RoW Chapter 8 Discussion

[Aon Tia]

8 hours ago, Agent34 said:

As a child when creating her ideal family/life, she described part of it to Hoid as "mother loves me" and given her mother tried to kill her upon seeing she had bonded a spren... life wasn't sunshine and rainbows before the killing started.

That is something we already know so this would not be so surprising. we have always wondered that what lies of a child could attract a cryptic!! They have to be truths related to those times only. But what went on in that family that was so terrible. Knowing Sanderson, it is probably something much worse or this truth will be revealed in a way that will be a really horrible memory for Shallan. 
 
 

[Potus]

On 8/25/2020 at 9:36 AM, Innovation said:

Has Moash bonded with a painspren somehow?

 

On 8/25/2020 at 9:37 AM, Agent34 said:

Feels more like a gloomspren.

 

On 8/25/2020 at 9:44 AM, PrinceGenocide said:

More like apathy Spren 

I've seen some discussion on Reddit that it could be the influence of Dai-Gonarthis. The only mention of him comes from a death rattle

Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it! ”

— Tanatesach 1173, 28 seconds pre-death. A darkeyed female street juggler. Note similarity to sample 1172-89

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Potus said:

I've seen some discussion on Reddit that it could be the influence of Dai-Gonarthis. The only mention of him comes from a death rattle

Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it! ”

— Tanatesach 1173, 28 seconds pre-death. A darkeyed female street juggler. Note similarity to sample 1172-89

Yes, it would be great if Dai-gonarthis were the Void of Odium that is paired with the Passion, or The Thrill, that is (or was) Nergaoul.

 

And since this is Roshar, where all birds are chickens, this Far Side cartoon couldn't help but come to my mind...

 

[+Bzhydack]

28 minutes ago, robardin said:

Yes, it would be great if Dai-gonarthis were the Void of Odium that is paired with the Passion, or The Thrill, that is (or was) Nergaoul.

Funny, in one historical Asyrian Poem in Underwold gods who are judging the Dead are Dagon (god of Sea and/or crops), Nergal (god of war and fire) and Misharu (god od justice).

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 8/27/2020 at 6:14 PM, Bzhydack said:

Funny, in one historical Asyrian Poem in Underwold gods who are judging the Dead are Dagon (god of Sea and/or crops), Nergal (god of war and fire) and Misharu (god od justice).

I’d upvote, but I’m out. This is an awesome catch!

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 8/26/2020 at 9:50 AM, agrabes said:

Yeah, could be.  But I guess my argument there is that Renarin's motivations are different.  You see what Shallan does in tWoK and WoR - she makes drawings to inspire people to become better.  But she does it for the most part because she is trying to get them to act in a certain way.  Shallan shows these visions because doing it advances her own goals.  She also thinks it's helping them become better, but that's not really her primary motivation.  She's also being subtle and sneaky about it.  She's not trying to show them they've been lying to themselves, she's just saying they could be different.

Compare with Renarin - he shows Moash the image which is challenging lies with truth.  Moash goes on and on about how no one can escape the pain and mundane difficulties of life and that no matter what happens life will always beat you down.  Renarin fights that by showing an image of the truth - what could have been, revealing that all of what Moash has just said is a lie.  He's just up front about it and direct.  

Who knows though.  It's a cool idea, but I'm sure we'll learn more when the rest of the book is out.

I think Sanderson does like this kind of idea of mental conflict - showing people your vision of the world and the future and forcing them to challenge it.  Remember the end of the Wheel of Time and the final "battle of ideas" between Rand and the Dark One.  Granted, that section was probably written or heavily outlined by Robert Jordan.  But still, something he's been a part of.

Worth noting: that entire end of WoT is a discussion in Judaism, that basically ends with ‘we only want the Messiah to come for God’s glory because without temptation we can’t grow.’ The whole debate was basically taken wholesale from a Talmudic discussion, and isn’t quite as original as people think. (I thought it was obvious but, then, I’m Jewish. I knew the original debate.)

Note that this same religion, after extensive debate, concludes that we’d be better off if we hadn’t been created (but since we were, let’s make the best of it.) Then we point this out repeatedly on the Day of Atonement. (See God? If you hadn’t created us we wouldn’t have sinned. This is your fault, so you have to forgive us!) Judaism has an... interesting... relationship with God.

 

As an aside, with an official DID diagnosis for Shallan: she was almost certainly sexually abused. Possibly by her mother, which would be a nice twist from the usual. (The first sex abuse victim I ever met was abused by his FEMALE kindergarten teacher. The lack of female abusers in most literature irritates me, as it feels too much like ignoring these victims because ‘it doesn’t fit the narrative.’)

Edited August 30, 2020 by Kingsdaughter613

[equinox]

5 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

As an aside, with an official DID diagnosis for Shallan: she was almost certainly sexually abused. 

Why are you so certain on that. There are a lot of different traumas or types of abuse that could cause DID, right? I am not very familiar with this condition, so I would like to know more about your reasoning. 

On the other hand, I really hope Brandon Sanderson does not go this way. I hate the female character was sexually abused story...

