On this week’s installment of the Oathbringer reread, our intrepid Shadesmar explorers take a shopping trip in Celebrant! They discover many interesting things, from paintings to the object permanence qualities of clothing, to… Fused? Here in Celebrant?! Read on, dear readers, and join us in more detail-picking and theory-crafting!
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread—if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
In this week’s reread we also discuss some minor spoilers from Mistborn: Secret History and Warbreaker in several sections, so if you haven’t read those, beware.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin, Azure, Pattern, Syl, and Maya.
WHERE: Celebrant, in Shadesmar
WHEN: 1174.2.4.5 (This is officially the day after Chapter 101, so even though no noticeable time has passed for the team in Shadesmar, it is presumably the following day in the Physical Realm.)
In Celebrant, Kaladin, Adolin, and Syl are on a shopping trip for clothing, weapons, and other supplies. Kaladin discovers a painting that reminds him of the urgency of their mission, then Syl is recognized—turns out she has quite a price on her head. They make their way back to the docks, where Azure, Shallan, Pattern, and Maya are trying to secure passage. However, their plans go upside down when they realize that the “routine inspections” are actually overseen by the Fused. Ico’s ship is burned and Syl reveals herself in order to gain passage on an Honorspren ship.
Beginnings
Title: Celebrant
L: Well, this one’s easy enough. They arrive in Celebrant this week, so… there’s your chapter title!
Heralds: Chach, aka Chanarach (Chana). Brave/Obedient. Dustbringers. Role: Guard. Soulcasting Property: Fire. Essence: Spark
A: On a guess, a lot of this choice is based on the Fused (accidentally?) setting fire to Ico’s ship. Probably part of it is also the behavior of… pretty much everyone on the team, guarding one another as much as possible.
L: I wonder if the stone spren we were seeing a lot of were Dustbringer spren….
Icon: Oddly enough, Pattern is the icon for the chapter; that usually denotes a chapter starting with Shallan’s POV, but in this case it begins with Kaladin. That’s okay, though; Shallan—and Pattern—get into the act soon enough.
Epigraph:
Moelach was said to grant visions of the future at different times—but most commonly at the transition point between realms. When a soul was nearing the Tranquiline Halls.
–From Hessi’s Mythica, page 114
A: This is interesting timing. I just had a conversation on Facebook about the real origin of the Tranquiline Halls concept. Per WoB, it’s actually Ashyn. I speculated that the reason the story says that the Voidbringers conquered the Tranquiline Halls is that some of the humans on Ashyn somehow accessed Odium’s Investiture, and that’s why their Surgebinding became more dangerous and damaged the world so badly.
But here, Hessi is clearly referring to where a person’s spirit goes when they die. We know from Mistborn: Secret History as well as Warbreaker that most people go to the Cognitive Realm and then (usually) to the Beyond. We also know that the Heralds and the Singer ancestors, whether in the Cognitive or the Physical Realm, go to Braize, not the Beyond.
None of that has to do with Moelach, of course, but I thought it was interesting. In any case, Hessi and Taravangian clearly agree on the source of the Death Rattles. I think I need to go back and review those, and see what kind of correlations people have been making. How informative are they, anyway?
Stories & Songs
A figure stood up there, with the marbled skin of a parshman. He floated a foot or two off the deck next to Ico, looming like a stern tutor over a foolish student.
“Perhaps,” Azure said, “we should have asked who runs the inspections.”
A: Talk about hindsight…. That was definitely unexpected. Not to mention, unfortunate.
“It’s a unique piece, human,” she said. “From the far-off Court of Gods, a painting intended only for a divinity to see. It is exceptionally rare that one escapes being burned at the court, and makes its way onto the market.”
“Nine shadows,” Kaladin said. “The Unmade?”
“This is a piece by Nenefra. Is it said that each person who sees one of his masterworks sees something different.”
L: I wonder how much of this is BS just so the seller can make it seem more important/worth more than it really is. I’m skeptical of the “everyone sees something different” bit, but that part about the Court of Gods… what could this possibly be in reference to? All I could think was Warbreaker, but I don’t think that scans….
A: Yep, he’s talking about Warbreaker. That much is confirmed by WoB, if only by his acceptance of the assumption in questions; however, he won’t say if the painting here is one we actually saw there, or just another one from there. It’s probably fairly valuable, being from another world, but I agree that the seller is most likely making up some of the schtick here, though whether that’s for a bigger sale or to gloss over the fact that he can’t see anything special, I won’t guess! About that “everyone sees something different”… Brandon was extremely evasive about whether or not that was true, or how it works. I’d bet that Investiture — on Roshar, a spren bond — is part of being able to see anything at all in it.
