Kogiopsis

17 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I really like this lead in, and your member title is awesome. But I do have one question based on this:

Shouldn't your member title be lightning/death's unholy offspring? Totally kidding, I think your points are really good, why people participate in a debate is central to why they might feel marginalized/attacked, and I think your breakdown is really insightful.

I really just wanted to reply because I liked the bits I quoted a lot. Funny stuff.

Well, it's a quote from How To Train Your Dragon, so no.  But a broader answer in terms of how you would use / nomenclature in a sentence - the slash construction essentially functions in place of a singular proper noun, referring to the relationship itself*.  It's the precursor to the portmanteau ship names we have now - so Kirk/Spock became Spirk (to my great sadness, as they could have called it Spork).  

Technically, you could say 'lightning/death's unholy offspring'; syntactically it's not as pleasing to read, but it works.  I wouldn't do it, because that's not... an actual ship?  But you could apply the same thing to actual ships - if you wanted some silly speculation, you could start a thread titled "What might Wayne/Steris kids be like?".

(*a side note - I think some people less familiar with shipping lingo see things like portmanteau names as mashing the characters together, when really it's just... a proper name for the relationship between them.  For instance, I ship Kalarin - but calling it 'Kalarin' when I talk about it allows me to distinguish between talking about the ship, and just talking about Kaladin and Renarin as characters.  It also makes it possible to talk about Kaladin and Renarin's interactions without talking about the ship, because the ship has its own name.  Hopefully that makes sense?)

I want to clear up a couple of things related to a particular incident, if I may, as I think clarification may be pertinent to the discussion at hand.

10 hours ago, Dreamstorm said:

It's no secret that the moderators of this forum have a consistent bias, in general not liking criticism of the book and specifically having strong opinions on certain topics, as these views have been aired very publicly.  From what I have seen, it is the posters whose opinions run contrary to the collective "moderator opinion" who are the ones publicly chastised.  For instance, a moderator once brought in a friend as an "attack dog" to the shipping thread (the poster stated they were there to provide snarky comments), the moderator's friend got extremely heated and was reported.  The moderator team on some level must have agreed on the offensiveness of the post, as it was deleted and then reinstated with revisions.  No public chastisement was given.  This is not an anomaly; it's been quite clear that biased treatment is to be expected.

Feather has already outlined the actual event quite thoroughly, but I want to make two things as clear as possible:

1.  I was not and have never been anyone's "attack dog".  I have a... strained relationship with this site, and tend to only jump into conversation when pissed enough not to hold my tongue.  Feather was telling me about the ASK thread, yes, but... she also knows me well enough that she was largely lobbying against me wading into things.  Thing is, as much as I respect her and her very diplomatic approach to things, that decision was already made.

2.  As soon as I was aware that I was under moderation for the post in question, I made sure to let Feather know that I was open to whatever decision the mods made amongst themselves, from minor edits to a full-blown ban.  I'm mostly active in the Tumblr Cosmere fandom, and I view this account as a 'burner', so to speak - I stick my head in to say what no one else will, and then vanish into the mists for another two years, like a very cantankerous living Brigadoon.  (The first time, it was for the purpose of calling out homophobia and making the point that the site can be friendly to queer fans, or to homophobes, but not to both - and much to my relief, things have gotten better.  I don't regret it.)  But I am well aware that I tend to be more overtly pugnacious than the average Sharder, and that in order to maintain the social peace of the site I might have to be banned.  That's fine by me, and the mods are aware of such.

All this to say - I don't think my friendship with Feather was as much of a factor in that situation as you suggest in this post.  However, it's still relevant; see below.

6 hours ago, PhineasGage said:

I wasn't present for this event so I don't have first hand experience of it, but simply from your own words this seems very flawed. A member came into a thread and proceeded to break the rules. Was she put on moderation? Was she banned? We have no idea that any real discipline was carried out and she wasn't publically shamed like a new member would have been in the same circumstance. And why did this happen? According to you it is because she is your friend. You just had a chat.

How is this ok?

This proves that there is bias again. Indeed, it is even worse than I thought! Why wasn't a post made by a moderator at least acknowledging this - can it not be seen that this has the effect of making people feel like as long as you know the mods, you're golden?

...

Personally I think public shaming is not useful - it causes defensiveness which then prevents a change in behaviour. A PM with an explanation about why the post is a problem is going to be more effective with more people (you can even have C+Ped sections in to make them quick to write!). 

What I get from these two portions of Phineas's post is that the problem is not how the mods handled me, but the fact that that is not always the case with everyone.  Which... I think is a reasonable objection, actually.  However, it's worth noting that there is a benefit to making a public post in a thread which cannot be replicated in PMs:  the reinforcement of overall social norms.    That can carry an air of public shaming, depending on how the parties involve behave, but I don't think its value is in question.  I do seem to recall a couple of mods (especially Chaos) dropping into the ASK thread to ask people to simmer down, which to me carries an implicit rebuke of all involved, for what that may be worth.

(Also, for a nitpicky clarification:  it was my understanding of the situation at the time that the person who reported my post objected to one singular line, not the entire post.  That was the portion which was reworked after the post was hidden, in response to the reporter's wishes.  As far as I know, no further objections were raised, so in the end it was a small issue that could be handled with minimal fuss.  I just wanted to point that out, as Dreamstorm's initial description could lead it to sound like a much bigger brouhaha.)

All that said - I think one of the most useful options for those who are troubled by the current mod practices would be documentation, going forward.  As the mods have mentioned, they won't necessarily know about a problem until someone brings it up, and that includes conscious or unconscious biases among the moderators themselves - it would therefore seem useful to keep a record of what posts you report, who wrote them, what the response was, and which mod was involved (if that information is available).  That way, everyone involved would have a concrete basis for discussion and a database from which to brainstorm solutions.  And even if you think mods won't remonstrate old-timers or their friends, this way you could 1.  test that theory by reporting as you deem necessary and 2.  have a record of specific cases of bias if your theory is supported.

10 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Well if it is a matter of personal taste, I deeply dislike the idea that the proper Veden please-help-me persona Shallan is the 'real' one. I dislike the part of her that decided she is bad at choosing a partner for herself because she blames herself for liking Kabsal. I hate that she she was okay with letting Jasnah conveniently betroth her to what she knew then as 'a prince' and I was just as surprised as Jasnah. Veil would never allow that. Veil is the courageous one that works undercover and places herself in ways of harm to achieve her goal, that one that looks out for the dark-eyes, the compassionate for the weaker ones.

While I acknowledge that my dislike is in part personal, the issue of Shallan pretending to be a darkeyes despite fundamentally not understanding what that means is deeper than that.  In modern American society it's the equivalent of brown/blackface, or the Rachel Dolezal mess - she's writing over the privilege she comes from and the harm she and people like her have done, and in the process she is causing more harm.  (I mention again that the breakdown of Veil started because Shallan - any and all parts of her - failed to comprehend the realities of poverty, because she had never experienced it and only tried it on like a costume.  This seems like it might be the beginning of her realizing that Alethi society is, y'know, fundamentally messed up, but she's certainly not given the issue much thought yet.)

As for the betrothal - I think you're forgetting the fact that at the time Jasnah arranged the causal, Shallan's primary focus was still finding a way to secure House Davar.  A betrothal to a prince, even one she had no guarantees she would even get along with, is a logical strategic option to hold on to.  And because the causal is conditional, it's not a certainty; until she meets Adolin, it's just another card in her hand.

10 hours ago, SLNC said:

This has nothing to do with intelligence, but with how we've been told he perceives Shallan's different personalities.

Okay he might not ask her that question, but I still think, that he will think, that Veil is different from Shallan and so Shallan was not the one conferring with the Ghostbloods, which is just not true and Shallan telling him over Veil is not only dishonest, but also further allows Shallan to once again hide behind her personas. To not take responsibility.

And please, I'm getting really discouraged by your tone. It is okay to disagree with me and to tell me why, but you're getting way too angry about this.

Regarding the comparability of killing Sadeas and Shallan killing her parents:

I haven't even argued against that. I know it is comparable and I have full sympathy on why Shallan did that, but only because I have seen her past through flashback sequences.

