[OB] The Third Theory: Stormlight restored Dalinar's memories

[DiamondMind he/him]

There have been two different theories posted so far about Dalinar's memories might have come back. The first states that the Nightwatcher's curse/boon on Dalinar is changing because he now has a new wife, while the second points to the watch-pain-rial that Dalinar started wearing that chapter as the cause. Both do make sense to varying degrees and I'm not going to debunk them here. Instead, I'm going to focus on the how Stormlight might have healed Dalinar. So far this has only been argued as the default against the other two theories, but I'm going to try to show why it makes the most sense and to answer the most common objections I've seen.

 

I think to be conclusive, a theory about why Dalinar's memories are coming back has to answer 3 things: Method, Timing, and Suddenness.

 

The Method is simple: How did this restore, or at least stop the repression, of Dalinar's memories?

 

Timing: Why right now and not before (or later)? He has heard Evi's name multiple times over the last two books, and once before in Urithiru.

 

Suddenness: It seems that the memories came all at once, or at least some of them did.

 

Quote

Hum?” Navani said. “About… oh, right. You can’t hear her name.”

“Say it again,” Dalinar whispered.

“What?” Navani said. “Evi?”

Memories blossomed in Dalinar’s head. He staggered, then slumped against the writing table, feeling as if he’d been struck by a hammer to the head. Navani called for physicians, implying his dueling had overtaxed him.

That wasn’t it. Instead, it was the burning in his mind, the sudden shock of a word spoken.

Evi. He could hear his wife’s name.

And he suddenly remembered her face.

Stormlight healing answers all three parts the most thoroughly.

 

Method: We don't really know how the the memories were taken away, or even if the loss of them was the boon or the curse, so it's hard to say exactly how the healing is done. Stormlight could definitely heal either physical nerve damage, and it could probably heal Spiritual Connection as well since it works off the Spiritual ideal filtered through the Cognitive Realm. On the other hand, if the boon/curse is simply suppressing the memories as opposed to removing them, Stormlight might not be able to change that. At least we know how Stormlight works, as opposed to the other two theories where the method is a guess. Dalinar is definitely holding enough at the end of Chapter 16 -- he just performed a full Lashing and is visibly glowing.

 

• Objection: But Stormlight shouldn't be able to heal Dalinar because he has accepted the loss as part of himself, like Kaladin's slave brands.

• Answer: Dalinar view's his memory loss much more like Lopen saw his missing arm. Lopen refers to himself as a one-armed Herdazian multiple times and even makes jokes about it, but he started to regrow his arm as soon as he sucks in some Stormlight. He accepted that he lost his arm, but still felt that it was a loss and that he was incomplete. Dalinar is the same:

 

Quote

He’d had everything of his wife taken from him. All that remained was the hole, and filling it to gain a scribe seemed callous. (WoK Chapter 18)

Besides, what of his own wife? Dead these ten years, wiped by his foolishness from his mind. Even if he couldn’t remember her, he should honor her. (WoK Chapter 22)

He also refers to losing the memories as his shame and tries to ignore it, but he never actually accepted it. This means as soon as Stormlight could hear it, it would, in order to make him whole again.

Timing: Timing seems to be equally explained by all three theories. BS probably did this on purpose. This is the first time that he hears Evi's name: (1) since he got married; (2) while wearing the fabrial; (3) while holding a lot of Stormlight. Not much to go on here.

• Objection: He had been on screen holding Stormlight before, but this didn't happen. He even thought about Evi after holding Stormlight.
• Answer: Evi's name seems to be a trigger of some sort for the healing process to start, see Suddenness. And even if it isn't, we've only seen him hold Stormlight from one gem for little time, and it went immediately to heal his wounds. He doesn't seem to have practiced with Stormlight since then, as he used the Full Lashing almost unconsciously. This may be the first time he's held enough to heal a wound as major as this.

Suddeness: I believe Stormlight to explain this the best as well. The "memories blossom:" this phrase seems to imply that the memories are all coming to him right at that moment, and then a few seconds afterward he remembers her face. It does not seem that the change was done previously and Dalinar is only noticing it now, as the other two theories would suggest.This seems to be a active healing process, as if it starts as soon as he hears "Evi" and then the Stormlight starts working to fill all the gaps that it detected, just as it would close a wound. Since Stormlight healing works through your Spiritual Ideal, it's possible that it can't start healing until you're aware of the loss; Dalinar definitely doesn't think about Evi most of the time.

So all together, Dalinar's memories of Evi were restored via Stormlight healing. It's not as heartbreaking as starting to lose memories of Navani, nor does it explain why the watchpainrial was highlighted in this chapter, but it is the simplest explanation for what we know just happened.

 

[Shadowfax]

I don't agree (I'm holding on to my fabrial resonance theory) but I will say this was one of the better explanations of how Stormlight could, in fact, be the reason. Well written and thought out, so props for that. I'm insanely curious to find out what is actually happening here!!!

[asterion137 he/him]

This is what I thought when I first read the chapter too. Could also be partially a result of his self image changing after his marriage to Navani.Should have read the whole post lol

Edited October 8, 2017 by asterion137
oops

[Calderis he/him]

My objection to Stormlight healing him is that he's been using Stormlight unconsciously for longer than the end of WoR. 

The first time he holds stormlight, he simultaneously talks about how it's nothing like the thrill, and how familiar it is. As if he's done it before. 

Stormlight healing also, unlike this theory presumes, doesn't require one to be aware of a wound to heal it. If stormlight were going to have healed him, based on his spiritweb as a template, then it should have done so immediately without needing the wound to somehow draw attention to itself. 

