kari-no-sugata

A couple of minor thoughts...

For Shallan, since this is a few hours after her last chapter, she should still be dressed as Veil, unless she had time for a nice warm bath (I don't think so). I don't know if we'll see what happens immediately after her last scene but there is a chance for a "wardrobe malfunction", as it were, and she reveals that she's dressed as Veil in front of Jasnah (and Adolin).

It's curious that Jasnah came to Shallan first (it seems), rather than her family. I'm guessing Dalinar is on the Stormphone to other world leaders with Navani helping so they are currently indisposed. I'm guessing Adolin has been filling Jasnah in on recent events and Jasnah is concerned about Shallan. If Jasnah has already visited her family, then who is the rest of the group with Jasnah and why are they still following?

For Shallan's sake, I hope her recent achievements aren't overshadowed yet again.

It's also of course deliberate plotting that just as Shallan starts to feel some stability in her life again that Jasnah (and Kaladin) return. Ironically, the last time she was feeling a bit like that was just before Jasnah "died" in WoR. Shallan has been getting used to the feeling of freedom etc and probably doesn't feel like being in Jasnah's shadow. If Jasnah and Shallan still have a teacher/pupil type relationship then Jasnah would probably ask Shallan to move to the Kholin side of Urithiru, for example. Yet, Shallan respects Jasnah massively so she'll be really conflicted about such things - part of her will want to leave everything to Jasnah and part of her will want to participate as a grown-up. Also, from Jasnah's point of view, it'll probably be a shock to find just how much Shallan has changed and she might struggle to adjust as well.

Then there's the minor problem of the Ghostbloods. Ironically, Jasnah being alive after all would remove one major reason why Shallan hates them (though there's others of course). I'm sure Mraize and co would be surprised and concerned about Jasnah's return. How quickly will they try to contact Shallan or will they consider her to be compromised? When will Shallan get her payment of information about Helaran, if ever?

At least, with Jasnah back we should see some real examples of Soulcasting again.

Hmm, Kaladin and Jasnah are both back... wasn't expecting that. Not that I'm complaining.

No Urithiru Christmas tree. No Dalinar. And still no confirmation of the author.

I'd say that the main difference is that Hoid is trying to solve problems that others started while Taravangian and Amaram are deliberately taking a bad situation and making things worse for an end goal that is dubious and selfish in Amaram's case and not clear in Taravangian's case (yes he wants to save the world but what does success look like to him?).

We've seen in the case of Szeth and Darkness/Nan that they were doing things that were bad and they were pretty much insane. They've now realised that what they did was wrong so they have a chance of some kind of redemption or restitution. But, I'm not sure that could happen with Amaram unless he loses his faith (seems unlikely). It seems similar for Taravangian - I think he can only be persuaded that he's wrong if the Diagram shows a major flaw. He might well refuse to believe such a thing though.

I very much doubt Shallan will get the next chapter, though she might get the last chapter (eg Mraize tells her about Helaran). Another possibility is that the last chapter has numerous viewpoints. If we don't see Mraize in the next two chapters we should see him early in Part 2.

Unless Kaladin reaches some kind of turning point or has some kind of significant reveal I don't think he'll get a chapter - it feels more like his story is going to go quiet for a while.

For the last two chapters I'm guessing we'll see the next highstorm arrive. In which case, we should see Dalinar's conversation with Queen Fen, or the aftermath. A short time after that the highstorm should hit Urithiru and we should see it light up like a Christmas tree, or something. That should make a nice way to end Part 1.

I know the thread is about characters but overall, the book is less dark than I expected, so far. I had expected the situation to be much bleaker. Though I'm sure it'll get worse than what we've seen so far.

In tWoK, we had Kaladin going through hell and contemplating suicide and eventually realising that the bridgemen were bait. Dalinar thought he was losing his mind due to the visions and also got trapped in a nasty situation at the end due to Sadeas. Shallan was quite a mix and there were also times when she was terrified and thought she was losing her mind or otherwise stressed out heavily.

