kari-no-sugata

Jasnah was exhausted, it's quite reasonable that she was surprised. Based on what she and Hoid say at the end it's pretty much certain that when Jasnah Elsecall'd from the ship it was the first time she ever did that - if she could do it before she would definitely go talk to the spren there to get info! Which likely also explains her problems getting back. Ergo, it was unplanned (for her to Elsecall) and almost certainly done in desperation. [edit] Oh, new signing info. Hmm.

Quote from chapter 85 ("Swallowed by the sky"): Tiny bit later: I think this bit shows that the countdown to doom was from Renarin. Renarin certainly thinks he can see the future. Random thought but maybe the reason why Syl doesn't like it is because this "seeing the future" is limited to attacks from Voidbringers or something?

Hmm, I dont remember Syl equating seeing the future to Odium. I remember her not liking it but she never explained why. Honor himself seemed ok with it.

Early in WoR Shallan and Jasnah have a discussion about the Hierocracy having edited old works to suit themselves meaning that there's no "reliable" texts around. That I remember, no specific example is raised in the rest of the book - I guess because the characters don't yet know enough. When Shallan finally gets to read the in-world "words of radiance" book the section on Truthwatcher says very little. Suspiciously little - even if this particular Order had been very secretive there should have been rumours. I think the Hierocracy had a particular reason to heavily edit the Truthwatchers: the priests of the Hierocracy claimed to be able to have visions of the future, like actual Truthwatchers. The downfall of the Hierocracy lead to anyone claiming to be able to see the future to be regarded as extremely suspect - I doubt this was the case before since otherwise the Hierocracy wouldn't have claimed that ability. If Renarin is any guide, the Truthwatchers did in fact have a particular ability to see the future. So, assuming that is correct then the Hierocracy would fear any (accurate) info on the Truthwatchers being recorded. Rather than make up something they probably just removed it - simpler and more reliable (since all books throughout the world have to be changed in a reasonably consistent way). So, a boring simple theory: the Hierocracy claimed to have the similar abilities to the Truthwatchers and so heavily edited the texts on them. PS Yes I'm assuming that Renarin wrote the countdown messages (or his Spren did). He did write a countdown of zero at the end of the book after all. But I dont remember any abilities of his being confirmed and there's been surprisingly little discussion that I can see on them.

He's not a figure of authority though - he tends to cut them down to size himself too... just not quite so literally as Shallan

That's what I thought too. I wonder if he planned to do that from the start or decided to after being surprise glomped by Shallan...

Normally when we see an icon of a "masked man" in the header we expect to see Hoid or some reference to him in the chapter. He certainly disguises himself a lot. What's Shallan's "handle" in the Ghostbloods? Veil - not quite the same but close to being a mask, don't you think? She's developes into an expert (though not master) of disguise during the book. Just a coincidence? Well, either way I think Brandon has been dropping a few hints... In flashback chapter 45 (Middlefest), Hoid is certainly surprised to see the younger Shallan. I'd be very interested to know exactly what surprises him so much - he drops his drink and gapes. This isn't stated clearly but there is a strong implication that he's realised that she's a proto-Radiant and probablly a Lightweaver - he talks to her about imagination, lies and truth. At the end there's a strong hint that he'd be willing to help her learn, when he has time and when she's "ready". Shallan has had two apprenticeships so far (Jasnah and Tyn). We expected at least two: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=593#14 I'm expecting her next apprenticeship to either be with Navani or a sword-master. At some point in the series, I have a feeling that she will figure out Hoid/Wit has been doing something similar to herself and corner him about it and she'll then have a stint as an apprentice to Hoid! Just a theory.... (but oh it would be fun!) PS For anyone curious for the title reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nij%C5%AB_Mens%C5%8D_no_Musume (for some reason, this series came to mind when thinking about this...)

In chapter 78, Shallan says: But I think I could actually take a spear through the stomach, and my abilities would heal me up without a scar. I'm probably the most difficult person to kill in this entire camp. (Wonder if she'll ever apply this reasoning to Jasnah...) In chapter 7, there's a non-trivial gap between from when Shallan first creates a crude vision that distracts the men and makes them run up to the deck and when Shallan enter's Jasnah's room (Shallan sends Pattern to investigate first - it's probably a few minutes before she opens her door again). Shallan expects to trip over Jasnah's body and doesn't - and wonders if one of the men dragged it above (very unlikely). Side note: Jasnah's bed was covered in blood. I very much doubt Jasnah could use a body double - there's no evidence that she's capable of doing that. The most obvious explanation is that she used the time between the men leaving and Shallan entering to heal herself and teleport. I wonder if she teleported that way deliberately? Since Wit/Hoid says its first time someone has done that in a long time I suspect it was somewhat accidental - she may have been barely conscious at the time. I wonder if she feels bad for leaving Shallan?

