Welcome back to the read-along discussion, on this fine Tuesday morning. We’re taking a sharp turn in this week’s new chapter—which of course you’ve already read. After all that time in Hearthstone and the Shattered Plains, we’re leaping over to Kholinar today. Yes, it’s finally time to get inside the head of our new main character, Venli, the listener turned Regal turned Radiant. Along with her private thoughts and plans, we’ll have lots of information about the Fused to discuss, so come on in and join us.
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now—if you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of the Stormlight Archive, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Also, please limit your discussions of Rhythm of War to this or other fora where spoilers are specifically allowed, or hide them behind spoiler tags. There are people trying to wait until the release in November, so be kind to your fellow-fans and don’t post public spoilers!
Chapter Recap
WHO: Venli
WHERE: Kholinar
WHEN: Day One, continued
Leshwi returns from Hearthstone, and Venli is there to greet her. It is revealed that Venli, who is both Fused Regal and proto-Knight Radiant, is formulating a plan to create a new society of listeners, apart from the singers/Fused/Regals, and is slowly drawing others towards her who are sympathetic to her cause.
Overall Reactions
Venli had a great deal of work to do. She needed to counteract the indoctrination of the Fused and help the singers cast off the traditions of those who had enslaved them.
L: That’s very ambitious. It’s also an interesting moral question… while these traditions imposed on them by their conquerors are not their own culture, the current generations have assimilated them so thoroughly at this point that they don’t even know their own history. These traditions have become theirs. Rather than completely eradicating them, might it be better to try to integrate them? To teach the old ways while not taking away things that the current generations have come to appreciate and enjoy? I have no answer for this, and I’m not sure there is a right answer, ethically speaking.
A: One can certainly appreciate the problem here. Venli grew up in the listener culture she hopes to emulate, but she’s the only person of her entire race (that she knows of) who isn’t steeped in the human cultures where they grew up. How do you bring those disparate experiences together? Of those she seeks to reach, she is literally the only person (again, as far as she knows) who has any experience of living free. The rest went from being slaves to the humans straight into what amounts to being slaves of the Fused. Is it even possible to cast off the traditions of both the humans and the Fused? For that matter, is it certain that the traditions of the listeners are better? I can’t help thinking that there’s going to have to be a lot of melding, and I hope Venli is open to the realization that, right or not, there will be human traditions that some of her signers will not be willing to relinquish.
Our organization is formed from those who are strong enough to resist, and eventually break free of, all chains.”
L: Again… ambitious, and a noble goal. But I wonder how attainable it is, to ask people to give up everything they know and rebuild a society entirely from scratch.
A: And yet, I’d say our history is replete with exactly that. From the ancient stories to the western pioneers and beyond, we can see people who looked at their society and said, “I want something better. Something more.” Whether it was freedom from the feudal system, or escape from conquerors who enslaved them, or religious oppression, or even the feeling of “too many people here”—people have always looked for a new and better life. There’s always a certain amount of bringing your past with you; that’s unavoidable if you have a functioning memory. The hope is to pick and choose the good things, while carefully setting aside the negatives. As you say, it’s an ambitious and noble goal, and maybe it’s unattainable. But it’s worth pursuing nonetheless.
Even common singers were carefully indoctrinated, constantly told that sacrificing themselves was a great privilege.
L: I can see why Venli is rebelling against this indoctrination. Any society which encourages its people to become martyrs is… problematic, at best.
A: My first inclination is to agree, but I seem to be in “devil’s advocate” mode. We react strongly and negatively to this situation, because we’ve seen the result: the singer sacrifices himself so that a possibly-crazy-but-also-high-powered being can have his body. It’s supposedly “for the greater good”—but the bottom line is “you’re dead and someone else is using your body for their own ends.” That’s… pretty horrible, and brainwashing people into thinking this is a good idea gives me the creeps.
On the other hand, the concept of noble self-sacrifice is inherent in virtually every civilization that thrives for any length of time. The Knights Radiant are all about things like protecting and remembering others before themselves. Isn’t that “sacrificing themselves” too? No society founded solely on selfishness is going to survive; some amount of willing sacrifice is needed.
The distinction seems to be in who benefits. When there is an elite group who sacrifice nothing, but benefit from the “noble sacrifice” they push for everyone else… yeah, that’s definitely a problem.
L: On that we can definitely agree. The sacrifice needs to be made across the board, not just by those who are marginalized or of a lower caste.
A: Bingo. Who is expected to make the sacrifice, and who gains from it? (Trust Lyn to use one sentence to say what I couldn’t get to in 20 minutes of editing. This is why we’re a team!)
The Fused and the humans . . . there was an equivalency to them. Both sought to take away the minds of common folk. Both were interested solely in the convenience of a useful body, without the accompanying “burden” of a personality, desires, and dreams.
L: I mean… she’s not wrong.
A: Oh, absolutely. While some Fused still claim that their purpose is to create a safe homeland for the singers, many just want to kill humans for revenge or because they really aren’t sane any more. For the latter, they really just want a good body to use. As for the humans… see also “centuries of parshmen slaves.”
“We are a group of objectors who do not like the choices we’ve been offered. Fused oppression or human tyranny? The god of hatred or the supposedly honorable god who abandoned us to slavery? We accept neither. We are the listeners.
L: I… I can’t blame her, here. Both sides have unfairly oppressed this people. It’s said that the only thing evil needs to prevail is the apathy of good men, but… what’s the true evil in this scenario? I love that it isn’t cut and dry. Even Odium isn’t necessarily the “Sauron” of the situation, from the singers/listeners’ POV. There are no clearly delineated good and evil sides to take, so why not stand aside in the conflict to come?
A: I’ve always suspected there’s more to the story than “Honor abandoned us”—but she has no way of knowing that. It’s the story she’s been told, with no counter-argument. (Also, I notice she draws the lines of Odium vs. Honor—but what about Cultivation? Did the listeners know about her? Do the Fused remember her? We just don’t hear about her. Why?) When we—and they—know more, standing aside may no longer be a valid choice; for now, though, it makes all the sense in the world.
“They summoned rock monsters that were taller than the storming city wall. They have Regals and Fused. I think our sole hope is to get the entire city to turn against them.”
L: Uuuuhhhh… yeah. Wasn’t the whole city fighting against them before? If Shumin means getting the singers to rebel, okay, maybe, but… that’s still awfully optimistic.
A: It might be possible, if the humans and the common singers joined forces against the Fused and the Regals, that the difference in numbers would outweigh the difference in powers. But I doubt it.
Humans
“You were a tailor?” Venli said, Voicing for Leshwi.
“Yes, once I dressed princes and lighteyes.”
L: Heeeeeey! It’s Adolin’s tailor from Oathbringer! Good to know that she survived, at least.
A: Hi, Yokska! I do hope she continues to survive. Have fun training artforms in fashion design!
Singers/Fused
There were a variety of different levels a person could have in the singer culture. Normal people—simply called singers, or common singers—had ordinary forms such as workform or warform. Then there were forms of power, like Venli’s envoyform. This was a level higher in authority and strength, and required taking a Voidspren into your gemheart. That influenced your mind, changed how you perceived the world. These singers were called Regals.
Further up the hierarchy were the Fused. Ancient souls put into a modern body, which extinguished the soul of the host completely. And above them? Mysterious creatures like the thunderclasts and the Unmade. Souls more like spren than people.
A: So the thunderclasts aren’t Fused after all.
L: I’m so glad Sanderson’s dropping this bit of exposition on us. There are so many variations in the singer/Fused community that it’s hard to keep them all straight, sometimes!
A: This chapter is so helpful for those of us who like knowing where everyone fits. Keeping the different forms straight is still going to be a challenge, I think, but at least we have a starting point.
The nine varieties were called “brands” in their own language, a word evoking the heat of a branding iron, though Venli had seen no such mark on their skin.
L: Fascinating…
A: Also, ow. Also, I wonder if this is an intentional hat-tip to Kaladin’s brands.
She didn’t so much as hum a note of Embarrassment, though in this incarnation, the body that had been offered to her was malen.
L: I like that she’s still referred to by femalen pronouns despite residing in a malen form.
A: She still is who she’s always been, no matter what external features are given to the body she inhabits. Interesting indeed.
The Fused exerted some measure of will upon their forms—skin patterns persisted, for example, and some grew carapace in individual patterns. Knowing that, you could easily distinguish the same Fused across multiple incarnations.
L: This is really, really cool!
A: Also really useful, both for the reader and the character. I do find it fascinating that there are some aspects of their physical form that change to reflect Identity, while others are unaffected.
L: It certainly tracks with the magic systems at play on Roshar. If people can heal injuries in order to better reflect their inner view of themselves, why couldn’t their cells also rearrange?
Of course, Venli had the advantage of her ability to look into Shadesmar—which immediately told her if someone was Fused, Regal, or ordinary singer.
L: This makes me wonder what exactly is the difference between Fused and Regal. How do they look different, in Shadesmar? Later in the chapter, Venli notes that:
The souls of Fused were dark flames that pulsed like a beating heart.
L: So, do the Regals burn more brightly, or something?
A: Fascinating indeed. Perhaps she can see the spren in the gemheart of a Regal or a singer, along with their own soul-flame. Maybe? It seems … well, at least possible.
“Passion,” Venli said softly, to Determination—one of the old rhythms. The pure rhythms of Roshar. “Remember that with the Fused, your Passion will do you credit. To hold this post, you must match fear with determination.”
L: She must be saying this quietly enough to not be heard by Leshwi. I can’t imagine that speaking to the old rhythms would go over well!
A: IIRC, she shouldn’t even be able to hear the old rhythms, should she? I’m kinda surprised she’s willing to let anyone know she can use both. It seems dangerous.
L: Because she’s Fused, now? The regular listeners can definitely still use the old rhythms. I could have sworn at some point in the first three books we’d seen a Fused hear one of the old rhythms and be annoyed by it, but maybe I am misremembering.
A: Well, Venli is supposed to just be a Regal, with a Voidspren in her gemheart, and I think that’s supposed to make them hear the new rhythms instead of the old ones. Come to think of it, though, Eshonai could still attune the old ones after she took stormform, so maybe I’m misremembering the restrictions.
“He killed Lezian, the Pursuer.”
With that title, the creature must be one of the Fused. As beings thousands of years old, each one had a lore and history long enough to fill books. It angered them that no one knew them individually this time around.
L: This makes perfect sense. Also, good that we’ve got a name for that Fused that was fighting with Kaladin, now.
A: I’m also highly amused that the Fused are so offended that no one knows their individual reputations. Gee, gang, it’s only been 4500 years since you were last seen, and most of your people were effectively lobotomized for the last 1500 or so. I can’t imagine why your personal story got lost in the mist.
Already there are comments and questions about the raising of a human to the title of He Who Quiets.
L: ::mutters quiet curses against Moash::
A: ::mutters vehement agreement::
Accepting the soul of a Fused into your body had an element of agency to it.
L: Some of my friends who are more casual readers were confused by this, so it’s nice to see it spelled out here to clarify!
A: It’s definitely good to know. Unfortunately, as Venli notes, those who have already accepted a voidform (Regals) are modified by that bond.
L: It confuses the heck out of me that the Fused are above the Regals in regards to their hierarchy. You would think that the word regal would imply that they’d be higher. This… is going to take some time before it really sinks in, for me…
A: On a bet, many of the common singers who wouldn’t be willing to give themselves up to a Fusion (can I call it that?) would still readily accept the powers that come with being a Regal. Once the voidspren is accepted, they become willing Fused-fodder. I’m not sure I think the two-step process is really all that much better than a forced takeover.
…mavset-im, Fused who could imitate the shapes of others. Even other Fused seemed wary of the mavset-im, Those Ones of Masks.
L: Oh dear. Shape-shifters are never good news.
A: Oh, hey, we saw one of those in Oathbringer! The pseudo-guard in the Thaylen vault that tried to steal the King’s Drop, and Chiri-Chiri ate his disguise.
L: Oh yeah!
A: I want a Chiri-Chiri.
Relationships & Romances
“If I may,” Venli said, turning to Leshwi. “Did you kill him on this excursion?”
There was no need to explain “him.” Leshwi was fascinated by the Windrunners, and in particular their leader—the young man who had forged a group of Radiants without the guidance of god or Herald.
A: I’m not sure if this relationship qualifies as a romance, but it cracks me up that Leshwi’s fascination with Kaladin is this obvious. The burning question is whether Leshwi has any actual desire to kill him. Secondary question: does Venli believe Leshwi wants to kill him?
L: I’m always partial to the “we want to kill one another and OOPS now we’re lovers” trope. Not to say that I necessarily really want to see this go in that direction, I just… wouldn’t be mad if it did.
