Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread! We’ve moved on to the next chapter, finally, but it’s still the same long day. This week, we’ve only got eleven point-of-view segments to look at! There are a few uncommon ones, too, so come on in to the aftermath of The Battle of Thaylen Field.
Alice: This week, Lyndsey is still on her project to make masks for the hospital; I’m reasonably confident she could do it in her sleep by now. Let’s have a round of applause for her, and for all those sacrificing their time, risking their lives, and just plain keeping on keeping on, in the international effort to mitigate this pandemic. (Gotta put in a plug for the railroad workers and truck drivers, too, without whom there would be nothing to buy on our strictly-limited grocery shopping trips!)
Now, please welcome Paige as she returns to help wrap up the climax of this behemoth. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Paige: What’s up, Sanderfans? Continued kudos to Lyndsey, protecting those who cannot protect themselves. *Bridge 4 salute* Let’s do this.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Moash, Navani, Shallan, Venli, Szeth, Kaladin, Dalinar, Lopen, Shalash (So… not quite everyone and his brother this week, then.)
WHEN: 1174.2.8.1 (still!)
WHERE: Kholinar, Thaylen City
Moash, busy breaking up rubble in the Kholinar palace, is offered a task by the Fused. An exhausted Shallan sits atop the wall talking to herselves, but when Adolin arrives, he spots the real Shallan in the shifting. Veil attempts to take over when Kaladin comes by just as Adolin leaves. Venli, aboard a ship leaving for Marat, talks with her spren, then starts telling nearby parshmen the true stories of the listeners. Szeth returns to Nin above the battlefield, speaks his Third Ideal, and identifies what his Fourth will be when he’s ready. Shallan, having finally turned her back on Veil’s attraction to Kaladin, seeks out Adolin at the top of the city. Also atop the city, Kaladin talks with Syl about relationships, history, and decisions, then talks with Teft about the benefits—and lack thereof—to being a Knight Radiant. In Talenel’s temple, Dalinar considers the Herald; Taravangian enters, and Dalinar confronts him about his betrayal of the coalition but soon realizes that his activities went much deeper than that. Moash finds and kills Jezrien with a highly unusual knife. Lopen plays silly games with his spren, then chats with one of the wounded, unexpectedly speaking his Second Ideal. Shalash, trying to get Taln out of the city, feels Jezrien’s death and falls unconscious.
Beginnings
Title: Ideals
A: This one isn’t so much a quote as a theme. We see Szeth speaking his Third Ideal and identifying what his fourth will be, and Lopen speaking his Second, and in between there are other conversations about Ideals in the Knights Radiant sense, and ideals in the more common sense.
Heralds:
Kalak—The Maker, patron of Willshapers, Resolute and Builder
Nale—The Judge, patron of Skybreakers, Just and Confident, Herald of Justice
Vedel—The Healer, patron of Edgedancers, Loving and Healing
Jezrien—The King, patron of Windrunners, Protecting and Leading, Herald of Kings
A: Hmm. If we just look at the people, Kalak represents Venli, Nale represents himself and Szeth, Vedel… I dunno unless it’s Adolin and his Edgedancer Shardblade Maya, Jezrien represents himself and the various Windrunners involved. We could look at themes, too, if my brain were working.
Icon: Not Bridge Four—presumably, this is because the chapter is bookended with Moash’s POV and the result of his actions.
Epigraph:
It becomes the responsibility of every man, upon realizing he lacks the truth, to seek it out.
—From The Way of Kings, postscript
A: This is a truth; the problem is that most people don’t seem to be aware that they lack truth. I’m actually going to address this next week, though, and take all four statements from this set of epigraphs together. It makes a lot more sense that way.
Stories & Songs
“There’s a woman at Kharbranth,” he said. “She goes by the name Dova, but we think she is Battah’Elin. A Herald. She told us the Desolation was approaching.”
A: Without knowing what their basis is for this guess, other than “she knows stuff,” I suspect they’re wrong about which Herald she is. The Heralds all seem to be turning into the inverse of their original selves, right? The King has become the beggar, the Artist destroys art, the Judge is unjust, the Priest has declared himself God, and (by my theory!) the Guard has become an assassin. So I’m betting that the woman who helped Taravangian kill hundreds of people to get the death rattles is actually the Healer, Vedel. That’s just my instinct, so take it for what that’s worth. We may learn, someday!
Someone nearby cursed by her name, and she wanted to slap him. Don’t swear by us. Don’t paint pictures of us. Don’t worship at our statues. She’d stamp it all out. She would ruin every depiction.
P: Even in the midst of the aftermath of a battle, whilst trying to get an unresponsive Taln to move so they can get out of the city, poor Ash shows how unstable her mind is when she rants in her head about destroying depictions of herself. I feel so bad for her.
A: I do feel bad for her… but I also think she’s got a valid point. People worshipped the Heralds, and they proved themselves desperately unworthy as gods. They did amazing things, certainly; surviving war and torture (even as Cognitive Shadows) for 2500 years or so is not nothing. Even so, in the end, they couldn’t live up to being actual gods. Should anyone blame them? Probably not! Should anyone worship them as gods? Also, probably not. Of course, for Ash, the knowledge of her failure is compounded by the guilt of leaving Taln to suffer alone. I honestly can’t blame her for hating the idea of being worshipped. (Especially if, as these chapters have hinted, the two of them were in a romantic relationship. Ouch.)
What a gift you gave them! he’d said. Time to recover, for once, between Desolations. Time to progress…
Oh, Taln. Couldn’t he have just hated her?
P: So much self-loathing. I know how that feels, and that’s why I adore this character so far. I can relate.
A: Like I mentioned above, I can absolutely see her reasons for hating herself. At the same time… really? You’re saying you couldn’t stand up to torture any more, after only two and a half millennia? Shocking! Seriously, though, if they’d had any idea what they were signing up for, could they possibly have agreed to it? They did it anyway.
Relationships & Romances
Dalinar walked with help from Lopen and Captain Kaladin, one under each arm. He towed jets of exhaustionspren like a swarm. Navani took him in a powerful embrace anyway. He was the Blackthorn. He’d survive a forceful hug. Kaladin and Lopen hovered nearby.
“He’s mine,” she said to them.
They nodded, and didn’t move.
“People need your help inside,” she said. “I can handle him, boys.”
P: I love Navani’s attitude here. She was so desperate to get to Dalinar and so thrilled that he was okay after being so worried when standing on the wall and seeing him facing down an army alone. This is a pretty powerful moment, IMO.
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
A: Yes, it is. Her possessive attitude makes me happy, which is sort of an odd thing to say. But really, she wants to be the one he needs right now—and she is. (Also, she’s right—the enemies have left, so he doesn’t need a bodyguard right now, and there are other people who need their particular skills far more than Dalinar does.)
“I have to say this, Shallan. Please.” He stood up tall, stiff. “I’m going to let him have you.”
She blinked. “Let him have me.”
“I’m holding you back,” Adolin said. “I see the way you two look at each other. I don’t want you to keep forcing yourself to spend time with me because you feel sorry for me.”
P: I loved, loved, loved this scene. Shallan went from worried that she’d messed things up with Adolin to indignant that he would let someone else have her. Her rantastic reply is in the quotable quotes section because it was too awesome not to include.
A: THIS WHOLE SCENE! Adolin is trying so hard to do what’s best for Shallan. He saw her face change when she saw Kaladin earlier and Veil took over, and decided that this was the solution. Also, remember that bit in Chapter 120 where he saw himself as one of Shallan’s Illusory Army… and she’d made him a Windrunner? That comes back into play:
Kaladin landed on a roof in the distance… Adolin waved toward him. “Shallan. He can literally fly.”
A: I have to think that those two moments are big movers in this decision, and with any other woman, he probably would have been right. But this is Shallan/Veil, so of course it’s complicated. The rest of her answer—and his response—is one of my favorites, but it’s long, so I won’t put it all here. We’ll tuck it in Quality Quotations, because it really doesn’t need any elaboration.
“I will admit to you, in the interest of full honesty, that Veil did have a tendency to fawn over Kaladin Stormblessed. She has terrible taste in men, and I’ve convinced her to fall in line.”
P: Veil’s supposed attraction to Kaladin kind of came out of left field while Shallan and Adolin were atop the city wall after the battle. She was immediately shoved into the back of Shallan’s mind and the Shalladin ship abruptly sank; good riddance, says me.
A: Yep. I’ll grant that it could have been an interesting relationship, but not when Adolin was the other option! He’s just so good for her, in a way that IMO Kaladin doesn’t currently have the capacity to be.
