Happy new year, O Rereaders of the Stormlight Archive! Welcome back! Did you see the news about Sanderson finishing Book 4 just before the end of the year? We’re so excited, but we also hope you’re all well rested, because this chapter sets up the beginning of the ending of Oathbringer. We’re back in Shadesmar, where Our Heroes once again strike out on their own, minus one member.
Heh. I couldn’t resist the cut text. (If you came here without going to the Tor homepage first, it was, “All right. Jump!”) It’s Shallan leading the team off the ship, but it’s SO appropriate for this stage of the book. It’s going to be pretty much non-stop tension and action from here on out.
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 things from Warbreaker in the Cosmere Connections section, so if you haven’t read it, best to give that section a pass.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Shallan & the Shadesmar Exploration Society
WHERE: Shadesmar, at the edge of Longbrow’s Straits (east of Kharbranth, north of Thaylen City, on the south coast of the mainland)
WHEN: 1174.2.7.4—The numbers in the timeline are a little fruity, since a minimum of several days passed during the course of Chapter 108, and we don’t know how many. We don’t quite know if this is a matter of several days, or only several hours, since the end of that chapter; either one could be argued. Either way, we know the date for this chapter solidly; the highstorm they see is the same as the one in Chapter 109, when Dalinar and Venli met in the ancient-Kholinar vision.
Beginnings
Title: A Million Stars
They crowded into the opening into the cargo hold, looking at the glass beads below. Churning, catching the light of a distant sun, sparkling like a million stars …
Heralds: Jezrien, Herald of Kings, patron of Windrunners, is the sole Herald on this chapter. His associated divine attributes are Protecting and Leading, and his role is King. I’m not entirely sure why he’s here, except that the honorspren are front and center here. I guess Shallan even does more protecting and leading than her usual, so there’s that?
Icon: Pattern, for a Shallan POV
Epigraph:
The Midnight Mother created monsters of shadow and oil, dark imitations of creatures she saw or consumed. Their description matches no spren I can find in modern literature.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 252
A: She’s come a long way, has our little Midnight Mother… ::shudder:: The creatures Dalinar saw in that vision fit this statement, but what Shallan & Co. saw in the Urithiru basements were recognizable humans. It does make me wonder what she was imitating before, though. Creatures from Braize? (Did the Unmade return to Braize between Desolations too? Do we know?)
Stories & Songs
Honor’s Path had made a heroic effort these last few hours, pushing its mandras to exhaustion—and it hadn’t been nearly enough. The Fused were slower than Kaladin could go, but they were still far faster than the ship.
A: So… why are the Fused slower than a Windrunner? Are they not using the same Surges? Perhaps they can only use one Surge, or one at a time? I don’t know (obviously), but this seems like an important thing to notice! I suppose it makes sense that the mandras can’t pull a ship as fast as an unencumbered Fused can fly, though I’m curious as to how fast they can go by themselves.
L: Yeah, this seems like a strange distinction to make. When Kal is flying (or falling with style), he’s only using one of the surges, right? Maybe he can just use them more effectively and Lash himself more times than they can.
A: Hmm, yeah, the number of Lashings makes a big difference. Maybe they can’t do that.
Also, this bit is why I suspect that Chapter 110 picks up only a few hours after Chapter 108 ends, since that’s when they first spotted the Fused on the horizon. Did they start the push immediately? I would guess so.
Flora & Fauna
These trees! The trunks were translucent; the leaves looked like they were blown from glass in a multitude of colors. Moss drooped from one branch, like melted green glass, strands hanging down in silky lines. When she touched them, they broke off.
A: I’d really love to see some artwork for this…
Shadesmar Shenanigans
They hit the bottom, which was shallow, here near the shore. Then Shallan finally let herself draw in Stormlight. One precious gemstone’s worth. It sustained her, calmed her. She fished in her pocket for the bead she’d picked from the bucket earlier.
When she fed the bead Stormlight, the other beads around her trembled, then pulled back, forming the walls and ceiling of a small room.
A: I keep feeling like we shouldn’t need the description again, but I’m always glad it’s there to answer the question. When Stormlight is fed into one bead, the other beads around the area join to create the shape of the original bead’s physical form. Also, very clever of Shallan to have found a room-bead in that bucket she was sifting through! Do you suppose she picked out a variety of beads that seemed like they might be useful in different situations, then settled on this one to meet the specific need?
“Damnation,” Adolin said, wheezing. “Drowning with no water. It shouldn’t be so hard, should it? All we had to do was hold our breath….”
