Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Shallan evacuated the armies through the Oathgate while Kaladin battled Szeth through and above the clashing storms. This week, in the aftermath, they face rearrangement of the world as they knew it. Also, Lopen is glow-y and Moash is gloomy.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Chapter 87: The Riddens
Point of View: Kaladin, Shallan, Lopen, Moash
Setting: Central Shattered Plains, Urithiru, the Warcamps
Symbology: Double Eye of the Almighty, Jezrien, Shalash
IN WHICH Kaladin crosses the twice-Shattered Plains with Syl; they discuss storms, armies, Shardblades, death, Honorblades, and the Nahel bond; Kaladin reunites with Bridge Four, and grieves the losses; bridgemen glowed with Stormlight during the battle, and Kaladin’s eyes are pale blue.
… Shallan considers Urithiru and identity; Dalinar and Navani send and receive messages about storms, riots, and disappearing kings; the Oathgate brings Kaladin and Bridge Four; Kaladin reassures them that the assassin is dead and Elhokar is safe.
… The Lopen practices with a sphere as his mother scolds the king; Uncle Chilinko brings news of the pending evacuation; Lopen sucks in Stormlight; he glows, and his arm begins to regrow.
… Moash sits gloomily on the back of a cart on the way out of the warcamps; the exodus begins, though not undisputed; Graves plans to rejoin the Diagram, with Moash as his consolation prize; Moash knows he’s been played for a fool, though he’s not sure how.
Quote of the Week
“I don’t feel so hungry, nanha,” Elhokar said. His voice was weak, but he’d awoken from his drunken stupor, which was a good sign.
“You’ll eat anyway!” Mother said. “I know what to do when I see a man that pale in the face, and pardon, Your Majesty, but you are pale as a sheet hung out for the sun to bleach! And that’s the truth of it. You’re going to eat. No complaints.”
“I’m the king. I don’t take orders from—”
“You’re in my home now!” she said, and Lopen mouthed along with the words. “In a Herdazian woman’s home, nobody’s station means nothing beside her own. I’m not going to have them come and get you and find you not properly fed! I’ll not have people saying that, Your Brightship, no I won’t! Eat up. I’ve got soup cooking.”
I love this woman. Maybe Navani should have spent some time with the Herdazians while she was raising her kids.
Off the Wall
Chaos in Alethkar is, of course, inevitable. Watch carefully, and do not let power in the kingdom solidify. The Blackthorn could become an ally or our greatest foe, depending on whether he takes the path of the warlord or not. If he seems likely to sue for peace, assassinate him expeditiously. The risk of competition is too great.
—From the Diagram, Writings upon the Bedstand Lamp: paragraph 4
(Adrotagia’s 3rd translation from the original hieroglyphics)
It’s impossible to completely recall first epiphanies, once you’ve read the whole book a dozen times or so, and I haven’t really tried with the Diagram excerpts. I think it’s safe to say, though, that this one was a real eye-opener. Naturally, we haven’t exactly been convinced that Taravangian is “good”—not since we learned he was the one behind Szeth’s serial assassination spree. We’ve had reasons to question the Diagram, but at this point, it’s obvious: if Dalinar tries to unite Alethkar, he must be assassinated for the Diagram to work. This, naturally and intentionally, strikes a very sour chord with the reader who believes Dalinar is doing the right thing… which is pretty much everyone, I assume.
This brings me to a quotation from one of the links someone gave us recently (I’m sorry, I don’t want to go searching for which link and who shared it—please identify yourself!). Although this wasn’t the subject of the discussion at the time, I noticed it:
Q – Taravangian: On his “Special Day” where he created the Diagram, was he actually as smart as he thinks he was, or was something else going on? It seems suspicious that any level of raw intelligence would let him deduce all of that…
A – That sure IS suspicious, eh? Let’s just say that HE believes it was rational deduction. But other theories are valid.
I’ll just leave that there for you to discuss.
Commentary
First off, I have to apologize to everyone for my lack of research last week. I assumed my memory was adequate to recall what Brandon had said about the textual changes, and clearly, it wasn’t!! I’ll try to fix that.
Next, a tiny bit of housekeeping: I’m going on vacation for a couple of weeks, soon. I’m planning to work ahead, because this is just a stupid place in the book to take a two-week break; however, sometimes things don’t go according to plan. If it’s not going to work, I’ll let you know; I might have to take a week off. Either way, we’ll finish at the end of July or beginning of August. I’d also like to include a quick review of the Prelude, just to see what we know now that we didn’t know then. Further plans are pending.
Onward, ho!
Well, the majority of the Avalanche is past; now we’re in the final-rumbling-and-stabilizing stage, as the world settles into a brief, uneasy quiet. The battles are fought, the storms have moved on, the new Radiants are revealed, and the Climax is over. In the aftermath, we’re presented with a number of smaller, but significant, facts and implications.
The Everstorm will hit New Natanatan, and after that they can only guess. The untimely highstorm is on its way across the continent, which will be bad enough by being a surprise. It remains to be seen what will happen if the two storms do follow opposite paths around the world, to crash again over some yet-unknown locale. (We the almost-omniscient readers, of course, can be quite sure that they will, of course do exactly that!)
It’s worth pointing out that Syl doesn’t know what will happen, because it’s never happened before. The Everstorm is not a normal part of a Desolation—if “normal” even means anything in this context. There’s certainly a sense of foreboding, though; everything on Roshar is set up to be protected from westward-moving storms, and you just know people won’t take seriously a warning that there’s a really bad blow coming from the west…
My second-favorite part of this chapter is when Kaladin finds Bridge Four waiting for him at the Oathgate. It’s such a good moment. The joy is marred by the death of three of their number, and the injuries suffered by others; at the same time, there’s a delight in being alive, and in being together, and in Kaladin’s return to his powers. I really like the way Rlain is presented: Kaladin is momentarily freaked out by this strange Parshendi saluting him, because this is his first exposure to the concept of the different forms. At the same time, he seems to jump immediately to Rlain’s defense when Sigzil says he’s been “pardoned”—he shouldn’t need to be pardoned for his race!—until Rlain himself explains that the pardon is for being a spy. Teft, ever the observant and blunt sergeant Kaladin needs, is the one with the best lines:
“You can’t protect us all, son,” Teft said. “You can’t stop people from feeling pain, can’t stop men from dying.”
