Oathbringer Prologue (spoilers)

[Rubix]

Hey everyone, I'm working on getting an answer back from team Sanderson. Until we get an answer, please don't post a transcript. 

[PatronOfRot]

I cleaned up the audio a bit using audacity. Not going to post it unless a mod/team Sanderson says it's ok though.

[Blightsong]

Brandon said he's cool with it.

[Humpty]

To Hell with his wishes transcribe it then email a copy to me...:)  j/k

[Kanrei]

Ok, so here is what I have. Its far from perfect - a lot of words (almost all names) and sometimes sentences missing.
Tenses are probably messed a lot too and its not rly formatted, but maybe someone can use it as base for better transcript as most of text is already done.
When there is something missing I put time to corresponding audio.
 

prolog-en.doc

Edited February 6, 2017 by Kanrei

[Jofwu]

On 2/5/2017 at 0:55 AM, PatronOfRot said:

I cleaned up the audio a bit using audacity. Not going to post it unless a mod/team Sanderson says it's ok though.

Considering Brandon was okay with the transcript being shared, and considering this whole thread is built around the shared audio clip, I would assume that this is okay to post.

[PatronOfRot]

1 hour ago, jofwu said:

Considering Brandon was okay with the transcript being shared, and considering this whole thread is built around the shared audio clip, I would assume that this is okay to post.

Hmm. I thought I edited it in. Must have forgotten to save it. I'll have it up shortly.

[Jofwu]

Edit: Feel the need to add two warnings. Like Brandon said to preface the reading, this isn't a final draft and there may be changes. Second, there are undoubtedly mistakes. Words that we/I couldn't figure out at all are generally marked with question marks (or a guess). But there are almost certainly a number of words that are just plain wrong and we don't even realize it. So if you're coming up with some theory or whatnot and it hinges on a particular word or phrasing, then you might want to check it against the recording.

/u/RyanEl on Reddit put together a fantastic transcript. I did my best to fill in the holes of his work (and make some corrections). Then I compared it with @Kanrei's work above, and made a few more corrections. Here's what I got:

Quote

I don't usually write the first chapter before I get to the end of the book, but if I do write the first chapter I usually throw it away and write it again when I finish the book. Very very common for me. So this is one of the newest things I've written for Oathbringer, and therefore it's actually one of the least polished. For those who don't know the Stormlight Archive books, what I do with them is the prologues all happen on the same night. A night several years before the series actually begins, and each of the prologues is a different character's view on what happened that night. And each one kind of reveals a little more of the secrets and things that were going on. And so the first book showed us Szeth from that night, the second book showed us Jasnah. The third book is Eshonai on that night. She's the Parshendi.

Eshonai had always told her sister that she was certain that something wonderful lay over the next hill.

And then, one day, she crossed a knoll and had found humans.

Strange and wonderful creatures who spoke a guttural language with no discernible rhythm. The creatures created beauty all the same. They wore clothing more vibrant than the Listeners could create, more vibrant even than carapace, though they couldn’t grow their own armor, and were so terrified of storms that they hid inside tombs of rock, or wood, even while travelling.

Most remarkably, they had only one form.

It seemed at very first that these creatures, these Alethi, must have forgotten their forms as the Listeners had. That built instant kinship between them. That and the fact they seemed to have adopted another group of Listeners who had somehow lost their forms. They had begun taking care of those Listeners so the poor souls without songs could not hurt themselves.

Oh how innocent those first meetings had been. Eshonai looked at the drummers who gathered their instruments. She had never quite understood what her purpose was to be this night, when the Alethi and Listeners dined to celebrate their contract together. She was a scout, a hunter, but also their foremost expert of the Alethi. She wasn’t one of the Five, but neither was she lowly. She was important tonight, yet not so important she couldn’t be spared for some hands on labour.

