Hello, and happy Monday, Sanderfans! Welcome back to the Wind and Truth Reread! We hope you’re enjoying Day Four so far—can you believe we’re almost through it? We’ve got Spiritual Realm shenanigans for you, a peek in on Adolin, and another Szeth flashback to get to, so without further ado, let’s dive in!
The book has been out long enough that most of you will hopefully have finished, and as such, this series shall now function as a reread rather than a read-along. That means 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).
Paige’s Commentary: Plot Arcs
Chapter 49 is titled “A Realm of Possibilities” and we check in on Shallan, Renarin, Rlain, and Dalinar. We really start to see the various arcs in the Spiritual Realm taking shape in this chapter. Arriving in the vision, Shallan and the boys find themselves in the bodies of singers and approach the humans arriving on Roshar from Ashyn. They can see Dalinar and Navani (who appear as themselves), but realize that Mraize and Iyatil will be in disguise, as they are; Shallan says they need to remain unobtrusive and watch out for anyone who might be staying too close to the Bondsmiths. Then Shallan whips up a Lightweaving to make herself look like one of the human refugees she’d seen in the crowd. No drawing, just voilà! And she’s a new person! Radiant takes note of this, and Drew will dig into this development in his section below…
Then our sweet, ditzy Shallan tries to blend in by helping some people get an animal out of the mud. Of course, it’s Mraize and Iyatil, but just as with their previous encounter at the Tower, Shallan takes far too long to realize this. She realizes she’ll never had a better chance to kill Mraize but hesitates… then Radiant takes over and goes in for the kill. But alas, she is unsuccessful, and Shallan escapes by pretending to be set upon by the man Mraize is impersonating, shrieking so that the crowd intervenes, pulling him away.
Then we witness something truly creepy: Formless shows up and kind of… takes a form? It’s a figure dressed exactly like Shallan’s Lightweaving, but in place of a head there’s just gray smoke. It repeatedly encourages Shallan to kill Mraize, taunting her by saying “[i]t’s what we are” and “[i]t’s what we need to become.” Shallan kind of breaks down, screaming, until she’s pulled from the vision to find Pattern holding her. Of course, as Drew mentions below, we now know that this is Iyatil—thought it’s interesting that’s she’s not taking a more direct approach and simply sliding a knife between Shallan’s ribs. She’s just… trying to make Shallan lose it? Which she obviously did, in the moment—poor Shallan!
Dalinar, meanwhile, is speaking with the Stormfather, who is his usually cantankerous self. He doesn’t divulge much as he kind of rambles about dogs and rats and minks… and birds. Dalinar tries to get information from the Stormfather about Honor and why he won’t let anyone take up his shard, but the Stormfather refuses to enlighten him. The Stormfather says he’ll take them back to the Physical Realm but it must be now. Dalinar refuses; he wants to learn more, and he thinks that finding out what happened to Honor will help him, once he finds the power.
The Stormfather goes ALL CAPS on Dalinar to no effect (even mentioning Gavilar, at one point, which makes Dalinar suspicious…). The Blackthorn remains on his course and the spren storms off angrily.
Chapter 50 is titled “The Price of Peace” and we start with a Navani POV. She feels as if there’s someone in the Spiritual Realm watching her, and I figure it’s Gavinor. Poor little pawn. Then the queen inspects the Elsegate and Wit (who now appears with no face) speaks with her. He knows who she is and knows that Dalinar rejected the Stormfather’s offer to get them out. She tries to approach Jezrien and Shalash and is successful, twining hands with the teenage Ash. The Wind gives her a hint at what she might use as an anchor to find Ash again at the forging of the Oathpact and Navani gestures to her own hair and then to Ash’s. Ash gives Navani her ribbon and the vision ends.
Next, we look in on our wonderful Highprince Adolin, fighting the good fight in Azimir. He learns that the Azish reserve forces have been delayed by an enemy force and that they are at least two days out. Of course, we know they’ll never make it, but every mention of it, and every time Adolin thinks he just needs to hold out until reinforcements arrive, is like a punch to the gut. He’s just trying to hold the enemy back, buying enough time for the larger force to ride in and annihilate them, and that’s just not going to happen.
