animalia

Dang. Worth a shot. I suppose he could have that name because he is a Glyphspren. Still... shrugs. Anyways with Sanderson EVERYTHING makes me throw out wild mass guesses. Even more so now that he’s learned foreshadowing from Robert Jordan.

OHHHHHHHHHHH! Thank you for that I guess.

I don't get it. Please explain.

While we have Renarin and glyphs brought up, I want to point out something weird I noticed. Is it possible, Glys is short for Glyphspren? I don't know it SEEMS crazy, but with the whole way Renarin's name is apparently based on a linguistic oddity, (and what are the odds we have misinterpreted what his name is SUPPOSED to mean as well) it's the kind of thing I wouldn't but past Brandon.

This thread has gotten off topic

There’s a saying, we are all our own worst critics.

I like this/you. Have a virtual cookie. Or, you know, get your self a real one.

This made me giggle. On a more serious note, regardless of wether or not they get together, Jasnah’s disregard of social niceties will also mean she has NO PROBLEM tearing down the social structure if it becomes an impractical, illogical mess in the way of trying to fight a war. And she won’t care at all about wether someone is ligheyes or darkeyes, she’ll care about what they can do. And she won’t stand for petty corruption. Basically While I can see Kaladin having problems with her. They definitely won’t be the problems that he has with a TYPICAL Light-Eyes. And in fact he might be shocked by a lot of what she gets done. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. EDIT: Another thing was, how I amm currently rereading The Way Of Kings, and we get that line of how Kaladin tells Syl “how he’ll never be free of those brands.” And how so far that’s true because he continues to let his time as a Slave define him. Then you have Jasnah who has this exchange with Dalinar “They will try,” Jasnah said, “to define you by something you are not. I can be a scholar, a woman, a historian, a Radiant. People will still try to classify me by the thing that makes me an outsider. They want, ironically, the thing I don’t do or believe to be the prime marker of my identity.” If you ask me that’s a speach that Kaladin could take some comfort in. And while I don’t think is brand will ever completely go away. I do think it COULD fade.

Uh. Should I have left out the parts that repeat in the beginning and only add the new parts? I was copying and pasting the whole post for someone else on a different thread anyways, so I figured I might as well finish what I started, and I DID say I would put come back and put the rest on another post on this thread earlier. l had already had the whole post on my pc’s clipboard for the purpose of copying and pasting to the other thread, so I ended up just copying and pasting the whole thing again here. If you want me to go back and edit the second post here, so that it doesn’t repeat things in the beginning, I will. Also for clarification’s sake this is something I found online and was trying to share. Not something I originally wrote myself. EDIT: Wait, no I didn’t say that I only thought I said that.

