I hope you’re all ready to sit criss-cross apple sauce, because this week Uncle Hoid’s in the house and ready to regale us all with a lovely tale of arrogance, trickery, and loss. It’s always a fun time when Hoid shows up, and this week’s reread is full of theorizing, comments on the craft of story-telling (both inter-textually and meta-textually), and… you guessed it, Cosmere Connections!
Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. Since Hoid shows up in this chapter, we do a fair amount of talking about him and some aspects of the magic system from Warbreaker, so if you haven’t had a chance to read that one yet (and if you haven’t, you really should before things begin heating up in the next few chapters) you may want to sit this chapter out. There’s also a little discussion of how the White Sand sand works, but it’s not really a plot spoiler. And, it goes without saying at this point, but if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Shallan/Veil
WHERE: Kholinar
WHEN: 1174.1.10.3 (the day after Chapter 63)
Shallan, as Veil, goes for a walk through the marketplace. She discovers that the rich lighteyes are prioritizing giving food to the rich over the poor (surprise surprise) and runs into a familiar face telling stories to the beleaguered populace.
Truth, Love, and Defiance
Title: Mishim
Everyone knows that Mishim is the cleverest of the three moons.
And thus begins the story that Sigzil failed to tell. Also, I’d never noticed this, but Deana pointed out in the beta that Hoid’s storytelling chapters are usually titled for the story. So that’s cool.
Herald
Paliah, patron of Truthwatchers, the Scholar, associated with the attributes Learned and Giving.
AA: The first thing I had to notice was that, despite Wit’s appearance, we don’t have the Joker in one of the Heralds slots. This is unusual. Instead, we have Paliah in all four slots. My best guess is that Shallan is trying hard to study the city, to learn as much as she can about what’s going on and why the Cult of Moments is such hot stuff. She also gets frustrated with the way the limited free food keeps getting doled out to the (obviously) servants of noble houses, rather than to the actual poor and needy, which in retrospect is clearly a set-up for her later plan of giving food to those who need it as a means of attracting the attention of the cult.
Alternatively, the entire Learned/Giving thing could apply to Wit.
Icon
Pattern
Epigraph
This generation has had only one Bondsmith, and some blame the divisions among us upon this fact. The true problem is far deeper. I believe that Honor himself is changing.
—From drawer 24-18, smokestone
AA: The Skybreaker who left this recording seems to be an insightful sort. We don’t know the specific timing of Tanavast’s death, nor how long it took Honor to “die,” nor exactly where the Recreance fell in that sequence. We have only the Stormfather’s statement that “in the days leading to the Recreance, Honor was dying.” If we are correct in assuming that the Recreance followed fairly closely on the heels of the departure from Urithiru, he’s correct—Honor himself was not just changing; he was dying.
L: I also find it interesting that that generation only had one. Does this imply that the Bondsmith was bonded to either the Sibling or Cultivation, seeing as how Honor was changing? Or… is Honor sort of an umbrella term for all three of them, implying that the Bondmith bond itself is intrinsically linked to Honor and hence weakening?
AA: I really wish I knew the answer to that! It seems pretty solid that the Sibling is not the one bonded at this time, because of the comments in the gemstone archives about the Sibling withdrawing. Given that this Skybreaker thinks Honor is changing, and the Bondsmith doesn’t seem to have much to say about the subject, I tentatively theorize that Melishi was bonded to the Nightwatcher. It seems like that might make sense, in that a Cultivation-oriented Bondsmith might have a better understanding of the way the parsh are connected to Ba-Ado-Mishram. But… that’s totally speculative.
Thematic Thoughts
They were at war, the city was falling, but all she wanted to do was listen to the end of this story.
L: This is such a beautiful sentiment. We see it so often—the human desire for stories is so deeply ingrained in our psyches that it transcends society. All cultures have stories, and interestingly, many of them follow the same basic paths. This path—popularly dubbed The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell, is so deeply entrenched in us that we subconsciously recognize it, and if a story isn’t quite matching up to the story beats we expect, it will feel “wrong.” How often, when watching a film or reading a book, have you noticed that the hero of the piece reaches a dark place about ¾ of the way through? Watching them claw their way back up to victory from that place is highly rewarding for us on a deep psychological level, and it’s absolutely fascinating to study. This need to relate to fictional characters and to partake of their joys and their sadnesses despite (or because of) our own personal struggles is what makes fiction so very important, whether you choose to engage with it through the written page, the movie screen, television, or plays or podcasts. Or even by listening to a street busker tell a story with different colored smoke.
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Oathbringer
Stories allow us to remove ourselves from the trials of our own lives and experience the victories of someone else, and the meta-textual nature of Wit/Hoid is pretty fascinating in this respect. In many ways he subtly breaks the fourth wall, winking to the reader even as he speaks to Shallan or Kaladin.
AA: ::applauds::
Stories & Songs
“This story takes place during the days of Tsa,” Wit continued. “The grandest queen of Natanatan, before that kingdom’s fall.”
L: Rather than quote the entire story, I’m just going to paraphrase it here (and hopefully do a better job of it than Sigzil when he tried to tell the same story back in Chapter 35). Queen Tsa was an architect and one night Mishim, the cleverest moon, passed by and spoke to her as she rested in her high tower. Mishim praised her on her buildings in an attempt to trick her into switching places, for she wished to be able to partake of human pleasures. On her fourth try, Mishim finally appealed to Queen Tsa’s vanity and convinced her to switch places. For one night, Mishim enjoyed the pleasures of mortal life. She enjoyed herself so much that she neglected to return with the dawn, and spent the day worrying that Tsa would tell Salas or Nomon (the other two moons) about her trickery. The next night, Tsa threatens to remain in the heavens, having found that she quite enjoys it, and Mishim panics. She reminds Tsa that Tsa broke their agreement, and Tsa agrees to rescind her place. Nine months later, Tsa gives birth to a child with blue skin, and Mishim realizes that this was her plan all along, to spend a night with Nomon, to mother a son born of gods.
“And that is why, to this day, the people of Natanatan have skin of a faintly blue shade. And it is why Mishim, though still crafty, has never again left her place. Most importantly, it is the story of how the moon came to know the one thing that before, mortals had only known. Loss.”
L: This seems an interesting choice of story to tell a people who are already on the brink of despair. You’d think that a story about victory or one that ends in joy would be better choices, and even Shallan questions this:
“Why that story?” she asked. “Why now?”
“I don’t give the meanings, child,” he said. “You should know that by now. I just tell the tale.”
L: Good old Hoid, always with another secret question. Maybe Hoid is trying to prepare them, in his own way, for what he suspects is coming. If even the gods can feel loss, then they’re in good company. They’re not going to be alone.
AA: I am constantly at a loss on the reason for this story. Obviously, it’s rather hilarious to see the contrast between Hoid’s telling and Sigzil’s, and for that alone I love it. But along with Hoid, Sanderson has to have a reason for this story. We get to see Hoid’s sand-storytelling, similar in materials but not in method, to what he used for Siri in Warbreaker. We get a cosmology-fairy-tale about the blue Natanatan skin, which we know is actually due to some Siah Aimian blood. We get a story about the moons as personalities… but no hint (that I can see) of what the moons really are.
As I recall, there’s some mystery to the Rosharan moons, and I wonder if there’s something hidden in the story about it, but I can’t see it if it’s there! I’ve theorized a connection between the moons and the Bondsmith spren, but I can’t make it make sense. *Sigh*
L: Maybe we’re just over-thinking it? If Hoid’s just telling the story in order to give a little escape to the people, maybe that’s really all there is to it.
AA: Me? Overthink??? Surely you jest.
L: Ha. I mean generally speaking, Sanderson does have at least one (if not more) reasons for everything he puts into his stories. But maybe this one really is more superficial, just Hoid helping out the people and simultaneously giving the reader a bit of worldbuilding. If it were me… I’d be using in-world stories to foreshadow things that happen later in the series. But I can’t think of anything that he could possibly be setting up with this one.
AA: For all the obvious reasons, I had to go look up everything we know about the moons last night. One thing that has come up is that, while we don’t know whether the moons are natural or artificial bodies, they were placed in their particular orbits artificially. One assumes that this was Adonalsium’s doing, but it could have been the Shards. Could he be going somewhere with that? I admit it’s not likely, but it’s all I’ve got.
L: We’ve delved too greedily and too deep into the theory-pool for me. I’m bowing out. I’ll stick to the character and story structure analyses! And the memes/gifs, of course. Gotta earn my GenX/Millenial creds.
Relationships & Romances
“Thanks to the Lightweaver’s excellent reconnaissance,” the king said, “it is evident my wife is being held captive by her own guards.”
AA: I don’t know whether to applaud Elhokar’s loyalty to his wife, or grind my teeth at his unwillingness to accept that she might simply be a horrible person.
L: Gotta love those rose-tinted glasses. At least he does appear to really love her.
AA: He does, and I have to like that part. Kaladin and Adolin point out some of the problems with his assumption, and he really doesn’t want to hear it. His defense of even marrying her despite familial objection is more of the same:
Aesudan was always proud, and always ambitious, but never gluttonous. … Jasnah says I shouldn’t have married her—that Aesudan was too hungry for power. Jasnah never understood. I needed Aesudan. Someone with strength…”
AA: It would be funny if it weren’t sad; it sounds like Elhokar was trying to marry someone that (many observers would say) was just like his sister—and his mother, for that matter.
L: Well, I mean… that does happen quite often in real life.
AA: In this family of outwardly strong, capable people, how did he turn out to be the weak link? Up until just recently, the only thing we’ve seen in him that might look like strength is his ability to arrogantly act like he’s right because he’s the king. From what little we know of her, it sounds like Aesudan used a similar tactic, and he mistook her apparent strong will for a strong mind.
Honestly, the more I see from Elhokar’s perspective, the more I pity him… but it only rarely makes me think more highly of him. Despite his sister’s insight, he picked a wife who saw him as a means to power, but who was never going to have any respect for him. Poor stupid princeling. What a miserable marriage. I wonder how much she undermined him, both before and after he became king.
Also, no wonder Jasnah had an assassin watching her sister-in-law. I’m betting the two of them never, ever felt like sisters…
L: And from what we now know about Alethi female relationships, it’s even less surprising.
Bruised & Broken
What lingered was that single glimpse she’d seen in the mirror: a glimmer of the Unmade’s presence, beyond the plane of the reflection.
The mirrors in the tailor’s shop didn’t show such proclivities; she had checked every one. Just in case, she’d given a drawing of the thing she’d seen to the others, and warned them to watch.
AA: We don’t really know why Shallan was able to see Sja-anat, nor whether the others would have been able to see her had they been present. My theory is that they would not have seen her, and Shallan could do so partly because of her bond with Pattern and partly because of her own messed-up head. Either way, this “spot-the-Unmade” gig seems to be Shallan’s specialty. I was impressed that, this time, she was much quicker to tell the rest of the team about it and get them watching. She’s not very good at keeping them informed about what she’s up to, but at least she’s registered that taking on an Unmade requires help!
L: Yeah, I was really happy to see that too. It always annoys the heck out of me when a character in a book ::cough Harry Potter cough:: refuses to tell other characters extremely important information that they really should have.
AA: YES. All the yes. If they aren’t going to share the information, they at least need to have a good reason, even if the reason is that “it seemed too insignificant.” That failure with no supporting validation drives me bonkers.
“I needed Aesudan. Someone with strength…”
L: I really do feel bad for Elhokar. He recognized his failings even then, but clearly didn’t know how to go about overcoming them without some kind of role model. Now that he has one (namely, Kaladin) he’s making real strides towards bettering himself.
AA: I… don’t quite know what to say about Elhokar. He recognized his character weakness and sought to correct it, which is more than many of us do. But wowsa! Did he ever spend most of his life picking terrible role models and confidants! I wonder how much more Dalinar could have helped him in that five-year stretch before Gavilar’s assassination, if he hadn’t spent most of his time drunk out of his skull. But what about Gavilar and Navani? If you had to choose between what we know of Dalinar and Evi vs. Gavilar and Navani as parents, it seems like the latter’s children should have had all the advantages, but you’d never know it by their sons. Instead, you have this:
“It’s a good plan, Elhokar,” Adolin said. “Nice work.”
A simple compliment probably should not have made a king beam like it did. Elhokar even drew a gloryspren.
AA: Did Gavilar never spend any time with his son, teaching and encouraging him? How is it that such a simple compliment from his younger cousin has such a dramatic effect? (Also, for the first time, we get to see Elhokar get a gloryspren when Dalinar isn’t around. How ‘bout that?)
L: And what does it say about Navani? Honestly, this makes me like her less. Reading between the lines, she seems like she was a pretty terrible mother to her son, which frustrates me, because she’s pretty awesome otherwise.
AA: I know, right? For all that I adore Navani, and for all the flaws I see in Evi’s “perfect paragon” approach, I have to say Evi did a better job in a harder situation.
Except… she hadn’t even been able to save her own family. She had no idea what Mraize had done with her brothers, and she refused to think about them.