“How do you like that, though? Three betrotheds instead of one. Some men drool over the idea of such debauchery. If you wanted, I could be practically anyone.”
“But that’s the thing, Shallan. I don’t want anyone. I want you.”
P: Brandon doesn’t write many swoon-worthy scenes, but if you ask me, this one definitely qualifies. I’m telling you, Adolin is the best medicine for Shallan.
A: No argument from me! That answer just melted my heart into a puddle of chocolate. (Okay, sorry…) It was the perfect answer, because it’s so genuinely Adolin—and also, because Shallan desperately needs that kind of love as an anchor for her currently-wayward personalities.
Bruised & Broken
“I think I know why the memories came back,” he whispered. “Odium was going to make me remember once I faced him. I needed to learn to stand up again. All my pain these last two months was a blessing.”
A: I love his realization in this moment. Can you just imagine if he’d gotten all those memories back the way Odium intended? It almost broke him when it was spread over two months (which, let’s not forget, would be three months in earth time!), and justifiably so. All in a few minutes? It would have worked.
P: Yes, if they’d all hit him at once, he very well may have given his pain to Odium and become what we all feared. Cultivation definitely knew what she was doing with Dalinar.
Adolin searched her eyes. She bled from one, to the other, and back. A moment of Veil. A moment of Radiant. Shallan peeking through—
Adolin’s hand tightened around her own.
Shallan’s breath caught.
There, she thought. That’s the one. That’s the one I am.
He knows.
P: This is why I was always Team Adolin. He knows Shallan. He brings her out when the others threaten to overwhelm her.
A: I know there are people who have different ideas about “the real Shallan,” but I’ve always loved this scene, and I’m absolutely convinced that he’s right. This is the true Shallan; yes, she has problems, and she’s still avoiding a lot, but this is Shallan in a way Veil and Radiant can’t be. As demonstrated:
She walked toward him, grinning. Then slowed.
Adolin knows me.
What was she doing? She shoved Radiant and Veil aside, and when they resisted, she stuffed them into the back part of her brain. They were not her. She was occasionally them. But they were not her.
P: This gives me hope that Shallan will start to heal and will eventually realize that she no longer needs Veil and Radiant. They are not her. I think Adolin will help her with this very necessary unification of her personas.
A: I love that line: “She was occasionally them, but they were not her.” They’re just pieces. They represent aspects of her potential that she’d like to grow into, perhaps, but they also set aside some of what makes her… her.
“Her choice is made. You can see it.”
“I can?”
“You should be able to.” He rubbed his finger on the rock. “I don’t think I loved her, Syl. I felt… something. A lightening of my burdens when I was near her. She reminds me of someone.”
P: He didn’t love her. They have a good friendship and she has the ability to lift him out of his darkness, as Tien did. #TeamAdolin
A: His recognition of the core factor is just wonderful, and the rock shows how clearly he was thinking of Tien. Brandon confirmed via WoB that Tien was a nascent Lightweaver, and even though he’d never quite solidified the bond, he did have some of The Lightweaver Effect. I.e., when you’re around a Lightweaver, how they see you influences how you feel, how you see yourself. (In case you hadn’t seen that WoB before, I thought it was a pretty clear explanation for the changes in Bluth and Elhokar when they saw Shallan’s drawings of them, too. I think it also answers the “who?” question raised by this Q&A.)
“They say you have to be broken,” Lopen said, glancing toward his spren, who made a few loops of excitement, then shot off to hide again. Lopen would need to go looking for the little guy—he did enjoy the game. “You know that tall woman, the king’s sister? The chortana with the glare that could break a Shardblade? She says that the power has to get into your soul somehow. So I’ve been trying to cry a lot, and moan about my life being so terrible, but I think the Stormfather knows I’m lying. Hard to act sad when you’re the Lopen.”
P: I think that Lopen is a good example of a Radiant (whose POV we get to see) who isn’t overtly broken in some way. Brandon has said that being broken isn’t required for a Nahel bond, it just makes it easier, but I love to see Lopen pretending to act broken.
A: He’s such a dork. Can you imagine Lopen not pretending something, ever? He’s priceless.
Diagrams & Dastardly Designs
It glowed with a bizarre light, deep and dark. Somehow, it seemed to be trying to pull the light around it in.
“I want you to keep this safe for me… Study it…“
She bit her lip. “Dalinar, I’ve seen something like this before. Much smaller, like a sphere.” She looked up at him. “Gavilar made it.”
Dalinar touched the stone with his bare finger. …
A: For as big a deal as that sphere of Gavilar’s was (and is) to the fandom, Dalinar completely ignores what Navani says here. It’s like he didn’t even hear her. Does that mean he already knew about it, or just that he’s not listening? And of course, the burning question of the fandom is… how many of those did Gavilar have? We know he gave one to Szeth and one to Eshonai, though we don’t know where either of them are now. But what were they? (Note: If you have read or heard the portion of the Rhythm of War prologue that’s been released and want to talk about it in the comments, PLEASE white-text it so others aren’t spoiled.)
“You… didn’t become king of Jah Keved by accident, did you?” Dalinar asked.
Taravangian shook his head. It seemed obvious to Dalinar now. Taravangian was easy to dismiss when you assumed he was slow of thought. But once you knew the truth, other mysteries began to fit into place.
“How?” Dalinar asked.
“There’s a woman at Kharbranth,” he said. “She goes by the name Dova, but we think she is Battah’Elin. A Herald. She told us the Desolation was approaching.” He looked to Dalinar. “I had nothing to do with the death of your brother. But once I heard of what incredible things the assassin did, I sought him out. Years later, I located him, and gave him specific instructions…”
P: Frankly, it surprised me that Taravangian told Dalinar what he’d done with Szeth. I fully expected him to continue playing the benevolent grandpa king, who just wanted to help everyone. What do you think might happen with T between now and Rhythm of War, Sanderfans?
A: I was surprised by this, too, at the same time that I was relieved of the annoying “no one tells anyone anything they need to know” trope. But of course, the next question you have to ask is “what’s he up to now?” Because this is Taravangian, and it seems like he’s always got a backup plan for the backup plan. And I do not trust him.
Squires & Sidekicks
“I’d be dead if you hadn’t activated the Oathgate,” Kaladin said softly. “Somehow I knew that you would, Teft. I knew you’d come for me.”
“Knew better than I did, then.” Teft heaved a breath.
Kaladin rested his hand on Teft’s shoulder. “I know how it feels.”
“Aye,” Teft said. “I suppose you do. But isn’t it supposed to feel better? The longing for my moss is still storming there.”
“It doesn’t change us, Teft. We’re still who we are.”
“Damnation.”
P: It’s painful to see Teft’s disappointment that his addiction wasn’t cured when he leveled up.
A: I’m so conflicted about this. I think it makes a better story when the magic doesn’t just make all your problems go away. At the same time, hey! what’s the good of magic if it doesn’t fix things? But it is a better story this way.
Weighty Words
“I swear to follow the will of Dalinar Kholin. This is my oath.” At the Words, snow crystallized around him in the air, then fluttered down. He felt a surge of something. Approval? From the hidden spren who only rarely showed itself to him, even still.
“I believe that your Words have been accepted.”
A: I still find it odd that the highspren are so aloof from their Knights, and I wonder why. Nonetheless, Szeth does speak his Third Ideal right here. It’s so much less dramatic than Kaladin’s it’s almost funny. Unless I’m forgetting something, up until this point, Ideals have always been spoken in Climactic Circumstances, right? Kaladin, Teft, Lift, Dalinar. Which makes it especially interesting that there are two in this chapter. They both give the theatrical effect (in Szeth’s case, the usual frost-glyph doesn’t hold shape and just looks like snow, but whatever), but the situation is just so casual it’s a little startling.
It’s pretty appropriate for Szeth, in a way, that it’s not a sudden moment of inspiration. We learned about all the Skybreaker Ideals way back in Chapter 90, so the mystery of the Third Ideal is only in the specific choice of the individual as to what code they will follow. He’s had plenty of time to think about what he would follow, and Szeth does like to think things through. What I find truly fascinating about his choice is that his secretive spren seems to strongly approve of his choice to follow Dalinar’s will. Does the spren distrust Nin as much as I do? The rest of the Skybreakers are apparently planning to follow the Herald in choosing the law of the Fused as their Dedication, and Szeth is essentially taking the other side in the conflict… and his spren approves. Huh.
