kari-no-sugata

I hope that some different moral viewpoints are properly discussed in Oathbringer. It certainly deserves such. For example: the right to self-defence: Sadeas didn't directly or immediately threaten Adolin but he did credibly threaten Adolin's family. For example: who is accountable when justice repeatedly fails to take action? Sadeas was an evil mass murder. Allowing him to run free is wrong. Failing to even try to hold him accountable for his crimes is immoral. What this effectively means is that Adolin had no legal way of preventing his family from being attacked. That being said, this doesn't mean Adolin didn't commit an illegal act (this is something that would vary between countries on Earth as well and depending upon the legal system he might well be acquitted). This also doesn't mean that Adolin would have the right to avoid justice. Morally, he would be obliged to report his actions.

Some interesting discussion going on here From what I've seen, many readers didn't find Shallan's sections in tWoK to be too interesting. However, Shallan and Jasnah discussed philosophy a lot. From chapter 36: I'd say Jasnah's argument is well supported by the rest of the series and also Brandon's comments. There isn't one single solution. There isn't one single definition of honour, or morality. It would make life easier if there was, so people try. But there isn't a practical, proper and complete answer that everyone (or a significant majority) can agree with. Within the Radiants, each Order has slightly different approaches and tendencies (though we don't really know the details yet). Within the individuals of each Order, there would also be minor variations. Brandon has also referenced multiple philosophies within the world and how there would be different responses between them. So it's natural that there isn't one single answer to Adolin's actions. Some people would strongly support him. Some would strongly condemn him. Others would be at various stages in between. Some would see the situation as very simple, while others would see it as being more nuanced. And that's even assuming they knew what happened - in-world characters would only be able to react based on their in-world knowledge rather than what we the readers see. Just to be clear: I'm not saying that it's impossible to come to any consensus on Adolin's actions at all, just that (as always) there'll be a spectrum of opinion. I don't think that splitting the difference is a good solution either. We could also poll everyone around Urithiru and the Shattered Plains for their opinion but would that be valid? In terms of how Adolin's actions might affect him then it's not the majority opinion that matters but the opinion of the ruling (or influential) minority, and perhaps the law and how the law is interpreted. But what if there's a strong disagreement between the ruling minority and the wider population? Could the masses impose their sense of morality on the minority? Would that be moral? What about the reverse? One problem with suddenly imposing a single moral (or honour) system at one point in time is that it ignores everything that came before. What's the morality of Alethkar? It's not a nice place. Scum like Sadeas literally get away with mass murder. Is it really fair or moral or honourable to apply a strict sense of morality (or legality) to Adolin when such things hadn't been applied before? Essentially that's part of the problem. If morals and laws were followed strictly the whole time, then Sadeas should have been arrested, tried and sentenced long ago. It's not Adolin's fault that this wasn't the case. So, who should be blamed for allowing evil to run rampant (I think most people could agree that Sadeas was evil)? Well, we could blame the likes of Dalinar and Elhokar but it's not like this is a new thing in Alethkar either. The rot goes a long way back. Though as Dalinar tells Wit/Hoid, Dalinar and Galivar probably made things worse by promoting a "might makes right" approach. There's several comments from Brandon on this but I think one of the better ones is this (in comparison to Jasnah's actions against the thieves): I hope that Oathbringer will consider these various points (amongst others). It would be a shame if it didn't since generally the series has taken quite a thoughtful view on the subject, rather than simply pushing one single answer. btw, if you consider the different philosophies being argued in the "letters" epigraphs (between Hoid and a certain dragon), then there is another moral argument going on there. It could be phrased as "interventionist vs non-interventionist" (or, "take action before things are too late vs let sleeping dogs lie") and what to do about Sadeas has a similar flavour. On a different note, I have no idea if Adolin's killing of Sadeas was always the plan. Originally, Jasnah was supposed to reach the Shattered Plains with Shallan, but Brandon changed that rather significantly. If Jasnah had been there, I think it's quite likely that she would either have argued to have Sadeas assassinated or quietly arranged for it to happen. I don't think anyone has asked Brandon that though...

