kari-no-sugata

Yeah, she's not combat-orientated - unless Shallan starts using an Honorblade for extra Surges I expect she'll mostly avoid direct combat for now... though I would love to see her just waltz into the combat training ground and ask the ardents there for combat training... just to see how everyone would react With Shallan, I strongly suspect that Brandon is trying to go for a very different type of character to Vin - I was re-reading The Final Empire last week noticed that he seems to be taking the opposite approach in almost all aspects. At least so far. Can you imagine Shallan using her delicate artistic fingers to punch someone...? But yes, there's certainly possibilities for her. Soulcasting in combat might be of limited use (even if she can do it remotely like Jasnah) due to the heavy Stormlight requirements, particularly if trying to use on Invested enemies I suspect. With Lightweaving, at a basic level it would be interesting if she could go invisible - that could be very effective in combination with her Shadeblade. A simple trick could be to surround enemies in a dome of darkness to disorientate them until troops on her side are in perfect position. There's been some heavy hinting that sound-based weapons have been used in the past on a massive scale. But it might be hard to focus a sound weapon on just your enemies, so she'd need to do such things away from her allies if so. The use of light based weapons would certainly be interesting - and would literally be flashy. I wonder what else is possible.

Oh, that's very interesting idea! That never occurred to me but yes, if Adolin did attract a spren we might need to worry about spren comparability with Pattern. A spren's personality doesn't necessarily reflect the human and I remember a general hint that it's more than just the honorspren and cryptics that have politics

I guess it would depend a lot on how she finds out. Also, she saw the thugs get killed in TWoK, which was a large party of her distress. My guess is a sequence of events like this: 1) Shallan notices Adolin acting odd (maybe even before she finds out Sadeas is dead) 2) Shallan asks him what's wrong. He lies and she notices (with Pattern she's good at detecting lies) so she keeps asking 3) Lets say for sake of example that Adolin confesses and tells Shallan pretty much everything 4) Within last few days, Shallan has been forced to remember that she killed her own mother. She was also very forgiving of her brothers' darker side. She also knows that Sadeas is nasty guy (Adolin filled her in on it on their 3rd meeting and she could tell Adolin was pretty upset about it all). Also recall that it was Shallan's idea for Adolin to do something spectacular, get the King's Boon and duel Sadeas to the death. In short: I think Shallan could be reasonably ok with it. But it could go very differently too.

With regards to "journey before destination" and what Adolin did, I agree that it doesn't fit very well. But we also have WoB that some KR orders would be ok with what Adolin did. That means that it can potentially fit if we consider it the right way - journey before destination isn't absolute and is still up to interpretation. For example, if you had an Ideal like "I will destroy those corrupted by Odium" or so then it could work since Sadeas was totally a tool of Odium. PS In the chapter when Adolin meets Sadeas just after meeting Shallan at the highstorm cafe (when they've separated into rooms for men and rooms for women) Adolin pretty much publicly threatens to kill Sadeas. We readers dont take it too seriously simply because we dont (yet) see Adolin as being that type of person. But, in retrospect there's plenty of signs. Also, I think that scene might be used in evidence by those who still support Sadeas after his death (eg his wife).

There's an awful lot we dont know about Shardplate. For example, a lot of people seem to assume that all Radiants get/have plate. It's certainly common but we've not seen any KRs out of the front line - it may be that only combat orientated KRs have it. We've not seen any direct indication that the plate we see today are "dead spren" like Shardblades. If we assume this is the case (that they're not based on spren that are now dead) then it's probably better to think of it as something manufactured, and given how long it lasts then it seems reasonable to assume that a lot of plates we see even in Dalinar's flashbacks are handed down. Personally, I think it is either Soulcast (partially or totally) or almost all the Shardplates were made in a brief period where forging skills were at a very high level and all plates we've seen were handed down from then (when previous owner dies / retires). Even if it was Soulcast, I suspect the process is difficult enough that making new Plate is very hard and most are handed down. PS I don't know if this will continue but currently Shallan is not combat orientated at all. Not that it would be useless for her but it just doesn't fit her character (currently). However, I can certainly see her and Navani investigating how to make Plate and trying to make for others.

