Chekhov's Gun

[stormbourne]

how many do we have now, i think one of the largest is from stormlight is "I will not be a simple sword to you"

[Elsecaller_17.5]

1. I don’t agree with the concept of a Chekhov’s Gun. It makes the world more immersive and real. Not everything has to be essential to the story.

2.  Brandon does avoid those a lot. He almost always ties stuff in, you just have to look for it.

3. That example is not a Chekhov’s Gun. Dalinar not having a Shardblade is a huge deal. He’s one of the greatest warriors in all of Roshar and his fighting ability has been largely compromised. 

[Karger]

2 minutes ago, Truthwatcher_17.5 said:

1. I don’t agree with the concept of a Chekhov’s Gun. It makes the world more immersive and real. Not everything has to be essential to the story.

It makes some sense in a lot of movies when you have limited time and dialogue but even their it is fine to include some nonessential character development.

5 minutes ago, Truthwatcher_17.5 said:

3. That example is not a Chekhov’s Gun. Dalinar not having a Shardblade is a huge deal. He’s one of the greatest warriors in all of Roshar and his fighting ability has been largely compromised. 

It is also supposed to be a reminder.  He can't win as a warrior anymore he has to figure out a better way.

[+Harrycrapper]

I don't want to be that guy but I don't think that's how Chekhov's Gun works. I'd say a more apt representation was Vin's earring, though that one spanned multiple books. Kelsier said it would be a good backup to use for a steel push in the event she needed it and so it was used. A gun was hung on the wall and later the character used it. Now there may be some future argument for Oath-bringer which has litteraly been hung on a wall and will probably be used for something at some point. But the Stormfather line was more of a misdirection and it was later established that he could be used as a sword but very much does not like to be. I'm not sure if there's a term for the concept of something that is written off as impossible but turns out to be possible, but that's what that was.  

[Elsecaller_17.5]

@Karger I’ll agree that it’s appropriate it a lot of movies, and @Harrycrapper my understanding is that the proverbial gun never comes off the shelf. I honestly can’t thunk of a single example from Brandon.

[The Sovereign]

@Truthwatcher_17.5 there is a decent chance that Wax has Vin's earring.

[Karger]

4 hours ago, The Sovereign said:

 there is a decent chance that Wax has Vin's earring.

What?  How?

[Ripheus23]

With our luck, on whichever planet ends up with a partly Russian-inspired culture (prolly Sel or Nalthis?), there will be a more or less literal Chekhov's gun.

[The Sovereign]

10 hours ago, Karger said:

What?  How?

Go back and read the descriptions of the Spike that is left for Wax at the end of Shadows of Self and then the later description on the train in Bands of Mourning along with the multiple scenes when Wax almost puts it in his ear but then doesn't.. If that isn't Chekhov's Hemaluric Spike, then I don't know what is.

SOS Epilogue

Edited August 6, 2019 by The Sovereign
Added the SoS epilogue, I couldn't find a digital copy of the train scene.

[+Harrycrapper]

17 hours ago, Truthwatcher_17.5 said:

@Karger I’ll agree that it’s appropriate it a lot of movies, and @Harrycrapper my understanding is that the proverbial gun never comes off the shelf. I honestly can’t thunk of a single example from Brandon.

"'Chekhov's Gun' is a concept that describes how every element of a story should contribute to the whole. It comes from Anton Chekhov's famous book writing advice: 'If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired." (first thing that comes up on google)

Maybe I read it a bit literally but how does the gun get fired if it never leaves the wall? I feel it means that if you make special note of something, it should be relevant later on. What you said is basically the opposite where you make special note of something and it's never relevant to the story. Brandon does make use of both of those, but usually the things that aren't relevant to the story are easter eggs for other Cosmere stories. 

12 hours ago, Karger said:

What?  How?

I don't think the previous guy gave a good explanation of that, go look at how Vin describes her earring in her conversation with Kelsier before she starts her mistborn training. Then go look at how Wax describes the earring that the Kandra gave him to replace the one he shot Bleeder with at ( I can't remember if it's at the end of SoS or the beginning of BoM, those two came out so close to each other). The descriptions are identical. It's not something most people catch, you would have had to remembered exactly how Vin's earring was described in TFE when you read it. I only caught it because I was curious some time ago to see all the hints that Ruin was distracting Vin every time she thought of it so I did a keyword search on "earring" to see all those moments. 

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I don't think the previous guy gave a good explanation of that, go look at how Vin describes her earring in her conversation with Kelsier before she starts her mistborn training. Then go look at how Wax describes the earring that the Kandra gave him to replace the one he shot Bleeder with at ( I can't remember if it's at the end of SoS or the beginning of BoM, those two came out so close to each other). The descriptions are identical. It's not something most people catch, you would have had to remembered exactly how Vin's earring was described in TFE when you read it. I only caught it because I was curious some time ago to see all the hints that Ruin was distracting Vin every time she thought of it so I did a keyword search on "earring" to see all those moments. 

