Greetings, Oh Ye Chickens of the Cosmere! We’re back with the penultimate chapter in Part Two, in which many things come crashing down: stairways, soldiers, Syl’s mood, Navani’s throne… Yeah, it’s one of those chapters. Oh, don’t worry, there’s worse to come. But that’s for next week. This week, we have a “famous last stand” and a proud surrender.
Lyndsey is taking a break this week, so you just get my (extensive) thoughts on the chapter. Reminder: We’ll be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now. If you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of The Stormlight Archive (this includes Edgedancer and Dawnshard as well as the entirety of Rhythm of War), best to wait to join us until you’re done.
In this week’s discussion there are no spoilers for the rest of the Cosmere.
Heralds: Jezrien (Jezerezeh, Yaezir, Ahu), Herald of Kings. Windrunners. Protecting/Leading. Role: King.
Talenelat (Talenel, Taln), Herald of War. Stonewards. Dependable/Resourceful. Role: Soldier.
I have to say, these two are perfect for this chapter. While Jezrien partly represents his Windrunner, and Talnenel largely represents the incredible fight of Teofil and his soldiers, I think both of them represent Navani as well. The roles of King and Soldier suit her conduct, and she displays all four divine attributes. (Yes, I love Navani in general, but in this chapter she really shines. For me, anyway.)
Icon: Fabrial Gemstone for (primarily) Navani’s POV.
Epigraph:
In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most.
And if that’s not terror-foreshadowing, I don’t know what it is. Rayse isn’t particularly crafty anymore, but Taravangian? Yikes.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Navani, Kaladin, Venli
WHERE: Urithiru
WHEN: 1175.4.6.4 (Immediately following Chapter 40)
(Note: For the “when” notations, we are using this wonderful timeline provided by the folks at The 17th Shard.)
Navani and her team of scholars follow the Sibling’s guidance to a hidden fabrial, where they infuse a large sapphire with all the Stormlight they could scrape together. Kaladin meets Rlain, and they talk over the options available to the latter as the tower inevitably comes under the rule of the Fused. Venli and Raboniel watch the last push and ultimate fall of the human soldiers, giving Navani’s team and the Sibling enough time to activate the protective shield around the crystal pillar, preventing Raboniel from further Voidlight intrusions. Proud of what they’ve accomplished against overwhelming odds, Navani surrenders the tower to Raboniel.
Overall Reactions
We don’t really have a great place to talk about the battle, and the eventual surrender, but… it’s so brilliant and heartbreaking, I’m going to talk about it right up front.
The descent was so dramatic that Venli sent for Raboniel, interrupting the Fused’s work with the pillar. Raboniel marched out and looked up with shock at how close the humans were.
Fascinating. If Raboniel weren’t there to yell orders and get the Deepest Ones involved, the humans might have made it all the way to the pillar and stopped her. On the other hand, her being distracted from working on the pillar gave Navani’s team time to activate the shield.
Led by a grizzled older soldier—and reduced from hundreds to just fifty—they barreled stubbornly onward. Venli found herself cheering them silently, Timbre exulting to the Rhythm of Hope. She cared little for the humans as a whole, but it was impossible to watch such a display of tenacity without being impressed.
This is… brilliant and heartbreaking. Also agonizing. Also, a nice little reminder of Venli’s ambivalent position.
Then a red line of light zipped down from above. The Pursuer had arrived.
Gah. I despise this creature. I mean… yeah, everyone has to fight to win, but to see the way the humans had handled the stormforms (shorting them out by pouring water on them) and the Deepest Ones (hacking off any limbs that reach out of the stone) and grimly kept moving… it just hurts to see the $%&# Pursuer zip in, create chaos, and zip back out. (I was never so glad to see an enemy humiliated and forever destroyed… but that’s much later.)
The human leader, and the men closest to him, dropped with the rubble to die. The rest began a frantic attempt at retreat. It ended quickly.
Oh, Teofil. You brave, brave man, leading so many more brave men. You bought the life of the tower with your lives by giving Navani time to set the barrier. You should have songs sung in your honor for as long as Urithiru stands.
But if Teofil had been killed… then the tower was captured. Navani’s only course was to surrender.
… “We must find a way to deliver a formal surrender without being killed before we can make our intentions known.”
Dicey proposition, that.
Ulim. The first Voidspren she’d ever met, all those years ago.
Little twit. Like Venli, I can’t help thinking Ulim ought to be embarrassed at seeing someone he had lied to so much, but I doubt he even cares what she thinks of him. I’m pretty sure he feels no guilt about lying or anything else he did to accomplish his goals; he’s a Voidspren, and she’s just a gullible listener out of her depth.
“Lady of Wishes,” he said, performing a flowery bow. “We have located the Blackthorn’s wife, queen of this tower. … The Caller summoned a force and captured Queen Blackthorn, who has come peacefully. She is now asking to speak with whomever was leading our assault. Shall I have her killed?”
“Queen Blackthorn.” I like it. It suits her, especially in this chapter.