L: Well, nice to know that my instincts were right for once!
Relationships & Romances
“And I’m… I’m kind of like a spren lighteyes. I didn’t want you to know. In case you hated me, like you hate them.”
L: Oh jeez. This breaks my heart. Poor Syl.
Places & Peoples
According to the signs Syl could read, some items were far more expensive than others. Syl seemed to think the difference had to do with how permanent the thing was in Shadesmar—which made Kaladin worry for the clothing they’d bought.
L: Interesting. So their economy is based not entirely on export/import, but on object permanence?
A: It makes sense, doesn’t it? I sympathize with Kaladin’s concern!
According to the list from the dock registrar, [the honorspren ship] was heading someplace called Lasting Integrity—which was to the southwest.
A: I wonder if it’s located at the point corresponding to Kharbranth. It seems reasonable, though I don’t know why that should be a center for honorspren.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“What’s that?” Kaladin asked.
“Clothes!”
“Why do you need clothes? Yours are built in.”
“Those are boring.”
L: Bless you, Syl. Never change.
“Sylphrena, the Ancient Daughter?” one shouted.
“That’s me!” she shouted back. “You’d better catch me before I scamper away! Wow! I’m feeling capricious today. I might just vanish again, off to where nobody can find me!”
L: I can’t even with her. I adore her.
A: Such a hoot—and at the same time, such self-sacrifice. After spending all this time in disguise because there’s a reward for her capture, she throws it all away on their one chance to get away from Celebrant and the Fused there.
Weighty Words
“You… you are a Radiant? The old oaths are spoken again?”
“Yes,” Shallan said, helping Adolin’s spren to her feet.
The frightened little spren sat up straighter. “Oh, glorious day. Glorious! We have waited so long for the honor of men to return!”
Buy the Book
Fate of the Fallen
L: I really love this reaction.
A: Let’s see… this is a “vine spren”—an Edgedancer’s spren, or Cultivationspren. These are the ones who sent Wyndle to seek out and bond Lift; as a whole, they seem inclined to approve of the Radiant bonding. Not all the spren races are so eager, but it sure is nice to see this one!
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
The city wasn’t as densely populated as most human ones, but the variety of spren was stunning. Reachers like Ico and his sailors were common, but there were also spren that looked much like Adolin’s sword—at least before she’d been killed. They were made entirely of vines, thought they had crystal hands and wore human clothing. Equally common were spren with inky black skin that shone with a variety of colors when light hit them right. Their clothing seemed part of them, like that of the Cryptics and honorspren.
L: So we’ve got Edgedancer spren (Cultivationspren) and Elsecaller (Inkspren) ones. I’m curious about the crystal hands on the cultivationspren, and also why they’re wearing human clothes!
There were other spren with skin like cracked stone, molten light shining from within. Still others had skin the color of old white ashes—and when Kaladin saw one of these point towards something, the skin stretching at the joint of his arm disintegrated and blew away, revealing the joint and knobs of the humerus. The skin quickly regrew.
L: I’m very curious about what orders these spren represent!
A: An educated guess says that the first are the spren of Stonewards, and the second likely the spren of Dustbringers. We don’t have a name for the Stone spren yet (unless they’re Stonespren), but later in the book, Malata calls her Dustbringer-spren an “Ashspren.” She also implies that they aren’t very excited about the human bonding, an attitude that’s reflected in the ones they meet here:
They eyed the humans with overt hostility, and one flicked fingers toward Kaladin. Those fingers exploded to bits of dust, leaving bones that grew back the flesh.
A: Well, thanks for that mental image!
“No children,” Kaladin noted.
“There have been a few,” Syl said. “They just don’t look little, like human children.”
“How does that even work?” Adolin asked.
“Well, it’s certainly less messy than your method!” She scrunched her face up. “We’re made of power, bits of gods. There are places where that power coalesces, and parts start to be aware. You go, and then come back with a child? I think?”
L: This is pretty fascinating to consider.
A: I laughed pretty hard about Adolin’s response, that it sounded much like what his nanny told him about where babies come from. But I have to wonder whether it’s really like that (which would be a funny twist) or if Syl was told the equivalent of a human evasion.
“There are many varieties [of Voidspren],” she said. “Some of golden light, others are red shadows. Curious, yes. And it sounds like some of the Fused are with them—men with shells that can fly. I did not know this.”
L: The thing I find interesting about this is that Pattern finds it “curious.” Did he not expect for there to be different kinds of Voidspren?