Adolin does not have that ability. All I'm trying is to gauge a possible emotional reaction of a man, whose wife is constantly hiding things from him and apparently is multiple people at once, a man, of whom we know values family over everything, which could hamper his ability to understand the reason Shallan did what she did, because he only knew having a loving mother and a reasonably loving dad, whose worst crime was neglecting his teenage sons, because he was an alcoholic (I know dalinar did a lot worse things, but Adolin doesn't, which is what is important here.). I'm saying, that through his own background, he'd have trouble to fathom, that what Shallan tells him is true, because his own beliefs on family are completely different.

Another thing is, that he is also often described as being hotheaded. Shallan has good reasons to do what she did, but will he even want to hear these reasons? Or will he get emotional, when she tells him?

I mean, the question you posited is a phenomenally stupid thing for him to ask, given that we know he can tell the difference in Shallan's personas even when she's not Lightweaving their appearances, so yeah, I think it absolutely has to do with intelligence.

And speaking of which... the idea that Adolin doesn't have the ability to sympathize with Shallan is, frankly, absurd.  Everyone putting this argument forward has been conveniently ignoring the fact that, in canon, Adolin is far and away the most emotionally intelligent person in the cast.  (Y'all wanna talk about a Kholin who would be more likely to ignore context?  Jasnah.  Jasnah 'I killed three men because they might have been about to attack me' Kholin is the one I'd bet on reacting poorly.)

Adolin doesn't have any reason to disbelieve Shallan.  He's not clueless; he knows that other people have different life experiences than his.  He may not fully compass the difference between, say, Kaladin's choice in the arena and his own, but notably - even though Kaladin destroyed his chance to duel Sadeas - Adolin is the one who stands by him.  Is locking himself in prison a bit of a silly gesture?  Yeah.  Is it still meaningful?  Yes.

The assumption that Adolin would 'have trouble fathoming' what Shallan went through only makes sense if you assume that he's oblivious enough to disavow even the possibility of familial abuse.  It doesn't have anything to do with his beliefs on family, except maybe for the fact that what Lin and Shallan's mother did to their children violates everything Adolin seems to believe about those relationships.

8 hours ago, Vissy said:

I think you're being unrealistic. Unless Adolin really is the Mary Sue I fear he's become, then he's going to freak out just like any sane person would. Shallan is going to have to explain it with the utmost care to him, well, or it's going to become exponentially harder to explain. Would you, or anyone you know, react with utmost calm to hearing that your loved one shot their parents, accidentally or not, to use your gun death analogy? Yes, you might eventually react with sympathy, but your initial reaction is going to be horrified. You could benefit from some reading comprehension, as you've been arguing against a point I never made - apparently you thought that I'd said something to the effect that Shallan actually is a monster for murdering her parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

(That being said, think for a moment on what Shallan did. At an extremely young age, she planned and executed two murders - something most people would not do under any circumstances, no matter how abusive the parent, or as coldly as Shallan did. She might well be on the sociopathic spectrum herself, on top of being a child genius. Not that I think that makes her a horrible person, as I think she's shown ample evidence of being quite a great person when it counts; it's just something interesting to note.)

Oh, and to this, I do have something to note. Brandon has to a certain degree "Flanderized" Adolin himself, for example specifically his fashion obsession when he wrote Adolin's only activities in Kholinar amounting to a game of dress-up. Instead of doing something... interesting. He dropped the ball on the Sadeas murder plotline entirely, which was going to be an integral part of Adolin's character arc... or so it initially seemed, before the beta-reader-suggested Adolin PoVs in the beginning of OB ran dry and Veil took over the investigation. Like it or not, Brandon has kind of bastardized Adolin himself, making him into a Prince Perfect who can hardly do any wrong and to whom everything just kind of falls into his lap. So maybe it's not such a wonder when people start exaggerating him.

If I heard a loved one shot their parents accidentally, no, I wouldn't be calm.  As I said, I'd be horrified that a child was in that situation.  I'm not suggesting that Adolin will be impassive and unemotional - I'm suggesting that he won't instantly condemn Shallan without hearing her side of the story.  To borrow your phrase, that's what any sane person would do.  Personally, I'd be more horrified to learn about what her mother and Lin did.

Nothing about her mother's death was cold, nor was it planned.  Shroom has addressed this.

Also, oh my goodness, Adolin's playing the fop in Kholinar was his role in the information-gathering process.  His job as part of the team was to infiltrate the Kholinar nobility and learn about the Heart of the Revel so that they could gain access.  He wasn't goofing off; he just wasn't center-stage because that wasn't where he could best contribute.

7 hours ago, Vissy said:

Killing is not a natural outgrowth. Even in self-defense, it's not something a child does. It's not something a lot of people would even be capable of doing. Most children in her position would have whimpered and died. Shallan didn't. It doesn't make her a horrible person, but it also says something about her. She is most definitely willing to kill, even her own parents, if she feels it's necessary - contrast this to Kaladin, for example. He could never do something like that. I'd definitely call it sociopathic behaviour on Shallan's part, though that's where the sociopath comparisons end. She's not one.

'Most children' aren't soul-bonded to a magical weapon that takes life almost effortlessly, especially at an age where they're far too young to understand it.  I also fundamentally disagree that 'most children would have whimpered and died'; the human survival instinct is much stronger than that, and it is manifest in kids too.  Unless you have a psychological study to back up your theory, I'm going to remain extremely skeptical that fighting back wouldn't be a natural response.  Shallan just happened to be unnaturally well-armed to defend herself.  And again, she didn't need to have the intent to kill - only to harm, which could have simply been a prelude to running away.  The Patternblade makes the line between harm and death difficult to walk.

1 hour ago, Dreamstorm said:

I think this is a divisive topic because we don’t have a good analogy from which to gauge Adolin’s reaction; he isn’t aware of any of the “bad” actions Shallan has done - matricide, patricide, stealing from Jasnah, killing Tyn. Her confessing her multiple personalities isn’t in the same catagory. Killing another human and stealing are considered “bad” in normalized human society absent mitigating circumstances. (Sadeas is a good example; although killing someone is bad, it’s considered OK because of the mitigating circumstances of the fact Sadeas did a bunch of terrible things and threatened to do more. But everyone who is saying killing Sadeas is OK would still say baseline killing someone is wrong.)

How you think Adolin will react is tied to how you see him and also how you want him to be; for others it is the same process though they come to the opposite conclusion. But you have to realize that insisting Adolin will react in a perfect manner is playing into the hands of those who think his character is one which reacts perfectly in any situation, and is thus a Mary Sue, as you are arguing there is no way for him to react except in this perfect sympathetic manner. This is perhaps the crux of the matter; you like the idealized Adolin characterization and want it to continue whereas others would like Adolin to show some faults and react to some situations without the utmost immediate understanding and sympathy. Some people would like this to be an opportunity for Adolin to not be perfect; you want it to be another situation where Adolin is perfect. 

Okay, but no one is saying Adolin does react perfectly in any situation.  What we're saying is that there is zero reason to believe he would be unsympathetic to Shallan.  All three of the lives she's taken do have 'mitigating circumstances':  abuse or attempted murder and, in Tyn's case, as far as Shallan knew the actual completed murder of Jasnah.  The only one that's less defensible is the plot to steal Jasnah's soulcaster, for which Shallan feels regret and shame; for that matter, she also self-castigates for her parents' deaths.

As Grey said, Adolin's compassion and stability are consistent traits.  I have no problems with him being 'imperfect', but violating that characterization isn't revealing a flaw, it's retconning.  This is Evi's son we're talking about, who loves hugs even though physical affection is frowned upon, who steps in to help a darkeyed prostitute the first time Kaladin sees him, who is a consummate soldier and commander even if, in Dalinar's opinion, he's 'a little too friendly' with the men under his command.

You give him too little credit.

2 hours ago, SLNC said:

No, because we don't have a PoV from him about that, but he said, that he is worried about her becoming "different people" and he is, from Shallan's PoV, acting very differently around Veil. If he really thought, that Veil is Shallan, why would he do that?

