Dreamstorm

So, breaking this down - see bolded bits below. Wit makes Shallan create two illusions of her “whole” self. Both have the terrible memories and such. One is a mess, collapsed on the ground, unable to bear this. The other illusion is setting her jaw, accepting the pain, forgiving herself and standing up. These are both representations of what Shallan could be if she has to deal with her pain. Wit is showing her she can be the girl who is forgives herself and stands up, but both of those figures at that point are illusions. Shallan thinks she needs her personas in order to not be the girl collapsed on the ground; Wit says no, you are the girl standing up, you just have to accept the pain and allow yourself to be that person. Note how she got into position for her “moment” with Adolin (“Shallan, Radiant, and Veil just settled down on the wall walk, back to the stone.”) which draws similarities to how her sitting self is in the Wit scene (“backed up against the wall of the room”). Anyway, to be brief, Wit doesn’t select the “Shallan” persona as the one standing up, as the alive Shallan is creating two illusions, and one of those illusions is the one referenced to as standing up.

I don't think Odium is the driving force behind Vorinism altogether, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was involved in the Heirocracy, especially given the claims of future sight. They were proven false, but by the Sunmaker who himself is suspect as a brutal conqueror under the influence of the Thrill. (See quote from WoK below.) The Heirocracy priests were also positioned directly opposite the Almighty (Honor) and the Heralds, so they were opposed to our current known "good shard". I suspect Vorinism to be challenged in a more holistic way at some point (emminating from the little conflicts we see brewing with Jasnah and Dalinar who are now even more powerful), which should shed more light on the Heirocracy. Any element of Vorinism influenced by Odium would severely undermine our current Vorin coalition. It seems primed to be a good source of conflict.

I also find it interesting Brandon seems to consider her feelings for them equivalent. I think it's reasonable for Shallan to call herself in "love" with Adolin (dating for four months and seem quite bonded - I think a lot of people consider themselves in love at that point in a relationship just from a typical "when you say I love you" standpoint) whereas Kaladin and her don't seem to have had the time needed to be in "love". She shouldn't be in an equal place with her feelings for them, truthfully, so yeah let's call this WoB decidedly pro-Shalladin

LOL join the club. (Slow holiday-workdays leave me a little worried about how much I'm on this forum ) But I don't get that at all from the Reddit post... So he's saying he wanted to get across "Shallan" is in love with Adolin and Veil is in love with Kaladin. Unless I see something that says Veil is not part of whole-Shallan (WoB that Shallan is one in the spiritual realm seems to suggest the opposite), I don't see how this can be interpreted any way other than he was trying to convey that part of Shallan was in love with Kaladin. (A part which she stuffed down in making this decision, when we are beaten over the head with the principle that Shallan stuffing down her feelings is Very Bad.) So I read this as he wanted to get across that "Shallan" and Adolin are working in a relationship and Veil and Kaladin are also working in a relationship. Again, unless we totally disregard Veil, it seems he wanted to get across that part of whole-Shallan works in a relationship with Kaladin. He's definitely not saying Shallan doesn't like Adolin; a part of Shallan definitely does! But I can't read this as dismissing the idea that part of Shallan likes (well he says love) Kaladin. ETA: Beat me to it @ailvara! Also, in re-reading this, I'm now slightly worried that given how Very Bad avoiding truths is for Shallan and we see this visible "stuffing in back of brain" of Shallan's feelings for Kaladin, that this will be her fifth truth. Please no, just please no. We already have Shallan relying too much on a man for one big decision, so I don't think I can take it again. ETA2: Since I'm over-analyzing too much, I now read this below as kind of interesting... I think if he felt it was done, he would have said something like "I hope the majority of fans are happy with how the characters reached this resolution, even though I know there is always some disappointment when there are multiple love interests" instead of basically alluding to the fact he expects people to be upset with it?

Omg, you are going all in Why not cognitive realm too?

