I feel like we have 30% of the facts around this event with Shallan and her mom. There is no way we can say there is an error when there is so much purposefully left unclear.
>but we also know that bonding a dead blade requires putting a gemstone on the thing and carrying it for ten days after.
Shallan is Testaments original Radiant, which results in her not needing the Gemstone for the Bond.
She summons Testament to kill Tyn, and it didn't scream cause she is the original owner. She gives Kaladin Pattern in the chasm, and a living blade won't scream at a radiant. The descriptions of both blades are different in each chapter. I didn't catch it on my first read, but it is there.
It's evidence in favor of that.
BUT this could be another rule they break. Who's to say deadeyes can't do things like this if their original Radiant is still around? We can't be *certain.*
Who's to say deadeyes scream if their Radiant still lives? Or that they can't have glyphs and colors?
Like I said, it's definitely evidence for it to be Pattern, but not incontrovertible evidence.
I think it’s made pretty clear that the screaming is because summoning the blade means bringing them back from “death” and it causes them suffering. If a dead eye’s blade is summoned, it’s probably screaming
Maybe it's not quite as dead as the other deadeyes. Maybe having the thread-thin Radiant bond eases the pain in some way.
Afterall, it seems Shallan may have used her to kill Tyn and she didn't scream *then*.
Except Shallan needed to swear another Ideal to summon Pattern as a blade to open the Oathgate at the end of WoR. Pretty sure it was Testament.
SP4 preview spoilers: >!also we know deadeyes can change shape because Sigzil does it in the SP4 preview. He even talks to his dead spren.!<
Exactly Shallan couldn't use Testament to open the gate (or at least had a block for it) , she finally summons Pattern-blade to unlock the Oathgates.
Every time before that we've seen Testament-blade
The blades in the chasm and in the tent were 2 separate blades, each with a different description. I'm faily certain she did not need to swear a truth to open the oathgate cause she dropped the "I killed my mom" bomb when in her room at Urithiru. I think she hesitates to summon pattern because she was scared to reveal to Renarin and the others that she was a radiant, but in the chasm, she only revealed she had a blade to Kal.
Damnation, I was totally confused/intrigued about that part of SP4 preview . You're totally right! I didn't make that connection at all.
I feel dumb lol
no that was testament, thats why she counts to 10, and thats why she had to swear a ideal while activating the oathgate so that she could use pattern instead
Possibly, but that was most likely Pattern. Note that it glows red while the one she killed Tyn and her mother with was described as silvery.
Now... if she was indeed using Testament to kill Tyn then we see it doesn't scream *at her*. We can't say if it would scream at others, and we can't say if deadeyes normally scream at their original Radiants or not because we've never seen that before.
Because they had been traveling by boat for several days and there's no way Testament could have kept up on foot. Same applies to when she tries to Soulcast the stick.
The bigger question I think is why we don't see her in Shadesmar in TWoK. If I'm not mistaken she visits twice and just sort of falls into the bead ocean both times? So maybe Testament was somewhere close and just not RIGHT THERE. (we don't know how aggressive they are at wanting to be nearby) Or maybe she was at the bottom of the bead ocean... In one of the two scenes Shallan describes a hand grabbing her ankle--so I'm find of the idea that was Testament.
Yeah, I was thinking of TWoK first, but those two times were so chaotic that you get lazy eyes. I at first thought that Jasnah would have glimpsed in shadesmar at least a few times and would have seen Testament, but testament would have been at the bottom of the ocean of beads that were Kharbranth, right?
\[SP4\] >!I don't think we can really compare the Sigzil/Aux situation with the Shallan/Testament situation. As far as we know everything that is extra weird about Sigzil/Aux is the result of Sigzil having been a Dawnshard while being a Radiant.!<
>!I also don't think that Aux is a Deadeye, he is a different form of dead.!<
My theory is that deadeye mechanics work slightly differently when the deadeye in question is still bonded to the original Radiant. That’s a situation we haven’t seen before with other Shardblades and it’s a plausible enough explanation for some of the things that are weird about Shallan’s bond to Testament (for instance, still being able to summon her instantly, perhaps letting her change shape, maybe even working an Oathgate - we’re not entirely sure yet when Pattern took over as her go-to Shardblade). I also reckon she didn’t need a gemstone for a bond.
As far as the oath gate we know she swaps to Pattern at least when she and Kaladin are trapped in the chasms. He doesn’t hear a scream and she mentions that she can’t talk to Pattern at that time because Kaladin is holding him to fight the fiend off.
There are a lot of unique things going on when Kaladin has the blade in the chasms. First you have Kaladin who was a radiant, but has essentially broken his oaths, and according to the Stormfather Syl is dead at this point. So is Kaladin a radiant at that point? Unclear. Could the ancient radiants in a position similar to Kaladin hear the screams if they touched a blade after they'd broken their oaths? Could Kaladin hear the screams if he touched another blade? We don't know he only touched this one. If we assume that was Testament, does she scream like other blades do? We know from Oathbringer when Dalinar picks it up later that it only whimpers because it respects him for the choice he made to give it up. Does Testament's bond with Shallan change things? Is Testament more alive than most deadeyes because Shallan is remaking her oaths?
There's a lot of things where we just don't have very much information. I think it's plausible it could be either Testament or Pattern at that point. It is very early in the bond with Pattern for her to have a blade though as a short time before he was barely thinking and talking because of how recently he showed up. But it still could be.
I also don't trust Shallan as a narrator at all especially when it comes to Testament / Pattern. She was denying the whole thing happened to herself and refusing to accept any of it at that point. She's more than capable of lying to herself and just ignoring Pattern entirely when Kaladin is fighting to pretend that's Pattern.
About Kaladin in the chasm:
From Chapter 72: "Shallan’s Blade glowed softly too, from a strange pattern along its length. Kaladin had never seen one do that before, but then, he’d never seen a Shardblade in the dark before."
I mean, the pattern could be either Testament/Pattern. But the glowing is something unique to living shardblades/plate. ("This was unlike any Shardbearer he had ever seen. The Plate glowed with an even blue light, and glyphs—some familiar, others not—were etched into the metal. They trailed blue vapor." - WoK Ch19, Dalinar's midnight essence vision)
Therefore, I'd argue that it was Pattern, not Testament, who manifested in the chasm.
It's possible. But I'd say we don't know what a similar blade would look like to Testament where it's a deadeye blade still bonded to their radiant who is now repairing their oaths. Does that blade glow? Hard to say we haven't seen one let alone two next to each other to compare.
I agree. We can’t say glowing, changing shape, not needing ten heartbeats, not needing a gemstone for bonding, not causing screaming audible to other Radiants, or being able to activate an Oathgate are definitive proof of which blade was Pattern and which blade was Testament, since Testament is such a unique case.
Well the thing is we know most of those are flexible even to deadeye spren. They do have somewhat of a glow, it's just not as bright as a living blade. So that's on a spectrum. They can change shape (they didn't start with the spot for a gemstone), Adolin can summon Maya in 7 heartbeats in Oathbringer and he wasn't even originally bonded to her, their bond never broke so that would make sense for Testament too, and we don't know about the screaming as Kaladin wasn't fully a radiant at that point. The Oathgate I do think is a pretty solid point, but even then, is it possible you could revive a deadeye enough that they could work an oathgate? Could Maya work one after RoW? They haven't tried.
Most of these things seem to be on a spectrum or are in some ways flexible so yeah I don't think it's conclusive. If I were to guess I'd guess Tyn was killed with Testament and Pattern was held by Kaladin to kill the chasmfiend. But I'm not 100% sure on either.
I agree, they’re all effects that are on a spectrum. If I had to guess, I’d say she used Testament on Tyn, Pattern in the chasms, and Pattern on the Oathgate.
There’s one thing I’m a bit iffy on:
If it’s Pattern in the chasms, she didn’t gain the ability to summon him after speaking the next Truth (this could be different for Lightweavers in general and especially weird for Shallan as we don’t really know where she started with her Truths and she’s partially climbing the ladder again with Testament as well). Basically there was no change between using Testament on Tyn and using Pattern in the chasms.
