Greetings, O Intrepid Early Readers of the RoW! It’s story time again! Now that you’ve read Chapter Nine, come on in and join us in thinking through Kaladin’s battle aftermath, Navani’s travel & study session, and Shallan’s mission conclusion. Two sub-arcs concluding, and one clearly opening up new mysteries. Let’s go!
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.
In this week’s discussion we also discuss some minor magic-system things from Mistborn in the Fabrial Technology section, so if you haven’t read it, consider giving that section a pass.
Also: Yes, we know there may be small typographical or continuity errors in these chapters. They have been through a very thorough gamma read since this version, and those errors won’t be in the published version.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin, Navani, Shallan
WHERE: Hearthstone, travelling, Shattered Plains
WHEN: Day One, cont.
Kaladin and the Windrunners escort the Fourth Bridge before being called away to escort Dalinar and Navani to the Shattered Plains, and Kaladin wrestles with his depression and his feelings about Moash. On the way, Navani discovers a strange spanreed ruby that’s been left in her travel-room—and is accused by a mysterious writer of being a monster for her work with fabrial technology. Meanwhile, Shallan and Adolin head towards Narak and discuss Shallan’s secrets, some of which she still isn’t fully ready to tell him. She does reveal a bit about the Ghostbloods, though not that she’s a part of the organization… and through it all, a Formless identity swirls in the back of her mind.
Overall Reactions
A: With three perspectives in this chapter, it’s hard to have an “overall” reaction. Kaladin’s POV was mostly just wrapping up the departure from Hearthstone. Navani had some fascinating insights for us on fabrial science—most of which we’ll talk about below. Shallan had some revelations that mean a lot more to the reader than they do to the characters, and start making overt ties between Roshar and the rest of the Cosmere. However, there is one event that really grabbed my attention, which is the stand-out of the chapter for me.
Navani cocked her head, noticing something odd. The wall beside her reflected a faint shade of red, blinking on and off. Like the light of a spanreed.
A: Like… What in Damnation is going on? Being from Earth instead of Roshar (and having watched far too many action-adventure movies) my first reaction to the blinking light was that someone had bugged her bubble; second was that a bomb was about to go off. Fortunately, Navani (being the curious sort she is) quelled that fear for me right away:
She leaned back, then peeked under her table. There, stuck to the bottom with some wax, was a tiny ruby. No, half a ruby. Part of a spanreed, she thought, picking it free with her fingernail.
She held it up between her fingers and studied the steady pulsing light. Yes, this was a spanreed ruby…. It had clearly been stuck here for her to find. But who would do it so sneakily?
A: Theory time! Who is it? According to the beta spreadsheet, my thoughts were (in order): a spren, the Sibling, Nightwatcher, Cultivation, and a Dysian Aimian. (At this point, Navani had already mentioned the trip to Aimia and the cache of Soulcaster fabrials they’d found there, so maybe that’s why I fastened onto that notion soon-ish.) The trick is, how did a spren manage to move a physical object that well? Plus, who better to sneak into Navani’s airshell to plant a spanreed ruby than a purpose-formed cremling? That, more than anything, made me think that one of the Sleepless was on the other end.
(What I do find amusing about this reaction is that I was so busy thinking about who could have planted the ruby that I completely forgot to think about who could actually use a spanreed to write messages…)
L: An Aimian makes the most sense to me, too, as an Aimian would absolutely be able to take form into order to write the messages.
You must stop what you are doing, the pen wrote out, using a cramped, nearly illegible version of the Alethi women’s script. Immediately. … You are the monster Navani Kholin. You have caused more pain than any living person.
A: Uh… gulp? Sleepless mad at Navani? Or someone else? We know so little about them that it’s hard to say whether a Sleepless would be offended by capturing spren for fabrials.
L: Navani, a monster? This is particularly interesting to note in regards to her character arc so far, in which we’ve seen her relationship with Gavilar and how emotionally abusive it was. She thought herself a bit of a monster for wishing for his death, and then it happening… so thematically, this development makes a lot of sense.
A: You know, I kinda skipped over that part because I was so curious about the correspondent. It is an interesting theme—and the more so because the ways in which she’d call herself a monster are so different than the accusation this person is making.
You capture spren. You imprison them. Hundreds of them. You must stop. Stop, or there will be consequences.
L: The fact that the unknown writer only says hundreds leads me to believe that they’re talking about Soulcasters specifically. We’ve already read in this chapter that Soulcasters, unlike normal fabrials, are trapping Radiant spren—and there aren’t nearly as many Soulcasters as there are regular fabrials. But why would Unknown Writer blame Navani for Soulcasters? It’s not like she’s making them herself, so… that theory doesn’t quite hold water, either.
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
A: That’s one of the more frustrating aspects of this whole conversation. Navani argues that the honorspren themselves say that what she’s doing is fine, no worse than using chulls to pull a wagon—which is an argument I agree with, by the way—but the Writer dismisses both the argument and the honorspren.
L: Then there’s this:
You must stop creating this new kind of fabrial. I will make you stop.
L: New type of fabrial? What’s Navani doing that’s truly new?
A: Another relevant question. The only new thing I can think of (granted that we don’t have a timeline of recent advances in fabrial technology) is the way she’s using the conjoined amethysts as propulsion… but I don’t see how that is a big difference. As she points out in this very chapter, most of what she’s doing is a matter of using existing methods in innovative ways.
L: And let’s not forget that Unknown Writer is using a fabrial themselves, in order to communicate! Hypocritical much, if they’re just talking about fabrials in general?
A: Exactly. I’m really confused.
The honorspren cannot be trusted, the pen wrote. Not anymore.
L: I mean… we haven’t exactly gotten a good impression of most of the Honorspren in Oathbringer, considering they tried to haul Syl back against her will and all, but this raises a lot of questions!
A: We might know a lot more about the world if we knew who was writing this… And so we have a new mystery to carry us forward, now that the initial avalanche-battle is over.
Humans
“So, the bastard is still alive, is he?”
“We had a confirmed sighting of him two months ago, at that battle on the Veden border,” Kaladin said.
“Aye, two months ago,” Teft said. “But I figured someone on their side would have killed him by now. Have to assume they can’t stand him either.”
A: LOL. As Kaladin points out, the Fused must not hate Moash all that much, since they gave him Jezrien’s Honorblade. I still think Teft has a point…
L: I love Teft. He’s the grizzled old battle-axe type of character who doesn’t take anyone’s s*** that we all love so much. Or at least… I do.
When a hundred items indicated a pattern, then one broke that pattern, it showcased how remarkable the pattern was in the first place. Deviation highlighted natural variety.
On the other hand, that deviant stood out. Like a fraction on a page of integers. A seven within a sequence of otherwise sublime multiples of two.
A: Have I ever mentioned how much I love Navani? She’s such an engineer.
Relationships & Romances
Dalinar … flew in the line—kept aloft by a Windrunner—and wore a face mask with goggles to keep his proud nose from freezing right off. …
She smiled at his mask and three layers of coats. Nearby, lithe scouts in blue flitted one way or another. Dalinar looked like a chull that had found itself among a flock of skyeels and was doing its best to pretend to fit in.
She loved that chull. Loved his stubbornness, the concern he took for every decision. The way he thought with intense passion. You never got half of Dalinar Kholin. When he put his mind to something, you got the whole man—and had to simply pray to the Almighty that you could handle him.
A: Awwww… I really do love this peek into Navani’s heart. It takes a certain maturity to recognize the ridiculous in the one you love, and love them not only in spite of what you clearly see, but partly because of it. This might be a silly example, but she does see Dalinar’s shortcomings; she just loves the whole person, weaknesses and all.
L: Yes, this is really endearing and lovely to see.
Adolin scooted over beside her, and she felt his warmth. She closed her eyes and melted into him, breathing him in—as if she could feel his soul brushing against her own.
L: Awwww. Shallan’s such a romantic.
A: That’s so over the top. Perfect Shallan.
He’d removed his jacket, and the shirt beneath reminded her of when he came to their rooms after sparring. He always wanted to bathe immediately, and she… well, she rarely let him. Not until she was done with him, at least.
L: Ha! Atta girl, Shallan.
A: ::snort::
“You never push,” she eventually said. “Though you know I keep secrets from you.”
“You’ll tell me eventually.”
L: I have to admit, I both love and hate this. I love that Adolin trusts her enough that this isn’t a huge problem for him, but I hate that that trust isn’t reciprocated from Shallan’s end enough to just tell him these things! I don’t believe that a romantic partner needs to know everything about their partner’s life—we are all individuals and we all have things that are ours and ours alone, but at the same time… these are important things. These are things that could affect Adolin and his job, too. Things that could put his life at risk, or the lives of those they love.
A: Well said. There are hints that she has more issues from her childhood to face, but the part that really grates on me is her involvement with the Ghostbloods. That could put the two of them in direct conflict if she’s not careful enough—and even if she is—and it really bothers me.
I trust you, Shallan. But sometimes… I wonder if I can trust all three of you. Veil especially.”
L: A valid thought, honestly.
A: Totally. What a hard situation for Adolin. As if your spouse switching personas with no notice isn’t bad enough, feeling that you can trust one but not another. How can you really try to plan anything, if you’re afraid one aspect of her might betray you?
Please, she whispered. Save me.
Veil reluctantly emerged. She sat up, not pulling against Adolin any longer—and he seemed to understand, shifting his position in the seat. He had an uncanny ability to tell which of her was in control.
L: This is amazing, that he can tell so quickly which of them is in control. It speaks highly to how observant he is, and how much he loves her, that he can pick up on those little subtle differences she’s undoubtedly giving off in each of her personas.
A: He never seems to argue about it or resent it, either—though I can’t believe he likes it. I’m really torn about this. I love that he can sense the shift so quickly, and that he’s so supportive of her even when he can’t really like the necessity. But I worry about enabling… :(
She would tell Adolin everything, eventually. She’d told him some already. About her father, and her mother, and her life in Jah Keved. But not the deepest things, the things she didn’t even remember herself. How could she tell him things that were clouded in her own memory?
L: Well, I’m glad to see this, at least.
A: There’s the bit I was thinking of earlier… What horrible memories of childhood are still buried in unacknowledged memories? Killing her mother, watching her father deteriorate from loving to abusive to murderous, killing her father, trying to protect her (useless) brothers… What further trauma is she still hiding? How much worse can it get?
Bruised & Broken
When Tien had died, and when he’d failed Elhokar. Foolish though it was, the second one hurt almost as much as the first. He hadn’t particularly liked the king. Yet somehow, seeing Elhokar die as he nearly spoke the first Radiant Ideal…
A: I can relate to this. For the first two and a half books, I didn’t particularly like Elhokar either. I didn’t hate him, but he wasn’t a likable guy. Then halfway through Oathbringer, he started facing his own faults, looking for good examples to follow, and showing an unaccustomed humility. Just as I started to like him sometimes, to see him begin the first Ideal and then be cut down… Yeah, I still cry every time I read it.
It didn’t belong in the sky.
One might argue that Kaladin didn’t either.
L: Poor, poor Kaladin. This just hurts so much to read.
Why didn’t I kill him? he thought. I’ll kill parshmen and Fused for existing, but when I face Moash, I lock up? Why?
He felt so stupid. How had he been so easy to manipulate? Why hadn’t he simply rammed his spear into Moash’s too-confident face and saved the world a whole ton of hassle? At the least it would have shut the man up. Stopped the words that dripped from his mouth like sludge…
A: I can’t disagree… except that Kaladin being who he is, he could never do that.
L: Killing a friend, even one that had betrayed him? Yeah. Not in Kaladin’s MO.
Why couldn’t he remember those times, the warm times? Sitting at the fire with real friends?
Real friends including a man who had just tried to persuade him to go kill himself.
A: I’m just hoping he remembers this! Whatever Moash may have been in the past, he is not a friend now. Just… NO.
L: He’s long past that, yeah. Talk about burning bridges.
“You freeze whenever you hear reports of lost Windrunners.”
When he heard of his soldiers dying, he always imagined running bridges again. He heard the screams, felt the arrows in the air.…
“Please,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do. I can’t understand this about you. I’ve tried so hard. I can’t seem to make sense of how you feel or why you feel that way.”
A: I don’t know who to feel worse for—Kaladin coming apart at the seams, or Syl trying desperately to understand and help him. This is one of the times I’m really grateful to have already been told that the Windrunner numbers had increased so dramatically; it means that “lost Windrunners” doesn’t necessarily mean anyone we know.
L: I feel for Syl here, too. While it’s awful to be in that depressive state, in some ways, it’s just as bad to be on the outside looking in, not knowing what to do to help someone you love. Even worse for someone who hasn’t experienced depression themselves, who can’t possibly understand how it feels from the inside.
“Renarin said he found you kneeling there. No weapon in hand. Like you’d frozen in battle.”
Teft left the sentence dangling, implying a little more. Like you’d frozen in battle. Again. It hadn’t happened that often. Only this time, and that time in Kholinar. And the time when Lopen had nearly died a few months back. And… well, a few others.
A: So… five or six, maybe seven or eight? How many times in the last year has he been unable to continue a battle because he’d frozen? He’s got to know he can’t keep doing this. I think we talked about this before: if you’re at risk of freezing up in the middle of a fight, you do more harm than good by being there. Your friends can’t count on you to watch their backs, and they’re going to be so concerned with watching your back that they won’t be as effective as they should. Kaladin really should see the problems baked into this particular cake.
L: He should, but I can also see him continuing to ignore them, for many reasons. I could absolutely see him thinking that “the only thing worse than your friends dying to try to protect you, is your friends dying because you weren’t there to help them when they needed it.”
She pulled closer, and couldn’t help imagining it. What he would do if he knew the real her. If he knew all the things she’d actually done.
It wasn’t just about him. What if Pattern knew?
L: Wait a second. Pattern? What doesn’t Pattern know?!
A: Is… is there something horrible buried in her pre-Pattern memories? Wouldn’t that mean something from … I don’t know, maybe 7 or 8 years old, before she developed that precociously early Nahel bond? This just gets more complicated.
And deep within Shallan, something else stirred. Formless. She had told herself that she would never create a new persona, and she wouldn’t. Formless wasn’t real.
L: Yiiiikes. This is extremely concerning. The very fact that she’s named it is… oof. That’s step 1 on the road to New-Persona-Ville.
A: Noooooo!! Not only is it a clear step, it sounds like a very dangerous one. “Formless” is just so worrisome. Veil and Radiant have distinct forms and purposes, but… what is implied by calling this thing Formless, and saying it’s “not real?”
Father thinks I did something terrible. But… I was right, Veil. I’m not going to let someone hide behind social propriety while threatening my family. I won’t let them use my honor against me.
L: That line about Dalinar… That’s got to hurt, given how much Adolin looks up to him.
A: Their relationship must be changing, and I can’t help thinking the change is going to hurt both of them. I don’t really see how Dalinar can think that what Adolin did was all that terrible in comparison to his own deeds, other than that Dalinar’s actions were mostly in the form of conquest. (Which isn’t really better, but whatever…) Is it back to that “I wanted you to be a better man than me” issue, and Dalinar thinks it’s “terrible” because it doesn’t fit that image? If so, and if Dalinar’s autobiography has come out, that particular problem has to go both ways now.
L: Oh yeah. I really want to find out what Adolin’s thoughts on that autobiography are.
Keeping secrets from Adolin was eating at her from the inside. Fueling Formless, pushing it toward a reality.
L: Hooboy. This cannot be good.
A: Nope. Nopity nope nope.
Weighty Words / The Knights Radiant
She waved toward the gathered Windrunners. “They’re congratulating Laran,” Syl explained. “She spoke the Third Ideal while we were in that burning building.” …
“In a minute here, you’re going to go congratulate that girl for saying her Third Ideal. It was rough on her, like it is on most of us. She needs to see your approval.”
A: For a quick reminder, Laran was another of the Kholin scouts turned Windrunner squires, along with Lyn; we saw them together a couple of times in Oathbringer. Teft’s comment is at once illuminating and obvious: a situation that requires you to protect even those you hate—and promise to do so forever—is going to be a painful situation. It makes you wonder, for each new Windrunner… what was their challenge? Kaladin had to protect Elhokar, Teft had to protect himself in order to protect his friends; who, in this battle at Hearthstone, did Laran have to protect even though she didn’t want to?
L: I’m so fascinated by all the side-characters, I would love to know their stories too! But… at the same time, I don’t want this story to spiral into Wheel of Time territory where we need a glossary to keep track of all the characters…
A: Indeed. I remember someone asking Brandon, when The Way of Kings first came out, how he was going to keep the series from sprawling with all these side characters, like the WoT did. His answer was, “I have one advantage over Robert Jordan. I’ve read Robert Jordan.” Much as I loved that series, I have to admit that the side stories got overwhelming. Not the different arcs of the main characters, but the gazillions of side characters. Morgase’s story was interesting in itself, like I’m sure Laran’s would be—but IMO it doesn’t really help the main storyline enough to justify the rabbit trail.
Cosmere Connections
Like this page—a list of terms or names her spies had heard. She was trying to define what they were.” Shallan moved her finger down the page.
“Nalathis. Scadarial. Tal Dain. Do you recognize any of those?”
L: Nalthis is the world in which Warbreaker takes place. Scadrial is Mistborn. Taldain, White Sand. The spelling changes are likely artifacts of translation into this language—language/names on Roshar (in Alethi anyway) seem to follow a pattern of attempting to create harmony by making them as symmetrical as possible. The fact that the Ghostbloods have so much information about other worlds in the Cosmere isn’t surprising, given that we’ve seen Mraize with a bunch of artifacts. But it is fascinating that they know this much.
A: It really makes me wonder whether, or how much, Our Heroes are going to learn about the wider Cosmere in this book! Or the next, at least.
L: It makes me wonder how important it’s going to be, going forward, that people actually read the other books and realize that there are connections. Up until now, it’s been possible to just read Stormlight and enjoy it without the added knowledge of additional tie-ins. Now… it seems as if we’re heading into an Avengers: Infinity War scenario, in which watching the film without knowing the rest of the MCU will result in a lesser experience. (I’d like to point out that Stephen King pulled a similar trick with the Dark Tower series, in which it was connected to almost all of the other books he had written. However, King’s connections were either subtle enough or explained within the text enough that even if you hadn’t read The Stand, or Insomnia, or IT, you could still read Dark Tower and totally get what was going on. I… am starting to think that Sanderson’s work is heading in a more MCU direction than this.)
A: For years, we’ve known that they would tie together eventually. I just didn’t expect this level of connection in the first Stormlight Archive set! Sure, Dragonsteel or Mistborn Era Four, but…
L: Same. I was expecting it in Dragonsteel, or whatever the Hoid-book was supposed to be…
A: Yeah. When we start visiting about Yolen for reals, everything has to tie together. This is just a lot earlier than anticipated. (Hey, readers! When we get to the full reread, or even the spoiler review discussions, if you’re someone who hasn’t read the rest of the Cosmere, I’m going to want to hear your reactions to the chickens that are now hatching from what used to be Easter eggs. Can you still read Stormlight and just accept that those are other worlds, or is it damaging the experience?)
Secret Societies
“We’ve been hunting them. Ialai was leading them.”
“No, dear, she was leading the Sons of Honor. The Ghostbloods are a different group.”
L: I have to laugh at this, because like Adolin, I have issues keeping them all straight sometimes too! (Also, writing-craft-wise, this is a really good way to remind the reader of this.)
