Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread, as we launch firmly into the avalanche known as the Part Three Climax (and also as the climax of Oathbringer Book Two, if you think of each book as a trilogy). However you look at it, though, things are getting exciting up in here. Time to storm the palace, even as the Voidbringer army storms the city.
Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. As has become normal in these chapters, there will be Warbreaker spoilers, especially in Cosmere Connections, as well as mentions of things to come later in Oathbringer.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Adolin
WHERE: Kholinar—the tailor’s shop and into the palace. On the following map, Adolin and his group’s path is marked in purple, whereas Kaladin’s group when they split off is marked in blue.
WHEN: 1174.2.3.3 (immediately after Chapter 82)
Elhokar and his group (including Adolin, Kaladin, Shallan, and Azure) leave the tailor’s shop as the walls come under attack, leaving a spanreed with an ardent with orders to use it to alert Dalinar of the impending opening of the Oathgate. They make their way to the palace, where Kaladin, Shallan, Skar, and Drehy break off to loop around and take the Sunwalk. After assaulting the main doors of the palace and making it inside, Adolin discovers a small group of palace guards who didn’t fall under the sway of the Unmade. Kaladin and his men (and Shallan) rejoin them, and they regroup for a moment before Elhokar leads Kaladin off to try to find his wife and son. Meanwhile, the rest of the group continues along the Sunwalk towards the Oathgate platform… and the two Unmade waiting there for them.
Truth, Love, and Defiance
Title: Crimson to Break
“That’s going to be crimson to break,” Azure said. “We’ll fight for every inch.”
A: This is said as they’ve broken into the palace, and the soldiers there have fallen back to the corridor leading to the eastern gallery and the royal chambers—the place Elhokar most needs to go if he’s going to rescue his wife and son. If this doesn’t convince you that Azure is from Nalthis, nothing will.
Heralds
A: I have no idea why Battar, the Counsellor (Elsecallers, Wise/Careful) is here. There are no Elsecallers, and I’m not sure anyone can afford to be either wise or careful about this venture. Maybe she’s here because they’re doing the exact opposite?
L: I’d argue that Adolin is being very careful, in as much as he can be in the middle of a battle, anyway. He’s displaying a lot of wisdom and restraint as well, being cognizant of the tactics at play and taking care not to injure more people than are absolutely necessary.
A: Chana (Dustbringers, Brave/Obedient) makes sense all the way around. Guards everywhere—on both sides of the conflict, though I like to think she’d be happier about the Wall Guard and the ones tossed in the pokey because they wouldn’t go along with the weirdness. Brave? Everywhere. Obedient? Again, everywhere. This entire group is committed to the task. I only wish there were a Dustbringer handy to take on that thunderclast.
Icon
Adolin’s Shardbearer icon (Yay! An Adolin POV!)
Epigraph
As the duly appointed keepers of the perfect gems, we of the Elsecallers have taken the burden of protecting the ruby nicknamed Honor’s Drop. Let it be recorded.
—From drawer 20-10, zircon
A: I can only assume this is the same ruby we’ll see later, now known as the King’s Drop, which Rysn and Vstim view in the Thaylen Sphere Vault, and which Dalinar puts to a (now well-foreshadowed) different use. How many perfect gemstones are there, I wonder? Will we see others, eventually?
L: Also, interesting that the Elsecallers are the keepers of these gems, considering the fact that Bondsmiths are required for… something regarding them.
Thematic Thoughts
We’re entering an era of gods, Adolin thought.
…
The door opened, revealing a glowing figure.
“Stormfather…” Adolin whispered.
Kaladin shone with a powerful brilliance, his eyes beacons of blue, streaming with Stormlight. He gripped a glowing metallic spear that was easily twelve feet long. Behind him, Skar and Drehy also glowed brilliantly, looking little like the affable bridgemen who had protected Adolin on the Shattered Plains.
L: I find it fascinating to see the Radiants from Adolin’s perspective. He may be a prince and a superb duelist, but he’s still a “normal” person in regards to the superhuman powers that so many of our main characters are gaining. It’s valuable for us, as readers, to see how these characters are viewed by Everyone Else in Roshar. Otherwise we’d get blinded by the perspectives of the Superhumans.
A: Hear, hear! It’s useful, too, that he’s familiar with all the strategy and tactics needed, so it’s not merely “Ooo, they’re glowing!” but also what they do. But… this visual is stunning.
Stories & Songs
“The control building is completely overgrown with that black heart, Your Majesty,” Shallan said. “I don’t truly know how I drove away the Midnight Mother—and I certainly don’t know that I’ll be able to do the same here.”
“But you’re willing to try?” the king asked.
“Yes.” She took a deep breath.
A: That, as we used to say, takes kidneys.
Seriously, though, I have to admire her, even though if she’d said anything else I’d be down on her like a ton of bricks. She came here to do exactly this job, so if she refused to try, I’d be mad. At the same time, given what she went through in the last 24 hours, it’s kind of amazing that she can even contemplate it.
L: Yeah, gotta respect Shallan for being the Girl Who Stood Up.
A strange thumping started, and Adolin took it as another set of drums–until a head crested the top of the wall nearest them.
Storms! It had an enormous stone wedge of a face that reminded him of that of some greatshell beast, though its eyes were just red spots glowing from deep within.
L: This is the first thunderclast we’ve seen, isn’t it?
A: Other than the one in Dalinar’s vision, yes. What a shock!!
“They’re there,” she whispered. “Two of them, this time. Last night, Adolin … I had to run. The revel was getting inside my head.”
“I’ve heard it,” he said, resummoning his Blade. “We’ll face it together. Like last time.”
A: I almost put this in Relationships & Romances, because it’s about Shallan and Adolin. I almost put it in Bruised & Broken, because I can’t help thinking that part of Shallan’s vulnerability last night was her splintered persona. But this is seriously intimidating. They’re facing not one but two Unmade, the stuff of legends, about which they know so very little; they have no clue what they’re doing or how to go about defeating these things. But no pressure—it’s only the whole mission, the city, and your lives depending on it…
As Shallan had warned, it was overgrown with a dark mass that pulsed and throbbed, like a pitch-black heart. Dark veins spread from it like roots, pulsating in time with the heart.
“Storms…” Drehy whispered.
“All right,” Shallan said, walking forward. “Guard this area. I’ll see what I can do.”
A: As we approach the end of Oathbringer Part Three, this is an eerie echo of a line near the end of Words of Radiance, Part Three: “Honor is dead. But I’ll see what I can do.”
(Yes, I checked. It’s not used in The Way of Kings.)
Relationships & Romances
Something was wrong. … Then he finally realized what was bothering him.
He summoned his Shardblade.
“I don’t have my mother’s necklace,” he said, “or any of the other traditions I used to follow. I never really needed those. I’ve only ever needed you.”
He took a deep breath. “I guess … I guess you used to be alive. The others say they can hear your screaming if they touch you. That you’re dead, yet somehow still in pain. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about that, but … thank you. Thank you for assisting me all these years. And if it helps, I’m going to use you to do something good today. I’ll try to always use you that way.”
A: Aside from the obligatory “I adore Adolin” comment, this is really quite beautiful. It was always nice to see him think of his Shardblade as a “person” somehow, even before he knew anything about how. Now he knows far more, and he treats her with even more respect while still acknowledging his need of her for the things to come. I like to think that she’s willing to help him in this attempt to reclaim his home.
L: Same. After Honor knows how many years of being treated like an inanimate object, it must be nice for Maya to be recognized as a Real Person again, even before Adolin knew that she was.
I do wonder what happened to Adolin’s mother’s necklace, though. Did he just leave it at Urithiru where it would be safe?
Buy the Book
Fate of the Fallen
A: I sure hope so. This is the only time it’s mentioned in the entire book.
“Windrunner,” the king said. “The duty I give you and your men is to get Queen Aesudan and the heir to safety.”
L: “The heir”? Jeez, Elhokar. At least call the kid by his name. Sometimes it feels like for every two steps forward he makes in my regard, he takes one back. (This being said, has he even met his son? He’s been away at the Shattered Plains for so long that he probably barely knows him.)
A: Barely, at the most. I asked Brandon about it one time, and he confirmed that while Aesudan had visited the Shattered Plains and Elhokar had returned to Kholinar at least once during the war, the vast majority of their time has been spent apart. Elhokar probably has seen him, but he’s three years old at the most. Come to think of it, you know a little boy just about Gavinor’s age, Lyndsey…
L: Great, thanks for driving that particular knife home. I suspect that upcoming scene is going to hit me a lot harder since my son’s about the same age now…
A: That’s kind of the way I felt when I did the Words of Radiance reread. Shallan’s early flashbacks happened at about the same age as my daughter was at the time—which made it way too easy to “see” everything in a very personal way.
The other thing I noticed here is that Elhokar frequently addresses Kaladin as “Windrunner”—though he mostly addresses his Lightweaver by her name. Is it because he is more in awe of Kaladin than of Shallan? Because he hero-worships Kaladin and feels the need to address him by a title? We may never know.
L: I think that’s a sound theory. I’m going to put this here as it’s a friendship:
“If the city holds,” Adolin said, “you’ll be fine. But if it falls…” He took a deep breath. “Reports from other cities indicate that there won’t be wholesale slaughter. The Voidbringers are here to occupy, not exterminate. I’d still suggest you prepare to flee the city and make your way to the Shattered Plains. … Thank you so much for taking us in. We’re going to do what we can to stop this.”
L: I just really adore that Adolin cares so much about the “common people.” As a prince, he could just as easily imagine himself as being better, above them. But he doesn’t. He genuinely cares, which is what makes him a good leader. Much like Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar… most of our main characters. But Adolin, when he interacts with people, seems to put himself at the same level.
Adolin nodded, then gave Kaladin a quick salute–tapping his wrists together with hands in fists. The Bridge Four salute. “Good luck, bridgeboy.”
Kaladin smiled, his silvery spear vanishing as he gave the salute back, then hustled after the king.
L: MY HEART. I adore their friendship. (And I’m totally not shipping them, nope, not me…)
A: This was awesome. It also made me almost sure that one of them wouldn’t survive the battle. (Not that I’m complaining about being wrong, you understand!)
Bruised & Broken
“Your Majesty, the bulk of my soldiers are dying on the wall in a hopeless fight. I’m here because Stormblessed convinced me that the only way to help them is to take the palace.”
L: And those men are going to die in vain, because no army’s coming through the Oathgate to help them. :(
Squires & Sidekicks
Nearby, Elhokar approached with the timid ardent who had come with Azure. He had been hurriedly painting glyphwards for the soldiers, and jumped as Elhokar took him by the shoulder and shoved an object into his hand.
“What’s this?” the ardent asked, nervous.
“It’s a spanreed,” Elhokar said. “A half hour after my army marches, you are to contact Urithiru and warn them to get their forces ready to transfer here, via the Oathgate.”
“I can’t use a fabrial! The screamers—”
“Steady, man! The enemy may be too preoccupied by their attack to notice you. But even if they do, you must take the risk. Our armies must be ready. The fate of the city could depend upon this.”
A: Okay, so there’s a plot reason for the ardent. So maybe it’s not Nazh. On the other hand, I almost hope it is, because at least Nazh has a chance of using the spanreed and surviving. Random timid ardent, I’m not so confident.
Skar, fortunately, seemed to appear out of nowhere; the bridgeman caught the blow with his shield, then rammed a spear through the guardsman’s chest.
“How many is that I owe you now?” Adolin asked.
“I wouldn’t think to keep count, Brightlord,” Skar said with a grin, glowing light puffing from his lips.
L: Skar and Drehy are awesome and I’m so sad that they get left behind.
A: Yeah, but their reappearance later is totally worth it. SO brilliant, that scene.
L: You speak true, Wordslinger.
Places & Peoples
An assault on the palace, his home for many years.
A: We haven’t come to this bit yet, but we’ll learn in Dalinar’s next flashback that after Evi’s death, Dalinar and his sons had moved back into the palace; his own keep reminded him too much of her. That would make it about five years, and important years, where the palace truly was Adolin’s home. Just in case you were wondering.
Adolin glanced at the highlords, who seemed to be taking all of this—the arrival of Knights Radiant, the king’s decision to storm his own palace—in stride. He knew a little of how they felt. Voidbringers, Everstorm, corrupted spren in the city … eventually, you stopped being shocked at what happened to you.
A: I hadn’t thought about it before, but they’re all facing the same effect, just in a different sequence. Take Adolin: He saw Szeth Windrunning first, then the stormform Parsh, then the clash of storms, and then the revelation of Kaladin and Shallan as Radiants in quick succession; transport via Oathgate was followed in a matter of hours by Dalinar and Renarin revealed as Radiants. By the time they learned of all the parshmen being affected by the Everstorm, the presence of the Voidspren, and then the Fused, it was more a matter of gathering information than of any surprise. The highlords in Kholinar had a different experience, in that they felt the presence of the Unmade in the city, then the Everstorm hit with its effects on their parshmen slaves, and then the city was besieged by the Fused and the Voidbringer army. By the time Elhokar showed up with a couple of Radiants and said they needed to reclaim the palace from the Unmade there, it was merely one more in the line of unbelievable things they faced. I’m thinking they were all becoming highly aware of why “May you live in interesting times” is considered a curse!
Adolin joined the troops, calming his nerves by force. Just another battle. He’d been in dozens, if not hundreds of those. But storms, he was used to empty fields of stone, not streets.
A: Two reasons for quoting this. One, it still makes me happy to see a character taking active control of his reactions without using magic to do it. We live in a culture where emotions are too often accepted as the final authority, and it’s such a childish way of thinking. I love seeing a young man with the self-control to “calm his nerves by force.” Two, this is another reminder of Adolin’s backstory. Dalinar’s history is a mixture of fighting on fields and fighting to take villages, towns, and cities. Adolin, while he may have observed some of those battles from a distance, has done all his active soldiering out on the Shattered Plains. He’s never fought for a city before, either as attacker or defender.
L: True. Dalinar was very much a conqueror… Adolin, on the other hand, seems to view his part in battle as a defender of his troops. We see this time and again as he thinks about the best methods of protecting the men under his care rather than putting them in danger needlessly.
A: That’s… wow. I hadn’t really thought about that before. It’s true; he leads them into battle, but most of the time his primary focus is on making it as safe for them as he can, even at his own risk. I guess it’s practical to make sure your troops have a good chance to survive and fight another day, but that doesn’t seem to be his mindset. He wants them to survive and live another day.
As they waited, Adolin stepped up to the edge of the plateau and surveyed the city. His home.
It was falling.
A: I hadn’t realized how many little reminders this chapter contains that this is his home. It’s so easy to get caught up in the action, and forget how painful this must be for Adolin and Elhokar. The city where they grew up is being ripped apart by monsters from legends, while they themselves are destroying the palace gates and fighting down the corridors of their home against soldiers who had always protected them. Painful doesn’t begin to cover it.
Weighty Words
Kaladin rose into the air on a streak of light.
He hit the stone and rolled with it, twisting and tumbling in the air. His glow diminished severely.
The boulder lurched. It somehow changed momentum, tossed away from Kaladin like a pebble flicked off a table.
A: In the midst of all that’s happening, it’s so fun to see Kaladin finally get to use his powers. I love the way he throws it back over the wall and almost hits the thunderclast. (Okay, it would have been fun to actually hit the thing instead of almost, but that might have been a bit over the top. And the plot needed the thunderclast to keep going.)
L: It’s always cool to see Kal being a badass.
Muddled Motivations
Of course, he carried another weapon: his belt knife, long and thin. A weapon intended for stabbing armored men.
It had felt so satisfying to shove it through Sadeas’s eye. He still didn’t know whether to feel ashamed or proud.
…
When he walked down the steps to the main room a short time later, he was wearing his Kholin uniform. His skin missed the softer silk and better form of the tailored outfit, but he found he walked taller in this one. Despite the fact that a part of him, deep down, worried he didn’t deserve to bear his father’s glyphs any longer.
A: So far as we can tell from the text, killing Sadeas is the one thing that consciously makes him feel he doesn’t deserve to be Dalinar’s son. It may or may not have deeper roots, but anything in that regard is speculation. We do know that, according to the Codes, killing Sadeas was “wrong;” it’s not so clear that it was all that bad according to general practice in modern-day Alethkar. Assassination seems to be something of a way of life death. We also know that Dalinar had lived a life of bloodshed before he was even Adolin’s age, so if you want to look at it in a certain light, Dalinar doesn’t deserve to bear his own glyphs. Oh well. Adolin doesn’t know all of that yet.
