Start reading Oathbringer, the new volume of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive epic, right now. For free!
Tor.com is serializing the much-awaited third volume in the Stormlight Archive series every Tuesday until the novel’s November 14, 2017 release date.
Every installment is collected here in the Oathbringer index.
Need a refresher on the Stormlight Archive before beginning Oathbringer? Here’s a summary of what happened in Book 1: The Way of Kings and Book 2: Words of Radiance.
Spoiler warning: Comments will contain spoilers for previous Stormlight books, other works that take place in Sanderson’s cosmere (Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, etc.), and the available chapters of Oathbringer, along with speculation regarding the chapters yet to come.
Chapter 31
Demands of the Storm
If they cannot make you less foolish, at least let them give you hope.
—From Oathbringer, preface
Throughout his youth, Kaladin had dreamed of joining the military and leaving quiet little Hearthstone. Everyone knew that soldiers traveled extensively and saw the world.
And he had. He’d seen dozens upon dozens of empty hills, weed-covered plains, and identical warcamps. Actual sights, though… well, that was another story.
The city of Revolar was, as his hike with the parshmen had proven, only a few weeks away from Hearthstone by foot. He’d never visited. Storms, he’d never actually lived in a city before, unless you counted the warcamps.
He suspected most cities weren’t surrounded by an army of parshmen as this one was.
Revolar was built in a nice hollow on the leeward side of a series of hills, the perfect spot for a little town. Except this was not a “little town.” The city had sprawled out, filling in the areas between the hills, going up the leeward slopes—only leaving the tips completely bare.
He’d expected a city to look more organized. He’d imagined neat rows of houses, like an efficient warcamp. This looked more like a snarl of plants clumped in a chasm at the Shattered Plains. Streets running this way and that. Markets that poked out haphazardly.
Kaladin joined his team of parshmen as they wound along a wide roadway kept level with smoothed crem. They passed through thousands upon thousands of parshmen camped here, and more gathered by the hour, it seemed.
His, however, was the only group that carried stone-headed spears on their shoulders, packs of dried grain biscuits, and hogshide leather sandals. They tied their smocks with belts, and carried stone knives, hatchets, and tinder in waxed sleeves made from candles he’d traded for. He’d even begun teaching them to use a sling.
He probably shouldn’t have shown them any of these things; that didn’t stop him from feeling proud as he walked with them, entering the city.
Crowds thronged the streets. Where had all these parshmen come from? This was a force of at least forty or fifty thousand. He knew most people ignored parshmen… and, well, he’d done the same. But he’d always had tucked into the back of his mind this idea that there weren’t that many out there. Each high-ranking lighteyes owned a handful. And a lot of the caravaneers. And, well, even the less wealthy families from cities or towns had them. And there were the dockworkers, the miners, the water haulers, the packmen they used when building large projects.…
“It’s amazing,” Sah said from where he walked beside Kaladin, carrying his daughter on his shoulder to give her a better view. She clutched some of his wooden cards, holding them close like another child might carry a favorite stuffed doll.
“Amazing?” Kaladin asked Sah.
“Our own city, Kal,” he whispered. “During my time as a slave, barely able to think, I still dreamed. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have my own home, my own life. Here it is.”
The parshmen had obviously moved into homes along the streets here. Were they running markets too? It raised a difficult, unsettling question. Where were all the humans? Khen’s group walked deeper into the city, still led by the unseen spren. Kaladin spotted signs of trouble. Broken windows. Doors that no longer latched. Some of that would be from the Everstorm, but he passed a couple of doors that had obviously been hacked open with axes.
Looting. And ahead stood an inner wall. It was a nice fortification, right in the middle of the city sprawl. It probably marked the original city boundary, as decided upon by some optimistic architect.
Here, at long last, Kaladin found signs of the fight he’d expected during his initial trip to Alethkar. The gates to the inner city lay broken. The guardhouse had been burned, and arrowheads still stuck from some of the wood beams they passed. This was a conquered city.
But where had the humans been moved? Should he be looking for a prison camp, or a heaping pyre of burned bones? Considering the idea made him sick.
“Is this what it’s about?” Kaladin said as they walked down a roadway in the inner city. “Is this what you want, Sah? To conquer the kingdom? Destroy humankind?”
“Storms, I don’t know,” he said. “But I can’t be a slave again, Kal. I won’t let them take Vai and imprison her. Would you defend them, after what they did to you?”
“They’re my people.”
“That’s no excuse. If one of ‘your people’ murders another, don’t you put them in prison? What is a just punishment for enslaving my entire race?”
Syl soared past, her face peeking from a shimmering haze of mist. She caught his eye, then zipped over to a windowsill and settled down, taking the shape of a small rock.
“I…” Kaladin said. “I don’t know, Sah. But a war to exterminate one side or the other can’t be the answer.”
“You can fight alongside us, Kal. It doesn’t have to be about humans against parshmen. It can be nobler than that. Oppressed against the oppressors.”
As they passed the place where Syl was, Kaladin swept his hand along the wall. Syl, as they’d practiced, zipped up the sleeve of his coat. He could feel her, like a gust of wind, move up his sleeve then out his collar, into his hair. The long curls hid her, they’d determined, well enough.
“There are a lot of those yellow-white spren here, Kaladin,” she whispered. “Zipping through the air, dancing through buildings.”
“Any signs of humans?” Kaladin whispered.
“To the east,” she said. “Crammed into some army barracks and old parshman quarters. Others are in big pens, watched under guard. Kaladin… there’s another highstorm coming today.”
“When?”
“Soon, maybe? I’m new to guessing this. I doubt anyone is expecting it. Everything has been thrown off; the charts will all be wrong until people can make new ones.”
Kaladin hissed slowly through his teeth.
Ahead, his team approached a large group of parshmen. Judging by the way they’d been organized into large lines, this was some kind of processing station for new arrivals. Indeed, Khen’s band of a hundred was shuffled into one of the lines to wait.
Ahead of them, a parshman in full carapace armor—like a Parshendi— strolled down the line, holding a writing board. Syl pulled farther into Kaladin’s hair as the Parshendi man stepped up to Khen’s group.
“What towns, work camps, or armies do you all come from?” His voice had a strange cadence, similar to the Parshendi Kaladin had heard on the Shattered Plains. Some of those in Khen’s group had hints of it, but nothing this strong.
The scribe parshman wrote down the list of towns Khen gave him, then noted their spears. “You’ve been busy. I’ll recommend you for special training. Send your captive to the pens; I’ll write down a description here, and once you’re settled, you can put him to work.”
“He…” Khen said, looking at Kaladin. “He is not our captive.” She seemed begrudging. “He was one of the humans’ slaves, like us. He wishes to join and fight.”
The parshman looked up in the air at nothing.
“Yixli is speaking for you,” Sah whispered to Kaladin. “She sounds impressed.”
“Well,” the scribe said, “it’s not unheard of, but you’ll have to get permission from one of the Fused to label him free.”
“One of the what?” Khen asked.
The parshman with the writing board pointed toward his left. Kaladin had to step out of the line, along with several of the others, to see a tall parshwoman with long hair. There was carapace covering her cheeks, running back along the cheekbones and into her hair. The skin on her arms prickled with ridges, as if there were carapace under the skin as well. Her eyes glowed red.
Kaladin’s breath caught. Bridge Four had described these creatures to him, the strange Parshendi they’d fought during their push toward the center of the Shattered Plains. These were the beings who had summoned the Everstorm.
This one focused directly on Kaladin. There was something oppressive about her red gaze.
Kaladin heard a clap of thunder in the far distance. Around him, many of the parshmen turned toward it and began to mutter. Highstorm.
In that moment, Kaladin made his decision. He’d stayed with Sah and the others as long as he dared. He’d learned what he could. The storm presented a chance.
It’s time to go.
The tall, dangerous creature with the red eyes—the Fused, they had called her—began walking toward Khen’s group. Kaladin couldn’t know if she recognized him as a Radiant, but he had no intention of waiting until she arrived. He’d been planning; the old slave’s instincts had already decided upon the easiest way out.
It was on Khen’s belt.
Kaladin sucked in the Stormlight, right from her pouch. He burst alight with its power, then grabbed the pouch—he’d need those gemstones—and yanked it free, the leather strap snapping.
“Get your people to shelter,” Kaladin said to the surprised Khen. “A highstorm is close. Thank you for your kindness. No matter what you are told, know this: I do not wish to be your enemy.”
The Fused began to scream with an angry voice. Kaladin met Sah’s betrayed expression, then launched himself into the air.
Freedom.
Kaladin’s skin shivered with joy. Storms, how he’d missed this. The wind, the openness above, even the lurch in his stomach as gravity let go. Syl spun around him as a ribbon of light, creating a spiral of glowing lines. Gloryspren burst up about Kaladin’s head.
Syl took on the form of a person just so she could glower at the little bobbing balls of light. “Mine,” she said, swatting one of them aside.
About five or six hundred feet up, Kaladin changed to a half Lashing, so he slowed and hovered in the sky. Beneath, that red-eyed parshwoman was gesturing and screaming, though Kaladin couldn’t hear her. Storms. He hoped this wouldn’t mean trouble for Sah and the others.
He had an excellent view of the city—the streets filled with figures, now making for shelter in buildings. Other groups rushed to the city from all directions. Even after spending so much time with them, his first reaction was one of discomfort. So many parshmen together in one place? It was unnatural.
This impression bothered him now as it never would have before.
He eyed the stormwall, which he could see approaching in the far distance. He still had time before it arrived.
He’d have to fly up above the storm to avoid being caught in its winds. But then what?
“Urithiru is out there somewhere, to the west,” Kaladin said. “Can you guide us there?”
“How would I do that?”
“You’ve been there before.”
“So have you.”
“You’re a force of nature, Syl,” Kaladin said. “You can feel the storms. Don’t you have some kind of… location sense?”
“You’re the one from this realm,” she said, batting away another gloryspren and hanging in the air beside him, folding her arms. “Besides, I’m less a force of nature and more one of the raw powers of creation transformed by collective human imagination into a personification of one of their ideals.” She grinned at him.
“Where did you come up with that?”
“Dunno. Maybe I heard it somewhere once. Or maybe I’m just smart.”
“We’ll have to make for the Shattered Plains, then,” Kaladin said. “We can strike out for one of the larger cities in southern Alethkar, swap gemstones there, and hopefully have enough to hop over to the warcamps.”
That decided, he tied his gemstone pouch to his belt, then glanced down and tried to make a final estimate of troop numbers and parshman fortifications. It felt odd to not worry about the storm, but he’d just move up over it once it arrived.
From up here, Kaladin could see the great trenches cut into the stones to divert away floodwaters after a storm. Though most of the parshmen had fled for shelter, some remained below, craning necks and staring up at him. He read betrayal in their postures, though he couldn’t even tell if these were members of Khen’s group or not.
“What?” Syl asked, alighting on his shoulder.
“I can’t help but feel a kinship to them, Syl.”
“They conquered the city. They’re Voidbringers.”
“No, they’re people. And they’re angry, with good reason.” A gust of wind blew across him, making him drift to the side. “I know that feeling. It burns in you, worms inside your brain until you forget everything but the injustice done to you. It’s how I felt about Elhokar. Sometimes a world of rational explanations can become meaningless in the face of that all-consuming desire to get what you deserve.”
“You changed your mind about Elhokar, Kaladin. You saw what was right.”
“Did I? Did I find what was right, or did I just finally agree to see things the way you wanted?”
“Killing Elhokar was wrong.”
“And the parshmen on the Shattered Plains that I killed? Murdering them wasn’t wrong?”
“You were protecting Dalinar.”
“Who was assaulting their homeland.”
“Because they killed his brother.”
“Which, for all we know, they did because they saw how King Gavilar and his people treated the parshmen.” Kaladin turned toward Syl, who sat on his shoulder, one leg tucked beneath her. “So what’s the difference, Syl? What is the diff rence between Dalinar attacking the parshmen, and these parshmen conquering that city?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
“And why was it worse for me to let Elhokar be killed for his injustices than it was for me to actively kill parshmen on the Shattered Plains?”
“One is wrong. I mean, it just feels wrong. Both do, I guess.”
“Except one nearly broke my bond, while the other didn’t. The bond isn’t about what’s right and wrong, is it, Syl. It’s about what you see as right and wrong.”
“What we see,” she corrected. “And about oaths. You swore to protect Elhokar. Tell me that during your time planning to betray Elhokar, you didn’t—deep down—think you were doing something wrong.”
“Fine. But it’s still about perception.” Kaladin let the winds blow him, feeling a pit open in his belly. “Storms, I’d hoped… I’d hoped you could tell me, give me an absolute right. For once, I’d like my moral code not to come with a list of exceptions at the end.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“I’d have expected you to object,” Kaladin said. “You’re a… what, embodiment of human perceptions of honor? Shouldn’t you at least think you have all the answers?”
“Probably,” she said. “Or maybe if there are answers, I should be the one who wants to find them.”
The stormwall was now fully visible: the great wall of water and refuse pushed by the oncoming winds of a highstorm. Kaladin had drifted along with the winds away from the city, so he Lashed himself eastward until they floated over the hills that made up the city’s windbreak. Here, he spotted something he hadn’t seen earlier: pens full of great masses of humans.
The winds blowing in from the east were growing stronger. However, the parshmen guarding the pens were just standing there, as if nobody had given them orders to move. The first rumblings of the highstorm had been distant, easy to miss. They’d notice it soon, but that might be too late.
“Oh!” Syl said. “Kaladin, those people!”
Kaladin cursed, then dropped the Lashing holding him upward, which made him fall in a rush. He crashed to the ground, sending out a puff of glowing Stormlight that expanded from him in a ring.
“Highstorm!” he shouted at the parshman guards. “Highstorm coming!
Get these people to safety!”
They looked at him, dumbfounded. Not a surprising reaction. Kaladin summoned his Blade, shoving past the parshmen and leaping up onto the pen’s low stone wall, for keeping hogs.
He held aloft the Sylblade. Townspeople swarmed to the wall. Cries of “Shardbearer” rose.
“A highstorm is coming!” he shouted, but his voice was quickly lost in the tumult of voices. Storms. He had little doubt that the Voidbringers could handle a group of rioting townsfolk.
He sucked in more Stormlight, raising himself into the air. That quieted them, even drove them backward.
“Where did you shelter,” he demanded in a loud voice, “when the last storms came?”
A few people near the front pointed at the large bunkers nearby. For housing livestock, parshmen, and even travelers during storms. Could those hold an entire town’s worth of people? Maybe if they crowded in.
“Get moving!” Kaladin said. “A storm will be here soon.”
Kaladin, Syl’s voice said in his mind. Behind you.
He turned and found parshman guards approaching his wall with spears. Kaladin hopped down as the townspeople finally reacted, climbing the walls, which were barely chest high and slathered with smooth, hardened crem.
Kaladin took one step toward the parshmen, then swiped his Blade, separating their spearheads from the hafts. The parshmen—who had barely more training than the ones he’d traveled with—stepped back in confusion.
“Do you want to fight me?” Kaladin asked them.
One shook her head.
“Then see that those people don’t trample each other in their haste to get to safety,” Kaladin said, pointing. “And keep the rest of the guards from attacking them. This isn’t a revolt. Can’t you hear the thunder, and feel the wind picking up? ”
He launched himself onto the wall again, then waved for the people to move, shouting orders. The parshman guards eventually decided that instead of fighting a Shardbearer, they’d risk getting into trouble for doing what he said. Before too long, he had an entire team of them prodding the humans—often less gently than he’d have liked—toward the storm bunkers.
Kaladin dropped down beside one of the guards, a female whose spear he’d sliced in half. “How did this work the last time the storm hit?”
“We mostly left the humans to themselves,” she admitted. “We were too busy running for safety.”
So the Voidbringers hadn’t anticipated that storm’s arrival either. Kaladin winced, trying not to dwell on how many people had likely been lost to the impact of the stormwall.
“Do better,” he said to her. “These people are your charge now. You’ve seized the city, taken what you want. If you wish to claim any kind of moral superiority, treat your captives better than they did you.”
“Look,” the parshwoman said. “Who are you? And why—”
Something large crashed into Kaladin, tossing him backward into the wall with a crunch. The thing had arms; a person who grasped for his throat, trying to strangle him. He kicked them off; their eyes trailed red.
A blackish-violet glow—like dark Stormlight—rose from the red-eyed parshman. Kaladin cursed and Lashed himself into the air.
The creature followed.
Another rose nearby, leaving a faint violet glow behind, flying as easily as he did. These two looked different from the one he’d seen earlier, leaner, with longer hair. Syl cried out in his mind, a sound like pain and surprise mixed. He could only assume that someone had run to fetch these, after he had taken to the sky.
A few windspren zipped past Kaladin, then began to dance playfully around him. The sky grew dark, the stormwall thundering across the land. Those red-eyed Parshendi chased him upward.
So Kaladin Lashed himself straight toward the storm.
It had worked against the Assassin in White. The highstorm was dangerous, but it was also something of an ally. The two creatures followed, though they overshot his elevation and had to Lash themselves back downward in a weird bobbing motion. They reminded him of his first experimentation with his powers.
Kaladin braced himself—holding to the Sylblade, joined by four or five windspren—and crashed through the stormwall. An unstable darkness swallowed him; a darkness that was often split by lightning and broken by phantom glows. Winds contorted and clashed like rival armies, so irregular that Kaladin was tossed by them one way, then the other. It took all his skill in Lashing to simply get going in the right direction.
He watched over his shoulder as the two red-eyed parshmen burst in. Their strange glow was more subdued than his own, and somehow gave off the impression of an anti-glow. A darkness that clung to them.
They were immediately disrupted, sent spinning in the wind. Kaladin smiled, then was nearly crushed by a boulder tumbling through the air. Sheer luck saved him; the boulder passed close enough that another few inches would have ripped off his arm.
Kaladin Lashed himself upward, soaring through the tempest toward its ceiling. “Stormfather!” he yelled. “Spren of storms!”
No response.
“Turn yourself aside!” Kaladin shouted into the churning winds. “There are people below! Stormfather. You must listen to me!”
All grew still.
Kaladin stood in that strange space where he’d seen the Stormfather before—a place that seemed outside of reality. The ground was far beneath him, dim, slicked with rain, but barren and empty. Kaladin hovered in the air. Not Lashed; the air was simply solid beneath him.
WHO ARE YOU TO MAKE DEMANDS OF THE STORM, SON OF HONOR?
The Stormfather was a face as wide as the sky, dominating like a sunrise.
Kaladin held his sword aloft. “I know you for what you are, Stormfather. A spren, like Syl.”
I AM THE MEMORY OF A GOD, THE FRAGMENT THAT REMAINS. THE SOUL OF A STORM AND THE MIND OF ETERNITY.
“Then surely with that soul, mind, and memory,” Kaladin said, “you can find mercy for the people below.”
AND WHAT OF THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS WHO HAVE DIED IN THESE WINDS BEFORE? SHOULD I HAVE HAD MERCY FOR THEM?
“Yes.”
AND THE WAVES THAT SWALLOW, THE FIRES THAT CONSUME? YOU WOULD HAVE THEM STOP?
“I speak only of you, and only today. Please.”
Thunder rumbled. And the Stormfather actually seemed to consider the request.
IT IS NOT SOMETHING I CAN DO, SON OF TANAVAST. IF THE WIND STOPS BLOWING, IT IS NOT A WIND. IT IS NOTHING.
“But—”
Kaladin dropped back into the tempest proper, and it seemed as if no time had passed. He ducked through the winds, gritting his teeth in frustration. Windspren accompanied him—he had two dozen now, a spinning and laughing group, each a ribbon of light.
He passed one of the glowing-eyed parshmen. The Fused? Did that term refer to all whose eyes glowed?
“The Stormfather really could be more helpful, Syl. Didn’t he claim to be your father?”
It’s complicated, she said in his mind. He’s stubborn though. I’m sorry.
“He’s callous,” Kaladin said.
He’s a storm, Kaladin. As people over millennia have imagined him.
“He could choose.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. I think what you’re doing is like asking fire to please stop being so hot.
Kaladin zoomed down along the ground, quickly reaching the hills around Revolar. He had hoped to find that everyone was safe, but that was—of course—a frail hope. People were scattered across the pens and the ground near the bunkers. One of those bunkers still had the doors open, and a few men were trying—bless them—to gather the last people outside and carry them in.
Many were too far away. They huddled against the ground, holding to the wall or outcroppings of rock. Kaladin could barely make them out in flashes of lightning—terrified lumps alone in the tempest.
He had felt those winds. He’d been powerless before them, tied to the side of a building.
Kaladin… Syl said in his mind as he dropped.
The storm pulsed inside him. Within the highstorm, his Stormlight constantly renewed. It preserved him, had saved his life a dozen times over. That very power that had tried to kill him had been his salvation.
He hit the ground and dropped Syl, then seized the form of a young father clutching a son. He pulled them up, holding them secure, trying to run them toward the building. Nearby, another person—he couldn’t see much of them—was torn away in a gust of wind and taken by the darkness.
Kaladin, you can’t save them all.
He screamed as he grabbed another person, holding her tight and walking with them. They stumbled in the wind as they reached a cluster of people huddled together. Some two dozen or more, in the shadow of the wall around the pens.
Kaladin pulled the three he was helping—the father, the child, the woman—over to the others. “You can’t stay out here!” he shouted at them all. “Together. You have to walk together, this way!”
With effort—winds howling, rain pelting like daggers—he got the group moving across the stony ground, arm in arm. They made good progress until a boulder crunched to the ground nearby, sending some of them huddling down in a panic. The wind rose, lifting some people up; only the clutching hands of the others kept them from blowing away.
Kaladin blinked away tears that mingled with the rain. He bellowed. Nearby, a flash of light illuminated a man being crushed as a portion of wall ripped away and towed his body off into the storm.
Kaladin, Syl said. I’m sorry.
“Being sorry isn’t enough!” he yelled.
He clung with one arm to a child, his face toward the storm and its terrible winds. Why did it destroy? This tempest shaped them. Must it ruin them too? Consumed by his pain and feelings of betrayal, Kaladin surged with Stormlight and flung his hand forward as if to try to push back the wind itself.
A hundred windspren spun in as lines of light, twisting around his arm, wrapping it like ribbons. They surged with Light, then exploded outward in a blinding sheet, sweeping to Kaladin’s sides and parting the winds around him.
Kaladin stood with his hand toward the tempest, and deflected it. Like a stone in a swift-moving river stopped the waters, he opened a pocket in the storm, creating a calm wake behind him.
The storm raged against him, but he held the point in a formation of windspren that spread from him like wings, diverting the storm. He managed to turn his head as the storm battered him. People huddled behind him, soaked, confused—surrounded by calm.
“Go!” he shouted. “Go!”
They found their feet, the young father taking his son back from Kaladin’s leeward arm. Kaladin backed up with them, maintaining the windbreak. This group was only some of those trapped by the winds, yet it took everything Kaladin had to hold the tempest.
The winds seemed angry at him for his defiance. All it would take was one boulder.
A figure with glowing red eyes landed on the field before him. It advanced, but the people had finally reached the bunker. Kaladin sighed and released the winds, and the spren behind him scattered. Exhausted, he let the storm pick him up and fling him away. A quick Lashing gave him elevation, preventing him from being rammed into the buildings of the city.
Wow, Syl said in his mind. What did you just do? With the storm?
“Not enough,” Kaladin whispered.
You’ll never be able to do enough to satisfy yourself, Kaladin. That was still wonderful.
He was past Revolar in a heartbeat. He turned, becoming merely another piece of debris on the winds. The Fused gave chase, but lagged behind, then vanished. Kaladin and Syl pushed out of the stormwall, then rode it at the front of the storm. They passed over cities, plains, mountains— never running out of Stormlight, for there was a source renewing them from behind.
They flew for a good hour like that before a current in the winds nudged him toward the south.
“Go that way,” Syl said, a ribbon of light.
“Why?”
“Just listen to the piece of nature incarnate, okay? I think Father wants to apologize, in his own way.”
