Unanswered Questions

[Confused]

I haven’t seen any commentary on the following, and I’d like to invite some:

1. Did Dalinar have a vision at the beginning of the chapter when he bonds with the Stormfather? He remembers the warmth from this vision from prior visions, and he believes that it feels like his other visions. The Stormfather claims it must have been a normal dream. So…did Cultivation or the Nightwatcher send it? If not the Shard or its spren, then who?

1. How did Shallan become a KR-in-training? Her mother thought she was “one of them” before Pattern materialized into her shardblade. And its elsewhere made clear that she had reached a certain level of Lightweaver competence (including sound) before the trauma from murdering her mother banished her memory of Pattern. So how was she already “broken” at such a young age? Why did the “scholar” Pattern choose her in the first place?

Responses welcomed!

[FlatLine]

I haven’t seen any commentary on the following, and I’d like to invite some:

1. Did Dalinar have a vision at the beginning of the chapter when he bonds with the Stormfather? He remembers the warmth from this vision from prior visions, and he believes that it feels like his other visions. The Stormfather claims it must have been a normal dream. So…did Cultivation or the Nightwatcher send it? If not the Shard or its spren, then who?

1. How did Shallan become a KR-in-training? Her mother thought she was “one of them” before Pattern materialized into her shardblade. And its elsewhere made clear that she had reached a certain level of Lightweaver competence (including sound) before the trauma from murdering her mother banished her memory of Pattern. So how was she already “broken” at such a young age? Why did the “scholar” Pattern choose her in the first place?

Responses welcomed!

 

1. In the book it was said to just be a simple dream, it sounded like Dalinar hadn't had one of those in a long time, but I guess it could be something more. You can never really trust Sanderson and we really don't know enough. 

 

2. I think spren can feel something within the person that they are going to bond with. If I remember correctly Syl had watched and followed Kaladin for a long time. So maybe Pattern could have sensed Shallans fate? We don't really know what happened before she killed her mother, so I'm not exactly sure. 

[Bramble Thorn]

I trust Dalinar to know what a vision feels like. He has a lot of experience with processing external input. So a vision, but not apparently from the Stormfather.

 

I am guessing Shallan began the bonding process as a child, and her mother saw the effects of that somehow. The bond was progressed enough for Pattern to take blade form, and that took Kaladin a while. She could have seen instinctive illusions, the result of nascent soulcasting, dun spheres, faint glowing. There is a lot to pick up on if you are knowledgeable and looking for signs.

 

Other unanswered questions.

 

1. Did the Stormfather exist a separate entity prior to tanavasts death?

 

2. He is the "spen of the almighty" i.e. "I AM THE MEMORY MEN CREATE FOR HIM, NOW THAT HE

IS GONE." Could some of his super dickery be because the personality of the almighty is being overwritten by current perceptions of the almighty, which are rather pragmatic and self-serving?

 

3. What are the agendas of the Ghord Bloods?

 

4. What is going on with the physiological changes in the fabrial soulcasters?

 

5. What information did Jasnah learn from the spren in shadesmar?

 

6. What exactly is shardplate?

 

7. What are the specifics of Nightblood's functionality on Roshar?

 

8. The Everstorm is "New" The historical record of Parshendi Songs is Old and contains a description of the storm form, its powers, and associated spren.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Bramble Thorn

[Argent he/him]

Shallan had been doing some Lightweaving before the accident with her mother. When she draws Pattern into the physical realm on the board of the Wind's Pleasure, the illusion she accidentally creates is of her sitting in her father's gardens, her spren's pattern visible in the specks of dust. This has to be from before the accident, as she shuts those memories down after her mother's death. Further, Pattern remembers Shallan creating illusions with sound, not just light - which has to be from before too.

[learhpa]

1. In the book it was said to just be a simple dream, it sounded like Dalinar hadn't had one of those in a long time, but I guess it could be something more. You can never really trust Sanderson and we really don't know enough. 

 

2. I think spren can feel something within the person that they are going to bond with. If I remember correctly Syl had watched and followed Kaladin for a long time. So maybe Pattern could have sensed Shallans fate? We don't really know what happened before she killed her mother, so I'm not exactly sure. 

I don't think it works for Pattern's presence to be based on sensing Shallan's fate, because that fate was largely a result of his presence. Her mother's insanity and death, her father's insanity and death ... neither of those would have happened had Pattern not been there.

So I think there's a really interesting question that may be unanswerable (because of the nature of the memories of children) about what was happening in Shallan's life which drew Pattern in the first place.

[writelhd she/her]

In chapter 17, Shallan insists to Pattern that she is not a Knight Radiant yet--just having the tools does not make one a member of a profession.  Then Pattern replies:

 

"You Spoke Oaths."

Shallan froze.

Life before death...The words drifted toward her from the shadows of her past.  A past she would not think of.

 

That implies that when she was a child and drawing Pattern and Lightweaving without even realizing it, she had also already spoken the oaths. 

