Hello, fellow Sander-fans, and welcome to the final read-along post for Rhythm of War! This is the final chapter of Part One, and hence the final chapter before the book is released in its entirety next week! That’s right… finally you’ll be able to curl up with that coveted hardcover (or ebook) and read it cover to cover! Finally you’ll be able to talk about it to your friends who have been waiting until release day and not reading these preview chapters! Finally you’ll be able to post spoilers online!
Well… okay, you’ll be able to talk about spoilers carefully, and in the correct places, tagged appropriately. Please remember to uphold your vows as Knights Radiant and be courteous of those who may not yet have had a chance to read.
Are you excited? (I sure hope so… I’d be worried if you weren’t!)
Before we dive in, I wanted to extend my thanks to those of you who have been reading along with us. It’s been a wild ride, and Alice and I have been so happy to have you with us. Next week, keep an eye on Tor.com for review articles. Then, on December 3rd, we’ll be beginning the re-read of Dawnshard. You’ve picked up your copy already, haven’t you? If not, go check it out, it’s amazing! The reread of Rhythm of War will begin with the new year, so if you’ve enjoyed these articles and the ramblings of Alice and I, please come back in 2021 and join us for in-depth analysis and theory-crafting of the book as a whole.
One last thing, because it’s so incredibly cool. If you’ve liked checking out the little maps I’ve been putting together for these posts with my paltry photoshop skills, check this out! Some fans have, with Team Dragonsteel’s blessing, put together this interactive map of Roshar. It’s beautiful and super detailed!
Well… with all of that out of the way, I think it’s time to dig in.
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now—if you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of the Stormlight Archive, best to wait to join us until you’re done. There are no greater-Cosmere discussions in the post this week, so you’re safe on that count.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Navani
WHERE: Urithiru
WHEN: Day 25-ish? (Probably about 4 days after Kaladin’s family arrived?)
Navani discusses several new fabrials with her scholars in Urithiru, and a meeting of the monarchs occurs in which battle plans are set and an envoy is sent to the Honorspren…
Overall Reactions
A: Part One ends with a chapter full of set-up. Oathbringer was an outlier for the series in the way it’s first part ended with such a resounding climax. This is the more normal pattern, and it seems like it should feel calm and relaxed. Instead, I get a feeling of growing tension. We saw one battle with the Fused, and while we know there are ongoing battle fronts between human armies (with Radiants) and singer armies (with Fused), we don’t see them. At the same time, we have inside information that the Fused are planning something big. Reading this quiet chapter, with its fabrials and meetings and plans… it just feels like there’s something really big hanging over my head, you know?
L: Brandon has stated in his annotations over on Reddit that he wanted the beginning of this book to feel like a climax in and of itself, which is pretty fascinating from a storytelling perspective. You know what they say… you have to know the rules in order to break them effectively? Well, Brandon certainly knows the rules of his craft, because part one, as a whole, worked exceptionally well in my opinion.
A: I agree. This final chapter covers fabrial mysteries, in a way that makes me expect to see further advances. It covers Navani’s innovations in using mechanical energy to power fabrials, trying to find alternate energy sources for the mechanisms of the Tower. It covers the unexpectedly unanimous decision to use the Emuli battlefront for their big push against the Fused & singer army. It covers the planning and authorization of the promised envoy to the honorspren.
And all of those things have personal, emotional impact to Our Beloved Heroes. Navani’s work with the engineers is a fairly obvious connection; she desperately wants to get the city functioning as it should, and if she can’t do it through the gemstone column, she’ll look for alternatives. Dalinar gives up his longing to push for Kholinar, and makes himself propose the Emuli mission—and Jasnah insists on going to the war with him. The support from Taravangian is not only unexpected, it’s extremely worrying. The mission to Lasting Integrity has Adolin oddly excited and Shallan … well, committed but oddly non-committal. (At least from Navani’s POV; we have other insight, of course.)
L: There are a lot of questions raised that are pulling us forward into part two (and beyond).
- What’s going to happen to Kaladin? What will he do with his life, now that he’s no longer a soldier?
- What’s with this attack the Singers are mounting on Urithiru?
- Will Shallan and Adolin’s expedition to the Honorspren be successful?
- Is Shallan really stable, with the balance of her Three personalities? Or is she heading down a path to madness?
- Is this new direction for the war that Dalinar is taking going to be the right choice, or a horrible mistake?
- Will Urithiru finally awaken in this book, or is the city truly dead?
- Who is the mysterious person writing to Navani and warning her not to continue with her fabrial experiments?
- What is Taravangian planning?
Humans
“Understood,” Rushu said. “Dali would be perfect for that. Oh, and Sebasinar, and . . .” She slowed, pulling out her notebook, oblivious to how she was standing in the middle of the corridor, forcing people to step around her.
A: Heh. I love Rushu. She’s so totally oblivious sometimes.
L: She is unbelievably adorable.
“This is genius, Brightness. Truly.”
She smiled. They liked to say that, and she appreciated the sentiment. The truth was, she merely knew how to harness the genius of others—as she was hoping to harness the storm.
A: Yes, I know it seems like I keep harping on this theme, but once again we have Navani downplaying her abilities. She has the absolutely brilliant idea of windmills that will harness the kinetic energy of the storms in a whole new way, giving them mechanical energy to supplement Stormlight, and even using the two together in innovative fabrial technology. It is genius—but she shrugs it off as of lesser value that what her “real scholars” are doing. I suppose there may be an element of “but it’s just logic, not genius” to it—the idea makes so much plain sense to her that she simply doesn’t recognize how brilliant it is. Even that, though, is part of the internalized acceptance of Gavilar’s accusation—that she can’t actually do anything worthwhile on her own, and the best she can do is collect brilliant people.
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
L: I guess I can see why she thinks this way—she’s just providing the concepts and not doing the actual work of making them, with all of the trial and error involved. I don’t agree with her, but I can sort of see why she thinks the way she does.
A: Sort of, yes. I had a professor in college who always joked that the pure-science people always came up with these cool breakthroughs in the lab, and then left it to us engineers to figure out how to actually make them practicable. While Navani doesn’t usually do the physical labor, she does come up with the idea and a lot of the practical implementation. At the same time, she has surrounded herself with brilliant people, so that makes it especially easy to feel like an appendage to them.
Gone was the feigned innocence, the pretended stupidity, that Taravangian had maintained for so long. A lesser man might have persisted stubbornly in his lies. To his credit, once the Assassin in White had revealed the truth, Taravangian had dropped the act and immediately slipped into a new role: that of a political genius.
A: This is just so creepy. While we know more than Navani, and we know her worry is well-founded, I love watching her discomfort in his presence. He’s given them plenty of reason to distrust him, and Navani’s mother-hen tendencies are exacerbated by knowing he sent Szeth to kill Dalinar. I mean, it’s a surefire thing with her; no matter what other good you might be doing, if you threaten one of her personal people, she will never trust you. In this case, her paranoia is more deserved than she knows.
L: I also have to wonder how much of his “pretended stupidity” was actually pretending. We do know that he has good days and bad days… are his good days outnumbering his bad ones, lately? Has he been more stable? If so, why?
A: Well, hmm. We know that he really did have some incredibly stupid days, but sometimes he wasn’t even allowed out on those days. I don’t know. Did he sometimes exaggerate the stupid? Maybe? Navani seems to think he’s playing “political genius” all the time, so … that could either be because he never leaves his room when he’s stupid, or because he really has evened out. Interesting question. I’m glad she doesn’t trust him.
“Everything I’ve done was in the name of protecting humankind. Every step I’ve taken, every ploy I’ve devised, every pain I’ve suffered. It was all done to protect our future.
“I could point out that your own husbands—both of them—committed crimes that far outweigh mine. I ordered the murder of a handful of tyrants, but I burned no cities. Yes, the lighteyes of Jah Keved turned on one another once their king was dead, but I did not force them. Those deaths are not my burden.
“All of this is immaterial, however. Because I would have burned villages to prevent what was coming. I would have sent the Vedens into chaos. No matter the cost, I would have paid it. Know this. If humankind survives the new storm, it will be because of the actions I took. I stand by them.”
A: ::shudders:: I guess… you sort of have to admire the courage of his convictions, but … yikes.
L: It’s kind of terrifying to consider the morality of this. What would you do to save the world? To save millions of lives? Would you be willing to sacrifice thousands? Is that the ethically correct choice? It’s a question that has been asked in many fictional stories (Watchmen and Torchwood: Children of Earth are the first two to jump to mind), but I don’t know if there’s a true answer.
A: It’s the kind of thing we want a clean answer for, and we rarely find it. On the other hand, I think humans in general are too prone to false dichotomies. “If you don’t agree with MY solution, it’s because you hate the people I want to help.” Well, no. We might both be trying to help the same people, we just have different ideas about the solution. In Taravangian’s place, he claims to be the savior of humankind… but we know that he’s sacrificing everyone else on the planet to save his own family & city. And he thinks it’s a valid choice.
Dunno. I like Dalinar’s solution better: we fight until there’s no one left, if that’s what it takes—but there’s at least a chance that we’ll win before that.
“Her Majesty,” Fen said, “is storming baffled. When’s the last time the lot of us all agreed on something?”
“We all vote favor for lunching break,” Yanagawn said, smiling and deviating from his script. “Usually.”
A: I have to throw this in, because I’m loving this glimpse of the coalition monarchs, and how far they’ve come as a team. Gawx is growing into Yanagawn—not only in actually carrying his role, but also daring to speak as a person instead of a puppet emperor. And Fen? I’ve always loved Fen, but her frankness in situations like this will always delight me.
“Stormblessed, I suppose we can count on Windrunner patrols to help warn us of . . .”
Fen trailed off…
L: This breaks my heart, that Kaladin isn’t there anymore.
A: Right? Conspicuous by his absence. That hurt. The insistence of Sigzil’s spren that the honorspren don’t like/trust Kaladin effectively rules out any chance of his participation in the mission, too.
It’s because he’s a man, she thought. And a soldier, not an ardent. He didn’t act like the other Windrunners, so she’d dismissed him. Not a good look, Navani, she thought at herself. For one who claims to be a patron of the thoughtful.
L: This is one of the things that I love most about Navani… she’s flawed, as are we all, but she recognizes those flaws and tries her hardest to overcome them.
A: You beat me to this by a skinny minute. Navani definitely has her prejudices and expectations, but when someone steps out of their expected role, she does a double-take and re-evaluates her own notions. It’s quite refreshing, and more so because she has such strong opinions.
“If Taravangian killed a child, he’d do it not for vengeance. Not for fury. Not for wealth or renown. But because he sincerely thought the child’s death was necessary.”
L: Here we are back at the moral quandary, again.
A: Ugh. Killing a child is just wrong, no matter what your rationalization. There’s always another option.
L: Well, I mean, the classic moral question here is “if you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a child, would you?” Life is rarely so easy, and ethics are sometimes even less so.
A: The thing is, if you could go back in time to Hitler-as-a-child, it wouldn’t be necessary to kill him. All you’d have to do is deflect his worldview a little, and he’d follow a different path. There’s always an alternative.
Bruised & Broken
Dalinar was always on the lookout for a way to keep his wounded officers involved in the important work of the war effort.
L: I’m so happy to see this. I’m not surprised—Dalinar always has been a wonderful person, trying to help those under his command. But I’m happy to see it regardless, especially considering Kaladin’s PTSD struggles.
A: There’s a purely practical aspect to it, too: don’t waste the experience and earned wisdom of your people, even if they can’t carry a sword anymore. It’s rewarding to see a leader who can mesh the two, and it reminds me to be more understanding of Dalinar’s efforts to find the right place for Kaladin to fit. Battle shock isn’t the same thing as losing an arm; the same solution isn’t going to work for those two injuries. Kudos to Dalinar for trying—both to keep Kaladin’s experience available, and to give him a role suitable to him.
Weighty Words / The Knights Radiant
“My advice is to send a small but important contingent of other Radiants. Specifically, Radiants who have bonded spren whose relatives approve of what we’re doing. They can make arguments on our behalf.”