L: Yeah, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see how (if) Adolin’s view of his father changes when he learns about certain events in Dalinar’s past.
On another note… I’m still not convinced that killing Sadeas (and the dishonor he feels that brought him) is enough of an Inciting Event to Break him and allow him to become a Radiant… but I’m happy about that. I’m of the opinion that Adolin is badass enough without powers, and I rather like the “normal person” vibe he has. It’s nice to have at least one POV character with whom we, as (presumably non-Radiant) readers, can relate more strongly to.
A: I have such mixed feelings about that! He’d be an excellent Edgedancer, and I really hope he can fully reawaken Maya, but at the same time, I love seeing him interacting with the Radiants as a non-Radiant. He brings such a unique perspective, as a highly trained military leader who is used to being in a position of authority equivalent to what the Radiants are supposed to become. He’s like… the best adviser Kaladin or Shallan can possibly have for what’s going to be expected of them.
Cosmere Connections
As he watched, she stabbed an enemy soldier who tried to push through. Remarkably, his eyes didn’t burn, though his skin did go a strange ashen grey as he died.
Blood of my fathers, Adolin thought. What’s wrong with her Shardblade?
L: Well, Adolin, it’s not a Shardblade—but you can hardly be blamed for not knowing that. I find it intriguing that it drained the color from the skin of the person she killed…
A: I keep thinking I should go do some research on this, but I’m not sure where to start. It is a sort of Shardblade, if it’s related to Nightblood, so it severs things at a more-than-physical level, but I’m not sure I get how it works. Somehow it drains the color from the person, like an Awakener drains color from a nearby object, but… what is being Awakened? I don’t honestly think anything is, but it’s weird.
L: Do you think it’s possible that it’s somehow draining the Breath from the people she kills with it? Maybe that’s what powers it? Totally crazy theory, I know, but…
A: Not entirely crazy. Nightblood drains life and Investiture from anyone it can. Azure’s blade doesn’t seem to be quite so aggressive about it, but there are too many similarities to shrug it off.
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
It was thick at the base, as wide as a man’s palm, and the front waved like the ripples of a moving eel. The back had small crystalline protrusions growing out of it. No sheath could hold a weapon like this, and no mortal sword could imitate it—not without growing unusably heavy. You knew a Shardblade when you saw one. That was the point.
L: Maya is such a beautiful Shardblade. It seems very fitting that she’s Adolin’s, given his propensities for appreciating fashion.
They’d cry in pain if stabbed, or grunt with exertion, but they otherwise seemed muted—as if the darkness smothered their emotions.
L: So one of the Unmade is driving some towards passion (as we see on the Oathgate platform). But then we’ve got this one, which seems to be doing the opposite? Is this the second Unmade? It’s so hard to differentiate the effects that the two of them are having, with what little we know about them…
A: I’m not sure if these are influenced by Ashertmarn, the Heart of the Revel, or Nergaoul—which we haven’t seen yet. Is it possible that Nergaoul has an area effect too? Because you’re right—these don’t seem to be affected by the Revel in any way that makes sense. Maybe their emotionlessness is supposed be our foreshadowing of yet another Unmade in the vicinity.
“You’ve been locked in here for weeks, men! I don’t expect that you’re fit for combat.”
“Weeks?” Sidin said. “Surely it’s only been a few days, Brlightlord.” He scratched at a beard that seemed to argue with that sentiment. “We’ve only eaten… what, three times since being thrown in here?”
L: This time dilation going on is really, really interesting.
A: Ugh. This was so bizarre. It kind of has to be an effect of the Unmade, right? But which one?
Adolin had the distinct sense that he could hear something. Over the din of the fighting, over the shouts of men echoing against the walls. A quiet voice that somehow cut to his soul.
Passion. Sweet passion.
L: It’s worth noting that up until now, Adolin hasn’t been fighting passionately. He’s been cool, logical, reserved. He hasn’t let his emotions carry him away. I wonder if this is just a part of his personality (much like the men they rescued who also weren’t affected), or if it has something to do with his growing Bond with Maya. Is she protecting his mind, somehow? Like Pattern did for Shallan?
A: I hadn’t thought about that when I made the earlier comment on Adolin “calming his nerves by force.” I assumed that it’s a combination of his training and personality, but… it could be something to do with Maya. If so, I doubt even he could tell the difference between his training and her effect; he’s had her since he was 17 or so.
Quality Quotations
- “Well,” Elhokar said. “I suppose I understand why you did what you had to in taking control of the Guard. I can’t very well have you hanged as a usurper. Good work, Highmarshal.”
“I … appreciate that?”
- … the highlords he and Adolin had revealed themselves to the night before. All they’d needed to do was walk away from the spheres powering their illusions, and their true faces had become manifest.
- We’re entering an era of gods.
For the next few weeks we’ll definitely be sticking to one chapter a week, as we’re in climax territory now. Hold onto your Shardblades, folks, as things are going to keep escalating from here! As always, feel free to join in on the comments. See you next week!
Alice is mightily relieved to be on summer break, even though that has its own sort of busyness. Cocktails on the patio before dinner could be addicting, you know?
Lyndsey is in love with her little rescue pup, Sirius Black… despite the fact that he learned how to break out of Azkaban (his gated enclosure). If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
It seems that in this Nalthis idiom, “crimson” means something like “difficult” or “unpleasant” to an extreme. Right?
Elhokar is rarely authentic, he is playing the part of King Elhokar. That’s why he is weirdly formal when in public. Calling his son “the heir” or Kaladin “Windrunner” is him being King Elhokar. As he sees it King Elhokar does’t have a son he has an heir. I think why he doesn’t call Shallan “Lightweaver” is because he doesn’t have authority over her. She isn’t in his military, she isn’t his subject he didn’t even ask her to come she all but demanded it.
Adolin showing off some cool Edgedancer like moves in this chapter.
Azure’s blade is Awakened right? I wonder what it’s command is.
@AeronaGreenjoy
I took it more as “blood to be spilled.”
@Havi
I still think that it’s related to draining Investiture. Stormlight and Breaths are much more similar than say Feruchemy. And Nightblood was based on the shardblades, so its makes sense to me that any similar blade would be similar.
@2 Havi
True Nalthians have more innate investiture than usual due to breath, but all things have investiture innate within them, including “normal” people. So Azure’s blade could be feeding off of that.
Breath is Investiture, and we have it on WOB that Vasher isn’t consuming any on Roshar… don’t we? What @2 pointed out about the Shard-severed limbs going grey, nice point, I completely overlooked that.
Pretty certain that not-Shardblade is devouring Investiture. Seems to be a less hungry model than Nightblood though, or Vivenna would be running around in monochrome by the end of the chapter :D
Also, I know I bring that up every time, but it was my WOB <excited>: While it’s specifically said that Adolin “snaps” right before stabbing Sadeas, that was not his Spiritweb. So if he’s going Radiant, that wasn’t when it happened. (I felt so clever for having noticed the wording… :D)
@3
I agree that Elhokar is being formal, but I don’t think that it is not being authentic. Part of his orders is making sure they understand that he, in some ways, is secondary. Save the Queen and Heir first, then worry about the King. It shows the growth of his character.
Ah *finally* an Adolin chapter. Hearing out Brandon’s initial planning was to not include any Adolin viewpoint until this one was a real punch into the gut for the Adolin fan I was. Especially given the ending his character got in WoR. No Adolin viewpoints? No aftermath? Nothing at all?
Even to this day I struggle to understand what might have motivated this decision.
So, this chapter, the one where Adolin acts like the perfect leader all readers believe he is. A few interesting additional pieces of information did slip into my hands. Last week, I mentioned how Brandon said he considered Adolin refusing the Alethi crown was foolhardy, well this week I will mention, within the same sentence, he also said leading the palace attack was the same. I’ll admit I was *very* puzzled as to why Brandon thought it was given Adolin acts in every manner, but a brash and foolhardy one. He is cold-headed, calm, unfaltering, as always in Oathbringer and yet Brandon implied this was somewhat foolhardy. Why? Because he should have let someone else do it? It is unclear.
Another thing Brandon did say is confirmed Adolin’s ability to stay calm comes directly from his training. He has been trained to be an officer since childhood, so yes, of course, he can keep his cool during battle. If he weren’t, then he’d be a poor soldier and a poor commander. Those are Brandon’s own words, not mine! Still, Brandon also said, despite his training, Adolin was the kind of guy who consistently tries to fight bigger and more powerful foes than himself.
So there we have it: Adolin was raised to be the cold-headed, calm and unfaltering military leader and he is able to have this role. He’s also foolhardy and loses his focus to jump onto enemies he cannot defeat or he makes split decisions such as murdering Sadeas. He’s confused. He knows not which Adolin is *him*. The General associated to Dalinar or the brash young man who thinks he needs to take down more powerful opponents?
And yes, murdering Sadeas is the trigger which makes Adolin wonder about who he is. He broke his father’s codes. It is undeniable Dalinar isn’t happy about it even if he takes no direct action against Adolin but, more importantly, finding out he broke the code and isn’t sorry about it precisely is what starts to have Adolin think. He murdered Sadeas and he refuses to see it as a “mistake”. He refuses to feel guilty for it. Worst, he’d do it again. And that’s where the clash happens. Dalinar may break his code, but he’ll view transgressions as mistakes not to be repeated whereas Adolin just broke it, is happy he did it and will break it, again.
That’s when Adolin failed at being Dalinar’s perfect son. He will not live a life defined by those codes.
On Adolin becoming a Radiant: I am split on this one. I agree about the need to have someone who isn’t a Radiant have viewpoints on the Radiant. I, however, do not find Adolin provides an interesting perspective given he hero-worpships them. Where is the critical eye? Where the character who will not be awed by Radiants and try to give mankind its letter of nobless back? That’s not Adolin… He views them as Gods who can do no wrong. Even when Kaladin screws up, Adolin refuses to see any wrong in him. He’s the guy who never blames anyone for anything. Dalinar trusted Sadeas despite advise not to and 6000 men died? He will not blame Dalinar. Kaladin freezes because he has loyalties with the enemy and Elhokar dies? He will not blame Kaladin.
Hence, Adolin’s perspective on Radiants is jinxed and not super interesting. I do not find the Radiants needs more hero-worshiping then they are already getting, but this may be my sole perspective.
So a Radiant? I don’t think this is where Brandon is taking Adolin… I think Maya will remain…. dead. He may partially revive her, but he’ll never be a “fully fledged Radiant”. He’ll have bonuses due to having this connection with Maya, but he will not reform a complete bond with her because this is near impossible.
Do I want Adolin to be a Radiant? I want Adolin to have a good story, no matter where it will take him. Brandon was asked if the WoB I put out last week, the one about Adolin not knowing who he wanted to be was the reason why he has been left out of the Radian band wagon. The answer was a very sorry RAFO.
On the side note: Is Adolin broken? Hell yes, but not because he murdered Sadeas, because he has allowed external people to define who he was and, as a result, he knows not himself. He is constantly playing at being Adolin instead of being himself which is a sharp contrast to have genuine our Radiants are. He may not have been tortured, physically abused. He may not have been sold into slavery, but the guy has literally no sense of who he is nor does he attach any worth to his own self. If this isn’t not broken, then I do not know what broken is.
On the other side note: Elhokar has been back to Kholinar only once, but a few weeks ago everyone argued Adolin had made multiple trips to Kholinar to entertain his relationship with his tailor…. I say, very highly unlikely.
@7 RogerPavelle
I agree. I think it is Elhokar trying to truly live up to what he thinks a king is. A leader that cares for his people.
I don’t have much to say, as it turns out, despite it being one of the most exciting parts of the book. But I did love Adolin’s moment with Maya. I wonder if he’ll be some kind of ‘reverse Radiant’ – not a Radiant, exactly, but still with some kind of relationship with his spren/blade.
@10: That’s exactly what I meant within my post.
Could it be that Azure’s blade feeds of from color and not the Breath/Investiture of whom she attacks with this blade? Additionally it severs the spiritweb as a normal shardblade does (I think it works that way and if not,please correct me.) The blade feeding be off from color shouldn’t be out of the question due to where she’s from.
Re: The whereabouts of Evi’s chain
There was an earlier chapter where Renarin was fiddling with a chain when he was at the scholars’ meeting. I can’t remember the chapter name or number, sorry. I assumed it was their mother’s chain, and was happy that it was not lost after all, because I don’t remember it being mentioned again after it was missing during the disadvantaged dual.
Re: Kaladin and the boulder
This reminds me of Wit’s tale of the three kinds of men trying to change the course of a boulder. Kaladin seems to find a fourth way– get crushed by the boulder and change its course; Kaladin did explain his “in for all” philosophy in TWoK, and I do love character consistency!
@10 and @11:
I want to see Adolin revive Maya, but with a twist. I think that right now, rather than Maya filling the cracks in his soul, he is starting to fill the cracks in hers; she is the one who is heavily damaged. I can see all the work Syl puts in with Kaladin, but here it is Adolin doing that for Maya. I am looking forward to seeing where this goes in the future.
@12 JavierGzz
Maybe? I am not sure it was ever confirmed what function precisely color accomplishes in the awakening process. We know it is required to do so, yet breaths are the investiture that fuel the awakening. So as far as I know could be, or could be something completely different lol
@13 nightheron
Regarding Adolin and Maya, that is why I think Dalinar needs to use his investiture powers to heal what was ripped out of Maya before a full bond could be formed with Adolin. I definitely think Adolin strengthened his connection to Maya, and that stronger connection is crucial in healing her, but I think that ole hole in her head has to be fixed coupled with the connection guiding it before anything can happen. Oathbringer was starting to awaken with Dalinar (his chasmfiend scene, and the scene where the stormfather translates for oathbringer). That is why I think something extra is needed. That is just a pet theory of mine though lol. Your theory is interesting! Who knows how that would affect a bond if that happened?
@13: I have heard this theory before and I have three issues with it, one practical and two personals.
My practical issue with this theory is, based on what we know, the Nahel Bond only works one way: the spren invades the crack within a human host soul to gain conscience within the physical realm. The opposite cannot apply since Adolin isn’t a spren, he cannot be filling any cracks, he can only try to repair what is broken. In other words, the Nahel Bond only works one way, as far as we can tell and changing this premises may end up reading like deus ex machina: a quick fix to avoid Adolin having real character development. Others may disagree. Many love this theory.
My first personal issue with this theory is it relies on the supposition Adolin is not broken. I disagree with this it because it is my perception his character is more broken than he appears to be and certainly not the “perfect whole never strained before” human being this theory seems to require to be consistent with itself. Of course, I know many disagree here. Many prefer Adolin to remain static, preferring to read growth within the Radiants.
My second personal issue with this theory is I do not find it would offer much character development for Adolin’s character nor particularly interesting one. This is purely personal, I agree. Others may feel entirely differently about it but, for me, Adolin and Maya has to be Adolin’s journey, Adolin’s story and Adolin’s progress. Having the revival happened in ways which suggest Adolin wouldn’t be having his own growth (the status quo I mentioned last week) would, IMHO, harm his character development by making it non-existent. And I’d rather read an Adolin going onto a change/growth path than a static Adolin who earns a quizmo without much work nor issue. These are my personal preferences, I do not expect all to share them. Many disagree about what makes interesting character development.
Hence, whatever Adolin does next, as a reader, I want this to be his own journey, his own narrative focusing on him. Granted, given Brandon’s track record with Adolin, this is A LOT to ask for, so I may settle with considerably less.
I just see Adolin as so much an Edge Dancer. He is always doing exactly as the Edge Dancers mentioned in the gems. They never even left a gem because they were busy taking care of the regular people.
Even if he doesn’t become a full Radient, I hope Maya becomes more alive and more able to help protect him.
I wonder if Brandon means Adolin is fool hardy and fights “above his weight class” because he does always consider others lives more important than his own.
@1 “It’s going to be bloody to break that.”
So, you know how Nahel bonds didn’t always exist? what if maya and adolin bond, but its more like how it used to be thousands of years ago. and the requirements are different?
You guys realize that for all we know about the magic system in Stomlight ALOT still remains a mystery.
@16: Brandon didn’t specify why Adolin was always trying to fight bigger and more powerful foes than himself. He just said he was often doing it despite his training. He seemed to imply Adolin’s training should have taught him to be less impulsive, less prone to jump into the danger, but somehow it didn’t.
I like your explanation. I think it must be a combination of Adolin being naturally a risk taker and him preferring if he gets injured as opposed to others. He clearly doesn’t value his life all that much to pull out the stunts he keeps pulling out. He knew the Thunderclast was going to kill him when he last stood up and yet he did it. It may be some of the Edgedancers were the same.