Kaladin growled, but allowed the winds to channel him in a specific direction. He flew this way for hours, lost in the sounds of the tempest, until finally he settled down—half of his own volition, half because of the pressing winds. The storm passed—leaving him in the middle of a large, open field of rock.
The plateau in front of the tower city of Urithiru.
Chapter 32
Company
For I, of all people, have changed.
—From Oathbringer, preface
Shallan settled in Sebarial’s sitting room. It was a strangely shaped stone chamber with a loft above—he sometimes put musicians there—and a shallow cavity in the floor, which he kept saying he was going to fill with water and fish. She was fairly certain he made claims like that just to annoy Dalinar with his supposed extravagance.
For now, they’d covered the hole with some boards, and Sebarial would periodically warn people not to step on them. The rest of the room was decorated lavishly. She was pretty sure she’d seen those tapestries in a monastery in Dalinar’s warcamp, and they were matched by luxurious furniture, golden lamps, and ceramics.
And a bunch of splintery boards covering a pit. She shook her head. Then—curled up on a sofa with blankets heaped over her—she gladly accepted a cup of steaming citrus tea from Palona. She still hadn’t been able to rid herself of the lingering chill she’d felt since her encounter with Re-Shephir a few hours back.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” Palona asked.
Shallan shook her head, so the Herdazian woman settled herself on a sofa nearby, holding another cup of tea. Shallan sipped, glad for the company. Adolin had wanted her to sleep, but the last thing she wanted was to be alone. He’d handed her over to Palona’s care, then stayed with Dalinar and Navani to answer their further questions.
“So…” Palona said. “What was it like?”
How to answer that? She’d touched the storming Midnight Mother. A name from ancient lore, one of the Unmade, princes of the Voidbringers. People sang about Re-Shephir in poetry and epics, describing her as a dark, beautiful figure. Paintings depicted her as a black-clad woman with red eyes and a sultry gaze.
That seemed to exemplify how little they really remembered about these things.
“It wasn’t like the stories,” Shallan whispered. “Re-Shephir is a spren. A vast, terrible spren who wants so desperately to understand us. So she kills us, imitating our violence.”
There was a deeper mystery beyond that, a wisp of something she’d glimpsed while intertwined with Re-Shephir. It made Shallan wonder if this spren wasn’t merely trying to understand humankind, but rather searching for something it itself had lost.
Had this creature—in distant, distant time beyond memory—once been human?
They didn’t know. They didn’t know anything. At Shallan’s first report, Navani had set her scholars searching for information, but their access to books here was still limited. Even with access to the Palanaeum, Shallan wasn’t optimistic. Jasnah had hunted for years to find Urithiru, and even then most of what she’d discovered had been unreliable. It had simply been too many years.
“To think it was here, all this time,” Palona said. “Hiding down there.”
“She was captive,” Shallan whispered. “She eventually escaped, but that was centuries ago. She has been waiting here ever since.”
“Well, we should find where the others are held, and make sure they don’t get out.”
“I don’t know if the others were ever captured.” She’d felt isolation and loneliness from Re-Shephir, a sense of being torn away while the others escaped.
“So…”
“They’re out there, and always have been,” Shallan said. She felt exhausted, and her eyes were drooping in direct defiance of her insistence to Adolin that she was not that kind of tired.
“Surely we’d have discovered them by now.”
“I don’t know,” Shallan said. “They’ll… they’ll just be normal to us. The way things have always been.”
She yawned, then nodded absently as Palona continued talking, her comments degenerating into praise of Shallan for acting as she had. Adolin had been the same way, which she hadn’t minded, and Dalinar had been downright nice to her—instead of being his usual stern rock of a human being.
She didn’t tell them how near she’d come to breaking, and how terrified she was that she might someday meet that creature again.
But… maybe she did deserve some acclaim. She’d been a child when she’d left her home, seeking salvation for her family. For the first time since that day on the ship, watching Jah Keved fade behind her, she felt like she actually might have a handle on all of this. Like she might have found some stability in her life, some control over herself and her surroundings.
Remarkably, she kind of felt like an adult.
She smiled and snuggled into her blankets, drinking her tea and—for the moment—putting out of her mind that basically an entire troop of soldiers had seen her with her glove off. She was kind of an adult. She could deal with a little embarrassment. In fact, she was increasingly certain that between Shallan, Veil, and Radiant, she could deal with anything life could throw at her.
A disturbance outside made her sit up, though it didn’t sound dangerous. Some chatter, a few boisterous exclamations. She wasn’t terribly surprised when Adolin stepped in, bowed to Palona—he did have nice manners— and jogged over to her, his uniform still rumpled from having worn Shardplate over it.
“Don’t panic,” he said. “It’s a good thing.”
“It?” she said, growing alarmed.
“Well, someone just arrived at the tower.”
“Oh, that. Sebarial passed the news; the bridgeboy is back.”
“Him? No, that’s not what I’m talking about.” Adolin searched for words as voices approached, and several other people stepped into the room.
At their head was Jasnah Kholin.
The End of Part One
Oathbringer: The Stormlight Archive Book 3 copyright © 2017 Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
Only one week left! The hype is real :)
Final part before release. So excited to read.
Yaaaay. Just a week till its released.
Only a week left! And NEW chapters :D!
Whoa! One more week! Don’t know how people have held out from these released chapters — they’re just so good!
Jasnah’s back!!!
Jasnah! So happy to see her!
I just wanted to be involved.
Those. Last. Six. Words.
One week, oh boy.
Kaladin I LOVE you.
We’ll both jasnah and Kaladin are back now let’s see where this goes…
Woo! KALADIN!
Yes! JASNAH!
Celebrate now, coherence later.
dat feeling though when the writer of the preface is not revealed in the end
no no no you can’t end there! Argggh
WHAT JASNAH WHAT
Oh come on, Sanderson!! You can’t leave us hanging like that, not telling us who wrote in-world Oathbringer!! I needs to know now!
Also, Jasnah’s back! And Kal!! Now, where’s Lift, so we can have a real party…
It’s way too early in the day for random rudeness. Please keep your comments focused on Oathbringer and avoid sniping at fellow commenters–thanks.
So Kaladin created a storm wall out of windspren. wonder what other abilities that they have don’t fall under their standard surges.
I said this yesterday, but the things that are a normal transition to the next chapter in the book make for really annoying cliffhangers in this format! Storms Sanderson that is horrible thing to do to us!
I knew/hoped that Jasnah would return at the end of Part 1. One more week!
“For I, of all people, have changed.” I feel like this points strongly to Dalinar, though he has been my lead candidate for a while, so I may be guilty of confirmation bias.
Jasnah! Finally
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN!
Yeeeessss.
Spoiler Alert:
Jasnah is back baby!
This is too heavy for a Tuesday morning, and naturally I don’t have the answers, although some of this is reminding me of Faramir’s musings in the Lord of the Rings that perhaps the Easterling army is just a bunch of boys who would rather be home, but were led on this errand due to their duties to their own home, etc.
Ah – found the quote: ” “The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”
But that’s the awful thing about war – aside from the loss of life itself, it puts both sides into a moral no win situation. I don’t expect one side to just allow themselves to be slaughtered, but as Kaladin points out, there are often justifications on both sides (especially if we end up learning that the enslavement of the parshmen was itself a reaction to some other thing).
When my husband was in grad school he worked with a professor who worked on ‘forgiveness therapy’ or something like that – and I think forgiveness is often maligned/misunderstood in our culture (or used as a way to manipulate/guilt people). But I know this guy worked with groups like the Irish after their civil war, etc – to attempt to help people come together and find a way forward.
I think that – if the author of Oathbringer is from the present time – the author is Dalinar. But I’m not discounting that it could also be a more ancient book.
The musings on Re-Sephir are intriguing and I hope we learn more about her/it and what the Unmade actually are. Was she in fact once human? Are the Unmade like Nazgul?
JASSSNAAAAAAH YAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
EPIC EPIC EPICNESS
any reason not to buy the book immediately has been destroyed from my subconscious if it ever existed.
Jasnah, finally. Maybe the Elsecallers’ real special resonance is great dramatic timing. :) I’ll miss these new chapters coming out, but I’m glad I’ll be able to read the whole book soon.
Chapter 31: Kaladin tries to adopt a city. I’m so glad we get to see him before the end of this part, and that we also get one of our first looks at (probably) actual voidbinding. Does this mean that there are orders of voidbinding that mimic the orders of the Knights Radiant? Or at least have similarities.
And Kaladin either creates the beginning of Shardplate, or uses Adhesion in interesting ways. It is the power of Pressure and Vacuum after all, and I believe it’s been said people can use it to travel through space. So a less intense version could probably hold back the storm for at least a bit. I’m happy he got to safe those people, at least for now, and I wonder if Kaladin and Dalinar will find more uses for Adhesion, since Pressure and Vacuum seem like they could be quite handy in a fight..
Also, ‘Fused’ sounds much more ominous than whatever type of bond the other ex-Parshmen have.
Welcome back, Jasnah! Can’t wait to catch up with you next week! This is going to be a very long six days.
WOOT holy hell, the trick Kaladin pulled with the wind was awesome (people here at work looking at me strangely because of giggles and swearing)
Dayam that was intense
Holy chull dung that was just how i expected the preview chapters to end i knew they were going to give us exactly one part but it was still awesome
i think in book oathbringer may be written by the sunmaker that was the name of his sword and seems to be significant to him and also hes the forefather of the modern alethi princedoms so maybe
if its written by a modern hand its got to be dalinar
and thank goodness Kaladin didnt stay with the parshmen anylonger that yellow spren was kinda creepy
That was awesome! I kinda knew the ending was gonna be like that, but I’m still mad it was. Now we’ve gotta wait until next Thursday!
Yay I am as excited as you guys. Am i the only one with hopes that the book will be delivered before next Tuesday?
Jasnah! Yes!
No word but hopefully we get some Wit back too.
Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So much to take in.
Kal, Sly, the Stormfather….
The anti windrunners…
Jasnah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brandon Sanderson is clearly a horrible, horrible man, and I hate him, now I have to live another week in miserable anticipation.
Here are my thoughts in no specific order:
– I expected at least one Dalinar chapter: I was surprised there was none. Those also were two very short chapters.
– I am struggling to have sympathy for the Parshendis. I know I should, but I cannot condone their actions.
– I love the Kaladin/Syl discussion on what is right and which right is righter than which. We can see where his moral dilemma will go within the remaining of the book.
– The Voidbringers look terrifying.
– I am really glad Kaladin is back. I was hoping for this to happen by the end of part 1.
– I am not sure what to think of Shallan’s chapter: she nearly broke down in front of Re-Shephir. I have some sort of odd feelings I cannot explain with this entire arc.
– JASNAH! I really did not expect her to be back so soon. In fact, I didn’t expect her to be back for a long time.
– I thought part 1 would end with a cliff-hanger, it doesn’t really, but I like this ending just fine. At least, I can wait in peace for the book to be released.
Up for Part 1:
– Dalinar’s flashback story is definitely one massive up. I can’t wait to read the rest of it.
– Kaladin’s homecoming to Heartstone: it was brilliantly executed with just the right touch of emotions. I was very pleased with those chapters.
– The inklings for Dalinar’s future struggles at creating unity: how will it unravel?
– Shallan and Adolin’s alone time. Those chapters were really great. I loved them: they are among my favorite.
– Shallan’s more active than before story arc even if elements of her character still make me ill-at-ease, it remained a good arc, not my favorite, but a good arc nonetheless.
– Jasnah coming back into the story much sooner than expected.
Downs for Part 1
– Adolin. He started strong with two viewpoints, he had some decent characterisation early one, but since he has since progressively sink into the background. It has gotten to a point where many readers do not even expect anything to come out of his character anymore: Brandon seems to have made his choice here. The character has slowly, but inexorably started to read as paper thin and one dimensional, the faithful side-kick, always there to support everyone, but not one aspects of things happening to him was broached. Not one. Everything about the character was just literally dropped in order to steer him, once again, into the role of a foil. It was the wrong move to make, IMHO, as the character had many things to deal with at the end of WoR, but he was written as if absolutely nothing happened.
– The absence of payoff for the murdering Sadeas’s cliff-hanger: this was THE cliff-hanger at the end of WoR and it was nearly ignored within part 1. Nearly, not completely, but honestly I can’t say it was handled in a satisfying manner. My impressions are it wasn’t handled at all. Adolin’s character has had no valid reaction, only small little barely significant things, but without follow-up, they fell flat.
Expectations for the rest of the book:
– It will be great: I am really excited for many story elements: Dalinar, Kaladin (now he is finally back) and after part 1, I am less excited over Shallan. We had a great run, but my interest has increased in Kaladin with this last very good chapter for him.
– I am curious about how Jasnah will contribute to the story.
I call Kaladin’s trick with the windspren a Windblade, after the rock formations that help divert winds around Kholinar. Who knows: maybe the Windblades at Kholinar were originally named after this ability.
Only two chapters? I feel cheated! But I guess it evens out with the prologue. I knew a free chapter was too good to be true. Can’t wait to see what goes in the interludes. Maybe more about the Heralds? They must have some kind of reaction to what’s going on.
I think the preface is probably written by the Sunmaker, that one who had the Oathbringer sword in the past.
@37 At least he admits he’s horrible:
“By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer’s greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry…” – Alcatraz Smedry
― Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians
That was soo good!
I was certain Kaladin was about to form his shardplate for the first time when the windspren started spiralling around his arm…
Different forms of ‘Fused’ too, one that seems to mirror Windrunner powers – do the fused forms align with the radiant orders…
I liked the discussion that Kaladin had with Syl regarding his actions and their morality – It resolves some of the issues that I have with his apparent ability to slaughter Parshendi and Kill Szeth (prior to the re-write) in spite of his oaths to protect – Is this Mr Sanderson hanging a lampshade on it?
Shallan’s comment about the other unmade being ‘normal to us’ seems to be propheti; who or what else have we seen that could potentially be an unmade?
As ever my sincerest thanks to Mr Sanderson and Tor for making these excerpts available – I’m looking forward to holding and more importantly reading the result of his work very soon – just sorry I wont be able to make it to any of his appearances in the UK.
Jasnah is finally back too!
Only one week to go!
Shoulda known it would be a killer cliffhanger.
I’ve been really curious for a long time on how Jasnah and Kaladin would respond to each other when they meet. Also, wondered how long it would take for Jasnah to reveal she wasn’t dead. I’m glad it wasn’t too drawn out.
6 Radiants in Urithiru now. 5 of whom should be fairly well united. It will be interesting to see how Jasnah and Dalinar interact regarding leadership of the Knights Radiant. Also how Shallan reacts. She’s been growing more authoritative and now her teacher in this is returned.
Does anyone else feel like this kaladin arc felt super rushed?
It feels like the past 2 books and Part I of book 3 are just the introduction, setting up the stage and introducing main characters.
What a satisfying chapter with Kaladin. The interesting continuation of his moral uncertainty (despite being such an ethical bull already), along-side some exciting action and new powers! And his conversation with the Stormfather!
It’s nice to see Shallan feel at her best at this point. I can’t wait to see her grow in this book. I assume we’ll watch her reach a life-changing new peak in her relationship with Pattern.
Will we have Interludes next? I hope we encounter the merchant Rysn again.
I just want to say thanks to Tor and Brandon for releasing these chapters early, in this format. It’s been a delight to anticipate a new installment every week and gloat about it with the wonderful and insightful people reading it too. It feels like I’m saying goodbye to you all here in the comments as we head off to hibernate with the book alone. Have a pleasant Winter everyone! :D
@44 I haven’t read all of the discussion on all of the chapters, so this may have already been discussed, but I’m not sure that I believe there are 6 KR at all. Mr. T brought what would be the 6th, but I’m thinking there is another Honor Blade involved. There is assuredly something disturbing yet to be revealed about that group (All Hail the Diagram)
Wow! Just wow! I savored every word when I saw that there were only 2 chapters! Despite my love for Richard Rahl, Rand Al Thor, and Roland Deschain, Kaladin has literally just leaped to the #1 spot in my hero line-up.
Can’t wait to read Jasnah/Shallan interaction, Jasnah/Dalinar, and I am still somehow holding out hope that Jasnah really was Malata and just had to break cover and reveal herself after the showdown with the Midnight Mother and learning of Kaladin’s return and his experience with the Voidbringers. We’ll all soon be RAFO!!!
@24: KefkaPalazzo – Exactly. Cue the dramatic music. Keep it handy. It plays often.
@37: Lord VorLess – Nice name. Are you on the Bujold reread?
Yes, yes he is. He will even tell you he is when you read the Alcatraz books.
P.S. You will say this again before the end of OB.
Oh look @42 pulled up an example quote. Thank you!
@45: Daniel Ray – The pacing will feel very different when you read Part 1 as one big block rather than over 8 weeks.
Re: Preface author – I’m hoping the audio narrator doesn’t spoil it. Like with HoA. I enjoyed the audio book as a reread. Then I realized that Michael Karmer was reading them in Sazed’s voice.
42, yes, I cannot call him a liar, he probably delights in making torturespren flow from his pen, imagining how they seep into the ink of every printed book.
Of course, now I’m wondering if any spren ever appear to those who drink enough coffee.
45, it wasn’t especially long, no, so I could say it might feel rushed, usually it takes him a whole book to get anywhere.
I have too many feels for real cognition right now, but I think we saw syl do the storm blade thing back in WoK. When Kal is strung up in the high storm?
I am also certain now to buy the Hardback, as well as the hardback of WoK and WoR. I will probably also get the audiobook, if only to just hear Michael Kramer’s Elhokar voice (which cracks me up! It’s almost as good as Lews Therin’s!)
But I know for certain that I will do my first read of OB via Kindle ebook, which hopefully drops at midnight Monday! I’ll start at book 2 because I will have re-read all of these chapters again at least twice between now and Monday. And there had better not be even ONE word that is different (diff rent!) in the eBook from what is posted here on Tor.
Thanks Brandon for totally monopolizing my time. You are one heck of an author! :)
Okay, now that I’m done jumping up and down over Jasnah’s return – once the book comes out, how will comments in these threads be handled? I like to check up on new comments, but since I won’t be getting the book for awhile (I put a hold on it at the library about a month ago, but there’s about 40 people ahead of me so….it will probably be a few months) I don’t want to read spoilers. Can these threads stay spoiler free for the rest of the book?
@45 I feel like we spent too much time in Urithiru but only got few and small kaladin chapters.
@52 – She did the Storm Blade but I always got the impression that it was largely ineffective then. That scene in WoR is probably one of the scenes that I would love to see played out in a movie. That one, then when she fights back the rotspren (or whatever) when he was sick in the bunker after the highstorm, and when she first revealed herself as full-height when Sadeas betrayed Kaladin.
Aggggggghhh! Torture Tuesday strikes again- in the best way possible. FINALLY a kaladin chapter! It seems all his internal angst musings have found a new quandary to ponder.
This is why I love sci-fi / fantasy so much- real world issues and problems to chew on and actually think about without the sensationalism and preaching/fear and war mongering of the real world.
It irritates me that Shallan still thinks of Kaladin as “bridgeboy” after their stint in the chasms. Although maybe she can’t afford to think of him as anything else or she would actually have to confront some sort of REAL FEELING whether it’s anger or something else now that she knows about him killing Heleran.
And Jasnah’s back!!!! I’m interested to see her interaction with Shallan- Shallan is finally feeling adult like and in comes the mentor to take over again! I see potential friction!
Cant wait till next week!!!
@26 There needs to be Truth and Reconciliation hearings for the Parshmen.
@56 fyi Syl was fighting off Death Spren, not Rot Spren.
50, it’s things like that which make me think Sanderson is actually six clones of himself up to a lot of mischief, but yes, I’ve been a Bujold fan since stumbling across The Vor Game sometime in the nineties. Fortunately she doesn’t tend to write doorstoppers.
I wonder how Odium “unmade” the Parshendi gods to make them into what they are now. What were they before?
I totally see Jasnah being all-business at the reunion. Very interested how the power dynamics will work between Dalinar and Jasnah.
Goddamn this book is going to be fire.
Not a bad way to end Part One. Quick impressions:
The Fused? These are the Voidspren we were expecting. I feel bad for the Parshmen that came w Kaladin. Hopefully nothing too bad happens to them. As for Kaladin, wow! He deflected part of the Highstorm! And for just a second I thought the windspren would become Shardplate! Oh well.
Shallan needs to recover; I get that. And it doesn’t look like Urithuru battery was automatically super charged by the Highstorm. And Jasnah just strolls into the room!?! Not how I expected Part One to end, but I’ll take it
So do we think wind spren, as cousin-spren to the honor spren, will eventually form Kaladin’s shardplate?
I want to thank Tor.com and Brandon for doing the weekly releases. The few chapters a week have been fun and frustrating, Though I am really glad that in one week I will get to read the entire book, I have enjoyed the anticipation each week, and will miss part of it.
Is there going to be some pre-release review like with WoR? Getting reactions with no context was one of the more entertaining pre-release posts.
@43 Melbu Frahma,
I’ve never really understood that argument about Kaladin’s moral crisis. There is clearly a difference between going into a even battle to save someone and letting someone else get murdered.
As for the Parshendi, Kal is right that they should be angry. It doesn’t help that their leaders are going to be Voidbringers, but they have a right to be angry. They shouldn’t be taking captives, but it’s not like others wouldn’t immediately enslave the Parshendi again if they could.
@53 I’m going to start the book over on Tuesday, mostly because I want to hear Kate Reading do the Pattern “mating” scenes!
@57 I’ve seen it mentioned several times that Shallan knows that Kaladin killed Heleran, but is that the case? We’ve seen that she recognized Heleran’s shard in Amaram’s possession, but I don’t remember when or if that was actually tied back to Kal.
@59 – thanks! I knew it wasn’t rotspren but couldn’t remember exactly what it was (too excited to think clearly!)
@68 arod
Well Adolin told her Kaladin killed Helaran in chapter 27 two weeks ago, so she’s definitely heard it already.
“Shallan… that Blade. You know where Amaram got that, right?”
“On the battlefield?”
“From Kaladin.” Adolin raised his hand to his head.
Then she promptly pushed it to the back of her mind, so we’ll have to see how she’ll deal with it now.
I don’t think Dalinar and Jasnah will have any issues. They have always had a great relationship. Now I can see her and Shallan have issues as drama always follows Shallan.
@43 I’m starting to suspect one of the UnMade everyone considers as normal might be the Thrill.
@70 Elle
WOW… so, I evidently missed 27 completely in my read. That’s what I get for trying to casually read these posts on my mobile in meetings at work without being noticed o_O
@65, it was released last night I think, I read it this morning.
@68, earlier in part one, i cant remember which part, Adolin tells her that Kal killed Heleran. So yes, she knows.
@67, I too want to hear Kate Reading do Patterns “No mating!”
@@@@@ 73 arod
Then you get an extra chapter today, lucky you. :) But honestly these chapters are so dense I constantly see people referencing sentences and things I just completely skipped over, even after a second readthrough. I’m always very grateful for the search function :).
Also, on a separate note, Syl hides in Kaladin’s hair. That is a) cute, and b) a sign that Kaladin really needs a haircut.
Incredible chapters! Thank you Brandon and Tor for releasing part 1 this way. So much fun to get a few chapters each week and build up the suspense. Now the trick is next Tuesday remembering that I still need to work, eat, and sleep when I am flying through the rest of the book! It’s a great time to be a fan!
WROW
I want to see how Jasnah and Kaladin interact, You have Kaladin who seem to ignore normal class authority, who her brother views as a hero and an the person he wants to learn from and has made a lot of progress on his KR skills. Then you have Jasnah who I get the impression is a bit of a control freak and a protector. See her version of the prologue and her wanting Shallan betrothed to Adolin so there are ties that bind. I hope she doesn’t make the mistake of threatening the bridge men to ensure his loyalty.
Am I the only one that though Kaladin was forming Shardplate there for a minute? The beginning of the beginning…
Feel like the cat that ate the canary, such a satisfying way to usher in the book next week….but also….say WHA??????? So good!
