Beginning of chapter effigies

[snoo]

I noticed that each chapter in WOK and WOR has up to four different herald effigies (and occasionally Hoid).

Sometimes the effigies reflect the radiants' order to which the main characters in the chapter belong to. In other instances they seem to reflect themes associated with a given radiant order (in some Kaladin chapters he has Jezrien, in some others he has Nale).

 

I was wondering if there are hidden messages in the choice of effigies (e.g. hints about new radiants). 

Anybody with thoughts about this? A quick search of the forums didn't return anything. 

[kaellok he/him]

I thought as you did, and spent around 20 hours of work looking for something more. If it's there, i couldn't find it.

They seem to reflect the "tone" of the chapter, or in some cases the main character of the chapter. I was frantically studying for finals during this time, and used the scrutiny of chapter titles and Herald effigies as a decompression method, so there is very definitely that.

[Moogle]

I was wondering if there are hidden messages in the choice of effigies (e.g. hints about new radiants). 

Anybody with thoughts about this? A quick search of the forums didn't return anything. 

 

You won't find much in the way of "hidden messages", at least to my knowledge. As kaellok says, they mainly deal with themes. If you look in the Ars Arcanum, you can see what each Herald was associated with, and if you look at the Surgebinding chart, you can connect the Herald's faces with their names. Chapters with Jezrien deal with protection/leadership, Vedel's chapters deal with healing/loving, so you'll see both pop up a great deal for Kaladin's chapters in TWoK, where he's torn between being a soldier and a surgeon.

 

The few "hidden" things that we know of:

• Chapters with Heralds in them feature their figures on the arches, at least in some cases. For example, chapters in which Nalan features almost always have Nalan's face. (Theories involving characters secretly being Heralds can use this as evidence.)
• The Masked Man image appears in almost every scene with Hoid in it, as well as anything dealing with him (ie. the Purelake interlude in WoK.) At least one Mraize chapter has the Masked Man, which hints that the Masked Man describes chapters in which worldhopping/wider cosmere things will be brought up. (Mraize is a worldhopper.)

Edited June 2, 2015 by Moogle

[snoo]

Thank you! As I suspected this is something that has been thought about for a long time...

 

By the way, I read a WOB somewhere saying that the end of SA (don't know if he was referring

to the end of the first 5 books or to the end of the whole 10) is already in WOK and WOR. Anybody

has that figured out yet?

[Guest]

I've seen that WoB as well, but don't remember the details.  He may've simply meant that the ending is going to look a lot like the Prelude, as opposed to BE a lot like it, So the Heralds come together, but instead of abandoning the Oathpact and walking their separate ways, they've actually completed the Oathpact and as one do (something cool).

 

Maybe join the 10 HonorBlades together using all 10 Surges, forming a Splinter with enough power that it will pull the other Splinters towards it and reforming the Shard of Honor in 1,000 years?  Or maybe something sadder, where they each shatter their own Blade and die?

[Shardbearer he/him]

This WOB refers to hints. The end of the Mistborn trilogy was hinted at in book 1. The end of SA has already been hinted at, as well.