I'll reply to more later... Thanks. It was an interesting way to express what we see going on with Shallan and the use of the word "connection" was quite deliberate. Quoting from the WoR Ars Arcanum on Lightweaving: However, I don't mean to imply that all Lightweavers are going to be the same. I'm pretty sure Shallan is an outlier rather than being typical either way. So, if we start from the basis that Shallan seeks to build connections with others (both consciously and sub-consciously) then it would be typical of her to build a connection with Kaladin over time - regardless of what's going on with her relationship with Adolin. And not just Kaladin, but pretty much everyone she meets regularly - this would almost certainly include Renarin too in Oathbreaker. She already started with Navani towards the end of WoR and that might well strengthen further. If she meets with Elhokar regularly then we'll probably see some connection there. Not just major characters either - everyone she meets with regularly, regardless of age, gender, station etc, as long as she meets them often enough. Unless she really can't stand them that is - the only examples we've seen being Tvlakv and the Ghostbloods (and in their case she did briefly start to make connections). The upside of this aspect of her is that it enables her to get along with nearly everyone. But it's not harmless. She might well trust others too much. Also, to achieve all those connections she needs certain kinds of social skills, many of which she seems to use naturally/unconsciously but her discussions with Tyn probably helped a lot as well with her doing it consciously. Because she is still doing a lot unconsciously, the situation is ripe for unintended consequences. Part of the reason why I used the term "connection" is that it's quite neutral. It doesn't imply romance at all. We haven't seen Shallan thinking about love specifically that much. I'm not sure she thinks about it in the same way as most people would. She definitely thinks about relationships a lot though. In the case of romantic relationships, Shallan's ability to form connections might well mean that she ends up attracting attention from multiple guys. Entirely unintentionally as well. So a "love triangle" might not be the last of it! To be clear, I'm pretty sure she would not want to actually create love triangles (or similar) around her. When she gains more experience then at some point she'll probably realise that she has to be more careful. I also want to make clear that just because she forms a connection with a guy it doesn't automatically mean that they'll fall in love with her - it would be up to the guy in question and the circumstances. If we could ask Shallan at the end of WoR if she wanted to marry Adolin I'm sure she'd say "yes" without hesitation. But if asked if she loved him I'm not sure what she would say. Because she hasn't thought about it much or discussed this sort of thing much it's hard to be sure. I think it's likely that she would say that she liked him a lot and enjoyed being with him. Her not thinking about love much might be a side-effect of her expectations for marriage for most of her life - that her father would simply pick who she would marry and that would be it. It's also possible that she avoided thinking about it due to the situation with her mother - maybe "love" in general has some background trauma for her? Another possibility is that she thinks about "roles" too much rather than her own desires/feelings. It could also be a combination of factors. It would probably help if she had some discussions on this subject with Navani (would probably help readers understand Shallan better too). Personally, I would say that Shallan is in love with Adolin but doesn't realise it. So, to summarise a bit: Shallan probably doesn't think of herself as being in love with Adolin (whether it is true or not). Regardless of her relationship with Adolin she would probably not change how she acts with other single guys of a similar age and would want to be friendly with them (though maybe my guess is wrong and she will be cautious due to her relationship with Adolin since we haven't seen Shallan in a situation like this). So, how would these "other single guys of a similar age" react? I'm not going to try to predict Renarin since we know so little about him. For Kaladin, since he already seems to have budding romantic feelings for Shallan, those feelings would likely develop the more they interact with each other. Of course, there are a lot of unknowns with what the situation is going to be. For Kaladin, he'll be away for some time and maybe his experiences will affect him one way or another in this regard. For Shallan, it's hard to imagine that everything will be fine with Adolin - it's very likely that things will be going from bad to worse (due to Sadeas's death) and though I expect Shallan to fight for Adolin, the situation would likely make her depressed. Maybe Kaladin will come back at the best/worst time (depending on your point of view) and he sees Shallan in low spirits. I think it would unlikely for Kaladin to just ignore Shallan if she was like that. So things could develop from there. Well, we shall see. But my best guess is that if Shallan ends up in a situation where she ends up wondering who she loves then it would likely be something she started completely unintentionally that snowballed before she realised it.