A: That’s what it sounds like. That, or he’d simply never thought about it, so now he’s curious.
I have to wonder (I seem to be doing that a lot!) whether the red here reflects what we’ve been told about the significance of red in the Cosmere; it should, anyway. Per WoB, red indicates the corrupting or co-opting of one Shard’s Investiture by another Shard—not a specific other Shard, but any other. If that’s the case, these red Voidspren ought to be spren originally from Roshar who are now Invested by Odium’s power, while the golden ones are most likely solely of Odium.
[The Fused] stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, watching them board the ship. Honorspren gave it pause, apparently.
A: Isn’t that interesting. We know the honorspren seem to be standoffish, but this indicates that the Fused is, if not actually frightened of them, at least extremely cautious about them. Why?
Sheer Speculation
And sitting in a locked, glass-topped box, a long thin silvery chain.
…
“A thousand broams?” Kaladin asked. He looked down at the box, which was locked to the table and guarded by a small orange spren that looked like people.
L: I mean…. When I read a silvery chain the first thing I always think of are the chains (a’dam) the sul’dam use in Wheel of Time to control women who can use the One Power. This could be an homage, but Sanderson doesn’t usually do this. I find it more likely that this is something that’s going to come back somewhere down the line—because otherwise, why would he have mentioned it in the first place?
A: Why, indeed! My first thought was of the necklace Shallan’s father gave her, which is confirmed (in-world, anyway) to be aluminum, which “can only be made by Soulcasting.” We know that’s not quite true, but it seems to be the standard assumption. I don’t think it’s the same item, because this is described as “a long thin silvery chain” and Shallan’s necklace was described as “a necklace of fat silvery links.” Still… what are the odds that it’s aluminum, and therefore valuable throughout the Cosmere?
Next week, we’ll tackle chapter 103, returning to Dalinar’s POV in a vision, where he has a very odd conversation with… who or what, we can speculate then!
Alice is, as promised, busy running all over the Puget Sound area with her daughter’s volleyball team. One more regular season game, and then it’s tournament time. Whee!
Lyndsey isn’t sure what to do with her weekends now that she doesn’t have the renaissance faire eating up all of her time, but at least she has the Starsight release party in Utah next month to look forward to. If you’re interested in following along with her trip to Utah, follow her on Facebook or Instagram.
Sanderson has confirmed that those stone spren were the spren the made Stonewards.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/332-jordancon-2018/#e9532
The name Celebrant is a shoutout to the Celebrant stream from LotR, yes? Because if it is, then the city is pronounced kellabrant, but if not it’s probably sellebrant.
I was kind of stupidly excited when I recognized the Court of Gods picture. I wonder if, as you say, Investiture gives some form of heightening to make out the colors.
Dustbringer spren are the ashspren, the ones, whos skin dissapear and rebuild again
Didn’t the Fused who burned down Ico’s ship use something like a fabrial to do it? Or, maybe, some kind of weapon imported from another world? In any case, despite everything, the Fused seem not to be as violent dealing with “the spren of the Enemy(ies)” in Shadesmar as I would have expected. Is it because the spren are very difficult to kill and hurting them would only spur them on to ally and bond with humans once more? I am quite curious as to how they deal with non-Rosharan worldhoppers as well and what do they think about the fact that all these other human worlds exist. Frankly, it seems to me that if they had told Rosharans about the mostly empty Scadrial, quite a few of them might have agreed to emigrate, rather than fight another apocalyptic war. Maybe that’s why the Iri chose not to oppose Odium this time around? Because their oracles think that it is nearly time to move on to the next world anyway? Though, their conquest of Rira doesn’t really fit with such a stance.
Another curious thing is that non-sapient spren such as the mandras and others that can fly clearly can use surges in Shadesmar, as can the Radiants and the Fused, but the Radiant spren on their own can’t, for some reason? I’d really like to know why.
What I find to be particularly intriguing about this epigraph is that Hessi hints that Moelach can grant visions other than death-rattles. Curious, that Taravangian never pursued those… And well, Hessi clearly writes for the Alethi audience and her book is already audacious enough that she wouldn’t want to distract the reader from the meat of her argument about the Unmade by introducing religious controversies.
Concerning the pictures by this artist at the court of Gods in Hallandren, we know that Llarimar didn’t see the things in them that Lightsong did, so “everybody sees something different” is essentially true. Also, judging by Kaladin’s reaction, it does seem that invested people in general, rather than just the Returned, can see glimpses of the future in them.