There’s no assault at the moment, so he heads to visit the injured at the hospital. He makes his rounds, talking with soldiers and providing a positive presence. When he’s seen to everyone, he notices Ash and Taln and goes to speak with Ash. She is perturbed, per usual, and she asks, “Are you worth it?” Of course, she means the torment that Taln experienced alone on Braize. That question makes me think of the movie Saving Private Ryan when—spoiler alert—Tom Hanks’ character tells Matt Damon’s character, “Earn this.” And the older character asks his wife if he was a good man as they stand at the cemetery—he wants to be sure that he’s truly earned it. Adolin, when asked if the humans of Roshar are worth Taln’s sacrifice, simply answers that he doesn’t know.
He gets a message from Commandant Kushkam about the singer attacks and his prediction of their next move, which Adolin agrees with. Then, not expecting the next attack for an hour or two, he heads off to visit Yanagawn.
Chapter 51 is a Szeth flashback chapter titled “Test.” Szeth and his family are just arriving at the training yard near the Stoneward monastery. Elid, his sister, has apparently told him that this was all his fault—that they’ve had to leave their home, that they now have to step on stone, that they had to abandon their old life. He’s hesitant to follow but then his mother gives him a small sheep made of wool. She made it from Molli’s wool, and it was SO damn touching to read this part for the first time. It makes Zeenid leaving the family later on that much more painful, I feel.
But the Molli wool makes Szeth feel better and he steps onto the stone. They’re approached by a man called Betheth-son-Vetor, the captain of recruitment and discipline, who briefs them on what they’ll be doing. He sends Zeenid and Elid to their quarters while he takes Szeth, accompanied by his father, for his initial assessment.
The Voice that had spoken to him before speaks to him again, telling him how to perform during the assessment. It tells Szeth that it’s the spren of the stone that he discovered and that it’s been watching over his family. This seems to help Szeth calm his nerves and he steps forward and approaches the test as he’s been instructed, following the Voice’s guidance. The captain questions him and the Voice tells Szeth what to say. Then Betheth announces that Szeth might be more suited to officer training.
So now Szeth is set on his path to become the Assassin in White. He’ll learn how to subtract and, with his family, learn to navigate his new life among the soldiers. He’ll be quite different by the time we see young Szeth again and it’s so sad to me to say good-bye to this boy who was once so innocent and happy. Farewell, little guy.
Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs and Maps
Chapter 49 features Ishar, Palah, and Shalash twice. Shalash is here twice since a good portion of this chapter is from Shallan’s POV. Ishar is patron of the Bondsmiths, since Dalinar also makes an appearance. As for Palah? Renarin and Rlain are here, too. This seems to be one of those straightforward examples where the chapter arch icons are simply showing us who’s present in the chapter, without much more nuance.
In chapter 50, we have Shalash and Palah again, only Palah shows up twice this time around. Taln also makes an appearance, but that’s almost certainly because he himself shows up in the Adolin section. As for Shalash and the double Palah… Palah is the Herald of scholars, and who could be a better representative for Navani than that? Shalash is a little trickier to figure out. I’d guess that he’s here because we often see her linked with Adolin, thanks to his deep connection with Maya (an Edgedancer blade).
Chapter 51 features Ishar and Chana. We can safely assume that Ishar’s here because he’s hanging out in Shinovar talking to Szeth as The Voice. As for Chana? She’s the herald of the common man, and is probably symbolic of Szeth’s family.
Renarin/Rlain
“You sound like your father,” Rlain said. “In the best of ways.”
Renarin glanced at the ground, and she sensed a blush in his posture—which she found very curious, especially given how he looked back up toward Rlain in an admiring way. Could it be… these two?
I love how observant of human nature Shallan’s become. It makes perfect sense; she needs to study others in order to better create new personalities, and to mimic people around her. In order to do so realistically, she has had to become a master of psychology.
Shallan
The first arrival of humans on Roshar. What a thing to witness. However, Veil coached her quietly—helping her keep her mind on the job at hand, reminding her of the skills she’d been practicing since childhood. When you had an abusive father and an insane mother, you learned to act.
We’re seeing time and again how well Shallan’s disparate personalities are blending and working together to help her. It’s definitely a huge step forward for her.
Storms, Shallan, Radiant thought.
What?
You didn’t need a drawing first. You just did it.
Not only is she making progress with her various other personalities, she’s making progress on her Lightweaving skills as well. The two are most likely linked, as Surgebinding skills almost always are intrinsically linked to the psychological states of their users, but Drew covers that a bit in his section below…
She could kill Mraize. As she’d killed every other mentor in her life so far and—
Do you need me? Radiant asked.
No, Shallan said[…]
Here we see more of that progress. She’s managing to control her own PTSD responses, to push them to the back of her mind until she’s ready to deal with them.