Naturally, Kaladin can’t quite accept that—but he needed to hear it anyway. He will always want to protect his own, but sometimes he won’t be able to. Speaking of which… I really like Jeremy’s suggestion a couple weeks ago about the Ideals relating to the divine attributes. Just in case anyone hasn’t been following the comments, I’ll quickly recap here: The theory is that, while all Orders share the first Ideal, the remaining four are split, two and two, between the two divine attributes associated with the Herald of the Order. As an example, we’ve seen that the Windrunners’ 2nd and 3rd Ideals have to do with Protecting: I will protect those who cannot protect themselves and I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right. According to the theory, then, Kaladin’s 4th and 5th Ideals would have to do with Leading.
Unfortunately, I don’t know more than the third Ideal for any Order yet, so I have no way to check this out. Yet. But looking through the 2nd and 3rd Ideals I have… so far, I think it fits. The proof will, hopefully, come in SA3, with one or more 4th Ideals revealed.
Back to the matters at hand, Kaladin doesn’t know—and doesn’t figure out—what to tell Bridge Four about Moash. There’s no pressing need, at the moment, but it will come, eventually. He’s going to have to deal with that. The end of the chapter finally makes me feel sorry for Moash, though; at long last, he realizes that he’s been a complete tool, and to seal the matter, he’s being dragged along as a consolation prize. He himself doesn’t mean a thing to Graves; he’s just a trophy to make up for Graves failing the assigned mission. Worse, he has two useful aspects in Graves’s eyes: he has Shards, and he knows Kaladin. Miserable as he is, he doesn’t know what to do but go along. This actually gives me hope—maybe, sometime in the next three books, he’ll have a chance to redeem himself and make us all glad Kaladin didn’t kill him.
Meanwhile, Shallan has found Urithiru and revealed her biggest secret to all of Alethkar, and now she has to figure out what that means. Aside from how hilarious it is watching people try to figure out what to do with a Knight Radiant, when they’ve “always known” that the KR were terrible, but now one has just saved the entire army… Shallan is having some difficulty dealing with it. It made me just a little nervous to read
Well, let them see Shallan the Radiant. She could always find freedom later, wearing another face.
I can understand it, sort of, but it worries me that her reaction to everyone watching her is that she can always use her Surges to hide when it gets to be too much pressure. Last week (and I failed to note this) Shallan acknowledged what she called “a deep truth”—that her spren was her living Shardblade. I don’t know if this is part of the self-awareness of a Lightweaver or not; it didn’t give her any noticeable power-ups, though it certainly gave her an instant means to save the armies.
Still, for now she’s willing to be “Brightness Radiant” to everyone, and to freely talk with Pattern about the situation. Oddly, though, she doesn’t respond—and mentally changes the subject—when he says that Lightweavers must speak truths.
In and among all this, we learn that there is very little available by way of natural resources up here. There’s no apparent place for crops, and precious little to burn for firewood. Those at Urithiru will be utterly dependent on Soulcasters for food, and on Shallan & Kaladin for transportation.
No pressure, though.
Stormwatch
Day Zero is nearly complete.
Ars Arcanum
Every time I think I’ve got a handle on the magic system, something gets slippery again.
“So they’re all spren,” he said. “Shardblades.”
Syl grew solemn.
“Dead spren,” Kaladin added.
“Dead,” Syl agreed. “Then they live again a little when someone summons them, syncing a heartbeat to their essence.”
“How can something be ‘a little’ alive?”
“We’re spren,” Syl said. “We’re forces. You can’t kill us completely. Just… sort of.”
“That’s perfectly clear.”
“It’s perfectly clear to us,” Syl said. “You’re the strange ones. Break a rock, and it’s still there. Break a spren, and she’s still there. Sort of. Break a person, and something leaves. Something changes. What’s left is just meat. You’re weird.”
Slippery. I don’t have a clear understanding of the Spiritual aspects of spren and rocks. In the Cosmere, do only humanoids have a Spiritual aspect that actually leaves and goes Beyond? All sapient beings? What about sentient beings, horses and chickens and chulls? And what about spren, who originate on the Cognitive realm and then manifest in the Physical? Do they have a Spiritual aspect too? I can see how a rock (or a stick) has a Physical aspect, and a Cognitive aspect of self-perception (I believe that’s how pairing fabrials work—by a split gem which still sees itself as a single gem). But I honestly don’t know whether a rock or a stick has a Spiritual aspect, or how it works if it does. Too much we don’t know yet. Syl gives me a headache, some days…
Then there are the Honorblades:
“The Honorblades are what we are based on, Kaladin. Honor gave these to men, and those men gained powers from them. Spren figured out what He’d done, and we imitated it. We’re bits of His power, after all, like this sword. Be careful with it. It is a treasure.”
“So the assassin wasn’t a Radiant.”
“No. But Kaladin, you have to understand. With this sword, someone can do what you can, but without the… checks a spren requires.” She touched it, then shivered visibly, her form blurring for a second. “This sword gave the assassin power to use Lashings, but it also fed upon his Stormlight. A person who uses this will need far, far more Light than you will. Dangerous levels of it.”
We’ve discussed this before, and I don’t think we have any clear answers; just opinions. Does “imitation” mean that spren always and only match the Surge pairings Honor gifted to the Heralds? Did they first figure out how to grant a single Surge? Could they grant several Surges to one person, before the rules were established? Is there a WoB on this subject?
Also, what does Syl mean by a person needing “dangerous levels” of Stormlight? Is there a danger in holding too much Stormlight, or for too long? Is the danger tempered by a Nahel bond? Or is it that if you run out of Stormlight, the Honorblade will drain your life, or something? This, too, is something I don’t think I understand properly, yet.
But now… another of my favorite parts of the book, and my absolute favorite of this chapter: The. Lopen. Shines.
The Lopen sucked in Light.
It happened in an eyeblink, and then there he sat, Stormlight streaming from his skin.
“Ha!” he shouted, leaping to his feet. “Ha! Hey, Chilinko, come back here. I need to stick you to the wall!”
