Shallan in WOR

[JcStoneDog]

What do you think of her overall story arch?

 

I liked it and found it interesting how short her flashback scenes were and wonder if that was done on account of how many found Kaladin's to long in WoK or just a function of her story. I am also glad that the Tyn plot was not developed but used to help the character grow.

 

I really hope that the love triangle doesn't get to much screen time as I feel it would hurt Shallan's character the most. And finally the he brutal nature of her fathers death was a very interesting development and the question now is will she every tell her brothers the truth?

[HydrogenAlpha]

I liked her character growth and her flashbacks in general. The flashbacks were much better than Kaladin's to be honest, more important for the overall plot .. and we got a Hoid cameo. I liked the involved mystery and the dark secrets. Kaladin did just slide form one event to another - kinda boring.
But aside from the flashbacks Shallan did not much in the first half of the book. She just traveld and manipulated some people.

Edited March 6, 2014 by HydrogenAlpha

[Kurkistan]

First impression wise, I didn't dislike Shallan in the book. Her sections were well written and moved along and showed us more of the bowels of this war of information that's been brewing forever. And it's also clear that she's meant to show the "not square-jawed paragons of Honor and straightforwardness" side of the Radiants.

 

Another thing of note is how the book's acceptance of the dubious morality of her actions/manipulations put how profoundly wrong such compromises were for Kaladin into stark contrast. Brandon's done similar things with "wrong for X, but not necessarily 'wrong'" with other characters, and it was nice and subtle here.

 

I just don't really like her, at least not at the moment. When the Diagram said there'd be a traitor, I was just "probably Shallan". :\

 

I have to say that I could have cheered when Tyn died. I was positively dreading Shallan spending half a book being corrupted by this quite obviously not-very-nice person, or being blackmailed or the like.

 

Once again, I don't dislike her, nor did I cringe to read her sections or anything. My denunciation of her manipulations aside, she's a far cry from an Elayne, to say the least.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Natans]

She kind of taked a level in badass. I liked but it seemed I litle rushed perhaps ?

 

I really liked her interaction with Kaladin. And kind get annoying with her jumping him Adolin arms to a little later snap at him out of nowhere about being looked by him, when tried to keep her safe. (calm down woman)

 

Overall she acted in contraditory way in some parts like she didn't know at she wanted, and that look good for me given the fact that she is fitting in her shoes now (or someone shoes).

 

Bonus point because she liked Rock =)

Edited March 7, 2014 by Natans

[junior]

Bonus point because she liked Rock =)

 

Airsick lowlander!  Everyone likes Rock!

 

[Too Much Awesomeness]

Massive improvement.  I always felt let down when I saw her chapter icon in WoK, but I actually looked forward to her chapters in this book.  Jasnah being taken out of play was the best thing that could have happened to Shallan's character.  It forced to her to become more assertive and independent, i.e. interesting. 

 

I was hoping for BS to go the Shallan/Renarin route, but her interactions with Kaladin were actually some of the best moments in the book.   Their initial meeting was hilarious, and the chasm scene was both sweet and important for Kaldin's character growth.  I'm very interested to see how he plays this love triangle he's setting up, those things can easily go very wrong....

Edited March 6, 2014 by Too Much Awesomeness

[marianmi]

There are still many questions about Shallan and how/why she acted... I too believe she will be the traitor...

[Aleksiel]

I didn't like much Shallan's flashbacks. It felt like cheating that nothing in the first book indicated she was that close to a Radiant. And her character's growth seemed too rushed considering her past.

 

There were many thing that were missing in her story or I didn't read it carefully enough. Such as:

What broke Shallan's soul and made her capable of Nahel bond?

How did she learn the First Ideal?

What truths did she say to Pattern to make him into a Shardblade?

Since Lightweavers apparently don't say any Ideal after the first, only truths, how come Shallan hadn't this figured out until Pattern said it? 

How come she never soulcasted before meeting Jasnah?

Why did she think in WoK she needed 10 heartbeats to get the Shardblade?

[Aniki]

I have to be honest, although I didn't dislike her character in the first book, I skipped her chapters on my rereads.