P: Kaladin’s Ideals have been pretty climactic, yes. I also found Szeth’s Third Ideal to be rather blah. It would have been awesome to have it just before he fell from the sky and filleted that thunderclast, glowing with stormlight and Nightblood oozing black smoke. THAT would have been awesome.
We see below that the Lopen’s Second Ideal, while not intentional, is just as anti-climactic.
“I will cleanse the Shin of their false leaders, so long as Dalinar Kholin agrees.”
“We shall see. You may find him a harsh master.”
“He is a good man, Nin-son-God.”
“That is precisely why.”
P: “…so long as Dalinar Kholin agrees.” I wonder what Szeth will do if Dalinar doesn’t agree, or wants him to wait until it’s convenient for Dalinar and the KR as a whole for Szeth to be away?
A: Well… that’s a good question. The “how to tell a story” part of me says that he needs to wait a while between Ideals anyway, right? I mean, you can’t just say one Ideal, and then promptly say the next one two minutes later! You’ve gotta spend some time living out that bit about the will of Dalinar Kholin, right? But I do find it a little weird that, knowing what all the Ideals are supposed to embody, the Skybreakers can think about it and decide ahead of time what they’re going to do when that time comes. How do they know when it’s time?
“I will visit you again to oversee your training in our second art, the Surge of Division. You may access that now, but take care. It is dangerous.”
A: It occurs to me that Nin doesn’t seem to know that Szeth has already trained with this Surge. Does he even need help? Is there enough difference between the Skybreaker and Dustbringer applications of Division that he’ll have trouble with it? He certainly doesn’t seem to have had trouble adapting to the Skybreaker version of Lashings.
“The oaths are about perception, Syl. You confirmed that. The only thing that matters is whether or not we are confident that we’re obeying our principles. If we lose that confidence, then dropping the armor and weapons is only a formality.”
“Kal—”
“I’m not going to do the same,” he said. “I’d like to think that the past of Bridge Four will make us a little more pragmatic than those ancient Radiants. We won’t abandon you. But finding out what we will do might end up being messy.”
A: I say this every time the subject comes up, but… there’s really no way to guess what kind of messy things they will do until we—and they—learn the rest of the story. Like many readers, I can’t quite see the information from the Eila Stele as sufficient reason for a bunch of people six thousand years later to make such a huge decision.
P: Yeah, it’s apparent that we’re not getting all of the info. Brandon’s dealing it out to us just as Cultivation gave back Dalinar’s memories… a bit at a time.
“‘Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before pancakes.’ That’s the easy one. The hard one is, ‘I will protect those who cannot protect themselves,’ and—”
A sudden flash of coldness struck Lopen, and the gemstones in the room flickered, then went out. A symbol crystallized in frost on the stones around Lopen, vanishing under the cots. The ancient symbol of the Windrunners.
“What?” Lopen stood up. “What? Now?”
He heard a far-off rumbling, like thunder.
“NOW?” Lopen said, shaking a fist at the sky. “I was saving that for a dramatic moment, you penhito! Why didn’t you listen earlier? We were, sure, all about to die and things!”
He got a distinct, very distant impression.
YOU WEREN’T QUITE READY.
P: Ahh, poor Lopen. He’s just trying to cheer up an injured soldier and accidentally speaks his Second Ideal. I love his indignance. Though I’m pretty sure that “journey before pancakes” is one of Lift’s Ideals.
A: No doubt! I get the distinct impression that he tried saying it earlier, in the hopes of a dramatic level-up at a critical moment in the battle, and nothing happened. But he wasn’t quite ready, whatever that means. I sort of have an idea that if you’re saying the right words, but you’re doing it in the hopes of getting a useful power boost, it’s not going to work; your focus has to be on someone else, almost to the exclusion of even thinking about how it might affect you. I could be wrong, of course, but that seems consistent with what we’ve seen… at least, that I can think of off the top of my head!
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“Oh!” He looked down at his ripped uniform and scraped hands. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Shallan. Most of the blood isn’t mine. Well, I mean, I guess it is. But I’m feeling better.”
A: This just made me giggle. “Most of the blood isn’t mine” is such a standard line, on the order of “you should see how the other guy looks.” And of course, Adolin is fine at this point… but also most of the blood is his. Between being gutted by a Fused in Shadesmar and fighting a thunderclast for the Oathgate, he ought to be dead. Just, you know, Renarin happened in there a couple of times, so by now he’s uninjured.
“If you need any jokes,” Lopen said, “I’ve got a few I can’t use anymore.”
P: We can always count on the Lopen to lighten the mood when things are depressing. Honor love you, you crazy, two-armed Herdazian.
“Storm you!” Lopen made a double obscene gesture toward the sky—something he’d been waiting a long time to use properly for the first time. Rua joined him, making the same gesture, then grew two extra arms to give it more weight.
“Nice,” Lopen said.
P: This was just classic… Lopen’s Ideal being accepted when he didn’t even mean to speak it in that way, and his anger at the Stormfather for choosing that moment to accept his words.
A: So perfect for the Lopen, right? Always at his best when he’s just messing around.
Murky Motivations
“Your passion does you credit.”
“I have no passion. Just numbness.”
“You have given him your pain. He will return it, human, when you need it.”
That would be fine, so long as he could forget the look of betrayal he’d seen in Kaladin’s eyes.
A: We see Moash again for the first time since Skar and Drehy pulled Kaladin out of the battle in the Kholinar palace. Turns out he’s still there, still slaving for the Fused, trying to forget anything that might make him feel guilty for his own actions. As you may (or may not) recall, my dislike of Moash has two sources: his actions and his attitude. Obviously, I think he was wrong in betraying Kaladin’s trust by trying to murder Elhokar in the previous book, and by succeeding in this book, as well as killing Jezrien in an upcoming scene. The thing that has made me hold to the no-redemption position, though, is that he very rarely takes responsibility for the consequences of his actions. In this moment, he has no regret for murdering Elhokar. (And yes, I call it murder, even though it was in the middle of a battle, since he was unarmed and carrying a toddler. Moash might or might not agree, but I don’t think he’d particularly care about the distinction.) Anyway, his only regret is that “look of betrayal in Kaladin’s eyes.” On the bright side, he does still care about his friend’s opinion; on the dark side, he wants nothing more than to forget it and not bear even that shred of guilt.
P: Anyone who knows me knows that I hated Moash before it was cool, and that I was on the #noredemption bandwagon before there was a band or a wagon. *ahem* Because my hatred stems primarily from the fact that he was ready to murder Kaladin in Words of Radiance. Kaladin was without spren or Stormlight, injured and bleeding, holding only a spear while Moash, in full Plate and armed with a Shardblade, was ready to kill his supposed friend. That moment, that very moment, was when Moash was lost to me. Killing Elhokar the way he did was just bitter icing on a hate cake for me.
A: That’s a good point, Paige. Also, that Plate and Shardblade Moash had were a gift from Kaladin in the first place; he’d done nothing to earn them himself.
“You felled a king in this palace.”
“King or slave, he was an enemy to me and mine.”
A: Well, that’s a bunch of chull dung. The only reason Moash can claim that Elhokar was his enemy was because Roshone, the man actually responsible for the abuse of his grandparents, was able to manipulate a foolish young prince into letting his competitors be imprisoned. No slave would have been in a position to threaten anyone Moash ever cared about. What I find most repulsive about it, though, is that Moash has apparently never even tried to find Roshone and exact any vengeance on him. He just wanted to kill the king.
P: Exactly.
Moash’s target was a particular man who sat giggling in the darkness near the back of the gardens. A madman with eye color lost to the night.
“Have you seen me?” the man asked as Moash knelt.
“No,” Moash said, then rammed the strange golden knife into the man’s stomach. The man took it with a quiet grunt, smiled a silly smile, then closed his eyes.
A: Given that he’s been unkillable for like seven thousand years, you can’t exactly blame him for the silly smile, now can you? I wonder how many people have tried to kill him in that time. Or how many times he tried to kill himself. Having left their honorblades and walked away from the Oathpact, would killing a Herald like Jezrien in the “normal” way even send him back to Braize? In any case, he’s really not worried here.
“Were you really one of them?” Moash asked. “Herald of the Almighty?”
“Was, was, was…” The man started to tremble violently, his eyes opening wide. “Was… no. No, what is this death? What is this death!” …
“It’s taking me!” the man screamed …
When Moash pulled the yellow-white knife free, it trailed dark smoke and left a blackened wound. The large sapphire at the pommel took on a subdued glow.
