Good morning (afternoon, evening, night, depending on your time zone), good readers! Welcome back to the Rhythm of War Read-Along! You have already read all the chapters so far, right? Because spoilers for all of those lie ahead, and we wouldn’t want you to suffer that.
Ready to proceed?
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 magic-system (not plot) items from Mistborn in the Fabrials section, so if you haven’t read it, you may want to give that section a pass.
We’d also like to remind you that the chapter you just read has not yet been through the final proofread. You will undoubtedly find an error or two, and they have probably already been found in the gamma read and will be corrected before printing.
Chapter Recap
WHO: The Three (Shallan/Veil/Radiant), Kaladin
WHERE: Shattered Plains, Hearthstone
WHEN: Day One Continued
Shallan enters a verbal sparring match with Ialai, with Shallan trying to get more information and Ialai trying to figure out what Shallan knows. In the end, Ialai’s concern over the Ghostbloods—and her conviction that they’re going to kill her no matter what—leads her to drop hints to Shallan, hoping to reveal some of their plots. Her prediction proves correct; she’s mysteriously murdered before they can even get her out of the chambers, leaving Shallan and Adolin with a dead body and more questions.
Meanwhile, Kaladin finds the “hulking Fused” and his soldiers using an injured and Stormlight-drained Godeke as a hostage. Following them into the burning mansion, Kaladin’s Surges and Shardblade are disrupted by a Voidlight fabrial as the Fused taunts him about being unable to fight without his powers. Kaladin promptly proves him wrong, taking out four soldiers with his body and their own weapons, then killing the Fused himself with an ordinary knife. Once the fabrial is turned off, he takes up the burden of his Third Ideal and turns to seek Roshone.
Overall Reactions
A: This chapter, in serialization, contains yet more of those “resolutions” that you realize just leave you with new questions. Ialai is not what most of us expected—and I, at least, certainly didn’t expect her to die so soon. There’s one loose end all tied up… except that now we need to know who did it, and why—to say nothing of sorting out the hints she dropped about the Ghostbloods.
L: Yeah, I wouldn’t say “tied up” exactly. She’s gone, leaving us with even more questions than we had before!
A: Fair point. Dead, but who knows what she’s left to complicate matters—besides more questions. As for Kaladin, the teleport-Fused is dead until the next Everstorm, but what about the fabrial and its implications? And will happen when Kaladin goes after Roshone and the imprisoned townspeople? (If you’ve watched the reading that included part of Chapter 8, don’t spoil it for anyone… but make sure you read the whole chapter next week.)
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
L: I’d also like to chat a little about that cover that dropped yesterday! It’s so beautiful!
A: Oh, so beautiful. I’ll admit, I’ve always been a sucker for Whelan covers, but they just get more gorgeous every time. His imagery of Shadesmar is simply incredible, and I love his depiction of the plants.
L: That’s got to be Adolin on the back cover, right? With that outfit, it couldn’t be anyone else. I’ve seen a lot of people questioning whether it is or not because the character’s hair color looks white or silver, but I think that’s just because of the lighting in the scene as painted. (Adolin’s hair is golden blond with black strands.)
A: Oh, absolutely it’s Adolin. The Shadesmar lighting is very different than normal daylight—and as you say, the outfit pretty much guarantees the identity. I love that he’s holding an “ordinary” sword; his previous experience in Shadesmar guarantees he’ll never again voluntarily enter that place without at least a side sword. I don’t know if that was specifically on Whelan’s mind when he created this, but given how helpless he felt without any kind of sword last time, it’s a perfect callback.
L: And those OUTFITS! I love Shallan’s!
A: I could only wish to be able to make (or wear) that! What a gorgeous design!
Yeah, okay, Whelan fangirling done for now…
Humans
Ialai Sadeas was a woman of moderate height. While she’d never been renowned as a great beauty, she seemed to have withered since Shallan had last seen her.
A: As you’ll likely have figured out since you read the whole chapter, this really is Ialai. Furthermore, rather than her setting a trap for Shallan, she’s been waiting for the trap to snap closed on her. (It was a good theory, but that’s not where things are going.)
L: I feel bad for Ialai. Sure, her husband was a snake and she was wholly on his side, but she’s had to deal with his murder and her entire way of life falling apart around her, and now the stress of knowing that an assassin was likely shadowing her footsteps…
“I do not intend to be queen,” she eventually said. “That is a lie that some of my more… overeager followers perpetuate.” … “In the past,” Ialai said, “I have supported the heir—Elhokar’s son, Gavilar’s grandson, the rightful king.”
“He is only a boy, not yet six.”
“Then urgent action must be taken,” Ialai said, “to rescue him from the clutches of his aunt and great-uncle, the rats who have deposed him. To support me is not to upset the lineage, but to work for a better, stable, and correct Alethi union.”
Clever. Under such a guise, Ialai could pretend to be a humble patriot.
A: All things considered, I’m inclined to believe that’s really what she intended at this point. She’s still a traitor, and I don’t for a skinny minute believe that Gavinor would ever have grown up to be king under her protection. But at this point in time, I’m willing to accept that she primarily wanted to get rid of Jasnah and Dalinar, and that if she could, she’d have set up some kind of regency for Gavinor—with herself in control of it, naturally.
L: Yeah, I’m not sure exactly what I believe in regards to her motives. Sadeas was a stalwart vassal of Gavilar’s, so I guess it does make sense that she’d want to preserve his lineage in little Gavinor. And she honestly doesn’t seem the type—especially now—to want to take control of the power. Rule from behind the scenes? Yeah, this I could see. But I don’t think she would want to be queen herself. She just doesn’t strike me as the type.
“Nale’s nuts,” muttered one of Adolin’s soldiers. “This is going to look bad, isn’t it? This is exactly what the Blackthorn didn’t want. Another Sadeas corpse on our hands.”
A: Aside from the colorful metaphors curses, this rather points up the elephant in the room, doesn’t it? Do they know who’s responsible for that first Sadeas corpse or don’t they? From the tone of this, and Adolin standing right there, I’m guessing they don’t know.
L: Best. Curse. Ever. (In Stormlight so far, anyway.)
Shallan knew of blackbane herself. She’d studied up on poisons recently. Would I be able to spot a pinprick? Shallan thought, kneeling beside the corpse.
Either way, she suspected Ialai had been right: The Ghostbloods hadn’t trusted Shallan to kill her, and they’d sent a second knife to see the job done. That would mean they had an operative among Adolin’s guards or Shallan’s own agents.
A: Say it with me… Here’s the Next Mystery. Who killed Ialai? Because now Shallan and Adolin are in a position where they can’t trust any of the people who were with them… and they brought the best.
L: Betrayal! Murder! Mystery! Oh my!
Singers/Fused
The Fused carried one captive as he strode into the building…
Kaladin strode toward the broken wall. “You want to fight me, Fused? Come on. Let’s have at it.”
The creature, shadowed inside the building, growled something in his own rhythmic language. One of the soldiers translated. “I will fight you inside where you cannot fly away, little Windrunner. Come, face me.”
A: Oh, like we believe this? Yeah, we just want to keep you contained. Here, kitty… Not that Kaladin exactly believed him either, of course. Unfortunately, he had no way to anticipate what came next.
L: Regardless of whether or not he believes it, it’s not like he has much choice, does he? Not if he wants to save Godeke.
A: Quite true. His purpose was to save the civilians, and now Godeke, and the building is on fire. At least this way he had some warning that the Fused was trying to be clever.
This large room had once been the dining chamber, where Kaladin’s father had eaten with Roshone and talked of thieves and compromises.
…
Where was the fifth soldier? There, near an overturned table, fiddling with something that glowed a deep violet-black. Voidlight? Wait… was that a fabrial? The light dimmed suddenly.
Kaladin’s powers vanished.
He felt it as a strange smothering sensation, as if something heavy had been placed on top of his mind. His full weight came upon him again, his Lashing canceled.
Syl gasped and her spear puffed away as she became a spren—and when Kaladin tried to resummon his Blade, nothing happened.
A: OUCH! I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the Fused have developed some anti-Radiant fabrials, but that was a bit of a shock. Ironic that Kaladin should be made helpless by this fabrial, in that same dining room where Roshone had made him feel so helpless all those years ago.
L: That’s some good symbolism, right there. I do feel a little like this came out of nowhere, though. The Fused were fighting through most of the last book, why are these fabrials just coming up now? Are they a recent invention, perhaps? It has been stated the humans have come much farther in fabrial tech than they ever had before. Maybe the Fused are working off of their developments to come up with new and innovative technology.
A: It’s a question, all right. One could assume that if they had fabrials like this before, one of their first projects would have been to recreate them as soon as possible. So… is this a new invention, or did it take this long to get it remade from prior knowledge? Or is this the first time they’ve had a chance to trap a significant target in an enclosed space? Oh, the things we don’t know!
Bruised & Broken
The Three never did what only one of them wanted, not in regard to a decision this important. And so, [Veil] held back. Radiant didn’t want to kill Ialai. She was too honorable. But what of Shallan?
Not yet, Shallan thought. Talk to her first. Find out what she knows.
A: So far… okay… Honestly, I will never not worry about “the Three” when they act like they’re completely separate individuals. Right here, they seem to be working well together and keeping their balance, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in that. A year ago, Shallan was super fragile and had barely managed to control things so that there were only three personalities. She seems to have stopped making new pieces, but I still don’t trust this accord.
L: I actually really like this a lot. It’s cool that they’re working together apparently seamlessly, and respecting one another’s boundaries and talents! I especially like this “the Three” part. Perhaps this is growth? Are they working towards coming back together into one person, blending their talents and strengths into one entirely new character? I know a lot of people would be really upset to lose Shallan if that were the case, but it would be a really neat way for Sanderson to do a character death, wouldn’t it?
A: That would be … very different than what I’d expect as a character death, for sure. This is Sanderson, though, so my expectations are often wildly inaccurate!
We didn’t do this, Veil thought. We decided not to kill her, right?
I… Shallan’s mind began to fuzz, everything feeling blurry. Had she done this? She’d wanted to. But she hadn’t, had she? She was… was more in control than that.
I didn’t do it, Shallan thought. She was reasonably certain.
So what happened? Radiant asked.
A: Indeed. What did happen?
L: Well, the logical conclusion is that one of their compatriots can’t be trusted. But which one…
Weighty Words / The Knights Radiant
“Radiants! You rely too much on your powers. Without them, what are you? A peasant child with no real training in the art of warfare or—”
Kaladin slammed himself against the soldier to his right.
L: I just have to say that I heard this scene playing out in my head for this Fused line…
A: I’m sorry for those of you who are tired of seeing Kaladin fighting, because I loved this scene.
L: I’ll never tire of seeing Kal fight! It’s always so cool.
A: Right‽ It rather cracks me up, because Kaladin admits he went in expecting to be able to use his Lashings and his Sylblade, but this Fused has badly underestimated the current crop of Windrunners. Especially Kaladin Stormblessed. “Peasant child with no real training,” my eye.
And of course we have to point out this bit:
Kaladin felt the wind encircle him as he spun between the two of them…
A: If, as we’ve been assuming for a long time now, the windspren form a Windrunner’s Plate, is Kaladin close to achieving his Fourth Ideal? Sure seems like the windspren want him to! Not in this chapter, I guess.
L: Does it have to be that he’s doing something that puts him closer to realizing his Ideal, or is it just that he’s already so close that the windspren are always around, just waiting? Like… are they drawn to actions which are similar to things he would need to do, to achieve that Ideal? Is this something that we can use to draw clues from?
A: It seems reasonable, doesn’t it? It would be interesting to go back through every time the wind/windspren show up like this. In any event, he does have a nice little surprise for the Fused, even without another Ideal:
There, Kaladin thought as the expected ribbon of red light came darting toward him. He will go for my back again.
Kaladin dropped his spear, pulled a throwing knife off his belt, and turned. He rammed the knife into the air right before the Fused appeared—slamming the small blade into the creature’s neck, angled between two pieces of carapace.The Fused let out an urk of shock and pain, his eyes wide.
A: Wheeee! Nice move, Kaladin. Let’s hear it for untrained peasants!
L: Hell yes.
A: And as Kaladin and Syl observe, having caught the Fused before he could zip off, he seems to be dead for now. Of course he’ll be back in the next Everstorm… Even so, it’s pretty cool that, despite the loss of his powers and his Blade, Kaladin was able to take down four singers and a really nasty (overconfident) Fused. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next time they meet!
Roshone. The former citylord had told Dalinar he was going to search the manor’s stormcellar to free imprisoned townspeople. Though he wasn’t proud of it, Kaladin hesitated—but when Syl looked at him, he gritted his teeth and nodded.
So long as it is right … he thought.
L: Reminder that Kal’s third Ideal was “I will protect even those whom I hate, so long as it is right.”
A: Also worth noting, Kaladin had a much greater reason to hate Roshone than Elhokar, the one he was protecting when he first spoke that Ideal. We saw earlier that Kaladin has only grudgingly admitted that Roshone might have changed, and might be a better person than he used to be. Going into the fire for him has to be huge; while there are also the prisoners to be considered, in the moment Kaladin is only thinking of going in for Roshone.
