GudThymes

I think your gut is right on this one. The primary personality is losing more and more control and is becoming less stable. I'm thinking she's on track to have another splinter personality be generated from Shallan. OTP. What's their couple name? Lesdin? Kalahwi?

Yeah, although I wish I got to see the events that happened in between OB and RoW (anxiously waiting Dawnshard) I would prefer that the time skip happen between books rather than in the middle. I've never enjoyed timeskips in the middle of a book. I find that they're either not well distinguished and your timeline gets a little fuzzy or they break my immersion. Whereas if it's been books it's much easier for me to mentally accept the missing narrative. Maybe I'm just weird.

Thank you for this recap on them. I guess I could have looked at the coppermind entry (which I just did) but I like this more.

Given the other answers I think the answer to this "could the Lord Ruler have pierced his own coppercloud?" is it depends. If his coppercloud is weaker than the Seeker or other allomancy that you want to do then yes, he could have pierced his own. Whichever is stronger wins. I know that you can flare your allomancy to get an increase in strength but can you do the opposite? Like a half-lashing from SA? Could the Lord ruler burn slow enough that no one else could cut through his Coppercloud but not enough such that he blocks his own allomancy?

Hmmm, fair. Ok, I see this as a good counterpoint to my interpretation of Shadesmar and its dangers. Damnation, I was hoping I was onto something. Thanks It's probably not unique but I came up with it myself.

Wait, why would he have recognized them? I'm not being obtuse I just don't know all the facts. Do we know that Gavilar shared them with Restares/the sons? I don't even think he is a bad judge of character. He was suspecting of Sadeas the entire time and didn't want to fully trust him (look at his scenes with Adolin). He only trusted Sadeas because he asked the Almighty if he could trust Sadeas and the Almighty said yes. Except that it was just pure coincidence because the Almighty wasn't actually reacting to anything Dalinar was saying. I'm in the boat that the SoH are tricking Shallan into revealing herself and don't actually have a spy. I think there are a lot of signs showing the Dalinar/Shallan either don't have the full picture or worse are being intentionally played here. Sidenote, we generally know the SoH motivation, but what's the ghostbloods? Greed?

Apologies, I misread your intent on the initial comment. a) I think that the best way to answer this question is to dive into the treatment paradigms that therapists use when treating DID. I have not studied clinical psychology or looked into this much, so I won't answer either way on this one. I think that's up for debate. (b) Given that Shallan has DID I think we need to look into the clinical definition and interpretations to answer this question, rather than our experiences. two things here. 1) the "personalities" that are created are not unique entities, they are related to the "true" person that existed before the splintering. 2) You are not born with DID, there is some external trigger that causes this to manifest (trauma, drug usage, something). Ok, so this means that at some point in time (I'm assuming before she bonded with Pattern and killed her mother) there was a single Shallan just like you or me, and now the personalities that we interact with are different manifestations of that core person. Ok, this is tricky given the context of the story. If you look at the three personalities right now (Shallan, Veil, and Radiant) it's easy to say that "Shallan" would be the primary, she fits that diagnostic tool. However, let's look at the period before Veil and Radiant (WoK and flashbacks), we don't see a point in which "Shallan" is created, she always has been. However, I'm fairly comfortable saying that she already had DID at this point in time, and only had the one splinter personality. For me, all of this points that yeah, there is definitely one "true" Shallan. Whether that is the Shallan personality we have seen or is some other version of Shallan is up for debate. My opinion is that Shallan is the primary personality and that the pre DID version of Shallan no longer exists. The primary personality that came out of that splintering is definitely Shallan, and the path towards improvement within her mental disorder is to find a balance with her personalities that leaves Shallan in charge.

Ehhh, I don't remember Danlan being a part of the Diagram specifically, I thought that their assassination plot was because each member had a different reason for wanting Elhokar dead? Also, she met with Kaladin personally, I highly doubt that she would be able to be in a position close enough to the throne to be a spy for Ialai and not get caught out by her previous attempt on the King's life. Plus I don't think it fits her motivation, she felt like Elhokar was a failure and Dalinar should take his place, why would she now be against Dalinar?