But she definitely comes into her own in this book. I mainly attribute her character growth to the loss of Jasnah early on and her story only got better from there.

As others have said before, her interactions with Kaladin were some of the more enjoyable parts in the book. Their character seem to mesh well together. Too well in fact. Which makes me a bit apprehensive.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Endymion

[Seerow]

I liked her character growth and her flashbacks in general. The flashbacks were much better than Kaladin's to be honest, more important for the overall plot .. and we got a Hoid cameo. I liked the involved mystery and the dark secrets. Kaladin did just slide form one event to another - kinda boring.

But aside from the flashbacks Shallan did not much in the first half of the book. She just traveld and manipulated some people.

 

See, I had the exact opposite reaction.

 

The first half of the books the Flashbacks were very sparse, with almost no information in them (and even less that was new). When we finally did get new information (she had been bonded all along), it came in her normal chapter and not a flashback chapter at all. Finding out she killed her father with her own hands and not the shardblade was a nice twist, but the majority of her chapters seemed to be just hammering in what we'd already known: Shallan's family was abused heavily by her father, who tried to avoid hurting her. I felt like we could have lost 3/4ths of the Flashbacks from Shallan and not missed much of anything. And given they were so far apart to begin with, I'm really not sure why we needed them in the first place. 

 

On the other hand, outside of her flashbacks, her story took an interesting direction I honestly hadn't anticipated. Who she became in WoR is such a big shift from what we saw in WoK that it was impossible to see coming, yet it all felt natural and well developed. You say "all" she did was manipulate some people. That's like saying "all" Kaladin did in WoK was help some people survive. Yes, that was what she was doing, but the way she went about it, and why, made for a great read, and dramatically improved my perception of her.

[Spark]

I'm not the much of a fan of the Chasm-Scene, but the one thing I really loved about it was the play on truth. When Shallan asked Kaladin for his story, it reminded me of Shallan being asked for a truth in WoK. Of course, Kaladin didn't gain any power from it in the way Shallan did, yet he might have gained some anyway - spiritually. In turn, Shallan is gaining strenghts from this truth - just like Pattern said. Of course, it's not her own truth, but it's what leads her there eventually.

 

 

The flashbacks didn't do much for me, for the most part. The revelation that she killed her father (and mother) wasn't exactly unexpected. What I do appreciate though is getting a better perspective on her brothers. The cruel-siblings-perspective I had when finishing WoK was unsatisfying. The fact that they have been.. well, humazined now, makes me look forward to a family reunion in the next book - which has disaster written all over it.

[Kurkistan]

It occurs to me that the flashbacks were much more about character development than really getting simple information. We all knew or could reasonably guess most of the end-results of this stuff going in, I think. It's more important that we get Shallan's emotions and reactions to her past than it is to find out what happened in it.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Daishi5]

I liked Shallan in this book, but I dread one thing in her coming chapters.  If she continues to work with the Ghostbloods, when she meets up with Jasnah, I want her to tell Jasnah ASAP.  I don't want to go through a whole set of her working with Jasnah while also sneaking around with the people that tried to kill her.

[Aleksiel]

What was unexpected however, was that her father hadn't always been an abusive, bitter man. He was a father, protecting his child and taking all the blame for his wife's death which broke him. But he kept protecting her from everything, even from himself when he was at his worst. I felt sick when she killed him.

 

In a way, Shallan destroyed her family. Now, I do not blame a child for what happened, but it was what she did that lead to the destruction of her family. And she is still in denial. She told Kaladin her father killed her mother. To me, it felt like cheating. Instead, she confessed it in a normal chapter and didn't feel dramatic or new.

 

I was disappointed we didn't learn what Shallan said to make Pattern into a Blade and what broke her soul so a Nahel bond could appear. It felt to me that we didn't learn really important pieces of information.

[Kurkistan]

While I agree that it would be nice to know what "broke" Shallan initially, I actually think that Pattern being a Blade that early is a really cool hint to the nature of the Lightweavers' "Oaths".