First of all, we don't know if she actually goes through with telling him about the Ghostbloods. And no, Shallan flatout told Kaladin as herself, that she killed her father, which I'd actually rate as a deeper secret for her.

Second of all, Kaladin didn't interact much with Veil. Quite the contrary, when ever Veil tried to seek out Kaladin, she panicked and forced Veil to not do that, because she knew Veil liked Kaladin.

Third of all, Adolin says, that he wants Shallan. He wants Shallan as he knows her, which is the one persona where he squeezed her hand. He is concerned, that she becomes "different people". I am fully confident, that he doesn't see Shallan, Veil and Radiant as one person. If Veil told him about the Ghostbloods, I wouldn't be surprised if he told Shallan the next day, "Did you know that Veil interacts with a secret society, called the Ghostbloods?"

I don't know what that has to do with that? Matricide and patricide are on a whole different page, than killing a generally disliked highprince. Especially for a family man like Adolin.

Hot diggity, I step away for two hours and the conversation careens.

So, I think we've established that we know neither that Adolin addresses Veil differently than Shallan nor that she will definitely tell him about the Ghostbloods.

Also - and this is relevant to comments below as well - Adolin isn't stupid.  What in the WORLD gives you the idea that he'd ask Shallan if she knows about Veil's activities?   There is literally nothing in canon that suggests he's that much of a clueless idiot; in fact, from what we've seen, he has a solid degree of emotional intelligence.  He's not book-educated because, hello?  Alethi man and not a surgeon?

I'm.  I'm actually incensed at this, because it's absurd.  If you want to argue characterization, don't Flanderize the character to do it.  Jeez.

1 hour ago, SLNC said:

I can't follow. You're deriving from the way he worried about how he had no regrets for killing Sadeas, that he wouldn't care that he married a matricide AND patricide? There certainly is a difference between killing in your family and killing an enemy highprince. Especially in such a violent society like the Alethi. If he already had a hard time coming to terms the latter, how could he, as a man valuing family over everything else, just forget if his wife did the former?

And they both had good reasons for doing what they did. He still felt wrong for doing what he did.

44 minutes ago, Vissy said:

So Adolin is just going to be Shallan's obedient slave? "Yes Shallan, nothing you ever did could ever bother me." "Yes Shallan, your word is my law."

It is terrible writing to just ignore consequences like this. Matricide and patricide, even when we know that she had no choice, are not things you take lightly. Any person of relative sanity will react with absolute horror to an admission like that. It is, at the very least, a problem that Adolin and Shallan have to work through.

31 minutes ago, Vissy said:

Yes, I agree. I still think that Adolin is human. Absolutely anyone would lose their rust at realizing that the person they love the most actually murdered their parents. I don't want him to turn into a 100% Mary Sue trope.

I wanna group all of these together, because... yikes?

Shallan's mother was trying to kill her.  Her father was emotionally abusive, and while we know he doted on Shallan I'd lay money on him being physically abusive towards her brothers.

If your significant other confessed to you that they'd had parents like that, that when they were too young to possibly understand their own mother had attempted to murder her, and that they'd used a weapon they barely understood in self-defense, I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to react in horror... at the very idea that a child had ever been in that situation.

Shallan killing her mother is more akin to an accidental gun death in the home than anything else (except, you know, for the attempted infanticide that prompted it).  That's not something you blame the kid for; that's something you react to with sympathy, because it's a horrific tragedy.

And Shallan's father?  Not all that different from Adolin killing Sadeas.  "Hey, here's this guy who's unpredictable and causes harm to people I love and shows absolutely zero signs of stopping."  Lin Davar was off the rails.  He murdered his second wife and threatened to kill his son.  Shallan - just like Adolin - took action to protect her family as best she could.  

Harmony help us.  I'd accept people not picking up on Shallan's home life being awful after WoK when all we had was the Nan Balat interlude, but after WoR?  To ignore context like this?  To be so brutally unsympathetic to an abuse victim's circumstances?  Ugh.

I'm stepping away from this thread before I actually lose my temper.

5 minutes ago, SLNC said:

The point is not, that he is drinking with Veil, he could play poker with her if he wanted to. It is that he is handling her as a different person from Shallan, probably also calling her Veil and not Shallan, further confirming what Shallan wants confirmed. That Shallan can still remain fractured.

She isn't considering telling him about the Ghostbloods. She is saying, that Veil could do that anyway. She doesn't want to disclose those things to Adolin, even though she knows that she probably should.

I read: Well, storms. I probably should tell Adolin about the Ghostbloods and that would probably be good for myself, but nah I'll just let Veil do that. Of course, she doesn't want to muddy her reptutation with Adolin, when she has the choice.

Teeeeechnically, do we have reason to believe he addresses her as Veil?  What we know is that she, as Veil, interacts with him now, which wouldn't have happened before.  We know that Adolin recognizes the difference in Shallan's behavior when she switches... but I can't recall him ever calling her Veil in canon.

Also, he does still need to acknowledge the fact that she's switching, because weaning herself off of that coping method will take time.  It's probably not very comfortable for Adolin, either, since he's concerned for the effect this has on Shallan's mental health and watching your loved ones struggle is rough going.  For a lot of people, though, the best thing you can do is be there so they know they can always reach out to you, and that's what I see Adolin doing.

So, here's the thing:  Shallan-as-Veil telling Adolin about the Ghostbloods is still more than anyone has gotten from her on that front.  Even Kaladin, who interacted more with Veil than Adolin ever did, didn't get that.  And Shallan knows that Adolin sees her as one person; if Veil tells him she was working with the Ghostbloods, she's actually telling him that Shallan did.  Veil in that context is a means of communication, sort of like how some things are easier to say by email than over the phone.  (And again, the process of moving away from her alters is going to take time.  I wouldn't expect her to go cold-turkey here.)

Besides, she was the first person Adolin told about Sadeas.  If anyone would be able to hear her secrets without judgement, it's him.

Quote

She just needs to accept, that she is capable of these things without having Veil and Radiant. In the end, we know that Shallan did all of that herself anyway.

I think you and I are sort of on the same page here, actually; this is what I was trying to get at several posts ago.

3 minutes ago, wotbibliophile said:

I agree here and this is part of the reason that I hate that she just got married. I am surprised you think a monster would end up having a good marriage. Didn't we read about Dalinar and Evi. It did not end well.

Another thing that I think OB lacked consistency in is that Shallan is just another mask. We start off with Shallan in WOK, we learn a little more and in WOR we learn Shallan thinks her cheerful scholarship self is a mask over her true self which is a sobbing mess. We learn why at the end of WOR. This stays consistent through the first part of OB. In OB Shallan says Veil and Shallan are equally false. Shallan says at least two more times that her real self is a sobbing mess. One time she specifically says that she masks who she is for Adolin. We get Wit insisting Shallan has always been the girl who stood up. Then Shallan marries Adolin without talking through any of her issues and this is presented as a good thing. This does not address the consistent problem that the real Shallan is a sobbing mess. Because it is presented as a good thing, it is inconsistent. See my previous post where I compare the end of OB to the end of WOR.

The thing is that Shallan isn't actually a monster.  She's a girl with PTSD and a whopping side of depression, but the murders she tears herself apart over were both self-defense or the defense of others.  Also, the very fact that she thinks killing two people makes her a monster is pretty blatantly different from young Dalinar, whose conscience managed to gasp a word or two once a year at most.

I'm gonna keep coming back to the idea that progression isn't going to be quick and it isn't necessarily going to be linear or simple.  Shallan would benefit a lot from talking out her issues, but I don't think that's a necessary prerequisite to marrying Adolin, in part because (as discussed yesterday) I think marrying Adolin represents a step forward in and of itself.

4 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

On the Veil thing (and why you probably get the sense people are saying Veil is equal), this is speculative, but there are some things in the book which point to Veil being the more “real” persona than “Shallan” - Brandon’s WoK epigraph about Shallan’s “flaring passion” being the real her, the back cover of WoK which describes Shallan as having “the heart of a theif”, the fact “the Veil” in WoK is where Shallan goes to research and find truth, Mraize telling Shallan that Veil is the real her (and I know I’m forgetting a few.) Dispositive evidence? Absolutely not. But enough to build a theory around which I haven’t seen anything to concretely discredit. And theorizing is what we’re supposed to do around here right? (But maybe not unless it’s the right kind of theory....  Sorry you gave your digs so I had to give mine )

PS: I loved the fanfic recs! I forget the name of the author, but there’s the long ongoing one with Kaladin and Renarin when they’re escaping to Althekar and I just need them to get together already....!

