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Wait, what do the ghostbloods want?


ShardShaper

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12 hours ago, Rainier said:

Oh, of course not. I never suggested and wouldn't expect peace. Shallan will stall as long as possible, but eventually she'll be forced to choose. She must reveal Truths to progress, such as to whom she's really loyal, even if it isn't either Jasnah/Radiants or the Ghostbloods.

And my point that I will elaborate on further below is by stalling, Shallan is responsible for the consequences of their actions. 

12 hours ago, Rainier said:

Now that you mention it, I could see another reason why Jasnah would ally herself with them, or at least call a truce: knowledge. They traffic as much in information and knowledge as in artifacts and power. Jasnah would value knowledge of realmatics , other worlds, and the rest of the Cosmere that she probably didn't get from the Cryptics and definitely hasn't gotten from Wit. Besides the Ghostbloods, and my boy Vasher/Zahel/Warbreaker, there aren't many worldhoppers on Roshar. Although in this case, the Roshar is the star system, not the planet.

Again, Jasnah's primary driving force throughout all three novels was the protection of her family whom she loves. The Desolation threatens that. When Gavilar was killed, her mind jumped to trying to understand and examine the parshendi, but she fought it away because of the pain she felt over losing her father. I do not see Jasnah risking the lives of her family over the potential of learning information regarding the greater Cosmere when I would think that she would think she could attain such information herself via other avenues. My point is Jasnah's entire existence for the past 6 years was finding out why her father was killed and once she realized the desolation was coming, she put everything in her research to prevent it and or stop it. I do not see her just changing that when her family's lives are still at stake.

12 hours ago, Rainier said:

Yes, passive party, tacitly approving. Her job is to watch. To listen. To let everyone else do their jobs while she does hers. To demonstrate her loyalty by not interfering. Like I said, a test. No guarantees she will pass, but just like Kaladin had his temptation (Moash's assassination of Elhokar), Shallan will have hers.

Maybe this will help. Shallan just needs to stand by? Lets say she does exactly that. lets say they do not give her any assignments, just her going about her business. Time passes. Adolin ends up dying during a battle. Jasnah is assassinated. Dalinar is corrupted by Odium. All seemingly unconnected. In the end she finds out that the ghostbloods made all that happen. The ghostbloods that was free from harassment from a radiant with knowledge of their institution and how it functions. The ghostbloods that could operate without worrying about invisible eyes tracking their movements, intercepting their people, and stopping the actions leading up. The sheer act of her opposing them, would cause them to take actions, or take precautions that they would not need to take normally, thereby limiting what they could accomplish had she not been acting against them. So her uninvolvement is indirectly responsible for the consequences that come of their actions. They could have not directly killed Adolin, and Jasnah. They could have done nothing directly to corrupt Dalinar. but in prolonging the war, things that would not have had the opportunity to pass, will, and Shallan would be responsible for it. If the ghostbloods want the water before a dam to fill up more before they drain it, then if through that excess filling, the dam is weakened whereas otherwise it would have not been, then that dam's failure at a later date is at the hands of the ghostbloods, and by extension connected to shallan by not stopping them. hopefully that made sense. 

12 hours ago, Rainier said:

The key is here:

They're not going to tell her fully, I should hope. They'll tell her to do her job and not ask too many questions, and she'll investigate and find out or come right up to the brink before realizing what's going on.

My response to this is above

12 hours ago, Rainier said:

What's a Voidbringer? As far as I know, it's all of humanity, or at least the refugees/invaders from Ashyn. Wasn't that the big reveal at the end of Oathbringer? So saying he's after the power of the voidbringers isn't an answer at all. What is the power of the voidbringers? There are meager answers, such as the difference between Kaladin's surgebinding and the similar voidbinding done by the Fused at the Oathgate in Shadesmar.

That quote is prior to the big reveal, and if you please re-read the quote which I made the effort of typing it out, Mraize said with the advent of the voidbringers. Advent refers to arrival. if mraize was referring to humans, then he wouldn't be speaking of their arrival because they were always there, so he is clearly referring to the fused. 

