Lyn: Greetings and welcome back to another installment of the Oathbringer reread! Alice is taking a much-needed vacation, so I’ll be joined for a few weeks by our resident Stormwarden and Lift super-fan Ross Newberry! Hiya, Ross! Want to introduce yourself?
Ross: Hi, all! I’ve been a Sanderson beta reader for a couple of years, and Lyn’s calling me a Stormwarden because, during the Oathbringer beta process, I built a spreadsheet to help calculate Highstorm and Everstorm transit times across Roshar. That stuff got…
L: Complicated?
R: A bit. But what I was going to say was, it got me hung with the title of Stormwarden among the beta group, a title which I was secretly quite proud of and never argued against whatsoever. In addition to that stuff, I’m a sometimes author of Tor articles, pretty exclusively on Sanderson stuff, because Brandon is my jam.
The Lift thing is kind of funny, too. As soon as her first Interlude hit, I knew she was my favorite Stormlight character. This was before I learned any Edgedancer Ideals. I’m also a person with a very high level of empathy for others, so as Lift grew through Edgedancer and Oathbringer, I felt that the character had been written just for me. Brandon has a way of making sure every reader has a connection with one of his characters, and it’s something I find most amazing about his writing. My other role in Lift lore is that I tried to get the chapter in Oathbringer where she first appears entitled “A Thing About Butts”. It was a close thing, but I failed.
L: Well, we at least named one of the sections in the reread similarly, so there’s that!
R: So yeah, that’s me!
Now, without further ado, let’s make with the rereading! Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread. No spoilers for other Cosmere novels in this particular reread, so you’re safe there. But if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin Stormblessed, Dalinar
WHERE: Somewhere in Vamah lands, Urithiru.
WHEN: 1174.1.4.2, three days after the last Kaladin scene. 1174.1.4.3
We begin with Kaladin securing shelter for his new parshman compatriots under the pretense of a “very private brightlord.” As they settle in to sit out the highstorm, the Voidspren confronts Kaladin and asks him if he’s planning to fight with them.
Switching back to Urithiru for chapter 24 finds Dalinar waiting for Taravangian to arrive. The old king appears to be having a bad day, and struggles to find the words to introduce the Knight Radiant he’s discovered—a woman named Malata. Dalinar and Navani have a discussion about the Nightwatcher’s deals and how said deals always last until death—so why is Dalinar’s wearing off now, allowing him to remember Evi? They receive a missive from the God-king of Tukar soundly refusing Dalinar’s alliance, and Taravangian assumes that Dalinar will begin conquering the rest of the world.
Threshold of the storm
Titles: “Storming Strange” and “Men of Blood and Sorrow”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s storming strange, I’d say.”
L: Not only is this taken from a direct quote, but it’s pretty fitting, seeing as how we’ve got a highstorm arriving in this chapter. And that Voidspren is pretty storming strange.
R: All of the Voidspren are storming strange.
“I do not think you and I are destined for such a glorious place. Men of blood and sorrow don’t get an ending like that, Dalinar Kholin.”
L: This is a little heartbreaking. I’m one of those who has a soft spot for Taravangian. He’s doing terrible things, yes. Awful things. Things that he has no expectation of redemption for. (Perhaps someday we’ll be able to say “Taravangian did great things. Terrible… but great.”) But he’s doing them because he truly, genuinely believes that only by doing them is he going to save the entire world. He’s shouldering this evil because he doesn’t want anyone else to have to—or because he doesn’t trust that anyone else would succeed. Reminds me a bit of a certain someone in one of my favorite animes…
R: I have a strong Journey Before Destination feeling about this kind of stuff, so I tend to come down more on the side of Big Daddy Dalinar. If you can’t win without turning super evil, maybe you don’t deserve to win. If you can’t make a world-saving omelet without breaking murdering several thousand (hundred thousand?!) eggs people, then I’m not hungry.
L: Ross the Edgedancer NOT WANTING FOOD? ::gasp:: Lift would be so offended. But in all seriousness, this is really a tough question, and one that I don’t think has a right answer. I get so many Code Geass vibes off of this whole situation (vibes that I shan’t go into detail on here because if you haven’t watched the show, it would spoil one of the best twist endings in anime history for you), and that show completely wrecked me (in a good way), so…. Maybe it’s just because of that, but I hold at least a little sympathy for T’s outlook here.
R: Well I haven’t seen that, so for me, he’s just an evil jerkface. ::harrumph::
L: Fair enough! (I suspect that I’ll be in the minority on this viewpoint anyway.)
Heralds
Chapter 23, all four are Talenel, the Herald of War. He is associated with the attributes Dependable and Resourceful. Well, Kaladin is certainly being dependable and resourceful here! He’s taking good care of his new wards, getting them into shelter before the highstorm hits.
In chapter 24, we’ve got THREE Heralds represented. Chanarach (dustbringers), Battar (elsecallers) x2, and Ishar (bondsmiths). Whew! That’s a lot of Heralds for one arch! So let’s start with the most obvious one—Ishar’s present because he shows up in this chapter. He’s the God-king Tezim. As for the others… Chanarach’s probably here because Malata—a Dustbringer—is. As for the double Battar… hmm. Her divine attributes are Wisdom and Care. Dalinar is trying to be wise in his dealings with T, and Navani is exemplifying “care” in her attempts to help her new husband come to terms with his awakening memories.
Icon
Kaladin’s cloak & spears and Kholin glyph, indicating Kaladin and Dalinar POV chapters, respectively.
Epigraph
I am no poet, to delight you with clever allusions. I have no doubt that you are smarter than I am. I can only relate what happened, what I have done, and then let you draw conclusions.
–From Oathbringer, preface
R: Recall that Dalinar is writing the content of these epigraphs just at the end of Oathbringer’s timeline. He may still be somewhat reeling from the crash of memories of all that lead to Evi’s death. That’s the only reason I can think that he’d automatically assume that any reader of his book would be smarter than he. The man’s not that modest.
Stories & Songs
“In each case I’ve looked into, the boon and curse both lasted until death.”
“Each case?” Dalinar said. “How many did you find?”
“About three hundred at this point,” Navani said.
L: That’s a lot of people who have visited the Nightwatcher.
R: Busy valley!
L: Though I have to admit, if I had the chance to get any wish I wanted granted (with the caveat of a curse being added on too), I might just take it. I can’t blame those who went to the Nightwatcher, it’s a tempting offer for sure.
R: Very. And the Old Magic has also been quite thoroughly misrepresented to the reader, since either one or both of the primary characters we thought had gone through the Nightwatcher Makeover may have gotten the much stranger Cultivation protocol instead.
L: Wait a second. You think T got the Cultivation treatment? Or are you thinking of someone else?
R: I was thinking of Dalinar and Lift.
L: Oh, duh. Right. Of course you were.I’d say it’s a pretty good bet that she went to Cultivation, yeah.
R: I have a whole giant theory about Lift and Cultivation, but I’m not sure if this is the time or the place to get into that. Maybe I can drop by when My Girl arrives onscreen.
Relationships & Romances
“I’ve never had anyone to share this burden with,” he said softly. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t find anything.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
L: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I really love this romance, because—unlike most I see in speculative fiction—it’s a mature romance. There’s no squabbling or love triangles or uncertainty. It’s like… relaxing by a nice warm fire on a chilly night. Comfortable. Most times we see the roaring fires, devouring everything in their passion. Rand and Aviendha. Kvothe and Denna. Locke Lamora and Sabetha. Reason is left by the wayside when the heart flares so bright and hot. But Dalinar and Navani just feel… different. Strangely, it reminds me a little of Eddie and Susannah in The Dark Tower. Ross, do you concur?
R: Ayuh. Or, at least, what Eddie and Susannah eventually grew into. He was plenty young, dumb, and full of… uh… himself? at the beginning of their relationship. But yes, though there’s obvious passion between Dalinar and Navani, it’s the banked coal bed that keeps all night, instead of the ten-foot-high bonfire made of kindling.
L: You say true, Gunslinger.
Bruised & Broken
He had always remembered the years following Evi’s death, which had culminated in his being drunk and useless on the night Szeth, the Assassin in White, had killed his brother.
L: We’ll get a lot more of this later (too much, maybe, for my soft heart to bear), but for now it’s worth noting that Dalinar has no idea how bad things are about to get when these memories truly return.
…someone might have muscled him out of power, and acted like king in all but name. Dalinar sighed softly, but kept a firm grip on his guilt.
R: I actually really like this thought from Dalinar. He knows he’s overstepping, and he doesn’t like it, but he’s not going to let a bit of nephew-usurpation get between him and the end of the world. Practical!
L: But he’s still feeling guilty about it, which ties into what I want to talk about in a section farther down….
Diagrams & Dastardly Designs
Taravangian smiled at Dalinar, then licked his lips. He seemed to have forgotten what he wanted to say, and had to glance at the woman beside him for support.
L: Is Mister T having a “stupid day” here, or is he playing dumb? Honestly, it could go either way. If it’s a smart day, he’d know that he’d need to live up to the reputation that preceded him. However, when he’s “smart,” he doesn’t seem to be able to act with empathy and compassion at all. I’m not sure any act he tried would be convincing enough to Dalinar.
“Ah, how I wish this day hadn’t come.”
“You sound as if you anticipated it, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said.
Taravangian laughed softly. “Don’t you? Anticipate sorrow, I mean? Sadness… loss…”
L: Nice cover there, Mister T. I suspect that this might have been a slip of the tongue at first, which T managed to sweep aside because really, who would suspect this doddering old man of predestination? (My mind just tried to take a side track into theories-ville regarding the Vorin religion’s aversion to telling the future—what if someone in the past had a similar ability and it turned out AWFUL and this is why the abhorrence of ‘divination’ exists? But that would mean that someone else asked the Nightwatcher a similar question and that it didn’t have anything to do with the Truthwatchers which I am pretty sure has been explicitly stated so this is probably just exhausted rambling on my part… Also, how long has the Nightwatcher been ‘in business,’ so to speak? I’m almost certainly wrong, but it would be interesting if the whole Truthwatcher bit was a red herring.)
R: That’s a lot of questions with not a lot of answers. But they’re good questions!
What had happened in Vedenar must have troubled him deeply—the death of the previous king, the field of slaughter.
L: Yeeaaaah. I’m certain T’s been directly responsible for way worse… but of course, there’s no way that Dalinar could know that.
(Regarding the Shin): “Hateful people,” Taravangian said. “Murdering so many worthy monarchs!”
L: ::dryly:: Right, T. Like you had nothing to do with it.
R: I just… ugh. He makes me feel dirty, even on a “dense” day.
Squires & Sidekicks
“Blackthorn, this is the newest Knight Radiant. Malata of Jah Keved.”
L: I do. Not. Trust. This woman. Part of it might just be my long-ago training in Latin making me suspect her based solely on the root of her name—“Male” meaning “wrongly” or, more commonly when used as an English root, “bad.” Now, it’s not fair to judge characters in an entirely different world on the Earth uses of word constructs, as those wouldn’t exist there—but I can’t help it. And it doesn’t help that she consistently acts so damn sketchy! Plus, she’s on Taravangian’s team, and that’s certainly a reason to question her motivations.
R: And Brandon tends to write the books as if they’ve been translated for us, right? So it’s conceivable that Latin roots could still be hints. Plus, the fact that the leader of a secret society that’s done a whole lot of evil in the name of the “greater good” just happens to show up with a Radiant in tow does not at all scream “hinky”. Mmmmm. Lies.
“A Releaser. Dustbringer, though they don’t like the term. She claims her spren told her that.” He rubbed his chin. “I don’t like how she smiles.”
L: GOOD, Dalinar. Trust your instincts. I DON’T LIKE HER EITHER.
R: It’s also said that they like taking things apart. Looney theory: Balat Davar, with his cremling-vivisection tendencies, is an incipient Dustbringer!
Places & Peoples
In Alethkar, this man would never have been able to hold a throne after the apoplexy struck him. An unscrupulous family would have removed him by assassination.
L: Interesting that Dalinar mentions this, when we’ve set up in previous recent chapters that the Alethi don’t like assassination. I guess that explains the “unscrupulous” bit.
R: Will he and Jasnah ever end up having a very uncomfortable conversation about the employment of assassins?
L: Only if he finds out about it via other sources. I don’t think Jasnah’s the type to admit to doing this without some good reason.
In other families, someone would have challenged him for his throne. He’d have been forced to fight or abdicate.
L: I wonder if he means a duel or an outright war by “fight,” here.
R: That’d likely have a lot to do with whether the challenger thought they could win a duel…
In Kharbranth—which didn’t wage war—
L: Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone. Not at ALL? Because they just don’t have anything worth taking so no one has ever bothered attacking, or what?
R: Or they’ve taken great pains to be Roshar Switzerland. The Swiss do have the benefit of being buried in the Alps, though….
Teshav had finished pointing out the strange glass panes on the inner walls that seemed like windows, only clouded.
L: SCREENS, perhaps?! Like computer screens, or televisions?
R: But Dadlinar is too old to figure out newfangled Urithiru computer tech. He’ll have to call Shallan to reset the VCR.
She moved on to the pairs of discs on the floor and ceiling that looked something like the top and bottom of a pillar that had been removed—a feature of a number of rooms they’d explored.
L: So many mysteries about Urithiru! I can’t wait to find out more about this city and how it used to function.
R: I really hoped we’d see some of that in Oathbringer. Alas, we’ll just have to wait a bit. If the one-year break between books three and four works out, though, we may begin the next volume with some glances of already-working discoveries.
“A warning,” Navani read, “from Tezrim the Great, last and first man, Herald of Heralds and bearer of the Oathpact. His grandness, immortality and power be praised. Lift up your heads and hear, men of the east, of your God’s proclamation.”
L: Hey there, Ishar! Nice to see you! I find it somewhat amusing that no one even considers that this guy might actually be one of the Heralds.
R: In their defense, it has been 4,500 years.
L: That’s true. To put it in perspective, Jesus was alive only 2,000 years ago in our world (half as long as this!), and I’d raise an eyebrow if someone claimed to be him today.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“He’s as sincere as ever,” Dalinar said softly. “But…”
“Dense?” she asked.
“Dear, I’m dense. This man has become an idiot.”
L: I have to laugh a little at the “I’m dense” part. Dalinar never gives himself enough credit!
R: I know how he feels. My wife has a pair of neurological conditions known as obsessive thoughts and racing thoughts. What this means is that, any time we disagree on an issue, by the time I’m halfway done with a sentence, she’s already played through all the possible solutions to our game of conversational chess, and is already getting bored of waiting on my mouth to stop moving so she can pounce. Dalinar has had enough exposure to Navani and Jasnah in his life to know exactly where he stands on the intellectual spectrum. And he’s comfortable with his relative position.
Weighty Words
Since when had the state of the entire world become his concern?
