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Difference between revisions of "Eshonai"
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|world=Roshar|species=Parshendi
|books=[[The Stormlight Archive]]
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{{quote
| It is you. (...) I have found you at last.
| Eshonai to Dalinar at the Battle of the Tower.{{book ref|sa1|68}}
}}
'''Eshonai''' (<small>Alethi pronunciation:</small> [[Wikipedia:Help:IPA|[ˈɛ·ʃo·nɑi]]] [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key|'''''<small>EH</small>'''-sho-nai'']])
== Appearance and Personality ==
Her skin
As a youth, people were used to Eshonai wandering off in the middle of a task. She had the best spoken Alethi of any of the Listeners{{book ref|sa3|prologue}}.
Though she accepts her recent duties as a general for her people, she feels trapped and constrained by the role, and in living on the [[Shattered Plains]]. She feels awkward in the position, and even her uniform when not wearing Shardplate contributes to her emotional discomfort, and the repetitive tasks of military life numb her mind. She blames her uniform for her personal worries. However she never speaks of her discomfort in her role. She enjoys the feeling of strength she gets from wearing Shardplate, and it gives her something reliable in the world.{{book ref|sa2|i|1}}{{book ref|sa2|i|4}}▼
Her preferred form is [[Listener#forms|workform]] because it is more
Eshonai's true passion is exploration, and she yearns to be free of her role so she can explore, even contemplating the idea of exploring human civilizations, although she has a preference for exploring the wilderness. She does not indulge in these feelings however, believing them to be meaningless in comparison to the importance of protecting her people. She holds that remembering the fallen is important, but of lesser concern than protecting the living, going so far as to accompany her strike forces even when she has an injured leg from the [[Battle of the Tower]] despite the strain from leaping the chasms, because she is the only Shardbearer among the Listeners.{{book ref|sa2|i|1}}▼
▲Though she accepts her
▲Eshonai's true passion is exploration, and she yearns to be free of her role as general so she can explore
She believes that she is personally responsible for the War of Reckoning
▲She believes that she is personally responsible for the War of Reckoning, because she was the first to make contact with the Alethi. Despite being fully aware of the dire predicament of her people, she does not blame the Alethi for their pursuit of vengeance against her people. While she fights the Alethi out of necessity, she would prefer to negotiate a peace with them.{{book ref|sa2|i|1}}{{book ref|sa2|i|4}}
▲Her preferred form is workform because it is more limber and rugged, and because the form's aversion to violence forces her to think differently to solve problems. She seems to tolerate Listeners who prefer mateform poorly, and has trouble understanding why anyone would want to remain in that form for longer than necessary to produce offspring. Her confusion on the subject at one time extended to humans, when she was baffled by the fact that humans have only a single form that is easily distracted by sexual urges.{{book ref|sa2|i|1}}
Eshonai was an explorer, and often traveled the wilderness of [[Natanatan]]. She started out exploring alone, creating maps and expanding the Listeners' world, and ended up exciting and leading her people on expeditions as early as her teenage years. Her exploring lead to the Listeners' first contact with humans, encountering an Alethi expedition to the south of the Shattered Plains lead by [[Gavilar Kholin]] in the year {{date/sa|year=1165}} of the [[Vorin]] calendar.{{book ref|sa2|i|4}}{{book ref|sa1|45}}
On the day of his assassination, Gavilar speaks to Eshonai privately. She is the first Listener to learn Gavilar wants to bring back the Listeners' old gods. He gives her a dark spren trapped in a gemstone and tells her to give it to the Five. The trapped spren convinces Eshonai that Gavilar truly can bring the old gods back. She tells the Five of Gavilar's plans{{book ref|sa3|prologue}}.
Eshonai was involved with the decision to assassinate Gavilar. Though she was at the time not yet on the Council of Five, the council had given her a vote and listened to her counsel. She voted in favour of killing him, in order to keep the Listeners free of their gods and to affirm the decision made by their ancestors -- the [[Last Legion]] -- centuries ago when they decided to embrace dullform in order to be free of their gods.{{book ref|sa2|i|4}}▼
▲Eshonai
=== The War of Reckoning (1167-1173) ===
Her new, aggressive personality even makes her willing to kill Parshendi who do not obey her, including the soldiers in her own division, those she considered close friends, as well as her own family; [[Venli]] and her [[Eshonai's mother|mother]]. She goes so far as to have dissidents among the population of Narak rounded up to be killed.{{book ref|sa2|i|11}}
In the [[Battle of Narak]], she lead a Parshendi population of stormforms to battle in an attempt to destroy the Alethi. Her current status is unknown after her defeat at the
Her original intent in her search for Dalinar Kholin was to broker a peace between the [[Listener]]s and the Alethi.{{book ref|sa2|i|1}}
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