Formless Theories (Chapter 9 spoilers)

[NateTheMilk]

So reading the chapter today was quite a ride. I felt so many emotions and got so excited for how the Ghostbloods might tie into the entire Cosmere. But what stuck out the most was Formless. I really have no clue what it is but I’m here to ask about all of your theories. Share them below.

[Karger]

5 minutes ago, NateTheMilk said:

I really have no clue what it is but I’m here to ask about all of your theories. Share them below.

A child alter seems the most obvious.  In WoR Shallan showed pattern a helpless girl that was buried in her.  That girl is carrying most of Shallan trauma from her time as a child.

[Xerun]

So the thing that gets me is that Shallan is hiding a secret, a secret she CANNOT reveal to herself. Now she has gone through some of her secrets already and we know she killed her mum and dad and that the remaining secrets are worse than those. 
 

We also know that a wave of violence and misery have been around her house that made her father and her mother act different and that in the past Brandon has hinted there might be some Unmade interference. 
 

We know her mother tried to kill her which we assume is for being a Radiant but we don’t know why. As far as I’m aware other than the Skybreakers no one else was trying to kill Radiants. 
 

so what if the secret is that Shallan has been possessed by Diagonarthis(spelling is a problem here). He drove the family to insanity and caused the mother to try kill Shallan. This made Shallans father terrified of her and always try placate her. Now he seemed concerned that Heleran threatened him with a Shardplate but was still willing to argue with him with Shallan he never did anything. 
 

So what if Formless is actually Diagonarthis. And when Shallan confronted Re’Sheppir it got scared of an Unmade or even more strength and ran away. 
 

I keep thinking back to the back of Way if Kings. We watch 4. They may save us one of them may certainly destroy us (quote may be wrong). Szeth Dalinar and Kaladin don’t look like the destroying type at this point. 
 

theory over haha

[Subvisual Haze]

From WoR

Quote

An image formed in front of her, born of Stormlight, created by instinct. She hadn't needed to draw this image first, for she knew it too well.

The image was of herself. Shallan, as she should be. Curled in a huddle on the bed, unable to weep for she had long since run out of tears. This girl... not a woman, a girl... flinched whenever spoken to. She expected everyone to shout at her. She could not laugh, for laughter had been squeezed from her by a childhood of darkness and pain.

That was the real Shallan. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. The person she had become instead was a lie, one she had fabricated in the name of survival. To remember herself as a child, discovering Light in the gardens, Patterns in the stomework, and dreams that became real...

She sees "Shallan" as fake because she regards her true/authentic self as this abused catatonic girl who nobody would love.

[NateTheMilk]

1 hour ago, Xerun said:

So the thing that gets me is that Shallan is hiding a secret, a secret she CANNOT reveal to herself. Now she has gone through some of her secrets already and we know she killed her mum and dad and that the remaining secrets are worse than those. 
 

We also know that a wave of violence and misery have been around her house that made her father and her mother act different and that in the past Brandon has hinted there might be some Unmade interference. 
 

We know her mother tried to kill her which we assume is for being a Radiant but we don’t know why. As far as I’m aware other than the Skybreakers no one else was trying to kill Radiants. 
 

so what if the secret is that Shallan has been possessed by Diagonarthis(spelling is a problem here). He drove the family to insanity and caused the mother to try kill Shallan. This made Shallans father terrified of her and always try placate her. Now he seemed concerned that Heleran threatened him with a Shardplate but was still willing to argue with him with Shallan he never did anything. 
 

So what if Formless is actually Diagonarthis. And when Shallan confronted Re’Sheppir it got scared of an Unmade or even more strength and ran away. 
 

I keep thinking back to the back of Way if Kings. We watch 4. They may save us one of them may certainly destroy us (quote may be wrong). Szeth Dalinar and Kaladin don’t look like the destroying type at this point. 
 

theory over haha

I was leaning towards the thought of it being the influence of some Unmade but I’m very uneducated about them so I didn’t say anything. But holy cow this could actually be it. Unmade and Formless sound eerily similar to each other and Formless could actually be an Unmade (or the influence of one).