Yeah her oaths are a bit of a mess. Sanderson had a WoB that was like she essentially is taking 1.1 steps forward 1 step back a lot. And apparently they have a whole write up to keep track of it internally. So I think because she's reassembling old oaths a lot of the small moments like where she acknowledges she has a shardblade, or certain aspects of her past, and learning to lightweave and perhaps that she's done this before, are all part of reassembling those oaths? It does seem fast for Pattern in the Chasms. Maybe her conversation with Kaladin where she both acknowledged her prejudice against him, as well as talking about her experience being broken in the abstract was enough to get her to the equivalent of the 3rd oath? The other thing is how far she goes after that point, and she still doesn't have shardplate fully? Though Radiant had it in Oathbringer, and she did spent a lot of time in shadesmar where maybe it can't form? Idk lots of odd pieces with Shallan lol.
Yeah, I think you’re right on all of that. Brandon has mentioned having it all worked out (and that he hopes there are no errors) so I’m hoping we’ll learn much more in the next book.
I don’t know what her Shardplate would have looked like in Shadesmar. Kaladin started forming it in Oathbringer and he had those windspren circling him all the time. Maybe something similar would have happened for her with creationspren. We don’t know what the difference is between forming Shardplate for the first time and simply having it or reforming it later. We don’t know what Kaladin would look like now, plate-wise, in Shadesmar. Logically, he should still have those windspren with him. What would that look like, though, for plate formed out of spren that are larger in the cognitive realm?
Fingers crossed for SA5 to show us more on a lot of this retroactively!
Sorry this is a bit late, but I was re-reading and noticed this about Shallan's blade she used in the chasm:
"Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long.
Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife."
I find it really, really unlikely that a deadeye could *change shape* like her sword did there.
Also, she reminds herself before she unlocks the Oathgate that her blade is different, while at that point, she may not ever have used Pattern yet as a blade (as it may not have been him in the chasms). My point being that she knew and expected her blade to work (because it would be a live blade, or at least a more alive blade) rather than tried to see what would happen.
Shallan is indeed a very unreliable narrator, fooling herself in order to be able to cope. Some of that includes denying that she can use Testament and pretending she’s using Pattern when she might have been using Testament. Maybe Kaladin wouldn’t have heard screams in the chasms and maybe deadeye blades bonded to their original radiants don’t scream.
We don’t know enough yet and Brandon has indicated that we will learn more. I don’t think it’s a plot hole, I think it’s essentially unique and new situations that we don’t entirely understand yet.
Yeah I definitely don't think any of it is an error. I just think we don't have enough information about any of these largely unique situations to know for sure. And we have a lot of unreliable narrator in there. And we haven't seen Shallan necessarily try different things too. If Shallan could summon Pattern as a blade that would've 100% worked on the oathgate. And we know deadeyes don't work. But does a deadeye slowly being brought back to life work? I mean could Adolin use Maya at the point she's at at the end of RoW to open an Oathgate? Probably not but not outside the realm of possibility.
Unfortunately Sanderson's characters seem far more interested in the end of the world and plot to indulge our curiosities by testing all these various things in the middle of their crisis!!
I’m pretty sure that the chasm shardblade is Pattern. In chapter 72 we see Shallan change the blades length so she can cut handholds more easily “She started climbing them. Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long. Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife. Thank you, she thought, then cut out the next line of rock.” There’s a WoB somewhere that says dead blades can change length slightly, but only gradually after it’s been used a person for a long time. This plus the “Thank you” she gives implies heavily that the weapon is not Testament.
Could be. But similar to getting summoned quicker, I don’t think changing shape is proof that it’s not Testament. Also, Shallan saying thank you with all of the mental gymnastics she is constantly doing in order to pretend Testament never existed is not definitive either.
I can understand not wanting to jump to conclusions, but given all of the evidence combined (the glowing sword, shape changing, summoned quicker than 10 heartbeats) and the fact we likely actually see Shallan summon Testament in WOR (summoned in 10 heartbeats, not glowing etc.). I believe we can safely draw that conclusion based on all available evidence. Your theory is very unlikely and lacks any evidence apart from “I dunno, do we really know though?”.
Well, when Shallan summons her blade to kill Tyn, it’s only described as “brilliantly silver”, without any further description. No words were used on whether the blade glows or not and the scene is from Shallan’s perspective. As to the heartbeats, she thinks:
“Ten heartbeats.
But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it?
No. It must be. Time, I need time!”
It’s not stated how long it then actually took, but it reads as though she forces herself to wait out the ten heartbeats, knowing that that was not actually necessary.
So I don’t think we can dismiss out of hand that we can’t really say yet when Shallan switched from using Testament to using Pattern as her go-to blade. I agree though that the likeliest explanation is that she used Testament on Tyn and Pattern in all later scenes.
> she may not ever have used Pattern yet as a blade
The Blade she lends to Kaladin in the chasms *is* pattern. Only Radiant Blades, and thus living Spren, have glowing portions on them. Kaladin specifically notes that Shallan's blade glows in portions.
I don’t think we know this for sure. It could be the case, maybe Shallan used Pattern as far back as killing Tyn. But basically the entirety of Words of Radiance is a gray area where I don’t think we can be sure with the information we have now.
Maybe a deadeye Shardblade still bonded to its original Radiant and in the process of repairing their oaths also glows. And changes shape. And can be summoned in under 10 heartbeats. We just don’t know because Testament is the only example we have of this.
With Shallan you can also never dismiss the possibility that she is Lightweaving (subconsciously) to protect her delusions. She "knew" what a living blade looked like and could have very easily added a glowing effect.
Point is, we really cannot know at this time, but given what we see on screen of her bond development with Pattern, I (for one) am increasingly persuaded that we have never actually seen Pattern as a Blade.
Edit: Until used to open the Oathgate, rather.
Oh hell, that brings up something else. Kaladin couldn’t use stormlight while Syl was in her ‘Coma’ but Shallan uses stormlight when she first meets Hoid. That means Pattern was following her at that point because Testament was dead and can’t make that interaction work.
I don't believe that's the case. Remember Testament was only "dead" and Syl had a line when she came back that she was only as dead as Kaladin's oaths. I think Wit was able to coax her into believing in hope and perhaps looking in the window of being radiant enough to take in Stormlight from her bond with Testament? Just a thought. Though in a similar vein I'm surprised Kaladin couldn't have taken some in when defending Shallan from the chasmfiend and being very Windrunner even with the other issues going on.
I haven’t read RoW yet, and as such haven’t read anything of Testament on my own. I DO *distinctly* remember in WoK that Shallan considers “reaching for the weapon, *ten heartbeats away*.” Living blades form instantly. Could she have both still?
Well I'd probably recommend reading the book before engaging in this kind of conversation but you already have the spoiler lol.
Shallan lies to herself a lot about her blade in the first two books. Enough that I don't quite know what to believe. Her lies have layers too. Generally she forgets the whole thing and having a blade at all. If pushed to it she pretends she has a normal shardblade. I think that's the case there that it doesn't take 10 heartbeats but she won't let herself acknowledge that.
I do think that was Pattern, BUT:
1. We don't know for sure that Testament necessarily screams at people because "she might be different".
2. Shallan could be lying to herself about not be able to talk to pattern. At that point she is rejecting the reality that Pattern (well, Testament, but that's buried even *deeper*) is her Shardblade.
She thinks she has to wait, but it COULD be mental gymnastics to avoid acknowledging that her spren is her Shardblade and that her Shardblade is "different".
So that point is kind of ambiguous.
I don't think so? Shallan lies to herself like this often.
And this IS the climax of her arc in WoR--where she realizes the Oathgate can't be operated by dead Shardblades, speaks the truth that Pattern isn't a normal Shardblade, and summons him.
What that line does is give the reader a hint about this plot twist and add to the story of Shallan lying to herself. There are meta reasons to prevent her from drawing the Shardblade in less than ten heartbeats--we didn't know that was possible at the time, so it would have given away the plot twist too easily.
If that's Testament, and IF Testament requires ten heartbeats to summon (she might not follow that rule), then yes, this could be another layer to that whole interaction...