 

It's all about self-awareness and self-knowledge, right? Well if you're just a precocious child in a loving home environment, then you may well not have to work at it to attain such knowledge. "I love my parents and pretty flowers" (though that's probably not as simple as that at age 11) might be enough to do the job at that point.

 

But I think that after Shallan started going into wall-staring mode and developed her memory-flinch, then she lost that degree of self-knowledge and regressed back to a point where, if Pattern weren't already a Blade, then she probably wouldn't have been able to make him one.

 

EDIT: Also, on breaking, I think we may all overestimating what's need to "break" someone, at least on Roshar. Kaladin apparently drew Syl back when he was a kid, before Roshone, even, so his mild isolation from the rest of the village might have done it for him. Or perhaps seeing someone die on the table (okay, that one is a bit more traumatic). But he wasn't some psychologically crippled wreck at that point, either way.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Natans]

What was unexpected however, was that her father hadn't always been an abusive, bitter man. He was a father, protecting his child and taking all the blame for his wife's death which broke him. But he kept protecting her from everything, even from himself when he was at his worst. I felt sick when she killed him.

 

In a way, Shallan destroyed her family. Now, I do not blame a child for what happened, but it was what she did that lead to the destruction of her family. And she is still in denial. She told Kaladin her father killed her mother. To me, it felt like cheating. Instead, she confessed it in a normal chapter and didn't feel dramatic or new.

 

I was disappointed we didn't learn what Shallan said to make Pattern into a Blade and what broke her soul so a Nahel bond could appear. It felt to me that we didn't learn really important pieces of information.

 

She did what she had to do. Not a easy thing and not a good thing. But she saved her brother, the great villain in this history are Shallan mother.

 

Also waht are the connection of Shallan and Shalash ? She draw her out of nowhere, have he orders power, her name, to much foreshadowing going on here at raised some flags to me.

[Xenq]

Not sure if I've excised this quote properly, but here goes.

Why did she think in WoK she needed 10 heartbeats to get the Shardblade?

I was wondering this also. Shallan addresses it a couple of times in WoR.

Calm, Shallan told herself. Be calm!

Ten heartbeats.

But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it?

No. It must be. Time, I need time! (WoR ch. 34)

and

She stepped right up to him, ready to summon Pattern. He wasn't like other Shardblades; she acknowledged that now. He could come more quickly than the ten requisite heartbeats. He'd done that before. She hadn't been willing to admit that he was capable of it. Admitting that would have been too much. How many more of my lies, she thought, hold me back from things I could accomplish? But she needed those lies. Needed them. (WoR ch. 88)

So I think we can conclude from this that she has always been able to summon her blade instantaneously, like Kaladin (although Syl said she needed to be there and ready [WoR ch. 86]) and that her constant references to ten heartbeats were down to her confusion and or madness.

It does seem a little forced on Brandon's part. The blade was called "the fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act" in TWoK. Having read WoR now, it seems that Shallan is referring to forming her shardblade for the first time to kill her mother (unless there is some other horrific event in her past we are yet to hear about). I'm not sure even an insane Shallan would refer to that as "fruit" or "proceeds". That said, the spren/blade reveal with Syl was pretty damnation awesome and writing the Shallan blade stuff any other way probably might have detracted from that, so I can let it slide.

[writelhd]

I quite liked Shallan's sections in WoK, and I liked her sections a great deal in WoR, too.  There were aspects of her character, or perhaps characterization, that bugged me a bit, but I'm quite pleased with her arc overall and always find her interesting to read. 

 

1.) I loved the flashbacks.  Yes, they were information we could guess at, but it's not the information so much as the emotion that made me love them.  It made me understand her on an emotional level. 

 

2.) I agree with Natans, she definitely became a badass in this book--and perhaps a bit too quickly?  In WoK she was smart but shy and conflicted, in WoR she kind of transformed from "smart" to "brilliant", lost a lot of "shy" and "conflicted" elements and became kind of this broken daredevil. "Shy" and "conflicted" are good character traits to grow out of...but the speed at which she did it seemd quick.  And all of her skills came across as a bit...Mary Sue?  Really broken Mary Sue?  Just a little bit, mind, I still liked it over all.  Just felt like sometimes she did everything too well, too easily, without enough of the terror I'd probably feel in those situations or conflicted self-doubt like she'd shown in WoK.  In particular I was expecting that ghostbloods thing to backfire in terrifying ways that she'd have to really dig deep to get herself out of...and aside from a dead coachman and her very short-lived guilt about that, it never really did.  Maybe it will in book 3. 

