kari-no-sugata

Quoting from tWok: I'm probably in the minority here but I miss the philosophy debates from tWoK. I'm sure we could have a fine time debating Shallan's actions... (though all the main characters have done morally questionable things) I think the biggest problem with these more utilitarian philosophies in the Stormlight Archive is that they're very dangerous when combined with Odium's ability to corrupt people. Once you have people giving themselves the right to commit evil in the name of the "greater good" then I fear it becomes very easy to corrupt them.

To quote my original post: For fun, for trophies, for wealth, for power, or who knows what. I never said the only thing they were interested in was trophies. Shallan generally comes to like people the more she gets to know them. There's been very few cases where the opposite is true and the Ghostbloods are one. I think it would take something pretty amazing for her to come to like them now. Mraize says that the Ghostbloods have a "greater purpose" but even if that purpose is notionally good if the methods used to achieve that are evil then I wouldn't consider them "good". So far I find their methods highly questionable at best.

I agree that we shouldn't judge all the Ghostbloods based on them, which is why I wrote "I don't know if that sums up their philosophy in general". However, Mraize and Iyatil's attitude is certainly allowed. I'm not sure if the Ghostbloods wanted Lin as Highprince or if that was Lin's own ambition. Possibly a mix of both. Maybe the group connected to Lin were more after political power? I'll quote one more thing on this subject: Can you think of any "good" organisations where this would be the case?

The Ghostbloods don't seem like a nice bunch. Hunt or be hunted (kill or be killed). I don't know if that sums up their philosophy in general but it seems plausible. None of them seem "nice" or "good". They seem quite casual about killing. Maybe to them, the whole Cosmere is a hunting ground? For fun, for trophies, for wealth, for power, or who knows what.

Oops, I had missed commenting on this bit... To me, this "moments" thing can mean almost anything. Arguably they had "moments" in WoR already. Maybe they'll have some more in Oathbringer but we'll have to read the book to find out how many and how significant. I found this WoB to be more useful: Sounds to me like we might have a weak love triangle until this "confusion" is sorted out, which could easily happen within Oathbreaker (I hope it doesn't drag out any more than that at least). If a new and improved Kaladin returns when Shallan and Adolin's relationship is going through difficulties with who knows what else going on then it's possible there could be some "moments" during that time. The way it's phrased sounds like this "confusion" will be temporary and not ultimately something significant long term, though this might be wishful thinking. I do have to wonder what's the point of this "confusion" though. Seems like a good way to annoy readers whatever the end result - I don't want to pre-judge the book but it seems like dangerous territory. Going to be hard to do without all three characters coming off worse for it.

Of the current "big three", I find Kaladin to be the least "innovative" (he's a much more conventional hero) but he has a lot of depth. Dalinar is very interesting and innovative as a character and it's nice to see character arcs and romance not being limited to the younger characters - I'm looking forwards to seeing his back story. Shallan is not so much innovative as a character as completely out of the norm for the setting - totally unorthodox as major character in a fantasy series to the extent that I suspect many readers wonder what she's even doing here. Hmm, I guess I needed to explain my comments on Shallan here a bit more clearly. As we've discussed before, emotion does motivate Shallan and even starting from the assumption that Shallan takes Adolin's side on Sadeas, how motivated and aggressive she might be in doing so will be influenced by a number of factors, one of which is how strongly she sees Sadeas as being evil (or similar). Shallan is actually a direct victim of Sadeas (from the bridge drop) though I don't remember her acknowledging that (but it should be obvious). Then there's the people around her, including Adolin, Dalinar, Navani, Kaladin and also her guards (Gaz etc). So what about the people who she doesn't know personally? Such as, the people who did die in the bridge drop, the soldiers who were with Adolin in tWoK, and all the slaves who died in bridge runs. Add all those up and just how many deaths has Sadeas caused? Probably well over 10,000. Would Shallan investigate far enough to be able to estimate that? How strongly would that affect her? I'd like to see Shallan go ballistic over this and confronting Dalinar, but I've no idea if that's going to happen since Shallan has shown a tendency to be most motivated by more direct things (ie she'd be more likely to be motivated by the handful of victims she knows personally than the 10,000 or whatever that she doesn't but maybe I'm wrong on that). At the very least though, I want Dalinar to recognise that he was way too lenient on Sadeas, indirectly leading to what happened with Adolin. I agree that it would be more fitting that Dalinar does it. Amaram running around still is his responsibility. Maybe it's just an extreme "survival mode", but I have suspicions it's slightly supernatural. Hard to explain really, but like Shallan's clairvoyance (which is confirmed), I think there's something more to it. I'm not sure they'll even meet up, depending on how things play out. IIRC it's hard to drain gems in a Shardplate from outside, but might be possible from inside. Well, it depends how "broken" they are and how well they're reflecting an attribute that would attract a particular spren. Attracting a spren doesn't indicate that they're a better person, necessarily - can be the reverse actually.