She was glad at that. She hummed to the rhythm of awe as she helped them load the drums in the cart behind the chulls.  She had never wished for [authority?].  People with authority couldn’t go chasing the horizon. But if being an expert brought her to this wonderful place, then she would accept it. This wonderful, and terrible place.

She handed the drum to ?Hermo?(a name), feeling dwarfed by the palace structure. A hundred sounds from people working echoed in this cavernous unloading dock on the western side of the palace. It was so large it could accommodate their entire caravan. Two hundred Listeners unpacking here during their first arrival [and/it?] hadn’t filled the place. Indeed most of the Listeners couldn’t attend their feast upstairs, but the Alethi had seen to their ??? anyway, bring?ing mountains of food and drink up from down here.

So wonderful. This palace was what the buildings at the Shattered Plains must have looked like before being weathered by the storms. The sheer engineering prowess of this city, with its clustered buildings and enormous walls had made her revise, yet again, her understanding of these creatures they’d met.

She stepped out of the wagon, looking at the upper reaches of the building, humming to excitement. When she told Venli she was determined to map the world, she had imagined places of natural discovery. Canyons and hills, forests and lakes overgrown with life. And yet all along, this had been out there, waiting just beyond their reach.

And so had more Listeners. A population that was not merely some tribe like in the songs. An enormous, mind-numbing population of people like her own, but silent. And owned by the humans.

“They keep wanting to come help,” ???(a name) said to curiosity, noting where Eshonai had been looking. He shook his head, his beard sparkling with gemstones of ruby that matched the prominent red colors of his skin, which swirled only briefly with touches of black near his chin at the edge of his carapace. They reminded her of ???(a name)’s ???. ???(a name) handed her a drum.

“[Little?] rhythmless ones want to be near us. They sense that something was wrong with their minds, I tell you.”

Eshonai  ??? the drum and set it with the others. A group of parshmen, as they were called, clustered around the outside of their ring of workers. She hesitated, then dropped down and walked over to the parshmen.

“You aren’t needed,” she said to peace, hands out in the air. “We would prefer to handle our own drums.”

The ones without songs looked to her with dull eyes.

“Go,” she said pleading, waving toward the nearby festivities where parshendi? and human servants laughed together despite language barrier. Humans clapped alongside to Listeners singing the old songs.

“Enjoy yourselves. It’s a day for pleasure and parties.”

The parshmen did not move. They seemed to show no interest in this activity, though a few did look towards songs and cocked their heads. She sighed and returned to unloading drums.

“It won’t work,” ???(a name) said to skepticism, resting her arms across the drum. “They just can’t imagine what it’s like to live. They’re pieces of property, [to be both?] bought and sold.”

What to make of this idea? Slaves?

Klade, one of the Five, had gone to the slavers in the city and purchased a person to see if it was truly possible, and it had been depressingly easy. He had even bought parshmen. There had been Alethi there for sale. Apparently parshmen were expensive and were considered quality slaves. The Listeners had been told this, as if for some reason they were supposed to feel proud at that fact.

She hummed to curiosity and nodded to ???(a name), who smiled and hummed to peace. Everyone was used to Eshonai wandering off on little jobs. It wasn't that she was unreliable, well, maybe she was, but at least she was consistently unreliable.

She passed the parshmen and hummed a song to them, the song of hunts, enhanced to the rhythm of excitement. They just looked at her with hollow eyes. They wore slaveform, at least, that was the Listeners had decided to call it. Really, it wasn’t a form at all but a lack of one. They seemed like dullform, but dullforms could hear the rhythms, and these obviously could not. Eshonai herself wore workform instead of warform; the armour of warform could be handy in a hunt, but workform was more ?trained?. She liked the way she thought while in workform.

She wandered away from the parshmen, walking up the steps and entering the palace, trying to take in the ??? of beauty and sheer overwhelming wonder of the building. Beautiful and terrible. People who were bought and sold kept this place clean, but was that what [freed the?] humans to create great works like carvings on the buildings she passed, or the inlaid marble patterns on the floor?