Create that thread then! (Though it might just be you and I talking... Hopefully not though...) I think you're referring to the WoBs nicely quoted here: http://stormlightarchive.wikia.com/wiki/Citizenship_in_Alethkar The impression Shallan gives at the end of WoR is far from someone taking on a heavy burden of responsibility. I don't think she likes or enjoys that sort of pressure. I think she can mature into it over the long term, though she might use other "disguises" as a form of relief. (Brandon has said that Shallan is quite similar to himself in a number of ways, so maybe Brandon's method of jumping between projects to keep himself invigorated and fresh will be reflected in Shallan jumping between roles/faces as a way to release the pressure she feels). One thing I would like to see at the beginning of Oathbreaker is for Shallan to sit down and talk with her "group" - the soldiers she picked up along the way and the slaves as well. If such a thing does happen I wouldn't be surprised if Shallan offers to let any of them leave if they want to - eg if they're worried about their families due to the Everstorm and so on. The "War of Vengeance" should technically be over so it should be possible to release the normal soldiers from their oaths. As far as I remember, Shallan and her soldiers don't have a formal/legal relationship so maybe they'll sort one out. I wouldn't be surprised if Shallan buys all her soldiers some big promotions in terms of nahn level, which would be interesting to see from a world-building perspective (amongst other reasons). Adolin overall reactions are hard to predict because we don't even know what realistic choices he will have. Going by how he feels at the end of WoR he could feel very uncertain about many things. So, one route he could go down would be to cling more strongly to things that help him feel secure. However, that feels a bit weak for Adolin unless he ends up pretty much "broken" by events. Another option is that after some reflection on what he cares about most he could embrace some aspects of the new situation that would help the most. For example, if he wants to protect and help those close to him, then he might decide to actively try to become a Radiant. With regards to Adolin's reactions to Shallan's reactions to her new position - yeah, if she seems to deal with it easily (from his perspective) then that might well make him feel worse. It'll be interesting to see which aspects affect Adolin the most. I see him as the type who would be affected more by how others react to him than his official status. So if he feels people are treating him differently then that would affect him more than any changes to his actual rank in society. This is not to say that how others react to him is the only thing that matters - given what Adolin is thinking through at the end of WoR, he clearly has worries and uncertainties that are new to him. While he has been through various periods of change in his life, having the whole of society change around him etc would probably be too much for him to sort out quickly (even without the incident with Sadeas). If he feels that he is becoming a liability (due to Sadeas) on top of all that then I would expect that to be very difficult for him to handle. Ahh, Shallan. Even reading between the lines a lot it can be heard to understand her. She possibly has the most complex decision making process since she includes pretty much all factors it seems - logic, instinct, objectives, feelings, artistic sense... and also her "connection" to others. There's probably many ways to try to describe this but it could be said that Shallan wants to build positive "connections" with others. The stronger the sense of connection she has with someone the more her emotions will come into play - eg Shallan's attitude towards Jasnah during tWoK changes very quickly as she gets to know her. She also built up a sense of connection with Kabsal, despite the fact that she was pretty sure such a relationship between the two of them would never work out. Finding out that "Kabsal" was basically a lie, had deceived her, had tried to kill Jasnah and had died instead hurt her a lot because of the connection she had built up. There's several times she thinks back about Kabsal during WoR and early on with Adolin she was hesitant as a side effect. So going on to her relationship with Adolin. Before they met, Shallan's thoughts were driven more from logic and objectives (like before she met Jasnah) but then things changed very quickly once she met him (like with Jasnah). The first few times they met she was still applying logic and objectives to some degree but as she built up a sense of connection such things drop away and her interactions are driven mostly by instinct and emotion. With Kabsal she was always hesitating and holding back, but with Adolin she went full throttle quite quickly. So I would say that her sense of connection to Adolin is much much stronger than it ever was with Kabsal. But what does that mean in practice? I would say that once Shallan has built up a strong connection she would want to preserve it if at all possible - it takes something extreme for Shallan herself to end an established connection with someone (eg her father). If this theory is correct then Shallan is very much not going to dump Adolin at the first sign of trouble. If events become extreme enough that she does have to end her connection to Adolin then she will definitely be hurt a lot by that and I don't think she would get over it quickly (probably not until SA4 if the story goes down this route). Of course, none of this means that Shallan can't build up connections with other guys or that if she keeps her connection with Adolin strong then it automatically means that they'll marry or something. In addition, Shallan currently has strong connections with multiple people and she might struggle to distinguish between "a strong connection" and "a love relationship", for example. It's of course possible that she can build her connection with Kaladin further whatever happens with Adolin but I think she would avoid anything that she feels is romantic. Shallan also has a strong connection to her brothers and she will definitely try to help them as much as she can, though we've already seen that she won't prioritise them over anything and everything. Her family situation is quite complex and who knows how her relationship with the Ghostbloods is going to evolve so the potential significance of her marrying Adolin (or anyone else) has changed quite a lot since the start of WoR. Putting it another way, it's not like she has to find someone of high status to marry. I would say that resolving the immediate situation with her brothers is going to depend more on "hard power" (use of force) than "soft power". So to summarise my analysis and speculations: If real trouble occurs with Adolin, I don't see Shallan readily jumping ship or bailing out of the relationship. I'm pretty sure she would be willing to take risks for him and I think it would take something genuinely extreme for her to give up. If her relationship with Adolin does end in Oathbreaker then I would expect that she would become adverse to forming a similar relationship with anyone else for some time. I don't want to see him suffer, but I wonder how far Adolin will fall down... and how long it'll take for him to climb back to a position of stability... and how much he will change during that time.