A: And Moash feels neither remorse nor victory as he kills a helpless old beggar—or “the greatest human who had ever lived.” His only emotion seems to be mild curiosity as to why the Fused couldn’t do this themselves. Ugh. I hope he can never forget the look of betrayal in Kaladin’s eyes. Never. Sure, Jezrien wasn’t the infallible Herald King of the mythology; after some 2500 years, he finally lost the courage to continue the torture-and-battle cycle. That doesn’t justify his murder.
P: No, it doesn’t. I think that stabbing a crazy old beggar in the gut has to be one of the most despicable things a person can do. But it’s right up Moash’s alley. He definitely isn’t the kind of guy to go in for a fair fight. It makes me beyond angry that he so readily volunteered to murder a crazy, defenseless old man.
A: Speaking of which, though, why wouldn’t the Fused dare do this themselves? Afraid that Jezrien might be bluffing, and destroy them if they got too close? Some twisted kind of respect, that sends an assassin to do a shameful deed on their behalf? They would be willing to kill him in battle, but when he’s a daft, giggling old beggar, that’s beneath them? I really don’t get it.
In any case, it seems to have been something unique. Not only does Jezrien realize—too late—that this is not a “normal” death, his daughter feels it from hundreds of miles away. I assume this is because they’re both bound to the Oathpact, and not merely because they are father and daughter, though we aren’t given information about any effect on the other Heralds. Also, what are your theories about the sapphire starting to glow? What’s with that?
Cosmere Connections
I think you did a great job, Szeth, the sword said from Szeth’s hand as they rose above Thaylen City. You didn’t destroy many of them, yes, but you just need some more practice!
P: We don’t get much of Nightblood in this chapter, but his praise and encouragement deserved a nod, at the least. I always love Nightblood’s commentary.
A: So perky, our murderous sword. Yes, as much as he creeps me out when he’s drawn, I do love this chipper side of him.
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
“This bond was supposed to be impossible,” she whispered to Timbre.
Timbre pulsed to Peace.
“I’m happy too,” Venli whispered. “But why me? Why not one of the humans?”
Timbre pulsed to Irritation, then the Lost.
“That many? I had no idea the human betrayal had cost so many of your people’s lives. And your own grandfather?”
Irritation again.
P: Poor Timbre, lost her grandfather in the Recreance. I wonder if more spren will attempt to bond with Singers in book 4.
A: Just as a reminder (in case anyone had forgotten), this combines with the conversations in Chapter 101 as evidence that Timbre is likely Captain Ico’s daughter, who “ran off chasing stupid dreams.” Ico kept his deadeye father locked up to prevent him wandering off, searching for the human carrying his corpse. We don’t know, and neither do they, what exactly happened in the Recreance, but it certainly seems to have given the Reachers a distaste for human bonds. Hence, Venli. Where it goes from here, we’ll have to RAFO.
He opened his palm, and she landed on it, forming into the shape of a young woman with flowing hair and dress. She bent down, inspecting the rock in his palm, cooing over it. Syl could still be shockingly innocent—wide-eyed and excited about the world.
“That’s a nice rock,” she said, completely serious.
P: I love that Syl seems as excited as Tien would have been about the rock Kaladin found. This is such a lovely little scene as Kaladin remembers his brother and how he was a light in Kaladin’s darkness.
Quality Quotations
‘Shallan had found that no matter how bad things got, someone would be making tea.’
“Shallan. He can literally fly.”
“Oh? And is that what women are supposed to seek in a mate? Is it in the Polite Lady’s Handbook to Courtship and Family? The Bekenah edition, maybe?‘Ladies, you can’t possibly marry a man if he can’t fly.’ Never mind if the other option is as handsome as sin, kind to everyone he meets regardless of their station, passionate about his art, and genuinely humble in the weirdest, most confident way. Never mind if he actually seems to get you, and remarkably listens to your problems, encouraging you to be you—not to hide yourself away. Never mind if being near him makes you want to rip his shirt off and push him into the nearest alleyway, then kiss him until he can’t breathe anymore. If he can’t fly, then well, you just have to call it off!”
She paused for breath, gasping.
“And…” Adolin said. “That guy is… me?”
A: Heh. Perfect description of you, too, my dear man.
P: Agreed.
And that about wraps it up for this week. Next week, we’ll be doing Chapter 122, the final chapter of the book, leaving only the epilogue and the Ars Arcanum to finish it off. Can you believe it?
Alice is still pretty sanguine about this whole lockdown thing, though she wouldn’t have minded a few less interruptions from other locked-down family members while beta reading Rhythm of War. But that’s now complete, and the new normal has been a fairly easy adjustment. (Her daughter might not agree entirely, but online class meetings help.)
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course, and writes in an attempt to stay sane. No, really. Imagine if she didn’t write. Yeesh. She’s a champ at the in-person social distancing but is bereft at the postponement of the MLB season. Links to her available works are provided in her profile.
Polite Lady’s Handbook to Courtship and Family?
Since all the main books are titled after in world books part of me would love if this was the title he chose for book 10.
regarding Taravangian telling Dalinar about using Sveth, he really wasn’t giving anything away that Sveth wasn’t likely to reveal shortly. This is Taravangian controlling the narrative, not him coming clean.
Shallan and Adolin are the better couple. Period.
Warning: wall of text! No spoilers, though.
Hey, how about us utility workers? Our field workers are out there right now as you read this, keeping your lights and heat on.
And Venli starts her work as a Radiant, and explores her new abilities. Notice Unity here, as she combines her Radiance with the abilities granted by her Form of Power to inspire the Thaylen Singers (who themselves represent Unity between those peoples). Sanderson being the writer he is, he reminds us that she has both a Voidspren and a Radiant spren inside her before she does it.
Also Vathah, in Chapter 77. He leafs through Shallan’s sketchbook just before accidentally doing his first Lightweaving. This Sanderson guy, he is good at this.
That’s at least true of Lift’s and Teft’s most recent oaths. Teft in particular didn’t even want to speak an oath, he felt that he had to, to protect others (and thus, of course, also reinforced the Second Oath of the Windrunners).
Yes, we are. Taln collapses, whimpering.
Odium-modified hemalurgy. Thanks for asking. Notice the black smoke, characteristic of Nightblood. I think Odium or one of his servants that we haven’t met yet has been copying other Shards’ magic, just as Nightblood itself is a copy of a Shardblade. Also, not red, so this is not corrupted Investiture. Presumably it’s pure Odium Investiture.
Same thing the Skybreaker leader said to Szeth, of course. Who is also an assassin armed with a magical weapon. Did I mention at any point that this book does a lot of variations on very similar events?
This, of course, echoes Venli and the recovering the old Rhythms.
Notice Nale with his toes hanging downward .Sanderson loves toes pointing downward. Szeth does it in WoR, then the Fused and Nale both do it in Oathbringer. If you try standing on one foot, you will find that most people’s ankles don’t work that way. Your toes only droop a short distance. Of course, these are not Earth humans (especially the Fused).
Hey, there’s that Unity theme again.
Do you now? Hmm … so where has Rlain been again? And what’s his current status? Lopen is referring to Radiant Squires when he says “we”, isn’t he? The only other visible possibility is his somehow knowing about Venli.
Who?
Also, that’s Hoid/Wit’s artwork in Jasnah’s hand, and Midius was his name on Yolen. What the? She’s much too young (or should be) to know either of those things. Did Hoid himself teach her? He’s one of about 3 people who could have. (The others are Cultivation and Honor.)
The Lopen scene was too much for me. I actually set the book down in disgust. I never really liked the character of Lopen as I feel like he’s too…modern…I guess? And the humor is too slap-stick, too over the top. But the scene here where he levels up in an off-hand, silly manner was just too much for me. Especially in comparison to what Kaladin had to go through to level up. This almost ruins the entire concept for me. Hate, hate, hated this section.
John, thanks for that laugh!
“A: Without knowing what their basis is for this guess, other than “she knows stuff,” I suspect they’re wrong about which Herald she is. The Heralds all seem to be turning into the inverse of their original selves, right? The King has become the beggar, the Artist destroys art, the Judge is unjust, the Priest has declared himself God, and (by my theory!) the Guard has become an assassin. So I’m betting that the woman who helped Taravangian kill hundreds of people to get the death rattles is actually the Healer, Vedel. That’s just my instinct, so take it for what that’s worth. We may learn, someday!”
Nothing to add. This just gave me chills!
“Also, what are your theories about the sapphire starting to glow? What’s with that?”
My first thought was that they are trapping Jezrien’s soul in the gem, and Odium is going to try and collect all the Harrolds this way. Carl @2’s theory about Odium combing Hemalurgy with Fabrial science to make the trap work is quite intriguing.
