Welcome back to the Warbreaker reread! Last time, Siri was primped and prepped to meet her new husband. This week, she enters The Chamber, and Lightsong watches fireworks.
This reread will contain spoilers for all of Warbreaker and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. This is particularly likely to include Words of Radiance, due to certain crossover characters. The index for this reread can be found here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Chapter 7
Point of View: Siri, Lightsong
Setting: The God King’s Palace, The Court of Gods
Timing: immediately following Chapter 6
Take a Deep Breath
Chapter 7: Siri enters the bedchamber, lit only by a fire in the hearth. The room is all in black, right down to the bedsheets and covers. Trying to get her bearings, she inadvertently meets the eyes of a larger-than-life black-clothed figure seated in a black throne-like chair. Overwhelmed with her instructions and the situation, Siri fumbles to undress quickly, then kneels and bows, waiting for her summons. Time passes; she worries; nothing happens; she waits.
Lightsong watches a display of fireworks, outwardly enjoying himself but inwardly thoughtful. Llarimar approaches, but Lightsong insists that he should go enjoy the festivities with his family in the city. Another person approaches: Blushweaver the Beautiful, goddess of honesty, being honest as anything about what’s under the dress she’s almost wearing. Lightsong anticipates an interesting interaction, as he waits to see what she wants. Verbal sparring ensues, resulting in her suggestion that they retire from the festivities to “find… other entertainments.” He hesitates, and in the pause he sees again the face of the woman in his earlier vision; he finds himself declining Blushweaver’s invitation, claiming that he’s too lazy, and must maintain that reputation. She’s both baffled and miffed, but makes no move to leave him; Lightsong’s suspicion that she had a further motive is confirmed.
Blushweaver is concerned about the implications of having a new queen, and this one of the royal line. She attempts to concern him with the political intrigue, but he brushes her off. Finally, she leaves with words of warning—and, of course, teasing. He returns to his entertainments, but his inner thoughts are more troubled than ever.
Breathtaking
“The God King rules. Everyone knows that.”
“He didn’t rule three hundred years ago,” Blushweaver said. “The royals did. Then, after them, Kalad did—and after him, Peacegiver. Change can happen quickly. By inviting that woman into our city, we may have initiated the end of Returned rule in Hallandren.”
This whole section, including several paragraphs before, is just full of wrong information. The “royals” are actually descendants of a Returned; Kalad and Peacegiver are the same person; “that king up in the highlands” isn’t remotely interested in taking “his lands” back. We obviously won’t learn most of this until the end of the book, but there are so many false assumptions on the part of the supposed gods, the ones who ostensibly rule Hallandren. I suppose this is true of any ruler or ruling body; they don’t know everything, half of what they think they know is wrong, even then they base their decisions on biases that make no sense from any other perspective, and much of their course is based on fear. This sounds so familiar! What… Oh, I know. It sounds like just about every human being who ever lived. Okay, then.
Local Color
This week’s annotations talk about chapter breaks—when and how to make dramatic use of them—and Blushweaver. Most of it is Blushweaver, in fact; there’s a good bit of background on her fifteen years of goddess-hood. My favorite bit is this one, though:
When designing this story, I knew I wanted to have a beautiful goddess to give Lightsong some verbal sparring. However, I realized early on that I didn’t want to go the route of having a disposable, sultry bimbo goddess of love. I needed someone more complicated and capable than that, someone who was a foil to Lightsong not just in verbal sparring, but someone who could prod him to be more proactive. And from that came Blushweaver.
“Disposable, sultry bimbo goddess of love.” What a description. Even though she’s definitely sultry, and is eventually… disposed of, I’d say he managed to avoid making her what the phrase implies.
Snow White and Rose Red
Poor Siri. Required to enter the chamber alone, strip naked, and grovel on a cold stone floor in front of someone who, according to everything she’s ever been told, is a tyrant with a short temper who just might decide to execute her for an inadvertent wrong move, it’s no wonder her mind races around the circles it takes. Isn’t she pretty enough? Is he angry that she’s the wrong princess? Is he angry that she looked at him? Did she undress too slowly? Is he just toying with her? Is he trying to emphasize the lowliness of her position compared to his? Is he testing her?
