Shallan's Farseeing Drawings

[Stormgate he/him]

I'm rereading WoR, and I caught something:

She paused, noticing what she’d drawn: a rocky shore near the ocean, with distinctive cliffs rising behind. The perspective was distant; on the rocky shore, several shadowy figures helped one another out of the water. She swore one of them was Yalb.

A hopeful fancy. She wished so much for them to be alive. She would probably never know.

She turned the page and drew what came to her. A sketch of a woman kneeling over a body, raising a hammer and chisel, as if to slam it down into the person’s face. The one beneath her was stiff, wooden . . . maybe even stone?

The first drawing, I believe, is one of what actually happened to the crewmen. The second is likely of the scene, the night of Gavilar's murder, when the Herald (forgot her name) destroyed her statue's features.

The importance of these drawings is that they demonstrate that Shallan can draw real events that she did not witness. I'm not sure, but perhaps this is the "perk" of being able to control both Transformation and Illumination.

[CJ Feboris]

Yes I agree, these are interesting, but why these? The first makes total sense, but seeing Shallash seems odd and there is probably something quite important here. The herald of beauty who IIRC is the Lightweaver patron, being drawn by the first Lightweaver in millennia. Any thoughts as to why?

[chironides he/him]

No actual proof for this, but maybe being a patron of a Radiant order comes with being able to project your thoughts or memories unto your followers?

[DreamEternal]

I currently believe the Radiants all have some form of clarividence, also seem in Kaladin's dreams of riding the storm. It also makes the Truthwatchers stick out a little less, if what they do is just a powered up future focused version of what all orders do in their own ways.

[MoS03]

Why would it have to be Shallash at that point in time? Or any specific point in time? I'd wager it was happening right then, as we know Shallash does these things regularly (Lift interlude). It has something to do with her memory? Contact with the Cognitive through Pattern? No idea.

[TwelfthOfSnackTime he/him]

I'm rereading WoR, and I caught something:

The first drawing, I believe, is one of what actually happened to the crewmen. The second is likely of the scene, the night of Gavilar's murder, when the Herald (forgot her name) destroyed her statue's features.

The importance of these drawings is that they demonstrate that Shallan can draw real events that she did not witness. I'm not sure, but perhaps this is the "perk" of being able to control both Transformation and Illumination.

 

 

Great catch there! For some reason when I read that scene I thought it was showing a representation of Jasnah creating a fake body on the boat with her Soulcasting. Shallash makes a lot more sense given the picture. I'm sure it will be important later on somehow.

[Nyali she/her]

Yeah, I think it's definitely Shalash, but it could certainly have been Shalash at the exact point in time that Shallan did the drawing. Ash does this kind of thing pretty darn often, from what we read in Baxil's interlude (WoK I-7). She's the "daughter of kings and winds, the vandal" who "scratches out her own eyes" (WoK ch55 epigraph). For whatever reason, Ash doesn't want people knowing what she looked like, and ten years earlier, right before Gavilar was murdered, Kelek told Nale that Ash was "getting worse" and that "we weren't supposed to get worse" (WoR prologue).

 

 

But yeah, it's interesting that Shallan drew Ash specifically, given that Ash is her Order's patron. I suspect that she needs some form of Connection to the subject to do that sort of farseeing.

 

 

Now here's a question - does this ability to Farsee through art relate at all to what Khriss wrote in the Ars Arcanum of Shadows of Self / Bands of Mourning? Specifically, she said that the surgebindings of Roshar which give access to two completely different powers cause the powers to mix like a chemical reaction, the result being greater than the sum of each on its own. Together, the two powers grant two abilities and an effect. Is the bonus effect the Lightweavers gain from Transformation + Lightweaving related to these visions? (Or is it related instead to how she makes people able to see another version of themselves and then change their lives to become the person they saw that they could have been?)

 

Thinking about it more, the Truthwatchers can almost certainly do stuff like this too. What do Truthwatches and Lightweavers share in common? The Surge of Illumination - the manipulation of electromagnetic forces. What if both Truthwatchers and Lightweavers are able to use Illumination to "see" things happening far away, manipulating the light to bring them images of things happening elsewhere? Each Order of the Knights seems to primarily use their powers in a specific way that makes the most sense to them and is easiest for them. Kaladin is great at using Gravitation to ride the winds, and uses Adhesion only when necessary in fairly crude and rudimentary ways. Shallan is great at using Illumination to create illusions and fool people, but Transformation comes harder to her. What if it's natural for Truthwatchers to use Illumination to see and hear distant things instead of creating illusions, but can create illusions if they try? What if Bondsmiths can use Adhesion primarily to create groups of people who stick together, rather than using it to literally stick objects together?