Bruised & Broken
Part of Leshwi’s favor had to do with her prowess in battle, but Venli suspected an equal measure came because she’d maintained her sanity over the centuries. The same could not be said for many, though the Heavenly Ones had fared better than other kinds of Fused.
A: This is one of many hints that the Fused are perhaps less formidable than they once were, if sanity is becoming a rare commodity among them. On the other hand, it’s also possible that those who retain functionality while losing sanity will be more dangerous, so… I guess we’ll see how this plays out!
Weighty Words / The Knights Radiant
Though she was a Regal, she held a secret deep within her gemheart, a friend who protected her from the Voidspren’s influence. Her Radiant spren—Timbre—buzzed softly, comforting her.
L: I love the fact that she’s both Radiant and Regal! Makes me wonder if this is entirely new… (And… this is answered later in this very chapter…)
From what Timbre said, this was new—whatever Venli was doing, it hadn’t been done before.
L: Interesting… I wonder what it is about this particular time in history that is allowing for this to be possible!
A: Without knowing the ancient history, and all of why the spren turned to humans in the first place, it’s not possible to say for certain. It seems probable, though, that whatever made the humans preferable to the singers was counterbalanced by the Recreance, making the spren willing—for the first time in 7-10 thousand years—to bond singers. That still doesn’t tell us why it took the intervening 1500 years (or so) since the Recreance to form the first bond, though. Is it the return of the Fused? Have the spren decided that it’s time to oppose the Fused (and thereby Odium) by different means?
Timbre could read her thoughts—and Venli could read the little spren’s words and intents through the pulsing of her rhythms.
L: This really makes me think that the Bond is meant to be with singers, and not humans. It seems so much more effective! Or… maybe it’s just because Timbre is so musically-inclined? Is this the case for all Willshaper spren?
A: Is it this case for all Radiant Spren in general? I’m dying to see another spren bond with a singer, and see how their communication works. As far as I can recall, we haven’t seen Timbre communicate with actual words yet—just Venli’s clear understanding of her meaning. I want to know how common this will be! As to your first sentence there, Lyn… I want to know, so badly, just what the relationship between the singers and the sapient spren was before the humans came.
“I have been contacted by a spren who represents an entire people in Shadesmar. They realize that perhaps we deserve a second chance more than humans do.”
L: I wonder how much truth there is to this… Could we be looking at the possibility of an entire order of Knights Radiant made up of bonded singers?
A: That would be so amazing! I’m torn on this; part of me thinks it would be really cool for an entire order to be only singers, but part of me also wants to see all the Orders become a mix of humans and singers. Either way, I want more bonded singers.
In this case, Timbre wanted Venli to acknowledge she was not a Knight Radiant. Not yet, as she’d only said the First Ideal.
L: Interesting, that this is a distinction that’s made. At what point does one become a Knight Radiant, then? And is this a distinction only to Timbre? To all Willshaper spren? Or to all Radiant Spren in general?
A: Well… that’s a good question. This is the first time that I recall a spren making the distinction. (Others may have a better memory than mine… Readers? Any thoughts?) Later in the chapter, Timbre wants Venli to acknowledge that she is Radiant, so… where’s the line? Among the Windrunners, the First Ideal was enough to make someone a squire and give them access to Radiant powers (as long as their Knight was nearby). And of course the Skybreakers have a very firm structure in place, as much to do with mentoring as Ideals. As a general thing, perhaps it could be said that the first Ideal makes you Radiant, two makes you a Knight Radiant, and whenever-you-get-your-Plate makes you a full Knight Radiant. For those like me who want defined categories, this might work, but honestly, I’m not sure how widely applicable it is.
…she instinctively understood what her mistress said to her through simple humming. In fact, the experience was eerily familiar to the way she understood Timbre—yet she was certain that ability wasn’t related to her form.
L: So if her ability to understand Timbre isn’t linked to envoyform, that implies that the ability she’s given via envoyform is similar on its own merits to the Bond she shares with a Radiant Spren. That’s… interesting. The more we see of the Fused/Regal powers, the more I think that there’s a deep connection between them and the Shards, and the powers imbued on the Knights Radiant…
A: This is driving me crazy, to tell the truth. We’ve had vague references to Voidbinding (mostly in the Ars Arcanum), but what we’ve seen so far looks very much like the Fused use the same Surges as the Radiants. Is the difference between Surgebinding and Voidbinding a matter of whether you use Stormlight or Voidlight? Or are there different powers, and we just haven’t seen them (or seen them named) yet?
But back to what you actually said… it does seem that both the Regals and the Fused have the same powers as the Radiants, and the differences are in the details of how they are accessed, powered, and perhaps combined. I do hope we eventually get some clarification on these things.
She would accept those who came to her. If she wanted them to change, she would show them a better way. It was Timbre’s suggestion.
Volition. Agency. Cardinal tenets of whatever it was she was becoming.
L: This makes me wonder if these are going to tie into Oaths for her…
A: Well, this is Sanderson, the proponent of foreshadowing, so… likely?
They’d tested Venli’s other power—the ability to mold stone—only once, and it had drawn secretspren. A kind of specialized spren that flew through the city, watching for signs of Knights Radiant using their powers.
L: Well, that’s frightening! Are these spren “natural,” or did the Fused somehow create new ones for this purpose? I don’t recall ever having seen secretspren before, nor does a search of the first three books yield any results…
A: No one called them secretspren, but I assumed these were the same spren who came screaming around anyone using a fabrial, back when Our Heroes did their infiltration of Kholinar in Oathbringer.
Fortunately, this power—the one that let her peek into Shadesmar—did not draw the same attention.
L: Hmm. I wonder why one of the Surges draws their attention, but the other does not. Perhaps because stone shaping is a more… active power, whereas just looking into Shadesmar is more passive?
A: If I’m right and they’re the same spren, they sensed Kaladin using his Lashings, but they were oblivious to Shallan’s Lightweaving. The distinctions between what they can sense (Gravitation/Adhesion, Cohesion) and what they can’t (Illumination, Transportation)… well, they do almost seem like physical vs. cognitive functions.
What We Missed (In the Timeskip)
A: Mostly, we’re seeing the restructuring of Kholinar. What was once the seat of the biggest military power on Roshar, the Alethi capital, is now the seat of… well, a very different Big Military Power. It seems to be the chosen center of power for the Heavenly Ones, with their new spires and all. We don’t know enough yet to know whether it’s the headquarters for all the Fused, or if different brands have different strongholds.
Geography
Open on two sides, the room looked out over the grand city of Kholinar—and there were no railings to prevent a careless worker from toppling a hundred feet to the city streets below.
L: Interesting… so the Fused built these 20 spires after conquering Kholinar? I wonder if they altered/added on to existing architecture, or if this is an entirely new structure!
A: They sound to me like new construction, but there’s no mention of the windblades or the former city wall, so… who knows?
Fabrial Technology & Spheres
An iron cage will create an attractor—a fabrial that draws specific elements to itself. A properly created smoke fabrial, for example, can gather the smoke of a fire and hold it close. New discoveries lead us to believe it is possible to create a repeller fabrial, but we don’t yet know the metal to use to achieve this feat.
L: Five bucks says it’s steel.
A: I won’t take you up on that bet, because I’m absolutely sure you’re right.
Oh, on a loosely related note… These epigraphs are all tagged as being from Navani’s lecture on fabrial mechanics to the coalition monarchs, and it’s dated “Jesevan, 1175.” For those who have forgotten (or never bothered in the first place), that translates into numerical dates as 1175.1.4.2 (Jes Vev Nan). While I’m not 100% confident of the actual date of our Day One, it should be somewhere in 1175.3 or so. In any case, I’m reasonably confident that Navani’s lecture would qualify as “recent past,” and probably occurred a couple of months prior to the current events.
We’ll be leaving the speculation to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others! Also, please be kind about spoilers. In here, please white-text or black-out any spoilers for the RoW Interludes or the Dawnshard prologue; yes, they’re out there in various official formats, but not everyone has had access yet. Out there in the big wide interwebs, there are many people trying to avoid spoilers for Rhythm of War; please, don’t be posting spoilers on Pinterest or Reddit or whatever, where people are going to see them without a chance to look away. That’s just rude.
Alice is trying not to choke on the smoke in the Pacific Northwest, and is happily distracting herself with the Dawnshard beta read whenever her eyes aren’t itching too badly. Let’s hear it for rain, eh? Snow would also be acceptable, if unlikely.
Lyndsey is missing her faire family dearly. For the next two months in these bylines, she’ll be giving some shout-outs to fellow local performers who could really use the support. This week, check out Shakespeare Approves,your one-stop shop for comedic and interactive retellings of classic Shakespearean tales! If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.
This was a very interesting chapter! Though I am disappointed about the lack of another Kaladin chapter :(
I really enjoyed this chapter. I had no idea how I would feel over Venli and I must say this was a pleasant surprise.
Venli was a breath of fresh air and introduced a much-needed change of setting. Her voice was engaging, interesting, and made me genuinely curious over what will later happen. I was glad she is able to look down into her former betrayal and decide nothing can be done about the past, let’s focus on the future.
So, she is trying to build a rebellion without calling it a rebellion. Fascinating. I love this story arc already. I however do not like the Fused nor Leswhi. I do not care over her being more empathetic than others or for showing “honor”, she remains a despicable arrogant individual who demands blind obedience.
I was also pleased to see Adolin’s tailors again. So they haven’t escape despite Adolin’s warning. My gut feeling is Yoskra will still have some additional small role play. My head-canon is the tailors taught Adolin how to sew, so maybe this will get mentioned, at some point in time. If not, I am sure there is a reason why the tailor gets mentioned.
This chapter made me think Shadesmar will be very important in this book. One side note, Timbre mentions Shadesmar is dangerous for mortals. This is an issue, for me, because I didn’t feel it was dangerous in OB… so if Shadesmar is dangerous, then I want odds, scares, fear, and, well dangerous situations. We got none of that in OB, but now is not too late to fix it.
This chapter was so much fun! Full of important exposition and Venli’s unique perspective!
So cool to see how Venli is working for Leshwi and also running a very Willshaper-esque side hustle to free the Singers and relink them with the old natural Rhythms of Roshar. However, like L&A mentioned, I don’t think it can be as easy as removing all traditions and becoming just Listeners, as while freedom of thought and action is super important, Venli’s way is not necessarily any more right (and it’s also very minimized with most of the Listeners dead) than Singers who happily want some Alethi (or other) cultures sprinkled in, and the final result would probably look like a mesh of things that make up the new Singer culture after it having been lost for over 1,000 years… Venli’s gotta make sure that she’s trying to pull them away from Alethi mannerisms and ideas not because she personally doesn’t like it as a Listener, but because she’s simply trying to let them see they have the freedom to choose their culture.
Epigraph is so totally hinting at steel.
I had the feeling the moment that tailor was mentioned that she would be Adolin’s tailor! Nice to see she survived and is being valued for her skill.
With Venli being able to access and use both types of Light (which is really cool), its clearly foreshadowing her part in building a bridge between the humans and Singers and being in a position to trick Odium Himself.
Yeah, it isn’t as if anyone on Nalthis is raised to believe that ripping her soul in twain is a great honor.
In all seriousness: giving Breath to the Returned is clearly an act of Endowment. So Endowment is part of the process of the Fused Returning as well.
Yes, she is. The humans didn’t consciously decide to mind-mutilate the Singers, it was a side effect of ending the False Desolation.
Wasn’t Honor dead or dying by the time of the False Desolation? There’s no way Venli could know that, of course.
Hey, you need a catchier name than “levels”. How about “Dahn” or “Nahn,” Singers?
Sure, because they are very nearly the Returned of Nalthis, who have (more?) control over their forms.
There is no evidence that the Ideal had anything much to do with it. Kaladin told everyone to swear, and they did, but they still had to individually reach some internal state where they actually could inhale Stormlight. After all Kaladin himself gained at least some Windrunner powers before ever swearing the First Ideal.
Venli is very different from other Orders we have seen. She got both Surges of her Order without taking the Second Oath.
Notice that Venli is Moses. No, she isn’t doing the Moses story, but she’s trying to lead her people out of slavery. I wonder if she’ll part any seas (as Shallan has already done, IIRC). Maybe Odium’s forces will face 10 plagues? (I’m sure Brandon wouldn’t actually do that, it’s too on-the-nose.) it’s specifically the Moses theme (in my head) because she wants to lead her people away from the enslaving evil kingdom, rather than rise up in rebellion against it.
It seems to me that Venli is in a very similar place as Kaladin in part four of tWoK, organizing her future squires for an escape to get the heck out of Dodge. I think her oaths will take her someplace unexpected (to her anyway).
As for Leshwi and Kaladin, what ever possibility that ship has, is going to be sunk when the Fused attack the Fourth Bridge next chapter.
