Words of Radiance: Chapter 88

Progression of the Chapter:
Shallan finds the Ghostbloods waiting for her; though she confronts them defiantly, Mraize still wants her to be part of them; she finds Adolin waiting for her, which is much more pleasant; Pattern insists that it is time to face her past; she finally acknowledges the whole truth.
... Amaram prepares a message for Restares; he cuts his way into Taln's cell; Iyatil fires poison darts at Amaram, but Taln catches them with superhuman speed; Amaram escorts Taln to his coach.
... Szeth realizes to his dismay that he's alive; Nalan implies that Szeth will become a Skybreaker and will confront his people; Szeth wonders how he is to face those who bear the other Honorblades; Nalan gives him a black sword in a metal sheath; the blade whispers in his mind.
Quote of the Chapter:
After all these years, Shallan has to confront three things: her mother tried to kill her, her father sacrificed his reputation (and eventually his sanity) to protect her, and she killed them both: one defending herself, and the other defending what was left of the family.
The thing readers still don't know is why Brightness Davar tried to kill her developing-Radiant daughter. Readers also don't know whether or not her father believed that Shallan was becoming a Radiant, or how he felt about the idea. Readers do know that he didn't want his daughter murdered.
Also, this was the same timeframe in which Jasnah first made contact with Ivory, and Gavilar was assassinated.
Development of the Chapter:
The climax blows the reader away, and then in the aftermath the reader gets blown away in a different kind of storm. There is so much revealed in these last few chapters, even though it seems like there's not much happening.
For starters, there's the fact that the characters are moving into the tower because there's really nothing else to be done. While the Everstorm still has to wrap around the planet, the out-of-sequence highstorm will be arriving soon; with no way of knowing what it will be like this high in the mountains, they have to assume it will be bad. Staying out on an open field would just be stupid when there's an empty tower to be used for shelter.
So Shallan walks the halls, to find a note addressed to her stuck on the wall where she can't help but see it, next to a room where Mraize waits for her. (How did he know she'd come that way?) Their whole interaction is unsettling on multiple levels. He implies that her Veil disguise is somehow more true than her identity as Shallan Davar - and that he has some right, and some special insight, to know better than she does.
It's good to remember that he doesn't know everything; it seems he assumes that no one else knows about her Lightweaving, but only that she has a Shardblade that is different from the others. While it's true that Dalinar is the only one she's deliberately shown an Illusion, and Kaladin saw some of her Illusions in the chasms, it's a little presumptuous of him to assume that no one knows, and that she intends to keep it that way.
Mraize isn't to be trusted; readers don't know what his purposes are. He claims that Shallan is a member of the Ghostbloods, and he will help her because they look out for their own people ... but he also admits the enmity between them and Jasnah, tells Shallan he has her brothers, reminds her that the Davars still owe him a Soulcaster, and implies that he knows far more about her family than she does.
Ironically, he concludes by saying, "Let Shallan Davar be a Radiant, conformist and noble. Let Veil come to us. And let her find truth." As a bunch of Worldhoppers, they know a lot of things she doesn't, and it might be worth learning what they know. But Radiant = conformist? Vorin teaching has claimed the Radiants to be traitors for hundreds of years, and people aren't sure whether to be grateful to her for rescue, or to kill her as a traitor.
The Ghostbloods are still secretive, and have admitted only that they killed Jasnah and are holding Shallan's brothers. Onto the Sons of Honor.
First, Restares is indeed connected with, and the probable leader of, the Sons of Honor. Second, they consider themselves responsible for the return of the Voidbringers, a goal which they have been pursuing rigorously. (Whether they are actually responsible or not, they are perfectly happy with being the cause of so much acknowledged suffering, as long as they can achieve their purpose of dominance.) Third, they are confident that the Heralds will necessarily return, now that the Voidbringers have shown themselves. (Considering the current mental state of the Heralds, the wisdom of this desire as well as the assumed success ought to be questioned.) Finally, readers learn that Amaram is planning to go to Urithiru among the armies. And that's just what readers learn from his letter.
He goes on to retrieve "the person who calls himself Talenel" by cutting his way into the back of Dalinar's monastery and sneaking him out. (He considers the loss of Dalinar's friendship to be one of the highest prices he must pay for the return of the Heralds.) In the process of abducting Talenel, Iyatil takes a couple of potshots at Amaram, which has a few remarkable implications. One, Amaram recognizes Iyatil as one of the Ghostbloods. Two, the Ghostbloods are trying to kill Amaram, though whether that's personal or because of his involvement with the Sons of Honor readers don't know. Three, Amaram is surprised to find himself a target of the Ghostbloods, though he's not surprised that the Herald might be.