 

But that's still something of a mystery--what reason would she have to speak them?  Did she speak them only when her mother tried to kill her, triggering Pattern's transformation to her Blade right then?  

Edited March 16, 2014 by writelhd

[name_here]

@bramble thorn

1. Probably, since Honor was alive during the events of every vision except the destruction of Kholinar and the stormfather apparently witnessed the Recreance.

2. Plausible.

3. From Kasbal's big rant, I think they're trying to destroy the Voidbringers and restore the church to power. But they might have multiple agendas.

8. There had been some other method of transforming. Stormform wasn't used to create the Everstorm before, but it's been in the planning stage for quite some time.

[Wileygirl13]

2. I wonder about Shallan/Pattern a lot. From the very little we know about the different spren factions, the Cryptic seem to plan and play the long game. This might sound crazy, but is it possible that the Cryptics have been working behind the scene to bring about the return of the radiance?

Like a chess game, did they bring about the events with Shallan's family to get her to Jasnah and through Jasnah she'd get to the Shattered Plains?

We know Elokar saw them around him, causing his paranoid fears and affecting his behavior. This might be a bit of a stretch, but Elokar's action began the string of events bringing Kallidan to the Shattered Plains.

- support for this theory could be that Elokar stopped seeing the Cryptics when Kallidan began guard duty (Cryptics stop revealing themselves, since their task getting Kal there was done)

Comments?

[hoser he/him]

My answer for the first 1.

I haven’t seen any commentary on the following, and I’d like to invite some:

1. Did Dalinar have a vision at the beginning of the chapter when he bonds with the Stormfather? He remembers the warmth from this vision from prior visions, and he believes that it feels like his other visions. The Stormfather claims it must have been a normal dream. So…did Cultivation or the Nightwatcher send it? If not the Shard or its spren, then who?

1. ...

Responses welcomed!

I believe it was a vision sent, not by the stormfather, Tanavast or Adonalsium, but from the real God beyond.  Kaladin gets the encouragement he needs from Syl. Dalinar has a deep spiritual focus as a Bondsmith but he needs encouragement to deal w/his broken spren, hence the vision. 

 

Consider the following quotes. 

 

From the "vision" and after:

... feeling the fuzzy joy of familiarity. Of things being as they should be. ...

Warm light bathed him.  A deep, enveloping, piercing warmth.  A warmth that soaked down deep through his skin, into his very self.  He stared at that light and was not blinded.  The source was distant, but he knew it.  Knew it well.

...

Dalinar sat in the darkness for a short time, contemplating that warmth he had felt.  What had that been? ...

 

From Jasnah's conversation w/Wit at the end of WoR:

"... So where can we look?"

"You're so convinced that there is no God."

"The Almighty is-"

"Oh," Wit said, "I don't mean the Almighty.  Tanavast was a fine enough fellow - bought me drinks once - but he was not God.  ... I just think you've been looking for God in the wrong places."

...

"You'll find God in in the same place you're going to find salvation from this mess," Wit said. "Inside the hearts of men."

 

From Dalinar's conversation w/Navani about whether to live together (ch 4):

"You're confident they won't let us marry, Dalinar.  So what else are we to do?  Is it the morality of the thing?  You yourself said that the Almighty was dead."

"Something is either right or it's wrong," Dalinar said, feeling stubborn.  "The Almighty doesn't come into it."

"God," Navani said flatly, "doesn't come into whether his commands are right or wrong."

"Er.  Yes."

"Careful," Navani said.  "You're sounding like Jasnah.  Anyway, if God is dead -"

"God isn't dead.  If the Almighty died, then he was never God, that's all."

Edited March 16, 2014 by hoser

[tareth]

1. Did the Stormfather exist a separate entity prior to tanavasts death?

 

2. He is the "spen of the almighty" i.e. "I AM THE MEMORY MEN CREATE FOR HIM, NOW THAT HE

IS GONE." Could some of his super dickery be because the personality of the almighty is being overwritten by current perceptions of the almighty, which are rather pragmatic and self-serving?

 

And on the subject of the Stormfather:

 

Did all bondsmiths bond with him? This epigraph leads me to believe that the answer is possibly yes..

 

But as for the Bondsmiths, they had members only three, which number was not uncommon for them; nor did they seek to increase this by great bounds, for during the times of Madasa, only one of their order was in continual accompaniment of Urithiru and its thrones. Their spren was understood to be specific, and to persuade them to grow to the magnitude of the other orders was seen as seditious.

 

 

This might mean that the Stormfather could be bonded to multiple Bondsmiths, and would also imply that he was around (at least in some form) before Honor was splintered. Could other spren bond to more than one human?

 

Or were there, at one point, multiple Stormfather-like spren floating around before the Recreance? 

 

Did bondsmiths use shardblades?

 

This also might have something to do with whatever unique ability it was that let the Bondsmiths figure out how to "defeat" the Voidbringers.

[kogs]

Couldn't Dalinar's vision / dream be similar to Shallan's when she remembered / saw herself killing her mother?  But for Shallan's, it seems Pattern set it all up.  So I guess the question is, who set up Dallinars?

