Welcome back to the Warbreaker reread! Last week, we met Lightsong and got our introduction to the Court of Gods. This week, Siri arrives in Hallandren, evoking consternation, frustration, and interest on the part of our POV characters.
This reread will contain spoilers for all of Warbreaker and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. This is particularly likely to include Words of Radiance, due to certain crossover characters. The index for this reread can be found here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Chapter 4
Point of View: Siri
Setting: Hallandren
Timing: Same day
Take a Deep Breath
Chapter 4 opens as Siri’s entourage approaches T’Telir, causing her to revise her definition of ostentation. She is met by an array of forty thousand Lifeless, cavalry draped in golden cloth, and a priest in brilliant and complex robes, all of which combine to intimidate and nearly overwhelm her. Proceeding into the city, she realizes that her expectation of T’telir had been unfairly colored by the stories, traditions, and fears of her people. She even begins to wonder if her father really had, perhaps, realized that she would fit into Hallandren in a way Vivenna never would. While encouraging in a way, it is also unsettling to consider that the fate of her people might lie with her.
Meanwhile, her carriage continues up the road, finally entering the Court of Gods. There, people wearing clothing colored to match the various palaces kneel as she enters, while others watch from the balconies of those palaces. Dominating the others is an enormous black pyramidal structure, where her carriage comes to a stop. The overwhelming priest loftily informs her that she will be prepared and taken to her husband; no ceremony or other formalities will be needed or allowed, and she is warned that her people’s fate may indeed rest on her pleasing the God King.
Breathtaking
“We have arrived, Vessel,” the man said. “As soon as we enter the building, you will be prepared and taken to your husband.”
“Husband?” Siri asked uncomfortably. “Won’t there be a wedding ceremony?”
The priest smirked. “The God King does not need ceremonial justification. You became his wife the moment he desired it.”
Siri shivered. “I was just hoping that maybe I could see him, before, you know…”
The priest shot her a harsh look. “The God King does not perform for your whims, woman. You are blessed above all others, for you will be allowed to touch him—if only at his discretion. Do not pretend that you are anything other than you are. You have come because he desires it, and you will obey. Otherwise, you will be put aside and another will be chosen in your place—which, I think, might bode unfavorably for your rebel friends in the highlands.”
I don’t know if this is what Brandon intended, but that smirk and the harshness made me instantly loathe Treledees. This loathing lasted for the majority of the book, and still lingers. Someday, I may make an effort to see the situation through his eyes, but I’m not confident I’ll be able to find his behavior in any way justified.
Snow White and Rose Red
Did you know that this chapter, when Treledees greets her, is the only time Siri’s full name is ever spelled out? Sisirinah.
It is noteworthy that Siri comes to the same conclusion that we talked about earlier—that her fascination with color makes her a much more suitable queen than Vivenna would have been. This is a city that, without the stress of the treaty, Siri could easily come to love; in my opinion, it’s quite likely that if things were handled right, the people would readily come to love her, too. Perhaps they will, in a sequel.
I find it… distressing, I guess, that this aspect of his daughters’ characters never seemed to occur to Dedelin. We think of it, they think of it, but he apparently doesn’t. The question is whether Brandon deliberately had him not think of it, or just… didn’t put that in.
I’m glad we get to see T’telir first through Siri’s eyes, though. Her mental descriptions are delightful—coming, as they do, from someone with a natural eye for color and artistry but whose background is deliberately devoid of both. Fortunately, Idris seems to have had at least an appreciation for craftsmanship which, combined with her subversive enjoyment of color, gives her a sense of the possibility of beauty even in something she expected to find abhorrent.
Clashing Colors
Well, yes. This scene sharply contrasts the cultural differences between Idris and Hallandren—and even more starkly, the difference between Bevalis and T’telir. Where Bevalis was all whitewashed or painted in shades of brown and grey, T’telir is painted in every shade of every color the dyes will make. In Bevalis, the buildings were mostly thatched cottages, and even the palace was a single-story with a wooden roof. T’telir is packed with ornate buildings, each of which “seemed as if it wanted to grab her attention and shake her about by her eyes.” Bevalis didn’t even have flowers planted around the houses; T’telir has open malls, gardens, and palm trees everywhere. Even the city walls appear to be more artistic than functional.
Don’t Hold Your Breath (Give it to me!)
Last week, Lightsong gave Llarimar minor control over his quarter of the Lifeless, and this week we get to see them:
Under their colorful uniforms, the Hallandren troops were a dull grey. Their eyes, their skin, even their hair: all had been drained completely of color, leaving behind a monochrome.
Those can’t be Lifeless! she thought. They look like men!
