Shallan's hidden past

[Garglemesh]

We always talk about how people with spren became cracked or broken. We went through a whole book about Shallan's past and how broken she was. Yet, as we find out at the end of the book, Shallan had the Nahel bond before all those events. My thoughts are that either weird stuff was happening to her before her mother's death, or else the whole "breaking"/selection process is different than we think. What would a young child be doing to attract the attention of a Cryptic, who loves lies and truths? Maybe there was more abuse going on than than we realize. Maybe she did things we don't know about yet. Anyway. I'm thinking there's more secrets to unearth. It might also explain her fascination with the Ghostbloods.

[bdoble97]

I know we are not going to be getting any flashbacks of her but I love how Sanderson has put these flashbacks in. Maybe with Dalinar's  flashbacks we can get hints towards other characters and that they all were intertwined in some grand scheme of the ghostbloods. 

[thegatorgirl00]

At the start of WoR, Pattern talks about his earliest memory is being with Shallan. Then Shallan starts to remember being in a garden before quickly shutting down the memory. So far, that's the only clue we have about the start of her bond. 

[marianmi]

i think the "cracked/broken" persons might actually be a red herring.

maybe it's a simple as "spren are attracted by traits" as seen on the cognitive side. for example, cryptics are attracted by art. now, we've seen from jasnah's unpublished chapter, that spren are both in the cognitive and physical (and look different). so imagine when shallan draws, and there are hundres of creationspren appearing in physical, how would that look like in cognitive? def. the cryptics would have leashed these creationspren to take them to the place where the creative human is ... and then they get to look a bit more at that person, maybe even the person notices them in the corner of their eyes ...

Edited October 2, 2016 by marianmi

[maxal]

The "cracked/broken" criteria isn't a red herring: the author has spoken about it often enough plus all of his magic system imply the need for an emptiness for the magic to sink in. What may be a red herring is how "broken" one must be to be capable of having a Nahel bond. This is the part I personally believe we have been over-amplifying over the last years. In the books, we have been privy to both Kaladin and Shallan's stories which were horrific: it made us believe having lived through horrors was the requirement.

I think we got it wrong. Kaladin's most horrific life experiences happen after Syl has started to bond him. Shallan's horrific teenage years happen after she had bonded Pattern...

Kaladin was broken by Tien's death: a sad event, but surely not as traumatic as watching his own squad being slaughtered, being sold into slavery and ultimately making it to the bridge runs. 

As for Shallan, Pattern once said how she was no broken, just cracked wide enough for him to slip in. The tragedies which happen after didn't amplify her Nahel bond, they practically destroyed it, The same could be said about Kaladin.

What happened prior to mother's death? My personal guess is not much. Her family was an unhappy one, probably a fighting one where parents loudly argued one against the other. She was just one of those children growing up in a dysfunctional family who's block it all up, withdrawing into her drawings, trying to create alternate realities were they were all happy. This, I believe, attracted Pattern, but I doubt there is much else to Shallan's past, no great secret to uncover. We are likely to hear about it, eventually, but not through a flashback. Maybe with her brothers coming to Urithiru, she'll be forced to talk about those things.

[If.you.die.I.go.stupid]

There isn't a lot to draw inference from,  just Kaladin because we know his brothers death was his breaking point.  We do not know what broke/cracked Shallan or anyone else.  I would guess that Dalinar was broken either by his brother's death or his wife’s death and his reaction to it. 

Do we know the nature of the required break? It is usually discussed as some sort of mental break,  but when I consider what broke Kaladin and what I think broke Dalinar,  I wonder if it is a spiritual break instead. 

[Jondesu]

1 hour ago, If.you.die.I.go.stupid said:

There isn't a lot to draw inference from,  just Kaladin because we know his brothers death was his breaking point.  We do not know what broke/cracked Shallan or anyone else.  I would guess that Dalinar was broken either by his brother's death or his wife’s death and his reaction to it. 

Do we know the nature of the required break? It is usually discussed as some sort of mental break,  but when I consider what broke Kaladin and what I think broke Dalinar,  I wonder if it is a spiritual break instead. 

I've assumed it's emotional, or some sort of dissonance between cognitive and spiritual. Perhaps one causes the other.

jW

[Krandacth]

2 hours ago, If.you.die.I.go.stupid said:

Do we know the nature of the required break? It is usually discussed as some sort of mental break,  but when I consider what broke Kaladin and what I think broke Dalinar,  I wonder if it is a spiritual break instead. 

