Cosmere Chickens Ahoy!! Welcome back to the Rhythm of War Reread, as we arrive at our very first (in this book) Dalinar POV. And it’s a doozy. Battles, allies, enemies, fabrials, Connections, revelations, ancient history, new abilities… There’s a ton of action and information packed into this chapter, so let’s get to it.
Reminder: We’ll 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 (this includes Edgedancer and Dawnshard as well as the entirety of Rhythm of War), best to wait to join us until you’re done.
There’s one very small reference to a Mistborn magic system/user near the end of the Oaths Spoken section.
Heralds: Ishi (Ishar), Herald of Luck, Bondsmiths, Pious/Guiding, Role: Priest.
Nalan (Nale), Herald of Justice. Skybreakers. Just/Confident. Role: Judge.
A: I’d say these are both pretty obvious. Ishar represents Dalinar’s Bondsmith abilities, which have been expanding… dramatically. Nalan represents himself. Also, possibly, Szeth, but mostly himself.
Icon: Kholin Glyphpair, for a Dalinar POV chapter.
Epigraph: Rhythm of War, page 1 undertext:
I approach this project with inspiration renewed; the answers are all that should matter.
A: And once again, I have no confidence that I know who wrote this, though I would suspect Raboniel. Scholar though she is, Navani knows perfectly well that the answers are not all that matter—and should not be, when she’s responsible for all the lives in Urithiru at the least.
P: I agree that this sounds more like Raboniel, only wanting the answers she thinks will end the war, so the other must have been Navani.
A: I wonder just how long this habit of writing “undertext” has been part of Rosharan scholarship. It would make sense that “Page 1” was Navani, and the “page 1 undertext” was Raboniel. I think.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Dalinar
WHERE: Somewhere in Emul, north of the main body of Odium’s army
WHEN: 1175.4.6.4 (the day after Taravangian’s betrayal in Interlude 6)
(Note: For the “when” notations, we are using this wonderful timeline provided by the folks at The 17th Shard.)
RECAP: Dalinar and the Mink watch the battle from a fabrial platform high above, protected by Windrunners when Skybreakers attack. Reassuring word from Urithiru arrives, but both the Mink and Dalinar sense something wrong with the whole setup. Suddenly Nalan shows up to rebuke Dalinar for being a Bondsmith. As Dalinar’s guards all demonstrate their inability to kill a Herald, the Stormfather prompts Dalinar to touch him instead, and Dalinar sees Nalan’s history play out backwards, ending with his acceptance of a role as Herald in the new Oathpact. Afterward, Dalinar can see the lines of the Oathpact reaching away from Nalan toward the other Heralds; seven lines are weak and impotent, but one is strong and bright. As Nalan flees, Dalinar concludes that, whether by reforging the Oathpact or some alternative, he must find a means to solve the conflict and permanently bind Odium.
Overall Reactions
A: I just have to start out with a note about Dalinar’s POVs. While we’ve seen him through the eyes of others, this is his first actual viewpoint chapter in the book. The funny thing, though, is that I can never feel like his presence is lacking. Partly, of course, it’s that he is there all through Part One and the early chapters of Part Two—and his presence is always strong, no matter whose POV it is. But I think the bigger reason is that so much happens in his POVs. Take this one—it might start with him up on the platform overseeing the battle, but then there’s a Herald, and new powers, and … just so much information that it’s hard to take in. And that kind of thing seems to happen every time he’s on the page for the rest of the book.
P: I agree. The Dalinar chapters we do get pack a Braize of a lot of punch.
A: Okay, to the text:
Dalinar held firm to the railing, glancing at the Mink—who was tethered to Dalinar with a rope. The shorter man was grinning wildly as he clung to the railing.
P: Honor love the Mink, having the time of his life while hanging in the sky and being attacked. Nowhere to sneak away, though, except into Shadesmar.
A: The Mink’s reaction to all this is priceless. Dalinar’s mental comment on his weird mix of paranoia and daring is so true!
Beneath them, the battle lines held formation. Dalinar’s troops, augmented by ranks of Azish, fought Taravangian’s treasonous forces—who had tried to strike inward to rescue their king.
P: I guess I thought this was odd, for them to try to rescue T. I would have thought he’d have told them not to bother, as he thought he would be executed right away. It’s not like the Vedens were super loyal to T as their king, when he essentially stole the title.
A: It does seem a little odd, that he didn’t tell them not to waste their lives trying to rescue him. I’m not terribly surprised that they tried, though, because when he accepted the title, he was very popular with the Veden people. He was (as far as they knew) the one who came with healers and help, the peaceful king who provided aid and brought them out of their horrible civil war by being the one person the remaining leadership would all agree to follow. At the time, they’d lost most of their highprinces to the Assassin in White, and of course they didn’t know that he worked for Taravangian. They seem to have accepted his kingship quite thoroughly—and of course, he’s promoted people loyal to him, even if their loyalty was mostly to the rewards he’d promised them.
P: I suppose I can see that, it just feels a bit off to me.
A: Heh. Vedens are crazy anyway, right? Though they don’t have the Thrill to egg them on any more, so I don’t know what their excuse is now.
They retreated; Skybreakers couldn’t match Windrunners who were being constantly renewed, and were usually deployed on battlefields where Dalinar was not present.
P: This makes sense. Why waste stormlight when Dalinar has an endless supply of it? There would be little point in going up against his forces at all, but to distract them from the fighting on the ground.
“Word from Urithiru, Brightlord,” she said. “You wanted to know as soon as we heard something, and we have.”
Dalinar felt a huge weight slide off his shoulders. “Finally! What is happening?”
P: And thus begins the Fused’s campaign of misinformation to Dalinar from “Navani.” This frustrates me so much because it would have been easy to just send scouts. Some would have died, I know, and horribly as they came within the range of the garnet fabrial on the gemstone heart of the Tower, but this is war. People die. Go find out what’s up with Urithiru, already. Does that attitude make me a bad person? Nah, just realistic.
A: Well, they do eventually get there…
The Mink leaned out, squinting at the armies below. “Something about this smells wrong, Blackthorn.