FYI, I LOVE Adolin as an Edgedancer, but Brandon really said nothing was canonized with Adolin yet. And he won’t canonize it until he writes it. This implies Adolin may *not* end up as an Edgedancer. Maybe with his character Brandon will want to show what happens to good people who fail to find the right journey. Maybe he’ll want to write how hard it may be to embark on a journey, given how easy it seems it was for our Radiants to find the right path (not that it is easy to walk on it, but they sure came to their powers fast).
@19 BenW
Good point. Do you know how many questions I have about soulcasting and elsecallers? lol. So much I want to know/learn!
Interesting little side tidbit. Everyone was so utterly and completely sure that Adolin would become a dustbringer and that was the only order he could end up in. It wasn’t till people started to examine the blade and Brandon confirmed that it was an edgedancer blade, that that then became the absolute and only order Adolin could possibly end up in. So there is a whole lot we do not know. Guess RAFO! lol
@21 Not to mention Voidbinding. And whatever the heck Glys is.
@22 BenW
Yesssss, I am dying to learn more about Renarin. Guess we have a long wait as both Jasnah and Renarin won’t be the mains till the back half. Worth the wait!
The Elsecaller Herald might be there because they want to get to the Oathgate.
I don’t know where exactly Adolin and Maya are going to end up, but I really want to see her come back to “life” and optimally I’d like to see it happen in a way that unlocks the road for all of the dead blades. I don’t like thinking about them all suffering because of Feverstone Keep.
I agree with @24 birgit that the elsecaller herald seems related to their trying to reach an elsecalling gate.
I feel like the “crimson” in Azure’s expression must be related specifically to something being bloody.
@25 soursavior
I agree regarding leading to the other dead blades being revived. I think it could go a long way to restoring good will with Malata, Spark, and the other spren.
re: Azure’s blade (@3, 4, 12 and others)
I’ve been pondering why Azure/Vivenna decided to make a blade, knowing what the result was in Nighblood. Since she implies (if not states outright) that she is on Roshar to find and deal with Nightblood, I’m wondering if she crafted her blade to either “kill” or in some way neutralize (him? it?).
I’ll have more to say on this in the near future…just need to figure out how to put it into words.
I’ve probably said it before and I’ll say it again: anything involving Adolin is catnip to Gepeto.
Re: Thematic Thoughts – Adolin being a super skilled fighter yet not superhuman reminds me a lot of Hawkeye and Black Widow fighting alongside Cap, Thor, and Captain Marvel. And similar to Hawkeye, having Adolin there grounds the action in a kind of reality. And just like Hawkeye is my favourite MCU Avenger, Adolin is my favourite Stormlight character, because their prowess in battle is PURE skill and training. I just appreciate that more than being superpowered, even though Kaladin is still badass.
Lyndsey. The better question is who appointed the Elsecallers the keepers of the perfect gems. Did all the Orders decide that the Elsecallers should be the keepers? If so, why them? And was there any consideration for any other Order? Did any other Order(s) resent that Elsecallers got this duty. Perhaps, the Elsecallers themselves decided they would be the keepers. Also, since Honor’s Drop wound up in the Thaylen Sphere Vault, I wonder if any of the important Elsecallers at that time (or just before the Recreance) were Thaylens. If not, I would like to know how the Honor’s Drop/King’s Drop made its way to Thaylen.
I am not sure if Adolin first started calling Kaladin “bridgeboy” as a derogatory term. But by now, he uses it as a sign of respect for Kaladin. I hope that Kaladin realizes that by at this time in the story, Adolin does not mean anything derogatory by using the term bridgeboy.
I think that a majority of the Wallguard who stayed to defend the wall would have died even if Shallan and the others could have opened the Oathgate and the soldiers at Urithiru came through. I think at this point, most of the soldiers were not ready to fight a large force of the Fused and the Regals. Just a hunch. Obviously, no text to support this belief.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
My hope for Adolin and Maya is that they do something completely new. A new type of bond that’s never been seen before. Maybe they’ll fill the cracks in each others souls in a closer way and Adolin will be brought closer to Shadesmar, like Maya is brought closer to the physical. Just speculating here but it could involve hearing the rhythms, or letting him see sprens true forms. I like the idea of someone like the wolf brothers from WoT who could utilize the world of dreams without channeling.
Ulim @30. I like the idea of a WoT wolfbrother type of character. One who can access the “other” dimension even though he/she cannot use the world’s “magic” (in the Cosmere, Investiture or a jump point like the Oathgates turned into. Also, not sure what the verb form of investiture is). IIRC, we do see at least one non-Investiture character who somehow got into Shadesmar: the lighthouse keeper that Kaladin meets in Shadesmar.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Isn’t there hinted (in the Ars Arcanum) to be a “third” magic system we haven’t seen yet involving Cultivation? Maybe that could somehow prove to be the key to Maya revival?
Arsteel (is that his name?) probably made Vivenna’s sword. At the end of Warbreaker Vasher hears about him trying to make another Nightblood and goes to deal with him, and Vivenna goes with him.
@32. BenW I do not know what the arcanum says (I don’t have my books with me, so I cannot check), but we know which magic systems exist on Roshar (even though we still don’t know how all of them work exactly):
Maybe the reason Elhokar doesnt call Shallan “lightweaver” is because she pretends to be an Elsecaller and he got used to not giving away her lie.
@33 yeah either he made it, or the knowledge is revealed in the progress of the book and Vivenna makes it herself. Or maybe, to defeat Arsteels better equipped soldiers, Vasher needs to teach Vivenna how they created Nightblood.
Brandon’s comments on Adolin have always been confusing to me. It’s like he writes him one way but WOBs seem to contradict what I gather from context. Probably a personal problem. Does anyone else get that vibe? I suspect that one of two things is occurring. Either Brandon is trying to make a role for a character that was originally a throwaway but gained massive appeal from outta nowhere, or there’s something about our golden boy that has yet to be revealed that totally changes how everyone sees him. Brandon knows the future of Adolin and thus may be thinking of him in a later stage of development than we’ve seen so far. Or I could just be interpreting things wrong. Regardless, can’t wait to see it.
One of the things that I found lacking in Oathbringer was that we saw Kholinar almost entirely from the PoVs who had no emotional connection to it, so it was nice to finally have a little bit of that.There should have been more, though. And Ehlokar should have had a PoV chapter somewhere in the book, however short, to enhance the impact of his impending death. My preference would have been to see Jasnah’s unexpected return through his eyes…
Also, Adolin was the only one to remember their hosts and give them thanks and advice at this tense juncture. I wonder whether they followed it or not. IIRC, they weren’t with the squires and little Gavinor in the end, where they? For that matter – do the Fused try to stop humans from leaving the conquered areas or is it their plan to overwhelm Alethkar-in-exile and Urithiru with hungry refugees?
Speaking of squires – isn’t it odd that Vathah wasn’t part of the assault on the palace? I mean, he is an experienced fighter and now can also draw stormlight – you’d think that he would have been at Shallan’s side…
Oh, and why oh why aren’t Ehlokar and Adolin wearing any normal armor?! Surely the Wall Guard would have had spare kits for them? Or the nobles? It is not WoT, after all – we have seen in Dalinar’s first flashback that steel armor is realistically quite helpful in that setting, if one is not facing a shardblade. And things like breastplate, helm, vambraces don’t need to be carefully fitted to an individual, but would have still offered quite a bit of extra protection.
Alice:
Why would you assume that Honor’s Drop is the same as as the King’s Drop? We know that there were – and are, a number of Perfect Gems. Spren money-changers still have some, after all. And Bo-Ado-Mishram must have been captured in one, too.
Gepeto @8:
I would very much welcome a critical look at the Radiants. I used to think that Amaram, as a fanatical Vorin opposed both to Odium and to Dalinar, would provide it, but now it seems like Kadash is being prepared for this role. Also, I imagine that defection of the Skybreakers is going to severely undermine unconditional awe and trust that the Radiants might have otherwise enjoyed.
Soursavoir @25:
Absolutely! Not only would it mollify Nahel spren and galvanize them to unite with the anti-Odium coalition, but the deadblades coming back to life would also finally provide us with the complete picture of what was involved in the Recreance.
RogerPavelle @27:
But that’s the thing – Vasher was tragically wrong about the Awakened swords. Creation process invented by Shashara wouldn’t have normally led to more Nightbloods – Nightblood was a fluke, a result of the unique, unrepeatable circumstances. This is already strongly hinted at in the Warbreaker annotations, which state that Shashara had already shared her secret with Yesteel before she was murdered, and that he was in position to produce Awakened swords en masse if the war with Idris kicked off. But these swords wouldn’t have been anything close to Nightblood. And there is a number of recent WoBs that state that Nightblood contains a piece of Ruin and that it would be pretty much impossible to replicate it’s creation.
So, yea, it seems that Vivenna’s/Azure’s sword is pretty much what Shashara intended to make in the first place – an approximation of a dead shardblade constructed via Awakening. And it sucks in investiture of living beings when it wounds or kills them, but only in a very limited fashion, comparable to the effects of dead shardblades, but with noticeable chromatic effect.
@37: I had the same impressions which is why I did challenge Brandon on it (I saw a window of opportunity, so I took it). I challenged him on why he said the character was foolhardy when in Oathbringer he comes across as the complete opposite, most notably within this chapter. This is where those answers about Adolin being foolhardy when he refuses the crown and leads the palace attack come from.
At another instance, he more or less said Adolin was his “discovery writing” character (my words not his own, he don’t recall him using those exact terms). Nothing is canonized when it comes to Adolin’s character (that’s why he is usually so lip tight on Adolin, he doesn’t want to canonize anything before he writes it) and while Brandon has “plans” and “ideas” for him, he says the character needs to take decisions and it isn’t a given he’ll take certain ones. The WoB I posted last week was, by far, the more opened he’s been on Adolin in a long time, I suspected it was because he must have started writing his arc for RoW.
My interpretation of his words, and I need to emphasis on what follows to be my personal interpretation out of words of Brandon, so it is worth what it is worth, is Brandon keeps Adolin as a means to freshen the narrative. His other characters, Kaladin, Dalinar, Shallan, Jasnah, Szeth, Venli and so on, they all have an already defined trajectory to follow. Those characters need to move through the narrative in a given manner for the climax to happen. They need to have a given growth: all of it is already planned and if Brandon may shuffle things a bit (such as moving large chunks of Kaladin’s third book arc into WoR), those characters will still follow their planned evolution. They all have to deal with “their pass”. They all have to say their “oaths” and so on.
Adolin’s character doesn’t have those obligations. Because he was added to the last minute he isn’t *important* for the denouement to happen because the denouement was planned without him acting as a main character. Hence, his character is allowed to grow with the narrative, is allowed not to follow a predefined path. He doesn’t need to become a Radiant, but he also doesn’t need to stay the “badass normal”: he can just go where the character will decide to go as Brandon writes the book. People often said Adolin not being planned made him expendable, but based on many of Brandon’s words, I think it makes him more valuable because he adds more to the narrative then he takes away from it.
So yes, part of the reason Adolin got a bigger role probably is probably how positively the fandom responded to him, but another part definitely is the appeal he has in an already heavily planned narrative. He is the element of uncertainty, of unpredictability within the narrative. Or this is how I understood it.
The upside is, yes, we are going to be reading more of Adolin, no he probably isn’t dying within page 1 of RoW, and, yes, his character arc may end up being less formulaic than Kaladin’s or Dalinar’s which is a good thing. The downside is, by not having a definite plan, Brandon tends to oversee a few elements which is exactly what we, the readers in this thread, have picked on. Stuff like how Adolin truly feels next to soldering: it isn’t clear. You and I get a different vibe, the narrative sometimes seems to contradict itself: I think this happens because Brandon didn’t start with a fully fleshed out plan for Adolin, so some lose ends appear.
@38: I commented abundantly how I felt Brandon’s choice to focus most of the Kholinar arc on Shallan and Kaladin wasn’t optimum. Because they have no connection to it and their arcs ended up being about their inner problems, not the dying city which was, IMHO, more interesting to read about than, yet another, Veil chapter.
I, however, believe an Elhokar viewpoint would have ruined the revelation of his upcoming Radiancy, so I do think not writing those was the good choice. YMMV.
On Armor: Probably neither Adolin nor Elhokar have training with real armor. They always had their Plate. It would have hinder their movements and Adolin is either Plated or running around without protection. Maybe that’s what Brandon meant when he said it was fooldhardy for him to take the lead of the attack. He was vulnerable.
I’d love Kadash as the critical eye. As I said above, Adolin isn’t written in to fill in this role. Kadash might have been though.
@27 RogerPavelle
Maybe they had refined the process, or removed whatever resulted in Nightblood so she helped make it so she would have a weapon to fight off whoever ended up wielding Nightblood? At this stage we don’t know what would happen if Nightblood hit a shardblade (if I recall correctly. Could be wrong on that though)
@28 Gaze
Interesting take on Adolin=Hawkeye/BlackWidow!
@29 AndrewHB
The impression I got from the quote was that the Elsecaller’s claimed to look after that gem in particular. I think (total conjecture here), that each order claimed a perfect gem to watch over.
@30 Ulim
Interesting theory! It would definitely be a Brandon thing to do, to introduce a magic system, give us some basic rules, and then turn our expectations on our heads (Everstorm, Parshendi radiant bonding, etc).
@31 AndrewHB
I thought the lighthouse keeper was from Sel? Or am I confusing it with another scene?
@32 BenW
Brandon has said it depends on how you term “magic system”. Each surge could be viewed as a magic system for instance. So there could be three, there could be 30. Brandon also considers fabrials a magic system. So could be a whole host of possibilities. For all we know Navani using fabrial science finds a way to help Adolin raise Maya’s awareness, and Adolin becomes an “iron man” sort of character wielding Navani’s fabrial tech into battle. She already had him test out the pain fabrial for her.
@34 bird
There is also this WoB that continues that train of thought
rags
You have told us there are more than 30 magical systems on Roshar. I am assuming there are 10 Surgebindings and 10 Voidbindings. Do the next 10 belong to another such classification? If yes, can you give us the name for it.
Brandon Sanderson
Fabrials are part of it.
@36 Havi
Good point, didn’t consider that. Shallan is very much still “incognito”
@39 I don’t agree that an Elohkar viewpoint would have ruined the revelation, as there has been hints not in this book but in the previous ones about his Radiance. we know the Cryptics were observing him, as Elohkar talked about “assassins” in the mirror, with their rough angular heads. We, as readers, could predict it was eventually going to come, and he did deserpatly need at least one chapter to really show his reactions to the cit.
@41: Elhokar has a Radiant, prior to OB, was a theory, this is true, but it wasn’t a false-proof one nor had it been confirmed prior to us entering with OB. Yes, many readers liked the idea of Elhokar and had many arguments for it, but other readers actually had counter-arguments. Here are a few:
Elhokar is selfish and more interested in being seen as a hero than in doing something concrete for others.
Elhokar doesn’t really care about the people he rules and while Radiants do not have to be selfless, he did bring it one notch farther than other characters, especially at a time where we hadn’t read Dalinar’s backstory.
Elhokar doesn’t really embodies the attributes of “honesty and creativity” based on how we understood them.
Elhokar perhaps sees Cryptics, but seeing Cryptics did not necessarily imply a Nahel Bond, they might have merely wanted to spy on him. He is King after all.
Hence, no, not all readers entered OB being convinced Elhokar was a proto-Radiant. I personally was firmly convinced he wasn’t going to be one, so the revelation of his Radiancy followed by his death came as a shocking gut wrenching moment. At least it did for me. Having read Elhokar talking to a spren beforehand, I do not think the scene would have been as effective.
Hence, I do believe giving his viewpoints prior to the event would have ruined “a moment”, especially for the more casual readers who never read on single SA theory. There is also the problem of the viewpoint multiplication within OB, hence I do not feel strongly about giving viewpoints to a character have had none so far, except for Amaram, because the lack of viewpoint makes his story incomplete.
Elhokar’s story is however complete even without his perspective. His purpose always was to die. I don’t think viewpoints would have enhanced it, but YMMV.
#32, BenW:
Three magic systems on Roshar makes sense by analogy to another Shardworld. Spoilers below.
On Scadrial, Ruin has one magic system (hemalurgy). Preservation has another, allomancy. Finally, the interaction of the two Shards creates a third, feruchemy.
Therefore, in my head, we have Honor’s magic system (Surgebinding), Cultivation’s (the one that includes fabrials?), and a third that comes from their interaction (which we haven’t seen). I’m excluding Voidbinding, which is of Odium, because Odium resides on a different Shardworld.
