Hear ye! Hear ye! It’s another Oathbringer reread, with two—count ‘em, two—chapters this week! (Okay, short ones. But two of them.) Kaladin has a first-time victory for the Wall Guard, when he brings down a Fused in battle. Shallan, on the other hand, realizes something distinctly not a victory. Mixed emotions up in here this week, peeps.
Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. There are spoilers for Warbreaker in the Cosmere Connections unit, so if you haven’t read it yet, you need to get with the program. (Seriously. Go read it.) And if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin, Shallan
WHERE: Kholinar wall, streets
WHEN: 1174.2.3.2 (same day as chapters 77 and 78)
Kaladin leads “his” troops up onto the wall to defend against the attacking Voidbringers. He kills one and reveals who he really is to Azure. Meanwhile, Veil!Shallan returns to the people she’s been supplying food to, only to learn that her good deed has backfired tremendously and made the people into victims – especially young Grund, who dies at the hands of the street toughs who have been stealing all the food from them after Veil leaves.
Truth, Love, and Defiance
Titles
Chapter 79: Echoes of Thunder
Kaladin charged up the stairwell beside Highmarshal Azure, the sound of drums breaking the air like echoes of thunder from the departed storm.
AA: I don’t know that it’s significant to the rest of the chapter, but that sure is an appropriately portentous title!
L: And a beautiful simile to boot.
Chapter 80: Oblivious
“How oblivious are you, woman?”
L: We’ll get into this more down in the “Bruised and Broken” section.
AA: Yeah… not sure whether to sniffle or sigh.
Heralds
L: There’s no question why Jezrien’s heading Chapter 79. Kaladin is living up to his Windrunner ideals to a T, protecting and leading the men on the wall. Ishi, however, heading up Chapter 80, I’m not quite so sure on. Maybe because Shallan thought that her actions were pious?
AA: I’ve been pondering this for hours, and the best I can come up with is the combination of Shallan intending to be pious (and perhaps “guiding” as well) and then turning out to be ignorant and dangerous instead. I’m not sure that’s quite “opposite” of Ishi’s characteristics, but it’s close. It’s also possible that it has to do with Ishi’s associated madness, but since we don’t know exactly what that is, we can’t judge.
Icons
Kaladin’s spears (Kaladin POV), Pattern (Shallan POV)
Buy the Book
Fate of the Fallen
Epigraphs
Our revelation is fueled by the theory that the Unmade can perhaps be captured like ordinary spren. It would require a special prison. And Melishi.
—From drawer 30-20, third emerald
L: We know that the Unmade can be trapped in perfect gemstones, but is this the first time we’ve had it mentioned that a Bondsmith is needed for this process?
AA: … Uh… Oh, good grief. It never even occurred to me that you actually have to have a Bondsmith to trap an Unmade, but I’m betting it’s not coincidence that we’ve only seen it happen (you know what I mean) with a Bondsmith doing the deed. I wonder, is that only for Unmade, or would it also be required to trap a Voidspren?
L: Going off of that, I wonder if it’s possible to capture the “souls” of the Fused too? So they can’t be constantly reborn?
AA: Sure would be nice! It’s something Kaladin considers in this chapter; it doesn’t matter that he kills one, because it’ll just grab another body in the next Everstorm. It also makes me wonder (again) what was in those black-glowing spheres Gavilar had. I doubt they were Unmade, but they could have been Voidspren, or Voidlight… but could they have been ancestor-souls?
Ba-Ado-Mishram has somehow Connected with the parsh people, as Odium once did. She provides Voidlight and facilitates forms of power. Our strike team is going to imprison her.
—From drawer 30-20, fourth emerald
L: So… did they succeed? If B-A-M is the source of all Voidlight (that can’t be right, can it?) then she must be around somewhere. If not, maybe she acts as… a conduit? She channels it more effectively, or can hold it like a sphere/reservoir and allow others around her to access it?
AA: I’m pretty sure Odium is the actual source of Voidlight, but being a Splinter of Odium gives her access to his power, meaning that she was able to give the parsh people access to all the nasty-forms once she figured out how to Connect with them properly. I’m not sure what the mechanism is, but since the Unmade are much more localized than the Shards, it seems reasonable that they at least have to be in her general vicinity. Like the Thrill. Or like the Everstorm, in fact.
As for succeeding, I’m assuming they did, and that’s what “broke” the parsh. Somehow, trapping her not only took away their access to the Voidforms, it removed their ability to take any forms at all. It must have blocked their gemhearts, somehow… but I don’t quite know how.
Or… we don’t know that it was exactly this scheme that succeeded. There’s that line from the in-world Words of Radiance, where Melishi had some new idea that he didn’t have time to explain. But it was something along this line.
Stories & Songs
Even worse, the one he’d killed would be reborn. Unless the Heralds set up their prison again, Kaladin couldn’t ever really kill one of the Fused.
L: Are there any Listeners left for them to bond with? For some reason I got the impression that all of them had either been killed or bonded already.
AA: We don’t really know for sure what the status of the Listeners is. We have a healthy suspicion (but I don’t think we have confirmation?) that they were the preferred hosts for the Fused, because they hadn’t lost mental function like the parshmen had. But when they run out of Listeners, you know the Fused will use whatever parsh bodies are available, and there are a lot of those.
It’s yet another mark of how desperate humanity is this time. Not only do they have a mere handful of fledgling Knights Radiant and one semi-functional Herald, they don’t even have a way to take out any of the Fused for more than nine days at the most. (That’s the expected interval of Everstorms, isn’t it?) It really doesn’t bode well.
Bruised & Broken
“Hate…” Grund whispered. “Hate you.” … “Why couldn’t you leave me alone?” he whispered. “They killed them all. My friends. Tai… … You drew them,” he hissed. “You strutted around, throwing food. You thought people wouldn’t notice?” He closed his eyes. “Had to sit all day, wait for… for you. My life was waiting for you. It wasn’t here when you came, or if I tried to hide the food, they beat me.”
“How long?” she whispered, feeling her confidence shake.
“Since the first day, you storming woman. Hate… hate you… Others too. We all… hate you…”
L: Well damn. That’s the ultimate kick in the stomach. Not only is she the reason this poor kid is dying, the thing she thought was the right thing to do wound up backfiring almost completely.
AA: This is one of the first big cracks in Shallan’s build-up of Veil—the point where she has to face the fact that that Veil doesn’t know anything Shallan doesn’t, including how the “underworld” of a city works. Veil has become the smart, street-savvy person who has none of Shallan’s perceived weaknesses, and “so much better” at navigating the city and being useful to the team. Now it turns out that she isn’t better at all (duh, because she’s not someone else!), and all the people she was “helping” hate her with a justifiable passion.
L: Shallan’s not stable to begin with, and something like this is just going to push her further into instability, as is proven when she can’t even manage to hold onto Veil’s persona through her grief and guilt. (Although I’m happy to see that it’s Shallan she reverts to rather than one of the other personas…)
AA: You optimist, you. Always seeing the bright side!
It’s true, though, and a small moment of encouragement that she maintains the Illusion while dropping the persona.
“They took the food I gave you, didn’t they? Storms, they killed Grund!”
Muri stopped, then shook her head. “Poor kid. Better you than he.”
AA: While I can’t exactly blame Muri for her thought, it just adds to the load of guilt and pain. I’m really torn about this. I can’t think that Shallan deserves to be killed for her ignorance—but that poor boy, Grund, didn’t deserve to be killed for her ignorance either.
Weighty Words
Using [Stormlight] for Lashing would attract screamers, and in this darkness, even drawing in a small amount would reveal him for what he was. The Fused would all attack him together; he would risk undermining the mission to save the entire city.
Today he protected best through discipline, order, and keeping a level head.
L: Glad to see that he’s learning to put aside his (albeit noble) intentions to save Everyone in order to preserve the greater battle plan.
AA: It’s almost a shock to see him put the mission first in a scenario like this, isn’t it? Very un-Kaladin-like, but it’s good to see him developing a wider view. (Unlike the side carry episode, for example, or the four-on-one “duel”…)
He could protect without Stormlight. He’d protected people long before he could fly.
L: Yeah, but… not from an assault like this, Kal. When you’re being attacked by a superior force you can’t hold back your most effective weapons. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. If he reveals himself, he puts their entire mission at risk. If he doesn’t, the wall falls. Darned Kobayashi Maru tests…
AA: Well, this time at least, he manages to do something very useful without revealing himself. Which is rather cool, even if we know perfectly well that it won’t work more than once or twice at most.
The Fused wanted Kaladin to crash into them, but it had made a mistake.