…
“I’ll tell the others to watch out,” Dalinar said, “and send scouts to investigate Urithiru. I agree, something about this is off.”
P: Again. Everyone has a bad feeling about a thing, you go find out what’s going on with the thing! Yes, he’s sending scouts to the Tower, but I guess I had been expecting a bit of urgency, especially considering that Navani was there largely unprotected by Radiants. And I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t sent scouts already.
A: I think it reflects their subconscious assumption that Urithiru is impregnable as long as you control the Oathgates. It simply never occurs to them that the tower could be taken from a different route and the Oathgate taken over from the Urithiru side—at least, not without time to get off a spanreed warning.
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Rhythm of War
I’m a little unsure about how they got all the right intelligence to make this look like it’s from Navani, though. It wouldn’t surprise me if she wrote something for them to send, a compromise of true and not-quite-true information to keep him from rushing back into a trap—but if that were the case, I think we’d see it from Navani’s side too. So I have to think this is all fake… but it sure sounds enough like Navani to fool Dalinar. Or at least to fool the scribes.
P: They’ll need a code word from now on.
“They’re breaking,” the Mink said, standing up straight. “You want to let them go, or pin them and crush them?”
“What do you think?” Dalinar asked.
“I hate fighting men who feel they have no way out,” the Mink said.
“We can’t afford to let them reinforce the enemy to the south,” Dalinar said. That would be their true battlefield, once this skirmish was over. The war for Emul. “Keep pressing them until they surrender.
P: I was kind of pulling for the “pin the and crush them” option. *shrug*
Szeth, the Assassin in White, wearing a false face. He didn’t speak, though the complex Lightweaving he wore would disguise his voice. He simply watched, his eyes narrowed. What did he see in this battlefield? What had caught his attention?
Szeth suddenly grabbed Dalinar by the front of his uniform and towed him to the side. Dalinar barely had time to shout in surprise as a glowing figure rose up beside the archer platform, radiant with Stormlight and bearing a silvery Blade.
P: I’m here wondering how Szeth could sense Nale coming. Does it have something to do with Nale shoving his soul back into his body? Mostly?
A: I was wondering about that too. Did he see something that made him realize Nale was among the Skybreakers, or did he just sense that presence a moment before he arrived? I’d sure like to know. Maybe we’ll learn about it in Szeth’s book.
“Bondsmith,” Nale said, “your war is unjust. You must submit to the laws of the —”
An arrow slammed into his face, dead center, interrupting him. Dalinar glanced back, then stopped Cord, who was drawing her Shardbow again. “Wait. I’d hear him.”
P: Oh, our wonderful Cord. She has NO problem shooting a Herald. This was hilarious! Just, “I don’t think so, airsick lowlander. How about an arrow in your face?”
“And yet,” Nale said, “Honor still should prevent this. Prevent you.” He looked Dalinar up and down. “No Shardblade. Fair enough.”
He launched forward, reaching for Dalinar. Szeth was upon him in a moment, but hesitated to draw his strange Blade. Nale moved with a skyeel’s grace, twisting Szeth about and slamming him to the deck of the wooden platform. The Herald slapped aside Szeth’s sheathed sword, punching him in the crook of the elbow and making him drop his weapon. Nale casually reached up and caught the arrow launched from Cord’s Shardbow mere feet away—an inhuman feat.
P: Wow, Nale dispatched Szeth quite handily. And caught Cord’s arrow… from a Shardbow? He may be nuttier than a fruitcake (and don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with a few nuts), but he’s a badass.
A: He’s still a Herald, and still has the skills and reflexes honed by multiple lifetimes’ worth of fighting. Apparently his version of insanity affects his thinking but not his physical abilities, which is terrifying in itself.
Nale looked up at him, then ripped free of the line of light Connecting him to Dalinar and threw himself off the platform. The Herald burst alight and shot away as—belatedly—a few Windrunners came to Dalinar’s aid.
P: One would think that Dalinar would have a dedicated contingent of Windrunners protecting him.
A: I wonder how long that sequence actually took. It seems like several minutes at least, which would be more than enough time for the Windrunners to get there, but it’s also possible that all the “flashes” took place in mere seconds. Even the conversation with the Stormfather, being all mental, might happen much faster than an audible exchange of words. Maybe?
P: Also, interesting that Nale was able to rip away the line of light between him and Dalinar. Would anyone but a Herald be able to do such a thing, I wonder?
He needed to understand his powers. His duty was no longer to stand with a sword held high, shouting orders on the battlefield. He instead needed to find a way to use his abilities to solve this war. Reforge the Oathpact, or barring that, find another solution—one that included binding Odium once and for all.
P: Yes, how about another solution that doesn’t include sentencing people to torture and damnation? Let’s go with that, shall we?
A: Heh. More on that below…
Music, Mechanisms, and Manifestations of Light
The wood lurched under Dalinar’s feet, and he grabbed a railing to steady himself. “Skybreakers!” he shouted. “Trying to get at the fabrial housings!”
P: I guess those Skybreakers snuck up on them. 1000 feet in the air. But that would definitely be the best way to bring one of the platforms down, snatch a few fabrial gemstones and watch out below!
A: No wonder they keep a couple of Windrunners there at all times! And, apparently, more within shouting distance. It’s really hard to shoot at people who are under the floor, especially when you don’t dare damage the floor by blowing holes in it or anything.
It wasn’t truly a flying machine like the Fourth Bridge, but these platforms were nevertheless an excellent vantage for viewing a battlefield. Assuming they didn’t get attacked.
A: Heh. Assuming… I mean, yeah, what an excellent view! But also, how incredibly vulnerable, unless you keep your Windrunners very close by.
P: Exactly. And they almost showed up too late with the Skybreakers and definitely showed up too late with Nale. Not that they could have done much in that second situation, anyway.
A: New strategy: Keep more Windrunners on the platform… Or give them a way to perch below the platform, where they don’t have to burn all their Stormlight staying aloft, but also can see any attempts to attack the fabrial before they ever arrive.
The Mink leaned out over the side of the platform, trying to get a view directly beneath—where Radiants were clashing. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the three-hundred-yard drop to the ground.
