How did Jasnah...(Spoilers)

[Aminar]

There's also a question regarding how literal the need to "breathe" in stormlight is. Could a sufficiently bad lung wound prevent gaining or retaining the stormlig needed to heal?

Maybe both of them, but I doubt it as it isn't physical pressure that draws in stormlight, its a decision. And wven with two collapsed lungs you certainly try to breathe. I know a guy who walked a couple miles with a collapsed lung and several broken vertebrae after he got mauled by a grizzly. He could certainly still breathe.

[dyring]

Getting stabbed in the heart dont kill you instantly anyway. There was a case near where I live 20 years ago where a man got stabbed in the heart, yet managed to run over 100 meters before dying(attempting to flee from his killer).

 

So being able to breath in some stormlight while the assasins ran to bash on Shallans door, and transport away dont seem impossible.

Edited March 9, 2014 by dyring

[harry31j97 he/him]

We don't much know how fast stormlight heals the wound. Lopen's arm's regrowing seems pretty fast. Besides Shallan said she would heal without scar a wound of spear through stomach. Granted in Jasnah's case it's through heart, but she's still a lot more experienced at this than Shallan. Thinking of Wolverine anyone else?

[Eejit]

Kaladin & Shallan both fell 200+ feet and were both healed by Stormlight while unconsious and nobody questions it, 

 

I do. I get how Shallan could heal that but hadn't Syl already had her scream of disappearance while Kal was falling? How did he heal?

[Xavien]

I do. I get how Shallan could heal that but hadn't Syl already had her scream of disappearance while Kal was falling? How did he heal?

 

Syl screamed, a terrified, painful sound that vibrated Kaladin's very bones.  In that moment, he got a breath of Stormlight, life itself.

So Kaladin got some Stormlight as he was falling which was able to heal his (ridiculously fatal) wounds. The scream seems directly related to the Stormlight.  Did he force Stormlight through her or did she give him Stormlight? Either way the effect on Syl was very bad. As he wakes he hears "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" written in Stormfather text which could be interpreted either way.

[Rade]

At the time, I had thought that Kaladin had accidently inhaled Syl and used her as Investiture in place of Stormlight. As the Radiants got into desperate situations, they might accidently 'kill' spren this way. I later scrapped that theory entirely, but that was my theory at the time. Since he was trying to protect Shallan, maybe his oaths were strong enough in that final instant to draw Stormlight in and lash them upwards a bit?

Also, is it possible that Jasnah teleported to the Spiritual Realm? We have seen Returned be healed and we have seen them have knowledge of what is happening in the regular world, maybe Jasnah just had a disciplined enough mind that she could recall most of what happened before she went into the Spiritual Realm.

[Gloom he/him]

What we know:

 

Jasnah was stabbed at least twice.

Jasnah lived.

Jasnah transported to the Cognitive realm — She spoke with the spren who dwell in the Cognitive.

 

Anyways, Jasnah was exhausted before she retired, so I'm not questioning that her attackers got the drop on her. It was dark, so while I believe that it was Jasnah who was attacked and stabbed, I do questions Shallans observations about Jasnahs state. It is easy to see what you expect to see rather than what actually is. Jasnah may have just been regaining consciousness, Shallan distracts the assassins, they refocus on Shallan and Jasnah, seriously wounded takes the opportunity offered her to bug out. Once in the Cognitive realm physically, she needs to find a way home. It's also possible that she needed to learn another set of words to do so, or that she reached spoke those words just before departing the ship. It should be noted that Jasnah didn't appear to have a Shardblade in TWoKs.

[Adunsavior]

It just occurred to me, when Shallan told Navani that she set the ship on fire, Navani's first reaction was that Shallan doomed Jasnah by doing it when Jasnah was unconscious.

 

What if Navani knew Jasnah could have healed from something like a knife through the chest?

[name_here]

My money is on soulcasting in a crude clone to cover for teleporting out. A knife through the heart is generally pretty fatal and she didn't seem to be glowing.

 

Most likely, she didn't have anywhere near enough stormlight to take out the entire attack force, since the Ghostbloods seemed to have some idea she was a Radiant and when they opted for a horribly unsubtle attack they sent too many people for her to take on. While I can see her deliberately faking her death, potentially even with massive collateral damage if the stakes are high enough, I doubt she'd intentionally go for a plan that would put her out of contact with everyone for ~60 days under the circumstances.