I think you're on the nose with this. I interpret the quote and WoB in the same way. I totally see that Nale is right about how to bonds would change, he's literally the only person alive right now that is of the 5th Ideal, and the only one since the Recreance which pre-dates Honor's death. He would be the only source for how the bond would have changed. But he's insane. It's my personal headcannon that each Herald went insane in a very specific way. Nale says this to Szeth: I believe that Nale is not an unreliable narrator like other Heralds may be, (although in this case I think he was misled by Ishar). Rather his decision making is compromised. Is this the case? I recall seeing a WoB somewhere that referenced the different way that Honor was splintered compared to the Selish shards. I know that the way Odium splintered Devotion and Dominion shunted the investiture into the Cognitive to prevent it from gaining it's own sentience. But, I thought that that wasn't the case with respect to Tanavast, he had more control over his splintering and shoved some into the Stormfather in the physical (As well as other places we don't know)

I totally hear you on this, and definitely agree with a lot of the sentiment here. BUT, Brandon has confirmed that Shallan has Dissociative Identity Disorder (also referred to as DID or Multiple/Split personality disorder) and it is non-magical. He has done extensive research on the topic and recruited an alpha reader with the disorder to help ensure that he is accurate. I think we can certainly say that the way that Shallan works when it comes to "personas" or "the self" is very different than anyone who doesn't have DID. It's great for us to use our own experiences to understand and sympathize with her, but we can't use them as a comparison tool in this instance. With that said, I think there is a point to saying that the personalities Shallan has will change/evolve over time and may be different "people" in different scenarios, but they are indeed distinct selves. We know she has 3 selves at this point in time, but may have more.

I'm so sorry to hear that this happened to you and I am very sorry that people in your life tried to play off or excuse your ex's behavior. You didn't and do not deserve that. I'm glad that you were able to get out of that relationship. If you ever want to talk or game pm me, there's no limit to the amount of friends you can have. This, I hope everyone reads this and takes it to heart. The comments I've seen in this thread speak volumes to me as they parallel behavior in our society -- We struggle to recognize abuse for what it is, and even when we do we try to downplay or excuse it. That needs to change, and it starts with how we portray and talk about abuse in media. This thread is important, and I hope people reconsider their views on the Gavilar Navani dynamic.

I agree. We've seen WoB's showing the differences between Heavenly Ones and Windrunners and their strengths in accessing the same core surges. However, I imagine that there are certain Fused that are better at fighting Windrunners than others (and we know that not all the Fused types have shown themselves yet). I think the red sliver teleporty Fused is likely the Fused counterplay to traditional Windrunners. How do you beat people who can fly? Teleport around more quickly than they can fly there.

The spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation, so this WoB makes it very likely Honor's death lead to an explosion in their numbers. Syl mentions that intelligent spren are much more common now than they were before the Recreance, so we at least know for sure that their members have increased. And we also know that some spren, such as angerspren, are extremely dangerous in the Cognitive Realm. In addition, the Oathgates no longer facilitate travel between Realms, so it's easier to get trapped in the Cognitive Realm—with Cultivation's perpendicularity being the only escape (although this is more of a danger for Elsecallers than it is for Lightweavers, who can't fully enter the Cognitive on their own). Since Transformation involves partially entering Shadesmar, as we see Shallan do at the end of WoK, the more dangerous nature of the Cognitive Realm could very likely be the reason behind Jasnah's quote. I like your thoughts here! Although I don't think that the WoB is implying that there was an explosion in the Spren numbers. Even before the splintering of Honor the spren were more much numerous that seons and skaze. I think what Syl says is more important here, and may definitely be a result of how Honor died while not changing the surges. I wonder though, has the risk of falling into the Cognitive Realm post Honor increased? I think that's an important thought to consider here. Can you link to any? I would love to read this as I think it could just be another manifestation of the weakening of the Nahel bond due to the death/splintering of Honor

I'm curious about this. In today's chapters it just mentioned 250 squires and 50 Windrunner Knights -- are they 250 of Kal's personal squires? If so holy wow, that would be *checks calculator over 12,000 squires!!!!!!! I'm sure there has to be some mathematical limitation to the squire setup, right? Curious to see what other info Brandon provides with respect to squirehood.

I won't speak for everyone but I personally don't view Gavilar as a monster or think he's unredeemable. But the reaction I'm seeing is ridiculous. It's not that difficult to call and abuser and abuser. Since we keep going down this path let's pull some quotes from the prologue: This is representative of a pattern here. This isn't new to them, he has been keeping secrets from her. Gaslighting her. This speaks for itself. C'mon now. more threats of violence and use of power to control her. more gaslighting. I skipped over how he refers to his children and the verbal abuse to Navani since you could argue that "couples fight" -- I hate this argument personally, abuse can go both ways. But it sure looks like it is mainly coming from Gavilar. I hear what you're saying about not judging him without more context but we might not get that. So until then we should judge his actions. Stop trying to defend an abuser because you think he may have been justified (if that's even possible).