P: It makes me a bit woozy to think about how high they are from the ground. I’m glad there’s a railing but how high is it, precisely? Some Windrunner I would make!
A: Who knew acrophobia was going to be the new test for Dalinar’s personal guard?
On Dalinar’s platform, some fifty archers re-formed their ranks following the chaos of the sudden Skybreaker attack. In moments, they were sending a hail of arrows on the Vedens.
P: It’s a hell of a big platform, to hold fifty archers, as well as various and sundry guards and such.
A: That was my immediate thought, too. Wow, Navani really figured out how to make these things big after her initial experiment back in Words of Radiance. Fifty archers with room enough to shoot effectively, plus Dalinar’s command staff, guards, and scribes. That’s a big platform. I wonder what they’re using as a counter, and where it’s located. (Presumably not at Urithiru…)
P: I wondered about the counter, too. Perhaps on the Shattered Plains? But are chasms really 1000 feet deep? Or wait… they don’t need to match the distance anymore, do they. New tech FTW!
A: And okay, I also have to wonder about the efficacy of arrows fired from 1000 feet up, but I’m not an archery expert.
Spren and Shadesmar
“You mistake my purpose, Dieno,” Dalinar said, tugging on the rope that bound them. “My job in this battle isn’t to command if you are killed. It’s to get you out before you are killed.”
One of Jasnah’s escape boats waited on the other side, in Shadesmar. In an emergency, Dalinar could get himself and the Mink through the perpendicularity. They’d drop a short distance—but not nearly as far as they would on this side—into a padded ship with mandras hooked in place.
The Mink, unsurprisingly, didn’t like that escape route. He couldn’t control it. In truth, Dalinar wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable with it himself—he didn’t fully trust his powers yet. His mastery over them was tenuous.
P: This is seriously cool. Jasnah’s really using her noggin here, thinking of how to keep her uncle safe while he’s hovering hundreds of yards in the air, with an enemy that can freaking fly. Yes, Dalinar has Windrunners, but the other side has Skybreakers and Heavenly Ones, and we don’t know in what numbers. Though most of the Heavenly Ones are likely at Urithiru at the moment.
Bruised and Broken
The vision faded and Nale lurched away from Dalinar, gasping, his eyes wide.
P: Nale is so very damaged. I really had hope, after Lift’s interaction with him in Edgedancer, that he might realize the error of his ways. But alas, no. Nale’s gonna Nale.
A: I can’t help wondering if there’s any healing for these poor broken Heralds. Much as I dislike this one in particular, I can’t help thinking that they sacrificed their minds for the sake of humanity, and I’d sure like them to have some peace.
Oaths Spoken, Powers Awakened
He opened the perpendicularity as the Windrunners approached for more Stormlight. He managed to open it only a sliver, renewing those nearby, but preventing the Skybreakers from partaking.
A: I thought it was awesome that he’s gained enough control over this particular ability to not only open it whenever he needs to, but to control the size of it so closely that only his allies can use it.
P: It’s quite spectacular. And I realize that there are so many other things he can likely do with his powers, but he needs to give himself some credit for what he’s already accomplished.
No, the Stormfather said to Dalinar. Touch him.
Dalinar hesitated—the power of the perpendicularity at his fingertips—then reached out and pressed his hand to Nale’s chest as the Herald reached for him.
A: You have no idea how hard it is not to just copy pages in here. I love this section! The initial confrontation, the complete failure of the guards to even remotely damage Nalan, the snapshots of Nalan’s past, the visual of the Oathpact… Just SO MUCH IMPACT. Blows me away.
P: This scene is fantastic. We learn so much about Nale in those few moments, and we see him afraid. Of Dalinar. Who also surprised the Stormfather. Just… wut?
A: Since we can’t just paste the whole thing in here, let’s run through the list of memories quickly. The first is obviously the Heralds abandoning their Blades and the Oathpact at Aharietiam. The second… Okay, I have to quote this one.
Nale cradling a child in one arm, his Blade out as dark forces crawled across a ridge nearby.
A: Does this not sound like that Death Rattle epigraph?
I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw.”
A: A lot of people have been claiming this death rattle as evidence that Oroden or Gavinor will be Odium’s champion; I think it may be referring to whatever this moment was, when Nale had a choice to make. (Unless all the death rattles are future visions, but… we don’t know that, do we?) No idea who the child was, though, or what the setting might be; I suspect that we’ll find out in one of the other Heralds’ flashbacks if I’m right.
Moving on, the third is most likely Nale helping set up the early form of Alethi law, with the concept of “right of travel” to keep the various levels of hierarchy in check. The fourth looks like Nalan becoming a member of the order of Skybreakers—the only Herald to actually join the Order dedicated to him. Then battles and more battles, and then…
“I will take this charge,” Nale said softly. “With honor.”
“Do not consider it an honor,” Jezerezeh said. “A duty, yes, but not an honor.”
“I understand. Though I had not expected you would come to an enemy with this offer.”
A: What the… WUT??? Jezrien and Nale were enemies prior to the Oathpact. Opposite sides of… what conflict, though? One where Jezrien came to consider himself the villain, and ending with the creation of an arrangement which served to bind the Fused on Braize for as long as all ten Heralds could hold out. This is… I’m not sure what to think. So I’ll speculate in the Theorycrafting section below.
P: This was an amazing tidbit to witness. And to think that he went from someone respected by Jezrien to someone who would murder children because they were Radiant.
A: Anyway… this section ends with Nalan kinda flipping out. On a bet, he saw all those things too, which had to be a lot of weird. But as he breaks contact with Dalinar, the Oathpact itself becomes visible (at least to the Bondsmith) as lines of light connecting Nalan with the other Heralds. Seven, faint and ineffective, have to be for the others who broke the pact but still live; the eighth, bright and strong, would be Taln, who has never broken. Despite their own thoughts, then, the Oathpact is still… there. Thin and brittle, but still there. As the Stormfather calls it, “A cage, forged of their spirits.”
P: This actually gives me shivers. To see the things Dalinar can do with his powers, to see the Stormfather surprised by it, it’s amazing.
And I had the same thought that the brightest of the lines of light was to Taln.
