[OB] A heralds sanity

[Calderis]

39 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

No, I don't think you got my point.

I do. And I understand the reasoning you used, even if I don't agree with it. 

At the time inquestion though, we hadn't had a PoV from Shallash/Baxil's Mistress, so the "Future PoV" applies. 

And then add this WoB... Or Hmmm... The Footnote references the WoB in question, but I'm having trouble finding it. 

Quote

Mysty (paraphrased)

Is Baxil's Mistress destroying statues of the Herald Shalash?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Actually in the prologue her statue is missing because Baxil's mistress came through.

Mysty (paraphrased)

Is Baxil's mistress Shalash?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I'm not going to answer that.

Footnote: Brandon has since confirmed that Baxil's mistress is in fact Shalash.
source

I'm sure there's a WoB that she's been confirmed as the Herald Shallash, not just "Ash" 

If I can find it, I'll edit it in

[insert_anagram_here]

I'm not defending the theory anymore since I found that 'Ash' reddit comment of his. Sorry, I thought I was clear on that a page back.

I was just mentioning what made me believe this whole thing. 

Edit:

15 minutes ago, Calderis said:

At the time inquestion though, we hadn't had a PoV from Shallash/Baxil's Mistress, so the "Future PoV" applies. 

If you said this the way you meant to say it, you should've said 'we still haven't seen a Dustbringer's POV yet' 

So now I'm completely confused on where you are getting with it.

Edited February 16, 2018 by insert_anagram_here

[Calderis]

32 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

If you said this the way you meant to say it, you should've said 'we still haven't seen a Dustbringer's POV yet' 

So now I'm completely confused on where you are getting with it.

At the time that WoB was given, we had not had a PoV from Ash, so the "Future PoV character will be a Dustbringer" applied (assuming that theory is correct) . Not sure why that was so confusing. 

[insert_anagram_here]

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

At the time that WoB was given, we had not had a PoV from Ash, so the "Future PoV character will be a Dustbringer" applied (assuming that theory is correct) . Not sure why that was so confusing. 

Because according to what you are saying, she isn't a Dustbringer not even in OB and she is Shalash.

It's my theory that says she is Chana and I am considering her a herald of her own order just like the WOB suggests

[RShara]

So at the time that WoB was written, we had not had a Shalash viewpoint.  So Brandon saying a future PoV will be a Dustbringer could apply to anyone that hasn't had a PoV yet, including Shalash/Ash.

You said

Quote

A Dustbringer is eventually a POV, not a POV is eventually a Dustbringer. Then he clarifies that you should count the Heralds as members of their own order. 

So if you are missing the Dustbringer who will eventually be a POV and you are supposed to count Heralds of their own order, it meant that Chana is in the POVs. 

So a Dustbringer is eventually a PoV character would apply to Shalash.  We don't need to worry about "a PoV is eventually a Dustbringer" because we hadn't had a PoV from Shalash yet, so the first part still applies to her.

Edited February 17, 2018 by RShara

[Calderis]

13 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Because according to what you are saying, she isn't a Dustbringer not even in OB and she is Shalash.

It's my theory that says she is Chana and I am considering her a herald of her own order just like the WOB suggests

And? She isn't a Dustbringer yet. Nothing is preventing her from drawing a spren to become one and with the things she's been doing, she appears to fit as a Dustbringer now more than as a lightweaver. 

It's why I've subscribed to this idea ever since I saw that WoB. Dustbringers are complicated, because we have seen a future Dustbringer, who should be considered a lightweaver by her Herald status, though she no longer fits where she was. 

For Chana to be the Dustbringer means she would fit perfectly within the frame of "Herald = order member" and leaves no complications. 

[RShara]

Also, Peter said we had seen Chana in the first two books, so "if you don't include the Herald, you haven't seen all Orders" wouldn't apply to Dustbringers in any case.

[insert_anagram_here]

44 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It's why I've subscribed to this idea ever since I saw that WoB. Dustbringers are complicated, because we have seen a future Dustbringer, who should be considered a lightweaver by her Herald status, though she no longer fits where she was.

The WOB is talking about a current Dustbringer, not a future one, because the question was on what orders we have already seen.

8 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Brandon Sanderson

One of the Dustbringers is eventually a point-of-view character.

As in a person who is currently a Dustbringer (back in WoR) will eventually be a POV character in the future. 

Quote

Questioner

Haven’t been yet?