This is the scene I think you're referring to: I can't really see much here besides Syl continuing to push Kaladin towards Shallan? Admittedly, I'm not into inter-species, so I'm not stretching here to try and find something romantic in the scene. I'm not even into human/listener even though we've been told there was interbreeding. I see the elves in LOTR as more of a different race of human (human with pointy ears), but I'm not well-acquainted with elf anatomy so could be missing something! And I'm not trying to be controversial (or dismiss anyone else's feelings on the matter), but I'd personally find it hard for me to really get into a ship which doesn't include physical intimacy.

I somehow already ran out of upvotes today () but I wish I could give you one. I could write an essay (and actually at one point outlined one) about how WoR has the cutest Kadolin set-up. (Also part of said essay is that I could have, prior to OB, read Adolin as gay (though not out) given his inability to move romantic relationships forward and his hesitancy to have intimate contact with Shallan. I know that's all explained away in-world, but still.) Yeah, more about how we won't see more uniformity in the fandom (also per @Greywatch's point of how female characters are received in general), but I do agree with your analysis of reintegration being the only logical path forward for Shallan to accept her fourth truth and actually progress. I'm wish fulfilling the idea that she could accept her fourth truth and say her fifth truth at the same time to be our first full Radiant...

I totally get where you're coming from, though my disgusted reaction is at a slightly different point; I hate the fact she selected the dominant persona based on Adolin holding her hand and staring into her eyes and choosing it for her. My reaction to this is almost visceral, in fact. I'm less upset that Adolin is the anchor for her control after the fact (though I should be; I kind of block out that gross "choosing" moment when I think about it or else it can be hard for me to like the author - dramatic I know, sorry!) I do think the idea of control before you can heal is potentially realistic? I'm thinking methadone for heroin addicts; first you get the destructive behavior (shooting yourself up) under control and then you can treat the underlying addiction to the opioid. Of course plenty of people remain on methadone, so stagnated in their recovery, which I hope doesn't happen to Shallan.... ... because I want this Shallan back. I know it's likely not realistic, and I know it's not likely to happen, but I really want our end game main female protagonist to be someone readers can rally behind, not someone who spawns a dozen hate threads. #kadolinforever - always in my heart even if not on the page (talk about ship that's sunk to the bottom of the ocean!)

I think this is a little strong of a characterization based on what I think is the only feedback we've gotten from the author. Here's the link to that WoB, and I would encourage people to listen to it as it comes across a little differently (to me) in the audio. It seems to be saying that having control is a step forward, but that's not the end game for her mental health. We also have the WoB (linked below) regarding there being one Shallan in the spiritual realm, which to me strongly suggests reintegration would be the end goal. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8699 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262-oathbringer-glasgow-signing/#e8785

Yes, thank you! I think this may have been when I got Syl = pretty into my head. Of course, I was offending Rock by attributing this to him Totally agree there seems to be a theme of how Syl is presented, even if the exact words aren't always there. So... does this mean anything? Considering she can be any form she wants in the physical world, why does she choose to present herself like this to Kaladin? (Unless it's just a mimicry of her cognitive world form, and I don't think spren have much, if any, control over that.)

I think I inferred “pretty” from the below, which doesn’t say it. Hmmm... this was even before Adolin notes it (twice actually!, he says it again later in the Damnation chapter when he connects the “pretty girl in blue” to Kaladin’s spren), so I’m not sure why I had such a strong association in my mind about Syl’s attractiveness... well, anyways, Adolin is a connoisseur so he would approve of the ship, ha!

So human (/listener in the olden days) perceptions defines the gender parameters but the spren themselves have the choice within those parameters? That makes sense to me. Now does it matter that Syl chose to be female and bonded Kaladin? No clue... though that WoB does seem to suggest some sort of sexual preference correlation (though he backs off from causation.) There’s that WoB which almost 100% shuts down the ship, so not sure if spren and sexual preference matters from a romantic perspective. But then again I think a WoB almost 100% shut down the shardblade revival possibility, which seems to be very much on the table with Maya. These WoB’s are always a mindstorm... The below is from Adolin in Ch 89 Damanation, and I thought we had similar observations from Shallan and Rock though I can’t locate them at the moment... I always got the impression Syl was a pretty hot honorspren, but maybe I’m just projecting, LOL.