L: Interesting to note that she drops out of Veil and into Shallan, here. She does so again later on, when Hoid shows up, too.
AA: Given how we ragged on those shifts in the beta, you know they were deliberate. It’s really a fascinating twist, and one that bears watching. I do love the way Hoid brings out so much truth that Shallan generally tries to hide from.
L: Well, that seems to be Hoid’s M.O. Ironic, considering how much time he spends revealing said truths through fiction.
AA: I won’t look it up, but somewhere there’s a quote from Robert Jordan about how much easier it is to talk about Truth if you do it in a fantasy tale. It ties back to the Thematic Thoughts, doesn’t it?
Squires & Sidekicks
He was dressed, strangely, in a soldier’s uniform—Sadeas’s livery, with the coat unbuttoned and a colored scarf around his neck.
The traveler. The one they called the King’s Wit.
L: Well hello there, Hoid! And what exactly are you doing here in a Sadeas uniform?
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The Ruin of Kings
AA: My thought exactly. Sadeas??
L: Maybe it’s just because this is one of the only other names we (the readers) would recognize, other than the Kholins—and wearing a Kholin uniform in the city right now would be a Bad, Bad Idea.
Wit glanced to his side, where he’d put his pack. He started, as if surprised. Shallan cocked her head as he quickly recovered, jumping back into the story so fast that it was easy to miss his lapse. But now, as he spoke, he searched the audience with careful eyes.
L: Interesting. Did he sense Shallan here, or is there something else going on?
AA: In this case, you have to look at the end of the scene. The jar of black sand in his pack was white on the side facing Shallan; if I’m correct about that sand, this told Hoid that someone nearby in that direction was using investiture. So he knew there was someone there, doing something, and he wanted to know who, and what, and why.
He just recognized me, she realized. I’m still wearing Veil’s face. But how… how did he know?
L: How indeed? Something from Nalthis, perhaps? Fourth Heightening, granting Perfect Life Sense? I always thought that this would allow him to sense if something were living, but not necessarily the differences between living beings, but I may be wrong. Alice? You’re the Warbreaker authority.
AA: I’m not entirely sure what all is at work here. We know he was looking for a magic-user, and somehow he saw through her Lightweaving. It might be because of his own Yolish version of Lightweaving that he can see through hers, or it might be another magic he’s using. If we’d seen him drink anything, I’d be searching the Allomancy charts for hints.
L: Seventh Heightening could also be at play here, recognizing that she’s using a Lightweaving on herself…? Do we have any idea really of how many Breaths Hoid actually has?
AA: No idea. Probably a fair few, but I’m not sure he’d have tried hard enough to get that many. Still, this is Hoid. Now I want a scene where Hoid, Zahel, and Azure all come around the corners and see each other at once.
L: I imagine it would look something like this.
Places & Peoples
“They got rules. Gotta be a certain age. And if you’re too poor, they shove ya out of line.”
“For what reason?”
The boy shrugged. “Don’t need one, I guess. They say you’ve already been through, ’cept you haven’t.”
“Many of those people … they’re servants from wealthy homes, aren’t they?”
The urchin nodded.
Storming lighteyes, Veil thought as she watched. Some of the poor were shoved out of line for one infraction or another, as the urchin had claimed. The others waited patiently, as it was their job. They’d been sent by wealthy homes to collect food. Many bore the lean, strong look of house guards, though they didn’t wear uniforms.
Storms. Velalant’s men really had no idea how to do this. Or maybe they know exactly what they’re doing, she thought. And Velalant is just keeping the local lighteyes happy and ready to support his rule, should the winds turn his way.
AA: Politics, even while the world as they know it is ending. By the end of this segment, I was coming to actively dislike the people of Kholinar. The lighteyes, at least.
L: Yeah, gotta admit, I’m with Kaladin on that one at least some of the time. The super-rich rarely seem to be able to see beyond their own wants and desires to truly empathize with those who aren’t as well off—it’s just so far from their realm of understanding that they can’t conceive of what it’s like. Unless they’re Adolin, and even then he’s got his blind spots.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“It was beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said. Then he added, “I miss my flute.”
L: I still find it hilarious that Kaladin lost this, and I suspect Hoid’s never going to let him hear the end of it.
AA: Hey, now that Amaram’s gone, do you suppose the flute will resurface? That’d be fun to see.
L: I can’t imagine that Sanderson would have made such a big deal of it, and kept bringing it up, if it wasn’t going to resurface at some point. If it’s a Red Herring Gun on the Mantle, it’s a damn good one.
Weighty Words
King Elhokar sat at the room’s table, earnestly … writing something? No, he was drawing. … [S]he rounded to peek over the king’s shoulder. He was doing a map of the city, with the palace and the Oathgate platform. It wasn’t half bad.
AA: So… Elhokar had latent artistic skills after all. During the first two books’ discussion, I recall people finding it difficult to believe Elhokar was seeing Cryptics, because there was no indicator of any of the skills said to be common to Lightweavers. Ask and you shall receive?
Also, every time I see him starting to do something like this—something that goes outside His Assigned Role In Life—I just ache for the poor boy. He could probably have had a great life doing things he enjoyed, if only his father hadn’t decided Alethkar needed Gavilar As King. He’d probably have been perfectly happy as an ardent in a monastery.
L: Yeah. He reminds me a lot of Renarin in this way—being constrained by the roles his heritage and society have imposed on him.
AA: ::nods vigorously:: I’m sad now. I wish we could have seen Renarin and Elhokar together more. Stupid Moash anyway.
L: ::forcefully restrains self from saying it::
Cosmere Connections
“I don’t like the sound of this Azure person. See what you can find out about him and his Wall Guard.”
L: Him. Right.
AA: It’s so funny to look back now. On the first read, we all assumed—just like Elhokar—that Azure was a man. It’s not even a conscious assumption; it’s just a given in this world and this nation. I’m betting it never crossed anyone’s mind, character or reader, to wonder if maybe this could be a woman. (I’ll make an exception to that, though: Anyone who was up on the WoBs and knew they should be looking for Vivenna might have wondered when they saw the name.)
You didn’t need to prove how much you could drink in order to look tough—but that was the sort of thing you couldn’t learn without wearing the coat, living in it.
L: This reminds me a great deal of Wayne from Mistborn Era 2, and his various hats/personas. Sanderson has a lot of characters and ideas that show up again and again in his works—a lot of people have rightfully pointed out the similarities between Kelsier and Kaladin, for instance, in regards to character archetypes. Shallan/Veil and Wayne are very different, but it’s interesting to see this little aspect of their personalities that is mirrored between books.
I’d also like to point out that this isn’t a failing of Sanderson’s—it’s something that, if you read enough works by any author, you’ll begin to see. Authors tend to gravitate towards certain archetypes because either they understand them better or because there’s something about them that, subconsciously or consciously, they find of note. If you read enough Stephen King, you’ll notice a lot of writer characters that suffer from some sort of substance abuse, for instance. This doesn’t mean that they’re falling back on lazy stereotypes, just that they see something intrinsically interesting about this type of character that they need several different avenues to explore. It’s like coming at a problem from different angles to try to understand it better—or convey it better to multiple people.
AA: (I’m like… hey, look, Wayne uses hats and Shallan uses coats! Lyndsey, on the other hand, can actually evaluate what he’s doing and why. This, folks, is why we have an actual writer involved in rereading. Or, well, one of the reasons.)
L: Good to know that that expensive BA in English Lit isn’t being wasted.
Wit thrust his hand high in his smoke, drawing the line of white into the shape of a straight pillar. His other hands swirled a pocket of green above it, like a whirlpool. A tower and a moon.
That can’t be natural, can it? Shallan thought. Is he Lightweaving? Yet she saw no Stormlight. There was something more… organic about what he did.
L: So is this just his Yolish Lightweaving in effect, or is he combining several forms of investiture here? (I’ll speculate a bit more on this in the speculation section below…)
AA: I was wondering whether it was the magic system that made it seem “organic,” or if it’s just his depth of experience. He’s been doing Yolish Lightweaving for a very, very long time; it’s practically his native language. Shallan is still learning her skill, so maybe it’s no wonder Hoid’s mastery looks so different. All the same, it looks very different from anything we’ve seen done by anyone else.
L: That makes a lot of sense, actually. Sort of how Shallan’s drawing skills would seem effortless to someone who was a struggling beginner!
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
…pools of angerspren. Some looked like the normal pools of blood; others were more like tar, pitch-black. When the bubbles in these popped, they showed a burning red within, like embers.
AA: Yeah, and that’s not creepy or anything.
L: I love it.
Appealing/Arresting/Appraising/Absorbing Artwork
L: This is such a cool set of drawings. I find the painspren to be pretty unsettling either way, but the corrupted ones are definitely way creepier. They look like the hands of some haggard old crone in a Rankin/Bass movie from the 70s or the 80s. The hungerspren, on the other hand, totally look like Flying Snitches.
AA: Sanderson really came up with a lot of detail on the spren—and all of it is so quirky. Some of it is cute, and some of it is creepy, and some of it is just plain bizarre. And then in the next section we’ll see how the part that’s visible to humans in the Physical realm is just a small part of the way the same spren appears in the Cognitive. The world-building sorta blows my mind if I think about it too hard.
L: For sure. He’s put so much into this world, when so many fantasy authors fall back on the same old Tolkien-esque races and themes. Not to say that those stories are bad—I love me some elves and shape-shifting dragons, not gonna lie—but Sanderson has really put thought into everything and tried to make his world entirely unique. It’s mind-boggling to consider how much he’s got to keep in his head all at once, even with the help of personal wikis and assistants!
Back to the drawing, though. I especially love the sketch of the Fused on the bottom right. Look at that spear! It makes total sense to have a spear that long if you’re going to be engaging in aerial combat… though you’d think it would risk getting tangled up in their cloth… trail… thingies.
AA: That spear reminds me of a sarissa, though a flying Fused would use it very differently than the Macedonians did. Do you suppose the long trailing flittery-bits served any useful purpose for these folks, or is it sheer vanity? To the best of my recollection, all the flying Fused wore clothing that deliberately elongated their form. It seems not merely useless, but possibly a weakness during combat. Not only could you get your 20-foot spear tangled up in the excess fabric, someone on the ground could grab it and mess up your flight pattern pretty dramatically.
L: Well, I suppose they could be using them sort of like the Mistborn cloaks, except there’s no mist here to hide in. If their legs were more obscured, I’d say that they were counting on people attacking the strips of cloth mistaking them for viable targets, but in the drawing we can clearly see the legs, so…. Yeah. Seems more of a liability than anything, really. I guess we’re just going to have to assume that it’s Rule of Cool.
Sheer Speculation
Shallan slipped forward and glanced inside his pack, catching sight of a small jar, sealed at the top. It was mostly black, but the side pointed towards her was instead white.
L: Okay so. If we’re assuming that Hoid is at the Tenth Heightening (WHO KNOWS RIGHT), could he have been using Perfect Invocation here? Pulling colors from the black substance in this bottle to color the smoke, and leaving the remainder white? (This whole aspect of the magic system is strange though, seeing as how black is the ABSENCE of color and white is the PRESENCE of all colors, as shown through prisms, so shouldn’t drawing color out of something turn it black and not white…? But I digress.) Am I totally misreading how Perfect Invocation is supposed to work? I just feel like there’s got to be something to this black and white bottle. Otherwise, why would Sanderson have put it in here?!
AA: I have to admit that it would be awesome to have him using black sand to pull color for Awakening, but I’m reasonably sure that’s not what he’s doing. Now, I have no idea how he could have gotten hold of a bottle of sand from Taldain, since the planet is supposed to be very difficult to access. Still, there it is.
L: I knew I should have gotten around to reading those White Sand comics I’ve had lying around… Please tell me what I’m missing here, Alice!
AA: The sand of Taldain is naturally black, but in the presence of active investiture (which includes their sun, oddly enough), a microorganism in the sand makes it turn white. (FWIW, I’m pretty sure this is WoB information, and you wouldn’t actually get it from reading the story.) In this case, I’m pretty sure Shallan’s Lightweaving was what turned it white. If you recall, when Shallan first met Mraize in the warcamp where he had all those odd off-world artifacts, one was a vial of pale sand. We have a WoB that it wasn’t being charged by Shallan’s illusion in that case, but I think we’re supposed to register that the sand was already pale when she walked in, meaning it had been in the presence of active investiture already. Anyway, here the sand is white only on the side facing Shallan, so I think we’re supposed to recognize that detail.
L: That makes a lot more sense than my crazy Heightening speculations.
Quality Quotations
Someone needed to do something. Veil needed to do something. Infiltrating the Cult of Moments suddenly seemed too abstract. Couldn’t she do something directly for these poor people?
AA: Gee, can you spell “foreshadowing”?
Next week we’ll be delving into chapter 68, when Hoid and Shallan actually talk for a while. As always, feel free to join in the conversation in the comments below!
Alice is just happy to see signs of approaching spring. Yes, she’s still looking at unmelted snow piles from three weeks ago. Come on, sun!
