kari-no-sugata

One problem I have with trying to analyse Shallan is that she is "erratic", in her own words. (okay, she was joking but it's reasonably accurate). Sometimes she approaches a problem (or looks for a solution) from a more emotional point of view ("this is what I want to do") and sometimes from a more logical/analytical point of view and also a combination of both. I do think she has a strong tendency trust / believe in / like people - I suspect this partly comes from trying hard to believe that her family members could become better. I also think she takes big risks in general not just with "Veil" or the deserters - it could be argued that Shallan took a massive risk with Sebarial, who she'd never had contact with before and only had limited knowledge on. That wasn't a risk she needed to take either. She decides to trust Tyn readily and still trusts her opinions even after Shallan killed her. There's a point where she finds herself wanting to like Mraize. She's surprisingly relaxed around Kaladin during the chasm scenes (we readers know that Kaladin is not the sort of person to take advantage of the situation but Shallan does not) though I suspect that inside Shallan is quite nervous about a number of things, including Kaladin, which is why her wit is going into overdrive (to help calm her nerves). Why did Shallan decide to tell Dalinar about being a Radiant? I think it's a combination of two factors: she probably felt sorry for him and also decided that Jasnah's example (of keeping it secret for years) was not a good one. It's not entirely clear from the text but it feels like the sympathy came first and then she backed up her decision with logic. I don't think she automatically trusts everyone. I suspect she never really liked or trusted Tvlakv, for example. As to the second part of your question, I think she prefers to tell the truth and does not like deceiving people - there's a time where Shallan feels bad for deceiving Tyn, a professional con artist! Not that many people really "question" her but a common tactic she seems to use is to selectively tell the truth rather than to actually lie (ie none of her individual statements are lies but collectively they give a false impression). She definitely does tell plain lies as well, of course. And she's also capable of blunting telling the truth even when it could undermine her goals - on her first meeting with Dalinar she tells him that her family is destitute with little possibility of self-recovery. Some times she will instinctively hide things but I don't see this being her default behaviour. I think her real deception is against herself - and unravelling those is what allows her to grow as a Lightweaver.

Hi shawnhargreaves, good topic. I think the main reason why there isn't much specific discussion is that not many people are particularly familiar with the details of this topic. I enjoy a good science book (though spend much of my reading time on fiction) and even I am not familiar even with the term "neuro-atypical". I do have a question for you (and anyone else familiar with the subject): I have noticed that Shallan is "suspiciously" good at mental recovery in general and in particular avoids getting bogged down with negative emotions. Maybe the best example is in the chasm scenes with Kaladin - she's in very poor humour when he wakes her up from "sleep" but two pages later she's back to "normal" and even wondering why she was so grumpy earlier. Shallan's visual memory is incredible and she also has control over it - she can memorise scenes and also forget them. There are hints to the possibility that she can "transform" other peoples' emotions to a small degree with Stormlight. If so, maybe she can transform herself too. To mix Cosmere metaphors it's like she's capable of unconsciously Soothing her negative emotions. So, to get to my question: do you think I'm over-interpreting this or is this common enough that it's plausibly natural or do you this it's possible that there is something supernatural here? PS I have a somewhat related post here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7886-kaladin-and-others-broke-and-scarred/#entry133140 PPS I disagree that Shallan has "difficulty trusting others". I actually feel like it's the opposite, more often than not. Consider this: who is the first Radiant to come forth to Dalinar and admit it? His own son, Renarin? No. His own niece, Jasnah? No. Kaladin is basically forced to come out due to circumstances and I have a vague memory of him admitting to himself that he would probably never have voluntarily told Dalinar. Shallan does voluntarily tell Dalinar and she knows him far less than the others - that conversation is the third between them that we see and the first time they ever have a private conversation!

Has anyone else thought this: that maybe part of the reason that Shallan's father treated her with kid gloves compared to the rest is not because he loved her but because he feared her and what she could do. In an early flashback, Shallan does get the impression that her father would have preferred it if she had stayed mute. I think it's likely he loved her to some degree (particularly early on) but also can't have failed to notice that his daughter killed two people with a Shardblade.

