agrabes

Right. My interpretation was that Ialai realized (or at least suspected) based on their conversation that Shallan was not fully bought in on the Ghostblood thing. So, she figured there was no harm in telling her a secret she wanted to keep from the Ghostbloods. If Shallan is a true believer, then she or another Ghostblood would have found it anyway. If Shallan is not, then she's managed to save whatever secret it is and possibly sowed discord between Shallan and the Ghostbloods. I believe the wine conversation was both a test and just an expression of complete exhaustion and hopelessness in fighting the Ghostbloods. Then, once she'd done that she decided to tell Shallan a secret with the look through my rooms comment. It might be a cool mystery if the wine conversation was hints at other Ghostblood or Sons of Honor members. I just don't think it is.

Yeah, I noticed that was Lightspine's theory - that Ialai is making vague references to various people she knows about. It's possible, could be a fun plot if it happens. I just don't think it's likely based on the context of the conversation. Like I said - I think she's becoming less and less subtle in telling Shallan "I'm pretty sure you're a Ghostblood agent sent to kill me. So just get it over with." Right - but to me that doesn't make sense. For him to be making a symbolic reference, it would have to be tied to something in world. That's not his style - he doesn't write in symbolism that we as readers are supposed to interpret as a message from him (Brandon Sanderson) to us, the readers. If he is giving a hint or symbolic message, it's always contained within the story - from one in world character to another. So it doesn't make sense that Ialai would be doing things intended to symbolize the qualities of Shallan's personas because she doesn't know they exist. The only way this makes sense is if someone who is clued in such as Hoid, Mraize, or others with deep cosmere knowledge and personal knowledge of Shallan herself told Ialai to make these references in this order. Then it would be a message from that character to Shallan. I don't think there are other examples of Sanderson using that kind of symbolism meant only for readers, but if you know of some I would be interested to hear.

I think you have to consider the context of the discussion. Ialai immediately believes that Shallan was sent by the Ghostbloods to kill her. Her whole conversation is about trying to force Shallan to admit it while gauging her character. I don't think there's hidden meanings. Doesn't mean there couldn't be, but I don't think so.

I don't think there was any. In both cases (both of the wines Shallan drinks), Ialai is trying to hammer home that she knows Shallan isn't who she says she is. The symbolism was that Ialai knows she's there on behalf of the Ghostbloods. I don't think you can say there's any symbolism or meaning tied to Shallan and her personas/alters unless you can say that Ialai knew they existed. Clear wine = Ialai knows there is subterfuge going on - the symbolism being that the wine was specially processed to remove the color and hide its true nature the way the Ghostbloods hide themselves. Orange wine = Ialai taking a shot at the Ghostbloods. Saying that hiding your true nature (the wine is orange/sweet but its true nature is its sourness) and trying to gain power through sneaking around is inferior to openly wielding power and being honest about yourself and your intentions. Blue wine = Ialai saying that the blue wine is the truly good thing - being open about what you are and what you stand for. Not allowed for sneaky Ghostbloods. Horneater white = Ialai directly says - this is you, a Ghostblood operative. Silent and deadly.

I think this was revealed to be Ialai suspecting Shallan as a Ghostblood agent. So this section with the wines was about her saying "yes, I know you're secretly a Ghostblood assassin here to kill me. Get it over with." I don't think it was intended to be saying that Ialai knew she was actually Shallan Davar and that Shallan is suffering from DID.

Late to the party - but I love this cover. I'm not really analyzing it for possible plot elements, just saying I think it's an awesome piece of art.

