Shallan's ideals

[Pratyaksh]

Has shallan said all the ideals of the lightweavers?

At which ideal does she get a blade?

Because she is at 4th or 5th ideal.

What do u guys think?

[Aspiring Writer]

1 hour ago, Pratyaksh said:

Has shallan said all the ideals of the lightweavers?

At which ideal does she get a blade?

Because she is at 4th or 5th ideal.

What do u guys think?

All orders get their blade at the third oath, armor at fourth. Shallan is at max fourth oath.

[Inquisitor #5]

1 hour ago, Aspiring Writer said:

All orders get their blade at the third oath, armor at fourth. Shallan is at max fourth oath.

Do we actually, finally have confirmation on that?

I think it's entirely accurate (except Bondsmiths), but people have quibbled it for so long.

 

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[Halyo_Alex he/him]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Do we actually, finally have confirmation on that?

I think it's entirely accurate (except Bondsmiths), but people have quibbled it for so long.

 

¤_¤

I believe there is a WoB that it varies slightly depending on the order.

[Aspiring Writer]

8 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I believe there is a WoB that it varies slightly depending on the order.

This... is true, but have we seen this ever? Every Radiant we've seen gets a blade at third

[Pratyaksh]

7 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

This... is true, but have we seen this ever? Every Radiant we've seen gets a blade at third

No shallan had a patter blade from the 1st oath it self

After the pattern blade came the other 3 oaths

Killing mother

Killing father

Filling testement

 

 

[Legui01010 he/him]

 

1 hour ago, Pratyaksh said:

No shallan had a patter blade from the 1st oath it self

After the pattern blade came the other 3 oaths

Killing mother

Killing father

Filling testement

 

 

I don't think she's on her 4th Ideal yet. When Kaladin reached his 4th Ideal, Windspren crossed between Realms to Connect to him, forming his Plate. So far we haven't seen Shallan doing it (either that or every Order gets their Plate on a different manner). But if this is true, then when Radiant is finally absorbed, she will probably get her Plate, maybe even achieve her 5th Ideal.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 hours ago, Pratyaksh said:

No shallan had a patter blade from the 1st oath it self

After the pattern blade came the other 3 oaths

Killing mother

Killing father

Filling testement

Shallan's stuff is... weird, though, so it's hard to say what "level" she's at. 

[AquaRegia he/him]

1)  Shallan is an unreliable narrator.  We do not know enough about what happened with Testament, and some of what we "knew" was wrong.

2)  Lightweavers don't swear "Oaths", they say "Truths".  We do not know enough about how this works to judge what's going on.

3)  Never in any Sanderson Cosmere work have we (the readers) had access to all the rules.  We NEVER know the whole story, and neither do the characters.

To sum up:  Shallan's weird, Lightweavers are weird, the rules are weird, and we won't ever know everything.  We'll know more when Brandon wants us to know more.

[Inquisitor #5]

3 hours ago, Pratyaksh said:

No shallan had a patter blade from the 1st oath it self

After the pattern blade came the other 3 oaths

Killing mother

Killing father

Filling testement

 

 

I think she had a Testamentblade before those Truths, not a Patternblade.

She remembers speaking Truths as a child, and to have spoken Truths (rather than a Truth) she'd have reached the Third ideal before killing Testament in any case.

I also wouldn't be surprised if she had some similar weirdness to Dalinar. Dalinar tries to summon a Blade when he panics over his memories and while he doesn't manage to pull the Stormfather through he gets something. 

Shallan might well be in a similar situation, possibly being able to pull Pattern along the pathway established by Testament, allowing her to leapfrog the Ideal requirement because the framework already exists.

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

2)  Lightweavers don't swear "Oaths", they say "Truths".  We do not know enough about how this works to judge what's going on

Is there a functional difference though? Are Truths not Lightweaver Oaths?

Both seem to follow the same rules about how you need to internalise them.

 

¤_¤

[Crylorenzo he/him]

Shallan, as others have mentioned, has some really weird stuff going on. The number 1 weird thing is that Shallan has two blades and 2 sets of oaths going on and we don't always know which oaths pertain to which Spren.

