I want it to be a woman. The Legendsong is heavily woman-power oriented. I would like to think that the 'ShadowMAN' is a definite give away. In the Legendsong, assumed gender is used as a foil, for instance, everyone assumes that the Unraveller is male, and hence Glynn ignores all the signs that point to Ember.
But, I think it is connected with the boy whose body lies in Dead-Wait in the watcher's segues. The boy's name is 'Shadow'. The Shadowman has a red-haired follower, and I'm pretty sure that the young boy who befriended Shadow for a brief amount of time ALSO has red hair. So, I think that it's highly unlikely that it's a woman, as much as it displeases me.
I think it is Solen or Ranouf
i think its Solen as he said to Glynn that there were still many things she did not know about him and also because in Obernewtyn the main character's (Elspeth) love interest is the master of Obernewtyn (Rushton). It seems to fit IC's style to have Solen as the Shadowman. And by that i mean that they are both leaders.
BUT
No one knows what happened to Ranouf and as he owned what is now a renegade ship he is in an ideal position to be the shadowman. And also because when Glynn and Solen are upon the ship and Glynn asks Solen what he thinks happened to Ranouf in the end he shoots her a sharp look before they start speculating about whether he killed himself. Why would the story point out that he shot her a sharp look before answering if Solen doesn't know something about the subject?
9 years ago
Wed Jul 23 2014, 05:16pm
Here is me sitting on the fence:
In support of Ranouf, the one things that makes me feel it might be him other than the obvious 'he's supposed to be dead and is a Wavespeaker' thing is the fact that he is certainly utterly against Coralyn-so rather than actually being FOR Darkfall and what it stands for he may just be out for revenge, which may explain why Alene is so against the Shadowman if she knows it's him.
Definitely joining the 'Solen is way too obvious' group. That would be so, so boring. The one thing that niggles for me though is why it is *he* who is being sacrificed to the Chaos spirit by the Draaka-why is he important enough for that? I assume simply to get at Glynn but why not use him as a hostage rather than killing him (unless they've already caught Ember and no longer need Glynn)...
...................
On my most recent read I became very suspicious of Soonkar and the Seerat-Soonkar speaks of controlling a gang of Iridomi urchins in his youth and I had the half formed vague thought when I was re-reading that perhaps that tumble-weeded over time to become the huge network that is the Shadowman's operation after he met the Seerat (whom he says he 'loves' on page 544 of Darksong).
Soonkar says he met the Seerat at the point where he was becoming disillusioned with the life he had as leader of the ruffian gang (p 543) and that 'the story of their friendship deserves a balladeer to tell it' (p 544)...
What if the Seerat recruited him, so to speak, and they worked together to form the Shadowman's network? The Seerat is also a man with soulweaving tendencies, which could also explain a slightly tense relationship with the soulweavers, but also explain how the Shadowman gathers intelligence and inspires loyalty. He is also Vespian (I think. He lives on Vespi at any rate) and is closely connected to wavespeakers/shipmasters in that he can influence what they do by his 'futuretelling' before their journeys....the docks also seem to be the place to gather information...
(That theory is definitely flimsy though....)