I don't think we should be too surprised by Adolin's actions. Here's a quote: That's from the very first chapter Adolin is in. Rather reminds me of Syl talking about how Kaladin gets with lighteyes in general. I'm more interested in how the other characters would react: I think Shallan would take it pretty calmly - I can easily see her giving him a comforting hug and defending him (she's done worse in the past and could relate to it, though she hasn't killed anyone she's hated). Hard to say about Renarin - just don't know enough about him. Navani is also hard to guess at - I suspect she would defend him publicly to some degree but berate him a bit in private. I think Dalinar would be very upset and would probably feel he's required to bring Adolin to justice. Kaladin would be rather torn, since he certainly hates Sadeas but would strongly disagree with the methods. Jasnah might be fine with it and just berate him for being sloppy.

So far, I suspect Adolin talking to his sword is just one of those quirks to make characters more interesting/rounded. However, I did have this idea: Adolin deliberately did not name his sword because he doesn't know it's original name and doesn't want to make up something wrong for it. So, once he finds out all "old" Shardblades are basically dead-ish spren maybe he asks Shallan if she can figure anything out (probably when he doesn't know about the screaming KR hear when touching a dead Shardblade) and that kicks off a series of things that eventually allows the spren to be restored, and Adolin becomes a KR in the process.

Urithiru is the highest place on Roshar - maybe that's how it's "closest" to Honour? It's definitely not in Shinovar - Szeth describes it as the "only place in the East where the stones were not cursed"

Hmm. In the epilogue, Wit/Hoid says that the Everstorm "should hit Shinovar tonight". It doesn't appear to be the Weeping any more during that scene so I guess Szeth has 2 weeks at least. Will be interesting to see what happens: if Shinovar doesn't have some special protection, it's basically toast. Oh, here's something I thought of the other day that forgot for a while: there's a whole bunch of Honorblades in Shinovar - I wonder if they have any kind of area effect even if not being used...?

Something I just noticed - don't remember discussion on it before and found nothing with search. Chapter 6, Jasnah: I-10, Szeth (in Urithiru): Two knowledgeable people think there's something inherently special about the land of Urithiru. I doubt this is a co-incidence. Also, consider this: the Everstorm is due to hit Shinovar before Szeth can get there... but "everyone" thinks Shinovar is only protected from highstorms due to its location and mountains to the east of it, which would not apply to the Everstorm. If it has no "other" protection then the place is going to get wiped out by the Everstorm before Szeth can even get there. That would make for a poor story. But what if Shinovar is protected from Voidbringers like Urithiru? Also consider that the original working title for book 3 was "Stones Unhallowed". There's something going on here that we know very little about, I suspect.

Earlier in the thread it's stated that the person at the gates and the person brought to the warcamps in the same. Some direct WoB: Ok, so let's say that the person at the gate is not Taln. Then we have an important thing to consider: when did the real Taln arrive!? As best as I can tell, we'd have no Voidbringers without Taln returning. We may not have all the facts but it seems like a good bet that the real Taln had to have returned already, somewhere. So... pick a date? How about 6-7 years ago. It seems a bunch of KR spren felt that the Voidbringers were about to return starting from that time and started looking for humans to bond with. PS the KR spren that we've seen so far really weren't that keen on bonding. Unsurprisingly, given what happened in the past. So unless there's some oddball KR spren that kept on bonding, it's probably been 1000s of years since we had even basic Surgebinders (apart from the Heralds).