Lyndsey is nearing completion on one of seven (yes you read that right) costumes she’s making for Anime Boston this year, because clearly she’s a raving lunatic. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
I knew it was going to be the Spiderman gif when Lyndsey put that link in. Well played.
I definitely am thinking the sand was from White Sands now that you brought it up. I don’t remember when noticing it on my initial read. That makes more sense to me than Hoid somehow having as much breath as the god-king.
A few thoughts:
While the Mishim story could serve as world building and/or foreshadowing, I always assume Hoid/Wit’s stories have some hidden meaning for the listening main character. I can’t pick out what exactly it would be here for Shallan, however.
Regarding Wit’s ability to recognize Shallan, is it possible he isn’t seeing through her Lightweaving disguise, but rather actually recognizing Veil? The guy knows a lot; it seems possible he already knows about Veil and that she is Shallan. Or is he burning bronze?
From a magic mechanics standpoint, I wonder about how Taldain’s sand works such that only part of the sand in the jar turns white when the whole jar is basically the same relative distance from Shallan. And if it’s just an exposed-surface kind of thing, why is the sand on Taldain not black just below the surface (and maybe it would be if it were drained of Investiture and left there, not moving around with the winds)? I also think this sequence makes it less likely that Shallan’s Lightweaving has an inherent “copper cloud” effect of hiding her magic, as some have speculated.
Edit: And my first thought was that this means Hoid is almost certainly a sand master, else the sands would turn white and become useless at detecting Investiture unless he could “reset” it to black. But on further consideration, maybe he can just touch the sand and burn chromium? How the Cosmere magic systems interact with each other is so nebulous.
Finally, I think it’s quite plausible that Hoid has a lot of Breath. Afterall, when an Awakener dies, the Breath is just lost and Hoid seems to have a (magically aided) knack for being in the right place at the right time. Seems he could have conveniently convinced someone to bestow upon him their Breath riches in their final moments if he was… Fortunate.
Hoid says he knows where he needs to be, but not why he needs to be there. I got a bit of a chuckle that him seeing Shallan, regardless of how he recognized her, startled him enough to break his storytelling concentration.
RE: The Epigraph; I still think the one Bondsmith had to be bonded to the Sibling. Stormfather and Nightwatcher are both still fine post-Recreance, but Stormy said that the Sibling is “slumbering”. Since Bondsmiths don’t have shardblades, the Recreance would have affected their spren differently. We know Honor is changing (dying?), and that something was happening to the Sibling around the same time, which is probably related. I don’t think they would be able to tell that unless someone was Bonded to the Sib (even if it was an Elsecaller who noted the Sib’s change).
It was the Bondsmith Melishi who agreed with, and was crucial to, the plan of capturing Ba-Ado-Mishram and turning the Parsh into the Parshmen during the False Desolation, a far cry from “Uniting Instead of Dividing”. Similar to how Syl was regressing when Kaladin was straying from his oaths, this could be what caused the Sibling to change.
First, I think the theory that Melishi was bound to the nightwatcher was very interesting, and made good points supporting the potential.
Second, I do like learning more about how Jasnah was protective of Elhokar as well as the rest of her family. Trying to look out for him while trying not to cause him to live in yet another shadow (his father being the main one). I agree it is sad to see how Elhokar realizes his failings, but unfortunately continually picked the wrong person to trust for most of his life.
Third, if I recall correctly, the great map in the palace on the Shattered Plains was personally commissioned by Elhokar, so I think even then there was hints of Elhokar’s interest in cartography. I agree it is sad to think what kind of person he could have become had he not had to live in the great shadow of his father.
This reminds me a great deal of Wayne from Mistborn Era 2, and his various hats/personas. Sanderson has a lot of characters and ideas that show up again and again in his works—a lot of people have rightfully pointed out the similarities between Kelsier and Kaladin, for instance, in regards to character archetypes. Shallan/Veil and Wayne are very different, but it’s interesting to see this little aspect of their personalities that is mirrored between books.
For your reading pleasure: Shallan meets Wayne. Hilarity, of course, ensues.
@2 ineptmage
Few things to know about White sand whited out below for spoilers
The sand is covered in lichen. The lichen are what feeds on investiture and turn the sand white. When the investiture stored in the lichen are used, the sand turns black. The lichen is used to feeding on radiating investiture that comes from the sun on Taldain, so it would make sense that the portion closest in the vial to Shallan would change to white. On Taldain there are a few ecological reasons for the sand working the way it does. First sandlings “swim” through the sand and feed on the lichen, and excreting black sand so that process mixes up the sand. There are also sandlings that walk on the surface and graze on it, as well as the deep ones in the deep sand. Then you have normal weather patterns of the wind churning the sands around. “Recharged” sand holds the investiture for some time, so it is not the case of once it is no longer exposed, it should immediately turn black. Finally it is also daytime on dayside all the time, so there would never be a time that the sand could not potentially be exposed to the light and turn white. The default for the sand on Taldain is actually white because of the sun. The sand only turns black when the investiture is used. Resetting it would be charging it with investiture, turning it white. Now there are theories that part of what turns it black is the sandmaster using water to fuel their power, but I think there is still much we do not know about that magic system at this time
If he had chromium he could indeed leech the power out of the sand as we have WoB confirming that leechers can leech other magic systems.
@3 LazerWulf
Interesting thoughts on Melishi’s spren! There is so much mystery surrounding it. I cannot wait to find out more!
About Hoids Flute – for someone who discovered Sanderson throught the WOT – the dynamics of the Hoid/Kaladin relationship and the coments about the flute remind me a lot of Rand al’Thor & Thom Merrilin
In this chapter, I recall wondering why Shallan is asked to spy on a city she doesn’t know, why she is the one trying to track down where the food is going giving she is a total stranger to Kholinar. I could never understand why Adolin/Elhokar weren’t used for those missions, with an appropriate disguise. It made no sense for the team to solely rely on the two strangers to do the scouting… If you have someone who knows the path, then by all means, use them! So, sorry for the weekly rant.
On another set of ideas, I loved reading Lyndsey take on the importance of fiction within real-life and the need to relate to fictional characters. Yeah, I can agree to this beautiful paragraph though I would still raise a warning: fiction remains fiction and no matter how much we have come to love those characters, they aren’t real people. I have found there sometimes is a thin line in between the deep satisfaction of relating to the personal struggles of a fictional character and obsessing over this same character’s faith. I will never try to debate against the importance of stories of having a fictional personal world, of finding solace into an imaginary place, of being able to drop the daily problems to invest one-self into another world, of even being inspired by the struggles of fictional characters, but when comes the time fiction invades reality and twists perspective, a threshold is occasionally crossed.
And I have seen this threshold being crossed just as I did cross it myself on a few occasions. Fiction is fiction, stories are stories. They can be metaphors for real-life, sources of inspiration, but the characters evolving within those stories are not existing real-people: they are the product of an author’s imagination generous enough to draw us in his own universe. And yeah, those characters, they may not get a happy ending, they may die, they may suffer because that’s part of what makes stories entertaining to read. Struggles. Pain. Hardships. And, also resolution, but without conflict there is literally no story. And this pain, no matter how real it reads, never happened. The author is not mistreating a book character for giving him/her a hardship, he is merely telling a tale which requires growth to remain engaging.
So when this line is crossed, that’s when fiction has invaded reality a little too much.
On Elhokar, I found it rather fascinating how Dalinar, during the knife scene, could tell Gavilar the Sunmaker’s empire might have crumbled because his children were worthless, only to later read on the growing problems of the younger male Kholin generation. Elhokar spent a lifetime trying to find in other people the strength he couldn’t find in himself. Renarin spent a lifetime trying to find one source of strength into himself which others would approve of. Adolin spent a lifetime thinking he was strong up until he realizes others were strong for him and now he feels worthless, so he abducts the throne. I felt sorry for Elhokar in this scene as he did with Aesudan what he is currently doing with Kaladin: associating himself with someone he perceives as “strong” hoping, buy association he’ll get stronger.
I do agree Elhokar being so messed up raises questions to Gavilar/Navani’s parenting though it may also be personality and circumstances linked. Adolin is someone who strives to please other people, to try to be what others expect him to be: he always had clear lines to follow. He wasn’t asked to be the role-model for everyone, which is basically who Elhokar thinks he needs to be, he was asked to obey to Dalinar’s every whims. He was told: “Be exactly who Dalinar tells you to be and you will be a good person”. Elhokar never had those clear guidelines and even if I consider them to be highly negative, it does explain how both cousins could grow up so different. It also explain why Adolin, having had the worst childhood of the two, appears more well-balanced. IMHO, that’s an illusion, a mask and a perception.
I did wonder about how Elhokar was proud of his younger cousin’s praise on his plan… I mean, Adolin is about 5-6 years younger than Elhokar, so they are not even close in age. It may be linked to Adolin having grown up in a warcamps. It is hinted this isn’t a normal situation, children being trained to war. Lirin mentions is in WoK. So it may be Elhokar trusts Adolin’s judgment more than his own in war affairs because he knows Adolin is the one who got that training.
I do not think Evi did a better job… I think we haven’t seen the full consequences of Evi encouraging Adolin’s hero-worshipping complex next to his father. That one hasn’t had his big fall yet, but it will come and when it does, it will all be linked to Evi, Dalinar and so on.
I wish we had Adolin’s viewpoints on his city state of affairs, not having it makes readers think he didn’t care.
I agree Elhokar has latent artistic skills which he could never explore as he is a man and man don’t draw. What a shame. I am convinced he had many talents, he just wasn’t a charismatic leader with a natural magnet like his father and Kaladin. Truth to be told most people don’t have it. It was idiotic to think Elhokar could have lead the kingdom through the same ways his father did.
@5: That was beautiful. Especially the ending.
The moon story always reminds me a bit of Name of the Wind as there is a whole bunch going on with the moon there, and any references to it are DEFINITELY full of foreshadowing and meaning (most of which has yet to be determined and probably never will given that I doubt we’ll ever see the last book). In this scenario…I’m not sure. Could it be an example of ‘in world’ myths that really is just a myth? I have to admit it’s always a bit convenient how in fantasy stories, the prophecies/myths always end up being true, lol.
That said I agree Sanderson probably would not have devoted the page space to it if it were just that…unless he just REALLY wanted to throw in a red herring ;) But it is possible the moons have some cosmological significance in temrs of where they came from.
I always feel so bad for Elkohar. I have a lot of issues with second-guessing and self doubt, and honestly, I know how he feels most of the time.
I was wondering if the Sibling WAS the one bonded and that’s why it is no longer a presence – something with the Recreance affected it. I don’t remember the specific quote about the Sibling retreating, so that might disprove that. Assuming that is the other Bondsmith spren, at least. :)
I have read White Sand and I never caught that about the sand, lol.
When Shallan saw the sand it was white on the side closest to her. Why didn’t Hoid’s Yolen Lightweaving make it react also? Investiture is investiture regardless of world of origin, right? Was Hoid not actively Lightweaving when Shallan got her glimpse of the sand?
@11 Windwalker
That is a great point. Could it have been assigned to him somehow, so only detected investiture other than his own? I have no clue how that would work, just throwing ideas out. Could it be like ineptmage mentioned, that he had used up the investiture by the time he finished his story, and then the black sand turned white in her presence? Then again I would need to re-read the scene, did Wit notice Shallan before the story ended? Hmmmm. Gotta think on this.
The color thing can have several interpretations in addition to how it was described above. In simplified terms, from an electromagnetic perspective, something is white because it reflects (or emits) all (most) wavelengths in the visual spectrum. Something is black because it is absorbing all of that energy. If you think about something with a color as a battery, something that is black, continuously absorbing energy, would be a massive store of color/energy ready to use. While something that is white never absorbs enough energy to be of any use. And it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that using that color would “drain” that color to back to white.
All that said, I can’t remember if that fits with the Warbreaker thematics in any meaningful way. And it seems to be the opposite from White Sands. So who knows!
@11 Windtalker
I believe the Yolen Lightweaving predates the shattering of Adonalsium, so it probably doesn’t use investiture (at least not the same sort that comes from Shards).
RE: Hoid’s story
Could this be the origin of the Sibling; someone who was the child of a God/Shard and someone who was temporarily infused with one’s power?
RE: the Death of Honor
Honor is dying at the same time Urithru is being abandoned. Is it possible that the city is in some way a remnant of Tanavast, similar to the way that shardblades are the corpses of dead spren? If so, Dalinar’s gaining control of those pieces of Honor that are also part of the Stormfather could help bring the city back to life.
Here’s a couple of WoBs on the subject of sand:
And this:
Not to harp on a point–OK, to harp on a point–but Kaladin really needs to tell people that Moash has changed sides. Immediately
As mentioned, there’s a real disguise theme in the Cosmere. At least two types of magic-users (Lightweavers and Elantrians [Aon-Dor users]) can create illusory disguises. At least two races (Roshar’s Siah Aimians and Sel’s Kandra) can shapechange. (Arguably the Dysian Aimians can also take on human-looking disguises.) Shai in The Emperor’s Soul can disguise not only her form but her personality and skill set! Heck, even Silence Montaine has a fictional identity!