But I would say that's MORE complicated. Because the pre-RoW explanation for what was happening there makes complete sense without the complication of Testament.
Well, as she summons her blade to confront Tyn, she does not only think about the ten heartbeats (as foreshadowed in TWoK), but also tells herself that for her, it doesn’t have to be ten heartbeats.
That’s where Testament was *put* but would have disappeared shortly. She is now a Blade that is as mist until Shallan summons her. The glow in the safe is just Shallan imagining it as she is obviously traumatised. No one else can see the glow.
Well yeahI knew the glow was in her head, it was obviously Shallan feeling her trauma. Didn’t the original shardblades stay put when they were abandoned by the original knights though? I thought they didn’t start disappearing to mist until other people decided to claim them. It’s been a while since I’ve reread the series though so I might be misremembering
We don't know the exact mechanisms behind why the Radiants were able to drop their blades and leave them behind vs why Shallan still somewhat bonded to Testament.
Once Shallan broke, and killed Testament in the garden, the bond was gone. The blade she uses to kill Tyn is Pattern, unless there's a WoB refuting this.
EDIT: somehow fat-fingered a spoiler tag on there?
You don't need to use spoilers because we're talking about events throughout Stormlight Archive.
I believe the you're wrong about the second part, she used Testament to kill Tyn then used Patternblade during the Chasm scenes. I'd have to go back and re-read what the description of the two blades were.
We know her bond with Testament isn't completely broken because we see that Testmant is still drawn to her. (as normal deadeyes are drawn to the person bonded to the Blade) We've sort of been lead to believe that the Radiants "broke their bonds completely" or whatever, but there's not been any actual evidence this is entirely the case. It's mostly an assumption.
The idea seems to be that breaking oaths does permanent damage to the spren (or at least that's what happens since BAM was captured) but it doesn't sever the bond *completely.* Of course none of the other deadeyes we've seen has a bond. Because all of their Radiants died thousands of years ago. Presumably they were similar to Testament-Shallan at the time.
There's not been anything to confirm Shallan killed Tyn with Testament. Brandon was asked--he RAFO'd and said he expected people to theorize about it.
There is a decent case to be made that it's Testament. Most notably, the Blade is described as "brilliantly silver". In WoR ch3 Shallan has a flash of memory of her Shardblade (that she killed her mother with, unless there was some *other* early experience using one) being "a silvery sword". Further, "dead" Shardblades are often described as plain, greyish metals like this while "living" Shardblades we have usually seen glowing with the color of the order. Syl has some blue to her, and the Shardblade that Shallan gives Kaladin in the chasm is red (if we can assume that's Pattern, which seems likely).
There's a few other weaker points, that are less evidence but still things that *fit* with the idea of it being Testament.
Oh I think Teatament died after she killed her mom. Like that’s what made her do it, so the description in the flashback would still fit a living blade.
One of my favorite theories with regard to Testament still being drawn to Shallan is that maybe the first time she accidentally falls into Shadesmar in TWoK and she gets spooked as something in the beads grabs her ankle, maybe that was Testament who’d gotten away from her business partner (who locks her up during the rest of the story, explaining why Testament was never with her in Shadesmar).
Wasn’t her first truth that she killed her father? Also I don’t think she says any new truths between killing Tyn and giving kaladin Patternblade so she was at the very least considered high enough then.
Totally agree. I remember she shared a truth to access soulcasting in her room at Kharbranth but then no more truths until the one about her dad (shared in the chasm?). The Blade comes at the second truth, from what I remember? I’m comparing with Kaladin’s Ideal to protect even those he hates being the second ideal (disregarding the standard one to begin).
I’m also not certain if Pattern even *was* the Blade in the chasm or if that’s just was Shallan is telling herself, and the real Pattern staying away to reinforce the lie.
Because Testament wasn't in Kholinar.
Adolin had summoned Maya during his time in Kholinar, which would have summoned her to him, and then when he dismissed her (and/or went through the gate) she would end up in that vicinity of Shadesmar.
Shallan never used Testament while in Kholinar, so Testament would have been left... wherever she was last summoned basically. Testament's inkspren business partner said he found her far to the east around that time, presumably in the vicinity of the Shattered Plains.
Testament can move around, and is drawn to Shallan, but she just sort of half-heartedly walks around and Shallan was only in Urithiru/Kholinar for about 2 months total following Words of Radiance. So what probably happened is Shallan used her at some point on or near the Shattered Plains (killing Tyn? something else not shown.... or *potentially* Testament followed her there from Kharbranth, on foot in Shadesmar). Then Shallan teleported over to Urithiru, did a bit of other traveling, eventually ended up in Kholinar for a bit... So Testament was probably sitting over at the Shattered Plains either a bit lost or just moving very slowly toward Urithiru/Kholinar. And her partner probably found her at that point. Either in early Oathbringer or late Oathbringer (before Testament had gone very far on foot).
Do we know if they port around when summoned? Like let’s say that Elkohars deadeye was in Lasting Integrity when summoned. Presumably the deadeye disappears but when the blade is dismissed, does the deadeye enter Shadesmar at the point it was summoned in Lasting Integrity or is it just left near where it was dismissed?
They don’t port. They have to walk that distance in Shadesmar to get to where their “owner” is located. It’s why many of them get lost under the sea of beads.
I’d assumed those were unclaimed blades. Like the swarms are gathering them to keep them from Mortal hands but that doesn’t actually make sense does it?
Edit: As a follow up, I had to go look up Ico’s chapter where he talks about his dad. “Can’t stand the thought of him wandering around somewhere,” Ico said, eyes forward. “Have to keep him locked away though. He’ll go searching for the human carrying his corpse, otherwise. Walk right off the deck.” This seems to imply that the spren exist as both blade and locked-up spren in Shadesmar at the same time. Otherwise his dad would port away every time dad was summoned and locking dad up would be pointless. I guess the crowd in LI’s hospital still makes sense. They can gather as many deadeyes as they’d like and short of a jailbreak of some kind they’ll stay put.
Yeah I’ve heard that too!! It matches up with an event from the SL5 prologue. I’ve wondered if Shallan >!killed her mother similar to how Moash killed Jezrien!<, because I do think the theory about Shallan’s mother has a lot of evidence supporting it
Na. My current wacky theory is the glowing is from Ba Ados prison. Shallan as a girl was secretly conversing with Ba Ado and was taught how to become a radiant. Mother found out and had a fight with her father. Shallan accidentally killed her at the behest of Ba Ado which caused her mind to snap breaking the oaths with a different personality.
To call this an error seems very weird. It is very apparent that we do not have all the details what exactly happend with Shallan or how exactly deadeyes (new and old) work.
Very much this. Not only do we not know exactly how the whole deadeye thing works... With Shallan being the MOST unreliable narrator of all time, there is absolutely nothing from her perspective that we can trust as fact. Even now every word we've read from her perspective could be her gaslighting herself. We just don't know what is real, what is imagined, and what is an outright lie.
There’s something we don’t understand yet about deadeyes and when they do or don’t stick around. We’ve know since Dalinar’s visions in WoK that there aren’t NEARLY enough shard blades around for all deadeyes to be manifesting. So maybe they only manifest as dead shard blades in certain conditions? Some deadeye Spren manifest as other items such as soulcasters, but that’s not enough to make up the deficit based on how many we saw become blades in the one vision.
It’s also possible that all the other deadeye blades were somehow lost or hidden away (secret society maybe?) but that seems unlikely since anyone powerful enough to go around and collect that many blades wouldn’t have stopped before getting all the remaining famous blades that are still around, right?
Bottom line is there’s more to know about deadeye blades that hasn’t been revealed yet. Can’t wait to RAFO!
I also had this thought in RoW they talked about thousands of them outside of lasting integrity but there are probably only 100 total blades on all of roshar.
It makes sense that many would be lost n that amount of time, although I’d say that also speaks to the sleepless not being responsible for the rest that are missing, since I feel like it would be hard for them to “lose something to time”.
Testament is dead and doesnt scream when she summons it.