In the end, she perseveres—partly for the sake of her people, but also because she simply refuses to give up. She definitely was the right girl for the job:
Vivenna had the training. Vivenna had the poise and the refinement. But Siri, she had the stubbornness.
And so she waits.
As I Live and Breathe
The white fabric was throwing out a spectrum of colors, like light bent by a prism. She regarded this with shock, wondering what was causing the strange effect.
I’ll just leave that there for now. Siri doesn’t know, and we’ll find out later, what makes this happen. I have just one question, for those of you who have read Arcanum Unbounded: Is this related to the afterimage Lift sees when Szeth moves? Sanderson revealed at a signing recently that “Anyone sufficiently Invested can see them. Connection to the Cognitive Realm helps, too.” Presumably, anyone with a Breath—or enough Breath—might be able to see it, but the big question for me is whether Szeth’s effect is created by the amount of Investiture Nightblood holds? (Spoiler for Edgedancer in white; select the blank area to read it. To discuss it, please identify your comment as containing spoilers, or make the text white.)
Clashing Colors
Siri notes again that Returned are not uncommon in Idris; they happen at about the same rate as anywhere else, and there’s nothing wrong with it. The problem, for an Idrian, is the consumption of Breath to keep them alive beyond their allotted week. I have to confess to a certain sympathy with this. Whatever may happen with buying and selling Breath among the populace, and however long it lasts when treated as merchandise, a Breath given to a Returned is used up in one week. A Breath that would have lasted its owner a full lifetime is gone in just a few days for the sake of keeping a Returned alive a little longer. Sure, it got them enough money to feed their family for a year, but long before the money is spent, the Breath is gone, and so is another, and another, and another. It really is a little creepy. I’d like to know what Endowment thinks of the Returned staying alive this way; either way, it’s certainly a point of contention between Idris and Hallandren.
Back to the subject of fear from a few weeks ago (and as referenced in the Breathtaking unit above), Blushweaver seems to believe that Siri’s arrival is part of an Idrian plot to take over Hallandren. Her entire case to Lightsong is the dangers that may arise from having a queen with real royal blood, a series of hypothetical propositions that could perhaps remove power from the Returned and give it to the old royalty one way or another. It’s hard to know with Blushweaver, but she seems sincerely concerned about it.
Ironically, of course, Siri’s arrival is really part of an Idrian hope-against-hope gambit to just be left alone: They see it as giving Hallandren the legitimacy it’s been denied, hoping the Hallandren won’t take over Idris once they’ve got royal blood in the line again.
In Living Color
We meet our second member of the pantheon this week: Blushweaver the Beautiful, goddess of honesty. (I find that so twisted, since she rarely seems to be intentionally honest about anything.) On a reread, it’s easy to observe that she’s another prime example of how the Returned make their physical appearance be whatever they think is appropriate to the persona given them by the priests. The annotations make it clear (more than the text) that her perceived role is carefully crafted in such a way as to put her in the most powerful position she can manage. To tell the truth, I’ve never been able to bring myself to like or trust her very much…
Lightsong, ten years her “junior” in terms of godhood, undoubtedly enjoys the verbal sparring, but it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t exactly trust her, either. However annoying his flippancy can be at times, the fact that he doesn’t trust her gives me a lot more confidence in him.
I’m amazed, as I reread this book for… the third or fourth time now?… how much more foreshadowing I’m finding with respect to the relationship between Llarimar and Lightsong (presumably because I’m actually looking for it). Like this:
“Scoot,” Lightsong said, giving the man a pointed look, “if there’s one thing you can trust me to do competently on my own, it’s enjoy myself. I will—I promise in all solemnity—have a ravishingly good time drinking to excess and watching these nice men light things on fire. Now go be with your family.”
Llarimar paused, then stood, bowed, and withdrew.
Actually, my dear Lightsong, that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.
Background Color
So here are a couple more little hints about the Manywar dropped into the pot, telling us that it all happened about 300 years ago, that Kalad had driven the royal line out of Hallandren and into the highlands, and that Peacegiver had taken over from Kalad. Hah!