The sky was his.
L: Aaaaaaaw yeah.
AA: Love it. It’s like when he challenged Szeth during the battle of Narak.
Annoyingly, it also reminds me of when Moash killed that Fused. I’m sure the parallel is totally intentional, though it feels weird for Kaladin to be imitating something Moash did already. (For the sake of my sanity, I’m happy that Kaladin is the master who actually can fly, and Moash’s success was solely the result of Kaladin’s teaching. I can pretend that makes it different.) In both cases, though, they were able to kill a Fused because they were used to being in the air; not only did they not panic, they were able to use the effects of the Lashings to their own advantage.
Kaladin responded immediately to the Lashing, and reoriented himself in the blink of an eye. Down became the direction he was falling.
AA: It must be said: “The enemy’s gate is down!”
“Leave. My. Men. Alone!”
L: Kaladin’s full of badass moments and sayings in this chapter, and he’s just getting started…
The woman studied him, and reluctantly Kaladin summoned Syl as a Shardblade. Noro’s eyes bulged, and Ved nearly fainted–though Beard just grinned.
“I’m here,” Kaladin said, resting the Sylblade on his shoulder, “on orders from King Elhokar and the Blackthorn. It’s my job to save Kholinar. And it’s time you started talking to me.”
L: I do love Kaladin’s dramatic streak.
AA: Heh. Absolutely. Oh, one other thing that made me laugh in this chapter: When it came right down to a battle, Kaladin kinda sorta forgot he wasn’t in charge. He’s shouting orders and demanding reports, including from his nominal commander. So much for subterfuge. It also just occurred to me that Kaladin doesn’t exactly reveal his entire identity; he just lets them see that he’s a Shardbearer without clarifying that he’s a Knight Radiant. I wonder if that was intentional, or if he’s so used to it that he didn’t think about making it clear. Or if it matters.
On another subject… for all her failures, Shallan is getting better at Lightweaving.
As she wove into the market, she put her hand before her face, changing it with a wave of the fingers. She took her hat off, folded it, and covertly Lightwove it to look like a waterskin. Each was a little change that nobody would notice. She tucked her hair into her coat, made it look shorter, then finally closed her coat and changed the clothing underneath. When she took off the coat and folded it up, she was no longer Veil, but a market guard she’d drawn earlier.
AA: I enjoyed the sequence of small changes, little things no one will notice unless they’re watching her carefully and specifically. It’s clever and sneaky, and a perfect way to get lost in a crowd.
Cosmere Connections
“I’m missing something, like white on black…”
L: Love these Nalthis sayings, though this one… doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. I suppose if I were from Nalthis I’d get it!
AA: I never comprehend any of these color metaphors. Or most of the adjectives, for that matter. I just sort of assume they make sense in the original language… Actually, I suspect Brandon means for them to make no sense, so they register as “foreign” signals.
He found Azure surveying the Eighth Platoon’s losses near their guard tower. She had her cloak off and held oddly in one hand, wrapped around her forearm, with part of it draping down below.
L: Sounds to me like she’d been Awakening it. Using it as a shield, or something? Alice, you’re the Warbreaker expert, care to weigh in?
AA: If you weren’t already convinced that this was Vivenna, this description of the cloak (especially after the so-Nalthian saying) seems to me like proof positive. We never get to see her actually using it in battle, but I’ve assumed she used it as a shield. We saw similar things done in Warbreaker; Vasher Awakens his cloak with the Command “Protect me” in the Prologue, for example, as well as several times later in the book. There’s a scene where a guy wears an over-long cloak and uses it to lift him up to see above the heads of the crowd. Apparently a cloak can be really strong if it’s properly Awakened! In protecting, it does things like this:
Vasher’s cloak, however, suddenly whipped out—moving on its own—and grabbed the surprised man by the arms. (Warbreaker, Chapter 49)
AA: Neat trick if you can pull it off!
Vivenna’s Awakened cloak also grabs, and then drops, an arrow someone shot at her, and Vasher’s cloak fights multiple opponents on its own part of the time. I doubt Azure is using it in such an obvious fashion here in Kholinar, but it can still make an excellent shield, and much easier to carry than the normal kind. Warmer, too.
“I’d bet my red life on it.”
L: There’s another one…
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
Kaladin! Syl’s voice, in his head. I sense something… something about its power. Cut upward, toward the heart.
L: The GEMheart you mean, Syl?
AA: I’ve always wondered exactly what she could sense. Is it just that there’s a center of Voidlight, or does she sense the soul of the Fused? Or are those the same thing?
The Shardknife struck something brittle and hard.
L: Yep, there it is.
AA: We had a discussion of this in the beta, and, I think, hit on something revealing. Someone commented that if the gemhearts are so easily broken, and if breaking them is instant death, then that would make the Fused awfully vulnerable to the Knights Radiant. We came to the conclusion that the design/function of the Honorblades, and thus the Shardblades modeled after them, now makes a whole different kind of sense: Their primary purpose was to destroy gemhearts, essentially ignoring the surrounding flesh. The fact that they also work super well against thunderclasts is an awesome bonus, I have to say—but it seems probable that this is more a side effect than the original intent.
Quality Quotations
Syl landed on his shoulder and patted him on the side of the head.
Well folks, that wraps up another week! As always, join us in the comments below for more nitpicking, theory-crafting, and general good-natured geekery. Next week we’ll be tackling chapters 81 and 82, as 81 is very short.
Alice enjoyed her week off, hanging out with her sister. Now she’s back and ready to give Aubree a break.
Lyndsey is so excited to be playing the (new) Sheriff of Nottingham in this year’s Mutton and Mead Festival in Massachusetts on June 15 and 16. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
Even without Awakening, a cloak wrapped around your offhand arm can be a useful substitute for a shield. It won’t stop a direct blow, but it can be used to tangle blades and protect your skin from glancing blows. With Awakening, the sky’s the limit.
@1 There are whole sections of real-life fencing manuals dedicated to the cape as an offhand defensive weapon. A person’s wardrobe was one thing the law couldn’t really regulate, so everyone was packing one and knew how to use it. Sure Vivenna could have Awakened it for a better effect, but she didn’t have to.
@2 kefka, yeah exactly.
I think BAM supplanted the parshes Connection to Roshar with a Connection to itself. So when it was captured the parsh had no Connection until the Everstorm restored their Connection to Roshar.
For the Listeners, they were probably converted to fused as just a convenient way to dispose of some deserters.
I missed the Vivenna hints here on my first reading! I didn’t cotton on until they escaped into Shadesmar and her hair turned grey. That’s when I was like, “Oooooh! Vivenna!”
AA: I’ve always wondered exactly what she could sense. Is it just that there’s a center of Voidlight, or does she sense the soul of the Fused? Or are those the same thing?
Well I always thought that, since the fused are basically like spren that’s why they eventually go crazy, they’re basically trapped and because they are all of all three realms, their minds eventually break when they are trapped in one realm for way too long. SO, like how Syl managed to sense the voidspren running around back in the storms, she can sense the same kind of..well, pattern, Rhythm, what have you, here.
Concerning Shallan’s chapter, this is the second time in the Cosmere books that a female character sets out to “help” some starving people by making a big production of giving them food but ends up doing more harm than good. Not exactly a “theme,” but I found the similarities interesting.
@7 Have you ever seen the Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations Haiti episode? it’s true to life
I enjoyed both these chapters (well, not so much joy for the second one) as they both have good action/consequences. The Shallan one definitely took me by surprise and was more of a gut punch than a sigh.
@@.-@ Simpol I agree that the Listeners were used not because they were better per se, but rather as a punishment. The Fused see them as traitors and so they want to kill them off as quickly as possible.
@6 Steven Interesting, thoughts. I don’t think I thought too hard about it when I first read it, but I agree that it seems similar to how Syl could sense “things” in the storm.
@7 Carol, what was the other case?
@2 Just have to say “sumptuary laws” because I’m a pain-in-the-neck nitpicker at heart.
As for “white on black,” I think I got it after some thought. Awakening requires color. A truly pure black can’t be awakened but white can. Traps and ambushes involving black things covered with a removable layer of color were probably a thing. It’s also probably a metaphor for something sinister hiding under the appearance of being the opposite.
@7,9
The first case was Sarene in Elantris
The fact that Evi has used “white on black” makes me want to learn about her and her people even more.