Maybe I'm wrong but there seems to be a theme with Surgebinders having trouble keeping certain feelings/emotions in check - the same feelings and emotions that allowed them to attract their spren in the first place. This seems to be a reasonable problem for the characters to have - after all, the various KR spren aren't going to be attracted to weak and fleeting emotions. Let's start with the non-obvious choice of Dalinar. His oath is to unite people and bring them together. Sounds fine but take it too far and he becomes dominating and dictatorial. Putting it another way, Dalinar has problems with "control". He helped his brother unite Alethkar but they did it by the sword - what Dalinar needs to do now is far harder and in more difficult circumstances. I suspect we might see a lot of philosophical discussion about Vorium culture and the like in the next book - the whole nahn/dahn system divides/stratifies society. Jasnah's theme might be around rationality/logic. Being rational, careful and avoiding fooling yourself is hard. But, take it too far and you can become detached and cold. Renarin is harder to guess at than Jasnah but I think his theme might be being observant vs being overly sensitive to your surroundings. Shallan is creative, has a positive outlook and is able to accept things and move on quickly. But being able to get over things by ignoring them or blanking them out is dangerous and can also stop you from learning/growing. Being too optimistic can lead you to take too many risks. If you start fooling yourself with your own creations or start inventing things that simply aren't there then you can become detached from reality. Kaladin has a strong desire to protect and for most of WoR he is being a "bodyguard". It is rare for people to be passionate about protecting others, to be willing to lay down your own life for others. But Kaladin also has to watch out for threats that could come at any time from (nearly) anyone - take things too far and you can become paranoid and distrustful, even to your friends. It can also lead to strong divisions of "them" (the enemy) and "us" which can lead to unnecessary aggression. Please note that I'm not saying that I think the characters are all going mad or have already gone mad. These are the challenges they're facing. I think this theme also fits well with the cover flap blurb - Stormlight can help heal the cracks but can also widen them. PS I do think Kaladin has "anger" problems. He is "a man of passions" and sometimes he uses anger to motivate himself but sometimes he takes it as the "easy" way out. I see his anger problems as being more a symptom of his other problems.

If we can trust Pattern's words then Shallan was "broken" (or rather "cracked" from something that would break most people) before the first flashback we see - without that she wouldn't have been able to Surgebind at all and that scene could never have happend. Somehow "lies saved her". We can only speculate as to what happened - for example, maybe Shallan had a twin sister who died and Shallan started creating imaginary friends and started bonding with Pattern shortly afterwards. I can't see any hint of that example in the text but it's the sort of thing that could work, I think. Seems a bit "ordinary" though. It's very difficult to guess what Shallan and her family were like before her mother died. I don't remember any comments from other family members hinting that Shallan's father effectively became a different person after her mother died. I can certainly understand the events "breaking" her father but I'd be quite surprised if he was Mr Nice Guy beforehand. I guess we might have to wait until Shallan meets with her brothers again to delve deeper into her past... unfortunately.

Good point about the merchant interlude. I had forgotten that particular line: I had been thinking it was more like that it was the act of killing itself that was the true problem and weapons were tainted by association and not intricately "evil". So, where does this leave my theory? Well, I still think there's "something" there about Szeth expecting to face Honorblade wielding Shin Surgebinders.... but I can't think of anything we could reasonably predict in advance, currently.

