Welcome to the all-in spoiler review for Rhythm of War, in which Paige and Alice express all the excitement over the thrills in this book… and maybe certain other emotions, as well. (DIE MOASH DIE!™) If you haven’t finished the book yet, do not click that link, because, well, All The Spoilers! (You can find the non-spoiler review of the book here).
Fair warning, we both loved the book, so if you’re looking for someone to tear it down, this is not the review you’re looking for.
As noted, this was truly a fantastic read, in our opinion. That said, there are a few disclaimers…
This was probably the most difficult book I’ve ever had the opportunity to beta read (-Alice). (Saaame. -Paige). While it was written over the course of 2019, before anyone ever heard of COVID-19, we started the beta read just as the first worries were beginning to look serious. By the time we reached the part where Navani and Kaladin were experiencing the stresses of isolation, we were all well into the lockdown phases too. The depression and loneliness they were experiencing in the book resonated with many of the beta readers in ways I’m absolutely sure Brandon hadn’t anticipated. (We may talk more about that in a separate article, but it’s worth noting here.) A fair number of readers had to simply step out, or delay their responses dramatically, because it was just… too much.
The beauty of it, though, was that the depth of darkness made the bright moments shine even more brightly. The chapter with Wit’s story about “The Dog and the Dragon” was practically a microcosm of the book in this sense: Kaladin dragging through that horrible nightmare, and then suddenly the bright light, and Wit pulling him in, and hot stew, and a story full of humor and pathos and unexpected endings. (Also, his reaction when Kal asked him for a story… I think we all burst out laughing at that one!) (Also also, Kaladin needs a dog.) The final parallel, though, is… well, worrisome. After the promise that there will always be ups and downs, Kaladin has to go back out into the nightmare wind; after the encouraging resolutions and Ideals spoken, we know that Book Five is coming, with a frightening new element and real concern for the fate of some favorite characters.
But let’s talk about this book, for now.
Part One
In many ways, Part One stands apart from the rest of the book. It catches us up on what happened since the Battle of Thaylen Field, and then sets up the three separate plot arcs that occupy Parts Two through Five. It’s a little different in terms of structure, but it works.
Avalanche of The Unwritten Book
While we didn’t expect the book to start off with a minor avalanche, it was a great way to show us some of the developments we all expected would happen over the course of the year that’s passed since the events of Oathbringer. By way of a clash in Hearthstone, we can see that the fighting has continued. There are more Fused than before, and there are (thankfully) also more Radiants than before. There have been some advances in technology on both sides: Navani’s airship is most notable on the human side, while the Fused have several new weapons to use against the Radiants.
Concurrent with the battle in Hearthstone, Shallan’s adventures in the warcamp showed what was happening to the Alethi highprinces who weren’t persuaded to join Dalinar after the Battle of Narak. Their fates, while not exactly anticipated, at least gave the hoped-for closure on the rebellious folk. Oh, and the Sons of Honor are finally in complete disarray. We can hope they stay that way.
All in all, this intro-avalanche worked well to provide the infodump on what happened while we were away.
Fused and Singer Culture
While we couldn’t anticipate the details of the culture developing with the continued return of the Fused, and their rule over the newly-awakened singers, we did expect to learn about it. And learn we did. Headquartered in Kholinar, the society is led by the Nine—one from each “brand” of Fused—who are partially encased in stone and have final authority over all decisions. Unlike the humans with their Nahel bonds, each brand of Fused has the use of only one Surge—and they’re really good at it. (With thousands of years of practice, they should be, eh?) While we don’t learn about it until Part Two, the missing Surge is Adhesion, which is wholly of Honor rather than being an inherent part of the planet’s magic. It’s worth reminding ourselves that there is not a direct correspondence between the brands and the Radiant orders, since they only half-way overlap.
In Part One, we only see the society from Venli’s point of view, but that gives us an insider’s look at Lady Leshwi, the flying Fused who seems to have fun playing Kaladin’s nemesis. She’s turning into an oddly sympathetic character; Venli is her top servant (her Voice) and we get to see that she’s a much more reasonable master than many of her peers.
The critical introduction, though, is Raboniel, the Lady of Wishes, formerly known as the Lady of Pains… and if that’s not foreboding enough for you, I don’t know what would be. Since her deadly disease failed to wipe out the humans last time she returned, this time she’s going for an invasion of Urithiru. Yikes.
The Return to Urithiru
Speaking of which—of course we expected to end up in Urithiru, and likely with most of the usual suspects. Even though we don’t get there until halfway through Part One, it’s pretty much what we thought we’d see: more people, new problems, technological advances. With the humans all gathered there to plan their next steps in the conflict, this is where the upcoming arcs are laid out.
First, the coalition agrees on the need to make a military push somewhere, or risk losing too much ground as the Fused continue to return from Braize. It’s decided that rather than try to retake the well-fortified Alethkar, they’ll attempt to dislodge the Fused and singer armies in Emul, giving them full control of the Makabaki region (with the exception of Tukar, which is its own sack of cremlings). Dalinar, naturally, will go off to this war, and Jasnah declares her intention of going as well.
Second, they really need more Radiants, but the honorspren are refusing to grant any more Windrunner bonds, and most of the other orders are also holding back. In hopes of persuading the honorspren that humans are worthy of bonding despite the Recreance, an envoy to the honorspren fortress called Lasting Integrity is organized. Led by Adolin and Shallan, accompanied by a Truthwatcher, an Edgedancer, a Stoneward, and an assortment of Lightweaver squires and Kholin soldiers, this group is to enter Shadesmar via Oathgate and travel to the fortress, armed with gifts and persuasive messages.
The rest will remain in Urithiru, generally taking care of business and keeping the coalition functioning. Riiiiight. Raboniel is coming… which twists the “stay in Urithiru and be bored” plot into the primary storyline, and turns out to be more like “stay in Urithiru and be terrified.”
Plot Alpha: Urithiru
We don’t know about anyone else, but we’re here to tell you that we did NOT expect a successful invasion of the Tower that just… worked. Boom. With Dalinar and Jasnah off in Emul, acting as a hammer to the anvil that is the army of Tezim the god-priest of Tukar, an invading force of Fused, Regals, and singers infiltrate the Tower. The Fused Raboniel, leading the incursion with the blessing of the Nine, activates and reverses the Tower’s defenses—defenses meant to suppress the powers of the Fused, but now used to suppress the powers of the few Radiants left in the Tower, rendering them unconscious.
One afternoon’s worth of resistance, and it’s over. Just like that, all the Radiants are disabled and the entire human population of Urithiru is subdued. Except… two of the Radiants are different than the others, and the human spirit is not so easily quashed. Kaladin still has access to Adhesion, and Lift can still use Progression, though with more effort than before. Now throw in a couple of listeners who know what freedom feels like, a handful of singers who want to know, and a Fused who still remembers a time when the spren were her friends, and things are not so straightforward. Add a leader who is only halfway committed to the project because she has a couple of other private goals in mind, and… well, and you have the Rhythm of War.
Sibling Bondsmith
Navani’s arc was a surprise in several ways. Even though we had speculated that she might be a good candidate for bonding the Sibling, there were other candidates along the way that would have been good choices in their own way. At one point, we wondered if Dabbid would form that bond, being perhaps the first to hear the Sibling’s voice. Rlain, too, was a prime choice—the Sibling even expressed strong interest in him. While either of those would have been wonderful in their own way, Navani’s development and final bonding was (IMO -Alice) a brilliant arc (Quite satisfying. -Paige).
Up until now, we’ve mostly seen Queen Navani from the outside, with her confidence and intelligence at the fore. But starting with the Prologue, we saw a different side of her—the impostor syndrome, the constant feeling of pretense, the pervasive feeling of inadequacy. Gavilar’s condemnation: “You aren’t worthy, Navani,” (*glares at Gavilar* -Paige) and all the rest of it, telling her that she wasn’t good enough to be a real scholar or a real artifabrian or to achieve anything on her own—it echoes down through the pages, over and over. She spends so much time believing that she’s just faking it, when we can see that she’s so much more; it’s really quite painful, at least for those of us who know what that’s like.
It’s not until Raboniel takes away everything but her studies, defeats every effort to protect her people, and leaves her with nothing but her equipment, that Navani quits worrying about her own competence. Left in isolation, given all the tools to work with, and some suggestions of possibility, she focuses on the science—and makes the breakthrough that Raboniel, over seven thousand years, was unable to make. Considering that Raboniel was a renowned scholar (if a rather unethical one, from our perspective) that’s saying something. One of our favorite moments was when Raboniel says, “If you are not a scholar, Navani, then I have never met one.” Though she continues to doubt herself, and at one point condemns herself in thinking that a true scholar would have seen the implications of her own work (LOL), that acknowledgement from Raboniel is what finally makes her realize that, imperfect as she may be, she is worthy to be considered a scholar and a bondmate for the Sibling.
The finale of her arc may be our favorite so far. “Journey before destination, you bastard” is one of the best level-ups we’ve ever seen. Watching Moash flee in terror from the woman whose son he murdered, as she spoke the Ideal her son was prevented from completing, satisfied a deep and visceral longing. (All the feels. -Paige) It was absolutely brilliant. The scene was made even more glorious (at least to my little engineer’s heart -Alice) when the new Bondsmith was able to understand at a glance the mechanics of the Tower-fabrials—how to eliminate the corrupting Voidlight, how to power things up, which effects were most important to activate… all the things that made Navani a better choice than anyone else could possibly have been. At the same time, the earlier conflict between Navani and the Sibling over trapping spren for fabrials remains a point of contention—which sets up a bonding that will require both parties to consider different ways of thinking and doing. We can’t help wondering whether this is typical of the Bondsmiths or not, but we haven’t seen this kind of conflict between Radiant and spren in the other orders.
We can’t leave Navani’s arc without finalizing her collaboration with Raboniel, though. Even though they were working toward different goals, they were an amazing team. Creating the anti-Voidlight, and then Raboniel immediately using it to kill her daughter—thus freeing her from the terrible cycle of death and madness—moved us in a way we didn’t expect from the enemy “monster” we’d seen in her. In the end, she says, “I want the singers to win. But your side winning is better than the war continuing forever.” That’s… pretty deep. In the end, after Raboniel uses her broken and dying body to delay Moash long enough for Navani to reach the Sibling, we’ll admit that we cried all the way through the scene where Navani sings with her and then gives her the same release she gave her daughter. (Ugly crying on my part. -Paige)
One more thing: The Sibling is the child of Honor and Cultivation, whose essence is “Structure and nature. Knowledge and wonder. Mixing. The song of science itself.” Can we just say, that was magnificent?!
Fourth Windrunner Ideal
Guys! We’ve waited so long to see it and seen Kaladin go through so much. But we finally got it, after much speculation and theorizing… “I accept that there will be those I cannot protect!” Gaahh!! Who called it? Well, only most of us. But do crow about your cleverness in the comments… because we’re feeling it, too.
But rewind a bit and think about what Kaladin experienced in Rhythm of War in order to reach that much-anticipated milestone.
This book was hard on Kaladin (But which one hasn’t been, amirite? -Paige). It started out with him killing a truly terrifying Fused—without Stormlight—which was great, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, just after he did so, he was rendered unable to act as Moash again exacted vengeance right in front of him, this time killing Roshone. Kaladin was again pulled out of that mess, this time by Renarin, and upon returning to the Shattered Plains, he was relieved of duty by Dalinar.
As was to be expected, Kaladin was devastated. So much so that he had an anxiety attack upon returning to his quarters. Adolin, the very bestest friend a depressed Windrunner could have, kept him company during his initial funk.
Then, having again taken up surgery with his father, he and Teft began to treat illnesses of the mind (Called it! -Paige). They pulled men suffering from battle shock from the deep, dark cells of the sanitarium in the monastery that housed the Devotary of Mercy, and start group therapy sessions. It’s working, too, until…
When the Fused invade the Tower, Kaladin kills a singer in Lirin’s newly set-up surgery—much to Lirin’s disgust—and hauls an unconscious Teft to a safe room, led by none other than the Sibling. He becomes a fugitive from the twisted justice of a Fused called The Pursuer, which turns out to be the same Fused that Kaladin had killed in Hearthstone. Oh, and did we mention that Kaladin has no Gravitation? Right. Well, he has no Gravitation. And no Sylspear.
Though he’s in hiding in the middle of occupied Urithiru, Kaladin is called on multiple times to assist the Sibling, the spren of the Tower. They’re being attacked by Raboniel, who is attempting to infuse the gemstone pillar with voidlight, Unmake the Sibling, and take control of the Tower in truth. But in helping the Sibling, he exposes himself each time to the Pursuer.
On the third such meeting, Kaladin is not just holding his own against the Pursuer, he’s winning. When Moash (DIE!!) shows up and dumps Teft’s body in front of Kaladin, he breaks again. Moash (Grrr! -Paige) (Hisssss! -Alice) gives a bound and gagged Lirin to a Fused and goes after Navani. Kaladin pursues the Fused to the top of the Tower; when they toss Lirin over the side, Kaladin (again, with no Gravitation) follows. Dalinar, riding the storm with the Stormfather, intervenes and pulls Kaladin into the centerbeat, where he sees the events preceding Tien’s death from a different perspective. Like the visions Dalinar was given, Kaladin is able to interact with Tien, and yeah, could our hearts break yet again? Spoiler alert: Yes, yes they could.
As Kaladin plummets past the Tower, he is finally able to speak the words, and Dalinar is the one to accept them. Simply beautiful.
Note that Kaladin’s fourth Ideal was not, as many had expected, a matter of accepting that there was someone right here that he couldn’t save, nor of having to choose between two people who needed to be protected. It was about letting go of the people he hadn’t saved in the past, accepting that they made their own choices and took their own chances. He needed to quit feeling guilty for surviving when someone else didn’t. Specifically, he had to let go of the fact that he hadn’t, and couldn’t have, saved Tien and Teft. It’s a great reflection of Kaladin telling Elhokar to leave Aesudan behind, because she’d given herself to the Unmade, and to “Be a hero to the one you can save.” (Ow. I’m punched in the heart again! -Paige) (I suspect Kaladin knew the fourth Ideal already, but it was easier to urge someone else to follow it than to follow it himself. -Alice)
Second Willshaper Ideal
Venli struggles with her dual nature as a listener Regal and a secret Knight Radiant. She frees Rlain from captivity and speaks the Words of her Second Ideal—”I will seek freedom for those in bondage,” but… her Words are not accepted. She realizes that in allowing Lift to remain caged, she hasn’t done enough to truly mean the words. She does eventually free Lift but still doesn’t attain the Second Ideal.
At the very end of her book when reunited with her mother, Venli and Timber have brought a new Reacher spren, which enters Jaxlim’s gemheart and seems to bring her back to herself. She recognizes her daughter and in her mind Venli hears, “Your Words are now accepted.”
This arc was really fascinating. One of the major aspects of Venli’s character was her essential self-centeredness. We saw it in the flashbacks, we saw it in previous books, and we saw it all throughout this book. Freeing Rlain, and even Lift, wasn’t enough to reach her Ideal; both were being done as much for selfish reasons as for the sake of the imprisoned one. She freed Rlain for the sake of having another listener to talk to, and freed Lift in order to heal Kaladin, so that her listener team would have a chance of escaping. Seeking and striving for her mother’s freedom, just for love, not even demanding acceptance for herself… that was the one that finally reached the Ideal.
We also got to see Eshonai again during the flashback scenes, which I’m sure most of the fandom knew was coming. It was nice to read her points of view, before the War of Reckoning, before necessity put her in Shardplate to fight against overwhelming odds. It was so good to see her, and so heart-wrenching. The final chapter of the book from her perspective was truly beautiful. (Brandon got me again. -Paige)
Not So Tiny, But Still Awesome
Lift still doesn’t want to change, but she’s growing up despite the boon she asked of Cultivation. We learn more about why this was the boon she asked, and as has been foreshadowed and speculated, she wanted to remain the little girl she was when her mother died of a sickness. Our poor little Edgedancer.
She runs into Mraize after the fall of the Tower, and he hunts her, eventually caging her and gifting her to Raboniel. He reveals that she doesn’t use Stormlight, but Lifelight, Cultivation’s analog of Stormlight. This is likely why she’s still able to function once the Tower’s defenses are reversed. We always knew that she was different than our other Radiants, because she had to eat in order to use her surges. Now we’re jonesing to get a clearer picture of what Cultivation did with our slippery little Radiant.
She’s eventually freed by Venli so that she can go heal Kaladin after his foray into a highstorm, and soon accompanies Teft to the makeshift infirmary where the unconscious Radiants are being cared for by Lirin and Hesina. She starts to waken the Radiants but is attacked by Moash, who swipes his honorblade through her legs. Injured and unable to heal herself immediately, she still tries to wake the Radiants until Moash kicks her into a wall, knocking her unconscious.
(We don’t know about you guys, but we’re getting pretty sick and tired of Moash kicking children. DIE MOASH DIE!™)
We don’t see Lift again after that scene, but we hear of her when Dalinar gives Kaladin a flute he’d gotten from Lift. It had somehow made its way from the Shattered Plains where he had lost it, and into Lift’s possession. She said it belonged to Kaladin and asked Dalinar to pass it along.
Also, she stole Dalinar’s lunch. Because of course she did.
Rlain!
After precious little screen time in Oathbringer, Rlain has a far more prominent role in Rhythm of War. He is still very much Bridge Four, and stays loyal to Kaladin in the midst of the Tower’s occupation. He is freed by Raboniel at Venli’s request, and helps Lirin and Hesina with the unconscious Radiants while also helping Kaladin. We really, really wanted to see him bond a spren—and we eventually did! And it was every bit as fantastic as we expected it to be.
Life before death, Radiant!
It’s probably worth acknowledging that some people have objected to Rlain bonding a Sja-anat-touched spren, as if he hadn’t spent enough time being the “other.” We find it hopeful, though; with Renarin and Rlain both accepting that kind of bond, it may be a signal from Sanderson that good things are happening with Sja-anat, and they’ll be forerunners rather than outsiders.
Final Thoughts on Plot Alpha
We should note the running theme of the interactions between the Investiture of different Shards. The Sibling combines the powers of Honor and Cultivation, as do most of the Radiants. The book is titled for the combination of Honor and Odium, and we get our second Sja-anat-modified mistspren bond with Rlain. Lift’s powers work during the occupation because she’s using Lifelight instead of Stormlight to power the Surges, and Kaladin’s only Lashing works because it’s solely of Honor. The connections aren’t entirely clear (at least to us), but clearly the interaction is Significant.
Plot Beta: Shadesmar
Shallan’s Deep Truth
Shallan is part of leading the expedition to Lasting Integrity, but (of course!) she has a hidden purpose beyond persuading honorspren. At the behest of Mraize, she is seeking Restares, leader of the defunct Sons of Honor. Mraize said she would know what to do when she found him, and she guesses that he will want her to kill Restares.
In Lasting Integrity, after researching all of the humans in the fortress, she discovers that Restares is none other than the Herald Kelek, revered by the honorspren, and also their High Judge who would oversee Adolin’s trial. Despite telling Mraize she wouldn’t kill him, she changes her mind and decides to dispatch him in order to disguise herself as High Judge. Why? To pardon Adolin, of course. However, she changes her mind at the last minute, when Veil and Radiant require her to confront her deepest Truth and in doing so, absorbs Veil back into herself. (Not gonna lie, I cry every time I read that scene. -Alice) (I was so, so happy and relieved! Shallan! Healing! -Paige)
In the serialization discussion, there were some people who objected to the idea of Shallan healing and reintegrating her personalities; it’s the ongoing problem of whether physical or mental illness should be magically fixed. While I’m sure there will be some ongoing division on this subject, I personally (Alice) found it to be a beautiful resolution: Veil points out that she was created to be Shallan’s veil, to protect her from the memories that were too painful to face, but that the memories are hers nonetheless. Finally convinced that she can be strong enough to accept her own memories, Shallan Lightweaves the scene that she’s been hiding from: her rejection of her first lovely spren, breaking her Ideals after using the sprenblade to defend herself and unintentionally killing her mother. Once that Truth is confronted, the veil is simply not needed any longer, and Veil reabsorbs into Shallan.
So now she has two Cryptics: the living Pattern and the deadeye they name Testament. One can only wonder what happens now; will Maya and Adolin be able to help Shallan revive her?
Oh, and by the way… Shallan also takes possession of the seon that Mraize gave her to communicate with him. Cool, right? And Wit has one, too.
Adolin and Maya
Adolin was excited to see Maya again upon arriving in Shadesmar. He talks to her, as he’s always done, and introduces her around, though everyone thinks him daft for seeing her as anything more than a mindless deadeye. She continues to delight us as she helps Adolin groom Gallant and performs katas with him. Then, when Adolin rushes to rescue Notum (the former Captain of Honor’s Path in Oathbringer) from a band of weird Tukari, Maya helps him again, brandishing a sword (sort of), then guarding his back in a long-rehearsed kata as he fights against overwhelming odds. Speaking of… can you say, “Epic scene of Adolin handing out a serious ass-whooping?” Yeah, that’s what we thought.
After dispatching the Tukari, Adolin and Company arrive at Lasting Integrity, which is on lockdown. When the honorspren refuse to even read the messages he carries, Adolin takes the only way he can think of to get into the fortress. He essentially turns himself in to stand trial against the honorspren’s accusations of betrayal: He challenges them to judge him against the actions of the Radiants who had abandoned their Oaths.
“We Chose!”
During Adolin’s trial, Maya draws strength from him and manages to speak in his defense, as she’s had his back time and again. She reveals to the honorspren that she and the other Radiant spren chose to sacrifice themselves during the Recreance. They weren’t betrayed by their Radiants but agreed with them when they decided to abandon their Oaths. “You. Cannot. Have. My. SACRIFICE!” What a glorious proclamation.
Oh, yes… Maya was talking! (Happy dance. -Paige) (Loved Maya speaking! Loved being right about the spren cooperation! Terrified about what made the spren and Radiants decide such a drastic measure was necessary!! -Alice) (Every feel. -Paige)
Also, there were hundreds of deadeyes gathered outside Lasting Integrity at the time of the trial. Why? Did they somehow know what was happening? How?
Plot Gamma: Emuli Battlefront
Taravangian’s Betrayal
The details might have been a slight surprise, but no one is surprised that Taravangian betrays the human coalition to the Fused. Of course he was going to do that. It was just a matter of when and where. We already knew why he did it… his deal with Odium to essentially sacrifice humanity to save his people, and only his people.
He isn’t executed, to the disappointment of some readers. Instead, he’s imprisoned in a small house in the midst of the coalition warcamp, where he is constantly guarded. In the end, this has way crazy repercussions. Szeth’s hatred of him, held back for a time by his own insecurities, results in a perfect storm of overlapping effects: On Taravangian’s most emotional day ever, Szeth shows up to kill him. In fury, Szeth smashes two gemstones Taravangian is trying to protect, drawing Odium to see why Sja-anat’s children were there. As Szeth stabs his physical body, Odium angrily draws Taravangian into the Spiritual realm. Nightblood, being of all three realms, also manifests there, and Taravangian uses the sword to kill Rayse. That vast amount of Investiture leaves Nightblood sated, even as the loosed Shard seeks a new Vessel, and Taravangian accepts the role.
Taravodium? VargOdium? Odivangian? No matter what your preferred name is, this is terrifying—especially when we find out that Cultivation set it up, hoping that Taravangian would be a wiser Vessel than Rayse had been. Oh, Cultivation… my sweet summer child. The implications for the Cosmere are vague, huge, and frightening.
Also, Cultivation is a dragon. (Told you so! -Alice)
Dalinar Advances
Dalinar doesn’t have a lot of screen time, but what he does have packs a lot of punch. He rides the storm with the Stormfather twice during the book. Both times, he zips past Urithiru and stops to help Kaladin. His actions might surprise and annoy the Stormfather, but they delighted us. Twice, he saves Kaladin’s life; once, he saves Kaladin’s sanity, giving him time and Connection to understand the next Ideal; and again, to top it off, Dalinar is the one who accepts that Ideal. That was so gorgeous.
But about the rest of his arc… He gets it in his head that he needs the Herald Ishar (aka Tezim the god-priest) to help him restore the Oathpact and then rescue Urithiru. Ishy is obviously bonkers (though man, could he wield that sword!) and thinks that Dalinar is Odium’s champion set against him, an aspect of the Almighty. Discovering that Dalinar is a Bondsmith, Ishar almost manages to steal his bond. Yeah, definitely gone round the bend, that one.
Szeth and Ishar clash… and Nightblood mars Ishar’s honorblade, after which Ishar displays a few moments of lucidity before he again devolves into ranting. When he and his men escape into a perpendicularity, Dalinar and his escort inspect the camp. They discover a gruesome scene: The corpses of actual Radiant spren are found, all sliced open. Spren that should not manifest wholly in the physical realm but seem to have done so, anyway. The poor Stormfather is horrified at the outcome.