A: Okay, here’s something I should have realized in the beta. When you need to breathe but want to filter out something nasty, such as smoke or fumes, you tie a handkerchief or something over your mouth and nose. Why did it not occur to them to try this? Just wrap a scarf across your nose and mouth, and you don’t have to hold your breath or choke on beads.
(Also, we discovered on the beta that we had quite a variety of impressions of these beads. Everyone was thinking “round,” but the sizes we visualized ranged from ⅛” seed-bead size all the way up to tennis-ball size!)
They each carried a change of clothing, three water jugs, and some of the food Adolin had purchased. Hopefully it would be enough to reach Thaylen City.
Buy the Book
The Unspoken Name
A: This reminds me of the epilogue from Words of Radiance, where Jasnah came out of Shadesmar much better equipped than she went in. Our Heroes certainly have a much better shot at survival now than they did when leaving Kholinar.
They started up the slope, against the tide of beads. … They soon reached a place were the ground was too steep to walk on easily. Shallan let go of the men’s hands and scrambled up the incline.
A: Well, I guess they got the hang of walking without breathing? This bit always feels vaguely wrong to me, like they have to have walked farther than they should be able to hold their breath, but… I guess? Shallan has it easy, with the Stormlight she’s holding, but Adolin doesn’t have that, and Kaladin chooses not to use it.
“I saw the enemy fly past,” Syl said. “I was hiding by the trees here.”
A: So at least that part of the plan worked… Note also that Syl didn’t bother to join them in Shallan’s “waiting room”—she just headed for the land and hid in the trees so she could see what was happening.
Kaladin dug out two gemstones. “All right,” he said, “we fly.”
They’d decided to use two gemstones’ worth of Stormlight to fly inward, a gamble to get a head start on their hike—and to get away from the coast. Hopefully the Fused wouldn’t treat the honorspren too harshly. Shallan worried for them, but equally for what would happen if the Fused doubled back to search for her group.
A: Sounds like a reasonable plan, given what they know now….
Kaladin Lashed them one at a time—and fortunately, his arts worked on the spren as they did humans.
A: Argh. This gets so meta, when a character starts thinking about how lucky they are that things work out conveniently. The reader gets torn between relief that it works, and the knowledge that it works because the author decided that the story would be better served by not giving them another annoying difficulty to overcome just now. Heh.
L: We call this “hanging a lampshade,” or just “lampshading.” Basically, “yes, reader, I realize this is odd or super convenient but I promise you I’ve thought of it and it’s not a mistake.”
Cosmere Connections
“I simply have a different thread to chase, and besides, I left my men to fight these monsters in Kholinar. Doesn’t feel right to do the same again.” She smiled. “Don’t fear for me, Stormblessed. You will have a much better chance if I stay here—as will these sailors.”
A: As with everything about Vivenna/Azure, I wonder… In this case, I wonder how much Breath she’s got. Nalthians seem to have the ability to hold an awful lot of Investiture, whether it’s their own world’s Breath or Roshar’s Stormlight. She certainly doesn’t seem worried about being injured or killed, so I have to assume she’s holding a LOT. Plus, she’s clearly planning to awaken a whole boatload of objects to fight with them, which is also going to take a lot of Breath/Investiture-of-some-kind.
It occurs to me that she and Zahel have a tremendous advantage here on Roshar, where every highstorm provides tons of Investiture; since everyone expects it to get used up, it’s not that surprising (if they’re clever) that they can get away with just storing it up internally to a mind-numbing level. All they have to do is make sure they stay below God-King level, where the colors go all swirly around you, and no one else will notice a thing. And since they can retrieve it all when they’re done with their Awakened objects, they don’t have to keep renewing it. (Well, okay, Zahel/Vasher does to some extent, being a Returned, but Vivenna doesn’t. Unless she died and Returned since the end of Warbreaker.)
L: I wonder how they get rid of the extra, so they don’t get all god-King-color-swirly.
A: Stuff it in a convenient cloak (Vivenna) or rope belt (Vasher)?
“When you boys next meet the swordsman who taught you that morning kata, warn him that I’m looking for him.”
“Zahel?” Adolin said. “You know Zahel?”
“We’re old friends,” she said.
A: Yes, indeed. Old friends… though he’s much older than she is. I love Adolin’s shock, though. He (like everyone else) has no clue about Zahel’s background. I would really love to see the moment when Adolin & Kaladin deliver her message!
“Notum, have your sailors been cutting those bales of cloth into the shapes I requested?”
“Yes,” the captain said. “But I don’t understand—”
“You soon will.”