Hi I am back. I am not on my phone this time, but My PC, and as such once I found the page AGAIN, it was easier to copy and paste. Here you go the whole thing in quotes Introducing Jasnah ‘I don’t have time for social niceties I’m busy’ Kholin. From the first interaction she’s…Bad at interacting. Iconic. Jasnah is both blunt, direct, and honest in her speech as she is in her expectations from others. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with manipulation/lying/tarting up the truth to make it more socially acceptable bc she is a busy autistic lady with rust to do. (really, though, what she’s literally demanding here is the first rule of the autistic’s guide to easy conversation. Clear. Simple. To the point. To frills, no fuss.) People do what people want to do and Jasnah doesn’t waste any time pretending she cares/that it matters to her for the sake of appearances. Again, this woman has a vendetta against typical social niceties and I love it. Do I need to point out the lack of social niceties again or are y’all sensing a pattern at this point? *King lovingly embraces his darling granddaughter that Jasnah just saved and orders a feast prepared in her honour* Jasnah: ‘Thanks but no I’m too busy to socialise.’ Jasnah feelings>>>>>>logic. This is a fairly common theme, of Jasnah being ruled less by emotions/sentiment/societal pressures/expectations and much more by logic/her own reasoning. She has her own way of looking at the world, her own rules for how it works, and she won’t be swayed by anyone else’s opinions on how she should feel/behave. Jasnah not being very self-aware in how people actually perceive her is also an autistic thing. Shallan notes several times that Jasnah is actually nowhere near as harsh/stern as she’s reputed to me, and, more importantly, she’s nowhere near as harsh/stern as she perceives herself to be. She also fails to note that Shallan actually enjoys the work/the challenge. This also implies that she takes what people say about her at face value and doesn’t have the necessary social skills to refute them. Again, this is a fairly common autistic trait. We struggle to read other people’s body language, but they often struggle to read ours as well. A part of this is probably Jasnah deliberately cultivating this kind of persona, but even so, she’s too unsure of how she comes across to have completely mastered this. Oh look, it’s one of the world’s biggest Autism Stereotypes (which I’m totally guilty of too): lining all the things up neatly, and making them Orderly. Jasnah of the straightforward, blunt honesty and ‘what you see is what you get’ strikes again. And here we see the Autistic Jasnah in her natural habitat: hyperfixating on her special interest. The rest is under the cut for length! Jasnah not doing anything unless it’s done Properly and Right according to her? Also Jasnah being indifferent towards things she hasn’t put any time into perfecting (such as drawing). Again, Jasnah encouraging/reacting positively to genuine/honest emotions because she doesn’t Understand the whole guile/lying/not being honest thing because honestly what is the point? Honestly, just, this whole thing. For a start it’s a massive transgression of the Vorin social norms/expectations, especially for Jasnah as a prominent public figure as the sister to the king. For another it’s that internal rules thing again. Jasnah’s world operates according to Jasnah’s principles and Jasnah’s understanding of it, no-one else’s. *Jasnah ignores social expectations so hard she literally forgets other people exist in the world* Also, again, the hyperfixation on special interest. Jasnah has a habit of doing this, this very cold, calculated, logical and pragmatic way of seeing the world as well as morality. Shallan considers the lives taken, the emotional aspect of the moral dilemma, the horror of murder. Jasnah just sees it almost as statistics, as four lives taken to save many more. Shallan also focuses on the cold hard facts of ‘I know how many people you just killed’ while Jasnah is engaged in weighing up the probability of how many she just saved. (In theory, the thugs might never have attacked anyone again, so Jasnah might not have saved anyone by her actions, which I think is what Shallan is getting at here. But that’s just…A moot point as far as Jasnah is concerned) This is also an example of her black and white thinking. There’s more net good in what she did than there is net bad. That’s where her questioning/reasoning stops because it makes sense to her. Shallan exists in the grey area, but I don’t think Jasnah even sees it in cases like this. This is an interesting one, and something I’ll talk about more a bit later, probably, but the way Jasnah comes across vs how she actually is. I totally get why Shallan views what she did as cold and callous, and in a way I suppose it was. It was fully planned and fully intentional. But I think for her it’s this kind of…separation between logic and sentiment. I think Jasnah feels very strongly and very deeply, but she doesn’t often display that to other people, and I also think she believes there’s a time and a place for that. Also, black and white thinking again. It comes off as cold to Shallan, but for Jasnah I think it feels more like common sense. Again, black and white thinking. (I’m also surprised this moment doesn’t generate more Discourse…Or maybe it does, I’ve just avoided it, either way) This is both a case for Jasnah not being able to predict people’s responses/behaviours, and also black and white thinking/internal rules at play. As far as she’s concerned those men are criminals. She has no assurances that they won’t hurt anyone else again. They’re already criminals, and there’s no chance for redemption or leeway, here. She’s made up her mind. They’re all criminals. They’re all dangerous. They all die. A)- routines the ‘tonight’ and the familiarity of this implies it’s something that happens every night. And the ‘fifty strokes’ is either another routine related thing, or an internal rule thing. Either way. Also this is probably a stim thing, since she’s using it to relax/de-stress. Stimming. Definitely, definitely, definitely an autistic thing. Issues with people entering Your Spaces or touching Your Things is a big autistic thing. (especially because the assurances about thieving don’t change her mind) Also the emphasis on not as in ‘this is a thing one absolutely does not do unless one wishes to die’. Again, Jasnah taking what people say of her/how they say they perceive her at face value, and also lack of self-awareness in how people actually respond to her. Two things here: one, I’m like, 99% certain that Jasnah, who has been camped out at the hospital all this time waiting for Shallan to wake up is feeling anything but ‘impassive’ at this moment, in which case this is an example of her body language/facial expressions not matching up properly to her actual internal feelings, which is fairly common. And two: Jasnah’s apology being taken for a rebuttal and her obvious displeasure at it coming across that way when she literally intended the opposite (been there). Also her general air of uncertainty/discomfort in this setting, which is one that’s obviously social/emotional. Also the fact that she pins her poor apology on lack of practice/familiarity with these kinds of interactions when, in theory, these kinds of things should come naturally to people. So like, lil bit of hinting/implication of scripting social things her, which I think her initial words reek of as well, as she’s said similar things before. Again, a few things here, firstly that Jasnah is othered in a way by Shallan (and this isn’t the only time this happens, either) because of her lack of emotional response/social stuff. Secondly the fact that she’s clearly uncomfortable/struggles with this kind of conversation – the hesitation, the lack of responses are very much at odds with her usual composure and the way she has an answer for literally everything. Words of Radiance: Prologue and we’ve already got Jasnah experiencing sensory issues in a crowded room with lots of perfume. What a way to kick things off. A)- Jasnah obviously not enjoying social events/parties (she literally spends all of this one…contemplating the assassination she’s plotting. Like. Mood.) B)- Gavilar’s comment is…Strangely sad, I think?? And perhaps a bit too on point. (This is very much just my reading of things but)…I don’t know. I see Jasnah trying to make a little quip/a joke here and it being misinterpreted because of her tone. And then, again, there’s that idea of othering that came up at the end of TWOK. But I think the ‘is it lonely to be so singular in your brilliance?’ I think that….A huge part of that ‘brilliance’ comes from a mixture of Jasnah’s autistic traits: her special interest/her focus in them/her dedication to pursuing them…but also that sense of being other. Of not fitting in. The rest of “us” she doesn’t belong, she doesn’t fit. And I think this idea of their ‘simple thoughts’ as opposed to Jasnah’s brilliant ones is a little like what we see with Renarin in Oathbringer, where Adolin explains that he isn’t trying to be lofty and brilliant, people sometimes just have difficulty following him. And I think this is what’s happening with Jasnah here (and in other places, she frequently talks about the difficulty she has in teaching, and how her methods are too intense and involved) And also I think that….The saddest bit about this is that I think she was….Trying to joke here? Trying to fit in with those ordinary people, ‘the rest of us’, and just making a sarcastic joke on the back of her father’s comment about most people enjoying parties and she just sort of ‘well, most people are idiots aren’t they?’ And that’s what prompts this little moment here. So even when she’s trying to fit, and trying to belong, she’s still cast as the outcast, and misunderstood, and othered and it Hurts Me. She literally topples into another world, effectively, and is just like ‘hm, I should make some notes on this and analyse them’. And. Yep. This is how she processes the world. By making sense of it, by treating everything according to Jasnah’s rules: it gets written down. It gets analysed. It gets understood. Bam. Jasnah ‘I don’t have time for social expectations’ Kholin strikes again. Jasnah also just doesn’t care how anyone perceives her, social norms and expectations can go storm themselves . Again, the othering idea, as well as visible emotion being startling, as she’s typically so withdrawn/closed off/difficult to read. Yes friend, u guessed it, this is Peak Autism. Also the specific word in it being ‘relatable’ again marks that difference between Jasnah and…Everyone else. Again she’s different, again she doesn’t quite fit. Again, Jasnah misreading things/not being able to anticipate how people are going to react to different things. Also her view of marriage as ‘restricting’ says a lot about how she sees it/probably relationships in general. This right here is Jasnah explaining passing, without ever using the word ‘passing’. This is how Jasnah sees social interactions. They’re all illusions, they’re all, effectively, lies. They aren’t real to her. How people perceive others isn’t something that she can fit into her box of neat facts and logic. It’s this ever changing, insubstantial thing, ‘mere vapours’. And though she’s talking here about power and authority, the basic principle applies to literally every single social interaction ever. Aka: the secret behind how Jasnah Kholin (somehow) managed to convince ppl she’s allistic. This is one of my favourite Underrated Jasnah Moments tbh because it says so much about her with such a simple gesture. We’ve established from the past book and a half that Jasnah is pretty bad when it comes to social interactions, and she’s even worse when it comes to displaying her emotions. But she’s not emotionless. She, personally, doesn’t see the value in visual arts, and hasn’t dedicated any time to it herself. Yet she keeps the gift that Shallan gives her. She understands how important this is to Shallan, and she quite literally treasures the art that Shallan gives her, and keeps it with her precious research/notes (and, like, Symbolism with her keeping her sentimental gifts and logic fuelled research in the same place/with the same level of importance/value, except one is hidden, and one is displayed) And, like, Shall literally assumes Jasnah had just thrown away the picture?? And instead she’s got it kept safe with her most treasured possessions? Like??? The TL;DR version of this point is that Jasnah is horrendous at displaying her emotions/showing people how she feels about them/what they mean to her, but she feels things, goddammit. And now so am I. Right. Now. Correct my autistic chull if I’m wrong, here, but I’m like 89% certain that ‘taking notes on the basic personalities/literally studying the people around you and making notes on the way they behave so you can actually understand them’ is not a typical allistic thing to do. Jasnah can literally predict the oncoming apocalypse by the power of research, can she pin down some basic Facts about the people she’s observing around her? Nope. I wonder why. Two things: one, this is probably (agonisingly) relating to whatever trauma Jasnah experienced as a child and I’ve got Painful Emotions about it. Secondly, Jasnah being very mature for her age/shucking Navani’s influence because it wasn’t what she thought she needed/wanted is, like, not exactly the most tactful/self-aware/socially conscious thing in the entire universe. Oh look, it’s canon low!empathy Jasnah: from the words of her own mother no less. (Also, small note here, as a low!empathy autistic myself: I really love the way Jasnah is written because it complements my own understanding of empathy which is…Fairly complicated. Jasnah isn’t just like none and done here. It’s not that she just doesn’t feel empathy so she doesn’t care? She isn’t characterised as this brutal, unfeeling, robotic ice queen. There are a lot of nuances and complexities here as to how she relates to those around her and I love it. She obviously loves her family very deeply, and is driven to protect and help them (in a very practical, logical way I might add. Which is typically how I relate to care/love as well. You want a shoulder to cry on? I’m going to sit there awkwardly, pat you on the head, and hope you stop soon. There’s a practical solution to your current problem? Heaven and earth will be moved to achieve it.) She keeps Shallan’s drawing, even treasures it. And I think that she obviously….Feels her lack of feeling (if that makes sense) See: the hospital scene with Shallan where she attempts to apologise. She’s…Uncomfortable with the emotional aspect of things, and she’s completely wrong about Shallan’s intentions, and actually her actions as well. There’s a block there with the empathy…But that’s obviously something that doesn’t exactly…Sit right with her? She’s quite self-depreciating in that scene, actually, and it’s clear (to me, anyway) that there’s the sense of her being aware that there’s something…Missing. Something that…Doesn’t quite line up. Something that makes her different and stops her relating to people perhaps in the way that she wants to. Anyway: don’t equate lack of empathy with lack of love: a novel by Brandon Sanderson. God bless. Intentional or not, this is one of the most relatable low!empathy characters I’ve ever read and I’m here for it. Again, a few things here: this concept of autistic children being far more mature/behaving like ‘little adults’ is actually pretty common. Also the puzzle-solving thing is just. Relatable. Oathbringer Jasnah is believed dead for months on end, reunites with Shallan after who knows how long: immediately starts infodumping to her. Shallan:…….’Figured.’ Jasnah back at it with the only bothering with emotions when they’re genuine. (Also Dalinar getting all indignant about people not understanding Jasnah/mischaracterising her is my favourite) Obviously she’s talking about her heresy here, but with a tiny smidge of tweaking it works well for her being autistic, too. She will always be a little bit different, always not fit, always be defined by being an outsider. Again on the feelings tempered by logic, thing. (Also Kaladin/Jasnah is interesting because they’re basically….polar opposites, and I enjoy the dynamic. But that’s for another day.) Jasnah: approves of frank, honest comments. Even if they’re mildly insulting. As long as they’re genuine. Jasnah just not caring about social/cultural gender norms. Jasnah does what Jasnah wants. But also, gender roles, and tbh the entire concept of gender, is a social construct, it’s something a lot of autistic folks struggle with. (Also non-binary/agender!Jasnah just, as a fun little aside) A)- Jasnah probably didn’t notice and B)- low!empathy Jasnah again. ‘I have scientific evidence of the fact I’m not good at mentoring/teaching/with people in general’ actual quote from Jasnah herself. Also, just, the language here? The mentoring/taking of wards is an intimate social relationship in Vorin culture, but the way Jasnah speaks of it she uses words like ‘scientific evidence’ and ‘experiment’ which says a lot about how she views relationships in general tbh. Also, I think her self-consciousness is something that’s interesting to note. This isn’t the first time she questions her teaching abilities/methods, in fact it’s one of her biggest and most obvious insecurities, it’s something that she’s very aware of. She knows she’s bad at this, and it bothers her. And again with Jasnah being factual-based when it comes to her decisions ,and emotions based when it comes to her motivations. Jasnah Kholin feels things so deeply I will physically fight you over this matter. Also, given what we’ve seen, it definitely seems as though Ivory/Inkspren/Jasnah’s ideals are concerned with logic/reason/rightness, and that being a defining aspect of her/her order is interesting in the context of her being autistic. Since, as far as we know, Jasnah isn’t deaf/hoh, the lip reading is something she acquired for other purposes. Probably as part of her paranoia/wish to protect her family, but it’d also probably help with auditory processing disorder. Which is basically where your ears hear words fine, but your brain scrambles them up and fails to make sense of them. Also a lot of autistic folks (self included) tend to watch people’s mouths instead of their eyes (bc eye contact Sucks) and I’m not saying I can lip-read, but if I could it’d definitely make life easier. Jasnah being completely and utterly oblivious to the hidden agenda/undercurrent to Navani’s thoughts which is ‘Renarin is comfortable with the men/is enjoying himself with them, maybe we should encourage that?’ and just responds to her mother’s words and nothing else. The boulder analogy makes me laugh (but also recalls what Ivory said about her being ‘stone’ which is, again, a kind of othering, a setting apart of the ‘normal’ humans, based on how she emotes/deals with things/processes fact. A lot of autistic folk find it difficult to teach people, largely because, if they explain something in a certain way, away in which they understand, they have trouble rephrasing it/altering it to make other people understand it as well. Can definitely, definitely see Jasnah struggling with this. This shocks me to my very core so it does. Oh look, it’s touch!averse Jasnah. (she’s really not very touchy feely at all) AlsoJasnah not knowing how to deal with her emotions/grief and withdrawing from people around her. Also I’m calling the arms wrapped around herself as a pressure stim. Fight me. Jasnah having anxious!stims (that she probably forced herself to unlearn) Jasnah ‘storm your social niceties, I have a war to win’ Kholin. Mm, who else was ‘solemn’ as a child? Maybe ‘correcting logical fallacies at age six’ ‘no longer needed a mother when she reached adolescence’ Jasnah. And, like, ‘people mock Renarin for his autistic traits…Jasnah is also mocked for having these exact same traits.’ It’s basically canon, people. Also, the fact that Renarin instinctively went to Jasnah for comfort, not Navani, who eagerly mothers literally everyone around her, or anyone else, he went to Jasnah ‘empathy of a corpse, made of literal stone’ Kholin for comfort and support tells me something. It tells me that these two had an understanding. That Jasnah understood Renarin, and that Renarin understood Jasnah, and that there perhaps a reason for that that has to do with their shared brain weirdness. This is also the first time, as I recall, that Jasnah responds with physical affection. (And this doesn’t undermine what I said about her being touch!averse, she is, but a)- she initiates this contact and b)- it’s with someone she’s clearly comfortable with this level of contact) I have said it before and I will say it again, Jasnah infodumping to an exhausted Shallan in the middle of a storming battlefield is the most autistic thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life. And, to summarise it all neatly, Jasnah Kholin, empathy of a corpse, heart of a boulder, whose love in the end never failed her. *wipes tear* my beautiful autistic queen is good and full of love and feeling but just being really bad at showing it to people. We do not deserve her. TL;DR: Jasnah is autistic af. It’s basically canon. Fight me.