She passed soldiers who wore their metal carapace. Humans hadn’t lost their forms. They only had one. Always in mateform and workform and warform all at once. They wore their emotion on their faces far more than Listeners. Now, Eshonai’s people would laugh and smile and cry, but not like these Alethi, who were perpetually held enslaved to their emotions. Perhaps that’s, where they had gotten the idea.

The lower levels of the palace had an open feel to them, broad hallways and boundaries lit by spheres containing carefully cut gemstones. The main lights sparkled, as opposed to the uncut stones her people tended to wear. Sparkling chandeliers hung above her, broken suns spraying light all around.

She trailed up the steps, holding to a hardwood banister, polished so often that it reflected her face. How interesting it was that Listeners, with their varied faces and skin, should be the ones who could have any form they wished, while the Alethi, who seemed so dull with their  [thin?]  skins, should be the ones so vibrant ??? [emotions?]. Perhaps the simple ways their bodies looked was another reason they sought to ornament everything, from their clothing to the pillars which held up their ceilings.

Could we do this? She thought, humming to irritation, if we had the right form for creating art?

Yet the floors of the palace were more like tunnels, narrow stone corridors, rooms like bunkers dug in a mountainside.

She made her way back to the feast hall, but with diversions, glancing through rooms, making a mental map in her head. She’d been told she could wander if she wished, the palace was open save for places with guards at the doors. So she decided to take it and learn what she could.

Another room of books in here.  A guest room with a bed and furniture in another. An indoor privy with running water, a marvel she still didn’t understand. She poked through a dozen rooms.  As long as she was back in time for music ??? the Five  [with a?]  plan. They were accustomed to her ways, just like everyone else. She was always wandering off, poking at things, peeking into doors…

And finding the king? Eshonai froze, looking into a large room with a big red rug and ??? ??? walls. So must information just lying around, casually ignored. That was the king himself, standing in front of a table pointing at something on it, surrounded by a group of five Alethi  [in?]  uniforms and long dresses, with one old man in robes.

Why wasn’t Gavilar at the feast? Why aren’t there guards at the door? Eshonai attuned to anxiety and pulled back, but not before one of the women inside prodded the King by the arm and pointed towards Eshonai. Anxiety pounding her head she pulled the door close, but a moment later a tall man in uniform stepped out.

“The king would like to see you,” the man said.

She spoke their language pretty well these days, but she pretended not to.

“Sir?” she cocked her head. “Words?”

“Don’t be coy,” the soldier said. “You’re one of the interpreters. Come in.”

Nervous, she let him lead her into the den.

“Thank you Meridas,” Gavilar said. He nodded to the others and they filed out, leaving Eshonai at the door attuning consolation and humming it lightly, even though the humans couldn’t understand what it meant.

“Eshonai,” the king said. “I have something to show you.”

He knew her name? She wasn’t aware that the king had been paying that close attention to them. She spent most of her time speaking to his scribes, trying and failing to explain the rhythms to them.

She stepped further into the room. It was a small warm room holding her arms tightly around her. She didn’t understand this man. It was more than his alien dead way of speaking, more than the fact that she couldn’t anticipate what emotions might be swirling there as warform and mateform protested inside of him. More than any human, this man baffled her. What did he want?

Why had he offered such a favourable treaty? At first it seemed like an accommodation between tribes. That was before she had come here and seen the city and watched its armies patrol the streets. Her people had once been like this, they knew that from the songs. They once had cities of their own and armies [and/in ???]. That, had been long ago.

They were a tribe of lost people, traitors who had abandoned their cause to be free. This man could crush them and take their Shards, the few weapons they passed down from ancient times.

Why did he smile at her like that? What was he hiding inside by not singing to the rhythms to calm her.

“Sit, Eshonai,” the king said. “Oh don’t be frightened ??? ?? scouts, I’ve been wanting to speak with you. Your mastery of our language is unique.”