In WoR, Kaladin really struggled with his general hatred/disdain/prejudice against lighteyes etc. His prison scenes were really dark. Shallan again was a mix - her situation after Jasnah's "death" was quite bleak at times but apart from some parts it didn't feel too bad due to her attitude. Some of her flashbacks were quite painful though and there were various signs that she's far from stable.

In OB so far, Kaladin is about as happy as we've ever seen him (outside of flashbacks) and while he's facing some risks I seriously doubt he'll be tempted to join Odium's side. Dalinar is more of a mix - he has gotten married and Sadeas is dead and while there's some trouble with the other highprinces it's nothing serious so far and there's the bigger problem of dealing with the world though it feels somewhat remote from Dalinar's POV. Shallan is yet again a mix - while she started off with a lot of pain from her Truth spoken at the end of WoR, she has made progress but again she worries about her own mind (not anything new really, just more open) and has perhaps developed some new problems while her scenes with Adolin were generally happy.

For me, the darkest section of any of the books so far was Kaladin's early arc in tWoK.

1 hour ago, Andy92 said:

Some of the Kaladin chapters had super short word counts though. Dalinar/Shallan really dominated the first section of the book imo. 

Some of Shallan's chapters were very short as well. I don't know if the relative difference in word count would be much different from the relative difference in chapter count overall.

6 hours ago, Pattern said:

I also read that scene as if Shallan drew her face over Veil's face instinctively. And this is not so far from the truth, since the Shallan we see is just another persona she assumes.

But I really read progress for Shallan in these chapters. She realizes that she is none of her personas but all her personas are her. She also switches institively between her personas as she needs them and she is again able to create illusions from lost drawings as she did while telling the story about the Girl who looked up.

Also, bluffing one of the Unmade seems quite an achievement to me as the acknowledging that she is someone who lies and will continue to do so forever. This might be the core of her personality. Shallan lies to herself and the world around her to achieve what she thinks she has to. We can like this or not, we can see this as unhealthy behaviour or just as a quirk, but it is what Shallan is. This realization I see as the major progress for Shallan in these awsome chapters.

I know there's been a lot of follow-up discussion here but I wanted to comment a little bit on this...

Often with Shallan it's hard to tell whether to take something as positive or negative (this happens with other characters too of course, but Shallan is particularly tricky). The case in chapter 29 where she effectively treats Shallan as a persona is yet another example. I wouldn't say this is the first time she's considered "Shallan" to be more of a persona or the like but she does seem to be actively treating it as a persona to adopt for the first time... though the passage reads somewhat strangely:

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Shallan kept her word. She was drawn toward that blackness, but she wasn’t stupid. Well, mostly not stupid. She waited, transfixed by the pit, until she heard voices from the hallway behind her. He can’t see me in Veil’s clothing! she thought, and started to reawaken. How long had she been kneeling there?

She took off Veil’s hat and long white coat, then hid them behind the debris. Stormlight enfolded her, painting the image of a havah over her trousers, gloved hand, and tight buttoned shirt.

Shallan. She was Shallan again—innocent, lively Shallan. Quick with a quip, even when nobody wanted to hear it. Earnest, but sometimes over-eager. She could be that person.

That’s you, a part of her cried as she adopted the persona. That’s the real you. Isn’t it? Why do you have to paint that face over another?

The strange thing about this is that while she's wearing Veil's clothing here, at no point does she consider herself to be something other than Shallan. She was Radiant just before this. Is this "Shallan kept her word" a typo and it's supposed to be "Radiant kept her word"? Or is the important bit the "started to reawaken" part? If so, what was going on here? It feels like there's a time jump like in WoR when Shallan thought of her mother and her mind went blank, but it's still confusing. What is she at this point if she's not Shallan?

Anyway, adopting Shallan as a persona feels like a mistake (or is it?) and effectively "Shallan" pushes back / complains. So, what will she do in future? Will she continue to treat Shallan like a persona or will she realise that Shallan is the "real" one and not try again? So, this could be taken either way and what's important is what she does afterwards.

Looking ahead to the rest of OB (or possibly future books)...