Brandon Sanderson

No, not yet, I don’t think. But it depends if you count the Heralds as members of their order.

As in, this Dustbringer hasn't been a POV character yet? No, they haven't been a POV character. (BTW, I'm assuming we are both excluding Baxil as Ash's POV)

"But it depends'

Now 'it' here could either mean:

(a) do you consider that this person had a POV so far?

(b) do you consider that this person is a Dustbringer?

Since he says "if you count the Heralds as members of their order" it can only be interpreted as (b). 

So he is saying here "depending whether or not you consider Heralds as members of their order this person can be considered as a Dustbringer"

Quote

Questioner

I don’t.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, see I would, because they’re kind of heads of their Order. If you don’t count them you have not met some from every Order.

And then he is saying that you are supposed to consider Heralds as heads of their own Order

44 minutes ago, Calderis said:

And? She isn't a Dustbringer yet. Nothing is preventing her from drawing a spren to become one and with the things she's been doing, she appears to fit as a Dustbringer now more than as a lightweaver.

I do not disagree with this, but currently she is not a Dustbringer.

Edited February 17, 2018 by insert_anagram_here

[Calderis]

@insert_anagram_here considering WoBs such as this...

Quote

EHyde

And, how were the Radiants able to summon their Shardblades at the Recreance if they'd already decided to break their oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

Their Shardblades are part of what brought them to—part of the Oathpact—but breaking the Oathpact did not affect their ability to bond or unbond Shardblades.

source

I think you're looking for to much specificity in the order of Brandon's words. 

Again, considering the final portion of that WoB, I think that the portion about the Heralds and the portion about the Dustbringers aren't linked. 

We'll have to agree to disagree, because again, if he is speaking about Chana, the last portion of that WoB makes no sense whatsoever. 

[RShara]

Sometimes, Brandon just needs more sleep.

[insert_anagram_here]

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

We'll have to agree to disagree, because again, if he is speaking about Chana, the last portion of that WoB makes no sense whatsoever. 

I have no problem with that.

Although it worries me that we dismiss one WoB due to differing opinions but we take another for granted and use it a counter argument to theories that people come up with. WoBs aren't verified truths and their meaning can be misleading, so maybe we should start treating them as hints and not facts. Especially since we will have more than 10 years of WoBs. 

When people use WoBs to come up with theories, they are just that. Theories. Nobody says they are facts. But they can only be proved or disapproved by facts, meaning in book text.

Providing a single WoB as factual counter argument that cancels the initial logic (see Proving Invalidity: The Counterexample Method as an indication to what I mean), doesn't work in this case, because WoBs are losing their credibility, especially when they get paraphrased a lot as well. (Providing multiple WoBs though, yeah I can see it a lot more plausible)

There is no point in stiffling theoretical creativity in a forum. It's a discussion. If you need to access facts only, just use the coppermind. That's my two cents. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by insert_anagram_here

[RShara]

Insisting on accuracy and plausibility is not stifling creativity. It's like saying Brandon insisting on having hard rules in his writing is stifling his creativity.  It clearly isn't there, and it isn't here.

[Calderis]

@insert_anagram_here this is the very reasons why Arcanum is so good. Dragonsteel is verify the validity and content of newer WoBs (see the "pending review" tag on many of them, or the "reviewed by Dragonsteel entertainment" on events such as SLCC 2017) and the attached audio so you can listen to what was actually said to kill paraphrasing.

34 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

There is no point in stiffling theoretical creativity in a forum. It's a discussion. If you need to access facts only, just use the coppermind. That's my two cents. 

The coppermind is a fan run wiki that's only as good as the people running it are able to keep on top of. Our Keepers do great work, but much of the coppermind is well out of date. Relying on it is asking for problems unless we get more people reliably working on it. 

Discussion is fine. Speculation is fine. But WoBs are as close to canon as you get until it's in book. There's a reason Brandon RAFO'S things hes not willing to canonize and has actually said in answers "you really expect me to canonize this now?" 

Yes, he's fallible, and things can change. There's plenty of examples of this, but we either accept his words at face value, and try to interpret them based on context, or we rely solely on the text of the published books. If we were to do the later, 90% of what we know would still be missing in our Cosmere knowledge. 

[The One Who Connects]

On 2/16/2018 at 2:19 AM, insert_anagram_here said:

I think you mean that Ash's book will focus on her flashback story and on the Dustbringer order at the same time, without necessarily making her of that Order. Am I correct?