“Could I reforge it?” Dalinar asked. “Could I remake the Oathpact, and bind the Fused away again?”
I do not know. It may be possible, but I have no idea how. Or if it would be wise. The Heralds suffer for what they did.
P: Thank you, Stormfather. All of this with Dalinar wanting to remake the Oathpact, I don’t get it. Who are you going to pick to endure eternal torture? Who would volunteer, knowing what happened to the Heralds? I mean, I get that the original Heralds thought they were doing something just and righteous, but in hindsight, would any of them have volunteered? Knowing what it would do to them, what they would do to Taln, what affects eternity would have on them?
A: While I have no doubt that there are those (Kaladin and Dalinar, for two!) who would volunteer, if it would give humanity more time to figure out a way to win, there’s another problem. There’s a recent WoB stating that even this time, Taln did not break, and we’ll eventually find out what happened. That means that, despite his holding the Oathpact solo for 4500 years, something happened to make it irrelevant. On a bet, some of those worldhoppers we’ll be seeing in the flashbacks started meddling, and created a way around the Oathpact. Remember, well before Taln appeared in Kholinar, Ulim had bonded with Venli, talking about a storm in Shadesmar, and how they had to work around Taln to get the Voidspren to Roshar. Ulim was given to Venli by the feruchemist Axindweth, obviously a worldhopper, so… something’s up, and the Oathpact can’t work anymore.
P: So it’s not just that Dalinar shouldn’t try to reforge the Oathpact, he likely won’t be able to do so.
A: That’s my thought. He might be able to set up the exact same thing, but it wouldn’t actually work.
TinFoil TheoryCrafting
A: Okay, so here’s my latest tin-foil theory. About that scene with Jezrien and Nalan, and the way they were enemies until they forged the Oathpact… What would have been the conflict between them?
“An enemy, yes,” Jezerezeh said. “But an enemy who was correct all along, making me the villain, not you. We will fix what we’ve broken. Ishar and I agreed.
A: This seems to imply that the Oathpact was created to fix a situation Jezrien and Ishar somehow caused, or helped to cause. Nalan was on the other side, apparently, and they saw him as an honorable man who would join them in a grave and terrible duty. Somehow, the Oathpact was needed to fix their mess, and at the same time was a solution that Nale would see as a good thing.
My theory (and it’s not very detailed) is that within a few decades after humanity arrived on Roshar, Jezrien and Ishar, along with a bunch of friendly singers and other humans, began to play with Surgebinding despite the damage it had caused on Ashyn. The Roshar-spren went along with it readily, finding that bonding with humans gave them more physical presence. Some of the singers, angry about the spren bonding with humans, found willing bond-mates among the Odium-spren who had snuck in with the humans. Too late, Jezrien and Ishar realized that the singers were bonding with Odium’s Voidspren instead of the local Honor-and-Cultivation-spren (or Adonalsium-spren), and it finally registered that this might not be a good thing. In order to block Odium’s influence, they came up with the Oathpact as a means to trap the Voidspren on Braize—which also meant trapping those who had bonded with them.
One of the things I like about this is that all sides can claim betrayal. Specifically, the Fused (and by extension, the singers) can claim that the humans betrayed them by turning against them after introducing them to surgebinding. They can also claim that the spren betrayed them by bonding with humans. The spren can claim that the singers betrayed them by bonding Voidspren in violation of their former friendship. (See also Leshwi: “They’ve come back to us! They’ve forgiven us!”) The humans can claim that the Fused betrayed them by bonding Voidspren and bringing the powers of Odium to bear on Roshar. And so on.
I think it still has some holes, and there are a lot more details I can envision, but… that’s the base of it. Jezrien and Ishar brought Surgebinding to Roshar, opening a Pandora’s box that they eventually tried to seal with their own souls.
P: I’ll leave the theorycrafting to Alice, she’s better at it. I’ll just read along and nod.
Geography, History, and Cultures
Any given Azish soldier was no match for an Alethi, but after witnessing their discipline this last year, Dalinar was grateful he’d never had to face their infantry in battle. The vast blocks of Azish pikes were less mobile than the Alethi equivalent, but were impeccably coordinated.
A: I enjoyed this shoutout to the military value of a non-Vorin culture. The Azish, unlike the Vorins, don’t hold “being a soldier” as the highest ideal in the whole world. What they do value is order and organization, and it’s reflected in the way they fight. I love seeing the Alethi and Herdazian generals being brought up short by the evidence that their way isn’t the only way.
Singers/Fused
Fewer Heavenly Ones than I’d have expected, Dalinar noted … They’re leaning on the Skybreakers for this battle. Perhaps the bulk of the Heavenly Ones were with the main enemy forces, stationed several days’ march away.
A: It’s a fair guess, but it’s wrong, of course. The bulk of the Heavenly Ones are at Urithriu, enforcing Raboniel’s rule over the Tower. Sadly. It’s really hard to watch Dalinar’s lack of understanding here; he keeps thinking of his own campaign as The Central Event, and doesn’t realize that it’s all a distraction. The main push for Odium right now is Urithiru; this whole thing is just a way to keep him and Jasnah out of the way.
Humans
Dalinar had brought only a handful of bodyguards today: three men from the Cobalt Guard, and a single Shardbearer. Cord, the Horneater woman, who had taken it upon herself to join his guards for reasons he didn’t quite understand.
A: Heh. Clearly he didn’t read Dawnshard first! Near the end of the book, Nikli tries to assign Cord the task of guarding Rysn. It makes a certain amount of sense, since she now has the Shardplate she just found, and she already knows the secret of the Dawnshard and the Sleepless involvement. Cord refuses, though:
“I am no soldier,” Cord said, her voice growing softer. “I am no warrior. I must train if I am to be of any use. I will go to war and learn to use this gift. I will fight the Void, as my father refuses to do. Once I’ve accomplished that goal, then I will consider your request.” (Dawnshard, Chapter 19)
A: Apparently she decided that “going to war” for her would best be accomplished by becoming one of Dalinar’s guards—a position where she can become familiar with her Plate and be involved in the war, without going out into battles that she’s not been trained to fight. Makes sense to me, anyway.
