Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread, as we launch firmly into the avalanche known as the Part Three Climax (and also as the climax of Oathbringer Book Two, if you think of each book as a trilogy). However you look at it, though, things are getting exciting up in here. Time to storm the palace, even as the Voidbringer army storms the city.

Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. As has become normal in these chapters, there will be Warbreaker spoilers, especially in Cosmere Connections, as well as mentions of things to come later in Oathbringer.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Adolin
WHERE: Kholinar—the tailor’s shop and into the palace. On the following map, Adolin and his group’s path is marked in purple, whereas Kaladin’s group when they split off is marked in blue.
WHEN: 1174.2.3.3 (immediately after Chapter 82)

Elhokar and his group (including Adolin, Kaladin, Shallan, and Azure) leave the tailor’s shop as the walls come under attack, leaving a spanreed with an ardent with orders to use it to alert Dalinar of the impending opening of the Oathgate. They make their way to the palace, where Kaladin, Shallan, Skar, and Drehy break off to loop around and take the Sunwalk. After assaulting the main doors of the palace and making it inside, Adolin discovers a small group of palace guards who didn’t fall under the sway of the Unmade. Kaladin and his men (and Shallan) rejoin them, and they regroup for a moment before Elhokar leads Kaladin off to try to find his wife and son. Meanwhile, the rest of the group continues along the Sunwalk towards the Oathgate platform… and the two Unmade waiting there for them.

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Title: Crimson to Break

“That’s going to be crimson to break,” Azure said. “We’ll fight for every inch.”

A: This is said as they’ve broken into the palace, and the soldiers there have fallen back to the corridor leading to the eastern gallery and the royal chambers—the place Elhokar most needs to go if he’s going to rescue his wife and son. If this doesn’t convince you that Azure is from Nalthis, nothing will.

Heralds

A: I have no idea why Battar, the Counsellor (Elsecallers, Wise/Careful) is here. There are no Elsecallers, and I’m not sure anyone can afford to be either wise or careful about this venture. Maybe she’s here because they’re doing the exact opposite?

L: I’d argue that Adolin is being very careful, in as much as he can be in the middle of a battle, anyway. He’s displaying a lot of wisdom and restraint as well, being cognizant of the tactics at play and taking care not to injure more people than are absolutely necessary.

A: Chana (Dustbringers, Brave/Obedient) makes sense all the way around. Guards everywhere—on both sides of the conflict, though I like to think she’d be happier about the Wall Guard and the ones tossed in the pokey because they wouldn’t go along with the weirdness. Brave? Everywhere. Obedient? Again, everywhere. This entire group is committed to the task. I only wish there were a Dustbringer handy to take on that thunderclast.

Icon

Adolin’s Shardbearer icon (Yay! An Adolin POV!)

Epigraph

As the duly appointed keepers of the perfect gems, we of the Elsecallers have taken the burden of protecting the ruby nicknamed Honor’s Drop. Let it be recorded.

—From drawer 20-10, zircon

A: I can only assume this is the same ruby we’ll see later, now known as the King’s Drop, which Rysn and Vstim view in the Thaylen Sphere Vault, and which Dalinar puts to a (now well-foreshadowed) different use. How many perfect gemstones are there, I wonder? Will we see others, eventually?

L: Also, interesting that the Elsecallers are the keepers of these gems, considering the fact that Bondsmiths are required for… something regarding them.

Thematic Thoughts

We’re entering an era of gods, Adolin thought.

…

The door opened, revealing a glowing figure.

“Stormfather…” Adolin whispered.

Kaladin shone with a powerful brilliance, his eyes beacons of blue, streaming with Stormlight. He gripped a glowing metallic spear that was easily twelve feet long. Behind him, Skar and Drehy also glowed brilliantly, looking little like the affable bridgemen who had protected Adolin on the Shattered Plains.

L: I find it fascinating to see the Radiants from Adolin’s perspective. He may be a prince and a superb duelist, but he’s still a “normal” person in regards to the superhuman powers that so many of our main characters are gaining. It’s valuable for us, as readers, to see how these characters are viewed by Everyone Else in Roshar. Otherwise we’d get blinded by the perspectives of the Superhumans.

A: Hear, hear! It’s useful, too, that he’s familiar with all the strategy and tactics needed, so it’s not merely “Ooo, they’re glowing!” but also what they do. But… this visual is stunning.

Stories & Songs

“The control building is completely overgrown with that black heart, Your Majesty,” Shallan said. “I don’t truly know how I drove away the Midnight Mother—and I certainly don’t know that I’ll be able to do the same here.”

“But you’re willing to try?” the king asked.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath.

A: That, as we used to say, takes kidneys.

Seriously, though, I have to admire her, even though if she’d said anything else I’d be down on her like a ton of bricks. She came here to do exactly this job, so if she refused to try, I’d be mad. At the same time, given what she went through in the last 24 hours, it’s kind of amazing that she can even contemplate it.

L: Yeah, gotta respect Shallan for being the Girl Who Stood Up.

A strange thumping started, and Adolin took it as another set of drums–until a head crested the top of the wall nearest them.

Storms! It had an enormous stone wedge of a face that reminded him of that of some greatshell beast, though its eyes were just red spots glowing from deep within.

L: This is the first thunderclast we’ve seen, isn’t it?

A: Other than the one in Dalinar’s vision, yes. What a shock!!

“They’re there,” she whispered. “Two of them, this time. Last night, Adolin … I had to run. The revel was getting inside my head.”

“I’ve heard it,” he said, resummoning his Blade. “We’ll face it together. Like last time.”

A: I almost put this in Relationships & Romances, because it’s about Shallan and Adolin. I almost put it in Bruised & Broken, because I can’t help thinking that part of Shallan’s vulnerability last night was her splintered persona. But this is seriously intimidating. They’re facing not one but two Unmade, the stuff of legends, about which they know so very little; they have no clue what they’re doing or how to go about defeating these things. But no pressure—it’s only the whole mission, the city, and your lives depending on it…

As Shallan had warned, it was overgrown with a dark mass that pulsed and throbbed, like a pitch-black heart. Dark veins spread from it like roots, pulsating in time with the heart.

“Storms…” Drehy whispered.

“All right,” Shallan said, walking forward. “Guard this area. I’ll see what I can do.”

A: As we approach the end of Oathbringer Part Three, this is an eerie echo of a line near the end of Words of Radiance, Part Three: “Honor is dead. But I’ll see what I can do.”

(Yes, I checked. It’s not used in The Way of Kings.)

Relationships & Romances

Something was wrong. … Then he finally realized what was bothering him.

He summoned his Shardblade.

“I don’t have my mother’s necklace,” he said, “or any of the other traditions I used to follow. I never really needed those. I’ve only ever needed you.”

He took a deep breath. “I guess … I guess you used to be alive. The others say they can hear your screaming if they touch you. That you’re dead, yet somehow still in pain. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about that, but … thank you. Thank you for assisting me all these years. And if it helps, I’m going to use you to do something good today. I’ll try to always use you that way.”

A: Aside from the obligatory “I adore Adolin” comment, this is really quite beautiful. It was always nice to see him think of his Shardblade as a “person” somehow, even before he knew anything about how. Now he knows far more, and he treats her with even more respect while still acknowledging his need of her for the things to come. I like to think that she’s willing to help him in this attempt to reclaim his home.

L: Same. After Honor knows how many years of being treated like an inanimate object, it must be nice for Maya to be recognized as a Real Person again, even before Adolin knew that she was.

I do wonder what happened to Adolin’s mother’s necklace, though. Did he just leave it at Urithiru where it would be safe?

Buy it Now

A: I sure hope so. This is the only time it’s mentioned in the entire book.

“Windrunner,” the king said. “The duty I give you and your men is to get Queen Aesudan and the heir to safety.”

L: “The heir”? Jeez, Elhokar. At least call the kid by his name. Sometimes it feels like for every two steps forward he makes in my regard, he takes one back. (This being said, has he even met his son? He’s been away at the Shattered Plains for so long that he probably barely knows him.)

A: Barely, at the most. I asked Brandon about it one time, and he confirmed that while Aesudan had visited the Shattered Plains and Elhokar had returned to Kholinar at least once during the war, the vast majority of their time has been spent apart. Elhokar probably has seen him, but he’s three years old at the most. Come to think of it, you know a little boy just about Gavinor’s age, Lyndsey…

L: Great, thanks for driving that particular knife home. I suspect that upcoming scene is going to hit me a lot harder since my son’s about the same age now…

A: That’s kind of the way I felt when I did the Words of Radiance reread. Shallan’s early flashbacks happened at about the same age as my daughter was at the time—which made it way too easy to “see” everything in a very personal way.

The other thing I noticed here is that Elhokar frequently addresses Kaladin as “Windrunner”—though he mostly addresses his Lightweaver by her name. Is it because he is more in awe of Kaladin than of Shallan? Because he hero-worships Kaladin and feels the need to address him by a title? We may never know.

L: I think that’s a sound theory. I’m going to put this here as it’s a friendship:

“If the city holds,” Adolin said, “you’ll be fine. But if it falls…” He took a deep breath. “Reports from other cities indicate that there won’t be wholesale slaughter. The Voidbringers are here to occupy, not exterminate. I’d still suggest you prepare to flee the city and make your way to the Shattered Plains. … Thank you so much for taking us in. We’re going to do what we can to stop this.”

L: I just really adore that Adolin cares so much about the “common people.” As a prince, he could just as easily imagine himself as being better, above them. But he doesn’t. He genuinely cares, which is what makes him a good leader. Much like Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar… most of our main characters. But Adolin, when he interacts with people, seems to put himself at the same level.

Adolin nodded, then gave Kaladin a quick salute–tapping his wrists together with hands in fists. The Bridge Four salute. “Good luck, bridgeboy.”

Kaladin smiled, his silvery spear vanishing as he gave the salute back, then hustled after the king.

L: MY HEART. I adore their friendship. (And I’m totally not shipping them, nope, not me…)

A: This was awesome. It also made me almost sure that one of them wouldn’t survive the battle. (Not that I’m complaining about being wrong, you understand!)

Bruised & Broken

“Your Majesty, the bulk of my soldiers are dying on the wall in a hopeless fight. I’m here because Stormblessed convinced me that the only way to help them is to take the palace.”

L: And those men are going to die in vain, because no army’s coming through the Oathgate to help them. :(

Squires & Sidekicks

Nearby, Elhokar approached with the timid ardent who had come with Azure. He had been hurriedly painting glyphwards for the soldiers, and jumped as Elhokar took him by the shoulder and shoved an object into his hand.

“What’s this?” the ardent asked, nervous.

“It’s a spanreed,” Elhokar said. “A half hour after my army marches, you are to contact Urithiru and warn them to get their forces ready to transfer here, via the Oathgate.”

“I can’t use a fabrial! The screamers—”

“Steady, man! The enemy may be too preoccupied by their attack to notice you. But even if they do, you must take the risk. Our armies must be ready. The fate of the city could depend upon this.”

A: Okay, so there’s a plot reason for the ardent. So maybe it’s not Nazh. On the other hand, I almost hope it is, because at least Nazh has a chance of using the spanreed and surviving. Random timid ardent, I’m not so confident.

Skar, fortunately, seemed to appear out of nowhere; the bridgeman caught the blow with his shield, then rammed a spear through the guardsman’s chest.

“How many is that I owe you now?” Adolin asked.

“I wouldn’t think to keep count, Brightlord,” Skar said with a grin, glowing light puffing from his lips.

L: Skar and Drehy are awesome and I’m so sad that they get left behind.

A: Yeah, but their reappearance later is totally worth it. SO brilliant, that scene.

L: You speak true, Wordslinger.

Places & Peoples

An assault on the palace, his home for many years.

A: We haven’t come to this bit yet, but we’ll learn in Dalinar’s next flashback that after Evi’s death, Dalinar and his sons had moved back into the palace; his own keep reminded him too much of her. That would make it about five years, and important years, where the palace truly was Adolin’s home. Just in case you were wondering.

Adolin glanced at the highlords, who seemed to be taking all of this—the arrival of Knights Radiant, the king’s decision to storm his own palace—in stride. He knew a little of how they felt. Voidbringers, Everstorm, corrupted spren in the city … eventually, you stopped being shocked at what happened to you.

A: I hadn’t thought about it before, but they’re all facing the same effect, just in a different sequence. Take Adolin: He saw Szeth Windrunning first, then the stormform Parsh, then the clash of storms, and then the revelation of Kaladin and Shallan as Radiants in quick succession; transport via Oathgate was followed in a matter of hours by Dalinar and Renarin revealed as Radiants. By the time they learned of all the parshmen being affected by the Everstorm, the presence of the Voidspren, and then the Fused, it was more a matter of gathering information than of any surprise. The highlords in Kholinar had a different experience, in that they felt the presence of the Unmade in the city, then the Everstorm hit with its effects on their parshmen slaves, and then the city was besieged by the Fused and the Voidbringer army. By the time Elhokar showed up with a couple of Radiants and said they needed to reclaim the palace from the Unmade there, it was merely one more in the line of unbelievable things they faced. I’m thinking they were all becoming highly aware of why “May you live in interesting times” is considered a curse!

Adolin joined the troops, calming his nerves by force. Just another battle. He’d been in dozens, if not hundreds of those. But storms, he was used to empty fields of stone, not streets.

A: Two reasons for quoting this. One, it still makes me happy to see a character taking active control of his reactions without using magic to do it. We live in a culture where emotions are too often accepted as the final authority, and it’s such a childish way of thinking. I love seeing a young man with the self-control to “calm his nerves by force.” Two, this is another reminder of Adolin’s backstory. Dalinar’s history is a mixture of fighting on fields and fighting to take villages, towns, and cities. Adolin, while he may have observed some of those battles from a distance, has done all his active soldiering out on the Shattered Plains. He’s never fought for a city before, either as attacker or defender.

L: True. Dalinar was very much a conqueror… Adolin, on the other hand, seems to view his part in battle as a defender of his troops. We see this time and again as he thinks about the best methods of protecting the men under his care rather than putting them in danger needlessly.

A: That’s… wow. I hadn’t really thought about that before. It’s true; he leads them into battle, but most of the time his primary focus is on making it as safe for them as he can, even at his own risk. I guess it’s practical to make sure your troops have a good chance to survive and fight another day, but that doesn’t seem to be his mindset. He wants them to survive and live another day.

As they waited, Adolin stepped up to the edge of the plateau and surveyed the city. His home.

It was falling.

A: I hadn’t realized how many little reminders this chapter contains that this is his home. It’s so easy to get caught up in the action, and forget how painful this must be for Adolin and Elhokar. The city where they grew up is being ripped apart by monsters from legends, while they themselves are destroying the palace gates and fighting down the corridors of their home against soldiers who had always protected them.  Painful doesn’t begin to cover it.

Weighty Words

Kaladin rose into the air on a streak of light.

He hit the stone and rolled with it, twisting and tumbling in the air. His glow diminished severely.

The boulder lurched. It somehow changed momentum, tossed away from Kaladin like a pebble flicked off a table.

A: In the midst of all that’s happening, it’s so fun to see Kaladin finally get to use his powers. I love the way he throws it back over the wall and almost hits the thunderclast. (Okay, it would have been fun to actually hit the thing instead of almost, but that might have been a bit over the top. And the plot needed the thunderclast to keep going.)

L: It’s always cool to see Kal being a badass.

Muddled Motivations

Of course, he carried another weapon: his belt knife, long and thin. A weapon intended for stabbing armored men.

It had felt so satisfying to shove it through Sadeas’s eye. He still didn’t know whether to feel ashamed or proud.

…

When he walked down the steps to the main room a short time later, he was wearing his Kholin uniform. His skin missed the softer silk and better form of the tailored outfit, but he found he walked taller in this one. Despite the fact that a part of him, deep down, worried he didn’t deserve to bear his father’s glyphs any longer.

A: So far as we can tell from the text, killing Sadeas is the one thing that consciously makes him feel he doesn’t deserve to be Dalinar’s son. It may or may not have deeper roots, but anything in that regard is speculation. We do know that, according to the Codes, killing Sadeas was “wrong;” it’s not so clear that it was all that bad according to general practice in modern-day Alethkar. Assassination seems to be something of a way of life death. We also know that Dalinar had lived a life of bloodshed before he was even Adolin’s age, so if you want to look at it in a certain light, Dalinar doesn’t deserve to bear his own glyphs. Oh well. Adolin doesn’t know all of that yet.

L: Yeah, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see how (if) Adolin’s view of his father changes when he learns about certain events in Dalinar’s past.

On another note… I’m still not convinced that killing Sadeas (and the dishonor he feels that brought him) is enough of an Inciting Event to Break him and allow him to become a Radiant… but I’m happy about that. I’m of the opinion that Adolin is badass enough without powers, and I rather like the “normal person” vibe he has. It’s nice to have at least one POV character with whom we, as (presumably non-Radiant) readers, can relate more strongly to.

A: I have such mixed feelings about that! He’d be an excellent Edgedancer, and I really hope he can fully reawaken Maya, but at the same time, I love seeing him interacting with the Radiants as a non-Radiant. He brings such a unique perspective, as a highly trained military leader who is used to being in a position of authority equivalent to what the Radiants are supposed to become. He’s like… the best adviser Kaladin or Shallan can possibly have for what’s going to be expected of them.

Cosmere Connections

As he watched, she stabbed an enemy soldier who tried to push through. Remarkably, his eyes didn’t burn, though his skin did go a strange ashen grey as he died.

Blood of my fathers,  Adolin thought. What’s wrong with her Shardblade?

L: Well, Adolin, it’s not a Shardblade—but you can hardly be blamed for not knowing that. I find it intriguing that it drained the color from the skin of the person she killed…

A: I keep thinking I should go do some research on this, but I’m not sure where to start. It is a sort of Shardblade, if it’s related to Nightblood, so it severs things at a more-than-physical level, but I’m not sure I get how it works. Somehow it drains the color from the person, like an Awakener drains color from a nearby object, but… what is being Awakened? I don’t honestly think anything is, but it’s weird.

L: Do you think it’s possible that it’s somehow draining the Breath from the people she kills with it? Maybe that’s what powers it? Totally crazy theory, I know, but…

A: Not entirely crazy. Nightblood drains life and Investiture from anyone it can. Azure’s blade doesn’t seem to be quite so aggressive about it, but there are too many similarities to shrug it off.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

It was thick at the base, as wide as a man’s palm, and the front waved like the ripples of a moving eel. The back had small crystalline protrusions growing out of it. No sheath could hold a weapon like this, and no mortal sword could imitate it—not without growing unusably heavy. You knew a Shardblade when you saw one. That was the point.

L: Maya is such a beautiful Shardblade. It seems very fitting that she’s Adolin’s, given his propensities for appreciating fashion.

They’d cry in pain if stabbed, or grunt with exertion, but they otherwise seemed muted—as if the darkness smothered their emotions.

L: So one of the Unmade is driving some towards passion (as we see on the Oathgate platform). But then we’ve got this one, which seems to be doing the opposite? Is this the second Unmade? It’s so hard to differentiate the effects that the two of them are having, with what little we know about them…

A: I’m not sure if these are influenced by Ashertmarn, the Heart of the Revel, or Nergaoul—which we haven’t seen yet. Is it possible that Nergaoul has an area effect too? Because you’re right—these don’t seem to be affected by the Revel in any way that makes sense. Maybe their emotionlessness is supposed be our foreshadowing of yet another Unmade in the vicinity.

“You’ve been locked in here for weeks, men! I don’t expect that you’re fit for combat.”

“Weeks?” Sidin said. “Surely it’s only been a few days, Brlightlord.” He scratched at a beard that seemed to argue with that sentiment. “We’ve only eaten… what, three times since being thrown in here?”

L: This time dilation going on is really, really interesting.

A: Ugh. This was so bizarre. It kind of has to be an effect of the Unmade, right? But which one?

Adolin had the distinct sense that he could hear something. Over the din of the fighting, over the shouts of men echoing against the walls. A quiet voice that somehow cut to his soul.

Passion. Sweet passion.

L: It’s worth noting that up until now, Adolin hasn’t been fighting passionately. He’s been cool, logical, reserved. He hasn’t let his emotions carry him away. I wonder if this is just a part of his personality (much like the men they rescued who also weren’t affected), or if it has something to do with his growing Bond with Maya. Is she protecting his mind, somehow? Like Pattern did for Shallan?

A: I hadn’t thought about that when I made the earlier comment on Adolin “calming his nerves by force.” I assumed that it’s a combination of his training and personality, but… it could be something to do with Maya. If so, I doubt even he could tell the difference between his training and her effect; he’s had her since he was 17 or so.

Quality Quotations

• “Well,” Elhokar said. “I suppose I understand why you did what you had to in taking control of the Guard. I can’t very well have you hanged as a usurper. Good work, Highmarshal.”
  “I … appreciate that?”

• … the highlords he and Adolin had revealed themselves to the night before. All they’d needed to do was walk away from the spheres powering their illusions, and their true faces had become manifest.

• We’re entering an era of gods.

For the next few weeks we’ll definitely be sticking to one chapter a week, as we’re in climax territory now. Hold onto your Shardblades, folks, as things are going to keep escalating from here! As always, feel free to join in on the comments. See you next week!

Alice is mightily relieved to be on summer break, even though that has its own sort of busyness. Cocktails on the patio before dinner could be addicting, you know?

Lyndsey is in love with her little rescue pup, Sirius Black… despite the fact that he learned how to break out of Azkaban (his gated enclosure). If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.

I hope you’re all prepared for one doozy of a chapter, because this one’s chock full of questions, theories, death, betrayal… everything that makes one of Sanderson’s “avalanches” edge-of-your-seat events. There’s a lot going on here, as Kaladin and Elhokar finally find Unmade-possessed-Aesudan in the palace and Shallan confronts two different Unmade on the Oathgate platform, and Alice and I are ready to pull it all apart and pick the bones clean of theories, nuance, and… gifs. Of course. So buckle your seat belts and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, because the Stormlight Coaster is about to drop clear off the edge of Roshar.

Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. There aren’t any big Cosmere things in this reread to be wary of, but if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done. Because spoilers all the way.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Kaladin, Shallan
WHERE: Kholinar palace (not going to bother with a map this week, everything takes place in the palace or the Oathgate platform)
WHEN: 1174.2.3.3 (immediately after Chapter 83)

Kaladin, Elhokar, and a group of guards make it up to Aesudan’s chambers to find that she’s possessed by Yelig-nar, one of the Unmade. They rescue Gavinor, Elhokar’s son, and make their way out to the steps, where they’re confronted by an army of parshmen… ones Kaladin unfortunately recognizes as his friends. He freezes up, unable to kill his friends, and just as Elhokar is about to say the Words which will transform him into a Radiant, Moash appears and kills him. Meanwhile, Shallan manages to drive away the Heart of the Revel from the Oathgate platform, only to be stopped by Sja-anat, another Unmade who claims to be on her side, and warns her that the Oathgate is a cleverly laid trap…

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Title: The One You Can Save

“Elhokar,” Kaladin said, gripping the king’s shoulder. “Be a hero to the one you can save.”

A: Oh, my aching heart… (And yes, I’ll say that repeatedly this week, I expect.)

L: I can’t even imagine how hard this was for Elhokar. It’s pretty clear that he loved his wife, and to have to walk away knowing that Kaladin might be staying behind to kill her… Yeah.

Heralds

Shalash and Jezrien are there for the most obvious of reasons: This chapter is all about their Knights Radiant being Knights Radiant.

Icon

Kaladin’s Banner and Spears icon indicates that the chapter starts with his POV; he trades off with Shallan several times as it goes on.

Epigraph

The enemy makes another push toward Feverstone Keep. I wish we knew what it was that had them so interested in that area. Could they be intent on capturing Rall Elorim?

—From drawer 19-2, third topaz.

A: Yeah, I wish I knew too! There’s something significant about Feverstone Keep, right? Unless this is just a marker for us, reminding us that Dalinar’s Recreance vision took place there, it seems likely that there is something in the area, and quite possibly at Rall Elorim. It can’t be called “the City of Shadows” for nothing.

L: With the number of times that Brandon’s name-dropped this, it can’t not be significant.

Stories & Songs

They passed a corridor lined with statues of the Heralds. Nine of them, at least. One was missing.

A: This isn’t particularly significant for the chapter, but it’s worth noting that this is likely the same passageway that Szeth mentioned in the prologue to The Way of Kings. For what that’s worth. There are a couple of other reminders that this is the same palace that we’ve seen in all the prologues.

L: Which Herald is missing? What’s her name, the one who keeps destroying all the images of herself? That’s Shalash, right?

A: That’s the one. Szeth noticed that her statue was missing back then, and apparently it’s still missing. Or they replaced it and she destroyed it again, I suppose.

Buy it Now

L: Nice to know that my memory didn’t fail me for once.

“I can hear her,” Elhokar said. “That’s her voice, singing.”

I know that tune, Kaladin thought. Something about her soft song was familiar.

A: I checked with all the smartest people I know and confirmed that we still don’t know why Kaladin recognizes the tune. The main theory I’ve seen is that it’s a Singer tune which Kaladin learned from the parsh he traveled with, on the assumption that Aesudan knows it from having eaten the Yelig-Nar-gem. I don’t find this very satisfactory, because Sanderson is still being very coy when asked about it—and why would he be, if it was a question and answer completely contained within Oathbringer? Someone else had a theory (promptly disproven) that Kaladin’s mother Hesina might be closely related to Aesudan, and Kaladin had learned it from her. Oddly enough, the answer was no, that’s not why he knows it—but yes, Hesina is not closely related to Aesudan. Go figure.

But this is going to drive me crazy until we learn the answer. Why would Sanderson mention that Kaladin recognizes the song??

L: I think the idea that it’s a parsh song, or at least a Rhythm that Kal recognizes, makes total sense. Music seems to be underlying so much in this world. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if the “aliens” (humans) hear and recognize a lot more of the Rhythms that drive their world than they realize.

A: It could be. I mean, I totally agree that it’s quite possible for humans to recognize Rhythms without realizing it. But he refers specifically to the tune itself, so… I don’t know. Well, hopefully we’ll find out soon. (ish…)

This isn’t a human heart, she decided. Maybe it’s a parshman heart. Or, well, a giant, dark violet spren in the shape of one, growing over the Oathgate control building…

So. Time to try what she’d done in Urithiru.

Trembling, Shallan closed her eyes and pressed her hand against the heart. It felt real, like warm flesh. Like in Urithiru, touching the thing let her sense it. Feel it. Know it.

A: Even knowing that it worked in Urithiru, this seems like a horrible idea…

L: Aside from that, I find it curious that Shallan assumes that it’s mimicking a parsh heart. Parsh hearts are gems, so far as we know, and hence it doesn’t seem logical to me that it would look anything like a human one.

A: Well, two things. I believe parsh have two hearts—one that pumps blood, like a human heart, and the gemheart that controls their forms. So there’s that. The other is that I don’t think Shallan knows about their gemhearts yet, does she?

L: Wait, really? Do we have a WoB on that two hearts thing, or is it just speculation?

A: In the Eila Stele, there’s a line referring to humans that says, “They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live.” It seems reasonable that the writer is familiar with having more than one heart. I’m pretty sure there’s more evidence, but I can’t locate it right now.

His voice brought to her an awareness of the city around her. Of soldiers skirmishing only one street over. Of distant drums going silent, one at a time, as the guard posts on the wall fell.

L: This is just… haunting. I’m putting it here because it has to do with drums, but really… it has to do with death. With the city slowly falling, like a tree that’s been cut and is ever so slowly keeling over before it crashes to the ground.

A: This was such powerful imagery, it hurts to read.

She tried Pattern first, stabbing him into the heart as a Shardblade. The mass simply split around the Blade. She slashed with it, and the spren cut, then sealed up behind.

L: Whoa whoa whoa. Wait just a tick. So if Shardblades were made to fight the forces of Odium (???), the fact that this one doesn’t work against the Unmade is a pretty big thing. Did Odium realize that the Shardblades were destroying all his forces and created the Unmade specifically as superweapons that could withstand them?

A: Well, it’s entirely possible. I think. We see them work against a lot of different things, but apparently Unmade are an exception! A few weeks ago, we noticed how Syl as a Shardblade was able to direct Kaladin to find the Fused gemheart and destroy it, and that might be even more widely useful than fighting thunderclasts. It’s almost nice to know there’s something they can’t do. Sanderson’s Second Law: “The limitations of a magic system are more interesting than its capabilities.”

L: So, so true. If they could destroy every threat easily, this wouldn’t be as interesting of a book series.

He passed the remnants of lavish meals only partially eaten. Pieces of fruit each with a single bite taken out of them. Cakes and pastries. Candied meats on sticks. It looked like it should have rotted, based on the decayspren he noticed, but it hadn’t.

L: More of that time dilation going on here? Or is there something more? If the decayspren are there, maybe the food actually is decayed and there’s some sort of illusion happening.

A: This is clearly intended to make us wonder what’s going on, and I honestly don’t know. It’s likely one of the two reasons you mentioned, but it’s also possible that there’s something else bizarre that we haven’t picked up on yet.

L: And then we have this:

Kaladin picked around a pile of musical instruments of the finest wood, sitting in a heap.

L: More excesses, not only of the flesh, but of the mind as well. Gluttony doesn’t only need to refer to food, it’s indulging in anything to excess, and it appears that Aesudan was doing so about many things. Whether or not she was actually playing any of those instruments or simply wanted them just to possess them is up for debate… I wonder if there’s any sort of connection between the musical instruments and the fact that she was singing when they walked in. Maybe she was seeking the perfect accompaniment for the song in her head.

A: We don’t know much about Aesudan. It’s possible that she’s musically oriented and then, as you say, felt the need to possess them all. (Side note… most musical instruments are difficult to play with one hand. Just sayin’…)

L: I’m curious about the overlapping effects of the different Unmade, here. This seems like it’s a Heart of the Revel thing, so is it affecting Aesudan even while she’s possessed by Yelig-nar?

A: That’s a good question. I’m reasonably sure she was affected by the Heart of the Revel before she swallowed the Yelig-nar rock, so it’s possible that this is all leftovers from that time. It’s also possible, and I think probable, that she’s affected by the Revel right up until the moment she’s so possessed by Yelig-nar that she starts growing carapace and her eyes start glowing red.

He passed the balcony to his left. If he remembered right—though the story had been told so often, he had heard a dozen differing versions…

L: I have to laugh at this, because Sanderson is making a subtle little nod to the fact that every book in the series begins with a different retelling of this same event.

A: ::gigglesnort::

“Yelig-nar serves me. Or do you speak of the Heart of the Revel? Ashertmarn has no will; he is merely a force of consumption, mindless, to be harnessed.”

L: Yeeeaaaah I’m not sure how much of that I believe. Yelig-nar clearly has her wrapped around its little finger, so anything she thinks she knows about Ashertmarn is also questionable.

A: ALL the information we have about the Unmade is questionable. For what little we do have, though, Hessi’s Mythica seems to sort of agree with this; she calls it one of the “three great mindless Unmade.” Calling it “merely a force of consumption” is a bit understated, though—it’s like calling Nergaoul “merely a support in battle.”

Oh, also… “Yelig-nar serves me.” Oh, you ignorant, arrogant little twit. She seriously thinks she controls one of the Unmade, rather than the reverse.

L: Yeah. This is really, really stupid. But understandable, seeing as how it’s certainly been whispering in her ear all this time, twisting her mind.

A: I wonder if it was made easier by her time spent under Ashertmarn’s influence. Then again, she’s always been arrogant and power-hungry, so…

Give it all to me, the voices whispered in Shallan’s mind. Give me your passion, your hunger, your longing, your loss. Surrender it. You are what you feel.

L: I mean… in a sense, it’s not wrong. We are what we feel. But we can also control what we feel. Which is, of course, what Shallan’s about to learn.

A: I thought it was quite profound, to have the “force of consumption,” a.k.a. the “lust for indulgence,” urging her to consider herself only in terms of her emotions. It’s one of her biggest areas of difficulty: reconciling truth with feeling and, as you say, learning to control what she feels.

The enormous heart became sludge, then melted away, almost seeming to crawl, sending out runners of dark liquid before itself.

L: I can’t help but imagine noh-face from Spirited Away here. Actually… come to think of it… This Unmade is a bit like Noh-face, isn’t it? Engaging in things to excess, trying to convince others to do the same… I wonder if this was an influence on Sanderson’s work, here.

A: Not being familiar with the work in question, I have no opinion here. Shocking, isn’t it?

“You did it!” Adolin said.

I did?

L: I’m with Shallan here. I’d really like to know exactly what it is she’s doing that’s scaring these things off.

A: Well, in a bit someone else will explain this…

L: I have the memory of a goldfish, and haven’t read this in its entirety for two years now.

A: RAFO… like another page or so. :D

L: (After finishing initial notes on the chapter): Okay, so a trap. Right. I’d forgotten that in this case, that’s what’s going on. It stands to reason that Odium would expect Shallan to try the same strategy, and hence tell the Heart of the Revel to expect that and take a hike once she does.

A: It seems reasonable, and it totally would have worked without Sja-anat’s twisting of her own twists—at least, according to her, and I’m inclined to believe her.

It looked much as the one she’d discovered at the Shattered Plains—though better maintained, and its tile mosaics on the floor were of fanciful creatures. An enormous beast with claws, and fur like a mink. Something that looked like a giant fish.

A: For what it’s worth, the mosaics in the Stormseat Oathgate were of people: “Knights in armor stood before swirling skies of red and blue. People from all walks of life were depicted in all manner of settings…” I wonder if the differences are significant. Also, Dalinar being who he is (i.e. not Shallan) of course he didn’t take any note of the mosaics in the Azir Oathgate.

On the walls, lanterns shone with gemstones—and between them hung full-length mirrors.

L: Considering what she saw in mirrors earlier in this part, you’d think that she’d be a little more wary of these.

Radiant, the thing said, mouthing the words. My name is Sja-anat, and I am not your enemy.

L: I don’t know why I immediately trust her, and yet… here we are.

A: This is the third time we’ve heard someone tell Shallan recently that “I am not your enemy,” and now I believe all three were Sja-anat. The first one was when “Swiftspren” was listening to the cultists, hearing what they could hear, and then one line stands out differently: “Shallan, I’m not your enemy.” The second was when she came up here to investigate the Oathgate, saw the shape in the mirror, and heard the voice saying, “I’m not your enemy. But the heart is a trap. Take caution.” Now this one—where she can actually see the spren talking to her—makes me think all three have to be the same person.

And… I know this is based on not much, but I agree. I do trust her, at least to an extent, and I think she’s going to be the one to break away from Odium, and maybe turn out to help Our Radiants. (I can’t help thinking that we’re going to have all sorts of folks changing sides this time around, so that we have Heralds and Unmade and humans and parsh on both sides of the conflict.)

The queen’s soldiers blinked against the light, as if it were somehow too strong for their eyes.

L: Just another tallymark for the “people under the influence of the Unmade react weird to stuff” list.

They call me the Taker of Secrets, the figure said. Or they once did.

L: Okay, 1. Really cool name and 2. Interesting parallel here with Pattern and his “you have to give me truths” thing.

A: It is indeed a cool name. I just can’t quite figure out what it means, and what it has to do with her abilities! Does she take secrets from your mind and use them against you? Or is it more like the Lightweaver’s truths, where you give her your secret and she gives you… something or other? I badly want to learn more about the Unmade.

We were made, then unmade, she agreed.

L: What the heck is that supposed to mean? Did Odium somehow like… unravel their being and then put them back together differently? So they were made (by god or whatever the creator of the Cosmere is), then Unmade (by Odium, like, rearranging their magical DNA or something)?

A: Oh, the theories!! And we don’t know what this means, except that they were something before they were Unmade. I can’t help wondering if it’s sort of similar to the Heralds—they were ordinary humans, and then Honor gave them extra powers, and they became Cognitive Shadows who could do a lot of really amazing stuff. It’s quite possible that these were originally Singers (or humans, or Aimians, or greater spren), and then for whatever reason, they allowed Odium to give them extra powers but they had to be “unmade” to function. And of course, there’s always my loonie theory that they were somehow “pieces” splintered off of the Sibling…

L: Is it possible that the Sibling has been completely and totally dismantled? Rather than pieces splintered off while the main body/being still exists, that it’s been broken apart entirely and the Unmade are all pieces of it? This would explain the “unmade” thing for sure…

A: I think it’s possible. I hope it’s not. I don’t think that’s the whole explanation, if it’s even partially true, because the Sibling was still known and loved by the Knights Radiant while the Unmade were active. Still, if they are pieces of the Sibling, there’s nothing to say the splintering hasn’t continued to the point where there’s nothing left by now. That would be sad indeed.

Interesting thought… if they were originally bits of the Sibling, that could explain why Sja-anat is starting to claim that she’s not of Odium, and now is only of herself—if Odium couldn’t create anything new but only twist the existing, maybe he couldn’t twist it beyond its ability to revert. (Oops. I guess that could apply to whatever they originally were, whether it was the Sibling or not. Odium unmade something that someone else had made, no matter how you look at it.)

Ask my son. Please.

L: Son? Who? WHAT IS GOING ON?!

A: There’s a popular theory that she’s referring to Glys here, but I don’t think it’s confirmed. There is at least one WoB that sure sounds like he’s hinting that she’s referring to Glys, so… there’s that.

L: Oooooooh that’s a cool theory. I like it.

The queen descended the stairs, wreathed in black smoke, eyes glowing red. She’d transformed, strange crystal formations having pierced her skin like carapace. Her chest was glowing bright with a gemstone, as if it had replaced her heart.

L: Really cool mental image. It’s neat that she’s growing almost a parsh carapace…

A: Too bad for her that she can’t control Yelig-nar as well as she thinks she can. (I don’t actually feel sorry for her. There’s a reason Jasnah was thinking about having her assassinated.)

Relationships & Romances

The queen focused on Kaladin. “New bodyguard, dear one? Far too scruffy; you should have consulted me. You have an image to maintain.”

…

“Dear one,” Elhokar said, keeping his distance from the queen, “we heard that the city has seen… trouble lately.

…

“Aesudan,” Elhokar said, his voice pained. He stepped forward, extending his hand. “You’re not well. Please, come with me.”

“Not well?”

“There’s an evil influence in the palace.”

“Evil? Husband, what a fool you are at times.”

A: There’s more of this, but that’s enough to be going on with. Elhokar has seemed to be genuinely concerned for his wife, to the point of risking his life to retrieve her and their son. He’s deeply reluctant to leave her behind, even though she’s got glowing red eyes. She, on the other hand, treats him like an idiot, and says outright that it was best that he went off to play at war so she could get on with doing the important things. We never saw Aesudan “on screen” before she was deeply under the influence of the Unmade, but we do know that Jasnah never trusted her. There’s a WoB that says Jasnah thought Aesudan wanted to usurp power and was reckless, and the plan to assassinate her was a matter of protecting the throne. What we’ve read of her behavior, between the Lhan Interlude in Words of Radiance and this scene, indicates that Jasnah was not wrong.

L: Yeah. Not a fan of her, at all. A good partner should be helping to advance her husband’s plans and support him, not… this. Yet another example of the influences around Elhokar serving to weaken him rather than strengthen him, which is why it’s so much more impressive that he managed to (start) overcoming that and become a stronger person.

A: I’m almost surprised that she was willing to grant Elhokar the intimacy required to actually produce a child, but I suppose an heir fit well enough into her plans at the time. Quite possibly, she was hoping Elhokar would die in the battles, leaving her as either Queen indeed, or at the very least Regent to the young heir.

L: Yeah, I guess. She might just like sex and not care about who it’s with, too. We’ll never know for sure, I’m certain, because this just… isn’t the type of thing that Sanderson usually elaborates on.

A: True, that. I too have wondered how much of Elhokar’s personal insecurity was deliberately fostered by a wife who wanted power and was happy to turn her young and malleable husband into a puppet. I wonder… we don’t know exactly when they were married, but it was at least six years before the opening of the series. Could they have already been married when the Roshone thing happened (he arrived in Hearthstone “seven years ago”), and might she have been part of the cause for throwing Moash’s grandparents in jail? I’m not saying Elhokar isn’t responsible, since he was acting in the king’s stead, but how much of it was actually his idea? Sheer speculation, of course.

L: I was wondering this same thing. I’m willing to bet that she was behind the decision that wound up setting Moash’s whole awful story into motion.

Elhokar whispered something to his son. Kaladin couldn’t hear the words, but the child stopped weeping. He looked up, blinked away tears, and finally let his father pick him up. Elhokar cradled the child, who in turn clutched his stuffed soldier. It wore blue armor.

L: There’s a wonderful book on writing called Save the Cat (it’s specifically about screenwriting but it has very, very good advice that can be applied to any long-form fiction) that states that any likable character has to have a moment that endears them to the reader (the specific example the author gives is Ripley choosing to save the cat in Alien). A character can be utterly loathsome, but one single moment can win the readers over to their side (the reverse is also true, as we will soon see). And this was Elhokar’s Save the Cat moment, for me. This one moment of tenderness that he shows to his son, this one aspect of true fatherhood and humanity. If it had only been this, I don’t think it would have been enough, but we’ve seen this gradual growth in him from a total pushover into a man who’s genuinely trying to become a better person. And, interestingly, this is almost a perfect reverse image to Moash’s development (and one of the things that makes him such a fascinating character).

A: That’s an excellent observation. There is more to Elhokar’s character development that combined to make me like him, but I agree that this is one of the few moments that can truly be called “endearing.” I liked his efforts to become better, and I liked seeing him draw good maps, and I liked his determination to save his family, but his evident love for his son—especially after seeing how Aesudan was allowed the poor child to be treated—was a beautiful thing.

It’s also worth pointing out that there was something extra going on, because Elhokar knew what to say to make Gavinor trust him, despite the fact that there’s no way a child that age would remember a father he hasn’t seen for… how long? Ever, maybe? He’s three years old at the most.

L: And, side note, but I wonder if that little doll is meant to be Elhokar, or Adolin. Adolin’s armor was blue, wasn’t it? It would be pretty cute if little Gavinor had some hero worship of Adolin going on.

A: That would be fun, though it’s not likely he would know Adolin. Only stories, though Navani might have told him enough to have that effect. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s what Elhokar told him—that he was going to take him to see Navani.) For what it’s worth, both Gavilar and Adolin had their Shardplate painted blue. Elhokar’s was golden, at least in The Way of Kings.

L: I could totally see a little boy looking up to his heroic knight cousin. Adolin must seem like one of King Arthur’s knights to the kids back in the capital, all gallant and talented and upholding all the ideals of what a Good Alethi Should Be.

Bruised & Broken

She became a new person with every heartbeat.

L: Something Shallan is intimately familiar with.

Shallan was a thousand people in a moment.

But which one was her?

All of them. A new voice. Wit’s?

…

You’re all of them, Shallan. Why must you be only one emotion? One set of sensations? One role? One life?

“They rule me, Wit. Veil and Radiant and all the others. They’re consuming me.”

Then be ruled as a king is ruled by his subjects. Make Shallan so strong, the others must bow.

L: Wow. That’s some pretty heavy philosophizing, I love it. But I do wonder if this is really Wit’s voice speaking to her in her head, or just what she imagines he would say to her. I think I would rather imagine the latter—especially since this would be yet another incarnation of the very thing she’s talking about here. On one level, she’s pretending to be Wit just like she does with Veil/Radiant/the rest. But it would reveal a deeper wisdom within her, one she doesn’t even realize she has. When acting, we often say that we can’t bring out something that isn’t already there, buried deep within you. The character mask you wear allows you to have the confidence to let it out. I believe that of Shallan—she’s smart, she’s wise beyond her years. She just needs to realize that she is, on her own, without the masks and illusions she’s hidden behind.