She sat down on the seat before him. She could see what was on the table, some papers for him to study? He reached down and removed something from a small satchel at his feet. It glowed with red Stormlight, a construction of gemstones and metal crafted in a beautiful design.

“Do you know what this is?” He asked, gently, pushing it towards her.

“No, your majesty.”

“It’s what’s called a fabrial, a device powered by Stormlight that does something handy. This one makes warmth, just a smidge unfortunately, but my wife’s confident the scholars can create one that would heat an entire room. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No more fires and hearths.”

It seemed lifeless to Eshonai, but she didn’t say so. She hummed to praise, so he wouldn’t keep telling her of this, and handed it back.

“Look closely,” King Gavilar said. “Look deep into it. Can you see what’s moving inside? That’s a spren. That’s how the device works.”

Captive, like in a gemheart, she thought, attuning awe. They built a device to mimic how they applied their forms. [They invested? so much of their limitations?].

“The chasmfiends aren’t your gods, are they?” he asked.

“What?” she asked, attuning to skepticism. “Why ask that?”

It was a strange turn in the conversation.

“Oh it’s just something I’ve been thinking about,” he said, taking back the fabrial.

“The others feel so superior because they think they have it figured out,” he chuckled. “They think you’re savages, but I know the truth. You’re not savages. You’re an [enclave?] of memories. A window into the past.”

He leaned forward, ruby light slipping between his fingers.

“I’m going to help you, Eshonai. You should know, I have discovered how to bring back your gods.”

“No,” she hummed to the rhythm of the terrors. “No!”

“My ancestors,” he said, holding up the fabrial, “They’re the ones who first learned how to do this.” Hold a spren inside a gemstone. With a very special gemstone you can even hold a god.”

“Your majesty,” she said, daring to ?????? He couldn’t feel the rhythms, she didn’t know. “Please, we don’t worship those god any longer. We left them, abandoned them.”

“Ah, but this is for your good, and for ours!” He stood up. “This life we live, a life without honor or victory, cannot persist.  Your gods brought ours, and without them, we have no power. This world is trapped, Eshonai, stuck in a state of dull lifeless transition.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “Unite them. I need a threat.  Only danger will unite them.”

“What?” she said to anxiety. “What are you saying?"

“The parshmen were like you once. We stopped their ability  [to enter the?]  transformation somehow by capturing a spren. A very ancient, very important spren.” He looked to her, his eyes alight. “I’ve seen how I can reverse it.  A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.”

“Insanity!” She rose to her feet. “Our gods tried to destroy you!”

“The old words must be spoken again.”

“You can’t…” she trailed off, noticing the map on the table for the first time. An extensive map, showing a land bound by ocean, an incredible drawing that put her own attempts at charting the lands around the Shattered Plains to shame. She stepped to the table and gaped, the rhythm of awe playing in her mind.

This was gorgeous. Even the grand chandeliers and carved walls were nothing by comparison. This was knowledge and beauty fused into one.

“I’m going to be pleased to hear that we are allies in seeking the return of your gods,” Galivar said. She could almost feel the rhythm of reprimand through his dead words.

“I know you’ve been saying you fear them, but why should you fear that which makes you live? My people need to be united and I need an empire that won’t simply turn into infighting once I am gone.”

“And so you seek for war?”

“I seek for an end to something that we apparently never finished. My people were radiant once and your people, the parshmen, were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other and end in squabbles without light to guide them? And your people are as good as worthless.”

She looked back at the map. “Where… Where is the Shattered Plains? This portion here?”

“That is all Natanatan you gestured to, Eshonai. This little portion here is the Shattered Plains.” He pointed to a spot not much longer or larger than his thumbnail, when the entire map was as large as the table.

It gave her a sudden,  horrifying perspective. This was the world? She thought that traveling to Kholinar had crossed almost as far as the land could go!