She’d imagined Lifeless as skeletal creatures, the flesh rotting and falling from the bones. They were, after all, men who had died, then been brought back to life as mindless soldiers. But these that she passed looked so human. There was nothing to distinguish them save for their lack of color and the stiff expressions on their faces. That, and the fact that they stood unnaturally motionless. No shuffling, no breathing, no quivers of muscle or limb. Even their eyes were still. They seemed like statues, particularly considering their grey skin.
She has to forcibly remind herself that there is a difference between Lifeless and Returned, and that both are different from Drabs. It’s only reasonable; she’s never seen any of the three in her entire life.
Like Fresh Blue Paint on a Wall
Chapter 4 limits itself to repeated variations of “Austre, Lord of Colors.”
Local Color
The annotations for Chapter 4 address naming (with the repetitive consonant at the beginning), the delay in seeing T’telir (it’s the fourth chapter before we get to where the action will be), Hawaii (the torment of having to visit Hawaii to do research on describing the atmosphere of T’telir), the use of Undead (neither rotting zombies nor goth vampires), and miscellaneous notes (including the name of the planet, various ways Returned are treated around the world, and the reason a lot of places have two names).
I’m going to talk a little more about the naming, partly because I like it and partly because it came up in the comments last week. Brandon says,
I’ve long toyed with using double consonants as a naming structure. I played with a lot of different ways of writing theses. I could either use the letters doubled up, with no break (Ttelir). I could slip a vowel in the middle and hope people pronounced it as a schwa sound (Tetelir). Or I could use the fantasy standard of an apostrophe (T’telir).
In the end, I decided to go with all three. I felt that writing all the names after one of the ways would look repetitive and annoying. By using all three, I could have variety, yet also have a theme. So, you have doubles in names like Llarimar. You have inserted vowels like in Vivenna. And you have apostrophes like in T’Telir.
So last week, someone mentioned that they were bugged by the audiobook reader saying “Lularimar.” I’m used to the name Lloyd, so without even thinking, I pronounced a single L, while others used the Welsh pronunciation. Now we know: the audiobook reader got instruction from Brandon on this. Both Lls are pronounced, with the schwa between.
The same pronunciation scheme applies to Dedelin, Vivenna, Sisirinah, and some others (I’ll probably note them when they come along) but the one that I had to consciously change was Susebron. Oddly enough, I had figured it out from Siri’s nickname for him before I learned about the doubled-consonant thing. She (eventually) calls him Seb—which didn’t at all make sense with the way I was pronouncing his name: SOO-suh-bron. With some work, I changed my mental pronunciation to suh-SEB-ron, which works much better to become Seb… and then someone pointed out this statement. Not quite sure if I felt vindicated for working it out, or stupid for not having read the annotations!
Chapter 5
Point of View: Vasher; Lightsong
Setting: Court of Gods; a restaurant in T’Telir
Timing: Concurrent with and just after Chapter 4
Take a Deep Breath
Chapter 5 opens with Vasher on the wall, observing Siri’s entrance to the Court of Gods, somewhat surprised that Idris actually sent a princess, even if it was the wrong one. He tries to frame it as personal inconvenience and politics, but there’s at least a hint that he finds the sacrifice of a young girl distasteful. He Awakens a banner to lower him from the wall to the ground outside the Court, and proceeds to a restaurant where he has arranged to meet a priest.
Under pressure, the priest Bebid tells Vasher that there is something very serious going on underneath the usual court politics, and it involves a faction pushing to attack Idris. Vasher shrugs it off, and the priest clarifies just what a stupid idea it would be to start this war. They turn briefly to the subject of Vahr’s rebels in the city, but Bebid dismisses them as unimportant and unrelated. Vasher requires a way to contact the Court factions which are pushing for war, but the priest doesn’t have the kind of connections to set that up. He suggests that Vasher try one of Mercystar’s priests, or perhaps Bluefingers, the head of the scribes. Having gotten all he can, Vasher leaves, stopping in a nearby alley to retrieve Nightblood from the dead thief who had stolen him.
Meanwhile, Lightsong sits on his patio, drinking wine and considering the ramifications of Siri’s arrival instead of Vivenna. He is distracted by a breeze which suddenly brings back a clear memory of his previous night’s dream: fire, battle, a sea reflecting the red of the burning city, a burning ship. Llarimar, still focused on the God King’s palace where Siri has disappeared, brings Lightsong’s thoughts back to the threats of war and the question of Idrian “rebels.”
Breathtaking
That priest—you spent all those words on him, then you just let him go. It’s not really how I would have handled the situation.
Yes, I know, Vasher said. Your way would have involved making several more corpses.
Well, I am a sword, Nightblood said with a mental huff. Might as well stick to what you’re good at…
Might as well…
In Living Color
Our two most prominent Returned share a chapter today. Vasher is still in T’telir, poking around in the affairs of the gods, and still interested in the rebellion Vahr was leading. As of yet, we don’t know his purpose; he’s certainly not about to tell his secrets to the priest he’s blackmailing for information.