Dalinar heads back to the warcamp where he hears that Urithiru had been liberated and that Navani is now a Bondsmith. Naturally, because Dalinar is exhausted, Odium shows up and demands that they set the terms for their contest of champions right now, with the result that the contest will take place in eleven more days, and Dalinar’s soul is on the line.
Jasnah’s Unique Approach to Monarchy
Jasnah accompanies Dalinar to Emul, where she very vocally talks about battle tactics in order to bait Highprince Ruthar, the sole Highprince still resisting Jasnah’s role as Queen of Alethkar. She has Wit harshly insult Ruthar until Ruthar challenges him, which is a big no-no. The scene ends with her stabbing Ruthar in the throat with Wit’s sword and then having Renarin immediately heal him. She banishes him and names his eldest son, who happens to be amenable to her rule, as Highprince.
We also get to see Jasnah, in full living Plate (Which was very satisfying to finally see! -Paige), joining in battle and laying waste to singers right and left with her Blade. She doesn’t particularly care for the feelings it gives her to do such a thing, but feels that it was necessary for her to do as Alethkar’s Queen. (But it was great to watch! -Alice)
So how about Wit? While some in the fandom shipped Kaladin and Jasnah, we see that she’s in something of a relationship with Wit. It’s less of a romance and more of an intellectual partnership on Jasnah’s part, though Wit seems quite taken with her. Wit… all smoochy-smoochy, who’d a thunk it?
Final Thoughts on Plots Beta and Gamma
Many readers may not have registered this, but the location of Lasting Integrity in Shadesmar corresponds to the physical location of Tukar. Yeah. Tukar, where his insane highness god-priest madman Ishar is in charge. (Don’t feel bad if you missed this; it wasn’t in the text. You can only tell by cross-checking the map of Shadesmar with the Roshar map. Just… some of us obsess over maps, okay? -Alice) (I need to pay more attention to maps, it would seem. Downside of always listening. -Paige) It’s a pretty fair bet that Adolin’s defense of Notum prevented the latter from being used in Ishar’s experiments. It’s also a pretty fair bet that this coinciding location is not an accident on the part of our brilliant author… So we end up with probable entanglement of the two seemingly least-related plot arcs.
Welp—We Weren’t Expecting That!
There are a handful of things we wanted to address separately—things that specially touched our hearts or took us by surprise. There are more than these few, of course, but… well, there are limits.
Most JordanCon attendees knew the brave and valiant honorary Blademaster, Steve Godecke. Steve battled cancer twice in his too-short life and we lost him shortly before JordanCon in 2019. (Already crying again. -Paige) He was a member of the JordanCon staff, a beta reader, and a huge Sanderson fan. Those of us who were fortunate enough to know him were the better for it. And then he was gone, too young, too soon… but Brandon made him Radiant. Thank you so much for Edgedancer Godeke, Brandon. How’s it feel to make a bunch of beta readers cry? (All the tears. And smiles, because it’s a perfect memorial. -Alice) And as beta reader Trae Cooper said at the time: “So touching. Godecke, you are Radiant, you are healed.”
We got a Syl Interlude! It was amazing, which is only to be expected from a Syl PoV. She thought about how she has two brains: the responsible one and the childlike one. She also thought about how Kaladin has two brains, too: a light brain and a dark brain. She wanted to learn how to understand him in order to help him. After joining her windspren cousins during a highstorm, she argued with the Stormfather about Kaladin and then decided to visit Dalinar. She told him of the pain she felt when her last Radiant died, and then thought that if she could remember how it felt during those days, during the pain, then she could help Kaladin with his dark days. Honor love our little Sylphrena.
We also got a Sja-anat PoV, which was super interesting because she thought about how she kept secrets, even from Odium himself. We learn briefly of how she Enlightens spren, rather than corrupting them. She had an encounter with Odium, who sent her to Emul to watch Taravangian, whom she considered to be a weapon. She mostly remains an enigma, though, because we still don’t entirely know what she’s planning.
Cosmere connections are steadily growing in this book. Part One has Zahel using Awakening in a sparring match with Kaladin, while he gives esoteric explanations that go right over our poor bridgeboy’s head… and straight into ours, blowing our pea-picking little minds. Oof. As if that weren’t enough, the ending to the Shadesmar arc also carries strong Cosmere implications when Mraize equates their leader Thaidakar with the “Lord of Scars”… who sounds way too much like Kelsier, eh? Oof.
Show of hands, folks. Who still says Moash did nothing wrong? Anyone? Anyone? After advising Odium on how to drive Kaladin to suicide, sending him nightmares, and killing Phendorana and Teft (DIE MOASH DIE!™), it was with a vicious joy (Much vicious. Very joy. -Paige) that we saw him flee into the storm, his connection with Odium severed for a moment and in agony over what he’d done (However much he hurt, it wasn’t nearly enough. -Paige). He didn’t die, but… permanently blinded by the storm, the cold, or the Tower’s light (I think it was the cold? -Alice) (I vote for Towerlight, unleashed by Navani. -Paige) (You might be right. -Alice) is also fairly satisfactory. The only thing that would be better is to lose Odium’s “gift” that allows him not to feel the guilt. He needs to feel it. Or at least… we need him to feel it. We will never not hate Moash for killing Phendorana and Teft. To be honest, I (Alice) did kind of expect Teft to be killed in this book, but… his spren, too? First?? That was brutal.
There’s been a lot of speculation on the champions to be chosen in the much-anticipated battle of champions, which we’ll see in book 5. But Kaladin will not be Dalinar’s. He actually realized this himself and when he told Dalinar that he can’t do it, Dalinar agreed and said, “This is the sort of thing a man must do himself.” So perhaps we’ll see the Blackthorn unleashed again. What do you all think?
K … o … W…
As one might expect from the fourth book of a five-book arc, Rhythm of War leaves everything wide open and set up for the next book. (Only three years away! ::grimaces:: -Alice) Anyone want to play guessing games about that title? There are some events we can be confident will happen, and a few more that are less certain, but clearly something has to follow.
Since Szeth told Dalinar that he had to go back to Shinovar, we’re very much looking forward to what we’ll see and what he’ll do. First and foremost, he will learn what he can of his father, who had carried Ishar’s honorblade before Ishy reclaimed it. Ishar told him his father was dead, which upset Szeth very much. He also has some vengeance to enact on those who named him Truthless. Knowing how skilled Szeth is with a sword, we’re quite looking forward to this. And we’re pretty sure that Nightblood is looking forward to destroying more evil.
We expect to see Adolin and Company return from Shadesmar. Noting the proximity of Lasting Integrity to Tukar, though, it’s hard to guess whether that will be a terrifying “coincidence” or a brilliant intervention. Normally we’d have expected them to simply travel to an Oathgate to get back to the physical realm, but the location pretty much guarantees that Shenanigans Will Ensue one way or another. With Dalinar and Ishar both opening perpendicularities, and Dalinar planning to find Ishar again… it’s hard to know whether to be excited or terrified.
We’re hoping to see more interaction with Adolin and Maya, and perhaps for their partnership to grow into something more. Some fans want to see Adolin speaking the first Ideal and becoming an Edgedancer (C’mon, he embodies the Ideals we’ve seen thus far so perfectly! -Paige) and others would prefer to not have another Kholin Radiant because, really, they’re all over the bloody place. The inkspren Blended noted that while Adolin is definitely not a Radiant (at this point), there is a definite bond between him and Maya. Also, Maya did her best to speak part of the First Ideal after the trial, with Adolin’s help. What does that mean? Where do you sit on this spectrum, Sanderfans?
And, of course, at long last, we’ll see what we expect to be an epic battle of Odium’s Champion versus Honor’s. Will TaravOdium (This is my favorite. -Paige) choose someone else to be his champion, with Moash blinded? Some fans think that Adolin or Renarin… or even Kaladin will become Odium’s champion. What say you? Tell us your theory in the comments.
And that’s about that. Storms, this was a fantastic book. Highs and lows, laughter and tears, joy and grief—it was all there.
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
Alice hails from the Pacific Northwest, and contrary to expectation, has not yet developed webbed feet. Gills, maybe. An engineer by training and a blogger by choice, she’s also a Skybreaker, to no one’s surprise.
Paige resides in New Mexico, duh. According to Dragonsteel’s official Radiant test, she’s a Truthwatcher/Lightweaver/Edgedancer/Windrunner, and will happily take all the surges! She’s a champ at the in-person social distancing; no really, back away. Further away. Links to her Patreon and her available works are provided in her profile.
Clink.
Can’t believe Venli didn’t get a mention here! There were 3 Radiants who naturallyresisted.
What, no mention of Brandon just name-dropping 4 new Shards into the EPIGRAPHS of all places? He was all “What’s that? You want lore? Ok, well I’ll just put in some tidbits of info here. I dunno if you’ll find it interesting, but read it if you’d like *shrugs”
Just a small note, under “Plot Alpha: Urithiru” you say Kaladin still has access to abrasion, but I believe that should be adhesion.
Ishy belongs in WoT, although they are both crazy bad guys who think they are a god.
Are the new Herald pictures available somewhere? The preface mentions them, but they are not in the ebook or on Brandon’s homepage.
I feel like this is more of a summary than a review, but above all others…
The line for the “read more” button, “You cannot have my sacrifice”. Everyone can see it when scrolling through, not just people who have already read the book. Do you really want to spoil one of the book’s biggest lines to people who haven’t read it yet? Just sayin’, not very cash money of you.
I’m not really sure if this is possible but could Odium bring Gavilar back to life as his Champion? It would fit with the idea of the Ketek if these five books began and ended with Gavilar getting killed. Plus a Dalinar vs. Gavilar battle at the end would be epic.
Ditto to @5. My Kindle version also did not include the artwork of the Heralds that was supposed to be included in the book.
I like Rod and Todd for RayseOdium and TaravangianOdium aka Ned Flanders kids.
@@.-@ – Fixed, thank you.
I really got that diehard vibe with Kaladin in urithiru all it needed was a yippe ka yay MF!!
@5,8: The new Herald pictures aren’t in my ebook either – maybe they’re a hardcover-only thing. But they’re up on the Coppermind website.
https://coppermind.net/wiki/Rhythm_of_War/Interior_art
I loved the Dog and the Dragon Story, especially the first ending. Wit is sooooo witty!!!!!!!!
I am worried for Kaladin in the next book. I think he will sacrifice himself (something like Fleet in one of the stories Wit tells Kaladin).
Is there a significance to the flute of Wit’s that Kaladin gets back?
Could El, the fused, who is title less (I think he was the original Stormblessed???) be Odium’s champion?
Maya and Adolin – how cool would it be if Adolin became Maya’s sword and she was the Edgedancer in her own right after swearing the ideals? He’d be an impeccably etched, entirely graceful sword. And he’s taught her how to use one. He’d be the living embodiment of remembering those who have been forgotten (the deadeyes).
I’m pretty certain it simply can’t work that way, but wouldn’t it be brilliant if it did? And Shallan could attempt to make dirty jokes about it.
Hey, DIE MOASH DIE is my line! (My phone’s predictive text has even learned it.)
Great job and fun read. Thanks, you two!
Maya’s moment was my favorite, no question about it.
A small comedy moment I loved – when Lift learned that Dabbid could speak. First thing she did was try to get him to say “buttess.” Yes, I’m 12. I howled laughing.
I don’t like Dalinar’s chances against TaravOdium’s champ. Taravangian knows Dalinar too well. And Dalinar’s loss would be a magnificent cliff-hanger for the next phase of the Cosmere saga.
Yikes.
I think Dalinar loses and becomes Odiums general for cross cosmere battling. I think Kaladin manages to get Ishar to reforge the oathpact with Kaladin the one “herald” sent to Braise
My guesses: Szeth is going to be Taravangian’s champion.
Other speculation: Cultivation is preparing Lift to be her replacement if she dies/gets killed. She had a very specific intent with her meddling with Taravangian and Dalinar. Her intent with Lift is absolutely not clear yet.
I think this is Sanderson’s worst overall Stormlight Archive book. And of of his weakest books in general.
Firstly, I’d love if Brandon finally told Stormlight fans to read ALL books of cosmere series. I don’t understand why he continues to insist this is stand-alone series. Aons, Breaths, Invertiture Type1, freaking KELSEIR!
All these cosmere connections were thrown in, right in the face, without much context. And they are pretty important. When they were just easter eggs, it was all fine. But since they become more important part of the story, they need more context.
Now to the book. This book is a filler. Bloated 1200 pages of a horribly paced filler with 2 important things happening in the end. Urithiru is activated. Everything Dalinar is doing in Part 5. Was it necessary to build entire book around Urithiru? I don’t think so. If they activated it off-screen between books 3 and 4 nothing would change. Nothing. And Dalinar…I will talk about him later.
This book is predictable. Everthying you think should happen will happen. Every mystery, every character arc goes exactly as expected.
I knew Navani will awake Urithiru and bond the Sibling. It felt cheap and unarned. She did nothing to earn Sibling’s trust. They downright tell her she isn’t worthy a few moments before she suddenly becomes worthy. Her chapters were very boring and felt like info dumping. I mean, I like exploring magic and fabrial study, but it reads like a science book. It was too much! And I love Navani as a person, but her personal arc was very, very short. Most of her chapters are about her discoveries. Antilight, voidlight, antistormlight, antivoidlight, lamplight, sprenlight. Oh my gooooooooooooooood.
I knew Maya ex Machina will be revived exactly in the moment of need. Of course, Mr Perfection will never face censequences for his action, will never pay any price but will get everything he needs. Did he lost something? Did he sacrifice something? Oh no, he became even more Mary Sue-ish than he ever was. Besides, Shallan and Adolin had nothing to do this book. Shadesmar arc is also a badly paced filler. No Journey, no stakes, no highs and lows. Just a bunch of disjoined chapters.
I knew what Oaths Kaladin needs to say and who will die in the process. Kaladin didn’t need so many repetitive chapters to reach this obvious resolution. Shallan too was predictable, but I’m glad she and Kaladin get a closure to their stories (mini arcs os secondary characers Venli, Adolin, Navani are also complete). Dalinar’s arc was left unresolved.
Now I want to say predictability itself is not a flaw. I wouldn’t mind a good, satisfying, but predictable story. Journey before Destination. But. I think Brandon Sanderson forgot his own motto. This book focuses too much on Destination and forgets about the Journey. It feesl like Brandon has some Big Moments in his mind and then builds a book around this Moment. The story, apart from this Moment, is eventless, slow and uninteresting. That’s why predictability becomes a flaw (Kaladin in WoK and Dalinar in OB were predictable, but I would never complain about it, those were great, because their journeys were great). Do we need 50 chapters of Kaladin hiding in Urithiru, another 50 chapters of Navani thinkling about antilight, and…just think about it, 20 chapters of character who died 2 books ago!!!
All these stories don’t justify their lengths.
Flashbacks and Venli’s story were again too long and felt like info dumping. Flashbacks are easily worst in the series. They were unnesessary, they dragged and they are absolutely unrelated to the plot. Venli herself is not a sympathetic character. She’s terribly selfish and I didn’t feel that she changed as a person.
Overall, Urhithiru plot dragged in the middle and should be shorter. This is a middle book as it’s worst. Dalinar and Taravangian were the only character who did important things, but I was supposed to read Urithiru filler. I don’t get why Dalinar didn’t progress in Oaths. My personal favorite scene in the book was Dalinar and Ishar confrontation. Now that’s The Bondsmith.
There were some more scenes that I liked (Dalinar becomes a storm, Dalinar’s conversation with Taravangian is brilliant), but none of them was as impactful and tearjerking as, for example, Dalinar Moment in Oathbringer or Kaladin’s jump in the Way of Kings. Yes, “You cannot have my pain” raised the bar too much but still. Climax was short too. I’m fine with it, bit the whole book felt small as well. After great epicness of Oathbringer he got a bunch of people sitting in the tower.
Overall, I think this book was bloated and suffered from it’s worst pacing.Part 1 and Part 5 was where everything happened, everything between was a filler (especially Shadesmar arc is completelly pointless, because the war ends in 10 days in single combat). Part 2 is where it starts to drag. Part 3 should focus more on Emul. But it focuses too much on some things while other things suffer with lack of focus.
Also true for character arcs.
Venli – a lot of bloat and no payoff.
Dalinar – easily some of the best scenes and most important moments in the book, but no “meat” aka context to them.
It feels like Set-up for book 5 than anything else.
Rhythm Of War aka Die Hard in a tower… Die Hard with a depressive.
@2
*blink* Oops. Didn’t mean to dis Venli. Though she wasn’t exactly Team Radiant.
@3 There was just SO MUCH to cover! We honestly didn’t even discuss the epigraphs… sorry!
@20
That was an awful lot of comment “filler” to simply say you didn’t like the book.
I admit to not even finishing what you had to say. 🤷♀️
@roa
While you are absolutely within your right to dislike this books, calling it bloated filler is an insult to Brandons’s hard work. It is also an insult to all the people who struggle with the same difficulties as his heroes who suffer mental illness, cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities gender bias, racism and abuse strive to overcome all the darkness thrown at them.
My heart broke for Kaladin and Shallan so much. Both there feelings and struggles are things that I feel and struggle with.
There are so many great moments in this book. Even if we never get another volume this series deserves to be read. Ultimately stories are not about plot twists and mysteries. They are about people, imagination, and beauty. I think Brandon absolutely nailed it here.
Chris @16 – That TM is totally yours, you know. I just copied it because … well, because DIE MOASH DIE!
I really do loathe him, you know?
Since Oathbringer I’ve been predicting that instead of Maya filling the cracks in Adolin’s soul to create a Nahel Bond, Adolin would fill the cracks in her soul to create something similar to the Radiant bond, but different and new. I think we see the start of that in RoW as Adolin is described as giving her power or strength to help her stand up to the honorspren.
@27 marethyu316
I absolutely love this idea. A special type of reverse Radiant!!!!!
Very good book! So much new info!
I liked the story, but I think I most appreciated the epigraphs. Navani’s fabrial lecture we already knew. But then Sazed’s letter with the name of 4 NEW SHARDS just casually mentioned! And the text of Rhythm of War was fine, but we also get notes from Kelek. And the insight into El’s mind as the final set of epigraphs was a nice finish.
Finally, ending it with Hoid’s epilogue where we see he isn’t always as crafty as he thinks. The “extras” on this book were pretty good
What do I hope for?
I hope that Dalinar, character I grew to love, will return to the series.
That’s all I hope for.
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First I gotta say that I love this book. Although WoR still remains my favorite installment of SA this one comes closest to overturning my opinion. Not in love with the flashbacks, partially because Venli was so frustrating in all ways, but other than that it was excellent.
My two MVP’s of this work comes from the 2 antagonists. Rabonial is the first. As much as I love lore and discovery, I don’t think Navani is nearly as compelling without a supervillian to play off of. Make that supervillian somehow likeable without taking away the fact that she’s scary as hell? Rabonial is the reason Navani earned her arc. And now Navani is probably one of the top 3 scariest non-shard people in the entire Cosmere because she made God killer weaponry.
The other MVP? Ishar. Let’s face it, up until now the Heralds have made for a piss poor showing in SA. Nale is about the only one who looked anything like scary and he spent most of his time on screen hunting children. And these were the guys holding down the Oathpact? But then we meet Ishar. Who casually slaps down 5 Knights with full blades. Who nearly snatches Dalinar’s connections to SF, the Odium deal, and presumably his whole soul. Who is doing bonkers experiments with Nahel spren. One meeting justified the entire Herald experience.
Other things that I love about this volume are Kaladin, his entire deal, and Adolin’s trial. I think I shouted the most at their moments of awesome, or at least the loudest. Then we get the least combat capable Radiant be the first to dual-wield in Shallan. And just for kicks, Jasnah is confirmed as ACE. Then King T becomes the Big O? That slapped me outta nowhere, really came out of left field.
Lastly, F Moash and F Lirin out loud, because they made me cry. And made Kaladin go Sith Lord.
I expect Kaladin to take up the re-forged Shard of Honor. That’s why he can’t — from a plot arc point of view — have a long term relationship (sorry, Lyn…destiny calls).
I’ve been waiting for this! My thoughts:
Either the voidspren trapped in Venli’s gemheart protected her from the inverted shield, or it doesn’t affect Radiants who are only on the first Oath as they technically don’t have powers yet. I could see either one, and I wish we knew which. Speaking of Venli: if this is the Willshaper book as some have said, I would have expected her to have a greater role in the book. She’s overshadowed by Kaladin and Navani, even with the flashbacks. Still, she’s not as far out of the action as she might want. I expect her and the chasmfiend to pull a Big Damn Heroes in the next book. (K…o…W? Where did you get that from?)
Kaladin’s story was fantastic, and I think we all expected some version of that Oath (though maybe not in that context). I also share the concern that he will take the missing place in the Oathpact and be yeeted to Braize. I wish I could say it wouldn’t be a natural development for him, but I can’t.
Speaking of natural developments: I went into this book expecting that Adolin would heal Maya and become an Edgedancer. I no longer expect that. Not after his talk with Dalinar about how his and Taravangian’s ways weren’t the only ones. Adolin becoming Radiant would, on some level, validate Dalinar’s binary thinking. However, I do expect that he will heal Maya and bond with her. No, that’s not a contradiction. In the Ars Arcana, Khriss mentions that there should be a third form of “abilities,” and doesn’t believe that the Old Magic necessarily fits the bill. If typical Surgebinding is more of Honor, and Voidbinding of Odium, then that leaves something for Cultivation. It could be that Lift fits the bill, but she’s well established as an otherwise normal Edgedancer. Adolin is, potentially, something different. I think that he will become the first wielder of that form of Investiture. And, thanks to this review, I think I know what it will be: thanks to Ishar’s meddling, he will merge with Maya. I just don’t know if the result will be a permanent merging or not.
And speaking of Cultivation: I can’t decide if she made a Hail Mary or if she has a deeper plan going on. In the right circumstances, mortal free will can thwart the will of a Shard. On the other hand, she is called out as seeing the future very well, and she’s had her hooks in Taravangian for years. It could go either way.
In many respects, Taravangian is at his most dangerous right now. He has no experience with his power, but we’ve seen what a Shardholder with no experience and two diametrically opposed Shards can do. He controls the power, is more cunning than Dalinar, and I believe him when he says he sees a way to win. Dalinar is in a lot of trouble.
Dalinar took a step back in the narrative this time around, but his appearances were to good effect. We saw both his strengths and his weaknesses, and that they are (to an extent) the same. His will keeps him going, and it drove Rayse to make what would have been a bad deal, not to mention saving Kal’s backside twice, but it has also left him somewhat inflexible. That’s most obvious in his talk with Adolin, but also showed up when he met Renarin at the Windrunner camp. Am I the only one who bristled a bit at Dalinar’s thoughts about the stories and stew tradition? I am also wondering how much of this is Dalinar and how much is Honor’s influence. It’s probably more the former than the latter, but it might not be. I can easily see Brandon have Dalinar influence the Stormfather to be more human while he himself becomes more like a spren.
Speaking of people whose strengths and weaknesses are in part the same… Hoid/Cephandrius/Wit, come on down! His experiences have given him the capacity for great compassion, which we have seen with Shallan and now with Kaladin, but they have also left him arrogant. His contempt for Rayse made him complacent, and it cost him, and he doesn’t even know it (yet?) On the relationship front: we have Jasnah’s thoughts, and I think I can guess at his. It’s probably been a very long time since he’s just been able to have a serious in-person conversation with someone who isn’t a) done with him to one extent or another, b) overly in awe of him, c) terrified of him, d) trying to kill him, or e) some combination of the above. She fills that need, just like he fits hers for knowledge (though I’d love to see her talk with Sazed or Khriss). On the whole, though, I’m with Vasher. You can’t do what Hoid does and not be, though I’m of the mind that the orifice in question is necessary.
And on the topic of worldhoppers like Vasher and Khriss… Thaidakar is definitely Kelsier. There’s no question of that. The question is: how much does he know about what the Ghostbloods are up to? We know he wanted them to try and capture Kelek, but that doesn’t mean he knows about them seeming to throw in with Odium. It’s very possible that he’s going to be furious when/if he finds out… but. He was kind of a horrible person when he was alive, and if I understand the timeline he’s spent about 300 years or so as a Cognitive Shadow. We don’t know what that has done to him, but if Vasher’s comments are any indication, it’s nothing good. I hope that Shallan interacts with his “avatar.” That will answer some questions, and make for an interesting conversation.
