RoW Chapter 13 Discussion

[Friendshipspren]

7 minutes ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

Amazon is the name of a forest, river or mythological warriors. Ghostbloods is a gang name.

And there could very well be forests , rivers or mythological or real beings ( threnodite shades come to mind, as do cognitive shadows in general, with investiture running through thier incorporeal bodies like blood does in real ones. VanDell once said that investiture is like blood to the soul   ) who could also be called Ghostbloods . 

Worldhoppers esp could bestow the nomenclature on many things

Also  seriously this is like arguing dustbringers of all eras are evil thralls of odium cause thier make sounds sinister and similar to voidbringers while they were in truth as Honorable as any other Order.

Yes , they preferred the term Releasers for that reason but future Ghostbloods could change the name. It's not set in metal after all. 

Edited September 29, 2020 by PrinceGenocide
A little polishing

[Toaster Retribution]

Just now, robardin said:

I may have said too mu--

Oh, storms! Robardin, you okay? 

22 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

Did she soulcast someone into fire as a child? Obviously not her 4 brothers

Maybe there was a fifth brother?

[Chana]

While I don't the idea of Shallan's personality being the killer, Mraize's comment would be hilarious in that context. Like the fact that he knows and she doesn't is fascinating. I can't really find a satisfying solution to the killer though like if it's not Shallan than it would probably have to be a named character cause it would be very boring for them to just be one of the unnamed Lightweavers. Then Gaz doesn't really make sense cause we kinda know his story and I can't see him being a useful agent. Isnanah is a bit too obvious like she approached Shallan herself and is a good spy and then Red would be just kinda meh and cheapen the whole Shallan finding her crew for me. Are there any other possibilities?

I can't wait for Shallan to meet Restares, though I don't know how I would feel about it being someone she knows, again timeline-wise it could be only her father I think and that is just a bit of a cheap plot twist - especially considering her truth was about killing her father

[+honorblades]

I wonder, Mraize says that the Investiture ties people to a planet through Connection, but it seems like it isn’t that simple. 
 

Kelsier as a cognitive shadow couldn’t leave Scadrial, but Felt the misting could. 
Vasher, a Returned, has been to Roshar, back to Nalthis, and then to Roshar again with varying levels of Breath. Apparently with no big issue. 
The Elantrians don’t seem to have a problem moving around. 
 

So certain powers tie you more strongly to the planet? Radiants have a spren bond which certainly makes a difference, but Mraize says you can’t even take stormlight in a gem very far.. Weird. 

[Scriptorian]

Transporting Investiture off-world...my first thought was a Bondsmith power to sever the Connection somehow (Has Sja-anat corrupted the Sibling and that's why the Ghostbloods want an alliance with her?! ). My next idea was to encase the cargo in aluminum, like they're able to temporarily cut the connection between conjoined fabirals. Though I suppose this might cause problems once you take the Investiture out of the aluminum.

With all the times Shallan was catching flaws in Mraize's disguise...did anyone else get the feeling she is going to end up underestimating him at some crucial point? I mean, Shallan has gotten pretty good at this, but my money is still on the probably-immortal creepy worldhopper.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Scriptorian

[Friendshipspren]

Hey I wonder if restares is kalak then how can shallan manage to kill an Herald. Hmmm he didn't actually order her to kill him , only that she would know what to do . 

Also about thaidakar. Tinfoil Mistborn crossover theory with spiolers for both eras.

Spoiler

If kelsier is thaidakar then that could mean the Ghostbloods would know of hemalurgy, duralumin hemalurgy especially which could be used to break Connections between Spren and roshar

 

[Mage of Lirigon]

2 minutes ago, lightweaver spy said:

I wonder, Mraize says that the Investiture ties people to a planet through Connection, but it seems like it isn’t that simple. 
 

Kelsier as a cognitive shadow couldn’t leave Scadrial, but Felt the misting could. 
 

Not having a physical body is a huge impairment.