I have suggested before the Shallan could likely face Re-Shephir again by the end of the book and this time it would probably be much more serious. I don't know if Re-Shephir could be killed by Shallan alone but since she was imprisoned in the past that at least could happen again. So how could that be either be achieved?

We saw in the case of Dalinar's vision of the Recreance that it's possible to actively/knowingly break an Oath with a spren (otherwise, how could several hundred people do what they did at the same time?). So, consider the following - Shallan deliberately allows herself to bond Re-Shephir (by swearing a Voidbinding Oath?) and then breaks the bond. However, I doubt such a thing would be zero-cost. For example, the stronger the bond, the stronger the cost to break it, probably. I'd think it's likely that Re-Shephir is much stronger than an average Radiant spren so perhaps doing this is either impossible or exceedingly painful.

Another theoretical possibility is to bond Re-Shephir as before then have someone else kill Shallan with a Shardblade. Since a Shardblade cuts the soul this seems likely to work (with a rather obvious cost). If this doesn't kill Re-Shephir it would likely weaken her significantly (it would depend on the strength of the bond I guess).

The final possibility that I thought of is that Shallan could splinter her soul (or something like that) by creating a very strong persona, and then have that persona bond Re-Shephir. Shallan could perhaps then trap Re-Shephir by Soulcasting/Transforming that splinter. Perhaps that's how the ancient Lightweaver trapped Re-Shephir? (I wouldn't be surprised if this ability with personas is a Lightweaver trait, though not necessarily a common one).

Some thoughts on Shallan's possible overall arc for the book:

Given that Shallan already faced Re-Shepnir in Part 1 and that it now "knows" Shallan I think there's a very good chance that Shallan will face it again by the end of the book. To beat it again I'm sure she'll need her last Truth/Ideal. But she would also be likely to need time to recover from speaking it. So maybe if Shallan speaks that Truth at the end of Part 3 she'll need Part 4 to recover before facing it again in Part 5? This is all purely speculation of course.

In the latest chapters Shallan has been under all sorts of stress/pressure the last few days, moonlighting as Veil while doing her normal "day job" as well. The presence of Re-Shepnir didn't help either, particularly since it was focusing on Shallan. Those sources of stress should now be removed, so hopefully Shallan will be able to trust herself more and also be able to relax and perhaps pull herself together, as it were. It's good for her that she drove off Re-Shepnir as Shallan rather than Veil or Radiant - it's her victory.

btw, it's indirectly indicated that Shallan has been doing a lot of drawing recently, in particular, lots of drawings of herself - different ages, different scenarios, different lifetimes. I think this is Shallan being self-reflective and thinking about herself - she does generally find drawing to be both relaxing and stimulating. It seems to be working, since she could wield Pattern as a weapon as herself for the first time since the end of WoR, though it's not all progress.

Part 2 looks like it's going to focus more on Dalinar's story of trying to unite the world, and I suspect we'll see Shallan being able to visit some new places and sketch them (and in future parts as well), which I'm sure she should enjoy. Overall I suspect she'll be relatively low-key here though I wonder if her recent success will raise her profile or otherwise change how people see her. I don't know if Mraize will talk to her about Helaran at the end of Part 1 or early in Part 2 and I have no idea how that will affect things. We'll probably also see her return to trying to figure out who actually killed Sadeas now that her side-quest is finished.

For the book overall, it'll be interesting to see what she does with her men. Will she help train them so that they can do what Bridge 4 did? Will she reveal Veil to them? Will she recruit Ishnah or accept her if she asks again? Will she start participating in the big important meetings (possibly as Radiant) or will she try to stay out of the spotlight?

PS I was going through my old posts the other day and had remembered I had theorised that Shallan's excellent memory can be both a boon and a curse/bane. It's useful in many ways but also makes it harder to recover from trauma. So I'm slightly kicking myself for not suspecting that Shallan's Truth/Ideal at the end of WoR could cause her problems.