I guess should have explicitly stated this: I understood what you were saying and was speculating on why this might be the case I remember Brandon talking about when he was younger and first read the Wheel of Time he basically took the side of the younger characters but on re-reading it when older he appreciated the perspective of the older characters more and found the younger characters to be more annoying (or something like that). I think there's a similar split going on here. To summarise my thoughts on the major characters: I'd say they all have flaws and this ties into the background and also their character development. For the proto Radiants, they have to overcome their flaws to progress as Radiants, though that's not to say they won't have flaws even as full Radiants. Of course, there's also a difference between "character flaws" and characteristics that some readers don't like. I think it's wrong to deny the existence of those character flaws, since that denies the achievement of overcoming those flaws. I haven't myself drawn a parallel between those two particular scenes before but I agree with your reasoning. I have previously suggested that Shallan's reaction to what Adolin did would somewhat depend on how she found out and what she found out. I think if she hears a proper explanation from Adolin himself she'll likely empathise with him and connect it to her own experiences in general. An interesting question is - what does Shallan think of Sadeas? Shallan is aware of Sadeas of course since she came up with a plan to try to take him down, to help Adolin. However, I'm not sure just how aware she is Sadeas actions in general, but she didn't like his warcamp at all. I think it would be interesting if she investigated Sadeas a bit. She could talk to Gaz for a start. (On a side note, if Gaz gives Shallan a good description of what bridge runs were like I think she would empathise a lot more with what Kaladin went through and she could confuse those feelings for something else, heh). Shallan has shown a strong tendency to empathise with people she meets or scenes she sees herself. I can imagine her getting angry at what Sadeas did on behalf of people who described his actions to her but I wonder how likely she is to get angry on behalf of all of Sadeas's victims without any sort of "connection"? She hasn't really done this that I remember (depending on how to characterise her desire to save the world). Anyway, to summarise: if Adolin plainly tells her what happened, I think Shallan would likely empathise with him (which has a strong parallel with their little scene on the balcony when Adolin described how desperate things were at the end of tWoK due to Sadeas). If Shallan learns enough about Sadeas I think she would not just empathise with Adolin but actively support him and defend him, and blame Dalinar for turning a blind eye to Sadeas's evil. Whether those conditions will be filled is another matter, though I think the first one is more likely. Yeah, Shallan does seem to treat violence as a (very) last resort. My suggestion of her possibly targeting Amaram requires a particular set of circumstances that are unlikely to repeat and even then she might not be able to carry it out in practice - if she ever kills Amaram it would probably only be in self-defence or because she finds out from him what he's trying to do (cause a Desolation) and snaps. There is one caveat though: when she uses the "coldness of clarity" mode she seems to lose her ability to empathise, which actually seems close to what happens with Taravangian on a day to day basis now that I think about it (shifting between cold hard logic and soft empathy). This is more of an impression though. She was in this mode when she poisoned her father. Here's a thought experiment: what would Shallan do if she met a victim (or victim's relative) of a group of thieves, like the ones Jasnah killed? I don't think she would be able to ignore a heartfelt plea, but I don't see her setting out to kill the thieves either. What she would probably do is try to persuade them to reform - something not too different to what she did with the deserters. If that didn't work she probably try to capture them (using her guards) and have them imprisoned. So she might use herself as bait like Jasnah but with very different intentions. If her brothers become a lost cause, I can also imagine her killing them (as a sort of mercy killing). However, she's probably much better equipped to fight against those corrupted by Odium compared to when she last saw her brothers. If she hadn't forced herself to forget Pattern etc and had continued to be a Lightweaver, she might well have been able to save her father. It'll be interesting to see what develops here. If it was just him seeing things in shadows that would be one thing but he did drain the gems in his Shardplate at one point. That doesn't prove anything since we don't know what Odium's corruption (via his spren) is capable of doing but it does seem to fit more with Cryptics testing him out. Once he meets Pattern we should get an answer to this, finally. Kaladin's problems were bad enough that he killed Syl, for a while. However, he has progressed past that, so maybe he has been able to correct that flaw properly now. In tWoK, I found Kaladin, Dalinar and Shallan all to be interesting, but in very different ways. I probably read each of their sequences about as often. For WoR, Dalinar rather took a back seat, Kaladin was on a downward spiral for most of the book and Shallan blossomed (though I cringe through two of her scenes). I never had to work hard to enjoy her as a character, though I did work hard trying to properly understand her and also to defend her in discussions An interesting interaction between Shallan and Dalinar for me is when she shows him that she's a proto Radiant. It's quite subtle but I get the feeling that she revealed that mainly out of sympathy/empathy for Dalinar - she could tell that he was hurt by his failures. With regards to Elhokar, there's pretty much just this: In-world, Elhokar gets little support. Shallan's only impression of him doesn't seem too bad. It would be interesting to see her pass on Jasnah's lessons to him, for example. PS Thanks for the extra info, though I cut it out in my reply to save space.