Thanks for replying to my theory but there's clearly one thing I didn't communicate precisely enough: when I said that "I think they've also been maintaining active knowledge in Surgebinding as well - probably part of their religion" I meant Surgebinding in general and not combat related Surgebinding. You don't have to have the Blade drawn either to use the Surges it grants. So it would be perfectly possible for someone to "maintain active knowledge in Surgebinding" in a room by themselves. It doesn't require soldiers or "those that take away". After re-reading all the Szeth scenes, the one obvious problem with my theory is that "probably part of their religion" part since I can't find anything which suggests the Shin think they might someday need those Surges again - there was something I thought might be it but on careful re-read I guess I remembered it wrong. Which means the only motivation I can invoke for them to "maintain active knowledge in Surgebinding" is academic curiosity. Curiosity has killed many cats, as it were, but it's not much to base a theory on. To explain one thing, the main reason why I think the Shin are somehow and for some reason "maintaining active knowledge in Surgebinding" is this bit at the end of WoR: Nin/Nalan agrees which why he brought Nightblood with him. They both absolutely expect to face Honorblade wielding Shin. But if no Shin have any practical idea or experience on how to use the Surges then Szeth's task would be laughably easy with Nightblood. Or putting it another way: the other Shin are dangerous precisely because there already exist people with practical experience of the other Honorblades. It could be alternatively argued that instead the Shin have no such experienced people and would be forced to acquire that knowledge by Szeth returning but that seems weak to me - doesn't make a good story for Szeth to have to face a bunch of newbie Surgebinders. PS My original idea was that Szeth had only ever used the "Windrunner" Honorblade before. However, if we consider "academic curiosity" it's quite possible that he's used several - I had this idea that maybe he used the "Truthwatcher" Honorblade at some point and this allowed him to see the future or otherwise gave him insight into the possibility of the Voidbringers etc returning.

I've got a quick idea about Szeth but don't have time to post it up / research it properly. So I'm just going to toss out my idea: We know the Shin have been secretly keeping all the Honorblades they have. I think they've also been maintaining active knowledge in Surgebinding as well - probably part of their religion. The way their maintain knowledge is to allow people to use them, probably one person per Honorblade at a time. These people would obviously be specially selected. To protect against improper use there would also be extremely harsh penalties - which is what I suspect all Truthless are. So I think Szeth was one of these specially selected people and had knowledge and experience of the Honorblade he had before he ever became Truthless Szeth knows he will face Honorblade wielding Shin if he returns because there already are people experienced with them I don't think the general Shin population knows all the details and their idea of a Truthless might be more like "priest who has committed a crime" I don't have time right now to check all these ideas but I think it fits well from what I remember. I suspect there's been some similar theories to this too...

To me it would feel odd for Jasnah to be in the Interludes unless Brandon wants to tease us a lot. It would also imply that she wouldn't be joining up with any of the main characters during the book. I guess it could work but I'd rather she be in the "main" story.

Here's a quote from chapter 48 (set 3 years ago, from Shallan's point of view): We know from his own interlude that he's killing them again - no way to tell if he's improving, worsening or stable though in the months since Shallan left.

Getting a bit off-topic here but if it is a deliberate nod to the Wheel Of Time then it's also subverted: a common complaint among the men there is that (paraphrased) "a woman will still want time to do her hair if it's the end of the world" - here, Shallan does have a momentary desire to fix her hair but doesn't ask or waste time on it.

Chapter 70, when Shallan and Kaladin are down in the chasms: I like her description of her hair

