Lyn: Hello, my lovely Cosmere Chickens?! Guess who’s back?
Paige: Lyndsey’s kindly filling in for Alice who has to be out with senior stuff for her daughter.
L: I’m so thrilled to be back, too. Even if it’s only for a few weeks. So, where are we? (Bet you all forgot how gif-happy I can be, didn’t you?) Is Kaladin happy yet? Has Shallan overcome her inner turmoil? Are Adolin and Dalinar on speaking terms again?
P: There’s SOOO much.
L: Oh, right. I forgot. It’s a Stormlight book. No one’s likely to be happy for a long, long time…
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 other Cosmere works, save for one off-hand mention of something from Mistborn: Secret History at the end as a joke.
Heralds: Palah (Paliah). Truthwatchers. Learned/Giving. Role: Scholar.
L: An interesting choice for Herald for this chapter. I can only speculate that the choice is because Rlain does tend to be the type to think long and deeply about things.
P: That he does. Plus he’ll be chosen by a certain spren.
Icon: Bridge Four, denoting a chapter from the POV of one of its members—in this case, Rlain.
Epigraph:
Jezrien is gone. Despite being all the way out here in Lasting Integrity, I felt him being ripped away. The Oathpact was broken already, but the Connection remained. Each of us can sense the others, to an extent. And with further investigation, I know the truth of what happened to him. It felt like death at first, and I think that is what it ultimately became.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Rlain
WHERE: Urithiru
WHEN: 1175.4.9.2 (Note: For the “when” notations, we are using this wonderful timeline provided by the folks at The 17th Shard.)
RECAP: In this week’s chapter, Rlain makes his way through Urithiru to deliver blankets and pillows to the stricken Knights Radiant. He checks in on Lirin and Hessina, who have some maps which Rlain considers bringing to Kaladin in the hopes they might help. While they’re discussing this, however, Dabbid arrives, and actually speaks, begging for help for Kaladin, whom he claims may be dying.
Chapter Focus—Outsider
L: Rlain ponders a lot about being an outsider in this chapter, as he often does. No matter where he goes, he never truly feels as if he belongs—with the exception, of course, being Bridge Four. But even in Bridge Four, Rlain sometimes feels excluded, as we saw in his POV chapter in Oathbringer.
P: He’s definitely excluded, though other members of the crew would probably deny that they’d ever excluded him. You just don’t know until it’s your life.
[…] but he couldn’t help feeling like he was the one gemstone in the pile that didn’t glow. Somehow, with the singers invading Urithiru, he’d become more of an outsider.
“You heard him,” the first woman hissed. “He’s a gambler! Of course. Those kind can see the future, you know. Foul powers of the Void.”
[…] he wished he could simply be Rlain. He hated that to every one of them, he was some kind of representation of an entire people. He wanted to be seen as a person, not a symbol.
“They aren’t my people,” Rlain said. “I’m a listener—I come from an entirely different country. I’m as much one of them as you are an Iriali.”
L: As in most of Rlain’s chapters, we see Brandon delving into racism, using the lens of fantasy fiction to shine a light on real world problems (as the best fiction does, of course). He’s not the only character to deal with this, of course, but we see it the most poignantly with Rlain.
P: It’s definitely the strongest with Rlain because we see him spend so much time with Bridge Four, and see his exclusion even there.
Like most of the others in the room, he’d painted his forehead with the shash glyph. That baffled Rlain. A few days ago, Lezian the Pursuer had ordered his men to beat those who wore the forehead mark—though only a day later, that order had been reversed by Raboniel. Still seemed strange that so many humans would wear the thing. They had to realize they were singling themselves out.
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Rhythm of War
L: Rlain is an outsider by nature of his heritage and birth… but these people are choosing to make themselves so. They’re singling themselves out to show loyalty and support… and in some cases, to become martyrs presumably in order to thumb their noses at their enemies. I find the dichotomy here interesting: one person who is forced to non-conformity, and these others who are freely choosing it for themselves.
P: Of course Alethi darkeyes have dealt with being “inferior” to lighteyes their whole lives, but they’ve never experienced the type of isolation that Rlain has experienced in the tower, especially since the Fused took over.