A: I honestly don’t know what Sanderson intended here—if this is Shallan imagining what Wit would say, or if there’s some kind of bond between them that lets him communicate with her. I suspect, though, that it’s the logical application to the immediate circumstance that follows from their last conversation.

Kaladin felt his rage flare, and he lowered the Sylspear. It was time to begin the work of death.

Then he saw the face of the parshman in front of him.

It was Sah. Former slave. Cardplayer. Father.

Kaladin’s friend.

L: And here we go. Poor, poor Kaladin. Stuck between two groups of friends, both of them trying to kill the other. War is hell, but never more so than in a situation like this.

A: Oddly enough—or maybe not—the note I wrote here while preparing for this was, “And so it begins.” This is a horrible moment.

L: Taking a break from the awfulness to note that, awww, Alice. You used a gif! I’m so proud of you!

In that moment, Kaladin lost something precious. He’d always been able to trick himself into seeing battle as us against them. Protect those you love. Kill everyone else. But… but they didn’t deserve death.

None of them did.

L: There are no words. Only this. (And oh how fitting that particular one is, eh, considering the character parallels…)

A: I get so angry at Kaladin for freezing here, but at the same time… what else could he do? What is the right thing to do? They were all his friends—or at least, they were all people he knew, for whom he had felt great sympathy. So I get angry, but I still totally understand.

L: I don’t blame him for freezing. Anything he did would almost certainly result in him killing someone he cared about in an attempt to protect other people he cared about!

A: I hate false binaries—you either kill these people, or you kill those people—but Kaladin’s indecision doesn’t help anyone either. What would have happened if he’d started glowing and floating and knocking people over and acting like the Voice Of Authority? Or something? Weren’t there possibilities besides kill or freeze? ::sniffle::

“Stop!” he finally bellowed. “Stop it! Stop killing one another!”

Nearby, Sah rammed Beard through with a spear.

“STOP! PLEASE!”

L: Ugh. My heart.

A: Oh, my aching heart. And it just goes on. Sah kills Beard, Noro kills Jali and Sah, Khen kills Noro…

L: Yup.

A: …and then that absolute… %@&*$… Moash shows up. I can’t even think of a printable word bad enough for him. I loathe that man.

L: Oh, oh, I know lots of words for him. Let me type the words, Alice.

A: Printable words! I have all sorts of words in my head for him… and all of them unprintable.

L: Guys, this is Alice this week.

A: Since Aubree isn’t here to defend him, I was so determined to try to be fair to Moash in this chapter. And I can’t. I hate him so much. Especially after that endearing moment we just talked about, where all of Elhokar’s progress was capped by his love for his son.

“Moash, no…” Kaladin whispered. He couldn’t move.

A: I think this is the part where I’m most angry at Kaladin. He’s protected Elhokar against Moash before—and gained his Sylblade in the process—and he knows Moash stands against him now. Why did he remain frozen and not at least stand up to the man who had betrayed him?

L: Poor baby’s traumatized, give him a break.

A: Nope.

No, I do understand it. I just… don’t want him frozen right now. This is where it’s pretty clear who he should be defending, and he still can’t break free.

L: Well. Is it clear, though? Moash is his friend, too. And he knows Moash—knows how dedicated to this cause he is. He’s gonna have to kill him to stop him.

A: They fought before without killing each other. He could have at least tried. (I know, I’m being unfair. I’m frustrated.)

L: So… one of the more interesting things I learned when taking Japanese sword lessons was the philosophy of “if you unsheathe your sword, you must be prepared to use it.” Now… I have never been in a life and death battle (thank goodness). But I feel like… if you go into that situation, you have to be prepared for the worst possible outcome.

A: Normally you do go into battle prepared to kill… though usually it’s not your friends on the other side. But it’s a fair point: I haven’t learned sword-fighting, but I have had handgun training, and one of the first rules is that you never point a gun at something you’re not willing to shoot.

L: And potentially kill. I actually remember this as well (I was a game hunter when I was much younger).

A: Now, to be honest, I wouldn’t be at all sad if Kaladin killed Moash here. Or somewhere else. I can’t help thinking that it’s set up: one of them will kill the other somewhere along the line.

L: I’d be sad for Kaladin, because having to kill his friend would destroy him. But yeah. I think it’s probably going to happen, if only because of the age-old trope of “best friends wind up mortal enemies.”

A: ::sadface::

Moash pinned the king to the ground, shoving aside the weeping child prince with his foot. He placed the boot against Elhokar’s throat, holding him down, then pulled the spear out and stabbed Elhokar through the eye as well.

L: This poor kid’s gonna be traumatised for life. After having gone through all that business with the Voidspren, and watching your mom go crazy, then seeing your dad who just rescued you brutally murdered right in front of you… I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives poor Shallan a run for her money.

A: No kidding. I kind of hope he can forget the worst of this. Otherwise it’s nightmare city for the rest of his life.

Squires & Sidekicks

Noro shrugged. “Without the captain, we don’t have a proper platoon leader. Figured we should stick with you.”

Beard nodded and rubbed at the glyphward wrapping his right arm. Fortune, it read.

A: Okay, they aren’t Bridge Four—we haven’t spent enough time with them to know them very well. Still, they’re cool dudes. Also, it’s sadly ironic that for this battle, Beard finally found enough faith to wear a glyphward.

L: I’m surprised they didn’t stick with Azure as she headed towards the Sunwalk, but on the other hand… I’m kind of not surprised, either. When given the choice of hanging around with Azure, who’s clearly competent, or someone who’s practically a god of legend, I’d probably choose the latter, too.

A: Fair point! Especially since they don’t know Azure has a few extra secrets too.

“Good to have you,” Kaladin said. “Try to keep me from being flanked, but give me space if you can.”

“Don’t crowd you,” Lieutenant Noro said, “and don’t let anyone else crowd you either. Can do, sir.”

A: Heh. Keep it simple, soldier.

Glowing Stormlight flooded the chamber as twin Radiants exploded out from the Sunwalk. Drehy and Skar swept through the enemy, driving them back with sweeping spears and Lashings.

A second later, Adolin grabbed Kaladin under the arms and heaved him backward. “Time to go, bridgeboy.”

A: I do love these guys. It’s been fun all along watching Skar and Drehy protecting—and fighting alongside—Adolin. Now the three of them form a team to protect Kaladin when he can’t protect himself. It was a brighter ending to the chapter than I’d begun to hope for.

L: This is a great moment. And what you just said… “protecting Kaladin when he can’t protect himself…” kinda made me tear up a little. Even Windrunners need protecting sometimes.

Weighty Words

Kaladin prepared Stormlight; he could paint the walls with a power that would cause crossbow bolts to veer aside in their flight, but it was far from a perfect art. It was the power he understood the least.

A: I’m quoting this only to link it to a piece much later in the chapter:

Sylspear held high, Kaladin stepped between the two groups and pooled Stormlight into the ground, drawing the bolts downward. He was unpracticed with this power, and unfortunately, some of the bolts still slammed into shields, even heads.

A: It’s interesting to notice that he actually did a better job with this lashing when he was going on sheer instinct back in The Way of Kings. Now that he’s focused on learning how to use his Surges, I’m guessing that this one is harder to understand, maybe? Just guessing.

Elhokar had fallen to his knees. In one arm he held his terrified son, in the other hand he held… a sheet of paper? A sketch?

L: This is Shallan’s sketch of him, isn’t it. Where he’s all kingly and s**t. (I’m too emotionally devastated already to bother moderating my language.)

A: This is such a callback to Blunt in Words of Radiance, where he died heroically with Shallan’s sketch in his hand. It’s heartbreaking. Reading through the chapter in preparation, I was crying right here. Oh, my aching heart. “It depicted Elhokar kneeling on the ground, beaten down, clothing ragged. But he looked upward, outward, chin raised. He wasn’t beaten. No, this man was noble, regal.”

L: ::lower lip quiver::

Kaladin could almost hear Elhokar stuttering the words.

Life… life before death…

The hair on Kaladin’s neck rose. Elhokar started to glow softly.

Strength… before weakness…

“Do it, Elhokar,” Kaladin whispered.

Journey… journey before…

A figure emerged from the battle. A tall, lean man—so, so familiar. …

“Moash, no…” Kaladin whispered. …

Lowering his spear, Moash ran Elhokar through the chest.

L: And there it is. The moment that spawned a million memes, convention ribbons, and arguments on social media platforms. The betrayal (or culmination of an honorable quest, however you want to look at it). I think we all know where I stand.

A: I stand with you.

L: In all seriousness, I get where Moash is coming from and I fully believe that his character thinks that what he is doing is absolutely right. He’s a well developed character and his reasoning for his own decisions is sound. But storm it, I love Kaladin and Kaladin sees this as a betrayal, so I’m on Team!Kal for life. #F***Moash.

A: Yeah. Sanderson is fond of saying that everyone is the hero of their own story, which is another way of saying we all think generally we’re doing the right thing (or at least a justifiable thing, even if we acknowledge that it’s not exactly right) when we do it. Moash presumably felt that Kaladin’s defense of Elhokar at the end of Words of Radiance was a betrayal, since he’d agreed earlier to go along with Graves’s plan. Even so, Moash acknowledged that his own actions constituted a betrayal of Bridge Four—though of course, being Moash, he didn’t acknowledge that he was actually at fault for it. But yes, through it all, he believed that Elhokar was a bad king and deserved to die, one way or another, so he saw his own actions as justified.

L: Also, the reason I put this into this section to begin with was because, obviously, Elhokar was about to become a Radiant. Which order is up for debate. We know from book 1 that he was drawing Cryptics, but just because he was interesting to one group of higher spren doesn’t mean that that’s the only group that was interested in him. He was so close, and the only way we’ll ever know for sure which order he was about to enter is if/when we find out what his little spren (who, presumably, Wit will soon acquire) was.

A: It’s pretty solid—if we’re willing to spoil the end of the book—that his spren was a Cryptic. He’d have become a Lightweaver, and I would love to have seen where he’d gone with that.

L: Interesting to consider what could have been. He’d have had to give up secrets/truths.

A: There’s a WoB that says his first Truth would have been that he’s a bad king.

L: I do remember reading that at one point. Heartbreaking.

A: ::sniff:: Given the chance, do you suppose he’d have become a better king, or abdicated the throne to someone “better” and focused on becoming a good Knight Radiant? We’ll never know, of course…

L: Well, given that Dalinar has mostly taken over the power of rule, I suppose that was making his job a bit easier. He was still the ruler of Alethkar, true, but when someone is over you, you’re not taking the brunt of most of the decisions yourself. I think he might have continued on and tried to make himself into a better king, a more worthy one, as atonement.

A: That was my guess, too. If they could actually implement that business where Dalinar was “high king” responsible for Urithiru, the Knights Radiant, and the Shattered Plains, and stayed out of Elhokar’s way in ruling Alethkar, maybe it would have worked. Maybe Elhokar could have developed into a wiser, stronger, better king.

Also, I think the reason all of this combines so well to build the emotional storm is the drama of Elhokar beginning to haltingly speak the First Ideal. It sets up the hope of seeing a new Radiant revealed in the height of a battle, which is guaranteed to be an awesome visual (as note every one of Kaladin’s level-ups). Blend that with the terrified child he’s protecting, and the regal man Shallan’s sketch showed, and you get a breath-taking moment of awe… suddenly shattered by Moash’s spear.

L: Reminds me of this.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

“Up the stairs,” he said softly to Syl. “Check for an ambush on each floor.”

“Yessir, commander sir, Radiant sir,” she said, and zipped off.

A: BAHahaha! I adore Syl sometimes.

L: Gotta love the snark.

“Where is Gav, Aesudan? Where is my son?”

“He’s playing with friends.”

…

Kaladin joined Syl and glanced behind the dressing screen, which had been pushed back against the wall to section off a small cubby. Here a child—two or three years old—huddled and trembled, clutching a stuffed soldier. Several spren with soft red glows were picking at him like cremlings at a corpse. The boy tried to turn his head, and the spren pulled on the back of his hair until he looked up, while others hovered in front of his face and took horrific shapes, like horses with melting faces.

L: There’s a lot to unpack here, but I need to start with the fact that I want to simultaneously pick up this child to protect him and slap his mother senseless for allowing this to happen.

A: YES. This was kind of soul-crushing, that a mother could let her child to be treated this way. It hurts so much. “Playing with friends” indeed. You foul… woman. (I have a few unprintable words in my head for her, too.)

L: Okay, so, that out of the way. Exactly what kind of spren are these? Just… generic Voidspren? Do Voidspren not correlate to specific emotions/ideas the way normal spren do?

A: We don’t know much about Voidspren. I think they do correspond to something that makes each “kind” different, but I don’t think we know what those somethings might be. Again, hopefully we’ll learn more about this from Venli.

L: AND. Why horses? Why would they be imitating something that’s not even native to this world? This is very similar to Shallan’s sketch from earlier in the book of the creepy… undead-horse-spiral thing. Is there something more to horses that we’re not seeing, or is this just a coincidence?

A: That… uh… I have no idea. Does Sanderson have nightmares about horses (oh, look, it’s a pun!), or is he doing this on purpose?

L: AND. AND AND AND. Why in the hell is it torturing a child? What could its possible motivation for this be? Is it trying to break his mind, drive him as insane as his mother appears to now be?

A: All I can guess is that, being of Odium, these spren get their kicks from whatever (negative) emotion they can elicit, and a child can easily be prodded into terror. It’s like they’re just playing a very nasty game to pass the time. Foul things.

L: This next quote has no bearing on spren but it leads directly from this conversation, so…

Kaladin reacted with swift, immediate rage.

L: YES. Kaladin, MAH BOY.

A: WOOO!

He drove the dagger forward and caught one of the spren, pinning it to the wall’s wooden paneling. He had never known a Shardblade to cut a spren before, but this worked. The thing screamed in a soft voice, a hundred hands coming from its shape and scraping at the Blade, at the wall, until it seemed to rip into a thousand tiny pieces, then faded.

The other three red spren streaked away in a panic. In his hands, Kaladin felt Syl tremble, then groan softly. … “That… that was terrible,” she whispered, floating over to land on his shoulder. “Did we… just kill a spren?”

L: Talk about a lot to unpack! Okay. So. Is it dead dead, or just dead like the old Shardblades are dead, which means “wandering around somewhere in Shadesmar”?

A: I have no idea. I didn’t know this was remotely possible until they did it, and I don’t even know what they did. Falling back to my “best guess” shtick, I think it’s either completely destroyed, or gone back to Braize. But don’t ask me to defend my guesses, because I’ve got nothing to go on!

L: And why is this something that Syl seems totally unfamiliar with? Has this never happened before, ever, in any of the past battles? If that’s the case (and Syl’s not just forgetting things again) then what makes this time different? Was it because Kaladin was feeling such a strong emotion, one which is often associated with Odium? Is that why he was able to kill the Voidspren, because he was channeling an Odium-emotion?

A: That would be pretty twisty, though this is Sanderson we’re talking about. Syl could be unfamiliar with it because she remembers so little of actually fighting the Voidbringers, or it could be something that is so extremely difficult to do that no one bothers to mention it. Or it could be considered so horrific among spren that it’s a forbidden topic. She’s pretty horrified about it, anyway.

L: AND what emotion or idea is this spren representative of? Does killing it mean that the thing that created it has somehow been destroyed? Like… let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this was a gloryspren. If Kaladin killed it, would that also kill the emotion (glory) that someone was feeling in the moment? If it was a decayspren, would the decay vanish from the real world since its mirror in the Cognitive Realm has been destroyed? Appropriate meme is appropriate. Can Kaladin even kill spren that aren’t of Odium? ??????

A: Maybe they’re torture-spren. Terror-spren? See above gif re: appropriate meme. I have no idea.

“I found the secret, Elhokar. Spren, ancient spren. You can bond with them!” … “Have you seen my Radiants?” Aesudan asked. She grinned. “The Queen’s Guard? I’ve done what your father could not. Oh, he found one of the ancient spren, but he could never discover how to bond it. But I, I have solved the riddle.”

In the dim light of the royal chambers, Aesudan’s eyes glittered. Then started to glow a deep red.

L: Whoa Nelly. This is pretty disturbing in a lot of ways. She’s deluded herself (or the Unmade has deluded her) into believing that she’s got Radiants of her own. Yikes. And Gavilar having found the Unmade… that must be that dark sphere that he had, right?

A: I don’t know if she’s actually talking about Unmade, or just ancient spren—and if ancient spren, does she (knowingly or not) mean the parsh ancestors who bond to make Fused, or does she mean actual spren? I mean, the thing she’s got is an Unmade, but I don’t know if that’s the same thing Gavilar had. Seriously, I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about. She’s been guided by Voidspren (and/or Unmade and/or Odium) despite her claim that she found the secrets. I don’t know whether Gavilar was smarter than her, or if he was also being guided by forces of Odium, but the queen is a seriously disturbed individual. She’s gotten her guards to give up their free will in order to bond/serve a bunch of Voidspren, she’s letting others play with her child, and she’s happy about having three Unmade taking up residence with her. Creepy.

L: Hold up a second. Do you think her Queensguard have actually bonded with Singer souls, like the Fused did? I just assumed they were under the influence of the Unmade.

A: Might be influence of the Unmade, or might be that they’ve bonded Voidspren—like Ulim and Yixli. I can’t see the ancestors lowering themselves to bond a bunch of random guards, which is why I’m more inclined to think they’ve got spren bonds of some sort. I’m not sure how that would work; normally, those bond with a Singer’s gemheart to give them the “forms of power,” but humans don’t have gemhearts to bond with. On a guess, someone figured out how to create a Nahel-type bond between Voidspren and humans, which doesn’t give the human the same level-up powers as a true Nahel bond but which gives the spren more control over the human.

Quality Quotations

He looked at Kaladin, then quietly made the Bridge Four salute, wrists tapped together.

L: Yo Moash, I got a salute for ya.

A: I know our rule is not to talk about these quotations much, but I need to point out the parallel—or the antithesis—between this salute and the one we saw last week, where Adolin gave Kaladin the Bridge Four salute, and Kaladin gave it back. I think Sanderson intended Moash to mean it as a real salute here, but it felt like a mockery to me.

L: Yeah. Since Moash thinks that he’s doing the right thing, he probably sees this as doing Kaladin a favor. “He can’t do this because his honor is holding him back, so I’ll do the hard thing he can’t.” I don’t doubt that his salute is genuine. I still hate him for it though.

The next two chapters are pretty short, so we’ll tackle them together. Join us in the comments, which I suspect will be pretty talkative this week, as hoo boy what a chapter! Please remember that no matter whether you fall on Team!Kal or Team!Moash, to respect one another’s opinions and remain civil.

Alice is still mad at Elhokar, in case you hadn’t guessed. She’s also annoyingly busy for “summer break;” maybe moms don’t get summer break after all, eh?

Lyndsey’s gif game is strong today. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.

After all that craziness last week, we’re not done with the Avalanche of Part Three. We’ve still got to get our heroes out of the battle! Well, Adolin and Shallan have to get them out, anyway. We’ll also check in with the folks back in Urithiru (remember them? Dalinar, Navani, Taravangian? Those folks?) and see what they know. It’s not pretty, my friends.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. This week, there are Warbreaker spoilers in the Cosmere Connections unit. But if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Adolin, Shallan; Dalinar
WHERE: Kholinar palace; Urithiru
WHEN: 1174.2.3.3

Adolin, Skar, and Drehy bring Kaladin and the remaining loyal soldiers back to the Oathgate, where Shallan worries over the probability that the gate is booby-trapped. On Adolin’s orders, she activates it anyway. Meanwhile, back in Urithiru, Dalinar struggles to cope with his recently-recovered memories of Rathalas as they wait for the Oathgate to activate, or to receive news from Kholinar. When news comes, it’s bad; the city has fallen, and there’s no word about the team he sent.

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Chapter 85
Title: Grieve Later

It was one of the first battlefield lessons his father had taught him.

Grieve later.

A: Well, that’s just painful. The thought of “lessons learned from his father” is particularly difficult right now, given the last Dalinar flashback; the obvious callback to the death of Sureblood is even more so.

Herald: Paliah

Paliah is the Scholar, patron of Truthwatchers, with the divine attributes of Learned and Giving.

A: I currently have no idea why she’s here; hopefully the discussion will enlighten me.

…and it didn’t. The only things I have to go on are the epigraph from a Truthwatcher, and the potential connection between Sja-anat and Glys. That’s pretty tenuous, but it’s all I’ve got.

Icon: Shardbearer

Adolin’s Shardbearer icon tells us we’re getting his view of the events, but he shares the chapter with Shallan.

Epigraph:

Don’t tell anyone. I can’t say it. I must whisper. I foresaw this.

–From drawer 30-20, a particularly small emerald.

A: Saw what? This is the final—and it’s called out as very small—emerald in a Truthwatcher’s series discussing the plan to deny the parsh their Voidlight by trapping Ba-Ado-Mishram. I have to wonder: Was this added later? Is “it” the result of the plan they made—the complete incapacitation of the parsh? Come to think of it… did trapping BAM destroy the existing bonds, or only make it so they couldn’t form new bonds? Leave them their existing bonds, but with no Voidlight to fuel any special abilities? And is the writer fearful because of the foreseeing, or because they don’t want to admit that they ignored the forewarning, or… what?

Chapter 86
Title: That Others May Stand

The burden for the blood of those wronged must rest somewhere. I am the sacrifice. We, Dalinar Kholin, are the sacrifices. Society offers us up to trudge through dirty water so others may be clean.” He closed his eyes. “Someone has to fall, that others may stand.”

A: In the following paragraph, Dalinar notes that he’s often thought something similar, but Taravangian’s version sounds so hopeless. It occurs to me that “fall” means something very different to these two men. One thinks of falling in battle, striving with all his might in the hope of winning the cause even at the cost of his own life. The other thinks of moral decisions, compromising his values in the hope of saving lives. Somehow, I have more respect for one than the other.

Heralds: Chana and Nale

Chana is the Guard, patron of Dustbringers, with the divine attributes of Brave and Obedient. Nale is the Judge, patron of Skybreakers, with the divine attributes of Just and Confident.

A: I’m clueless about Chana’s presence, but I think Nale is here because of the conversation between Dalinar and Taravangian about the hard decisions kings and generals have to make. Chana… maybe the courage of the team? I dunno.

Icon: Kholin Glyphpair

So now we’re back in Dalinar’s head, present day. It’s not a happy place.

Epigraph:

My spren claims that recording this will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I  will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?

—­From­ drawer ­10-12,­ sapphire

A: Well, that was deliberate placement! Right after the chapter where Kaladin freezes up because he can’t help everyone, and right before an entire Part where Kaladin stews over the fourth Ideal and his inability to say it, we get an ancient Windrunner stewing over whether or not he can/will take that same step. There are only two things we can say for certain: Windrunners get their Shardplate with the Fourth Ideal, and it has something to do with not helping someone. Beyond that, it’s all speculation.

L: After the last two ideals being all about helping others, this one must be particularly hard—not quite a reversal of the previous ones, I don’t believe that, but… a realization about the ones you can’t save. There’s been a lot of theorizing about what this might be, and I can’t wait to eventually find out.

Stories & Songs

“Brightness Davar told me to clear everyone  else out,” the highmarshal said. “Something’s wrong with the device.”

A: Not good. Not good at all…

“Adolin,” Shallan whispered, “the heart was a trick. I didn’t chase it off—it left on purpose. … They let us come here because the Oathgate is trapped.”

A: Uh-oh.

“Sja- anat. The Taker of Secrets. She says that if we engage the device,  we’ll be caught in a disaster.”

Adolin took a deep breath.

“Do it anyway,” he said.

A: I mean, what choice do you have? You take a chance on your escape route being trapped, for which you have only the word of an Unmade, or you stay where you are and get slaughtered. Well, I suppose they could have tried Windrunnering out like the devil was on their tails… but that would mean unequivocally leaving everyone else to the tender mercies of whatever Fused weren’t busy chasing you down, and without a highstorm for power, it’s probably not a valid option anyway.

L: Better to take a chance on the fate you’re uncertain of than succumb to the fate you know.

Shallan looked away from the pleading figure in the mirror. The others couldn’t see her— she’d confirmed this with Azure already.

A: Lightweaver effect, or Knight Radiant effect? We’ll never know; Kaladin was too dazed to look.

I will show you, Sja-anat said. I will try. My promise is not strong, for I cannot know. But I will try.

“Try what?” Shallan asked.

Try not to kill you.

A: Well, that’s not ominous or anything.

Relationships & Romances

“The team you sent,” Teshav continued, “has apparently failed, Brightlord.” She swallowed. “The remnants of the Wall Guard have been captured and imprisoned. The city has fallen.  There is no word on the king, Prince Adolin, or the Radiants. Brightlord … the message cuts off there.”

A: No word on your son or your nephew… which, come to think of it, applies equally to Navani.

L: The family members must be the hardest blow for sure, but this was Dalinar’s home for a time just as much as it was Adolin’s. On top of everything else he’s going through right now, now he’s got to face the fact that all of those people he knew, interacted with even in small ways (servants, guards, even street vendors or what have you) are doomed, or dead already. Not good news to get when you’re already on the verge of a breakdown…

A: Mental fail on my part. When thinking about Dalinar, I looked at Kholinar solely as a strategic issue, with the team being his personal connection. Short-sighted of me, because you’re right—he spent a lot more of his life there than Adolin did.

Bruised & Broken

Kaladin stumbled along. Though he didn’t appear wounded, he stared with a glazed- over look. Those were the eyes of a man who bore the kinds of wounds you couldn’t fix with bandages.

A: Our poor broken Windrunner is all broken again.

L: Poor Kaladin. Sweetest of cinnamon rolls, he just wants everybody to be happy.

Kaladin followed, dazed. After what he’s been through, Adolin thought, I wouldn’t have expected that anything could faze him. Not even Elhokar’s…

A: Adolin doesn’t know that it wasn’t (only) Elhokar’s death that fazed Kaladin, of course. As we discussed at great length last week, it was about his inability to protect all his friends from all his other friends. Now I don’t remember; does Kaladin eventually talk to Adolin—or anyone—about it? Just Syl?

Buy it Now

L: I don’t remember either. Guess we’ll refresh our memories together eventually. This shaking of the very foundation of everything that he believes has to be so hard. It’s not just that his friends were fighting each other, or the betrayal, or the death… It’s the realization that every enemy he’s ever fought has had friends, family, loved ones. They’ve all been human (even when they’re parsh). Do they deserve to die for trying to regain what they’ve lost? For defending their own loved ones? It’s a hard question that not every soldier has the courage to face.

A: Also, it occurs to me that Adolin doesn’t know it was Moash that killed Elhokar. Why has no one ever asked what happened to the bridgeman who got the Shards he won in the four-on-one “duel.” Was Moash not viewed as one of the bridgemen any more? Did everyone assume he was killed at Narak? I guess that would be a fair assumption for them to make, but they still should have asked questions, it seems. A full set of Shards is no small thing.

L: It’s possible that he knows and we just never saw this conversation happen “on-screen.”

I think… I think the Voidbringers intentionally left Kaladin and his men alone after only a brief fight.

A: If this is true, the specific losses hurt even more. Had Kaladin not been paralyzed by the unexpected appearance of Sah and Khen, he could probably have used his abilities to keep his friends apart until the attackers pulled back; he might even have been able to protect Elhokar and bring him back too. Of course, it would have been dreadfully Gary-Stu of him, and the narrative would have been flat… and of course, then they’d have had a bunch more people trailing along in Shadesmar, and all sorts of complications from that.

L: I think Shallan is referring to when they were attacked earlier, during the initial breaking-into the palace, not the big battle that happened inside…

They thought he was sick. …  But if he stopped standing up straight, if he let it bow him down, he worried the memories would crush him.

The memories of what he’d done at the Rift.

The crying voices of children, begging for mercy.

A: It was a shock to jump from the events of Kholinar to Urithiru. The last time we saw anyone but the Kholinar Infiltration Unit in “real” time was back in Chapter 65, when Dalinar visited Azir and suddenly regained a new batch of memories just as he arrived back in Urithiru. Since then, we saw him in four flashbacks–Jah Keved, the road to Rathalas, and the two chapters at Rathalas. To suddenly be back in his head in the present day… well, I’ll admit I had to look back and remind myself.

L: This week is full of tough self-realizations. Kaladin, Dalinar, even Adolin realizing that his home has fallen…

A: Now we get to be in Dalinar’s head as he wrestles with what happened at the Rift. As hard as we were on Dalinar in the discussions a few weeks ago, we’ve got nothing on Dalinar himself.

 Dalinar closed his mouth, eyes ahead, and stared at the expanse. At attention, like a soldier. That was how he would wait. Even though he’d never really been a soldier. He’d commanded men, ordered recruits to stand in line, inspected ranks. But he himself… he’d skipped all of that. He’d waged war in a bloodthirsty riot, not a careful formation.

A: Ummm… he’s not wrong. It’s not even a surprise to him; his memories of the early campaigns are untouched. But it must really stink to have a perception that you outgrew the young berserker and became a highly competent general, only to be slapped in the face with the missing middle of the story where you did worse things than your young self ever imagined.

Problem was, he’d given in to a kind of fancy, one every one told about him. They said the Blackthorn had been a terror on the battlefield, but still honest. Dalinar Kholin, he would fight you fair, they said.

Evi’s cries, and the tears of murdered  children, spoke the truth.

A: It’s got to be a horrible, rude awakening, to suddenly discover you’re not who you think you are at all.

And I had the gall to condemn Amaram for killing one squad of men to gain a Shardblade. Dalinar had burned an entire city for less. Thousands upon thousands of  people.

A: There’s a lot more in this vein, as Dalinar worries over it. He wishes the memories hadn’t come back yet, and castigates himself for being a coward in asking the Nightwatcher for relief. (Hah. Little you know, dude.)

L: He has a point, and you have to wonder about what Sadeas thought about all of this as he saw it happening. He was uniquely positioned to have seen the entirety of Dalinar’s arc. I wonder if he thought Dalinar was a hypocrite, or if he realized that Dalinar had no memories of the terrible things he had done… and how either of those things would have affected Sadeas’s perception of him.

A: I agree. Now we see the attitudes of the other highprinces (and people like Amaram) in a different light, and makes Sadeas and Ialai much less sneeringly evil. They’re still evil, but their interactions with Dalinar make more sense now.

Diagrams & Dastardly Designs

“How does one live  after making a decision like that? Particularly if you eventually discover you made the wrong choice?”

“This is the sacrifice, isn’t it?” Taravangian said softly. “Someone must bear the responsibility. Someone must be dragged down by it, ruined by it. Someone must stain their soul so others may live.”

“But  you’re a good king, Taravangian. You didn’t murder your way to your throne.”really

A: Oh, the irony! No, Dalinar, Taravangian didn’t murder his way to anything… he merely bought a man’s honor and made him do the murdering. Stained soul, indeed.

L: I’d argue that Szeth was just the gun and Taravangian was the one pulling the trigger, making him very much a murderer indeed.

A: I don’t disagree. Not that I’ll exactly let Szeth off the hook, but Taravangian is definitely a murderer many times over.

“Almighty above,” Taravangian whispered, grey eyes reflecting the glow of the heating fabrial. “I am so, so sorry, Dalinar.”

A: I have to think it’s intentional, that Taravangian’s grey eyes are reflecting the glow of the “bright red ruby” in the heating fabrial…

L: Yikes. I didn’t think of that. It would make his eyes look red. Creepy.

Squires & Sidekicks

Adolin pulled Kaladin out along the Sunwalk while Skar and Drehy guarded their retreat, encouraging the last of the Wall Guard to run—or limp—to safety.

A: Well, it’s nice to know that not all of the Wall Guard was slaughtered right away. I wonder how many of them survived the next hour. Also, this visual:

Skar and Drehy dropped down to the platform, guarding the way onto the Sunwalk, to prevent the Queen’s Guard or parshmen from following.

Mindful Motivations

A: I love being in Adolin’s head. For all his lack of self-confidence in certain regards (mostly relating to Dalinar and Shallan!), when he’s not thinking about himself he’s a pretty savvy guy. (And really, despite appearances, IMO he doesn’t spend that much time thinking about himself.) The way he instantly evaluates Kaladin’s condition speaks of a commander who recognizes all the forms of battle trauma, because he’s always aware of his men. In this chapter, he faces all the hard truths of losing the battle for his home, and he immediately turns to doing what can be done for the living. He’ll grieve for the dead later, when there’s time.

Adolin took it all in, and admitted the terrible truth. His city was lost.

“All forces, hold the platform,” he heard himself saying. “But pass the word. I’m going to take us to Urithiru.”

::sniffle::

“Sir!” a soldier said. “Civilians are crowding the base of the platform, trying to get up the steps.”

“Let them!” Adolin shouted. “Get as many people up here as you can.”

…

“The city has fallen. Transfer the entire platform, not just the control building. We need to get as many people as we can to safety.”

A: Lyndsey, this reminds me of your comments a couple of weeks ago, about Adolin’s final conversation with his tailor and his habitual care for the “little people” of the world. Here it is again: He knows his city is lost, so what does he do? He tries to get as many people as possible on the Oathgate platform, so that when they activate the Gate they’ll at least take some of his people to Urithiru in a swap for the army.

“The king—”

“The king is dead. The queen has joined the enemy.”

A: That’s… blunt. It must be excruciatingly painful to say that.

L: I agree with all of this. This is one of the reasons why Adolin climbed so high in my regard, to the point where he and Kaladin are tied for my favorite characters. As far as protagonists go, he is almost always “active”—and his actions are usually moral and kind. (Usually. We’ll leave the Sadeas debate alone, as that’s a horse we’ve beaten to death.) Unfortunately, I have a bad, bad feeling that these very attributes are going to be what dooms him, from a story-telling perspective.

A: As I understand it, his arc is not settled yet… but that might argue in favor of your last statement. Depending on how things play out around him, he could go either direction.

Cosmere Connections

“My men on the wall!” Azure said.

“They’re dead or routed,” Adolin said, gritting his teeth. “I don’t like it any more than you do.” …

“… I’m ordering our retreat, Azure.” Adolin locked gazes with the woman. “We gain nothing by dying here.”

She drew her lips to a line, but didn’t argue further.

A: I can’t help thinking back to Vivenna’s plot arc in Warbreaker. She started out as a duty-bound stickler of a princess who knew her role to the letter, believed it was critical to the survival of her people, and wouldn’t even consider abandoning it. After realizing that not only was her sister better at the role, but she herself would have failed to save her people at all, she pretty much walked away from all her responsibilities. Now, here, it seems that perhaps she’s found a balance that her younger self was incapable of achieving. In her early days, she was mostly concerned with her own self-perception as The Sacrificial Princess Who Would Single-Handedly Keep the Wicked Hallandren In Their Place. Now, after who-knows-what adventures, she’s gained a good bit of maturity; leadership and responsibility seem natural to her as they never did before.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

“Why did you bond me?” Dalinar whispered to the Stormfather. “Shouldn’t you have picked a man who was just?”

Just? Justice is what you brought to those people.

“That was not justice. That was a massacre.”

The Stormfather rumbled. I have burned and broken cities myself. I can see… yes, I see a difference now. I see pain now. I did not see it before the bond.

A: It’s so fun to watch the Stormfather developing new perspectives.

L: And another parallel here with what Kaladin’s going through, too. Kaladin didn’t let himself see the humanity of his enemy before now. The Stormfather couldn’t see the humanity of the “lesser beings” he destroyed, because he was simply too alien to understand it. Now that he’s been bonded, he’s beginning to see.

Word had come from Kholinar via spanreed, one that somehow still worked. An assault on the palace, an attempt to reach the Oathgate.

…

The spanreed was writing. Navani gasped, safehand to her lips. Teshav turned pale, and May Aladar sat back in her seat, looking sick.

The spanreed cut off abruptly and dropped to the page, rolling as it landed.

A: So it looks like Elhokar was right: For whatever reason, the enemy was too preoccupied to bother with the spanreed for the first message. By the time the second one came through, it looks like they were paying attention again.

Next week is Independence Day here in the US of A, so per tradition, there will be no post. The following week, however, should make up for it: We’ll be closing out Part Three with Chapter 87, and then doing a bit of a recap of unanswered/answered questions and ongoing themes for the book so far. If you have anything you’d like to see us address, drop it in the comments below and we’ll do our best to get to it!

Alice is looking forward to a week in Montana—Glacier Park, Flathead Lake, lots of R&R… (she hopes)

Lyndsey was so excited to read Sanderson’s recent update on Stormlight 4. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.

Welcome back to the Reread! We were planning to do a big “the book so far” wrap-up post this week in addition to chapter Eighty-Seven, but… it was a little too big, so we’ll have an entire article next week dedicated to that. In the meantime, we’ll discuss Chapter Eighty-Seven all on its lonesome, as well as discuss a few points that people requested in the comment section last week. Batten down the hatches, folks. It’s about to get intense up in here!

Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

No spoilers for other works this week. You’re safe!

Chapter Recap

WHO: Adolin
WHERE: Shadesmar!Kholinar
WHEN: 1174.2.3.3 (immediately after Chapter 85)

The Oathgate control building shakes and shifts its platform into Shadesmar, dumping Adolin into the beads until Azure pulls him out. Two enormous spren hover above them; below, Pattern and Syl take their Shadesmar forms along with a weird-looking woman/spren. They, with Kaladin, Azure, Shallan, and Adolin himself, are the only people there.

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Title: This Place

Azure looked up at the sky. “Damnation,” she said softly. “I hate this place.”

AA: “This place” is obviously Shadesmar, and as much as we’ve been fascinated by it, apparently those who experience it don’t all find it worthy of appreciation. We’ll explore that reasoning as we make our way through Part Four!

Heralds: Jezrien, Shalash, Vedel, Chana

AA: One of the most obvious (and, IMO, legitimate) ways to explain the four Heralds here is to associate them with the four humans. Jezrien represents his Windrunner, Kaladin, and his spren Sylphrena. Shalash reflects her Lightweaver, Shallan, and her spren Pattern. Vedel, presumably, represents Adolin with his Edgedancer-blade. That leaves Chana to be associated with Azure, which makes sense as she takes on the role of Guard so frequently.

Adolin has often been associated with Chana, but in this case I don’t see how Azure would be linked to Vedel, so… we’ll go with the first proposition. For what it’s worth, we had the WoB confirming that she was an Edgedancer’s Blade, which someone had figured out based on her appearance, before Oathbringer came out. In any case, this description and the upcoming journey should make it very clear; this is a “sibling” to Wyndle.

Icon

Shardbearer, meaning we get this last chapter from Adolin’s POV.

Epigraph:

Good night, dear Urithiru. Good night, sweet Sibling. Good night, Radiants.

—From drawer 29-29, ruby

AA: Interestingly enough, this is a Dustbringer recording. I don’t generally associate this kind of affection with the Dustbringers, but that’s probably completely unfair of me. Anyway, this is clearly a farewell to the tower, and to the Sibling who (in my opinion, anyway) likely gives life and functionality to the tower city. It may be viewed as foreshadowing to say “good night” to the Radiants, since the Recreance was only a few decades away; in intent, it was probably referring to the way the Radiants would be dispersed when they left Urithiru, finding new homes elsewhere. Certainly some would remain in groups, and perhaps even whole Orders would stay together, but they would no longer have a single, central place that belonged to them.

L: All I can think of when I read this is “Goodnight, Moon.”

AP: Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight voidbringers everywhere!

AA: LOL

Bruised & Broken

L: I’d like to take a moment here to address the concerns of one of our most frequent commenters, Gepeto. They’ve expressed concern that Adolin’s lack of grieving might pose a problem for him emotionally down the road. We believe that this is being addressed “off-screen.” Just as we didn’t see Jasnah and Navani’s reunion, Sanderson probably doesn’t have a secondary reason to show these scenes. We know that they’d fulfill the “character” portion, but would they also serve to advance the plot or the worldbuilding? If not, then the book is already long enough and scenes like this probably hit the cutting room floor or weren’t deemed important enough to show in the first place. However, this doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. I fully believe that Adolin is taking the time to grieve his losses between the scenes. This doesn’t mean that he’s being short-shrifted by Sanderson, or that he’s any less of an important character. It just means that these scenes wouldn’t serve the narrative as a whole.

AA: This is something I’ve observed in other areas as well. For example, many readers were frustrated about not seeing any reunions with Jasnah. I understand the frustration, but I can also see that it wouldn’t have added anything substantive to the story he’s telling—or at any rate, nothing he couldn’t achieve better in a different way. The same goes for Adolin and Shallan’s wedding at the end of the book. It happened, but the narrative wouldn’t be served by showing it. Same with his decision not to write sex scenes: It’s safe to assume that Dalinar and Navani are actively enjoying one another, beginning with their wedding night, but we don’t need awkwardly-written descriptions to prove it.

It may or may not be a weakness, depending on the reader, but Sanderson doesn’t seem to dwell in-depth on the process of grieving. Everyone grieves differently, so it’s difficult to portray without resorting to stereotypes; in any case, we haven’t seen much. When Jasnah was presumed dead, the little we saw of anyone grieving was in service to character development, such as Navani’s comments about the only way to mother Jasnah was to not let her know you were doing it. That tells us a lot about both women. Later in this book, we’ll see Navani and Adolin weeping together over Elhokar, though we’re not really told what either is thinking.

My expectation is that we’re to understand that people have grieved for their loved ones. If their thoughts in the process will help the story in some way, we’ll get those thoughts; if not, not. That’s not to say that Brandon couldn’t decide that he wants to write an arc with Adolin’s refusal to grieve being an issue, but I don’t think he will. He’s pretty much done that gig with Shallan’s voluntary amnesia, as well as Dalinar’s Cultivation-induced amnesia; both were ways of dealing with grief by not dealing with it. IMO, Adolin doesn’t need to go there too.

Buy it Now

AP: All good points. I also think that right now they are in survival mode. Adolin is an experienced soldier. Though the loss of his cousin and nephew is probably devastating, he has to focus on the task at hand—escaping the city and then being thrown into Shadesmar, where he almost immediately starts to drown in beads. And then the entire arc of trying to find their way back. There’s not a lot of opportunity for mourning loss in a visible way at this point. At this point, overwhelming grief would be a distraction to the mission, and he is too well trained for that.

Places & Peoples

L: RogerPavelle in the comments last week asked us to discuss the “Old Magic” and possible connections to architecture (windblades, Urithiru). I’m assuming that he’s referring to whether or not the Sibling is somehow attached to Urithiru… Alice, you want to take it away on this one, since this is your theory-baby?

AA: But of course!! I love to speculate on things like this, even though we have very little evidence to go on. (Never stopped me before, can’t stop me now.)

One key tidbit comes in a WoB telling us that the Old Magic is specifically linked to the Valley. As you know, Bob, the Valley is where you go to find the Nightwatcher and ask for your boon. This indicates that the Old Magic is tied to either the Nightwatcher, Cultivation, or both. Digging back into that connection, we know that the Nightwatcher was a major spren on Roshar even before Cultivation and Honor came to town, and that Cultivation “adopted” the Nightwatcher in much the same way as Honor adopted the Stormfather.