In the end of OB, she also points out that he refuses to be intimate with Veil. I think she tells him off screen in the falling action of OB. In the Ch. 7 scene - I don't think this is a good sign for their relationship personally. Maybe Adolin's just a super saint who is fine with his wife being three different people in the same body. Maybe he was only asking because he wants to treat each one different. But to me that read as him not totally liking the others and in some ways not considering them his wife. I think if you add his reaction there with the "refuse to be intimate" comments, I think what you see is that Adolin really only considers the "Shallan" persona to be his wife. The others, he treats as either separate people who he may be friends with but doesn't love as a spouse, or as unhealthy expressions of her mental illness that he wants to help her manage. I'm also viewing this through my own personal lens here, but the idea that I would have to wait to figure out who is behind her eyes before I can hug my wife is just heartbreaking. I think we'll get more clues into how Adolin feels about all this fairly soon. I think it's interesting too the way they talk about killing Ialai. I think that's going to be a battle between them - Adolin seems to be kind of feeling bad about killing Sadeas now. Or at least, feeling that it's not something they should do only if it's an absolute last resort, while Shallan (particularly Veil) seems to be saying they should start doing a lot more of these extra-judicial killings.

Yeah, appreciate the discussion but I think it's best we drop it there. I was trying to think of something else to say, but couldn't think of something that wouldn't end up launching into more discussion. So, uh, I guess for lack of a better closer best of luck and I hope we each gave each other something to think about.

In terms of the use of the word upset, I think it doesn't mean just one thing. If a person I cared about were in a car crash I would be upset in a lot of ways. First, yes concerned for their safety. Second, sad for the negative impact the car crash has on them. Third, experiencing my own emotional distress because a serious negative event has happened to someone close to me. And yes, if I found out that a friend had developed a serious mental illness, I would feel very similarly for them. I'm in favor of removing stigma (i.e. false negative views) about things like mental illness. I'm not in favor of removing factually accurate negative views (i.e. those backed by mainstream mental health professionals) of mental illness. By saying that an action is damaging and disrespectful, you are saying that it is immoral. Unless you feel that it is not morally wrong to be damaging and disrespectful to someone else. Saying that anyone who feels the way that I do must reflect internally on their opinions and address them is also indicating that you believe our opinions are morally wrong and we must change ourselves to comply with what is right. You seem like an intelligent and well intentioned person. But I don't agree with you on this. I would indeed be comfortable with saying that it is not morally wrong to dislike reading a novel that is written from the perspective of any marginalized group or any group at all, so long as that dislike is not motivated by racism, bigotry, or other similar reasons. I don't believe that a lack of desire to read a book written from the perspective of a marginalized group is by definition a sign of hatred for or bias against that group. I think as society we understand this easily when we think about it in reverse. It's easy to understand that a person of color may not like to read a book that's all about white people because it's hard for them to see themselves in the story, it's hard for them to relate to something that they don't feel a cultural tie with. Some will like it, others won't. And that's totally fine. And it's also totally appropriate that we as society are trying to develop media for everyone so that everyone can read a book and find someone like themselves in it that they can relate to. But, it's also totally appropriate that the reverse is true - someone who represents that majority, the non-marginalized, may not be able to relate to those who aren't part of their cultural group and may not want to consume that media because they can't relate to it. And that's also OK, or it should be. I don't want to sidetrack this into a discussion about what is right or wrong about how society views mental illness or other controversial topics. I'm asking, please don't tell people they are bad people for being sad that a favorite character has been inflicted with a serious mental illness which has changed their personality and has caused them to lose the ability to know their own identity. In return, we shouldn't judge Shallan beyond acknowledging what is written in the books about her condition. Interesting to know that. I'll try to keep that in mind as I read further and as I reread the rest of the series before RoW. I think it might make things feel "better" to me if I read the whole book starting with the idea that she already has this condition.

While you seem to be someone with much more knowledge of this topic than me and much more capability to understand what is "right" and "wrong" about portraying someone with a mental illness, I will say that I feel like this is also part of the issue for me. Even from someone with no real knowledge on the topic, it feels like it's not being done quite right. Sanderson himself has said he wasn't sure if he was going to go this route and only decided to do it for OB. I think we are supposed to take it that Shallan has had DID since her childhood trauma. But her behavior changed significantly in OB, when Sanderson decided he was going to take her the DID route. So it feels like she only developed the condition in OB, even if that's not supposed to be the case. Maybe a professional or someone who actually has experience with the condition would say this is totally normal, but it doesn't feel right to me. I think if he had decided and committed on day one that she always had DID and wrote her consistently that way, even if it wasn't completely accurate to the medical diagnosis of the condition, it would feel a lot more right to us. At least, it would to me.