The Light winked out. The Lopen stopped, frowning, and held his hand up in front of him. Gone so fast? What had happened? He hesitated. That tingling…
He felt at his shoulder, the one where he’d lost his arm so long ago. There, his fingers prodded a new nub of flesh that had begun sprouting from his scar.
“Oh, storms yes! Everybody, give the Lopen your spheres! I have glowing that needs to be done.”
This is so much fun. It comes not long after Teft’s statement that he saw some of the lads glowing with Stormlight just before Kaladin himself showed up at the battle. It’s not much guesswork to surmise that neither event could happen while Kaladin’s oaths were non-functioning. The question, though, is whether he needed to speak his third Ideal before it could happen. In other words, if Kaladin had maintained his bond, could this have happened earlier? Or is it always a third-Ideal-gets-a-live-Shardblade-plus-squires deal?
Note, also, the way Lopen’s arm immediately starts growing, even though he’s not consciously pursuing that. By way of contrast, Kaladin still has his scars.
Ars Mechanica
Quick note on the Oathgate: someone wondered earlier how the Bridge Four members got back to the Plains. Seems that they wanted to return, and as part of experimenting with the Oathgate, Shallan took them back. Once there, the bridgemen had to leave the plateau in order for her to return alone to Urithiru.
Something else to… notice, because there’s not much to say about it except “there it is.”
One of the pillarlike plateaus nearby flashed. It happened with a wall of light revolving around its perimeter, leaving streaks of blurred afterimage to fade. Someone had activated the Oathgate.
Compare this to the scene in the Epilogue (yes, I’m jumping ahead), when Jasnah arrives:
The air in front of him blurred, as if heated in a ring near the ground. A streak of light spun about the ring, forming a wall five or six feet high. It faded immediately— really, it was just an afterimage, as if something glowing had spun in the circle very quickly.
It’s not like we really needed further evidence that the Oathgate uses the Transportation Surge, but if anyone wondered… I’d say that’s it.
Heraldic Symbolism
We actually have to deal with the character symbol as well as the Heralds, this week. Most of the times we’ve seen the Double Eye, it’s been on Interlude chapters—specifically: Ym, Rysn, Lhan, and Taravangian. The only other times it’s used are Chapter 29, which is a Sadeas POV, and the Epilogue. Perhaps this is a way to acknowledge the importance of the POV of someone who doesn’t have an icon of their own.
If that’s the case, then the other two POV characters are well-represented by the Heralds of their Orders: Jezrien for the Windrunners, and Shalash for the Lightweavers.
Shipping Wars
There are two items of interest this week in the Shipping department. First, Shallan and Adolin:
Several scribes passed by, bringing paper to draw out maps of Adolin’s exploration. They bobbed quick, uncomfortable bows to Shallan and called her “Brightness Radiant.” She still hadn’t talked at length with Adolin about what had happened to her.
This implies that they haven’t had—or taken—opportunity for much private conversation; it’s quite possible they really haven’t talked about it at all beyond the “You too?” “Yeah, sorry” exchange from last chapter. I’d say the delay was unhealthy… except then I realize that it’s still the same afternoon they arrived at Urithiru, and there are Things To Do. The army is something less than the original 30,000 soldiers, now, but when you add in scribes, scholars, ardents, mistresses, and whatnot… there are a lot of people to look after. Personal angst over Shallan’s Radianticity™ has to wait.
The other item that at least warrants notice is this, which someone pointed out recently:
Dalinar stepped up beside her and they waited tensely, until a group of figures in blue appeared at the plateau edge and started down the steps. Bridge Four.
“Oh, thank the Almighty,” Shallan whispered. It was him, not the assassin.
One of the figures pointed down toward where Dalinar and the rest of them stood. Kaladin separated from his men, dropping off the steps and floating over the army. He landed on the stones in stride, carrying a Shardblade on his shoulder, his long officer’s coat unbuttoned and coming down to his knees.
He still has the slave brands, she thought, though his long hair obscured them. His eyes had become a pale blue. They glowed softly.
There it is, in context. Some will say that the level of detail indicates that she’s harboring a deeper interest, while others will say that she’s simply being observant, like artists often are. In any case, I expect everyone was relieved that it was Kaladin and not Szeth.
There. That ought to keep us busy until next week, when Shallan has multiple uncomfortable confrontations, Amaram makes new plans, and Szeth meets some strange characters.
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. She hopes you have all had a chance to enjoy the new graphic novel White Sand, because it is totally canon and is also awesome. If you haven’t, you should.
I loved the squire comment. Does Syl get squires also? I was wonder about all the windspren that helped Kaladin during his battle. Will each squire bridgeman get his own squire windspren/honorspren?
Alice – a trademark on Radianticity? love it!!! A new word. now the next step is for it to be word of the year or be in the dictionary, :-)
I suppose the bridges are light enough that the 5-6 men from Bridge 4 who returned to the central plateau could move and position one by themselves.
I’d go with Radiantricity.
Okay, so lots of stuff going on in this chapter, all of it awesome, but only two things matter.
1. The Lopen!
2. The Mama Lopen!
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!!!! MORE LOPEN!!!!!!!
I’ve always enjoyed the parallel between Shallan’s and Kaladin’s first glimpses inside the Oathgate chamber:
To Shallan, the room was beautiful because of its artwork. The text initially sounds like Kaladin finds the same beauty – but then it clarifies that the beauty he finds isn’t in the artwork but is instead that Bridge Four, alive, waited for him.
I found it interesting that Syl said “With this sword, someone can do what you can, but without the… checks a spren requires.” IIRC, Ishar was initially hesitant to agree to the formation of the various orders of KR and the Nahel bonds. I think he required certain restrictions: these checks that Syl talked about. IIRC the implication was that Ishar instituted the checks. Syl’s comment about the check in this chapter imply that it was the spren who instituted such a check. Is this a situation where Syl’s knowledge/memories are not so clear. Does she think it is the sprens who instituted the checks when it was really the Heralds.
