If Cosmere Characters were in the Locked Tomb series...
[Spoilers for Stormlight Archive through Rhythm of War AND for Locked Tomb through Nona the Ninth!]
Specifically, I am imagining which pairs of Cosmere characters would be best suited as the necromancer/cavalier pairs we meet in the Locked Tomb series.
I cannot emphasize enough that if you’re coming here from Cosmere and have not read the Locked Tomb series, please skip this one! I am spoiling MAJOR plot points, and I don’t want to ruin these books for you!
1. Ninth House: Shallan (as Harrow) and Adolin (as Gideon)
In the Ninth House, Gideon is the big, beefy, lady-loving himbo who really doesn’t know anything but sword fighting and porn mags. And Adolin may not read porn (because Sanderson) but he is a big ol’ devoted swordsman who has his himbo moments. Meanwhile there’s necromancer Harrow who:
Lived as a cloistered nun (=Shallan being shut up at home)
Pretends her dead parents are totes alive (=Shallan pretending her dad is alive)
Puppets dead people (=somewhat similar to Shallan with her Alters)
Gets herself lobotomized to suppress memories of Gideon (=Shallan suppressing, just, so many memories)
Guards the Locked Tomb but is also obsessed with what lies inside (=Shallan and her “mother’s soul” in the safe)
Is forced to leave home to restore her dying house (=Shallan doing, well, the same thing)
So even though Shallan isn’t exactly a bone-obsessed necromancer, she and Harrow have more in common than you may at first think!
2. Eighth House: Nightblood (as Silas) and Vasher (as Colum)
The Eighth House are soul siphoners, meaning that the necromancer uses the cavalier as a big ol’ battery. They’re also deeply religious and inflexible, at least in their Silas & Colum iteration. Now, I was trying hard to think of a Cosmere character who has powers akin to soul siphoning when it suddenly came to me! Nightblood! Nightblood literally does eat souls! Plus, Nightblood is notoriously inflexible in their whole “Kill Evil” standpoint. I could have used either Vasher or Szeth as the cavalier to pair with Nightblood, but I use Szeth below and anyway, Colum/Vasher have the longer history with Silas/Nightblood.
3. Seventh House: Taravangian (as Dulcinea) and Szeth (as Protesilaus)
Dulcinea is a beautiful and sickly necromancer, having inherited her house’s traditional Blood Cancer, and she mostly lies around being beautiful and flirting with Gideon. However, it is eventually revealed that she’s not Dulcinea at all but rather big bad (?) Cytherea in disguise. And the cavalier Protesilaus is dead and just being puppetted around. This is all reminiscent of Taravangian, who pretends to be a kindly and sickly old man, harmless to all...but is actually a devious mass-murderer who is puppetting Szeth (by controlling his oathstone).
4. Sixth House: Kaladin (as Palamedes) and Syl (as Camilla)
My love for Palamedes and Camilla knows no bounds, so this one was hard. But in the end, I think Kaladin & Syl fit the bill. Palamedes is incredibly smart and trained in medicine, ala Kaladin, and he and his cavalier Camilla have incredible amounts of trust in each other. They work together seamlessly, as do Kaladin and Syl. And if they ever get separated, say by Palamedes blowing himself up into many little bits, they will nevertheless do whatever it takes to find each other--which reminds me of Syl fighting to get back to Kaladin when he semi broke his oaths in Words of Radiance. Camilla also tries to downplay how smart she is to some extent, and Syl can literally be invisible if she wants to be. Plus, Kal and Pal rhyme, so there.
5. Fifth House: Jasnah (as Abigail) and Ivory (as Magnus)
I mean, Jasnah pretty much had to be Abigail, since Abigail is a published scholar and the best historian of her generation. That’s Jasnah to a tee...even if perhaps Abigail tends to come across as a bit warmer than Jasnah. Magnus was harder because he’s (a) Abigial’s husband (and Jasnah is unmarried and Wit super doesn’t fit), (b) mostly an administrator / bureaucrat and ( c) a jolly sort who likes to play the embarrassing dad role. I went with Ivory as he is Jasnah’s true partner as her spren, and as a logicspren I think he’d make a good adminstrator perhaps. He’s not exactly a jolly father-figure, but what can you do?
6. Fourth House: Daorn (as Isaac) and Kaise (as Jeannemary)
The Fourth House is hard because their main characteristic is that they are literally children, and then they die. And I was having a very hard time trying to think of any pair of children who die or who even exist as a pair in Sanderson. So eventually I went with the children from Elantris--Sarene’s nephew and niece Daorn and Kaise. Mostly because they’re smart, somewhat sassy children. And Kaise knows some fencing, so that sort of fits for a cavalier.
[Spoilers for Lost Metal but apparently Kaise grows up to join the Ghostbloods on Scadrial??? I had no idea that was her until I was looking her up in the wiki holy shit]
8. Third House: Siri (as Ianthe), Vivenna (as Coronabeth), and Parlin (as Naberius)
In the Third House we have two beautiful sisters...one of whom ends up being a “spare” who isn’t a necromancer at all (and it’s not the one you think at first). In a similar way, Vivenna and Siri were both tapped at various points to marry the god-king; everyone thought it would be Vivenna with Siri being the spare sister, but it ended up being the other way around. Siri/Ianthe then end up in the house of the resident god and are fiercely loyal to him. Vivenna/Coronabeth meanwhile join up with rebel forces who are opposed to the god that Siri/Ianthe follow. Yet still the sisters do care deeply for each other, even when they find themselves working toward opposite ends. Phew! Oh, and I’m not really sure who should be their (sacrificed) cavalier, but Parlin is there as a protector and then he dies, so...I guess him? Despite them having really nothing else in common; sorry Parlin/Naberius!
9. Second House: Rlain (as Judith) and Eshonai (as Marta)
The second house is the strictly military one, so at first I was trying to make someone from Bridge 4 work, but it didn’t quite come together. Judith and Rlain do have a lot in common: they both work at gathering intelligence, serve as a spy after being taken in by an organization against their will (Judith with Blood of Eden and Rlain being sent to Bridge 4 which was not originally his mission), and are incredibly loyal through their chain of command. And they both have military training / experience. Meanwhile, Marta is just a star--she rises quickly through the miliary ranks, but then she dies before we get to know her much. Eshonai is a lot more fleshed out, but I am thinking about how she too quickly rose through the military ranks as she adopted Warform and shardplate and Stormform. And then she died, so.
10. First House: Dalinar (as John) and Evi (as A.L.)
John Gaius is, well, god--and he has what could be described as a problematic past (did you know that cows have best friends?). Dalinar may not be god, but he did bond the closest equivalent, the Stormfather, and Dalinar is pretty much the head of the Radiants, must as John is the head of the empire. Speaking of, both John and Dalinar built an empire! Meanwhile, there’s John’s “dead” cavalier A.L., whose name is not to be spoken--which reminds me of Evi, whose existence was literally excised from Dalinar’s head at one point. Now, it doesn’t seem like Evi is going to return and stab Dalinar where he sleeps, but, well, the series isn’t over yet...