Do you really think Brandon would drop such a huge spoiler? Brandon will often give vague answers to vaguely worded questions and this looks like another example. I wouldn't say there's much that you can really say from that particular WoB apart from: Shallan and Kaladin will meet a few times (ie Kaladin won't be away the entire book) and there might be "sparks" but it doesn't tell us where they end up at all. I'd suggest being quite careful about this sort of thing, unless you're happy to take a "tabloid" type stance on "facts".

Probably lots of people will be tainted. More and more. It's going to get ugly. Going back to the subject of this thread, if Shallan's going to regularly face such things I'd rather have someone like Adolin by her side. In comparison, Kaladin seems like the kind of person to get tainted and become a liability. Brandon hasn't made it easy to like Shallan. She criticises herself a lot. She doesn't do the same sort of "awesome" things that Kaladin and Dalinar do. When she does have bigger moments, often they're overshadowed or undermined. She killed her own parents. She often seems to be doing something dubious. Respected characters criticise her. etc. Ultimately, readers will combine all sorts of things to determine their feelings towards a character. And if you don't like a character, even trivial flaws can be aggravating. So when people complain about certain aspects of Shallan, I wouldn't say it's a core reason. I've done what I can to try to avoid fooling myself but it's entirely possible that I'm over-emphasising certain things and under-emphasising others. For example, Brandon has specifically stated that she has a problem with authority figures but I can't say that I can fully get that from the text - her attitude towards Dalinar for much for the book is odd but it's not like she went into the reasons. She never seemed to have a problem with Elhokar. Maybe Brandon meant "authoritarian figures"...? Just to be clear, I said: Adolin doesn't seem "brittle" We've gotten very few hints of Adolin's childhood in the books themselves but this sort of idea seems highly plausible.