I do not blame the side carry episode on Kaladin. He was trying to save his fellow Bridge 4 compatriots. He was never told that it was important to Sadeas’ attack plan to use the Bridgemen as human sacrifices. Moreover, this is not a plan that Kaladin would have (or should have) gone along with. It is one thing to torpedo a plan for a chance to get revenge (like he did with the 4 on 1 duel), especially when one’s life is not in danger when following the plan). However, it is an entirely different thing to follow a plan that is designed to lead you to certain death when you did not volunteer for said mission/assignment.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
We see a Voidspren trapped in a gemheart later in this very book, and no Bondsmith is involved. Specifically, by TInkerbell, er, Timbre in Venli’s gemheart.
I’m personally of the opinion that a lot of the “only certain orders can do this thing” restrictions are arbitrary, not actual limits on Surgebinding. I would be unsurprised to find, for instance, that Windrunners could do the language-absorbing trick if they tried, since they can also do the other Bondsmith ability nobody calls a Bondsmith ability: talking to the Stormfather no matter how far they are from the Highstorm. (Kaladin and Lopen both do it in this story.) That’s a communication power not formally enumerated for either order of Radiant. I’m surprised neither of the two outstanding soldiers of the books, Kaladin and Dalinar, thinks of using this for instant messaging.
Speaking of Connection as I was by implication: notice that in this chapter, the word “Connection” is used in the formal Cosmere-aware sense. That’s actually quite rare, most characters refer to more specific abilities rather than the underlying principles of how Cosmere magic works.
@ellynne It’s the other way round, actually. Pure white is the one color that can’t be used for Awakening, even by those of the Tenth Heightening. Black, on the other hand, is one of the best colors for Awakening.
On the Awakened cloak, there’s also the fact that something which is heavily Invested becomes resistant to further Investiture. So Azure’s awakened cloak would also be difficult for the Fused to affect with Voidbindings, rendering it an effective shield against those.
I also have a theory regarding what happened to the parsh. My guess is that at that time all singers were bonded to Void-tainted spren, so when Melishi sealed Ba-Ado-Mishram, he also ripped out the bondspren for all the singers, causing them to revert to dullform. This didn’t seal their gemhearts per se, but bonding a new spren required a conscious choice of the sort they were incapable of in dullform. So they were stuck until an external force (The Everstorm) imposed bonds on them once again.
We’re reading black on white, we’re looking right past anything but – also, what @10 ellyne said about the Awakening.
Blood is red. Who’s not red? Anything Awakened! And any body can be Awakened, and then keeps “living”. And what’s in their veins? Not blood.
To me, these make perfect sense – since I’m on the autism spectrum, that probably meant I misunderstood :D
Lyndsey- I looked up the Mutton and Mead Festival and it looks like so much fun!
I love Robin Hood and grew up with the Errol Flynn movie and the Howard Pyle retelling (and another version I can’t identify; it was a large illustrated edition, and the art style resembled the drawings in the Reader’s Digest Best of James Herriot book).
If I ever find myself in Massachusetts during that time of year, I will definitely have to try and attend.
I like the suggestion about the intended purpose of the Honor blades and shardblades.
The dichotomy between Kaladin and Shallan in these chapters is interesting.
Shallan’s failure here is so heartbreaking to read about. All of those poor people she was trying to help.
@16 Ooh, interesting! I like both of those interpretations.
@14 Carl
Good point about Timbre trapping a Voidspren. I wouldn’t have thought of that parallel. Also, with the Midnight Mother it was implied that a Lightweaver had trapped her, not a Bondsmith. Though she did eventually escape, so maybe a Bondsmith is required for a permanent trap. But I think one also needs to lure the Unmade into the trap with something it wants, which I think a Lightweaver could do with the Midnight Mother and what we see Dalinar do with the Thrill, so it could simply be that Melishi was the proper bait for BAM specifically.
“I’m missing something, like White on Black.”
Two thoughts here –
It could mean that she’s missing something that should be obvious. Like that thought on the tip of your tongue that won’t form itself.
As an Awakener – white & black are both very powerful colors. They might interfere with each other with the color splitting – thus making it harder to see the black on the white, which to a non-Awakener would be easy to see. The white splits into a rainbow effect for anyone that hasn’t read Warbreaker.
Shallan & Veil – This chapter broke my heart when I first read it. I also had the biggest head slap moment of “Well duh! There has to be gangs in the slums!”
It was also a – “SEE! Veil is not better than you Shallan! Stop giving her so much credit!”
Alice & Lyn: I’m sort of surprised you didn’t do this and Shallan’s talk with Hoid as one post. But there’s not enough of Kaladin’s chapter to really make a full post, and too much in Hoid’s chapter to add it to this week.
@2: Have you not hear of Sumptuary laws? Governments have been trying to control how people dress for ages. It was just harder to enforce than the forbiddance of carrying swords or knives over a certain size.
Including during the time and place of many of those fencing manuals.
Yes, I’m firmly in the camp of her cloak is Awakened. That’s one reason she wears it all the time.
@8, Ben: Oh yes. I saw that episode a few years ago. It really does highlight a problem. Like when Elhokar wanted to give money to a beggar woman, but was stopped. The mob could have overwhelmed them. I’ll be honest, it is one reason why I won’t give to panhandlers, but will give to shelters and charities.
nightheron @19 – I thought about Re-Shephir being trapped, but we don’t know how she was trapped – and as you say, she did escape. The only ones we know were trapped in a perfect gemstone – the perfect trap – are Ba-Ado-Mishram (by Melishi) and Nergaoul (by Dalinar). I’m not convinced that Re-Shephir’s imprisonment was on the same order.
@@@@@15. Aeshdan, I keep mixing that up. I guess I get confused because of how Vivenna’s people tried to protect themselves with colorlessness.
So, white on black is the other way around, disguising something as inert that can be used to attack.
So many good things for Kaladin this week. Going with the plan (in general) instead of exposing himself by defending all the things. Fighting Fused and finding gemhearts to kill them. Having great one-liners. And then taking over with his Shardblade, whether that’s good or not. He is getting close to his 4th ideal here, before crashing down in a few more chapters.
The flip side is that Shallan is heading downward really fast. Poor girl, she doesn’t even know what Veil should have known (since they’re the same storming sheltered person!). I feel so bad for Grund and the others who have to bear the brunt of her ignorance. Her little Lightweaving changes were great. Kind of reminded me of Teia from Lightbringer series changing her disguises, but in even easier and more drastic ways. And I was also happy that she went back to Shallan when Veil got hurt. Not sure if it’s true progress yet, or just the shock. Poor kid is trying so hard, but she just hasn’t got it-whatever ‘it’ happens to be
Why should Veil escaping her memories by becoming Shallan be a good thing? It is the same “forgetting” that Shallan did as a child. She has to learn to face the memories of what she does, no matter which persona she happens to be using at the time. Changing to a different identity to escape her problems is endangering her bond because she isn’t really accepting her truths when she keeps escaping from them by becoming someone else who doesn’t have those problems.
@24 well gling back to shallan here proves what we have been saying all along: that shallan isnthe true person, that veil was always a elaborate escapez by going back to shallan, means that it was HER mistake not “ veils”
@17: I’m waiting for the “Men in Tights” Festival myself. ;*)
This chapter shows perfectly how the Veil image fails for Shallan. Would that be a “Veilure”?
Anyway, watching Shallan go through this is beyond painful. I really was surprized that she ends up going back to Veil and still considering “her” as a valid safety net. And Shallan is becoming an amazing light weaver. How hard would it be not to make yourself into what you considered a “perfect” you.
I think Melishi was there to break the bond the unmade has to the Parsh that provides them with voidlight, probably by damaging some COnnection portion of their spiritual web. It’s probably also what messed up the Sibling. The second Ideal for Bondsmiths is to unite instead of divide. Melishi… would have done the total OPPOSITE of that, leading to damage to the sibling the same way Kaladin going back on his oaths damaged Syl.
Identity definitely comes across as one of the main themes within the series as it slowly morphs into the core of each character arcs. Here, Shallan fails by trying to be someone she is not, by pretending having strengths and knowledge she never had. Had she try to solve the puzzle using the skills she does possess, using the knowledge she does have, instead of playing at being what she thinks a street savvy girl would behave/think like, she might have been more successful. Veil is nothing more than the romantic depiction of a street ruffian a sheltered immature young girl idealizes. She is oblivious to the fact, was Veil really to exist, she’d be damaged in other ways. She is too naive to realize people don’t just gallop around in the streets tossing gifts away as if they were Santa Claus while there is a unicorn jumping over a rainbow in the sky. She *needed* this reality check: just because she had a tragic childhood doesn’t mean carebears are shooting hearts and sunshine within everyone else’s life.
The grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence. Had she had someone else’s upbringing, she would *still* have needed to learn to love herself, to accept herself. It’s so easy to pretend other people never had problems worth mentioning.
