Impressive Testament foreshadowing

[Lightdancer]

13 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

I always read this voice as being the voice of the item she turned into blood (like how the stick spoke or how the stone spoke to Venli). Either your idea or mine could be true, I think. I would prefer if it was Testament, but I am not convinced Testement can speak even as a deadeye wielded by her original radiant. Maybe though!

I would prefer it would be Testament too. My thought process is this: if Maya can talk to Adolin, surely Testament can talk to Shallan. They are, after all, both extremely special circumstances.

[MistLord]

It just occurred to me though: why did Testament never appear next to Shallan when she entered Shadesmar, like Mayalaran did for Adolin? We must assume that Shallan is no longer bonded to Testament's Blade.

[Kingsdaughter613]

23 minutes ago, MistLord said:

It just occurred to me though: why did Testament never appear next to Shallan when she entered Shadesmar, like Mayalaran did for Adolin? We must assume that Shallan is no longer bonded to Testament's Blade.

Because Testament was elsewhere in Shadesmar? She’d only come if Shallan summoned her as a blade just before they entered Shadesmar.

[AquaRegia]

On 11/27/2020 at 5:57 PM, Czernobog said:

With strong implications by Pattern that, should Shallan kill him, another would definitely be sent to bond her with her. Why?!?

On 11/29/2020 at 1:18 AM, maetel39 said:

I wondered about this too... not only were they willing to send a second Cryptic to someone who killed the first, Pattern thinks they would send a third after she killed him. Why the fixation on Shallan?

The answer to that question seems obvious to me:  Cryptics are also called Liespren.  They are drawn to lies.  We've heard Pattern admiring - even worshipping - lies, dozens of times.  And Shallan?  Shallan has THE. BEST. LIES.

1 hour ago, MistLord said:

It just occurred to me though: why did Testament never appear next to Shallan when she entered Shadesmar, like Mayalaran did for Adolin? We must assume that Shallan is no longer bonded to Testament's Blade.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Because Testament was elsewhere in Shadesmar? She’d only come if Shallan summoned her as a blade just before they entered Shadesmar.

Oh no!!!  A beautiful hypothesis killed by an ugly fact?  I think not.  I think we HAVE to accept that Shallan is indeed still bonded to Testament as a deadeye Shardblade:

Quote

And Shallan had not one Shardblade, but two.             RoW, Ch. 115

At first, I was unsatisfied by the "Testament was elsewhere" explanation; Maya was ALWAYS with Adolin, every time he went to Shadesmar.  But Ico, the Reacher captain in OB, does make that comment about deadeyes walking off the deck, wading through the ocean of spheres, trying to find the human that carries their corpse.  And we were told that the Honorspren had been collecting and "caring" for deadeyes in Lasting Integrity, which is where Testament showed up.  So I guess it's a possibility I can accept.

I don't think there can be any question at this point that Shallan used Testament to kill both her mother and Tyn, and that she is now bonded to both Pattern (alive) and Testament (as a deadeye).

[coolsnow7]

On 11/27/2020 at 2:35 PM, Czernobog said:

All the way back in WoK, in chapter 36, The Lesson:

 

Well, like, also her father trusted her not to kill him in cold blood. So there’s that. 

[agrabes]

I think a lot of it comes down to Shallan's own perception.  In WoK and early WoR, she believed she had a shardblade, but did not believe she was a Radiant because she'd repressed those memories.  So she expected her Shardblade to work like any other.  Did that mean she was bonded to Testament's dead blade?  Maybe.  But then again, doesn't the process of bonding a dead blade require an infused gemstone set into the blade to form the bond?

My personal theory is that she was bonded close enough to Pattern without really knowing or mentally processing it that she was summoning him as a blade.  As a Lightweaver, they didn't have to have a formal bond for him to allow her to summon him.  And she thought (incorrectly) that she was just summoning a dead blade.

[Bnaya]

2 minutes ago, Bnaya said:

Havoc (paraphrased)

In Way of Kings, Shallan is being chased by Cryptics. She begins to summon her Shardblade, stops and then Soulcasts for the first time. We know from Words of Radiance that it's her bond to Pattern, her Shardblade that allows her to Soulcast. So my question is, if Shallan had not begun to summon her Blade, would she have been able to Soulcast?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

She would not have been able to. Good question! Wow. No one has ever asked me that before.

GollanczFest London (Oct. 17, 2015)

just find that! 

look like it was Testament in that scene

Maybe the process of summoning the shardblade gave Testament enough physical reality that she can use her powers then

[MyAegis]

On 12/9/2020 at 6:44 PM, teknopathetic said:

I always read this voice as being the voice of the item she turned into blood (like how the stick spoke or how the stone spoke to Venli). Either your idea or mine could be true, I think. I would prefer if it was Testament, but I am not convinced Testement can speak even as a deadeye wielded by her original radiant. Maybe though!

Important thing to remember is that stick technically didn't speak, Shallan couldn't hear the voice of the stick, so Pattern had to act as an intermediary. Same thing with the ship before that, and presumably for the cup in Kharbaranth.