Music, Mechanisms, and Manifestations of Light
Some of the tower’s original fabrials—the lifts, the main wells, the air vents—had been altered to work with Voidlight.
L: I wonder what modifications (if any) had to be made in order to accomplish this.
P: I’ve wondered about this, too. Perhaps it was as simple as filling gemstones with voidlight, though the description here seems to suggest something more than that.
Spren and Shadesmar
It wasn’t his fault that spren were as racist as humans. Or as singers. As people.
L: Oof. I do wonder if there’s something to this. Could the spren have unconscious (or conscious) racial biases? Or is there something more behind their reluctance to bond Rlain? We see that other spren have bonded with listeners (Venli’s spren), so it’s not that they’re physically incapable of doing so.
P: I don’t know about racial biases but we’ve seen spren who are definitely biased against people, in general.
Relationships and Romances
For all that Lirin complained about Kaladin, it seemed he considered someone his son called a friend to be worthy of trust.
L: ::Continued angry noises about Lirin and how he treats Kaladin over the course of this book::
P: Oh, I’m right there with you. Right there next to you, making all the angry noises.
Should they… try to rebuild? The idea nauseated him for multiple reasons. For one, the times he’d tried mateform himself, things hadn’t gone the way he—or anyone really—had expected.
L: Yes, this means what you may be thinking it means. Hooray for more canonically gay characters! Although, it does kind of suck in the context of this quote. Hard to rebuild a society when you’re only attracted to the same gender. Seems like Rlain’s never got it easy.
P: No, he’s definitely got the deck stacked against him, poor guy.
Also…!!! I love that Brandon included this bit!
Geography, History, and Cultures
“Scout report,” she said. “They found a camp out there, it seems. Some kind of large caravan or nomadic group. Maybe they’re Natans? A lot of this area is unexplored, Rlain.”
L: Okay. There’s got to be something more to this…
P: I may have clapped with delight.
L: As usual, I think I’m forgetting something!
Humans
[…] the men and women of the tower were turning coming here into some kind of pilgrimage. Look in on the Radiants. Care for them.
L: This gives me the chills. I love that the people are coming together to care for their protectors in their hour of need.
P: It is a lovely sentiment for them to take their turns caring for the fallen Radiants.
Flora and Fauna of the Physical Realm
As he pushed his cart, he caught sight of that cremling again. The nondescript brown one that would scuttle along walls near the ceiling, blending in with the stonework. They were still watching him.
Venli had warned him about this. Voidspren invisibility didn’t work properly in the tower. So it appeared that, to keep an eye on someone here, they’d begun entering an animal’s gemheart.
L: Legitimate observation on Venli’s part? Or are these Dysian Amians? Could go either way I think. Venli isn’t exactly the most reliable… and even if they are doing this, this particular cremling could be either!
P: We know she’s not exactly reliable but yes, all I could think was that whoever was spying wasn’t very good at it!
Brilliant Buttresses
The Fused were obviously frightened. They had immediately started publicizing that they’d killed him. Too quickly, and too forcefully, without a body to show.
L: Every comic book fan knows… no one’s really dead unless you see the body. And even then it’s negotiable.
P: It’s especially negotiable in a Cosmere book.
L: ::looks side-eye at a certain Survivor we all know and love::
This was a bit of a short one so we didn’t have a ton of dialogue… We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, and hope to join you there! Next week we’ll be diving into chapter 80, in which Hoid tells a story about a dog and a dragon…
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course. Links to her other writing are available in her profile. Let’s go, Yankees!
Lyndsey is gearing up for the first Renaissance Faire of the season and preparing for another in fall. You can follow her on Facebook or Instagram. She’d like to remind everyone that the best American Northeast baseball team is, of course, the Red Sox.
Welcome back, Lyn! It’s always fun to hear from you!