Lightsong appears to have spent the intervening time doing all he could to forget about the little girl whose Breath is keeping him alive this week. Despite his best attempts, however, he can’t help taking an interest in the real affairs of Hallandren; there has to be a reason he Returned, and it bugs him not to know what it is. It also bugs him to know that his dreams are considered Significant, but the one he suddenly remembers in vivid detail is clearly portentous.
Interesting. The more I consider Lightsong in the process of writing this stuff, the more I appreciate his dilemma, and the more I like him.
As I Live and Breathe
Vasher’s obvious use of Awakening a banner to lower himself from the wall of the Court seems bizarre, but apparently no one bothers to worry about someone getting in. It’s certainly a sign of his changed status—from a mere fifty Breaths to the multiple hundreds he now holds—that he scarcely thinks about using several hundred to Awaken something not even vaguely man-shaped. Of course, he’ll reclaim them almost immediately, but it’s still a huge expenditure. (Interestingly, this time there’s no mention of a Color source.) There’s something else very odd, which I’d never thought about before:
As always, the Awakening tried to imitate the form of a human—looking closely at the twistings and undulations of the fabric, Vasher could see outlines of muscles and even veins.
I wonder why it does that. Does the same thing happen later? We’ll have to watch for it.
Last week, with Lightsong’s “feast,” there was obviously some discussion about the market for Breath. With that in mind, this was… fascinating:
He had enough of a Breath aura to indicate that he’d reached the first Heightening. It was where most people—those who could afford to buy Breath—stopped. That much Breath would extend their lifespan by a good decade or so and give them an increased life sense. It would also let them see Breath auras and distinguish other Awakeners, and—in a pinch—let them do a little Awakening themselves. A decent trade for spending enough money to feed a peasant family for fifty years.
Apparently, the price for one Breath is roughly equivalent to a full year’s food for a peasant family. Assuming the gods pay the going rate, it’s no wonder people are willing to sell a Breath to a god. They get to do their religious duty, and they get a good chunk of a year’s wages on top of it. Given that Breath can be bought and sold fairly readily, it becomes likely that some of the Breath on the market probably is several generations old!
Clashing Colors
Tektees food was the restaurant’s specialty—the Hallandren liked foreign spices as much as they liked odd colors.
One of the many cultures on Nalthis, all we ever learn about Tektees is that one of their traditional foods is a highly spiced rice dish.
Bebid, priest of Brightvision the True, sheds another bit of light on the question of war and what it could mean:
The Idrians have allies from across the mountains and the sympathies of dozens of kingdoms. What some are calling a ‘simple quelling of rebel factions’ could easily spin into another Manywar.
As always when war is in question, there are those who will spin it as a simple, quick “police action” and those who will see the farther-reaching effects it’s likely to have. We need more of the latter, I think.
Don’t Hold Your Breath (Give it to me!)
Some people shied away from the sword immediately. Others watched it, eyes lingering far too long. Perhaps it was time to stuff Nightblood back in the pack.
Oh, no you don’t, Nightblood said. Don’t even start thinking about that. I’ve been locked away for too long.
What does it matter to you? Vasher thought.
I need fresh air, Nightblood said. And sunlight.
You’re a sword, Vasher thought, not a palm tree.
Nightblood fell silent. He was smart enough to realize that he was not a person, but he didn’t like being confronted with that fact. It tended to put him in a sullen mood. That suited Vasher just fine.
Oh, Nightblood. You’re weird, you know that? There are ways he makes me laugh, but the amount of Breath it took to create him, and the amount it takes to keep him going… it really is creepy. It makes me feel sorry for Vasher, who can’t destroy Nightblood but has to keep him, being responsible for his existence. I sometimes wonder why Vasher doesn’t find someplace to lock him up securely and just leave him there, but I suspect that may not be possible.
Like Fresh Blue Paint on a Wall
To the assortment of Color references, we can now add Bebid’s curse: “Kalad’s Phantoms!” Ironic, of course, addressed as it is to Vasher, who knows far too much about those phantoms… but we’ll forgive Bebid, since he doesn’t know what he’s saying.
Local Color
Chapter 5 annotations cover the subject of Vasher (briefly), Nightblood (just a note on magic swords in fantasy), restaurants and blackmailable priests, Lightsong’s dream (moving the foreshadowing to an earlier point in the book than originally planned), and Lightsong’s snark (some concern that too much humor would undermine the sense of internal conflict). Interesting stuff, but nothing I feel particularly compelled to discuss.
Exhale
Well, I have concluded that two chapters is too much—at least, two chapters this long. Sorry, hope you all managed to wade through it. But I’m still glad I did them together, because there is a common theme running through the subtext:
Fear.