So I found this which seems to suggest that the spren themselves select their gender identification (which is different than physical realm shape though is tied to it), though it’s a bit unclear whether it’s the human sexual orientation which shapes the spren’s gender or vice versa. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/6-bands-of-mourning-release-party/#e349 But contrast with this which suggests human perception shapes spren gender. (OB chapter 7, Watcher at the Rim) So I have no idea! Syl is definitely mentioned as being really pretty (by multiple people), so I feel like that might be something?

I totally get what you’re saying when it comes to inflammatory language, so that’s a very good point. I agree Syl is sentient, but I think if she was exactly the same in terms of sentience but her body took a different shape, feelings would be different about the comfort with her being in a sexual/romantic relationship with a human, thus anatomy plays a key role in how the relationship is perceived. (Hence animal kandra is icky for romantic purposes whereas the same species but in a human form is generally perceived as OK.) Now the fact Syl chooses to take a human woman’s form/the fact Kaladin’s perception of her has shaped her into a human woman’s form (I’m a little unclear on the gender/shape of spren TBH), could be telling - just as our kandra in question sought a human romantic relationship, could this be an unconscious way of either party (Syl or Kaladin) seeking such relationship? I’m babbling, but to me that is actually a pretty interesting facet of the question.

Ehhhhh, I don’t think “thinking beings” is where you can draw the line for beastiality. What if a certain kandra we know who inhabits an animal’s body was in a sexual relationship with a human? I think we’d all be squicked out at the beastiality of that, despite the fact said kandra is a thinking being (and some kandra are shown to be in sexual relationships with humans when inhabiting a human body.) I get some people are drawing the line between species in humanoid form versus those in non-humanoid form, but that doesn’t mean those that are drawing the boundaries a little stricter when is come to inter-species relationships are necessarily wrong to draw the beastiality comparison. The whole thing is rather tricky to discuss I know, so I do get why you’d rather avoid going down that rabbit hole, but that doesn’t make the opinion per se invalid.

You'll find a lot of people on this thread agree with you, and you expressed it very well Per this this point, this was my exact thought upon finishing OB (what?!? - the author must have changed his mind last minute), but upon lots of agonizing, I now actually read OB as deepening the K/S connection rather than lessening it, despite the ending. I have no idea how this will be reconciled, because I've never known Brandon to break up a marriage either, but he certainly wasn't moving away from the K/S connection in OB. (Everyone here has been subject to my revelations multiple times, so if you want me to point out some key items, PM me.)

But he's darkeyed and darkhaired and doesn't smile, so obviously he's bad They are probably both too good to be cast as a "forbidden" romantic interest, really, even though Kaladin was definitely forbidden for racist reasons before he was revealed as a Radiant. Shallan herself basically says that neither are mysterious enough for her (or rather that she doesn't want to know Adolin's secret because that relationship needed some measure of mystery and she flat out told Kaladin he was no longer mysterious due to bad puns, which seriously having an annoying sense of humor can kill an attraction faster than anything else IRL too.) So maybe we'll get a legit bad boy into the freshen up the mix - hot young Nale-esque Skybreaker? Flies and follows Odium. Double whammy.

I like this twist a lot too! But, if this was the twist, it should have been executed in a better manner. I think if we had the same exact same overt storyline (nice boy vs. bad boy to put it much too simply), but had all of those little literary elements pointing towards Adolin, I would 100% be behind it. I don't like not being able to trust in an author's foreshadowing/symbolism/metaphors (whatever you want to call it - I feel like I can't ever figure out how to state that), which is where I will be left if Adolin is the end game. But perhaps part of Brandon's subversion is that he doesn't want me to trust him on those aspects As an aside, I find it ironic that with most Shadolin shippers, it's hard to convince them there even is a romantic setup for Shallan and Kaladin, whereas you go a 180 and say the romantic setup is so obvious it must be a fakeout. I like it.

You're not an evil hostile person, you are just emotionally involved in the books, which we all are since we spend hours and hours reading and rereading and analyzing them I agree that having one's perspective dismissed as "just a disgruntled shipper" is irritating and something you do see around here. I'm pretty sure @Aleksiel wasn't doing that, but I certainly understand the gut reaction when you see something so clearly and it feels like its being summarily dismissed just because it supports what is seen as a "lesser" argument.

