kari-no-sugata

Whatever it is that Shallan is chasing is an ancient spren of Odium according to Pattern. He certainly identifies it as one but isn't sure what it is. I'm not saying we should trust Pattern entirely but I think it's very dangerous for readers to jump to conclusions about possible "Easter eggs" and Cosmere references when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Whatever the "copy cat" is, it is capable of replicating any act of violence (and probably more) committed anywhere in Urithiru. That's very spren-like. I also wouldn't be surprised if the mere act of Shallan sketching it is what caused those other creepy-pasta drawings to appear in her sketchbook.

In a sense, Adolin had no "winning move" here as whatever he did it would not come out well for him. Not telling her would be bad and would only delay the inevitable. It was definitely going to come out sooner or later. There's no "good" time for this to come out but there are definitely worse possible times. I think where people are more criticising Adolin is not the fact that he told the truth but what happened immediately afterwards - that he didn't seem to show any concern for Shallan's dead brother. Unfortunately, Adolin was very focused on Amaram and it seems he wasn't able to switch gears and notice or guess Shallan's pain, and instead he's more concerned about "poor bridgeboy" Kaladin. It's probably worth remembering that Adolin had been sent out from the meeting room for not being able to control himself - he's clearly out of sorts. Adolin also has some shared history/pain with Kaladin about Amaram (that he referenced here as well). I wonder what Shallan has told Adolin about her family. Hopefully Adolin will realise later that he should have responded differently.

There's been enough said on overblown theories so let's treat her as she says she is. So anyway, going by the line above, she does have some useful experience. I don't blame Shallan for firmly shutting the door on her for now. But, what if she tries again? (Shallan tried a few times with Jasnah after all). One thing that has come up is that Shallan technically has a maid but said maid doesn't have much to do since Shallan has lots of secrets. Well, what if Shallan has someone who can fulfil a basic maid job but help Shallan with other things? Maybe she'll turn up again when Shallan gets her soldiers drunk. If she gets involved with that and getting rid of the Odium spren thing then there might be no going back...

Firstly, I minor digression, from chapter 25: I'm quoting this here to show that even as a child Shallan did not have a happy life. In chapter 36 of WoR, Shallan refers to Helaran as "the best person she'd ever known". You could say that Shallan had little joy in her life that was "given" to her - she generally had to work for it, eg with her drawings. For her, Helaran was one of the very few external joys in her life, even if he was hardly around and seemingly abandoned them. Part of the reason why I bring this up is that I've seen a few posters (not so much here but elsewhere) saying that Shallan should just get over Helaran's death and it's a matter of fact that soldiers die in battle. I think this is an inhuman way of looking at it. People are sad when someone they care about dies. Kaladin was sad (and other things) when Tien died on the battlefield as well. Obviously the circumstances are different but while it is true that "these things happen in battle" it is completely unreasonable to expect people to go "oh, that's okay then". For Kaladin, Tien's death had a huge impact on him. When he realised that to Dalinar, Elhokar is his Tien, that had a big impact on Kaladin. What Kaladin has effectively done by killing Helaran is that he killed Shallan's Tien. I don't know if Kaladin will make such a connection but it's possible. If so this whole situation might affect him more than Shallan. Kaladin has a tendency to cast himself as "the victim" and as "the oppressed" but his experience with the parshmen currently and possibly here with Helaran will probably help him realise that sometimes the shoe can be on the other foot. So where does this leave Shallan? Quoting from chapter 27: I would say that Shallan is someone who doesn't enjoy hating others. She doesn't enjoy negative emotions in general, really. For Shallan, Amaram has been someone who it was okay for her to hate though - since he's up to so many other dubious things, including what he did to Kaladin. Even then, as we see from this quote and also previously in WoR, such emotions cool with time and she can also analyse the situation logically. Here, she feels that she can't forgive Amaram but would she say the same for Kaladin? I think this is difficult enough for her that she needs some quiet time to process it - which is probably why she forcibly stops herself from thinking about Helaran and Kaladin for now (It'll be interesting to see her emotions when Kaladin's name comes up in future chapters). Shallan is reasonably well aware of what happened to Kaladin after this - he was betrayed by Amaram, his squad were killed and he was turned into a slave as a "reward". In other words, he didn't benefit in any way whatsoever, and in fact went through hell. Shallan might well come to realise why Kaladin has such a big chip on his shoulders about lighteyes. I think the logical part of Shallan will be able to deal with all this but the emotional part will need some time. I've suggested this before but I think it's quite possible that longer term Shallan will be more annoyed that Kaladin knowingly withheld the fact that he knew what he had done. If Brandon is being particularly kind to Kaladin (and Shallan too) then it might just be that Shallan's brothers take a route that leads them through/near Kholinar just when Kaladin is in the area and he's able to save them. This is very speculative of course. It's also the case that Mraize seems to know some facts about Helaran. Is that going to change things significantly? If so, then how?