Mannaged to find the full page on my PC. Am quoting it now Introducing Jasnah ‘I don’t have time for social niceties I’m busy’ Kholin. From the first interaction she’s…Bad at interacting. Iconic. Jasnah is both blunt, direct, and honest in her speech as she is in her expectations from others. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with manipulation/lying/tarting up the truth to make it more socially acceptable bc she is a busy autistic lady with rust to do. (really, though, what she’s literally demanding here is the first rule of the autistic’s guide to easy conversation. Clear. Simple. To the point. To frills, no fuss.) People do what people want to do and Jasnah doesn’t waste any time pretending she cares/that it matters to her for the sake of appearances. Again, this woman has a vendetta against typical social niceties and I love it. Do I need to point out the lack of social niceties again or are y’all sensing a pattern at this point? *King lovingly embraces his darling granddaughter that Jasnah just saved and orders a feast prepared in her honour* Jasnah: ‘Thanks but no I’m too busy to socialise.’ Jasnah feelings>>>>>>logic. This is a fairly common theme, of Jasnah being ruled less by emotions/sentiment/societal pressures/expectations and much more by logic/her own reasoning. She has her own way of looking at the world, her own rules for how it works, and she won’t be swayed by anyone else’s opinions on how she should feel/behave. Jasnah not being very self-aware in how people actually perceive her is also an autistic thing. Shallan notes several times that Jasnah is actually nowhere near as harsh/stern as she’s reputed to me, and, more importantly, she’s nowhere near as harsh/stern as she perceives herself to be. She also fails to note that Shallan actually enjoys the work/the challenge. This also implies that she takes what people say about her at face value and doesn’t have the necessary social skills to refute them. Again, this is a fairly common autistic trait. We struggle to read other people’s body language, but they often struggle to read ours as well. A part of this is probably Jasnah deliberately cultivating this kind of persona, but even so, she’s too unsure of how she comes across to have completely mastered this. Oh look, it’s one of the world’s biggest Autism Stereotypes (which I’m totally guilty of too): lining all the things up neatly, and making them Orderly. Jasnah of the straightforward, blunt honesty and ‘what you see is what you get’ strikes again. And here we see the Autistic Jasnah in her natural habitat: hyperfixating on her special interest. The rest is under the cut for length! Jasnah not doing anything unless it’s done Properly and Right according to her? Also Jasnah being indifferent towards things she hasn’t put any time into perfecting (such as drawing). Again, Jasnah encouraging/reacting positively to genuine/honest emotions because she doesn’t Understand the whole guile/lying/not being honest thing because honestly what is the point? Honestly, just, this whole thing. For a start it’s a massive transgression of the Vorin social norms/expectations, especially for Jasnah as a prominent public figure as the sister to the king. For another it’s that internal rules thing again. Jasnah’s world operates according to Jasnah’s principles and Jasnah’s understanding of it, no-one else’s. *Jasnah ignores social expectations so hard she literally forgets other people exist in the world* Also, again, the hyperfixation on special interest. Jasnah has a habit of doing this, this very cold, calculated, logical and pragmatic way of seeing the world as well as morality. Shallan considers the lives taken, the emotional aspect of the moral dilemma, the horror of murder. Jasnah just sees it almost as statistics, as four lives taken to save many more. Shallan also focuses on the cold hard facts of ‘I know how many people you just killed’ while Jasnah is engaged in weighing up the probability of how many she just saved. (In theory, the thugs might never have attacked anyone again, so Jasnah might not have saved anyone by her actions, which I think is what Shallan is getting at here. But that’s just…A moot point as far as Jasnah is concerned) This is also an example of her black and white thinking. There’s more net good in what she did than there is net bad. That’s where her questioning/reasoning stops because it makes sense to her. Shallan exists in the grey area, but I don’t think Jasnah even sees it in cases like this. This is an interesting one, and something I’ll talk about more a bit later, probably, but the way Jasnah comes across vs how she actually is. I totally get why Shallan views what she did as cold and callous, and in a way I suppose it was. It was fully planned and fully intentional. But I think for her it’s this kind of…separation between logic and sentiment. I think Jasnah feels very strongly and very deeply, but she doesn’t often display that to other people, and I also think she believes there’s a time and a place for that. Also, black and white thinking again. It comes off as cold to Shallan, but for Jasnah I think it feels more like common sense. Again, black and white thinking. (I’m also surprised this moment doesn’t generate more Discourse…Or maybe it does, I’ve just avoided it, either way) This is both a case for Jasnah not being able to predict people’s responses/behaviours, and also black and white thinking/internal rules at play. As far as she’s concerned those men are criminals. She has no assurances that they won’t hurt anyone else again. They’re already criminals, and there’s no chance for redemption or leeway, here. She’s made up her mind. They’re all criminals. They’re all dangerous. They all die. A)- routines the ‘tonight’ and the familiarity of this implies it’s something that happens every night. And the ‘fifty strokes’ is either another routine related thing, or an internal rule thing. Either way. Also this is probably a stim thing, since she’s using it to relax/de-stress. Stimming. Definitely, definitely, definitely an autistic thing. Issues with people entering Your Spaces or touching Your Things is a big autistic thing. (especially because the assurances about thieving don’t change her mind) Also the emphasis on not as in ‘this is a thing one absolutely does not do unless one wishes to die’. Again, Jasnah taking what people say of her/how they say they perceive her at face value, and also lack of self-awareness in how people actually respond to her. Two things here: one, I’m like, 99% certain that Jasnah, who has been camped out at the hospital all this time waiting for Shallan to wake up is feeling anything but ‘impassive’ at this moment, in which case this is an example of her body language/facial expressions not matching up properly to her actual internal feelings, which is fairly common. And two: Jasnah’s apology being taken for a rebuttal and her obvious displeasure at it coming across that way when she literally intended the opposite (been there). Also her general air of uncertainty/discomfort in this setting, which is one that’s obviously social/emotional. Also the fact that she pins