Shallan, Shallan, Shallan… one question answered, some more raised. Isn’t that always the way? Her storyline was well handled, and Brandon did a great job with the Three’s interplay. Veil’s loss was a bit of a gutpunch, even if it did come with Shallan hopefully gaining more confidence. However, there’s one question I keep asking: when Kal reaffirmed his Oaths, he brought Syl back. Why didn’t Testament come back when Shallan started progressing as a Radiant? I’m confident that we’ll find out, but it’s still a wait. 2023 is the current plan, IIRC.
And on the subject of confidence: I hadn’t expected so much Navani, but Brandon did a brilliant job with her. Seeing her grow was a delight, even though the circumstances were… less than ideal. I wasn’t sure if she would be the Sibling’s Bondsmith until it actually happened; I thought it would turn out to be Rlain, which would be been perhaps more thematically appropriate. However, when it was all done, it made sense: instead of uniting various humans together, now we have someone who has to help bridge the gap between human and spren. And, because there’s still one more Smith to be Bonded, we can still get one for the Singers.
And on the subject of Bondsmiths and Oaths… well, if the end of Oathbringer didn’t cement Moash’s heel turn, killing Teft and whining about it certainly did. I didn’t really understand his motivation with Kal, though. I don’t understand why he preferred Kal commit suicide over joining Odium. The other way around would have made more sense, based on his internal monologue. This was a surprise, and an unpleasant one (but Moash is unpleasant, so…)
There were pleasant surprises, though. Dabbid and Rlain! The Dabbid reveal came out of left field, but it makes sense. I get why he just stayed silent, and I’m very curious to see exactly what the Sibling told him. That story is definitely going to be told. Also, I am very happy for Rlain. I had suspected he might become one of Renarin’s squires when reading Oathbringer, then I got to the climax and I abandoned that theory. I am thus pleased to see that Renarin was involved with Rlain becoming Radiant, and skipping the squire stage entirely. I understand why some people are upset that he got a corrupted/altered bond, but it’s clear that other Listeners/Singers are going to get normal ones, and Venli did get hers first, so I’m okay with it. I think you’re right that the two will be the first of many.
(WOW, this is to reviews what Brandon’s books are to novels; let’s wrap this up) Eshonai’s last scene was unbearably beautiful, and I am so glad we got it. Her death was one of the series’ big surprise gutpunches, so I’m grateful for the closure, and for how she spent her last moments before she went Beyond. Also, as a gay man, I’m grateful at the increasing number of queer characters. Ace Jasnah, bisexual Shallan, gay Drehy, NB Sibling, the trans monarch mentioned in Dawnshard (hopefully to appear on-screen), and possibly Rlain. He mentioned that “something unexpected” happened when he entered Mateform, and that tripped my Spider-Sense. I am very interested in discovering just what he meant by that.
I had a thing.
In ch 111, Ishar tells Dalinar that they are slightly more sane when a radiant swears a new ideal. This is already well established:
WoR 64- Shallan draws in stormlight in front of Taln, and it’s the first time he breaks his mantra since his return.
WoR 88- Kal swears the third ideal in the warcamps just as Shallan swears her third at Narak, and Taln awakens and catches some poisoned darts, protecting Amaram.
OB 119- Dalinar swears his third ideal, and IMMEDIATELY after, Taln awakens, speaks coherently with Ash, and both join in the Battle of Thaylen Field. After the battle, Taln returns to his madness.
It’s nice to have it explicitly stated that these major demonstrations and outpourings of power help bring the herald back somewhat, since it’s been hinted at and shown before. This all makes me wonder if the next book will focus on getting new radiants to swear as quick as possible so Ishar can teach Dalinar? If so, the trip to lasting integrity could have been the most important thing to happen in all of RoW.
P.S.- very inconvenient to have a book abbreviated as WoR and another abbreviated as RoW. So rude.
Clearly, the only correct name is: Toadium
I did love Darkseid Navani, seeker of the Anti-Light equation. Though she’s got a lot of tough talks with Sibby coming up.
I personally feel that it was the best of the Stormlight Archive so far. I found OB really hard to get into and pretty forgettable to be honest – I’ve read it three times and still have to go and find summaries to remember what happened in it other than there was a big battle.
I loved the build up. I loved that there were big payoffs throughout the book rather than one big climax. I loved seeing all the different ways this world is changing – more than one different type of radient with corrupted spren and healing dead eyes and more. It was wonderful.
Here’s my thoughts on the book, though I’ve had to split it into two parts due to character count limit:
One of my problems with OB is that the book ended with a major character (Shallan) in a very vague state, making it very difficult to imagine how she could behave and come across in future. With RoW we instead end up with the plot in a vague state but I think that’s less of a problem – uncertainty in the plot gives you more to speculate about. But is there too much uncertainty? Maybe I’ll need to re-read a bunch of chapters a few times to really try to get a better sense of the situation.
If I’d vaguely summarise my thoughts on the books so far it would be something like this:
tWoK: highly entertaining and almost flawless – there’s almost nothing I think needs changing/improving.
WoR: extremely entertaining but has a couple of minor flaws.
OB: mostly rather average with a couple of good scenes, multiple major and minor flaws. Left me depressed about the direction of the series.
RoW: entertaining but the flaws I see really annoy me, even if they are relatively small. The flaws here leave me quite frustrated as I don’t think it was that hard to fix them.
So what are the major flaws I see in RoW: the main one is that the Shallan and Adolin arcs felt quite rushed – they needed more time / chapters. Just 6 chapters for 2 characters to get their main plot sequence and resolution is too little. They should have had perhaps 2 chapters in Part 3 to make their situation a bit clearer sooner (there’s no real justification to leave them out of Part 3) and a few more in Part 4 to really hammer home the seriousness of the situation.
While we really feel the depths of the darkness of Shallan’s side, it is somewhat undermined by the fact that her fear of betrayal (of people leaving her) was never really explained clearly. A simple solution for this would have been to make it clear that after young Shallan said those hurtful words to her spren, Testament simply vanished without Shallan understanding why and so Shallan feels that Testament left her because she was “bad” when instead it was due to Nahel bond mechanics. (Side note: present day Shallan should warn the spren not to bond children) We can infer this but we don’t really feel it. In short, it undermines Shallan’s plot arc that we have to guess why she was feeling the way she did in the first place – her central problem in the book is set on shaky ground.
The problems with Adolin’s arc are somewhat different but his situation feels a bit too light. While it’s nice to have more positive viewpoints as a contrast, it would have been better to have Adolin’s situation feel more serious and for him to feel more desperate. Kelek and some of the honorspren felt like ‘cheap’ antagonists. This weakens the payoff. It also feels like a shame that Dalinar never found out what was going on with Adolin.
There’s also a couple of minor flaws: Kaladin’s start in the book was a bit too repetitive and boring – I didn’t even want to read him. The overall ending could have done with a bit more follow-up – you feel a little bit cheated and left hanging. Soulcasting is still underdeveloped or explained. The Stormfather feels a bit too much of a gag character at times – alternating between going “that’s impossible!” to “I can’t do that” or “I can’t help you” a bit too much. In Part 1 Jasnah says she plans to make an announcement to free the slaves but there’s no follow-up, nor any follow-up to the slaves Shallan got in RoW (missed opportunity). At times it feels a bit too much like “The Mental Illness Archive” rather than “The Stormlight Archive”. Zahel vanishes after Part 1.
I don’t want to repeat it too much but I think a flaw that I started to see in OB has been carried over – characters rarely think about other characters unless they have an overlapping character arc. But that’s not how real people see things. To give a simple example, Shallan is now Dalinar’s daughter-in-law and sort-of Navani’s daughter-in-law but they never really give any thought about her. It just doesn’t feel natural. On a related note, chapter 12 was great but needed more.
That above complaints out of the way, there’s a lot to celebrate: Adolin finally gets a proper in-depth stand-alone character arc – a big story where it centers on him and not his relationship with others. While it didn’t quite feel right that Shallan wasn’t helping him more, the more she helped him the more that would have undermined his character. Essentially we needed to see that both were capable in their own way, even if Adolin needed some luck. I hope to see Shallan and Adolin become a real power couple in future. It also appears that my dream of seeing Shallan and Adolin traipse around the Cosmere having fun is going to happen.
The development between Adolin and Maya was very nice – Maya has a real “stand up and cheer” moment. It was obviously going to have some payoff and while it was predictable it was the good kind of predictable. Like when you get exactly the best possible presents that you could have hoped for at Christmas. Adolin wasn’t explicitly trying to revive Maya really, he just wanted to treat her well. Every time another spren disparaged his efforts it just made you want to see him succeed even more. But we didn’t get just that, we got some crucial information – that the spren who “died” in the Recreance were not victims. This could be taken as lacking in realism but them becoming deadeyes wasn’t what they expected though and had never been seen before, so perhaps that’s why they never warned anyone.
So where does Adolin go from here? While he doesn’t seem like a perfect fit for the Edgedancers, he’s certainly not bad. It’s not like there’s only one type of Edgedancer – while some were pure healers, others did fight. We’ve not seen that many fighters just yet. I don’t see any fundamental barriers to him becoming an Edgedancer. That being said, I did start to wonder – might we see Adolin bond spren from two different orders? Basically, he revevies Maya completely but before that happens he also bonds with another spren.
Who could that be? How about Notum? I mean, the guy totally stood up for Adolin in the trial and helped put a completely different dimension on the whole situation. Can you imagine Notum wanting to bond someone else? Not really. You can also imagine Notum wanting to help someone who might figure out a way to help revive his father. Adolin might not be the most conventional Windrunner but let’s not forget that both Shallan and Dalinar have seen him as a potential Windrunner – that could be considered foreshadowing. In addition, perhaps the energy gained from bonding one spren would help Adolin “jump start” Maya’s revival. After all, the power-up energy for Windrunners is special. Another possibility of course is that Maya will be fully revived by Dalinar but I feel it would be better for Adolin to achieve it on his own merit.
It will also be interesting to see where the relationship between Adolin and Dalinar goes from here. I can imagine the Stormfather being rather amazed at the possibility that the deadeye spren could be revived. That would also make a huge difference to the war if 100s or 1000s of dead spren could rejoin the battle. You would expect Dalinar in turn to be delighted – Adolin over delivered. I’d also hope that Adolin will gain some confidence from this. Maybe Dalinar will finally see that the best thing for Adolin is to let him be himself.
On to Shallan: We got a lot of developments that I hoped to see and some that I never expected. I had hoped for a bit more progress though. Still that “time to soar” line at the end is very promising – after effectively 2 whole books of Shallan being somewhat morose and inwards looking, it would be nice to see the kick-ass Shallan return and take center stage in her narrative. I didn’t pay to see two supporting acts (Veil and Radiant), I paid to see Shallan and we got precious little good quality Shallan time. This was very frustrating and the last thing I wanted. Hopefully we can get a decent amount in book 5 and finally have a truly epic scene from her to make up for all this.
Her final state is a bit unclear. Did she level up or not? It would feel kinda weird if she didn’t after admitting such a major thing about herself. I’m not sure why it would take (say) integrating Radiant for her to level up unless that comes with some even further backstory for her to admit to. (Talking of her backstory, it seems likely to involve the Ghostbloods somehow). That being said, it doesn’t matter much for this book since it’s not like she needed to do anything after admitting to the truth regarding Testament. Hopefully we can see some new Lightweaver powers in book 5 as there was nothing new in book 4 at all. It would also be nice to get a better idea of how Lightweavers level up normally since Shallan is such a special case.
One curious development about Shallan is that she will be able to use two Shardblades. But since she is not combat specialised that’s not very useful to her at all. That being said, if you’re going to “dual wield”, using a sword+shield combo is going to be much more useful than two swords, generally. I could also imagine this being particularly useful for Shallan – having much improved defence when she’s not especially experienced in combat would be very useful for her. I suspect the real benefit for Shallan is having a double-strength Nahel bond.
I’m not sure if Shallan has finally gotten the message that it’s okay to love herself. I guess she has but again it’s unclear. It has been her most central issue in the general sense – ie ignoring any specific traumas in her past. I can imagine that Shallan could feel like she has to leave Adolin if she has gotten into the state where she is terrified about others leaving her and I might have even speculated on this. Shallan has a lot of imagination and hates conflict (between people she cares about) and I could see her seeking out a place where she doesn’t have to be so afraid. However, it’s not clear how Shallan got in such a state in the first place. Perhaps she started relying upon Veil and Radiant too much when she wanted to hide so instead of dealing with issues properly she hid and the pain/fear started building up. After all, the more that Shallan hides away the more that Formless develops.
It’s also nice to finally get some progress on the Ghostbloods. It’s way overdue. I was very happy to see Shallan stick it to Mraize at the end. I was also amused to see Shallan telling Mraize to vacate Urithiru or else and the “of course you realise this means war” aspect since these are things I had thought about and speculated on before. Essentially, as soon as Shallan did tell Adolin about the Ghostbloods she would have to take this approach. It’s a shame we didn’t get a scene of Shallan saying this and asking Adolin for help. Shallan’s plot for book 5 seems pretty much set – find the gem with the Unmade and release it while beating the Ghostbloods to it. I’m not sure if Adolin will be a tag-along or doing something else. I wonder who Shallan will use that knife on?
It looks like there’s no real reason for Ialai to have trusted Shallan at the start. It’s still unclear why that happened, which is a bit annoying. It also looks like her little notebook wasn’t especially plot relevant and more about seeding the future possibility that Shallan will be going to other planets. I’d like to see Shallan go to Nalthis and be like “A language that is art? Challenge accepted” – would also be a nice place to go for a “honeymoon” with Adolin. Longer term might we see Shallan going to the Ghostbloods homeworld to finish them off for good? Seems quite likely at this stage, though obviously something for the 2nd half of the series.
On a minor note, I wonder if we’ll see any more contact between Shallan and Sja-anat. I doubt Shallan will be unhappy that the Ghostbloods didn’t get a spren. Will Shallan tell Sja-anat about her plans?
Here’s part two of my thoughts on the book:
Kaladin was a lot better overall, apart from the first couple of chapters in Part 1. Essentially, until Dalinar removed him from combat I could barely stand to even read his chapters. From then on he was a lot more interesting. In a way, his arc felt closer to tWoK – dark and oppressive, but with real progress and a sense of movement, though with some obvious stumbles and mistakes along the way, with a final epic ending. However, the whole SFX extravaganza when Kaladin powers-up and how everyone seems to worship him feels a bit overdone. It’s wearing a bit thin for me – I suspect this is something that will work well for some but not for others.
To me, Kaladin is sort of the “classic” or “traditional” hero in the sense that his parts are more action orientated and more about him climbing up from the bottom. I very much felt this in tWoK. This is not to belittle him at all. What was great about Kaladin in tWoK was how well this character type was done – better than anything I’ve ever seen, by a mile. I also liked how his flaws were almost his undoing in WoR – very much like a classical Greek hero. However, his character/plot didn’t work as well in OB and I really couldn’t stand him at the start of Part 1 of RoW but after again being knocked down to the bottom he rises again. And it was great and rather classic in many ways.
I like that it’s clear that Kaladin still has a lot of mental healing left to do. It also makes sense for him to need a sort of veterans association and forum to discuss their traumas. Szeth is perhaps the person who needs something like that the most, except it looks like he’s going to be going on his little quest with Kaladin. Maybe discussing his traumas with Kaladin will help Szeth, and perhaps Kaladin too. I’m not expecting Kaladin to reach 5th level in book 5, particularly since his Chosen One status seems to have been undercut.
Navani was a lot more interesting overall and despite some of my fears it worked out quite well. It was interesting to see all sorts of little nods to real science. That being said, it took a long time for her story to really get going and earlier on she felt more like a “fly on the wall”. I’m not that happy with her becoming the second Bondsmith (seems a bit too convenient for Dalinar) but it’s not the end of the world. Was nice to finally have Urithiru fully up and running at last and to have all that background detail.
Navani’s relationship with Raboniel was interesting. She’s sort-of the Fused equivalent of Jasnah in that she’s very smart, focused, a realist, willing to use underhand methods etc. I’m not suggesting that Navani saw Raboniel that way, just that’s the sort of person she seems to be. Navani finally got some validation and respect but she had to go through a lot of failure to get there. Raboniel initially comes across as straight from the “mad scientist” trope but I was glad she wasn’t developed that way and she felt very real and relatable in the end. Very dangerous still though.
I’ve struggled to like Dalinar since tWoK. He really depends far too much on using force of personality to get his way and gets little pushback. In tWoK he had Adolin to slap some sense into him and give him pushback but since then he’s largely been charging ahead and making mistakes and then complaining about it. It’s not like I found Dalinar annoying overall here and he does seem to be getting better and has belatedly realised he wasn’t as good a father as he thought he was but he does come across as rather entitled when he complains about not understanding his powers and then not doing all that much about it.
Lift didn’t get much in the way of development or page time. In the original plan she was going to go on the Shadesmar trip. I can understand why this wasn’t done in the end – she is definitely too young and unpredictable for a diplomatic trip. Still, I would have liked to see her and Shallan bouncing off each other – something I’ve been waiting for for a long time. Well, given that she now has a grudge against Mraize and Shallan is openly gunning for Mraize, she’d likely volunteer to go with Shallan in book 5 if it means there’s a chance she can get some revenge.
Jasnah got some development, though I wasn’t surprised by any of it. This isn’t to say that her chapters weren’t interesting or involving. However, I don’t think there was much pay-off for her chapters – they’re more like isolated incidents rather than some kind of character arc. Her relationship with Wit made a lot of sense to me but I was surprised that she wasn’t more paranoid about his intentions. I also wonder if we’ll see any obvious changes in Wit going forwards given what happened in the end.
Venli was interesting but she felt a bit disconnected to the main plots. Her personal arc only slightly overlapped with the other characters – it felt like more could have been done here. With the way she ended I’m not sure how much presence she’ll have in book 5 either. Maybe she’ll have much more of a presence in the back 5 books though. That being said, I liked her flashbacks with Eshonai – felt very nostalgic somehow.
Szeth had a muted role. He’s certainly dialling the crazy up to 10 (Ishar is 11). It doesn’t seem that surprising that he’s in such a bad place mentally. I don’t expect him to survive Book 5 but what will happen to Nightblood?
Overall thoughts: RoW definitely worked for me better than OB, at least so far. One of the “problems” I had with OB is that I wasn’t that satisfied overall and as I tried re-reading the book more to try to make sense of it my feeling of satisfaction got worse rather than better. So perhaps my evaluation will change over time with RoW too, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be thinking about it. After OB I felt rather burned so stopped thinking about the series much. While RoW has allayed most of my fears, I still don’t feel that excited about the series. The spark has gone, as it were.
That being said, I nearly cried more than once during RoW and my feelings were definitely running strong at certain points. The book definitely conveyed strong emotions and feelings. Unfortunately, one of them was a strong sense of “so near but yet so far” – Shallan and Adolin’s arcs in Part 4 could have been truly awesome with just a bit more work and it feels really obvious that they were rushed and came up short.
WoR also had flaws but they were more subtle. In terms of pure entertainment I think I would have enjoyed RoW about as much as tWoK if just the bigger flaws had been fixed. So overall, I can’t really say that the series is getting better.
@20 Roa, just from your paragraph on Navani, it seems like you’re really misreading the book. Prior to bonding the Sibling, we see loads of examples of people telling her she’s unworthy, starting with Gavilar. She internalises this – her struggle is with imposter syndrome, the feeling that she is not good enough, doesn’t fit in with the people around her.
The Sibling telling her she’s not good enough to bond it isn’t it telling her the objective truth. It’s an expression of it’s fear and withdrawal. Navani responding with confidence and claiming that bond (having proved she is absolutely worthy of it in her experiments with mixing forms of lights, understanding what the Sibling is and how it works, and forming a bond with Raboniel) is a triumphant moment, built carefully over the course of the book.
It’s not to like it! It’s ok for it not to work for you. But that’s driving you to diagnose flaws in the book that simply aren’t there – to justify that dislike with objective faults that weaken your case and appear, frankly, rather extreme and rude to other readers and to the author.
@31 Dalinar was in the series, being awesome and discovering not only new powers but also some kind of terror campaign against the Radiant spren. He may not have been chief protagonist in this book, but we knew that going in.
Alice and Paige, they actually do mention that Lasting Integrity and Tukar are in the same location. Adolin comments on the beautiful candle lights of the Tukari reflecting on the ocean of beads when he takes in the view from Lasting Integrity.
What a great review of a great book! I’m still processing my feelings (just finished last night) but my number 1 feeling right now is YAY SHALLAN AND MAYA! The terror I felt when Formless took over was replaced with so much joy when Shallan remembered her truth (the first murder of hers I have correctly predicted), and respect for Veil, who has always been my least favorite aspect of Shallan. Maya and Adolin just warm my heart so much. My new coonhound puppy Maya was laying in my lap when I read Maya fighting with Adolin against the Tukari; I love it!!
Pretty sure this mysterious “L” is Odium’s champion.
As for predictions…After chapter sixty-six and the ending I’m convinced Dalinar will Ascend too. Taravangian is a good foil to him.
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One thing I noticed in Chapter 75 was this comment about Viveena that Adolin made.
“I was!” he said, plopping down on the bench beside her. “But Veil, I do not think any of them are Restares. They do not look like him at all. They do not even look like people from Roshar. Why do you think Azure appeared so much like an Alethi, when these have the wrong features?”
Does anyone else thing that means she has a divine breath? She obviously has the royal locks but that would just take care of the hair and I’ve been interpreting this as a change in skin tone and facial features which you can change if you have a divine breath.
More on the book later.
But… wait a minute… Am I the only one who read the ending as…. Odium totally pwned Hoid, kind of possessed him or coopted him like Sja-Anat with spren, or maybe more like Graendal did (spoilers if you haven’t read WOT) to the Great Captains, and that (without even being aware of it now) HOID will be Odium’s champion? A terrifying holy crap moment, if so.
Alice and Paige sure didn’t seem to read it that way, or if so, didn’t comment on it. I’ll have to go back and reread the ending. Am I reading too much into it?
Ben M
So I wonder if we’ll see Maya manifested in the physical realm. We know that Ishar has been experimenting with doing this, and it seems like in order to do it the spren need to be in something like the deadeye state. So would it work on an actual (former?) deadeye, especially one who can draw on a human’s strength to survive in the physical realm? That seems the most likely successful transfer.
I’m not saying this is a good idea, but the fact that Lasting Integrity is co-located with Tukar, and the last we saw of Ishar he was in Shadesmar, it seems like this might be where things are going.
@35 KoW will probably be the initials of the last book title. The sequence of the first 5 books will form a Ketek:
WoK, WoR, O, RoW, KoW
Of course, we don’t know what KoW means (knife of woe? But that would likely break the “these are in-universe book titles” shtick), or they could go with something else. But I think they want to properly finish the ketek pattern.
Question for Alice & Paige–
I’m curious, especially given the criticism I’ve seen of RoW: what was your beta experience like? We’re there any parts that Brandon wanted to put in and you guys said no? What changed, basically, as a result of beta discussion?
@48 – Oh that’s a really good connection (fittingly). All the Heralds forms of madness seem to be connected to their previously noble intentions. Maybe Ishar’s been working towards a noble aim in a monstrous way – undoing the Recreance and saving all those spren?
@14 – I think Sanderson set up El to be Odium’s champion. Since El has no rhythms I think his title was Vyre, “He Who Quiets”
@47 – I read it that Odium destroyed the Breaths Hoid was using to store his memories. That’s why Hoid doesn’t remember the first interaction with Odium (and the scene repeats) and why he no longer has perfect pitch.
My question…Why do we still have a contest of champions? Why doesn’t Taravangian call off the invasion?
@@@@@ 52. Skockie. You are right. Being a Kaladin fan, I forgot all about “He who quiets” and could only think of “Stormblessed” when they say that his title was given to a human.
I think Taravangian can’t call it off because oaths can’t be broken or words can’t be taken back without consequences, whoever may be the holder of the shard?
She uses Voidlight, that is why it works.
He knows that Kal won’t join Odium, that is why death is the only way to bring him “peace” he can think of.
Will Renarin tell Dalinar who the new Odium is before the duel?
Raysium needs a new name now. Will that also change its properties?
Pattern also needs a new name if all Cryptics are Patterns. Shallan seems to have reached her last oath with him. Will she have to remember what her oaths with her first Pattern were to revive her? Can you be different levels with different spren of the same order at the same time?
Is Lift’s parrot an aviar? Where does it come from?
I hope that the showdown between Odium’s champion and Honor’s champion is an actual battle between Taravagnian and Dalinar. It is the meeting of two different philosophies on how to save humankind. The Big T has a goal and he wasn’t afraid to discard, lie and cheat to accomplish those goals. In many ways, he was already Odium before he became Odium’s vessel.
