Usuario:Cem/WIP

{!{character |image=Jasnah.jpg |family=House Kholin|parents=Gavilar, Navani|siblings=Elhokar |world=Roshar|nation=Alethkar |abilities={!{tag+|elsecaller}} |titles=Princess of Alethkar (?) |profession=Historian
Scholar |groups=Veristitalians |born=1139 |books=The Stormlight Archive }}

“It strikes me that religion—in its essence—seeks to take natural events and ascribe supernatural causes to them. I, however, seek to take supernatural events and find the natural meanings behind them. Perhaps that is the final dividing line between science and religion. Opposite sides of a card.”

—Jasnah on why she researches Voidbringers

Jasnah Kholin is an Alethi princess on Roshar. She is the sister of King Elhokar, daughter of the late King Gavilar and Navani, and niece of Highprince Dalinar. She is known widely as a brilliant scholar and for her denunciation of Vorinism. She is a member of the Veristitalians, an order of historians dedicated to reconstructing unbiased and factual accounts of the past in order to better understand the present. She is training Shallan Davar as her ward.

Appearance and Personality

Jasnah is a reserved and statuesque woman. She is widely praised for her beauty, always graceful and dressed immaculately. She is tall and slender with a full chest. She has tan skin and deep black hair that, when unbound, reaches the middle of her back. She has a squarish face and pale violet eyes with an Plantilla:Wp.

Jasnah is generally a stern and serious person, although she occasionally shows a wry sense of humor. She sometimes acts in a brusque manner, and can be exceptionally rude when someone gets on her bad side. She is determined, confident, and often stuborn as well. She has a brilliant mind and shows wisdom and care in her studies. She is very passionate about scholarship and wants others to share in her passion as well. She often encourages her ward, Shallan, to come up with answers on her own, rather than simply giving them to her. She considers history to be the most important literary subart. She is prejudiced against the visual arts, going so far as to call them frivolities, although having Shallan as her ward may have changed her opinions on the subject. She can be extremely tough and ruthless, as she showed when she killed, in cold blood, the four footpads that attacked her and Shallan. She harbors a deep hatred towards men like them, possibly because of something that has been done to her in the past.

Jasnah is a self-professed atheist. This has caused her not an insignificant amount problems and led to her being ostracized a bit, but she has never compromised in her beliefs for the sake of appearances. While she is confident in her lack of faith in the devotaries, like the true scholar that she is, she also always keeps an open mind to the possibility of being wrong. She is content to keep her beliefs to herself, and doesn't particularly care about converting anyone else.

History

Kharbranth

She reached Kharbranth to continue her research on the Voidbringers. She found out King Taravangian's granddaughter was trapped in one of the palace rooms after an highstorm caused a boulder to fall down from the walls, blocking the way in. Taravangian asked for Jasnah's help, to free his granddaughter by Soulcasting the stone. Jasnah accepted to help, in return for free admittance to the Palanaeum. Shallan Davar, a prospective ward, caught up with her at this point and Jasnah evaluated Shallan's knowledge. Once they reached the boulder that had trapped the king's granddaughter, Jasnah Soulcast the stone into smoke, causing the newly formed smoke to explode because of the difference in density of rock and smoke. After this, she informed Shallan that she wasn't good enough to become her ward. Jasnah left Shallan behind and went to the Palanaeum. After she collected the books she wanted, she returned to the alcove she'd reserved, and found Shallan there. She was angry to be defied, and told Shallan, not in a kind way, to leave her alone. Shallan, in her embarrassment and disappointment, forgot the spheres she had used for illumination inside the alcove. Jasnah asked her to return and apologized her for her rudeness. She found out that Shallan was self-taught and found it remarkable, promising if she filled the gaps in her knowledge, she would accept her as her ward. A few hours later, the servants informed her that Shallan was back and that she had her own alcove, intent on studying while in Kharbranth and applying for wardship again. Jasnah decided that if she could not get rid of Shallan, she might as well make use of her and accepted her as her ward.