her poor apology on lack of practice/familiarity with these kinds of interactions when, in theory, these kinds of things should come naturally to people. So like, lil bit of hinting/implication of scripting social things her, which I think her initial words reek of as well, as she’s said similar things before. Again, a few things here, firstly that Jasnah is othered in a way by Shallan (and this isn’t the only time this happens, either) because of her lack of emotional response/social stuff. Secondly the fact that she’s clearly uncomfortable/struggles with this kind of conversation – the hesitation, the lack of responses are very much at odds with her usual composure and the way she has an answer for literally everything. Words of Radiance: Prologue and we’ve already got Jasnah experiencing sensory issues in a crowded room with lots of perfume. What a way to kick things off. A)- Jasnah obviously not enjoying social events/parties (she literally spends all of this one…contemplating the assassination she’s plotting. Like. Mood.) B)- Gavilar’s comment is…Strangely sad, I think?? And perhaps a bit too on point. (This is very much just my reading of things but)…I don’t know. I see Jasnah trying to make a little quip/a joke here and it being misinterpreted because of her tone. And then, again, there’s that idea of othering that came up at the end of TWOK. But I think the ‘is it lonely to be so singular in your brilliance?’ I think that….A huge part of that ‘brilliance’ comes from a mixture of Jasnah’s autistic traits: her special interest/her focus in them/her dedication to pursuing them…but also that sense of being other. Of not fitting in. The rest of “us” she doesn’t belong, she doesn’t fit. And I think this idea of their ‘simple thoughts’ as opposed to Jasnah’s brilliant ones is a little like what we see with Renarin in Oathbringer, where Adolin explains that he isn’t trying to be lofty and brilliant, people sometimes just have difficulty following him. And I think this is what’s happening with Jasnah here (and in other places, she frequently talks about the difficulty she has in teaching, and how her methods are too intense and involved) And also I think that….The saddest bit about this is that I think she was….Trying to joke here? Trying to fit in with those ordinary people, ‘the rest of us’, and just making a sarcastic joke on the back of her father’s comment about most people enjoying parties and she just sort of ‘well, most people are idiots aren’t they?’ And that’s what prompts this little moment here. So even when she’s trying to fit, and trying to belong, she’s still cast as the outcast, and misunderstood, and othered and it Hurts Me. She literally topples into another world, effectively, and is just like ‘hm, I should make some notes on this and analyse them’. And. Yep. This is how she processes the world. By making sense of it, by treating everything according to Jasnah’s rules: it gets written down. It gets analysed. It gets understood. Bam. Jasnah ‘I don’t have time for social expectations’ Kholin strikes again. Jasnah also just doesn’t care how anyone perceives her, social norms and expectations can go storm themselves . Again, the othering idea, as well as visible emotion being startling, as she’s typically so withdrawn/closed off/difficult to read. Yes friend, u guessed it, this is Peak Autism. Also the specific word in it being ‘relatable’ again marks that difference between Jasnah and…Everyone else. Again she’s different, again she doesn’t quite fit. Again, Jasnah misreading things/not being able to anticipate how people are going to react to different things. Also her view of marriage as ‘restricting’ says a lot about how she sees it/probably relationships in general. This right here is Jasnah explaining passing, without ever using the word ‘passing’. This is how Jasnah sees social interactions. They’re all illusions, they’re all, effectively, lies. They aren’t real to her. How people perceive others isn’t something that she can fit into her box of neat facts and logic. It’s this ever changing, insubstantial thing, ‘mere vapours’. And though she’s talking here about power and authority, the basic principle applies to literally every single social interaction ever. Aka: the secret behind how Jasnah Kholin (somehow) managed to convince ppl she’s allistic. This is one of my favourite Underrated Jasnah Moments tbh because it says so much about her with such a simple gesture. We’ve established from the past book and a half that Jasnah is pretty bad when it comes to social interactions, and she’s even worse when it comes to displaying her emotions. But she’s not emotionless. She, personally, doesn’t see the value in visual arts, and hasn’t dedicated any time to it herself. Yet she keeps the gift that Shallan gives her. She understands how important this is to Shallan, and she quite literally treasures the art that Shallan gives her, and keeps it with her precious research/notes (and, like, Symbolism with her keeping her sentimental gifts and logic fuelled research in the same place/with the same level of importance/value, except one is hidden, and one is displayed) And, like, Shall literally assumes Jasnah had just thrown away the picture?? And instead she’s got it kept safe with her most treasured possessions? Like??? The TL;DR version of this point is that Jasnah is horrendous at displaying her emotions/showing people how she feels about them/what they mean to her, but she feels things, goddammit. And now so am I. Right. Now. Correct my autistic chull if I’m wrong, here, but I’m like 89% certain that ‘taking notes on the basic personalities/literally studying the people around you and making notes on the way they behave so you can actually understand them’ is not a typical allistic thing to do. Jasnah can literally predict the oncoming apocalypse by the power of research, can she pin down some basic Facts about the people she’s observing around her? Nope. I wonder why. Two things: one, this is probably (agonisingly) relating to whatever trauma Jasnah experienced as a child and I’ve got Painful Emotions about it. Secondly, Jasnah being very mature for her age/shucking Navani’s influence because it wasn’t what she thought she needed/wanted is, like, not exactly the most tactful/self-aware/socially conscious thing in the entire universe. Oh look, it’s canon low!empathy Jasnah: from the words of her own mother no less. (Also, small note here, as a low!empathy autistic myself: I really love the way Jasnah is written because it complements my own understanding of empathy which is…Fairly complicated. Jasnah isn’t just like none and done here. It’s not that she just doesn’t feel empathy so she doesn’t care? She isn’t characterised as this brutal, unfeeling, robotic ice queen. There are a lot of nuances and complexities here as to how she relates to those around her and I love it. She obviously loves her family very deeply, and is driven to protect and help them (in a very practical, logical way I might add. Which is typically how I relate to care/love as well. You want a shoulder to cry on? I’m going to sit there awkwardly, pat you on the head, and