Navani Kholin

Navani Kholin
by Exmakina
House Kholin Spouse Gavilar (deceased), Dalinar Children Elhokar, Jasnah
Born	ca. 1113-1123
Profession	Artifabrian
Nationality	Alethi
Homeworld	Roshar

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Navani Kholin is a Brightlady of Alethkar on Roshar. She is widow to King Gavilar and the mother of Jasnah and King Elhokar. She is also sister-in-law to Dalinar Kholin and aunt to Adolin and Renarin Kholin.

Appearance

Navani is a stately woman with intricately woven black hair. She has violet eyes and her black hair is streaked with grey. She has a warm, feminine voice and the confidence to verbally spar with Wit. Her scent is that of the sweet floral of her perfumed soap. Navani often wears rubies in her hair and a blood red dress, with her lips painted red. She is known as one of the most beautiful women in Alethkar. Dalinar believes there isn't a woman in all of Roshar to match her beauty.

• Images of Navani
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  Portrait sketch by User: Sheep

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  in Vorin havah with fabrial by User: Sheep

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  demonstrating fabrial by User: Sheep

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  with Ardent and fabrial by User: Sheep

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  in Vorin havah by User: Sheep

• 

  with Dalinar Kholin during a highstorm by User: Sheep

Personality

Navani challenges Alethi protocol, but one does not reprove Navani Kholin, even if one is king. Give her five minutes in a city and she'd know anything and everything of significance about which was being gossiped. She doesn't presume to make judgements, but she does enjoy pointing out the obvious. Nevertheless, Navani is excellent at keeping secrets. Further, she is supremely exacting in her words and thoughts. (For this reason, Dalinar chooses her to record his Dalinar's visions.

Character

Much like her daughter, she is a political creature; intrigue makes her blossom like a rockbud in calm wet air.

Navani is always her most genuine when playing with new fabrials. It's one of the few times when one gets to see her without any pretense.

The older Navani grows, the worse she becomes at maintaining a brightlady's proper tranquility. Once, she'd obeyed such proprieties. She remembers being a young woman, playing the games expertly, delighting in ways to manipulate the system. She often saw - and sees- patterns in things.

History

Background

Navani is the widow of King Gavilar Kholin, who was Dalinar's brother. For many years prior to their marriage, it was uncertain just which of the two brothers she would marry. She played them off one another, fanning each their desires, before finally choosing the elder son. (They'd both known all along that she'd choose Gavilar. It had still hurt Dalinar anyway.) With Gavilar dead, Navani is to be treated as sister to Dalinar by him. He refers to her as Mathana, the formal Alethi term for an older sister. (She is only 3 months his senior, but the term is still applicable.)

Navani is also the mother of Jasnah, another renowned scholar, as well as the new king, Elhokar.

She'd remained in Alethkar for many years after most of the nobility had moved to the Shattered Plains, where she was to aid the queen in protecting the king's interests there, thereby fulfilling her duty to the people. She later realized that the Alethi government had essentially moved to the Shattered Plains, and eventually did so too.

Returning to the Shattered Plains

Navani's return to the Plains from Alethkar is three-fold: she brought word that the Vedens had perfected the half-shards, she wishes her son to be protected, and she needs to speak with Dalinar. She also realized that leaving the Plains had been a political mistake because the warcamps are more and more the true center of their kingdom. While in Kholinar, she determined that that the queen was sufficiently endowed with the requisite skills need to hold the city. (The very argument that had originally convinced Navani to return to Kholinar was that the Alethi absence from their homeland was dangerous.)

Recording Dalinar's visions

Because Navani is so exacting in her words and thoughts, Dalinar chooses her to record his visions. She scribes expertly, picking out details from him, knowing when to prod him for more. She is business-like and careful. She records his visions without complaint.

Navani uses Corvana's Analectics to translate the "babble" from Dalinar's vision with Nohadon. She discovers that the phrase that is in the Analectics is one in the same with the "babble". She says it's a line from a song, a chant by the Vanrial, written in the Dawnchant by the Heralds. Listening to Dalinar's visions, she thinks what he was saying had too much order to be gibberish.

Navani relates the Myth of Parasaphi and Nadris to Dalinar in effort to afford some insight into the Desolations, with regard to his vision with Nohadon, relevant to the Voindbringers, mankind on Roshar, Damnation, the Heralds, the Tranquiline Halls, and the Knights Radiant. She believes the visions are a blessing because they prove that Dalinar isn't going mad.

Attributes and Abilities

Navani is a renowned artifibrian. She engineers the creation of fabrials that her team of artisan ardents create through fabrial science. She lead the research to develop the Grandbows. She also had a hand in the construction of a new painrial, and of it, she's particularly proud, though it's only an early model. She thinks it has a lot of potential. Many of her inventions, such as the painrial, are used in the war against the Parshendi, making her incredibly valuable to the Alethi.

Relationships

Gavilar

Navani chose Gavilar over Dalinar because Dalinar frightened her all those years ago. (Dalinar's intensity scared Gavilar too.)

Navani insists in her biography of Gavilar that he wasn't a scholar, but that he was an excellent king - an inspiring leader, an unparalleled duelist, and a genius of battle tactics.

Dalinar

When Navani returns to the Shattered Plains from Kholinar, she frequently speaks with Dalinar, and later becomes romantically involved with him, which is unusual, because in the eyes of Alethi society, she is now considered to be Dalinar's sister. Part of what Navani finds intriguing about him is that he's begun to be the person the others all claim to be. She now finds Dalinar's intensity, which frightened her when they both were younger, to be fascinating because he's now wrapped it in armor.

Navani believes Dalinar to be a kind man. Telling him so, she admits that she's taking advantage of him - a little; she's not toying with him.

Navani never mocks Dalinar, never acts skeptical of that which he reveals in his visions.

When she learns of his "death" at the Battle of the Tower, upon receipt of the news of Sadeas's betrayal, Navani endeavors to paint a prayer upon the stones of the Plains; She creates a wish out of despair, a plea out of anguish: Thath: Justice.

Jasnah

Jasnah believes her mother to have a tendency toward the overwhelming.

Shallan

Navani originally disliked Shallan for bringing the news of Jasnah's death - even though it was certainly not her fault - to her.^{[citation needed]} Adolin her nephew remains betrothed to Shallan.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

See Also

• Navani's notebook
• Navani's journal

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