Lastly, the Skybreakers. When Nalan restores Szeth to life, he makes some very interesting suggestions. One is that Szeth is qualified to be a Skybreaker; another is that Nalan has the capacity to make that happen at will. He assumes that Szeth will want to join them, and states that training begins immediately. This all falls into the category of "unreliable narrator info-dump," so just how much of it can readers rely on? Never before have readers seen an indication that the Heralds were ever directly involved in selecting their Knights, nor that they could command the spren to form a bond. Even if those things were true, though, why would someone in training as a Skybreaker (which Mraize also indicated was the case with Helaran) need or even want a Shardblade other than their spren? Why did Nalan give Szeth this particular blade?
Stormwatch:
Day Zero ... for the last time.
Sprenspotting:
Other than Pattern, there aren't really any spren to be observed in this chapter. In lieu of that, here's a snippet of the conversation between Nalan and Szeth:
This appears to indicate that the Shin (and/or the Stone Shamans worship the spren of stone, and the spren of the sun and the stars. Or, it could be read to mean that they think the sun and stars are the spren of the stone.
Is it significant, that they don't worship stone itself, but the spren of the stone? Does a Shaman have the power to observe or communicate with the actual spren of stone(s) in the Cognitive Realm? That which readers have seen thus far indicates that objects appear as beads in the Cognitive Realm, and the moving/active residents of that Realm are the spren of emotions and processes. Does that matter? Shallan was able to communicate with the stick-bead ... was that the spren of the stick?
Ars Arcanum:
This chapter holds the culmination of Shallan’s flashback sequence, and the deepest Lightweaving she’s ever done. After a superficial Illusion, she creates “a better lie” – a fully interactive Illusion of the room we saw in her first flashback: red carpet, once white, with a strongbox that opens and bodies that can be rolled over. Finally, we know for sure what happened, and so does Shallan.
Continuing from the Quote of the Chapter:
Is the "I hate you” directed at Mother or Pattern? It's not too surprising that Pattern assumes she's addressing him; combining that with what they know of the Recreance, it's also not surprising that he assumes she will eventually kill him.
Two chapters ago (i.e., Words of Radiance: Chapter 86) Shallan acknowledged "A deeper truth" - that her Shardblade was different from all the rest. She admits it again earlier in this chapter, thinking that her Blade not only could appear in less than the requisite ten heartbeats, he had done so before. In this scene, she finally says it right out loud: the Shardblade her father had put in the strongbox was actually Pattern.
That leads into the acknowledgement that her mother had tried to kill her, and that she had defended herself with Pattern-as-a-Shardblade. This is the deepest of the truths she's been hiding from herself for six years.
Does this make her a full-fledged Radiant? Has she reached the level of self-awareness, now that she's not hiding things from herself, that completes her development? In the previous chapter, she asked Pattern if she was really "one of them," and he said that she almost was, but she still had a few Words to say – truths, rather than oaths. This is the fourth time she's stated something specifically identified as "a truth."
Ars Mechanica:
There's a glaring question here, an artifact of The Changes. Szeth observes the man who healed him tucking something into his pocket:
In the original version of the novel, Nalan says that Szeth could be restored "with the right fabrial," but in the revised version, he says "with the right Surgebinding." So did he use a fabrial, or not? Does he refuse to use the term "fabrial" because he knows it's more accurate to say he's using Surgebinding, or does he not want Szeth to know he has to use fabrials? Or is it a "super-fabrial" like maybe Oathgates and live-Shardblades? Or ... what?
Haven't We Met Somewhere Before?:
Now readers know where Nightblood got to without Vasher, but not why or how! Some would say that with this evidence that Zahel is Vasher, it's proof that he's not a Herald. Others would say that it makes more sense that a Herald would have given or loaned the blade to another Herald. Readers just don't know enough yet.
Further, what is the reaction of Szeth's stomach to the proximity of Nightblood? Someone who wouldn't want to use Nightblood for evil purposes is supposed to feel sick, while someone with ill intent is supposed to be irresistibly drawn to it. Which is Szeth?
Heraldic Symbolism:
The obvious connections in the chapter artwork are for Pattern, insisting on and assisting in Shallan's growth; Shalash, reflecting Shallan's progress toward becoming a true Radiant by letting go of the lies she's told herself; and Nalan as himself.
Shipping Wars:
This is followed, of course, by a far more significant conversation, involving kisses and refusals to let things be awkward due to her Radianticity. Besides being adorable, they display signs of actual respect for the other individual, instead of mere infatuation. There may be a bit less overt respect on Shallan's part, because she's so very determined not to be treated like fine china. Neither of them seem to notice - or make a big deal of - Adolin's way of effectively caring for her without using cotton wool. He had a conversation with her spren, found the necessary room, and made sure she wouldn't be disturbed. He also made sure she had a Stormlight lantern and blankets. She sort of notes his quiet competence without quite ... noting it. She appreciates it, without feeling like he's being overprotective.
Words of Diagram:
This turns out, on careful examination, to be the dates of the last ten highstorms prior to the Weeping. Or prior to the Everstorm, depending on how one looks at it.
- Paraphrased from Alice Arneson