I think many readers have trouble warming up to Shallan beyond specific things she does in the books. I've got some thoughts on why - I'd be interested in what others think: when we're first introduced to her, though she's being proactive and challenging herself (normally attractive in a character), what she's actually trying to achieve with that is theft. Her justifications are weak to the readers - we don't know much about her or her family to care much and there's not much justification for Jasnah being the victim apart her being a weak target (other Soulcasters are carefully controlled) and a heretic. She later describes her actions there as being "stupid and naive". regardless of circumstance it's hard not to distrust a character who has killed her own mother and father we only see Shallan from her point of view in the first book and she's not particularly complimentary about herself (I also notice that she uses self-deprecating humour a lot, particularly in WoR). This is less of a problem in WoR but I don't think it helps that her almost only see her from her own PoV because she doesn't always realise just how impressive some of her actions are and some can be quite subtle - to a large degree you have to work harder to understand Shallan. I don't think it helps that Kaladin's initial PoVs of her are so negative (unfairly so as he later acknowledges) since I think most readers would tend to side with Kaladin. with Shallan in WoR there's constant discussion of truth and "lies" which probably makes many readers more sensitive to her lies than otherwise - I think this is referred to as "priming" as psychology. in the first third of the book (Shallan getting to the Shattered Plains) I suspect most readers sympathise strongly with her situation and are impressed with what she achieves. She makes more achievements during the middle part but sometimes in a dubious manner or otherwise manages to upset the fans of the other major characters. In the last third of the book she almost single handedly saves the army (30-40,000 people?) but this is overshadowed by Kaladin and Dalinar's triumphs and it was so obviously going to happen that she'd achieve it. in her final PoV it's officially revealed that she killed her own mother - hardly the best ending. Please note that with the above that I'm trying to keep a high level view - generalities rather than specifics. I'm also not saying that Shallan uniquely has these problems either.

There's a lot of ways in which Shallan could go wrong, despite all the amazing things she's done, so I agree that this is a possibility. That Pattern expects it to happen legitimises it to some degree - though in a way that would also make it less of a surprise. But what seemingly happened to the spren bonded at the time of the Recreance looks to have been fundamentally different to what happened to Syl in WoR and Pattern between the death of Shallan's mother and her re-summoning him at the start of WoR. Certainly the Recreance KRs did what they did deliberately and almost certainly knew what they were doing - they were also using their powers just before (the KRs who flew in at least) so it wasn't that their bonds were fading. It does feel more like "murder". I wonder what the underlying reason for the difference is between what happened to Pattern at the time of Shallan's mother's death and what happened to Syl. When Shallan summoned Pattern again he started out "dumb", as if he had never been bonded before. But when Syl "returned" she seemed to be back to normal pretty much instantly. So it seems reasonable to say that whatever happened to Pattern during those 6 years was worse than what happened to Syl. But it wasn't fatal. Which does does make me wonder why Stormfather said Kaladin had "killed" Syl since it doesn't really seem accurate. As far as I can tell, if a KR does things against their ideals or otherwise lets the bond weaken that does not "kill" the spren, though that's NOT to say that they're not harmed or that we should not be concerned. Going back to Shallan and Pattern: with their final scene in WoR the bond should have just gotten stronger, not weaker because Shallan admitted to the hidden truth. Would rather suck for it to backfire.

In tWoK (page 184 of hardback) there's this quote: Some women Adolin knew said Renarin's ways made them feel as if he were dissecting them with his mind. Seems to be an early hint right there. Not so much of being "learned" but insight and observation.

Unless Shallan changes significantly, I would be highly surprised if she shows any real "hatred" for Pattern in the next book. This is partly down to her general personality but also note that she takes responsibility for killing her mother in that scene - she says that she "killed them" and doesn't blame Pattern for their deaths. She specifically says she doesn't want revenge. I'm pretty sure her "I hate you" is for Pattern forcing her to remember / stop pretending, rather than something he did in the past. Thought we don't see anything more from her point of view, she seems to be "normal" in Dalinar's point of view (he specifically says she looks fine after being in quite bad shape after arriving). Too optimistic? Well, this is definitely a very very bad memory for Shallan, worse than anything else she's faced so maybe we will see a different side to her afterwards. But I think Pattern judged that Shallan is now strong enough to cope with the memory so decided to force the issue after Shallan dodged it several times. Shallan didn't want to kill the Chasmfiend that was attacking her (and Kaladin). She didn't want to kill the Parshmen even though she was convinced that they were Voidbringers. She was angry with Amaran after he basically claimed to have killed her beloved brother right in front of her - she does hate to some degree him but even then she realises there's mitigating circumstances and her anger seems to be fading. She's not tried or thought to get revenge on him. I really don't see her killing Pattern unless she fundamentally changes or Pattern tries to kill her.