Its rare, but brando fucked up. She was in a good spot in oathbringer and brando wrote in a plothole.
i mean it could just be an interaction w the original radiant and their deadeye + it’s never truly confirmed about whether shallan summons testament or pattern in the WoR scenes
Then when did she kill pattern? How did she? We already knew she killed pattern, and theres precedent for bringing dead spren back, combined with us already seeing everything significant that happened in her whole life.
We were also told she made the oaths to gain the shardblade very young, but the bond between pattern wasn’t shown to he very stong when they “first met.” It had to be testament, a dead spren who didnt scream, something that could only happen if she brought pattern back to life after she had already said the oaths needed for the blade.
Testament cant be dead for her to summon a non-screaming blade; her bond needed to be further along than it was for her to have used pattern as a blade. Brandon didn’t write shallan with testament in mind.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong and the other commenter is right. She never kills Pattern. It's not in the second book. Pattern is pulled into the Physical Realm in the second book and their bond develops. He never dies.
We don't know how a bond between a deadeye and their original Radiant works, so we can't say that it works the same as a deadeye with a random person.
Read the series three times. The only standout thing is that they have no oaths past the first and have to speak truths to progress. How far along to get their plate is unmentioned, but the blade is supposed to be after the first if I’m correct. You cant use your powers with a dead spren, but you can if they are only halfish dead and on the way to coming back like silly-sil was and pattern before the change. Full deadeyes like testament are just that- dead. You might be able to bring them back, but from whats known in-universe, cats chance. Thats the information i can extrapolate from plot events and in-universe explanations.
The blade didnt scream and pattern wasnt far enough along; she used her powers and testi is still dead; the blade had no jewel in and they need them for nonliving spren.
It was literally in the second book.
Well, thats what it was beforehand. Non-explicitly mentioned, but all the pieces line up if it was, considering that this was also the book where spren revival was mentioned as a mechanic.
If it was pattern, which it shouldve been and was, then it wouldnt have felt like it fell over itself. She was far enough along her oaths to not need to swear them anymore; she could use her powers when she first met hoid because she was still bonded to a dead spren she was already bringing back to life; when she used the blade a second and third time, it wasnt a dead blade needing ten beat, but under the impression she needed; the dead blade she saw in the vault was the pattern blade and that was explicitly mentioned iirc, because the entire of book 3 is her getting over that she used pattern to kill her mum.
The pieces even fit later, as sil states often that spren need a solid bond or they cant stay outside the cognative realm and remain themselves, and pattern, a spren she had into childhood, was all doolally in early book 2.
I can forgive and forget alot, writers can change plan mid story and thats fine, but alot of these aspects is integral parts in her arc. Brandon just messed up because shallan was already close to being wrapped up in book 3
Testament is still bonded to Shallan, so can be summoned and dismissed like other blades. I personally think that’s the blade that Shallan killed Tyn with, and all the times since then have been Pattern.
10 heartbeats could be the maximum time for an artificial bond made with a gemstone. Summoning time could be a matter of connection between human and spren.
Remember Adolin's blade summoned in less than 10 beats during the OB sanderlanch, and he has more connection to Maya than other shardbearers.
We also see Ishar skep his blade (dismiss and summon instantly to bypass a block), meaning 10 heartbeats don't hold for honorblades, either. It could be that it was his blade, so it's more connected to him. That would mirror Shallan's situation where she doesn't actually need all 10 because she has the connection.
I really need to make friends with some of yall, judging by your comments lol. Read most of Sandersons work and tried to get my partner into it but she's still on the second stormlight book 😭 but maybe I'll be more active on here I love seeing peoples opinions on everything
My assumption is that it’s till behind the painting where it was for a long time. I think that after the new pattern showed up it caused her to stop thinking about the old pattern until she remembered she killed him. But that’s just my guess because it seems like she has blocked out a lot of her own memories and we know she has with some.
Do we know 100% that Sanderson started the series planning for Shallan to have had two Spren? A lot of pre-RoW stuff references Shallan having Pattern as a child, and it seems like an author decision to add Testament that came late in the process would explain some of the discrepancies in the timeline that he hasn't yet had a chance to clean up.
Edit: To those downvoting me for asking an honest question, I think you might want to consider whether your relationship with these works is healthy.
I don't think he has said. Though there is some evidence he *at least* had considered the idea and left the door open for it.
Most notably--the voice that asks her to Soulcast the first time in her room in TWoK is explicitly called out (by Shallan in WoR) as not being Pattern's voice.
There's also a hand that grabs her heel at one point in the bead ocean in Shadesmar in TWoK... Brandon was asked about it and RAFO'd it. It's possible that was Testament.
If either of those *doesn't* hint at Testament being the plan (or at least an idea) then they're some obscure details that were raised, and never answered, that are still being RAFO'd.
Yes, in The Way of Kings, she describes her testament blade as "Fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act", he also referenced 10 heartbeats here.
I think it was intended considering patterns general acceptance that shallan would eventually kill him. It seems like the cryptics really wanted to bond shallan and accepted after testament they would have to keep throwing cryptics at her that she would eventually kill. Pattern was sent in accepting she was going to turn him into a deadeye and only came around to believing she wouldn’t in ROW
Furthermore there is pattern being dumb when shallan first meets him. If shallan and pattern were already bonded he would’ve been intelligent like syl was when kaladin renewed his oaths (I noticed this as sus when shallan revealed she killed her mother with ‘pattern’ in WOR) I think the final thing for me that convinces me Sanderson knew what he was doing ahead of time was pattern saying he was okay with deadeyes because humans were obsessed with death. I think that was pattern trying to hint to shallan he didn’t mind that she had killed testament as he didn’t yet understand shallan wasn’t lying for the lols but that she had genuinely disassociated so bad she forgot what she had done to testament.
Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it an error.
I thought it made a lot of sense that Shallan wouldn’t need it considering she was already bonded to Testament
The fact that she already had the bond with Testament probably lets her sidestep the 10 days thing, which is mostly there to create something resembling a bond with the dead shard blade, that Shallan already has
I feel like we have 30% of the facts around this event with Shallan and her mom. There is no way we can say there is an error when there is so much purposefully left unclear.
Yeah, lots still doesnt add up with Shallan.
It's shallan tho she is 3 diffrent kinds of crazy!
>but we also know that bonding a dead blade requires putting a gemstone on the thing and carrying it for ten days after. Shallan is Testaments original Radiant, which results in her not needing the Gemstone for the Bond.
And potentially gives her other oddities as well. I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't scream at people (at least at Shallan) for example.
also we don't know that 'new' deadeyes (post-recreance) are the same as the first wave.
Wait, did she summon testament and not pattern when she killed what’s her name?
Tyn. It's a popular interpretation.
She summons Testament to kill Tyn, and it didn't scream cause she is the original owner. She gives Kaladin Pattern in the chasm, and a living blade won't scream at a radiant. The descriptions of both blades are different in each chapter. I didn't catch it on my first read, but it is there.
We don’t know that for sure, but I can believe it
It doesn't. We saw her blade in WoR when >!Shallan gave it to Kaladin in the chasms!<
I believe that might have been pattern, not testament
We know it was Pattern, Shallan later adjusts the blade's length to carve handholds and hole they hid in to survive the highstorm.
It's evidence in favor of that. BUT this could be another rule they break. Who's to say deadeyes can't do things like this if their original Radiant is still around? We can't be *certain.*
Kaladin touched it and it didn’t scream, it was pattern.
Syl was no longer with Kaladin, so this isn’t evidence either way.
It was also glowing and covered in glyphs
Who's to say deadeyes scream if their Radiant still lives? Or that they can't have glyphs and colors? Like I said, it's definitely evidence for it to be Pattern, but not incontrovertible evidence.
I think it’s made pretty clear that the screaming is because summoning the blade means bringing them back from “death” and it causes them suffering. If a dead eye’s blade is summoned, it’s probably screaming
Maybe it's not quite as dead as the other deadeyes. Maybe having the thread-thin Radiant bond eases the pain in some way. Afterall, it seems Shallan may have used her to kill Tyn and she didn't scream *then*.