 

3.) The way she treated Kaladan seemed a bit off to me.  Previously she was a lighteyes known for treating with darkeyes like they were fellow humans---her relationships with Yalb + crew, then Gaz + crew, etc.  The boots thing, that was silly and funny, and after Kaladin rode off she commented that she felt bad about taking his boots, what if he needs them?  Which Tyn told her she needed to work on...but then from there, next time she sees Kaladin, she is quite mean to him, and spends most of the rest of her interactions with him (until they finally fall into the chasm and bond) treating him in a more derogatory way than made sense for her character.  Why yell at him in the king's palace?  Why call him "bridgeman/boy?" She didn't call Yalb "sailor."  That kind of brought me out of the narrative a little bit. I think it was supposed to be in reaction to Kaladin's chip on his shoulder, which maybe I just didn't see the way she did because I know why he's got that chip...but it still felt incongruious with her character.  The way she referred to Renarin (although admittedly only in her own head) as "weird and creepy" at the end brought that up for me too.  Of course, the characters don't know the things about each other that we know about them, so she may well have a different in-world perspective of people we love than we will, and he was chanting about how they were all going to die...but it still seemed off.  In WoK she didn't strike me as the kind of character to rush to judgement about other people, she struck me as more introspective than that. 

 

4.) I too am not a fan of love triangles, especially because of course the only female main character would obvioulsy be in one...and was also a little bit annoyed that all the guys gushed over her.  Maybe I'm just jealous.   On a more serious note though, this one doesn't make me gnash my teeth just yet, because it does actually make sense with the story.  She and Adolin got along well enough on the surface, and it made sense for them to considering their personalities, their reasons for both wanting/needing the betrothal to work also made sense...and her and Kaladin geting on well and on a deeper level (as opposed to when she was mean to him! grr!) also makes sense, considering what they can learn from one another.  I'm not sure what ship I captain at this point, and I'm leery of The Triangle really making me angry down the road, but so far it's not so deep and convoluted, and it does fit the story. 

[Bloodfalcon]

I didn't like much Shallan's flashbacks. It felt like cheating that nothing in the first book indicated she was that close to a Radiant. And her character's growth seemed too rushed considering her past.

 

There were many thing that were missing in her story or I didn't read it carefully enough. Such as:

What broke Shallan's soul and made her capable of Nahel bond?

How did she learn the First Ideal?

What truths did she say to Pattern to make him into a Shardblade?

Since Lightweavers apparently don't say any Ideal after the first, only truths, how come Shallan hadn't this figured out until Pattern said it? 

How come she never soulcasted before meeting Jasnah?

Why did she think in WoK she needed 10 heartbeats to get the Shardblade?

 

I am pretty certain that most of these were addressed, actually.

 

What broker her soul : I am not certain I can even put a finger on exactly when Kaladin experienced that moment either. It is starting to sound like you can attract a spren before that brokenness. I'm not really sure about this one honestly. 

 

First Ideal: You don't need instruction to learn any of the ideals. Dalinar knew from Way of Kings, but was also instructed by Kaladin. Kaladin was given a little instruction too, but it is pretty accepted that you just know the words as with the other Ideals. Since the first is the same for everyone, it is convenient that they can tell each other, but I think you have that one in you just as the others are. 

 

The truths were left out and I also wanted to know them, but I think we did see one of them in the Way of Kings and just didn't recognize it. Many people assumed Shallan would have to say something true every time she Soulcast, but really that was one of her big truths that she had to  get out of the way in my opinion. I am a murderer and then she can Soulcast. Sounds about right. 

 

She also has a natural skill at drawing, so it makes sense that Illumination would come to her first and feel natural. That and Jasnah and Pattern claim there is something amiss with Soulcasting right now. It is more dangerous and unpredictable than it once was. 