A: I agree—brilliant way to infodump without infodumping! Megan and I did an article on the Secret Societies a while back, and it was work to sort them out! (And after this book, there’s a good chance the whole article could be rewritten with new information. Naturally.)
Honestly, I’m not sure what they want, besides secrets. They were trying to get to Urithiru before Jasnah, but we beat them to it.” Led them to it might have been more accurate. “I’m not at all sure what they want those secrets for.”
“Power,” Adolin said.
That response—the same one she’d given to Ialai—now seemed so simplistic. Mraize, and his inscrutable master Iyatil, were deliberate, precise people. Perhaps they were merely seeking to glean leverage or wealth from chaos of the end of the world.
L: I’m glad that Shallan is asking this, because it’s a question I’ve been wondering about for a long time, too. Like her, I don’t believe that it’s so simple, especially given all the links to other worlds in the Cosmere we’ve seen from Mraize. (He’s got an aviar from Sixth of the Dusk, among other things.)
A: Power, at least in terms of “political power on Roshar,” is definitely starting to look irrelevant to these people. It probably is still about power in one way or another, but on a much larger scale, and quite possibly with goals that Shallan has no means to comprehend.
Circled several times on one page at the end of the list was the word “Thaidakar” with the note, He leads them. But who is he? The name seems a title, much like Mraize. But neither are in a language I know.
L: I feel as though the identity of this person is going to become important, someday.
A: It has to, right? That name showed up in the first prologue, with Gavilar’s “You can tell Thaidakar that he’s too late.” Who’s Thaidakar, and what is he too late for? We have to find out someday.
What We Missed (In the Timeskip)
And the time when Lopen had nearly died a few months back.
L: Wait, what? Boy, I hope we find out about this in Dawnshard.
A: Ooooh, I hadn’t considered that! I assumed it was just a battle, but given what Sanderson has said about Dawnshard, that makes a lot of sense. So we get to find out before November, maybe!
The Soulcaster cache discovered in Aimia earlier in the year had brought an incredible boon to the coalition armies.
L: There’s that trip to Aimia showing up again!
A: I am really looking forward to reading about this! (On the assumption, or is it confirmed? that this is what takes place in Dawnshard… I guess that might be fan speculation, come to think of it.)
L: We know from one of Brandon’s recent posts that 25% of the viewpoints are from Lopen and 75% from Rysn… but that’s about it, other than the preview from his mailing list, which we shall not discuss here!
Fabrial Technology & Spheres
A pewter cage will cause the spren of your fabrial to express its attribute in force—a flamespren, for example, will create heat. We call these augmenters. They tend to use Stormlight more quickly than other fabrials.
A: Again, this is similar to the Allomantic properties of pewter, which manifest as increased strength, speed, durability, balance, and healing. I think we’ve proved by now that certain properties of metals are consistent across the Cosmere when Investiture is involved.
There’s just so much in this chapter about fabrials. I adored every word of it; my geeky little engineer’s heart was skipping for joy. I won’t quote all the things (I mean, you just read the chapter!) but a few things of note:
- The fabrial Lift brought back from the manor is essentially a smaller version of a particular set of stones in the gemstone pillar at Urithriu. Navani speculates that the latter might be Urithiru’s way of suppressing the abilities of the Fused so they simply can’t function in the Tower.
- Fabrial science really is science; the behavior of the trapped spren is so logical that the engineers have predicted designs they couldn’t construct at the time, but which worked as expected when the technology advanced far enough to build them.
- Just as Navani’s flying Fourth Bridge is made up of multiple fabrials working together, they have discovered that much of Urithiru’s functionality is similar—the big amazing fabrial-city is a collection of well-designed smaller processes. Navani & her engineers have been able to upgrade some of the fabrials, so that the lifts run faster and the waterworks are more efficient.
- They’ve discovered the capability to use Oathgates to enter Shadesmar at will, and have used it to study fabrials and the spren that “drive” them. Most of the fabrial-trapped spren are easily recognizable on the other side.
- Soulcasters are a unique case. The spren trapped in the
gemstonesfabrials are not visible in the Physical realm, but in the Cognitive they appear to be very small versions of the higher-level spren that normally form Nahel bonds. (Thanks for the catch on that one! In most fabrials, the spren are trapped in the gemstones, but that is clearly not the case with Soulcasters, and the book doesn’t say gemstone.)
L: You’re totally in your element here, with all this theory-crafting and -resolving about Urithiru and fabrials. I’ll just stick to my character arc and overall plot notes and let you have at it! All I will note is how disturbed I am that all this time, Soulcasters were being powered by what appears to be captive Radiant spren. Enslaving the non-sapient ones is a little distasteful, but overall the spren seem to be content enough. This… this gives me the heebie jeebies, especially considering what happens to people who use the Soulcasters too much.
A: I wish I could spend a lot more time on the theory-crafting, but I’ll limit it for now… As you say, the thought of captive Radiant spren is deeply disturbing. I put forward a theory sometime during the reread (and I’m too lazy to look it up for documentation) that maybe the Soulcasters (and possibly that healing fabrial Nale used on Szeth) are actually an equivalent to the Shardblades—that some of the Radiant spren took a different physical form than others at the Recreance, and have been trapped in that form ever since. I’m not convinced that it holds up, for a couple of reasons. One, we saw a Knight Radiant using one of those healing fabrials in Dalinar’s Midnight Essence vision, so that would require a bonded spren going with another Knight in the form of a fabrial. Two, Navani says that they look like smaller versions of the sapient spren in Shadesmar, but Shardblades are deadeyes there. So that theory is probably wrong in itself, but… maybe it leads somewhere else?
We’ll be leaving further speculation to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others!
Alice is sunburned from a wonderful day out on the lakes, thanks to a friend with a nice boat. Beyond that, she’s looking forward to Dawnshard, which she hopes to be allowed to beta read in the near future.
Lyndsey is trying to write this article as her three-year-old son attacks her with stuffed dragons, and she couldn’t be more proud. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.
I loved that it is really explaining fabrials. Also, does secret spanreed person think that Navani made the power stopper? It is the only new fabrial that we know about.
I too thought that for some reason (maybe simply because Navani was holding on to it) that the “secret spanreed being” was referring to the power suppressor fabrial, as nothing else we’ve seen or heard of seems particularly new…
Well, Formless is uh oh news. and hearing Kaladin has been freezing up more than the times we’ve seen is also uh oh news, and Navani being warned by an unknown being is also uh oh news… So my response to this chapter overall is simply: Uh Oh.
Of all the revelations in this chapter, the extra A in Nalthis had me full stop go and check the coppermind to see if I’d been saying it wrong.
I still don’t trust the aimians. If soulcasters are bad because they capture true spren (or min-true spren), and aimia was the source of the soulcasters. Then Aimia is were the true spren were captured. Remember their island got destroyed just like Ashyn. I also believe that a faction of the honor spren are now self-serving antagonists to Roshar. Not pro-odium, but in a sort of “Storm You” way to all other peoples.
This was a great week. We have finally moved away from Kaladin battling people and I feel the story is finally kicking in. I can’t say I am sorry not to read Kaladin fighting someone, this chapter was much better than the previous ones. More understandable too.
So things I loved… I really enjoyed Navani being called a monster: this one single line suddenly made her a lot more interesting than she was previously. Was the spren alluding to her fabrials or was it alluding to the War of Unification too? Navani might not have carried arms, but she took an integral part into planning it, so it is on her hands too. I hope there will be some of that because that makes so much more interesting than just the “fabrial lady”.
I obviously loved every words from the Shallan chapter. She still has secrets we haven’t uncover, worst ones and the knowledge she harms Adolin with her silence has started the creation process of another persona, one she does not want. Oh, this will be a problem… Adolin is already worried about what Veil or Radiant may do, he worries Veil may… be intimate with someone else. My heart broke, the poor guy: to trust his wife then to know he cannot trust her while knowing he also cannot blame her… That’s got to have started to take its toll on him.
Shallan is adamant neither Veil nor Radiant would betray Adolin or harm him, but what about Formless? The most real of them all? And what does it mean if Shallan is the fake one? Does this mean Adolin is in love with a lie and once the lie falls down, his wife will no longer exist? Shallan may be right to be afraid of this truth… She may be better off stopping right here, but she can’t, now can’t she?
My speculation… Formless will be the one to cause harm. Shallan, before, she hurt people, probably unintentionally, but there is something she *is* responsible of that happened, something that was *not* self-defense and if it does not come out, Formless will and Formless will not care about Adolin’s pretty eyes nor about the fact Shallan loves him… Everything will fall apart.
As for Adolin, well, he does not know about his father’s past, that is confirmed. Dalinar thinks Adolin did a very bad thing and I cannot wait to read their interactions because when Dalinar disapproves of someone, it usually shines through. That’s got to hurt but Adolin hides it, as he always does. I love how Adolin refuses to hide behind his Honor but still does not like the door the murder of Sadeas opened. Was is the difference between murdering Sadeas and Ialai? Can he still draw the line?
So all in all, this was a very good week. I am glad we got this today.
Can we get Kaladin a storming hug ffs? I’ve been on the “this isn’t too much Kaladin” team so far, but this chapter might have been my tipping point. We get it, he’s turbo depressed, and everyone around him is suffering for it. Let’s move this arc forward or come back to it later.
Navani the Monster is interesting, for sure. We’re getting into the nuts and bolts of Fabrial tech and I’m nerding out. The identity of our spanreed’s other end is at the top of my mysteries that want answers list. If there’s a new fabrial that Navani is responsible for, it seems weird to bring that up immediately after driving home how incrementally fabrial tech has progressed in modern times.
As for the MCU angle: I’m not worried about this in the first 5 books. Neat to see other worlds referenced by name, but I’m doubtful it matters beyond Shallan discovering what the Ghostbloods deal is. The possibility that we get to see a main character’s head explode like a reader’s does upon recognizing the scope of the Cosmere for the first time is exciting.
I think the new fabrials that the person at the other end of the mystery spanreed is talking about might be the upgrades that Navani is making to Urithiru. Maybe once they DO figure out how to power the gemstone at its heart the new upgrades won’t work, kinda like having two computer systems trying to control the same building. Or maybe they’re imprisoning enough spren now that they won’t be able to form enough shardplate for their new radiants? We have been theorizing (or has it been confirmed?) that shardplate is made up of the lesser cousin spren.
It’s also interesting to me that Navani, master artifabrian couldn’t identify the metal used in the suppressor fabrial. Either it is one of the more exotic metals like Duralumin, or it is a god metal. [Mistborn] (Duralumin steals connection when used as a hemalurgic spike). I’m pretty sure the Stormlight-draining weapons that the Fused use are coated in Chromium, due to how similar of an effect it has to what Chromium does allomantically.
If Soulcasters, and, by extension, the other Surge Fabrials, are powered by Radiant Spren, it seems odd to me that the Knight Radiant in the Midnight Essence vision used one, likely with his spren’s permission/acceptance (as did Nale’s Spren when he used the regrowth Fabrials on Szeth).
If the Spren trapped in the Surge Fabrials truly are Radiant Spren, why would actual Radiant Spren be so accepting with the Knights they are bonded to using them? Perhaps (theory time) the Surge Fabrial Spren are artifical created lesser versions of Radiant Spren.
Dear Kaladin, you are depressed af and suffering from PTSD, get help soon. Stop pulling a Shallan and confront your problems before you get a whole lot of people killed.
“Formless” reminds me of Mark Vorkosigan’s “Other” who also goes by “Killer” when he’s defined enough to actually be in the driver’s seat. I suspect the longer Formless lacks a name the more dangerous she will be both to Shallan and to others.
Dear mystery person writing Navani, actually explaining yourself would go a lot farther to stopping Navani than making vague threats and pronouncements. No one is convinced by someone who sounds like a deranged PETA member going on about bees. Sit down, have a chat and you could easily convince Navani to stop whatever it is she’s doing.
If nothing else, the parsh provide an excellent example of why an “apparently harmless” form of non-free labor should be stopped before everything goes wrong.
Navani’s description of the spren that power the soulcaster makes me think of how higher-level spren are created. We had some insight to this from Kholinar strike team’s visit to shadesmar and from some tidbits from Syl; a spren creates a baby spren from the energy existing on cognitive realm. I wonder if Elsecallers and Truthwatchers (more scholarly orders of radiants) could have created the “little versions” of their spren, not fully grown to achieve cognizance but grown enough to manifest powers. And use that little version to power soulcaster and the “heal-caster”, the device we saw in Dalinar’s vision and the one Nale used on Szeth. Since Radiant’s were “watchers on the rim”, it may have been acceptable to create at least these two devices to assist in war (healing, food, and weapons). Also note Taln’s mantra: “Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this.” Kelek and his order of Willshapers could have transported into shadesmar to create the spren needed to create the casters.
Now that we hear of another Windrunner saying the third ideal, I wonder if any have said the fourth? Or is Kaladin’s block and them using him as an example holding them all back? Will Kaladin think he shouldn’t hold his position anymore if multiple have or do pass him? Unfortunately, with the references to freezing in battle, I have a feeling it is going to happen at the wrong time and Dalinar takes him off duty (or at least battle duty) to get him self figured out.
Formless is…not good. Whatever happened to Shallan as a child REALLY had to be bad. I can’t even begin to guess.
Navani – Love her POV and love this new mystery.
on Shallan having trauma pre-Pattern and things he doesn’t know:
I think this is really a requirement for her to have attracted Pattern in the first place. It seems kind of shocking that she has more, but in order for the bond to form initially, there had to be some kind of damage otherwise Pattern never would have come to her.
It is a little surprising, but it really shouldn’t have been. I was just joking last week with my “Shallan really killed Shallan” secret since it just took everything to an absurd level, but maybe my deep down hidden unformed persona is a genius.
Also Cosmere: the other world names was like a record scratch while I was reading. Usually cross-world references are so subtle, this one stopped me in my tracks. I love it
I assume the monster portion refers to the creation of any fabrial. Navani is, of course, a scientist and creating the fabrial, from the spren side, is kind of monstrous since you are still capturing them. Fabrials being made of Radiant spren sounds truly horrific. Imagine if Syl or Pattern was captured somehow and doomed to exist as a Soulcaster. Having someone try to replicate the process would be terrifying, if you’re a spren. Do we know when the Soulcasters came into existence? Could that be tied to the Day of Recreance?
With regards to Shallan, I’m struggling to think of what a 7-year old could possibly do that could cause that much harm. Maybe she caused her mother’s death on purpose, as a kid? Like “maliciously”? Also I feel like Pattern has to know, in sort of the “he has always been with her” kind of way.
@12 Key. I think she drew the Unmade that destroyed her family out… I think she is the reason everything turned bad. She did something and the consequences of the thing she did destroy her family, caused her mother to try to kill her, caused… everything.
Of course, it wasn’t her intention, but I think the terrible truth she hides is… she is responsible for it all. That’s my guess.
Way out there theory: The person on the other end of Navani’s spanreed is the Bondsmith who has bonded the Nightwatcher. Cultivation and therefore her Spren would have an interest in keeping lesser spren from being imprisoned.
@10 – I don’t think any Windrunner has said the 4th Ideal yet. Mainly because the Rule-of-Cool says Kaladin has to be the first to do it. But I did have the thought, back when OB first came out and I realized that Teft and Kaladin were now on the same level, if Kaladin would still be the leader if other Windrunners pass him up in the Ideals. Like, if someone got to the 5th and Kaladin is still stuck on the 3rd, would it be awkward for him to keeping leading the Order?
Ok, Navani’s correspondant theory here, slightly scatterbrained but stick with me.
It’s Venli (or maybe another singer who has become a willshaper).
Her writing is cramped because she has a ‘listener accent’ to her handwriting but is writing in womens script via her envoy form language powers.
She thinks fabrials are all new because she hasn’t seen them before. The listeners knew about trapping spren in gems from interacting with the Alethi but did she know about complete fabrials? did they realise how many fabrials there were? Now that the singers are capturing human settlements they are finding hundreds of fabrials. This is also where venli would get a spanreed, she is an envoy/translator after all.
The reason she cares (and thinks Navani is a monster for making fabrials) is that she is a willshaper. She is seeking freedom and can’t stand to see the spren being imprisoned.
Finally, she put the ruby into Navani’s room using transportation (willshaper surges are transportation and cohesion, perhaps they work together to transport objects more easily). This part is a strech, we don’t know how transporting a fabrial through shadesmar works or whether Venli has progressed as a willshaper much, but I think it might be possible.
If i’m right we will find out in Venli’s viewpoint chapters before the end of the preview chapters.
I initially thought it was the sibling though, it would be nice foreshadowing for the ‘Navani becomes the Sibling’s bondsmith’ crowd.
Saying the 3rd Windrunner oath would have to lead into some really awkward situations. I mean when Kaladin did it the king was unconscious and didn’t hear. Teft was the one he hated most, but most people? They would probably have some awkward interactions afterwards with whoever it is they hated and still had to save! I’d love to see one of those scenes lol.
It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who has only read Stormlight, but I think those names would just be filed away as mysteries, as Shallan does by connecting it to Feverstone Keep. Peter said on Reddit last week that the Mistborn references are still just Easter Egg level, so I kind of expect it will stay that way. For us it screams Cosmere, but to the Stormlight only reader it’s just another secret.
I’m very curious about who is writing Navani. Could it be Venli with info via Timbre? We know Timbre is very angry with humans and she might have strong feelings both about the use of fabrials and honorspren bonding with humans.
I think the radiant spren that are in fabrials are like the oathgate spren I that I believe they agreed to do it as part of some bargain ( if I remember correctly the oathgate spren mentioned such a bargain)
My guess for other end of the spanreed, One of the Heralds that hasn’t appeared prominently elsewhere as of yet (So not Ash Taln Nale Ishar or the one who Moash killed whos’s name escapes me) The tone of the message read as slightly crazed like all the Heralds seems to exhibit in one way or another.
wow. Finally can take part on day of release!
Hopefully Kal gets help.
LOVED the open Cosmere references.
My theory is it’s Ishar writing to Navani and that Shallan will become Formless and just a Ghostblood agent and Adolin will have to rescue her from herself.
Whoever it is must know of Navani but either not particularly well or is too biased or upset to approach the problem effectively. She is well known as a scholar/engineer even if she isn’t as notorious as Jasnah. Maybe I’m too optimistic that a reasonable person who knows Navani as well as we do would see reasoned argument as the best first attempt at accomplishing their goal.
Assuming their goal is to get Navani to stop doing something she’s actually doing.
@20 Miggin. I think Formless will harm Adolin. Shallan will have to rescue herself and put an end to it. This week… it was foreshadowing one of Shallan’s personalities will harm Adolin… I dunno how exactly, but Adolin worries, Formless, something will happen, something Shallan does NOT want happening.
Running theory in a select group of the fandom: The spanreed correspondent is a brightly-coloured intelligent Chicken Scout (who may or may not have been in the process of bonding a spren that was then turned into a fabrial – thus motive). the sloppy handwriting is due to the pen being in its beak.
Case closed!
This is clearly the “mental health volume” of the Stormlight Archive, as we have Shallan dissociating, Kaladin suicidal, and Navani as survivor of spousal abuse.
At least Kaladin had the same question I did: why not just kill Moash already?
But this indicates that the Sons of Honor did, not the Ghostbloods. Doesn’t it?
@1, Tommy:
I read that as “raining” fabrials at first, which would be a good metaphor to use.
@14, Not Quite Dead Yet Shardblade:
Why?
Man, I am not comfortable with Veil throwing Sadeas in Adolin’s face to win an argument. Especially with her trying to just it to justify doing something worse. That’s just blatant attempt to drag Adolin down a slippery slope.