(...continued from previous post...) Brandon did something pretty sneaky with tWoK. Like a stage magician, he kept the focus on certain things, allowing the readers to fool themselves, depending on how closely they looked. The setting for the world is not a nice place. There aren't many honourable people around. It's also natural for readers to trust characters more when they read their viewpoint, particularly when they do cool and awesome stuff and the antagonists are obviously horrible. But the protagonists have real flaws too. The Kaladin we see in WoR is the same person. He's in a safer and nicer place. He should be happier, right? But it doesn't work like that. His flaws undermine him. In tWoK he's able to use his anger and rebellious tendencies in a positive way - the people he's fighting against deserve it. However, his unhealthy anger and prejudice against lighteyes works against him in WoR. He believed he was in the right to counter the "oppression" from lighteyes. That he was justified. In some cases, certainly, but applying that to all lighteyes regardless became a poison. Fortunately, he was able to come to the realisation that he was wrong. That lighteyes are people. That lighteyes suffer for real. That he was essentially fighting the wrong battle. It's a very common mistake people make. Dalinar's flaws are rather more subtle but he has them as well. Yeah, in tWoK Shallan is making a typical mistake - granting herself the right to commit crimes that benefit herself (and her family) by "demonising" the victim. "She's not a nice person, therefore it's okay. She's a heretic, therefore it's okay. She's probably an ugly spinster, therefore it's okay". It's an easy trap to fall into and it happens all the time. But fortunately Shallan is not so blind that she can continue this argument after having actually met Jasnah. She wasn't able to give herself a reasoned argument any more for stealing the soulcaster. However, I wouldn't say what Shallan did by stealing the soulcaster in the end and what Jasnah did was quite the same. Shallan did it as an impulsive reaction out of anger, while Jasnah clearly planned it, though there are definite similarities too: Immediately after the quote above, Shallan steals it. Shallan is an interesting mix of logic and emotion. Sometimes she makes a decision based on logic and sometimes on emotion and sometimes a mix. It'll be interesting to see what Shallan is capable of doing and what she might be forced to do. I think for Shallan to methodically attack someone physically (fully planned like what Jasnah did) completely of her own free will would require some very unusual circumstances. I can definitely imagine her doing it against the Ghostbloods at some point. I don't think she would ever do what Jasnah specifically did. Is there anyone else she might attack? Well, an interesting case would be Amaram. I doubt the Ghostbloods will trust Shallan too much initially - they'll want to bind her to them more. They might try to make her commit some kind of crime, maybe even kill someone. If at that point, Shallan isn't willing to rebel against the Ghostbloods, she could try to change her given "job" into attacking Amaram, telling them that he killed her brother and she wants revenge. Going by WoR, I don't think she would genuinely do this of her own free will unless she knew how scummy Amaram was, which she might not know in this theoretical scenario. But if she's forced into a difficult decision, might she attack someone she believes at the time doesn't really deserve it as a sort of cover? (to fool to Ghostbloods). That would be quite interesting for sure... I don't think she's likely to turn a blind eye to the Ghostbloods as such, since she's already aware of the danger. Though it's possible she might not be as careful or thorough as she needs to be (partly due to her lack of time). Shallan is getting better as spotting her own deficiencies as well, having being forced to confront them. Putting aside things like the Ghostbloods, her brothers, and the world ending... I wonder how much the events at the end of WoR will change her. It was clearly very painful for her to finally openly admit to herself that she had killed her own mother. The final scene in the book of her does take several days later and my impression is that she has recovered. I also wonder how much it will change her Surgebinding. She should be just one step below a full Radiant now. Essentially implying she has one major Truth still to reveal. Which could be just about anything.

While I can imagine Shallan helping in support roles, at the moment it's hard to imagine her fighting on the front line in a war. Becoming a competent soldier is not a small task either and I think Shallan will be both too busy with other tasks and also not particularly inclined to learn. It seems quite clear to me that Odium's way of fighting is a lot more complicated than simply throwing a lot of mooks into battle. He does wide area mental/soul attacks as well - eg the Thrill. These seem designed to eat way at societies, honor, hope, etc. From what we've seen so far, Shallan seems better equipped to fight those kinds of battles than the more physical ones. Ah, I see. Phew What you're talking about could be called a form of "confirmation bias" - seeing what you expect to see and glossing over any inconsistencies. I agree that without more viewpoints it's hard to be sure but I think we have enough examples of Shallan seeing beyond the superficial surface layer of people's responses. For example, being able to differentiate between Adolin's "scripted" responses and his genuine responses. Seeing through Kaladin's insults of Adolin. Reading the mood in general. I don't remember an example hinting at what you're suggesting either. Also, Pattern could be expected to react to such "lies". Actually, I worry a lot about "confirmation bias" with regards to my analysis of Shallan. I've worked hard to try to understand her and I think I do, but so many other readers come up with very different conclusions so it's hard to feel confident... Hmm. Adolin doesn't seem "brittle" but perhaps he doesn't have the underlying confidence of someone who has made a lot of achievements in many areas. Putting on a confident front, perhaps?