L: I’m putting this little quote here, because I suspect that it ties into what will become Kaladin’s fourth ideal. The best theories we have as to what that could be revolve around Kaladin realizing that he can’t possibly save everyone.
R: Boy, maybe Hoid kicked Kaladin just a touch too hard when he told the story of the Uvara all the way back in TWoK. The point of the story was to have K step up to lead Bridge Four, not necessarily take the weight of the entire world on his broad, muscly, bridge-trained shoulders.
“If she’s truly a Radiant,” Navani said, “can she be anything but trustworthy? Would the spren pick someone who would act against the best interests of the orders?”
L: Man, this is a good question. I’d assume that the spren aren’t omniscient, or infallible—surely they’ll have made mistakes in the past? (Hell, Syl started drawing away/fading when Kaladin started making dumb choices in WoR, so it’s entirely possible that the people the spren choose can mess it all up with their choices even if the base attributes which drew the spren to begin with are still there.) And then there’s the fact that the spren don’t always seem to like one another, and the fact that so little is known about the Dustbringers… And the fact that some spren ::cough Glys cough:: have been corrupted… lots of red flags. Lots.
R: There’s another angle that Navani misses here. Every Radiant bond we’ve seen so far tends to obey the same rules. Break the Ideals, you sever the bond. This was even the case with Shallan and Pattern. Lightweavers don’t swear any Ideals past the First, but Shallan definitely had access to Patternblade as a child, and then regressed from that point as she suppressed her memories.
Here’s my point. Just because spren need to pick Radiants who will follow the Ideals of their Order, there’s no evidence that the Orders all have the same goals….
L: Well, it’s a relatively good bet that all of them used to be on the “saving-the-world” bandwagon, but now? Who knows.
He’d need to see if he could determine whether her Shardblade was only that, or if it might be another Honorblade in disguise.
L: Or that. Though I think Dalinar’s still being awfully trusting if that’s the only hesitation he has, here.
R: It does seem an easy enough test. “Yo, my Radiant! Can you dismiss and re-summon your Shardblade within one heartbeat for me? Just for funsies.”
Martial Motivations
“Where do we attack first?”
Dalinar listened to the words with dismay. It was the obvious assumption. …What would he do if nobody listened? … He’d been willing to conquer Alethkar for its own good. … How far would he go for the good of all Roshar?
I will unite instead of divide.
L: Wow. Lots to unpack here. Why don’t you start us off, Ross?
R: First would be the question from Taravangian. Is he defaulting to the way he’d interact with the Blackthorn of old? Or is he poking and prodding cleverly, informed by the Diagram? Without a PoV, it’s difficult to tell whether Mr. T’s eccentricity in this chapter is genuine.
L: Then there’s the question of how far Dalinar really is willing to go. Is he ready to make the same sacrifices that T is, killing half the world to save the rest? Let’s play Devil’s Advocate for a moment here and say that there’s no other option. Could he make that decision, take on the burden of becoming a warlord, in order to save what’s left? I don’t think so, especially after the events at the end of this book. I think he’d keep looking for another solution until the bitter end. Although… Remember how I said there was more I wanted to talk about, with Dalinar feeling guilty about usurping Elhokar’s throne? He was willing to do that, for the greater good. What else might he be willing to do?
R: I don’t see Dalinar ever going that route. Hoid could, and has said straight up he’d let Roshar burn to achieve his goals, but Dalinar has been shown to us on this arc toward honor for a narrative reason.
L: Ah, but letting the entirety of Roshar burn for the greater good of the Cosmere would be different from Dalinar’s POV. Hoid’s not native to his Roshar—his loyalties of course lie elsewhere. Dalinar would almost certainly be unwilling to sacrifice everyone he knows and loves, his entire home—as a great sage and wise scholar once said, he’s “one of the idiots that lives in it.” But part of Roshar? I’m still unsure. It’s a hard choice, and one that any military commander has to be at least passingly familiar with. Leaving behind the wounded to save the majority. Sacrificing a regiment of your troops to gain advantage with the rest. It’s strategy, unfortunately, and while Dalinar has come a long way from the uncaring asshole of his youth, he’s still a military commander. Kaladin’s struggling with almost the same question—not everyone can be saved.
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
The spren beside him was glowing yellow, not blue-white. The tiny woman stood on a translucent pillar of golden stone that had risen from the ground to put her even with Kaladin’s gaze. It, like the spren herself, was the yellow-white color of the center of a flame.
She wore a flowing dress that covered her legs entirely. Hands behind her back, she inspected him. Her face was shaped oddly—narrow, but with large, childlike eyes. Like someone from Shinovar.
L: There are a few interesting things going on with this Voidspren. For starters, she’s wearing a dress. From what we’ve seen, the Listeners don’t wear dresses… so why is this Voidspren adhering to Rosharan standards of beauty? Also, I find the fact that she has Shin eyes very interesting. We know that the Rosharans aren’t native to this world, but then, neither are the Shin…
R: The fact that their default physical appearance mirrors the Shin starts off as a, “huh?” moment. But, once the Humans-are-the-Voidbringers reveal gets dropped, I think that takes on a new relevance. I think these ancient Voidspren appear Shin because Surgebinding itself was brought by those Voidbringer humans. They are some of the original spren who formed those first Rosharan Nahel bonds, and their appearance recalls that first contact.
L: So the Shin were the first arrivals in this scenario?
R: Mmmmm. Lies. I’d say, instead, that the humans who immigrated to Roshar settled (or were confined) first behind the high mountains in Shinovar, where they were safe from the highstorms (for textual evidence, see “The Girl Who Looked Up” and “The Girl Who Stood Up”.) My theory is that the epicanthic fold and other physical features of non-Shin Rosharan humans came from evolutionary adaptations and interbreeding with other races. The current Shin still look like their ancestors because their bloodlines have remained pure, and the relatively peaceful biome of Shinovar leaves no room for such evolutionary adaptations to confer a survival benefit.
L: That implies interbreeding with either native life-forms or world-hoppers, though, right?
R: Well, we have WoB that the Horneaters are human-Parshendi hybrids, and the Iriali and Siah Aimians are potentially from off-world originally, so there’s lots of room there to play with genetics.
“I’m a tad older than a month.”
R: Wayyyyy older. Aharietiam (gesundheit!) was 4,500 years ago, and was, according to lore, the ninety-ninth Desolation. It’s quite likely that, given the years between Desolations to allow civilization to crawl back a bit, we’re talking about ten to twenty thousand more years during that time. A tad more than a month, indeed.
“Would you fight for us, deserter?” she asked.
“Would I be allowed?”
“My kind aren’t nearly as inclined towards discrimination as yours.”
R: I mean, they called storming Moash out of the bullpen…. ‘Nuff said?
L: (Obligatory f*** Moash.)
R: However, what if this passage is Brandon dropping us a hint? What if spren bonds between humans and Voidspren are possible, and are also radically different from Radiant bonds, to the point that Ideals aren’t necessary?
Quality Quotations
“Deal with today’s problems, then sleep and deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.”
* * *
“The Shin send only a quick reply to congratulate us, whatever that means.”
“Hateful people,” Taravangian said. “Murdering so many worthy monarchs.”
R: Ohhhh you son of a whitespine.
L: To congratulate them? On what?
Next week we’ll be focusing on one chapter—25, The Girl Who Looked Up. Feel free to join the discussion in the comments below, and if you haven’t yet had a chance, check out Ross and Paige’s latest article about mental illness in Roshar!
Ross is a software engineer by day and an aspiring author by night. He lives in Roswell, GA with his wife, two sons, and a tiny dog named Hercules.
Lyndsey is still doggedly working through revisions on Crimson Intent, book two of her own fantasy trilogy. She’ll be taking a break to travel to NYC on Friday to attend Jim Butcher’s book signing—if you’ll be there, feel free to say hi! If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
I wonder if the Diagram people deliberately tried to attract a Dustbringer spren, knowing that certain orders would be okay with their plans.
Well, we know for certain that not all the orders have necessarily the same goals. Just think of the betrayal (from the humans’ point of view) of Nale and the Skybreakers!
@@@@@#1. Austin – Yes. In one of Taravangian’s view points later on, he mentions how, in his day of brilliance, he deduced that the Dustbringer spren would be most likely to align with his plans because of the recreance. The fact that one of his lower tier minions attracted one was just a happy opportunity, but he was hoping to attract a Dustbringer to his cause. Their spren seem to be the most pissed with humanity.
@@@@@ Ross – do we KNOW that Siah Aimians are not originally from Roshar? I don’t remember a WOB stating that, only the confirmation that the Iriali are descended from Worldhoppers….
Edit: Just re-read that section; I suppose that the Siah Aimians could be from off-world, but considering their Connection with the Cognitive Realm, I would lean more to them being Native to Roshar
On the Shin saying “Congrats!”, I feel like it’s more of a sarcastic congratulations than anything, sort of saying “Congrats on finding Urithiru…we’ve known where it is the WHOLE time” or “Congrats on the Knights Radiant thing, we’ve had the Honorblades that do those things this WHOLE time”. Alternatively, it could also just be a generic “Congrats”, along the lines of Facebook birthday wishes/celebration.
In regards to the heralds on that chapter: my instinct is that the elsecaller is there because they used the elsecaller gate to travel to Urithru. Twice because they opened the two sides.
For Taravingian’s dustbringer, I doubt it was coincidence. We know he wanted a dustbringer and I believe the diagram told him how someone could attract one. He probably had dozens of underlings doing dustbringer spren attracting stuff in the hopes that one would get chosen.
@5 – I should clarify. We know from OB that they had Diagram people trying to attract spren. That’s where Malata came from. My question was whether it was a Dustbringer spren specifically or just any spren in general that they were trying to attract.
I think it is unfortunate that due to Malata and the Ash spren resentment, that the Releasers overall keep getting a bum rap. Just because the spren like seeing inside things, doesn’t mean it has to be sociopathic lol. Yeah Balat could potentially be one, but he is also confirmed as per WoB to being influenced by Odium as is the rest of the Davar family. So his desire to pull apart cremlings leg by leg may have to deal with that influence. The way I read wanting to see inside things and break apart where it could be seen as positive is a tinkerer or engineer. Perhaps if Navani bonds a spren, she would end up a Releaser. Always inquisitive, wanting to know how something works. Take it apart and put it back together again.
edit @6 Austin. I believe it is general because if I recall Taravangian said generally some radiant orders might align with their purposes but they did not know which ones specifically. This is supported by his concern that Malata’s spren would change its mind, and needing constant reassurance from her that they are still dedicated to the cause.
dashardie @@.-@: No, we don’t know for sure that the Siah are immigrants. I feel like it’s possible, but who knows? The Dysian Aimians seem like a more solid bet for having evolved on Roshar, being made up of their hordelings, but it’s also possible they could have come from elsewhere, and tailored their bodies to the Rosharan critters. But no, I haven’t seen WoB on a firm origin for either Aimian race.
@6 good point. I imagine he at least has a list of orders that definitely wouldn’t go along with him.
@@@@@ Ross: That is a cool nickname, and a cool story behind it! Maybe you’ll get a cameo in a future book, as a stormwarden!
One of the things I took note on in Chapter 24 is how skillfully Brandon Sanderson responds to our theories in-world. He has Dalinar think that he needs to keep an eye on Malata in case she has an Honorblade, and outright confirms that the Stormfather isn’t responsible for Dalinar’s memories returning (which is what I had originally thought).
“I have no doubt that you are smarter than I am.” I think that this is where I reluctantly accepted that the in-world author was not Jasnah, but I didn’t have any idea who it might be. Dalinar just seems so obvious in retrospect, especially when he calls himself dense in this chapter
I think that the Shin are congratulating the Alethi on discovering Urithiru because it’s the one place in their religion where they’re allowed to walk on stone. The Stones Unhallowed. They probably see this as a good step forward for all of these heretics on the planet. Although I do like darshidie’s suggestion in 4 that’s it sarcastic.
“However, what if this passage is Brandon dropping us a hint? What if spren bonds between humans and Voidspren are possible, and are also radically different from Radiant bonds, to the point that Ideals aren’t necessary?”
Wasn’t this the whole reason Nale was going around killing new Radiants, because Ishar (*scowl*) told him that one of the emerging Radiants might be able to bond a Voidspren? Maybe he was thinking of bonds like Glys and Renarin’s, where the spren is corrupted? And since humans were the original Voidbringers, it’s almost certainly possible. Or maybe Ishar just told that to Nale to give him an excuse to kill proto-Radiants that was in line with Nale’s non-capital ideals. I really wonder exactly how much influence Ishar has had on post-Aharietiam society, especially the Recreance. I’m almost as suspicious of him as I am of Taravangian.
sistertotherain @10: I’d have to do some digging, but I thought Nale’s justification was that widespread Surgebinding through genuine Nahel bonds might trigger a Desolation. Which does seem really odd, as I’d assume he was paying attention when the Oathpact was originally enacted. According to the information available to us, the Desolation occurs when the last Herald asks for their torture in Damnation to stop. Maybe there’s always another secret. Maybe Nale’s crazy. I mean, Nale’s definitely crazy. And Ishar.
@11 I thought the desolations occurred when any of the 10 asked for the torture to stop. The reason they were happening closer and closer together was that the nine who quit were becoming weaker and weaker. The reason it’s been 4,500 years or so since the last one is only Talenel went back and he was the only one never to quit. (Until now)
I know this isn’t a Lift chapter, but since Ross mentions that he has a Big Lift Theory, I’ll throw out mine. We’ve heard a lot through the series of Honor’s Champion and Odium’s Champion, but we haven’t heard anything about Cultivation’s Champion. I think, by the back half of the series, that Lift will grow up to be Cultivation’s Champion, mocking Odium’s Champion (Moash? Renarin? Adolin? Malata? Palona? (just kidding on that last one) as she takes him/her down and steals their lunch!
I got this from Chapter 9 of Edgedancer, when Lift is listening to Nale lecture his rookie Skybreakers. One of them asks if they shouldn’t want the other Knight Radiants to return, and this is what Nale says:
“Unfortunately, no. I once thought as you, but Ishar made the truth clear to me. If the bonds between men and spren are reignited, then men will naturally discover the greater power of the oaths. Without Honor to regulate this, there is a small chance that what comes next will allow the Voidbringers to again make the jump between worlds. That would cause a Desolation, and even a small chance that the world will be destroyed is a risk we cannot take. Absolute fidelity to the mission Ishar [emphasis mine] gave us–the greater law of protecting Roshar–is required.”
Which makes me wonder exactly what Ishar told Nale that made this seem like a sensible course of action! They know, none better, that the Desolations come at the breaking of the Heralds, and it’s the whole reason they left Taln to be tortured alone–hope of staving off a Desolation indefinetely, which to their credit seems to have worked. So what, exactly, did Ishar fear, or tell Nale he feared, that made killing the proto-Radiants seem like a harsh but necessary measure?