The windblades seem to be associated with the various cities with cymatic formations, and there’s been in-book speculation that they are the original Dawncities, created by the Dawnsingers. (Kholinar, Akinah, Vedenar, and Thaylen City are the examples provided by Kabsal; there’s a possibility that Sesemalex Dar is also one such.) This makes a lot of sense, in that sound is an essential part of cymatics. Urithiru, on the other hand, doesn’t fit the cymatic construction, so I think it has to have been made differently—but that’s not to say that one didn’t inspire the other. (IMO, Urithiru would have been inspired by the Dawncities.) If this is correct—that the Dawnsingers formed the Dawncities using cymatics and large quantities of Investiture—it seems probable that the Old Magic would be involved. But… what is the Old Magic, anyway?

If the Dawncities were made before the arrival of Honor and Cultivation, it seems reasonable to think that the Great Spren were involved—and I’m assuming that the three Great Spren represent the storms (atmosphere of the planet), life (growing things on the planet), and the continent (rock, mountains, what-have-you landforms of the planet). The three could have worked in harmony with the Dawnsingers (a.k.a. the parsh, a.k.a. the Singers) to create these beautiful rock formations which also protect them from the highstorms. It’s quite possible that the Nightwatcher is simply the only one of the Great Spren which remains associated in the minds of humans with the magic that came before the Shards arrived—that is, the inherent magic of Adonalsium when he formed the planet, now referred to as the Old Magic.

Alternatively, the Dawncities could have been created after the arrival of the Shards, based on their greater knowledge. There’s a strong implication that the Shards had a good relationship with the parsh (and presumably the Aimians) for many years (likely centuries or millennia) before they welcomed the humans fleeing Ashyn. If the cymatic works were done by the Shards instead of with the Great Spren, much of the same dynamic might still apply, except that over time, the Old Magic came to mean Cultivation rather than the Nightwatcher/Adonalsium’s magic.

There are a couple primary supports for this idea, and I’m probably going to miss some other hints. The Alethi think of Cultivation as “pagan superstition”—though we know she’s a Shard and every bit as real and powerful as Honor ever was—only worshipped by those silly heathens to the West. They also think of the Old Magic as pagan (though not as superstition, since they go to the Nightwatcher shockingly often). It’s possible that, since Honor holds the place of “Almighty” in Vorinism, tradition somehow morphed into viewing Cultivation as a sort of opposing deity and then into dismissal as superstition.

Initially, though, it seems humans knew about both Shards, so it’s feasible that over the years, understanding simply shifted so that Honor was the “known” deity, and the other power was… well, not forgotten, but relegated to obscurity. It seems likely that, since the Heralds were associated with Honor more than with Cultivation, he was the one who took the more active role while she stepped back and was simply less visible. (It’s also possible that this was done deliberately by the two Shards, in an effort to shield her from Odium’s… odium.)

Does this prove anything? Not really. It’s my personal opinion that the Dawncities were created by the Shards working through the Great Spren and the Singers, but I can’t prove it. As for Urithiru, my theory is that it was formed centuries or millennia later, formed specifically for the Knights Radiant, with the Shards and the same Great Spren involved but this time working through a team of Radiants and their Surges.

The fact that both the windblades and the tower have strata that take strange forms is, I think, an indication that both were artificially formed. So far, however, we have no indication that the windblades have any kind of active function in the way it seems probable that Urithiru would, if only it were powered up. So… those are my best guesses, based on what little we know about any of these subjects!

Cosmere Connections

…But where had it taken them?

Azure looked up at the sky. “Damnation,” she said softly. “I hate this place.”

AA: Well, if by some chance you missed all the myriad clues along the way, this should tell you there’s something different about Azure. She recognizes Shadesmar, and sounds very much like she’s physically been there before. (She has; we’ll learn more about it later.)

AP: Yes, this is a dead giveaway that she isn’t from around here. I also really want more information about world hopping and where the gateways/perpendicularities are. I’m very eager to get to the cosmere level phase where we see characters going from place to place instead of just showing up unexpectedly on other planets. Bring on the crossovers!

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

Hovering in the air were two enormous spren… thirty feet tall … One was pitch-black in coloring, the other red. … they shifted, one turning eyes down to look at him.

AA: Welp. That would be enough to freak you out, if shifting Realms and almost drowning in beads hadn’t already done the job. Poor Adolin—everything familiar is gone, except the humans with him.

L: Yeah, this is pretty terrifying. It seems as though the size of the spren in the cognitive realm is somewhat indicative of their power, unless I’m very much mistaken. The non-sapient spren are tiny, the sapient ones are human-sized, and the Unmade are HUGE. This doesn’t bode particularly well for trying to destroy them eventually…

AA: Some of the non-sapient ones are pretty big and dangerous on this side, but the Unmade… yeah. I wonder what would happen if they tried to attack an Unmade in both realms at the same time.

AP: Since the Unmade, like other spren, exist in two realms at once, I think it’s likely that they have to be attacked from both realms (physical and cognitive) to be defeated. It’s likely that there are different weaknesses/vulnerabilities that exist in each realm. Perhaps not as opposite as the land/water inversion, but probably equally as significant.

“Oh, this is bad,” someone said nearby. “So very, very bad.”

Adolin looked and found the speaker to be a creature in a stiff black costume, with a robe that seemed—somehow—to be made of stone. In place of its head was a shifting, changing ball of lines, angles, and impossible dimensions.

AA: Not so cute on this side, our Pattern. More like terrifying, if you stop and think about it!

L: I dunno, I always thought that Pattern’s “true” form was pretty damn cool, myself. I can see how the lack of a human face would be disconcerting, but still… cool.

AP: I agree on coolness factor! It’s also a good way to remind folks about the creepy way that cryptics manifest to potential Lightweavers in the physical realm. It would be utterly terrifying to have scribble-headed robed figures showing up out of the corner of your eye.

AA: Cool, absolutely. Cute? Not so much. No renegade Roomba in this realm! Speaking of looking different…

… a young woman with blue-white skin, pale as snow, wearing a filmy dress that rippled in the wind.

AA: Has Adolin seen Syl before? Obviously not lifesize, but it seems he may recognize her here. At least, it seems he’s aware that she and Pattern are spren, because he observes that:

Another spren stood beside her, with ashen brown features that seemed to be made of tight cords, the thickness of hair. She wore ragged clothing, and her eyes had been scratched out, like a canvas someone had taken a knife to.

L: Hello, Maya! I’m really excited to start rereading this part, as her gradual reawakening was one of the coolest parts of the rest of the book for me.

AA: Oh, totally. This was a tremendous revelation, and I love the way it builds through the rest of the book.

AP: I’m also in the Maya fan club! I’m looking forward to her story.

Other Brilliant (‽) Discussion

KiManiak in the comments last week asked if there were any particular of-note conversations during the beta read of part 3.

L: The only one that’s coming to mind immediately is the Kaladin/Adolin/Shallan/Veil “triangle.” Brandon wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to include this or not, so the version we initially read didn’t have Veil mooning over Kal. We were asked for our input at the end of the book, and there was quite a rousing discussion on it, with lots of readers weighing in with opinions all over the place.

AA: Lyndsey, the Master of Understatement! Heh. That was a rousing discussion to say the least. The funny part (to me) was how several of us who were vehemently anti-love-triangle changed our position on it, given the proposed resolution. I’m sure it doesn’t make everyone happy, but IMO it works so well with Shallan’s personality-dissociation to have one personality attracted to Kaladin and another to Adolin. (And Radiant trying to be all logical and weigh the advantages of each made me laugh!)

Anyway, IIRC Brandon beefed up the Veil/Kaladin attraction a little, which we’ve already seen happening, and made it a smidge clearer that it was Veil, not Shallan, who was drooling over him. (I am personally always amazed at how much difference he can make with just a few words here and there!)

AP: I was on the other side of this. I hate love triangles in general. I think they are overdone, and rarely is there a new aspect to it. I’m a huge horror/thriller fan, especially crime dramas and the “multiple personalities made me do it” trope is a huge one there. I would have preferred a non-romantic reason for Veil to prefer Kaladin’s company, like that they are of a similar social class, or comrades in arms. She isn’t a soldier, but she is a spy, and is more practically minded. What I think it does accomplish is highlighting the dysfunction that Shallan is experiencing with her constructed personas. I use Dissociative Identity Disorder to describe Shallan’s mental state. It’s not really that, but it’s adjacent. There are a lot of features in common, and she is losing conscious control over her initial constructs. You can see this in particular when she starts to argue with “herself” as Shallan/Veil/Radiant. In that sense, having Veil prefer Kaladin to Adolin is a good indicator of this progression.

AA: There was also a great debate about whether or not Elhokar was really dead. It pretty much came down to “no sword, no dead” vs. “somebody has to stay dead.” Oh, and I just went back and reviewed the beta comments for the end of Chapter 86… Talk about weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth! So many comments, SO MAD AT MOASH. “Wait, did he just kick a toddler??”

AP: He nudged him out of the way! Unlike Dalinar, who murdered the whole family at the Rift. Ahem…I’m getting off track. Yeah, I totally lobbied for “characters who are dead stay dead”. Because after Jasnah, loads of folks would be expecting a miraculous save if it wasn’t reallyreallreally clear that Elhokar was really most sincerely dead.

AA: IIRC, in the final version, Sanderson made sure to include the appearance of Sunraiser to eliminate the question. Also, he confirmed it the first chance he got. Poor Elhokar.

Next week will be the Big Book-So-Far Recap. If there are things you still want us to address, leave them in the comments! We’ll go over Questions That Haven’t Been Answered, Interesting TidBits to Note, and Major Themes.

Alice is back from her vacation in Montana, and—naturally—up to her ears in the resultant laundry. Oh, special. But she’ll be off again soon.

Lyndsey is going right from being cast in one Renn Faire directly into fight rehearsals for another. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Aubree has returned from her worldhopping ways. Like Hoid, she comes and goes as she pleases and shows up when you least expect it.

We’ve finished Part Three (::sob::), so we’re going to do something different with the Oathbringer Reread to celebrate the occasion. We’ll take a look back at what we’ve covered so far, starting with the “recap” parts in the beginning and then going on to discuss the epigraphs in depth, major themes, unanswered questions and theories, and interesting tidbits we came across. Batten down the hatches, folks. It’s about to get intense up in here!

Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. If you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread we also discuss a lot of things from all over the Cosmere. There will be spoilers for all of Sanderson’s works scattered throughout the reread this week, so proceed with caution.

Book Recap

Part One

Part One technically starts after the Prologue, in which we got Eshonai’s terrified view of Gavilar’s assassination and the reason behind it. For Part One, we go up through Chapter 32, and include the first three Interludes. Part One has three primary arcs. The first, as we encountered it, was Dalinar’s need to create a coalition of nations to deal with the incipient threat of the Everstorm’s transformation of the quiet parshmen into Voidbringers. The second arc was Kaladin’s return to Hearthstone, his search for the restored parsh, and his discoveries while travelling with them. The third was Shallan’s attempt to practice her powers and then to figure out—and correct—whatever was wrong with Urithiru. We also saw the beginning of a fourth arc, that being Dalinar’s flashback sequence. In the Interludes, we see some effects of the Everstorm, catch the early stages of the translation that will eventually cause such problems for the alliance, and learn that Eshonai is indeed dead.

Part Two

We begin part two with Chapter 33, and end with Chapter 57. Jasnah’s back, Shallan’s scared off the Midnight Mother, and Dalinar is finally making strides in his quest to unite the people. He’s also starting to relive his forgotten memories of Evi. We see the progress of Bridge 4 in a series of chapters from their points of view, as Kaladin trains them (and some new recruits) as squires. We learn that Shallan’s brother was becoming a Skybreaker before Kaladin killed him, and that the motivations of the Sons on Honor were to bring about a new Desolation in order to return the Knights Radiant and the Vorin Church. And we begin planning for what’s about to happen in Part Three: the infiltration of Kholinar. Part Two ends with the discussion Dalinar has with Odium. In the interludes that follow, we take a little side-trip to Aimia, Taravangian plots to overthrow Dalinar, and Venli realizes that perhaps she’s made the wrong choice.

Part Three

Once again we have two completely separate plots going on.

Dalinar continues to work on forging an alliance, and begins to learn what his Bondsmith powers can do. He starts with physical restoration of buildings, but soon moves to forming Connections so he can speak other languages. Having formed at least a tentative alliance with Queen Fen, he makes good progress with the Azish bureaucracy, right up until his returning memories disable him with the knowledge of what really happened to Evi.

Meanwhile, Kaladin flies the Infiltration Team to Kholinar, where they enter the city in disguise and set up their base of operations with Adolin’s tailor. Using Lightwoven disguises, they seek intelligence about the city’s situation: Shallan steals food to help the refugees and infiltrate the Cult of Moments, which is centered on the Heart of the Revel inhabiting the Oathgate platform. Elhokar and Adolin recruit a few of the highlords (and their soldiers) to aid in an assault on the palace to either regain control or at least rescue Queen Aesudan and the heir, Gavinor. Kaladin gains the trust of the Wall Guard commander, “Highmarshal Azure,” and brings a goodly portion of them along to help with the assault. Then everything goes wrong. The queen is bonding with an Unmade, Kaladin’s parshmen friends kill his Wall Guard friends, Moash kills Elhokar, and the Oathgate is booby-trapped. When activated, it leaves everyone outside the control room to their fate, and dumps Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin, Azure, and their spren into Shadesmar.

Buy it Now

By the end of Part Three, Dalinar is virtually incapacitated by his memories, Navani and Taravangian are trying to fill the gap and continue the Alliance Effort, and the Infiltration Team is stuck in Shadesmar with no visible way home.

Epigraphs

A: The Part One epigraphs are excerpts from the preface to Dalinar’s book, the eponymous Archive entry titled “Oathbringer.” We get the full text at the end of the book; in part one, there are only hints to make us guess at the author. In fact, early theories leaned toward Jasnah—but mostly because at the time, we didn’t know any of the crazy things that would happen to Dalinar over the course of the next thousand pages.

L: The epigraphs for Part Two are the letters to Hoid, which are cool to look back on in their entirety rather than piecemeal. So, here goes:

Dearest Cephandrius, I received your communication, of course. I noticed its arrival immediately, just as I noticed your many intrusions into my land. You think yourself so clever, but my eyes are not those of some petty noble, to be clouded by a false nose and some dirt on the cheeks. You mustn’t worry yourself about Rayse. It is a pity about Aona and Skai, but they were foolish—violating our pact from the very beginning. Your skills are admirable, but you are merely a man. You had your chance to be more, and refused it. No good can come of two Shards settling in one location. It was agreed that we would not interfere with one another, and it disappoints me that so few of the Shards have kept to this original agreement.

As for Uli Da, it was obvious from the outset that she was going to be a problem. Good riddance. Regardless, this is not your concern. You turned your back on divinity. If Rayse becomes an issue, he will be dealt with.

And so will you.

L: The part about Uli Da is from Dragonsteel, which has never been published. The Shard of Ambition was held by Uli Da until she was destroyed by Odium not long after the Shattering. Edgli (from Nalthis, who holds the Shard of Endowment) is the authoress. Of note here is the “don’t worry about Rayse” bit. Either Edgli is severely underestimating Rayse/Odium, or (my personal headcanon) he’s not the Big Bad and there’s something worse on the horizon.

Cephandrius, bearer of the First Gem,

You must know better than to approach us by relying upon presumption of past relationship. You have spoken to one who cannot respond. We, instead, will take your communication to us—though we know not how you located us upon this world. We are indeed intrigued, for we thought it well hidden. Insignificant among our many realms. As the waves of the sea must continue to surge, so must our will continue resolute. Alone. Did you expect anything else from us? We need not suffer the interference of another. Rayse is contained, and we care not for his prison. Indeed, we admire his initiative. Perhaps if you had approached the correct one of us with your plea, it would have found favorable audience. But we stand in the sea, pleased with our domains. Leave us alone. We also instruct that you should not return to Obrodai. We have claimed that world, and a new avatar of our being is beginning to manifest there. She is young yet, and—as a precaution—she has been instilled with an intense and overpowering dislike of you. This is all we will say at this time. If you wish more, seek these waters in person and overcome the tests we have created. Only in this will you earn our respect.

L: Bavadin/Autonomy (from White Sand) is the author of this one. As for Obrodai, all we know is that it’s a Shardworld. Brandon’s been very tight-lipped on this one. Interesting that Bavadin seems to be forming some sort of… team. They’re claiming to have “instilled” a dislike of Hoid in the new holder of the Shard, and I’m left wondering if that’s supernatural in nature (like some sort of geas) or if they’ve just told this kid a bunch of awful stories about him… As for the tests, I really hope that someday we see this. I envision a cool quest type of story with Hoid having to undergo Herculean tasks (or, knowing Hoid, cleverly circumnavigating them) in order to prove himself.

Friend,

Your letter is most intriguing, even revelatory. I would have thought, before attaining my current station, that a deity could not be surprised. Obviously, this is not true. I can be surprised. I can perhaps even be naive, I think. I am the least equipped, of all, to aid you in this endeavor. I am finding that the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult. I am also made uncertain by your subterfuge. Why have you not made yourself known to me before this? How is it you can hide? Who are you truly, and how do you know so much about Adonalsium? If you would speak to me further, I request open honesty. Return to my lands, approach my servants, and I will see what I can do for your quest.

L: This one’s from the scholar-formerly-known-as-Sazed (from the Mistborn series, in case you forgot)! It’s interesting to note that even though he holds two shards and hence is probably more powerful than most, those Shards are in direct conflict with one another and it appears to be taking most of his energy to keep them contained. Also, I find it adorable that Sazed is so flabbergasted by Hoid’s subterfuge. You’d think that after having worked with Kelsier, he’d be more accustomed to this…

A: The Part Three epigraphs are a sampling of recordings found in the basement of Urithiru, left by the Knights Radiant before they abandoned the apparently failing tower. We went over these in detail a while back; while they did answer some questions, they opened up many more. It seems clear that, well before the Recreance happened, the Sibling (well known to them all) was withdrawing or being pushed away; it seems… less clear, but indicated, that this is why the tower seemed to be powering down and leaving only the most basic functions in place. While we don’t know where they all went, it seems obvious that the majority of the Knights Radiant would continue the ongoing defense of humans against the Singers, who through the power of an Unmade were able to access the “forms of power.” Meanwhile, a plan was being developed to try to end (what we now call) the False Desolation; this is, presumably, what resulted in the “slaveform” parshmen—those who could not connect a spren to their gemheart and take on any of the forms, normal or Odium-related.

Major Themes

Part One

If there was one major theme to Part One, it was this: “Who are you?”

A: Dalinar is fighting with his past reputation and his present values. Among the Alethi he’s often viewed with worry or contempt, since he no longer lives up to their image of the Blackthorn. Among the other nations he’s viewed with deep mistrust, because they know their history and assume he’s still the Blackthorn who is just waiting for an opportunity to expand his territory. There are plenty of hints along the way that some people know things about his past that he’s not taking into account, and it leaves both Dalinar and the reader wondering… who was he? What did he do? His flashbacks, paralleling the slow return of his memories, just add layers of questions. Because of planet-wide mistrust of the Blackthorn, by the end of Part One only King Taravangian has assured him of support. Queen Fen of Thaylenah and Emperor Yanagawn of Azir have turned him down flat, while the triple monarchy of Iri accuse him of theft and “Tezim the Great” of Tukar demands that they surrender to him. The remaining lesser powers refuse to commit, and seem likely to follow the lead of Azir. This arc ends with learning that the Stormfather can bring other people into his visions, setting up a new method of persuasion to be used in Part Two.

Kaladin has questions of his own. He starts well, finding Hearthstone demolished but its people mostly safe, and discovers that he once again is an older brother. However… working beside his father, the recurring conflict between the soldier and the surgeon arises yet again, now further complicated by his Knight Radiant status. By the time he leaves, no one is quite sure what to make of him—including himself. Finding the parsh introduces a new set of questions, as he ends up teaching them “escaped-slave survival skills” and develops a deep sympathy for them. So… is he an escaped slave? Is he a surgeon who helps? Is he a soldier who will fight them? Is he a Windrunner who will fight them with even more deadly skills? In the end (of this section) he decides he’s a Windrunner, but focuses only on protecting who/what he can without hurting anyone else; he gets a few humans to (relative) safety before riding the storm back to Urithiru to report. This divided loyalty to different groups of people is not going away, however, and will come back around several times.

Then there’s Shallan, who specializes in being anyone but herself… She’s overwhelmed by her sudden importance as a Knight Radiant, unknowingly complicated by the (extremely disturbing) presence of the Unmade Re-Shephir. The conflict between her desire to hide and her sudden prominence, and the direct connection of her past trauma to her current abilities, leads her to some unhealthy attempts to cope. Under the pretense of Lightweaving practice, she begins turning her disguises into alternate personalities—which, as we know, is going to be painful for all of us later. By the end of Part One, she has firmly established the characters of Veil and Radiant as alternates to Shallan, and thinks of them as different people. They do have at least one benefit, though: Her disguise escapades lead to the realization that there’s a copycat killer in Urithiru, which she is eventually able to follow. With Adolin, Renarin, and most of Bridge Four, she confronts the Midnight Mother as a Knight Radiant, driving her away and freeing the tower from her distortions.

Others have struggles as well. Is Adolin an honorable Alethi or a murderer? (Or both?) Are Shallan’s team of deserters going to be soldiers, or squires, or traitors? Is Elhokar a king or a puppet? Can he make Dalinar be “highking” and have more freedom to be King of Alethkar? Is Jasnah dead or alive? Heh. Alive, obviously—she returns at the end of Chapter 32—but I had to ask, right?

The first set of Interludes introduces another big identity-issue character: Venli. She finds Eshonai’s body, and suddenly finds herself at odds with the spren who has been “helping” her all this time. She retrieves Eshonai’s Shardblade and Plate… and her spren. She works hard to maintain her defiance, but she’s already beginning to question the wisdom of her gods.

Part Two

LGBTQ inclusion—Drehy, Shallan (maybe), Jasnah (also maybe), Azir and their paperwork for social reassignment

L: I wanted to take a moment to appreciate this in particular. We’re starting to see more and more inclusion and diversity in all forms of media (books, TV, movies) but it’s still slow going. While Sanderson hasn’t featured an LGBTQ protagonist yet, this is still really nice to see. And, for the most part, he’s handling it well. Though it would be nice to have some WoB clarification on whether or not Jasnah is actually Ace, and he’s still being wishy-washy on Shallan’s bisexuality or lack thereof.

Bridge Four as “The Other/Outsider”

L: On a related note, let’s talk for a moment about how Sanderson is utilizing Bridge Four. Each member of the team starts out as an outsider in some way—a drug addict, a foreigner, a pacifist in a warrior culture, a gay man, a woman, a person who is disabled, or neurodivergent. But they find community and acceptance within the group, and while sometimes the members are clumsy about it or downright fail (their overtures towards Rlain for instance), they keep trying to better themselves and their reactions once they realize that they’ve failed. Kaladin is, of course, the leader and best example of this. He consistently tries to create a family and to protect said family, and when he messes up, he doesn’t get defensive. He simply adjusts his outlook and reactions and does his best to accept everyone as they are.

The Parshmen and the morality of war

L: This is the big one, and if I were to point out one specific theme as being integral to the book as a whole, I think this would be it. Who are the “bad guys?” In every war, someone believes that they’re right. They have iron-clad reasons for fighting the battles they do. The Singers are fighting because their land was taken from them and they were enslaved. The humans are fighting because they don’t have the same length of memory that the Singers do, and hence they view the land as their home. Atrocities have been committed by both sides, and when you stand far enough back, it becomes difficult to see which side is right and which is wrong. This is the issue that Kaladin is struggling with throughout this novel. Dalinar hasn’t been struggling as much, but I don’t expect that to last. The old Dalinar, the Blackthorn, wouldn’t have cared. He’d have killed anyone he was pointed at, with little to no reason. But present!Dalinar is a different story. After the truth of the Recreance is revealed, it will be interesting to see whether or not Dalinar’s views on the war he’s waging change.

Redemption and character growth—Bridge 4, Dalinar, Moash, Venli

L: Redemption is one of the main driving stories of humankind. We, as a people, tend to love these stories. We want to see someone change their ways and become a better person. We want to see them overcome trials and tribulations, face their demons both inside and out, and emerge triumphant. It’s the basis of almost every story that’s ever been told. So the fact that we’re looking for redemption arcs within this narrative isn’t surprising. We could find them in any number of places—Kaladin and Shallan overcoming the trials of their pasts and their own minds, Szeth and Dalinar overcoming the guilt of their own past actions, Bridge Four overcoming their various problems to come together as a family. But of course, the one huge one that has become a dividing issue amongst the fans is Moash. We’ve even seen it within this very reread, with Aubree staunchly defending him while Alice and I stand on the side of #noredemption. But Aubree is completely right about one thing—Moash is the hero of his own story. Much as noted in the previous theme of war, he believes, fully and completely, that his actions are justified. Does he deserve redemption? Can he redeem himself after the actions he’s taken? Time will tell.

Part Three

An unwinnable fight, and following orders blindly vs questioning them/their ethics, necessary casualties

L: We’ve done a lot of talking about both over the course of the reread, so I don’t think it needs to be addressed more here. We could probably just sum it all up as “the horrors of war” and note that it’s a major theme that gets brought up time and again, and probably will continue to be a major theme moving onward.

Who am I, again?

A: I find it a little odd, in retrospect, that by the end of Part Three, Shallan is (however reluctantly) on the road to recombining her selves, while Kaladin is finally facing how much he’s fractured. Shallan has been forced, vehemently against her will, to face the fact that her multiple identities aren’t really what she pretended they were; in particular, Veil knows only what Shallan knows, no matter how different she makes their personalities and motivations. With Wit’s help, she’s beginning to see that she doesn’t have to be someone else in order to function, and to succeed. Kaladin, meanwhile, is having an existential crisis—not between the soldier and the surgeon, which is an old and comfortable dilemma for him, but between his sympathy for different groups of friends. He’s the center of the Venn diagram of Bridge Four, the Wall Guard, and the Hearthstone-area escaped parshmen, and when all three collide in the middle of a battle, he falls apart.

Interestingly enough, Dalinar is falling apart at the same time as Kaladin. He’s considered himself to be reasonably honorable; sure, he was a nasty piece of work when he was younger, but that’s what it took to reforge Alethkar as a kingdom, right? It was all in service to Gavilar’s goal of unification, and in later years he’s worked hard to follow the Codes and be worthy of Gavilar’s ideals. Now, just as he’s taken the next step beyond Gavilar and become a Bondsmith, his memories return… and it turns out that he really was a horrible, horrible person. In his willing submission to the Thrill, he not only killed thousands of innocent people, but he also—however unintentionally—killed his wife. Unintentional, but still his fault, in that he dismissed her concerns and her presence, failed to consider what she might do, and broke the rule that says you don’t kill people flying a flag of parley.

Unanswered Questions & Theories

L: So, we have a lot of these. If you happen to find a WoB that answers one that we may have missed, OR if you ask at a signing/AMA session and get an answer, report back here and I’ll update the article with the answer and who found it! Just make sure that it’s a clear, definitive answer and not speculation.

Part One

• Evi: How did Evi end up with the Shardplate? What’s the backstory to that, or will we ever know? The Iriali clearly still hold it against her, and against Dalinar by extension. Also, what ever happened to Toh, besides going to live in Herdaz?

• Heralds: Who were the Heralds before the Oathpact? What happened between the humans and the native Singers when the humans arrived on Roshar? How did the conflict really develop? And what in the stormy wastelands is that crazy windbag Ishar doing?

• Hearthstone: What’s happening in Hearthstone now? Have the Fused driven the parsh to take over the entire countryside? How is baby Oroden?

• Kaladin: What was that thing he did with the windspren? Will he be able to do it again? Will it relate to the formation of his Shardplate, if he ever manages to speak his fourth Ideal?

• Shallan: Is it possible for her to create alternate personas for disguise in healthy way, or will that always be a bad thing? Is she ever going to be mentally stable?

• Re-Shephir: Where did she go? When and where will she crop up again, and will she be stronger or weaker when she does?

Part Two

• Lift: What are her “extra” powers anyway? How can she insert herself into Dalinar’s visions? See into the Cognitive Realm? See the following quotes: “That child is tainted by the Nightwatcher.” “Technically, so am I.” This is different. This is unnatural. She goes too far.” She also manages to HIDE HERSELF from Odium himself in one of the visions! What is going on with this child, and how long are we going to have to wait to find out an answer? (We do know that she will be one of the POV characters for the back five set of novels.)

• Did the Heralds retain some sort of similar physical form in their rebirths? Did they look the same each time, or different? We theorize that maybe they “became how they thought they should look,” much as how Kaladin views himself is directly reflective of his appearance (ie, his slave brands). This would be consistent with the appearance of Cognitive Shadows in Warbreaker, too.

• Humans hearing the Rhythms—is this only when they have parsh blood in their heritage, or is it because they have been here so long that they’re starting to evolve? Or both, and those with parsh blood are getting there faster?

• Are we to assume that the Bondsmiths of old were more powerful (because they had a living Shard to draw power from)? Or is Dalinar going to be more powerful because the splintered remnants of Honor are now directly tied to the Stormfather instead of being separated? Alice’s guess is that the Stormfather is now more powerful, as he holds more of Honor’s essence than he did when Tanavast was alive.

• What lies in Jasnah’s past: “Something stirred deep within her. Glimmers of memory from a dark room, screaming her voice ragged. A childhood illness nobody else seemed to remember, for all it had done to her.”

• Shardplate. In Dalinar’s vision in Chapter 34, one of the Radiants notes that if someone is having trouble with their plate, they should “Talk to Harkaylain then, or to your spren.” So, we get the spren part, but who’s this other person? Were there armor-smiths of some sort, or is he the head of the Order? And speaking of Shardplate, is the Shardplate people are using in the “present day” the same sets as were abandoned in the Recreance? If so, why doesn’t it disappear/reappear like the Shardblades do? We are about 95% certain that the Plate for Knights Radiant was “made” of non-sapient spren forming together. Are those spren still “alive” in present-day Plate?

• What exactly needs to happen for proto-Knights Radiant to be considered? Is there a similar thing to “snapping” on Scadrial, where the Radiant needs to undergo some sort of traumatic event first?

• Squires: Do some stay squires forever, or do they all have the potential to eventually become Radiants of their own?

• What are non-sapient spren “made” of, really? “I’ve always wondered,” Dalinar said. “Are they made of fire themselves? And what of gloryspren? Made of glory? What is glory? Could gloryspren appear around someone who is delusional, or perhaps very drunk—who only thinks they’ve accomplished something great, while everyone else is standing around mocking them?”

• (Interludes) Aimia. What the heck is going on there, anyway? What’s with the storms there that “seek out and destroy approaching ships”?

• (Interludes) What’s with the second sun in Shadesmar?

• (Interludes) I’m not convinced that there are actually more than nine Fused, as we surmised in the Venli Interlude. We see them in very small groups; it’s possible that maybe there are only nine being reborn and that they are trying to mimic the Heralds, in a way.

Part Three

• What exactly is the deal with Malata? Is she going to emulate the Skybreakers and serve Odium, despite her bond to a spren of Honor & Cultivation?

• Are Drehy and Skar really still squires? At this point, they seem to be, but by the end of the book I have to wonder. Will we find out in the next book that one or both of them bonded spren in the days after they escaped Kholinar?

• Do all Unmade have an “area effect” that gives the surroundings a weird look? Nergaoul has that red mist, Re-Shephir distorted the tower (at least to some eyes), Ashertmarn (and/or Sja-anat, and/or Yelig-Nar) create a darkness/wrongness around Kholinar and especially the palace. Something to watch for, I guess.

• Why does Shallan’s Surgebinding take so much less Stormlight than Kaladin’s?

• Does Sja-anat’s effect on the spren affect anything else? Does it harm the spren? Does it affect the meaning of the spren? E.g. is pain any different when it brings corrupted vs. uncorrupted spren?

• If Shallan uses her Lightweaving to mimic a real, living person, is there any sort of supernatural connection between them that gives her a better understanding of their personality? Or is it entirely based on her perceptions?

• How many Breaths does Hoid hold as of his appearance in Oathbringer?

• Pattern notes that Wit feels more like “one of us” than a human. Is this because he spends so much time in the Cognitive Realm, or is it because he deals with Invested Items so much?

• Do Shallan’s illusions, even when attached to a gemstone, have any sort of proximity limitations? Will they disappear if they get far enough away from Shallan?

• Did Syl notice something strange about Azure when she first saw her, causing her to gasp?

• What protections did Urithiru have in place against the Unmade, and what caused them to fail?

• Is Nergaoul (the Unmade that grants The Thrill) feeding Dalinar Voidlight or Stormlight to help give him more energy?

• Why does Sja-Anat specifically seek out Children of Honor and Cultivation?

• Are Pattern’s vibrations that are counteracting the Unmade’s influence supernatural (ie does something about their bond protect her), or is it just giving Shallan something else to concentrate on?

• Do Knights Radiant require a “breaking” incident similar to that of “Snapping” on Scadrial?

• Is there any way to keep the souls of the Singers from getting reincarnated?

• What’s up with Azure’s sword? Where did she get it, and what exactly does it do? (Relevant quote: “Remarkably, his eyes didn’t burn, though his skin did go a strange ashen grey as he died.”)

• Is this time dilation happening in Alethkar something that happens around all Unmade, or just one specific one? If the latter, which one?

• How many Perfect Gems are there, anyway? And why were the Elsecallers the ones to be the keepers of them, when it appears as if Bondsmiths are required in some way to trap Unmade within them?

• Were the Unmade created by Odium specifically to counteract Shardblades? And how were they UNmade‽

• Who is Sja-Anat’s son, and why does she seem to think that Shallan should know him? (Of special note here is the artwork from the Mythica, in which it says “her twisted creations are her beloved children.” This would fit with the fan theory that Glys is the child she speaks of.)

• Do Voidspren correlate to specific emotions/ideas the way regular spren do?

• Can spren really be killed entirely, as Kaladin does to the one that was torturing little Gavinor? Or do they just disincorporate back to Shadesmar (or somewhere else)?

• Are humans starting to be able to hear the Rosharan rhythms? If so, is this some sort of supernatural occurrence, or simple evolution? (It’s worth noting that music in general seems to be very important to the world. The Alethi language looks like waveforms, and rhythm/meter is deemed important to certain written forms of communication, such as Jasnah’s essay to the Azish.)

• What’s so significant about Feverstone Keep, and why does it keep coming up‽

• Is Sja-Anat really betraying Odium’s side, or is it a ruse? If she is, why and how?

Overall

• The Sibling. What is/was it? Did it have a Bondsmith? How was it connected to Urithiru? Is it still alive somewhere, and if so, where? The gemstone records indicate that Their departure was not by choice.

Interesting Tidbits

Part One

• The Stormfather has started to become a source of information about the Heralds, and the Knights Radiant of long ago, but he’s obviously still hiding things. We can hope for more!

• Shallan seems to be able to interpret the strata of Urithiru in a way others cannot. All we have are theories as to why, since we don’t yet know how Urithiru was made or how it’s supposed to function.

Part Two

• We theorize that there are different orders of Fused, similar to the orders of Knight Radiant. It is confirmed that the marbling of the skin carries over on the Fused reincarnations, though their features do not.

• Drehy inherently understanding the exact amount of the lashings he uses. I’m not sure how important this might wind up being, but it’s definitely interesting…

• Regarding Ivory: “He could change his size at will, but not his shape, except when fully in this realm, manifesting as a Shardblade.” So this means that whenever the sapient spren are appearing on this side, they’re not All The Way Here. Interesting tidbit.

• (Interludes) Apparently the Soulcasters originated in Akinah (where the Aimians are from).

Part Three

• Tezim (aka Ishar), one of the Heralds, is currently serving as a king of Tukar and waging war with Emul.

• This is worth re-quoting: “Yours [Dalinar] is the power Ishar once held. Before he was Herald of Luck, they called him Binder of Gods. He was the founder of the Oathpact. No Radiant is capable of more than you. Yours is the power of Connection, of joining men and worlds, minds and souls. Your Surges are the greatest of all, though they will be impotent if you seek to wield them for mere battle.”

Unresolved Mysteries

These things are still questions, but we won’t be addressing them until the end-of-book recap:

• Renarin and Glys—though I will point out this little tidbit just so we remember it for the future: “What of the Truthwatchers? Jasnah wrote. Oh! I found a reference to those, Jochi wrote. The spren reportedly looked like light on a surface after it reflects through something crystalline.

• Social hierarchy of spren

• How did the Heralds originally get their powers?

• The Truth of the Recreance

This set of interludes coming up is pretty short – the second and third ones are only a few pages. So let’s say that we’ll do Envoy, Mem, and True Labor Begins.

Alice is momentarily not on the road, but that’s sure to change soon.

Lyndsey had a cosplay photoshoot this past weekend at an ice rink, and is so so so excited to see how the final photos come out (in four to six weeks). If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

The next book in Brandon Sanderson’s bestselling Stormlight Archive fantasy series is hugely anticipated, and at San Diego Comic Con 2019 we finally got our first look at the fourth volume, courtesy of a surprise video pop-in from the author!

Sanderson stopped by with a special update on the fourth Stormlight Archive book, and even read an excerpt from the work in progress!

The excerpt concerns Venli, sister of Eshonai. Watch:

Please note that this is an initial draft of the book, and that much may change between now and the book’s release!

Well, now that we’re done recapping Parts 1-3, we’re excited to dive back into the story proper! This week we’ll be covering the first three interlude chapters of this section. We’ll spend most of our time with Venli, with a brief stop to see how laundry is best done. Thrilling, I know. It’s worthwhile to note that, though we’re all super excited about the reading Sanderson did at SDCC, we will not be discussing it or any aspects of it here in the reread (and we ask that you don’t in the comments, either). Many readers enjoy going into the next book of the series entirely blind, and we wouldn’t want to spoil anything for them. So please be considerate and keep your comments about unreleased material to the Tor postings specifically regarding them!

Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. If you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread we also mention some things from Aether of Night in the Cosmere Connections section, but since we can’t remember much, we didn’t discuss it much. Still, if you haven’t read it, you may wish to give that section a pass.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Venli and Mem
WHERE: A small town outside Kholinar, Vedenar, Kholinar
WHEN: While Venli’s sections happen chronologically (the day after the fall of Kholinar, 1174.2.3.4), Mem’s chapter actually happens much earlier, at 1174.1.7.5—a few days after Ishnah starts training Gaz and Shallan’s other squires as spies.

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Titles  

Envoy

L: Venli is engaging in her duties as an envoy primarily in this chapter, hence… the title.

Mem

L: As with most minor character interludes, the chapter title here is simply the character’s name. However, it’s fun to note that this is a tuckerization of one of Sanderson’s employees and friends—her official title is “Minion of All Things Spectacular!” She does most of the customer service email and trains the other minions. She enjoys throwing henchmen into the on-site volcano when things aren’t done right. She runs the booths at conventions and can always be found helping at local events. She is known for her blue hair and witty comments. She has worked for Dragonsteel for almost six years. She was the first minion hired and loves her job! (So far as I know, though, she isn’t super hung up on laundry.)

True Labor Begins

“Child, you haven’t even begun. Those little villages were practice. Today, your true labor begins.”

Heralds

Interlude 7

Vedeledev (Vedel), Loving/ Healing. Edgedancers. Role: Healer

Kalak, aka Kelek. Resolute/Builder. Willshapers. Role: Maker

A: I’m having a hard time figuring out why Vedel is here; the best I can guess is that she represents the healing of the former parshmen to become Singers. Kalak, on the other hand, is most likely a hint at the nature of the little spren who secretly travels with Venli.

Interlude 8

Chach, aka Chanarach (Chana). Brave/Obedient. Dustbringers. Role: Guard

Shalash (Ash), Creative/Honest. Herald of Beauty. Lightweavers.Role: Artist.

L: It’s pretty obvious why Ash is here, as she’s actually physically here in this chapter, destroying more likenesses of herself. As for Chach… I’d venture a guess that it’s because Mem seems to pretty obedient.

A: You could stretch it to say that Mem also guards Mraize’s image, the way she cares so thoroughly for his clothing. On the other hand, it’s been speculated that Ash will become a Dustbringer herself, so… maybe it’s another hint!

Buy it Now

Interlude 9

Jezrien, Herald of Kings. Windrunners. Protecting/Leading. Role: King.

L: This chapter is so short that I don’t really know what we’re to make of Jezrien being the main Herald. Maybe because the Singers are going to have to begin the task of leading all of these people, both listener/singer and Alethi, within the walls?

A: Honestly, my best guess is the Windrunning, with the Fused flying their pet Regal to Kholinar. It could also be a reminder of the fact that Jezrien lives in Kholinar, and they’re liable to run up against him soon.

Icon

The Singer always (so far) indicates Venli’s POV, so that is the obvious signature for Interludes 7 and 9.

The Double Eye of the Almighty is the generic Interlude icon, and is used everywhere that something more significant is not needed.

Stories & Songs

Time to add to our running tally of Listener Rhythms—Curiosity, Awe, Peace, Pleading, Skepticism, Appreciation, Anxiety, Consolation, Praise, Reprimand, Mourning, Lost, Longing.

ADDED: Excitement, Amusement, Irritation, Resolve

For the Voidbringers, we’ve got: Rhythm of the Terrors, Craving, Command, Fury, Satisfaction, Derision, Spite, Abashment, Destruction, Agony

ADDED: Conceit, Ridicule, Subservience

At least her new form—envoyform—was tall, the tallest she’d ever worn. It was a form of power, and brought strange abilities, primarily the ability to speak and understand all languages.

L: Well, that’s handy. Especially if you’re acting as an envoy!

A: It seems to share a Surge with Bondsmiths, using Adhesion on a Cognitive (or is it Spiritual?) level to form Connection and speak other languages. (I find it interesting to see the overlap between the Fused/Regal powers and those of the Knights Radiant, like the Windrunning effect of some Fused, which we’ve been seeing since the end of Part One, or this Connection.)

AP: It’s also interesting to note that this form is very tall, which would also be useful for an envoy. Much easier to persuade a crowd when they can see you!

The people gathered around the wagon bore thick lines of marbling—of red and either black and white. Venli’s own white and red was far more delicate, with intricate swirls.

L: I always like seeing the differences in the marbling of the skin of the parsh/Singers!

AP: I agree! I keep trying to find significance to particular patterns and color combos, but I don’t have anything yet. It is interesting that it seems that Venli’s own pattern may have shifted with this form, becoming more delicate and intricate. This surprises me because I had thought of the patterns as a “fingerprint” that was unique to each singer and allowed for recognition when switching among forms. How much of a change is this from her prior marbling?

The listeners were to be the foundation myth of his growing empire: the last of the old generation, who had fought bravely against the Alethi, then sacrificed themselves to free their enslaved brothers and sisters.

L: It’s a very compelling and heroic tale, for sure.

A: Interesting that Venli acknowledges (if only to herself) that it’s mostly a lie. Or, “it’s the version Odium instructed her to tell”—which amounts to the same thing.

AP: PR specialists would call that “spin”. ;)

Hauntingly, the narrative said that Venli’s people were now extinct, save herself.

L: Truth, or just another of Odium’s lies?

A: Hmmm. As I recall, we don’t actually know what happened to the remainder of Venli’s stormforms—how many actually survived Narak, and how many still survive. We know some were taken over by Fused… but we only know of eight. The other thing we don’t know, and I hope we learn in the next book, is what happened to Thude, Venli’s mother, and the rest of the Listeners who refused stormform. I really want them to have survived…

AP: Unknown! This may be what Venli actually believes, but we have no evidence one way or the other.