P: Makes sense to me, too. In this role, she’s a protector instead of an aggressor.
A: And she clearly has no problem… asserting herself:
An arrow slammed into his face, dead center, interrupting him. Dalinar glanced back, then stopped Cord, who was drawing her Shardbow again.
A: Anyone want to bet that this is Amaram’s bow? The one that Rock used to kill him? And Cord has now “inherited” it from her father? Come to think of it… did Amaram inherit it from Sadeas? If so, that bow has quite the lineage. Shooting Nale in the face is a good use, even if it can’t kill him. (Yeah, I’m not fond of this guy…)
Arresting Artwork
A: Oh, hey, it’s another annotated-by-Nazh map! There’s not a whole lot to say about it, except that it’s useful to be aware of the annotations. I’m assuming that in this chapter, they are probably up nearer Holiqqil, since Dalinar comments that the “true battlefield” will be to the south, and they later take over Laqqi as the command center.
If you compare this to the earlier Shadesmar map labeled “A Portion of the Southern Sea of Souls,” you’ll see that the city of Rossen Dar, due south of the spot marked “Ishar’s Army,” overlays the Shadesmar location called “Nameless”—the location where Shallan and Adolin’s team landed. The location where they first saw the deadeye Cryptic. The location where they first saw the Tukari caravan that followed and later attacked Notum. I doubt this is a coincidence.
P: I adore maps in books. It helps me to visualize where they are in relation to the rest of the country/region/continent/etc.
A: I totally agree! Maps are one of the first things I look for, because they help me make sense out of all the references to travel or just to other places. (Also, I think they’re a good idea for an author, even if they don’t publish the thing, to make sure that distances and travel times make sense and are feasible. Continuity FTW.)
Brilliant Buttresses
“I do have to admit,” the Mink said to Dalinar as they watched, bowstrings snapping behind them, “this is an excellent way to oversee a battlefield.”
“And you were worried about there being no escape.”
“Rather,” the Mink said, looking toward the ground below, “I was worried about all avenues of escape being interrupted by an unfortunate collision with the ground.”
P: This cracked me up. The Mink is very Lopenish here and a bit of levity is needed in this scene, what with the betrayal and the battle and such.
A: I wonder if all Herdazians (or most) share this sense of humor. “An unfortunate collision with the ground” indeed. I really do like the Mink—he’s such a funny mix of characteristics.
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others! Next week, we’ll be back with chapter 48, in which Eshonai meets a worldhopper (without knowing it) and Gavilar is suddenly a little too interested in her people.
Alice is a Sanderson beta reader and administrator of two fandom Facebook groups. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids, with extended family out back.
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course. She works full-time, goes to school full-time, beta reads part-time, mods/admins 3 Stormlight-themed Facebook groups part-time, and writes part-time. She wishes sleep wasn’t necessary because there’s just too storming much to do! Not to mention the Yankees are in a pennant race! Links to her writing are available in her profile.
That’s some fine tin-foil crafting there, it would make a lot of sense to me. It only relies on people being people and doing what people do. It makes sense that humans would be the first to bond with Rosharan spren if they had previous (personal and/or cultural) experience bonding with Ashyn’s (possibly Odium’s?) spren, and it would make sense from there for the Voidspren (if they had bonded humans previously) to be the first to bond with Singers since they would likewise be more familiar with bonding than the Rosharan spren. Nahel bonds between inexperienced Singers and inexperienced Roshar spren would probably have been rare – Singers “bond” lesser spren to change forms, but this would have been a very different experience and a different process entirely. But however much sense that might make, it would have felt very tense for everyone in that situation, and it would have been very easy for all sides to see all other sides as acting in bad faith, when in fact everyone was basically acting on the same impulses for similar reasons.
It fits well with Nale’s personality as well: if he happened to be right about one important thing that he really stood his ground on, it would be pretty easy for him to “become the law” in his own eyes, so to speak, and with these events preceding the creation of the Radiant orders one can trace a vague dotted line back to this exchange to identify it as the start of the “rules as written” mentality of the Skybreakers. It’s an oversimplification but Nale really does feel like that one guy who was right that one time and really never lets you forget about it, especially when you end up disagreeing about things later.
WAIT. Void spren bonds grant one surge. Roshar spren bonds grant two. Is that because Roshar’s spren essentially come from a combination of the two Rosharan shards? Is that real? Am I possibly the last to realize this and everyone already knows that?
The timing is off on this. The spren did not bond until after the Oathpact, as it was specifically stated that the spren copied the surges that Honor gave to the Heralds.
@oafgeek, What makes you think Voidspren grant exactly one surge? The Fused are not bound to Voidspren that we know of. Stormforms get increased strength and lightning-shooting. Is that two Surges? I think that’s a matter of definition.
@carl: Fused surgebinders only have access to one surge; the Heavenly Ones have gravitation, Rabboniel has soulcasting, etc. The form they take could itself be read as a second aspect of the bond, but it’s likely a similar thing to how Singer forms change with bonds to lesser spren so I don’t read that as specific to the bond that grants access to the Surges. It seems likely that this is because of the Voidspren bond, but it’s also true that Venli has only (to my knowledge) shown one of the two surges Willshapers should have access to, so it could also be a Singer/Listener thing (but I doubt that).
Regal forms are a bit weird to me though; the ability for Envoyform to speak any language, Stormform’s lightning, these are beyond mere form of body but don’t necessarily connect directly to any specific Surge. Other Regal forms we have very little information on but it sounds like there’s more going on there. Could these be analogous to Radiant squires? Bonding companion spren to the Voidspren that create the Fused, like windspren are to Honorspren for Windrunners? I don’t know that’s pretty iffy speculation but I never really thought about it before.
Heh. Like I said, the theory has some holes… but as an outline, I’m kinda fond of it. I hope it turns out to be the truth. :D
oafgeek @1 – Nice extension on Nale’s personality! I really like that. He was known to be honorable, and at least in this case shown to have the better judgement, but that’s a shaky foundation to set him up as The Ideal of Law and Justice. He certainly went with it, though! I have some hope that, in creating the Oathpact, Honor (and possibly Cultivation) actually bestowed some level of divine discernment matching each Herald’s role, but I also suspect that they lost most of that when they walked away from the Oathpact. His behavior in recent decades certainly doesn’t look good.
