art [OB] The Real Ghostblood Symbol (Finally!)

[skaa he/him]

First of all, thanks to the guys on Discord (particularly @Pagerunner and @Windrunner) for pointing out that a small Ghostblood symbol can be seen among Shallan's sketches of Shadesmar spren. You can check it out in the illustration right before Chapter 108.

As someone who tried and failed to guess the nature of the symbol twice (here and here), allow me to post a somewhat cleaner version of the actual symbol for everyone's enjoyment:

 

As you can see, it does reflect both the WoK description ("three diamonds in a pattern, overlapping one another") and the WoR description ("triangle"). Apparently Isaac had to do multiple drafts of the symbol, and we even had a detailed description of one of the candidates that looked totally different from how it eventually ended up.

Here's a version of the symbol that shows one way to draw it in one stroke, and I colored it in a way I thought was appropriate (Ghost=grey, Blood=red):

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by skaa
Replaced red version with black. Feel free to tell me if you prefer the red one.

[Pagerunner he/him]

This is the page in question:

[Leyrann]

Shame. I loved the Aon Ati theory.

(also yay, 400th post (in five weeks...))

Edited November 20, 2017 by Leyrann

[ScavellTane]

Anybody noticed this?

 

 

Edited November 20, 2017 by ScavellTane

[PunSpren he/him]

I had noticed those, I think they are the glyph for Issak ? the map maker?

[skaa he/him]

9 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Shame. I loved the Aon Ati theory.

(also yay, 400th post (in five weeks...))

It's okay. I enjoy making fantasy theories that feel awesome to me, even if they end up being wrong. It's nice to escape from the unforgiving real world that we live in where a wrong conclusion could actually harm people. Here, I get to enjoy both my fantasies as well as Brandon's.

(Oh, and congrats!)

Edited November 21, 2017 by skaa

[ZenBossanova]

Speaking as someone who has only finished part 2, how likely is it that Shallan would be putting Ghostblood symbols in her notebook so casually? 

This is certainly consistent with what we have been told about that symbol, except, of course, that is pretty open use of it. 

Has anything been verified about this symbol? 

Ok, I will go back to reading now. It probably isn't a good idea to be in the forums before I finish, anyway. 

[skaa he/him]

Alright, I won't tag Zen here, but the question of Shallan casually drawing the Ghostblood symbol in her sketchbook is quite valid. I really don't think Shallan would do that on purpose.

But then, Shallan isn't just "Shallan".

If you notice the roughly-drawn figure on top of the symbol, I'm quite positive that this exact sketchbook page was actually mentioned in Chapter 99 ("Reachers"):

Quote

 

She started to get excited. “There’s more. Those mandras, they vanish sometimes. Their keepers call it ‘dropping.’ I think they must be getting pulled into the Physical Realm. It means you can never use only one mandra to pull a ship, no matter how small that ship. And you can’t take them—or most other spren—too far from human population centers on our side. They waste away and die for reasons people here don’t understand.”

“Huh. So what do they eat?”

“I’m not sure,” Shallan said. “Syl and Pattern talk about feeding off emotions, but there’s something else that…” She trailed off as Kaladin flipped to the next page in her notebook. It seemed like an attempt at drawing Captain Ico, but was incredibly juvenile. Basically just a stick figure.

“Did Adolin get hold of your sketchbook?” he asked.

She snatched the book from him and closed it. “I was just trying out a different style. Thanks for the water.”

 

Of course Kaladin, being blissfully unaware of the Ghostbloods, probably ignored the little triangular thing there that looked like a doodle. But notice Shallan's excuse for the juvenile drawing. Why would she "try out a different style" on top of her own beautiful drawings of gloryspren? It looks more like someone just carelessly scribbled over the page.

My bet is that the "Veil" personality briefly took over at some point during their travel in Shadesmar and decided to troll "Shallan" by vandalizing one of her sketchbook pages. Notice the playful "Drawing is easy!" comment written next to the scribble. And to cap it all off, she put the Ghostblood symbol there as a sort of signature, to make it perfectly clear that "Veil was here."