To me, I have a soft spot for characters whose dialogue can only be inferred from others’ responses, like R2-D2 or Chewbacca, so I absolutely LOVE Venli’s interactions with Timbre.
As for Lopen’s Ideal, I think it’s not that he didn’t ever mean it before, but this time, he’s actually in the process of protecting someone who can’t protect themselves. In this case, he’s protecting the heart of this soldier by trying to cheer him up, and cheering people up is what the Lopen does best.
As for Szeth’s Fourth Ideal, I think, at the very least, he’s going to have to wait a whole book before he can set out on his journey to cleanse Shinovar.
I think it’s been mentioned that at one point, the Shin had all 9 Honorblades (not counting Taln’s), but at one point “one of them disappeared”, which is probably when Nale took his back, but I don’t think they indicated how long ago that was, and then Jezrien’s was given to Szeth on his Truthless expidition, so they currently only have 7.
Hypothetical question: If a Surgebinder held the Honorblade of a different order, would they have access to 4 surges instead of 2? If they held an Honorblade that they shared a surge with, would that surge be stronger?
Re: The Lopen’s oath: I agree that him trying to belt it out at a dramatic moment wouldn’t work. It actually reminded me of saving level-ups in games like Skyrim for when you needed the full heal.
But I disagree that swearing when and where he did was just a gag. He swore when he was honestly trying to haul the Thaylen guy out of despair by his remaining arm. Protecting those who can’t protect themselves doesn’t always have to involve bad guys.
“The rest of the Skybreakers are apparently planning to follow the Herald in choosing the law of the Fused as their Dedication, and Szeth is essentially taking the other side in the conflict… and his spren approves. Huh.”
It may be because most of the Skybreakers swore their Oath to follow Nale. So even if they have misgivings they can’t break their oath without breaking the bond. It may be we see problems in their ranks in the next book because of this.
The thing that worries me about Szeth’s oath is that his whole problem (or about 90% of it) has been not taking responsibility for his actions. When we first meet him, he literally believes his duty is to blindly follow the orders of whoever holds his oathstone. He remained blind to Nale’s faults when Nightblood could see them.
Now, he’s decided to follow Dalinar. I don’t know how that’s going to go bad but, given Szeth’s track record, I’m sure it will. He needs to reach a point where, for good or ill, he’s not outsourcing his conscience.
The last Oath of the Skybreakers is when they make the laws instead of following someone else’s. Szeth still has some time to learn to make his own decisions.
The book Shallan mentions is probably inspired by the one Amalisa and her ladies read when they are interrupted by Liandrin in TGH.
So I just had a thought after reading what @11 said:
I now think that you get your next levelup when you break that oath, because you notice that you have to follow your conscience (even if it means defying your oath, even if it means disobeying your rule model).
Perhaps a sort of test?
I tend to agree with @6 Marbelcal that the sapphire glows because it traps Jezrien’s soul in a fashion similar to the way that the Thrill was trapped in a gem by Dalinar. My other guess is that the Fused couldn’t wield the dagger because they might have become trapped also/instead of Jezrien due to the way the dagger works. Moash, not being bonded to a spren or inhabiting another being, wouldn’t have that problem.
I’m with the folks that think Jezrien has been trapped. Plus, we had that reminder about how Gavilar had already trapped spren or unmade in a gem. This makes think it’s something the next book will address.
I’m not sure why but I have a head cannon vision of Adolin and Shallin showing Adolin from the back. He’s wearing a revolutionary war blue uniform with a tricorn hat and a sword hanging by his side. Continental-Artillery-Soldier-American-Revolutionary-War-Uniform-Postcard
My theory (no evidence) is that Jezrien is dead dead, but the part of him that is part of the oath pact is trapped inside. I think end of book 5 involves some new people taking up the oath pact.
I wonder if the reason the Fused didn’t go after Jezrien themselves is that they can’t. Maybe the Oathpact only allows them to directly harm a Herald while on Braize?
Ah so this chapter…
Of course, my most memorable moment is Adolin stepping down in favor of Kaladin only to have Shallan refusing him to do so. I love this moment because it highlighted how little Adolin thinks of himself: he is the next Kholin Highprince, he is talented in every sphere deemed important in his world, he is handsome, and yet, he feels he is not enough for this young woman. He can’t fly. That’s just an excuse. Adolin has been there before and he has bailed out of relationships before.
This being said, I agree he was exactly who Shallan needed at this point in time, but I fear their relationship remains too one-sided. I fear too much of it has been centered towards Adolin providing emotional support. In fact, every single one of Adolin’s relationships has been geared towards him providing support to others. As a fan of his character, it pains me to read so many one-sided relationships and while Adolin is good for Shallan, while he is who she needs, I want her to be good for him and to be who he needs. Because everyone needs someone and support, even when they don’t readily acknowledge it.
I am glad the Kaladin/Shallan romance has been concluded. Stil, I think Brandon could have done better work out of wrapping that arc: the whole Veil was in love with Kaladin, not Shallan was messy, not obvious and not exactly great denouement. As a reader, I felt, instead of addressing Shallan’s burgeoning feelings towards Kaladin, Brandon took a short-cut and gave them to Veil as an excuse to make them go away without needing to actually write it. The whole Kaladin/Shallan pseudo romance deserved, IMHO, a better conclusion. It deserved, at the very least, Shallan deciding she is not interested in Kaladin, not having her say: “It was Veil all along” when the narrative has been clear it has not always been Veil.
On Szeth: His character grew on me in Edgedancer which means I no longer dislike him. Still, I will severely criticize how he went from following a stone to following Dalinar. No matter how his circumstances change, Szeth is always looking for someone to tell him what to do, what to believe, how to act. It annoys me. I agree with @10: Szeth never really took ownership of his responsibilities. Always, he gave them away to someone else and yet, he is a Radiant. That too is annoying: how the Radiants often turn out being downright unsympathetic people who seem not to deserve it much.
Thanks Lyndsey. I hope you are able to take a break and read the comments.
From Adolin’s perspective, I can understand why he thinks that Shallan prefers Kaladin. Adolin does not realize that Shallan is suffering from multiple personalities. (As an aside, kind of ironic that Shallan’s name begins with the letter “S;” S as in “Sybil.) He does not realize how much Radiant and Veil blend in with, and sometimes takes over, Shallan. All Adolin sees is Shallan sometimes become starry-eyed when she looks at Kaladin. Further, it does not help that at this point in the series, Adolin thinks he is unworthy of Shallan because she is a KR and he is not. In a way, Adolin is trying to be fair to Shallan. If Shallan really prefers Kaladin, he respects Shallan enough to step away as he thinks that is what Shallan wants. It is only when Shallan explains the extent of her multiple personality disorder and that Shallan loves and wants Adolin, that he realizes that Shallan feels the same way about him as Adolin feels about her. It is this reason why I think Adolin will help Shallan learn to deal with, and even control, her other personas.
(Another aside. I do not agree with Shallan’s belief that she thinks that Shallan is also not her true self, but just an earlier personality the true Shallan created. I think WoR showed us that deep down, parts of Shallan we see in the current timeline were always present. IIRC, even before Shallan killed her mother, she had a talent for drawing. Shallan also displayed her sarcastic wit (no pun intended). Throughout the flashbacks, we see Shallan being assertive and taking control; if only when she is doing something that she feels will help her brothers. Shallan takes these actions when none of her other brothers will do something. I think it is this hidden determination that helps her do what she needs to do in the series (for example, continue and try to prove her worth to be Jasnah’s ward and to take up Jasnah’s search to find Urithiru.)
Although I generally dislike Kaladin (his character, not the way Brandon writes Kaladin), I give Kaladin credit. After seeing Shallan and Adolin kissing, he tells Syl that Adolin and Shallan are good for each other. Kaladin also realizes that he does not truly love Shallan; not in the way he sees and observes that Adolin loves Shallan (both at the moment and during Adolin and Shallan’s entire courtship). Rather, Kaladin was using Shallan as a replacement for Tien. Someone who could help him get out of his depressive funks. Kaladin was mature enough to realize that such a “person” does not necessarily mean that he would love her as Adolin loves Shallan.
Alice. Thinking outside the box, I see Moash having a connection with the title of Ideals. I see Moash’s explanation of his theory (both the the Singers and in his mind) as a sort of anti-Ideal. He basically espouses anarchist philosophy with his acceptance of the Parsh/Singers becoming the masters and the humans becoming the slaves.