It's also possible that we might see Vasher use his Divine Breath on someone at some point...

I think it's already been established (on the forums at least) that the First Oath is rather vague and open to interpretation, far from strict and not obviously "enforced". I suspect it was more of a way to promote unity between the various groups of Surgebinders who eventually became the organisation known as the Knights Radiant. More significantly I would say are the suggestions that the Heralds (particularly Ishar) would not have accepted the Orders if they didn't agree to be bound by laws etc. In other words, the Heralds would have never permitted the Knights Radiant if they thought (at the time) that they were malign. While I'm sure that there were plenty of disagreements between the Orders it does seem that they generally managed to work as a team for a long time even without the Heralds. Obviously we'll have to wait and see exactly what happened though. In summary, I would say that it's like this: each Order had different spren that sought different sorts of people. Some Orders were more diverse than others. But each Order had their own tendencies and depending on the situation some Orders would agree and some would disagree on various points (and that there could also be differences of opinion within an Order). I also expect that the differences between the spren of the Orders was more significant than the differences between the Knights. Even so, they were able to function as an organisation for a long time. Clearly the Orders had to accept some differences between them but I find it hard to believe that it would have been acceptable for one of the Orders to be "evil". I think most Orders would find the others to be strange or hard to understand at times, some more than others. So just because there's differences of opinion that doesn't mean much by itself. To give a specific example, Shallan hasn't exactly warmed up to Dalinar and Renarin either, and it also took her some time to warm up to Jasnah and Kaladin.

A few more thoughts on this idea... Since Shallan naturally has rather unique physical characteristics amongst the Alethi (red hair, slim build, light skin) it would probably be easy to turn herself into a target. Earlier on in Part 1 she clearly stated she could survive a major sword wound, so we might see that in practice. Though if she's going to make herself a target does that mean she needs to be stabbed twice (potentially)? In theory she could also make herself a target by Lightweaving a disguise similar to someone who has already been attacked but since there could be others who match the description that would be more open to chance. Also, our unfriendly neighbourhood Dustbringer doubts the Desolations. Maybe Shallan will knock on her door and say: would you like to destroy some evil today?

A thought on Shallan tracking down this thing from Odium... I had originally expected that this would be a much more complex task. But, with the latest chapters, Shallan has "met" it (assuming there's just one) and has gotten a better idea of what it does, what it reacts to and so on. She's also about to put a plan in motion to do something. Are we actually reaching the end-game here? It seems possible now.

From tWoK (Starfalls): "This" seems to imply that "this thing we just fought is one of the Ten Deaths" However: This implies that "Midnight Essence" is pretty minor stuff... trivial even. Which seems a bit much for a plot that's going to take up most of the book, it seems. If this is Midnight Essence, I think it would make more sense if it's an old one that has grown strong and smart. Shallan should ask Dalinar to check out his Midnight Essence vision again and ask for more info

Awesome find. I had been leaning to something more like this recently (and I think I suggested Midnight Essence last week). I wonder if this is a recently released one or an old one that somehow survived?

I'm referring to the one in chapter 27: Everybody who's anybody is here...

Random thought #1 Why are the spanreeds failing? Is it something done intentionally? Is it a byproduct of something else? Did spanreeds ever exist in the past? Will Kaladin's go quiet at some point? Random thought #2 Last we heard, Shallan was trying to keep the fact that she was a Lightweaver hidden yet they did a big bad Lightweaving map in front of everybody. What gives? I don't think anyone would believe that it's an Elsecaller ability.