Adolin hasn't been shown to get jealous though. If anything, if he saw Kaladin and Shallan being friendly and that triggered his insecurities then he would be more likely to simply walk away from the relationship. If Adolin got jealous I would actually take that as a good sign - I've wondered if Kaladin might end up being a stalking-horse for Adolin regarding Shallan. Regarding Kaladin distancing himself from Shallan - the general situation will probably not allow that long term. He might be away for a good chunk of Oathbringer but not the whole book. There's not that many Radiants around and they need to learn things from each other and work together to help solve the big problems. I enjoy the chasm sequence a lot myself. It's a brilliant short story contained in the overall book. The rapid developments etc are a great read - I've probably read it more than ten times. However, it's not like that's what Kaladin and Shallan are going to be like all the time. It's just not possible - because their relationship has already changed. That's why I put hate-hate in quotes to help indicate I was referring to the general relationship concept. I also added "(or mutual dislike)" for good measure. This is just a theory of mine, but I think one of the reasons why Brandon added the "boots" scene is to delay any meaningful developments between the two until the chasm scene. More to give Kaladin an excuse to treat Shallan as "just another Lighteyes", so that when the chasm scene does come around the change in their relationship can be more obvious. To quote myself from previously: I don't mean he can't fall in love or something like that - rather, he's poor at relationships in general except with his fellow soldiers. My point was not about him falling in love but having a romantic relationship. There's already hints that Kaladin has been in love before to some degree, eg with Tarah at least, maybe Laral too. He's certainly not lacking in passion (actually, I sometimes think that his passions are too strong and have a tendency to undermine him). To expand a bit on why I think Kaladin would be bad at romantic relationships: he has a terrible work/life balance - meaning, he would be unlikely to have much spare time or make time to go on dates or the like. He's the type of guy who would cancel a date due to work (and might not even send a message). He would be able to meet with Shallan as part of his work as a Radiant but that's not necessarily a good time for romance. He's not good at relaxing. He's not good at more delicate interactions. He's not good at dealing with women at all, really. I'm not saying it's impossible. Obviously, he can work on fixing the above issues and maybe the plot will give him a helping hand. And actually, Shallan would be far more likely to forgive such issues than most, but then there's the "minor" problem that she's currently in a relationship with Adolin and if that fell through she wouldn't be likely to want another relationship any time soon.

If I remember correctly, when Brandon does a final draft where he aims to trim the text he normally aims for about 10%. So that probably means roughly 2.5% deleted scenes. Sounds tiny but in this case that means 10-12k words

Nice post, maxal - I think this topic would easily justify its own thread. I think the culture these characters are in make it particularly ripe for exploring role reversal and the like. For example, the dahn (and nahn) system of ranks is somewhat fluid - some things are harder than others but going up or down ranks happens often enough. This makes for a particular quirk in the culture that being a Shardbearer automatically makes you at least 4th dahn regardless of what you were before... though until now that "regardless" hadn't had an example of a female Shardbearer (at least publicly). So we suddenly have one social convention (you can rank-up by becoming a Shardbearer) coming up against another social convention (having weapons and fighting is a male role). It'll be interesting to see what reactions there are to this. I wonder if Shallan will run with this or not - she could probably demand weapons training and get it but I'd be somewhat surprised if she did (for various reasons). Meanwhile, for Adolin there's all sorts of potential downsides, depending on what happens. I would guess that normally if a Lighteyes is disowned then they would automatically become 10th dahn (ie drop to the bottom). In Adolin's case, if he keeps his Shards then he would lose the right to inherit and his specific position and so on but wouldn't be able to drop further than 4th dahn. So individually, there's quite a lot of scope for them to be going in opposite directions, in terms of their social position. Shallan in particular looks set to disrupt Vorin society and conventions, though her situation won't be unique once Jasnah returns and together they would probably cause even bigger shockwaves. (Of course, it's not just about Vorin culture and the situation would still be interesting in a more generic culture). If we then include the relationship between Shallan and Adolin then there's all sorts of potential for interesting developments both for the characters by themselves and what it means for their relationship. Role reversals by themselves aren't a new thing of course - there's the very distinct example of Siri and Vivi in Warbreaker. However, I don't expect Adolin and Shallan to both go through a 180 degree turn. It feels more like a "social position reversal", making it more open-ended and interesting. I can't think of a similar example in fiction currently, though of course we don't know just how all this is going to play out in practice in this particular case.