[kari-no-sugata]

In chapter 78, Shallan says: But I think I could actually take a spear through the stomach, and my abilities would heal me up without a scar. I'm probably the most difficult person to kill in this entire camp.

(Wonder if she'll ever apply this reasoning to Jasnah...)

In chapter 7, there's a non-trivial gap between from when Shallan first creates a crude vision that distracts the men and makes them run up to the deck and when Shallan enter's Jasnah's room (Shallan sends Pattern to investigate first - it's probably a few minutes before she opens her door again). Shallan expects to trip over Jasnah's body and doesn't - and wonders if one of the men dragged it above (very unlikely). Side note: Jasnah's bed was covered in blood.

I very much doubt Jasnah could use a body double - there's no evidence that she's capable of doing that. The most obvious explanation is that she used the time between the men leaving and Shallan entering to heal herself and teleport. I wonder if she teleported that way deliberately? Since Wit/Hoid says its first time someone has done that in a long time I suspect it was somewhat accidental - she may have been barely conscious at the time. I wonder if she feels bad for leaving Shallan?

[flyleaffan he/him]

So I read the first 4 pages of this thread and didn't see anyone post what my theory is, so I'm posting it here. 

 

So I was thinking as I read the book but before I got to the epilogue that Jasnah may have been able to heal her body via soulcasting or create a new body using soulcasting but I felt that might be too complex for a novice to intermediate soulcaster (or even if it is possible at all). Given the fact that she is alive and we have more information from the epilogue, I present the following. 

 

First of all, we know from seeing Shallan's viewpoint of several times when Jasnah Soulcasts that her physical body remains but we know from Shallan's viewpoint and input from Pattern that you need to visit the cognitive realm to convince something to change its form. (I am a stick) So when you Soulcast, your body remains in the Physical Realm and your mind (and probably your soul) travel to the Cognitive Realm. 

 

I think it's possible that Elsecalling requires a visit to Shadesmar just as soulcasting does. I also think it's possible for the mind to live on in Shadesmar even after the body dies. I think Jasnah was dead for sure, especially since she had a blank stare and they stabbed her a second time. I think it's possible Jasnah brought herself permanently to Shadesmar, then elsecalled elsewhere. When she emerged, she somehow recreated her body through the Elsecalling ability (which is kind of similar to sci-fi teleporting). It would have been ragged as described but I think her physical body may have been healed. I think she views herself as a specific way and so the body she inhabited became that (which I think might be similar to the earth-bond in the Mageborn books by Michael G Manning for those who have read it). I also think she was in Shadesmar only cognitively and was unable to return to the Physical Realm very easily because of Hoid's quote here: 

 

 

You've been making quite a disturbance on the other side. It's been a long time since the spren had to deal with someone alive, particularly someone so demanding as yourself.

 

So I'm pretty certain she was not able to simply return to her body, or even a soulcasted body. I think she needed the spren's help to be able to get back to the Physical Realm. 

 

 

EDIT: Filled in my assumptions about Soulcasting and the Cognitive Realm

Edited March 11, 2014 by flyleaffan

[V'rish Makik he/him]

She left her heart with Kaladin, because plottwist! Jasnah is Tarah.

What the rust? Apshhh. Who's Tarah anyways?

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[11thorderknight]

I think there are a lot of overcomplicated theories going on. Here are some observations:

 

1. Jasnah was hell-bent on getting to the Shattered Plains, getting to Urithiru, and giving warning about the parshmen/voidbringers. If she was in control of the situation in any meaningful way, she wouldn't have staged an elaborate charade that involved taking herself out of world events while abandoning the 2nd known (to her, at the time) surgebinder and a bunch of other innocent people to likely death. 

 

2. We have never seen her use the Transportation surge to travel any meaningful distance, or at all, prior to the epilogue. And she's someone who does a lot of traveling, and was in very much a hurry at the time of the attack. Therefore, it's not unlikely that she wasn't able to really use it that well at the time.

