[OB] Kaladin and Adolin free Shallan discussions.

[Calderis he/him]

I'm not a shipper. I don't hold it against anyone who is, and it doesn't bother me if you are. 

What does bother me is that any discussion of Shallan's future devolves into Shallan as an extension of Kaladin or Adolin's storylines or vice versa. This bothers me a lot. 

So here's a place to discuss Shallan, her powers, her future with the Radiants/Ghostbloods/her family, Pattern, whatever, that is strictly Shadolin and Shalladin free. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

An upvote for pure originality. 

[Guest]

She'll have to somehow overcome her hate of Patternblade, she'll explore Urithiru (well it's on the blurb duh), she'll speak another truth.

[Shig]

I think some of her mental fractures are being amplified by the loss of Jasnah. She hasn't really had an adult mentor for most, if not all of her life. She was significantly more stable with Jasnah around, and I really think she'll be helped just by knowing Jasnah is alive. More than her personal relationships, the fact that she has buried her grief for Jasnah so quickly and completely is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Shig said:

I think some of her mental fractures are being amplified by the loss of Jasnah. She hasn't really had an adult mentor for most, if not all of her life. She was significantly more stable with Jasnah around, and I really think she'll be helped just by knowing Jasnah is alive.

Hmm. You're right. She hasn't really grieved for Jasnah. I could see it because of her drive to fulfill Jasnah's quest.

[Aleksiel]

I hope she manages to integrate Brightness Radiant and eventually becomes a worldhopper.

[Calderis he/him]

13 minutes ago, Shig said:

I think some of her mental fractures are being amplified by the loss of Jasnah. She hasn't really had an adult mentor for most, if not all of her life. She was significantly more stable with Jasnah around, and I really think she'll be helped just by knowing Jasnah is alive. More than her personal relationships, the fact that she has buried her grief for Jasnah so quickly and completely is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

I hadn't thought about it, but your totally right. 

Shallan is so used to burying the past that she just does it. Facing her past and overcoming thus is her biggest issue I think. 

Jasnah's return will probably help, but she'll still need to face her lost childhood. I'm seriously wondering, with her as the youngest, when we'll ssee her brothers and start getting tidbits that hint at the troubles before her mother's death. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Jasnah's return will probably help, but she'll still need to face her lost childhood. I'm seriously wondering, with her as the youngest, when we'll ssee her brothers and start getting tidbits that hint at the troubles before her mother's death. 

The brothers don't know, that Shallan killed their mother, right?

Great... Oh, poor Shallan.

[Mulk he/him]

1 minute ago, SLNC said:

The brothers don't know, that Shallan killed their mother, right?

Great... Oh, poor Shallan.

Correct - her father said otherwise, and all of them believed he had murdered their mother and that Shallan knew it, but was unwilling to say so.

[Shig]

Also, this isn't totally related to discussion, but I can't help but think about Persona with all of this personality and mask changing. Personas are the mask you put on to face the world and hide your true self; kind of EXACTLY what Shallan is doing right now.

[Calderis he/him]

30 minutes ago, SLNC said:

The brothers don't know, that Shallan killed their mother, right?

Great... Oh, poor Shallan.

Yeah. When her brothers arrive, it will be the first time Shallan has had to interact with them since realizing the truth. I see plenty of reasons for her further mental deterioration in the future. 

[FollowYourMuse she/her]

It is hard to pick which truths will be her next "level up".

I agree that facing her grief will be a big step for Shallon, basically she has embraced the denial stage and has never let herself grieve for her parents, helleran or Jasnah. 

The truth of her early childhood, is another major truth she needs to face. 

I think that the reunion with her brothers will also be a major trigger, partly for her role in killing their mother, but also she will need to face the truth that they are not the people she wished, or pretended them to be. 

As for her powers, I think th e disguises are limiting her, as she is not looking beyond those things to what she can do with illusion. It will be interesting to see if she pushes more into what sound cymatics, can do.

PS. I don't like the shipping, so avoid topics of Shallon,  thanks for this @Calderis

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by FollowYourMuse

[Siaun Sanche she/her]

2 hours ago, Shig said:

I think some of her mental fractures are being amplified by the loss of Jasnah. She hasn't really had an adult mentor for most, if not all of her life. She was significantly more stable with Jasnah around...

I really don't see Shallan acting more stable in tWoK than she is now. What are you basing that on?

[kari-no-sugata]

Shallan has an interesting "in tray":

Her next and final Truth: Will Shallan become a full Radiant? Or will it take longer? What could her final Truth be? Will we find out the details of what led to her killing her mother? Will her usage of personas make things better or worse?