Doing things differently would have, however, imply dealing with the memories she refuses to acknowledge and, I think, part of Shallan’s arc was to show how fast progression within the oaths is not a good thing. Pattern forced Shallan to say her fourth truth, he forced her to face it: she wasn’t ready. It may have been she would have never been ready, but somehow, more than a few weeks doesn’t seem like too much to ask when comes the time for the Radiants to move up the ladder.
Thus, Shallan has been asked to progress faster than she was capable of, to endorse duties she was ready to fulfil. One can wonder how she’ll fare as the Highlady Kholin within RoW, but one thing is sure, Shallan needs not only to accept the person she is, she has to acknowledge the journey she chose to undertake can only happen if she stays true to her ideals.
On Kaladin and the Side-Carry: I have said it before and I’ll say it again: it wasn’t his fault. He had an idea which would help protect his bridge crew. His task, as a bridge crew leader, isn’t to foresee how the larger scale battle will unfold. His task is to make sure his bridge crew is capable of operating its bridge in an efficient manner, so Kaladin does exactly this. He thinks of an innovative way which would improve his bridge crew efficiency by reducing human loss. He doesn’t recklessly try the approach in a battle: he asks his superior if he can get the authorisation to try his new manoeuvre.
He asked permission. He explained what the manoeuvre was. His task, I repeat, is to make sure his crew is effective. His task isn’t to foresee how his manoeuvre would fit within the army’s overall plan. That’s actually his superior’s task and he fails at it. Kaladin is in no position to see, understand nor comprehend the military tactics of Sadeas’s army.
Hence, Kaladin did *nothing* wrong. He had a good idea. He asked the permission to try it. His superior was too much of an idiot to see it would ruin the larger strategy.
Kaladin is not to blame. He made no mistake. He cannot be asked to have perspective on the larger scale battle when he is carrying a bridge and running for his life.
Brandon has a free download available on his website: Warbreaker-introduction/
That’s why my trivia team chose that as our name.
RE: Cloak as a defensive weapon
Watch Oliver Reed as Athos in the best movie version of The Three Musketeers (1973 version starring Michael York).
This is where I think his 4th Oath is going. Once he really accepts that he can’t save everyone, he’ll get some armor.
@28 Gepeto you’re both right that Kal asked for permission, and wrong for saying he did nothing wrong. He clearly KNEW that asking permission was the only way he could do it, and was thinking of ways that he could trick Gaz to let him do it, he knew it was a risky maneuver that could easily be refused, but he didn’t figure on you know, gaz wanting to get them killed because no one else really figured out the effectiveness of it. Heck, not even his own crew did, it was such a unusual tactic that even Sadeas was like” well shit.”. To Kal himself (going back to his number one issue of not being able to protect everyone) , he did do something wrong: He got other bridgemen killed. the supervisors didn’t care to have effective bridge carries, they wanted living meatshields, and the chaos that followed actually got soliders killed as well, as the entire strategy got out of whack. Gaz took intuitive on that because he was desperate to get Kal killed, and even the light eyed supervisor was confused about the side bridge carry. . the situation is more than “well the supervisosrs should have done better managing to prevent loss.” Kal should have realized there was ulterior motives, especially since he knew gaz was trying to get him killed, syl told him that the light eyes and gaz were talking to each other about him.
@30, Steven Hedge
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to argue. It’s not Kal’s job to save the other bridgemen, who likely were going die anyway. It’s not his responsibility at all. Additionally, it’s possible that Bridge 4 could have died as well anyway. It’s only a “failure” in that real soldiers got killed – Sadeas could not have cared less about the bridgemen. No one, in their right mind, is going to think “well, better that I die so that there is a better chance for the real soldiers to live.” This wasn’t some self-sacrificing grandstand or last line of defense, like later on. And even if Kal had figured it out, what would be the solution? He can’t train others to side-carry or even listen to him. Gaz and the supervisors aren’t going to listen to him. They couldn’t desert. This was his only option if he wanted to find some way to save them on the battlefield.
I have to admit, I always really hated the whole “twist” with Shallan and the food. Then again, I tend to constantly be the type of person who is always paralyzed into inaction because I’m too good at coming up with worst case scenarios for any possible course, and I always worry any of my attempts ot help anything will just fall apart in the end.
At the point of the bridge side carry, Kaladin knew the bridge crews lost massive numbers, but he didn’t know why. He still felt that if he could prove to the higher ups that there was a way to shield the bridge crews, reducing numbers lost, and still get the bridges placed. Then they could potentially start giving them better equipment, or at least preserve his current crew. He couldn’t understand why the higher ups weren’t equipping them better. It was only after the success of the side carry, that Kaladin realized what the true purpose of the bridgemen were. Targets. That is when he realized he ruined the whole attack by changing the tactic that it was built around. But it doesn’t change that he didn’t realize leaving the bridgemen vulnerable was the tactic. It wasn’t just a careless by product of poor military management. It was intentional.
@32: Can I ask why you hated it?
Basically for the reasons explained in my comment – it’s already something I agonize over, so seeing it played out was too painful.
Re. Side Carry:
The “tactic” that it messed with was a reprehensible one. Once Kaladin demonstrated the efficacy of the side carry in live battle, it would have been trivially easy for the command staff to adapt their tactics to incorporate that innovation. The only reason that I can see for not doing so is if Sadeas intends bridge crews to be a death sentence even at the expense of battlefield performance (which I think is a reasonable interpretation of his intent), but that is a political or social goal, not a military one, and in fact it reduces the military utility of the bridge crews.
Re. Shallan and food distribution:
Shallan was only able to spend a modicum of time in the slums. She also would have been quite happy to get information from the people she encountered. Any guilt for injury or death caused by thugs stealing the food she distributed lies entirely on the people who refused to inform her of the situation. Blaming Shallan for any of the fallout of her food distribution plan makes no kind of sense when the people who tried to put the blame on her deliberately kept her ignorant of what was happening.
Would it be accurate to say Shallan is having a rather extreme version of an identity crisis?
@36 Porphyriogenitus
I think (I would need to check), but the reason why Sadeas kept the tactic of using the bridgemen as targets despite the side carry idea is because of his “more important” troops. The parshendi would target the bridgemen as long as they were the more obvious targets. The moment they become better armored/defended, the Parshendi would then target the cavalry/soldiers. If I recall correctly there is a quote where they tried giving the bridgemen armor, and it only resulted in loss of the soldiers. In Sadeas’s mind, he has to offer the bridgemen up to the slaughter to protect the men that to him matter more. Not excusing the practice whatsoever, but as long as protecting the bridgemen put his regular, more “expensive” men at risk, he will keep using his original practice.
@37: It is an identity crisis, but I do not view it as extreme. I think it is amplified by her capacities to become anyone she wishes too, but deep down, it is no different than what many teenagers go through: they hate themselves, for one reason or another. She’s got baggage, but I do not view her issues as “extreme”. If they were extreme, then she’d never be able to take control and to start managing them, yet she does.
My gut feeling is Shallan will not be the worst identity crisis we are going to read in SA… She knows who she is, what values she embraces, she just hates herself, but her identity, she knows what it is. She just refuses to endorse it, now when she can be Veil instead.
Edit: Having had more thoughts tonight, I would argue what Shallan is going through is more akin to a self-acceptance crisis. I find Shallan struggles more with accepting the girl who murdered her parents deserves to be loved than about who she really is. She knows who she is and that’s the crux of her issues: she hates herself.
@Lisamarie: one of the messages of Oathbringer is certainly that error can be forgiven, if one learns from it. Hoid spends most of a chapter teaching Shallan that, not too much further on in the reread. Accepting one’s own failures without accepting future failures, in fact, might be the central theme of the Stormlight Archive. Not just Shallan, but Kaladin’s needing to accept that he can’t protect everyone (but should still be trying!), Dalinar accepting his past moral failure and becoming a better person, Szeth’s whole career as a slave assassin because he trusted the Stone Shamans and was wrong, perhaps even a presaging of Shalash needing to accept her failure in letting Taln be tortured for millennia on Braise.
Contrast with Moash absolutely refusing to admit he made a mistake of any kind, ever. Or Amaram, literally dying because he refuses to forgive his own past error–it’s right in the dialogue. Or Sadeas not even believing in the idea of moral failure, at least by the time of Way of Kings. (I think Torol Sadeas would have had no problem admitting to tactical errors, but admitting moral failure literally never enters his mind during his viewpoints.)