A: Since you just read it, we probably don’t need to quote extended bits here. Suffice it to say, they settle on the main players in the envoy. All the Windrunners are ruled out because the honorspren are mad at them. Jasnah rules herself out because the other inkspren don’t approve of her bond with Ivory (though it’s fascinating that her reason implies that she, queen of Alethkar, would have considered going if it would have benefited their chances). Renarin is ruled out because of his Sja-anat-touched spren. Lift is ruled out (LOL) ostensibly because she’s one of the best healers, and also because “we should send someone with practice as a diplomat.” (I mean to say… can you imagine? Lyn, we need to remember to talk about this when the appropriate chapters come up… Lift in Lasting Integrity is a hilarious visual.)
L: Lift would hate it there. There’s not much to eat. ::laughs::
A: Too true! She’d hate the whole trip.
In the end, we have Godeke the Edgedancer (yay!!!), Shallan and Adolin (the highprince and his Radiant wife, as she puts it), one of the Truthwatchers (anyone that’s not Renarin), and one of the Stonewards (none of whom we’ve met yet). As Dalinar puts it,
“… four different Radiants and their spren, plus my own son.”
A: Sigzil’s spren thinks that’s a good start, and if they send gifts and apologies, plus maybe get the Stormfather to speak on their behalf, it might convince them. Well… some chance is better than none?
L: I’m interested to see what kinds of gifts Honorspren would value.
What We Missed (In the Timeskip)
Interactions with it during the expedition into Aimia earlier in the year had led Navani to order experiments,
L: Remember how we mentioned in the opening of this article to read Dawnshard? Yeah. Go read Dawnshard.
A: Yep. Go read it.
Fabrial Technology & Spheres
The world becomes an increasingly dangerous place, and so I come to the crux of my argument. We cannot afford to keep secrets from one another any longer. The Thaylen artifabrians have private techniques relating to how they remove Stormlight from gems and create fabrials around extremely large stones.
I beg the coalition and the good people of Thaylenah to acknowledge our collective need. I have taken the first step by opening my research to all scholars.
I pray you will see the wisdom in doing the same.
A: There’s not much about actual technology here, other than pointing out that the Thaylen artifabrians have secrets Navani wants. It’s worth noting, though, that while she is asking them to give up their secrets, she’s openly giving them some significant information herself. The question is… will they agree? Seems like the kind of thing that could be really important.
L: As usual, I can’t help but see real life parallels (honestly I blame this on my schooling, we English Majors are trained to suss out things like this). Right now, we see our scientists of different nationalities and companies working together to try to find a vaccine for COVID-19, which is basically what Navani is asking for here. “There’s a situation that threatens our very survival… let’s put everything else aside and work together for a change!”
“Weeks of study, and I can’t find any other matches.”
A: I’m almost as bummed about this as Navani is. They very quickly spotted the exact match of the suppression fabrial to the set of four garnets in the crystal pillar; it seemed so reasonable that there might be other fabrial-to-pillar matches that might give them hints to what it should do. Being Navani, if she knew what something should do, she’d reverse engineer it to fix that piece if at all possible. But there’s nothing else to work with. I has a sad.
On the bright side, though, we’re getting some cool info on their progress into understanding the ancient fabrials and how those differ from modern ones. The modern ones rely on trapping a spren in a gemstone and constructing the fabrial to trigger the desired behavior in the spren. The ancient ones seem to have sentient spren, visible in Shadesmar, but oddly not observable in the Physical realm. This revives hope in my old theory that the ancient fabrials may be akin to Shardblades—that the fabrial is the spren’s physical manifestation, like a Blade is a spren’s physical form. We’ll see whether that plays out… But in this case, there’s another difference:
“The spren that runs the suppression device . . . has been corrupted, very similar to . . .”
“To Renarin’s spren,” Navani said.
“Indeed. The spren refused to talk to us, but didn’t seem as insensate as the ones in Soulcasters. … When we pressed it, the spren closed its eyes pointedly. It seems to be working with the enemy deliberately…”
A: So… yikes? An ancient-style fabrial made from one of Sja-anat’s “enhanced” spren, deliberately working for Team Odium? This is not an encouraging thought.
L: Yeeaaah not a good sign.
“See if you can find a way to activate this specific group of garnets. In the past, the tower was protected from the Fused. Old writings agree on this fact. This part of the pillar must be why.”
… “Also try resetting the suppression fabrial we stole. It smothered Kaladin’s abilities, but let the Fused use their powers. There might be a way to reverse the device’s effects.”
L: I find it interesting that she doesn’t consider the possibility that the fabrial included in the pillar would dampen the Radiant abilities, seeing as how it is the same as the device that de-powered Kaladin. Maybe she believes that it’s only because the spren connected to the fabrial device was corrupted, and a “pure” spren would have the reverse effect. In this case, the configuration of the gems in the fabrial wouldn’t make a difference, it would be the energy powering it that would affect what it does.
A: That’s an interesting question. On a guess, she assumes that as part of the Urithiru-fabrial, the garnet grouping simply wouldn’t dampen Radiant abilities—but it may not be a conscious assumption. She’s made the connection between the two devices, based on the physical similarity and the way the suppression fabrial mirrors the historical evidence. It’s reasonable to assume this grouping is a suppressor, based on that similarity. I can see why she’d want Rushu to work on activating that specific group with Stormlight.
If she believes it’s just a matter of the power source, I can see why she’d want to “reverse the polarity” on the fabrial if they can. But… since they now see that the spren in the fabrial is a corrupted one, wouldn’t it also be reasonable to assume that the corrupted spren would make it non-reversible? I think maybe I’m going in circles on this, because I’m not quite sure how Navani arrived at her reasoning.
The other thing that disturbs me is that she doesn’t seem to wonder how the Fused were able to create a fabrial that looks just like what she thinks is likely to be a significant piece of Urithiru’s defenses.
We have to end with Navani’s thoughts at the end of the big meeting:
It was set. An expedition into Shadesmar and a large military push into Emul—both plans unanimously agreed upon.
Navani wasn’t certain what to think about how easily it had happened. It was nice to make headway; yet in her experience, a fair breeze one day was the herald of a tempest to come.
A: That’s exactly the way I feel about this whole chapter. The questions hang over our heads. What will that tempest bring?
We’ll be leaving any further speculation to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others! Also, since Dawnshard just came out for sale today, please be mindful that not everyone has had a chance to read it yet. If you want to address it in the comments, I’d ask that you preface your comment with a DAWNSHARD SPOILER warning, so people can skip it more easily, and come back to find it later. I’m also suggesting that you don’t necessarily need to white-text or black-light those comments, but… we’ll see how it plays out. Fair warning, everyone: watch for spoiler tags and be prepared to avert your eyes if you haven’t read Dawnshard yet!
Alice is excited to finally be able to share the Dawnshard experience with the fan community, and is looking forward to next week’s release so we can get into the rest of Rhythm of War. She is, however, a little intimidated by the amount of writing she has to do between now and then.
Lyndsey is working hard on proofing the audiobook for her own fantasy novel, which is far more time-consuming and grueling of a process than she expected. She’s hoping to have the audiobook version proofed and available on Audible sometime in December. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.
Dear old Navani
Hmm, kinda weird how Navani’s POVs almost feel like a “fly on the wall”. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not (probably). If she’s going to be a major force in the book I would expect this feeling to change quite a bit by the end otherwise I don’t know how her character is going to work for me. Maybe she’ll change as much as Shallan did during WoR.
Finally some real developments… Interesting way to end Part 1. Not exactly with a bang. Hardly with a whimper. Hardly a cliffhanger either but more like preparing the stage for the rest of the book.
Talking of the rest of the book, it’s only a week away. Hopefully I can pace myself reading it this time – I read Oathbringer way too quickly and without enough rest in between. Not healthy.
Sigzil suggested the honorspren contingent ???
That has me worrying about him as a Ghostblood and the source close to Dalinar
It takes a genius to harness the geniuses, Navanni may not be a specialist. But she’s got the acumen to keep up with and sometimes out-think her team. Brilliance.
I like that Kaladin was missed. He’s so hard on himself in his POV that we barely get to see how competent a commander he was(is?).
First, a massive thanks to Alice and Lyndsey for taking us through these weeks with their thoughts and theories, and creating this forum for discussion!
It’s so nice to see they’ve got this steady and reciprocated loving relationship, and Dalinar being thoughtful!
Also, the “alone” mentality is very familiar to me as an introvert who has considered my needed “alone time” to feel comfortable or recharge to often include a significant other. It’s about when someone is inside the personal bubble where this person can even feel like part of yourself or your happy place that you don’t have to be “on” for them, and it’s as natural as can be to be with them.
Ouch. 😢
😉
I liked this ending to SA Book Unwritten, which also happens to be Part 1 of Rhythm of War!
Great set up for pieces moving forward, intriguing technological advances to be made (I kept waiting for them to figure out they could use pulleys and counters weights, so happy this is finally coming into place!), and pleasant warmth of love to close us out.
Oooweee I’m excited for the whole book next week!
Honestly, my first comment, this week, will be to reinforce what I have already said: I do NOT trust the Mink. This chapter gave me a cold sweat. I do not trust the plan to rescue Emul. I do not trust the plan to abandon Alethkar. I might be wrong, but let it be said I voiced out doubts over it. I think the Mink will turn out to be a traitor. Oh, it will be fun to find out if I am right! Hence, I SO agree with Navani, the fact Taravangian approves of the plan, the fact we know the Fused want to get Dalinar/Jasnah away… Something is fishy.
One of my early suspicions turned out true… The Honorsprens at Lasting Integrity do not like Kaladin. I suspected as much.
The envoy is a group of Radiants. I had suspected as much. Of course, it was not going to be Maya though I am surprised at Adolin’s excitement and to hear he has wanted to go back to Shadesmar for months. I would have suspected the opposite since, well, he nearly died int there last time. Even with Maya, I didn’t think he’d want to go back.
I can’t help but think the Edgedancers are misused if healing is all they have been used for. They could be a formidable force, but they all seem to have become medics.
I appreciated this last moment between Navani and Dalinar. I always felt their relationship lacks depth and I could never feel it. This was better. This moment was a good read. I loved hearing Dalinar comment on his mistakes, accusing his own naivety. Finally. I loved that sequence.
I love that quote: “With Godeke, that would give us four different Radiants and their spren, plus my own son”. This seems like a setup for Adolin to be the one to repair the relationship with the sprens.
It seems clear to me that with Navani, Kaladin, and I suppose Szeth (?) at Urithiru, we have a good core team of people to protect the tower when the fused attack. How many people guessed that Kaladin and Navani would be in a group together when Brandon talked about his groupings? I know I certainly didn’t.
@7 zebobes. I guessed they would because this was the only place where they could be. I however failed to understand the logic.
Oh, side note to everyone: for those who didn’t participate in the Kickstarter, Dawnshard is available on Amazon kindle. I got my copy!
First, thanks to Alice and Lyn for the pre-read discussions.
My reaction to this chapter: too much this-decade jargon, Brandon! “lean in” and “not a good look”? I found it really distracting.
Taravangian supports the Emul mission to get Jasnah and Dalinar out of the tower, per Odium’s orders.
@3, Pranj:
He’s already a member of a different Worldhopper-led secret society, the Worldsingers. He could also be betraying them, of course. He’s Wit’s apprentice, and Wit will sometimes betray, as mentioned in previous comment threads.
In fact, Wit told Dalinar exactly what Taravangian told Navani, that he would see entire worlds burn if it served his purpose.
So with Adolin off to Shadesmar, will he ask Kaladin to keep an eye on Gallant? I’m still all about the Kalshadium Pegasus ship! (Yes I know Gallant won’t let anyone but Dalinar ride him, but I can dream!
I can’t wait for the book to come out!
This chapter sets up the attack in Urithiru perfectly. That is definitely why Taravangian agreed so readily.
I like how they noticed that Kaladin was missing. The way he “loomed like a stormcloud” reminds me of Dalinar.
I think that the Mink is probably working for Odium. Why else would he suggest a line of attack that left Urithiru unprotected right when the singers needed it?
@7. It’s her turn for lifechanging quality time with our favourite sad boi!