 

The 10 heartbeats thing was specifically mentioned. She was lying to herself the whole time and waiting 10 heartbeats before even believing she could summon it. I don't know where she thought she got it from, but clearly she is a bit insane, so whatever. 

 

 

I didn't really find it as informative as I wanted anyway. Most of the time even inside of the flashbacks she is still lying to herself and we only see that. I was kind of hoping it would just blast us with all of the truth and details chunk by chunk. I honestly don't care that much about Nan Balat's axehounds, I just want to see glimpses of Shallan that explain Shallan. Yes, family and all that shaped her blah blah, I did like it. I just still don't know what I think I should about her past. We have still only seen lying Shallan. I liked Kaladin's better but only because I like Kaladin better. 

[shadewolf]

Honestly I don't get why having a broken soul is a prerequisite to become a radiant, was there WOB about that? The way I've always seen it is that spren are attracted to individuals that exhibit ideals that characterize a respective order of the radiants. Like the honorspren want honorable leaders to bond with, and what better person to bond with than the person that when faced with adversity chooses the honorable path no matter the consequences. The lightweavers have a different set of ideals, some such that even a child might be able to exhibit.

[Aleksiel]

I am pretty certain that most of these were addressed, actually.

 

What broker her soul : I am not certain I can even put a finger on exactly when Kaladin experienced that moment either. It is starting to sound like you can attract a spren before that brokenness. I'm not really sure about this one honestly. 

 

First Ideal: You don't need instruction to learn any of the ideals. Dalinar knew from Way of Kings, but was also instructed by Kaladin. Kaladin was given a little instruction too, but it is pretty accepted that you just know the words as with the other Ideals. Since the first is the same for everyone, it is convenient that they can tell each other, but I think you have that one in you just as the others are. 

 

The truths were left out and I also wanted to know them, but I think we did see one of them in the Way of Kings and just didn't recognize it. Many people assumed Shallan would have to say something true every time she Soulcast, but really that was one of her big truths that she had to  get out of the way in my opinion. I am a murderer and then she can Soulcast. Sounds about right. 

 

I think 'I am a murderer' counts as Lightweaver's equivalent of an oath, so perhaps she was finally advanced enough to soulcast. But she said a truth to the goblet before souldcasting it into blood:

 

 

“What am I?” she whispered. “I’m terrified.”

This is true.

The bedroom transformed around her.

 

Could this count? It's not really something that's hard to admit and WoR made it clear it has to be.

 

About her flashbacks:

 

With Kal we basically saw everything but Tarah in chronological order. My bet is his soul cracking happened when he witnessed Tien's death. Then he started saving other unfortunate boys in the army, which is what Syl claimed to have drawn her to Kaladin.

 

However, Shallan's past was somehow all over the place. We miss the beginning of her story -  Shallan's soul had to be broken before she could bond to Pattern and we have no flashbacks before her killing her mother. She killed her mother with Pattern as a Shardblade and if it works the same way for all Orders, then Shallan had given him the first ideal (strikes me as weird for someone that young to be able to guess that)  and 2 harsh truths ('I like rainbows' doesn't work, remember Lightweavers are about confronting truths). These things really are too important to be skipped. Unless the impication is no soul cracking is needed for some spren to bond with a human.

 

But even in the chapter when she murdered her mother, we don't really know the story until the end of the book, just a vague idea. Then her story continues till we reach the moment she killed her father and as important as that was, many of her other flashbacks felt rather irrelevant to her development as a character and full of things we already knew.

 

edit: spelling

Edited March 10, 2014 by Aleksiel

[Tarion]

What was unexpected however, was that her father hadn't always been an abusive, bitter man. He was a father, protecting his child and taking all the blame for his wife's death which broke him. But he kept protecting her from everything, even from himself when he was at his worst. I felt sick when she killed him.

 

In a way, Shallan destroyed her family. Now, I do not blame a child for what happened, but it was what she did that lead to the destruction of her family. And she is still in denial. She told Kaladin her father killed her mother. To me, it felt like cheating. Instead, she confessed it in a normal chapter and didn't feel dramatic or new.