Though the effects of fatigue made her want to droop, she kept her head high. … She kept her expression calm, though she wasn’t certain whether she was awaiting imprisonment or death.
Queen Blackthorn, indeed.
They’d made it clear time and time again that they didn’t slaughter populations who surrendered. You always knew you had an out. All you had to do was submit.
This grates on my independent Montana spirit. Just sayin’… There’s been too much “all you have to do is submit” lately.
It was the same lesson that Gavilar and Navani herself had taught many, many years ago. Cities that had joined the unified Alethkar had prospered. Of course, with Gavilar and Dalinar involved, there had always been an explicit addition to that lesson. Fail to submit, and you would be sent the Blackthorn.
(Question: Is that an intentional parallel to the arrival of Lezian in the battle earlier? Are we intended to see a similarity between the Pursuer and the Blackthorn?)
How could Navani feel outrage at having done to her what she’d willingly done to others? It was the enormous flaw in Gavilar’s reasoning. … It was a system that ensured there would always be war, a constant clash for rule.
She’s right, of course. The thing she doesn’t note is how very Vorin that is. Their highest Calling is to be a soldier so that they can go fight alongside the Heralds to reclaim the Tranquiline Halls in the afterlife; a system that ensures perpetual war is eminently suited to that mindset. I doubt they did it consciously, and Gavilar even thought he was going to be such a great ruler that no one could ever take him down—but the mindset was there.
Thank you, Teofil, she thought. And all of you. If the tower had a chance, it came because these men had bought her time.
Too true. Too painfully true. ::sob:: I didn’t quote everything I wanted, there, but the way Sanderson used the imagery of the aftermath, with the bodies and the pervasive blood as Navani makes her way through to surrender the tower… wow. It was both painful and inspiring. As Navani notes, the humans put up an incredible fight, given the lack of Radiants and Shards; the fact that they held out long enough to shield the pillar speaks volumes.
Buy the Book
The Witness for the Dead
Raboniel’s reaction to the shield was already a bit… unexpected, when she displayed fascination more than frustration at being blocked from her intended work. Her reaction to Navani was (at least to me) equally unexpected:
“The Lady says, ‘She comes to me as a queen, though she will leave without the title. For now, she may speak when she wishes, as befitting her rank.’”
Okay, on the one hand, that’s not much of a concession: “she has about two minutes to maintain her dignity before I do whatever I want to her.” At the same time… well, Raboniel doesn’t see things the way most do. The terms of surrender are a weird combination of super-harsh and shockingly lenient. Turn over all the Radiants, and no promises about what may or may not happen to them. Anyone hiding a Radiant will be subject to harsh punishment. Lighteyes are the same status as darkeyes: All humans are at the same level and must instantly obey any singer. No weapons. Other than that, carry on.
Granted that she had full control of the tower and no need to make concessions, it was… chilling to see the lack of any pretense at negotiation. These are the terms; if you don’t take them, we’ll go kill all the Radiants and anyone who stands in the way, and then come back with harsher terms. It must have grated horribly on Navani to have no chance to negotiate, but… I guess, as she thought earlier, she’d been on the other side enough times to know that she wasn’t going to get a better deal by arguing. And, of course, with the shield in place, there is time…
Only by working with the enemy, pretending to be docile and controlled, would she find opportunity to restore the Radiants.
“Working with the enemy” is going to take on a completely new meaning in a minute. Raboniel’s offer to hire Navani was… unexpected just doesn’t cover it. She’s such a weird mix of arrogance and pragmatism.
“You are no longer a queen, but you are obviously a talented engineer. … I would hire you to work on fabrial projects for me. I assure you, being in my employ will be a far more rewarding job than carrying water or washing clothing.”
Tough choice. And I know, I’m quoting too much, but I have to include Navani’s response to that:
“Carrying water or washing clothing is fine work,” Navani said. “I’ve done both before in my life. Neither will involve giving secrets to an enemy who, I’m afraid, will inevitably use them to kill and conquer my people.”
If we ever wanted evidence that Navani’s impostor syndrome had roots in reality, there it is. Despite having married the man who would become king, she really did have a much lowlier backstory. That line from the prologue, about being “just a backwater country girl wearing someone else’s clothing”—that was for real. She came to Dalinar’s attention because of her beauty, and to Gavilar’s attention because of Dalinar’s attention, but she wasn’t a wealthy woman from the city. She really was a country girl, accustomed to hard work and not too proud to do it.
Raboniel’s offer, though. Yikes. Everything she says about Navani having a better opportunity to learn secrets by accepting her offer is 100% true… and Navani’s worry about “thousands of years to practice manipulating people” is 100% valid. And both will play out.
The soldiers led Navani away. And just like that, she had lost another throne.
Music, Mechanisms, and Manifestations of Light
A gemstone, she realized. … Seemed to be a topaz. Hadn’t there been a similar gemstone embedded into the wall of that room where they’d found the model of the tower?
Infuse the topaz, the Sibling’s voice said in her mind.