No, that doesn’t match what Brandon says. It’s just logical based on what happened on Scadrial. (Note that as far as we know, this didn’t happen on Sel either back when two living Shards were there.)
@42 Gepeto, I don’t know, I found the fact that he was actually seeing them, as rock hard proof that they were at least keeping an eye on him to recruit, like they were with Shallan. remember, no one else can see them unless they either will it, they’re horn eaters or parshendi , or there’s a Connection with them already, and why else would they purposely reveal their presence to someone they were just spying on?
and seeing how there are arguments about elohkar NOT having these traits, seeing them in a pov would benefit more. look what they did with the bridgemen. you can argue we really didn’t need say, sigzil’s or skar’s pov’s. Neither of those two characters serve an important narrative in this book, besides, the reveal of a spren following Taft around didn’t run his big moment, now did it?
I was thinking about the whole concept of Voidbinding and it struck me that in the classical four element scale there is often consider to be an unknowable “fifth” element, beyond what we can see. And while the Greeks called this fifth element “Aether” the Japanese called it “VOID.” Read into this as little or as much as you like.
Azure’s sword speculation, part 2 (continuing from @27):
I’m curious what attributes Vivenna/Azure would have tried to put into her sword, especially considering her desire to recover (or destroy?) Nightblood.
For instance, since her sword can apparently absorb investiture (as Isilel noted), is there a limit to the amount (enough to protect from or even neutralize Nightblood)?
For that matter, is her sword sentient? Since we haven’t had a viewpoint from her, there’s no way to know.
I also wonder (as have others) what awakening command was used. Could a command such as “Obey me in all actions” allow her to control the sword in ways Nighblood can’t?
@38. Isilel
I think you mean Endownment (the shard on Nalthis), not Ruin. Also, it has been quite a long time since I read Warbreaker and the annotations, so I can’t really talk knowledgeably about what is said/implied in them.
@RogerPavelle:
By Brandon’s terminology, it’s certainly sentient (aware of its environment and able to react to it). That’s as opposed to sapient (intelligent and self-aware). Just pointing out how his vocabulary differs from what I perceive as the standard.
Don’t take the gendered pronoun too seriously. Remember that, for instance, Lift perceives Nightblood as a “she”. They’re really sexless objects, not made of living matter (to have a sex) or really participating in a society with gender roles (to have a gender).
@@@@@ RogerPavelle:
“I think you mean Endownment (the shard on Nalthis), not Ruin. Also, it has been quite a long time since I read Warbreaker and the annotations, so I can’t really talk knowledgeably about what is said/implied in them.i
As per the below WoB, Nightblood actually DOES contain some of Ruin’s investiture, which makes him so potent and dangerous. Otherwise, like all Awakened objects, the rest is all Endowment. This is part of why so many of us speculate that another Nighblood is practically impossible because there were specific circumstances that allowed Ruin’s investiture to flow into Nightblood.
Walin
Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin’s Investiture? Like, not atium, but…
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, technically; and I’m not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin’s Investiture is everywhere–but I’m not talking that way. I’m talking the way you actually mean it.
Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)
@44: Sometimes keeping the mystery is the best narrative ploy. It may be you were personally utterly convinced Elhokar was a proto-Radiant, but I can assure you it wasn’t the case for all readers. Besides, it could have gone the other way and I find Brandon’s choice to confirm a popular theory only to take it away mere moments later was a stroke of genius.
Just because a theory seems highly plausible and has a lot of supporters doesn’t mean it will come true (for instance, Adolin as a Dustbringer or Odium’s Champion, super popular theories even if some argued against them): Elhokar as a Radiant wasn’t a done deal until it happened. On the reverse, just because a theory is unpopular doesn’t mean it won’t turn out being right (for instance the theory wanting Renarin not to *really* be a Radiant, literally no one supported it and yet, it came true).
The bottom line is what I feel worked with how Brandon handled Elhokar is the fact he didn’t give us his inner perspective. He didn’t write the “development of the Nahel Bond” in the same manner he did for other characters. Instead, he used Kaladin’s character to stand in place of the reader and have us either scream “NO” or “YES” depending on where each stood within theory-making land. We see Elhokar live and die through Kaladin’s eyes: we see him root for Elhokar to tie in the bond just as we see him defeated he had to die so close to completion. Hence, we experience Elhokar’s life, ultimate choice, and death through the eyes of Kaladin, through the third person’s perspective.
What would an inner perspective on Elhokar, presenting him officially as a proto-Radiant, chapters before his death, add to the narrative? Did we really need more insight on his character besides the small glimpses of his real personality which turned out being more creative then we thought? How would his death be more impactful had we known in advance he had a pet spren with him the whole time?
I personally find it was the rapid succession of the two events: the reveal and the death which deliver an efficient gut punch.
As for the Cryptics, there were other explanations as to why they were spying on him. “Radiant” wasn’t the sole one. I personally had many reserves on Elhokar becoming a Radiant. I felt he was too close to the main narrative to stay in the background if he were to develop a Nahel Bond and yet, I also felt his voice wasn’t distinctive enough from the other existing characters to truly add much to the narrative. In other words, Elhokar was too much a mix of Adolin, Renarin, and Shallan to really offer an interesting and refreshing narrative.
On Teft: With Teft, Brandon wanted to show us how two people from the same order may evolve, how the same oaths may be said within completely different circumstances, with different wording and yet have the same meaning. I suspect we will not read additional burgeoning Windrunner say their oaths, the purpose has been filled.
On Bridge 4: With Bridge 4, Brandon wanted to show us how squires came to be by showing the various perspective of different squires. With Skar, he showed the one left behind. With Sigzil, he showed us perspective on homosexuality. With Rock, he started a narrative to be completed in a side novella.
Each viewpoint had a purpose. I just do not think Elhokar’s would have had one, but YMMV.
Has anyone else ever heard the term “Honor Squeeze” before? It was coined by the sociologist Arlie Hoschild. She talks about what happens when people feel that their paths to seeing and feeling honored by society are cut off.
P.S. She also talks about how people’s economic self-interests and their emotional self interests don’t always match up
The Spren are actually most (or all? not sure about cultivationspren and honorspren) a mix of Cultivations and Honors investiture, so its hard to say its Honors magic system. Cultivations magic system is the old magic tho, granted by the Nightswatcher (or herself, if she decides to intervene). Since the old magic seems to be related to cognitive change i sometimes wonder if the heralds madness is a curse bestowed on them by Cultivation for betraying Honor.
@havi, the madness of the Heralds is a direct parallel to the madness of the Fused. They both have the same history of dying many times and returning (or should I write, “Returning”?).
@52
I doubt that, not all Fused are mad, it would be a huge coincidence that all heralds without exception got mad. Also the mad Fused act more like giggling maniacs or animals, the heralds madness is really specific like ash destroying signs of herself or Nale getting void of empathy.
Finally catching up on these – fun discussions and a great set of chapters we’re in now.
I enjoyed the Adolin discussion here, and don’t have much to add except that I was listening to WoR and I seem to remember Adolin again mentioning he didn’t have his mom’s necklace/medallion (whatever it is) with him on the plains for the big fight and that it was left in the camp. It makes me wonder if between the duel and this it has gotten truly lost. And, if since it was mentioned several times – the first duels as a luck charm and two times as missing – if it is something important that will come up later in someone else’s possession. Or… has it already been mentioned in Oathbringer that I don’t remember and it is safe and sound?
I guess one more thing to add. It was mentioned that Adolin may fill in the cracks in Maya and it was questioned if he can since he is also broken. I feel that even being broken he could still fill in Maya’s cracks as I don’t view Spren as necessarily been “whole” all the time either.They at least definitely lack… something… which is what they are getting from the bond in the first place. I don’t know. Fun possibilities either way.
@54: Brandon confirmed by WoB, a long-time ago, the necklace was only important to Adolin. Of course, the fact it isn’t magical combined with the fact literally no one else would find it important doesn’t mean it won’t pop back into the narrative within an “Adolin relevant moment”.
On Adolin filling Maya’s cracks: I understand why this is a theory many readers enjoy because it allows Adolin to become a Radiant without requiring him to be broken. Since most view him as “intact, strong and normal”, it tends to better fit how they have interpreted the character, hence many favor this theory. I personally do not support it for two reasons:
1) The Nahel Bond works in a specific way, sprens are able to latch onto humans spirit web, but the reverse doesn’t currently make a lot of sense. How would Adolin fill in Maya’s crack? He is not a spren, he cannot be “entering her spirit web”, so maybe it is I who can’t understand how the magic works, but I will admit I am unable to figure why the can even happen in the first place. I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying I just don’t understand why it would even be possible.
2) I do not believe Adolin is not broken which is the number one requirement for this theory to work. Adolin as to be perfectly normal, strong, and unbroken. I do not believe he is.
This being said, the fact Maya is dead is exactly why I believe Adolin will never *really* be a Radiant as Maya will never be *fully* whole. I think she may gain enough sentience to grant him some powers, but definitely not the super-powered combo other Radiants have gotten and even this will be conditional on Adolin not only figuring out the oaths, on his own, without spren guidance, but also figuring he has to say oaths. Brandon was adamant about it, no one in-world believes it is possible to revive dead-Blades. Literally no one. If Maya is revived, it won’t be “on purpose”, it won’t be a “team effort of people trying to resurrect sprens”: it is impossible.
Just the fact it is impossible is enough to stop Adolin from making any progress at all. Why would he start saying oaths to a dead-Blade? He knows she’s never going to be alive, he knows he is never going to bond her. Even if there is a tiny infinitesimal chance it may work, Adolin is not aware of it. All he knows is it is impossible which is also all everyone knows.
No one attempt the impossible without thinking they have a chance at success and reviving the dead-Blades, a far as our characters are concerned, is the same as rising the dead from their graves. It just doesn’t happen. Trying is pointless. No one will heal nor fix death, well, not once they are *really* dead.
It will just… happen or it won’t, but if it does, it won’t be “on purpose”, such is my theory.
@41 Steven Hedge
Interesting point. Elhokar didn’t know what the cryptics were. Shallan wasn’t anywhere near the Shattered Plains when Elhokar was especially “paranoid”. The points of view would more show when Elhokar saw them. Maybe it would have been when he was working with his maps. Or maybe it would have been when he agonized over his rulership. Personally I like the way it played out, but like with other characters people would like to see viewpoints for, sometimes it just isn’t needed, or just not enough room.
@45 BenW
Interesting little tidbit, the 10 essences is because Brandon didn’t want to go the route of the classical 4 elements.
@46 RogerPavelle
That is a good point. What would her shardblade’s command be?
I feel like there was a scene where Azure spoke with the honorspren and what was said implies to me there was a sapience there. I would need to re-read that scene.
@53 havi
It could be said that all the fused are mad, but it manifests differently depending on the Fused, or the severity.
@54 whitespine
Personally I feel Dalinar as a bondsmith, or maybe one of the other two bondsmiths will play a big part in helping Adolin heal Maya. Investiture does not come out of no where and Maya is missing a big chunk of it out of her head. I think a Bondsmith is crucial in finishing the process which is why it was impossible for so long. No new bondsmiths, so no way to heal what was torn out. I lean towards Adolin and Dalinar doing it together due to their relationship, but I could see the other two bondsmiths to come helping as well. It is too important of an event for it to be a one time occurrence. There are 100s if not 1000s of dead spren that could be a huge boon to the “good guys” by reviving them.
@54 Whitespine
Renarin had a chain in OB during the scholar’s meeting. It wasn’t said on page that it was his mother’s (it was a Shallan POV, so she just observed that he was fiddling with a chain), but I think it likely to have been Evi’s because it seems odd that there would be two chains important to her sons and that Renarin would switch out his bx for a random chain. I had been fearing that Adolin’s jerk friend had stolen it before the 4 on 1 duel to throw Adolin off, but maybe not.
@55 Gepeto
As one of the posters here that has said she likes the theory, that’s not why I like the theory. It is more about Maya most definitely being broken, and less about the state of Adolin. I don’t even know why Adolin would need to be unbroken for this theory to work, which you state as a requirement. It seems to me that it should work better if Adolin was broken, like glueing two rough surfaces together makes a stronger bond than if one or both are smooth.
I confess that I am not up on everything Brandon Sanderson, so probably don’t have an understanding of how his magic systems tend to work, and many posters here including you, Gepeto, have a greater breadth and depth of understanding to suss it out. I have only read Stormlight and Warbreaker and WOB’s that other people post. I don’t know what a spirit web is supposed to look like or how malleable it is to know how the Nahel bond is supposed to fit into it. The only “physical” description of the bond I can think of is from when Re-Shephir tried to tear Shallan and Pattern apart, and they clung to each other. Which at least sounds like a human can feel the bond and try to influence.
I am probably influenced by other authors I have read– which is wrong yes but there it is–, like this Harry Potter spoiler Ginny pours her soul into Tom Riddle’s diary by writing her deepest thoughts and feelings into it, and Adolin has been doing something like that (only in a good way) for years when he talks to Maya.
As for Adolin knowing Maya is dead and so won’t try anything, I kind of think he knows the opposite at this point, as she told him her name and he could feel what she felt.
One idea I do share with you is a hope that it won’t lead to insta-fix and insta-Radiance. I think it would be far more interesting if it is a difficult road and the bond is different enough that it manifests in new, different ways.
@57: Are we sure the chain Renarin plays with is “mother’s chain”? I am asking because when Brandon was asked about the chain, he did say the chain was only important to Adolin, not to Adolin and Renarin, but to Adolin alone.
The Theory: I have often read readers arguing in favor of his theory and, usually, what they suggested was a bond in between a “broken spren” and a “whole human”, a complete reversal. Hence, in the version of the theory I have personally read, it was implied Adolin would need to be remain unbroken (which is a statement I personally disagree with) for it to happen.
Granted, there might have been other versions of the theory suggesting both Adolin and Maya are filling in each other’s cracks I haven’t personally read.
I will confess I am not too knowledgeable on the magic and the “how it works”. I tend to be more interested in character development than within the “magic theory” if I may refer to it as such. It is why I spoke of not being able to personally understand how this current theory would work as opposed to saying it is impossible. I have no idea if it is possible or not, just my limited understanding of the Nahel Bond cannot allow me to confirm it is indeed possible. I also know more Cosmere-savvy readers on the 17th Shard do not seem to think it is possible, but huh, we don’t know everything. Hence, I will leave it at the: “I don’t know if this is possible, my limited knowledge tells me it probably isn’t, but my personal knowledge isn’t extraordinarily extensive”.
This being said, I think it is a given how Adolin has treated Maya and interacted with her will play a “role” within the denouement of this narrative. Hence, I don’t think the whole soul pouring ala-Ginny Wesley is not completely off the table, I am just unsure it differs from what other Radiants have done with their sprens besides Maya being dead and having a very dimmed connection with the physical realm.
On Adolin’s knowledge: I think Adolin genuinely sincerely does not believe it is in the cards for him to be a Radiant. I think he never even considered the possibility he might become one nor is he entertaining the idea he might revive Maya. I think Adolin’s thoughts on Maya are exactly as stated in the book: he is sorry she was killed, he realizes “dead for sprens” isn’t quite the same as “dead for humans”, but there is nothing he can do about it.
Of course, I could be wrong, just like everyone I am working with my personal interpretation of those scenes and characters while trying to make them fit with the existing WoB. Brandon did emphasis on no one, in-world, believing reviving a dead-Blade is possible. I certainly think Adolin is included within the “in-world” and his last WoB on Adolin needing to find his own journey but perhaps never succeeding did make me believe it may be how it happens.
Reviving dead-Blades is near impossible. Mayalaran and Adolin are a one in a lifetime event, a dart shot in the dark, the improbable deepened connection in between a given human being and dead-spren triggered and emphasized through circumstances no one could have predicted, even less recreate. It is why I feel, if the revival happens, it needs to be something personal happening in between Adolin and Maya, something rare, unforeseen, unexplainable, non-reproducible which strengthen with time, but isn’t an “instant fix”. Hence, I definitely agree with your last paragraph.
I agree with Adolin not suddenly gaining surgebinding nor stormlight healing through a complete and instantaneous fix of his broken Nahel Bond no matter which means is used to accomplish it. I also firmly believe this narrative is one which should happen in between Adolin and Maya, not Adolin and any other character and if the revival happens, I want it to happen because Adolin did something, not because someone else fixed it for him.
One personal theory I have is Adolin will need to say his oaths in Shadesmar because it may be the only place where Maya has enough sentience to hear/accept them. I have absolutely no arguments for it besides thinking Maya may not have aware enough of the physical realm for Adolin saying oaths there to matter much.