The epigraph to Chapter 121. How appropriate in the current environment of the Coronavirus. There is a lot of misinformation out there (some due to either intentional misinformation or haphazardly claiming things as true when he/she should know better; other misinformation because people claim something that shortly thereafter becomes outdated. Yet the outdated info is believed by others who do not know to look out for more current info). We live in a world where many people can learn the truth if the have the desire. It may take some time and effort. If he/she takes the time and effort, he/she will be better off.
(In case anyone thinks I am trying to sound superior because of what I said in the previous paragraph, there are times – too many times, unfortunately, where I had the ability to search out the truth, but did not want to expend the necessary time and effort; much to my detriment.)
Alice. I agree with your theory about the Heralds becoming the inverse of the characteristic associated with them.
One thin Ash forgets (or conveniently ignores), the people in current times do not know the truth. From what they have been told, the Heralds were like Gods: they did unhuman things, saved the world and then left to their Rosharian version of Olympus. I would also remind Ash that who was responsible for telling everybody after the last desolation (the one where the other 9 Heralds choose not to honor the Oathpact)? The 9 Heralds themselves
Thoery. The 9 Heralds choice not to honor the Oathpact lead to the conditions that allowed Odium to inflict what turned out to be a fatal blow (at least fatal in the sense that the Shard of Honor splintered). By the way, my verbiage of the Heralds not honoring the Oathpact was intentional. I think that the Oathpact relies heavily (if not completely) on the concept of Honor.
Paige. I agree with you. I hated the idea that Kaladin and Shallan would end up in a relationship. That ship would have had the same ending as another famous ship: the Titanic. Shallan and Kaladin would have sunk just like the Titanic. The only difference would be unlike the Titanic, there would be no survivors on the Kaladin/Shallan ship.
Alice. Remember, while King T told Dalinar some bad stuff he did, King T did not tell Dalinar everything. King T did not tell Dalinar that he ordered Malata to open the Oathgate and allow the raid of Singers to blockade the rest of the Alethi soldiers from coming to the Battle of Thaylen Field.
Alice. Do we have confirmation (either in the text or WoB) that Moash knew Roshone was the person behind putting his grandparents in prison? Moash knew that it somebody convinced Elhokar to put them in prison. He never mentions the name of the individual to Kaladin. It is Dalinar that tells Kaladin that Roshone was the Brightlord.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@Gepeto says, “I want her to be good for him and to be who he needs.”
Well, she’s well on her way to taking over one traditional responsibility of a Vorin wife: being the spymaster. You mention Adolin’s self-image issues. Surely Shallan is never anything but a support and reassurance to him about his adequacy?
Odium needing someone who was not a Fused to do the actual murder of the Herald remind me a lot of Ruin needing to use someone who is not an Inquisitor to release him from the well of ascension – when trying to deconstruct something formed directly from another’s power, you had to operate via a pawn that was not overly attuned to your own.
@19: You may be right, but I want to read it! It may not happen though. RoW is shaping out to be very different than the previous books. In other words, I do not think we will read much of either Shallan or Adolin if they are in the book at all.
Lopen is adorable. Everything he says in this chapter is adorable. I have a slight crush on him today, aided by his top picture in the Coppermind Wiki, though he might annoy me in real life. The Coppermind Wiki says Sanderson’s dog is also named Lopen, but not which one of them was named first.
I don’t think Lift would say “Journey before pancakes.” She needs the pancakes (or other food) before the journey. And, OK, on the journey and after the journey. But no journey before food.
That’s too real. The subsequent speech is less real, but still wonderful.
And then there’s this, along with Teft’s scene. Stormlight can heal some brain problems, as with some of the children “the Stump” unwittingly healed; maybe we discussed that in the Edgedance Reread, but I don’t remember. But it does indeed seem not to work on emotional turmoil or longer-term mental illness. That’s valid and valued – magical fixes for mental illness are unwelcome for many readers, and they would remove the story’s extraordinary purpose of portraying people who gain great powers but continue to find with their own minds as well as their external foes, striving as their world is breaking. But I’ve ranted extensively elsewhere about the harm I feel from this “core identity” one-size-fits-all divide between conditions that primarily affect the brain and conditions that primarily affect other body parts.
That said, I just read the Coppermind Wiki’s note that:
And now, for the first time, I want to go to Roshar.
I noted a listener use “blustering” as a variant of “storming.” I don’t remember If we’ve seen that before.
I don’t especially like the Shallan/Adolin romance because I’m a Romance Grinch and don’t like most romances, though I like some of Sanderson’s. But I wouldn’t like Shallan/Kaladin either, and I think Adolin is best for her and the story. And I did enjoy her perfect response to “I’ll let him have you.” That possessive attitude toward romance is harmful to those who have it as well as those targeted by it.
I know the feeling.
Kaladin has heard Lopen’s arm-loss tale seven times, but we readers haven’t gotten it even once. Rude. :-p
The description of Jezrien’s “eye color lost to the night” reminded me of just how much trouble I would have on Roshar, where eye color signifies social status and I can’t see anyone’s eyes except at very close range. I don’t recall Renarin having problems with that, but maybe he was less visually-impaired than me. And as a prince, he would be well-informed about who the people around him were and relatively unlikely to get severely punished for making a mistake.
AeronaGreenjoy @22,
The Coppermind Wiki says Sanderson’s dog is also named Lopen, but not which one of them was named first.
The Lopen was first. Little furry Lopen came about a year or two back, there was also an adorable photo in tor, but I cannot find it right now.
Edit: found Brandon’s tweet of the little guy. Isn’t he cute? :)
Woah, reading through the new comments and @14 goddessimho got me thinking… First, I agree that Jezrien has been trapped. So, I also like the idea that the fused would have been at risk of being trapped, too. But, with that in mind, what if the gems Gavilar had didn’t have Unmade trapped, what if it had Fused? Now, that would require some being on Roshar and not Braize, but what if when he told Eshonai that it contained her gods – he war right and it actually did have a Fused in it?
I just noticed an interesting inversion. The Parsh resent having been soul-ripped and enslaved (and who wouldn’t?) but … Venli and Timbre have just enslaved a Voidspren. Why is that OK? Because it’s war? That was also true when the Singers were soul-ripped.
Yes, Lopen the dog is very cute.
@25 First, I do think of and am grateful for the utility workers. It’s nice to have that constant during this time, so thank you for your part there.
As to your comment, I’m interested to hear more about the “trapping” that occurred. I don’t equate it with what happened to the Parsh, though, as right now this is simply a prisoner-of-war situation, not a permanent destruction of a race’s ability to think and care for themselves. I guess the – what we hypothesize- initial entrapment of the unmade would just be viewed as what happened to the Thrill – imprisoning someone to prevent them from harming the rest of society. But, with what looks like happened with the entrapment at the end of the False Desolation, a far greater tragedy occurred concurrently. Though, I imagine a large portion of the population at the time didn’t see that as any great loss either as I’m sure there were elements that would have been all for genocide, just as you get extremists in modern wars.
@25 Carl
I see it more akin to a fabrial scenario.
The Odium-spen in Venli’s gemheart is not destroyed or rendered catatonic.
Now whether you want to argue that fabrials are a prison or not, at least the spren is receiving something (stormlight) in return as part of the dynamic. And Venli’s voidspren also seems to be able to function as it always has, however, Timbre has allowed Venli to have greater control over her voidspren.
@Steve-son-son-Charles, the Voidspren is not just imprisoned, it’s compelled to do the bidding of Timbre and Venli. We don’t know that it’s sapient, of course, but I don’t believe it’s excluded. In any case, Brandon is clearly setting up a question of whether fabrials are OK as well, with the Truespren frowning on them.
@29 Carl
I’m not sure the voidspren is being compelled to do anything, just restricted from doing things… Perhaps semantics.
But I agree about the role of fabrials being questioned, as there is an analogy that can be made between the lesser spen and the pashman slaves.
I do not think that Venli’s Voidspren is sapient. It probably has more in common with sparks of red lightning that enable Stormform than it does with creatures like Ulim; I would expect that bonding a sapient spren would give you powers a little more dramatic than ‘can speak any language’.
So I concur that it’s a lot more like a Fabrial than it is like the soul-ripping. And although I suspect that the debate about whether or Fabrials are okay is something that’s gonna come up in the next book, this specific case is one where it’s as close to okay as it gets. Like really you’d have an easier time arguing that it wasn’t okay for Dalinar to trap Nergaoul.