I think it's a very good survival mechanism. Create a lore of "failed attempts" of different ways to kill you and people are less likely to try them against you. Maybe it prolonged his life?

Honestly I think this boils down to our own morality and opinions and I think you summarized a lot of your views in the rest of your comment. Your beliefs are yours and I can accept them as long as we are working with the same base "facts" so to speak. I don't see it the same way as you. Hate, abuse, and misdeeds must be judged for what they are outside of context first. In my opinion it is only after we have first judged the deeds that we can then take the context of the circumstances for their actions. Given that we don't have the context for Gavilar but we do know the actions (since I think we both are ok with saying that unmade influence "excuses" some extent of wrongdoing) I am ok with writing him off as a human being. However, if I am given context for his actions then I may change my opinion. Given that you dove into some real world context examples I feel like I should provide some of my background. Nice to learn more of your story Asrael; I was raised Jewish and am now an Athiest. Take that as you wish. I don't know where you live or what your experience was with the protesters but I'll speak from my experience and beliefs. I was there, businesses around my home were looted and broken into. You're right that the actions were bad. But it wasn't the protest or the protesters that led to destruction of local businesses. Everywhere I have been firsthand I heard the same stories. Protesters were trying to prevent the looting. Period. There is a subset of people that are ok with watching the world burn so to speak, and they know that under certain conditions they can get away with doing immoral deeds, those are people who traveled from other cities or out of state to try an co-opt the narrative being established.

I don't think delving into the morality of the Fused/Singers is worth diving into this thread. Happy to dive into that somewhere else. But I don't actually think the Singers defending their land is a bad thing. But Odium's involved (which we know about) so yeah, it's really complex. I never said he's evil, and I don't think anyone else did on this specific thread. I feel like this is a logical fallacy. Anyone in this world could be worse than what they were, but that doesn't excuse any wrongs. We've seen firsthand that most of what Dalinar was doing was under the Unmade influence of the Thrill. I think that's why most people are able to go along with Dalinar and root for him. It was troubling to me to read about his storied past. All that said, we are also introduced to WoK Dalinar, and The Blackthorn is his past and people can change. We've been shown the opposite about Gavilar. Throughout the books we have slowly been shown that Gavilar was not this paragon of virtue we thought he was in the first book, he was conniving and was greedy for power. Again, this hasn't been said. However, I will add something new to this conversation since we're having it here. My main focus is on the Amaram Jasnah dynamic. It's clear that his presence makes Jasnah very very uncomfortable. Now we don't know exactly why yet and there have been many threads speculating on it, but Jasnah's unwillingness is much greater than her being a perceived "spinster" something happened there and she doesn't want to beholden to any man (from WoK when she proposes the Casual to Shallan) let alone Amaram (literally anytime they come up in context of eachother). Now how does this relate to Gavilar? We see him in this prologue once again try to get Jasnah together with Amaram (we don't know exactly why Amaram but still), but he won't talk to his own daughter about his wishes. No. He tries to force Navani to do it, so that he doesn't sully his own relationship with her. I don't think this is directly abusive, however, it surely is manipulative and given all of this context definitely isn't ok.

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that. He may not always have been abusive, sure. But clearly the evidence in the book as shown in this thread is enough to say that he was abusive at the time of his death (and possibly for decades before then). He was not a kind and loving person, he was obsessed with power and would manipulate anything in his path to get what he wanted. Some of that may be subjective, but we've got a damnation good narrative showing a history of Gavilar's actions. What's the point to defending him?

I'm not fully convinced that Gavilar had that ambition. I'm going to talk quickly about Scadrial and the Shards there, so spoiler text: Those circumstances are not the case for Honor, his power is splintered and must be recollected (maybe? we still don't know how to recombine a shard) and then something has to happen to create the Shard again. Now for an aside into the religion of Roshar. Gavilar and Alethkar is Vorin, they believe that the Almighty is God (Save Jasnah). The way we explore religion with Jasnah makes it clear that they believe this to be Omniscient, Omnipresent kind. To believe this for your whole life, then to be told that God is dead, that does not lend itself to the conclusion that you could then become God. Vorinism also reveres the Heralds as almost gods. In the original quote Gavilar says "I have discovered the entrance to the realm of gods and legends, and once I join them, my kingdom will never end. I will never end." With our Realmatic knowledge I think this is enough evidence to suggest that Gavilar believed this to be Shadesmar/Braize (combine this with the Connection box). I think it's a stretch to interpret Gavilar's statement to be about becoming Honor given all of this. I find it much more likely that his statement was in reference to gaining access immortality of some kind. Oh, right he knows Herald's personally and is aware that they want to get out of the thing that made them immortal. I think the simpler answer may be the right one here. But I hope the books show us a definite answer to this.