“Kill him,” a soft voice said from beside her.
Shallan’s voice.
Shallan spun and saw a figure dressed identically to her—but with a head made all of curling grey smoke. Spiraling, shifting, mesmerizing. “It’s what we are, Shallan,” the figure said. “It’s what we need to become. You cannot reject me forever. I am you.”
“F-Formless?” Shallan whispered. “I banished you.”
“I am you.”
“No,” Shallan said, backing up. “I banished you.”
[…]
“I can be better,” she hissed. “I can.”
“Can you?” Formless asked, and all else seemed to fade. “You are what you were made into, Shallan. You are what was done to you. That is me. I am your future.”
I like the lampshading on the part of the author here. Shallan’s saying what we’re all thinking; what the heck? This was supposed to have been RESOLVED! Why is Formless still here?!
But Veil’s still around, isn’t she? Just in a different way. It’s not really that surprising that Formless would still be hanging around, too—although we re-readers know that’s not actually the case, and all will be revealed in time.
Dalinar
Dalinar stopped in front of the spren, studying him. Today, he thought he could even catch some shape to the shimmering—one that matched the image he’d seen of the dead god, Honor, also named Tanavast.
The Stormfather was an echo of the Almighty.
Oh, Dalinar. You were SO CLOSE to figuring it out…
“It is too late for me, Dalinar. You … should not try so hard with me. I am but a spren.”
Uh huh. Methinks the lady doth protest too much, as they say. It’s a shame that Dalinar doesn’t see it.
Navani
She doubted she had enough understanding of these kinds of physics to draw conclusions. Best to memorize her observations, then present them to her team when she returned.
Is Navani underestimating herself, or is she recognizing her limitations and delegating appropriately? She does have a tendency to think too low of herself (thanks in no small part to the emotional abuse she dealt with from Gavilar), but I think in this case she’s correct. This level of analysis is beyond the scope of her expertise.
Hoid
“Me?” the faceless Wit said. “Oh, I’m fine. Just a big mess of existential crisis! Me, who is not me, knowing that I’ll puff away back to nothing the moment this vision ends.
Goodness. I wonder if Fake!Wit also listens to a bunch of emo rock. I can understand why he’s so dramatic and over-the-top (knowing that you’re a construct of someone else’s mind must be a heck of a trip) but it’s still pretty funny to watch, from our perspective.
Battle Tactics
Not a lot here this week in terms of things that I can chart out and diagram, as we’re in a lull between battles. But there were two things I wanted to take note of…
The Azish reserve forces had been delayed. An enemy force of some sort had raided them, a mystery troop that baffled their generals.
This is definitely bad news.
“Castle Down?”
“Move from towers,” Adolin said. “He thinks the enemy has been too regular with their assaults—on purpose, to make us expect a rhythm. The next attack will come later than expected, he thinks, as that will give us just enough time to start resting.”
A wise move. Pulling your enemy into a false sense of…not so much security, but expectation. Then flipping the script to catch them off guard.
Adolin
He gave needed reassurances—that a wound was a price sometimes paid for protecting one’s fellows. He reassured each that they weren’t letting anyone down by being out of action, and promised that if Rahel had extra strength, he’d allow her to do further healings to get men back on their feet.
As he went, anxietyspren began to fade from the room one by one.
As usual, Adolin proving what a wonderful commander (and man) he is. Taking the time not only to go and visit the wounded, but to remember all their names and offer them solace, reassurance, and sympathy isn’t something that everyone would do—especially not when they’re also dealing with their own battle exhaustion. But Adolin does it, and is happy to do so.
Szeth
As Szeth hung back, holding to his mother, she took something from her pouch. A small sheep made of wool. It smelled … of Molli?
He touched it, then glanced up at his mother. No words passed between them, though Mother wiped tears from her eyes.
Regardless of what happens later with his mother, this moment is a really touching one that shows how much she loves him.
Father’s job had always been to herd shepherds as shepherds herded sheep. Szeth didn’t know much about that, but if these soldiers had been sheep, he would have called them a poorly watched flock.
I like the characterization we see of Neturo in these flashback chapters. He has something that he’s very good at, and the minute he steps into an environment that’s disorganized, he starts formulating plans on how to make it more efficient. (Honestly, I relate to him in this respect.)
He felt so lacking in control, so frustrated by the apparent nonexistence of answers. Everyone talked about him, but they didn’t ask what he wanted.
Poor Szeth. His whole life is characterized by a lack of control. Thankfully he’s got Kaladin with him to help him see that he can make his own decisions now.