@12: This was my theory when the Mink invalidated Dalinar’s initial plan to propose to save Emul. I didn’t make sense to me. Alethkar is where they have to defeat the enemy. Apart from pleasing his allies, saving Emul serves little tactical advantage nor does it weaken the enemy, but it will weaken the coalition. They may not have the troops to fight in Alethkar afterward.
I just never was on-board with the plan. I truly thought the Mink was the perfect spy: a man Dalinar would have no reasons not to trust. He’s playing with the fact Dalinar isn’t good at being a political leader and worries over his allies.
I love the view of Navani as half the Archimedes or Alan Turning fighting a war behind the scenes through science and engineering, and then half the Elanor Roosevelt being the First Lady equivalent smoothing over diplomatic relationships and greasing the wheels to make things work. I can’t wait to see more of her and her cool inventions! I love how Sanderson has both here and in Mistborn dove into the what happens to a fantasy world that begins to industrialize and making magic into a science that can be used. I’m sure other fantasy novels have probably explored that too, but none that I have read and it’s a really cool concept!
Also I’m looking forward to what will probably be Kaladin, Szeth, and Navani defending the tower with everyone else gone. Also given the locations of everyone, I think Kaladin may swear the 4th oath, which was hinted to be about sacrificing those you love for the greater good, about his father to save the city which would be awful but I could see it!
Dear beta and gamma readers, I have a bone to pick with you. The expressions “plus” and “via” have become the new “maladroit” both in these preview chapters and in “Dawnshard”, and it is very jarring. I understand the argument of “translation”, but in my experience they aren’t used frequently in colloquial speech iRL, but rather in written communications. What is more, they weren’t present in the previous volumes of SA, but suddenly everyone and their dog axehound uses them constantly. Also, doesn’t “envoy” normally refer to a single person and not a group?
I loved this chapter otherwise! I really enjoy how Navani gives us a window on so many other interesting people, while her own personality also shines through strongly. She is a refreshing change of pace from the more navel-gazing PoVs. I adore all the magical science too.
BTW, speaking of Navani’s ingrained self-denigration, wasn’t she and not Dalinar the one who made everyone bring their own chairs back in OB?
What does it mean that Taravangian no longer brings his entourage along? Did they begin to waver? Is he afraid of them figuring out the truth about his deal with Odium? He wouldn’t have shared it with non-Kharbranthians among his close circle, because they would have flipped immediately, but it would be in character for him to not to tell even Adrotagia.
If the Cultivationspren, the Stoneward spren and the Truthwatcher spren approve of the bonds, why are there so few members of respective Orders? There are only as many Edgedancers, as there are spren-bonded Windrunners, even though honorspren disapprove! There are only 3(!) Truthwatchers. And I am very curious who the Truthwatcher and the Stoneward involved are going to be. Hopefully, the Stonewards are also going to feature elsewhere in the book.
Adolin’s eagerness to return to Shadesmar supports my hope that he was looking into the ways to help Maya. Of course, Taravangian knowing about the mission guarantees that they will be chased again. I am surprised at Dalinar and Jasnah (!) discussing it publicly, given their suspicions of T.
As to what gifts the honorspren would like, given the poor selection at Celebrant market back in OB, and the marauding Fused,I would guess that weapons and tools would be very welcome, as well as stormlight, of course.
Brandon closing out part 1 with a sexual innuendo. Scandalous!
Where can I pick up an ebook copy of Dawnshard? I can’t find it on nook.
A few thoughts:
The climax at the beginning that feels like the end of another story reminds me of Revenge of the Sith
To me, Adolin clearly wants to return to Shadesmar to continue to work on his relationship with Maya. I imagine he will be a big part of restoring the relationship with the spren. What better gift to the spren is there then to restore a dead eye to life?
I assume it’s the leader of the Honor spren specifically that doesn’t like Kaladin because Kaladin went and ran off with his daughter
@7 don’t forget about Lift and Zahel. They’re both probably staying in the Tower as well.
A Stoneward! Yea! Can’t wait to meet them. I wonder if Stump will represent the Truthwatchers?
Yes, I, too, worry that the Mink is a traitor, though I don’t want him to be. Keep in mind that he talked Dalinar out of launching an offensive to retake Alethkar, which would reveal that Odium’s army is elsewhere…perhaps attacking Urithiru?
21 Marbelcal. My feelings are had Dalinar stayed and launched his attack to retake Kholinar, he would have gotten hints of the attack on Urithiru. They wanted him out, out, out, as far-away as they can toss him. This is why I have thought the Mink was a traitor from the start: a desperate man will strike a bargain with an enemy if it means saving what he has left. There also were those allusions over the Blackthorn being responsible for his son’s death…
Adolin and Shallan will be purchased in Shademar where they are vulnerable. The coalition’s enemies will want this mission to fail. The Mink might have personal reasons to want Adolin and Shallan dead, as a vengeance.
All in all, I do NOT trust the Mink nor this new plan.
Re Taravangian not bringing his entourage: Wasn’t there a theory that Adrotagia is one of the Heralds? I’m probably misremembering, but it would make sense that she didn’t want to be recognized by Ash or Taln.
Edit to add: Gipeto, thanks for clarifying what I was alluding to.
It’s still interesting to me that we had no actual flashback chapters in part 1 of this book. The only Venli chapters we had were interesting, and give us insight in vaguely similar ways to how flashback chapters have worked in the past, I guess. This part 1 just feels very different from the others. I wonder if the other parts of the book will include actual flashbacks, or if the Venli-ness of this book is all just going to be as if we are having extra Venli interludes interspersed, happening at the same time as the rest of the book. If there are no flashbacks, I think it will feel weird in this book and also feel weird when book 5 returns to flashbacks to explain Szeth’s past. I’m surprised other people aren’t commenting much about this phenomenon, because I find it jarring in the series context.
On the question of whether Taravangian has “leveled out” somehow, I think it’s probably worth pointing out that even when he’s having a relatively stupid day, he has The Diagram to guide him. That has to continue to be a significant source of his political genius, as Navani sees it. I still think we’re going to have a mini twist for Taravangian eventually, where he realizes that his extra compassionate days are really the boon, and the intelligence without compassion is the curse.
Lift is a great character, reliably pleasant and entertaining without being too shallow (as a character in a book). Am I the only one who missed an explanation as to why she’d be growing, physically? I thought she was magically stuck as a kid, and that was related to the whole thing with metabolizing food into stormlight.
I was glad Navani had the thought about whether the aluminum fabrials were the problem for the mysterious spanreed correspondent. That occurred to me when she earlier thought about how she’d been trying out new fabrials with aluminum following Dawnshard. It would be interesting if the presence of the aluminum somehow cut spren off from the world (or the cognitive or spiritual realm?) in a way that other fabrials don’t. I’m very interested to see what they meant about Navani specifically being evil to spren.
In a chapter that set up lots of the last pieces before the fused attack Urithiru, it caught my attention that Navani’s fabrial lab (in the former library of Radiant records) appears to be the only way in to the room the fused will need to access to suppress radiant abilities. I don’t think it was coincidental that Sanderson reminded us of that physical layout. That will be relevant somehow in the fight to win back control of Urithiru, e.g. Navani could be part of the fight and turn some of those devices into weapons that the fused won’t understand. The box with a trigger that can suddenly move fast because of remote energy seems an awful lot like a stormlight gun to me, especially after Navani suggested shaping it like a crossbow. Someone could throw a conjoinable ruby from up high, then activate the connection once it hits terminal velocity, and have a gravity-powered bullet directed by the gun.
Szeth’s role in the fight for Urithiru will be interesting. I wonder if there will be a time where he’s doing something that people misinterpret as a bad thing, then realize he’s rescuing them and finally trust him enough to let him out of prison.
Kaladin will almost certainly say his 4th ideal in this book, but it feels un-Sanderson-like to me for it to be crucial that he regains his powers while radiants below the 4th ideal are suppressed. I think maybe his 4th and 5th ideals will both come in this book, the 4th will be interesting but not militarily necessary, and the 5th will be a major plot point that also sets up book 5. I think when he swears the 4th, it will come with a huge emotional catharsis and specifically result in healing his slave brands, because he can let go of the pain that they represent as a big part of himself.
I really love Navani’s perspectives. Her insights into creating new fabrial technologies truly astounds.
1) We now have confirmation that the Fused’s sword are indeed aluminum. “involved a rare metal called aluminum. It was what the Fused used for weapons that could block Shardblades.”
2) When does the fabrial lecture occur in the Stormlight timeline? It said 1175, but I am having trouble discerning where that falls compared to other events. Possibly by the current events aluminum is well known but when the lecture was given it wasn’t.
Does this mean jasnah is the only Elsecaller?
I think Adolin and Maya going on the expedition is a mistake. Bringing a deadeye with them will only serve to remind the Honorspren of the broken oaths of the OG Knights Radiant.
Maybe the healing that Maya experienced towards the end of Oathbringer will serve to demonstrate that broken bonds can be reforged? Are we going to see the Adolin/Maya connection grow even further, perhaps into the reawakening of Maya and she is the one that convinces the Honorspren?
Fix Young Hitler and you’d just get a different tyrant rising to power. The bigger problem wasn’t Hitler himself; it was conditions in Germany that supported the rise of a man like Hitler. As Foch famously put it, criticizing the treaty that ended WWI almost exactly 20 years before the Nazis invaded Poland, “this is not a peace treaty; it is an armistice for twenty years.” He didn’t know anything about Hitler or the Nazis, but he understood clearly that the resolution of WWI was setting the stage for a sequel.
If a time traveler really wanted to prevent WWII, he’d ignore Hitler and find a way to fix the Treaty of Versailles.
Did they check what happen in the cognitive realm when they use aluminum?
People have commented about Szeth, Kaladin, and Navani defending Urithuru from the Fused. Is it worth remind folks that Mraize is in Urithuru? He doesn’t want it to fall to the Fused. He’s a corrupted Radiant by now, probably, and he has Investiture from many worlds, including Threnody, Taldain and maybe Nalthis off the top of my head.
@24, Idabomb333:
She always was. She incorrectly thought the Nightwatcher (Cultivation?) had granted her stay-a-child-forever, but she began showing signs of puberty back in Edgedancer. Sanderson wrote about it very delicately, but it’s there.
@27 Not Quite. I did wonder why no one pointed out sending a young man bonded to a dead-Blade might offend the Honorsprens since they already are offended over the Recreance… It seemed odd after spending so much time insisting the Honorspren are still angry over the Recreance to then shove a dead-eye to their face.
No one can know Adolin wants to revive Maya. It is impossible, they aren’t thinking of it as a possibility.
@30 Carl:
Hmm? I don’t think I’ve seen anything to indicate that this is the case. Did I miss something?
@25 jamlet – the interactive map of Roshar has the current date as year 1174, 3rd month. So if Navani’s fabrial lecture takes place in 1175, this is almost a year after current events. So these lectures take place about a year in the future? Am I interpreting that correctly anyone?
@30 – Are you confusing Mraize with Wit/Hoid? As far as we know, Mraize hasn’t shown any abilities.
@33 – I believe the map is only up to Oathbringer. RoW starts a year after OB.
So we’re deffo getting Kaladin’s 4th Oath this book; he’s going to have to accept he can’t save everyone from his surgery tutelage (triage is an unforgiving thing), and with the impending attack he’s going to have one hell of a prompt. Can’t wait to see what Home Alone hijinx Navani gets up to as well (probably too much to hope for, but a Navani Powerlifter scene with those new fabrials would be awesome).
I don’t think the Mink is working for Odium; his advice was simply sound strategy and an honest read. Shoring up your back lines and taking out an isolated pocket of the enemy is just a good idea, especially if you can keep forcing the stalemate on the Alethi border. It will weaken them and draw out Dal and Jasnah, but as Fen said it also solidifies their supply lines and the south sea. Plus if they have been stalemated in Alethkar for the last year it’s unlikely they’d be able to stage a breakout attack while defending against the Emuli forces–they need those troops moved up to the front lines.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it didn’t also provide the opportunity the Fused wanted to attack the tower–which T took advantage of.