12 hours ago, Rainier said:

@Pathfinder is right about one thing: Voidbringers and Voidbinding is the antithesis of Radiants and Surgebinding. So assuming that Mraize means the power of the Fused, and not the power of humanity/spren, then he'd be working off a different chart.

Yes, it's an excellent plan. The Ghostbloods want to capture Sja'anat in a perfect gem the same way Dalinar captured Nergaoul, in order to be able to access Voidbinding. If they're harvesting spren from proto-Radiants, but the spren are bound to oaths, then corrupting those spren with the Unmade can unlock their power for more nefarious means. Capture the spren by saying oaths you don't intend to keep, corrupt the spren so you can use their powers without upholding the oaths, and take all that power offworld while Roshar goes to rust.

Although now that we're talking multi-planet motives...

And the desolation is nothing but an opportunity to people like the Ghostbloods, and Hoid. An opportunity they can't afford to miss.This casts Hoid's action at the end of the book, bonding Elhokar's spren, as similar carrion-feeding. Hoid is unimpressed because he's old and arrogant, and he's not taking these mere mortals seriously. Yet at the same time, they're doing the same things he is (finding, understanding, and hoarding investiture in all its forms). I wouldn't be surprised to see Hoid rue the day he underestimated the Ghostbloods, but we'll have to wait until the end game for that.

The ghostbloods come across to me as a weapons merchant. The weapons merchant does what he can to prolong the war because he gets to sell weapons to both sides and remain in demand. In this case it is so they can position themselves to take control of power, but i see things playing out the same.

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52 minutes ago, cfphelps said:

I feel like Iyatil would not have been so surprised and impressed by Shallan losing her in the streets and finding her/sneaking up on her while watching for her to take the Taln investigation instructions if they were aware of Radiant powers. If they had another lightweaver in their group from Tien's cryptic, they likely would have figured out how she achieved what she did, rather than Iyatil following her to watch her infiltrate Dalinar's medical center. Instead Iyatil asks who she really is and lists the ways she's impressed the Ghostbloods. 

Considering the type of people the Ghostbloods interact with on a regular basis.  If they jumped to "magic" as an explanation too often they would routinely come up with an extraordinary number of false positives considering how many people rely on various types of mundane "lightweaving" like slight of hand, misdirection, and disguise.  They also did eventually figure out who Shallan was and what she was capable of and they did so fairly quickly all things considered. 

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3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

So her uninvolvement is indirectly responsible for the consequences that come of their actions.

We're talking past each other here. Of course she'd be responsible, that's why it's a test. If she fails they kill her, or try, and if she passes then they know she's loyal. The whole point is to make her culpable without making her literally kill her mentor with her bare hands, and the test won't work if the signal Shallan sends is too cheap. The signal has to be costly enough to show her loyalty, but not so costly as to spook her.

Besides, she's already responsible for their actions, by your logic. By consorting with them without immediately turning them in to Dalinar or Jasnah, she's become complicit. But not very complicit, at least not yet, and she hasn't done anything too bad herself. There are gradients here, shades of gray between black and white.

If the Ghostbloods are smart, they'll boil the frog slowly so Shallan keeps lying to herself that she's not responsible for their actions, or their plans, especially if she doesn't know them.

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On 5/10/2019 at 11:49 AM, Karger said:

They don't even have to break oaths or swear them without meening to.  Taravangain has a surgebinder for example.  I don't think some cryptics would be oposed to bonding the correct ghostblood member.  The same can be said for Inkspren, Ashpren, and potentially "Truthspren."

I think that Cryptics are truthspren/liespren so Truthwatchers almost definitely bond with something else.