About that cremling that’s following Rlain around and doing a not-very-good job of spying on him, we do find out why later. That isn’t a voidspren hiding in its heart, it’s Tumi! Tumi is the “enlightened” Truthwatcher spren who came to the Tower on Sja-Anat’s instructions to bond Mraize but who ends up bonding Rlain instead. He has to hide in a cremling’s gemheart to avoid being caught.
Welcome back Lyn!
Honestly, i have nothing much to say in this chapter, execpt..Poor Rlain. I will admit that I missed the hint that he’s gay. Oops. And yeah Lyn, the “cavaran” of “Nantans” it’s a hint, to a group of people who must of have escaped the Shattered Plains….
I wonder what kind of research Kalak did to find out that Jezrien was fully dead, did he do it through magical means to look deeper or did he do it through more mundane methods I’m guessing it’s the former but I don’t think it’s explicitly stated.
One of the many things I am looking forward to in learning more about the Heralds and their Oathpact (presumably in Books 6-10) is the mechanics of how the Oathpact works and the side effects. This includes them having a Connection and being able to sense each other.
Question. In the Cosmere, what does the term Connection mean?
My uneducated guess. The common event in the prologue for Books 6-10 will be the formation of the Oathpact by the Heralds and hours/moments leading up to said formation.
I am not sure why, but Dabbid speaking was one of the biggest shocks for me in the Stormlight Archive (through the first 4 books).
Did Rlain ever feel excluded before he went undercover in the Alethi camps? Based on his appearance in Venli’s and Eshonai’s flashback chapters, I would guess not. However, I am curious as to other people’s thoughts.
During my first read, I was certain that nomadic group was the Listeners who did not transform into Stormform. Steven Hedge @2 best me to this point.
I thought it is confirmed at the end of RoW that the cremling Rlain saw in Chapter 79 was Tumli. She went into a cremling’s gemheart so she could go unobserved and find a suitable human/parshendi to initiate the Nahel bind with. At least that is my impression on my subsequent re-reads. To be clear, that was one reveal I did not guess beforehand. Lance @1 beat me to this point.
Thanks for reading my musings.
aka the musespren
Is Kalak out investigating Jezrien’s death when he’s “on patrol” last chapter?
Ironically enough, Alethi may indeed be more different from Iriali than listeners are from new singers. At least the latter come from the same planet and the same stock that only diverged 2 millenia ago, which may not be the case for the former. Rlain can’t know this, of course.
Also, Lezian not summarily executing people wearing the shash glyth is a huge contrivance. I know, I know, it would have been too much for Kaladin’s sensibilities, but so far the Fused are like the most considerate conquerors ever, which is at odds with their history and their eventual goal – which is either eradicating humans on Roschar or weakening them enough that they can be reliably subdued.
AndrewHB@@.-@:
There is no reason to think that Rlain would have felt excluded among his own people – though his volonteering for a solitary assignment such as spying may be an argument for it. IIRC, Eshonai also strongly disliked being in mate-form, for reasons that will likely remain unexplained and changed back after just a couple of weeks. So, him being unwilling to assume it again after a brief experiment wouldn’t have singled him out.
Only Venli seemed to have been comfortable enough in it according to WoR and OB and retained close relationship with her once-mate Demid, now deceased. However, from what we have learned about her history in RoW it is difficult to pinpoint a period when she could have spent significant time in mate-form – IIRC somewhere in the previous 2 books it was mentioned that she had spent a year in it? But just like with pre-existing great friendship between Amaram and Dalinar which was completely ignored and indeed made kind of impossible by OB flashbacks, after we learned more details in the RoW flashbacks there is no way to slot it into the timeline. From world-building PoV it also doesn’t make sense for mate-form not to be super-fertile, since the listeners appeared to be pretty much asexual the rest of the time, so it doesn’t really make sense that Venli didn’t end up with a kid. Oh, well.
Of course, Prelude to WoK, which is also from Kalak’s PoV, kinda contradicts the idea that the Heralds can normally sense each other or are aware of normal deaths of their fellows.