Wellllll first of all, I don't trust a word Mraize says.  He manipulates Shallan pretty expertly, and given that "the version of you that serves my purposes is the only Real You" is a pretty classic emotional abuse tactic, I'd set his comment well apart from any 'evidence'.

The back cover copy is also suspect, given that it's a subjective in-world text (written by, I believe the going theory is, the Dysian Aimians), and that in WoK Shallan's whole motivation was, in fact, stealing Jasnah's Soulcaster.  "A scholar's mantle over a thief's heart" is a fairly literal description of her in that book.

The Veil allusion is an interesting one, but not... particularly persuasive, given that Brandon's other work has consistently underscored the fallibility of written records; arguably, all of Rosharan human history is a 'veil', an obscuring story of righteousness laid on top of the true conquest and imperialism.

Not familiar with the epigraph you're referring to.  Link me?

I deeply dislike the idea that Veil is the 'real' Shallan, though, for a few reasons.  One is that Shallan has invented a completely different history for Veil, including life experiences related to classism that Shallan really never had - that being the part that directly leads to her breakdown in Kholinar.  Two is that Veil lacks a lot of the characteristics which are almost completely positive parts of Shallan's life - scholarship, interest in the natural world, and artistry.  With the exception of the drawings influenced by the Unmade, those three traits seem to be where she finds peace most naturally and easily.  Veil relaxes by... getting drunk?  (Which, okay, alcoholism could very well be a Shallan trait as well, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if genetic predisposition to addiction ran in her family.)

3 minutes ago, SLNC said:

@Kogiopsis

Supportive, yes. But keep an eye on it. Blind support can, and most of the time will, result in enabling. If Adolin is so concerned about all of that, why does he become drinking buddies with Veil? Why does he allow Shallan to be someone different with him, when he told her, that he wants her? Yes, he acts concerned about Shallan's switching, but then doesn't care anymore?

Memory repression is the constant theme with Shallan. Her personalities are a direct result of repressing the murder of her mother and the decision she made in the end? I see it as her falling even deeper in the rabbit hole, yes she might not fracture in to further personalities, but she also didn't make any progress overcoming this repressive mechanisms. In a way, she further fortified them, because now she has confirmation through Adolin, which something she sought, that Shallan is completely different from Veil and Radiant, which in turn will also allow her to further hide from the fact, that she is a "monster" as she is calling herself. In the end, she again is just hiding.

And being honest? Please, Adolin barely knows anything about her. He doesn't know about the Ghostbloods and Shallan has no inclination of telling him, she'd rather have Veil do that. After all, Shallan actually doesn't have anything to do with the Ghostbloods, right? That is all Veil.

We know better, but that is what Shallan is convincing herself of. She is further fortifying the walls between her personalities. How Shallan killed her parents, nah, he doesn't know. Shallan is still just a prettied up version for him. He doesn't know anything about Shallan and I don't think, he will learn from her, because she herself doesn't want to go back that. She hates herself and all of that with Adolin? It was about maintaining the status quo. Of course, that makes her happy. She doesn't have to confront uncomfortable truths.

Regarding reintegration being necessary for Shallan to reach her full potential?

I'll just leave this here:

I mean, if I recall correctly, Adolin did walk in on Shallan after she'd passed out drunk on the floor at one point in Part 1.  Given that his father has a history of destructive alcoholism, I don't think it's unreasonable that he would want to be the 'designated driver', so to speak, for the woman he loves?

That said, he's not perfect at this!  It's a learning process, and as far as we've seen Roshar doesn't have therapists to help them along.  Heaven knows they could use 'em.

Just because Shallan hasn't told him all her secrets yet doesn't mean she won't.  The fact that she's considering telling him about the Ghostbloods is more than she's given any other character, including Jasnah, who she's known the longest.  Again, I do agree that Shallan and Adolin's relationship happens quickly, and I think they have a lot of ground left to cover.  I just feel like they have good odds of actually covering it, and it seems like you do not.

RE: the reintegration quote - the part of that scene that stuck with me the most was Lift's comment when she comes across Shallan later, that she's "hugging herself" when Shallan feels she's holding hands with her alters.  That almost sounded like they're vehicles through which she's learning to love herself.

9 minutes ago, Rainier said:

I want to bring this line back up because it's important to this part of the discussion.

How is Veil a subsidiary of Shallan when she, in her own thoughts, represses the idea of abandoning Veil, describes her as too vital to abandon, and then immediately says Shallan would be easier. It seems like it's obvious, and that's actually what made me read it again.

We know Shallan represses truths that hurt her. Therefore, if she's repressing something, it's probably a truth she doesn't want to face. Here, she represses the thought that she could abandon Veil, therefore she can absolutely abandon Veil. However she still thinks of Veil as more real and more vital, so I guess the interpretation depends on if you trust her in the moment.

Regardless, I don't think I agree with you interpretation of Veil as subsidiary, both due to the above and the WoK endpages written by Aimians that say she has the heart of a thief. If Veil is her heart, and Shallan is the mantle, which is subsidiary to which?

My buddy, my dude, Shallan hates herself, like... a lot.  She acts without much regard for her own survival - she got almost-killed how many times in this book?  At least twice in Kholinar alone? - and just picks herself up and carries on without really... dealing with it.  Honestly, if she didn't have her brothers to worry about in WoK, I kinda think she'd be suicidal.

Of course it would be easier to destroy Shallan.  She'd be free of her pain, her responsibilities, her mistakes.  Besides, Shallan believes she's a monster - and monsters deserve to be destroyed.

2 minutes ago, wotbibliophile said:

Shallan says some things that make it seem that she wants to be herself. She says "He knows me", and that Veil and Radiant are not her, and that Adolin encourages her to not hide, but then she says to Adolin I can be anyone you want which seems to say she absolutely does not want to be herself. Then Adolin says he just wants the real her so Shallan says alright I'll do that even though it will be hard. So Shallan wanting to be herself is not consistent what is consistent is that she wants Adolin and she'll do anything to keep him including being other people if that is what he wants. The way I read this was Shallan says "I have a role to play and you Adolin have the script." It is really gross.

So, I have a question, because that conversation has come up before.

Do you read it as a joke?

Because I do.  Shallan's "If you wanted, I could be practically anyone," sounds like two things to me - one, suggestive humor, insinuating that she can fulfill Adolin's bedroom fantasies; and two, a perhaps-unconscious request for assurance that he doesn't want her because she can be anyone, but because she is uniquely herself. (If you're skeptical of the humorous interpretation, look at the line that precedes that one - "Some men drool over the idea of such debauchery."  That's pretty clearly an eyebrow-raised allusion to a foursome.)

And... as someone with personal experience of mental illness, Adolin's reactions in that scene are deeply reassuring.

Quote

"That's worrisome, Shallan."

"I won't let her act on it.  I promise."

"I didn't mean that," Adolin said.  "I meant ... you, Shallan.  Becoming other people."

Adolin straight-up says that 1) he trusts Shallan implicitly not to cheat on him and 2) that his greatest worry here is Shallan being okay and stable.

Their subsequent exchange continues this:

Quote

 

"But that's the thing, Shallan.  I don't want anyone.  I want you."

"That might be the hardest one.  But I think I can do it, Adolin.  With some help, maybe?"

 

Asking for help is hard, especially when what you need help with is letting walls down and being honest* and vulnerable with others.  Adolin's absolute steadiness and his firm belief that Shallan, in particular, is worthy of that steadiness - that offers her a lot of reassurance that she's struggling to find internally.  (One of the weirdest, but most helpful habits I developed in college, when struggling with depression, was literally asking my friends if they hated me, because sometimes I could not shake the conviction that they did without external evidence.  I see something similar going on here with Shallan.)