[garlick]

You asked for it and its out there. She's not Shallan Davar. What lies attracted pattern in the first place even more so to someone so young. She had progressed to at least the 3rd oath(truth) to have a shardblade. What if she was someone like lift. Growing up in the streets and/or has a mother like Tyn. Always looking for a mark teaching her to be other people for her scams. This creates formless, a little girl who's never allowed to be herself. Which attracts pattern. Now she can lightweave. She/they hatch a plan to replace the real shallan davar.  The skybreakers doing their thing finds out about this, finds the mother and convinces her that its not her daughter. (This could of been meant to be temporary and they were caught mid scam, or she killed shallan to replace her).This would explain why her mother was so willing to kill her, she defends herself with her shardblade killing them and her "father" gets the blame. This is enough to break formless and she gives herself over to becoming shallan. 

   Just a crazy I had, but just a line of thought to explore thats probably not true

[Realmatic Shadow]

7 hours ago, garlick said:

She/they hatch a plan to replace the real shallan davar.

Well, this WOB confirms that Lin Davar is indeed her father, but that doesn't necessarily preclude your theory, though there is certainly an implication there.

Quote

JoyBlu

Can you confirm that Shallan is the biological child of her dad, Lin Davar?

Brandon Sanderson

*evil laugh* Should I confirm that? Yeah, I'll confirm that, she is.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

 

[Harbour]

Maybe Lin Davar cheated on his wife with someone extremely powerful (Cultivation's vessel, Unmade in human form, someone else) and Shallan became the fruit of this cheating. 

Thats why she got her powers and thats truly why Lin's wife may wanted to kill her.

Im just toying around and speculating ofc.

[Pathfinder]

On 9/1/2020 at 9:04 PM, Xerun said:

So what if Formless is actually Diagonarthis. And when Shallan confronted Re’Sheppir it got scared of an Unmade or even more strength and ran away. 

My one main issue with this is neither Ashtermann, nor Sja-anat had any recognition or reaction to Shallan. If the reason for Re-Shephir's retreat was recognizing the Unmade, I would think there would be a similar or at least noteworthy reaction from the other two Unmade. Instead Ashtermann left in accordance with a trap meant to kill Shallan, and Sja-anat reached out to Shallan in an effort to defect from Odium. In both cases, the Unmade would have been shooting themselves in the foot if formless was an Unmade as well. Ashtermann would be party to a trap that would result in destroying the host of another Unmade, and potentially harming said Unmade. Sja-anat would be literally revealing her intention to betray Odium to another Unmade who would presumably be operating under his authority, resulting in her being found out and destroyed. 

[ElectrumSavant]

Regarding Shallan's big secret, the massive, horrible secret that she won't even allow herself to think about and is somehow worse than killing both of her parents- here are some ridiculous theories I thought of that are definitely incorrect.

• Shallan is the true heir of Jah Keved
• Shallan is the Survival Shard in deep cover
• Shallan formed a nahel bond with another spren before Pattern, but she broke that bond and killed the spren in the process
• Shallan is actually a complicated automaton powered by fabrials
• Shallan was taken by her parents to see the Nightwatcher, and wished for something horrible
• Shallan is actually a man
• Shallan is a worldhopper from Ashyn
• Shallan is Hoid's daughter
• Shallan is the Sibling in disguise
• Shallan is Adolin's half-sister
• Shallan is Trell (Stormlight comes before Mistborn Era 2, remember)
• Shallan isn't actually Vorin
• Shallan used a hemalurgic spike to steal Pattern's bond from the person who he was actually meant to bond
• Shallan is a Sleepless (Dysian Aimian)
• Shallan is a Returned feeding subconsciously on Stormlight

[RShara]

On 9/2/2020 at 4:10 AM, Realmatic Shadow said:

Well, this WOB confirms that Lin Davar is indeed her father, but that doesn't necessarily preclude your theory, though there is certainly an implication there.

 

And this WoB confirms that the mother that Shallan killed was indeed her birth mother. So Shallan's parents were both human, thus, Shallan is also human.

Quote

Questioner

Is Shallan's mother, the one that she kills, is that her birth mother?

Brandon Sanderson

It is.  Good question. Good question.  You had a theory there that I may have just killed.

Questioner

That's okay!

Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

 

[ftl]

It also seems like it's got to be somehow important that we still don't know Shallan's mother's name. Anyone have any theories why?

[Harbour]

I have a theory - because her name is the name of Cultivation's vessel, which is also unknow yet. Im still at that "Shallan is somehow connected to Cultivation and Cultivation or Nightwatcher used their powers to suppress her memory in the Dalinar way so she will slowly reveal hidden secrets about her childhood" theory. 