Abiscuit @3, Carl @5:
Birgit had a great point in discussion of the previous chapter that Kalak’s “patrol” may have been him visiting Ishar in conveniently closely located Tukar. Since Ishar has his blade back, he can open perpendicularities for Kalak to cross between Shadesmar and physical plane at will. It made sense to run to him for an explanation of what happened to Jezrien, since the rest of the Heralds appear to think that he is sane, and as the creator of the Oathpact he’d logically have the best insight into what could have happened. He also might have sources of information in the occupied territories.
@6 I mean the flashbacks don’t show everything; dalinars didn’t show how they got the rysadium, kal’s Don’t show his time In the army; and there are time skips between that things like Dalinar becoming friends with amaran can happen or venli being in mate form. But those weren’t really important to the story. Also to the pursuer not killing the humans, the book says that Raboniel ordered him not to. She is still tying to get Navani’s help in research and just killing the humans will mean navani stop giving that help. also: Odium doesn’t want the humans dead. He wants them to be part of his army.
Steven Hedge @7:
There was no need for any extended material re: Amaram’s pre-existing closeness to Dalinar – he just had to be presented as Dalinar’s good friend during his one and only appearance in the flashbacks, which would have required only a sentence or 2. It would have made even more sense if he had been serving directly under Dalinar for some time when the Rathalas crisis broke out, because how else would they have even met? Instead, Dalinar thought about him merely as one of Sadeas’s officers. And afterwards, Dalinar was a drunken wreck and not up to forming friendships, let alone with somebody as ostensibly proper and pious as Amaram. When Dalinar finally snapped out of it after his brother’s death, he immediately left for the Shattered Planes, whereas Amaram was left behind. While the flashbacks show only milestones of the character’s life, they do set limits on when things could have happened and in this case there is just no room left for it. It was a completely unforced gaffe.
Ditto Venli’s sojourn in mate-form. Her first meeting with Ulim really should have happened after that and maybe it should have been mentioned that she had a miscarriage or something, to explain the lack of resulting progeny. Eshonai and Venli easily could have been young women in the reckoning of their people, but not actually teenagers, when first contact with humans happened. In fact, it would have been more plausible, IMHO. But after RoW there is nowhere to slot this year in her time-line. It certainly makes no sense for her to have done so _after_ she got involved with Ulim. And in any case it should have merited a mention in her PoV, since in OB her once-mate Demid did seem important to her. But, crickets.
As to the ultimate goals of the Fused – according to OB they do think that it is up to them whether humans will be eradicated on Roshar or not. Odium may have (had) other ideas, of course, but I assume that there is an agreement between him and the Fused and in any case, he intends to use these humans to conquer Cosmere, so he could just take those useful for his aims off Roshar and let the rest be killed. Anyway, it is unlikely that he would be bothered by a handful being killed. It is a good point that Raboniel wanted Navani’s cooperation, but given Alethi sensibilities, would a few executions have made Navani balk, as long as the majority of her people were safe-ish? Finally, Lezian really didn’t seem like somebody who could be controlled enough, even by a superior, not to kill a few people. Certainly, everybody, including Raboniel IIRC, thought that he would have killed Kaladin’s family if he found them no matter what.
@Isilel:
Well, some animals of any given species are just sterile, after all. I can also see a Big Reveal in the back half that Venli did have a child, but was too selfish and self-centered to raise it and adopted it out, and now cringes whenever she thinks about it, and thus, Shallan-like, just never thinks about it.
One wonders if a Radiant can assume mateform. That would apply to both Venli and Rlain–would the spren (lifespren?) that is responsible for mateform be willing to approach the truespren that grants a Nahel Bond? Venli in particular would presumably have to give up her Envoyform to assume any other form now. One doubts she would be granted a new Voidspren by the new Odium afterward.
Carl @9:
Well, you’d think that flashback Venli would have at least mentioned her sterility in her PoV as something unusual, that singles her out as somebody destined for other, better things, etc. But the main problem is that this year just doesn’t fit into Venli’s life story as it is known to us after RoW.
I don’t see any reason why a Radiant wouldn’t be able to assume a mateform. Both Venli and Rlain have bonded a form-giving “dumb” spren and a Radiant one at the same time, haven’t they? Furthermore, I imagine that dumb voidspren can be captured and taken into gemhearts without direct intervention of Odium, though of course it would be very tricky and involve a lot of research. So, yes, given the advantages of the Envoy form, I imagine that Venli is stuck in it for the duration.