Navani might be on the right track with regards to the mystery writer. Humans have been making fabrials for centuries, but it’s only been recently that they’ve been essentially mass producing them with trapped spren. A few one-offs may be distasteful but ultimately able to be overlooked; the sheer number of fabrials needed for the Fourth Bridge alone would make a spren abolitionist apoplectic. As noted, the Fused fabrial weapons (the suppressor and their stormlight siphons) do NOT use trapped spren, and they’ve been making fabrials for millennia, plus they’re more in-tune with spren in general to recognize how horrid this may be.
The spanner in that theory is that the Radiant spren don’t really seem to have issue with fabrials, but it could just be a “we’re better” viewpoint (similar to how humans viewed the Parsh pre-everstorm).
Oh, and re: Taravangian’s intellect: Taravangian had a carefully cultivated external image of being an aloof, kindly, maybe somewhat dull monarch. Someone you didn’t think ill of but weren’t threatened by. So of course they thought he wasn’t the sharpest shardblade in the armory. Now he has no need to hide that, so even on his “Average” days where he’s not an idiot (but also not a genius) he appears much more capable than his previous persona. Image is everything; perception is king.
I am not a fan of the science behind fabrials. I find my eyes glossing over such details. As this chapter contained a lot of fabrial minutia, this chapter did not work for me. For readers who enjoy mechanics of fabrials, then I am sure they enjoyed this chapter. Hopefully, future Navani chapters will not go too heavy into fabrial science and mechanics. Before this chapter, I enjoyed reading Navani PoV Chapters. If these are the types of chapters we get in Navani Chapters, then Navani will quickly became a character I do not enjoy reading.
I hope by the end of RoW, Navani will be able to recognize that her worth to fabrial science is more than as a patron and organizer. It appears she does have many ideas and she has initiated the schematics for such designs. On the other hand, I guess this makes Navani more relatable. In RL, far more people have such insecurities about themselves. Such self-doubt often is not present in the heroes of epic fantasy. I believe that Navani’s self-doubt/insecurities will be a central theme of her story arc in RoW. Brandon has mentioned for too much in the early parts of ROW and prior books for it not to be a central facet of Navani’s arc.
If Navani sees Taravangian as a political genius who has dropped is “grandfatherly act”, does that mean he is having more genius days? Or is Taravangian isolating himself from the other nations when he is having more compassionate days? I think it is the latter. Also, I notice the similarity between the way Odium first appeared when he first talked to Dalinar and what Navani thinks is Taravangian’s act: the nice grandfatherly type. I do not think that is coincidence.
For Shallan, I guess sometimes it pays to be lucky. She needed an excuse to go on an expedition to Lasting Integrity in Shadesmar. The opportunity fell right in her lap.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
The whole time reading this I was thinking about mountain runoff and a watermill. Next thing you know she pulls out windmill.
@37 Andrew. Count me in with those who aren’t fans of the science behind the fabrials narrative. I never mind it before because it was rather sparse, but it has been one of my fears having Navani become a major protagonist will imply far more of this. As a rule of thumb, I have not been convinced of Navani as a protagonist since I never felt she had a deep enough inner conflict to justify this new role. Her lack of self-assertiveness is not uninteresting, but I haven’t found it very gripping so far. So Navani fails to take credit for her accomplishment? OK. I didn’t think this needed a main protagonist arc to go through.
I have however decided to withhold judgment until I finish reading the book. It could be there will be more to Navani and it could be I will enjoy her.
Side Prediction: I don’t think Kaladin says the fourth ideal. I think he will choose to remain at level 3 because he can’t accept the sacrifice to move further. In other words, he is too broken to keep on moving so he’ll settle on staying right where he is.
SPOILERS FOR WHITE SAND, SHADOWS FOR SILENCE IN THE FORESTS OF HELL, WARBREAKER, AND SIXTH OF THE DUSK. My, that’s a lot of spoilers for two sentences.
He has some white sand from Taldain, an aviar from First of the Sun, and shows signs of life sense granted by Breath from Nalthis. The silver chain could be from Threnody, where silver is very important.
As for his possibly being a corrupted Radiant, in a previous chapter Shallan tells Mraize that Sja-Anat will send a spren to him. It’s plausible that this is so he can form a Nahel bond with it.
@40 – That is stuff that he has collected (if it is all his, that is. Could be a group collection). That doesn’t mean he has acquired abilities from these places. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall the narrative giving any sly hints that he’s using an ability, like it does for Wit.
I’m trying to guess if Adolin’s excitement at going to Shadesmar is more a matter of wanting to be away from Dalinar, or wanting to see if he can reawaken Maya. Maybe a combination of both?
So we now have our three plotlines:
Plot 1 (all 5 parts): Navani, Kaladin, Venli. (EDIT: Including Venli flasbacks, and possible Eshonai flashbacks. Also including Szeth, though he only gets one viewpoint chapter.)In Urithiru during, and prior to, the attack.
Plot 2 (parts 1, 2, 4): Shallan, Adolin. In Shadesmar.
Plot 3 (parts 3, 5): Dalinar, Jasnah. On the front lines in Emul. Jasnah’s only supposed to have a few chapters in this book, so most of the viewpoints will be Dalinar. A few will be Taravangian, as Brandon says he has some chapters in this book.
Genuinely enjoyable chapter and excellent set up for the week f book release. I like navani’s PoV. The engineer in me enjoys her thought process.
I feel kaladin will reach is 4th and 5th ideal in this one. My only worry is if he turns bad / dies ( Game of thrones twists ??). I find kaladin and dalinar are the most relatable or enjoyable characters in this series. Would hate if something bad happens to them.
I think Mink is not on odium’s side. His opinion was just sound strategy.
Cant wait for 17th Nov.
@42 Katherine. I don’t think Adolin thinks he can revive Maya, but I do think he is just excited to see her again, to talk with her. I suspect he hadn’t gotten any additional signs of life since OB, so I suspect he just wants to be with her to tell her things in person even if she won’t answer.
I am however curious why no one thinks it is…inappropriate for him to go given the circumstances. Also, Adolin saying Shadesmar isn’t so bad was complete foreshadowing for a disaster. I have already pinned the 3 extra Radiants as the red shirts of the mission… which one will die first?
Initial Observations:
Navani – As has become the norm in this book, I like her chapters for all of the world building and expansion on how Roshar’s magitech works. This chapter is continuing the theme of Navani selling herself short when it comes to her own formidable fabrial skills, as well as her inability to recognize how much she is respected by her ardents/engineers/etc. She is an administrator and an innovator; Navani has become a rather formidable character, markedly different from the lady we first met in Way of Kings.
Taravangian – Diabolical. Maniupulative. Cunning. A quality villain, far better than Sadeas or Amaram who were despicable with very few redeeming qualities. I really want to see him and Jasnah match wits against one another in some protracted move/countermove, manipulation/counter-manipulation type interaction. As of now, he is definitely ahead in the game, as the result of this meeting will lead to Dalinar, Jasnah, Shallan and Adolin leaving Urithuru open to the Fused’s schemes.
Sigzil – He did a good job in his first formal meeting as the leader of the Windrunners. Well done.
Radiants – Okay, so we have clarification that Jasnah is likely the only Elsecaller right now, but that there are (likely) a number of Stonewards that have joined our heroes’ forces. Also, we were just told that last week that there were only 3 Truthwatchers; so if Renarin isn’t the one to be sent on the mission to Shadesmar, it has to be one of the other 2. So why not just say their names? That part just read as dialogue that was written to be purposefully mysterious, as opposed to what would naturally be said. Also, why wasn’t the Stoneward leader/representative in the meeting mentioned by name, or given some kind of quick dialogue. All of the other Order representatives either got dialogue or some type of brief mention. Poor Stonewards; first your Herald gets treated like an afterthought on Aharietam, now your whole order gets treated like an afterthought here. Lol.
Team Sanderson and Tor.com – Thank you for the preview chapters.
Alice and Lyndsey – Thank you for this weekly bit of fun.
I enjoyed Part One. I am soooo looking forward to this book.
Yes Sanderson used sapiens in the correct context as a being that is a person who thinks and reasons unlike many other authors who use sentient instead which just means being aware of your world like all animals are that was probably the part that made me the most happy the correct usage of sapient.
@44 Gepeto: You’re probably right that Adolin is mainly interested in talking to Maya rather than specifically thinking he can revive her. His line about Shadesmar not being so bad is strange given that he literally thought of the place as Damnation last time he went, and almost died.
I feel like Shallan and Adolin are both odd picks to lead the mission, both because of the Deadeye problem and because of the hostility between Cryptics and Honorspren.
I don’t remember Godeke at all…maybe I should buy Edgedancer, I’ve only read it once.
I enjoy Navani’s viewpoints a lot – engineer-brain, scholar-brain, is a more interesting headspace for me to be in than soldier-brain. I’ve had plenty of Dalinar sitting in meetings feeling out of place during the last 3 books; I didn’t feel the need for more of it.
I can’t believe people don’t like the fabrial science…. Literally, fantasy is sci-fi (I wouldn’t say it the other way around, btw.) I can’t see how one could like fantasy without enjoying sci-fi elements. It’s brilliant world-building while not getting too dense–and thus pulling away from the characters–like harder sci-fi often does. And in the end, it’s going to be important to this story, as is everything BS introduces in his books. I’m terrifyingly excited to get to the moment where Navani has the right realizations at the right moment (right when us readers do) and everything gets flipped on its head, while tying in all this magitech info.
@48: Fantasy can be more science fiction and analyzed, rules-based magi, or it can be more faery-story with the fantastical elements less structured and predictable. I don’t blame anyone for preferring the latter; I often prefer it myselfand tend to not really go in for magitech, but Sanderson’s got me interested here. Still, it works because I’m already invested in the characters; it’s not the kind of thing that would hook me on a new series.
(The Rosharan natural history, on the other hand, I loved from the start.)
I love the subtle bet where Navani talks about learning how to tame the Storm and she is the wife of Dalinar (the man bonded to the embodiment of the storm and basically a living storm himself).
@49 I’m of a mind that the less structured and predictable fantasy is still sci-fi. There’s a reason sci-fi/fantasy is one genre. People love to argue that fantasy and sci-fi shouldn’t be lumped together because fantasy often is way less rule based, yet sci-fi’s rules still never cover everything, just like fantasy. Just because you cover less of the ‘why’ behind things doesn’t mean it’s not sci-fi. Sci-fi is just a different time/place/version of our universe with different laws of physics. I believe fantasy is a subset of sci-fi because it follows those guidelines but also has magic and a medieval focus. Whereas sci-fi isn’t fantasy because it doesn’t have magic or that focus. So they’re different, but fantasy is still in the sci-fi umbrella.
@49 Thus, fantasy IS sci-fi and if you like fantasy, you should also like any sci-fi elements that pop up. If you don’t, I’d say you like medieval adventures more and haven’t come to terms with the fact that magic actually makes a book sci-fi by definition.
@47 Katherine. I agree about Shallan and Adolin being odd pick for the mission. Perhaps Sigzil was too intimidated to voice it out? Still, they are an odd pick, and sending in a Shardbearer to quell the bruised ego of the Honorsprens sounds like a terrible idea.
Godeke is mentioned in one of Kaladin’s chapter. He is an aging Edgedancer. I pinned the other two Radiants as the nameless red shirts of the mission…
@48 Alex. To each reader different stroke: I am a character reader, not worldbuilding nor a sci-fi reader. I enjoy reading characters dealings with situations far exceeding what real-life would allow given all the constraints it has while being set in a fantastical world. However, how the square peg managed to fit into the circle peg using this world’s magic isn’t a discussion I find particularly fascinating nor even interesting: a brief resume telling me this is how it works is sufficient for me. I don’t need Navani trekking around discussing all of the lower scaled work her engineers are doing: just show me the end result. I only need to know what is plot-relevant.
Of course, other readers have other perspective and in this readership a lot of readers are in it simply for the mechanical details, hence they love Navani. However, for a character-oriented reader such as myself, she simply isn’t bringing a lot on the character development front to really be interesting. She currently has been primarily used as a worldbuilding exposure character and since I tend not to enjoy those parts as much as other readers, Navani gets the palm of the least interesting lead, for now.