Of course, everyone is free to disagree.
@57 nightheron
Personally I do not think it matters whether Adolin knows consciously what Maya really is or not. Dalinar was accomplishing the same thing as early as Way of Kings and at that time he did not know shardblades were dead spren. When Dalinar fought the chasmfiend, he felt an urging, an eagerness from Oathbringer, just like how it was described with Adolin. After bonding the Stormfather, and Dalinar found and held Oathbringer once more, he remarked the screaming was more subdued. The stormfather explained that it was because Oathbringer consciously remembers Dalinar, and his actions, and actively hates him less. Just like Maya is remembering Adolin, and actively hating Adolin less than other humans. That shows in both Dalinar and Adolin’s situations a growing awareness of both Oathbringer and Maya. Both situations occurring separate. So that reads as something that can be done again. Something that can be repeated with others. Personally I think the only thing left is to figure out what needs to be done to heal the hole in Maya’s head. My theory is a Bondsmith can help with that. Can’t wait to see where it goes!
On the subject of Nahel bond repair and “Cracks” in the spirt web, has anyone else heard of Kintsuji Japanese artisitic pottery repair? Because this discussion kind of reminded me of it.
@60 BenW
Interestingly enough, that is what inspired “The Emperor’s Soul” and the magic system in that short story.
All the discussion about spirit cracks in relation to Adolin and Maya popped a strange question into my head:
Can Parsh/Listeners actually become radiants? I’m wondering because gemhearts seem to preclude the possibility (spren would bond through the gemheart rather than on a different plane).
@61 Speaking of the World of Sel. I have been rereading Elantris on my own and a familiar word came up in it “unity”
@60
Kintsugi is a fun pottery repair/decoration technique, though I’m sure the way I do it is different than the original. The two methods I know are mixing mica powder (possible with different colors) into epoxy before using it or gluing it back together and then pressing (fake) gold leaf on the still-wet glue. When the glue has set, you rub it and the excess comes off, leaving just what actually touched the glue. That’s produces a different look.
But either method is a great way to repair pots that are damaged, often ending up looking deliberately decorated rather than just repaired It also works to add a lot of interest to a pot you don’t like if you choose to risk breaking it first.
I’m not sure how close an analogy it is, but kintsugi certainly isn’t something that can be done to a pot that wasn’t broken first. You can paint it on to try and mimic it, but that’s not the same thing.
Gepeto :
I strongly disagree with the notion that if we got an Ehlokar PoV chapter of Jasnah’s reappearance, we would have known that he was a proto-Radiant. Have you forgotten Eshonai’s chapters in WoR, before her change into stormform? She was a proto-Radiant then, but there were no hints of it in the text. To me, it felt like an important lack that there was no emotional pay-off to Jasnah “coming back to life” and that we never saw the Kholins together and as a family before Ehlokar’s death. A short PoV chapter from him covering this would have greatly enhanced the poignancy of his death, IMHO.
I agree with you about the need of an Amaram’s chapter too, and, of course, of an Adolin’s chapter in Kholinar. Oathbringer, to me, is a book that is somewhat emotionally off-kilter because quite a bit of connective tissue and some long awaited pay-offs were left out.
Speaking of Adolin, I am very much opposed opposed to his revival of Maya being an unrepeatable one-off. I want it to have a greater meaning in the narrative, rather than being something nice for just the two of them. It should be a massive paradigm shift that would give the other spren hope that the rescue of their deadeye relatives is possible, even if difficult.
Nightheron @57:
“It seems to me that it should work better if Adolin was broken, like glueing two rough surfaces together makes a stronger bond than if one or both are smooth.”
Very much this! Though, personally, I think that something like that would come into play even more with Taln and Oathbringer, the broken shardblade and the broken Herald helping to glue each other back to a version of sanity. I have this pet theory that Oathbringer is a Stoneward Blade and that Taln will become a Radiant of his Order by reviving it, after Adolin and Maya show the way.
RogerPavelle:
Dashardie @48 already produced the WoB I meant about Nightblood containing a significant amount of Ruin – might this be the reason for it’s black color*, incidentally? Thanks, for finding it, Dashardie! I have been looking for other WoBs that I based my opinion about Nightblood’s uniqueness on and about Vasher having been mistaken about the consequences of Shashara sharing it’s creation process:
There is also this:
Yet, at the same time it was already spelled out in the Warbreaker Annotations, that:
So, yea, my interpretation of all of this is that the process of Awakening the level IV Biochromatic entities that Vasher killed Shashara to protect was already known to Yesteel, but there was something very odd about Nightblood’s creation and it is almost impossible to replicate.Vivenna/Azure, of course, freely offered to share this technology with the honorspren in Oathbringer, so it seems that by now people who know how to use it don’t consider sharing information about it in the same apocalyptic light as Vasher once did. Fittingly so, if her “shardblade” is the normal, expected result of it, while Nightblood is a freaky one-off.A couple of WoBs about Nightblood I just find intriguing:
All the Fused are mad. Some are still functional, and that in itself shows they aren’t uniform. That said, of course the Fused aren’t identical to the Heralds. Just very similar. (For instance, both can apparently Surgebind without a spren bond, which the Forms of Power and the Radiants need.)
Is there a deliberate parallel between Adolin’s losing the necklace and Kaladin losing Wit’s flute?
@Gepeto: but Adolin lives in a world where “dead” is highly negotiable. Not that it would be immediately obvious to him that Maya is repairable, but it would be more believable to someone who knows about the Fused than to, for instance, me in the real world. Adolin has literally walked through the ethereal plane!
A thought this discussion inspired: Hoid has been going around binding (Connecting?) himself to various types of Cosmere magic. He tried to become Elantrian, became an Allomancer, now he’s a Radiant.
Will he try to learn Voidbinding in the Stormlight Archive? I think he will. He might even go for the Old Magic.
@RogerPavelle: One former Listener already is a Radiant. We haven’t seen yet whether it works the same for her as for human Radiants, she’s something now.
@65: We knew Eshonai was a proto-Radiant because, in her viewpoints, she had this comet-like spren flying away from her. Of course, nothing is confirmed until it is confirmed, but I’ll just say clues for Elhokar’s proto-Radiancy were numerous: a viewpoint would have likely given it away and even if it wouldn’t have given it away, I still fail to see what it would add to the narrative. Not all characters need viewpoints and, to quote Brandon Sanderson, sometimes, not giving a character any viewpoints strengthens them.
As for Jasnah’s return, I have agreed in the past we needed at least one chapter to show it, but I personally believe this reunion would have worked better using Navani’s viewpoint than Elhokar. The relationship between Navani and Jasnah is the one which needed more focus, especially given how harshly Navani took news of her daughter’s death. The Elhokar/Jasnah relationship was, by all appearances, non-existent and if a reunion might have helped fleshed it out, none of it needed to be from his viewpoint.
I have however agreed with you on Amaram in the past. I maintain my position: his descent into villainess needed to be more heavily focused, even more so, Brandon actually planned for it but chose otherwise due to book length. In Amaram’s case, his rapid descent wasn’t well enough to capture for readers to connect the dots within his trajectory, making him read like a cardboard villain. Elhokar is a different matter: the dots have already been connected, his character arc was completed. I think Brandon’s intents truly were to get the readers to latch on Elhokar through Kaladin’s viewpoint, to feel with Kaladin for Elhokar and not with Elhokar himself.
In other words, I think the Elhokar arc is perfect as it is. It is coherent, emotional and it delivers the proper gut punch.
I disagree with you in wanting all the dead-sprens to be revived. To what end? We have enough WoB right now of Brandon explaining it is near impossible and extraordinarily difficult to do so, not to forget no one in-world believes it is even a possibility. If dead sprens start being revived left and right through some magic trick, then it no longer is impossible, but a trivial matter thus, IMHO, cheapening the whole Adolin arc.
Besides, I think to have those dead-sprens as a reminder of what once happened to serve the narrative better than having all of them come back to life. There are plenty of sprens in Shadesmar to bond additional humans, the dead ones aren’t needed, but they offer tension and angst which I find makes up for a more interesting twist than having all of them be back, but YMMV.
On the matter of Oathbringer, the sword: I disagree it currently is in the process of being revived.
Back in WoK Dalinar said (or maybe it was a WoB, I can’t recall, but either way) if bonded long enough, a Shardblade would slightly alter its physical appearances to match his yielder. There also is a WoB which explains how dead-sprens still retain some conscience within the physical realm.
As such, I do not think Oathbringer is acting any different than other dead-spren by recognizing the man it was bonded to for more than three decades. By no means is it anywhere near close to the Adolin/Maya relationship who are able to communicate one with another without Adolin having a Nahel Bond while not forgetting how protective Maya is of Adolin.
Dalinar merely was the first, and maybe the last, time a Radiant takes hold of a dead-Blade he was formally bonded to for a very long time period. Adolin and Maya have been bonded for 5 or 6 years. Hence I do not believe in Oathbringer being on the path towards “being revived”. Nothing special happened to it: it just remembers one its bearers. Had Dalinar not been a Radiant, nothing would have happened at all.
@66: LOL. Good catch. We do not know if either the flute nor the necklace will be important. For the necklace, it is as I said, maybe it will be used for a “moment”, but other than that, it isn’t important. The flute, however…
Brandon confirmed no one in-world believed it was possible. No one. I took the death examples because if human XYZ dies and is a corpse, no one will think it is possible to bring him back. It is the same with Maya: she is a corpse. No one thinks a corpse can be brought back. Also, the sprens in Shadesmar said it was impossible. Why would our characters enter a quest to revive dead-Blades, an action they all think is impossible, an action their sprens told them was a waste of time and impossible when they actually have real pressing matters to deal with?
This is a goose hunt. It has no purpose. Only Adolin may do it, though probably accidentally because he’s already started the process, but why would he even think this is possible? He won’t. Everyone told him this could not happen. He already admitted there was nothing he could do but try to honor Maya’s memory. Adolin is a pragmatic guy, he won’t just shoveling clouds for the fun of it, he’ll just think it is impossible up until it stops being.
Besides, Brandon said he wanted Adolin and Maya to progress naturally.
@66 “A thought this discussion inspired: Hoid has been going around binding (Connecting?) himself to various types of Cosmere magic. He tried to become Elantrian, became an Allomancer, now he’s a Radiant.
Will he try to learn Voidbinding in the Stormlight Archive? I think he will. He might even go for the Old Magic.”
A thought occurred, what if Hoid already has been given a Boon/Curse from the Old magic. We know that Hoid has some oddities about him that can not be explained by any of the magic systems we know about. We know Hoid refused a shard, and yet is long lived enough to have been there at the shattering and still be around. Cultivation seems to play a really long game. Perhaps she was the one to give him a boon and curse (maybe more than one of each) all those years ago and set him on his mission, whatever it is.
@62 RogerPavelle
I have a theory that because Timbre locked the voidspren in Venli’s gemheart, that that gave Venli the sapience enough to then bond with a radiant spren, thereby becoming the “meat” that the parshendi were missing and were viewed as “broth” by the spren in the past (referring to one of the epigraphs). If that is the case, then potentially Venli could lead the group of listeners that Thule escaped with, and teach them how to become radiants. This could be huge because it could go far with trying to end hostilities between humans and singers.
@63 BenW
Lol, good catch
@65 Isilel
Interesting points regarding Eshonai. I disagree on Jasnah and Amaram, but we have already talked about that at length, so I see no reason for me to go into it again.
I whole heartily agree regarding the process being repeatable. I see nothing, regardless how the revival is attained, that mechanically says the process cannot be repeated once the process is learned. The only difference between Dalinar and Adolin’s experience regarding shardblades took place during Dalinar uniting the three realms together. We see Taln being effected by it. Why not the spren as well? We have a WoB that distance between summoner and summoned does matter regarding the number of heartbeats just normally the distance has to be so great for it to be noticed, but it is always present. So potentially the realms being brought together reduced the time of summoning, and enabled Adolin to hear her clearer. I think we cannot possibly know for sure what occurred during the perpendicularity with Adolin and Maya till the next book. If Adolin can continue to summon Maya in 7 heartbeats, then it could be reasoned a change occurred in Maya. If however the summoning goes back to 10 heartbeats, then the realms being closer together, or something Dalinar did played a part. For me, Adolin just talking to Maya alone does not feel like enough because if that was the case, then over the many many generations and permutations, there had to be at least one other person who acted honorably, and lived the oaths enough to have gotten the same effect long before Adolin. That is why I feel the missing piece is the bondsmith. All that time there wasn’t a new radiant bondsmith. Now there is again. We have seen bondsmiths use powers associated with connection with the three realms. We have seen a bondsmith infuse gemstones with investiture. We have seen that spren are made of investiture, and the dead spren have a chunk “ripped out of their skull”. We have seen Dalinar and Oathbringer exhibit the same feats. Feeling emotions from the dead shardblade. Finding out that the shardblade prefers that particular wielder. At this stage there is so much we don’t know regarding the bond, and shardblades, anything is likely. I just particularly like my pet theory lol :). I think it would be great to see Dalinar and Adolin work together and revive Maya, and then proceed in a race against Odium to hunt for the other dead shardblades to revive them and give them a chance to once more live again and fight.
Personally I have a theory that Oathbringer is a reacher spren, but the only thing I got is because it looks like water, which considering stonewards powers, all earth could be water so that could work just as well. I like the Taln Oathbringer theory. I wish you luck with it!
@66 Carl
Interesting thought about Hoid learning Voidbinding. Wonder what form would he look to attain?
@69 “For me, Adolin just talking to Maya alone does not feel like enough because if that was the case, then over the many many generations and permutations, there had to be at least one other person who acted honorably, and lived the oaths enough to have gotten the same effect long before Adolin.”
Maybe other people have in the past and then the Skybreakers took notice.
@70 John
Interesting point, though as brought up since everyone thinks it is impossible, then how would the Skybreakers know to look for those signs? Wouldn’t it have been remarked on over the years? We are talking thousands of years. That is 30 generations in 1000 years, it has been 2000 years since the spren recovered a culture, and I feel like (I need to confirm) it has been 4000 years total since the recreance and “modern day”. So using very loose numbers, we are talking 120 generations of people that possibily wielded a shardblade, possibly wielded the right shardblade, and possibly acted honorably while doing so. If we lowball it, and say 100 shardblades, (when we have information that implies far more than that) that means potentially 12,000 people had their hands on a shardblade at some point over those 4000 years. This is not counting the changing hands through duels, which would increase the number further. If we take 1 percent of that, that means 120 people could have potentially done everything Adolin has done over the years, and that is severely low balling numbers. Dalinar saw 300 shardblades in his vision alone. That is not counting the shardblades that would have been produced from all the other orders. One of the big mysteries on everyone’s minds is what happened to all those other shardblades because Dalinar thinks there are are less than 100 shardblades in the whole world as of the War of the Reckoning. But as I showed, even assuming 100 shardblades, with a small group of people, we still have a significant number to me to indicate it would have come up in the past. But at this stage we just don’t have enough information to know. Any theory is just as likely and valid as another. I just like mine in particular :)
edit: whoops made a mistake on my math, 120 times 100 is actually 12,000, not 1,200. Updated my post to reflect this.
I was just throwing out a possible explanation that only came to me on reading your post. But since you brought up the missing shardblades, if the skybreakers were putting a stop to dead spren shardblade reviving than they might be removing the shardblade from circulation when taking out the blade owner as . It would also explain why the Alethi have the most blades as they don’t seem to have had the most honorable history compared to other nation people. (not necessarily a theory I support but just throwing it out there)
@72 John
No problemo, that is what theorizing is. That is an excellent point. We do know the skybreakers under Nale did in fact have shardblades which they gave out to some of their members to do work for them. Though the relation could be tangential. As in the shardblades are powerful weapons, so they just grabbed some so they had powerful weapons to work with. Odium could have had the voidspren with Venli pick up the shardblade and shardplate to prevent someone from awakening the blade, or again, could just be because it is a powerful weapon. Though I still come back if the skybreakers were actively grabbing the blades to prevent people from reviving them, then why let close to 100 stick around for four millennia? It is an interesting thought about how the Alethi act, with the Thrill hanging out and all, but we have seen honorable people pop up enough to bond spren in Alethkar. I think that says there does exist a number of theoretically honorable people that if reviving a shardblade only required a person to be honorable and live the oaths, then it would have happened in the past a decent enough times. Which would then go back to if the skybreakers were actively preventing people from reviving the shardblades as well, then why would the skybreakers not grab up all of the shardblades? Great stuff to think on! By all means keep them coming!