I have been thinking after I read Shallan and Kaladin didn’t work out, that the only relationship available for Kaladin would be Venli. I just figured Brandon seemed to be setting Kaladin up as someone to bridge the gap between singers and humans and what better way than love, in all its cute cheesiness. I bet their children will be main characters in books 6-10.
Hmm, so if there’s a Leshwi/Kaladin pairing in the offing, would that make Kaladin queer if Leshwi is in a malen body? Actually, not sure how a human/parsh relationship would work since the parsh need to be in mating form to have sexual desires. From what we’re told, all the other forms are asexual.
I’m not a big Venli fan, but it is good to get additional insights from within the Fused society from Venli, as opposed to the conclusions based upon observation that we get from most other viewpoint characters.
I also think it is important to note the similarity between the Fused and Humans in their indoctrination of their respective peoples. At this point, neither of their historical records, whether documents or stories, can be trusted by the common person. I appreciate the parallel to real life that we began to see in Oathbringer (as far as branwashing the common singer population. For humans, we saw it from WoK). It is good to know that there are those seeking truth, or at least rejecting the party line, on both sides of this conflict. I can’t wait to piece together the full story when the Stormfather drops his reticence relating to sharing full truths, or if/when Cultivation (or her pet the Nightwatcher) chimes in with some historical accounts. Of course, any of these may also be shaped by the perception and influence of the shard to which they are tied…
@@.-@ This isn’t correct. Kaladin often used Reverse Lashings prior to saying the First, which is a combination of Adhesion and Gravitation.
I believe it’s Squire, prior to the 2nd Ideal. Radiant at the second Ideal. Knight at the third Ideal. Full Knight at the 4th and the heads of the orders have said the 5th (though it isn’t necessary, according to Nale)
Humans today didn’t even know that the parsh were anything but mindless drones, parshendi means parsh who can think or speak after all, and the initial enslavement was not intended but a side effect of denying the.their fish of power to end the conflict.
While the new Listeners hold a rightful scepticism against the humans it is not fair to consider them as monsters who want to steal their minds. Indeed the original conflict between Listeners and humans were caused the Listeners and significant fault lay on Venli herself, if she had not pushed Eshonai into Stormform Dalinar would likely have tried to form an alliance with the Listeners.
What I’m trying to get at is that Venli is clearly wrong in putting the fused and humans at the same level and is coming from some world-class level racism and ability to refuse responsibility.
Well, I was a bit apprehensive about Venli as a focus character but am now really looking forward to reading more about her and Singer culture, including the flashbacks! I still miss Eshonai.
For no actual reason, so far I’ve assumed you needed the Second Ideal to be a “proper” Knight Radiant, because that’s when you specialise, so to speak. With the First you become a Radiant, but only by speaking a truth specific to an Order do you become a Knight. That’s my thoughts, anyway.
The unknown metal is obviously steel. I’m really curious at how other metals (specifically the temporal ones) that Rosharians don’t have access to are gonna influence fabrials – we’ll probably have to wait for Mistborn Era 3 to find out, though. Also, Alice, I never realised that’s how the date system works. Awesome! Thanks!
Oh and I took for granted that the secretspren are the same ones that came screaming back in OB. Interesting that they “work” on both humans and Singers, I assumed they would discriminate for some reason.
Andrew @1:
Freaking, seriously? Are you jerking our chains, here?
With all respect, I’m not a Kaladin hater, but it seems we’ve had almost nothing BUT Kaladin chapters. Finally getting to Venli is refreshing to me, and many others, I suspect. It IS supposed to be her book, after all.
Regards,
Ben M.
My question is if the Skybreakers will eventually support Venli’s faction instead of Odiums. It makes sense to me that they would since they are more in support of the rightful i habitants of Roshar. Also any thoughts on an atium fabrial?
@@@@@ 4 Carl:
Venli isn’t wrong. The humans had them as slaves, even if that wasn’t the original intent. The Fused only want them as bodies and servants.
@@@@@ 10 Tim,
The Listeners were only at war because Gavilar in the first place, even if they took the first step. At least, as far as we know.
Overall, regarding the “choosing” of traditions, this just reads to me like assimilation of first-generation immigrant kids. Parents try to keep the old traditions alive, while living in the current country (US, for example) obviously means that you grow up following US norms. What you really get is just a mix and there’s no foresight for what gets kept and what gets replaced, lol. Venli will definitely have to give up on that front.
@@@@@ 12, benpmoldovan
Pretty sure he’s joking!
As much as I love the Kaleshwi ship in kind of a joking way, I have a feeling Sanderson is setting us up for something different. And the body switching part would definitely add an interesting aspect to that relationship (or any human/parsh relationship if it came to that). Although outside of war they may not want to be continually changing bodies.
I really enjoyed seeing this glimpse into what is going on though! I had similar thoughts as others about Venli’s thoughts about the listeners picking up human traditions; rightly or wrongly, it’s not something she’s going to be able to prevent. Especially not if she really cares about agency (I wonder if her having to accept that will come into her oaths in some way). Kind of an Autonomy vibe to some of Venli’s musings.
WHOO HOO! Even though Venli isn’t my favorite character, I really enjoy getting the opposing viewpoints. PLUS all of the historical exposition is a HUGE bonus to me! I really want to unravel all of the 4500+ years ago happenings.
Thunderclasts-I had gotten the impression from OB that the same souls that are reborn as Regals/Fused can inhabit the Thunderclasts if they do not get a body, but Venli says that they are an entity in and of themselves. Are we missing a step in the hierarchy?
I just had a though… about this whole discussion about the envoy we had last week… Venli is an envoyform. She has supposedly talked with sprens representing the whole of Shadesmar (Honorsprens?)..
OK, so wild theory here, could Venli be the envoy? That would be odd because it does not fit Sanderson’s groupings… group 2 has only two viewpoints characters, not three and the Shadesmar mission is Shallan/Adolin (and yes, Adolin does have viewpoints so no that’s not an option).
Could it be the Venl iarc actually ties into the Shallan/Adolin arc and that’s actually the first group?
Just a thought that does not seem probable given how the groups are divided, but if it weren’t for that, this is what I would think, that Venli will get involved with this trip, somehow. It makes more sense for Venli to be the envoy for Venli to start engaging with Navani. At least, it does now, it just does NOT work with those cursed groupings.
On Leswhi: I do not think she cares nor even respects Kaladin all that much, she’s just curious. I dunno why some chip them together, I got the opposite impression. Kaladin thinks he has an understanding with her to avoid killing because it suits him to believe this and it justifies his “strategy not to engage the enemy”, but I think he has been dead wrong. Leswhi was curious, but she is not his allie nor his friend nor anything.
The Pursuer: I was immediately reminded of a boss from Dark Souls II
This was very interesting – I was waiting impatiently for Venli’s PoV and it didn’t disappoint. I do have a slight reservation that she doesn’t sound different enough from the human PoVs, but her envoy form and the fact that she has to be very careful about which rythms to attune somewhat explains that.
I am very glad that finally someone is taking the necessary precautions against the eavesdropping spren and really hope that people with Transportation and Transformation surges are doing the same during important meetings in Urithiru and elsewhere in the coalition.
So, Venli’s reward after having been the foremost Listener scholar, the one who caused the Everstorm and preached to the newly awakened singers the lies about her people’s “sacrifice” is to be Leshwi’s butler. Heh. Whereas Moash was raised to the _title_ of Vyre. I am really curious about what this title entails.
I really don’t see Venli’s current aims as practical either – Odium isn’t the sort of entity to respect neutrality. The fact that the Everstorm didn’t spare stormform listeners and the survivors were allegedly completely cannibalized by the Fused should have taught her that the very memory of such was to be buried by Odium’s side. Nor would the new singers necessarily want to wholesale abandon the human cultures that they ended up absorbing.
It is quite intriguing that the thunderclasts outrank the Fused, even though they didn’t seem to be in charge back in OB.
Glad to see that Yoska is alive – though she doesn’t seem to be in a great shape.
The ending was quite ominous – what could have happened for Leshwi to attune to Agony?
bridge4kufer @3 – The current Rosharans use steel all the time. My current question (brought on by a comment elsewhere) is whether the specific alloy makes a difference. Will any steel work, or does the alloy have to be some exact ratio?
Carl @@.-@ – While the humans didn’t intentionally strip away the minds of the singers, for the last thousand years or so they’ve been pretty happy to make use of the bodies. As you say, of course Venli couldn’t know it wasn’t intentional. On the other hand, the Radiants at the time did have people talking about unintended side effects, but they pushed forward anyway. As much as it wasn’t intentional, the humans weren’t exactly blameless.
Also, I’d point out that the Fused aren’t the same as “the Returned of Nalthis” – just that both are Cognitive Shadows, which gives them some commonality. The Returned don’t take someone else’s body, for one thing.
arod @8 – “At this point, neither of their historical records, whether documents or stories, can be trusted by the common person.” Ain’t that the truth!! No matter what we learn from the records, I’m side-eyeing it for now.
James @9 – That’s an interesting breakdown of Radiant levels, and (with the exception of those who become Radiant without a mentor other than their spren) may turn out to be generally true.
RavenPrincess @16 – The Regals aren’t reborn souls, they’re a singer accepting a voidspren. But yeah, now we don’t know quite what the thunderclasts are.
Isilel @19 – “Leshwi’s butler” – Bahahaha!! That’s perfect.
Also, I think I forgot to comment on it, but I noticed too that Yokska does not look like she’s thriving. Surviving, yes, but the implication is that she is only just surviving. Does this also imply that the singers are treating the humans pretty much the same way humans treated the parshmen, except maybe less valuable?
@19 – maybe she heard that Kaladin was demoted ;)
Yep, I am with the folks who think steel is the missing metal. They’ve already determined that brass, bronze, and pewter cages have specific effects, so they know that alloys can work and not just pure elements.
I’m wondering if the half-shards that are being developed make use of aluminum in some fashion. If so, maybe there would be a way to produce enough refined aluminum to make a fabrial cage.
@14: I figure that’s probably the case.
Ben
L: I like that she’s still referred to by femalen pronouns despite residing in a malen form.
A: She still is who she’s always been, no matter what external features are given to the body she inhabits. Interesting indeed.
———
Wow, you’re right, this is so interesting! The concept of using a set of pronouns that doesn’t correspond to the assigned sex given to the physical body is so unusual, especially as it relates to the identity of someone who resides in the body. I wonder if there’s a term for this? I’d be really curious to know if there’s some way to refer to this idea, of having your gender not match your sex and ameliorating it by using different pronouns, changing the way that you dress, and changing secondary sex characteristics to represent the gender that you identify as. I really hope someone can come up with a term for this so we can call this by it and look for more examples in fiction, since this could be really meaningful for people who might feel the same way to see in a book by Brandon! Too bad that there’s no way to refer to this clearly or in a way that isn’t condescending!
@20. Wetlandernw
Maybe steel on Roshar does not have high enough carbon content, whereas on Scadrial, the Lord Ruler would have specifically ensured that the steel being produced was high enough quality for use in the invested arts.
Venli’s Envoyform allows her to speak all languages. The old rhythms are just a “foreign language” she can speak.
Isn’t the third Oath when you become a full Knight?
@3 @20 et al…
Maybe they are only using Soulcast steel and it doesn’t work quite the same as “natural” steel? Remember, T was talking about aluminum coming from asteroids being effective in the half-shards, but they can also soulcast aluminum.
Just a thought.
Oh, it suddenly occurred to me that the Transportation and Transformation Fused should be able to spot Venli’s Radiance, the same way that she can see souls and determine types of their bonded spren, so she is in terrible danger. It seems that these Fused were slow to come over, but judging by Lezian some are on Roshar at last. Unless Timbre has some superior hiding tricks in her arsenal, Venli would have to leave Kholinar soon.
Concerning the Regals – breaking from the influence of voidspren should be possible even without the help of Radiant spren – according to the listener songs epigraphs in WoR, their voidforms helped to formulate the escape plan and took part in it. I wonder how many normal forms there are, and if the new singers can change forms on their own. Could the newRegal-equivalent forms using non-void spren be discovered/developed? Maybe with the assistance of Bondsmiths?
And yea, I’d expect that the humans whose skills aren’t immediately useful to the war effort have it hard. And if the Fused intend to securely hold Roshar, they’d need to start exterminating humans sooner or later, given that humans outnumber the singers and the whole point was to get Roshar back for their own species. BTW, who made Leshwi’s current attires, if she doesn’t use human tailors?
@25 T.Rans
I appreciated the gender identity bit as well. I haven’t seen much like it, but the concept exists in the series A Chorus of Dragons with both genders in one country referring to themselves and others as either mare or stallion in addition to their sex based on anatomy. It will be interesting to see if Sanderson develops this any further.
