Shallan's Preposterous Cognitive Beads

[teknopathetic he/him]

Shallan draws specific attention to how preposterous it is that she is locating the exact beads she needs exactly as she finds them. What do we think is happening here?

Is it that:
a) the beads often pre-shift in the sea to be where they need to be. Beads can pre-arrange due to connection and fortune.
b) beads can shift their identity before someone touches that bead. The mind causes a bead that was a chair to swap with a bead for a room
c) there is another entity fiddling with the bead positions. Shallan is being helped specifically by something. 


Also, what do we think that last mysterious bead that Shallan found was? She says that the bead seemed eager to help and that there was something rather strange about it. She then is at the same time confused as to what voice had pointed her to where Adolin was. Did the bead tell her where Adolin was? What is this bead? Is it just the room she was grasping, or does she have something more strange? She grabs at least two beads in this fight scene, but only one seems to give her an odd sensation and possibly spoke with her. Seeing as Ba Ado Mishram then begins speaking to Shallan a few seconds later after the other unknown voice, this is all very odd. 

Could Shallan be hearing a voice from Truth? We know Wind is speaking so I am keeping an eye out for Truth. 
 

Quote

 Feeling overwhelmed, Shallan walked to him, still clutching the bead. It seemed… eager to be helpful.

What?

She’d never felt such a sensation from a bead before. And what was that voice that had led her toward Adolin? Frowning, she reached Adolin, but staggered. The room spun, and a second later she found herself on the ground, everything a jumble.

.... (skipped a bit)

It felt mortifying to go from a moment of such strength—attacking one of the Fused—to this. She kept hold of that bead in her freehand, because there was something very strange about it.

...

 

Her vision started to spin again. Briefly. The beads trembled. Adolin jumped back, and a face formed from beads in the wall—in the shape of a crowned femalen singer. The one Shallan had sketched, which Ketek had identified as Ba-Ado-Mishram. Shallan’s sight began to blacken at the edges, and she heard a rushing sound, accompanied by…

In her mind, a woman’s voice speaking to the rhythms.

I will kill you. I will burn everything you love. I will exact vengeance in a river of blood!

Adolin’s voice was a panicked but distant sound. Darkness tunneled around Shallan.

I will rampage across this world until not a single human remains drawing breath. Betrayers, thieves, monsters! I will send you back to the flames from whence you—

 

 

Edited September 5, 2024 by teknopathetic

[Master Silver]

I think that the beads that are helping her are creation spren that can manifest as what she needs. The living armor from Radiants seems to have unique secondary properties. Like Kaladin's protecting others. So perhaps this is what makes them OP in Shadesmar. 

[listerfeend]

1 hour ago, Master Silver said:

I think that the beads that are helping her are creation spren that can manifest as what she needs. The living armor from Radiants seems to have unique secondary properties. Like Kaladin's protecting others. So perhaps this is what makes them OP in Shadesmar. 

All spren in the CR form as their full body though... Creation spren, presumably, are much different in the CR than they appear in the PR, and wouldn't take the form of beads I don't think. Nor would they be invisible. Seems to me that, if Shallan had her armor, we'd see all those Spren following her around in the CR wouldn't we?

I too am very interested to know who or what spoke into Shallan's mind like that. 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Shallan draws specific attention to how preposterous it is that she is locating the exact beads she needs exactly as she finds them. What do we think is happening here?

Is it that:
a) the beads often pre-shift in the sea to be where they need to be. Beads can pre-arrange due to connection and fortune.
b) beads can shift their identity before someone touches that bead. The mind causes a bead that was a chair to swap with a bead for a room
c) there there another entity fiddling with the bead positions. Shallan is being helped specifically by something. 


Also, what do we think that last mysterious bead that Shallan found was? She says that the bead seemed eager to help and that there was something rather strange about it. She then is at the same time confused as to what voice had pointed her to where Adolin was. Did the bead tell her where Adolin was? What is this bead? Is it just the room she was grasping, or does she have something more strange? She grabs at least two beads in this fight scene, but only one seems to give her an odd sensation and possibly spoke with her. Seeing as Ba Ado Mishram then begins speaking to Shallan a few seconds later after the other unknown voice, this is all very odd. 