Anyone else seeing the potential Kaladin + Laral relationship now that Roshone is out of the way? The women he would NEVER END UP WITH?
Something needs to smack the wretch outta him.
I have a very bad feeling about the Command Crew – including Kaladin? (I am unclear if he went or stayed) leaving the Fourth Bridge. I really hope that the Hearthstonians aren’t due to die horribly. Did Renarin remain with them? It would improve their chances if he did.
It is also now confirmed that some (most?) of the 50 Nahel bonded Windrunners are on the Second Ideal and only working towards the Third. I have wondered why there were “only” 250 squires, when Kaladin alone had 30 or so in OB – well, that’s why.
Why does Dalinar need all the protective gear when Shallan didn’t during the flight to Kholinar in OB? Not only does he have stormlight to heal and keep warm, like she did, but he also has Adhesion and could learn to use it to protect himself and “sculpt the air” like the Windrunners do.
The mysterious missive to Navani (love her, BTW) – I bet that it is misleading or straight sabotage, given that fabrial science isn’t going anywhere and that it is the one thing that gives humanity a real chance this time around. I find the fact that whoever it is considers modern fabrials to be “new”, is a clue to their identity. They are some kind of Odltimer – a Herald, a Sleepless or just a Fused. It is true that a Sleepless would have had the easiest time of smuggling the ruby on board, but the others might have agents working for them on board too. For some reason, I particularly suspect Tezim/Ishar. The missive is similar to his style.
Personally, I find the revelations about the old-style fabrials to be rather sinister, much more so than the new-style ones. The book-cover text, written by the Sleepless, mentioned something about the Radiants turning against them, at some point after the Herald’s abandonment – could their production of soulcasters be the reason? Or did some Elsecallers and Lightweavers bind their spren that way as a less painful alternative to making them deadeyes during the Recreance? We don’t even know if soulcasters existed prior to it. Healing fabrials clearly did, but I assume that they were much more rare, given that the modern Rosharans are unfamiliar with them.
Poor Shallan! I begin to think that she may have inadvertently released an imprisoned Unmade as a child. It was a relief that she could confide about her parents to Adolin, but very concerning that she didn’t about the Ghostbloods. Also, they are adorable together, but there are clearly serious issues that will need to be faced and resolved. Oh, and have the 2 love-birds forgotten all about Azure and her strong hints of being from far, far away and arriving on Roshar through Shadesmar? Hopefully, there is more in Ialai’s notebooks than that – because it is totally not worth killing for, given all the worldhoppers running around. This world name-checking gives me hope that Zahel and Azure will come out in this book and have something to offer to the protagonists. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we learn that one Felt is among Adolin’s “best men” and turns out to be a Ghostblood spy and assassin.
I don’t expect it to be anything like the Avengers End Game, BTW, because it is mostly bit and tertiary characters who are from the other worlds, as well as antagonists. Hoid is the only prominent off-worlder ally and his is more of a Nick Fury. Zahel and Azure might provide some technical and other support, but they aren’t about to become main or even secondary characters. I am glad that we are leaving the “strictly Easter egg” territory, though, because I found all the offworlders scurrying around mysteriously, while not engaging with the narrative or affecting local technological development somewhat irritating. I mean, it isn’t like they have Prime Directive.
Is Taldain no longer cut off in this period?
Navani’s accuser could be either Venli or Malata (we know both their spren blame the humans due to the Recreance).
On Thaidakar:
MISTBORN SPOILERS
Just a crazy though, with no evidence… could he be Kelsier? We know from Secret History that Kelsier set out to discover the secrets of the Cosmere, and is revered by the southern Scadrians, from which Iyatihl (who call Thaidakar ‘master’) descends…
There is always another secret…
Only thing is, though Kelsier sure is on the psychopath side and can be merciless, I don’t know if he’d be so power hungry to lead such a group.
@27 Isilel.
Exactly what I thought too. Hence why she hates herself, it wasn’t about her parents, it was about what she did that led them to become who they ended up being.
Who’s Felt?
Yes, they have issues. I am pretty sure Formless will betray/harm Adolin, she may not cheat with another man as Adolin fears, but she will do far worst… OK crazy theory, she hands him over to the Unmade she initially unleashed… As a child, she got lured into handing her family, maybe believing it would make them “better”, but it was a trick, they got worst. If she can’t remember fast enough, she might do the same… with her new family.
Quick initial impressions this time, as I’m curious and eager to read what our rereaders wrote:
Kaladin – I feel for him. It appears the depression is hitting him really hard this time, and he doesn’t know what to do, nor can he tell Syl how to help him. This section does feel like the end of his POV focus for awhile, but let’s see…
Navani – Wow. This was a rather informative section, providing great background about fabrials, soulcasters, spren and Shadesmar trips. And now it sets up a (hopefully) book long mystery where we can see Navani take center stage for awhile. At first I thought the person on the other end of the spanreed was Venli. But I wonder if it’s someone like Khriss, or a Cosmere aware individual who is seeing the impact of her creations on Shadesmar. Also, I enjoyed her thoughts on the Windrunners, Dalinar and her work sphere. It definitely had me crack a smile…
Shallan – This probably requires a deep dive post later (although I wouldn’t be surprised if our rereaders already do this), but there was a LOT here in her section. So she hasn’t told Adolin a lot about her history or her recent past? It seems that she hasn’t told Jasnah about her affiliation with the Ghostbloods either? And there is a fourth personality that is shaping, which she just calls Formless? Yeah, that’s not ominous or anything. It seems somewhat unrealistic that she waited until after a year of marriage, and this specific moment, to finally tell Adolin about the Ghostbloods (but I get that Brandon wanted to do it onscreen).
Skybreakers – Confirmation that they did indeed decide to join Odium’s forces, although I’ll wait to see them onscreen before I dwell too much on their numbers, impact, actions, etc. I will say that I hope Brandon does address Nale’s reaction to Jezrien’s death (Did Nale feel the ripping of his soul? Did he pass out? Clearly he wasn’t flying at the time? After all of that, why would he still choose to join Odium’s forces? Why would Odium’s forces not just stab him with another Odium blade and eliminate another Herald?) and not just gloss over the ramifications of Vyre’s actions at the end of OB. Also, here’s hoping that Master Ki didn’t blindly follow the crazy guy!
My initial thought is that Navani’s correspondent is related to the Sibling. And I’m still leaning that way.
But Venli is an interesting theory as well. By the way, I don’t remember seeing Venli’s spren ever talk. When did he / she say she had dislike/ distrust of humans?
And finally, I’ve been assuming that Jezrien is gone forever. Are we sure that’s the case? Could he be back on Braize?
I love Kal and I know from depression but it gets tedious. I get tired of my own BS so maybe that’s why dealing with his drags it all down some for me. Maybe I will try to read it with a meditative mindset in the future. Just take it in and look at it without judgement. I don’t know but it bums me out because these books and the Cosmere at large are so grand that I want to be able to see every bit of it that way. Because it probably is! And my BS is screwing it up! Or maybe that is just my BS talking..
It hit me that Pattern begins to hum when Shallan hugs Adolin and thinks this makes feel her better… in fact it is a lie, as Shallan’s thinking that the more she loves Adolin the worst, because she’s eventually going to have to tell-to Adolin and herself, at least- all the truths she doesn’t want to even think about, and she’s feeling more and more as if in a trap.
This was a really interesting chapter!
@10 and @15 – I too had the though after reading this chapter that it would be an interesting story/character development if Kaladin is NOT the first Windrunner to swear the 4th ideal. It would probably cause him to sink into a downward spiral where he thinks he us useless/worthless (more than he currently does). But as the hero, he’ll probably bounce back and be the first to the fifth Ideal. Journey before destination.
I like the theory that Shallan had something to do with releasing one of the Unmade. Maybe Formless IS one of the missing Unmade and that acknowledging it is the secret that will release it, while also letting Shallan advance in her own ideals, setting up a bit of a battle.
I also wonder if Formless or the spren relationship to fabrials/soulcasters will have anything to do with Shallan and Adolin heading to Shadesmar (cover art).
The spren in the soulcasters must be part of an oath. Probably agreed to being used this way to try and help during the desolations. Not quite ‘deadeyes’, but similar. Maybe the equivalent of a spren coma?
I think Navani’s correspondent is a worldhopper and that’s why the writing looks cramped, because they learned to write in another world, and have some insight into the cognitive and/or spiritual realm.
Why is November so far away!?!?
If Laran is a Windrunner, then we now know which prospective KR the spren was waiting upon. This seems too simple of a resolution. We certainly spent a lot of time thinking about who the spren wanted to bond. Oops. Wait a second. Laran was probably bonded during the second Oath. That is the way it worked with Kaladin. So there is still another Honorspren waiting to bond someone.
I am glad that Kaladin’s encounter with Moash does not appear to have any impact or otherwise damage Kaladin and Syl’s bond.
I am glad we get a Navani PoV. She has a thought pattern that is different very different from the most typical PoV characters: Shallan, Kaladin & Dalinar. In some ways that is a stupid comment. All characters are different. But in another way, it is not. As a secondary, non-Radiant character, Navani thinks differently.
Maybe it my own biases, but I cannot help read the first few paragraphs of Navani’s POV in Chapter 9 as a perfect personality for Dustbringers. Ever since Brandon included descriptions of the KR Orders on his web site, I thought Navani would be an ideal Dustrbringer.
The cache of Soulcasters discovered in Aimia during the gap period between OB and RoW. Something to look forward to when we get our hands on the new novella.
I chuckled when I read Navani’s flying capsule. Reminds me of the descriptions of the capsule the astronauts rode in during the Apollo space missions. I wonder if any of the Stomlight books, we will see the creation of Stormlight powered trains. Instead of coal, electricity or other fuel source, trains can be powered by Stormlight.
My guess is that a Dysian Aimian was on the other end of the spanreed. They have been keeping watch over the events of the world. Further, I think they are somehow connected with the Sibling. As part of Navani’s story arc in RoW, she will reach an accommodation with the Dysian Aimians and the Sibling to that the Sibling will fully power Urithiru. I do not think Navani will be bound to the Sibling via a Nahel Bond. Rather, the bode will either be a Dysian Aimian or Rlain.
No. I do not want this Formless to become a 4th Shallan persona. I liked that Shallan had reached a plateau with the Three. Ugh. Huh. Even Adolin has gotten into a pattern (no pun intended) of interacting with Shallan’s three different personas. He even refers to each persona via name. I wonder if this is how loved ones of people with DID communicate with the DID person’s different personas. If so, good for Brandon writing Adolin’s interactions that way.
OMG. Ialai is better spy than I gave her credit for. And I gave her a lot of credit. She learned lots of Cosmere info (names of other planets). I wonder if Ialai was able to realize there was a whole greater system of planets beyond the Roshar system. That appears to be something that not even Gavilar had grasped. Or at least he only seemed to be talking about other planets within the Roshar system. I wonder if this is a neon bright Easter egg, a set up for something key in books 6-10 or something important to the rest of RoW or the 5th book. Truly a RAFO.
Oh Shallan. Were it ever so simple as telling Mraize that she was done with the Ghostbloods. The Ghostbloods are an organization where you are a member till death – aka married to the Ghostbloods: till death do you apart. And if you start to waiver in your support, the Ghostbloods will kill you as easily as someone will crush a cremling. I would not be surprised to learn that some part of Shallan’s next mission for the Ghostbloods will dovetail with her and Adolin being in Shadesmar (per the cover scene).
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Overall impressions – I loved these chapters as they set up and reinforce the overall mysteries/issues that will be driving the arcs for these characters. But also some very worrisome things coming out for all of them.
Kaladin – he has always been somewhat of an unreliable narrator about himself, but I think this has gotten to a whole new level at this point. He has been putting on an act for so long in front of his soldiers and others that he has started to believe it, and now cannot fully see how badly he is actually doing here, shown by his not only not recognizing how badly he looks before someone brings him broth, but then also at the end when “Kaladin went and did his duty. He let them see him stand tall, let them be reassured he was still the brilliant leader they all knew.” He is almost definitely lying to himself here. He is still disheveled and blatantly hurting, everyone can see it. Everyone probably knows about his freezing. But he just keeps lying to himself so he can keep up the charade…From his discussion with Syl, “I can’t seem to make sense of how you feel or why you feel that way.”“If you ever do figure it out,” he said, “explain it to me, will you?”” – he is oblivious, both about how to deal with himself, but also the fact that everyone else can see it. Given how stubborn he is, he will be required to really hit rock bottom to recognize how bad he is (or someone will have to stage an intervention, which may not work out so well…see: stubbornness. Which honestly, has saved his life a good many times…but not the coping mechanism he probably needs at the moment). This is something many thought had happened in Oathbringer (which is probably going to be frustrating for many readers, who expected Oathbringer to be the nadir of his arc).
Which makes Kaladin and Shallan great parallels in this book (as they have been in previous ones) – as their story arcs continue to reveal new depths and thrust the characters downward into those depths. That and they are both lying to themselves about their own sanity and keeping it togetherness.
Shallan – Good stuff here, I personally think this will be very interesting to watch and look forward to her arc.
Navani – probably my favorite here, adding to all the mysteries by showing how they have solved some of the mysteries (or at least made progress on them). Wondering if the Mysterious Correspondent has faulty information – is it speaking about the new Half Shards? Which King T stated involved snaring a more sapient spren? I do like the ideas of others that it could be an Aimian or Ishar. The ethics and ramifications of fabrial technology will be very interesting to watch unfold. The line “You have caused more pain than any living person.” is very intriguing. Why and how is what Navani doing causing pain to such a degree? Does this person know or assume that fabrials are not just feeding spren what they desire but also inflicting pain? Is this only in the head of her unknown interlocutor or is there evidence for it? (if so, this will probably represent a fascinating clash of a type of luddism in the face of growing technology, which will be an interesting theme to connect to the ethics of technology already present in the face of the apocalypse and threat of extinction and the philosophical outlooks present on Roshar as outlined by Jasnah/Shallan in the Way of Kings.) If this is one of the Aimians (“I couldn’t watch any longer” seems to indicate one of the Watchers?) – how do they reconcile this with all the other atrocities out there? With what Dalinar has caused? What about Odium’s forces and the Everstorm, which could all be laid at Venli’s feet (as another living person)? What does this say about how they consider the heralds or fused? Are they no longer “living persons”? If this is one of the Heralds (Ishar), this question becomes more interesting as to how they conceive of themselves.
Also, random thought – are there any ecological ramifications to fabrial tech and using surges? For some reason, in this context I am wondering about the destruction of Ashyn and how that came about. It fits also with the growing technological themes if Navani is also going to find that it has an impact on the workings of the natural/metaphysical world, such that unbridled technological progress could bring about ecological disaster…
Lastly, did anyone else read this as a subtle, tongue-in-cheek dig/allusion to Ender’s Game since they are after all “falling” and could easily orient themselves feet down –
Formless! I’m going to declare that I called Formless in the previous thread when I talked about Shallan spiraling down further. Something like a Formless takeover is exactly what I was thinking of – something within Shallan’s psychology that causes her to go rogue in some fashion and which Adolin will probably blame himself for, pushing him further towards his first Oath or two as a Radiant. That said, this seems a *little* bit ahead of my estimated timeline for Adolin’s Radiance, so I’m going to go ahead and say that we’re probably going to mostly focus on the … formation … of Formless in this book, and maybe end with Shallan going rogue in some fashion (or needing to be imprisoned?), leading into both her arc for the next book and an Adolin arc in the same as they deal with that event.
@@.-@
<blockquote>Was is the difference between murdering Sadeas and Ialai? Can he still draw the line?</blockquote>
Well, here’s a clear difference: Ialai was a compliant prisoner accused of a crime, while Sadeas was a political opponent bragging about his plans to undermine Dalinar’s new-found legitimacy as a part of the classic Alethi political gamesmanship. That doesn’t make Adolin’s stabbing him righteous, but it does make clear the difference between the two acts while also pointing to a *particular* thing that was wrong with the attack on Sadeas while also acknowledging that Adolin’s motives were basically decent. Adolin, of course, still seems to be thinking in terms of “war” vs “not war”, rather than seeing both events in the context of policing, and it remains to be seen if that’s the framework he uses to deal with his actions there. It seems a little out of place for him; policing things is more of a Skybreaker habit, rather than something that fits with either the Edgedancers or the Stonewards. (random aside: all, please now imagine – Inspector Szeth and his gruff but well-meaning boss, Chief Nale! Fanart in this vein will have my eternal gratitude and laughter.)
Given Shallan’s talk in this chapter about how Dalinar and Adolin are “different shades of the same color”, I’m comfortable in my Stoneward bet, since Stonewards are right next to Bondsmiths in the cycle of Radiant orders. The Stoneward focus on reliability, especially on being a reliable soldier, fits well with the Bondsmith focus on exemplary leadership and yet seems like it could easily create conflicts between the two.
@9:
I always took that part of Taln’s mantra to mean that Kalak was a scientist or researcher of some sort prior to the formation of the Oathpact, such that he could train craftsmen, in the same way that Vedel was clearly a doctor and therefore could train surgeons and Taln himself was a soldier and therefore could train soldiers.
Regardless, though, the potential connection to newborn spren is interesting. People have proposed in the past that 5th Ideal Radiants might be able to create new spren appropriate to their order in some way – I’ve had my doubts about this, but I wonder if maybe there’s some way they could “raise” a lesser cousin spren into a new fully intelligent spren? As part of this process, perhaps, they might be able to, say, “detach” such a spren from their Plate and have them go along with another person or Radiant, granting them a lesser version of the core Radiant’s powers. We’ve known for a while now that soulcasters are rare and that new ones are perhaps not being produced anymore; it certainly seems possible that they’re a modified remnant of something a Radiant could do.
@7:
Bit of a tangent, but I want to talk about Nale, his spren, and the Skybreakers for a moment. Nale is a 5th Ideal Skybreaker, and as far as we know the only one to achieve that rank since the Recreance, if not earlier. The 5th Ideal of the Skybreakers involves the Radiant in question becoming “the embodiment of the law”, which is sort of a confusing and very personally-focused idea for the otherwise very outward-focused order. Just to roll through the other ideals in a highly generic way: the second ideal is a simple oath to follow the principles of law and justice; the third ideal identifies a particular source of justice, external to the Skybreaker swearing it; and the fourth ideal requires the Skybreaker to enact that justice in the world (taking on a bit of a police/prosecutorial role). Based on the way these oaths build on each other, I think the fifth ideal amounts to the Skybreaker internalizing the lessons they’ve learned in pursuit of the idea of justice, enabling them to judge the laws themselves and determine whether they are just, allowing them to recognize and replace or adjust an unjust law, just as a judge can in a common law legal system.
So then: Nale himself is a fifth ideal Skybreaker. Most relevant here, this means his spren fundamentally trusts his judgement about what is and is not justice. Depending on when Nale became a Skybreaker, this trust likely came to be well before the abandonment of the Oathpact and Nale’s fall from grace. Thus, his spren most likely isn’t judging and binding him the way we might expect a highspren to bind their Skybreaker. Moreover, the way he has been running the Skybreakers has encouraged them to take him or a relatively naive “local law” as their third ideals, and he doesn’t seem to have been encouraging them to take their independent fourth ideal quests, instead using them as subordinates in his manic quest to cleanse the world of Radiants. Certainly, he hasn’t been cultivating the kind of judgement that would lead a Skybreaker to even want to swear the fifth ideal. All of this is to say: I think Nale has in many ways fallen back to a third or fourth ideal Skybreaker, and is running the order in such a way that he is (unintentionally) stunting the growth of other Skybreakers.
