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Where was Testament?


Lunu’anaki

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Something has been bugging me... In Oathbringer, Shallan spends weeks in Shadesmar with Kaladin and Adolin and everyone... Why did we never see Testament there? Is it possible we did and it was so subtle that we missed it? 

I'm also guessing Testament could have been one of the many cryptics following Shallan in TWoK... but where was he all the times that Shallan peeked into the CR in order to soulcast? I can imagine that she'd have blocked him out while doing the soulcasting... but people would have noticed him while traveling with her in Shadesmar... Is there a way that she could have been bonded to a deadeye and not had it appear nearby when she went into Shadesmar?

Any Theories? Sightings? Ideas?

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Brandon confirmed deadeyes bounded to human could move anywhere, even offworld

Quote

Questioner

Is there any effect on a Shardblade if the deadeye is really far away from where the Blade is?

Brandon Sanderson

Define really.

Questioner

The one that's trapped on the ship. Let's say they're taking him to the far side of Shadesmar, but the dude that owns that Blade lives in...

Brandon Sanderson

We will deal with that in the books. There is an effect, but that's not enough of an effect.

Overlord Jebus

Considering no one says that their Shardblade is acting weird in two and a half thousand years.

Brandon Sanderson

That happens all the time in Shadesmar. If you were able to get it off the planet, it would have an effect.

Questioner

If you as the owner of the Shardblade were offworld and you tried to summon it, that would be the effect?

Brandon Sanderson

Either way. But you can't take spren off-world. I mean, you can, but you can't really. Really all that I have in the notes for it to do right now, is to add slightly more time. So you're like, "That's weird that felt like not ten heartbeats, it felt like twelve." But it's like, you're on another planet, then it's suddenly speed of light type stuff. So suddenly it's like, "This is taking three years instead. That's a pretty big deal!"

...So I've got a few weird speed of light things mixed into the cosmere, and that's one of them.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

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6 hours ago, Lunu’anaki said:

In Oathbringer, Shallan spends weeks in Shadesmar with Kaladin and Adolin and everyone... Why did we never see Testament there?

Any Theories? Sightings? Ideas?

My understanding (please correct me where I’m mistaken) is that deadeyes, in the Cognitive Realm, are drawn towards the Physical Realm location of the human who has bonded them, but they can be elsewhere, and they are limited to walking speed in following.  Captain Ico comments  “they’ll walk right off the deck and into the ocean, looking for the human who holds their corpse.”

When a shardblade is summoned by its holder, the spren disappears from the CR (RoW ch. 75). My assumption is that when a shardblade is dismissed the spren returns to the CR in the corresponding analogue of that PR location.  Thus Testament would have been at the Davar home when Shallan left to find Jasnah.  Once Shallan boarded a vehicle moving faster than a walking deadeye, Testament was left behind.

She tried to follow, and ended up on an island, probably close to the Shattered Plains.  There she was found and cared for by her old friend, the inkspren shopkeeper, on the shores of the bead ocean nearest to Urithiru (RoW ch. 29).

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17 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

My assumption is that when a shardblade is dismissed the spren returns to the CR in the corresponding analogue of that PR location.

I think Spren apears in the same place where it disapears. In other case what sence would have binding/closing deadeye spren in locations?

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7 hours ago, Lunu’anaki said:

Something has been bugging me... In Oathbringer, Shallan spends weeks in Shadesmar with Kaladin and Adolin and everyone... Why did we never see Testament there? Is it possible we did and it was so subtle that we missed it? 

I'm also guessing Testament could have been one of the many cryptics following Shallan in TWoK... but where was he all the times that Shallan peeked into the CR in order to soulcast? I can imagine that she'd have blocked him out while doing the soulcasting... but people would have noticed him while traveling with her in Shadesmar... Is there a way that she could have been bonded to a deadeye and not had it appear nearby when she went into Shadesmar?

Any Theories? Sightings? Ideas?

 

7 hours ago, mathiau said:

Brandon confirmed deadeyes bounded to human could move anywhere, even offworld

 

This is indeed the in world explanation.