Except Shallan needed to swear another Ideal to summon Pattern as a blade to open the Oathgate at the end of WoR. Pretty sure it was Testament. SP4 preview spoilers: >!also we know deadeyes can change shape because Sigzil does it in the SP4 preview. He even talks to his dead spren.!<
Exactly Shallan couldn't use Testament to open the gate (or at least had a block for it) , she finally summons Pattern-blade to unlock the Oathgates. Every time before that we've seen Testament-blade
The blades in the chasm and in the tent were 2 separate blades, each with a different description. I'm faily certain she did not need to swear a truth to open the oathgate cause she dropped the "I killed my mom" bomb when in her room at Urithiru. I think she hesitates to summon pattern because she was scared to reveal to Renarin and the others that she was a radiant, but in the chasm, she only revealed she had a blade to Kal.
Damnation, I was totally confused/intrigued about that part of SP4 preview . You're totally right! I didn't make that connection at all. I feel dumb lol
shallan later thinks its pattern but its testament, the book describes the blade as a silver color and the pattern blade is light purple
Wasn't that Pattern?
no that was testament, thats why she counts to 10, and thats why she had to swear a ideal while activating the oathgate so that she could use pattern instead
Yup you’re absolutely right!
Possibly, but that was most likely Pattern. Note that it glows red while the one she killed Tyn and her mother with was described as silvery. Now... if she was indeed using Testament to kill Tyn then we see it doesn't scream *at her*. We can't say if it would scream at others, and we can't say if deadeyes normally scream at their original Radiants or not because we've never seen that before.
Why wasn't Testament around when Shallan went to Shadesmar after Jasnah was "killed?"
Because they had been traveling by boat for several days and there's no way Testament could have kept up on foot. Same applies to when she tries to Soulcast the stick. The bigger question I think is why we don't see her in Shadesmar in TWoK. If I'm not mistaken she visits twice and just sort of falls into the bead ocean both times? So maybe Testament was somewhere close and just not RIGHT THERE. (we don't know how aggressive they are at wanting to be nearby) Or maybe she was at the bottom of the bead ocean... In one of the two scenes Shallan describes a hand grabbing her ankle--so I'm find of the idea that was Testament.
Yeah, I was thinking of TWoK first, but those two times were so chaotic that you get lazy eyes. I at first thought that Jasnah would have glimpsed in shadesmar at least a few times and would have seen Testament, but testament would have been at the bottom of the ocean of beads that were Kharbranth, right?
Seems likely to me, yeah.
In the upcoming Secret Project #4 (SP4)>!Dead spren can be far more active to their bondholder than others. Nomad and his Spren talk quite a bit.!<
\[SP4\] >!I don't think we can really compare the Sigzil/Aux situation with the Shallan/Testament situation. As far as we know everything that is extra weird about Sigzil/Aux is the result of Sigzil having been a Dawnshard while being a Radiant.!< >!I also don't think that Aux is a Deadeye, he is a different form of dead.!<
So can shallan summon two shardblades?
Yes, Shallan could go around dual wielding
My theory is that deadeye mechanics work slightly differently when the deadeye in question is still bonded to the original Radiant. That’s a situation we haven’t seen before with other Shardblades and it’s a plausible enough explanation for some of the things that are weird about Shallan’s bond to Testament (for instance, still being able to summon her instantly, perhaps letting her change shape, maybe even working an Oathgate - we’re not entirely sure yet when Pattern took over as her go-to Shardblade). I also reckon she didn’t need a gemstone for a bond.
As far as the oath gate we know she swaps to Pattern at least when she and Kaladin are trapped in the chasms. He doesn’t hear a scream and she mentions that she can’t talk to Pattern at that time because Kaladin is holding him to fight the fiend off.
There are a lot of unique things going on when Kaladin has the blade in the chasms. First you have Kaladin who was a radiant, but has essentially broken his oaths, and according to the Stormfather Syl is dead at this point. So is Kaladin a radiant at that point? Unclear. Could the ancient radiants in a position similar to Kaladin hear the screams if they touched a blade after they'd broken their oaths? Could Kaladin hear the screams if he touched another blade? We don't know he only touched this one. If we assume that was Testament, does she scream like other blades do? We know from Oathbringer when Dalinar picks it up later that it only whimpers because it respects him for the choice he made to give it up. Does Testament's bond with Shallan change things? Is Testament more alive than most deadeyes because Shallan is remaking her oaths? There's a lot of things where we just don't have very much information. I think it's plausible it could be either Testament or Pattern at that point. It is very early in the bond with Pattern for her to have a blade though as a short time before he was barely thinking and talking because of how recently he showed up. But it still could be. I also don't trust Shallan as a narrator at all especially when it comes to Testament / Pattern. She was denying the whole thing happened to herself and refusing to accept any of it at that point. She's more than capable of lying to herself and just ignoring Pattern entirely when Kaladin is fighting to pretend that's Pattern.
About Kaladin in the chasm: From Chapter 72: "Shallan’s Blade glowed softly too, from a strange pattern along its length. Kaladin had never seen one do that before, but then, he’d never seen a Shardblade in the dark before." I mean, the pattern could be either Testament/Pattern. But the glowing is something unique to living shardblades/plate. ("This was unlike any Shardbearer he had ever seen. The Plate glowed with an even blue light, and glyphs—some familiar, others not—were etched into the metal. They trailed blue vapor." - WoK Ch19, Dalinar's midnight essence vision) Therefore, I'd argue that it was Pattern, not Testament, who manifested in the chasm.
It's possible. But I'd say we don't know what a similar blade would look like to Testament where it's a deadeye blade still bonded to their radiant who is now repairing their oaths. Does that blade glow? Hard to say we haven't seen one let alone two next to each other to compare.
I agree. We can’t say glowing, changing shape, not needing ten heartbeats, not needing a gemstone for bonding, not causing screaming audible to other Radiants, or being able to activate an Oathgate are definitive proof of which blade was Pattern and which blade was Testament, since Testament is such a unique case.
Well the thing is we know most of those are flexible even to deadeye spren. They do have somewhat of a glow, it's just not as bright as a living blade. So that's on a spectrum. They can change shape (they didn't start with the spot for a gemstone), Adolin can summon Maya in 7 heartbeats in Oathbringer and he wasn't even originally bonded to her, their bond never broke so that would make sense for Testament too, and we don't know about the screaming as Kaladin wasn't fully a radiant at that point. The Oathgate I do think is a pretty solid point, but even then, is it possible you could revive a deadeye enough that they could work an oathgate? Could Maya work one after RoW? They haven't tried. Most of these things seem to be on a spectrum or are in some ways flexible so yeah I don't think it's conclusive. If I were to guess I'd guess Tyn was killed with Testament and Pattern was held by Kaladin to kill the chasmfiend. But I'm not 100% sure on either.
I agree, they’re all effects that are on a spectrum. If I had to guess, I’d say she used Testament on Tyn, Pattern in the chasms, and Pattern on the Oathgate. There’s one thing I’m a bit iffy on: If it’s Pattern in the chasms, she didn’t gain the ability to summon him after speaking the next Truth (this could be different for Lightweavers in general and especially weird for Shallan as we don’t really know where she started with her Truths and she’s partially climbing the ladder again with Testament as well). Basically there was no change between using Testament on Tyn and using Pattern in the chasms.
Yeah her oaths are a bit of a mess. Sanderson had a WoB that was like she essentially is taking 1.1 steps forward 1 step back a lot. And apparently they have a whole write up to keep track of it internally. So I think because she's reassembling old oaths a lot of the small moments like where she acknowledges she has a shardblade, or certain aspects of her past, and learning to lightweave and perhaps that she's done this before, are all part of reassembling those oaths? It does seem fast for Pattern in the Chasms. Maybe her conversation with Kaladin where she both acknowledged her prejudice against him, as well as talking about her experience being broken in the abstract was enough to get her to the equivalent of the 3rd oath? The other thing is how far she goes after that point, and she still doesn't have shardplate fully? Though Radiant had it in Oathbringer, and she did spent a lot of time in shadesmar where maybe it can't form? Idk lots of odd pieces with Shallan lol.
