Shallan's shift in direction.

[Subvisual Haze]

By repeatedly shifting the underlying explanation behind an already Protean character with unstable sense of identity Sanderson masterfully subverts our own expectations with regards to identity. It's turtles all the way down!

[Robot]

On 4/9/2020 at 7:14 PM, Bliev said:

After my 5th re-read just completed (eek), I actually see it as a pretty consistent narrative of her character: Overwhelming panic over her family led her to Jasnah. But to overcome her PTSD she had to lie and pretend from the moment she began. She dissociates from her past and the fake personas that don't remember anything become more attractive all the while. Then Jasnah is "murdered" (from her eye) and she has to continue (while secretly she's actually loving this because she's far from home and can pretend in any way she wants and also hates herself so if she dies she dies, in her mind). She meets Adolin--she actually likes him and inadvertently acts like "herself" for even a moment, even while she's continuing to pretend. Then chasms, facing her past, and growth. But still she won't *really* face it because lying is so much easier, so she persists--just pushing the forboding down deeper, even as Pattern hums in concerns. Then OB--and the lying is So. Much. Easier. than the truth, particularly with stormlight! She can be anyone! No one cares for Shallan anyways, right? Her parents hated her. Her brothers probably don't even miss her. Adolin won't love the "real" shallan. She should really just eff it all up by going for Kaladin anyways. That's what she deserves, right? Just to screw it up and have everyone hate her. But Adolin is so NICE and cute and--she finds herself being authentic, surprisingly, and growth again--she decides to stop dissociating for awhile. Maybe three personalities is enough to function. She stops lying so much. At least for the most part. Now RoW we see the Ghostbloods lie creeping up on her...which she's totally dissociated from the whole time! She just hides it and pushes it off and "I'll tell him sometime". This is classic Shallan. Avoiding confrontation, by magical means or otherwise, until it bites her in the chull. Now we just have to see if not confronting her own PTSD will mean that she actually does self destruct, or if she can overcome it--magically and otherwise. I find it utterly captivating. 

 

But then again, she's been my fav from day 1, and I'm totally an Adolin Superfan, so that's maybe not surprising? :-)

Doing my poor boi Kal a disrespect here T_T

[Calderis]

On 9/4/2020 at 11:40 AM, Subvisual Haze said:

By repeatedly shifting the underlying explanation behind an already Protean character with unstable sense of identity Sanderson masterfully subverts our own expectations with regards to identity. It's turtles all the way down!

Except it has always been the same issues and the shift in explanation has always been outside the books. To someone reading just the books, without regard to what Brandon has to say about them, this is just a sequence of events with foreshadowing of dissociation all the way back in our first glimpses of Shallan. 

The issues have always been the same, but Brandon's willingness to embrace that, and do the proper research, and just say that's what it is has changed. Take his commentary out of it, and your problem disappears. 

[+Bliev]

10 hours ago, Robot said:

Doing my poor boi Kal a disrespect here T_T

haha...nah, Kal is *fine*, but her blowing up her excellent relationship with stable, well-adjusted, hot Adolin to go for the hot, broody fixer-upper who hates himself would be a bit of a self-destructive move. Albeit one that every teenager has considered making in their life at one point or another, I'm sure. 

[Ailvara]

18 hours ago, Bliev said:

haha...nah, Kal is *fine*, but her blowing up her excellent relationship with stable, well-adjusted, hot Adolin to go for the hot, broody fixer-upper who hates himself would be a bit of a self-destructive move. Albeit one that every teenager has considered making in their life at one point or another, I'm sure. 

You may consider him excellent all you want, but their relationship as a whole seems to be far from that.

Quote

That was the trap she’d found herself in. The more he trusted her, the worse she felt. And she didn’t know  how to get out. She couldn’t get out.

Please, she whispered. Save me.