 

I was disappointed we didn't learn what Shallan said to make Pattern into a Blade and what broke her soul so a Nahel bond could appear. It felt to me that we didn't learn really important pieces of information.

I was surprised with how much sympathy for her father I came away with.

Sure, he ended up pretty monstrous.  But I can see how he got there.  He took the blame for killing his wife and her "lover", not as self-defence (as Shallan actually did it) but as murder.  And it ruined his reputation.  It destroyed his family's finances.  It destroyed his relationship with his family.

 

All to protect his little girl. 

I'm not surprised that making that sacrifice destroyed him.  

[Jaconis]

I think 'I am a murderer' counts as Lightweaver's equivalent of an oath, so perhaps she was finally advanced enough to soulcast. But she said a truth to the goblet before souldcasting it into blood:

Could this count? It's not really something that's hard to admit and WoR made it clear it has to be.

About her flashbacks:

With Kal we basically saw everything but Tarah in chronological order. My bet is his soul cracking happened when he witnessed Tien's death. Then he started saving other unfortunate boys in the army, which is what Syl claimed to have drawn her to Kaladin.

However, Shallan's past was somehow all over the place. We miss the beginning of her story - Shallan's soul had to be broken before she could bond to Pattern and we have no flashbacks before her killing her mother. She killed her mother with Pattern as a Shardblade and if it works the same way for all Orders, then Shallan had given him the first ideal (strikes me as weird for someone that young to be able to guess that) and 2 harsh truths ('I like rainbows' doesn't work, remember Lightweavers are about confronting truths). These things really are too important to be skipped. Unless the impication is no soul cracking is needed for some spren to bond with a human.

But even in the chapter when she murdered her mother, we don't really know the story until the end of the book, just a vague idea. Then her story continues till we reach the moment she killed her father and as important as that was, many of her other flashbacks felt rather irrelevant to her development as a character and full of things we already knew.

edit: spelling

I agree mostly. It's such a major thing that, because I have confidence in Brandon not to have missed something of this magnitude, I believe there's only two possibilities.

1) It was purposefully left out for a bigger truth/reveal later on; or

2) We don't have enough information about Lightweavers or the orders in general, so we are assuming that it has to work the same for Shallan as it did for Kaladin, which may or may not be the case.

Also, to contribute to the actual topic. I really enjoyed Shallan's arc, especially compared to WoK. I think it was well done all around: pacing, development, reveals, excitement. It left me feeling bad for the entire family, except for the mother and whatever dumbass society she was associated with. Sympathy especially for her father for the terrible situation he was put in.

That said, why couldn't he have told people she had gone crazy and attacked her daughter, and he killed her to defending Shallan? To protect her reputation? The lie wasn't great for that either.

Edited March 10, 2014 by Jaconis

[Kurkistan]

Honestly I don't get why having a broken soul is a prerequisite to become a radiant, was there WOB about that? The way I've always seen it is that spren are attracted to individuals that exhibit ideals that characterize a respective order of the radiants. Like the honorspren want honorable leaders to bond with, and what better person to bond with than the person that when faced with adversity chooses the honorable path no matter the consequences. The lightweavers have a different set of ideals, some such that even a child might be able to exhibit.

 

It's on the back cover of WoR.

[Aleksiel]

I agree mostly. It's such a major thing that, because I have confidence in Brandon not to have missed something of this magnitude, I believe there's only two possibilities.

1) It was purposefully left out for a bigger truth/reveal later on; or

2) We don't have enough information about Lightweavers or the orders in general, so we are assuming that it has to work the same for Shallan as it did for Kaladin, which may or may not be the case.

 

I suppose things just work differently with the Lightweaver, but as Kurkistan just pointed out a broken soul is a must. So it's too big of a thing to miss what broke Shallan's soul in her book. What's the point of having flashbacks if not to reveal the most important things about the character? Perhaps it's another truth Shallan will have to confront before becoming a Radiant, if she ever do. However, I am not happy it was left out of the book. If Brandon didn't want to reveal it so soon, he shouldn't have made WoR Shallan's book imo.