Teft says there were 40 ideals, 4 per order in WoK. But we know this to be wrong - Shallan certainly doesn't have 4. Teft says the KR took their "inspiration" from the WoK book but we don't know how accurate that is or exactly what it means. The book does have 40 parables but at the moment we have no reason to relate this to the number of KR ideals. On a side note, the WoK book is very much aimed at monarchs based on the quotes we've seen. Certainly Nohadon was frustrated about Surgebinders going bad but his actual book seemed much more aimed at kings than Surgebinders. Hence "the way of kings" rather than "the way of chivalry", though that's not to say that the KR didn't take moral inspiration from the book. It does seem quite likely though that "Surgebinders using the Nahel bond" were around for a long time before Nohadon, perhaps even 1000+ years. I'd bit rather surprised if after all that time all the KR spren decided to change because of a book. PS I'm not in any way criticizing Teft here. There's big problems with keeping accurate knowledge across 1000s of years - Jasnah spends a lot of time worrying about the accuracy of any of her sources and she's a super-informed expert.

Referring to the OP, if you mean that Jasnah might have been involved with Dalinar's trip to see the Nightwatcher then I think you've got good evidence there. Nicely done.

I should clarify that when I say "KR spren" and talking about KRs in the original post I really mean in the general sense of "Surgebinders using the Nahel bond" rather than strictly official "Knights Radiant ". Certainly "Surgebinders using the Nahel bond" existed long before Nahodan. I don't remember there being a WoB (or good evidence in the books) that the First Oath originated from Nahodan - got a quote? Nahodan had a big influence on "Surgebinders using the Nahel bond" but I suspect this is more cultural level rather than at a fundamental magic system level. I have no idea.

Somewhat whacky theory I came up with today. Here I'm using "cargo cult" in the common sense, rather than specific historical sense. There's a related term that's a bit more high-brow: sympathetic magic I can't seem to find the exact WoB (never seem to have much luck) but I think he's said more than once that the KRs came from spren trying to mimic/copy the powers of Heralds. That is, it wasn't planned / designed by the Shards of Roshar - it's more of an accident. For my theory, I have two assumption: Firstly: That new "types" of spren can appear over time - they can change type to some degree. Since there is some kind of feedback loop between humans (or sentient beings in general) and spren, this seems quite plausible to me - if humans start to view spren in different ways then the spren can change. In short: the KR spren we think of today were all originally different types of spren. Secondly: what originally caught the spren's attention was NOT the personality of the various Heralds - but what they were doing. Here's my thoughts: 1) Heralds appear on Roshar and spren notice them doing "awesome stuff" - for example, ordinary wind spren could notice a Herald flying past and find this very interesting. 2) Because the spren are consistently attracted to the Heralds, they form a minor bond. This enabled the spren to be "uplifted" (become smarter) and start to change. 3) The spren want to see more "awesome stuff". As they become more aware they would notice the humans looking at the Heralds in awe. 4) The spren try to get the ordinary humans to do "awesome stuff". They do this by trying to blindly copy the Heralds - copy what the Heralds have (magic swords) and how they act (personality). Hence "cargo cult". 5) Eventually spren are able to form true bonds with humans and this uplifts them further. This is when they really diverge from their original "type" - particularly when the feedback loop kicks in and humans regard the KR spren are being new/different. 6) It's possible that the first KR oath was copied from the Heralds too, which is why it is consistent when everything else about the orders seems (and how their spren bonds work) are highly divergent. So, to summarise: I think KR spren were "originally" different (more ordinary) types of spren - honorspren could really have been windspren originally. The original spren changed due to their relationships with the Heralds and then humans. There's no direct relationship between the type of spren, what they look for in KRs and the Surges they grant, making the particular attributes that KR spren look for in humans more of a "frozen accident": a side effect of the personality of the Heralds that got locked in because people and spren believed it was important. There is little consistency between the KR spren because they all developed independently (convergent evolution if you will). I suspect that originally all the KR spren were not quite so discerning and at first there might even have been more than one type of spren that could grant a particular pair of Surges. Over time, the KR spren and KR beliefs became entrenched, resulting in a single consistent solution for each KR order. I suspect it's theoretically possible that spren could grant any combination of Surges or even more than 2 - they would just need to believe it was possible. However, there may also be a particular reason why Honor gave each Herald their two particular Surges, so in practice that may be almost impossible for other reasons.

