(Probably Crazy) Nightblood Theory

Rithmatics digression

We've talked about 9-point circles.  Here is a further exploration of 9-point conics in case you are curious:

P is for Prickletac.  

Shallan's Journey: Chapter 1, In Which an Experiment Goes Wrong

Shallan grimaced as Pattern formed into a sword in her hands. She still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of wielding a sword, but it was what needed to be done, so she would do it. She, Navani and Jasnah were running experiments on the portals at Urithiru, trying to get a second one open. Prior to Jasnah's return, everyone had been completely stumped, but between the knowledge Jasnah brought back from her time in Shadesmar and her abilities with the transportation surge, she brought new energy to the project. Their current working theory was that they would eventually need Jasnah and Highprince Kalinar working together to permanently reopen a portal, but they wanted to make sure they had things right before Kalinar bound it open. If this worked, Shallan would use the portal to briefly visit Jah Keved and then promptly return to Urithiru. Jasnah was physically sitting in the tower, but was mentally in Shadesmar monitoring and guiding the portal. Shallan slid Pattern into the sword slot and was excited to feel the portal unlock – finally, actual progress! She rotated the fabrial and, as expected the stormlight in the lamps faded. That, however, is where her expectations broke down. As the lamps faded, the room itself seemed to fade until she seemed to be floating in a black void. Once she got past the initial shock she called out “Oh storm it! Pattern, are you still here? Something seems to have gone wrong...do you have any idea where we are?”

Shallan closed her eyes against the overwhelming darkness as she lost her self in the contemplation of what to do next. What would Jasnah do in this situation? She sighed. Jasnah would know how to navigate Shadesmar, and that wasn't something she could do. As Shallan pondered this, she felt a tapping on her shoulder, startled, and whipped her head around hoping to be able to see something in the inky blackness. She was relieved to see pattern glowing gently, “Mmmm, didn't mean to startle... you were getting lost...”

“Well, yes, when we think hard on something we can get lost in those thoughts.”

“Yes. Dangerous here. Lost in thoughts in Shadesmar is lost entirely.”

Shallan considered this. “Pattern, I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Mmmm... Thoughts are Shadesmar... A lie, but a good lie. If you get lost in thought in thoughts you are lost.”

Shallan shook her head. “I'm still not sure I follow, but I'll try to be careful. Do you have any suggestion as to what we should be doing next? How can we get back to Roshar?”

“Look. Your truth is what you see.”

“Look where? Pattern, the only thing I can see is you...”

Pattern took her hand and pointed with it. As Shallan squinted in that direction she could make out... something. At least it wasn't pitch black. “Ok, how do I get there?"

“Mmmm... Lightweavers aren't for traveling... Lie? The best lies become like truth...”

Shallan looked over at Pattern with eyes narrowed in thought as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. “Do you mean that I just need to be sufficiently convinced that I am already there and then I will be?”

“Mmmm.... not sure... perhaps?”

“Well I guess I don't have any better ideas...” Shallan took a deep breath to center herself and tried to focus on believing that she was at that point in the distance that was something other than inky blackness. She quickly realized that as long as she could see that she was still surrounded by darkness, she was not going to be able to truly believe it, so she closed her eyes tightly and tried to block out her skepticism.

Suddenly, she felt herself fall and land on...something...she didn't recognize. When her brain caught up that things had changed and she was once again in a new situation, her eyes snapped open and she quickly sat up. As she looked around, her eyes grew wide – where on Roshar was she? She was definitely outdoors and seemed to be on the ground, but it wasn't any kind of ground she was familiar with. For one thing, whatever vegetation she was sitting on didn't seem even remotely inclined to retreat back into the rock...which...didn't exactly seem like rock, it was too soft. There did appear to be large rocks standing around though... Did she end up somewhere in Shinovar? Shallan knew that they at least had plants that didn't retreat, and maybe this soft stuff was the soil she had read about... She reached into the bag of supplies she had packed in case something went wrong to pull out her sketchbook. Drawing often helped her make sense of what she was seeing. As she did, she thanked the Almighty that her bag hadn't gotten lost somewhere in her unusual journey. That thought reminded her of her traveling companion. She looked around, but didn't immediately see him and, as her heart started racing in panic, she called out, “Pattern? Did... Did you make it here as well?” She was highly relieved to her a sudden buzzing above her and to see Pattern's tangled mass of lines floating down as she looked up.