From end of tWoK and start of WoR: As you say this was temporary in practice, but it was "real" for her for some time. Of the main characters, Shallan is probably the most multi-talented - as in, there's a lot of things she could do well if she tried. On the other hand, the things she's particularly good at (drawing) aren't especially significant most of the time. She's not suited to martial arts at all it seems. Putting it another way, if we consider a real large scale army, she could probably do just about any role in there, except being a soldier or combat instructor. Likewise, Lightweaving and Soulcasting are probably the most open-ended Surges. I wish people would ask even basic questions about these abilities. Yeah, that certainly happens. It's particularly frustrating when Kaladin later on realises he's wrong etc but some readers still use Kaladin's early impressions. I'll try to keep this short I've looked into this before but it's not that often that others specifically compliment her and it's more often from the darkeyes - they're probably not used to a lighteyes being friendly and chatty with them (like Adolin, she gets along with people in general). I agree that her humour isn't that special on average (she's not supposed to be a comic genius either). I'd also like to point out that many of her quips are self-deprecating (ie at her own expense), which also reflects her attitude of herself - I'd say Shallan tends to be negative about herself and positive about the rest while Kaladin tends to be positive about himself (when not suffering from depression) and more negative about the rest (particularly lighteyes). Adolin often seems more positive in general but when we see things from his perspective he's always brooding about something but rarely lets it show. I very very much doubt that Shallan is imagining things with regards to how people respond to her. I don't see any evidence at all even reading between the lines. Shallan does notice when Kaladin and Adolin don't necessarily join in the fun and she seems quite adept at reading others. Also, Shallan is not actually broken for real. She has mental issues but they're specific and "internal" and centred around her past. I think she has a tendency to accentuate the positive in others but I'm pretty sure that what she does see is real except for one or two very specific issues (eg the safe holding "Mother's soul"). If her perspective was the equivalent of "fake news" I don't think Brandon would write as much from her perspective. Kaladin's perspective of the lighteyes is definitely skewed for most of WoR and I'd say this is made quite clear in the text - I don't see an equivalent for Shallan. (I'm out of time responding tonight... I'll try to write more tomorrow...)

I think he'd need a new Oath. Something like: I shall protect those who repeatedly ignore my warnings and get into trouble so often that I suspect they might enjoy it More seriously, Shallan is fine with having protection, so long as it's on her terms. She was "amused" that her guards (the deserters) had become so protective of her later on in WoR. She sure has gotten a taste for freedom, and has no intention of going back. They're an odd bunch for sure and it's quite hard trying to guess what their objectives are. They seem to have quite an aggressive philosophy / outlook.