When I first read her "death scene" I really thought she was dead. But, after getting to the end of the book and re-reading that scene I thought it was reasonably well foreshadowed that she could have survived. I was really annoyed at first - didn't particularly want to see another "damsel in distress" arc with Shallan but she pretty quickly became awesome. I have a vague memory of Brandon saying (prob just after tWoK release) that Shallan and Jasnah would probably arrive at the Shattered Plains at the start of WoR since he doesn't like doing arcs where characters are just walking from A to B. I was vaguely hoping that this indicated she wasn't supposed to die. I'm pretty sure that Shallan could have figured it out if she'd thought about it... but it's abundantly clear that she avoids thinking about painful memories. 1) Jasnah is Elsecaller (Shallan knowns she shares Transformation Surge with Jasnah but is in different order, so Jasnah has to be an Elsecaller) 2) Her corpse vanished (if she questions Pattern, who she sent to look at the deck, she might realise they couldn't have dragged off her corpse either) 3) She could survive a stab through the heart with Stormlight - Shallan herself says she could probably survive being stabbed with a spear later in the book. Of the 3, Shallan only knew item 2 at the time, though she could have figured out item 1 if she had had time to read the in-world Words of Radiance. I wonder how long it'll be until something jogs her memory and she starts thinking about it.

In chapter 55, Shallan meets Hoid again who then "mysteriously vanishes", leaving a man with a Bav accent... which just happens to be Tyn's go-to accent for being ignored. I'm pretty sure the Bav guy was Hoid using Lightweaving.

I noticed two interesting passages in chapter 73 (flashback where Shallan kills her father): This is presumably her real mother. Gives a strong indication that Shallan had a long sense of impending doom with her mother too - rather than it being very sudden. This "cold mode" of Shallan is rather creepy - reminds me a bit of Taravangian intelligent/compassionate swings and having to live with the guilt logic forced on him. I wonder if she is why she says she "I hate logic, always have" when Kaladin goes to sacrifice himself? In chapter 34 Shallan goes "Can't run, can't run, can't run.... Fight" when Tyn tries to kill her. I'd guess that something similar happened with Shallan and her mother: she was trapped, couldn't run, went into cold mode and found only one possible solution: summon her Shardblade and use it.

I seem to remember Dalinar hearing "whispers on the wind" (as it were) that sounded like parts of the first oath. Dont have reference to hand though. Basically: I dont think you need to "work out" or happen to read the Oath, you can "feel" it with a provisional bond... possibly depending on the strength of the provisional bond and how well you are living the oaths.

Funny you say this since in my post above (written a few hours ago) I had started writing something along these lines but decided to remove it out since I wasn't sure how well we could apply Snapping to "Breaking", I couldn't find the WoB on "positive" Snapping and felt that some things hinted otherwise after researching a bit. In chapter 13 Pattern says: And in chapter 60: However, for all his odd word usage, Pattern seems very literal. With the first quote he's basically saying that Shallen's lies saved her from breaking and that's what attracted him to her in the first place. As best as I can tell, without an Honorblade it's impossible to do any kind of Surgebinding without a spren - you can do very limited Surgebinding without the oaths but nothing without a spren. So, Shallan's playing with light in the gardens etc would had have to have happened after she started bonding with Pattern originally. Well... unless this playing with light is like a child creating a fictional friend (or friends) to play with. Hmm, here's a new theory: 1) Let's assume that Shallan's family was not a "happy family" even before her mother died or Shallan did any Lightweaving. I doubt that her father's change to an angry, obsessive, violent drunk came out of nothing, for example. 2) Shallan avoids confrontation, particularly as a child. This could have started earlier than we thought. 3) Shallan would like to live in a happy family and has a good imagination - consider her "dream family scene" with Hoid in the "Middlefest" flashback (chapter 45). 4) Let's assume that before Shallan ever started Surgebinding her mother and father had heated arguments and that Shallan would go into the garden to escape. For a child, arguing parents can be quite traumatic. though maybe there was something particularly significant on top of that. 5) So, all the above led to Shallen seeking shelter in the gardens and inventing childhood playmates or similar. ie "lies". These lies helped her cope with the stress. 6) This attracted Pattern and then Shallan started Surgebinding. 7) Now, Shallan's imaginations became "real" 8) The bond deepens and Shallan is able to speak the first oath 9) Eventually her mother finds out and unable to get Shallan to stop eventually sends for an "expert" 10) This expert persuades Shallan's mother that her daughter has to die (sounds like one of Nin/Nalan's underlings) I don't know when Pattern first ever formed as a Shardblade but I suspect he was capable of it before that fateful even with Shallan's mother. Shallan's oaths/growth work differently to Kaladin so a crisis situation would not necessarily help her grow. I think it's quite possible that Pattern was capable of manifesting as a Shardblade weeks/months before that event but Shallan wasn't interested in weapons so had no need for it.