L: Yeah. Roshone was directly responsible for Tien’s death. I have to admit, I would have a really hard time forgiving him enough to go in and save him, too. But… Kaladin’s a better person than I am.
A: A bit of a side note… In looking for something else the other day, I was rereading the scene where the boys were “recruited” for the army. Kaladin tried to go in Tien’s place—
L: Hmmm ::laughs::
A: —and Roshone refused to permit it. He specifically wanted the defenseless, lovable Tien sent to the army, to cause the most possible anguish to the family. He really was a complete … complete …
L: Alice isn’t the best with swears, but that’s okay, I got this, guys. He was a complete and total douchebag.
Secret Societies
“Strange, how easily my enemies strike at me in quiet, dark chasms. Yet it has taken them so long to attack me in my chambers.” She looked right at Veil.
Damnation. She knew what Veil had come here to do.
A: This whole conversation with Ialai talking about wines with an undercurrent of secrets and suspicions was… slightly bizarre. Shallan really should have been suspicious of poison, even if she could burn it off with Stormlight.
L: I don’t blame her for not being afraid of poison, considering how swiftly she heals. Remember her getting legit shot in the head in Oathbringer and just shrugging it off?
I really loved this part, personally. The wordplay was like watching two masters playing chess, using metaphors and analogies to subtlety attempt to throw the other off track.
A: For some reason, I was having trouble wrapping my head around the layers of insinuation they were playing.
L: That’s fair. We didn’t get much exposition from Shallan about specifically what the insinuations were referring to, and as a result the reader is left to try to figure it out on our own.
A: It did make me giggle when “the Three” decided that if it was a matter of wordplay, Shallan had better do the talking. But the really crazy part comes later:
Invisible. Deadly. Sweet wisdom of Battar…
Shallan had been engaging in this entire conversation assuming that Ialai knew her for an operative of Dalinar. That wasn’t the case at all. Ialai saw her as an operative of Mraize, of the Ghostbloods.
A: On the one hand, it’s moderately hilarious, and on the other hand… well, clearly Ialai was much less worried about the Kholins getting to her than the Ghostbloods.
L: I mean, generally speaking, she’s probably right to be more worried about the Ghostbloods. Dalinar is so honorable that he’s not going to let anyone kill her (if we’re assuming that the general public doesn’t know that it was Adolin who killed Sadeas, which does seem to be the case), whereas the Ghostbloods seem to have no issues whatsoever assassinating people.
A: There’s good reason, for sure. She certainly hated the Kholins, and I wouldn’t put it past Jasnah to send an assassin for her. But the Ghostbloods are terrifying; they’re utterly ruthless, but hardly anyone knows anything about the Ghostbloods. It’s almost a pity she was so hostile toward Dalinar; she’d have made an excellent ally, given what she had figured out.
L: Well. Sure, as long as she never learns that it was Adolin who murdered her husband.
A: Yeah… If she’s correct, the Ghostbloods killed Thanadal when he tried to make a deal with them, and they killed Vamah when he tried to simply get out. If that’s the case, no wonder she was expecting an assassin. She also assumes that the Ghostbloods were behind the deaths of Gavilar and Amaram… and in a way, perhaps they were. There may yet be more we don’t know. Were the Ghostbloods involved in the Parshendi obtaining—and using—Szeth to stop what Gavilar was doing? Were they involved in driving Amaram to the kind of despair that led him to accept Yelig-nar? I… honestly don’t know. If they were, what else were they manipulating behind the scenes?
“They’ll send you after Restares next,” Ialai said.
A: Well, now, that would be interesting, wouldn’t it? Do they know where he is? And why would they send Shallan? (Also, does Ialai know who Shallan is? I don’t think we ever get that clearly answered.)
L: I didn’t get the impression that she did. I think she just saw “random assassin” and not specifically Shallan. Who knows, though? Ialai is pretty smart…
Have you asked yourself what they want? What they expect to get out of the end of the world?”
“Power,” Veil said.
“Ah, nebulous ‘power.’ No, it is more specific than that. Most of the Sons of Honor simply wanted their gods back, but Gavilar saw more. He saw entire worlds.…”
A: I suspect she’s right. Twisted she might be, but Ialai has always been smart. The fascinating thing—and the reason I really want to know if she’d recognized Shallan somehow—is that once she’s convinced that Shallan didn’t know what the Ghostbloods were up to, she does a Gavilar: giving her treasured secrets to (the person she assumes is) the assassin sent to kill her. She tells Shallan to search the room herself, giving her a clue to follow, trying to give her information the Ghostbloods probably don’t want her to have. Why??
And then… she dies. Shallan puts an illusion on her, and stays talking with Adolin while the soldiers take Ialai to the other room, and next thing we know, she’s dead. Who killed her?
L: Also, that line about entire worlds is reeeeaaaaally interesting. Is she referring to the other Realms, or other worlds in the Cosmere?
What We Missed (in the Timeskip)
A: What we don’t seem to have missed is public knowledge that Adolin killed Sadeas. Have they really kept that a secret for a year?
L: It definitely doesn’t seem in character for Dalinar, does it?
A: It doesn’t. He’s been in tell-all mode, but… apparently not about that, or I have to think Ialai would have said something.
Fabrial Technology & Spheres
The two metals of primary significance are zinc and brass, which allow you to control expression strength. Zinc wires touching the gemstone will cause the spren inside to more strongly manifest, while brass will cause the spren to withdraw and its power to dim.
A: Last week, we got our first textual statement that the specific metal used in a fabrial matters just as much as the gemstone. Now we get some details! Zinc increases the effect, while brass decreases it. MISTBORN SPOILERS: Zinc and brass are the “rioter” and “soother” metals when burned by an allomancer. Coincidence? I think not!
L: Yeah, that’s definitely way too close to how they’re used in Mistborn to be a coincidence, especially since we know that the Investiture powers are linked throughout the worlds of the Cosmere. Since all of the powers on the different worlds come from the same root source (namely Adonalsium, which was split into the 16 Shards), it makes sense that they all must follow the same general rules.
Remember that a gemstone must be properly infused following the spren’s capture. Drilled holes in the gemstone are ideal for proper use of the cage wires, so long as you don’t crack the structure and risk releasing the spren.
A: I don’t have much to say about this, other than that gemcutters on Roshar must be incredibly skillful.
L: Yeah, this is interesting. What about the structure of the gem itself is the important part? Is it just the facets on the outside, or something about the actual elemental composition of the gem itself? The fact that drilled holes don’t necessarily harm this “structure” is really fascinating.
Another juicy, tantalizing chapter! We’ll be leaving the speculation to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others. Again, if you’ve heard, watched, or read any of the material not covered in the serialization yet, please white-text anything you say about it.
Alice is happy to say that the gamma read of Rhythm of War is nearly finished. It’s pretty amazing what can be accomplished, even in a week, when you have a lot of good people in a well-organized effort. Kudos to Team Dragonsteel (especially Peter) for setting up a fantastic system.
Lyndsey’s debut novel is now available on Amazon, featuring a bounty hunter attempting to clear the name of a notorious thief charged with murder in a magical floating city. Check it out here! If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.
>> I… Shallan’s mind began to fuzz, everything feeling blurry. Had she done this? She’d wanted to. But she hadn’t, had she? She was… was more in control than that. I didn’t do it, Shallan thought. She was reasonably certain. <<
So until this point, it seemed Shallan had found some stability with “the Three”, somewhat balancing the personalities and maintaining control. But if she’s unsure if she actually did something moments before? Oh that to me indicates she’s really lacking the mental stability.
Oh boy! I loved seeing old-fashioned Kaladin fighting, without Stormlight or Lashings, just him and his prowess with a spear and flow in fighting! He so proved them wrong, and killed red-streak spren to boot!
@A & L -Regarding the windspren flowing around Kaladin when he fights, they’ve been doing that at least as far back as the shattered plains battle, and potentially (can’t remember for sure) even while in Amaram’s army; I think it has to do with the way he just flows with the wind and his spear when he fights, along with his Windrunner connection. So I don’t look at that as any indication of being closer to his 4th Ideal and accompanying Plate.
That Zinc/Brass reveal was wonderful! So cool (and a bit expected) to work similarly to how they work in Allomancy.
Finally, I kept expecting Ialai to do something surprising, but the scene ending up being intentionally mysterious, and her death OFF-SCREEN was anti-climactic… even with the reveal that Adolin and Shallan might not be able to trust their inner circle
Another week without Dalinar, my favorite character.
It’s so strange that Sadeas household is destroyed so easily. At least there’s the intrigue.
My theory on the voidlight fabrial is that it has something to do with Jezrien being dead, and wouldn’t have worked when he was still alive. At any rate, it’s hard to tell what exactly it is interfering with. If it were interfering with connection, I’d expect Syl to be less cogent when it was working, but she seemed to be fine. If it operated like chromium, I’d expect his Stormlight to be consumed, but that didn’t happen either. If it only interfered with using Stormlight, then Syl wouldn’t have been forced out of spear form. At any rate, I’m sure other people have thought about this more than I have so I’m excited for the ideas to start flowing.
So, am I the only one who thinks it’s possible Ialai poisoned herself? She’s clearly expecting to die from the moment the Three enter, and it would be in character for her to exit on her own terms. Plus all the different stuff she drinks, and she even mentions that the wines could be poisoned… The clearest hint for me was that her arm drooped after she took a sip of the last drink. I feel like there’s the possibility of a double bluff, where it’s discarded by everyone as a possibility because it would be too obvious… I don’t think it was necessarily someone else who ended her life.
@2. Notom: We know from the heading of chapter 1 that Dalinar won’t be a POV character in Part 1 at all; we’ve seen all of them except Venli. And given that all of the action is taking place far from Urithiru, I don’t see any reason to expect him to show up any time soon. You can of course point it out every week (as do many here), but I don’t consider it noteworthy. Just my thoughts :)
Adolin seems to still be himself, kind and helpful, but I think the leader role has grown on him. He is the one his men turn to when they don’t know what to do and I think that he has become more calculating and he knows and accepts what needs to be done. But there is also that thing with “I don’t have all the answers. I never have.” I think Adolin is really stressed honestly
What a chapter!
I loved Kaladin’s no stormlight fight sequence – it does a lot to remind us that he is not just a Windrunner…
I wonder if Ialai poisoned herself with the blue wine that she did not share with Shallan as opposed to someone else murdering her. Or if someone did murder her, I am wondering if it was Ishnah given that she had wanted to join the ghostblooods in the first place.
I also loved how Shallan used the Patternblade summoning as a spren-compass! They have truly honed their skills in the last year!
Finally got to read some Adolin! And it was interesting that one of the first things he checked was which of the three he was talking to!
First comment?
Wow. So do people still believe that Leshwi is so honorable, sending Kal into a trap?
As for the traitor with Shallan, if it’s not Shallan herself, I vote Ishna. She wanted to be a ghostblood and got recruited into the radiants herself. Though since Shallan still has to ask if she did it, there still might be a fourth “ghost Shallan” persona that no one knows about. I think that’s far fetched, but it has great word play potential.
@@.-@
Thank you. I missed that Dalinar won’t be a POV character at all. Now I can give up all my hopes and expectations. But Dalinar is not in Urithiru. Have you read previous chapters? Dalinar is with Kaladin. There’s no reason not to give him POVs.
When will I finally read what I was waiting for for almost three years?
Where’s the Stormfather? When will I read how he communicates with Dalinar?
This is such a bummer. Dalinar has new cool powers and a full year to train with them. All I want is to read what he’s thinking now, how he understands his powers and how he’s progressed. And nothing happens week after week.
I think the sibling must be connected to autonomy somehow. Not necessarily the shard (Bavadin), it could also be some residue autonomy-investment abandoned on Roshar after Adonalsium was finished with the planet (Brandon mentioned this: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/315-general-reddit-2018/#e9385).
It fits, doesen’t it? The main purpose of Urithiru is to be autonomous, self-sustained. Hoid wrote a letter to one of Bavadins avatars, there is some connection with autonomy going on. Also, you could consider Autonomy to be a sibling-shard to Honor & Cultivation, the shards of the two other Bondsmith-Spren (Stormfather & Nightwatcher).
I wonder if Mraize’s other assassin for if Shallan couldn’t do the job (and potentially Iailai’s agent close to Dalinar) is…Shallan.
So far this book there’s been a lot of emphasis on Shallan’s three personalities – Shallan throwing to Veil, handing over to Radiant, who is overruled by Veil again and so on. They even have a name now, The Three.
I wonder if this is a way to set up a surprise reveal of another personality – you tell everyone Shallan’s three selves are working together and then pull the rug out and reveal a fourth one that isn’t.
If Shallan’s got a fourth self she’s not even aware of, working against what she thinks of as ‘her interests’ it would force her to take another look at her condition and perhaps, eventually, do some more healing.
@8 – I really suggest not reading these preview chapters and wait until the book is out.
