Question on Shallans spren

[Acolyte of Radiance]

So we know shallan had two spren,testatament and pattern.

Why didnt the former do its deadeye screaming thing at shallan?

Does it not work when not summoned?

[alder24]

40 minutes ago, Acolyte of Radiance said:

So we know shallan had two spren,testatament and pattern.

Why didnt the former do its deadeye screaming thing at shallan?

Does it not work when not summoned?

Screaming when? In both RoW and OB, Shallan never tried to summon Testament as a Shardblade and only then a deadeye screams. However, in WoK and WoR I believe that every Shardblade Shallan summoned was Testament, not Pattern, and it didn't scream too. Why? Shallan is already in the process of reswearing her broken Oaths with Testament, thus she is reconstructing her bond with her, which is a way to resurrect a deadeye (only if done by their original Radiant, the one who broke their bond). Moreover, screaming is a conscious decision made by a deadeye - Dalinar's Oathbringer was screaming less than others, because they remembered oaths Dalinar made, while every dead platespren is content in their state, thus none of them scream. Testament, because she willingly went to bond with Shallan most likely knowing she will die, might have accepted her fate and that may also be the reason she didn't scream at Shallan. I suspect however that the primary reason is that Shallan has started to reconstruct her Oaths, one of which probably was "I'm terrified" said to Testament in WoK before she Soulcasted a goblet into blood. Testament is not fully dead anymore. OB ch 89:

Quote

“Smart,” Adolin said. He put his hand to the side to summon his own Shardblade.
The woman with the scratched eyes stretched her head toward him in an unnatural way, then screeched with a loud, piercing howl.

OB ch 28:

Quote

He seized the sword, bracing himself for the screams. The cries of a dead spren. They weren’t the shrill, painful shrieks he’d heard when touching other Blades, but more of a whimper. The sound of a man backed into a corner, thoroughly beaten and facing something terrible, but too tired to keep screaming.
[...]
“This one doesn’t scream as loudly as others. Why?”
It remembers your oath, the Stormfather sent. It remembers the day you won it, and better the day you gave it up. It hates you—but less than it hates others.

RoW I-1:

Quote

She rolled off the counter and zipped over to examine Cord’s Shardplate stacked neatly in the corner. The young Horneater woman was never without it. She was the first of her people in … well, a very, very long time to have a Shard. It was pretty.
Maybe Syl should have hated it, as she did Shardblades, but she didn’t. It was kind of a corpse—well, lots of corpses—but not as offensive. The difference, she supposed, was attitude. She could sense contentment, not pain, from the Plate

WoK ch 45:

Quote

She began the process anyway. Ten heartbeats, to bring forth the fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horric act. She was interrupted midway through by a voice, uncanny yet distinct:
What are you?
She clutched her hand to her chest, losing her balance on the soft bed, falling to her knees on the rumpled blanket. She put one hand to the side, steadying herself on the nightstand, ngers brushing the large glass goblet that sat there.
“What am I?” she whispered. “I’m terried.”
This is true.

 

Spoiler

enceladus_47

Does Shallan's "I killed my spren" count as a truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna leave up to theorizing, figuring out the timeline that's going on with Shallan. What we can say is that Shallan is reconstructing, in many cases, oaths she has said before. And it is working slightly differently than someone who is saying new oaths. And indeed, saying she killed her spren is one of those steps. I'll leave it to you to try and parse through that. It's actually pretty complicated. We have a nice big page explaining all of this stuff internally, to make sure that we're keeping it all straight. Because she has violated oaths and reconstructed them, is basically what's happening. And she is regressing, and she's doing a... 1.1 steps forward, 1 step back, sort of thing, kind of frequently.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

The dead Shardblades, could you possibly get Stormlight into them to reawaken them?

Brandon Sanderson

Dead Shardblade, could you pump enough Stormlight into them? That alone would not be enough.

Questioner

So you would have to find someone to re-swear with oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something broken on the Spiritual Realm because of the broken oath and simple Stormlight will not fix that.

Questioner

So say--

Brandon Sanderson

If the person were still alive and could re-swear the oath then yes.

Questioner

But someone like [...] could go [...] the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not outside of reason but it would be very, very, very difficult.

Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Havoc (paraphrased)

In Way of Kings, Shallan is being chased by Cryptics. She begins to summon her Shardblade, stops and then Soulcasts for the first time. We know from Words of Radiance that it's her bond to Pattern, her Shardblade that allows her to Soulcast. So my question is, if Shallan had not begun to summon her Blade, would she have been able to Soulcast?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

She would not have been able to. Good question! Wow. No one has ever asked me that before.

GollanczFest London (Oct. 17, 2015)

 

Edited July 10 by alder24

[Acolyte of Radiance]

Thanks,it was concusing to me how we never saw testament during any of shallans trips to shadesmar,this clears up a lot.

[alder24]

Just now, Acolyte of Radiance said:

Thanks,it was concusing to me how we never saw testament during any of shallans trips to shadesmar,this clears up a lot.

Well, we didn't see her, but she was there, probably pulling her down by her leg. WoK ch 70:

Quote

Shallan fell, dropping into that sea of dark glass beads. She struggled, trying to stay at the surface. She managed it for a moment. Then something tugged on her leg, pulling her down. She screamed, slipping beneath the surface, tiny beads of glass lling her mouth. She panicked. She was going to—

 

Spoiler

ncmagic97

In The Way of Kings, when Shallan first goes to Shadesmar, she says something grabbed her ankle and was pulling her into the ocean of spheres. Was Testament the one doing said grabbing?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! I wondered if people were ever gonna pick up on that one, I haven't been asked that yet.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

Testament wasn't always with Shallan, because she can only be near her if Shallan was recently summoning her as a blade, or if Testament had enough time to follow her by foot through the Shadesmar - which might be a little difficult when most of it is covered in the ocean of beads. But nonetheless, Testament was following her quite well, untill she was found by her friend and was taken care of by her, about a year before RoW - so that's why we didn't see her in RoW close to Shallan. Since the start of OB, I believe Shallan was not summoning Testament, so it would be really hard for her to follow Shallan around by foot, when Shallan was either flying with Kaladin, or moving between Oathgates - that's the reason we didn't see her around Shallan when she was traveling from Kholinar to Thaylen through Shadesmar. 

[Acolyte of Radiance]

One thing,sorry to bother,was testament the sword she summoned when in the caverns with Kaladin?or was she using pattern?

[alder24]

9 hours ago, Acolyte of Radiance said:

One thing,sorry to bother,was testament the sword she summoned when in the caverns with Kaladin?or was she using pattern?

While there is no definite answer, I believe it was Testament. I think that Lightweavers, like any other order, get their Shardblades at the 3rd Ideal - this means that all instances of Shallan summoning a Shardblade in WoK and WoR were Testament, not Pattern, until Shallan said "I killed my mother" at the very end of WoR. 

But there is more. During the fight with the Chasmfiend, Shallan was hiding on the other side of the chasm, while her illusions were appearing, moving and making noises near Kaladin. That's too far for Shallan to create an illusion there at her skill level, it had to move there by being attached to Pattern (like she did when Ghostbloods hid a message for her in a tree, she attached an illusion to Pattern). And only Pattern was able to give voices to illusions back then. This means it had to be Testament in Kaladin's hands. But he noticeably didn't hear the blade scream. Why? Because at that time Kaladin's bond with Syl was nearly broken, Syl was almost killed, he was unable to even breathe in Stormlight, he would be unable to hear the blade scream because that came from his bond - if Testament was even screaming at all, as I explained before.

Remember, Shallan is not a reliable narrator. She keeps lying to herself, suppressing painful memories at all costs. She wouldn't have even realized what she was doing because her mind would have blocked anything related to Testament and coated it with a lie about it being Pattern. At the end of RoW Shallan remarks that she remembers using Surges after killing Testament, but before bonding Pattern, which suggest that her process of reswearing Oaths started somewhere before WoK.In WoK, she resworn one of her Truth, by saying "I'm terrified." At this point Testament wasn't a normal Deadeye. Something more was happening to her and I think we can't expect her to behave like a normal Deadeye.

Spoiler

Preservation1

Did Shallan manifest her Shardplate in the final battle of Book Three?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. Shallan has to be big RAFO. You'll understand why when you read this book [Rhythm of War]. Shallan is an untrustworthy narrator.

Travis Gafford Interview (Nov. 12, 2020)