Dalinar is probably well on his way to reconstituting Honor. All that remains is learning what he can from Ishar, which will probably end with Dalinar on the verge of reconstituting Honor. In my imagination, the battle between the champions, or the battle between Odium and Honor will unfold with Odium being hurt by Dalinar. Cultivation will see this as an opportunity to finally eliminate Odium, but Taravagnian is able to land a blow to Cultivation. As the life forces leave both vessels, and as the shards are being broken apart, Honor is reconstituted and the three shards unite, with Dalinar as the vessel for the three shards in Roshar. Thus the first set of five books end, and the second set is ready to roll. The plot of the second set may well be the reconstitution of all the shards into one being. The Stormlight Archives is the vehicle for the reunification of all things Cosmere.
Well, at leas that’s my theory. Though I do have a question. Dalinar being able to accept Kaladin’s oath implies that he has progressed in his ideals. The fact that the original bondsmith and the current one basically battled it out and both survived implies that there is still much for Dalinar to learn, but he has enough power to be able to hear what Ishar has to say from across the realms. Does this mean that Dalinar is now a fourth level Radiant?
I finished reading the book! Now, I am sure the lingering question is: did I like the book? After having been moderately disappointed in Oathbringer, did I like RoW? Did I?
I LOVED it! Oh my, I loved this book! I am sorry, I just loved it. I don’t care for other reviews, I simply loved this book: the content was phenomenal and I loved every bit of, well almost as I wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t ONE thing I didn’t like so much.
Where to start… This book had so many amazing moments, I feel hard-pressed to choose a favorite. I absolutely loved Part 2, it had me run the happy skipping dance all through the house bouncing around like a crazy rabbit: that’s how much I loved it. Yes, I LOVED Adolin in this book. Oh, I have comments, plenty, even criticism, now, but I wouldn’t be fair if I weren’t saying how much I loved it. Chapter 21, chapter 34? I think I squeaked at some point: so many of the things I have been clamoring for were finally put down in the book. I did not find the Shadesmar arc slow at all, I love the denouement for both Adolin and Shallan, I didn’t think it was easy, I thought it felt like an arc stopped midway. Unfinished, but with great promises, many possibilities. In fact, I’ll be honest, I loved this arc so much, as I *finally* reached part 4, I had read how its end without bothering myself with Navani and her conjoined rubies. The arc was so great, I had a hard time plunging into the rest of the book, Kaladin’s gloom, Navani not always interesting to read experiments.
Maya finding her voice in anger at seeing the Honorsprens distort her sacrifice, taking it away from her, was one of my favorite moments in the book. Ah, of course, Adolin is no Radiant. He doesn’t believe he can be, he refuses this path (in large part because Dalinar wants it, right?), he still has this seething unexplored anger, he butchered those Tukari: there are so many seeds Sanderson planted here, I have no idea which one he’ll water. I *did* finish reading the book expecting Taravangian Odium to pick the one champion Dalinar would not want to defeat… Wasn’t what Adolin’s arc was about? Not to win, but not to lose? He didn’t win against the Tukari, he simply did not lose. He did not win his trial, he simply did not lose it. Odium does not need to win, he needs not to lose and if he can’t use Dalinar or Kaladin, forces of nature, then why wouldn’t he try to exploit Adolin’s feelings next to Dalinar to pit him against his father? Argh!
OK, what else, Shallan’s last secret was definitely worth the odds. I had more or less guessed it before it unraveled but it was still a big kick in the gut: I was not disappointed. Navani bonding the Sibling? Awfully predictable, effective, but predictable. Shallan having killed her first spren, Pattern not being the original spren? Fantastic. I didn’t see it coming until it was nearly there. I LOVED the resolution for her personas issues: how Veil went away was fantastic and incredibly satisfying. Now let’s have Shallan have her revenge, shall we?
Of course, you all guessed how much I loved the second arc! I thought it was great which isn’t to say I didn’t love the first arc. I did though it had some lengths most notably between the last half of the third part and the end of part 4. I wasn’t a big fan… of Navani in a general manner. She had her moments, but the long descriptions of her experiments were not my personal cup of tea. Still, oddly enough, I actually did enjoy reading Kaladin in this book, his can-do attitude even if he struggled to find the will, his estranged relationship with his father that’s not all Lirin’s fault, it was a great read. I loved the drowning scene: claustrophobic like I like them.
Venli was a character I absolutely loved reading and I wished her a bigger role. I guess we all have to revise what we think characters might be doing in their “themed” book, now shall we? I enjoyed the calmer resolution of her arc, finding her mother, returning the songs to the Listeners: it was fitting. Cute. Fitting. I don’t know if we will see more of her, her arc had a finality attached to it.
Dalinar didn’t unnerve me, probably because he spared some moments to think about his own actions, about his sons, mostly Adolin. I LOVED the fact he did try to reach out to his son, but couldn’t breach his walls. I mean, I’ll go easier on the old guy, he tried. I hope he’ll be able to repair this relationship before, well, his big fight unless I am right and his son will turn out to be his opponent. That would be tragic. What to say of the contest he needs to fight? Ah, who he’ll get pitched against will be another gut punch, now won’t it?
I absolutely did not foresee Taravangian killing Rayse, taking up the Shard of Odium, wasn’t it fantastic? The implications? Wit was tricked? Taravangian is smarter, he will save the world, in his own manner, but who will he pitch against Dalinar? After having gone through two impactful choices, I feel the next one has to have… an even bigger impact.
Moash was sent back crawling with his tail between his leg. Good for him.
Teft died. I spent the entire book… expecting him to. Good-bye old friend, you did well.
I have tons more to say, but let’s keep it for the re-read, now, shall we ;-) So good job to all betas, to Sanderson’s team, the book was fantastic, such a great plot. I had fun reading it, now I am sad, it is over. Me pouts. So when is the next one again?
TOdium is going to field a willing child as his champion. Maybe even Gavinor, somehow. This is one of the things that Dalinar messed up in this deal, another being that the intelligent spren and their lands in Shadesmar aren’t covered by the agreement at all. And they can now be killed for good.
I loved the book, BTW, it might be my second favorite after WoR. I adored parts of OB, and it’s highs were high indeed,but it also had a lot of missing emotional pay-offs, unnatural lack of reactions to drastic events and very contrived avoidance of certain subjects obviously reserved for later books.
@Gepeto: so glad you enjoyed the book. I remember during the chapter by chapter releases that you were often “not a fan.” I’m glad the finished product exceeded your threshold of awesome.
As for me, there were so many moments in this book where my brain went, “OH SNAP!” So many moments. I had the thought, “I need to be writing some of this down so I remember it all,” but I couldn’t stop long enough to do so.
Sorry if this is more of a “what’s in the future” post, than a review. I’m probably going all over the place.
As soon as Shallan used the cube for the first time, I KNEW what it was! And it shocks me not at all that Wit/Hoid has one. Bonus chapter at the end of the 10th anniversary edition of Elantris, anyone?
Talking about axons, axi, whatever: people, how did Ayshyn get destroyed? Global-thermal nuclear war. Surgebinding has the capability of affecting things on an atomic level! They ended up creating nuclear holocaust with it, either intentionally or unintentionally I don’t know. At least that’s where my mind went with it.
Ba-Ado-Mishram: I’m shocked there isn’t more talk of this here! This is the key to restoring the dead-eyes! We find out from Maya that, they didn’t know this was going to happen to them! Dead-eyes were a new thing at the Recreance! I’m sure there had been some who had violated oaths before without this happening to Spren. When they trapped Ba-Ado-Mishram it didn’t just do something to the Singers. It did something to the Spren as well. At least those with the Bond. Remember, the Listeners weren’t affected because they had severed the connection to BAM by taking Dullform. But bonded Spren? It did something, even those who had cut the bond prior (like the Sibling.)
Navani as Bondsmith: by the end, I knew it just had to be. I saw the signs there of a Dabbid possibility. Navani actually proposes Rlain as the Bondsmith! And she even called for him at the end. It became Navani because she was the only one available, and it was either her or death. Once it happened though? Nobody could have restored the tower quicker! The Sibling didn’t even remember how everything worked. Navani’s knowledge of Fabrials led her to see and understand how Urithiru functioned and how to turn it all back on! It couldn’t have been anybody else! I know some are disappointed by that, but Brandon is genius! I couldn’t be in the least dissatisfied by how that turned out.
I for one loved the Venli arc. People just don’t change overnight. It takes time. Weaknesses don’t go away, and she will be battling with her selfishness for a long time. But the joy of finally being able to do what she originally set out to do and heal her mother! Epic!
I did not catch it that it was Dalinar who accepted Kaladin’s 4th oath. I need to go read that again.
Jasnah with plate. Totally not shocking, but it was great to see it confirmed.
Shallan: at first I thought the dead-eye spren shown to Adolin in the town was caused by the Tukari. When Pattern tried to show it to Shallan, it immediately clicked for me, so the later reveal was not a surprise. Still awesome, though.
And I too cried at several points in this book. I don’t think I’ve ever been as Invested in characters as I am in the Stormlight Archive (pun intended.)
Howard Tayler as a Beta reader. I was kind of shocked, but not shocked, to see his name in the acknowledgements. Has he been a Beta reader for a while now and I just missed it? Or is he a newer member of the team?
@1: Clink! What a great way to start in the comments!
There are so many other things I could say, but I think others have said a lot of them so I won’t at this time. I’m looking forward to the re-read on this. I’ve never participated in one, but this time I think I have to.
Was curious about the Howard Tayler thing and so I checked up on it. I was mistaken, not a Beta reader, listed as part of the writing group. Still pretty cool to see him a part of this, if it’s the Howard Tayler I’m thinking of. Been reading his work on-line for 20 years.
No one has yet mentioned one of my favorite parts of the book: Chiri-Chiri talks! I also loved getting interludes from Syl and Sja-anat… every time I got to an interlude section and saw the list of names there was one which I was really excited to read (though I had already read the Sylphrena interlude in Brandon’s newsletter).
There was of course lots of other great stuff in the book that others have already mentioned. I got blown away when Taravangian took up Odium.
I was one of those that was curious at what Gepeto’s reaction to the book would be, so it’s great to hear that they loved it. I think reading Gepeto’s comments in the rereads helped me appreciate Adolin’s arc in this book more. So thanks!
I enjoyed the book. Raboniel was the best character by far and the most enjoyable to read. Navani’s imposter with a dash of Stockholm syndrome was well done. Shallan made more progress than I expected and I don’t mind that at all, it just took me by surprise, along with her deadeyes reveal. I agree with comment 27 (marethyu316) that Maya’s healing will be the full extent of their pairing and that Adolin will not gain traditional Radiant powers on Roshar, but maybe some type of magical manifestation that is contained to Shadesmar. Let’s hear it for some Tel Aran Rhiod parallels. Dreamer Adolin/Maya for the win.
I will add an upvote to “TOdium” as my favorite name combo and the ending certainly took me by surprise. I do wish that TOdium had more of a moral ambivalence to him rather than Mr. Burn’s “excellent” vibe with Cultivation. I was sad to read that her work looks to be completely ineffective with Taravangian’s complete regression.
And now it appears that TOdium is a Shard without a physical body, which may or may not have ramifications to future power struggles between Shards. It was nice to read that the artist formally known as Odium was more fragile than I had presupposed, worn thin like butter spread over too much Bilbo bread (I have no idea, feel the pun’s flowing through me as I let go of my conscious self and act on instinct.)
Anyway, I completely enjoyed that reveal. And then blammo! Rayse is toast. The mechanism of his defeat was perfect and the theophanic theology as a mechanism of vulnerability was super cool. I just hope that the intellect/emotion dynamic continues with TOdium, which would make him much more interesting as a Shard than the brief glimpse of evil genius that we got at the end.
The Wit/Jasnah (Witnah/Jaswit? I don’t know, still percolating that one) pairing was something I could buy, I just didn’t like how it minimized Jasnah’s intellectual interaction with the storyline. Maybe I need to reread those sections, but I enjoyed her character much more when she was independent of both the crown and a sapiosexual? relationship. She’s like the Stormlight Archive equivalent of Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes and it would be nice to see her get back to that rather than dipping her toes into traditional Shardbearer combat or reforming society. Her character arc was no longer enjoyable for me as a reader, especially after her show of force in Oathbringer. I hope Brandon is trending back in that direction now that Wit has been pwned by TOdium, reduced in capability and competency.
The only part about the book that was downright implausible to me was Moash’s one does not simply walk into Mordor monologuing about how to defeat Kaladin. It was akin to a HISHE YouTube video running parallel in my head with Moash walking up to Kaladin and stabbing him in the head with his honorblade while he was holding Teft and then knifing Syl. Game over man, game over. That didn’t work for me. Although Kal’s psychological healing by acknowledging that he does himself and others a disservice by not respecting their sacrificial choices was wonderfully done and nicely paralleled in Maya’s reveal.
Ok, I reread the ending. Maybe destroying Wit’s memories was “all” Odium did. I guess it depends what Todium considers “harm” to Wit. I suppose he might not consider coopting Wit to be “harm”. Guess we’ll see .
Anyone have any guesses as to whether Nightblood is stronger now? He’s finally full, like Templeton the rat’s fat tummy after the veritable smorgasbord. I’m curious how that may change his character traits or his capabilities
Other comments:
I loved the book overall.
I didn’t mind Navani’s part so much. While most of us aren’t terribly surprised that she bonded the Sibling and became a Bondsmith, we really didn’t know for sure until it actually happened. I was half expecting it to be Rlain. Or maybe Venli if she didn’t already have a bond.
I totally called it about the Tower problem being because of spren, specifically the Sibling. But I didn’t know the the tower IS the Sibling. Anyway, yes, I’m bragging. I can’t speak for the alpha or beta readers, but I don’t think I saw anyone else on Tor figure out the Tower mystery before me. It’s pretty rare that I figure something out first. Usually I’m left sitting there going, Man you guys are so smart, how did you even think of that?
I’m glad Venli got her second ideal, and her mother back. That aside, to be honest, for the most part, I didn’t find her role in the book to be terribly interesting. But she was useful a few times, and got out, so that’s good. I find Leshwi much more interesting so far.
I totally concur with DIE MOASH DIE.
I actually enjoyed the trip to Shadesmar. Didn’t expect the honorspren to be so corrupt, though.
As for Cultivation, in hindsight, given Dragonsteel, I’m not THAT surprised that she’s a dragon. I was kind of picturing a more sophisticated version of the Nightwatcher, though. Anyway, that said, did it actually SAY that she’s a dragon? I don’t remember reading that, though I might have beem distracted.
And finally, I definitely was focused on the Roshar story, and not thinking so much about the Cosmere implications. I didn’t really notice the whole Lord of Scars thing. Guess Thaidakar has got to be Kelsier. I don’t see who else could it be.
Ben M.
Oh, anyone know what chapter Cultivation is in? I’d like to reread that chapter without having to skim over the whole book to do it.
Ben M
It’s Chapter 114, Broken Gods
@26 Marethy. I have no idea what happened between Adolin and Maya, but we were told it isn’t a Nahel Bond, so something different. I do think Maya trying to say the first oath hints towards recovery and her choosing Adolin to bond, but I also think Adolin is not mentally ready to accept becoming a knight.
@35 Wizard. I think Adolin’s arc will be about him accepting he can become a Radiant and stopping rejecting all that comes from Dalinar out of spite. He’ll have to find his way and his way isn’t to rebel against all that Dalinar says, it is to become his own man and to have Dalinar accept him. Too much of Adolin’s arc was about him yearning for daddy’s approval and love. None of it was dealt with in RoW, but my impressions are Adolin does not think Dalinar loves him for who he is and that’s, in large part, what hurts him and what prompts him to find any way he can be useful, even bad ways.
@57 TOdium. I thought he would try to pick Adolin: harm Dalinar by taking his son. There are few instances where Adolin speaks of anger he refuses to touch, what if it gets unleashed? I felt Sanderson dropped a few bombs with Adolin, I didn’t know which one he’ll allow to blow-up. I guess Gavinor makes sense too, but huh, I wonder how a child could make a viable champion.
@59 El Cochino: I was not a fan of Kaladin fighting multiple times Leswhi, early in the book, and I had doubts about Navani. The final product was much, much better, so yes, I did love the book. I also do not think the one chapter per week releasing pace fits me well.
On Navani/Dabbid/Rlain: I felt Sanderson was purposefully trying to have the readers think it wouldn’t be Navani, but I felt this has always been the end game. Navani had her moments, but she was not my favorite reads in this book. She had some good chapters, but others I felt hit on the wrong nail, but then again, I said for the get-go I wasn’t a fan of the technical talk over her experiment. I am not surprised this didn’t turn out to be my favorite read in the book, but that’s OK. I loved so much of the book, I don’t mind if I enjoyed one part a little less.
Maya: Yeah, she did imply she did not know though she CHOSE. There are hints Adolin’s bond with her differs from a Nahel Bond: she draws on him, he gets no benefit, she says part of the first oath, he feels her pain… I felt there is a lot here left to write on this arc. It made me very curious. It does seem like it will wrap around the Ba-Ado-Mishram though. Adolin might have opened a can of worms and if I were Dalinar’s enemies, this is where I would try to hit him: through where he isn’t looking, but that’s just my personal musings.
I liked Venli’s redemption in large parts because she never hid her actions, she never hid why she did it, she never hid her weaknesses and, more importantly, she does not gain instant forgiveness. This has been one of my issues in OB, how Dalinar gets instant forgiveness and ultimately doesn’t pay a price that seemed to fit with his actions. Venli, here, did. She thought she had killed all of her people so her finding the survivors, restoring her mother, and bringing back her people’s songs was a fitting heart-warming ending.
Shallan: Some of my earlier theories, as I read the book, was Pattern was not the real Pattern but real Pattern was killed in OB to be replaced with false Pattern… That got very twisted. Turns out I was not TOO far away from the truth. A really good one since no one saw it coming. Shallan’s arc reached a satisfying conclusion, now let’s unleash her revenge!
I do feel Shallan/Kaladin have reached the end of their growth for the first arc. I do not expect more inner arc from them: I think the focus will move elsewhere in book 5.
@62 Cireanae. I was not a fan of Jasnah in this book. All her “finally I have someone as smart as me to talk to” sounded too condescending. I didn’t like her all that much in here.
At Mods: Where did my comment @56 go to? I only made a small update on it and it disappeared! It was a good comment, I’d hate to see it gone to the limbs…
Please note that we have comment review on this and most other discussion threads at the moment, since we’re heading into a long holiday weekend and everyone, including mods, will be taking a break from the internet during that time. When you go back to edit/update a published comment, it goes back into review mode, and one of the moderators has to republish it before it becomes visible again. Please be aware that over the next few days we will be periodically freeing up comments, but that it will take longer than usual as we’re technically on hiatus until Monday. Thanks for your patience, and happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating (or maybe just staying home) this year!
It looks like part of the entire problem is that certain spren were brats or injured children. The spren at the time of the Recreance immediately seized on a narrative where their parents’ abandoning them was in no way their own fault (which it wasn’t) and have been incuriously running on that simplistic narrative. The Sibling is naïve- arrogant and ignorant, can’t interact with humans without the frustration of having its self-perception constantly challenged and revised- those scenes where it was dominated by sullen hostility was it being pleasant.
Wit says that there is a female dragon in Roshar, but where does it say that it is Cultivation?
As a Canadian I felt quite the kinship with Timbre when the first thing Leshwi asks after Venli shows her Radiance,
was if she knew “Steve” from Canada.
“oh you’re a Rosharan spren? Do you know Riah from Shadesmar?”
For the love of Honor, is nobody else terrified by the implications of Hoid (HOID!!!) potentially being f*cked with by Teravodium? If Their long term memory has been pilfered by T/O we’re in for some dire times.
CireNaes @67: thanks.
Ok, I reread Ch 114. It doesn’t explicitly SAY that Cultivation is a dragon, but it very subtly implies that she COULD be something like that. I bet that’s probably right. Wouldn’t be surprised.
75: agree 100%. The WORST possible champions to face Dalinar would be Adolin or Hoid.
Anyway, one last, very annoying thought that occurred to me. Assuming T even CAN hold Odium with “honor”… I’m guessing he somehow gets killed, too. You know who would make a PERFECT Odium, in a bad way, of course? Someone with practically ZERO honor…. freaking MOASH. (Die!)
In fact, I’m hereby officially predicting it right now. T will die, and the ever evil Moash will become Odium. I don’t know when, maybe during or at the end of book Five. I’m predicting it.
I liked the story, but wish the different story lines were not so disjoint by being spread out. My big worry at the end is the 10 day timeline. Everything in this book took weeks to happen. Shallan and Adolin’s trip to lasting integrity. They can’t get back in time to be useful. After a year Dalinar hasn’t learned his powers well, but thinks he can in ten days? It takes time to move armies after they leave an oathgate, so how much land can be captured in a short period of time? Sanderson is amazing and probably has great ideas, but I hope there are not a bunch of fast travels that don’t make sense in book 5. Anyone have theories?
Excited for Odium in the next book, but worried (in a good way) it may not be a happy ending. There is a lot of cosmere war foreshadowing going on. What if Odium and “Trell” team up!
I was also hoping to get more from the Hold conversation on the Ghostbloods. To testing a cliffhanger to leave in the middle of the book.
@73 It doesn’t say definitively that Cultivation is a Dragon, when Toadium meets with Cultivation there is a line along the lines of sensing another form behind the human one she presents. That plus her being the most obvious candidate for a dragon (with them being a native species to Yolen where the shattering happened and not all the shard bearers being human).
Put me down for thinking that Adolin’s bond with Maya won’t become the Nahel bond. Not because I’m against that, but because I’m pretty sure that Maya is against it. She deliberately broke her former Radiant bond because she feared its dangers–she’s not looking to reestablish it, not until we’ve resolved why she broke it, what the dangers are, and thus, why reestablishing it may be worth the risk.
That doesn’t mean her bond with Adolin doesn’t come with some abilities. We know one of them already, and can perhaps infer a few others:
Demonstrably can do: The bond allowed Adolin to lend some of his strength to Maya. So we know it can at least do that. It’s what allowed Maya to finally speak, and visibly return to life. (There were many ways she demonstrated she was already alive before then, but they were limited enough that most people—not Adolin—thought she was just a deadeye.) This may mean that the bond grants abilities to Maya, perhaps instead of or in addition to any abilities it grants to Adolin.
Probably can do: Adolin already could summon Maya as a Shardblade. In fact, he was able to do things with Mayablade that shouldn’t have been possible with an ordinary Shardblade: summon in less than ten heartbeats, and even change the balance to allow throwing, at least according to Moash’s words. As this was based on events happening months after the end of Oathbringer, it’s clear that what happened at the Battle of Thaylen wasn’t just a one-off. In fact, Adolin had been practicing throwing his blade before going into Shadesmar, so it seems like there was at least some connection between him and Maya before then. But then, he’s always talked to his sword. Ordinarily, a Radiant spren wouldn’t be able to be summoned unless the Radiant was at the Third Ideal, and while Adolin has certainly demonstrated an ability to listen to those who are ignored in his relationship with Maya, he hasn’t said the words. But it would be strange if he could no longer summon his Shardblade because he had advanced in his relationship with her. So I figure, most likely, he can still do that. In fact, I would expect Maya to act more like a Radiant blade now, able to change shape at will, now that she’s more conscious.
Probably can’t do: Surgebinding. If, as is widely believed, the Radiants broke their bonds because they feared Surgebinding would destroy the world, it seems unlikely that Maya would want to be part of a bond that allows Surgebinding again. If it’s somewhat more complicated, then I could be wrong, but for now, I’m guessing Surgebinding is off the list.
Unknowns:
Stormlight. A large part of a Radiant’s power comes from being able to use Stormlight to heal, recover energy, and other things. As not all of that is Surgebinding, it certainly wouldn’t violate my no Surgebinding hypothesis for the bond to allow using Stormlight. Or Lifelight. Or even Towerlight. It could be that this would work very differently than with Radiants, though.
Shardplate. Adolin suspected that his Shardplate might be different when he had it loaded onto Gallant. Why? Was it just that he could do things with Mayablade that people couldn’t usually do with Shardblades, or did he also have experience with his Shardplate that led him to expect that it would act differently? Importantly, we know that Shardplate is not Surgebinding—it’s a connection to spren who are cousins to the spren the Radiant is bonded to. Windspren for honorspren, presumably lifespren for cultivationspren. We also have reason to believe, from Dalinar’s visions, that Adolin’s plate originally belonged to an Edgedancer (an educated guess, based on the abilities demonstrated by the Knight’s squires). I think this may be an ability that Adolin will have, though it may require the bond to advance in some way similar to the ideals before he can do that.