Its about meta narrative and fantasy tropes. I believe that if Brandon for some reason connected Kaladin to Tanavast and through it to Honor, he must have also connected second protagonist to Cultivation's vessel and through it to Cultivation. We just didnt learn that yet.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Harbour

[RShara]

3 hours ago, ftl said:

It also seems like it's got to be somehow important that we still don't know Shallan's mother's name. Anyone have any theories why?

Because a lot of authors like to do the nameless dead mother thing, sadly. You can't name even 10 mothers of main characters in all of the Cosmere, even when you know the father's name, and can't name even 20 mothers, period. Sarene and Raoden both had nameless mothers, although Sarene's was alive. We don't get Vin and Reen's mother, or Wax, Steris, Marasi, Siri or Vivenna's, or the name of the mother of Ham's children. It was 3 books before we got Adolin and Renarin's mother's name.

Main character mothers: Navani, Aesudan, Evi, Hesina, uhh...

Mothers in general: Silence, Allriane (eventually), Beldre (eventually), Tindwyl, Daora...

Edited September 6, 2020 by RShara

[Kesamijr]

8 hours ago, ElectrumSavant said:

Shallan formed a nahel bond with another spren before Pattern, but she broke that bond and killed the spren in the process

Okay but this one is actually pretty good tho! And that’d explain how the sky breakers left alone too and could tie in in really cool ways with like Maya and other Recreance spren. I like this one tbh

[RShara]

Because we're the 17th Shard, on Discord, we just worked it out--of Mentioned but Unnamed Mothers, we have 13 Cosmoms that are mentioned, but unnamed, to 1 Cosdad that is mentioned but unnamed. So yeah, Shallan's mother not having a name probably isn't significant.

Living but nameless:
1) Sarene's mom
Non Cosmere:

Spoiler

2) [non-Cosmere] Spensa's mom
3) [non-Cosmere] Joel's mom (I think she's only referred to by last name, which I guess is at least better than some)
4) [Non-Cosmere] Melody's mom (dad also seen and unnamed)

Dead and nameless:
1) Shallan's mom
2) Raoden's mom
3) Vin's mom
4) Elend's mom
5) Siri and Vivenna's mom
6) [non-Cosmere] David's mom

Unknown status and unnamed:
1) Steris's mom
2) Marasi's mom
3) Edwarn's wife
4) Lift's mom (her father is also unnamed, but also completely unmentioned)
5) Eshonai's mom
6) Spook's mom

Thanks to some punny username for keeping track as we figured it out hahaha

 

[Kingsdaughter613]

Alters are created for a purpose. Formless is not an alter, but a potential Alter. When does Shallan feel like splitting again? When she’s near Adolin and feels like she isn’t doing right by him.

Formless is a potential ‘Perfect Wife’ Alter. Shallan’s refusal to split again is a great step forward for her, btw.
 

That said, there is definitely a fourth Alter, probably a child. Why? Because when ‘Shallan’ was created, the other was too. Remember, the Identity fractures. So Shallan split into ‘Shallan’ and ?. We see the split into Veil and Radiant, so it isn’t them. Which means there is a fourth, whom we still need to meet.

 

And no, none of the four is the ‘real’ Shallan, because they ALL are. The ‘real’ Shallan is the whole identity, and we won’t see her until she’s finished her journey to become whole.

 

@RShara Marsh and Kell’s mom (and dad.) Also Alriane’s mom, if I’m recalling correctly.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Kingsdaughter613

[LuckyJim]

10 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Alters are created for a purpose. Formless is not an alter, but a potential Alter. When does Shallan feel like splitting again? When she’s near Adolin and feels like she isn’t doing right by him.

Formless is a potential ‘Perfect Wife’ Alter. Shallan’s refusal to split again is a great step forward for her, btw.
 

That said, there is definitely a fourth Alter, probably a child. Why? Because when ‘Shallan’ was created, the other was too. Remember, the Identity fractures. So Shallan split into ‘Shallan’ and ?. We see the split into Veil and Radiant, so it isn’t them. Which means there is a fourth, whom we still need to meet.

 

And no, none of the four is the ‘real’ Shallan, because they ALL are. The ‘real’ Shallan is the whole identity, and we won’t see her until she’s finished her journey to become whole.