At the end of tWoK and the start of WoR, Shallan has effectively abandoned her brothers to help Jasnah. She specifically states this. Not that she has any specific plan that would save her brothers but she is choosing to focus on helping Jasnah save the world rather than trying to come up with a solution for her brothers. Fortunately, Jasnah lends a hand. So based on the choices Shallan made there, I think we already have evidence that Shallan won't do anything to save her brothers, despite the extremes she's capable of going to. She'll certainly risk her own life and even her own happiness if necessary, but I think there's limits to what she would do to others. Shallan is tricky to analyse. We very rarely see her except from her own viewpoint and she is her own worst critic. Would you steal if it was the only way to save your family? I suspect most people would - does that make "most people" morally grey? This is not to say that Shallan was justified in stealing Jasnah's Soulcaster, and clearly it would have been better if she had tried harder to think up alternatives (like getting it repaired). Shallan tried to justify in advance to herself that it was "okay" to steal from Jasnah, trying to imagine Jasnah as someone who didn't deserve it etc but when she found out what Jasnah was really like she found it impossible - she found the very idea repulsive. It was only when Jasnah killed the thieves that Shallan was able to break through her resistance (because she was angry/disturbed by what Jasnah had done). So despite the things that Shallan has been forced to do by circumstance, I'd say that she has a decent sense of "right and wrong". I don't think Shallan has realised this about herself, but the way I see it is that by default she gives people a chance and unless they cross certain "red lines" then she will continue to be optimistic about them. But once those lines are crossed then she can be ruthless. As we saw with her father, with Tvlakv, with Tyn. I'd say she's put Mraize and the Ghostbloods in general in the same category but the threat against her brothers stopped her. This is certainly going to cause her a lot of internal conflict in the next book but unless she fundamentally changes I think she won't every accept the Ghostbloods. Or my understanding of her could be wrong. Just to be clear: I don't think that everything Shallan does is justified. I think she's still making the odd poor choice... and there some choices she makes that aren't explained very well that leaves things quite open to interpretation. Shallan is certainly capable of committing minor crimes. However, the Ghostbloods would readily kill innocent people if it suited them. I can't see Shallan ever doing that or agreeing with that. Yeah, saving the world is easier said than done. People will disagree about both the problem and the solution. It's impossible to avoid having to make difficult choices. Something Shallan is already used to It'll be interesting to see what Adolin thinks about Shallan's more dangerous side. Kaladin has seen a bit but I don't think he really understands what she's capable of.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. In the case with the carriage driver, Shallan feels bad about it because the poor guy was just doing his job and Shallan's carelessness (a side effect of her being an "outsider" at the time) killed him. However, the Ghostbloods now consider Shallan to be a member and would be expecting her to do things that benefit them. Distancing herself from the Kholins would not be what they want at all, I'm sure. Though she might put some emotional distance between them and be cautious, so it's also possible that Dalinar potentially ending the causal between her and Adolin could magnify that. With regards to the Ghostbloods in general, I'm quite surprised how many readers think Shallan would genuinely join the Ghostbloods (in heart and soul). I really don't see it with how things end in WoR. Shallan is not a violent or aggressive person and if anything goes out of her way to avoid killing anyone and everyone. She even felt sorry for the chasmfiend! Yet, when she meets Mraize at the end of WoR she is uniquely aggressive, even threatening to kill him. Maybe she's somehow developing a violent streak but I think it's because she fundamentally does not like how the Ghostbloods operate. Until then she'd only ever shown any hints of violence as a last resort. Unless guilt drives her crazy I'd be quite surprised if she changed her opinion. I expect that for a while she'll grit her teeth and make a show of going along with their demands. She might even betray her real allies more than she realises but in the end I would not be surprised to see her kill the Ghostbloods. She might even sacrifice her brothers. Another possibility is that the Ghostbloods tempt her with some offworlder information. Maybe hinting that they have solutions to the bigger problems. She might even take the bait for a while but I'd still be surprised if she decides they're people she wants to hang around with. Certainly the timing of Jasnah's return could make a big different to a large number of events. I'm not sure how central Kholinar will be to the book overall. I think we will see quite a bit of them dealing with other countries and maybe even visiting them. But certainly Dalinar is not going to sit around and let Kholinar implode. The romance in WoR was great fun. It tied nicely into the plot and character development and was enjoyable to read by itself. I suspect we won't get something in the next book that's roughly similar but I hope we can get some nice romantic moments still.

Well, it was just a comment or two in WoR though really. Shallan does bluntly tell Dalinar he has no authority over her in WoR, and I'm not expecting her to suddenly bow to his wishes now that he's a Bondsmith. So yeah, if she's not happy with Dalinar's actions/proposals she'll probably tell him so. Just to be clear, this is not to say anything against Renarin - I wouldn't be surprised if she can get along with him fine once she gets to know him (something Shallan does with nearly everyone). I'm not sure about Shallan breaking away from the Kholins in general, but she might find herself struggling to accept Dalinar himself. It's not like Dalinar himself has finished his character development and if anything, Shallan giving him some constructive criticism would probably be helpful for his character development. I think Shallan would be happy to help Dalinar with researching the past in order to prepare for the future and with trying to save the world in general, but might well disagree with priorities and tactics / implementation details. In general, the Knights Radiants seem likely to have quite distinct personalities so we should expect a certain amount of disagreement between them anyway. Our perception of Shallan changed quite a lot in WoR, and to some degree we could say that about all the major characters, and with everything that's going on I'm not surprised she'd change again in Oathbringer. Hopefully she changes in a good way...