I love the way this was set up. When they found that room, Falilar had mentioned a gemstone embedded in the wall, which they’d pried out to examine. Now we get to find out (for sure) what it was—and we’ll see more of these along the way.
Another thing that was set up for us is the method of infusing the gemstones:
An infused gemstone touched to an uninfused one could be made to lend some of its Stormlight—assuming they were the same variety, and the uninfused gemstone was much larger than the infused ones.
But it’s slow. The Thaylen artifabrian isn’t entirely wrong—Navani did bring the two of them along for a purpose, but (despite her frustration with the secretive nature of artifabrians in general) it’s not exactly about “stealing trade secrets.” (There’s a little more on this below.)
“We use sound,” she whispered. “If you can make the gemstone vibrate at a certain frequency, it will draw in Stormlight regardless of the size of gems placed next to it.”
Dingdingdingdingding! We’ve had a few hints before this about the relationship of sound and Light, but this section really… highlights it, so to speak. (I find it fascinating, the way Sanderson buries key information for later use in a tense scene where they’re just trying to survive. The relationship between sound and Light is a critical factor for all of Navani’s experiments through the rest of the book, and while the concept may have been seeded earlier, this is where Navani gets it. Dual-use info-drop just slipped in there…)
I also enjoy the way Navani’s mind works. She thinks in the next section about how she and Rushu had theorized about the Thaylen methods, even as they were working with the few captured Fused fabrials that drain Stormlight, assuming that the mechanism was complicated. Once she learns that it’s just sound (or specifically, pitch) she leapfrogs almost instantly to the realization that the Thaylen women have tuning forks in their pockets.
I’m betting she’s wrong about this part, though:
…locked by a fabrial that in the old days probably only a Radiant could have activated.
One would think, anyway, that those gemstones were normally infused by Towerlight, just like everything else, and the big difference between these gemstone-locked doors and other doors was the ability to limit who could open them. Much later in the book, the Sibling explains that it was once possible to attune them to individuals, though they can’t do it right now. Specifically, I don’t think those individuals had to be Radiants, since Dabbid can activate the lock. (Heh. Somewhere between books, Navani probably has to ask the Sibling to charge and open all the doors, so they can find all the good stuff!)
Spren and Shadesmar
“Are my soldiers still alive?”
I cannot see them, the Sibling said. My vision is limited, in ways that are confusing to me, as it was not always so.
We’ll come back to this in a minute…
“Do you know why spren prefer different kinds of gemstones?”
Because they are different, the Sibling said. Why do humans prefer one kind of food to another?
… “Many gemstones are identical, at least by their structure. We think they might even have the same basic chemical composition.”
Color is like flavor to spren, the Sibling said. It is part of the soul of a thing.
And that, my friends, is the only answer we’re going to get about why (for example) sapphire and ruby are so different in their essences on Roshar, even though they’re essentially the same mineral. Color is part of the soul of the thing.
The Lady of Pains has the Surge of Transformation and dangerous knowledge. She will infuse my entire heart—the pillar—in the proper order, using her Voidlight. In so doing, she would corrupt me and leave me … leave me as one of the Unmade…
One, that’s a horrible thing to be doing to a spren. Two, I desperately want to know the backstory of the Unmade! It seems fairly clear by now that they were spren of some sort, but… what sort? I can’t help wondering if they also were children of Honor and Cultivation, and so truly siblings to the Sibling… and also if the Sibling was given the body that is now Urithiru as a way of protecting them from the fate of their other siblings. Or something.
Oh, also. Three: Is this in any way related to the way Sja-anat changes spren? She says she only “enlightens” those who are willing; is their voluntary participation a critical difference between her changes vs. this unmaking?
It is done, the Sibling whispered to Navani. Your men have fallen.
“Are you certain?” Navani asked. “What do you see?”
I used to be able to watch the entire tower. Now … I see just patches. A small portion of the sixth floor. A room on the fourth floor, with a cage in it. The place nearest the Lady of Pains.
As we’ll eventually prove, the Sibling can see through the eyes of the Radiants. Kaladin, on the sixth floor; Lift, in the cage on the fourth floor; Venli, always near Raboniel. I assume the limitation is due to the corruption of the Sibling’s normal systems, and the ability to see through the Radiants is due to their Connection to the Sibling’s parents.
It worked. Melishi … I have hated you … but now I bless you. It worked. I am safe, for now.
So in case you were wanting solid proof, there it is: The Sibling was bonded to Melishi, the only Bondsmith in the time of the False Desolation. As a side note, it would seem that their bond was broken, or Melishi died, before the Recreance. Why did the Sibling hate Melishi, though? I really, really want to learn more about this. Did Melishi actually do something awful, or did he tend to treat the Sibling as more of a tool to gain power rather than a partner, or… what? Given the clash between the two, though, the Sibling’s reluctance to enter a bond with Navani is perhaps more understandable.
“Something curious is happening here. There is Stormlight in the system. That shouldn’t be possible; the Sibling cannot create it.”