hope you stop soon. There’s a practical solution to your current problem? Heaven and earth will be moved to achieve it.) She keeps Shallan’s drawing, even treasures it. And I think that she obviously….Feels her lack of feeling (if that makes sense) See: the hospital scene with Shallan where she attempts to apologise. She’s…Uncomfortable with the emotional aspect of things, and she’s completely wrong about Shallan’s intentions, and actually her actions as well. There’s a block there with the empathy…But that’s obviously something that doesn’t exactly…Sit right with her? She’s quite self-depreciating in that scene, actually, and it’s clear (to me, anyway) that there’s the sense of her being aware that there’s something…Missing. Something that…Doesn’t quite line up. Something that makes her different and stops her relating to people perhaps in the way that she wants to. Anyway: don’t equate lack of empathy with lack of love: a novel by Brandon Sanderson. God bless. Intentional or not, this is one of the most relatable low!empathy characters I’ve ever read and I’m here for it. Again, a few things here: this concept of autistic children being far more mature/behaving like ‘little adults’ is actually pretty common. Also the puzzle-solving thing is just. Relatable. Oathbringer Jasnah is believed dead for months on end, reunites with Shallan after who knows how long: immediately starts infodumping to her. Shallan:…….’Figured.’ Jasnah back at it with the only bothering with emotions when they’re genuine. (Also Dalinar getting all indignant about people not understanding Jasnah/mischaracterising her is my favourite) Obviously she’s talking about her heresy here, but with a tiny smidge of tweaking it works well for her being autistic, too. She will always be a little bit different, always not fit, always be defined by being an outsider. Again on the feelings tempered by logic, thing. (Also Kaladin/Jasnah is interesting because they’re basically….polar opposites, and I enjoy the dynamic. But that’s for another day.) Jasnah: approves of frank, honest comments. Even if they’re mildly insulting. As long as they’re genuine. Jasnah just not caring about social/cultural gender norms. Jasnah does what Jasnah wants. But also, gender roles, and tbh the entire concept of gender, is a social construct, it’s something a lot of autistic folks struggle with. (Also non-binary/agender!Jasnah just, as a fun little aside) A)- Jasnah probably didn’t notice and B)- low!empathy Jasnah again. ‘I have scientific evidence of the fact I’m not good at mentoring/teaching/with people in general’ actual quote from Jasnah herself. Also, just, the language here? The mentoring/taking of wards is an intimate social relationship in Vorin culture, but the way Jasnah speaks of it she uses words like ‘scientific evidence’ and ‘experiment’ which says a lot about how she views relationships in general tbh. Also, I think her self-consciousness is something that’s interesting to note. This isn’t the first time she questions her teaching abilities/methods, in fact it’s one of her biggest and most obvious insecurities, it’s something that she’s very aware of. She knows she’s bad at this, and it bothers her. And again with Jasnah being factual-based when it comes to her decisions ,and emotions based when it comes to her motivations. Jasnah Kholin feels things so deeply I will physically fight you over this matter. Also, given what we’ve seen, it definitely seems as though Ivory/Inkspren/Jasnah’s ideals are concerned with logic/reason/rightness, and that being a defining aspect of her/her order is interesting in the context of her being autistic. Since, as far as we know, Jasnah isn’t deaf/hoh, the lip reading is something she acquired for other purposes. Probably as part of her paranoia/wish to protect her family, but it’d also probably help with auditory processing disorder. Which is basically where your ears hear words fine, but your brain scrambles them up and fails to make sense of them. Also a lot of autistic folks (self included) tend to watch people’s mouths instead of their eyes (bc eye contact Sucks) and I’m not saying I can lip-read, but if I could it’d definitely make life easier. Jasnah being completely and utterly oblivious to the hidden agenda/undercurrent to Navani’s thoughts which is ‘Renarin is comfortable with the men/is enjoying himself with them, maybe we should encourage that?’ and just responds to her mother’s words and nothing else. The boulder analogy makes me laugh (but also recalls what Ivory said about her being ‘stone’ which is, again, a kind of othering, a setting apart of the ‘normal’ humans, based on how she emotes/deals with things/processes fact. A lot of autistic folk find it difficult to teach people, largely because, if they explain something in a certain way, away in which they understand, they have trouble rephrasing it/altering it to make other people understand it as well. Can definitely, definitely see Jasnah struggling with this. This shocks me to my very core so it does. Oh look, it’s touch!averse Jasnah. (she’s really not very touchy feely at all) AlsoJasnah not knowing how to deal with her emotions/grief and withdrawing from people around her. Also I’m calling the arms wrapped around herself as a pressure stim. Fight me. Jasnah having anxious!stims (that she probably forced herself to unlearn) Jasnah ‘storm your social niceties, I have a war to win’ Kholin. Mm, who else was ‘solemn’ as a child? Maybe ‘correcting logical fallacies at age six’ ‘no longer needed a mother when she reached adolescence’ Jasnah. And, like, ‘people mock Renarin for his autistic traits…Jasnah is also mocked for having these exact same traits.’ It’s basically canon, people. Also, the fact that Renarin instinctively went to Jasnah for comfort, not Navani, who eagerly mothers literally everyone around her, or anyone else, he went to Jasnah ‘empathy of a corpse, made of literal stone’ Kholin for comfort and support tells me something. It tells me that these two had an understanding. That Jasnah understood Renarin, and that Renarin understood Jasnah, and that there perhaps a reason for that that has to do with their shared brain weirdness. This is also the first time, as I recall, that Jasnah responds with physical affection. (And this doesn’t undermine what I said about her being touch!averse, she is, but a)- she initiates this contact and b)- it’s with someone she’s clearly comfortable with this level of contact) I have said it before and I will say it again, Jasnah infodumping to an exhausted Shallan in the middle of a storming battlefield is the most autistic thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life. And, to summarise it all neatly, Jasnah Kholin, empathy of a corpse, heart of a boulder, whose love in the end never failed her. *wipes tear* my beautiful autistic queen is good and full of love and feeling but just being really bad at showing it to people. We do not deserve her. TL;DR: Jasnah is autistic af. It’s basically canon. Fight me. Does it help to have the full verson? I will add it to the autism one as well. Adding it from my phone was hard so I could not before.