Right now from Dalinar's point of view, Shallan is a rare and precious resource, since she's an experienced proto Radiant and also has been researching into them. Regardless of her relationship with his son, if Shallan asks Dalinar for help with something reasonable I'd be surprised if he didn't support her. He agreed with Jasnah's reasons for wanting to tie Shallan to his family as well. So, depending on how Dalinar reacts to Adolin killing Sadeas, he might well revoke the causal between Shallan and Adolin... and instead offer one between Shallan and Renarin instead. While Shallan could probably understand the logic of that I doubt she'd be happy. She'd not exactly fond of Dalinar in the first place - she has a problem with "authority figures" (says Brandon). Hmm, here's an idea: maybe Shallan will decide that it's risky to rely on others and that it's good to have your own "power base". She currently has some loyal soldiers and a certain amount of prestige. She doesn't yet have true political power or major assets or an independent source of income yet though.

I figured someone would have written up a good little essay on the problem with love triangles and I found this quite easily: https://woodthewriter.com/2015/04/17/why-i-hate-love-triangles/ For me, the biggest issue is "no sense of progress" - badly done love triangles suffer from a sense that nothing ever changes or is likely to change until the end. In a post above I did sketch out a possible sequence of events for Adolin, Shallan and Kaladin. If that happened quite quickly (eg was completely resolved by the end of the next book) then there would be a sense of progress (of change). If the exact same thing occurred over several books then it would likely be aggravating. One thing I hope we get with our trio is that whatever romantic developments occur form part of their personality and character arc. For example, Shallan has historically been more than willing to put the interests of her family/brothers ahead of her own - to put it another way, she hasn't been prioritising her own personal happiness. She is certainly changing in this regard and if that continues then one potential culmination of that would be "going with her heart" with regards to romance even though that option might be against the best interest of her brothers. For most of WoR, Shallan's personal and practical desires with regards to Adolin aligned up nicely, but if he's disowned (or whatever) over Sadeas then that would change the situation a lot and be likely to cause Shallan some internal conflict. For Adolin, given his past problems with relationships and his views of himself, maybe "losing everything" (being disowned) but having Shallan still wanting to be with him would be the best way to help him get over his relationship issues.

Shallan was sheltered. She no longer is and even back home she was never your regular sheltered girl. Also, her first love interest was Kabsal - early on with Adolin she had to remind herself not to get too carried away, using the example of Kabsal. Shallan had multiple practical reasons for wanting to make things work with Adolin before she ever met him... but her actual first meeting feels like "love at first sight". From such "lowly" beginnings their relationship progressed quickly - notice that Shallan was particularly annoyed with Kaladin for insulting Adolin.

They're lots of ways Brandon could take things between Kaladin, Shallan and Adolin but it seems pretty clear that he wants to avoid over-used cliches. Also, whatever happens between them will not happen in isolation. There's a lot else going on. Kaladin is going to be away for a while and there's the minor issue of him having killed Shallan's brother. Shallan will most likely be as busy as ever, juggling the Ghostbloods, her brothers (directly or indirectly), and her hobbies all while working towards saving the world. Adolin will have to deal (one way or another) with having killed Sadeas. It would not be a big surprise if Adolin one-sidedly ends his relationship with Shallan to protect her from the fallout of him having killed Sadeas (and maybe other reasons). Unless Shallan fully understands Adolin's reasons then she would be quite hurt by it. If Kaladin returns to find out that Shallan+Adolin is officially over and he believes (rightly or wrongly) that he's in love with Shallan then he might confess to her. I don't think anybody has told Shallan that they love her (or at least not recently), so such a thing could have a big impact on her (it might be something she's craved for for a long time). However, I expect that one way or another that Shallan will realise that she genuinely loves Adolin and determines to seduce him all over again (not having realised that it's not necessary).

When tWoK was released, Brandon's original plan was for Jasnah and Shallan to both reach the Shattered Plains safely, but then he realised that it was necessary to separate them. If that hadn't have happened, then I suspect we would have seen Jasnah investigate what was happening with Elhokar. This could easily come up again in "Oathbringer", since Elhokar should react to seeing Pattern, leading to Shallan investigating this.