@72 – I don’t remember where it was confirmed (maybe one of the T chapters? Or an epigraph?) but the Thrill is known to be caused by an Unmade (Neragoul?)
Is it just me that gets a slight Klingon vibe from warform parshendi? It would be interesting to see a fan fiction with a crossover from the two universes…
Is it possible that the Shattered Plains gemstone-hunger is something of the Unmade? I feel like Brandon is TELLING us there’s something going on that we’re missing that they’re responsible for. We already know about the death rattles and the thrill. Probably the purelake plague=dai-gonarthis. Maybe the reason the parshmen are gathering where they are.
No surprise that Sah did not bother to think about what happened to those people who used to live in Revolar.
We have a name of the spren who is with Kaladin’s group of Parshmen: Yixli. I am surprised that Yixli has yet to see Syl. Since Brandon bothered to reveal Yixli’s name, I wonder if we will see that spren again.
I think that Yixli and the other yellow-white spren are a different type of spren then those Voidspren that change the Parshmen into the red-eye Voidbringers (both those who can fly and Stormform). I do not know why I think so, but I do
I am more surprised that Syl did not realize Kaladin could do what he did in the highstorm (creating a type of eye of the storm) than of Kaladin actually doing what he did.
From a story line perspective, I am glad that Kaladin escaped. I think it would have been boring if we had another section or two of him trying to convince the non red-eye Parshmen to help him escape. We will have to see if the lessons in kindness and morality he taught some of the Parshman he helped will pay off.
I wonder how Re-Shephir escaped. I suspect she had help from one of the other Unmade. I had the impression that the trap that Re-Shephir was put into could hold her completely until something or somebody freed her.
I did not expect Jasnah to return to come at this point in the book. Jasnah is the type of very rarely gives praise. But I think when Jasnah learns how capable of a job Shallan did, then Jasnah will tell Shallan she is proud of Shallan. I hope we see that part of the conversation in real time. Further, in many ways, that type of compliment from Jasnah will be one of the highlights of Shallan’s life. In my opinion, Shallan has come to admire Jasnah.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
I can’t wait to see how Jasnah and Kaladin will interact since they haven’t met yet. I could see them having different views on the parshmen since Jasnah has spent years studying the voidbringers and Kaladin sees them as people who have been enslaved. Also, we know that Jasnah is still understandably affected by her father’s death at the hand of the Parshendi.
So, this is the end of the Part One serialization, and I think Brandon’s idea was a smashing success. The discussion every week has been fantastic.
I haven’t seen it announced, but I’ve been told that next Monday there will be one last new preview chapter that we suggested, this time in audiobook form. So don’t forget to check back on Monday.
These chapters where great. Syl swatting away the glory spren was totally adorable.
Ross @@@@@ 39 “I call Kaladin’s trick with the windspren a Windblade, after the rock formations that help divert winds around Kholinar. Who knows: maybe the Windblades at Kholinar were originally named after this ability.”
This reminds me, I’ve wondered if the ten oathgate cities are related to the ten Knights Radiant orders, where each order has a “home” city. If so, I think Kholinar is related to the Windrunners. It includes the wind blades, and there is Windrunner River north of Kholinar. Also, Alethkar seemed to be one of the primary homes for the original KR, and with Jezrien being the king of the heralds and the Windrunner patron, it seem fitting Kholinar might be his home base. I wonder if he is in Kholinar now?
Ambly @@@@@ 44. I am also looking forward to how the six radiants interact. There hasn’t been much interaction between them in Part 1. I’d love to see more teamwork and discussion going forward, and I’m dying to see two or more of them fight together, and how their abilities might combine.
MeggsH @@@@@ 57. “It irritates me that Shallan still thinks of Kaladin as “bridgeboy” after their stint in the chasms.”
I get the sense that this has become a friendly nickname that Adolin and Shallan use sometimes, and is not meant to be derogatory. They also call him Kaladin sometimes too, but bridgeboy is more fun to say.
KefkaPalazzo @@@@@ 65. There is a spoiler free review on TOR here.
Question for the moderators: will there be a full book discussion somewhere on TOR once the book is out?
Edited to add:
Joseph Landon @@@@@ 82. I’ve had the same thought about Parshendi and Klingons! Especially the Stormform bad guys. It’s probably triggered from recent viewings of Star Trek Discovery.
Thanks Peter for the info on the audio chapter! And thanks for everything you guys have given us these past few weeks. Much gratitude.
@86 That’s awesome, Peter! I will definitely be checking for that, since I love the audiobooks. Thank Brandon for doing the release this way. At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it in pieces, but I’ve loved it!
OK, coherent thoughts.
Ch. 31: I know it’s small potatoes compared to the rest of the chapter, but I really liked the opening lines about what, exactly, you see of the world as a soldier. It pretty much matched my experience :D.
Well, there went my remote hope that Cultivation had taken charge of the newly awakened parshmen. Or that their spren might be Syl’s gloomspren-hunting aunt. Ah, well, easy come, easy go. I am hoping that the fact that Yixli, whom I infer is the Voidspren, speaking for Kaladin will protect Khen’s people from reprisal. After all, if she couldn’t spot him for what he was, how were they supposed to? I also am not surprised that the newly-freed parshmen have turned the tables and enslaved the humans. It’s really the only way their people have experienced–one group owns and controls the others, and they’d rather be the owners than the owned. I think it would be too early to realistically expect anything different.
Syl is very cute here, hiding in Kaladan’s hair and “defending” him against gloryspren. I’m also kind of surprised that she doesn’t have a directional sense, but I suppose that for a psuedo-windspren the actual direction you are traveling doesn’t mean as much as the fact that you just go where the wind blows. (That’s also, I think, why she slips through cracks under doors and in through windows, like a draft or a gust of wind, instead of going through walls. It’s part of that whole “personification” deal.) And Kaladin is at his best here. He really cares about these people, Khen’s parshmen and the captured humans both. And as always, something amazing happens when sets himself against overwhelming odds to protect the defenseless. He might not know exactly what is Right, but he knows what is right for him to do. I sympathize with his confusion, and I look forward to seeing how his ideas keep developing. And oh gods, that scene where he deflects the storm! <3 Another image so vivid I don’t even have to try to see it! I also love his conversation with the Stormfather, especially the line about having so much soul, mind, and memory.
Ch. 32: It somehow does not surprise me that the Midnight Mother is envisioned as a femme fatal. *facepalm* People. If the Unmade were once human, were they a sort of counterpart to the Heralds? Do the Heralds qualify as Splinters of Honor, though they were once human? If Shardholders are splinters of Adonalsium, I suppose it could work like that. . . But, if they were never human (or Listener, possibly?) and created souly from Odium’s power, is it possible that the longing for understanding that Shallan sensed actually comes from Odium himself? The thought is unsettling.
I’m gonna forbear on the whole relationship speculation and just say that I’m so glad to see Shallan getting some confidence in herself and feeling like a Real Adult Who Can Handle Things.
And then, like lightening from a clear sky, JASNAH! Now all I need is Eshonai in an interlude!
If the first chapter (or second, if the first is a flashback) of part 2 doesn’t feature a hug between Shallan and Jasnah, I will be most distraught!
Now, I’ve just got to find out when exactly the online version is available for download, because I’m not going to manage real life until I’ve read this whole book and starting at midnight seems like the best think I could do.
@72 I agree. The part about the unmade being “normal to us” also has me questioning if the night whoever with her weird ass old magic belongs in that category as well. Hopefully someone with a more indexed mind can come up with the relevant quotes that specifically ascribe the thrill to odium (possibly WOB). But the old magic stuff, where it seems you never get what you really want, is a decent candidate as well.
Sidenote, the discussion of the thrill as something that increasingly leaves/disgusts dalinar throughout WoR to my mind makes that one unambiguous.
@43 “Shallan’s comment about the other unmade being ‘normal to us’ seems to be prophetic; who or what else have we seen that could potentially be an unmade?”
Maybe something to do with Ryshadium, since they have musical spren? Probably not, as they are associated with the Radiants.
Could be the Thrill and its equivalents, maybe?
The Nightwatcher is also a candidate?
@89
“… is it possible that the longing for understanding that Shallan sensed actually comes from Odium himself?”
You bring up a very interesting thought. The letters between Hoid and the dragon from the epigraphs from WoK and WoR have both of them writing Odium off as a lost cause, one insists he must be stopped and one says let him remain trapped. However, if what you are suggesting is indeed the case, Odium’s splintering of other shards may be a direct result of his attempt to understand, either them or the benefactors of their Investiture. Could it be that Rayse is attempting to balance the “divine hatred” that consumes him with the other virtues that could give it context?
What are you hiding Sebarial?
She was pretty sure she’d seen those tapestries in a monastery in Dalinar’s warcamp, and they were matched by luxurious furniture, golden lamps, and ceramics.
And a bunch of splintery boards covering a pit.
@48 Malata has a spren, and the Shin have all the Honorblades except for Jezrien’s, Taln’s, and Nale’s.
So Adolin, acknowledges Polona, yet ignores her to tell Shallan, about Yesna? That’s not nice manors, Mother and Daughter is a bit more substantial than mentors, he should’ve had the decency to address them both.
how many parts Oathbringer got?
@93 The pit is the depression in the floor that Sebarial keeps threatening to fill with water and fish. I didn’t get the sense that he was hiding anything. I think the boards are there to keep people from falling into it.
@94 – Malata merely states that she has a spren, Spark. We have no confirmatin that Pattern actually saw Malata’s spren. In fact, we have had no indication of a sighting or interaction between Pattern and Syl or Pattern and Glys, and we know that those three spren have been around each other.
As for the Honorblades, King T obviously has some kind of connection to the Shin because he recruited Szeth, so perhaps Malata brought along one of those Honorblades…
@98 Syl did seem to see Pattern during the dueling scene, though, he was gone by the time she went to investigate…
KefkaPalazzo @65 – If you’re referring to the “Reflections of Radiance” post pre-WoR release, YES. I’m working on it, and hope to have it up for your entertainment in what is usually the Thursday Cosmere Reread slot. (12:00 EST)
@several – There will be a full-on spoiler review posted on the 14th or (more likely) 15th or (perhaps) 16th, where All The Discussion can happen. Y’all can join in as you like – either posting comments as you go without reading others (so as not to get spoiled) or finishing the book and then joining in the discussion. There will also, I’m sure, be a great many discussion on facebook, 17th Shard, reddit, and elsewhere! We toyed with setting up part-by-part threads, but I doubt anyone is going to slow down to discuss Part 2 once they have the book in hand… And of course, more detailed discussion will happen once we start the reread.
ETA: Hey, that’s my first hunny in ages! How fitting that I had no idea what comment we were on, and was merely jumping down to respond to a couple of earlier comments… Oblivious, that’s me…
I’m interested to see if JasnaDin is going to be a thing like some have predicted.
Jasnah and Kaladin dating seems like a recipe for disaster… a beautiful and terrifying disaster.
Syl’s not quite as cute as Pattern, but I still loved this part
Good ole jealous spren :)
@92, Arod: I actually doubt that he’s trying to reclaim his humanity through the shattering (Splintering?) of other Shards. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Odium deliberately shoved any of his remaining humanity, or any longing for it, into those Splinters to make himself more purely aligned with his Intent. So, it might be his (Rayse’s) but not His (Odium’s). Aargh, I’m not saying this well. If the Unmade are OF ODUIM, and were never anything but his creations, he might have used them to further rid himself of anything that wasn’t just his Intent, including any vestige of the Bearer’s humanity that remained, for the same reason that he refuses to make use of the shards he defeats. It would not surprise me if Rayse planned to refine himself into pure Intent and destroy the other Shards before he even took up Odium.
Though, since we don’t even know if the Unmade are bits of Odium, long-warped people, or a mashup of both, I’m not going to get particularly attatched to the idea.
@94, @98 Agreed, there has only been the claim of a spren so far, and I believe there is some doubt about a couple of the Honorblades being with the Shin.
Does anyone else think Jasnah might find out about Shallan working with the people who tried to kill her and again feel betrayed by Shallan?
@Wetlandernw Are you going to do the spoiler free reactions article like you did for Words of Radiance?
@TheKingkiller I think that she will tell her about it. I think that Shallan is still primarily helping them so she can act as a spy. Certainly, the Ghostbloods are trying to use her family against her, but she hasn’t done anything to betray the cause at this point.
am waiting for romance between jasnah and kaladin
@95: Palona’s not Shallan’s mother. And she and Shallan haven’t known each other as long as Shallan knew Jasnah. Also, Shallan came to Urithiru with the news of Jasnah’s death, and she was utterly sure of it, so letting her know Jasnah is still alive trumps manners.
On the off-chance that you meant someone should have told Navani, Jasnah’s mother, before Shallan, I’m sure someone was sent posthaste. It’s rather thoughtful of Adolin to try and warn Shallan before she gets the shock of her life when Jasnah walks in.
@101: That is really, really not my ship. I might even anti-ship that one. But I have to say, “beautiful and terrifying disaster” is a great description for a lot of things in this series.
EEE end of part one can’t wait for the book!
Also, i think my favorite part in this section is jealous Syl batting away gloryspren.
@83: Word of Brandon is that the Purelake plague is the common cold, introduced to Roshar for the first time by one of the Seventeenth Shard worldhoppers.
@103 The splintering would be inadvertent, just as the destruction that Re’Shephir causes could be an incidental side effect of curious probing. It is possible that Rayse had always wanted to be “pure” hatred, but it seems unlikely to me. I suspect that he, like many other “evil” characters, is doing evil things with mixed intentions.
a few recollections about the unmade:
check out the coppermind article on the unmade.
but if you recall some chapter heading notes from the diagram, they reference the unmade and call them a distraction.
Also Taravangian talk about how Nergaoul and Moelach had moved in later parts of WoR indicating the reduction in death whispers from the latter and the change in the thrill from the former.
I’m pretty sure these are Unmade. They’ve been around along time. and they are ‘normal’.
Also, there was a reference from an Eshonai segment iirc, talking about the Parshendi gods. “They were those who gave of themselves to destroy”
I’m pretty sure this refers to the Unmade as well. They were probably fused Parshendi, who gained greater power/fusion with greater spren but lost themselves.. they would be so full of hate, that they would give up a piece of themselves in order to destroy their enemies. This is the greatest link I can imagine to Odium.
It reminds me of a dark news story I once read of a Palestinian boy (like 5 yrs old) being commanded by his father to throw stones at the Israeli soldiers. They boy ended up throwing stones off the side of the road instead.
I’m not trying to make a point about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, simply a parallel to the story. Some people become so consumed with Hatred, they willingly hurt their own in order to also hurt their enemy.
On the matter of Sebrarial/Paloma: I thought it really odd Paloma was asking all of these questions to Shallan… My gut feeling was SHE was an unmade in disguise, but it can’t be it… I just had an odd feeling Paloma was not really whom she says she is.
On the matter of what is bugging me with Shallan this week: I think I found some of it. The fact her character always seems to have the need to “rest” and to “appear weak” each time she completes a task. Now I understand there might be a tiring effect to using a lot of stormlight, but we really do not see the same happening to Kaladin. Also, Kaladin states how stormlight helps him sleep and rest less.
This is odd to me: having the female character always needing her little nap after she does something while the male characters (*cough* Adolin *cough*) NEVER needs any rest nor sleep nor down time. I know it may not be intended as a male versus female character, but it has been nagging me.
Why does Shallan always needs to be cuddled and curled into blankets after she accomplishes something? And why do male characters (all male characters) never seem to need any rest at all?
AHHHHH!!! How can I wait a week? She’s back so soon, I was thinking we would have to wait forever!
@97 I know what story Sebarial is telling. I want to know what is really going on. :) Probably nothing.
@110 that is awesome and hilarious.
I just had a thought pertaining to something from a while ago in oathbringer. What if odiums champion is Gavilar? I’ve seen people suggest Adolin or Renarin, but dalinar would also know Gavilar well. Even though he died and there was a body, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gone, since Jansah came back. Also, he was actively trying to bring about the desolation before the parshendi killed him. What do you guys think? Could it be possible?
I am pumped having Jasnah finally come back. I like all the thought that goes into questioning what is right and who gets to make that decision.
Shallan may be better off than we thought. yes, she still has issues but something has changed in how she sees herself. She is ready for the next step.
@94
Where is there any indication that the Shin do NOT have Nale’s honorblade?
9 Herald’s left their blades behind, Taln didn’t leave his, he was the only one to keep the Oathpact.
Szeth ofcourse has Jezrian’s.
Yes, we’ve seen Nale running around, but I rather think that Nale has become a Radiant. His blade is a spren.
Was there some other indication that the Shin only have 7 of the blades?
I can’t play the speculation game about this champion because I, like a few others have noted, have always interpreted Dalinar’s “seeing something familiar” as in a look that is familiar…not as in seeing a physical resemblance to someone. But if I were to play the guessing game, I would guess Adolin. Brandon is usually neither trite nor predictable, so by default Adolin should be ruled out. But I think that would be the most interesting champion of all the characters we presently know…
JAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, *breathes* should have known that of course the important news from Adolin wasn’t going to be Kaladin’s return.
Absolutely loved these chapters. 31 is probably my favorite in Part 1. Awesome combination of internal struggle with action. My favorite thing :D Also I love you Kaladin.
I particularly like the speculation about Kaladin’s awesome storm deflecting moment being a foreshadowing/precursor to Shardplate.
Also Shallan’s moment in which she thinks of herself as an adult and being prepared for anything… Jasnah’s return will completely negate that.
Though I do hate to see the flippancy with which Shallan treats Kaladin’s return. Maybe she’s putting on an act for Adolin, as it was his nickname originally.
@93: I think Brandon has said that Nale still has his Honorblade, “but with an asterisk that will come up in Oathbringer.”
@119 yes, there is a WoB that Nale has his own Honorblade*. 122 beat me to it.
Taravangian mentions that they only have that many, I think.
I believe that this is the first time that Shallan has called Kaladin “Bridgeboy.” I am thinking this is because she is internally mad at him for killing Heleran. I’m not sure why else she would call him that. I mean that name is pretty irritating in general.
I’m definitely not shipping this, but I’m kind of hoping that Jasnah meeting Kaladin and Bridge 4 will cause conflict, thus giving us more glimpses into her past. I’m counting on her misjudging them, and on Kaladin’s ability to brood very menacingly. Or maybe Vathah and Gaz could be of service. Speaking of whom, when will Kaladin finally deal with Gaz being there? Frail hopes, I know, but you can call me a fool.
I guess that’s my only problem with Part One so far. Too many unresolved issues. Some things felt rushed. And I found Kaladin’s adventures with the Parshmen a bit anti-climactic, though his wind shield trick was really cool.
Oh, and I really hope Shallan doesn’t just settle with being a ward again. I sense some strife coming between her and Jasnah, especially taking the Ghostbloods into account. But even if their relationship restarts with Shallan being ordered around again, I doubt that will last. Shallan has become too independent, and frankly being ordered around by a member of a different order who doesn’t even have seniority over her would be just improper.
I have no idea how I’m going to survive until the release.
I think it would be a crazy but awesome turn of events that Eshonai is the author of the book. While we’re all trying to figure out who from the Alethi it is, where has she been? It seems unlikely, but just throwing it out there. Clearly, the Listeners have the ability to bond or “fuse” with Spren, so if Eshonai were the equivalent of a Lightweaver, she could have similar experiences to Shallan/Jasnah. Just a crazy stab at what would be an interesting twist.
So many thanks to Sanderson and Tor for these preview chapters. This has reminded me so much of my father talking about radio shows before TV. How he and his brother would wait for the next installment of the Shadow or the Lone Ranger. Fantastic. Every week I have been rushign through morning emails waiting for 9am when I can jump into Roshar. So, hard to wait patiently, but only one week left! Brilliant marketing and amazing little bites for a completely starved fanbase. Journey before destination…
So, a couple of thoughts. Is there more to Syl’s possessively batting away Glory Spren and saying “mine”? Is this a foreshadowing of the ability of other spren, similar to what the Midnight Mother tried to do to Shallan and Pattern, being able to hijack a bond…or add to an already existing bond? I wonder what an Honor Spren and a Glory Spren combo bond would look like.
I wonder if Shallan will end up having a near-break involving Kaladin. I can imagine an epic scene in which she looses it, attacks a surprised and reluctant Kaladin who is forced to defend himself (imagine them using their powers in such a skirmish), and Dalanar stepping in and taking one or both of them by the scruff of the neck and starting her/them on their path towards healing the rift potentially waiting to show up between them.
Ryleigh @85 – actually, I think Jasnah, above all, is interested in the truth. So I think (even if there is some initial resistance), she will come around to revisiting her assumptions about the Parshendi and Voidbringers. She may even end up Kaladin’s staunchest ally in this…
Gepeto @113 – that’s a really good observation and one I had not picked up on. Is it perhaps related to the way Shallan still views herself? She does still seem a bit emotionally fragile – I get the impression that it’s not physical rest she needs, but time to mentally process things.
@124 Shallan calls Kaladin “Bridgeboy” a bunch of times in the chasm.
@124 APTimes2
While I think this is the first time she’s called him that in this book, she did call him a peasant in one of the earlier chapters, though this was before she found out about Helaran. And she definitely used the term bridgeboy in in WoR as well.
Actually, I just looked it up, and she starts specifically after he mentions that he doesn’t like the term, so I guess this is her being witty?
EDIT: oops, I was too slow.
I wonder what the Fused use to power up- KR use stormlight, do the fused use energy from an everstorm or are they using stormlight too? And if so,can a Larkin (or an equivalent void creature) suck the energy out from them as well?
@98 I do not believe king T got Szeth from the Shin – that was Vstim who likely sold him to the parshendi and then he changed hands multiple times before T got him…
Oh man! I really hope there is a long round table conference with all the main players in part two. It’s going to be amazing! Will Shallan tell Jasnah about her membership in the Ghostbloods? Will Kaladin be able convince everyone not to outright destroy the Parshmen? Like Kristen Wiig’s SNL character Sue I’m so freakin’ excited!
@98 Mr T got Szeth when he killed that crime boss guy (I forget his name) who stole his Oathstone from someone else. He then set himself as the target for assassination and only then revealed himself as Szeth’s master. Szeth hasn’t been back to Shinovar in a long time, and I doubt Mr T has a connection to the Shin or it would have been alluded to in one of his POV chapters in WoR
Was Jasnah revealed to be living at the end of WoR? I thought that she was, but I asked my kids and they both thought she was dead. I must have read an excerpt that was not in the book. Does anyone remember if book 2 covered her escape?
i think it’s kinda odd that so many of you are confused about who is writing Oathbringer. I thought it was pretty obvious that it’s Jasnah.
I just got a notice from audible.com that Oathbringer will be delayed. I have preordered both the ebook and the audible recording so I have it regardless. Be warned.
@113 you are trying to hard to be insulted. She faced what is basically a high level demon which is something more than Kaladin has EVER done. Wrapping up in blankets is the least we should expect her to need. Even Kaladin taking on Szeth wasn’t this hard and he had constantly renewing stormlight which Shallan did not have. There are also the mental affects which again are much harder here than what anyone else has faced. Being faced with ultimate evil – she is going to go through ptsd which they know and are trying to get a handle on early. Polana’s efforts to her her to talk about it (first step in any good therapy) are evidence of this.
Some things are still bad yes – but don’t spend so much time trying to find things to be upset about. Things are much better than they have ever been.
@134 Selitos
WoR didn’t really cover her escape, but it did have a scene at the very end where Hoid (err, Wit) awaited Jasnah’s appearance in the wilderness after evidently traveling quite a distance in Shadesmar.
Kaladin finally reappears and for a great bit of action, feels, and revelations! And then the Shallan chapter makes it even more intense with Jasnah! What a good finish to Part One. TOR and Brandon use Preview Chapters, it’s super effective! (Yes, I am stokedddd, nice planning and thanks so much, TOR & Brandon and Co.)
Maybe Re-Shephir is a spren resembling the memory of Talenel’elin, the one herald that was still forced to go back while the others went free?