Except she remembered drawing those. Given that the creepypasta spren was watching her I could somehow imagine that it could have created drawings too. On the other hand, Shallan is telling us that her memories are not reliable. Why is she thinking this? Is it related? How does she know? I've been hoping that she'll do this at some point too. Seems like a useful tool...

I checked the end of WoR and it seems so. Thanks. However, there's a bit of a continuity issue here I felt - Shallan has Pattern in Blade form just before the bit I quote and we don't see her dismiss him... and a few paragraphs down she's summoning him again. Okay, it's not like has to be mentioned every time a Blade is summoned or dismissed but still... it makes things a bit less clear.

Probably most people on Roshar consider the Alethi to be warmongers. I don't think she's power-hungry but rather that she's worried about the probably power-hungry Alethi. It could be both of course, but the way she described her situation it sounded like she wanted some stability in her life.

"The Girl Who Looked Up" was nice and multi-layered. I was very happy to see Shallan do something very Lightweaver like. Her skill with Lightweaving is certainly improving - creating multiple moving characters from her memories. However, I don't think she can do sound properly yet for them - if I interpreted it correctly, Shallan herself was voicing them. For the story itself, it somehow reminded me of various Earth legends like stealing fire from the gods and the like. I somehow felt that it was real and the girl's hair becoming white had a real meaning (and subtly seems to reference Shalash though it could be other things - there's also a certain white-haired Hoid...). An interesting little nugget: Not really much to say here. It's the sort of thing mothers do though and at least it shows that not all of Shallan's memories of her mother are bad. This was curious too: From the sounds of things, Shallan has been drawing out possible other lives of herself and various other things. I guess this is a hint that she's trying to find herself. Why did these drawings appear though? Also: I don't remember Pattern thinking thoughts to Shallan before. Is this a general ability? Seems odd that it would be somehow related to Radiant... but who knows. Is this an individual from long long ago or is this type of thing from long long ago, I wonder...? One thought about this thing: deep within Urithiru, Shallan feels oppressed by the darkness and enjoys the light in the upper levels. Is this just a co-incidence? Do they need to let the light in, as it were? Hahah, I totally expected Shallan to sketch during meetings Also, it very much looks like Shallan's idea of "Radiant" is the person she believes she should be. Well, it was bound to come up as sooner or later. It's not the sort of thing Adolin was likely to keep quiet about but he did come across as being a bit insensitive about Shallan's brother. It's quite clear that Adolin was rather upset with Amaram being there though. "Shallan and the Twelve Drunks" are go!

The weekly highstorm is approaching... Bit hard to guess what we might get this time. There's surely one more Dalinar flashback coming soon - it might come up in the next 3 but maybe it'll make more sense for it to come out closer to the end? Hard to say. There's 8 chapters left to go and I think we'll only get 1 more Kaladin chapter - it feels like his storyline is going to go quiet for a while. The last chapter didn't exactly end on a cliffhanger and it doesn't feel like the next chapter will follow on directly. I think we'll see either the end of the conference or a retrospective of it set later in the day. Will Shallan get involved at all during or after the conference since she's from Jah Keved? Would seem unlikely that she's completely absent but maybe it's not significant enough to get a real time perspective? Given that Dalinar's chapter ended with a lot of introspection about his role, I've also wondered if he might ask Shallan what her real and honest perspective of the Alethi is (rather than other people), but perhaps not since it seems he realises that they're seen as aggressive conquerors. Will we see any progress on the murder investigations? Will Amaram himself show up?