She ??? legs weakened, and for some reason she attuned mourning. She dropped back into her seat, unable to stand.

Gavilar removed something from his pocket. A sphere? It was dark, yet somehow still dun, as if it had an aura of blackness, a phantom light that was not light at all, faintly violet, a sphere that seemed to stop the light around it.

He set it on the table before her.

“You can have that,” he said. “I have another. Take it, and remember what your people once were. Wake up, Eshonai. Your people are now little better than parshmen, and you can be so much more.”

He patted her on the shoulder and left out the door. She stared at the terrible light, and knew it for what it was in the songs. The forms of power had been associated with a dark light, a light from the king of gods. A terrible creature that the Listeners escaped. She seized the sphere on the table and left running.

When the drums were set up Eshonai insisted on joining them. It was the only outlet for her anxiety. She beat to the sound of the rhythm in her head, banging as hard as she could, trying with each beat to slap away the things the king had said and the things she had just done. The Five, leaders of the Listeners sat the high table, the remnants of the final course of the meal sitting uneaten.

They intend to bring back our gods, she had said. Close your eyes. Focus on the rhythms. He could do it, he knows so much. Furious beats pulsing in her soul. We have to do something! Klade’s slave was an assassin. She thought he purchased him on a whim, but Klade had claimed the voice speaking in the rhythms had led him to the man. They claimed it was a sign of what they would do, and that the creature had confided his skills [to them?] when pressed.

Long ago they had the courage to do something drastic. They adopted dullform to escape their gods. They sought freedom at any cost.  But then, that cost would be higher. She played drums, she felt the rhythms, she wept softly and didn’t look as the strange assassin wearing white clothing provided by Klade left the room. Just the peace in the music, like her mother always said. Seek the rhythms, seek the songs.

She resisted as the others pulled her away, she wept to leave those beats behind. Wept for her people, who could never face this danger if they had to, wept for the world who would be destroyed if they did not. Wept for the king, whom she had resigned to death. The drums cut off around her, and dying music echoed through the halls.

(The bold text is whatever was add/changed from /u/RyanEl's work.)

Edited February 7, 2017 by jofwu
warning

[Pagerunner]

Very cool to read, and thanks to all who have worked on transcriptions. A couple of thoughts:

• The humans stopped the Parshendi from transforming by capturing a very old spren. I suspect this third spren is of Adonalsium, and is the third Bondsmith spren. It's not Nightwatcher or Stormfather (since Lift visited Nightwatcher, and the vast bulk of the Parshendi haven't been released to bond forms yet), and for some reason I'm not leaning towards one of the Unmade as being a 'normal' part of the Listeners' life cycle. A third superspren, one that has been present since before the Shattering, would fit with the Listeners predating the Shattering as well, and provides a likely candidate for our missing Bondsmith spren. I don't think Cusicesh could fit, since he's not trapped in a gemstone.
• The voice in Klade's head is attuned to the rhythms. This is reminiscent of similar instances we've seen in Mistborn, which would imply it's a Shard that is using the rhythms to speak into someone's mind. We have two active Shards, Cultivation and Odium. It might be a hidden plan of Cultivation, it might be that Odium needed a war to push the Listeners to experiment with stormspren. I can see either Shard as being a distinct possibility for now, until we learn who's pulling the strings. An off-the-walls idea is that it's the soul of Roshar that's coordinating these events, but I find that to be unlikely and am only mentioning it for completeness' sake.
• The Parshendi didn't acquire Szeth until right before the assassination, seemingly by coincidence. How did Szeth get into an Alethkar slave market? But, he was already an assassin, and the Parshendi didn't give him his Honorblade, that was from Shinovar. This is probably one of the reasons Brandon had to write much of Szeth's flashback sequence, since it has to make sense how he arrived where he is, where he got his reputation, and how the Parshendi learned he was a Surgebinder. (Or, did they even know that? Did he say he was an assassin, and then they didn't know what to expect when they turned him loose?)
• Looks like Voidlight is confirmed. Not a spren, but pure Investiture required for the Listener Forms of Power. Where is Eshonai's sphere now? How did it make its way over from Braize?
• Gavilar is trying to bring the Heralds out of hiding. He knows most of them are on Roshar, but he must not have realized there was at least one in his palace that very day.
• Gavilar is trying to bring pack the Listeners' old gods, of which Odium is king and the other gods are the Unmade. I don't think we have explicit confirmation on this, but it's seeming more and more likely. Thing is, the Thrill is happening in Dalinar's flashbacks, which well predate this prologue. So, at least one of the Unmade is already there and active, right? And the Death Rattles, how long have they been happening? Because that's another Unmade, isn't it? So what was he trying to accomplish that hasn't already been done? There are some cause-and-effect cases I would really like to see expanded on, so it's a good thing there are another thousand pages or so to this book.