The “permanency” stuff makes sense – it most likely depends on the skill of the person/spren who manifested the items from beads. With actual physical items being the most expensive imports from the physical realms of various worlds. This makes me wonder if physical items decay in Shadesmar. Are those brought there by the old Radiants still around?
BTW, did Our Heroes just luck out that the clothes that they had purchased turned out to be real rather than manifested when they returned to the the Physical or did they change back into their own things at some point?
About the mysterious chain we have this new(ish) WoB:
Red as the color of corrupted investiture always makes me wonder about the Thrill and what it was corrupted from.
Thanks for pointing out about the value of permency of items in the Cognitive realm. I missed that on my read throughs. Maybe that made Elsecallers especially valuable as intermediaries? They could manifest items like Shallan can as a lightweaver, but also transport items whole to the cognitive. Could have been a whole radiant economy trade between the physical and the cognitive with the elsecallers at the head.
It is more likely than not that Jasnah must have got the bandolier she had when she Elsecalled at the beginning of WoR at a city in Shadesmar. I wonder what the Spren seller charged for the bandolier. Jasnah does not strike me as the type who would haggle over the price of an item. I do not think she has the patience for that type of activity.
It is nice to know that a personality of a bureaucrat is the same whether it is a Spren or human. The customs agent acted the same way towards the humans as it did to the Fused. The bureaucrat wants anyone who deals with it to tell the Spren bureaucrat what he/she/it wants to know. The bureaucrat will not explain anything less than a hair of what the bureaucrat needs to answer the specific question asked. All hail the bureaucrats.
Lyndsey / re the painting Kaladin sees. Maybe it is the Cosmere equivalent of a Rorschach test? Everybody sees whatever their subconscious is projecting at the moment they first view the picture.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musepren
Honestly, I love these sections of chapter, as it does give us a peak into Spren civilization. I know these segments are rather short in the grand scheme of htings, but they are a lot of fun seeing how they react to the humans, and visa versa. Also I love cosmere references and the sheer shout out to Warbreaker made me excited. I also find it funny that Sanderson used warbreaker as the major reference book, when it wasn’t as read and the fact it was a writing experiment for him when he could have just used mistborn, his more popular book.
So I notice that we see seven out of nine varieties of Radiant spren this chapter. It makes sense to me that Highspren are gonna be a rare sight, because most of them are probably hanging out with the Skybreakers, but where are the Truthwatcher spren? They feel conspicuous in their absence, especially given the way a group of Cryptics showed up, despite the fact that they were called out as rare.
I mean, I’m sure part of it is the Brandon didn’t want to give us too many clues that Glys doesn’t look like he’s supposed to, but if that was all that was going on here, why go to the effort of squeezing all of the other types into this chapters?
Edit: all content removed as incorrect, there’s no way to delete.
@steven Hedge: Warbreaker was explicitly written as a prequel to Way of Kings.
“We’re made of power, bits of gods. There are places where that power coalesces, and parts start to be aware. You go, and then come back with a child? I think?”
Are these places the Perpendicularities / Shardpools or are there more options?
I like that Syl says she is going to “scamper away”. Great use of scamper.
The painting is probably abstract colors that everyone interprets differently. It is strange that Kal can see anything in it without Breath that allows him to distinguish the shades of color. Can Stormlight have the same effect?
When Adolin brings Maya through the Oathgate to Shadesmar she doesn’t remain a Blade, but their clothes and other possessions seem to remain the same. That doesn’t really make sense.
I hadn’t really stopped to think about the object permanence of most of the stuff in the markets. But yeah, if they’re manifested from beads that would make a lot of sense. I can just imagine them wandering around on the highspren ship and suddenly the clothes/undies they bought start to fade… But as it’s not that relevant to the story, I don’t think it would really need to be included.
Poor captain Ico, losing his ship to the Fused’s fire just for helping out the humans. I hope we see him again later, and he’s okay. Maybe it will make him want to go bond a human somewhere…
Syl and her hugely obvious hiding under the hat was hilarious, I can totally see her attempting to be sneaky the same way my kids would. And then turning herself in anyway so they could get on the boat, she’s super brave. And so capricious, lol!
Lightsong’s ability to find meaning in the painting was directly related to his Investiture … which means that Kaladin may indeed be seeing something special, either intended or not, in the picture.
I was able to locate a WoB to that effect [emphasis mine]:
They are abstract paintings which Lightsong, having a touch of the divine, is able to see and read into things that aren’t necessarily there.