… “The Sibling—the tower, Urithiru—is the child of Honor and Cultivation, created to fight Odium. The place runs on the Sibling’s Light, a mixture of the essences of its parents.”
From here on out, it’s so hard to know when Raboniel is telling the truth and when she’s not. That part turns out to be true. The next bit… maybe not.
“The Sibling is insensate, completely unaware that we are here. That I can determine. I can corrupt them, awaken them to serve us. Just as I expected.”
Raboniel will tell Navani much later that when she touched the pillar she knew the Sibling was awake, but since they were pretending to be dead, she allowed them to think she didn’t know so she could spy on them. But we don’t really know: Did she recognize that immediately, so she’s lying to Venli now? Or did she put things together later? She’s an unreliable narrator if ever there was one. In any case, she clearly didn’t know how this shield was going to work, even if she had heard the Sibling giving Navani instructions. (To be fair, the Sibling didn’t exactly tell Navani what would happen—just step by step instructions, and at least some of that while Raboniel was distracted by the fighting.)
Bruised and Broken
“This will be an occupation, Kal,” Rlain said, voice tinged by a mournful rhythm. “We won’t be recovering Urithiru tonight—or anytime soon. So where does that leave me?”
As they go on to discuss, Rlain’s options are severely limited. The humans don’t trust him, and if he sticks with them anyway, the Fused won’t trust him either. His solution is as elegant as you can get in this situation: Pretend to be on their side, either as a parshman who never escaped, or as just another face in the crowd—and use his previous experience as a spy for the listeners to spy on the Regals and Fused. Kaladin’s objection is understandable, but not really reasonable, IMO:
“And if they take you out into the Everstorm?” Kaladin asked. “Demand you take a Regal form—or worse, give yourself up to the soul of a Fused?”
“Then I’ll have to find a way to escape, won’t I?” Rlain said.
There’s risk no matter what he does, so he might as well learn all he can. He might be able to help his friends and his own people.
“Thank you,” Rlain said, pulling back. “For trusting me to make this decision.”
“That’s what you said you wanted, all those months ago,” Kaladin said. “When I promised I’d listen.”
“To be trusted and acknowledged,” Rlain said.
Now we know what that conversation in Oathbringer was all about. As noted earlier, the humans in general don’t trust him, and the other Windrunners are either gone or unconscious. For now, Kaladin’s trust and acknowledgement has to be enough. That’s just painful. I mean, having Kaladin’s trust is significant, but it’s still awfully lonely.
Kaladin leaned against the stone, waiting for a cheerful line from Syl. When others tried to console him with laughs, it often struck him as false, unnecessary. But from her … well, she helped pull him out of the deep waters.
“They’re all going to leave, aren’t they?” she whispered instead.
OUCH. Just… I don’t… What do you say to that? Syl??
“I’m sorry. That’s not what you needed, is it? I can be perky. I can be happy. See?”
Which is even worse. A depressed honorspren vs. a fakey honorspren… And I honestly don’t know how much of it is the Stormlight suppression versus the emotional development she’s been reaching for—though I suspect it’s mostly the latter.
Geography, History, and Cultures
Navani felt as if she were entering the mythical centerbeat—the heart of a highstorm spoken of by some poor wanderers trapped within its winds. A moment when for reasons inexplicable, the wind stopped and all became still.
Mythical. At least until you experience it…! I do love having a name for it, though, after a few characters have been there. I shouldn’t laugh—it’s not like very many people experience it, for all that there are highstorms so frequently. It seems to only happen when the Stormfather has a reason to want to speak to someone. (Or, later in the book, when Dalinar wants to use it.) Off the top of my head, Kaladin has three experiences with it by the end of this book, Shallan has one, and Eshonai has two. And of course, Dalinar gets the Stormfather to create one of Kaladin’s experiences. Did I miss any?
Again they remained silent.
“Fine,” Navani said. “I hope when you die—knowing your homeland is doomed, your families enslaved, your queen executed—you feel satisfied knowing that at least you maintained a slight market advantage.”
Honestly, I sympathize with both sides. Trade secrets are important, especially when you’re the smaller and less aggressive nation. No one wants to give away what little leverage they have in a coalition led by the Alethi! At the same time, Navani is so right: This moment is critical to the survival of the tower, and by extension the human coalition. If they can’t get Stormlight shifted fast enough right here right now, the humans might as well all surrender and get used to being second-class non-citizens across the planet. Future danger, from giving Navani the ability to transfer Light easily from one gemstone to another… well, that’s another problem. (Fortunately, one that works out well in the end!)
Singers/Fused
“Remember that the first people Odium destroyed when he returned were not human, but listener.”
Say what you want about “humans were the original Voidbringers!” and “the singers were here first!”—this is about more than races, who could actually get along if both sides wanted to. This is also about Odium invading the system with the intent to destroy Honor and Cultivation. It’s about a relatively small number of singers who turned away from Honor and Cultivation and turned to Odium for power thousands of years ago. It’s about their willingness to sacrifice their own people to prove their “right” to the planet at any cost.