Here's some things we do know:
-Shallan at least had the 3rd oath with Testament when she was young
-Pattern didn't show up until Kharbranth
-Testamentblade is the one to kill Tyn
-Patternblade is the one to Kaladin uses in the chasms and the one used to open the Oathgates on the Shattered Plains after Shallan.
-At the Battle of Thaylen Field, she has Shardplate, though it is not glowing like we now know live plate glows. This could be because it is dead plate (unlikely, I think, but we don't know how it works with dead-eyes and still living Radiants)
-Something is wrong with Shallan's Soulcasting Ability

This leads me to believe either Shallan was at the 4th ideal at a young age with Testament or somehow has progressed Testament to the 4th ideal since somehow (we don't know all the rules here) or is at the 4th Ideal by the end of Words of Radiance with Pattern (this fits along with the WoB that says that Shallan was ahead of Kaladin on oaths by the end of WoR, but that could also just be because she has 2 blades.). My personal vote is the last one.

So yeah, it's messy, but to answer the original question it still seems to fit the pattern of 3rd oath, blade, 4th oath, Plate.
 

[Aspiring Writer]

13 hours ago, Pratyaksh said:

No shallan had a patter blade from the 1st oath it self

After the pattern blade came the other 3 oaths

Killing mother

Killing father

Filling testement

 

 

Remember that she had a dead testament blade, and we only see her summon that after the second oath.

[Frustration he/him]

21 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

This... is true, but have we seen this ever? Every Radiant we've seen gets a blade at third

Renarin showed evidence of bonding and only about 100 days later had a blade, I find it implausible that he said 3 ideals in that time.

Though Renarin is also a bad example.

[Aspiring Writer]

12 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Renarin showed evidence of bonding and only about 100 days later had a blade, I find it implausible that he said 3 ideals in that time.

Though Renarin is also a bad example.

... Are we forgetting that Shallan did that in a similar time frame? her killing her mother is her third oath, and that was in end of WoR

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, Aspiring Writer said:

... Are we forgetting that Shallan did that in a similar time frame? her killing her mother is her third oath, and that was in end of WoR

It was also Shallan's book.

And Renarin has one, so it'd be weird for him to already be done with oaths

[Aspiring Writer]

20 minutes ago, Frustration said:

It was also Shallan's book.

And Renarin has one, so it'd be weird for him to already be done with oaths

Third oath isn't really done, and his book will also be having flashbacks. remember that Jasnah has a book and is at fourth oath.

[AquaRegia he/him]

7 hours ago, Crylorenzo said:

Here's some things we do know:
-Shallan at least had the 3rd oath with Testament when she was young
-Pattern didn't show up until Kharbranth
-Testamentblade is the one to kill Tyn
-Patternblade is the one to Kaladin uses in the chasms and the one used to open the Oathgates on the Shattered Plains after Shallan.
-At the Battle of Thaylen Field, she has Shardplate, though it is not glowing like we now know live plate glows. This could be because it is dead plate (unlikely, I think, but we don't know how it works with dead-eyes and still living Radiants)
-Something is wrong with Shallan's Soulcasting Ability

I disagree - I don't think we can be sure we know any of these things.  Some of them are likely true... but we don't KNOW.

-Shallan at least had the 3rd oath with Testament when she was young:  probably true.  But even she doesn't remember what happened yet... the whole picture could change again when more of the past is revealed.
-Pattern didn't show up until Kharbranth:  Pattern says so directly, and I believe him much more than I do Shallan.  Evidence supports this conclusion.
-Testamentblade is the one to kill Tyn:  yes.  Many disagree, and I admit we don't KNOW, but I think the evidence for this is solid.
-Patternblade is the one to Kaladin uses in the chasms and the one used to open the Oathgates on the Shattered Plains:  I disagree here.  It's possible, but I think it's more likely that this was also Testament.  What are your reasons for believing it was Pattern?  If it's because she says "Pattern" when summoning it, keep in mind she doesn't even remember Testament at this point.
-At the Battle of Thaylen Field, she has Shardplate:  I don't think so.  She creates Lightweaving illusions of Radiant in Plate, but I don't think we've ever seen Shallan's physical body in Plate yet.
-Something is wrong with Shallan's Soulcasting Ability:  sort of.  Her Soulcasting is more strongly linked to her Bond with Testament, and so has been badly damaged.  The only time we see her do it successfully is when she seems to renew her Truths with Testament... or, at least, that's how some of us are interpreting the scene in Kharbranth.