Saying this I don’t mean to infer other character readers will not like or do not like Navani: I am sure plenty do. I just don’t personally find she has enough meat on her inner kebab for me to chew on.
@45 I expect all the Stonewards and most of the Edgedancers are on the battle lines. The former are heavy infantry, the latter medics. Not sure about the other two Truthwatchers, presume one is Stump and she might still be in Tashikk at her orphanage.
It’s worth remembering also that when you’ve got the whole book, there’s a lot less cliff hanger mystery about temporarily unnamed characters! We’ll learn about them immediately after the first interludes when the Shadesmar expedition sets off.
Mink does seem too good to be true in my opinion. His advice is sound but it still removes Dalinar and Jasnah from Urithiru. May be he made a deal with Odium just before they had to give up their fight to save Herdaz just as Taravangian made with Odium to save Kharabranth. Also as Herdazians are supposed to have Listener ancestry (I don’t know if it is WoB or just educated guess by readers), Odium could have convinced Mink who has no reason to love Dalinar or Alethi. And when the Fused are making plans to attack Urithiru, I don’t think they mention their insider man by name as Taravangian.
@23 Marbelcal: I don’t think Adrotagia is a herald. Didn’t she grow up with Taravangian and they have been friends since childhood?
The reason they are sending Adolin is that he is an important person, being highprince and all. Isn’t that what Sigzil’s spren suggested? And Sigzil’s plan is too convenient for Shallan, everything is happening the way Mraize wants it.
And if Maya does get revived and she turns out to be an honorspren, then it works to the coalition’s advantage in the Honorspren capital.
@several – Thank YOU for your participation, and making the read-along a task worth doing! It really has been a lot of fun; I wish I could have been more involved in the comments every week, but real life is a Thing. Also, sometimes I just have to zip it so I don’t risk spoilers. I can’t tell you how many hundreds or thousands of words I’ve deleted from my comments before posting… Can’t wait to see all your reactions once you’ve read!! I have to admit, though, I’ll miss this chapter-by-chapter discussion where we don’t have the whole-book knowledge. That will change the reactions by the time we reach some of the… more impactful chapters in the reread.
One thing I should have noted earlier about Taravangian’s approval of the war plan. He might think the Emul plan is better than the Alethkar plan, but seriously, all he wants is to get Dalinar and Jasnah out of the tower. He’d probably have supported either one.
I’m also sad that I missed the opportunity to talk about the Dalinar/Navani scene at the end, and that sweet warmth. Just too many things going through my head, I guess. But it was a beautiful moment of mature love between two of my favorite characters.
Isilel @16 (and others) re: modern idiom in the text – It gets commented on in both beta and gamma, but the ultimate voicing decisions are Brandon’s. I’ve mused on it from time to time, and have finally concluded that, while it’s not a voice I expect in fantasy, I’m okay with it. There’s a tendency to think that fantasy should be written in… well, maybe not purple prose, but something loftier than our everyday speech, and I’m willing to let go of that tendency. (YMMV, obviously.)
As for speech vs. written communication – I can’t speak for anyone else, but I use “plus” in speech all the time. I personally wouldn’t be likely to use “via” in casual conversation, but I might while giving a prepared speech or in a formal meeting. “Envoy” didn’t even snag my attention, because while I am familiar with the single-person usage, I’m also familiar with “envoy” as either a group of people being sent or the mission on which they’re sent. So… maybe it’s an idiomatic usage?
(It was pointed out in both the beta and gamma that it was Navani, not Dalinar, who made everyone carry their chairs, and it was deliberately left this way. I don’t know why.)
Kefka @18 – Apparently Dawnshard is waiting for approval at B&N? Should be up soon, but if you don’t want to wait, it’s on Amazon and Apple, at least. (I’m not sure what other platforms have it.) It’s also available on Brandon’s store for $7.99, DRM free.
John @19 – Syl is “the ancient daughter” of the Stormfather, not the “leader of the honorspren.”
Idabomb333 @24 – There are flashbacks, of course. They don’t begin until Part Three, though, and they are split between Venli and Eshonai.
Also, Lift wanted to not grow or change, but that doesn’t mean she got what she wanted. It’s been made pretty clear by now that she’s growing and changing; she hit puberty in Edgedancer and was quite miffed about it.
jamlet @25 – The lectures are dated Jesevan 1175, or 1175.1.4.2, a.k.a. the first month, fourth week, second day. Probably sometime before these events, though I don’t have the solid dates. I didn’t think it was enough different for her to have learned how to use & recognize aluminum between then and now, but… maybe?
kupes @33 – The 1174 dates are for the end of Oathbringer. This is a year-ish later.
katherinemw @42 – Almost correct. :P
katherinemw @47 – You don’t meet Godeke in Edgedancer; he first shows up in this book. He is, however, very special to some of us; he’s the tuckerization of beta reader and all-around wonderful person Steve Godecke, who died between books 3 & 4.
Gepeto @@@@@ 53 – “I don’t need Navani trekking around discussing all of the lower scaled work her engineers are doing: just show me the end result. I only need to know what is plot-relevant.”
You’re assuming that this discussion isn’t plot-relevant…
dee @@@@@55 – We already know that Maya is a cultivationspren, a.k.a. Edgedancer spren.
Carl @10. Good point as to why Taravangian support the advancement on the Emul front.
Gepeto @6; pedgeypants0 @12. I disagree that the Mink is working for Odium. He spent about a year trying to fight the Fused. We have already seen several generals/leaders switch sides because they feel Team Honor would lose: Amaram and Taravangian. I do not think as good a writer Brandon would go to this well as third time. (As an aside, I think Moash switched sides for a different reason – Odium took away Moash’s pain of betrayal and failure.) I think Mink is genuine. If the strike on the Emul front was militarily unconventional, Dalinar would have offered more objections to Mink’s assessment. Dalinar acknowledged the military and political advantage of an attack on the Emul front. Deep down, Dalinar knew that a strike at Alethkar was not prudent at this stage.
Althekar is too strongly fortified. It is the center of the Fused operations. Getting back Emul and forcing the Fused back from their will open up the shipping lanes around that part of the world. It will also make it more difficult for the Fused and the Singer military forces from launching an advance on Jah Keved and Thaylan.
John @19. While I believe you may be right that the leader of the Honorspren does not like Kaladin because he bonded Syl, Syl was not said Honorspren’s daughter. Syl’s father is the Stormfather.
Idabomb333 @24. I agree with you somewhat. I was surprised that we did no get either a Venli or Eshonai flashback. That is a departure from the other three books. I suspect that it is because Book 1 in RoW did not have as many chapters as some of the Book 1 sections in the prior 3 books. Where I disagree is that it will be weird (or even jarring) to read Szeth flashback chapters in Book 1 of the next SA book. Book 5 will not be out for another 3 years. It is not like we will read the 5th book a month or two later. FWIIW, I do remember other people commenting on the lack of flashback chapters in prior chapter reviews.
Gepeto @39. Your theory of Kaladin choosing to remain at the Third Ideal would be a curve ball. Who would have guessed that (arguably) the primary protagonist would intentionally choose not to reach his full magical potential because reaching such potential would be to emotionally difficult? Not me. I doubt Brandon will take Kaladin in that direction. However, I think it would make for a fascinating read if Brandon did. I guess we will RAFO.
Katherinemw @42. I think Adolin’s eagerness to go to Shadesmar is both a desire to get away from Dalinar and a further chance to help Maya.
Gepeto @44. I 100% agree with you about why nobody did not question Adolin’s presence on the trip to Shademar. Even if the other rulers did not know about the Deadeyes (not sure how many of them visited Shadesmar with a bonded deadspren Shardblade), Jasnah should have been aware of the significance. Either that or Sigzil’s spren should have raised such a concern. I can understand why Adolin and Shallan would not mention anything about it (Adolin very eager to go and Shallan not wanting to go without Adolin). From a diplomatic perspective, the presence of a DeadEyes is not a good position to start negotiations. Especially, when Shallan, Adolin and the rest are negotiating from a position of weakness. I wonder who will lead the negotiations. Will it be Shallan? Sometimes I do not see her as a good negotiator. Adolin could do well. However, he has the drawback of having Maya. This is one arc I cannot wait to read. I am looking forward to this arc more than Navani’s attempts to get Urithiru fully activated. Although if she gets is activated as part of the Fused assault, that might change my mind – I am looking forward to reading the Fused attack scenes.
I wonder if Sigzil and Wit have encountered each other between the end of OB and the start of RoW. I would love to have been a cremling on the wall to hear their first conversation. Wit probably found some way to blame Sigzil for Kaladin loosing Wit’s flute; but in a friendly, banter-among-friends way.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Don’t get why people seem so hesitant about sending Adolin and Maya to the honorspren. Seems like obvious setup for showing further progress toward her revival, and it’ll be interesting to see what that looks like on the other side by this point and as the story progresses. I have to imagine that proof that all their “murdered” forefathers could actually be revived, that the Honor of humans is capable of reversing one of their greatest sins, would be the most convincing argument they could possibly send along.
Shallan, though… entering their city under false pretenses, perhaps with unconscious orders/inclination to execute someone under their protection? That seems a lot more likely to derail things.
As for the ancient fabrials, seems clear that there’s much more of a willing spren involvement, likely they’re the result of the power/splinter intentionally coalescing into the physical in the manner of shardplate/blade, or the various other metallic/etc “bodies” of shards we’ve seen. Will be interesting to see that idea develop… maybe each order can manifest their own subsets of shard-fabrials based on their subspren affinities in addition to the already familiar shardweapons.
Also important: don’t forget that the Urithiru contingent staying behind also includes R’lain, and will hopefully bring him face to face with Venli in the Fused raid. Or if not that, at least get the guy in on more fabrial science. What with all this stormlight-mechanical development going on and the logicspren timekeeping thing, they could/should be accessing the Rhythms technologically soon. Seriously, people find the fabrial stuff here dull?
And finally, among the many Cosmere tidbits dropped in Dawnshard, the other most relevant here… there’s a confirmation that the third windrunner oath is a good bit more flexible/general than just “protect those I hate.” The general form seems to be about acknowledging one’s main blind spot in their protective urges. So our first fourth-ideal Windrunner is, I think, going to have to acknowledge a blind spot in leadership. Or maybe it’s 3rd – shortfall of protective instinct, 4th – overzealous protective instinct, 5th – leadership.
@56: Thank you! Now I’m curious about what I missed…only a week to wait!
On a separate note, I am hoping that the Mink will not be a traitor; having the new minor character who shows up be a traitor feels too easy. And attacking Alethkar would get Dalinar and Jasnah out of Urithiru just as effectively as attacking Emul would, so his tactical advice seems pretty neutral on that front. Mink’s right that hitting a strong enemy position while they’ve got forces at your back is a bad call – my difficulty with his analysis is that Ishar is an enemy, so even if the coalition taken Emul they’ll still have an enemy at their back anyways
I was hoping that the Mink would be a way to further explore the consequences of Oathbringer. Dalinar grappled with his actions in the last book, but that grappling was largely between him and his own conscience. Having him be confronted by someone who was personally harmed by his actions and is willing to call him on it seems like a good progression of that arc (since he doesn’t appear to have had any such confrontation or even conversation with his sons…
(Yes, I know that Gavilar says that the conflict with Herdaz was started by Herdaz, but that’s what empires looking for a fight always say. I’ll need more than just Alethi statements to believe that.)
First, off thanks to Alice and Lindsey for helping us along Part One. And did anyone notice the Audible version is 57 hours!
Geppto! Why did you have to mention Red Shirts? Now I’m sure we’ll be losing people in Shadesmar and I hadn’t really thought about before. And yes, I expect that Mr T will let Odium know to set the Fused after them there.
I think Adolin is just excited to meet Maya again and Shallan better tell him about her ulterior motive before it’s too late.
I doubt that Mink is the traitor. For starters, he wasn’t even there when the traitor was first mentioned. I believe it is Mr T and getting Jashna and Dalinar out of Urithru is all he cared about in this battle plan. I wonder if they learn that Urithiru while out in the field. Couldn’t Jashna cross back over Shadesmar and return? Plus Wit might be pulled to stay there and not follow Jashna due to his “knowing” he needed to stay.
