Dhavaer

1 hour ago, Aminar said:

Nothing honorable yet. 

That said, the writing on it is super vague. And the Blackthorn was complicated, but he's not a monster yet. A ruthless jerk, but the monstrous stuff comes last. When Dalinar hits rock bottom. I kind of hope that kid is somebody we like. (Having it be Elhokar would be hilarious, but 6 is too old to have no memory of adoption) 

Elhokar is also much younger than Jasnah, who seems to be an infant at the time of the flashback.

Oh, well, there we go then. They each do different things. I assume that means Radiants can do something different with them?

As far as we know at the moment, the type of gem is only relevant for soulcasting.

Interesting theory. My assumption is yes, since certain gemstones are considered more valuable than others, but I don't think it's been explained yet. So far Kaladin (our furthest proto-radiant at the moment) has been slowly learning how to use stormlight in its most basic form. I think once he starts fine-tuning things, we'll see a little more variety in what the gemstones can do.

The varying value of gemstones is based on their soulcasting utility. So emeralds are most valuable because they can be used to make food, while diamonds are less valuable because plain crystal isn't something they need much of.

It's hinted she has some sort of beef with Navani, and considering what she says about her in her letter with Dalinar, I can see it being enough to break her, but I don't think we have enough textual evidence for that yet.

I think Jasnah's problem with Navani is pretty easy to work out by looking at their relationships with other people: they have massively incompatible relationship styles. Jasnah needs a tremendous amount of distance from people while Navani needs an equal amount of intimacy. If the closest Jasnah can get and be comfortable will still make Navani feel rejected, and the most distance Navani can stand will still make Jasnah feel smothered, their relationship is pretty much doomed.

I don't think Jasnah's loathing for the thugs is really in need of an explanation. They're robbers, murderers and possibly rapists, which would be enough on it's own, and they were also preferentially targeting women of her class. With all that to begin with personal trauma would just be gravy.

If anything needs explanation it would be her attitude to seduction. In WoR she equates seduction to rape and genders them as female and male respectively. While Jasnah's actual opinions of gender aren't clear (she's written an essay decrying gender roles that Shallan reads in a flashback, but judging by Wit's reaction to her wearing a glove in the epilogue she seems to be more attached to Vorin notions of modesty than Navani is) that's a pretty strange stance to take by any measure. It would seem more reasonable to guess at a bad experience with a woman than with a man.

Interesting... upon what are you basing this? Presumably the initial comment was in reference to Syl's statement that the wielder of an honorblade will consume "dangerous amounts" of Stormlight, and an expectation that if one Blade absorbs mucho Stormlight, a second blade would have the same tax. Do you know this isn't true?

It depends on how the extra stormlight cost from the honorblades works. It could be:

a) having an active honorblade passively drains stormlight. Szeth uses x stormlight to use his surges and y stormlight per second while his blade is out. Two honorblades would drain 2y per second.

using surges through honorblades is more expensive than using them through Nahel bonds. Kaladin spends x stormlight to use his surges, Szeth spends xy stormlight to do the same, where y > 1.

c) holding stormlight with a honorblade bond is less efficient than with a Nahel bond. Kaladin uses x stormlight to use his surges and loses z stormlight (or z% or his current stormlight) per second through inefficiency. Szeth uses x stormlight to use his surges and loses zy stormlight per second through inefficiency, where y > 1. Jasnah gets Jezrien's honorblade and uses windrunner surges, spending x stormlight and losing z stormlight through inefficiency.

 

More about names: I find it strange, that no one of the Kholin family has even slightly symmetrical names.

Jasnah is nearly symmetrical. So is Navani, although she's a Kholin by marriage. Possibly the Kholins have their own family tradition and Jasnah  was named according to her mother's tradition?

If I recall correctly, the event was inspired by Jasnah running out of ink. Odd she wouldn't just Soulcast air into ink, or use the Transportation Surge to steal ink from somewhere and claim she'd just Soulcast it. I know she's better at fire than... is ink oil liquid or non-oil liquid? I truly don't know. Anyway, if she can, when necessary, Soulcast a human's blood without killing them, surely it would have been simple enough to make a small quantity of ink, compared to using up her Stormlight to burn words into a book...