I don't think the conversation would have gone the same way if Adolin had taken her up on the offer to 'be anyone'.

And yeah, this might look or feel a little like dependence, but... ideally, shouldn't a partner be supportive?  The degree of support necessary is gonna fluctuate over time.  Right now, Shallan is struggling and needs to lean on Adolin a little more.  Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself.

(*oh, hey, a Lightweaver trait!  fancy that.)

12 hours ago, SLNC said:

And yet, she stated to Pattern, that she put in a part of herself, when she created the Veil disguise. Veil then evolved into an independent alter in OB, but is still an intrinsic part of Shallan.

I think, that Veil (a thievish personality) is a lot more character-defining for Shallan than we might think. We also see a lot of that in WoR.

Shallan always had confidence. How else would she have infiltrated the Ghostbloods, that was a bold and confident move. She also had the mental strength to hold her Shardblade, when she needed to. Now she needs Radiant and Veil for that.

See, I have no definite proof, but I think, that her bond with Pattern is slowly deteriorating. He is stunningly silent during most of OB and worried about Shallan's use of alters. Shallan (as Veil) also once describes him as sounding drowsy, which is pretty damnation un-Spren like. Why? Because as long as she is fractured, she is running away from acknowledging who she is. The murderer of her mother, which was the Fourth Ideal/Third Truth, that she spoke. The path of the Lightweaver is to find self-awareness. How can you find self-awareness, if you aren't even yourself? Pattern states in Kholinar, that Shallan wraps her lies in other lies. The first lie being Veil and the second lie being, that Veil is different from Shallan, because she tells him to call her Veil, when he calls her Shallan. I think, that to continue being a Radiant, she'll need to reintegrate.

Wit also tells her to go back to the woman she was. Which is also a pretty blatant call for her to reintegrate herself again.

Apologies for poor phrasing; when I mentioned 'confidence', that was also meant to be in reference to 'with a Shardblade'.  THAT SAID:  while I think Shallan has done her fair share of brave things, I wouldn't necessarily argue that she is confident about them.  She has always struck me much more as the 'fake it till you make it' sort of person - she projects confidence that she doesn't feel, in hopes that she'll be able to find her footing.  Sometimes she manages to do so, but I don't think you could argue that Shallan, in and of herself, is a confident person.  Bold, perhaps.

So, here's the thing about the 'reintegration' hypothesis.  First of all, I fundamentally disagree with anything which posits Veil and Radiant as somehow equal or equivalent to Shallan herself; this is one of the things that's gotten under my skin in this thread, when people insist that Veil's attraction to Kaladin should be weighted as strongly as Shallan's to Adolin, because Veil is a subsidiary of Shallan.  

If a 'reintegration' is necessary, then it needs to come through Shallan Prime, and with a focus on the idea that she can be many things at once: that Shallan can have Veil's cunning and self-assuredness; that Shallan can have Radiant's strength and decorum; that she doesn't have to externalize these traits for them to be real.  Veil is different from Shallan, because Veil is Shallan's way of escaping from herself.  She hates being herself, as you mentioned several posts ago - but she needs to accept that the things she hates and the things she doesn't can both be part of one person.

The more I think about OB, the more I love the parallels between Shallan and Dalinar's arcs.  Exhibit A is this Dalinar quote:

Quote

"If I pretend…If I pretend I didn’t do those things, it means I can’t have grown to become someone else. Journey before destination. It cannot be a journey if it does not have a beginning."

This is where Shallan gets stuck.  Her first whole-room Lightweaving, at the end of WoR, is emblematic of this - at her core, she still sees herself as a terrified, guilty, bereft child.  She needs to adjust to the idea that she is not defined by her past, and that she can have been that girl and yet still grow and change.  (Orson Scott Card, for all his... other... 'qualities'... wrote a brilliant line in Speaker for the Dead:  "Sickness and healing are in every heart.  Death and deliverance are in every hand."  The trick of being human and moving forward is being able to process those contradictions, I think.)

6 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

This is the main reason I hate "love triangles". There is this unspoken rule that one side is about commitment and the other is about attraction. This is what drives people to conclude from the very beginning that the 'commitment' side is the correct one. Well, guess what, you can actually have both. It's not always about giving up one over the other. They aren't mutually exclusive. And honestly, if you want to have a marriage that lasts until the end of your days, you need as much attraction as commitment to your other half. Dalinar and Navani are exactly the example of a spark that exists throughout the decades and only flames up and evolves into commitment when the circumstances are aligned.

What I'm saying isn't that Shallan doesn't have attraction for Adolin, but it's something they cultivated into the relationship because the betrothal was already there. They are two healthy young people after all, it was easy to do. That doesn't exclude the possibility that from an attraction to Kalladin, she could have cultivated commitment with him, which is how most relationships work in modern life. First comes attraction, then commitment. They just didn't have enough opportunities to build that, they never thought it was an option, since she was already constrained by her betrothal to Adolin. How can we possibly judge the two relationships on equal terms when the betrothal was in effect before she even met either of them?

Ahh, again, I should have clarified.  Shallan pretty clearly is attracted to both of them* - commitment is what tips the scales, not the entirety of her relationship with Adolin.  

Could she have cultivated commitment with Kaladin?  Entirely possible.  I don't think they would have done well together - Shallan's classism and sarcasm-as-defense-mechanism don't really mesh healthily with Kaladin's life experience or the fact that he's an emotional open book.  (Further thoughts, pre-OB, here.)  Maybe in, like, three more books... but as I described above, I feel like Shallan's choice of Adolin here is a key step forward for her, and I don't really see this issue needing to be revisited for anyone's arc later.  (I also, personal ships aside, agree that in canon Kaladin is absolutely not in the right headspace for a relationship.  I suspect by the time he is, if ever, his attraction to Shallan will have passed.  It happens!)

((*I would argue that she can, absolutely, be taken at her word when she describes Kaladin's appeal as similar to that of a painting.  It's entirely possible to find someone attractive, even magnetic, without actually considering them a viable romantic partner.  For example:  Idris Elba is frickin' stunning, aesthetically, and seems like a truly great guy.  I'd love to befriend him, and if I were an artist I would definitely stare at his face, y'know, a lot.  But that doesn't mean I'd say yes if he asked me out on a date.  Kaladin... seems like, in-world, he'd be the same way - fascinating, hot as hell, with the allure of distance and mystery.  That makes him great to moon over or fantasize about, but that's no guarantee of anything else.  In fact, another redheaded Sanderson heroine has addressed this before:

Quote

"I never said anything about his morality, Joel, only his face."

The sage words of Melody Munns, y'all.))

1 hour ago, Rainier said:

Thank you for this, as it's exactly what many of us here are looking for: analysis within the context of foreshadowing and character development. This also goes to the shipping/predicting dichotomy. I'm firmly on the predicting side, and I wouldn't be doing this for another author. I don't really care about relationships in ASoIaF, Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, or the other fantasy novels I read (leaving out Rothfuss because I'm more invested in Kvothe/Denna than the other exampels). Brandon is different because he's trained me to expect these things. He's let me know that what's coming at the end is right there at the beginning if you can find the right lines and interpret them the right way. The only reason I'm invested is because I like that game and I like playing it, but there are winners and losers. The winners get their guesses vindicated and the losers....well the losers write erotic fanfic, or maybe fill up a forum thread with 70+ pages.

What you've done is play the game with us, which hasn't really been the case with other Shadolin proponents. Most of what we've gotten seems to take what happened at face value, which isn't just not playing the game but saying the game doesn't exist in the first place.

Hey, I'd love to accept this compliment, but I think you're being a little backhanded to other people in this thread.  I know Feather's been in here with solid analytical responses at the absolute least, and I'm very skeptical that there haven't been others.

Also, in a thread whose OP started out with "Which of the two ships did you like more in Oathbringer?", this discussion was never gonna be purely predictive.  Nor are analytical/English class-style responses the only valid responses.  I know shipping is a relatively new concept over here, so perhaps in the future such discussions should be flagged from the start by what kind of response people are seeking.