@18: I just picked up my copy on amazon. It should be there and will go to your kindle app
@57 Alice. The danger with Navani as the main protagonist is for the narrative to fall inside the engineering sandbox where the character talks about technical details simply because she (and the author) enjoys them. It is a fear I have for RoW. While this specific passage might turn out being plot-relevant, I do worry over how many technical extracts will be considered plot-relevant since I don’t enjoy those all that much. I’d rather read the end result without the discussion on how they are making it work, but different strokes for different readers.
@58 Andrew. The Mink is just too convenient. His plan is too convenient. I don’t buy for one minute it isn’t part of the greater scheme to get Dalinar away from the city. I mentioned this a few chapters ago. I also mentioned how the Mink inferred Dalinar is responsible for his son’s death. I could be wrong, but I feel a lot of iffy things are lining up behind the Mink: he seems too good to be true, he comes out of nowhere, and he does have unclosed issues with the Alethis.
Dalinar also expressed worries over leaving Alethkar, his gut feeling telling him this is a mistake but he couldn’t explain why. Now, Dalinar may not be my favorite person, but I do trust his gut feeling when it comes to warfare. The guy knows his craft.
On Kaladin: I am not withholding my breath for this to happen, but I wanted to put it on the table. I personally think it would be interesting to witness a Radiant that refuses to move up. Nale inferred some chose not to and Kaladin has so many issues with the 4th ideal, it would be realistic if he chooses simply to get comfortable in the status quo. I doubt it would be popular though, but I find it a more interesting alternative than him voicing out the very predictable 4th ideal while someone else he loves dies.
On Adolin. That was weird. My theory is they didn’t think of it… but will as they start planning the trip. My personal suspicion is Adolin will be asked to unbound Maya, but huh seems more unlikely than it was a few chapters ago. I think Shallan would take the natural leader of the negotiation because Adolin is not a Radiant and usually isn’t trying to take the lead unless he absolutely has to.
I agree with being more excited over this arc than the Navani one. Same here.
@59 jdfs. Adolin going to Shadesmar is obviously a plot device for stuff to happen for Maya. However, I was not arguing why the plot is sending Adolin to Shadesmar, I was arguing why none of the in-world characters have not challenged sending a Shardbearer to Shadesmar knowing the deadeyes are precisely what the Honorsprens are frilly about.
@61 Goddess. I had to! As soon as two nameless Radiants were sent to Shadesmar, I thought Red Shirt, Red Shirt, Red Shirt! The Stoneward is dead meat. I am willing to bet on this. Now, if one of them pops-up wearing a red coat before leaving for the missions, they’ll be a goner for sure!
It’s been a pleasure, albeit a slow burn, going through these chapters with a dedicated fanbase. Really appreciate TOR and Sanderson doing this.
Of the three storylines, I’m most excited about the war to be honest. As a fan of Malazan, I like reading about depictions of war, and this seems like it would be bigger than the one in Ob. The other storylines seem to be heading in a predictable direction. Unless somebody dies. Also, as underdeveloped as Adolin is, I would hope that he gets to Shine in his plotline. Him resurrecting Maya could be the catalyst in convincing the honorspren, but seems too predictable. Oh well..
Also, not namedropping the entourage simply means Sanderson doesn’t want to introduce expendable characters à la Dance with Dragons.
Gepeto @39 – I don’t think Kaladin is going to stop at lvl 3. That chapter with Zahel alludes to the opposite being true. I had predicted early on that Kaladin is going to find some semblance of peace and healing in spending time with his family and as a surgeon. Seems like we’re heading that way. His scar is definitely going to heal by the end of this book.
Also, it’s hard to care too much about the science in the first read, when character motivations and plot points take center stage, although I don’t begrudge them.
Excited about the book next week! But I definitely would miss the comments section here. You all seem like fun folks to get into discussions with.
“Masked Ones could be among us and we’d never know it. You or I could be one of them right now.”
Navani then immediately assigns Rushu the task of leading a group to find the masked ones.
Ouch. Navani may be a good technical manager and even a decent diplomat, but she really sucks as a spymaster.
Don’t forget there’s also a shortage of both trustworthy and high-ranking “ordinary” nobility/royalty that could be sent for the purposes of conveying the commitment of the delegation. Let alone those who have ever traveled, under fire, through Shadesmar before. Adolin’s offer is probably accepted largely because all the other non-Radiants of high rank in the room were relieved that someone else volunteered to be the token unpowered human in the bunch.
I do wonder… maybe they do think along your lines once the topic comes to focus, and the high-level “diplomatic” solution is, in fact, to send him to offer unbonding and repatriating all the deadeye blades under their control to the care of the spren. Adolin would probably agree, sadly and under duress, but secretly hope for a personal exception.
But it also depends on how clear it is to anyone but Adolin that he has been changing his blade/bond… it’s been a year since Maya was able to remember and give him her own name, wouldn’t even that much of a partial revival be a promising development to show? Something that spren cooperation could help build upon? Remember, the key in negotiation is to find a need to fulfill… in this case, the Honorspren might appreciate the tribute of relinquishing some offending deadeyes, but potential to revive them would make for actual motivation.
Taravangian, Lift: I’m guessing these two might be going through a similar process as Dalinar. Dalinar’s boon was temporary, designed to protect him until he could handle the pain. Perhaps a similar thing is going on with the other two. The Old Magic is unpredictable, they say. I question whether a boon is ever permanent.
An alternate theory on Taravangian: his pact with Odium could have led to interference with his boon. I don’t know if Odium could remove it completely, but he could definitely warp it in some way.
And exactly how old is Lift anyway? I have a feeling she’s been alive for a very long time.
@67 What happened to Dalinar was different than other boons, it was specifically designed for him.
Why do we assume the only way for Lift to not grow or change is related to her age/physical stature? Perhaps this is more about being childlike than a literal old child (Pinocchio in Fables) situation
i suspect Taln will be the stoneward
I think Zahel will be important to defending Urithiru much to his grumbling frustration
@69 – It’s already been shown that Taln can barely take care of himself/is aware of his surroundings. Carting him along in shadesmar on a diplomatic mission would be, uh, probably not the greatest idea.
Plus, his powers were directly derived from his honorblade, which he doesn’t seem to have anymore. Nale bonded a spren and has his honorblade, but he’s an exception, not the rule.
Regarding the discussion about fabrial technology / science and how it can factor into the plot, I think the main problem with it is that we as readers don’t really “feel” it. In Mistborn or with Surges, the characters are doing things directly themselves, for the most part. I think the problem with fabrials as a plot device is that it feels too much like school – there’s too much detail to remember and understand. It would be fine I think if it was simpler or we could experience it directly, but it’s a bit like hearing live sports commentary without being able to see it. It can work (depending upon the sport) and it’s better than nothing but it’s not particularly visceral.
That being said… we haven’t actually gotten to such things in the book yet and it feels rather unkind to complain about something that hasn’t happened yet. So I don’t want to make it sound like there’s no way it could make for satisfying plot resolutions – it’s just that I worry about how it is being set up and developed. I hope I’m wrong.
This is nothing to do with me not liking or appreciating science or technology or the like. I started computer programming when I was 8. I follow science news every day. I read technical books on science for fun. I’ve done things that impressed experts in their field while being an amateur. I just think there’s limits with how far you can go with such things in fiction.
On a different topic: regarding Adolin, I strongly suspect Dalinar is going to quietly have a word with him afterwards about having to unbond Maya and he’s going to look like a kicked puppy. My suspicions of this happening went up a lot. At a minimum, he’ll have to leave her behind, I would think.
Wetlandernw @57. Oops. Thank you for the correction.
Weren’t Taravangian, Lift and some minor characters blessed by Nightwatcher whereas Dalinar was blessed by Cultivation? And Nightwatcher is supposed to give you what she thinks you deserve rather than what you ask?
@72 No I believe Taravangian and Lift were both blessed by cultivation. Maybe not Taravangian but definitely Lift
@41, Austin:
Absolutely right. I didn’t say he had powers, I said he had “Investiture.” Exceptions: he shows signs of life sense [Fourth Heightening] in this story, and Aviar grant powers.
@71 Chris. Kicked puppy… Oh my, do not give me any ideas such as this one!
@73: Which is why I question exactly how old Lift really is. Didn’t Cultivation tell Dalinar it had been a long time since she had personally met with a human? It’s possible that Lift got her boon after Dalinar, but…I have a feeling that she didn’t.
I think it has already been established that Taravangian went to the Nightwatcher/Cultivation after Dalinar did, but I could be wrong on that. If he didn’t go after, then I’m pretty sure he did not meet Cultivation.
@68: I gather that all boons are specifically designed for the individual. Taravangian and Lift are going to have different boons, but why does that mean theirs won’t expire eventually as well? I think we already see evidence that is happening with Lift.
The contrast between the way Dalinar treats his soldiers and the empathetic way he talks to Kaladin when he’s relieving him of duty, contrasted with the line from Brandon about him breaking the news about killing Evi to his sons by having someone else read the book to them and the stiffness of his interactions with Adolin in their one scene in this book…it kind of makes me want to kick him
Dalinar freaking Kholin. A father to his men and a commanding officer to his sons.
@77 Katherine. I have been arguing those very lines for a very long time… I have been arguing how Dalinar treated Adolin more like a subaltern than a son and how he seemed to genuinely care more about Kaladin than, well, his own son. Now, I don’t mean to infer this is true, simply that Dalinar does give this impression by his behavior and general attitude. He is more fatherly, compassionate, thoughtful with Kaladin than with his sons.
His sons, he never thought he needed to tell them the truth and once he did, he got someone else to do it for him. Then he proceeded to blame Shallan when his eldest started acting out. Storms. What will it take for him to open his eyes?
I wouldn’t say he “never thought he needed to tell them the truth”. He only had a couple of weeks to come to terms with the memories in Oathbringer after they returned, and then he started on his book to tell everyone the truth.
I do blame him for not telling them himself. It would have bern a very, very hard conversation, but it was necessary
Upon my reread of the series, I get why Adolin admired him – he was, by Alethi standards, a good dad with a strong relationship with his son through most of Adolin’s childhood, from age 4 to 12 (going by what we see in the snippet in the “strategist” chapter). That’s where Adolin’s “The Blackthorn was so awesome!” attitude in TWOK comes from (which, honestly, did not endear him to me at all – part of him being a more sympathetic character in WOR and OB is just us seeing more of him, but I also think he’s genuinely matured from the person he was in TWOK). Adolin would therefore see his father as a good and great man broken by Evi’s death. And then Dalinar goes to the Nightwatcher and is, from Adolin’s late teens onward, the largely admirable person we see in the timeline of the books. (Notably, Adolin is also not unwilling to criticize him in TWOK – part of his hero-worship in WOR and OB may be in reaction to his mistaken belief that Dalinar was going mad and losing his nerve in TWOK.) H
So Adolin’s love and admiration for his father in the previous books makes sense to me. As does the fact that his relationship with Dalinar is now rockier after the revelation of (in-universe) Oathbringer.
In contrast with his relationship with Adolin, Dalinar’s treatment of Renarin is quite inexcusable. He didn’t even think of Renarin by his name, just as “the invalid” or whatever, until after the visit to the Nightwatcher, at which point Renarin was already a teenager!
Has anyone considered that a few chapters ago the Fused said they needed Dalinar and Jasnah out of the city for their attack, and now Taravangian is agreeing on Emil, and both Dalinar and Jasnah are going? I think this is saying that once gone, taravangian is going to get the fused into the city.
Adolin is excited to get to know his shardblade better. Bet him bringing the spren back is what finally wind over the honorspren.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who found the phrase “not a good look” to be oddly place. I think I’ve only ever heard that colloquialism in the United States, and never prior to about 2015. It’s like hearing one of the characters say “Dude!”
@82 – Navani and her daughter are extremely hooked in to an impressively well developed analog internet. Which would be subject to similar economies of language (slang and memes) as our own. Brandon does a good job of localizing his idioms in general, though all obviously subject to translation in some degree. If it still feels a little anachronistic and uncomfortable to have her sling that phrase around like a “cool”-mom/”woke”-grandma, well… I’d bet that’s pretty much the point.