Late to the party again, but I am not going to deprive y’all of my oh, so valuable thoughts :), so here goes:
Taravangian had to “come clean” to Dalinar somewhat, because he had to assume that Szeth was going to rat him out anyway. Even so, he lied a lot in his “confession”. Like, for some reason he still kept secret the fact that it was Gavilar who had warned him about the upcoming Desolation, while Dova, whichever Herald she is, only pushed her way into the Diagramm a short time before WoR, as we know from T’s own PoV chapter in that book. I, too, am unsure whether she is truly Battar. IIRC there is a WoB that we haven’t seen Vedel on-screen as yet, but Dova was only mentioned, so it could still be her, as per reversion of Heraldic attributes theory. Or Pailiah, since Dova’s appearance and apparent age wasn’t mentioned either. While I am fairly certain that Liss the assassin is another incognito Herald, I don’t think that she fits the little that we know of Chana – i.e. her association with distance running, the role of guard ascribed to her (i.e. military/fighter background in her mortal life), etc. I used to think that she might be Vedel, but since the WoB mentioned above made it impossible, I now tend towards Battar instead.
Anyway, coming back to Mr. T, he didn’t tell Dalinar about the Diagramm either, or his secret horror hospital department devoted to extraction of the death rattles. Though Szeth saw those, so Our Heroes should learn about that too. That should make it very difficult to justify keeping Taravangian in the coalition from the moral standpoint, IMHO. I really hope that RoW touches upon this.
Alice:
“Seriously, though, if they’d had any idea what they were signing up for, could they possibly have agreed to it?” I think that it is hinted in the text that the hadn’t known how it would turn out and I am pretty sure that there is a WoB that they partly blamed Honor for it. From the purely logical point of view, it would have been insane to include both Jezrien and Shalash if they had any inkling of what they’d have to endure – they were a pre-programmed weak link. Not to mention that Shalash must have been very young when her mortal life ended. So, no, of course I couldn’t really blame the 9 Heralds for being unable to continue after a couple of millenia and change, particularly since it clearly wasn’t working in the end. However, I do blame them for their many lies both before and after their broke the Oathpact. First of all, even calling themselves “Heralds” was probably a lie, since they were never supposed to return to Roshar. And I do understand that people needed hope and certainty after Aharietam, but the apostate Heralds had millenia to gently inject some truth back into circulation and didn’t.
Should the Heralds be worshipped? They aren’t really worshipped as people anymore, if they ever were, but as representations of certain ideals, so why not, to the extent that anything is worthy of worship, that is. Poor Ash should make her peace with the fact that it has nothing to do with her as a person, but of course she is crazy, so she can’t. Also, her hatred of worship and her self-hatred could provide Odium with an opening and is beautiful how Taln refuses to feed this vicious circle.
Not sure why Navani is so confident that there are no enemies left in hiding, who could have taken another crack at exhausted Dalinar. IMHO, they both should have a Windrunner squire trailing each of them at all times and particularly when they are not at their best.
Regarding Ideals being spoken in climactic moments, weren’t Dalinar’s First and Second Oaths also post-climactic in RoW? Ditto most of Shallan’s Truths. So, Szeth is in good company here and maybe if he hadn’t been hanging in the air, the snow would have formed the Skybreaker glyph? Though, admittedly neither with Dalinar nor with Shallan did their Order glyphs form in similar circumstances.
I find it odd that Nale is so sure that the other Skybreakers are going to follow him, since he sent them off before explaining things to Szeth. As far as we know, they weren’t apprised of his changed position concerning the newest Desolation. And while Nale obviously set Szeth up to oppose himself, I really hope that he is wrong about a good chunk of the other Skybreakers too. Even if they had sworn to follow Nale as their Third Ideal, which according to him many, but not all of them had, isn’t the Fourth Ideal supposed to supercede it? And in a pinch the Oaths can be dissolved, as Captain Notum informed Our Heroes in Shadesmar. Also, maybe some of the 4th Ideal Skybreakers will swear the Fifth at the long last, which also could free them from obligation to slavishly follow Nale. It would be boring if all the Orders were re-formed in the same way, with the PoV characters building them up from scratch – IMHO incorporation of some part of the existing Skybreakers would be a new and interesting challenge.
In fact, Odium aknowledging Dalinar as Honor’s heir and agreeing to the duel of champions should have exposed the nonsense of Nale’s argument that Odium had won and that the law of conquest applies to him. Dalinar should grab the Skybreakers into a vision ASAP and let Jasnah/Navani or his legal expects debate them into submission. Speaking of which – did Nale go splat when Jezrien was murdered and Ash/Taln fainted? He would have been flying at the time, right?
Moash is already so deadened that despite his hatred of and ranting against lighteyes during most of his previous appearances, he didn’t even check the color of Jezrien’s, nor was really interested in the truth of him being a Herald or not. Concerning the knife – a couple of chapters earlier, Odium threatened one of the Fused with “withdrawing that which gives you persistent life”, and now he figured out how to do it to the Heralds too. Pretty sure that the knife is made from his god-metal. This deadening, which also was seen in Dalinar’s visions and somewhat happened to Dalinar himself in the past, refutes his claim of being the Shard of passion, IMHO.
I also keep thinking about something that was touched upon in the discussion of the previous chapter – could Moash have done something for his grandparents if he had been there? And iRL, for instance, when people were in prison well into the 20-ieth century, it made a lot of difference if somebody was arranging for extras for their incarcerated relatives and friends – now, maybe his grandparents did have somebody doing that for them, or maybe not. Also, while Alethi system is clearly unfair, Moash as a citizen of the second nahn was not without rights. If he had made use of his right of inquest, maybe Roshone would have been properly punished. Dalinar (who actually had jurisdiction, even though he let Ehlokar practice in his absence) may have been willing to sweep things under the carpet since the victims were already dead and he wanted to encourage mercyfulness in his nephew, but if there had been a family member demanding justice, things would likely have been different. So, while Moash wasn’t to blame for what happened to his grandparents, I do think that he could have helped and/or might have achieved some measure of retribution, had he been around. But, of course, it never even occured to him. Just like he never spared a thought for that old caravaneer’s fate nor lifted a finger to help him back in Revolar.
About Shallan and Adolin, everything has already been said, and I can only chime in how glad I am that the triangle is over and how much I like this pairing.
Austin @@.-@:
I am not a fan of Lopen – Sanderson’s humorous characters are very hit-or-miss for me. But I do like the idea of non-traditional Order members. And also, our flashback characters are all on the extreme end of the spectrum. There were once thousands of Radiants – obviously not every one of them would have gone through something comparable to Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Lift, etc. In fact, we saw the Windrunner and the Skybreaker squires going through the First Ideal pretty much by rote already – they didn’t have to painfully figure it out like Kaladin did. Among the Skybreakers all the Ideals are known – as has been the case with the other Orders in the past and is going to be the case again, once our trailblazers rediscover them.
Ellynne @11:
Yes. Oh, and BTW, what happens if a Skybreaker swears to follow a person and the person then dies? Do they have to pick somebody else or try to imagine what that person would have done?
Nina @16:
Didn’t Kalak remember being killed many times by the thunderclasts, which are animated by the Fused souls, in the WoK prelude? Pretty sure that the Fused did battle and kill the Heralds on Roshar too.
steve-son-son-charles @30:
Intelligent spren consider non-sapient spren to be animals, which some of them hunt for sport – i.e. Syl’s aunt hunting gloomspren. So, I am not sure why they would object to them being used in fabrials or “imprisoned” like Timbre did to the voidspren.
@32 Isilel
I don’t think Odium’s comment has anything to do with the Heralds. Since it is his power that grants the Fused “persistent life”, he can take back that power whenever he wants. The Heralds don’t “persist” due to his power so removing them has to be a different process.
Ah, super late, but I’ll just chime in with a few things:
Szeth makes me twitchy in that he really does not seem to have learned his lesson; he’s just transferring his agency from one person to another. I suppose in a sense that is agency but I’m hoping his character arc will lead to him realizing he too can make his own moral decisions (although yes, I do agree there are certain objective truths). There’s a time and a place for recognizing when somebody is more trustworthy than you when it comes to certain things but he takes it to an extreme.
I’m a romance sucker at heart and one of my favorite themes/tropes is the one where the beloved finally feels ‘seen’ for who they are so I pretty much adore everything about Shallan and Adolin’s scene :) I’m also definitely not into ‘bad boy’ types (not that Kaladin is a ‘bad boy’ but I feel like for Shallan he fits that role) so I also love that the (actually) nice guy (not to be confused with a Nice Guy TM) wins out here. The whole thing is great :)
I’m also a sucker for the ‘I want my beloved to be happy trope’ (think Han Solo maturely deciding to walk away at the end of Return of the Jedi instead of throwing a hissy fit about it like he starts to do in the Endor village). Yes, Adolin goes about it a bit clumsily with all the ‘let him’ stuff (glad that got corrected) but I’m always a fan of people being able to just maturely handle a thing (which also goes for Kaladin having the ability to introspect about their relationship and realize they’re not the ones for each other and that she has made her choice).