1 minute ago, SLNC said:

That is completely fine, but I'm glad, that the argument atleast kind of got to you. And I understand, that this can be seen completely differently, but in the end I guess it all hinges on what one defines as the "real Shallan". Is it Shallan without Veil and Radiant? Or is it Shallan with Veil and Radiant reintegrated in her core personality? I think it is the latter, because the "new", fractured Shallan is so different from the WoR Shallan. I know, that characters change, but I find it revealing how she lost exactly traits, that she had before, like confidence, boldness, the ability to think pragmatic and mental strength, to power through hard situations, to Radiant and Veil.

See, the scene where she first created Radiant seemed, to me, to indicate that there were aspects of her alternate personalities which weren't inherent to Shallan - in Radiant's case, her confidence and comfort with a Shardblade.  I'd... also have to reread to confirm this, but I think that's the first time we really see her view her alters explicitly as a means of getting away from herself; in WoR, Veil hadn't developed yet beyond being a tool Shallan used.  (In fact, there's a moment in OB where she first perceives a thought as coming from Veil which suggests something similar.)  In that case, we'd be looking at OB as the first time Shallan's Lightweaving has progressed far enough to let her leave herself behind and explore the freedom of being someone else.

I think you may be on to something with the idea that she outsourced her confidence, etc, but perhaps what that indicates is that it's not going to be a simple this-or-that choice.  She may end up having to confront (figuratively or literally via lightweaving) her alters and sort out what she needs/wants and what she doesn't, as part of her continuing process of figuring out who she wants to be.  Again, we're back to that active choice thing.

2 hours ago, Dreamstorm said:

Wow, this discussion (chastisement?) turns into love of gay romance and I barely have time to respond!  If anyone has the talent to write a suitably smutty Kadolin fan fic please send it my wayyyyyy. I’ve found some cute ones, but nothing which really, um, gets down to it enough.

@Kogiopsis if you’ve got any good fanfic for Kalarin I’d love those recs too. I don’t see Renarin as the most sexual of characters, but I think post-OB there’s more to go on. (No touching! Oh touching...)

Most of the fic that's out there isn't particularly sexual - I get that this probably wasn't your implication, but there's more to gay romance than sex, and more to shipping as well, for that matter!  That said, if the cute stuff holds any appeal, here's my blog's Kalarin tag.  The top few posts are a rambling informal modern world/college AU; there's also a few links to now you know me, and I'm not afraid - a post-WoR timeline divergence.  TheRangress also wrote make an honest man of me, which I love (I mean, I love all of her fic, generally; she may someday overtake my captaincy).  Also, I'm extremely  about Recommendations for a couple of reasons.

2 hours ago, DeployParachute said:

Repeat conclusion from my edited post above:

She basically tells Adolin: Veil has a physical attraction to Kaladin, but you need not worry about that.  And there is plenty of textual evidence that Shallan's feelings for Kaladin are a bit beyond the physical.  Or do we honestly agree that Kaladin equates to "a terrible taste in men" for Alethi or Veden sensibilities?  She tells Adolin why she likes HIM, but unfortunately, she stops there, and doesn't address the non physical attractions she (or Veil) has for Kaladin.  Its just shoved off to the side, and dismissed by her as unimportant, and she works very hard to convince Adolin of this.  I feel bad for Adolin, that they couldn't have an honest conversation about those feelings Shallan has, because maybe they could have worked it out together, and been a stronger couple and then subsequent husband/wife after.  Shallan hid truths about her feelings for Kaladin from Adolin about as effectively as she does from herself.  And this concerns me, because Adolin deserves better than that.

Okay, chiming in here because I have a completely different read on how that works out.

Relationships are, fundamentally, about choice.  Choosing to commit to someone, and then renewing that choice day in and day out - that's what keeps you going, that's what keeps people together, not just attraction.  Attraction is out of your control; commitment is deliberate.  So:  Shallan chooses Adolin.  And that's a big deal for her!

Here's the thing that I loved about that scene, actually:  Shallan, much like Lift in Edgedancer, has been hesitant to take up agency in her own life.  Even when she does things very deliberately and strategically, she often doesn't take explicit responsibility for her own actions, no matter the consequences.  The split personalities are a manifestation of this - she becomes Radiant so she isn't responsible for killing her mother, Veil so she doesn't have to acknowledge her work with the Ghostbloods and the betrayal it represents.It's interesting that when she loses Jasnah - and thus, Jasnah's shadow to stand in - she creates Veil, who immediately becomes more proactive than Shallan Prime.  She doesn't quite fully commit to any one organization, she hesitates to commit to her own spren... and she doesn't commit to a love interest.  (She tried that, a tiny bit, with Kabsal, and that hardly primed her for good relationships.)  This is pure speculation, but... I think you could argue that Shallan's attraction to Kaladin manifests, in some small part, as an escape route from committing to Adolin - or at least, that it can be seen that way in retrospect.  Sorta like how if you don't feel like going somewhere, suddenly you find reasons to stay home, even if you know you'd have a better time going out.

When everything goes horribly wrong in Kholinar, though, Shallan is forced to face the consequences of her action; she is quite literally confronted with the responsibility she bears for the harm she has caused.  This is when her fractured personalities start to break down.  When she can no longer hide in repressed memories or alternate selves, the only choice left to her is to bear what she's done and carry on.  And if that sounds familiar, that's because it's an echo of Dalinar's arc: the solution lies not in forgetting or ignoring, but in acknowledging and striving to be better.  The Shallan we see in Parts 4 and 5 is starting to take her first shaky steps down that path.

This is why it felt so fitting to me that she ended the book by swearing an oath of commitment to Adolin - because at the beginning of the book, Shallan wouldn't have done that, wouldn't have even come close.  Marrying Adolin is an act of responsibility and deliberate choice - and there is a point to be made that she might not really be mature enough for marriage just yet, and I can see the logic in that, and yet - if she can hold on to this relationship, if she can really put in the effort to make it work, that will help her do the same in other aspects of her life.  It's a pretty significant first step.

She's not done growing, and there will be struggles and backslides along the way, just as we've seen with Kaladin's depression.  And it might take her longer to disclose details to Adolin, but I would argue that would only be unfair to him if she had acted on her attraction to Kaladin, and that Shallan has enough problems with self-acceptance to justify approaching that disclosure slowly.  Besides, whenever they talk about it, what Adolin is going to learn is... basically the same thing she already told him - that despite Kaladin's Radiant-ness, his physical attractiveness, his brooding intensity and all the rest, Shallan chose Adolin.  That's a pretty hefty compliment, when you get right down to it.

2 hours ago, SLNC said:

...Switching chaos ensues.

Kaladin doesn't see it.

Adolin does.

Shallan wants confirmation, that Veil and Radiant are different people from her, because all together she would be the Shallan that she hates again.

Adolin gives her that confirmation.

So it is imperative for her, that they stay together. Regardless of how Adolin feels about it.

Okay, this is the first line of argument I've seen that makes the 'Adolin is worse for her mental health' argument make... some sort of sense.  I'm not persuaded, per se, because I read Adolin and Shallan's interactions differently - what you see as 'confirmation that Veil and Radiant are different people' I saw as Adolin gently refusing to acknowledge them as equal to the real Shallan.  I suspect that interpretation difference is going to continue until SA4, absent new evidence either way.

...anyway, I really didn't intend to get dragged into this actual discussion; I was supposed to just be here for snarky comments.  Ah well.

41 minutes ago, DeployParachute said:

When the "how" of an arc turned out can be considered bad writing from a literary perspective, then yes, I think the writing and editing process is subject to critique on that front. Yes, there has been a fair bit of, dare I say it, despondent and whining posts in this thread bemoaning what could have been, and I have been a contributor to that. But there has also been a lot of good analysis, theorizing, and writing critique going on, that you comment seems to be so dismissive of by boiling it all down to just "griping". But please stick around, because who knows, maybe you'll be the next convert 

I mean, the 'griping' comment was aimed at Maxal, but if you'd like to be included you may consider yourself so.

And as for converting me... you all know the Tumblr fandom is literally 5 years ahead of you on this, right?  We've discussed, debated, and decided... and we know how to handle our OTPs not being canon with grace.    As Feather said, mine is Kaladin/Renarin, so I go into every book fully expecting my ship not to happen.  Y'all wanna talk ship disappointment?  Try not being straight.  It's a real party sometimes.