@74 Austin
Not sure why you think you are bursting my bubble. My point was if it was just a matter of living honorably and by the oaths and holding a shardblade would result in reviving said shardblade, then by the numbers, multiple people would have accomplished that in the past. As per your WoB, it has not happened in the past, so to me that means living honorably and by the oaths is not enough to revive a shardblade. That the reason it never happened before, was because bondsmiths were MIA during this time like all the other radiant orders were MIA during the recreance because they killed their blades. Now that knights are bonding again, and we have the first new bondsmith in multiple millennia, then the missing key might finally be back to help revive dead spren. So as far as I am concerned, my theory can still work. Guess RAFO
edit: also talking to your blade and treating it well I would include in this, as Adolin and Shallan point out that is a tradition for shardbearers. Not all follow the traditions of course, but as my earlier point states, due to numbers a significant number should have occurred that if that was all that was required, it to me should have already happened. But since per Brandon, it has not, that says to me something more is needed. That something more in my theory is a bondsmith. Others have different theories. I look forward to finding out!
@75 – My bad. The interesting thing when reading the shardblade WoBs was Brandon’s responses over time. In early questions about reviving dead shardblades, Brandon was more (paraphrased) “it requires the original Radiant to revive it. Otherwise it would be very, very difficult,” compared to his pre-OB answers, which became “RAFO.” I think he developed the idea of Adolin and Maya between WoR and OB.
@76 Austin
No worries. Could be. At this juncture anything is possible. Could be that so many people keep asking him the same questions over and over again that so he does not slip, he has begun just saying RAFO regarding Maya, to keep things secure. Personally I think it was an idea since Way of Kings, because as I mentioned, Dalinar feels something from Oathbringer while fighting the chasmfiend. He feels an urging. An eagerness. Just like Adolin felt a similar urging/eagerness from Maya. Brandon was also very tight lipped over a parshendi bonding a radiant spren. I do not think anyone could have predicted that bonding a voidspren was potentially the first step in bonding a radiant spren. So I do not think any possibilities can be truly cut off regarding revival. To me all things are equal till we see it on that written page lol.
@73 Would the Skybreakers have a “legal pretense” by their definition for taking the blades if it wasn’t being revived?
@74 While that WOB certainly makes my Skybreaker theory seem unlikely, his response does say they haven’t been revived before whereas I’m suggesting that if even the appearance of progress being made in that direction (for example less than 10 heartbeats to draw blade) might prompt Skybreaker intercession.
@78 John
Hmmm. Maybe? Guess it would depend on if Nale would do the same thing he does to radiants. Seeks a crime from their past to excuse their execution.
As to the 10 heartbeats, how would they measure? How would they know a shardblade summoned faster for someone unless the summoner specifically voiced the phenomena? An increased heartrate does cause a shardblade to be summoned faster because the 10 beats pass quicker. So are the skybreakers pressing their fingers to every shardblade weilder’s pulse to check for less beats? Though one could also say they could know an greater number of heartbeats needed to summon occurs if you are father away from the spren in the cognitive realm (as per WoB). Perhaps they would reason some form of anomaly occurred resulting in the spren being “closer” in the cognitive realm to the wielder resulting in the decreased number of heart beats to summon? Just throwing out possible rationales.
@79 Not sure how they would know about the heartbeats but honestly I find it farfetched that they were as effective at snuffing at proto radiants as they supposedly have been.
@80 John
I wouldn’t say they were entirely effective. At least in my opinion. As we can see there were quite a few radiants popping up without their knowledge (Jasnah, Kaladin, Dalinar, Renarin, Elhokar).
I mean they were entirely effective for thousands of years until 6-7 years ago when they just became extremely…not effective.
@82 John
There seems to be some disagreement on that. Nale mentions that Ishar stated the radiants bonding was a problem since honor died. Some people believe the spren have only started bonding recently because of Odium’s impending arrival, and thereby think Nale has only been killing recently. Others feel that quote with Nale and Ishar means Nale has been killing for thousands of years. Or it could be both. That Nale was killing for thousands of years, but the bonding had a recent resurgence because of Odium’s pending return, so the increased number made it harder to keep them in check. Personally I do not think the function of a secret society killing radiants as they pop up is effective for a whole host of reasons. The radiant powers being chief among them. A lightweaver that advances quickly enough and knows what they are doing could probably avoid Nale for a very long time. Or Nale could have a fabrial that points in the direction of radiants, kind of like how Hoid used the sand. At this time, don’t really know for sure.
It should be noted that many, many of these proto radiants are nobility. and they are appearing faster and faster. Jasnah Dalinar, Renarin, Elohkar are all the ruling class, it would be very hard to find a reason to execute them within the legal bounds of their country. Kaladin was overlooked because they already got his brother, pretty sure shallans brother was either protecting her, or they thought he was the radiant. and Lift was very good and lucky at evading him.
as an addedum, i think, based off what is in the books, and what others have stated, its only been the past few hundred years that they have been hunting proto radiants.
@Gepeto: “Brandon confirmed no one in-world believed it was possible. No one. I took the death examples because if human XYZ dies and is a corpse, no one will think it is possible to bring him back. It is the same with Maya: she is a corpse.”
Yes. And Adolin may well eventually be told that Szeth was killed, reduced to a corpse, and then Nale brought him back to life using a mere fabrial. Miracles happen in Adolin’s world, is all I’m saying. I also just realized that Rock, who can see spren and considers them gods, might be able to perceive what’s happening and advise Adolin.
@smaugthemagnificent:
Well, technically Shallan’s brother actually was a proto-Radiant. Specifically, a proto-Skybreaker.
@86: Szeth wasn’t “completely dead”: surgebinding doesn’t heal cerebral death. If you dig up a corpse buried in the Earth, then no no amount of surgebinding will bring it back to life. Adolin already knows surgebinging can heal near death, Lift knows, they all know, but Maya has been dead for centuries.
She is a corpse. The kind you find rotting in the earth with maggots pouring out of her mouth. She is dead-dead. Miracles do not happen, magic has properties which allow things we consider impossible to happen, but none of it are miracles: they are direct comprehensible applications of the magic. Hence, if the sprens, if everyone in-world sincerely believe nothing can be done, then no one will go into this goose hunt trying to fix something which cannot be fixed.
Like Nynaeve wanting to heal death. Nothing can heal death. It doesn’t matter how powerful the One Power is, it doesn’t matter how many “miracles” Nynaeve saw, healing death is just impossible.
The same is true about healing dead-sprens. It is impossible. In-world, they think it is impossible. The author however told us maybe there is a way, but it is difficult, complicated and really not a done deal. Brandon insisted on many occasions it was practically impossible.
So why would the impossible, the one thing the author confirmed no one in-world thought was a possibility, the one thing the author confirmed was near impossible suddenly become a possibility? Why would Adolin, Adolin who I insists doesn’t even believe he can be a Radiant, who doesn’t think he is worthy nor it is a possibility for him, start to think he could revive his Blade and become one? This is the equivalent of man, within real-life, deciding he was going to fly: it will not happen, this is impossible. We know, by the rules which bound our world, it is impossible and by the rules which bounds Roshar, healing Maya is impossible.
Rock cannot help. Rock may be able to see sprens, but he’ll think it impossible, like everyone else. Why would Rock doubt the words of the sprens who tried for centuries to save their dead siblings? Why would anyone contradict the Stormfather who told Dalinar it was impossible? Pattern who said it was impossible?
My thoughts are: no one can help. No one will because no one will even think nor consider this is a possibility. Adolin is on his own here and if he does succeed, I suspect it will be half a success or it will take a *very long time* before it comes to fruition. Like years. Brandon said to expect this particular narrative to evolve slowly, naturally, organically. I feel his words on the matter precludes a “bam magic moment” where suddenly, it is fixed.
@86 Carl
That is a good point regarding miracles. As the magic becomes more common place as potentially will be shown after the time skip, whole new possibilities will open up that the characters would have never considered before. For instance Dalinar hadn’t considered using Renarin to heal the Thaylan people even though it was staring him right in the face. Navani is now considering flying ships with gravitation. To quote Aladdin, its a whole new world. A new world of possibilities thought to be impossible.
That is an interesting idea regarding Rock. We know he can see living spren, I wonder if and how he sees dead spren. He was able to notice Renarin’s feelings of loneliness and support him, I see no reason why Rock couldn’t notice Adolin’s feelings (regardless if he sees Maya or not), and support him as well. In addition if Rock can in fact see Maya, I see no reason why Rock wouldn’t notice that she is acting differently (assuming of course she is acting differently. Personally I believe she is not. To me the bond is not healing, just a strengthening of connection. Investiture to me is needed to heal the bond. But assuming there is a noticeable change…) and speak with Adolin about it. It is clear to anyone that Adolin pays his blade respect, and he certainly doesn’t hide his pre battle practices. So I see no reason why Rock would not potentially notice this and speak with Adolin about it.
Hell going with my own theory, there is no reason that Dalinar, captain connection, couldn’t just from touching Adolin while Maya is out, couldn’t sense something going on. A growing connection. For me it wouldn’t be “oh let me touch you, ah done maya is back”. For me it would be an accidental touch while Maya is out, with Adolin and Dalinar feeling some charge. Maybe Maya reacts suddenly. They are both left confused. What happened? But issues with the war prevent them from investigating further at first. Then over time other tidbits pop up when they are nearby like what happened with Shallan. This is new, and strange. Why is this occurring with Adolin but no one else? Adolin and Dalinar begin to wonder. They speak with Navani, Jasnah, and the Stormfather. All admit they have never heard of such things, but a whole lot of new has been happening lately so they just don’t know. Dalinar and Adolin bond over seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes. Bit by bit through experimentation they learn the right balance of connection, and investiture, awakening Maya. She would not be bonded to Adolin, just healed. Then they would need to start from oath one and progress. While Adolin progresses his oaths to Maya, he begins with Dalinar’s help locating shardblades, figuring out what order they belong to, and finding the right person to bond with it. They then train the people to bring the connection to the point where the final step can be made, and heal the spren. To me that is a big and beautiful moment that is a huge narrative. So for myself, fingers crossed I am right! :)
Gepeto @87. Actually, Maya is not “dead-dead” in the way a human becomes dead. If she were truly “dead” she would not be represented in the manner she is in Shadesmar. Further, we never see what happens to a Deadeyes like Maya in Shadesmar when the human bonded to the Shardblade (their form in the physical realm) calls for his Shardblade. I think there is something still left in Maya. When Adolin tries to someone the Blade in Shadesmar she lets out a scream. Also, remember what Syl told Kaladin in WoR. She said that when humans die, their physical bodies rot like meat. Yet when a spren dies, it just goes to another place. (At least, that is what i remember. I am at work and do not have access to my the book).
I offer no opinion on whether it is a good idea from a story telling perspective whether Maya should or should not be revived. Or, if she is revived, whether that should be a one-time event or whether many other Deadeyes should be similarly revived. My only contention is that a truly dead spren is different from a truly dead human. As a result, I am not sure we can say the Deadeyes are “dead” in the same way that humans who are dead and buried in the ground.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
@88: I have mentioned how dead for sprens differ from dead from humans. However, when it comes to the dead-sprens, both in-world characters and the author have confirmed the state was equivalent to dead-dead in the sense of “nothing can be done to improve on their conscience level”. Brandon has insisted upon this through many WoB and, as such, I must take his words into consideration. I used the “human death” analogy to try to express how unlikely it was for characters to pursue a resurrection given they do not believe Maya’s state can be altered in a positive manner. Hence, as far as everyone within Roshar is concerned, nothing can be done for Maya nor for the dead-sprens: their state, while different than human death, remains one which cannot be altered nor modified.
This being said, we must also take into consideration the dead state, for sprens, still allows them some level of conscience within the physical realm (confirmed by WoB), so yes, while Maya is “dead”, she is able to “recognize” Adolin much in the same manner Oathbringer “recognized” Dalinar. Of course, at this point in time, Adolin’s connection with Maya seems to have strengthen after he had physically met with her and insisted on using her in the right manner. Can her state be further improved through Adolin pursuing additional actions, maybe, but it remains an unlikely event in-world characters are unlike to pursue with any level of conviction.
Now, as to what makes a better narrative, all readers come from different places. I will however say my personal thoughts are Dalinar has much on his plate already with Ishar, Odium, Honor, his coalition, the Desolation, the black sphere and so on, I doubt he’ll have much time within the 100K left to his narrative arc (gross estimation of Dalinar’s upcoming page time within the next two books) to start on a side quest to revive the dead-Blades. Even more so since the whole Maya/Adolin narrative is written in addition to the original planning as opposed to being a part of it. While cute, this narrative is unlikely to bear significant impact to the overall denouement given Brandon wasn’t planning on writing it up until he chose to have Adolin start moving there. I thus do not believe “dead-sprens” revival will be a pivotal plot twist within the over-arching narrative, just a side arc revolving on Adolin which has an interesting outcome.
I would personally prefer if Maya remained a one-time event because I feel it would make her revival more significant and impacful. I believe having a third party (Dalinar, Cultivation, Jasnah or any other) jump into this narrative and pull out a magic trick to fix what cannot be fixed would ruin Adolin’s character progression by making his big accomplishment not his, but Dalinar’s (or someone else). In other words, I believe if Maya is to be revived, the narrative would be stronger if made to revolve on Adolin himself as opposed to turn it into a team effort where every character start to jump in to help do what no one think is even possible.
I also believe this fits better with Brandon saying Adolin needed to find his own way. I feel if his own way ends up, once again, dictate by his father or actions his father do on his behalf, then this narrative would miss its purpose, providing I am interpreting the purpose right.
On the side note, Brandon said he was writing three novella: Wandersail, one on Rock and one on Lopen. The Rock one will follow events after Oathbringer when he heads back home. As such, I think it is likely Rock will not be taking a large role within RoW since he is likely to be gone.
The Fused attacked the Horneater peaks from Shadesmar and probably in the “real” world, too. Why should going back home mean Rock leaves the story?
@91: Oh just because Brandon said he was writing a side novella featuring Rock, following him after the events of Oathbringer as he heads back home. Knowing this makes me think Rock’s narrative will be housed within the novella and not RoW. Looks like it will be a side along.
The novella and RoW cannot have a joined narrative, the novella needs to be separated even if tied, like Edgedancer was.
Hence, if I am correct, this means Rock will leave the RoW narrative at some point in time to pursue his own interests.
I wonder when we will get these novellas
@86 was he a proto radiant? i thought he was just a recruit and was hoping to earn a highspren, you’re probably right.
@92 Isn’t there a year gap between Oathbringer and RoW? The novella could take place during that time and tease us mercilessly with hints of things going on .
Re: Rock novella – Brandon has said that the Rock novella happens post-Oathbringer, involves him returning to his homeland, and that it “kind of needs to happen”, presumably before events in Rythm of War happen. Nothing in his statements give any indication that Rock will/won’t be in Rythm of War. Based on his previous history with the Lift novella (and the Jasnah story he wrote for himself) there is a good chance that Rock can be in RoW with a decent role, if that is what Brandon had already planned. Truth is, we just don’t know…
@95-96: I hadn’t thought of that, still I feel Brandon choosing to write a Rock novella might have to do with him wanting to remove his narrative to a side book. Rock remains a side character and not one who can get a lot of page time within the main narrative due to size constraints, so I felt the side novella was the perfect opportunity for Brandon to explore his narrative.
I agree the truth is, we don’t know, but my two cents currently are on Rock being away from the RoW narrative, at least, for some time.
@Gepeto: when you say that Rock would see Maya as just a dead spren, you’re making the very assumption you are trying to demonstrate. If Maya’s state actually has changed (and it has, in my opinion) why would you assume Rock would find it invisible? He might not understand it. He almost certainly would not. If something unusual is happening, I don’t see why he wouldn’t notice.
@smaugthemagnificent:
A (seemingly failed) joke. He was “technically” a proto-radiant because he was a Skybreaker recruit and could potentially have advanced. I didn’t mean that he already had a spren bonded.
@98: Carl, I just do not understand why Rock, who never even ever inter-acted with Adolin, who may very well not even be around during the events of RoW, would suddenly “see” Maya and feel the inclination to talk to Adolin about it. Rock and Adolin do not have a relationship, they do know have a kinship nor a friendship: it just doesn’t work, in my head, why Rock would, all of the sudden, find any interest within Highprince Kholin. Rock isn’t on talking terms with Adolin, he doesn’t care about him, he has no opinion over him: he is not suddenly going to have for mission to help him do what exactly? Something no one can conceive is even possible? Nah. Rock has business elsewhere. His narrative isn’t tied to Maya.