A: Oh, I wish we could have seen this battle! Hopefully we’ll hear something about it later. The spren are about to get the shock of their lives when the see Awakened objects fighting alongside them. I wonder what shapes she chose. I’m guessing vaguely human-shaped, because Vasher said those are easier to Awaken, but… who knows?
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
Syl’s color seemed muted, and she clung to Kaladin’s arm, unsteady. Was she going to be able to make it to shore with them?
A: Poor Syl; it hasn’t been good for her to be locked up for almost three weeks. I don’t exactly understand why it affected her like this, but apparently it did. And the captain should, so I find it baffling that he would treat the “ancient daughter” that way. Weird.
“Go, then,” the captain said. “And be swift. I cannot promise that my crew, once captured, will be able to keep this secret for long.” Apparently it was difficult to kill spren, but hurting them was quite easy.
A: Well, that sucks.
Overhead, the clouds rippled with the mother-of-pearl iridescence that marked another highstorm in the real world. … the effect on Pattern and Syl was immediate. They stood up straighter, and Syl’s wan color brightened to a healthy blue-white. Pattern’s head shifted more quickly, spinning through a dozen different cycles in a matter of minutes.
A: We’ll just call this another cool thing I don’t understand; somehow, the spren “feed” off of the storm in Shadesmar, even though it doesn’t seem to deposit any stormlight there.
Nearby, Syl looked to the southwest with a kind of wistful, far-off expression. “Syl?” Shallan asked.
“There’s a storm that way too…” she whispered, then shook herself and seemed embarrassed.
A: WHAT? What. Is. That. About?
I mean… Southwest of their location in Shadesmar, there’s Thaylen City with its Oathgate, and beyond that is the “Nexus of Imagination,” whatever that is. In the physical realm, it’s just Thaylen City and the “Southern Depths” part of the ocean. What storm is she sensing? Is the Everstorm thataway right now? But why would that make Syl wistful? I’m so confused.
L: I’m really confused by this one, too.
Quality Quotations
She’d chosen to wear Veil’s outfit today, in part for the pockets.
A: Every woman I know can relate to this.
Well, that concludes this weeks presentation. Comment on what we left out! Also, come back next week to deal with Chapter 111, in which we will all grind our teeth to nubs. Our smarmy “friend” Amaram is in full form, Teft & Lyn get great lines, and two storms—one literal, one figurative—come at the same time, as the results of Dalinar’s visions return to stab him in the back. Eila Stele next week.
Alice is still groggy from getting back to a normal schedule, after having the most relaxing Christmas break in years; she’s hoping to recover her brain in time for the upcoming beta read of SA4, which is expected to start sometime in the next three weeks or so. Happy New Year, everyone!
Lyndsey is recovering from getting five piercings on one day right before New Years, and wishes the Force to be with you. Always. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.
Hah, pockets!
Really, nothing else to add at the moment, but the pockets are nice :)
Re: Kaladin Lashed them one at a time—and fortunately, his arts worked on the spren as they did humans.
I guess I didn’t realize how ‘convenient’ it was and just took it in stride, but now I am considering some implications. Do other surges work on spren when the Knight is in Shadesmar? For instance, could Jasnah transport a spren with her (to other places in Shadesmar or bring it with her into the physical realm)? Could Jasnah or Shallan soulcast a spren into a substance like how Jasnah soulcasts people into air/fire/crystal? Would that kill a spren? Can Lift heal a spren? I don’t know if it could heal a dead-eyes as the injury is likely soul-deep so it may be immune, but if a spren is “hurt” as is alluded to by the Captain, could that be fixed? Could division be used to kill a spren? Anyway, just curious.
I’ve pictured the beads as marble sized, but I wonder if they are a little smaller so that they get in your mouth easier. I like the scarf idea!
Re: the Midnight essence monsters from the visions – I guess I assumed they were patterned after axehounds, but warped and distorted.
Given how easy it is for the beads to get into everything, I assume they’re ball-bearing sized.
As to “somehow, the spren “feed” off of the storm in Shadesmar,” isn’t the highstorm a perpendicularity that actually joins all three realms? In that case, the question isn’t so much why it energizes the spren as much as why it doesn’t energize spheres. Or is this an old unproven/disproven theory that I’m just mis-remembering?
There’s a WOB for this (of course there is!)
Consider Vivenna/Azure, who is actually a king’s daughter and another king’s sister-in-law, and who is protecting like crazy in and just after this chapter.