Maxal, sorry I didn't have time to reply earlier but not quite had time: seemed to me like you wanted to like Shallan more but was having trouble. I can understand since it's not nice reading a series with an annoying character - if I don't like the main character in a series I can't read the book basically. It looks like you're in a better place now but maybe I could contribute something if there's still some things that particularly bug you - I've been preparing some character analysis notes on Shallan for some time and might be able to help.

Some more thoughts, but don't have time to write up much... There's a probably a lot we don't yet know about how/what can use Stormlight. For example, how does the squire bond thing work, really? Is this purely a person-to-person bond or are there some 'minor' spren involved, eg windspren for Windrunners? Remember that the spren bonds that allowed the KR to be Surgebinders was not planned - the spren came up with it. In which case, why would they be limited to just 10 types of spren (though there may have always been 10 combinations of Surgebinders)? If big spren could form big bonds could smaller spren form smaller bonds? So maybe the "squire bond" is a combination of a KR bond (once it becomes strong enough) combined with one "minor" spren per squire. In which case maybe humans can also form an even weaker bond with the same "minor" spren by themselves - maybe just enough to suck in a tiny amount of Stormlight (like Vin's "luck"). Also, there's animals who can make use of spren/stormlight. Skyeels and greatshells seem to form spren bonds. Larkin can consume Stormlight. Was this "planned" or also accidental? PS Another random thought. Szeth has been Truthless for 7 years. We known that there were spren looking for humans to bond more than 6 years ago. To close to be a co-incidence? Did Szeth spot the same signs the spren did?

I've not thought about this too deeply but here's some quick research: The first time Kaladin uses a staff is "seven and a half years ago" (WoK, chapter 16). Maybe closer to 8 years by WoR. There's certainly "something" there but to me it reads very much like the Thrill (which I don't think Kaladin knows about). I don't think I could quote the whole scene but: He's been rather showing off to Laral Kaladin is not protecting someone, just his pride/ego Kaladin is going against what his father would recommend and he knows it When he feels the change he becomes particularly aggressive, almost bloodthirsty If he hadn't stopped himself in shock that he'd hurt someone he might have killed Jost Everything about the scene feels "bad" to me. Syl would definitely not approve. Also, there is no follow-up - nothing to indicate a slowly developing bond. Actually, what this makes me remember is how Dalinar used to be a Thrill-junkie (as it were), by all accounts. He eventually found the light - Kaladin did much sooner. I can definitely understand Syl being attracted to the post-Tien pre-slave Kaladin - he's being protective, selfless etc but not until then. Edit I remembered that Dalinar might have somehow been using Stormlight (in small amounts) most of his life (to help with healing wounds and maybe more). I wonder what's going on here since it doesn't seem to fit the KR spren pattern. I'll have to think about it some more...

I've only got so much spare time myself Nalan seems to be the only Herald who thinks this though - or at least, he's certainly the only one we've seen take such action. If his actions are obviously right then it's odd that the other Heralds aren't doing similar things, considering what they did to Taln. The Stormfather hasn't indicated that there's such a problem either. Of course, it could be that Nalan has info that the others don't but that also seems odd. It would be interesting to know how long ago the Recreance was - if the gap between the last desolation and the Recreance was 1000+ years it would seem difficult to blame KRs for causing Desolations. Random side thought: I wonder if any of the Heralds had a direct hand in the Recreance. Since Lift thinks that Wyndle is a Voidbringer, I doubt he'd want to mention the death thing to Lift. It's interesting the Pattern basically seems to see his death as inevitable - yet as best as we can tell there was only one event like the Recreance. So either: there was more than one Recreance type event, something about the KRs changed over time making the Recreance inevitable, or it's not inevitable and Pattern etc are wrong about it (can't really blame them if most of the KR spren got killed). The thing I found most interesting about Wyndle is that he didn't even want to bond Lift but was basically told to. Is that specific to this case or possible in general? It would be very interesting if it was possible for any of the KR spren to form a basic bond with a human simply if they wanted to - ie it would be theoretically possible for everyone on Roshar to bond a spren (if there were enough to go around). Though it does seem that the Oaths/similar are an absolute requirement for progression (and a certain degree of compatibility may be required for maintaining the bond) I guess they may be as divergent as human society. Maybe they've learned too much... It would very interesting to know what the exact trigger was. Was it something specific like Taln returning (assuming that the "Taln" we see is a fake) or something more vague...? I've even wondered if some spren could be suckers for "celebs" More seriously, I wonder just what kind of searching capability the spren have to find potential humans to bond. Can they do some kind of wide area search or do they basically have to filter through humans individually? If it's laborious for them to search all humans, I guess they would prefer to narrow their search: eg to search Alethkar first because that's where many KR were based in the old days, for example.