3 hours ago, wotbibliophile said:

I have been convinced that Adolin does not have strong feelings for Shallan. There were two things that convinced me (they are sort of the same thing though).

1. We get Adolin's POV where Shallan stands up straight when she sees Kaladin. Adolin admits he has noticed her looking at Kaladin before and that she seems to be interested in Kaladin and maybe has feelings for him. Adolin does not have a strong reaction to this realization he is just resigned. I expect he would have a more emotional reaction if he was more invested in Shallan and his relationship with her.

2. Adolin breaks up with Shallan (well he tries) and again we don't see that he is having an emotional reaction to their separation. He is just matter of fact. He is just matter of fact in both of these scenes.

Since I'm replying anyway, I wanted to respond to this... namely, that Adolin's calm reactions don't indicate a lack of feeling.  I love my girlfriend, but if she would be happier with someone else, I would deal with it much as Adolin tries to... because I love her, and I want her to be happy.  Mercifully that's not the case, but I don't find it at all unrealistic that deep feeling would be expressed as not pitching a fit - especially when, like Adolin, you basically expect every relationship to collapse anyway.  He's probably been bracing for this from Day One.

10 minutes ago, maxal said:

@Chaos and @FeatherWriter

Why does it bother you so much there are readers which believe some story arcs could have been done better? Shouldn't we be allowed to have this discussion, within an appropriate thread, without being told by moderation/beta readers we shouldn't be having it? Because your posts oddly sounds like interventions made to say there are topics we can discussed and there are topics we can't discussed.

I mean, you've gotta be aware of the irony of insisting that, because a book was not what you specifically expected, it is evidence of shoddy work in the writing/editing process... especially when your platform for said declaration is the official fan forum for the author.  There's criticism and critique, and then there's pages upon pages of griping.

Anyway, I'm gonna go back to observing this thread from the nosebleed seats with popcorn in hand.  Just wanted to point out that if you're really that unhappy with the book, maybe you should read something you enjoy more instead.

I mentioned it once in this thread. The other two times I have mentioned it was because I was asked about it or got re-posted about it. I am sincerely not making an obsession out of the thing and I believe I was not even the one to bring out the subject to begin with.

While you weren't the first to bring it up, and I wouldn't suggest that you're obsessed with it, you did continue to defend the idea that sexuality would motivate her career choice.  Notably it isn't until later in the thread that you start to emphasize that that is only one possible interpretation of the combination of sexuality + scholarship; prior to that you made statements like "having her living up the life of a scholar simply because she is a lesbian would sort of ruin the whole point", as causation were a foregone conclusion.

I never said she shouldn't be a lesbian, I said I would hate if it were the reason she choose the life of a scholar. Besides, I believe it is harder to come out as openly homosexual in a society that most likely condemns such unions then to come out as a non-believer, but this is my take.

Recall that Jasnah is not merely an outspoken atheist, but an outspoken atheist who wears and regularly uses a deeply holy object, in open defiance (and to some people's view, disrespect) of the dominant religion of her part of the world.  That said - we don't know that Roshar condemns homosexuality, and it shouldn't be assumed that they do (as I've previously argued).  There's certainly no reason to assume that homosexual/queer Alethi would face the violent reprisals that people in a lot of Western nations do in the modern day.  The only evidence that might actually suggest anything about societal perspectives on sexuality is that we've only seen heterosexual couples on the page, but in that you can't ignore the the narrow focus of the books thus far: the only major character outside of the noble class is Kaladin, who exists in an environment where everyone around him expects to die any day.  (moreover Kaladin, as flashbacks have shown us, is oblivious to romantic overtures even when they're directed at him; I doubt he'd correctly identify flirting between other people.)  Members of the upper class, particularly politically significant ones like the Kholins, may have other restrictions on their marriages including the expectation of heirs, which makes them less than useful in extrapolating norms.

Look, I am sorry you seem to take this whole conversation on such a personal level. You misinterpret many of the things I have said. As I said, you may ship whoever you want, but if it is outside canon, you must realize people will not follow you, especially since you seem to assume all characters could possibly change their sexual orientation based on the premise it happens in real-life. It does happen, but my point is it is highly unlikely. Nothing is impossible, but it is still improbable.

You may be interested to know that I hit my cap on downvotes before this debate began, so clearly I'm not the only one your comments have bothered.  That aside - the reason that they do affect people personally is that arguments like yours are regularly used to keep people from being represented in media.  It's especially problematic when it comes to bisexuality, as bi people are often criticized both by homophobes and fellow queer people, who treat them as liars for not picking one or the other.

As far as the idea of impossibility/improbability goes:  this is a fictional world, with a fictional cast of characters deliberately created over a period of years by a human being.  Let's not pretend that statistical probability is relevant at all, because this is an entirely artificial system.

I'm not going to address your last paragraph, as it's largely irrelevant except for the non-apology at the end.  What I will say is this:  Ship what you like, argue what ships you like, but remember that shipping is about character dynamics.  If you don't think Shallan and Jasnah would be a healthy couple, say that, but making flat statements about what their sexualities supposedly could not be comes off as dismissive at best.

I know nothing, but I think that shipping has it's own conventions that don't match much of the rest of the site.

Where other theories are challenged for how well they fit all of the text, shipping seems more creative.  There seems to be an ethos of acceptance.  It seems to be okay to argue strongly for one's POV, but dismissing the POV of others seems to be frowned on, if that makes any sense. 

At the risk of speaking for others whose POV I don't really know, I treat shipping threads as ways to enhance the experience of the fantasy world using the texts as a base, but not trying to stick to the facts or statistics. 

Apologies to all that I have offended with my crude misunderstandings. 

As a long-time shipper, I'd say you've understood it perfectly.  There is also the fact that Earth-based statistics are irrelevant to most fantasy novels, but the end result of both is the same: there's no place for those numbers in shipping discussions.

Actually, I was not insisting on it or it was not my intention. You asked why people would think this way and I have answered. It is a common trope: character choosing a life of intellectual celibacy because they are unable to live their personal life as they wished. It was done over and over again. So yes, if Jasnah turns out being queer, I will ask myself the question if that was not the driving force being her choices and I would hate if it were.

 

I agree it does not have to be this way. It could be as you say, but in a very traditional world such as Roshar, I half-expect it to turn out differently.

 

I like Jasnah as she is: strong women able to live her life outside the standard expectations of her society and this independently of her sexual orientation no matter what it ends up being.

If you're not insisting on it, then why do you keep bringing it up as an argument against her being queer?  This is especially pronounced given that everything we have seen of Jasnah to date points to her being interested in scholastic pursuits for their own sake; we even saw that mindset from inside her head in the prologue to WoR, where she starts wondering about anthropological questions even as her father is being attacked before her.  There is overwhelming evidence that Jasnah is a scholar because she wants and chose to be; moreover, we see her flaunt Vorin tradition flagrantly, in wearing and seeming to use a soulcaster and in openly speaking of her heretical beliefs.  There is no reason to believe that, were Jasnah passionate about something, she would let herself be constrained by arbitrary rules against it.

Against that body of evidence, yes, your bringing up the idea that she shouldn't be a lesbian because it would detract from the validity of her choices does read as insistence, especially since you've repeated it three times now.

I get downvoted for this? Really?

 

I am sorry but facts are facts. Here. Wikipedia.

 

A 2002 survey in the United States by National Center for Health Statistics found that 1.8 percent of men ages 18–44 considered themselves bisexual, 2.3 percent homosexual, and 3.9 percent as "something else". The same study found that 2.8 percent of women ages 18–44 considered themselves bisexual, 1.3 percent homosexual, and 3.8 percent as "something else".^[38]

 

Most people aren't interested in both sex. Period. Downvoting me for expressing it in what I believe was a polite manner is rather rude. Now people can still ship whoever they want, but other people are still allowed to question the validity of such pairings.

