. She just needs to realize that her lies are lies.  

[Philomath]

I agree with everything @Jofwu said. Shallan's issues with the personas didn't exist until part way through Oathbringer. Yes Veil existed in WoR but more as a tool because Shallan needed a disguise. The reason Shallan says "Shallan" as a persona is false is because she knows she uses unhealthy coping mechanisms to avoid dealing with hard truths. She knows she puts on a face, but with "Shallan" it is like a normal person, not with her magic like OB Veil and Radiant. I still think Shallan is the most real one and closest to who she really is from WoK and WoR. She is just a little lost right now given everything she is going through. (Yes I know there is a WoB that says Veil is most like the real Shallan, but I think that boils down to Shallan gives Veil her strength and perseverance which she refuses to see in herself.)

[Eternal Khol]

"Maybe she could move into Rockfall, act the part. And the former lady of the house? Well, she was an inferior version, obviously. Just deal with her, take her place. It would feel right, wouldn’t it?"

this quote is what made me know that her personas are each individiual and not just shallan "acting"

we've seen her do this plenty of times, but here she is taking it too far

if she keeps this up she could easily lose herself to one of the personalities.

i could see Brightness Radiant taking over because Shallan just doesnt think she has the strength

[Halyo_Alex]

37 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

"Maybe she could move into Rockfall, act the part. And the former lady of the house? Well, she was an inferior version, obviously. Just deal with her, take her place. It would feel right, wouldn’t it?"

this quote is what made me know that her personas are each individiual and not just shallan "acting"

we've seen her do this plenty of times, but here she is taking it too far

if she keeps this up she could easily lose herself to one of the personalities.

i could see Brightness Radiant taking over because Shallan just doesnt think she has the strength

It would be interesting to see that after enough time, she straight up heals herself into Radiant or Veil physically because of her perceptions shifting so strongly. I can see it happening, too, which is a little worrying.