I thought it was made from an inquisitor spike.

[The Sovereign]

2 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

I don't think the previous guy gave a good explanation of that, go look at how Vin describes her earring in her conversation with Kelsier before she starts her mistborn training. Then go look at how Wax describes the earring that the Kandra gave him to replace the one he shot Bleeder with at ( I can't remember if it's at the end of SoS or the beginning of BoM, those two came out so close to each other). The descriptions are identical. It's not something most people catch, you would have had to remembered exactly how Vin's earring was described in TFE when you read it. I only caught it because I was curious some time ago to see all the hints that Ruin was distracting Vin every time she thought of it so I did a keyword search on "earring" to see all those moments. 

Actually, the Hemalurgic bullet that Wax shoots at Bleeder was made from his Pathian Earring and was originally stamped with the 10 interlocking rings of the Path, they aren't identical at all. Ranette just melted it down and made it into a bullet. The earring he is given at the end of SOS is described as "Just a stud with the back bent over" which is exactly how Vin's earring is described all throughout Era 1. I suspect that we will see this "yet to fire gun" fire in The Lost Metal.

@Karger, it may well just be an earring that was made from an Inquisitor spike, but the specific description and the fact that there are a couple of scenes showing Wax almost put it in and then not lead me to believe there is something more here.

Anyways, Want another example of a Sanderson Chekhov's Gun? 

In the prologue of Warbreaker, Vasher offhandedly comments to himself that he could have the 5th Heightening at any time but it wasn't worth the cost. At the end of the story he reveals himself to be a Returned.

Edited August 6, 2019 by The Sovereign
Grammar is important.

[Karger]

13 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

In the prologue of Warbreaker, Vasher offhandedly comments to himself that he could have the 5th Heightening at any time but it wasn't worth the cost. At the end of the story he reveals himself to be a Returned.

That is more foreshadowing.  I do not think that is the same thing.

[Pathfinder]

I thought Chekhov's gun is pretty open and shut. It is when something is called attention to, or brought up meant to imply importance, only for it to mean nothing. I believe Game of Thrones's season finale is an example of this. Just one off the top of my head

 

Spoiler

Arya gets onto a random white horse and rides off. Later we see her again, no white horse, nor any mention of it. So what was the point of the white horse?

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Karger]

23 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

I thought Chekhov's gun is pretty open and shut. It is when something is called attention to, or brought up meant to imply importance, only for it to mean nothing. I believe Game of Thrones's season finale is an example of this. Just one off the top of my head

That is not it at all https://www.nownovel.com/blog/use-chekhovs-gun/.

[Pathfinder]

15 minutes ago, Karger said:

That is not it at all https://www.nownovel.com/blog/use-chekhovs-gun/.

Yes it is:

"In other words, everything that is introduced in a story needs to have a function."

 

Spoiler

Why did a white horse show up and she ride off on it, if we see her moments later in the same place, on foot, with no white horse to be seen. 

Thereby it had no function, so why include it. Chekhov's gun. 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Karger]

25 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Thereby it had no function, so why include it. Chekhov's gun. 

Chekhove's gun states that everything introduced in a story needs to have some purpose.  If something is introduce that has no purpose that runs contrary to the idea behind Chekhov's gun.

[Pathfinder]

3 minutes ago, Karger said:

Chekhove's gun states that everything introduced in a story needs to have some purpose.  If something is introduce that has no purpose that runs contrary to the idea behind Chekhov's gun.

That's my point. As per Chekhov's Gun, the horse should be removed. 

[Elsecaller_17.5]

I think at this point the question is “is a Chekhov’s gun the unused item or the used item?” that first example of the gun hanging on the wall it just says that it should be fired, without specifying which future action or inaction makes it a “Chekhov’s” gun. Regardless I don’t think it matters to much and we can all agree that Brandon rarely if ever draws attention to something needlessly.

[Ripheus23]

We're gonna have to call it Gavilar's sphere, methinketh.

[The Sovereign]

4 hours ago, Karger said:

That is more foreshadowing.  I do not think that is the same thing.

...Every Chekhov's gun is foreshadowing when you look at it backwards.Want another example? Hrathen sends Fyorn off to study at a new Monastery so he can serve the empire and Shu Dereth again in the future. He later comes back and assassinates Hrathen as he first task in the Rathbore Monastery. 

...Or the Silver crossbow bolt in SFSitFoH. The point is Brandon uses Chekhov's gun as a writing tool in his works.

Edited August 6, 2019 by The Sovereign

[+Harrycrapper]

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Yes it is:

"In other words, everything that is introduced in a story needs to have a function."