We had named ourselves listeners because of the songs we heard. These are your heritage, but you are not to merely listen, but sing.

L: And so a new “nation” is named.

A: Interestingly enough, Venli refers to “the songs we heard”—but those songs were also what she now contemptuously refers to as the old, inferior rhythms, and in her Interludes so far, she’s had trouble even remembering the old rhythms. That begins to change in this chapter, I think.

AP: I wonder what effect it will have to have groups attuned to two separate varieties of rhythms? I expect this to have ramifications down the road.

She’d learned there were three levels in the hierarchy of Odium’s people. There were these common singers, who wore the ordinary forms Venli’s people had used. Then there were those called Regals, like herself, who were distinguished by forms of power—created by bonding one of several varieties of Voidspren. At the top were the Fused—thought she had trouble placing spren like Ulim and the others. They obviously outranked the common singers, but what of the Regals?

L: This is particularly interesting to note considering Sanderson’s latest reading at San Diego Comic Con, but we won’t be discussing that in depth here in case you want to avoid spoilers.

Her people had spent generations struggling to discover new forms, and here these people were given a dozen different options? How could they value that gift without knowing the struggle?

L: This is a pretty poignant question, and one that’s been asked by older generations throughout time. How can we truly appreciate smartphones for instance, without knowing the struggle of early computers? (To put a more geeky slant on it, these kids these days with their Overwatch and Minecraft don’t know how good they have it! They never had to play Atari!)

A: I think it goes a lot deeper than smartphones and computers, though. We saw only a little of their struggle in Words of Radiance, where everyone was taking their turn trying to make some sort of art in the hope of attracting creationspren. Eshonai told us they had spent many, many years in dullform, avoiding any forms that might get the attention of the Unmade. It’s better than slaveform, but not by a lot. There were no brilliant scientists or philosophers or anything else; they barely had enough mental capacity to do more than survive on their own.

After many years—we don’t know how many—they finally regained mateform and workform, and then, through more generations of searching, they added nimbleform and eventually warform. Each new spren they were able to attract was a result of hundreds of people trying to attract the right kind of spren to form a new bond. No wonder she’s frustrated—her people tried for hundreds of years to find these spren, and now they’re plentiful and easy for the singers to attract and bond.

Perhaps she should be happy for them, but that kind of selflessness is not (yet) part of Venli’s personality.

AP: It also highlights the difference between Eshonai and Venli. The former was dedicated to finding new forms to help her people, and would have been happy for them to see those efforts succeed. The latter is thinking of herself and what benefit she personally gains from these forms. Venli resents others receiving a benefit they didn’t “earn”.

Diagrams & Dastardly Designs

Two of them stood in a doorway Mem passed, a man and woman speaking quietly. Both wore swords, and though they didn’t interrupt their conversation as the washerwomen passed, they watched.

L: Really curious about these two. Are they people we know already? Worldhoppers? Who knows?!

A: Gah. We have no way of knowing—which drives me nuts! We just don’t know very many of the Ghostbloods, and there’s no description of these two. I guess that means they don’t matter much except to let us know that there are a number of them here.

“Finally! The masterpiece of the Oilsworn was all it took, was it? Excellent!” Mraize stuffed out the confused guards, then pulled the door shut. He didn’t even seem to notice Mem.

“Ancient One, would you care for something to drink?”

…

“I know where Talenelat is,” Mraize said.

Pom froze.

“Yes… let’s have that drink, shall we?” Mraize asked. “My babsk has been eager to speak with you.”

L: So many questions here, but I’ll start with… who the heck is Mraize’s babsk? (Which, reminder, is a word similar to “teacher.”)

A: Back in Words of Radiance Iyatil claims that Mraize is her student, and I don’t know anything to contradict that. For the time being, at least, I think we can accept that she is the aforementioned babsk, though I don’t know why she might be so eager to talk to Ash.

L: As a reminder… Do we know where Talenelat is, at this moment? Last we saw of him he’d vanished from Dalinar’s care, right?

A: That’s correct. At the end of Words of Radiance, we saw Amaram hustling Taln into a coach, after smuggling him out of the monastery in Dalinar’s warcamp through a Shardblade-cut hole in the back wall. It also appeared that the Ghostbloods weren’t best pleased, since Iyatil was busy shooting darts at Amaram… though that might just be personal, and not related to Taln.

L: And who could blame her, really.

A: Exactly my thought.

L: So, now we’re left with the question of how the Ghostbloods figured out where Taln was, since they and Amaram (who, reminder, is affiliated with the Sons of Honor) certainly aren’t on the best of terms. I suspect this is a mystery that will either be answered at a later date or not at all.

A: A little research tells me that when Ash finds Taln (much later in the book), he’s in the camp used by Amaram’s army while they were helping to rebuild Thaylen City.

L: Right, but my question was how the Ghostbloods found out where Amaram was keeping him, savvy? I suspect it’s just your plain standard espionage.

A: Well, since Iyatil saw Amaram absconding with Taln, the first place to look would always be “wherever Amaram is,” I’d guess.

L: Which really makes Amaram even more stupid, doesn’t it? Ugh. I despise him. Though in this case I guess I’d rather that Mraize have poor Taln than Amaram…

A: As much as I don’t trust Mraize, he seems to be marginally better stuff than Amaram, anyway! In Part One, Mraize was working “for” Ialai as a guard, trying to figure out what Sadeas was up to. He might even have seen Taln in Urithiru. That’s a bizarre thought.

L: So what, exactly, are the Ghostbloods up to here? Their primary objective is hunting information on the Desolations, right? Well… now they’ve got Ash, one of the Heralds, who presumably has more information about the Desolations than anyone other than another Herald. Why bother siccing her on Taln? Why not question her on everything they need to know? They must have another motive.

A: I am so baffled by the Ghostbloods sometimes. I don’t know what they’re up to, but it seems to involve the Heralds. Ash, while certainly a nutcase, seems to be slightly more sane—or at least coherent—than either Taln or Jezrien. Nale is coherent, though his moral compass seems to have gone ‘round the twist, and Ishar is having delusions of godhood. Whatever the Ghostbloods are up to, it seems that maybe the ability to communicate with Taln is a big part of their need, so Ash might be their best means to that end. Are they trying to reestablish the Oathpact? Or trying to figure out how it relates to whatever is keeping Odium contained? Here’s an alternate scary thought: What if the Ghostbloods are all about trying to free Odium, and they’re going about it by methodically trying to determine how he’s bound so they can undo it?

Flora & Fauna

“How can they bond spren, Ancient One?” she asked to Subservience. “Humans don’t… you know…”

“So timid,” he said to Ridicule. “Why is mentioning gemhearts so difficult?”

“They are sacred and personal.” Listener gemhearts were not gaudy or ostentatious, like those of greatshells. Clouded white, almost the color of bone, they were beautiful, intimate things.

L: This is really cool. I wonder if greatshells could bond spren as well?

A: My assumption is that they do, but it doesn’t have quite the same effect since they aren’t sapient. (Or… are they?) Sanderson has said that the enormous creatures can only exist because of a symbiosis with spren, which sounds a lot like a bond IMO!

Places & Peoples

Whenever she encountered things like this, she had to remind herself forcefully that the Alethi being technologically superior did not make them culturally superior.

L: Very true. Though I wonder what, in Venli’s mind, constitutes cultural superiority? Art? Tradition? Ethics?

A: I’m betting she doesn’t have a definition—she just doesn’t want to think of herself as inferior! I’m reasonably sure that the ancient Singers had a vibrant culture that may well have been superior to the human culture in some ways, no matter how you define cultural superiority. At the moment, however, they have virtually no culture at all; they’re rebuilding it from the ground up. But to contradict myself a little, she does think that the creation of beautiful art is worth a lot.

AP: It’s a squishy area to declare one culture superior to another. Different cultures have different core values, and while those can come into conflict, it doesn’t always mean one is better or worse than the other. Obviously sometimes they are, like when one suggests “exterminate all humans.” But values like work/leisure balance are morally neutral. What she is facing here is the effective extinction of the listener culture. As the only remaining listener (that she knows of), it’s up to her to attempt to pass on the culture. Which she does slightly later when instructing the Alethi listener, who has completely adopted the human Alethi culture, down to the impractical dress!

Could they really exterminate the people who had created such beautiful and delicate swirls in the glass?

A: The Fused just told her that their people will never be safe on Roshar so long as humans exist, and therefore the humans must all be destroyed. While she has no way of knowing what creativity her own people may eventually be capable of—or were, in the past—something in her recognizes beauty, and instinctively respects the person and the culture capable of creating it.

But did they know how to relax the fibers of a stubborn seasilk dress by returning it to a warm brine, then restore its natural softness by rinsing it and brushing with the grain?

A: This is a fun little world-building interjection. I can’t help wondering what seasilk is made from, and I love the idea that returning it to salt water is part of caring for the fabric.

AP: Some sort of fibrous sea plant, I would assume. Makes me want to figure out what a real world equivalent could be!

Stone buildings and reinforced towers. Marvels and wonders. … Now, smoke rose in patches throughout the city, and many of the guard towers had been shattered. The city gates lay broken. Kholinar, it seemed, had been conquered.

A: Because we needed the reminder…

Weighty Words

“It… shocked us when it first happened,” Rine eventually said. “Humans don’t have gemhearts. How could they bond spren? It was unnatural. Yet somehow, their bond was more powerful than ours.”

L: My crackpot theory is that this has to do with the friendships/partnerships the humans are making with their spren. While the Singers are trapping them and using their powers, the humans are forming more of an equal partnership. It makes sense that the spren would be giving them more power if they’re not fighting against being constrained. However… like I said, crackpot theory. Ulim doesn’t seem too upset about his kind being trapped in gemhearts, so I might be way off.

A: As I understand it—and I may well be wrong—the spren aren’t trapped in gemhearts in quite the same way as they’re trapped in fabrials, but in both cases they are mostly the lesser spren and don’t seem to care. I think that’s for the common Singers, though; when you get to the Regals, the spren might be a higher level. At least, they can grant Surges, so that seems to be different from the “ordinary” spren.

I can see two differences between the Regal bond and the Knight Radiant bond, at this point. One is the sapience of the spren itself: We know the spren “families” that form the Knight Radiant orders are independent beings, at least in the Cognitive Realm, and as far as we know, they are the only truly sapient spren. If that’s the case, the Regals may be bonding lesser spren which give them the ability to control Surges like Gravitation or Connection, though perhaps only one Surge at a time. The other difference, which I can’t help thinking must be significant, is the difference between a gemheart bond and a soul bond. The gemheart is a natural part of the Singer’s body, and the bond may be mostly physical. For a Radiant, the soul itself must be open to a bond, and I think that kind of bond must be stronger and more pervasive of one’s entire being.

Well, I may be completely wrong on this, but I sure hope we learn more! With the next book’s focus on Eshonai and Venli, there’s a good chance.

Cosmere Connections

“Is that my Azish cavalrylord’s suit?”

“Um… yes…”

“You got the aether out of it?”

L: Oooooh interesting! What’s he been up to where he’d come in contact with aether? All I really know about it is from the title of Aether of Night, one of Sanderson’s early (unreleased) books.

A: And all I can remember is that I had trouble wrapping my head around exactly what an aether was. Guess it’s time to go back and read that again, even if it’s not canon!

AP: Thanks for the reminder! I was at a total loss about the reference.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

The little spren rose from where it had been hiding among the light. It looked like a comet when it moved, though sitting still—as it did now—it only glowed like a spark.
It pulsed, sending off a ring of light that dissipated like glowing smoke.

L: Timbre is really adorable. I can’t wait to see what kind of personality it winds up having.

A: She’s certainly a curious one, and also very stubborn. I think I like her.

“Are you one of them?” she asked softly. “The spren that move in the sky some nights?”

A: We have fairly solid hints that Timbre is one of the Reacher spren, the ones who form Willshaper bonds. Now I wonder… are their “cousin” spren the starspren we’ve seen mentioned here and there? I think that would be awesome.

The spren peeked out, then pulsed in a quick blinking succession.

That’s Curiosity, she thought, recognizing the rhythm.

L: I wonder if Timbre only knows the rhythms because it’s spent so much time around Eshonai and Venli, or if it’s something that all the spren intrinsically know/understand.

A: I’m going with the latter. I think that the spren which belong to Roshar inherently know the rhythms of the world.

AP: I agree, I think they understand the rhythms. It makes me wonder about communication though. Is this unique to Reacher spren? Do Syl and Pattern speak Alethi because their bonded humans do? Is Timbre pulsing to the rhythms instead because Venli is a singer?

She hummed it to herself, then hesitated. Curiosity was an old rhythm. Like … Amusement, which she’d attuned moments ago. She could hear the normal rhythms again.

She looked at the little spren. “Is this your doing?” she demanded to Irritation.It shrank, but pulsed to Resolve.

A: I find this absolutely fascinating. This little spren seems determined to help Venli reconnect with the “normal rhythms”—which is an interesting contrast to the way Venli had just earlier referred to those same rhythms as old and inferior. Somehow, the spren is able to affect Venli in spite of herself, reconnecting her to her home world and overriding (some of) Odium’s influence. The stubborn resolution of this one little spren seems poised to have an enormous effect on the upcoming conflict.

Quality Quotations

• The end of the world could come, but that would only mean more bloodstains to wash.

The next interlude (Sheler) is quite short, so we’ll be tackling it and Venli’s third one (Her Reward) together next week. As always, join us in the comments below for more discussion and theory-crafting!

Alice is currently hanging out in Montana, again. Family time is good time.

Lyndsey is back on FFXIV after a three year hiatus, on the Famfrit server. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Aubree is trying not to over analyze soap and dye combinations to make real world analogs…but the slugs could totally be related to murex purple…

Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread! This week we’ll be hunting rats on the Herdazian border, then storming around the edges of Kholinar, as we cover the last two interludes in the third section before diving back into the main story next week.

Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. If you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Sheler; Venli
WHERE: Herdazian border; near Kholinar
WHEN: 1174.2.2.5 (same day as Chapter 74, when Shallan was invited to the Revel); 1174.2.6.5

Sheler, a commander formerly in Amaram’s army, is captured by a force of Herdazians and given a choice of how he should die.

Venli has arrived outside of Kholinar, but isn’t allowed in. She’s kept outside, giving her “sermons” to dozens of groups of singers a day. She spends some time chatting with Timbre before Odium arrives with the Everstorm to tell her that she’s not doing a good enough job.

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Titles

Sheler

AA: Sheler, a (former?) commander in the Sadeas princedom army, is the POV character.

Her Reward

Venli had schemed to return their gods.

This was her reward.

AA: Turns out to not be quite what she’d hoped…

Heralds

Interlude 10

Nalan (Judge, Skybreakers, Just/Confident) and Talenel (Soldier, Stonewards, Dependable/Resourceful)

AA: This doesn’t seem too challenging: You have military justice (if of a somewhat rough-and-ready form) being served on a real scum of a military commander. I hesitate to dignify Sheler with the title of “soldier,” although the Herdazian general and all his men certainly qualify. Sheler is a heel.

AP: I think the Herdazian general shows particular resourcefulness here!

AA: He does. For a guy with a very small role, I really like him!

Interlude 11

Kalak (Maker, Willshapers, Resolute/Builder)

AA: AAAAAAHHHHHH!!! It just registered… Timbre pulses to Resolve a lot. Does this sound like the divine attributes of anyone? Oh, I’m slow some days. But I’m glad to have finally made that connection. If we needed more hints that Timbre is a Willshaper-spren, this is another!

L: Good call!

Icons

Interlude 10

Double Eye of the Almighty, which is the general icon for Interludes

Interlude 11

The Singer represents Venli’s novella Interludes

Miscellaneous Musings

AA: Let me just say up front that no, Evi’s brother Toh does not make an appearance in this Interlude, despite having taken up residence on the coast of Herdaz. I don’t recall where, but I recently saw someone insisting that he was… the Herdazian general, I think? So I thought I’d address the possibility. He can’t be the Herdazian, because “dark brown skin the color of weathered stone” and “ridiculous little man” don’t exactly match “the tall, blond-haired Westerner.” As for Sheler, he’s Alethi if he’s “cousin to the highlord himself!” (Amaram, I guess?) Also, just in case you missed it, Sheler was the commander of the company which had the squad made of messenger boys—the commander who gave Varth three untrained boys, including Tien, as “soldiers.” Since they were really not useful in fighting, Varth used them as a distraction for the opposing soldiers while his own experienced men regrouped.

AP: Given Toh and Evi’s attitudes toward violence, I wouldn’t expect him to be hanging around with the soldiers anyway. And yes, it seems to be Amaram‘s cousin. Though, do we actually know how many highlords there are per Princedom?

AA: No, we don’t. Probably several, at minimum. I assumed Amaram because he served under Amaram in the much-earlier fighting during Kaladin’s flashbacks.

Stories & Songs

Time to add to our running tally of Listener Rhythms—Curiosity, Awe, Peace, Pleading, Skepticism, Appreciation, Anxiety, Consolation, Praise, Reprimand, Mourning, Lost, Longing, Excitement, Amusement, Irritation, Resolve

ADDED: Annoyance, Remembrance

For the Voidbringers, we’ve got: Rhythm of the Terrors, Craving, Command, Fury, Satisfaction, Derision, Spite, Abashment, Destruction, Agony, Conceit, Ridicule, Subservience

“I’m the wrong one,” Venli said to Annoyance.

L: I find it reeeeaaaally interesting how she unconsciously reverts back to the old Rhythms when she’s talking to Timbre.

AA: There are so many places where you can see Timbre’s influence on her, especially in this chapter. It makes me wonder whether the sapient spren were already around before the conflict began; they seem to resonate so well.

AP: I think that is an early hint that there was a process for the natives of Roshar to bond spren prior to the humans (and Odium) arriving. The one in her gemheart (not exactly a Voidspren like the Fused have, but something else?) obviously pulses to the voidbringer rhythms. Odium, the latecomer to Roshar, has spren that behave in a similar but twisted way to the native spren of Cultivation and Honor. Did he just copy them? Corrupt then? I need more lore!

Venli eventually dropped onto a hard surface. She hummed to Destruction and opened her eyes, finding herself standing on a platform hanging high in the sky, far above Roshar, which was a blue and brown globe below. Behind her was a deep, black nothingness marred only by a tiny blip that could have been a single star.

L: Only one “star?” Interesting that in this vision Odium sends, he doesn’t include the rest of the solar system/Cosmere. Maybe because he thinks of himself as the most important thing in it, so why bother showing anything extraneous?

AA: Hmm. I wasn’t (originally) thinking of it in terms of Odium sending the vision, but of course he is. I assume the “star” is Braize, right? I suppose for purposes of the vision, he is the only thing that matters… he and his prison.

Also, this “conversation” is deeply disturbing. Venli’s reward for working to return their gods is essentially the pain and torture of Damnation, at least in this moment. Congratulations, child, you get to feel what they felt? Yikes. Odium is not a gentle master.

Bruised & Broken

How long will you keep being two people, Venli? She seemed to hear Eshonai’s voice. How long will you vacillate?

L: I struggled with whether to put this here or in Relationships & Romances, but I think for the purposes of this conversation it belongs here. Is Venli really hearing this voice, or is it all in her head? I honestly tend to think the former. If the Fused can reincarnate themselves, why not Eshonai? What if it’s something inherent to their species?

AA: That would be kind of cool, all right. I go with the latter, myself, though. I think she’s either remembering a conversation, or thinking of what her sister would say based on their past interactions. It certainly seems that for much of the first part of her novella, she thinks of Eshonai almost like our concept of “her better angel” or something—her conscience, the part of her that knows what she’s been doing is a really bad idea in the bigger picture.

AP: I would love to see Eshonai be reincarnated! I do wonder what that process is like though. Obviously not every Listener becomes a Fused soul that gets sent back over and over. Or do they? Does Odium get to choose directly? I would guess not, or he would eliminate the useless/insane ones.

AA: I could be wrong, but I think Brandon already quashed the idea of Eshonai returning in any way. I would like to know how the ancestors who repeatedly return were chosen, but I do have a strong impression that it was kind of a one-off—there aren’t new individuals being added to the group.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered to Derision. “You’ve got the wrong sister.”

The wrong sister had died. The wrong sister had lived.

L: Man, talk about your redemption arcs. Venli’s got a looooong climb ahead of her, but I am really excited to see it happen.

AA: Indeed. Once again, Sanderson is taking a character I loved to hate, making her sympathetic, and holding out hope for a fantastic redemption story. I was pretty shocked when he did that with Bluth, and even more with Gaz.

L: For what it’s worth, I’m still on the fence with Gaz. I don’t hate him like I do Moash, but I sure don’t like him either. I don’t see that he’s done much to deserve a redemptive arc yet, but… the story is far from over.

AA: Well, not many of them “deserve” a redemption arc; that’s why they need redemption. I’m not sure what he’s doing with Gaz, yet, but there’s at least that hope that redemption may not only be possible, but desirable. For me, so far, Sanderson has not yet taken step two with Moash. I still find him completely non-sympathetic—which is kind of astounding, considering how much I loathed Venli in Words of Radiance.

AP: Moash isn’t meant to be liked or sympathetic yet. He just had his super bad guy moment. I also don’t know that he needs a redemption arc per se. I want to see him become a sympathetic/complex antagonist for Kaladin. I think that would be a more interesting direction overall. I also don’t forgive Gaz, and don’t find him to be redeemed at all. He is such a heinous character to me.

A form changes the way you think, Venli. … Control the form, don’t let it control you.

But then, Eshonai had been exemplary. A general and a hero. Eshonai had done her duty.

All Venli had ever wanted was power.

AA: This is why I detested her so much in Words of Radiance, and I think her acknowledgement of it here is part of why I’ve come to cheer for her. Self-awareness, and particularly awareness of one’s own faults, is a thing I appreciate.

Buy it Now

AP: On the other hand, I love Venli’s arc so far. The understanding and then rejection of her current position. The change in attitude from extreme self-centeredness to a desire to help her people. I’m in for it. I love that Eshonai’s influence extends beyond the grave.

Places & Peoples

“You have three choices,” the Herdazian general said.

AA: Woo Herdazians! The criminal gets to choose his own sentence‽ Within limits…

“First, you can choose the sword. … We’ll give the sword to the women you abused. Each gets a hack, one after another. How long it goes on will depend on them.”

AA: Whew! Brutal. Sounds well-deserved, but still brutal. I’m a little shocked with myself for thinking this is a good idea, but they did catch him in the act. It’s not like they maybe got the wrong person or something.

L: He deserves these options. What a pig.

AP: Agreed. And fitting comment Lyndsey, considering his crime and fate…

“Second option … is the hammer. We break your legs and arms, then hang you from the cliff by the ocean. You might last until the storm that way, but it will be miserable.”

AA: I wonder how they do the hanging. If it’s by arms and legs, or wrists and ankles/feet, broken legs would insure that he suffocates within a few hours at most. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

“… But there’s a third option: the hog. … It lives down by the shore. … We grease you, and you wrestle the hog. It’s fun for the men to watch. They need sport now and then.”

AA: Okay then…

Obviously, the Herdazian general was too frightened to actually /kill/ an Alethi officer. So they would humiliate him by making him wrestle a pig. They’d have a good laugh, then send him away smarting.

AA: Sheler is really thick, isn’t he? Given the first two choices—having your head cut off with a butter knife, or hanging on a cliff with all your limbs broken—he really thinks the third choice would be mere humiliation? Then again, he doesn’t seem to think he’s actually done anything very bad; I mean, they’re just dark-eyed Herdazians he’s been robbing, raping, and murdering. That isn’t all that awful, is it? Riiiiight.

L: He vastly underestimates them because of his own prejudices. What a moron.

AP: I also like the not so subtle push by the general to get him to choose this option by saying that he did it before.

“I’d say ‘good luck,’ boss,” the Herdazian soldier told Sheler… “but I’ve got three marks on you not lasting a full minute…”

… The soldier dashed back up the bank, leaving Sheler locked in place, doused in pungent oil, and gaping as an enormous claw broke the surface of the ocean.

Perhaps “the hog” was more of a nickname.

AA: Ya think?

As noted before, Herdazian military justice is nothing if not direct. But a man who uses his military training (assuming he had no soldiers under his command at this point) to prey on civilians in that way… IMO, he’s forfeited his rights to any better treatment. My only problem with the hog is that it seems too quick, but I expect the anticipation as it comes up out of the water is worth a good bit. Never forget, terror is also a form of communication.

L: Hey, you never know. Maybe it will eat him slowly while he’s still alive! One can hope.

AA: I could get on board with that.

L: Or swallow him whole and let its digestive juices slowly eat away at him. (Can you tell which of us is the horror fan, here?)

AP: I mean, they did add that whole bucket of oil so he goes down easy. (Also a horror fan…)

AA: Yeah, I’ll freely admit that your imaginations are much more developed in these areas! I’m… not a horror fan.

She wasn’t allowed into Kholinar herself. They kept her sequestered in this stormshelter outside, which they called the hermitage.

L: Hmm. I wonder why… Keeping her outside of the city seems a bit counter-productive. Is there something they don’t want her to see? Or is it just that they want to keep her isolated, not able to form any sort of meaningful connection with any of the other singers?

AA: I wondered about that as well. I suspect the latter; for whatever purposes, they want to keep her from any relationships. It’s also possible they fear that there might be other Listeners she would recognize—people too afraid of them to contradict the story outright, but who would mess up Venli’s obedience if she saw them.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

Timbre pulsed to Peace. Upon hearing that, something stirred deep within Venli: the Voidspren that occupied her gemheart. That spren couldn’t think, not like Ulim or the higher Voidspren. It was a thing of emotions and animal instincts, but the bond with it granted Venli her form of power.

L: I find it really interesting that these are non-sapient spren. It makes sense that they can be bonded to singers whereas humans lack the capacity—singers have gemhearts in which to contain the spren, when humans do not.

AA: I appreciated that clarification. These are emotionspren, like angerspren or fearspren, rather than the sapient ones, either Void or Nahel. (Now I wonder if the higher Voidspren like Ulim can form bonds—and what happens if they do!)

L: Are there specific emotionspren that are tied to the Void powers, I wonder? I’d assume that it would have to be the ones that are more commonly associated with the Singer Rhythms, harsher, more negative emotions.

AA: We’re in theory territory here, but my supposition is that specific emotions create specific forms, and that certain forms are more readily manipulated by Odium. I have… yeah, zero evidence for that. It just makes sense to me. An alternate theory could be that emotion spren create Void-friendly forms, while activity spren create non-Void forms, or something like that. E.g. angerspren or passionspren might create a Void form, but creationspren or logicspren would facilitate a non-Void form. Meh. It sounds plausible, maybe?

L: Also… it’s not addressed exactly what emotion the Voidspren is displaying, here. It’s described as “stirring,” but does that mean that it was upset by the old Rhythm of Peace? Or did it perhaps like it?

AA: Good question. Either one seems possible, though I’ve always assumed a conflict between the two sets of rhythms. A little later, when the Everstorm is approaching, the gemheart-spren gets pretty excited about it—it “leaped to feel it.” So my guess is that it recognizes Peace as something foreign to it, at least.

AP: I think these are something different than the “regular” emotionspren. I mentioned above that they pulse to the “new” void rhythms, not the native Rosharan rhythms. I think they are of Odium, but whether created or corrupted, I dunno!

AA: I do hope we get more information on this—and I think it’s probable, given the focus of the next book.

On a side note, I can’t help remembering back in Words of Radiance, after Eshonai accepted the stormform—every time she tried to attune Peace to calm herself, she could hear “herself” screaming in her head, which seems to have been Timbre. Now we have Timbre attuning Peace almost as much as Resolve. Interesting indeed.

Timbre suddenly pulsed with a flash of light, and zipped away under the bed, terrified.

“Ah,” Venli said to Mourning, looking past the city at the sudden darkening of the sky. The Everstorm.

L: Timbre is scared of the Everstorm… I wonder if it’s just because it remembers what happened when Eshonai and the others got Stormform, or if most of the sapient spren are afraid of it. I don’t recall Syl or Pattern being scared of the Everstorm…

AA: IIRC, Syl was worried about the stormspren, but she saw them in the highstorm. Wyndle was more worried about being used as a weapon than he was about the Everstorm. I’d go with remembering what happened to Eshonai, and her vulnerability since she’s not even bonded to Venli yet.

Also, Venli responds to the Everstorm with mourning? That’s… cool.

AP: Well, we know that the Fused are on the lookout for spren like Timbre. Maybe she recognizes the storm as a way that she could be “seen” and then caught?

Sheer Speculation

Those monsters insisted her people were gone, and rebuffed her questions about the thousands of listeners who had survived the Battle of Narak.

L: Theory: They’re still alive and this is where Rlain vanished off to during the course of this book. He’s gone to find them and bring them back around.

AA: I agree with this theory. There should be two groups—or at least I hope there are. There’s the group of those who refused stormform and escaped into the chasms before they were executed; we’ve heard nothing at all about them, and Brandon has so far refused to answer questions about them. There’s the other group, the one Venli is thinking of, who were stormforms during the battle and escaped the clashing storms. She was with them for a time, before she and a few others were taken to be “honored” with Fused takeovers. Now Venli is—rightly—worried that all of her friends have been conscripted for Fused. While you could sort of say they had it coming, I find myself hoping for redemption for more than just Venli.

I kind of hope Rlain finds the first group, but I wouldn’t mind if he found the second group and restored them, too. I just hope, between the two groups, there will be some who resist the Voidforms.

Quality Quotations

• She didn’t close the window. He didn’t like that.

AA: I wonder if Sanderson intended this to sound as “abuse victim” as it does…

• You are mine. Remember this.

Stay tuned to the same storm-channel at the same storm-time next week, when we’ll be covering Chapter 88, in which Dalinar makes a new friend.

Alice is (hopefully) done travelling for the summer, but life doesn’t slow down. LaserQuest upcoming!

Lyndsey is heading to a small anime convention in Massachusetts this weekend, where she’ll be competing in the masquerade and participating in the Cosplay Death Match (hopefully not against The Hog). If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Aubree is attuning the Rhythm of Peace to avoid stress from work deadlines! It mostly sounds like Enya.

This week, we launch into Part Four, titled “Defy! Sing Beginnings!” We’ll attempt to figure out what that means, if anything, over the next weeks. Today, though, we go back in time with Dalinar, who has developed some serious issues with life, the universe, and everything.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread – if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done. There is also a brief mention of the magic systems in Warbreaker and Mistborn (Stories & Songs), so if you haven’t read those… it’s not exactly spoilery, but kind of weird-hinty. Beware.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Dalinar
WHERE: Kholinar – Gavilar’s palace
WHEN: Eight years ago – late 1165 or early 1166

Dalinar leaves a political meeting that Gavilar is holding (where his only duty was to stand and loom menacingly) and goes in search of a drink to drown out the voices in his head. He finds Adolin, who informs him that he’s got a duel set up that will hopefully start him down the road towards winning his own Shardblade, then heads to the beggars’ porch where he finds an old homeless drunkard with whom he shares a drink and some conversation. Upon returning to his chambers, he overhears Adolin, Gavilar, and Elhokar discussing him and his addiction.

Truth, Love, and Defiance

Title: Voices

“How are the voices?”

AA: This is such a well-chosen title. Dalinar, here, asks “Ahu” (a.k.a. Jezrien) about his voices. But sprinkled throughout the chapter are the voices Dalinar hears: Evi weeping, children crying in his head – and also the real voices, heard through the door, of his sons, his brother, and his nephew, trying to figure out how to help him. (Well, the nephew not so much helping…) And every one of the voices anger him.

Heralds

Jezrien: King, Herald of Kings, patron of the Windrunners, attributes Protecting & Leading

AA: This is almost funny, but not. We’ve got Gavilar being all regal and kingly, but more importantly we’ve got Jezrien himself being… well, just about as opposite as you can get. Come to think of it, Dalinar’s being pretty opposite-as-you-can-get, too.

Icon

Inverse Kholin glyphpair for a Dalinar flashback

Thematic Thoughts

AA: This is the first flashback after the events of the Rift, and it could be argued that this is where we begin (not exactly singing!) to see Dalinar’s descent into madness and his eventual rescue and redemption. It is highly probable that the comments section will reflect a wide variety of opinions on Dalinar’s condition as well as his “redemption arc.” Yes, it has been discussed frequently (*ahem*) in the past, and will continue to be discussed. I ask first that you would be courteous to one another, and second that you would do your level best to understand the perspectives expressed by others, rather than merely doubling down on your own stance. I’m not expecting anyone to necessarily change their opinion, but I do expect y’all to be respectful and open.

L: In Dalinar’s overarching character arc (in regards to his flashbacks at any rate), we’ve hit his low point. This is what is sometimes referred to as “the long dark night of the soul” and hoo boy, is it ever long and dark. He’s lost everything he cared about–Evi, war, and his thirst for battle. Including, of course, his own sanity, or so he believes. Before a character can begin the upwards climb towards redemption, they must lose everything and be at their lowest point. It is this that drives them to move towards ascension (and the climax of the arc).

AA: We’ll get one more flashback, set about a year later, in which Dalinar is still at the bottom of the arc, and then the moment where he starts to move upward. I’ve got some things to say about the concept of redemption, but I think it will wait until then.

AP: This is definitely the low point, and we can see the cracks in his spirit web pretty clearly. Not all potential Radiants have a specific trauma, but Dalinar sure does. He is clearly suffering from PTSD here, and is self medicating with alcohol. The assurance from Gavilar that Dalinar is a soldier and will fight through this rings hollow for anyone who has dealt with mental illness and been told to just “take your mind off it”, or “don’t think about it so much.”

Stories & Songs

AA: I’m going to start this out by addressing something which is not, strictly speaking, the normal purpose of this unit. It’s not ancient history or legend, but it is, most definitely, a story:

Sadeas had carefully spun news of the Rift’s destruction to the king’s advantage. … regrettable that the Rifters had forced Kholin action by killing Dalinar’s wife … unfortunate that the city had caught fire during the fighting….
… Gavilar didn’t want to unleash the Blackthorn.… these days, everyone was careful to give him plenty of other options.
So efficient. All it had cost was one city. And possibly Dalinar’s sanity.

L: Dalinar is, in effect, the nuclear option.

AA: Indeed. I suppose you could argue that the city and the sanity were already lost, so spinning it to reduce further bloodshed was merely a pragmatic decision. Dalinar doesn’t quite seem to see it that way.

AP: It’s a war crime and cover up, sure enough. Practicalities aside, I don’t actually think that everyone really believes the story, since there were a lot of witnesses at the Rift. I think they could cover up Evi’s betrayal, but not that the fires were deliberately set. I think everyone is going along because they are afraid that the “nuclear” option, once used, might be used again.

AA: Quite true, that many of the soldiers would know the fires were intentional. The reasoning behind it would have been unknown to them, though, so they’re likely to accept the “revenge for Evi” story, I think. Even if they didn’t quite buy that as enough, they also saw a brutally damaged Dalinar slogging back into camp after supposedly being killed in a “rockslide,” and heard his story of betrayal and ambush by Tanalan. After that, I doubt many in the army (especially an Alethi army) would have argued about retribution. We would, due to the killing of innocent civilians, but they probably wouldn’t.

… he found Ahu huddled in the shadows between two large religious statues, their backs facing the beggars, their hands spread toward the gardens.
… With black, matted hair and a scraggly beard, his skin was dark for an Alethi. …
… “Have you seen me?”

AA: On a guess, he’s sitting next to his own statue. He seems to make a habit of this; I’m guessing his question is supposed to be a twisted joke. I noticed something odd, though: “his skin was dark for an Alethi.” Was he darker than we thought, or does his appearance change from time to time? If this is really what he always looked like, then it appears that the “Vorin idealization” of him in the endpaper artwork lightened his hair and skin tone considerably. So… maybe his daughter’s skin tone isn’t so much darker than his after all. (That would be Shalash, if anyone had forgotten.)

L: I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if they’d made him look more Alethi in the artwork. We’ve seen the exact same thing happen in the real world, where people have a tendency to depict Jesus as a white man.

AA: ::eyeroll:: Yeah, that one always kills me. (Though I’ll confess I still love the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” despite the improbability of snow, ice, or frozen ground…) The funny thing is, he doesn’t even look all that Alethi. But that’s okay – artistic/religious license and all that!

“Soft, today. They chant about ripping me apart. Eating my flesh. Drinking my blood.”

L: I can only assume that he’s remembering his time spent being tortured.

AA: That’s my assumption as well. Brutal.

“Where is my soul, and who is this in my face?”

L: This is a really interesting line. I don’t know whether we should be trying to read into this, or if it’s just the ramblings of a madman, but if the former… Is his soul really missing? Is someone else’s soul inhabiting a body that should be his?

AA: Hmmm. I think it’s his own soul, mad as it is… but given his later comment about Moelach, could this actually be foreshadowing of the not-so-distant future when someone will come with a jeweled dagger? Yes, that’s a stretch; it comes down to “I don’t know.”

AP: With the way that the physical/cognitive/spiritual realms work, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that his “soul” or pieces of it, are missing. Can a living soul be splintered?

AA: Umm… That’s a really freaky thought. I mean, Breath and Hemalurgy both deal with “part of your soul” so… maybe? I’m not an expert on how Hemalurgy works, and we don’t really know how the Heralds were made and maintained, but I suppose it is possible.

L: It would make a lot of sense. We’ve seen how certain aspects of magic systems are mirrored across worlds, so why wouldn’t something that could happen to Adonalsium also happen to a human soul? If Adonalsium was a god, then that’s exactly what the splintering was to begin with.

“Which one got to you, little child? The Black Fisher? The Spawning Mother, the Faceless? Moelach is close. I can hear his wheezing, his scratching, his scraping at time like a rat breaking through walls.”

AA: It seems fairly obvious that Ahu/Jezrien is referring to several of the Unmade here. The Black Fisher, a.k.a. Dai-Gonarthis, is one of the mystery-Unmade as yet. So far as we know, we haven’t seen him in action, and know very little about him. The Spawning Mother is most likely Re-Shephir; we saw all too much of her in Part One, but we don’t know where she is now. (At the time of this flashback, she was presumably holed up in the basement of Urithiru?)

L: It’s pretty cool to think of her as “spawning,” as she creates myriad mirrors of herself to accomplish her goals.

AA: The Faceless… we have no link to anything. My best guess is Ashertmarn, since we’ve seen him/it take the form of an enormous heart.

AP: Another candidate for the Faceless is Nergaoul, who takes the form of a red mist and is responsible for the Thrill. Dalinar has definitely been under its influence! It’s interesting to note that Jezrien can spot the effects of an encounter with the Unmade.

AA: I hadn’t really considered that, but it’s valid. If Shallan is sensitive to the presence of an Unmade, even from a distance, why couldn’t Jezrien be able to see the effect of a being he spent millenia fighting? And he seems quite certain that Dalinar has been “got to” by one of the Unmade.

Moelach, we know, is the one who triggers the Death Rattles; I found Jezrien’s description of him “scraping at time” to be fascinating and creepy at once. We know he was hanging around Kharbranth for a long time, since Taravangian was using the Death Rattles to edit the Diagram, and he seems to have relocated to the Horneater Peaks more recently.

L: Since the death rattles seem to be prescient, it makes sense that time is referenced here. Obviously Moelach has some sort of ability to either foretell coming events itself, or to bring out that ability in others.

AP: I agree that he is referencing the predictive nature of the death rattles, which is super creepy.

“I used to think it wasn’t my fault. But you know, we can’t escape what we did? We let them in. We attracted them, befriended them, took them out to dance and courted them. It is our fault. You open yourself to it, and you pay the price. They ripped my brain out and made it dance! I watched.”

AA: Welp. How to unpack this? Is he still talking about the Unmade, or about the ancestral Singers? Or is there an overlap there – were nine of them Unmade, while the rest were made Cognitive Shadows and given the ability to return and take new bodies?

L: Good questions. I read it as him talking about the Unmade, since that’s what the conversation was about before, but… he’s mad, so his mind may be shifting topics. If he is talking about the Unmade, I find the line about “we befriended them” to be the most interesting. We know that they were made and then unmade, so perhaps they were originally creatures or spren that the Heralds thought they could bend to their wills? And then Odium got ahold of them?

AA: I wish we knew more, because this is so ripe for speculation, and I’d like a little more to work with! I think there’s better support for the Unmade having been spren than having been Singer souls, but the ideas run together here too much to sort it out.
However, the idea that this is referring to ancient Singers fits with hints we get elsewhere. For example, in the Epilogue, Wit thinks about having shared a dance with one of the Fused thousands of years ago. We also know that at some point, there was intermarriage between the Singers and the humans; it certainly seems possible that the Horneater and Herdazian heritage may go back this far, to a time before the wars began.

Given his statements (which are, perhaps, not entirely trustworthy) about attracting, befriending, dancing, and courting, some new possibilities about the beginnings come to mind. Perhaps it wasn’t so much a matter of the humans leaving Shinovar and invading the rest of the planet, as inviting the Singers to join them in Shinovar on a social basis. They seem to have gotten along quite well at first, so it may well be that the first human ventures beyond “their place” were amiable, and at the return invitation of the Singers.

If that is true, things went south rather badly, didn’t they?

L: Gee, I wonder who could possibly have been responsible for that?

Relationships & Romances

AA: The relationships reflected in this chapter are complex. Without doing too many lengthy quotes, it’s clear that Dalinar himself is deeply conflicted about Evi. On the one hand, he wants to blame her for everything; on the other hand, his difficulty in dealing with all the thousand-and-one things that remind him of her argues against the anger.

L: It’s possible to be both angry and guilty, especially when it comes to death. A good friend of mine took his own life several years ago, and I experienced many of the same conflicting emotions–anger, guilt, grief all mixed together and warring with one another for prominence.

AP: It’s definitely possible to feel both things. And Dalinar doesn’t have the mental resources to get to a healthy place with his grief. This conflict is one of the things magicked away by his visit to the Nightwatcher. Blessing & curse all in one.

Emotions warred inside Dalinar. Memories of good years spent with his son in Jah Keved, riding or teaching him the sword.
Memories of her. The woman from whom Adolin had inherited that blond hair and that smile. So genuine. Dalinar wouldn’t trade Adolin’s sincerity for a hundred soldiers in proper uniforms.
But he also couldn’t face it right now.

AA: How much Dalinar loved Evi will always be a matter of debate, but this kind of pain doesn’t come from memories of someone about whom you cared nothing.

L: It seems to me like he didn’t realize how much he loved her until he lost her. You never appreciate what you have more than when you’ve lost it.

AA: So very true! He did occasionally register how much her good opinion meant to him; now he’s realizing just how much she was part of the fabric of his life.

AP: I think that it’s possible to love someone and still treat them poorly. Dalinar was not a good husband. Full stop. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t have some degree of affection for Evi, or that he won’t mourn her death. He’s a majorly flawed and conflicted character. Contrasting his relationship with Evi vs. Navani, the latter is much more healthy, and based on a mutual respect and affection that wasn’t present between him & Evi.

AA: It always makes me sad to see how much the “respect” in his relationship with Evi went all one way. His relationship with Navani isn’t perfect either, but it’s definitely got a stronger basis in mutual value.

Adolin blushed, then put on a stronger face. He didn’t wilt beneath the stern words. When censured, Adolin only tried harder.…
Storming child. Who could deny him?…
Dalinar walked off as quickly as he could, to get away from that hair, that wonderful – haunting – smile.

