Thoughts on Shallan?

[kari-no-sugata]

I've spent a while going through WoR to cover one particular aspect of her growth, to help argue that it's pretty natural.

Lightweaving. I chose this since it's less subjective than something like 'confidence'.

• Chapter 6, on ship - turns the deck green unintentionally - prompted by Pattern.
• Chapter 7, during attack - with prompt from old memory, sucks in Stormlight and shapes it into something vaguely humanoid. Enough to distract the attackers
• Chapter 15, with Tvlakv the slaver - unintentionally uses Stormlight to make her clothes look better. Is able to make it fade.
• Chapter 17, manages to consciously breathe in Stormlight for the first time. Tries to do Lightweaving but fails. Notices that the Stormlight is healing her.
• Chapter 20, with deserters - makes herself look like a queen, probably using the drawings she did earlier in the day as a reference. Fails to win over Vathah and he orders her captured but the others don't obey and instead run off to help. Seems clear that holding Stormlight helps propel her to action and feel more confident - the more the better. Not clear if she had any effect on sounds - the battle could still be heard after her Stormlight ran out.
• Chapter 34, when Tyn attacks her she creates a brief diversion - the diversion worked but actual Lightweaving was poor. Shallan does not yet know how to reliably form images.
• Chapter 36, while on the way to the king, Shallan sketches a specific vision of herself as someone strong enough to face Dalinar and co. Doesn't attempt actual Lightweaving.
• Chapter 38, while with the Highprinces creates and older better looking version of herself, presumably based on the sketch she does in chapter 36. Oddly, we don't specifically see when to started/ended the Lightweaving - only Sebarial's comment later suggests that she was.
• Chapter 42, sketches "Veil" and immediately uses Lightweaving from it to create her disguise. This is the first time we see a direct connection between her drawings and Lightweaving and also first time we see her creating something different rather than just enhanced. Shallan was a bit surprised it worked and it had a small defect on her nose.
• Chapter 43, sketches a wall and uses Lightweaving of that to hide herself from Iyatil.
• Chapter 47, attempts to change her hair colour with Lighteaving only using a mental image - fails. Sketches herself and this time it works. Pattern doesn't know why she needs to draw the images - it shouldn't be a requirement. Tries to make the Lightweaving vanish deliberately and fails. Sketches Sebarial from a Memory and creates fully realistic but entirely static Lightweaving of him. Figures out she can suck the Stormlight back in while touching the Lightweaving.
• Chapter 52, Shallan has determined via testing that her sketches are useful for Lightweaving for at least half a day and over a day tends to fail. She infiltrates Amaram's area with a messenger boy disguise then as a maid. Creates a Lightweaving of Amaram with Pattern providing audio.
• Chapter 54, visits Ghostbloods as Veil. Disguises herself as a rock to hide from them.
• Chapter 60, creates image of how she thinks she would be without lies - doesn't need sketch because she feels she knows it so well. Tries for hour to make sound work - fails. Finds out that if she separates too far from an image that it weakens and that Pattern's proximity helps, that she can transfer Stormlight to Pattern to keep the image sharp and that she can attach an image to move with Pattern, though not realistically - so she starts to think about solving that.
• Chapter 63, makes a shed appear larger than it is to hide herself for hours. Attaches a Lightweaving of Veil to Pattern, which has an animation sequence - though it has a fixed pattern. Dons Veil disguise. Uses quick removal and re-application of disguise to get past guards without Iyatil noticing. Creates ardent disguise from a quick sketch.
• Chapter 64, turns herself entirely black to hide from Amaram - she didn't have time to create a false wall. Dons Veil disguise again on returning to Iyatil.
• Chapter 72, while turning herself black to hide creates remote image of herself then Kaladin to distract the chasamfiend.
• Chapter 78, Lightweaves small image of Jasnah from recent sketch for Dalinar.
• Chapter 88, at Pattern's forcing Shallan makes Lightweaving of when her mother died.

Phew. Long list.

 

It would be very interesting to know if Shallan did use her Transformation Surge on the deserters - or herself, since I find the "coldness of clarity" mode to be suspicious, among other things. It may be that Shallan can do something a bit similar to emotional Allomancy and can even do it on herself.