On another Skybreaker-related note, I doubt that Szeth’s quest is ultimately going to be the murderquest that he seems to envision when he initially articulates the idea of “cleansing the Shin”. That sort of straightforward murderquest would pretty clearly go against Dalinar’s notions of justice; I think we’ll likely see Szeth’s quest transformed into a largely diplomatic mission, focused on breaking the Shin out of their neutrality and figuring out what’s going on with the seven honorblades they still (as far as we know) control.
@11:
I strongly disagree that there’s a trauma requirement for Shallan to have bonded Pattern, for the same reason that I disagree with takes that imply that mental illness / neurodivergence is *required* for a character to become a Radiant. The key factor uniting all the Radiants we’ve seen so far is not mental illness or neurodivergence or trauma but social isolation and loneliness. The key to understanding this is the order in which the members of Bridge 4 manifest their powers – the first to do so are those like Lopen, Hobber, Teft, and the Herdazian recruits, who are isolated *within* Bridge 4. Likewise the scouts get their powers very quickly once they join the team. The last of all of them is Skar, the best of the newly trained spearmen and most loyal to Bridge 4, who is literally last to manifest his powers and only does so after he has given up on being part of the group. Obviously (from Skar’s own dialogue in that section) isolation isn’t sufficient – in order to become a Radiant or even a squire, the person in question must also have at their core the basic ideals of the order they intend to join (which I suspect is why Rlain is not a Windrunner, any more than Renarin is – Rlain is an honorable man, but his honor is not a Windrunner’s honor), but I believe that this is part of the controls put in place during the founding of the Knights Radiant, after the first generation or so of Surgebinders proved so disastrous, and therefore not part of opening the way for the Nahel Bond in the first place.
All of this is to say: the key thing about Shallan’s pre-Pattern life that I draw from that passage is the loneliness that she so desperately fears and, on some level, believes she deserves. Maybe that’s because of some sort of trauma, but it also might not be – it could be something she did as a child or was blamed for that she internalized, and which led to all of the rest of her trauma and false fronts.
noblehunter @8 – “a deranged PETA member going on about bees” – This cracked me up, because PETA was exactly the connection we made in the beta. One of the first reactions to the “monster” accusation was “It’s just the local PETS representative.”
Ismail Cem Kuru @9 – That’s a fascinating theory. I like it a lot. Because… yeah, where do those miniature true spren come from? It seems a valid assumption that the healing fabrial and the Soulcasters are formed the same way, though without a Healer to look at in Shadesmar I suppose we ought to hold that assumption loosely. Still, if correct, a whole lot of otherwise good theories are out the window due to the way we saw the Healer used in Dalinar’s vision and by Nale. Spren, Heralds, and Knights all seem to be okay with using them as fabrials, so either it’s something morally acceptable, or there’s a lot of moral degeneracy going on up in here. (I’d believe it of Nale, actually; he’s crazy anyway. I suppose an argument could be made that the Radiants were only human and might accept things they shouldn’t, but… it’s really hard to rationalize the spren thinking this was okay if it was actually an abuse.)
marethyu316 @18 – “There’s always another secret.” But I suspect you’re right – if you don’t have the Cosmere awareness for those names to mean anything, they’re just more mysteries. Like Thaidakar, and Restares, and the hints Azure dropped in Oathbringer, and the shopkeeper’s comments about the “Court of Gods” – they’re all just things we don’t know about yet.
John @19 – One of the Heralds. Good thought! I wonder why that didn’t occur to me at this stage, because it does make a lot of sense.
Carl @24 – We attribute the knowledge to the Ghostbloods because, according to Shallan,
The implication is that the Ghostbloods know a lot of extra-Rosharan stuff, and Ialai through her spies was trying to determine what they knew, what it meant, and what they were planning to do with it. How much this was tied in with her involvement in the Sons of Honor is unknown; she had her own spy network long before she was involved with them.
@ALL – I know the serialization is a hard way to read a book of this magnitude, but at the same time I almost wish it could continue this way. Reading each chapter and discussing it without knowledge of the future is so cool! (I mean, yes, I know the “future” and all, but that just means I sometimes have to bite my tongue and not say anything, or carefully phrase it to fit the discussion. But seeing all the discussion here… it’s so much fun!
(Also, there’s a new book my family is getting in a serialization that comes with a new chapter every 3-4 WEEKS. It’s both delightful and frustrating. Last night we read the most recent chapter, and of course it was a cliff-hanger, and I started wishing for this one-a-week format…)
This chapter seemed to me to be the impending doom chapter. I think the back cover of WoK mentions that one of (correct me if I’m wrong) Shallan, Kaladin, Dalinar, or Szeth will doom everyone. This seems to me to be the chapter that is showing us that Kaladin or Shallan could be that person. Shallan through Formless and Kaladin through becoming Odium’s champion by “giving his pain” to Odium. I think Moash is just there to help prepare him to accept Odium, not actually kill himself.
Noticing a trend with Shallan here: every book she gets a new persona. Book 1 was Shallan herself, book 2 Veil appeared, book 3 Radiant was created, and now here in book 4 “Formless” is beginning to, well, form. It’s become a trope by now! One wonders what persona she’ll get in book 5!
Actually, going along these same lines, I predict that by the end of this book “Formless” will exert enough power to turn Shallan to Odium’s side (or fall in completely with the Ghostbloods, or at least keep her out of the fight), and book 5 will be about either creating a fifth persona or letting Shallan unite all of her personalities into a fifth persona that can finally remember and take responsibility for everything.
Fabrial mechanics speculation regarding the Radiant suppression fabrial and its unknown metal, highlight for Mistborn spoilers: There doesn’t seem to be a clear connection between what the fabrial appears to do, cut the Connection between a radiant and their spren, and the Allomantic table of metals, which the descriptions in the epigraphs have all been so far. Over in the Feruchemic and Hemalurgic tables though is Duralumin, which alternately stores or steals Connection. But again, everything we’ve learned so far about how fabrials work in the epigraphs has been based on the Allomantic function of the metal being used. So what if the power source is important too? What if voidlight powering a fabrial causes the end-neutral(Feruchemic) or end-negative(Hemalurgic) effect of that metal, as opposed to Stormlight causing the end-positive Allomantic one?
I guess it would also be worth asking if Duralumin looks different enough from Aluminum for Navani to be unsure of what the metal in the fabrial is in the first place. A quick google search makes me feel like it probably isn’t.
The extra letters in the foreign names could be explained by a syllabic writing system (or something like devanagari).
@patrick:
Aluminum is a very difficult metal to refine. It wasn’t isolated until the start of the 19th century in the real world, and most processes to refine it require some sort of electrolysis and some extremely high temperature and pressure smelting. It is totally within reason that Navani would be unable to recognize either it or its alloys, since it’s quite plausibly beyond the power of Rosharan technology to refine it.
@40 – I wouldn’t say the Veil persona really showed up in book 2. I remember a lot of the talk around OB was like, whoa, where did this multiple personality thing come from? Veil in book 2 was a disguise; you really didn’t see the persona thing until book 3.
My theory is that formless and the midnight mother are connected somehow, Did some bit of the midnight essence stick to her during their encounter in the tower?
Could there be more to her mother’s attempt on her life than the act of binding a spren?
Journey before destination: by worrying about the fact that everyone he loves will die, to the exclusion of living his life (and protecting other lives) in the here-and-now, Kaladin is violating the Immortal Words.I wonder if he’s going to start losing the Nahel Bond again.
@11, @37
We do know from a Word of Brandon that there is no actual requirement that a person be broken before forming the bond. The correlation exists because starting from being broken makes it easier to embrace the mindset of the ideals.
My first thought about Navani’s mystery correspondent was “another spren”. The disdain towards honorspren is something that we’ve mainly heard expressed byother spren, like the Releasers’ bondspren and to a lesser extent the Cryptics. It would also explain how the correspondent would consent to using a spanreed while at the same time disparaging Navani the artifabrian.
I’d completely forgotten that there was already a character called Laran until this read along pointed it out. I feel it is a mistake for people to be suddenly talking about her now out of the blue considering that we just collected a much more prominent female character with a near identical name (just a slight difference in the last letter). She swore the third ideal while Kaladin was in the Manor? Was she that worried about her husband? Shame Kaladin failed to protect him… It seems clumsy to refer to a bit character without context when their name looks like a misprint of a much more important character that has just rejoined the cast.
I’m gonna go with Navani’s mystery correspondent having something to do with an undermining plot of Taravangian, he’s the type to be able to get the reed gem smuggled into Navani’s pod.
@28 – You know, I’d never considered that. I’ve always assumed Thaidakar was Rosharan, and simply the leader of the Ghostbloods’ Rosharan chapter. MISTBORN REFERENCE Perhaps ‘Thaidakar’ is the Scadrian word for ‘Survivor.’ WILD COSMERE THEORY Or perhaps it’s the name of a Shard holder. BACK TO MISTBORN Either way, my running theory since WoR has been that the Ghostbloods were founded on Scadrial by the kandra, hence the name (since they’re related to or descended from [blood of] the mistwraiths [‘wraith’ being a synonym for ‘ghost’]).
“It didn’t belong in the sky.”
The Fourth Bridge is going to be the first Rosharan space ship, mark my words.
Despite having been resolutely against Shallan developing a 4th persona, I’ll admit I am liking how it is evolving… Formless makes me curious and I think there are chances book 4 ends with Shallan locked into Formless and Adolin… ah well… I don’t think the book ends well for *him*. My speculation is RoW is the book that will break him, the whole murder of Sadeas, Radiants, his father, and now Formless, the poor guy is asked to be far more resilient than people can humanely be.
I have no idea how Navani is talking to, my first guess was this was her Willshaper spren.
I do not agree with Shallan’s assessment of Adolin being the same color as Dalinar. I think Shallan, much like everyone else, is very hooked up on seeing Adolin as Dalinar 2.0 but I always thought it was clear, through his very different inner discourse, he was not. I mean, sure they have a few things in common, but to their core they are very different people, not a variation on the same color.
Dalinar sees Honor as finality in itself, is incredibly rigid, cannot delegate, and is a monarchist who probably never digested his son wouldn’t follow onto this line. Adolin, while generally honorable, does not want Honor to cause harm. He can delegate and he isn’t a monarchist, he does not understand why he should be king nor does he thinks he should be because he is the next-in-line.
Dalinar believes in “great men shape the world” and does believe he is such a man. Adolin does not care about shaping the world, he just wants those he loves to be safe. He wants the more simple things, though he knows he will never be one of those “great men” his father keeps on alluding to.
All in all, they are very different people, so I disagree with Shallan’s assessment. She sees only what everyone wants Adolin to be: a clone of Dalinar. I suspect his arc will be accepting he is not and to have others accept that too.
Oh man, so, it seems like the Ghostbloods aren’t seeking information on other Shardworlds – Iyatil being from Silverlight should be enough to ensure that they’re already plenty Cosmere-aware, even without all of the Mraize easter eggs. If they’re seeking power in the form of Investiture (as their interest in the Fused and Urithiru might suggest), perhaps they’re looking to execute a plot similar to what the Ire tried in Mistborn: Secret History – i.e. seizing the power of an entire Shard of Adonalsium for themselves? I don’t quite know why they (or anyone) would want to do that, but it’s a possibility.
Mistborn is my favorite Cosmere set so I really love seeing the way the magic system is creeping through :)
Oh, Kaladin. This was hard to read, in part because it is so real. My poor boy.
Poor Shallan too – I have to admit I’m kind of a sucker for the ‘broken bird’ kind of storyline with the person who is trying to overcome some shameful (to them) past and worrying about finding acceptance. Adolin is honestly such a dear – I agree that there’s a lot of problematic stuff going on, but I love that he’s willing to work with her where she’s at. Sure if it stays like this forever, that’s one thing, but his patience and concern is endearing. Utimately he believes in her and I hope that bears out in the end :( I agree that Formless is bad, bad news and the secrets have to come out. However, I AM nervous about her telling Adolin about her Ghostblood involvement because I think that could also put him in danger once he knows. It’s a bit of a no win scenario.
Navani’s part is definitely intriguing and given how they are already having to grapple with the reality of what the parsh are and what their society was build on, I wonder how the possible implication of even soulcasters being damning will go for their society. I think this will be too much of an out, but it could also just be somebody trying to scare her out of developing more tech. That said this would be a bit of an unsatisfying end to that mystery.
@28 oooh I actually like this theory :)
@49 – I actually think it makes the book feel more like real life. I have 3 friends/neighbors named Gina and a close friend Jenna, for example. Names can be confusing!
This chapter just made me sad (except for Navani’s part, which made me curious. Everything about Kaladin’s & Shallan’s parts was so sad. I am definitely leaning toward Shallan’s deepest secrets being things she was responsible for, whether intentionally or not. I like the theory of her somehow releasing or attracting an Unmade, given her role as “Unmade whisperer” among Team Radiant and Team Ghostblood. The whole Formless thing makes me think a lot of theories people had about Shallan being the murderer may be correct, and that Formless may be taking action without the Three’s knowledge. It would make this conversation with Adolin that much sadder. The missing piece in that puzzle is Pattern, though. Wouldn’t Pattern have seen her doing things out of character, even for Shallan, and not remembering them as any of her “main” identities? I also wonder if these secrets are really secrets from Pattern. It’s so hard to determine what is true with Shallan. If the secrets are so bad they would alienate Pattern, then perhaps they do involve spren, which would give the Unmade theory more weight in my opinion.
Poor Syl. She is a saint, trying to help Kaladin and never resenting him, just seeing his depression as something she desperately wants to heal to help him. I wish we could all give people suffering from depression such grace.
@40
I noticed a similar thing but I connected it to the number of Ideals Shallan has sworn. Veil and Radiant are pushing her toward another Truth, and to deal with the pain of speaking it she will need another persona.
*OR*
We know from WoB that Shallan is one step ahead of Kaladin in the number of Ideals she has spoken. That would make her 4 Ideal Radiant and if my pattern (pun intended) is correct… Then there is a hidden persona.
The first seems more plausible but the second one is quite exciting.
@55: If her personalities (or specifically her number of personalities) are related to her Ideals, then I wonder how much of her dissociation is psychological in nature, and how much is related to her Surgebinding and its connection with Identity. Do Lightweavers have particular problems with multiple personalities manifesting themselves? Or are the origins of Shallan’s particular dissociation problems unrelated to her Lightweaving, despite continuing to be tied up in it? I don’t know if we’ve seen any Lightweavers swear their second Ideal other than Shallan yet, so it’s hard to judge, but there might be some sort of connection.
@54 – There is an unwritten rule in writing novels not to give characters the same or similar names. It’s too confusing. In the real world, there’s probably thousands of people with your name; it doesn’t work in novels. Even closely related names, like Laran and Laral, confuse and possibly irritate people.
During Oathbringer (when everyone thought there was a Kendra about) I shared this running joke / crazy theory with some friends that Shallan was in fact a Kendra, not the real Shallan anymore. Except Shallan did not know/remember/blocked out she was Kendra, but her family, Pattern (and maybe even the Ghostbloods) did know the truth.
I further theorized that Shallan’s split personality was driven from the fact that Kendra play / imitate many people, and subconsciously, without physically becoming someone else, she created these other personalities without other bones to wear. It is in her DNA to imitate other people, but if she was not aware she was a Kendra, she would not have that manifest in a physical, but rather mental, manner.
Her lightweaving just helped propel that manifestation even further with the creation of Veil and Radiant.
My friend sent me a message today with the following quote from this chapter: “…And deep within Shallan, something else stirred. Formless. She had told herself that she would never create a new persona, and she wouldn’t. Formless wasn’t real…”
He said while he still believed my theory was crazy. that perhaps “formless” was how Shallan subconsciously perceives her true Kendra-self, until she can create a new personality, not with bones, but lightweaving.
So is her next truth acknowledging that she is Kendra?
I know.
Crazy.
Maybe….
First off, waiting a week to read the previews, discussion, and everyone’s theories is KILLING ME!! Honestly, I look forward to Tuesdays now because I love this so much.
Personally, I have a loony theory that it’s the Rosharans who are the Ones From Above, and the more Cosmere-name-dropping we get just makes me more and more convinced. It just seems like Roshar keeps pulling in other Cosmere worlds like a magnet.
Other parallel I noticed-Thadakar. His name/title/alias is very similar to the Dakhor on Sel-and it seems like other Cosmere names are getting Roshar-ized.
Thoughts?
After reading everyone else’s comments, I’m really curious as to the origin of the theory that Shallan released an Unmade as a young child? Like, yes Shallan is the ‘Unmade whisperer’, and yes we still don’t know why her mother tried to kill her in the first place, but… is it just that everyone in her family is broken? That doesn’t fit neatly with any of the Unmade we know about, but perhaps it could be the unknown Chemoarish, or some sort of weaker form of Ashertmarn driving them to indulge – Lin in his anger, Balat in cruelty, Jushu in gambling, Shallan in… lying?, and Wikim… in…. being depressed?? Huh. Maybe that doesn’t work out. Maybe they just all have PTSD.
I’m also confused about Shallan’s journey swearing the ideals – she had already sworn the second ideal by the age of 7, but then… forgot it? Shallan is very confusing.
@Gazeboist We know that the Rosharan’s do know about aluminum. I think it is mentioned that they can soulcast into aluminum. Plus, isn’t aluminum what they use to dull their shardblades for dueling?
@Gepeto Felt is Lord Straff’s spymaster in Mistborn.
I’m enjoying Kaladin’s progression still. Up until now, we’ve mostly seen how depression affects him, but I think the journey into how it affects those around him and then back to how that changes how Kaladin views himself will be fascinating.
I didn’t read previous comments, so I’m not sure if this has been mentioned but I have a wild theory that Shallan is a [MISTBORN SPOILER WHITE TEXT] kandra.
The “formless” and the time before Pattern? I could see it fitting. Of course, there’s always the question of why those memories would be suppressed in the first place.
@43 They know what aluminum is though. Navani talks about using it in the fabrial rig that moves the airship.
While I agree it’s most likely that she achieved the Third Ideal because she had to protect someone she hated, I would point out that it’s not necessary for the Ideals to be sworn under duress. Remember that the Lopen accidentally swore the Second Ideal while chatting with a wounded soldier!
It has been awhile….
This has probably been discussed before, but I am wondering what is keeping the Knight Radiant from reaching the Fourth Ideal:
Kaladin: We know he saw the form of the Forth Ideal at the end of Oathbringer, but that Ideal was so monstrous he shied away from it.
Shallan: As we saw in this chapter, Shallan is not progressing due to the “Formless,” as well as whatever it is hiding behind her memory block.
Jasnah/Dalinar: Assuming glimpses of possible Shardplate are evidence of reaching the Forth Ideal, both Jasnah and Dalinar are very close to reaching this ideal. And perhaps they already have and this whole post is pointless. However, what are the odds that Dalinar would be present on a battlefield without Shardplate if having it was an option? Perhaps when we reunite with Jasnah she will be strolling around wearing it, but I theorize that will not be the case.
Teft: We do not have a point of view from him, but he has clearly not reached the Fourth Ideal either.
Sure, perhaps a year is simply not long enough for the Orders to reach their next ideals. After all, Jasnah has apparently been sitting on the Third Ideal for some time. I would imagine even as far back as Way of Kings, she had reached the Third Ideal, but it is equally clear that she has yet to reach the Forth by the end of Oathbringer.