In my opinion however, i think the testament arc was added recently to the story outline rather then being the original plan.

I could be wrong but don't think im only one who thinks it.

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7 hours ago, Lunu’anaki said:

Something has been bugging me... In Oathbringer, Shallan spends weeks in Shadesmar with Kaladin and Adolin and everyone... Why did we never see Testament there? Is it possible we did and it was so subtle that we missed it? 

I'm also guessing Testament could have been one of the many cryptics following Shallan in TWoK... but where was he all the times that Shallan peeked into the CR in order to soulcast? I can imagine that she'd have blocked him out while doing the soulcasting... but people would have noticed him while traveling with her in Shadesmar... Is there a way that she could have been bonded to a deadeye and not had it appear nearby when she went into Shadesmar?

Any Theories? Sightings? Ideas?

When was testament made a deadeye 

i thought it was 10 years ago how can she be in WoK

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4 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

 

This is indeed the in world explanation.

In my opinion however, i think the testament arc was added recently to the story outline rather then being the original plan.

I could be wrong but don't think im only one who thinks it.

Hmm, i don't think so. There's some points where testament came up in the earlier books like when she killed that person whose name I can't remember in WoR

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1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

I think Spren apears in the same place where it disapears. In other case what sence would have binding/closing deadeye spren in locations?

This has to be that case or else Ico would never have been able to keep his deadeye in his boat, it wouldn't come back when it's summoned. 

My understanding of the timeline is as such; Testament was following Shallan up until Shallan got to Urithiru. When Testament caught up to Shallan, the shopkeeper who seems to be close to Urithiru encountered Testament and confined her in his shop. So by the time they have their unexpected Shadesmar adventure in OB, Testament was trapped with the shopkeeper.

I suspect one of the reasons Shallan didn't want to Soulcast in the books so far is because she was afraid of seeing Testament and being confronted with the truth of what she did. 

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40 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

This is indeed the in world explanation.

In my opinion however, i think the testament arc was added recently to the story outline rather then being the original plan.

I could be wrong but don't think im only one who thinks it.

Brandon said she had "regressed with her oaths" since at least WoR so no

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31 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Hmm, i don't think so. There's some points where testament came up in the earlier books like when she killed that person whose name I can't remember in WoR

That person was Tyn.  There is still debate amongst Sharders about whether it was Testament or Pattern that Shallan used to kill Tyn... but I definitely think it was Testament.  There are contextual clues in that scene (10 heartbeats, for example) that imply the Blade used was not a living spren Blade.

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

I think Spren apears in the same place where it disapears. In other case what sence would have binding/closing deadeye spren in locations?

That's a really good point, you may very well be right.  In any case, Testament would have been able to stay close to Shallan while she went to the Stattered Plains, but would have a long walk indeed to Urithiru.

Since most of what we know about deadeyes comes from 1) Adolin and Maya, whom we KNOW are a special case, and 2) living spren, whom we know are wrong about many things, we don't have a lot to go on yet.

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37 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Hmm, i don't think so. There's some points where testament came up in the earlier books like when she killed that person whose name I can't remember in WoR

At the end of WoR, Pattern makes Shallan Speak the truth that she killed her mother, by bringing her to a room the replicating the scene, 

Also in shallans first chapter in OB pattern and her discuss the above, where pattern says he killed her mother ?

now why would Pattern do this and work so hard to make shallan confront her past if wasnt him, and was hiding a deeper secret ? 

1 minute ago, mathiau said:

Brandon said she had "regressed with her oaths" since at least WoR so no

Not sure what you mean ?

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4 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

At the end of WoR, Pattern makes Shallan Speak the truth that she killed her mother, by bringing her to a room the replicating the scene, 

Also in shallans first chapter in OB pattern and her discuss the above, where pattern says he killed her mother ?

now why would Pattern do this and work so hard to make shallan confront her past if wasnt him, and was hiding a deeper secret ? 