IMO, Kaladin still has the slave brands because he has yet to come to accept the actions that led up to being branded as a slave. When Tien was conscripted, Kaladin took it upon himself to protect Tien. He followed him into the army. However, he was unable to save Tien. Thereafter, he could not save his division. Most of them died when they came up against the Shardbearer. Kaladin choose to give up his Blade and Plate to his men. It was that action that lead Amaram to kill Kaladin’s remaining men and put Kaladin into slavery. To this day, Kaladin is still unconsciously punishing himself for these deaths. Lopen, on the other hand (no pun intended), accepts the fact that he lost his arm. He makes the best of it. Lope has a c’est la vie attitude. Lopen’s attitude is why his Investiture is able to regrow his arm.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
I have to agree with everyone about glowing Lopen. So good. Also, I think this is an illustration of the Spiritual component of Stormlight healing – Lopen sees himself as having an arm that just happens to not be around at the moment, whereas Kaladin still sees himself as a slave, to some extent.
I had a bit of a squee moment seeing my theory on the Ideals endorsed on the official re-read – glad you liked it, Alice! Only thing better you be to see it actually unfold that way, but as you say, we’ll have to wait until Book 3 to see how that goes.
Hope you enjoy your vacation, regardless of what it does to the schedule.
I think it’s pretty natural to wonder about both his scars healing and to notice someone’s GLOWING EYES. I’m not sure it tells us anything about Shallan’s level of interest. She could be noticing because of any number of reasons, and drawing conclusions based on limited information is always going to be messy. Beware of Confirmation Bias.
Realizing your mistakes (or tool-ish-ness) is always the first step towards true change. I for one am hoping Moash makes that change – perhaps becoming an inside-man, thwarting various plots against the Knights Radiant from the Diagrammers?
I’m starting to get excited for the Novella coming out later this year. I read the excerpt from Brandon’s newsletter, and that just made the wait worse!
That sounds like Nightblood eating Breaths.
Maybe the windspren “squires” are the Shardplate.
The Lopen for President!
@7 I may be making this up, but I think Brandon has said that Kaladin’s brands haven’t healed yet because they’re part of his mental image of himself, which dovetails nicely with your idea that he’s still unconsciously punishing himself.
@8 I hadn’t considered relating the oaths to the divine attributes, but that would be so very Sanderson.
My own thought on future Windrunner oaths come from the less sophisticated approach of considering what Kaladin would be the last thing on the world Kaladin would want to do. The fourth oath could be something like “I will sacrifice few to save many.” Accepting that you will sometimes fail to protect someone is hard enough for Kaladin in this chapter. It’s a huge step from there to deliberately allowing someone to die to save others.
And similar to FenrirMoridin’s thoughts on chapter 85, I think Kaladin’s fifth oath will be about self preservation. Specifically that if the situation demands, he will let someone else die to protect him, so that he can in turn protect the greater good. E.g. let Adolin hold the door against a swarm of Voidbringers so that Kaladin can make it to the final battle with boss fight intact. Kaladin’s sense if honor would rebel at letting someone die for him, but sometimes self sacrifice can actually be the selfish choice.
So, the references to “the Lopen” always throw me off. Is it supposed to be Lopen from Bridge Four, one of his unidentified extended relatives (which I highly doubt because of the arm), or what the deal is. Its just the addition of the “the” that doesn’t make sense.
Lopen is “the Lopen”. His awesomeness has granted him the honorific of “the”.
The funny thing is this is the only place where you find “the Lopen” in TWoK. Pity I only have the audiobook of Book 2.
How can Graves still say that to Moash after admitting a couple of chapters ago that he was keeping Kaladin away from Dalinar so that Szeth could kill him?
@15
Good catch. Could it be that Graves was pursuing his personal agenda wrt. removing Elhokar, and that Szeth killing Dalinar was more of Mr. T’s big plan? It does seem odd that they would be working at cross-purposes though.
Love The Lopen: I want to be a KR so I’m just going to practice a bit and I’ll get there. Can Do! And he does. Good question about that still happening if Kaladin isn’t on the path.
@11 If you’re making that up about Kaladin’s brands, then someone else made it up before you, because I’ve heard that as well. I believe Brandon said that Kaladin still sees himself as branded, or something like that. Hopefully we’ll get some elucidation on that in book three. If he makes me wait until book four, I will be annoyed.
I like the trademark on Radianticity. Although oddly enough, it’s easy to miss the ‘i’ between ‘Radiant’ and ‘city’, which made me think it was a nickname for Urithiru after I’d typed it.
I loved the fact that Kaladin has accepted not only being a Radiant, but being a Radiant very publicly. Yes, Bridge Four knows, and we knew he would tell Dalinar. But he floated over the whole storming army! For no apparent reason beyond convenience!
@14 I believe we only get “the Lopen” when we’re in Lopen’s POV. It’s how he thinks of himself, but not necessarily how others view him. That said, his is a great head to be in, and it gives me hope that we might have a Rock POV at some point. I love that guy.
“She touched it, then shivered visibly, her form blurring for a second.”
Does it mean something that she blurs or is that just the way she shivers?
Alice, thanks for pointing out the circular afterimage around both the platform and around Jasnah. That’s one I hadn’t noticed. I’m going to note that this is the first time Shallon gets to see it work from a distance since she would have been inside all the other times.
@14,17: “The Lopen” appears six times in his PoV in this chapter and twice more in WoR. Both times, it’s in someone else’s PoV with Lopen speaking out loud and referring to himself that way.
Does anybody else feel that the whole “the Lopen” thing is anachronistic?
adjbaker @1 – So… would Syl’s squires be the spren of Kaladin’s squires, or would they be Kaladin’s armor? ;)
Ways @3 – there were 6 guys outside, and an unspecified number more inside. Might have been all of the survivors, even. In any case, enough to carry a bridge. (Hey, the guys at JCon carried it with 3 or 4, right?)
Andrew @7 – You know, I don’t think I’d ever considered it in quite that light. It’s possible Kaladin sees himself as a slave because deep down, he feels that he deserves to be a slave.
The Lopen has always considered his lost arm still there, it’s the one he makes his rude gestures with, after all!
Re: the oaths changing theme
I thought we had a WoB or something stating that different orders had different numbers of oaths. Windrunners have 5, but Lightweavers only have the one. I could swear that we were told a bit about the numbers for some other orders, too.
