Elsvette Mintyfresh

Like a lot of other people, for me, it was the moment she said "like white on black." I'm fairly certain Vasher said that exact phrase to Dalinar in part one.

Wow, I cannot keep up with everyone else in this thread! I'll admit that Shalladin was the first ship I ever felt actually invested in. Usually, I'm more than happy to let the narrative take the characters where it will. The fact that I felt invested from the moment Kaladin and Shallan meet in WOR tells me that there was something real there. That said, I went into OB ready to be convinced that Shadolin was the better route, if that was where BS wanted to take his story... but, well, obviously I'm still unconvinced. I'm just so glad to know I'm not alone. And, @PhineasGage, I'm looking forward to your fanfic.

I feel like he was already saying the fourth ideal when he told Elhokar, "Be a hero to the one you can save." He just isn't ready to take his own advice.

I feel like I'm close to jumping aboard the Kalazure ship. In any case, I just want Kaladin to find happiness.

So, if the larkin's maturation is dependant on how much investiture it consumes, if Dalinar summoned Honor's perpendicularity for Chirri-chirri, would Rysn suddenly have herself a full grown pet Lanceryn? If she trained him to only drain the Fused, seems like a handy pet to have during a Desolation.

Why not both? It seems very likey that Ishar is both insane and working for Odium.

For me, it was definitely Elhokar. I gasped out loud. He was just beginning to become likeable and competent. On top of that, he died at the hands of Moash, who he'd barely escaped just a few months earlier. He was about 3 words away from saving himself. And, most appallingly, Kaladin, who had been an unstoppable force mere moments ago, suddenly came down with a nervous breakdown and just sat there and watched! Finally, his son was just snatched away again and the entire city fell. It was a perfect storm of horribleness.

I'm with you here. After WOR, Shallan was my favorite character. I related to her a lot. Now, I'm just so disappointed in her. On the bright side, tho, I was pretty meh on Adolin after WOR, but he grew on me a lot in this book.

I hope we will get to know some of the juicy truths that Hoid will tell his new spren. I think perhaps the Fused are looking for Sja-Anat. Odium must know by this point that she's a traitor, right?

I saw your google-fu after posting that last comment. As I'm not even an expert of the internet variety, I'll concede that maybe it is progress. Only another 3 years until we all know for sure!

I, too, was reminded of Legion. I disagree on whether that comparison means progress for Shallan, though. I don't recall the Legion series as portraying Stephen as of particularly sound mind.

Perhaps the Sibling is the spren of Urithiru itself?

But she was fracturing herself even further before her brothers arrived. She was checking out her dress in the mirror, chit-chatting with Veil and Radiant as though they were her bridesmaids. This was something she had never done before. They had always been different faces that she wore; they didn't exist independently. Now they hang out, sip wine, and talk about boys. EDIT - I misread you as saying the letter from Mraize was at fault for her worsening, but I see you actually meant the Ghostbloods in general.

I agree with everyone saying that Timbre is Captain Ico's daughter. The textual clues seem pretty clear. I really liked Timbre and how she spoke only in Listener rhythms. I'm excited to see her and Venli develop in future books. Captain Ico said his daughter went off to "chase dreams." Was bonding a Listener, specifically, that dream? If so, I want to know what caused her pursue that. She must be a relatively young spren, so she wouldn't remember the days before humans. What stories did she hear and from whom? Will there be other spren like her pursuing Listeners?

I also have to say, I felt a little cheated. Didn't Brandon promise Shalladin "moments"? I felt like they never had any. I was pretty excited when they were planning to fly to Thaylena together. I was interested to see how they'd interact while alone again, especially as it was after her finally knowing the truth about Heleran. And then it was just sort of skipped? Throughout OB they barely interacted with each other onscreen. Their entire relationship, such as it was, was played out entirely within their separate heads.

On this note, as well, I recall that Brandon said somewhere that the KSA triangle was meant to mirror something else - which I read as the Gavilar-Navani-Dalinar triangle. Sure, Navani and Gavilar failed due to death (which could be Adolin's fate, but I hope not), but, obviously, that triangle had a different resolution many decades later. What this really makes me wonder, though, what was Navani's logic for marrying Gavilar? I mean, aside from Dalinar's apparently scary intensity. Does it mirror Shallan's in any way?

This is my first real post on the forums. Hopefully I can make my thoughts coherent. I think what bothered me most about the "resolution" to this triangle was not so much the choice Shallan makes - but that she makes a choice at all. She makes two choices at the end of OB, choices that she treats as if they were very important and necessary, but I strongly feel that they were choices that she didn't need to make. The first choice, obviously, is between Kaladin and Adolin. While I have long been a Shalladin shipper myself, the reason I disagree with her choice is not because I think Adolin is the wrong choice, exactly. I think he was a choice she was clearly not ready to make. The reason I think this is because of the other choice she makes - she chooses the persona of "Shallan." Not the actual Shallan that she is, but the persona she built that Adolin "knows" and "recognizes." The real Shallan, as is made clear throughout the book by bother her inner monologue and her conversations with Wit, is all three personas. She knows this too, yet at the end, she chooses, instead, to commit wholly to the persona of "Shallan" rather than do the work of examining the feelings, needs and roles of all three of her selves. It seemed like she arbitrarily choose "Shalllan" because that's who she was the moment Adolin squeezed her hand. It's possible that Adolin did actually recognize that persona, but to me it felt almost as if it was coincidence - like she was a spinning roulette wheel, and he simply stopped her. It felt like she clung to that. Almost immediately afterwards, fully 2/3 of her selves were set on Kaladin, for wildly different reasons. I feel like she really needed to take the time to examine that further. Those are the real Shallan's feelings, she just pretends that they belong to Veil and Radiant. She was absolutely correct to walk away from them, I think. Starting something with Kaladin at that point would have been terrible if she was only 66% sure of it, and still fractured. However, she turned away not because she wasn't ready to make that choice, but because the other 33% of her was set on Adolin. Shallan fails to consider a third option - herself. Adolin, the gentleman that he is, can plainly see that she's conflicted and fractured. He gives her an out - which he phrases clumsily and which rightfully pisses her off. Adolin, too, frames this choice as binary - Adolin or Kaladin. Instead of taking this as an opportunity to be alone with her selves and stitch them back together, she instead pushes forward and chooses Adolin. Honestly, her whole speech at that moment really read to me like she was convincing herself. I'm also a little disappointed in Adolin that he gives in and allows this choice, but I can't blame him too much. It's clear, in the final chapters, that this choice didn't actually resolve anything for her. In fact, it seems to have worsened her condition. No longer are her personas merely faces she wears, now that are distinct individuals that she has conversations with. The fact that Adolin is apparently drinking buddies with Veil seems to mean that not only is Adolin aware of this, but that he is enabling it. He seems to be a rock she has anchored the "Shallan" persona to. Nauseatingly sappy as the "Without you, I fade" line reads - I think she was being literal. Without him to ground the "Shallan" persona, she would be forced to confront her fractured selves. I also think it's very telling that Shallan gave no more Truths in this book. These choices are going to bite her hard in the future.

Hi everyone! I've lurked these boards for a few years now. I'm finally coming out of the shadows, mostly so I can give out upvotes.