@135 Nathan
There are some elements that fit but I will not believe for even a second that Jasnah thinks most people who will read the book are smarter than her. She’s too smart for that. :)
@119 and @133 – I believe that King T has some sources with the Shin, because he knew (page 865 of WoR) that one of the 7 Shin blades had vanished. King T assumed that Kaladin had it to use when he learned that Szeth had fought someone (Kaladin) with Windrunning abilities and the ability to heal his Shardblade cut arm. King T says regarding one of the 7 Shin blades having recently vanished: “I have heard only hints. Your people are secretive. But yes, I see, it is one of the two that allow for regrowth.”
We know obviously that Kaladin indeed never had it, and the one that Dalinar actually has came from Taln (if he is indeed who he says he is). We know that Szeth has had Jez’s for a while. So one is missing, and I will bet that King T did his research and tracked it down and gave it to Malata. I just don’t think Malata is who she says she is. She makes up the story about being a Dustbringer because we know little about what it is they actually can do. She’s one of King T’s pawns. One more week and until we RAFO.
@136 Are you sure? My account still says that the preorder will be ready on the 14th. I’ll be really disappointed if it isn’t available on time.
So did Kal just leave his family in Hearthstone after all? I thought he would take at least his mother and brother on the way to Urithiru.
@142 You are mistaken, the Honorblade in Dalinar’s possession is the one Kaladin claimed from Szeth after killing him. Taln, for some reason, was carrying a dead spren blade because it screamed in Dalinar’s mind after he had spoken his oaths, not to mention that the Stormfather would more than likely have recognized it as an Honorblade if it had been that.
I had always assumed that Nale was either carrying a spren blade, dead or alive, or has perhaps recently reclaimed his old Honorblade, as it appears that WoB confirmed that he indeed carries an Honorblade. Or perhaps when a Herald goes back to Damnation following a Desolation, his Honorblade remains on Roshar, and when he or she returns, it automatically bonds to him again as a fulfillment of the Oath Pact carried out successfully?
I know shes her ward, but i wonder why Jasnah went straight to shallan of all people… Maybe she’d already gone to her mother and Dalinar, but when she heard about Shallans duel with the unmade her scholar tendencies couldnt resist a first hand account to compare with her findings in shadesmar.
Some of you have been saying that there will be friction between Dalinar and Jasnah over leadership, but dont see that happening. Jasnah has never really been a leader and considering just how much Dalinar has been shown to trust her skills and value her opinions, she really doesnt need to be. I can however see her having problems with Kaladin.
Now that Kaladin is back, I wonder how soon it’ll be before he’s sent off again to get a handle on Kholinar with Elhokar. I think the team theyll be bringing with them are the bridgemen (they are still technically the Kingsguard). I hope Kaladin sticks around the tower for a bit longer though a resolve a few things. I mean besides killing Shallan’s brother, there’s also the fact that he was briefly complicit in a plot to assinate the King (which was never confronted). If he confesses, maybe elhokar will forgive him now that he idolizes Kaladin, but considering how over protective Jasnah and Navani are of their family, I can see it taking most of the book before they trust him again.
I also really want a chapter of kaladin teaching the bridgemen how to surgebind (I’m assuming they can). And i didnt intially note this last week, but Rock was with them when the faced the midnight mother… has he accepted his place as a soldier? I happy with this aslong as he keeps cooking in his spare time lol.
@142 Kals Gal
I may be mistaken, but I thought that was T lying to get Szeth to go back and kill him / not worry that he may be improperly truthless
@145 – You’re right, Dalinar has Szeth’s, which belonged to Jez. Still doesn’t disrupt the count of the 7 Shin though, with the one missing that King T refers to. Great catch, thanks!
But you got me thinking now…. where is ‘Taln’s’?!
@148 I’m pretty sure wit/hoid has it. He traveled with “Taln” to the shattered plains. He has always picked up pieces of each worlds shards. he swapped out the Honorblade for a shardblade.
@147 – I am wrong all over the place today! I just reread the whole thing and yes, it i do think he lied to Szeth because after Szeth left he admitted to knowing that Kaladin must be a true Surgebinder. Unless… the bit about the missing sword WAS true and he knew there was another Surgebinder because he in fact actually had the missing sword, still leaving the Shin with 6…
@136 Regarding audiobook- Author Jacob Cooper posted this on Facebook today: “THE Michael Kramer just told me that #Oathbringer is finished (finally). Lots of production went into this one, and just in time for its release next week!”
That seems to me to suggest that it will be ready by next week…I hope!
HOLY CRAP!!! SO GOOD SO GOOD SO GOOD!
@53 Kal’sGal: Michael Kramer should totally get an Audie award for his Elhokar, the snivelly way that he draws out the word Uncle is beyond perfect.
Holy Crap, after walking into the Voidbringer hoedown meet up city, with the Parshendi equivalent of a bunch of green vine hayseeds blown in from the country, watching Captain Kaladin’s team of Parshendi come in with Rock pointed spears, hogs-hide sandals and tinder in wax sleeves was freaking awesome. I got goosebumps when Sah referred to Kaladin as “Kal”. There he goes again, hopefully he will have some listener squires to add to bridge 4.
After relistening to WoK and Wor and having just finished rereading all of the chapters up to this one while waiting for Tor Tuesday (ever notice you can’t spell torturous with the TOR?), I’ve been thinking about a couple of things concerning part one:
Adolin – His arc is far from over, though there has been some heavy foreshadowing that he might heading to a bad place in the later parts of the book. In the scene where the bulbous faced not-Sadeas was discovered after the copy-cat killing, there is prominent mention of Horse shaped statues, probably for funneling water into the bath. Then there is the scene with Adolin going to his happy place, palling around with his dad’s Ryshadium, feeling out of place and isolated. Then we have the scene at the conference of High princes which Shallan and Adolin duck out of ealry, Adolin going to his happy horse place while Shallan walks back to her room thinking about secrets.Then turns to her sketchbook and sees a drawing (done by herself in an uncoscious state most likely):
The other prophetic subconscious drawing that she did was off the pit where Re-Shephir was gunking up the Urithuru warp drive (or possibly the Knight Radiant rave room, who knows).
This is some pretty subtle foreshadowing, but given that Brandon doesn’t often leave intricate red-herrings, I think this bodes ill for Adolin…Not sure how, but he was born under the sign of the 9… Just a thought.
SPECULATIONS (always speculations):
-What if Tezim is bonded to an Unmade? What if he is one of the 9 shadows of Odium. Could make a power play for Urithuru, and could scoop up a bunch of Voidbringers enroute too boot. One possible reason to explain the never-ending border dispute between Tukar and Emul, an Unmade perhpas?
-Jasnah back, right after a bunch of decrepit manuscripts about the ancient past are found? Could the soul casting master perhaps convince some dry dusty pages to be sturdy and whole and readable again? Hmmm… Could one of these manuscripts be Oathbringer? Could this book be about how the Connection and Identity of the Parshendi were severed and the unmade sealed away? Could this be about the Recreance. Hmmm.
-One of the rulers that Dalinar has tried to contact (can’t think of the country now) was called the Ancient One. Could this be a Dysian Aimian (Sleepless) ruler. Definitely want to see more of Aimia in the next parts of Oathbringer, would be interesting to know more about the Siah Aimans too (like are they of Cultivation, is that why they tow misfortune in their wake, like they are a living curse, maybe making the Dysian the opposite, a living boon)?
Stupid real life, have to get back to work. CAN’T WAIT UNTIL NEXT TUESDAY!!!!
@141 – exactly!
I really wanted it to be Jasnah, but she would not assume everybody is smarter than her :)
Ok. Speculating here.
What Kaldin did to get the people to safety……creating a sort of eye in the storm…..may be used to combat the Everstorm. With enough Windrunners and their squires all working together maybe they can stop it.
@149: I seem to be a dispenser of WoB’s today- Sanderson says that Hoid *wasn’t* the first one who took Taln’s blade. Someone did switch it for an ordinary shardblade at some point, though.
“Storms, I don’t know,” he said. “But I can’t be a slave again, Kal. I won’t let them take Vai and imprison her. Would you defend them, after what they did to you?”
These are the lines that send chills up my spine. Like when the Koloss insisted his name was “Human.”
At this point, I am fairly certain that the author of Oathbringer is Dalinar, perhaps trying to convince other rulers to ally with him. Someone made a very convincing case for it being Dalinar last week I believe. I’m not sure how I feel about them calling their blades sylblade or patternblade. Kind of don’t like it :/ idk. Also the story with Dalinar’s flashbacks and him remembering his wife’s name has kind of disappeared. Same with Sadeas’s murder. I realize that they have been busy with other things, but still.
Also glad we see Kaladin after a few weeks without him. Really cool what he did with parting the highstorm, I like the idea of maybe getting shard plate. Also I really really don’t like the Jasnah Kaladin ship. Shallan Kaladin maybe, but Jasnah Kaladin has no basis at all. Really liked Jasnah’s return, great end to part one, don’t think I’ll be able to wait a week.
Two strange things I took out of the Kaladin chapter.
1. He was on the Shattered Plains too long to not separate the Parshendi and the Parshmen internally, but he calls the Parshendi “the parshmen” several times. That seems wrong.
2. His trick with the windspren and fighting the storm seems like it points to windspren making up the shardplate for Windrunner Radiants. They just seem to surround him, so feels like a natural extension of that.
Yes!! Can’t wait for my copy to come and to read uninterrupted!
The All-Stars are under one roof! Maybe something cool happens the next few chapters.
Jasnah’s appearance was anti-climatic for me, at best. I’m excited for what she’ll be able to bring to the cause, but I don’t really like her as a person.
@89 & @103 sisterofthereain and @92 arod: Very interesting thoughts about the splinters of odium and their seeming desire to be more human. My thoughts in this regard are not that Odium is trying to divest himself of the imperefections of perfect hatred. In Chapter 16, after Dalinar asks why Odium would accpet a challenge of champions the Storm father replies:
This suggests that the splintering of Odium was not voluntary on his part. Perhaps the personifiable aspects of hatred separated themselves from his power (the Sprenification of Odium, in a sense). The thrill being the spren of battle lust, the Midnight mother being covert violence/fear of the dark or some such. This is why odium would accept a fight by proxy, because he stands to lose more in a fight where he directly intervenes (a splinter of Odium might be formed for Hatred of bad cooking or some such, with boiled tallew strangling poor Rosharians as result).
One other thought that I had is that I hope Jasnah spills the beans about what she learned in the cities of the Spren in Shadesmar during her dramatic absence. Many questions will hopefully be answered by the scholar who journeyed to the land of primary sources…
@@@@@ 152: Ooh, nice theory on Tezim. I may even like it better than the one that he’s Ishar. But I think the Ancient One must be from that culture Sigzil mentioned in WoK, where the oldest rule and one particular family has held power by assassinating the competition.
I wonder if Rlain will able, at some point, to show the parshmen that there’s another path besides slave / conqueror for his newly awakened cousins.. We haven’t seen anything of him yet, which I hope will change now that Kaladin is back with Bridge 4. He may not know much of their history, but anything’s better than nothing.
And speaking of reunions, I hope Hoid and Sigzil meet! Mmmmaybe in an interlude. . .?
I kinda wish we could do the rest of the book in a similar fashion, to be honest. The discussions here are an amazing addition to the text, and I’ll miss this next week when I crack into the book. Heck, I might even miss the measured pacing and the excitement I would get each Tuesday when I remembered that I had new chapters to read!
Any on else thinking that the writer of the preface may be Elhokar?
@@@@@ 113 \ 137, pampering Shallan: Shallan appears to most people to be a young, delicate, and somewhat naive noblewoman. It’s not surprising that people in this society would think she needs more comforting than soldiers like Adolin and Kaladin. I’m sure there are times they would have really liked a blanket and a cup of tea, too, but socially acceptable gender roles are a Big Thing in Alethkar. No idea how this would reflect if , say, a young darkeyed woman like Veil were in Shallan’s place, though. Paloma would probably still give her tea and a listening ear, I think.
Unmade which seem normal:
The Thrill
Death Rattles
and possibly :
Cusicesh, the protector
I’m unsure about the Nightwatcher
The preface could be written by Jasnah also :)
The other Unmade will be things they think of as normal. Perhaps the Thrill? I do believe it was said in a Taravangian chapter that it was caused by an entity. The deathrattles as well.
Haven’t read all of the comments yet, so I am not sure if this has been addressed. Did Jasnah & Co. come through an Oathgate? How did the arrive at Urithuru? If so, did they activate the one in Kholinar or another?
Damnation! Hello again, Jasnah! Glad you are finally back!
Way to go Kaladin, calling out the Stormfather AND battling the storm winds!
Nice to see Shallan seeming a normal young woman!
Loved the chapters even though they were somewhat shorter than I hoped.
The “Fused” look frightening.
The 2nd week that reading the chapters left me shaking.
Can hardly wait to get the audiobook download notification! :woohoo:
Happy Reading everyone!
“She smiled and snuggled into her blankets, drinking her tea and—for the moment—putting out of her mind that basically an entire troop of soldiers had seen her with her glove off.” – I feel like this is all of us next Tuesday and through the week. Curled up on a sofa with blankets & tea.
@86 Peter:
Is the audiobook chapter going to be one of the interludes, or is it going to be the first chapter of part 2, or some other chapter chosen for….?
Also, is your daughter going to be throwing anything else down the stairs soon (which is an adorable tradition by the way)? I couldn’t help but notice that there is a Mystery Project progress bar on Brandon’s website, is this Storm Light Archive related?
Just wanted to say thank you to you and Brandon, these books just keep getting better and better (and I know that takes a LOT of work).
If the quality continues on it’s current trajectory I full expect that the the white pages of book 10, when opened, will bend all of the light around into a BioChromatic explosion of unparalleled beauty.
This experiment with pre-releasing the chapters totally worked, I pre-ordered the book, I pre-ordered the Audiobook and now I’m going to have to re-order the first two books in hardcover (the problem of lending out your favorite books is that they don’t stay in your library very long). If you guys sold a coffee mug on your website with an Oathbringer author attribution I’d buy that too (something along the lines of “So that’s why I did” – Dalinar Kholin, author of Oathbringer). The stormlight archives are going on the special shelf in my library, reserved for my favorite books. So SLA will be next to Plutarch, Flaubert, and George Orwell.
The climatic scene with Reshephir in another book would have been an awesome ending, this is just a sub-climax for part 1 of this book. Can’t wait until next TUESDAY!
Chapter 31
Late to the party today.
The “fused” eh? Not the “Bonded?” It seems the Odiumspren don’t bond you. They “fuse” with you.
Sly is jealous of gloryspren? When did that start?
This section about the nature of the bond… its a whole lot like being married, but without the fun bits. On the other hand, you get to fly.
Flying Parshendi. Not unexpected. So, Stormform is the equivalent of what Order? What, specifically, other than calling the everstorm, could they do?
Well, Kaladin made it back to Urithiru much faster than I anticipated.
Chapter 32
#stilldalinar
JASNAH
That was such a horrible, horrible tease, lol.
When did Shallan take to calling Kaladin “bridgeboy?”
@169 – this might have been addressed elsewhere and I just missed it, but all I can see on the coppermind wiki about the Transportation surge is that it lets you go into and out of Shadesmar ‘in the flesh’ (ha, wonder if this is as fraught as a trip to Tel’aran’rhiod in the flesh…). The ‘full extent’ of these abilities is not known (according to the coppermind) so I wonder if it functions similarly – distance/time may not act exactly the same way so perhaps she can ‘teleport’.
Although I think I do vaguely remember some other discussions about other possible requirements to be able to actually use this surge.
@173 When she started to like him, of course.
YAAAAAASSSSS!
In the convo between Shallan and Palona aboutt re-shephir and othernancient/evil spren:
“I don’t know,” Shallan said. “They’ll… they’ll just be normal to us. The way things have always been.”
This is an, “I see dead people statement” for sure! Brandon is dangling it right in front of us.
Storms! I though I was ok with having to wait for the rest, but obviously, it’s going to be very difficult.
A big thank you to Brandon and Tor for doing this, it has been great two months.
I have said it a lot and probably will say a lot more, and others have done it, as well, but oh, Kal, how I love you! The chapter was amazing. Poor darling, you cannot protect everybody, but it doesn’t stop you from trying, does it? And the discussion of what is right, so well written. The scene with the windspren-shield was awesome, and yes to all who said they though he started forming a shardplate – that was what I initially thought, too. Syl swatting away the gloryspren saying Kaladin belonged to her and being jealous was just so cute. And it was really sweet how Kal almost got the Stormfather himself consider and how Syl said that perhaps he apologized in his own way when getting them back to Urithiru.
Speaking of, I have long wondered about Stormfather calling Kaladin “Son of Honor” and “Son of Tanavast”, first in WoK and now here. I’m probably being just silly, but does he refer to all KR this way, or at least to all Windrunners? Or could there be something significant behind that, can anybody enlighten me? I wasn’t one of those people holding my breath waiting for Jasnah’s return, but I am happy to see her again. The timing with Kaladin’s coming is convenient, I mean in the sense that we have the gang all together and ready for part two. And it will be interesting to see them meet as all the others already know each other. I wonder what Hoid is up to and where his and Jasnah’s ways parted J
Necessary_eagle @110, that’s very nice to hear. Not that cold has been introduced to Roshar, but that it is tied to the Great Cosmere Crossover. I wonder which of the three had caught it. I am on board with the ones saying that it seems the voidspren seem to have some kind of anti-orders. Spells bad news for me.
Gepeto @113, I think I remember Kaladin also feeling drained after having used a great amount of Stormlight. I could not find a relevant line to quote with a quick search, so I might remember it totally wrong, though. So many emotions, so few coherent thoughts to add. Although it will be great to get the book, I will miss these weekly discussions (or at least until the reread, I suppose). Thank you again, Brandon and Tor.
@175:
Are you saying we should be watching out for an Adolin-Kaladin ship?
Holy crap, I just had an awesome idea. All of Odium’s splinters, the Unmade, are tied to a particular location, they have a defined presence in the physical realm. What if instead of Odium’s champion being the one that binds the unmade together and directs, like a commander marhsalling his minions, he/she is instead accoutred in vestments of Odium. The parallel between the honor blades would be more symmetrical that way and it would be visually awesome.
Adolin/Moash/Some unknown human/listener, bonded to Odium, wearing a cape that is the Midnight Essence (able to spread out and envelop his foes), Wielding a black sword that leaks dark stormlight that is the Thrill incarnate (inspiring his legions of voidbringers to a violent killing frenzy), wearing a Helm that is the death rattle (that causes enemies to fall down before him and his army in abject terror). The 6 remaining unmade, likewise turned from splintered idea into a physical entity, empowering and defending Odium’s champion (like spren blades and spren plate). This would still leave the other symmetrical aspect of this system in place, namely that each of these incarnations/accoutrements would need to be destroyed/dealt with by it’s opposing order of Knight’s Radiant.
Just a thought, but holy crap that would be rad.
@179 One can only hope.
@179 and @181:
Totally, waiting for the movie Broke Back Urithiru.
There have been multiple occasions after using great amounts of stormlight that has left Kaladin feeling “like an empty wineskin”, including this very reading.
“Exhausted, he let the storm pick him up and fling him away. A quick Lashing gave him elevation, preventing him from being rammed into the buildings of the city.”
My guess, the Unmade made a similar sacrifice like the Heralds. Talinalet was trapped in “Hell” or w/e he was. Re-Shephir was the Unmade abandoned by the rest. 9 Unmade and one Champion, 9 Heralds and their King/Storm.
The Parshendi chose to sacrifice their sentience at the end of the final war from the Prologue in book 1? Wasn’t the description of humand red blood and Parshedi Orange blood mixing in the ground in the Prologue from Book 1? I think the Parshendi and the humanswill fight together factionally, some humans will fight for Odium just like Parshendi and vice versa. Spren like the Nightwatcher (did I get that name right?), that took Dalinar’s memories are the Unmade, they have been operating in the world just like the Herald’s have been. All behind the scenes.
So, were the Unmade once Human or Parshendi? Maybe, maybe they served Odium. Now Odium is looking for a champion. My money is on Adolin, something will happen, maybe he will be tricked into thinking he is bonding a Radiant Spren but in fact bonds one the golden spren that the Parshendi follow.
Anyways, the hype is real!!!!!!!
Kaladin and Jasnah are back. Its Party Time.
I’m now going to a hospital to be placed into a coma until release date ;)
Was surprised at Jasnah, simply because I though Adolin was brining Shallan’s brothers to her… And maybe they are indeed part of the her larger party, which Jasnah came across and brought to Shallan.
I do think Jasnah and Kaladin will be butting heads in a major way over the freed (for now) former Parshmen slaves. I think Kal and Syl’s discussion will be the crux of their debate.
Also, I think Sah’s clan (for the lack of a better term) will refuse to enter voidform, as they will realize it is just another form of enslavement… If they are even given the opportunity, as they may face retribution for brining Kal.
@174 Lisa that may explain how Jasnah arrived, but from the passage it seemed to imply (at least how I read it) that she brought other individuals with her (“and several other people stepped into the room”). Or were they just other people like Dalinar and Navani that were behind Jasnah?
Cant wait to read the rest of this book.
Random thought about the Midnight mother. It was held captive thanks to a lightweaver from centuries ago. I say it was wit/hoid who did that. Doesnt he also have powers like Shallan’s? And he’s super old. Just a theory….
Oh god WHY! Oathbinger and DH landing coming out together, I wanted to actually see the sun this summer T_T
@188 – But, Winter is coming. :-P What’s stopping you from reading outside? Vicious magpies?
@189
… or the Night King.
189, there are even more deadly creatures outside in Australia.
@178 Celebrinnen: I can’t quote chapter or verse so to speak, but if I remember correctly the Stormfather has referred to Dalinar as “Son of Honor” on at least one occasion, if not more.
He calls Dalinar Child of Honor.
Not sure if someone has posted this yet, but with Jasnah’s return what will the Ghostbloods do? Will they ask Shallan to try and kill her? Will they ask her to spy on Jasnah? The possibilities of just what that group may ask Shallan to do could throw a wrench into the whole KR working together. If Shallan thinks she can maintain her relationship with the Ghostbloods as a way to keep tabs on them and try and keep everything secret from everyone else, it could get very busy up in here. Intrigue, plots and treason maybe DS was channeling a little bit of GRRM
I do hope Kal doesn’t go into another funk in what appears to be a lead up to a prison camp slaughter, work them to death, use them as front line human shields type of thing which tends to spark the couldn’t save them all, my efforts amounted to nothing, I’m sorry this, and forgive me that, and I’m not worthy kind of thing. And then the Storm Father enters stage left on the Roshar set…
…ah, there we go, that should set the mood, and gives Kal a stern talking to about all things being dust in the wind and to knock it off.
All that aside, thanks to everyone who made all this possible at Tor.com and to BWS for allowing it. Truly generous. Thanks.
@152: There has always been a lot of good reasons to hope/expect an Adolin centrist story arc, but OB so far has depicted him as a foil to Shallan despite him having a cliff-hanger at the end of WoR. I no longer believe in an Adolin centrist story arc at any given time within this series. I only wished Brandon had never written the character such as to make many of us think he would get such a story arc.
On the matter of Shallan and Needing to be Cared For: Many people responded to my post and I will respond at large. I understand the reasons others have brought forward as to why other characters react this way to her: she is seen as a helpless child by many. It however annoyed me… Back in WoR, Shallan needs to “fall asleep” into Kaladin’s laps because she was so exhausted, but he’s the one having suffered a painful injury and having fought the chasmfiend. Later, after the last battle, she’s the one everyone is worried about because “she looks tired”, but she did not fight, she was not injured and yet she gets all of Adolin’s blankets (whom actually got injured for real) and she gets to rest while he works. And now in OB, she is being cuddled, pampered and snuggled into blankets as, once again, Adolin does the clean-up, follow-up work because “she is tired”.