Hence, I honestly do not see what Rock is doing into this narrative nor why Adolin needs to have “someone tell him how to do the impossible”.
The Maya/Adolin narrative was pinned as an Adolin narrative. He’ll either revive Maya on his own or he won’t, but I doubt this revival will be this grand narrative many are suggesting where all characters converge towards trying to save all of the dead-sprens. Let’s be realistic. This is a side arc, a sub arc, not the main arc. This isn’t the main dish of the series nor RoW. Brandon will not start to get half his cast work on a side plot which didn’t even exist within the initial planning.
@89 AndrewHB
I would add that as dead spren blades are a “new” thing, the Everstorm is a “new thing of old design”, Radiant Listeners are a “new” thing, that we cannot truly say what will not happen. There is so much we just do not know about dead spren and how they work.
@93 BenW
Me too! More Brandon writings is always a good thing!
@95 John
Yep there is a year long gap. Personally plenty of time to hop a highstorm and fly over, or use an oathgate to go to Jah Keved, and then fly over, spend the year doing whatever Rock is going to do, and fly/teleport back.
@96 KiManiak
Good point. Lift had her own novella prior to Oathbringer and she was in Oathbringer. See no reason why the same cannot be for Rock.
@98 Carl
Good point. For the simple fact that something odd is going on, Rock would make a comment bringing it to everyone else’s attention. He has been supportive to a majority of the cast, not only the bridgemen. All the bridgemen have had rotation training and guarding the Kholin family, so Rock would definitely have been around Adolin. Not to mention Renarin gets visited by Adolin while on the bridge crew. So I personally see amply opportunity for Rock to get a glimpse of Maya. Rock noticed how Renarin felt left out and took the time to advise him. A son of a highprince, who Rock has no reason to reach out to nor identify with. I see no reason why Rock cannot do the same with Adolin. Rock seeing Maya is a theory I have not read before, and it is very interesting. At this point there is so much we do not know about dead spren, no theory should be excluded or discounted. All are equal till we RAFO!
Wouldn’t a Horneater have mentioned by now that people are swinging dead spren around? Besides, given their reverence toward spren, do you think they would really go after shards if they knew that the blades were spren corpses? Don’t forget that Rock came to the Shattered Plains with his family in order to try to obtain shards. So I’m 99.9% sure that Rock, or any Horneater, can only see the blade, not the dead spren.
@101 I agree that Rock likely would not see a dead-eyes normally. Now, with Maya beginning to revive, that may be changing. Also, I don’t think every Horneater can do what Rock does. He implied that he was rare, with this talent being with him from birth. I could be wrong, but I took it as rare but not unknown.
@90 Gepeto, for what it’s worth, re: dead spren, it is mentioned several times in WoR that a spren is never truly dead. They are forces and cannot be truly killed. “Dead” to them means loss of sapience, which seems to support what the WoB’s are saying. Also, Syl specifically says she was only as dead as Kaladin’s oaths. That’s why I think Brandon said that without the original Radiant it is extremely hard to revive one now.
Also, random thought, I think most of the “lost Radiants” were killed just after the Recreance – by the “common people” but perhaps being spurred on by the Skybreakers.
@102 – Seeing spren is a confirmed Parshendi/Horneater ability.
@101: Yes. Precisely. Rock doesn’t see dead sprens, only live ones and, as far as we are aware, Maya is still dead. She just has an increase in awareness of Adolin while being in the physical realm. She is not alive. She wasn’t resurrected nor revived.
I honestly just do not get why nor how Rock would be involved in this narrative. It makes little sense to me.
@102: Not being truly dead merely means they do not cease to exists, but they are considered, by all means, dead since they lost their capacity to interact within the world. Another real-life equivalent could be cerebral death, but with the body being placed on an artificial breather and thus artificially being kept alive: the doctors would tell you nothing will bring the person back. The person is gone even if not really “gone”.
The dead-sprens are similar. They are gone despite still being here and yeah, the author said maybe, just maybe there is one glimmer of possibility for a character to pull it off, but it would hard and near impossible.
@101 Austin
Well first, there is the fact that the horneaters didn’t have any shardblades of their own, so you are assuming they have been around them before going down the mountain to get one.
Second, horneaters seeing spren is not as cut and dry and you think. I have included two WoB below. They show that 1. rock doesn’t necessarily see all spren, 2. he says those with listener blood are more likely to see spren. Doesn’t say they all always will.
So as far as we know Rock could see Maya either as just a dead spren, or see Maya while she is in the process of reviving. Personally I still favor my own theory, but Rock potentially seeing Maya is not out of the running.
Chris King
Would Rock be able to see the Cryptics?
Brandon Sanderson
Would Rock be able to see a Cryptic? That is a good question, you will have to see.
Argent
On Roshar, certain people seem to be able to always see spren (Rock comes to mind). Are there people who can never see them? Similarly, can people from other worlds see them?
Brandon Sanderson
Those with Listener blood are more likely to be able to interact with spren who aren’t currently trying to manifest.
If they appear on the physical realm, then they’re visible to all who can see.
@105 – Horneaters are not a hermit-type people. They have been around for a long time. Besides, Rock was around shardblades long enough as bridgeman to be like, “Hey! Those guys are swinging dead gods! Is blasphemy!” You have to really stretch to reach the conclusion that Rock, and all other people who are able to see spren, have known since the Recreance that shardblades are dead spren. That sort of thing would be hard to hide for thousands of years.
@106 Austin
But if I recall correctly Kaladin and Co were surprised that a horneater came down the mountains at all. Rock needed to explain what would cause them to come. So that says to me that is a unique occurrence. Rock has also said that no one on the peaks has ever held a shardblade and if they were able to win one, they would become king. You are entitled to think it is a stretch, and as I said for myself I like my own theory that has nothing to do with Rock, but I do not think based on the information we have, we can exclude such a theory out of hand.
@108 – Again, the Horneaters are not hermits. They are familiar enough in Roshar to not attract attention. It’s not like Ogier in Wheel of Time where everybody is astonished to see them. I’m not going to try to dissuade you from your theory, but you are in error to say that Horneaters never come down from the mountains.
Rock has demonstrated an ability to see spren who are in the physical realm, but while Maya and the other dead blades are in the physical realm, they are manifested as blades. He can see her and she is a sword. She only looks like a dead-eyed person while she’s over in the cognitive realm. Now, if Maya was somehow able to start following Adolin around in the physical realm I think Rock would be able to see her as she is, but unless she chose to go stealth so would everyone else.
@108 Austin
Well first and foremost, let me clarify. It is not my theory. It is Carl’s. My theory involves Adolin strengthening the connection to Maya. That what Adolin has with Maya is a faux bond. Nothing has changed with the bond. The strengthening of connection is what allows the increased in awareness and etc. Dalinar uniting the realms is what caused the summoning in less heartbeats. That Dalinar using the increased connection forged by Adolin will use it to guide a large infusion of investiture to heal what was torn out of Maya, restoring her to normal sprendom. She can then choose who she wishes to bond, which I think will be Adolin. That is my theory.
My point in responding to you, is that to say there is a whole lot we do not know about dead spren, and horneaters to discount Carl’s theory. Again, you can feel free to think as you do, but unless you have a WoB or an exact quote showing the proliferation of horneaters all over the place, and regularly leaving their home, then I do not think Carl’s theory should be dismissed out of hand. I will also add the one time we do get Rock’s PoV is when Renarin has already separated from his shardblade, so we have not seen from Rock’s PoV what dead sprenblades are like in his vision. For all we know, Rock has seen tons of dead shardblades, and hey, a creepy person without eyes standing next to it is totally normal to him. But then he starts to see Maya pawing at Adolin trying to get his attention that he cannot see nor sense. Something Rock never saw them do before. So he decides to go “hey thats strange….”. As soursavior said, it could be at that point he cannot see them, but whatever is happening to Maya causes him to start to see her since the uniting of the realms. It could be she is too weak, as he commented on how he was seeing “strong” spren like Syl. It could be most of the blades he saw were from a spren type that he couldn’t see, like the WoB potentially hints at regarding cryptics. We just don’t know yet.
Gepeto:
Szeth surviving was a relatively late change in the process of writing of WoR. Does this mean that his actions in the present will have no lasting consequences for the future narrative? Absolutely not! In fact, they have already influenced the main plot. He is now the wielder of Nightblood, instead of whoever else was originally intended for the role, he has developed an interesting relationship with Lift, he became a Skybreaker and is clearly going to affect the future of that Order, etc.
I understand that you are probably managing expectations, in a way, but personally, if Maya’s revival isn’t going to have wide-reaching consequences, then I’d rather it doesn’t happen at all. Because it absolutely should. Also, people are doing “the impossible” right left and center in the Stormlight Archive and it becomes ever clearer that they need to challenge the existing beliefs and the limits they impose if they are to succeed. So, it makes no sense to me that people are just going to shrug Maya’s ressurection or even the on-going changes in her off and not become curious and try to replicate them. And, IMHO, it should provide us with new insight into the Recreance and it should be possible, though very difficult to do so for others, otherwise it would have been largely a waste of time. I wouldn’t want to see more than a handful of deadblades get revived during the series, but there should be hope for them.
As to Rock, Adolin has been interacting with Bridge 4 on occasion and Renarin is a member, so it is not difficult to imagine their paths crossing in some way. Or Adolin’s path crossing with Rlain or even Thude – if Rock’s ability to see the true shapes of spren comes from his parsh blood, then the Parshendi should be able to do it too. I am not sure about the idea that this ability would help, but who knows?
Oh, and whatever happens at Cultivation’s perpendicularity is very likely to play an important role in the next book – in fact, I fully expect one of the PoV clusters to end up there, so I don’t see Rock being absent from the next installment. The novella is likely necessary to set the stage and explain character changes, just like “Edgedancer” was.
Scáth @107:
The Horneaters aren’t that rare. Sebarial and Palona have a number of them in their service, IIRC (their massagists?), and there was one among the gangsters questioned by Shallan in part 1 of OB. They are not common, particularly in Alethkar, but neither is seeing one as unsual as seeing a Shin, for instance.
@111: I understand what you are trying to say, but Szeth has always been planned to be a main character. He has always been planned to be a flashback character. He was always going to get his special focus. He always had an important role to play within the narrative. The fact he was initially going to play this role from the grave doesn’t change he always had given importance within the ending denouement.
Adolin, on the other hand, was first planned to be a minor side-character of little importance. Yes, it changed when Dalinar’s narrative in WoK splattered and Brandon shoved him into the front seat to dynamize it. Yes, Brandon afterward changed the SA planning to give Adolin a bigger role, but we must keep in mind this role remains a supplement to the original planning. In other words, Brandon did not alter the roles of other characters to push Adolin in (except perhaps Shallan’s unknown first fiance) and, as such, if he does revive Maya, it seems unlikely this will be as part of a larger filled with consequences narrative Brandon has planned from the beginning.
And there is more… Brandon himself doesn’t know where Adolin’s character will go. This is super important. He insisted on Adolin needing to make choices for himself, but not having made them yet. He insisted on Adolin still being allowed to evolve within various ways and yes, one of these ways is probably reviving Maya, but Brandon hasn’t canonized it yet. He hasn’t decided. That was the most important part of his numerous words on Adolin which stuck to me the most: Adolin’s narrative hasn’t been canonized yet and while Brandon has “ideas” and “plans”, he isn’t committing to any until he writes it. And when he writes it, it may be Adolin’s character will not make the choices which lead to Maya being revived. This is *still* on the table. It always was. Brandon likes the idea Adolin is *still* allowed to evolve within various directions, *still* has this flexibility because the rest of his cast doesn’t.
Hence, Adolin reviving Maya isn’t the foregone conclusion of his arc. It may be, with Adolin, Brandon will want to show us how important it is to be yourself and to choose a path for you and not for your father. Maybe he’ll want Adolin to mirror Kaladin in this regard and have him choose to be an inferior clone of Dalinar, one who is consistently unworthy and, more importantly, not a Radiant. Maybe he’ll want to write what it means for the one family member who isn’t chosen to become a Radiant, despite being a good person. Maybe he’ll have Adolin take a very bad plunge for it as how does one reconcile all his efforts never being recognized when lesser efforts by other family members were? Adolin could become a very tragic character. That’s still on the table too. And maybe too Adolin reviving Maya won’t happen until 15 more years, within the second half! Maybe this is how long Adolin will need to grow into a knight able to revive his dead-Blade. Maybe this is how long Adolin will need to finally have enough self-confidence to believe in himself in this regard.
There could be many purposes to Adolin’s narrative, but my heart tells me it won’t be this massive game changer some have argued for. I just do not see it, not with the information I have, not with Adolin being an important character, but one without a focus and without a crucial role to play. His purpose has always been to be a foil, a contrast. Now where Brandon will want to take this contrast is yet unknown.
Now, I understand why some readers want this narrative to be bigger, to involve all sprens, to be a team effort involving many characters: it is a great arc, super interesting, but I do not think its purpose is to be… big. I think the purpose of writing Maya and Adolin merely is to write a small sub arc, with little to no consequences to the main narrative such as not to disrupt the planning, a companion arc, an organic improbable growth from a seed long buried: something improbable, but impossible to repeat.
I understand, if I am right, then perhaps this will be disappointing to some readers, in the same manner, the aftermath following Sadeas’s death was disappointing to me. It is also possible Brandon will want to make spren revival a crucial plot point, but keeping in mind this narrative only has 2000 pages before it concludes itself, keeping in mind all which needs to happen until we get there, I will keep on having doubts on how an arc meant to be minor would take over so much of what little we have left.
@112
Let’s change the perspective a bit shall we?
We can all agree that the spren will be an important factor in the current conflict. I think that it’s safe to say that due to the Recreance there is much resentment and bad feelings all around, a significant lack of trust, to the point where one Order of KR is perfectly fine with fighting for the opposing side (Dustbringers), a spren of another Order bonds with the species of a previous enemy (Venli and Timbre), and honorspren are exploring ways to create sprenless Shardblades with Azure. In this narrative landscape reviving a deadeye, any deadeye, is going to be a really big deal. It is totally plausible that this search for a way to do the impossible was always in the plans for Brandon and the SA. Success in this venture has so many benefits to Team Honor that it would be nearly criminal not to explore the possibility.
The questionn becomes, who would be best placed to start the ball rolling on this one? Will Jasnah resume the traditional role of her Order as ambassador to sprenkind? Kinda hard considering she has to administer a country under seige. Could Dalinar fulfill that role? Maybe he could take a break from uniting the planet? He’s more likely to delegate the task in my opinion. All our other Radiant friends are immersed in their own personal journeys and don’t seem likely to have the inclination to chase this particular white whale.
If the plan all along is to have at least one or two deadeyes wake up then Adolin would be best placed to do so; of all our important characters Adolin has the least to do as far as duties are concerned. And for someone who wants Adolin’s conflicts to be more substantial than the role he’s gotten so far then this chase should be an excellent fulcrum point. Does Adolin stay with the status quo and become Dalinar’s ultimate field commander or does he attempt to strengthen his bond with Maya away from the main cast? Can he work with Maya and lead the mundane Kholinar forces at the same time? Will he ask help from the man who killed his mother and if so, will that man listen to one that so disappointed him? That 7 heartbeat summoning could be the best thing that could ever happen to Adolin’s character if one wishes for his role in the narrative to become more significant.
@111 Isilel
I would also add that the reviving the spren could have always been a plot point, but Brandon decided to add part of it via Adolin’s story, like how he switched things with Sadeas dying and Amaram living before Amaram too died. Adolin originally died early in Way of Kings if I recall correctly. He was given more screen time to provide Dalinar a foil to his inner conflict. So I could totally see Brandon using Adolin as a vehicle to progress this plot point as well.
To clarify, I wasn’t saying horneaters were rare. I was saying we rarely get their PoV, and there is so little we know about them and dead shardblades, I do not think we can discount the theory out of hand. There is a whole lot of info we don’t know, and as far as I know we do not have a quote nor WoB that says whether or not horneater’s like Rock can see dead spren, and if they can, how they view them. There are a whole list of permutations regarding Rock, so for me, to just say there is no way Rock could have anything to do with Maya is assuming a whole lot of things that we just do not know. So to me it is a valid theory. Not one I agree with, nor personally support, but one with validity nonetheless.
@113 EvilMonkey
Lol, great minds think alike. I think it was seeded since the first fight with the chasmfiend when Dalinar felt an urging from Oathbringer. So I think its been intended since day one. It may not take the original incarnation, nor use the original vehicle (whatever that vehicle potentially was originally), but I think it was very much a plot point since the start.