However, Kaladin found the outline of the Forth Ideal within only a few months of saying the First Ideal. Therefore, while time is a factor, it is obviously not a limiting factor but one of individual. Yet none of the Radiants we have seen thus far have reached the Forth Ideal: Kaladin, Shallan (while she has perhaps been Bonded longer that anyone in the story, it is pretty evident why she has not reach the Fourth Ideal, regardless of time), Dalinar, Jasnah (p), Teft, Lift, Renarin (special case), and Godeke (does not really count towards this thought, as he is so new to the story). We can also assume that any other Bonded Windrunners/Edgedancers present at the Battle of Hearthstone have not reached the Forth Ideal, as there were no comments of Shardplate present during the battle.
Of course, this entire thought posits that the Fourth Ideal grants Shardplate. It is a popular theory, attached to thought that Shardplate forms from lesser spren associated with a Radiant spren, i.e. Honorspren and windspren. If this is the case, at least at this time in Rhythm of War’s, no Knights Radiant, regardless of time Bonded, has reached the Forth Ideal. Again, this is pure speculation: there could be hundreds of Knights running around with Shardplate, perfectly accepting of their Forth Ideal. However, if this is the case, then why were none of them present at the battle? If this mission were important enough for Dalinar to be present, then would it not make sense for any Plated Knights to be there as well?
All of this to raise questions: Where are the Knights Radiant who have sworn the Forth Ideal? Are there any? If not, what is keeping this entire new crop of Knights from advancing in their Ideals? Because simply based on odds, there should be at a few Knights who have sworn the Forth Ideal. Granted, they could be out there and simply were not at this particular battle. But…does that make sense? Look at who was there. Look at the main purpose behind the mission and resultant battle.
Could it be as simple as, “Odium reigns”? Perhaps the Recreance has ramifications that we have not seen yet. Perhaps they are there but have not been mentioned and these words are simply wasted in the ether. After all, we know that each Ideal is more difficult to swear than the one before. Perhaps that’s the answer. This aspect of the story is fascinating to me and I for one cannot wait to RAFO.
I just hope that Adolin has the strength to deal with all the things coming down the pike. Still, since since Shallan and Adolin are both going to go to Shadesmar to see what’s going on with the Honor Spren and try to convince more of them to go to their side, my thinking is that it is Shadesmar that Shallan will finally face up to her problems and that it is with Adolin’s help that she can find peace and that this somehow shows the Honor Spren that the human cause is not an unjust one.
Sometimes, a good guy that’s not flashy (in the ways that attract people) is what someone needs.
I’m not sure if anyone has brought it up yet, but for an interesting portrayal of a relationship with a person who manifests different personalities, you should check out “United States of Tara.”
The relationship dynamic actually reminds me of Shallan and Adolin a great deal.
The Doom Trifecta chapter. And we haven’t even heard from Venli yet.
Someone commented that at least Syl wasn’t affected but she did start to appear smaller to Kal right near the end of his section. Both he and Shallan have something dark rising up inside them. Formless does have an unmade feeling to me.
And for Navani, many of us felt the Radiant response to the Recreance seemed over blown just because centuries ago the humans came to Roshar and started to take over. Maybe they were affected by the imprisonment of lesser Spren? According to Navani the Radiant Spren said fabrials were OK with those Spren but slavery has often been justified by saying the slaves were more like animals than people.That might cause the Radiants to dump their Spren and leave? But that doesn’t explain the Parsh.
edited my terrible spelling.
@60 Claire. I think there is a WOB confirming Shallan’s family has been under the influence of the Unmades. Something bad obviously happened prior to her mother trying to kill her… something worst which is why I personally hazard she might have had something to do with the Unmade roaming around her family. Maybe it is all her fault, not on purpose, but her fault nonetheless.
@61 guassian. Adding an external component not just to Kaladin, but also to Shallan’s problems is making me enjoy reading them more. I will admit I had grown tired of the one-sided very inward narratives we had gotten in past books and early in RoW, so the idea those might become more external really pleases me. I am far more interested in reading how those illnesses influence those close to them than to read about the illnesses themselves, but I guess other readers’ millage may vary. So I liked Syl’s intervention here.
@66. I have a feeling of impending doom. Adolin cannot keep on being the one to try to help everyone, he is a human being and his own resilience has its limits. A lot is being asked of him, I doubt he’ll be able to give out more. I suspect the opposite of what you predict will happen: Adolin will not be able to help Shallan, he will break over what will happen, and Shallan will lose herself in Formless. Book 5 will see her finding her way through it all, but I doubt Adolin will be the key. I think this weeks foreshadowed the complete opposite: Adolin will be the collateral damage for Shallan and Dalinar’s lies.
Solid commentary again, Alice and Lyn!
Re: Navani’s mysterious penpal – Aimian seems like a good guess, as they would likely be Cosmere aware and knowledgeable of the impact of the magnitude of fabrials on spren, Shadesmar, etc. I still like the possibility of Khriss, but I could see her being reluctant to have a direct effect on the development of a society/culture. And with the penpal labeling her a “monster”, there is also the high chance that this is a spren of some sort, or their advocate.
Re: Teft – good to hear what other members of Bridge 4 feel about Moash. Seems he is almost universally despised. Which makes me fear that Brandon will probably draft some redemption arc for #noredemption #vyrecanburninthefire
Re: Adolin – I like his devotion to Shallan and his trust in her, but I’m definitely not thrilled in how she/they treat him. This is the first she’s told him of the Ghostbloods? Seriously!? He deserves to hear more about her entanglement with them. I really hope this isn’t something where he finds out and her deception is brushed to the side; there needs to be consequences to her keeping him in the dark. I want to see their relationship under some strain, for Adolin to realize his worth and demand that his wife do the same and treat him right. This type of development will ultimately be very good for both of them, but before it happens it needs to be earned. We need to see Adolin take umbrage at how he has been treated and demand better treatment from his partner. That could lead to great character development for both of them. (Also, are we sure that when Shallan mentions she told Adolin about her mother and father, that she means she told Adolin that she killed them both and why?)
Re: Formless – This is just all kinds of bad. I wonder if this persona ultimately leads to the “destruction” mentioned by the Sleepless at all the way back on the back cover of The Way of Kings?
Re: Cosmere Worlds – I like the reminder that the Ghostbloods are rather Cosmere aware, and that this knowledge is slowly beginning to be reintroduced to characters on modern day Roshar. I am not yet that worried about the necessity of reading other novels in order to understand/appreciate the Stormlight Archive. Admittedly we’re only in Chapter 9, but either WoR or Oathbringer have introduced a lot more Cosmere important things (Zahel & Nightblood, Mraize and his treasures, Azure and her use of Breath) than RoW’s intro of these cosmere worlds.
Re: The voidlight fabrial potentially replicating Urithuru’s surge negating effect – Ha! Called it a couple of weeks ago! Although, as Navani jumped to that possibility so easily as well, I now wonder if that will indeed be the case. If we don’t see the Sibling returning and Urithuru fully waking up (and therefore see Urithuru function the way it used to/is supposed to) by the end of this book, then… I don’t know, just another dangling plot thread, I guess.
All in all, a lot of info in this chapter!
I missed commenting on this last week so I’ll put it here “Nale’s Nuts” is a great double entendre. His nuts and He’s nuts. One, a lewd curse. The other, devastating truth about a holy symbol who has betrayed those he once protected.
The theory with Shallan being a kandra is too far out there. There are some clues that it could be true and it’s technically possible. It’s just too much of a hook and she’s too central of a character to the reader to just out of nowhere be like “Welp, you never knew what you thought you knew. She’s not even a person and we had to kill her.” I wouldn’t be upset because of the content of the story and feeling with the characters, I’d be upset at the book itself. It’s too empty.
@71 – Plus, I have to imagine it would be impossible to NOT know you are a kandra.
Two things:
@27, I had the exact same question/issue with Dalinar needing three coats and a mask to cover his nose so it wouldn’t freeze off. It makes sense that he would need goggles like Shallan did in OB. But stormlight should protect him and keep him warm.
The second thing I am thinking about is how precise Brandon Sanderson is with the words he uses. In OB he references the voidbringers (the OG humans) as formless, those without form. This references the Singers’ attempts to understand humans as they have no forms, and this is so alien to them. So, with this and the fact that BranSan is so meticulous with his word choice, could there be something to him using the title “formless” for 4th persona? I do not have an answer or an opinion, this is just an observation and its making me think and question everything.
@69 I do think that Adolin and Dalinar need a heart to heart. Though I believe that both Renarin and Adolin believe that their father was not quite right for a while. A redemption arc has ups ad downs, and I suspect that what Dalinar said in Oathbringer – that people get hurt, but that should not stop one from getting better and becoming a better person, is the key to all of them becoming stronger in the end.
I think, more than anything, we are beginning to see that underneath the gushing about how good looking Adolin is, Shallan is most cognizant of this man’s ability to love her in spite of herself. This will be the key to her recovery, and maybe if there is some sort of unmade inside her, it is through Adolin’s journey in Shadesmar, the resurrection of Mayalaran that will start the healing that Shallan desperately needs. The first thing is already there. A person with empathy and love. I think one can work with that.
Why is Kal hestitant to congratulate Laran? I think there’s more to this than just their previous relationship. Maybe, just maybe, she is also the key to his recovery.
Ok I will pipe in from the crowd that hasn’t read all the other cosmere books.
Yes it is like just getting a glimpse of something mysterious that I want to know more about. I am not sure I am a great representative though. I have been reading Brandon’s answers to readers and I often see his responses about the other books so I have heard a bit about those other worlds and all. I have been deliberately trying to not read too much though because I plan to read all of them after RoW comes out. I only just picked up stormlight this spring even though I have been meaning to since Wok came out while Brandon was working on WoT (I was part of that fan base).
FYI my first reaction was wtf why did I wait so long! I read all of stormlight in one month, it was glorious :D I think I was not loving Brandon’s take on finishing up WoT.
I am all for the Easter eggs, keep them coming!
And yes Kaladin needs a hug. I think he needs to talk to his Mom :p
@41 yes! I had a very similar thought and posted a hypothesis at the end of Chapter 7’s comment thread :) ! Nicrosil? Chromium?
For once, one of my theories align with Alice and Lyndsey’s theory: that the Dysian Aimia were behind the planting of the spanreed ruby and on the other end communicating with Navani. I read the Chapter and posted my thoughts – see @35 above – before I read this week’s commentary. The only extra I had was that the Dysian Aimia was working in furtherance of the Sibling and that somehow, the two are in an alliance or somehow connected. And I do not mean a physical connection.
Alice noted “We might know a lot more about the world if we knew who was writing this.” Nice unintended pun considering the information that Shallan mentions later in this chapter: the names of other Cosmere worlds/systems (although Shallan did not know them to be names of other worlds). I do not think RoW will be the start of a Cosmere crossover (in the way the Avengers Infinity War and End Game were). However, it would be surprising if the person communicating with Navani was on a different planet.
Query. If one spanreed was on Roshar and its twin was on another planet, can the spanreeds communicate with each other?
Alice. For me, your question as to whom to feel worse for is an easy one to answer. I feel bad for Syl. I admit, I do not like Kaladin much as a character (Brandon writes him well; Kaladin I find him too enjoying). Further, I like Syl – in the way one likes a younger cousin. Quirky. You can take the quirkiness in small doses. But if you had to put up with it constantly (i.e. she is your younger sister rather than younger cousin), it would drive you crazy. She sacrificed more than Kaladin. She risked losing herself forever if she could not find somebody to form a Nahel Bond when she crossed the Physical Realm from the Cognitive Realm. So yeah. I feel bad for Syl.
Alice. Stormlight Archives are the only Cosmere books I have read. As a frequent commentator and avid reader on Stormlight Archive tor.com related posts, I have a passing familiarity with the Cosmere. I do hope the remainder of the series, as well as books 6-10 do not turn into the Cosmere version of the Infinity War/End Game MCU movies. It would be annoying if I lack the knowledge to understand central plot elements of the SA books. I can accept not knowing all of the Easter Eggs on my first read. But so far, those Easter Eggs do not relate to the central plot. As some annoyingly wise (and sometimes simply annoying) bearded man once said, RAFO.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
So let me get this straight: Veil says they didn’t do something, and Pattern starts humming? I’ve seen that one before. And she’s already gave it a name, and described what it isn’t, which is almost as good as describing what it is. Hello Formless, you’re scary!
I’ve got two theories on who Navani’s secret admirer can be if they’re mortal: Venli or Malata. Venli has the motive as Timbre strongly dislikes humans for the Recreance, Eshonai would have access to spanreed gems and perhaps the means to send them via surgebinding, and they’re most likely to come across Navani’s writings and misconstrue them as her waging a campaign of subjucation against spren-kind. (Those writings would be the epigrams we’ve been reading, to boot). Pointing against this theory is the fact that Venli was a scholar and probably wouldn’t make this mistake in the first place.
Malata is part of the Diagram and we know they’re signed on with Team Odium. (The call is coming from inside Urithiru!) They’re going to be pushing hard to gum up Team Roshar’s scientific progress by confusing, misleading and stealing… and HA that actually tells me that Odium’s going to have voidbinding ships by the end of this book.
If it’s a spren though things get more interesting. I DO think the epigraphs are connected to this, and a spren is absolutely the type to completely misunderstand what Navani’s role in fabrial craft on Roshar is. If it’s a spren, it’s one of the big ones: either the Sibling or one of the Unmade. I think this is more likely than it being a person.
@74. Almazar80
You’re thinking of Lyn, Laran is a different person.
@74 Almazar. I have a different opinion. I absolutely do not want Adolin to heal Shallan or anyone else. As a reader, I am dead tired of Adolin being asked to emotionally support everyone, to ignore his own feelings, to be everyone’s support system when he literally has none himself.
It is not fair to constantly ask him to “solve other people’s problems for them”, it is not fair to ask him to “heal Shallan”. It isn’t fair how he feels should be the second fiddle to how the mighty Radiants feel. It is just not fair. It is not fair to ask this of Adolin when literally no one is there for him, when everyone just sees him as “a pale copy of Dalinar”. It isn’t fair his wife thinks of him as Dalinar 2.0 especially not after Adolin voiced out he was not his father. It is not fair no one sees *him* and yet everyone expects *him* to heal them? This is so unfair.
As such, I do not want Adolin to heal Shallan. I do not want Adolin to help her. I want Shallan to sort herself using her own personal resources. I do not want whatever Adolin will do with Maya to help or heal Shallan, I want Adolin to have his own personal journey and I do not want this journey to be: “I will solve the Radiants problems because I matter so little as a human being my own problems should be forgotten and ignored”. I want Shallan to learn her behavior has impacts on people and I want Adolin to serve as this reminder.
Also, Adolin too deserved empathy and loves. Just because what he goes through has no label that does not make it less important or unworthy. Shallan has her own stuff to deal with, but it is unfair to ask Adolin to be the one to sort it out for her or to be the key. He is a human being. I want him to be able to exist as one and not as some sort of tool the narrative uses.
So no, I do not want to read “Adolin the support system than allows Shallan to solve her problems”, I much prefer to read “Adolin the human being who struggles to deal with her wife’s problems and feels betrayed when her lies have consequences”. Because the later is far more realistic, at least to me, than the former, but YMMV.
@65 – I think it’s established that though there are parallels between the Orders and their progressions of Ideals, they don’t necessarily grant abilities in the same order or pace. For example, the Skybreakers only have access to one Surge as first/second level squires and have to level up to third ideal to bond a spren and gain access to both, while the Windrunners seem to have both of their surges as soon as they become squires, then bond their spren and become independent Radiants at second ideal. Shallan is canonically on her fourth ideal, as a few others have mentioned (though I/they might be wrong and I’m not up for digging to confirm), but has no Plate even though it’s strongly implied that 4th/Plate go together for at least the Windrunners… though we also still don’t know if there’s something external like a Bondsmith required to fully manifest it. At the same time, she had access to Blade from childhood, which makes it likely that Lightweavers can do that at first or second Ideal. Possible that whatever horrible thing she did back then was good for more than one Truth at the time, though.
As for the Kandra theory… also seems kind of hard to, uh, grow up as a Kandra, period, what with being reliant on a structure of dead or artificial bones. Do sort of wonder if there’s a possibility that she killed and replaced the real Shallan as a child by more mundane means, not that that seems particularly easy to pull off either. Still, the realm of things that a 6-8 year old unenhanced child could do that’s so utterly world-breakingly reprehensible can’t be all that wide, at least assuming that it really was fully her own action and she’s not just deeply internalizing being scapegoated by someone. Going to be very interesting to see this play out.
More minor thoughts:
– Good god, could Navani’s correspondent have been less forthcoming about what the issue is here? Really tough to figure out just what specifically it is they’re on about, or why.
– Inference seems to imply that Thaidakar is likely also a worldhopper considering that the Ghostbloods as an organization seem to be of offworld origin, or at least their leadership, but having a tough time placing it linguistically. Anyone got thoughts on another world it sounds like, or are we all just as in the dark here?
The honorspren might be biased by their association with humans. If they are embodiments of human ideals and developed societies based on those, they could be reflecting human arrogance about exploiting natural resources and animals.
It seems humans caused some kind of ecological/systemic disaster in Ashyn and the Singers accuse them of corrupting Rosharan spren. The whole war and Shard involvement is much more complex than that, but one of the base issues is human predatory behavior vs. singer symbiotic relationship with nature.
And about Shallan being a Kendra, , that would be a major plot point which would need Cosmere/Mistborn knowledge to be understood by the reader or the characters. That doesn’t work.
You know, I’ve been thinking that Kal would get his plate right away when he swears the 4th ideal. But I’m wondering if some of the things that are mysteries to us are interrelated at a deeper level than many of us thought. I wonder if the whole Deadeye situation is preventing anyone from getting plate. Like maybe not only will they (specifically the Sibling) have to be healed for Urithiru to function. Maybe that’s also necessary to overcome a lot of dislike and distrust of humans, to even enable humans to get plate again.
Regards,
Ben M.
@blindillusion Isn’t it generally assumed that Jasnah has plate? Remember, there were some odd geometrical shapes decoalescing around her when she was spotted by Adolin in the battle of Thaylen City.
@27 & 73 The need for heavier gear may be a function of 1 – Where they are travelling. 2 – The random nature of seasons on Roshar. 3 – Learning what makes travel comfortable as opposed to simply survivable.
So after reading about Formless, I was reminded of this quote from Oathbringer:
By the way, the word “formless” does not occur in Way of Kings or Words of Radiance, but occurs 3 times on Oathbringer. This is the most interesting…
The other two are:
And:
What if Formless is the person shallan is when she accepts her pain and heals? That’s why it feels vague ? It’s who she needs to grow into?
a wilder theory is its her & adolin’s unborn child and she can sense it
I am now dealing with major depressive disorder myself and damn…Kaladin chapters are like looking in a mirror. I can understand they are tedious to some because yeah, depression is tedious. It’s a huge gaping pit, really, that sucks every good thought into something negative. It both breaks my heart to read him dealing with it, because I am on Team Kaladin, and continues to really resonate with me because of the accuracy of the portrayal, and seriously worry me for what’s going to happen with him. It’s a little tiresome but yeah, once again, depression *is* tiresome.
@27 & 73, The preview chapter mentioned that Dalinar was using his powers to provide stormlight to the windrunners.
My guess is that if he uses the perpendicularity, he can’t use his powers for other things, like keeping him warm, or his other surgebinding ability at the same time.