That's the general gist of it, yes. The giant spoiler tag in my post detailed what I've been saying quite thoroughly.

On 2/16/2018 at 2:19 AM, insert_anagram_here said:

Edit: to clarify what my initial intention was

I meant to say that he could purposefully mislead us into thinking that Ash(Baxil's Mistress) is the same as Shalash only to make the revelation that someone else is actually Shalash in order to make that more impact-ful.

Thank you for clarifying, but my words remain the same. On it's own, the revelation that "Shalash is someone else" has no real impact to it. It needs more. What does our imposter stand to gain by pretending to be a Herald? What were Shalash's motives in not coming forward? What does Shalash stand to gain by (presumably) coming forward to reveal that our imposter is an imposter?

On 2/16/2018 at 4:30 AM, Willow said:

But Baxil's interlude was in Way of Kings?  It's interlude I-7 there. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, we were told Shalash was Jezrien's daughter in the same book as we were told Baxil's mistress was destroying art?

I see what I did now. The question where we learned that Ash is Baxil's Mistress is dated for after WoR released, so I assumed that meant Baxil's Mistress was in WoR. That's on me for not checking further(and probably forgetting that the source notes on wiki articles are in the order they appear in the article, rather than chronological order)

On 2/16/2018 at 6:51 AM, Isilel said:

Hoid included her in his story about Fleet as a superb long-distance runner. Chana is associated with guards and was probably a general before she became a Herald as she and Taln are the only ones who are usually depicted wearing helmets. There is every reason to expect her to look the part - which is why she can't be Liss who looks like this:

Quote

"She wore a maid’s dress—low cut, of course—and could have been Alethi. Or Veden. Or Bav. Depending on which part of her accent she chose to emphasize. Long dark hair, worn loose, and a plump, attractive figure made her distinctive in all the right ways."

So Liss can't be Chana because she's described as plump? There's this thing called body types, you know.
Secondly, our heralds have had more than enough time to change their physiques/lifestyles. As you mention, Jezrien let himself go and lost that regal bearing, but Nalan seems to have kept himself in good shape running around the continent. Shalash still has an association with art/beauty, albeit for different reasons. Why not have Chana change her occupation, but keep her association with combat/violence from her soldiering days?

Occupationally, an assassin doesn't have to do practice drills every morning, which Chana might've done as a soldier/general. Assuming the contracts pay well, an assassin eats better(and more) than Chana would've done on Braize. Chana hasn't been running about battling a Desolation either. Is it so hard to believe that someone could put on a few extra pounds by living a less active lifestyle like that?

On 2/16/2018 at 5:10 PM, Calderis said:

The Footnote references the WoB in question, but I'm having trouble finding it. 

Rather than a WoB, that footnote appears to reference this footnote.

---

Since there's too many disparate posts to quote snippets of, I'm just gonna do it this way: @insert_anagram_here, @Calderis, @RShara

On 2/16/2018 at 2:13 PM, insert_anagram_here said:

I feel I'm spamming this now without reason but I found of the WOB that completely threw me off on a tangent when I initially came up with the theory.

Here is my reply to everything from the quoted post above onwards. Taking the WoB in sections:

Quote

Questioner
Have we... I think you mentioned in a previous signing that we’d already met one member of every Order of the Knights Radiant.

Brandon Sanderson
Yes, I think you have.

Pretty self-explanatory. Brandon is fairly confident that we've met at least one member of every order. This does not guarantee that they are currently a KR, or that they've had a PoV. (The referenced "WoB from a previous signing" does not appear to be on Arcanum, by the way.)

Quote

Questioner
My question is, is one of the Dustbringers a viewpoint character?

Brandon Sanderson
One of the Dustbringers is eventually a point-of-view character.

Questioner
Haven’t been yet?

Brandon Sanderson
No, not yet, I don’t think. But it depends if you count the Heralds as members of their order.

I'm seeing something like: "A Dustbringer is eventually going to be a PoV character, but they haven't been a PoV yet, unless you count the Heralds as part of their order."

He basically says that whether or not we've already had a "Dustbringer" PoV depends on whether or not you count the Heralds as part of their Orders. Does that make sense to y'all? The problem with this is that it implies a few things, and in the Pre-OB time-frame, they're all bad.

