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How Shallan attracted Testament. - post your absurd theories


Psykopathic

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Ok so 1 of the craziest things to me is that Shallan is basically in the process of reforging her oathes she already made, now to her 2nd spren. From the best I can tell this whole Testament ordeal was around when she was like 13 or 14? I'm not sure. BUT something crazy had to happen for her to get to what I assume would at least be her 3rd ideal. Break her bond. Bond Pattern and then progress to what I now believe is her 3rd ideal again? I think she will reach her 4th ideal when she no longer needs radiant. Point being, it seems she started way ahead of other radiants. So the question, what truths did young Shallan have to attract and progress with a Cryptic  so much earlier than everyone else? Has to be something INSANE. 

 

 

Ok the goal of this post!

Tell me your ABSURD, theories why Shallan got Testament?

For bonus points- what (crazy?) Oath(s) got her, her 1st spren blade?

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Ok I'll start off. 

 

So Shallan's mother was having an affair with Nale while Shallans father was off on political meetings. Shallan found out but was hiding it from her brothers and father. This formed the bond with Testament. When it came to light she was surgebinding, her mother tried to kill her because Nale had influenced her during their relationship. When Shallans mother tried to kill her to stop the return of desolation Shallan swore her 2nd ideal and killed her mother. 

 

What can yall come up with? Hehe 

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Shallan is secretly a brunette.  This overarching lie attracted Testament, who not only felt an attraction to the untruth, but was also Shadesmar's best stylist.  The truth spoken addressed the danger that the dyes and chemicals used could make Shallan's hair fall out.  She broke that truth when in a fit of rage, she started wearing a wig.

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2 minutes ago, Malim said:

Shallan is secretly a brunette.  This overarching lie attracted Testament, who not only felt an attraction to the untruth, but was also Shadesmar's best stylist.  The truth spoken addressed the danger that the dyes and chemicals used could make Shallan's hair fall out.  She broke that truth when in a fit of rage, she started wearing a wig.

Oh geez. That's a great start!

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3 hours ago, Argus the Awful said:

All children lie right? They just don’t know any better. I think that one day Shallan told Lin that she needed money for the bakery and then used it for something else. This attracted testament.

But then wouldn't every kid telling lies have attracted Cryptics? Maybe some of them wouldn't be well-suited to long-term Lightweaver radiancy (if we had known Shallan had Deadeyed Testament sooner, maybe that would be the consensus for her too), but... That seems like way too commonplace of an event for me, personally. :huh:

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Shallan saw a Ghostblood meeting happening and her mom was planning something absolutely wild, like taking over Jah Keved by force. Mraize may have also scarred her somehow. I think there's more to their story and Mraize has known her since she was a child, although there may be something disproving that somewhere

That or she discovered her Mom was a Herald, although with this, I'm not sure how much a young Shallan would understand and also perceive it as something so bad it needs to be repressed. Like if you found out your mom was a mythical figure from your religion, would you be mortified or excited?

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Shallan has secretly been a Sleepless this entire time, and has just repressed that fact. This explains her fascination with worldhopping (since she actually originated off-world), her fascination with changing the way she looks, her love of natural science and studying cremlings, and her mother's extreme reaction when she learned the truth. Her soulcasting block is part of her repression of the truth, since the mutability of matter is a bit too close to how she used to change her form. Testament was willing to bond her because she wasn't actually a child - she's hundreds of years old, and has simply forgotten.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Based almost solely on what may well be a typo and a misinterpreted internet comment (should be noted I'm a cisgender male):

Formless is referred to as 'he' occasionally. Shallan is gender diverse (is this the term?)/otherwise not purely cisgender, and she is repressing it because of Vorinism's strict gender roles. It might also explain why in the earlier books she hangs so tightly to stuff like 'only women should read', acting scandalised that Tyn eats 'men's food' and the whole 'safehand' business.

I legitimately thought this might be her big secret in ROW, partly because I'd read someone praising the Stormlight Archive for its representation of transgender people before I'd read ROW, and I didn't recall any trans characters (it probably referred to a character in Dawnshard though).

BTW, I've used female pronouns as it appears that so far Shallan seems to identify as a woman, but if my tinfoil theory is correct that might change.

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2 hours ago, jamesbondsmith said:

Formless is referred to as 'he' occasionally.

Yeah, iirc Formless's pronouns go from she to he to they and back again depending on the specific scene. I've taken it to emphasize its, well, formlessness, but that was definitely a theory that popped up that for a time I also thought might be the case.

2 hours ago, jamesbondsmith said:

partly because I'd read someone praising the Stormlight Archive for its representation of transgender people before

There's one single minor character lol, there's plenty to praise SA for but I dunno if any form of queer representation is really it.

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23 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

There's one single minor character lol, there's plenty to praise SA for but I dunno if any form of queer representation is really it.

That's what I was getting at. I didn't know of any non-cisgender characters at all, so when I saw a 'he' from a character usually referred to as 'she' I thought 'maybe this is it'.

I kind of agree that queer representation isn't exactly a focus, but BrandoSando seems to be attempting to make some minor improvements there.

(Edit: Re: trans characters, I meant I didn't know of any at the time I was reading ROW without having read Dawnshard. Still haven't yet, but that bit got spoiled for me)

Edited by jamesbondsmith
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The internet says almost all people with DID have a history of trauma in early childhood.  That trauma can be sexual, neglect, or violent abuse.  The incident with her mother happened at age 11.  From what I've read online that's too late to cause DID by itself.  By age 10 a clear sense of self should already be present.  Neglect doesn't seem likely, so I think we can assume there's significant abuse in her childhood that hasn't yet been mentioned.  I'm not a pscyhologist and certainly can't tell anyone how their trauma effects them.  Just talking about a book.

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7 hours ago, ConfusedCow said:

The internet says almost all people with DID have a history of trauma in early childhood.  That trauma can be sexual, neglect, or violent abuse.  The incident with her mother happened at age 11.  From what I've read online that's too late to cause DID by itself.  By age 10 a clear sense of self should already be present.  Neglect doesn't seem likely, so I think we can assume there's significant abuse in her childhood that hasn't yet been mentioned.  I'm not a pscyhologist and certainly can't tell anyone how their trauma effects them.  Just talking about a book.

Real life DID is caused by early childhood trauma, but Shallan is in a bit of a different situation because of the magic system. I think it’s notable that Shallan’s alters only started to appear when she started using Lightweaving to appear to be other people. It’s still possible that she was traumatised in early childhood, of course, I just don’t think it’s necessary that she was. 

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