I also felt pretty similarly, but kind of got over it. It's sort of like reading GRRM - your favorite character died and it feels terrible and you may even take a break from reading the series for a while. For me, I put down GRRM's series for 10 years after reading the Red Wedding. I'm glad I picked it up again though, the books are good and it's much easier to deal with the deaths when you know they are coming. Shallan was probably my favorite character going into this. I do think that while Shallan will probably never again be the same Shallan of WoK and WoR, she will get back to being closer to who she was. For me, I just pretty much had to accept that we're dealing with something different now. Before, reading Shallan's story and how she advanced her goals and dealt with her challenges was one of my most favorite things in reading the books. Shallan is no longer toward the top of my list for favorite characters, reading her chapters are more like some kind of psychological study - how is she doing mentally and how is that impacting the way she acts? How do we tease out what her actual goal is now and is that a good goal for her to have? Shallan has a mental illness which has completely changed who she is as a person in the middle of a book series. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to find that upsetting and off putting. Having a mental illness of this severity is not something that should lead to Shallan being demonized, but it's not something that should be celebrated either. It's natural to be upset if someone you care about develops a serious illness - the same applies for a fictional character you like. If Shallan is ultimately able to manage her illness in a healthy way as defined by mental health professionals, then maybe her character provides a good role model for those who suffer with her same afflictions. But please don't tell someone they are a morally bad person because they are sad and upset that their favorite character has had a major and likely permanent personality change caused by a mental illness. Most of us read these books and participate in this community because we love the story and characters, not because we're interested in encouraging people with rare mental health conditions. I hope anyone who does have DID is able to find a way to get as healthy as they can through appropriate doctor's care and support from friends and family. If I'm in contact with someone who has DID in real life, I'll do my best to be a good influence in their life. But that's separate from what I want to read about for my own personal enjoyment. It's not morally wrong to dislike reading from the POV of a character who has DID or any mental illness of any type.

I'll assume I'm one of the people being called out here, since I did defend Gavilar's actions in the first thread about the Prologue. Seeing that I was pretty much the only person who felt that was appropriate, during those discussions I went back and reread the prologue again and realized I had either skimmed or skipped over a lot of the worst stuff that Gavilar did. I went into my first read of the prologue with the thought that Gavilar must have some good reason for the way he was acting in the earlier excerpt we got from the prologue and so I was only looking for justification of why I was right. On the second read, I realized a lot of what he did was way over the line, much more so than I originally thought. This is a dangerous topic to discuss on the internet. People generally tend to want to think the worst of you, particularly if you're not advocating the absolute maximum support of people who may be victims. Honestly, if I had actually fully read what Gavilar did the first time around, I would have never made the comments that I did. I personally feel that we have not seen enough in the book to indicate that Gavilar is definitely abusive. I believe there's a high chance that he is/was, enough so that it was not right to try to argue a devil's advocate position that he wasn't so bad as everyone thought. But I don't believe that whether or not he was abusive can be determined for certain based on only one interaction in which there was no physical violence taking place. We only know one side of the story right now. Gavilar has a right to his own version of the events as long as they are not lies. He has a right to argue with Navani and express to her that he believes he is right and she is wrong. He has a right to be mad at her and frustrated with her. Expressing anger and frustration in an inappropriate way is wrong but does not necessarily mean he is being abusive. It's the way he does these things over time that would push inappropriate and hurtful behavior over the line to abuse. I'm going to leave it with this: I fully support what the OP said about seeking help in abusive situations and that we as society should help those who feel they have been abused. Perception is reality for situations like this - if you feel you've been abused, then you have. And yes, sometimes it takes an outside person to help you understand that what is going on is actually abuse. If you knew me as a person and understood my values through my day to day actions, you would understand that I am not someone who wants to enable abuse. I simply believe that domestic abuse is an extremely complicated topic. Sometimes it's open and shut, good and evil. But many times it is not that simple. I appreciate the OP's call out because I think it's important to express that message, but I don't think any good can come of having any further discussion about this, so I'm going to leave it there.