Now, I understand drawing stormlight is supposed to be tiring, but so is physically fighting. I just don’t understand why Shallan is always the one needing to rest and it annoys me because it gives me a vibe of “the female character is physically weak and thus needs to nap while the men can be tossed around from one side to the other of the room without any side effect whatsoever”.
So yeah, it annoyed me. Maybe I wish gender-roles were a tad more reverse in the sense, yes, men can have feelings and not be at the top of their shapes and yeah, female can deal with hard stuff without appearing to have done so. Of course, I don’t expect others to agree with me nor to feel my annoyance. I guess I just wish Shallan wasn’t always the character needing to be wrapped into blankets all the time after she does something. Thus it isn’t so much the fact it happened here, it is the accumulation of the number of times it actually happened.
Nutty Professor @194. I do not think Wit came to Urithiru with Jasnah. If he did, then his cover as something more than the Wit would be blown. Jasnah will not reveal to anybody that Wit is more than he appears. As part of what Wit told Jasnah between the end of WoR and whenever they parted ways, I think he made her agree to keep his secrets. Nevertheless, I think Wit will show up soon. He will come along with a group of refugees from the Shattered Plains.
I believe during her journeys to Shadesmar, Jasnah learned there were more worlds than Roshar. It would not surprise me if she learned how to worldhop. If this has something that Jasnah has yet to learn, I believe that by the end of SA, Jasnah will be a full blown worldhopper.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Probably mentioned a few times, but I find it interesting how Re-Shephir‘s imprisonment mirrors Taln’s imprisonment, down to her being trapped while the others escaped that fate
@197 AndrewHB
What would Wit offer her that she would hide the fact that he managed to find the exact spot she appeared back into the physical realm? Then again Jasnah isn’t actually that good at sharing what she knows with others, she tends to conceal what she knows until she’s absolutely sure what’s happening. So you might be right about that. I’m not so sure about the worldhopping though.
@195 CireNaes
Ok, that is truly an amazing picture. Now I won’t be able to picture him any other way ever again. :)
Jasnah finally!!
Another thing to consider, Shallan has self-taught herself about lightweaving – now she can become even more complete with help from Jasnah to work on her soul casting.
Shallan could become the most powerful KR very soon (until others catch up).
1 more chapter….please? It’s so hard to wait. :-)
#203. Tienspetlurg: According to Peter Ahlstrom, I am not certain what comment number, TOR and Brandon Sanderson will early release one more chapter, in an audio format on Monday.
A guess for an undiscovered unmade. Nightwatcher is a Spren and is a normal part of their world. Dalinar visited the Nightwatcher. He is getting his memories back. Something funky is happening that might be very entertaining.
“Surely we’d have discovered them by now.”
“I don’t know,” Shallan said. “They’ll… they’ll just be normal to us. The way things have always been.”
@196 Gepeto- It seems to me that it’s a bit early to assume that Adolin’s story arc won’t come. There are 4 more parts, and the secondary and tertiary characters are supposed to be featured in Parts 2 and 4. The things you hoped were going on with Adolin could have been happening internally during Part 1 and Brandon can then show it to us when we get to see his POV in a later part. If you liked what he did in the past books, it seems too soon to give up hope that you won’t like what will be in the rest of the book.
Speculation on Teleb, his lost shardplate and the assassin in chapter three.
In Dalinars first flashback, “the blackthorn”, he recruits an assassin who tried to kill him with a bow, this person does not divulge his name but Dalinar spots a blue tattoo on his cheek marking him an oldblood.
In chapter 19 it is asserted that Teleb was with Dalinar at the time when he met Evi. Dalinar strode out through the highstorm to ask Teleb for his knife. This puts Teleb and the assassin as two people with blue tattoos in the Dalinar flashbacks, probably indicating the same person.
Teleb is the only other person that shows up in WoK and WoR with a blue tattoo on his cheek. He is killed in WoR at the battle of Narak, his body and shardplate are never recovered but the shardblade is.
I’m wondering why Brandon would bother to introduce Teleb, then just kill him off losing a shardplate for the Kholins, and then casually puts his ‘origin’ in OB…
Any thoughts?
Ugh…I almost wish I didn’t read these last two. Why you have to leave me hanging?! I love this series and can’t wait to finish the book. Awesome…just awesome.
@206: Oh I am sure I will like the book. I am not convinced I will love Adolin in this book.
@207: I think Teleb is meant to show one side of Dalinar’s personality. He praises military talent no matter where it comes from. Teleb is the guy whom try to kill him, but impressed him doing so, hence he recruited him. He turned being an ally and a friend for many decades. His purpose as a character was to highlight something about Dalinar. I am sure we will see more of him during the flashbacks.
@207 felt:
In Chapter 11, the Rift, it is confirmed that the archer assassin with the blue tattoo on his face is in fact Teleb:
I think this is just an instance of showing how Dalinar, even in his Conan days, made a habit of turning adversaries into friends. Teleb became a trusted lieutenant for Dalinar, he shows up every once in a while in WoR especially. This could also possibly be foreshadowing his better job at statesmanship in Part 2 (he does have a pretty convincing trump card to play, who can argue with a pre-recoring of the Almighty)?
One word -Jasnah
@many re:Talns blade
Taln shows up first at the end of WoK (in the epilogue) his blade is described as a “spike” at that point
However when Dalinar summons it in front of Amaram during WoR the blades appearance is completely different (don’t ask me for the description I don’t recall exactly)
To my mind this says that at some point after he shows up but before he gets to the plains, his blade was swopped out for a regular dead blade.
The only question is, who now has the real honourblade?
@72 I definitely think the thrill is caused by an unmade. It’s something people take for granted and it seems very much of odium. I’m trying to think what else people take for granted that could be an unmade.
The Nightwatcher is an obvious first guess. I’m not sure how I feel about that one because it just feels not quite malevolent enough. It has interacted with several knights radiant (Dalinar and Lift without seriously incapacitating them.)
The death rattles seem like they were heavily indicated to come from an unmade or something similarly powerful and sentient. I also recall taravangian tracking several entity’s including the one responsible for the deathrattle and the one responsible for the thrill. Does anyone remember him tracking anything else?
Interested because Taravangian was also obsessed with the unmade
‘The Unmade are a deviation, a flair, a conundrum that may not be worth your time. You cannot help but think of them. They are fascinating. Many are mindless. Like the spren of human emotions, only much more nasty. I do believe a few can think, however.’
(this seems to imply that there are more unmade than just the 9 big boys)
Last off given that the stormfather is responsible for storms, the weeping seems like it could be connected with an unmade, as it is something which prevents the stormfather from acting (although we have seen that he can power through it) and in a time of war it would regularly diminish the power of the knights radiant.
Basically given the existence of the stormfather and the fact that this piece of a god is causing the most obvious and natural part of this world, I feel like I need to step back and look at things that appear to be natural phenomenon. Can anyone think of things we should examine besides deathrattles, nightwatcher and maybe weepings? (creepy name btw even if it would make sense to be named weeping just for the rain.)
@205 @213 – Unless there have been some theory/WoB denouncing it, it has been hinted heavily that the Nightwatcher is of Cultivation since Wyndle was ordered by the Ring to choose Lift cause “she has visited our Mother”.
Wyndle calls the Nightwatcher mother like Syl calls the Stormfather father. That doesn’t sound like the Nightwatcher is an Unmade.
@72 brilliant! The thrill being part of the Unmade impacting society…maybe also whatever is up with the modesty about the safe hand.
questions for the group:
1- What are the odds that Wit shows us and/or was the author of Oathbribger (if any male would break sociaital norms and write a book it would be him, right?)
2- are there any hardcore Cosmere readers that have found books that link to this world’s Almighty/god history? I’m super interested in getting a timeline figured out.
3- HOW COOL WAS THAT?!?! Brandon and everyone at TOR, thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU! I’m in grad school and still made time each week to read these chapters #selfcare
Aaaahhh… JASNAH IS BACK…!!! and you stopped it here…cant wait for the book now
Gotta say Brandon is a genius. What a perfect way to end this glorified extended trailer for the new book. Jasnahs arrival preceded by several of the most action package chapters so far is pure genius. Simply brilliant! Side note, does this mean Wit has returned as well? Whether or not he has, nothing could have topped Jasnah arriving as the perfect finish, and sets up a million possibilities for the rest of the book!
Spiritwalker51@192 and Meerletalis@193, thanks! I failed to remember it, but it clarifies things.
Thank you Brandon for releasing these chapters early. I have looked forward to them each week and they have been amazing. In my eyes you are, hands down, the best fantasy writer who has ever lived. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Yeeesss!!! Jasnah Kholin…about time!!!
Hi all! Just want to say thanks Brandon and Tor for the great read these Tuesdays! Also great to follow everybody’s comments, I had lots of fun :))
Personally, I was surprised that the story arch with the midmight Mother progressed so quickly, but now I see all is set up for Jasnah’s surprising return.
The quick progress in his stories, and his bringing minor story after minor story to satisfying ends all while working on the larger story is one of the things I really like about Brandon Sanderson’s work.
Looking forward the rest of the book!
@213
The Weeping for something-commonplace-caused-by-an-Unmade is a brilliant idea. I can see a couple of things for it and a couple of things against, but it just ‘clicked’ in my head.
One argument in favour of it is how Kaladin always feels so down during the Weeping. No, the other Radiants don’t seem affected, but then again Shallan was the only one who thought Urithiru was ‘off’, wasnt she? It might relate to how certain orders of Radiants are more ‘attuned’ to certain Unmade?
One argument against is that the Weeping is a world-wide phenomenon, as far as we know. The Thrill isn’t, it tends to occurr in specific places, I believe. Mainly around Alethkar, if also a bit on the plains. I can’t figure out the right passage, but I think that the Kholins at one point refer to it, in an internal point of view? Or refer to not feeling it recently? Okay, that could also just be Dalinar starting to develop Radiant abilities and blocking the Thrill as a consequence. The Death Rattles, htouhg, that is definitely a localized phenomenon. In an interlude, Mr T. speficically mentions that the Death Rattles are rarer than they used to be, and then something along the lines of “Moelach must be moving”.
In any case, the weird effects that signal an Unmade presence are localized, and the Weeping isnt, but I still love the theory. It’s… elegant. :)
For the unmade, don’t we know from arcanum unbounded that one of the unmade is literally cremlings? Even if that’s wrong, cremlings seem pretty normal to people from Roshar.
Anyone for Cusicesh as an Unmade?
– Axis and other spectators feel “drained” after watching
– shows lots of faces, could be “consumed” ones
– people think it’s normal
– localized effect, maybe bound?
@213 & @223
While I also find the idea of the Weeping being caused by an Unmade intriguing, another argument against it would be that it comes regularly, meaning, as a pattern, and from Pattern in WoR we have learned that Voidspren have no pattern… whatever that might mean. The Weeping also doesn’t seem to be nasty enough to be of Odium. But perhaps it is of Cultivation? The water nourishes the plants, after all. Still, we have seen no hints of Investiture regarding the phenomenon yet.
I’ve been lurking in these pre chapters for a while and built up a few theories/reactions so thought I’d finally jump in:
A) I’m still getting that Oathbringer is written by Jasnah. Those saying she’d never say others are smarter are making two mistakes:
First, the smartest people tend to atleast pretend they’re not. Jasnah it’s an archetypal scholar, in it for knowledge not personal renown. She wouldn’t care if she’s seen as smartest or not, she cares about knowing the truth.
Second, if written just after her ‘death’ then she’s likely just gone through an incredibly humbling journey where she learned a massive amount from the spren and realised how ignorant she is.
B) We’ve still to confirm which order continued after the recreance. So far Skybreakers and Lightbringers are top candidates. Nale and his associates might be just a rogue sect to serve Nale’s purposes and not a full continuation of the order. But they might have stuck about to stop the others return as their oaths allowed them to do so. The clue about a lightbringer trapping the midnight mother in Urithiru hundreds of years ago hints at the lightbringers too though. As does the nature of their powers and oaths. Also Shallan appears to have bonded the earliest of the known radiants, implying the cryptics are more active. It also seems the cryptics nature to be ok with dying so they can ‘solve’ the physical realms lies. The comment earlier about it perhaps being Hoid who trapped the unmade is very interesting. Would also explain why Jasnah got to Urithiru, if he lead her, but she could have acquired that knowledge in Shadesmere.
C) On the topic of Adolin my bet is that he dies at the end of book 5 stopping Odium’s champion. This fits in a few ways. First he’s a champion dueler. Second it allows him to ‘redeem’ himself for Sadeas’ murder in the eyes of those who feel it was murder. Most importantly it provides an arch for Shallan, Dalinar and most of all Renarin. Up to now Renarin has been viewed as weird and strange. Before bridge 4 Adolin was the only person who believed in him. Adolin’s death could spur him on, push him as a character, push him to be the knight that Adolin was in Renarin’s eyes. It also gives him another skeleton, his failure to save his brother. It would also bring Renarin and Shallan together. So far she’s viewed him a weird but they have an awful lot in common: youngest child, feeling inadequate, hidden radiant etc.
Anyway the fight champion theory also fits with the rebirth his sword theory. In sacrificing himself to stop Odium he might bring his spren back for a short while before he dies. The line about Oathbringer hating Dalinar less, fits with this.
Anyway those are my theories.
Here is a nasty what-if. What-if the Jasnah that Shallan sees at the end of Chapter 32 is an creation of Re-Shephir. That would be an emotional punch to the gut. I do not think this will be the case. I think Jasnah is Jasnah. However, it is a thought to consider.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
I like this idea about the Unmade relating to natural (Rosharan) phenomena. It ties in well with the idea that they are also a ‘dark mirror’ to the 10 orders of the Knights Radiant/their patron Heralds. Slightly troubling that there are 9 Unmade and 10 orders; which order would not have a match? The Bondsmiths perhaps?
A little digging on Coppermind brings up some Unmade candidates, with my notes on what they do/represent and my guess at the possible opposing Radiant order.
– Yelig-nar, Blightwind – can speak like a man – Windrunners, Jezrien, Herald of Kings
– Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother – dark illusions – Lightweavers, Shalash, Herald of Beauty
– Nergaoul – the Thrill, perversion of battle lust – Stonewards, Talenel, Herald of War
– Moelach – Death Rattles, nightmarish foretellings – Truthwatchers, Pailiah, Herald of ?Scholarship? (Learned & Giving)
– Sja-anat – associated with raising a Thunderclast in one of Dalinar’s visions – ?
– Dai-gonarthis, the Black Fisher – associated with ‘consuming sorrows’ in a death rattle; maybe anxiety, self-doubt, depression – Willshapers, Kalak (basing this on his anxious fallen-Herald behaviour in the WoR prologue)
So, what natural phenomena could other ‘dark mirrors’ of the Heralds be associated with? How about natural disasters such as fires, floods, drought? Sexual lust?
Am I the only one who really wants to see Kaladin and Neenah hook up? And Brandon has so conveniently brought them together.
Kaladin and Jahsna, scuse me. Stupid autocorrect
What Kadalin did was already talked about when Shallan went to vist the mad man in the previous book.
The Heralds could force the storms to obey.
Saw many other commenters mention about Kaldin’s stormblade being potential for the beginning of shardplate and many mention about Syl’s jealously of gloryspren, but unless I missed it did not see the following addressed. Taken together, in context with Syl’s sudden explained jealousy, I think the stormblade could be the beginning of shardplate. It make’s sense that Syl would begin to get jealous of another potential Kaladin centered bond. The problem with my theory is that Syl was jealous of gloryspren and the windspren seemed to make the stormblade, so . . . as is the case most of the time, I’m proally way off.
Sleeper @224 – The cremling guy was a Dysian Aimian. Definitely weird, but definitely not an Unmade.
@227 Cameron
I really can’t see Jasnah being the author of Oathbringer. Leaving aside specific details of what’s mentioned in the preface – Jasnah is much too direct for this, nowhere near as apologetic or rambling, and has been shown to prefer others making up their own minds even if they disagree with her. I imagine a preface written by her would be along the lines of:
“I have been much maligned for my actions surrounding [event], however those criticising me are not in possession of the full facts and so their analysis is incomplete. What follows is a full record of the events leading up to [event], my reasons for acting as I did and what I achieved. I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions. If you wish to condemn me, do so while understanding all the facts.”
If you read through the revealed preface point by point there are several characters that partially fit – however all of them also appear to be ruled out by other points. If it’s a modern character, I think Szeth is the most likely as he has the best fit to the sentences worded in very specific ways. However my money is on it being a historical radiant. Likely candidates include Melishi (the bondsmith mentioned in WoR as dealing with the voidbringers), the Radiant discussed as being executed in WoR, or the one who started the civil war mentioned by Nohadon in the flashback. Alternatively, it could be one of the fallen Heralds.
Well everyone, it’s been fun. Thanks for all the insightful comments for me to ponder on these past few weeks, and thanks again to Brandon and TOR for allowing this to happen. I’m sure I’ll hear several of your awesome questions at the release party next week; look forward to seeing some of you there! Early happy reading to all of you!
First off, thank you Brandon and Tor for posting these preview Chapters. I can’t wait to get my hands on the book next week! I loved following along with the comments, I learned so much about The Stormlight Archive and the Cosmere thanks to all the awesome and insightful posters on here. I’m looking forward to an Oathbringer re-read to discover all the things that I will miss that other readers will pick up on.
I have one question about the following paragraph from Kaladin’s chapter this week: “The storm pulsed inside him. Within the highstorm, his Stormlight constantly renewed. It preserved him, had saved his life a dozen times over. That very power that had tried to kill him had been his salvation.” (bold emphasis mine).
I thought that dun spheres were only infused with Stormlight at one specific point in time during a highstorm (when the Stormfather passes by that location?), rather than continuously throughout the duration of the highstorm. I haven’t managed to find text to confirm this in my copies of WoK or WoR (maybe someone with e-books can), but that is what I remember. If I am right about this, then how is Kaladin’s Stormlight constantly renewed while he is flying around in the highstorm? Can he draw Stormlight directly from the highstorm rather than having to get it through a sphere? If so why can he draw Stormlight continuously when a sphere is only infused once during a highstorm?
Seeing Voidbringers using Surges made me wonder: are there Voidblades?
Just some thoughts about part 1:
I had been pretty concerned about Shallan’s mental health until I talked with a therapist about role playing and developing an alternate character as a type of therapy that is really good for people overcoming trauma and phobias. From this perspective it I can see Shallan using her other selves to deal with things she can’t deal with until the point that she can realize that all of her alter egos are Shallan (which I think she has started to do). It would be like Brandon to know about or to intuit role playing therapy. I also agree someone that said Shallan will face Re-Shephir as a full Knight Radiant in a future book.
Kaladin does seem ready to get shard plate in this book. Between the hints about Syl feeling motherly and with him blocking the storm, I’m betting it will happen in this book.
Dalinar’s ability to force people into visions during highstorms is pretty awesome. I wonder when we will get to see the Blackthorn fight using his new abilities. And does he need more oaths, or what needs to happen with him before he gets shard plate or more abilities? Also, his discussion with Storm Father about Oathbringer makes me more confident that if anyone can resurrect their shardblade it would be Adolin. Dalinar’s blade didn’t hate him as much as it hates other people, but he never treated Oathbringer the way Adolin treats his shard.
Jasnah! I look forward to see how she will stir the pot. Her interactions with Kaladin are bound to be exciting!
Also, if shardplate protect its wearers from Szeth’s surgebinding , would it also protect its wearer from being soulcast or any other type of surgebinding?
X-rayse @237. Kaladin is moving with the storm. For people on the ground, the storm moves east to west. They remain in one location.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
237, I can’t say you’re wrong, but I don’t know of any supporting text, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen a sphere drained then refreshed during the storm in order to confirm the test.
I’m not even sure we’ve seen a description of the process of infusing, it might be a slower gradual bit that occurs within the range of the storm’s passing.
Of course, even if it’s true, it’s easy to just say that Kaladin is different, being a Radiant, not a dumb gemstone. He can deliberately suck in more even if a stone can’t.
Jasnah and Kaladin in the same place at the same time?! Now I can finally see if my beloved Jasadin ship will be able to set sail!
“life before death Kaladin. Life before death. I choose to live.” Jasnah snogs Kaladin.
Ah, new theory time: the Thrill and Death rattles used to stay in place, now they are loose and able to get together for the Desolation to start. That means that someone had to free them like Shallan did Re-Shaphir. Other new Radiants?
We still have the black spheres to account for too.
Peter @86 – NO!!! I will be attending the release party & will have no internet access! It will make it impossible for me to avoid spoilers if others have listened to a chapter that I’ll have no access to! … Noise-cancelling headphones will result in me not being my usual fun self at the event! SUGGESTION: Can they maybe distribute printed copies of that chapter to folks when we pick up our wristbands that morning? I will PM you at the 17th Shar re: this since this thread is exploding.
On another topic: I don’t think shardplate comes from the source that other people think … I think it’s something totally different, and that’s all I’m going to say.
These chapters completely re-hyped me for the book!
One thought I had with Jasnah’s return is that Shallan had finally started to become more confident with herself and was seeing herself as an adult, so I’m wondering if she will experience some sort of mental confliction if Jasnah was to take the lead on things again and treat Shallan like a child.
As many have mentioned, I’m very excited to see the Jasnah/Kaladin meeting. They are so different and I’d like to see what Jasnah sees in Kal.
Also, really hoping for a Szeth interlude.
Jasnaaaaaaah \o/
@@@@@ 223 and 226
I really liked the unmade causing the weeping idea. As an answer to the world-wide vs localized effect: we haven’t seen the origin yet. Maybe the unmade is bound there and is able to somehow suppress, disrupt or prevent highstorms from forming. It could happen every year due to some astronomical event, e.g. perihelion, aphelion, perigree with braize or taln’s scar, etc, giving the unmade enough juice where it otherwise doesn’t.
The constant rain of the weeping may just be a side effect of the suppressed/scattered highstorms. Of course this doesn’t really adequately explain how it really rains every single day except the one in the exact middle.
Hi everyone, I have a possibly awesome question for a book signing, but it has a preface to it with a lot of interesting speculative questions. It would be awesome to know though. This deals heavily with Warbreaker so it is whited out:
Here it is, Nightblood is now on Roshar. We know from Warbreaker that Nightblood feeds on investiture (the breath of the person that draws him and the breath of those killed by him). I believe there have been WoB that state that Nightblood is capable of feeding on other forms of investiture. Like how Zahel can use stormlight to keep from consuming his Divine breath, Nightblood also has to be able to consume Rosharian investiture. The scene from Warbreaker that is the most telling is when Vasher is forced to draw night blood at the end, and Nightblood begins feeding on his breaths. Reading up a bit, we know that Vasher was dangerously low on breath before he got Vahr’s breath, and Vahr (on coppermind) is stated to have achieved the 4th heightening (which means he has 1000+ breaths). If we assume that Vasher lost about 600 breaths to his awakened Cloak, hand tassels and foot tassels after they were taken by Denth, that would leave him with approximately 400ish breaths. And I think it’s probably fair to assume that the events of his dashing through the God’s king palace with nightblood unsheathed took about 10 minutes or so, before he was forced to throw Nightblood away to protect his Divine Breath. That would make the approximate consumption rate for Nightblood about 40 breaths per minute or around there. That seems like a serious amount of Investiture drain, and the reason I mention this is to speculate about what the equivalent level of drain on Roshar would be. Could Nightblood be safely used with a backpack full of Emerald Broams? Would it also feed off the Dark Investiture of Odium (the dark stormlight seen coming off of the Fused Voidbringers). What would Nightblood do in a highstorm? If a windrunner drifted along with Nightblood unsheathed inside a Highstorm, could the investiture of Honor ever be completely depleted? What would happen if Nightblood was used to Stab Re-shephir? What would happen if the giant face of the stormfather was stabbed with Nightblood? If the everstorm is, as has been speculated, the source of the Dark Stormlight (Odium’s investiture), would Nightblood similarly be able to draw Dark Stormlight from the storm? And say a certain Shin Skybreaker were to ride the Everstorm, would he likewise see a Spren manifestation of the Power that spreads Odium’s Investiture? And could said Shin Assassain turned Skybreaker stab the Everstorm Spren with Nightblood and what would happen?