Was it because he feared someone bonding with a corrupted spren, as Renarin and Glys have done? (But Sja-Anat is trying to defect!) Was it because of the Recreance? (And just how involved in the Recreance were the Heralds, espeically Ishar, their overall patron?) Was Ishar worried that the spren might retaliate for those mass killings by deserting Honor’s plan as Spark seems to have done? Was he worried that someone empathic enough, determined enough, and with enough information would find out about the humans stealing the world from the parsh and decide to try and undo what had been done to them because it was “right” by their Ideals? But then, Nale does side with them in the end–after talking to Ishar again.
Has Ishar actually been gradually worsening things for the coming of the eventual Desolation? And was it on purpose, or just the corruption of his character from abandoning the Oathpact? Right now I suspect Ishar of everything from spearheading the Recreance to outright joining Odium at some point, honestly. If I could do gifs, there’d be one of crazy-stringboard-theory guy here.
@10, 11 The Ideals were imposed on spren by one of the Heralds and/or Honor. It seems entirely possible that voidspren were unaffected by that intervention. It seems unlikely that Odium would want to place restraints on his minions.
@15 – Actually the spren acted on their own. They copied what Honor gave the Heralds. I think Honor says something about not foreseeing that in one of Dalinar’s visions. Or just being surprised by it. Going off memory on that, though.
@16: And it was Ishar who insisted that there be rules placed around the bonds, or he would destroy them all.
According to in-world WoR, anyway.
*places another tack and starts measuring string*
@16, but also Nohadon talked about how the spren needed to be bound by some kind of rules after they started forming nahel bonds.
@14 Somewhat related to Sja-Anat defecting. Wild Mass Guess here, but does anyone else think that the Truthwatchers (and Renarin) will end up being just as important in the end as the Bondsmiths? Given that they are situated right across from each other on the double eye and all that. Plus the symmetry involved with Dalinar being influenced by Odium, and the Spren of Dalinar’s son being influenced/”corrupted” by one of Odium’s spren. I can’t help but see a pattern here.
If Dova is really Battar, it makes senses she’d be on Mr. T’s chapter heading .
One of the themes of OB seems to be that the good guys and bad guys aren’t as clear-cut as we thought. Malata is a Radiant, but she’s perfectly fine with working for Odium. Nale and Battar are Heralds, but one joins the Singers and the other is supposedly a founding member of the Diagram. On the other side, Glys is corrupted but he and Renarin are on Team Honor, Sja-Anat is a freaking Unmade who wants to defect, and Venli can switch between Voidbringer and KR at will.
@17, sistertotherain
Nale’s pretty unreliable though – at least up until now. He just “heard” what he wanted to hear, i imagine. I would think that it would be something like how the more Radiants there are, without Honor, the more likely that they will be corrupted or veer from what they’re “supposed” to do.
Renarin is the one you should ask about the VCR. He seems to understand Urithiru’s tech.
Maybe the congratulation is for Dalinar’s wedding?
@20: Well, Malata was working for the Diagramists before she was a Radiant, but the Diagramists weren’t working for / with Odium until King T made his deal at the end of Oathbringer. If she ever finds out, she might defect. Might not, but there’s a lot of difference between “work to save humanity by any means necessary, even terrible ones” and “ally with the literal personification of Hatred, who is behind the threat to humanity in the first place.” Maybe this will be the sticking point for both her and Spark.
I’m very interested in Malata. The ashspren seem to have taken the Recreance especially hard, and I imagine she must be both very cynical and very curious to attract one of them. She’s not in my good graces right now, but it’s possible she could earn her way there if she defects when / if she finds out about King T’s deal with Odium. After all, she isn’t covered by it. She’s from Jah Kaved. I also wonder if she might once have been an ardent, from her haircut and manner of dress.
So what hit my fancy this week was the whole debate as to how far Dalinar would go to save humanity? Would he go as far as Taravangian, would he sacrifice a great many people to save a remnant?
I think the answer to this question is both simple and complex. I think yes, Dalinar would sacrifice great many to save a remnant, but not until he has his back pressed against the wall and there is literally no options left to explore other than this desperate strategy.. In other words, I have always felt the difference in between Dalinar and Taravangian wasn’t Dalinar standing above using some of the means Taravangian has used, it more lies in the fact Dalinar would never make such means his main strategy. He wouldn’t decide this is the best way until he has voided every single other options no matter how unlikely they are to work. Taravangian, he hasn’t tried any other way, he hasn’t seen the Desolation, he just assumes his way is the only way, but he never sought alternative paths. He goes with the selected genocide right away.
Dalinar would never make the same choice: their later talk illustrates it. He will not sacrifice an innocent if there is another solution. Hence, while I do think Dalinar has the capacity to make very hard decisions, I do not see him basing his strategy on it. He will try to save everyone up until it becomes obvious he can’t. Then, he’ll make the hard choice, not before.
On Lift, I saw this WoB recently. I thought it was interesting.
I thought it was a really interesting one because I feel readers have, as a rule of thumb, taken for granted the currently known Radiants will lead their respective order. It has been assumed Lift would be the main Edgedancer and, potentially, their leader. Now, we know Lift is unlikely to lead the Edgedancers. So huh who will? Questioner should have asked, we might have gotten a juicy one ;-) And we are finding out in the next book, of course open to interpretation, as always, but I thought it was an interesting one.
@23: I thought so too, but then I did a reread. Malata outright says she (well, Spark) is fine with Odium, because Spark hates the Radiants.
#14, @sistertotherain: Ishar isn’t worried that a Desolation would follow because of the rules of the Oathpact, as you describe. He’s worried that too much Surgebinding would destroy the Oathpact itself.
Note that by WoB, Ishar is nuts. Nale is just wrong about that.
I wonder if all of the Ashspren will want the humans to lose the battle with Odium? Malata says later that ashspren were hostile to humans because of the Recreance. Will they actually maintain that hostility when Voidspren basically want to rule them in Shadesmar? I wonder. And if they do, will they be able to bond humans that also are likely to side with Odium. That could be complicated if the spren favors Odium but the KR favors humanity.
I am sure I will ask this same question closer to the end of this re-read, but I would like to know what the Highspren think about most of the Skybreakers choosing to side with Odium. That will be quite a boon to Odium and the Voidbringers and Regals in their fight against the KRs. The Voidbringers would have won the Battle of Thaylen City.
Lyndsey and Ross: I am all Machiavellian and all (perhaps that is why I like Jasnah so much). But sacrificing the entire world just to save one city (and one or two generations at most) is too much even for me. I could somewhat accept what he tried up until King T made his deal with Odium at the end of OB. But at that point, I think he gave up way too much. If Odium and his forces win, Kharbranth will be no more within a generation. It is not a self-sustaining city and the people will need to rely on the Singers for certain things. The Singers will engage in a complete boycott of Kharbranth. Kharbranth will have one generation at most. I cannot believe genius King T did not foresee that would be the case if King T made such a deal. I have to think that genius King T will have planned a way to get one up on Odium.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@18 – I think Nohadon was referring to the Radiants rather than the spren. How could they impose rules on spren? Spren are already bound by their natures.
My read on Mr. T in this chapter is that he is having an above average day intelligence-wise, so he is not completely without empathy but is low. The main reason I think this is his extreme reaction to the mention of the Shin. It caught Dalinar very off-guard even in the context of the rest of their conversation, so it always felt like he was acting to me and just missed the mark there because he was overcompensating. I suppose it is also possible that it was a legitimate dumb day and he was still overcompensating, knowing that those murders were really his responsibility. Now I am back to Square 1 being unsure!
As far as the Skybreakers, I am not sure I am willing to say they are totally working for Odium yet. I am not that far in my re-read, so I may be totally wrong, but I don’t remember Nale saying they would side with Odium, just with the Parshendi. If they do choose to side with the listeners as opposed to the newly freed parshmen, perhaps they won’t be pro-Odium. I say this since there are still some listeners unaccounted for (Thude & company) whom I am hoping to see again and who likely won’t support Odium. Also, it does seem like Venli is defecting from Odium. Thus, this deslotation will not be a clear-cut battle between the Parshendi in total on Team Odium and the humans in total on Team Honor – as we know, the lines are VERY blurry.
@25: Damn, you’re right. Malata outright says that Spark is fine with whatever gets her vengence and lets her break stuff. Welp, so much for that hope. Shame, because the Dustbringers seem like the coolest order after the Windrunners, and I’ve been looking forward to finding out about them since they were mentioned in the WoK prologue.
I like the little detail of Navani’s hairpins made to resemble Shardblades. The only Shardblades a woman could traditionally have, I guess. :-/
I also like the low-key sweetness of Dalinar and Navani’s relationship. After decades of drama, at least in Dalinar’s mind, they’re focused on sharing affection and supporting each other through this terrible time.
I wonder if Young!Dalinar would have declared himself “dense.” He didn’t have much use for brains, especially his own, but wasn’t one for modesty either.
“We’ve more than enough clever people around us, Dalinar. Taravangian was always a friend to Alethkar during your brother’s reign, and a little illness shouldn’t change our treatment of him.” I like that, but winced to know it would be a trust and goodwill betrayed.
Incidentally, today I saw a thread on a Wheel of Time fanpage on Facebook where someone opined that (WoT spoiler) they found Perrin’s ‘wolf-like’ ability to smell complex emotions unbelievably over-the-top, and got mocked and yelled at by a large number of people for attempting to question the science of something in a fantasy series with dramatic magic. All I could think of was: I wonder how these people would react to the Cosmere fandom where magic and science and the science of magic are discussed at extraordinary length.
I wonder what Spark has told Malata that leads her to believe that he doesn’t hate her? She’s a human, after all. Like others here, I have a very bad feeling about her.
I find it pretty interesting that sapient voidspren – real ones like Ulim or the yellow ones seen in Kaladin’s chapters, don’t need bonds to keep their intellect in the physical realm. Does it have to do with “ancient pathways” that Fused souls can travel during a Desolation, I wonder? And yea, their “Shin” features very likely have to do with their role in destruction of Ashyn or even in Odium’s previous Shardicides, since Selish people also lack epicantic folds, if Riino is any guide.
Speaking of which – personally, I suspect that there was at least one other human migration onto Roshar in addition to Ashynites and the Iriali. IIRC, there was some curious Makabaki legend mentioned in one of the previous 2 volumes – something about a woman going to a magical mountain and making 10 children out of stones there, who became the ancestors of their people? I have always thought that it was about people coming in through Cultivation’s perpendicularity in the Horneater peaks.
Battar’s Divine Attributes – aren’t they “Wise and Careful“? So, not care in sense of “caring“. oh, and Dova, whether she is or isn’t Battar wasn’t a “founding member of the Diagramm” – in fact, Taravangian mused in WoR that she discovered what they were doing and inserted herself into the proceedings and that he needed either to draw her further into his inner circle or kill her.
Dalinar is and always was modest and self-deprecating concerning his intellect, even if he stopped to downplay it as much as he used to when he was younger. He is also not much for witty repartee, nor does he easily grasp jokes. It now occurs to me that Adolin is very much following in his Dad’s footsteps in this respect. The difference being that Dalinar was always very secure in his other aspects and it never dented his confidence – in fact, given Alethi culture, it may have even boosted his self-esteem early on.
And from the “Baxil” interlude in… WoK, IIRC, we also know that visiting the Nightwatcher is practically a national pass-time among the Emuli, so yea, she doesn’t lack for human interaction. Though, it seems that a lot of people prefer not to share what their boons and curses are, like that guy in this interlude who returned with numb hands.
Oh, and I am certain that Mr. T also got Cultivation treatment, and that he is he secret and unwitting weapon. I also think that he was having an “average” day in this chapter and playing up his weakness and confusion, while probing Dalinar and trying to steer him back towards conquest, as per Diagramm. This chapter suggests that default T used to be quite intelligent and there is every reason to think that “average” days are his old baseline.
Malata’s Spark is one dumb and vengeful spren, it seems, even though he seems to be one of the very rare ones who have been “adult” during the Recreance. OTOH, Dalinar really needs to tell sapient spren that Odium intends to destroy them all and Cultivation to boot! This is likely the next level of “unite them!” that he needs to tackle eventually – confronting and convincing the sentient spren, both Nahel and not, to take the stand against Odium. I like the idea that Balat Davar is an incipient Dustbringer – if he manages to continue resisting whatever Unmade that is plaguing their family until better ashspren condescend to bond again.
Concerning trustworthiness of the Radiants in general – as WoR epigraphs hinted and OB revealed, it was a job and a half to keep all the Orders pointed more or less in the same direction and the main occupation for the Bondsmiths of old, so yea…
Iguacufalls @13:
I don’t think that Cultivation would go for champions – this is not her style. Duels, etc. are very much of Honor’s portfolio. But I do think that Lift is one of her more important game pieces.
Sisterofhain @14, Carl @26:
I absolutely believe that Ishar was behind the Recreance. I have even wondered if he somehow managed to pretend being Honor for the purpose of the latter’s supposed “ravings” that the Radiants were doomed to destroy Roshar with their surges. And we did hear that defection of the 9 Heralds made the Oathpact more “fragile”, but there is more. IIRC, Nale mentions a couple of times both in the novels and in the novellas “certain measures we took” that “greater power of the Oaths” could allegedly destroy. These “measures” remain mysterious, but my theory is that they have to do with Taln’s ability to hold out for 4.5 millenia and the defectors’ belief that he might be able to do so forever(!). I mean, yes, we know that he had never broken before Aharietam, but even the greatest human who ever lived shouldn’t have been able to do this. So, I suspect Ishar and the other scholar Radiants of modifying the Oathpact in some way that made it impossible for Taln to give in, with the side-effect of madness for the apostates. But by now Ishar probably wants only to finally die and doesn’t care if everything else on Roshar does so too.
Evelina @29:
Unfortunately, Nale didn’t chose to side with the Parshendi/listeners, which he could have done at any point during the preceding millenia. He seems to think, for some reason, that the Fused are the lawful authority over the singers. I fervently hope that at least some Skybreakers don’t follow him into this madness and apply some logic to their situation instead. Also, somebody needs to go give the highspren society a clue, so that Nale is, at least, denied new recruits.
@sistertotherain, #30:
Worth mentioning that all of a “species” of spren do not necessarily agree. Both Ivory and Sylphrena had to defy their people in order to form Nahel bonds, after all. On the other hand, Windle was ordered to do so by his people’s governing council. Spren civilization is (this is a Stormlight Archive theme) a mirror of Rosharian humans, broken into very diverse and conflicting little groups.
@Isilel, #33:
Of course we see one Skybreaker not follow Nale, the Assassin in White. Szeth, perhaps significantly, seems to be the least charismatic of the Radiants at least through Oathbringer but it’s possible he will attract followers as the other Skybreakers are ordered by Odium’s lieutenants to commit atrocities. (On the other hand, Odium is actually smart enough to be careful with them, at least initially.)