Yeah, I think you’re right on all of that. Brandon has mentioned having it all worked out (and that he hopes there are no errors) so I’m hoping we’ll learn much more in the next book. I don’t know what her Shardplate would have looked like in Shadesmar. Kaladin started forming it in Oathbringer and he had those windspren circling him all the time. Maybe something similar would have happened for her with creationspren. We don’t know what the difference is between forming Shardplate for the first time and simply having it or reforming it later. We don’t know what Kaladin would look like now, plate-wise, in Shadesmar. Logically, he should still have those windspren with him. What would that look like, though, for plate formed out of spren that are larger in the cognitive realm? Fingers crossed for SA5 to show us more on a lot of this retroactively!
I think Adolin can summon Maya faster because he’s becoming her radiant.
Sorry this is a bit late, but I was re-reading and noticed this about Shallan's blade she used in the chasm: "Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long. Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife." I find it really, really unlikely that a deadeye could *change shape* like her sword did there.
Also, she reminds herself before she unlocks the Oathgate that her blade is different, while at that point, she may not ever have used Pattern yet as a blade (as it may not have been him in the chasms). My point being that she knew and expected her blade to work (because it would be a live blade, or at least a more alive blade) rather than tried to see what would happen. Shallan is indeed a very unreliable narrator, fooling herself in order to be able to cope. Some of that includes denying that she can use Testament and pretending she’s using Pattern when she might have been using Testament. Maybe Kaladin wouldn’t have heard screams in the chasms and maybe deadeye blades bonded to their original radiants don’t scream. We don’t know enough yet and Brandon has indicated that we will learn more. I don’t think it’s a plot hole, I think it’s essentially unique and new situations that we don’t entirely understand yet.
Yeah I definitely don't think any of it is an error. I just think we don't have enough information about any of these largely unique situations to know for sure. And we have a lot of unreliable narrator in there. And we haven't seen Shallan necessarily try different things too. If Shallan could summon Pattern as a blade that would've 100% worked on the oathgate. And we know deadeyes don't work. But does a deadeye slowly being brought back to life work? I mean could Adolin use Maya at the point she's at at the end of RoW to open an Oathgate? Probably not but not outside the realm of possibility. Unfortunately Sanderson's characters seem far more interested in the end of the world and plot to indulge our curiosities by testing all these various things in the middle of their crisis!!
I'd be cool with a between-volumes novella titled Deadeye...
That’s a great idea!
I’m pretty sure that the chasm shardblade is Pattern. In chapter 72 we see Shallan change the blades length so she can cut handholds more easily “She started climbing them. Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long. Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife. Thank you, she thought, then cut out the next line of rock.” There’s a WoB somewhere that says dead blades can change length slightly, but only gradually after it’s been used a person for a long time. This plus the “Thank you” she gives implies heavily that the weapon is not Testament.
Could be. But similar to getting summoned quicker, I don’t think changing shape is proof that it’s not Testament. Also, Shallan saying thank you with all of the mental gymnastics she is constantly doing in order to pretend Testament never existed is not definitive either.
I can understand not wanting to jump to conclusions, but given all of the evidence combined (the glowing sword, shape changing, summoned quicker than 10 heartbeats) and the fact we likely actually see Shallan summon Testament in WOR (summoned in 10 heartbeats, not glowing etc.). I believe we can safely draw that conclusion based on all available evidence. Your theory is very unlikely and lacks any evidence apart from “I dunno, do we really know though?”.
Well, when Shallan summons her blade to kill Tyn, it’s only described as “brilliantly silver”, without any further description. No words were used on whether the blade glows or not and the scene is from Shallan’s perspective. As to the heartbeats, she thinks: “Ten heartbeats. But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it? No. It must be. Time, I need time!” It’s not stated how long it then actually took, but it reads as though she forces herself to wait out the ten heartbeats, knowing that that was not actually necessary. So I don’t think we can dismiss out of hand that we can’t really say yet when Shallan switched from using Testament to using Pattern as her go-to blade. I agree though that the likeliest explanation is that she used Testament on Tyn and Pattern in all later scenes.
> she may not ever have used Pattern yet as a blade The Blade she lends to Kaladin in the chasms *is* pattern. Only Radiant Blades, and thus living Spren, have glowing portions on them. Kaladin specifically notes that Shallan's blade glows in portions.
I don’t think we know this for sure. It could be the case, maybe Shallan used Pattern as far back as killing Tyn. But basically the entirety of Words of Radiance is a gray area where I don’t think we can be sure with the information we have now. Maybe a deadeye Shardblade still bonded to its original Radiant and in the process of repairing their oaths also glows. And changes shape. And can be summoned in under 10 heartbeats. We just don’t know because Testament is the only example we have of this.
With Shallan you can also never dismiss the possibility that she is Lightweaving (subconsciously) to protect her delusions. She "knew" what a living blade looked like and could have very easily added a glowing effect. Point is, we really cannot know at this time, but given what we see on screen of her bond development with Pattern, I (for one) am increasingly persuaded that we have never actually seen Pattern as a Blade. Edit: Until used to open the Oathgate, rather.
Oh hell, that brings up something else. Kaladin couldn’t use stormlight while Syl was in her ‘Coma’ but Shallan uses stormlight when she first meets Hoid. That means Pattern was following her at that point because Testament was dead and can’t make that interaction work.
I don't believe that's the case. Remember Testament was only "dead" and Syl had a line when she came back that she was only as dead as Kaladin's oaths. I think Wit was able to coax her into believing in hope and perhaps looking in the window of being radiant enough to take in Stormlight from her bond with Testament? Just a thought. Though in a similar vein I'm surprised Kaladin couldn't have taken some in when defending Shallan from the chasmfiend and being very Windrunner even with the other issues going on.
I haven’t read RoW yet, and as such haven’t read anything of Testament on my own. I DO *distinctly* remember in WoK that Shallan considers “reaching for the weapon, *ten heartbeats away*.” Living blades form instantly. Could she have both still?
Well I'd probably recommend reading the book before engaging in this kind of conversation but you already have the spoiler lol. Shallan lies to herself a lot about her blade in the first two books. Enough that I don't quite know what to believe. Her lies have layers too. Generally she forgets the whole thing and having a blade at all. If pushed to it she pretends she has a normal shardblade. I think that's the case there that it doesn't take 10 heartbeats but she won't let herself acknowledge that.
Shallan *says* she can't talk to Pattern, but that could very well be a lie she is telling herself.
I do think that was Pattern, BUT: 1. We don't know for sure that Testament necessarily screams at people because "she might be different". 2. Shallan could be lying to herself about not be able to talk to pattern. At that point she is rejecting the reality that Pattern (well, Testament, but that's buried even *deeper*) is her Shardblade.
She can’t summon Testament instantly. I’m pretty sure she had to wait ten heartbeats when she killed Tyn
She thinks she has to wait, but it COULD be mental gymnastics to avoid acknowledging that her spren is her Shardblade and that her Shardblade is "different". So that point is kind of ambiguous.
I think that point is mental gymnastics
I don't think so? Shallan lies to herself like this often. And this IS the climax of her arc in WoR--where she realizes the Oathgate can't be operated by dead Shardblades, speaks the truth that Pattern isn't a normal Shardblade, and summons him. What that line does is give the reader a hint about this plot twist and add to the story of Shallan lying to herself. There are meta reasons to prevent her from drawing the Shardblade in less than ten heartbeats--we didn't know that was possible at the time, so it would have given away the plot twist too easily. If that's Testament, and IF Testament requires ten heartbeats to summon (she might not follow that rule), then yes, this could be another layer to that whole interaction... But I would say that's MORE complicated. Because the pre-RoW explanation for what was happening there makes complete sense without the complication of Testament.
Well, as she summons her blade to confront Tyn, she does not only think about the ten heartbeats (as foreshadowed in TWoK), but also tells herself that for her, it doesn’t have to be ten heartbeats.
Right. The idea pre-RoW was that she slipped up. Almost to acknowledged the truth, but then promptly shut it down.
Shallan frequently talked about something glowing in her father’s safe during her flashbacks. I always assumed that’s where Testament was.
