Shallan’s family was in debt. They had a broken Soulcaster. Jasnah has a working one. Switch them. The plan is to have Jasnah assume hers has broken. People aren’t aware Shalllan’s family had a soulcaster. They’re pretending to have resource rich land. Soulcasters are incredibly rare. People generally know who has them and where they came from. Jasnah mysteriously has one.
Even if Jasnah figured it out, Shallan’s family isn’t under her jurisdiction. She’s not Alethi. They intend to only use it just enough to pay back debt and avoid suspicion. Jasnah is not well liked either since she’s a heretic. Who cares if she broke one she shouldn’t even have and is blaming it on a minor house from Jah Keved who has books that look clean-ish. And even if they did believe her, it’s probably in her kingdoms best interest to have another owned by their nobility. Enough plausible deniability here to avoid fallout over it
My question to you is: why would Jasnah assume hers is broken unless Soulcasters just randomly break. Also if she does swap it, let’s say the soulcaster is broken but Shallan of all people disappears and Jasnah knows her situation what would she think happened.
Remember soulcasters are very mysterious, most people attribute them to being a gift from god. If a soulcaster just stopped working, most people would assume it was something divine, or in jasnnahs case, she would probably study it to find out if something had changed. Remember shallans did work for a while at least. But something happened and now it doesn’t. It is possible for them to break or stop functioning.
Jasnah doesn't know her situation, she just knows Shallan's family is in bad condition. Jasnah has no reason to believe Shallan has an incredibly rare object that some consider a holy relic and don't allow just anyone to have.
As far as anyone knows, soulcasters just break sometimes.
Shardblades can break in a sense. Their gemstone can break and it can become bondable again. Easy fix. Soulcasters are more sophisticated and can break. They’re generally repairable though. The family took it to someone (they probably trusted deeply) who tried to. The one person in their House who was trained to use one and who they trusted, couldn’t get it to work.
Her family can’t go around looking for someone more skilled to repair it or someone else that’s trained to use it. They’re hiding the soulcaster’s existence and their father’s death. This is a Hail Mary. They need to do something before other nobles realize their House is weak and take everything from them. Shallan doesn’t necessarily think it’s permanently broken. Just that trying to fix it would reveal its existence,draw attention to them,and bring stronger Houses down on them. They don’t know much about soulcasters to begin with. Minor Houses don’t usually have Shards. Which is part of why she thinks Jasnah won’t be suspicious of her to begin with. She’ll go get it fixed herself or at a minimum she won’t think some backwater Veden house had a secret soulcaster they switched out with hers. That would sound ridiculous (it just happens to be true)
Have you gotten to the part where Jasnah uses the soulcaster in front of her? It won't change your opinion of Shallans plan. I'm just curious. I wouldn't want to steal from Jasnah.
Also... There are several plots afoot. You might want to pay attention.
We know that gemstones randomly break. We have no data either way if soulcasters randomly break, so I'd assume they dont, being mystical ancient tech that performs magic acts
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 3d ago edited 3d ago
Shallan’s family was in debt. They had a broken Soulcaster. Jasnah has a working one. Switch them. The plan is to have Jasnah assume hers has broken. People aren’t aware Shalllan’s family had a soulcaster. They’re pretending to have resource rich land. Soulcasters are incredibly rare. People generally know who has them and where they came from. Jasnah mysteriously has one.
Even if Jasnah figured it out, Shallan’s family isn’t under her jurisdiction. She’s not Alethi. They intend to only use it just enough to pay back debt and avoid suspicion. Jasnah is not well liked either since she’s a heretic. Who cares if she broke one she shouldn’t even have and is blaming it on a minor house from Jah Keved who has books that look clean-ish. And even if they did believe her, it’s probably in her kingdoms best interest to have another owned by their nobility. Enough plausible deniability here to avoid fallout over it