AA: I know some people see Adolin’s response as a negative; I don’t. Yes, he loves to please his father, but how is that a bad thing? Dalinar’s inner turmoil, coming out as censure, isn’t directed at Adolin, and at some level they both know it. That’s why, IMO, Adolin works so hard to make his father happy: there are a lot of things he can’t fix, but he does the things he can to make Dalinar’s life better. I admire that selflessness in such a young person. It’s not like he lives solely for his father and never gets to do his own thing; we see him here in a specially-tailored uniform, excited about his upcoming duel. Those aren’t necessarily calculated to make Dalinar happy – but sharing his excitement with his father, being eager for his father to come watch the duel, those are the actions of a son seeking to draw his father out from his internal struggles and back into an enjoyment of life. In my opinion.

L: I like the concept of him doing this to try to bring his father out of it, but I don’t think that’s his sole purpose. Adolin’s built most of his personality around the things that his father values, and hence it’s become an integral part of himself. His joy in duelling is his own, and while I definitely think he is happy to give his father something to be proud of him for, he’s also doing it for his own sake.

AP: He gets the resolve & grit from his mother. It’s so subtle, and I love it. Evi worked for years to be a good Alethi wife, and Adolin would have seen that first hand. Now he is working at being a good Alethi son & soldier. I don’t think it has anything to do with trying to bring Dalinar back to an enjoyment of life. It’s the behavior that was modeled for him.

AA: I would say that much of Evi’s behavior was intended to bring Dalinar to an enjoyment of life outside of war; for Adolin to try to bring Dalinar “back into life,” whether consciously or not, is following Evi’s example. In any case, I thoroughly agree that Adolin gets his resiliance and determination from his mother. Appearances notwithstanding, she was a strong woman.

“Your father never adjusted to being alone, Adolin,” the king replied. “He misses your mother.”

L: I’m very curious as to whether or not Gavilar actually believes this, or if he’s just saying it to make Adolin feel better. I’m betting the latter. It seems like everyone is always lying to Adolin and Renarin about Dalinar, trying to preserve his honor in his sons’ eyes.

AA: Heh. My note on this paragraph was “Is Gavilar really that clueless, or is he making up stuff for Adolin?” Great minds, eh? I suspect that Gavilar wants to believe this, at least, and in fact I think it’s partially true. But as you say, Gavilar is also trying to preserve Dalinar’s image; assuming that Gavilar knows the truth, he’s not about to tell the boys about the guilt that is tearing his brother apart. Wise or not, the truth is being hidden from all but the very few who were there – and even some of them “know” things that aren’t what really happened. Sadeas and Dalinar, Kadash and a few of his elites… that’s about it. I’m not entirely sure Sadeas even really knew all of what happened.

AP: And thirded. You don’t tell a fifteen year old kid about how terrible his dad is and how he actually caused his mom’s death. Nopenopenope…teenagers are bad at state secrets.

Bruised & Broken

AA: Oh, Dalinar. You poor broken beast.

L: Yeah. As horrible as a person as he was, it’s important to remember that he’s a product of his society. When everything and everyone around you is telling you to prioritize violence and the glory of battle, is it really surprising that he turned out the way he did?

AA: Not surprising at all. It’s sometimes hard to keep this in mind, but we do need to deal with Dalinar in the context of his culture.

Dalinar could not stand fire. The scent of smoke smelled like burning skin, and the crackling of flames reminded him only of her.

L: The Nightwatcher must have pruned this along with the rest, but I am curious to see if it will ever eventually resurface.

AP: I don’t expect it to. It was a trigger for his PTSD, and whatever happened in between, he seems, mentally, to be better able to cope with his history. It’s painful, of course, but we don’t see the same complete loss of control and need to drown his memories. I think it’s a combination of the magic (nahel bond, Nightwatcher) and his self improvement quest and improved support system.

His own keep reminded him too much of her.

AA: I won’t quote them all, but this chapter is chock full of things that remind him of Evi. The crackling of flames; his keep; Renarin’s incense; Adolin’s good looks, hair, smile, sincerity; the voices of his sons. Life reminds him of Evi, which is why he keeps trying to drown life in a bottle.

Three years, living with what he’d done.

AA: Another thing this chapter is full of, and one I want to consider more deeply, is Dalinar’s thought process. Or maybe emotion process would be more applicable. In any case, he starts out thinking about what he had done. Next thing you know, he’s looking for wine and blaming Gavilar for being stingy after all Dalinar had done for him. Then he blames Evi for being childish and “getting herself killed.” Then he’s back to blaming Gavilar for pushing him to drinking with the beggars. And then he’s just angry because even inadvertently, they all won’t let him forget.

This seems to be typical of his life during this phase – blaming himself until he can’t bear it any more, then blaming everyone else as he drinks himself into oblivion, and then waking up to start again. Some days are better and he doesn’t “need” the alcohol as much; some days are worse and he can’t stay away from it. Apparently there are a lot of the “worse” sorts of days, since he’s emptied out all the places wine would normally be stashed for convenience, terrified the people of the city so that he’s unwelcome in the taverns, made himself a pest in the kitchens, and finally gotten to the point that he’s found one “beggar” who somehow always seems to have liquor. And all the time, he’s telling himself the he indulged “only on occasion. On bad days.” It’s humanly understandable, and humanly tragic. He knows what he’s done, he hates himself for it, and there’s no place to turn for healing.

He didn’t miss Evi. He wanted to be rid of her.
Though… he did ache now that she was gone. Was that why she wept for him so often?

AA: As if the rest weren’t evidence enough of his brokenness, there’s that. And yet… in a way it’s true. In her last years, she wept for what was happening to him, and for the people he would kill, far more than she wept for herself. Seeing him now, she would most definitely be weeping for him.

This chapter brings out such … ambivalence is too gentle… warring emotions about Dalinar. So many people share responsibility for the destruction at Rathalas: Dalinar, of course, but also Sadeas, Tanalan, even Gavilar in some measure, and of course the Thrill. Even Evi’s death is not entirely Dalinar’s fault, though he did order his men to torch the saferoom-turned-prison; she made the choice to go to Tanalan, and Tanalan made the choice to imprison her rather than releasing her, thinking that he could still use her as a bargaining chip after his treachery. Aside from that… Dalinar makes me want to console him and beat him at the same time. Appropriate, considering that he does the same.

Squires & Sidekicks

Today, Adolin wore a fashionable suit with far too much embroidery, and boots that were topped by silver.
“That’s not a standard-issue uniform, soldier,” Dalinar said to him.
“I know!” Adolin said. “I had it specially tailored!”

AA: So sue me. I love this. He’s fifteen years old and way too adorable.

L: Yes. He’s storming amazing.

Sheer Speculation

AA: And now I have a new theory. (Someone else has probably thought of this, but I haven’t seen it anywhere.) Returning to the last quotation in the Stories & Songs unit, Jezrien says, “You open yourself to it, and you pay the price.” We don’t really know what happened in the early days, right? We’ve assumed that the humans were the aggressors, invading the rest of Roshar from their initial home in Shinovar, but we don’t know that. It’s possible that instead, the humans cooperatively followed the example of the Singers, perhaps even with their guidance, and opened themselves to the spren bonding. Then, per Eshonai’s songs, the spren discovered that they gained more from bonds with humans than from bonds with Singers. Depending on what effect that had, it’s easy to imagine that some of the Singers would grow angry about their abilities being usurped and maybe surpassed, and they turned to Odium to try to stop the humans from spren-bonding and all the rest. We still don’t know the whole story; we know that the humans came to Roshar after damaging Ashyn beyond habitability, but we don’t really know who started the fighting, or why. Perhaps it was the Singers who truly brought the Void powers to Roshar after all, and Honor made the Oathpact with the Heralds to defend all of Roshar’s people from Odium. At the moment, this makes sense out of all sorts of things – like why ten humans would offer themselves to Honor, and why Honor would accept them.

Quality Quotations

Dalinar didn’t need to participate in the meeting; his job was to loom.

Next week we’ll be beginning our journey in Shadesmar with Shallan, Adolin, Kaladin, and Azure. (As well as their respective spren, of course.) Join us then, and in the meantime, keep those comments coming!

Lyndsey is excited that her husband bought her a little Maya pendant from Badali Jewelry this past weekend at GenCon, so now she can carry Maya around with her everywhere she goes. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Alice is deeply envious of Lyndsey’s bio.

Aubree is theorizing about what the Rosharan version of horcruxes might be…

Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread! This week, our inadvertent explorers give us our first in-depth look at Shadesmar, the Cognitive realm. Oh, wait, Adolin fell into the depths last time we saw them. This time, they just have to figure out how to get away from the dangers surrounding them without falling in. Good luck with that, kids.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread we also discuss some small things from Warbreaker and Mistborn: Secret History in the Cosmere Connections section, so if you haven’t read those, best to give that section a pass.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Adolin and the Shadesmar Exploration Squad (ie, Kaladin, Shallan, Azure, Pattern, Maya, and Syl.)

WHERE: Shadesmar (Sea of Lost Lights)

WHEN: 1174.2.3.3, the same day that we left our intrepid crew but the day BEFORE Venli arrives in Kholinar in the interludes.

Adolin’s initial assumption is that they’re dead, while Kaladin panics and then collapses. With the claws of a huge hand coming up around them through the beads, Shallan focuses on finding a way to get them away from the middle of the action. Armed with Azure’s knowledge of Shadesmar, she uses the soul of a door and the soul of the Oathgate control room to ferry them step by small step to the nearest solid ground, where they will camp and rest.

Beginnings

Title: Damnation

“I’m dead,” Adolin whispered. “We’re dead, and this is Damnation.”

Heralds

Battah (Battar), Wise/Careful. Elsecallers. Role: Counsellor. Talenelat (Talenel, Taln.) Herald of War. Dependable / Resourceful. Stonewards. Role: Soldier.

L: Battah could be here for a few different reasons. First of all, she’s Herald of the Elsecallers, and Shadesmar is pretty much their domain. Secondly, Shallan is displaying some of her traits here—she’s being very careful and wise in her use of the door/building to get them to safety, and it’s worthwhile to note that this is pretty resourceful (Talenelat), too. Adolin is also displaying the trait of counsellor in regards to his treatment of Kaladin, in addition to his usual associations (dependable, soldier) with Talenelat.

Icon

Shardbearer, indicating an Adolin POV, which this week he shares with Shallan

Epigraph

My research into the Unmade has convinced me that these things were not simply “spirits of the void” or “nine shadows who moved in the night.” They were each a specific kind of spren, endowed with vast powers.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 3

AA: Wooo-hooo! Collected research on the Unmade for the Part Four epigraphs! I suppose, like all in-world books, we have to take everything with a grain of salt; Hessi is only researching available information, and basing her statements on her interpretation of the things she’s found. Still, it’s more than we had before, so we’ll take it.

Here, she reminds her reader that these are not merely spirits or shadows, or legends of such. They are spren—each one different and holding different powers—vast and powerful spren. Unfortunately, that’s about all this one tells us.

Stories & Songs

AA: There are several references to Unmade (aside from the epigraph) in this chapter. There is something enormous, repeatedly shifting around beneath the Oathgate platform on which they’re standing, and then it starts to become visible:

In the near distance, a single spire of rock broke the surface, tall and black.… As it grew to the height of a building, a joint appeared. Storms. It wasn’t a spire or a mountain … it was a claw.
More emerged in other directions. An enormous hand was reaching slowly upward through the glass beads. Deep beneath them a heartbeat began sounding, rattling the beads.

AA: Obligatory YIKES here! As Lyndsey pointed out a few weeks ago, the Unmade can be huuuuge on this side. Presumably, with the heartbeat reference, this is Ashertmarn reaching up for them.

I have to ask: Was the spren that big before it was unmade, or has it become that big due to the perceptions of the people of Roshar? This goes back to my preoccupation with the origins of the Unmade, obviously, but I have to wonder. If they were “big” spren before, what were they the spren of? Were there spren who represented the Rosharan equivalent of the seven deadly sins (except presumably nine), or were they spren of natural phenomena like the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher? We have no answers, but I wonder.

Then there’s Sja-anat… and interestingly enough, we see no sign of her being on this side—just the result of her actions. Syl points out that the Oathgate spren were corrupted by Sja-anat, and Shallan thinks about how Sja-anat was supposed to kill them but said she’d try not to. That’s about all we get on her.

AP: It’s still unclear exactly how Sja-anat corrupts spren. Is it merely by existing around them? Like a trail left behind? Or does it take an active process? If it’s passive, that may be why she can’t ensure control of the outcome. If she is even really on the side of Our Heroes, which I remain skeptical of. Also of note is that Sja-anat is the only Unmade so far that has shown the ability to communicate directly with humans using speech, rather than feelings/impressions/mind control. This could provide hints as to the origins of the various Unmade spren. There are definitely varying levels of communicative ability among even the higher spren, like Syl vs. Timbre.

L: To be fair, Timbre hasn’t formally bonded with Venli yet. Syl and Pattern couldn’t verbally communicate with their Knights at first either.

Relationships & Romances

AA: Oddly enough, for a chapter with Adolin and Shallan as the POV characters, there’s very little going on between them. It’s like Adolin looks at what Shallan’s doing and decides that she doesn’t need to be distracted, but looks at what Kaladin is doing and decides that he definitely needs some distracting. It’s really quite clever.

“Kaladin?” Adolin asked.

Kaladin finally shook himself and gave in to Syl’s prodding. He walked onto the rooftop. Adolin followed, then took Kaladin’s pack—deliberately but firmly—and swung it over his own shoulder. Kaladin let him.

[…]

“Hey,” Adolin said. “It will be all right.”

“I survived Bridge Four,” Kaladin growled. “I’m strong enough to survive this.”

“I’m pretty sure you could survive anything. Storms, bridgeboy, the Almighty used some of the same stuff he put into Shardblades when he made you.”

AA: Is it just me, or is this whole exchange, plus all the bit that follows, absolutely hilarious and sweet and dorky all at the same time? Adolin uses an outrageous combination of flattery, self-deprecation, cajolery, insult, and anything else he can to keep Kaladin talking, distracted, and above all moving. The fact that Kaladin lets him, and in a sense leans on him in this situation, is pretty amazing in itself. The best part is Syl—she stays close, but lets Adolin guide the conversation. I begin to think that any further objections to Adolin carrying a dead sword will be more for form’s sake than any actual dislike or distrust of him.

AP: I think this is a great section. Kaladin is having a major stress reaction here, and is borderline unresponsive when he gets to Shadesmar. Adolin does great here by helping give him something to focus on, a lifeline that keeps him grounded.

Bruised & Broken

“I couldn’t make them see,” Kaladin whispered. “I couldn’t… couldn’t protect them. I’m supposed to be able to protect people, aren’t I?”

L: I just want to give him a giant hug. Poor, poor Kaladin. In his view, his powers were supposed to help him, to make it so that he wouldn’t have to lose people anymore. Naive, but understandable. Now here he is, losing people again, and it’s breaking him.

AA: I know, right? His immediate reaction on arriving in Shadesmar is to suck in All The Stormlight and charge to the rescue, but with no way to reach the people he wants to protect, all he does is endanger his current company. Once he gives up on that approach (thank you, Sylphrena), all he can think about is his inability—past and present—to protect the people he cared about.

I do feel for him. Depression has a tendency to focus you on all the things you can’t do, and make the things you can do look so insignificant as to be worthless. That doesn’t make it fun to read about, but it sure is true to life!

AP: Brandon does a great job here showing a completely human reaction to failure, especially in the setting of depression. It’s definitely relatable, and makes sense that Kaladin would start to spiral after much of the self worth he has built up is related to his ability to do magic and protect his friends, and it just didn’t work. Coming to terms with being unable to protect everyone all the time is going to be a looong process for him.

AA: Shallan, on the other hand… This time we see her bizarre coping mechanisms in a good light, and it’s easy to see how the same tool can be used for good or ill:

Don’t think about that haunted look in his eyes, Shallan thought. Don’t think about what you’ve done in bringing us here, or how it happened. Don’t think, Shallan.

Her mind went blank, like it did in preparation for drawing, then locked on to her task.

[. . .]

Focus. Something reached out from the back of her mind, grabbed those thoughts and feelings, and yanked them down into the darkness. Gone.

AA: I mean… that last bit is kind of a creepy image, but at the same time, it’s pretty genius. When she needs to get a job done, she’s absolutely brilliant at shutting out the distractions so she can get on with it.

L: I’d also like to point out what a good team she and Adolin are here. She takes on the responsibility of getting them out while Adolin takes on the responsibility of making sure all of them are moving.

AA: I also love that they don’t even talk about it; they just move to doing what they’re good at. I’m mildly amused that Shallan connects blanking her mind to “preparation for drawing” rather than to her years of blocking out other memories, but… whatever floats your boat, girl.

Seriously, though, I like seeing it in this context. So many times in Words of Radiance, we’d see her mind simply disconnect—and it was usually frustrating, because she was right on the brink of telling us something interesting. Here, we get to see her deliberately line out what not to think about, and then block it out so she can focus on saving everyone. In a way, it’s part of her being broken—and at the same time, it contributes to her strength.

AP: So do we think that the thoughts going into “the darkness” is a coping mechanism? Or is it a magically enhanced thing? Like her ability to take an “image” and supernatural drawing ability (seeing the Unmade, making people better versions of themselves through portraits).

AA: Both? I could be wrong, but I assume it’s an artifact of her coping mechanism, magically enhanced by her Illumination access.

Squires & Sidekicks

Living souls bobbed around, a swarm of them entering the Oathgate control chamber. One brushed Shallan. Drehy the bridgeman.

AA: I never really noticed this before, but we now know that when the Oathgate didn’t work the way they expected, those who had waited outside came looking for them. What a shock it must have been to find the room empty, as though their leaders had decided to leave without them! Clearly they didn’t let that stop them from doing what was needed.

For a brief moment she felt what it was like to be him. Worried for Kaladin. Panicked that nobody was in charge, that he would have to take command. He wasn’t a commander. You couldn’t be a rebel if you were in charge. He liked being told what to do—that way he could find a method to do it with style.

AA: I… don’t really have anything insightful to say about this. I just like the peek into Drehy’s thoughts.

Drehy’s worries caused her own to bubble up. The bridgemen’s powers will fade without Kaladin, she thought. What of Vathah, Red, and Ishnah?

AA: Those are valid worries, but—as she so quickly notes—there’s nothing she can do about it now. All the same, now I wonder. Are any of those people becoming Radiants in their own right? When (spoiler alert!) Kaladin finds them again at the end of the book, Drehy says the words of the second Windrunner Ideal. We know he, like the rest of Bridge Four, spoke the first Ideal and “squired up” back in Part Two. What do you suppose are the chances that he leveled up again in the interim? Without Stormlight, he couldn’t fly the rest of the party all the way back to Urithiru, but might that be how he got them out of Kholinar in the first place? Sheer speculation, of course, but if Vathah had some squire powers left, maybe he was able to disguise them, too. Now I really want to know who gained bonds when we weren’t looking!

AP: I think there is a good chance! Looking forward to finding out more in book four!

Places & Peoples

Theology was for women and scribes. Adolin figured he’d try to follow his Calling, becoming the best swordsman he could. The ardents told him that was enough, that he didn’t need to worry about things like Damnation.

Yet here he was….

AA: And once again, we run up against those Vorin gender roles. This one, on the surface, doesn’t sound all that far from an attitude in our not-very-distant past, at least in Western cultures—although it’s more likely to be phrased “religion” rather than “theology.” On the other hand… there’s actually a pretty big difference. Most Vorin men believe their religion, but theology, like all forms of scholarship, is the domain of women and ardents. It’s almost the opposite of that particular Earth attitude, because in Vorinism, debate and logic are restricted to women and ardents, with ordinary men blocked out. It’s an interesting twist; however you feel about having roles defined by gender at all, you have to admit that Sanderson stood the stereotype on its head with this one.

Personally, I get a charge out of the way he set it up so that science, logic, scholarship, and religion are all overtly on the same side, instead of the current western misperception that they’re at odds.

AP: I think it does once again show the broken nature of the Vorin cultural norms. “That’s for the other gender so I don’t have to think about it” is pretty short sighted. It’s definitely a reversal from what we are used to in Western culture, but it doesn’t seem to work any better!

Weighty Words

“We’re not dead,” Azure growled. “They call this place Shadesmar. It’s the realm of thought.”

“I peek into this place when I Soulcast,” Shallan said. “Shadesmar overlaps the real world, but many things are inverted here.”

AA: First off, I have to point out this evidence that Shallan has not physically entered Shadesmar before. As she says here, she has peeked in; she was not really there, disorienting as she found it even so. Fortunately, she and Jasnah had talked about Shadesmar; she was able to remember the necessity of having Stormlight and use that to figure out what to do next. She might not have picked the most efficient method, but she found something that worked. That’s not nothing.

She also notes that, once again, the spren don’t notice her use of Stormlight as much as they do Kaladin’s. This is, what, the second or third mention of this? Is it going be important for some later development, or is it just narrative convenience?

AP: I don’t know if it’s really evidence, because when she did it before, way back in Words of Radiance and almost drowned in beads, she didn’t know what she was doing and had to be rescued by Jasnah. When she Soulcasts and peeks in, the experience is different. I think there are definitely degrees of “presence” in Shadesmar, and getting in seems to be much easier than getting back out!

AA: I’ll have to sit down and think about this with both hands sometime, because the prior incidents in Shadesmar are a little confusing. Jasnah seems to have been unable to get there physically until Ivory let her—which only happened when she was near death—so it’s not exactly easy to get there. Shallan’s episodes… well, I read them all as “she’s there in her mind, but her body remains in the physical realm”—and I think this comment supports that. But it might not be proof.

“Everybody,” she said, “those flames are the souls of people, while these spheres represent the souls of objects. Yes, there are huge philosophical implications in that. Let’s try to ignore them, shall we?”

AA: LOL. Yes, please, let’s not get distracted with philosophy while we need to focus on survival!

AP: I mean, yeah, but also I want to know more! I sincerely hope we get a lot more Shadesmar lore in coming books. And I’m looking forward to discussing the parts we get in upcoming chapters!

Swords, recently swung and glorying in their purpose fulfilled. Other weapons belonged to dead men, blades that had the faintest inkling that they’d failed somehow.

AA: Well, that’s just painful. When I was very young, I anthropomorphized far too much for my own good. E.g.: The mattress on my bed was old, and when a spring broke and poked through, it had to be replaced; the old one was taken to the landfill. I hated and complained about the broken spring poking me, but once it was gone, I cried and cried for the poor mattress lying out there in the dump, all sad and lonely. This brings that ALL back, because on Roshar it probably would be lying out there being sad and lonely, and also feeling that it had failed because it wasn’t comfortable any more!

AP: Or its identity slowly changed as it accepted its new purpose as a cozy home for a family of mice!

AA: Hey, that’s a good thought! Wish you’d said that when I was seven or so…

They had to huddle together while Shallan dismissed the rooftop behind, sending it crashing down, then squeezed past everyone to raise another copy of the building.

AA: Most of the movement in this chapter comes from Shallan’s effort, but somehow it seems to have the least to talk about. Once Azure explains the inverse nature of land and water in the Cognitive realm vs. the Physical, Adolin points out the nearest river, and they have to figure out how to get there. For a bit, it’s mostly sifting through beads—under a time crunch, with those claws coming up around them—trying to find something big enough and flat enough to serve as a “raft” for them. Well, more of an oversized stepping stone, I guess; Shallan can make a solid object form from the beads, but she can’t make it move, more’s the pity. She uses two objects (the roof of the Oathgate control building, and a big door) and alternates them in a tedious, exhausting, and slightly precarious fashion to move the entire party to the solid ground of the river.

Somewhere along the way, Pattern notes that the soul-lights are no longer disappearing; the humans are surrendering, and the fighting ends. Other than that, it’s tense… and uneventful. In a way, this shouldn’t even be in the unit about Knights Radiant using their powers, other than that Shallan’s Lightweaver affinity for Shadesmar is (presumably) what enables her to make the beads obey her will and form the objects she needs.

AP: We also get additional emphasis on her Lightweaver powers being “quieter” somehow than Kaladin’s. This is her using her visualization ability, and it doesn’t attract additional notice like Kaladin’s use of Stormlight. I think that forming the platforms is more related to Soulcasting, and it still uses Stormlight. So it’s not just her illusions that are “quieter”.

Meaningful Motivations

AA: This ties in with the Relationships mentioned above, but from a slightly different angle.

Adolin felt useless.

All his life, he had understood. He’d taken easily to dueling. People naturally seemed to like him. Even in his darkest moment—standing on the battlefield and watching Sadeas’s armies retreat, abandoning him and his father—he’d understood what was happening to him.

Not today. Today he was just a confused little boy standing in Damnation.

Today, Adolin Kholin was nothing.

AA: The thing I love most about this is what comes next. It’s not that he looks around for a way to be useful; he doesn’t even think about it. Without a conscious effort to not be useless, he just does the thing that needs doing; in this case shepherding Kaladin. Once Kaladin is settled on the land with his spren, and Azure has collapsed near him, Adolin turns around and half-carries Shallan through the last few steps of beads when her platform gives out. Without ever a thought of, “Oh, this is a thing I can do!” he does the next thing because it’s there to be done.

Adolin surveyed his companions. Shallan lay on the ground … Azure slumped forward, her small Shardblade across her lap. Kaladin continued to stare at nothing with haunted eyes […]

“Azure,” Adolin said, “is it safe here, on this land?””As safe as anywhere in Shadesmar,” she said tiredly. “The place can be dangerous if you attract the wrong spren, but there isn’t anything we can do about that.”

“Then we camp here.”

“But—” Kaladin said.

“We camp,” Adolin said. Gentle, but firm. “We can barely stand up straight, bridgeman.”

AA: I know, I sound gushy or something, but I really do like this boy. For all his sudden and unfamiliar uncertainty, he doesn’t fall apart; that’s just not who he is. He just… does the next thing. I don’t know if Sanderson intended it, but this reminds me so much of the part where Dalinar realizes that “the most important step is not the first one, it’s the next one.” His son is ahead of him on this, except that he never does it deliberately—he just does it.

AP: He is used to command, and it shows. He is a practiced leader, and he does a good job handling a sudden difficult situation.

AA: One last moment with him, though:

Adolin looked one last time at the city, standing witness to the fall of his birthplace.

Storms, he thought. Elhokar… Elhokar is dead.

Little Gav had been taken, and Dalinar was planning to abdicate. Third in line was … Adolin himself.

King.

AA: And there’s no indication that he has started feeling like “something” again. He’s just facing what’s in front of him; he doesn’t like it, but it’s the next thing to look at. This kind of thing is why I think Adolin is a good leader; when it comes down to basics, he takes a clear look at the situation and deals with what he’s got without worrying about what anyone else will think. Neither arrogance nor self-pity, and no concern with blaming anyone for anything. Not while others need him to be clear-headed.

AP: I definitely think this is his training coming through. For his other failings as a parent, Dalinar prepared Adolin for leadership. Evi taught him to do it with empathy.

Cosmere Connections

Some of the lights nearby vanished. Candles flames being snuffed out.

AA: In Mistborn: Secret History, Kelsier sees people arriving in the Cognitive realm as they die, appearing in color as they die. But here, the candle flames just vanish. No one in the group can even tell who they were, once the flame isn’t there to be touched. Is this because they’re alive and physically in the Cognitive realm, while Kelsier was dead and was “seeing with his soul”? Or is it a difference between Scadrial and Roshar? Thoughts?

L: My inclination is to think that this is a difference between Roshar and Scadrial, but I have no reason for why I think that…

Azure followed, her shoulders sagging. In fact, her… her hair was fading. It was the strangest thing; Adolin watched it dim from Alethi jet-black to a faint grey as she sat down.

L: Reminder that the Royal Locks are tied to emotions. Looks like Azure has finally let go of that strict control she must have been exerting over her hair to allow it to change to reflect her emotions again.

AA: I loved this. One more piece of the puzzle, confirming Azure’s identity. Even more so when it’s black again later, disproving Adolin’s initial assumption that it’s just “another effect of this strange place.” As a reminder, hair fading to grey or white is associated with fear or panic. On a guess, Azure wasn’t kidding when she said she hated this place! I wonder what makes her fearful of it, though…

AP: See, I saw it as a loss of conscious control of her hair because of the situation. And it made me really really worry about the dangers of Shadesmar if our normally very put together Azure is that afraid of it.

AA: Right. Whether the loss of control is due to exhaustion or overwhelming fear, the grey does indicate fear. Shadesmar is not a friendly place.

Also, it bothers the Rosharans that her sword doesn’t behave like a normal Shardblade; when Adolin tries to summon his Blade, she screams at him, but Azure’s just sits there being a sword. (I do want that Warbreaker sequel!)

L: Well, Azure’s sword isn’t a spren, right?

AP: I agree. It behaves like a shardblade, but isn’t a shardblade, and isn’t even from Roshar.

AA: Again, a little poke to the reader that “pssst, she’s not from around here!”

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

AA: So many spren! I’m not even going to try to quote all the relevant passages, but we start off with Adolin’s reaction to what he sees around him:

Terrible, awful spren swarmed in the ocean of beads, bearing a multitude of nightmare forms. They twisted and writhed, howling with inhuman voices. He didn’t recognize any of the varieties.

Which leads, a couple of pages later, to this:

Some of the eel-like spren climbed onto the platform, using stumpy legs that Adolin had missed earlier. Those long purple antennae stretched toward him, wiggling.

Fearspren, he realized. Fearspren were little globs of purple goo that looked exactly like the tips of those antennae.

AA: Of course, we already knew this (if we were paying attention). What humans see in the Physical realm is less than what the parsh see, and that’s less than what is really visible in the Cognitive realm. But it’s fun to see someone work that out for themselves.

The big obvious ones are the bonded spren, of course; I find it interesting that Adolin so readily identifies Syl and Pattern as who they are. The “strange one” is (duh!) my favorite:

He put his hand to the side to summon his own Shardblade.

The woman with the scratched eyes stretched her head toward him in an unnatural way, then screeched with a loud, piercing howl.

[…]

“That is your sword,” Pattern said in a perky voice. […] “Hmmm. She is quite dead. I don’t think you can summon her here.”

AA: Thank you for that cheerful observation, Pattern! Poor Adolin, though. What a disconcerting effect. Not only can he not actually use his dependable Shardblade while in Shadesmar, which has to be discomforting in itself, she’s going to follow him around, and he’s going to spend the whole time being forced to see her as a dead(-ish) spren.

Arresting Artwork

AA: And here’s a closer look at some of the places we’ll be going in the next few months, as annotated by Nazh. I really love his snarky comments. “I rode that mandra from here to Celebrant, so you owe me those silver pieces after all.” (Presumably aimed at Khriss—did they have a bet on?) And who on earth in the Cosmere is “Smolderbrand”??? Sounds a bit dragon-ish to me…

I don’t suppose we’ll ever hear the stories behind these comments. In fact, there’s a reasonable possibility that the stories don’t and won’t even exist, and the comments were created by Isaac just because they sounded fun and hinted at things happening elsewhere. On the other hand, it’s possible that Isaac has full back-stories in his head… Sure would love to hear them, even if they aren’t canon.

AP: This is something that I hope gets referenced or explained when we get to the cosmere level of the story! I’m very eager to have more crossovers.

AA: Also, why is it called “the Sea of Lost Lights”??

Quality Quotations

Damnation. No matter what Azure said, he was certainly in Damnation.

“You, sword lady! Help me over here. Adolin, you too. Kaladin, see if you can brood this place into submission.”

Well then. Welcome to Shadesmar! Next week, we’ll split our attention between the Purelake, past!Alethkar, and Shadesmar. We finally get to see what Szeth has been up to (Chapter 90), and Kaladin has an actual flashback, followed by a closely-related talk with his spren (Chapter 91). See you in the comments!

Alice is dismayed to see the end of summer nearing. It’s been much to quick.

Lyndsey is excited to begin this year’s season at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, where she’s been cast as the lovable Constable Affable. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram, or hunt her down at the Faire if you’re in the area!

Aubree is trying to find just the right beads for her next project. Maybe a bit of yarn that wants to be a pompom.

Greetings fellow travelers! Join Alice and I in welcoming back Szeth to the pages of the Stormlight Archive! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him (last time was in Edgedancer) and he’s definitely found himself in unusual surroundings, having fallen in with the Skybreakers. And speaking of unusual surroundings, Kaladin and company are still trapped in Shadesmar. Let’s check in with them and see how everyone’s favorite bridgeboy is doing, shall we?

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread we also discuss some things from Warbreaker in the Cosmere Connections section. If you don’t want any spoilers at all, best to give this section a pass… but if you have no plans on reading it or just want a refresher, we’ll be discussing some of Nightblood’s backstory there.

Also, a little call-out to this lovely artwork of Pattern by Isaac Stewart that will be adorning stickers at Dragon*Con! He’s so storming CUTE!

Chapter Recap

WHO: Szeth; Kaladin

WHERE: Purelake; Shadesmar, near Kholinar (L: I’ve been having a lot of fun making these animated gifs of the maps! This week was a little challenging as we’re dealing with two chapters, so keep an eye out for the white circle signifying where Szeth is on the physical realm version.)

WHEN: 1174.2.4.5 (about a week ahead of the main timeline); 1174.2.3.4 (the day after chapter 89)

Szeth son-Neturo returns! He’s at the Purelake with the rest of the Skybreakers, where he swears his first Ideal and learns a bit more about the only order of Knights Radiant which wasn’t disbanded after the Recreance.

Meanwhile, Kaladin has a short flashback in which he recalls some wisdom from an old military commander. He and Syl have a brief discussion in Shadesmar, with her expressing her worry for him.

Beginnings

Title: Reborn

Szeth of Shinovar, once called the Assassin in White, had been reborn. Mostly.

AA: Heh. Only mostly reborn.

Title: Why He Froze

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tukks asked. “The moment when you froze during practice?”

AA: This is another of the rare instances when the chapter title isn’t a direct quotation, but … it sure is an apt title!

Heralds

Oddly enough, both chapters show Chana as the only Herald. Chana is the Guard, patron of Dustbringers, associated with the divine attributes of Brave and Obedient. You’d expect Nale and Jezrien respectively for a Skybreaker and a Windrunner, but… nope.

AA: For chapter 90, the best I can come up with is Nightblood’s presence; it and Szeth seem to sort of guard one another, in an odd fashion. And of course, Szeth definitely displays obedience in the chapter.

For chapter 91, the Guard could be Tukks, Kaladin’s old sergeant. Or it could be Syl herself, attempting to help Kaladin. I think, though, that it might be the repeated assumption that he was afraid (as opposed to brave)—and maybe even his fear of killing someone who didn’t deserve it.

Icons

The character icons this week are the Assassin, for Szeth, and the Banner & Spears for Kaladin.

Epigraphs

I have done my best to separate fact from fiction, but the two blend like mixing paint when the Voidbringers are involved. Each of the Unmade has a dozen names, and the powers ascribed to them rang from the fanciful to the terrifying.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 4

I should point out that although many personalities and motives are ascribed to them, I’m convinced that the Unmade were still spren. As such, they were as much manifestations of concepts or divine forces as they were individuals.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 7

L: So this, then, begs the continual question—what were they the spren of? I don’t think we’ll be getting an answer to this particular question for a long, long time.

AA: Agreed. This is probably not something we’ll learn in the near future. It was suggested (by Isilel, iirc) last week that Hessi might be a Herald in disguise, writing from personal knowledge but disguising it as research, and probably leaving out things that she couldn’t rationalize knowing. I’m not sure that changes how we read her book, but it’s an interesting slant; if true, there may be things here that no one else would have known.

Thematic Thoughts

“I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt.” Kaladin took a deep breath. “I was afraid of making someone hurt.”

L: As the kids these days say, big mood, Kal. I totally understand him, here. Often times I have put myself in harm’s way specifically because I didn’t want to see someone else get hurt, and the thought of myself just… didn’t even occur to me. But this is important for us to see, because this right here is the entire crux of Kaladin’s character arc for this book:

“I think about my mates,” Tukks said. “I can’t let the lads down. My squad is my family now.”

“So you kill someone else’s family?”

“It’s hard. You’d be surprised how many men look in the face of an enemy and find that they’re simply not capable of hurting another person.”

…

“It’s good you aren’t too eager,” Tukks said. “Means you’re sane. I’ll take ten unskilled with earnest hearts over one callous idiot who thinks this is all a game.”

The world doesn’t make sense, Kal thought. His father, the consummate surgeon, told him to avoid getting too wrapped up in his patients’ emotions. And here was a career killer, telling him to care?

L: And there it is. Kaladin’s character boiled down. Which really makes me wonder about this next bit:

“Don’t worry about the war, or even the battle. Focus on your squadmates, Kal. Keep them alive. Be the man they need.”

L: There’s a lot of speculation about that tricky next Ideal of Kaladin’s, and it’s almost certainly going to have something to do with this concept. But I’d just like to point out that Kaladin has been displaying this exact sentiment up until this point, over and over. He protects the men in his squad in Amaram’s army. He protects the other bridgemen. He protects Bridge Four. He protects Dalinar and Adolin and Shallan. He protects Elhokar. The issue, of course, is what to do when two of his “family groups” are fighting against one another.

AA: Indeed. How do you define Tukks’s “them” in the Kholinar situation? And before long, we’ll see that there’s another question: when you need to take care of two different groups/individuals who aren’t in the same place, how do you prioritize that? And then there’s the thought at the end of the flashback:

He never told Tukks the truth. When Kal had frozen on the practice field, it hadn’t been out of fear. He’d been very sure he could hurt someone. In fact, he’d realized that he could kill, if needed.
And that was what had terrified him.

AA: How does that fit? It’s easy to see him freezing because he couldn’t figure out who to protect when it was his parsh friends and his Wall Guard friends fighting each other. But… how does the realization that he could kill fit in with this? Was it realizing how easy it would be to kill a friend?

L: I think that this was his old self as trained by his father. I imagine that, as a surgeon’s son, Kal was raised to view all life as sacred. The idea that he could kill someone instead of just injuring them must have been very sobering and taken quite a lot of getting used to. (He certainly doesn’t seem too upset about it the “next” time we see him, in the flashback at the beginning of The Way of Kings when he’s protecting the new recruit and takes out Shallan’s Shardbearer brother.)

Stories & Songs

The Herald had taken him on a mission to Tashikk, hunting Surgebinders from other orders. A heartless act that Nin had explained would prevent the coming of the Desolation.
Except that it had not. The Everstorm’s return had convinced Nin he was wrong, and he’d abandoned Szeth in Tashikk. Weeks had passed there until Nin had returned to collect him. The Herald had dropped Szeth here at the fortress, then had vanished into the sky again, this time off to “seek guidance.”

AA: The first part of that is a quick summary of Edgedancer, at least from Szeth’s perspective. The last tells us a little about where Szeth and Nale were for the last couple of months; Szeth was waiting in Tashikk, and Nale was off panicking. Then Szeth was dropped off here at the Purelake, at a fortress belonging to the Skybreakers; I’m betting that Nale went flying off to find Ishar and confer with him. It’s just possible that he went to Ishar the first time, decided he’d gone too far round the twist, and went to find some of the other Heralds this second time.

Still and all, this is a good reminder that for all his earlier self-confidence, Nale was badly shaken when the red-eyed parsh in the Everstorm proved that murdering all the potential Radiants hadn’t done a thing to prevent the Desolation. It seems he should have known that, doesn’t it? He was a Herald, part of the Oathpact. He knew that the Desolations came when a Herald broke in Damnation, not when the Radiants got stronger. What on Roshar made him think this was a good plan?

Bruised & Broken

Like most things, death had not been Szeth’s to claim.…

His spirit hadn’t properly reattached to his body.

AA: Well, here’s our first contact with Szeth since Edgedancer, and I’m not real sure I’ve missed him. I feel sorry for the guy in some ways, but at the same time I find him deeply annoying. He’s got such a victimhood complex because of the things he did when he accepted the “Truthless” label the Stone Shamans put on him.

L: I, on the other hand, adore Szeth. Sure, he’s got a victimhood complex—but no more so than Kaladin did at the beginning of The Way of Kings. He’s been just as badly used, one could argue more so! While Kaladin was betrayed and forced into slavery, Szeth was forced—by the constraints of his honor—to kill those he viewed as innocent. How terrible, to feel as though you have to do such terrible things, and to have those things weighing on your conscience for your entire life! Especially given the fact that the entire reason he was named Truthless was false!

AA: I fully agree that Szeth was badly used—especially by people who should have listened to his argument but instead doubled down on what they wanted to be true. And I’ll even go so far as to say that he at least, unlike some *coughMoashcough* accepts the guilt for all the people he killed. He just doesn’t accept the blame, and I find that … well, mixed. And I guess I just don’t like him as much as I do some others, so that’s probably part of it. (But him and his “sword-nimi” is worth a lot on the plus side of the scale, so there’s that!)

L: Aside from the “victimhood complex” issue, this concept of the fact that this soul and body aren’t connected anymore is really fascinating, and we’ll discuss it in more depth down in the Sheer Speculation section.

Do I dare bring them judgment? a part of him wondered. Dare I trust myself with the sword of vengeance?

L: This is why I like him, I think. He’s willing to self-examine, he doubts himself. This is promising in a character who was very much set up to be an anti-hero type.

AA: It’s one of his very best thoughts—and one reason why I suspect that if anyone can truly qualify for the Fifth Ideal, it might be him. Because he’s not arrogant about it. (See Weighty Words below.)

Hey, the voices seem quiet today. That’s nice, isn’t it?

Mentioning it brought the whispers to Szeth’s attention. Nin had not healed Szeth’s madness. He’d called it an effect of Szeth’s connection to the powers, and said that he was hearing trembles from the Spiritual Realm.

L: Szeth seems to think that these are the voices of those he’s killed, but I don’t think he’s right on that count. If they’re actually coming from the Spiritual Realm, are they maybe Singer souls who haven’t found vessels in the physical realm yet? Are they spren? Heck maybe they are the souls of the people he’s killed, not like we really know where the souls of the dead on Roshar end up, do we?

AA: I keep wondering if there’s some kind of link that keeps people in the Spiritual Realm linked to the person who killed them, especially if Investiture was involved. Dalinar and Szeth both seem to hear “the voices of those they killed,” but not too many other people have that issue.

Before he’d become Truthless.

No. You were never Truthless. Remember that.

L: He’s been wronged just as surely as Kaladin ever was! Both sold into slavery, both for doing the right thing. I hope that they can overcome their dislike of one another and bond sometime in the future books. I’d also like to point out that he was essentially gaslit, and that makes me more angry on his behalf.

“I found your brother,” Tukks noted.

L: ::loud sobs:: TIEN WHYYYYYY

AA: Nooooooo… I’m never sure if it’s worse to think he was killed just because some inept commander put him in the wrong place, or because he was an incipient Lightweaver with a target on his innocent back. I mean, I’m pretty sure by now that it was the latter set up to look like the former; I’m just not sure which is worse.

“Something’s wrong inside you. But I don’t know what.”

L: Jeez. Syl not pulling any punches with the wording on that one. I just hope that it’s not something “wrong” like the last time something was “wrong” and almost led to their bond breaking.

“I … was just surprised to find Sah there,” he said. “Not to mention Moash.”

How do you do it? How can you hurt people, Tukks….

AA: Poor confused Windrunner. I don’t think “surprised” quite covers it, but never mind. We get it. You’d gotten sort of used to the idea that the people you fought were people, but it never quite registered that someday, the people on “the other side” might be your friends. It’s not really about “how can you hurt people” in the abstract. It’s about when “they” turn out to be a person, in a very concrete sense.