Attributes and Abilities

Surgebinding

Jasnah has a Nahel bond with an unknown spren which gives her the ability to Surgebind. She has access to the Surges of transformation and transportation. As with all Surgebinders, she has superhuman speed, strength and healing when she holds Stormlight. She has demonstrated her ability to Soulcast multiple times, though her other abilities remain yet to be seen. She is in the process of becoming a Knight Radiant from the Order of Elsecallers.

Soulcasting

Jasnah can use Soulcasting in various ways with great precision, ranging from burning letters into a page, to transforming boulders into smoke, and purifying Shallan's blood from a poison called backbreaker powder. She also used Soulcasting as a very deadly weapon when she and Shallan was attacked by four footpads in Kharbranth and she Soulcast their assailants into fire, crystal and smoke. She has expressed that she is not very capable of Soulcasting organics and she was unable to successfully Soulcast the strawberry jam that Kabsal brought to Shallan's hospital room.

She has also shown the ability to Soulcast multiple targets at distance. In this method of Soulcasting, bolts of Stormlight can be seen traveling towards the intended target. When Jasnah used this ability to transform two men into smoke, it caused the smokestone she used to shatter, indicating that this method may use more Stormlight than regular Soulcasting. This ability may be a specialized version of Soulcasting or a distinct ability resulting from manipulating a combination of the Surges of transformation and transportation.

Jasnah uses a fake Soulcaster fabrial to disguise her Surgebinding abilities from the public.

Scholarship

Jasnah is one of the leading scholars of her time. She is widely known for her brilliance. Despite her young age, many feel she would have obtained the cap of a master scholar, if it weren't for her vocal denunciation of religion. Her focus and area of expertise is history. As a Veristitalian, she looks to create a factual and unbiased account of the past events that she feels are misrepresented, in order to better understand the present.

Things to add:

• Her research method
• Parshendi-Voidbringer theory

Quotes

“I have kept a journal since I was a child, in order to practice my writing skills.”
“Congratulations. Should I need someone to write a treatise on their stuffed pony or give an account of an interesting pebble they discovered, I shall send for you.”

—Shallan and Jasnah

“Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“...a woman’s mind is her most precious weapon. It must not be employed clumsily or prematurely. Much like the aforementioned knife to the back, a clever gibe is most effective when it is unanticipated.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“Youthful immaturity is one of the cosmere’s great catalysts for change... To be young is about action. To be a scholar is about informed action.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can—what we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“I always forgive curiosity, Your Majesty. It strikes me as one of the most genuine of emotions.”

—Jasnah to Taravangian

“A true scholar must not close her mind close on any topic, no matter how certain she may feel. Just because I have not yet found a convincing reason to join one of the devotaries does not mean I never will. Though each time I have a discussion like the one today, my convictions grow firmer.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“When we are young, we want simple answers. There is no greater indication of youth, perhaps, than the desire for everything to be as it should. As it has ever been. The older we grow, the more we question. We begin to ask why. And yet, we still want the answers to be simple. We assume that the people around us—adults, leaders—will have those answers. Whatever they give often satisfies us. ... Indeed, it seems to me that aging, wisdom, and wondering are synonymous. The older we grow, the more likely we are to reject the simple answers. Unless someone gets in our way and demands they be accepted regardless.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“You will find wise men in any religion, Shallan, and good men in every nation. Those who truly seek wisdom are those who will acknowledge the virtue in their adversaries and who will learn from those who disabuse them of error. All others—heretic, Vorin, Ysperist, or Maakian—are equally closed-minded.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

“Let the Vorin believe as they wish—the wise among them will find goodness and solace in their faith; the fools would be fools no matter what they believed.”

—Jasnah to Shallan

Trivia

• In The Way of Kings Prime, Jasnah was a viewpoint character with as many chapters as the other characters. Brandon decided too many viewpoints was too distracting and cut Jasnah's parts in the final version.
• Jasnah will probably get a flashback book of her own.
• Brandon read a lot of atheist message boards and talked with atheists he knew while developing Jasnah.
• Brandon thinks having Sazed and Jasnah together could lead to some great discussions of philosophy.
• Jasnah has never met Shallan's stepmother, Malise Gevelmar, even though she revealed that she knew Malise had married Shallan's father when she meets Shallan.

See Also

• Jasnah's notebook

Notes

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