 

3. We know that length of time doesn't always correlate with progression of the Nahel bond. Shallan has had hers for longer than Jasnah (yes, she is a bit of a special case, but still). Jasnah has spent most of the last 6 years with her nose in a book, and while that does get her somewhere in the "wise" sense, true growth happens during crises. I think THIS was her crisis.

 

4. I read the Shardblade in the epilogue as a sign that she's made progress in her Words, rather than as a sign of where she was at the beginning. Remember her conversation with Shallan, about how most Radiants didn't fight and that "no one is going to make you swing a sword" or some such. Yes, Jasnah can be deceptive, but she has never outright lied to Shallan, and if she knew that Shallan was eventually going to manifest a Shardblade she wouldn't have said that, I don't think. Regardless, if she could form a Blade, she wouldn't have let her assassins live, if only to protect the others on the ship.

 

5. The length of time she was away, and her conversation with Hoid, implies that she wasn't in control of events. She definitely looks the worse for wear at the end, even discounting her burns, in terms of her clothes, etc.

 

My take on things - whatever happened, she was taken by surprise and nearly died. She managed, in a crisis, to level-up to the point where she phased herself to Shadesmar, and maybe did some stormlight healing as well. Then, she ended up stuck there, and had some crazy adventures. She may well have been trapped there, with no stormlight to get back to the physical realm. 

[Tazren he/him]

As said by Darkness, I think that as long as the brain isn't dead, the body an be restored. Which one is more remarkable. healing the soul or the Heart. 

 

It was fairly obvious that she was going to come back. I called it a while before I read the Epilogue. Rather then looking at the story, just look at the plot structure. Jasnah died at the very beginning of the book and very abruptly. If you look at the plot, it makes beautiful sense that Brandon would finish the book with Jasnah coming back. This wraps the book up very nicely. it ties the begginning to the end at the same time leading the reader onward to the next book. It is pretty rare for an author to kill a character as important as Jasnah at the beginning of a book at the beginning of a series. It doesn't serve much purpose doing it that way

 

 

 

Ah, correction. Lopen grew a stub. ;D Where we left off he still had some glowing  to do. You never know, he might end up growing another leg.

I guessed that Jasnah would return when I realised the whole "neighbouring surge" thing in relation to the Orders, and that Jasnah must've been an Elsecaller. It also would've made little sense to kill her off after giving her that PoV at the beginning - which would've felt very pointless, if it would've been the only PoV for her. It's also a nice reference to Tolken and Jordan, whom Brandon has said he's been inspired by. Jasnah is definitely the most Gandalf-and-Moiraine-like character in SA. So he made her do a Gandalf. Cliché, but it works really well in that context.

 

It's funny because I think Occam's razor points to her faking her death.

 

She's got a spren watching over her 24/7. There is no way she was surprised by the men barging into her room. She knew Shallan's ship was in her father's employ, and had links to the Ghostbloods, so she would have been on alert 24/7.

 

Any man who gets close enough to stab her is vulnerable. She can obviously summon a Shardblade at a moment's notice, not to mention Soulcast them from a distance (and she had a ton of gems nearby).

 

If a bunch of thugs stabbed Jasnah and killed her, it was because Jasnah allowed it to happen. I can see very few other explanations.

 

I think you are abusing Occam's Razor. While faking her death is certainly a possibility, Occam's Razor doesn't eliminate the (in my mind) more likely scenario that she was simply taken by surprise.

 

We don't know that Ivory watches Jasnah 24/7. Not even Syl does that. Jasnah could've asked Ivory to do something else, for instance. Jasnah needs to sleep. If men stormed her room quickly, she could simply have been taken off guard. If Ivory was someplace else, she wouldn't have been able to summon him as quickly. She might not have had time to soulcast. Jasnah is human. She is not perfect. 

Once stabbed (or right before) she could've inhaled Stormlight to keep her from dying instantly. After the second stab, perhaps Ivory coaxed her back to consciousness, enough for her to Elsecall out of there. Perhaps Ivory guided the effort. 

 

After that, I figured she spent some time in Shadesmar recuperating. If she didn't have enough Stormlight in her to heal the wounds properly, it would've taken some time. Perhaps Ivory brought her to his domain, and it caused all manner of political upheaval (Wit indicates something like that), and she had to deal with that. 

Edited March 25, 2014 by Tazren

[Aleksiel]

What the rust? Apshhh. Who's Tarah anyways?