Some people do really stupid things out of fear; some people use fear as a cover to do or say horrible things they wouldn’t otherwise have an excuse for doing; some people know how to manipulate the fears of others to make them do things they would otherwise never consider. My current facebook feed provides ample evidence of all three.
Siri’s expectations of T’telir reflect the fears of the Idrians: she was expecting walls made of skulls, with horrible clashing colors splattered everywhere. Whether through tradition, superstition, hatred, or fear, Hallandren has been painted as ugly, vile, obscene, inhuman. What she actually finds is a very different mixture: the Lifeless are “inhuman” in one sense, but they are much more human than she expected. As for the city, in contrast to her expectation she finds beauty, enthusiasm, cheerfulness, and vibrancy.
On a more sober note, Bebid sees a different kind of fear in a different place:
“The Idrians aren’t foolish enough to raise their tariffs too high. This isn’t about money. It’s about fear. People in the court talk about what might happen if the Idrians cut off the passes or what may happen if the Idrians let enemies slip through and besiege T’Telir. If this were about money, we’d never go to war. Hallandren thrives on its dye and textiles trade. You think that business would boom in war? We’d be lucky not to suffer a full economic collapse.”
The people he’s hearing are probably, mostly, genuinely fearful about these things; even though their fears could be dispelled with a little research and a little logic, they are genuinely afraid. There are also those, as we’ll learn soon, who are manipulating and nourishing those fears, maneuvering the kingdom into a war from which they personally expect to profit.
Lightsong hasn’t quite worked that much out yet, but he’s getting close. He’s figured out that the Idrians don’t actually want Hallandren, no longer consider it their home, and really no longer need Hallandren. It won’t be long until he realizes that someone is creating and feeding a whole set of paranoias regarding Idris, driving Hallandren to attack, spawning a war that will do them no good and will solve nothing.
People do stupid things when they’re afraid of someone or something they don’t understand, and the more afraid they are, the more they spiral into unreasoning hatred and alienation. At least on Nalthis, Idris and Hallandren have the slight excuse of distance and past enmity making everyone wary of the other side. We, who have instant communication at our fingertips, should have far less justification for the name-calling, accusations, and fears; we have no excuse for failing to seek actual understanding of another person’s decision or position. And yet… all the media is deluged with people pointing fingers, blaming this group or that, making assumptions as to why “the other side” made their choices, even playing the stupid “if you didn’t vote for MY candidate you’re a !$@#@ idiot” game, unfriending, blocking, and generally behaving like spoiled toddlers who have either gotten or been denied some special treat.
I guess it’s easier to claim fear and point fingers than to reach out and try to understand an individual who disagrees with you, but it’s certainly not better, or wiser, or more constructive.
Well, that’s it for the blog—now it’s time for the comments! Join us again next week, when we will cover Chapter 6 and its annotations, in which Siri is prepared for her wedding night and instructed on protocol. Oy.
Alice Arneson is a SAHM, blogger, beta reader, and literature fan. If you Facebook, you can join her in the Tor-Sanderson-rereader-specific group known as the Storm Cellar; since it’s a closed group, you have to ask to join. Identify yourself as a Tor friend, and one of the moderators will add you.
I like to think that the reason Awakening mimics the human body is because it depends on the imagination of the Awakener, and form follows function – Vasher imagined the banner being like a hand, and the Breath did what it said.
Brandon’s books don’t go for nonhuman sentients much. Even Parshendi and Iriali are hominid mammals. But if he were to ever introduce a non-mammalian sentient species, if they got hold of Awakening somehow, I imagine we’d see banners forming scales and claws rather than muscles and veins.
When people see Vasher awaken the banner, they may not be surprised to see the magic, but why is nobody wondering why he is climbing the wall? Are there no guards to watch for intruders in the Court of the Gods?
birgit @2 – That’s what I was wondering, too. Seriously? someone’s coming down off the wall of the Court, and no one freaks about it?
This line makes me think:
Does it mean that Nightblood was hidden for a long time and has just been “recovered”. I’m not talking of about year or so. I’m talking of decades even a century. Then, I can’t help but ask the question – how long ago was Nightblood made? And how old is Vahsher.
Fear is a powerful emotion. Sometimes it’s useful (bugs are creepy and it’s perfectly rational to have a mild fear of them), but more often it’s something that holds us back when we should go on. A lot of our traditions and cultures and stories recognize this. One of the most common statements in the Bible is some variant of “Fear not.” These usually happen when one encounters an angel, which makes sense, but it’s there in other contexts as well. Fear can drive people apart, and lead us astray. It’s universal. I think that’s one of the overarching themes to Warbreaker – overcoming fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of uselessness, fear of others, fear of failure. Every character has a story arc driven by one (or more) of these.
“They seemed like statues” Oh Brandon you tease.