Humans
“How are they working [the Oathgate]? They have Skybreakers, but they should be as limited as our Radiants, right?”
They brought a human with one of the Honorblades.
Moash. The murderer.
Foul wretch. I do loathe that man.
Brilliant Buttresses
“Is it common for human queens of this era to be engineers?”
I’m not sure which made me laugh more—that unexpected question, or Navani’s deadpan answer:
“I have unusual hobbies.”
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others! Next week, we’ll be back with chapter 43, in which Kaladin has to make decisions, and you can bet Lyn and I will have a blazing argument over Lirin. Heh. Also, my cameo.
Alice is a Sanderson beta reader and administrator of two fandom Facebook groups. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids, with extended family out back.
This scene’s soundtrack, Clint Mansell’s “Lux Aeterna”.
…And this scene’s soundtrack, Alanis Morissette’s “Hands Clean”
I think this stands to all be cored with at the time the Sibling being an inconsolable child with all the power responding to events it didn’t understand and ascribing malicious intent to unintended consequences and impersonal events.
Raboniel’s negotiation with Navani is when she really cemented herself in my head as the most fascinating Sandervillain. And second place isn’t close. Gives me a really bad feeling about El, who’s apparently the guy the Fused send in after they send Raboniel.
And storms if Teofil’s final charge didn’t have me convinced that they just might pull it off, even though I knew perfectly well there was no way. That’s how you portray a last stand!
Hey, the Pursuer is the anti-Timbre–a line of light streaking across people’s field of vision. I believe the second Surge of the Willshapers is Transportation, too – presumably Venli will be able to duplicate (or at least approximate) Lezian’s powers.
Nice recap, Alice. I had the same reaction to Navani and Raboniel in this chapter. Can’t wait for Ishar to incarnate Ulim physically, so he can die forever! (Why hasn’t he experimented on Voidspren, anyway?)
Yeah, it wouldn’t break my heart to see Ishar experiment on Voidspren… especially that little jerk Ulim.
I said this last week, but it is actually more appropriate in this chapter as we see TreofiI’s suicidal charge. Treofil knows it is a suicide mission with almost no chance of success. Yet he willingly accepts the risk. This to me is the Roshar equivalent of Pickett’s charge on Day 3 of the Battle of Gettysburg in the USA Civil War.
Alice. You said “Gavilar even thought he was going to be such a great ruler that no one could ever take him down.” The way I understood that someone (I think it might have been Dalinar) explained about Gavilar’s philosophy was that he thought he would never be beaten not because he was such a great ruler but that he knew when to stop conquering and to start playing the different factions against each other. However, I could be projecting how I understood Gavilar’s actions to be rather than someone saying it was his belief. I do agree, however, with yours (and Navani’s) general point. The fallacy of a culture glorifying war/violence (as the Alethkar did) as the ultimate calling leads to a situation where someone will always try to take down the people on the top.
Alethkar, however, is not the only nation/people on Roshar to embrace this philosophy. We will see later in flashbacks that the Listeners had this mentality. The strongest clans lived in the ten satellite cities (those which would later make up each of the Alethi princedom’s territory during the War of Reckoning). All the other clans would position themselves to try to attack a city and take it over.
The singers are perpetuating a similar type of caste system that Alethi used. Whereas the Lighteyes ruled over Darkeyes under the Alethi system, the Fused have their own. It goes (from top to bottom: Fused, Regals, Singers, humans). This is why I give credit to Jasnah and Dalinar for at least trying to start to break the caste system. By diminishing the significance of being a Darkeye and promote someone based on merit.
In the physics of the Cosmere, the fact that the color of a thing is part of that thing’s soul makes sense. Where people are concerned, color is used to differentiate people. Whether it is eye color (we see that in Vorin society), hair color (we see that less so on Roshar – yet characters often note another person’s hair color – for example, Adolin seeing Shallan for the first time or Shallan thinking about the color of Adolin’s hair), and skin color (while not as big a deal as in our society, characters do notice that so and so has bronze skin or a different shade). Why shouldn’t an object (such as a gemstone) see its color as a a part of what makes the particular object unique? Until Alice pointed it out in her review of this chapter, I did not make the connection. I did not focus enough on the Sibling’s response to Navani’s question both during my initial read and my re-read.
Question on the timing of events. So the events in the Lift Interlude where she tries to save the flying bird-like creature and gets captured by Mraize occurred while the invasion was going on? I do not know why, but I thought the end of that Interlude (where Lift runs away from Mraize) occurs in the day or two after the invasion. Huh. Not sure why I thought that. I suppose it occurred in the book during the set of Interludes right after Chapter 43.
I wonder what it is about Knights Radiant that allows the Sibling to see through their eyes. Yet They also communicate with others. The crazy woman and Dabbid. Now that Dabbid is willing to speak (and may be on the path to starting to overcome some of the trauma he faced as a Bridgeman, does anyone think that he may bond a spren? In some ways, I hope he does not. I want there to be at least some secondary (or I guess he may be a tertiary) characters who do not become KRs. This is also one of the reasons I want Adolin not to be a Knights Radiant.