Could Shallan be hearing a voice from Truth? We know Wind is speaking so I am keeping an eye out for Truth. 

It's probably Connection's doing, because of Shallan's increased touch with SR. This WoB is about this:

Spoiler

Kalanit Taub

When Jasnah picks up the bead for the palace, is that the same bead that Shallan picks up in Oathbringer?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Kalanit Taub

Is that a coincidence or is there something else...?

Brandon Sanderson

So, whenever things like that happen you can assume there's little bits of Connection going on that's changing the probability a little bit. You're not meant to read much into it, but the probability is increased because of thing like that.

And you'll find, if you look really closely, there are connections between the characters that are really subtle that I'm doing, that anyone who's touching the Spiritual Realm or thing like that. For instance, in the second book, Syl turns into Shallan while Shallan is washed up on the beach while Syl is talking to Kaladin somewhere else. There's enough Connection going on that you see Syl change shapes, and Kal's like, "It looks like she's walking on a beach!"

It's just Syl... because through all of that, is turning into... You'll find things like that <happening> all through the books, really subtle, really small. There's just meant to be, one of the things in the Cosmere is Connection. Your Connection to people, Connection to things, places, influences probability a little bit.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019)

Beads wanting to help is weird, but on the other hand they all have voices and desires - the Wind's Pleasure ship wanted to help once it was convinced by Shallan and changed into smoke. This kind of communication might be enabled by Soulcasting. But this voice, which seemed to point her towards Adolin, was odd. It might be the bead who wanted to help, it might be something, or someone else. 

As for the bead itself, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the bead of a room from her home or something like that. A room that knows her, that has a Connection to here - maybe even the room in which she killed her mother? That bead was quite suspicious so it might have some meaning.

 

52 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

All spren in the CR form as their full body though... Creation spren, presumably, are much different in the CR than they appear in the PR, and wouldn't take the form of beads I don't think. Nor would they be invisible. Seems to me that, if Shallan had her armor, we'd see all those Spren following her around in the CR wouldn't we?

We actually did see suspicious Creationspren following her in an earlier chapter. It was said Creationspren don't change their shape in CR, but there were a few of them around Shallan who did that. I bet they are Testament's platespren. Ch 5:

Quote

 She attracted a few creationspren, little swirling lights. These ones, though, behaved oddly—in here, she’d never seen them change shape like they did in the Physical Realm, but these started adopting the appearance of her pencil or eraser.

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by alder24

[Master Silver]

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

All spren in the CR form as their full body though... Creation spren, presumably, are much different in the CR than they appear in the PR, and wouldn't take the form of beads I don't think. Nor would they be invisible. Seems to me that, if Shallan had her armor, we'd see all those Spren following her around in the CR wouldn't we?

I too am very interested to know who or what spoke into Shallan's mind like that. 

but these creation spren are really in the Physical realm and are manifesting in the cognitive realm.

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

4 hours ago, Master Silver said:

6 hours ago, listerfeend said:

All spren in the CR form as their full body though... Creation spren, presumably, are much different in the CR than they appear in the PR, and wouldn't take the form of beads I don't think. Nor would they be invisible. Seems to me that, if Shallan had her armor, we'd see all those Spren following her around in the CR wouldn't we?

I too am very interested to know who or what spoke into Shallan's mind like that. 

Expand  

but these creation spren are really in the Physical realm and are manifesting in the cognitive realm

I kind of like the idea of the creationspren we've seen acting weird being her shardplate, maybe because she is about to swear a Truth (which she then does). But the beads now - you raise a good point that they are something in physical realm if they are beads - but what if those are also her shardplate spren - for a different set of plate?

With two Nahel bonds would Shallan have TWO sets of Shardplate when far enough in both oaths?! I wonder what you could do with that...

Edited September 5, 2024 by Dreamwa1ker

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Someone pointed out on the Discord that she could have created the beads through substantial illusions. It being a creationspren taking the form of a bead also makes sense, though.

15 hours ago, Master Silver said:

The living armor from Radiants seems to have unique secondary properties. Like Kaladin's protecting others.