Regarding what Shallan could be up to: I'm sure she'll be multi-tasking as always but for her main/official task, the description in the summary does follow-on from things that were set up previously. Remember that Jasnah wanted to find original sources in Urithiru that hadn't been tampered with. Shallan should be interested in making more sense of the in-world Words of Radiance book. How much is there in Urithiru and how much is readable after all these years is another matter, though the climate should help with preservation. Navani and Shallan (with Pattern) are both working on learning to read Dawnchant which I'm sure will pay off at some point. It might seem redundant to have two characters arrive at this from two different angles but it's actually really handy in terms of validating the understanding - if two separate people using two different methods can translate the same text in a similar way then that would significantly improve the trust in the translation.

Yeah, the way she is written does make her harder to like. In a number of different ways she undermines herself quite a lot - she would probably be more likeable if we only or mostly saw her from the perspective of others (except perhaps "I hate Lighteyes" Kaladin). Or at least, her own perspective gives you plenty of reasons to doubt or distrust her on an initial read. One of the things I find interesting about her as a reader is that if you really pay attention there's clearly more than meets the eye - putting it another way, I enjoyed her more after re-reading the books. Brandon has compared her a bit to Mat (from Wheel of Time) but Mat has an attitude more like "the only sane guy in a world gone mad" while Shallan is more like "you don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps". To me she generally comes across as someone who doesn't value herself that highly. She uses a lot of self-deprecating humour. She doesn't have much confidence in herself. And so on. She is willing to try and is changing though, but I think her own negative thoughts are transmitted to the reader. It probably doesn't help that in the last section of WoR she's rather stressed out (notice how she barely makes any jokes in this section) and that her final scenes (from her point of view) are far from positive and uplifting. The thing is though, if she wasn't like this it would probably be much harder for her to be a Lightweaver. As a reader, I'm quite happy with how she is but as a fan it's a bit frustrating...

There's quite a bit of variation in how fans look at Shallan... so I guess it's fitting that there's quite a bit of variation in how Brandon's comment about Shallan are interpreted. From all the Q&As etc I've seen with Brandon, he seems very open to fans interpreting the stories he writes in their own fashion. So I read Brandon's comments as being a mixture of that (he's totally fine with fans reading her that way) and also that he himself didn't consciously write her that way. A bit of both, really - not "wrong" but not intentional either. I think that if he intended her to be strictly heterosexual he would have responded in a different way. I don't know if Shallan and Jasnah will even meet in Oathbringer but it'll be interesting to see how they deal with each other, regardless of any questions on sexual orientation. Personally, I would have no problem if the text made it abundantly clear that Shallan was bisexual or Brandon started saying that he was now actively writing her as bisexual but I'm not expecting either to happen. I would also say that the way she's attracted to Jasnah is quite different to how she's attracted to Adolin - with Jasnah, it's more like Shallan is idolising her with a sense of "we're not worthy!", with Adolin it feels more like "a dream that became reality" (on their first meeting it feels quite like "love at first sight", a few meetings later she's dreaming of kissing him and hoping to be with him long term and by the end she's eagerly kissing him). I've seen a lot of examples of a relationship quite like that between Jasnah and Shallan in Japanese manga/anime/novels. Type 1 from here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneeSama See also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_friendship Overall, I see Shallan as someone who has a strong tendency to find something to like in everyone she meets (the longer she's with them the more likely) and in a very broad and general sense could be described as "beauty seeking", referencing what Wit/Hoid recommends she do in "Middlefest". I could easily imagine Shallan describing Jasnah as having a "beautiful mind", whether she found Jasnah to be physically attractive or not.

Brandon is certainly keeping quiet about Renarin. I can't remember how much Brandon said about Dalinar's visions before WoR came out but my vague feeling is that he didn't give much away - because it was important for WoR. It's quite possible that Brandon is being extra careful about spilling the beans on Renarin (either directly or indirectly) because it would then spoil SA3 - ie knowing for sure one way or the other could ruin the suspense of Renarin's arc in SA3, whether or not the answer is more mundane or more spectacular. Regarding the Nightwatcher being involved (at least through Dalinar), here's a quote from tWoK: That seems quite hard to wave off. If Dalinar had any reason to believe that Renarin was affected, would he really say that? Full quote being referred to is this (chapter 61: Note that Adolin is not in the room while Renarin is right there.