This is what makes Nale seem redeemable to me–of all the Heralds, he is the one who (so far) has been willing to admit that he could be wrong. (Maybe Kalak, too, but we only meet him briefly.) OTOH there is a foreshadowing that Szeth will have to kill him.
Hmm … now Hoid explaining this out loud seems too on-the-nose all of a sudden.
@40: Sadeas doesn’t believe he failed morally. You cannot need to accept failure if you aren’t seeing it as a failure. Besides, who gets to decide what is a failure and what isn’t? Who gets to decide what is moral and what isn’t? Sadeas was convinced his actions were for the greater good of Alethkar, he was convinced he needed to remove Dalinar as Dalinar was endangering Alethkar. He didn’t think how he was going to take care of it mattered so much as the reasons why he was doing it.
Like Gavilar.
Gavilar too thought the end game of having a united Alethkar was a worthy enough goal it justified slaughtering innocent people to achieve it. And he was on his way to becoming a Radiant. Gavilar was a burgeoning Radiant despite wanting to sacrifice half the population in Alethkar to create a threat to cement his reign.
What’s the difference with Sadeas? How was Gavilar a more “moral” person than Sadeas? Which past mistakes Gavilar forgave himself for? Did he ever regret how he conquered Alethkar like Dalinar now does? Nope. He thought he was right to act the way he did, just like Sadeas.
So why is Sadeas a worst person than Gavilar who has been chosen to become a Radiant? By my own morality, he is a terrible human being, but within Alethkar’s mind frame, he did nothing wrong. He made no mistake he never acknowledged and what we think should have been moral mistakes, he clearly has a different take. Adolin thought to remove Sadeas was needed because he was opposing Dalinar, but from Sadeas’s point of view, Dalinar needed to be removed because he was threatening Alethkar.
My new take is, to be a Radiant, you need not be a moral person nor even a good one, but you need to know who you are, you need to stay true to yourself, you need to choose a path and stick to it. It doesn’t matter if this path is ultimately a bad one as to whether or not a path is good or not really depends on where you stand.
Gavilar and his followers believed he was right. And he was a Radiant. Shallan believes she was wrong to kill her parents, but she needs to accept she was right. Kaladin believes he is right to feel guilty if people he likes die, but he needs to accept he is wrong to feel this way. Dalinar believes he spent a lifetime being wrong, now he is trying to be right. Szeth realizes he was wrong to follow his oathstone, now he wants to be right.
What is right and what is wrong changes depending on which character you read. I hate Sadeas, but he morally never considered he was wrong, not by his own morality. So who gets to decide what is moral and what is not? Adolin thought it was moral to kill Sadeas, Dalinar thinks not.
Who decides?
Sadeas had a propaganda machine that promoted his actions as ones he felt were the best way for Alethkar to move forward. In his private moments he reveals his true motive. He was a Thrill-addicted old man needing his next fix, a new conquest when the Parshendi had gotten to be boring. He wanted 2 things at the end of life, to rule Alethkar and to fight all comers for the title. He was actually relishing the prospect of a decade long civil war with Adolin after ruining Dalinar and killing Elkohar.
Say what you will about Gav, but he actually was trying to do the right thing. His playbook was crap however, or he interpreted through the lens of a conqueror. That doesn’t mean he was nice or morally upright. And better than Sadeas isn’t a high bar to clear. But he was better.
Count me as one who feels this is a Shallan gut punch chapter. This is one of her several lowpoint moments in OB, where she gets forcibly and painfully reminded that there’s no real hiding from herself at her Truth level, that faking-it-till-you-make-it takes you only so far, that life is sometimes brutal in the ways it makes you pay for mistakes. Kaladin otoh shines here. He’s learning lessons from past experiences and is more comfortable with his power. Of course we’ll see later that he hasn’t come as far as we’d like or he wants.
I know we’ll encounter this later but something occurs to me. Shallan talks to two Unmade in this book fairly easily. Seeing her fractured mental state play out through these books, does anyone think that she’s an example of what the Unmade looked like before Odium changed them? Does anyone think they see in Shallan a kindred spirit?
@Gepeto, I, for one, have never defended Gavilar as morally upright. I think seeing him in Dalinar’s flashbacks has given him a serious gilding, just as first meeting Dalinar after his mind was mutilated by Cultivation made the Blackthorn seem much more of a good guy. Wait for the reveal on Gavilar in Book Five or so. (I have no actual foreknowledge, that’s just a guess.)
@44: I do not defend Gavilar either and I agree with you here. I, however, think it is right to point out Gavilar was a burgeoning Radiant. Hence, why would a man like Sadeas not have a shot at it? He believes his actions are righteous, in his own twisted mind. Amaram knew he did wrong, he refused to accept it, but there can be no acceptance of past mistakes if you do not see them as mistakes.
Sadeas never believed he was making a mistake. So if a man such as Gavilar could become a Radiant, what makes Sadeas unworthy? He is owning up to his actions. He isn’t trying to blame anyone else for them. He just doesn’t agree they were *bad*.
The very first Radiant oath is “journey before destination”. Sadeas is very much a ‘destination’ kind of guy – using bridgemen as human targets, deliberately betraying Dalinar in order to gain power.
You can have a dark past and still be a Radiant, but you can’t be a consequentialist and still be a Radiant.
@46: So was Gavilar… Gavilar thought the end game, a united Alethkar, was worth slaughtering all who stood in his way. He killed innocents, invaded towns who knew not why they were attacked, managed to get rid of Highprinces who wouldn’t support him, all of this in the name of his greater ideal. Once he succeeded, he tried to bring about a Desolation which would have killed thousands of innocents just for the hope a common threat would further unite Alethkar. And for the personal desire to meet the Heralds and the pride to count himself as a near God.
His goal of uniting Alethkar was enough to justify the worst of actions.
Under those lenses, Sadeas never did worst. His goal was a strong Alethkar and, after Gavilar dies, he believes he is the right man for the task, so he sets about to remove Dalinar and Elhokar who are standing in his way. Sure, part of it is personal ambition, but the same is true about Gavilar who wanted to be King.
The problem is, you can be a consequentialist and still be a Radiant.
Here is a WoB which confirms it:
AndrewHB (paraphrased)
Is Niccolò Machiavelli’s political theory–the ends justify the means–incompatible with the Knights Radiant’s First Oath?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
No. Although many of the Orders of Knights Radiant would find Machiavelli’s theory, that the ends justify the means, incompatible with additional oaths and/or values of that Order, there are some Orders who could accept a Machiavellian. (Brandon said that the Skybreakers are where a Machiavellian could find a home.)
Gavilar betrayed his whole family to be Highprince, it is implied he murdered his way to the title. He may not have used bridgemen, but he sure caused a lot of death which is equivalent.
Sadeas is not better, but no worst, so if Gavilar was a Radiant, then Sadeas could have eventually gotten a shot at it. Reality is the Radiants aren’t always the nice guys. Sometimes, they aren’t (Gavilar).
The Ideals are all about progression. We’ve already spoken about how I don’t believe that Radiance is a sort of reward but I accept that others disagree. However I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that one can draw a spren and not progress, can draw a spren and then lose it. It’s about changing and growing with the bond. Sadeas never acted in a way as to attract any spren at all. Gav changed significantly in order to gain the attentions of SF before he died, not enough to actually have the words accepted but enough to become a candidate. Flawed playbook or whatever but still a candidate. And with a new Desolation in the wind, standards probably aren’t what they were leading up to the Recreance.
But what I mean about progression is this. What you are when you start bonding isn’t what you’ll be when you finish. Gav might have this crazy plan to start but if he had continued in his flawed thinking he probably never gets past the universal Ideal. Dalinar at Oath 1 and 2 is vastly different than what came before. Dalinar at Oath 3 is not the same man as the one who started the road to Radiance. He may have the same name but he speaks on the fact that he’s been 4 people throughout his life. Kaladin, the closest we get to a perfect Radiant candidate, spoke of this as well. Becoming Radiant changes you, hopefully for the better. And if you cannot change then you stall out. Screw up too badly and you lose what you gained. If you subscribe to the idea that one must be worthy, fine. But being worthy isn’t a static condition. One has to work at it.
Spren don’t think like humans. If Gavilar swore to conquer the world and sees causing a new Desolation as the only way to keep that oath the Stormfather will be happy with him keeping his oath. Kaladin wanting to kill Elhokar is only a problem because he swore to protect him, he can kill as many Parshendi as he wants as long as he doesn’t swear to protect them.