1 hour ago, BrightVoid said:

So during the fight with Re-Shepnir, Shallan notes that it is trying to learn as much as possible.  We first see it or a part of it studying Shallan while she puts on a play, even though we later learn that it is scared of her, and it even lets the bridgmen stay alive so it can figure out how to fight with a spear instead of killing them when it could.  So what is it doing studying murders committed in anger?  We see Re-Shepnir studying all sorts of activities, but it only mimics the murders.  Most people were disappointed with the perceived weakness of an unmade, but I see a lot of potential for it later on, as it continues to learn and adapt all of the killings it sees.  Thoughts?

Well, the latest chapter lays it out quite well I think:

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This thing was ancient. Created long ago as a splinter of the soul of something even more terrible, Re-Shephir had been ordered to sow chaos, spawning horrors to confuse and destroy men. Over time, slowly, she’d become increasingly intrigued by the things she murdered.

Her creations had come to imitate what she saw in the world, but lacking love or affection. Like stones come alive, content to be killed or to kill with no attachment or enjoyment. No emotions beyond an overpowering curiosity, and that ephemeral attraction to violence.

Almighty above… it’s like a creationspren. Only so, so wrong.

So basically, she is Pattern's twisted older sister but also quite dumb and violent.

14 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

The surges are shared between the Orders, why can't the Unmade have shared surges as well.

It looks to me that Re-Shepnir is using the Surge of Transformation (possibly with some Lightweaving as well), since the things have physical form. So in theory anyone could copy that... but does that make it the same?

Hmm, here's an interesting thought...

The Midnight Essence that we see seem to be "separate" from Re-Shepnir. ie they are "birthed" and are then somewhat independent. So are individual Midnight Essences each a spren? If so it would tie into this quote from chapter 10:

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In comparing Syl to his mother for nagging him? “Are you even capable of having children? Baby spren?”

“I have no idea,” Syl proclaimed.

“You call the Stormfather… well, Father. Right? So he birthed you?”

“Maybe? I think so? Helped shape me, is more like it. Helped us find our voices.” She cocked her head. “Yes. He made some of us. Made me.”

If that is the case then no it would not be a matter of simply having the same Surges.

Renarin seems to know or suspect something:

Quote

Shallan narrowed her eyes. What had gotten into him? She glanced toward Renarin, who still stood up above, on the walkway around the empty pool. He watched Adolin with unblinking sapphire eyes. He was always a little strange, but he seemed to know something she didn’t.

Quote

 

He stalked off, and Shallan hurried after him. Renarin remained in the room, looking down the hall after them until Shallan got far enough away that—over her shoulder—she could no longer see him.

 

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he had seen something about the copycat murderer that made him think of Adolin.

Unfortunately, he's keeping us in suspense and nobody's asking him either, that we see.

11 minutes ago, Govir said:

Alternatively, Re-Shephir may have seen Adolin do it (and that's why she copied the death). Since Shallan is doing a mind meld with the Unmade, it's possible that Shallan will start to have memories of Adolin killing Sadeas.

I think Adolin will eventually be found out (by at least one person). Either he'll crack and tell Shallan/Dalinar, or Shallan will actually find clues leading to Adolin.

I can't see any indication that Shallan got such information. We saw nothing except it's own emotions / fears and some info about it.

But yes I wouldn't be surprised if Shallan figures something out. She seems to pick up little hints every time she meets Adolin, almost. For now, Adolin doesn't seem about to crack and confess though.

8 minutes ago, Erunion said:

What if Re-Shephir isn’t the only way to release Midnight Essence? It could be an ability of a Voidbinder/Voidbringer - who’s Odious surge mimics Re-Shephir’s power in the same way that Kaladin’s windrunning surges mimic Jezriens power. 

It's not impossible that there is more than one thing that humans classify as Midnight Essence but are in fact different in practice. Ie it would technically be a miss-classification. I think the only way we'd have something identical is if there's more than one Re-Shepnir.

12 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I don't think that ReShepir was still bound to the pillar. 

I feel like it was there to try and keep the pillar from being claimed. With the lifts we've already seen gemstones inserted into receptacles to run portions of Urithiru. 

I feel like this pillar is the battery that runs Urithiru's engines. Refill the sockets with infused stones, and Urithiru will come to life. 