 

  Hide contents

Why did a white horse show up and she ride off on it, if we see her moments later in the same place, on foot, with no white horse to be seen. 

Thereby it had no function, so why include it. Chekhov's gun. 

I think we agree here but aren't quite on the same page. Game of Thrones isn't exactly a good example of Chekhov's Gun, it's a good example of something that violates it(though not always, see Cats-paw Dagger). Now, Chekhov's gun isn't some sacred law of entertainment, it's a trope. Tropes are tropes for a reason, they have worked in the past. But, when they're overused or obvious, people tend to complain. So, you'll get shows or books that try to violate the tropes to make them different, and that in and of itself is a trope, though one that does succeed(Game of Thrones). As for the white horse, I think it's really an HBO thing. I've seen so many of their dramas have these long scenes with no dialogue where a character is doing something weird. They're always vague and a bunch of people usually find all sorts of symbolic meaning in various things. The white horse supposedly symbolizes death and how Arya can't save lives, only take them(sound familiar anyone?). 

[Lccaseiro58]

For me a great example of a chekhov's gun is Hoid's flute. It's been referenced many times that ignoring it would violate chekhov's gun.

Foreshadowing is something way more subtle that most of the readers only pickup on a reread.

[+TheFoxQR]

8 hours ago, The Sovereign said:

...Every Chekhov's gun is foreshadowing when you look at it backwards.

Foreshadowing and Chekhov's gun are not the same thing.

Foreshadowing is an indication of what some future event might be, and how it may go, or what it's consequences may be. It is backward storytelling of sorts, where context for something may come after the thing itself. Foreshadowing is about tempering surprise or creating new expectation, about taking a big turn and making it believable by making it feasible before it happens. It is a promise of things to come. It is quite literally, a shadow cast by something before it actually arrives. Vin's earring, and it being a Hemalurgic Spike is foreshadowing. We see hints of it scattered throughout the Era 1 trilogy, and that means a big reveal doesn't come out of the blue. We saw it's shadow before, and we knew it was there. The Lord Ruler's dying words are foreshadowing, as they give us a hint as to what is about to happen, and so in the second book, Ruin can enter the stage.

A Chekhov's Gun is about known expectation and payoff. An unfired gun is useless - the metaphorical gun in a story is only exciting if you see it in action. Ergo if you show a gun that is only hanging on a belt, be sure to also show it firing. In the Hero of Ages, Sazed's Feruchemy is a Chekhov's gun. We learn about it very early on in the story, and we see a pretty mundane (mundane here as in the opposite of spectacle causing) use of it then, and we get to know that it can do more. We then actually see it in action later. The Lord Ruler himself is a Chekhov's Gun, we know he is powerful, and later we get to see him in action..

The difference is that Foreshadowing does not have to make sense by itself, when it first happens. It should make sense in the context of whatever is being Foreshadowed.

A Chekhov's Gun on the other hand is known. You know what a gun does when you see it on the belt. Now you want to see it in action.

Edited August 7, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[Use the Falchion]

The later MCU movies do a pretty good job of both of these:

Chekhov's Gun - Peter Quill's heritage in GotG. It's mentioned at the beginning but plays a larger part in the end (and then the father is foreshadowed at the very end). 

Wakanda's shields are a minor example. We see them in Black Panther, but we see them in action in Infinity War

 

Foreshadowing - Tony and Cap's conversations in Avengers play out over the next few movies they're both in.

Tony's feelings about Peter Parker:

Spoiler

"And you die, I feel like that's on me." 

And his dream about a having a daughter true in Endgame

Dr. Strange's lines in Infinity War:

Spoiler

If I have to sacrifice you or the boy or the Soul Stone, just know that I won't hesitate to make that choice." Or however the line goes.

Mixed Together:

Spoiler

Tony's parents' deaths. It's a Chekhov's gun that becomes foreshadowing for eagle-eyed fans in Civil War.

Cap lifting the hammer in Endgame - I say it's mixed but I feel like it was more of Chekhov's skill than anything. Cap budging the hammer in Age of Ultron didn't hint at anything major (yet), but the entire scene helped set up what made Vision trustworthy. So Chekhov's Gun for Cap and foreshadowing for Vision?

But back to the question at hand...that's a hard thing to ask because there are so many unknowns. Personally I don't find the Stormfather refusing to be a sword a Chekhov's Gun (or at least right now I don't); I think it's the Stormfather simply refusing to "demean" himself to that form. But it very well could be a Chekhov's Gun if in Book 5 or beyond the Stormfather does accept being a blade. 

As others have pointed out, Wax's new earring being the same one Vin had would be super cool. And maybe it'd play a part in Wax eventually making peace with Harmony again.