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25 minutes ago, ShardShaper said:

truthspren/liespren

Cryptics are based on the fundamental mathematics that underlie the functions of our universe.  If you have read Moving Mars they call it the Bell Continuum basicaly our universe's rule book and the patterns that govern it.  They would be attracted to a lot of different kinds of people but mostly those who (like me) have a high level grasp on things that can crudely be described as the uncertainty principle.  We understand implicitly that there is no objective truth(much to everyone else's chagrin).  I was using Truthspren as a generic as we don't have a real word for what they bond yet.

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24 minutes ago, Karger said:

Cryptics are based on the fundamental mathematics that underlie the functions of our universe.  If you have read Moving Mars they call it the Bell Continuum basicaly our universe's rule book and the patterns that govern it.  They would be attracted to a lot of different kinds of people but mostly those who (like me) have a high level grasp on things that can crudely be described as the uncertainty principle.  We understand implicitly that there is no objective truth(much to everyone else's chagrin).  I was using Truthspren as a generic as we don't have a real word for what they bond yet.

That doesn't describe a single one of the Lightweavers that we've seen. Shallan. Tien. Elhokar?

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15 minutes ago, RShara said:

That doesn't describe a single one of the Lightweavers that we've seen. Shallan. Tien. Elhokar?

We have no point of views on either Elhokar or Tein but if you look carefully Shallan spends quite a bit of time discussing the nature of truth and you should notice that both Tein and Elhokar live in worlds that seem a bit different from what the rest of the characters see.

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1 hour ago, Karger said:

They would be attracted to a lot of different kinds of people but mostly those who (like me) have a high level grasp on things that can crudely be described as the uncertainty principle.

 

24 minutes ago, Karger said:

We have no point of views on either Elhokar or Tein but if you look carefully Shallan spends quite a bit of time discussing the nature of truth and you should notice that both Tein and Elhokar live in worlds that seem a bit different from what the rest of the characters see.

The latter item that you stated does not confirm or even imply the former. Tien was idealistic and artistic. Elhokar was weak and foolish. Cryptics are attracted to people who have deep lies. This is confirmed. That is the explanation for "live in worlds that seem a bit different". Because they're actually lying to themselves about reality.

Neither of them demonstrated any ability for "a high level grasp" of...well, anything. I mean, you can head-canon what you want, but there is literally no evidence that Tien or Elhokar were anything like that.

As for Shallan, the only reason she did that was because Jasnah forced her to. We have no idea if she'd followed any of those lines of thought herself, or previous to Jasnah.

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7 minutes ago, RShara said:

Because they're actually lying to themselves about reality.

That is how a none lightweaver would see them.  This is not how I(a lightweaver) see them.  Remember how Elhokar would delude himself into thinking that his anger at the parshendi actually made a difference in the course of the war?  To you this sounds foolish if not ridiculous, to a lightweaver this is almost sensible.  We have a deep rooted understanding in how our perception influences ourselves and events around us however no matter how hard we try(and we do try) we can't make up down just by thinking about it that way this is why we need truths to progress.

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4 minutes ago, Karger said:

That is how a none lightweaver would see them.  This is not how I(a lightweaver) see them.  Remember how Elhokar would delude himself into thinking that his anger at the parshendi actually made a difference in the course of the war?  To you this sounds foolish if not ridiculous, to a lightweaver this is almost sensible.  We have a deep rooted understanding in how our perception influences ourselves and events around us however no matter how hard we try(and we do try) we can't make up down just by thinking about it that way this is why we need truths to progress.

What?

Also, citation needed.

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1 minute ago, RShara said:

What?

One step at a time then.  The uncertainty principle says that perception has an effect on the subject.  Just by observing you change the outcome of an experiment.  This happens in the real world at the partial level.  Similarly humans often act differently when they are around other humans.

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Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Disregarding personal preferences, what Order of the Knights Radiant do you think you would best fit as?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Oh, man. I've been asked this one, and it's really hard. What order of Knight Radiant would I best fit as. It's difficult, right? Because, number one, there are a lot of orders, and you can kind of see yourself going in different ways. And number two, there's kind of like the, what is it realistically?