 

Tarah is the mysterious woman Kaladin has thought about on several occasions in both WoK and WoR. They had some sort of relationship (he thinks how since Tarah he hasn't help a woman as close as he held Shallan during the highstorm in the chasms); they get close after Tien's death when he's exhausting himself training non-stop, but he fails her in a way that's different from his other failures, but is never described. It's speculated they had a romantic relationship for obvious reasons.

[Observer]

Alright everybody, let's go over the points we've established, ignored, established, ignored, repeatedly.

1: Jasnah could totally survive a couple of stabs. Stormlight let Kaladin hold his breath for almost a half an hour back when he only had the first ideal down. Jasnah obviously has a few more than that, so her Stormlight efficiency is almost certainly enough to let her not die from loss of oxygen. We've seen Kaladin and Shallan both survive chasmfalls, which basically means they can heal from their entire bodies being destroyed, and for further proof, Kaladin fixes a pair of broken legs in a matter of seconds.

If a pair of broken legs, as well as a shardblade wound, can be healed in a matter of seconds and oxygen isn't a problem, there is NO WAY a pair of stab wounds would kill Jasnah.

2: Jasnah was caught by surprise. Jasnah REALLY needed to get to the Shattered Plains, and quickly. Just look at her when she pops out with Hoid, she felt it was important to warn of and/or stop it ASAP. If she knew they were coming and for some reason decided to leave Shallan all by herself via convoluted deathfaking plan, she probably would have chosen to do it in a much more controlled way, so she could actually do what we've established she's terrified of screwing up. She might be annoyed by assassins, but I don't see her throwing away her chance to warn everyone or fix the problem just to get rid of some assassins who obviously didn't even know what she could do, and therefore probably wouldn't be much of an issue any other time.

3: Jasnah has the surges of Transportation, Transformation, and very little Stormlight here. Yes, it's fun to say that she did some complicated crap with illusions or teleporting knives or soulcasting blood or something, but sometimes simple is better. They caught her by surprise, she needed to survive, so she poofed herself over to Shadesmar, where either time was different or the dangers mentioned by Pattern made her stay a while and listen for far too long.

I'll admit, this one is more my opinion than the others, but it simply seems unlikely that, if Jasnah really felt the need to run and leave Shallan all on her own, she would probably have found a better way to do it besides Elsecalling and wasting a ton of time.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Observer

[Levian]

snip

 

Totally agree. I had thought she had mastered teleporting back in WoK, which was how Shallan never managed to catch up to her but now I don't think so at all. You're right, I highly doubt she would have left Shallan alone if she knew she could help. I also like what someone else said previously about how she hadn't progressed far enough to make her Spren into a Shardblade. If she had she wouldn't have alluded to Shallan that she wouldn't be wielding a blade, and she would have mentioned SOMETHING about it.

 

Like you, and a few others have said, I think in her moment of danger being caught off guard, her abilities manifested on a level they never had before, and by reflex she drew in Stormlight after being stabbed, and teleported to Shadesmar. We've seen Kaladin use his abilities without meaning to, or even knowing what he is doing. Case in point, in WoK he attracts arrows to certain points multiple times, yet in WoR he STILL hasn't figured out how to do it at will.

 

We know she had gems with Stormlight. Shallan had borrowed a few when hers ran out not long before the incident. Her chest full of gems washed up on shore, which Shallan took. So she had enough Stormlight to heal with and get herself out. I'm assuming when she was there she didn't know how to get back as she had never been fully in Shadesmar physically. She traveled around a bit, met with the Highspren and learned some stuff, and obviously figured out how to get back out. Time must be strange there, because it seems she didn't think much time had passed, when in reality it had been well over a month.

[Glaring at the Survivor he/him]

I think what happened was she transported the knife as it almost-hit her, and soulcast the blood.

And I doubt Jasnah didn't expect this, at least somewhat.

[shadewolf]

We know from Nalan, that as long as the brain isn't damage it's pretty simple to save a person.Plus it's not like you die instantly from a knife to the chest. If she used her last bits of stormlight to heal the most significantly damage portions of her heart, and then elsecall to somewhere safe, It's quite possible for her to survive. This may be a simple answer, but honestly it fits.