I think Pattern has been trying to be careful not to shatter all of Shallan's illusions at once. Her Truths have been an inward journey and for the most part, she's needed some time between them to process them after she's suppressed them for so long. It's much like how Dalinar was given his memories of Evi a piece at a time instead of all at once. He was able to process and confront what he did before Odium laid it all on him at once. It was the difference between him becoming Odium's champion and "YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN." When someone's psyche is damaged like this, you don't try to confront everything all at once or they will break. Also, Pattern has tried to tell Shallan stuff but she'll refuse to listen and will basically ignore him and change the topic. So, he just goes along with the lie so they can deal with whatever is at hand rather than make a big deal about it. 

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28 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

Not sure what you mean ?

When we asked Bradon how Shallan had had a blade before her first truth and he answered she had said more truth before but had regressed. We were wondering what regressing could mean, when Kal regressed in his oaths it had killed Syl, why had it not kill Pattern? Now we know.

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22 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Wasn't testament being held by that another spren that knew her?

I completely forgot about this! Though, as others have mentioned that doesn't eliminate possible sightings from WoK and WoR I guess.

14 hours ago, Bejardin1250 said:

 

When was testament made a deadeye 

i thought it was 10 years ago how can she be in WoK

Precisely, which means he could have been one of the cryptics in WoK. We probably will never know that without a WoB though.

14 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I suspect one of the reasons Shallan didn't want to Soulcast in the books so far is because she was afraid of seeing Testament and being confronted with the truth of what she did. 

I think you might be right. I'm definitely going to have a critical eye on all the Shallan viewpoints in my reread. That's for sure.

Edited by Lunu’anaki
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2 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Would love to read a thread that recaps all the weird spren moments with Shallan and tries to pick out which ones are because of Testament.

If I have the where-with-all to accomplish something like that after rereading the first 3 I'll try and do that. (Though I honestly hope someone beats me to it ^_^)

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19 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I think Pattern has been trying to be careful not to shatter all of Shallan's illusions at once. Her Truths have been an inward journey and for the most part, she's needed some time between them to process them after she's suppressed them for so long. It's much like how Dalinar was given his memories of Evi a piece at a time instead of all at once. He was able to process and confront what he did before Odium laid it all on him at once. It was the difference between him becoming Odium's champion and "YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN." When someone's psyche is damaged like this, you don't try to confront everything all at once or they will break. Also, Pattern has tried to tell Shallan stuff but she'll refuse to listen and will basically ignore him and change the topic. So, he just goes along with the lie so they can deal with whatever is at hand rather than make a big deal about it. 

 

To be honest, that doesn't make sense, because Pattern is the one pushing for Shallan to confront the memories she has surpressed.

And when she speaks "the truth" he accepts it as an oath, now he wouldn't accept the truth if it was a lie surely ?

19 hours ago, mathiau said:

When we asked Bradon how Shallan had had a blade before her first truth and he answered she had said more truth before but had regressed. We were wondering what regressing could mean, when Kal regressed in his oaths it had killed Syl, why had it not kill Pattern? Now we know.

I believe there is a WoB as there called somewhere saying Shallans and Patterns bond wasn't as far along and that was why Pattern wasn't killed, also in the situation you mention above, Syl tells Kaladin that "i was only as dead as your oaths" which means anytime he reverted to them she would of been "revived"

Not sure why so many people seemingly have an issue with the idea testament was added at a later point to the story, authors do that all the time.

In my opinion, Brandon saw it could be done and decided to do it, instead of being the "plan all along", nothing wrong with that. 

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2 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

 

To be honest, that doesn't make sense, because Pattern is the one pushing for Shallan to confront the memories she has surpressed.

And when she speaks "the truth" he accepts it as an oath, now he wouldn't accept the truth if it was a lie surely ?