On a related note, there was a mention of shapeshifting dragons. Brandon has those, too. See Dragonsteel. So that’s another shapeshifting sapient race.
The story seems to be about a Trickster being out-tricked. The Trickster is overconfident and loses control of the situation, manages to regain control, but with a loss; She can never return to her carefree ways– it was a dream with too high a price. So, a story about the loss of innocence. I agree with @2 Ineptmage that the story is being told for Shallan.
I wonder if we will ever get a character say “I have a jar of dirt!” in regards to the sand. its just too perfect a setup to not use in that regard. (Kudos to whoever gets what I’m hinting at.)
I agree with @2 and @17, the stories always came off to me as lessons for the characters that listen to them. The first one was about a country that willingly obeyed cruel acts, blinding themselves because thats the way things were, allowing Kaladin to finally break free and start practicing. The second one is never giving up, no matter how it looks with the story of the storm racer, and this one is about not being so consumed with a goal, to not think of yourself as the master maniuplator, and to be yourself, because you can be fooled too. Hoid’s stories are lessons, to help the character’s get out of slumps or problems to grow better. When he isn’t trolling that’s what he does for pretty much all of the surgebinders. He encourages Renarin to speak for himself, he encourages kaladin to let loose, and he encourages Shallan to not to hide, to be herself.
@11Windwalker & @12 Scath Wit definitely noticed Shallan before the story ended. In fact, he looks at his jar of sand immediately after he created the “remarkable” smoke image of the city and that’s when he is startled (realize that someone nearby is using Investiture). So it would stand to reason that his Lightweaving here did not trigger the sand’s color change (though other explanations could make this more complicated).
@14 RogerPavelle Interesting theory about the origin story of the Sibling. If there is any merit to the three moons’ relation to the three Shards of Roshar, could we have a story here about how one of the Shards had a child with a mortal? Of course we know Hoid’s legends could come from anywhere else in the Cosmere, too.
@18 smaugthemagnificent I certainly hope to see some pirates sailing the seas of Roshar, but unless they’re from Shinovar, “dirt” may not be in their vocabulary.
@19 Steven Robert Hedge In my mind, you nailed the hidden meaning of Wit’s story for Shallan. It especially makes sense given his later interactions with her in this book.
@16 Carl Regarding the “disguise” theme: don’t forget the abilities of the royal family on Nalthis. And Vivenna and Vasher are pretty deep in disguise while on Roshar. Tinier examples exist as well, such as Syl disguising herself as a windspren to avoid the attention of the voidspren.
@18 are you referencing the great movie Waterworld? I saw that on the big screen with my dad way back when.
@5 that was great! I just love Wayne!
@13 telefrag93551
If I recall correctly, when you reach a certain level of heightening, you can leech color even out of black.
@14 RogerPavelle
I feel like there was a WoB that said the power of the shard still existed, just before it was one in Adonalsium, so I would reason it to mean it would still need and be fueled by investiture.
Hmmmm, interesting thoughts. Very greek/romanesque.
Personally I do not think so, but it is an interesting line of thinking. I wish you luck with your theory!
@15 Austin
Thanks for the WoB!
@18 smaugthemagnificent
LOL, Hoid could pull off a Jack Sparrow. As to dirt, that may be a hold over from the last world, as I believe there was an instance where a character used the word “soiled” even though most of Roshar (except the Shin) do not have soil. Brandon admitted to watch closely to people who use such words, but in that case it was just a hold over from the last world passed down through the language.
@20 ineptmage
Hmmmm. So then as mentioned, the question becomes what makes Hoid’s lightweaving even “quieter” than Shallan’s when white sand is used?
@22 soursavior
Pirates of the Caribbean reference. I forget which one lol.
@18, @22, I’m betting it’s more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRcj6CAhe7s
I’m curious how people know what order the creators of the epigraphs are from? Alice says this one’s a Skybreaker. How do we know? I looked back at Chapter 58 where we got the first one of this set of epigraphs and couldn’t see anything about it except speculation that the Herald pictured may have had something to do with the order of the epigraph-speaker. This does not seem to be the case here, though, as the Herald is Paliah. Am I missing something?
@24 Scath
Maybe when he’s got kinetic Investiture going, Hoid always has a bit of the copper burning away. Seems like a sensible precaution to take for someone so well-versed in Cosmere magic who also seems to have made some pretty serious enemies (and we know he’s hiding from some 17th Shard people that are on Roshar).
@26 Gillian A
We know because of the type of stone the message is recorded in. Here, it is a smokestone, which is the gem associated with the Skybreakers.
Prediction: The epilogue of Book 10 is Hoid finding his flure before moving on from Roshar
If Roshar is a world that was originally created by Adonalsium, does that make it easier for Hoid to mix different kinds of magic there?
@27 ineptmage
Do you have a WoB or in book source that Hoid always burns copper? Not saying I disagree. In fact it is quite the opposite, I agree, it makes a whole lot of sense. I just wanted to check if I had missed a tidbit of info somewhere.
@29 Zodda
LOL, you know what? That sounds spot on and just like something Brandon would do. I hope you are right because it would be perfect.
@31 Scath I don’t know of any WoB regarding that, it was just speculation. I think we have seen him burn bronze on Roshar (in Words of Radiance when he first met Shallan) but don’t know about copper.
@28 ineptmage
Ah, I see. Thanks
@32 ineptmage
No worries. Like I said, I am inclined to agree with you. There are times I miss WoB or info, so I am always on the look out for reading new ones, or learning new things. That’s the only reason I asked. Makes sense to me.
@34 Scath
I don’t really know how to effectively search WoB’s but I did come across THIS.
And if you combine that with THIS.
It seems possible Hoid is using copper to suppress evidence of his Investiture. The fact that Sanderson says “I haven’t though about that” makes me wonder though if that is what is going on here.
I always got the implication that Hoid was sensing the spren around our heros because of his Breath, that he was at least on the 5th level. He reacted when he saw shallan for the first time, and Zahel states he could sense syl around Kal. Whether Azure could sense anything is unknown. Could burning bronze even pick up on spren or surgebinding? the world is probably so full of investiture that it would blend in I think.
@36 Steven Hedge
Could be that he was using life sense from Breaths to notice Shallan that first time, though we do see him swallow some metal just after than in the scene. I kind of imagine it like he noticed Shallan was Invested through some means (life sense or bronze or whatever), then he swallows metal to flare bronze to find out what type of magic she has access to. He certainly seems to know that she is a Lightweaver later in that scene as he is egging her on toward creating “lies”/illusion.
We also have this WoB (Q 40) regarding bronze.
The fact that “that sort of skill” exists in systems besides allomantic bronze means maybe he had another method of knowing Shallan was a Lightweaver, but the fact that we see him swallow metals right before this seems like a good indicator that it was bronze in this case. EDIT: We also know that he is a mistborn via lerasium directly, so he should be much more powerful in burning bronze than the average mistborn in era 1. Maybe this lets him cut through the “noise” of Roshar.
@29 Zodda
Counterprediction: SHARDFLUTE!!
ETA: That is when you find out how cutting Hoid’s wit actually is!
For what it’s worth, Brandon only recently finally confirmed that Hoid ingested the lerasium and is a Mistborn. For a long time, he was very coy on what Hoid did with it. But I guess he saw he wasn’t fooling anyone lol. So he’s fully capable of burning copper or any other metal.
I LOVE the stories Hoid tells!!! They always say something, but I’m terrible at putting that into words. That said, this story tugs at my brain-similarity to maybe an Anansi the Spider story maybe? I love it anyway as an origin myth for the Natanatan people.
Also, I love the swirling smoke; whether it’s Lightweaving or something different it’s pretty cool. The sand from Taldain is a nifty sight. I know Hoid gets around but why is he carrying that specifically? And wearing Sadeas colors…
As for Elhokar, he’s made a whole heap of bad choices to get him where he’s at now. But the sight of him drawing was so sweet. I wish he’d gotten hisself put together a little earlier, so he didn’t end up the way he did. But the super-forceful people surrounding him made it way easy to abdicate the responsibility for so much stuff
@24 and @20 Well, to clarify, i dont mean that EXACT quote, replace “dirt” with “sand” because they would obviously have a jar of sand on them, and I sort of picture a group of different magic users talking about what they have and how they use it, (this would be later with Sandersons endgame books where they crossover more heavily in an avengers type thing) and one guy is just like, ” i have a jar of sand!”
I’m only guessing the Sadeas colors…to be a troll honestly, sometimes a horse is a horse and hoid just likes trolling people haha
@17 huh! That level of abstarction helped quite a lot with the Moon story, thank you. I’ve also wondered, as per the week’s discussion, about all the foreshadowing and the moral of the Moon story, never quite capturing it for Shallan – was more focussed on the Moon mythology, or maybe the hints of the origins of the Aimians, or generally questions regarding responsibility and not falling for the “grass is greener on the other side” fallacy. But having it put that way, two things spring to mind – first, to me, it’s a simple foreshadowing of Shallan’s impeding fail and loss of innocence in dealing with her Robin Hood arc, as she tries and fails to really help the poor whilst ingratiating herself into the Cult of the Moments. On a second level, this feels like a warning (also foreshadowing) from Hoid to Shallan (I’ll have to back-up and check when did he notice her) about embracing her other persona to the degree where she almost loses herself in them and they, especially Veil, do not want Shallan to gain control back, at the end of the day. As to the fruits of this personality switcheroo, I feel I’ve yet to see the results of Veil/Radiant’s influence full on down the line. Also, not sure why I did not realize it before, it is a warning from Hoid to the people of the city not to embrace the unkown such as the Cult, switch sides, not fight back, etc because they’ll come to regret their state – and I’m pretty sure it’s miserable being a human in Kholinar post end of Oathbringer.
I appreciate how subtly Brandon alters the common archetype of the trickster through Hoid. He has many of the aspects of the traditional trickster (exhibiting “exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge, and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and conventional behavior”). (quoting the Trickster entry in Wikipedia). Speaking of the Wikipedia entry for Trickster, it uses the Lewis Hyde quote that the archetypal trickster is a “boundary-crosser.” I think that is an apt description of our favorite World Hopper. Both literally and figuratively.
I think Hoid is playing his own game. As he once told Dalinar, it may not be the exact same goals as Dalinar. I wonder if Dalinar remembers that conversation he Wit had with him. IIRC, Wit mentioned Odium. But I am not sure. And I do not recall that when Dalinar first encountered Odium, he thought about Wit’s conversation (if I remember Wit’s conversation correctly). It would not surprise me if Dalinar has not given Wit a moment’s thought since the last time he saw Wit.
Lyndsey: Are you implying that Harry Potter himself withheld information that he friends/allies could have used? Or when you said mentioned Harry Potter you were saying the name of the series and meant Dumbledore? If the later, I agree. If the former, I do not recall Harry withholding information.
Lyndsey and Alice: Just a guess (and no text to support my guess). I think Hoid recovered the flute. It is his way of messing with Kaladin. Even when he is not talking to Kaladin. On the off chance, Shallan may say something to Kaladin. That would be so like Hoid.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Hoid is the best. Aside from Lift, of course.
The Hero’s Nadir is definitely an expected component of certain story types, but I wouldn’t always expect it 3/4 of the way through the story. It seems to happen at various points, at least in terms of page/book numbers. Have any of our Stormlight Archive heroes hit their nadirs yet? Hard to know at this point.
I thought the story’s description of Mishim “living frantically,” feasting and courting and so on, might be connected to the behavior of the Cult of Moments. But if so, I’m not sure exactly what point Hoid was making about it. Apparently the audience didn’t either.
Yeah, it’s rough watching the food distribution system here. I volunteer at a community kitchen where anyone whatsoever (with the possible exception of unaccompanied children, admittedly) can get a free high-quality meal five days a week, and I want to send all these people there. Except, as we’ll see, mishandled generosity can do more harm than good. Thus it’s even rougher to watch Shallan start out on her lethal venture here, so I want to tell her not to do it. Reader’s* Bane: Frustration because fictional characters won’t listen to you. :-p
“One day after being murdered in a brutal fashion, Shallan found she was feeling much better.” *gigglesnort*
@5: Squeee, perfection. The Snarkmaster of Second Era Scadrial meets the Snarkmaster of Eastern Roshar. (Lift is the Snarkmaster of Western Roshar, though these Oathgates and alliances and such have muddled their geographic distinction. Hoid is the Snarkmaster of the Greater Cosmere.)
*Also the bane of people who watch TV/film or consume any other fiction media. But that’s less catchy.
@44 I agree about Hoid, while he is doing good things, I still believe that whatever he is up to, it will not be altirustic, I can see him sacrificing people for the greater good, if it meant to stop Odium. THe real question is what his plans ARE but that’s defintley going to be a read and find out session all by itself. Honestly, I like Hoid when he’s out of his Wit persona and when he’s being helpful and mysterious. I do find wit is probably the funniest of the snarkers in this book, but I always get the shivers when he’s being mystieorus. One of my favorite scenes in Words of Radiance was when he met Kaladin. “Careful, I do not want you to take my light.” he KNOWS what Kal is, but he does try to help him
@46 Same. I love Hoid/Wit… but I don’t trust him farther than I can throw him. I even think he can often be helpful/nice in his one-on-one interactions. I really enjoy his interactions with Kaladin and Shallan as he helps them. But… I am definitely giving him the side-eye for the grand scheme things.