Ultimately, Shallan needs to face the truth(s) and here she is, trapped in her lies, scared to death her husband wouldn't love her if he really knew her, unable to ever fully embrace all facets of herself since the rest of them barely accept the guy (and mutually). Sounds just perfect. That's what happens when you get married without even talking through any important stuff.

[+Bliev]

7 minutes ago, Ailvara said:

You may consider him excellent all you want, but their relationship as a whole seems to be far from that.

Ultimately, Shallan needs to face the truth(s) and here she is, trapped in her lies, scared to death her husband wouldn't love her if he really knew her, unable to ever fully embrace all facets of herself since the rest of them barely accept the guy (and mutually). Sounds just perfect. That's what happens when you get married without even talking through any important stuff.

I'll agree that they got married precipitously and without her being truthful with him, and that makes it less than "excellent"! Hiding a secret spy life from your husband is probably a poor choice lol. I'll also say that her insecurities and PTSD have led her to consider herself unlovable and now seem positioned to threaten her marriage.

But I'll disagree with this: all of her facets accept Adolin and the marriage, even if Shallan channeled her self doubt into Veil's preference for another. I don't think she has any part of her that regrets her relationship with Adolin or doesn't accept it as good for her. We've seen no evidence of regret in these chapters, and given the SA focus on choice, her explicit choice at the end of OB is critical to the theme.

I'll also maintain (though of course there is a mega thread hashing all of this out already and I don't want to tread down that path again because massive migraine lol) that Adolin is the absolute best match for Shallan at all stages of her illness and journey, and I think that her insecurities here are less about the health of her marriage per se and more of an internal struggle, albeit one that can certainly threaten her marriage if she lets it. 

[Ailvara]

1 hour ago, Bliev said:

But I'll disagree with this: all of her facets accept Adolin and the marriage, even if Shallan channeled her self doubt into Veil's preference for another. I don't think she has any part of her that regrets her relationship with Adolin or doesn't accept it as good for her. We've seen no evidence of regret in these chapters, and given the SA focus on choice, her explicit choice at the end of OB is critical to the theme.

It has been beaten to death, hasn't it?  Just for clarity, the explicit choice was on part of "Shallan" with Veil and Radiant inclined towards Kaladin but pushed away and put in line. They do accept Adolin as "Shallan"'s husband and means of keeping her stable, but they don't have any warmer relationship with him themselves, right? These two things I believe are quite clearly stated and non-controversial. Then, in the end, it pretty much comes down to whether you consider Veil and Radiant parts of "whole" Shallan. If you believe the "real Shallan" has chosen Adolin, who sees her and so on, and she just created some people in her mind who don't care for him, they might still live happily ever after. But if you acknowledge that Veil is as much Shallan as "Shallan" is, well... then her choice starts to look fishy and promises nothing but trouble down her road to self-awareness.

My little theory is that Veil and Radiant accept the state of things because they are afraid that, without Adolin, Shallan will literally "wilt/fade" as she's said, leaving the two of them alone and no longer balanced, at the threat of either disappearing too (in other words: reintegrating) or having Formless emerge to take the empty spot. We've seen Veil acting as a caretaker for "Shallan" and also how she's scared of Formless, which adds up.

1 hour ago, Bliev said:

I'll also maintain (though of course there is a mega thread hashing all of this out already and I don't want to tread down that path again because massive migraine lol) that Adolin is the absolute best match for Shallan at all stages of her illness and journey, and I think that her insecurities here are less about the health of her marriage per se and more of an internal struggle, albeit one that can certainly threaten her marriage if she lets it. 

It might look on paper that he would have some good influence on her mental health. But we haven't seen it in practice so far. Damnation, she even created Radiant under his (unwitting) pressure in the first place! The fact that Shallan still does what she does (nurturing her insecurities, lying to herself and everyone etc) indicates that, whatever she needs now, she isn't getting it from Adolin. You could argue he "recognised" her and so stopped her erratic switching from one alter to another - but it can as easily be seen as him strengthening one of the alters at the expense of the other ones, and so enabling her fracturing (so it still comes down to whether you consider "Shallan" the only "real" alter or not). Some people also say she is better now than in OB. But the truth is, she is better than she was in late OB but kind of the same - or worse - as she was at the very end of it (the pre-wedding scene). Which means a year of love and safety didn't do much to let her heal, in the end. AFAIR these two uncertain arguments are the only ones given in text so far. I'm interested to see more if you've got any!