 

It's interesting.

[TwelfthOfSnackTime he/him]

Devious Brandon. Gives us three different effects that could be considered the 'Bonus magical effect' so we can't be sure which it is.

 

For Shallan, is it far-seeing, potential unlocking, or her perfect recall/art skills?

For Kaladin, is it Stormriding dreams, leadership/squires, or his uncanny fighting skills?

 

Which is just talent and which magical? Are all three bonuses and Kriss was wrong about there only being one effect?

 

 

Edit: As I was re-reading my post I noticed a pattern.

One potential bonus is magical in nature(i.e farseeing and stormriding)

One was related to the KR relationship with others(i.e. Potential unlocking and leadership skills)

and one was internal to the KR (i.e memory talent and fighting talent)

 

I'm seeing an effect for each of the Realms possibly.

Edited May 19, 2016 by TwelfthOfSnackTime

[Nyali she/her]

Perfect recall is something that all Lightweavers have. Well, or all Lightweavers have some sort of memory-based ability, not necessarily that one. There's an epigraph that mentions their Order's "strange and varied mnemonic abilities" (WoR ch49 epigraph). I don't get how that would follow though from the chemical reaction of Illumination and Transformation, but it could be that the "bonus effects" aren't necessarily related to either base Surge.

 

If having Squires is the bonus effect of being a Windrunner that only manifests at Level 3, I'll be a bit sad. I was looking forward to Gaz, Adolin, and Navani channeling Stormlight. But the fact that it manifests only when Kaladin becomes a Level 3 Windrunner makes me think it's more likely related to being a Level 3 Radiant than to being a Windrunner specifically. Even though we know that Shallan was a Level 3 Radiant since age eight (or was it six?), her intense denial of who she is and what she can do might be artificially preventing her from forming strong enough Connection with others to allow them to channel Stormlight through her spiritweb.

[Stormgate he/him]

Squires are not the Windrunner effect. Other orders are said to have them, some more than others. The Bondsmiths, to use a bad example, likely had no squires, while Windrunners naturally have more.

The main problem with identifying an effect is that we have no examples. If we knew the effect for one Order, or one Twinborn, we could probably extrapolate the rest using the information we had.

[dvoraen]

With Lightweavers, I think it's all tied to Connection.  Shallan's Memory taking is establishing Connection to a person, place, event, and so forth, which would explain why she thinks she was drawing Yalb; she'd taken a Memory of him before, during The Way of Kings, so she has a small "Connection" to him.

 

As the Nahel bond emulates the bond between a Herald and his or her Honorblade, I think there may be a touch of Connection to a given Herald as well that comes along for free, which would explain why she's also depicting someone who is presumably Shalash.

 

Either way, it's been shown in other works (being vague for recent work spoiler reasons) that Connection can allow one to bypass certain Physical and/or Cognitive limits.  This is why I think what Shallan (and Lightweavers in general) are tied very strongly to this particular attribute, which is probably due to Illumination in general.  (I am insinuating that I believe Truthwatchers also utilize Connection a lot, but more on a Spiritual level, whereas Lightweavers are more Cognitive in how they acquire it.)

Edited May 20, 2016 by dvoraen

[The Ninja Yodeler he/him]

Man, I really have to get the names and Order of the Heralds down. I had no idea who they were talking about when they said "Ash is getting worse...". Hell, I didn't even know those two at the feast were Heralds until I read it here on the forums, about 2 weeks ago! Had no idea when I read Baxils interlude that he was working for a Herald. No idea Ash was a woman, or that she was the 'daughter of kings', or that she was the lightweavers patron Herald!

But about Shallan far-seeing. I remember thinking when reading those had to be real visions of things happening at that moment, or very recently. It just wouldn't have made sense(to me anyway) for it to be mentioned otherwise. And I think that's when I took notice that the woman chiseling the statues had real importance. Thanks for bringing it up though, because I had honestly completely forgotten about it lol.

[Argel he/him]

Same here Ninja Yodeler, so don't feel bad.

[CJ Feboris]

Man, I really have to get the names and Order of the Heralds down. I had no idea who they were talking about when they said "Ash is getting worse...". Hell, I didn't even know those two at the feast were Heralds until I read it here on the forums, about 2 weeks ago! Had no idea when I read Baxils interlude that he was working for a Herald. No idea Ash was a woman, or that she was the 'daughter of kings', or that she was the lightweavers patron Herald!

But about Shallan far-seeing. I remember thinking when reading those had to be real visions of things happening at that moment, or very recently. It just wouldn't have made sense(to me anyway) for it to be mentioned otherwise. And I think that's when I took notice that the woman chiseling the statues had real importance. Thanks for bringing it up though, because I had honestly completely forgotten about it lol.