 

Quote

Vasher, a Returned, has been to Roshar, back to Nalthis, and then to Roshar again with varying levels of Breath. Apparently with no big issue. 
The Elantrians don’t seem to have a problem moving around. 

Their Investiture belongs to them, not anyone else.

 

Quote

So certain powers tie you more strongly to the planet? Radiants have a spren bond which certainly makes a difference, but Mraize says you can’t even take stormlight in a gem very far.. Weird. 

Stormlight being Connected to the Stormfather is probably the issue.

[Toaster Retribution]

Just now, lightweaver spy said:

I wonder, Mraize says that the Investiture ties people to a planet through Connection, but it seems like it isn’t that simple. 
 

Kelsier as a cognitive shadow couldn’t leave Scadrial, but Felt the misting could. 
Vasher, a Returned, has been to Roshar, back to Nalthis, and then to Roshar again with varying levels of Breath. Apparently with no big issue. 
The Elantrians don’t seem to have a problem moving around. 
 

So certain powers tie you more strongly to the planet? Radiants have a spren bond which certainly makes a difference, but Mraize says you can’t even take stormlight in a gem very far.. Weird. 

I think has to do with how invested you are, and how Connected you are to that investiture, as well as how Connected the investiture is to the planet. A misting, for example, really isn´t that invested, while a Cognitive Shadow is basically only investiture with an Identity. Similarly, the breaths aren´t really strongly connected to anything, given how freely they can be passed around. 

Stormlight seems to have a very strong connection to Roshar as a place, so I´d say that is why it cant be moved around as much. Now, Im not very good at these kinds of things, so I hope someone like @Calderis can correct me if Im wrong. 

[Infinity Sliver]

On another note,Could Navani's mystery penpal be Sja-anat? I know we only get one line from her in this chapter but...

[Eternal Khol]

So, Shallan seemed so not surprised after hearing about Ashyn and Braize. shallash must really be talkin

[Innovation]

1 minute ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

Stormlight being Connected to the Stormfather is probably the issue.

Then the answer is obvious...kill the Stormfather! No, that wouldn’t work. How about Fabrial that stops connection.

[+honorblades]

Just now, Mage of Lirigon said:

Their Investiture belongs to them, not anyone else.

Well, as Mraize says, the Investiture truly belongs to the various gods, does it not? Why would stormlight be Connected to the Stormfather, but Divine Breath isn’t Connected to Endowment? Or at least not enough to limit travel? 
 

What I am saying is the rules don’t seem to apply evenly. There is something we are missing here. 

[+Oltux72]

21 minutes ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

Amazon is the name of a forest, river or mythological warriors. Ghostbloods is a gang name.

And that is a selling point. The Cosmere is not a safe and nice place. Genocide and general mayhem is the norm. You do not want your supply of a vital commodity in the hands of weaklings. If teh "Fluffy Unicorns" developed a monopoly on Stormlight, they wouldn't keep it. You want your supplier to be strong and scary. but meticulously honest. Pattern matches?

[+robardin]

7 minutes ago, Infinitysliver said:

On another note,Could Navani's mystery penpal be Sja-anat? I know we only get one line from her in this chapter but...

Oh yeah, good pick up. If Sja-anat can leave spanreed notes for Shallan somehow, then sure, why not be able to do so for Navani? Though who was the agent to plant that paired ruby under Navani's desk?

[Rainier]

37 minutes ago, lightweaver spy said:

Parrots don’t typically eat small mammals, and their beaks are usually described as “hooked”. Could it be some sort of hawk?

I'm not sure why, but I thought owl. Something about the description, maybe it was the prey?, something gave me the impression OWL. That said, it's very clearly green. Parrots can hunt rodents, I suppose.

This seems like a scene that didn't need a full year to come to fruition. It really took a full year for Mraize to threaten Shallan's family? You can paper over this with the in-between, but chronologically, this scene felt out of place. This is the first time when the time skip really felt poorly executed. Maybe this is one-chapter-per-week syndrome in effect, maybe I'm really picking up on something.