I made a thread on The 17th Shard ages ago called Skittles of Shadesmar. This skittles advert should give you a pretty good impression of the beads of Shadesmar, both the size and what it is like to suddenly be there perhaps.
Alice and Lyndsey. Happy new year. I hope both of you and your families had a happy and healthy holiday season.
Alice: I suspect that the description of the trees you described in the Flora & Fauna section (the way the lights blends of the glass) would have a similar affect as the crystals do in the picture of Ash in OB.
As an aside, has Brandon confirmed that Book 4 will have color pictures of additional Heralds? Or maybe he will change things up and have color pictures of 4 of the Unmade.
I wonder what the Honorspren think of Vivenna/Azure. Once she uses Investitures (is that the verb form?), they will realize she is not using Stormlight. Are the Honorspren (and the other KR spren) aware of the greater Cosmere and that other types of Investiture? We have seen there are some humans who are in Shadesmar (the person at the lighthouse – Riino, I think his name was), but not sure what knowledge Spren have.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
I’d also been imagining the beads as marble sized, but I suppose ball bearings makes a bit more sense. Like they need to small enough that they can flow like a liquid, but large enough that it’s obvious at a glance that they are beads, and not actually liquid.
Huh. Y’know, I just realized that my mental image of the beads is quite similar to my mental image of the spheres Rosharans use as currency. I wonder if Shadesmar is part of the reason why the gemstones are traditionally kept specifically as spheres?
Also- I don’t Vivienna can directly use Stormlight to fuel Awakening. Vasher can certainly use it to sustain himself, but I believe he just needs to consume any kind of Investiture, whereas you need specifically need Breath to Awaken. Or, at the very least, Stormlight definitely wouldn’t obediently stick around in a human body or awakened object indefinitely; it would leak out just like it does from gems and radiants. Whereas Breath is much stickier and just won’t move from where you left it.
Could the Jezrien icon also stand for Azure’s choices in this chapter? I mean, she is very much “protecting and leading” towards the spren crew of the ship and she also favors the right color ;). I very much feel that she is coming to the conclusion that she needs to step in and help Rosharans in their dire straits, rather than do the “in -and-out” job that she originally intended. And I am on record for expecting that having to spend a year in the Honorspren city in Shadesmar, until Cutlivation’s Perpendicularity is freed from the voidspren and the Fused and becomes passable again, will lead to her bonding Captain Notum as her spren.
I know that the arguments against stress the fact that Stormlight Archive shouldn’t require knowledge from other Cosmere books and series, but IMHO given that Warbreaker was specifically written as a prequel to the SA and that Awakening will have to be explained anyway, because of Nightblood, Vivenna and Vasher are allowed to play more substantial roles than the Easter Eggs.
And honestly, I don’t see how Vivenna’s presence in Shadesmar _with a shardblade_ wouldn’t have far-reaching reprecussions. Think about it – it is a pretty much unique situation. Yes, Nightblood passed through too, but he certainly wasn’t used there. But Vivenna is going to use her shardblade on the Fused – and here is a very interesting question – what would happen if after killing the Fused body, she hit their soul with a shardblade? I mean, we have seen Kaladin kill a minor voidspren with Syl in Kholinar, but I imagine that the Fused were protected from such attacks before, since when their hijacked bodies were killed, their souls/cognitive shadows passed into Shadesmar in the past, where they were safe from shardblades. And now they, and presumably higher voidspren there, are no longer safe. Not sure if they can actually be killed once and for all, but they very likely can be severely damaged. All of this should have impact on the balance of forces in Shadesmar and give the spren who are willing to oppose the Fused hope. Awakening would also help, of course.
Alice: if it is possible to supress the Divine Breath, shouldn’t it also be possible to supress manifestations of a higher heightening? I mean, of course Breaths can be stored in clothes, etc., but Vivenna would need to have enough on her person to slow or stop aging, too. Also, if Awakened cloths are destroyed, then the Breaths would be lost to her. Here is to hoping that the Fused don’t have the fabrial that torched Ico’s ship with them. Also, Vasher _can’t_ turn stormlight into Breaths yet, there is a WoB about that. Leave alone Vivenna, who spent too short a time on Roshar to figure something as huge as that out and wasn’t interested in trying.
This quote, however:
has bugged me since I first read it. Didn’t Notum brag a few chapters back (or was it Ico?) how spren, unlike humans, can’t break their oaths? So, if they had, indeed, promised to keep Our Heroes secret, they shouldn’t have been able to disclose it no matter what, no? This looks like an inconsistency to me.