“Mmmm... still with you... still don't know where here is. Here is a nice pattern though.”

“A pattern?”

“Mmmm... big rocks all around in a circle with rocks on rocks, but maybe some missing.”

Shallan raised her eyebrows as she carefully stood with her bag and sketchbook and began to slowly walk around in wonder investigating the area she had so unceremoniously landed in. She didn't know as much as she wished she did about the Shin, but this seemed like something that might have been sacred to them at one point. It also seemed abandoned and was impressive enough that she should have come across it in her studies. “Pattern... Either we have discovered some long lost sacred site in Shinovar, or...” here she took a deep breath, “or we aren't on Roshar anymore.”

Whrrrrrrrrthwick! Whrrrrrrrrthwick! Whrrrrrrrrthwick! Whrrrrrrrrthwick!

Dumbledore looked up from his desk and frowned at the little silver device that had just started going off. He had many similar devices in his office to alert him of strong magical disturbances at key locations. This one suggested that something significant had just happened at Stonehenge. Thankfully it was just whrrrthwiking - if it had been shrieking that would have meant dark magic and likely that Voldemort had decided to come out of hiding. This, however, was just intriguing. He glanced back down at the paperwork he had been filling out and shrugged. It could wait. He looked over to his phoenix, “Fawkes, my dear old friend, would you be up for a visit to Stonehenge?” Fawkes chirruped and cocked his head. “Something seems to have happened there, and, beyond the fact that I am curious, it would be prudent to investigate.” Fawkes stretched his wings and trilled as flew over to Dumbledore who stood reached out for his tail feathers. They vanished in a flash of fire.

I don't particularly identify with Melody, but I love her character and think it is super important that she exists (and a young adult novel is exactly the right place for her). Across his books, Sanderson has given us a whole collection of fantastic women who represent a wide range of personalities and strengths. Melody is our stereotypical high school girl. She loves unicorns and pegasus and flowers and drawing and is completely unapologetic about it. She dislikes math and is convinced that she is hopeless at it. She desperately wants to live up to expectations but hates the form they take and thinks they are impossible. She feels lost and alone. She is also amazing.

Spoilers for The Rithmatist under the break.  

She really does struggle with math. It doesn't come easily to her. At the same time though, we get to see that with the right teacher and the right motivation and working at the right pace, she can learn the math. It isn't something she needs to or should just give up at. Even by the end of the book, she still isn't great at math. She has improved, but it is a level of improvement that is reasonable given the amount of time she has been working. We see promise for her to improve more as she continues to work at it. It feels real.

Despite this (in some sense because of it) ends up playing a very important role. Everybody knows that rithmatics is all about the math and the precision of getting your lines and curves and binding points in exactly the right place. It is essentially a science. There are Lines of Making and you can sort of affect what they are good at by their shape, but controlling them is essentially an exercise in programing. You have to know ahead of time what you want them to do and you have to give the instructions carefully. Chalklings are notoriously difficult to work with.

Melody sees things differently. She struggles with the science of rithmatics, but excels at the art. Her chalklings are not the rough sketches thrown in almost as an after thought. Every one is a work of art. They are elegant and detailed and at least approximately anatomically correct. She believes in them. She whispers instructions and they do her bidding. For Melody, working with chalklings, the thing everyone knows is a lost cause, comes naturally. Her role is just as important as Joel's in their final battle, and the fact that she can do magic and he can't is only a very small part of why. Her wonderful unicorns were just as important as Joel's fancy defense circle and carefully placed shots.

Melody is the woman on the programming project who makes sure the user interface is intuitive and functional even if she doesn't do much of the actual programming. She is the mathematician or the physicist who struggles with the more involved computations, but can easily see the symmetries that turn a nasty problem into a much more straight forward one. She is the inventor who sees beautiful, functional things in the natural world and asks why we don't just do it that way. She is Important even as she is very much a stereotypical girl.