Austin @2 – I’m not sure the timing is off, though. Based on Dalinar’s vision with Nohadon in TWoK, some form of Surgebinding preceded the formation of the Knights Radiant. Syl’s thing about “we saw what Honor did with the Heralds and emulated it” may not be as straightforward as it looks, and might be more about the Orders of the Radiants (and their Shardblades) than about Surgebinding itself.
I’m thinking more that the early Surgebinding on Roshar (the kind in my theory) predates the development of the ten families of Radiant-forming spren we’re familiar with. I’d guess it was more a matter of bonding with, say, lifespren to gain healing, or windspren to control gravity. In any case, I’d bet that the initial bonds gave control of one Surge, much as we see in the Fused abilities. The humans, without the limitation of “one spren at a time” caused by the singers’ gemhearts, and with their experience on Ashyn, may have figured out a way to bond multiple spren, gaining more and more power – which would definitely irritate the singers who couldn’t do that. (Until Timbre, anyway…)
The Oathpact gave each Herald the ability – and the limit – to control two Surges, as well as some other things hinted but not yet spelled out for us. I’d postulate that the true spren we know now emulated that setup, as well as figuring out a way to take metal forms in the Physical realm to emulate the Honorblades.
I’m sure there are plenty of other holes, and as with any theory I could be completely off-base. But I enjoy speculating about the ancient history, so scenes like this thing with Nale & Jezrien are huge theory-fodder for me. (If I were brave enough, I’d try to search reddit and 17th-Shard to see what theories other people have come up with based on this stuff, but… I don’t have enough free time to dive into those rabbit-holes.)
I really like your theory, Alice – it explains things rather perfectly. I’d say you could definitely take off the tin foil and save it for another day, lol.
@1 oafgeek; @3 Carl:
I didn’t think the Voidspren granted surges. They grant the forms of power, which have certain abilities (as Carl pointed out), but I don’t think we’ve seen an instance of someone getting direct access to surges from a Voidspren. There is Yelig-Nar, of course, but that’s an Unmade and they seem to operate a little differently than standard Voidspren. The only ones on Team Odium with access to Surgebinding are the Fused, who as Carl pointed out are not bonded to Voidspren.
That does bring up an interesting question, though. This may have been answered elsewhere, but do we know why only Rosharan spren grant access to Surgebinding? It’s been stated in one WoB or another that Odium has been stuck in the system for long enough that he’s basically become part of it, so I wouldn’t assume that his spren are still perceived as not part of the natural system. We can also presume that he’s the one who granted the humans on Ashyn Surgebinding in the first place. So why don’t his Voidspren function the same as Radiant spren and grant access to Surges? Is this just another way he keeps his followers from becoming too powerful?
The Oath Pact.This has bothered me since the very first prologue introduced us to a desolation. I just can’t understand why it was set up in such a way to make torture a control factor. It just seems wrong. I see no indication that the Fused suffered torture but they still ended up going crazy too, at least some of them.
@7 goddessimho:
I may be misremembering this, but I don’t think the Oathpact was intended to be basically eternal torture for the Heralds. As I recall, the agreement was that they would be bound along with the Fused on Braize to prevent their returning to Roshar and it was intended to be a permanent solution. It was the Fused who discovered they could capture and torture a Herald until they broke and then transfer the party back to Roshar. Once that was discovered was when the endless cycles of Desolation-death-torture-breaking started.
With regard to the Fused going mad, we’re told that’s the result of dying and being born so many times. Sanderson has also stated that there is a relation between the Heralds’ madness and the Fused’s madness (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/445/#e14135), so it’ll be interesting to see how that part of the story plays out.
As I said, though, I could be very much misremembering that so someone please correct me if I’m wrong!
@6 Lance: now that you mention it I was assuming that Fused had a spren bond but I realize now that there’s literally no evidence for that. A lot of assumptions I’ve had seem pretty thin now. We do know that surgebinding existed on Ashyn (and is blamed for its destruction) but how humans accessed those surges is probably unknown? It’s unlikely that they just pulled the magic out of thin air, that’s not how Sanderson’s magic has ever really worked, but it doesn’t necessarily need to have involved spren bonds. Ancient fabrials are spren but don’t require a bond, and the Honorblades of course are their own whole thing, so I shouldn’t have assumed that the Fused need to have had spren at any point either. In fact it’s often said that they’ve become more like spren themselves over time, or at least some of them have. Maybe there’s a connection with saying the Fused are like spren and the coerced bond that erases and replaces the Singer mind in the Fused body is analogous to the Nahel bond and that’s how [something something] surgebinding…?
It seems like the Radiants are the ones who are the exception, having two whole surges where every other (known) method of surgebinding only grants one. At a guess I might speculate that it’s related to the two kinds of spren that a Radiant interacts with? But based on Kaladin’s experiences (throwing himself at walls, among other things) they have basic access to both surges early in the bonding process, before they’ve even said the first few oaths, so I don’t know, that seems like pretty thin reasoning but there might be something to it. It’s an open question I haven’t really thought too much about before and I really want some kind of answer.
I think the line to the Herald that is strong is the one to Taln. He is the only Herald who did not break the Oathpact.
Alice and Paige. Such an order could have been given by senior officers who saw the attempt to rescue King T as a way to cause more chaos.
Perhaps Szeth’s spren said something to Szeth that served as some type of warning.
I agree with you Alice. From what we have seen of the Heralds who we have confirmation are Heralds (Ishar, Nale, Kalak, Ash, Taln (and Jezrien before his death), they are all broken beyond healing. Their moments of lucidity during moments when a Bondsmith swears a new Ideal (or some other action Dalinar is able to take) are too few and fleeting. I think Dalinar will have to find a different way than magically restoring their sanity to “fix” the Heralds.
I wonder if the other female Heralds are as damaged as the men. It seems Ash is the least insane/damaged of the 5 male Heralds. Granted that is not a high bar.