i'm not totally sure how I feel about that line. I agree it's not a romantic sign. I definitely took it as.. there's something wrong here. It almost felt like Veil/Radiant insulting "Shallan". I said in the other thread I felt a bit better about Shallan's state after reading chapters 4 and 5, but this was one of the lines that to me says there are still serious problems. Obviously not being an expert in real life DID, my gut feeling is that the main "Shallan" persona needs to get stronger somehow. That she needs to get the idea that she "is" Shallan, but sometimes she lets herself be Veil or Radiant.

This week's chapters honestly made me feel like Shallan is more stable than the previous chapter we had from her. This week's chapters made it feel like the three personas all have a bit of an understanding - that they try to let each one come out for what they are each best at. Last week, it seemed like Veil was in full control. I still think that she's not in a "good" situation and still worse than the end of OB in some respects. She's lost the small bit of self-identity she had in OB, that during OB she knew she was Shallan but wanted to become someone else. Now, she thinks she is three people all at once, which is as we know a mental disorder. But at least the three selves seem to be sharing nicely and there's no sign of a fourth being created. I liked the interactions between Kaladin and the "Windrunner" Fused. What I took out of it was that I think each Radiant order and its respective mirrored Fused order hold the same core values. So when you look at an order like the Windrunners/Heavenly Ones because a big part of their values are protection and fighting honorably, you see that the Heavenly Ones act very much like the Windrunners, they engage in one on one battles, don't involve the innocent, etc. I think this is why Kaladin is drawn to Leshwi - he sees a reflection of himself there. What might have been, if a few things went different in his life and he'd wound up fighting on the other side. This is how he would fight if he had landed on Odium's team. I think what you'll probably see is that some orders like Windrunner/Skybreaker/Stoneward Fused will mostly be that kind of honorable villain that you fight because you ended up on different sides somehow, but wish you didn't have to. The values of those orders won't allow their members to be overly cruel, they will be bound by certain strict codes. Like the Skybreaker Fused would respect the laws of war and not harm prisoners, the Stoneward Fused would keep its word and generally fight defensive lost cause type battles, not go out and pillage. Other orders have less rigid values on the Radiant side and that would open them up to more "evil" interpretations on the Fused side. In Ch. 4 we see the Shallan triad basically say it's ok to lie and give a false oath so long as it's not to their own spren. I imagine the Fused Lightweavers get much nastier. Wild Theory: Moash will become a Fused of the Skybreaker mirror order.

I pulled up the chapter. You're right that by this time Mraize had figured out her true identity. It's actually the scene where he tells her he's just figured it out. I really don't think there's much that can be taken from that Mraize section. He claims that Shallan Davar is the false identity, but then later he says "I should have guessed that you would turn out to be Shallan Davar." So, he already says he knows that Shallan is the true identity. Everything he says beyond that, in the context of the scene, seems to be pure manipulation. He is trying to manipulate Shallan to work for the Ghostbloods. And at least for now the Ghostbloods are being portrayed as a pretty sinister organization. Maybe later on we'll learn they're actually some of the good guys, but I'd guess at most they are like anti-hero types, bad on all other accounts except that they are possibly fighting Odium. I think you see one aspect of Shallan in those two pivotal battles, an aspect she did try to hide. But I think that's just a small part of her. Like, I don't think the way she was in those two short scenes are the way she would be all the time if she was 100% fully integrated. But it's a true part of her that she's able to do it and not scared to do it if she needs to.