Exhale
The biggest takeaway from this chapter seems to be the incredible amount of misinformation, misunderstanding, and miscommunication floating around. The biggest question it raises is whether the priests, on the whole, believe the things they teach or whether they merely use their position to manipulate the gods and the people into doing what they want done. Are all these errors deliberate? Or is truth merely twisted over time as a result of the biases and fears of those in power who stand to benefit or be harmed by it?
I’m rather looking forward to the next Vasher chapter, now. At least he remembers most of the history, and is mostly honest about what he remembers!
That’s it for the blog—now it’s time for the comments! Join us again next week, when we will cover chapter 8, in which Siri tries to figure out what to do with herself. See also the Annotation.
Alice Arneson is a SAHM, blogger, beta reader, and literature fan. She hopes you’ve all been reading and discussing Arcanum Unbounded, and are enjoying the holiday season, however you celebrate it.
One wonders what Blushweaver’s past life was like :) Since my memory is fuzzy, I don’t remember – do we ever learn if there is any particular logic/intent as to who becomes a Returned and why? Or is that something that would only be more understood if I had read the Stormbringer books (I just ordered them and they are sitting on my desk now waiting to be read!)
Speaking of misinformation, I need to make a note to ask Brandon at the next signing if Siri’s charade in the bedchamber was common practice or something Bluefingers made up. For a being that is totally unaware of what sex is, it seems dubious to have this practice in place if the poor man knows nothing of what’s expected of him.
I don’t have the book handy right now, but is this the chapter that contains my favorite Sanderson joke? Lightsong says something like (paraphrasing here), “My dear, did you just try to prove the existence of God through your cleavage?”
Kalad sounds like Kaladin. Is there a connection between the two names or does Brandon just like the sound of it?
Still need to actually read the post, but formatting issue: this isn’t tagged as being part of the Warbreaker reread, so no next/previous links.
Regarding the potential AU spoilers and the question within, I would say “no”. They seem different enough. The light effect that Siri notices here is probably a purely physical end result even if it is caused by something that isn’t purely physical – ie everyone would see the effect in the same way that everyone can see rainbows. I can’t remember if this was ever absolutely confirmed but I don’t remember there being any hints otherwise.
Regarding Blushweaver’s incorrect information, remember who she’s secretly working with. They’ve probably been feeding most of this stuff to her and have been for years. They’ve probably tried feeding this sort of thing to all the gods and testing who is falling for it and who is willing to do something as a result.
@@.-@ – Just added the missing tag, thanks for letting us know!
@1: No. Reading SA would not give you more information about who returns here. I believe there is a WoB about the process, but I’m not good at finding those. I remember something about it being almost random.
@3: I think its a “like the sounds” thing. Cosmere timeline wise this book takes place at least a century before the SA. Again there is a WoB, but I can’t quote it.
@Alice: So many good points about fear of the hypothetical. And how this false information hurts policy. I’ll leave it at that.
Re: Unbounded: @5 has a good point.
We will also need to see if he has them when not carrying Nightblood. Or does it only happen when he holds NB.
end white
I’ll probably say this again when it happens… But I’m rather mad at Blushweaver’s murder. Upon reflection it is just such a waste. Such a “fridge the female” type moment. I’m happy Sanderson has not done a similar thing since. Killing Llarimar could have made a similar point, but then we would not have the moment of him yelling at his brother.
Also, a great quote from this chapter:
As far as the mistaken/misleading information, this feels like something that Sanderson picked up from WoT: what if the histories are more story than fact?
@3, after finishing the book, I was fairly convinced that Kalad was Kaladin, which obviously is not correct. However, that cannot be a coincidence as Kalad is not typical of the names on Nalthis, correct? Or is it simply a recent development in their world?
Re: Endowment’s opinion on Returned extending their lives, I feel she must be okay with it. They all come back for a specific purpose, don’t they? They talk about the visions they have, and I know I remember a minor Returned character (the one who gives Lightsong the nuclear codes command phrases, Allmother?) talking about how her vision showed her this moment, which is many 7 day periods after when she first Returned.
