Jump to content

Formless...male?


Jasqueen

Recommended Posts

I wouldn't be surprised if its intentional. Having dealt with her Father's rage, I wouldn't be surprised if Shallan associates the general anger inside as a male aspect while its still forming. Also, might have been a way to keep it separate from her own personality as long as possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I wondered this too, but someone mentioned that the SA game cards also depicted Formless as male. The he/she incongruity has already been mentioned by someone else on the typos thread, in case it actually is a typo, never can be sure with Brandon (looks at Mistborn original trilogy)

Edited by Honorless
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shallan and formless

Shallan doesn’t want to face hard truths or internalize potentially harmful realities that could have negative ramifications to her life. This was built from the powerlessness she felt in her childhood. Her parents were under a lot of stress, due to them both being tools things that were bigger than them. Shallans parents stress was expressed unto their children.  

Shallans mother seems like an ironic figure. She played with forces in hopes to shape the world. Those forces were reflected upon her in the form of her own Daughter. ANd echoed in the death of her husband.

Shallan represses her own emotions and forms them into easy to handle detached witticisms cope with the day to day, so she deosn’t have to internalize. while repressing the larger traumas she has endured.

Descovering her powers, her being able to change her face and the ramifications of that. A different face, a different personality to deal with things Shallan isn’t confidant or comfortable with. 

Vale  helps Shallan cope with the anxieties of having to deal with people and manipulate them. While also being the form her negative coping mechanism  manifest in, binge drinking. Vale is also represents Shallans proclivity to detach from reality with her wit, but to an extreme. SHe uses tactics to throw people off balance with her behaviour uses her words as a more honed tool than Shallan does. Shallan was a sheltered privileged light eyes, even with her traumatic past colouring it, she isn’t a street smart tough. Vale is an excuse not to feel embasressed while being in social situations she has never been in. I do not remember the name of the woman who trained Shallan in swindling people and eventually killed. But she is a woman who Shallan respected and wanted to be more like shallan admires the competence she feels she lacks herself. 

Radiant is a counter point to vale. She is based of the Jasnah. Shallan sees herself, more and more, as a backwater light eyes who is ill equipped to deal with a more refined culture that is presented to her. Shallan looks at Jasnah and sees her composure, her confidence in seemingly and situation, her pose, refinemnt and self assuredness and pragmatic efficiently. She tries to echo all these Qualities in Radient when she feels she’s incompetent or ill suited to a situation. When she feels like a child in a room of adults, as she must have felt  through the majority of her childhood. Radient is the one who takes responsibility, is the motherly figure that cope with all the things she feels others see her as too much of a child to deal with.

Formless is the byproduct of the growing tensions between the three main personals. Vale and Radiant were tools. Shallan grew to lean on them too much each as a coping mechanism. More and more she used them less as the tools as they were crafted to be, and more as an escape from reality. They were made to be tools to allow her to functions in situations she felt anxiety around. WIth those tools though, she never had to face those aspects of life and grow. More and more the tools became more like crutches. She didn’t make decisions on her own, she needed a consensus of the personas to act, adding more barriers between Shallan asd reality. 

Shallan has made layers around her so she deosn’t have to deal with aspects around her directly. Through RoW Vale is attempted to train Shallan and not holding her had that she will be able to cope. Shallan at some level wants to be able to experience reality but is afraid of what that means for her. Much like Kaladin had to learn that he wants to protect, but can’t help everyone, he can’t help everything external to him, he needed to internalize that. Shallan needs to cope with the external judgments of other, and her internalizations of them, and not crumble and fracture into personas as a coping mechanism.

Formless is the reaction to the indecision she has made around her with the two other personals. She made a escape rout if reality ever becomes too hard for her one that strips her of any hesitation or self doubt or self reflection. Formless is the abandonment of all indecision and self doubt, the self destructive path Moash took in the form of a persona. The other path availed is to actually look at your past and internalize it and try to move on, much as Dalanar is trying to do, what Moash refuses to do.

Formless referred to being as male by Shallan I assume is due to her father brutal nature but love of Shallan. Her father was a brutal and callous man. But he was decisive and protected Shallan. Her father tried his hardest to strip the people around him of their autonomy. As formless does to Shallan. Formless talks with a cold belittling detachment to Adoline and Pattern. Formless takes all Indecision away to protect Shallan, as any of her persons are methods of self southing and defence. It is a reaction to the indecision the trio face, the trio is a system so that things can be delt with, not for them to also be further agonized upon in inaction and deliberation. Her tools are working, so she manifests a new one.

I also find myself thinking back to when Shallan killed the woman Vale is based on. Her decisive demeanour and commanding tone and presence.

 

I would like to know what others think of this, whatever this is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I'm pretty sure it was a typo. It isn't the only typo in the book, and Formless wasn't an alter, as confirmed in the text several times. This is confirmed early on, before we get the final revelation, but ultimately made very clear in those final chapters. Shallan never seems to question her gender or sexuality, enjoys and identifies with feminine things, and is specifically interested in and attracted to men, so there's no evidence to support that she has or had a male alter yet. And since Formless was just a false front, a fake idea to let Shallan run away and not an alter at all, there was never a separate identity or personality that could have been male. While it's not impossible that she could have a male alter in the future, progress means breaking away from alters and not depending on fracturing her own mind to function, so ideally she won't be making further alters in the future. I have a digital Kindle copy, so mine might not have the exact page numbers as a physical book, but even the use of "they" later on was only used to confuse exactly who was in control (it was Shallan, but she didn't want to admit it) and hide exactly what "Formless" was (again, Shallan, though the next Shallan scene went through and explained the whole thing in detail). 

Edited by Jod1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

I noticed this as well. The passage where he/him pronouns are used is:

"Formless--who had been hiding deep inside these last few days--stirred. She'd thought him forgotten, but he had been waiting. Watching..."

I don't think this can be chalked up as a typo, since both "he" and "him" are used. However, this is the only time he/him pronouns are used for Formless. Elsewhere, it/its pronouns are used for Formless, and when Shallan "becomes" Formless later in the book she/her pronouns are used.

My personal theory is that Formless had he/him pronouns in an earlier draft of the book, but Brandon changed his mind on that and happened to miss this instance while editing.

 

Edited by PrometheusLKR
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...