According to the RPG writers, Brandon told them the armor itself doesn't actually have unique properties and putting it around an ally is something any of the orders can do.

[listerfeend]

18 hours ago, Master Silver said:

but these creation spren are really in the Physical realm and are manifesting in the cognitive realm.

That's true, but we know that all the other spren when manifesting in both, part of them manifest in the PR, and the rest of them manifest as their "true" body in the CR. It's kind of confusing. I don't think there are any circumstances under which a spren would be a bead in the CR, though I'm open to being wrong on this. 

[NameIess]

I took that as Shallan lying to herself, getting past her block of needing a bead to manipulate things with by pretending she finds a bead of the right thing.

Edited September 5, 2024 by NameIess

[Immortal Platypus]

It could also be her unintentionally using Fortune, as I believe Kalak said something about that.

[listerfeend]

1 hour ago, Immortal Platypus said:

It could also be her unintentionally using Fortune, as I believe Kalak said something about that.

That is the most likely answer, frankly. The voice she heard in her head was very interesting, hard to say who or what that might be, but the beads? Almost certainly something to do with Fortune. Weird part is still about the bead "wanting" to help. I really only remember one situation in where a bead actually talks, and that was the Stick.... Maybe Stick is trying to help now, because it feels bad it wouldn't help that one time!

 

[Malim he/him]

Oddball theory:

Could it be the bead that represents the necklace from Adolin's mother that he has?  It was cared for by him long enough that it would probably want to help him.  Do we know if he still has it?

[teknopathetic he/him]

Chapter 12 and 13

Oh, so creation spren can become any bead most likely. That's convenient! 

[BinarySecond]

They're so cute! Shallan! Look we did it! Shallan!

[+robardin he/him]

2 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

They're so cute! Shallan! Look we did it! Shallan!

I also like the contrast between the other two 4th Ideal Radiants with Plate that we’ve seen.

Jasnah just summons and dismisses them without comment - though we haven’t seen a first-person POV of her doing so - and Kaladin just sort of unconsciously directs the windspren to become/do what he wants them to, like when they fly around protecting different people during the fight at Urithiru.

Meanwhile I’m picturing Shallan (note that they are addressing her directly as “Shallan! Shallan! SHALLAN!”) being the reason they’re so puppylike. It’s like a child making her dolls go.

Remember, at Thaylen Fields, when she first created/manifested Radiant as one of her three personas holding hands in a circle to peform the massive Lightweaving job of creating a whole illusory army to engage with Sadeas’ forces, Radiant had glowing garnet plate. Implying that Shallan, before suppressing it all as a child, had reached at least the Fourth Ideal.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence!

[+Bzhydack he/him]

18 minutes ago, robardin said:

Remember, at Thaylen Fields, when she first created/manifested Radiant as one of her three personas holding hands in a circle to peform the massive Lightweaving job of creating a whole illusory army to engage with Sadeas’ forces, Radiant had glowing garnet plate. Implying that Shallan, before suppressing it all as a child, had reached at least the Fourth Ideal.

And when Jasnah come to her, real Shallan was the one in Plate, not the normal one Like this supose to be deafult. I always assumed she was really in Plate but she didnt recognize/doesnt want to aknowledge she has one.

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

7 hours ago, robardin said:

Meanwhile I’m picturing Shallan (note that they are addressing her directly as “Shallan! Shallan! SHALLAN!”) being the reason they’re so puppylike. It’s like a child making her dolls go.

Remember, at Thaylen Fields, when she first created/manifested Radiant as one of her three personas holding hands in a circle to peform the massive Lightweaving job of creating a whole illusory army to engage with Sadeas’ forces, Radiant had glowing garnet plate. Implying that Shallan, before suppressing it all as a child, had reached at least the Fourth Ideal.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence!

Yes I have thought that Shallan already had plate before from childhood because of that Thaylen Fields scene. And the adorable childlike way the creationspren are behaving could then be a holdover from this, if Shallan had interacted with them in this way before. 

Or creationspren are just like that haha

[BinarySecond]

Yo dawg we heard you like plate, so we put plate in your plate.