Non-Surgebinding powers. The Ars Arcanum at the end of the book speculates that just as there are ten Surges and ten levels of Voidbinding, there is probably a third use of Investiture on Roshar, that may be the Old Magic, but may be something entirely different. It’s hard to say what that will look like, but I’d argue that we’ve already seen an example of a non-Surgebinding power, in Renarin’s future-seeing. Which makes me wonder. Sja-anat claimed that the spren she alters are willing, but Renarin’s spren, at least, doesn’t remember what he was before. Could Sja-anat be granting her enlightenment to deadeyes? I don’t think that’s the case, but it is a possibility.
I felt like the storylines involving mental illnesses were a little too much. As someone who has personally struggled with depression and anxiety, I find its approach to be filled with the kind of views people have when they lucky enough to not be afflicted with these debilitating ailments.
Shallan has become a complete mess. I have known someone with similar problems and they don’t act like that at all.I don’t know, it seems like the focus on mental illness became overpowering.
I disliked the urithiru invasion plot. We have already seen how the Parsh behave when they occupy human settlements I felt like it was all filler. I did enjoy the other plots and I wish they had been the main focus of the story.
I got the audible version for free and wowwww they need to get some better voice actors. IT is pretty much just a man and a woman reading the lines with no emotion.
I like RoW; but it was not my favorite Stormlight Archive book. I believe this was as well a written book as the other books in SA. The reason I did not like it as much as I liked the other books in the series was many of the Navani chapters. I like her character and before RoW, I enjoyed her character (both her PoV chapters and when she was in other characters’ PoV chapters). My problem was that IMO too many of her chapters were too heavy on science. Sciences are not my strength; I did not study physical sciences in college and such detailed sciences are not part of my day to day life. For me, their was too much scientific details in too many chapters. They made these chapters tough for me to read as I slogged through the scientific principles. Those readers who are more scientifically inclined/aware, may have had an easier time digesting these scenes.
As a result of the science heavy Navani chapters, I do not think I was unable to fully appreciate the dynamics/interplay between Navani and Raboniel. I think their interactions was the heart of this book. I disappointed me because I thought Rabionel was an amazingly well written character. Raboniel is one of the most complex characters I have read in a long time (if ever).
I think the Shadesmar and Dalinar/Jasnah chapers were a nice balance to the Tower occupation chapters. As there were numerous Tower occupation chapters, the other chapters did not seem too distracting to the central plot in RoW – the Tower occupation chapter. I even thought the Kaladin chapters created a nice change of pace. I am generally not a fan of Kaladin. I feel his arcs in each book are the same; deep depression and trying to slog his way to light. After reading the Chapter where Wit temporarily rescues Kaladin from his Odium-induced visions, I now look at Kaladin’s chapters in a different light. Wit tells Kaladin’s life will get worse, then get better, then worse, then better, etc. Wit notes that this cycle is part of life. It is just magnified in Kaladin’s situation as he suffers from depression so sometimes the worse cycles become very dark for Kaladin. If I can remember this for all other books where Kaladin is a focus character, then hopefully I can more tolerate the Kaladin chapters where he is in his depressive mood.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@78 BB. I have seen some readers comment on how pointless the Adolin/Shallan trip now seems given the duel of champions both Dalinar and Odium agreed to. I would argue, let’s wait and see.
I am sure TOdium has a few more tricks under the sleeve, his intends are not clear, and he certainly won’t be broaching the event in the same manner ROdium was. He might have a different take on the individual to be selected as his champion: ROdium tried twice with two similar individuals. TOdium might pick a different strategy than merely choosing a naturally born fighter with strong passion and a need to erase the past.
Hence, while the 10 days deadline seems like it precludes Adolin/Shallan from playing a role, I think there is more we haven’t read. Adolin/Shallan could cross the nearby Emul gateway and travel back to Urithiru in the matter of one day. Or Dalinar could use his perpenticularity to go fetch them. Or the contest doesn’t happen in 10 days.
A lot will happen but I am sure Adolin/Shallan will be relevant to book 5, but Adolin’s victory? Nah. He did all this for not much, in the end: everyone else accomplished far bigger feats. That actually ties into his arc in RoW.
@80 DSCrank. You bring a valid point in highlighting we simply do not know what Maya’s intend is: she may not want another knight even if she is protective of Adolin. The counterargument would be Maya tried to say the first third of the first ideal: this has to mean something, so it can be argued she is trying to form a bond with Adolin, but Adolin could be the bottleneck. He refuses to see himself as a Radiant and *that* will probably be a problem in his progression.
What can he do? Give his strength to Maya though we do not know how much, nor how much Maya can draw. He can also feel her pain, her agony as if it were his. Hence, Adolin’s bond with Maya seems to benefit mostly Maya and not Adolin: she takes his strength and gives him her pain. Could end up being dangerous for Adolin, hard to say till we get more specifics.
As far as we can tell, Maya cannot grant Adolin any abilities, no surgebinding nor stormlight healing nor super stamina. All she seems to be able to share is… well… her agony which isn’t helping Adolin, it is helping Maya.
Adolin certainly can’t have Shardplate: he is not a Radiant, not even a level one or a proto-Radiant. His bond with Maya does not seem like it is a proper Nahel Bond. It could be she is incapable of forming one at the moment or she may need to draw more strength from Adolin to heal, like a feruchemist who stores health, spends weeks being sick, but can then draw it later. I suspect something similar might happen in the sense, Adolin will feel weak/sick for a time, when transferring energy to Maya up until she has enough to form a proper bond. Just a theory.
So my thoughts are: Adolin cannot surgebinde nor use stormlight, he can still use Maya as a Blade thought without the 10 seconds, he can give her strength to her but the more she draws, the more it should take a toll on him, he can feel her pain which may or may not turn out being an issue, Maya can speak to him in Shadesmar, maybe in the Physical realm to.
@88 Andrew. I agree with your general critics, but I did love the book nonetheless. I dunno. I guess it just worked for me though I generally agree the technical talking was a bit much. I just scrolled through those pages quickly, tried to snag the essential, and focused on the Navani/Rabionel relationship. How Rabionel uses Navani unchecked weakness to emotionally manipulate her to develop the weapon to defeat her and also how Navani was naive enough to fall for it despite knowing better, was well-done even if not my favorite arc in the book.
Anyone else feel like that one chapter heading hinted at Kaladin becoming Harmony’s champion?
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kelsier accidentally started the Ghostbloods. He has a history of unintentionally starting cults.
To me, RoW was a psychological thriller. It relied much more on the characters emotions and psyches than the other SA books. IIRC, Brandon has said that each of his books are different themes/stories/motifs wrapped in a broader fantasy novel. For example, at it heart, Mistborn (especially the first book of the first trilogy) is a heist story. Row, on the other hand, is a psychological thriller.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@21
I am totally agreeing with your review. This could be my least favourite book in the series.
1. I am OK with troubled heros but most of Kal and Shallan chapters repeatedly deals with inner demons to the point of exhausting.
2. All previous books have multiple over the edge chapters but in this except climax nothing felt that way
3. In the end it felt like 1200 pages of filler for future with the overall story moving very little
I enjoyed the build up of rhythm of war book release during which time I revised all previous 3 and thoroughly enjoyed.
Even after reading so many times still felt goosebumps when kal jumped chasm to meet parshendi or when he jumped to save adolin.
Now the wait starts for next book… hopefully better one that this.
Below is a wall of text with my theories on potential storyline arcs in Book 5.
The other SA books have had three central arcs that run throughout the book. I will assume that this will be the case for Book 5. A plot arc can have multiple character story lines. In RoW, I feel we had 3 plot arcs: a) Tower occupation; b) mission to Shadesmar; and c) war in Emul. Within these arcs, we had multiple character storylines. In the Tower occupation, we had Navani’s, Kaladin’s, Venli’s and Rlain’s character storylines. The Shadesmar mission focused on Shallan and Adolin’s storylines; each had their separate storyline. Finally, we had Dalinar and Jasnah’s storyline in Emul (Although it might be fair to say that for Dalinar and Jasnah it was more character development than a complete storyline with a beginning, middle and end; but whether a storyline or character development, my underlying point remains the same: a plot arc can address scenes that are not 100% dependent upon what other characters in that plot arc do).
Let’s take a look at what Brandon previously said and what occurred at the end of RoW. Brandon has said that Book 5 will focus on Szeth’s flashbacks. It is fair assume the flashbacks will address Szeth’s life before he trained with the Stone Shaman’s, his training with the Honorblades and what caused Szeth the become Truthless. Likewise, it if fair to assume that one of the arcs will focus on Szeth’s story in the present time line. I believe this arc will revolve him taking his 4th Ideal crusade in Shinovar. Moreover, Szeth told Dalinar that he must go alone
IIRC, Brandon has said Book 5 will be Dalinar heavy. If that is the case, one of the three plot arcs will involve Dalinar’s story. Below I will discuss two potential plot Dalinar arcs and which one I hope is included in Book 5.
The end of RoW provided us with 2 possible “missions” (for lack of a better word) for two main characters. First, Shallan threw down the proverbial gauntlet at the feet of the Ghostbloods and the race is on to find the gemstone containing Ba-Ado-Mishram. Second, Dalinar asked Kaladin to travel to Shinovar “in somewhat odd company.”
The above leads me to conclude the following plot arcs: 1) Dalinar’s arc (further below I will discuss potential antagonists in this arc and which I would prefer), which I think will be the most important and the most pages; 2) the Shinovar arc, which, includeds the Szeth flashback chapters; and 3) Shallan vs. the Ghostbloods in an attempt to find the gemstone containing Ba-Ado-Mishram. Below, I will discuss which characters may be involved with which plot arcs. It will not be my thoughts of what will actually happen; rather a broad outline of some of the major players.
Shallan vs. Ghostbloods. I feel this has to be one of the arcs. I do not believe that Shallan will destroy the Ghostbloods completely. IIRC, there is a WoB that the Ghostbloods will be explored further in another series. This could be Mistborn Era 3, SA Books 6-10, Mistborn Era 4, Dragonsteel and/or some other Cosmere series. If the Ghostbloods search for Ba-Ado-Mishram is left for Books 6-10, then Brandon will have to address why Ghostbloods waited 15 years to act on that hunt. Brandon has said their will be a 15-year gap in-world between the end of Book 5 and start of Book 6 (i.e. 15 years of time on Roshar will pass between the end of Book 5 and the start of Book 6). To me, I cannot imagine the Ghostbloods would spin their heels for 15 years. True, they may have other logs in fires in other areas of the Cosmere. However, if we read between the lines, it is the power that Ba-Ado-Mishram that would allow for the Ghostbloods to transfer Stormlight beyond the Shadesmar realm of Roshar; thus, transporting Stormlight to worlds outside the Rosharian sytem. If we are to believe Mraize, this is an important venture for the Ghostbloods. Mraize implies that continued interference in Mraize’s Roshar plans will cause Thaidakar to become more involved. To me, this seems too much of a potential plot to carry over to the second 5 books. Also, Brandon has said that Books 6-10 will not contain the same major protagonists as were in Books 1-5. As a result, Books 6-10 will not focus on Shallan. Including the Shallan/Ghostblood plot arc will allow Brandon to resolve her overall character journey she has been on since WoK. In RoW, Shallan found the path that allowed her to absorb Veil. But Shallan still feels she needs Radiant to be a separate personality. Having Shallan go up against the Ghostbloods provides her with an opportunity to further journey down her personal path.
I think that the Shallan/Ghostblood arc will end with Shallan accepting herself enough to no longer need Radiant as a seperate persona and Shallan will find/recover the gemstone containing Ba-Ado-Mishram. This will result in the disgrace of Mraize. So much so that the Ghostbloods will kill Mraize. If we do see the Ghostbloods in Books 6-10, we will see a new main Ghostblood operative working on Roshar with a different goal. Alternatively, the Ghostbloods will not be involved at all in Books 6-10. I also think we will see Adolin and some of the other Lightweeavers in the Unseen Court will assist Shallan.
As an aside, I think Shallan’s finding the Ba-Ado-Mishram gemstone will tie into a series of Navani interludes. As with the multiple Eshonai Interludes in WoR, Book 5 will have multiple Navani Interludes where she works with the Sibling to counter any lasting effects of cutting off Ba-Ado-Mishram’s Connection to the Singers and Navani and the Sibling’s efforts to properly use sprens in fabrials.
The second arc will be the Shinovar arc. This arc will primarily follow two characters’ storylines. First, Szeth and his 4th Ideal Crusade. I do not have a guess as to what will happen with Szeth’s storyline. Second, Kaladin and “partner” will try to convince Ishar to come to Urithiru and/or help him with his madness. I believe Kaladin will fail (as I will discuss in my analysis of Dalinar’s arc). I also think Ash will be Kaladin’s traveling . Dalinar said Kaladin would travel with somebody “odd.” I take “odd” to mean unusual rather weird (Lift would fall into the odd-weird category). Ash might be able to help Ishar regain some sanity. The other option could have been Taln. However, Taln is at this point so comatose that he needs help with walking; at least Ash can physically function.
The third arc will be Dalinar. I can see it going two ways. The first, and more obvious, is Dalinar leading up to and having a confrontation with Odium and Odium’s champion. A second, outside the box, arc would be Dalinar confronting Ishar. In this scenario, he defeats Odium’s champion in Part I. Ishar is then the remaining bad guy during the rest of Dalinar’s arc.
I hope Brandon elects to write the first option. I would like to read Dalinar’s reaction to learning that Taravangian is the new Odium. I also believe that Taravangian would choose Szeth as his champion. Part of Szeth’s acr would have him coming grips with whether Szeth continuing to progress as a Skybreaker will allow him to follow Dalinar or does he need to grow by following Taravangian. A Szeth- as-Odium champion would be a call back to the back of WoK book where one of Shallan, Kaladin, Dalinar or Szeth will destroy us (query whether us is Roshar or the Sleepless).
A few other choices for Odium/Taravangian’s champion: Taln (if Odium uses his powers to “remove” Taln’s madness – but ultimately a doubtful champion), Adolin (I hope not); or Nale (I could see Odium coming to Nale disguised as Ishar saying that Dalinar wants to do something that will reinstate the Oathpact and force Nale back to Damnation/Braize to be tortured again.). Focusing on the Dalinar/Odium challenge will allow us to have some chapters where Dalinar tries to work with other Radiants, including Navani, to grow his Bondsmith powers and to try to counter any final Singer advance before the contest of champions. If Odium loses the contest, we can see the effects of Hoid’s unwise challenge/confrontation of Odium in the RoW epilogue. I think Hoid did something that let Odium do something in turn that will have unforeseen consequences that will be a major plot in Books 6-10.
The main reason why I do not want Ishar to be the main antagonist in Book 5 (akin to how, IMO, Raboniel was the main antagonist in RoW), is then Books 6-10 can focus on the fight against Ishar. The mad Ishar has the unfettered power of a Bondsmith (via his Honorblade), which is almost Shard-like without any of the restrictions that the Intent of a Shard has on the holder of the Shard. We know that Nightblood can damage, if not defeat, an Honorblade. Dalinar and the Knight Radiant’s would have to try to deal with Ishar intent on ruling the world. As a result of the terms of the contest, the Fused/Regals and other Singers will enter into a Cold War type truce with the forces of Honor. Yet some of them (Jasnah, Hoid and some other allies, including Ash and Taln) can fight Odium’s efforts to interfere in the other Cosmere systems.
Another reason why I think it makes more sense that Ishar is the big bad in Books 6-10 is that IIRC Brandon has said that Books 6-10 will develop the Heralds further as characters. We know that Ash and Taln are supposed to get their own flashbacks. A Herald as a main series antagonist will give more meaning to telling the story behind the Oathpact and developing the Heralds as characters. If the Heralds are the focus of Books 6-10, I think the prologues in Books 6-10 will be the formation of the Oathpact from different Heralds’ PoVs.
Finally, I believe that the prologue in Book 5 will be from Gavilar’s PoV. I give this an 85% chance of happening. I give a 7% chance that the PoV is from Nale or Kalak. I give a 1% chance that we get a Elhokar PoV.
I look forward to any comments or critiques on my Book 5 plot arc theories.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Here are my comments (and some questions) that come from Alice and Paige’s commentary. I apologize in advance for another wall of text.
Thank you Alice and Paige for an excellent analysis. I cannot wait to do a chapter-by-chapter re-read of Dawnshard and RoW on tor.com.
Paige and Alice. I agree with you. I thought the initial raid be be successfully. However, I thought the Fused and Singers would only have the upper hand for several days at most. Not for weeks or months. How long is the occupation of Urithiru (I think its is multiple weeks, possibly a few months)?
Raboniel is one of the most complex characters I have read in a long time (if ever).
Leshwi had some interaction with an honorspren. I did not see that coming. Is it possible that before Odium brought the humans to Roshar, the honorspren (Riah) was in Leshwi’s gemheart?
I did not see her killing her daughter. I did not realize the implications of putting the anti-Voidlight gemstone in the dagger the way she reconfigured the dagger. However, it is within Raboniel’s character to want to make it so her daughter is never reborn again.
I did not see her killing her daughter. I did not realize the implications of putting the anti-Voidlight gemstone in the dagger the way she reconfigured the dagger. However, it is within Raboniel’s character to want to make it so her daughter is never reborn again.
Thankfully Navani finally realized how to beat someone who was smarter, stronger and can counter your every move before you make the move and will have already planned his/her next several moves: do the unexpected and punch your opponent in the face. (For those of you who have read WoT, you will know that my way to beat a smarter opponent is not original. I give complete credit to something a character said in The Gathering Storm (a book, I might add, co-written by Brandon).) I would like to see the reaction of the Honorspren who believed remaining neutral or even siding with Odium was the right decision after learning that the Fused developed a means to permanently kill spren. Of course, once they learn that Navani had come up with the theory (even in an effort to use it against the Fused), I am sure those will blame humans rather than Fused. Will this weaponization of anti-Stomlight cause the Highspren to go back to Honor’s forces and fight against Odium?
I thought Navani would stab the pillar with the anti-Voidlight dagger to remove the Voidlight rather than kill Raboniel. Why would not stabbing the pillar have removed the Voidlight?
Was the piece of metal that Raboniel reconfigured made of raysium? Was that the key for drawing out the Voidlight out of a Fused? If not, can the forces of Honor create weapons that will kill a Fused forever when they stab a Fused? Now that Rayse is no longer holds the Shard Odium, does raysium still work as an element?
Navani has the same position/belief that the Honorspren Notum does: Honor is not dead as long as honor resides in the heart of humans.
Navani and the Sibling are not the only ones that have a contentious aspect to their relationship. Dalinar and Stormfather sometimes but heads directly. Dalinar wants the Stormfather to act with mercy. The Stormfather, on the other hand, says he is a storm at heart (which he is) rather than a sapient spren with human-like feelings. Sometimes Dalinar pushes too far. For example, when he forces the Stormfather to be a StormBlade in OB and when Dalinar takes over and changes the Stormfather’s course in RoW to push Kaladin onto the balcony after Kaladin barely escapes when the node in the well is destroyed.
There appears to be an error. Navani tells Kaladdin (Chapter 49) that she does not know how the Fused got the Oathgates to work. Yet in Chapter 42, the Sibling tells Navani that a human with a human with an Honorblade activated the Oathgates. Navani knows that this is Moash.
I was correct in theory. Kaladin’s 4th Ideal was he accepts that there will be those Kaladin cannot save. My guess: “It is ok if I failed to protect somebody as long as I tried my best.” Both Kaladin’s 4th Ideal and my guess require Kaladin to acknowledge it is ok that he cannot save everyone. I disagree that Kaladin’s 4th Ideal only relates to people in the past he could not save. It will apply equally going forward. If Kaladin goes back to thinking he has to save everyone in the future and, if he does not Kaladin deems this a failure, then he will cause damage to his bond. I would guess Kaladin would loose the ability to form Windrunner Shardplate.
Kaladin is the father of psychological counseling on Roshar.
I despise Lirin. He says that Kaladin is selfish. I think Lirin is the selfish one. It is one thing to have convictions, even if you try to convince others that your beliefs are the best for society. However, you need to respect that others may not feel the same as you. That does not make them a monster. How is Lirin any different than a dictator/tyrant? Kaladin is mature enough to recognize that his beliefs are not for everyone; but they are right for Kaladin. Lirin is too immature to understand this.
On my first read, I missed that Dalinar (and not the Stormfather) accepted the words of Kaladin’s 4th Ideal.
Vyre was right about one thing. Kaladin might very well have killed himself had the Pursuer left him alone. But obviously, the Pursuer’s ego would get the best of him. As Leshwi noted during the Fused pow-wow, the Pursuer’s image was more important the the Fused goals. And he would ruin the plans just to preserve his image. The Pursuer. A bully at his heart. When he could not win on his own, he wanted his soldiers to do his work. And had they killed Kaladin, he would have claimed the kill for his own. Moash is blind. Good. I do not want him to have redemption. I wonder if he will no longer be Vyre now that he is blind. I cannot imagine Odium allowing such a damaged individual (and one who failed) to keep his honor and status. How will Taravangian deal with the failures of Moash and the other Fused. The Fused who kills the Pursuer, El. It is said that his name was given to a human. I think that El’s name was Vyre and that Moash was the human who received El’s Singer name.
Interlude I-5 (the Lift Interlude) describes Lift having a weird looking flute. I immediately guessed that this was the flute Wit gave Kaladin.
I was correct (as I give myself a clap on the back). During Chapter 54 I guessed the person who Renarin thinks would be a perfect choice for bonding one of Sja-anat’s Enlightened intelligent spren is Rlain. Like Renarin, Rlain is someone who sees himself as not belonging to any one group. Thankfully, Renarin was not thinking about Adolin for Sja-anat’s spren. I am glad that Rlain is different than a Windrunner; he is a Turthwatcher. It defied reason that all in Bridge 4 deemed worthy by a spren of entering into a Nahel Bond was right for the Windrunner order. Rlain does have the heart of a healer If this was the spren that Sja-anat agreed to send to Mraize to see if Mraize or one of Mraize’s Ghostblood minions, then Mraize will not be happy. And if it was, I thought he wanted a Lightweaver or one of the Orders that would give him access to Shadesmar. I did not think the Surges of Illumination and Progression grant the user access to Shadesmar. If it was not, what happened to that spren?
I guessed very early in RoW (Chapter 13) that Kelek is Restares. Kelek started the SoH as a way to work on getting out of Rosharian system. This was the Chapter where Mraize told Shallan she had to go to Lasting Integrity find Resteres and implicitly telling her Shallan would have to kill Resteres.
Alice. In some ways, I am disappointed in how Brandon resolved Shallan’s personas issue. That said, I thought the resolution was amazing. It was my favorite chapter. Shallan confronting her different personas and realizing she does not need them to be herself. She is strong enough to be everything Shallan needs to be. My only problem with this solution is I wonder if it would have been a better moral (for lack of a better word / maybe truer to real life DID) that Shallan has to learn to live and cope with her personas rather than reach a healing via integration. At least the healing was through Shallan’s understanding herself (i.e. coming to terms with her past) rather than a “magical” cure. If I had to guess, Shallan said those words to Testament after she killed her Mother in self-defense. Even before this Chapter, I believed the dead eye Cryptic who Adolin saw in the market and at his trial was Shallan’s prior spren. I hope the Honorspren learn that the bond was made with a child, not an adult human. Does this mean that Shallan has spoken her 4th Truth and can wear live spren Shardplate? I am glad that Formless is not a 4th persona. I agree with Veil. It is actually what Shallan wants to call the combined Shallan, Radiant & Veil (an amalgamation of the three). Perhaps it represents the worst of the three Personas; what Shallan feels she needs to be to get the job done. Do what she thinks are evil things.
A common fan theory is proven correct. Knights Radiant who broke their Oaths during the Recreance did so with in agreement with, or at the very least with their bonded Spren agreeing to accept the consequences
Alice and Page. I agree that somehow the Deadeyes knew something significant was happening in Lasting Integrity (perhaps knew exactly) and that it concerned them. My guess, Deadeyes can telepathically communicate with each other in a way that humans and other sapient spren.
One miscellaneous comment. The two full-body Ashpren look like they are sitting at a bar listening to a 90’s grunge band
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Things I loved:
-Kaladin’s Fourth Ideal, of course!
-WE CHOSE
-Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men!
-Rlain becoming Radiant
-Teft and Phendorana’s deaths were tragic but beautifully written. Since interplanetary travel is possible, I really hope someone in Book 5 finds a way to yeet Moash into the sun.
-Raboniel as an antagonist in general and her interactions with Navani
-Eshonai’s last scene
-Kaladin becoming Roshar’s first therapist
-Chiri-chiri developing sapience
Things I wasn’t a huge fan of:
-Where was Vasher during the whole Urithiru arc? We saw him sparring with Kaladin in Part 1, and then he just kind of disappeared. I kept expecting him to show up and he never did.