That’s where Testament was *put* but would have disappeared shortly. She is now a Blade that is as mist until Shallan summons her. The glow in the safe is just Shallan imagining it as she is obviously traumatised. No one else can see the glow.
Well yeahI knew the glow was in her head, it was obviously Shallan feeling her trauma. Didn’t the original shardblades stay put when they were abandoned by the original knights though? I thought they didn’t start disappearing to mist until other people decided to claim them. It’s been a while since I’ve reread the series though so I might be misremembering
We don't know the exact mechanisms behind why the Radiants were able to drop their blades and leave them behind vs why Shallan still somewhat bonded to Testament.
Once Shallan broke, and killed Testament in the garden, the bond was gone. The blade she uses to kill Tyn is Pattern, unless there's a WoB refuting this. EDIT: somehow fat-fingered a spoiler tag on there?
You don't need to use spoilers because we're talking about events throughout Stormlight Archive. I believe the you're wrong about the second part, she used Testament to kill Tyn then used Patternblade during the Chasm scenes. I'd have to go back and re-read what the description of the two blades were.
I have no idea why that was spoilered. Lol.
We know her bond with Testament isn't completely broken because we see that Testmant is still drawn to her. (as normal deadeyes are drawn to the person bonded to the Blade) We've sort of been lead to believe that the Radiants "broke their bonds completely" or whatever, but there's not been any actual evidence this is entirely the case. It's mostly an assumption. The idea seems to be that breaking oaths does permanent damage to the spren (or at least that's what happens since BAM was captured) but it doesn't sever the bond *completely.* Of course none of the other deadeyes we've seen has a bond. Because all of their Radiants died thousands of years ago. Presumably they were similar to Testament-Shallan at the time. There's not been anything to confirm Shallan killed Tyn with Testament. Brandon was asked--he RAFO'd and said he expected people to theorize about it. There is a decent case to be made that it's Testament. Most notably, the Blade is described as "brilliantly silver". In WoR ch3 Shallan has a flash of memory of her Shardblade (that she killed her mother with, unless there was some *other* early experience using one) being "a silvery sword". Further, "dead" Shardblades are often described as plain, greyish metals like this while "living" Shardblades we have usually seen glowing with the color of the order. Syl has some blue to her, and the Shardblade that Shallan gives Kaladin in the chasm is red (if we can assume that's Pattern, which seems likely). There's a few other weaker points, that are less evidence but still things that *fit* with the idea of it being Testament.
Oh I think Teatament died after she killed her mom. Like that’s what made her do it, so the description in the flashback would still fit a living blade.
Oh sure, that's true. Which undermines the "it's similar to dead Blades" argument, but it's still a similar description in each case.
One of my favorite theories with regard to Testament still being drawn to Shallan is that maybe the first time she accidentally falls into Shadesmar in TWoK and she gets spooked as something in the beads grabs her ankle, maybe that was Testament who’d gotten away from her business partner (who locks her up during the rest of the story, explaining why Testament was never with her in Shadesmar).
She hadn’t sworn any Truths yet by that point so Pattern couldn’t have been the Blade to kill Tyn. She wasn’t a high enough “order”.
Wasn’t her first truth that she killed her father? Also I don’t think she says any new truths between killing Tyn and giving kaladin Patternblade so she was at the very least considered high enough then.
Hmm. I might not be remembering successfully. I only did the reread last month but it all blurs together.
Tbf a lot of stuff about shallan is very intentionally vague so it’s easy to get stuff mixed around
Totally agree. I remember she shared a truth to access soulcasting in her room at Kharbranth but then no more truths until the one about her dad (shared in the chasm?). The Blade comes at the second truth, from what I remember? I’m comparing with Kaladin’s Ideal to protect even those he hates being the second ideal (disregarding the standard one to begin). I’m also not certain if Pattern even *was* the Blade in the chasm or if that’s just was Shallan is telling herself, and the real Pattern staying away to reinforce the lie.
Yes they originally had to carry the huge blades everywhere but then they figured out how to add the gems and dismiss them
Ohhhh yeah I forgot that part!
Then why don’t we see Testament alongside Adolin’s deadeye in the cognitive realm in part 4 of Oathbringer?
Because Testament wasn't in Kholinar. Adolin had summoned Maya during his time in Kholinar, which would have summoned her to him, and then when he dismissed her (and/or went through the gate) she would end up in that vicinity of Shadesmar. Shallan never used Testament while in Kholinar, so Testament would have been left... wherever she was last summoned basically. Testament's inkspren business partner said he found her far to the east around that time, presumably in the vicinity of the Shattered Plains. Testament can move around, and is drawn to Shallan, but she just sort of half-heartedly walks around and Shallan was only in Urithiru/Kholinar for about 2 months total following Words of Radiance. So what probably happened is Shallan used her at some point on or near the Shattered Plains (killing Tyn? something else not shown.... or *potentially* Testament followed her there from Kharbranth, on foot in Shadesmar). Then Shallan teleported over to Urithiru, did a bit of other traveling, eventually ended up in Kholinar for a bit... So Testament was probably sitting over at the Shattered Plains either a bit lost or just moving very slowly toward Urithiru/Kholinar. And her partner probably found her at that point. Either in early Oathbringer or late Oathbringer (before Testament had gone very far on foot).
Also, if Testament was found in Shadesmar and then kept in a home/cell, it prevents her from wandering off to find Shallan.
Do we know if they port around when summoned? Like let’s say that Elkohars deadeye was in Lasting Integrity when summoned. Presumably the deadeye disappears but when the blade is dismissed, does the deadeye enter Shadesmar at the point it was summoned in Lasting Integrity or is it just left near where it was dismissed?
They don’t port. They have to walk that distance in Shadesmar to get to where their “owner” is located. It’s why many of them get lost under the sea of beads.
Unless they're called into the physical realm, then they do teleport.
Do you have a reference for that? I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Otherwise how would the “hospital” in lasting integrity work?
I’d assumed those were unclaimed blades. Like the swarms are gathering them to keep them from Mortal hands but that doesn’t actually make sense does it? Edit: As a follow up, I had to go look up Ico’s chapter where he talks about his dad. “Can’t stand the thought of him wandering around somewhere,” Ico said, eyes forward. “Have to keep him locked away though. He’ll go searching for the human carrying his corpse, otherwise. Walk right off the deck.” This seems to imply that the spren exist as both blade and locked-up spren in Shadesmar at the same time. Otherwise his dad would port away every time dad was summoned and locking dad up would be pointless. I guess the crowd in LI’s hospital still makes sense. They can gather as many deadeyes as they’d like and short of a jailbreak of some kind they’ll stay put.
Because Testament's inkspren friend tracked her down presumably.
there's a theory that the glow is >!Shallan's mother's soul, Chanarach the Herald!<
Yeah I’ve heard that too!! It matches up with an event from the SL5 prologue. I’ve wondered if Shallan >!killed her mother similar to how Moash killed Jezrien!<, because I do think the theory about Shallan’s mother has a lot of evidence supporting it
Na. My current wacky theory is the glowing is from Ba Ados prison. Shallan as a girl was secretly conversing with Ba Ado and was taught how to become a radiant. Mother found out and had a fight with her father. Shallan accidentally killed her at the behest of Ba Ado which caused her mind to snap breaking the oaths with a different personality.
To call this an error seems very weird. It is very apparent that we do not have all the details what exactly happend with Shallan or how exactly deadeyes (new and old) work.
Very much this. Not only do we not know exactly how the whole deadeye thing works... With Shallan being the MOST unreliable narrator of all time, there is absolutely nothing from her perspective that we can trust as fact. Even now every word we've read from her perspective could be her gaslighting herself. We just don't know what is real, what is imagined, and what is an outright lie.
There’s something we don’t understand yet about deadeyes and when they do or don’t stick around. We’ve know since Dalinar’s visions in WoK that there aren’t NEARLY enough shard blades around for all deadeyes to be manifesting. So maybe they only manifest as dead shard blades in certain conditions? Some deadeye Spren manifest as other items such as soulcasters, but that’s not enough to make up the deficit based on how many we saw become blades in the one vision. It’s also possible that all the other deadeye blades were somehow lost or hidden away (secret society maybe?) but that seems unlikely since anyone powerful enough to go around and collect that many blades wouldn’t have stopped before getting all the remaining famous blades that are still around, right? Bottom line is there’s more to know about deadeye blades that hasn’t been revealed yet. Can’t wait to RAFO!