As for why Vasher doesn’t lock Nightblood up somewhere I believe you are right that it just isn’t possible, even when he/it/schlee was thrown to the bottom of a lake schlee managed to reach out to someone for a rescue. Even if Nightblood were to be sealed under a mountain you would probably end up with a village of madmen nearby within a few decades.
I seem to vaguely recall a Word of Brandon or possibly an annotation about it being a bad idea to keep your Lifeless in the dark (for reasons he wouldn’t explain of course), he even mentioned the possibility of doing a chapter from a Lifeless’ perspective. At any rate I expect that this would apply to Nightblood too. I just watched I Robot again yesterday and there is the part where Dr Lanning asks why robots left in the dark will seek out the light, is it just random bits of code? I Robot seems like good background research for this reread, to the DVD shelf! But at any rate, kids, don’t mistreat your near-sentients.
I think we’re meant to loathe Treledees but that it also blinds us to why he’s acting this way. Yes, he may be awful but, like a lot of other characters, it goes back to fear. Whatever has formed Hallandren’s image of Idris, he doesn’t see Siri as a small town girl from a backwater village. He sees her as a member of a royal family that considers itself infinitely superior to the God King. In fact, it’s not inaccurate to say they see him as a rebel-tyrant-ghoul who leads his people in all sorts of depravity while also treating them as beasts in a slaughterhouse raised for him to feast on.
Add on that he sees them as a legitimate threat who are making common cause with their enemies and that he may be trying to determine if getting Siri is some kind of insult or sign of contempt.
Put all that together, and it makes sense that he assumes Siri is incredibly proud, possibly bloodthirsty, and looks at his God and King as beneath contempt. Of course, his first response is to take her down a few pegs and emphasize that the God King has all the power in this relationship and that she should be thankful (not disgusted) that she is even allowed to touch him.
But, he does this while not seeing the scared kid in front of him. So, he’s not off the hook for being awful.
It’s like you said, when we assume we know what the other side is like–and assume the worst–we don’t see what may be right in front of our eyes.
On a more meta level, nearly every character in the book is introduced to us in a way opposite to who they actually are. [spoilers]Vasher looks like an enemy, Denth a friend, Treledees an enemy, Bluefingers a friend, the God King terrifying, …..[/spoilers]
The thing with the banner showing human features calls back to the prologue, when Vasher thinks about how things which resemble humans – the straw man, the cloak which has been cut into a rough man-shape – are easier to awaken than things which aren’t human-shaped. Whether or not the awakener pre-humanizes the thing being awakened, the Breath does its best to humanize it anyway.
Oddly, an anti-callback to the prologue is that it commented that Vasher always thanks his awakenings for doing what he’s asked them to; but he doesn’t thank the banner. Perhaps it means he only thanks things which he’s made human-shaped, but it still feels odd to me. In fact, I’m not sure we ever see Vasher thank his awakenings again, though I could be forgetting one.
I’m also amused by Treledees’ offhand comment about the “token” honor guard – after all, it’s not a “token,” it’s the entire army – not an outright lie, perhaps, but something else designed to humble/humiliate/misinform her.
Did we ever find out why Vasher wants to know who those pushing for war are?
@1 I’m not sure that Vasher meant for it to be like a hand, though, which is why he makes the observation. But I’ve decided to make that assumption because I’ve always thought the reason why Awakening attempts to mimic humans is because Breath originates from a human vessel. It doesn’t seem to be someone’s soul (maybe part of it?) but whatever it is, it comes into being within human vessels and it “thinks” that it should be in that form. Kind of like how inanimate objects in the Cognitive Realm know that they are the thing they are even though they don’t think in the Physical Realm. And they want to stay the thing they think or know they are unless convinced otherwise. Does that make any sense? My sentences started to get a bit twisty.
Anyway, that’s the way I’ve interpreted it.
And the main point I meant to make, which I didn’t, is that because of the way the Breath “thinks” is why it’s easier to Awaken things that are shaped like humans. The theme of how a thing or person perceives itself and understanding that thing or person in order to make Investiture easier seems to be a thread in many of Sanderson’s stories.
Ch. 4: I have to say this. VESSEL.
This is the single most demeaning title in any Sanderson work. Thankfully, I know he is not a misogynist. I am not implying that in ANY way.
But them calling her Vessel – and nothing else – bugged the hell out of me. That implies she is nothing but a walking womb to them. Yet, she’s not even that, once we know the truth of the God Kings. Especially since the God King’s wife seems to have nothing to do. Vivenna would have lost her mind. All that training to do nothing.
Re: Nightblood and dark places. I thought this was good way of showing that he does have a personality. That he thinks he is more than “just a sword.” I will also say, I like the more childish voice James uses for Nightblood. The female reader just made Nightblood sound like a generic grumpy guy.
@10: I like your way of putting this issue.
Breath comes from people, and it keeps trying to mimic still being person like.
I forgot about “Sisirinah” being used here, and wondered how people discussing the books knew it. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, apparently.