Alice. I would like it if your thought about the Unmade being children of Honor and Cultivation were the case. I think that for Brandon, that might be too simple of a answer. I hope we get the answer to this question in Book 5 rather than somewhere in the back 5 books (or, God forbid) Brandon choosing not to address this issue at all. Irrespective of whether the Unmade were “real” siblings of the Sibling, I do think They became the spren of Urithiru as a means to protect the Sibling from something.
I think the Sibling hated Melishi because Sibling disagreed with Melishi’s plan of action to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram. If Melishi were bonded to Sibling at the point he did what he did, then I cannot imagine how Melishi could have kept his plans from the Sibling. Yet I think (just a gut feeling) that Brandon will not reveal the reason Sibling hates Melishi. I can see this as one of those things he intentionally wants to leave as a mystery even after Book 10 is finished.
My vote for the name of the “mythical” calm middle of a Highstorm is the core. I think of core as somewhere where gemstones come from on Earth. A gemstone is used to capture Stormlight, which comes from a Highstorm.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Color is like flavor to spren, the Sibling said. It is part of the soul of a thing.
I wonder if this is a reference to [Warbreaker spoiler] color being related to Investiture on at least one other world of the Cosmere.
Color is part of the soul of a thing? Interesting that eye color changes when a human (or singer) binds a spren. (Singer eyes go red when a voidspren lives in their gemheart.) It kind of explains where lighteyes come from, given that Brandon has referred to inherited “Spiritual DNA”.
Also, the Idrian royal family’s hair changes color based on mood. So … being angry is a change in one’s soul?
As ever thanks for the wonderful recap!
can you explain your comment though:
im not an American so I’m not sure that I get the reference; what’s been happening in Montana
@5, I’ve thought that the Unmade were Adonalsium‘s spren
I’m with those that felt the connection to Warbreaker with the color referencees. Also, regardless if two gem stones have the same base properties the color difference is more than insignificant. It has different wavelengths and that must change how it “tastes”. Color can affect human emotions in RL, it must be much more powerful to a Spren.
I hadn’t thought before about Ishar trapping and experimenting on Ulim. I vote for that.
Note:edited to fix typos I should have noticed the first time around.
AndrewHB @5 – Re: “Gavilar thought he was going to be so great” – I was thinking of the RoW prologue and what he said to Navani the night he died, not what he talked about with Dalinar thirty-odd years ago. “I have discovered the entrance to the realm of gods and legends, and once I join them, my kingdom will never end. I will never end.”
About the timing of Lift’s Interlude, yes, I think it’s the day before this chapter – 1175.4.6.3 – and it covers the exact moment Raboniel inverted the tower’s defenses. We’ll be covering it in three weeks.
About the Sibling… The subject comes up with Navani again later (chapter 49) and the Sibling says “I think one reason I can see parts of the tower has to do with Radiants, who are Connected to me.” That’s why they can see the areas around Kaladin, Lift, and Venli. But they can talk to anyone they wish, as long as that person is touching one of the garnet veins.
I disagree with you about Dabbid, though. I definitely think he’s going to bond a spren, and I hope he does. He knows what his injury was, and that it was too long ago for an Edgedancer to heal it. A spren bond would probably heal him, and I personally would love that.
I’m not sure about Melishi. I got the feeling (I think from the gemstone files?) that the Sibling was withdrawing from the Radiants, including their own bondmate, well before Melishi did the trapping thing. It may be that the Sibling advised against what was being considered, but was unable to convince Melishi that it was a bad idea. It’s quite possible they thought/knew it would hurt them, but couldn’t explain how or why, and so Melishi ignored the warning. This is just my own guessing, but my theory is that Melishi regarded the Sibling as a cross between a child and a tool – so he was perfectly happy to have the powers of the Bondsmith, but treated his bondmate more like a servant than a partner. But like I said, that’s just my guess.
Oh, and I don’t think we get to vote on the name of the heart of the highstorm. Navani just told us – it’s called the centerbeat. (Given the way beats work in the physics of music, I kinda love the name as it is.)
Zero_G @8 – Nothing has been happening in Montana in particular, except that I wish I were there sometimes. I grew up in Montana, and part of my heritage is a high regard for the freedom to make my own decisions: give me all the data and let me decide what’s best for me and mine. Unfortunately, I currently live in Washington state, under a state government which wants to determine what’s best for everyone; it’s the classic “tyranny exercised for your own good” attitude. “All you have to do is submit to our (unscientific) directives, and we’ll let you have some (limited) freedom again.” I… do not appreciate that approach.
I still don’t like ‘Everyone is a god now’ as theme, but I have been expecting since reading Rhythm and some WoBs that Dabbid will be a Bondsmith Squire.
