Today we’re going to discuss the stormlight of my life, your life, your cat’s life: Jasnah Kholin. Topics of discussion include (but will likely not be limited to): the face she wears, the effect her childhood and what we know if it has had on her, madness, her mother, her perceived invincibility, and whatever else strikes me as relevant in the midst of this chaotic clusterfuck of yelling tarted up as character analysis.
Let us begin at the beginning (of what we know) and talk about Jasnah’s childhood illness, and what this has done to her in terms of her relationship with her mother, her outlook on life, and her perception of, well, perception…
“It’s your daughter,” Dalinar guessed. “Her lunacy.”
“Jasnah is fine, and recovering. It’s not that.”
(OB, 49, Born Unto Light)
Peppered through Dalinar’s flashbacks in Oathbringer are small hints at the dark side of Jasnah’s childhood. We’ve had hints before that Jasnah’s life has not always been…entirely typical for a princess.
Her existence as a radiant was a hint itself, as it’s implied most of them are ‘broken’ in some way.
The others are more obvious: Kaladin’s depression, Shallan’s PTSD, anxiety, and DID, Dalinar’s repressed memories, and alcoholism etc,etc.
With Jasnah, you know it has to be there, but it’s harder to see. To use Shallan’s metaphor, she’s like a cracked vase, but the cracked side has been turned to the wall, so the outside world sees only smooth perfection.
This flashback comment is the most obvious indication at what caused Jasnah to break. A fairly shocking one for a reader as ‘Jasnah’ and 'lunacy’ seem to match as well as chasmfiends and tea parties.
It also provides some rather awful context for this segment a few chapters earlier:
“Something stirred deep within her. Glimmers of memory from a dark room, screaming her voice ragged. A childhood illness nobody else seemed to remember, for all it had done to her.
“It had taught her that people she loved could still hurt her.”
(O, 47, So Much Is Lost)
We know, given Shallan’s research into Taln at the behest of the Ghostbloods, that the current treatment for madness involves confining the person in darkness.
It seems like far too much of a coincidence that Jasnah, diagnosed with lunacy, would have memories of screaming herself hoarse in a dark room that could somehow be unconnected to this.
Based on my shoddy maths, she was around 11 or 12 at this point, which is marked by many, especially Navani, as a turning point in her life. There was a profound change in how she acted with those around her following this.
“She wouldn’t let me be a mother to her, Dalinar,” Navani said, staring into the distance. “Do you know that? It was almost like … like once Jasnah climbed into adolescence, she no longer needed a mother. I would try to get close to her, and there was this coldness, like even being near me reminded her that she had once been a child. What happened to my little girl, so full of questions?”
(WoR, 67, Spit and Bile)
It seems like too much of a coincidence, again, to assume that Jasnah’s childhood illness and her confinement had nothing to do with her reluctance to allow Navani to mother her any more.
Jasnah herself reflects that her imprisonment, for lack of a better word, taught her that people she loved could still hurt her. It seems very likely that this refers to Navani and Gavilar, as they would have allowed this treatment to continue. It’s also likely the reason for the change in their relationship afterwards.
Navani’s presence didn’t remind her she had been a child; it reminded her of what had been done to her.
Navani’s little girl was branded insane and locked away in a dark room with her parents’ consent. This removed her ability to trust in Navani to mother and protect her. She kept her distance, she kept herself aloof and removed from everyone, and that’s something that hasn’t changed over twenty years later.
She takes no wards, an expected thing for a woman of her rank. She’s unmarried, well past the age she should be. She has no friends, the closest she has are both “pen pals” she communicates with via spanreed.
Jasnah, of all the characters in Stormlight, is the one least emotionally connected. She clearly loves her family, and is devoted to them…But again it’s from a distance.
She works in the shadows with assassins to protect them. She studies the end of the world a world away from everyone she loves.
When we see her in Kharbranth for the first time with Shallan, she’s alone.
The servants she uses seem to belong to the Palaneum. She travels alone, she researches and works and bears her burdens alone.
The sole exception is Ivory and she doesn’t really have a choice with him BUT to have him with her.
I am NOT suggesting that Jasnah doesn’t actually care about her family/Shallan - we see repeatedly that she absolutely does.
Poignantly, the first thing Renarin’s visions predict that turns out to be false is the lack of love that Jasnah has - they claim she will choose logic and kill her cousin, but she chooses to save him instead.
It’s clear that Jasnah cares very deeply…but she also deliberately distances herself, both physically and emotionally, from other people.
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