Before WoR came out, there was a couple of things I had noticed about Shallan: we only ever see things from her point of view but she seemed to get along with everyone and everyone who knew her seemed to like her. Granted, there weren't that many examples but I had wondered if she was doing something to make people like her, even if slightly. After WoR this option is even stronger but it's also made clear that Shallan's perspective is unreliable (like Mat's from The Wheel of Time) and in particular she often glosses over negative things (though that's a gross simplification). It's interesting to note that Shallan has been changing people the whole time: the flashbacks indicate the positive influence she had on her brothers, at a time when her bond with Pattern (and ability to use Stormlight) would have been pretty much zero. Stormlight can enhance existing abilities to a high degree (like with Kaladin and fighting) but are her abilities at changing people quoted in the OP even beyond that? I think it's too early to say but if so then it would strongly hint that there's a more to the Transformation surge than entering Shadesmar and trying to persuade things to change. One example of Shallan's effect on others that you didn't list was on Kaladin - she doesn't draw any pictures of him and and doesn't do a Lightweaving scene on him but she certainly had a big effect on him. That may have been down to her natural gifts and dumb luck but either way, she had a big impact on him - without that chasm mini-story I doubt Kaladin would ever have opened up his eyes enough to see that Elhokhar is "Dalinar's Tien". Edit: It's minor but Shallan's also had a positive influence on Adolin - he credits her for giving him the idea of going underground to go around the Parshendi and this kind of strategic thinking is not something we've seen from Adolin before (that I remember). I would not be the least bit surprised if she does something to help Elhokhar in the next book...

Thanks Here's a few choice quotes of Ym's spren: The spren had been coming more often lately - specs of light, like those from a piece of crystal suspended in a sunbeam. It moved across the surface of the wokbench, slinking closer. When it stopped, light crept upward from it, like small plants growing of climb from their burrows. "Sh-shoe...?" a voice asked. Like that of a young woman, soft, with a kind of chiming musicality to it. The spren inched forward - tentative, like a cremling creeping out of its crack after a storm. It stopped, and light grew upward from it in the shape of tiny sprouts. Very interesting looking spren! This spren and Wyndle are definitely plant-like but thinking about it some more, I think they are too distinct (even if spren of same type come in many different shapes) and I like your suggestion that it is a spren for Truthwatchers and possibly even Glys - rather makes me wish I'd thought of it! Certainly this spren seems to grant the Progression Surge (for Regrowth) and if we consider Ym's personality, he does seem far more like Renarin than Lift. btw, i forgot that the first indication of Renarin's spren bond is back in chapter 14, when he grimaces while holding the Shardblade Adolin gave him. This is just after Ym's chapter, though that doesn't mean that there has to be a short in-world time gap between the two. Hmm, interesting ideas. If some spren have held back due to the Stormfather, then now that he's made a bond himself we'll see him repeal his ban. At least, other spren would be much keener to bond humans now.