Given that Sadeas's team got lost I think it's credible that they can't discount Sadeas himself also getting lost. Or returning to where they separated some time later looking for the team. There's so little that's been confirmed - they haven't even confirmed that the room they found him in is the same one they last saw him in. They also don't have precise time-keeping at this point. I doubt they'd be able to narrow the time of death that much. With regards to Kaladin, we simply don't know whether he has a credible alibi or not. Also, in practice Sadeas's death occurred before Kaladin decided to leave home - depending on what is found out, some might argue that Kaladin killed Sadeas and then wanted a plausible excuse to leave. It also might not help that Bridge 4 found the body. Not that I think we'll see a real trial but I think it's likely that Dalinar would use such an argument. But Dalinar would also have to refute the arguments that Amaram brings up as Amaram might be able to convince others. I think such things could likely come either way. What Shallan and Adolin would likely do here (or have already done) is to suggest to the investigators that they heard rumours of another copy-cat and ask them to investigate. Shallan might even drop off a tip as Veil or something. That way, the info could come out into the open without Shallan's clandestine activities coming out. I think I need to take a step back and re-iterate what I think could happen... with a few extra ideas. The scenario would be for something at the end of Part 1 - maybe about 5 days away in-world. So any evidence presented would be what is known at that point rather than what could be found out at a later point. Long term, a properly done investigation by highly capable people might well be able to find the evidence that Adolin is the prime suspect. Instead, it feels like what could happen is that there's very few useful leads and based on the lack of evidence for any particular suspect Amaram will make an accusation of there being a cover-up. He'll then present his alternative scenario where he believes Kaladin did it based on all sorts of circumstantial evidence. Like I said before, this would be much more of a political attack. In the worst case where Amaram has been able to collect a lot of dirt on Kaladin then it would put real pressure on Dalinar, despite Amaram's reputation and so on. If the official investigation has gotten nowhere then a charge of there being a cover-up becomes more believable. What would Dalinar likely do in such a scenario is to increase the resources for the investigation, to try to find the true murderer. Since Shallan has already gotten involved (eg with the copy-cat side) and had demonstrated her problem solving skills with the Shattered Plains, it's likely that Dalinar would ask her. Maybe Renarin too. If Shallan becomes officially part of the investigation that might make it easier for her to publicly investigate the copy-cat murders as well, so I can see her agreeing to this. Shallan getting involved would surely increase the pressure on Adolin another step. btw, with regards of the amount of pressure going through Adolin, consider this - nobody has really spotted the stress Shallan is going through, yet it's very definitely there. While Shallan is perhaps much more used to such things the level of pain she is dealing with is also much higher. We've also seen that Shallan is slowly recovering so it's possibly reasonable to assume that Adolin is getting used to it (for now). Jasnah praised Shallan's ability to see subtle details back in tWoK (investigating Galivar's murder and events leading up to it, ironically enough) and has demonstrated good problem-solving skills many times, so I'm sure she'd be able to contribute to the investigation. Her ability to reason out Urithiru's interior may well come in handy as well. In which case we might get a scenario where Shallan guesses Adolin might be the killer before anyone else and then confronts him about it. I think Adolin would likely admit it. What would they then decide to do...?

The latest tWoK annotation is up to the first chapter on Shallan: https://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-the-way-of-kings-chapter-3/ Brandon has said this before so this shouldn't really come as a surprise but anyway: This comment is for tWoK of course and this is generally what we see in the book - Shallan has a passion for art but also finds just about everything to be interesting. As the story moves on into WoR and OB we see her branching out into other fields and is even learning combat in OB. I expect this branching out to continue. I also think her personas will become a part of this (I'm really doubt Brandon would toss away such an interesting technique) though there may well be some problems along the way. I think it's also worth pointing out that her two Surges (Soulcasting and Lightweaving) are very open-ended, though she's yet to use Soulcasting much. I wondered recently if perhaps she's deliberately not studying Soulcasting because she has no desire to help the Ghostbloods (ie she's being contrarian). Also from the page above: I wonder if we'll see this come out in OB now that "first contact" has been made between Urithiru and Jah Keved.

Personally, I have no problem with artistic nudes, so long as it's tastefully done and this is not "nude" though it is suggestive. Compared to a lot of religious paintings, this is quite tame. I'd be more curious what the in-world characters would think about it. Tongue in cheek: Kaladin: She's going to catch a cold. Syl: (noticing Kaladin's lack of reaction) Tsk... darn late bloomer... Dalinar: Navani is hotter. Shallan: (though 1) Great contrast, suggesting both strength and vulnerability. (thought 2) Sigh, if only... (thought 3) I wonder what Adolin thinks of this... Adolin: (noticing Shallan staring at him out of the corner of her eyes decides to quickly walk off without comment...) Pattern: NO MATING! Jasnah: A Herald with a safehand? What terrible scholarship...

It's rather hard to tell where exactly the estates are. When Shallan tried to send a letter to her brothers in WoR, she sent the main one through Valath (which is to the west of the Horneater peaks and about half-way up the country) and another from Northgrip which is in the far north. So I would guess that the estates are more towards the north of the country, and probably at least west of the Horneater peaks. If so, I think they would travel through the north-ish part of Alethkar and going through Kholinar would be a reasonable route to take. In addition, with the civil war going on, they would want to avoid the south of the country unless they were certain that the fighting was over when they set out.