Art: Shallan is doing lots of drawings on Urithiru but it seems she needs a longer viewpoint to properly capture the building itself. She's sort of analysing the inner patterns and seems to be better than most (maybe all) people at placing herself based on this - if/when there is a crisis then this knowledge may come in handy. She hopes to borrow Kaladin to fly her to a suitable position to image the building though perhaps she could use the Honorblade instead? (LOL) We can probably expect sketches from Vedenar (capital city of Jah Keved) and Alethkar and maybe Azimir.

Lightweaving: It's not clear if her rank-up at the end of WoR has had any immediate benefit. There is a hint that she's already doing sound manipulation with her voice for Veil but it's a bit vague. She's trying to create images without relying on drawings but it's not reliable yet - this seems like progress though it's hard to say if this is purely a matter of skill/experience or if the rank-up helped as well. She hasn't attempted Soulcasting again yet - Stick trauma!? (just kidding). I'd be surprised if she doesn't attempt Soulcasting again sometime soon though it's hard to say if she'll actually be using it for anything significant (nothing obvious springs to mind). Will she try to develop any Lightweaving "weapons" or methods to use it in combat in some form?

Sword-wielding: Shallan apprenticed to Jasnah in tWoK and Tyn in WoR. Her surprise next apprenticeship is sword-wielding with Adolin. How quickly will she pick it up? She considers herself to be poor at these kinds of activities but "Brightness Radiant" seems better focused and her ability to memorise things may well come in handy. Will this have any practical implications later on? (Seems likely). Will we find out anything about Shardplate? Will Shallan come up with imaginative uses for a Shardblade?

Working with Radiants and general knowledge on Radiants: There is some suggestions that she has shared knowledge about Radiants as people are now referring to the Orders quite casually, but we've not seen anything directly. While we did see something interesting with Dalinar, so far we haven't seen any general discussion/analysis about Radiant powers. Hopefully we'll see something with Dalinar and Renarin sooner or later - it would be interesting to see her take the role of "teacher" for Lightweaving with Renarin for example. It's not currently clear just how important it will be to gain background knowledge on the Knights Radiant and major events involving them (eg Recreance) and for now it looks like practical knowledge with trump historical or theoretical knowledge.

Knowledge about Voidbringers and Desolations: this was Jasnah's goal for Urithiru but so far no knowledge has been found. How significant will this be? Will there be any benefit from knowing how to read ancient writings? This might end up being Shallan's most important role for the book (based on the blurb) but so far it hasn't kicked off yet.

Diplomacy: due to her severe lack of knowledge in general, she hasn't shown much interest in helping out but it's almost certain she will get involved with Taravangian and Jah Keved, which also seems first on the list of countries that will open up a portal to Urithiru. It looks likely that Shallan will at least start doing background research on Azir including learning the language, though I guess it'll be some weeks until it becomes truly relevant. Will Shallan make any significant diplomatic contributions or will she simply be an extra face? I suspect her approach might be very different to Dalinar and maybe she'll achieve something by thinking laterally or otherwise simply by getting up to mischief - eg with Lift (who the Azir are likely keeping secret).

The Murders: not something she's thinking about much currently, except to give some extra input to Adolin. She might do some background investigations as Veil in the short term. It seems reasonable that Adolin's involvement will come out at some point in which case it would suddenly become very relevant.

Pattern and other spren: Shallan's problems with Pattern run deeper than I had expected coming into OB. Their relationship is currently strained though I think there's signs of progress. However, Pattern is very pessimistic about their relationship. My feeling is that she very much wants to have a good relationship with Pattern but doesn't know how to get over the problems from the past. Will we see her (or Pattern) interact with other spren much? I get the feeling that she and Syl might get along well and seem liable to gang up on Kaladin.

Her family: she's had no contact with them for some time. Apparently the Ghostbloods took action but we don't have any confirmed details. The Everstorm will surely not help. Will they even meet in this book? Will the Ghostbloods hold them hostage? Might Shallan have to choose between betraying them and betraying those around her (at Urithiru)?

Her men: Gaz and co and her slaves haven't come up yet. Are they going to become significant? Will she arrange anything for them - eg status, training, freedom? Will any of them become Squires?

Palona and Sebarial: Palona seems to be "mothering" Shallan, which she seems to have mixed feelings about. It's hard to predict if anything significant will happen with these two in general. Will Shallan's lie about them being related become relevant at all (neither side would have any obvious motivation to reveal it). Maybe once Shallan can get her Soulcasting to work Sebarial will put in some requests? If there's significant goings on between the Highprinces, maybe Shallan will get involved to some degree with that?

