Greetings and storming salutations, Cosmere Chickens! Welcome to this week’s installment of the Wind and Truth reread and discussion, in which we’ll be visiting Azimir to see how Adolin’s faring with his preparations ahead of the invasion, and also going back in time with Szeth to witness the traumatic event which started him down this path of murder and heartache.
Lyn: As usual, I’m psyched to see more Adolin chapters. The Azimir sections really carried the whole book for me.
Paige: I am here for every Adolin moment. He shot from, “Okay, I like this character now, I’ll grant him best boy status,” to “OMG, when do we get back to an Adolin POV, he’s amazing!” Brandon knocked his story out of the park in this book!
Drew: Meanwhile, I’m over here poring over every single word of these Sleepless epigraphs, again and again…
L: Oh, don’t act like you hate it. We know you’re just lapping up every bit of Sleepless lore you can get ahold of!
P: Sadly, though, we also get to the start of Szeth’s journey to becoming Truthless and the Assassin in White. It saddens me. Seeing him as a joyful little boy dancing to his sister’s flute playing was just lovely and gave me a great feeling of empathy for the adult he’s turned into. Having that backstory sure can change one’s perspective!
D: Szeth’s flashbacks definitely pack an unexpected punch. This week’s is just the tip of the iceberg (and there’s a ton of magic lore and history to unearth in these, too)!
L: Yeah, Szeth’s chapter is rough… Let’s be honest though. This is a Stormlight book. At this point it would be a surprise to have a main character who didn’t have an awful traumatic past. And on that pleasant note…
Since this is a reread (picking up where we left off in our read-along of the early chapters), there will be spoilers for the end of the book (as well as full Cosmere spoilers, so beware if you aren’t caught up on all Cosmere content). And please remember, when posting or commenting about these chapters on social media, follow your platform’s spoiler rules. Your comments here, however, don’t need to be spoiler-tagged, so feel free to comment as you will down below!
Please note: We do ask that you remain cordial to your fellow fans. Discussion and criticism of the work (and this article) are allowed and encouraged, but let’s keep the conversation constructive and be respectful of others, as always. Now, with that out of the way…
Paige’s Commentary: Plot Arcs and Assorted Thoughts
In chapter 37, “People Who Build,” we head back to Azimir where Adolin speaks with Yanagawn. We observe the easy conversation between the two of them; the strategy card game known as towers is brought up, of course, as Adolin is trying to guide the Emperor’s Commandant in how he would defend the Dome. Kushkam argues with him, of course, and realizing he’s embarrassed Kushkam in front of Yanagawn, Adolin apologizes and bows to the Commandant’s expertise. Yanagawn goes ahead with Kushkam’s plan for defense.
This shows a lot of growth on Adolin’s part, I feel. He could have pushed for his plan and, as Yanagawn tells him, the Emperor would have backed him. He could have insisted on having his way, thus demonstrating to Kushkam that he was nothing but an Alethi bully. But Adolin is only there to assist Azir with the defense of its capital city, so he defers to the Commandant. But being as smart as he is, he asks Yanagawn to prepare the defense he wanted, just in case.
Adolin also agrees to teach Yanagawn how to play towers, so that will be something for us to watch going forward.
We meet May Aladar in this chapter; she’s the daughter of Highprince Aladar as well as an expert archer, and one of Adolin’s former love interests… kind of. She’ll be serving as his aide-de-camp and her crew of scribes will assist with messages and more throughout the rest of the book. What’s fun about this scene is that we see more of Maya when she asks Adolin if he’s “a slut” after she finds out he dated a lot before meeting Shallan. I know this language took a lot of people out of the story, and I can understand why, to an extent. We’ve seen Brandon using some modern language, like “awesome,” and even swears like “shit” and “ass.” Given the way it’s used here, in a well-meaning, good-natured way, “slut” shouldn’t have made much of a difference, in my opinion.
Then we see Adolin head off to prepare for battle, which is imminent.
We get another Szeth flashback at the start of chapter 38, “Those Who Subtract,” and here we see young Szeth in his last moments of innocence. Searching for his beloved sheep, he arrives back at his homestead and finds three men drinking his father’s wine and eating… well, eating Molli. Angered, he tells them to leave. They proceed to lecture him drunkenly; reeling, he angrily picks up the rock his mother had dug up, planning to hit the man that stayed behind when the other two stumbled off. Then he stops himself… until the man grabs him by the throat. Then Szeth subtracts for the first time. It’s the act that sets his feet on the path that will take him to the Oathstone and to becoming the Assassin in White, his innocence stripped away in a desperate attempt to survive.
