What broke Shallan?

[Nathrangking]

@maxal I whole wholeheartedly agree. That was basically my hypothesis of her home life with Lin taking up the coldness of his wife as a coping mechanism.

[DudeJr]

I agree as well, I think there are still things we don't know, but I feel, that overall, having such a traumatic family is what broke her.

Having a emotionally abusive/manipulative childhood is enough to scar people for life.

 

That being said, I think that there's more to this, something minor that might tie the whole theory together...

[Toaster Retribution]

14 hours ago, Flash said:

That being said, I am partial to the theory that Helaran is still alive. However the evidence that he had dead plate and blade at any point is too much for me to think he ever actually became a skybreaker. Otherwise we would have seen him in edgedancer. I think Lift would have mentioned a red head. 

Edgedancer spoilers:

Spoiler

I doubt that the two Skybreakers who Arclo killed were the only ones Nalan had. I dont think he brought his entire order to the city they were in.

 

Edited August 1, 2017 by Toaster Retribution

[maxal]

Helaran is most definitely dead. The reason for it is: he is dead per the book and Brandon confirmed he will not use "fake death" again within the near future because he realized he has used them too often recently.

Here is what Brandon had to say on dead, then not dead characters recently on Reddit:

Quote

 

I've watched this conversation with interest, and wasn't planning to step in, as it's exactly the sort of thread that's generally better without me. Author intervention can derail a good discussion.

But after considering, I decided I did want to talk about this topic a little. There are two things going on here. One is the mistake I made with Jasnah in WORDS, which I've mentioned before. One is a larger discussion, relevant to the cosmere.

Warning, WALL OF TEXT. This is me we're talking about.

You see, Jasnah wasn't originally meant to be a fake-out. Jasnah originally was going to go with Shallan to the Shattered Plains--but she was really messing up the outline, diverting attention from Shallan's character arc and pointing it toward Shallan/Jasnah conflicts instead.

My biggest breakthrough when outlining the book in detail was the realization that the book would work so much better if things I'd planned to do with Jasnah in it were diverted to later books. When that came together, WORDS really started working. Hence her jaunt into Shadesmar. I initially wrote the scenes with it being pretty clear to the reader that she was forced to escape--and it was super suspicious that there was no body.

In drafting, however, early readers didn't like how obvious it was that Jasnah would be coming back. I made a crucial mistake by over-reacting to early feedback. I thought, "Well, I can make that more dramatic!" I employed some tools I've learned quite well, and turned that into a scene where the emotion is higher and the death is more powerful.

HOWEVER, I did this without realizing how it mixed with other plotlines--specifically Szeth's resurrection.

We get into sticky RAFO areas here, but one of the biggest themes of the Cosmere is Rebirth. The very first book (Elantris) starts with a character coming back from the dead. (As I've mentioned before, a big part of the inspiration for Elantris was a zombie story, from the viewpoint of the zombie.) Mistborn begins with Kelsier's rebirth following the Pits, and Warbreaker is about people literally called the Returned. (People who die, then come back as gods.) The Stormlight Archive kicks off with Kaladin's rebirth above the Honor Chasm, and Warbreaker is meant as a little foreshadowing toward the greater arc of the cosmere--that of the Shards of Adonalsium, who are held by ordinary people.

Szeth's rebirth, with his soul incorrectly affixed to his body, is one of the things I've been very excited to explore in the Stormlight Archive--and the mistake with Jasnah was letting her return distract from that.

That said, you're not wrong for disliking this theme--there's no "wrong" when it comes to artistic tastes. And I certainly wish I'd looked at the larger context of what happened when I shifted Jasnah's plot in book two. (Doubling down on "Jasnah is dead" for short term gain was far worse than realizing I should have gone with "Jasnah was forced to jump into Shadesmar, leaving Shallan alone." I consider not seeing that to be the biggest mistake I've made in the Stormlight Archive so far.)