I really enjoyed the chapters this week. I will admit I was dreading them since I knew Sanderson had read parts of chapters 7 and 8, publicly and they were Kaladin chapters. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the bulk of those chapters focused on Shallan and to actually enjoy the short Kaladin part. It was different. A new fabrial that steals away a Radiant’s powers. And Roshone is not redeemed… he’s still a scum… A part of me wanted him to be more than he appeared, but hey, well, I guess he always was a rotten one. So I enjoyed the Kaladin parts this week. It had a novelty. I take no issue with Kaladin when his parts serve a purpose and while last week I felt Sanderson was needlessly watering the sauce, this week, I felt he had good reasons to write this part.
Now, going to the meat of the chapter, I will first say I am enjoying this Shallan narrative even if I am ill-at-ease over Sanderson changing the canon with her. I do think, this week, we saw Shallan is not as much in control as she thinks she is and she knows it. She frets over thinking she might have killed Ialai even though we know she didn’t, but the fact she isn’t sure… well… to me, it sounds like her control is not quite what it should be.
I am a little disappointed Ialai didn’t live up to her former portrayal but, at least, she died while opening up the door to greater mysteries. I do think she recognized Shallan. She wanted to tell her something but she knew she couldn’t be blunt, she had the whole “oblique conversation about vintages”. Clearly, Ialai intended for Shallan to pick up on her hints. She is not quite the traitor we thought she was. I guess the fact the knowledge Adolin murdered Sadeas having not come out helps.
I was really pleased to finally see Adolin on the screen. He is not entirely OK, now isn’t he? He looks in control. He acts as the perfect leader, but isn’t his behavior a little off? He does not have all the answers, he is clearly ill-at-ease with all that is happening and his discourse of how “they will find enough evidence to convince Dalinar Ialai should have been hanged”, it is him he was trying to convinced, now wasn’t it? Twice he referred to what Dalinar would want, to what Dalinar would do… My personal thoughts: Adolin is not in control. He is merely trying to do exactly what his father wants him to do down to the last detail. He is not leading, he is just obeying what he believes are his father’s wishes, but he is not totally in charge. In all appearances, yes, but in his mind, I don’t think this is how Adolin thinks of it. I can’t wait for his viewpoints later in the book!
On the cover: I love it. It is my favorite of the four. And yes, it is Adolin on the back cover. Yes, his hairs are blond, but the lighting, the fact it is Shadesmar, all of those reasons are it does come out a little… pale. I agree with Alice. Of course, Adolin has a sword with him. No way he is going back into this place he felt so vulnerable and useless, this place where he nearly died without a weapon he is familiar with. Shallan is gorgeous, a little bit curvacious, but overall gorgeous and the background is spectacular.
On the side note: I think this week confirms two things: no one knows about Sadeas, no one knows about Dalinar’s past.
@8 Notom. Dalinar is a POV chapter, but Sanderson warned all his readers his role was smaller in RoW and his viewpoints will not come out until later. Given what is left for him is to, well, end the first arc with his magic, I can see why that is the case even if it makes some readers unhappy.
This is a quibble, but Veil/Shallan thinks of Ialai as weathered and withered at the beginning. That just seemed like an odd bit of near-identical wording. It was distracting, at least for me.
Mraize’s babsk, Iyatil (a Scadrial-derived worldhopper born in Silverlight), attempted to assassinate Amaram of the Sons of Honor with a blowgun. Now Ialai Sadeas dies in a a poisoned blowgun dart-compatible manner after talking about how much she fears the Ghostbloods. (Mraize also knows blowguns, he interrogated Shallan about them at one point. They’re apparently a traditional Singer weapon.)
Or maybe the end of the Oathpact and the increasing presence of Odium/Rayse on Roshar has made Voidlight-powered fabrials more of a thing.
We know that Gavilar knew about other worlds. He was working with Heralds, who are clearly Realmatically aware–Ash refers to Adonalsium, for one thing. Ialai seems to be in on his secrets.
Because Ialai talks so much about secrets, I’m reminded of a certain Soulcaster who was told that there are forces on the other side, that can trap and interrogate the souls of the dead. One wonders whether Ialai is going to safely enter the Beyond.
EDIT to add: what would happen to a “dead” shardblade in the presence of that fabrial? Would they turn back into spren? Would that have a permanent effect–that is, would they be swords again when it was turned off?
Can the Honor&Cultivation side recharge a voidlight fabrial in the Everstorm?
@8 – I know it is disappointing not to read Dalinar viewpoints, but I remember a WOB (I can’t for the life of me recall where and when) where he said there is a specific reason he is not sharing a Dalinar viewpoint in part 1 (I think he said it would give too much away or something)
Me, before reading: Man, I shouldn’t have listened to those readings, there’s going to be nothing new for me this week except a few Shallan bits.
Me, after reading: WHOA THOSE SHALLAN BITS!!!! Also yeah there’s some Kaladin.
@8 Notom – for what you’re waiting for 3 years to read: you can be sure you’ll read Dalinar POVs in November, when the full book is released; if you keep feeling let down, waiting until then might be your best bet.You can also wait until we start getting Part 2 chapters with Dalinar (assuming he has POVs in Part 2) and just skip to reading those…
@16 – We’re not getting part 2. Part 1 preview chapters will end the week before the book is released.
@13 – “This is a quibble, but Veil/Shallan thinks of Ialai as weathered and withered at the beginning. That just seemed like an odd bit of near-identical wording. It was distracting, at least for me.” I had the exact same reaction when I started reading. It certainly was clunky and not Brandon’s best writing.
@17 Austin – thanks for the clarification
Given Shallan herself isn’t sure for a moment whether she did it, just want to point out the last thing that happens before Ialai is lead out of the room is Shallan touching her arm while applying the illusion. Anyone want to bet that arm is where they find the pinprick?
I knew there must be more going on with the Sons for Mraize to want them gone. It almost sounds like, from what Ialai was saying, the upper levels of the Sons, people above Amaram’s head, like Gavilar and Restares, had separate goals from those the lower members were aware of. As much as we’ve been lead to believe before this that Gavilar was just using them, maybe there was a little more than that going on.
Hopefully we get a decent amount of time on this story, though we know from the back cover blurb, and the cover itself, that Shallan’s story eventually goes elsewhere, so I’m sure while we may get some answers we’re mostly going to end up left with more questions.
Kaladin’s fight scene was awesome! I was already laughing even before the Fused’s taunt got interrupted. Untrained fighter, my hinder!
Personally, I’m glad Ialai is gone. She and Sadeas were both horrible slimy people who deserved what they got. I think the assassination mystery is much more interesting than watching her try to manipulate yet another faction in this crazy-big world.
“Which one are you?” he asked quietly, a pouch of infused spheres.
– It seems like a word or two might be missing after the comma, maybe “proffering” or “handing her.”
@Gepeto:
May I ask why you say that? He doesn’t even appear in this chapter.
Hm… Not what I expected. I guess that the Ghostbloods are our next villain? It does seem like it’s a trap – but one of their devising and calculated to present Kholins as sinister and murderous, as well as demonstrate their power to Shallan and Co. Ialai _is_ smart in her last appearance, with her final gambit of turning a Ghostblood operative. I’d still have thought that Amaram’s betrayal should have provided Jasnah with sufficient justification to officially move against Ialai, given that he was so explicitly Ialai’s creature. But I don’t understand what Gavilar could have discovered that isn’t common knowledge after OB? Didn’t the Eila stele translation reveal the existence of other worlds? However, maybe whatever Jasnah still keeps secret about her own adventures in Shadesmar has something to do with what GBs don’t want to be known.
What is this?! Sounds like Nightblood to me. Is this Pattern now? – yea, it is clearly him on second reading.Or a new personality? Shallan personality still having memory issues, even with short-term memory, is troubling.
Ishnah seems like an obvious culprit, which I would hate as I’d really want Shallan to have female followers and confidants who are at least slightly fleshed out. Both hers and Kaladin’s squires being overwhelmingly male and having soldierly background was always a pet peeve of mine. Lightweavers, in particular, should have more diverse and predominantly civilian histories.
Leshwi was totally working with the other Fused and led Kaladin to him. I am surprised that the fabrial worked on Lift – I’d have expected her own unusual closeness to the Cognitive to protect her bond. I am also not surprised that void fabrials only appear now – even if they are established Odium’s side technology, making fabrials takes skill and time. If the Fused with the necessary know-how and mental presence didn’t all come in the very first wave, it makes perfect sense that their production capabilities are in the early stages.
Speaking of human fabrial science – it wouldn’t surprise me if gem-cutting technology had been the bottleneck for it for the centuries since the False Desolation, until a few decades prior to the start of the series, when it began to develop rapidly.
Bridge4kufer @1:
Kaladin was still enhanced by the stormlight he held, he just couldn’t surge-bind. But yes, a nice fight.
Notom @2:
RoW is going to be light on Dalinar, but book 5 will have a lot of him again, according to Sanderson. He’ll have PoVs in later parts of RoW, but we have to be prepared for something like his WoR presence.
@20. Aon_Dork
I concur. Prior to reading this, I felt Ialai’s quick death would be a let down. But Sanderson has definitely set us up for Shallan to go down a much more interesting path. And interesting doesn’t always mean “good,” does it.
Re: Kaladin
This is the reason we needed to have those “more-of-the-same” Kaladin fight scenes. I just don’t see this battle working without that set up. If we find ourselves questioning why events are happening the way they are, maybe it would be good to step back and remind ourselves that Sanderson is setting us up for what comes next. And as we all know, his set up doesn’t always lead to what we expect.
I can definitely see why this fused would think that the KR wouldn’t be able to fight without their powers. When the KR were an established organization in the past, I would think most members came to them prior to gaining any battle knowledge. They wouldn’t have learned to fight before gaining use of Stormlight. This group is definitely different. Also, if I remember correctly, Kaladin has questioned himself about how much of his fighting ability was him, and how much was the use of his powers, even in the early days before he became aware of what he was doing. I know as a reader, I’ve wondered. This was a nice reminder that Kaladin is awesome even when not using lashings.
@23
Dalinar was not a central character in first 2 books. Why on earth he returns to the status quo of a side character? After events of book 3? I am speechless.
I could see Kaladin using the Void Fabrial to train his Windrunners to fight without their powers, kind of like [Mistborn] how Ham spars with Vin without Pewter. People who are better fighters without powers can only be better fighters once you give them powers, and then they will still be able to hold their own if/when they have their abilities stripped again.
@25 – I have to ask, why are you so attached to Dalinar? This is a multiple POV epic fantasy series. There’s going to be fluctuations in POV screen times. If you can’t get past not having Dalinar being the sole character in these books, I suggest you simply stop reading them. At the very least, I suggest skipping these preview chapters and waiting for the book. That way, you can skip to Dalinar POVs if that’s all you want to read.
Huuh.
Zinc and Brass being used to strength and weaken a spren. And a spren basically just a living emotion. That’s not just similar to Allomancy, that’s exactly what Allomancy does. But there’s no Allomancer involved, just making metal and investiture touch each other. That’s… big.
It raises several questions, but foremost on my mind: if putting investiture and metal haphazardly together gives you allomancy, how does one produce the Feruchemical and Hemalurgic properties?
It was very satisfying to see Kal finally outmaneuver the teleporting Fused, and especially while fighting at such a disadvantage.
I’m love that we’re getting weekly chapters here. I had finished burning through Oathbringer a couple months ago, had run out of new Sanderson books to read, and was getting impatient for November to come around.
I haven’t read through all the comments yet, so sorry if somebody already pointed it out, but that’s not Adolin on the cover. Zoom in. That’s a spear, NOT a side-sword. It’s too long. The head of the spear is pointed down. Who else wears Kholin blue and is likely to be in Shadesmar with Shallan? That’s Kaladin.
Edit:
@34 @35 @39
You’re right, I see the crossguard now and I feel stupid. But you have to admit that’s a Kaladin posture and I still think it looks more like Kaladin than Adolin. The shorter, straighter hair is more Adolin, but… If the artist hadn’t confirmed it was Adolin, I wouldn’t believe it.
Also, have we seen Shardplate in Shadesmar? Other than Kaladin almost maybe forming his? I wonder if it would be any different. Maybe that’s why Adolin (sigh) isn’t wearing any on the cover? If they go purposefully and expect danger, I don’t see why he wouldn’t bring it.
Two things struck me. One was the possible use of hemalurgy with a gem. The metal lattice cage could be threaded through a gem, does this mean that the metal would go through the form of a spren since they don’t seem to have a material form? Also, is it possible that somewhere in the vintage is a beverage that is not from Roshone? Ialai’s comment that one was really exotic following so quickly after her statement that Gavilar had seen other worlds, to me suggests that reconnaissance has already been done. So what do the other books describing the Cosmere mention in terms of alcoholic drinks?
As to “… He saw entire worlds…” Ialai could be revealing that she knew of Gavilar’s knowledge of the other planets in the Rosharan system. Did she know of their relevance or meaning to Roshar? Who knows. She’s dead now.
Mystery! Intrigue!
@30 That is adolin, and that is definitely a sword. Spears don’t have hilts, and it’s not even unusually long for a sword.
@25 99% of the fandom would disagree that Dalinar is not a main character in books 1 and 2. You’ve got a pretty skewed perspective on this. Dalinar was #2 to Kaladin in WoK (Shallan at #3, imo, but at the very least, Dalinar would be #3), and they stayed about the same in book 2. I’m not sure where all your angst is coming from.