@Isilel: I don’t think the spren ever promised to keep the humans secret indefinitely. Like I just don’t think that’s an oath they’d be interested in swearing. Like they don’t want to trapped in a situation where the Fused are torturing them for information that they’re physically unable to give.
I’ve been thinking of the beads as marbel sized, but I think you’re right that they must be smaller than that to actually present a choking hazard to adults.
Shadesmar beads are black marbles:
Rosharan money:
@12 – Rosharon is flat on one side, though. Keeps it from rolling around.
@9 Isilel
Vivenna doesn’t have a shardblade. That’s just the closest example that Adolin and Kaladin could picture. Hers is something closer to Nightblood, but with a different command (and, as far as I remember seeing, not sentient).
This is the first reread entry to be posted since I finished Oathbringer, so the first one I’m participating in. Yay!
I imagined the beads being marble-sized.
Azure’s presence in this book makes me want to read Warbreaker. I’ve been debating whether the next Sanderson book I read should be that or Mistborn; any suggestions?
Nina @15 – I’d definitely recommend Warbreaker immediately. After that, I’d go to publication order, but do Warbreaker first. There’s so much tie-in to SA, especially here in Oathbringer.
Why shouldn’t Azure’s sword be sentient? We just haven’t heard it talk because she had no POV. The sword (and Nightblood) are attempts to create Shardblade with a different magic system (they probably didn’t know that the Shardblades are spren when they created Nightblood and the other sword).
Vivennas sword seems to be sentient
I always pictured beads like the ones I use in sewing projects, which are pinhead-sized or smaller.
@AndrewHB: I wonder what the Honorspren think of Vivenna/Azure. Once she uses Investitures (is that the verb form?), they will realize she is not using Stormlight. The verb is “invest.” And sure, they’ll realize something is weird about Azure, but they know that already–she has a non-spren Shardblade that works in Shadesmar.
@Gilphon: Also- I don’t Vivienna can directly use Stormlight to fuel Awakening. Vasher can certainly use it to sustain himself, but I believe he just needs to consume any kind of Investiture, whereas you need specifically need Breath to Awaken. Or, at the very least, Stormlight definitely wouldn’t obediently stick around in a human body or awakened object indefinitely; it would leak out just like it does from gems and radiants. Whereas Breath is much stickier and just won’t move from where you left it.
There’s a WoB that it is possible to use Stormlight for Awakening, but if Vasher has not figured it out, I doubt that Vivenna has in far less time on Roshar. Note that Stormlight doesn’t always leak. For instance, perfect gems don’t leak Stormlight.
@RogerPavelle:
Vivenna doesn’t have a shardblade. That’s just the closest example that Adolin and Kaladin could picture. Hers is something closer to Nightblood, but with a different command (and, as far as I remember seeing, not sentient).
Brandon refers to Nightblood as a Shardblade, so I think it’s reasonable to say Vivenna’s blade is also one.
So the fused are actually more efficient in their power usage. Its that they cannot add lash after lash after lash on top of each other. They can only gradually accelerate. WoB below
Questioner
The Fused that wield, like–their Lashings can be a lot faster than Kaladin’s are. Is it because it’s based on a different planet than the Radiants?
Brandon Sanderson
Kaladin can go faster, but they are more– they are faster over a large span. What’s going on with the Fused is they have– The way their Investiture works, it doesn’t leak and they are able to use it for much longer periods of time. But they don’t have access to the number of times that Kaladin can Lash himself directions and things like this, and the speed with which he can pick up speed. So in the short Kaladin is favored, in the long they’re favored.
Orem signing (March 10, 2018)
I would love to see Shadesmar artwork too!When Shallan and Jasnah first fall into Shadesmar, the beads actively try to force themselves into the ears, eyes, and mouth. That every if you press your lips together and hold your mouth shut, they actually try to force their way in. So I feel like if you are going to wear something on your head to keep them out, you will practically need a helmetAwakening is cool because theoretically you can always have an army nearby and on hand. Though technically the same can be said for Lightweaving. I am very excited to see more of Lightweaving because I imagine if they can make their illusions more solid, then potentially lightweavers could be the “summoning” class of the knights radiant. Either create multiple weaker “summons” or create one large, more “real” illusion/summon to fight. Imagine an illusion of a chasmfiend going toe to toe with a thunderclast!
@2 whitespine
I heard an interesting theory that posits if Renarin or Lift were to go into the cognitive realm and use regrowth on a dead spren, it could heal them.