I'd hazard you got downvoted for insisting that, were Jasnah queer, she would have chosen her career entirely because of that.  You persist in treating non-heterosexual identity as the sole driving force in her life, which is reductive and nonsensical. There's no reason she can't be 1) homoromantic, 2) disinclined to marry, and 3) a deeply motivated scholar without any of those being causative for any other.

Edit:  Also, what percentage of the Rosharan population do you think are Knights Radiant?  It may be time to accept that we're not dealing with random sampling here.  Or you could just go with not erasing bisexuality; that'd be nice too.

I don't understand Shasnah as it is not canon at all. Shallan clearly is into men. Just like Adolin and Kaladin are clearly into women. I just don't get these ships.

 

Jasnah is a different story as we don't know which ship she sails, although I agree with the earlier comment stating having her living up the life of a scholar simply because she is a lesbian would sort of ruin the whole point. I like Jasnah as she is and I would hate to find out her sexual orientation is what drove her to become a world renown searcher. I would rather prefer if she decided she would not invest herself into romantic issues by choice and not by circumstances and this independently of her preferences.

C'mon, sexuality is and never has been binary.  Liking one gender does not mean you could never like someone of a different gender.

Also, I'm confused as to why people think Jasnah being lesbian/bi/queer-romantic would be the cause of her life trajectory.  I've never met anyone who decided on a career based on their sexuality, and Jasnah gives every indication of having genuine passion for her work.  It's not a second choice or a fallback for her, it's what she cares about, and it's entirely separate from who she's attracted to.

If there's anybody out there who's opposed Shalladin on the grounds that it's too obvious and simultaneously supported Jasnobody-at-all... I would encourage them to examine those positions side-by-side.

 

You want non-obvious romantic subplots? Give the mature, driven, powerful woman who's apparently content to remain single indefinitely a romantic subplot (bonus points if it's unconventional) and leave one or more of the twenty-something protagonists single.

Literally a trope.  Bzzt, try again.  Additionally:

Having a canon asexual character is basically unheard of, so I think that wins re: unpredictability and originality.

I do agree about leaving one of the 20-somethings single, though, especially if it's single by choice and not the result of some kind of terrible romantic drama/falling out.

You could argue that EVERY romantic relationship is a cliche.  Dalinar/Navani being the biggest.  

Wait, what?  50-something engineer and widow aggressively seducing her dead husband's brother is a cliche now?  Where else can I find this plotline in media, because I am ALL FOR IT and would love to read more.

I suppose it depends on one's perception. I know Hoid is millenniums* old, but I don't think of him as some sort of a grandpa. Shipping Lift and Kal, that sounds wrong and weird (at least until she's old enough), but Shalloid (Hollan?) is absolutely fine by me. After all only Cultivation is around his age and they don't get along, so he'll have to go for someone much younger anyway.

 

edit: * come to think of it, he might not be that old if he can time travel

He's definitely said he's the same age as Cultivation, so he totally is that old, time travel or no time travel.

And idk, personally I don't see Hoid being romantically interested in anyone at all - or at least, not until his series comes out. 

You ar assuming Shallan doesn't give Jasnah the flying hug variety where she jumps up on her and wraps her legs around her waist. 

Hah, for all that Shallan's less prudish than the Alethi I don't think she's quite that free with physical affection.

Burying her face in Jasnah's bosom as theravenchilde suggests, however, seems almost a certainty.

I actually asked Brandon what caused Renarin's visions at a signing back in March and he was, predictably enough, cagey about it - all he would tell us is what Feather already mentioned, that they're involuntary.

That said, as far as their original cause, I see two options - one, that they're a Truthwatcher power (would make sense, given the name and the combination of Illumination and Progression - visions could be progressing one's sight?  it's a linguistic stretch but work with me here) or two, that they're something sinister.  We do know that Honor wasn't very good at seeing the future, after all, and I believe Syl has said something about visions not being of Honor but of Odium; it is possible that Renarin is, already, a pawn.  Personally, I doubt it; our third Shard, Cultivation, is also known to be good at seeing the future, and it seems unlikely that Odium would give humans warning of the Everstorm, unless he's playing a particularly complex long game.

Assuming they're a Truthwatcher thing - I do like the points you've outlined above quite a lot.  (The Shallan correlation in particular; I noted her sketching Yalb as significant when I read it but didn't connect it to Renarin at all.  It would make sense, since we know that even in overlapping Surges each Order has its own particular skillset, that Shallan would have a shadow of Renarin's foresight abilities.)

Mechanically speaking, if they are triggered primarily in Highstorms then their onset probably has to do with exposure to a high level of Investiture, I would think?  So hypothetically Renarin could induce them by taking up Stormlight, but it would likely take massive quantities of it, making it less of a 'hack' and more of a last-ditch option.

That sort of leads me into why Glys hasn't helped him stop them yet.  If we assume that they aren't Odium-based, the visions can very likely be assumed to be 1) trustworthy and 2) important.  And if they cost massive amounts of Stormlight, every Highstorm is an opportunity for 'free' foresight.  Recall the amount of Stormlight required to transport people to and from Urithiru - when the city is functional and the Radiants in residence, it's clearly a resource that needs to be conserved and stored, so spending it on visions would be a risky choice and an unlikely one.  Highstorms, of course, are full of Investiture free for the taking.

That's the logistical side, at least.  The other aspect has to do with Renarin himself.  He assumes the visions are a symptom of his own brain betraying him; perhaps Glys couldn't convince him otherwise, even if they talked about it.  It's also worth noting that because Renarin is who he is, it's entirely possible that visions affect him more strongly than they did Truthwatchers past, so Glys might not have any idea how to stop or control their effects because it wasn't normally necessary.  Renarin's ASD, and therefore likely has problems with overstimulation; intense, threatening visions could very easily trip him up in that way.

I definitely think that controlling them/responding to them better will be part of his character growth in the future.  I'm not sure about close focus being a mechanism for that, though, as it's a common coping mechanism for overstimulation and honestly likely to be something he's already tried.  I like the idea of him finding something to be proud of (and that has to be part of his growth in general, to be honest); I wonder if that might actually wind up being the visions themselves?  In particular, if he can get to the point where he can get more concrete information out of them and do some visible good as a result, I think he'd be able to progress significantly.  It would make him markedly not as useless as he thinks, and for someone who's so ready to believe that his mind has failed him, exerting control over it is an important stepping stone.

11thorderknight:  You're right about him not having a vision at that point, but remember that we have no reason to believe Renarin had bonded Glys at that point, so he wouldn't have any Surge-related abilities.

apologies if this turned out a bit rambly; I have a lot of thoughts about Renarin.

Whoops, I knew it was somewhere on tumblr (now I'm gonna link to it... Here! thank you badger for doing the good work for us) We need all of the manifestos. All of them. We can build a fort out of evidence from the manifestos that's how much we have.

 

Maybe if I chant long enough some kind soul will edit the poll and add Jasnah?

shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah shasnah 

Are polls editable with this forum code?  Important question.

Ah well, even if not - we can always just talk about Shasnah until it takes over the thread; that works too.  Maybe everyone else will be swayed to see the light once we get their reunion scene and the requisite intense hug BRANDON SO HELP ME IF THEY DON'T HUG I'LL-

I see that the OP is a forlorn speck of craggy rock rescinding sullenly below the horizon at this point.

I should hope not sullenly, since all of this is based around the idea of OP's theory being correct and cute ways it might play out in canon with the entire cast.

I would also like a couple kids in your AU just for cuteness (they don't necessarily need to be biological. just think of Wax and his hero thing, and some cute spunky little orphan who totally outsmarts him) but yes please!

 

Also Steris is the one in charge of everyone and everything and eventually she just rules the whole Senate-thing by sheer force of will and excellent organization skills. Wayne is just kind of in awe of her, after she finally puts him through the verbal wringer and shapes him up by eyebrow game alone (assuming her angry eyebrow is strong, which it indubitably is).

Yesss, definitely.  I can't see Wax and Steris having biological kids but adopting orphans?  (or babysitting Marasi's kids, should she decide she wants any?)  Absolutely.  

...Can Steris run for Mayor?  Does Elendel even have a Mayor?  Doesn't matter; she can be the first.