That Adolin is so good at duelling is a strong indication that he at least has a strong affiinity for Stormlight, since it "perfects" etc. I suspect that if Adolin survives long enough he'll become a Radiant but he's not close to being one yet. I don't see his final act in the book hurting his chances.

bit surprised this hasn't gotten a mention already: Shallan glomped Hoid! (and he was flabbergasted about it too... hehehe) While I dont think Shallan/Hoid has much of a chance I get a strong feeling we could see her apprenticing to him.

So, going back to the OP a bit... The following occured to me on first reading of this prologue: to some degree, stuff in the proglue should be setting up the mood a bit for the rest of the story - while this does show a "new" side to Jasnah I dont think anyone was particularly surprised, so I dont think this was the main intent here. The big thing that occured to me is that this is more showing that assassination is a pretty "normal" activity for Aelethi - in book 1 we've mostly been seeing the male lighteyes fighting among each other, I'd expect this infighting to move more to the female side (or rather, into the shadows and behind the scenes). Aelethi society is pretty nasty and even with Dalinar becoming Highprince of War that's not going to change. So, things like assassinations, spies, kidnappings, blackmail, bribary etc are all likely to be day-to-day concerns... and a whole new experience for Shallan.

I have a vague memory of Brandon hinting Shallan's book might be called "The Shattered Plains" a long time ago. I'm glad he decided to drop that since it sounds like a natural history book or something - not inappropriate for Shallan, just a bit dull. Shame we might lose "Highprince of War" - that's pretty cool name. Either way, best news was that the book might be out late this year!

I just noticed Brandon's latest blog entry: Difficult choice...

There's no indication that the Ghostbloods know about Shallan's abilities though. It's possible they know something we dont of course, but unless her super memory is a big give-away it seems unlikely. I dont know what Kabsal really thought of Shallan. We only see him through her eyes and she generally had a rosy-eyed view of him generally. Still, you raise some good points. Shame we dont have (and wont have) annotations for this book.

It could be something as simple as Jasnah knowing the Ghostbloods exist in the first place. She's certainly not the only one but being by herself and without any guards etc it makes her vulnerable. If you're a secret evil organisation, then staying secret would be important. On a related note, the following occurred me: Jasnah was clearly meant to die by poisoning but Shallan was also clearly meant to survive. But Shallan's not stupid and nobody thinks she is - if she survives she'd almost be able to figure out who the poisoner was. Which would make her a big liability. So either Kabsal has a stupid soft spot for Shallan... or they planned to use her to help cover up their hand in the murder. Eg drug/hypnotize Shallan into making her claim to be the killer. Given that Shallan's currently in hospital over a suspected suicide it would make the perfect timing.

Szeth's biggest advantage is that he knows how to use Stormlight but nobody he's fought so far does. But, if Kaladin gets involved with fighting him and notices Szeth using Stormlight then he could target any spheres Szeth is carrying and also tell everyone to take spheres away from the fight so Szeth can't "reload". If Szeth runs out of Stormlight and can't get any more then he'd be relatively easy to defeat if surrounded by enemies. He wouldn't be able to run away either, unless there's no Shardbearers left alive. Also, if Szeth runs out of Stormlight then Jasnah (or Shallan) could use remote Soulcasting to capture/disable/kill him... though I'm sure Jasnah would prefer to capture him alive for questioning.