Word of clarification: sure, at the moment the only people both Shallan and Kaladin should be seeing are their, sadly nonexistent, therapists. If I "ship" them it's because I think about it in the long-run, in the perspective that once they'll largely have dealt with their respective cans of worms.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Ailvara

[agrabes]

55 minutes ago, Bliev said:

I'll agree that they got married precipitously and without her being truthful with him, and that makes it less than "excellent"! Hiding a secret spy life from your husband is probably a poor choice lol. I'll also say that her insecurities and PTSD have led her to consider herself unlovable and now seem positioned to threaten her marriage.

But I'll disagree with this: all of her facets accept Adolin and the marriage, even if Shallan channeled her self doubt into Veil's preference for another. I don't think she has any part of her that regrets her relationship with Adolin or doesn't accept it as good for her. We've seen no evidence of regret in these chapters, and given the SA focus on choice, her explicit choice at the end of OB is critical to the theme.

I'll also maintain (though of course there is a mega thread hashing all of this out already and I don't want to tread down that path again because massive migraine lol) that Adolin is the absolute best match for Shallan at all stages of her illness and journey, and I think that her insecurities here are less about the health of her marriage per se and more of an internal struggle, albeit one that can certainly threaten her marriage if she lets it. 

I think without going too far down the shipping road I think the issue w/ your take on Kaladin is that you basically dismiss him as a self-destructive desire that Shallan allows to play out.  I don't think that's how it was presented in the book, actually I think it was presented the opposite.  As far as who was better for her, I think in the end you are probably right that Adolin was the better choice.  There's very little chance Kaladin could handle the Shallan we see in RoW.  But it's a little dismissive to say Kaladin had no good qualities or that Shallan only showed interest in him as a manifestation of self-destructive tendencies.

My read of the Kaladin/Shallan dynamic was that Shallan found Kaladin attractive in some ways.  He had qualities she liked (intelligence, wittiness, etc) and were important to her in a man which Adolin lacked.  But, through her own self discipline and desire to stay committed to Adolin, she did not allow herself to act on that attraction.  She buried it deep.  When it resurfaced later in the Veil personality, it was distorted through a weird lens.  Gone were thoughts about the positive traits she admired in WoR, now it was just a weird animalistic lust.  My take on that is it is her self-hatred expressing itself - she hates herself for not being 100% faithful to Adolin and reframes her mild attraction to Kaladin as completely negative.

[+Bliev]

17 minutes ago, agrabes said:

I think without going too far down the shipping road I think the issue w/ your take on Kaladin is that you basically dismiss him as a self-destructive desire that Shallan allows to play out.  I don't think that's how it was presented in the book, actually I think it was presented the opposite.  As far as who was better for her, I think in the end you are probably right that Adolin was the better choice.  There's very little chance Kaladin could handle the Shallan we see in RoW.  But it's a little dismissive to say Kaladin had no good qualities or that Shallan only showed interest in him as a manifestation of self-destructive tendencies.

My read of the Kaladin/Shallan dynamic was that Shallan found Kaladin attractive in some ways.  He had qualities she liked (intelligence, wittiness, etc) and were important to her in a man which Adolin lacked.  But, through her own self discipline and desire to stay committed to Adolin, she did not allow herself to act on that attraction.  She buried it deep.  When it resurfaced later in the Veil personality, it was distorted through a weird lens.  Gone were thoughts about the positive traits she admired in WoR, now it was just a weird animalistic lust.  My take on that is it is her self-hatred expressing itself - she hates herself for not being 100% faithful to Adolin and reframes her mild attraction to Kaladin as completely negative.