@35 ineptmage
No problem. The big trick for me is search terms. So for instance if you were looking for WoB about Hoid, you could go about it a few ways. You could either do a general search using his various names (a search just on Hoid, then another on Wit, then another on Midius, and so on). If you wanted to narrow things down, I typically just type in two general terms, so for instance Hoid allomancy, or Hoid mistborn, or hoid lerasium, or hoid bead. I really love the existence of the arcanum because it makes all the WoB much more accessible now. If you need any more pointers or suggestions, let me know! Happy to help.
As to your WoB, I agree with all you said. The only issue that is coming up for me is so far what we have seen of copper clouds is not selective. Its an area of effect. So unless he had a way to tighten the field to only include himself, it could potentially cover Shallan as well, negating the sand. However I do recall that seekers would look for mistings in the lordruler spy nests,while being covered by a copper cloud, so that could support that the sand would still function and detect despite being within Hoid’s copper cloud. Potentially (but as per WoB we do not know) flaring copper could increase the size of the cloud, so if Hoid had it on at a trickle burn, maybe it would make a smaller bubble to enable him to detect outside its range. Very interesting to think about!
@37 ineptmage
Great WoB!
@39 Austin
Yep yep. Would be interesting to see him use some of the temporal metals as well. He could get into all sorts of shenanigans.
@42 Steven Hedge
Lol, I agree.
Well, this is annoying. I had a bunch of this written and thought I’d posted it, and then discovered that no, here it sat. So… some of what I wrote has been said by others already, but I’ll leave it – I’m too lazy to go through and prune it! :D
soursavior @1 – I literally laughed out loud when Lyndsey popped that gif in. It wasn’t a link in the working document, so every time I scrolled by it, I saw it again. :D Laughter is good for the soul!
ineptmage @2 – This story just has me baffled, as I said before. As you say, most of the time Hoid’s stories have a specific application to the listener, and I don’t see it unless – sudden thought – it has to do with Shallan trading places with her other personas. It can be useful to achieve a goal, but it doesn’t do to try to make that kind of change permanent. Maybe something on that order? Dunno. The other thing is that was half-way through the story before he saw Shallan, so he couldn’t have been consciously directing it to her. That’s not to say that it was unintentional; whatever the force is that tells him where he needs to be, it may also nudge him to tell stories for reasons he doesn’t know. That’s the best I’ve got at this point, anyway!
Gepeto @8 – Why is Shallan tasked with spying in Kholinar? Well, they’re all spying, to some degree. Shallan’s job, as the most adept with disguises, is to figure out how to infiltrate the Cult of Moments – not something any of them have experience with – to see if she can worm her way in and activate the Oathgate. Activating the Oathgate would have to be done by either Shallan or Kaladin, so that task goes to the one most likely to be able to get that far. Kaladin is supposed to make a connection with the Wall Guard, because he’s a “foot soldier” that will have the best chance to fit in with them. Adolin and Elhokar will act like exactly what they are – important lighteyes – but in disguise unless their true identities are needed, to make contacts and determine whence they can garner support if Shallan is unable to activate the Oathgate and they need to actually assault the palace. The decision to wander around the city and “get the feel of the place” is totally Shallan’s idea, in her Veil persona.
Totally agree with your thoughts on fiction! As much as we love our stories, we do need to make sure we remember that it’s all created by the author’s imagination! We can draw so much encouragement and inspiration from them, but as you say, the characters aren’t real.
Windwalker @11 – It’s a valid question, and my best guess is that either he is in such tight control of his weaving that the Investiture doesn’t “leak,” or it’s something special about Yolish Lightweaving itself… or he’s just that good with smoke and he’s not using magic at all. (It’s actually possible, I think, that he’s really, really good with smoke and can do stuff like this with so little magic as to be almost undetectable.
Carl @16 – YES. Yes, he does. If somebody else gets killed because Kaladin fails to tell them that Moash changed sides, I’m going to be even more upset. But at the same time, at least Kaladin has a … well, not a valid reason not to tell, but at least a humanly understandable reason.
@several – While I’m reasonably sure the story is supposed to have meaning for Shallan, we do need to remember that Hoid didn’t plan it for her. He didn’t know she was there until well into the story. Even after he saw the sand and knew someone was there – which was after he’d started the story – it took a while before he spotted her.
Gillian @26 – In the Ars Arcanum at the back of the book, there’s a table with numbers and various associations. Turns out those traditional associations can be used to link names, numbers, Heralds, Orders… and stones. There is some loss of information and some added layering of tradition and myth, but many of the basic links are still solid. So we use those to determine, based on the gemstone, which Order the speaker follows.
@49 Wetlandernw
So just to offer one potential alternative, despite the fact that I don’t think this is the case: technically, Hoid could have planned this story for Shallan. Hoid shows up in Kholinar looking to tell our fractured heroine a story about some goofy moons; so he starts telling the tale of Mishim and Tsa to the worried street folk, over and over, checking his little jar of sand upon each time. How shocked he is when on his umpteenth telling there’s a bit of white in his jar pointing out to the crowd. When he spots Shallan in the crowd, he can’t help but slyly smile; finally he found his audience. Of course in the next chapter he explicitly says “Shallan, you’re not why I am here.” so… probably not.
@49 Wetlandernw and @50 ineptmage
Doesn’t Hoid have an ability to know to go where he needs to, though he doesn’t know why? So potentially he felt the need to be there to accomplish another goal, but by whatever ability he has he was also in the place he needed to be to run into Shallan as he was telling that story so in a way weird timey wimey meta narrative way it was for her without him knowing it was for her? lol
Paladin Brewer (paraphrased)
Why did Hoid not take both beads of lerasium?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Hoid has an innate ability to know where he needs to be and what he needs to do.
Xyrd (paraphrased)
You’ve mentioned before that Hoid ends up where he needs to be.
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes, and usually without knowing why.
Xyrd (paraphrased)
Is chromium involved in that?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes. Well, he’s not necessarily using chromium, but the underlying mechanic, yes.
Well, the meta and unfun answer is because sanderson wrote him to tell stories to help his characters. problem is, Hoid’s gotten to be one of those characters who took a life of their own and might know he is in a story. So…..Hoid cheats, haha.
Steven @52 – Nailed it.
In-story, it’s totally possible that The Force – i.e. whatever it is that tells Hoid where to be and when to be there – also has an influence on what story he tells and when he tells it. If we knew a little more about the mechanism, we might know how probable that is. Or we might not. I’d be a lot more confident in suggesting that the story was aimed at Shallan if I had anything more than a few loosey-goosey ideas of how it could, maybe, possibly apply to her.
@49: Giving it some additional thoughts, I think I have qualms at how badly thought their plan to infiltrate the Cult of Moments in an attempt to both scare the Unmade away and re-activate the Oathgate. The bulk of it relied on Shallan being successful and, as a reader, I couldn’t help but think, while her disguising abilities are unparalleled, she remained an inexperienced teenager sent lose in a city she isn’t acquainted with. Worst, Shallan has no experience roaming into large cities. Neither does Kaladin. In the optic, having the whole team’s success rely on the two strangers to Kholinar was an odd move. Why didn’t they think of a plan B? How is it no one doubted Shallan’s abilities to succeed here?
I have so many questions when it comes to Part 3…
And yeah, characters aren’t real. It doesn’t matter how much we personally relate to those characters, they belong to the author. He may take them where we don’t want them to go… Dalinar, Kaladin and Shallan may die. Adolin may not revive Maya. As for myself, I have decided as long as the story I am reading is a good one, I will embark on the journey, no matter where it may go. Even if it goes places I don’t like.
On characters not speaking up: I, just like most people, get unnerved when the characters refuse for a too long period of time not to share their knowledge. While it can be understandable, there comes a time where it becomes unbearable. So far, Brandon hasn’t abuse of the trope just yet. For instance, he got the truth about whom killed Helaran out, he got Adolin to admit his guilt. Yes, he is still having Kaladin refuse to tell others about Moash and Shallan not speaking up about, well, almost everything.
I definitely expect the truth to come out within the next book. Kaladin will have to tell about Moash just as Shallan will have to come clean about her past and the Ghostbloods.
About the story: I think it meant to tell the tale of the moon who tried to fool everyone but ended up fooling itself. Definitely appropriate for Shallan who thinks she is masterfully fooling everyone but, in the end, only lied to herself.
Gepeto@54
“Giving it some additional thoughts, I think I have qualms at how badly thought their plan to infiltrate the Cult of Moments in an attempt to both scare the Unmade away and re-activate the Oathgate. The bulk of it relied on Shallan being successful and, as a reader, I couldn’t help but think, while her disguising abilities are unparalleled, she remained an inexperienced teenager sent lose in a city she isn’t acquainted with. Worst, Shallan has no experience roaming into large cities. Neither does Kaladin. In the optic, having the whole team’s success rely on the two strangers to Kholinar was an odd move. Why didn’t they think of a plan B? How is it no one doubted Shallan’s abilities to succeed here”
Two reasons. The first involves traditions and lore. Radiants are superheroes for a certain portion of Rosharan society. When the legendary heroes return in the nick of time to save the world there is a tendency to overlook things like lack of experience and such. They’re special, there’s nothing they cannot accomplish. Add to that that these people have already accomplished miracles and it makes difficult to get an accurate assessment of their limitations. Shallan fell into a chasm and lived, discovered Urithiru and thus saved the expedition to the center of the Plains, and drove off Re-Shepir. Some people would consider her completely capable of anything.
The second thing is the question of necessity. Dalinar needs a thing done and is currently lacking in people he can trust who are also at least minimally competent. He cannot send an army, Urithiru isn’t exactly right around the corner from Kholinar. And time is short. The Everstorm is wrecking property and changing Parshmen every 9 days. So what are his options? Kholinar is where his base of power is, and this whole thing caught the world flat-footed. Really who else would he pick? Who does he even know with compatible skills? And remember, even if he has an infiltration unit in his back pocket (unlikely, seems like a thing the Sadeases would employ), only Shallan or Kal can unlock the Oathgate. Adding in Dalinar’s difficulties in delegation and the very best case scenario was always gonna be FUBAR.
Strangely considering how it turned out, the disastrous Kholinar Raid sequence is actually one of the better outcomes compared to how much worse it could have gone. In fact, if Sja-Anat isn’t defecting to Team Honor then Dalinar loses the head Windrunner and Captain of his personal guard, his son and heir-presumtive of his princedom, the child of his monarch and Jasnah’s ward. They only lost Elkohar on the mission.
@55 EvilMonkey
I would also add to your list of Shallan’s accomplishments is getting run through and “killed” when she first investigated the palace. The cult of the moments is potentially (and we later find confirmation is ) an extension of the group heading the palace. Whoever investigates them could potentially run into the detecting spren or any other being that potentially could detect whoever is investigating them regardless of a present running illusion. Shallan’s illusions hide her so far, but we do not know the extent of it. Something could happen to negate the illusion, or her be discovered, and get “killed again”. Had it been Adolin or Elhokar, they might have ended up dying or in Elhokar’s case, dying sooner meanwhile Shallan can heal as we see happened. So to me, Adolin and Elhokar trying to drum up support from the nobility makes sense. They are in minimal danger, and are among their own people so they would best know how to handle the situation. Also doesn’t Shallan have her mnemonic ability to memorize any images she blinks at? All she would need is to see a map Adolin and Elhokar mark and explain what is what, and she would have it to reference everywhere she goes.
As an aside. I do wonder which is the reason for Shallan’s lightweaving not attracting the screamers? Is it the lightweaving uses less stormlight than Kaladin’s gravitation? Or is there something inherent in it that makes it “quiet”? If it is the former, then how big can Shallan’s illusions get before they trigger? Or would her giving an illusion substance cause it to trigger? If it is the later, then like a copper cloud against a seeker, does the strength of the power involved come into play? Could a high oathed lightweaver hide from an enemy with detecting powers, but if an unmade tried to look, they would pierce it and locate the radiant? So many questions!
@49 I can understand the Enjoying a story even if it’s not what you want thing. I am currently watching RWBY. In it my two favorite characters are Weiss and Jaune and while they, particularly Weiss (she’s on the A team) are important they aren’t the main character. Heck Jaune’s the head of what the creators said in the Volume one DVD commentary got promoted from a B-Tam to a second A-team while working on them in development because they loved them so much, but at the same time, they had a plan from the beginning to kill of a beloved member of said second B-Team from the beginning at the end of the first Story Arc. (Not the end of the first Volume/season because being a web series each story arc takes multiple volumes/ story arcs to complete.) That’s not the only thing, but I worry about his future sometimes, being a gender-bent Joan of Arc doesn’t help (Each character has MULTIPLE inspirations, from legends and stories, not just the primary one, so with all the mix and matching there’s no Guarantee that every character will meat the same fate as their fictional counterpart and already divergences in the inspirations and the stories of RWBY characters are starting to show but I worry none the less.) Still it’s a good show and I will watch it where ever it takes me.