Like Alice and Paige, I seeing/reading the glimpses of the flashbacks Nale had. I hope Brandon gives us more of a picture of the Heralds actions in Books 6-10. I want to see what they were like before they accepted the Oathpact and what they were like between accepting the Oathpact and Aharietiam.
I got the impression that Nale and Jezrien were enemies on Ashyn. When Honor came to Jezrien with the concept of the Oathpact, Jezrien felt that Nale would be worthy of such duty.
Thanks for reading my musings.
aka the musespren
Different Shards produce similar, but not identical magic systems. On Sel (another world with two Shards on it, originally, before Odium intervened), the Seons are essentially spren (splinters of a shard) and form bonds with people, but don’t grant anything that looks like Surgebinding. I don’t know what the Skaze do for the mortals they bond with. Hmm … Scadrial, Taldain, and Nalthis have no splinters as far as I know. By sheer coincidence (maybe), those are Shardworlds where no Shard ever got, well, splintered.
Then again, some Rosharan spren go back to Adonalsium (who, as far as we know, didn’t die there), so the nature of Roshar probably has something to do with it.
I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt that the strong line is Taln. Brandon is not always trying to be sneaky. It’s pretty clear.
What they broke, definitely Ashyn. Whether there is a more concrete thing they did on Roshar is unclear, he could just be referring to the fact that he and Ishar ruined Ashyn with surgebinding, leading directly to the conflict on Roshar. Note that Ishar retains the power of a bondsmith with no spren or blade, as he had this power before the Oathpact. The source of that access is unclear, but its mind-blowing that he (and Dalinar) can just reach into the spiritual realm at will and tap into the basically limitless power available there and probably wreak havoc on the spiritual aspect of nearby entities (or, with extreme care, have a positive impact).
I think the strong link is to Ishar as he was the one that actually bound the Heralds. Too bad Dalinar didn’t pull the same move on him so we could know for sure.
@8 Lance – thanks for sharing that WoB. I had seen it before but don’t know how to find them. The idea that the Heralds’ madness has a supernatural component makes me wonder if they were affected by Aharietiam in a fashion similar to the Sibling.
Hmmm. Ashyn magic is supposed to be disease-related; though the book isn’t written yet, Brandon has talked about it before.
There are other WoBs on the subject, but they’re mostly variations on that idea. He did say that while it’s always been disease-based, “it isn’t quite the same as it was.” (The context seems that someone was trying to find out if the planned novel uses exactly the same magic system as the one in place when they damaged the planet.)
So… if you’re willing to call the Ashyn Invested microorganisms “spren” and the disease a “bond” it doesn’t seem like the kind of “spren bond” we’re familiar with is necessary for Surgebinding. Recall, too, that people call things by familiar names even if they don’t work the same way, so Rosharans would probably call any magic system “Surgebinding” by default.
… I think I was going somewhere else with this, but I don’t remember. So I guess for now we’ll leave it as a reminder that magic on Ashyn doesn’t function quite the same way as magic on Roshar, though they’re in the same system and have the same Shards’ Investiture.
@16 – Did Brandon say that was Ashyn? I thought the disease idea was for a non-Cosmere book. It’s superpowers.
@16 Wetlandernw
Good point! If they call parrots chickens of course they would call Rosharan magic the same thing they called their native magic system. So it’s probably not the same, but could have the same name. UNLESS maybe they were introduced to surgebinding on Ashyn due to some worldhoppers (which there likely would have been, otherwise evacuating a whole culture’s worth of people through the cognitive realm without guidance or experience would be a heck of an accomplishment). Then they would probably have adopted the name that was used by whoever brought it.
But to follow a different thread, the surgebinding we know (though we don’t actually know that much about its limits) would have trouble making a whole planet uninhabitable (from a certain point of view Roshar is barely inhabitable for humans and they’re doing fine there). It also relies on investiture, which is abundant on Roshar but hard to transport elsewhere, so what could they realistically have done with it? We don’t really know, but we know (especially now) that when diseases get out of control on your planet, the idea of just packing up and moving to Mars doesn’t sound that crazy. I would have a lot less trouble believing that the disease-based magic system is the one that went out of control and destroyed Ashyn for humans. It needn’t have done it alone; I can imagine humans experimenting with Regrowth to create a super-virulent strain of disease, leading to a global pandemic that brought with it waves of violence as the disease carriers struggled with magic they couldn’t handle (or took advantage for personal gain). That would be a great recipe for total global chaos leading survivors to just leave en masse.
I think it’s likely that there were worldhoppers, so it would be very credible to me for some meddling individuals to have triggered events that spiraled into the endless cycle of war that Roshar ended up in. Something must have happened to upset a fairly stable status quo, anyway; I’m betting it was introduction of surgebinding, but who knows! Speculation! how fun.
Wait, it didn’t even have to be surgebinding. It could just be worldhoppers, full stop. We know that worldhoppers brought the common cold to Roshar; what if that’s what happened on Ashyn, and the common cold has [insert destructive world-destabilizing effect] on a planet where diseases lead to magic?
@19 – Can we get magic powers yet? Cuz we have a world-destabilizing disease right now.
Austin @17 – From March 2020:
oafgeek @18 & 19 – So… Humans had to worldhop somehow to get from Yolen to Ashyn in the first place; we really don’t know the mechanism for humans spreading throughout the Cosmere or how that sort of colonization happened in general. (Except for Scadrains, which were created by Ruin and Preservation, all humans originate with Yolen.) We do know there were humans on Ashyn and singers on Roshar when Odium arrived in the system and started meddling. There may have been worldhoppers influencing things, but recall this from much later in RoW:
The magnitude of the disaster, assuming the Stormfather is a reliable narrator, was due to the involvement of the Dawnshards:
We know from Dawnshard and other references that they are incredibly powerful, and in the hands of someone like Ishar… well, I can see him basically nuking his world because he didn’t understand just how much damage he could do. I can also see someone else feeling so threatened by him that they would use a Dawnshard to stop him. Either way, they made the planet almost unihabitable except for the cloud cities and a few small pockets on the ground.