Well... that is a bit what is going on. I think this is one thing where there is a way for the symbolism to hang together without it being pro-Shalladin. So I think someone who wants to read it as thus is able to rationally do so. I think there is also a (frankly beautiful) way to interpret it as pro-Shalladin. And of course you emotionally want it to be the latter, so it's easier for you to see. I think there are a lot of Shalladin literary aspects which could be dismissed by a reader without those aspects being bad writing. This is one of them. I think there are some Shalladin literary aspects which cannot be dismissed without it being incredibly sloppy craftsmanship by the author, which is why I so firmly got on board the SS Shalladin.

@Aleksiel also thinks the resolution was crem, they have just accepted that it actually is the resolution. You have not (and neither have I.) But you guys agree on the fundamental point - the love triangle resolution was badly done. ETA: Btw, there's a lot of other reasons I don't think it's done besides the fact it sucked! The fact it sucked made me go down a rabbit hole of searching for reasons why it wasn't over, but said rabbit hole exploration turned up things which, IMO, offer firm support that it's not over Please explain! I don't think we even have a late-WoR Sadeas viewpoint? (We go off-topic so much, I figure no one will mind )

The stone symbolizes Tien. Tien is the reason Kaladin can't leave and follow Tarah (i.e. he needs to protect boys like Tien.) Shallan reminds Kaladin of Tien (likely because he's a lightweaver, too.) So one can definitely read Tien as being the symbolism, but that it's tied to different things in each instance. Btw - I believe and like DP's analysis, but I think it's reasonable that someone can get the Tien symbolism and still not think that it's evidence that Shalladin is alive and well. ETA: Sorry @Aleksiel should have just let you handle this!

@Ookla the Feathered thank you for continuing to respond to this thread! I know it can be not pleasant posting on a thread where you know most posters are going to disagree with your arguments, so I'm glad you decided to brave it and step into the fray! I'm going to go into a bit what I see as a "good con" and a "bad con", as that's something I don't think I expressed too well in my first post. To illustrate this, I'm going to spoiler something from Mistborn Era 1 which I think is a real-book example of where I'm going with this: it is good for a writer to misdirect his reader, but it is not good for a writer to mislead his reader. So, back to that point after the Mistborn example: So to summarize, misdirection is when an author is telling you one thing explicitly - be it that a person is good, or a relationship is happy and loving, or that humans are defending Roshar against the Parshendi invaders - but that the opposite (or some form of the opposite) is actually true. This is how you get a plot twist; you flip what you're explicitly telling your readers as true upon its head. Now, how do you lead a reader to that plot twist? Ideally it shouldn't come out of nowhere; the author leads the reader to the "twist" by laying subtle literary clues, often in the form of foreshadowing, or symbolism, or drawing metaphors, such that when the "twist" happens, the reader can look back and say, ohhhhh, those clues were there all along. What I find difficult to accept about your argument is that while I think Brandon constantly misdirects his reader (it's how he does his signature plot twists after all), I so far haven't seen him as an author who misleads his readers, i.e. I don't see him plugging a ton of literary devices into a story and then having the actual conclusion subvert what those literary devices were pointing to. I'm assuming you're wrapping all the Shalladin foreshadowing (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm happy to set forth a couple pointed examples of this) into part of the "con" which Brandon laid before us. And for me, this is what would make it a "bad con"; if we can't trust the literary devices and the foreshadowing, then we have nothing with which to even analyze the book's events. Contrast this with a "good con" where we are given something which "looks" right on the page, but when you look closer and read into it more closely, it seems more and more off. Shallan's romantic end with Adolin seems to be to be a "good con"; we are explicitly told they are happy, but there are tons of little elements there which hint otherwise if you look closely. You could very well be right that Brandon means to throw out all these literary elements to prove his point that Shalladin was trite and tropey, but to me that is the hallmark of a "bad con", because that means there is no point of looking more in depth into the literary hints in his books, because in the end, they may not mean anything. You're definitely correct, and before I stumbled on some elements which made me convinced Brandon had a "good con" going here, this was part of how I rationalized Shallan; it's not what I want to read or where I personally want the character to go, but in the end, it is realistic because, as you say, people rely on others for support at low points in their life. What I'm interested about is how this pertains to your perspective on the love triangle - you don't seem to be arguing that what we see of Shalladin isn't a solid set-up for a romance (in fact you lay it out so perfectly that I might use it, minus the personal disgust elements, to convince Shadolin supporters that Brandon did write a romantic foundation for Shalladin ), but your argument hinges on the fact that you, personally, don't like the set-up; you find it trite and annoying and dependent on cliches. But I hope you acknowledge that just like it's my opinion that the way Shallan chose Adolin in OB is offensive, it is also just your opinion that the Shalladin set-up was awful. Opinions can make us dig deeper for reasons (my disgust over how Shallan made her choice sent me searching for ways to prove the author didn't really think a good choice; your disgust over the Shalladin set-up led you to searching to prove that the author meant it as a con), but hopefully when it comes down to it, any of our conclusions should be divorced from those opinions and instead based on the textual evidence at hand. ETA: I'm not really digging into this point (I know others have, but I'm more focused on the literary argument you are making), but I wanted to point out this WoB on Shallan and her personas. Given Shallan is one in the spiritual realm, I don't think Brandon is trying to say Veil and Radiant aren't actually part of Shallan, as this indicates the exact opposite. It doesn't undermine your overall love triangle argument that the Shalladin plotline was meant to undermine an overused romantic trope, but I think it might cause you to reevaluate what Brandon sees as Shallan's mental health endgame (i.e. reintegration not suppressing or just using Veil and Radiant.) https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262-oathbringer-glasgow-signing/#e8785

