Prediction: Mraize is ready

[Stark he/him]

Having a bit of a feeling.  Things are going too well with Shallan's plan.  And the standard for a novel, if this was the end of the book, something would go wrong during the execution, but they would win through.  At the beginning of the novel though?  A plan like this must go catastrophically wrong, setting up Shallan's plotline for the next three novels.

 

However, this is Stormlight, so the rest of the novel is equivalent to five novels from other authors, so just the rest of the book is fine.  Also, this is Sanderson, he likes to inverse tropes, so I could be wrong, and everything could go happily according to Shallan's plan, neutralizing the Ghostbloods on Roshar near the beginning of book five, freeing Shallan up for other things the rest of the book...

 

Yeah, no. The Ghostbloods have been integral to her arc for all four other books.  No way they are getting wrapped up on day two of ten in the final book of the first arc.  Something more is going to happen.

 

Especially as Mraize has always been two steps ahead of Shallan every bit of the way, even when he didn't know who she was. He is ready.  He has a plan.  So what is she walking into?  Let's look at what Mraize has done so far:

 

He has offered Shallan truth, laced with cliffhangers to lead her on, in exchange for services.  The truth about Hellaran for spying on Amaram.  Her brothers for investigating Kholinar.  And in Rhythm of War, all truth for finding Kelek.  The deal changed a bit once she found him, but the original deal was find access to Restares, get all truth.  Which she did, but has not received the truth promised yet due to the results of the Lasting Integrity arc, but we can guess what that might be, and link it to Mraize's plan for right now.

 

Mraize has shown himself to be capable of locating Heralds.  He and his Babsk both got close to Taln.  He spoke with Ash in Oathbringer and made a deal with her.  He got agents in the same room as Kelek.  His goal has not always been clear with them, but we have seen him be able to ID them, find them and get close.

 

We also know that he worked with Shallan's dad.  To what end, we do not know, other than his payment to Shallan's dad was access to a Soulcaster.  But there is no way he would interact with that family without knowing everything about every member.  Mraize does not leave his hunts to chance.

 

A lot of people here have suspected for a while now that:

Spoiler

Shallan's mom was Chanarach, and that her death at Shallan's hand is what started this return.  There seems to be some hint that this is accurate, as in Gavilar's POV of his death, the Stormfather confirmed that a herald had died at the same time Gavilar did, though not which one.  The timing lines up with Shallan's history for it being the same time.  

And Return's are caused by a herald coming back to Roshar, so whichever herald died is back on Roshar.

If that is the case, I suspect that Shallan will infiltrate.  She will find the Ghostbloods prepping to extract.  But she will also find herself information that will distract her from the Ghostbloods, and send her into a memory crisis with Testament.

 

This is my prediction:

Spoiler

She will see Mraize talking to a redheaded woman, who will turn.  The chapter will end with Shallan gasping, breaking character and saying 'Mom?'

 

And then the day will end and we will go to interludes, because of course we will have a cliffhanger after getting confirmation that Shallan's mom was Chana.  Because we are all suckers for fishhooks.

 

[Wanguu He/Him]

Heyy, I predicted this too. But as I said previously; wasn't Shallan's mom seemingly enemies with the ghostbloods?

[Stark he/him]

12 minutes ago, Wanguu said:

Heyy, I predicted this too. But as I said previously; wasn't Shallan's mom seemingly enemies with the ghostbloods?

Sorry I didn't see you post, but happy to have the confirmation that other people are expecting the same thing.  If you share the link, I'll go give you some of my daily re to support similarly minded folks.

 

I don't know if they were enemies.  She was definitely working with Nale and his Skybreakers.  Nale was working with Kelek for the Sons of Honor at the same time, to keep an eye on them and kill anyone who got close to completing the goal.  We've definitely seen Heralds wearing multiple hats.  And we don't know exactly when the Ghostbloods moved from passive observation to active participation in Shallan's family.  In her flashbacks, where Shallan is famously unreliable as a narrator, she did mention much later that they had a sudden influx of money from new quarries, and a sudden influx of new house staff, years after her mother's death....