@@@@@ 33, Isilel – Drats, I hadn’t remembered that. Thank you for the correction. I am going to hope as well that all the Skybreakers don’t follow Nale. It seems unbelievable to me that they would, especially since we know Szeth defected & he is not exactly totally sane himself. I imagine a large determining factor in individuals’ ability to defect will be their third and fourth oaths (the 2 where Szeth vowed to follow Dalinar and to cleanse the Shin).
@33: You say:
How come then the same culture didn’t boost Adolin’s self-esteem?
On the Skybreakers: My thoughts are we are going to see two factions of the Skybreakers: one led by Szeth and one led by Nale. I also suspect we are going to see other rogue Radiant groups who won’t follow Dalinar.
Since we are speaking of spren and bonds, there is something I’ve been wondering about for a while. I was going to wait until Venli’s interlude, but might as well bring it up now. If the Parsh are “broth” to the human’s “meat” (I think that’s how it was phrased) will the Willshaper spren not be as…sapient as it could be with a human?
@37 Austin – It’s so hard to tell, since this is actually the first time (that we know of) where a True Spren has bonded with a Parsh/Listener. From what we see of Timbre/Venli’s interactions, I would say not in the “traditional” sense of Sapient… Timbre is obviously able to communicate with Venli through the Rhythms, and is able to suppress the voidspren in Venli’s gemheart…but how much she is going to brought through to the Physical realm we will have to see. I think with the Parsh always being closer to the Cognitive realm, the spren don’t need to be brought as fully into the Physical, whereas Humans are mostly in the Physical, so the Spren are able to experience more of the tangible world through the bond.
I think another aspect to humanity being more attractive to spren than Listeners/Singers is our more changeable natures. Captain Ico calls the human ability to change our minds a strength of the species. The Parsh OTOH have a lesser capacity to do so. Their forms greatly influence their thought process so if they are in Mateform for instance it’s an active struggle to focus on anything else (insert obligatory Pattern “No MATING” quote). With spren it’s even more difficult to change and probably impossible for them to act against their nature. Like attracts unlike; humanity is more unlike than Parshendi. A tangent point, this I believe is one reason Eshonai was able to attract a bond level spren. She never let her form distract her from what was important. She could plan wartime strategies even in Mateform, still had the strength to resist even in Stormform. I believe her strength of will would have eventually broken Stormform had she not died. Venli shares this quality with her sister if nothing else. How else could a Regal, predisposed to hate all things Honor-related, hide an enemy spren and eventually bond with it? She basically broke a Regal form, making it serve her instead of the other way around. Without that strength of will she would not have been able to maintain the connection Eshonai originally formed.
Taravangian is concerned that as Spark gains sapience through the bond and subsequent oaths sworn by Malata, that Spark will end up having a problem with the Diagram due to the radiant’s “unpredictable personalities”. I look forward to finding out more about Malata :)
The stormfather says that Odium cannot break an agreement, but T. is a human who can. He might be trying to bind Odium to an agreement that Odium has to fulfill once he agreed to it while T. never indends to keep his part.
T. might think Radiants are unpredictable because of their brokenness. Is Malata broken, too, and how?
Something I just thought of that is interesting. I wonder if Malata has gotten into the habit of imitating Sparks speech patterns. Malata is from Jah Keved, yet we never see Shallan, nor any of her family talk in such a manner (referring to being frozen, cold, etc). She wears Thaylan clothes, and it has been commented on how they have a much higher tolerance for cold temperature, but I do not recall any Thaylan talking with the same inflections. Could it be the result of her spren?
It feels like the spren and possibly some fused could switch sides until we have a mix on both sides of the coming war. Odium has some of what I would call good traits. Honor held too tightly has some bad ones. I’m starting to get a coming Buddhist vibe for the future mix of players. The Middle Way my friends.
I’m not clear in the Nightwatcher. Is she a sort of unmade like Sja-Anat except of Cultivation instead of Odium?
Is being an unmade a bad thing or just a state of existence? Obviously, at least one of them has the potential of free will unless Sja-Ant was lying.
@40: I kind of imagine that Malata is a misanthrope, or one of those people who think that most of humanity is stupid but that she is one of the sane and sensible ones. That might explain why an ashspren was drawn to her, if she finds it easy to think the worst of humanity and sees herself as exceptional. The sort of person who thinks that everybody else should be ruled by her and her fellows in thought for their own good, and takes a real joy in breaking down whatever’s in her way, physically or intellectually. But I try not to get too attached to preconceived ideas about characters we haven’t seen much of.
#43, the Nighwatcher and the Stormfather are superspren, really big powerful spren. The Unmade are apparently powerful spren that were corrupted/made by Odium.
There are hints (at least to my mind) that Nightwatcher is to Cultivation (and Stormfather is to Honor) what the “Avatar” on Obrodai mentioned in one of the epigraphs is to Autonomy: a potential way for Shards to reproduce. Kaladin refers to Honor “setting up an heir” meaning the Stormfather, if you remember.
Odium would never deliberately set up an heir, he has no interest in anything but himself-as-himself.
@43 I thought Brandon took inspiration from Toaism with Roshar and the Stormlight Archive not Buddhism. Last I checked Yin-Yang is a Toaist philosophy, and I believe that is what he was going for with the balance between honor and cultivation.
Thanks to 45/46. Gives me even more to think about. The Nightwatcher didn’t feel that nice or friendly to me but then the Stormfather isn’t exactly a sweetheart himself. But I do think all the lines are beginning to blur. When the desolations started things seemed to be black and white. You fought on one side or the other. Now we have people/entities crossing the line.
I was bothered from the beginning about how the Oathpact worked. It felt so monumentally unfair to the heralds. I had the same issue with Szeth and what he had to do/be.
I suppose the Nightwatcher couldn’t be the Sibling, but it seems if a Bondsmith is attached to the Stormfather that it would take a Bondsmith to attach to the Nightwatcher.
#46, I’ve commented before about Chinese/Taoist influences on the Stormlight Archive. With my own interest in etymology, I mentioned that Roshar spren is nearly identical to Chinese shen (any supernatural or divine being) for one example.
#47, Nightwatcher actually does seem to try to be benevolent, she just isn’t good at it (as Cultivation indirectly refers to). Stormfather might have been nicer before the Recreance. That is pure speculation, but he does seem to be almost as angry about it as Malata’s spren, Ash.
@45 I think the bits of power Odium put into the Unmade are one of things keeping him on Braise. He’s invested too much in the local system to leave without cost.
@47 I thought we knew that the spren of the three Bondsmiths were the Sibling, the Stormfather, and the Nightwatcher.
Could the Sibling be the spren of Urithiru?
@47 Speaking of things starting to blur, if you look at the yin-yang symbol you will notice that the white part has a black dot in it and the black dot has a white dot in it. I am not an expert on Toaist philosophy but I’d wager that there is something important to make of that. Basically that the opposites are NOT COMPLETE OPPOSITES would be my guess. Maybe that ties in withe things starting to blur?
The characters for yin and yang literally mean the sunny (陽 yang) and shady (陰 yin) side of a mountain (the old characters; the new short characters contain the sun (阳) or the moon (阴)). Which is which changes during the day. One cannot exist without the other, and they are always relative to each other. When yin gets to big it turns into yang (yin contains a seed of yang) and the other way around.
@44 sistertotherain
I dunno honestly regarding Malata. The prime ideals of the releasers are brave and obedient. It could be said she is obediently following the diagram, but she sounds more like she doesn’t care two bits about it. She is in it for the ride, and her spren is in it for revenge. I wonder if maybe she is a double agent. That she is acting like she is with the diagram, but really is not. There is absolutely nothing to support that she is a double agent, but I do wonder if it is possible.
@45 Carl
Agree on all points
@46 BenW
I feel like the balance is more with Harmony on Scadrial if we are going to apply real world religions/philosophies. Spren seem to be more platonic with the ideal versions of things, and animism where everything has a soul.
@47 goddessimho
I agree the lines are definitely blurred with vast shades of grey, and I think that is great when juxtaposed to how it was originally seen as black and white in the past. It really brings to fore on how such conflict isn’t so simple, and it is made up of individual people each with their own stories and wants being carried up in the storm of a cultural war. I think the prevailing theory a lot of people agree on is that the stormfather is one bondsmith spren, the nightwatcher is another bondsmith spren, and everyone is driving themselves nuts trying to get confirmation on the third bondsmith spren (and whether or not it is the sibling and what exactly the sibling is if it is the third bondsmith spren)
@49 noblehunter and 50 austin
it is theorized to be the sibling. a lot of people think it is the sibling. all evidence does seem to point at the sibling. but we do not have any confirmation it is the sibling
In the case of Malata, I recalled being more interested is seeing how she differed from readers assumptions, with respect to the Dustbringers order, than whether or not she is a spy. There has always been lots of discussions with respect to this order and it has generally been assumed they would “warriors” “wrecking havoc onto the battlefield” and here we find our first Dustbringer cannot be described as such. At least not now.
I have personally always advised caution in trying to figure out what an order was looking for in individuals purely based on the attributes. “Brave” and “obedient” can be interpreted into many ways, not all of them leading towards the tanky soldiers many assumed at first.
After reading OB, my thoughts are “obedient”, within the context of this specific order, defines individual looking for direct guidelines. A plan. Clear orders. In short, they are, well, followers and the Diagram gives them exactly what they seek: a clear line of conduct, a well defined plan. It may be why Taravangian felt they were the most likely, of all orders, to follow the Diagram. It brutality is presumably not contracting their oaths and its attempt at predicting randomness seems to appeal to them in a stronger manner than other orders.
I am curious to see how other not well known orders, such as Stonewards and Willshapers, will weight against readers interpretations. While we do have a Willshaper, I am currently struggling to find the rational why Venli was chosen. This last one would be on my wish list: to have better explanations as to why given individuals are chosen over others. For instance, why Teft and not Skar? Why Renarin? Why Venli? Why Lopen?
@54 Gepeto
Personally I feel the reason the Diagram hinted the Releasers would be sympathetic is because the betrayal of the Recreance. I personally do not think it has to do with their ideals of brave and obedient as then Taravangian would not be so worried about how Spark acts as Malata swears more oaths. The more oaths Malata swears, the more self aware Spark becomes, the more Spark could question what they are doing and possibly advise Malata to defect, or possibly break the oaths. I am not saying it is going to happen, just that I believe that is where Taravangian’s concern is coming from. Now whether or not Taravangian’s concern is valid remains to be seen
Willshaper – Venli – Resolute Builder – she resolutely pursued the history of her people, seeking to build their power to defend against the Alethi.
Windrunner – Teft – Protecting Leading – protects his men, and leads them. pretty clear cut to me
Truthwatcher – Renarin – Learned Giving – very intelligent and thoughtful. Always supportive of Adolin and his father, to the point that Dalinar is surprised that Renarin holds no animosity towards his older brother.
Windrunner – Lopen – Protecting Leading – protects the men from despair by helping them laugh at adversity. Leads by inspiring them, even if it involves making a fool of himself (inspired Skar to try harder, helped the amputee to strive to become a radiant and so on)
@55: I thought it had to do with obedience and their oaths. Brandon said they were the odd ones out and it seems they were feared more than they were loved. Malata does lent to the interpretation. It could be you are right, I honestly do not know where to stand on this one. I was however curious to find out the order is more about people breaking things down to see what is inside than “mighty warriors” as has been assumed before. I felt this was a nice subversion of readers expectations.
I find the rational behind those character dubious at best.
Let’s take Teft for instance, when have we seen him act protective, when he has been more outstanding than anyone else within Bridge 4? As I read the book, I ended feeling he was “chosen” merely because his “addiction” was a worst “breaking down” moment than other bridgemen, but as a reader, it doesn’t make for a strong rational. Teft doesn’t stand out of Bridge 4 more than other characters. In fact, the Skar/Drehy’s team stands out more than he does, IMHO.
Venli is someone I am paying strong attention too as I re-read, but I somehow cannot link her to Eshonai’s careless curiosity which was such a perfect fit it seems absurd the same spren would be attracted to Venli.
Renarin has very little in common with the other Truthwatchers we have seen who have all ran their secret operation where they did care for other people. The textual says Renarin is very smart, but his actions have yet to reflect his intellect. More over, it doesn’t look as if he actually start using his mental capacities until long after he was made a Radiant which makes a spren choosing him on these grounds odd. I never read him being supportive of his father as him being “giving”, but I guess this is one interpretation of the attributes.
I am not going to comment on Lopen. I struggle not to see him as just a comical relief who became a Radiant just because it was funny. It is very hard to read anything more into his character. I personally find characters such as Skar more “deserving” because they worked harder, but YMMV. I recently re-read the Rock chapter and I honestly couldn’t stand all the Lopen silliness. Just not my cup of tea. I think I just hate his character…. I don’t mean this to be offensive, but I think this may be how I feel. A very strong dislike.
I personally wish for a stronger rational. Why Teft and Lopen before anyone else? Why not Adolin? Why not Navani? Why Tien? It’s just… not clear why some are picked and why some are left out. While we can have a decent rational, it never fully explains it. I really want to have better defined reasons as to how the choosing happens. I also saw a lot of readers asking those questions, so I am not the only one who struggles with the new Radiants.
@56 There may not be an in-book reason. It’s spren making a choice, not a process that can be scientifically defined.
@56 Gepeto
Yeah right now Malata is one giant question mark. Can’t wait to learn more :). Like I said, I have nothing to back it up at all, but I dunno, I feel like she will end up a double agent.
Teft protected and took care of Kaladin. He saw that the men were seen to. When Kaladin fell into depression, he kept the men together and strong while Kaladin recovered. He was I believe a Sergeant? Lieutenant? Basically directly under Kaladin, leading the men in drills, and training. That screams protecting and leading to me. But that is just my own thoughts
Venli actively researched into the old forms. She stated how she pursued the knowledge voraciously. So I think the curiosity was definitely there for Venli
Renarin cares for Jasnah, Adolin, Dalinar, Navani, and so on. It was Renarin who thought to test the vision’s authenticity. It was Renarin always by Adolin’s side at every duel cheering him on. It was Renarin who out thought Wit when asked “Say something that is not foolish”. He is very thoughtful. Adolin comments on that. People are just unsettled by him because he is very quiet and observant before he says anything. So I think that does show that Renarin is Giving and Learned.
Lopen I guess if you cannot see through the comic relief, you will not understand but I feel he uses the humor to do all I indicated. Skar seeing how Lopen was goofing off with his abilities felt driven even harder to succeed. The person with the amputated arm was lead by Lopen to learn to draw stormlight. Again using his quirky sense of humor. Now I am not saying the humor is one big facade used to accomplish all these things. I feel Lopen is quirky and funny, and it is through these personality traits that leading and protecting manifest uniquely to him.