I have no idea, why (and they probably go against the description in color or something, I cannot remember it so well), but in my mind’s eye, I always see the Shadesmar beads as something like these (without the holes):
I just thought that it was because a part of the spren can manifest in the normal world (but most of if remains in Shadesmar). So they would be able to get the stormlight from the part of them manifesting in the normal world.
My mental picture of the bead sea is that of a ball pit (complete with red, yellow, blue, and green balls), though they would need to be much finer to match the book descriptions.
I could see vendors offering masks with mesh covers for the eyes, nose, and mouth to allow vision and breathing without risk of infiltration by beads. Scarves or veils should work in a pinch.
Has Brandon said anything about a Vivenna PoV in any upcoming books?
Kaladin = Quarter Horse and Fused = Thoroughbred.
I can imagine the glass trees and other glasslike objects as being like Chihuly glass.
https://www.chihuly.com/work/ikebana
@23: That’s what I pictured, too.
Everyone saw the latest Reddit update? Good times!
@28: I did :-)
I wonder why Brandon is so secretive with regards to which characters gets viewpoints within which arc or just which characters get viewpoints. He says, somewhere in the comments, revealing more would give away spoilers on the actual story. I took it he meant some pairings, by themselves, are giving away things which might happen or give an indication of things that might happen.
Given what he has already given away, I cannot help but wonder what it is he does not want to say.
I keep on making scenarios, in my head, of what it could be, which pairings would be a spoiler. I’ll be fun to see if any of my crazy thoughts were anywhere close to the truth.
He also hinted Venli’s narrative would not be as dominating as other focus character’s narrative was in their own book, but maybe I am just picking up the wrong interpretation here. Since I kind of expected this, it may be I am naturally picking up the interpretation which confirms my own suspicions. Hard to say.
I watched the live stream too. Magellan is so adorable! My kids were crazy over him! They didn’t care at all about Brandon, but Magellan, they just loved him. Now, they want a parrot at home too. Sigh. In terms of content, it was fun to listen to, but nothing really unexpected came out of it.
Beginning note: Since writing this, I’ve found a WoB which implies that Vivenna is probably using Breath she brought with her for her Awakening. I think someone may have asked about it in the livestream on Saturday and confirmed that, but I’m not sure.
Nazrax @3 – “ isn’t the highstorm a perpendicularity that actually joins all three realms?” It’s a popular theory, but unverified, and I don’t buy it. As you say, if that were the case, why wouldn’t it charge gemstones? Why would Stormlight be at such a premium in Shadesmar? So I think there’s another answer.
Austin @@.-@ – Thanks for the WoB! I’m slacking off in my research. Oops.
Andrew @7 – If I remember correctly, Brandon was planning to do four more Heralds in the next book, but I don’t know for sure what the artwork will be. Isaac has been quite secretive about these things… (I’ll update if I learn anything interesting!)
Isilel @9 – I have SO many questions about Vivenna. I don’t know whether you can suppress the effect of Tenth Heightening or not; not many Returned even know how to suppress the effect of the Divine Breath. But Tenth takes a LOT of Breath, and virtually everything we even suspect she does can be done with much, much less than that. You only need 2000 Breaths for agelessness (Fifth), while Tenth Heightening is about 50,000. She could be carrying 40,000 Breaths and still be well shy of the level needed to distort color.
Come to think of it… Ninth Heightening, which only needs 20,000 Breaths, would be an interesting way for her to have created the effect mentioned back in Chapter 70, where the soldier said it “Felt like we had spren at our backs, holding us up, helping us fight.” The best I’d come up with so far was that she went through the ranks touching everyone, but Audible Command would fit better with that whole thing about how she joined the squad, rallied everyone, and inspired them to keep fighting…
@several – I’m with Havi on this; Vivenna definitely speaks like her sword is sentient, and it makes sense. I hope we get a name and some further information on her sometime soon.
Scath @22 – If that theory is correct, I could see Renarin making every effort to heal Maya for Adolin!
Kaboom @24 – That makes a certain amount of sense, though I wouldn’t try to prove it. It’s certain that they get something from the highstorm, and having it come through their connection to the Physical realm would be interesting. (Also, hi there! Long time no see! But that’s probably my fault; I haven’t been in the comments much lately.)
Gepeto @29 – I’ve given up on trying to interpret Brandon’s cryptic comments about the viewpoints and arcs. I’m almost guaranteed to be completely off base; I certainly was in Oathbringer, and I see no reason to think I’ll do any better guessing at SA4! I could certainly see where it would be hard to give Venli the kind of dominant role the others have gotten, unless he were to bring her completely into the human company. I can’t help thinking (despite saying I won’t guess!) that her role for now will remain with the parsh as a hidden Radiant, and someone else we care about will join her there. I keep hoping for Rlain, though I can sort of imagine ways that some of the others could be brought into her sphere.