I've proposed a theory on this that specifies a spiritual break, and potentially a different kind of spiritual break for each order (and even each form of magic in the cosmere). It is pure headcanon, but I think it's based on fairly good evidence and reasoning.

 

[Argel]

10 hours ago, maxal said:

This is the part I personally believe we have been over-amplifying over the last years.

And we do not know what happened to Renarin, Jasnah (though strong hints about men, so she could be tragic), Lift, or Ym.  If anything, Ym seems fairly well adjusted. 

I wonder if enough empathy for others can also create openings (not sure if I would call them cracks)? Or selflessness. 

[maxal]

2 hours ago, Argel said:

And we do not know what happened to Renarin, Jasnah (though strong hints about men, so she could be tragic), Lift, or Ym.  If anything, Ym seems fairly well adjusted. 

I wonder if enough empathy for others can also create openings (not sure if I would call them cracks)? Or selflessness. 

Thinking about Adolin? I think cracks may form in those moments where you feel everything is falling apart around you and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change it. Crack may be what happens when you are faced with your own lack of power: watching a brother die without being able to help, seeing a family fall apart without being able to do anything about, witnessing your own inability to prevent death, having a disability you cannot control nor heal which prevents you being who you think you ought to be..

There are those who couldn't or wouldn't act and there are those who did. So far, only the first ones have been made Radiants.

[marianmi]

After re-reading WoR, I had a feeling bonding Syl actually started before Tien's death. BUT, maybe we should not look at Syl's bonding process, because the other spren all left Shadesmar to bond with a specific person, whereas Syl left Shadesmar w/o any target for a bond.

Ym - spending his family's fortune and being the instrument of a murder should do it.

Lift - living as an orphan, she must of felt a lot of pain and seen a lot of death.

Renarin - probably guilt of being useless in fight?

Dalinar - you can find a few. His relationship with Navani before she married Gavilar, whatever happened with his wife, that he wanted to forget her, plus the guilt over Gavilar's death (he thought if he was not drunk he could have saved him), that he got over before becoming KR (which I think helped).

Adolin - hm, he's too clean not to have something there  

[maxal]

10 minutes ago, marianmi said:

After re-reading WoR, I had a feeling bonding Syl actually started before Tien's death. BUT, maybe we should not look at Syl's bonding process, because the other spren all left Shadesmar to bond with a specific person, whereas Syl left Shadesmar w/o any target for a bond.

Ym - spending his family's fortune and being the instrument of a murder should do it.

Lift - living as an orphan, she must of felt a lot of pain and seen a lot of death.

Renarin - probably guilt of being useless in fight?

Dalinar - you can find a few. His relationship with Navani before she married Gavilar, whatever happened with his wife, that he wanted to forget her, plus the guilt over Gavilar's death (he thought if he was not drunk he could have saved him), that he got over before becoming KR (which I think helped).

Adolin - hm, he's too clean not to have something there  

Syl mentions she found Kaladin when he was a squad leader in Amaram's army which happens after Tien's death. I agree though there has been quite a few ambiguous quotes about Kaladin's Nahel bond timeline, but I am of the opinion it most likely happened after Tien's death.

Ym seems to have spent a lifetime in penitence for his crime. Surely this is enough. 

Lift. Well, huh. Pretty straight-forward.

Renarin, I think, was broken because of his sickness. He never accepted having a disability. He never tried to move past it: he allowed it to stop him, to restrain him. He basically decided he wasn't worth anything because faith has decide he shall be born sick and incapable of yielding a sword. He is the one whom, I think, felt the strain of being unable to be the one he thought he was. 

Dalinar was probably broken after Gavilar's death. Adolin mentioned how his father had never been the same after the event and how he never wanted to watch him crush as he was again.

Those four cases all have one thing in common: they had lived through hard events through which they all felt they were powerless. They were witnesses of tragedies without being able to help.

Adolin is different... He has had hardships, but unlike the others, he always had a course of action opened to him. Still, he ended up in a bottleneck of his own doing. His trajectory is very different from the others, I have no idea what it may mean. As for being perfect, I recently read an interesting comment about that... Remember how Adolin reacts to Kaladin telling him about Amaram's betrayal? He tells him he isn't surprised as Amaram has always look too perfect to be true: it made him wonder what he have been hiding. The commentator flipped it around: "What are YOU hiding Adolin?". He is too perfect and perfection always comes at a cost, what price is Adolin paying for his?

[Argel]

14 hours ago, maxal said:

Thinking about Adolin?