@29 Isilel. It looks to me the non-directly useful human beings have it harder than parhmen ever did. We must not forget the parshmen were valued slaves: no one ever talked of exterminating them and since they were expensive to buy, there weren’t left to starve either.
I am not trying to diminish the hurdle of having lost both their conscience and their freedom, I meant the parshmen were likely much better treated than the current humans since they had a lot of value to their owners.
Maybe Leswhi found her attire… now she wants a new one made.
Venli has to leave Kholinar because the book structure is such she has to be grouped with other characters. This implies she has to physically meet with them. I just don’t see her readily joining with the humans, this would make no sense given her discourse, this week. Hence, I am curious to find out how it will play out and who is grouped with whom. This is still unclear.
@carl, @tim:
Consider the history involved. After the False Desolation, the humans of Roshar were left with a huge population of apparently-accidentally pseudo-lobotomized parsh. As far as anyone can tell, their response to this was to say, “Wow! Perfect slaves!” rather than make any attempt to restore the parsh or bring them to the listeners (assuming anyone knew that they existed; the exact history there is murky). Then, as soon as the humans met the listeners, as far as the listeners themselves can tell, the humans said “hey, we’re about to restart the old war that you completely restructured your culture to hide from. Ain’t that great?” And then when the listeners objected the humans responded with genocide (recall that early in WoR, Sadeas mentions that listeners tried to surrender early in the war and he responded by murdering them personally). There’s also Kaladin’s decision to wear listener carapace over his armor – that choice, for all that he made it in (partial) ignorance, absolutely *reeks* of the Fused essentially killing modern parsh and wearing their bodies.
Even if Venli had all the information that we the readers have, she’s still not wrong in her judgement about humans and Fused-led new singers. Where she goes wrong is the same place that all the other characters are going wrong at present: viewing the conflict as primarily one of humans against the new singers over land ownership. Honor has instructed Dalinar (and thus the protagonists) to “unite them”; the villain of the story is literally hatred. The true nature of the conflict is clearly going to be the building of bridges between the new singers, the listeners, the humans, and presumably the Aimians; we’re just waiting for the characters in the story to start to put the pieces together.
@11 vocalnerd:
I think you’re right about the ranks. Skybreakers refer to 2nd Ideal members of the order as “apprentices”, I think, since they are expected to be taught by a specific higher-rank member, but that probably doesn’t apply to the other Orders. I still wish Sanderson had indexed the Ideals from zero; that would make much more sense given the system he created.
Lore! I love lore. Finally I get a Willshaper POV, though an unconventional one from the human perspective. And did you all catch that gravitationspren make Workform? How does that work? Brandon has a habit of throwing information out that you thought was crucial and having it produce a thousand other questions you’d never had thought to ask before.
I feel like this is the true beginning of RoW, the previous chapters were like an extended epilogue of OB.
So Thunderclasts aren’t Fused huh? That’s strange. Are they the only class of beings that inhabitant that sweet spot between Fused and Unmade?
Everyone is wary about those who mask themselves with veils. As it should be.
Love or hate Leshwi, the chemistry between her and Kaladin is readily apparent to me. It’s unlikely to turn into love, though if it does it would not be the first time Brandon has written an interspecies love affair (Wayne/MeLann). The seeds for mutual respect have already been planted, a stronger connection between the two seems inevitable.
Venli lost her people, was a key factor in the loss of her people. I find it apt that with her group of rebels she’s trying to make another Listener people. She does know empirically that it has worked before. She’ll fail, but in doing so will establish something better. At least that’s my impression.
Has Timbre been in touch with her Reacher kin? If the escape is to be in any way effective it cannot just be Venli and whatever squires she can scare up. They must have others, and in Singer territory with a bunch of secretspren zipping around and Fused who work with the CR it’s gonna be difficult for them to gather.
@3 and others – It has to be steel that creates a repulsor, unless we’re looking for the opposite of iron along a different axis for some reason. But it seems clear that it’s steel. The thing that confuses me is that chapter 10’s epigraph said they know using iron vs. steel in fabrials can reverse polarity. I think one or the other of the epigraphs is an error, hopefully fixed for the final book.
Envoy form is clearly in large part about Connection investiture, right? Being able to translate any language, and even understand things that aren’t put into words implies deep Connection powers. So I think the bit about how Venli can understand Leshwi like she can understand Timbre is saying that her Connection powers in Envoy form connect her to other people in a way that’s similar to the Nahel bond. I suspect that this is also related to the void fabrial that disConnected Kaladin from Syl.
Venli’s ability to use both stormlight and voidlight will likely help with the problem of powering Urithiru.
I didn’t see any guesses about Venli’s oaths yet, which surprised me. I think the 2nd ideal will be something either like, “I will be the voice for the silenced” or “I will bring freedom to the oppressed/enslaved.” Then the 3rd ideal will presumably be something about helping others to empowerment, even when they disagree with her.
I have some affection for the idea of Venli’s Connection power helping Kaladin and/or Shallan with their mental health issues. In that sense, I’m interested to see if there’s room for a Kaladin/Venli ship at some point.
@30. arod
I wonder if people whose gender doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth exist in real life, since “gender” is in addition to sex based on primary and secondary sexual characteristics. There’s gotta be a word for that. Something about transitioning away from assigned sex or gender? A word like that would be great for someone who identifies as femalen residing in a malen body. Since I’m sure that has to exist in real life, maybe instead of using concepts that were invented for other fictional worlds, we should use the equivant real-life term! Since people would know what it meant, after all. I wonder if Alice and Lyn know one they could share with us so that we could all be sure how to refer to people who identify this way like Leshwi does!
@29 Isilel:
I think there might be a difference between Regal forms that use “true” voidspren (like Stormform) and Regal forms that use spren that have been touched by Sja-Anat (like Smokeform, mentioned to be somewhat different from other Regal forms for exactly this reason in the epigraph of WoR chapter 25). There’s also the oddity that Stormform is said to “bring[] the gods their night”, in *contrast* to the fact that it “obliges a bloodred spren”. It’s hard to say what that might mean. Maybe Stormform has some sort of power to get rid of the Fused? Hard to say.
@34 Idabomb
Hard disagree on “I will be a voice for the silenced” – that’s much more in line with the Edgedancers; I actually expect Lift’s Fourth Ideal to be something in this vein. “I will bring freedom to the oppressed”, now, that’s very Willshaper.
I have to say, the number one thing I took away from this chapter is that I’m super curious to explore the relationship between the different magics on Roshar, as well as their higher Cosmere relevance. I’m thinking that the different Surges can be categorized into mental and physical powers just like the Allomancy chart? I’d love to see someone put that together (I might, if I find the time).
@@@@@14, Keyblazing:
On the contrary, the Listeners started the war by having Gavilar assassinated and advertising the fact. Gavilar was trying to start a war with them, but all he had actually done at that point was tell Eshonai (and perhaps others) about his plan.
@@@@@17, Gepeto:
You mean the theory I posted over in the previous chapter’s comments?
@@@@@20, Wetlandernw:
Do they? For fun, I did a search in Oathbringer (I have the ebook on this system). The word “steel” is used only in the compounds “steelheart” and “dragonsteel” in the front matter.
I didn’t mean that they’re identical. They’re merely extremely similar.
(and now I’m going to triple-post like a jerk… can a moderator edit this post and my previous one together?)
Expanding on the notion of Venli as a Willshaper and pursuer of freedom and choice – perhaps Venli and Kaladin will wind up grouped together; Venli’s could be the perspective that Kaladin needs to acknowledge that people can make choices that take them outside his protection. I still go back and forth as to whether he’ll have to acknowledge this or his failures first; I think those two concepts are his fourth and fifth ideals, but there are good arguments each way as to which is which.
That suggests the following character clusters:
– Group 1: Kaladin, Venli, Navani, Dalinar, unknown (perhaps Rlain?); developing connections between humans and parsh and sorting though the mysteries around fabrials and Roshar’s past.
– Group 2: Shallan, Adolin; the mission to Shadesmar.
– Group 3: Lift, Szeth; missions in western Roshar, preparing the way for Book 5 and showing some of the issues related to Shinovar, Iri, and/or Tukar and Ishar.
On steel:
It’s quite possible that the Rosharans have access to steel armor and weapons but can’t make things like small steel wires for a fabrial cage, just like how they have access to aluminum from meteors but can’t get it from ore. Producing steel wire, especially as fine as would be required for a fabrial cage, is quite difficult and wasn’t accomplished in a serious way in the real world until the around 17th century, but steel had been in use in weapons, armor, and similar hand-forgeable objects for more than 2000 years prior to that. It’s possible that the steel/iron elements that Navani mentions in the epigraph of chapter 10 are small plates held in the mesh, rather than part of the cage in themselves. I think it all depends on what the Rosharans can soulcast and how that works with fabrials. (Can soulcast metal even be used in fabrials, for example?)
Idabomb @34:
“Venli’s ability to use both stormlight and voidlight will likely help with the problem of powering Urithiru.”
I like that theory. Maybe so. It’s interesting. Don’t know how that fits in with the theory that The Sibling will be involved in repowering Urithiru. But I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.
Regards,
Ben M.
Though I fear I might not have a chance to face him again.”
Venli hummed to Craving, to indicate her curiosity.
“He killed Lezian, the Pursuer.”
I think the implication here is that Lezian will now continue to pursue Kaladin in revenge for killing him until he kills Kaladin.
Well that’s irritating. Brandon acknowledges that Venli’s entire character has been re-booted down to the root out of nowhere so he can pretend she’s just a lovely nice person now. And his only comment on the subject is, “But so be it.” Sigh. I miss Eshonai.
@41 Another possibility is that the steel that they are used to using on Roshar is a different alloy than allomantic steel, which I assume would be the alloy you have to use for fabrials.
I’m also very curious about what major change is about to happen in the war. It seems that it isn’t a change that Leshwi regards positively, so maybe it’s the bonding of a second Bondsmith? It could also be something to do with Sja-Anat. Most of the other things that I think would cause a strong reaction aren’t bad for Odium’s side, like another Herald being killed magic-dagger style, Taravangian finally cashing in on betrayal, the Skybreakers directly attacking the human Radiants, etc.
Idabomb333 @34 – No, the apparent disconnect between the epigraphs is not an error. It was noted in the beta read, and was not changed – to me, that says it’s intentional. Why the author intends it, I can’t say. In-world, my best two guesses are 1) they just haven’t tried steel for that application or 2) they don’t have the right alloy. I can’t help thinking that they haven’t tried steel because it wouldn’t be logical to their thinking. Steel is just an alloy of iron with carbon, and that might seem “too close to the same thing” to make sense. They’ll find it eventually, I’m sure.
Carl @39 – “I did a search in Oathbringer…” You didn’t do a very thorough search, then, because I found 25 references to steel items, from armor to hinges to door plates.
@39 Carl. Yeah, that’s the one. I knew someone suggested it, but I didn’t go back to check who did. I was not in support of this theory last week because the book structure does not seem to allow it, but I have to say this week does give this theory quite a push forward.
@40 Gaz. Reading this week’s chapters, I am starting to think Venli might be a part of the Shadesmar mission and maybe the Shadesmar mission *is* the main arc. This would leave Kaladin/Navani for the second arc which is an odd pairing, so I am not feeling super-strongly about it. If it weren’t for the “groupings” this is exactly where I’d think the story is heading: Venli somehow gets entangled in Shallan/Adolin mission.
The beginning of Chapter 11 (where Venli thinks about the different levels of Singers) is a repeated info dump. It reminds me of the beginning of a book in WoT where Robert Jordan felt the need to re-explain a concept the reader learned in the prior book. In my opinion, the reminder of the Singers was not necessary. Beta readers – what were some of the comments on this info dump?.
We get another breadcrumb of Venli’s powers. She can translate any text. We learned in OB that she could understand any spoken language. Makes sense she can read any language as well. Nice to have the confirmation, however. Also, good to note that Venli thinks of Timbre as a friend and a good thing Timbre and Venli bonded. I wonder if Odium would be able to sense Timbre now that she is in Venli’s gemheart. I do not believe Odium has been next to Venli on screen since Timbre kicked out/trapped the Voidspren in Venli’s gemheart.
The different Fused classes are called brands. Good to know. Orders for KR and Brands for Fused. Also, secretsrpen are the names for the screamers.
Adolin’s tailor stayed in Kholinar. When I first read the end of OB (when Kaladin met up with the Skar, Drehy, Shallan’s team and the rest), I thought that Yokska and her husband were part of the group of refugees. I guess I was wrong.