#7 @Braid_Tug – I disagree that killing Blushweaver was a “fridge the female” moment. It’s true that Blushweaver was female, but the reason that trope is objectionable (and I agree that it is objectionable) is that the female that gets killed is one that doesn’t have power to affect the events in the story outside of the male character she’s involved with. Blushweaver is not without power and influence, and she doesn’t rely on Lightsong for either one. Yes, her death happened (story-wise) to drive Lightsong to take action, but it wasn’t because she was a female involved in a relationship with him. As you pointed out, it would have worked for it to be Llarimar. It could have been any character, male or female, that Lightsong respected or knew well.
I kind of liked Blushweaver. But that might just be that in general I find intelligent, compassionate (which she was, in a way) women very likable. And TBH it’s probably true that her other, umm, deity-proving assets wouldn’t hurt there either. Which is probably why Brandon wrote her the way that he did. :-) Doesn’t mean I would trust her though, when she clearly is hiding her true motivations and intentions.
@10 I think it also drives the point home that the gods and the priests are not playing the right game.
On rereading this, it’s amazing to me how much of the ‘history’ that the supposed gods know is so false. It has to point to determined corruption by the priesthood or whoever gives them the info. Which should help me have less distaste for Blushweaver, since she can’t remember what the actual story was (supposing she knew it before returning), but it doesn’t. I think I always saw her as more nefarious than she actually was because of her costuming (or lack thereof).
As for the light bending and the white comments from AU, I would tend to agree with 7@Braid_Tug. More info needed, basically.
I love how Siri is stubborn enough to kneel all night. That would seriously hurt after a while. Though, I’d probably pass out from lack of circulation rather than falling asleep. I like Siri much more on this read than I did previously.
I always assumed the prism effect that Siri saw was because the God King was of the 10th Heightening and could bend light from white objects. We wouldn’t have the clue for that on a first read through, but after you find out later the God King’s level of power.
The misinformation about history is a variation of what seems like a common theme for Sanderson. In Warbreaker, Idrians have a clear misunderstanding of Awakening and the Returned hardly understand what they themselves are, but the Awakeners understand Awakening better than Surgebinders in SA or Allomancers in MB do. In SA it might just be time losing the information, in MB we know Ruin is/was purposely altering documents to affect people’s knowledge of history and magic (and Lord Ruler did some suppressing).
We experience the correction of characters’ false assumptions and misunderstanding at the same time they do, often. This unreliable first description is better storytelling than a perfectly laid out history or Ars Arcanum, at least at first.
I love that the MB Ars Arcanum evolves as we learn more, for example.
@3 and 8
I would suspect Kalad and the herald Kalak/Kelek to the more intertwined individuals. Are there theories that Vasher is Kalak? It probably makes little sense, but the similarity of the names is very suspicious.
One aspect of these early chapters that was “interesting” for me is that I had no idea what Brandon was willing or not willing to do to his characters or what kinds of scenes he was likely to write… since this was the first book of his that I ever read. So I was rather nervous for Siri and I didn’t particularly want to read a chapter where she has to “lie back and think of Idris”, as it were. Instead, a sense of impending doom is replaced by a mystery. I was somewhat surprised but pretty happy with that.
Re: AU: I presumed the effect being seen was due to a phaseshift effect as a result of Szeth’s resurrection (i.e. he’s slightly out of time (possibly been watching too much Star Trek recently), or as a result of holding NB.
End of White.
Other than that, thanks for the re-read! I love these things, and am presently (re)reading along :D
Refreshing myself on SA before reading Edgedancer so adding to my own comment @14 – I completely forgot about the Hierocracy trying to expunge knowledge of the Knights Radiant. Unreliable history/unreliable knowledge of the magic system is pretty much a constant in the cosmere. Must drive Khriss nuts.
Regarding the text in white – I believe Brandon has written on Reddit recently that it has more to do with Szeth having been imperfectly resurrected, or something along those lines. The soul wasn’t shoved back into the body 100% correctly, I believe.
On other matters – I like how this chapter is both the one where so much untrue stuff is being told and the one where the God King is at his most foreboding. It fits together.
I remember how much I admired Siri when I read this chapter the first time. I wouldn’t manage thirty minutes of kneeling on the floor, let alone the whole night.