Late to the party, but I have to get this off my chest:
How on Roshar didn’t Vathah and Ishnah warn Shallan about the outcome of her actions?! Unlike Veil _they_ had relevant experience. In fact, Ishnah used to be a gangster herself! IIRC it is also obliquely hinted that Skar was familiar with Kholinar too – as a commoner, so he should have probably foreseen the results as well. Even if they all somehow thought that Shallan knew what she was doing, you’d think that their expectations of the food distribution resulting in a debacle would have slipped out in conversation.
Let me mention again that this incident only cements my conviction that Veil persona is not just parts of Shallan not fitting the “lady” image compartimentalized into a different role, as many have claimed. Big parts of Veil are completely made up, while intrinsic parts of Shallan’s personality are chopped away when she inhabits the role. The very attraction of Veil is that she doesn’t share Shallan’s background and her Truths. Which makes it incredibly dangerous for Shallan to indulge in the pretense.
Does Kaladin’s, and previously Moash’s win over a Fused suggest that properly trained normal people need not be completely helpless against them? Personally, I’d still bank on magi-tech innovations.
I also very much wish to see more of Vivenna and learn how she became a capable military leader. Also, her coming forward to assume responsibility and attempt to protect completely foreign people in hopeless straits might mean… something? I don’t really remember – is she described as very tall in Warbreaker? Because, unlike almost every other confirmed worldhopper, her short stature isn’t mentioned – and we know that Rosharans in general and Alethi in particular are dramatically taller than Cosmere average. Or is she able to modify her height, like she must have done her eyes and other details of her appearance?
Speaking of Bo-Ado-Mishram – let’s not forget that by the time the Listener ancestors rebelled and escaped, the parsh became somehow incapable of assuming forms on their own – except for the Mate form and, possibly the Dullform – though it may have been discovered by the Last Legion shortly before they deserted. All the other forms came from BAM and she forced them on the parsh as she wished. Which is why the Listeners had to spend centuries painfully rediscovering how to naturally transform in other non-Odium forms.
I am a bit at loss as to the function of the voidlight that BAM provided, though. We have seen with Eshonai, that the voidlight isn’t necessary to assume a Voidform, nor did the Stormform seem to need it to create lightnings, etc. Venli’s Envoyform also didn’t use it.
Gepeto @47:
Not quite. Gavilar knew from Honor’s visions that the Final Desolation was coming – we have it from Taravangian, so that’s a fact. So, his goal of causing a False Desolation was not just about the unification of Alethkar, but about preparing humanity for the end of the world(tm) and making sure that it could survive it.
Isn’t there a Word of B that Galivar and Dalinar interpreted the visions differently? Or at least reacted to it diffently?
@51 – BenW – I think this is what you are looking for:
“Questioner
The visions Dalinar gets in WoK always struck me as odd – you don’t just look at the past, you are able to act within this experience. Now we know that Gavilar was also on the way to being a Bondsmith – was he acting in a different way? Were the visions only basically the same but different in the end depending on the personal reactions? Is this something like a test?
Brandon Sanderson
He did see the same visions. They were the same thing. But… I will say that his reaction to them were very different from Dalinar’s reactions to them. Anyway it was difficult for the Stormfather without a bond to determine/to tell the difference between very easily. When Spren are bonded, they gain a lot more ability to understand the world around then, so you’ll find out soon more stuff about this in the third book.”
Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)
@40 Carl
I agree I could see Nale redeeming himself. I think we get a hint of that in the Edgedancer novelette.
@42 Evilmonkey
To add, Gavilar did not start getting the visions from the stormfather till after he was almost done uniting Alethkar. Also Dalinar commented on how the whole reason Gavilar started their campaign was to try to expunge all the corruption and pointless in fighting going on in the country. By bringing the country together and making a cohesive rule of law. It was near the end of the unification that Gavilar started to “act differently” and spoke so much of the book “Way of Kings”. I keep coming back to a WoB that says a spren choosing is very personal to each spren. All the spren from the same order are not going to agree on what person they would bond. Same stands for different orders. Hell there could be people perfect for radiancy, but maybe the spren that would bond them hasn’t been born/created yet.
@46 KatherineMW
It has to do with how one views the oaths. Here is a WoB regarding elsecallers for instance:
AndrewHB
I wondered if I could follow up to that Machiavelli question. Would Elsecallers be a– one of those other, uh– one of those…
Brandon Sanderson
So, yeah. Elsecallers are fairly compatible. Like, Elsecallers feel like the journey is… the journey is the entire species, right? And that the journey is the destination. *inaudible*
@48 Evilmonkey
Well said and I whole heartily agree
@49 birgit
Interesting points. It does seem to be how the radiant interprets their oaths.
@48: Gavilar too changed, for the worst and yet, he was a Radiant. I agree with @49, sprens do not think like humans, so long as Gavilar was convinced he was upholding his ideals, the Stormfather wouldn’t have any problems with it. So who’s to say there are no ideals Sadeas could have uphold despite being a cremhole?
@50: Were Ishnah and Vahtah aware of Shallan’s entire plan? Granted if they were, I agree they should have warned her, but maybe they were afraid to contradict her? After all, they seem to have bought into Veil knowing what she is doing…
I agree with you about the nature of Veil. I agree she isn’t an “inconvenient part of Shallan” compartmentalized, but a made-up persona she created out of both need and a desire to become someone else. Veil isn’t Shallan.
On Gavilar: He wanted to unite humanity by having half of humanity die in a false Desolation just so his unity could look like it is stronger. His interpretation of the visions differ much from Dalinar’s but I can’t say he was a “good guy”. I don’t find his ploy to unite Alethkar was morally better than Sadeas thinking he needed to take control for the sake of Alethkar.
@54 Gepeto
Gavilar was never Radiant. He just had the visions. He never spoke the first oath.
I also think that one of the implications form Nale and a lot of Skybrekers joining up with Odium as well as Sja-anat wanting to defect, etc is that things are more complicated then radiant=good guy etc.
@55: Brandon confirmed Gavilar was on his way towards becoming a Radiant. Had he spoken the oaths or not is, up to my personal knowledge, unknown.
I’m thinking of Zelazny’s Lord of Light where Yama describes being a god as being so aligned with one, defining characteristic that all the other characteristics in that person fall in line with it, like a bunch of perfectly tuned chords when a tuning fork makes them vibrate. People, looking at such people even without knowing they’re supposed to be a god, will say they are fire, destruction, love, or whatever it is they are.
Being a radiant seems to be like that. Radiants may or may not be good but they are aligned with characteristics in a pure enough way that spren can bond with them. Being able to do this and progressing in the bond may help make the person good, but it doesn’t guarantee it nor does it mean the person is good at the beginning of the bond.
It’s also worth noting that all spren capable of creating a radiant (or so I understand) come under one of the gods/shards of this world. All of the shards are aspects of a whole and each has flaws or blind spots as well as virtues.
So, Gavilar could be a bad man yet have the capacity to become a radiant. He might have been becoming a better person as this capacity developed and he might have continued becoming a better person once the bond was established–or he could have remained a really bad person.
However, I truly hope Sadeas wasn’t in the running.
@55 Ulim
You are right. As per Brandon, “being well on the path to” does not mean you are a radiant or bonded. I have two WoB below
Goodreads WoK Fantasy Book Club Q&A (Dec. 1, 2010)
Louise
Which one will you focused more in the future, the Heralds or Radiants? Will you dig deeper into each of Heralds story and some of Radiants?
Brandon Sanderson
I feel that I should probably RAFO this one. We are going to delve into the Radiants as orders a lot. But the Radiants as individuals? Depends on what you mean. Kaladin is well on the path toward becoming one of them, though he’s not one yet, as Teft is quick to point out. So if you mean focusing on actual Knights Radiant, we’ll have to see if anyone actually manages to become one.The Heralds are integral to the entire story, which is why the Prelude focuses on them. Since someone showed up at the end of the book claiming to be one of them, I think you can obviously expect some attention to be drawn there. Who each of the Heralds are and what their natures were is important.
Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)
Ted Herman (paraphrased)
Has Dalinar been on the Bondsmith path for a long time? How about Gavilar?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes to both.
Brandon said that Gavilar had been on the Bondsmith path for longer than Dalinar has been.
Also as per WoB (which I am in the process of pulling up), just because you are on the path to be, does not mean you will become or are guaranteed to be. Your journey can stop for a whole host of reasons at any point, be it attracting a spren in the beginning and nothing happening, or bonding to first oath, but never moving beyond it, or going all the way to the 4th oath, and then voluntarily ending the bond on both human and spren part without spren death. Nothing about radiancy is a sure thing.
here it is:
Questioner
When does a person become a Surgebinder? Cause Kaladin talks about when he was a child, talked about it being a familiar feeling, and Shallan obviously was younger. Or is it when they speak the Words?