I am fascinated by the secret proto-Listener society/cabal. I hope Venli is able to grow them. Like a acron eventually growing into a tree and many acorns growing into a forest of oaks, the new Listeners have start small. Hopefully their will be enough time. If they can survive the next two books, I think they will be a major factor in the books 6-10.
Brandon certainly has learned to end some of his chapters to provide suspense.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@35
Yes, I agree that there is no need to invent fantasy terms for trans people when we already exist and have established teminology. However, I wouldn’t personally read Leshwi (or any Fused) as trans based on if they inhabit a body matching their gender at the moment and now we know that while Odium’s side might be the bad guys they won’t misgender people based on their genitals, etc.
Cheers, Alex
AndrewHB @48 – Since rereading the previous books isn’t a requirement (even for beta readers), what happened in the beta was a handful of people going “Wait, I’m confused. Too many different terms – regal, singer, parsh, etc, etc…” So Brandon added the quick rundown that you call an infodump. For books of this length, some things really do need to be reiterated; you don’t get to assume that everyone who picks up the book will have recently reread all the previous entries in the series.
@48 Andrew. I liked having a reminder of the various forms… I didn’t think it was much of an info-dump, just a reminder. The info-dumps that typically bothers me is when one character starts a completely inorganic conversation with another character for the sole purpose of telling the readers stuff. There were a few moments like with, in OB, with the Stormfather and Dalinar, mostly.
But this quick recall, I actually appreciated reading. I never paid a whole lot of attention to the various forms in the first place.
I wonder if Venli will eventually have the opportunity to translate some ancient text from somewhere using her abilities. I also wonder if Venli could look at the diagram and understand it on a level no one else could
@52 John
YASSSSS!! Along that same vein I wonder if the Diagram predicts Venli….
I’m wondering if Venli’s void spren is similar in nature to the stormfather as it gives her access to understanding languages like Dalinar used in Azheir which I can’t spell becasue Audible.
The Rosharans may have Steel, but to get it to work right in the magic system, they have to have the proper mix. Mistborn reference (white texted):
Early on, Kelsier tells Vinn that alloys need to be exact. If the mix isn’t the right percentage, it won’t work and can have disastrous consequences. Maybe the Rosharans just haven’t found the right mix for Steel to work in the fabrials.
Steel is in the chapter 10 epigraph, in the context of changing the polarity of the fabrial by switching iron vs steel. I find it odd that so many people here missed that. No one should be spending time discussing whether they have steel or know they can use it in fabrials.
@46 wetlandernw – thanks for the info about the beta. I’m glad it didn’t just get missed, and I did wonder if it was deliberate for some reason rather than a mistake. Particularly having the 2 epigraphs in consecutive chapters (so you don’t have to look back far to find the other iron reference) made it seem deliberate.
I don’t buy the possibility that they didn’t think to try steel, though. It’s specifically mentioned in the chapter 10 epigraph that those two metals can be used to flip the polarity. Even in-world, I feel like it would be beyond disappointing for scholars hearing this lecture with both lines to miss the possibility that steel would flip the polarity here like it does elsewhere. Maybe it’s an alloy thing, but if so, why would there be a different alloy for this use of steel than for the other fabrial uses of steel?
Maybe I’m weird, but knowing that the discrepancy survived the beta read, if I don’t get a thorough explanation I’m going to be very dissatisfied and distracted by this. It needs to be something with some significance, too. For example, it could be that there’s a 2nd thing (or several) that also need(s) to be flipped, like using a paired gem or using void light to power it.
Bob @44 – … … Huh?
::is confused::
Wild, certainly completely wrong theory.
Venli’s ability to use voidlight to power her KR-ness comes from her being envoyform specifically, not just a Regal. She can “translate” any kind of investiture to another.
I didn’t mind the info dump so much, as this was the first Venli chapter of the book. And Brandon has gotten better at it. I remember the massive info dump that was the prologue of the first book. I almost didn’t get past it. I was like, wow this is poorly written. Just way too much explanation. He would have been better not explaining how Szeth was doing his thing and just slowly revealed it over the course of the book.
@44 I don’t see this as an issue honestly since Dalinar is basically the same thing. An unlikable person who screwed up really, really badly but is changing for the better and focusing on the future. The only difference is we got to see the honorable, likable Dalinar before learning his backstory, while with Venli we first saw her before her major turning point.
@34: Huh, I know she said it’s not a typo but I don’t see how it can’t be. We now have two different properties for iron. It’s weird enough that they wouldn’t have picked up on the very obvious base/alloy relationship, but to actually have iron and steel be opposite pairs in one example, and to not even consider it might be the case in another… I just don’t get how we’re supposed to believe no one would check.
@60: I mean, the two are entirely unrelated. Dalinar has been changing for most of a decade. We only know about his distant past by the third book, in more than general terms. I don’t have a problem with characters growing and evolving.
Venli did not grow or evolve. She was one way. Then Brandon decided to kill of Eshonai, so now he needs Venli to act like the Eshonai and be like sympathetic and stuff so he just flicked a switch and now she’s a completely different character. He notes in the book that her recent past was to grin while she betrayed and murdered her people, and the next sentence is, “But so be it.” And then he drops it and moves on.
That’s clearly all we’ll ever hear. She was one way. Then she changed overnight for no reason. And that’s all we’ll ever get. Deal with it, and drop it.
Initial Observations:
Finally, a Venli POV! I wonder if her chapter heading will be the same? I wonder if the chapter heading for the flashbacks will alternate between her’s and Eshonai’s depending on the POV character?
A nice quick view into the Singers’ hierarchy. The thunderclasts are in between the Fused brands and the Unmade in the hierarchy, huh? Interesting… Also, nice to have the number of brands confirmed, although it may have been unofficially understood by the readers by now.
Good to have more info on Venli’s Regal and KR abilities, as well as how far along she has progressed in the year since she bonded Timbre. So, she can look into Shadesmar like the Lightweavers and Elsecallers can. And she can see any/all type of spren by doing so; nice.
So Kaladin killed an infamous Fused? I like the name Lezian, the Pursuer. Sounds relentless. Also, I get the strong impression that Leshwi was not working with Lezian to lure Kal into the trap. She seemed to want to kill him herself, in honorable combat.
Venli’s instigating a revolution, although she doesn’t call it that? Okay, I may actually grow to like her in this novel; we’ll see. And look at Timbre, trying to instigate her own kind of upheaval of the status quo between her people and mortals.
I have to admit, I was worried I might not be too interested in the promised Venli arc, but this could actually become something good.
When it comes to Venli, I have doubts about her motivations.
Is she mad at what is happening to the Singers (I will give you, I think she likely has true disgust in the Fused re-birth process), or is her behaviour being driven that she was never given the place of power she anticipated when she betrayed the Listeners? Would Venli be undertaking her current plans if she had been given that power by the Fused / Odium? Or would she be plotting on how to increase any real power she had been given?
At her core, I still believe Venli is selfish and lusts for power and control.
I just feel her current path to “saving” a portion of the Singers (or perhaps any Listeners she might encounter) is just another path to gain some form of power and control.
That is where I think her plot is going. which I think will end up with her facing Rlain and being held accountable for her betrayal(s).
I’m probably wrong, but I do not see Venli being a hero in this story.
I appreciated the info dump, I have to admit :) I can’t keep it straight either.
Did anyone else immediately think of Sel’s symbol-based powers at learning that the Fused orders are called “brands,” and Venli’s comment about not seeing any branding on their bodies? My theory about Void-magic is that it’s like hemalurgy: it takes an existing magic system and twists it to its own purposes; hence why Voidbinding is nearly identical to Surgebinding, which seems unlikely to occur naturally given that every other magic system we’ve seen so far has been entirely unique. Aaaaand where was Odium before he ended up in the Rosharan system?
With regards to the discussion of the morality of self-sacrifice, there’s a HUUUUUUGE difference between being sacrificed and *choosing* to sacrifice yourself. It’s utterly reprehensible to force or convince someone to sacrifice themselves for a cause, but another thing entirely for someone to *willingly choose* to make sacrifices.
@41, Gazeboist:
WoB SPOILER hidden: Brandon has said that it would work for allomancy.
@46. Wetlandernw
Blame Calibre, which told me that. Apparently, it doesn’t search the entire book. Sorry.
@Bob: Venli stood there in Honor’s Perpendicularity and was exposed to the closest thing Roshar has to a prophet preaching about self-improvement. Also, Timbre removed the influence of the Voidspren. I believe there is a WoB that she was being influenced by Odium’s spren even before she took on a Form of Power.
Venli’s Willshaper status is all about free choice?
I now headcanon that she took the Second Oath back in Oathbringer (appropriate!) and doesn’t realize it. I CHOOSE! shouted at that Fused.
Hmm … Venli has lots of Investiture available and a Voidspren, and can see into the Cognitive. Can she futuresee?
Bob @61 – “That’s clearly all we’ll ever hear. She was one way. Then she changed overnight for no reason. And that’s all we’ll ever get. Deal with it, and drop it.”
Seriously? That’s what you think? You seem to have forgotten a couple of things. One, this is her flashback book, along with her sister, so we are going to see what she was like in the past. Two, even in Oathbringer she changed over the course of the book, to the point that some readers even began to have some small hope that she’d become likable. Three, it’s been a year since then – a year in which to observe the ways the Fused treat the singers, to see the differences between the various Fused, and to develop her understanding of the spren she’s bonding. If you really believe that Sanderson completely retconned her character from one book to the next, I can’t help thinking you haven’t been reading the same books I have.
Love the read-alongs (thanks to the team for doing all this work). I just caught up on the last two chapters, normally I wouldn’t comment but I felt compelled after reading a lot of the comments and discussion in last week’s read along re: Kaladin asking Yunfah to consider Rlain. I hope it’s okay to post here about it but I didn’t understand the sensitivity to this exchange or the reproach in a lot of people’s comments. In my reading it seemed clear that Syl was directing Kaladin to be firm and command Yunfah to *consider* Rlain as a potential partner. He was told to be forceful because Honorspren crave authority and prefer a command structure. I think the parallels with prejudice and discrimination in our own society are quite apparent here, in that Rlain isn’t even being considered purely on the basis of his race rather than his character, which should be what matters right? There are plenty of examples in our own history where it’s taken an act of government/laws to end prejudicial treatment of minority groups. Yunfah can just as easily say no within 10 days and bond someone else if he thinks Rlain isn’t a good fit after actually considering him on the merits, something he’s thus far refused to do.
Finally, Wyndle was commanded by “The Ring” to bond with Lift (not to consider a bond, but actually bond Lift). He even expressed unhappiness at having been asked to do so as he would’ve preferred someone else. The Stormfather also didn’t want to bond Dalinar, he was quite unhappy but compelled by some ancient directive.
Perhaps there’s a lot we don’t yet understand about the spren and are projecting our own understanding and feelings based on the one or two characters and bonds we intimately know. There must’ve been hundreds if not thousands of Radiant bonds in the past, they couldn’t have all been bonds between star-crossed souls. Clearly spren were and are a society at war and follow orders in a hierarchy, including orders to bond certain individuals.
@Bob and Wetlander –
As one of the major themes of this series is change, it is probably a good idea to also point out that while, for the most part, people change in small, nearly imperceptible ways over long periods of time (Dalinar, if you ignore the pruning, etc), there are also cases where a major catalyst event can cause an abrupt and deep change in an individual. There are plenty of IRL examples of people who change their life trajectory based on a major event (even if there were smaller influences along the way as well) – e.g., the woman who dedicates her life to fighting against drunk driving after a loved one is killed, a man who takes up a completely different cause after a witnessing some atrocity, etc. (And that is not even getting to issues of things like religious conversion, or abrupt epiphanies that can change one’s worldview very quickly if they hit just right.)
I think this is something that must be considered for Venli (acknowledging also Wetlander’s point that we still have yet to see most of the backstory). I can also agree with Steve-son-son-Charles @63 that there is (probably) a core to Venli’s character that may not have changed (she is still seeking power, etc) but we cannot discount the impact of not only her sister dying, but also witnessing the destruction of her people by the very “gods” that she fought for thinking they would save them from the terrible humans who were seeking to destroy them (remember the horror of that whole scene where she realized her closest companions were basically murdered and their bodies taken over?). Yes, she went for the closest thing to a nuclear option she had. But it is still completely believable for her to come to view that as a mistake (that cost here everything) and hate the side she had previously been seeking to return (and still hate the humans) for the way that they destroyed the people she was trying to save and then used her (with their carefully edited narrative) for their own desires, while not giving her the power/prestige that she wanted. With that backstory, her character development, even if mostly off screen, to get to this point where she is trying to enable a return to the situation of the past that she helped destroy (personal atonement/redemption?), makes sense and certainly is not a ret-con IMHO. Guilt and remorse can be powerful motivators, which in this case are motivating her to reject what she sees as a false binary of having to choose between the humans/Honor and Odium’s forces. (As pointed out by another above, she is dealing with a lack of information with regard to things such as Cultivation, and making her own assumptions that are certainly influencing her decision making as well).