@52, @53: Based on the WOB that @51 mentioned, if Hoid is using the underlying principle behind Chromium, then The Force he would be using is Fortune. (Unless he’s draining other’s Investiture, though I think they meant Feruchemical Chromium, not Allomantic Chromium…)
@58 LazerWulf
True true. Makes me really wonder what someone with feruchemical chromium can do. Maybe like Domino from Deadpool 2? lol
@56
I was referring more to the reasons Shallan was sent rather than the effectiveness of her performance when she got there, but looking at the team it makes the most sense for Shallan to be in the role she’s in. Remember also that her Knight incarnation will probably involve many missions of this nature. At least Shallan believes that these types of activities are the best way for her powers to be employed. She needs practical experience and the only real way to gather that experience is on-the-job training. Besides, if she’d pulled it off flawlessly people would complain about Mary-Sue.
@60 Evilmonkey
I am sorry, but that is what I meant too. That is why I felt it could be added to your list. Shallan got stabbed and “killed” before she went to investigate the Cult of the Moments. Her “death” at the palace happened as a separate occurrence proceeding her investigation with the Cult. So it would, to me, be considered a valid reason to send her on more missions. As in “we should send Shallan to investigate the cult, because potentially if something happens, she has a better chance of surviving and getting out alive. We cannot risk the lives of the King and or the ranking noble (Adolin) on a solo mission. Better to have them work with the other nobility” So if Shallan gets discovered, she could still survive and get out, which is validated because that exact scenario had already occurred on her earlier excursion. So they would have an actual example as to why she would be better suited for it. If Elhokar or Adolin gets discovered, they could die for real. At least that was my rationale.
edit 1: Actually I have to check, but wasn’t that the reason they sent her to the palace to begin with? Because if something happened, she could use her stormlight healing to survive it, and it had to be her rather than Kaladin because she could make new illusions on the fly if needed? I feel like Shallan said something to that effect to Kaladin before she headed in. So I do not see why the same rationale would not be used regarding the Cult of the Moments, which is a group associated with the palace.
edit 2: Re-reading what I wrote, I realize it could get confusing how I typed it. So if I recall correctly, Shallan went out on three “official” missions. They were:
1. Check out the palace by acting as a messenger with a message to the Queen. She got stabbed, thrown among corpses, and forgotten. (Prior Chapter)
2. Investigate the Cult of the Moments in the city to find a way into the Palace (Current Chapter)
3. Enter the Palace using the Cult of the Moments because of their foothold there (Future Chapter)
So what I am saying is because of the logic for number 1, and what actually happened at number 1, would explain why they would use her for number 2 and number 3. Hopefully that clarified things.
I too think that there are some contrived oddities with the planning of Cult’s infiltration. Not that I think that Adolin and Ehlokar could have done it – they may have been Kholinar natives, but they moved in much higher spheres and not having Shallan’s Radiant/Lightweaver advantages… yea. I do think that it was a big missed opportunity not to have at least one Kholinar chapter from the PoV of either, though.
OTOH, Scar, for instance _was_ familiar with the city as a commoner, for some reason, as he mentioned when they were entering it. Shouldn’t he have had more input, had some contacts to gain info from? And Ishnah used to be a member of a criminal organization in ther camps, so shouldn’t she have had lots of useful pointers for Shallan, not to mention that she should have known what would happen to the people Shallan tried to help? They were really wasting some valuable resources there.
I mean, they did kinda consider Shallan a superhero, but it isn’t like either the 2 bridgemen or Shallan’s folks were shy about offering their opinions on previous occasions. Why did they suddenly become so conveniently reticent when Shallan needed to fail? Even given ingrained classism of the rest of the party leaders, why didn’t it occur to Kaladin that the plebes had something to contribute?
Speaking of Hoid, I am really curious whever he is a Feruchemist. Back when Sanderson refused to confirm that he was a Mistborn, I used to think that he might have used lerasium to make himself a Misting and a Ferring of several metals. He still might have done so, I guess, if he didn’t use the whole bead to make himself a Mistborn, but opted to make himself weaker than lerasium ones typically are in order to also use the rest of it for something else. And no, we don’t know how one can make oneself a Ferring, but I assume that it is possible and that lerasium plays a role in it, given that Preservation provides a half of it.
Re: the Mishim story, it may be just about somebody wanting to try out a different role, that seemed so very attractive from afar and also for the short time while that night lasted, but turned into horror once kit seemed that the moon would be stuck in it forever.
I also happen to think that the 3 moons are starships used in some folks’ migration to Roshar. I used to think Ashynites, but now I am leaning to the Aimians or Iriali.
Gepeto @54 – EvilMonkey said most of what I was thinking about Elhokar relying so heavily on Kaladin and Shallan. He sees the Knights Radiant, not the 17-year-old girl from rural Jah Keved and the 20-year-old guy from middle-of-nowhere-town who had never seen a city until he got to Revolar a few weeks ago. Scath also makes a good point about their virtual immortality. That said, I have to wonder a little bit… we’ve talked about how Gavilar tended to use people – even those he loved – as means to his ends. Did some of that rub off on Elhokar, even though it might not be as deeply embedded in his DNA, and he has different character flaws?
“I have decided as long as the story I am reading is a good one, I will embark on the journey, no matter where it may go. Even if it goes places I don’t like.” All of this. So far, Sanderson has always taken it places that fit the story, even when I don’t like the result (see chapter 82…), so I’ll go along.
Scath @56 – We don’t know yet, but I personally have a suspicion that Lightweaving is “quieter” because it’s anchored to the person, while Windrunning is using forces to push/pull against external objects. But I can’t remember just how much Kaladin is able to do before being detected, so my suspicion may be unfounded.
@56-63: I hear you though the whole Kholinar palace debacle makes me wonder how long it is going to take before they stop solely relying on the Radiants to accomplish every single task. The truth of it is the one part of Radiant team which turned out being successful was the one made up Skar, Drehy and Shallan’s spies whom, without surgebinding and immortality, managed to rescue and smuggle little Gavinor outside of Kholinar. The rest of the team, well, it failed… Shallan failed to scare away the Unmade though no one can realistically blame her for this: it was foolish to think it’d be this easy to defeat Odium’s own minions. Kaladin failed to protect Elhokar. Adolin technically didn’t fail, but he’s the one who ordered the retreat and ordered Shallan to activate the Oathgate despite knowing it had been compromised. So I’d argue this counts as a failure as it could have killed them all and it put them out of reach for weeks afterwards. He also failed to ensure their plan was more… failproof. This was his responsibility.
As for Elhokar using people, well, he was a tad self-centered. After all, he did go to Kholinar for his own personal glory more than out of real benevolent feelings. So I would argue it is possible some of his father’s behavior likely sunk onto him though I personally do not blame him for the Kholinar palace fiasco. The team was right when it claimed it was pointless to always sit and wait for Dalinar’s orders: they are here, he’s over there. Where they failed is in drafting a more sturdy plan though, really, the fault doesn’t fall on Elhokar who’s about just as inexperienced in combat as Shallan is. It falls onto Adolin who’s the one with the training to come up with decent planning encompassing the larger scale. He’s the trained military leader, not Elhokar, not Kaladin, not Shallan.
On the side note, my personal thoughts are the one who is copying the most the Gavilar behavior is actually Dalinar: he uses Adolin in the same manner Gavilar has used him in the past, as a tool to be aimed where needed, to be sharpened as needed.
On stories: It is kind of pointless to angst over what we cannot control: character’s faith, narrative choices and so on. Of course, there are choices I wish Brandon will make, but I will not deem what he chooses to write unsatisfactory until I have read it. So far, I have found enjoyment in all of his books even Oathbringer, even despite my initial disappointment over some narrative arcs. In the end, I realized there weren’t many choices Brandon made which I really, truly disliked. I personally love chapter 82… I love how Eshonai turned out being dead. I love Dalinar’s backstory, I hope to read more of it through Eshonai’s flashbacks. And yeah, I also love Maya no matter where Brandon wants to take this.
@62 Isilel
Personally I think just because we have not seen on screen Kaladin ask Skar his input, nor see Shallan ask Ishnah her thoughts, does not mean they did not. We get slices of life from each of our characters as there are multiple people in our cast. So although I totally understand and respect you feel it is missing, for myself I feel it was implied.
There are a whole ton of theories as to how Hoid does what he does. Can’t wait to find out more!
Although this does not preclude your theory about the moons, we do know they were made by design by Adanalsium. So I lean towards them not being ships, but I wish you luck with your theory!
@63 Wetlandernw
Hmmmm. Also makes me wonder if Shallan were to do a large illusion like she did making it look like they were a boulder, and Kaladin were to use gravitation, would they detect it? Looking forward to the later chapters where it comes up so we can theorize more!
I think the entire cast was out of their depth, including Adolin. The infiltration wasn’t really a military operation. Shallan, poor girl, was the most qualified among the leadership for this type of mission and she’s woefully inexperienced.
As for Kaladin maybe speaking up for the plebiscite, well he’s sort of classicist as well. Despite technically being darkeyed, he was not raised like a commoner. For all his hangups about Lighteyes he resembles them much more than some actual Lighteyes. See Tenners. That being said, he also doesn’t think much of Shallan’s attendants; Gaz being among them has tarred them all with the same brush in Kaladin’s mind. As for his own attendants, he thinks of them only in military terms. They’re spearman squadmembers. What would they know of infiltration? Simply put, Kal didn’t think of it because he’s never had to think that way. Out of his depth too.
Kaladin (or Adolin) doesn’t know that Shallan’s “servants” are spies. And Shallan doesn’t want to admit to them that she doesn’t know everything. The problem with the team is that its leaders (if they have a leader) don’t know what resources they have because they don’t know the skills of everyone in the group.
@62: I just saw your comment… I agree with you on the missed opportunity to have one chapter from either Adolin or Elhokar’s viewpoints (Adolin might have been more appropriate since Elhokar’s faith relies on readers not having his viewpoint) to help show casting what these two were actually doing. Without any additional insight, despite the mention they were trying to garner the local lighteyes support, it occasionally feels as if they were alternating in between plucking their nails and trying out new clothes while Shallan/Kaladin did everything.
One single chapter or one/two partial chapters would have made this arc full more complete, still IMHO. So it seems we agree on this.
I also agree on the wasting of valuable resources. I forgot about Skar being familiar with the city. If not sending Adolin in as a scout makes some sense, not using Skar, given this additional piece of information, doesn’t make much.
And LOL, yeah. The narrative wanted the team to fail, so the narrative was written in ways to allow the team to fail. In retrospective, I think Brandon could have tied in the lose ends a little bit more closely to avoid us having those questions.
@66: I understand Kaladin was out of his depth which is why I didn’t put much blame on him. He has proven, in the past, to struggle at grasping the larger scale implications of smaller scale decisions. He also doesn’t have the military training in leadership Adolin got, his experience being mostly with the training of inexperienced groups of people. As such, he truly isn’t within the right position to see the holes within the planning. His task being to gather support more than to come up with an actual strategy other than “protect Elhokar”.
This being said, if it wasn’t Adolin’s task to supervise the planning and see to the lose ends then whom was it? It seems to me he is the only one with the relevant training and the experience to see through to their plan to have contingencies. He has been trained and raised to value experience above all else. While the infiltration wasn’t, technically, a military endeavor, it certainly became one as soon as they stormed into the palace. The end game thus very much was a military operation. Therefore who else but the military leader of the Kholin armies to see through they have a strategy with decent chances of success, one not relying on hearsay, childish hopes and inexperienced “soldiers”? Adolin knows you can’t trust in the mist of battle green recruits and hope they will prevail, so why the heck does he suddenly think it is a good idea? I doubt this is a mistake Dalinar would have made… though it does seem as if he does it at the Thaylenah battle even if with positive results this time around.
It is easy to picture Elhokar making this mistake as he never help field command, he never participated in the war, but Adolin ought to have known better.
@66 EvilMonkey
I kind of like it this way. It reminds me of Umbrella Academy. When you have powers, you gain capabilities no one else has, regardless your experience. With those capabilities comes responsibilities. The point of the show is to move away from the Marvel formula of heroes going off heroing and showing people dealing with their lives that also happen to have powers. I think a lot of that can apply to Sanderson’s books. Kaladin is a soldier that wants to protect his men. Now he has all these powers, but instead of making it easier to protect them, it turns out harder because now there are even greater threats and his abilities result in his men also having abilities resulting in them getting into greater danger and so on. Shallan just wanted a “normal” home with a family she could love. Now she has powers that resulted in the death of her mother, and then father, leading to the powers helping her disassociate from herself and going into a downward spiral. I could go on. At the end of the day they are people. Subject to the same successes and failures, just due to their powers, everything takes on a far grander scale. Their accomplishes are greater, and their failures all the more damning and damaging. Pressure much? lol.