Thanks good explanation - I think we're closer to being on the same page than not. I agree with your general idea of possible "Shallan 1/2/3". I don't think that there's a "Shallan 1" that's nothing like the "Shallan 2" we meet in WoK, but that "Shallan 2" is basically "Shallan 1" with a few pieces chipped off and buried deep in her mind. And that more pieces get chipped off to create "Shallan 3". I guess in terms of her timid/aggressive nature and the WoB quote, how I read that is that maybe she did hide away the part of her that was capable of violence and overt action. Maybe in more of a "suppressed memory" way originally, and then it became DID later. I think what the WoB means is that the part of her that is timid, like deferring to Jasnah, or feeling she needs to stay quiet when her "betters" are talking, is not the real true her. That's learned behavior from her childhood and trying to manage her father's abuse. But the part of her that likes to talk out of turn, cares a little less about propriety, loves art and nature, that we see in WoR and early OB is the passionate part that is most like the real her.

I get your point about what is more or less true to a person's core, but what you've said is not really accurate to the state of Shallan's character that we've read in the books so far. When Shallan is alone, or with close friends, in moments she can let her guard down she is never Veil. So if Veil were the truest part of herself, the part that she is when she can relax and be however she wants to be, then she would revert to Veil or would have acted like Veil prior to her creating the Veil persona in those situations. In the times we see her at her most relaxed and intimate, she is Shallan. When she is under stress, that's when Veil comes out. At least, that's my memory of the books. I don't think Shallan is a coping mechanism. I think the opposite is true - Veil and Radiant are coping mechanisms. We see this in the book. They are created in response to trauma. Shallan is a more complete personality - yes she does sometimes has to put on a face for official business or to please others. But she can also act out childishly, telling bad jokes. She can express joy and wonder for the natural world and art. All the good things we associate with her character have been done by the main Shallan personality, even sneaky, roguish behavior. She's pushed some of that into Veil now, but think about early WoR and even WoK.

There are also in context explanations for both of these instances. Especially the Mraize situation. The other one I think might be something if the theory that there is a totally different "true" Shallan out there we haven't met yet is correct. Mraize first heard about her from Tyn, who reported to him that she was a con artist pretending to be Shallan Davar. He then saw the way she behaved herself around him and the other Ghostbloods, confirming his suspicions. The reason he believed that Veil was the real one and Shallan was fake all goes back to the reports that came from Tyn. And if you think about it logically, it's much more likely that a darkeyed con artist would want to impersonate a lighteyes who is engaged to be married into one of the wealthiest families in Alethkar, than for that lighteyes to impersonate a random darkeyes. It's not some deep insight into her true nature, it's that he got bad information to start with and then made a wrong conclusion from that. In the OB scene, she says both are equally false for two reasons. First, this is during the time she is starting to lose control of herself. This is her mental illness starting to show through. Second, Shallan doesn't really trust Ishnah. She is trying to keep Ishnah from getting leverage on her and has to keep up all kinds of subterfuge related to the Ghostbloods, so she lies about her identity. She doesn't want Ishnah to try to come into her normal life. @Jenet My theory in terms of Shallan's truths is that she still has not truly faced her 3rd truth. She said it, but still hasn't internalized or processed it yet. She's avoiding it. I think based on Pattern's reactions when they talk about it and also the way Shallan herself acted afterward, I think saying the truth without being ready really messed her up. Though maybe she was able to come to terms with it in the 1 year gap between books. So, I think her path forward is to first come to terms with all the truths she's said so far if she hasn't already and then work toward the final truth. I think after that final truth we'll see her have a similar moment of triumph but then when the action fades it's going to mess her up for a while again, like her 3rd Truth.

Right, sorry a bit confusing. I was talking about the quote you did provide, but then also quoted a quote someone else provided. I think there is one true Shallan - who has many facets. A person without DID can express different aspects of themselves at different times as called for by the situation but always remain themselves. And I think the excerpt you just quoted now - the "all of them" portion - is that healthy part of her brain trying to convince herself that not only is she all of them, but all of them are her. To me, that's a distinction. Shallan can be sneaky and roguish, as long as she's still Shallan at heart. That's Shallan showing her roguish side, being multi-faceted. Veil controlling Shallan's body is different. Veil is what you would get if you took Shallan and took away all her personality traits except for roguishness.