I'm looking forwards to them meeting again. I have this image in my head of lots of people being around Jasnah, but mostly being a bit hesitant to get close (except Navani)... and then Shallan suddenly comes running in a gives Jasnah a huge hug That being said, it's probably safe to say a romantic relationship between the two is very unlikely to happen (except in fanfics) but that doesn't mean they can't have a close relationship. For Jasnah, I think she struggles a lot with relationships - she herself probably doesn't mind too much but it would probably be better for her to be closer to other people and Shallan should be good for her in that regard. In Shallan's case, she still has a lot of learning to do and skills to develop - and also friends to make (since actually Shallan is rather short on friends).

In general, I try to be flexible on supporting or shipping relationships. I want to see fresh, interesting and/or exciting relationships between interesting characters. And when I say "relationship" I mean in the general sense, it doesn't necessarily have to be a romantic relationship. I also prefer to stick to the canon (though playful speculation is fine) or where I think the canon is going. I also dislike the idea of pairing up everyone just for the sake of it. So anyway: I think Kaladin and Shallan could have a quite interesting relationship going forwards but it doesn't necessarily have to be romantic. I remember a time when I saw many posters say they could have a sibling like relationship but I don't see that so much any more. I would be fine with something like that. There's several reasons why I'm not that excited about them having a romantic relationship. Firstly, Shallan is with Adolin right now which I find interesting and I'd like it to continue. It would also be a bit of a worrying trend for Shallan to have a romantic relationship of some degree with three different people in three books. Although Shallan and Adolin's relationship gets written off as "shallow" quite often, to me, having a romantic relationship that starts from "love at first sight" actually feels quite fresh and interesting, and their deepening relationship has been enjoyable to read. Naturally there's going to be some bumps in the road either way but I hope to see them come out stronger for it. Secondly, I've gotten quite bored with romantic relationships starting from "hate-hate" (or mutual dislike) - it's been done way too much. It's not like a relationship has to go from one extreme to another to be legitimate. Thirdly, I don't think Kaladin is ready for a proper romantic relationship (though obviously things can change). I don't mean he can't fall in love or something like that - rather, he's poor at relationships in general except with his fellow soldiers. Because of that I find it hard to be enthusiastic about Kaladin having a mutual romantic relationship with anyone right now (one-sided is fine) because it doesn't feel like it would be too much fun. I hope to see Kaladin improve on this longer term and I certainly support him finding real romance at some point.

From a practical point of view, the biggest problem with this is how do you convince the Radiants that this is the case. This would be far harder than Jasnah's problem of trying to convince the world that the Parshman are potential Voidbringers because in this case they would already be under attack. It would be extremely hard to convince people to disband in response to an attack. In such a theoretical scenario, you might be able to convince people that the Radiants caused it but convincing them that disbanding the Radiants will end it would be far harder - because if it didn't stop the Desolation then it would be the end of humanity. Since there's never been a Desolation without Heralds (it seems) that would pretty much be impossible to prove. While it's not impossible that Honor intervened, if the Radiants disbanded because "god" told them to, why are they so reviled? Also, the Heralds are insane and shouldn't be trusted. And also: Edgedancer spoilers:

Some nice ideas! Though it begs the question why Aimians and Radiants would suddenly come into conflict and why Aimians would only consider Radiants to be enemies.