The Kholins: I suspect we'll see some friction between her and Dalinar, though maybe this'll be minor. Shallan is confirmed to have issues with "authority figures" and Dalinar very much is one - I would not be surprised if Shallan's natural inclination is to lightly oppose Dalinar and they might well clash over religion, diplomacy, Dalinar's authority in general and Adolin (once his involvement in Sadeas's murder comes out). If they do it'll be interesting to see what Navani thinks of this. We'll probably see Shallan and Navani working on more intellectual projects together. Shallan sees Navani as her future mother-in-law (currently) so it'll be interesting to see if they have any mother/daughter like conversations. Still waiting to see Shallan and Renarin have some proper conversations - hard to predict how that will go. Renarin struggles to interact with others and while Shallan is good at this in general she also does need time to warm up to people. Relationship with Adolin is a left out for brevity. Will she meet with Elhokar at all? Will we get any resolution to the odd things he experienced in tWoK?

The people at Urithiru: there's already signs of religious strains - will Shallan become involved at all? We'll probably see her interacting with them to some degree as Veil but it's hard to predict how significant this will be. In chapter 8 we saw Shallan thinking about being more "knightly" while out in public and I suspect her Brightness Radiant persona will come into play here.

The Ghostbloods: Shallan definitely does not like the Ghostbloods and she was prepared to cut down Mraize at the end of WoR. Her family is effectively being held hostage so she won't be able to ignore them. She did briefly find Mraize to be interesting but she generally finds the lot of them to be creepy/scary. What information will they reveal to her? Will her perception of them change? Will we find out their real objectives? Will Shallan find out about other worlds? What will they require her to do? Personally, I would not be surprised if their relationship is very strained and could well lead to conflict. If Shallan doesn't sever ties with them then she's going to have a very strained relationship with Jasnah when she returns.

Jasnah and Wit: will they meet at all? How will Jasnah deal with her grown up apprentice? Will Shallan's views of Jasnah change at all? Will we see Shallan follow-up on her previous conversations with Wit?

Amaram: Shallan currently believes that he killed her brother. Amaram is currently disgraced and in hiding (though trying to get to Urithiru it seems). If she comes across him, what will she do...?

Edited October 2, 2017 by kari-no-sugata

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Upvote for good initiative @Calderis! 

As for the topic at hand, I wonder if Dalinar will become a mentor figure for Shallan, just like he is to Kaladin?

I also think that she will become more positive towards the Ghostbloods. I suspect that they are a lot more morally grey than she thought in the beginning. 

[Shig]

43 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

I really don't see Shallan acting more stable in tWoK than she is now. What are you basing that on?

She was able to focus on her studies, and while she did lock away her past, she was focused on the future. In addition, she was even reluctant to steal the "fabrial" from Jasnah once she had built up a repertoire with her. She rarely felt incapable; inexperienced at times, but she didn't really have any mental breakdowns where she had to just flee from a situation (which is basically what she is doing with her personas now, she mentally flees from situations). I may just be misinterpreting lack of information as stability, but she seemed less rash and more in control of herself while she had a mentor.

[Siaun Sanche she/her]

18 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

The Ghostbloods: Shallan definitely does not like the Ghostbloods and she was prepared to cut down Mraize at the end of WoR. Her family is effectively being held hostage so she won't be able to ignore them. She did briefly find Mraize to be interesting but she generally finds the lot of them to be creepy/scary. What information will they reveal to her? Will her perception of them change? Will we find out their real objectives? Will Shallan find out about other worlds? What will they require her to do? Personally, I would not be surprised if their relationship is very strained and could well lead to conflict. If Shallan doesn't sever ties with them then she's going to have a very strained relationship with Jasnah when she returns.

Jasnah and Wit: will they meet at all? How will Jasnah deal with her grown up apprentice? Will Shallan's views of Jasnah change at all? Will we see Shallan follow-up on her previous conversations with Wit?

To my mind, Mraize wouldn't have approached Shallan again if he didn't think that the answers that he had for her would shake up her loyalties, and in particular her loyalty to Jasnah. Moving her brothers to Urithiru will only do so much for him. I have a couple of thoughts in that area.

First, maybe there's something in Shallan's flashbacks that I'm forgetting, but couldn't he claim that Shallan's father joined them to protect her (specifically, from the Skybreakers)? In this telling, they were doing their best to protect her and her family. Not for free, certainly, but ultimately in a mutually beneficial relationship that kept Shallan safe without her realizing it. Lin Davar's ultimate breakdown was tragic, but not something that they could have done anything about. They're not world-hopping therapists, after all.