However, the story of the cosmere isn't really about who lives or dies. We established early on that there is an afterlife (or, at least, one of the most powerful beings in the Cosmere believes there is--and he tends to be a trustworthy sort.) And multiple books are about people being resurrected. What I'm really interested in is what this does to people. Getting given a second try at life, being reborn as something new. (Or, in some cases, as something worse.) The story of the cosmere is about what you do with the time you have, and the implications of the power of deity being in the hands of ordinary people.

More importantly (at least to me) I've always felt character deaths are actually somewhat narratively limp in stories. Perhaps it's our conditioning from things like Gandalf, Obi-Wan, and even Sherlock Holmes. But readers are always going to keep asking, "are they really dead?" And even if they stay dead, I can always jump back and tell more stories about them. The long cycle of comic books over-using resurrection has, I think, also jaded some of us to the idea of character death--but even without things like that, the reader knows they can always re-read the book. And that fan-fiction of the character living will exist. And that the author could always bring them back at any time. A death should still be a good death, mind you--and an author really shouldn't jerk people around, like I feel I did with Jasnah.

But early on, I realized I'd either have to go one of two directions with the cosmere. Either I had to go with no resurrections ever, stay hard line, and build up death as something really, really important. Or I had to shift the conversation of the books to greater dangers, greater stakes, and (if possible) focus a little more on the journey, not the sudden stop at the end.

I went with the latter. This isn't going to work for everyone. I'm fully aware of, and prepared for, the fact that things like Szeth coming back will ruin the stories for some readers. And I do admit, I've screwed it up in places. Hopefully, that will teach me better so that I can handle the theme delicately, and with strong narrative purpose behind the choices I make. But do warn you, there WILL be other resurrections in my books. (Though there are none planned for the near future. I took some extra care with the next few books, after feeling that things happening in Words and the Mistborn series in the last few years have hit the theme too hard.) This is a thing that I do, and a thing that I will continue to do. I consider it integral to the story I'm telling. Hopefully, in the future, I'll be able to achieve these acts with the weight and narrative complexity they deserve.

If it helps, I have several built-in rules for this. The first is that actual cosmere resurrections (rather than just fake-outs, like I did with Jasnah) can happen only under certain circumstances, and have a pretty big cost to them. Both will become increasingly obvious through the course of the stories. The other rule is more meta. I generally tell myself that I only get one major fake-out, or one actual resurrection, per character. (And I obviously won't use either one for most characters.) This is more to keep myself from leaning on this narrative device too much, which I worry I'll naturally do, considering that I see this as a major theme of the books.

...

(Sharders, please don't start asking me at signings who has had their "one death" so far. This is me drawing the curtain back a little on the process, I really don't want it to become an official thing that people focus on. Do feel free to talk about the mechanics of resurrection though--it should be pretty obvious now with Elantris, Warbreaker, Szeth, and a certain someone from Mistborn to use as guides.)

 

I say, Helaran is dead, dead for the simple reason the story told us he was dead. He won't become un-dead by some plot twist which requires too many extrapolations to work out.

[StormblessDave]

16 hours ago, maxal said:

I am extraordinarily boring. My personal thoughts are Shallan's family merely was an... unhappy one. She once drew a drawing of what she claimed once was her family: they were all happy. I think it was Hoid who seen it and I honestly don't recall the whole scene, but my thoughts have always been this drawing was a lie, a powerful lie, the lie which drew Pattern.

Shallan's family never were happy. Her mother probably cheated on her father. She probably had her beliefs. It may be she didn't love her children all that much. Shallan's parents probably fought. There probably was a lot of conflict within this family and conflict can impact children: there is no need for anything else to have happened.

A child's mind can crack over very little things and I think Shallan's initial break was just a result from being born into a dysfunctional family.

Unlikely, her father being a part of the ghostbloods, Helaran having a shardblade and his fight with his dad, nan balat and his cruel streak(they all had their secrets, it forms a pattern doesn't it lol) all point to not just an 'unhappy family', but an extraordinary family.These extraordinary circumstances could lead to her cracking, however I feel more will be revealed in the books to come.

[Nathrangking]

While there may be more to be seen WoR made it pretty clear the type of hellish existence Shallan had to deal with at home. Even without anything else being said I think that it can safely be assumed that what was seen was in fact basically responsible for her "snapping".