Had to make an account to say this fairly off the wall theory, but I haven’t seen anyone else come up with it: The Lopen is Herdazian royalty. When I hear “the” preceding a name, I tend to assume, whether rightly or wrongly, that it is a title rather than a proper name. Other highly tenuous evidence: He always seems to have Herdazian “cousins” who always seem willing to help out with whatever he needs. This would mesh with him being some sort of authority figure, or at the very least a figure worthy of respect.
Counterpoint to my argument: What sort of royalty would want to be a bridgeman? I could probably make up some semi-convoluted logic to justify it, but without any real evidence (He’s suffering with his people! He’s trying to steal Shardblades! He’s in hiding from a coup! Herdazians are sick of his jokes and kicked him out of the kingdom!).
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
From WoB:
“In the end” referencing:
@24 That’s what I thought at first, but then I realized it is not ‘The Lopen’ it is ‘Thee Lopen’ as in ‘the one and only Lopen’. Hence his comment that he has asked around and found it a singularly unique name.
I think this is where I should mention my little theory. Sub-theory really. Just a small detail I been thinking of.
Now Kal has his scars still. There two possible reasons 1) Stormlight counts scars and other such wounds as the natural form so leave them or 2) The emotional scars are preventing them from healing.
Now 2) seems much more likely, but I’m not that fond of it
So reason 1.5) Not all Stormlight, or rather only those with some surges can heal scars. We seen to long term wounds healed now. Renarin eyesight and Lopins arm. Clearly the surge needed would be regrowth which Renarin has, so my thought is The Lopin a edgedancer or truthwatcher in training? I know he wants to fly, but I could see him as a edgedancer.
So my thought is lets take a moment to observe a Radient without the surge of Regrowth or a emotional attachment to his scars. The good news is we have one. Dalinar. He was mentioned to be covered in scars from years of fighting and as a bondsmith no regrowth.
That said its most likely 2) and this theory is simply because I think Lopin would be more fun sliding around then flying.
I always thought that Kaladin’s scars didn’t heal because he thought of them as part of who he is now. I also kinda theorized that that was why the tattoo ink wouldn’t take to his skin (so that it wouldn’t cover that integral part of him).
I hadn’t really thought about it before but with Graves hoping Moash will be helpful due to the Shardblade and being Kaladin’s friend, maybe that will come back and bite him (as in Moash might go back to Kal’s side)? I almost feel like that’s too cliché for Brandon, though.
@6 I love that comparison! I never thought about that before.
@10 That’s a really good theory about Shardplate. Has anyone asked Brandon about where the Shardplate comes from? If the spren squires are the Shardplate then does each order of the KR have squires? Does each order even have shards? I had assumed they all have Shardblades but based on Dalinar’s conversation at the end of this book maybe not?
Love this reread and all the fan theories. 2017, folks! That’s the year I have my fingers crossed for! Although I wouldn’t complain getting it earlier? No? Sigh… (Please, oh, please don’t make us wait until 2018!!!!)
I’ve been wanting to say something about Moash for a few chapters, but haven’t gotten around to it. In his face-off with Kaladin, both of them are facing conflicting loyalties – Moash has a personal loyalty to Kaladin, but he also has a promise to keep (participating in the assassination plot). Kaladin has a personal loyalty to Moash, but he too has a promise to keep (protecting Elhokar). That’s simplifying a bit – there were other factors involved – but that’s the gist of it, I think. The interesting thing is that both men decide to keep their promises rather than follow their individual loyalty to each other. This struck me as I saw some people criticizing Kaladin and Syl for seeming to only care about keeping promises, not primarily about what was right. Moash chooses to keep his promise, too, but as far as the story is concerned he makes the wrong decision. So even that particular situation implies that there’s more to Kaladin’s morality as a Windrunner than just doing what he said he would.
At this point, I’m thinking that Moash will be a spy. As far as we know, none of our protagonists are aware of what Taravangian is up to – even Jasnah doesn’t seem to know, judging from her visit to Kharbranth. Moash could be extremely helpful just by tipping them off to the fact that Taravangian was controlling Szeth and now seems to have other grand plans.
As for Kaladin being lighteyed: honestly, for now this just cracks me up. I’m sure Sanderson will use it in the future to explore serious identity issues and prejudices and whatnot, but for now it just strikes me as hilariously ironic. Poor Kaladin. “Storm it!”
Speaking of which, is that was Teft was doing during the highstorm? Listening to readings of TWoK? That doesn’t really seem to make sense, but…I still want to know what Teft was doing, even if Kaladin isn’t supposed to be so concerned about it.
Now I must devolve into a disorganized bulleted list in order to talk about the ton of worldbuilding/mythology/magical tidbits in this chapter…most of which just raise more questions!
-Why did the Everstorm not come before? Could it be directly tied to Honor’s being dead, or the Heralds having given up?
-Shallan’s comments about it not being the Weeping in Urithiru raises the possibility (only; there’s no strong evidence of this so I’m not sure it’s even worth bringing up) that the Everstorm threw off the Weeping. If so, why?
-From what Pattern says to Shallan, it seems that the “Words” a Radiant speaks have two subcategories: oaths and…other things (which for Shallan are truths, but maybe that’s different for other orders). So Shallan and Kaladin both have a number of Words to speak – but for Shallan they’re truths and for Kaladin they’re oaths.
-Also, I noted that Pattern doesn’t consider Shallan a true Radiant until she’s spoken all the Words. Makes you wonder how many KRs in the old days were still in the process of speaking their Words compared to the number who were already finished.
Oh, and it amuses me that Little Herdaz is in Sebarial’s camp. Fits, somehow. And after all, IIRC Palona is Herdazian.
Re: the institution of “checks” on Radiants: Here’s the epigraph about Ishar and what he did…
Syl says:
The way she phrases it, it’s ambiguous whether the spren itself is requiring the checks, or just having a spren means the checks are required by something/someone else. But the epigraph about Ishar doesn’t absolutely confirm either that he established the system of Ideals, Words, &c. More research is necessary…no, scratch that, more books.
@15 Nazrax: Okay, here’s what I’m guessing. Graves says that he’s a patriot, “allowed to pursue our own interests and goals until we’re called up”, immediately before talking about his own interpretation of the Diagram and how he thought killing Elhokar would let Dalinar become an ally. So maybe Graves is part of Taravangian’s group, but T hasn’t “called him up” and ordered him to do something yet. So Graves has been forming theories about the Diagram on his own time and pursuing them, but now this particular one about Elhokar and Dalinar been proven wrong. And so now he’s annoyed as all theorycrafters are when their favorite gets busted.