Carl @13 – Do squires get the full-up healing effect that comes with a spren bond? I didn’t think so – and I personally want Dabbid to have that healing.
One of the things I love about the way the Knights Radiant are set up is that they’re not gods. They have to grow up through their Ideals, and not all of them will get very high (or very fast); even then there are always limits on what they can do. Kaladin can heal himself, but no one else. Lift can heal other people, but she can’t do much damage. Renarin can heal people if their injury is recent, and he can see future possibilities, but that’s pretty much it. As per Sanderson’s second law of magic, the limitations are at least as interesting as the powers themselves.
Personally, I prefer the idea of developing an army of Radiants who could reasonably stand against Odium’s armies, as opposed to having four or five god-like superheroes who do it all by themselves. In the past, there were thousands and thousands of Radiants, plus ten Heralds, and combined they basically managed a stalemate against the Fused and Regals. It would be terrible storytelling (IMO) to suddenly have five or ten super-powered Radiants who win the war for the humans against thousands of Fused and tens of thousands of Regals. (I guess they could lose the war, and then the humans could all be dead, but that’s not exactly a Sanderson trajectory.) So yeah, I think it makes far more sense that we should see hundreds and hundreds of Radiants, at the least. It also makes sense that those who desire to associate with the Radiants would (in general) emulate the character and worldview of the Radiants, making them good candidates for spren bonds.
So, no, it’s not that “everyone is a god now,” it’s just that there are a lot more well-equiped soldiers. Unless you also consider the Fused and the Regals “gods” – in which case you’d better have an army of gods to oppose them.
(Granted, this would all be assuming the contest of champions doesn’t actually end the whole war.)
@@@@@ 13, 14:
While I agree that not everyone should become a Radiant, I like that anyone with the appropriate ethics could, potentially, become one. I also love the idea that individuals are becoming radiant in nontypical ways (Lift, Renarin). People with disabilities should have the same opportunities as those who are physically imposing. And I just want to put it out there that I absolutely want Adolin to wake Maia and become some version of an Edgedancer. He’s already awesome. It’s just that I already picture him using Abrasion when he fights.
@Wetlandernw:
Hobber healed spinal damage as a squire.
The singers worshiped the Fused as gods, yes.
Carl @16 – Right, I forgot about Hobber; so far as we know, he was a squire at that point. The only one I could think of when I was writing was Lopen, and Sanderson hinted that he was more than a squire at the time.
As far as the Fused… yes, the singers considered the Fused to be gods, but that’s not what I said. Do you think they are? If so, there are thousands upon thousands of gods on Roshar trying to exterminate (or at least subdue) the humans, and expecting a hundred Radiants to be powerful enough to stand against them long-term is exactly what I don’t want. That would make those few Radiants super-gods; as I said, I’d rather see ordinary people becoming an army of Radiants and standing against them. Marbelcal put it well @15 – the idea that anyone has potential to become a Radiant, though not everyone will do so, is one of the things I love about the Stormlight Archive.
@Wetlandernw: you may be thinking of the Christian concept of a god as being the “real” one. Roshar’s version is much more like the Chinese or Japanese historical idea of, yes, thousands of gods (Japanese kami, Chinese shen). Thus the Horneaters calling every spren a god, which is more like millions or billions of gods.
The whole “everyone could be a Radiant” thing is a great concept … that is not actually true in the Cosmere. It has enormous class distinctions that the author seems to both recognize as unfair, and recognize as inevitable. I don’t mean lighteyes/darkeyes or noble/skaa per se, but “Can work miracles” and “Can’t”, and saying anyone could learn to work miracles is simply not borne out (for me as reader). Could anyone in the city of Elantris just “be” an Elantrian? The text doesn’t support this at all.
I feel like the text in Elantris definitely supports this but maybe I’m misunderstanding you @18
I was rather disappointed when in the end of RoW there was a massive remembrance ceremony for Teft, but not for Teofil and his men, who were at least as heroic.
There was this idea mentioned in one of the last few installments of this re-read that the new Radiants are more powerful because they are re-inventing everything from scratch – I really, really hope that this isn’t the case. It is a well-worn fantasy cliché that a newb flying by the seat of their pants is always superior to somebody who knows what they are doing – but it has been massively overused, IMHO. I am concerned about the new Radiants being so much more powerful than the Fused, leave alone Regals that it is impossible to envision how the False Desolation could have been a significant threat requiring full mobilisation of the honorspren for bonding. I very much hope that Honor limiting the power of Radiants is the answer, rather than that re-inventing the bicycle due to ignorance or using the power “instinctively” makes you stronger. There was more than enough of it in WoT.
Do we know if any of the disabled Radiants were squires? It would seem illogical to me if they had been affected so drastically when the Regals only lost their powers. Of course, we don’t really know if anybody apart from the Windrunners and Shallan has any. If the other Orders can only have them from the 4th Oath onwards, then it would make some sense. And what about Kaladin and Teft? How come that they suddenly didn’t have any squires anymore? Or can squires be just easily transferred from knight to knight? Hm…
It is a pity that Rlain never did manage to go undercover among the singers, though. I kinda expected him to have done that when he vanished half-way through OB. Sure, we had Venli as a PoV providing an inside view on the singers in RoW, but now she is gone, too. I was iffy with being shown the singer side through human PoVs of Kaladin and Moash in OB and it seems that we are back to the latter in the 5th book.