The third prologue broke the mold if I remember correctly.

Actually the two of them reminded me of Yin and Yang. And The followers of Harmony reminded me of Toaists. With the way they are called Pathians. And the fact that Tao mean Way. I think your problem is that you are thinking to small and limiting yourself to ONE religion.

OK I was basically thinking about a few points. 1: At one point Kaladin was in an aranged marriage to someone he kind of liked, but had trouble understanding him. (Autistics often have trouble understanding how people think, I am not saying that Laral was NESSECARILY autistic, I am just setting up for a parallel) 2: Jasnah was worried about the the idea of an arranged marriage when she started to set up the idea for Shallan, she can see them as POTENTIALLY restricting to FREEDOM. (Honestly, now that I look back at it, the whole scene is like Jasnah wanted to proceed slowly, to have a chance to ask Shallan what she thought about the idea but got overwhelmed by her mom. Thanks StrikerZ for the comparison.) 3: KaladiN spent time having his freedom restricted in the WORST way possible. As a slave. 4: More notes about autism, (and why, it was important to establish that Jasnah might be on the spectrum earlier). As mentioned we have trouble understanding perhaps and we often don’t notice they are in pain unless they tell us straight out. On the OTHER HAND once we do notice someone is in pain, we TEND to be MORE EMPATHETIC then normal people to their suffering. We can’t help ourselves from caring, kind of like Kaladin in that way. However, and this may just be my personal experience, but we REACT to the way that we care in a DIFFERENT matter. Remember when Kaladin ways talking to Syl and he said that “sometimes no amount of logic or reasoning can get past that overwhelming desire to get what you feel that deserve” I have sometimes have the opposite problem, sometimes no amount of sympathy and compassion for a someone’s (either an individual or group’s plight), can overpower my frustration with their inability to see logic and keep doing things that make their situation worse. (I talk about when I read about the situation in the world) And I just feel like banging people’s heads into the walls until they listen to reason. (I know it won’t work, but that’s what I feel from time to time.) So yeah, I put in a little personal bias and perspective there. But IF she’s at a similar type of Autism (I am where Asperger’s Syndrome was located) they would DEFINITELY make good foils with things to teach each other as previously mentioned. So yeah I am already partially in the speculation territory, here’s where I go full speculation. I am going to speculate that at one time Jasnah was in an aranged marriage with Amaram (This is my guess for the broken oath) Perhaps she even loved him? But in anycase him and at least SOME of his family though were social climbers of the worst kind. They didn’t care about Jasnah, they just wanted to get what they felt they were owed. (She DEFINITELY has a grudge against Amaram FOR A REASON) What’s more, once she was at her place they probably expected her to act like a “proper Vorin lady” with all the restrictions that required, she couldn’t be herself. Most IMPORTANTLY they DIDN’T see as a person. Just a commodity. A commodity that was treated nicely perhaps, but only if it did EXACTLY as it was told. At the same time I expect there to be SOMETHING morally ambiguous done by Galivar and NOT JUST because we have started to see him portrayed as more and more shady as time goes on. (OK THIS WILL NOT BE IT EXACTLY, as it is to much against the pure parallels thing I wanted, but I have only so much Jasnah material to speculate from so work with me hear) I hope you see what I did there. It’s basically the Kaladin story but seen from the other side. Don’t forget Kaladin’s father DID STEAL spheares from Laral’s father. Because he felt he was owed them. (And that’s I feel Galivar would do something shady as well to highlight the parrallel) I am ADMITTEDLY GUESSING that when the two learn each other’s respective backstories. It will be a “So that’s how the other side felt” moment. I could be WAY off base here. Heck I almost certainly am. But I still thought it was speculation worth hearing.