So Ghostbloods may have only been passive observing at that time, and not actively working.  They don't seem to be enemies of the Skybreakers or Sons of Honor, just competitors for the same milestones.  And the Herald's motives don't always necessarily align with the groups they are infiltrating, right?

[Wanguu He/Him]

Ahh, don't worry, that was a " yay, someone else had this thought!" hey, but here's the link to the comment.

I would think that if the Ghostbloods had access to Chanarach, they wouldn't need Kelek, right? And it's possible the money come's from her father working with the ghostbloods, while her mother was definitely working with the skybreakers [citation needed]

[alder24]

I'm sure Ghostbloods are ready for Shallan's ittle hunt (I hope so, otherwise I will be totally disappointed), but I'm not so sure Chana will be there. I don't think Chana was a Ghostblood, I think Shallan either was a Ghostblood, or was used by them to kill Chana. 

There are several things pointing me to this conclusion, for example Shallan remembers using a Seon as a kid, Mraize knows awfully lot about Shallan's childhood and her Radiant powers and even advised her to find truths in WoR, Mraize calls her Little Knife and thought Veil is the real Shallan when Shallan's identity was revealed at the end of WoR, Shallan's mother said "she's one of them," which we all assume meant "Radiant" but could also mean a Ghostblood and lastly and most importantly, Thaidakar said to Gavilar that they put things in motion in the context of bringing back Radiants - and what's a better way for Heralds and Radiants to return than killing a Herald and starting a new Desolation?

Quote

“No,” Thaidakar said. “But listen: none of this is what you think it is. Deliver Restares to my agents, and I will help you recover the ancient powers.”

“I’ve grown beyond that,” Gavilar said.

“You can’t ‘grow beyond’ the tide, Gavilar,” Thaidakar replied. “You swim with it or get swept away. Our plans are already in motion. Though to be honest, I don’t know that we did much. That tide was coming regardless.”

If Chana was a Ghostblood, Thaidakar would not need Kalak that much - he still needed Kalak to find out where Mishram is, but his secondary objective was to capture him to learn how to avoid going insane as a Cognitive Shadow.

[Lezaleas]

I hope with all of my heart that everything goes well and she crushes the ghostblood right then and there. Very swiftly. Then we can be rid of that stupid plotline. I can recall 0 scenes or developments where I felt any semblance of interest in the story. Just kill them off book man, it would be the best

[+robardin he/him]

5 hours ago, Lezaleas said:

I hope with all of my heart that everything goes well and she crushes the ghostblood right then and there. Very swiftly. Then we can be rid of that stupid plotline. I can recall 0 scenes or developments where I felt any semblance of interest in the story. Just kill them off book man, it would be the best

Not sure what "stupid plotline" you're referring to, but the Ghostbloods... Are a Cosmere-wide organization.

And they're not going to get extirpated from Roshar in the first 1/8 of Stormlight Book 5, I don't think.

As later Cosmere books in all series will increasingly cross-reference each other in a shared universe way, the Ghostbloods will only become more, not less, prominent, I think.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

On 10/25/2024 at 2:56 AM, alder24 said:

If Chana was a Ghostblood, Thaidakar would not need Kalak that much - he still needed Kalak to find out where Mishram is, but his secondary objective was to capture him to learn how to avoid going insane as a Cognitive Shadow.

I'm not so sure on that part, I'm pretty sure the 'Affliction' he shares with the Heralds is more referring to his inability to leave his world. 

According to Hoid, the way to avoid insanity from living too long is by using Investiture to enhance the mind and remove excess memories. Thaidakar already has access to that kind of thing.