Yeah - sorry all I did not mean to rekindle those old debates from the shipping wars days 3 years ago. @Karger Thanks for providing the quote from the book. I did see that one, but read it as either Veil self-disciplining or that when 2 of the 3 personalities agree they can override the other. I think really to know the true state of things we need to see what happens once we see Shallan in situations that aren't a stealth mission. When she's off the clock who does she default to? Does she still think of herself as Veil? If so, that's what is concerning to me. Before, when she was just relaxing, she was Shallan. I think I've kind of isolated what bugs me about this - I liked the Shallan we read in WoK, WoR, and early OB. She was insecure and didn't realize how competent and intelligent she really was. She didn't really always understand how damaged she was and also didn't realize that despite all her hardships she still was a bit sheltered in some ways and had certain privileges. But it was really fun to watch her grow and succeed despite her lack of confidence. And at the beginning of OB, she was just starting to become a bit confident. When Jasnah came back, being forced back into a student/subordinate role kind of shattered her fragile self esteem and I think was what really started her on the downward spiral. I don't particularly like Veil, Radiant, or a possible blended character with all three personas getting lines in here and there like Ch. 2 of RoW. And I feel like the Shallan from the first 2 1/4 books has lost herself and may never come back. I like the idea that she has to face dark times and may get worse before she gets better. But I don't like the idea that she might not ever be the same person we met in WoK again. That's why I hope that at the end of the day, she becomes a wiser, more self confident Shallan again and maybe she can let Veil or Radiant out occasionally, maybe she even talks to them in her head, or maybe she becomes a Shallan who has a few of Veil's personality traits, but she's still Shallan. We see several lines like this in the RoW Ch. 2 POV and they are what make me feel there is still something majorly wrong. The Shallan we were presented in WoK is the "Shallan" persona. We can theorize that that persona is simply another false front, hiding a true self we've never yet seen. It might be true. But I don't think so. For two whole books, we saw one version of Shallan. I think just by sake of simplicity, we should assume that the Shallan we saw first and have seen the most of is the one that is the closest to her "real" self. It may not have been the complete, "true" Shallan, but it's the closest thing we've seen. So this line to me is a sign that there is still a lot of danger for Shallan. Her created false personas want to destroy the part of her that is most like herself, most like the person she was prior to creating the two recent personas. Even if the Shallan we saw in WoK was also a false face, we have to assume that it is the most like her "true" self that we have seen, because there were fewer alternate personalities at that time.

At least in the section we get from RoW, I don't think there's any evidence of this though. It seems Veil may be filling the role of "moderator" to at least some degree. "Shallan" herself is the one being pushed into the background by Veil more than once. We could see more evidence of it later. I'll be really interested to see what Adolin and the other Radiants think of Shallan's state. That might give us more perspective. I don't know that we have lots of evidence of this. I mean, I know during the shipping wars post OB people theorized that Veil and Radiant had stolen away portions of Shallan, leaving the Shallan that was left with less of herself. I kind of bought into those theories back then, but I don't think that's probably the case now that we're being told she is being written as if she has DID. So at least as I understand it, this would not cannibalize her original personality (i.e. if Veil is sneaky, it doesn't mean Shallan can no longer be sneaky) but instead just create an additional separate personality with different primary traits that can handle difficult situations for her. But regardless of what people said back then, your theory could be correct and would explain why there was no evidence of her having DID prior to OB. If she was already just a split personality at that point with her "true" self locked away then we wouldn't see it.