Ah yes I did have more thoughts!
I think this has come up before what with Kaladin’s depression and now with Teft’s addiction but I admit I’m not always comfortable with what Radiancy will heal and what it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s also personal and subjective in terms of what a person considers part of who they are. Although I have no problem with Renarin’s quirks (if I recall he’s one of the characters confirmed to be on the spectrum, right?) not being “healed”.
And oh yeah, I have so many questions about Jezrien and what his ‘death’ actually means this time (if he’s dead at all, and not just trapped in a gem).
I like your inverse Herald theory!
@12, I like your idea about the Skybreaker oaths!
I also think Szeth has taken a step in the right direction by choosing to follow Dalinar instead of Nale. By doing this he’s not merely following along with the majority of the Skybreakers.
I am the latest late comer to the party.
I loved Shallan’s and Adolin’s conversation, and the death of the love triangle, such as it was. The only thing I didn’t like about it was Shallan passing off her crush on darkeyed Kaladin over to darkeyed Veil. It seemed obvious to me at the end of WoR that Shallan had those feelings, so it was weird to have her claim they belonged to a different personality all along. But I suppose that was a very Shallan thing to do with inconvenient feelings. The rest of what she said was pretty awesome, and other than that one blip I am quite happy with how it turned out.
My favorite part of the chapter was Venli choosing to tell the real tale of the Listeners to the Singers. Just the idea that the Singers can learn true stories about what happened with their people is powerful.
@35: Thank you :) Let’s see if I’m right!
I’m both on the autistic spectrum and clinically depressed, and I wouldn’t have my autism cured for the world, it’s part of how my brain works and without it I’d be someone else. Depression? If something can cure depression? SIGN ME UP! PLEASE, SIGN ME UP!! In m case, it’s purely chemical by now, a serotonin deficiency. I’ll elaborate a bit to draw a parallel to Kaladin (I’ve never been addicted to anything but coffee, and even there I go through accidental withdrawal every few months because I just forget, so I can’t speak about Teft with any sort of authority):
I take the right pills, I’m okay, although I have days where I’m pretty low in terms of joy and motivation.
I don’t take the right pills, I am a plant, lying in my bed, not even blinking. (Honestly, Kaladin during the Weeping has nothing on me. That guy is presumably eating!!)
I’ve had a year of therapy with two weekly sessions and then I think two more with one, by now I occasionally have to touch up with a therapist for prescription reasons, but that’s not really therapy. I think, unless there’s trauma that is so suppressed that neither I, various therapists nor my parents are aware of it, I’m “fixed” on that regard, yet the depression sticks around. The cracks are still there, but I know where they are and I’ve sanded down the edges, so to say. They hardly trouble me, and I certainly don’t cut myself by surprise.
(As for the pills, the slope is still slippery, but the hole has a railing now and even if I completely fail at keeping my feet under me and am going down, I hit the railing rather than rock bottom. It’s still not sparkles and butterflies, but I’ve not been a vegetable in over a decade!)
As for Kaladin, I think Syl and the Nahel Bond can – and probably did – fix his seasonal depression. But it’s not the lack of sunshine that keeps his serotonin and dopamine levels down, it’s the fact that the guy is chock-full of trauma. He’s better-off than Shallan, she didn’t touch hers with a stick whereas he uses his as a stick to beat himself up with, but I think Kaladin’s depression is very much in the vicious cycle phase where his brain makes him sad, which makes him feel worthless, which then causes him to beat himself up for being worthless, thus making him sad. We haven’t seen his mood hit rock bottom since Syl is back, though, so I’m fairly certain that she has him on pills and the depression is psychological, which spren can’t heal. (Accurate comic about this by owlturd)
I’m almost certain that Teft’s addiction is not a physical one either and that the craving he feels is in his mind.
So for this reason I’m fairly positive that a Nahel bond would make my depression go away by fixing the serotonin levels, but leave the autism in place.
RogerPavelle @33:
My point is that what was captured in the pommel gem of the raysium knife was not Jezrien’s whole cognitive shadow, but merely “what gave him persistent life”, so while the mechanism is obviously different, there is a certain similarity in the outcome between what Odium threatened to do to that Fused and what happened to Jezrien. There are WoBs about Jezrien being “extra dead” and “dead dead”, which tells us that there is no chance of Jezrien’s personality being held captive in the jewel with the potential to be freed if it’s prison is destroyed. YMMV.
Lisamarie @34, 35:
Yes, I find Szeth’s oath problematic too. What would have happened if Dalinar had succumbed to Odium? It was a pretty close escape. And what will happen if Dalinar dies before Szeth progresses to higher Ideals? Will he have to reswear the 3rd Oath to follow something/somebody else? All of this makes me wonder who was supposed to be the present-day Skybreaker until Sanderson made the decision to ressurect Szeth late in the process of writing WoR and how it would have played out for them.
Concerning magical healing – writers tend to do something that annoys me with it, because they don’t want magic to solve certain RL problems*. As a result, how it applies is really inconsistent, IMHO. If it can heal people perfectly after them going splat from great heights (as Kaladin, Shallan and Szeth all do) and provide limitless regeneration from other physical traumas, it really should preclude or greatly slow aging. Because aging is nothing less than accumulated damage. Likewise chemical imbalances, paraplegia, etc. But because Sanderson doesn’t want to trivialize the challenges that people face with these issues iRL, we get the mis-mash which he tries to explain with “spiritual connection to age” and a person accepting their injury as part of themselves, unless it is convenient that they don’t (Lopen and Hobber versus Rysn, various immortal/longlived worldhoppers versus Radiants and gold compounders). IMHO, it would have been more logical from the worldbuilding perspective for perfect healing from injuries, sicknesses and aging to all come from the same limited pool as it were. Oh, well.
At least, Sanderson doesn’t go the usual fantasy authors route of magical healing being able to perfectly heal mortal wounds of the protagonists, while the background and female characters who should have access to it, still routinely die from sicknesses and childbirth – something that tends to irritate me immensely.
*It is like in HP Weasleys being poor was shown through them having shabby clothes and worn-down books. They have a spell to repare things perfectly! They can transform things into other things! Wizarding povetry should have looked differently – but Rowling didn’t bother to invent how and went for illogical shortcuts. Also, wizards are supposed to be longer-lived and have magical healing… but almost nobody has living grandparents! Etc.
Nightheron @37:
But how will Venli manage to survive speaking the truth to the masses for the whole year? You’d think somebody would tell the Fused. But yes, I have been hoping that new singers would get to learn and incorporate the Listener culture since WoR. Back then I hoped that Thude’s band would intercept and adopt some newly awakened parshmen…
Manavortex @38:
Yes, stormlight healing should be at least as effective as pills.
@39: “At least, Sanderson doesn’t go the usual fantasy authors route of magical healing being able to perfectly heal mortal wounds of the protagonists, while the background and female characters who should have access to it, still routinely die from sicknesses and childbirth – something that tends to irritate me immensely. ” – I have no idea if you meant it this way, but this kind of feels like a jab at Star Wars, lol. (Although I am definitely of the theory that Padme’s death was due to Palpatine doing some dark side energy draining, and that Ben’s healing of Rey was a very out of the ordinary thing requiring a true grasp of the lessons Anakin failed to learn,and who knows, perhaps assisted by the Force dyad thing).
And yeah, pretty sure people more clever than I have written about wizard economics and how that would even work.
I also have mild anxiety/depression and also several traits that align with autism spectrum type traits (and I have a son on the autism spectrum). I think my anxiety/depression would basically go away, although I think in some ways I’d still be a kind of high strung and sometimes morose/gothy person. I don’t see my autism-like traits going away though; it’s just how my brain works and that’s fine. But it is interesting to also ponder the difference between mental illness caused by chemical imbalance, and traits/mental illness caused by trauma or situations which, in a way, ARE a part of you.
As for why the Fused didn’t kill Jezrien themselves, I’m guessing that whatever it is Odium did here only worked because it was a human wielding the knife, that if a singer had killed Jezrien he would have just gone back to Braize. The Oathpact is of Honor, so I suspect breaking it requires an act of treachery.