It is intentional. Scadrial is meant to be the Earth analogue in the Cosmere, Brandon has said that "if you can find it on Earth, it's likely on Scadrial" (or something very similar). It's much easier to tell a story if the audience is already familiar with the world, so Brandon deliberately chose to make the setting Earth equivalent, but not Earth. So, this is somewhat similar, given that we are in the Cosmere thread I'm not going to spoiler tag this, but: The human's in SA are refugees from Ashyn (a more Earthlike planet). So the food and animals that they refer to really are comparable to the Earth equivalents. One thing to note, is that the Rosharians refer to all birds as "chickens". Hope this helps.

I'm currently rereading WoR and I came across a line that I felt like was quickly glossed over by the characters. I did a little bit of digging on the forums and have seen people discussing Honor's death and how it relates to Odium and the Shattered plains. However, I am curious as to how Honor's death and splintering would have affected Surgebinding. Specifically, Shallan is talking to Jasnah in Ch. 6 and Jasnah says the following: Then Shallan nods and changes the conversation to Jasnah's mental health, with no mention to how Soulcasting has changed. From the AonDor as well as Scadrial magic (when Harmony picks up the shards), we know that there can be fundamental changes to the magic system when the source of the Investiture changes dramatically (splintering or recombining/changing Intent). I'm curious to what this change is on Roshar. Without more thought on the topic my theory is that the previous limitations the Spren provided to the Nahel bond has been altered in some way allowing easier access to the Surges to Radiants with less Oaths (why it could be perceived as more dangerous, more unfettered access and less discipline = danger). I also think it may explain why we haven't seen Shardplate materialize yet as well. We know from Dalinar's flashbacks that there were many Radiants who wielded Sharplate, and so far no Radiant has on screen (despite most being around 3rd or 4th oath). My theory is thus: The splintering of Honor weakened the Nahel bond enabling easier access to the innate surges of Roshar (voidbinding and fabrials also access these surges) while making it more challenging to access the Honor specific benefits (shardblade and plate). Thoughts?

That's a weird use of logic imo. I'll use your logic here: I'm not you. Me = ~you. But I can't conclude that I'm everything left over from you. I don't know the quote off the top of my head, but the scene where Hoid interacts with Shallan in OB in Kholinar was Hoid saying that maskShallan can become Shallan if she addresses her truths. I think maskShallan (to use that term) is just Shallan missing the piece that turns her into the other Shallan. What Pattern is trying to do is get maskShallan to become Shallan. But she isn't ready yet, so she splits herself even more and becomes Veil, someone who doesn't need to face her memories to move forward

Shallan is the persona suppressing the truths she needs to acknowledge. Veil is the persona trying to bring up those memories, and move forward. I have a very different read on that quote than you do. To me it sounds like Veil is encouraging Shallan to face her truths (as Shallan is the personality able to do this), however, Veil is exactly that. A veil over the truth, a way to move forward in life without facing the hard truths. Shallan is the one who is capable of remembering the truths, but isn't strong/secure enough right now to do so. I see your point here for the narrative. But we know that Shallan's DID isn't magical, it's neurological. I think it would be very cheap if Brandon allowed Shallan to progress in this way. I think the better narrative is that as Shallan is able to work internally to improve her mental health and create a coherent whole enables her to acknowledge the truths and not turn to her personalities as a form of escapism. Can you share some of what supports this? I think from my interpretations above that Veil is very not "the rest" but rather another role she has to play "moving forward and focused".

You're not wrong about the culture comment, although I don't think the Alethi really view what Adolin did as bad, illegal maybe, but it wasn't bad. Where are you getting that it's bothering Adolin? It's been a while since I've read the book and can't remember it specfically, but I also found this WoB: From this it's clear that Adolin does not think it's murder, while the morality is still up for debate. I'm just not convinced Adolin is "broken" (as what others in the thread were claiming) because of the murder of Sadeas.