Fire is an essence, and so is presumably easier and possibly less expensive in terms of stormlight. Jasnah also defaults to a ruby, smokestone and diamond in her soulcaster; to create ink and keep up the pretence of it being real she'd need to swap the gems out. Less bother to get creative with fire.

That said, I do think that if Navani knows enough to fix a broken one she must know enough to build at least a basic one from scavenged parts even if she can't build a new one.

Not necessarily. According to Navani's message to Jasnah broken soulcasters usually have the gem housings out of alignment: they're warped, not damaged. The actual functioning parts seem to be a black box.

Shallan giggles quite a lot when it comes to men.

She also gets a paragraph or two in both books of drooling over Jasnah.

Does anyone else do this?

Sometimes I end up imagining things in books happening in places I know from real life. For example: in my mind this one battle from a non-Sanderson book was going on (in a very extended version of) my backyard. And it's annoying. And I know that's not what it's supposed to look like. But I can't get the freakin image out of my head! >.<

Sound familiar to anyone else, or is that just my messed up brain?

I do the same thing.

 the only thing that they seem to do is use even more stormlight which would actually make them less useful

They also let you use surges without being chosen by a spren and upholding an order's oaths. Szeth certainly wasn't doing much protecting or leading.

Maybe in her mind summoning Pattern immediately would be the same as admitting to herself that everything she tries to avoid thinking about in her childhood actually happened.

That's pretty much it. Shallan's psyche is about 50% repression and denial. If she admits to herself that her shardblade isn't ordinary, she can't keep herself from thinking about why.

Lift has yet to make Abrasion increase friction

Isn't that how she does her super-climbing?

Jasnah.

Yes. Always. Or as a very distanct second, Rysn.

I recall it being mentioned that absorbing stormlight out of shardplate was possible but very difficult.

I don't think a real person could look light-eyed without coloured contacts. Rosharans don't seem to have any uncertainty as to whether someone is light or dark-eyed, the only exceptions being people who are in transition like Moash and Kaladin. I get the impression that light eyes are really bright and obvious, just short of actually shedding light. 

I don't remember if Elhokar's age was ever stated, but he should be in his 30s like Jasnah.

Elhokar is 8 years younger than Jasnah. Adolin is closer to Elhokar's age than Jasnah is. Kind of makes you wonder what Gavilar and Navani were up to for all those years. Unless they just had fertility problems.

A normal shardbearer would presumably be screwed. Dead Shardblades are giant swords and they don't have enough limbs to use them any more. A surgebinder with a living Blade would probably be able to summon it as a prosthetic arm, though, if they couldn't just regenerate the limb.

I thought Shallan describes herself as 5 '2. Anyway it does not matter, I am 5' 1 and because I live in the south I have seen horses and holy rust... They are huge!!! If it is 5'6 at the shoulder then count me out...

I think Shallan comes off as shrimpy because she hangs out with a lot of Alethi, who are apparently huge. So you get the impression that Shallan is a shorter than average woman and Jasnah is taller than average, but actually Shallan is average and Jasnah is about six foot or so.

I think a slightly edited version of Iron Maiden's Face In The Sand might fit for Jasnah.

I see the signs

They tell the truth

I see the signs

Of the end...

So I'll watch

And I'll wait

And I'll search for an answer

This is pretty far out there, but it seemed like it might be a clue.  I also haven't studied the surges enough to know where soulcasting and surgebinding overlap, but wanted to throw this into the grist mill.

Surgebinding is pretty much binary, either you can do it or you can't. You can be better that some materials and worse at others - Jasnah is amazing with smoke and fire but awful are organics - but you can't have the ability to casting just one. If anything stony fingernails would indicate descent from the stonewardens, who didn't soulcast.

Shallan has a paragraph or two of drooling over Jasnah.

If Navani turns out to be a Willshaper, I would give a great deal to see Jasnah's face when she finds out that her mother can now follow her even into Shadesmar.

So...

There's a female royal.

She has magical powers that she keeps hidden.

She tries to keep a tight rein of her emotions, and is generally pretty good at it.

Her main relationship in the story is with a younger redhead.

Said redhead causes her a great deal of trouble, but their relationship is ultimately positive.

Said redhead also has a love interest that's secretly evil.

I think Jasnah and Elsa would have a lot to talk about.