Second, I've been toying with the idea that Helaran is still alive and has been working with Jasnah and Liss this whole time. This ties together a few things, but it's pretty speculative (and maybe there's even something that I'm forgetting that rules this out):

- When Helaran writes back to the family, he includes a book by Jasnah Kholin for Shallan.
- Helaran uses Hoid as a messenger, and we know that Jasnah and Hoid have a pre-existing relationship that we don't know everything about.
- 'Helaran's' Shardblade would actually be Liss's, in this theory. The person who went after Amaram would actually be the "Veden brute" with reddish hair that works as Liss's servant.
- Mraize says that Helaran sought out the Skybreakers, but he doesn't say that Helaran joined them, or that he joined the Ghostbloods themselves (which surely Mraize would have mentioned). And yet surely Helaran joined some faction, because otherwise him getting a Shardblade from mysterious friends doesn't make a lot of sense.

The upshot of all of this would be that Mraize intends for Shallan to learn that Helaran is still alive, and that Jasnah could have told her at any time but only Mraize actually did so.

[kari-no-sugata]

27 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

To my mind, Mraize wouldn't have approached Shallan again if he didn't think that the answers that he had for her would shake up her loyalties, and in particular her loyalty to Jasnah. Moving her brothers to Urithiru will only do so much for him. I have a couple of thoughts in that area.

We'll see what Mraize actually does. While I'm sure he would like to convert Shallan for real he might well keep her brothers from reaching Urithiru until he can be certain of her loyalties. I'm not sure if he realises just how much Shallan dislikes how the Ghostbloods operate. If he can avoid showing the side of the Ghostbloods that Shallan doesn't like and provides her with things that she does want then maybe she could be tempted.

 

27 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

First, maybe there's something in Shallan's flashbacks that I'm forgetting, but couldn't he claim that Shallan's father joined them to protect her (specifically, from the Skybreakers)? In this telling, they were doing their best to protect her and her family. Not for free, certainly, but ultimately in a mutually beneficial relationship that kept Shallan safe without her realizing it. Lin Davar's ultimate breakdown was tragic, but not something that they could have done anything about. They're not world-hopping therapists, after all.

Second, I've been toying with the idea that Helaran is still alive and has been working with Jasnah and Liss this whole time. This ties together a few things, but it's pretty speculative (and maybe there's even something that I'm forgetting that rules this out):

- When Helaran writes back to the family, he includes a book by Jasnah Kholin for Shallan.
- Helaran uses Hoid as a messenger, and we know that Jasnah and Hoid have a pre-existing relationship that we don't know everything about.
- 'Helaran's' Shardblade would actually be Liss's, in this theory. The person who went after Amaram would actually be the "Veden brute" with reddish hair that works as Liss's servant.
- Mraize says that Helaran sought out the Skybreakers, but he doesn't say that Helaran joined them, or that he joined the Ghostbloods themselves (which surely Mraize would have mentioned). And yet surely Helaran joined some faction, because otherwise him getting a Shardblade from mysterious friends doesn't make a lot of sense.

The upshot of all of this would be that Mraize intends for Shallan to learn that Helaran is still alive, and that Jasnah could have told her at any time but only Mraize actually did so.

This is really fascinating. However, there's already been too many "fake deaths" in this series already.

[Wreith he/him]

I don't think Helaran is alive; because he's been reported dead to too many people who have no reason to have been notified otherwise,

(Like, who told his dad? the Ghostbloods? I'm not really sure why they would bother.)

and also because his death is too obviously a pending complication.

 

My suspicion is that Helaran actually joined the Skybreakers, such as they are, after discovering that their mother was one (hence her reaction to Shallan's being a Radiant)

I think it's possible Shallan will end up with a connection to the Skybreakers through this path, possibly fooling even Nale.

Edgedancer spoiler

Spoiler

This assumes that Nale doesn't reveal himself to the budding Knights as a result of his revelation.

 

[Dreamstorm]

1 hour ago, kari-no-sugata said:

This is really fascinating. However, there's already been too many "fake deaths" in this series already.

I was loving @Harry the Heir's theory until you mentioned this... Sanderson has promised no more death fake outs for a while, right? I did read a WoB that said Amaram definitively knew the identity of the shardbearer Kaladin killed (edit: now copied below), but if it WAS Heleran, do we see anything odd in how Amaram acts about Shallan? That shardbearer's name has to be something Amaram remembers well (due to the shards themselves, the way Amaram acquired them, and Amaram's own secret society connections), so I can't imagine he wouldn't have put two and two together about Dalinar's soon-to-be daughter-in-law. 