Shallan once again refuses to do for herself what she could instead do for another. Veil is out here desperately trying to confront her past, then Mraize comes along and says, "Hey, I'll tell you all about your past! All you have to do is what I say." Shallan, being the stooge that she is, leaps at the opportunity to have someone else remember what happened to her, sparing herself from the task. Of course, nothing Mraize says is going to fix her, and nothing she needs is going to come from him. Hearing it from him isn't going to be any better than dredging up the memories on her own, but hey, her best skill is avoidance and Brandon needs a hook. Also, the promise for answers felt aimed directly at readers. Yes, dear reader, get through this book and I'll answer all your questions....in the next book!

As for Restares, I immediately thought he was Vasher. Of course, not everyone is the same person, and I'm sorry for combining two different people, but we do know Vasher's being hunted (by Vivenna). We know so very little about what he's doing or why, but he straight out told Kaladin he's on Roshar for the same reason the Ghostbloods are: cheap and easy Investiture. We know that Warbreaker was a pseduo-prequel to Stormlight, because it tells Vasher's backstory. That's an awful lot of connection to one guy who hasn't done diddly thus far. And think some more: what could Restares offer to Lasting Integrity that would prompt them to grant his asylum request? Why, the knowledge of one of the Five Scholars.

TL;DR: Vasher built the Cosmere nukes, Lasting Integrity is offering asylum because good talent is hard to find, and you don't ask too many questions of the genius who builds your weapons.

The Ghostbloods, on the other hand, are out here trying to be the Cosmere's version of Standard Oil, and Mraize is giving off some There Will Be Blood vibes. God forbid you get in the way of the Investiture pipeline being built through the Horneater Peaks, that stuff needs to make it to market!

[DeployParachute]

26 minutes ago, Karger said:

I have personally rejected the idea.  Even considering it now.  Veil states Formless is "unreal" and her very name implies that she does not in fact have a fully realized identity yet.  Also how could Shallan find formless

You may have personally rejected the idea, but there is no textual evidence yet that would allow us to rule it out entirely. Formless being another complete alter that acts independently of the others without their knowledge is still very much on the table. Veil and the others may actually know nothing about the extent to which formless is complete or independently functional. Also, there has not been much touching on the "memory loss" side of DID in the current presentation of Shallan/Veil/Radiant. Formless could be the manifestation of this symptom.

I find both Shallan's and Mraize's comments very suggestive of a fully formed and functional "Formless" being a reality.

Quote

She couldn’t see those memories; didn’t want to see them. As she shied away from them, something dark shifted inside her, growing stronger. Formless. Shallan didn’t want to be the person who had done those things. That… that person could not… not be loved…

Formless may be older than either Radiant or Veil, who knows.

Quote

“I don’t need to worry about two spies then,” Shallan said. “Only the one you have watching me, the one who killed Ialai. It’s one of Adolin’s guards, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly. We have no interest in men such as that. They offer us nothing.”

“Who, then?”

“I cannot betray this secret,” Mraize said. “Let’s just say that Lightweavers fascinate me, and leave it at that. And you should not fear if I did keep someone close to you. Such a person could be an… aid in times of need. Iyatil did the same for me.”

What's more literarily interesting and likely for Brandon to write? The spy being a different lightweaver, or the spy being Shallan herself. I can totally see a different alter taking control, perhaps when the others are not aware, awake, or weakened, and seeking Mraize out to "introduce" themselves.

Quote

“Assuming I am able to do this,” Shallan said, “what should I do with the man? Are you sending me to kill him?”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Mraize said. “When you find him, you’ll know what to do.”

At least one alter will, because Mraize has been secretly working with her for the past year.

Yeah, there's a lot of evidence even in this chapter to keep "Formless as an independent actor" a very real and likely plot point. 