Well, the Vedenar Oathgate isn't currently open for general use, so it might well not be viable for them for now anyway. Personally... I'm expecting them to take a route that would probably go through (or near) Kholinar. I've wondered if Kaladin might just bump into them. He managed to bump into Shallan in the middle of nowhere after all...

While I don't know what Amaram's exact views are on Radiants I think it's highly likely that he will find Dalinar's views to be incompatible with his own. Amaram's main priority is the return of the Heralds, it seems, which would be compatible with a "traditional" Vorin belief. However, he did let Dalinar drape a Radiant cloak around him. Was that through gritted teeth in pursuit of his goal or was he okay with it? With Sadeas's time of death being uncertain, I think it would be hard for Kaladin to have a good alibi. Though the same could be said for a lot of people. If this was a proper trial or something official/legal then the burden of proof would be on Amaram. However, for the "court of public opinion" then he simply has to make a better argument than Dalinar. So if Dalinar struggles to refute Amaram's arguments then he'll struggle politically. The copycat aspect of the murders won't matter if Shallan's evidence comes out. If Kaladin's act of hiding the parshmen in the shelter comes out then his reputation will drop so hard that even Dalinar's allies would be questioning Dalinar's judgement, though of course this could easily come up entirely separately. We know that there's no proof that Kaladin killed Sadeas but the in-world people don't know this (except Adolin). Even with modern techniques etc sometimes the wrong people are accused so in the setting of the story, such things would be much more common. Ialai flat out said that someone under Dalinar did it and I doubt Amaram would go against that. So if he's going to accuse anyone it'll be someone under Dalinar and it's easy enough to imagine him irrationally zeroing in on Kaladin. I wouldn't be surprised if Amaram convinces himself that Kaladin did it, despite the lack of evidence (this is the same guy who thought that his actions caused the Heralds to return after all). I would also suggest that Amaram has little to lose by being wrong - he reputation is already terrible in general though clearly Ialai is sticking by him for now. Regarding the possible evidence above, I would hope that if it was just about to be used then it would be foreshadowed already... though we still have 3 sets of releases to go. So far, there's not really a sense of the investigation closing in on Adolin, though Shallan has picked up a number of vague clues. The Shardblade mark might not have even be found yet. I'm not sure how well it would stand out, so it might not be noticed unless the investigators forensically inspect the entire area. If they do find it then they would have to find the other marks as well to have any chance of guessing what it might mean - by itself, the Shardblade mark doesn't mean much. I'm not sure how easy it would be to show that Adolin was in the right area at the right time. Since he went some distance from his scouting party, it might be quite hard to make a strong case for it. It doesn't feel like they were mapping the place, so it's possible that all that could be proved is that they were on the same floor at the same time. We've also seen in tWoK that people are often more loyal to their princedom than the law, so the people on his side would probably try to avoid saying anything incriminating. Ditto the people who work with Adolin's clothes. Of course, it's possible that Ialai managed to sneak one of her spies into either group and could have reported certain suspicions privately. Curiously there's been nothing said about Oathbringer itself. Did someone find it and keep it? Has it in fact not even been found? Sadeas was found on the first floor so Oathbringer should have been tossed onto floor 1 or 2, so it should be easy enough to find. While I agree a sufficiently good investigator could identify Adolin as a suspect, unless they find something specifically incriminating such as his clothes then I doubt they'd be able to make a good enough case to formally accuse Adolin. At the moment, it doesn't look like Adolin is likely to collapse under the pressure. He might be able to handle someone specifically accusing him. However, someone else getting the blame for the murder, particularly someone that Adolin respects, would be very different I'm sure. So far, the development of the "Sadeas's murder" aspect of OB hasn't gone as expected so the wrong person being accused would somehow be fitting.

Yep. I should have added that this would make sense for an in-world piece of art and I appreciated the detail.

I expect we'll see at least one chapter from Lift's POV and probably see a bit of her from the POV of the main characters. There's an easy way to get Lift to open the Oathgate - she just needs to be tempted with the idea of stealing the Blackthorn's lunch. She likes a challenge after all.