Alice and Lyndsey and all commentators, thank you for the amazing read-along experience. I was eagerly awaiting it every week, while not having the courage to post previously.
I love Navani’s point of view and general way of thinking. Her perspective is refreshing and most certainly will serve to unearth the greater mysteries of the magic/science of Roshar. Let’s hope for lots of such reveals in this book.
Regarding Taravangian I believe his recent levelness of intelllect can be the result of some influence from ODIUM. The other possibility, which I think someone else mentioned, is that Navani has changed her perspective of him now that she knows he is a traitor. This of course in combination with his careful planning and his letting go of the ‘good grandfatherly’ mask.
Looking forward to the whole book and hopefully more interesting discussion afterwards.
@16:
Not sure what makes you say this. Both “plus” and “via” are used in previous volumes of the Stormlight Archive, including in dialogue, ever since The Way of Kings.
Didn’t Lift get the ability to use food instead of Stormlight from Cultivation? She just thinks that she got what she asked for.
Many readers seem to have a science or software background. We like to see details of Rosharan technology. Navani might not see herself as a “real” scientist, but of course she is interested in understanding the details of new discoveries. Dalinar only sees military applications, but Navani and Jasnah want to understand how things work.
Talk of Adolin unbundling with Maya got me thinking, can this be done while in Shadesmar? what kind of effect would this have? Would the dead eyes no longer be stuck as shard blades if so?
Isilel @6: Expanding on PeterAhlstrom@85, here are the numbers for TWoK, WoR, Oathbrinhger, and Dawnshard. The main number is the total times it appears and the number in parentheses is the number of times it appears in dialogue. (I didn’t feel like separating Edgedancer from the rest of Arcanum Unbounded, and didn’t feel like cut-and-pasting the chapters from RoW.)
via: 10(4), 16(8), 22(9), 14(5)
plus: 6(2), 3(2), 7(2), 15(5)
(The numbers for “plus” only include the use you’re probably referring to, which is as a substitute for “Additionally”; not in things like “plus one”.)
So, considering that Dawnshard is somewhere around 10–20% of the length of the other works, the use of both on a per-word basis has definitely increased, but they were in use the entire time, as Peter says.
Just finished reading Dawnshard and I gotta say I was surprised by the ending…
Not because of the story but because of the way my kindle was formatted. I read a sentence, it ended with a fullstop/period and it was at the very end of the page. Seeing as there was a few percent left on the counter I assumed that there was at least another page however short.
What I instead got was a full page picture of Brandon. I was not expecting a close-up face staring back at me so out of the blue.
You just don’t expect people staring back at you when reading. If I had set the text to a different size it would not have ended so perfectly at the end of a page and you expect some kind of gap after text ends before sudden pictures appear.
I greatly enjoyed the story too…
I worry that Navani foreshadows Dalinar’s death at the end of the chapter (cry face). He does have much to atone for after all. Maybe he becomes a martyr somehow? That would be devastating. Perhaps, that is what pushes Kaladin to swear the 4th oath? Oh, man… I have full on anxiety now :(
I don’t trust the Mink. We don’t know enough about him. He is dodgy and obviously hasn’t forgiven Dalinar. And who can blame the Mink for not forgiving Dalinar?
@76 Lift visited Cultivation three or four years ago. I can’t remember where I read that but I’m almost positive. And anyhow, Dalinar met her 6 or 7 years ago right at the beginning of the war against the Parshendi. Dalinar did meet her before.
I think that Cultivation changed Lift in a way different than Lift thought. It is sort of sad though because Lift is amazing as a kid!
Thank you so much for hosting this read-along! It’s been a lot of fun.
So we’ve reached the end of part 1, where we get the set-up for the rest of this behemoth. I’ve enjoyed the ride so far and can’t hardly wait for this week to bring me more Sanderson goodness. Couple thoughts:
First I trust the Mink, although I can see why others don’t. IMO he’s too high-profile to be effective as Odium’s spy while also being too new to be influential. And it’s not like his suggestion is unsound, Dalinar himself agreed with Mink’s military assessment and only needed an outside voice to overcome his sentimentality for his occupied homeland.
Next, I love lore and new tech even when I have a little trouble picturing it. For me that’s the essence of reread ability. And so I appreciate Navani being that gateway to new tech. For any other character the exposition would be clunky and unnatural. Then again, I love Navani, period. I’m here for it anytime she’s on the page so I’m admittedly biased. If someone doesn’t like her that could influence how they feel about lore or political machinations as a byproduct. I’m not saying that’s the case for everyone, it’s just a possibility. As to whether this counts as sci-fi or fantasy, personally for me it doesn’t matter so much. I’m here for the story, if it’s good I don’t care how you label it.
As far as a Shardbearer (Adolin) being an unnatural fit for the envoy, remember they are being advised by an Honorspren. I don’t know their attitude towards deadeyes but if it were going to be a problem you would think the Honorspren advising ways to make a good impression on the leaders of Lasting Integrity would have mentioned it. Adolin’s eagerness to go is totally due to Maya. Knowing his character do you really think he hasn’t been trying to find ways to help her during this year break?
Lastly, King Taravanginan. Am I the only one who got chills and a spike of adrenaline when he gave his little speech to Navani? That old man is scary as hell even when you don’t know the depths to which he’ll stoop. It’s even worse for us as readers. I’m undecided as to what his not bringing attendants means. It could be that he’s breaking from his inner circle, it could be posturing. Eager to learn though.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Odium could, if not undo Cultivation/Nightwatcher’s boon/curse on Taravangian, at least shift the bell curve for him. Leaving the attendants behind is a power move that would imply he’s no longer concerned about having feeble days… and if it did just shift the bell curve while leaving the general effect in place, it means our creepy king is mostly having low-empathy days. Very much in line with Odium’s strategy for turning humans so far, and very dangerous.
Does anyone else get a serious Michael Peña vibe whenever they read the Lopen’s dialogue
@30 Carl
Galaxy brain moment over here: Maybe the chicken eats voidlight!
Wetlandernw @56:
“There’s a tendency to think that fantasy should be written in… well, maybe not purple prose, but something loftier than our everyday speech, and I’m willing to let go of that tendency.”
That wasn’t the thrust of my argument at all. I had no problem with Lift using “awesome” in all it’s permutations, for instance, while some other folks did. If an expression isn’t really, really new and tightly tied to current events, I don’t care. What is important for me is that the words characters use should be plausible for the setting they are in.
For instance, when Shallan said in WoR, I think, that she was “allergic” to something, it was incredibly jarring to me, because they shouldn’t have a general concept of allergy. Hay-fever, yes. That some things don’t agree with some people, yes. Their medical knowledge is advanced compared to similar eras iRL, but they didn’t yet discover vaccination at the time that she said it, and it was rough understanding of mechanisms behind it that led to the coining of the concept of “allergy”.
Ditto “seconds”. Why would people think in the terms of seconds before wearable time-keeping devices displaying them become common-place? Shouldn’t they rather count in heartbeats, as they mostly do in the text anyway?
And now coming to “plus” – Rosharan societies as depicted shouldn’t have ubiquitous numeracy like ours do, and therefore this expression shouldn’t be in general use. If only people who constantly work with numbers, like scholars, engineers and traders, employed it, it wouldn’t have bothered me. But instead, everybody and their axehound does and the frequency of use is escalating at such a rate that it became really noticeable. This reminds me of GRRMs “nuncle” in ADwD that was justly mocked.
And sure, you can use the “translation” argument, but why? Why use the jarring expressions that don’t fit the setting and then explain the incongruity away, when it would be easy to say the same thing through those that do in the first place?
PeterAhlstrom @85:
Thank you for pointing this out. I guess coming fresh from finishing “Dawnshard”, the exponential rise in the frequency of “plus” use really brought home to me how much this expression bothers me in SA and that “via” does so too, to a lesser degree. Though it is true that extensive use of “via” already began in WoR.
Bad_platypus @88:
Thank you. Yes, the amount of “plus” in “Dawnshard is ridiculous, which prompted my initial comment. And it appeared 7 times in the preview chapters already.
And now to something completely different:
Gepeto, I too wonder why nobody, not even Sigzil’s spren, sees anything problematic about sending deadeye-bonded Adolin as part of the embassy to the honorspren. Isn’t it like pouring oil on the fire? Sendin Shallan, OTOH, makes sense because her skills are very useful for survival during the trek through Shadesmar, not to mention that she is one of the few people around (that are known and trusted) with experience of such travel. Also, the honorspren may dislike Cryptics, but this could be used to apply reverse psychology to them.
I am also very curious who the 2 unnamed Radiants will turn out to be and really hope that at least one of them is going to be a minor character that already appeared in the series. Maybe Kadash? Godeke seems to have taken over the niche that I envisioned for Kadash, for the reasons that I 100% understand, but I’d really like for him to figure in the narrative, too. I also really hope that the Truthwatcher is _not_ Stump, because while I can see Gawx and Lift becoming fluent in Alethi in just 1 year, I don’t see it for Stump. I am also not convinced that she would be a significantly better diplomat than Lift.
In fact, isn’t it kinda odd that none of the Truthwatchers we have seen so far conformed to what they had most commonly been in the past? I.e. a scholar? Renarin can become one in the future, of course, but he is not a usual one anyway.
I have see it claimed that the Truthwatchers used to be a very small Order – is there any text or WoB that supports this? Because there are a lot of green-eyed lighteyes running around, and they could have only gotten those from the Truthwatcher deadblades or (heavily hinted, but not yet confirmed) being descended from the Truthwatcher Radiants. Maybe there is some other reason for why there are so few of them yet, despite their people as a whole approving of bonding. Maybe their stronghold is cut off by the voidspren/Fused, which makes it very difficult for the spren to get to the promising humans, for instance.
And finally, the Stonewards. I am really curious about them.
BTW, it really looks like the Orders other than the Windrunners are expanding much more slowly because they can only get squires after they swear the Fourth Ideal, which none except for Shallan and probably Jasnah have managed yet, and squireship really helps with eventually bonding a spren. Speaking of which, I really hoped that even if the Elsecaller spren wouldn’t budge yet, that Jasnah’s pen-pals from OB would have joined her and become her squires. She must be sufficiently far along in her Oaths to be able to have them and I’d really love for the Thaylen pastry chef, who is a noted scholar under the female pseudonym, to come into the open.
@@@@@ 95 benandjonice
Yes! I thought I was the only one. (I do think Herdaz very strongly reminds me of Mexico, from how Lopen talks (gancho = ese?) or how they describe family to an extent.)
Oh, one other thing – I very much hope that the mystery of Hesina’s origins will be revealed in this book. It was hinted again in the previous chapter that she came from elevated circumstances. I can’t quite reconcile this with the fact that she didn’t beg her supposedly richer and more influential family to save her sons, once Tien was drafted and Kaladin enlisted. I am sure that Sheler, venal as he was, could have been bribed to release Tien. And that with that done, it could have been arranged for Kaladin to become a surgeon’s apprentice with the army, instead of a spearman. I can understand Lirin and her being too proud to just ask for money for Kaladin’s education in the first place and chosing to engage in their scheme instead. People are often ridiculous this way. But once their boys’ lives were on the line?! Y
My first hunny!
It seems to me that the Honorspren leadership won’t like anyone they send. Sigzil’s spren seems to want to send a delegation least likely to be arrested on sight. And although sending a deadeye and Shardbearer pair might be a slap in the face it could also have the opposite effect, an acknowledgement that crimes were done during the Recreance and humanity doesn’t intend to hide their role in events behind a pretty veneer. I mean they know deadeyes exist after all, whatever they discuss the subject of deadeyes will come up. So if they’re going to talk about it then it’s probably good that the best Shardbearer they have, arguably the best example of the breed will be there to cast the best possible light on the situation.
I am excited to see a Stoneward spren and a Truthwatcher spren in the Cognitive Realm as well as their personalities. I’m always down for learning more about spren culture.