I kind of wonder if Navani could be a Releaser. She is all about seeing inside things, to see how they work. She was very brave when she thought she lost Dalinar at the Tower, and brave again keeping the coalition together while he was drunk. I think she could make an awesome Releaser :)
@56 – You are not alone on your opinion of Lopen. I think Brandon went way too far and made him into a caricature instead of an actual character. I felt annoyed at how Lopen “leveled up” at the end OB. It almost makes being a Radiant seem trivial.
@57: One of the aspects which hooked me onto the Stormlight Archive was the fact magic wasn’t hereditary. You had yo deserve it, you had to earn it. You had to be chosen for it and I felt this opened the door for characters having a guest to find their worth and thus joined the orders. I loved the idea a given individual could try to better up himself, fight through his hardships and achieve this higher ideal which is to become a Radiant.
This was very seducing, at first, when I started reading the series. Unfortunately, I now feel becoming a Radiant has more to do with luck than anything else. It is why I am now wishing for a stronger rational or perhaps just more transparency in what makes a spren choose a given individual over another one. So far, I feel I am lacking it with the characters I mentioned, though I do not struggle with the other ones.
@58: On Malata, anyone’s gut’s feeling is as good as mine given how little we know. I personally don’t like Malata, she is unsympathetic. I however do like the idea of Radiants opposing our main characters. I like the idea of factions, of an opposite coalition which is why I find the Skybreakers very interesting. In this optic, I currently feel Malata would be most interesting as one of those opposing Radiants, one who sides with the Diagram and helps promoting its ideals. Hence, my gut feeling is she isn’t a spy, but a misguided Radiant which will end up on the wrong side of the battle. It may also be Dustbringer, without a strong leadership, are easier to corrupt than other orders. I think the lack of command structure within most orders will soon cause problems as Radiants become more numerous.
This being said, I have nothing to support any of this but my own gut feeling which is worth what it is worth. It is just fun to share what we think may happen even if we know we lack the data to make an educated guess.
On Teft: When did he protect Kaladin? All I remember is he told him about the first ideal and the Radiants. Afterwards, he was made sergeant mostly because he was the only one with real soldering experience (if I remember correctly, he once was a sergeant). I never attributed any of this to “outstanding protective” instinct. I do not recall him taking direct action to protect other people. Sure he was a leader, but I just never got the same feel with him as I did with Kaladin. As I said above, I felt a stronger vibe from Skar than from Teft.
On Venli: It is not much to go by. Eshonai was the explorer, she tried to find new lands, new people. She loved maps and she was downright unreliable. It just fit. Venli, at the time when she was chosen, was ambitious and power hungry…
On Renarin: Truthwatchers are about giving, not caring. Ym/Stump, they helped kids. Renarin doesn’t really help anyone, not in a highly significant manner. He doesn’t do anything concrete other than “silently supporting” his family which is also something, well, everyone named Kholin naturally does. So how is Renarin different than his family members? How is he more giving than Adolin or Navani? He’s certainly not… So while yes, he is thoughtful, yes the narrative is telling us he is smart and “learned”, it isn’t showing it to us, much. Responding to one pun is not, IMHO, enough nor is having one idea once. Adolin thought of using the rock formations to fight back the Singers in WoR: that’s smart too, but he is not “learned”. Hence, from my viewpoint, Renarin has not acted any smarter than other on-screen characters. Therefore, I am left to figure out “he probably is much smarter” without really seeing it, hence my problem.
On Lopen: I am usually so annoy to read him, I don’t pay much attention. Him sticking to the ground was not something I found funny, I was unnerved by it and I felt it negatively impacted an otherwise really good chapter. So while there may be a rational for Lopen, I am sure there is one, I can’t find it as satisfying as if someone else was chosen instead. I mean, I can see meta reasons for Lopen, the whole “not really broken, but very opened” criteria, but I don’t know, I guess as I said above, I just don’t like his character type. It is going to take work for him to grow on me, a lot of work.
On Navani: This is brilliant! This may be the first time I hear about this theory, but I find it terribly refreshing. Good one. It would make a nice twist on the Dustbringer by making them not creepy but engineers instead. Imagine the subversion this would make!!!
@59: Yeah, you put words on my unease. I did feel the bar was lowered.
@@@@@ Gepeto, Austin – I am with you on Lopen in some regard, I find his brand of humor to be a little extreme and not very funny. However, I am not quite as put off by it as you are since over the top silliness does seem like a reasonable defense mechanism someone who had lost an arm might develop to take the focus away from the arm and place it on the actual person.
I definitely agree, though, that him becoming a Radiant makes it seem too easy. To be fair, though, the whole squire process / recruiting process of the Skybreakers feels that way to me. Logically, it makes sense, since in desolations past they would have needed to train vast numbers of Radiants quickly and spren would likely not have time to hunt so many individuals. I think it is hard for me to swallow now because we have seen the vanguard spren choosing their individuals without having a pre-selected pool, so I had assumed that all Radiants were chosen that way. Now it seems that was the exception rather than the rule. I am sure as the series moves forward I will adjust to the new normal, but it certainly threw me off during Oathbringer.
One way Teft did some protecting that stands out to my memory is all the way back in WoK when he handed Kaladin the gem that helped him survive the high storm.
@60: I actually do not mind how the squires are being chosen, I was more bothered on why some were made new Radiants first.
On Lopen, there are those WoB:
My interpretation of those WoB are Lopen doesn’t have a tragic past, despite his lost arm, and he became a Radiant because he really wanted it. That’s the part which bothered me.
Becoming a Radiant might be easy, or at least easier than many of us expected. I think we will see the difficulty when it’s time to progress in the Orders. We’ve already seen some of this with Kaladin and Shallan’s struggles in the narrative. And while some of this comes from being first and having no guidance other than what their spren can provide, some of it also has to be that the oaths are used for growth; growing into a complete person is painful, especially when it forces one to look at aspects of themselves that they would rather not face. To put it one way, it’s not too difficult to join the Army, but it takes an almost ungodly amount of effort to become a General.
The way I understand it, our Nahel spren are attracted to aspects of a potential bondmate’s personality, so they watch. If that person’s soul is open, via breaking or some other mechanism, the Spren attempts to fill in the cracks. Thus the bond. It then becomes a symbiotic relationship; the person grows, the Spren regains memory and purpose. The spren are unchanging and thus can serve as a standard of what they represent. The human/listener/singer has a guide to get closer to their Spiritual Ideal. But reaching that Ideal is no where near easy. Look no further than the Skybreakers for an example. The only Order still in operation since the Recreance and in all that time only Nale has made it to the 5th Ideal. It’s telling that one is considered a full Radient after only the 3rd Ideal. If they waited until all possible Oaths were sworn, the full 5, then most of the people would not be considered Radients at all. Probably a tenth of 1% of all Surgebinders as a estimate.
On Teft: he has shown leadership mostly. For protecting, he handed Kaladin the sphere before the Highstorm (like @62 said). But as for leadership, he was Bridge 4’s primary instructor. Military experience made him a natural fit at training, sure, but not every Sergeant is capable of training well. It can be argued that without Teft, Kaladin would have failed. And it’s telling that in Kaladin’s absence Bridge 4 still looks to Teft despite his issues. Teft was the first to get squires of his own as well. Skar is the better fighter, Rock is the strongest and a glue guy (someone that holds a group together), but Teft is the most respected.
On Venli: I think her holding Timbre is similar to the Hoid situation at the end when he picked up Elkohar’s spren. Eshonai, a quintessential Willshaper from our understanding of their requirements, attracted the appropriate Spren but died before the bond was initiated. So here’s Timbre having made the obviously taxing journey to the Physical Realm (she had not taken precautions beforehand) and now she’s stuck, a vague purpose but not enough memory to recall how to transition back. She needs to get somewhere safe because the Fused are near; they’ll kill her if they find her. And here comes Venli, not an ideal candidate but similar. Similar enough to work with at any rate. The details can wait; any port in a storm will do at that point. It became a bond of convenience and then later one of need. On both sides of the bond.
On The Lopen:
I love the character but I can see that others find him distasteful. The levity rubs some people the wrong way. Of course not everyone will like every character (see Shallan), but including him in the ranks of Knights Radient doesn’t cheapen the process of becoming one. As I stated earlier, most of our Bridge 4 people will not progress beyond the 3rd Ideal. Some will get to 4 (Rock and Teft in my opinion) but only Kaladin will reach 5. Lopen can provide what he provides without ever progressing any further. One thing I will say about the Lopen. There is something to be said for someone to keep going, to keep believing in both themselves and something greater than themselves despite a disability. Lopen may be laughing and joking all the time but he was among the first of Kal’s squires to glow. That tells us that there’s something deeper to the former 1 armed jester. Hopefully we get to peer behind the curtain in book 4.
There was a line towards the end that convinced me Venli could be a Willshaper:
“She had driven them toward new information, new powers. She’d always hungered for it. Something new.”
She has the same curiosity her sister did, just in a different way. A scholaly explorer, not a physical one. Maybe not as ideal a candidate as Eshonai, but perfectly qualified in her own way.
Though I will miss Eshonai forever.
@65: You speak essentially of my concern: which one comes first? The egg or the hen? In our cases, which one comes first: the crack of the “right personality”? In other words, what attracts a spren the most, “being broken” or “exhibiting the right personality traits”? Does potential attract sprens more readily than larger cracks? I used to think yes, personality matters more than sobbing backstory, I used to think getting cracks wasn’t so hard as, well, everyone struggles with something in life. With OB, I now feel I was wrong. The fact the sprens chose Teft before any other bridgemen does give credence to the argument “being broken” is what matters the most and not just “having cracks”, but being completely, irrevocably mentally destroyed.
Therefore all talks of Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar being extreme examples, all talks saying not all Radiants will be as broken as they were now seem totally wrong.
Being broken matters the most, the more broken you are, the more likely you are to attract a spren. Your personality only comes next, one individual may not even be the “best pick”, but if this individual is more broken than another “better pick”, he’ll get the spren.
This is how I am reading it right now and it bothers me because it removes agency from the characters. At first, I thought being a Radiant was something you gain after having “proven” yourself, but now it isn’t the case anymore. You almost need to be “lucky” enough to have been “broken” if you are to even stand a chance. This random factor being tossed in kind of ruins the whole concept, IMHO.
On Teft: I wish there has been a stronger rational for him in book. His addiction is well referenced and brought upon, so when he became a Radiant, my brain automatically latched onto the foregone conclusion he was chosen because he had an addiction. This is exactly what I hope is NOT happening.
On Rock: I am convinced he will become a Radiant. I am not convinced he will become a Windrunner.
On Venli: I like this explanation, I will keep on reading, but I am still hoping for a stronger rational to be included within book 4.
On Lopen: I am not disagreeing with the fact something more may be happening or he might be a real gem for his attitude. I however strongly dislike reading his antics. I honestly do not want to peek behind the curtain, I do not want any narrative to focus on Lopen because I find him irksome. I just want him to go take a long trip around Roshar and not to come back until the series is over, but huh we can’t all have what we want now don’t we? In all seriousness, the character isn’t so bad in WoK/WoR, but I really found his scenes aggravating in OB. I was also discouraged everyone, in-world, just loves him. Where is the one guy who is annoyed by Lopen? So many readers are annoyed by him, shouldn’t there be other people, in-world, you can’t stand him?
This being said, the reason I find he is lowering the standard is because I find the rational behind him having been chosen not very strong. Brandon made this decision, so I cannot doubt there is a rational, but I wish it made it to the book pages as opposed to have him being “made a Radiant” almost as “a joke”.
So all in all, I wish for greater transparency on the choosing. I also hope to find out what matters the most: the breaking or the personality. Life tragedies or illness you have no control of or decisions you make and ideals you choose to embrace?
@66: Ah good one. Problem is I never took Willshapers for being power hungry nor ambitious… I guess I was wrong just like so many were wrong about the Dustbringers. Most common interpretation of this order was they were “engineers” and Navani was a leading candidate. I think this one too can be tossed out of the window.
@66 Something you need to keep in mind is that humor is subjective. What some find funny others don’t. This isn’t meant as a criticism, simply an observation. It’s something I can KIND OF relate to. Sometimes I get TECHNICALLY get a joke, but ask to have it explained to me because the joke seems so lackluster I think there must have been something more to it that i missed. Only once I have it explained to me and find out that what I thought was the joke WAS the joke. I got it all along. I just didn’t find in very funny. So while I may personally find Lopen amusing, I can relate to the fact that humor is a personal thing and that what works for one person does not work for everyone.
Teft is broken by more than addiction. There’s also the matter of his mother sacrificing herself in an attempt to become a Radiant, and how as a child he turned in the cult his parents were part of (to stop the deaths, I’m guessing), and then had to watch his father hang. Plus he was in Sadeas’s army, which was no picnic, and the bridge crews. Addiction is just the shitty frosting on the shit cupcake of his life, IMO. I think he was the first one to draw a spren of his own, and to advance so quickly, because 1) he feels like he needs to atone for all his mistakes and 2) he really, really needs it. He longs for the power to be better than he has been. But he stalled out between Oaths 2 & 3 when he realized the bond didn’t really ‘fix’ him. To Teft, he’s still the same worthless sack of shit he’s always been, bound to disappoint and fail everyone eventually. So he tries to embrace that, because the thought of becoming better with his flaws is not just frightening, it’s impossible. I’m amazed he was able to pull himself together at that last moment, when he’d sunk to his lowest and ugliest point.
Would write more, but I’m posting from my Windows phone.
@Gepeto, #s 56 and 60:
You seem to be assuming that there is some analogy to a “one true love” thing going on, where spren can only select one particular person or personality type to Nahel bond to. This is not supported by the narrative. It’s a conscious choice (although only some humans are suitable), and in the current circumstances some of them are bonding a person who might not be their first choice. Windle for one actually says in so many words that he didn’t want to bond Lift but was ordered to! He liked Ym better.
As for Teft being protective, did you not read the whole part where Kaladin was incapacitated after surviving the Highstorm? And Teft kept Bridge Four together and organized while quietly ensuring that Kaladin got enough Stormlight to heal? How could that not be leadership and protection?
@60 Gepeto
I totally respect your interpretation of Malata. My own is fringe, but I still personally like it. I feel the reason they were seen as appealable to the Diagram is since their ideal is obedient, and the implication is that their Herald was a guard in her past life, I think the betrayal of the Recreance and Honor hit that order pretty hard. They feel the betrayal deeper. Which is why the ash spren are so resentful and Spark wants revenge. However I could see this as a convincing line to get one inducted in the Diagram, when in fact Malata holds to the original code and is still obedient to Honor. That is why I feel Malata being a double agent would be interesting to me. But I totally get it would not be interesting to you. To each their own.
As to Teft, 62 Soursavior, 64 EvilMonkey, 68 sistertotherain and 69 Carl all put my thoughts wonderfully so I would be basically repeating everything they wrote
Venli was voraciously looking for knowledge in her people’s history, Eshonai voraciously looking for knowledge of the world. Still fits to me, but I understand this is personal from person to person.