[RShara she/her]

lol yeah I started this thread because I didn't see how it was possible, but arguments have convinced me that she used what Stormlight she could get to keep herself from dying, then Elsecalled to Shadesmar.  It makes the most sense at this point.

[Observer]

I think what happened was she transported the knife as it almost-hit her, and soulcast the blood.

And I doubt Jasnah didn't expect this, at least somewhat.

And it's exactly this line of thinking that I would like to discourage. We have no idea how Elsecalling works, but if Hoid and all the Elsecaller epigraphs are any indication, it's almost exlusively through Shadesmar. Tell me, honestly, that it doesn't take a massive stretch to say that Jasnah was able to teleport either the knife or a piece of it through Shadesmar, direct it into a nearby body or something for a second or two, and then seamlessly transported it back, and then maybe soulcast a bit of blood onto it for good measure, all while probably not knowing a whole lot about her transportation abilities. Honestly tell me that isn't a bit of a logical leap, and I'll eat my hat.

No, that's not meant to be read conscendingly. I really hate text sometimes.

Anyways, to Elsecalling, and how ready Jasnah was: If Jasnah had mastered Elsecalling, she and Shallan probably wouldn't be on a boat. They need to get to the Plains as quickly as possible, and Jasnah is scared to death they won't be there quickly enough to make a difference. If Elsecalling was both something she'd mastered, and as quick method of getting around as Teft implies, they'd have just poofed over to it, or at least closer.

HOWEVER.

There's still the issue of how much she knew. My version of events requires no foreknowledge, she just did it all by reflex. To those who think she totally saw this coming, I ask: Why in Damnation's tenth name she would make a plan that involves leaving another Radiant all on her own, with a bunch of assassins, right after telling her that they were meant to be near one another, and when she could have just as easily run them all through with a blade or, even better, soulcast them to death, or EVEN BETTER, told the frickin sailors about it ahead of time so that they'd be ready and not all die.

Of course, I won't say that she didn't, on some small level, have a plan just in case. She's running in/from a dozen secret cults, she's probably got some kind of plan for if they come after her. However, I highly doubt it was specific enough to involve soulcasting blood onto a knife and elsecalling stuff around. Faking her death isn't worth it, if she has a plan, it's one that involves not being inconvenienced much or dying. The very fact that she wound up leaving Shallan all alone and arriving too late to do anything to help tells me that, whether she had a preprepared plan or not, she was caught off her guard and instinct kicked in.

There, I said it.

TL;DR: Shallan was left all alone, and Jasnah arrived too late to do anything, her huge mask-breaking fear. If she planned any of this or did much at all by anything other than instinct, her plan must be crazy kinds of messed up.

EDIT: (Warning, pretentiousness below. Do not discuss this, this is completely OT)

As usual, line breaks didn't show up. This is becoming a problem.

Added bolds to get people's attention. Why? I know it sounds pretentious of me, but all 5 pages of this thread have been "Here's a valid point --> Cool! A valid point! --> Something irrelevent! --> *Forget point* --> *REHASH* --> Here's a valid point --> Cool! A valid point!" ad nausium.

Is this stupid of me? Probably. Still, I don't want to repeat the same song and dance, so I guess it involves being a stuck up prick as usual.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Observer

[RShara she/her]

WoB is also that Jasnah's "last thoughts" were of escaping.  So yeah.

[Leuthie]

Why would her physical body show up in the Cognitive realm wounded? I would assume, if Lopens arm regenerated simply because he's holding Stormlight, that Jasnah's little stab wound(s) would disappear when she successfully transported it to the Realm of pure thought.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

WoB is also that Jasnah's "last thoughts" were of escaping.  So yeah.

 

From the Chicago signing:

 

Q [22:48]: Is Jasnah still alive at the end of the book, since the whole scene where she kind of appears...

A: Yes, she is.

Me: Why does she take so long to come back?

A: Because Elsecalling is not precise even if you know what you are doing, which she doesn't.

 

 

So that explains why she disappears for like 90 chapters! And in timeline it is what, about 2 months? 

[Leuthie]

This is why some people dislike high fantasy:

--why was that strong, female major character who would have had a huge impact on the plot and the development of at least one other major character gone for the entire book?

---Because Elsecalling