@30:
Actually, in the comments of the cover art article, the artist’s assistant was answering questions. That is indeed Adolin and that is a normal sword he’s holding.
@30 oakengrove I have to disagree, that’s a sword it had a cross guard, it’s in its scabbard
For the “what are you without your powers” line, I picture the bit from Season 2 of Arrow:
Det. Lance loses his gun and is knocked to the ground while the assassin stands over him and says pretty much the same line regarding the gun. Lance’s response is to pull a small revolver from an ankle holster, shoot him, and say “The guy with a spare.”
Initial impressions:
Ha! Brandon gives us a preview reading of a chapter and leaves out a MAJORLY IMPORTANT part. Wow. So all those theories about Ialai having something to counter Shallan and this being a trap weren’t 100% off, just… wrong about who had power and control in this situation.
It does seem that Shallan may have not been forthcoming about the Ghostbloods yet, but my hope is that she has talked to Adolin about it in private, and is waiting until they’re fully in private once more to update him. Let’s hope. Also, leaning towards Ishnah being the spy, but that seems too obvious, right?
So we can finally reference this Kaladin chapter in the comments! We’ve seen one example of the Fused having Fabrial type technology (the Heavenly Ones’s spears) and now we see something completely different than anything we’ve come across to date: a fabrial that suppresses Stormlight. (Crazy theory: that’s what Urithuru does to Voidlight when the Sibling is awake and fully active; that’s why the Radiants tower/fortress was always considered a relatively secure space.) Anyway, I am eager to see what Navani can do when she checks out the fabrial.
That Fused was a cocky, cowardly, honorless bastard and I’m not sorry to see him go. Of course, we’ll likely see him again after the next Everstorm.
Love that Lift is just… Lift. Going to help, doing what’s right, just because.
And now we can see the Shallan segment Brandon skipped over in his reading. So many potential spies/agents infiltrating Dalinar’s people; I guess that’s to be expected. I still allow for the possibility that Ishnah is Iyatil in deep cover, so almost everyone is suspect.
All in all, VERY good chapter.
@27
?
Because he is my favorite character?
@33
Book 1 central character is Kaladin. Book 2 is Shallan.
@30 It’s Adolin. Further, the sword is just a sword, other people had noticed and started assuming things about the splash of color around the sword, it’s just artistic flourish. https://twitter.com/whelanmichael/status/1295739638112555009
I have to admit that my thought during the entire “wine tasting” sequence was that Ialai was trying to poison Shallan. However, when Ialai was revealed to be poisoned I was totally confused why the characters all assumed something must have happened “offscreen” when the logical (and seemingly fairly obvious in retrospect) answer is that she poisoned herself deliberately with the wine that she drank and did not offer to Shallan. It may turn out that something else happened, but for no one in the story to consider the possibility was just strange. Am I missing something in a quick read that would have led them to believe there was another cause?
I’m personally having WOT flashbacks with Verin, who poisoned herself with tea to get around not being able to reveal Black Ajah secrets without being in the process of dying. Ialai seems resigned to dying, and reveals secrets in her conversation with Shallan.
I’m also wondering if Shallan’s head “getting fuzzy” at one point is an effect of another drug in the wine or simply the wine itself. The wording here is enough to make it unclear if it’s a simple reaction to the events unfolding or something more.
I just realized that the second paragraph of @40 is a spoiler of a fan favorite plot point for anyone out there who hasn’t read WOT (I guess there have to be some out there!). Apologies if I gave anything away to anyone, and I’d welcome a moderator white texting it for me since I’m not able to edit it.
A few more additional thoughts… I am really curious over what Ialai hid in her precious vintage bottle of wine rescued from a fire… Anyone else thought that vintage might have come from the Rathalas fire? This was obviously her last play and he counted on Shallan being smart enough to get her double-meanings. I guess we’ll see how smart and cunning she truly was once this unravels.
I noted how one of Adolin’s soldiers worried over what the Blackthorn would think… I don’t recall who said it above, Lyndsey, Alice or one of the commenters, but I disagree Adolin is in charge here nor has grown-up as a leader… His own men seem to care more about what Dalinar would think then their Highprince. Adolin himself weights his every decision with what he believes Dalinar would want… That’s not what I call being a good leader, that’s what I call a man who appears in charge, but internally does not have enough confidence in his own decisions, he has to defer to what others would do in his place. Sounds a lot like Elhokar.
I think the spy is Isnah. If my memory serves me right, she attaches herself to Shallan after Shallan drew the Ghostblood symbol in that tavern, back in OB. What is the oldest way to con someone? To make them believe you have something in common, to make them believe you think they are worth following, to flatter their ego by choosing to follow them, to make them think you have common enemies… Isnah did everything right. She got to Shallan by pretending to want Shallan to introduce her to the Ghostbloods. Instead, Shallan recruits her, but what if this was the plan all along?
On Dalinar: Well, I can’t see how it can be argued Dalinar has not been a main character within the three previous books. I am personally not surprised he needs to take a step back in RoW since his inner growth reached an ending in OB. He dealt with his past demons. He ended the book by being at peace with himself. He accepted the man he once was, he dislikes it, it causes him pain, but he accepts this is who he once was and he agrees to move on, to make the next step. The resolution of his inner dilemma was so beautiful and efficient, I fail to see what more Sanderson could add except further explore his relationship with his sons. This is a tale however best told from the sons’ perspective. As for Dalinar himself, he sure has some growth to make when it comes to taking up all the place, but it is so obvious his next development will lead to the conclusion of the series, it is understandable Sanderson does not want to go there in RoW. Still, there will be plenty of Dalinar later in the book.
Another side note: Adolin pressing his lips thin. He does the exact same mimic back in OB when they reached Rathalas. I would argue this is an outward sign of great inner discomfort but being the imposter he is, very few people catch on it.
Epigraph. I want to know which monarchs went to the conference. Did this conference occur before or after Team Honor captured the larkin fabrial (sucking Stormlight and interfering with the bond)? What else did they talk about other than fabrial mechanics? I hope Syl and Adolin gave a presentation about Rosharian fashion.
I want to know how close a spren has to be to its human bondee before it can turn into a Shardweapon.
I was correct that Vamah is dead (and not just hiding). No wonder the Ghostbloods want Ialai dead; Mraize supporting the hunt for Ialai. They want to consolidate their own control on Roshar.
I like how when all 3 of Shallan personas work together they are referred to as the Three. I thought Ialai took poison when she drank the blue wine. It was the only one where she did not offer Shallan a drink. I do not understand why Shallan and Ishnah thought the poison was caused by an external device (pin prick or other penetrating mark)? Did I miss something in the text?
I am convinced that Ialai hid some information in the bottle with the most exotic vintage. I was surprised that the Veil or Shallan persona did not pick up on this.
Kaladin gets to put another notch on his Fused belt. He kills his seventh (or is it his 8th) type of Fused.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Dalinar’s arc only started in book 3. If it was the end…this is the worst arc I have read. It was only the beginning of an arc. He swore 3 ideals. He didn’t become a full Radiant until the very end of the book!
@40
I think they are both valid possibilities, but I agree with you. She poisoned herself, maybe with the wine or maybe even earlier.
@38
They were the flashback characters for those books, but each stormlight book has had multiple characters that I would consider “main” characters. Dalinar has been for the entire series, so I doubt we’ll be too terribly disappointed with his performance in this book. I’m looking forward to his POV, also, but enjoying all of them.
Does anyone else think the Ghostbloods should eff right off? Roshar has enough of its own problems to deal with. It doesn’t need offworlders mucking about in its politics.
@Notom
It’s…evidently not the end of Dalinar’s arc, nor of his being an important character to the series. Sanderson’s clearly choosing to keep him as a peripheral character for the time being, probably in order to surprise us with something later.
He’s still present in the plot, he’s right there with the character and regularly doing the impossible in order to re-supply them with Stormlight. We’re not seeing things from his point of view at the moment, but we’re only on chapter seven of…what? Hundreds? There’s plenty of time for him to come to the fore again in this book, or the next.
@13 – A “dead” blade would most likely be desummoned. Syl isn’t hurt; she’s just unable to manifest physically. A deadeyes would be the same. Just with less commentary.
Edit: after considering this, I’m not sure it would be desummoned. If the device attacks the Nahel Bond then a deadeyes might be unaffected. Curious!
As for the Fabrial Tech briefing–you can likely make a small hole in the middle of a facet for a retaining wire. Maybe a small divot in an edge for a wire to wrap around and be secured, but I have to wonder if a straight-through hole would be a bridge too far.
I have to wonder if a nicrosil wire would turbocharge a fabrial with stormlight.
As for the voidlight fabrial–it’s been a year since the Thaylen City battle, a little over that since the Everstorm came. Given the state of the Fused (most are insane) it might have taken a bit for a fabrial tech to come across, then they have to build the tools to build the tools…though I’d imagine some of what they’d need they could get from Alethkar-conquered cities and Ardent monasteries.
It’s curious though–the voidlight fabrial must suppress the Nahel Bond specifically. The Fused had no problem ribboning himself after Kal. Syl isn’t hurt but her ability to manifest is (which is conferred via the bond), and Kal can hold existing stormlight but not use it for lashings–though maybe healing would work? He IS able to avoid breathing, so it must still work internally. Godeke was out of Light, so he couldn’t heal.
So it’s kind of a reverse Blocking-the-singer-forms deal. Oh! Maybe they were inspired by the Bondsmith doing their thing that created the Parshmen and used that inspiration to create something similar. Not as dramatic but still quite effective.
So now my nightmare scenario is a Shadesmar strike force jumping through a perpendicularity Dalinar opens at a battle, then activating it to both close the perpendicularity and lay waste to the back lines of the Radiants. Dalinar really needs to be more careful with those things.
I appreciate Alice and Lyndsey hyping up the entire chapter for next time; it’s true that the Comicon reading always felt like a Chapter segment.
Re: Ialai – unlike Lyndsey, I do not feel all that bad for her. She was almost as bad as her husband and actively worked to destabilize the Alethi leadership and undermine its efforts, even when it became clear that their fabled holy war had returned. So she’s not just a traitor to her government, but to her religion and her culture’s most cherished beliefs.
I did note the “Nale’s nuts” curse, and both guffawed and shook my head. Look at Brandon, getting a little racy with his soldier’s curses. Next, we’re gonna be confusing him with Erikson and Malazan (some of the best fictional curses ever!)
Re: Kaladin feeling powerless in the same room where he felt helpless – Wow, that was a great symbolism catch there, Alice! Totally didn’t think about it like that until you mentioned it.
Re: the Fabrial – I am getting the impression that fabrial use/manipulation by the Fused is a recent occurrence all around, possibly linked to the Fused/Odium observing fabrial development in Roshar over the last 4500+ years since Ahareitam. They’ve learned to adapt it to their benefit. And maybe replicate the actions of one Sibling-bonded tower when its fully functional..?
Re: Lyndsey’s unique proposal of Shallan’s character death – Wow, what a great possibility! The death of a character we’ve known since the beginning, except that person’s body isn’t dead, just their personality. Shallan with a new personality; dying, but not really. Almost seems like cheating, if that happens. But clever.
Re: Fabrial metal type – I loved this bit of information. And the second I read this, I started thinking about Allomancy/Feruchemy and the influence that those metals have on those magic systems and now the Surges. Are we starting to see some cosmere-wide rules on magic here?
Like I said earlier, this was very good (and informative) chapter. So many theories to cultivate ;-)
@Gilphon
That’s not what’s happening. Brandon has in WoB said that (remainder black-on-black for spoilers) Preservation supplied the power for Allomancy, but the exact effects of the metals were inherent in the metals themselves, not chosen by Preservation. We already knew that aluminum has the same effect on Investiture everywhere, it isn’t surprising that other metals also do.
@oakengrove:
You can’t wear it for days at a time, it takes two assistants to put it on and a horse to carry it when you take it off? Mind you, I’d be very curious what happens when you take Shardplate into Shadesmar.
@JS:
I had the same thought, which I’m sure is why Brandon has three separate characters comment on:
1. Recognizing the poison.
2. Knowing that it wouldn’t act this quickly when taken by mouth, only when injected.
At first I assumed that Ialai poisoned herself with the blue wine, but after rereading, I’m leaning toward Shallan or one of her personalities doing it and suppressing the memory. The whole section is a little odd, starting with this, where Shallan thinks of Adolin and reconsiders letting Ialai go:
Next, Shallan reaches into her satchel for some unspecified reason, then grabs Ialai by the arm (perhaps if they will find a pin prick on that arm?):
A short time later, Shallan begins to sense something is wrong:
Once they reach Ialai, Shallan is confused about what actually happened:
I’m guessing one of them did it and hid it from the others by repressing the memory, or as a couple of posters suggested above, there is a fourth hidden personality that the others don’t know about. It could turn out to be an interesting murder investigation.
She shook her head and trotted over to Adolin, then dismissed his illusory face with a touch. She needed to see him as himself.
“Which one are you?” he asked quietly, a pouch of infused spheres.
“Shallan,” she said, putting the pouch into her satchel, which a soldier fetched for her from beside the wall. She glanced over her shoulder as the soldiers bound Ialai, and again Shallan was struck by how deflated the woman looked.