Brandon Sanderson
The bond starts forming before the Words are spoken, but if the words are never spoken that bond will eventually evaporate and get broken. But the bond will start forming before. Just like an emotion attracts a spren, acting in the way that the spren you would eventually bond will start drawing them toward you and that will start to create that bond.
Re: Gavilar being a Radiant:
There are at least 3 main indicators to prove Gavilar wasn’t a Radiant at his death (or Surgebinder, for that matter), each displayed either in the prologue of Way of Kings or in Words of Radiance.
1. Gavilar was able to wield a Shardblade, and showed no visible sign of negative effects while doing so. If he was bonded to a spren, he would have heard the screaming from the dead Blade and likely would have shown some reaction to that.
2. Gavilar didn’t use Stormlight to heal his injuries after falling off the balcony. There were infused gemstones in close proximity to Gavilar (in his damaged Shardplate) that he could have used to heal himself after his fall. Instead, Szeth uses them to heal himself. When Radiants are injured, it’s almost second nature for them to seek Stormlight for healing.
3. Gavilar wasn’t bonded to the Stormfather. Gavilar may have been receiving the images from the Stormfather, but he hadn’t bonded him. We have seen in Words of Radiance that the Stormfather is strongly opposed to bonding with someone who owns a Shard blade. And I’m pretty sure that the Stormfather admits that Dalinar is the first to bond him in ages. (And if you want to suggest that maybe somehow Gavilar was instead bonded to another spren, there is still the problem of my points 1 and 2.)
Scath@59 – Thanks for the WoBs. If you pair those with the in-book evidence, it’s a safe assumption that Gavilar was not a Radiant.
re: Gavilar
It is pretty obvious that the Stormfather was trying to influence Gavilar to do something with the visions, but Gavilar just couldn’t understand things the way Dalinar does after he’s broken and at his lowest point. Gavilar never has a moment of doubt, never falters or fails spectacularly, and so he never makes any of the necessary changes in himself to allow a bond to start forming.
Come to think of it, it takes a lot more than the Rift for Dalinar to finally make the bond possible. It takes Kaladin saving Dalinar’s life at the tower and him subsequently giving up Oathbringer that makes bonding the Stormfather possible.
@60: Actually, I find the WoB confirms Gavilar was on his way towards Radiancy and doesn’t preclude him from having said oaths prior to his death. After all, we do know Tien was a Lightweaver having said oaths at the time of his death, yet his capacity to heal himself was insufficient to save him. On the reverse, we also know Dalinar has been unconsciously healing himself for years due to his burgeoning bond with the Stormfather. We also saw Elhokar dying as he spoke the first ideal despite us knowing pre-first oath Radiants do have an unconscious ability to heal themselves, but in Elhokar’s, it wasn’t enough.
As such, based on this WoB (which I had read before), I must conclude the opposite: Gavilar was Radiant of unknown level, but his abilities weren’t sufficient to save him, much like Tien and later Elhokar. Tien too, I must point out, must have had access to stormlight… Soldiers are paid, likely he had spheres on him, if not him, then the soldiers surrounding him. He had said truths, he was ahead of the first ideal and yet, he died.
Therefore, if a man such as Gavilar, a man willing to sacrifice large numbers of people to maintain ideals he believes in is allowed to be a Radiant, no one is truly excluded, so long as they own to their actions.
Sadeas was a morally despicable man (but so was Gavilar, IMHO) but everything he did, he owned it and had a reason for it. He never tried to blame anyone else for his actions, he’s just a highly immoral person, like Gavilar.
@58: I *hope* Sadeas wasn’t in the running, but for the shake of the argumentation, I must ask. why? What evidence do we have Sadeas would have never been made a Radiant? I think you are right in saying a Radiant needs, first and before all, to be aligned with a given spren’s ideals… Hence, I asked myself which ideals would Sadeas have aligned himself with?
OK. I’ll admit I am stirring the kettle for the fun of it here, but it occurred to me, yesterday, maybe I had a point… even if I don’t want to have one, but let’s assume I do.
So which ideals for Sadeas? How about “wise and careful”? Wouldn’t an order interested in picking individuals putting reason ahead of passion be interested in cold, calculated Sadeas who always has a plan within a plan? Who’s very careful about his end game? Who has about as much passion as a rock?
Would an Inkspren care if Sadeas uses bridgemen to gain a strategic advantages in a calculated battle plan? Would it care about the human cost and the seer horror of it if Sadeas had a perfectly well-thought of logical reason to send them to their death? Which he does, inside his own mind frame: bridgemen make his army faster, they divert the enemy’s arrows thus allowing his soldiers to reach the target with minimal losses. Quite immoral. But not without reason.
What’s the difference in between Jasnah killing fleeing thugs and Sadeas sending bridgemen to their death? The fact the thugs were, well, thugs? Aren’t bridgemen, for the most parts, convicted criminals? Thiefs? Perhaps not according to our laws, but within Alethi laws, slaving is the punishment for darkeyes being found guilty of a “crime”. So what’s the difference in between Jasnah single-handily slaughtering thugs, on purpose, and Sadeas using slaves as targets to secure an advantage?
Hence, what really makes Sadeas unsuitable besides the fact we, the readers, literally hate him, myself included?
@62 – Don’t forget that Gavilar was wearing Shardplate when he died. That would interfere with using Stormlight. So it’s very likely that he did not swear any oaths or that he knew about his possible Radiance.
Re: Gavilar, Dalinar, Sadeas, and who gets to bond the Stormfather
I think a major reason the Stormfather was interested in Gavilar and Dalinar is that they both were in positions of power. It’s like when Cultivation decided to give Dalinar her special pruning, she says specifically that she is doing it because he has power. Sadeas also had power, so he clears that bar. However, I do think Sadeas was too dishonorable and too odious to attract the Stormfather. Dalinar didn’t get visions until years after Gavilar’s death and his pruning. I think his attempts to understand The Way of Kings, and wanting t follow the codes are what attracted the Stormfather, along with his position of power. I think Sadeas would see any spren he got ahold of as a tool to serve his need. Honestly I can’t even see him willingly serving Odium, because he isn’t stupid enough to think Odium will place what Sadeas wants first. I think the only spren Sadeas could attract would be one desiring to be a lackey to his will.
Gepeto @54:
I completely disagree with the idea that half of all the population would have died in a False Desolation orchestrated by Gavilar at the time and in the circumstances of his choosing. Nor was it just about Alethkar for him in the end, but about the whole world hurtling towards the Final Desolation, as we know from Taravangian. It was about reminding everybody about what a Desolation is and having time to unify and prepare for the arrival of the Fused. Consider how the world reacted to Jasnah’s and Dalinar’s attempts to alert them – Gavilar was seeking to short-circuit all that by offering inconvertible proof. He also likely thought that it would jump-start Radiance again.
Gavilar must have spoken the words of the First Oath many times, given his obsession with the Way of Kings, but he couldn’t get the Stormfather to accept them, for various reasons. Dalinar must have said them often enough too, before Urithiru. It is true that Gavilar had a wealth of charged spheres in his shardplate and should have been able to heal at least somewhat if he could draw in stormlight. Since the spheres are inside, the plate wouldn’t have been a hindrance. OTOH, he was impaled, so maybe not? Shallan needed the crossbow bolt removed from her brain before she could heal, so it could be similar.
Since it has been heavily hinted that Tien’s death was a result of a Skybreaker plot, I imagine that they made sure that he had no charged spheres on him.
I don’t unrderstand the comparison with Sadeas, who has always been supremely selfish and without a shred of honor or remorse, when the obvious parallel to Gavilar in his last years is Taravangian – with the cave-out that Taravangian genuinely was a good man that his image projected before he learned about the Final Desolation.
Nor do I see Jasnah’s execution of rapists and murders caught in the act with Sadeas’s use of bridgemen. Not only are most of them not guilty of such crimes, but she was seeking to protect innocents, while he only wanted to increase his wealth and indulge in the Thrill.
@60 KiManiak
No problem. Got some more coming up in my replies to others below. Like you said, Gavilar wielded a shardblade against Szeth no problemo before he was killed. Like you said anytime a radiant holds a shardblade, they hear screaming.
Questioner
Why does the Shardbearer– when they are dueling with Adolin and Renarin– Why does the Shardbearer freak out when Kaladin grabs the sword? The <Shardbearer> like… He screams, and he’s like, “I didn’t kill you”, and ran away.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
Why does he do that?