Melody is there for all of the high school girls who are convinced they can't do math (or other traditional subjects) and that their passions don't matter. She is there to show them that if they work at it, they can succeed at the areas they feel hopeless in and that their passions do matter. At the same time, she reminds the rest of us that the more unusual perspectives and talents are important. They can provide solutions that simply do not occur to more conventional people.

Truth

White people need to tell each other the hard truths. This includes the fact that No, you aren’t colorblind. Nor should you strive to be. The point isn’t whether or not you see that a person is black. They are. The question is what you see when you see that they are black. Do you see competency? Do you see worth? You should.

(paraphrased (because I didn’t write it down during the service) from the sermon at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta on 25 September 2016)

I'm having trouble getting the next chapter of my Shallan in HP land crossover right, so I've been rereading Shallan chapters trying to figure out why things aren't working.  It's getting there.  In the mean time, have some Pattern thoughts:

“The pattern seemed impossible to capture. Its complex repetitions twisted down into infinity.” (pg 67)

Our dear friend Pattern is a fractal. This much is clear. It takes a while, but Shallan finally gets around to asking Pattern if he has a name beyond the one she has given him. His response:

“Name is numbers. Many numbers. Hard to say. Pattern...Pattern is fine.” (pg 215)

Fractal patterns that are on some level infinitely complex can often be described by seemingly simple equations or sets of rules.

Theory/ Headcanon: Pattern's true name is a mathematical description of his fractal form. The fractal exists in multiple dimensions and his appearance in the physical realm is just one tiny slice of his full form: the intersection of the fractal with the physical realm. His apparently changing patterns are not actually his pattern changing, but instead him moving so that the intersection changes and we get different views of him. His ability to shrink corresponds to moving so that his intersection with the physical realm is smaller.   

Now I really want to know Pattern's true name.

Hey guys. Iredomi posts their cosmere fanstuff over on sebrukiscrossbow and this includes a collection of lovely cosmere inspired poetry. This is me reading one of their poems. You can find the text of the poem in their original post here.

Shallan's Journey: Chapter 5, In Which We Get Out of the House

“Ok, what sort of disguise did you have in mind?” Hermione asked when they returned to the library.

Shallan gave her an enigmatic smile as she turned to her sketchbook and quickly drew Veil. She then took her partially used sphere and wove the image around herself before turning back to Hermione. “Something like this.”

Hermione's eyes widened and she had Shallan walk around the room while she watched for anything that might tip someone off that the girl was wearing a disguise. When she couldn't find anything, she nodded thoughtfully, “It is certainly convincing. Now we need to make sure it won't be easily dispelled. We can cast glamours, which have a similar effect, but if someone suspects them they are easy to counter.”

Sirius had assured them that the ministry would not be able to detect any spell work done in the house, so Hermione raised her wand and started with “Finite Incantatem.” Nothing happened. She smiled, “Well, that's a good start.” She then pursed her lips as she doggedly ran through a sequence of increasingly complex spells used to counter a variety of different glamours and illusions. None of them had any effect. Hermione tapped her chin with her wand as she considered other possible ways to disrupt Shallan's illusion before nodding to herself, “Nox”. This time the illusion seemed to flicker and Hermione raised her eyebrows in question.

“That one worked, but I was able to bring it back quickly,” Shallan held up the now dun sphere, “if you did that again I probably wouldn't be able to though.”

“Hmmmm....well, Nox is not a common way to counter illusions,” Hermione tilted her head to the side and muttered mostly to herself, “It's usually just used to extinguish your wand after you use Lumos. I only thought to try it because I saw you cast an illusion with Lumos. As long as you stay out of situations where someone might be extinguishing their wand that shouldn't be a problem...”

While Hermione was analyzing how much of a weakness the vulnerability to Nox would be, Shallan was contemplating her dun sphere. She quickly cut in when Hermione paused, “Hermione, can I borrow your wand to try something while you think?” Hermione nodded and handed it to her while still mostly lost in thought. After a couple of tries, Shallan managed to correctly cast Lumos and then turned her attention to the sphere, willing the light into it. She smiled in satisfaction as the sphere began to glow again. Fantastic. Now I don't have to worry about not being able to recharge my spheres. She grinned mischievously and turned back to her sketchpad. After finishing the sketch, she beckoned Pattern over. “Pattern, we know you can maintain an illusion. Is there any reason you wouldn't be able to help maintain an illusion I cast on someone else?”