Beyond that, art is a magical thing in the world of WARBREAKER. When an artist creates a work of art, part of the artist’s soul ends up in the artwork. Someone who has many breaths and who’s Returned like Lightsong has the inherent ability to see into the art and perceive that. So Lightsong can interpret correctly an abstract piece, based on what the artist is trying to convey, in a way that a normal person couldn’t.
I was not trying to make the artists anyone specifically important. In the case of those paintings, they are wonderful artists—I think they are two separate artists, if I’m thinking of the two paintings that you’re indicating. As Lightsong has a splinter of divine nature inside him, he is able to interpret the paintings—to foresee, using them, and to see into the soul of the person who made them.
If we make the leap that this ability is not solely unique to the Returned, but to other highly-Invested individuals across the Cosmere, a Radiant like Kaladin could be able to see both a glimpse of the future and a glimpse of the artist’s Intent. This wouldn’t necessarily apply to “each person who sees” the painting, or even to all Invested individuals, but it does mean there could be something there.
@14 With Maya not staying as a blade, and their possessions not becoming beads making them all naked, it might because the “souls” of their clothes, will just see themselves as clothes. Remember, Stick thought it was a stick, and refused to change, so when entering shadesmar, they might still see themselves as clothes, not changing. or it was a oversight by Brandon because it was a dramatic scene, either way.
@17 Steven Hedge
I think it is because they went fully into the cognitive realm, so it is not that the bead of their clothes is present, it is actually their clothes, with them, are present. Taking a bead and manifesting it in the cognitive realm I think is a different matter, which is the clothes they purchased. As to why Maya, Syl, and Pattern all look different, I think it is because they are mostly present in the cognitive, with a portion pulled into the physical as the bond grows between spren and radiant in Syl and Pattern’s case, and in a shardblade in Maya’s case. Just like we only see the drooling blood of anger spren, while the rest is hidden from view in the cognitive realm, I think the same stands for Syl and Pattern. At least that is how I understand it. I could be completely off.
That’s interesting – I didn’t catch that there was a deeper meaning behind how/what you could see in those pictures. I always assumed it was more literal – simply being able to distinguish between hues others couldn’t.
@8 – Speaking of the bandolier, what happened to it in OB?
So if the silver chain is from Threnody perhaps it provides protection from ghosts or something. Aren’t the fused affectively ghosts? They need to take over someone’s body to manifest on Roshar.
The audiobook pronounces Ico’s name “Ee-ko.” But whenever I see it, I get earwormed by the song “Iko Iko,” where it’s pronounced “Eyeko.”
It’s fun to read about these spren as sapient human-scale humanoids and relatively large animals going about their indepdent lives in their weird world, especially because Stormlight Archive usually has fewer fictional beasts and beings than I would like (though a lot more than most other Cosmere works). But it’s harder to keep thinking of them as being literally connected to the spren as we knew them before this part of this book — tiny weird shapes that appear in response to every strong emotion and natural force, plus some rare sapient little beings that think and might talk like humans but are very inhuman in size and (usually) shape.
At this point in my first read, I had forgotten that Syl was the Stormfather’s daughter, and though she might be Iko’s referenced runaway daughter.
@@@@@Andrew Higgins:
If someone physical is in the Cognitive (not passing through to the Beyond, or a native entity [spren]), can they possibly be anything but Invested? That is, I would expect Adolin (who is normally not unusually Invested beyond any other Shardbearer) to be able to do more “Invested-person things” while in the Cognitive Realm).
It looks as if Investiture is precisely the intersection of the Three Realms, after all.
If the silvery chain is actually silver from Threnody, it could presumably be used to bind or destroy spren. In the only published Threnody story, we see silver used to do both to shades. Shades are Cognitive Shadows, not splinters like spren, but I see similarities–they’re both Cognitive entities.
Syl really is the best.
Between her lightwoven coloring and her disguise with the wide brimmed hat, all I could think of was Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego.
Never occurred to me that object permanency might have to do with manifesting. I just thought it was because spren have a different concept of time, and soft goods like clothes wear out (relatively) quickly when one lives hundreds or thousands of years.
Boy, those honorspren are a pretentious lot when it comes to naming things, aren’t they? Kinda lacking in the imagination department, though…
As for the Death Rattles, I seem to recall some discussion in the WoK reread suggesting that maybe they weren’t all visions of the future. One in particular (I can’t find it now) we started keying into that one being the moment when Taln broke. So, maybe they’re visions of the present, too?
@23 – Investiture comes from the Spiritual Realm. IMO, you’re not Invested if you are brought into the Cognitive Realm physically by someone else.