It's certainly possible that Lightweavers follow the same rules as other orders (3rd Oath = Blade, 4th Oath = Plate) but I don't think we know enough to be sure yet, and the training scene in RoW makes it clear that Lightweavers do not adhere rigidly to rules in the same the way other orders do... so it's also possible they don't.

[LuckyJim]

On 9/18/2021 at 0:48 AM, Aspiring Writer said:

This... is true, but have we seen this ever? Every Radiant we've seen gets a blade at third

Technically we've only seen two orders get their blade at the third ideal. Windrunners and Edgedancers through various Bridge 4 members and Lift (Lift is a little weird, she summoned her Blade before swearing the third, but it was probably close enough.)

The whole timeline for Shallan is weird. She probably got hers at the third, but until we get the timeline fully fleshed out it's hard to say.

Skybreakers probably get their blade at the third, since that's when they bond their highspren, but we've never seen a third ideal Skybreaker summon a blade.

[AquaRegia he/him]

2 hours ago, LuckyJim said:

Technically we've only seen two orders get their blade at the third ideal.

Yes, this exactly.  As previously discussed in other threads, it's far too tempting to make assumptions that we've learned everything there is to know about "how things work", when in fact we have almost no data.  Brandon suckers us in: he shows us a tiny bit of the magic system, and we happily say "oh, NOW I get it!"... only to find out later that that little bit was just the tip of a huge iceberg.  Incomplete information about four or five Radiants simply isn't enough to infer all the underlying principles and rules.  Plus, we've been shown over and over that characters, even the ones who act like they know everything, are almost always wrong.

It reminds me of astronomers making theories about solar systems and planet formation in decades past.  Makes sense for rocky planets to be close in and gas planets to be farther out, right?  Should be a general rule.  The problem is, we only had ONE solar system to look at.   Once we started collecting data about OTHER solar systems, we learned that our ideas were all wrong.

[salka]

I have a hard time seeing a 10 year old Shallan at the third ideal. At least, the way we see her saying the Truths in the books is something that is not easy to do and needs to be worked on for a while. Maybe her Truths at a younger age were "I stole a cookie", but I highly doubt that.. I think it is more likely that it is possible to summon a blade at a lower ideal, especially in a pinch, similar to how Dalinar summoned StormfatherBlade.

Edited September 19, 2021 by salka

[crème de la crèmling]

I think something that could be useful in determining "what level gets what" is to also consider the other, non-Shallan Lightweavers who have been confirmed to get their Blades. 

Quote

Ishnah was one of those who had earned her Blade. By Windrunner terms, she should be off gathering her own squires and making her own team--they seemed to assume everyone would want to follow their command structure. 

RoW Chapter 20: The Unseen Court

Red's eyes unfocused, and he seemed to be staring into the distance. He had light violet eyes now, though he'd been a darkeyes before joining the Lightweavers.

RoW Chapter 39: Invasion

I suppose Red could be using an illusion to make himself lighteyed, but Ishnah is stated outright to have her Blade. I can't find anything about Vathah or the others immediately to hand. But there is a distinction between those Lightweavers who have earned their Blades and who have not. Shallan notes that Beryl, who is explicitly stated to have bonded a spren away from the Unseen Court and Shallan's sphere of influence without becoming a squire first, has "not earned her Blade", and that to me suggests there may be a level known among Lightweavers at which they do unlock their Blades. That doesn't mean that Lightweavers can't get their Blades at Ideal 2, but I personally think there isn't enough potential narrative pay off just yet to say "this arbitrary worldbuilding rule that conveniently no one has mentioned is why Shallan is so hard to figure out." I think if there is a difference like that between orders, I would want it to have some deeper meaning for Shallan's character arc, rather than be pure mechanical misdirection. 

On the upper end, I don't believe any other Lightweavers have hit Ideal 4 on the page (or Truth 3, whichever terminology is preferred.) Raboniel's intelligence seems to place pretty high value on there not being any 4th Ideal Radiants in the Tower as a part of her scheme to subvert the defenses. Raboniel is not infallible--indeed, I don't trust a lot of what she says as the incontrovertible fact she presents it as--but she doesn't seem to consider the Lightweavers to pose a substantial threat to her plan. Red, who is left in charge as a senior Lightweaver, is one of the first Radiants to fall on the page. 