Siri’s perception of T’Telir in here is so at odds with Vivenna’s awful experience of it, though this chapter’s setup of the clash is onlh striking in retrospect. After seeing the city’s ugly side, it’s hard for me to imagine Siri or anybosy knowing and loving it. But that’s how our own cities really are — beauty and life and cruelty and death.
@8: Good point on characters rarely being as they seem. Brandon does love subverting expectations.
@1: I was going to say that kandra are a sentient nonhumans, but am not sure how to classify them. They were formerly human and their “true bodies” are often humanoid. But they can take other animals’ forms, and their bizarre physiology is so unlike ours or anything else’s that it’s hard to even say what they’re made of. (Except MeLaan, who’s made of fabulous)
…and I just spent too long reading the Cosmere Q&A on Theoryland. Why do multiple readers want to know if it’s possible to use feruchemy [Edit: Whoops, I meant hemalurgy] on cats? Does some other book involve cats, or do you have an Evil Plan?
I was about to bring up the kandra, too– does it count if only the first generation are human?
And I just realized that some part of me had assumed Vasher was too soft-hearted to leave Nightblood all alone in the dark. Probably silly. I’m not saying he loves the sword like a child, just that he feels responsible for it and won’t abandon it to rot alone–though it does make send that his motivation could be as simple as keeping an eye pm it instead.
@12: Re: Feruchemy of cats: I suspect (without knowing context) that they were angling for some insight as to what level of intelligence is necessary to use Feruchemy, and trying to avoid the dreaded RAFO at the same time.
Whoops, I meant hemalurgy.
@15: That’s just trying to puzzle out WTF was going on with a certain creature encountered in Shadows of Self, and/or trying to figure out the limitations of hemalurgy in general.
And Hemalurgy is and has been a RAFO minefield ever since it was revealed to be a thing.
@12, 13 I forgot about Kandra! I think of them as being human, because that’s how they appear, but they definitely aren’t. They also would probably have an extremely highly detailed mental picture of the musculature/structure of the thing they were trying to Awaken, so if it comes from intentional imagery, they’d probably be able to manipulate Awakenings much more minutely than normal Nalthians.
I was really trying to get at more of a “the mind is a plaything of the body” concept with my original post, though – Vasher is human (Returned human, still counts) so his Breath (and the Breaths he’s taken) are all human, thus, humanlike Awakenings. Let’s say Edgli/Endowment decides to give Breaths to kandra, or Kremlings, or Krogen…maybe they’d get a different effect! (why do so many lizardlike races start with K?)
@11 – Absolutely. The “Vessel” irritated me immensely the first time I read it, at least until I realized that Brandon put it in on purpose. Really nails the fact that we’re supposed to think of Treledees as the bad guy.
Regarding the two chapters in general, the description of T’Telir, while lovely, still makes me curious about the difference between it and Bevalis. I can understand the austerity of the latter, as well as colourless-ness, but the two really look to me like they’re lifted from very different time periods – Bevalis seems like an early-medieval village, while T’Telir is more of a Reinessance metropolis. It’s… odd, at least for me.
Also, a note regarding fear: I think the “honour guard” Siri’s sent really underscores how unfounded Halladren’s fears of Idris are. Going by the size of Bevalis, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more Lifeless in Halladren than there are people in Idris.
@13 Naive_misanthrope: May’be it’s just me, but I don’t think it silly. I, too, have always assumed that same thing – that part of the reason (and I agree it probably is only a small part, but a part nevertheless) Vasher does not leave Nightblood behind is that he is also emotionally attached to it, to a degree.
@@@@@ 19 and 13 – in Stormlight Archive – Vasher misses Nightblood
Just a n odd thought on “Vessel” – which YES absolutely made me angry – but doesn’t Treledees know what the procedure really is? (I can’t look it up right now) In that case, he may be using the term as much to reinforce the official version in the minds of everyone who comes in contact with her, as to make her realize her “place.”
Re: “Vessel” – it’s a terrible “title,” but I don’t think it’s just Treledees being nasty. Bluefingers also refers to Siri by that “title,” and I believe the servants – whenever Siri actually gets them to speak – use it as well. I’ve always kind of assumed it’s the traditional way to refer to the wife of the God King.
Nazrax @22 – It may well be. But my (still half-asleep) point was that when those who know the truth use the term, and teach/require everyone else to use it too, it keeps everyone thinking that she really is expected to bear the child of the God King. That way, no one is likely to look further into the matter, and the secret remains safe.
@14: Surely they’d use an example of a creature less intelligent than humans to get a lower limit on intelligence for haemalurgy, in which case they’d be asking about dogs…
I for one welcome our new haemapurring overlords.