Also, just throwing this out there in case anybody else was confused for a moment like me: IIRC, Jasnah said in TWoK that she’d written to kings and other leaders about her parshmen-Voidbringer hypothesis. In that case, it would explain why Graves knew that Jasnah had thought this, since Taravangian would have heard.
Oh, and Brandon Sanderson posted another Oathbringer update!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/4r6ds5/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_3/
I still can’t get over how he calls it “your book”. He is too nice.
Thanks for the link! It explains why he can be only 60% done, but still plan to start the beta in September. :) I was wondering about that!
@31 Wetlandernw: Thanks goodness the beta will be starting after you’re done with the WoR reread. It would be terrifically aggravating to be throwing our theories around while knowing that you might have the answers and be off smirking to yourself. :)
Oh, I’m already doing that. I’ve read the Lift novella. ;)
Seriously, though, YES. It would be hard to be working on the reread of WoR and the beta read of OB at the same time. Logistically, it would be heavy-duty, and keeping my mind wrapped around what I can say in which venue would be even more challenging. It was hard enough just as a commentor on TWoK; I deleted a lot of comments before posting because I didn’t want to hint at what might or might not be answered in WoR. (Also, since WoR answered a ton of questions, I had to be very guarded!)
So, yeah, Brandon seems to have so much going on in the SA that he can give us answers to things far earlier than we were expecting, which makes it dicey to discuss one book – and its questions – while having “read ahead” as it were.
The timing of the OB beta read does make me wonder about when I should start Warbreaker, but I think I’ll just make my plans and deal with it. :)
Yeah, no kidding. We want to be able to hear what you think without being haunted by spoilers and non disclosure agreements!
So then the rumors are true and there’s a plan for a Warbreaker reread?
(My dream was an Alcatraz reread. Or even better, a whole Obscure Works of Brandon Sanderson reread. Let’s all fangirl/boy over, uh, Heuristic Algorithm and Reasoning Response Engine…)
@10: WOB has stated that Nightblood was modeled by Vasher/Shashara after having seen a Shardblade/Honorblade. In my mental theory, the Honorblades don’t feed off of stormlight specifically, but off of Investiture, which on Roshar is stormlight, so the equivalent on Nalthis would be breaths…similar to how Vasher (as Zahel) can support his Returned status via stormlight while on Roshar.
Personally I think Kaladin will have to first forgive himself for the deaths of his brother and his original squad before the brands will be healed. Who knows, maybe that will be a minor moment of awesome in book 3.
@20: Speaking in third person about yourself has been around for centuries. In various forms.
@28: Re Brandon and Shardplate – we only get RAFO to those questions. Including one that was “Will Shallan have shardplate?”
Fingers crossed for Book 3. Right now, he’s being quite.
@30: Thanks for the update! At first I thought it would be a preview, but ah well. Good to know he’s figuring out the best process for him to make this a quick as possible. Doing a happy dance that my mental calculations are on track.
@31: Okay, good to know when you’ll be harder to reach. ;-)
sheesania – I’m not 100% sure what I’ll do next, assuming Tor wants me to do anything. ;) My thought has been Warbreaker, just for the fun of digging around at Vasher and Nightblood because of what we learned in WoR, but they may have some other ideas they’d rather pursue. With Oathbringer not coming out until sometime next year, I’d really like to do something to maintain the community here in the meantime. I’ll be sure to let you know when we settle on something!
Braid_Tug – September is going to be interesting. Major change at school for my daughter (going into Secondary, where everything works differently), my sister-in-law having a knee replacement (which will definitely require assistance from me for a week or two), possibly starting a new reread, and hopefully starting the Oathbringer beta… It’s actually all good stuff – I’ll just be on an adrenaline high for a while! Fortunately, the time between now and September is lovely summer break, so I can be content to wait for it.
> In other words, if Kaladin had maintained his bond, could this have happened earlier? Or is it always a third-Ideal-gets-a-live-Shardblade-plus-squires deal?
Or maybe it’s a result of the “unscheduled” high storm? There was something in the book about the possibility of the high storms actually being just one storm that continually moves around the planet. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, the original storm had way more stormlight and could cause Investiture for individuals, or something, and now this new one is at full strength…
> Note, also, the way Lopen’s arm immediately starts growing, even though he’s not consciously pursuing that. By way of contrast, Kaladin still has his scars.
I think this is because Kaladin has still not fully accepted his new rank and let go of that painful part of his past, so he is unconsciously holding on to the scars as a permanent part of him. I suspect it will take a final confrontation with Amaram for him to let the scars go. Yes, he had the confrontation with Amaram and Dalinar to confirm that his story about Amaram was true, but I don’t think he’s really gotten closure on that yet.
I wonder… the members of Bridge Four that are now “glowing” and healing – will their tattoos stay? If the ink was imbedded before the person is able to heal, is it still permanent?
A WoB from the Reddit post about Shallan’s reaction to Adolin asking: You too?
If you re-read that scene, I believe she’s confused by the question about her being able to fly, as so far as she knows, Radiants don’t fly. (She only knows about herself and Jasnah. She finds out about Kaladin sometime around when most everyone else finds out about him, I believe. I’d have to look back specifically to see if I noted it, but by the end of that battle, everyone will be talking about it and so she will know.
I believe that Kaladin keeps his slave brands because that is part of his identity, the one who rose from slavery to authority (commander of 1000 men, head of the royal guards), and now Radiancy. It is not, I believe, a sign of self-punishment. If he felt deserving of slavery he would not have made 10 escape efforts to rid himself of it. it’s good to remind oneself of humble beginnings in order to keep a sense of balance and to avoid arrogance. It’s also a biblical theme where various rituals are commanded as a remembrance of being slaves in Egypt.