So what’s the difference between pewter and zinc, then? From re-reading specifically what she says, I think it’s saying that pewter is required to manifest such a clear effect, period. Like a heatrial actually producing heat, as opposed to a clock fabrial merely counting or an alerter flashing. And then zinc is used to make that fabrial hotter, or brass for cooler.
I’m also calling that next week, or soon, we are told iron is used for attractors.
Also, why do these all seem to match the allomantic version of the powers, and nothing else? It makes it seem like allomancy is the ‘real’ magic of Scadrial and the others are just copies.
“A” says at one point that the spren for soulcasters are in the gems, but invisible. If that is the case how can it work when the gems are swapped out?
On Shallan: I thought we knew why her mother had tried to kill her. Mother got wrapped up with the Skybreakers and saw that her own daughter was becoming a proto radiant, and she embraced their goal of destroying proto radiants over whatever love for her daughter she might have had. Yes, Shallan had Pattern by then, so something had already made her a radiant, but I don’t really like the idea of there being an even deeper trauma beyond what we’ve already spent a book uncovering, from a storytelling perspective. Narratively, that backstory is already intense (how many POV characters have ever killed both of their parents? Geeze), but WoR covered it with engaging and tear-jerking skill already, it feels more messy rather than more satisfying for there to still be *more* backstory mystery now. I’d rather continue to watch how she moves forward (or doesn’t…as it stands now…) Plus we have other characters with hinted at past traumas to wonder about (cough jasnah), story wise I’d rather those hints get a little more tending to than spend more story time uncovering how a deeply tragic past might be even *more* tragic. Don’t get me wrong, I love Shallan, I loved WoR, I’ll read it, the DID stuff is appropriately fascinating and heartbreaking, I just…it feels like we’re skating close to overdoing too much of a well done (in a storytelling sense) thing for there to be yet another horrific mystery there.
@74 There was a mention of Laran and Kaladin in Oathbringer. Relationship was probably not the right word to use. There is mention of Kaladin noting Lopen telling his story to Lyn and Laran. We already had an idea of Lyn and Kaladin. Usually, a short, almost forgotten mention of a character leads to some sort of exposition later (at least in Stormlight). Perhaps this is one of those cases.
This chapter was very enjoyable, and fascinating!
I love reading Navani’s perspective – she’s so curious and analytical. The line about her being a monster, and causing more suffering than anyone else…that’s a BIG statement. I have to think there’s something wrong about her new ideas around spren-powered fabrials, that they really are doing something terrible to spren. Certainly the person contacting her seems to think so. Whoever it is, they don’t seem ill-meaning – their first action isn’t violence, despite how strong their feelings are; it’s to contact Navani (HOW?) and urge her to stop.
Shallan…now I’m thinking that Shallan’s mother must have tried to kill her not just out of hatred/fear of Radiants, but because of something Shallan did as a young child. But why would she fear Pattern leaving her? He bonded her so young, he must have been drawn to something about the child she was; he wouldn’t be driven away by the same thing. (And this is another hint – Cryptics are drawn to complexities of secrets/truth/lies, so Shallan must have already had some deep involvement with those ideas, some big secrets, when he bonded her – before she killed her mother.) And why would she expect everyone she knew to reject her for actions taken as a young child, before she could seriously be held morally responsible for them? That idea doesn’t fit with her usual thought patterns, it doesn’t make sense for her. There’s something here that I’m missing.
Kaladin – I love him, but I’m frustrated. This is something more than his usual depression. He’s surrounded by people who care about him and want to help him – why won’t he talk with one of them?!
I’m worried that he really will fall to Odium’s side, that we’re getting something of a mirror between his and Dalinar’s paths – that someone who was a brutally evil general can become good, and someone who was a noble, inspiration, archetypal hero can fall to evil. I really hope that I’m wrong an$ he manages to get through this.
Jezrien was the herald associated with Windrunners – could his real death be part of the reason for the deep fatigue and, hm, bleariness that’s affecting Kaladin. (His freezing in battle is different, that’s a personal emotional/psychological issue that he needs to figure out to reach the Fourth Ideal.) Could the idea of Windrunner spren being untrustworthy be associated with the same?
As I thought, Kal isn’t just afraid to lose people in combat, he’s afraid of people dying period. His issue began before becoming a combatant.
Nice to find out what kind of lights Navani prefers on a Christmas tree.
My pen pal vote is for a Herald as well. That was my first thought.
I think Shallan may have accidentally or intentionally drawn her family in ways that turned disastrous. It’s not as though a child who likes to draw wouldn’t draw her family and then discover things like, they do what she wants or they behave how she draws them. That would be the selfish child take on it. The inadvertent/accidental take would be a feedback loop. She has a bad interaction with a family member then draws the family member being mean or looking grumpy, add some stormlight and what a terrible formula for a horror story.
@73: I love that thought about Formless and the Voidbringers, and it gave me a really out-there, probably stupid idea.
What if Shallan is, somehow, parsh? Her creation of new personalities with new shapes (Veil for spying, Radiant for physical combat) and ways of thinking while still being her, and now switching smoothly between them, is very much how Listeners used the Forms. She could create illusions even back in WOR; it’s possible her entire appearance as Shallan could be an illusion. Unlike the idea of a small child somehow committing an atrocity so bad that everyone she now knows would reject her for it, it explains why she would fear Adolin and Pattern rejecting her. She wouldn’t be human – she wouldn’t even be a mammal. Spren don’t (so far as she knows) bond Listeners / Singers.
Nothing about that theory explains how she could end up bonding a spren, or finding a way out of slaveform, or being perceived as her parents’ daughter. It’s nonsensical. But it just jumped out at me from what you said about forms.
Gepeto @13. I like your theory that Shallan drew the Unmade that destroyed her family. Not sure of your intended meaning of the word drew. Did you mean she drew it out like one would coax out a scared kitten hiding under a bed or did you mean she drew the image on a piece of paper. Given Shallan’s artistic skills, I would prefer the latter explanation. However, either would make a good plot arc in my opinion.
Bridge4kufer @23. Hilarious. As I get that reference, I must be spending to much time watching Brandon’s live streams.
Benpmoldovan @31. Another possibility is that Jezrien’s soul/cognitive shadow portion of him could be trapped in the gemstone (the one on the hilt of the weapon that killed him) in the same way that a spren is trapped in a fabrial.
Sasuther @34. An interesting twist to Shallan releasing an Unmade. Shallan somehow has a connection with Sja-anat and this is why Sja-anat can communicate with Shallan. My theory probably will not turn out to be correct. If Shallan has some connection to an Unmade and that Unmade affected her family even before Shallan killed her mother (which truth she she is suppressing), I doubt it will turn out to be Sja-anat.
Speculation @86. Formless being their unborn child is a unique theory. Way to think outside the box.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Here’s a thought. The mystery correspondent says Navani has “caused more pain”. In Oathbringer, she actually uses (and maybe invented) a pain-causing fabrial. So maybe that span reed author is telling the truth.
Wow, it’s getting exciting. :)
My vote is that Navani’s spanrial pal is a herald.
Loony theory time, and entirely unsubstantiated. Thaidakar is Hoid. Though I’m not sure why Hoid would align with the Sons of Honor and their desire to bring Odium back. Perhaps to push a final showdown and eliminate Odium?
So Does this mean mistborn are human fabrials?
I think spren try to contact Navani. It could be tied to future trip to Shadesmar.
Navani is surprisingly the most interesting character right now, since Brandon dropped the ball on Dalinar. Dalinar The Disappointment. From one of the best fantasy characters to mute plot device. Great character development.
And I agree, I don’t want all neurotypical characters to be used as emotional pillars to “broken” main characters. This is disheartening.
blindillusion @65: First of all, as gaussian @83 (as a statistician, I approve of their name, BTW) said, the geometrical forms is generally considered evidence of Jasnah’s Plate, but they left off the part right before that, where it says
So the reasonable assumption is that Jasnah had her Plate on, threw the body, and dismissed the Plate. I’m not sure of the battle logic of that, but it’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence.
And as others have mentioned, the Orders get their benefits (Blade, Plate, Surges) at different Levels. However, the epigraph for Chapter 86 of Oathbringer explicitly states that the Radiant recording it will get their Plate upon swearing the Fourth Ideal. Since the recording is in a sapphire, it’s from a Windrunner (since that’s the gemstone associated with that Order). The epigraph also implies that the Fourth Ideal is something about circumstances where you don’t help people. So your discussion is relevant to the Windrunners, but might or might not be for the other Orders.
blindillusion @65: First of all, as gaussian @83 (as a statistician, I approve of their name, BTW) said, the geometrical forms is generally considered evidence of Jasnah’s Plate, but they left off the part right before that, where it says
So the reasonable assumption is that Jasnah had her Plate on, threw the body, and dismissed the Plate. I’m not sure of the battle logic of that, but it’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence.
And as others have mentioned, the Orders get their benefits (Blade, Plate, Surges) at different Levels. However, the epigraph for Chapter 86 of Oathbringer explicitly states that the Radiant recording it will get their Plate upon swearing the Fourth Ideal. Since the recording is in a sapphire, it’s from a Windrunner (since that’s the gemstone associated with that Order). The epigraph also implies that the Fourth Ideal is something about circumstances where you don’t help people. So your discussion is relevant to the Windrunners, but might or might not be for the other Orders.
@89 – I don’t think it’s implying that Allomancy is a more “real” form of magic, I think it has more to do with the fact that stormlight surges and allomancy are both the respective “net-positive” forms within their shardsystems. In both cases it’s about taking basically “raw” investiture and using the metal as a sort of filter to turn it into an outward effect.
Hemalurgy is supposedly more or less the same Hemalurgy anywhere, since it’s not really tapping shardic investiture but attacking/altering the spiritweb of whoever it’s used on. Plausible that it might have something to do with both the stormlight-draining spears and the dagger that killed Jezrien… mix the hemalurgic effect of the metals with gemstones’ ability to store the Rosharan shards’ investiture, and you can use Nicrosil to drain stormlight, or Duralumin to steal Identity/Connection of the Oaths that turned a man into a Herald.
Though those effects might be more akin to Feruchemy, or a blend of the two… I also think there’s something to the speculation above about the Nahel-bond-dampening fabrial. It doesn’t seem to be an effect that matches with any of the Allomantic powers, but the Ferucheical properties of the Spiritual quadrant (much like the Hemalurgic ones) seem to line up, and Duralumin or Nicrosil would make sense as unknown/unrecognized metals to Navani… they may not be super different from their unalloyed base metals, but as someone interested in the science/craft of fabrials Navani might be a bit better equipped than most to spot more subtle metallurgical differences.
Would also explain why they don’t seem to have trapped spren, if they’re based on a net-neutral use of investiture… they wouldn’t need a splinter to convert raw stormlight, but rather are attuned to a more refined form of the investiture that they can store and probably also emit. Actually, that might explain the fabrials we’ve seen in use by the old vision Radiants and the distinction to “Navani’s” “new” fabrials… no trapping spren back in the old days, just reservoirs that they could store the power of their surges in. Also why Urithiru needs a full-on superspren to function, and still can’t even with Dalinar’s perpendicularity trick… it needs a more specific charge.
Probably still something different/more going on with Soulcasters though… could the little mini-deadeyes be hemalurgically spiked bits of spren? Would mean they’re resident in the metal, rather than the gemstones, which explains why the devices seem to function off just stormlight and the gems are apparently interchangeable without mention of trapping new spren to restore the function.
@92, KatherineMW:
The Singers do not switch smoothly between forms. We’ve only actually seen them switch what, twice: when Eshonai and the others took Stormform, and when Venli became Envoyform. And it is not illusion, and it only happens in a Highstorm or Everstorm.
@98, adeepu9:
Spoilers hidden below.
No, it just means metals are important across the Cosmere, and the various magic systems tend to have what I think of as structural similarities, as mentioned upthread. For instance, both Awakening and Surgebinding involve inhaling the gaseous form of Investiture … and Vin does that, too, on Scadrial. We don’t see it on Sel or Threnody or Taldain or First of the Sun, of course. First has a different overlap with Ashyn, interestingly, and a different type of overlap with Roshar and Sel: getting magic by binding oneself to another living being. The Returned of Nalthis echo the Heralds and the Fused, of course, and even the Elantrians. Renarin’s unique power that he just used to drive off Moash is not dissimilar to gold allomancy. Venli and Dalinar can both learn all languages instantly, which is better than, but similar to, the South Scadrial medallions. (Seemingly really good Awakeners like Vasher can also learn languages using Investiture, but we know nothing about how.)
What I’m looking forward to, but won’t live to see, is South Scadrian medallion makers meeting Rosharan artifabrians. Mind you, it’s very possible they’ll meet in battle rather than some kind of collaboration. Now, combine either one with Forgery from Sel ….
Also, note that the Singers take on forms by binding a spren into a gemstone (their gemheart). This is exactly what an artifabrian does, except with the gemheart of a dead creature (as opposed to a living singer). And it’s what Amaram and Aesudan did with the Unmade Yelig-nar, using a gem they had swallowed.
@95 Andrew. To be honest, I hadn’t given any consideration to the various meanings of the word “drew”. My initial thought was she drew it out, as you would a kitten hiding under a bed, but in hindsight, I really like the idea she actually drew it on paper. Either way, my thoughts are Shallan’s last truth, the hardest is the one she bears the most responsibility for, the one she covered up with the great lie that attracted Pattern in the first place.
I agree the Unmade probably isn’t Sha-Janah. There were nine of those… so whichever one we haven’t met yet.
My other theory is each of the personas represents a task Shallan had needed to accomplish: Veil for spying, Radiant for all the things Radiants do she does not want to do, and Formless for what she did, all those years ago. I absolutely do not believe Shallan when she states “Shallan is the fakest of them all” because I do not think her perception of herself is right. Thinking it does not make it true. The mere fact she attracted a Radiant spren implies she is very much real, just very confused as to what her past makes of her, so she split all actions into various personas, never really taking ownership over what they do. If Veil were to kill someone, Shallan wouldn’t feel responsible because that would be on Veil. So whatever happened, Formless did it, so Shallan does not have to take responsibility and it is her refusal to endorse what she really did that causes Formless to appear.
All this is why I think it is about responsibility. As long as Shallan will hide what she does not want to be accountable for in Veil/Radiant/Formless, those personas will remain, but Shallan is very real. I think Shallan calls herself fake because she’s the one who told all those lies, not Veil/Radiant/Formless. They are all honest, Shallan is the liar.
@99 Anomander. According to Sanderson, Dalinar has many great memorable moments to come. They just are not happening right now.
@@@@@ 102, Carl:
What would really be interesting is if Shallan could meet Shai or at least a Forger! Would do her well. Or maybe a Forger and the South Scandrials. But yes, the investiture overlap sounds like a really cool propsect. My initial guess for the Ghostbloods is that they are collecting Investiture, a bit similar to what Hoid is doing.
I haven’t seen it mentioned by anyone else so I do want to propose 2 things:
1) The mysterious writer to Navani? Venli. She is now basically a spy in the enemy camp but as a Listener would likely still be angered by fabrials trapping spren, hence calling Navani a monster. Venli also might realize that Navani pushing fabrial science forward is making the Fused do the same and Venli just cares about the spren. We don’t exactly know what kind of Radiant spren she bonded with but the most likely one would be a Willshaper. This means she probably has some kind of Transportation abilities and so sticking that spanreed gemstone under the table may not have been too hard.
2) At least part of Shallan’s further secrets. We just learned that Soulcasters are seemingly Radiant spren who are asleep (not dead). We also know that Pattern doesn’t know her secret. Well what if Pattern was the spren that powered her fathers Soulcaster? He would have been forced to sleep so he wouldn’t remember any of it and it would have prevented him from just following Shallan around for those years after she had to kill her mother. Shallan knows how terrible of a betrayal it would be to do this and so she is keeping herself from remembering it. It would also explain in part why Pattern began to resurface after her father died and the Soulcaster was broken.
@99:
Why do you keep harping on this? We already know Dalinar is not a POV character in Part One. Stormfather’s beard, get a grip man. There are still well over 100 chapters and four and a half parts left in this book! We get it. Dalinar is your everything. But please, for the love of everyone here, wait for the book to come out. I guarantee you that Dalinar is featured more.
Pretty sure I see an arc for Kaladin where someone else swears the fourth ideal first which causes Kal to sink further away from everyone as they feel uncomfortable seeing someone go above him. Based on what we have seen, he must try to protect everyone, whether they want or need it, which is why he struggles with Moash. He thinks that if only he had been better, then Moash wouldn’t have ended up this way. I think the hints imply for the fourth ideal something along the lines of accepting that you can’t protect everyone, and that is okay.
A different take is that at least for windrunners each ideal sort of re-frames an aspect of the first ideal, and Kal is struggling because the ‘Life before Death’ is hitting him hard.
I thought of the same potential candidates for Navani’s new acquaintance at first but then I thought of someone who has not followed through on interlude in WOK and has a substantial interest in the subject.
And I like this theory much better.
I just want to say, “Great Job,” to all those who commented last week that they thought a fourth personality might be emerging from Shallan; and could possibly be responsible for Ialai’s death. From this chapter, it looks like they were exactly right, at least about the fourth personality.
#kudo
If everything has a spren fabrials should have one, too. Maybe that is what the small spren are. They might be similar to the spren who bond Radiants to do similar things. Do those spren somehow help imprison other spren, maybe the Shardplate spren for the Order?
tater @89 – OH MY STARS AND STORMS. Thank you for catching that; it’s completely incorrect to say that the spren are trapped in the gemstones when talking about Soulcasters. I edited the post to reflect this. Thank you.
I have to admit, I’m not crazy about the Shallan-as-kandra (and I’m giggling over some of the posts where it is autocorrectd to Kendra) if only because Sanderson already did this twist to devastating effect in one of his other books.
I actually really like the unborn child idea, but also kudos to those who found the other ‘formless’ references. Hmmmm :)
Shallan – What about something horrific that happened TO her, instead of something she did. Everyone’s wondering what horrible thing a child could have done.
Most children victims of sexual abuse blame themselves, even though it’s 100% the abuser’s fault. Also, with how sadly prevalent this is, it would be amazing is Brandon dug into the healing side of it.
also this could explain why she REALLY doesn’t want to face it, now that she has a relationship with Adolin.
As far as the MCU vs Dark Tower thing, if Sanderson does go the MCU route I’ll be very disappointed since he’s said in the past he didn’t want to have the Cosmere feel like a “required reading” list. Also the more Sanderson stories I read the more I realize that I only really love Mistborn and Stormlight so far. I found Elantris ok, and really didn’t like Warbreaker.
I’m still hoping to at least get through Stormlight part 1 with mostly Easter Eggs, and if Stormlight era 2 ends up not being for me then so be it. But I’m invested in the story for now, and hope I can get through the end.
I am mildly worried that Formless will try to kill Adolin before the book is over.
Also, I agree that the Fourth Bridge may end up as the first Rosharan spaceship, this is only likely to happen if it doesn’t blow up before the end of this book.
My first instinct for who was on the other side of the spanreed was Sja-Anat, though I have no idea how she’d be operating a spanreed or really any of the other details of how this interaction went down. Just a gut reaction.