Ym and Adolin, but more of Ym since he was a proto-KR for sure and seemed to be devoted to being very charitable. Adolin has that whole soldier thing, so less time to be charitable. Though I suppose you could make a case that his miltary career is his selflessness, though personally I think that his military career was so expected of him from such as young age that I doubt he would see it that way. It would be interesting if Ym turned out to be a proto-Edgedancer as some have speculated.

13 hours ago, maxal said:

[Adolin] is too perfect and perfection always comes at a cost, what price is Adolin paying for his?

I dunno, there must be some "normal", less traumatized people out there, right? Though the anger issues -- trauma over the loss of his mother that he's buried away instead of addressing?

Interesting though about the powerlessness. Though it seems less clear-cut for Shallan, though I think it works for her -- it was a long time before she finally killed her father and she was more powerless when it came to protecting the rest of the family from her father. There's also the "can't choose your parents" angle. We don't know enough about Jasnah, but she was obviously powerless to save her father. I'm trying to recall -- has Brandon ever brought up rape in any of his stories? That's one obvious place to go with Jasnah's hints about problems with men.

[maxal]

10 hours ago, Argel said:

Ym and Adolin, but more of Ym since he was a proto-KR for sure and seemed to be devoted to being very charitable. Adolin has that whole soldier thing, so less time to be charitable. Though I suppose you could make a case that his miltary career is his selflessness, though personally I think that his military career was so expected of him from such as young age that I doubt he would see it that way. It would be interesting if Ym turned out to be a proto-Edgedancer as some have speculated.

Ym strikes to me as a man who had a difficult pass and is now striving to make penance by giving out to others. He killed a man. Maybe this is the great mystery Brandon wants to keep secret... If he killed a man and yet made it to the Edgedancers, then what does it mean for Adolin who killed a man too? 

Adolin most likely never had much of a choice when it comes to his career or his life path. Each time I think of his upbringing, the words rules and expectations. 

10 hours ago, Argel said:

I dunno, there must be some "normal", less traumatized people out there, right? Though the anger issues -- trauma over the loss of his mother that he's buried away instead of addressing?

Interesting though about the powerlessness. Though it seems less clear-cut for Shallan, though I think it works for her -- it was a long time before she finally killed her father and she was more powerless when it came to protecting the rest of the family from her father. There's also the "can't choose your parents" angle. We don't know enough about Jasnah, but she was obviously powerless to save her father. I'm trying to recall -- has Brandon ever brought up rape in any of his stories? That's one obvious place to go with Jasnah's hints about problems with men.

Well, I am not implying Adolin hides anger issues or deep trauma because following his mother's death, I merely disagree it leaves absolutely no traces. My thoughts are watching his mother died is part of the reason Adolin grew up so responsible, clearly thinking his role is to take care of his family members. It isn't rare for a child to grow up too fast following the death of a parent and while Adolin is immature in certain ways, he is at times overstepping the role of a son. It doesn't "brokenness" or "deep trauma", but issues or sleeping issues. Sometimes people are forced to follow a course of action for long and it goes well until cataclysm. Then everything goes bad.

Shallan was powerless to change anything in her family. 

[Garglemesh]

On 10/2/2016 at 9:02 PM, maxal said:

Those four cases all have one thing in common: they had lived through hard events through which they all felt they were powerless. They were witnesses of tragedies without being able to help.

This resonates with me a lot. Ym had no intention of killing anyone. He delivered something he hadn't known was poisoned. He was powerless to heal, to undo the wrong he'd unknowingly done. Maybe the timeline is less important? That would make more sense in Shallan's case, than some other hidden traumatic event, though her situation is still odd in that her being a Radiant put her in a situation to become a Radiant. A little recursive.

[Argel]

3 hours ago, Garglemesh said:

This resonates with me a lot. Ym had no intention of killing anyone. He delivered something he hadn't known was poisoned. He was powerless to heal, to undo the wrong he'd unknowingly done.

Good point, I forgot about that.

3 hours ago, Garglemesh said:

Maybe the timeline is less important? 

Or maybe cracks are easier to create/form at a younger age? For example, getting lost in the woods as say a 4 year old could be significantly more traumatic than as an adult, who may e.g. use the time of day plus angle of the sun to help figure out where to go. Or remember that the house is at the top of a hill, so hike upwards. Or climb a tree to get a look around.

Dang, Shallan drops her two scopes of ice cream, tears and wailing ensue, and *bam* she's a proto-KR!!  

On a more serious note from the ice cram, we probably should not rule out child abuse, such as physical beatings. The only thing bothering me now is why did she become a proto-KR and her brothers didn't? Her artistic talent?