Chapter 39 is titled “Between Two Realms” and here, Adolin is donning his Plate—rather, his armorers are putting it on him. He engages in some administrative maneuvering, putting some of his old fighting comrades to be in charge of troops and reassigning May, his new aide-de-camp, to man the interior wall with her bow and her own troops. With that done, he needs a new new aide-de-camp, to whom he gives a string of orders.
Here we can see Adolin taking the lead in a way he never did on the Shattered Plains. There, he was always following, always in his father’s shadow. Now is his chance to do things his way and not someone else’s. He begins to doubt himself again, thinking how he’s not much compared to a Radiant, but in the end, he buckles down with some help from Maya.
Maya tells Adolin she can see into Shadesmar and that the singer troops have arrived. Adolin has a moment where he thinks how much he hates battle since he and his father and their troops had been abandoned at the Tower. But as we’ll see, he’s still an efficient killing machine. Voidspren emerge from the Oathgate, scouting the terrain and the Azish defenses, then returning to Shadesmar to advise the singers and Fused on their positions… and then the battle is upon them.
Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs and Maps
As usual in the Adolin/Azimir chapters, we see Jezrien (Herald of Kings, patron of the Windrunners) show up in the chapter arch, certainly because Adolin is representing his attributes as a leader. Kalak, patron of the Willshapers (attributes: Resolute/Builder and role: Maker) is probably here because our golden boy is attempting to build a solid defense.
Well, I have to say, the presence of Shalash (Herald of Beauty, patron of the Lightweavers) in this chapter arch is a mystery to me. Ishi seems to show up on most of Szeth’s flashback chapters, most likely because of his influence on the region. But Shalash? I can’t see anything that has to do with art, beauty, or creativity here… anyone have thoughts?
Jezrien’s here again (Adolin, leader, blah blah blah) but this chapter also features Chana, Herald of the Common Man and patron of Dustbringers. Her attributes are Brave/Obedient and her role is Guard. This is an appropriate choice for an Adolin chapter, as he’s orchestrating the defense of Azimir.
Adolin
A great deal of both of these chapters is spent setting up Adolin’s ability to lead. This obviously becomes a major part of his arc, considering the Unoathed. Adolin is an unconventional leader by Alethi standards; he befriends his men, he treats them almost as equals, and he has an uncanny knack for identifying a soldier’s strengths and effectively assigning them to the role/position where those strengths will be most useful. He’s also adept at reading the room when it comes to military commanders; he immediately realizes when he’s crossed a line with Kushkam (and, almost as importantly, why that line was there to begin with) and attempts to remedy it in as subtle a manner as possible. He may think that he’s a subpar commander, but that’s just because he’s humble. In reality, he’s an incredible commander. His view of himself is just colored by what he knows, which is the “normal” Alethi style of command.
“I might not be here,” Adolin said, “if someone hadn’t stood up for me when it wasn’t their fight.
Ah, the influence of the good old Bridgeboy carrying over to other characters! Always nice to see the way that characters can inspire one another to be better people (or inspire them to be worse ones, as we see with Moash).
She’d explained how to isolate his thoughts for privacy, but he saw no reason to do so—and instead felt a little thrill. He knew that even some Radiant bonds didn’t allow the two to read one another’s minds; it was nice to have something that not all of them could do.
One of the aspects of Adolin I enjoy the most is his “everyman” nature. He’s far from an ordinary person, of course, but when surrounded by Radiants on every side, even the extraordinary can seem unremarkable. He joins a long list of characters who serve to show us that a protagonist does not require superpowers to display heroism. (Other examples; Black Widow from The Avengers. Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Almost every Doctor Who companion.) All this said (and the reason for the above quote), I do like that he gets some cool stuff the other characters don’t. While he may not have the awesome abilities of a Radiant, he still gets some of the perks. And, at the end of this book, he gets quite a lot more! Can we really say that the Unoathed are “normal” humans, as of the end of Wind and Truth? I don’t think so. Now if only Adolin himself could realize his own remarkableness!
“Better to be wherever the Kholin is,” Gerenor said, with a wink. “That’s where the fun happens.”