Like, when I sort myself into a Harry Potter house (which is much easier, cause there's not as many), I always have to kind of grudgingly put myself in Slytherin. Because, though a lot of my fellow writers are Ravenclaws, I'm not about the study; I'm about the accomplishment, right? Like, I write books in part because I'm like, "I want to accomplish this thing," and it's ambition, but it's also just "I want to do this thing." So for that reason I don't know that I can put myself in any kind of the scholarly focused order of the Knight Radiant, realistically, because I don't think that I would really actually fit there, even though that would be the natural place to start putting writers.

I often wonder, maybe Lightweaver, but the problem is I don't lie to myself, I don't think, right? But I am really good at fooling myself when I want to. Like, when I don't want to deal with something, I'm very good at, like, "I'm putting this on the shelf and I'll deal with it later," which is a very Lightweaver thing. Maybe Lightweaver, but... So, we'll go with that one today, but I think I've answered that question four different ways.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

A foundation of becoming a Lightweaver is lying to yourself.

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@Karger your headcanon is your headcanon, but I fail to see that supported in the text.

Cryptics are attracted to people with secrets. They swarm to lies because they don't understand them. 

Beyond that, I think what you're saying is on you. 

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5 minutes ago, RShara said:

A foundation of becoming a Lightweaver is lying to yourself.

Again you would say lying but we do not just lie we actually alter the truth by lying I am just trying to explain but it is hard.  When Shallan fight the Midnight Mother she says that she is lying to herself by telling saying that she is not afraid but as a result of those "lies" she actually looses her fear so doesn't that mean that lying to herself about not feeling fear made her fear go away?

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4 minutes ago, Karger said:

Again you would say lying but we do not just lie we actually alter the truth by lying I am just trying to explain but it is hard.  When Shallan fight the Midnight Mother she says that she is lying to herself by telling saying that she is not afraid but as a result of those "lies" she actually looses her fear so doesn't that mean that lying to herself about not feeling fear made her fear go away?

They attract the spren with the deep lies they tell themselves. Then, in order to strengthen the bond, they have to shed those layers of lies and see their true selves. This has been confirmed multiple times in the books and via WoB.

I....think we'd best just agree to disagree. I don't read any of those scenes the way you do, and I don't really see any evidence to support your theory. Also, we're waaaay off topic again.

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On 5/10/2019 at 5:06 PM, Rainier said:

We're talking past each other here. Of course she'd be responsible, that's why it's a test. If she fails they kill her, or try, and if she passes then they know she's loyal. The whole point is to make her culpable without making her literally kill her mentor with her bare hands, and the test won't work if the signal Shallan sends is too cheap. The signal has to be costly enough to show her loyalty, but not so costly as to spook her.

I think you are right we are talking past each other. i took your earlier statements to mean that by Shallan joining the Ghostbloods, and working with them, they would in a response of good faith then seek to work with Jasnah, or not actively try to kill her. I feel based on the circumstances I:

1. Cannot see Jasnah coming to an accommodation with them based on her and their goals differing so dramatically

2. Cannot see the Ghostbloods changing their stance on Jasnah because of a new recruit. I see them more trying to get her to see things their way, than see things her way

3. Cannot see the goal being to have Shallan just hang out on the side lines, because by not acting she in my opinion is acting

 

Hopefully that clarified things

On 5/10/2019 at 5:06 PM, Rainier said:

Besides, she's already responsible for their actions, by your logic. By consorting with them without immediately turning them in to Dalinar or Jasnah, she's become complicit. But not very complicit, at least not yet, and she hasn't done anything too bad herself. There are gradients here, shades of gray between black and white.

Exactly. She is complicit, hence her conflict. Every moment she knows of their existence and not telling Jasnah and Dalinar is a moment she complicit in their machinations. 

On 5/10/2019 at 5:06 PM, Rainier said:

If the Ghostbloods are smart, they'll boil the frog slowly so Shallan keeps lying to herself that she's not responsible for their actions, or their plans, especially if she doesn't know them.