[Argent he/him]

Shallan's was a product of Lightweaving. Dalinar has no access to the surge of Illumination, and he was also asleep.

[Sleigh]

2. I wonder about Shallan/Pattern a lot. From the very little we know about the different spren factions, the Cryptic seem to plan and play the long game. This might sound crazy, but is it possible that the Cryptics have been working behind the scene to bring about the return of the radiance?

Like a chess game, did they bring about the events with Shallan's family to get her to Jasnah and through Jasnah she'd get to the Shattered Plains?

We know Elokar saw them around him, causing his paranoid fears and affecting his behavior. This might be a bit of a stretch, but Elokar's action began the string of events bringing Kallidan to the Shattered Plains.

- support for this theory could be that Elokar stopped seeing the Cryptics when Kallidan began guard duty (Cryptics stop revealing themselves, since their task getting Kal there was done)

Comments?

 

Fatal

I assumed that Elkohar no longer sees the Cryptics because they don't like Kal/Syl. Somewhere in WOK (I think) it was mentioned that the honor

spren and Cryptics do not like each other. In fact, during Adolin's duel, Syl sensed Pattern but she had to stop her search to help Kal and Pattern disappeared. So my assumption is that Elkohar no longer sees the Crypyics because Syl is around too much.

[happyman he/him]

I find the notion of a God Beyond intriguing given how much it has begun to show up in Brandon's works.  Especially because it appears to have come from different planets and in different forms.  The idea strikes me as a much more platonic God than the Shards usually are.  The idea that He can possibly interfere directly, a la Dalinar's last dream/vision/whatever, is also interesting.

 

If such a God exists in the Cosmere, I suspect that in the books He will play much the same role Eru did in Tolkein's mythology, acting primarily through proxies in deep and subtle ways rather than overwhelming creation with his will.  Dalinar's dream would play a similar role to some of what happened in LotR.

 

I especially found Ym's interpretation of God fascinating (that's what it was, whether he accepted that term or not), even while having no idea whether it was just a different religion or had tapped into something more primal.

[drakesparda]

Has it been asked or confirmed if Highspren is a type of spren or a title for a set of spren that have higher authority?  I only ask cause I have seen a lot of people refer to them as a specific type, where I took it as more of a title.

[Moogle]

Has it been asked or confirmed if Highspren is a type of spren or a title for a set of spren that have higher authority?  I only ask cause I have seen a lot of people refer to them as a specific type, where I took it as more of a title.

 

Syl specifically says highspren care about the law, so it's more likely that they're Skybreaker spren. We don't have confirmation, but highspren are most likely not the godspren like the Stormfather.

[Trevalion]

It seemed to me that Ym's religion is telling the story of Adonalasium, who was One, but was broken up. Those pieces gave part of themselves to create various species of humanity and someday the pieces, and their experiences will be rejoined.

[Argent he/him]

It seemed to me that Ym's religion is telling the story of Adonalasium, who was One, but was broken up. Those pieces gave part of themselves to create various species of humanity and someday the pieces, and their experiences will be rejoined.

 

I theorized something similar, but it's a dead end for now. My idea was essentially that the Iriali have two different pieces of lore mixed up a little - the Shattering of Adonalsium and the creation (or migration) of humans throughout the cosmere. Ym refers to the Fourth Land, in which the Iriali currently live (which could mean either the Shardworld Roshar or a region of the supercontinent Roshar), and the Seventh Land, in which the One will reform - which could be a reference to Yolen (where Adonalsium was Shattered), but at this point theorycrafting gets really muddy.

 

 

Syl specifically says highspren care about the law, so it's more likely that they're Skybreaker spren. We don't have confirmation, but highspren are most likely not the godspren like the Stormfather.

 

I am unreasonably giddy that "godspren," the term I coined, has caught up at least a little in these forums. I felt similarly when somebody used "Sprenblade" to refer to a Radiant's "living" Shardblade.

[Trevalion]

Cool Argent. My first thought when I saw the golden hair color and Ym living there talking about their belief that is their 4th land was that they have the royal locks in their genetics and they have migrated from Nalthisand Adonalasium would be reforged in the "7th land." I believe I then saw something where Brandon said yes, there is a connection with the hair color. But now I've searched the forums and see this ground has been well covered, so we'll see.

[Swimmingly he/him]

I personally wonder whether a sculptor or stonecarver Lightweaver would literally have to carry around stone blocks to chip into his illusions, and if the more laborious creation process would have any disadvantages.

[Argent he/him]

It was it was implied, if not outright said, that Shallan's need to draw things is a crutch. She should be able to create illusions without having to draw them first, but she is still too new to Lightweaving.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Argent

[happyman he/him]

It was it was implied, if not outright said, that Shallan's need to draw things is a clutch. She should be able to create illusions without having to draw them first, but she is still too new to Lightweaving.

 

Since I have never learned how to drive stick, I imagine I am missing a chance for plenty of good jokes here.

[Argent he/him]

Right, that should've been "crutch," obviously...