Pattern buzzed thoughtfully, “Mmmmm... I should be able to.”

“Ok, let's try it,” Shallan infused Pattern with light from Hermione's wand and then sent him over to ride on Hermione's shirt as she used her sketch to build an illusion.Shallan called out to pull her friend out of her thoughts, “Hermione, go look in the mirror.”

Shallan followed Hermione as she headed down the hall to the full sized mirror in her room, amused that her friend was still half lost in mentally running through potential challenges they needed to prepare for. A brief glance in the mirror shocked Hermione back to reality as she turned back and forth between Shallan and the mirror. “You... you made me look exactly like you!” She reach up to touch the soft red curls she saw in the mirror and frowned as she felt her normal hair.

Shallan saw her confusion and explained, “It's just an illusion, so you can reach through it, but as long as I'm careful about creating it, that shouldn't be a problem. It does mean that it is safer not to create illusions of different clothing though.”

Hermione briefly considered this and nodded. “We should be able to find nondescript robes to use as part of the disguise.”

Shallan grimaced and pulled her sleeved safehand to her chest. She knew that she was going to have to wear the local clothing when she went out, but she had been trying not to think about it. Just as Veil couldn't wear a proper havah and still blend in as a darkeyes, wearing a dress with a proper safehand sleeve or even wearing a glove here in the middle of summer was going to draw attention she didn't want. She had almost gotten used to seeing the other girls with their safehands uncovered, but it still made her somewhat uncomfortable.

Hermione saw the gesture and smiled sympathetically. Shallan had tried to explain Vorinism to the others and, while they didn't fully understand, they tried to be respectful. “You know, there are everyday robes with long, wide sleeves. If we find you robes with sleeves that are a little too long you can probably keep your hand hidden.”

Shallan shrugged. That would be better than having to wear short sleeves like the other girls, but it still wasn't the same... She wasn't good enough with English to try to explain the distinction though, so she let it go with a sigh. They weren't ready for the trip yet anyway, so she still had time to talk herself into it.

They spent the rest of the day working on designs for faces for Shallan and Sirius to wear that were close enough to their real faces that the illusion would be hard to detect, common enough that they wouldn't stand out, and, in Sirius's case, different enough that he wouldn't be recognized. They also experimented with how much stormlight/wandlight Pattern needed to maintain an illusion on another person and how long they could expect it to hold. Through all of it, Shallan detached herself from the idea of actually making the trip and focused on it as an abstraction and scholarly question.

That night, as she sat on her bed brushing out her hair with only Patten for company, Shallan finally allowed herself to grapple with her feelings about going out to acquire a wand.

“I can't just stay in this house. I can not. I won't let myself be locked away and hidden by anyone or anything, even my own sensibilities. And, well, it also bothers me that they are keeping Sirius hidden away here. I know his situation is different, but I also at least somewhat understand what it's like and it's not ok. But at the same time, even with Hermione's explanations,I don't know the local culture or how to blend in andto go out with my safehand uncovered... Pattern, I don't know what to do...”

“Mmmmm,” Pattern buzzed, “Hermione said that the robes should be able to hide your hand, yes? And the people here wouldn't pay any attention to it anyway...”

Shallan sighed, looked down at the bed, and wrapped her arms around herself,“Yes, but... that's not the point. Iwould know that it wasn't properly covered and, in addition to it feeling wrong, it would be a distraction.”

Pattern bobbed around confused “Mmmm, if the sleeve will cover your hand anyway, why can't you wear your glove?”

Shallan raised her eyebrows as she looked up slowly. “That, Pattern, is a very good question.”

A couple of days later, Shallan, Hermione, and Sirius were all reasonably happy with the disguises and the plan. At one point they considered getting approval from the Order for their trip, but decided it would be better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Everyone seemed strangely determined to keep Sirius locked up in the house. They had the twins, who were happy for any excuse to cause mischief, create a distraction that allowed Shallan and Sirius to sneak out of the house. Hermione summoned the Knight Bus for them and they set off for the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley. It was a busy enough day at the Leaky that they had no trouble casually waiting for someone to open the passage to the Alley and then following them through.