Renarin, On this one I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. I feel the things he has done for his family, though subtle, mean far more than you are implying. But I understand viewing it is personal from person to person.
Lopen. Totally understand you do not find him funny, so that may limit your exposure to him. Personally I look to see the effect his actions result in, and I feel that indicates protecting and leading. His humor has grated on some people so they may not focus on his actions as much. To each their own.
Thank you, I just recently came up with the idea when contemplating the Releasers not being as bad as some think they are. I feel looking inside of things does not necessarily have to mean “destroying” in the classical sense. Ivory commented on the Skybreakers “living in death”. That phrase would sound confusing to most till Sanderson clarified that Ivory liked contradictions, and meant that they were killing a lot. So for pattern to mention they like destroying things, Pattern also mentioned we destroy to live (eat) and so on. So I felt ash spren liking to destroy to see inside did not have to necessarily mean killing or dismemberment. That’s when it clicked that it could be regarding taking things a part to learn how it works. Like a engineer. And that lead to the jump of who is our resident engineer that loves looking into how fabrials function? Navani! So would be cool if it works out happening :). Here is the WoB I referred to about Ivory
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/176-oathbringer-chicago-signing/#e8470
@61 Evelina
I personally feel the increased speed of going through the oaths are due to having guides, or seeing someone else already go through them. Dalinar, Jasnah, Shallan, Lift, Renarin and Kaladin all had to figure out their particular order’s oaths on their own. The subsequent squires/knights, all have either seen the other radiants go through their oaths, or have heard of it, so I feel that gives them a leg up. Hence a squire that is trained by his or her knight in the ways of knighthood has a much better time of it than some random person on the street picking up a sword and trying to learn how to use it. So too do I feel radiant knighthood functions.
@63 Gepeto
Regardless, that does not affect his actions of using humor to protect and lead. At least that is my interpretation.
@64 EvilMonkey
Agree with all you wrote and wonderfully said allllllll except one thing. I slightly disagree on Venli. I feel if that was the case, then Pattern could have gotten picked up by anyone, including Lin Davar when Shallan regressed. I think the person has to be a good candidate, otherwise the spren will either return to the cognitive, or just wander till it locates a good candidate. Hoid knew where to look and he is a good candidate so he was able to get Elhokar’s cryptic. Same with Venli. But I realize I do not have much concrete info to back up my interpretation. Just my own thoughts. I look forward to learning more about Lopen too!
@65 sisteroftherain
I agree on all points, Venli’s “qualifications”, and missing Eshonai
@66 Gepeto
I think with cognitive entities there is no “chicken or the egg”. Syl said she knew Kaladin before she knew him. All investiture is investiture regardless the “flavor”. Just because Syl “herself” may not have been present, does not mean she was not “aware” of Kaladin. Basically I am going for very metaphysical. I do not believe we can look at a timeline and go “here! this is where the bond specifically began!”. I think it is beyond those terms. It is a personal experience between the person and the spren that only they can truly understand as they grow together through the oaths. Storms most of our current Radiants think to themselves that they do not understand why they were chosen, while the spren are like “well it was obvious why you were picked! because i picked you! duh!”
I do not think Willshapers are power hungry and ambitious. I think that was a side aspect of Venli that had nothing to do with the attraction of the spren, but for the reason I wrote above, I don’t think we can be sure. Was my idea of Navani being a Releaser common on the internet? I haven’t seen it before, so I thought I was original. Ah well
@67 BenW
I think you put it best regarding Lopen. Some are going to enjoy his humor, some aren’t. Some are going to see more to him, and some aren’t. And both views of Lopen are totally understandable and ok to have.
@68 sistertotherain
Well put!
@69 Carl
Agree on all points, well said.
Evelina @35:
I very much hope that you are right and also wonder whether amicable mutual release that we now know is possible is an option where the very rigid highspren are involved. That could be an escape hatch for the Skybrekers who have sworn to follow Nale as their Third Oath, if there is no way for them to rationalise it away, somehow. Fortunately, it seems that he never encouraged them to do so and kept harping on his own fallibility, so there is every reason to think that those sworn personally to him are the minority
Austin @37:
A good question. There is a lot of contradictory information about sapient spren, I feel. They claim that they are unchangeable, but we have seen that it is not the case, what with Notum not being sure that his crew could hold out if they were tortured to gain information, Sja-Anat being able to corrupt some of them and, of course, changes in personality in some of the bonded spren as the bond develops. As such, I have to wonder if sapient spren even existed in their current forms back before humans came to Roshar. Their current culture mirrors human ones pretty closely, so maybe it isn’t the only part of them that the humans have unknowingly shaped? So, maybe the spren can evolve when bonded to humans – but can’t with the singers. Which wouldn’t mean that spren bonded to Venli and Co. would be less sapient, but that they couldn’t change through association. We’ll see.
Godessimho @43:
I am sure that there will be something like that, until the spren finally wake up to the fact that Odium intends to destroy them all if he wins, as he so helpfully told Dalinar. I am also not seeing Odium’s positive traits in action. Certainly, people who fall under his influence don’t examplify any of his allegiations of being responsible for the fully spectre of emotions. Nor do I see any proof of Honor holding people too tightly so far – Nale is not a good example here, since he is insane and also broke his oaths.
Gepeto @36:
Well, we have seen that Dalinar used to glory in being a brute, unstoppable barbarian and pretended to listen even less at the briefings and strategy sessions than he actually did. Part of it was just having different innate personality from Adolin, part of it may have been desire to carve his own niche that neither Gavilar nor Sadeas could dispute and part of it surely was lack of crushing expectations weighing Dalinar down when he was growing up. Those expectations certainly contributed to Adolin’s inner insecurity, but I also think that he is just more sensitive than dear old dad and was also perhaps growing up at a time and in an environment where more was expected from him than just being a great fighter.
@54:
Given abilities of the Dustbringers, I strongly suspect that they will be quite devastating on the battlefield, though they are likely primarily artillery. Still, the same potential for deadliness with a blade as the Edgancers were alleged to have is there.
I also think that most of the current Radiants follow one of the divine attributes more strongly than the other – and we have to keep in mind that those attributes themselves are a rough approximation of whatever traits the spren look for. Teft has been following the “Leading” part of the Windrunners very strongly. He has been the one to provide day-to day ledership to the bridgemen during the many, many times when Kaladin was indisposed or occupied with something else. Heck, Kaladin didn’t even interact with men outside the Bridge Four that much aside from a couple of inspirational speeches – all their training and organisation were on Teft! To me it felt very believable and expected that he would be the next. We have no clue about Renarin, but he is hardly a normal Truthwatcher, Venli’s bond happened under duress and she does have some corresponding qualities, Lopen, well, he seems to be the author’s pet ;). Tien was creative and saw beauty everwehere, so it fits very well too.
Scath @55, 58:
IMHO, Spark won’t change his mind merely through the bond growth, something needs to happen to convince the sapient spren as a whole that Odium is going to destroy them.
Navani only wants to know how things work so that she can invent new things! She is an engineer, not a scientist and thus would fit Willshapers much better.
As excellent as Brandon is as a writer, humor is something he clearly struggles with, at least that’s what I see when I peek in on various message boards. His first turn at Mat, Lightsong, Wayne, the Lopen, Lyft, he just misses with some people. Whereas I don’t see very many people complaining about his cinematic action scenes for example. Note that I like all these characters (well, except Mat but he can hardly be blamed for that one). I find them to be delightful and good tension breakers but to each his/her own.
I didn’t say Venli was completely unsuitable for the Willshapers, just not nearly as good a candidate as Eshonai.
As far as Teft and the rest of Bridge 4, I believe brokenness or openness is just a prerequisite. The cracks in the spiritweb must be present, the degree to which that soul is shattered is irrelevant. More important is the buy-in. Look at the people who were among the first to glow. Teft. Lopen. Rock. Sygil. The first glowers were also the first to buy in. The first to attempt to follow Kaladin’s lead. The first to attempt to live in a fashion that alligns with Windrunner Ideals. Now look at Skar. He was among the last to buy in. He took the training and benefited from it, but it wasn’t until he started mentoring new recruits and showing signs of leadership that he started glowing too. Long story short, personality is the biggest factor. Acting in ways to attract Spren is the deciding factor. Navani had it right. How do you attract a Spren? By showing it something it’s attracted to. Fire draws firespren, great arguments attract logicspren, protecting and leadership draw honorspren.
@72: Interesting. I guess Sanderson’s “cinematic action scenes” are good quality, but I don’t think about them much because that sort of thing tends to bore me. When I think of the Cosmere series complex, and SA in particular, the first thing that comes to mind is the extraordinary abundance of snark and witty banter. I conseuquently find it some of the funniest fantasy I’ve read in recent years. But I know of other fantasy that has had some readers in gales of laughter over things I saw no particular humor in. It really is subjective.
@71 Isilel
Not sure if you know already or not, so if I am repeating info you already know then I apologize, but the spren mirrored the singers prior to the humans coming. That is why the “older” spren had more genders than two. Syl referenced that in Oathbringer. It appears at least that higher spren are sapient in the cognitive realm, but in order to transition and become sapient in the physical realm, they need to be bonded to a human, while with singers the bond is more of a fusion.
Regarding Navani, in the words of the Taco Bell commercial, why not both! Nothing says Navani couldn’t be attractive to both Willshaper spren and Releaser spren. The question would become which one would she ultimately bond?
@72 EvilMonkey
Ah thank you for clarifying. Then regarding Venli and the Willshapers I agree.
@@@@@ Ms Greenjoy
Oh I’m sure that you aren’t alone on the action scenes. I just don’t see nearly as much dissent in the fandom as I do in regards to his more humorous characters. People rave about the intricate magic systems and for the most part love the climaxes. Funny guys take a beating.
@@@@@Scath
NP. I’ll try to be clearer next time.
@70 – I’m not sure what you mean about Malata being a double agent. She was in the Diagram before bonding her spren. She was part of a group who were purposefully trying to attract spren.
@76 Austin
Like I said, I have nothing to back it up, but I feel like Malata joined the Diagram as a double agent. To work against it from the inside. Whether she had bonded Spark before hand, and then “revealed” it to jump to the upper eschelons, or she did actually bond her during is up in the air to me, but as far as I am concerned both are possible for a double agent. There is nothing textually in the book saying she is a double agent. I just think she is. That’s really all there is to it.
just posting for this to be part of my conversations
Lots of new commentaries, so I found the right questions to ask to steer the conversation, it seems.
First, I need to say I agree with @67 BenW: humor is entirely subjective. Also, as someone who notably never gets it, I probably am less inclined to find characters such as Lopen funny. I definitely relate to you when you say you sometimes need the joke to be explained as while you do “get it”, you don’t get why it is funny. Yeah. That’s me. Jokes are lost on me, especially if they involve wordplay: rare are the instances I will actually find them… well funny, but this isn’t to say I have no humor. I literally rolled on the floor laughing at reading Adolin’s bathroom issues. I went to bed laughing and for the next days, each time I thought of the passage, I would burst out laughing until my ribs hurts. But Lopen? Nah. To me, he’s not funny, he’s annoying.
So, a lot of people responded on my concerns over Teft, thank you all very much. My new understanding is Teft is exhibiting leader qualities which I cannot dispute as it is very well within the books. A lot of people brought in great examples of Teft effectively being a “leader”. I have therefore pounded some more on my issues and I think they come from preconceptions I perhaps have with the Nahel Bond and the orders. So, I have been in a lot of discussions and some of them were about the orders attributes, what they mean and which ones were important for the sprens. One of the leading theories (I don’t know if it is still the leading theory, I have not been as involved as I used to be, but there was a time where it was) was sprens are attracted to individuals exhibiting the first attribute while the second tend to be the one they need “to work one”. It seemed to work with our examples. Kaladin is extremely protective, but he struggled at accepting what it means to be a leader. Shallan is very creative, but she struggles at being honest with herself. Dalinar is very pious with his book, but he struggles to be guiding and so on.
Hence, my perceptions have been in-line with this theory: the key to become a Windrunner is not to be a leader, it is to be protective. In book, we see Kaladin live and breath to protect, it is within his every thoughts. I didn’t see this with Teft, I did not see the equivalent, so while he did take charge of Bridge 4, I never sensed the same innate desire to protect others as I sensed within Kaladin. Ditto with Lopen, hence I felt they clashed or, at least, perhaps weren’t the “best choices”.
More over, it does seem each order is looking for candidate befitting a given mold such as the Elsecallers wanting people able to reason out without emotions (reason before passion) or the Skybreakers looking for individual willing to put the law above all else. By looking at Teft/Lopen, I just cannot see the same characteristics as with Kaladin. Our three Lightweavers had enough common traits to make it plausible though I find Tien to be a tad contrived within the narrative, but this is another matter entirely. Two of our three Truthwatchers had many common traits too, but Teft/Lopen/Renarin all break the pattern. Though, in Renarin’s case, I am willing to keep on reading, there is obviously more to the character and it is likely future books will reference him better.
If I look into Scath’s explanation, sprens would be attracted to individual expressing a concept they are looking for strong enough. This is actually in-line with most of my thoughts, but I then go back to Teft/Lopen and also Venli. Which concept or idea did these characters express which made them stood out from the masses? Going by this line of thinking, Lopen actually appears as the most plausible one as, well, he does stand out, just not for the reason you’d want him to stand out, but he does stand out. Teft though, if being a good leader is all it takes, then why him and not, well anyone else who’s also a good leader within Urithiru? In other words, I didn’t feel Teft was special nor outstanding, sure he does his work, but are other people doing theirs. Was he chosen merely because Kaladin endorsed him?
Venli remains a difficult to comprehend one. Going by EvilMonkey explanations, she might have been chosen because she was the next available suitable vessel. My issues with it is how would Timbre know Venli is suitable? He never saw her, he does not know her nor does she do anything particular within the bonding scene to distinguish herself in Willshaper-y ways. Is it the same as with Kaladin? Because she was mourning her sister, she became someone Eshonai kind of vouched for?
In another set of ideas, I am certainly disputing whether or not Teft was broken or whether or not he has a tragic backstory. We know he does. I however do not wish for the backstories to be the reason why Radiants are being chosen. I prefer if it were personality.
On Wilshapers/Dustbringers and lesser known orders: Well… Readers have been wrong before and I have been warning there was danger in interpreting the attributes in a too literal manner. “Brave” and “obedient” may not be tied to the battlefield. I once made the statement bravery isn’t always about battles, war and death. It can also be about facing down your personal fears and these may have nothing to do with… battles. Hence, the idea Dustbringers are to be destructive warriors, while a plausible theory, may be too reductive.
OB has given us our first clue with respect to the order and it has little to do with the battlefield. It has some destruction in it, but “breaking things apart to see what is inside” IS a very engineer-y thing to do. This is basically what the profession is all about: Make. It. Work. Tear. It. Apart. If. Needs. Be. But. Make. It. Work. This is what you are being paid for. Make it work. Hence, while I never thought of the order in such manner, I find @Scáth theory really interesting.