-I really would have preferred Rlain to become the Sibling’s Bondsmith. The commonalities between humans and singers was a major theme of the book, and I do think both species will need to work together to defeat Odium. At the same time, the singers/listeners do have legitimate grievances against the humans, and it’s not the sort of thing you can just magically fix by saying “Oops, sorry.” Having a listener Bondsmith would fit well with the book’s themes and be a major step forward in repairing interspecies relations.
-Not enough Lift and Cord
Things I absolutely did not see coming:
-Taravangian becoming Odium. My theory, when we found out that Odium fears Nightblood, was that whoever ended up being Honor’s champion would carry Nightblood into the final battle and use it to defeat Odium. After all, the agreement says the champion has to fight alone, but it doesn’t say he can’t borrow equipment from other people! I had this wonderful mental image of Kaladin or Dalinar bellowing, “I want to destroy some evil today!” while stabbing Odium with Nightblood.
Things I’m curious about:
-Will Rlain have the ability to see the future like Renarin does? And will he impede Odium’s ability to see the future, as Renarin does?
-Can Bondsmiths have squires, and if so, will Navani’s group of scholars become her squires?
-Will Dabbid and/or Noril and/or any of the random civilians who protected the unconscious Radiants become Radiant themselves?
-What happened to Rock?
-Will Jasnah notice anything different about Wit as a result of Odivangium messing with him in the epilogue?
Things I’m a little concerned about:
-Ten days seems like too short a time in-story to bring a lot of the developing plot/character threads to fruition.
Darshardie @3. Brandon also sneaked the name of Cultivation’s Vessel in a picture. In the Alethi glyphs picture (page 844), Cultivation’s name is Koravellium Avast. See the glyph for Cultivation (middle of the 3 glyphs on the bottom of the page): She Who Brings the Dews at Dawn.” This is Cultivation.
Andrew Westover @19. Interesting theory about Cultivation preparing Lift to be the next holder of the Shard Cultivation. That would be one for for her not to change. But one of Cultivation’s key component is that things constantly change. Things are born, grow, adapt and die. Nothing is static. Could/should a person who asked to never change be the holder of Cultivation?
Wizard72 @35. I like your theory of Ishar causing a merging of Adolin and Maya. It will have elements of Firestorm (DC comic character) and Slayer (Wheel of Time character). When in the Physical Realm, Adolin will be the physical form and Maya will be the voice in the head/spren. She will have some ability to manifest physically (as do the Knight Radiant spren in the form of Sprenweapon) and Adolin will have some type of magic. Probably associated with the Progression Surge. In Shadesmar, it will be Maya who has the physical form and Adolin will only be the voice in the head.
Wizard72 @35. I like that. Dalinar is the unifier of all nations of men (and perhaps Singers). Navani is the unifier of man and spren.
hammerlock @37. Toadium. Very funny. I like it.
ChrisRijk @39. I disagree with you that the Adolin/Shallan chapters felt rushed. I think they felt rushed because we had too many scientific chapters with Navani that were very dense. It makes it seem much more unbalanced (or at least it did to me). I think Brandon should not have had as many technical chapters. That said, perhaps rather than a separate chapter we get a another vision/scene which makes “clear that after young Shallan said those hurtful words to her spren, Testament simply vanished without Shallan understanding why and so Shallan feels that Testament left her because she was “bad” when instead it was due to Nahel bond mechanics” would have helped with the context for Shallan’s fear of betrayal. The scene would be a few hours, maybe even a few days later, right after she sees her father turn into the evil person he would become. Shallan tries to talk to Testament but nothing happens. At this point, Shallan realizes that she is all alone and no longer has her only friend: the spren.
Hammerlock @49. My guess for the title: Keystone of Worlds
el_cochino @59. Great theory about how the severing of Ba-Ado-Mishram impacted sapient spren who had their Nahel bond broken. It did not affect the Highspren as the Skybreakers did not break their Oaths during the Recreance. I theorized that Navani’s work with the Sibling (trying to better human/spren interaction) will intersect with Shallan’s search for the gemstone. But I did not have a reason as to what the benefit of finding that gemstone (other than keeping it away from the Ghostbloods. The connection is your theory: releasing Ba-Ado-Mishram can reverse the effect of the Recreance on the Deadeyes. Perhaps the way to do that is to change Ba-Ado-Mishram. Remake her with Rhythm of Tower that will cleanse the effect of Voidlight from her. A sort of unmaking of the Unmade. I do not think you want to inject anti-Voidlight as that might kill the Unamde rather than change her.
Benpmoldovan @77. I disagree. Moash wants his pain (his passion removed). Odium takes pain. I cannot see Moash as the Vessel for Odium and all the hate/pain the Shard encompasses. If the Shard were Inertia, then I could see Moash taking it. But what Odium offers is exactly what Moash does not want.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Some other musings.
Had Rayse still been Odium, I could have foreseen Rayse choosing Ishar as his champion or somehow taking away Taln madness and choosing Taln. But I do not see Taravangian going this route. I think Taravangian will choose Szeth. This goes back to the back jacket of WoK (where 1 of the 4 of Kaladin, Shallan or Szeth could wind up destroying the world.
Would the power of the Shard Odium have been trapped in area between realms where Odium pulled Taravangian had Taravangian’s soul had separated fully from the physical body and went to the Spiritual Realm before the Shard of Odium transferred to Taravangian or if Taravangian had not accepted the power of Odium?
I am disappointed in Dalinar. He did exactly what he criticized Taravangian for doing. Making a deal that sold out a significant portion of the world. Odium will still have Jah Keved, Iri, Rira, Babatharam, and Marabethia. I doubt Brandon will end the first arc with Dalinar losing. He would give his soul to Odium, and require the nations that fight Odium to accept a truce (or at least a pact of non-aggression).
Dalinar is wrong. He muses that the Fused were not intent on extermination of humans. However, we have scenes in other chapters that many (if not most) Fused do want to exterminate every last human.
I think that the Tukar’s were not trying to kill Notum so much as to incapacitate him so they can bring Notum to Ishar for Ishar to torture. I also hope that Ishar will not become a plague upon Shadesmar now that he entered Shadesmar.
Hoid and Jasnah romantically involved? Did not see that pairing? I thought Hoid would not want to be romantically involved with any “mortal”. I wonder if Hoid told Jasnah he is commonly called Hoid. I also like then subtle comment that Jasnah has not always been asexual. At least it appears that Jasnah view this as a short-term fling.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@Gepeto: I’m glad you liked the book! I remember reading the first Adolin chapter (and really all the Adolin arc) and going, yep, Gepeto’s going to be happy with this. I loved the entirety of the Shadesmar arc, it was just chock-full of wonderful character moments.
I did enjoy Navani’s arc a lot, and the complicated rapport between her and Raboniel. Raboniel was a far more complex character than I had been expecting. And I loved Navani’s fascination with the world, the concept of Towerlight as representing science to her, and the way her relationships with both Raboniel and the Sibling expressed the idea of people with deeply opposed views finding common ground (which I think is one of the core themes of the book – also seen in the very concept of the Rhythm of War; the humans and singers finding common ground; and the relationship between Kaladin and Lirin).
Count me in on liking Venli’s arc! There were so many great emotional moments in that one for me: when she confesses her actions to Rlain, knowing that he has every right and reason to reject her; when she finally finds the courage to tell Leshwi about her powers and Leshwi reacts with wonder and joy; when she returns to her people. She’s do e horrific things for selfish reasons, but she’s willing to take responsibility for them, be accountable to those she’s harmed, and seek to do better. In terms of comparisons between her and Dalinar, it seems like it’s often easier for us to – respect? forgive? empathize with? – strength/power, even strength used in terrible ways and for terrible ends, than with weakness. Dalinar’s story is the latter, and Venli’s is the former. (And Dalinar doesn’t have someone to be accountable to in the same way Venli does – everyone from the Rift is dead and the concept of international war crimes tribunals don’t exist in an early modern society- but I think writing Oathbringer is him making the best try he can at accountability by at least letting people know the worst of what he’s done and judge him as they will.
I wonder if Renarin reframing Evi’s death as “Odium causing to her to be killed” will be a problem for him down the road, as a Radian whose oaths (if they’re similar to the ones for Truthwatchers with non-corrupted spren) are about seeking trut
@84 Andrew. I think this is a nice way to summarize it: it may be why I found it such an efficient book. I literally devoured the chapters one after the other though I did find there was a small slug towards the end of Part 3 and the beginning of Part 4. My comments can generally be summarized by “I so loved this book” though yeah, some moments were extraordinarily heavy-handed such as Kaladin’s entire character and Sanderson’s foundation scene. It was… a scene taken out of a teenage boy dreams of heroism. Half the enjoyment I had reading it came from knowing his much Sanderson probably enjoyed writing it, but it does not rank within my favorite moments of the book.
Adolin, Shallan, and Taravangian stole the show for me. Just for them, I’d give the book a strong rating. Those three characters were fantastic and had my mouth hang opened as their arcs reached their climaxes. Adolin’s need to feel useful combined with his fear of facing his father without a strong success in his hands, this need to earn Dalinar’s love pushing him towards disregarding his life, imprisoning himself. The scene where he is dragged, wounded, in chains into Lasting Integrity had me wailed all through Part 3, a very long Part 3. Shallan’s last truth was something I absolutely not seen coming until it came. Well, I saw it, a mere moments before it unraveled. It was perfect. Taravagian was sad, heart-wrenching, and delightfully frightful, right here, in the end.
But above all what I enjoyed in RoW was the resolution Kaladin/Shallan got for their character arcs. After several long books of them dealing with their issues, they have both reached… the end of their growth. Kaldin finally internalized what he could not internalize since WoK. Shallan went to the end of her secrets. Their character arcs are now completed. This is why I do not think Kaladin will have a large role in book 5, more of a supporting role. Shallan will get her revenge story, but I suspect this will tie into the back half.
@87 Andrew. I have no idea what will happen in book 5! But here a few thoughts nonetheless.
– The duel of Champion will not happen as we ar going to predict: either Dalinar or Odium’s champion will come in as a big surprise to the readers. The outcome remains unclear: it could go both ways though a victory from Dalinar’s team seems more probable.
– The duel could happen midway in the book with the ending dealing with the aftermath on Roshar. Adolin/Shallan will get back sooner than we think.
– Kaladin will have a more supporting role in book 5. His growth is over now. I frankly do not see what Sanderson could write for this character that will not be repetitive and now he has dealt with his issues or is on the way to do so, a backward slip completed with a near suicide death would not work. Not again. Adding too much drama to the one character has diminished the impact of his narrative. I hope Sanderson will realize he cannot push on Kaladin in book 5 as he has pushed on him in the past book. So a shorter arc with a good ending, but nothing as big as in RoW or previous books.
– Shallan will get her revenge arc. BAM may or may not play a role. This arc seems like a long-runner one that will move into the back-half. Testament will be dealt with slowly, over time, but it will not trigger another inner arc for Shallan. Book 5 has to bring the characters to an ending, Shallan/Kaladin had theirs in RoW. In book 5, we will see Shallan step into her future arc, I think.
– Dalinar will figure out how to finally progress. Sanderson will close the loop on his relationship with Adolin: it could end with drama or not. Dalinar has been very harsh with Adolin in RoW, Adolin has shown how far he was willing to go just to earn some love from his father, I believe this will get mixed within Dalinar’s final arc, somehow. Dalinar will probably die or ascend at the end of the book. He may or may not die in the contest. He may or not may not end up being his own Champion: he plans for it, but I am expecting a twist here. A good plot twist would be Dalinar survives book 5.
– Adolin is the one main characters left with an opened character arc, the one that did not get resolution in RoW. He cannot accept becoming a Radiant. His bond with Maya is unique, but may or may not be long-term, it may or may not be dangerous for him and it may or may not further progress. As it stands though Adolin has not dealt with how he feels next to Dalinar, his feelings over becoming a Radiant, and if he had a victory in Lasting Integrity, Dalinar’s actions will have made it meaningless thus taping right into Adolin feeling everything is always about Dalinar. I think Dalinar/Adolin could be two characters playing into each other for book 5 as both could grow from the interaction.
– Navani seems to have dealt with her issues with her scholarship. I would think she would have a supporting role in book 5, probably bigger than in previous books, but not as much as in RoW.
– Venli might make an apparition but I do not think she’ll be a major player.
– Szeth will have his flashbacks and a narrative but it may have a scope similar to Venli in RoW.
Choices for Honor’s Champion: Dalinar, Taln, Renarin, and the curveball Adolin who’s desperate for his father to be proud of him.
Choices for TOdium’s Champion: new guy El, Ishar, boring Moash, unknown character (anti-climactic), Adolin (yeah, well, if I were TOdium, I’d pit Dalinar against the son who can’t breathe under his too large shadow)
@88 Andrew again. I was sad Renarin didn’t think of Adolin for the corrupted spren! Not because I wanted Adolin to get it, more because, it would have been nice if someone in his family thought about Adolin. Part of RoW was so weird… with Dalinar asking Adolin to become a Radiant, Adolin not really being an integral part of the family, this rift with Dalinar that wasn’t not solved… I wondered where Renarin stood in it.
I loved Shallan resolution and I would have been disappointed if Veil/Radiant had been permanent. Shallan created them for a purpose, it was logical to me, once the purpose no longer exists, they would vanish.
Side note: I think Renarin has a crush on Rlain and will be the first LGBT major character Sanderson will write.
Hammerlock @49. Another guess for Book 5’s title – Keystone of Wisdom
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@91 Andrew. Dalinar did try to get the whole world into the deal but Odium warned him it was above his powers. Hence, there literally were no other alternatives. Taravangian could have made other choices, Dalinr basically couldn’t put the whole world into the deal.
@92 Katherine. Yes, I so loved it! One of my favorite moments definitely was the Dalinar/Adolin conversation and hearing out how Adolin felt about Evi. I really enjoyed the fact Dalinar did try to reach out to Adolin, but his failings are such he basically ended up telling his son it is either he does as he says or he is no better than Taravangian. And now Taravangian is Odium! And Dalinar is openly disappointed in Adolin though he tries to say otherwise. Ouch. I really enjoyed Adolin being torn between hating and loving his father, just as I predicted, unable to forgive him, but also unable to stop loving him. I loved how Adolin turned out to be this weird mix between a little boy craving for his father’s love and a grown man eager to prove himself in his own way: all through the book I felt those two sides of Adolin warred with each other. The boy is the one making him jeopardize his life because he can’t summon the strength to face his father with another failure and the man is the one eloquently trying to talk himself out of predicament while trying to win the day. This arc is absolutely not done yet and while Adolin did win the trial (or he didn’t lose it would be more appropriate), he still hasn’t faced his father. Dalinar still hasn’t approved of him and Adolin still isn’t a Radiant, even worst, he spent the book reinforcing he was NOT a Radiant.
I also really loved the talk between Adolin and Shallan that started with Adolin telling this adorkable anecdote of how he babbled for an hour about a sword he liked to a girl he liked only to jump into how people have reasons for not being who others expect them to be… thus talking about himself and Dalinar. To hear how Adolin genuinely believes Dalinar is not interested in him as a person, just in him being who he wants him to be, this perfect remnant of his mother made my heart squeeze. I really loved how Adolin admits being perfect meant he can never accomplish anything, nothing he does is ever worthy because any success he might have isn’t one, but the mere fulfillment of expectations placed on him. There you go readership I wanted to scream out! I have so often read some readers say Adolin was unimportant, had no development nor depth because he was perfect, he did not struggle enough in comparison to storming Kaladin and here we are reading Adolin saying exactly this: he feels unworthy because no one salutes his victories because they all expect them.
I just loved all of it. I felt Sanderson planted so many seeds with Adolin in RoW, it will be a pleasure to see which one he’ll water in book 5. I found the character moments within the second arc were the strongest even if they came at the end of less angst, drama, and suicidal pain. For instance, that Kaladin said his predictable fourth oath while being seconds away from death was… predictable. He said the third oath too while being near death… In fact, Kaladin going through an awful amount of pain each time has happened so often, I no longer find it interesting even if I did enjoy the whole Pursuer hide and seek arc Kaladin got in RoW. Character-wise though, it wasn’t the strongest arc for me: Adolin and Shallan’s climaxes are the ones that had me stand in complete surprise and root for. Taravangian too. Kaladin though? We all knew this was how it was going to end.
The Navani/Rabionel relationship was definitely one of the highlights of the book even if not my favorite arcs. It was subtle and I think this will be one I will enjoy more on re-read. Navani bonding the Sibling was predictable, but her choice to refuse to be called “unworthy” was a good moment for her character. Her blasting Moash away too: never anger a grieving mother. My only disappointment here is that Moash still isn’t dead. Seriously. Who wants to read Kaladin confront Moash again within book 5? Not me. Enough with the Moash arc.
Venli was great. What I enjoyed the most about her arc is how her words kept on being refused up until she did the one selfless rescue. All other rescues: her Parshendis friends, Rlain, Lift, going back to the Tower were done with half-selfish reasons. Each time, there was something in it for her, an element of selfishness. Or she had to coaxed to do it. Freeing Jaxim (spelling?) and the forgotten songs was the one moment where Venli genuinely did something because it was right. I liked reading her weird progression though I do wish we had seen more of her. I don’t know how much of her we will see in book 5: I don’t expect a lot, but I guess we’ll see. It is hard to make predictions at this point in time! I just go with how I feel each character has evolved and what additional growth is left for them. I see Venli as a character we would occasionally see, but never more than in RoW.
I don’t know about Renarin. I wished he had had scenes with Adolin. I wanted to hear out how Renarin felt over his brother’s open rebellion and growing resentment over Evi. I think Renarin is not entirely wrong in his reasoning: he chooses to forgive his father, to believe he hadn’t meant it. I do think the fact he always seen his father as a flawed person made it easier, for him, to reach this conclusion.
I am sure Renarin will have a role to play in the duel of Champions though I am not sure which one.
I’m expecting Book 5 to have a substantial Szeth-Kaladin arc; the focus will primarily be on Szeth, but the contrast between their worldviews and actions also enables character development for Kaladin in figuring out how he’s going to navigate that partnership. I think now that he’s in a healthier mental place he might be able to help Szeth, but it could take him a while to figure out how to do it.
There will also be a major Dalinar arc, but I have no idea where the duel plot will go.
Shallan and Adolin may take a comparative backseat. Venli and the Listeners may take a backseat until books 6-10. But it would be odd if there was a really long timeskip without dealing with the issue of BAM now that it’s been built up for two books, so maybe they’ll both be involved in that
I think Adolin’s character arc has had some resolution – his relationship with Maya is something he specifically brings to the table and that no one else has been able to do, which shows him value that isn’t specifically connected to his combat skills. But his relationship with Dalinar remains unresolved.
@96 Katherine. I didn’t feel Adolin’s character reached a resolution. Yes, his bond with Maya deepened but he still will not be a Radiant, he still hasn’t dealt with his seething knot, and he still does not know what his role will be in the coalition. Of all characters, in RoW, I felt he was the one with the incomplete arc, as if the story stops halfway through his own arc. Maya was no resolution: it was a resolution for Maya, not Adolin. Adolin gained almost nothing from Maya speaking up besides a weird bond that may or may not be bad for him. He still needs to accept he can be a Radiant.
I do not think the Szeth/Kaladin arc will be substantial. I think, not unlike Venli, Szeth’s role will be somewhat small in his own book. I expect an arc with Szeth/Kaladin but one that ends early in the book. I do not expect Kaladin to have a particularly big narrative, not small, but nothing like RoW.
I do expect a substantial Dalinar story, this is a given. I expect the remaining page time will be split with other characters. I do not think Adolin will take a more backseat role than what he has had in RoW: I would expect a role of similar scope. Something got to happen with Maya and that’s a bigger arc than Shallan/Kaladin currently have now they reached their final resolution.
I think we will see some denouement with BAM, but I am unsure how much. I do think this arc will be prolonged in the back half so I expect an… opened resolution. I could be wrong. We’ll see. I just do not see a very big inner arc for either Kaladin nor Shallan. Their characters are done for now. Introducing new inner conflicts in the final books seems wrong.
So all in all, I expect an ensemble cast with Dalinar having a leading role. All other characters will have roles but not particularly stringent inner character development. Adolin is the one character I think will get more on this front with Szeth too, but I don’t think there is a lot to write about Szeth to begin with. His past sounds exciting though.
I could be wrong about everything, but I just feel Adolin is one of the characters with the most potential for development after RoW.
I loved this book! One of my favorite aspects of this series is Roshar itself, and it had a shining role in ROW with a deep exploration of the tones, patterns, and lights of the planet. Urithiru and the Sibling are a microcosm of the planet as a whole, and I loved the time we spent there. I am glad Navani bonded the Sibling in the end (though Rlain and Dabbid would have been interesting), because she is a scientist at heart and can understand the Sibling and inner workings of the tower in a way no one else can. I loved her immediate recognition of how all of the systems worked after she said her oaths.
I also loved Kaladin and Syl’s arc in this book. They both changed and evolved together, demonstrating the deep interconnection a radiant has with their spren. Syl seems much more mature and human by the end of the book, with a broader range of emotions and more grounded in the physical realm. I also loved Kal’s fourth oath. Even if predictable, the scene with Tien had me in tears and I am so happy Kal healed his brands. I find it ironic that the fourth ideal, which is about accepting you can’t protect everyone, grants a tool (shardplate) that can literally be sent out to protect everyone.
However my favorite part of Kaladin’s storyline is his role in the field of mental health. For years we as readers have been lamenting that our broken heroes need a good therapist, and here Kaladin is about to establish the field of psychotherapy on Roshar. I was cheering when he took Noril out of his dark dreary room and out into the light and talked to him. Yay for group therapy. I look forward to whatever comes next with this work. Will he be able to help Ishar or any of the other heralds heal?
Shallan’s storyline was also satisfying, though I’m probably one of the few people who will miss Veil as a personality. I’m curious what will happen with Veil’s traits. Will Shallan now enjoy gambling and drinking? I also have questions about Shallan’s progression as a radiant. Did she say an oath/truth in this book and what level is she at with Pattern? Does she have shardplate? I’ve seen speculation that Shallan was summoning Testament as a blade in Words of Radiance, so I’m not sure what to think about where she is with each spren.
Leshwi’s reaction to Venli’s radiance was another highlight of the book. Were the singers once bonded to higher spren? The Heavenly Ones being bonded to honorspren would explain their honorable traits on the battlefield. I hope there is still a role for Leshwi, Venli, and the other listeners in the next book (and the chasmfiend!)
Todium and whatever he did to Wit at the end is terrifying. Anything could happen now. The battle of champions is 10 days away and I love that we have no idea what to expect.
I’m curious… if Cultivation’s vessel (Koravellium Avast according to one of the drawings) is a dragon, was Tanavast also a dragon, or did they have a dragon/human romance? I’m dying to know more about them.
Over all I loved the book but felt sad and empty at the end. The creation of Todium and stealing Witt’s breath and memories really made it feel like our guys are in for a very bad next 10 days. It just felt ominous to me. Add in the experiments that Ishar is doing and things look very bad indeed. I totally missed the attack on Notun as connected to the spren being pulled into the physical world. And, the Ghostbloods have declared war on Shallan at least which likely will mean Adolin and others as well.
The MVA award (Most Valuable Arc) goes to Navani/Raboniel. Even as they played each other with Raboniel having the high hand, they also had sympathy and some shared compassion.
Why do people not think this mysterious El isn’t going to be Todium’s champion? He also has one of the knives he could use to kill Dalinar. I can only hope that Dalinar ends up with Night Blood as a sword since the SF won’t be a sword for him.
I was re-reading the letter from Sazed to Hoid and found the entry from Chapter 42 to be disturbing in light of Taravangian becoming Odium, “In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most”…
I actually was hopeful at first, (still am?) because Taravangian kind of grew on me throughout the book, he was trying, in his own way, and he hadn’t completely given up on saving everyone. This plus that fact that Renarin obviously orchestrated it made me think this has got to be a good thing. But then he said “I can save Everybody” and I got a definite creepy vibe, and then I re-read Sazed letter and I think it is definitely going to cause big problems. Although maybe in the end it will be good..
I loved this book. Great highs and lows, great character growth, great plot movement, great antagonists. I cried, I laughed, I cursed, I shouted for joy. Beautiful book.
QUESTIONS:
Do we know who the original owner of the “red chicken” was? Why did Mraize kill him? Is the red chicken an aviar?
Where was Vasher? I know he’s mostly checked out, but Kaladin knows that he is more than he appears and is invested. I think it would make sense that Kaladin at least go try to recruit him once all the knights radiant pass out. Was he with Dalinar on the war front? If so, a casual mentioning of this would have been nice, because I read the whole book hoping Kaladin would realize he could go to Vasher for help.
Is Kelek the one that is with Nale during the prologue?