Fun chapter to read. I don’t know if it is too late to point out context errors, but in Adolin’s response above, the spheres need some direction.. like “as he pulled out a pouch of infused spheres.”
The Ghostbloods are the most fascinating and infuriating group in the Stormlight Archive. I want Wit’s take on them.
What if the Voidlight fabrial is only effective on Knights without Shardplate? Szeth was unable to affect people in Shardplate with lashings. This fabrial effect might also work the same way.
This would explain why the Fused haven’t used it before. This is a rare occasion where they know for certain that the Knights they fight have not formed Shardplate, unlike previous Desolations.
@8 Duh – of course you’re right, somehow I forgot he played the Energizer bunny right a chapter or two ago. Silly me.
@40 yes I concur entirely! It’s somewhat baffling that everyone uncritically picks up the suggestion that Ialai must’ve been poisoned after her capture. Re Shallan being poisoned – I feel like we’ve seen how Stormlight could combat a poisoning; I wouldn’t put it past Shallan to be so caught up in her game of words to miss that her body is consuming Stormlight to neutralise a poison.
I wonder if it was taken into account that the singers took lots of humans prisoners. I am fairly certain that among those prisoners are people skilled in making fabrials. that is probably the answer to the singers new fabrials.
Might the orange wine point to … Shallan?
Alice. I agree with you. Ialai is a shell of her former self. Had she lived longer, I think she would have become an alcoholic. The same way Dalinar did after Evi’s death and Elhokar was heading before he survived the assassination attempt from Graves and Moash. I wonder if as a culture, Alethis have a higher percentage of alcoholics than other Rosharian nations. I thought that even all that Ialai had been through from the beginning of OB to her confrontation with Shallan, Ialai would be more of her former self. I wonder if her nephew (the heir to House Sadeas) survived. Otherwise, there will be a new Highprince. Highprince Khal, perhaps. (To be clear, I mean General Khal; I did not accidently spell “Kal” as “Khal”. Kaladin would make an awful Highprince.)
Alice. I hope the killer of Ialai is not as obvious as who killed that certain character in WoT (not naming said character for spoiler reasons; but this is the one that was not resolved for about 9 books).
Alice and Lyndsey. Could Venli’s former Listener faction who still survive as Fused be responsible for coming up with the larkin fabrial? They had a scientific/invention mentality.
Alice and Lyndsey. I will argue the same point I made in Chapter 6. Why is it so wrong for the 3 Shallan personas to integrate and function like they are doing now? Why cannot this be a workable solution for someone like Shallan who has DID.
Alice. Kaladin fighting as a normal human (non-Surge powers and non-dead Shard weapons) is different than how we have seen Kaladin fight since Book 2. If we get such a fight ten more times in the book, it will become repetitive the same way Kaladin’s fight in the air are becoming repetitive.
Huh. When I first read the killing of the Transportation Fused, I thought Kaladin threw the knife rather than stabbing with it. I tend to read these chapters (when posted on Tor.com) more quickly than I would if I had the book in my hands.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
The poison is probably the combination of the wines. Shallan feels strange but doesn’t really notice that she was poisoned because she didn’t drink the last component that made the mix deadly.
Something in this scene at Ialai seemed strange to me – she mentions two murders of high princess we have never heard happened (or have I and all wikis missed them?). In addition it is mentioned time and again that her appearance is strange, weak, maybe old? My thought was about some kind of actual or spiritual time travel. Visions from the past are very common in the books but might Ialai have glimpses into the future? Or actually came back from there? Might she have not just anticipated events but actually witnessed them?
A fun chapter with good action and inciting incidents. I believe between the mysterious Fabrial and the Secret Society tiff off that we know have good clues pointing us toward two of the three plotlines in this book!
@@@@@Wetlandernw was one of the things caught in the Gamma read the count of swords vs spears? Kaladin sees 5 Singers, four with spears and one with a sword. Then he steals a spear, blocks a sword strike, blocks a second one from another singer, implied to be a sword, then the singer by the Fabrial has a sword. So that count doesn’t work.
Now that we know some fabrials require delicate holes drilled, I wonder if a talented Releaser could use their Abrasion and Division to make some really detailed work. With enough delicate holes and wire of different metals, could a fabrial stone begin to approach something like a microchip?
(I guess the gem being infused could prevent radiant powers being used on it, but also… magic?)
@59 Maya The assassination of Highprince Thanadal was mentioned in last week’s chapter, as well as Highprince Vamah trying to flee the war camps, though I don’t think we were told that he was assassinated as well
@7 and others Re: Leshwi leading Kaladin into a trap – How would she know it was being set up? The Fused had been on the defensive and reacting to the Radiants attack from the beginning; the only one who was there to begin with was the hulking teleporter and a bunch of singers. At that time, there was just Kaladin, but for some reason the Fused and his lackeys chose not to deploy the fabrial at that time? And then, after all the Radiant forces and the heavenly ones showed up, Leshwi seemed to be engaged with one of the Windrunners from the jump, so how could she coordinate with the teleporter the proper time/place to deploy the fabrial? Or expect for Kaladin to drive her to that approximate hilltop where he knew the lurgs were? And then arrange to only have Kaladin (and no other Windrunner or squire) notice the fire in the manor? Or arrange for the former lord of the area to decide to leave the safety of the ship and head back into the manor, thereby ensuring a personal connection is there to entice Kaladin to check it out and not delegate it? Or arrange to have an Edgedancer be injured as bait, yet only expect Kaladin to notice and respond? And then expect Kaladin to not recruit any assistance from the rest of his forces? And only expect Lift to sneak in? And then for Leshwi to not be sinister/clever enough to follow Kaladin (with a few other Fused for good measure) to make sure the fabrial and the teleporter actually complete the job. And then… and then… and then…
If this does end up being presented as all part of some plan, then it required some “Avengers: Civil War” levels of coincidences to even hope to succeed. Is it possible? I guess, but I think Brandon is a better writer than that…
@28 re: Hemalurgy – maybe that’s what we’re seeing happen with the Heavenly One’s spears: a version of Hemalurgy where the investiture is sucked out into the gems, maybe along the lines as @31 proposed.
@40 and others re: Ialai being poisoned – yeah I also wondered why no one there (especially Shallan) just assumed that she had poisoned herself with the wine. @50 makes a solid counter, though.
@48 re: deadblade and the fabrial – I admit to being curious what happens with a deadblade, just like @13. There is still a bond between the Blade and the wielder, so there’s something there to disrupt. And if the fabrial has the spren physically manifest in the Physical realm in their native form, maybe the deadblade materializes as its zombified native form?
@51 re: Shallan poisoning Ialai – I like the breakdown of the scene. I don’t know if I support this theory, but this is a solid suggestion.
@55 re: humans making the fabrials – interesting possibility (and always good to see the old school WoT reread folks). So the Fused combined their knowledge of the rules of investiture and connection with the technical know-how of the human fabrialists? Cool theory.
I am reminded of
SPOILERS FOR WOT WINTER’S HEART
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The fight between Rand and the rogue Asha’man in Far Madding, in WOT. In both scenes the hero is prevented from using his powers and goes in to a trap knowingly, and quickly deals with mocking enemies who think themselves superior. I find both scenes quite amusing.
I wonder how voidlight enters Roshar, if it comes with every Everstorm I don’t think so, we were never told before) or if it takes more specific tools or events for it to happen. Speaking of which, how does Kaladin know the term ‘voidlight’? This must be something he learned during the timeskip.
If I remember correctly, the teleporting fused in chapters 2 and 3 had to head back to Hearthstone to be recharged of voidlight, so there had to be spheres infused with it, or some other mechanism we don’t know of yet.
About Ialai’s murder, I lean towards Ishnah being the assassin. I think it’s that or Shallan did the hit, but I’d like it less. It irks me taht Shallan is quick enough to suspect of Gaz and Vatah, but not of Ishnah.
@65 – Odium provides the voidlight. Not sure where they go back and recharge, though.
@66
Yes, I know it ultimately comes frome Odium, I was talking about the precise way it is brought on Roshar.
I’m very worried about how Shallan reacted with not knowing for sure she didn’t kill Ialai. I have to wonder if Mraize has done somehting to her mind. Ialai clearly believes the Ghostbloods are the big bad for her and the SoH.
@58bridgit – that is an interesting theory. The poison was only complete with the final wine. It could be that is what is affecting Shallan. This assumes that it wasn’t something that had to be injected. It said eating it wouldn’t be quick.
Would the squires and new Lightweavers be a part of Dalinar’s inner circle? Family would be there, Queen Fen and Mr T (who is certainly a traitor). The High Princes, some of the generals and scribes but not just Radients in general I’d guess.
It seems to me that in addition to becoming immortal, Gavilar wanted to be a world hopper. Plus we still have Hoid/Wit and whatever his mysterious goal may be.
Haven’t read chapter yet, but something I wanted to comment on
“Ialai said, ‘to rescue him from the clutches of his aunt and great-uncle, the rats who have deposed him.'”
Does Roshar have rats? Would Ialai know what a rat is?
@69 – Rats have been mentioned in every Stormlight Archive book so far.
Just realized that we were back in Sanderson preview season, so I come to read previews and discuss theories!
….after I finish reading the sample chapters of course. In the meantime, I want to ask: has anyone considered that there might not be any more Bondsmiths this time around, because Dalinar’s going to bond all three as part of remaking Honor’s Shard? Perhaps not as it was, but as a new Shard of Unity?
23. I feel like so many of the Radiants being former soldiers makes sense, because that’s a majority of the people they have access to. Urithiru (at least a year ago, we’re not sure now) was filled with people from the war camps, so primarily soldiers, or craftsman/skilled labor within the army, or scribes. And while obviously anyone can go through something so horrible it breaks them, which is needed for the bond, I think it makes sense that a higher percentage of soldiers are broken compared to other professions. I’d love to see more Radiants who have made their way to Urithiru from other professions, but given that the only way to reach it is the gates, they may just not have arrived, even after a year.
57. To be fair, that was Jordan’s fault, not Sanderson’s, but omg yes that was such an annoying little bit. No, no it was not obvious who killed them.
Notice, by the way, that the Radiants still have the Sword of Moash hanging over their heads as Kaladin beats the Transportation Fused. Why is he there?
I think it would be great if Kaladin casually beats him in a fight, right there, and just takes back the Honorblade. I don’t expect it, but I’d like it. Then the Stone Shamans steal it (as Szeth predicted) and Kaladin’s arc is going to Shinovar to get it back, again.
Is the “exotic” wine from Braize or another world?
@71 i like the theory. Something akin to how Sazed combined Ruin and Preservation to become Harmony?
But Cultivation still exists as a Shard, so bonding the Nightwatcher wouldn’t be the same as bonding the Stormfather (is he a sliver, now that the Shard has been killed?)
@74 We know that Gavilar at least knew about Braize but seeing as it was supposedly just a site for torture, I can’t imagine them having great vintages. But Worldhoppers have already been to Roshar, so it’s possible she has something else from one of them. Also, it’s entirely possible that it’s not a wine at all; the conversation is filled with subtext – it’s possible that that was just the most relevant metaphor.
Shallan is disappointed that Ialai died before they could get answers from her. On the plus side, she can stop living as the merchant in the Shattered Plains, go back to Urithiru and not be separated from Adolin.
Jacky Ragnarovna @7; Xanderwatts @10. I am against a 4th hidden Shallan persona. I am content for the Veil, Radiant and Shallan personas to work together and learn how to live in one body. A 4th hidden persona is an arc I do not want to read. I think it would send Shallan into a spiral where she cannot recover. Or if she does recover, she is a completely different character than we have seen so far. In my opinion, from the beginning of the series, there has always been enough of the core person that is Shallan. I think her trying to integrate a dark, sinister personality will play out similar to her arc in OB – where Shallan had to learn how to coordinate/integrate her personas. I understand focusing on Kaladin’s depression (even though it is repetitive). For me, depression is constantly waning and waxing (no Mistborn pun intended). I expect a depressed character to be depressed sometimes and other times be non-depressed throughout a series/story. But for a character with DID disorder, I do not think it is necessary to watch the character struggle with her different personas, find a balance and then have to repeat the process where there was a hidden persona. I guess if in the next few Adolin/Shallan chapters, Adolin bemoans the fact that Shallan sometimes disappears (and Shallan has no clue about what Adolin is talking about), then I will have to resign myself to this character arc for Shallan.
Gepeto @12. Did I miss something about Roshone in this chapter? I am not saying that Roshone is not a piece of crem. I think he is. But what did he do or not do in this chapter? I thought he went into the manor to find prisoners. Are you saying he led Kaladin into this trap? I did not read Chapter 7 that way. If Roshone did leave Kaladin into a trap, why would Kaladin still try to rescue him? There has to be a difference of rescuing someone you hate because it is the right thing to do – hating/disliking someone does not justify abandoning him when you can do something about it. But if Roshone led Kaladin into a trap, to me that would cross the line. Kaladin would be the enemy. I do not think Kaladin’s bond require him to save his enemies.
KiManiak @49. IMO, the best fictional curse is “frack” in the new Battlestar Galactica.