I agree both of those things would be important and healthy, but just want to point out that with the small amount of data we have of their relationship post-TC, we are told (i) Adolin won’t be intimate with Veil (which doesn’t support that he’s trying to reintegrate the personas but instead keeping them seperate by treating them differently - he knows about her personas btw as she explained them to him on Honor’s Path) and (ii) Shallan still needed to explain some things to Adolin, most notably the Ghostbloods (which doesn’t support that she’s opening up to him.) Again as part of why I interpret the romantic arc the way I do, I find it telling that the author is specifically pointing this stuff out to us, as though there’s a blinking sign on the page saying “this isn’t healthy”.

@Ookla the Feathered there's a lot going on in your post too I first off want to say thank you for contributing, as this is hands down the best argument I've seen for Shallan/Adolin being the endgame. Hands down. I think you fit the events within a literary perspective really well, and I've been looking for that ever since I finished OB! I want to respond to some of your specific points, but the first thing I want to note is that you came into OB really wanting Shallan to end up with Adolin (because you didn't like the Kaladin set-up), therefore you are looking at everything that happened in terms of justifying why it worked out and Shallan/Adolin is better. That's no different from someone who came into OB really wanting Shallan to end up with Kaladin (and probably for the exact same reason you didn't - those scenes which you hate, and rightfully point out display important character flaws - worked for them as a cute set-up) who now are justifying why the ending we got is not the real ending. So, just keep in mind everyone is biased Just as an aside, I had no strong preference for either ship pre-OB; I thought Brandon was leaning Shalladin, but thought that could change. I came out of OB very pro-Shalladin though, though I didn't want Shallan to be in a relationship with Kaladin at the end of OB; lots of growth needed for both of them for that to happen. I think there's quite a bit of exaggeration going on here (e.g. sociopath vs. one instance of socipathic behavior), and I don't think anyone has even mentioned (for pages and pages) in respect to the Adolin discussion that it has anything to do with him being right for Shallan or not. I don't think Shallan even comes into the discussion. I mean, in world, Shallan is fine with Adolin's murder of Sadeas, so I don't even see that murder as a valid reason for saying that Adolin wouldn't work for Shallan. I think people have different viewpoints about the morality of Adolin's actions and whether or not that will have future consequences, which is admittedly not the exact topic of this thread, but since it's gone on for over 50 pages, it's bled into a bunch of different tangents. But I think trying to pin people's various feelings on Adolin's morality in the Sadeas killing and how the author might view that in terms of a further plot arc into "you are just trying to find ways to hate Adolin because Shallan chose him" is patronizing to the discussion as a whole. In fact, this above is where I would say the bulk of posters seems to come out - that there will be something else in the future related to the Sadeas murder, and it is likely that Adolin's emotions around his killing of Sadeas (how he felt at the time and/or how he came to terms with it) will have future implications. I think your reasoning for why you feel the way you feel regarding the morality of Adolin's actions was well-thought out and I 100% agree with your conclusion, but I wish it hadn't come after making a blanket statement that the majority posters were only dissecting Adolin's character arc as a means to dismiss his relationship with Shallan. Ok, I made that point and will move on. I find this incredibly interesting. I have two main issues with the end of the love triangle. I often put this one second, but I'll deal with it first. I felt like it was a huge bait and switch, not