@30: I am nothing if not persistent… So I made several alternate scenarios based on what I know which isn’t much. I have always thought Venli’s role in RoW wouldn’t be as dominating as other focus characters were in their book due to her having been a very minor character, so far, and her being so remote from everyone else. There is an old WoB where Brandon says he would need to find a way to balance Venli’s larger role with the need to keep on writing everyone else. And there is the fact some readers do struggle to care about Venli, a fact Brandon is very well aware of since he commented on it.
My main beef about the book structure is how Brandon has grouped five character within the first arc (two very minor ones). As far as most readers are concerned, this seems to be where Venli should be, but it is hard to find two other “important” character she could interface with. If it is relatively easy to pitch Kaladin in there, it is much harder to pitch anyone else besides minor characters such as, of course, Rlain or, well, Moash. And yeah, Moash getting a bigger role is definitely something I wish not to see nor do I think we’ll see given how Brandon explained he had planned for readers to literally hate Moash. You don’t give a big narrative to a hateful character, you do like Sadeas, you give them a satisfying ending with limited viewpoint. That’s what I would do, but I am not the author. So maybe that’s the twist, light preserves us.
And that leaves not a lot for, well, everyone else: Shallan, Dalinar, Adolin, Jasnah, Navani and there aren’t enough spots for everyone to have one. So huh. I *did* try to get more information, but Brandon keeps on saying this is spoiler information, he is not giving it away.
Hence, I wonder what twist he has in mind…. so I made several… alternatives. If the answer was straight-forward, I think he’d tell us, like he told us in OB who we would be reading. He doesn’t want to say it in RoW. I took it is means one or several of the usual characters either disappear or gets a very small role and/or someone more minor gets an unexpected bigger role. One or the other, IMHO but, lucky you, you’ll know soon enough :-) The rest of us still have a whole year to wait.
On the side note: I do not think anyone can heal Maya but Adolin.
Whitespine @2:
I assume that the spren can’t be killed by the Surges in Shadesmar, because they are not afraid of embodied Fused doing it to them – and some of those will eventually have Division and Soulcasting. Innate Investiture of the spren, which is almost certainly much higher than that of standard humans, must protect them in some way. But otherwise, there is little reason to think that Surges won’t work on them.
I also notice that Hessi mentions Re-Shepir possibly consuming creatures in the current epigraph. We saw no evidence of that as yet, hm…
AndrewHB @7:
The spren are certainly aware of the worldhoppers given that they are the ones transporting them to Cultivation’s Perpendicularity. Also the Reachers recognized Riino’s apparatus as “foreign technology”. And that one spren at the market menitioned the Court of Gods in Hallandren too. So, they are generally Cosmere-aware, IMHO.
As an aside to your aside, I really hope that we get color pictures of the Shard Vessels (formerly) resident in the Rosharan system in volume 5. And I also hope for eventual official depictions of all the Vessels/Shards.
Gilphon @10:
But the Fused would have known quite well that spren can’t break their promises and therefore that torturing them would be a waste of time. I do wonder how the alleged inability of spren to break oaths squares with the fact that the Nahel bond can be dissolved before the 5th Ideal is reached, if a spren so desires, though. Or with Sja-Anat’s ability to corrupt the Oathgate spren…
Scáth@21:
Concerning Summoning, I think that Vasher or Vivenna is going to Awaken soulcast bodies of royals/nobles from the catacombs at some point as “Kalad’s Phantoms Mark 2”. From there, they could transition to Awakening soulcast chasmfiends, maybe?
The idea of healing deadeyes in Shadesmar with Regrowth is an interesting one, but I can’t see how their Cognitive/Spiritual self could have remained intact after all this time… Though with spren, who knows?
Kaboom @24:
But aren’t the bonded Nahel Spren of the group fully in Shadesmar at this point? Also, that is something that didn’t wholly make sense to me – if part of the bonded Radiant spren is in Shadesmar, as we were told it is, unless they are summoned as a weapon, then how is it possible for them to hide from each other? And how is it that unbonded honorspren fly and assume various sizes when Rock sees them, even though he can see into Shadesmar and as these chapters demonstrated, they can’t do any of these things there?
Wetlandernw @30:
Here is the WoB that I was speaking about:
And is there any reason to think that Vivenna has more than the 5th Heightening? I mean, sure, Nightblood’s Awakening required more, but we don’t know that she was the one who Awakened her sword and also the process could have been optimised. I mean, making Lifeless now costs a fraction of what it used to.