Squires & Sidekicks

Besides, this flight was not truly his. He continued falling upward until another Skybreaker caught him and Lashed him downward….

AA: Well, that’s a bit of a comedown for the guy who flew everywhere with Jezrien’s Honorblade. If he weren’t so self-deprecating at this point, he’d have to kind of resent it, wouldn’t he?

L: And yet he doesn’t seem resentful at all. If anything, he’s humble about it.

Younger than the other sergeants, [Sergeant Tukks] had features that were … off somehow. Perhaps it was his short stature, or his sunken cheeks.

AA: Gah! Every time someone is described as “off somehow” (or words to that effect) I hurl myself headlong to the conclusion that they must be a worldhopper. He probably isn’t, of course.

Places & Peoples

“In speaking this ideal,” Ki said, “you are officially pardoned for any past misdeeds or sins. We have paperwork signed by the proper authorities for this region.”

L: Sure, this region. But if he’s committed crimes (like, oh, say, the assassination of a dozen world leaders) in other regions, wouldn’t he still be—

You know what, as I was typing this I realized that they’ve probably got paperwork for every region squirreled away. Never mind. It’s still pretty cool, though, that they grant unconditional amnesty like this.

AA: It’s fairly impressive to see just how extensive their official pull is, but I also find it a bit arrogant. We have the paperwork, so we declare you officially pardoned. It grates on me; but that might be the manner of the speaker. I do like the concept of getting a new start when you take the first step of Radiant-hood, though I don’t think in reality it’s quite that simple. Just ask Teft. Or Szeth, for that matter. You can have all the official pardon in the world, but if you have a conscience (or an addiction), you know you still have the burden.

Cleanse Shinovar, Szeth thought. That would be his quest.

L: I really want to know what the heck is going on over in Shinovar that’s so bad that Szeth feels like he needs to cleanse it!

AA: I’ve always assumed it’s the wilfulness of the Stone Shamanate—those people who have declared that their assumptions are Truth, and anyone who disagrees automatically becomes the lowest person in the entire nation. But I could be forgetting something.

For a moment he felt the freedom of flight — reminding him of his first days, holding an Honorblade long ago. Before he’d become Truthless.

AA: We’ll learn more about this as we follow Szeth’s story, but this is a pointed note that he trained with the Honorblade before they named him Truthless. There’s been a lot of careless assumption that when you get named Truthless, they give you an Honorblade and shove you off to wreak havoc on the rest of the world; I think that’s incorrect. My personal belief is that trainees of the Stone Shamanate train with all the Honorblades (we’ll learn about his experience with other Honorblades later), and those who are particularly promising and reach a certain level within the organization become the temporary owners of the different Blades. Since they probably didn’t have a rule for what to do when someone at that level was named Truthless, they decided they had to leave him in possession of the Honorblade anyway. I expect we’ll find out that sort of detail in the fifth book, though.

L: That seems like such a weird decision to make. “Hey, we’re exiling you, but also take along this priceless, extremely powerful artifact of which we only have so many, which will practically give you the powers of a god.” Like… what’s their end game goal with that plan? I don’t get it.

Tight Butts and Coconuts

“Now, I may not be an expert on humans,” she said. “For example, I still haven’t figured out why only a handful of your cultures seem to worship me. But I do think I heard somewhere that you have to sleep. Like, every night.”

L: Bless you, Syl.

Weighty Words

An entire order of the Knights Radiant had survived the Recreance and had been watching for the Desolation for two thousand years, constantly replenishing their numbers as others died of old age.

L: I wonder what specifically about the Skybreakers made it so that they didn’t turn their backs on their spren when everyone else did, after the TruthBomb about the Voidbringers was dropped.

AA: Too self-righteous to believe they could ever be wrong?

L: That certainly does line up with what we’ve seen of Nale so far…

AA: All in one go, we get the entire stack of Skybreaker Ideals. As with at least some other Orders, there is an individual element to each one. Rather than quote the whole section, I’ll just list them here, and how they’re known:

1: The Ideal of Radiance—Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.

2: The Ideal of Justice—an oath to seek and administer justice (requires a master to take the seeker as squire)—at this step the would-be Skybreaker learns the Lashings, from the Surge of Gravitation

3: The Ideal of Dedication—an oath to dedicate oneself to a greater truth, choosing a code to follow (requires a spren bond)—the point at which one is considered a full Skybreaker, and the Surge of Division is taught

4: The Ideal of Crusade—choosing a personal quest—when completed to the satisfaction of the spren, one is considered a master

5: The Ideal of Law—in which one becomes law and truth

AA: This is… wow. So much to wrap your head around! The first two are straightforward enough, though “justice—by what standard?” is always a question; I guess you have to take your master’s word for it at this point. Interestingly, the choice of a standard is left to the third Ideal, and (as we’ll see later) every Skybreaker decides for himself what standard to follow.

The fourth Ideal gets even more personal, as it involves a specific quest; Szeth has already decided that cleansing Shinovar will be his fourth Ideal. The fifth Ideal… well, they speak of it as something to “achieve” rather than to declare. I really, really wonder how that works, because it strikes me as a massive delusion of grandeur. Szeth obviously wonders, too:

“Nin told me that we are to follow the law—something external, as men are changeable and unreliable. How can we become the law?”

AA: The answer he’s given makes me want to smack someone.

“Law must come from somewhere,” another of the Skybreaker masters said. “This is not an oath you will swear, so don’t fixate upon it. The first three will do for most Skybreakers. I was of the Third Ideal for two decades before achieving the Fourth.”

AA: I mean… arrogant much? The idea that an individual, a mortal, is capable of being justice is… ugh. On the other hand, the patronizing tone of the rest of it is also ugh, and makes me reasonably sure that Szeth will achieve the Fourth in less than two years, rather than two decades. I sort of expect that he’ll achieve the Fifth within the scope of the series, and I’m not sure if I like that idea or not!

L: I wouldn’t be surprised if he achieved the Fourth in the next book, honestly. But back to the concept of becoming the law. I wonder if this means something more esoteric, like that the Skybreaker must study and fully comprehend ethics and become enlightened? But in so doing I imagine that they’d realize that there rarely is a cut and dried answer, thereby rendering all they’ve learned so far null and void. I imagine those who have gained this ideal as almost… Dalai Lama type figures, sitting on mountaintops and giving wise advice to seekers of knowledge. But that’s just my personal head-canon and has no basis in… anything at all.

AA: So of course I had to go searching… There are apparently a couple of prevailing theories out there, and Brandon has said that either could be true for a given Skybreaker and there is actually disagreement within the Order on what it means. One possibility is that when you achieve the Fifth Ideal, everything you do is by definition within the (true) law. The other is that you cannot willingly violate any law without breaking your Oath. Personally, I hope the latter is ultimately the right interpretation, although I’d bet that Nale interprets it as the former.

As always, it comes back to the first question of justice: by what standard?

Cosmere Connections

Vasher says there are magic fish here.

L: Is this our first actual real-name mention of Vasher (from Warbreaker)? I think it is!

AA: Yes, I believe so! At least, a search in Arcanum Unbounded doesn’t give me any hits, and this is the first time we see Szeth and Nightblood in Oathbringer, so… Vasher!! Not that it necessarily draws the connection to Zahel, but still.

I was going to point out that this statement proves that the two of them arrived on Roshar together—except it doesn’t. Vasher was here before, so he could have told Nightblood about the magic fish before they ever left Nalthis. Rats anyway—I was hoping I’d found a clue.

I don’t think you’re evil at all, and I only destroy things that are evil.

L: Perhaps a reminder on what Nightblood is, and his backstory (what we know of it, at least) is in order. On the off chance that any of you haven’t read Warbreaker, and are confused as all heck as to what this talking sword is all about. Alice, you want to lead us in this one, since you did the Warbreaker reread?

AA: Our favorite talking sword!! I love Nightblood. Also, he gives me the shivers.

Nightblood was an attempt (by Vasher and his wife Shashara, two of the Five Scholars on Nalthis) to create a Shardblade like the ones they’d seen on Roshar when they worldhopped here some 300 or so years ago. It didn’t work right, because they were using the wrong magic system; instead of a cognitive entity who could take a physical form, they created a physical object with (some) cognition. In local parlance, they Awakened it, at the cost of a thousand Breaths and an exceedingly difficult visualization. Since every Awakening requires a Command, they told it to “Destroy Evil.” Unfortunately, steel has no inherent moral compass, so “evil” is a concept beyond Nightblood’s comprehension. His primary definition of evil is “anyone who tries to steal me and use me to do bad stuff” (which still doesn’t define “bad”) and secondarily seems to be “anyone who tries to hurt the person wielding me if I like them.” (That’s just my interpretation, by the way.)

The biggest challenge for a knowledgeable and careful person with Nightblood is that when it is removed from its scabbard, even a little bit, it starts guzzling Investiture. On Nalthis, that meant taking all the Breath from anyone it could touch, and then taking the life as well. On Roshar, we’ll see it coming to mean absorbing all the Stormlight in the vicinity and then beginning to devour the person holding it or anyone it touches. It has no concept of “it’s time to stop” unless you can shove it back in its sheath; even then, it refuses to believe that it’s gone too far or could possibly have hurt anyone who wasn’t evil, because… “destroy evil.”

“I have been warned, sword-nimi,” Szeth reminded the weapon, “not to draw you except in the case of extreme emergency. And only if I carry much Stormlight, lest you feed upon my soul.”

AA: And now my burning question is, assuming he was warned by Nale… who told Nale? Did he learn it from Vasher? Was the knowledge passed along by whoever held the sword until it got from Vasher to Nale? Or… did Nale let/observe someone use it and discover the hard way?

L: My spheres are on that last one.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

“Pattern’s watching over them.” She wrinkled her nose. “Strange.”

“He’s nice, Syl.”

“That’s the strange part.”

AA: Just in case you’d forgotten, Honorspren don’t think very highly of Cryptics. At least in theory. In practice, Syl seems to be discovering that an individual Cryptic can be pretty okay.

“We don’t sleep; we don’t eat. I think we might feed off humans, actually. Your emotions. Or thinking about us, maybe.”

L: This reminds me a great deal of the fae and how belief in the magic makes it real.

AA: Which also reminds me… spren are “real” in a very different way in Shadesmar.

It was so strange to be able to feel her head on his arm. He was accustomed to her having very little substance.

AA: We’ve seen some evidence of this already, what with Pattern seeming to weigh as much as a human and Syl prodding Kaladin to move in the earlier chapters. But here, Kaladin finally registers the solidity of his spren. It seems significant, but I’m not 100% sure why.

Sheer Speculation

L: So, let’s chat about this mind/body connection thing, shall we?

Perhaps it was because of the way he left a glowing afterimage when he moved: a sign of his soul’s improper reattachment.

L: This is really cool. I believe we talked a bit about this in the Edgedancer reread as well, but there’s just so much to dig into here! So many questions! Can he detach his soul and do some astral projection type stuff now? Can he enter Shadesmar, or see into it, maybe? How is this going to come into play in the long run, because you just know Sanderson didn’t put it in without planning on using it somehow.

AA: Oh, good call. I haven’t really thought about it with both hands yet, but you’re right; Sanderson wouldn’t put in a poorly-attached soul leaving an afterimage without intending to do something amazing with it. What could it be?

Let’s see… we know that when a Shardblade cuts through a body part, it “dies” because the soul is cut, right? So… with a semi-detached soul, could his body be unaffected by a Shardblade? Or what happens if someone misses his body, but hits the afterimage with a Blade?

Oh, hey… The second Skybreaker Surge is Division. Seems like there ought to be some connection there, doesn’t it?

Honestly, I don’t know what to expect from it, but I’ll bet there’s something awesome coming, and I’ll bet it has to do with the Cognitive realm somehow.

Quality Quotations

He wouldn’t have thought that soldiers would care that the ground wasn’t level. Shouldn’t he be sharpening his spear, or … or oiling something?

Next week, we’ll be hitting one chapter and returning to the Skybreakers and Szeth! Join us then, and as always, if you have theories or thoughts of your own, feel free to join the discussion in the comments!

Alice is just hanging out in the cool of the Pacific Northwest, where August hasn’t been nearly as warm as it should be. One of those summers—but it keeps the wildfire danger down.

Lyndsey is kind of wishing she had a talking sword of her own, even if it did keep urging her to destroy evil. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Book 4 in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series is 50% done! The author posted the update himself on the series’ subreddit earlier this week, giving fans a preview of the book’s structure.

(Slight spoilers ahead for the Stormlight Archive series up to and including book 4, so click away if you’d rather not see them.)

First, some spoiler space.

Anyone remember Pingu?

Cutest little claymation penguin.

Noot noot!

Book 4, which is tentatively titled The Rhythm of War, begins with the group of characters from the end of Oathbringer, before splitting into three groups of viewpoint characters: group one, which has five characters, group two, which has two, and group three, which also has two. Having finished writing the adventures of group two, Sanderson said he now has groups one and three to write.

The author also shared a concern he had about writing the POVs of Parshendi sisters Venli and Eshonai. As you’ll recall, Eshonai was confirmed dead in Oathbringer, while Venli is slowly but surely embarking on a redemption arc.

One issue I’ve been having with the book is the flashbacks. I’m not 100% sure they’ll work the way I planned them to. In that case, it’s possible I will toss them and doing them from Venli’s viewpoint instead. I’m excited to write more Eshonai, but there’s a real chance that the viewpoints will feel like fluff, as Venli is the one who knew the secrets happening behind the scenes among the Listeners at the time.

[…]

I can’t say for certain, and my gut says that–in abstract–more people would enjoy reading about Eshonai as a character, but would find the chapters a little boring and out of place. Venli flashbacks would, instead, be filled with cosmere mysteries and answers that will be more interesting.

For more details on Sanderson’s thought process on the potential POV switch, tours, and hoped-for release windows, head on over to the update. In the meantime, you can watch Brandon read an excerpt from one of the Venli chapters in the forthcoming novel.

Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread, where the questions of the hour are morality and just what the heck is going on with Nightblood? And Nightblood means Szeth, and Szeth means Skybreakers, and Skybreakers mean… what the heck is going on up there by the Purelake?

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread we also discuss some things from Warbreaker in the Squires & Sidekicks and Cosmere Connections sections, so if you haven’t read it, best to give those sections a pass.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Szeth
WHERE: The Purelake
WHEN: 1174.2.4.5 (later the same day as Chapter 90)

Szeth arrives at a small town on the north shore of the Purelake along with the rest of the Skybreaker trainees and squires. They are charged with finding and executing a group of escaped prisoners. Szeth finds one and questions him, and based on the answers determines that the administrator of the prison is also at fault. He draws Nightblood and executes the administrator, then Ki takes him as her squire and he swears the Second Ideal.

Beginnings

Title: Water Warm as Blood

Szeth lowered the knife, but that gave the man an opening to twist and pull them both down into the Purelake.

Szeth splashed into water warm as blood.

A: It’s kind of a creepy title, but it’s pretty funny when you realize that it’s just the pleasantly warm Purelake.

Heralds

Nale: Judge, Herald of Justice, patron of Skybreakers, attributes Just & Confident, essence Vapor, soulcasting properties of opaque gas, smoke, fog.

Shalash (Ash): Artist, Herald of Beauty, patron of Lightweavers, attributes Creative & Honest, essence Blood, soulcasting properties of blood, all non-oil liquids.

L: Well, it’s pretty obvious why Nale is here, as this is a Skybreaker-intensive chapter. As for Shalash… she’s mentioned once, but I wonder if she’s actually here because of the executions? Her essence is blood, after all. Maybe there’s some sort of link here to Nightblood, as well…

A: Oooooo. I hadn’t thought of a possible connection between Nightblood and Shalash. I hope that turns out to be true—it’s got all sorts of potential! The only other thing I can come up with for her presence (and I don’t think it works this way) is that Szeth displays some pretty creative thinking when he considers his convict and investigates the prison on the strength of his suspicions.

Icon

Assassin, for a Szeth POV

Epigraph

The most important point I wish to make is that the Unmade are still among us. I realize this will be contentious, as much of the lore surrounding them is intertwined with theology. However, it is clear to me that some of their effects are common in the world — and we simply treat them as we would the manifestations of other spren.
— From Hessi’s Mythica, page 12

A: This one reads really differently if you think about Hessi as a Herald in disguise. (Isilel, you’ve almost got me convinced by now!) If she’s just an ordinary modern scholar, it’s just … scholarly. People should probably worry a little, but there’s not a lot of urgency—not if they’ve been active for thousands of years and are just part of “normality.” If she’s a Herald, though, knowing that increased activity by the Unmade was one of the signs that the barriers of Damnation were weakening, it seems a desperate plea for people to not believe what the Heralds told them (that they won at Aharietiam). Which is of course foundational to their current religious beliefs, and no one wants to believe that. “No, we lied! They aren’t all trapped or destroyed! Their effects now are telling you that a new Desolation is coming!” But of course she couldn’t say that…

Bruised & Broken

“I knew a voice like yours once, sword-nimi.

The whispers?

“No. A single one, in my mind, when I was young. … I hope things go better this time.”

A: Whether from lack of curiosity or lack of understanding, Nightblood doesn’t question this. AHEM. Allow me:

What. The. Damnation. …? Did Szeth have the beginnings of a spren bond, years ago? Was that why he knew the Radiants were returning, and with them presumably the Voidbringers? Was he declared Truthless because of what his spren told him? And if so, what happened to it?

L: This was my immediate thought. That he’d been in the process of bonding a spren early on.

A: Now, I have to point out that “when I was young” doesn’t match very well with being named Truthless at 27 years of age, so perhaps the two aren’t related. Or… perhaps the events of the intervening nine years make his previous life feel like “when I was young.” Either way, this really does sound like a spren bond, and I can’t help wondering what family it belonged to. Would he have been a Skybreaker even back then? Somehow, I think not. Did he do something to destroy the bond, or did the spren change its mind? More questions for Szeth’s book, I suppose.

Squires & Sidekicks

A: Does Nightblood qualify as a Sidekick? He’s so funny—right up until he’s not.

L: I think he does. He’s certainly not a main character, either here or in Warbreaker! So that puts him firmly in the sidekick/foil camp for me anyway.

“Sword-nimi, do you know why you were given to me?”

Because you needed help. I’m good at helping.

A: Oh, yes, indeed. So good at helping!

Honestly, Szeth, I have to be frank. You aren’t good at slaying evil. We haven’t killed anyone while you held me.

A: Okay, I guess I can’t quote everything… but this really made me laugh.

A rushing sound, like a thousand screams.

A wave of power, like the beating of a terrible, stunning wind.

Colors changed around him. They deepened, growing darker and more vibrant. The city nobleman’s cloak became a stunning array of deep oranges and blood reds.

The hair on Szeth’s arms stood on end and his skin spiked with a sudden incredible pain.

DESTROY!

Liquid darkness flowed from the Blade, then melted to smoke as it fell.

A: … And then it’s not funny any more at all, and you remember that Nightblood is nobody’s joke. (I love that colors are affected by Nightblood on Roshar just like they were on Nalthis.) The description, while it could be expected by anyone who’s read Warbreaker, is nonetheless a bit of a stunner. If there’s anyone here who hadn’t read Warbreaker first, was this as shocking as I think it ought to have been? I mean, an absurdly cheerful sword is odd anyway, though not inconceivable since we now know that spren become swords here on Roshar, but this sudden personality change… Wow! And just as suddenly, it changes back.

Hey! The sword said as Szeth sat on a low wall alongside the city. Hey, did you draw me?

“I did, sword-nimi.”

Great job! Did we… did we destroy lots of evil?

“A great and corrupt evil.”

L: Interesting that he seems to lose all sense of everything when he’s drawn. He sort of reminds me of my friend who has seizures… after she has one, she acts like this. She can’t recall what happened during the episode at all.

Wow! I’m impressed. You know, Vivenna never drew me even once? She carried me for a long time too. Maybe a couple of days even?

“And how long have I been carrying you?”

At least an hour, the sword said, satisfied. One, or two, or ten thousand. Something like that.

L: So time moves differently for Nightblood… or at least, he perceives it as such.

A: Apparently Nightblood has very little sense of time; one hour or ten thousand hours are indistinguishable to him. He seems to remember people, but he doesn’t remember the passage of time, nor anything that happens when he’s unsheathed. Which, come to think of it, is probably why he doesn’t remember being used to kill Shashara, and why he keeps thinking she’s still alive.

Flora & Fauna

A: This crazy world with its crazy plants… did you notice how Szeth used the leaves to find his criminal?

L: I really loved that little touch. It makes perfect sense that someone who is used to the behavior would pick up on little things like that!

Places & Peoples

“How did this man know to send for us?” Szeth asked.

“We have been expanding our influence, following the advent of the new storm,” she replied. “The local monarchs have accepted us as a unifying martial force, and have given us legal authority. The city’s high minister wrote to us via spanreed, pleading for help.”

A: I… have a hard time accepting this at face value. They’ve become an acknowledged and accepted force of law in a matter of 75 days or so? Really? I don’t know whether to think the locals are really that pathetic, or the Skybreaker is lying about it all being so recent.

L: I have to wonder if they already had the paperwork lined up for just such an eventuality…

A: Right. Paperwork. They probably did!

It seems odd that the people here would be so open to the return of the Radiants. Without the Vorin Heirocracy to mess with their history, it might not be such a big issue for them, but at the same time, this isn’t all that far from Feverstone Keep, a principal location for the Recreance. I can’t help thinking there’s something fishy here—and it’s not the magic critters in the Purelake.

In light of later events, there’s something else that’s bugging me. Here, we’re seeing that the Skybreakers have a lot of influence over the nearby kingdoms. In Chapter 117, Nale tells Szeth that the Skybreakers will be following the laws of the Singers. In Chapter 122, we’re told that the entire northwest segment of the continent is held by the Voidbringers, including this area. Are those related? Does the Skybreaker influence push these areas toward the Voidbringers? Or does their involvement with those nations push them toward accepting the same rule? Is it correlation, causation, or coincidence?

“If these men are murderers, why were they not executed before?”

“This area is populated by Reshi idealists … They have a strange non-violent attitude, even toward criminals. … Now that the murderers have escaped, mercy is withdrawn. They are to be executed.”

A: Well then. As we see later, “mercy” might not be the right word for this particular prison, or at least not for everyone. Why would the locals suddenly agree to execute all the inmates, as well as the corrupt administrator? Do I detect some influence by a certain group who claims to be interested only in fulfilling law? Does local law allow for the death penalty, and they just don’t like to enforce it, or are the Skybreakers pressuring the leaders into allowing them to administer justice according to their own (i.e. Skybreakers) standard of justice?

“You walk on stone. Why is this? Each Shin I have known calls stone holy, and refuses to set foot on it.”

“It cannot be holy. If it truly were, Master Ki, it would have burned me away long ago.”

A: I wonder if we’ll ever learn the background of this “holy stone” business. I expect that will come in Szeth’s book.

L: I rather like the theory that stone is tied to the Third Sibling, which they worship.

A: I like that idea too—but then I like almost anything that might tie to the Sibling!! Meanwhile, his response is fascinating. It would seem that he considers himself so tainted that anything truly holy would destroy him… but it doesn’t seem to cross his mind that 95% of the population of Roshar walks on stone all the time. Does he really think he’s so much worse than everyone else that holiness should destroy him more than anyone else? It could be, of course.

To be fair, I think he mentioned it a few times in The Way of Kings, at least, that all these pagans were walking on stone without regard to its holiness. But this is the first time he thinks that the stone should destroy him, rather than thinking how awful he (and everyone else) is for walking on it. Huh.

L: Maybe it’s only especially profane for followers of the religion to break it?

A: Could be. After all, you don’t really expect the heathens to know right and wrong!

Weighty Words

“… I won’t be surprised if it takes you mere months before you achieve the Third Ideal.”

Months. No, he would not take months.

A: Heh. Yeah, Szeth is going to blow their “normal” timetable to smithereens. He’ll get to the Third in 22 days.

“I swear to seek justice, to let it guide me, until I find a more perfect Ideal.”

L: Very interesting. A more perfect ideal… like a perfect understanding of ethics/morality? Can any interpretation of ethics be completely correct? An interesting philosophical question indeed…

A: Oddly enough, Nale seems to agree with you. He says later that even laws can’t be perfect, since they are written by people, but he seems to believe that codified law is better than the individual opinion. Which, generally, is quite true. But even laws must be interpreted, and … well, no. I don’t believe anyone (except God) can claim to have a perfectly correct understanding of good and evil.

In this context, though, I suppose it makes for a reasonable Second Ideal. The Radiant Ideals seem to be more “it means what it means to you” than “it means what it means.”

Moral Motivations

A: So there’s a bunch of trivial stuff about the Skybreakers in this chapter, and I’m tucking it in here. Like, when the prison-master tells them to go find the convicts and kill them…

The masters turned to the squires and hopefuls; some of the more eager among them immediately went running toward the water. Several that could Lash took to the sky.

A: Blood-thirsty, much? Okay, we can pretend they’re just eager to see justice served, but seriously, you know they’re all just hoping to bring back dead-body prizes so they can move up the ladder. “Justice” my eye.

L: I can see why they’d be eager to jump right in… I recall an episode of Stan Lee’s reality TV show So You Want to be a Superhero in which he was “testing” people to be superheroes. He told them their mission was to go and change into their superhero outfits, when in reality they passed by a bunch of people who needed help. Most of the “heroes” were too focused on the task and hence didn’t even notice the calls for help around them, which was, of course, the real test. But Alice, you make a good point about the fact that passing this test requires them to kill someone. You’d think that at least some of them would be a little squicked out by this!

A: Or at least they ought to blink at the thought. Some kind of reaction. Have they been trained to believe that the death penalty is the only thing they do? “You only call in the Skybreakers for capital crimes!!”

Anyway, most of them took off at this juncture. Four, besides Szeth, stayed behind to be sure the convicts were guilty and this was a legitimate effort of justice. With that confirmed, two more leave. When told about the local viewpoints and that “mercy is withdrawn” the last two (besides Szeth) are off and running uhh… flying uhh… falling. So at least there are a few who wait to be sure it’s the “right” thing to do, I guess? Except Szeth. This chapter, I like him more than I did last time. He’s beginning to think.

L: It makes sense that it takes him awhile to retrain his mind to think about orders. He’s gotten so used to just doing whatever his master told him that I imagine that he’s rusty at taking the time to think over the morality.

A: Sort of… Sometimes he seemed to think about the morality—or lack thereof!—in what he was doing, but he did it anyway because, as Nightblood says, “magic rock.” Now, he’s taking responsibility for what he thinks, and acting on it. This is, I think, good.

These are Skybreakers, he thought. They wouldn’t knowingly send us after innocents. He could have taken their implied approval at the start. Yet… something bothered him. This was a test, but of what? Was it merely about the speed with which they could dispatch the guilty?

A: Good question, Szeth. Good question. And I’m glad to learn that there is more to it—at the same time I’m irritated that most of the hopefuls and squires don’t seem to have a clue. They’re just off to kill the killers. (Uh-oh. That fits way too well with a certain song… that I will now have stuck in my head… Oz FTW?)

Szeth turned from him to Ki. “Do you have a writ of execution for this man?”

“It is the first we obtained.”

A: So… clearly they intended to execute the prison-master in the end. Apparently they were waiting to see if any of their hopefuls thought beyond “escaped convict” to evaluate the prison itself, and its management. Good, I guess?

L: Yeah, I mean… they know he’s not going anywhere, they’ve got him under tabs, so why not wait and see if any of their hopefuls are quick enough to figure it out?

Cosmere Connections

A: As quoted up in Squires & Sidekicks, Nightblood states that Vivenna never drew it, in all the time she carried it. Of course, we have no way of knowing how long that was; we don’t know whether Nightblood is just thinking of the short time we saw her carrying it in Warbreaker, or whether she carried it for months or years, after that. On a bet, she carried it for a while in the sequel, but it seems probable that she gave it back to Vasher in the end.

Liquid darkness flowed from the Blade, then melted to smoke as it fell. Szeth screamed at the pain in his arm even as he slammed the weapon through the chest of the blubbering nobleman.

Flesh and blood puffed instantly into black smoke. Ordinary Shardblades burned only the eyes, but this sword somehow consumed the entire body. It seemed to sear away even the man’s soul.

L: Whooboy. Now, it’s been awhile since I read Warbreaker, but I don’t remember Nightblood reacting like this during it! Alice, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he just leave bodies like a normal sword did?

A: Hmm. After a bit of a prowl through Warbreaker… Most of the time, no one got farther than pulling him an inch or two out of the scabbard, and many times people died by being stabbed with the sheathed sword. The only time that anyone actually drew Nightblood all the way out of the scabbard was when Vasher was fighting a bunch of Lifeless during the Avalanche. In that case, the end result was pretty close:

Each creature he struck with the blade immediately flashed and became smoke. A single scratch and the bodies dissolved like paper being consumed by an invisible fire, leaving behind only a large stain of blackness in the air.

(Warbreaker p. 621, Kindle edition).

A: He also dissolved a few walls and part of a ceiling with the sword, pretty much the same way—stone puffed away in smoke. I think the big difference is that Nightblood kills and maims whenever the scabbard’s clasp is undone, but there are still dead bodies around. When it’s truly unsheathed, there’s no body left. The odd thing is that Jewels insists Vasher couldn’t have used Nightblood to kill Arsteel, because “there was no blackness to Arsteel’s wounds.” Either it would work differently on a Returned and she knows it, or she has no idea what happens when Nightblood is drawn, because she knows where Arsteel’s body is.

L: Once again, my faulty memory betrays me! I think I must have been thinking of times that people were stabbed with the scabbard. Anyway, this is all pretty terrifying. The thing I find most fascinating is that either Nightblood is actively breaking the law of conservation of mass (matter cannot be created or destroyed) or he’s… sending it somewhere else. Now, I know we’re dealing with Magic here, HOWEVER Sanderson is usually pretty good about couching his magic within the realm of science, so…

A: Hmm. We know that Nightblood destroys in all three Realms at once, but… I’m not sure. Is there enough smoke for an entire body? It’s a lot like Jasnah Soulcasting that big boulder to smoke. That should have created an incredible amount of smoke in order to account for the mass of the boulder. Or the Soulcasters who make stone out of air—it should suck all the air out of the whole warcamp to get enough mass to make a small stone, let alone a big wall. I’m inclined to think that it’s going to/coming from somewhere else, somehow—either that, or the Rule of Cool outweighs the laws of physics.

Slowly, the blackness evaporated from his flesh, the awful pain easing. The skin of his hand, which had already been pale, had been bleached to grey-white.

L: Permanently, or is this temporary? What the heck is going on here? I could see Nightblood consuming Breath if Szeth didn’t have enough Stormlight to feed it, but… Breath wouldn’t leave just part of his skin grey, would it? I’m so confused.

A: Well, after doing a little research, I’m confused too. On the one occasion when Vasher draws Nightblood, he does get black veins growing up his arm, but once he drops the sword, the blackness evaporates. It doesn’t, however, leave any bleaching behind. I don’t have any way to make an educated guess as to whether it’s the difference between Breath and Stormlight, the difference between Nalthis and Roshar, or the difference between a Returned and an ordinary(ish) mortal.

L: My guess would be that Vasher had enough Breaths to keep it from happening (whereas Szeth states that he would need a LOT more Stormlight before trying again), but that still doesn’t answer the question of just what Nightblood was feeding off of, if not Breath or Stormlight… and whether this is permanent!

A: I’m pretty sure it was feeding off a combination of the Stormlight in Szeth’s spheres and Szeth’s life force, but there was no sense in Warbreaker of it pulling color from things. So… yeah, I dunno.

Quality Quotations

“And what is evil, sword-nimi?”

I’m sure you can spot it. You seem smart. If increasingly kind of boring.

* * *

Vivenna used to tell me that cruelty is only for men, as is mercy. Only we can choose one or the other, and beasts cannot.

Well, that’s what we’ve got on the Assassin, the Awakened Sword, and the Skybreakers. Join us in the comments, and be sure to come back next week for Chapters 93, 94, and 95. We’ll rejoin our intrepid Shadesmar Explorers, then jump back in time for a very short but significant scene from Dalinar’s past, and visit with Kaladin briefly.

Alice is gearing up for the beginning of school. Also volleyball. Woot! (This is what happens when you have high school kids, apparently.)

Lyndsey is beginning her run at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, and as such is preparing to speak in a silly British accent and sleep outdoors every weekend for the next seven weeks. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Get out your bottles (small or otherwise), because this week’s a long one. And a difficult one, if we’re being honest. Adolin and Kaladin are both struggling with some pretty heavy issues in their own ways, and Past!Dalinar is deep in the throes of alcoholism. It’s not easy to see our favorite characters in such hardship, but of course they must hit bottom before they can start clawing their way back up.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

We actually don’t have spoilers from other books this week (for the first time since Nightblood and Azure showed up). There are a few little mentions of Warbreaker, but nothing that we’d consider a spoiler. So even if you’ve never read anything else from the Cosmere, you should be fine.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Adolin; Past!Dalinar; Kaladin
WHERE: Shadesmar; Eastern Alethkar; Shadesmar
WHEN: 1174.2.3.4; 1166; 1174.2.3.4 (Chapters 93 and 95 are the same day as chapter 91; Chapter 94 is roughly seven years ago)

Adolin wakes up in Shadesmar, and he and Azure and Kaladin do a kata by the edge of the water. They collectively assess their supplies then realize that they’ve drawn the attention of some anger spren.

Seven years ago, Past!Dalinar is on another bender. When he can’t find any booze in his room, he yells at his sons, but Renarin returns with a small bottle of liquor for him and Dalinar weeps for his losses.

Back in Shadesmar, Kaladin is struggling with his depression. They hike for several days along the “river” before finally reaching one of the lighthouses where they hope to barter for passage across the sea, as well as gain some more provisions.

Beginnings

Titles

Chapter 93: Kata

Adolin sighed, then started a morning kata. Without a sword, he fell back on the first kata he’d ever learned—an extended sequence of stretches, hand-to-hand moves, and stances to help loosen his muscles.

Chapter 94: A Small Bottle

Renarin had returned, timid as always, his spectacled eyes wide and his hand trembling. He held something out.
A small bottle.

Chapter 95: Inescapable Void

Then that numbness would claim him and make it hard to do anything at all. It would become a sinking, inescapable void from within which everything looked washed out. Dead.

Heralds

Chapter 93: Talenel—Herald of War. Dependable/Resourceful, Stonewards, Soldier.
Ishar—Herald of Luck. Pious/Guiding. Bondsmiths. Role: Priest.

A: Adolin as Soldier—which his role most certainly is at this point—is enough reason for Taln to be here. I think he’s also displaying his dependability and resourcefulness in this bizarre situation. I’m a little less certain of Ishar’s purpose; I can’t help wondering if it has something to do with Azure, though I couldn’t say what. She, along with the spren, definitely gives a fair bit of guidance to the team, so maybe that’s it.

L: Shallan is displaying a lot of resourcefulness as well, taking stock of their possessions and all.

Chapter 94: Paliah—Learned/Giving, Truthwatchers, Scholar

A: This one seems pretty obvious. Renarin displays the attribute of Giving, and he will eventually become a Truthwatcher. (Yes, I know, his spren is corrupted and we don’t know what effect that will have, but he’s still, as far as we know, a Truthwatcher.)

Chapter 95: Jezrien—Herald of Kings, Protecting/Leading, Windrunners, King
Vedel—Loving/Healing, Edgedancers, Healer

A: The Windrunner for Kaladin—especially when he’s busy being a Windrunner—is pretty common, though he’s doing very little protecting or leading. I can’t help remembering the Prelude: “There, in Jezrien’s eyes, Kalak saw anguish and grief. Perhaps even cowardice. This was a man hanging from a cliff by a thread.” And later, “He seemed so cold. Like a shadow caused by heat and light falling on someone honorable and true, casting this black imitation behind.” I can’t help wondering if Kaladin’s state of mind here, anger hovering on the brink of deep depression, is reflective of that scene long ago.

Icons

Chapter 93: The Shardbearer for an Adolin POV

Chapter 94: Inverse Kholin Glyphpair, for a Dalinar flashback

Chapter 95: Banner & Spears, for Kaladin

Epigraphs

Taxil mentions Yelig-nar, named Blightwind, in an oft-cited quote. Though Jasnah Kholin has famously called its accuracy into question, I believe it.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 26

Yelig-nar had great powers, perhaps the powers of all Surges compounded in one. He could transform any Voidbringer into an extremely dangerous enemy. Curiously, three legends I found mention swallowing a gemstone to engage this process.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 27

A: Hey, Hessi must be a Herald. Who else would dare disagree with Jasnah Kholin?

Well, okay. That isn’t exactly proof, but I couldn’t resist. In any case, if the second epigraph is connected to the first and the powers of Yelig-nar are what Jasnah questioned, she turned out to be wrong and Hessi is right. We didn’t really see much of Aesudan demonstrating Yelig-nar’s powers; she got the glowing red eyes, the black smoke the beginnings of the carapace, and iirc she managed floating off the ground, but that’s about all we saw. Odium later (chapter 118) tells Amaram that she “tried this, and the power consumed her.” Following that, though, we see Amaram swallow the gemstone and begin to display… well, maybe not all the Surges, but a bunch of them!

Side note on something that struck me: Hessi phrases it as Yelig-nar transforming “any Voidbringer” into that nightmare we saw Amaram become. It’s an interesting choice of word, and can be interpreted several ways. Since she’s talking about the past, one could assume she meant “one of those legendary Voidbringers, whatever they were.” Or, if she knew more, she might specifically be thinking about the parsh, even though they seem harmless at the time she’s writing. Or… it might be an implication about what a Voidbringer really is: anyone, regardless of species, who chooses to draw on Odium’s Investiture for power.

Relationships & Romances

Father could have slept on the ground, a part of him thought. Dalinar is a true soldier.

A: Adolin’s thoughts in the beginning of this chapter are … well, interesting. He’s waking up in a nightmare sort of place, after watching his city fall to the Fused and the parsh, and he’s feeling profoundly unnerved about life, the universe, and everything. I’ve written recently about how I thought he did a great job as a leader for this group, getting on with what had to be done no matter how he felt. I still think that. But this week, we’re getting into his mind when no one needs him to do anything.

He’s almost—almost—falling into self-pity. He’s feeling inadequate, and like most of us in that case, he’s reviewing his every failure and perceived failure of the last few months. As so often with him, he views his failures through the lens of his father’s expectations and (supposed) perfections.

Adolin thought again of the jolt he’d felt when ramming his dagger through Sadeas’s eye and into his brain. Satisfaction and shame. Strip away Adolin’s nobility, and what was left? A duelist when a world needed generals? A hothead who couldn’t even take an insult?

A murderer?

A: It’s easy to psychoanalyze the other guy, but isn’t this true of most of us? Not that we have the same position, nor the same cause for guilt, but… don’t we? We all have status and position that other people see, and we all have our own secret faults that give us a constant sense of impostor syndrome. Many of us—though certainly not all—feel a certain sense of having failed to live up to what our parents hoped for us. I’m not saying it’s a great thing, mind you; I’m just saying that Adolin’s feelings this morning are common to humanity. And he knows it:

“I’m being childish, aren’t I?” Adolin asked.

L: I love that Adolin can self-analyze well and realize when he’s being immature.

“So, forces moving in the world now make me look insignificant. That’s no different from a child growing up and realizing his little life isn’t the center of the universe. Right?”

Problem was, his little life had been the center of the universe, growing up. Welcome to being the son of Dalinar storming Blackthorn.

A: Except… it never was. Dalinar’s vicinity was, perhaps, the center of Alethkar, but hardly the universe.

L: Well, he may not have been the center of the universe, but I think he’s always been the center of Adolin’s universe, as many parents are for children. Adolin just seemed to come to this “my parent isn’t perfect” realization later than most.

A: I had the impression that he was thinking that the Blackthorn had been pretty central to All The Things, and as the Blackthorn’s son, he was part of that centrality. And face it, he was pretty important in Alethkar, but I don’t think he quite realizes yet that a lot of Roshar doesn’t care about Alethkar, much less the rest of the universe.. Until now, anyway; from the moment at the end of this book where Dalinar stands against Odium, a whole lot of forces in the Cosmere will be centered on Dalinar. Oh, Adolin. What you have to look forward to…! Anyway, I like what he does with it all:

Adolin sighed, then started a morning kata. … The forms calmed him. The world was turning on its head, but familiar things were still familiar. Strange, that he should have to come to that revelation.

A: Unlike me, Adolin actually does something useful to deal with his emotions: he does something physical and familiar. I absolutely love that Azure comes to join him, matching him move for move; then Kaladin joins them too, less practiced, but still doing the same routine. The obvious reason for including this in “Relationships” is not yet obvious to the characters, but it becomes clear eventually. They all learned this as their first kata, from their first swordmaster, who will turn out to be the same person for all three. Sweet.

L: It’s also really cool to see because it’s a big bonding moment for them. Adolin and Kaladin have fought side by side before, but Azure was still very much on the outside.

A: Yes, I think this is a huge step toward the three of them becoming more “family,” or at least equals, in this escapade.

Adolin stood his ground. Almost seventeen now, fully a man. The other one, the invalid, cringed down. He looked younger than his … what … twelve years? Thirteen?

A: I was absolutely furious with Dalinar over this one. We knew how dismissive he’d been of Renarin ever since his neurodevelopmental issues became noticeable, but this! His sons have been traveling with him for weeks or months at this point, and he still can’t be bothered to even remember his younger son’s name, never mind his age. They’re just “Adolin” and “the other one.” Granted, he really hated the way Evi invented the name Renarin, so there’s that, but… still. And despite all the rejection, Renarin has the courage to step in and try to help:

A small bottle. “I…” Renarin swallowed. “I got you one, with the spheres the king gave me.”

…

Oh Almighty. Oh God. Oh God, please… I’ve started to hate my sons. Why hadn’t the boys learned to hate him back? They should hate him. He deserved to be hated.

Please. Anything. I don’t know how to get free of this. Help me. Help me…

Dalinar wept and clung to that youth, that child, as if he were the only real thing left in a world of shadows.

L: This broke my heart into a million little pieces.

A: Pretty sure I cried the first time I read this… and maybe several other times as well.
L: The relationship between Dalinar and his sons is so complex and real. It’s very rare to find a family without conflict, and this one… boy does it have conflict. I think that a good portion of Dalinar’s redemption hinges from this moment. Evi’s death and his guilt sent him into the depressive/alcoholic spiral, but it was his sons who drove him to seek out the change that would bring him peace. He becomes the very man that his mother always told them he was. What a wonderful tribute to her memory. I only wish she’d lived to see it. And speaking of Evi:

“What did she tell you?” he said, voice ragged. “What did your mother say about me?”

“The only honest officer in the army,” Renarin said, “the honorable solder. Noble, like the Heralds themselves. Our father. The greatest man in Alethkar.”

L: This woman was a saint.

A: Indeed. So ironic, that just moments before he was thinking, “How many lies about him had she stuffed into their heads?” We’ll never know how much of it she believed, and how much she said out of loyalty to her husband; honestly, I’ll bet she didn’t always know where that line was. But her consistent determination to always show respect to her husband, even when she was telling him she didn’t like something he was doing… to me, it’s a beautiful thing, and a big reason that she’s one of my favorite characters. She was an amazingly strong woman.