Edited November 21, 2017 by skaa

[Stairdweller he/him]

Hey, can anyone make any sense out of the border of the kholinar map?  I thought they looked like glyph pieces, but they seem to me to say "h l f h th" which seems pretty non-sensical 

[emailanimal he/him]

So, basically, Ghostbloods are the Cosmere version of Mitsubishi Motors?

[emailanimal he/him]

3 hours ago, skaa said:

Alright, I won't tag Zen here, but the question of Shallan casually drawing the Ghostblood symbol in her sketchbook is quite valid. I really don't think Shallan would do that on purpose.

But then, Shallan isn't just "Shallan".

The symbol is next to a sketch that is very clearly done by Veil.

[skaa he/him]

37 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

The symbol is next to a sketch that is very clearly done by Veil.

Indeed. Read the rest of the post you quoted.

[emailanimal he/him]

Just now, skaa said:

Indeed. Read the rest of the post you quoted

I am simply confirming it.

[skaa he/him]

2 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

I am simply confirming it.

Ah, in that case thank you! And sorry. I should have worded that differently.

[Witless1der]

Nice post! Ahem... so, now that it's confirmed, does anyone else think that this Ghostblood symbol could definitely be part of the vault combination in BoM? And if it is, what would be the implications of that??

[Stark he/him]

I have been wanting to know what this symbol looked like since we first heard of it.  Thank you for noticing this!

[Heretic he/him]

 

On 11/20/2017 at 10:17 AM, PunSpren said:

I had noticed those, I think they are the glyph for Issak ? the map maker?

I've noticed them as well. The thing is, they only appear on those two maps. If my memory is correct, the annotations on the map of Thaylen city is meant to Jasnah's and I think the map of the palace in Kholinar is hers as well. The symbol looks a bit like the glyph on the cover of Edgedancer but it's not exactly the same. 

[PunSpren he/him]

11 hours ago, Heretic said:

 

I've noticed them as well. The thing is, they only appear on those two maps. If my memory is correct, the annotations on the map of Thaylen city is meant to Jasnah's and I think the map of the palace in Kholinar is hers as well. The symbol looks a bit like the glyph on the cover of Edgedancer but it's not exactly the same. 

If I remember correctly the map maker issak is the royal cartographer of the alethi throne, so both theylen city maps and kohlinar maps make sense, the annotations on the map are navani's but the map itself would still be issak. I'll try to decipher it from the glyph key in oathbringer 

Edited December 8, 2017 by PunSpren
I'm apparently trash as deciphering it. But the maps are listed only as map of....., not as " map from Navani kholins notebook"

[Brgst13]

On 11/20/2017 at 9:02 PM, skaa said:

Alright, I won't tag Zen here, but the question of Shallan casually drawing the Ghostblood symbol in her sketchbook is quite valid. I really don't think Shallan would do that on purpose.

But then, Shallan isn't just "Shallan".

If you notice the roughly-drawn figure on top of the symbol, I'm quite positive that this exact sketchbook page was actually mentioned in Chapter 99 ("Reachers"):

Of course Kaladin, being blissfully unaware of the Ghostbloods, probably ignored the little triangular thing there that looked like a doodle. But notice Shallan's excuse for the juvenile drawing. Why would she "try out a different style" on top of her own beautiful drawings of gloryspren? It looks more like someone just carelessly scribbled over the page.

My bet is that the "Veil" personality briefly took over at some point during their travel in Shadesmar and decided to troll "Shallan" by vandalizing one of her sketchbook pages. Notice the playful "Drawing is easy!" comment written next to the scribble. And to cap it all off, she put the Ghostblood symbol there as a sort of signature, to make it perfectly clear that "Veil was here."

And then Shallan trolls her back by writing "clearly not!" below it.