@97 Isilel – Renerin wants to be a scholar and seems to fit quite well to a Truthwatcher. Remember the scene in OB where they are letting him work with the scholars in the room with the gem stones? He wants to be there with them even though technically he shouldn’t be allowed.
I haven’t comment as much during these sneak-peak chapters, but I have really enjoyed this recaps and discussion. So thank you Lyndsey and Alice! Also, Alice, it’s good to hear that you really like the book as a whole. I look forward to reading it next week. I enjoyed Part 1 pretty well overall. I like the things it’s setting up and I’m intrigued to see where things go.
@100 Congrats EvilMonkey!
Anyone else getting Dalinar & Navani new baby vibes? I’m seeing a lot of potential set ups for the next generation of Radiants… And I am here for it!
benandjonice @95:
Well, now I do! :-)
Now that we know the groups, we know that the Jasnah/Dalinar group is gonna face the Skybreakers. I wonder if we’ll get a Jasnah/Nale fight. That would be epic.
@79 Katherine. I meant, since he hadn’t tell them the truth until he finished his book and got someone else to read it, I would assume he didn’t think he ought to tell them. If he did, then he would have, earlier and in better circumstances. I did predict this might happen not because Dalinar doesn’t care more because he didn’t think he ought to do it. He dealt with his own past, it probably never crossed him mind it might be hard for one of his sons.
I think how Adolin came to admire his father so much is quite plausible given the context of the books. I find those flashbacks, with Dalinar, endeared him to me quite a lot since I could almost picture the young boy he once was, growing up in a warcamp, spending most of his time with adult soldiers no doubt telling him the great tales of his father wondrous victories. It is both plausible and also sad since, as a child, Adolin was obviously given the wrong reading on his dad and this only got reinforced in later years. He truly did think “broken Dalinar” needed his fixing and, well, the truth turned out to be quite different. No wonder his relationship with Dalinar is now rocky and Adolin rebels.
Dalinar’s treatment of Renarin is beyond abyssal. He is doing better by his younger son, in the present-day narrative, but one could wonder if being a good dad for 7 years is enough to erase the 13 previous years… Still, Renarin isn’t the one to harbor ill feelings towards Dalinar now the truth is out, Adolin is. Granted, Adolin’s perception of Dalinar fell from a much higher tree.
@90 tailbon. Yeah, the Mink seems to harbor ill feelings towards Dalinar. His son did die. I didn’t feel this was over.
@93 EvilMonkey. On the contrary, I think the Mink is the perfect spy because he is someone Dalinar will readily trust. When the Fused spoke of their plan to get Dalinar and Jasnah away from the city, they spoke of their agent needing to figure out a ploy to do so. Taravangian is anything if not smart: he would know he wouldn’t single-handily convinced Dalinar to leave as Dalinar would be wary of any suggestion made by him. That can’t have been the plan. Taravangian would have told the Fused Dalinar is no longer trusting him, hence, the Mink.
What better mole than the general having worked so hard to defend his small land against the Fused? Who could be more trustworthy, to a battle-hardened veteran, than another battle-hardened veteran? It could be the whole ploy in Herdaz was part of the play: the Fused allowed the Mink to come across as more successful than he should have been, but they still won. The Mink could have struck a deal with them…
Of course, I understand if others think the Mink is genuine, but I’ll have him on my radar as I read the book!
On Navani: For me, the technical talk is part of the reason why I enjoy her viewpoint less. I don’t necessarily hate it, there is just something not clicking between myself and Navani. I have no issues with similar talk in Dawnshard, at least not as of chapter 12 (which is where I am at).
On Adolin being a Shardbearer: I think it is possible Sigzil over-looked this fact or his spren didn’t actually click when Shallan proposed herself and Adolin. It is possible no one thought of it, at the moment, but will do once they start prepping. I do not personally think it makes much sense to send a Shardbearer bounded to a dead-eye when you try to smooth the bruised honor of a vindictive group of sprens still angry over the event that… created the dead-eyes. It seems ill-advised so my thought is no one has simply realized this, yet.
On Taravangian. I have lots of chills when it comes to him. RoW will be good.
@97 Isilel. I agree about Adolin being an odd pick to lead this mission. I wrote my suspicions in an answer to EvilMonkey right above. I think it is possible neither Sigzil nor his spren thought of it, on the spot. Once they reflect, they might realize this wouldn’t be a good idea.
I filed in the unnamed Radiants as the random red shirts of the mission. Godeke, I think, was created to take up Lift’s role in the mission since she was initially supposed to go. I suspect Sanderson wanted an Edgedancer to interact with Adolin during the trip.
@100 EvilMonkey. What does “My first hunny” means?
@103 dan. I think they are both too old. Navani is well beyond her child bearing years. It would be too odd, IMHO.
This year I was a little quicker about putting my hold in at the library but I’m still number 14 on the list. But, they have 7 copies so hopefully the type of people who get a hold months in advance are also the type to binge read the book quickly :) Thanks Gepeto for mentioning Dawnshard on ebook – I just ordered that so at least I have that to look forward to for now.
I’ll admit I found the first part of the chapter a little dull/textbook like (the fabrial mechanics/engineering doesn’t grab me as much, even though I am a STEM oriented person. I tend to be more interested in natural science and the more mystic and metaphysical worldbuilding aspects of fantasy), although I really like seeing Navani do more things and embrace her nerdiness. The setup for the new developments is interesting, and I like seeing Gawx growing into himself! T is definitely up to something, and his utilitarian view of the world is chilling. I also was wondering of Odium has interfered with his curse/boon, or if it is simply fading for some other reason.
Pretty pumped to eventually meet another Truthwatcher (that’s the order I got when I took the quiz) and a Stoneward!
@Gepeto
My first hunny means this is the first time one of my posts actually hit 100 exactly. Used to be a thing in the WoT forums, coincidentally my entry point to tor.com.
As far as the deadeyes question, everyone knows the subject will come up. It’s a sore spot with all spren, not just those running Lasting Integrity. And it’s not like humans can just make the decision to unbind them en masse and toss them away; we see the Fused show an uncomfortable interest in collecting them. I would think that Honorspren prefer their interactions and negotiations to be straightforward, not ignoring past wrongs or unfulfilled obligations. So if it were me, I would know that the subject could not be avoided, that to attempt to do so would likely be more offensive to those to whom I am attempting to reach an accommodation with. Knowing that, I’m putting a Shardbearer in my party regardless just to show that I’m not attempting to dodge a sensitive and significant issue and thus be negotiating in bad faith. And if I must pick a Shardbearer I would not find a better representative than Adolin, someone who honors that bond despite its brokenness and tragic background. Then there’s the heirachy aspect. Adolin’s rank is sufficient enough to convince anyone that his word can be binding with any accommodation that can be reached. Only Dalinar or Navani’s word would be stronger and they are needed elsewhere. I just wish they didn’t hate Kaladin so much, he’d have been perfect. But I still would have sent Adolin for the reasons stated above.
Another interesting note on Taravangian, having just made it through his OB interlude on my prerelease reread, where good lord the foreshadowing now feels like it was laid on real thick: his closing thoughts in that chapter are reflecting on the fact that (at least on a smart/unempathetic day) he feels like his magical affliction specifically/intentionally gives him the magically enhanced ability to “save what can be saved [and] abandon the rest.” Psychopathy is… one way to handle triage, I guess?
I suddenly have this feeling that Kaladin’s venture back into medicine will be bringing House Stormblessed into Mr. T’s orbit. Maybe even on specific orders to keep an eye out. Either way, sounds extremely illuminating to watch father and son each develop their impressions of the guy in parallel.
@107, Lisamarie:
Well, Alice is literally an an engineer. Hey, we know Lyn got Tuckerized–is Navani perhaps partly inspired by our own WetlanderNW?
A big thank you to Alice, Lindsey, and Tor for hosting and facilitatingthis discussion. It was a welcome addition to my day to day. I’ll look forward to the re-read.
See you folks in the Dawnshard reread.
@108 EvilMonkey. Thanks. I didn’t know what I had to congratulate you on. So congrats!
I have a different perspective on how the Honorspren might react to a Shardbearer. I remember Syl used to hate Adolin simply because he was a Shardbearer: she was offended by the fact he was using her dead-sister corpses to fight. I would thus assume other Honorpsrens would feel the same too. Adolin is a good fellow, high ranked, can talk in Dalinar’s name, but we never really saw what he had in him when came the time to be a politician. He can be emotional and swayed away. He can be manipulated. I guess, we’ll see!
So maybe the Oathgates/suppression fabrial etc. are all made from spren whose parent godspren is the Sibling (equivalent to honorspren and the Stormfather/cultivationspren and the Nightwatcher).
Been wondering about the Sibling. Where could (she?) possibly be? Someone (one of the ancient elsecallers, I think) thought that the Sibling’s withdrawal from the Tower was… not so voluntary. It got me thinking. You know how one of the Unmade, Nergaoul, I think, was trapped in a large, perfect gem? Is it possible that something like that could happen to the Sibling? Maybe that’s where he/she will be found. It might not even be possible, for all I know. But an intersting theory, nevertheless.
Cheers, one more day, can’t wait!
Ben M.
Hmmm… OB chapter 83 intro… “Honor’s Drop”. Maybe THAT is where the Sibling is?
Ben M
@benpmoldovan, just one small point: the Stormfather always refers to his Sibling as “they.” Presumably they are neither male nor female.
Oh, okay.
@Gepeto
I’m not sure if you’re even going to see this, considering I don’t know how @ing someone actually works in here, and since the thread is kind of obsolete considering Rhythm of War is actually released now. Plus I don’t even know for certain that you’ve started reading the full book yet- sorry if you haven’t, and this comment makes no sense.
But anyway, I started reading and when I hit the Adolin POV sections around chapter 21 onward I ended up remembering what you said about Adolin’s character/direction and being frustrated with it. I’m just curious- if you’ve read Rhythm of War or have at least reached that point, do you like what Sanderson is doing with him now? I’m trying to be as unspoilery as possible just in case, but right off the bat it felt very close to the kind of thing you wanted to see out of him.
No spoilers, but as one of those who felt some of Part One was too drawn out and such … Part Two is where the story really takes off, for me.
@122 – I’ve been thinking along those lines too… as much as there was some awkwardness to the pacing of the weekly teaser release, it was an interesting experience to already have Part 1 under my belt from the serialization here. Getting the book on release and jumping straight into the first set of interludes (omg) and then jumpstarting all the major plotlines with all the time skip catchup/setup out of the way… It was like getting to hit the “skip recap” button between binging seasons of a show.
I think in the years since Oathbringer I had forgotten Brandon’s typical “slow build” structure. Honestly, I don’t think it works very well for books this long, because the initial less-intense part takes as long as a normal novel.
Having now finished Part 3 … the build continues. And that is the closest to a spoiler I will post.
When does the Dawnshard reread begin?
@mathbard — it’s running right now.
https://www.tor.com/2020/12/03/dawnshard-reread-prologue-and-chapters-1-7/
So when does the reread start? I thought it was to be shortly after the Dawnshard reread ended.
Not pushing you or rushing you, just asking.
@127: It will start in January after a holiday break. I don’t know just when, so I’ll keep an eye on the Tor.com homepage.
Thanks, @AeronaGreenjoy.
Does anyone have any idea whether Tor will be releasing a paperback version of Rhythm of War sized 104mm x 170mm as they did with the previous books? I’ve been hunting around for information on the Tor website and elsewhere but can only find information about the larger sized paperback (15.49 x 5.84 x 23.11 cm). I was hoping they would release a smaller sized version so it would match the others on my book shelf and it’s slightly lighter to carry around on my commute :)
Hey guys… I need a Rosharan name… Please help me, I can’t think of one.
@Yew, which culture? Thaylen names sound nothing like Horneater names.
Sigh…Navani and Dalinar were on the right path in thinking T’s support of their Emul warfront was worrying…the thing is they had his plan backwards; he didn’t want Dalinar and Jasnah in Emul so he could lay a trap for them, he wanted them away from Urithiru…
Mraize: Shallan, infiltrate the city of the Honorspren and find Restares.
Sigzil: we need to send an envoy to the Honorspren.
Shallan: How convenient!