I also have to wonder if “Vessel” is a bit of a subversion/reference to things like the Virgin Mary who has been referred to in some litanies as a spiritual vessel or ‘vessel of honor’, etc. I guess it’s not that big of a stretch – it doesn’t have to be an intentional reference, but that’s part of what it made me think of.
@22: Oh I know it was not Treledees being nasty. It really is the title for the God King’s wife. Any wife the God King would have. He and other are using it as a tearm of respect – in their culture.
And yes, the Virgin Mary is referred to as a Vessel, as a title of honor, in some places. I prefer her title Holy Mother, since that focus more on her aspect as a mom, not a womb.
Both uses of Vessel as a title focus on the woman being a walking womb. And yes, the priest do this to reinforce the belief of the people that the God King is truly special and the only Returned that can produce children.
Brandon’s use of the title is understandable in the world he built. I’m not saying it should be changed.
But as a 21st century American woman: the title was annoying to me the entire time. It was just one of those author choices that I find personally annoying.
Isn’t it the characters that are sexist rather than the writer? Or should writers not be allowed to write cultures with undesirable traits?
@27: If your comment is addressed to me, please reread my comment @11:
also my comment @26:
Yes, characters are allowed to be sexist.
Writes cannot and should not write all characters to have the same attitudes. Let alone attitudes that reflex only one modern viewpoint.
Readers can still find an aspect of a book personally annoying. If it happens to be a sexist remark, readers are allowed to comment upon it. Without implying the whole book is bad or it’s “not allowed.”
Brandon was fully aware of the reaction range he would encounter with that title. That is wonderful in a author. I applaud him for that awareness.
@28 – Sorry, I must have misconstrued your point. I thought you were upset about Brandon using the term, rather than the characters.
I guess I’m the only one that saw this as a small joke:
Well, I am a sword, Nightblood said with a mental huff. Might as well stick to what you’re good at…
You know, swords stick things, the pointy end and all that. Anyway…
As for names, I keep reading Treledees as Tweedledee.
@20: In a sad and twisted way, isn’t Nightblood kind of his kid? He helped his wife create it, before killing her, and he’s been looking after it ever since. Partly because it’s a dangerous thing to leave on its own, but I’m sure he feels responsible for it, and, as you said, is evidently fond enough of it to miss it when it’s gone.
Fixed that for you.
Use of the word vessel definitely having the desired effect. Though why doesn’t Treledees follow the naming convention? And if it’s because he’s not local, he’s certainly engrossed himself in the local customs with “Vessel.”
The annotations certainly seem to think he is, but does anyone else not actually find Lightsong funny? I’m not sure he’s ever gotten as much as a smirk out of me, let alone a laugh. He’s definitely Brandon’s requisite irreverent character, and the concept of an irreverent/agnostic god is one of the more interesting parts of this book for me, but Nightblood’s sword humor is more clever…
Alice – You say “T’telir” a lot in the post, and it’s actually “T’Telir”. Just thought I’d mention it.
@2 birgit – Aren’t people with a lot of Breath allowed pretty easily into the Court of Gods? You’d still think that they’d want to keep track of who’s coming in and out, though…
@5 Nick31 – Huh. That’s really true.
@8 Nazrax – Brandon Sanderson said somewhere in his annotations that he was trying to do a lot of reversals for the characters, for like roles and mentality and stuff, throughout the book. On reread, I can definitely see that playing out. Some of them worked quite well, others not as much.
Vasher thanks some little straw men he makes quite a bit later on, which Vivenna mentally comments on.
@10 mithrylon – Yeah that is an interesting idea. We really don’t know much right now about Awakening and how it relates to the Realms.
@12 AeronaGreenjoy – Only First Generation ever was human. The rest were originally mistwraiths. I believe that the First Generation was created by being turned into mistwraiths and then returned to sentience with spikes, but I’m not entirely sure on that.
Re: Vessel – The demeaning treatment was even worse in Mythwalker, where there was a sort of marriage ceremony that basically consisted of banging it into the bride’s head how unimportant she is. Peter Ahlstrom commented that he was glad that it was taken out entirely in Warbreaker.
I never had particularly bad feelings about Treledees. He was just kind of arrogant and dismissive.
ETA: @33 HavoKinetic – On my first read especially, I found Lightsong only middling funny. He just didn’t strike me as being as amusing as other Sanderson characters.
@34 – I thought I had that fixed. Autocorrect FTL this time. I’ll have to go forcibly correct my corrections. Bah.
I thought all of the original mistwraiths had been human. Did the ones not kandrafied with hemalurgic spikes subsequently reproduce and create more mistwraiths?
Turning cats *more* intelligent, powerful, and evil seems very dangerous.
All of the original mist wraith’s were human but the second generation wasn’t created till a century after the first. So some may have been originally human but I’d think after that much time I’d think they would have lost their “humanity”. The rest would have been born as wraiths.
Also spiking animals just sounds like a bad idea.