Now my own, completely biased predictioneering:

Spoiler

I believe Adolin will die in this book. I do not believe it will be a "noble" death. I believe it will be a "tragic" death. And I believe Formless will play a roll in that.

 

[+Bliev]

THIS WAS AMAZING.

I wonder if stormlight is for Silverlight or the Ire. For some who are trying to live in the cognitive realm and piece together the powers of gods--either actually or academically? I do think it's too simplistic to think it's just about "power". Ialai's monologue should be evidence enough that there is more afoot. Mraize wants stormlight off-world. Gavilar got void light off-world. He thinks Restares knows something about this that they need to know. Stormlight is more readily accessible investiture than anywhere else in the Cosmere, so it would definitely be valuable. Is it for an experiment? or for something more nefarious. There's definitely more to this that Mraize isn't sharing. Or, rather, that Mraize himself may not even know. HIs collections suggest that there's a sense of pride in it for him, and personal achievement. Maybe that's part of what drives him--to be able to do something that no one else has done. 

I think it is important to note that they're anti-Odium and this is probably important for future discussions.

Definitely on the "Navani's critic = Sja Anat" train now. And also POOR RENARIN. I love that Sja Anat is protective of him. Someone should be. Poor boy.

I am VERY VERY concerned that this trip to Lasting Integrity will backfire on Shallan, making her worst nightmare come true. She thinks that her past will make her unlovable, which makes her dissociation worse (though omg seeing how much she wants to get better is as heart-wrenching as last chapter for me!), but it will be her lies that ruin her relationships, not her truths. Oh the tangled web we weave...

Edited:

@DeployParachute  I would argue the textual evidence for Formless not being an identity yet is Radiant's discussion with Kal in last week's chapter. She notes that they are still 3, but that there are others, unformed, waiting to emerge if their experiment fails. I do not believe that Formless is "real" yet. But very well could become real if Shallan continues to dissociate. 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Bliev

[Karger]

4 minutes ago, DeployParachute said:

You may have personally rejected the idea, but there is no textual evidence yet that would allow us to rule it out entirely. Formless being another complete alter that acts independently of the others without their knowledge is still very much on the table. Veil and the others may actually know nothing about the extent to which formless is complete or independently functional. Also, there has not been much touching on the "memory loss" side of DID in the current presentation of Shallan/Veil/Radiant. Formless could be the manifestation of this symptom.

Proving nonexistence is definitionally impossible.  Even if she exists I have a hard time believing that she could fool Pattern(Veil can't) and that Mraize would be able to interact with her long enough to both train her and get her on their side.  That is leaving aside the whole DID does not work like that and this kind of depiction is really harmful argument.

[Shardsplinter]

10 minutes ago, lightweaver spy said:

Why would stormlight be Connected to the Stormfather, but Divine Breath isn’t Connected to Endowment? Or at least not enough to limit travel? 

I'm pretty sure Brandon said at some point that such travel limitation for Returned dis exist but that Vasher and Shashara found a way around it.

Now I'm starting to wonder if getting big amounts of Investiture out of Roshar could harm the Rosharan ecosystem. I mean, maybe the storm is part of an Investiture cycle like rain on the water cycle and if you take it off-world it can't regenerate. Probably small amount would have no repercussions, but commerce on a huge scale like the GB want... I guess the question here is when transformed in another wordl does Strormlight return to Roshar if its connection to it has been completely severed?

[DeployParachute]

4 minutes ago, Bliev said:

She notes that they are still 3, but that there are others, unformed, waiting to emerge if their experiment fails. I do not believe that Formless is "real" yet. But very well could become real if Shallan continues to dissociate. 

Only if you make the assumption that the 3 primaries know with absolute certainty there are no others, which they may not be capable of. And there is a good reason for this, from a writing standpoint. If Brandon wants to keep it a secret, this surprise alter, then the primary 3 can't know about it, because then we, the readers, would know. 