A couple of notes from last night’s signing:
Someone (someone here??) asked if Bluefingers was telling Siri the truth or stretching it, and his response was on the order of “some would say he was exaggerating, but it was more or less true.” I don’t have a verbatim on that, though I’ll try to find it when someone does a recording transcription. Anyway, the implication was that Bluefingers wasn’t just making stuff up, but he was probably being unnecessarily dramatic, because it suited his purposes to have Siri off balance.
I asked about the reason for the “size” of the Divine Breath, and Brandon confirmed that it has to do with the amount of Investiture required to not only make a cognitive shadow of the person, but then to shove it from the cognitive realm into the physical, and stick it thoroughly to the body again. It just takes a lot of Investiture to keep the body and the shadow stuck together. Edgedancer spoiler: He also volunteered the information that this is not what’s happening with Szeth. Szeth is not a cognitive shadow; he really was healed and his soul stuck back in his body. Unfortunately, the process Nalan used isn’t as good as Endowments, because he soul isn’t sticking to his body very well – which is what causes the afterimage Lift sees.
I’ll post this and other tidbits that I remember in the Arcanum Unbounded spoiler thread, but those were particularly relevant to this reread!
Great thoughts on unreliable history! We hear a lot about the “unreliable narrator” trick, but we tend to forget that history is almost always an unreliable narrator. Whether it’s deliberately distorted for nefarious purposes, or primarily retold from certain perspectives that skew which details get remembered, I suspect that a lot of people from 300 years ago would barely recognize their world from looking at what “history” says about it.
E.g., whether you view Benedict Arnold as a hero or a traitor depends largely on where you grew up and which angle of history you learned as a kid. (Brandon also touched on this last night, when he said that in most books, including his own, Kelsier would normally be the villain – except that on Scadrial at that time, Kelsier was exactly what they needed to keep the world from impending destruction.)
How tall or how big is the God King? The Returned are bigger than life as already mentioned. But, in here, how do you define, bigger than life?
Are they giants? Or are they more or less the size of professional athletes who can be 7 ft tall and muscular because they work out everyday and it’s their job to beef up?
I’ve always been curious on how big is big when it comes to the Returned.
The entire plot of Warbreaker supports the idea that “poor communication kills”, and this is one of the best examples. The gods have no idea what’s going on, which is acceptable. They really aren’t in charge. But the priests also have no real understanding of Idran politics; they think the old royals want to come back, which is the opposite of true. The entire marriage is fundamentally unnecessary, and both sides can get everything they want if they just sat down at the table and talked it out.
Of course, the Pahn Kahl are good communicators making rational choices. But they’re also the “villains”, though Bluefingers doesn’t have any evil intent. He just wants to see his people free, and he sees kicking off the next Manywar as his best chance. It’s hard to blame him, really; would we be angry at Poles or Native Americans for seeking to be rid of their foreign rulers, even if it meant provoking a war? Out of all of Sanderson’s villains, he may be the most sympathetic.
@21 Wetlanderw
Technically, I think that Kelsier helps to begin the process of the world’s impending destruction when he kills the Lord Ruler. I still like him enormously as a character because he’s true. He’s not true in a nice way, and he’s very different from Sanderson’s usual optimistic heroes, but Kelsier is the product of a society where there is no rational reason to hope for change. He fights against impossible odds, hoping without any real justification, and eventually prevails over tyranny.
Also, I think he had a point about the noblemen. Maybe murdering all of them was a bridge too far, but there’s no legitimate reason to keep people like Cett and Yomen in the government once the crisis was over. They’re proudly committed to a tyrannical system that treats most of the population as livestock, and letting them live is both a legitimate reward for their assistance in a time of need and far kinder than they deserve.
I unfortunately haven’t been able to keep up with Sanderson on Tor.com since the WoR reread ended, but I wanted to pop in and ask just in case: Will any of you be at Brandon’s signing in Chicago on Tuesday? I’ll be there and it would be cool if I was able to meet some of you.