I can’t spend the time searching for all the references now, but it’s at least implied, and possibly stated outright, that Honor himself brought the humans from Ashyn to Roshar, not that they did it themselves.
Andrew @10 – A minor quibble, perhaps, but Honor didn’t come to Jezrien with the concept of the Oathpact. Ishar came up with the plan, figured out how it could be done, assembled the willing participants, and they went to Honor asking him to grant the power to make it work.
Michael @13 – It’s certainly possible that the original enmity between Nale and the others was on Ashyn, but the formation of the Oathpact was to remove the Fused and Voidspren from Roshar. I don’t believe it had anything to do with “breaking” Ashyn, other than the recognition that if the singers all started using Odium’s power to do Surgebinding, Roshar wasn’t going to be a livable place for humans either. FWIW, the Heralds originally opposed the idea of any Surgebinding, but when it became clear that it was going to happen anyway, Ishar managed somehow to force the spren to agree to the limitations that set up the Knights Radiant orders.
@21 – Huh. I hadn’t seen that WoB. Thanks.
I’d forgotten about the Dawnshards; for the love of light there’s a lot to keep up with, I do not know how you do any of this. Very impressive though!
@21, others
Thank you for that extra info, Alice! That leads me to an interesting line of thought that may answer the question of why Rosharan spren grant surges but Voidspren don’t. Get your tin-foil hats ready and let me see if I can articulate what is rolling around in my head right now.
How someone uses Investiture is tied to their Identity, which (as I understand it) is part of what makes up their spiritweb. This is why Zahel can be on Roshar but when he accesses Investiture it’s through Awakening instead of Surgebinding, or why an Allomancer and Feruchemist could go to Nalthis but would still use Investiture through the Metallic Arts. Unless you’re Hoid, it would take hemalurgy or some other process that alters your spiritweb to be able to use Investiture from another world that isn’t part of your Identity.
So, with the info that Alice provided, I think the answer to why Voidspren don’t grant surges and Rosharan spren do is tied to how Investiture manifested for the Singers and the people from Ashyn historically and is tied to their Identities. For the humans of Ashyn, Investiture manifested as part of bacteria that granted them access to Surges while they were ill. The cracks in their spiritwebs were temporarily filled by Investiture that manifested in that particular way. For the Singers of Roshar, Investiture manifested in the various forms they could take by bonding different spren into their gemhearts.
Fast-forward to the humans arriving on Roshar after the ruining of Ashyn; now instead of Investiture being found in bacteria it’s found in spren that are all over the place. We don’t know how or why or when the first spren bonded with the first human but when it did the cracks in that human’s spiritweb were filled with Investiture, exactly the same as would have happened had that human gotten sick on Ashyn. Because how Investiture manifests is tied to Identity, this caused the same effect as would have happened on Ashyn: Surgebinding. However, rather than going away at the end of an illness the access to Surgebinding lasted as long as the human was bonded with the spren. For the singers, on the other hand, their Identity is tied to Investiture manifesting as forms. So even though Odium and his Voidspren may not be native to Roshar the way his Investiture bonds with a Singer’s spiritweb will cause it to manifest the way their Identity says it should, in a new form (albeit new forms with different abilities).
Going back to Alice’s original theory, perhaps this played into the reason the Singers felt betrayed by the spren. Maybe when they saw spren bonding with humans and granting Surgebinding, something they’d never done for the Singers, they felt jealous or betrayed. And all because they just didn’t understand concepts like Identity and Investiture and how they worked.
FYI, 17S has a transcription of a reading from Silence Divine.
https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/63544-ashyn-readingsilence-divine/
Also at
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/201-words-of-radiance-los-angeles-signing/#e12303
@lance:
Even if you’re Hoid. Spoilers for Secret History and Warbreaker:
Hoid stole and ate a bead of lerasium. Using Breath means you have parts of other people’s souls stapled to your own.
This part of Alice theory:
Is the first explanation I have seen for the existence of the fused and why the singers would see them as gods. I like a lot
Kaboom @27 – I don’t have a lot of confidence in my theorizing these days, but there are aspects to this one that I really hope will prove true – and that’s one of them.
I had to go look up several things to remind myself of (such as that at least some spren predate even Honor/Cultivation’s arrival).
On the subject of Surges/Surgeginding the thing that confuses me a little (although this may be due to unreliable narration) is this idea that the Surges come from Honor/Cultivation and that Adhesion is JUST of Honor. Raboniel at one point claims the created the surges.
But these are fundamental forces/principles, so surely they must have existed before then. So maybe it’s just the way the access is granted? Perhaps the ‘two surge’ limit with the Knights Radiant is meant as a limiter.
There’s still so much about the ancient history that needs to be untangled…in some ways its a detriment to my enjoyment of the series, because they’re is just too much to keep straight and contradicting information that it just feels pointless to try and grasp it.
It’s funny they talk about the Ashyn magic as ‘disease’ magic – to me it sounds like midichlorians in a way ;) I like Lance’s analagoy though. One does wonder what they were manipulating on Ashyn – if it’s true (?) that Surges are more from Honor/Cultivation, then what was the magic they were using on Ashyn, which, as far as I understand, wasn’t under their influence? Or did they grant Investiture to the whole system, not just Roshar?
The other slightly complicating thing here is that (at least according to the wiki):
Ashyn’s magic system was not sickness-based from the start.[21] The original magic, which brought about the cataclysm, wasn’t exactly like Surgebinding, but shared the same basic principles.[22] It might’ve also been related to Roshar’s Old Magic.[23] The Eila Stele mentions humans using the powers of spren and Surges, suggesting that the shift to bacteria and viruses as the focus of Ashynite magic might’ve happened some time after most people have already evacuated from the planet.[9]
So, if the sickness based magic wasn’t even until after the humans (and Odium?) went to Roshar, it continues to beg the question as to what the surges were that existed on Ashyn and how they might have differed/been accessed, or what types of spren might have existed there. Of course even that information may be unreliable if the mention of ‘spren and surges’ is just meant to be something metaphorical and not exactly the same as those words mean on Roshar.
The other thing that is kind of interesting is that the Elia Stele says “They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges.” How did this forbidding work? Who forbade them?