@70: I honestly wish I had come with it first! Now I am dead jealous I didn’t make the theory myself. I find it brilliant. I would also point out Pattern words may be interpreted in various ways. And no, if this idea has ever been voiced out on the Internet, I never read it. I have been out of some circuits for a while, so who knows if some haven’t talked about it, but it certainly didn’t become mainstream. I sure never read it before.
As for the Willshapers… Well… I don’t feel I have nailed them just yet. It seems the rational linking Eshonai/Venli together within the same order is not intuitive and hard to make. This, this was definitely discussed onto the Internet. Perhaps some future WoB will help shed light on it, but nothing within the recent flock of WoB.
On Malata: It is anyone’s guest at this point in time. As I like the idea of rogue Radiants siding with the enemy, I will stick with my theory up until we gather more clues. I mean, it can go many ways. The spy idea does have merit and my supporting of another theory is purely linked to my dislike of Malata. She just screams “evil” to me, but then again, all characters I don’t like scream “evil” to me… So huh.
@71: My thoughts are Adolin idolized his father since early childhood. Hence, Dalinar’s words were everything to him so when his father started to dismiss him, to criticized him, Adolin felt he was failing at meeting his expectations. The crushing feeling of unworthiness never left him: since Dalinar always had a critic for him, he ended up thinking he is never quite it. It is just odd his talent as a fighter weren’t enough to offset some of it. It is either Adolin is more sensitive on this (I do think he is) or Dalinar is so important to him, whatever anyone else may say just isn’t significant enough to make the balance tip on the other side.
Another though I have is Adolin feels the pressure of being the “light” Dalinar wants him to be. However, after re-reading this chapter, I don’t think Dalinar named Adolin after “light” because he meant for him to inspire an entire nation… I think Adolin’s name is something very personal to Dalinar, except Adolin never knew about that.
I think all Radiants can be devastating on the battlefield…
@73: My favorite scene in OB is Adolin fighting the thunderclast. I feel the cinematic of this scene is pure perfection. And it has Adolin in it, so double win.
Syl remembered Tien through her Connection with the SR. Even though he was unsuitable for her particular order she knew him. I propose that there’s much more to a bond than just the granting of power. You ask how Timbre knew Venli? Easy. She knew Eshonai and so by extension she knew Venli as well. Maybe not as well as Eshonai but the Spren are closer to SR than physical beings. They see more and can read the realm where all time is one better. Timbre knowing enough about Venli to determine her suitability for her order isn’t a problem for me.
For Teft it’s not so much that Kaladin endorsed him. It’s that Kaladin fits the template of a Windrunner so well that following his lead is a good way to attract an honorspren if that is the aim. The people who tried to fit that mold, or at least aspired to the attributes that mold encompasses, those were the ones to attract honorspren of their own. All of Bridge 4 do this; Teft was just the first.
I think reaching the 5th Ideal in any order means becoming your best self, whole and Ideal, like the image Renarin shows Adolin or the pictures Shallan draws. A person of the 5th Ideal is one who is as close as a human can get to piercing all 3 realms.
#72, I feel some selection bias is happening here. Lots of people (such as me, someone who normally doesn’t like written humor) find Brandon’s jokes excellent. And, there have been lots of complaints about especially his climactic “avalanche” action sequences.
@Gepeto, if I may risk offense: it seems that you are interpreting “the first Radiant of any order who we, the readers, see” as “the perfect exemplar of that order.” The text says that they aren’t. For instance, Lift is explicitly nothing like the pre-Recreance Edgedancers, aside from caring about those who have no other champion. My point being, saying that Teft is not like Kaladin in personality doesn’t mean he is somehow not a Windrunner candidate, because there’s no reason to think Kaladin is a typical Windrunner.
I assume everyone saw the announcement that the Stormlight Archive will never be completed?
… that is, that BWS has taken on another project as big as the Cosmere, with harder deadlines, meaning he might never even finish the “front five” books? Tor should really consider clawing back some money, but they won’t.
@@@@@ 81 – This is Brandon, though, so I am sure he will still finish SA. The whole Cosmere, maybe not if he keeps taking on things like this, but I have complete faith that he will finish SA. I certainly hope so anyway!!
Also, I find some of his humor to be wonderful and hilarious, and some to not be funny at all. This tends to fall along character lines (e.g. I find Lightsong, Shallan, Wit usually funny, Lift sometimes hilarious and sometimes awkward – she is a young teen after all!, Lopen not at all). To me, this is actually a sign of writing humor well, since as many have mentioned, humor is highly subjective and different for each individual. Just as all people aren’t funny to me in the real world, I don’t enjoy all humor in the Cosmere.
My favorite bits of humor come from Kaladin’s viewpoint. Like in WoK, when he’s thinking that he should learn some of the bridgemen’s names so they can reminisce about Bridge 4 in Damnation, and how much better Hell is than there . Or how he’s “seen the world” as a soldier: lots of warcamps, hills, plains, a couple small towns. And of course, tearing up Tvlakv’s map with “Happy Middlefest.” That sort of humor really works for me.
But I also find Lopen hilarious, as much from people’s reaction to him in-world as anything he does. But someone, at least, found him annoying: whoever sent him the bridge crews definitely wasn’t a fan. I think we can all agree that’s a little bit of an overreaction.
@carl: Where did Brandon say he planned not to complete SA because of Dark One? Dark One is a TV show, it probably requires much less writing than a full book even with its tight schedule. I mean, I doubt Brandon’s plans are to drop the Cosmere and, more importantly, the Stormlight Archives.
Scath @74:
But do we know that any of those older spren who had 4 genders were actually sapient? Or that any of the Nahel süpren ever had 4 genders in the past? IMHO, it is very likely that Nahel spren didn’t exist as such before the humans arrival and were shaped into their current forms by the sum of human consciousnesses. And that the singers being closer to the Cognitive Realm and having more muted emotions (or muting them as a matter of culture, it is not quite clear) couldn’t affect the spren as dramatically and thus couldn’t help them evolve as quickly. This is my theory on the matter of:
“That gives us our forms, but more is then. Demanded by the smartest spren, We can’t provide what the humans lend, Though broth we are, their meat is men.“
Gepeto @79:
Well, this theory was soundly debunked by the appearance of Stump in “Edgedancer”, wasn’t it? Because she is definitely neither “Learned” nor even interested in learning, like one could argue that Ym was, but strongly in the “Giving” corner, which was also predominant in Ym, BTW. And, of course in OB we have lots of other examples – the Skybreakers as a group display definite problems with their first attribute, Ehlokar could have only squicked in on “Honesty”, since we saw precious little creativity from him, ditto Vattah, etc.
Anyway, I never subscribed to it, nor do I believe that most Radiants display the attributes equally – IMHO they tend to favor one or the other. Which yes, likely makes progression to the higher Ideals more difficult.
Anyway, for me Teft, given his demonstrated leadership – and yes, he was the one who mostly forged the other 1000 or so bridgemen into a fighting force, bar a couple of inspirational talks and actions from Kaladin, as well as led Bridge 4 during Kaladin’s frequent absences and preoccupations with other things, was the most probable and plausible next Windrunner since WoR or even WoK. He had the combination of strong leadership trait, brokenness, proximity to a Radiant and following the precepts of the Oaths since meeting said Radiant, that made him an obvious candidate, IMHO. And his history with the Envisagers may have contributed, too.
It was also a widespread theory since WoK that Tien was an incipient Lightweaver, given his ability to see beauty everywhere, creativity and strong inspirational/spiritual sustenance element, so Sanderson confirming it in a WoB was hardly a surprise for me. He was almost as archetypical as Shallan in the little screen time he had, in fact.
Renarin is not really a Truthwatcher, so it is difficult to speculate what Glys’s requirements were.
We also know from WoR that Nahel spren can and did bond with unsuitable people – i.e. that very straightforward warrior dude from one of the epigraphs who had bonded a Cryptic and consequently couldn’t progress as a Radiant. My supposition is that it happened in similar circumstances to those that led to Timbre bonding Venli. So, it seems that minimal requirements for attracting a spren are:
being sufficiently open to the bond – either through “brokenness” or some other means
catching the eye of a spren for whatever reason – which can be something along the lines of the spren being newly orphaned and caught mindless and in danger in the physical realm.
I do understand your desire to see the bond as something that is earned – and as far as we know, this was normally the case in the past, what, with people chosing to come to Urithiru, working to be admitted into the Orders as squires, etc. But spren during SA also have their own reasons to pick certain people over others just as suitable, which may not be immediately obvious to us.
EvilMonkey @80:
Nale has something to say about being “his best self” either currently or when he reached the 5th Ideal, methinks! He is self-aware enough to know that he used to be a much better person. And It wouldn’t surprise me if his leadership is at least partly responsible for most modern Skybreakers stopping at the 3rd Ideal. Certainly, according to Dalinar’s visions reaching the 4th Ideal used to be very common among the Orders, as we have only maybe seen a Radiant without Plate when he visited the vision of Aharietam with Jasnah, Navani and Gawx, while every other Radiant he had seen wore their Plate. Personally, I believe that the Stonewards got access to Plate with their 3rd Oath, rather than 4 for the Windrunners but even so…
@85: *EDI voice* That was a joke.
Despite knowing better, it scared the skin off of me for a moment, though. But SA is sort of Sanderson’s masterpiece, at least of his work so far. He wouldn’t abandon it.
@79 Gepeto
I think at this point the seeing attributes in characters has become very subjective to the reader. I see Teft looking after Kaladin while he suffers through his depression, and also protecting the men who don’t understand but have begun to follow Kaladin as protecting. I see a sergeant training and looking after his men as not only leading but also protecting. But I understand from your perspective it does not feel like enough to attract an honor spren while from my perspective it is.
Personally I feel the choice is more personal for the radiant and spren. It is that individual spren that is choosing. As I mentioned in a prior post, the radiants chosen (Kaladin, Dalinar, Renarin, Shallan) all express surprise and confusion over why they would be chosen. Other Ash spren hold animosity for humans (or at least from what we have seen), while Spark seems to be fine with Malata. Other Ink spren and Honor spren feel what Ivory and Syl have done as a betrayal, yet they did so and chose the individuals they did for their own reasons. Cryptics sent a volunteer and are scientists exploring and learning. Wyndle was given to Lift by the circle. So I think it is difficult to prescribe a set “criteria” that would be applied to all spren and all radiants. I think the spren on an individual basis see in the potential radiant an ideal that attracts them. The radiant may not recognize it, and people around them may not recognize that in them, but the spren see it, and at the end of the day that is what matters. Storms I will give you more ammunition. When have we seen Vathah express any artistic inclination? We haven’t seen him sing, or sculpt, or write or draw. Yet he is a squire before Gaz or any other under Shallan. We could say the curt manner in which he confronts everyone is him expressing honesty. We can also wonder what lies he is telling himself that will allow him to progress as a radiant. But again I feel that is a personal journey of Vathah, and ultimately the spren he bonds. I do not feel we can put a ruler next to him and say “ah ha!”. If what I am saying is right, it will ultimately frustrate you, and a lot of readers because it makes predicting who will become a radiant much harder, but I think it enriches the story at the same time because then we can really watch the radiants grow. But I feel like for you in this case, your mileage will vary.
Thank you regarding my theory on Navani. I think it would also add an interesting dilemma/conflict for Dalinar and her relationship. Normally Dalinar is the one on the front lines fighting, while Navani is back at camp. Considering the nature of their order’s powers, perhaps that dynamic would switch. Dalinar back at camp, while Navani ends up at the front lines. Dalinar would no longer be able to protect her as Mr. Big and Burly. He would have to trust that she can take care of herself, as we saw at the battle of Thayla. Then again I just now thought of something as I write that shoots my theory to crem. Wasn’t there a WoB that said we have not had a PoV of a Releaser yet? I think I recall that being used as the rationale as to why Adolin was not one. We have had PoV’s of Navani. Hmmm, looks like I will need to do some digging.
@80 EvilMonkey
Yet again agree on all points
@81 Carl
Agree on radiants, disagree on abandoning the Cosmere lol.
@86 Isilel
Personally seeing as non sapient spren do not seem to be identified by gender, I would assume Syl was referring to sapient spren, but I admit that is an assumption on my part. I will quote the scene below for completeness
“It’s your fault for personifying us, so no complaining. Of course, some of the old spren have four genders instead of two”
“What? Why?”
She poked him in the nose “Because humans didn’t imagine those ones, silly.”
Syl later comments on his all of Kaladin spears were female because he referred to them as such. I will also bring up that Eshonai commented on how the Stormfather was part of their culture prior to the humans, and he is a higher spren. My own theory is that sapient spren are sapient regardless in the cognitive realm. It is gaining sapience and retain their individuality in the physical realm that is the “meat” that the humans provide, while with the singers their “broth” is a fusion, not individuality. But not sure I can find much more concrete stuff to back it up.
LOL great minds think alike it seems. I just read how you brought up Vathah as well.
edit: Navani as a Releaser. The WoB is below. It says one of the dustbringers is eventually a PoV character. This WoB took place in 2015, which is after Words of Radiance released. If I recall correctly we get Navani’s PoV while she was upset over the thought of losing Dalinar at the Tower. So Navani Releaser might be shot to crem, but one can still hope! He also says the Releasers are really really weird so maybe my double agent idea isn’t entirely out of left field afterall! lol
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/80-shadows-of-self-london-uk-signing/#e5318
My comment about not finishing the Stormlight Archive: I have no doubt that Brandon plans to finish. He isn’t just committing to the actual TV drama, though, but to multiple novels, podcasts, etc. I wasn’t kidding that this project will be as big as the Cosmere. I honestly don’t see him finishing all 10 SA books (and the intervening Cosmere books between the two halves) while doing Dark One, YA books, juveniles, and whatever other new projects spring up that he won’t be able to resist. He needs to locate young, talented writers (I estimate three would be needed) to complete the Cosmere while he does other stuff, not unlike what a younger Brandon did for Robert Jordan, only while he’s alive.
@89 – No offense, but that’s the worst idea ever. Who wants to read Cosmere novels not written by Brandon? Not me. Besides, this is Brandon Sanderson we’re talking about. The guy is a machine. Don’t sweat it.
Scath @@@@@ 88. Count me among those who prefer that “it makes predicting who will become a radiant much harder”. I think this makes for a better story. I like the twist and turns of not being able to know hundreds of pages out that character x will be become a member of order y. If we could always predict what happens, it would be a boring story. I may not always like the choices Brandon makes, but if I do not like one of his decisions, it will have made me think. For that matter, I may not like a decision in the beginning, but by the end, it may grow on me.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
My theory is that Timbre is Eshonai’s spirit. If that is true of course she knows Venli. Would that make them a kind of Fused?
@92 birgit
Sorry to the bearer of bad news…..