The issue with Moash should become clearer once Kaladin returns to Urithiru. When the king arrives without Moash, His men will question Kaladin about his absence (He, presumably, is one his way with Graves to Taravangian or associates.). Kaladin will also need to account for his absence as well as explaining the circumstances of the assassination plot to the king. That could get dicey unless Elhokar has reformed his ways since that incident. Incidentally, while Brandon informs us that Moash was named prior to his involvement with his long-term editor, Moshe Feder, it is possibly a take off on the biblical Moshe (King James spelling – Moses) since another figure in the story is Amaram who is the biblical father of Moshe.
Isn’t there a WoB that Kaladin’s scars are indeed a part of how he sees himself? I thought this question was resolved a long time ago…
Also, speaking of Moash, is his name supposed to be pronounced Mo-ash? That’s how it’s being pronounced on Graphic Audio and it kinda jolts me out of the story every time I hear it. Has anybody heard Brandon pronounce it?
I’m not sure about the “squires” thing. I love the idea that Syl brings a bunch of wind spren along to become Kaladin’s armor. However, I don’t like that other characters are just getting powers because Kaladin is cool.
The way I see it, Kaladin and Syl started something and now other spren are seeing the wisdom in the nahel bond. So they are finding humans who are wiling to make that leap of… spirit? Boom, a new generation of Radiants.
That way, The Lopen gets to be healed because he was awesome enough to bind to a spren when lesser folk don’t, instead of because he was standing too close to Kaladin. =)
Braid_Tug @39 – Yay! I got it right! :D
Also: Scheduling update.
There will be no post this week. :(
My weekend went pear-shaped in a big way, between an unexpected visit from in-laws and an unexpected boat explosion that had 3 of my cousin’s kids airlifted from Montana to Seattle for burn treatment at Harborview. So… playing with one side of the family, and going shopping for the other side (because emergency airlift doesn’t really allow you to pack a bag), and my weekend was completely shot. Also, fireworks in the street until midnight.
So. Chapter 88 is about half done, but I am realizing that there’s totally no way it’ll be finished today, and by the time it’s finished, I won’t have internet access to upload it. Hence, Chapter 88 will be posted on July 14, and after that we’ll see. Thanks for your patience; I know this isn’t a good spot in the book for a break, but… Life.
This thread is hereby opened for rabbit trails and looney theories.
@44 Wetlandernw: Wow, I certainly don’t blame you for not being able to post this week! Best wishes to you and your relatives.
Ironically, this Friday is the first anniversary of my finishing WoR for the first time. I can’t believe it’s only been a year.
@36 Braid_Tug: Well, there is a tiny (and mysterious) preview in the comments!
@40 STBLST: That’s an interesting way to look at it. I agree that Kaladin has never felt deserving of slavery, exactly, but he often seems to think in ways like he’s still a slave: he sees himself as a victim, he has difficulty trusting leaders, he just wants to keep his head down and keep himself and his people alive. So even if he always consciously hated being a slave and wanted to escape, he was still perceiving himself that way, thinking in those patterns.
That being said, and despite my sense that the “moment of awesome” where his brands finally heal is inevitable – I do think it would be interesting if he kept them forever. Partly for the reasons you mention, but also because his background is part of who he is. It won’t go away just because he deals with all the related psychological issues; he’ll still have been shaped by his experiences in Amaram’s army and as a slave. It would be neat if he was able to keep the brands, but redefine what they mean – not victimhood, but overcoming.
I’ve been wondering what’s going to happen once Kaladin actually needs to explain what went on with the king. Dalinar won’t be very happy to discover that Kaladin came that close to betraying him.
@41 Austin: We’ve got this WoB and this one, and perhaps some others that I missed with my search. We do know it has something to do with Kaladin’s perception of himself, but we still aren’t sure what exactly he’s perceiving himself as that’s keeping them there or what exactly would need to change for him to heal.
I’ve always pronounced it MO-ash [‘mowæʃ]. But I have no idea how Brandon Sanderson says it.
Wetlandernw @44 and 21
Sending you some strength…hold on, it’ll be there shortly.
We’ll be fine until the 14th.
We should explore the physics of bridge maneuvering and Rosharan material science (well, native wood characteristics at least) some day. ;-) Or not. I believe the full-size, human-powered bridges might actually be possible (functionally), so it doesn’t throw me out of the story. The bridge at JCon…quite useful for those small chasms, yep. XD
@44
I would take two post weeks off after a confluence of events like that. Thanks for the update and you and yours are in my prayers this week.
Ways @46 – Yep. That JCon bridge would only be needed by old ladies like me who can’t jump anything longer than a single step. ;)
Finally catching up with comments before I crash and burn…
@many re: Kaladin’s brands not healing – Brandon said “It comes down to how one views oneself… So really what that’s saying is Kaladin sees himself as branded.” The subtler question is why he sees himself that way. Is it because he defines himself by what Amaram did to him? Is it because he thinks he deserves it, somehow? Or is it simply that he has so much accepted the branding that he can’t figure out how to change it? It might be something Significant, or it might be really simple. We’ll find out if he ever heals it, I expect.
Bellaberry @18 – I was wondering about that shiver/blur thing, too. Unfortunately, I can’t find any answers, other than a vague notion (which I can’t verify anywhere) that she used to sometimes start to blur from a distinct form if she was upset with Kaladin, or very distracted.
snaggletoothedwoman @22 – ::gigglesnort:: This is very, very true, though I never actually thought about it that way. For all his “one-armed Herdazian” jokes, Lopen really doesn’t see himself as one-armed – just as having lost one arm. It’s really an odd thing to consider, compared to Kaladin and his brands.
Kefka @23 – We have reasonably reliable information that each order has four Ideals beyond the first one, with the exception of the Lightweavers. I haven’t seen any WoB contradicting that, though obviously I don’t necessarily know all the things he says!
sheesania @29 – I’m really conflicted about where I think Brandon is likely to go with Moash. I’d love for him to be a spy, and find a way to get information back to Kaladin, save the day somehow, and return to Bridge Four. I think it’s more likely that he’ll either take a complete dive and commit to the Diagram, or die to stop them from doing something horrible to Kaladin. Or both.
Speaking of bridges, it’s always amused me that, at a glance, Kaladin can tell that the bridge they’re using isn’t Bridge 4’s bridge.
Alice @@@@@ 44 – Hope your family are all doing okay. And speedy recovery for those who were in the boat explosion.