[Doneil]

For the people who are asking if Moash bonded with a pain spren, is that possible? I may have missed something but I thought they cant form a bond with "lesser spren".

[Nathrangking]

6 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Worth noting: that entire end of WoT is a discussion in Judaism, that basically ends with ‘we only want the Messiah to come for God’s glory because without temptation we can’t grow.’ The whole debate was basically taken wholesale from a Talmudic discussion, and isn’t quite as original as people think. (I thought it was obvious but, then, I’m Jewish. I knew the original debate.)

Note that this same religion, after extensive debate, concludes that we’d be better off if we hadn’t been created (but since we were, let’s make the best of it.) Then we point this out repeatedly on the Day of Atonement. (See God? If you hadn’t created us we wouldn’t have sinned. This is your fault, so you have to forgive us!) Judaism has an... interesting... relationship with God.

I have never read the wheel of time and now I totally want to. Interesting is putting it mildly. I'm not surprised that a theme like that was included. He really does reach deep into his theological toolbox and make use of such concepts. The Dalinar arc in Oathbringer really drove this home for me the third bondsmith oath of "I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man" is such a powerful concept. The not being locked in a constant cycle by your past is one tied heavily to the Jewish concept of atonement and the Day of Atonement. All of this being said I think that a similar thing is going on with Renarin's actions in the chapter. What if his illumination is not merely showing an ideal Moash, but rather Moash as he truly wishes to be. Beyond the hate and what have you perhaps Moash wishes to be the man that Renarin showed him. However, he holds himself back and perhaps his fear was in knowing that he is fully capable of being that person, but the required effort to work on himself scares him.

[+robardin]

On 8/25/2020 at 10:51 AM, xinoehp512 said:

Renarin's done it before, sort of. IIRC, there was a scene somewhere with Adolin where he healed him- and in the process, showed him a 'perfected' version of himsef.

Also noteworthy is that we've seen a few other cases of Regrowth based healing, and none of them visibly showed a "perfected version" of the target being healed, especially not one visible to people other than the two involved. Nor even the other times that Renarin has healed Adolin; at Thaylen Fields, when Renarin was Supercharged and healed him after he crawled out from under a building caved in by a Thunderclast, he experienced it only as a "burst of healing, like cold water in his veins."

So this effect may require another contributing factor. Maybe something subjective on the part of Renarin. That time Adolin saw a perfected version of himself he was actually in the act of comforting Renarin, who was worried about how he would (or would not) fulfill anybody's, particularly Dalinar's, expectations of being Radiant.

[Karger]

On 8/30/2020 at 9:32 AM, Doneil said:

For the people who are asking if Moash bonded with a pain spren, is that possible? I may have missed something but I thought they cant form a bond with "lesser spren".

It is technically possible by WoB but we have not yet seen it.

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 8/30/2020 at 8:55 AM, equinox said:

Why are you so certain on that. There are a lot of different traumas or types of abuse that could cause DID, right? I am not very familiar with this condition, so I would like to know more about your reasoning. 

On the other hand, I really hope Brandon Sanderson does not go this way. I hate the female character was sexually abused story...

Generally speaking, DID is associated with long term sexual abuse. It can be caused by other forms of abuse, and it is caused by prolonged abuse/ extensive childhood trauma. While childhood sexual abuse is no longer the only recognized cause of the condition, it is still the most likely determinator of it.

More specifically, I’ve yet to come across a case of DID that didn’t turn out to involve sexual abuse. If I had a minor client exhibiting those symptoms, I’d call ACS as a mandated reporter. The odds such a child is experiencing/has experienced such long term abuse is extremely high.

DID is a very rare disorder in general; I’d find Shallan’s condition very hard to accept if she not only had one of the rarest psychiatric disorders, but also lacked the most common predictor of that disorder. She’s already missing the depressed primary, which is a common factor in DID.

Fun fact: she can’t actually be diagnosed right now. Her illness is not interfering with her life, nor does it upset her unduly. This will probably change, but right now she’s good.

[DracostarA]

All I'll say on this topic, is that on Reddit someone speculated sexual abuse as being the source of Jasnah's lunacy and Brandon confirmed 'certain types of abuse I will never cover in my books' so I think it's safe to say that sort of history can be precluded from any theory around any char in the Stormlight Archives.

[equinox]

Thank you @Kingsdaughter613 for these insights. And thank you @DracostarA for the additional information. I hope Brandon Sanderson sticks to this and at the same time, I hope we get a valid explanation for Shallan's disorder as Brandon decided to do a more realistic representation of DID. For now, I trust he did his research well... 

[Kingsdaughter613]

5 hours ago, equinox said:

Thank you @Kingsdaughter613 for these insights. And thank you @DracostarA for the additional information. I hope Brandon Sanderson sticks to this and at the same time, I hope we get a valid explanation for Shallan's disorder as Brandon decided to do a more realistic representation of DID. For now, I trust he did his research well... 

He’s had sexual abuse before though. It’s in the background - and sometimes foreground- of Mistborn. He may just mean it won’t be explicit, because he’s definitely covered it.