Pattern and other Cryptics have been following Shallan, they know what happened to Testament. They also seem to know that Shallan is important, that she is almost a herald like representation of the order of Lightweavers much like Kaladin is for the Windrunners. Pattern was confident that if Shallan killed him too, they'd just send another for her to bond. His goal is to get her to advance her bond as far as possible and speaking those Truths is how to do it. The fact that he wasn't her bonded spren at the time is irrelevant because I believe he was still there witnessing these events. She has not spoken an lies to him as Truths. He's only going along with the lies that she has not been able to speak the Truth about yet until he feels that it's time to confront it. A good example is in the beginning of OB when Adolin persuades Shallan to practice with her Shardblade. She says she hates the Blade but doesn't hate Pattern, which made no sense at the time. He couldn't acknowledge how that doesn't make sense because she hasn't acknowledged that she killed Testament. I'm postulating that he didn't pursue it because he knew she wasn't ready to confront that fact at that time. 

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4 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

To be honest, that doesn't make sense, because Pattern is the one pushing for Shallan to confront the memories she has surpressed.

Pushing yes, not forcing. He forced once, when he thought she was ready to accept having killed her mother, and it almost destroyed her.

4 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

Not sure why so many people seemingly have an issue with the idea testament was added at a later point to the story, authors do that all the time.

In my opinion, Brandon saw it could be done and decided to do it, instead of being the "plan all along", nothing wrong with that. 

Yes every author, Brandon included, add things that were not there from the start in the story, for example at some point he mentioned he hadn't decided who were the Truthwatchers spren. But Shallan's storyline is uncovering a mystery story and when you do one of those you must define the big mystery from the start.

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19 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

Pattern and other Cryptics have been following Shallan, they know what happened to Testament. They also seem to know that Shallan is important, that she is almost a herald like representation of the order of Lightweavers much like Kaladin is for the Windrunners. Pattern was confident that if Shallan killed him too, they'd just send another for her to bond. His goal is to get her to advance her bond as far as possible and speaking those Truths is how to do it. The fact that he wasn't her bonded spren at the time is irrelevant because I believe he was still there witnessing these events. She has not spoken an lies to him as Truths. He's only going along with the lies that she has not been able to speak the Truth about yet until he feels that it's time to confront it. A good example is in the beginning of OB when Adolin persuades Shallan to practice with her Shardblade. She says she hates the Blade but doesn't hate Pattern, which made no sense at the time. He couldn't acknowledge how that doesn't make sense because she hasn't acknowledged that she killed Testament. I'm postulating that he didn't pursue it because he knew she wasn't ready to confront that fact at that time. 

 

16 hours ago, mathiau said:

Pushing yes, not forcing. He forced once, when he thought she was ready to accept having killed her mother, and it almost destroyed her.

Yes every author, Brandon included, add things that were not there from the start in the story, for example at some point he mentioned he hadn't decided who were the Truthwatchers spren. But Shallan's storyline is uncovering a mystery story and when you do one of those you must define the big mystery from the start.

Gonna post some WoB as there called.

Marina

We know that Pattern was with Shallan before the murder of Shallan's mother. Will we see in the next books how they met?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you will probably see this some day.

Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A (Aug. 13, 2014)

Questioner (paraphrased)

Where was Pattern before Shallan drew him?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He was around. The bonding process had started when Shallan was young but then she pushed him away and he withdrew mostly to the Cognitive Realm until the bonding was started again and she pulled him fully into the Physical when she drew him.

Words of Radiance Houston signing (March 11, 2014)

Kythis

How did Pattern actually become a Shardblade even though he hadn't been fully pulled into the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

He had been pulled into the Physical Realm before when Shallan was younger, and she almost broke her bond.  And in so doing . . . 

Kythis

But he didn't go mad.

Brandon Sanderson

She didn't completely break the bond.  She didn't reject him completely.  But it was dangerous there for a while.  

Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

Given these, along with what i have previously mentioned from in txt, negates the possibility that testament was "the original idea"

Also people claim testament was used to kill shallans mother and tyn now, yet how could she summon a shardblade after breaking that bond? Gemstone wasnt added to it which is how blades are summoned/dismissed.

Also the light coming from the safe when ever Shallan looked in that room was in her mind, pattern/testament were never there.

There was enough ambiguity in the text to add testament as a plot device, to make the honour sprens viewpoint about the radiants more forceful.