Some info gathering on spren bonding, as of the end of WoR (spoilers ahoy!)... with some analysis. Prologue: Jasnah starts to form bond with Ivory "6 years ago". She feels that "she had sensed those eyes upon her during the previous months" - it wasn't out of the blue. Ivory seems to be in (leading?) a group of the same spren. Chapter 1: Jasnah states that "It's an act of self-preservation. The spren sense impending danger, and so return to us" Chapter 3: Jasnah states that "The knights' breaking of their oaths was very painful to the spren" and "Though Ivory won't speak of it, I gather that what he's done is regarded as a betrayal by the others of his kind" - I wonder if Ivory is the leader of a minority faction among his spren type. Chapter 6: Referring to the Spren she talked to in WoK when Soulcasting, Shallan thinks that "I do not think that voice belonged to Pattern". I suspect that is indeed the case because Pattern would likely have been semi-dead at the time. I suspect that other Cryptics were trying to encourage Shallan to re-form her bond with Pattern. Later in this chapter Jasnah says that she hopes she was "one of the first" (to form a spren bond) and doesn't seem to know of any others. Chapter 9: Syl believes she is the only honorspren to have come - the others were forbidden by the Stormfather. She knows there's others spren out there trying "in their own way, to reclaim what was lost". I don't think we have any real indication of when the Stormfather forbid the honorspren to form bonds or when Syl started looking. Chapter I-2: Ym has a basic bond with a plant-like spren, presumably recent from his point of view. He is killed by Nin. We don't know when this occurs based on any tie-in with real world events - it would be interesting to know if the spren was of the same type as Wyndle and whether they looked for a new candidate (ie Lift) after Ym died. Chapter 13: Pattern specifically says that "we... us... Worry. One was sent. Me." (by we/us he presumably means the Cryptics but possibly spren in general) in response to Shallan asking about the Voidbringers. We don't know when they started looking but Shallan's initial bond ended "6 years ago". Chapter I-9: Wyndle says to Lift that "You realize that I didn't choose you" and "the Ring said we should choose you". I don't think we know for certain what the Ring is but I'm guessing this is some kind of ruling council for Wyndle's spren type. Lift and Wyndle have been together for some months and Gawx becoming Prime ties in with Dalinar's reference to a new Prime at the end of the book, so the events of the chapter seem to be roughly in order with the main chapters. Chapter 80: Elhokar thinks that Kaladin frightened away the shadowy spren. Given that these seem to be Cryptics I wonder if they left because Shallan's bond with Pattern reformed instead - the timing would be right - ie maybe they were considering Elhokar as a backup plan. If so, I wonder if Pattern knows. Chapter 89: Dalinar forms a bond with the Stormfather, even though he didn't want to (I'm guessing he was compelled to by Honor). We also find out that Renarin has a spren bond that seems recent (given that his eyes improved only recently). Edit: forgot that first indication of Renarin's spren bond is back in chapter 14, when he grimaces while holding the Shardblade Adolin gave him. Here's my summary analysis: Some (all?) of the spren capable of forming the Nahel bond can tell that another Desolation is coming This threatens their existence, so they want to do something about it The spren need to form bonds with humans to help try to prevent what's coming but are highly reluctant to do so because of the Recreance. The minimum they can risk is sending just one member (ie in Pattern's case, and maybe others too). Maybe more might come later. Pattern seems to view what he's doing as practically being like a suicide mission. The Stormfather forbid honorspren from bonding at all and fears death himself. I don't remember Syl or Wyndle seeming to fear death though. There's 10 types of spren capable of forming Nahel bonds but I don't see any indication that they're actively working together or are unified, though they all face the same problem. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of arguing going on behind the scenes - some are probably denying reality (like the Stormfather) and some are more pragmatic/serious. The earliest bondings we know about are Jasnah and Shallan. Curiously, they both occur close together (within a few months) and then there's a huge gap to the next one we know of (Kaladin). It seems unlikely to me that Jasnah and Shallan's spren were responding to something different - but then, where's the others? I suspect Nin killed some and the rest dismissed the threat. And here's some rampant speculation... I've seen a number of posts in this forum where there's grumbling that the Kholin family is attracting more than its fair share of Nahel bonding spren (and may be getting even more). I can think of one possibility (that doesn't require any assumptions) - network effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect Similarly to how the "network effect" can encourage users to congregate at a particular website (success breeds success) it could be that some spren have specifically chosen members of the Kholin household because other spren have done so previously. The spren would know that the humans have forgotten much, and need to re-learn. The most efficient way to maximise re-learning potential would be to do so in a group. They also might be doing this because Nin is going around killing proto-KRs. So once one spren has formed a bond successfully with a human, other spren may independently decide to follow in the first spren's footsteps and deliberately pick a suitable family member of the first human, if one is available. The 10 groups of Nahel bonding spren seem to operate independently, so they may not necessarily agree with their fellow spren. They may also have more specific requirements. Not all spren may even realise what is going on with the Kholins. So, I don't think it's a problem that not all spren have chosen the Kholin household (there's only so many to go around anyway) or have chosen at different times.