Carl @50. Blackbane is the same poison that Shallan used to kill her father. She crushed the leaves into the wine she gave him. It only paralyzed him. Perhaps, Ialai’s wine had more of the poison or it had sat longer. A decade or more, rather than just the year that the blackbane Shallan used.
Maya @59. The murders of the two Highprinces two Ialai references occur post OB. None of the Wikis will have updated to account for the releases of the ROW chapters.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Ishnah is clearly the double. She’s entrusted with too much as a random character. I’m calling it.
Theory time! (Mistborn SPOILERS ahead in white text) We know that the Sons of Honor have a spy who is close to Dalinar, and after reading this chapter it’s a safe guess that the Ghostbloods have a spy close to Shallan and Adolin. But at this point we don’t know who those spies are. I wonder at the possibility of either spy being a Kandra. Kandra are the perfect spies, and I think that a Kandra spy is entirely plausible, especially for the Ghostbloods. Still leaves me with the question of who that spy is though… well, just guesses for now.
@74: That’s what I assume Ialai meant when she said that the rarest wine was “exotic.”
Is Blackbane what Kaladin considered taking back in TWOK?
A couple of people have mentioned Adolin’s line:
“Which one are you?” he asked quietly, a pouch of infused spheres.
Since this part of the chapter is from Shalon’s POV, I read that as if “pouch of infused spheres” was her sweetheart phrase for him. Like we might say, “my sunshine on a cloudy day”.
No idea if I’m right, of course. I guess we’ll know it was a typo if it’s corrected in the e-book!
@79
Yes. Looks like it was way back in chapter 2 of TWOK.
https://coppermind.net/wiki/Blackbane#History
@78, WoB says there is a kandra on Roshar. There might be more than one, but the only one I’m sure about is mrall, taravangian’s hairless, emotionless bodyguard
Questioner
Mrall is the assistant to Taravangian. He’s described as Thaylen but he’s bald and no eyebrows. Does he lack hair everywhere else?
Brandon Sanderson
He does not completely lack hair, but mostly.
Questioner
His comments about how it’s easy for him to turn off his emotions are a little bit eye raising.
Brandon Sanderson
They should be!
Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)
@58 and @71 – I like both of your theories.
I also like the idea of Shallan being the killer and having a fourth “Ghostblood” persona that keeps itself hidden from the others and has it’s oen agenda/mission.
Heh, an unexpected turn of events. I am currently liking the beginning of RoW even more than of Oathbringer, also, the cover is beautiful.
Really nice to see Kaladin fight without surges or Syl’s help, a very nice set up indeed. I woery that next time this fused will be more careful when fighting Kaladin. I wondered last week what extra advantages the Fused would get, and here we are. Seems lile both sides will develop new fabrial tech and, who knows, where that will go
The fabrial worries me quite a lot, though to be fair, most Windrunners are, at least, soldiers, so not as helpess. Still, I think it will be more of an issue with other Orders, I suspect.
btw, I thought that we will continue with the 1main character per order, so thought that this will be mainly Venli as a Willshaper (moi on the quizz, btw, Elsecaller a close second), but with other orders getting beefed up, and despite what we gleaned from the attitude of spren in Shadesmar, who do you think is Willshaper material?
re Shallan my thoughts align with many of you here: looks like Ialai poisoned herself. And just because they jump quickly to conclusion what poison that was, it might be something different – Shallan is an unreluable narrator and not an expert on poisons, unlike, say, Kaladin.Also, Ishnaj could be a plant and is also unckear whether she is a reliable source of info (ghostbloods claimed that she exaggerated her importance to Shallan,). Finally, in the first book it eas clearly established through wikim and Kaladin himself that the leaves of the poison gain potency over time. Given Lin Davar’s death timeline I posit that a fresher leaf will kill slower. Of course, that does not negate the possibility of Shallan and a hypthetical ghostblood to have attacked Ialai too (simultaneous assassination attempts do happen). this is Sanderson, after all. Would love to knowwho dunnit, of course.
Re the Three, given the events in this chapter, it’s clearly a temporary and unstable solution. Hopefully Shallan manages to subsume those personalities and become fully in control so that Veil and Radiant become disguises as well. I wonder if an Unmade had an influence on her abilities in childhood? And whether other Lightweavers wrestle with DID?
could it alsi be a hint to what happens to Bavadin as Vessel of Autonomy?
Also, the Three? Hmm, could it be the number of Cultuvation, as cryptics are aligned with Cultivation and Lightweaverss create? (shout out to the lovely Roshar recap essays thank you!)
@76 Andrew. I agree with you on not wanting Shallan to have a “4th personality” we have never seen who might have murdered Ialai. I believe this would push the concept one step farther than it should really go. I strongly believe there is a time to explore characters and to delve into their respective layers just as there is a time to state “this is enough”. I do believe Shallan and her three personas have reached the “this is enough” threshold in the sense adding a 4th personality would destroy the current narrative, unbalanced it, be terribly confusing, and make readers feel Sanderson is playing with deus ex machina. A 4th personality killed Ialai? Seriously? That’s too outlandish and regular readers are never going to wrap their heads around this one.
I trust Sanderson not to insert those outlandish plot twists. Shallan has three personas whom we have all met. She did not murder Ialai, that much is obvious, the fact she worries she did merely highlights the fact she isn’t as much in control as she pretends to be. A part of her knows this, so she frets she might have done something she, Shallan, did not want to do. To me, it highlights the fact Shallan is still Shallan and what Shallan wants is more important than what other personas wish to do. She is however not sure how much of what she does is what she would really do and how much is pushed by the personas. This tells me she really needs to get rid of Veil/Radiant. I do not care how “real-life DiD” works, the way I read the narrative, it is clear Veil and Radiant need to go, eventually. If Shallan’s arc ends in a balance between the three, I will be disappointed because I would feel I have been cheated by her character, not to forget this is what we are reading, so that can’t be the resolution. I can accept she created Veil/Radiant out of need, but it seems obvious, at least to me, her resolution will be to accept she does not need them. I don’t care if it is realistic or not, those are the rules the narrative introduced: she made them, they are a problem, she needs to solve the problem and the problem solving can’t be “we are working together”. Especially since it is clear Shallan worries she might do something she does not want to do while being Veil. Hence, the “we are working together” is not working. That “balance” is not the resolution, it merely is Shallan postponing dealing with it, IMHO.
I do not agree with you on depression though. I do not agree the fact Kaladin has depression makes it acceptable for his narrative to be as repetitive as it has been, so far. I personally believe Sanderson over did Kaladin in those first three chapters by having him execute the same fight, three times in a row. As a reader, it made me fear Sanderson loves the Kaladin character so much he is unable to see when it is time… to switch to other characters. So far, Kaladin’s chapters have served to highlight the following important points: what happened with Bridge 4 and the Windrunners in the one year gap, his mental state, the fact he is not fighting to win but to avoid casualties, and the introduction of the voidlight fabrial. He did not need to “lash in the sky fighting Leshwi” three times in a row to achieve this and the fact he has depression does not make it acceptable.
More to the point, the fact we, the readers, are so well used to Kaladin’s mood swing and are perfectly aware of his inner thoughts is exactly why I believe Sanderson should spend less time writing them as opposed to more. He needs no additional explanation so I would rather the narrative focused on what Kaladin does more than what he thinks because we already know this, unless this changes.
So I do not agree to have depression makes it OK for Kaladin to have a repetitive narrative. Having a repetitive narrative is not OK for any characters: chapters have to serve a purpose. There will always be some repetition within characters’ inner thoughts, this is inevitable, but chapters shouldn’t be entirely dedicated to repeating their inner thoughts if we are already familiar with them.
Now we are just in chapter 8, so Kaladin may not end up being repetitive within future chapters, but he has been a character Sanderson has struggled to keep active in the past, so I believe it is a reasonable fear to have.
@85
Agreed on the 4th personality. We have to remember what we know about the interactions of the Three, and DID in general. Shallan could easily be confused as a personality, and not as the whole being that we met at the beginning of WoK. I think the narrative makes it clear that there is mostly cooperation, but not full alignment:
Shallan let go, hand going to her satchel. Radiant was the one who emerged, however. She grabbed Ialai by her arm and towed her over to Adolin’s soldiers, handing her off.
Adding a fourth seems like a hack, as you noted.
Anyone else surprised by Lifts dialogue here. Seems so formal like a soldier reporting.
So I’m going to do my best Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie playing Clue and say:
Killer: Shallan.
Weapon: Radiant.
Location: During the completely unnecessary manhandling of Ialai by Radiant, immediately after Shallan slips the poison from her satchel and gives it to her unsuspecting Alter-Ego.
Evidence? Let’s Go to the Tape…
MOTIVE: “If this woman had gotten her way, Adolin would have died before Shallan met him. And now they were just going to take her in to play more games?
MURDER SUBTERFUGE: “Shallan let go, hand going to her satchel. Radiant was the one who emerged, however. She grabbed Ialai by her arm and towed her over to Adolin’s soldiers, handing her off.”
**In swag British accent** Need more proof Constable? Let me continue…
“We didn’t do this, Veil thought. We decided not to kill her, right?
“I… Shallan’s mind began to fuzz, everything feeling blurry. Had she done this? She’d wanted to. But she hadn’t, had she? She was… was more in control than that.
MISDIRECTION: “I didn’t do it, Shallan thought. She was reasonably certain.”
So what happened? Radiant asked.”
A fine question, Lady Radiant! And the conclusion is Elementary! (Sorry, I had to say it): Shallan convinces herself that Ialai deserves to die; decides to assassinate her; gets Radiant to do the dirty-work, then–in classic Shallan fashion–suppresses the entire memory of the action from all three of the, uh, Three.
Or, maybe not, but I had a lot of fun writing all that!
One final thought, does Adolin have to ask Shallan which one is she, every time they meet again after time apart? Wow, that would be very…unhealthy for their marriage, imo. Pattern, on the other hand, knows exactly who Shallan is as soon as he pops in her head. “Oh! a perky voice said in Shallan’s mind. We were almost here anyway, Veil! What are we doing?“
I’ll never get tired of Kaladin doing anything. Always loving his parts or looking forwards to them
I appreciate the theories and thoughts. Having been totally confused in Oathbringer about how the Ghostbloods knew about Sja-Anat’s desire to betray Odium and join Shallan, Ishna as a Ghostblood spy makes a whole lot of sense.
My main question after this chapter is – how is Team Odium organized? It looked at the end of Oathbringer like he was heavily personally involved, but if Leshwi’s reaction to the ribbon-light Fused’s trap is genuine, it seems like there is not necessarily complete cooperation among his forces. I feel like Team Honor (as lead by Dalinar) is at least a bit more focused on core principles, but perhaps that is wishful thinking.
Okay, I did not expect wine to be what was in the hutch.
I like a few others, think Ialai poisoned herself, maybe the wine she was drinking before Shallan entered? It said she had an empty cup in her hands… Would that be enough time? She seemed to know she was about to be assassinated? When her hand falls down the poison is just starting its effects? Or if Ishnah did poison her, she was the one to take her away… And then she sags in their grip… And then she sounds suspicious… I could see it either way…
What do the Ghostbloods want? Do they want to know how to world hop? Or stop the people from doing it? And the SoH are the ones trying and that’s why they’ve been killing them? I don’t know but maybe that for Gavilar?
And what of the person Shallan is pretending to be? Should we be wary of her at all? Could Ialai know she was part of the Ghostbloods and that’s why she knew?
65: In chapters four and five, I put some more questions about Voidlight.
90: I’ve been wondering about the Ghostbloods as well, in chapter 6.
Well, I am not surprised that Ialai was spilling information, which made Shallan hesitate in killing her (which I thought would probably be the most likely scenario). I will be interesting to see how Shallan and her team decode what Ialai was trying to share, which I expect will be Shallan’s major plot point in RoW.
That being said, I am still somewhat surprised that Ialai is dead. At least, at this point in the book.
I think Ialai was feeling out Shallan to see if she could manipulate her, or at the very least, intrigue her with information so Shallan could continue to look into (and perhaps, eventually take down) the Ghostbloods. I suspect Ialai has done that with others who had come to assassinate her, but they ultimately failed her test (and were killed).
Also, I suspect Ialai knew her time was coming to an end very soon (if not in that moment, then in the next few days), and was desperate to find someone to take up her (mysterious) cause. During (what may best be described as a job interview),Ialai was deciding whether to poison Shallan, or herself (if Shallan failed like the others). And by taking the last drink, which I believe was the final cocktail in the poison (combined with the other ones), Ialai felt that whomever she was speaking with might just be the person she was looking for.
I see Ialai as someone who would want to kill herself with poison, rather than being taken hostage (and in her mind, likely tortured for information and eventually killed) by the Ghostbloods. If Ialai has known it was Shallan and Adolin, not the Ghostbloods, I wonder if she would have poisoned herself? Probably, given she would likely expect the same fate or public humiliation at the hands of Team Dalinar.
The potential conspiracy of Shallan (or a member of the team) killing Ialai seems like a misdirect to me. Shallan appears to be feeling the effect of the poison, but never received the final fatal dose that Ialai took.
I was initially disappointed with Kaladin easily dispatching the big baddy from earlier chapters but it got me thinking that it was a set up – maybe they want that fabrial to be taken to Team Honor.