Crackpot theory: Shallan is Ba-Ado-Mishrim
Re: Navani’s pen pal
I wasn’t exactly sure who it was though I suspected Venli before they started writing. After reading through the comments I’m leaning more towards an Amian than anyone else. The Sleepless have been trying awfully hard to keep visitors away from their ruined island, implying that there’s world-ending secrets there. Plus, I assume that they are more Cognitive Aware than most entities on Roshar and thus are able to sympathize with the plight of the spren. Lastly, they sound old-ish, as one commentor said. I don’t see Venli in that role, she was trapping spren herself not too long ago. Kriss is uninterested in what she deems local politics. The only other candidate that makes sense is the Sibling. But using a monstrous instrument to contact someone to say they’re a monster for creating the instrument they’re speaking on seems more than confusing and counterintuitive. It’s also ineffective considering how Navani’s mind, indeed any engineer mind works.
Re: Formless
I knew something else was lurking within Shallan. What I don’t know, what none of us knows yet, is whether Formless is the real Shallan or an outside invader or just another personality she’ll eventually have to integrate into Shallan Prime. What seems obvious is that Formless is working against Shallan’s Radiance. It is feeding on concealment of truth to one’s self, the opposite of Lightweaving Ideals. And Pattern does seem a bit off to me from what I am reading. And while I’m not opposed to Adolin trying to help her through her growing issues, I think Shallan’s going to have to push through mostly on her own. Because there should be consequences for misunderstanding and lies between spouses and they need a conflict that they can overcome so the relationship feels real, not them playing make believe.
Kaladin needs help. That is all.
“She spoke the Third Ideal while we were in that burning building.”
I’m curious about who could have been in Hearthstone that Laran wouldn’t have wanted to save. Do we know her eye color? Maybe she saw Laral as a spoiled citylord’s daughter and resented having to risk her life for her?
Why hadn’t he simply rammed his spear into Moash’s too-confident face and saved the world a whole ton of hassle? At the least it would have shut the man up.
I think a large part of the readership is wondering this too…
Have to assume they can’t stand him either.
I love how Teft figures even the Fused probably can’t stand Moash!
I love the insight we get into Navani’s thoughts in this chapter. I especially like that she thought about the ethics of trapping spren for fabrials and bothered to ask other spren what they thought about it. It’s interesting that her correspondent says the honorspren can’t be trusted. Could the honorspren be facilitating/encouraging the trapping of other types of spren so they can have more influence in Shadesmar?
Being from Earth instead of Roshar (and having watched far too many action-adventure movies) my first reaction to the blinking light was that someone had bugged her bubble; second was that a bomb was about to go off.
My first thought was that the new red-light Fused was coming to make an assassination attempt against her.
Gepeto, Like there will be “more consequences for Adolin”? I don’t think there will be anything and I don’t believe the book will have more Dalinar later on. These chapters perfectly show that. He’s not a character anymore, he’s a static, silent plot device. He doesn’t even speak anymore. Sadly.
@Anomander – Seriously, pal, you need to get a grip here. Reminder for you and anyone else following along, Chapter 1 post included the Part I title page with the list of POV characters for the section. So those eagerly awaiting the chance to get back in the head of any character who isn’t Kaladin, Shallan, Navani, Venli, or Lirin is 100% waiting until the book release to get that satisfaction.
Meanwhile, the POV characters in his vicinity have interacted with him a pretty reasonable amount considering that they’ve all had their own things going on, no? He’s certainly not mute or static… He’s been taken down a peg by a wily Herdazian, has made decisions that are going to put their airship and the people of Hearthstone in greater danger, frustrated his adoring wife in the process… And I think you’re crazy if you’re somehow convinced that he won’t have more substantial interactions with Navani for sure and probably Kaladin as well once they’re back in Urithiru, not to even mention that they’re setting this up as if they’re likely to arrive in Narak in parallel with Shallan/Adolin and Co., at which point he’s certain to have some Opinions about the Sadeas job.
So… have a little patience, alright?
I’m going to want to hear your reactions to the chickens that are now hatching..
I am crawling carefully along the ridge-top, reading actual works and your reactions but no longer reading Comments (or contributing, unless asked). Comments delve into WoBrandon that I will never hear and that he didn’t choose to write in a book. That’s not fair game for me to know since what I hear could be paraphrased and not set in stone by Brandon.
My main issue is his eggs were often too opaque for me (e.g. Zahel idioms), so the eggs passed me by. Whether the more explicit name dropping will bring me thrills or groans.. we shall see.
@116 jedi. While I think Formless will do something that will harm Adolin, but killing sounds extreme.
@122. anomander. We do not know what the book has in store for us. I do not know there will be no additional consequences for Adolin so while I agree, we are more likely to read them as an internal monologue, I think it is premature to toss it all away. I may not have enjoyed every moment of the Kaladin focus, but I have enjoyed every moment of the Shallan narrative and this week was pure gold. The Adolin stuff we got was good and I don’t think this was a chapter we could have read from his perspective.
Adolin will eventually get viewpoints and stuff will happen. Will that stuff be as deep and developed as Kaladin? Nope. Not a chance, but then again, is that a bad thing? The bottom line is I cannot judge what I haven’t read yet. It is way too early to state there will be no Adolin (there will be) or that the murder of Sadeas won’t play a bigger role in what happens to him. I mean, it won’t be as many of us anticipated a long time ago, but it does not mean it will be a waste of page time and ultimately unsatisfactory. More importantly, it does not mean I will not enjoy it even if it isn’t what I envisioned, it still does not mean it will be bad.
The same applies to Dalinar. He will get viewpoints. He is confirmed to get viewpoints in RoW, he is just not getting them *now*. The fact he has no viewpoint in Part 1 does not mean what is to come will be bad or unsatisfactory.
@anomandor
We’re 9 chapters into a book that likely has ~120 chapters. These chapters are clearly not representative of the whole book’s focus for a few reasons:
a) We know Venli and Eshonai are the flashback chapters and we haven’t seen them yet.
b) Sanderson tends to focus on specific characters in specific parts (Ex: Part 1 of WoK was Shallan & Kaladin, Part 2 focused on Kal & Adolin & Dalinar, etc)
Calling him a plot device/ruined feels a little presumptive 9 chapters in. I’d like to see more of plenty of characters: Jasnah, Renarin, Lift, etc, but we’ll probably be seeing snippets of them from other POVs until the focus shifts. That doesn’t mean they’re ruined or a disappointment. Sanderson has shown throughout the first 2 books that he knows how to keep Dalinar interesting even when he’s not the focus. We’ll also likely be seeing more Dalinar from Navani’s POV, which would be a new perspective I’m interested in.
jdfc, If for you “been taken down a peg by a wily Herdazian, has made decisions that are going to put their airship and the people of Hearthstone in greater danger, frustrated his adoring wife in the process” is a satisfying development for a character who confronted Odium and Ascended in previous book, we won’t agree on this one.
Everything you listed here is a sign of a plot device. Bad plot device, I will note. This “Dalinar” is not Dalinar from Othbringer. This “Dalinar” is not interesting, he doesn’t speak, he has no character arc nor any seeds for future character arc. This is not development, this is regression. This is a disapponting plot device and utter garbage.
IAmAStick, at this point this is absolutely clear the rest of the book will focus on Kaladin. Everything else will happen inside of little sub plots.
@Anomander
Again, I understand it’s a big jump from Dalinar being the central focus of the climax in OB to not being a focus in Part 1, but Sanderson has said himself – Dalinar doesn’t have a POV in Part 1, but will have more page time later on. The focus of this book is also Navani, not Kaladin. You’re making assumptions and certain statements about parts of the book that haven’t even been posted. Logically speaking, you can’t pass judgement on content you haven’t read. It’s like DNFing a series and claiming the ending was trash because you didn’t like the start. It makes total sense to say ‘I wanted to see more Dalinar more in this part’, but just because he didn’t have any significant plot points in the span of 9 (out of around 120 total) chapters doesn’t mean his character is ‘ruined’. It means it’s not a focus at the moment. A character being temporarily not a focus isn’t ‘utter garbage’ or a ‘disappointing plot device.’
I seem to be alone thinking this, but I think Formless will turn out to be Shallan’s eventual integrated personality. I think it will be something she fears but gets closer to throughout the novel and eventually opens up to when she allows herself to remember her past. I think the name Formless refers to her discarding the forms of the separate personas and being able to function as a whole human being with all the strengths of Veil, Radiant and Shallan.
@@@@@ Mike
I actually do believe that Formless is an entity that needs integration into the whole. In fact I believe that it was her original personality, the one who initially bonded Pattern, the little girl who couldn’t speak, couldn’t stop crying. However I’m not 100% sold on that idea anymore as I have read this chapter. Formless is looking like she’s destroying Shallan’s Radiance and that is super bad news. If the emerging Formless is actually doing so there could be a couple reasons. One, it is her original personality and it thinks the Radiance was the problem and so seeks to destroy that which destroyed her family. Two, it’s something external. Say Shallan didn’t come out of that battle with Re-Shepir as unscathed as we thought. Say Re-Re left a seedling in Shallan when she fled. Or Ashertmarn although whatever is happening to Shallan doesn’t seem like his style. Three is the most boring, that Formless came about because she’s losing her grip on the balance provided to her by the Three, that after a year she is still struggling with her 4th Ideal. Formless then becomes an embodiment of her regression. All of these possibilities are bleak as all get out, either way it goes should be a fun read. Eager for the next installment.
anomander @127 – For the record, virtually everything you said is incorrect. I’ve read the book. Dalinar’s role in it doesn’t need a POV in Part One to support his impact. Have you really that little confidence in the author who created the character you view so highly? I’m confused…
Be that as it may, if you’re going to throw a wobbler with every chapter that Dalinar doesn’t have a POV – which will be every week for the next 11 weeks – may I suggest that you just wait until the book comes out in November? That many tantrums has to get tiring, and you’re rapidly becoming a punch-line.
Wetlandernw @131
I hope it’s alright with everyone right now ( including my wife) if I say I love you.
That is all.
Wetlandernw, I didn’t throw any tuntrums and I wrote what I think about Dalinar in chapter nine of Rhythm of War which is relevant. Plese note that I didn’t write anything about lack of his POVs. I don’t enjoy his “role” or better say no role in general.
You agree that Dalinar doesn’t need viewpoints in Part 1, but this is your personal opinion. I respectfully disagree with this opinion. My opinion is as valid as yours. Being pushed back into the background did harm the character.
@Anomander
You know @Wetlandernw is one of the beta readers who wrote the read along right?? And they pointed out that you were claiming the rest of the book wouldn’t focus on Dalinar, despite the fact that you haven’t even read the rest of the book, and that Brandon himself has contradicted you, saying Dalinar will be more of a focus in later parts? It makes perfect sense to say ‘i wished we got more dalinar in this part’ esp because he was such a huge focus in the last book. We get it. Everyone’s favorite character got shafted at some point. But you decided, and i quote that this was ‘utter garbage’. That’s not being respectful at all – you were just being rude and unnecessarily attacking the author.
@Anomander
This is the beginning of a book, one in which the characters have had a yearlong gap from the actions of the previous installment. Is it truly realistic to expect characters to start off with huge happenings in the very beginning? Even if Dalinar was a part 1 viewpoint character it would be crazy to start that way. Why? Because where would you go from there? What made Dalinar so engaging in OB was the build up. If he’d have started OB popping out perpendicularities outta nowhere that may have been hype for a couple chapters and 900 pages worth of slog afterwards. I mean look at him now. He’s able to pop perpendicularities at will right now and you’re regulating him to a mute, dull character with no story impact. Seems to me like you don’t really want what you’re asking for.
But hey, it’s your opinion and you can feel any way you want about any character you want. Even if you sound like a troll to the rest of the participants on these reveal chapter boards your opinion is valid and you may actually have some people who agree with your views. I would probably urge you to wait until November to get your Dalinar fix, for your own mental well-being if for no other reason, but do you bro (or sis, I truly don’t know and don’t wish to offend).
@Alice
In case I’ve never mentioned it I appreciate the great chapter analysis you and Lindsey provide each week and your continued participation. Thanks for all you do.
Am I supposed to be convinced I will like the book because someone else liked it? People have different tastes and opinions. I trust only myself. I trust what I see. And I would be very grateful if you stop blame me for “attacking the author”. Any opinion on Brandon’s writing that isn’t admiration is NOT attacking the author. Please.
I also wanted you to point where Kaladin got shafted, but I won’t because I already know the answer. All characters got shafted at some point, but this character who got shafted is always Dalinar and never Kaladin. You know, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”
It’s fine if you don’t like the book. I already said in my first response that it’s fine to wish we had more Dalinar. My problem is that calling a book ‘utter garbage’ is disrespectful and rude. I don’t know how else to make that clear. If you hate reading these chapters that much, don’t read them.
Moving on to actual analysis, Kaladin gets shafted in Pt. 2 of Oathbringer, he has no POVs at all. Dalinar hasn’t had a POV for less than a single part of ROW. Most other characters get shafted as well: Shallan, Adolin, Jasnah, and Renarin have all been shafted.
The reason people are making counterposts is because you have claimed repeatedly that Dalinar will not be a focus later on and deeming Dalinar’s character completely ruined based on an assumption about content you haven’t read (saying “I don’t believe the book will have more Dalinar later on” and “at this point this is absolutely clear the rest of the book will focus on Kaladin. Everything else will happen inside of little sub plots”), despite Brandon himself saying Dalinar will be more of a focus later on.
Is it just me or does anyone else get the vibe Navani might bond the Sibling and become bondsmith of the tower?
A few more things:
I didn’t pay attention to this detail on the first read, but this means that there aren’t any baby/reduced Cryptics among the soulcaster spren, because they don’t have faces in traditional sense. Too bad that Navani didn’t mention their color – could they all be larval/regressed Elsecaller spren? It would make sense given the Order’s focus, for them to try to find an alternative to making deadeyes during the Recreance, and moreever, to provide something broadly useful in a lot of contexts to their people in the bargain. There is no evidence so far of the soulcaster devices existence before the Recreance – and, in a society where Elsecallers and Lightweavers existed, there would have been no perceivable need for them, as it would have been much easier for such to just go where the food was needed and quickly make a stockpile. That would have also eliminated the risk of the enemy getting their hands on the devices for their own use.
Healing fabrials are different, in the sense that healing is much more time-critical.
There are also hints in Kaza’s Interlude from OB that humans kept going to Aimia for soulcasters long after the Recreance, so it is also likely that Aimians were making them, rather than just doling out a stash left by the recreating Elsecallers. In this case, it could have something to do with ban on “spren-fishing” in some areas of Shadesmar, perhaps? If the soulcaster spren are larval spren that would have normally been picked up and raised by spren parents, but could be removed and bound by PR entities instead… Because it looks like the binding of spren for old-style fabrial happens in the cognitive, as opposed to new-style ones doing it in the physical.
I am in the minority in that I think that new-style fabrials are better and are the future – with some regulations, maybe. But in essence they just mimic natural spren-bonding of Rosharan animals, which was set up by Adonalsium himself. Neither Venli (or maybe it was Eshonai in WoR?), nor the intelligent spren see the practice as nefarious and we know that Roshar is moving towards magi-tech Industrial Age, so IMHO new fabrials aren’t going anywhere. It may be necessary to make rules that fabrials need to be destroyed and the spren set free after a time period, to imitate Rosharan spren- animals life cycle more closely.
To be continued.
Thanks to all who’ve done their best to keep this conversation civil, but it seems to have gone a bit off the rails overnight. Let me be clear about our moderation guidelines: you don’t have to like a given book, or the chapter being discussed. You don’t have to agree with the opinions or interpretations expressed by the OP or in the comments. But if you want to take part in the discussion on this site, you have to be civil in the way you interact with others, and your comments have to be *constructive in tone.* Explaining why you dislike an author’s choice or some element of the text is fine if you can do so constructively and without derailing the conversation–repeatedly harping on what you do not like isn’t helpful, and it does nothing to add to the discussion or other people’s perspective on the topic at hand, which is the purpose of these threads.
We hope that’s clear, for this and for future discussions. Let’s move on.
@@@@@ many – I think that it probably is either Venli or one of the Parsh under direction of the Fused as Navani’s new pen-pal. I suspect that is another reason the Fused were doing reconnaissance on the Fourth Bridge, and one of them was able to plant the half-ruby in her “boat”. The idea that it is a Herald (Ishar/Tezim) is intriguing for sure, but I’m not sure I see how the plant could have been made unless he truly is in cahoots with Team O, or has a spy with access which is also a possibility. A third possibility just occurred to me: what if it were King T’s pet Dustbringer/Releaser? It would fit with her spren’s view of the Humans, and treatment of their kind.
@@@@@ many – on the nature of the fabrials: definitely getting some “deadeye spren” vibes, however it distinctly mentions the eyes being closed . I wonder if Navani has had the chance to view an actively used fabrial in Shadesmar? Sanderson is probably saving that for an on-screen reveal, but I am intrigued what the spren waking up will look like, and if there is anything similar to the deadeye screaming in their use
I am among those who would have preferred a more balanced multi-PoV narrative with 5-6 PoVs with similar amount of content at a time (but not necessarily the same roster in every volume). Alternatively, I’d like a proper rotation where characters do stand back for books that aren’t their focus and are, if narrative requires their heavy presence, shown more from the outside view rather than their own. This is not the case in SA where Kaladin, and, to lesser degree, Shallan are concerned, but it is what it is. The next book is supposed to be Dalinar-heavy, at least, and finally feature enough Szeth to justify his survival in WoR, one hopes.
I do wish that Kaladin will be somehow removed from contention for PoVs in the second half of SA, because I very much afraid of him suffocating the new focus characters, particularly Taln, who occupies a similar niche and is so very intriguing, IMHO, but also Ash and Jasnah. I feel that Lift and Renarin, as the new young heroes will be safer from encroachment.
As an aside, I don’t think that Jordan’s or Martin’s main problem was that they were introducing too many PoVs, but rather that they refused to drop them for the stretches where there was nothing interesting for them to do, or drop them (not necessarily via death) period, once they have served their purpose. Oh, and the fact that they didn’t manage to properly progress the time-lines during the books and/or to introduce time-skips between them.
Anyway, back to my fabrials:
Thinking about it a bit more, soulcasters are surprisingly similar to that other magic system (whiting out on a tablet is a PITA), in that types of charged gems inserted into the settings provide the key for the shaping of investiture. And the gems themselves are disposable and eventually used up. The slumbering spren must be bound to the metal parts of the soulcasters, not unlike deadeyes, only they aren’t made from shard-metal and can be damaged. Which is odd. OTOH, they could also often be repaired by modern artifabrians, even though the mechanism behind their function was unknown. Finally, there is unexplained variety in the power of soulcasters, with some few capable of producing all 10 Essences, while others can only do 3 or even just 1. Is this the result of the devices gradually breaking down, of the skill of their makers, or maybe of the quality of the slumbering spren which they are powered by? Navani didn’t mention any visual differences between the soulcaster spren…
On to Shallan – I guess that we’ll finally learn why a seemingly unremarkable rural noble family of Davars attracted so much attention from various Unmade, secret societies, etc. It couldn’t have been just the youngest daughter’s Radiance, because why her and not Ym and Nale’s other victims? Maybe one of the parents was a hereditary guardian of an Unmade’s prison? Or of some other terrible secret? Or their ancestors were, and while the family has forgotten, the other interests have not? We know that BAM and Re-Shepir were captured and Nergaoul, Ashertmarn, and Moelach were at large, and Dai-Gonartis may have also been, if it was responsible for the Scouring of Aimia, but what about the other 3? Yelig-nar eventually ended up with Gavilar, but it may have been imprisoned until recently. Ditto Sja-Anat. Ditto the Dustmother.
Also, Mraize is totally grooming Shallan, as he had played Ialai’s bodyguard in OB and could have easily killed her then.