Szeth's mind/soul is clearly beginning to break under the strain - his religion/honor is forcing him to continuously do things he considers to be heinous. He's crying in combat, he hates himself and wants to die, he's blaming his victims for not being able to kill him and hears the screams of his dead victims in his head. I would say Szeth is already "insane" by the end of the book but not yet "broken". He could break and decide to no longer obey his oathstone and live with the guilt. He could break and lose all his morals, turning into an uncaring killing machine. Or his insanity will make him weak enough that he gets killed. All hints from Brandon have suggested that book 2 will be mostly set at the Shattered Plains, so unless only a few weeks pass within in entire book, Szeth should definitely show up. It's pretty much a "promise to the readers" too. However, it's also been strongly hinted that both Szeth and Dalinar are major characters for the overall series - basically, neither can die in book 2. If Szeth doesn't break then if he fails to kill Dalinar he will try again. He can't kill himself or allow himself to be killed and given how strong he is, it's unlikely he'll face anything so dangerous that it would be "suicide" to try - meaning I dont see how he could be "persuaded" to flee without killing Dalinar first. In other words, when Szeth attacks the only realistic seeming options are: he kills Dalinar and escapes or he is killed... or... maybe he is captured. If he gets captured then he wouldn't be able to kill anyone and also nobody would be able to order him to do anything since they wouldn't have his oathstone. He'd probably be a bit relieved! (Why would Dalinar and co want to capture him though? To question him of course) How could Szeth be captured? Some "random" (unexpected) element surprises him. That could be Kaladin. Or Dalinar if his powers start to develop. Or Jasnah (or Shallan's) inherent soul-casting ability (though he might need to run out of Stormlight first). Or Shallan's Shardblade (since no woman would be expected to have one). I'm very much expecting Shallan to draw her Shardblade at some "dramatic" moment. Rather than ordinary "foreshadowing" the amount and obviousness of the hints suggests to me that Brandon wants the foreshadowing to be obvious enough so that it's definitely not a "deus ex machina" when she finally pulls it out.

Let's review the actual quote in context (p450 of hardback), after Szeth gives short speech on adding vs taking: Szeth is only publicly famous for one event at this point in time. These two have never met before. I dont think anybody would consider Shinovar to be "one of the greatest kingdoms in Roshar". If Szeth thought this guy was referring to something internal to Shinovar dont you think he would be surprised, like in his scene with Taravangian? Szeth views any killing very negatively, even if it's something he "had" to do. Szeth "corrects" him so they're clearly talking about the same thing. Here's another quote (p716): This second quote strongly suggests that until recently he'd considered his "assault on Alethkar" to be his worst killing. Conclusion: If the first quote is not referring to Gavilar/Alethkar then I would say it's bad writing. We dont see the immediate aftermath so we dont know just how destabilising it was but there is a hint or two that it could have gone pretty badly (as others have quoted).

My gut feeling is that Dalinar's oath to Renarin wont become a hostage to fortune. When I try to think of how such a scene could be explained in a novel, my mind rebels - it just feels ungainly, awkward and risks making the magic system a deus ex machina. It's entirely possible I could be dead wrong, but those are my current feelings. I very much doubt that any possible oath within Roshar is equally powerful / constraining. Like with Awakening Commands, some will be a lot more powerful than others. For example, to me it seems like the first Oath of Knights Radiant is not nearly so magical as the second one - at least, I dont remember any suddenly power-up unlike when Kaladin invokes his Second Oath at the end of the book. So I suspect it was something entirely of human invention to help bind the various orders together and give them better direction.

Dalinar is very much planning to stay away from the front lines it seems. In addition, he's given up his Blade and Plate already. So the chance of him beating Shardbearer now are quite remote... but maybe if he gets hold of some serious new power then it might become realistic - dont forget that he's been using Shards for 30+ years, so we shouldn't expect him to be effective without it. So, I dont expect this scenario to come about. But it was interesting to mull over. I also hope we dont see such lawyer-like arguments over words, intentions and so on... Another thing to consider though: I dont think all "oaths" will be equally important. Maybe like with Awakening, some words are much more important than others even if there might not be an immediate reason why. The oaths swearing to an Ideal seem super-critical, for example - though I imagine they need to be backed up with actions on an on-going basis too.

I think Rock is totally trolling us! (just kidding!) It's a bit surprising that even when it becomes "public" (amongst bridge 4 at least) about Kaladin's powers that Rock doesn't seem to volunteer any extra info. But, given that no Horneaters have beaten any shardbearers I'm guessing that maybe what he knows isn't that huge...

There's no suggestion (that I can see) of that in the book itself though - this is also a very long way from your line earlier where you suggested "She would probably faint if someone actually told her to do something herself unless they were from a vastly superior family." Yalb seems fond of Shallan and Shallan seems to be relaxed around the sailors (except when they're teasing her). It's also explicitly stated in the book the Shallan's father was an investor in the captain's business, which is why she's getting a big discount - she should have upper hand in this regard. If she wanted to bend them to her whims or at least back off a bit, she could use that angle, but there's no indication she thought of doing that. She doesn't give any indication of resenting them (or they her). In short, I dont get a sense of one side pushing the other around. On a side note: I wonder if there's much chance that the captain could be part of the Ghostbloods? Hmm... I agree with most of what you say here, but... Let's try a slightly different tack. If we compare Shallan to her peers (middle-rank lighteyed young women), do you think she is "used to getting her way due to being spoiled"? Given her background and comparing to her peers, do you think she is more/less/similarly spoiled? I would be surprised if other lighteyed women thought she had been spoiled. I certainly think she had little freedom - her father comes across as being tyrannical as well as abusive: she wasn't even allowed to draw pictures of darkeyed people (contrast this to Laral) and had her devotary chosen for her. She doesn't come out and say/think it but I suspect she hated her father.