Brandon Sanderson
Because when Kaladin was there, and they were touching it, they actually heard the spren that was inside of it. Right? Because when an–
Questioner
So it wasn’t Syl that he heard, it was the sword.
Brandon Sanderson
It was the sword’s spren… that Kaladin was touching it. When the Knight Radiant touches it– You can see when other Knights Radiant pick up swords, they can hear the screaming.
@61 Ulim
That is a good point. Dalinar had not sworn any oaths for quite some time.
@63 Austin
Good point!
@65 Isilel
Tien swore an oath or two, but never got the bond working
LadyLameness
You’ve said that Tien was beginning to bond a Cryptic before he died – did he use Surgebinding before he died, even unconsciously? If yes, did we ever see it on screen?
Brandon Sanderson
He was far enough along to start having some of the– let’s just say he was far enough along to have sworn at least one oath.
Draconic Lingerer
So you had had a Word of Brandon that had said that Tien was on his way to becoming a Lightweaver. My question is, did he ever actually become a Lightweaver; did he speak an Oath, and if so, did he bond with a Cryptic?
Brandon Sanderson
That’s an excellent question. If you look closely through the first book, you will see Tien having some slight Lightweaving effects. In the back of my head, he was where Kaladin was during most of the first book, where it wasn’t really official but there was a spren hanging around. He was very close to– by the time he left, already done that. I would say he never actually managed to get that bond working… Otherwise, perhaps, things would have played out differently than they did.
Also Isilel, to add to your point regarding Sadeas and Jasnah, it doesn’t matter whether or not Sadeas could fit Jasnah’s order’s ideals. Inkspren weren’t bonding. Ivory rebelled against his people and bonded Jasnah against their wishes. So there wouldn’t be at that time any other inkspren to potentially bond anyone. Just like there were no other honorspren bonding at the time except Syl. The only ones potentially at the time would be cryptics, truthwatcher spren, and potentially edgedancer spren if the Circle chose him or skybreaker spren if Nale approved of him. Dustbringer spren are a big question mark period. So unless Sadeas is honest and creative, or just and confident, or learned and giving, or loving and healing, or maaaaaybbeeeee brave and obedient, it does not seem he would be bonding any spren
Yeppers, No Screaming Shardblade = No Radiance. Nobody who fought that well against Szeth in Assassination Mode could have a distraction such as that scream in his head. Gavilar was on the path but hadn’t had his words accepted. At this point I wonder why we question it.
I agree that King T is the better comp and a more realistic example of someone morally reprehensible becoming Radiant than Sadeas. Sadeas disqualifies himself in multiple ways and would be more likely to bond an Unmade than a Nahel Spren.
Carl @40 – “@Lisamarie: one of the messages of Oathbringer is certainly that error can be forgiven, if one learns from it” – certainly, this is true for Shallan – and I don’t hold her accountable for this, anyway, at least not in a moral sense. But my point (and the source of my own fear/anxiety around this passage) is that none of this matters for those that are already dead. Their story/journey is ended.
@64: I wasn’t arguing Sadeas could have attracted the Stormfather, but a spren from another order. Say the Elsecallers. Not all orders care about honor, some don’t, at all.
@65: Half the population was just a broad statement. Facts remain Gavilar was trying to artificially create a conflict in order to maintain his unity strong. People would have die in this conflict. How many is not particularly relevant, what I find relevant however was the fact Gavilar didn’t care who dies so long as he could claim he had achieved his unity.
I would argue we do not know how dire Gavilar’s wounds were, so it is possible he die try to heal himself, but died before he could. Radiants still untrained with the bond do not have the same limitless healing capacities as Kaladin as observed with Shallan needing days before she could heal her feet in WoR. What if she had gotten mortally wounded, would have she been able to save herself? Maybe not.
I agree Sadeas is a selfish person, but which evidence do we have a seflish person cannot be a Radiant? The sprens are looking at individuals able to commit to a series of ideals, they aren’t looking for “good moral honorable selfless people”. Gavilar was terribly selfish too, the fact he disguised his war of unification under higher motives doesn’t make it less selfish. Dalinar even comments how, now they have almost won, Gavilar was trying to find higher moral justification for what they did when, initially, it was just about getting more stuff for themselves. I’ll never be Dalinar’s greatest fan, but I’ll give him this: the man is honest so when he speaks, I trust he says things as he understands them.
We could argue turning darkeyes found guilty of crimes also is a way to protect innocents. We could argue Kaladin, a slave branded with a shash brand because he killed people, is dangerous and putting him on bridgecrew is also protecting the “innocents”. Now, we know Kaladin’s penance was unfair and undeserved, but his lighteyed oversees didn’t. All they saw was a very dangerous man, so what’s the difference? Because we know some were innocent among the bridgemen? How can we claim to know the individual story of each of those thugs to deem them guilty without a trial? Who’s to say some of them haven’t been forced into their deeds by having their loved ones threatened? We just do not know, hence if I look at both actions, I see two people who put what they perceive as a rational argument against emotions. It doesn’t matter if neither Jasnah nor Sadeas would have made the same argument, was their argument logic within their own mind frame?
I think the answer is yes. They both agree their decision was the right one and they both acted in a cold manner without any pity, sympathy nor empathy towards those involved.
Of course, my discussion is purely hypothetic, it doesn’t consider which spren was available at which time. I am merely musing on what would bar a man such as Sadeas from being picked, had he survive.
@67: Not everyone reacts the same to screaming Shardblades. Shallan handles Maya, in WoR, without a blink of the eyes nor faltering. Renarin is able to fight using his screaming Shardblades.
Hence, it isn’t implausible Gavilar had gotten used to the screams and was no longer bothered nor surprised by them which is why I am questioning it. I also do not see why Szeth not having noticed Gavilar not having a particular reaction upon summoning his Shardblade is an indication of anything. Remember we only see the scene from Szeth’s point of view, not Gavilar.
I don’t think we have enough data to conclude. Did or did not Dalinar used stormlight years before he said the first oath? He did. Did or did not Gavilar been on the path towards Radiancy for longer than Dalinar? He was, this is confirmed. Who’s to say how advanced he was, but even if he weren’t, he still was *chosen*. He still remains not such a great nor nice nor selfless nor moral individual, he literally has no epiphany on the people he killed on his path to kingship (that we know of) and he was willing to kill some more to secure a stronger unity.
Hence, if Gavilar was a candidate, almost anyone can be one, so long as they accept the cost of their actions and they stay true to their beliefs, no matter what they might be, so long as a spren agrees with them.
How does Sadeas disqualifies himself and not Taravangian? How was Sadeas wanting a strong Alethkar and believing this could only happen under his leadership differs from Taravangian launching a cival war, assassinating the ruling class just to put himself in place?
I’d love to ask Brandon this question, in fact, I think I’ll put it on my list.
@68 Lisamarie
Totally respect you feel that way, though as Carl was saying, the book is more about the journey than the destination. Yes their journey in the physical realm is complete, but that does not negate the journey they experienced to get there. Shallan’s journey is still ongoing, just like many others. Just like many other’s journeys are also at a close.
Crazy theory but does anyone else think Dalinar will eventually have to release Bo-Ada-Misham as a way to make amends fir the past
@71 – yes! I have wondered that myself! I fee all the talk of Bo-Ado-Mishram is leading to…something. Whether or not releasing her is a good thing will remain to be seen, but I have a feeling it will happen.
I don’t think anyone has denied that Gavilar was a potential Radiant. Certainly I have not. It’s clear that he was at best at the beginning of that, pardon the expression, journey, because his potential bond was with the Stormfather and Stormfather makes it clear he has not bonded anyone in a long time.
Again, Brandon makes it clear that anyone can do better, can be redeemed. I realize that bugs you, @Gepeto, but it’s clearly authorial intent (in my opinion).
I know its late and we are going into a next chapter, but we have proof that Sadeas wouldn’t be able to commit to any ideal, that he was too selfish. His thoughts when Dalniar almost tricked him with the duels. He was passionate, angry, seeking a thrill.; where he admitted he just wanted the kingdom, and wanted power. his only ideal is ambition, and I highly doubt any ofo the orders have ambition as a ideal. in fact…only one person or shall I say, Shard kind of does, especially when your ambition is born of Passion.
I think that Chapter 80 shows that part of why Hoid was there was to help Shallan, because if he doesn’t meet her and help her process it, I don’t think she would have recovered. She was already incredibly fragile and had been losing control of her personas. This failure would have completely broken her, if Hoid hadn’t helped her and pointed her in the right direction. She doesn’t get healed, and the personas start to take over again in Thaylenah, but whatever amount of growth she’s made by the end of the book comes from Hoid helping her not give up here.