LuckyJim

I think one of the most exciting things about Jasnah being one of, if not the main character of the back 5 is how that will affect the general framing of ideals in the series. Like you said, so far it's been very Windrunner defined, but with Jasnah being a major focus it's possible her own more utilitarian ideas will be a big part of shaping the interpretation of ideals.

Plus, she likes to debate, so maybe conflicting ideologies will be a bigger focus in the back half as well, where we get to see the benefits and failings of each. I'd really like to see that.

1 hour ago, Elegy said:

A lot of great points in here, great work! One thing though, there is a dark-eyed female main character, and that's Lift.

Lift is kind of a weird case. She is darkeyed, but she also doesn't live within the Vorin caste system and almost immediately after she's introduced she starts living a life of luxury since she's friends with the newly elevated Prime of Azir. Not to mention, as a Shardbearer she's a de facto lighteyes now.

That being said, her story does seem to deal with how the lower class is treated due to her own background as a street urchin and her duties as an Edgedancer. It's very possible that her story will deal with these issues in more depth once we get to her book.

4 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Shallan's entire arc has been about finding out there is always another layer to her trauma.

1. Shallan's father killed Shallan's mother.
2. Shallan killed her father when his insanity went too far. 
3. Shallan actually killed her mother in self defense and her father took the heat and went insane.
4. Shallan then went and killed her spren in a moment of grief and despair. 
5. ?

MY 5:
5. Shallan killed a herald, a god, and started a desolation indirectly. 
"The world ended, and Shallan was to blame - Words of Radiance, Chapter 10. 
The line is said at the beginning of a chapter with no explanation or context

We have one book left, and we have one remaining gap in her memory - and this memory seems to be about a Seon and the connections her mother had to secret societies. To me it seems quite obvious this last secret is about Shallan's mother, but what that secret exactly is is up in the air for sure.

If Shallan is repressing that she killed a herald, then she likely wouldn't allow herself to remember what she did or make the connection. Cue Radiant, who is basically a stand in for the heralld Chanarach.  As for killing a herald, Shallan managed to snipe her mother close-range with an unexpected shard-dagger. Mrs. Davar knew Shallan was "one of them", but I doubt Mrs. Davar thought a small child had progressed to the third ideal. As for the killing blow, heralds are strong, but Shallan's mother was not exactly in a clear and composed mental state at the time of her demise. It would be near impossible for Mrs.Davar to dodge a shardblade summoned 3 inches from her own chest as Mrs.Davar is charging towards Shallan at full inertia. 

Side Note: I like the idea that many heralds bought Ishar's idea that the return of radiants could bring about a desolation, but it was actually the hunting of radiants that brought about the desolation. Maybe Ishar had some future sight, and this then became a greek-style tragedy about prophecy. 

 

It just seems really excessive to me for the entire end of the world to basically be Shallan's fault.At the end of RoW, Shallan's narrations says there are no more holes in her memory, and yes she's not exactly a reliable narrator, but I would hope that after four books of this we can finally start moving forward. Making her arc about uncovering repressed guilt over some murder yet again is just repetitive, and regresses Shallan's character after the progress she finally made in RoW.

17 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Loved the episode but was really hoping there would be some talk about the inconstancies with the information we have on Shallan's Mother's soul being but in a box, but then Shallan going to talk to Testement after the Soul was in the box, meaning that Shallan knew her mother's soul was not the Testament blade (but seems to have confused these later in life much as she has done with Pattern and Testament). 

With the reveal about Testament, it blows my mind that more people didn't look at the Glowing Soul of Light thing and not consider there may be some truth to what Shallan remembers. Shallan believes that:

1) Shallan is attacked because her mother is disgusted by Surgebinders
2) Shallan summons a blade to kill her mother in self defence. 
3) Shallan's father picks up something glowing and locks it in a safe.
4) Shallan believes her mother's soul is trapped in a safe.
5) Shallan goes to the garden to yell at Testament and unbond the spren.
6) Shallan continues to see light radiating from the safe for the rest of her time in the Davar household. 
7) Shallan retains some knowledge that she could summon Testament again (as she seems to know this is tWoK before meeting Pattern)
?) So why does Shallan believe anything is trapped in the safe if Shallan knew Testament would be in the garden to talk with her AND that Shallan knew on some level that she could summon Testament at any time (as she proves in tWoK and WoR)? What is there in the safe to consider locked-away? And why hallucinate light? Shallan may be loads of unstable, but she has never hallucinated before - she instead represses or stitches together narratives. If anything, she has some kind of magical connection-sight as shown by her ability to draw Yalb's actual survival on a beach. There is no reason to believe that Shallan made up the light besides a bias we have against her. 

