Shalash's statue

[Mailliw73]

At around Location 297 in TWoK it says

One was conspicuously missing. Why had Shalash's statue been removed?

This is when Szeth passes the set of statues of the heralds in Gavilar's palace. I noticed that my first time through and then it was never mentioned again. Does it have any significance or is it just me?

[Cheese Ninja]

Shalash likes to destroy depictions of herself. Either she had just visited, or someone knew she was coming and decided to put it away for the night. The first option is a bit more likely.

There are a few theories for why she does this, but I've personally settled on it being a combination of boredom and guilt-induced self-loathing.

As to why she was in Kholinar in the first place? That's the real mystery. I'm always trying to tie the Heralds into the present day storyline somehow, but this really does look significant.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Cheese Ninja

[Mailliw73]

What do you mean she likes to destroy depictions of herself? How do you know that?

[dj26792]

I'm not sure if we've had it confirmed or if its just an almost universally accepted theory, but we know that a woman is hiring people to destroy depictions of Shallash and we also know that Shallash is in WoK and the most likely place I can think of is in the immediate aftermath of a statue of shallash being destroyed, the implication being that she saved a bit of money by doing it herself.

[Cheese Ninja]

What do you mean she likes to destroy depictions of herself? How do you know that?

You know the Mistress from Baxil's interlude? That lady. Sigzil tells us that the Emuli worship the Heralds, Jezrien foremost among them. Baxil, an Emuli, makes a few prayers to the Prime Kadasix (Jezrien, leader of the Heralds). Hence, all the other Heralds are just "Kadasix".

This was the Hallowed Hall, the place where a wealthy man placed images of his Kadasix for reverence. The mistress walked up to the first piece of art. The painting depicted Epan, Lady of Dreams. It was beautiful, a masterpiece of gold leaf on black canvas.

“I’ve been thinking of seeking the Old Magic,” Baxil said, partially to keep himself from cringing as the mistress moved on to gouge out the eyes of a fine bust.

“A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of kings and winds, the vandal.”—Dated Palahevan, 1173, 73 seconds pre-death. Subject: a beggar of some renown, known for his elegant songs.

Basically, everything in that Hallowed Hall is a depiction of her (aka "Epan, Lady of Dreams"), but probably are not very good physical representations of her, because in that case I think even someone as dim as Baxil would have noticed.

There's also a bit of theorizing that "daughter of kings and winds" might mean that she is Jezrien's daughter, since Jezrien is known both as the king of the Heralds and the Stormfather. Sounds neat. We're never told if Jezrien is dark-skinned, but maybe her mother was.

She wasn’t Emuli–she didn’t even seem Makabaki, though she had dark skin and long, beautiful black hair. She had eyes like a Shin, but she was tall and lean, like an Alethi. Av thought she was a mixed breed. Or so he said when they dared talk about such things. The mistress had good ears. Strangely good ears.

@dj26792 She's not hiring people to destroy the depictions, she does it herself. She only hires people to carry her stuff and keep an eye out for other people coming by.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Cheese Ninja

[dj26792]

Ok yeah, it's been a while since I've read the book, so I'd forgotten that, but it is true.