only in terms of these meet cute shipping scenes, but in terms of oodles of symbolism and foreshadowing that ties Kaladin and Shallan together beyond the scenes themselves. By the way, I think you break down the boots scene and "Kaladin thinks it's good Shallan hides her pain" scenes (chasms and Honor's path) really well, and I think it came across strongly in the narrative that Shallan's treatment of Kaladin in the boots scene was reprehensible (he takes her to task about this in the chasms and she agrees it displayed her prejudice) as well as the fact Kaladin is incorrectly idolizing Shallan's ability to shove down emotions (it's clear this shuts down their conversation and is referenced in Shallan's speech to Adolin about why she thinks Adolin is better for her.) Where we differ, is whether or not a "long-con" is a good thing to give your readers. It's clear it worked for you, but I wonder if it would have worked had it been twisted around. If you liked the romantic set-up "stock scenes" and found a bunch of literary devices which seemed to indicate that was the author's intent but disliked the set-up for the other romance, would you still be happy at the bait and switch? I think you're a writer (right?), so it could be that you're happy with the subversion element as a literary device regardless, but of course there are many readers who aren't happy being taken on a long-con. (I would also argue our "con" didn't get cut off when Shallan chose Adolin so we're still being conned, but you can read all those points in the thread.) ETA: I just want to clarify that I don't mind a "what you see is not what you get" type of subversion, but instead the subversion of adding little literary elements to pull two characters together and then having that lead to nothing. For the "what you see if not what you get" type of subversion (I call it misdirection), you would have to make Kaladin the obvious end game in the explicit storyline with Adolin in the background and a bunch of foreshadowing that Adolin was going to be the actual choice. Instead we got the opposite, which is why it felt to me less like a plot twist and more like, just as you described it, a con. I'm not going to quote all your Adolin stuff, but suffice to say I agree with you on all of it! I think Adolin and Shallan have a great foundation for a solid relationship. Now aside from the fact I don't like being conned (see above), my main issue with Shallan choosing Adolin is not that she chose him, but how she did it. I find the idea of any woman sitting down, a man holding her hand and staring into her eyes and seeing the "real" her (or the "best" persona, or however you're interpreting what Adolin did - not going down that path about what he selects and what that could mean), to be offensive. This is obviously a personal preference; I want my female heroines to be able to stand on their own feet and recognize for themselves their real self/best persona, and then they can run into their man's waiting arms and do their romance thing. People (Shadolin supporters actually!) have redesigned that scene so it could have worked that way, so it could have totally been possible to make it a self-actualizing moment for Shallan, instead of one that, to me, makes her look weak. This is of course my personal opinion, just like it's your personal opinion that Adolin is a great match for Shallan. I think we both realize that the author can make choices for characters which we wouldn't want the characters to make, and I'm very disappointed with how Shallan makes her choice (again not who, but how), because I think it flies in the face of the strength I've seen in Brandon's other female characters. Even if the Adolin romance sticks, I'm hoping this aspect can be turned around in the next few books. Anyway, I wanted to reiterate I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts in the post! I understand that what I see as a poor literary choice (laying a bunch of literary foundation for a relationship and then subverting it) you see as a delightfully subversive long-con by the author. So I appreciate that perspective!