There was an insufferable spring to his step, like he was actually excited by this horrible place. Idiot Adolin, who probably didn’t even understand the consequences of—

Stop it. STOP IT. He helped you.

L: I really, really hope that the friendship between the two of them eventually gets stronger. I think Adolin is uniquely equipped to help Kaladin through moments like this, as someone who will understand and won’t immediately shut Kaladin out should he voice an outburst like this.

A: 100% agree. Adolin could be one of the best things to happen to Kaladin, as someone whom he can consider an equal in ways the rest of Bridge Four will never quite be.

Kaladin would have preferred to take the rearguard, but if he tried, Adolin positioned himself to the back again. What did the princeling think? That Kaladin would lag behind, if not minded?

L: Yeah, Kal, pretty sure that’s exactly what he thinks, and I’m willing to bet he’s right. Once again Adolin is displaying his care and concern through his actions and not just empty words.

A: This was both funny and poignant, because… well, that’s literally what was happening just yesterday, dude.

Bruised & Broken

They’d done it again! They’d taken his bottles. How dare they? Couldn’t they hear the weeping? … The weeping echoed around him. Children dying. Evi begging for her life.

A: We don’t know for sure how much of this is imagination and how much is echoing from the Spiritual Realm, but either way it’s destroying his sanity. (Or is it evidence of his sanity having been destroyed?) As much as this level of drunkenness is a tragedy, I can’t help understanding his need to drown it out.

For a time, away from civilization, Dalinar had felt like himself. His old self.

He hated that person.

L: Ah, the duality. He wants to be that person again, but he hates that person. He can’t pull himself out of his own spiral long enough to see what—or who—else he could possibly be. And he doesn’t manage it on his own, either. He’s going to need supernatural assistance.

A: It’s made harder because everyone around him admired his old self, or at least respected him. He was the man that Gavilar needed, and the only reason the quest for kingship happened. Everyone who pledges loyalty to Gavilar does so in part because of the Blackthorn; no one else sees the torment he’s experiencing over the realization that the Blackthorn was sort of a horrible person.

Because the darkness was coming.

It fed off the pain of defeat, the agony of losing men he’d tried to protect. But it could feed off anything. Life going well? The darkness would whisper that he was only setting himself up for a bigger fall. Shallan glances at Adolin? They must be whispering about him. Dalinar sends him to protect Elhokar? The highprince must be trying to get rid of Kaladin.

L: Oof. This is so, so relatable. Depression is a terrible thing and it can feed off of nothing at all. That’s the worst part. You know, intellectually, that these things your mind whispers to you aren’t true. But knowing and feeling are two very different things.

Then that numbness would claim him and make it hard to do anything at all. It would become a sinking, inescapable void from within which everything looked washed out. Dead.

Within that dark place, he’d wanted to betray his oaths. Within that dark place, he’d given up the king to assassins and murderers.

L: Poor Kaladin. He’s made mistakes, yes. But he’s always so hard on himself, harder than he is on anyone else. He’s willing to overlook a lot of flaws and mistakes. But only for others. Hardly ever can he forgive himself.

A: It’s so painful to read about Kaladin like this; I can almost understand the people who complain about “whiny Kaladin”… except that it’s so realistic. Depression is all too real. I personally think Sanderson did a better job than most (in my experience) at portraying a character who suffers from actual depression, rather than just the “emo dude” that you get too often in books.

“It just feels like… like we’re abandoning Kholinar. And only I care. You were talking about how to get food, find a way to the Horneater Peaks, this perpendicularity or whatever. But we’re abandoning people to the Voidbringers.”

“I care too!” Adolin said. “Bridgeboy, that was my home. It—”

“I know,” Kaladin snapped.

L: I really love that Kaladin is talking to other people about this. So often he takes all those emotions and smothers them inside instead of airing them out, especially if he knows they’re irrational. This is a good step for him, and one I’m happy to see.

A: He wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for the angerspren, I think; they make it very obvious that someone is angry, and it’s dangerous for them here. It doesn’t take long to work out who, and so he sort of has to defend himself and accept their help to deal with it. The beauty of it is that, whatever the motivating force, he is talking about it—and he’s even talking to the whole group, which is healthy for them all.

He could see too many sides. Parshmen angry at being enslaved for years, attempting to overthrow a corrupt government. Alethi protecting their homes from invading monsters. Elhokar trying to save his son. The palace guards trying to keep their oaths.

Too many eyes to see through. Too many emotions.

L: With great power comes great responsibility, and for Kaladin, with knowledge comes the pain of understanding the true horrors of war.

A: There are drawbacks to being able to see other people’s perspective; sometimes it’s hard to do what you think ought to be “right” because you can see exactly why the other person disagrees. I can’t help thinking that this is going to continue to be a challenge for Kaladin, because you can’t lose the ability to empathize with the other guy.

L: Well, this is a first. Let’s talk a little bit about Syl in this section for a change.

“I bonded a Knight Radiant. … I bonded him soon after I was born. He was an elderly man, kindly, but he did fight. In one battle. And he died… I wasn’t ready for the bond. Spren normally weather the loss of their Radiant, but I… I lost myself when I lost him.”

L: I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for the spren who lost their Radiants like this. Their friendships are deeper than a “normal” friendship is, due to the bond. They can sort of sense one another’s emotions, it seems, and the spren at least understands quite a lot about their Radiant’s state of mind (though that doesn’t seem to work the other way). That loss must be an awful shock, and the spren do seem to grieve similarly to some humans.

Squires & Sidekicks

A: I sometimes have a hard time treating Adolin’s sword as a spren; she feels like more of a sidekick.

“What do you think of all this?” Adolin asked the woman with the scratched-out eyes. She didn’t respond, but he often talked to his sword without it responding.

A: I had to include this, because I love the way he unconsciously accepts this odd-looking spren as his sword, at least in this thought. When he thinks about it, it’s still a little awkward, but when he’s just musing… he talks to his sword like he’s always done. She just looks different here.

L: I love this too. Adolin’s never cared about appearances (except when it comes to fashion anyway), and this is just another example of that.

A: Isn’t that funny? But maybe it makes sense. Fashion is a hobby for him; it’s fun, but it’s not an essential characteristic. It’s a matter of having a good tailor and enough money to spend. Because he’s had the opportunity to indulge the hobby, he knows just how superficial appearance can be, so it doesn’t matter all that much to him. In other people, anyway!

Flora & Fauna

The thin peninsula wasn’t barren…. Growing along its edges were small, brittle plants that looked like ferns. … Most were black, but occasionally they had vibrant colors, blended together like stained glass.

A: I think it’s funny that there actually are living growing plants, however fragile and oddly colored, in the Cognitive realm.

L: I wish we knew how these survive here! There’s no water…

Tight Butts and Coconuts

“I made a list of our supplies.” … “We have my satchel, with charcoal, reed pens, brushes, ink, lacquer, some solvents, three sketchpads, my sharpening knife, and one jar of jam I’d stowed inside for an emergency snack.”

A: LOL! Three cheers for the jam!

L: Hopefully not poisoned this time. I’m surprised she can still eat the stuff after that experience back in The Way of Kings.

“Wonderful,” Kaladin said. “I’m sure a pile of brushes will be useful in fighting off Voidspren.”

“Better than your tongue, which is notably dull lately….”

A: I could be wrong, but IMO this sounds very much like Shallan ordinarily expects Kaladin to have a snappy comeback when she makes a smart remark at him. I know we, your friendly neighborhood bloggers, have disagreed on this in the past; what I see as “treating him like an equal” others see as “punching down” because of her higher social standing. Of course I’m reading this from my perspective, but I really do think she normally enjoys the “witty badinage” she and Kaladin have had at times. One or two of her brothers were able to play the word games with her, and they frequently hinged on rude puns or lighthearted insults. Finding an equal in Kaladin—and a guy who’s far more her equal than her brothers ever were—would have seemed normal to her. Not “normal” in the sense of “this is frequent in society” but in the sense of “this is what I was used to in my isolated life.” Ah, well. JMO.

Cosmere Connections

“… we have maybe one day’s worth of water and three meals for four people. Last time I crossed Shadesmar, it took four weeks.”

A: Well, that’s not good… So of course Kaladin (still feeling guilty about the people he left behind) thinks they should try to go back through the Oathgate, which isn’t really one of the options.

“Our land, every land, is three realms. The highest is the Spiritual, where gods live—there, all things, times, and spaces are made into one.

“We’re now in the Cognitive Realm. Shadesmar, where spren live. You are from the Physical Realm.”

A: And there you have Realmatic Theory in a nutshell. My big question is, if the Spiritual Realm is where gods live, does she mean the Shards? And if all things, times, and spaces are one there, how is Odium bound to Roshar? Or is he (oooooh, maybe) blocked from the Spiritual Realm, and bound in the Cognitive? That’s my only guess.

“There’s another way to transfer between realms,” Azure said. “I’ve used it.” … Finally, she sighed deeply. “Story time?”

“Yes, please,” Adolin replied.

A: And we all say with Adolin, YES, PLEASE! And she tells them she comes from “a far land” and that’s it for background. Rats.

L: We’ll probably get the rest of that backstory when Sanderson eventually gets around to writing that Warbreaker sequel, so I can see why he’s being close-mouthed here.

A: At least she does tell them about travelling in Shadesmar; about Cultivation’s Perpendicularity in the Horneater Peaks (yes, that’s probably how Hoid got here, and that’s probably who Rock saw climbing out of the lake); and that there is supposedly another perpendicularity which is “unpredictable and dangerous, and appears randomly in different places.” Most readers have assumed that Honor’s Perpendicularity is in the highstorms, but I don’t buy that; the denizens of Shadesmar know about highstorms, and they’d hardly call that “unpredictable,” much less “appearing randomly.” I suspect that it’s wherever the Stormfather wants to put it at any given moment, and might be involved in those few times when Kaladin was able to converse with him – tied to the barracks roof, and in the chasm with Shallan. But at this point it’s all speculation.

L: Hmm. This is definitely a big question, and one that we’ll have to keep an eye on going forward…

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

He hurled the sphere into the sea, where it skittered against its fellows.

A: Ummm… what happens to an object in the physical realm when its cognitive form is flung around by someone in Shadesmar? Seems like that should mess things up somehow.

L: That’s a good question, but somehow I don’t think that the exact location of the bead is what’s important. As long as it’s nearby. Now… what would happen if one of those beads were to break is a bigger question. Can they even be broken?

He was interrupted by a haunting screech. It was reminiscent of sheets of metal grinding against one another…

“What was that?” Kaladin demanded.

“You remember before we slept, how I said we’d be fine unless we attracted the wrong kind of spren?”

L: I just have to say that all I can imagine in regards to this sound is the Nazgul in Lord of the Rings.

A: Quite likely an apt comparison!

“What are they like? You said those sounds were from angerspren? Boiling pools of blood?”

“That’s the part you see in the Physical Realm. Here … that’s merely their saliva, pooling as they drool. They’re nasty.”

A: “Boiling pools of blood” is nasty enough as an image associated with anger. The thought that the actual spren are great big things who drool boiling pools of blood… Yikes. This reminds me of the bit in the “extra scene” with Jasnah, where they hear what sounds like a large nasty beastie near them; when Ivory tells her it’s a painspren and they need to leave now, she objects that painspren are harmless. Ivory responds, “On your side, harmless. Here, harmmore. Very harmmore.” Sounds like angerspren are also harmmore!

“We can barely see [the windspren] on this side. Did you know that? Some spren live mostly in your realm. I suppose the wind is always there somewhere, so they don’t fade like passions do.”

L: So does this mean that the spren that are representations of “physical” things (like fire or windspren) are all more present on the physical plane than the cognitive? Is it just some of them, or all? Syl’s second comment here about how passions fade seems to indicate this.

A: Hmm. I think that’s a fair guess. Things like rainspren and flamespren would still fade out when the rain stops or the fire goes out, but windspren and lifespren are pretty ubiquitous, so… yes?

Alcoholic Artwork

L: It’s painful for this otherwise interesting artwork to be placed here, before this particular flashback of Dalinar’s.

A: Hooooo boy. Isn’t it, though. I mean, I’m really glad they included it, because it’s quite cool, and details a lot of things that have been mentioned elsewhere. But… ouch. Right before we see Dalinar in the depths of full-blown alcoholism.

L: As someone who quite enjoys an occasional drink, I loved to see this chart. Interesting that sapphire wine tastes like whiskey! I wonder if the “wines” on Roshar are just various hard liquors for the most part. Maybe something like how every bird is a “chicken,” every alcoholic beverage of the spirits variety is a “wine.” I could be way off on this one, but it seems odd that there would be such variance in the alcohol content otherwise.

A: Yeah, I think Brandon has said “wine” is very much like “chicken.” They don’t actually have grapes on Roshar, IIRC, but they did on Ashyn, so all the alcohols are called “wine” and identified by color rather than by what was fermented or where it originated. Pink wine is probably the equivalent of wine spritzers, and violet is … maybe a strong rum? (Horneater White is obviously Everclear.)

L: Do we have any idea who the person writing in the margins on this is? Whoever it is, I like them. “I’ve had milk more intoxicating than this” indeed!

A: Heh. That would be our old buddy Nazh. I love his sense of humor—which I’m thinking is mostly Isaac being snarky! But I have to wonder, with the way most of Team Dragonsteel drinks (as in, not), who wrote the descriptions? I guess those can be researched like anything else!

Quality Quotations

“Um… you’re supposed to watch out for Cryptics.”

Pattern hummed happily. “Yes. We are very famous.”

* * *

“Humans, you must stop your emotions. They are very inconvenient here.”

Whew! That was a long one! Next week we’ll be tackling chapter 96 all on its lonesome, and join Navani for some political negotiations.

Alice is gearing up for a new school year (for her daughter) and volleyball season (also for her daughter). Expect to see lots of volleyball-related stuff here for a few months.

Lyndsey is exhausted from working a three day weekend at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, but was very excited to see a Mistborn cosplayer wandering the streets of the shire! If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Hey! Hey, listen! (If you want a chuckle, check out Sanderson’s latest tweet about Legend of Zelda.) Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread, for an excursion into international politics. Will the coalition come together, or will it disintegrate into squabbling before it ever accomplishes anything? And what does your choice of seating say about you? All this and more as we join Navani in the council chamber at the top of Urithiru.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread – if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

No spoilers from other Cosmere works this week. You’re safe!

Chapter Recap

WHO: Navani

WHERE: Urithiru (Lyn: In the below map, I’ve marked out the various nations represented in the meeting with simple circles to better highlight specifically where everything they’re talking about is, as well as the nations they declare lost to the Voidbringers.)

WHEN: 1174.2.4.1 (Eleven days after Dalinar remembered Evi’s death, three days after hearing that Kholinar has fallen.)

Navani conducts the first meeting of the monarchs of the (potential) coalition against the Voidbringers. There’s a lot of politicking, as well as observations on the various attendees; she finally breaks through the worst of their worries by distributing responsibilities according to strengths, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Beginnings

Title: Pieces of a Fabrial

Heralds

Palah (Paliah). Learned/Giving. Truthwatchers. Role: Scholar

AA: I have to think that the way Navani thinks and studies and directs this meeting is all in the Scholar mentality. She is also learned, a student of human nature… and in this case very giving as well, as she sets aside her own worries for her son so that she can fill in the kind of leadership that Dalinar can’t provide right now.

Icon

Fabrial Gemstone (for a Navani POV)

AA: Woot! It’s a new character icon!! We generally only get these for characters who will have multiple POVs in the book, so we can count on hearing more from Navani. I love that her icon is the gemstone in a fabrial. With her interest in fabrial technology, it’s logical; I also like to pretend that the emphasis on the gemstone rather than the entire fabrial is a reflection of the way she and Dalinar call each other “gemheart”.

Epigraph

Yelig-Nar is said to consume souls, but I can’t find a specific explanation. I’m uncertain this lore is correct.

–From Hessi’s Mythica, page 51

AA: Foreshadowing again, much? Or, I guess, an explanation of what happened to Aesudan. Either way, for all her uncertainty (real or pretend), I believe this is Sanderson telling us what happens when you try to take in Yelig-Nar. If you’re strong-willed enough, you may remain “yourself” longer, but in the end, it consumes not only your body, but your soul as well.

Relationships & Romances

Ever since he’d collapsed after visiting Azir, it seemed that something in Dalinar had snapped. This morning, he had quietly asked her to lead the meeting. She worried, deeply, for what was happening to him. And for Elhokar. And for Kholinar. …

She’d already grieved for a daughter, but then that daughter had returned to her. She had to hope the same for Elhokar—at the very least, so she could keep functioning while Dalinar mourned.

AA: I almost started this with “Poor Navani” – but I don’t think she’d appreciate the sentiment. Yes, Dalinar has almost shut down, and all she’s got is (mostly incorrect) guesses as to why. At the moment she’s telling herself that he’s mourning for his son, nephew, and city—the very things she’s distressed over, naturally.

L: And she’s not entirely wrong, I’m sure that’s a huge weight on his mind as well, just… not the biggest one.

AA: But while she may be frustrated with Dalinar, she seems to be far more focused on making sure their work thus far doesn’t fall apart, no matter what’s going on in his head. Whether it’s a matter of personal ego or the good of the world probably depends on your evaluation of her character, but either way, she is not going to let this slip away.

I do find it disturbing that after two full weeks, Dalinar still hasn’t told her what he remembered. Obviously, he’s got to work through the memory of what exactly he did, what exactly Evi did, and how the truth was twisted afterward, but… why doesn’t he talk to Navani about it? And why doesn’t she ask more questions?

L: I imagine that a big part of him not talking about it is that he’s afraid he’ll lose her if she sees the “true monster” he feels like he is. Currently she sees him much the same way as everyone else does, and taking the chance of someone you love completely changing their outlook towards you is a daunting prospect. As for Navani… if someone’s not willingly opening up about their problems, sometimes the best course of action is to wait until they’re ready to do so rather than forcing a confrontation.

She took his hand in hers, but he stiffened, then stood up. He did that whenever he felt he was growing too relaxed. It was as if he was looking for danger to face.

L: I really love how cognizant of the inner workings of his mind she is. She’s very observant. Even if she doesn’t know what’s going on with him exactly, she recognizes that something’s wrong.

AA: I just wanted to note here, without talking much more about it, how stressful this time is for everyone we care about in Urithiru. Renarin is noted as seeming “terrified that something had happened to his brother,” which is quite reasonable on a personal level, and naturally people are wondering what happened to their king and their Radiants, to say nothing of those they were attempting to rescue. Tension in Urithiru must be high.

L: The worst part of a situation like this is the not knowing. But everyone rallies and continues on, and I have a lot of respect for that.

Bruised & Broken

AA: We don’t get a lot of insight into Dalinar’s condition, other than Navani’s under-informed worry for him, but it’s pretty clear that he’s really struggling to figure out who he really is. There’s the man he thinks he is, or at least that he has grown to be, trying with all his might to keep to the Codes… and then there’s the man he now remembers that he was: the man who would take revenge for a highlord’s ambush by destroying every last one of his people, and the man who, however unintentionally, killed his own wife along with that city full of civilians.

Diagrams & Dastardly Designs

Notably, Ialai Sadeas ignored the requirement that she carry her own chair. … She met Navani’s eyes as she sat, cold and confident.

L: Ialai’s cool as ice here. She’s making her point subtly and very, very clearly—she doesn’t respect Navani’s rules and she doesn’t intend to be constrained by them.

AA: If I liked her better in the first place, I might admire this (at least, under other circumstances). As it is, she’s being deliberately disruptive at a time when literally the whole world is in danger, and that torques me off. You may not agree with the approach being taken, but there are more constructive ways to make suggestions than just being disruptive. (Also, as we see, her ideas stink.)

It seemed so long ago when Ialai and Navani had huddled together at dinners, conspiring on how to stabilize the kingdom their husbands were conquering. Now, Navani wanted to seize the woman and shake her. Can’t you stop being petty for one storming minute?

AA: They made a formidable team, back in the day. Who has changed the most since then? From the glimpses we got in the early flashbacks, I’m guessing that Ialai hasn’t changed all that much, except that she’s gotten better at subtlety when it suits her – and maybe she’s gotten more actively vicious? Navani seems a lot more sympathetic now than she did back then – like she’s matured and gotten over the “mean girl” attitude. I suspect, though, that neither of them has changed much, fundamentally; it’s just that their goals don’t align anymore.

Adrotagia sat with [Taravangian], as did his Surgebinder. She didn’t go join Bridge Four … and, curiously, Navani realized she still thought of the woman as his Surgebinder.

AA: That’s some painful foreshadowing, right there. Malata never does join forces with Our Knights Radiant. I wonder if calling her “Surgebinder” instead of “Radiant” is a subtle hint from Sanderson? Also, I wonder if she stayed away from the rest of them because she felt no kinship at all, or because she didn’t want to risk developing any kinship.

“I will send troops to your aid, Taravangian,” Dalinar said. “But one army can be construed as an invading force, and I am not intending to invade my allies, even in appearance. Can we not mortar this alliance with a show of solidarity?”

L: This is very clever of Dalinar, if a bit transparent. I feel like Navani would have been more subtle in her wording, but perhaps the direct approach was the right one in this particular moment.

AA: If nothing else, the straightforward approach is unexpected in politics, and sometimes gets the desired result just from the shock value!

As always with Taravangian, though, I’m suspicious. Does he already know that the real attack will be in Thaylenah, and he’s attempting to keep Dalinar focused elsewhere? That Diagram of his predicted a lot of events; how much of this did it predict? And how much of his apparent weakness on any given day is real, and how much is pretended for the sake of gaining sympathy? (And also, being underestimated, which is useful to him.)

Squires & Sidekicks

Many [of Bridge Four] had brought simple seats, but the Herdazian had stumbled onto the lift with a chair so grand—inlaid with embroidered blue cloth and silver—it was almost a throne.

AA: Let’s hear it for King Lopen the First of Alethkar! What a goof.

L: Of Alethkar, or of Herdaz? ::wink::

Bridge Four had, characteristically, taken the news of their leader’s potential fall with laughter. Kaladin is tougher than a wind-tossed boulder, Brightness, Teft had told her. He survived Bridge Four, he survived the chasms, and he’ll survive this.

AA: Well, they’re not wrong, though they’re not 100% right either. I have an ongoing expectation that Kaladin will die before the end of Book 5… and now I wonder what will happen to Bridge Four if I’m right.

L: DON’T. YOU. DARE.

… the little Reshi who was currently outeating the huge Horneater bridgeman, almost as if it were a contest.

AA: Heh. It probably is a contest, knowing Lift and the bridgemen! But at least she gets a good meal without needing to burn it all off in Surgebinding, for once.

Places & Peoples

On the day of the first meeting of monarchs at Urithiru, Navani made each person—no matter how important—carry their own chair. The old Alethi tradition symbolized each chief bringing important wisdom to a gathering.

L: I really like this little touch. You can tell—as exemplified in the chapter—a lot about a person and their intent by how they choose to present themselves in the seat they choose to bring. Or don’t choose to bring, in Sebarial’s case…

AA: Sebarial loves to be the exception, doesn’t he?

The only other person of note was Au-Nak, the Natan ambassador. He represented a dead kingdom that had been reduced to a single city-state on the eastern coast of Roshar with a few other cities as protectorates.

L: We haven’t heard a lot about this place yet, right?

AA: Not a lot, no. They aren’t exactly a world power, but they sure would like to gain some influence by claiming ownership of the Oathgate that is, at best, located in lands that once belonged to them.

“Wait,” the Yezier princess said. “Shouldn’t we be concerned about Iri and Rira, who seem to have completely fallen in with the enemy?”

L: This is where Evi was from. I wonder if Dalinar has any thoughts about that during this chapter, considering his state of mind concerning her right now…

AA: I wish we knew more about them as a people. How typical was Evi of the Riran mindset, anyway? Obviously not 100%, or she and her brother wouldn’t have left. How much of their “falling in with the enemy” is just a matter of accepting whatever comes along, vs. any kind of active support? The former seems more likely, to me.

L: They did seem very pacifistic, that’s for sure.

“But Shards…” Fen said.

“Manifestations of spren,” Jasnah explained. “Not fabrial technology. Even the gemstones we discovered, containing words of ancient Radiants during the days when they left Urithiru, were crude—if used in a way we hadn’t yet explored.”

L: It’s pretty cool to realize that the technological advancements of the current “age” are actually quite more advanced than those in the times of the Radiants!

AA: I know, right? We’ve been getting hints about this, and I love that Jasnah is sorting them out. The “ancient technology” that they thought was so advanced seems to consist mostly of Shardblades, Shardplate, and Soulcasters; I keep expecting to learn that the Soulcaster fabrials are similar to the Blades and Plate. Even the hinted wonders of Urithiru are beginning to look more like the active involvement of the Sibling and other spren, rather than human invention.

L: Well, when you have magic, what need is there for technological advancement? For example, if we had the power to fly, there would have been no need to invent airplanes.

“We should be addressing where to invade to gain the best position for an extended war.”

[…]

With one targeted arrow, Ialai Sadeas proved what everyone whispered—that the Alethi were building a coalition to conquer the world, not just protect it.

L: Bloody Ialai. I know she’s pissed off about Sadeas dying and all, but sabotaging this is just… stupid. This is YOUR survival too, here, lady.

AA: So infuriating.

Tight Butts and Coconuts

Well, at least [Sebarial and Palona] hadn’t shown up bearing massage tables.

L: Probably would have made this tense meeting more relaxing, though.

Sebarial choked softly…. He’d wanted that job.

That will teach you to show up late to my meeting and make only wisecracks.

AA: Heh. He’d probably do a decent job of overseeing trade (and getting a good profit from it, naturally), but it’s a lot more useful to have Fen in charge of that. She’s got the entire infrastructure to do it, and it gives her ownership. But I have to admit … even if it weren’t politically advantageous, just watching Sebarial’s reaction would have been worth this gambit!

“By every Kadasix that has ever been holy!”

AA: I like that one… and the variation across cultures of what people swear by.

Weighty Words

“I understand your concern, but surely you have read our reports of the oaths these Radiants follow. Protection. Remembering the fallen. Those oaths are proof that our cause is just, our Radiants trustworthy. The powers are in safe hands, Your Majesty.”

L: I mostly agree with her, but I’m still on the fence about most of the Skybreakers, and Taravangian’s Radiant. It seems as though the way you interpret them is still of vast importance, and let’s face it—it’s pretty rare that people think that their actions are evil. Taravangian’s a prime example of this.

AA: She’s extrapolating from the few she knows and trusts, as are we. I’m afraid that from here on out, “Radiants” as a group are not going to be the Trusty Heroes we were expecting them to be. Individuals will still be trustworthy—or not—but the spren seem to have changed their selection criteria, and we can’t count on them choosing people who are on the same side any more.

Next week we’ll be rejoining Kaladin and company as they seek out passage across Shadesmar in chapter Ninety-Seven.

Alice is delighted to report that her favorite volleyball team (her daughter’s high school team) won their first match, 3-1, in tense and high-scoring sets. Aren’t y’all thrilled to know that? Yeah… we’ll try to keep the v-ball chatter to a minimum, at least until post-season excitement ramps up.

Lyndsey is hard at work bringing law and order to the Connecticut Renaissance Faire as Constable Affable, along with her trusty dog, Deputee Bork. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Our heroes in Shadesmar have made it to the lighthouse, seeking a means of travel across the ocean of beads. But what will they find there? Giant toads with strangely good comedic timing? Fashionable clothing? Corrupted spren? Strange visions of the future? Or all of the above? Tune in to this week’s reread and find out!

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread – if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

{In this week’s reread we also discuss some things from Elantris in the Cosmere Connections section, so if you haven’t read it, best to give that section a pass.}

Chapter Recap

WHO: Kaladin, Shallan
WHERE: Shadesmar, near the end of the river-ridge-thing
WHEN: 1174.2.4.1 – The same day as Navani’s meeting in Ch. 96; two days after we last saw the Shadesmar team in Ch. 95.

Kaladin and company have temporarily split up so that Kaladin can scout ahead to the lighthouse they’ve found. Inside, he finds what he thinks is a Shin man who tries to tell his fortune. Kaladin accidentally looks into the fortune-teller’s crystal and sees as a vision of Dalinar in trouble. Meanwhile, Shallan is contacted by a corrupted spren telling her that Odium is hunting for them, but in the wrong place. When they all rejoin one another in the lighthouse, they debate about which direction to go—towards the Perpendicularity in the Horneater Peaks, Thaylen City, or Celebrant.

Beginnings

Title: Riino

Kaladin sat in the main room of the lighthouse, in the chair Riino—the Shin lighthouse keeper—had occupied earlier.

AA: Heh. The “Shin” lighthouse keeper… If you need a clue as to where he’s from, take a closer look at that name! Clearly from Sel, and from the nation Arelon, where they build their names based on the Aons. We’ll talk about him more in the Cosmere Connections.

Herald

Kalak, the Maker: patron of Willshapers, with the attributes Resolute and Builder

AP: I’m not sure why Kalak is here, other than that Kaladin does resolutely decide on a new goal after his vision – protect Dalinar. The Builder attribute doesn’t resonate with me, unless it’s a reference to the lighthouse – an unusual feature in Shadesmar for sure. But that’s a stretch. It could also be a reference to Riino, but we know very little about him. It may make more sense if he becomes a more prominent character. And as a worldhopper, he’s definitely a candidate for that.

Icon

The character icon is Kaladin’s Banner & Spears, though he shares the POV with Shallan.

Epigraph

Of the Unmade, Sja-anat was most feared by the Radiants. They spoke extensively of her ability to corrupt spren, though only lesser spren—whatever that means.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 89

AA: Looks like our little Unmade has gained some new powers in recent years. I wonder if Glys is the first/only of the greater spren that she has changed; that might be why she mentioned “my son” when communicating to Shallan – she only has one “son” among the sapient spren. It seems odd that her ability to corrupt spren would make her more feared than, say, Re-Shephir or Nergaoul, especially if (as far as they knew) she could only affect the lesser spren. It brings me back around to the old question: are the spren solely caused by phenomena of the physical realm, or do they also cause some things?

AP: I definitely think that Sja-anat’s powers have the potential to be much more scary than the other Unmade that we’ve seen so far. The others have temporary effects, or are geographically limited. The corruption of the spren appears to be permanent. So the more she is able to travel and be active, the more threat. I could also see the effects making an already dangerous Shadesmar completely impassable for all but the most skilled Radiants. The high spren, while they may not previously have been corruptible by Sja-anat, are already scared of what some of the “regular” spren are able to do in Shadesmar. I assume having vast amounts of corrupted spren there would be much worse. With regard to Glys, first maybe, but I don’t expect him to be the last!

Thematic Thoughts

Kaladin remembered holding a dying woman’s hand.

AA: This is the first of a few “alternate flashbacks” we get from Kaladin in this book – scenes where he is literally remembering an event from his earlier life which wasn’t included in his flashback sequence in The Way of Kings. They each have to do directly with the events of the chapter in which they appear, one way or another. In this one, he remembers one of his various attempts to escape slavery—a disastrous one in which he was leading a whole group, and every last one of them was killed… all but him.

The snapping sound of the trap closing sent a jolt through Kaladin. A year later he’d still wonder how he missed stepping in it himself. …

After killing the others, the brightlords found him still kneeling there. … Regardless of the reason, Kaladin had lived.
He always did.

AA: I have to ask: Why? Aside from narrative necessity, because the author needs his main character to have survived all this stuff, was there something “extra” going on? Was Syl affecting things? That seems unlikely, because at the time she wasn’t much more intelligent than your average flighty windspren, but at the same time it seems too much for coincidence.

L: I think his prescient bond with Syl was protecting him, at least a little. We see him using his powers well before he says the Words, after all. And it’s also possible that there are Other Supernatural Forces at play here that we can’t know about yet.

AP: Narratively it works, yes. But the “leave one person alive to ensure compliance” trope works for me. I didn’t question the reason given by the highlord, spren or no spren.

L: I think Alice is more referring to the fact that it keeps happening over and over, rather than just this one occurence.

AP: Definitely! The pattern makes it a lot more suspicious. Any one incident has a good explanation, but the whole series of events….Definitely early warning signs that Kaladin has a supernatural connection.

… neither Adolin nor Azure had experience scouting. Kaladin didn’t mention that most of his practice sneaking had come as a runaway slave.

AA: Which is how the flashback fits here, and this is something we knew about for a long time. As much as I hate the events, I have to admire Sanderson’s timing; this time in Shadesmar when Kaladin is feeling so down, feeling like he’s always failed the people who relied on him —this really is the time when Kaladin would be actively recalling all the failures, without a single thought for anyone he’s helped along the way.

Stories & Songs

L: I’m going to put discussion of Shadesmar here, for lack of a better section.

…he might have expected the heat of the enormous fire to be oppressive. Instead, he could barely feel it. Notably, the flames caused his shadow to behave normally, extending behind him instead of pointing towards the sun.

L: This is absolutely fascinating. First we have the lack of heat. So… does energy transference just not work the same way here in Shadesmar? Is the very atmosphere different? It can’t be too different or Our Heroes wouldn’t be able to breathe, right?

AP: So because stuff in Shadesmar Is Weird (), my first assumption was that it’s not actually fire, like we would think of it in the physical realm. But it’s, like, the cognitive idea of light, which looks like what Kaladin would think or as fire, but doesn’t give off heat. Light as a Platonic ideal?

L: Then we’ve got the tidbit about the shadow going the right way. So clearly there’s something about the light of the sun that draws darkness rather than casting it.

AP: It makes his shadow behave “normally”, which the typical light sources in Shadesmar does not. Note, I have no evidence for this whatsoever, just my attempts to make sense of the cognitive realm!

“You wish me to see the unwalked paths—during the highstorm, when realms blend.”

L: The realms blend during the highstorms? Well that’s new and interesting! I wonder… just these two (physical and cognitive), or the third (spiritual) as well?

AP: We definitely have had hints before that this is the case, with the gems becoming infused with Stormlight. It’s a good confirmation to have it laid out more clearly this way. I think the three realms (physical, cognitive, spiritual) definitely have crossover, and this is a major hint to the potential for creation of a new Perpendicularity. For that to happen, the realms have to crossover or blend.

Outside, the sky rippled with light. The clouds shimmered, gaining a strange, ethereal luminescence.

“That…” Kaladin said. “Is that what a highstorm looks like on this side?”

L: I don’t really have much to say about this aside that it’s interesting to see.

“Did you come directly from the perpendicularity?” The old man frowned. “Not a lot of people coming through there anymore.”

L: There are hints in this chapter that there’s something really Not Good happening near the Perpendicularity (the one they’re probably talking about is in the Horneater peaks), but we don’t know yet exactly what it is.

AP: I don’t think we know why yet. I expect it’s a Red Flag that will come up in later books.

He thinks something strange happened to the Oathgate because of our influence—we’ve never managed to Enlighten such powerful spren before.

L: So the spren tied to the Oathgate are more powerful than the sapient spren (such as Glys) that can bond to Knights Radiant. This is good information to know. Also, now we know that the word Odium’s forces use for this corruption is “Enlighten”ing.

AP: This is another big clue toward who/what Glys is before that big reveal, when combined with the epigraph. Sja-anat’s powers/influence are growing, whether she wants them to or not. I also still don’t trust her. I don’t know how she found Shallan, and/or how she is able to keep that information secret from Odium. Or if it is. Or if she is just super tricky. I flip flop on this one a lot. Narratively, I want to trust her and have her be a double agent. But I talk myself in & out of it constantly.

Then a figure. Dalinar Kholin, kneeling someplace dark, surrounded by nine shadows. A flash of glowing eyes.

The enemy’s champion was coming.

L: Dun dun duuuuun!

AP: I’m really interested in how/why Kaladin is able to use the crystal ball thing. Can anyone who is invested use it? Or only certain types of investiture? And how does Riino do it? Is the mechanism the same?

L: I’d assume that he’s Invested somehow, as that’s what he initially assumes Kaladin is.

AP: Apart from that, this vision is disturbing. I do like how it ties together the various character plotlines that are happening in disparate areas of the world. And, of course, it gives Kaladin a thread to focus on and pull him out of his current spiral.

Relationships & Romances

“You all right?” Adolin asked, kneeling beside her, putting his hand on her back, then rubbing her shoulders. Storms, that felt good.

L: Adolin has come a long way since his playboy days in The Way of Kings. He obviously genuinely cares for Shallan, but he still has a ways to go. He knows something is wrong, but he can’t determine what it is—and who can blame him? Who would come to the conclusion that their significant other has multiple distinct personalities without said SO actually opening up about this?

AP: I love these little moments between them, when they are forging a genuine connection. In a stressful situation he is taking a time out to emotionally support his partner. Soldier Playboy Adolin would not have done this.

Bruised & Broken

Find freedom. Find honor again.

L: I’m only quoting this one part, but there are so many heartbreaking moments in this flashback that starts off the chapter. Poor, poor Kaladin. Every time we think we’ve seen the extent of his past trauma, another memory of losing people rears its ugly head. The thing I love about Kal is that while he’s often engaging in self-pity, it’s often because of how he’s failed others rather than because of things that have happened to him, if that makes sense. Yes, he does have the occasional “woe is me for Amaram f*ed up my whole life” but this isn’t the sum of his experience. He truly cares about the people around him, and wants so desperately to save them. But…

Regardless of the reason, Kaladin had lived.

He always did.

L: It must be so difficult to continue to lose the people you care about while you seem somehow shielded by fate.

What other simple, stable parts of his life were complete lies?

L: Oh, Kaladin.

She hated sending [Kaladin] alone, but Shallan knew nothing about that sort of work. Veil did. But Veil … still felt broken, from what had happened in Kholinar. That was dangerous. Where would Shallan hide now? As Radiant?

L: Maybe it’s for the best that Veil is “broken,” Shallan.

Buy it Now

AP: This inner monologue is really interesting. She recognizes that she is Veil, and needs to accept that, but she’s not there yet. The admission to herself that she is using her personas to hide is a big step. It’s also really interesting to me that Veil’s reaction to what happened in Kholinar is similar to Kaladin’s reaction to what happened in Kholinar. Kaladin being one of the people that Shallan studied as she continued to develop the Veil persona.

Shallan lowered her pencil, looking with dissatisfaction at the attempt she’d made at drawing a fearspren. It looked like a child’s scribble.

Veil was seeping out.

AP: And then we have this. Even as she begins to accept her personas as constructs they are becoming more & more distinct with different abilities, or rather, “Shallan” has decided that they are. Is there an issue in Shadesmar that is interfering with her Lightweaver-enhanced drawing ability that she is blaming on Veil? Or is this actually a progression? Was the trip to Shadesmar a necessary step in her being able to take control of the personas that she created & solidified with her untrained Lightweaver abilities? I refer to Shallan’s mental illness as Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is what it most closely resembles as a real life counterpart, but this is a good time for a reminder that it isn’t, really. It’s a fictional version bolstered by magical interference. Which I suspect is affected by her physical presence in the cognitive realm.

“He’s got battle fatigue, but an objective will help with that. We have to watch him when he’s sitting around doing nothing, not when he’s got a specific mission.”

AA: Whether this is his training or his personal observation, he’s at least mostly correct. Kaladin can brood even when on a mission, but at least most of his attention will be on the mission, and at least for that time he’s not likely to forget what he’s doing.

L: Yup. It’s when you don’t have anything to do to distract you from the depression and the spiraling thoughts that you really have to watch out.

AP: Yeeesss….but it also makes me really really nervous for him. Focusing on a goal helps with symptom avoidance, but it’s not a long term solution. I still need a Rosharan mental health system, like stat. This series is excellent for focus on what are often serious effects of hidden/misunderstood mental illnesses in society, but it really makes me feel for the characters who have to go through life untreated.

He had a purpose. A goal. Something to focus on other than the people he’d lost in Kholinar.

Protect Dalinar.

L: I’m glad he’s got something specific to drive him. But I fear the day when he doesn’t have something like that to fall back on.

“It’s a lake on our side,” Adolin said. “Called the Sea of Spears, in the southeast of Alethkar. By the ruins… of Rathalas.” He drew his lips to a line and glanced away.

“What?” Kaladin asked.

“Rathalas was where my mother was killed,” Adolin said. “Assassinated by rebels.”

L: Oof. I really do fear the day when he inevitably finds out the truth. It could go one of two ways, I think… either Adolin will forgive his father, or… he won’t, and we’re going to see one of the biggest heel-turns in fantasy fiction.

AP: It’s a concern for sure. I do like that we get his perspective on Dalinar’s behavior when the Rift is mentioned. From Dalinar’s POVs we know that he just didn’t remember what happened, so the “strange distant expression” is literally him trying to put the pieces together. But it comes off as grief to everyone else, especially his son who thinks his father and mother had a much stronger relationship than they actually did, thanks to Evi building up an idea of Dalinar for his sons.

Places & Peoples

He’d promised to help the older woman find her husband, who had been sold to another household. That wasn’t supposed to be legal, but you could get away with doing all kinds of things to slaves with the right brands, especially if they were foreign.

AA: And… once again we see the dark underside of Alethi culture. Or at least one aspect of it. Sometimes I think the parsh slaves may have been … if not “better off,” at least better cared for than the human ones. With their lack of self-motivation, they were treated like animals, but they were prized and generally well-kept animals. (Yes, infuriating, and there were HUGE problems, since they weren’t as oblivious as the humans assumed. But we’re not really dealing with the parsh here.) What always astonishes me is how horrible people can be to other people, as long as they can put them in some sort of classification that “justifies” the treatment. “Oh, he has a ___ brand. Oh, he’s just a Riran. Oh, no one wants this one. Oh, this one is dangerous.” Then they can tell themselves it’s okay to treat them worse than they’d ever treat a useful animal.

AP: Yeah, so, I don’t see this as a “dark underside.” This is what their culture is. Full stop. The only ones who don’t see this side of the culture are the brightlords who are able to ignore what is happening by virtue of their privileged spot in the hierarchy. They don’t have to bother with the details of how the lighteyes below them are enforcing said hierarchy. Othering of people who don’t belong to your specific cultural and social class is a major issue.

Next to Kaladin, Nalma’s leg was caught in a fierce steel trap—a thing of springs and jaws that they wouldn’t even use on a beast, for fear of ruining the sport.

AA: I… I can’t even say anything. This kind of brutality beggars my vocabulary. I’ll leave this one to Lyndsey, to say all the things I can’t.

L: This is absolutely atrocious and the slave-owners/hunters are f*ing monsters.

AP: This is also absolutely reflective of actual incidents of slave owning culture in the history of the U.S. (and other places). Higher value was placed on the entertainment value to the slave owner of having a “good” hunt than the value of an actual human life. Which was viewed as property damage. Absolutely disgusting, but an excellent example and I’m glad the attitude was included because it is such a clear illustration of how the lighteyes view the darkeyes and their respective places in the society. Brutal and effective passage.

Tight Butts and Coconuts

She nodded towards Azure… . “What do you make of her?”

“That uniform is well tailored,” Adolin said…,

L: At this point he could still be about to make some sort of conclusion about where she comes from, or her personality, but in true Adolin fashion:

“But the blue doesn’t work with her skin. She needs a lighter shade. The breastplate is overly much, like she’s trying to prove something. I do like the cape though. I’ve always wanted to justify wearing one. Father gets away with it, but I never could.”

“I wasn’t asking for a wardrobe assessment, Adolin.”

“What happened to the fancy suit you got in Kholinar?”