Yeah, that's my impression too. I think Re-Shepir was deliberately sticking to the gem pillar to prevent Urithiru from coming back to life. There's no indication that I can see that it was trapped there. I hope Part 1 ends with Urithiru lighting up like a Christmas tree during the next highstorm. In chapter 25, Shallan says:

Quote

The tower of Urithiru was a skeleton, and these strata beneath Shallan’s fingers were veins that wrapped the bones, dividing and spreading across the entire body. But what did those veins carry? Not blood.

Not blood, but stormlight!

7 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

So something I found interesting in this battle that no ones talking about is the whole you need to understand your enemy in order to defeat them. This was reminiscent of Ender's Game for me, which is kind of cool. It used to be my favorite book. 

More like an Art of War reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War#Quotations

Quote

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be put at risk even in a hundred battles.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

As far as I can tell, "Re-Shepir" was the main blob that Shallan encountered and the things she saw elsewhere in Urithiru were Midnight Essence. So Midnight Essence is only released by Re-Shepir itself.

It's worth remembering that people don't have perfect knowledge. For example, the Radiants in this vision might not know about Re-Shepir while they do know about Midnight Essence, if you see the difference.

Given that Re-Shepir's becoming trapped is a "recent" event for it, I very much doubt it was during previous Desolations. The last Desolation was 4500 years ago and Re-Shepir would probably not be much more than 10,000 years old (at most) based on what Brandon has said about timelines. Shallan's impression is that it's been many centuries (maybe 500-1500 years) not many millennia. I would say that this all points to Re-Shepir's being trapped is well after the last Desolation and is probably close to the time of the Recreance.

At the moment, I'm not sure what Re-Shepir was doing here in Urithiru. Some people think it was trapped here and some think that it was recently released there or recently moved there of its own violation. It feels to me more like the latter - when we see it it doesn't feel like it was in a state of being trapped.

1 hour ago, Alderant said:

So...I can subscribe to the idea that the surges are at work and combining in a weird way to produce more realistic personas, but if the surges were all that were responsible for what is going on (which is what I keep seeing emphasized, Shallan is changing people through "transformation"), then Shallan should not be experiencing a mental crisis. All of these things should be temporary and have no lasting effects. Also, the change on the deserters (if it happened) should have ended the moment her stormlight ran out, and they should have gone back to being antagonistic. But they didn't.

My point is that the foundation, the source of the changes is not the magic system. These men wanted to change. This is reflected quite clearly in their dialogue. Yes, there may have been some magical augmentation to the situation that aided in the result, but what keeps getting described results in the aforementioned problem with the Stick in WoR. The magic system alone cannot affect a change on an object that doesn't want to change. The boat did not change until Shallan convinced it to. The Stick would not, maybe even could not, change. If what has been proposed holds true, then the stick should have become fire simply because Shallan wanted it to, and she had the stormlight to do so.

I can't subscribe to the idea that Shallan's usage of stormlight in the case of the deserters caused a change in them without them wanting to change first. The same holds true with Shallan--she wants to change who she is. Who she is normally causes a lot of pain, so she is creating and fleeing to these personas in order to avoid it. This isn't some unknown magical ability suddenly imposing a separate personality on her, this is Shallan seeking to avoid her problems and utilizing her abilities to make a lie that's believable even to herself. The magic system is the method, not the problem.

And yes, Pattern frequently talks in metaphors and figurative speech, and we know from Kaladin's conversations with Syl that spren look at the physical world differently than we do. But that's a tangent.

When I said that the two Surges combined and dropped together I was only thinking about Shallan's personas.

I agree that she is not forcing change upon the deserters - not all the deserters converted after all. She nudged them, you could say. Exactly how that all worked I don't know. Maybe it's more like emotional Allomancy in terms of the results though not necessarily the details. Maybe she made them more open to change, allowing her message to get though?

btw, have you read the special Jasnah chapter where we see what happened to her after she was stabbed? She could force things to be Soulcast, though that might only work for simpler things.