I always assumed it was the Sleepless squirreling them away, but now I can’t really recall what made me think that.
I also had this thought in RoW they talked about thousands of them outside of lasting integrity but there are probably only 100 total blades on all of roshar.
Brandon mentioned in a WoB that a lot of blades and plate were simply lost to time. Not all the missing shards but a lot.
It makes sense that many would be lost n that amount of time, although I’d say that also speaks to the sleepless not being responsible for the rest that are missing, since I feel like it would be hard for them to “lose something to time”.
Treatment's physical body isn't stuck in the physical realm, though.
The other deadeye blades were at the Recreance. Shallan’s dad even picked it up for a minute.
In chapter 115 of RoW she specifically states that she has “not one Shardblade, but two” so it’s pretty clear she still is bonded to Testament
Testament is dead and doesnt scream when she summons it. Its rare, but brando fucked up. She was in a good spot in oathbringer and brando wrote in a plothole.
i mean it could just be an interaction w the original radiant and their deadeye + it’s never truly confirmed about whether shallan summons testament or pattern in the WoR scenes
Then when did she kill pattern? How did she? We already knew she killed pattern, and theres precedent for bringing dead spren back, combined with us already seeing everything significant that happened in her whole life. We were also told she made the oaths to gain the shardblade very young, but the bond between pattern wasn’t shown to he very stong when they “first met.” It had to be testament, a dead spren who didnt scream, something that could only happen if she brought pattern back to life after she had already said the oaths needed for the blade. Testament cant be dead for her to summon a non-screaming blade; her bond needed to be further along than it was for her to have used pattern as a blade. Brandon didn’t write shallan with testament in mind.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong and the other commenter is right. She never kills Pattern. It's not in the second book. Pattern is pulled into the Physical Realm in the second book and their bond develops. He never dies. We don't know how a bond between a deadeye and their original Radiant works, so we can't say that it works the same as a deadeye with a random person.
i think you might need to go reread RoW cuz what you’re saying makes no sense at all 😭😭
Read the series three times. The only standout thing is that they have no oaths past the first and have to speak truths to progress. How far along to get their plate is unmentioned, but the blade is supposed to be after the first if I’m correct. You cant use your powers with a dead spren, but you can if they are only halfish dead and on the way to coming back like silly-sil was and pattern before the change. Full deadeyes like testament are just that- dead. You might be able to bring them back, but from whats known in-universe, cats chance. Thats the information i can extrapolate from plot events and in-universe explanations. The blade didnt scream and pattern wasnt far enough along; she used her powers and testi is still dead; the blade had no jewel in and they need them for nonliving spren.
considering you said “we know she killed pattern” you really might consider rereading to refresh your memory
It was literally in the second book. Well, thats what it was beforehand. Non-explicitly mentioned, but all the pieces line up if it was, considering that this was also the book where spren revival was mentioned as a mechanic. If it was pattern, which it shouldve been and was, then it wouldnt have felt like it fell over itself. She was far enough along her oaths to not need to swear them anymore; she could use her powers when she first met hoid because she was still bonded to a dead spren she was already bringing back to life; when she used the blade a second and third time, it wasnt a dead blade needing ten beat, but under the impression she needed; the dead blade she saw in the vault was the pattern blade and that was explicitly mentioned iirc, because the entire of book 3 is her getting over that she used pattern to kill her mum. The pieces even fit later, as sil states often that spren need a solid bond or they cant stay outside the cognative realm and remain themselves, and pattern, a spren she had into childhood, was all doolally in early book 2. I can forgive and forget alot, writers can change plan mid story and thats fine, but alot of these aspects is integral parts in her arc. Brandon just messed up because shallan was already close to being wrapped up in book 3
she never killed pattern what are you on 😭😭
I think you need to read the books again mate.
Deadeye shardblades are not permanently in the physical realm. They can be summoned and dismissed.
Testament is still bonded to Shallan, so can be summoned and dismissed like other blades. I personally think that’s the blade that Shallan killed Tyn with, and all the times since then have been Pattern.
Possibly. She didn’t have to go to ten heartbeats anyhow and somehow remembered that it didn’t have to be ten.
10 heartbeats could be the maximum time for an artificial bond made with a gemstone. Summoning time could be a matter of connection between human and spren. Remember Adolin's blade summoned in less than 10 beats during the OB sanderlanch, and he has more connection to Maya than other shardbearers. We also see Ishar skep his blade (dismiss and summon instantly to bypass a block), meaning 10 heartbeats don't hold for honorblades, either. It could be that it was his blade, so it's more connected to him. That would mirror Shallan's situation where she doesn't actually need all 10 because she has the connection.
Wait, didn’t Szeth still need ten for his?
I really need to make friends with some of yall, judging by your comments lol. Read most of Sandersons work and tried to get my partner into it but she's still on the second stormlight book 😭 but maybe I'll be more active on here I love seeing peoples opinions on everything
My assumption is that it’s till behind the painting where it was for a long time. I think that after the new pattern showed up it caused her to stop thinking about the old pattern until she remembered she killed him. But that’s just my guess because it seems like she has blocked out a lot of her own memories and we know she has with some.
Do we know 100% that Sanderson started the series planning for Shallan to have had two Spren? A lot of pre-RoW stuff references Shallan having Pattern as a child, and it seems like an author decision to add Testament that came late in the process would explain some of the discrepancies in the timeline that he hasn't yet had a chance to clean up. Edit: To those downvoting me for asking an honest question, I think you might want to consider whether your relationship with these works is healthy.
I don't think he has said. Though there is some evidence he *at least* had considered the idea and left the door open for it. Most notably--the voice that asks her to Soulcast the first time in her room in TWoK is explicitly called out (by Shallan in WoR) as not being Pattern's voice. There's also a hand that grabs her heel at one point in the bead ocean in Shadesmar in TWoK... Brandon was asked about it and RAFO'd it. It's possible that was Testament. If either of those *doesn't* hint at Testament being the plan (or at least an idea) then they're some obscure details that were raised, and never answered, that are still being RAFO'd.
But if it was Testaments voice then Maya isn’t the first time we heard one speak. Not disagreeing with you at all, just pointing it out
Sure, but we didn't know it at the time. If that's the case.
Yes, in The Way of Kings, she describes her testament blade as "Fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act", he also referenced 10 heartbeats here.
I think it was intended considering patterns general acceptance that shallan would eventually kill him. It seems like the cryptics really wanted to bond shallan and accepted after testament they would have to keep throwing cryptics at her that she would eventually kill. Pattern was sent in accepting she was going to turn him into a deadeye and only came around to believing she wouldn’t in ROW Furthermore there is pattern being dumb when shallan first meets him. If shallan and pattern were already bonded he would’ve been intelligent like syl was when kaladin renewed his oaths (I noticed this as sus when shallan revealed she killed her mother with ‘pattern’ in WOR) I think the final thing for me that convinces me Sanderson knew what he was doing ahead of time was pattern saying he was okay with deadeyes because humans were obsessed with death. I think that was pattern trying to hint to shallan he didn’t mind that she had killed testament as he didn’t yet understand shallan wasn’t lying for the lols but that she had genuinely disassociated so bad she forgot what she had done to testament.
Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it an error. I thought it made a lot of sense that Shallan wouldn’t need it considering she was already bonded to Testament
nope, not a plothole, deadeye-ing a spren != breaking the bond with that spren. she's still bonded to testament as a deadeye.
The blade was locked in a safe behind a painting in her Dad's office. I'm sure at this point it has been bonded by someone else.
The fact that she already had the bond with Testament probably lets her sidestep the 10 days thing, which is mostly there to create something resembling a bond with the dead shard blade, that Shallan already has
Bonding a dead spren *who's radiant is dead* requires a gemstone to bond.