Alice you say “it becomes likely that some of the Breath on the market probably is several generations old” which makes me wonder 1) if there really is an increasing amount of investiture (breaths) over time and 2) why breath-accumulation to heigher Heightenings is so rare:
Earning a years salary in food would likely lead to most people selling their breath to the wealthy, early when in need or else when you are sick and likely to die soon or when you reach a certain age when it’s likely to drop dead. So only the breaths of accidental early deaths would flood back into “limbo” shadesmar/….
Over the centuries breaths on the market would accumulate and higher numbers available,,,
it should be possible to reach tenth heightening… Unless breath is not only lost when the one holding it dies but also say 100y after it was birthed first breathed…
is there any word of BWS on this – in book or out?
re Nightblood: the above quote “Nightblood said. Don’t even start thinking about that. I’ve been locked away for too long.” seems to imply that it would be possible to lock or hide him away.
@@@@@6 Chocoat Rob: the object finding a way to be found, even if burried in a lake or under a mountain – that’s Tolkien not BWS.
@@@@@ Moderators (self-flagging): no idee why post 39 appears twice in the thread. The redesigned website still has some bugs apparently. (and IMO the font seize in the comment box is too small.)
Immediate eye-roll when you mentioned fear in our present world. I get plenty of that everywhere else, thank you! But you handled it well at the end there, well done! Keep the summaries coming!
@40 re: Nightblood – he is an unreliable narrator. His perception of time is skewed, i.e. he still thinks Shashara is alive. His being “locked away too long” could have been a few hours in Vasher’s duffle.
goldeyeliner @42 has raised the issue of Nightblood’s perceptions. It has very limited intelligence, even more limited curiosity, and no concept of time. It appears to be controlled by a simple algorithm: anyone attracted to you is evil; anyone repelled, is good: kill the evil ones. It appears to recognize Shashara as its main creator and Vasher as the co-creator, but doesn’t question the absence of the former. What would happen if it was informed that Vashar had killed Shashara? Would it turn against him? Could it even process such information? We need more information – as in a sequel to The Warbreaker, or additional information in the 3rd SA volume regarding how Zahel/Vasher and Nightblood came to Roshar and got separated.
@39 travyl – I recall reading that there’s a fixed, but very large, amount of Investiture available for Breaths. When people die, the Investiture in their Breath goes back to that pool and can be used again. So there might be an increasing amount of Breath actually floating around in the world.
As for the sheer amount of Breath around—maybe people just don’t have enough money to buy it all? You’d think that someone would, though. Perhaps the store of Breath hasn’t been built up for long enough for there to be quite that quantity of Breath around? I imagine a lot would have been lost in the Manywar. And how large is the population of Hallandren anyway? How much Breath is going around? And the Returned are a drain on Breath too. There are at least ten Hallandren gods, I believe, so ten a week for 52 weeks = 520 Breaths, plus the extra hundred that the God King would get every year makes 620. And that’s not counting any extra gods or extra Breaths the God King gets. Depending on the population of Hallandren, that’s a significant amount of Breath taken that’s not coming back.
@40 travyl – Well, Nightblood does get a mad fisherman to get him out of the ocean later on.
@43 Kalaxin – From the chapter fifty-four annotation:
I think that Nightblood knows that Vasher killed Shashara, but I’m not sure. He doesn’t act like he’d mind, though.
@8: On thanking his awakenings: If every single thing that a character says he does appears on-screen every single time he would normally do that thing, it would make for long, boring books. I personally prefer to assume that he did thank the banner – it just wasn’t formally stated in the text.
That’s one of the joys of books – you can have things happening in your head that don’t necessarily appear on the page, and that can add tremendous detail and vibrancy to a world, depending on your individual imagination.
On Vasher’s actions being relatively unremarked-upon: This is T’telir. As is stated later: “they were interested, not awed. This was T’telir…” This type of thing is something that occurs with some regularity, and with so much attention being paid to the arriving princess, a single man – not much of a threat, really, at least to an observer’s perception – would be something of little note.
I love Nightblood, yeah he’s violent and creepy but he’s a sword, what do you expect?
Siri’s title Vessel barely registered on me. Of course that’s what they call her, her whole official job is to bear the next God King. Theoretically.
When I heard Siri being called “Vessel” I was thinking more of a vessel to hold magic, rather than a vessel to hold a baby. The shards have vessels. I think Endowment’s vessel is Edgli. Thinking about it this way makes it sound more like a compliment that sexism. Of course, Sire has only her one original breath, so other than being a part of the royal line with the hair, I am not sure what magic she is holding.
Treledees is a real jerk to poor Siri. Later we find out why, he genuinely believes that she could try to harm Susebron. A possibility that literally never occurs to Siri, Vivenna or their father as they all assume the God King is invulnerable. Treledees knows better.