Pattern does say (chapter 60) that Shallan's images used to be able to produce sound - this would pretty much have to be before her mother's death. This is good evidence that Shallan was doing advanced Lightweaving before she shut down due to her mother's death. I think there was a WoB to that effect too. Two other interesting things for chapter 60: immediately after Pattern mentions Shallan's images being able to produce sound, Shallan has another mental blank (followed by a clear "blink" interestingly). I wonder if we'll ever see Shallan having one of these episodes with others around her. The other interesting thing is this bit: This is where she is talking about using lies to save herself (from traumatic experiences) but this last sentence seems to be referring to events prior to her mother's death. While "discovering Light in the gardens" sounds quite harmless ,"dreams that became real" sounds dangerous and frightening. Seems like a pretty clear hint to me - this could be what Pattern is referring to when he says "They break. Their minds break. You did not break. Only cracked" (chapter 13) That being said, Shallan's past is still somewhat of a mystery - some things we know and some things we still have to guess at. I think this is more because Shallan effectively has to gain power by unravelling the lies within herself and if the readers see it all before Shallan does then it loses impact. She seems the opposite to Kaladin in this regard - she gains power due to internal developments (doesn't depends on others) while Kaladin gains power due to external developments (directly depends on relationships with others).

Thanks for the correction/info, all. I had missed that reference.

In chapter 28, Tyn introduces Shallan to eyedrops that darken your eyes for a few hours. But I don't recall them being actually used. It's not like Shallan needs eyedrops for a disguise either... but surely these are going to be used at some point? My best idea: Kaladin will be nervous about going to visit his parents with light eyes and happens to mention it to Shallan (or in Shallan's hearing) and she suggests the eyedrops. Teeny tiny theory but just for a bit of fun PS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun

I remember Brandon saying that he doesn't have a "study" in the normal writer's sense and tends to write on his laptop wherever he feels comfortable (or something like that), so I can sort of imagine Shallan's very casual studying attitude coming from that. However, I'd very much doubt that he writes and drinks (unlike some authors)! Thinking about it, I guess it is possible for Shallan to develop a "drinking problem" (even if we ignore her family): she's been relying on lying to herself, distracting herself etc as a way to avoid pain. If she's forced to confront some of her deeper problems, particularly with her family, then it might bring her a lot of mental pain and she may (unconsciously) turn to drink to help her cope. In the meantime, there's a perfectly innocent explanation for drinking moderate amounts of weak alcohol: http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopx.htm Basically because it was often safer than drinking water...

Bit of a tangent but anyone else notice that Shallan seems to swear a lot more towards the end of the book? I haven't actually counted this though so it may be a false impression. I think it's just a "side effect" of her character development - it's like she spent the last 6 years repressing herself and is now making up for lost time...