 

Looking through the list above, the thing that stands out to me is that much of it is "more of the same" or incremental improvement. For example, her unintentional Lightweaving with Tvlakv is repeated with the deserters and Highprinces - she's doing something she knows she can already do, though more skilfully each time. When she distracts Tyn with a light projection it does its job (she just needed a few seconds) but from a skill point of view it's not much better than what she did on the ship. The big breakthrough is realising how closely her Lightweaving ties into her drawing, though she had been doing it for a while. It's interesting that she "shouldn't" need to sketch first - I guess that's something she'll have to figure out in later books since it's quite a big limitation.

 

I do feel that there is a slight disconnect when she creates Veil - I think this more a matter of perception since from a skill point of view it is not really "new", just a variation. What feels new is the direct connection between her drawings and Lightweaving - not direct in the sense of immediacy but making practical usage of Lightweaving. Later on we see that her drawings are good for Lightweavings for up to a day so her previous successes and failures make more sense - the connection between her drawings and Lightweaving was already there but it just wasn't obvious until later.

 

I think it's right that her failures with Lightweaving all come when she is practising - apart from the first 3 items in the list above the things she does "in the field" are all things she's done before or something similar before. It would be too much to say that they're all tried and tested techniques when used in the field but they're not far off. Maybe creating the wall to hide from Iyatil is the biggest leap of faith but since her first Lightweaving in the book was abstract (green colour) it's not surprising that it works. I like it that in item 14 that her progress in the end comes from discovering a limitation and trying to work around that limitation. It does feel a bit too easy that she can stick Stormlight into Pattern on the first try though.

 

On the topic of failure, maybe her various failings with Lightweaving don't stick (boom boom) in the memory so well since they're all abstract. If Kaladin fails a particular Surge usage it tends to be more visceral.

 

Overall, the actual technical skill in Shallan's Lightweaving to date doesn't seem that high, except perhaps for the animated version of Veil. It's more like she's taking some basic magic skills and managing to accomplish a lot with them by using them cleverly. It would be interesting to know if she has surpassed her childhood self overall yet, in Lightweaving.

 

I missed one instance out from my long list:

In chapter 43, before she sketches a wall she tries to disguise herself as a large man using a mental image and it fails. She realises she needs a sketch to make Lightweaving work.

 

This helps her progression in Lightweaving make more sense as we see her realise that her drawings are needed for her Lightweaving to work properly/reliably.

[Surgebound Rainspren]

during WoK a sigh would emit every time Brandon left Kalidin on a cliff-hanger and switched to Shallan. But in WoR she actually had merits which made me almost excited for her chapters, but it was still annoying when the story to a slower from something more engaging. I gave her a vote for Love because she can be smart and is a good way to deliver Exposition, but by focusing more on her powers it would make her more interesting.   

[kaellok]

during WoK a sigh would emit every time Brandon left Kalidin on a cliff-hanger and switched to Shallan. But in WoR she actually had merits which made me almost excited for her chapters, but it was still annoying when the story to a slower from something more engaging. I gave her a vote for Love because she can be smart and is a good way to deliver Exposition, but by focusing more on her powers it would make her more interesting.   

In WoR, on four separate occasions I put the book down to sleep because it was a Kaladin chapter, even though I loved him in WoK.  I absolutely love Shallan, though; of all of the characters Sanderson has ever written, we are by far the most similar in personality, attitude, response to stressful situation, and coping mechanisms to deal with traumatic experiences.

 

I can also say that even for a non-magical person, simply assuming you can do something, and tricking yourself into thinking that you can, lets you do all kinds of things that are a little insane.  I taught myself how to drive by assuming I knew how, and physics, and archery, and a number of...skills more suited to unsavory professions.  Confidence, even feigned, can make up for a tremendous lack of skill in a number of areas, and so from personal experience I actually found her initial forays skulking around to be rather believable (because she'd magicked herself some confidence, at least).

[traceria]

I can also say that even for a non-magical person, simply assuming you can do something, and tricking yourself into thinking that you can, lets you do all kinds of things that are a little insane.  I taught myself how to drive by assuming I knew how, and physics, and archery, and a number of...skills more suited to unsavory professions.  Confidence, even feigned, can make up for a tremendous lack of skill in a number of areas, and so from personal experience I actually found her initial forays skulking around to be rather believable (because she'd magicked herself some confidence, at least).

 

Been following this topic but haven't really contributed...  Kaellok, you make a really good point here.  And since you're talking from first hand experience, being someone similar to Shallan, I think that carries a lot of weight.  I'm not so much like Shallan as I've had some friends like her, so it's been hard to nail down why it was I found her more believable than some other readers.  I think you figured it out for me, so thank you!