Szeth glanced back at his father, who stood with his arms folded, lost in thought as he stared at the camp. Neturo had found a problem to solve.
Oh yeah. I relate hard to this man.
Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories
Sadly, we are once again left with little to say about the epigraphs in these chapters. It’s a lot of fancy words to communicate that people are good at arguing their points, but not a lot of actual substance. But the focus of the first two chapters is on the Spiritual Realm, Shallan, Dalinar, and Navani. Let’s see what good stuff we can dig into!
*Shallan had been moving in this direction, but had she ever fully created a Lightweaving without any kind of drawing? It was… well, it was about time.
Shallan has certainly been making some big strides since her truth at the end of Rhythm of War—first with her work against Abidi in Shadesmar, and again here with her Lightweaving. It still remains to be seen what’s going on with her peculiar struggles with Soulcasting; she’s got some really strange circumstances at work with the double bond, but she has Shardplate and it feels, at least to me, that she should be pretty close to Fifth Ideal level at this point. And yet, even as she starts doing stuff not seen for thousands of years—if ever—she can’t properly utilize one of the two Surges at her disposal.
Then there’s the reappearance of “Formless” (though we now know that it’s actually Iyatil) as Shallan is fighting Mraize. My first time through, this was an extremely frustrating moment. Shallan’s sections were often a bit of a slog in Rhythm of War, as she was in such a terrible mental place, and her breakthrough at long last was much-needed. To have things seem as if she’d so quickly backslid in Wind and Truth was rough, even if it may have served as an explanation for her ongoing issues with Transformation.
Honestly, I wonder if her double bond means she simply won’t ever get access to Soulcasting in the traditional sense. It might be interesting if her Transformation is a more robust version of the Spiritual Connection she has exhibited at points since Words of Radiance.
“There are pieces of the god who made the planet,” the Stormfather said. “No longer relevant, as humans—poorly adapted to this land—began to fear the storm above all else. And so it took on life… became an Adversary. A new demigod for Roshar.”
The three gods of Roshar, even on reread, remain nebulous and tough to understand in a mechanical sense. This is about the closest we get to a real answer, I think—the Wind, Stone, and Night are spren, fragments of Adonalsium. But they seem to work so differently from other spren, even the major spren like the Unmade and the Bondsmith spren, that they take on this nebulous sense of mythology. We get some more info about the Night later on, but the Wind and the Stone seem to be almost all-encompassing when it comes to Roshar, seemingly able to communicate with Kaladin and Venli wherever they are.
I have to wonder whether Sanderson intends to more fully explore these primal forces of Roshar in the back five books of the series. There isn’t the same sense that he’s promising answers as there was in, say, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance with the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher. I hope we do get follow-through on this at some point, though.
Speaking of things that demand further explanation in the back five:
At this point, Navani thought, he might not be a Bondsmith, since this looks like an Elsecalling. So, some of the Heralds were practiced in different Surges from the ones they would one day take up as Heralds.
The function of Surgebinding on Ashyn, and the Heralds’ lives before the Oathpact, will almost undoubtedly get more attention in the later books. The fact that Ash and Taln are slated for flashbacks in books 8 and 9 is promising, but I hope we don’t have to wait until then for at least some answers around how this all worked.
Ashyn post-apocalypse apparently has a disease-based magic system, where infected people demonstrate powers—so long as they remain sick. But nothing in these early chapters indicates that anything like that is going on here; most likely it’s a new evolution of the Invested Arts after the departure of Odium. Instead, we just know that the Surges didn’t have acceptable strictures on their capabilities, and unfettered use during the conflict between Honor and Odium led to the destruction of Ashyn’s surface.
It will be fascinating to see what Taln’s past was like, and Ash’s.
Meanwhile, there’s not much new to say about Szeth’s flashback (though I like the chapter). This line did give me a chuckle, however, given my earlier note about the Wind, Night, and Stone:
I am the spren of the stone you discovered, the Voice said.
Good ol’ Ishar, lying through his proverbial teeth.
Not a lot of theories and comments to highlight this week, but last week Polygon picked up on Brandon’s recent list of his top ten favorite video games and speculated about the possible connections between the games and his fiction. You can check out the original list here—let us know if you have any thoughts on the games that made the top ten and/or how they might relate to Sanderson’s style, worldbuilding, magic systems, or any other aspect of his work!
As always, 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 read the book yet.
See you next Monday with our next discussion article on Chapters 52 and 53!