I think Sanderson missed the boat on The Lopen. He shouldn’t have regrown his arm. Instead he could have gained a Shard-arm. How cool would that have been!
I’d love to see Moash have a change of heart and return to the Lightside in some way, shape or form.
The symbolic icon for this chapter (besides the 10 connected circles) features a long vertical sword with 2 lesser swords in each side. That to me represents the current Radiants. Dalinar is the central one with Kaladin, Shallan, Jasnah, and Renarin as his subordinate Radiants. Other chapters featuring Kaladin have used the icon of a long spear topped with a banner and 4 lesser spears. The long spear is Kaladin, while the 4 lesser ones may be the budding Squires in Bridge 4.
Let’s hope that Alice’s family who were injured in that boat accident have a full, speedy recovery.
You said that Shallash is there because he is the patron of the Lightweavers, but in that scene where Shallan is talking to Taln he calls her “one of Ishar’s Knights”.I could be wrong, dos’nt that indicate that Ishar founded them?
@54, I think that’s because Ishar is said to have founded the Knights Radiant generally.
Alice- Sorry to hear about your cousin’s kids. Praying that everything is okay and that they recover quickly!
@55 Yeah, That makes sense, thanks.
I wish a speedy recovery as well.
I assume this was discussed already, but I wanted to voice my thought on the Diagram. A lot of it was encoded in various ways, as has been noted, but I think the intent was for it to be a compression algorithm. After all, he was an ultra genius that day, so he knew everything, including that he’s got a very limited time to write everything down. Finding ways to add more information to your writing while you go would be the logical thing to do, especially if you have the brain power necessary to write a coherent and useful paragraph where every second letter also forms a coherent and useful paragraph. And so on.
Yes, it makes it a bit hard to understand later on, but clearly the important thing is to get as much information on the table as possible. After all, he’ll have other smart days where he can interpret it properly later, but this one might never come again
Guys!! Remember that huge discussion we had some weeks back about if a Radiant was bonded for life, or if they could pass on their spren somehow without killing it? Brandon Sanderson has just neatly invalidated most of that debate with a single sentence, as he likes to do…
Regarding Moash:
I would be happy if he managed to change alleginace and become a spy for Kaladin. But I fear that he feels he has gone “too far” and will continue to be on Taravig. side.
There is no going back from the fact that he really tried to kill Kaladin. To cope with that it could be, that for his conscience he will have to stay on the side that made him do it.
Regarding Kaladin’s men becoming squires:
Lopen healing/regrowing his arm is certainly intriguing. But unlike Haggis @27 I don’t hope he is becoming a Radiant in his own right. It feels more logical that he obtained this skill because of his loyalty to Kaladin. Especially taking into account Tefts statement that he saw other Bridge-4 members glowing.
AND I’d like to point out another POV of Teft – of WoK: it’s the scene just after Kaladin spoke his second ideal, and leveled-up assaulted the Parshendi (chapter 68 of Way of Kings):
This could be the first effect of Teft becoming a squire (way back in WoK) – or is it just neglect of pain in the light of adrenalin and awe.
Is there a WoB on whether a the number of hours in a day and number of days in a year are different on Roshar than on other planets in the Cosmere? If the hours and days are different from one planet to another, that might create some unknown consequences for Worldhoppers.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@61 AndrewHB: Presumably yes, since we know that a Roshar year is about 1.1x an Earth year. (So the characters are all a little older than the ages they give us make them look. Kaladin isn’t 19, he’s 21 in Earth years; Shallan isn’t 17, she’s 19, and so on.)
@61:
Coppermind and the 17th shard say that 1 Roshar year is about equal to 1.1 earth years. Also, there are:
10 months per year
10 weeks per month
5 days per week
So 500 days per year, which is defined based on when the weeping occurs.
20 hours per day, and each hour is a few minutes shorter than the equivalent on earth.
Also, gravity is only 70% of Earth’s, which helps allow certain creatures to grow larger.
I assume that all comes from WOB somewhere.
@63:
From WoR chapter 46,”Patriots”: “It was an off year in the thousand-day cycle of two years, which meant that the Weeping would be a calm one this time.” That’s where it mentions that the years are 500 days long.
Hi, everyone! I’ve been reading along with this for a few months, but this is the first time I’ve had something to contribute to the discussion.
Thank you to everyone who has expressed concern for my cousins. Quick update is that, well, children heal amazingly quickly! The twins (age 10) are both healing well, and may not need any skin grafting. One still has about a 10% chance of needing a graft on one spot on her right leg, the other (burned worse) will be reevaluated on Friday. But the second one is busy racing the nurses and dancing, so she’s definitely working hard to keep things supple! The 6-year-old boy has healed so well that they say he’s down to 8% – which, given that he started with 2nd- and 3rd-degree burns on 30% of his body, is pretty amazing. There’s still a chance he may need a graft on his left leg, but the probability is diminishing all the time.
Those are the ones who were airlifted to Seattle for specialist care. The others in the accident who remained in Montana for treatment are all doing well and getting back into the swing of life as their burns heal. The little ones miss their parents, of course, but older siblings and aunties are keeping them occupied.
Anyway… you don’t need all the gory details, but I do appreciate all the encouraging words!
Also, I’ve been mostly out of touch – who knew that so much of Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota had such sporadic cellular signal? Well, okay, I knew… :D I’m feeling very unplugged! There will, however, be a post tomorrow; I uploaded it here at the hotel last night, so it’s all ready for you! Not sure how much I’ll be able to participate in discussion, but I’m warning you – y’all should read the chapter, because there’s a lot of stuff in it that I didn’t cover. You’ll need to address it in the discussion.
Wetlandernw, until your latest post I had no real inkling as to how serious an accident it was. I should have realized that when you mentioned 3 children being airlifted to Seattle for burn treatment. I guess that I assumed that you were sufficiently distanced from ‘civilization’ that the nearest burn facility was hundred’s of miles away. In any case, I’m certainly happy to hear that the children are recovering well, and that the others are also coming along well. Wow, that was very close to being a family tragedy. Hopefully, the cause of the explosion has been discovered and corrected.
Alice – Glad to hear that your family is feeling better. Will continue to pray for their full recovery. :-) I’m looking forward to your post tomorrow. And be safe!