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Oathbringer Reread: Chapter One Hundred Ten

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Oathbringer Reread: Chapter One Hundred Ten

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Oathbringer Reread: Chapter One Hundred Ten

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Published on January 9, 2020

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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

Header art for chapter 110 of Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

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
The Unspoken Name

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.

About the Author

Alice Arneson

Author

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!
Learn More About Alice

About the Author

Lyndsey Luther

Author

Lyndsey lives in New England and is a fantasy novelist, professional actress, and historical costumer. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, though she has a tendency to forget these things exist and posts infrequently.
Learn More About Lyndsey
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5 years ago

Hah, pockets! 

Really, nothing else to add at the moment, but the pockets are nice :)

Avatar
5 years ago

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.

Nazrax
5 years ago

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?

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Austin
5 years ago

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.

There’s a WOB for this (of course there is!)

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.

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5 years ago

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?

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.

ChocolateRob
5 years ago

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.

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5 years ago

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

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Gilphon
5 years ago

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.

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5 years ago

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:

“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.”

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. 

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Gilphon
5 years ago

: 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.

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