Speaking of lack of key information and assumptions – it amuses (and frustrates) me to no end to see everyone trying to shoe-horn what comes in the released chapters into what they have assumed/presumed to be the case based on their own readings/desires/inferences of and for characters and the imperfect information of groupings, etc that BS released. I have no doubt that most of these predictions and wranglings are completely off in many, many ways. And I am honestly somewhat envious of Wetlander and the other beta-readers (to say nothing of team Sanderson) who are probably laughing up their sleeves about it all. I can’t decide if I would take up Wetlander on it or not if she offered to share how off they are in a private conversation (not that she would or should…): insider info resulting in immediate schadenfreude highs and ability to see lots of irony vs spoiling the book? I guess I would choose not to know, but it would certainly be tempting…
A whole species of spren who are willing to give the Singers a second chance, rather than the humans. That means there was a first chance!
Prejudice by a spren, not wanting to bond a Singer (Rlain). Why?
Folks, the humans had their Recreance that irritated the spren. But why did the spren “abandon” the Singers in the first place way, way back when? There was a recreance-like event in the history of the Singers as well. Otherwise, why would Mr. Honor Spren be so adverse to bonding Rlain? Why is Venli talking about second chances here?
And the “facts” that led Singers to upset the Spren, and later humans to do the same in the Recreance? All twisted about by a Mr. Odium.
I also thought it very interesting that the word “Passion” was being bandied about by both Venli and Leshwi. Another thing Odium is trying to twist about to his own purposes, as we should all remember him branding himself the shard of passion in OB, rather than what he really is (hatred.)
I keep wondering if Renarin and Venli will be peers/coworkers somehow. Both have a novel spren interaction which manifests unique powers.
@10 – Humans also enslave other humans which gives some truth to her lumping fused and humans into a similar group.
I think Venli just became the most interesting character in the book. She sees hypocrisy in both the humans and fused. She sees the little guys getting crunched by the larger powers in the world. She is able to look at the bigger picture and is left with the desire to create a place that allows freedom. A place that doesn’t seem to exist under human rule or rule by the fused/odium.
@70 – The spren abandoned the Singers because the spren get more out of a bond with humans than with Singers. The Singers’ minds are partly in the Cognitive Realm, and thus the spren don’t fully transition into the physical realm as they do with humans. Of course, that could turn out to be false or misleading. I guess we will see!
I think Venli is changed somewhat but she is still wanting to create a “new society” for the Listeners. She still dislikes humans intently and has added the Fused. Her mate was one of the Listener’s thaken over by a Fused which brought home the reality of what they are doing to her people.
Now she shares with Renerin having a “corrupted” Spren, though it is a Void Spren. I wonder if this also makes her hard for the Diagram to predict.
I hold out a lot of hope for her but she has some serious smack downs coming if she thinks Odium will allow her and others to be a neutral entity in the war. The fact that she is under Leshwi makes me think there is a good chance that between her and Kaladin some or most of the flying Fused may change sides.
Why is Moash “He who Quiets” what does that mean? Quiets what?
FWIW – I needed the info dump so I liked it.
@66 Carl
Hmm. Given that, I think we have to assume the problem lies elsewhere.
The Essence corresponding to metal is given nonspecifically as “foil”, so it’s not like there’s a specific metal that’s much easier to Soulcast than others, but WoB is that the soulcaster needs knowledge of the material and the ability to convey that knowledge to Cognitive entities like spren in a way that makes sense. We have reason to believe that soulcasters can create alloys, since Taln’s mantra mentions that they will teach mankind to cast bronze if necessary and then soulcast blocks of metal for them. My assumption was that this choice was made because it was more efficient to soulcast large blocks of bronze that could then be cast into whatever shape was necessary, as opposed to carving it out of wax or wood and soulcasting that to bronze, but it also occurs to me that Taln might have meant that they would soulcast blocks of pure copper and tin to be smelted together. Even if soulcasters can create bronze, though, bronze is a relatively simple alloy of two well-known pre-industrial metals. Tin is rare, but it’s accessible and workable, and copper is absurdly common. Steel, though, is an alloy of iron and carbon. Do the Rosharans know that? It wasn’t proven until 1722 that iron became steel by absorbing something, and carbon wasn’t understood to be an element until a series of experiments in the 1770s and 1780s. Thus, I think it’s possible that while Rosharans have access to steel, they don’t have the knowledge necessary to soulcast it, which would substantially limit their ability to make delicate objects like fabrial cages out of steel. This would explain why they haven’t tried a steel cage: they can’t. Steel as the repeller metal is probably a popular but as-yet-untestable theory among Roshar’s artifabrians.
Alice. The ethos of human beings wanting something better is one reasons that colonizing the moon or another planet is enticing to some.
Lyndsey. I am not a fan of the “I hate you at first; but later-on I love you” trope. In my opinion, it comes across too often as cheesy. In this case, I do not want to see it. No matter how good a writer Brandon is (and I think he is a great writer), I do not know how he can make me believe in a Kaladin / Leshwi relationship will work. I could believe they could be allies; but not lovers. Kaladin is young (about 20) and frequently acts younger. He is a petulant person. Leshwi is very old; has several thousands of years of experience (perhaps not in a Singer body, but her soul has the memories of the past). There is so much inequality in that type of relationship. Putting aside the actual age, it is as much April-November relationship; like a 70-year old woman dating a young man who just turned turned 21 IRL.
Lyndsey. The way I interpreted the books so far, one becomes a Knight Radiant upon swearing their Third Ideal (with the possible exception of Lightweavers). It is at the Third Ideal when the spren can manifest itself as a Sprenweapon. Before that, a person is only a Radiant. Some Radiants are squires as I got the impression that not all orders contain squires. For those orders that do not have squires or if someone speaks the Ideals independent of an existing KR in orders which have squires, then he/she is only a Radiant; forms a Radiance.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@58 that actually makes a lot of sense… it’s definitely in the realm of the possible.
I am under the impression that being a Regal doesn’t grant the ability to use voidlight and Venli isn’t in one of the “brands,” so there is no reason why she would be able to use voidlight without her bond with Timbre. The Envoyform then might make her ability to draw in stormlight “translatable” to voidlight as well.
It’s also possible that the presence of the voidspren that Timbre is holding at bay is what allows it, or even that her being a Parshendi gives her the ability once she has bonded with a regular spren.
@73, goddessimho:
We know that futuresight can’t easily predict people who also have futuresight. (Mistborn spoiler: that’s why atium-users and electrum-users can’t be predicted well using atium.) That’s also why I speculated about Venli maybe having futuresight a few comments up from here: because clearly Odium didn’t predict her (and I would bet the Diagram did not, either).
We don’t know, but “Vyre” is the name Leshwi gave him, and it means “He who quiets.” Consider the Singers are all about sound and rhythm. “Silent” might be a euphemism for “dead,” and “quiets” for “kills.”
@74, Gazeboist:
Yes, and also we saw Jasnah create a storming huge bronze wall in Oathbringer.
Andrew Swenson @1. I am disappointed that that we do not have a Szeth chapter. In past weeks, many have lamented either the lack of Dalinar PoV chapters or too much Kaladin PoV chapters. We have had a good share of Shallon PoVs. Where are the Szeth chapters? On the back of the WoK cover, he is one of the 4 characters identified. I say let’s organize a protest at our nearest Hightstorm shelter. Demand our Szeth chapters. #WeneedSzeth.
Gepeto @2. I suspect the appearance of Yoskra is the same reason we see Lhan (know known as Kharat) in OB: why create a new character when a prior character who no longer has a purpose can be used. Also, I guess we will agree to disagree. From what we have seen so far in this series, I think we have enough evidence that Shadesmar can be very dangerous for humans, especially those who are not familiar with Shadesmar. We have already seen Jasnah, Shallan and Adolin almost die in Shadesmar because it had different properties than the Physical Realm (all almost drowned). Likewise, the manifestation of emotions in Shadesmar can kill. Finally, the Voidspren and Fused are starting to conquer parts of Shadesmar. Dangerous does not mean Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street horror.
Gepeto @17. Great point about Kaladin believing something to make it fit his actions/philosophy. I agree that overall she does not care for Kaladin on a personal / one-on-one level. Kaladin is a stubborn character. When he gets something in his head, he will bend the facts into a pretzel to support his conclusion. I hate people who do that. I am all for tying to justify the facts to support one hypothesis. But at some point, one has to admit he/she is wrong. Plain and simply wrong. Kaladin never is one to admit he is wrong. This, IMO, is Kaladin’s biggest fault. (His biggest fault, IMO, is his insistence that it his his duty to protect all those who he sees as his flock. Kaladin wants to remove their agency so they will not potentially suffer harm. In this way he is like Rand in WoT: refused to believe that others can sacrifice themselves for a cause they believe.)
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
I get that there is some kind of connection being made between Leshwi and Kaladin but I really don’t get it. Surely the method by which Leshwi attains a physical body on Roshar in the very first instance is completely unacceptable to Kaladin’s sense of honour. At its most basic, she’s walking around in a dead persons body. Regardless of how sane she may or may not be, or whether she has personal honour when fighting, her very existence challenges his sense of right and wrong in a way that’s irresolvable. She makes an interesting adversary but the pairing just doesn’t work.
If Kaladin has to have a romance arc, Venli makes a bit more sense… Though her actions and worldview are hardly compatible with him either.
I want him to be happy but I don’t think we’ve met a character that obviously shares his values or could understand him.(Other than Shallan, and Adolin was the right choice for her).
Venli hasn’t been my favourite POV to read in the past, but this chapter was surprisingly enjoyable and I think she’ll provide a more interesting perspective going forward.
@78 Andrew. Honestly, I have no idea why Sanderson chose to use Yoskra and I am not holding on my breath for her to have a significant role. I just thought the fact he used her may imply she yet has another small role to fulfill and I would very much enjoy reading this. I rather liked the tailors narrative in OB and I felt it was one we were missing insights on. Yoskra being reintroduced may mean we are going to find out more or not, but still, the possibility now exists.
On Shadesmar, I guess we may have to agree to disagree. One of the critics I had, during the OB re-read, was the Shadesmar sequence did not sufficiently convey how dangerous it actually was. Sure, emotions can attract bad sprens, but we didn’t really get to read it. We saw movement, from afar, but why those sprens are dangerous and how dangerous they actually are, we didn’t see it. Hence, I don’t think we truly felt/saw/experience how dangerous Shadesmar was. I am keen to… rectify this in RoW.
I wouldn’t mind some Friday the 13th in Shadesmar… creepy spren with a machete than slowly kills every member from the expedition from behind… I mean, there’s potential here. Or think of a disastrous mission, like The Terror. Something bad.
On Kaladin: I think last week’s chapter illustrates just how wrong Kaladin’s perspective is. The core reason he does not want his Windrunners to engage the Fused is not that he respects their honor and has an official understanding they will not kill his men if he does not kill them. There is some truth in there, but Kaladin is obviously rearranging the facts to make him reach the conclusion he wanted. He was looking for ways to justify not sending his men to fight… and Dalinar saw right through it. The real reason why Kaladin is withholding is he wants to avoid anyone getting hurt because he cannot handle it.
I also agree with you on Leswhi/Kaladin. The ship makes me very uncomfortable: an immortal being playing around with a man barely out of his teenage years. There is no love nor attraction here. Leswhi has a mission. She wanted to study the Windrunners so she laid back on them. Now she is done studying. Kaladin mistook this for honorable behavior.
I do not think this is Day 1, continued.
my reasoning comes from the following passage:
<quote>
“He killed Lezian, the Pursuer.”
…
Indeed, Leshwi spoke to Derision when she replied, “You will. He is newly reawakened,
<end quote>
Wouldn’t there have had to have been an Everstorm since the “day one” fighting
@Xaladin, you are correct, but now I want an April Fools Stormlight Archive book. 600 pages long, and all of it happens on Day One. If only we could clone Brandon so one of him could spend two years writing it just for the sake of a joke!
@81. I took the comment “he is newly awakened” to mean he has just arrived on Roshar. The body Kaladin killed was his first. I did not take that to mean that Lezian had already been reborn into a new body since Kaladin killed him. So, yes, this could still easily be the first day.
He who quiets: Makes total sense to me. For a people who hear rhythms, not hearing them would equate to death. Considering that it seems Moash’s main mission right now seems to be hunting down and killing Heralds? Yep, he who quiets. And here is the obligatory F*** Moash.