Stormlight heals, or it's blocked and can't. 

There's also the issue of Lift. If what the Nightwatcher does can be healed, Lift is an impossibility. 

I don't claim to have know what is happening here. I really want to know because I fully expected what the Nightwatcher does to be irreversible. I just don't feel as if any of the theories presented so far explains everything satisfactorily. 

Out if the three, I lean towards the fabrial resonance idea, but there's still something missing there. 

[Salkara]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

There's also the issue of Lift. If what the Nightwatcher does can be healed, Lift is an impossibility. 

...

I really want to know because I fully expected what the Nightwatcher does to be irreversible.

First, with Lift, there's the matter of perception. Lift doesn't view her ability to convert food into Stormlight as a curse. It may result in a chronic caloric definitely, but it's not something she perceives as needing to be healed. With Dalinar, it's a hole in himself that he feels should be filled. It's something he perceived as wrong with himself.

Second, of course (I'm going to claim "of course" even though I'm only prescient when I have the benefit of hindsight) it's reversible. As a genre, fantasy is filled with god-like creatures who grant irreversible wishes to humans who find that their poorly worded wish didn't turn out as expected. This is the type of trope we should be expecting too have flipped on us. Just like when Vin attacked TLR's malatium shadow and passed through it. One of the main reasons I love reading Brandon's books.

[knightedbishop he/him]

Maybe Dalinar was not healed at all. Perhaps the amnesia was conditional on some condition being satisfied. Now the condition has been satisfied, so the memories have returned. Do we know what Dalinar's boon was?

[Calderis he/him]

5 minutes ago, knightedbishop said:

Maybe Dalinar was not healed at all. Perhaps the amnesia was conditional on some condition being satisfied. Now the condition has been satisfied, so the memories have returned. Do we know what Dalinar's boon was?

No, we only know the symptom. We don't know the boon or curse. 

A condition having been met would work. I like that. 

[Tarion]

16 hours ago, Calderis said:

My objection to Stormlight healing him is that he's been using Stormlight unconsciously for longer than the end of WoR. 

The first time he holds stormlight, he simultaneously talks about how it's nothing like the thrill, and how familiar it is. As if he's done it before. 

Stormlight healing also, unlike this theory presumes, doesn't require one to be aware of a wound to heal it. If stormlight were going to have healed him, based on his spiritweb as a template, then it should have done so immediately without needing the wound to somehow draw attention to itself. 

Stormlight heals, or it's blocked and can't. 

There's also the issue of Lift. If what the Nightwatcher does can be healed, Lift is an impossibility. 

I don't claim to have know what is happening here. I really want to know because I fully expected what the Nightwatcher does to be irreversible. I just don't feel as if any of the theories presented so far explains everything satisfactorily. 

Out if the three, I lean towards the fabrial resonance idea, but there's still something missing there. 

I think this misses the true nature of Dalinar's Curse/Boon. It's not just that he lost all his memories of his wife. He also loses new memories. It's an ongoing affect that triggers whenever he hears his wife's name. I think it absolutely makes sense that his Stormlight healing triggers in response to new damage being done to his memories by the new mention of his wife. 

It's also worth noting that we've seen conditional Stormlight healing before. When Kaladin heals his arm of a shardblade wound it required him to think of it and actively heal it. Stormlight healing is more complicated than either simply working or not working.  

Edited October 8, 2017 by Tarion

[Calderis he/him]

9 minutes ago, Tarion said:

It's also worth noting that we've seen conditional Stormlight healing before. When Kaladin heals his arm of a shardblade wound it required him to think of it and actively heal it. Stormlight healing is more complicated than either simply working or not working.  

Except it didn’t just heal a spiritual wound. It required him to make effort to heal something Stormlight wouldn't on its own. This still doesn't apply to Dalinar's situation. 

11 minutes ago, Tarion said:

I think this misses the true nature of Dalinar's Curse/Boon. It's not just that he lost all his memories of his wife. He also loses new memories. It's an ongoing affect that triggers whenever he hears his wife's name. I think it absolutely makes sense that his Stormlight healing triggers in response to new damage being done to his memories by the new mention of his wife. 

And to tie back into the point I quoted you on first I see a few possibilities here. 1) it is a physical alteration of the memory centers in his brain, which Stormlight could heal automatically, and should have done previously. 2) it is a spiritual wound and should require intentional effort on his part to repair. 3) the scenario I see as most likely as every instance of the Nightwatcher we've seen has involved what appears on be Cognitive manipulation, it is a Cognitive wound. Every instance of which I am aware of a cognitive impact on the investiture based healing process has been as a limitation, and not something that could actually be healed. This is precisely why I believed that this condition would be irreversible.  

[Aleksiel]

@Calderis it could be argued it was due to the amount of stormlight combined with its improved efficiency now that he has sworn two oaths. Lopen's arm didn't heal from one sphere, it grew back just a little and he's only a squire. It's not a perfect comparison and I'm more inclined to think it's connected to whatever special abilities Bondsmiths have that in-world WoR hinted to, but that has its problems, too. The easiest explanation I see is the Nightwatcher lifted the curse/boon for some reason. There is the unexplained vision of his childhood with warm light that Dalinar felt and then the same warm light again on another occasion if I recall correctly, so somebody other than the SF was reaching to him. 

.

[+Authweight]

I agree, I think that hearing Evi's name while invested essentially "bootstrapped" the healing process. Hearing the name created a very brief moment where Dalinar knew the name. Normally the name is wiped out before it matters, but that moment was enough for the Stormlight to find the damage and start healing.