• It almost sounds like he's saying we've had one of the Heralds be a PoV character already.
• Given "Dustbringer" and "Herald," he's either directly referencing Chana, or one of the other Heralds has already joined the Dustbringers.

This has been gnawing at the back of my mind for months.

Quote

Questioner
I don’t.

Brandon Sanderson
Oh, see I would, because they’re kind of heads of their Order. If you don’t count them you have not met some from every Order.

Without counting the Heralds, there is an order that we haven't even met a character of yet. Thanks to our main cast, we've met a Non-Herald member of every order but Dustbringers and Stonewards already. Brandon essentially told us that none of the Non-Herald characters we've met in the first two books are members of one of those Orders(likely Dustbringers, given the last snippet).

This is where having that original WoB would come in handy. Depending on the tense/wording, Brandon could've been saying we've met a current member of every order, or we've met someone who's gonna be a member of each Order. The latter would disqualify every single Non-Herald we've "met" from being potential Dustbringers, which would be a big deal.

Quote

Questioner
Have we met someone from the Dustbringers?

Brandon Sanderson
Well… Dustbringers are really complicated. Really complicated. So that’s the weird one. Okay? So let’s shelve that one. You’ll see why it’s really weird later on.

As Calderis mentions, Dustbringer Chana makes sense, and thus can't be complicated. And in the wake of Nalan properly joining his own Order, I don't think we could consider Chana doing that as "complicated" either.

Come to think of it, the WoP that we've seen Chana on-screen makes me curious if that qualifies as having "met" her or not, because of the complicated/weirdness of us having met a Dustbringer.

[insert_anagram_here]

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

 "Shalash is someone else" has no real impact to it. It needs more.

I don't want to get into that part of my theory yet, quite frankly because it's even crazier and I even haven't answered to myself all the questions about that yet. I need to thoroughly read the books at least one more time to provide parts that support it. Just have in mind that when Kalak said that 'Ash is getting worse' he didn't necessarily mean Baxil's mistress, but Shalash.

Quote

What does our imposter stand to gain by pretending to be a Herald? What were Shalash's motives in not coming forward? What does Shalash stand to gain by (presumably) coming forward to reveal that our imposter is an imposter?

So, our impostor isn't pretending to be a Herald, she is a Herald, just a different one than who we think. As you mentioned Chana and Taln were both soldiers, they could've had spent a lot of time together and from Ash's POV in OB she talks about his hands, denoting that there could be romantic feelings towards him.

Quote

Ash looked at his fingers, thick and callused. Thousands of years could come and pass, and she could lose lifetimes to the dream, but those hands . . . she’d never forget those hands. 

Now during Baxil's POV chapter, Baxil is talking with the other mistress follower about Nightwatcher's boons/curse, as the mistress is destroying art. It kind of feels that this is done purposefully on the author's part either to link the mistress's insanity to the Nightwatcher or to distract us from the fact that it's her Herald's insanity manifested. Somehow, I think that the fact that she could be Shalash is too obvious and only half of the assumption in this case, hence why Brandon has been very cryptic (NO CANONIZING!) on this WOB. (listen to the voice part)

What if it's both her Heralds madness AND Nightwatcher's boon at the same time? Brave and Obedient are soldier attributes and her actual Herald madness could've completely averted her from that path of her life. Notice how she also destroy's ALL Herald depictions? She's not only scratching Shalash's eyes out, it's about

Quote

"Don’t swear by us. Don’t paint pictures of us. Don’t worship at our statues."

She is clearly moving against her obedience to the union of Heralds at this point. So going back to the topic of motive from Chana's part, if Shalash and Taln had a very close relationship and Chana was jealous of that, she could've sought Nightwatcher's boon to take her place in Taln's eyes. That's why she is described as extremely beautiful by Baxil and why Taln recognizes her in that momentary lucidity of his. And maybe she did this just to make Taln hate Shalash.

Quote

“A wonderful thing indeed, Ash.”

“You can’t be like this, Taln. You have to hate me! Hate me, please.” 

Quote

Oh, Taln. Couldn’t he have just hated her? Couldn’t he have let her— 

...have her revenge?

Also notice this part:

Quote

This wasn’t like their other deaths. This was something horrible. She couldn’t feel him at all. They’d done something to Jezrien’s soul. “My father,” she said, “is dead.” 