KELSIER? Why is Kelsier head of the Ghostbloods. If “Lord of Scars” wasn’t enough of a give away, Brandon also included that bit about Hoid going back to slap him around which is a definite reference to Mistborn, Secret History. I know Kelisier is a bit rough around the edges, but those edges started to soften in Final Empire and definitely softened during Secret History. So why is he now a mysterious bad guy ordering murder for his own profit? I’m interested in seeing why he’s doing what he is doing.
I loved how Kaladin could command his shardplate to protect others. Can other orders do this? If so, why doesn’t Jashnah ever use this ability. Is it just a windspren shardplate thing. Could all the different living shardplate types have a different “extra power”? I think that’d be really cool.
What is with the listener chasmfiend?
THINGS I LOVED:
Kaladin taunting the Pursuer
The whole Kaladin fighting the pursuer, teft dying, Kaladin mourning then raging then giving up, Dalinar giving him the time and help he needed, the scene with Tien (sobbed here while reading in a parking lot in my car), Kaladin’s fourth ideal. Man this was a powerful scene
Living shardplate that can protect others
Kaladin’s near drowning scene
You can’t have my sacrifice!
Shallan’s gauntlet throwing with Mraize
Rlain in general
The human’s heroic sacrifice trying to reach the crystal pillar
Adolin’s fight against the humans in shadesmar
Raboniel as a scary antagonist that I also loved, what a villain! Slightly unhinged, willing to commit atrocities, mad scientist, yet reasonable and compassionate and a person of real depth. Great contrast to the Pursuer who was also scary and willing to commit atrocities. I loved the play between these two.
I loved the dealing with mental illness, I loved the compassion and care.
The Book 5 setup: Shallan vs. Kelsier, Kaladin’s mission, Szeth’s mission, the 10 day countdown. So much to look forward to.
THINGS I DIDN’T LOVE:
Wit. Other than his Dog and Dragon scene with Kaladin, I didn’t really like him being with Jasnah. I thought he was very much de-mystified in this book.
I would have preferred Rlain become the bondsmith. Who better to “Unite instead of Divide” than a Bridge 4 Listener
Although I am an engineer by profession, I liked, but didn’t love the Navani chapters. I’m not sure why. I loved the magitech, but just didn’t really connect with Navani.
One last thought. We know of 3 people directly influenced by Cultivation. Could she possible be grooming the next 3 holders of the Rosharan shards? Big-T for Odium, Dalinar to become Honor, and Lift to become Cultivation? What was Dalinar’s request again?
Vasher told Kaladin that he doesn’t want to get involved any more, that is why he “retired” as an ardent.
Dalinar was told to unite them. He thought it was the High Princes of Alethkar, then we moved on to all the peoples of Roshar, then in Oathbringer it was the three realms.
Why not the three shards of Adolnasium? Will Dalinar become the “next Harmony” and unite Honor, Cultiviation, and Odium into one?
@104 el_cochino – I do believe that Dalinar will unite the three shards. It is not improbable that Dalinar is already the bondsmith for both the Stormfather and Nightcrawler. The words and warmth that he hears often are not Honor’s, they are Cultivation’s. What Cultivation’s plan is is up to conjecture. How much with Todium know in ten days? While Dalinar doesn’t have much time to prepare, neither does Todium. That Dalinar accepted Kaladin’s fourth ideal was not only a surprise but indicative of a growing sense that Dalinar is very close to being the vessel for a reborn Honor. That he is invested by Cultivation and Odium as well makes him the ideal vessel for a unified Cultivation/Honor/Odium shard. I think Book 5 will end with him going to Shadesmar and having the merger occur there. The Unmade and the sprens will finally be part of the same team, so to speak. And this is what will be needed to go beyond the Rosharan system and unite all the shards in the Cosmere. Unite them. Not just the three shards in the Rosharan system. All the shards. Maybe the question from long ago was a foreshadowing of what Dalinar will be. Dalinar was basically asked if knew who or what Adolnesium was. Unite them is the quest to bring all of the Cosmere together, the shards together again. That is, ultimately, the task that Dalinar will complete.
goddessimho @99. Is it certain that Todium stole all of Hoid’s Breaths? Do we know what effect this will have on Hoid going forward. Once he realizes it, I coudl see him leaving Roshar.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
I don’t believe Todd stole them all, just the ones that stored his memories of the meeting. Stealing them all would have caused harm, something not allowed by contract. I do believe that he viewed them all however; what better way to build his new Diagram than to plum the resources aka memories of one of the most long-lived and well-traveled beings in the Cosmere?
I also don’t believe a tri-Shard merger in the Rosharan system is in the cards either. I only see 2 possible paths for Dalinar going forward and both involve immortality. He’s either going to reforge Honor and fulfill the role Kovari set him up for, or he is going to lose and join the Fused as Rayse bargained for.
Loved the book, but then again I love all of Sanderson’s books so that isn’t a valuable comment for anyone.
One question: if Dalinar and the armies are all going to a region of the Phys realm very near where Lasting Integrity is in the Cog realm, why not have the Shademar Quest party go with him and enter Shadesmar through his Perpendicularity there? Since the flight to Tukar was so short from where the warcamp was, it would have been similarly easy to get to the shore and have Dalinar open his gateway in the water for them. I feel like the answer is “because the plot needed Adolin and Shallan to take a long journey”.
Posting before reading the review:
I loved it so much!
It was a harrowing journey for much of the book, but oh the ride was worth it.
I loved all of the action, the character moments, the love and growth of our characters, the lore, the inventions, etc.
Navani is amazing, and I love her arc. The end of Kaladin and Shallan’s arcs were such a relief.
The expansion of Cosmere lore was unexpected, and all of the new knowledge Navani discovered was fascinating.
But gosh, that ending was terrifying. Taravangium is Odium??! And he tricked Hoid?! And Dalinar’s deal is very worrying.
Adolin and Renarin were great. I liked Venli and Eshonai’s stories, though it made me sad again that Eshonai is dead. At least Venli recognizes how thoroughly she ruined things.
And Navani bonding the Sibling and Rlain and and and… I could go on, because so much happened.
It was amazing and I don’t really have any major complaints.
@88 I believe your question about raysium is answered by looking at Tanavastium. The honorblades are pure tanavastium I think, and they still function the same. Same for shardblades but they are an allow with the cultivation god metal so that could affect them differently. I think the god metals only depends on the shard, not the vessel, but just a theory. Maybe they have some properties that can be changed similar to how the magic systems can change on a shard’s intent, like how Honor/Tanavast limited the bondsmiths when he was alive. The names don’t really matter much but they seem to keep the same name as the first holder of the vessel so far. As for why it killed a Fused it was because there was anti-Voidlight in the dagger and the Anti-Voidlight destroys voidlight when combined with it. T
@93 I think Kaladin and Shallan are not completely done, but they are definitely close to having finished their growth. Kaladin still has an oath to potentially progress, and this actually raises a couple questions for me that Im surprised I haven’t seen asked already. What in the world is the 5th windrunner oath? I cant imagine what’s beyond “I accept there are those who cannot be saved.” Has there been many 5th oath windrunners? What is gained through a 5th tier oath other than better stormlight efficiency. Also, how present is a 4th or 5th oath spren in the physical realm? Syl can slightly push some not heavy things as a third tier, so I’m interested to see if there is a significant difference.
@98 Unfortunately I think the things with the heralds are more magically induced and have to do with them being cognitive shadows. I don’t see any amount of counseling helping them.
I do however share the sentiment that kaladin and syl’s arc was great. I would like to see more of syl growing, as well as kaladin, because I genuinely love them as characters. I know a lot of people think Kaladin cliché but that’s part of his majesty to me, because it is so well written that it doesn’t matter. Hits all the right parts. One of the things I actually want to happen, and it’s just speculation, is that Syl and Kaladin form a romantic relationship. The nahel bond is already very close to that, maybe even more intimate, but it would be interesting to see this. I go back to something someone said in one of the preview chapter discussions where men sometimes marry those that resemble their mother, and I think Syl is very similar to Kaladin’s mother in a way. There was also a question that Brandon RAFO’d about spren and human relationships and if there ever was one somewhere which made me think more about it.
Another thing Im surprised I don’t see people asking about is who accepted/denied Venli’s words? It said it was a “female” like voice, (I think), so was it Cultivation? Maybe Nightwatcher?
Loved the book as always, even if some of the Venli chapters felt like they dragged on.
Thanks :)
I found myself almost annoyed at the Venli flashbacks. They gave us information but we already knew she was selfish and cowardly. It did explain Ulim and some more about the murder of Gavilar but Venli has a long way to go for any redemption. It wasn’t until the scene with her mother that she did something purely for someone else. To me that felt a bit of a cheat. I mean come on? Of course she wants to help her mother. It would have been more inspiring if she had helped somone less integral to her life.
Someone mentioned Shallan being healed but she is not done. Radiant is still there. I was totally surprised that Radiant killed Ialai. I know many people had been guessing that but I was still thinking we had a spy, then boom.
It ocurrs to me that we still have the Sleepless and the Dawnshard wondering around on Roshar. How are they going to be involved in the big battle of the champions? Dalinar has already stated he will be the Champion of honor/humans so it seems the Sleepless should be backing him.
We have been told that a Shard ultimately takes control of the vessel’s intent. Is a cognitive shadow the same as a soul and a body? Is the shadow stronger without the body or weaker when it comes to intent? I have no idea where Cultivation is going with this but Todium scares me.
@112 TOdium is very scary. It’s a development I genuinely did not expect, but great narrative wise and maybe not so great for our heroes
Knowledge of Wit?
The thing about Todium is that the big T had a respect for the Blackthorn. He was even reluctant to betray Dalinar, but he does go through his plans. I think the big wildcard is actually Renarin. He has managed to occlude Odium’s view of the future – how he manages to do that is a big question mark. Glys has elements of Honor, Cultivation and Odium – Cultivation’s ability to see the future for some reason allows Renarin to be somewhat invisible to Odium. Now, I don’t think Todium got anything more from Wit than the knowledge of how to travel from the various worlds of the Cosmere. Todium probably knows that Szeth has the one blade that can do major damage to both the vessel and shard. I don’t know what Cultivation is planning – it appears that a lot of the things unfolding in the stories are due to plans that Cultivation and Honor may have hatched. So we’ll see what kind of knowledge Cultivation is able to give Todium and what the knowledge does to Todium.
Todium still wants to preserve humanity in Roshar. At least that’s what is implied at the end of ROW. He can save them all, it said. What does that mean? Will the Fuse still listen to Odium when they learn that the big T is the vessel? And if Szeth has somehow wounded the big T, he’s not at full strength and even Odium’s investiture may not be able to heal him fully. At this point, I think Odium is actually wounded and the shard of Odium is already in the beginning process of shattering. We’ll find out in three years. Though I wish Brandon would delay some of the other Cosmere works and release the fifth book of Stormlight sooner. Maybe a two year interval this time? That would coincide with the tenth anniversary of Words of Radiance, just in time for the leather-bound collector’s edition of that book.
As far as Szeth is concerned, what after talking with Ishar (which I expect him, Kaladin and Dalinar to do), Dalinar makes the unexpected choice. Szeth as the champion of humanity. Furthermore, what if humans and singers are actually closer to each other than anyone thought? I mean, the events of Stormlight are later in the history of the Cosmere than the other books. What if humans traveled to the Rosharan system and settled in both Ashyn and Roshar? And the Rosharan humans evolved differently, because the old magic and the climate lead to these changes. The humans and singers can interbreed after all. That only happens when the different organisms are close enough genetically.
Not that I think Szeth will be the champion, but what if whoever fights for the human side has access to Nightblood?
All in all, there are so many possibilities that have opened up with the way ROW ended. Wit already told Dalinar not to underestimate his second son. What does that mean in the context of the battle?
The one question that plagued me though this whole book. What The F is up with Renarin?
Also, when Kal found the little wooden horse from Tien 😭🤧
My capsule review: the first three parts were too long. Part One should have been two chapters introducing the current Part Two. The entire rest of it could have been reduced to a few pages of exposition and improved the story. Part Two was maybe 25% too long. Part three, maybe 10-15%. If I didn’t have a job, I would probably do a fan edit, that’s how sure I am.
Also, I am turned off by a story in which only gods and demigods matter. Aside from the Mink, can you think of any non-Radiants who affected the plot? (Ignore Kaladin’s family for this question.) Rushu, until she faded away like all the non-demigods halfway through, maybe slightly? That darkeyed officer who died bravely and was never mentioned by name again? Dammit, Moash is right in principle, but it isn’t the storming lighteyes, it’s the demigods.
(Note that Zahel is a god. Literally, he’s worshiped as a god on Nalthis.)
@birgit:
How would Renarin know that? Do you think his vision showed it?
Yes. From the steward we saw in the prologue (who Lift saw die), who is clearly a Terris worldhopper.
@housekiszka:
The pair that Brandon called the very best voice actors in the business? (I haven’t heard it and have no opinion, but maybe your taste differs from the author’s a lot.)
@Nina:
Notice that Maya is here echoing Venli’s I CHOOSE when the Fused confronts her at the end of Oathbringer. And over on Scadrial, Sazed/Harmony tells Wax that his main job is to make sure people have freedom to choose.
Way too straightforward for this author and this story.
He sees the same stained-glass panels in his last viewpoint, so probably.
@stormbrother:
See above, and probably because he’s a Worldsinger, or Seventeenth Shard, or some other competing secret society. We now know that the head of the Ghostbloods is Kelsier, so maybe a Terris steward was actually on Roshar to investigate or oppose the Ghostbloods, because they know that Kelsier is a psychopathic murderer. (He always was.)
Moash and Kelsier would get along. They both hate nobles for being nobles, and they’re both villains who could have been heroes.
Dalinar asked for Forgiveness. And got it.
@Almazar80:
No, they’re from the God Beyond. I can’t see how it would make sense for Cultivation to do those things, or even be able to. Also, why would Dalinar be the Bondsmith for an earthworm?
@goddessimho:
Hey, Thaidakar was a Vessel after becoming a Cognitive Shadow. He held Preservation for some time, until Vin was ready. And he cheated (as he said) and was still bad at it.
@15
“how cool would it be if Adolin became Maya’s sword and she was the Edgedancer in her own right after swearing the ideals? He’d be an impeccably etched, entirely graceful sword. .. I’m pretty certain it simply can’t work that way, but wouldn’t it be brilliant if it did? And Shallan could attempt to make dirty jokes about it.”
This simply *must* happen just so we can see Shallan’s classically terrible humour in action. Love it.
I really loved this book. All of it. But my favourite part is in the tower. I kept wanting to know more of what happened to Kaladin and Navani.
I know may people didn’t like all the science details in Navani’s plot, but I loved it because of it. I was amazed at how well Brandon integrated scientific research. Well with one exception, there is usually way much more failures than successes, but the book can only be so long…
I do have one question. Brandon said that one of the scene in this book is one that he has visualized long long ago and one of his favourite. Do we know which scene that is?
I enjoyed the book overall, and I am always amazed by Sanderson’s abilities to keep us guessing. So much to enjoy here that many others have already discussed. I’m a fan, and what I’m about to post doesn’t change that. However, for the sake of discussion, I’m going to point out what didn’t work for me as well in this book.
– I was disappointed overall by the Eshonai/Venli flashback chapters. I can’t quite put my finger on why they didn’t work for me, even though I loved the flashback device in the previous books. I just know that every time a flashback chapter came up as I was reading I would groan inwardly. In addition, I didn’t think the resolution of the flashback plot worked as well into the primary story as it did in other books.
– I personally struggle with the emphasis of the books on characters dealing with mental illness, even as I recognize (and respect) the fact that this often mirrors real life and know from comments made here that this is many people’s favorite part of the books. While this obviously played a part in the earlier books in the series, I didn’t feel like this emphasis slowed down the plot nearly as much as it did in RoW. It may be because the mental illness themes involved with Shallan and Kaladin have been repeated over and over for multiple books now and feel a bit stale. Again – I’m not insensitive to the realities involved in this subject, its just not something I want to spend so many pages rehashing at this point.
Finally, there’s a lot of speculation in the comments about the structure of book 5, and the past structure of the books normally containing 3 different primary storylines. From what I see (although there’s a lot of comments and I might have missed something!), I do think there’s two things that commenters aren’t adequately factoring into this discussion…
– Sanderson has pretty clearly established a precedent of writing “small” works between SA books (at least by his standards). Edgedancer and Dawnshard took up one specific plotline to advance character or plot development to a necessary point for the following book. I think an important part of figuring out how SA Book 5 will be structured will be to also factor in what might be covered by a novella like this. I don’t know if this is guessable at this point, but I’d love to hear what others think.
– SA Book 5 will also have a very different function than the other books in the series, as we have been told that it will serve as a finale to the first set of plotlines in the series while setting up a new storyline with mostly new primary characters for Books 6-10. While I certainly see Sanderson continuing to use the “Parts” and “Interludes” structure from the rest of the series, I don’t know if it’s going to possible to structure a book that needs to do so much with a set number of plotlines or group these plotlines into sections. I see a book more likely structured with all necessary plotlines running together and heading towards resolution with all necessary characters in whatever place they need to be at the same time for the climax for Books 1-5, then a short section at the end primarily devoted to setting up Books 6-10.
Writing the conclusion (even an intermediate one) to a series with as many characters and plotlines as SA is something that is beyond the ability of many writers. Fortunately, I think Brandon Sanderson’s past history (obviously including his experience wrapping up the massive WOT series) and abilities are more than up to the task. It will be a long three years, but I’m sure the wait will be worth it!!!
@119 Kaboom
I think it is the Wit and TOdium scene at the end.
I think there are many clues in this book that could portend for the future. Dalinar has already been referred to as a “Son of Honor” and a “Son of Odium.” Probably because he has copious amounts of investiture from both gods. With Cultivation’s pruning, he is also a “Son of Cultivation.” Now, has the big T ever been referred to as a “Son of Odium?” He was never really a Son of Honor, although some of his actions emanated from a misguided sense of honor. Of all the characters, Dalinar has the most investiture from the three Rosharan gods. It would be interesting to see what Ishar teaches Dalinar (if he does, which I assume will happen). I would not be surprised if Ishar somehow transfers the power and knowledge that he has to Dalinar (somehow). Whatever happens, the contest between Todium and Dalinar will be very interesting. The Big T liked Dalinar and Dalinar, even after the Big T’s betrayal, sort of understood what happened and why. It will be interesting to see how much the intent of the shard affects the remains of the Big T? Will the Big T still have an interest in saving all of humanity? How will he deal with the Fused and Singers. Most of them know that he was a traitor, so that might not be a problem. So many questions.
I would really love to know what happened to Wit at the end…
I still don’t get it
I just wanted to say – listening to the audiobook, Eshonai’s farewell chapter was so lyrical and thoughtfully written. Those words. We are so lucky to have them given to us. And they are gratefully and wondrously ACCEPTED.
Can, what happened to Wit be discussed? Did Taravodium take his memories, make him mortal, what in all of Roshar HAPPENED TO WIT!!!
@124 and @126
Potential Warbreaker spoiler:
I have only read Sanderson’s Warbreaker other than SA and based on them, this is what I understand: Wit, as he has lived for thousands of years, stores some of his (excess) memories in a form of investiture called Breaths. Todium took away some of Wit’s Breath and hence memories to:
a) Stop Wit from wondering why Odium is behaving differently/ strange
b) Maybe to stop him from realizing a loophole in the agreement which would let Todium win, either way
Losing some of his Breaths has made Wit forget his original encounter a few moments ago with Todium and also changed his way of thinking (what I call his Wittiness) and his musical ability (what Wit calls pitch?).
Mistborn Era 2 (Wax and Wayne) and minor Warbreaker spoilers:
Hoid (“Wit” to Aleshi people) appears in the Wax and Wayne books and seems fine. These books happen at some point after Stormlight book 5 and before it ends, according to Brandon.
Perfect pitch is one of the Heightenings that people receive by carrying extra Breath. Specifically, it requires 200 Breaths. Presumably Todium destroyed enough of Hoid’s Breath that he lost that Heightening.
Favorite thing: Kaladin starting an honest-to-Adonalsium “revolution” in treating mental illness on Roshar. I kept worrying that other events would permanantly derail this new development, but it’s still going strong at the end. I love portrayals of Kaladin’s depression, so much like mine that I find them as comforting as a warm bath, but I also love seeing him learn to fight it, and teach others to fight theirs, in ways that are also relatable.
Biggest disappointment: the almost complete absence of the Unmade. I was so excited to get the first-ever Unmade POV in Sja-Anat’s Interlude — the interludes and novellas remain my favorite parts of this series, for showing other places and perspectives as well as events that tend to be plot-relevant sooner or later — and then endlessly frustrated that we saw no more of them. I didn’t really want a return of Nergaoul, my least favorite, but I wanted all of the others, the familiarish and the entirely mysterious. That doesn’t diminish the book’s objective quality, as I seem to be the only one clamoring for more Unmade portrayals, but it was a letdown after the relatively bountiful Oathbringer.
I was also disappointed by the relative lack of flora and fauna portrayed, both in Roshar and Shadesmar, though the “Shallan’s sketchbook” excerpts helped a little. Navani’s scientific study didn’t interest me as much, not being biology-focused, though it was cool to see her doing that kind of thing
Teft’s death was a bummer, but blunted by my anxiety and then relief about Lift, a character I very very much don’t want to lose.
I always loved Shallan’s snarking, so I was happy when her three personalities were snarking at each other. I was less happy when the first one we met, my favorite, went and hid for a while, justified though that may have been.
I never liked Moash. He’s an evil asshat who tried to kill Kaladin and Lift, among other atrocities. But now that he’s blind, I might start relating to him. Awkward.
Can’t wait for the Reread on Tor!
Thanks for the review! It was very nice to have a summary after reading it all that helps to clarify a couple points.
Two points that I think are reasonable on the next book:
1) Adolin’s going to be Dalinar’s champion in the end. There’s a lot of setup in this book for Adolin struggling to figure out his relationship with his father, *and* a piece of Taravangium planning for Dalinar as the champion, or at least implying it. I think that Adolin’s going to argue with Dalinar about how he’s been preparing for it his entire life with duels and how this is *The Duel*, and is going to be shot down. Then, when the challenge later happens, he’s going to go against Dalinar’s wishes and step in anyways, throwing Taravangium’s plans into disarray.
2) I don’t think Adolin’s going to become a Knight Radiant, mostly because of his relationship with Maya. Instead, I think they’re going to have something new. Maybe Adolin’ll end up being Maya’s spren (in a physical form) as she swears Oaths, or they’ll have some new type of less one-sided bond, or something like that. But I don’t think he’s going to become a KR mechanically, even if he’ll always be a great contender for them spiritually.
Theory: Taravodium convinces Gavinor to become his champion. The boy has Passion, and wants to kill the Voidbringers — What better way to convince him that if he is Odium’s champion, that he will be able to command the Voidbringers to their deaths in his service? In so convincing Gavinor of this, he will arrive at the dueling grounds and poor Dalinar will forfeit.
How I know TOdium is temporary and won’t outlive the next book:
His god metal would be “taravangianium”. There’s no way Brandon will let a metal called taravangianium exist.
@@@@@ Carl: LOL!
This is definitely the weakest book in the series so far, I really struggled to get to the end of this one, luckily the last few chapters were the best part so I managed to get to the end.
I have to spend time to read through all this later, but I just wanted to get down a few highlights:
1)I still am holding out for that Kaleshwi ship :)
2)Speaking of, I don’t know if it is really a ship or not but honestly I was beginning to wonder of the book was going to end with Navan and Raboniel dying dramatically in each other’s arms (I am thinking of this in a very Anne Shirley – type melodrama type vibe). Even though you knew it had to be coming I was gutted when they had to keep betraying each other.
3)I’m actually not that into Navani bonding the Sibling only because it bugs me that she had to beg to be acknowledged as worthy. Maybe it was meant to be seen as a more empowering moment (her acknowledging her worth) but I don’t know…I wanted Rlain.
4)I legit cried/was not okay during the Tien flashback and the culmination of that whole lesson. (Actually, it also gave me serious vibes of a similar scene in Wheel of Time with Rand/Lews Therin/Ilyeana). I teared up a little during a few key Raboniel scenes too.
5)The epilogue and its implications was truly terrifying.
Question – do the ever talk about combining Lifelight and Voidlight?
Okay, I realize this might be obvious now (I’ve only skimmed about 100 comments or so) but it also occurred to me as I woke up this morning (I finished the book at about 1 am) that in some ways Kaladin’s journey to take the fourth ideal (culminating with his vision of Tien and the realization that he chose to sacrifice himself) is parralel to the Honorspren in general and Maya’s big revelation. Duh.
A few other thoughts:
Ishar always reminds me of Ishamael in Wheel of Time, another good guy-gone-crazy-bad. In fact I think they even refer to him as a philosopher at one point, lol.