I don’t remember what happens to these guys, but I’m sure it’s a grisly death based purely on this happy-go-lucky introduction on the eve of battle.
Colot
Colot nodded. “It comes around, I guess. Centuries of treating the darkeyes badly; when that turns on its head, it’s hard to complain. No one’s going to weep for me, the poor highborn boy who didn’t get what he wanted.
In a way, I’m glad that Colot is wise enough to see this and doesn’t just play by the usual privileged playbook of “oh, woe is me because I’m not getting as much as I used to.” He recognizes that his lot sucks, but others have had it far worse. Good for him.
Szeth
The drunk man chuckled and picked at a piece of meat, and Szeth knew. He knew. But he didn’t want to accept it.
The death of a beloved pet is bad enough, but to be forced to watch that pet’s killers EATING it? Ugh.
Tell me: if you pay a man to kill, does that make you any less guilty? You subtract, little shepherd. You just do it the cowardly way.”
Way to completely upend a child’s entire worldview, random Shin soldier. Thanks for being a d***. (Granted, he’s right and the way his society treats him isn’t fair either, but still.) In the moment, this doesn’t seem like it affects Szeth all that much. But it clearly lingers in the back of his mind and plays a part in all that is to come.
Until he stopped, gazing at the pathetic man by the trough. A person. A terrible person that Szeth hated, but still. He had never hurt another by intent.
He would not do so today.
The worst part of this whole thing is that Szeth’s first murder was done purely in self-defense. He considers committing an act of violence in retribution for Molli’s murder, but doesn’t carry through until his own life is threatened. Even for pacifistic cultures, you’d think that self-defense would be the notable exception to the rule! And yet, this one act—completely understandable—is the one that drives Szeth onto the road which leads him straight into hell. What a choice for such a young child to have to make: suffer a horrible painful death, or betray his culture’s most holy tradition. Does he realize, in this awful moment in which he acted without thinking, what the repercussions would be? I don’t think so. I think (and the text supports) that he acted on pure instinct, the instinct that underlies almost every decision that a person makes…to SURVIVE.
And having done so, his family and society reviles him.
Culture Note:
Per tradition, they bowed for ten seconds…
This HAS to be a callback to the length of time it takes to summon a Shardblade.
Military Placements:
Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories
Let’s kick things off with more Sleepless epigraphs, why don’t we?
The impending events in Iri are another sign. The age of transitions has arrived.
These two, simple sentences are packed with information and allure. We know now that “the impending events in Iri” are referring to the migration of the Iriali—along with Demoux, Baon, and Galladon—via perpendicularity. We’ll get more into the details of that particular scene later in the book, but it’s fascinating that the Sleepless knew that perpendicularity was going to open. They’re not the only ones—again, there’s our friends of the Seventeenth Shard—but it adds more weight to the idea of the Sleepless as these all-knowing, all-seeing, vaguely-protective-but-also-super-creepy beings, watching from the shadows. I can’t wait to get more information about them in future Cosmere books.
I believe, sincerely, that the winds blowing in from the future indicate this will be the final confrontation of Honor and Odium.
Nailed it.
“Can you transform all the air inside the control building to bronze?” Adolin asked.
I know this is well into the realm of the theoretical, since the ensuing conversation itself is around theoretical strategies, but it strikes me that it’s strange there’s so much focus on the air inside the control room. As Adolin points out, Oathgates function by swapping the contents of the platforms between locations. A better question to ask, I think, would have been whether the Azish Soulcaster could turn the air around the platform to bronze.
Similarly, Kushkam talks about flooding the control room and turning the water to bronze, but that’s ultimately useless. How about building a temporary retaining room around the platform, filling it with water, and doing the same? So now Odium’s forces transfer through… and then they’re stuck inside a big bronze container, with limited air and no egress. Yeah, they could eventually get out, but buying time is what this is all about. Would have been a much more effective strategy, if a labor-intensive one.
Anyway, enough hypotheticals.
Szeth barely registered the man’s erratic behavior—speaking to nobody. Instead Szeth felt a building rage. A blinding, terrible heat.
Ooookay. So this is an interesting little thing, here. We know now that there never was an Unmade corrupting Shinovar—it was Ishar the whole time—but this reads an awful lot like the Thrill. Maybe Nergaoul was hanging around there… but the scene also implies that this is the result of the Voice (Ishar). Brandon was certainly running some serious misdirection with this whole plotline, making us wonder which Unmade it could be.