To expand on my previous point why I think it's more plausible that Radiants were fighting each other at the time of the Recreance, consider this: imagine you have 100s/1000s Radiants fighting some "enemy" then your Radiants suddenly quit while the fighting is still very active. That means your enemy hasn't been defeated and that enemy could handle fighting 100s/1000s Radiants. Such an enemy is certainly not going to be defeated by ordinary humans, particularly when they would have been heavily dependant on the Radiants until now. So in short, if it was "humans including Radiants" vs "non-humans" and the Radiants quit then the most logical expectation would be that the non-humans would then win. Of course, it might be a misinterpretation of Dalinar's visions and the epigraphs to say that heavy fighting was going on. It's also possible that whatever the enemy the Radiants were fighting was so close to being defeated that their disappearance doesn't matter much. One final point: I wouldn't necessarily assume that we can trust the in-world WoR book to be accurate and unmodified. Before Jasnah handed Shallan the initial copy, they had been discussed how the Hierocracy had been altering books. Hopefully Shallan and others will be able to find more reliable info in Urithiru.

Hmm. I think if someone is taking action and is reasonably happy with both the steps required and the results then that would not put cracks in their Spiritweb. Jasnah didn't seem at all traumatised or anything after announcing herself to be a heretic. In her case, I could imagine that some possible steps leading up to that event could have been traumatic though. So for Jasnah, I'd say that publicly declaring herself a heretic isn't what "cracked" her but would instead be part of what attracted Ivory. But maybe privately declaring herself to be a heretic to someone she trusted or cared about knowing it would end their relationship could have cracked her. For other proto Radiants in other scenarios, maybe doing such a thing would have been traumatic enough to put cracks in their Spiritweb though. It depends upon the person and the situation. In some cases it could be an "event" that puts in the cracks, for others it could be the realisation that a certain thing needs to be done despite the costs, or it could be that carrying out that decision is so stressful that it causes cracks. In Kaladin's case, taking action to protect others like Tien is what attracted Syl - while doing that was probably a painful reminder I don't think it was painful enough to put cracks in his Spiritweb. For someone like Renarin, maybe doing what Jasnah did (declaring herself a heretic so publicly) would have been stressful enough to "crack" him. Despite already being "cracked" I'm sure that Shallan's decision and actions in killing her mother put further cracks into her. So while I'm not sure I agree with your specific examples, I would agree that any action or decision that causes sufficient stress could crack someone's Spiritweb. Essentially, any kind of stress could do it, if it's big enough - it could be external or internal, physical or emotional, seeing an action done or taking action, or even making a decision. Ah, when you said this: I wasn't sure exactly what you meant by that at the time but it's clearer now. It would be an interesting reveal for Ivory to have disagreed with Jasnah's actions but for (more or less) the opposite reason of what most people would have guessed. On a side note, Ivory seems to have been deliberately quite harsh with Jasnah initially. It feels like he was deliberately putting her through the wringer to see how she'd react. And by dealing with the situations with relative calm, Jasnah passed.

Clearly there was large scale fighting going on at the time of the Recreance. I doubt it was with anyone that would have been believed to be Voidbringers since they were assumed to have vanished 4500 years ago. It's also worth considering what could possibly face an army of 100s / 1000s of full powered Radiants plus many more regular humans? There are some powerful beings around but we've yet to see any evidence of any group that who could stand up to that... except an opposing force of Radiants. Going back to your specific points, Shallan read the whole book and wasn't able to figure out the cause either, so I don't think we'll be able to figure out too much from these snippets unfortunately. Maybe we'll start seeing in-world theories in the next book or two but it might take some time before we have solid ideas. We might even need to wait until we see flashbacks from the perspective of Heralds to know for sure what happened and why.