 

@RShara Marsh and Kell’s mom (and dad.) Also Alriane’s mom, if I’m recalling correctly.

Maybe it's the other way around. The current "Shallan" is who she became after her mom died. This perfect daughter, who mainly served to calm down her dad, and protect her brother from his more violent tendencies. Meanwhile, "Formless" is the feelings she's been hiding from ever since she was a child, she tries to be a perfect wife for Adolin, but it feels fake, or like she doesn't deserve it because Formless is hiding under the surface.

[Kingsdaughter613]

17 hours ago, LuckyJim said:

Maybe it's the other way around. The current "Shallan" is who she became after her mom died. This perfect daughter, who mainly served to calm down her dad, and protect her brother from his more violent tendencies. Meanwhile, "Formless" is the feelings she's been hiding from ever since she was a child, she tries to be a perfect wife for Adolin, but it feels fake, or like she doesn't deserve it because Formless is hiding under the surface.

Yes, she split into Shallan and ? (probably a child) Note that that split occurs as she transitions from child to adult as well.

Formless is a completely separate thing. It’s a potential alter and Shallan’s refusal to split again is a good thing. She wants to split because of all the reasons you stated. She’s holding herself in triad (quartet) form.

https://did-research.org/did/identity_alteration/splitting.html

This is a pretty good overview of how and why splitting occurs. If it sound familiar, which it should, it’s because Brandon did a good job.

[Jod1]

Forgive me if someone else already thought of this and I missed it, but am I the only one who thinks it's the exact opposite? Formless seems a very deliberate title. Shallan is TERRIFIED of giving up her multitude of personalities, of facing her past and avoiding more mental gymnastics and blocked memories and splitting her mind. My first thought was the Formless wasn't a new alter at all, but the lack of an alter. The true, unbroken mind and personality of Shallan, as whole and as traumatized or capable as she truly is without all her coping mechanisms. It's something she needs, but refuses to acknowledge or consider, even though the Veil alter has pointed it out. To someone with such a carefully broken, shattered and contained mind, embracing her past and just being herself without the alters and memory blocks and such might well seem lacking in form, structure or rules. Shallan claims her current self, the Shallan we knew before the alters, is just as fake and weak as the others but I really don't believe that; even if she made an alter personality as a child, it wouldn't be dominant with no competition or change for a decade, and she wouldn't have needed her constant, often excessive, coping mechanisms before making Veil and Radiant. Unfortunately, her self worth and confidence in herself is absolutely nonexistent, so she sees no value in her true, unbroken self (either because of her abuse, trauma, or likely both). I am only on chapter 12 or so, but I really do hope Shallan can get better. Both because she deserves it, and because I'm not particularly fond of her bickering with herself all the time. I know Sanderson did a good amount of research, and certainly he'd know more than I do on the matter, but I just don't see how Shallan could possibly say the next ideal or ever improve her mental health and relationships with a bunch of alters bouncing around (and the constant threat of making more under stress, which she worries about). 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Jod1

[Saark]

I know I’m late to the party but I just found the shard and I have what I think is an interesting idea. 

I’m at the point where Shallan just used the cube to talk to Mraaz the first time and I’ve noticed that Sanderson has been dropping a lot of comments about what each of her alters can’t do. This is different than discussing what they are good at as usual and I believe it is intentional. We know Radiant, Veil, and Shallan have distinct rolls but now we have been learning that Veil can’t use stormlight as well as the others, can’t draw like Shallan, and other things. He has spent a lot of time on the barge dropping in comments like that.

Now Pattern says he sees someone else behind Shallan’s eyes sometimes. I think Formless is the undeveloped true Shallan slowly gaining strength as she deals with her issues and as one of the alters is forced by the others to do something one of the others has been made for like Veil forcing Shallan to find the spy while she talks her through it. So I thought it could be interesting if maybe as they begin to grow closer and share skills formless starts stealing skills and getting stronger. Like one day veil just has a moment where she can’t remember the name of a con she’s teaching Shallan so she moves on to something else or Radiant forgets a Kata she is walking veil through but really formless is stealing pieces of them as they overlap and is combining them back in to the real Shallan whole again. 

Shallan and the others would think they were losing their minds and live in fear of coming unraveled right up until the moment they become whole. 

Anyway just a random idea. 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Saark