Never disputed that that is what they are doing. Only thing I disagreed on was concerning Jasnah. 

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  • 3 months later...

A few thoughts Ive had.

First on the Ghostbloods goals. Or maybe allegiances. I think they are vaguely on the side of the Knights Radiant in that at the end of the day they probably don't want Odium getting out. But it isnt high on the peiorities list after such important considerations such as profit, survival, and messing around with blowguns.

Second on their relationship to Jasnah. I figure that now she is both a Knight Radiant and a queen that the contract on her life has been suspended. Now they haven't forgotten but it would probably be too risky for both their orginization and their schemes to risk killing her now. However when it is in their advantage to weaken the Radiants then it would be efficient to settle an unanswered grudge.

Third. I think that the nature of Cryptics and why they like lies is complicated. Specifically I think that they are embodiements of the mathematical concepts which describe reality. Describe is the important word in that sentence. They are an abstraction one step removed from truth. That is why they are atracted by lies. Because lying is also a form of description but it does not correspond to something real. Lying instead imposes itself on reality.

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On 8/20/2019 at 4:35 PM, Grytorm said:

First on the Ghostbloods goals. Or maybe allegiances. I think they are vaguely on the side of the Knights Radiant in that at the end of the day they probably don't want Odium getting out. But it isnt high on the peiorities list after such important considerations such as profit, survival, and messing around with blowguns.

They are worldhoppers.  Odium getting out would not effect many or possibly most of their members as they could simply leave.

On 8/20/2019 at 4:35 PM, Grytorm said:

Second on their relationship to Jasnah. I figure that now she is both a Knight Radiant and a queen that the contract on her life has been suspended. Now they haven't forgotten but it would probably be too risky for both their orginization and their schemes to risk killing her now. However when it is in their advantage to weaken the Radiants then it would be efficient to settle an unanswered grudge.

I don't think that they would admit to being motivated by simple grudges.  They were trying to kill Jasnah because she was after the same intell that they were and that intell was more valuable to them if they had exclusive control over it.  Mraize says that they also were motivated by the fact that she had killed several of their members but he says that to Shallan(and Pattern claims at least on one other occasion that some things Mraize says are lies indicating that we can't trust his statements).

On 8/20/2019 at 4:35 PM, Grytorm said:

Third. I think that the nature of Cryptics and why they like lies is complicated. Specifically I think that they are embodiements of the mathematical concepts which describe reality. Describe is the important word in that sentence. They are an abstraction one step removed from truth. That is why they are atracted by lies. Because lying is also a form of description but it does not correspond to something real. Lying instead imposes itself on reality.

The thing about Shallan's lies is that at the most powerful and effective they are real.  Same with Elhokar's and Tein's.

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The Ghostbloods' emblem has been described as three diamonds overlapping, which makes it feel likely that they'd like the three Shards on Roshar to become one. No other evidence for that, just a thought.

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On 5/7/2019 at 10:55 PM, Tiberius Gracchus said:

recruiting Shallan and Sja-Anat)

Whoa Whoa Whoa, I might have missed something, But when did the Ghostbloods recruit Sja-Anat?

Citation if you can please. :)

Was it specifically stated because I must have just completely missed it and I've read Oathbringer multiple times.:unsure:

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1 hour ago, Lightblood said:

Citation if you can please. :)

 

"Your next mission is equally important. One of the Unmade seems willing to break from Odium. Our good and that of your Radiant friends align. You will find this Unmade, and you will persuade it to serve the Ghostbloods. Barring that, you will capture it and deliver it to us.

Details will be forthcoming."

Oathbring Chapter 122, letter from the Ghostbloods stealthily handed to Shallan by Balat right before her wedding. Shallan deduces that the referenced Unmade is Sja-Anat

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6 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I think that Odium being freed would affect everyone in the Cosmere.  

Not immediately.  Killing shards seems to take time and his immediate goals would be killing the Stormfather and Cultivation.  Plenty of people(shards) still have the capacity to kill Odium. 

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