All of the above thoughts aside, this is the question that would be awesome to ask Brandon at a book signing:
Nightblood is on Roshar, and we know that Nightblood is capable of feeding off forms of Investiture other than just Nalthean Breaths, so the question is if Nightblood were used against a vessel of Shardic intent directly, would Nightblood consume all of that shards investiture? Is this a Sword that can both kill and become a god?
Ahhhhhhh how dare you!!! Ugh a whole week left to wait!!! Breath just breath it’s okay.
@238 Nazrax: Interesting idea about Voidbringers being enough like surgebinders that maybe they will have Voidblades.
I think this is probably not the case (at least with gemhearted Voidbringers), because the spren that is bonded to a Knights Radiant becomes the Shard Blade/Spear/Fork. The Voidbringers are described as Fused, not Bonded. That implies a less changeable dynamic in the relationship between spren and Listener.
Thinking more about this though, we know that the 5 physical Surges are derived from Cultivation and that the 5 emotional surges are derived from Honor (there’s an edifying talk between Jasnah and Shallan in WoR when they are sailing on the Wind’s Pleasure). The 10 order’s of Knights Radiants all have access to 2 surges, though I don’t know if there is a WoB that confirms if each order gets one surge from each shard or not (though I think that is highly likely, with the possible exception of Bondsmiths having 2 surges from Honor and Truthwatchers having 2 surges from Cultivation).
So my thoughts on this are that Odium has 5 primary Voidish surges, and that what we saw following Kaladin would be the Voidish equivalent of a Skybreaker or Windrunner that has one unknown Voidish surge and the surge of Gravitation. I will be very interested to see what the other Odium/Cultivation combinations are. I am pretty sure that Thunderclasts are Voidbringers (possibly listeners in Smokeform) that have access to a Voidish surge and the Culitivation surge of either Transformation or Division (based on the Dalinar vision where he saw a spren float through the pure lake and dissappear into the rock before the Thunderclast emerged).
Like all of Brandon’s magic systems I think this one will be incredibly well thought out and we have 7.75 more books of Storm Light Archives to see how the intricacies of this system play out. I for one am interested to see if great shells becomes unwitting pawns in the Desolations and to see if, as I am speculating, Cultivation has a duality that puts her on both sides of the Desolation.
x-rayse @@@@@ 237 I think Kaladin can pull Stormlight directly from a highstorm. I just finished a reread of WOR and came across these snippets from Chapter 86, when he and Szeth are fighting:
This sounds like they are pulling stormlight directly from the storm continuously, both inside the storm and next to the stormwall. I’m curious if other surgebinders on the ground could do the same thing if they stand out in a highstorm.
@113:
I think it has more to do with the mental exhaustion that Shallan feels by taking on and putting off various versions of herself. It is draining to her mind in a way that Kaladin (exalting in his powers) and Adolin (trained to near physical perfection and mostly doing what he is good at) don’t have to deal with. Once she progresses with her Oaths more she’ll probably be able to do a lot more with a lot less effort.
@158 or perhaps Kaladin /has/ internalized the difference between parshendi and parshmen and he called them “parshmen” because they were parshmen. Remember, while parshendi means “parshmen who can think” the term has more weight than just thinking parshmen; it also includes the culture of the listeners, which the parshmen don’t have. Therefore the individuals Kaladin is considering may not be parshendi, even if they are fused.
Regarding Odium and his possible motivations, a thought struck me as I was reading some of the speculative comments here:
What if Odium ultimately plans to undo (unmake?) all of the Shards, with himself last (necessarily, as if he started with himself he’d not be able to do the others)? The hatred of Adonalsium might include those who assumed its fragmented power, and eliminating each of those in turn could well be Odium’s ultimate goal. A further refinement of the thought might ask if perhaps Adonalsium shattered itself intentionally for some purpose, a purpose which is undermined by the Vessels taking the shards up instead of letting whatever was supposed to happen play out. Odium could well be seeking to destroy each Vessel and the Shards themselves, in order to allow the original purpose to be fulfilled.
And naturally this thought sparked another: what if each Unmade is the remnant of a dead Shard? Perhaps the Cognitive Shadow of the Vessel for the destroyed Shard.
@254 Porphyrogenitus
You’ve hit exactly on the type of possibilities that I’m thinking about. Odium has been presented as “evil” by the presumable protagonists so far, but as far as I know, BS does not write pure evil characters. Even the Lord Ruler had intentions that were anything but pure evil. It seems far more likely to me that the players in this saga will gain a different perspective on Odium as the series progresses, and I’m sure that we’ll gain a better understanding of the motivations of Rayse and Odium, as well as their role and place in the 16, as the stories of the Cosmere continue to unfold.
I like the thinking behind the Weeping being an Unmade-caused phenomenon, but I think the evidence points toward it being Cultivation’s balancing time in the ecosystem. Earlier posters quoted how Kaladin feels so drained, depressed, weary, etc., but this is contrasted at least once with Shallan always feeling extra invigorated and creative during the Weeping. I think the two shards each have a signature weather that bears their characteristics, power, etc.
Also, the high storms do have one specific point (maybe one broad zone somewhere nearish the stormwall, or more likely a little ways behind it when the Stormfather appears in his starry sky visions) that invests the spheres, but if you’re a Windrunner who can fly along with that zone, you can pull investiture continuously.
Weren’t the Parshendi immune to the storm? These fused ones don’t seem to have that ability at all.
@225 – Re: Cusicesh’s effect on spectators feeling “drained” – Stormfather appeared to have a similar effect on others after presiding over Navani and Dalinar’s wedding in the Chapter 4 preview, where Dalinar’s guards were described as “looking exhausted.”
The Stormlight Companion describes Cusicesh as may be a shadow of some greater being, as the Stormfather is.” I lean more towards Cusicesh being closer to a Bondsmith spren than an Unmade, personally.
@228 – Re: Jasnah being a creation of Re-Shephir – That was a looney theory of mine, too, and I agree about the emotional impact it could have. But I think Shallan or Renarin would be able to sense the… “wrongness” of fake-Jasnah. Still, what a twist!
@248 – Re: Nightblood – There is a WoB that Nightblood can’t splinter a Shard:
(Shout out to 17th Shard getting their new WoB search engine, Arcanum, up and running. Check it out (https://wob.coppermind.net/) if you’re looking for any WoBs.)
258, for the Nightblood question, could he have meant “More power than Nightblood has now” or “No, it can’t be done by Nightblood” ?
@259 Agreed… that seems like very specific language. Who knows what Nightblood could accomplish, especially if used as a hemolurgic spike?
260, I would say “ambiguous language” though with Brandon Sanderson, I could say it was specifically chosen to be ambiguous.
@259 & 260 – I agree that the wording itself was noteworthy and I’m unsure if Brandon meant that Nightblood Splintering a Shard was impossible or currently not an option. In a different WoB, Brandon does admit that Nightblood could suck up an aon, and could even possibly suck up all of Elantris, which **Elantris Spoilers** is just one large aon in and of itself, if I remember correctly. So Nightblood is fairly powerful.
I guess the question is, ultimately, could Vasher have used investiture from Endowment to create an item that could conceivably kill a Shard? With only 1000 Breaths? If so, that would likely be one of the most powerful weapons in the Cosmere, and I would want to know why there isn’t a drive by Cosmere-aware characters to secure such a weapon.
I can see Shallan initially rejecting Jasnah as an imposter. Using Stormlight to create an illusion of herself as jasnah to demonstrate that Jasnah needs something better than appearance to convince everyone who she is.
Thank you for this Mr. Sanderson.
So we now know that these void spren can allow surgebindibg. Can they also become shardblades? And if so, how would one tell the difference. What if a human revived the bond of a shardblade, bonding to the spren, only to learn that it was a void spren? Sure, this would imply some sort of Listener Recreance as well, and idk how that would work because it doesn’t seem that the Fused would need to say oaths… Just a thought.
— I wrote that before reading the last hundred or so posts, and see now that it was considered (see “voidblade” references). Still, I’m quite interested in the whole human aspect.
—
Thoughts on these chapters:
I Thought the storms were way beneath urithiru. How does Kal end up (from the storm depositing him) at urithiru?
Another Shallan viewpoint instead of Dalinar or a character we haven’t seen POV from recently? Oh well. And very short, too…
Could a thunderclast be some sort of chasmfiend with a voidspren?
@44, Ambly:
“… It will be interesting to see how Jasnah and Dalinar interact regarding leadership of the Knights Radiant ….”
Jasnah has no desire to be in a position of authority, if you think about it. She’s all about being independent. She might not obey Dalinar but she won’t otherwise challenge him.
@95, Kewlzter:
“So Adolin, acknowledges Polona, yet ignores her to tell Shallan, about Yesna? That’s not nice manors, Mother and Daughter is a bit more substantial than mentors, he should’ve had the decency to address them both.”
Who do you think is whose mother? Jasnah’s mother is dead, and so is Shallan’s. Neither one is related to the Herdazian Palona. Jasnah is Adolin’s cousin, not mother.
@162, sistertotherain:
“And speaking of reunions, I hope Hoid and Sigzil meet! Mmmmaybe in an interlude. . .?”
Word of Brandon says Hoid is Sigzil’s mysterious master.
@255, arod:
“You’ve hit exactly on the type of possibilities that I’m thinking about. Odium has been presented as “evil” by the presumable protagonists so far, but as far as I know, BS does not write pure evil characters. Even the Lord Ruler had intentions that were anything but pure evil.”
But Wax’s late uncle is about as mustache-twirly as possible. Sometimes he does have evil characters. Hell, by the end of the first Mistborn trilogy Ruin/Ati was darn evil, even if Hoid makes it clear that Ati was originally a nice person (unlike Rashek, who was an anger-filled and dangerous man before assuming Preservation).
To all: Odium is not splintered (broken and dead). Therefore, nothing on Roshar is a splinter of Odium. Sliver, maybe.
@266 Jasnah’s mother is Navani, she’s definitely not dead
What if Shallan did not do the scribbled drawings? What if the Re-Shephir saw her make a drawing and tried to copy her like when Shallan stabbed the hand?
So I just got through re-reading chapter 4. After the speculation regarding what is behind Dalenar regaining his memories of his wife I am more certain than before that it has less to do with bonding the SF and more to do with his marriage. The chapter structure and flow seem to be guiding the reader to come to this conclusion. Just prior to the chapter split Dalenar and Navani are talking about Shshsh an this is literally the first time Dalenar tells anyone he can’t recall anything specific about Shshsh. He then proposes. AFTER the chapter split the stepfather marries the two of them. Immediately thereafter Dalenar has a conversation with Kadash during which suddenly Dalenar has a memory he hasn’t thought about in years. The memory involves Kadash being on his knees in reaction to something he considers horrible that Dalenar had done. Dalenar wonders exactly what it was that Kadash recalls that Dalenar still cannot. The last line of the chapter is immediately after this the Chapter finishes with:
“Dalinar watched him go. Finally, he shook his head, and went to join the midnight feast, intent on being done with it as soon as was seemly. He needed time with Navani.
His wife.”
My conclusion is that those who are speculating that Dalenar’s curse is that he will forget Navani as she has NOW BECOME his wife are correct in their conclusions. It saddens me to think this.
The one other thing that stands out just prior to the conversation with Kadesh and which may actually be the cause of the shift in the curse is that the Stormfather made a pretty big deal about oaths and asking Dalenar and Navani about their oaths and previously broken oaths. Possibly Dalenar or Navani speaking oaths is more the trigger and it breaks the curse. Perhaps this is related to being a radiant and those sorts of oaths but these oaths spoken here are clearly of a different type. It’s possible that it is just about the oaths and Dalenar might not start to forget Navani as he regains memories of his ex-wife but I’m worried that this is exactly what we will see.
I believe the prefernce is written by Zahel or Jasnah. But from what I know Zahel fits much more. Zahel is a Worldhopper from Warbreaker. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Vasher
@269 Marc: Interesting that Dalinar is wearing the watch/pain relieving fabrial each time he has a memory of Evi, no? I don’t think its there for no reason – so I don’t think its a red herring. I think the device is actively interfering with whatever boon/curse the nightwatcher gave him.
So I can see all our loved characters at the family dinner table for Thanksgiving. Kaladin has learned the third lashing and infuses the mashed potatoes to send them flying over to Adolin, who catches them with a wink. Shallan asks the bridgeboy to pass her favorite recipe of stuffing over, so he does but adheres it to the table so she can’t pick it up. Jasnah makes a snippy comment to the Lopen who was bringing out some food, so he glued her to her chair. Dalinar uses adhesion to keep the turkey right in front of him. Shallan provided a beautiful but very sturdy knife for carving the turkey but it is just an illusion and Dalinar has an incredibly frustrated look on his face as he is trying to pick it up… Renarin sits back and sees it all and smiles.
For some reason Lift is under the table… she snuck the pie early… and I have now added Eshonai next to Kaladin and there are a couple little Kalshendis running around the table.
I knew that Navani was alive, but for some reason what I typed was not in any way what I should have typed. Sorry about that.
StormItAllAgain @272, LOL. I can picture it very vividly and it cracks me up. Syl and Pattern are probably over somewhere arguing arguing about whether it’s right to peek in or whether there should be no mating at all whereas Wyndle just sighs and mutters that he’d prefer to be somewhere else entirely cultivating his chairs …
@269 Marc and 271 morkus1 regarding Dalinar regaining his memories
I think the idea that he will forget Navani is a red herring and much too Stephen King thriller for the tone of the book. As a narrative device, regaining memories of the horrors he committed while at the same time trying to convince himself he’s now a better man would fit with the book – and ties in with his discussions with Taravangian and Amaram. Losing memories of Navani just seems like it would be a silly distraction from the key storylines – though I’m prepared to stand corrected as I know Brandon Sanderson wouldn’t go with that unless he was able to pull it off.
The Fabrial device seems a little more likely – but I still think it’s a stretch. My view is that it’s probably due to investiture interference. There’s been a number of times in the books and discussions where Brandon Sanderson has indicated that different types of investiture interfere with each other. E.g. hard to push on a metal mind, can’t lash someone wearing shardplate, etc. I’d say that it is almost certain that the Nightwatcher curse and boon is achieved through some sort of investiture. So now that Dalinar is becoming more invested (investitured?) it is counteracting that applied by the Nightwatcher. The biggest problem with this is that the Stormfather claimed the bond with him was not causing it. But I would not take that as gospel as the investiture interference could just be an effect he is unaware of – and technically it wouldn’t be the bond causing it, rather an indirect result from the powers provided by the bond. To confirm/refute this I think we need more screentime with Lift to find out exactly what’s going on with her curse and boon.
Alternatively, the Nightwatcher could be having her powers counteracted by the increased presence of Odium on Roshar. I’m excited to RAFO.
@275
I’d just like to point out that fabrials work using Investiture as well, so that would also count as interference. Going from this to Wild Speculation: since Dalinar has lost his memories, the Nightwatcher probably did something to his Identity. His Nahel bond, and the Surges of Adhesion and Tension do not seem to have any indication of having Identity altering effects. The pain fabrial, however, very likely does exactly that. I’d hazard a guess that it works by changing your Identity from one feeling pain to one not feeling pain. This may very well be what is interfering with his boon/curse.
I’m wondering if Kal’s trick with the windspren is unknowingly taking a step towards creating new honorspren?
Syl said that without the nahel bond she’s basically a windspren, and now he’s just encouraged windspren to work with him to protect humans. If any get a liking for that and stick around, maybe they could become honorspren? Just a thought.
Regarding the many comments relating to Kal coming close to creating shardplate with the windspren during the highstorm… I think we have plenty of evidence to indicate that plate is not made from spren:
1. Unlike blades (so far as we have seen), plate can be shattered.
2. Current KR can use existing plate, which would have to be dead spren just like the blades if it had come from spren originally.
3. The Stormfather tells Dalinar that Shardplate is, “Related, but different…” to the Honorblades, which are also not made from spren.
4. Plate cannot be summoned in the same manner as a blade, in that their bonded spren becomes the blade. That having been said, I do believe a KR who has said the needed oaths will be able to summon plate, but from a different source.
I’m looking forward to seeing if my thoughts about plate are somewhere close to reality :D
278, there’s also the question of the Half-Shard Shields to consider.
@278 I’d point out that our only interaction with plate to this point is the stuff that was left behind by former Radiants. The weapons were spren that died when abandoned, so there’s still the possibility that plate was also alive but killed by abandonment.
As for the shattering, again, we only know how present plate works. Maybe it didn’t shatter when Radiants used it?
I honestly don’t even have a guess on what’s correct. But I wouldn’t rule anything out just yet.
Anyone know when pre-ordered digital books on iBook’s tend to hit on the release date?
Had a thought about Dalinar regaining his memories. What if the boon/curse comes from an oath made at the time and he broke that oath when he swore Navani was his and he was hers?
282, not an impossible idea, or he might have sworn “Till I find love again” or otherwise put a conditional on his memory, he could even have done it to avoid being jealous of his brother.
@279 – Indeed, the shields are another indication that plate is likely something other than spren. A fabrial that can perform in a similar way to Shardplate seems to lead one to think that plate has more to do with Investiture than anything else.
@280 – So, bonded spren would be ok with using dead plate, but not dead blades? It doesn’t follow, IMO. I do agree that KR plate will probably perform more capably than the plate that is left behind, but possibly only because the Stormlight source feeding it, the KR themselves as opposed to gemstones, is more efficient and enhanced by the bond.
I was not expecting Jasnah to return so early in the book, but I’m more than happy that she does! At first, Shallan will probably think that it’s a fellow Lightweaver who has taken Jasnah’s face…:) she did, after all, see Jasnah get stabbed right through the heart.
I think all the hints we have been getting are pointing to one thing: shardplate is made from sub-spren, by the Knights’ bonded spren. Think about it. In an earlier chapter, a conversation between Kaladin and Syl revealed that she was created by Honor/Stormfather, and Syl thinks out loud that if she was created by one spren, then maybe she can create something in turn. Then, we have this wonderful scene with Kaladin creating a windbreak using windspren. I believe that, based on the above in-text facts, and how Syl reacts to Kaladin doing as he did during the highstorm, that Syl will protect Kaladin by forming shardplate from the windspren for him. He will control it through his bond with Syl. We have present-day Shardplate because, when the KR broke their bond and killed their spren, the sub-spren were then also locked into their shardplate form.
Concerning the anti-light that the fuzed seemed to use as they were chasing Kaladin, if its source really is the everstorm then this would be a new capability for voidbringers, because the everstorm is new to this desolation…. unless there are other sources, ie Lift shows its possible for stormlight, and now they have a second source in the everstorm.
@275, I am in the “something is happening to Nightwatcher/Cultivation” camp.
If the coming desolation means the Unmade are becoming more active than before maybe an Unmade is attacking the Nightwatcher and that is causing the failure of her curses/boons.
@196 I get why you are irritated with the disparity between Shallan and the men when it comes to perception of strength and weakness. The perception of weakness around Shallan really irritates me too. However I think this is more about her character then her gender. Kaladin/Adolin/Dalinar etc are very much the products of both their social structure and physical circumstances. All have participated heavily in Training and physical efforts- it makes sense that they rebound physically faster and need less (or are provided with less) down time to recover. It is As well as socially expected for men to project strength and confidence even if they aren’t feeling it. Renarin is not like this – he isn’t coping well with life and his socially masculine expected role….and he doesn’t have a lot of respect shown him by the majority of the Alethi.
Shallan on the other hand is 1) still very young 2) raised literally basically locked away in her rooms for most of her life with no physical training or expectation of leading anything other than a sedentary lifestyle. 3) still bound by the traditional values and social expectations of a high class Vorin woman – and in that setting she is expected to act with more “fragility of feminism”
Also she is dealing with some MAJOR emotional issues …or rather not dealing with those issues – that takes a toll on the body.
Jasnah is a woman and a KR and no one would ever accuse her of being weak or pampered and coddled.
@@@@@258 KiManiak:
Freaking awesome about the Arcanum WoB search engine from folks at the 17th Shard, and also, thanks to whoever set that up at the 17th Shard. Freaking awesome!
@@@@@ 258, 259, 260, 261 & 262:
The question isn’t specifically if the Nightblood can splinter a shard, the question is can Nightblood draw off/feed off the investiture of the shard to the point where the shard is depleted of Investiture. This is analogous to the tipping point that (Warbreaker spoiler whited out)**trying to post from phone, can’t change font color, sorry no spoiler though you might be able to infer the point **, could this also not be assumed to happen with any form of investiture, wherever it resides? It seems, if I am reading this correctly, that physical contact is the thing that is necessary to achieve this investiture drain. Admittedly, I have never posted on the 17th shard, and my realmatic theory is far from canon, but I think that the reason that Nightblood has the ability to drain investiture from the Person wielding him as well as the evil person that he is destroying, is that he exists (like I imagine all awakened objects do) in both the cognitive and the physical realm simultaneously. The thing that is special about this sword (which was made with enough breaths to achieve the 4th heightening (which grants the ability of perfect life sense, or the ability to sense other life around you (and possibly to ascertain if they are evil or not))) is that it exists in a certain sense in all 3 realms. There is a WoB, that explicitly states that Nightblood actually exists in all 3 realms simultaneously (and destroys in all 3 realms). Investiture (at least as I understand it) is spiritual power/energy that is channeled through the Cognitive realm so that it can affect the Physical Realm. So my idea with the question (which can totally be re-worded in a way that makes the best sense) is can Nightblood be used to draw away all of the investiture of a given shard, as shards exist primarily in the spiritual and cognitive realm. This seems like a neat wrap up for the Cosmere’s big villain, Odium.
Here’s a thought experiment, what would have happen if Nightblood had been thrown into the Well of Ascension just before Vin rejected the power? Would Nightblood have consumed the remaining Soul of Preservation?
Also, with all of the above, I would bet my money on Szeth being the Champion to face down Odium’s champion. Imagine this dramatic climax: Szeth the Skybreaker facing Odium’s champion (accoutred in the physical manifestations of the unmade, i.e. Midnight Mother Cloak, Death Rattle Helmet, Sword of the Thrill incarnate) Battling in the sky as Everstorm and Highstorm meet. Nightblood would be drawing investiture from so many freaking places he would probably make all of roshar leak dark smoke, some settling in a blanket of fog over the planet, some drifting up to the 3 moons. Evil beware on that day.
@@@@@286 and others regarding shardplate:
Some things to remember about Shardplate. It was made specifically to fight the Voidbringers and fares very well against Storm form red lightning. It is possible to regrow a full set of shardplate from only the preponderance of the plate (if you have a greave, good luck growing your plate pal). This seems to imply that it is an extension from the cognitive realm, and that the plate itself has some notion of Identity (how else could it determine who is trying to grow the most of it). It also feeds off of stormlight, or investiture. When cracked it leaks stormlight, when broken it sprays apart in a shower of molten metal. It’s natural unadorned state is a slate gray, and the armor that the Knights Radiant wore in Dalinar’s vision glowed (probably because the living plate was feeding directly off the investiture channeled through the KR).
While all of these details don’t rule out the cousin-spren idea of shardplate formation, I do believe it does introduce some troubling details that would need to be sorted out. If your living shardplate lost a grieve, would new windspren be forced into taking the shape of your greave? Also, how does the same follow for supposedly dead plate? Why would unbounded spren decide to make up a pauldron when they could ride the winds and be carefree?
This leads me to this theory, which is totally just a speculative theory, but here it is. Shardplate seems like a complete cognitive realm construct, the fact that it can be regrown with the input of stormlight sounds an awful lot like soulcasting. Further, given it’s slate gray appearance when un-alive, I have a feeling that it was made possibly from Hallowed stone. This is total speculation, we have very little information about Stone Shamanism, but if stone were to be some how endowed with an idea to make itself armour, that would go a long ways towards explaining why shardplate adjusts it’s physical properties to match the wearer. This is just an idea, but I think that Shardplate might have been a contribution of Cultivation investiture while the formation of the shardblade was a contribution by Honor’s investiture (made possible by the nahel bond).