Since I drew the opposite conclusion from you, I'm interested - what is it about the section we've seen that makes you think Shallan is more in control here vs. the end of OB? I guess just that you didn't feel Veil was in control, or that you don't think that's a problem? I do like your theory of what might come next for Shallan. I'm still not 100% convinced on what comes next with this situation, like you said in light of the WoB. I think there is (possibly) something more going on here though. In tWoK and WoR, there was no evidence that Shallan had DID. But the trauma that caused the DID was long before those books. So how could it be that she is only now creating these personas? Wouldn't at least one alternate personality have existed ever since the original trauma? Maybe that's just because Sanderson only chose to go full DID after he'd already written WoR. Maybe that's just how the disorder works in real life. Or maybe it's a sign that it was brought on by her Truths and her inability to handle them in a way that a normal human on Earth would not face, and maybe once she can actually accept them she will at least get significantly better with her condition. That since the DID came on unnaturally, it might also leave unnaturally. My hope is that at least the Shallan we knew from tWoK and WoR will firmly assert herself as the one in the driver's seat by the end of the series. Even if Veil and Radiant are still around, I could live with that. I'll admit, it's part of my own identity that a strong sense of self control is very important to me. That I am me and everything I do is because I consciously chose to do it. So the idea that there could be this part of you that isn't you that has even a small portion of control over yourself is basically what a psychological horror movie looks like for me. Maybe I'm more sensitive toward this than the average bear.

Personally, I consider it out of control if she believes that there are three distinct personalities with their own wills living within her body and extremely out of control if she sees herself "Shallan" as not the main personality who is in control. When she started, she was in control. She created Veil to do the things that needed to be done sneakily, but Veil was a character that she (Shallan) played. Veil had no will of her own, it was Shallan acting as Veil. Then, slowly Veil did have a will of her own, but Shallan was still in control. Veil only came out when Shallan wanted Veil to come out. Then, Shallan got scared of using her shardblade and so she created the character Radiant that she could play who had no fear. But then, she lost control. It was no longer Shallan in charge, Veil started coming out when Shallan didn't want her to. And then Radiant started to gain her own personality and will. Now, in Ch. 2 of RoW, the character is introduced as Veil, not Shallan. That's got to be meaningful. Always before, the introduction would have been something like "Shallan had been spending a lot of time as Veil this month". Instead we get "Veil was growing upset." Veil is in full control. Veil decides when Shallan gets to come out now. It's lines like this that make me believe things are in some ways even more messed up than they were before: "The shoe merchant finally approached her—a stout fellow with a beard striped with white. With that contrast, Shallan had an urge to draw him, so Veil stepped back and let Shallan emerge to take a Memory of him for her collection." Shallan is not in control of herself. She's stabilized in the sense that she is no longer generating additional personas, but she's worse in the sense that as of the end of OB, Shallan was still at least partially in control of which personality was in charge of her body.

Yeah, I'd seen some WoBs to that effect before too but didn't remember all the details. I guess I'll still hold out hope that it's somehow a magical ailment that is being portrayed realistically while she has it and that it will vanish once she learns to use her magic better or that she can at least get it under better control by the end of RoW or at some point in SA5. But, yeah, I guess I have to prepare for the possibility that there will always be 3 personalities. I don't know enough about the real disorder to know if it's a permanent condition, or if people can "recover" or at least get to a point where they have a more "normalized" view of themselves.

You know, I was going to say I thought you were wrong about this, but I went back to read it again and I think you are completely correct at least that there is a "primary" and that Veil is it right now. The start of the POV section starts with "Veil was growing upset". It's like this is a "Veil" POV section, not Shallan. It's all written as if this is Veil's body, with Shallan and Radiant living inside it. This is not just Shallan acting as Veil. We've seen that before, and it's always Shallan in the background making comments like "Well, Veil did something like this, which is not how I would have done it, but that's why I have Veil" and here we see the reverse. Veil is now the one saying those things about Shallan. Personally, I hope this is not just a new reality with Shallan permanently having some version of DID. It makes me feel a little uncomfortable reading these chapters honestly - that she's lost control of herself to this degree. Hopefully, this is more of a magical ailment and not a real mental illness that predates her lightweaver abilities. I'm hoping the 5th Ideal/4th Truth will be something that helps her re-integrate herself.