Ishar was corrupted a bit himself, having taken up some of Odium’s power from the Well of Control, so the easy way to explain it is just that he took on some elements of multiple different Unmade, Nergaoul included.
Here now, what are you?
This, meanwhile, is a perfectly creepy and foreboding way to end the flashback chapter. The first time through, it provides a clear signpost about which Unmade Shinovar might be dealing with—not all of them are intelligent or talk—but now, reading as Ishar’s voice, the entire context is changed.
In the few moments and encounters with him up till now, Ishar does have an aggressively proprietary attitude. This condescending tone, using “what” instead of “who,” is perfectly in-character. We’ll be watching the coming flashbacks carefully to see if there are any other, maybe newer, insights we can gain into Ishar.
Again, not a ton of magic stuff to dig into in these chapters, since Adolin’s Azimir plotline is so heavily military-focused, pretty much sticks to the established understanding of the Invested Arts, and Adolin’s magical resources are cripplingly limited. Spren scouting isn’t anything new, and he only has one rookie Radiant at his disposal. That will become more relevant later, of course, with some fun story implications to explore… but for now, it’s the calm before the storm.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the comment sections of posts about this article on various social media platforms and may include some of your comments/speculation (with attribution) on future weeks’ articles! Keep the conversation going, and PLEASE remember to spoiler-tag your comments on social media to help preserve the surprise for those who haven’t caught up yet. See you next Monday with our next discussion article on chapters 40 and 41!
I note that per WoB, when summoning your Shardblade, “heartbeat” isn’t just a standin for “second”. If you’re excited and your heart is beating faster, your Shardblade will come more quickly; in calmer circumstances it’ll take longer.
Yeah, I seem to recall it being mentioned in the text during one of Adolin’s duels — when they summon blades before the bout starts, his opponent’s blade appeared earlier because they were more nervous or something like that.
I don’t think Adolin is humble or outside the normal. I think he suffers from a great inferiority complex caused by being Dalinar’s son. That’s who he compares himself to constantly, and always to his detriment. Then he starts comparing himself to Radiants and finds himself lacking because he doesn’t have powers. In some ways, I think this is why he and Shallan work so well as a team…they each have this same issue and acknowledge it isn’t reasonable for their partner to feel that way, and therefore try to help them overcome it.
Drew, you left out the fact that the soldier that attacked Szeth had glowing red eyes. This is important because it makes me wonder at what point Ishar started paying attention to what was going on in this specific locale (as well as serving as another misdirection towards there being an Unmade).
Culture Note:
It is also tied to 10 being tied to Honor and the Shin having cultural ties back to Ashyn.
BTW, do we know how specific numbers became associated with each Shard? Was it the order in which the Shard was taken up or something else entirely?
Poor Szeth and RIP Molli :(
I can’t wait for the “Molli Lives!” signs to start popping up all over Shinovar!
I think May and Jenet were under-developed. I think Brandon could have fleshed out those characters more. Somethin akin to how he treated Danlan and Lyn. As Adolin is probably stuck in Azair for a long time (he and the other people from Urithiru cannot get back to Urithiru), I hope we see more of May in the second arc.
I like the dichotomy between the name of Chapter 37 (People Who Build) and Chapter 38 (Those Who Subtract). I believe Adolin does the best job of “Buildin”/”Adding” of all the characters in WaT.
My first guess for the identity of the Voice Szeth and the Honorbearers heard was Odium. It sounded like Odium. It was only when we saw the spren nailed to the caravan that I thought it could be Ishar. I guess in some ways it was both. Ishar using a sample of Odium’s power through his Well. Ishar influenced/infected by the Intent of Odium: at least the warlord portion of the intent of Odium.
I was noting to myself that the way Adolin had May go off and lead a troop of archers would be compatible with him wanting to get her farther away from him, as if to avoid awkwardness from their previous (not-)dating relationship. But I don’t think that’s his actual motivation here; it was just an amusing observation :)
I also hope we get to see more of May (even if it means having to be more careful about typos May vs Maya!)