Oops, I kept meaning to reply to this, but this thread has been rather busy of late Shallan's eldest living brother does have a betrothed (Eylita) who does the actual writing with the spanreeds. Obviously she's living at the manor but I dont remember any indication of how long she's been living there for. There's no personal greeting between Eylita and Shallan either. The only comment I can find on her personality is from p458: Eylita was the only scribe they could trust, and she... well, she was incredibly nice but not very clever. I'm guessing that Eylita was living at the manor before the father died but there's no way to be sure - if she came after then they would have had to take a lot more risks. On the other hand, Shallan thinks of her brothers a lot but almost never about Eylita. Well, either way Shallan knows Eylita somewhat, though they dont come across as being friends - I'm guessing Eylita is poorly educated and doesn't have Shallan's passion for science and art that led her to teach herself. So... Shallan has definitely met with some of her female peers but no indication of any real friends. In terms of dealing with society, Shallan seems to be able to get by ok. She's had nurses and tutors and read books - she has a rough idea of what to expect in many cases. Consider these two lines from page 70 (when she enters the Conclave for the first time): She felt far more comfortable than she had outdoors. This place - with its bustling servants, its lesser brighlords and brightladies - was familiar. When we see Shallan going somewhere for the first time or meeting someone for the first time I dont get a "fish out of water" feeling from her though clearly some things she has more experience with than others. In general she seems to get along with people, though her tongue does cause her the odd problem. However, we haven't seen her deal with a group of people - and it's specifically mentioned that she gets particularly shy when lots of others are talking (or at least has in the past). I dont remember any other characters saying Shallan isn't feminine enough or seem to think so. I dont get any sense that she feels she has more in common with her brothers than other women - she seems very well aware of the distinctions between what men and women are expected to study, and this seems to be fully consistent with how other characters view the culture. I dont remember her ever referring to some skill she learned from her brothers - they did encourage her to speak her mind, something which isn't considered to be a proper feminine trait but that seems to be about it. I dont remember Jasnah worrying about Shallan not being feminine enough.... and I'm sure Jasnah will be able to give Shallan some pointers about court life too. So in short... I think Shallan will do ok in the warcamp social side, even at the start. She might well have trouble with large groups or more aggressive/confrontational characters. Her tongue might well get her into trouble too. I suspect she has little idea what to expect (and of course no real experience) from politics and related dark arts. I guess it's also possible that she could come across as overly keen (ie nerd-ish) on some feminine arts/subjects too. She doesn't seem to consider herself particularly attractive either, but this doesn't seem to be a big problem. I dont get a sense that she'd feel socially awkward around lighteyed women around her age or feel more comfortable with young lighted men. Sorry for the rambling post. Rather than simply disagree with you, I kinda collected every scrap of info I could remember on the topic, both for and against.

Yup, it doesn't seem to be a problem to me - "if X happens I'll do Y". If X doesn't happen doesn't mean he can't do Y anyway. On a side-note, I would suspect that for any oaths, the "spirit" of the oath will be more important than the precise "letter" - ie weasel-worders need not apply. Otherwise, it would be too chaotic.

I was going to post saying this feels a bit unfair on "quiet" Renarin but after thinking about it for a bit something along these lines seems quite plausible. After all, Renarin is going to be there for a reason, story-wise (though there's other possibilities of course). He hasn't had much training or battle experience so this is going to be a very big change for him. In the original version of Way of Kings (from 10+ years ago) I believe Kaladin was originally supposed to make the easy but wrong decision to take up the Shards he'd won. Maybe part of that will fall to Renarin? For example, there definitely seems to be some corrupting influence that manifests as the "Thrill". It's quite possible that this could corrupt Renarin more than most because it's more sudden for him. Unless things go very badly very quickly I dont see him becoming an "antagonist" but maybe a small but additional problem for some of the protagonists that may also help then understand more of the big picture - a fine distinction perhaps though. I remember Navani saying that the intensity Dalinar had in his youth scared her. Maybe Renarin takes after Dalinar more in this respect?