Speaking of there’s kind of an interesting contrast to Wheel of Time in that the villains’ goal is either to break the wheel or complete annihilation (depending on which villain) and end the cycle. But in this story breaking the cycle (or allowing complete death with no reincarnation) is in some ways the end goal. Obviously both make sense in their context and the cycle refers to different things. But it was an interesting thought….somebody who is more on top of things could probably pull this apart better. (FWIW I was never a huge fan of the WoT resolution/conclusion but I understand how/why Jordan wanted it that way).
@Lisamarie, well dang. I totally missed the mirroring of Kaladin/Tien and the Honor spren/Maya. I can’t believe the stuff I miss until someone points it out and then it’s so obvious.
I just went through and read through the epigraphs again and it’s so fun to see it all click together (realizing who El is and the ‘final ten days’, for example).
But my heart at reading through the Rhythm of War and undertext…(and realizing what some of them hint at in future parts). Like, I just kind of love that they wrote this book together.
A few other miscellaneous comments:
1)I could totally see Gavinor as the champion because if you were Dalinar, would you be able to kill him?
2)I got the impression TOdium stripped Wit of investiture entirely. He mentions he can’t see his spren, he lost his perfect pitch, etc.
3)I would like to know more about Lift and Lifelight…it feels like her powers SHOULD be a little different. And I’d still like to know if Voidlight + Lifelight make something.
4)katherinemn@92 – that’s an interesting point about Renarin and I wonder if coming to terms with that truth would eventually have to be one of his ‘level up’ truths.
5)Expanding a little on the Navani/Sibling bond, while I do appreciate Navani-as-engineer is the best person for reviving the tower, I still feel like the conflict between the two of them is a bit much. How are they going to “compromise” on something Sibling knows is enslavement? In some ways that’s the big crux behind nice ideas like ‘Rhythm of War’ and finding common ground. At what point can you just not do that? And we know Rlain still very much has the enslavement of the parsh in mind so it feels like he’d be a good match for the Sibling (although I’m happy with how his arc turned out). But, I can see how Sibling and Navani work together, eh.
I have to admit, I don’t totally disagree with the review at 20 (and I think Paige is a little overly dismissive – there are plenty of comments of equal length raving about the book. I understand that the beta-readers are very invested in the book and not inclined to criticize it, but sometimes the reviews do fee a little bit…cliquey). I in general really enjoyed the book but also feel it could probably have been about 200 pages shorter – I glaze over at a lot of the overly mechanical fight scene descriptions and some of the more technical aspects of the info dumps. I liked the stuff about the nature of light and spren but the more technical descriptions about the way the fabrials worked, the pullies, weights etc definitely started to drag for me. I also felt some of the Shadesmar parts were a little unevenly paced. Looking back, the searches for the nodes to be kind of drawn out…for me it sometimes felt a little transparently a method to ‘run down the clock’ and provide some tension. Not saying this is bad per se, but I wonder if the number of nodes (and encounters) could have been condensed. But I did at times feel like the book was just building up to the ‘big moments’ (which were great – I teared up at various points and even outright cried and it is hard for a book to do that, because I usually require music to cry/tap into my emotions. Which is funny as music was such a huge component to this book AND I LOVED THAT. Can you imagine the scenes where Navani and Raboniel sing/discover the new rhythm as a movie scene? Or her death scene? I would be sobbing).
I did really enjoy Venli’s arc though (and Kaladin’s) but I do see where the pacing wasn’t always even thoughout the different arcs. I like that Venli isn’t automatically a perfect character; she’s kind of a George Bailey in my opinion – always struggling/fighting against her worse nature. I don’t mind Adolin’s arc either – I am fine with not every character having to go through some harrowing experience and his victories felt earned to me (to me this is very parallel to my opinions on various Star Wars arcs, hehe). He has struggles, they’re just not super dramatic. And I don’t mind the cosmere references, to me they are tantalizing hints of a wider world.
@Lisamarie:
How about the parallel I didn’t get (consciously) until at least a week after finishing the book: between how the Honorspren treated deadeyes, and how the Alethi treat the mentally ill? Locking them away in a dark place where they can’t hurt themselves, you know? Adolin and Kaladin actually have parallel arcs here.
EDIT, and SPOILERS for Warbreaker and a Word of Brandon about it:
Of course, Brandon has said that the way the Halandren treat the Lifeless soldiers–locking them away in dark caves for months or years at a time–is also cruel and will have consequences. They aren’t as unaware or uncaring as the living think they are. That’s a pretty good parallel to the deadeyes, if you think about it.
Note also: this is Jasnah’s memory of being locked away and screaming, that we know almost nothing about. One suspects she’ll be behind Kaladin’s mental health movement ….
That would actually defeat Tavarangian’s purpose, to fool Hoid into thinking nothing has changed. Hoid can’t see Design because he sent her away earlier in the chapter, and doesn’t remember doing it because TOdium destroyed the Breath he had been storing memories in.
That’s Lightweavers. Pattern says that Lightweavers are different from other Radiants, so presumably Truthwatchers swear oaths. Granted, it would seem reasonable for “Truth” watchers to use Truths, and also Renarin is not a standard-issue Radiant.
I’m with you.
Here’s an easy cut that would have been made if I was Brandon’s editor: remove Chapter 15, incorporating the Rlain part into another chapter. Seriously, the Zahel section adds nothing to the actual story. If you excise it, nothing is lost. Both Raboniel and the Stormfather explain Cognitive Shadows again later anyway. Just cut it and the story is measurably better.
I like Vasher, but he isn’t actually in this book. If you wanted to give him a cameo, that could have been a couple of pages, not this long lecture during a gongfu movie sword-vs.-wizard duel.
I fear that Brandon is falling into the trap that hurt both Robert Heinlein and Stephen Donaldson, during my time reading genre fiction: they became too big to edit, and with nobody feeling able to enforce cuts, their books bloated out incredibly. He isn’t there yet, but this trend is worrisome.
True, the Zahel scene could’ve been cut without detriment to the story. But I, for one, would wonder where he is and why he isn’t there to help in this dire situation. Therefore, I think, to integrate the Zahel chapter more to the story, we needed at least one more small scene, later, when Kaladin is at his most desperate, to either try to find Zahel, or task the other ardent to try to find him. Perhaps they don’t find him. Perhaps they find him and he blusters an, “I told you It’s not my fight,” and storms off. Either way, I wanted more Zahel.
@139 – You’re totally right about Renarin/Truthwatchers. I got those mixed up for a second!
Hah, nice connection with the deadeyes/battle shocked. I also was wondering what Jasnah’s reaction would be (and what her particular ailment had been, given that it was unlikely battle shock).
Lisamarie – who the hell is El? Just wondering….
@Marbelcal: I did wonder where Zahel was and what he was doing, because that one chapter was just a weird digression from the story. Zahel hasn’t actually done anything yet, which is frustrating to me. It may pay off in Book 5 or Book 8 or something, but right now he’s just a digression.
@142 – In general, I don’t know! But he wrote the epigraphs for the fifth part, so it was interesting going back and reading them now hat you’ve been introduced to the character in story (and what some of the things he references refer to).
Also I had totally forgotten about undertext and what it signified during my initial read through, until Dalinar was talking about it with Jasnah. So while I was reading some of the earlier epigraphs (for part 3?) and it kept referring to undertext I wasn’t totally getting what that meant…but agian, after the whole arc has played out reading it and realizing it’s basically them talking back and forth with through their research notebook is just…I don’t know, I get such an ‘Anne Shirley’ esque tragically ‘romantic’ dramatic bosom friend type vibe from the whole thing lol.
Ah, that is helpful.
I’m pretty sure El is an Hemalurgist. He always “ripped off his natural carapace formations at each rebirth, then replaced them with metal inclusions. They were incorporated into his body by Voidlight healing and his own special talents.” And we know from Arcanum Unbound that Hemalurgy is “[u]sable by anyone with the right knowledge, this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls regardless of planet or Investiture.”
What’s interesting is that he used it long before the Lord Ruler started to, if I’m getting the timeline right.
@146 this feels so obvious in hindsight :)
@RobMRobM, “el” is also Hebrew (and Aramaic, and Ge’ez, and Canaanite) for “god.” It looks to me like Brandon and his linguist assistant, Peter Ahlstrom, playing with language. Just like our real-world named Michael (“like God”), Daniel (“God judges”) and Samuel (“name of God”) we have Roshar’s Raboniel and also words like Nahel and Zahel. (Note that Zahel is literally worshiped as a god on Nalthis … and says in this book that he hates gods.)
@148 – interesting insight, thanks. As is normal with this series, I was trying to figure out if El was someone we met before in Stormlight and should have recognized, met before in another Cosmere book and should have recognized, a type from Stormlight or another Cosmere book that I should have recognized or an entirely new player. My mind hurts.
@148 I was noticing that too (thinking of things like El-Shaddai). I’ve noticed some of the other Singer names (Raboniel, Eshonai – which also reminds me of the word Adonai, and then of coures you have Adonalsium…) have a similar feel.
That said, El also makes me think of Stranger Things, lol.
@Lisamarie: I commend once before about Adonalsium as a multilingual reference. As you say, Adonai is Hebrew for “The Lord.” On the other hand, “-ium” is the Latin ending for “substance” or something like that, as in “uranium” and “sodium.” So Adonalsium would be “Substance of the Lord.” Of course Brandon and Peter have defined “Ado” as being “light” in cross-Cosmere languages, but I’m still sure this was deliberate on their parts.
Lisamarie @135. I agree. I think it would have been better for the story if Rlain bonded the Sibling. I would have enjoyed reading how they each navigated the bond in Book 5 (and in Books 6-10). Oh well. I trust Brandon that he has an excellent story in mind regarding the Navani/Sibling Bond and Rlain/Tumi bond.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
I have to say I liked this book much better than Oathbringer, at least on first reading, Oathbringer felt like there’s no development on Kaladin or Shallan, like they’re standing still with only minimal movement in their character development. With this book I could guess where Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin, and even Navani were going in terms of character development, but to me it felt satisfying after Oathbringer rather than predictable in a bad way. I did vacillate between guessing whether it’ll be Navani or Rlain or even Dabbid who would bond the Sibling, but everything the Sibling described as a requirement to bond them described Navani to a T, the only obstacle was the Sibling’s willingness, but the Stormfather wasn’t too happy to bond Dalinar either.
@35, Is Shallan’s bisexuality confirmed in the text somewhere? I thought I was imagining her crush on Jasnah, lol. Also the trans monarch mentioned in Dawnshard I’m fairly certain is the same one Rysn met with in her Interlude in Words of Radiance.
@27, @28, @97, Re: Adolin and Maya: I agree with the whole cracked spren being filled by human bond vs the cracked human being filled with spren bond difference, I don’t think the bond they’re forming is bad for Adolin, even if we don’t know what he gets out of it yet other than faster Blade summoning and Blade reshaping. Lending Maya strength and being able to feel when she’s having intense emotions isn’t necessarily costing Adolin anything except maybe emotional anguish over someone he cares about being in pain. I think they’ll just be something new, not Radiant, not whatever Renarin and Rlain are becoming, and also not related to the Old Magics, the series already feels stuffed too full of magic systems, especially with all the interactions between Investitures.
One of my favourite things about RoW is the interaction between different kinds of Investiture, knowing how they work, but I don’t feel like they’re more than particularly big easter eggs. The metals could just be metals if you don’t know Mistborn, the Awakening adds mystery to Zahel if you don’t know Warbreaker, the only thing that might be a little too convenient to non-Cosmere aware readers is the sand.
I read Adolin’s rejection of talk of him becoming Radiant not as a rejection of Dalinar’s ideas for who or what he is, but as an unwillingness to abandon Maya. But I also think he doesn’t want to become Radiant, just like he doesn’t want to be king. I think the books will be stronger to have one major character who doesn’t have magic powers, who is more or less normal.
@46, I don’t think I saw anyone else address this but Vivenna is from the royal line, they can change their appearance at will, no Divine Breath needed. I think it’s easiest for them to change their hair colour, but they can change other things too as much as the gods can. I don’t think Brandon explained why or how this works yet.
Odium’s champion: It’s hinted pretty heavily that this will be El, the Fused that showed up at the end, because he had quite a bit of presence in the epigraphs. It probably won’t be Hoid or Adolin or even Szeth because the terms call for a willing champion and Taravangian will know not to bet on them especially after Rayse’s experience with Dalinar.
@AndrewHB, Wow, that’s some detailed theorizing. I don’t know how much I have but here goes:
If the ketek initials theory is true then I predict the first word of book 5 will be Knight(s). I think Kaladin’s odd company will be Szeth, that they’ll travel together to Shinovar and then split up with Kaladin going to find Ishar and Szeth going to do his thing, it might end up being a Kholinar dynamic except they’re not working on the same mission, they might help with each other’s mission, but it’ll be an interesting dynamic to watch either way.
It’s going to take longer than ten days for Shallan to find Ba-Ado-Mishram too, and she’s the only one right now who recognizes the importance of returning BAM. There’s trails marked on the Shadesmar map so Shallan and Adolin might not be returning to the Physical Realm just yet.
I think the ten days deadline will only take us up to the end of the first part, even the second part is going to be stretching it. The only book so far that had a countdown was Words of Radiance, and that took up way more than just ten days, so I don’t think the whole of book 5 will be contained in it. My theory is something is going to go wrong at the duel, whether it’s Taravangian doing something he thought was clever or Dalinar making a mistake, and they’re going to spend the rest of the book dealing with it. I’m hoping (well, not really hoping but kind of hoping) that Dalinar makes a mistake because he’s not far enough along with his Bondsmith oaths and it let’s TOdium free of Roshar, because that’s the only way I could see it being only a fifteen year jump between 1-5 and 6-10. Rayse wanted to Splinter the other Shards and be the only god in the Cosmere, but we don’t know yet what Taravangian wants to do, he might choose to leave the Rosharan system for a while and allow the humans and singers to try to make peace if Dalinar accidentally breaks the contract. My guess is breaking the contract doesn’t constitute as losing, so it allows TOdium off-world but doesn’t put Dalinar into TOdium’s service.
I don’t see how the Heralds or even just Ishar could be the main villain(s) in books 6-10, it doesn’t feel big enough after the god-level conflict with Odium. My guess is the series is going to expand even more with books 6-10, with the new generations of Knights Radiant much more aware of the Cosmere and different types of Investiture, and people from other planets coming to Roshar to work much more openly because of the threat TOdium presents–Sazed is basically trying to form a coalition of his own among the Shards to try to resist Odium. The Heralds can still have a big part as teachers and guides to the Cosmere at large.
I haven’t decided yet if the Dawnshard should come into play in book 5 or in books 6-10. Theoretically there should be sixteen Dawnshards to go with the sixteen Intents/Shards of Adonalsium. Book 5 might feel too soon, but Brandon did introduce it before RoW, so it might become relevant as early as book 5. For my money though, I’d guess they’ll use it in 6-10 to Splinter the Shard of Odium and make it so no one can hold it again.
Similarly I don’t think Dalinar will be able to reforge the Shard of Honour, despite his abilities as a Bondsmith, I just don’t think he would have the juice to reforge a god power, at least not on his own. It’s pretty heavily implied to my mind that the Splintering of the Shards happened with the power of the Dawnshards. My theory is that that’s how Rayse Splintered the other Shards, and Cultivation and Honour were able to separate him from it, after which they were able to trap Odium in the Rosharan system. So I think Dalinar would need the Dawnshard if he wanted to reforge the Shard of Honour to be held by a Vessel again.
@tkThompson
Not to my knowledge, it’s confirmed in a WoB, and thus not canon until it appears in a story (but very likely).
Another WoB says that the Idrian Royal Line, descendants of Vo, the first Returned, have a partial Divine Breath somehow. We have also seen Vasher change his appearance, which we assume was using his own Divine Breath. (He has also removed someone’s memory, by the way, not unlike what Taravangian did at the end of this book.)
Dawnshard indicates that there are four, each of which is associated with four Shards of Adonalsium.
@154: Regarding Shallan’s bisexuality (and regarding all three personalities as elements of Shallan), in Chapter 12 Veil’s checking out other women, saying she likes dumb girls (“they’re so much easier to impress”) in answer to Kaladin’s “Who doesn’t like smart girls?” comment, and quizzing Adolin about how his ex’s breasts feel. So I would consider that textual confirmation of Shallan’s bisexuality
@carl, When I first read the part about the Dawnshards I interpreted that as four in the Rosharan system, because I took the mural of the broken sun to represent the pieces of the Dawnshards rather than the Intents, and also I didn’t see how the original Vessels for the Intents could decide who got to hold a Dawnshard if it wasn’t one apiece. I also wasn’t sure how knowledgeable/reliable the Sleepless are because we don’t know where they’re from, if they’re from Ashyn like the Rosharan humans they might not know everything about the Dawnshard, but if they’re from Yolen then their knowledge might be a little more complete.
@tkThompson: consider the mural that “was” the Dawnshard until it escaped into Rysn.
Just finished the book. I need to know that Rock DID NOT just die off screen!
@158 – Rock did not die off screen.
Rock will be the subject of the pre-book five novella, per Word of Brandon.
Reading RoW, especially Part 5, is emotionally like being strung out in a highstorm. We keep getting hit with boulders like Formless, Kal’s nightmares, Teft’s death, etc. All the heartwrenching or terrifying moments make it all the more glorious when we gasp in the Light and race the wind, like when Maya talks, Navani bonds and sends Moash running, Kal saves his dad and his scars heal, Venli heals her mother, etc.
The cliffhangers have me terrified for the whole Cosmere, like Dalinar’s contract, Taravangian Ascended, Wit’s lost memories, and what-in-the-world-is-Ishar-doing-to-the-Nahel-spren. I’m half afraid Dalinar will lose, since Sanderson so often yanks the rug out from under us to keep us guessing. I really hope I’m wrong, but with Sanderson, anything could happen…
Tangent:
“He was in Shardplate. He was in SHARDPLATE. ‘Ha!'” (Sanderson, RoW p.1166)
I’m surprised no one has mentioned that Kal can SHARE his PLATE!!! Choosing Adin–an overeager kid–as the POV character for that scene was Brilliant! I sat giggling nonstop at this scene, picturing an 8-yr-old boy with what he’d see as the coolest toy ever! I love that Kal can share his Living Plate! I hadn’t imagined for a second that it was even possible, but it just makes sense! He doesn’t really need it much himself, and how better to “protect those who cannot protect themselves” than to blow them a gust of impervious windspren armor while he fights someone else? Now, he practically can be two places at once, at least in battle. Also, did anyone else feel like Kaladin protecting Adin was symbolic? Kal couldn’t save Tien, but he could save this kid who would have suffered the same fate.
I wonder what else can be done with Living Plate? What kind of spren formed Jasnah’s armor? Can she send it like Kaladin did, or might that be restricted to windspren?
I can’t figure out how to edit my original comment so:
Looks like several people posted about Kal’s Living Plate while I was still typing my comment and I didn’t think to check for new comments before posting, so I accidentally lied in saying no one had mentioned it yet. My mistake!
I’ve been thinking about the themes of the books, and what we can predict of the fifth book’s theme. Oathbringer’s theme was Journey before Destination, and it seems obvious that Rhythm of War’s theme is Strength before Weakness. But there are five books, and only three parts of the First Radiant Oath. But it makes sense if you think of it as a ketek, a sort of symmetrical poem, such as the final poem in Rhythm of War. In that case:
The Way of Kings’ theme is Life before Death. That makes sense, as the story of Kaladin and Bridge Four is about choosing life before death.
Words of Radiance’s theme is Strength before Weakness. That fits, as it was about protecting the weak, and Shallan finding strength by acting strong (putting her strength before her weakness).
Oathbringer’s theme is Journey before Destination. Dalinar’s journey, mostly.
Rhythm of War’s theme is Strength before Weakness. We see this in Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin and Maya, even Navani.
So, we expect the next book’s theme to be Life before Death.
Except . . . in a ketek both words would be switched. It would be Weakness before Strength, Death before Life (and Journey before Destination before Journey, I suppose, for Oathbringer). Which doesn’t make a ton of sense, until you realize that a ketek doesn’t have to be an exact reversal.
What if, instead of Weakness before Strength, the theme of Rhythm of War was more along the lines of Weakness brings Strength (or Weakness begets Strength). That actually fits the book better than Strength before Weakness. It ties into Adolin’s speech to Shallan about weakness making one strong. We can see that in Shallan’s case, in Kaladin’s depression teaching him to endure, in Adolin’s and Maya’s helplessness forming a bond between them, and in Navani’s captivity forcing her to find her strength as a scholar.
So I’m going to predict that the next book’s theme will be “Death begets Life.”
I’m only up to Chapter 97 (I haven’t read this entire article or any of the comments) but I need to comment on chapters 93 and 94. Sanderson is astounding.
In back to back chapters, he reveals the last memory that Shallan had been running away from (that she had bonded with a Cryptic much earlier, the original Pattern, and killed her) and resolves her persona/Veil arc (I’m guessing). Then he reveals that the spren had sacrificed themselves during the Recreance and had not been murdered, instead partnering with the Radiants to break their oaths, while giving us the payoff for Adolin’s relationship with Maya. In consecutive chapters he answers two burning questions that had been brewing for years, while raising a whole lot more, while giving us major payoffs.
And the revelations were so elegantly and brilliantly simple. (New) Pattern kept saying Shallan was going to kill him – because she’d already bonded a Pattern previously and killed her. Of course! It made total sense. This was the truth she couldn’t bear revealing to the other Radiants – because she’d already committed her own Recreance. Then we are immediately told the actual truth of the Recreance – it was a mutual breaking of bonds. Of course! The Nahel bond is so intimate and special, of course it was a partnership and not a widespread murder. Both the Pattern and the Recreance reveals seem so obvious in retrospect, but I don’t remember reading ANY speculation that hit the mark. Sanderson is an absolute genius.
The implications for Shallan are wonderful. Firstly, I believe she was too young to be held responsible for murdering her spren – she couldn’t have known breaking oaths would kill her, unless shed already been told, and Radiants are meant to be fully grown and mature adults (though I guess there’s Lift). Also I believe (although I can’t remember if we’ve been explicitly told) that she killed her mother with (Old) Pattern – you wouldn’t want your bond either if you’d ended up committing matricide because of it. Secondly, it means her killing her spren is an isolated incident, not a indicator of another Recreance, and the future of Radiants isn’t in jeopardy because of her. She has no reason to be scared of what Adolin and Dalinar might think, because it’s an isolated incident. Terrible, but isolated.
Reading these two chapters just blew me away. Only 160 or so pages to go.
I think we have seen El on screen. He was first referred to as Hariel by Ulim in Oathbringer. Grand of the Fused was his title. Division likely to be his surge from the description in that interlude.
@Tunbosun, the -el ending is meant to make the language of the singers seem like Hebrew, which ends lots of names in -el (Michael, Samuel, Ariel, Gabriel, etc.). Note Raboniel, for one.
The El we see in this book doesn’t appear to have “one of the worst tempers.” Indeed, the Defeated implicitly criticizes him for not being proud and defensive enough.
@carl, while I agree that there’s some thematic thing going on with names of the fused, I still think that Hariel is El.
Notice how he mentioned that a Femalen with whom he has fought countless times over was supposed to take Venli’s body. (In my opinion that was Raboniel)
In ROW it was stated somewhere that Raboniel was only recently awakened which is inline with the point made above.
Notice also that the monumental discovery of War Light was sent to El by Raboniel despite having been striped of his title further affirming that there’s a special relationship between them.
As for the defeated one, I would surmise that his show of respect to El is a testament to El’s “badassry”
I may be wrong, but I think I will hold on my assertions until we get El’s story.
Given the conversation where Dalinar clarifies to Nivani that Kaladin is his best soldier but not his best fighter, I think he was clearly alluding to Zahel as his champion. The only poszsible contestants are Dalinar, himself, his son, Adalin, or Szeth. Dalinar is the Blackthorne – enough said. Adalin is probably the most gifted duelist. Szeth is, well, Szeth – trained in the honor blades, defeats kal and Dalinar together, and – I dont need to go on. Of the latter three, the least likely is Adalin – Dalinar is unlikely to proffer his own son – especially when he specifically highlights this will be about more than skill with a sword. I also see Szeth as unlikely as he is still mentally troubled. Dalinar does mention doing some things yourself and so that strongly points towards him as his own champion. This is also the least costly in that if his champion loses, the side of the radiants only lose one, and not two. However, he does say best warrior. There are only two people that have definitively bested Kaladin – Szeth and zahel, and Zahel makes Kal look like a noob…
In fact, he says he plans to be his own champion explicitly. Chapter 112: “Odium, I intend to be my own champion. I’ll have died if you win.”