RogerPavelle noted the “eyes glowing deep within with a red light” that seem a clear indication of a magical effect. It does in a sense suggest the Thrill to me (think the Battle of Thaylen Field) but that may not be the only route (e.g., the Koloss from Mistborn have red eyes and can be controlled via allomancy, though their eyes are always red). Also note that there was a “red light on the horizon” that could just be the glow of burning buildings but could also be the Thrill. This scene almost made me feel like there were two different magical influences, with one (presumably the Thrill if there are two) contributing a heat of blinding rage, and then when Szeth touches the rock he feels a coldness that was a “deep, terrible void that seemed to take all life, light, and warmth and suffocate it”. I feel like the use of the word “void” cannot be accidental there, and taking emotions is a thing we have seen Odium do multiple times (not that ROdium would be directly intervening here, but maybe the facet of Ishar that was corrupted by Odium’s power would). In that interpretation, when Szeth paused, seeing a person by the trough, he would be fighting off both supernatural influences for a time. That is also consistent with his strength of will demonstrated elsewhere.
I also wanted to note that the descriptions of the three soldiers were rather confusing to me, since the descriptors kept getting changed up — “sunken eyes”, “drunk man”, “quiet one”, “slovenly one”, etc. It almost makes me wonder if it’s supposed to be a clue that there’s a worldhopper here and we should be looking for characters in other books that match the description(s). Yes, Szeth does note that all three look Shin, but we’ve also seen worldhoppers elsewhere on Roshar be described as looking “Shin-like” and so it doesn’t seem like Szeth’s observation would be conclusive.
With the Sleepless knowing in advance about the Iriali leaving, it made me wonder if there was some Investiture shifting around to be in position to support opening so many perpendicularities. My initial thought was that it was Cultivation’s doing and her Investituture, but the coppermind says flatly that Cusicesh was opening Honor’s perpendicularity, so maybe that was a bad insight on my part.
I am glad that Drew already covered the tactics around the oathgate building and that a mini-dome of bronze from water around the building would have been a more effective defense!
I also found it interesting to see Adolin and Adalar’s conversation about having grown so much in the past three years. I wonder if we will see more of him in the second half, but maybe he is too old to be present for that action?
When speculating about the behavior of the soldiers with Szeth, I also noted that the soldier (“Sunken Eyes”) pre-attack says “thought to rob me, did you?” Which does not seem very consistent with Szeth’s actual behavior, so it makes me think that Sunken Eyes was being fed an alternate picture of events than what we see. I don’t think that could be a Lighweaving as we currently know it (which would have explained the Shalash chapter arch icon) but maybe something related? I don’t remember whether we’ve seen anything to suggest that the Thrill could have altered perceptions in quite this way … but Ashertmarn certainly could!
I like how we get to hear more of Maya as she strengthens, which caused me to almost miss the tidbit that even this early, Adolin’s armor missed him. So his budding Connection is not just to her, and is presaging the Unoathed. In a related vein, I highlighted the quote “feeling a strange, light ventilation blow through his armor, keeping him cool”. Adolin is no newbie to shardplate, so its normal ventilation properties would not feel strange to him. Is this “strange” behavior actually something new because of the bond he’s forming to his Plate and foreshadowing the Unoathed as well? I want to see it that way, even though this is well before Mishram is freed and the oathpact reforged, so I cannot provide an explanation for why the magic system would be changing in this way.
For the record: Adolin isn’t a slut. He’s a trollop.
I haven’t looked about on the wiki’s or whatever, but do we think Adolin was actually sleeping with all those young ladies he hung around with? Brandon tends to keep things pretty tame (though in this book he cut loose a bit), so I always had the impression Adolin’s relationships were pretty chaste.
I 100% agree about the defense. There were a whole lot of tricks they could have pulled to stymy entry. With your container Idea, they could have done layers. Filled layers with different materials. So far as I know the Parshendi can’t breathe in water, nor are they immune to clouds of hydrochloric acid. Feverishly working to create layers containing the platform each deadlier than the last, only to have an army waiting on the other side might have been the delay they needed. Yeah, super labor intensive, but you keep the fighters fresh while the enemy deals with these annoying problems and then you fight them with all your might. It was one frustration I had with this aspect of the story, these are some brilliant problem solvers, and it feels like they kind of half assed their entire defensive strategy (again, there’s only 1 available shardbearer?).
Per the use of “sl*t” in the book, I believe many do not mind. I did not mind. Reason – the rise of romantasy brought fantasy into a more contemporary mindset. I don’t expect Brandon to do romantasy. He is great in what he is writing, and I love everything that he is written. But I also believe that he continues to evolve. And that is the reason why he is a great writer.