Chapter Headers

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Two things!

Firstly, what’s up with the faces on the sides of the decorative chapter header things in each of the Stormlight books? At first, I thought they would have something to do with either the chapter’s viewpoint or its contents, with each face representing a specific character. However, that theory got shut down pretty quickly, given that sometimes faces would pop up in chapters where the characters I associated with them weren’t even mentioned. The faces could represent a specific idea present in the chapter, but I don’t have the patience to test that theory. Maybe someone who’s already finished RoW and has more time on their hands could give it a go. Of course the faces could just be random and only there for decorative purposes, but what’s the fun in that?

Secondly, I noticed that the some of the chapter headers are darker or lighter than others. It’s more noticeable in hardcovers, but it’s there in the paperbacks too. The color changes very subtly between each chapter, but if you compare a chapter header from the front of a book to one from the back of the same book, the difference is noticeable. I may be reading into things too much here, but this seems very strange, and it feels like there’s too much variation for it to be a simple printing error. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Frustration]

The face arches are the Heralds

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Oh, ok - I didn’t realize that. But still, why are there different ones on each arch? Since each Herald has a title, e.g. Herald of War or Herald of Justice, would those themes appear in the chapter headed by those Heralds? Maybe I’m reading into this too much, but now I have to go check.

[Frustration]

27 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Oh, ok - I didn’t realize that. But still, why are there different ones on each arch? Since each Herald has a title, e.g. Herald of War or Herald of Justice, would those themes appear in the chapter headed by those Heralds? Maybe I’m reading into this too much, but now I have to go check.

I think @Jofwu did an analisys on it.

[Smye]

Here's a decent summary I've been meaning to update...

 

[Smye]

Also on Reddit:

Lurcher

Here are the lists of things that I've noticed could be reasons why certain Herald images get chosen. I also picked up on alot of this stuff because the folks over at Tor have done a WoR re-read and have a dedicated "Heraldic Symbolism" subsection they devote for each chapter. They speculate as to why the specific herald(s) were chosen. Specifically Alice Arneson (one of the re-readers) has seemingly done some good research into this, so I'll give her credit for a lot of this.

I mostly listed these out for my own reference as I've been meaning to do so (since I usually keep them in my head when figuring this out when reading).

1. Herald themselves (mentioned, talked about, or actually has an appearance)
2. Some object associated with a herald (example: A specific herald's honorblade)
3. Member of Order (ex: Kaladin=Windrunners=Jezrien)
4. Characters portraying divine attribute behavior (example: Loving and Healing)
5. Characters portraying the inverse of divine attribute behavior (example: Hating and Destroying)

6. Herald of <concept> - things associated with that concept. Known examples: 1) Shalash: Herald of Beauty 2) Nalan: Herald of Justice 3) Jezrien: Herald of Kings 4) Taln: Herald of War 5) Ishar: Herald of Luck

7. Roles associated with a herald Known Examples: 1)Chana: Guards 2)Taln: Soldiers/war 3)Ishar: Ardents/religion 4)Vedel: Physicians

8. Essences (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ten_Essences ): Essence, body focus, Soulcasting properties...(this one is a stretch as I've never really could pinpoint this well enough)

9. Jester/Masked face (as mentioned in other posts on this thread). This can be tied to chapters with Wit them or tied to concepts related to him, the biggest one (I think) being storytelling.

How'd I do?

Note: I loved the "Four Lifetimes" chapter's heraldic symbolism in Oathbringer (I'm a little over halfway through the book), but I thought that was great showing the different roles/lives Kaladin has filled: Surgeon (Vedel), Soldier (Taln), Guard (Chana), and Leader/Windrunner (Jezrien). Bravo.

Peter Ahlstrom

How did you do? Pretty much a home run. There's only one thing you're missing, which you may have implied, and that's the gemstones. Also, there's a little bit more to #5 that will be explored further later in the series.

Your "Four Lifetimes" analysis is spot-on. Congratulations.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/116/#e8892

[Jofwu he/him]

What Smye said.

[Cole]

On 4/14/2021 at 0:53 PM, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Two things!

Firstly, what’s up with the faces on the sides of the decorative chapter header things in each of the Stormlight books? At first, I thought they would have something to do with either the chapter’s viewpoint or its contents, with each face representing a specific character. However, that theory got shut down pretty quickly, given that sometimes faces would pop up in chapters where the characters I associated with them weren’t even mentioned. The faces could represent a specific idea present in the chapter, but I don’t have the patience to test that theory. Maybe someone who’s already finished RoW and has more time on their hands could give it a go. Of course the faces could just be random and only there for decorative purposes, but what’s the fun in that?

Secondly, I noticed that the some of the chapter headers are darker or lighter than others. It’s more noticeable in hardcovers, but it’s there in the paperbacks too. The color changes very subtly between each chapter, but if you compare a chapter header from the front of a book to one from the back of the same book, the difference is noticeable. I may be reading into things too much here, but this seems very strange, and it feels like there’s too much variation for it to be a simple printing error. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I asked the same thing when I first joined the forum. I'm guessing you are new. Welcome to the Forum and if you don't want to wait for a response you could always search for a topic or discussion in the search tab to see if anyone has talked about what you want to ask to get immediate info.