I don't think Kaladin has no good qualities! Not at all. I just never ever read them in the same way that (many!) others did. I guess because I always identified so much with Shallan and never so much with Kaladin, that all I saw was how little he really *saw* her, and to me it felt she was attracted to an illusion of who she thought he was (confident, attractive) and he was attracted to the same in her (carefree, happy). I think she was definitely attracted to him, but never really knew him. 

I do really want to say that I love your point here abut how she dissociated from that as well, and manifested into pure physical attractiveness that she hated herself for. 

20 minutes ago, Ailvara said:

It has been beaten to death, hasn't it?  Just for clarity, the explicit choice was on part of "Shallan" with Veil and Radiant inclined towards Kaladin but pushed away and put in line. They do accept Adolin as "Shallan"'s husband and means of keeping her stable, but they don't have any warmer relationship with him themselves, right? These two things I believe are quite clearly stated and non-controversial. Then, in the end, it pretty much comes down to whether you consider Veil and Radiant parts of "whole" Shallan. If you believe the "real Shallan" has chosen Adolin, who sees her and so on, and she just created some people in her mind who don't care for him, they might still live happily ever after. But if you acknowledge that Veil is as much Shallan as "Shallan" is, well... then her choice starts to look fishy and promises nothing but trouble down her road to self-awareness.

My little theory is that Veil and Radiant accept the state of things because they are afraid that, without Adolin, Shallan will literally "wilt/fade" as she's said, leaving the two of them alone and no longer balanced, at the threat of either disappearing too (in other words: reintegrating) or having Formless emerge to take the empty spot. We've seen Veil acting as a caretaker for "Shallan" and also how she's scared of Formless, which adds up.

It might look on paper that he would have some good influence on her mental health. But we haven't seen it in practice so far. Damnation, she even created Radiant under his (unwitting) pressure in the first place! The fact that Shallan still does what she does (nurturing her insecurities, lying to herself and everyone etc) indicates that, whatever she needs now, she isn't getting it from Adolin. You could argue he "recognised" her and so stopped her erratic switching from one alter to another - but it can as easily be seen as him strengthening one of the alters at the expense of the other ones, and so enabling her fracturing (so it still comes down to whether you consider "Shallan" the only "real" alter or not). Some people also say she is better now than in OB. But the truth is, she is better than she was in late OB but kind of the same - or worse - as she was at the very end of it (the pre-wedding scene). Which means a year of love and safety didn't do much to let her heal, in the end. AFAIR these two uncertain arguments are the only ones given in text so far. I'm interested to see more if you've got any!

Word of clarification: sure, at the moment the only people both Shallan and Kaladin should be seeing are their, sadly nonexistent, therapists. If I "ship" them it's because I think about it in the long-run, in the perspective that once they'll largely have dealt with their respective cans of worms.

I disagree with this and have read it very differently, but that's the beauty of literature. :-) I don't consider any of them more "real" than the other, but i don't think they see Adolin as a necessary evil. At all. I think Veil likes no dependencies or relationships at all, because she hates the idea of being linked to anyone at all, but I also think she knows that she might not be right about that. I read the "wilt/fade" line as flippant sarcasm not as actual literalism. In fact, I read that line as being almost "me doth protest too much" about connecting with Adolin. :-) 

I'm one of those who thinks she's stabilized since OB but is at risk of destabilization with the Ghostbloods stuff. I don't expect her love and marriage to "heal" her, so I wasn't expecting a bunch of off-screen progress. I also think that him seeing the "real" her is what she needed in that moment--that someone could see that she was struggling, and see that she needed grounding. He always listened to her and was interested in her and noticed her. Now, I don't think any of them are more "real" than the others, but she certainly feels that "Shallan" is the primary, and the others defer to that, so it made sense narratively to me.