@67: A good leader makes sure he knows the asset he has. He doesn’t wait for the assets to make themselves known, he gets the information. The failure to do so doesn’t fall on Shallan not communicating, it falls on various fronts.
It falls on the team not having determined a clear line of leadership. Who’s leading the mission? Elhokar? Kaladin? Adolin? What is this mission? As soon as it stopped being a scouting mission, as soon as it became military, then the leadership should have gone to Adolin. It didn’t and Adolin didn’t manifest himself to grab it as he should have. Dalinar wouldn’t have allow this to happen: he would have taken command.
It also falls on the self-appointed leader not making sure he knows the skills of his team. You don’t just bring people to a scouting mission without asking about what they can do or their purpose. Shallan may be guilty of not communicating this information, but she isn’t the one in charge. The team had members no one know what their use was: Kaladin didn’t see fit to ask, Adolin didn’t ask and Elhokar knew some of it, but chose not to speak up.
Hence, the problem with the team, IMHO, was leadership. No one took clear ownership so you have Elhokar, Kaladin and Adolin each at times wrestling for it when, in reality, it should have gone to the most qualified person to do so. And I definitely it was Adolin’s failure not to take up leadership, not to have asked the right questions when it became clear the mission would be military oriented. He was the best qualified person to do the task and he didn’t step in to do it. He just went with the flow and reacted.
I think the this lack of skill and coordination is ONE reason for the one year timeskip. It’s a way for them to get more practiced and up to speed. A way to have solved SOME (though obviously not all) of the problems that would take too much time to show being worked on.
re: the infiltration team
I haven’t read all the comments in depth, but I have noticed that no one seems to be bringing up the fact that they didn’t know what they were getting into BEFORE arriving in the city. The plan was to sneak into the city, grab/rescue Elhokar’s family, activate the gate, and leave with few if any the wiser.
Up until the group saw the cult parade, no one knew there WAS a Cult of the Moments, let alone that they would want to try and infiltrate it. Same way, all they knew about the palace was that Elhokar’s wife had done some stupid (to our minds) things, not that 2 Unmade were corrupting everything and everyone in sight.
Considering all that, the team they had was sufficient for the original plan, but not for what they found. Not a problem of planning, but of insufficient intelligence.
@72: I think you are partially right. Yes, it does seem as if the time skip will be used to fast-forward on both Radiants training and Radiants being made. As such, I fully expect our main characters to be surrounded by a flock a new Radiants by the time we start book 4.
Other reasons for the time skip, IMHO, would be: give Dalinar the time to write his book, give Adolin/Jasnah time to settle within their new functions, give the Desolation time to actually happen, give Kaladin time to reflect on the 4th oath, give Shallan time to sort herself out, give Venli time to reach to more Parshendis, give the enemy factions time to get organized. In other words, we are fast-forwarding to a time period where it’ll be more interesting to read the narrative, where the characters will have all grown some, hopefully in positive ways.
@72: Acting on bad intelligence definitely highlights leadership issues. You are right in saying they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. They are many elements they couldn’t realistically predict, but a good leader wouldn’t draft a plan relying on what “they think” will happen. It’ll have contingencies for the worst happening. What if, for one reason or another, the Oathgate doesn’t work? *That* should have gone into the plan. They need not knowing exactly how it could be corrupted, but they need to acknowledge this Oathgate hasn’t been activate in hundred of years and well, things might be it won’t work.
Their plan, unfortunately, was one Elhokar drafted on the corner of a table, Adolin approved without thinking farther than the tip of his nose, Kaladin didn’t bother much with, Shallan even less. They didn’t brainstorm on what might happen. They also didn’t push to infiltrate the palace *before* the attack on the city: one day earlier and things would have gone down differently.
And for all of Shallan’s prowess, how come they didn’t try to send a spy inside the palace? Have Skar, under a disguise, take the place of a soldier. Or one of Shallan’s people take a servant’s place. How come the plan they came up with was a frontal assault? A small team, using clever disguises, might have been able to make it to the Queen, to see the truth of it and to smuggle little Gavinor to safety. And inspect the Oathgate.
Look at the Reckoners how they try to infiltrate as opposed to just ram into the lot. How come no one thought of *that* in Kholinar? Especially when they found out things were wrong…
Hence, bad leadership, bad planning, bad execution.
@72 RogerPavelle
Good points. I would also add no one knew it was even possible to corrupt the oathgate and cause it to work differently. By Sja-anat’s own words, she has never done it before. Out of curiosity I did go back to the prior chapters and it looks like at every juncture when they found new information, they decided to scout and get more information. The only problem is the clock kept ticking down because they realized the voidbringer army was coming. I did look ahead, but I am hesitent to discuss further what I found as to the reasons why the group comes up with as a plan for the city as that plan comes up in later chapters, and if we talk about it too much now, we may have nothing to talk about when the chapter comes! lol. But suffice it to say from what I re-read given the info they had access to, coupled with what was going on around them (the voidbringer army outside the walls), I do agree with you. I feel, like you said, they did the best they could with what they had.
Getting back to the chapter at hand. It does make me wonder what Hoid could have been up to other than running into Shallan. He was in the city for some time. Could he have always intended to find a cryptic there? Or some other reason?
I wouldn’t necessarily call what they did bad planning. The result was of course crap but that’s hindsight. As any veteran of WOT knows, leaders will always have incomplete information and must act based on the info they have available.
So let’s look at what information they had available before they left and the information they gathered while there. Remember that the spanreeds were down. Secondary forms of communication like radio don’t exist. Nobody knows how to spy from the CR yet. So they planned to get their intelligence when on ground. When they got there they couldn’t get any information from the palace. Everyone in there was corrupted. Shallan has the best chance of surviving a hostile encounter and she has the best disguises of the group. Everyone else went to their specialties. It’s reasonable for Shallan to go to hers.
Where I think the failure in the mission lies in the misuse of resources. They’re a small group, the leaders are engaged, but the support personnel aren’t providing much support. That is where the leaders fail. That and not having established a clear chain of command. Everyone got on ground and just did their own thing. They had meetings but it just seemed haphazard.
@75 EvilMonkey
To add to your points, on my look back it was mentioned that Dalinar even thought to use the visions to try and contact in the city before they left. He was unable to reach anyone. So the city was very much locked down via communication.
@75: Shallan tried to get information from the palace by walking through the front door pretending to be a scout having a message for the Queen. While it was worth a try, it certainly was one of the least creative ways one could think of to infiltrate a palace. Going from there and onward, why didn’t they think to set up spies to verify who/what gets in the palace, who/what gets out of the palace? Then, they might have found an opening to sneak in. Shallan can disguises herself as a rock… it seems realistic to think she might have come up with a way to smuggle herself into the palace, unseen. Kaladin can literally fly and climb walls…
Still, I do agree their mission failed on two fronts: inappropriate use of their resources (other spies could have been set on the palace, trying to find a way in, instead of focusing solely on Shallan infiltrating the Cult of Moments) and undefined chain of command. I also noticed how each individual was responsible with a task but no one was organizing nor supervising them. They didn’t have daily meetings nor did they seem to make a real endeavor at finding the best strategy. They just went with the first thing which came to mind.
Also, the absence of a clear chain of command and of a real leader had them try to score two ducks with one stone: save the city and rescue Elhokar’s family. As soon as they saw the Parshendis massing at the gates, as soon as they realized the city had been compromised by two Unmades, a leader should have made the difficult call. Kholinar was lost. Trying to bring in additional troups was pure folly. Even if the Oathgate had worked, then what? Captains would have ended up crammed into tight streets, fighting an enemy there were never able to account for, having no upper level strategy. The use of the Oathgate would have render retreat difficult. It would have been mayhem and the Kholin army might have loss a tremendous amount of soldiers: more than they can afford without having a real chance of saving the cities.
No, rescuing Kholinar, given the current situation, had little chances of success. A good leader would have made the call and focused on getting the heir out of the city, regroup at Urithiru and figure out how to engage from there. They knew the Fused weren’t killing the civilians, so they knew the populace would be relatively save. Any soldiers they would have sent in though might have not make it back. <
So all in all, I still am hooked on my first idea: the Kholinar team failed out of not having had real, well defined leadership. No want wanted to step forward and, at the same time, every one was trying to lead. So who’s failure was it? Elhokar for falling to appoint a suitable leader and for trying to lead despite not being the best placed to do so? Kaladin for not trying to get involved within the larger picture? Adolin for not having stepped up when he clearly was the best placed to take command?
Scath @61. There was at least one more infiltration mission. The one where Shallan and her team infiltrated a noble’s manor to steal food.
Gepeto @70. Elhokar was the leader. IIRC, everyone on the Kholinar mission acknowledged Elhokar’s leadership. One of the main reasons Elhokar wanted Kaladin to accompany them was so that Kaladin could teach Elhokar to be a better leader on the mission. Also, I believed Elhokar said that if he fails, then Kaladin could take over. In addition, after Dalinar gave his blessing for the mission, Elhokar did the planning. Dalinar noted that Elhokar needed to run the mission to help take his mind off other things. I am not arguing that Elhokar was qualified or that his decisions were good. All I am saying is that he was the mission leader.
As a side note, I do not know if we have enough knowledge to say that Elhokar was not qualified to lead the mission. We do not know what, if any, military training he had. Just because we never saw him lead an army does not mean he never had field experience or a military tactical education.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
@78: Then it is why the mission failed… As the King, Elhokar should have appointed the best available individual to lead what had become a military operation. Kaladin, while a Radiant and a hero, absolutely doesn’t have those credentials, from his own admission, and neither did he actively take a role of leadership within their small group.
You just do not put someone (Elhokar) who hasn’t been able to hold even the simplest of all leaderships (say the hunt in WoK) in charge of an infiltration mission of a compromised city just because “it’d be good for his mood”. This is insane! Even Kings have their generals, their captains and their people of confidence to take leadership of operations: insisting it had to be Elhokar himself who takes the reign made no sense and certainly explains why they failed.
On the matter of Elhokar’s training: True, we do not know much. However, we do know he never held field command nor did he ever partake within the actual war. He was never a soldier nor as he ever experienced actual combat. So whatever training he has no doubt gotten remained theoretical. Hence, I maintain my initial point, you do not put a green recruit in charge of a complicated delicate mission. You put your most experienced person in charge. Now whether this ought to have been Adolin, Kaladin or even Shallan is a matter of debate depending on what we think the scope of the mission was, but it certainly wasn’t Elhokar. As King, it was his responsibility to see to it their group had a clear leadership. And the ways in which they failed indicate they truly had poor leadership.
Why did they insist on trying to save the city? Was there even the slightest chance an army walking out of an Oathgate located far from the gates would be able to defeat the Fused and the Parshendis? Realistically? Didn’t anyone assess the size of the enemy? How come Adolin didn’t get up there to see it for himself? He’s the military leader of the Kholin armies!
@78 AndrewHB
Ah good point. I kind of filed that under investigating the Cult of the Moments because she was using the food distribution to ingratiate herself with them so she could investigate the palace, and get a look at the oathgate. I would love to discuss those scenes further, but I believe that scene comes up in later chapters and I would like to continue the discussion on this chapter which focuses on Hoid’s story and Shallan. At least that’s just me. I look forward to discussing that further with you when we reach that chapter!
What did you think Hoid was at Kholinar for if he wasn’t there for Shallan? I wonder if it is to stymie Odium or for something in particular?
@79 Because Kholinar is their home. To Adolin and Elhokar at least, Kholinar is incredibly important. They feel a responsibility for the people.
“As King, it was his responsibility to see to it their group had a clear leadership.”
And in a monarchy, “clear leadership” automatically means the king. Of course, it is not that clear in fact, what with there being two Radiants present, but it would be surprising for the king to completely concede leadership, especially on a mission into his capital city. And we know Elhokhar a. was worried about his family, and b. wanted to step up and do better as a leader. As for Adolin, he probably doesn’t want to take away any of his cousin’s power. And as we see at the end of Oathbringer, Adolin does not want to be in charge.
I think the characters did the best they could with what they had.
@80 Scath: I would love to know what Hoid was up to.
@81 ladyrian
Do you have any theories? On one hand I wonder if it was because of getting a cryptic, but that would be rather morbid for poor Elhokar. On the other hand we do find out he dropped off aluminum sheets to protect the soulcaster providing food for the city. Though that still doesn’t feel like enough of a reason to me. Maybe Fortune led him there because a big moment was going to happen with the siege? Then again, as far as we know he wasn’t present at the battle of Thaylenah, so it would need to be something unique to Kholinar. Hmmmmm.
@82 I don’t really have any theories. I don’t think that Hoid was there specifically for the Cryptic, because he seems to be out and about doing things in the city before then.
Maybe he knew he had to be in the city and was doing something (??) and bringing the aluminum sheets was just a bonus, and then realized that he had the opportunity to grab a Cryptic.
@83 ladyrian
I think you are right that the aluminum and the cryptic was an after thought for Hoid, but that makes me wonder all the more the reason that brought him to the city lol. The barkeep seemed to feel that Hoid hung around that area. Maybe there was something there of some import?