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/324-emerald-city-comic-con-2018/#e9302
@Isilel
I think Nale has a shortcut to the 5th Ideal; being a Cognitive Shadow makes him as close to SR as a spren. Because of this he doesn’t have as far to go. However it does raise an interesting point. Nale is obviously batshit crazy. How was he able to maintain his Nahel bond in the face of his growing instability?
On attributes, characters and orders: Well, yes I do agree it is subjective and nothing in the narrative says Kaladin is the ideal Windrunner, he just unfortunately (or fortunately) happens to be the canvas by which we evaluate all future Windrunners. I’ll admit I might have been unfair here given how often I have argued not to toss away my Adolin as an Edgedancer theory just because his character reads differently than Lift. Seems like I may be finding myself on the wrong side of the fence this time around in arguing for something I have previously argued against.
Still, perhaps I needed a stronger rational than the one we got for Teft. Perhaps with the focus being on his addiction as opposed to his actions, it sent the wrong impression. Others mentioned Vathah whom I didn’t mention. This was intentional as I am not bothered by Vathah. Of all of Shallan’s soldiers, he’s the one who latched the most vividly on the concept of spying. He was, by far, the most interesting, the one making the greatest effort and the most impressed by the end result. He might not have stood out as particularly creative, but he was earnest to follow Shallan’s lead and to absorb everything single element she or Ishnah was trying to teach him. Hence why him and not Gaz? Because Gaz didn’t try half as hard as Vathah and wasn’t interested nearly half as much as Vathah. So Vathah, he makes perfect sense. At least, to me he does. Now I haven’t re-read WoK/WoR in a long time, so it may be Teft’s behaviors which would link him best to the Windrunners are not fresh enough in my mind to make a more lasting impression.
On Elhokar being creative: It was implied, in either WoK/WoR, Elhokar was actually responsible for the grand feast elaborated around particular themes and lavishly decorated. It is also mentions he did design his interior decor. This has been used as an argument for Elhokar as a Lightweaver prior to OB. Of course, creativity is hard to express for men on Roshar, but it seems Elhokar found a way to do it. Also, his creativity seemed linked to trying to create an “atmosphere” which is similar to Shallan’s trying to make a better world for her brothers or Tien’s stones. In comparison, Adolin’s artistic streak, which he exhibit with fashion, is meant to express his emotions and/or make a statement about his person, it has nothing to do with an endeavor to transform anything. Hence, not a good Lightweaver behavior.
I’ll admit Tien moderately bothered me because, well, it seems like everyone is turning out to be a KR. I mean, most of our named characters are KR. It’s kind of a lot…
On Navani and the Releasers: Well, I did think of the WoB, of course. It has been used it so often to debunk the Adolin as a Dustbringer theory to forget about it, but truth to be told this one argument convinced very little people. As a rule of thumb, if a given reader was resolute in seeing Adolin as a Stoneward, a Dustbringer or a Willshaper, further arguments usually made up for a wrestling match more than anything. I am ill-at-ease at finding myself into one this time around.
The WoB by itself can be interpreted in various ways. Of course, the easiest way to read it is “no Dustbringer currently is a viewpoint character”. But see, the problem is did Brandon mean “no one with an actual viewpoint will become a Dustbringer” or did he mean “no Dustbringer is actually a viewpoint character? If it is the former, than it doesn’t readily bar Navani as Navani currently isn’t a Dustbringer. Her status is “non-Radiant”, hence while she has had viewpoints, she has not have them as a Dustbringer. Quite a twisting of the words, I agree, but I mean, while the WoB is a solid counter-argument, it isn’t a finality by itself.
What I like about @Scath’s theory is it completely subverts readers expectations with respect to the order. I personally love when things turn out not to be as they seem. As such, I love the idea of a soldering Elsecaller (example) or a scholar Dustbringer. I do not picture Navani soldering even if she does earn destroying powers, I would be really interesting in seeing division being used in a non-battle context.
@89: Carl, I understand your concern, but Dark One has been within last year’s State of Sanderson. We did not know what it was, but it was within the planning, so this isn’t coming out of nowhere. I know it is worrisome to see Brandon take over so many new projects, but Dark One doesn’t seem, from the get-go, as a bigger project than the Cosmere. TV scripts are faster to write, graphic novels too… We have to trust Brandon knows what he is doing. He probably does not expect to work solely on Dark One during his full year.
Again, Dark One is TV scripts and several novels and a graphic novel and a series of audio productions just to start. If the series is picked up, unless Brandon farms out something, he has to stop almost everything else to keep that up. I suspect (not want, but dread) that the Cosmere will take a back seat. It was already not going to be finished unless Brandon farmed out more of it than just White Sand and its sequels.
Saying you’d rather BWS wrote all the books is like saying you want to read JRR Tolkien’s finished versions of all the stories in Lost Tales. Doesn’t matter, won’t happen.
Obviously I’m being presumptuous and consciously overconfident in my opinion here, but just saying “Brandon writes fast” doesn’t answer my point, because he’s adding more projects much, much faster than he is actually finishing anything.
Oh, since Timbre came up: you haven’t recognized her different-fictional-world counterpart yet? I thought it was obvious, but nobody seems to have spotted it. (… he said mysteriously)
@81
I was a little taken aback by that project announcement, but the new project has a ton of “cowriters” so I’m hoping his involvement will be light.
@carl: I understand your concern, I have concerns too. I too worry at seeing Brandon start so many new projects while he delays to finish his on-going ones. There is however not much we can do but trust our favorite series will move forward at a decent pace.
I will also point out, in between WoR and OB, Brandon released 5 or 6 books and one graphic novel. By all means, if he brings the number of “other” books down, he then may have enough time to work on Dark One without impacting the schedule for SA.
Also, as others pointed out, he will not be the only writer of the new shows: shows hardly ever rely on one scripter. His participation may not be as extensive as we think it may be. As for the book series, they may be very short books, novels he can push at one per year. We just do not have many details yet, but it is premature to jump in and say SA will never be concluded.
@95 Gepeto
I think the thing is, in my theory at least, there are no fences. Basically there is nothing we can look at Adolin to say he either will or will not become a radiant. To be very clear I am not talking Maya and all that. I mean to say I do not think there is a metric we can use to determine whether or not any given individual will become a radiant or not. I feel it is a very personal experience shared between bondee and spren.
To expand on this lets look at Vathah and Gaz. We see Gaz do some carpentry on Shallan’s carriage to make it from a prison to more “lady like” for carrying a lighteyes. There is creativity and artistry. We see Gaz be inspired by Shallan, and genuinely want to be a better person. He is eager and frequently by Shallan’s side. He also has gambling problems, and painful truths in his past that made him the bridge commander, sending men to die. That seems, to me at least, to hit all the criteria we have been discussing to become a squire and or radiant. And yet he is not. At least not yet. Now take Vathah. He only joined Shallan because he was outnumbered by the men wanting to join her. Every step of the way he expected her to betray them, and be executed. He frequently threatened her, and stated how he didn’t buy into “what she was selling”. That they were crem, and all they would be is crem. Even when she succeeded in getting them pardoned, he said he only stuck around because it was convenient. When they began to train with Ishnah, his reasoning was to gain a new skill for his own goals. Not to start a storm, but this sounds a whole like Moash. Was Kaladin’s friend, but didn’t buy into the stormblessed mystique. He wanted to learn how to fight not to protect his fellow man, but to get revenge. He also went about training in single minded goal. They both did not buy into the overarching message, yet Vathah is now a squire and Moash is well……Moash. My point of bringing this up is not to say one is more deserving than another, nor that the writing didn’t convince me of who ended up a squire vs who did not. My point is, it is very unique for each individual. If Gaz becomes a squire and then a radiant, his journey will be very different than Vathah. Or perhaps Gaz is already a fledging radiant, and will completely skip the squireship. Or maybe Gaz won’t become one at all. Maybe as Vathah develops in his squireship, he realizes being a radiant isn’t for him and his journey in radiancy ends. Or maybe as he turns from squire to radiant we begin to see the sides of him previously hidden from us, but were plain as day to the spren. So I wrote a long paragraph just to basically say it is the journey before the destination. Each of our journey’s are unique and special to each and every one of us. No greater, or lesser. So too do the spren see that, so trying to suss out how a cognitive entity is going about choosing who it wants to bond with is going to drive you nuts lol.
Here’s hoping for Navani Releaser 2020!
Sanderson having a chapter titled “a thing about Butts” with the well documented fact that writing scenes touching in anyway on sexual activity make him very uncomfortable (which I expect comes from the social conservatism of the Church of Latter Day Saints) would be hilarious. As someone who thinks western society makes way to much of a big deal out of sex – and who was somewhat distraught that so many people put so much stock in characters virginity in the last rereads (free love and civil – not economic – rights were the only parts of the sixties worth keeping) I would have liked that.
I also have a soft spot for Taverigin – and what I think Sanderson is trying to explore here is the philosophical question of do motives matter when deciding if something is good or bad? If you are doing terrible things but for good reasons can that ever make the things you are doing good? If you think you are doing good but what you do ends up having bad consequences were the things you did “bad” and you were wrong? A variation of can the ends ever justify the means – but deeper. I tend toward results not motives decide if something is good or bad but it is an interesting argument. Good use of Code Geas also – couldn’t get into that show until a second watch when I accepted that for the most part it was going to be a one upmanship action show – and then the ending changed how I saw all of it. One of the few times a mostly action show at the end successfully said “actually no there was more going on here” without seeming like it was shoe horning it in and punching above its weight class.
On somewhat of a tangent – I have found Church of Latter Day Saints speculative fiction authors (and boy their are a lot of them) like to explore philosophical issues through their writing. I wonder about the sociological issues around that.
I also think you misjudge Dalinar – man is most certainly modest and knowledgeable about his own limitations.
I think it is also important to remember on the romances you need the burning passion to get to the comfortable “mature” aspect. Also I am not sure why anyone would want to skip the passionate phase – but see my comments about sex above.
And R – don’t you think you are contradicting yourself here in allowing D to usurp political power to save the world while T can not do (yes worse) also illegal things to save it?
On Karbaranth – the use of the word Wage here – could that imply they don’t attack others but do defend themselves if necessary? When used as a verb wage has an active connotation to me that in the sense of waging war – implies aggression.
I wonder if the removed “pillars” were areas were stormlight flowed in pillars throughout the building. I still believe the building used stormlight as electricity.
Oh boy – I am amazed that we got a quote “Jesus was alive” in the reread I hope the comments don’t go badly….
R: It sounds like your wife has obsessive compulsive disorder or a version of it that is thought (rather than compulsive action) based. As a fellow sufferer I am empathize with both you and her. Mine is bad enough that I take medicine for it. I hope you are both well and thank you for taking on dealing with her affliction.
I also think everyone is to hard on the young Dalinar – he was a solider and he is a perfect example of the type of people I am glad we have in the Navy Seals to protect us from people like ISIS. And yes not everyone can be saved – or arguably deserves to be.
Also the description of the void spreen – did anyone else get uncomfortable feelings the face looked like the Anime kawai face here? Narrow with big eyes? Doubt this was intentional but eitherway is an interesting example of cultural differences..
Unfortunately the quality outstation isn’t really good this time. Especially in our modern world we have to think about problems 100 to one million plus years from now. What we do helps decide if we are able to get off this planet before the sun explodes.
@7 I agree wanting to look inside things and see how they work is not necessarily psychopathic. I mean R as an engineer is this part of your job right? Certainly this is how medicine advanced out of the dark ages.
@56 Do you have problems with Rosencrantz and Gildenstern in Shakespere? If so just a taste thing and not much that can be done about it.
@80 so someone acting on the 5th ideal would be reaching the Latter Day Saints level of deserving to be a God in their own universe? Interesting…
@81 Sanderson has to eat and we don’ t know how these books are selling – remember that George R. Martin song…the one based on another Authors tweet?
#101, “big eyes” from an Alethi means “eyes like an Earth European or African.” The Alethi, Makabaki, etc. have epicanthic folds like an Earth East Asian person. I’d be amazed if it wasn’t a conscious anime reference, of course.
Sanderson’s doing very well indeed, and we do in fact know how these books are selling. Does the term “New York Times best-seller” mean anything to you? :-)
Speaking of Code Geass I want to quote a Death Rattle from The Way of Kings and ask anyone who has seen both R1 and all of R2 if they don’t get Code Geass Vibes from it.
Brandon did say in ONE point in the epigraphs in The FIRST TWO BOOKS we could see the ending to the Stormlight Archive.
I’ll have you know that just reading through this article and the comments took me about two hours ;)
Not much for me to add. I’ll just throw my two cents in and say:
-I too am intrigued by Malata (and get bad vibes from her and Spark) and loved reading the different ‘Releaser’ theories. I like the idea that they’re tinkerers and engineers. In a sense even doctors/surgeons have to take things apart to figure out how they work. i don’t know how that fits in with brave/obedient, but I’ve often found the attributes pretty flexible.
-Also hoping to see some Skybreaker factions. Nale and Ishar are both off the deep end. Nale and King T both seem to represent exploring ideas of doing horrible things that are justified by some end, or ‘the law’ in Nale’s case (but what does the law serve? is what I would ask).
-I’ve never tried to figure out a checklist for how spren bond. I figure in a way it’s like falling in love. I’ve had deep discussions about this – about why, even though on paper, somebody looks like they should be a good match (or maybe NOT be a good match)…and yet it just doesn’t work out. There’s no obvious reason, it’s not that either person was a bad person. There’s just so many factors in so many infinite gradations. So I try not to overthink that part too much (although again, I enjoyed reading everybody’s thoughts.)
-This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I’m not a visual person at all, so I often gloss over or don’t absorb visual descriptions of people and things. I never put two and two together that the majority of Rosharans have an epicanthic fold, and so when the Shin are described as having huge/wide eyes they look…like me. This whole time I’ve been imagining them kind of like real-life Disney characters (and, given some of the other stuff on Roshar, that doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary compared to eyes of gold, rock buds, cremling creatures, etc). I feel like there’s something to be grasped here about what I view as ‘normal’ but how somebody in a different mileau would describe that, and the features I consider normal are the ones being described as out of the ordinary enough to be continually commented on.
-As for humor, count me as one who never quite enjoyed Sanderson’s humor, as much as I love many other aspects of his work. Which isn’t to say there aren’t aspects of his work I find funny (I actually think a lot of the scenes with Steris are very funny to me in a dry way) but while Lopen doesn’t bug me too much, I can’t stand Syl, and while I love them otherwise, I’ve never found Shallan or Lift’s quips funny even though in-universe they seem to be received that way. (Pattern, on the other hand, is just fantastic). And I never cared for Lightsong either (to the point that it initially colored my view of Warbraker) or Mat. I guess for me his ‘quippy’ characters just don’t work for me. But on the other hand, I’ve had laugh out loud moments while reading stuff like the Alcatraz books so it’s not that he CAN’T be funny to me, but it seems like his ‘funny characters’ just don’t land for me.