The only problem with this is that by the point of these visions, yalb and the crew would have been adrift for a month or so. This seems rather too long, I don't claim to know the timing but I suspect the truth that BS alludes to here is more complex than we see at first blush.

[Eccentric Hero he/him]

Man, I really have to get the names and Order of the Heralds down.

 

 

Same here Ninja Yodeler, so don't feel bad.

 

Once, I found this shared by someone on 17thShard:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R7NoW7vMfWMSezANJ1Me7p4rK72kutmnc5kuMKugqQU/edit#gid=0

 

Of course, I bookmarked it and I advise you to do so too.

[hoidhunter he/him]

yeah...illumination certainly seems to have some sort clairvoyant kicker associated with it. Forgive me for going off topic, but it's something that has been bothering me, and I haven't been able to get solid input from anyone else. In the scene at the end of WoR, when Renarian and Shallan are in the oathgate together...Renarian all of a sudden has a rock in his hand that he slams into the wall and starts drawing zeros with...pretty unremarkable...except that Shallan remarks "where did he get a rock?" so the fact that he has one is unusual. He didn't have one before...and there aren't any lying around. Does Renarian have the ability to form stone?

[Rasarr she/her]

 Shallan remarks "where did he get a rock?" so the fact that he has one is unusual. He didn't have one before...and there aren't any lying around. Does Renarian have the ability to form stone?

 

For some reason, the first thing I thought upon a re-read was that he summoned Glys, though I don't know if a spren would be content with being used as a writing implement... or if Renarin is past his Third Oath, for that matter. 

 

Still. It's a weird thing for Shallan to bring attention to.

[DreamEternal]

For some reason, the first thing I thought upon a re-read was that he summoned Glys, though I don't know if a spren would be content with being used as a writing implement...

Why not? Writing has a much lesser chance of breaking ideals than killing, and spren are still content with being used as weapons.

[Rasarr she/her]

Why not? Writing has a much lesser chance of breaking ideals than killing, and spren are still content with being used as weapons.

 

Hm... back when I wrote that, there was an entire train of thought that led to this conclusion, but it eludes me now   IIRC, it was me wondering whether some types of spren wouldn't be too... haughty to change into something else than a weapon (used for the "noble" purpose of mass-slaying of Voidbringers), for lack of a better word. They come in all shapes and sizes, and so far we've seen only helpful ones, while Glys doesn't seem to be aiding Renarin much, so I figured if there was one spren who'd refuse changing into a rock, it could be Glys. We've been told spren can be less than shining paragons of helpfulness and joy, it's about time we've met one who is.

 

Though granted, that's some weak reasoning right there 

 

Also, couldn't the "rock" Shallan saw be this box Renarin's carrying with him everywhere?

Edited May 29, 2016 by Rasarr

[Jondesu he/him]

Also, couldn't the "rock" Shallan saw be this box Renarin's carrying with him everywhere?

IIRC, there's a WoB saying that the box is just a box, related to Renarin's autism, but nothing magical or special in itself. It's possible there's a rock in it, I suppose, but it seems a little weird. I agree that the way Brandon worded it drew attention to it, but perhaps he was just messing with us.

jW

[Nyali she/her]

I assumed he took the rock out of his pocket, and it had been a random rock that he'd been using all book to write on the walls. It surprised Shallan because she didn't know of any reason Renarian would have for keeping a rock in his pocket.

[TwelfthOfSnackTime he/him]

Lets be honest. Pulling a rock out from nowhere was the least weird thing that Renarin was doing at the time. Shallan already thought he was a little on the weird side and now he's raving and writing on walls. It might just have been a attempt at humor in a very stressful situation or to show just how scatter-brained she was at the time.  

[Argel he/him]

Also, was that when we learned Renarin had been the one writing the numbers on the wall? Cannot recall if there was an earlier reveal for that.

[Eki]

Also, was that when we learned Renarin had been the one writing the numbers on the wall? Cannot recall if there was an earlier reveal for that.

No, I think that was it. There may have been hints earlier on (like the fact that Renarin was one of the only people close to Dalinar during highstorms), but nothing explicit until that scene.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Also, was that when we learned Renarin had been the one writing the numbers on the wall? Cannot recall if there was an earlier reveal for that.

 

No, I think that was it. There may have been hints earlier on (like the fact that Renarin was one of the only people close to Dalinar during highstorms), but nothing explicit until that scene.

 

Wait, I thought it was Dalinar who wrote the numbers. Am I misremembering? I thought that for one of the highstorms only Dalinar was in the room and then they discovered the writing still. Is that incorrect?