Their first stop was Gringotts and, as they made their way there, Shallan looked around the street in wonder. She itched to pull out her sketchbook and to begin recording everything she saw, but constrained herself to frequently blinking and taking memories to draw later. Hermione had warned Shallan about the goblins, but she still did a double take when she saw the first one as they arrived at the bank. Sirius presented the key to the Black family vault to one of the tellers and they were able to retrieve the money they would need (and quite a bit more) with no difficulty. Shallan was none too sure about the cart ride to and from the vault and the whole idea of the bank was strange to her - spheres were far too useful to lock away in a vault somewhere. She coped, as usual, by reminding herself to view everything as a scholar and took copious mental notes about the system and stored a few images to draw later.

After leaving the bank, Sirius guided them farther down the street to the Ollivander's. As they walked into the wandshop, Shallan looked around and turned to Sirius in confusion, “Is there no one here?” Sirius shook his head, but before he could answer an old man with a deeply lined face and fluffy white hair suddenly appeared in front of them with wide peering eyes, “Sirius Black. I can't say I expected to see you here.”

Shallan stumbled back a step as her heart started racing. He can see through my illusion. We didn't plan for this...

At this point Ollivander's attention turned to Shallan and his eyebrows flew up. He glanced back curious to Sirius, “Not only did you manage to move unnoticed through the Alley, you also have a companion who is, shall we say, not from around here...”

Sirius rolled his eyes,“Yeah, yeah. My friend is why we are here. She needs a wand. Though, I could use a new one too if you are willing to sell me one.”

Ollivander looked over Sirius pensively, “Yes, I suppose you could. Such a shame. Whatever happened to it?”

Sirius gave a half shrug, “Not really sure.”

“Mmm, I see.” Ollivander nodded to his tape measure which leapt up and slithered toward Sirius. “Your right hand is still your wand hand?”

“So far as I know.”

After several failed fits, Ollivander turned to Sirus, “Here, try this one. Dogwood and dragon heartstring, 9 ¼ inches, rigid.”

As Sirius took the wand it let out a loud bark and released a puff of black smoke that swirled and resolved itself into a black dog with an energetically wagging tail. Sirius grinned broadly. “Ah, this will do quite well.”

Ollivander nodded and turned to examine Shallan as he muttered about dogwood not usually being literally related to dogs. “And which is your wand hand?”

The tape measure slithered over to her and began take all sorts of measurements as Ollivander moved around the shop collecting wand boxes. As the tape measure finshed and made its way back to its home on the counter, he returned to Shallan and began handing her wands to test, telling her about each wand and its potential strengths as he did. None in the first batch gave any reaction, though there were a few that Shallan felt the same almost vibration from that she noticed the first time she held Fred's wand. While Ollivander returned to shelves to collect more wands for her to try, Shallan heard a soft buzzing over his mutterings.

“Mmmmm....patterns...”

Shallan narrowed her eyes and looked toward Sirius who had Pattern hiding on his robes, I thought Pattern agreed to stay quiet, but she asked quietly anyway,“What patterns?”

“In the wands. Some like you better than others. The fir ones...”

Shallan took a deep breath and then cut in to Ollivander's running commentary, “Um, sir, the fir wands have felt closer to right than the others.”

He froze and Shallan spent several uncomfortable moments with him blinking at her before he was off digging through his store of wands again. “Let's see... Let's see... maybe... yes... Here try this one, 10 and a half inch, surprisingly springy fir and unicorn hair.”

This time when she tentatively took the wand, the tip burst into brilliant light.

“Interesting, Interesting... Fir... You must be stronger than you look.” Ollivander peered intently at her, “A survior's wand, particularly inclined toward transfiguration... That will be seven Galleons each for the two wands.”

While Shallan was still trying to figure out how to respond to the disconcerting shopkeeper, Sirius handed over the Galleons and gently guided her out of the shop.   

Note: I had a hard time getting this chapter right.  I'm reasonably happy with it now, but I would also be happy to have feedback :-) I hope you enjoyed it!