That said, Shallan wasn't in Urithiru when it fell, so who knows if she would have been awake? Shallan also engages in a lot of counterintelligence (her ploy presenting herself as an Elsecaller worked, for example, and she has tricked people into using her fake Lightweaving detectors), so preserving a certain amount of secrecy in how her order operates does seem to fit her character. And if she did swear something in RoW that would result in her getting her Plate, I think it can be inferred from Adolin's Plate experiment that it wouldn't manifest in Shadesmar and so wouldn't be depicted on the page in the moment. 

[Crylorenzo he/him]

On 9/19/2021 at 5:07 AM, AquaRegia said:

-Patternblade is the one to Kaladin uses in the chasms and the one used to open the Oathgates on the Shattered Plains:  I disagree here.  It's possible, but I think it's more likely that this was also Testament.  What are your reasons for believing it was Pattern?  If it's because she says "Pattern" when summoning it, keep in mind she doesn't even remember Testament at this point.

-At the Battle of Thaylen Field, she has Shardplate:  I don't think so.  She creates Lightweaving illusions of Radiant in Plate, but I don't think we've ever seen Shallan's physical body in Plate yet.

I say that Kaladin used Patternblade in the chasms for a few reasons, but the main one is this:
If you check the descriptions of the blades - the description of the one used against Tyn is very different from the one used in the chasms, but the one used in the chasms fits the description of the later blade she more regularly uses.

As for Shallan and Shardplate at Thaylen Field, yes she created many illusions, but, the one that was really Shallan, as confirmed by Jasnah, was the one who looked like Radiant in very real Shardplate. The other two "Shallans" puffed away when Jasnah tried to touch them. In addition, I'm supported in this idea by the WoB that says "By the end of WoR, Shallan was a step higher than Kaladin." Kaladin was at the 3rd Ideal, therefore Shallan was at the 4th.

I could be wrong, but the details seem clear to me at this stage.

[AquaRegia he/him]

On 9/20/2021 at 4:41 AM, Crylorenzo said:

I say that Kaladin used Patternblade in the chasms for a few reasons, but the main one is this:
If you check the descriptions of the blades - the description of the one used against Tyn is very different from the one used in the chasms, but the one used in the chasms fits the description of the later blade she more regularly uses.

As for Shallan and Shardplate at Thaylen Field, yes she created many illusions, but, the one that was really Shallan, as confirmed by Jasnah, was the one who looked like Radiant in very real Shardplate. The other two "Shallans" puffed away when Jasnah tried to touch them. In addition, I'm supported in this idea by the WoB that says "By the end of WoR, Shallan was a step higher than Kaladin." Kaladin was at the 3rd Ideal, therefore Shallan was at the 4th.

I could be wrong, but the details seem clear to me at this stage.

I read through the Battle of Thaylen City.  While it is true that the Radiant persona is the "real" one, there is no mention of Shardplate in that scene, none at all.  If you found some evidence elsewhere that Shallan has Plate, I'd love to see it... but I don't remember reading any, nor has anyone else ever mentioned any.

Regarding the Testamentblade vs Patternblade debate, this post (in one of my all-time favorite topics here) collects every single mention of Shallan's Shardblades.  There are not many.  Color is mentioned only three times, and never once AFTER the chasm scene.  While the garnet appearance of the Blade in the chasms can be seen as supporting the idea that it's a different Blade than the silver one that killed Tyn, that slim evidence is not enough to convince me 100%.  A blade can be both silver and faintly glowing garnet.  I still think it's possible that we've seen only the Testamentblade throughout WoR, and the first time Shallan summons Pattern as a Blade is when practicing with Adolin in OB, as described here.

Edited September 22, 2021 by AquaRegia
wrong link

[Crylorenzo he/him]

I could have sworn there was a mention of Radiant in Shardplate during the Battle of Thaylen Field, perhaps when she first summons the personas and illusion army? But right now for the first 3 books I have to rely on audible since my hard copies are in storage due to a temporary move so I must rely on you for the close reading. If there is no reference in the whole battle of Radiant wearing Shardplate, I stand corrected. That plus the WoB that Shallan was ahead of Kaladin in oaths by the end of WoR are the only hints I have towards her already having Shardplate.