Felt was a spy in the first Mistborn trilogy, then one of the pole-jumping scouts in WoR (convenient for a Ghostblood looking for Urithiru), then a member of Dalinar’s bodyguard during his flashback of visiting the Nightwatcher in OB. He could easily be among Adolin’s “best men”, as well. Why else would somebody like him play a Kholin soldier on Roshar for years, if not to keep an eye on them for the Ghostbloods?
Nina @121
Another thing to consider about Navani asking the honorspren and the spanreed messager saying ‘the honorspren cannot be trusted’ is this: the honorspren are vaguely split into 2 factions: the honorspren society in shadesmar (i.e. the one that captured syl, has a war thing going on w/ the cryptics, seems to be trying to take over shadesmar?) and the honorspren that have broken off to bond with radiants. It’s definitely a point made when Kaladin says that there’s only x number of honorspren willing to bond w/ squires. Note that the honorspren who break off maintain their dislike of cryptics, but don’t seem to be helping w/ the honorspren takeover of shadesmar. (i’m using syl’s dislike of pattern here.) So is the society of honorspren untrustworthy or are the spren bonded to Radiants untrustworthy?
@148 Isilel. Maybe the Davar lands are where an Unmade have been imprisoned, a long time ago…? It could be circumstantial… purely.
I too would have preferred steady rotations between 5 or 6 characters over having 1 or 2 characters being prominently focused over the others. I never liked this disbalance because in all cases, I find the “focused character” usually over-stays their welcome whereas “unfocused characters” are never allowed a chance to grow. I understand why Sanderson did it, but I keep on thinking SA volumes are just too thick to feature only the Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar story. Their story often needs break to breathe and Sanderson has struggled to give them any. The lack of “break” can make those characters feel over-written, so a break is good.
On the matter of Kaladin, I honestly do not see where his character could go other than “heroic death”. The narrative has made it clear he will always relapse, in rapid successions, into his depressive moods and this back-and-forth will never end. The beginning of RoW has further marginalized Kaladin’s issues: I fear it would be unrealistic for him to ever… climb his way back or find a balance or just, well, have a future. Also, the fact most of his narrative is basically orchestrated around him battling depression makes him far less useful, as far as the story goes than, well, everyone else including Adolin. Kaladin just no longer has character goals other than say the 4th ideal which is a pointless goal since it will trigger another depressive episode where he reaches new rock-bottom. In other words, whatever Kaladin does is pointless because he always slides backward to square 1 and will keep on doing it due to a condition he cannot learn to control.
All in all, Kaladin, due to the severity of his inner problems, and due to his inability to drive the narrative because of the severity of his inner problems, no longer has real agency nor long-term goals. There is no end-game for Kaladin and any end-game would be short-lived. As such, I do hope Sanderson will be able to give the character the heroic death he deserves because dragging this narrative into the back-half will be redundant. I agree it would be too similar to Taln, hence in the absence of potential for long-term narrative goals not involving “having depression”, Kaladin simply needs to end his story in the first half.
I expect a lot of readers disagree with this, but he truly is the one character with the least potential for an on-going narrative. That and the fact Sanderson seems to genuinely be unable not to give him the focus whenever he is around. I can see this becoming a problem once we reach the back-half, far more than some of us think it is right now.
Dashardie @147:
The ruby could have been stuck to the underside of Navani’s table back in Urithiru, where Tesim and other interests surely have their spies. In fact, it could have been sitting there for some time. And Odium may have ordered Taravangian to use the Diagram to facilitate all the communications that would favor his side.
I guess that whoever the writer is doesn’t think that murdering Navani would stop the process – so they decided to confuse her and make her spread uncertainty among the artifabrians.
Okay, I’m on the #noredemption train as well. But I think it would be so frustrating yet cool, Moash survives the Fused trying to kill him, Kal trying to kill him, all of Bridge Four trying to kill him, various Heralds trying to kill him, Zahel trying to kill him, Odium trying to kill him, until *BOOM* knifed in the back alleyway by some two-bit character who doesn’t even have a last name.
One of those things that you would absolutely HATE but then realize that he really deserved no better because he’s such a (word that cannot be said in polite company).
I loved this chapter. Maybe my favorite chapter so far. I love Kaladin. His depression realy resonates with me. (Or with my depression.)
@151 Isilel – that’s very true, I just don’t think it would have been done that early – the timing seems too suspicious to me for it to have been done at Urithiru. But, we’ll have to RAFO I suppose – I’m intrigued no matter how it was done, and part of the fun is guessing whodunnit before the reveal! Also, you’re right in that sowing uncertainty and discord amongst the artifabrian community would have more impact overall, especially as things turn into an arm’s race.
@150 Gepeto – I think Kaladin’s arc will make him take more of a backseat to the action, where he becomes more of a behind-the-lines type leader vs the in-the-trenches leader that he has been. I hope what happened in the burning building with Moash will be revealed, making Dalinar take Kaladin out of the field until he can get his crem together. This would create more tension and conflict between our characters (and driving the narrative forward), but will force Kaladin’s story to take a backseat to where more action is taking place. At least these are my thoughts on how it could play out.
@Gepeto – I’m just going to throw this out there, do with it what you will, but… “Kaladin’s issues are so bad, he might as well just die” is not anywhere close to a sensitive or productive message to those who specifically identify with his depression, nor is it going to further endear you to any of his fans in general. In case you still hadn’t noticed in-text or from my repeated analysis toward the point, this intro is pretty clearly setting up his major development point for this book as accepting his need to Get Help.
I think someone else has hinted at this, but what if the mysterious pen pal is Axies the Collector? Certainly he seems to have quite the appreciation for spren.
As for how Navani has caused so much pain… My first thought was painrial but lately I’ve been thinking about the paired fabrials. If I recall correctly, fabrials are paired by splitting a gemstone, presumably with the spren trapped inside. So what happens to that spren must be quite awful. Flying the Fourth Bridge requires many paired fabrials…
I think someone has hinted at this, but what if the mysterious pen pal is Axies the collector? Certainly he seems to have quite the appreciation for spren.
As for how Navani has caused so much pain… My first thought was her painrial, but lately I’ve been thinking about the process of creating paired fabrials. Iirc, pairing a fabrial requires that 1 gemstone be split into 2, presumably with the spren still trapped inside. That seems just awful. And flying the 4th Bridge requires many paired fabrials.
@156
I’ve kind of been wondering about the split gemstone fabrials, myself. Are they split before, or after the spren are trapped? And if after, then what happens to spren in the process? Could that have anything to do with our mystery correspondent?
Regards,
Ben M.
Practicing use of white text. Upon reflection, I think that mystery correspondent is …. The Nightwatcher… IMHO.
I intially thought that the mystery correspondent was The Sibling. But… was she a victim of The Recreance?
Ben M.
@155 jdfs. As mentioned multiple times, all readers should bear in mind we are discussing fictional characters in the context of a fictional narrative. Their primary purpose is to deliver a satisfying narrative. Of course, we are not all going to agree on what is a satisfying outcome and what isn’t, the purpose is not to agree, but to launch ideas as to why we see a given character taking a specific road.
As such, readers should be reminded arguing Kaladin choosing to “heroically die” is not equivalent to making a macroscopic statement on all individuals suffering depression, especially not in a world where treatment actually exists. It merely expresses a potential outcome for one specific character given the context we have gotten so far. Thus, in order to state the “heroic death” seems like the best-case scenario for Kaladin’s character, I am using the following data:
1) Kaladin issues have worsened over time and have become so severe, so extreme, it is hard to picture him realistically climbing his way back-up. Moreover, multiple readers have argued it was important for Kaladin not to get an “easy way out” of his depression because it wouldn’t be realistic. As such, now the author has chosen to marginalize Kaladin’s problems up to a point where they’re literally are no plausible ways back, his story then has to follow another trajectory if it is to remain relevant. To summarize, Kaladin’s issues are too severe for him to heal, get better, or to progress much: asking for help will not change much in the absence of real-life therapy and medication. Since there is no “better way” for Kaladin to go, then we need to look at other outcomes. The status quo is not an outcome.
I understand this conclusion displeases some readers and it certainly was not my first choice, but I do feel this might be the statement Sanderson made when he wrote Kaladin. He purposefully chose to make his depression worst than it previously was and severe depression, without treatment, cannot heal nor get better. Treatment is the key. It does not exist where he lives.
If Kaladin cannot get better because it is no longer realistic for him to do so, then what other purposes could his narrative serve? Hence my suggestion. He dies. Heroically. One last big save of the day. And live through the memories of future generations of Windrunners.
2) A character’s death sometimes is the best way to enhance a character arc. I can think of one specific example in another series, but mentioning it would be massive spoilers for readers not having read said series. Suffice to say, one of the protagonists chooses to die, to sacrifice himself so others could live and it was the most fantastic satisfying ending I have read in recent years. It wrapped up this character arc nicely and “dying” was not a “failure” but symbolized the character finally “accepting” stuff about himself.
Hence, the “heroic death” is not necessarily a bad ending and, in Kaladin’s case, it might be the best ending as it would allow his positive legacy to live on. He could be remembered as the inspiring leader he once was as opposed to the man overcome by his issues who froze in battles.
3) The last reason is structural. Kaladin takes a lot of focus. He cannot keep on having the same amount of focus within the second half and some of us fear Sanderson will not be able to cut down on the Kaladin page time if he is still around. Also, given the fact his problems are untreatable, cannot heal nor be improved on due to their severity and their nature, then what else could there be to write about the character? It might be best to allow him one last fight than to keep on dragging the same narrative into the back five. It is too much at risk to over-shadows the characters supposed to become players.
For the rest, if people who never met me before, who never attempted to discuss with me on a one on one basis, who know nothing about me besides what I have published in these pages believe they have enough data to pass a negative judgment on my person, then there is nothing I could do nor say that will make them like me more. As such, I am not trying to endear myself to the Kaladin fans, I am merely trying to convey what my personal opinion is on where this character can realistically go. Am I right? I have no idea, but not speculating on the same does not inherently make me a bad person and if some believe it does, then there is nothing I can do nor say that will change their minds.
In this, Kaladin is not so different from Dalinar. Look at how long he continued to insist that Sadeas was a friend and an asset to Alethkar long after it became painfully obvious to everyone else that he was a traitor who had deserved what happened to him long before Adolin finally did it.
The more I read it, the more I think Kaladin’s psychiatric healing will involve a flute he lost… Hoid gave it to him on purpose, knowing he would need it, like some sort of art therapy?
Gepeto @150. If Kaladin does survive the 1st 5 books, I think the reader will learn in Book 6 that Kaladin is in self-imposed exile. I think he will choose to live in Shadesmar. I have no textual support for this theory. Just a hunch. I agree that in the back five books, Kaladin has to be at most a secondary character.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Hi all, we’re observing an extended holiday break over the Labor Day weekend this year, and will reopen comments when we’re back online next week.
@129 Mike – I REALLY hope you are right, because I love Shallan (she is definitely my favorite character) and really don’t want her to be the destroyer. Here is hoping your interpretation of Formless is the right one!
@130 EvilMonkey – Your Shallan theories are all good, too, but more depressing. Poor Shallan! Brandon is really putting her through the ringer. I know her story will be great; I just hope it will be good as well.
Dalinar broke my heart in Oathbringer with his backstory, but I do love the character he is now. Without being in his head, he is the kind of man I would never trust, so I loved how others struggled with that in OB. I personally have every confidence that his story will continue to be amazing whenever it picks up again. It was just too epic in the last book; I feel confident there is more to come and can’t wait to read it in November.
I also just want to echo a few other readers (EvilMonkey, benandjonice, likely others I can’t remember) and say thank you to Alice and Lyn for these amazing analyses. Thank you for putting in the time to write these and share your passion for the story and fan theories. It is a joy to read them.
Also a big thank you to the moderators for making everyone play nice. I am sad that we had to have a timeout when you were enjoying time off.
@140, Isilel:
Brandon already showed us the no-spren-were-harmed-in-the-making-of, no-animal-products version, though. The soulcasters don’t require spren, and neither do the anti-Radiant-field generator fabrials.
@157, Medeinė:
The tone doesn’t match Axies at all, though. He doesn’t talk like that, and Brandon is a very careful craftsman.
@160, benpmoldovan:
They. Brandon is being very careful to make the Sibling gender-undefined. (I can’t say “genderfluid” or “agender” or any other such coinage until we know more about the character.)
@161, Gepeto:
That’s a very hard statement to support. Why do you say that no one with depression can recover without treatment (by which you presumably mean late-historical Western-style treatment)? Are you familiar with famous historical figures with depression (in English, under the names “melancholy” and “hypochondria”)? Dr. Johnson and Boswell did OK for themselves. Anyway, Kaladin doesn’t have an uncomplicated case of depression, he most certainly also has what we now call PTSD.
@162, Mason Wheeler:
In this, Kaladin is not so different from Dalinar. Look at how Dalinar continued to insist that Sadeas was a friend and an asset to Alethkar, long after it became painfully obvious to everyone else that he was a traitor who had deserved what happened to him long before Adolin finally did it. In fact, both Shallan and Navani also clung to family members who were painfully abusive toward them, years after this would be obvious to an outside observer.
Dalinar learned from that, which is sort of what heroic characters do in Sandersonia. He was able to see Amaram for what he was, after Torol Sadeas betrayed him. Kaladin’s failure is precisely not being able to release the friendship Moash just doesn’t currently deserve.
Does Renarin even know what his light does? It just occurred to me, he clearly did not know during his viewpoint in Oathbringer. What if Kaladin only saw Moash’s vision because of Connection to Moash?
If Moash was using the power of the Honorblade to influence Kaladin, that might Connect them. We still don’t know what Honorblades do, besides grant Surges, but we know there’s something. That’s Jezrien’s Blade, and he was the Herald of Kings.
Maybe Kaladin will talk about the second Moash and Renarin will say, “What? You saw what?”
@168. Carl. Yes, it is super harsh, I am not disagreeing with you, but I have been lingering within SA discussions for years now and the one thing that has always been adamant among the majority of readers was: Kaladin’s depression cannot heal nor improve because that is not realistic. I have seen readers hammer over and over again how unrealistic it would be for Kaladin to heal from depression, to get better without treatment, to move past his depressive state. I have heard over and over again how severe depression was a lifetime illness and could never go away or be improved on.
Now, this is not what I personally believe, more the summary of what I believe I have to believe based on how readers have pushed for this depression to be more and more realistic while insisting realism implies it cannot be healed. I would love to hear about real-life examples of people who actually healed from depression prior to the arrival of modern-day medicine, but this is such a touchy topic in the fandom. The very idea Kaladin could heal has always been received very badly…
My issues are thus, with Kaladin’s depression getting so much worse, the balance I once thought he could, at the very least, achieve has been compromised. I thus cannot see where he can go, as a character, if healing is impossible, which is why the heroic sacrifice sounds like a plausible ending for his arc.
None of this is my first pick nor expresses what I wish to read, but this push for realism, with this insistence what ails Kaladin cannot heal, has pushed his character into this corner where I do not know if he can ever move out of. My first pick would be for Kaladin to learn to cope with his depression, to heal from it, and to heal from PTSD in order to become the rightful leader of the Windrunners. That would be my preferred pick, I read him doing badly, I wanted a stronger pay-off than him saying the 4th oath while still being depressed two days later.
I wanted him to heal himself, but since this cannot happen in this series, I do not know what other alternatives we are left with.
So I haven’t read many of the comments yet but I have a question. I may be misremembering, but wasn’t there something about spanreeds not being able to be used in motion since the way they work is one moving would move the other, and you’d have to match velocities of the surface being written on originally to make the writing be at all legible? Unless I misunderstood, and Navani’s little room was floating in place and not in motion at the moment of the message, then shouldn’t our mysterious spanreed messenger have to be moving at the same exact angle and as fast as a triple lashed room being thrown across the sky while writing?
As much as people want Kaladin and Laral to be together, I feel like there could be a different way for Kal’s story to go ahead where he finds someone else to be his Tien. Maybe Rushu. It could happen that Rushu gets curious about the behaviour of the Windrunners and the Heavenly ones, Kaladin and Rushu interact about it, talking about philosophy and honor. And these discussions are sort of therapeutic and he gets to come to terms with his limitations and becomes a stable person again. And, after everything is done there’s old Kaladin and Rushu, travelling around and studying things. We have a situation similar to his childhood with Tien. ;) Probably sounds weird and sort of an idea for a fan fiction. But it would be a good departure from the jaded trope of the Tsundere heroine who heals the damaged hero.
@Perpendicularity: the chapter says, “A spanreed wouldn’t work if she was in a moving vehicle, but as they landed, she dug one of her own reeds from her supplies.”
I have only read Stormlight Archive and started reading Mistborn, and what I think of the things from the rest of the Cosmere are much like the characters think. It is kind of like how in a multiple-perspective book we will know things that the other characters do not, and don’t have to figure them out like the character if you have read the perspective, and in this case the other books, and when you have a one perspective book, you have to figure it out with the character, this is an explication on how it is reading this without reading the other books.
What if spren have to be made into fabrials the same way others do, like the soulcasters, and not the way we are doing it? What if the way we do it is causing pain, and the way it is for the other fabrials like soulcasters uses the spren, but does not hurt them? Also, on using a spanreed to contact Navani, I don’t recall spanreeds to use trapped spren, but I might be wrong.
Spanreeds are paired fabrials, and fabrials use trapped spren.
What if Shallan had another sibling?? What if she got angry as a child and accidentally (or deliberately, as much as you can be deliberate as a young child) killed them somehow? Maybe that’s why she protects her brothers so much now even when they don’t deserve it? Maybe that’s why her mom wanted her dead and was so afraid of her?
But at the same time, would it not have been at least hinted at in Shallan’s memories with her family that there would have been another sibling? But the only view we have of her past is her own (possibly doctored) memories, so possible?
I remember thinking that Radiant came sort out of nowhere in Oathbringer, then on my subsequent reread of Words of Radiance I noticed that she creates a persona described almost exactly the same way when confronting Vathah and the other deserters. She actually created Radiant, or the roots of Radiant, before Veil. I was again impressed by Brandon’s ability to lay the groundwork for later revelations in dramatic ways.
I just got the Battle of Thaylenah in my pre-RoW reread and got to this scene which strikes me as an obvious hint about Formless:
For me, this is the Kaladin Relatability Moment of the Chapter:
“Please,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do. I can’t understand this about you. I’ve tried so hard. I can’t seem to make sense of how you feel or why you feel that way.”
“If you ever do figure it out,” he said, “explain it to me, will you?”
I actually think I’m relatively good at identifying the causes of my acute emotional meltdowns, and to some extent the ongoing factors in my chronic depression and anxiety. But sometimes I need someone’s help with that, offering a perspective outside my own thoughts and experiences, and sometimes I just want someone to tell me why I feel these harmful, unproductive emotions and how I can think and feel differently. I’m lucky to have a good therapist, among others. The only character who really wants to understand and help Kaladin can’t even bring a human perspective to it. Like most fantasy worlds, perhaps even more than many, Roshar badly needs therapists.
I’m a bit late to the discussion.
Navani is probably going to be the character I want to follow the most now. Also, I nothing to support this theory but I wonder if the person talking to her actually talking about the fabrial that negated Kaladin’s powers in the fight back in Hearthstone… Like maye she’s being attributed to having done something that wasn’t actually her and she’s going to have to figure out a way stop someone else who is hurting spren.
Or we could just the spren PETA telling her to stop lesser spren to fabrials as was pointed out in earlier comments.