Regarding the fabrial: I wonder if the Singers have acquired the knowledge from their time as parshmen slaves. The slaves regain their knowledge and take on a scholar form and build on it.
Why was Shallan reaching for her Satchel here? What did she intend to do, before Radiant took over?
@scTOR:
But he’s not gone, he’s just in Hell for a couple of weeks, until the next Everstorm. He’ll Return soon enough to plague Kaladin again in Part One, if that’s what Brandon wants.
BTW, you noticed how in Oathbringer Odium is seen as an old man, feeble enough to need a cane (while still very powerful)? I speculate that he’s weakened precisely because the Fused exist. Even for a Shard’s Vessel, it has to take tremendous effort and attention to power thousands of Cognitive Shadows and keep Returning them to life every time they die, preventing them from going Beyond. If, as we have speculated (spoilers hidden) he is also attacking Harmony on Scadrial at the same time, and he was injured when he Shattered Dominion, he might be pretty darn weakened. That’s how the Stormfather was able to resist him, even for a short time, and actually survive and escape after the fight. Odium is actually weak (for the incarnation of a fragment of divinity), at least until he reabsorbs the Fused’s power, as he threatened to do at the end of the previous book.
Honor only had 10 Heralds, and actually half their Investiture came from Cultivation, maybe.
Like I say, just speculation at this point.
@95, @97
I look at it this way… that Fused must feel as invincible as a typical person in full shard plate must feel, with a rez effect to boot. Essentially invulnerable, and even if not, back for more soon. This seems like a call back to the perfect dagger thrust from WoK that ended Helleran despite being essentially invulnerable to non-shards, too.
There may be merit to the trap theory, as we have seen how Fused don’t seem to be too upset at the (temporary) loss of other Fused. Not quite how it reads to me, though.
A few more thoughts:
Sanderson wrote in Chapter 7 Annotation on reddit that he felt that it was time for our heroes to move to less mundane opponents and therefore Ialai, Thanadal and Vamah had to go (paraphrased). And I am thinking – yes, but no. Human history shows that even when people face the end of their civilizations, personal conflicts, power struggles, and ideological disagreements don’t cease. The difference between said civilizations scrapping by or not was a matter of keeping this stuff under control and, frankly, luck. I disliked the fact that Ialai was allowed to leave Urithiru and take over the camps. But I also dislike that nearly all of the powerful opposition to reform in Alethi society is conveniently gone and it will now be implausibly easy to accomplish it.
I didn’t expect Ialai and Co. to be important antagonists in RoW, but I did think that they would be a factor that needed to be accounted for and balanced, while dealing with the acute refugee crisis on the Shattered Plains and social changes required to survive it. But, bizarrely there is no influx of people fleeing parsh occupation and there are even trade caravans coming from somewhere. So, was Alethkar completely lost or do they still hold southern parts of it? And why was Sebarial’s eminently sensible suggestion of retaking the camps in late OB summarily ignored?
I would be very disappointed if the problem of displaced persons on a massive scale isn’t even touched upon in this apocalyptic scenario.
I am also perplexed by how inconsequential a figure Jasnah cuts as the queen of Alethkar-in-exile – in fact, she is about as taken into consideration by everybody, from Adolin, whose direct boss she supposedly is, to Kholin soldiers, as Ehlokar was at his most powerless. Only Shallan gave her a passing thought – everybody else only cared about Dalinar’s wishes and views. Has she been twiddling her thumbs for the whole year?
I really expected and was very excited to learn Gavilar’s secrets in OB back before it came out and was very disappointed that Amaram implausibly refused to play that card when he tried to get close to the Kholins again. The events here hint that maybe he bought his way into Ialai’s confidence with them instead. And she maybe leveraged them into influence on Thanadal and Vamah when she had to flee back to the camps without most of her army. And like a poisoned fruit it doomed all of them. So far so good.
My problem with this development is that from his PoV in WoR Amaram definitely was among those who just wanted “their gods back” and wasn’t wholly in Gavilar’s confidence. His fall to Odium supports that once this hope was gone, he himself didn’t see anything else for himself in this knowledge that is so explosive that the Ghostbloods are orchestrating a murder spree of important individuals to contain it. And also, doesn’t it mean that they’d need to silence all the random worldhoppers too? Or do the worldhoppers already know that they’d be killed if they talk? Are the Ghostbloods Illuminati? Ahem.
Anyway, I now think that Ialai likely killed herself to motivate Shallan to believe her and look for evidence. In this case, the poison had enough time to work if she took it when she sent everyone away. She could have bit the inside of her mouth to make it quicker, too.
We also conveniently avoided the last confrontation between Ialai and Adolin because she kept her eyes shut when Shallan incautiously removed illusion from him. I hope that she remembered to put it back on. It was somewhat disturbing how Shallan tried to tempt him “to the dark side” with her talk about how he surely thought that they should have killed Ialai to begin with. I don’t wholly disagree, but shouldn’t it have been Jasnah’s decision? And I don’t believe that he was thinking that at all. Maybe Shallan is struggling towards confiding her killing of her parents to him finally and is looking for the signs that he’d understand?
KiManiak @63:
There was enough time between Kaladin’s fight with him and appearance of the Heavenly Ones for the teleporter to meet with them and coordinate. I mean, somebody brought that fabrial and the teleporter was looking for Kaladin speto begin with. Moash, who is Leshwi’s protégé, is also around and was flaunting his presence. He could have lured Kaladin into teleporter’s trap if Leshwi failed to do so. Roshone was immaterial for that – the teleporter just needed to be abusing some humans before the mansion and somebody had to make sure that Kaladin saw it. The hostage could have been any random civilian with the same result.
@99
In the words of many before me, this is chapter 7. Your comments belong closer to chapter 117. I still don’t think they will be accurate there, though. Anyone who thinks that Jasnah has been, or ever will be, sidelined hasn’t been paying attention to who she is. We don’t know what balance they may have established between kingdom and Radiant rule, nor do we know that all of what we have seen so far has not ultimately been agreed to or directed by Jasnah. We have NO idea what she has been up to over the time skip.
As far as WOB on chapter 7, it makes perfect sense to me. Your comments seem to assume that the KR society will be perfectly at peace, which we know was not the case in ages past, and that Dalinar will not face the same divisive influences among these “less mundane opponents”. Opponents, BTW, that we already know include people with Nahel bonds. KR society was a balancing act, as would be any political structure on Roshar. Those characters with no KR representation just don’t matter much at present… I’d rather see time spent on the challenges to existence overall rather than the petty plots of a Cosmere nobody.
jamesmc6 @88: Well done. The only problem I see is that it seems much more likely that it would have been Veil who secretly poisoned Ialai, not Radiant. I’m personally leaning toward the “fourth personality” theory, but I certainly understand others’ distaste for it.
Phooey. I wanted Ialai to stick around longer, as she’s an interesting character. Not that I had any specific hopes for her upcoming actions, but this series has too few human female antagonists for my taste. (Shallan might be her own worst enemy, but I don’t count that.) Still, she died in an in-character fashion, leaving the protagonists with less information than they wanted and a mystery to occupy them.
“Weathered” and “withered” are not the same thing, though Ialai might have been both. *looks up definitions* A weathered thing has had its exterior appearance or texture worn down or changed, usually by long exposure to air when the word is used literally. A withered plant is dessicated or shriveled, and now I have the necrofloraphobic shudders from thinking about it, while a withered person is wrinkled or shrunken, usually from age or disease.
@99 Isilel. I don’t disagree with you here. I too felt a little bit uneasy when I read Sanderson’s annotations for this week’s chapters. It isn’t I am disappointed with Ialai dying early, I do not mind this plot twist so long as it opens up on a better one. It is more I mind the loss of those “small-time antagonists”. I cannot help shake away the feeling of those “bigger baddies” are too impersonal to really drive any emotional response into the readership. Restares, Thaidakar are not out there to go after our heroes, they just have their “upper-level agenda” and they will crush whoever stands between them and success. They have no personal vendetta against Shallan, Adolin or Kaladin. They do not care about our heroes and, to me, the shift towards those as the main antagonists makes me fear the whole narrative will become very impersonal.
I want to fear for our characters, to hate those standing against them. I want actions to be met with consequences when our heroes screw up and I struggle to see how it can still happen if the main villains are basically upper-level entities having very little mingling with our usual heroes. The equivalent would be if WoT had the Dark One as the sole villain… The story was climatic because there were the Forsaken who had it against specific people, the Black Ajah… In other words, the smaller scale antagonists were far more interesting to read about than the unspecific “Dark One”.
I fear by wanting to remove all the smaller-scaled villains from the story Sanderson will create an implausible tale where the world fights against some “intangible force” taking the name of individuals we are probably never going to see active on screen. And also, in any tale, there will be smaller-scaled villains… This is unavoidable, so I dunno why Sanderson seems to think he has to remove them all.
Hence, I share your concerns here and I do agree it is too convenient for Dalinar to have all his opponents just magically disappear. Sanderson said he could have written an entire book over the Shattered Plains politics and re-taking and… I will admit I want to read *that* book. I wish he had expanded the first arc to six books in order to house it because I feel it will be missed.
I don’t however entirely agree with you about the whereabouts of Queen Jasnah. I do not think the chapters we have read allow us to conclude she is inconsequential. I think we have to remember who, specifically, has been hooked up on what Dalinar wants, would do, will say. Adolin. In previous chapters, Shallan uses Dalinar’s name to get close to the Sons of Honor, but Dalinar, as the leader of the coalition, is probably the one who leads Urithiru while Jasnah manages the Alethi affairs and the Highprinces. She might be Adolin’s direct boss, but it was clear, at least it was to me, this week, Adolin is far more concerned over what his father will say than Jasnah. I don’t think it means Jasnah is not in control nor is inconsequential, I read it more it was… an Adolin problem more than a Jasnah one. Adolin is just hooked up on doing exactly what Dalinar would want. I read him as someone who didn’t trust his own judgment and I felt he was afraid to go back to daddy with another corpse without proper justification for it, which they will not find since Ialai was not a traitor.
As for the soldier who mentioned the Blackthorn, I took it was meaning Highprince Adolin didn’t manage to properly succeed his mighty father. His men still look over his shoulder towards what Dalinar would do and say. So if someone’s leadership looks bad, this week, I do not think it is Jasnah’s, but Adolin’s.
I am rather convinced Jasnah has everything under control, but her young cousin is not looking up to her, but to daddy. Dalinar has always been and still is the only opinion Adolin truly ever wanted, now more than ever.
On Shallan: I think a part of Shallan wants to see herself as Adolin’s partner in crime. I don’t know if she wants to go down this road in order to prep the ground to tell him the truth, but it is obvious Adolin does not want to go there. And neither does Shallan, not really, it more is her personas are more influential than herself, Veil, especially. This is why I do believe the end game has to be Shallan to decide to get rid of Veil/Radiant. “The Three” cannot be the endgame. I don’t believe it can be, not when it was created in order to allow Shallan to avoid the truth she needs to face.
@101 bad_platypus Every one of Shallan’s personalities are someone she’s drawn at one time, even Radiant and Veil. So a fourth personality would have to be someone she’s drawn before and possibly impersonated before. So maybe she’s drawn a mash-up of Veil, Radiant, and herself? That’s not happened in-book as I recall.
I’m more concerned that she is NOT in control of all of the Three. Or, one of them can operate without the other two knowing. Yes, it could have been Veil or Radiant—or even Shallan—who offed Ialai, but “they” don’t even know?!? Yikes!
Shallan is still very not well. She may even have regressed in the past year. This whole, “not knowing what the others are doing” thing is new. Like, we just witnessed it, new.
One of the reasons I think we haven’t heard from Adolin is that we are going to discover that not all is well in their marriage, specifically because of Shallan’s multiverse. Heck, the first thing he says to her when he sees her is to ask which one is she. Again, Yikes!
New tech! This Ars Arcanum is gonna be amazing.
I agree that ‘The Three’ cannot be the endgame for Shallan’s story. However I’m a proponent of the hidden Shallan theory. I am not sure that Shallan’s regressed to the point where she’s unaware of her actions although it is worrying whenever she blanks out. I just think that we’ve never formally met the real Shallan, the mute girl who cannot stop herself from crying in a corner. That girl needs to fully heal before the Three can go away.
I think if you aren’t seeing Kaladin struggling with his issues you’re skipping steps. Skipping steps makes payoffs unsatisfactory. For example, the Padan Fain conclusion in WoT. Brandon has the page time to flesh out a character beloved by the Fandom, I say let the man cook. Besides, this is after all chapter 7. Maybe this repetition we’re seeing is a set up, much like Ialai dying is a set up.
Speaking of Ialai, I have mixed feelings. She was as dangerous as we thought but we don’t get to see it. She turned out to be a small fish despite her competency but she opens up a story line that could potentially be much more interesting. She gets whacked early but she didn’t go out with a whimper. Basically the jury is still out, at least for me.
Sorry about my lateness if anyone cares.
@Isilel:
There’s a huge influx of refugees fleeing the Singers into Hearthstone. You don’t count Herdazians?
@Gepeto:
So you think judging how her entire narrative will go, based on events happening far away from her over a period of a few hours, might be a mistake?