 

INTERVIEW: Sep, 2012

Cosmere Q&A - 17th Shard (Verbatim) 

CHEESE NINJA

Did Amaram ever find out who the Shardbearer that Kaladin killed was?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes.

TAGS

amaram, kaladin, stormlight archive, 

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by Dreamstorm
Found WoB; learned to spell Amaram's name correctly

[Siaun Sanche she/her]

1 hour ago, kari-no-sugata said:

This is really fascinating. However, there's already been too many "fake deaths" in this series already.

Strictly speaking, this fake death would have happened _before_ Jasnah's and only been revealed afterward. But I'm giving up on the Helaran's-still-alive part of this, because of...

32 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

CHEESE NINJA

Did Amaram ever find out who the Shardbearer that Kaladin killed was?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes.

Well, damnation. That would seem to settle that. If Amaram knows who the Shardbearer was, then I see no reason why Taravangian wouldn't also know... and Taravangian believes that Helaran is dead.

[kari-no-sugata]

43 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

I was loving @Harry the Heir's theory until you mentioned this... Sanderson has promised no more death fake outs for a while, right? I did read a WoB somewhere that said Amaran definitively knew the identity of the shardbearer Kaladin killed (I can't remember the exact wording), but if it WAS Heleran, do we see anything odd in how Amaran acts about Shallan? That shardbearer's name has to be something Amaran knows well (due to the shards themselves, the way Amaran acquired them, and Amaran's own secret society connections), so I can't imagine he wouldn't have put two and two together about Dalinar's soon-to-be daughter-in-law. 

Brandon did say "yes" to this question "Did Amaram ever find out who the Shardbearer that Kaladin killed was?"

That doesn't necessarily mean he knows that the dead Shardbearer was "Helaran Davar". Helaran could have been using an alias for example and maybe Amaram hadn't dug deep enough. We'll probably at least find out what the Ghostbloods know and it's possible that Shallan could confront Amaram about what he knows as well.

Incidentally, Taravangian also believes that Helaran is dead (presumably through his own information network) and Shallan's father heard that Helaran had died on a battlefield in Alethkar, presumably via the Ghostbloods.

edit: doh! Ninja'd!

Edited October 2, 2017 by kari-no-sugata

[Dreamstorm]

19 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

Well, damnation. That would seem to settle that. If Amaram knows who the Shardbearer was, then I see no reason why Taravangian wouldn't also know... and Taravangian believes that Helaran is dead.

Oh - I forgot Taravangian knew! This almost seems a little too cut and dry that the shardbearer was Heleran though... I have no trust, haha. I'm hoping we see this play out a bit more, as we have a lot to learn about Heleran and his backstory before his (supposed, most likely) death. 

Spoilered because it mentions forbidden things:

Spoiler

I am curious to see how Adolin (and Dalinar too actually) reacts when he finds out Kaladin killed Shallan's brother. Both have a very strong sense of family (especially when it comes to brothers), so I could see that driving a wedge in a few respects.

 

[kari-no-sugata]

3 hours ago, Shig said:

She was able to focus on her studies, and while she did lock away her past, she was focused on the future. In addition, she was even reluctant to steal the "fabrial" from Jasnah once she had built up a repertoire with her. She rarely felt incapable; inexperienced at times, but she didn't really have any mental breakdowns where she had to just flee from a situation (which is basically what she is doing with her personas now, she mentally flees from situations). I may just be misinterpreting lack of information as stability, but she seemed less rash and more in control of herself while she had a mentor.

Shallan's situation was a lot simpler back then and her chapters were also intended to be more light-hearted (to balance out Dalinar and Kaladin's more serious chapters).

But even so: in one of their early meetings Jasnah was quite stern with Shallan and that set off Shallan's fear of confrontation to the extent that she needed some time to compose herself. More significantly was when Jasnah killed the robbers - Shallan was disturbed for several days because of that. And finally, she literally panicked and ran when she saw the Cryptics in her drawings repeatedly. She did genuinely fear for her sanity. It could also be said that she was distraught when her betrayal of Jasnah came out.

Most of the things Shallan was doing in tWoK were things she was already relatively used to: drawing and studying. Afterwards, she's mostly doing things she's completely unused to.

[Andy92]

I think she's gonna start dating THE LOPEN.

...hey I followed the rules.