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Navani: where does she go from here?


Necessary Eagle

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Engineering and fabrial science are her skill, her joy; the Vorins would say it was her Calling. And now she's bonded to the Spren Liberation Activist. What is she supposed to do now? Give up her life's passion to please the Sibling? Keep on fabrialing and basically spit in the face of her spren's principles? I am having trouble seeing a viable path forward here.

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She can't go anywhere else, she's stuck in Urithiru for the rest of her life, because that's where the Sibling is.

In all honesty, she needs to figure out a way to get the spren to agree to be confined in fabrials in order to placate the Sibling. I'm thinking something to do with oaths: "I swear to offer you this fire, which you love, if you stay in this gemstone for a year. I swear to release you at the end of the year." Then the spren goes into the gem, willingly, with an oath from the person who will free them. Or, ditch the smaller spren altogether, and only make deals with spren intelligent enough to enter into a deal in the first place.

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If you mean that literally: nowhere. She is the most immobile of all Knights Radiant

Figuratively, she is a scientist. She now has two surges to study. She also has a not entirely insignificant building to study. That may feel unsatisfactory. Well, honestly, that is likely.

She has multiple options, though they are not easy

  • recreate the old style method of materializing spren as fabrials - the benefits of being able to make new soulcasters would be enormous
  • start breeding spren who like to be in fabrials
  • replace the spren with something else (Breaths?)
  • and the most ambitious - make artificial spren - proof of concept exists: the Honorblades

Beyond that, with the expedition's return the cat is out of the bag. There will be at least diplomatic missions to other planets. Somebody needs to become the foreign secretary.

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Spren are in fabrials to take advantage of their Connection to a primal force. If she's a Bondsmith, she has direct power over Connections. 

My first guess: put a spren in a fabrial temporarily. Copy the spren's Connection to an Investiture framework made of Lifelight and Stormlight. The spren goes free and the fabrial works as though the spren was still in there.

Get to work Bondsmith scientist!

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I too thought that Navani's arc no longer has far to go, but commenters reminded me that she is a Bondsmith now! There is bound to be a lot of interesting exploration with her and Dalinar on the nature of Connection. Unfortunately I expect very little of that to happen before the 10 day deadline... so the pacing of the next book is going to be very odd.

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I doubt Navani will have to give up science. The way I see it, Navani and the Sibling are actually pretty compatible. The Sibling's song literally gets called "the song of science itself". What they disagree on are Navani's methods, and considering the Sibling says the Oathgate spren were willing, I find it likely the Sibling would be fine with fabrials being operated by willing spren.

After they bond, the Sibling tells Navani that the tower's fabrials are complicated, followed by Navani immediately saying what they're for, and the Sibling just going "YES!"

The Sibling doesn't really trust Navani yet, but if things go well, they could certainly do just fine. They just need to find methods they can agree on. Once that's done, they'll probably do even more for science than Navani could have done on her own, prior to becoming a Bondsmith.

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7 hours ago, Zedseayou said:

I too thought that Navani's arc no longer has far to go, but commenters reminded me that she is a Bondsmith now! There is bound to be a lot of interesting exploration with her and Dalinar on the nature of Connection.

Is Tension really that minor of a surge that nobody expects them to study it?

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15 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

As a character there's nowhere really for her to grow.  She's the greatest scientist/engineer in all of history as well as an exceptional team leader and diplomat. Her character flaw was that she doubted how perfect she was.

I thought her flaw was that she was too trusting and naive.

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I don't think she's trapped in the tower

 

Godspren nagel bond doesn't quite look like the standard Truespren bond. Stormfather can cross all Roshar and maintain his bond with Dalinar, I'm sure the Sibling can let Navank goes to anywhere 

 

However she's a scholar, not a warrior. Her surges aren't about fighting either, I think she will just stay in Urithiru for most of her time 

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  • 2 weeks later...

She also has to make up for the fact that she taught Odiums forces how to kill spren. Thats a big thing to overcome. Im annoyed that in all the reconailiation no one was like oh hey Navani you screwed up big here (like Phendorana is as much on her head as Moash) and need to clean up your mess.

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19 hours ago, Lemiltock said:

She also has to make up for the fact that she taught Odiums forces how to kill spren. Thats a big thing to overcome. Im annoyed that in all the reconailiation no one was like oh hey Navani you screwed up big here (like Phendorana is as much on her head as Moash) and need to clean up your mess.

The Sibling spoke to her about that. Something along the lines of: "Consequences once chased only humans. The Recreance made those consequences ours. This has simply sealed that fate as eternal"

One of the problems with Roshar is that there are way too many immortal beings. Now there are less.

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On 02/12/2020 at 7:06 AM, Leuthie said:

The Sibling spoke to her about that. Something along the lines of: "Consequences once chased only humans. The Recreance made those consequences ours. This has simply sealed that fate as eternal"

One of the problems with Roshar is that there are way too many immortal beings. Now there are less.

Thats not a consequence for giving the enemy the means to destory spren. Like i get story wise its a way to deal with immortal beings, but in world why is nobody pissed that while everyone was captured, Navani decided it was a great idea to develop weapons for the enemy!

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Anywhere. I think that Dalinar being bonded to the Stormfather and not being bound to the High Storm is suggestive. I don’t think she will be physically bound to Urithiru.

 

For Scholarship and Discovery? With the Sibling helping her, the more ‘Modern’ Fabrial Science, where spren are trapped will become a thing of the past. She will redevelop the Fabrials that are built around Spren cooperation.

She is in no way limited and probably far more liberated with her Bond to the Sibling.