I've recently posted some thoughts on this subject here:

A few extra thoughts: The Surge of Transformation quite possibly extends beyond the Cognitive Realm - it's almost certainly not "just" Soulcasting. If it can also reach the Spiritual Realm as well then a lot of possible effects would make sense - and if it doesn't then they become hard to explain.

I think when Shallan dons a persona she combines the Illumination and Transformation Surges together as a temporary layer - both visually and spiritually. So unlike Soulcasting the effect is not permanent and when the Stormlight runs out or the magic is dispelled then both effects drop at the same time.

20 minutes ago, Nymeros said:

If anything, these reveals made it far less likely that Adolin would be able to revive his blade.

Not only would it be brand new, but Adolin would need to be stupidly similar on a spiritual level to the original radiant who had wielded the sword and he would need to speak the same oaths

To top it, he would first need to stop using the darn thing and break his bond just so that it hates him slightly less.......

I don't think anyone was assuming that resurrecting a "dead" Shardblade would be easy. After all, it's never been done before, despite all this time.

However, it's been discussed more than once in-world - it came up in WoR as well, briefly.

1 hour ago, Wittiest man alive said:

So will Dalinar eventually use the Stormfather’s dream share ability to communicate with Kaladin since he has been off the grid for so long?

One slight worry - is it possible that the local Odium spren might get in the way? I'm not suggesting that it's likely but you never know...

15 minutes ago, Canucck said:

I took this to mean that the imprisonment had ended centuries ago, but because the Unmade are so old it's still relatively recent in Re-Shephir's history/memory.

Sort of how like the Stormfather would think the Recreance was recent history.

This only tells us how "recent" the start of the imprisonment was. I don't think it says anything about how recently it was released. But thematically it would make more sense if it was tied into things Galivar (or someone similar) was up to.

7 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

On a semi-related note, I don't think that having access to the "ancient knowledge" will be enough to solve all problems. After all, in those ancient times each Desolation also almost wiped out humanity, and there are (at least according to some theories) reasons to assume that every next Desolation is worse. And it's also not like the people from the days of Urithiru were Cosmere-aware or somthing.

I'd say the same. It's not like the ancient Radiants or the Heralds would have left behind a blueprint for how to defeat Odium. Also, most of the books will probably be from several thousand years after the last Desolation - it's not like all the info will be accurate.

Perhaps it'll finally be time to put the ability to translate Dawnchant to use...

8 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Another thing... Didn't Shallan now finish Mraize's assignment? That means we'll probably soon know what Mraize knows about Helaran.

Or at least, what Mraize wants Shallan to know. But I suspect he'll be reasonably honest in this case as a reward.

By turning it into an "event", it does suggest it's going to be something significant, at least for Shallan. I wonder if this event will be the last chapter of Part 1...

Hopefully Mraize starts explaining a bit about what the Ghostbloods are up to as well.

We're all getting Oathbringer! (to read)

Everyone gets an Oathbringer!

More seriously: Probably Amaram (if we go down the duel-wielding route) or someone he trusts.

It might be that some Orders are more sensitive to things being wrong than others. ie it might not be that Shallan and Renarin are particularly sensitive to this specific Unmade but all Unmade. Both Shallan and Renarin seem to have a sort of clairvoyance, though Renarin more than Shallan it seems.

23 minutes ago, Patrick Star said:

The first copycat killing occurred before Amaram arrived, so I doubt it.  Honestly, I think it's likely that it sneaked in after the battle at the end of WoR.  Re-Shephir probably went to Narak when it sensed the parshendi bond the stormspren, then followed the humans to Urithuru.

Amaram arrived in Urithiru before the highstorms returned. That would mean he was amongst the first batch of people, before they ran out of stormlight - ie before Shallan's first POV chapter. So he should have arrived before the first copycat murderer. Even if he was there it doesn't prove he released it of course - I can't imagine why he would want to release it in a place that he was staying.

It's interesting to note at least that the text doesn't say for sure that this Unmade wasn't trapped in Urithiru that I can see - just trapped somewhere in general. There isn't a sense of what kept it in Urithiru if it was indeed trapped in Urithiru either.