Hmm. To be honest, neither option seems particularly compelling - there doesn't seem to be any obvious event that would mean Shallan could suddenly capture Cryptics in her Memories leading up to when she did it the first time, and also it seems like a stretch that she never saw one in her Memories before if she was capable and they were wandering around her in general. It also seems unlikely that there were never other Cryptics around her until then. How about another option: Shallan was capable of capturing Memories of them for the last 6 years and they were around her, but until recently the Cryptics had deliberately avoided being visible or in her light of sight. The first time she sees one is with Taravangian and the second time is with Kabsal, both of whom could be described as "dangerous" to Shallan so it was possible that they were trying to warn her...? A bit too much of a coincidence to be random luck? Oh to have a hotline to Brandon to ask him questions It would be nice to see this come up again in Oathbringer. Maybe with Elhokar, or maybe when she explores Shadesmar more. Maybe. I think the strength of the bond could affect the strength of these side benefits (there might be more than one, depending upon the underlying cause). If so, it's possible that some of the side benefits might not be noticeable until the bond is at maximum strength, for example.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough - I was mostly talking about Shallan's side of things, so wasn't addressing what Pattern was going through in much detail. When I said that the Soulcasting Shallan did in tWoK helped resurrect Pattern I don't mean that Pattern was conscious at the time in tWoK. Rather, that the various actions Shallan took collectively helped Pattern begin to "awaken", which we started seeing early in WoR. So I agree that Pattern was regressed cognitively. Essentially you could say that he was in "deep sleep" the last 6 years and that the events of tWoK affected Shallan enough that the bond began to strengthen and Pattern began to awaken and was in "light sleep" until Shallan fully summoned him back to the Physical realm early in WoR. I would guess that he was stuck between the Physical and Cognitive realms until then. It would be interesting to know what would have happened if Shallan hadn't been interrupted in summoning Pattern in tWoK. I'm guessing that Pattern wouldn't have been responsive but maybe it would have helped restore the bond and awaken Pattern over time? It's possible that the Cryptic who spoke to Shallan (interrupting her) might have accidentally made a mistake. Because Pattern was in deep sleep at the time and we also know that there were other Cryptics around Shallan at the time. Also, in WoR she thinks back on those events in tWoK and thinks that the voice that spoke to her is different (not Pattern). I think the Cryptics have been hanging around Shallan, trying to encourage her to resurrect the bond with Pattern. I think that Jasnah said in WoR that she thinks it was likely that the other Cryptics were trying to encourage Shallan to meet with Jasnah. I wonder if they somehow encouraged Shallan to come up with the idea to steal the Soulcaster? On a completely different note, if the Cryptics have been hanging around Shallan for a long time (quite possible) then maybe that's what surprised Wit/Hoid when he met Shallan the first time (during the Middlefest). I had been thinking that he noticed she was highly Invested somehow but if there was Cryptics hanging around her back then that would explain a few things.

Hmm. Maybe I was imagining that Brandon had been as specific as I thought. Anyway, going back to the original topic and what was saying previously, we do know that Shallan's memory is supernatural: It comes from her Order (ie her bond with Pattern): Note Brandon doesn't specifically say it comes from the interaction between Surges, just that it's associated with her Order. This is also interesting: And also: So anyway, we know that Shallan's memory improvement comes directly or indirectly from her bond with Pattern. I don't think there's been any confirmation that her mental abilities in general are improved (though improved memory should help in all sorts of ways). I'm not sure if we can say for certain whether her memory improvement is directly related to the spren she is bonded with or because of the pair of Surges her bond gives her. There has been talk of "resonances" between Surges and those resonances would be specific to the Radiant Order but I don't remember Brandon saying that everything that is specific to the Order is due to resonances - there could be side effects both due to resonances and due to the particular spren. Going back to what I was saying about Shallan's memory: that it was still supernaturally good even while her bond with Pattern was nearly broken indicates to me that the steps taken in originally forming her bond with Pattern have permanently changed her. ie it feels more like that her inherent memory ability has improved not that she is sharing/borrowing Pattern's mental abilities. It would be interesting to know whether or not completely breaking her bond with Pattern would affect her memory ability. With regards to what Radiant "level" Shallan was at for most of the first two books, I would argue that the bond can strengthen and weaken independently of the "level". When Kaladin's bond to Syl was weakened and nearly broke, he didn't have to re-start from zero. Pattern also told Shallan that she didn't need to re-swear the first Oath. It's not 100% confirmed but it seems that Shallan could have summoned Pattern at any time in the last 6 years, which would make her "level 3". So I would say that the available evidence indicates that Shallan's Radiant level was 3 all this time, but the bond itself was weakened, rather than she reverted back to level 0 or 1 or something. In tWoK we do see Shallan speak two Truths but those weren't with Pattern - I would argue that that was a temporary bond with another Cryptic and didn't affect her Radiant "level" (though did help resurrect the bond she have with Pattern).

IIRC there's a WoB that Shallan was a level 3 Radiant all this time (same as Kaladin at the end of WoR) and that she only progressed once that we saw (at the end of WoR when she becomes level 4).