The ships. Yeah, I just shake my head on this. Not everything has to turn into a romance. Throw out the a fore mentioned age difference, there’s an entire species difference. You can have feelings of respect without having a romantic element creep in. Besides, as has also been mentioned, Singers have to be in mate form to reproduce, and I very much doubt that a Fuzed is going there. Most Singers in regular forms hated the idea of being in mate form, if Eshonai’s perspective is to be taken as the norm. I would think the idea of a Fuzed dropping that low is a huge reach. Especially after learning about the hierarchy in this chapter.
I just want to point out something interesting I noticed about the fused’s order names in their own langauge:
In Hebrew, the word Shamayim (one letter of Shanayim) translates to sky or, heavens.
I’m not a native hebrew speaker so I can’t find the exact letter which is different in mavset-im, but I’m sure it comes from Hebrew somewhere (Interestingly, the direct translation is the word defeat). If you can relate it, please let me know
@carl
That wall was obviously made of bronze-colored cloth. :p
Leshwi is way too old for Kaladin. I’m just sayin’.
Getting some real Bender vibes from the Fused right about now.
The Secretspren are almost certainly the “screamers”–it’s probable that they’re voidspren, since Syl didn’t seem to recognize them IIRC.
@65 – Selish magic is highly location-based, and became that way because of the two shards being splintered and their essence/power seeping into the Cognitive realm (and thereby indirectly the physical realm). A kind of cognitive or spiritual glyph imprinted on their soul may be how the Fused voidbind without needing a voidspren (like Venli does for her Envoyform); we just don’t know enough about voidbinding to make reliable conjecture at this point.
The Fused may be a weakened force from their heyday, but it’s a year in and they’re still adding to their numbers. That doesn’t bode well for Team Radiant, especially with the Nahel-dampening fabrial tech they’re starting to employ.
I am wondering if Leshwi declaring that a dangerous thing is happening is occurring at the same time that Navani gets her mysterious phone call.
I really liked the explanation for why Leshwi is so fascinated with Kaladin. I hadn’t really considered that building the Windrunners anew was actually an extraordinary achievement, moreso than just becoming a Radiant.
Regarding Venli’s motivations: everything she did to return the Fused was done because she expected the Listeners to be given the capacity to free themselves from their (human) oppressors, but she came to learn that Odium and the Fused don’t value the lives of the Singers any more than the humans do. With that realization, she had to accept that her actions lead to (as far as she knows) the total eradication of the Listeners, which was what she was trying so desperately to avoid. Oh yeah, and she got her sister and (presumably) mother killed, as well. That’s some major guilt, more than enough to make anyone stop and re-examine every life choice they’ve ever made.
Same thing with her personality: she recognized that her hate had made it easy for Odium to play her, that it had blinded her to his true intentions and gave him the means to manipulate her.
(whoops, didn’t see 87 before posting)
@87 hammerlock: Sure, but the location-based nature of Selish magic is because those magics tap in to the remaining Investiture of Devotion and Dominion, which, as you mentioned, is stuck there. As long as the brands are fueled by Odium’s Investiture, they could occur off-Sel. I should clarify that I believe that Voidmagic copies and /or distorts other systems, but does NOT corrupt the Investiture that the original magics are fueled by (hence why Voidlight isn’t red while corrupted spren are). Of course, this is all wild, baseless speculation that I’m just throwing around for gits and shiggles because the idea of an internal brand made me think of Dakhor and Forgery, but now that I think about it more, VoidForgery could actually explain why the Singers’ bodies change when the Fused take them…
Also, the Fused are Splinters – it’s probable that they don’t require a spren in ‘their’ gemheart because technically they ARE the spren, inhabiting another Singer’s gemheart.
@87, hammerlock:
Except the Radiants are also expanding as more and more spren relent and return to the Physical Realm to bond with humans (and secretly at least one Singer). It’s still pretty balanced. If a Fused dies, he/she returns in the next Everstorm when a new Singer sacrifices him/herself. If a Radiant dies, the truespren that empowered him/her returns when it bonds to a new human (or Venli).
All this makes me notice another symmetry: Venli/Moash. Venli betrayed everyone she had ever known, literally, bringing Odium and his forces back to Roshar to destroy them all: her sister, her mate ….
Moash betrayed everyone he had sworn to be a brother to (Kaladin and all of Bridge Four), allowing Odium and his forces to destroy Alethkar.
Both originally gained power from one side (Venli was a highly respected Listener, the closest thing they had to a highprince, Moash was a Shardbearer), betrayed them, and were granted great power by the other side (Moash as He Who Quiets, Venli as a Knight Radiant).
It isn’t as close a 1:1 comparison as Taravangian being the anti-Dalinar, but it is pretty good.
Note to both @hammerlock and @CruelSadist: we were asked to hide spoilers about the rest of the Cosmere. You can edit your previous posts. Just saying.
I’d honestly sort of love it if Lezian’s entire role in the story was to keep showing up and immediately get killed by Kaladin over and over again. And slowly go increasingly more and more insane, since he thinks of himself as a Big Bad, a Creature of Nightmare, and from the perspective of the other Fused Kaladin is treating Lezian as a pesky annoyance.
The term brand is probably another imported word like hound in axehound that is unknown in Roshar. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the literal meaning but is derived from the modern meaning for types of a product (which world is modern enough to be the origin of the term?). Since the parsh are natives they must have adopted it from Odium or the human immigrants. They probably won’t be happy if they find out it’s a human word.
@91 Carl
I think Moash is most fundamentally just our anti-Radiant, so he’s going to be an anti-parallel to any Radiant protagonist he gets compared to. He blames Odium/Passion for all his sins, unlike Dalinar who refuses to let Odium have his pain; he murders Roshone almost as soon as he meets the man again, unlike Kaladin who realized that Roshone just did not matter anymore, he betrayed Bridge 4 and the Coalition to the Diagram and then to Odium’s forces directly, unlike Venli who is on her way to doing almost the opposite, etc etc. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the side effects of Stormlight overuse from the Honorblade he’s carrying ultimately cause him to have seizures when he’s not using it, or otherwise be extremely frail and incapable of doing much without his various power-crutches, as an anti-parallel to how Renarin’s powers healed him and ultimately made it so he didn’t need to rely on things like Shardplate to be helpful on the battlefield.
@94 Birgit
What? Kaladin talks about his slave brands way back in WoK, and Venli explicitly links the word used in this chapter to the literal meaning. The process of becoming a Fused (not just the host but the actual soul of a Fused, I mean) almost certainly involves Odium “marking” the soul in some way, perhaps by mashing the soul together with a voidspren in a sort of sick parody of the Nahel bond. Just because Venli doesn’t see a visible brand on their skin doesn’t mean that the Fused haven’t been marked in some way as belonging to Odium; I think we’re meant to take that paragraph as indicating that they absolutely are.
Kaylea @76:
The gem archive from OB specifically mentiones that Bo-Ado-Mishram was able to supply the parsh with voidlight during the False Desolation when the Fused weren’t around, but “forms of power” aka the Regals were. So, I can only assume that at least some Regals do use voidlight to power some of their abilities. That would also explain how Venli could have easy access to the gems filled with it.
Regarding Venli’s change – I do think that it is possible that if she had been given the power and respect that she craved, she may have been able to get over her regrets about unwittingly orchestraing her people’s genocide and ultimately given her pain and guilt to Odium. But Odium’s side played itself by denying her.
BTW, I now wonder – can Odium take singers emotions away like he can with humans? Or is it that the very thing that makes humans more attractive to spren is also their weakness against him? I mean, becoming a Regal does something similar, but the Regals of the Last Legion – the ancestors of the Listeners, were still onboard with their desertion and helped to plan and execute it.
Concerning bronze, it has been specifically mentioned in WoR or OB that the Azish have a soulcaster device producing it, which is why so many of their buildings are covered with it. Personally, it would make more sense to me if steel couldn’t be soulcast – because in Dalinar’s vision of the Recreance, the soldiers were wearing breastplates of soulcast iron. And why would anybody make iron armor, unless they couldn’t transform things into steel? I
El Cochino @83
That’s the way I read it, too – at least in part because Lezian was so clearly a new thing the humans hadn’t seen before. In this scene, Venli wants to know if Leshwi had killed Kaladin this time; Leshwi replied that no, she hadn’t, it had been a draw. Then she says she might not get another chance to fight Kaladin, because he had killed Lezian. It seemed reasonable to me that the Fused were returning from the Hearthstone battle, since we know that’s exactly what happened there: Kaladin & Leshwi fought twice, one which Kaladin lost but not fatally, and one which they agreed to call a draw, and then Kaladin killed Lezian. After that, both sides disengaged.
In any case, I don’t know that the date of this chapter is terribly critical to anything. I just like having a timeline.
@91 Sorry, I’ve been down the rabbit hole so long, I’ve forgotten how much isn’t common knowledge lol
Unfortunately, I didn’t have an account for those posts (you got me to make one, so yay for that), so I can’t edit them :\ If you didn’t already flag 65 and 90 for spoilers, please do so
@Bob et al, I think we should also not forget that the Venli we saw before this point was under the influence of voidspren. She was being told what to do by Ulim the spren for YEARS before the everstorm so I bet she was twisted a bit during that whole time. Perhaps we are finally seeing a more pure version of her. Also with a much more honorable spren influencing her
This was new and interesting! I found the outline of Singer society very helpful, and Venli’s characterization interesting, though I do hope that later in the story she has to grapple more with her past actions.
I like her idea of forming a non-aligned group – she’s realized that Odium’s forces don’t care for her people, and obviously the Singers have no reason to want to align themselves with the humans who enslaved them.
This gives more insight 8 to the attitudes and values of the Willshapers – they’re heavily focused on freedom and self-actualization, which helps explain why (as mentioned in one of the Oathbringer epigraphs) they’re very varied in their goals and the other orders can regard them a flaky.
Another comment – with the Heavenly Ones paralleling Windrunners and the Masked Ones having some similarities with Lightweavers, I wonder if all the Fused (and Voidspren) will end up matching Radiant orders and Radiant spren. And in that case, which of the 10 Radiant orders would not have a matching Fused order?
Agreeing with @99 and others: I think Venli’s change was foreshadowed…in the relatively small amount of screen time she received. Lack of recognition/gratitude surely played part of any change, but she was not being attended to constantly by the same corrupting spren that led her to the stormform. Her viewpoints in OB all involved thinking guiltily about Eshonai, developing her relationship with the little spren that she actively hides, and being disquieted by the arbitrary rule and Listener murder by the Fused.She hates/fears her experiences with Odium personally.
She also had at least one experience with Dalinar before the big moment at the wall. I forget how exactly, but she gets sucked in to one of Dalinar’s trips to the vision of Kholinar with the guy who wrote Way of Kings. (Forgetting his name currently as well.) They converse and he appeals to her. She is surprised by his calmness/logic and doesn’t reject him out of hand, and then almost gets killed by the big Odium power/light that cracks the vision. That reinforces the inherent destruction of Odium’s power and him not being someone who can be reasoned with.
Come to think of it, that moment also seems to point to a sort of blindspot Venli occupies in Odium’s futuresight/perception-not-involving-being-physically-in-the-same-place as has been theorized above. I remember remarking to myself that it was strange that Odium, an actual shard, didn’t notice her presence in this spiritual/cognitive/both? vision. And this was before having the Radiant spren in her heart… She and Renarin connecting somehow makes a lot of sense.
Then Venli’s experience at the climax at the wall with Dalinar reaching out to her primed the change of heart. I was surprised by the specifics of how she could have both powers and actually taking Radiant oaths, but not that she had changed her views and started working against Odium. Her lack of personally affecting remorse definitely points to the quality of her character–being a blame deflector, self-interested, etc.–but she can mix those motivations and still oppose Odium.
El Cochino @@@@@ 83 and Alice @@@@@97,
I could see it being that way
Carl @@@@@ 82, if we could make copies of Brandon and have him writing even more in parallel, that would be awesome. Twice as many books! No joke ;)
@katherine, 101: Most likely Bondsmith.
I loved the chance we got in this chapter to see Singer culture from the inside.
I wonder what the event Leshwi’s referring to at the end of the chapter is? If she’s attuning the Rhythm of Agony, I assume it must be a sizeable victory for Team Radiant.
@105 Nina
My theory, now that I’ve had a few days to think about it: Lezian is 100% dead, and they just realized it. When Kaladin killed him, that just ended him. Dying within the zone of influence of the Fabriel meant that when he died, he died in such a way that Odium can’t retrieve him, and he won’t be back for the next Everstorm. A being that has endured countless millennium, snuffed out permanently in a muddy village.
If they don’t realize how and why it happened (I’m assuming it was due to the Fabriel in this theory), that’d be absolutely terrifying. And even if they understand, the loss of one of their greatest warriors, one that they’ve fought beside across countless battlefields, will have an impact.