We see a difference of how she is referring to Jezrien in her thought and to what she calls him out loud. She doesn't recognize him as father when she thinks of him, but as Jezrien, but she voices him as father staying true to the disguise. Personally, I don't think of my parent's by their name, they are mom and dad to me, especially in my thoughts.

 

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

He basically says that whether or not we've already had a "Dustbringer" PoV depends on whether or not you count the Heralds as part of their Orders. Does that make sense to y'all? The problem with this is that it implies a few things, and in the Pre-OB time-frame, they're all bad.

• It almost sounds like he's saying we've had one of the Heralds be a PoV character already.
• Given "Dustbringer" and "Herald," he's either directly referencing Chana, or one of the other Heralds has already joined the Dustbringers.

This is exactly the same trail of thought I had 2 posts above. It makes sense once you think of Ash as Chana though. 

Edited February 18, 2018 by insert_anagram_here
typoes

[RShara]

I thought you decided your theory was dead?

[Calderis]

25 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Notice how she also destroy's ALL Herald depictions? She's not only scratching Shalash's eyes out, it's about

Then why was the only statue missing on the night of the feast the one of Shallash? Yes she said that about all of them, but she's only compelled to destroy images of herself.

[insert_anagram_here]

18 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Then why was the only statue missing on the night of the feast the one of Shallash? Yes she said that about all of them, but she's only compelled to destroy images of herself.

Sorry, I can't remember if there is a reference saying that Baxil's mistress did that. Could Gavilar had it removed for another reason ?

Edited February 18, 2018 by insert_anagram_here

[Calderis]

Just now, insert_anagram_here said:

Sorry, I can't remember if there is a reference saying that Baxil's mistress did that. Could Gavilar had it removed for another reason ?

It was her. 

Quote

Mysty (paraphrased)

Is Baxil's Mistress destroying statues of the Herald Shalash?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Actually in the prologue her statue is missing because Baxil's mistress came through.

Mysty (paraphrased)

Is Baxil's mistress Shalash?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I'm not going to answer that.

Footnote: Brandon has since confirmed that Baxil's mistress is in fact Shalash.
source

 

[insert_anagram_here]

Fine, keep on providing paraphrased WOBs as counter examples. I've already told you what I think of this.

Edit: I'm willing to take paraphrased WOBs at face value, only if there are two paraphrased WOBs that say the same thing. Otherwise

Edited February 18, 2018 by insert_anagram_here

[Calderis]

29 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Fine, keep on providing paraphrased WOBs as counter examples. I've already told you what I think of this.

Seriously? Yes that's paraphrased, but how exactly could that be misinterpreted? 

The timefrane in which these questions were relevant is as many paraphrased WoBs as not. Some are far more reliable than others. Being paraphrased in itself isn't automatically a point towards its invalidity. 

In Arcanum, unless we have an audio source or a link to text as written by Brandon it's marked as paraphrased  even if the wording is perfect. Even if the person putting the WoB into Arcanum is the person who received the WoB. 

That WoB is pretty clear. If you want to say that the report is worthless because it's marked paraphrased that's your prerogative, but Baxil's mistress, Shallash, is the one who destroyed that statue. 

Edited February 18, 2018 by Calderis

[digitalbusker]

Did the missing Shalash statue in the palace at Kholinar get destroyed or was it removed? Maybe Gavilar, a man so devoted to his religious reverence of the Heralds that he thinks bringing about an apocalypse is a fair price to pay for bringing them back, somehow also decided to break up his heraldic statuary set, because reasons. And the "paraphrased" WoB where he volunteers information about that statue in particular after being asked about statues of Shalash in general is paraphrased in the sense of omitting "...Not!" from end of the critical sentence, because additional reasons. It doesn't matter.

Regardless of whether Gavilar's Shalash statue was "removed" by the same person who destroyed all the other depictions of Shalash, we know Ash isn't compelled to destroy depictions of all Heralds. Just her. We know this from her PoV, and from observing what has actually been done.

And the quote where the narration says Jezrien and then Ash says "father" out loud: the narration is not a direct transcript of the PoV character's thoughts. It has to take some liberties so the reader can follow it. When the viewpoint character's thoughts are being directly transcribed, that's indicated with italics. In this case, since the books are written for a general audience, including people who might not have figured out that Ash is Shalash, or remember that Jezrien is Shalash's father, Brandon dropped in the proper noun, even though the viewpoint character wouldn't have used it. It's a pretty common thing.

Edited February 18, 2018 by digitalbusker
Manualcorrect