@23 dptullos, I disagree with your assessments. Bluefingers and the Pahn Kahl conspirators aren’t revolutionaries in the normal sense. They don’t start a resurrection, but devise a devious ploy to get the Hallandren and Idrian peoples to war against each other. Their hope is that such a war will exhaust the Hallandrens and give them the opportunity to free themselves of Hallandren rule. Part of the ploy is to kill both the Hallandren god-king, Susebron, and the Idrian princess, Siri, so that both peoples would have a cause-celebre to engage in a mutually destructive war.
As to Kelsier’s activities and its implications. Kelsier wasn’t the one who killed the lord-ruler, that was Vin. Nor was this killing an action that precipitated the process of Scadrial’s detruction. Scadrial was being slowly choked by the lord-ruler’s ashmounts. Those were an ad-hoc ploy to counteract the fact that he had placed the planet too close to its sun. You are correct, however, in the sense that the lord-ruler opposed Ruin. Vin’s victory thus, inadvertently, supported Ruin’s scheme. The more precipitating incident in the destructive process, however, was Vin later inadvertently releasing Ruin from his imprisonment. The final element in that process was the absorption by Vin of all of Preservation’s mists that helped lessen the heating of the too-close sun.
Kelsier, in the original Mistborn trilogy is a catalyst for the overthrow of the lord-ruler and the liberator of the Skaa slaves, but his hatred of the ruling class and his violence towards towards sundry members of the aristocracy makes him a less appealing character. This picture may change as I read the Kelsier portion of the Arcanum Unbounded book.
Known unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns are not a new idea. Still good to see the reread recognize the fact they exist and not simply hate on people for being worried. And for recognizing that it is every human ever. That honestly surprised me. Until I got to that sentence I was gearing up for a very different comment. Thank you for not making me write it.
As to the priests I expect it is different for each one. Some of them truly believe some do not. As with any group of people and people in general – generalizations are meaningless and useless (which is why political polling is largely a worthless endeavor).
@21 I mean if you believe in freedom and democracy – as you should. Then he is a traitor. I mean I guess if you believe in absolute rule of kings then he might be a hero – but if you believe in absolute rule of kings then you are not someone I want to talk to. As for history lets remember that it is still a “science” in the broad sense. Real historians are careful and use multiple sources so I expect that we have a decent idea of history. Some big things we may have wrong but I expect most we don’t. Like any science though as we get more evidence conclusions change – this doesn’t mean it isn’t a science and that all we know is wrong.
dwcole @27 – King George III is a limited monarch not an absolute one. In fact, he has always claimed that the reason Britain lost the American colony is because he (George III) is a limited monarch. Ironic, isn’t it?
@27 Ironically, although Benedict Arnold did later turn traitor without him we probably wouldn’t exist. See such cases as creating the navy on Lake Champlain to prevent the colonies from being split in two, or the victory at Saratoga.
#29 @BenW – True, but that doesn’t excuse his betrayal. It makes it worse, showing that he wasn’t in it for anything but his own success.
@7 Braid_Tug:
Sort of like having such a tremendous fear that your favorite S.A. Character is going to be marginalized in future books that you decide to not even read the rest of them… ;)
Fear of the hypothetical rarely results in rational choices. Rationality requires the ability to correctly determine what you do know as well as being able to identify what you don’t know – along with the intellectual honesty required to accept that what you think you know may be false. That is a skill that is sadly lacking for many.
I am a fan of two words I have recently come across: Mumpsimus & Ultracrepidarian.
@22 sheiglagh: How big is big? In this chapter Siri says “At least a foot taller than most men she had seen, as well as broader of shoulder and build…”
I imagine them as being roughly the size of your bigger-than-average NBA Center. Shaq, maybe – or Dwight Howard. 7′ tall, enormous wingspan…at least in a relational sense, as the average size of people on Nalthis may be different than Earth.
@7 Braid_Tug, Brandon did refrigerate another female, I’m afraid. it happens in the first chapter of The Alloy of Law and I was Very Strong Feelings about it.
brovery @@@@@ 32 – thanks for the clarification :-)
Lizzibabe @@@@@ 33 – who was frozen in the Alloy of Law? Wow, I don’t remember that.
@34: Lizzibabe is presumably referring to Lessie; which is a little bit more complicated than a mere fridging, but I don’t know if she has read the following books.
@35 Indeed. Quite a bit more complicated.