I've had a few thoughts on this subject myself. I don't know how much we can accurately infer from Shallan's case to Lightweavers in general but for the "honesty" divine attribute, I wonder if this is more in the Japanese sense rather than Western sense - the spren are (loosely) based on the Japanese Shinto idea about there being spirits in everything. In Japanese, a common phrase in anime/manga is for a character to be described as "sunao ja nai" which can be translated as character not being honest with themselves. A stereotypical romcom situation for this phrase would be a character "obviously" liking/loving another character, but denying it when challenged. ie emotional honesty. I don't think there's a common word in Japanese that directly corresponds to the Western concept of being "honest" as a whole (though I'm NOT saying that the concept doesn't exist!) So maybe this "honest" divine attribute is more about emotional honesty. How well does this apply to Shallan? Quite well, I think, though certainly not perfectly. Perhaps the most obvious example is how Shallan still blushes all the time. Perhaps the best counter-example is that she has a strong inclination to focus on the positive side of things and avoid the negative side - I have a suspicion she avoids negative emotions as well (possibly more unconsciously than actively). That said, she can certainly feel fear (enough to attract fearspren), shows anger etc. It could also be argued that Shallan's "emotional honesty" is why her tongue tends to run away with her - she doesn't have much control over expressing her emotions and likewise doesn't have much control with her words. She certainly does have some control and if she's under heavy pressure she can be more in control and for longer but will tend to revert to her natural self anyway. For example, she respects both Jasnah's and Tyn's opinion and on her initial meetings with Adolin she tries to do what she feels they would recommend but despite the critical importance of her relationship with Adolin it's not long before she's reverting to her usual self. Some other thoughts on Shallan and being "honest": I don't think Shallan likes to lie (in the normal sense) and it's quite interesting that she still hopes to find absolute truth out there somewhere - truth that isn't shaped by human perception. She's also more than capable of being bluntly honest if she feels that it's the best option - such as with her first meeting with Dalinar. I doubt any of the other major characters would have been so willing to potentially undermine their own position so much. I've also noticed that she's quite critical of herself (which I suspect puts off some readers) and uses self-deprecating humour a lot. I don't remember anything indicating that she has a big ego. Another interesting thing about Shallan that I've not seen any discussion on is how she promised the deserters clemency and really kept to it - she is very much against Tyn's plan to collect the bounties on them and is quite adamant more than once that she "gave her word". She seems rather like Mat (from The Wheel of Time) in this regard.

Had fun idea last night, though much more in keeping with Shallan mostly using her powers for "support" in an army rather than direct combat: imagine a pre-battle situation where the odds are terrible and the "grunts" are depressed, so Shallan decides to pep them up by using her Lightweaving abilities to create a huge image+voice projection of Syl (assuming that by this time Shallan has advanced control over sounds and can project/amplify Syl's voice). Basically use giant-sized Syl to motivate the soldiers Imagine it being night and then suddenly a huge beautiful and ethereal woman appears - she would be like a goddess. Would make nice cover image. Ah, such fun possibilities...