Cosmere Spoilers, Stormlight Only after all

Spoiler

Thaidakar/Kelsier invented the Unsealed Metalmind technology and has even use Unsealed Copperminds to store away memories such as when he first met the Southern Scadrians.

 

He wants Kalak more than the other Heralds because Kalak has been trying to figure out how to get off of Roshar despite being a Cognitive Shadow, and he's apparently gotten close to cracking the secret, which Kelsier wants so he can Worldhop himself and visit other worlds. Plus being able to create a monopoly on the Interplanetary Investiture trade.

Though what he'd want Mishram for I still couldn't guess beyond using her for some kind of Connection shenanigans, maybe even using her in a Fabrial so they don't have to let her out?

[Sedside she/her]

I think the Davar family member among the Ghostbloods could be Helaran. I have a theory that he can be alive, I have explained it here.

[Isilel]

10 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

He wants Kalak more than the other Heralds because Kalak has been trying to figure out how to get off of Roshar despite being a Cognitive Shadow, and he's apparently gotten close to cracking the secret,

 

But if the Ghostbloods had a Herald as a member, wouldn't that person have had a much better chance of getting information and cooperation out of Kalak? Why would Thaidakar have tried to use Gavilar and then Shallan in such a case?

Mind, I do believe that Lady Davar had been a Ghostblood rather than  Skybreaker-adjacent and that Shallan received some kind of undercover operator training as a child from them, for some reason. But I don't think that her mom was a Herald.

As to BAM, she could also be used as an investiture factory, couldn't she. She produces Voidlight. So, instead of carting stormlight across the cosmere, if you could move her to a preferred location and get Voidlight out of her while still keeping her imprisoned or otherwise restricted, it would be much more convenient. 

As to the Ghostbloods, I dunno. They should be prepared... But honestly, they didn't seem to be as competent as they should have been, given how much they were ahead knowledge-wise.

Like, their attempts to prevent anyone else from finding Urithiru, instead of watching and appropriating eventual results were counter-productive, Shallan becoming Formless and knifing Kalak, as Mraize wanted, would have been the end of her Radiance, and now again their best play should be to let Shallan do the hard work and then relieve her of the prize. Felt and Ala did well, but they report to Thaidakar directly, not Iatyl and Mraize. Though I have my issues with him as well, which would be better better discussed in the cosmere forum.

 

[alder24]

11 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I'm not so sure on that part, I'm pretty sure the 'Affliction' he shares with the Heralds is more referring to his inability to leave his world. 

That's too. But the way Mraize described it indicates he was talking mostly about insanity. RoW ch 82:

Quote

“Our master, Thaidakar, has an … affliction similar to that of the Heralds. He needs access to a Herald to learn more about his state so he might save himself from the worst of its effects.”

 

11 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

According to Hoid, the way to avoid insanity from living too long is by using Investiture to enhance the mind and remove excess memories. Thaidakar already has access to that kind of thing.

But does Thaidakar know about this? If he doesn't know, he won't use it, insanity will affect him then. He might have tools at hand, but he doesn't have the right knowledge.

12 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Though what he'd want Mishram for I still couldn't guess beyond using her for some kind of Connection shenanigans, maybe even using her in a Fabrial so they don't have to let her out?

I think it's about Connection - they want to transport Stormlight off-world and to do that they need to disconnect it from Roshar. But Mishram also can create Voidlight and grant forms of powers, which might be important as well. RoW ch 13:

Quote

Mraize took the broam back. “This gemstone cannot go where it is needed. A more perfect gemstone could contain the Light long enough to go offworld, but there is still the Connection problem. This little flaw has caused untold trouble. And the one who unlocks the secret would have untold power. Literal power, Radiant. The power to change worlds…”
“So you want to unravel the secret,” Radiant said.
“I already have,” Mraize said, making a fist. “Though putting the plan into motion will be difficult. I have a job for you.”

[Stark he/him]

Whelp.  I was wrong.

 

Would have been fun though.