Shallan’s Shardblade

[ivoryblade]

Shallan had her Blade at the time of her mother’s death, but it was locked away afterward, or so she thought (i.e. Pattern escaped). I can see why she wouldn’t have known that she had access to a Blade, since expectations and knowledge comes a great deal into play in the world of Roshar—if she didn’t believe she had a Blade, then she wouldn’t have sensed it with her.

 

That leads me to question when she claimed the Blade again. She definitely had it before the beginning of WoK, but after the murder of her father (or she would have just used the Blade to kill her father). There seems to be some connection to her Blade and her father’s death, since in WoK she states that the Blade was “the fruit of her sin.” Moreover, in WoR, she acknowledges that the Blade has saved her at least once before Tyn: “You’re alive because of that cursed thing. Again. Stop complaining.”

 

What does anyone make of this?

 

EDIT: Upon further reflection, I see that the only way Shallan could have had the Blade before meeting Jasnah was if she was already bonded to Pattern. However, she only rebonded with Pattern in WoR. How can this be?

Edited August 24, 2015 by ivoryblade

[Ascendant Warrior he/him]

IIRC, because she repressed her memories, she severed her bond with Pattern. I believe that when she said her truth at the end of WoK, this remade her bond with Pattern, thus allowing her to use her blade again. I'm not exactly sure on the timeline, but this is my thought process behind your question.

[Mestiv he/him]

As far as I remember, her mother (and her mothers friend) tried to kill her and she defended herself with the shardblade. That was when it got locked away and she rejected Pattern.

[ivoryblade]

IIRC, because she repressed her memories, she severed her bond with Pattern. I believe that when she said her truth at the end of WoK, this remade her bond with Pattern, thus allowing her to use her blade again. I'm not exactly sure on the timeline, but this is my thought process behind your question.

 

But on the night where Jasnah killed the footpads, Shallan already knew she had the Blade on her. Moreover, during her very first Soulcasting, when she was afraid of the Cryptics in her drawing, she began the process of summoning her Blade.

[Mestiv he/him]

I believe, she remembered that she has the blade just after she killed her father, or possibly even during the act. I think that she remembered how she defended herself against her mother after she killed her father. Before that, she believed, that her father protected her.

[ivoryblade]

I believe, she remembered that she has the blade just after she killed her father, or possibly even during the act. I think that she remembered how she defended herself against her mother after she killed her father. Before that, she believed, that her father protected her.

 

But how could she have remembered how she killed her mother when it was only at the end of WoR that she allowed herself to relive that event?

[Mestiv he/him]

But how could she have remembered how she killed her mother when it was only at the end of WoR that she allowed herself to relive that event?

 

Oh right, got that mixed up... Sorry, my mistake, in my head this was a bit different. So new theory: She did remember what she did all the time, she just couldn't face it. She repressed it from her mind, doing whatever she could not to think about her past. Similar thing happened in WoK with the death of her father. She knew he was dead, she just avoid the thought that she was the one that killed him. So in the same way, she might remember that she has the Shardblade, but push the thoughts about previously using it out of her mind. 

 

I think, that with Shallan it was never about her memory and remembering (she always remembered), just about facing those memories and admitting to herself what she had done. For years she made herself live a lie, she convinced herself to this lie so much, that although she remembered the truth, the other version was true to her too and would probably pass the lie detector.

[ivoryblade]

Oh right, got that mixed up... Sorry, my mistake, in my head this was a bit different. So new theory: She did remember what she did all the time, she just couldn't face it. She repressed it from her mind, doing whatever she could not to think about her past. Similar thing happened in WoK with the death of her father. She knew he was dead, she just avoid the thought that she was the one that killed him. So in the same way, she might remember that she has the Shardblade, but push the thoughts about previously using it out of her mind. 

 

I think, that with Shallan it was never about her memory and remembering (she always remembered), just about facing those memories and admitting to herself what she had done. For years she made herself live a lie, she convinced herself to this lie so much, that although she remembered the truth, the other version was true to her too and would probably pass the lie detector.

 

Hmm… I suppose. Yet there still stands the fact that having the Blade means having been bonded to Pattern. She must have been bonded to him when or before she first Soulcast the goblet into blood, or she couldn’t have Soulcasted. So the better question would be to ask when she began rebonding with Pattern?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Shallan bonded Pattern as a small child, we still don't know the circumstances of how that happened.  Shallan's mother and her friend tried to kill her so Shallan protected herself with Pattern-as-a-Shardblade.  This was intensely traumatic for her so she began to suppress certain memories.  As a result Pattern was basically shunted back into the Cognitive Realm and their bond began to atrophy (but not necessarily break).  The really interesting thing about suppressed memories like this is that the individual can be highly selective when it comes to what is forgotten, for example Shallan knows she has a Shardblade but doesn't allow herself to remember that the blade is a living spren. This is why she thinks about the 10 heartbeats despite that being a requirement of dead blades.

 

Also see here when Tyn attacks her:

 

 

Ten heartbeats.

 

But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it?

 

No. It must be. Time, I need time.

 

The reality of her situation starts to bleed through but Shallan willfully pushes it away.  WoR as a whole showed us how good Shallan is at compartmentalizing her issues.

[Oudeis he/him]

The really interesting thing about suppressed memories like this is that the individual can be highly selective when it comes to what is forgotten, for example Shallan knows she has a Shardblade but doesn't allow herself to remember that the blade is a living spren.

 

 

The reality of her situation starts to bleed through but Shallan willfully pushes it away.  WoR as a whole showed us how good Shallan is at compartmentalizing her issues.

 

Masterfully summated.

 

There seems to be some connection to her Blade and her father’s death, since in WoK she states that the Blade was “the fruit of her sin.”