On Jasnah potential being Autistic here is a link to a Tumblr post that supports it though I often have trouble getting below the cutoff line. https://myqueenjasnahkholin.tumblr.com/post/170352519803/autisticjasnah-masterpost/amp I sometimes have difficulty accessing the cutoff text but it’s worth it if you can. The reason I bring this up is because it’s nessecary to use this to establish a base of her mindset. Because given how Brandon likes parallels it would not surprise me if he “retells Kaladin’s story from the “other side” when we get to Jasnah’s flashbacks. Give me a bit to go over the details and I will elaborate, in another post if need be.

Didn't Brandon ALSO say that a different INDIVIDUAL who picked up Sazed shard's might interpret their intent as DISCORD? that is to NOT encourage the split mind theory. But to say that while the INTENT of the shard is fused. i.e. whoever deals with them will have to deal BOTH intents at once, how they INTERPRET said intent will DEPEND on the individual.

To add to Fenghur’s post I am going to copy and paste a post of mine from the Cosmere Amino Can we use comparative religion and religious history to predict the Cosmere? I believe we can but only to a point. We can predict broad stroakes but not everything. First of I want to point out that Brandon Sanderson is a big believer in applicability versus allegory, so while he may have certain elements in mind when he makes up the story, by design he does not plan for anything to be one to one. This is so the audience can leave it up to their interpretation, and, more importantly he can have a more interesting story and compelling characters. But know let me tell you what got me started on this. Remember how Harmony’s followers are called the PATHians. Well I recently remembered that [Taoism|https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism] is known as the WAY. Also when I thought about Mistborn secret History: I realized that there’s Ironically a good chance, believe it or not, KELSIER of all people arguably takes traits from [Confucius|https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius]. I know that sounds crazy at first but here me out. The article describes the following traits about Confucius. Cultivating knowledge and sincerity for it’s own sake. Confucius also looked to the past when trying to figure out how to build the future. Also “ the early Confucian tradition, lǐ was doing the proper thing at the proper time, balancing between maintaining existing norms to perpetuate an ethical social fabric, and violating them in order to accomplish ethical good” And it’s from Confucian Scholars that we get the Mandate of Heaven. Basically the idea that if a government stops treating people morally that it deserves to be overthrown. Despite this he is often treated as a beacon of conservatism BECAUSE of how he looked fondly at the past. But those who do forget the point that he emphasized MORAL treatment of people above all else. I still recommend reading the full article but think I summed the key points. Now that I have does that remind you of anyone? Because in hindsight it’s clear. Kelsier looked fondly to the past from the first book we met him in. He values seeking knowledge and being sincere for it’s own sake. Kelseir was also capable of playing the role of nobleman when he had to then go out and rob people the next. While it’s not perfect, because again applicability over analogy, with the whole Secret History and the fact that he has survived to Era 2 being revealed I can even see him looking to POTENTIALLY carry out a mandate of heaven type thing at some point. But of course things aren’t that easy to predict first the obvious when, why, and, how. And remember how Brandon Sanderson said how he needed to right the Elantris sequels before Era 3 can begin? Well that’s probably because the other major Religion to have an influence on China was Buddhism. And if you didn’t see the Elantris, life is suffering parallels you are kidding yourself. So yeah we need more information to finish theorycrafting. but I feel we can begin filling in some broad strokes.

Which one is that again? I am on my phone so it’s hard to tell?

So when did this theory get RShara'd again?

It WOULD piggyback of this one though. Also I am only vaugly familiar with that term. What does it mean?

Ebay perhaps? Or just if anyone happens to spot spaes, they can mention them here?

Is there any place I can buy the Endpapers by themselves? I am specifically looking for the Endpapers for The Way Of Kings as those are the ones I am PERSONALLY missing. But I also thought others might have a similar issue, and that this thread can be used by all for your Endpaper shopping needs. At least that is my hope.

New addition to your thread. I do think you are in to something about there being another shard, but you are wrong about who the Broken One is. The Broken isn’t Odium. Odium does NOT rule as he is currently trapped. The Broken One is HONOR. (Cultivation has withdrawn from DIRECT conflict remember, and according to your theory the other shard is being used in the trap.) This means that currently that only the BROKEN shard, Honor, is affecting Roshar. How does this idea sound?

I was just thinking about what Kelseir went through. All of his old friends and family, with the exception of Marsh and Sazed, are long dead. Being bathed in Preservation’s essence is probably the reason why he can’t pass on. As a result he’s probably looking for a purpose in life. And in the meantime think about what he’s seen. He’s seen the slow march of time, BUT without the ability of something like history books of the ascended mindset of a shard to give him perspective on how things havr slowly, but surely, changed. To him it might seem like humans keep repeating the same old dumb mistakes. Tell me what you think of this idea? I can elaborate and expand on it if you wish.

I am updating my earlier post. I made it on my phone so it was wonky.