Yeah, I completely agree.
IIRC, Jasnah isn’t a main character in the Front Five books. She won’t take center stage for what, a minimum 6 or so years our time?
Personally I’m wondering how Wit is doing.
It’s not too hard to suppose that Shallan’s core personality is just Shallan without specific memories and the emotional fallout from them. I don’t think we are talking about a big difference, just a drawing of someone who can remain functional that protects her from the pain and fear. I don’t think any of the three did it do that leaves an operative, Shallan 1.0, or Ialai.
Ialai’s death also shows how dangerous Mraize really is. I think if she or a few of her followershad more knowledge and investiture of some kind she could have been a contender.
Heh. Shallan is legitimately a little unsure whether any of her selves actually killed Ialai, and that’s a Problem. But because I tend to often-irrationally blame and shame myself for everything that involves me or happens in my vicinity (rather like Kaladin), I initially related to her first reaction as a guilty rush of How did I cause this?
“Nale’s nuts” might be the raunchiest curse I’ve seen in a Sanderson book.
@105 EvilMonkey. I personally think the mute crying girl is the same Shallan we have read from the start, but the Shallan with the memories she has shut down. For a long time, I have read Shallan as a girl who believes she isn’t strong enough to deal with the past while not seeing… how strong she actually is. I do not think this girl is fundamentally different since we saw when/how Shallan created her alter-egos: having other ones pre-exist the known creation of the current one would, IMHO, destroy her narrative. The whole unreliable narrator who is not who we think she is really isn’t a good ploy nor one most readers enjoy reading. I trust Sanderson not to go there.
On Kaladin: I do not think we need to see all the little steps. I do think the third fight was superfluous: there is just a limit to Sanderson pushing three chapters in a row describing exactly the same action. I would criticize it had it focus on any character.
@106 Carl. This is exactly what I am saying: we can’t pass judgment on Jasnah’s competency as Queen based on the chapters we have read. The fact Adolin worries over what Dalinar will think and not Jasnah is, IMHO, an Adolin quirk, not a testimony on how apt Jasnah has been at being in charge.
@108
It reminded me of the divine curses in Terry Mancour’s Spellmonger series. Brilliant expression :)
I gotta say, it’s weird to see annotations on chapters of an unreleased book. Not sure I want to see behind the curtains so soon.
It seems to me that the 4 wines in the scene correspond to the 4 participants in the conversation. Let’s start with the obvious one, the saphire, last of its kind, that Ialai does not offer to the Three. Strong and noble. That one obviously corresponds to Ialai herself. Now, the first one they taste – surprisingly fine and sweet. Could it refer to Radiant? The orange one, the one for those who act like children, almost has to be Shallan. And so the silent and deadly, Horneater vintage… does it refer to Veil then? I could also see those going other ways too.
jamesmc6 @104:
True, but early on in their relationship Pattern comments that it shouldn’t be necessary for Shallan to draw something in order to create an illusion, but for whatever reason it is. This could be the start of her moving beyond that necessity.
Like I said, I’m leaning towards it only. It wouldn’t shock me if there’s another explanation.
Hoping someone can help me – I don’t know my way around the various reddit forums and haven’t been able to find the annotations so far. Can someone give me a pointer as to where they are. Thanks in advance.
@114 – Here you go: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/ic0k2a/comment/g21fogt
Alternate theory on Ialai Sadea’s death. Because, hey, it’s all speculation at this point, so why not?
Yes, Ialai poisoned herself by ingesting blackbane, but she did it BEFORE Shallan and the others even arrived. Evidence? Shallan’s first observation of her was,
“Her cheeks were sunken and hollow, and she held an empty wine cup in her hand.”
She was already dying when Shallan started questioning her, and finally succumbed to the slow-acting poison at exactly the right time; after she’d given Shallan the information–or, rather clues–she wanted to give her, but before she could be taken away for questioning. A case of “perfect timing” on her part, which I think is totally in character for her.
@116 I suspect she wanted a little more time as the first thing she said is ” So, you’ve finally came for me.” emphasis mine. She expected them to get there a little more quickly (less wandering maybe).
I don’t think either Adolin or the soldiers are responding incorrectly with regards to Dalinar. He is the one they are working for on this particular mission. This isn’t a job that Jashna has them running. Dalinar is really the military commander still. He would be the one conferring with Queen Jashna over the direction of the war effort and he is also the one who directs what the soliders do. Adolin may be a High Prince but he is also one of Dalinar’s major military assets. Let’s face it, Dalinar is most likely going to lean toward using Kholin soldiers on any sensitive missions because he knows they are loyal.
I think an even bigger issue is this: as much as “everyone” fears The Blackthorn, he is also the only one strong enough to be the leader of this whole coalition. He is both a Radiant and plain human military leader.
Random question: has any Cosmere viewpoint character had a living grandparent? How many even among the supporting cast have had living grandparents? Well, Gavinor, and … ? There are a couple of grandkids in Elantris, but not viewpoints. Is this another Sandersonism, like mothers not getting names?
@120
I think there were allusions to grandparents in Mistborn era 1 among the skaa. Overall, I think your are correct… Sandorsonism.
@120 – Wax.
A little late posting, but I wanted to point out something my brother has pointed out to me. Shallan, or one of her personalities could have soulcast Ialai’s blood into poison. It’s been a year, so they’ve had practice. She had been studying poison so it makes sense that it was in her sub conscious and she knew it had to be in the blood. One of them did it and repressed it or it’s like some people here are saying, she has a fourth rogue personality, which is better at soulcasting than any of the others.
Carl @120, there has been a couple of references to Kaladin’s maternal grandparents, though they’ve never been on screen. In Kaladin’s flashbacks it is mentioned that they didn’t approve of Hesina marrying Lirin. I believe it also mentioned that they sent money when the townspeople stopped paying for Lirin’s services. There is also a WOB that one of them might be lighteyed and there is some distant relation to Aesudan in their family.
Carl @120. King T has grandchildren. Jasnah rescued one that was trapped in a cave-in when Shallan first met Jasnah. Also, King T was reading info about his grandchildren before he met with Odium. Of course, Navani is a grandmother.
“Did they at least tell you why they decided we need to die?” Ialai asked. “Why they hated Gavilar? Amaram? Me and Thanadal, once we knew the secrets? What it is about the Sons of Honor that frightens them?”
Doe the above quote by Ialai mean that Thanadal was also a SoH?
I find it interesting that Ialai said she wanted to preserve the line of rule; that she supported Gavinor taking the throne. In WoR, the hears her husband say that he will need to kill Elhokar. Killing Elhokar does not preserve the line of rule. Nobody doubts he is the rightful heir. People doubt whether Elhokar has Gavilar’s leadership qualities or is strong enough to be king.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@@.-@ I had the exact same thought – I figured Ialai poisoned herself, either via the wine (or combination of wines – I was thinking of the Joker’s ploy in the 80s Batman movie) – one of which she doesn’t give to Shallan – or a pinprick she inflicted on herself. But I definitely think there’s a case to be made for either Ishnah or Shallan herself (the satchel thing really is kind of weird) – although I do hope it doesn’t end up being a 4th personality. At least based on my reading of it, it seems like Shallan herself had wanted to do it even if Veil had decided against it (and Radiant wouldn’t) so maybe Radiant didn’t ‘take over’ fast enough.
Can’t wait to learn more about the Ghostbloods though!
Love the allomancy connection too, btw :)
Are there thousands of Fused? Is there a WoB anywhere saying how many there are?
Ben M
@128
I don’t know of a WoB about the quantity of Fused in existence. However, I think thousands would be too high. I think both sides (in past Desolations) relied mostly upon mundane troops, with some elites shoring up their efforts, including the Heralds. The most convincing evidence of this, IMO, is the quantity of dead shards left in the world. Thousands of Fused, and therefore a proportional number of KR, would have resulted in many more shards, even 4.5 thousand years later.
@arod, spoilers about shards below:
There are many, many more Shardblades and Shardplates than we have seen, and that has in fact been confirmed by Brandon. He hasn’t revealed yet where the heck they’re hidden.
I got that “thousands” of Fused from just how many we saw in Oathbringer, and how at the very end Odium’s cronies are saying that most of the Fused are still on Braize.
As for the numbers of the Radiants, remember that enormous hall in Urithuru for their council to meet? That couldn’t be for every single Radiant, just for their leaders, yet it’s big enough for hundreds, at least in my imagination.
@115, Austin. Thank you!
@130 Carl
I hadn’t seen that WoB, thanks for the info. Seems like thousands could indeed be possible.
@arod, I may have overstated. I don’t know of a WoB that says, “There were thousands of Radiants.” He has given answers that imply it.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/369-skyward-san-francisco-signing/#e11683
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/373-skyward-chicago-signing/#e12057
Did anyone else notice the significance of the two metals and how they worked with the spren? Brass soothed them and zinc rioted them? Coincidence or a Mistborn reference maybe?
@134, Jeff:
Everyone who has read Mistborn noticed the metals, and it was mentioned in the article at the top.
Read Chapter 8’s epigraph for another Allomancy connection.
So this fabrial sucked away Kaladin’s stormlight and his ability to summon Syl as a Shardblade? Seeing as stormlight and Shardblades are forms of investiture, this makes me think the metal wiring of the fabrial is Nicrosil (because according to the Hemalurgy chart, Nicrosil steals investiture) or Chromium (because in Allomancy Chromium wipes another person’s metal – investiture – reserves, right?)
Maybe if the gem contains Stormlight, the Allomancy similarity applies, whereas if the gem contains Voidlight, the Hemalurgy similarity applies?
Did anyone else think this or is there some flaw to my logic / understanding?
I’m going to focus on the conversation between The Three and Ialai here, because as a Lightweaver my mind is 10-layers deep in searching for the truth in these lies and secrets.
I have two running theories on who killed Ialai – the first one, Radiant, because of this:
“Shallan let go, hand going to her satchel. Radiant was the one who emerged, however. She grabbed Ialai by her arm and towed her over to Adolin’s soldiers, handing her off.”
What was in the satchel, shortly before grabbing Iralai? Is it possible Radiant could have hidden something from the other two like poison… then the ‘however‘ in the next sentence makes it seem like a surprise that Radiant took over… previously we’ve seen the Three fluidly change as if there was no contest who was taking control. The however seems like Radiant in this case was almost forceful. She’s also been set up as the one most “against” killing Iralai so who’s to suspect her…
The second more convoluted theory is around the wines. The four wines refer to people – 1) Clearly the horneaterwine is the Three – “Horneater white—Shallan could smell it as soon as the top was off—and held it out. “I believe this is yours. Invisible. Deadly.”
2) The Blue is Iralai – “After today, even this bit will be gone.” as the last of house Sadeas she realises like the vintage after she is murdered her lineage is over.
3) The orange is Mraize – “Perfect for people who want to maintain appearances before others.” “Enjoyed by children”… As we learnt in WoR Mraize gave off the appearance of being the head of the Ghostbloods until we learnt that the “strong or noble” Iyatil was revealed to be the true head of the GBs. “We both know what he is” a puppet who will soon be seen for what he is.
4) The clear fruitwine – this is where it gets interesting – I suspect the true killer is already in the room using either a surge (less likely) to be invisible or a fabrial (more likely). We’ve seen parallel’s to Mistborn and the metals used to construct the Fourth Bridge… is it possible copper (hides allomentic pulses) can be used to create such a fabrial? There are far too many references to invisibility in the chapter for my liking! Iralai refers to the clear wine as “prepared for me” as if she know’s there is a backup plan in the hiding. It could also explain why Iralai was so resigned to death before Shallan entered… Iralai could very well have been talking to the assassin if there was no one else in the room. “Veil did notice a door on the far wall of the room” could have been how the assassin entered.
I am loving these recaps, great job team!
It’s interesting to see that even under the voidrial, his magically-enhanced fighting skill remains.
@Bob: it isn’t magically enhanced. He’s just that good, even without the magic.
@@@@@ Carl
Well, no. Even if we didn’t have Syl flat-out telling him in Words of Radiance, your skill comes from our bond, we have tons of evidence that it’s not natural. The most obvious is how the air visibly warps around him when he’s actually using his supernatural skill, like how in this case, indoors, there is a specific mention that there is suddenly wind swirling around Kaladin as he fights.
If you have some counter-evidence to show that it isn’t magical, I’d be open to seeing it, but the series both shows and flat-out tells us that his skill comes from his powers. I have a ton of other examples.
You wondered why this is the first time the enemy has used such a fabrial.
It might *not* literally be the first time it was used. All we know is that it’s the first time anyone lived to tell the tale. Other radiants could maybe have fallen to ambushes earlier, and all the “good guys” would know is that they didn’t come back. Unless their spren were still able to return and communicate with other radiants?
It’s probably newish technology for the Fused, though. If it had existed for a long time (previous desolations), there might have been rumours of its existence. But IDK how much of a spy network the radiants have into the forces of Odium, so being developed in the last year seems likely.
For Kaladin to have heard about it (been briefed about it?) and keep it in mind as a potential threat, info about it would have needed to be stronger than just a rumour dug up among other archives of history, or some vague intel from humans who didn’t really understand what they’d seen.