[NameIess]

After thinking about Mraize and the ghostbloods further, I have decided that either they would turn into a (mostly) harmless trading company that will do anything to maintain their monopoly, or an unstoppable super-East India Company that captures all sixteen shards, reforming the ones that are splintered, using the shards powers to create an unstoppable army of Fullborn Radiant Elantrian Awakeners with access to millions of breaths and awakened Shardblades similar to Nightblood, which they will use to rule the Cosmere with an iron fist. Mistborn era 4 will be about Hoid searching for someone trustworthy to wield Nightblood, the only weapon that could ever do anything against the ghostbloods, while simultaneously leading a doomed rebellion.

[DeployParachute]

1 minute ago, Karger said:

and that Mraize would be able to interact with her long enough to both train her and get her on their side.

You are assuming that Mraize was the one who had to work to get her on his side, or to even train her, rather than her seeking him out in the first place. 

Quote

For in Mraize’s mind were answers. About the nature of the world and its politics, but more beyond. About Shallan. The Davar house steward had belonged to the Ghostbloods. It was possible Shallan’s father had as well. Mraize had never been willing to speak of that, but she had to think they’d been grooming her—and her family—for over a decade.

Perhaps he's had a lot more time with her than we thought.

3 minutes ago, Karger said:

That is leaving aside the whole DID does not work like that and this kind of depiction is really harmful argument.

This is why I believe that it was a bad decision for Brandon to ground Shallan's problems into a real world disorder. Because of this, right here, this response of yours. It narrows and limits the creative freedom of telling an interesting and thrilling story, and he'll never EVER get it right for some people, because they will say this: "That is not how that really works, and it is harmful that you wrote it that way." It is a statement that can be used whenever and wherever convenient.

Brandon could have had this idea and plot point in his head and outline BEFORE he committed to doing DID "right", whatever that means to you. I doubt he would abandon it entirely in his efforts to present a DID depiction more realistically. The DID does not exist in this narrative for it's own sake. It is there to serve the character, and it is there to serve the plot. 

Sounds like if Brandon's fiction deviates one iota from the current prevailing consensus of the mental health community, you are going to have a problem with it, because it is going to "hurt" people. Well, what can one say to that? What defense is there? None.

Agree to disagree. I refuse to limit my imagination of where this story could go simply because something doesn't line up 100% with a textbook definition of a real world mental health diagnosis.

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, DeployParachute said:

Only if you make the assumption that the 3 primaries know with absolute certainty there are no others, which they may not be capable of. And there is a good reason for this, from a writing standpoint. If Brandon wants to keep it a secret, this surprise alter, then the primary 3 can't know about it, because then we, the readers, would know. 

Yes, but at the same time we've spent three volumes of SA - each book a trilogy unto itself, effectively - with many scenes and POVs with Shallan Davar, and we saw her construct both Veil and Radiant and then proceed to lean on them increasingly, eventually to the point of endowing them with equal footing with herself.

To only begin to find out only at the very beginning of SA 4 that hey, there's a buried "master identity" even deeper than Shallan, that created and has been using "so-called Shallan" as a mask the way that Shallan then created Veil and Radiant - basically, the version of her that had reached at least the Third if not Fourth Ideal before the age of eleven... And is starting to "emerge" to do things without "Shallan" knowing?

Well, I was originally going to object that that feels like lying to the reader, but no it's fairly in line with the Shallan Davar story arc.

The only problem I have with the "emerging to do things Shallan doesn't know" is that it seems impossible for her to do it in so short a time like as needed to poison Ialai without "Shallan" noticing a time gap. Nor would there be any obvious motive for "Formless" to want to do that, unless Mraize has also been talking to "Formless" without Shallan realizing it and convinced her of the need, which would mean Formless has been fairly active in the Shallan body and surely somebody else - Adolin, her brothers, Kaladin, Jasnah, Navani, etc., - might have noticed?