When Shallan goes to the garden to unbond Testament, she is not crazy or repressing any of these events yet, so her understanding that Testament was not equal to the thing in the safe seems pretty clear and concrete to me. So to me it seems clear that something else was put in the safe and modern-Shallan has repressed memories and is conflating whatever was put in the safe with Testament (which she further conflates with Pattern). Could this be a Herald's soul? Could Shallan's father have known about Chanarach? Could the safe have been something other that just a run of the mill safe? With Seon in the mix, is there some other tech abound? It is just so odd. 

Add on the fact that Cryptics were drawn to child-Shallan for no currently apparent reason (so much so even that a dead spren didn't deter them and they tried a second time years later), that there are Seons involved somehow, the influence of an unmade is around the family, secret societies are abound and persistent (to the point where Maraize even says he should have known a Davar was a radiant despite Heleran not being one), and Shallan's parents fighting about Shallan's future all before these events, there is something very very special going on and non-standard about Shallan's family and the death of Shallan's mother in particular. 
 

I think the reason most people assume Shallan is hallucinating is because in one of the flashbacks, Shallan is with Helaran and sees light coming from the safe "so bright that it's blinding" but Helaran claims to not see anything. Unless Helaran's lying or only Shallan can see the light for some reason, it might just be the simpler answer that she's hallucinating.

12 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

I have a hard time seeing what Moash will do to redeem himself with most of book 5 set to take place in 10 days.  

He could do a Darth Vader redemption where he saves one person's life and dies almost immediately. I don't see a really earned, worked for change happening in 10 days. Granted it will be a very busy 10 days that's described in hundreds of thousands of words.

What is his role going to be now that he is blind or will Odium fix that immediately? What was the point of blinding him then? Are we going to get a "Moash learns to live with his disability and has a change of heart along the way" arc over 10 days? 

I highly doubt that book 5 will only last 10 days, but aside from that, Moash doesn't need to go through a complete redemption in book 5. He only has to decide that he's wants to make the change. Depending on where Sanderson decides to take Moash's character, he could reach that point fairly soon. After RoW, he's beaten, broken and blind, he tried to reach his potential, but ended up hitting rock bottom instead. Throughout RoW, he tried to prove his view of the world correct over Kaladin, but Kaladin beat him, so the only conclusion Moash can take from this is that he was wrong, and now he has to figure out where to go from there.

I like the idea suggested in the Shardcast, that Moash will try to gain some redemption in death. It wouldn't be weird if he's become completely suicidal by book 5, believing that he's so useless that the only way to make things right is to die, and spend most of book 5 trying to find a way to make that happen. Ultimately though, it doesn't work, and he's forced to fully confront his flaws for the first time and actually put in the work to be better.

There's the issue of how much of his development would then take place over the timeskip, but there's also the possibility he could get a novella set in between books 5 and 6.

I was not expecting such a nuanced take on the topic, even going so far as to assess the character on a meta level and the implications of his character arc on the way the narrative treats oppressed groups. I think Moash discourse has become a lot more polarized and one sided since RoW, which I kinda blame on Branding giving Moash a few too many "kick the dog" moments. Regardless, I have very complex feelings on the subject, and I found this episode to be very validating.

I'd really like to see Moash get some form of redemption, because there's a lot of value his perspective can bring to the story. I initially wanted him to become a Windrunner who protects the singers, but I've since become more fond of the idea of him becoming a Dustrbringer. Taking control of himself after spending his entire life being controlled by tyrants, and channeling his righteous anger into a more productive form.