[Crucible of Shards]

I agree. However, I'm very interested to learn what all was going on with the Ghostbloods and her family, and the reasons why her mother wanted her dead.

[Nathrangking]

Yes those questions will prove to be very interesting indeed in coming books.

[FrogKnight]

I always assumed that Shallan;s surgebinding powers were noticed by her mother which lead to her trying to kill Shallan. In The Way of Kings, Syl mentioned that she followed Kaladin before Amaram's betrayal, though their bond was not as strong back then. I was under the impression that Shallan summoned the shardblade for the first time when she killed her mother.

[Calderis]

14 minutes ago, FrogKnight said:

I always assumed that Shallan;s surgebinding powers were noticed by her mother which lead to her trying to kill Shallan. In The Way of Kings, Syl mentioned that she followed Kaladin before Amaram's betrayal, though their bond was not as strong back then. I was under the impression that Shallan summoned the shardblade for the first time when she killed her mother.

But to summon the Shardblade she'd have to have a fairly progressed bond already, which would have required her to be broken when she was younger. I agree that was probably the first time Pattern was a blade. 

And unrelated... FROG! 

[Nathrangking]

Needless to say whatever broke her would have to have driven her far enough for the bond to reach the point that a blade would manifest.

[Calderis]

8 minutes ago, Nathrangking said:

Needless to say whatever broke her would have to have driven her far enough for the bond to reach the point that a blade would manifest.

The only thing that would be required is significant enough cracks in the soul for the bond form. 

After that, it would be up to her to progress in her bond with Pattern through the telling of significant truths.

 There is a WoB (that I can't currently find) that says for most orders the third Oath is the requirement to summon the blade, so she progressed at least that far. Then there's this nebulous WoB 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1111#5

Quote

TGANCHERO

No specific question.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not completely sure on this one: He said that at one point Shallan may have said all the oaths for her order (or may have been capable of saying all of the oaths by the end of the book) but has since regressed due to "memory loss/repression." Regarding Dalinar: He said that Dalinar has had a bond with the Stormfather "for a while." He also only said one oath at the top of the Urithiru tower, not two. Dalinar conveyed a single idea in that particular oath. Brandon also clarified that the oaths, with the exception of the first ideal, are not restricted to specific words. Rather, a specific idea must be conveyed for the oath to be accepted.

So she could have potentially had the ability to become a full Radiant before her memories were surpressed. 

So she had enough time to develop her bond with Pattern to advance almost fully before she killed her mother. 

[Nathrangking]

@Calderis my phrasing may have been a bit off , but that was what I was trying to say.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Nathrangking

[Azul]

In mistborn we know that Vin snapped during her birth, its possible something similar happened with Shallan.  It could  have been just about anything traumatic.  All we do know is that she was far enough along in the bond at a very early age to use her lightweaving and that this is what her mother noticed and what lead to her attempt on Shallans life.  I do agree that it sounds like her mother had some sort of ties to one of the secret societies, with the skybreakers being the best candidate.

[FrogKnight]

On 8/3/2017 at 9:26 PM, Azul said:

In mistborn we know that Vin snapped during her birth, its possible something similar happened with Shallan.  It could  have been just about anything traumatic.  All we do know is that she was far enough along in the bond at a very early age to use her lightweaving and that this is what her mother noticed and what lead to her attempt on Shallans life.  I do agree that it sounds like her mother had some sort of ties to one of the secret societies, with the skybreakers being the best candidate.

No, I do not believe Shallan's mother was with the skybreakers. If anything, her mother's friend may have been an Envisagers, which would explain why Shallan's mother tried to kill her.

[Azul]

I wasn't suggesting she was a member, only that she knew of them.  Envisagers makes little sense as they were said to be actively attempting to return sugebinders to the world,  they would endanger themselves in attempts to hopefully awaken surgebinding abilities but they did not go out and put others in danger.  If her mother had ties to the envisagers then she would have been thrilled about it, not seeking to kill her own daughter.

[Contessa]

There's a page in Cosmere Q&A that basically delves into the same question as this. The discussion branches in different directions than it does here, but it's definitely worth a look.