Also testament adds nothing to Shallans mysterious childhood, since whats left to find out is who her mother was, what secret society she was in , and why, and why she tried to kill Shallan, testament adds nothing to that, so not sure what you mean in that regard.

Edited by Quick Ben
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3 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

Given these, along with what i have previously mentioned from in txt, negates the possibility that testament was "the original idea"

Also people claim testament was used to kill shallans mother and tyn now, yet how could she summon a shardblade after breaking that bond? Gemstone wasnt added to it which is how blades are summoned/dismissed.

Also the light coming from the safe when ever Shallan looked in that room was in her mind, pattern/testament were never there.

There was enough ambiguity in the text to add testament as a plot device, to make the honour sprens viewpoint about the radiants more forceful.

Also testament adds nothing to Shallans mysterious childhood, since whats left to find out is who her mother was, what secret society she was in , and why, and why she tried to kill Shallan, testament adds nothing to that, so not sure what you mean in that regard.

It was still her blade, while the Radiant still lives there is a remnante of the bond.

The Stormfather actually says that if the radiants were still alive it might have been possible to heal the shardblades.

Edited by Frustration
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4 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

Given these, along with what i have previously mentioned from in txt, negates the possibility that testament was "the original idea"

Going to address this point by point. First, WoBs on Shallan and her bond are not to be trusted completely. Some of it can be proven to be untrue and Brandon misled/obfuscated the truth on some points because he didn't want to ruin the Testament moment in RoW. He also implied that this is supposed to be confusing and he wants us theorizing on it:

Quote

enceladus_47

Does Shallan's "I killed my spren" count as a Truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna leave up to theorizing, figuring out the timeline that's going on with Shallan. What we can say is that Shallan is reconstructing, in many cases, oaths she has said before. And it is working slightly differently than someone who is saying new oaths. And indeed, saying she killed her spren is one of those steps. I'll leave it to you to try and parse through that. It's actually pretty complicated. We have a nice big page explaining all of this stuff internally, to make sure that we're keeping it all straight. Because she has violated oaths and reconstructed them, is basically what's happening. And she is regressing, and she's doing a... 1.1 steps forward, 1 step back, sort of thing, kind of frequently.

YouTube Livestream 23 (Dec. 17, 2020)
Quote

Also people claim testament was used to kill shallans mother and tyn now, yet how could she summon a shardblade after breaking that bond? Gemstone wasnt added to it which is how blades are summoned/dismissed.

The gem isn't required for a Knight and while Shallan "killed" Testament, it doesn't seem like she completely severed her bond, or Testament wouldn't be following her around. 

Quote

Also the light coming from the safe when ever Shallan looked in that room was in her mind, pattern/testament were never there.

There was enough ambiguity in the text to add testament as a plot device, to make the honour sprens viewpoint about the radiants more forceful.

Also testament adds nothing to Shallans mysterious childhood, since whats left to find out is who her mother was, what secret society she was in , and why, and why she tried to kill Shallan, testament adds nothing to that, so not sure what you mean in that regard.

I have no idea what you mean here either, I think we lost eachother. You asked why Pattern would be pushing her to speak the Truth that she killed her mother with him when it was really Testament. She didn't say "I used Pattern to kill my mother," she said "I killed my mother." How she did it wasn't the relevant part, only that she did it. The fact that she used Pattern(or so we thought at the time) was supposed to be a shocking revelation to the reader and an important piece of their relationship, but it wasn't explicitly part of the Truth she spoke. He's pushing her to do this because these are the deep Truths of her life, the things she needs to confront to advance as a Lightweaver. 

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The deadeye spren do seem to have limited autonomy and self-control over where they move.  Some seem to choose to follow their wielder around, while others chill at Lasting Integrity, or stand wherever another spren wishes them to.  I imagine it was by intent that Testament has kept out of sight from Shallan, either Testament's own intent or the actions of the Cryptics as a whole.  The hope was probably "wait for Shallan to be ready to accept this", but then they had to move up their plans when Shallan instead seemed to be regressing.

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