Follow-up idea on the above... In tWoK, after Jasnah kills the thieves and Shallan swaps the Soulcasters, Jasnah isn't seen doing any Soulcasting for some time. IIRC there's never been an explanation for this. Here's a fairly counter-intuitive idea: while Jasnah seems cold while doing this, there is definitely a degree of emotion involved as well - maybe Jasnah's reasons for killing the thieves was more than just pure reasoning. Maybe anger motivated her as well (whether because of something that happened in her past or because she simply didn't like what the thieves were doing). In which case, it's quite possible that Ivory and Jasnah had a falling out over the incident because Jasnah was overly motivated by emotion (!)

Hmm, here's an idea (with no specific evidence). If the Edgecaller spren are attracted to those who put reality/logic before emotion (as we see Jasnah doing in her viewpoint at the start of WoR) then their Oaths are probably related. It would be a very good fit for more "scientific" types, focusing on the facts and what has well-founded evidence rather than what you'd prefer to believe (or would be inconvenient to be true). Jasnah has been heading down this path all her life it seems and it could even be the source of her "heartbreak" - maybe she refused to compromise her fact based approach with someone she had gotten close to. ie the relationship fell apart for the same reason that Ivory was attracted to her. This is not to say that there might be other events that have given her grief in the past.

One interesting thing to bear in mind with Shallan is that she demonstrated those memory skills even during the period between her mother's death and her bond to Pattern being restored at the start of WoR (a 6 year period). During this time she was not sucking in Stormlight (that she knew of), she was not performing Surgebinding (with some minor exceptions in tWoK) and had no active link to Pattern. Her memory skills did not noticeably improve once her bond was restored either. Which suggests to me (though doesn't prove) that her memory abilities were permanently enhanced as a side-effect of bonding with Pattern originally. It would be interesting to get a more specific description of what exactly is going on here from Brandon. We know that a bond between a human and a spren affects both parties - it gives the human access to two Surges, it gives the spren the ability to exist in the Physical realm with sentience, as well as more subtle effects. Spren are Investiture in the first place so it doesn't seem unreasonable for the mere fact that a spren filling in the gaps of a human's Spiritweb can affect them mentally. The question then becomes, is it the nature of the access to the Surges that is causing these mental effects or is it through the spren itself. So for example, let's say that you have two different types of spren but both give access to the exact same Surges - would the mental side effects be identical or not?

Indeed. Gaz is basically reacting to Kaladin's "attitude". Something pretty much every character he meets does at various points. There's also no reason why Gaz would call him "Lordling" just because he knew him in the past. He would be more likely to refer to him as a surgeon, for example, and implying he could be a lord would actually be dangerous if it was true. We see some of Gaz's perspective and none of it confirms he has any background knowledge on Kaladin.

Regarding Adolin's comment, if you're referring to this from WoR: I'd always taken this to be Adolin pointing out the irony of the situation with some wry humour. By itself, I don't think there's that much we can infer about the typical age of marriage for Alethi Lighteyes. Incidentally, for historical data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern

For it to be something big enough that "the cost would be the ends of worlds", then I don't think it can be something that's only relevant to the planet of Roshar. If this is foreshadowing for the rest of the SA (and not the Cosmere in general) then it most likely relates to Odium. For example, there's some hints that Honor was able to somehow limit Odium to the Greater Roshar system or maybe Blaize specifically. If this is more than simply something in the Cognitive or Spiritual realms then it could have some physical presence (perhaps on multiple worlds). You would think it would be better protected if so but who knows how things have changed over the years. That was the first idea that came to mind. That it is essentially a lock (maybe one of many) on Odium's prison. I'm sure there's other possibilities.

Pattern says he was the one who was sent, somewhat implying that he was the only one sent (at the time). For the Honorspren, the Stormfather had banned them from bonding and only Syl has disobeyed. I certainly wouldn't consider them to be typical candidates. I believe it's not "the same" but has similar underlying principals combined with local variations - ie it's similar but different. Also, on Scadrial, once you've Snapped then you're sorted. On Roshar, it's more of a starting condition (and not the only one). On Roshar there's probably a "Goldilocks zone" of how "cracked" a Radiant candidate is. If they've cracked too much they'd actually be too broken to become a Radiant (they would fail at the Oaths). If they're not cracked enough then a stable bond cannot be formed. I have no idea if spren can determine such things in advance.