As for the blades, I loved reading through the post you referenced - very detailed. They agreed with me that the chasm-blade seems like it might be Pattern, but as you say the two descriptions are not mutually exclusive and it is not 100% guarantee. I also like your connection to the summoning of Pattern during dueling in Oathbringer. I do wonder if the Oathgate activation wasn't Pattern, only because  thusfar Shardblades from deadeyes have not been able to activate Oathgates, although Shallan's case of being the original Radiant and her broken bond being odd/possible-not-fully-broken does make it weird, so it could be Testament as you say. Thanks for the info!

[crème de la crèmling]

21 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

I read through the Battle of Thaylen City.  While it is true that the Radiant persona is the "real" one, there is no mention of Shardplate in that scene, none at all.  If you found some evidence elsewhere that Shallan has Plate, I'd love to see it... but I don't remember reading any, nor has anyone else ever mentioned any.

The reference to Radiant's Shardplate comes from this quote:

Quote

Another hand took Shallan's on the right. Radiant, in glowing garnet Shardplate, tall, with braided hair. Reserved and cautious. She nodded to Shallan with a steady, determined look.

OB Chapter 120: The Spear That Would Not Break

This is positioned in a separate passage from the passage that Jasnah encounters her. In RoW Chapter 114, Rlain notes how weird it is that Kaladin's Shardplate spren is supposedly always around, just invisible--so I don't know if it's utterly out of the question that Radiant may have just not let her Shardplate be tangible. 

I mostly tend to think that Testament is the Blade that killed Tyn and it's Pattern everywhere else, including the chasms. But I revise my opinions on Shallan just about every week, so I have been contemplating the "Testament All Along" theory, and putting together my thoughts on that. 

Right after the chasm sequence, when Shallan is recovering in the warcamps, she and Pattern have a conversation that seems relevant to this theory: 

Quote

"Pattern," she said softly, clutching a mug of warmed wine, "I'm not a Radiant, right?" 

"I do not think so," he said. "Not yet. There is more to do, I believe, though I cannot be certain." 

WoR Chapter 75: True Glory

In RoW, becoming a "Full Radiant" seems to me to be associated with gaining a Shardblade. It's possible that this is what Pattern is referring to here, even if he doesn't know exactly what he means by that. Incidentally, this is also the same conversation where he and Shallan cover the Cryptics from before who experienced the bond and are now dead. He suggests that "perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done." That seems to be a big hint in retrospect. 

In discussing Shardblades in another thread, I found something in the text which suggested to me that it could have been how Shallan would have had a Blade that could change shape in the chasms: this is Navani's observation that the gemstones in Shardblades were introduced to the Blade, and that there was some textual evidence in-world that suggested that the Blades changed shape to accommodate them. 

Quote

"[Rushu] came up with a scrap from several decades after the Recreance which talks about men learning to summon and dismiss Blades by adding gemstones to them ...

...

"... The fragment says the weapons actually shifted shape to adopt the stones, but I'm not certain if I trust that."

WoR Chapter 67: Spit and Bile

It goes on to say that bonding them was impossible before the gemstones were added, though they were still supernaturally sharp and light. Combining that with the Testament reveal seems to suggest that dead Blades might still be able to change shape somehow, especially since that fragment is dated within the reasonable lifetime of Recreance era Radiants. (Admittedly towards the end, though.) This is like right before the chasm sequence, so that also feels rather like foreshadowing to me.

Finally, I do think there is a mandatory first manifestation of the Shardblade upon swearing Ideal 3. I can assemble those quotes, but the one that makes me really think it's not a conscious action is Shallan's assertion that she didn't mean to make the strike that killed her mother, and that it was the first time she had ever summoned her Blade (RoW Chapter 93). So in WoR, when Shallan confesses to the murder of her mother, that the little Shardblade that is inside the illusory vault could in fact be Pattern's first Shardblade appearance on the page. These could be the words that Pattern felt she had yet to say in Chapter 75, and there's a horrible parallel in having Shallan recreate the incident of her first Shardblade summoning to summon her second Blade. Just more thoughts on Shallan! I love to think about her and her entire storyline.

Edited September 22, 2021 by crème de la crèmling
Grammar! Again!