P.S.: I can’t see “spren at our backs” as Vivenna Awakening all the Wallguards clothes, because from what we have seen in Warbreaker, it isn’t that subtle and would have been noticed by the people wearing them as more than that. Also, since their clothes aren’t specially shaped like Vasher’s it would require a lot of Breaths. I just ascribed this to her leadership ability and hope that the sight of her shradblade inspired in the men. Though, if there was a way for her to get access to Rioting, it would fit to a T. Can the Heightenings boost charisma, somehow?
@30 Wetlandernw
From what I remember of the individual’s theory (hopefully I do not misrepresent it), They reasoned that because Brandon confirmed hemalurgy can be done to a Spren in the cognitive realm, and hemalurgy requires flowing blood, that perhaps the spren have more of a “body” in the cognitive realm. So that surge of regrowth could work on them there, where it would not have in the same manner in the physical realm. This chapter does lend credence since it shows surges can be used on spren directly in the cognitive realm, even when they do not belong to that radiant (Shallan’s illusions on Syl, Kaladin’s gravitation on Pattern). Personally I am still in the belief of my own theory regarding a Bondsmith using connection and investiture powers to help, but I thought it was an interesting theory to hear. Also nothing says it couldn’t be both. That Dalinar using connection and augmenting Renarin’s regrowth, coupled with the connection Adolin has with his shardblade, could result in a full on familial effort to revive Maya, bringing father and both sons together. So many possibilities!
@32 Isilel
That could very well happen. We have seen WoB where Brandon has admitted awakening a body soulcasted to stone would be “easier” because it was once alive.
As to the healing of the deadeyes, I will respond though with the caveat that this theory is not my own, so I may make some mistakes. I think part of the assumption on the theorist’s part is that Renarin when healing Adolin’s wrist, saw an idealized version of him, in so far as the spiritual template that healing, filtered through the cognitive tries to restore it to. We know via WoB that the dead eye spren are missing “something” but I do not believe we know exactly what that something is. It is described as getting a chunk of your head ripped out. When Kaladin was injured by Szeth, the shardblade severs the soul or spirit. Stormlight healing of a radiant was still able to heal it. So perhaps the same would stand in this case?
@32. Isilel
I’m having difficulties putting to word the feelings I have with the spren with respect with the physical and cognitive realm. I could also simply be just wrong. But I’ll give it a try.
The cognitive realm in many ways is the opposite as the physical realm. Water bodies in the physical are solid in the cognitive and solid land is a “sea” of beads. Similar idea with the spren themselves. They are very insubstantial in the physical realm (more so with some species) but seem quite solid in the cognitive realm. But I also think they always maintain a connection between the 2 realms, but can adjust the strength? (manifestation?) in the physical. When the bonded spren returned to the cognitive with the gang they did not appear as swords but rather as their usual cognitive form. To me this suggest that they kept their connection to physical just as before. So that when a storm pass in the physical all they have to do is temporarily increase the strength (or manifestation) of their presence in the physical to benefit from the storm. With this way of thinking then the spren in their solid form in the cognitive realm would be like humans in the physical, incapable of changing their (solid) form.
I hope this makes some sense to someone else than me :)
Interesting thought that Scáth inspired just now. The deadeyes have a part of their spiritweb ripped out.
The Parshmen had a part of their spiritweb ripped out. Odium found a way to fix them.
And as I have repeatedly commented here, this story is all about repetition, or to be more fair, ringing changes on themes.
Will someone copy Odium’s trick to heal all the deadeyes?
@carl
Funny you should say that. There was another theory I read that theorizes that Sja-anat could via enlightening revive Maya into a corrupted spren like Renarin’s. Part of the theory, though I do not believe is crucial (as in could or could not) is that perhaps that is what happened with Renarin’s spren Glys. That Glys was a dead spren, and that is why Sja-anat was able to enlighten him, while also still being able to say she never enlightened something so great before when referring to the Oathgates. Theoretically the oathgate spren are radiant spren. If Glys was a dead spren, theoretically him missing a chunk of him could have “reduced” him enough to be enlightened. The “corruption” would be the “missing part” being “filled” with Odium’s investiture. Then Adolin and Renarin would have all the more to bond over, and makes you wonder what the corrupted version of abrasion or regrowth looks like lol.
Is she related to kandra or does Hessi know about kandra and saw a similarity between them and Re-Shepir?
Aren’t they something bigger like Cusicesh?