BTW, again in one of the recent re-reads Venli’s observation on how humans couldn’t be trusted because they have no forms and a scholar could also be a warrior is rather funny because Venli herself thought back in OB how she herself was a miserable fighter even in the warrior form and here she remembered how she was cowardly and ineffective in the stormform too. Heh. And Eshonai, of course, was big on the core personality remaining the same no matter the form.
I am a bit unsure about the Sibling’s protection nodes – were they supposed to be able to activate those themselves, but couldn’t because the Towerlight was broken? Because it is odd to have a protection system against humans that requires humans to activate. It is even odder that one of the nodes was positioned low enough that it should have been recharged by the highstorms, but wasn’t.
As to Melishi and his relationship with the Sibling – maybe his contemplation of and agreement to the plan to capture BAM already caused a significant rift between them? Like when Kaladin agreed to Ehlokar’s murder? A Bondsmith isn’t supposed to divide and BAM’s imrisonment has certainly done that. Through the Stormfather is OK with Dalinar trapping the Thrill and it also involved severing it from the people it Connected itself to. Maybe the Thrill’s Connections are just that much more shallow than BAM’s that it didn’t bother SF?
Oh, yea, Navani is magnificent in this chapter. I am really curious about her background and the reason for why Gavilar chose her. I doubt that it was just her beauty – Gavilar was far too political even back then to marry somebody without gaining any advantage from it. Didn’t she think how she was of ancient lineage in the prologue? But also how she was a provincial girl and here that she even performed some really menial tasks back in the day. OTOH she also clearly had an excellent education. Most intriguing…
@Isilel:
That is a very good point that I completely missed. Where are all the squires?
The only WoB on squires I can remember is the one saying that yes, Bondsmiths can have squires, but they’re not that much like Windrunner or Lightweaver squires. (That’s a very bad paraphrase.)
In the next chapter there are a Stoneward and her squires who are taken away by singers.
Carl @18 – Why does it matter what definition of god one is using? The parallels are between groups of people on Roshar. Also, Cosmere-wide, there are a variety of limitations on who can, as you call it, “work miracles.” On Roshar, it depends on a spren approving your character enough to form a bond. On Scadrial, it depends on genetics. On Nalthis, you just have to have enough money (or luck) to acquire enough Breath. On Sel, the Shaod can take anyone regardless of age or class, and we don’t know what causes it; we also don’t know much about the requirements for accessing the other forms of magic world-wide. On Taldain, the ability may be genetic, but is not inherent and must be trained. Based on that, I’d say Roshar is pretty wide-open as far as who can be chosen, but the point has always been that any individual has the possibility of being chosen; it’s not restricted by factors beyond your control like genetics or status.
Isilel @20 – I assume that there may well have been an honor ceremony for Teofil & co., but it wasn’t in the story because we didn’t need to see it.
About the nodes and why the Sibling couldn’t activate their own protections: IIRC, placing the one node low enough for the highstorm to recharge it also placed it where crem would be deposited. I think it just got too deeply buried to recharge.
“… but the point has always been that any individual has the possibility of being chosen; it’s not restricted by factors beyond your control like genetics or status.” Except on Scadrial, of course, where it is 100% genetic unless you us hemalurgy (as you said).
When one is asking, “Is this entity a god?” I think it’s pretty clear that the definition of “god” matters.
@24: “If someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES!” Winston Zedmore
Carl @24 – Why do you take quotations out of context and then argue with them? As I said:
We were talking about Roshar in the first place, and I concluded by specifically addressing Roshar. What does Scadrial have to do with that?
As for “gods” – well, if you consider the Knights Radiant to be gods, that’s your look-out. I don’t – not even on an in-world understanding. As far as I can tell, the humans sort of considered the Heralds to be god-like, and the listeners/singers sort of consider the Fused to be god-like. I don’t see anyone thinking the Knights Radiant or the Regals to be gods, but maybe you read it differently. And as I said before, if you’re going to call the Regals gods, then I don’t understand the objection to more humans becoming god-Knights Radiant. If one side has hundreds of Fused and thousands of Regals, and they’re all “gods” to you, why do you want the other side limited to a hundred or so Knights Radiant because you don’t like the idea that “everyone is a god now”?
Raboniel and Navani’s relationship is one of my favorite things about this novel. I just got such a kick out of it. I kind of love the interplay of two intelligent, driven women who might otherwise be friends but also trying to outclass each other but it also being kinda tragic.
If the Unmade really are ‘siblings’ that might be an added component to the Sibling’s anger at Meilishi if it originated from the plan for Bo-Ado-Mishram. But of course there’s still so much we don’t know.