@290 Shardplate having come from Cultivation seems the most likely to me, also. The concept of “growing” fits well.
Here’s some wild theorizing… It seems possible that it is related to specific surges, making it possible for only certain orders of KR to create new sets of plate. I’m not really crazy about that thought, as I like the image of Kal forming a complete set of plate just before he is hit with several massive red lightning attacks… But, if plate IS from Cultivation, it might make sense that the orders closest to her would be the only ones able to craft it.
Is it just me or anyone else suspect Kaladin and Shallan will connect romantically and Adolin and Kaladin will eventually have a huge fight?
@291 arod:
Interesting, what if it is created and there is a specific order, that with the augmenting aid of a bondsmith, creates it. Like the maybe the stonewards are the armourers for the Knights Radiants. I like the theory of the creation of shardplate to be a resonant augmented surge of one particular order. Possibly only KRs that are sufficiently progressed would be able to bond/control it. Interesting indeed!
@290 & 291
If Cultivation’s contribution to the Nahel bond is plate and only certain Orders of KR can grow it, that raises implications not supported by the narrative. For example, Cultivation makes plate; Honor makes blades. It would make sense then that only certain Orders can form Spren blades, or at least it would be more difficult for Cultivation-leaning KR to form blades yet easier to form plate. But this doesn’t happen. Our heroes closest to Cultivation actually formed blades first, Shallan at 11, Lyft at 13. Meanwhile, while Kal is behind Shallan and even with Lyft on the path to full KR, he seems to be the first to use cousin Spren, to shape them to do his will (probably a precursor to forming Plate, at least imo). Kal, as we know, falls closest to the Honor side of the KR spectrum.
If we learned anything from the first 2 books, it should be, pay attention to Sylphrenia. Of all our Spren guides, she seems to be the one to give out the most info regarding knight progression and the nature of Spren. The Stormfather seems like a device for misdirection, Pattern and Windle are bonded to people not necessarily interested in exploring the limits of their bond, and who knows what Ivory, Glys or Spark are saying to their bondmates. So when Syl speculates on being a mother, it raises a big ass flag for me.
292, I believe the Shaladin Ship is already full, but you can see if there’s somebody willing to let you sneak into the steerage.
Okay looney theory time:
What if the last desolation never really ended? What if, contrary to the Harold’s theory, ALL of the Harold’s have to return to damnnation in order for the desolation to end?
@294 You make some interesting observations. The statements about Syl seem right on to me, but I’m not sure if that is because of the structure of the narrative so far (book 3 was originally going to be Jasnah or Szeth centric, based on comments from BS), or by design. I don’t think age of bonding is a valid consideration, though. Based on the people with a bond that we’ve seen, age probably matters very little… I’m thinking of the elderly shoemaker from one of the interludes as a specific example.
The surge-specific Cultivation comments are mostly just guesses for me at this point, but I hold to the prediction that Shardplate is not spren-made… there’s just too many things that don’t fit with that.
On the age at bonding, I could probably concede the point because of all the Spren, Syl is the one we have spent the most time with. She had been watching Kal for years before she approached him with a bond, probably noticed him on the day he first picks up a spear. That could be due to the nature of Honorspren who are said to be very discerning in their choice of bondmates or a function of Cultivationspren and Cryptics having councils to determine who they send to whom. Basically we don’t know enough yet. That’s why I sort of rely on Syl for Cognitive Realm matters. She has leaked the most info to the readers. And conversations involving her point strongly to me that plate is formed by lower spren cousins of the Higher spren. Coincidentally, it’s also probably why Dalinar as Bondsmith will receive no shards. Stormfather (and probably the Nightwatcher and Cuschiesh*sp) are Spren of one with no cousin spren. Only a few days until we all find out I suppose.
how did Zahel survive the weeping, when stormlight runs out?
Another thought, I feel like shardplate may be made from some form of solid stormlight or something? If it’s not made from spren, which (while a theory that I love and seems to have been supported by Kal’s Windblade) doesn’t make a ton of sense based on other knowledge we have.
This may also be supported due to a statement (don’t remember where from) that a full KR can hold stormlight perfectly, not leaking out any. What better way than armor made from storm light to hold it in? And then as the armor is damaged, the KR’s stormlight heals it. As the KR needs more stormlight, the armor’s reserves are drained.
However, have we ever seen a KR-in-training touch plate yet? Maybe it screams too and we just haven’t seen it?
Other theory I really like (and seems more likely) is the one stated in @290.
—
Just made a shocking realization. Fused couldn’t have done surgebinding in the past with their Voidlight, assuming that was from the everstorm, because the everstorm didn’t happen in the past! Does this mean that Fused (Voidbringers in general) couldn’t surgebind, didn’t exist (at least not as they do now), or had another source for their voidlight?
Catching up, I see this was also mentioned already by @283
congrats to the next poster with the triple hunny
Radiants don’t seem to have trouble with touching plate. Renarin is still wearing his, while he gave up the sword.
It makes sense that plate made of spren can repair itself with Stormlight. It doesn’t have to bind new spren, the old spren simply need Stormlight to integrate again with the whole (the Stormlight is a kind of glue to put the pieces back together). Like the stick that insists on remaining a stick plate might want to keep its shape, and the Stormlight allows it to get its shape back.
Syl isn’t the best source of information, she remembers less than spren like Wyndle, but Kaladin is more willing to listen than Lift and we have simply seen more of her.
Personally im of the mind that “lesser” or cousin spren will make up the plate, I have had this theory in mind since my first reading of WoR, this is supported by the windsprens behaviour during Kaladins first flight as well as the windblade thing he does here.
My guess is that his bond to Syl allows him control of windspren in his immediate area, … and that most of the other orders will get similar control of the lesser spren aligned to their orders
@300 Birgit
Dangit you sniped my first hunny :'( congrats tho
Syl is currently the best source of information because she’s the only one sharing information. That probably changes as we meet more bonded spren and they begin to remember more of what’s possible. Other Spren may remember more but they either aren’t onscreen or aren’t sharing. I concede that most of what we get from Syl are tantalizing clues, but are we getting more info from Windle or Pattern or Stormfather, the only other spren we’ve seen onscreen? I don’t think so but YMMV.
Its dalinar. Does anyone think that in dalinars book, this could be written by anyone other than him? Its named oathbringer. Who else has a connection to that sword and those words other than dalinar?
Plus, hes the only character with enough self awareness to know his faults. Jasnah might, but I doubt she thinks they are the faults already listed.
@300 and @301 regarding the formation of shardplate:
I like the cousin-spren theory, but I think it’s biggest flaw is how to explain how non-living plate regrows.
Investiture is like cosmic energy, and I am pretty sure like in our Universe it is possible to convert matter into energy, but the other way around is much trickier (it’s theoretically possible, but highly ineffecient, solving for matter you get m=E/c2, that’s a butt-load of energy my friend). To regrow damaged plate (including whole pieces that are missing), you would be turning energy (stormlight) into matter. I think there has to be another explanation as this seems unplausible/ineffecient. One possible alternate explanation is that stormlight itself has a spren, it has been around for long enough for Rosharians to ascribe human like qualities to it, perhaps. If this were the case I could see a functional bridge, in that stormlight spren would be attracted to stormlight, and could provide the substantive cognitive matter that with the addition of the spiritual energy (stormlight) could bridge the gap between idea to reality and turn into physical matter. If this theory is correct (and holy crap, it’s totally out there speculation), then dead shardplate is just the husk of the idea of power intended to protect, while living stormlight would be stormlight spren feeding directly off stormlight through the vessel of the Knight Radiant.
This is all moot, we only have a 4 more days to RAFO.
Regarding which spren is talking the most… I just re-read Lift’s interlude in WOR and found it hilarious (and frustrating) that she would yawn every time Wyndle began to info dump about the bond, investiture, the Cognitive Realm, etc. He seems to have retained a lot of his memories and is a good source of info, but Lift, as a typical 13 year old, has no interest what so ever. I think we get a lot out of Syl because Kaladin is naturally curious and wants to understand how things work and how he can progress in his abilities. If Wyndle was Kaladin’s spren, we’d probably know everything already and the speculation would be over. :-)
On Shardplate – a factor that doesn’t seem to have been given enough consideration is that it appears the KR could summon and dismiss it (at least in part). In the vision where Dalinar fights the midnight essence the two Radiants that help him have helms that keep disappearing and reappearing as required – like the Shardblades. This is the biggest clue that I believe points to Shardplate being spren-based.
As for why proto-Radiants can touch them without hearing them scream – well maybe the spren making up the plate aren’t dead. If they’re not bonded in the same way as the higher spren, then breaking the oaths wouldn’t kill them.
@303 Jacob
Dalinar is definitely one of the modern characters who best fits the epitaphs, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he is indeed the author. Though certain parts don’t appear to fit based on what we’ve seen of Dalinar (so far) – most notably the parts about the heresies and inclination to write the book starting in his/her youth.
As for the name Oathbringer – there are plenty of others who that would fit with. For a start – any Bondsmith will be profoundly connected to oaths (including Melishi which is another convincing theory), then there is the Sunmaker who presumably named the blade Oathbringer in the first place (though personally I believe the part about seeing into Shadesmar rules him out as he was post-recreance), another who comes to mind is Szeth who destroyed himself in following his oaths (and who also fits very well with the epitaphs), then there’s Amaram who appears to be attempting to execute Galivar’s plan and the know owner of the sword Oathbringer. I’m sure others would be able to think of even more people, but in short I don’t think the name alone is enough to warrant any certainty of the author’s identity.
@306
Definitely agree regarding summoning plate, or at least wearing it at will. I mentioned that in a previous comment, but not with any explanation as to the “other source”, if not spren. My best wild theory about that is that Shardplate is more like a fabrial, one that allows the wearer to modify it at need. So, when I said “summoning” it wasn’t quite accurate. It would be more like causing the plate to modify itself at will. For example, removing the helmet, as in the cases we’ve seen. Perhaps there is a single key piece, most likely the breastplate based on what we’ve head about it being the foundation of the plate, that is constructed by each KR, or by specific orders of KR for all other KRs. Again, wild theory, but it fits with plate requiring Stormlight to operate and with the regrowth. Shardplate always regrows into a full suit now because the fallen Radiants had their plate it in that form when it was given its last “form” command by them prior to their abandoning it. That would also fit with the half-shard shield fabrials that present day, and assuredly lesser, artifabrians have been able to make.
The thought about the spren making up the plate not being dead is interesting, though. It would certainly seem to resolve the issue relating to current KR using existing plate. IDK that it addresses the Stormlight fueling or the regrowth, but it is something I had not considered.
Is there ever going to come a day when these chapters, as well as all past and future from all the books, will be available in a word document or something else with word find capability? IMAGINE…. typing in a search word for that forgotten reference that you KNOW you read at some point. How many people’s SA books have a pound of book tabs sticking out of them?
A theory on how non-living plate regrows:
First, the plate is powered by Stormlight; a network of infused gems act as a battery. As the main manifestation of Investiture on Roshar, Stormlight has properties involving Energy Conservation and Transference that more than likely outstrip what physics tells us is possible. Just saying “It’s MAGIC” may be a bit trite and Brandon is usually more scientific in his magic system creation. Something else is probably going on. I believe that something is a part of the plate resides in the Cognitive realm. We know that there are plenty of beings on Roshar that can manifest simultaneously in the Cognitive and Physical realms to various degrees. Spren are mostly Cognitive; even when Higher spren form Blades they reside mostly in the Cognitive realm. They would not be able to change forms at the will of the holder so easily if they were fully Physical. For dead blades however, the balance tips more towards the Physical. When the Oaths were broken the Cognitive portion of the blades were scoured, leaving only the Physical portion of the blade whole. Dead blades retain their traditional shape from when they were whole and that form cannot be changed.
If Shardplate is made from cousins of higher spren, they would be mostly Physical too. Those cousin spren are essentially mindless anyway; breaking Oaths would not scour the Cognitive portion of their existence. But without a higher spren to re-shape them they retained their original shape and instructions. Humans and Listeners can use the plate but are basically locked out of the higher control functions without a Nahel Bond. But it’s the plate’s partial existence in the Cognitive realm that allows the plate to regrow. The plate knows what it’s supposed to look like. If any piece of the plate survives shattering then given enough Stormlight it will regenerate, reverting back to the form it know how to be. It’s the “I am a stick” conundrum writ large.
Anyway, it makes sense to me, hopefully my argument was easy enough to follow. I’m leaning hard towards the Cousin Spren theory but if I am wrong it would not be the first time. I remember I had a theory that the Oaths could be spoken out of order but WOB said the path to full KR was fixed and the Ideals could only be spoken in a set order. Whatever happens, I am certainly eagerly anticipating whatever answers I get.
309, many Brandon Sanderson books are already available in digital formats that can be searched, I am sure this will eventually be one of them.
@310
I am not so sure any more about the plate being a result of the nahel bond. The glyphs seem very significant to me. There have been a number of wob regarding the glyphs, not just Brandon, but the guys who help with the drawings, and editing as well if I recall correctly. Anyways, the glyphs glowing is something rarely seen in the cosmere. Runic magic. Only truly seen on Sel, with aon dor. I guess the dhakor monks have it a little too, but still on Sel. The only other place I can think of with runic magic is the ghost gun in the broadsheets the haunted man uses. Unless I am wrong this guy is a world hopper and a scholar. But the point is runes glowing to indicate power is rather rare, I almost want to postulate that shard plate is a mixture of magic from off world with storm light.
@308 EvilMonkey:
Very persuasive argument for the cousin-spren theory of shardplate creation, consider me swayed.
There is lots of textual evidence for the cousin-spren theory (Kal’s near windspren gauntlet, the cousin spren swirling around the Heralds in the endpaper artwork, the fact that specific spren appear around specific KRs quite often).
Also compelling is the cognitive level control of plate worn by a normie and by a Knight Radiant, it does seem that the faceplate appearing and disappearing happens at the level of thought of the wearer (so it’s ability to change implies a more active and therefore living agent in the cognitive realm that is able to know intent without a spoken command).
I was always a fan of this theory, but I’m now officially pulling for this one. It’s also nice and symmetrical with each order having a primary spren (corresponding to their primary divine attribute) and a cousin spren (corresponding to their secondary divine attribute). For Windrunners the primary attribute is Protecting (honor spren) and secondary attribute is Leading (wind spren). For Lightweavers the primary attribute is Honesty (cryptic spren) and the secondary attribute is Creative (creation spren). Another interesting thing is that both of these types of cousin-spren change their shape often, which may be another hallmark of cousin spren.
@312 Good point about the glowing glyph on a Radiant’s plate. I think we saw something similar at the end of WoR when Kal said his third oath. If I remember correctly, a glyph appearing in frost behind him They may play a larger role in the use of Investiture here than we have yet seen. Perhaps the corridors and rooms in Urithiru form glyphs in certain levels. After all, we know that the other Vorin capitals are specifically patterned.
@313 Face plates don’t disappear for present day Shardplate wearers, do they? The visor melds into the rest of the helmet when put down, but I get the impression that the person has to physically raise and lower the visor.
I can def get behind cousin spren empowering wide acting secondary powers, such as the windblade or more advanced and sweeping illusions. It may also be related to how the Dustbringers could burn entire countrysides, as noted in the WoK preface.
Glyphs also keep showing up on Roshar in relation to the KR – as noted above when Kaladin takes his next oath at the end of WoR, but also on both the plates and blades of the KR in the flashback, and also it seems on Shallan’s blade – when Kaladin takes it to fight the Chasmfiend he notes odd patterns on it.
So I thought half-shards were just normal shields with gemstone fabrials powering them?
And yes 292, there has been plenty (too much in my opinion) of talk of that relationship
Leane @@@@@ 309, the ebooks are searchable. I purchase them for that specific reason. The Oathbringer ebook will be out on Tuesday along with the hardcover, so you don’t need to wait long to get your search capability.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Cosmere (for some reason), and specifically Realmatic theory.
We’ve seen the cognitive realm in two series, Mistborn and Stormlight Archives. The apparent manifestation of the cognitive realm seems to be related to the primary form of investiture on the planet, and specifically how the sentient beings on the planet view that investiture. In mistborn the cognitive realm is made out of mist, Kelsier as a cognitive shadow can push himself through the mist recreations of the physical realm by willing himself through them (implying that the cognitive entity mimics the substance that it is based on, namely mist), and also people on Scadrial appear as a misty version of themselves. On Roshar the cognitive realm is made of spheres which is natural as the primary form of investiture is normally encountered by thinking beings on Rosahr encased in spheres. People in the cognitive realm are seen as floating candle flames, again this makes sense because it’s similar to the light of a sphere, just not encapsulated in a sphere (possibly because of the connection to the spiritual realm allows agency and change). We also have seen that in the cognitive realm on both Rosahr and Scadrial water is more subtantial than other forms of matter.
The spiritual realm has only been seen definitely (could be wrong about this) once, during the confrontation between Re-shephir and Shallan, and it primarily was a battle over Identity and Connection (Shallan felt like she was loosing herself, and also that her connection with Pattern was under direct assault).
I think that this hints at the underlying Metaphysics of the cosmere as a whole. I think that the philosophy underpinning the 3 realms and their relation to one another is an effort to bridge the divide between Idealism (qualified monadology to be precise) and substantial dualism. A monad is a being in itself, singular and indivisable, which contains the full unity of being (Identity and Connection). There are no constituent parts of a monad, it is just an “I”. This seems like a probable state of being for a sentient being’s existence in the Spiritual realm. With substantial dualism, you have a theory that states that all matter is either extendable substance (physical, body) or unextending thinking substance (mind, perception, cognitinon). There has been a long standing problem with theory, specifically with regards to a disconnection between these substances, which supposedly comprise being. The insertion of a 3rd governing faculty, namely the Soul or the monad if you prefer, as the unifying glue that ties together the physical substance and cognitive faculty is what I think is the underlying Metaphysic.
So there is a speculation at the end of the wall of text, and it is namely this: What if the souls (or monadic spiritual projections) of the listeners were somehow sealed with Odium in Damnation. So, this would imply the severing of the dullform Parshendi’s linkage between their physical and cognitive manifestations, along with the realmatic transportation of said linkage to Brayse to be sealed up with Odium. Someone speculated that the act of turning the parshendi into Dullform was the cause of the recreance, and I do think that this is right. I think what happened on the day of Villiany (and possibly what is be described in the Oathbringer preface) refers to this Event, when the Souls of an entire people were sent to Damnation. I see this being morally a step too far for most of the orders of Knight’s Radiants. That’s a Destination before Journey kind of move.
Further, the summoning of the Everstorm probably has created a bridge allowing the trapped souls of the listeners to return. That’s why even the adult parshmen after their awakening are little more than children, the lynch pin that connected their physical life with their cognitive perception was missing, so they formed very little idea of what the world was like around them (like Sah’s inability to remember how to play the card game).
@299 Stroniax:
In a conversation with Kaladin, he comments about how he’s irritable during the Weeping. Compare to Lightsong in Warbreaker, on the day he needs a Breath to survive. Clearly Zahel is running out of Investiture.
The Weeping lasts two (Roshar) weeks, and a Returned canonically needs one Breath a (Nalthis) week to survive. Either Vasher has learned to ration out his Investiture (the way he learned to suppress his divine Breath) or he draws on charged spheres to make up the difference. Or something else, of course, but those are the two ideas that occur to me.
@318.
I think a lot of that would fit with the things Sah told Kal. I agree that this sort of action would indeed constitute a betrayal of KR oaths. Thinking this through as a possibility raises some questions in my mind, so here are my rambling thoughts… If the entire race were trapped as described, what accounts for the Parshendi recovering additional forms? There are groups on Roshar that believe that, historically, the Voidbringers drew the Heralds (and therefore, the KR), or perhaps vice versa, depending on who is speaking. So, having some listeners recover their “souls” in reaction to some humans regaining Nahel bonds might make sense, but the proportions don’t seem to be in line. While we don’t have any idea how many spren have bonded humans, it is indicated that there were perhaps hundreds of thousands of Parshendi prior to the Vengeance Pact. We can probably conclude that the number of spren willing to bond humans is not anywhere close to that, since the ones who did seem to indicate that they are either breaking the rules (Syl) or being chosen for singular duty (Wyndle), etc.
Also, where would the Tranquiline Halls fit in here, if at all? The Voidbringers are said to inhabit it at present, and while this may all be a fabrication of the Vorin religion, it seems plausible that it has some sort of basis in reality. Perhaps the same event caused the loss of the Halls, or perhaps the loss of the Halls prompted the day of Villiany?
How does the death of Honor play into this? It must be tied in to all of this somehow, right?
Does the everstorm “bridge” also empower Odium to take a more active role on Roshar, or must something else happen in order for Tanavast/Honor’s (presumed) action in trapping him to be counteracted?
so random idea. What if what happened to the parshmen (making them “dull”) is in some ways like what happens to spren when their knights break the oaths? The “data jack’ as sanderson put it, got yanked out. The everstorm somehow restored it. so if this is true, then could the everstorm itself, or the function of the everstorm that restores the parshmen, be used to restore the dead sprenblades?
@321
That description makes the spren death sound much less permanent. So, I wonder what would happen if spren that were originally of Honor or Cultivation got a new “data jack” that was of Odium. Honorspren that suddenly didn’t follow the traits of Honor?
For anyone thinking that Vasher would ever write Oathbringer, here is a quote from him.
“Vasher sighed. “Look, Princess. I’m not like Denth; I don’t have his ability with words, and I don’t really like people in the first place. Don’t expect me to chat with you. All right?”” – Chapter 43 of Warbreaker
https://brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-chapter-forty-three/
Seems to me, with how wordy the Preface to Oathbringer is, that it would not be Vasher as the author.
@322 i dont think, though i have nothing concrete to support it, that the awakening the everstorm did by itself was particulary “odius”. it looks like to me that it just restored the “jack”. What ends up plugging into the jack on the other hand, is what results in the voidbringers or radiants. At least that is my conjecture.
I got a bit more food for thought to offer up, not necessarily related to recent conversation (though I thank you all for your replies to what I’ve said, it has been helpful).
We saw, I believe in WoK, at one point Kal and some of his bridge-pals checking out his powers. During the tests, he stuck a rock to a wall, and then looked closely. What he saw there, holding the rock to the wall, was a bunch of little bond spren. This leads me to a few questions:
1) are these the same a honorspren such as Syl, but with less cognizance?
2) if not, I feel we ought to consider the differences between these and wind spren. Especially in regards to shardplate, assuming the spren-plate theory is correct. What implications may this have? Is the plate mde of a sort of bond between two (types of) spren?
3) Has Shallan ever done something similar with her powers, producing tiny spren that would only exist / be visible/noticeable if one looked for them, but exist nonetheless and support/are the reason for her magic – and Lift as well – do small spren cover Awesome things? I feel like this could be mistaken as stormlight (small transparent ‘wisps’). I believe the most likely situation would be if small creationspren (or perhaps less-sentient cryptics?) made up or supported (not physically, mind) the map that Shallan/Dalinar construct.
4) Again the question also must be raised about wheather spren are a cause or an effect. We can assume, of course, that natural physics occur without spren, and spren are instead attracted to places where the event should occur (therefore they are an effect). However, we must consider, then: what was the purpose of Syl fighting off death spren? I can’t believe that was a hallucination. I also expect it to have had some sort of purpose (why fight off spren if it means nothing?) – so maybe the natural event incurs the spren, and the spren in turn aid the natural event? And, what of the bond spren when Kal stuck that rock to a wall? Did they hold it there or would it have stuck without them, and they were merely attracted because it was being held there?
Something I see as plausible is that the spren are the force/cause of magic events – the reason the rock stuck to the wall – but are a product/effect of natural events; they follow the wind.
Again, just some things to consider. Some stuff has probably already been refuted by WOB. I hope this was clear and can get some good conversations going.