@77 Gepeto
I think you are picking at the pieces instead of looking at the whole. Elhokar was in charge because he was the one who could convince his wife and heir to leave. Plus, he is the King and therefore ultimately responsible for what happens.
Shallan walked through the front door because that is the easiest way to get inside. No one should or did expect a scout or messenger to be summarily executed. Also, none of the spies they had available (Shallan’s 2 apprentices) have any experience in stakeouts or ability to use lightweaving (as far as I can remember seeing).
While Kaladin can fly over or up walls, he is visible when doing so and therefore not really sneaking or spying effectively. Not to mention that people in Kholinar are probably in the habit of looking up nervously because of the Fused flying in frequently.
The best (and possibly only) way out of Kholinar (and the one they planned to use up until they found it corrupted) was the Oathgate. Anything else would have put them in view of the attacking army.
I don’t think the plan was to “rescue” Kholinar in any case. They were trying to gather enough information on what is going on there that plans could be made to then rescue it, probably by using the Oathgate to move in troops.
re: Why is Hoid in Kholinar
I can think of several possible reasons. The first would be to keep an eye on Worldhoppers like Azure. The second would be to see what Jezrien was up to and possibly study how the Heralds were created. The third would be an unconscious need to be present, which then manifested in the opportunity to bond a Cryptic (note: I don’t think he was there to find a cryptic to bond with, but rather it was an opportunity too good to pass up).
@85 RogerPavelle
I would also add the tidbit that Kaladin’s surgebinding attracts the screamers which leads the fused to attack. So that would not be very stealthy.
Hmmmm, that is a good point about Azure. His little drop off with the aluminum would imply he knew of her presence, and the white sand would certainly give him an inclining that she isn’t a “local”. Maybe he was trying to find out information on Nightblood? We do have WoB that that sword is quite the game changer on Roshar. I agree on the cryptic. That seems too future sighty if that was the reason he was there, rather than fortune. I really am starting to like the Azure theory!
@86 Scath
It also occurs to me that one reason for Hoid to become King’s Wit would be to keep an eye on Zahel, so looking out for Azure ties in to that.
@Gepeto, it seems to me that you’re using “good leadership” to mean “infallible, perfect leadership”. Brandon’s universe doesn’t have perfect people, on either side. Both Honor and Odium, despite having the expanded awareness of Vessels and access to Fortune, make mistakes–in Odium’s case, it was in retrospect very stupid to betray and enslave Venli, then expect her to just be intimidated into doing what he wanted.
@ladyrian
Hoid himself comes to the conclusion that the Cryptic was indeed the reason he was there. Remember, he doesn’t get a mission statement, just an idea of where he is supposed to be next. He doesn’t know exactly why until he figures it out in retrospect–thus his impatient waiting for Jasnah, for instance. He is clearly easily bored. (At one point later in this book he reflects on being glad he can still find a bit of action exciting.) Why would he sit around and do nothing while waiting for an undefined time for some undefined thing to happen?
@Scáth
Not so much. The sand tells him that someone is using Investiture, but that doesn’t tell him planet of origin. We see him detect Shallan that way in this very chapter. Now, the fact that she is clearly Vivenna might be obvious to him. He knows her sister Siri, after all, although if I remember correctly Vivenna never met the old (very old!) storyteller who was attending the Court of Gods. He would also recognize the use of Nalthian expressions.
@81: Yes Kholinar is their home, but a good leader has to be ready to make difficult decisions.
A king might think of himself as the ultimate leader, but reality is even kings have to rely on other people to lead smaller scaled operation. Elhokar’s kingship has never been anything more than symbolic: Highprinces were content to follow him so long as it was within their best interests. He never took real leadership and he even admitted not being the best placed to take leadership of the mission (that’s why he takes Kaladin with him). Once he makes those admissions, he should have appointed a mission leader. If he thought it ought to have been Kaladin, then he should have named Kaladin the mission leader. Things might not have turned out better, but at least the team would have had a clear leader.
Everyone always does their best, very few people try to do their worst, but it doesn’t change the fact they made some basic mistakes. Mistakes which could have been avoided. I mean, just communicating, that one is pretty easy not to make. Talk with each other, stay informed, ask about what others can do. Basic stuff such as this.
@85: There are more than one way to try to infiltrate a palace. Yes, they tried one way. It failed. How about trying another approach? Shallan can make disguises for everyone. Surely she can disguise Kaladin as a dark shadow unseen, in the mist of the night, as a climbs a wall. Even if this would have failed too, bottom line remains they had more options than what they seemed to think. Where was their imagination and their creativity?
Elhokar could have been responsible to talk to his wife and son without being the mission leader.
Maybe I am recollecting wrong, but weren’t they trying to open the Oathgate to transport Dalinar’s army on the other side into the city? Didn’t Dalinar ready the man for an Oathgate which never opened? That’s what I remember, apologies if this is wrong.
@88: Not perfect no, but more throughout. The team made some very basic mistakes when it comes to leadership: they failed to established a clear line of command, they failed to communicate, they failed to anticipate potential missteps within the plan and so on. They fell prey to the “happy thinking”, the “it will work” inner motto, much like I would cross my fingers the first time I launch a new code hoping it will work the first time around. It never does. No matter how carefully you plan anything, the unexpected will always happened, so a good leader has to have contingencies for this. Contingencies for the unpredictable to happen, the unforeseen delay, the analysis you naively thought would be straight-forward, but somehow turns out being complicated. Things never go as planned which is why any plan having no contingencies is a badly designed one from the start.
In the case of the Kholinar team, contingencies could have been having an escape route planned within people in place to secure it. They might have still failed, but at least they wouldn’t have put all of their eggs in the same basket. At least, they would have been more throughout.
So no, I don’t expect them to be perfect: even the best of plans wouldn’t have prevented Kaladin from freezing and failing. They could have still done a better job using the resources and the knowledge they had.
@several
When Wit first talks to the cryptic, he says “I’m certain now that the reason I’m in the city is to find you.” It’s pretty clear to me that 1) he didn’t know this was the reason when he came toKholinar and in fact he tells Shallan in the next chapter that he doesn’t know why he’s here and 2) that bonding the cryptic is, indeed, the reason he has come here.
Does it ever say that Hoid need have only one reason to be placed wherever Fortune places him? Kholinar is a nexus at this point in the narrative. So many things are going on that Fortune could easily have made him a checklist. Picking up the Cryptic could have just been the last item on the list to clear the level.
@87 RogerPavelle
Good point. Zahel is the reason Nightblood is on Roshar to begin with after all. Or at least to the best of our knowledge.
@88 Carl and @90 ineptmage
Thank you both for finding that! Great points! This is why I enjoy the re-read. We could have questions, theories, or just plain and simple not understand why something is, but upon closer reading the answers all be there! Going chapter by chapter is a great way to see and understand what is going on at a deeper level. This makes me wonder what is Hoid’s criteria to realize when something is the cause for his presence or not. For instance what is it about Shallan appearing that led him to think she wasn’t the reason, while in Words of Radiance waiting for Jasnah was in that case, and knowing for sure the cryptic was the reason all along in this case? Basically I am saying yes the chapter you reference clearly says Hoid thinks the cryptic is the reason, and he seems very sure of himself. So I wonder what is different about the cryptic that causes him to know this is what he is here for, vs other things (such as Shallan, the aluminum sheets, and the survivors he helped). Could there be a sense on his part that lets him know “hmmm this isn’t it. Ah ha! but this is!”. Hmmmmmm.
@91 EvilMonkey
Also very true. Perhaps he was so focused on the Cryptic, that he assumed it was the only reason, when as you said, it could have been all of the above.
@several Honestly, I am beginning to think that while some of the things Hoid does, like waiting for Talavanst, Jasah, and the cryptic, are where he NEEDS to be for what ever reasoning, while others are just bonuses. Look at how he treats Kaladin, like he is never surprised when he runs into him, implying that Kal is part of whatever plan he is concocting, while Shallan….isn’t. Notice how almost every time he runs into her, he is surprised, his encounter with her at the fair for example, he was surprised to see a young girl who was already bonded with a spren, when he was just delivering a message. He was surprised to see her reaction of hugging him, and seeig her in Kholinar. As the next chapter will prove: Hoid has a soft spot for her, just liking using breath to give a orphan a doll, it’s not part of his plan or whaver conscience is guiding him, its the part of him that is genuine, helping others despite his mysterious plan. Makes you wonder what he was doing in Scadiael when vin almost came across him, and got chased off by Kelsier.
@93 Steve Hedge
Hmmm, good points. We do have a WoB that Hoid will continue in a mentor like role for Shallan in the coming books so that supports what you are saying.
That is a good question. Mistborn Spoilers:
What did Kelsier potentially mess up by warning Vin away? Or was that something that had to have happened? We know ultimately Hoid was there for the bead of lerasium, but how would interacting with Vin play into that? Hmmmmm
@93 Steve Hedge
I like your observation about Shallan and Wit. She does seem to bring out something human in him. I like the idea that she is always unexpected. It does ruin the Mishim Story Is For Shallan idea, though, so I don’t know. Maybe it is just him thinking aloud to an audience, like in Kholinar with the guards at the end of TWoK before Taln showed up.
Edit: Thank you, Scath, for whiting the spoiler!
@95 nightheron It might diminish the Mishim-Story-for-Shallan thing from Wit’s perspective, but not necessarily from Sanderson’s.
@95 nightheron
No problemo!
@96 ineptmage
True true.
To be fair, Hoid HAS gone on ramblings about meaningful things to people that wouldn’t understand the lesson, like his lesson about the most valuable thing in the world is time to the guards , and him rambling to a crem while waiting for Jasnah. and we do know that Hoid may have an idea that he’s a fictional character, where he has stated that he had “I began life as a thought, a concept, words on a page.” so half the time his stories could be for audiences that may not be the people he is speaking to, aka us, or even shallan. in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been waiting forever to get into discussing about Hoid haha
@Scáth:
Isn’t there a WoB that one reason for Zahel/Peacegiver/Warbreaker to be on Roshar is not needing to consume Breath to remain alive? Vasher was always aware that he was ripping people’s souls apart at least once a week to maintain his existence.
How did Hoid know the Cryptic was the reason for his visit? Well for one … maybe after he got it, Fortune started telling him to be somewhere else?
@nightheron
Or he unconsciously knew she was coming because he has partial access to Fortune. He clearly can’t see the future as well as Cultivation, but at the same time he’s probably better than any normal person. That sort of thing is not out of reach, we see Kaladin accidentally future-see a few chapters from now.
(Note: I find myself quoting Odium a lot on this topic by using the phrase “Access to Fortune.” I believe he’s almost the first person on-stage in the Cosmere to actually refer to Fortune.)
@Several:
You do realize that Hoid was not rambling to a crem, right? That’s a Hordeling. We also see a weird crem–Hordeling–near Kaladin at one point. The Aimians are keeping track of people. (If you don’t know Hordelings, read Brandon’s novella “Edgedancer”.)
I’ve started to view Hoid’s Fortune sense as similar to Mat’s dice rolling (and stopping) in his head at momentous occasions. :-)
Maybe Hoid sees something of himself in Shallan, you know, before the Shattering made everything go pear-shaped. It’s not a coincidence that he chooses a Cryptic to connect to Rosharan magic. Part of that was of course availability of course. But if Elkohar was gonna bond an Honorspen I’m not sure Hoid is picking it up.
@carl
Good catch! It’s probably one of those throwaway lines that only gain relevance later like in Mistborn, trust nothing not written in metal. If cremlings are mentioned in the text then you’re being recorded. This is now my headcannon.
@98 Steven Hedge
Lol, glad you are excited about discussing Hoid. Love to hear more of your thoughts!
@99 Carl
Yes there is. Zahel is there because it is easier to get investiture to fuel his returned body. But a potential by product of that is possibly Nightblood tagging along and then being “lost” or given away. So Hoid could have been potentially keeping an eye on Nightblood. The quote you and ineptmage referenced does clearly state he feels he was there for the cryptic, but it does make me wonder what else he could have been up to while “around” lol.
As to the first person “on stage” to refer to fortune, mistborn spoilers below:
The Kandra (I forget his name, the guy that had a different color brown coat three times) in I believe Bands of Mourning mentioned fortune, as well as in Secret History, the elantrian member of the IRE mentioned Fortune.
Yep yep. People have started whole threads of “spot the hordling”. It is fun in a weird way lol.
@101 EvilMonkey
I believe Brandon has said Hoid is “very happy to be fully empowered with things” in regards to getting lightweaving from a spren. So the bond potentially makes his illusions even stronger or easier to make.
Lol, like I said to Carl, its become a game “spot the hordlings” and it is actually pretty crazy how many of them have been hiding in plain sight and Brandon has confirmed to be horldings.
I think one practical reason Fused might have long flapping cloths in the wind would be to specifically mess with the attack pattern of a flying Radiant. It wouldn’t necessarily be caught by an enemy weapon, since they’d be using Shardblades, which would just cleave through them. If any of them happen to be invested with Breaths, those cloths could prove to be fearsome tools as well, there could certainly be some application with Voidlight, I’m curious to know more about that.