One hope, though we have no information to support it, but now that Jasnah has been bonded for sometime, perhaps the other ink spren will consider bonding, and the resulting Elsecallers could act as a diplomatic corp with the spren, ultimately under Jasnah, but thereby allowing her to focus on ruling her country in exile, while working towards changing spren opinion on the humans. Also considering the fused have begun to set up shop in the cognitive realm, that will potentially be a battleground to be considered and fought as well as the physical.
@113: The problem is nothing which ties into Adolin’s character is a planned narrative: nothing at all. If Brandon had planned for the revival of dead-sprens to be such a crucial plot point, then he would have planned for a character to champion it, but he didn’t.
In the original draft of SA, Adolin wasn’t reviving Maya, of this, I am absolutely certain. I will speculate that, within the original draft of SA, Adolin was nothing more than the “honorable military leader who follows into his father’s footstep without ever being anywhere close to the man his father is”. He probably was the “commensurate general”, a man of little consequence. Of course, I do not have “proof” this was the case, this merely is my speculation based on Brandon saying how Adolin’s character changed from the original outline by making other decisions. So whatever may happen within the next two books (with respect to Adolin), I am convinced not one single line had been planned in advance.
Do the dead-sprens need an ambassador? Only if we believe they have enough conscience to want one, only if we are rooting for the majority of them to be revived. Or if we think this will somehow be a massive narrative changer which I don’t think it will. Even if every single dead-spren was to be revived (highly improbable, especially given the fact Alethkar owns only what 20-30 Blades among the thousands who were killed), it still wouldn’t change the fact the original knights broke their oaths. It still wouldn’t change how some sprens may not want to trust mankind for fear of being killed in the same manner: the odd chance they might be “saved” again doesn’t seem like an interesting bargain to make. Hence, even if I believed it was possible, I still do not believe it will change much when it comes to the main narrative.
Hence, I don’t think we are going to read more than one dead-spren revival. Why? Because I think what is happening in between Adolin and Maya is both unique and unreproducible. In other words, Adolin is succeeding because he happens to be the first Shardbeader having both the respect of his weapon (inherent to a warlike culture) and natural empathy (inherent to his mother’s culture). His relationship with Maya in entirely genuine and did not spur from added intentions which means it cannot be reproduced. Any other Shardbeader who would try what Adolin has done wouldn’t be genuine, he would merely be trying to “gain super-powers the easy way by reviving his own dead-Blade” which goes against what the Nahel Bond is. The Nahel Bond is claimed by the spren: the spren chooses, not the human and, as such, what Adolin has with Maya is unique. He is a child of two nations who was able to combine both his father’s and his mother’s teaching within his relationship with exactly the right Blade: a lucky shot in the dark.
Moreover, I definitely think what is happening in between Adolin and Maya wasn’t part of any of the earliest planning Brandon made. I think with Maya, Brandon wanted to try exploring how it could progress if a character such as Adolin were to meet with her in Shadesmar. I think he wants to see if it can grow organically and naturally within the narrative, but he isn’t sure it will. It may not work out.
You summarize it nicely towards the end.
This is, I believe, exactly what Brandon entailed within his WoB: does Adolin accept to follow his father’s footsteps while knowing he will never be more than an inferior version of Dalinar or does he plunge for the unknown and attempt to carve his own path? My interpretation of this WoB is simple: one path is status quo, the other may lead to Maya being revived. It is obvious which one I want for Adolin, it is obvious which one offers superior character development and could entail added emotional content, but the reality is this isn’t the sole foregone conclusion to Adolin’s arc.
And there is the tiny issue of Adolin not being one of the main protagonists which entails any arc surrounding him will both be minor and without much consequences as his role in the narrative is to be a contrast to the broken Radiants. Do I personally wish it would be different? Of course, but let’s be realistic here. RoW will primarily focus on the Parshendis, the Voidbrigers, Venli, and Kaladin. The secondary focus may be hunting the Unmades, the coalition, and Shallan’s spying of the Ghostbloods. Then we have Szeth and the Heralds. Within book 5, we have the Shinovar narrative which will take up most of the book, then Dalinar wrapping on both his arc and the narrative.
Where do Adolin and Maya fit within all of this? Nowhere. Within the 20 to 40K left to Adolin’s entire narrative (my prediction for the next two books), there just isn’t enough page time to write much more than a minor arc without a climax nor a gradation nor anywhere near half the emotional content I first envisioned for his character when I finished reading WoR. In OB, Kaladin had 60K of not being able to find his fourth oath which is twice more than what Adolin is allowed in any given book. How is he going to grow enough to say the first oath, then find and accept the next two in the manner which would make Maya be revived within a third of the page time Kaladin needed to not reach one growth moment? Adolin isn’t even on a Radiant path right now… He is farther away from it than any other character so far and he has less than a tenth of the page time they have to figure it out…
More would require Brandon to change too much within what he has already planned. Where does he take the page time? From Venli? From Kaladin who always gets so much? From Dalinar’s already smaller role in RoW despite having many tasks to accomplish? From Shallan’s who’s still so messed up she needs a lot? From Rlain everyone wants to read from? From Szeth who doesn’t get much to start with? From Jasnah? From Renarin? From any of the real main protagonists?
So while I wish for Adolin’s narrative to become more significant, I just do not see how it will happen. To be honest, I have no idea how Brandon will ever pull out the Maya revival narrative given the constraints the narrative has. It seems to me Adolin’s character just doesn’t have enough page time to really grow out of the status quo.
Well in the original draft of of WOK Adolin dies and Kaladin is named Miren and isn’t a Surgeon’s son. Just because Brandon writes from an outline doesn’t mean he doesn’t give characters room to grow and change from what his original idea of them was. In Adolin’s case I believe that we should scrap the ideas formed for his original place in the narrative outright. His page time and his position in the narrative is outsized for what was going to be a minor character; at this point he has more character development than people who are getting focus books later on.
But if we’re talking about original planning, spren revivals seem like it would have been a Dalinar thing, him being master of Connection and all as well as having a blade that responds to him more than normal. But the narrative changes in the course of the series progression leaves Dalinar without the time to focus on it. So if Brandon wanted to keep spren revivals in the story then he’d need someone else to spearhead the effort. Who else could it be? Adolin’s the only other named character who has both the time to look into it and the experience with a Shardblade acting abnormally.
As for probable page time in the future to dedicate to this particular plot development in regards to Adolin, well he’s become a beloved character despite getting about a third of the words Kaladin got, at least so far. I would not discount the magic Brandon can create with limited page time. Plus he can cheat by tossing hints into other characters POVs. Shallan can toss a few comments in without it looking unnatural, same with Kaladin, Dalinar, or Renarin. He could also make Adolin the interlude focus character. Really he could do so many things to push the narrative with Adolin.
@Gepeto. I understand the need to not get your hopes up in case what you want to happen doesn’t happen, but now I fear you may be inadvertently doing the opposite. Pushing your hopes down, telling yourself there’s no need to expect anything good ever. In stead of just being able to take the story as it is. I understand this as for a long time I have struggled to mange my expectations in real life this way. It can be hard. I wish I had advice for you. But all I have is an observation. “It is what it is, and Brandon will write what he will right.”
@116: EvilMonkey, I rarely refer to WoK Prime as it was written a long time ago and its narrative was majorly changed. I usually refer to WoK and to the SA narrative Brandon planned when he re-started the series. Within this narrative, Adolin doesn’t die but was planned to be a minor side-character of little importance up until Brandon was forced to give him a bigger role when his plans for Dalinar didn’t work out. We do not know much with respect to Adolin’s initial role other than it was rather small and he wasn’t getting viewpoints. As far as I am aware, Brandon never commented on it nor was he asked.
While yes, Brandon abundantly commented on wanting to give his characters room to grow, there is only so much he can accommodate. In Adolin’s case, he said he wanted his character to have the room to make his own decisions, often implying how he hasn’t committed to one narrative or another. This is exactly what makes me believe there are no heavily impacted spren revival narrative planned: if it were planned, then Adolin’s growth would have been canonized. He would have morphed from an unplanned character with a precarious place within the narrative to a planned one with a definite role.
Could Brandon have planned it but first thought to use another character such as Dalinar? Impossible to know, but not terribly likely, IMHO. There aren’t enough indications Dalinar’s character has any feelings towards Shardblades other than finding them useful. There aren’t enough indications Dalinar has a relationship with Oathbringer, a Shardblade he gave up other than Oathbringer not hating him. I find this is very dim evidence when compared to Adolin’s relationship with Maya which has been developed since WoR. Had Brandon planned this, I believe he would have dropped hints within WoK when Dalinar was bonded to Oathbringer. Hence, I find it very unlikely Brandon had this grand narrative planned but failed to foreshadow it properly only to change his mind in WoR to have it focus on Adolin instead.
Also what evidence do we have exactly that Oathbringer responds to him “more than normal”? How many Radiants, formerly bond to a Shardblade, have had the opportunity to “touch”, once again, their former Shardblade? Moreover, how many Radiants have been bonded to a dead-Blades for more than 30 years? So where exactly is the evidence Oathbringer reacts more than your average dead-spren? We had Relis’ Blade “talk” to Kaladin. Oathbringer didn’t even talk to Dalinar, it just whimpered, it recognized him, but nothing indicates other dead-Blades wouldn’t be able to recognize a former yielder. I must thus advise caution in claiming Oathbringer is somehow within the same ballpark as Maya: up until Brandon writes a more explicit narrative, I will believe nothing which couldn’t have happened in between another Radiant and another dead-Blader formerly owned by the same Radiant happened. Besides, as I mentioned above, if this had been Brandon’s first intent, I feel he would have drop cues within WoK. He didn’t. I thus doubt Dalinar was ever going to revive a dead-Blade he no longer is bonded to now he is a Bondsmith with a legit spren. I doubt this was the plan considering Dalinar has an already very large narrative planned for him, none of it involving dead-sprens. So while I can’t prove it, so are my thoughts. My interpretation of the canon is this is a seed Brandon planted in WoR, not knowing how it would grow. By his own words, he still doesn’t know.
It is true Adolin became a well-loved character despite his limited exposition, but I deeply fear Brandon taking the short road with him will leave many readers not buying into his development. Already, readers do not know how to interpret Adolin: soldier or no soldier, leader or no leader, calm or impulsive, genuine or selfish, broken or not, deserving or spoiled. Brandon can do wonders with little page time, when the character is straight-forward, when the conflict is self-explanatory, like Teft. Brandon doesn’t need to explain how Teft is worthy of a Nahel Bond or broken enough. Brandon doesn’t need to explain his trajectory nor why he is a Windrunner. Teft’s character doesn’t need a lot of page time because his inner dilemma is easy to comprehend for the readers: everyone understands it right away, but this isn’t the case for Adolin. Adolin’s trajectory needs more explanation, more fleshing out so while Brandon can do wonder with little page time, he only succeeds in doing so with characters not really needing it.
Now the question is how much page time does Adolin really need to convincingly evolve from where he is to reviving Maya without it feeling contrived and underserved, without the readers ending up feeling he revived his Blade because he is just so perfect it works? I don’t have an answer. I’ll have an opinion when I’ll read the next book, but not knowing what to expect, I do not have an answer. The third person’s perspective can only go so far and, with Oathbringer, I believe we reached the limit of what it can offer for Adolin’s character development, but we’ll see.
The interlude focus characters are probably just as planned as the flashback ones… I think.
@117: I will never allow myself to grow as excited for a book as I was for Oathbringer as, even if I tempered down my expectations greatly, I still couldn’t believe the nothing more happened with the Sadeas narrative. This was a turn-over I had absolutely not predicted. I had predicted not liking the outcome, Adolin not getting enough viewpoints to my personal tastes, but I had never predicted the “no consequences” narrative we got.
Still, not all of this has to do with my personal expectations, a lot of it has to do with genuinely believing Adolin’s narrative may not go towards Maya’s revival.
I have accepted, starting this re-read, I would accept Brandon will write his story as he believes is best. Maybe it will fall in love with what he has planned for Adolin next, but maybe I will be disappointed in Adolin being used as a comical-relief and an inconsequential side-kick. I still do not know which one to expect. Nothing so far tells me the “comical side-kick” is off the table even if Brandon hinted at better development.
@116 EvilMonkey
I whole heartily agree. At the end of the day, none of us know what the future holds and none of us know how it will play out. There are all sorts of ways all our theories can play out that we cannot expect nor assume they will go poorly. Every theory stated here has its points that support it, points that disputes it, reasons for liking it, and reasons for disliking it. Any of them are equally likely.
1. Rock theory of helping Adolin. Nothing says couldn’t/wouldn’t help Adolin, and nothing says he necessarily would help Adolin. Rock potentially helping Adolin (ranging anything from “hey why she poking you?” to “hey maybe this will help”) does not automatically mean anything is taken away from Adolin, nor does it mean the narrative as result will be poor. Its just a theory and a valid one at that
2. Adolin reviving Maya by holding true to the oaths and respecting Maya. Nothing says it will work (respecting your sword is a tradition as per Adolin (Oathbringer page 164) “I’ve always kind of known. Not that it was alive. That’s silly. Swords aren’t alive. I mean… I’ve always known there was something special about them. It’s part of being a duelist, I think. We all know it”.) So other shardbearers treat their blade the same. Both Dalinar and Adolin experience the same thing from their blades Dalinar (Way of Kings page 203) “This sword was a part of him. he could sense the energy racing along its blade, as if it were eager.” Adolin (Oathbringer page 1163) “He felt something. A stirring on the wind. You want me to fight it, don’t you? It reminds you of when you were alive”. Both receive acknowledgement from their shardblades. With the 4 v 1 duel, the man ran screaming “I didn’t kill you!”. And he didn’t, because the shardblade did not recognize its wielder, unlike Dalinar and Adolin whose respective blades recognized them. Maya summons faster, but that could be from the perpendicularity. Again, right now we just don’t know. Adolin reviving Maya from just being himself does not automatically mean anything is taken away from Adolin, nor does it mean the narrative as result will be poor. Its just a theory and a valid one at that
3. Adolin filling in Maya’s cracks with his soul, healing her and creating something entirely new. Sure we have never seen a nahel bond function that way ever before. We have also never seen a parsh bond a radiant spren before. We haven’t seen a human bond a corrupted radiant spren before. We haven’t seen the Everstorm before. There is a whole lot we do not know about the nahel bond. “Normal” humans are made of investiture too. Why couldn’t they do the same as a spren potentially?. Once upon a time as of the first book of Mistborn, we thought that you could only get allomantic powers from your blood line. Then we find out (Mistborn Spoilers):
You can get them via Hemalurgy
Once upon a time in Mistborn we thought there are only allomancers and feruchemists. That an allomancer cannot use a metal mind, and a feruchemist cannot burn a metal. Then we find out (Mistborn Spoilers):
Interbreeding between the two creates people with a misting power and a ferring power, and if the metal is the same, they can compound, doing something entirely new
Once upon a time in Mistborn we thought powers could only be used by the person who “owned” them. Then we found out (Mistborn Spoilers):
That storing identity into medallions and the right combination of steps, would result in anyone being able to be a Lord Ruler
We thought we knew so much in Mistborn. And time and again we found out we were wrong. Why cannot the same stand for the nahel bond? Adolin reviving Maya from healing her with his own spirit web does not automatically mean anything is taken away from Adolin, nor does it mean the narrative as result will be poor. Its just a theory and a valid one at that
4. Adolin strengthening his Connection to Maya, and working with Dalinar via Dalinar’s connection/investiture powers to heal what was ripped out of Maya. We have seen Dalinar forge connections with people. We have seen Dalinar produce stormlight, and by the Stormfather’s own words he is a “binder of gods”. The very name of Dalinar’s radiant order is Bondsmith. Adolin and Dalinar having to work through their issues between each other, to work together to revive Maya and by extension the other spren is not a snap of the fingers fix. It does not automatically mean anything is taken away from Adolin, nor does it mean the narrative as result will be poor. Its just a theory and a valid one at that
At the end of the day, every single one of these are theories. Any of them could end up working out, or none of them, and the story could still come out being amazing. Personally I like that there are so many theories and I wish everyone luck with theirs!
For my two cents, I can never underestimate Brandon’s ability to surprise me. Even things I have guessed right about have happened in the narrative in such a way that it has startled me. It’s an amazing quality that I have often envied in my own modest writings. And though I realize that some of the plot developments aren’t going to please everyone I know that he makes me hungry to see more even when he goes in a different direction than what I would pick. Read the story that’s on the page.