Overall, dead horse properly beaten, retread unnecessary lol; but we just read it very differently. :-)

Edited September 8, 2020 by Bliev

[agrabes]

47 minutes ago, Bliev said:

I don't think Kaladin has no good qualities! Not at all. I just never ever read them in the same way that (many!) others did. I guess because I always identified so much with Shallan and never so much with Kaladin, that all I saw was how little he really *saw* her, and to me it felt she was attracted to an illusion of who she thought he was (confident, attractive) and he was attracted to the same in her (carefree, happy). I think she was definitely attracted to him, but never really knew him. 

I do really want to say that I love your point here abut how she dissociated from that as well, and manifested into pure physical attractiveness that she hated herself for. 

Yeah - fair point.  It is one of those things where different things strike people differently.  I always chalked up the fatal flaw in the Kaladin/Shallan proto-romance to the nature of their relationship with each other and Adolin.  I never felt they were attracted to illusions of each other or that they didn't really know each other - just that they weren't ever able to fully open up with each other.  I think Kaladin and Shallan understood each other and the things they were attracted to in each other were real and deeply true aspects of their characters, but each hid the true vulnerabilities from the other.  They only got to see maybe 75% of who each other were - the good without the bad.  They hid the bad things from each other because they just hide them from everyone in general and it was especially inappropriate to open up to each other in particular.  For Kaladin - it's not right to get emotionally close with another man's fiance and for Shallan she would have seen it as being unfaithful.  Both Kaladin and Shallan have that in common - they don't want to let anyone see their weaknesses.  The difference is that Shallan is willing to open up a little bit to Adolin because he's her fiance, and he figures out the rest of it from there.  That's how I read it at least. 

But then, I probably identify most with Kaladin of all the POV characters - so I'm not sure that says a lot of good about my romantic intuition .

[+Bliev]

1 hour ago, agrabes said:

Yeah - fair point.  It is one of those things where different things strike people differently.  I always chalked up the fatal flaw in the Kaladin/Shallan proto-romance to the nature of their relationship with each other and Adolin.  I never felt they were attracted to illusions of each other or that they didn't really know each other - just that they weren't ever able to fully open up with each other.  I think Kaladin and Shallan understood each other and the things they were attracted to in each other were real and deeply true aspects of their characters, but each hid the true vulnerabilities from the other.  They only got to see maybe 75% of who each other were - the good without the bad.  They hid the bad things from each other because they just hide them from everyone in general and it was especially inappropriate to open up to each other in particular.  For Kaladin - it's not right to get emotionally close with another man's fiance and for Shallan she would have seen it as being unfaithful.  Both Kaladin and Shallan have that in common - they don't want to let anyone see their weaknesses.  The difference is that Shallan is willing to open up a little bit to Adolin because he's her fiance, and he figures out the rest of it from there.  That's how I read it at least. 

But then, I probably identify most with Kaladin of all the POV characters - so I'm not sure that says a lot of good about my romantic intuition .

 Awww. I love that Brandon gives us all people to identify with, and makes us empathize even with those we connect to less!

I suppose "the triangle" brings me back to my teenaged years, lo those eons ago, when cute, earnest little Bliev made really horrible romantic choices, going for the tall, dark, handsome, somewhat disinterested broken guy who really only wanted to see happy, glossy, pretty Bliev and not full, actualized human Bliev, and the difference it made when I ended up with a partner who was--not that. 

(It also doesn't hurt that I'm totally the female version of Adolin, and am waayyyy too invested in his future because I am well aware that he's probably getting murked this book, sooooo....give me my moment of comfort before it's totally ripped from my heart lol)

[Calderis]

While my thoughts on the issue have been pretty clear, can we please not drag this thread into another ship argument? 

While I think it's obvious that relationships and mental health are obviously intertwined, the triangle is so horrendously biased that the emotional attachments of people's preference plays far more role in these discussions than Shallan's actual mental health. 

I made this thread to discuss the direction Brandon's chosen to take her. Not rehash the same arguments we've all been party to far far too many times.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Calderis