BTW, it suddenly occurred to me that at the end of RoW the listeners potentially got a source of information on how to access all the forgotten forms, both natural and Odium-related ones… if only it could be trusted.
@9 Carl
I don’t think there would be an issue with Singer Radiants bonding both a Radiant spren and a “natural” spren to change forms. Human Radiants already do something like this – Kaladin has his Radiant bond with Syl, for example, but he also has a bond with the windspren that create his plate. I think we get pretty good evidence that a Singer can be bonded to both at the end of this book as well. Rlain is bonded to whatever natural spren gives warform (painspren, I think?), but when he bonds with Tumi he doesn’t lose warform. That appears to indicate he kept the bond with the natural form-giving spren and added the Radiant bond to it.
Paige & Lyn – THANK YOU THANK YOU!! (Also, we’ve survived all the senior shenanigans except the getaway and the graduation. Almost there! Thesis presentation was mildly terrifying for the kid, but IMO she did a great job. Had some funny moments and some wonderful feedback on her topic, so that’s always good.)
Obligatory defense of Lirin…
Having reached the stage where my kids are officially adults but also still my kids, I’m pretty sympathetic to Lirin’s dilemma. It’s a fine balance between expecting them to hold to the things you taught them (because you still feel responsible for them) and letting them make their own decisions (because they’re adults). I see Lirin not-quite-balancing between a deep respect for his son’s obvious leadership capability and judgement (in most areas), vs. an even deeper fear that he’s simply thrown away the most important values his parents tried to teach him.
I could wax quite eloquent on the subject with tons of real-life examples, but… I won’t. I suspect anyone with adult children can relate if they think about it for a minute; anyone with younger kids (or no kids) will either have to use their imagination or wait until they get there themselves. Think about the values you hold most dear, and then think about how you would react if they overtly and defiantly did the exact opposite. Just… think about it.
Isilel @6 – re: Lezian being restrained from brutalizing humans with the shash glyph – I have to wonder if Raboniel told him to stuff it for a while, because she has more important things to do than deal with his rampages. At this point, she still needs Navani’s cooperation, and she needs the unconscious Radiants for her potential experiments. It’s going to be easier to do what she’s trying to do with a relatively calm status quo in the Tower. Once she’s got what she wants (a way to kill Radiant spren), and the Sibling is finally Unmade, she’d likely turn him loose. She may even have promised him that, to induce him to simmer down and wait for her timing. She doesn’t delight in brutality the way Lezian does, but she’s also not compassionate like Leshwi. She is, however, very pragmatic, and will use their proclivities as leverage to achieve her own ends as expeditiously as possible – and with the minimum irritation.
Oh, also, the reread will be going up an hour later for a while. For anyone who goes and looks for it right at 9 Eastern, don’t panic. It will be up at 10.
I’ve always been a little out of sync so I could relate to some of Rlain’s feelings here (although nothing I’ve been isolated for as had anything to do with race)…that said, Renarin is also one of my favorites, and since he is similar to being on the spectrum (I can’t remember at the moment if there’s confirmation that he truly is) and I can imagine also feels that sense of being slightly out of sync with the crowd, so in a way, it’s not that surprising that he and Rlain found each other.
@Lisamarie says about Renarin, “… I can imagine also feels that sense of being slightly out of sync with the crowd …”
I don’t think it’s “slightly”. By the time we meet him in Way of Kings, he’s utterly alone except for Adolin. His mother is dead, his father went from a useless drunk to a standoffish general who treats him as a soldier on a good day, his cousin Jasnah has been away for, apparently, years, and everyone else thinks of him as a burden Dalinar and Adolin must bear and nothing else.
Do we ever get any scenes showing Elhokar’s relationship with Renarin? They grew up together, but they don’t seem to have been close.
Bridge Four was apparently the only place he ever actually felt at home (I presume since Evi died.)
@16 – man, I just want to give him a hug!