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I think Navani's new flaw is that she does not think about the consequences of her actions and that she cant foresee the harm that she will cause. 

Navani discovered something amazing, but it may be the invention that causes the most pain in the history of the Cosmere.  If she had taken time to think, she may have been less willing to unleash it. 

Edited by teknopathetic
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3 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

I think Navani's new flaw is that she does not think about the consequences of her actions and that she cant foresee the harm that she will cause. 

Navani discovered something amazing, but it may be the invention that causes the most pain in the history of the Cosmere.  If she had taken time to think, she may have been less willing to unleash it. 

Yep. It’s the age old tech truism: you spend so much time thinking about whether you can, that you don’t stop to think about whether you should. I cannot wait to see how this factors into a story about the vast grey-area of morality and ethics.

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Anti-science is strong in this thread.

Navani discovered something that the enemy will use as a weapon. It can also be used by the good guys as a weapon. It's now easier to kill Radiants. It's now possible to permanently kill Fused. There are way fewer Fused than there are Radiant spren. The use of anti-light favors the good guys.

But the world hasn't thrown consequences her way because NO ONE KNOWS. Raboniel, Navani and the Sibling know where anti-Voidlight and anti-Stormlight came from. Raboniel is dead. Navani and the Sibling have an understanding about it.

Also, Navani has these same arguments with herself after realizing the weapon she gave the enemy. Ultimately, she convinced an ancient spren to help save the tower and the Radiants she put in direct danger, killed the one that basically forced her to make the discoveries, and kept a notebook so her side could take advantage of the same weapons. I think she's made up for her discovery.

 

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18 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

Anti-science is strong in this thread.

Navani discovered something that the enemy will use as a weapon. It can also be used by the good guys as a weapon. It's now easier to kill Radiants. It's now possible to permanently kill Fused. There are way fewer Fused than there are Radiant spren. The use of anti-light favors the good guys.

But the world hasn't thrown consequences her way because NO ONE KNOWS. Raboniel, Navani and the Sibling know where anti-Voidlight and anti-Stormlight came from. Raboniel is dead. Navani and the Sibling have an understanding about it.

Also, Navani has these same arguments with herself after realizing the weapon she gave the enemy. Ultimately, she convinced an ancient spren to help save the tower and the Radiants she put in direct danger, killed the one that basically forced her to make the discoveries, and kept a notebook so her side could take advantage of the same weapons. I think she's made up for her discovery.

 

The problem is though that Odium's team has access to this power both sides have a weapon which will dramatically altered the course of the war. El killed the pursuer with anti voidlight. Taravangian is the proud owner of a truly terrifying weapon. She is not off the hook yer. She may have to come to terms with what she did. There is still work to be done if she wants to make up for what she did.

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15 hours ago, Leuthie said:

Anti-science is strong in this thread.

Navani discovered something that the enemy will use as a weapon. It can also be used by the good guys as a weapon. It's now easier to kill Radiants. It's now possible to permanently kill Fused. There are way fewer Fused than there are Radiant spren. The use of anti-light favors the good guys.

But the world hasn't thrown consequences her way because NO ONE KNOWS. Raboniel, Navani and the Sibling know where anti-Voidlight and anti-Stormlight came from. Raboniel is dead. Navani and the Sibling have an understanding about it.

Also, Navani has these same arguments with herself after realizing the weapon she gave the enemy. Ultimately, she convinced an ancient spren to help save the tower and the Radiants she put in direct danger, killed the one that basically forced her to make the discoveries, and kept a notebook so her side could take advantage of the same weapons. I think she's made up for her discovery.

 

Navani wanted to show off to Robonial and she gave Rabonial exactly what Rabonial wanted. I think Navani fullwell knew whatever this anti-light was would be an absolute disaster, but she wanted to prove herself; to me, that is a weakness. 

Edited by teknopathetic
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14 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

Navani wanteds to show off to Robonial and she gave Rabonial exactly what Rabonial wanted. I think Navani fullwell knew whatever this anti-light was would be an absolute disaster, but she wanted to prove herself; to me, that is a weakness. 

Navani was not exactly working freely. She used whatever wiles she had to try and save her Tower. She was not JUST discovering and JUST naively trusting--she thought that Raboniel would betray her, though she hoped she wouldn't. She also didn't exactly know what else to do. She knew she was doing something dangerous, but she hoped that her having that knowledge would give her an edge, any edge. She's not a warrior. She's a brilliant woman. So of course she'd think that perhaps knowledge could be the weapon she would wield. 

She set up traps, trying to kill her. She created something dangerous, and yes, she enjoyed the scientific process. Yes, she was naive. But I read it as being clear that she was using all she had to try and find a way out. Her pride was engaged, yes, but it wasn't the driver. Her discovery, the order and structure of the scientific process, and the goal to free her people--that was the goal. She thought she was constructing a weapon that could kill a god. She, naive to manipulation, thought she could perhaps work upon Raboniel. She could not. But she did try.

I much prefer this active engaged Navani, using her own skills to try and do *something* to a Queen who would do nothing or fight a fight she would lose only to leave her people with no hope.

Raboniel was such a complex character, even reading it I wanted to believe that she would defect and not betray Navani. So surely I can see how, in her desperation, Navani would want to believe the same.

Edited by Bliev
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22 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

Navani wanted to show off to Robonial and she gave Rabonial exactly what Rabonial wanted. I think Navani fullwell knew whatever this anti-light was would be an absolute disaster, but she wanted to prove herself; to me, that is a weakness. 

Next time you're kidnapped and forced to do science by an ancient immortal representative of Hate, let me know how well you do.

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