 

You seem to be assuming that the only "sin" to which she could be referring is her father's death. Personally, I took it as, her mother had an almost religious fervor when it came to the Lost Radiants; I see it like a kid being sent to Pray Away the Gay camp. "This thing about me is dirty and it's because I'm sinning." Because the Blade isn't the "fruit" of killing her father, it's the "fruit" of her bond with Pattern, and we know her mother saw that bond as an evil thing. Just my impression.

[hoser he/him]

All along Shallan seems to have known that she could use Pattern as a Shardblade at some level.  Meanwhile, Pattern has mostly retreated to the cognitive.  Shallan states truths to re-establish the bond. 

Do we know whether she could use Pattern as a blade without stating truths? 

She thinks she can summon the blade, but if the bond has weakened, it may be that she has to state some truths before it will actually appear. 

[DreamEternal]

Maybe just summoning the blade would be enough of a truth, since it seemed to be about as buried as the killing of her father.

[Oudeis he/him]

But when she summoned it to kill Tyn it didn't seem to be a big, revelatory Truthful moment...

[hoser he/him]

My pathetic brain is not clear about how this discussion is moving. 

Maybe just summoning the blade would be enough of a truth, since it seemed to be about as buried as the killing of her father.

When she tries to use her surges in tWoK, Pattern asks her for truths.  Only after the truths can she use the surges.  But is that Pattern forcing her to deepen the bond, or is it that Pattern can't do it without the deeper bond? 

 

My judgment is that the level of the bond determines her capability, unless it is a situation like Syl temporarily suiciding herself to save Kaladin.  Summoning the sword is either possible or not.  If not, Pattern can interrogate her for a truth, then be there instantly as a sword.

 

But when she summoned it to kill Tyn it didn't seem to be a big, revelatory Truthful moment...

After the bond is re-established by truths and Shallan "drawing" Pattern more into the Physical, I don't think any more truth is needed to Shardblade-wield her spren.  But maybe that is the point you were making.  If summoning the sword for the first time counted as a truth, it would have advanced her, but it didn't seem to. 

While I agree that leveling up->powers and not power (shard-wielding)->leveling up, it could be that shard-wielding leads to a lower level truth, which at the time, Shallan is beyond.  In addition, having the sword is an acknowledgement she has been fighting, so I have difficulty being more certain than posing the question. 

[Dihatimus]

Pattern I think was almost dead. Her lies to herself straining the connection, him going stupid again. She knew she had a blade, she lied to herself about it being different from a normal blade. In TWOK she was thinking about summoning it during the encounter in the alley with the thieves Jasnah kills. She convinced herself that she needed ten heartbeats, because the truth of not needing that brought her too close to the truth of her mother. She doesn't actually try to summon her blade then, and I wonder if he would have been able to manifest if she did try. In WoR she uses the blade but I doubt admits to herself that it came without the ten heartbeats, or that it is able to change shape. Towards the end of WoR is where she starts to admit the truth "There is something wrong with your blade as with all blades. All except mine. Pattern?" and "How many of my lies hold me back?"

[Oudeis he/him]

Minor point of clarification; she does need the time to summon her Blade to kill Tyn. She summons a Lightweaving to confuse and distract her the precious seconds she requires because apparently even to save her own life she will not, at this point, acknowledge what's happened.

 

Interesting selective memory. The Lightweaving, which she did not specifically and directly use to kill someone, she simply forgets about, completely and utterly. (Though she is better at it than Soulcasting; perhaps she's not figuring things out, so much as taking the excuse of "learning" to let herself remember what she once knew.) The Blade, which presumably has more traumatic memories associated, she doesn't forget entirely, but forgets many of the specifics, and invents a few specific lies around it. Then, when she's accepting herself as a Radiant and re-learning about the thing she'd initially fully forgotten, she still has the mental block about her Blade for quite some time thereafter.

 

Am I the only one who thinks that what changed was the Ghostbloods? For the first time in her life, people expect competence from her, and even still are surprised at what she accomplishes. She was loved by her family, but never respected. In a letter, Nan Balat as much as admits that he never thought she'd succeed. When she does it, they're almost insultingly shocked that she did.

 

What seems to have helped her heal, given her the confidence to face the demons of her own past, is the time she spent with the Ghostbloods. Even Jasnah, who eventually warmed to her, initially treated her dismissively; not necessarily meanly, but from a presumption that she was just a silly girl. Even compliments were along the lines of, "Wow, I hadn't expected basic competence from you!" The Ghostblood do expect a lot from her. As Iyatil even says, Mraize was impressed by her... and Mraize isn't impressed by anyone. It's almost the first time she's received a compliment that wasn't tinged with rock-bottom expectations.

 

I dunno. Maybe just my head!canon, but I feel like this is a large part of how she finally gains the strength to survive knowledge of her past.

[Ansalem]

Am I the only one who thinks that what changed was the Ghostbloods? 

 

I think that was a big part of it. But I also think it was discovering her competence for herself through independence. In WoK she marveled at her new-found freedom in going to seek out Jasnah but she wasn't really all that free at all. She left dependency in one place to seek out dependency in another. Her life was still being directed by the goals of other people. It wasn't until after she was forced to make her way on her own that she really started to come to accept herself.

 

The Ghostbloods were a big part of that but not the only part, I think. Mostly I think it was the fact she thought she was the only person in the world who could do what needed to be done that really pushed her to change. Her separation from Jasnah was probably really good for her. If Jasnah had been with her the whole time, Shallan could have continued to rationalize away her repressed memories, but since she was the only one available she had no choice but to face them. It was either face herself or let doom befall the world.

[Oudeis he/him]

On a logical level, I recognize that I should totally agree with what you're saying.

 

On a rabid fanboy level, how dare you say there's a good side to the horrible tragedy that befall my beloved Jasnah.