“It didn’t fit me anymore,” he said, resuming the massage. “But you do raise an important problem. Yes, we need to find food and drink. But if I have to wear the same uniformthis entire trip, you won’t have to murder me. I’ll commit suicide.”

L: Reason #567 I love Adolin: that sense of humor.

Cosmere Connections

“How? Impossible. Unless… you’re Invested. What Heightening are you?” He squinted at Kaladin. “No. Something else. Merciful Domi… A Surgebinder? It has begun again?”

L: Oh hey there, Elantrian! Fancy seeing you here! (And how long have you been here, to say “it has begun again”? Have you just heard stories, or were you here for the last Desolation? Can normal people age in the cognitive realm? SO MANY QUESTIONS!)

Also, just as a tiny note, it’s interesting to note that since Kaladin mistakes this Elantrian for a Shin, we can assume that the Elantrians look more western in appearance. Bigger eyes, probably fair skinned.

AP: Giveaways that he is from Sel include the “merciful Domi” exclamation, since Dominion was one of the shards of Adolnasium that settled there. HOWEVER, this is also a big clue that Riino is either very old, or very well experienced in world hopping, since Dominion was killed and shattered by Odium before the formation of the skaze, which are a result of the splintering. (The seons being splinters of the other shard that settled there, Devotion.)

L: Granted it’s been a long time since I read Elantris, but didn’t they use “Merciful Domi” often in that? It’s possible that he’s not that old if that’s the case… Could just be one of those turns of phrase that lingered well after the reason for their inception is long gone.

AP: I grant that this is also a possibility, but the paintings on the walls make me suspicious.

L: Another interesting tidbit is that he mentions Heightening, which is a solely Nalthis (Warbreaker) thing. So not only has this world-hopper jumped here to Roshar, he’s either visited Nalthis or has spoken to people from there.

“In all my life, I’ve only met one human I believe truly understood it. And he might actually be a god. I’m not sure.”

“Wit,” Kaladin said. “The man that brought you the metal that protected your Soulcaster.”

L: I’m relatively certain that Hoid would be annoyed at being thought a god.

AP: Depends on the day, I think.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

… a round, lurg-like creature with a fat, bulbous body and squat legs. About the size of a toddler, it hopped close to him, then tipped the entire top half of its head backward. A long tongue shot up in the air from the gaping mouth; it began to flap and wave.

Storms. An anticipationspren? … [He tries to shoo three of them away, but no dice.]

Finally, he just continued forward, his three bothersome attendants hopping behind. That sorely undermined the stealth of his approach, making him more nervous—which in turn made the anticipationspren even more eager to stick with him.

AA: Oh, help! The mental image of Kaladin, deeply depressed but intent on a mission, being followed around by a trio of footstool-sized toad waving their tongues in the air… I’m dying here! I guess we needed the comedy break, eh?

L: This really tickles my funny bone, too. I also love that when he’s spotted because of them, our poor long-suffering Windrunner just sighs.

AP: I absolutely love the juxtapositions in the descriptions of the spren in the physical realm and their cognitive realm counterparts. I find myself trying to guess what each will look like now.

“So,” Syl said, sitting on a rock nearby and swinging her legs. “I’ve always wondered. Does the world look weird to you, or normal?”

“Weird,” Pattern said. “Mmm. Same as for everyone.”

“I guess neither of us technically have eyes,” Syl said, leaning back and looking up at the glassy canopy of their tree-mushroom shelter. “We’re each a bit of power made manifest. We honorspren mimic Honor himself. You Cryptics mimic… weird stuff?”

“The fundamental underlying mathematics by which natural phenomena occur. Mmm. Truths that explain the fabric of existence.”

“Yeah. Weird stuff.”

L: As an English major and theater kid, gotta say I’m with Syl on this one. Math and science were never my forte, but I love that Pattern is a physical representation of the very laws of nature.

AP: And as a total data nerd, I’m definitely into Pattern’s reading of the universe!

She followed his nod and spotted and odd little spren floating through the air. Bone-white and brown, it had wings extending to the sides and long tresses for a tail. In front of its body hovered a cube.

“Looks like those gloryspren we saw earlier,” she noted. “Only the wrong color. And the shape of the head is…”

“Corrupted!” Syl said. “That’s one of Odium’s!”

L: I always find it really interesting to see the ways the physical appearance of the spren are corrupted by Odium.

AP: Saaammmeee…and I’m also super interested in how Sja-anat is able to use this one to send a message! Is that a feature of all corrupted spren? Glory spren being used because they likely showed up in the Voidbringer takeover of the city? Or only particular types of spren, and she had to track down a good one that could send a message (wings and can follow directions to find Shallan)?

Sheer Speculation

One wall contained a picture of people kneeling before a bright white mirror. Another was a cityscape at dusk, with a group of low houses clustered before an enormous wall that had light glowing beyond it.

L: Hmmm, interesting. These could be Cosmere connections, or just random paintings. But I’m going to throw out some wild speculations here. I think the picture of the mirror might be a representation of Adonalsium, before being shattered. The second one could be a depiction of the city in the “Girl who stood up” story.

AP: Definitely a Cosmere connection, to my mind. I don’t know what it refers to specifically, but Riino being a worldhopper, I expect that the reference is meaningful, even if I don’t know to what.

Next week will see us back to Skybreaker training in chapter 98! Get your Lashings ready, squires!

Alice is celebrating her birthday this week!

Lyndsey will play the wild rover no more… no, nay never, no nay never no more. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Aubree can be found cremposting on Twitter.

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, who wrote and completed the Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan’s passing, sat down with Tor Books recently as part of a larger recollection on Jordan’s work. (Wheel of Time TV showrunner Rafe Judkins similarly chimed in here.)

Check out the video below.

In the video, Sanderson talks about his experience writing The Wheel of Time as well as Jordan’s influence on Sanderson’s generation of fantasy writers.

I often call myself “Tolkien’s grandchild” because I feel like the generation that Robert Jordan was working [within] was taking the ideas and lessons that Tolkien taught them in creating Lord of the Rings and applying them–really for the first time–in their own epic fantasies. And I didn’t grow up reading Tolkien, I grew up reading Robert Jordan! […] Really the foundational story that I used as a model for learning how to write epic fantasy was The Wheel of Time.

Sanderson continues on by discussing an unexpected stumbling block that he encountered before finalizing The Way of Kings: writing multiple viewpoints. Jordan would end up directly challenging Sanderson to master that aspect of the craft when it came time to tackle The Gathering Storm, the first volume in The Wheel of Time’s concluding trilogy. To be writing it was clearly an honor for Sanderson, but it was also akin to being thrown “in the deep end”, and the juxtaposition sounds fascinating, especially in light of Sanderson’s current work on the complex Stormlight Archive saga.

Jordan’s own initial fantasy work–Warrior of the Altaii–will soon hit shelves from Tor Books. (The world map certainly looks familiar!) It will be interesting to see the parallels between Jordan and Sanderson’s influences, along with their growth as writers, even when separated by a generation.

Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread, where we get to watch a game of Skybreaker Paintball with Szeth and his fellow Skybreaker squires. Swoop! Also, Nalan shows up, being as obnoxiously mysterious and arrogant as usual.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread – if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread we also discuss one thing from Warbreaker in the Cosmere Connections section, so if you haven’t read it, best to give that section a pass. It’s spoilerish.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Szeth
WHERE: Purelake
WHEN: 1174.2.6.3 (8 days after the last time we saw him in Chapter 92)

Szeth and his fellow squires are instructed to participate in a “test of martial competence” where they use their Lashings, as well as strategy and tactics, to play a game over the Purelake. Szeth wins the contest, due to a lot of outside-the-box thinking, much to the annoyance of the other squires. He decides that he’s going to advance to the Third Ideal, but before he can speak the words, Nalan shows up and shanghais the whole group for purposes not yet revealed.

Beginnings

Title: Loopholes

“Remember that while loopholes are to be exploited, Szeth-son-Neturo, they are dangerous to rely upon.

A: As we’ll see, he fully exploited several loopholes in this contest. I’m trying to remember if there are other loopholes for him to use, later, but… really, Szeth doesn’t seem the type to use loopholes except when he feels like the current exercise is a waste of time. Otherwise, he mostly follows the rules to the nth degree.

Heralds

Nale—Herald of Justice; patron, member, and leader of the Skybreakers; role of Judge; divine attributes Just & Confident

A: Between a bevy of Skybreakers and his own appearance at the end of the chapter, Nale’s presence is easily accounted for.

Talenel—Herald of War; patron of the Stonewards; role of Soldier; divine attributes Dependable & Resourceful

A: Taln is a little less obvious… maybe. That whole “resourcefulness” thing is a dead giveaway, though. I suppose you could also consider the mock-battle aspect of the game as the soldier, too, if you need another rationale for Taln.

Icon

The Assassin, for a Szeth chapter

Epigraph

Lore suggested leaving a city if the spren there start acting strangely. Curiously, Sja-anat was often regarded as an individual, when others—like Moelach or Ashertmarn—were seen as forces.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 90

L: This makes me wonder if whatever spren, people, or entities the Unmade were before their… Unmaking could possibly have been plural. Is it possible that multiple entities were combined in order to create Ashertmarn?

A: Oh, I love that thought! It would explain some things, for sure. There are several that seem to fit that motif, really; Moelach, Ashertmarn, and Nergaoul for sure, and maybe Re-Shephir (though Shallan thinks of her as an individual). It seems like Chemoarish and Ba-Ado-Mishram were more individual, like Sja-anat. What a fascinating thought.

Stories & Songs

Nin-son-God, Nale, Nakku, Nalan—this man had a hundred different names and was revered across all Roshar. The Illuminator. The Judge. A founder of humankind, defender against the Desolations, a man ascended to divinity.

The Herald of Justice had returned.

A: Nalan finally makes his reappearance to the Skybreakers at the very end of this chapter, only to take off again with the masters and the best of the squires, and we don’t even get to find out what he’s been up to or where he’s going!

Since he disappeared last time, it seems that his subordinates have less confidence in him than one might expect:

“We must train to fight, if the Desolation truly has begun.”

Without Nin’s guidance to confirm, they spoke of the Desolation in “if”s and “might”s.

A: His leadership seems pretty sketchy to me, you know? Do the masters really believe him to be a Herald? If so, why are they so hesitant to take his word for the Desolation? … come to think of it, he’s been leading them on a crusade to keep Radiants from developing so as to prevent a Desolation. Then all of a sudden he popped in, told them the Desolation was here, and zipped off again. So… terrible leadership style, and never an explanation to be had when you need it. He’s the kind of boss that sends me into a full-on depressive episode. No wonder they were reluctant to go all-in on the Desolation idea.

L: I read this a little differently. It seems to me that before he left, Nalan still wasn’t 100% sure and wasn’t willing to totally commit, so his people are waiting for him to give the absolute word on whether or not the Desolation has really come. Perhaps I need to go back and reread what he told them after he and Szeth got back from Azir….

A: Well, yeah, we could do something crazy like that. I guess. (Yes, I’m working off my memory and assumptions!) Maybe he wasn’t very convincing because he wasn’t quite convinced? Also, he’s insane, and the people he goes to for advice are equally or more insane, so there’s that.

… So I went and checked to see what Nalan told the other Skybreakers, and we really aren’t told. As far as Szeth can say, Nin left him in Tashikk for weeks, then came back for him, dumped him at the fortress, and promptly left again to “seek guidance.” So you’re probably right – Nalan didn’t convince the other masters because he didn’t quite know what to believe, himself.

Relationships & Romances

A: It occurs to me that we know virtually nothing about Szeth’s family — whether they’re still alive, if they bear some measure of his shame, or if they completely disowned him when he was declared Truthless. About all we know is that Szeth switched to calling himself “son-son-Vallano” rather than “son-Neturo” so his father would not be “sullied by association” with him. This implies, I supposed, that his father is likely still alive, and his grandfather dead. Mother? Siblings? Extended family? Just a blank.

Anyway, as a Skybreaker rather than Assassin, and knowing himself to not be Truthless, he’s switched back. I expect we’ll have to wait for Book 5 to learn much more about his family.

L: I, for one, can’t wait to learn more about him and his past!

Bruised & Broken

Szeth had rarely fought in the air itself…. [He] found he was enjoying himself. …

He wove between thrown pouches, dancing above a lake painted by the hues of a setting sun, and smiled.

Then immediately felt guilty. He had left tears, blood, and terror in his wake like a personal seal. He had destroyed monarchies, families — innocent and guilty alike. He could not be happy.

A: Well, he has a point, I must admit. He did do all that, and it does seem unjust for him to let it all go and have fun. And I can’t say that I believe Nin any more than Szeth does, about it all being “undone” and being reborn – mostly because I don’t see that even a Herald has the authority to declare all of someone’s evil deeds wiped away.

Then again, Nalan is pretty broken too; I’m sure he believes he has that authority.

L: This is a really hard one for me. I feel like, as long as he is actively working towards reparations for his wrongs, he doesn’t deserve to live a life entirely devoid of joy.

A: I know what you mean. He has, for one reason and another, become a different person in a way. Mostly, he knows the truth – or at least, more of it – and the truth has set him free from being bound by the Oathstone. He’s not doing those things any more, and he’s determined to bring truth (and a certain amount of repercussion!) to those who wrongly set him on the path he had followed. So, yeah, he’s not murdering on command any more, so good. At the same time… he did do those things, and he did them voluntarily. Ugh. Szeth is such a complicated character! But a life with no joy, thrust upon him against his will… I can’t really wish that on him.

Squires & Sidekicks

A: So… let’s review those squires. Do you suppose we’ll see any of them later on?

Joret: clever guy thinks he can win by dominating a single color; promptly gets hit with literally every other color. Fail.

Cali: misses the pouch she reached for because Szeth pulled the pole away. Bummer.

Zedzil: fails to realize that he can’t throw a pouch that will overtake a triple Lashing, and hits himself instead. Persistent, but also fails to realize that when you’re chasing someone, all they have to do is let you run into a pouch when they toss it. Fail. Except… smart enough to know when he’s outclassed and go looking for an easier target. So… meh?

Fari: gathered all pouches from one pole to hoard the color, which also denies Szeth the ammunition he’d like. Pass.

Ty: leader of a group of four who work as a team to isolate and bomb other individuals. Gets one of his thrown pouches batted right back in his face by Szeth. Shaky, dude. Very shaky. Also, the cocky one who follows the rules as understood, rather than as stated, so … Fail.

My favorite, though, was the girl he grabbed and shoved at one of her companions, taking them both out for a bit:

“You attacked me!” said the woman he’d thrown at someone else.

“Physical contact was not forbidden, and I cannot help it if you are unable to control your Lashings when I release you.”

The masters didn’t object.

That one always makes me laugh a little.

Places & Peoples

A: This week gives us just a few glimpses of cultures we don’t get to see much during the main action. It’s hardly our first look at the Purelake, and we don’t really learn much new about it. There’s just a small reminder about another culture here:

The Azish man looked strange in the garb of a Marabethian lawkeeper, chest bare and shoulders draped with the short, patterned cloak. The Azish were normally so proper, overly encumbered with robes and hats.

A: Not really important, just the usual fun-fact worldbuilding to remind us that there are, indeed, a number of widely diverse cultures and beliefs on this planet. We saw the short cloak before, and this serves to remind us that the Skybreaker fortress is technically located in Marabethia and they operate under Marabethian law.

Here’s one culture where we keep finding strange things, making us want moremoremore:

This would be like those days in [Szeth’s] youth, spent training with the Honorblades.

A: We’ll see this come into play more in the big battle at the end, but how’s that for a casual fact-drop? He trained with the Honorblades. BLADES. Plural. We don’t know how common this is, of course, though my expectation is that this is part of the training to become a Stone Shaman. In any case, some Shin youths train with the Honorblades held by the Shin, becoming practiced in manipulating all the Surges which can be accessed through the Blades they hold. It’s a pretty fair assumption that Szeth has some experience with every one of the ten Surges, since the only missing Blades belonged to Taln and Nalan, and those don’t overlap. Wow.

L: It’s really cool that he knows all of that, but I can’t help but feel like the Shin have been very stingy all this time. I get it – if people knew that they had the Honorblades, war probably would have been waged over them. But are they doing anything with all that knowledge now that the Desolation has returned? I suppose we’ll find out eventually…

A: My other question is whether they used the Honorblades in those earlier attempts to take over the world (that we talked about back in Chapter 2) – the “Shin invasions.” It hardly seems likely that they’d have such weapons and not use them, does it? Again, I suppose we’ll find out eventually.

Tight Butts and Coconuts

SKYBREAKER PAINTBALL!!

A: I mean… fun and games up in here! Oddly, though the game itself takes up most of the chapter, it seems the least meaningful part. It’s pretty fun to visualize them zipping around, grabbing bags of colored powder from the poles, trying to figure out strategies literally “on the fly.” (Okay, am I the only one who had to forcibly remove broomsticks from the picture? It felt very akin to quidditch. Just me?) Szeth’s solutions make me laugh, though.

L: His tactics were very militaristically valid and wise.

Weighty Words

Szeth suddenly felt frustrated by their games. … The time had come for him to ascend to a rank beyond all this.

…

“You shall soon have your spren, gauging by this performance.”

“Not soon,” Szeth said. “Right now. I shall say the Third Ideal this night, choosing to follow the law. I—”

“No,” a voice interrupted.

L: What I find most interesting about this is that he proclaims his intent. We don’t really see this in the other orders… when they swear their Ideals, it’s very much an “in-the-moment” type thing. I was a bit taken aback that he didn’t just do it when he felt the need to… but the Skybreakers seem to have more rules and traditions about such things. Probably because their traditions weren’t lost to time like most of the Orders of Knights Radiant…

A: I know, right? I never know whether to think the Skybreakers are just oddly regimented, or whether to assume that all of the Orders were this organized and we’re just getting the rediscovery process in the others. I lean toward the latter, by now; remember that one epigraph from the gemstone archive, where the Windrunner was so reluctant to speak the Fourth Ideal? He clearly knew what it was, and it sure sounded like it was more or less common knowledge.

Still, there do seem to be some differences. Like at the end of the book, when Lopen says the second Ideal, it sounds like he’d said the words before, but it wasn’t accepted (whether by his spren or by the Stormfather, I’m not sure) because he wasn’t as ready as he thought he was. At least in some cases, it’s clear that there’s more involved than just knowing the right words to say.

But here, it certainly sounds like the individual, and to some extent their superiors in the Order, get to decide when they’re ready; the spren just … accept it, presumably? I can’t tell how much input the spren are getting.

In any case, Nin shows up and declares that before he swears, there are things he – and all of them – need to understand. Whatever the issue is, Nin considers it important enough to grab all the gemstones, leave the trainees behind, and take off with all the masters and the better-trained squires.

“Tonight. It is time for you to learn the two greatest secrets that I know.

What those secrets are… we’ll have to wait for our next Szeth chapter to learn.

Cosmere Connections

You think like Vasher, the sword said in his head. Do you know Vasher? He teaches swords to people now, which is funny because VaraTreledees always says Vasher isn’t any good with the sword.

A: Of course, Szeth doesn’t even know Zahel on this world, so the answer would be no. Still, this is as good a place as any to note that, despite Denth’s derision, Vasher was actually quite a good swordsman, and well qualified to teach. He just wasn’t as good as Arsteel, or Denth himself. (VaraTreledees = Denth, in case you’d forgotten, and Arsteel = Clod.) Like Szeth, though, Vasher was far more aware of loopholes than those he defeated – which is how he defeated them.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

What were those two spren floating nearby, shaped as small slits in the air? They separated the sky, like wounds in skin, exposing a black field full of stars.

A: Highspren, presumably? Very weird.

L: These are really cool looking. Assuming that these are the Skybreaker highspren, I wonder what personality type they are. And I’m really curious about how whatever spren he bonds is going to interact with Nightblood!

A: Hey, yeah. We haven’t seen … well, really anything of his spren, have we? Even by the end of the book? Presumably we’ll get something, sometime, but for now they seem very aloof, even from their Radiants. Look at this one from an earlier chapter, Master Ki speaking to Szeth:

“During my prayers last night, Winnow proclaimed the highspren are watching you.”

That sounds oddly distant, compared to Syl, Pattern, Wyndle, Ivory, Glys, even the Stormfather is more present with his Knight than this implies. They interact with their humans all the time, in all situations – not just during their private prayers. I don’t think I understand the Skybreakers and their spren very well.

Quality Quotations

Though he didn’t care if he won arbitrary tests of competence, the chance to dance the Lashings—for once without needing to cause death and destruction—called to him.

A: Okay, I do feel for him. To have had the powers of a Windrunner and be obligated to continually use them to do things you hate… it would be a terrible balance to live with. The joy of flying always countered by the horror of killing more people – it’s no wonder the poor guy is a mess.

Well, that’s it for the nonce. Let’s go talk about it in the comments! As always, be sure to join us again next week for Chapter 99, as we rejoin the Shadesmar Exploration Society and discover a whole new race of spren to intrigue us.

Alice is having a lovely fall, thus far. Sun Mountain Lodge is a lovely place to spend a birthday, in case you were wondering.

Lyndsey is having a wonderful time working at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, but is disappointed in Ravenclaw House for putting in such a poor show at Wizard’s Weekend. Slytherin House won the House Cup Trivia Competition on BOTH DAYS! If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Brandon Sanderson’s epic Stormlight Archive fantasy series spans three gigantic novels, one novella, and a forthcoming novel; and that series in itself exists with Sanderson’s larger “Cosmere” interconnected universe. So it can be tricky to know where to start or just what the characters and world are like.

Enter, this perfect video collection of vines!

Taking vines (R.I.P.) or tiktoks and overlaying a character’s name in text on a person or thing in the vine is a popular trend in fandom media. And deservedly so, because it’s a great way to get a really funny feel for something without infodumps or spoilers.

(We suppose the video below could be considered spoilery, but you’d really have to know the context of the events to know why they were? Except for the bit about Evi at 5:46.)

(Also there’s more if you click through onto YouTube!)

via [XCatherineReads/Youtube]

1. Greetings, O Fans of the Cosmere! Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread, wherein Kaladin is depressed but learns cool things anyway, Syl is in disguise, and Shallan draws. She also demonstrates her favorite coping mechanism, much to Kaladin’s envy. Everybody wants to be somebody… else.

A: Before we dive in, I want to extend my huge thanks to Paige for stepping in at the last minute to give me a sanity check and balance the input! Lyndsey has been swamped lately, so last-minute assistance was a great boon.

P: It is always a pleasure, Alice! I love chatting with you about this wonderful story.

A: Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

In this week’s reread there is a spoiler for Mistborn: Secret History in the Shadesmar Shenanigans section, plus a minor Warbreaker note in Cosmere Connections; if you haven’t read them, best to give those sections a pass.

Chapter Recap

WHO: Kaladin
WHERE: Shadesmar ship (Lyn: This week’s map is my best guess as to their current location.)
WHEN: 1174.2.4.2 (the day after the lighthouse events of Chapter 97)

Having escaped being captured by a Fused by hopping a Reacher ship, Kaladin observes a variety of phenomena: Syl looks different, the captain provides water via a condenser fabrial, many spren are interesting, and Shallan is drawing and making jokes.

Beginnings

Title: Reachers

Syl said they were lightspren, but the common name was Reachers.

A: Oh, the things we’ll learn now!

P: Lots of new info, still more questions!

Heralds: Kalak (Willshapers, Maker, Resolute/Builder) and Shalash (Lightweavers, Artist, Creative/Honest)

A: On a guess, I’d say that Kalak is here to represent the Willshapers, since we have fairly strong evidence that the lightspren/Reachers are the family whose bond makes that order of Knights Radiant. Shalash is probably here because Shallan is drawing again, which is always cool.

P: I love that we get a peek at “Shallan’s” bad art. I love their interaction in regards to the stick figure drawings.

Icon: Kaladin’s Banner & Spears

Epigraph:

Nergaoul was known for driving forces into a battle rage, lending them great ferocity. Curiously, he did this to both sides of a conflict, Voidbringer and human. This seems common of the less self-aware spren.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 121

A: Fascinating, Captain. It’s almost like Nergaoul feeds off of the battle lust, and it really doesn’t matter who it’s coming from as long as they go berserk with it. From the perspective of “let’s win the battle” it seems counterproductive, unless originally the effect on the parsh was different than the effect on humans. If, perhaps, the humans get crazy and undisciplined, while the parsh get fiercer and stronger, that would be useful. Otherwise… I dunno.

P: I would surmise that the parsh aren’t prone to battle lust as are humans. So it makes sense that they would instead become fiercer and stronger. In battle, that would be useful against crazed and bloodthirsty humans.

A: So… maybe it’s a feature, not a bug?

P: Yes! Great phrasing!

Stories & Songs

He sat, bleary-eyed on his bunk, listening to beads crash outside the hull. There almost seemed … a pattern or rhythm to them? Or was he imagining things?

A: I’ll admit I don’t see how it would work, but could this be related to the Rhythms that the parsh peoples hear? I’m personally convinced that the Rhythms are something from the Cognitive Realm, but I’ve never had a good theory on what. I don’t know that the beads would necessarily create the rhythms, but perhaps they respond to the same things the parsh are hearing?

P: I found this comment about patterns and rhythms very interesting. I wouldn’t expect that the beads would create the rhythms, they’re more likely to respond, as you say.

A: I wonder if the Rhythms are sort of like spren: Cognitive manifestations of a particular emotion, but in the form of a beat (and/or melody?), rather than the form of a creature. Or is there a sort of “master spren” for each Rhythm, and then the beads pulse in time with whatever “master spren” is nearby? Probably not, but it’s sure fun to wonder about.

P: It’s almost physically painful to wait indefinitely for Brandon’s reveals!

Relationships & Romances

Something felt warm within him at being near her. Something felt right. It wasn’t like with Laral, his boyhood crush. Or even like with Tarah, his first real romance. It was something different, and he couldn’t define it. He only knew he didn’t want it to stop. It pushed back the darkness.

A: Sometimes I forget he’s only twenty. Poor guy hasn’t had much time for relationships, has he? I know a lot of people saw this passage as a strong basis for a romance between Kaladin and Shallan; to me, it’s more of a hint that it’s not actually a romance; it’s something else, but he doesn’t understand what, just yet.

Bruised & Broken

When Kaladin awoke on the ship in Shadesmar, the others were already up. …
He hated that he was the last to rise. That was always a bad sign.

A: While I’m sure it’s not true of everyone who suffers from depression, I can certainly relate to this. When I’m depressed, waking up in the morning (much less getting up) is terribly difficult.

P: I can attest to the fact that it is, indeed, a symptom of depression. Sleeping too much and an inability to get out of bed, much less make oneself presentable or leave the house. What’s interesting to me is that Kaladin is so self-aware regarding his depression and its symptoms. Not everyone who suffers can recognize something like this, even after suffering for decades.

A: That’s so true!! Even after working through causes and effects for years, I find myself not recognizing a symptom like this until it’s been happening for weeks. Even so, I’m glad Sanderson wrote Kaladin as someone who can see it; I think this works much better for the story-telling.

Referencing their night in the chasms, he asks,

“How do you do it, Shallan? How do you keep smiling and laughing? How do you keep from fixating on the terrible things that have happened?”

“I cover them up. I have this uncanny ability to hide away anything I don’t want to think about. It … it’s getting harder, but for most things I can just…” She trailed off, staring straight ahead. “There. Gone.”

“Wow.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m crazy.”

“No. No, Shallan! I wish I could do the same.”

She looked at him, brow wrinkling. “You’re crazy.”

A: There’s humor in her words, but it’s a bitter, black humor.

P: This is absolutely a coping mechanism. You try to make light of your illness to avoid stigma.

A: Kaladin envies Shallan the abiltiy to block things out; he would love to not have his mistakes and failures (real or perceived) hanging over him all the time. I can understand that, to be honest.

P: Often, people who suffer from depression also experience anxiety to some extent. Kaladin’s insecurities smack of anxiety regarding what he considers to be mistakes or failures throughout his life.

A: Absolutely. It doesn’t even matter if he recognizes that some of his “mistakes” weren’t actually his fault; he feels like they must have been, so they weigh on him just the same. Then here we get Shallan, finally ready to be honest enough to say what we all know: too much pretending makes you just as unable to function as too much worry. It just doesn’t look like it from the outside.

P: This conversation echoes what was said in the chasms, when Kaladin was so amazed that Shallan smiled anyway. She also mentioned being crazy during that conversation. Another bit of dark humor to cope with her condition.

What I find fascinating about this conversation is that despite hiding her feelings away and ignoring them, she’s imploring Kaladin to not do the same because it’s not healthy. She’s fully aware that she shouldn’t be doing what she’s doing, yet she continues. My therapist would call that self-sabotage.

A: At some level, Shallan does recognize that she is actively damaging herself, poor thing. She just doesn’t see any option that isn’t damaging, so she takes the path that involves the least current pain.

Tight Butts and Coconuts

“I had a splinter once,” Shallan noted. “It eventually got out of hand.

“You … you did not just say that.”

“Yes, you obviously imagined it. What a sick, sick mind you have, Kaladin.”

A: There’s a whole bunch more, before and after this, where they’re playing silly word games amid the more serious discussion, but it doesn’t seem to have the usual punch. There’s a reason for this, and we eventually get there:

“Everything on a ship has odd names. Port and starboard instead of left and right. Galley instead of kitchen. Nuisance instead of Shallan.”

“There was a name … railing? Deck guard? No, wale. It’s called a wale.” She grinned. “I don’t really like how it feels to sit against this wale, but I’m sure I’ll eventually get over it.”

He groaned softly. “Really?”

“Vengeance for calling me names.”

“Name. One name. And it was more a declaration of fact than an attack.”

She punched him lightly in the arm. “It’s good to see you smiling.”

“That was smiling?”

“It was the Kaladin equivalent. That scowl was almost jovial.” She smiled at him.

A: We’ve debated Shallan’s humor before, and I still believe that the way she normally teases Kaladin is because she expects him to comprehend the snark involved, not because she thinks she’s better than him. We saw it with her brothers; she teased Balat more gently, because he really wasn’t the brightest sphere in the pouch, while her best wittiness was for Wikim, who was much cleverer. This time, she’s very light, playing with exaggeration and a few bad puns, deliberately drawing him out of his depression—just like she did with her brothers in their bad times.

P: Shallan provides a distraction for Kaladin, much like Tien did with his rocks and childlike enthusiasm about everything. Even at this point, I saw their relationship as close friends, rather than anything remotely romantic.

A: YES.

P: *fist bump*

Weighty Words

A: As noted up there in Bruised & Broken, Shallan seems to be nibbling around the edges of acknowledging that blocking things out and pretending they didn’t happen is actively harming her. I wonder if this means she’s getting close to stating another Truth.

P: I’d like to see her level up again.

I think that her conversation with Wit was very beneficial, in that somebody knew to tell her that she wasn’t a monster, and that that she’s valuable, when she feels she has no value. Further, I think that helping pull Kaladin out of his depression is therapeutic for her. So, keep doing that, Shallan.

Meaningful Motivations

P: Perhaps we could include a bit here about Kaladin wanting to get to Dalinar. It is, after all, the only reason he got out of bed.

A: Good point. He and Azure are totally at odds on this; once they reach Celebrant, he wants to go south to Thaylen City, while she wants to go west to the Horneater Peaks. His reasoning is based on a vision—which no one else trusts—that Dalinar will be in Thaylen City and will desperately need help. Hers is based on knowledge that there’s a Perpendicularity in the Peaks, even though the spren tell them there’s something sketchy going on around it.

Buy it Now

Motivations, though… motivations are significant, especially in this chapter with Kaladin’s depression and obsession with protecting All The People. As near as I can tell, Azure’s motivation for going to the Perpendicularity is that a) she knows it’s there and b) she wants nothing more than to get out of Shadesmar and back to the Physical Realm. Also, being a worldhopper, it may be easier for her to dismiss the importance of an individual, though I’m just guessing on that one. Kaladin, having failed to keep his friends from fighting each other, and having been unable to stop Moash from killing Elhokar, now feels that the only thing he can do that matters is to protect Dalinar. He’ll take anything to guide him, and all he’s got is Thaylen City, and Dalinar’s need. In his defense, he’s seen trustworthy stuff from the Stormfather before, so I can understand his confidence despite everyone else’s skepticism. But I can also understand their skepticism.

Shadesmar Shenanigans

… the captain turned on a small oil lamp—so far as Kaladin could tell, he didn’t use a flaming brand to create the fire. How did it work? It seemed foolhardy to use fire for light with so much wood and cloth around.

A: Is it real fire? Does Captain Ico have some kind of a fire-starter? Or is this like the ::SPOILER WARNING:: fire that Nazh folded up and carried around in Mistborn: Secret History? That would explain why they don’t worry about open flame, and it seems to fit what happens here. That’s … sort of cool. I hope that’s what’s going on, because I really like it. And as Ico explains, since Stormlight fades quickly in the Cognitive Realm, they can’t rely on spheres for lighting. I guess it hasn’t been an issue thus far, because they’ve been outdoors the whole time (except for the lighthouse) and there isn’t really “nighttime” per se; that expains why the question hasn’t come up before. Huh.

“At Celebrant, the moneychangers have perfect gemstones that can hold the light indefinitely. Similar.”

“Perfect gemstones? Like, the Stone of Ten Dawns?”

A: This is not the first mention of “perfect gems” we’ve seen, though we still don’t know much about them at this point. An Elsecaller mentioned them in the gemstone archive epigraphs, claiming that their Order was duly appointed as keepers of the perfect gems and specifically mentioning one called “Honor’s Drop.” I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense that the perfect gems would end up in Shadesmar, if the Elsecallers were trying to hide them from those who could only access the Physical Realm. Do you suppose the moneychangers are inkspren, still holding the gems on behalf of their order, but devolved into using them as banking devices since the Elsecallers disbanded?

P: This is a great theory, and I have nothing to counter it.

A: Kaladin, naturally, only thinks of perfect gemstones as a way to keep Stormlight accessible to Radiants all through the Weeping. Dalinar will eventually find another use…

P: That’s our Windrunner, constantly thinking of protecting others, constantly looking for ways to survive.

Here, the captain knelt and opened the box, which revealed a strange device that looked a little like a coatrack—although only about three feet tall.

Cradling the sphere in one hand, Ico touched the glass bead he’d put in the fabrial. “This is a soul,” he said. “Soul of water, but very cold.”

“Ice?”

“Ice from a high, high place,” he said. “Ice that has never melted. Ice that has never known warmth.”

A: It’s a Shadesmar fabrial! I’m trying to decide if using the souls of objects (in this case, glacial ice) is better or worse than trapping the non-sentient spren of physical phenomena (like fire or rain) to power devices. Or if either one is all that bad. If they aren’t even sentient, I’m kind of thinking it’s no worse than melting ice or burning wood.

Later, when he tries to explain the device to Shallan, she immediately recognizes the process as condensation and mentions that Navani would be interested in the device. Which is another of the hundreds of little reminders that in Alethi society, the men typically know diddly-squat about science or engineering; they traded all of that, along with literacy, for their precious Shardblades.

Cosmere Connections

She nodded toward Azure, who stood across the deck, holding on to the railling for dear life and occasionally shooting distrusting glances at the Reachers. Either she did not like being on a ship, or she did not trust the spren. Perhaps both.

A: Ah, this makes me laugh! I’d bet it’s both… but I’d also bet that the largest part is that she doesn’t like being on a ship! Our Vivenna didn’t like seafood or anything to do with the sea, and I’m betting that hasn’t changed.

P: That was my first thought, that she was never fond of the sea. It would seem that her travels haven’t changed that particular aspect of her personality.

A Scrupulous Study of Spren

They looked like humans with strange bronze skin—metallic, as if they were living statues. Both men and women wore rugged jackets and trousers. Actual human clothing, not merely imitations of it like Syl wore.

A: I don’t have much to say about this, but it’s always worth noting what another family of sapient spren looks like!

P: My thought here was that, since they sometimes provide passage to humans, they wear clothes in order to set their passengers at ease. Imagine how disconcerting it might be for humans to see naked, bronze men traipsing about on the ships.

A: LOL! That would certainly be… disconcerting. It’s a definite possibility.

“You know how to manifest souls?”

“No,” Kaladin said.

“Some of your kind do,” he said. “It is rare. Rare among us too. The gardeners among the cultivationspren are best at it.”

A: We’ve seen both Jasnah and Shallan do this, though Jasnah seemed to do it much more instinctively than Shallan. What’s fascinating is that Lift’s spren Wyndle is probably an expert. Maybe that’s why he had such an impressive array of chairs (or whatever it was)—it was impressive because he was able to manifest their souls in Shadesmar. It seems funny, though, that the spren who are best at this thing are Edgedancer spren—not one of the Orders who can normally even access Shadesmar very readily.

[Syl’s] dress was red, instead of its normal white-blue. Her hair had changed to black, and … and her skin was flesh colored—tan, like Kaladin’s. What on Roshar?

…

“It’s a Lightweaving,” she said. “I asked Shallan, because I didn’t want rumors of an honorspren spreading from the ship’s crew.”

A: Kaladin, naturally, doesn’t have the first clue why this is important, but we’ll all find out eventually. Meanwhile, Syl is an expert at diverting a conversation that she doesn’t want to have; Kaladin tries to admonish her about wasting Stormlight, and she tries to get him to go flirt with Shallan.

P: She’s much like Shallan when it comes to steering a conversation away from an uncomfortable subject.

“Kaladin. I’m your spren. It’s my duty to make sure that you’re not alone.”

“Is that so? Who decided?”

“I did. …”

A: Oh, Syl. You’re so precious. It just goes along with being a piece of a god, you know!

P: We wouldn’t know how to take Syl if she wasn’t being snarky.

[Captain Ico] resembled a Shin man, with large, childlike eyes made of metal. He was shorter than the Alethi, but sturdy.

A: Once again, we’re reminded that the sapient spren reflect the thoughts and visualizations of the humans as they looked when they first came to Roshar. Shin, because of the eyes not yet adapted to the constant winds of eastern Roshar. Shorter, because again, not yet adapted to the lower gravity of Roshar. And… maybe some other things, too, but that’s a start.

A line of copper plating ran down the inside wall of the stairwell…. Touching a plate with the tips of his fingers, Kaladin felt a distinct vibration…. “The copper vibrates,” Shallan said. “And they keep touching it. I think they might be using it to communicate somehow.”

A: Gah. I never know quite what to think about Shallan’s thoughts. Is this Sanderson giving us the answer via Shallan’s guess, or is it misdirection?

P: Much as I want to believe that Shallan is giving us relevant information, because I love the way her mind works during scholarly pursuits, I’m less inclined to trust her completely because, well, Kabsal.

A: Fair point, Kabsal… Sometimes she gets it right, but I think we have to consider her speculation to be unreliable.
And of course, once again I’m wondering if these vibrations are related to the Rhythms, but this one doesn’t seem to make as much sense as the earlier one. Hold the theory loosely…

[The spren sailors] didn’t sleep, but they did seem to enjoy their breaks from work, swinging quietly in hammocks, often reading.

It didn’t bother him to see male Reachers with books—spren were obviously similar to ardents, who were outside of common understandings of male and female. At the same time … spren, reading? How odd.

A: How odd, indeed. I mean… why not, but at the same time… spren, reading? How odd. They’re obviously self-aware, intelligent, and to some extent self-directing, but at the same time, they’re manifestations of thought. I think this just broke my brain.

P: Again, I wonder if they didn’t adopt this habit from human passengers.

Absorbing Artwork

A: As a quick aside, the notes on these drawings are a sharp reminder of Shallan’s scholarly pursuits in the area of natural history. I’ve gotten so used to her Lightweaving, spying, personality issues, etc. that it was almost a shock to see the clear thinking that goes into her observations regarding the mandras.

P: I think Shallan is the most herself when she’s being scholarly. These kinds of scenes are some of my favorites.

A: If you can’t read the text, she talks about size and shape, about the steering mechanisms, and that they don’t seem to have to obey any of the laws of physics when they fly. The movement of the wings doesn’t seem to provide either lift or locomotion, but the shape of the head is exactly the same as the spren she’s seen around skyeels, chasmfiends, and other greatshells. When she points it out, Kaladin recognizes the shape as well.

P: I got a kick out of Syl saying she wanted to ride one. That would have been … interesting.

“Chasmfiends, skyeels, anything else that should be heavier than it actually is. Sailors call them luckspren on our side. … These are biggeer, but I think they—or something like them—help skyeels fly.”

“Chasmfiends don’t fly.”

“They kind of do, mathematically. Bavamar did the calculations on Reshi greatshells, and found they should be crushed by their own weight.”

A: Sanderson has been dropping hints about this ever since the first book came out, and now it’s spelled out in the text: some of the Rosharan critters could not exist, even in a low-grav environment, without magical assistance. So much fun worldbuilding! But here’s the bit that makes me really curious:

“Those mandras, they vanish sometimes. Their keepers call it ‘dropping.’ I think they must be getting pulled into the Physical Realm.”

A: This seems so odd. No one ever sees more of them than the arrowhead shape, and lots of other spren show only a part of themselves in the Physical while not disappearing from the Cognitive. So… am I missing something, or is Shallan just wrong about what’s happening? (Here we go again!) What else could make a mandras disappear? Do they stay in one place in the Cognitive, until the critter they’re accompanying gets too far away in the Physical, and then they jump closer, maybe? That’s all I’ve got, shaky as it is.

P: To be honest, this is something I pretty much skated over during my first couple of reads. But I also found it odd once I took the time to consider it. It doesn’t make sense that the mandras would disappear completely from the Cognitive, considering that most other spren don’t manifest fully in the Physical. What makes them different? There’s always another question, eh?

A: Isn’t there, though! The only thing I can think of that’s even close is (as we’ll see in a few weeks) that windspren are extremely rare in Shadesmar, because they spend most of their time fully in the Physical Realm. The mandras can’t be something super rare, like larkin, if “dropping” is a common occurence. But… gah. I’ve got nothing more. Anyone else have a theory? Someone has to be thinking about it out there…

“And you can’t take them—or most other spren—too far from human population centers on our side. They waste away and die for reasons people here don’t understand.”

A: This one makes more sense to me; since the spren are a reflection of thought, they have to stay where there’s someone to think. (For what it’s worth, I’d bet they aren’t limited to human population centers; a parsh population would probably work just as well. It’s just that, well, it’s been a long time since there were more than one or two small parsh population centers. …That we know of.)

P: Dun, dun, DUNNN…

It also makes sense that because if spren feed on human emotion, they need to stay near population centers.

Quality Quotations

… the ship had wicked harpoons clipped in racks at the sides of the deck. Seeing those made Kaladin infinitely more comfortable; he knew exactly where to go for a weapon.

A: That’s our Kaladin—look for a spear! I mean, since Syl can’t be a Blade here, it’s good to know; and of course it will be useful eventually. I just thought it was funny.

P: Leave it to the soldier to be constantly thinking about defense or escape.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I dragged it out back and clubbed it senseless for getting me into the army.”

Well, Shadesmar is always fun, so let’s keep talking about it in the comments! Be sure to join us again next week, when we’ll visit Vedenar with a deeply stressed-out Dalinar.

Alice is, as usual in the fall, having fun watching, line judging, and cheering madly for her daughter’s volleyball games. Seriously, y’all have no idea how much time and energy that takes!

Paige resides in New Mexico, of course, and writes to stay sane. No, really. Links to her work are provided in her profile.

Lyndsey is swamped with Renn Faire costuming and work, and was unable to comment this week; she had to limit herself to mapping the team and giving offline feedback. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.