@104, David_Goldfarb:
Agreeing, and in support: note that the Fused do not form Nahel Bonds. Of course they are missing a Bondsmith-impersonator class.
@106 I like that idea. High risk/high reward usage of the power sucking fabrial. That would make a good reason why we won’t just see them rolled out in high volume. Only in specific instances and provide a little more tension from both sides based on this new “weapon”.
Re: when are they Knights Radiant?
I think we’ve seen from a few different viewpoints that the 3rd ideal is when they become a KR. Whether specifically structured as the Skybreakers, or when they can create shardblades (Windrunners). I think the most convincing point is that Kaladin and Shallan (I think) don’t call themselves Knights Radiant until after swearing the 3rd ideal. Admittedly, I have no idea what ideal Shallan is actually at, I don’t know if I can draw the same parallel, but she didn’t start calling herself Knight Radiant after reaching Urithiru and Pattern forcing her to admit the Truth of killing her mother. (i count the Truths as the same as the Ideals for her, not sure if that’s correct). A lot of Kaladin’s refusing to call himself KR was couched in his depression, and for Shallan it was trying to keep it secret, but the fact that they both proclaimed after the third ideal seems intentional and meaningful.
Re: Venli’s non-revolution
I wasn’t as excited about the viewpoint and her plan as some others further up the comment chain. If that’s the direction he goes, Brandon would be able to make it work, but at the moment it seems pretty unbelievable that there will be any traction in the near future. It reads like empty aspirations and not much like what will actually happen.
@106:Matthew, what a great idea! It never even occured to me. A way to really kill the Fused would be a huge win but it would mean fighting them as human and not Radiant.
My original thought was that Odium had sacrificed a large number of the Fused in a way that really killed them in order to gain an advantage in the war. I’m trying to think of actions that might push Leshwi into switching sides. I can’t think of anything the current Radiants could do right now that would freak her out.
@joe K. 108
I don’t think Venli’s gambit will really work either. I still like it for a couple reasons. One, it gives her something to do. In a narrative that focuses on Radiants its hard to give someone away from the main cast something meaningful to the overall story. Second, it does so in a way that’s realistic. She’s in an uncertain position,, and people who are uncertain try to go back to something they know. Her people broke off from the wars and it worked for a couple thousand years at least. She’s a scholar with empirical evidence of a proven action, albeit one with a sucky sample size. In her eyes, with the power of Radiance she’d think she has an even better chance of success than her ancestors had. Third, she’s not running to humans seeking a bailout, which is true to her character. She has reasons to mistrust both sides. If she just threw herself on the tender mercies of Dalinar Kholin it would invalidate her story up to this point. Note that I don’t believe Roshar has a chance in hell of beating Odium unless everyone bands together, human and singer, but they aren’t there yet. No skipping steps.
Some other thoughts:
It is interesting, that Venli is familiar with the concept of gravitation, given that the Listeners had been illiterate until she herself devised a writing system for them (per one of Eshonai’s shapters in WoR). Now, of course, she may have learned both of these things from Ulim, but still.
It is also intriguing that the workform _wasn’t_ the one that could jump over chasms – that was the warform. So, it doesn’t seem that the singers are using the simple spren in their gemhearts to their full potential. Could it be one of the avenues to rapid evolution for them? I am of the opinion that the new fabrial science imitates Rosharan nature, as opposed to the old fabrials (like soulcasters) that don’t. But is it possible that we’ll see a feedback loop here? That discoveries of what spren can do in new fabrials would give the singers ideas of how to use the spren in their gemhearts in new ways? So that they eventually won’t need to bond a voidspren to have access to the “forms of power” equivalents? I remember that Eshonai was impressed by the new fabrials, rather than horrified, and saw parallels to the Listener forms back in WoR… or maybe in OB prologue.
An unconnected idea about Shallan:
Now I see how “The Girl Who Looked Up” might be very relevant to Shallan’s history. Supposing that there was an Unmade that was imprisoned somewhere on the Davar property and little Shallan unwittingly freed it, then this act would have opened her for Radiance, i.e. “let in god’s light”, but also spelled disaster for her family, which fell under it’s influence, i.e. let in “storms”.
Matthew @106:
Given that Lezian could use his powers when the fabrial was activated, I really doubt that it affects any of the Fused functionality. The big fabrial in Urithiru that inspired the voidrial certainly does when it is active, but even so I don’t think it likely that it prevented rebirth.
Could it be that it is only at this point that the thunderclast’s final death(TM) in OB became known? Or perhaps they have been aware for a year and held back partly for that reason. But it was now decided that they couldn’t allow the coalition to study the voidrial and therefore there is going to be a massed attack on Urithiru – where Leshwi knows that they’ll have to face Nightblood. Or, even more likely, something new, that we can’t really predict, happened. Though eventual battle of Urithiru is still in the cards for RoW, IMHO.
P.S. Nearly forgot to put down another intriguing detail – Leshwi doesn’t think that Venli feeling compassion despite wearing a Regal form is something unusual/unprecedented. This strengthens my conviction that the odius impulses of a voidform can be eventually overcome bar direct Shard intervention even without the nudging of a convenient Radiant spren, and that Eshonai was mind-controlled by Odium rather than just succombed to them. There is this WoB that mentions the possibility:
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/107/#e1375
SPOILER below for the Mistborn series.
@Isilel, it looks to me as if Eshonai was being controlled by Odium’s spren very much the way Marsh was controlled directly by Ruin. We get PoV of both of them still being aware of themselves and being in agony, struggling for self-control.
@110 Oh yeah, it’s certainly what she would do. I wasn’t saying that she should just accept the Fused’s domination or crawl to Dalinar for assistance. I applaud her for the attempt, and her ability to harness stormlight and voidlight could increase her chances of success. My point is that I didn’t think “Stormfather, this is gonna be great” because I don’t see success. Watching failed revolutions, or even worse, revolutions that never really get started in the first place because the proletariat doesn’t rise up, doesn’t excite me. That’s all probably my fault. Of course she’ll find some success. It’s the (almost) entire point of Venli’s first chapter. I’m just being curmudgeon-y.
Is it Tuesday yet?!?!?!?! Haha.
IIRC in the listeners songs that they feel the Spren betrayed them, and also that they can blend “their surges to ours” and “if we dare to have them again” them meaning the surges I guess. I don’t know if it is something new as Timber seems to think
The goal of Jezrien’s murder may have been to prevent the founding of his Order, if the Fused believed that a Herald or Honor was a necessary component. I am looking forward to learning more about how the Fused look at modern things, as it has been a long, long time since the last Desolation.
Venli is a bondsmith for sure
@116 The Heralds were created first – but having a herald present is not required for a KR order to exist. Details are sketchy, but we know that the spren worked out the Nahel bond on their own after seeing/learning/mimicking (?) what Honor had done in creating the heralds. A herald existing isn’t required beyond that initial prototyping “this is how its done” for the spren, in terms of KR orders.
As to why/how Jezrien was killed – and the manner in which it was done – I think that was completely separate. I have a hunch that the weapon FMoash used did something very specific. My theory: if the Heralds are Returned or similar, Jezrien’s cognitive shadow may have been either (1) killed (as in really dead dead), or (2) sucked into and trapped in that weapon. It was interesting that the fused would not do the job themselves – and had FMoash (a regular mortal) do it for them. Possibly they couldn’t be near that weapon, or risk the same thing happening to them?
Leshwi appreciated Passion—but wry comments were entirely different.
Then she’ll never belong in Kaladin’s crowd, where tolerance of snark is mandatory. :-p
@116, nightheron:
The Windrunners were already founded, though. By Kaladin. And the Fused would know this, because several of them chased Kaladin back in Part One of Oathbringer.
@117, Sam:
We’ve already seen that she is a Willshaper. Timbre is a lightspren, and Venli has used both the Surges of the Willshapers, Transportation and Cohesion.
Now, somewhere (IIRC) Brandon has said that it is in theory possible to belong to multiple Orders. But my memory is demonstrably not that good.
I could have sworn that singers and listeners were capitalized in previous books. When I saw they were lowercased in this chapter I went back and checked my ebooks and the Coppermind Wiki…. and they’re lowercase! I notice that some commenters here and in other forums are also using uppercase. It’s like the Mandela Effect is at work or something.
I’m very curious about the shapeshifting Fused. I had forgotten about the one in Oathbringer. Are they using lightweaving or actually changing their form? What if one of them impersonates one of our characters to gain intel or access to the inner radiant circle? Could be disastrous.
Regarding the chapter recap:
I believe it should say Venli is Regal, not Fused.
Regarding Timbre communicating with pulsations, I’m guessing this is unique to the Willshaper spren. Back on the Reacher ship in Shadesmar in Oathbringer, Shallan noted that the Reacher spren seemed to communicate through vibrations using copper wires embedded in the ship. If they use the rhythms to communicate they may be especially well suited to bond with singers.
This has probably been long since explained and I missed it but I still don’t why the Five didn’t explain why they assassinated Gavilar, I’ve been trying to get my head round it for quite some time.
@122
Gavilar was showing signs that he knew how to bring back the Listener gods, aka the Fused. His stated goal was to usher in a new Desolation and thus force a return of the Knights Radiant. The Five killed Gavilar in an attempt to prevent such an action from occurring. They succeeded but the Desolation happened anyway.
As to why they didn’t explain it, well they did tell Jasnah why, although in a cryptic sort of way. Maybe they believed that if they explained more thoroughly it would give some people ideas. They must have felt it was much better if nobody ever thought of it as possible, or even if they forgot about it altogether.
When the Voidspren bonded Sadeas’ men in OB, were those spren the type that would inhabit singers to form Regals or were they the type of spren that would inhabit singers to form Fused. I think the former because after Dalinar traps the Thrill, the spren leave, leaving the men to sag and no longer have red eyes. I also think the Fused would not be pleased to lean they have bonded to human rather than inhabited singers. I am not sure that Odium would waste his Fused to bond with humans.
Another question. Had Sadeas not agreed to turn to Odium’s side, would Odium have been able to have the voidspren bond those soldiers? I do not know how I would answer my question. I could make arguments for both sides. I also wonder how long Odium had been preparing Odium’s men for such conversion? I have nothing but a gut feeling. I think it is since around the time Ulium began talking with Venli.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@124, AndrewHB:
What makes you think Voidspren bonded to the Sadeas army? I read that as being one of the Unmade influencing them. I’m wrong a lot, but that’s how I read it.
Spren have nothing to do with the Fused. They are the Cognitive Shadows of dead singers, and that one I am actually sure of.
@ 125. Carl
When Kaladin and co. reach the Oathgate at Thaylen City, don’t they describe an army of red spren surrounding the oathgate, who then disappear into the physical realm, possessing the Sadeas troops? These are voidspren who I would guess are connecting them to Odium, and is not related to the Thrill which shows up slightly later to drive the soldiers into a frenzy.
So, the red voidspren connect them to Odium, so they can hear his voice and are filled with the passions he gives them, then the Thrill throws them into a battle-lust and they full on turn traitor. That’s how I read it at least. Odium had to take several steps in order to get them to fully betray their former allies, including the long years of addicting them to the Thrill.
Artemis @121 – Thanks for the catch! I corrected the article to cross out Fused and replace it with Regal.
Andrew & Carl – I went back and reread that section, and it’s really unclear whether it’s the Thrill inhabiting the Sadeas army, or a whole lot of Voidspren, or a whole lot of Fused. Kaladin’s POV shows first the “roiling mass of red light” (the Thrill) and then “the strange army of spren” vanish from Shadesmar. Venli thinks that the “army of spren” are Fused souls who haven’t yet chosen a body, and in Shadesmar they appeared as “vaguely humanoid, though they were twisted and odd, like shimmering dark light.”
The problem comes with the fact that “spren” is both singular and plural, meaning that you can read the following as either one spren (the Thrill) or many (the Fused):
The biggest problem I have with this being Fused taking the bodies of men is that it doesn’t seem to kill them when the spren/fused/whatever-they-are leave them. That looks more like Voidspren. But if Venli really did see a lot of Fused souls, and they started moving into bodies in the Physical realm, where were they going? So… it’s ambivalent. A good question to ask Brandon sometime.
Is Venli one of the 3 bondsmiths?
@128: That is unlikely at this point – but we haven’t read the whole thing yet; anything could happen. She has bonded the type of spren that were bonded with Willshaper knights radiant.
@Wetlandernw:
Well, the Everstorm was taking place there. Presumably some of them were jumping into singer bodies.
A new theory about what has Leshwi in agony: another Singer became a Radiant, but didn’t have a Voidspren to hide the fact. Or did have the Voidspren, but was found out anyways.