It would imply that "Formless" not only isn't in potentia but has been around the whole time? And that does feel a little unsatisfying (like lying to the reader). She can lie to herself, sure, but shouldn't we as readers have been clued in on that over 8 years and three mega-volumes?

Then again, we have had such hints all along. Like how Shallan could summon a Shardblade to kill Tyn, or to Soulcast the goblet to blood at the Palanaeum, both of which would seem to be "too advanced" for the nascent stage of Lightweaver she thought she was.

Edited September 29, 2020 by robardin

[+Bliev]

13 minutes ago, DeployParachute said:

Only if you make the assumption that the 3 primaries know with absolute certainty there are no others, which they may not be capable of. And there is a good reason for this, from a writing standpoint. If Brandon wants to keep it a secret, this surprise alter, then the primary 3 can't know about it, because then we, the readers, would know. 

I don't think it's unreasonable to think there might be others. I just personally feel that the textual evidence we've been shown so far--Formless "stirring" but not awake according to Shallan, Veil and Radiant's fear of other alters, Radiant's comments directly refuting the idea that there are already others, Shallan's comments in this chapter about amnesiac moments and not perceiving any missing times in the present--suggests that Formless is a threat, but not a reality...yet. I think if it were another identity, we wouldn't have the awareness of the stirring and the actual discussion of it among the Three at this point, it would rather be moments of amnesia or uncertainty to make us wonder what's going on. 

[Lightspine]

11 minutes ago, Infinitysliver said:

On another note,Could Navani's mystery penpal be Sja-anat? I know we only get one line from her in this chapter but...

I was considering this too. This chapter certainly puts her on the radar!

I'm a little confused by Mraize right now, but maybe I'm overthinking things. Something certainly isn't completely adding together about the stormlight thing.

But first! A tiny theory about how he might get the stuff off world. My immediate idea was "just wrap it in aluminum." Gavilar mentioned a box. An aluminum box? It sounds like it could work, right? The only issue I can think of for this idea is that it's too easy. Like, anybody with a knowledge of realmatics would probably be able to think of it. It would be hard for the Ghostbloods to monopolize a technique that's so simple.

Anyway, I agree with some of @Karger's questioning earlier. Why stormlight? Mraize says that he would have a monopoly over the trade of investure, but we already know of a type of investure that is bought, sold, and moved between worlds. Vivenna and Wit have both brought Breath to Roshar, and Vasher has too (since he dies without his Divine Breath), though we haven't seen him use them. And Breaths are already for sale in Hallendren. Now, this could easily explain why Mraize doesn't want to deal in Breaths—there's already a somewhat open market in them, one which the Ghostbloods wouldn't be able to have a strangle-hold on. The real question here should be why the Ghostbloods think that their stormlight market can outcompete the one for Breaths.

The easiest explanation would be that stormlight can be applied in a manner that Breaths can't be. This is objectively true, and I've seen plenty of people here talking about exporting fabrials offworld. I agree that any method which can export stormlight should be able to export fabrials. However, I don't think this is sufficient. First of all, we see the Ire using some fabrial-like device powered with the Dor in Secret History, so stormlight might not be unique in this department. But it's still much more portable than the Dor, so perhaps there's still a market there.

The biggest flaw in this isn't another form of investure, but just plain old electricity. Scadrial has entered its industrial phase, and is just a few years away from many devices which could render fabrials obsolete. Why buy a magical contraption which runs on an exotic energy source that must be brought from another planet when you can get an electrical appliance that does the same thing? Once a power station is built on your planet, it should supply energy much more cheaply than an interplanetary trade route. If I were looking to turn a massive profit, I would be smuggling appliances out of Scadrial. That said, perhaps Mraize doesn't know the potential electricity has. It would be hilarious to see him succeed only to be crushed in a decade by Scadrian entrepreneurs.

This makes me think there could be some use for stormlight or voidlight which is yet unseen. Maybe the Ghostbloods have a contract with some more nefarious group or entity who want to use the stormlight in their plans.

Or I'm maybe I'm overthinking this.