@324 It may appear that way, as the awakened pashmen seem pretty normal, but it is very likely that one of Odium’s methods of destroying other shards has been to spread hatred in the dominion of the shard… even hatred of the manifest “quality” of the shard. And, we know that the Everstorm is from Odium. So, if he were to replace the original “jack” with one from him, one that is not quite what they had before, he may be able to give them back sentience with an added dose of hatred for their former oppressors and extra hatred in general. If the same works for the dead sprenblades, perhaps giving them a “jack” that modifies the original perception that created them to one more vicious?
The really wonderful thing about the world building that BS does is that it provides all of these areas that foment discussion and, for me, wild theorizing. Truly amazing.
@325
WoB states that most of the spren on Roshar existed prior to Honor, Cultivation, and Odium arriving. That being the case, I would suspect that both Investiture and natural occurrences attract spren, and that the interaction of Syl with various spren in the narritive is for entertainment, or perhaps symbolic, in most cases. Any expression of a surge could attract them, whether natural or from Investiture.
Of course, all of that excludes the more sapient spren. The bigger, more conscious ones very well may cause/support any number of natural, and unnatural, forces.
hmmm, i liken it more like healing in the cosmere. Returning the being to their original “ideal”. So putting the “jack” back in, was just returning them to the way they were before any interference. The reason the everstorm was referred to as “of odium” was because his spren rode it, and it was summoned by the stormform who were under his influence. That way when the parshmen were “fixed” they were open to fuse with the voidspren. So what i am saying is there could be a mechanism within the everstorm that could be separated or isolated that could be used to restore the dead spren blades to how they were before. the only issue with this, is even if they are restored “unodiously”, i doubt they will be super happy with humans, and i definitely doubt they will want to start bonding again. it would instead result in mankind losing all those nifty dead spren blades they had to fight with. which would actually be an unintended benefit for Rayse.
ok, to expand upon, i see the everstorm functioning like this:
Step 1: parshmen in everstorm are restored and normal. if they have the right frame of mind, and singing the right song (unlikely for brand newly restored), then they bond the correct voidspren and become a voidbringer)
Step 2: gather restored parshmen
Step 3: decide what forms you need, teach them the right frame of mind and song
step 4: everstorm returns, refer to step one.
@320 arod:
Here are my thoughts regarding the issues you bring up-
The Parshendi use spren to change their forms, not all of these spren need to be odium spren. They are like a raspberry pi, you put a different SD card in and have a completely different computer. There is a WoB that states taht the listeners predate the arrival of humans on Roshar, so a lot of the listener forms are probably hold overs from when the world was invested by Andonalsium. Also there is another WoB that confirms that spren existed on Roshar prior to the arrival of Honor and Cultivation. The mechanism whereby the listeners change forms is still mysterious. It has something to do with their gemhearts (like Listeners are the original Roshar fabrials, I think there was a verse in the Song of Listing about Microwave Oven form, an innocuous use for red lighting perhaps?)
I think that this thing that was done to the Listeners, this separating of their mind and body from their soul was only done once (to pseudo end the Desolations). The two events of reawakened Parshmen and spren looking for humans to bond with are related (as Nale and Ishar obviously think that by suppressing the emergent KRs they can keep the next Desolation at bay), but they are not related causally (one doesn’t make the other happen). I think the appearance of Spren looking to establish Nahel bons ALWAYS increases when a Desolation is near. But this is the first Desolation where a large percentage of the listener population (every one of them except some of the unstorm formed rebel Parshendi) need to recover their soul before they decide wheter they want to become voidbringers or not. I do think that there is a volitional component in bonding an odium spren, or at least an intent on the part of the listener makes the bonding easier (like a parshendi going out into a high storm and trying to become war form). I think this is one of the reasons Venli had to trick Eshonai into assuming storm form, Eshonai sensed the wrongness of the spren trapped inside the sphere, but she didn’t realize that the bonding would be a one way street and that there would be no going back (hence the term fused instead of bonded). Brandon doesn’t write typical villans, so I believe that he wouldn’t relegate the whole population of Listeners to becoming a compelled army of Voidbringers, evil is far more evil if the villains choose to be evil (even if that choice is from a misunderstanding as in Eshonai’s case, that’s the seed of tragedy). The spren in Shadesmare seem to know more about the timing of the Desolation (both Wyndle and Pattern were sent out to find humans to bond with) so I think more answers about all of this will be forthcoming when Jasnah gets some screen time in Part 2.
I always chalked this up to Vorinism’s symbolic description of the Ascendency of the Lighteyes and a rationalization of the militaristic nature of Alethi society. Also this seems to be a natural outgrowth of living on a planet that has recurrent desolations. If you are expected to fight for the survival of mankind, it is natural to assume that there is some kind of higher calling to the fight in general. It’s also part of the cultural mythos that allows one part of the population to arbitrarily assume privilege. Vorinism as a whole seems like a very convenient religion for a militaristic society organized into castes, it has the germ of why are born under the boot and also caters to the laziness of the Alethi ruling class. But most myths in the Cosmere are distortions of Cosmere facts, so I think that the Tranquiline halls are just a distortion of the original planetary exodus, humans aren’t native to Roshar, so at some point in the distant past they must have relocated.
We know that Desolations end when voidbringers are vanquished, but what does vanquished mean for an idea? Relocated and bound most likely (in Damnation with Odium). I think this is similar to the Heralds, when they are vanquished they are likewise (at least their soul at this point) relocated to Damnation until the next Desolation starts and they can return. This is kind of like a revolving door Purgatory for the apical heroes and villains. When Nale is denying that a new Desolation is starting in Edgedancer, he says that it has happened before, that voidspren have managed to hide out during the periods between desolations. This heavily implies that the preponderance of the voidspren are gone before a Desolation starts.
Another thing to note is that we don’t know how Honor was killed, all we know is that he was splintered. Destroyed in such a fashion that no other vessel can assume Honor’s powers (as happened to Dominion/Devotion and Ambition). How did Odium do this. This idea just occurred to me, that maybe he rigged the deal. Maybe (like preservation) he entered the Oathpact with a longer term goal in mind, he entered the Oathpact knowing that it would Splinter Honor. And this is the big Duhn Duhn DUHNNN moment, the thing that splintered Honor was the cascade of events that happened after this epicly dishonorable act of robbing the listeners of their souls. This had the knockdown effect of causing the KRs to abandon their oaths, which in turned caused the people of Roshar to invert their conception of their supposed protectors and see them as betrayers. The bondsmith (probably Maleshi from WoR WoR epigraphs) who severed the Listeners connection to their soul, struck the blow that eventually killed Honor, though honor probably wasn’t splintered until the KRs abandoned their oaths en masse (or possibly the splintering happened when the population as a whole saw Honor as an Ideal that was now dead, collective disillusionment acting like a giant cognitive realm hammer).
Like I mentioned above, the Everstorm is new, I think that anything new appearing in a Desolation is very, very bad. I think that the Everstorm could allow Odium to play a much larger role in the coming desolation, that’s why the Stormfather argues for the stalling tactic of “Contest of Champions”. I believe that Odium is willing to sit this one out and let his Champion try it, because if he intervenes directly more of his power could be drawn off (each of the unmade are probably splinters of Odium, they are likely personifications of specific types of hatred, maybe if he intervenes more directly he opens himself up to the possibility of more of these personifications splintering off). There are some theories regarding the breaking of the Heralds being involved in the freeing of Odium (lets say for analogy sake, that each Herald is like a seal on the Dark one’s prison). The theory further speculates that each time a herald is broken, a new unmade is created that is inverse in intent to the primary divine attribute of the Herald. Perhaps the reason that he is willing to watch from the sidelines on this Desolation is that he doesn’t want to truly break Taln, because that would result in one more piece of his power splintering off. But holy crap, if the Champion of Odium is bested and Taln is broken, that means that all the Seals to the Dark Ones prison have crumbled to dust. Bad news brother, bad news. But that does set up a very nice primary conflict for the back five. Raises the stakes substantially to have this battle to defeat the unleashed dark one before he can splinter even more shards.
Tuesday can’t come soon enough!
I was worried Kaladin would be away from the other characters for most of the book – real glad to see Part 1 ends with him getting back to Urithiru. Even if he flies off again hopefully he’ll have more of an entourage…and perhaps that road trip with Elhokar is still going to happen!
Real curious if the set of Interludes right after this includes one from the Thaylen queen, considering how Dalinar’s last chapter ended. Maybe we’ll find out sooner than Tuesday but if not, 4 more days!
@299 & @319:
Like Carl said @319, Zahel has a stockpile of breath. He’s of at least the 3rd Heightening, beyond his Returned Breath. So while a Weeping could cause him to expend a breath once every 2 Roshar years, he would still have a good supply.
I say every 2 years because of their rotating system. Every other year there is a Highstorm in the middle of the Weeping.
He’s had to have figured out a way to hold Stormlight investaure over the years. The easy access to investaure is one f the reasons he’s there.
When it comes to Adolin murdering Sades, I have a feeling his “right of challenge” will some how come into play to save him in the end. When he was discussing it with Shallan, it was talked about as an ancient tradition. One that might not allow Sades to accept but in a years time and maybe one that would allow an unconventional duel aka Adolin’s fight with Sades.
While I think Kaladin would have a hard time seeing it that way, I actually think it would be the skybreakers who wouldn’t see it as a murder. He did challenge him to fight, even to the death.
Ok my theory on The Fused: The Parshmen use a single spren to transform. In this case the ‘stormform’ was a spren of pressure. They then fused with a second gravitational spren to create their version of a windrunner
@333: I had thought too of Adolin’s right of challenge and I wondered how it may come into play. I am personally of the opinion Adolin needs to lose a fight: he can’t win them all. He isn’t a surgebinder, sooner or later, I’d love him to meet his match.
@321, 322, 324, 326, 328 and 329 in regards to “the data jack” for listeners being an Odium tainted gift:
Rad speculation, here are my ideas in no specific order.
The idea that dead spren blades can somehow be revived turned to the dark side is freaking cool, maybe they will glow with violet voidish stormlight. Also, I think that is a plausible event, if the listeners identity and connection can be restored, why not the connection and Identity of spren, can an idea ever really be said to die?
Maybe the mechanism of this is that it is given a new qualitative disposition, the hatred for the broken oath reforges the dead spren in the Odium mold… How would these be different than normal shardblades, what would these voidish blades be capable of?
As far as the everstorm distributing Odium spren, I think this might not be how it works in general. There is the vision of Dalinar’s where D is in the purelake with some other soldiers looking for spren that are wrong. I think the mechanism whereby odium spren return for the desolation probably will function similarly as it had in previous desloations, but there might be the possibility that the everstorm is also an additional conduit for the voidish spren to return, giving Humans far less time to prepare perhaps.
@325:
Specualtions in regard to your questions.
1) They are adhesion spren I think, but whether they are a less self aware version of Honor spren hasn’t (to my knowledge) been revealed yet.
2) This doesn’t feel right to me that shardplate is created by the bond between two types of spren. Only 2 radiant orders have the surge of adhesion, so I think that there is something else going on here. But an interesting idea, if the cousin spren theory is correct, do the cousin spren that make up the shardplate impart a specific special power for the shardplate? Like I could see the shardplate of a windrunner giving them the additonal power of manipulating wind (like a booster rocket) and I could see the shardplate of the lightweavers made out of creation spren providing an additianal power of invisibilty or maybe the power to augment their voice. Interesting to speculate what other kind of powers the different orders of KR shardplate might have.
3) The creation spren are mentioned very prominently around Shallan. These are not the reason for her magic, look at my reply to your number 4 point below.
4) In regard to whether spren are cause or an effect, I believe this to be pretty straightforward. There is a WoB where he was asked how he came up with the idea of spren and he said that it was a mixture of Platonic Idealism with Japanese shinto-ism (which is an animistic religion). We know that the Listeners predate the humans on Roshar, and we also know that spren existed on Roshar before the arrival of humans. My take on this is that pre-human Listeners had an Animistic religion, and as happens on other Cosmere worlds belief creates a pathway for investiture to manifest itself. By this I mean that because the native population of the planet believed that everything on the world had a soul, this belief created cognitive pathways for investiture. With a large enough population sharing a common belief, this became the cognitive reality for this world. And because the cognitive realm is a bridge between the spiritual realm and the physical realm, these ideas took on investiture and began appearing in the pyhsical realm. Spren are an effect of a collective belief, but given enought time, they have become sentient, so they are able to be causes and effects. Not all surges have an associated spren, the more a part of the natural world is personifiable the more likely it is to have a spren associated with it. I don’t think that there is a spren for Gravity, because it’s one of those foundational qualities of the world that isn’t really thought about it’s just taken as a given. As for the interesting question of why Syl was fighting off the death spren, if they are just unaffecting cognitive entities, why did she do this? I think that this a case of a battle that was actually occuring in all 3 realms, Syl the idea was battling the idea of death, and keeping the real effect of death from occuring by blocking deaths advance in the spiritual realm.
@324:
Cool idea about room in the gemheart for 2 spren, and that possibly that the reason for the voidbringers having access to two surges. This doesn’t feel right to me though. I think what is going on is that the orders of voidbringers, like the orders of KRs have access to two surges. I think one is from Cultivation and the other from Odium. So the voidbringers that were chasing Kaladin in the sky were using the gravitation surge, and that, in reserve they have another Odious surge that hasn’t been revealed. Totatlly could be wrong on this front, and having the admixing of spren in Listeners opens up a combinatronic possibilty for far more types of Voidbringer (primary spren and secondary spren, if there are 9 of each which seems like it’s Odium’s trademarked number, would yield 81 possible Voidbringers, pretty rad).
@335 Gepeto:
Over the past month it has been awesome to read your comments, everyone has a favorite character, and everyone has a different focus in their readings of this truly amazing book. It’s one of things that makes this Tor forum so freaking special.
Since it’s so close to the end of this incredibly fun ride, I offer up the following speculation:
Adolin is actually the pivotal character in the whole series. He will overcome his inner demon, the rage that he has masked behind his affable exterior. He will work together with Hoid to gather all of the shards, and he will (with hair that is tousled yet still somehow amazing) ascend, reforming all of the splinters into a new unitary whole… The shard of Adolinalsium.
I did a reread off Part 1. The only thing that came to mind is Gloomspren, are they an endangered spren? Are Syl’s distant relatives responsible for their scarcity? It would seem odd that they wouldn’t pop up more often when thinking about life in certain areas of Roshar. And can spren splinter each other?
And unless Dalinar has a near death or resurrection experience in this book or a future installment (which is totally possible), I think the preface author is Jasnah. She likely went pretty deep into Shadesmare after being stabbed through the heart.
I just might go to the book signing in Illinois to find that out if I can clear my schedule that evening. The gloomspren part. I don’t really care who wrote Oathbringer, or who wrote the preface for that matter.
@337: This is a bold speculation, but if this is Brandon’s plan, then I am all for it.
So if the highstorm refuels stormlight, does the everstorm refuel the darklight?
@336 point 3
I think it makes sense that the live plate from different orders would impart additional or augmented power to the user. The blades were constructed to fight Voidbringers and they impart superhuman abilities to users in addition to its primary function (i.e. to cut things and maybe forcibly seperating a physical being from its cognitive and spiritual identity). Living plate cannot just be armor, and living plate has to do more for a user than dead plate does. Look at how devastating a man with a dead sword and dead plate can be. He’s a tank fighting against foot soldiers. But a dead blade doesn’t hold a candle to a living Shardblade that can summon instantly and become any weapon at most any length at the speed of thought. No doubt living Shardplate is as much an upgrade over the dead stuff. In the flashbacks we’ve already seen one upgrade, the ability to summon and release the helm at a thought. Maybe the entire plate can be summoned or dismissed in the same manner. Wouldn’t that be cool.
Compounding is a thing in the Cosmere. Often in Realmatic theory a person with 2 abilities is granted a 3rd due to interaction. It’s why Miles Hundredlives (Mistborn era 2) was nearly unkillable as a Allomancer who could burn gold and a Feruchemist that could use gold. A double gold. Now there’s an entire system of Investiture that screams Compounding from the rafters. Each Surgebinder has 2 abilities and is bonded to a literal force of creation. I see at least 2 ways for special power to occur for any given KR, 2 ways that I can think of for compounding to manifest. One is of course the interaction between the 2 forces every KR has access to. Gravitation + Adhesion = 3 Lashings for example. The second has to do with the nature of the bond, the relationship the bond develops with the spren. Take Dalinar’s special ability, the one where he can send Honor’s picturemail to anyone experiencing a highstorm. His first Bondsmith specific Oath was “I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together”. A good way to unite a people is if they see the same vision. I don’t think that ability has anything to do with Adhesion or Tension but it does mesh nicely with his spren bond. There are likely others as we have yet to see a full spectrum KR for any Order.
With the examples of Compounding already shown thus far I can see live Plate formed by any method granting additional properties to its user as well as additional points to compound on, especially if the cousin spren theory is correct.
@335, Gepeto:
You mean like when Szeth toyed with him and decided to kill him almost as an afterthought?
@337, hoiditthroughthegrapevine:
Adolin can’t reform Adonalsium any time soon. Remember the timeline, this is happening centuries before, say, Mistborn Era 2 (Wax and Wayne). We know from Wax’s vision that Sazed is still Preservation in that era, and it sure seems as if Odium is threatening him and Scadrial from afar.
I have speculated that, if the Heralds do finally die in the dekology, and perhaps even the Stormfather (if Dalinar, say, breaks his Oaths), those splinters of Honor could end up being assumed by Adolin who would then Ascend as the Vessel of a reformed Honor.
Pardon the sequential posts. I just noticed this WoB (#159):
Sound like maybe the Parshendi, anyone?
@342: No I meant a real fight… Nobody ever expected Adolin to win against a surgebinder, but so far everyone assumes he’d win against any who isn’t. No matter how good you are, there is always someone better.
344, the real problem might be having a fight that Adolin ends up losing, which would put up the question of does he die, get injured, or just humiliated?
Off topic, sort of – for anyone who enjoys the teaser “beta reactions” torment, I added ten more to the list posted Friday.
Thanks, Alice. You’re the best/worst.
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine @336, cool theories and I am not about to argue any of them. I only want to make one tiny (and quite insignificant to the theories themselves) correction: I don’t think that there is a spren for Gravity
Well, I read the chapter not so long ago, therefore I remembered :) From Shallan’s conversation with Jasnah, chapter 3 of WoR: “Of course,” Shallan said. Paintings lived. Not lived like a person or a spren, but… well, it was obvious to her, at least. “So, before the spren were alive, they were something. Power. Energy.Zen-daughter-Vath sketched tiny spren she found sometimes around heavy objects. Gravitationspren—fragments of the power or force that causes us to fall. It stands to reason that every spren was a power before it was a spren.
BTW, I chuckled at the Adolinalsium :)
Your Amazon.com order of “Oathbringer: Book Three of…” has shipped!
And look at the other email I received over night: Amazon customers get 2 FREE audiobooks today.
(evil laugh)
Damn, now I have to wait until tomorrow, after work AND class, before I can continue reading. If Amazon delivers this book late I swear I will be upset.
I think it’s interesting how everyone is interested in what Jasnah and Dalinar’s dynamic will be, and how they are speculating possible friction. This is interesting to me, because if I recall correctly, Dalinar and Jasnah have both expressed fondness for the other, even going as far as saying they’ve missed each their. That I don’t think it makes sense for Jasnah’s character to have a desire to lead, it would be too much of a burden, that would inhibit her ability to travel, and study. I do think it will be interesting to see how Jasnah and Shallan do now that Shallan has been surviving, and thriving without Jasnah. Also interested to see what Jasnah thinks of Kaladin.
# 346. Wetlandernw:. How do we reach that thread? I read it a couple of days ago, but I can’t get back there. I looked under your name, and still can’t locate. Can you give me a link. Thanks Alice.
AlerieCorbray @352 – Try this: https://www.tor.com/2017/11/10/spoiler-free-reactions-to-beta-reading-brandon-sanderson-oathbringer/
yeah! Just a few more hours and we have the book.
But what I’m almost as much looking forward to is the discussion following it. And in particular having Wetlandernw being active in the discussion again. I know it must have been a great experience to be a beta reader, but I really mist her very insightful comments.
edit interesting coincidence that I post this just after one of her post…
Kaboom @354 – It’s good to see you back here!! I have really missed participating in the comments, but it got to the point where there was enough out there for informed speculation. At that point, if I join in speculating, I’m either being mendacious or I’m spoiling the book by letting people know that specific things don’t get resolved in this book. The first is too much work, and I don’t want to do the second, so… yeah.
FWIW, we’re not going to put the big spoiler review & discussion thread up for several days after release (probably Monday), so that people can take their time (including the weekend) to read it and not feel like they’re missing out on all the discussion. I’ll open up the Beta Reactions thread for full-books spoilers on Wednesday, with a warning at the top saying, “If you haven’t finished the book, feel free to make guesses but don’t read the comments because they’ll be full of spoilers.”
#353 Wetlandernw:. Thanks for the link.
51 Caffeinespren? Maybe hyperspren? Jitterspren?
Anyway, “A blackish-violet glow—like dark Stormlight—rose from the red-eyed parshman.” A blackish glow like the one in Gavilar’s sphere? Or a blackish glow like Nightblood? OR ARE THEY ONE AND THE SAME?!?!?!?!?
It would make sense that there was a voidspren in the sphere, and the same variety of voidspren Fused to the parshman. However, Szeth, when introduced to Nightblood, sees (and this is a direct quote, BTW) “a small trail of black smoke coming off the metal. Like Stormlight, only dark.” Dark Stormlight is a recurring theme, and so is a blackish violet glow. They both surround evil things, so what if they’re the same glow! That would mean that when Shashara forged Nightblood, she was/knew a worldhopper, who was able to bind Nightblood to a voidspren… or maybe I’m just a Sanderson Conspiracy Theorist (SCT).
Just reread all 32 chapters to get ready. Also, I collected the Oathbringer preface quotes, and here it is:
I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist.
I needed to write it anyway.
I know that many women who read this will see it only as further proof that I am the godless heretic everyone claims.
I can point to the moment when I decided for certain this record had to be written. I hung between realms, seeing into Shadesmar—the realm of the spren—and beyond.
I thought that I was surely dead. Certainly, some who saw further than I did thought I had fallen.
I did not die. I experienced something worse.
That moment notwithstanding, I can honestly say this book has been brewing in me since my youth.
The sum of my experiences has pointed at this moment. This decision.
Perhaps my heresy stretches back to those days in my childhood, where these ideas began.
I ask not that you forgive me. Nor that you even understand.
I ask only that you read or listen to these words.
In this record, I hold nothing back. I will try not to shy away from difficult topics, or paint myself in a dishonestly heroic light.
I will express only direct, even brutal, truth. You must know what I have done, and what those actions cost me.
For in this comes the lesson.
It is not a lesson I claim to be able to teach. Experience herself is the great teacher, and you must seek her directly.
You cannot have a spice described to you, but must taste it for yourself.
However, with a dangerous spice, you can be warned to taste lightly. I would that your lesson may not be as painful as my own.
I am no storyteller, to entertain you with whimsical yarns.
I am no philosopher, to intrigue you with piercing questions.
I am no poet, to delight you with clever allusions.
I have no doubt that you are smarter than I am. I can only relate what happened, what I have done, and then let you draw conclusions.
I will confess my murders before you. Most painfully, I have killed someone who loved me dearly.
I will confess my heresy. I do not back down from the things I have said, regardless of what the ardents demand.
Finally, I will confess my humanity. I have been named a monster, and do not deny those claims. I am the monster that I fear we all can become.
So sit back. Read, or listen, to someone who has passed between realms.
Listen to the words of a fool.
If they cannot make you less foolish, at least let them give you hope.
For I, of all people, have changed.
I still think it’s Jasnah.
@@@@@ 358. InhumanByte
Thanks for this. Reading it just now with not having been here for a day I tend to think the writer is Taravangian.
Updated @@@@@ 11:48. 2 hours to Audiobook release!