[Oversleep]

36 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

And the Death Rattles, how long have they been happening? Because that's another Unmade, isn't it?

Death Rattles began to surface about the time Gavilar's expediction started to explore Shattered Plains (WoK, end of chapter 71). It's caused by Moelach (Taravangian interlude in WoR).

On the other hand, this WoB says:

Quote

The Thrill and the Death Rattles started around the same time, but the locations for the two fluctuate and have been since they appeared.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Oversleep

[Andy92]

Interesting read, and thanks to everyone who worked on transcribing the recording.

It seems like Gavilar has been trying to bring back Odium/another Desolation for the purpose of uniting either the Heralds or maybe even the other Shards within Cosmere? When he says, "Unite them. I need a threat. Only danger will unite them," this seems to point towards something along those lines. 

Gavilar wants to bring back the KR, but for what purpose? Is it really just because he sees the people and squabbles on Roshar as drab and pointless? Or is there a larger end goal he's trying to achieve with this? 

[maxal]

I have to say it... I really have to say it: I really hate Gavilar. Dalinar might have been a brute, but at least he had the common sense to feel sorry for how he behaved. Gavilar is another kind of brute: one who seems in control and who is utterly convinced he is right. He is the dangerous one and I can't believe he was on his way to become a Radiant. I guess this confirms Radiants weren't all good people: many it seems were among the worst individuals to ever exists. 

Gavilar threw his own country into a blood shed just so he could unite. He is willing to slay innocent just so he could get his unity.

So yeah, I hate this guy. 

I like Eshonai in the prologue, though I am still annoyed at the Parshendi talk with all of these mentions of rhythms. It annoyed my in WoR and I see it still annoys me, so I'll have to see if I can get over it. This being said, it was interesting to read her perspective on humans. 

[Humpty]

1 hour ago, maxal said:

I have to say it... I really have to say it: I really hate Gavilar. Dalinar might have been a brute, but at least he had the common sense to feel sorry for how he behaved. Gavilar is another kind of brute: one who seems in control and who is utterly convinced he is right. He is the dangerous one and I can't believe he was on his way to become a Radiant. I guess this confirms Radiants weren't all good people: many it seems were among the worst individuals to ever exists. 

Gavilar threw his own country into a blood shed just so he could unite. He is willing to slay innocent just so he could get his unity.

So yeah, I hate this guy. 

I like Eshonai in the prologue, though I am still annoyed at the Parshendi talk with all of these mentions of rhythms. It annoyed my in WoR and I see it still annoys me, so I'll have to see if I can get over it. This being said, it was interesting to read her perspective on humans. 

I have to agree with you on Gavilar both he and Mr T. totally missed the point of the visions. Unlike Dalinar he didn't seem to change that much throughout getting the visions. Yes he changed a little by refusing duels and reading the way of kings,  However he totally missed or ignored the point of the Radiant Ideals and the life before death aspect of them. So no he wasn't on the way to becoming a radiant. More than likely the Stormfather just made a mistake in his choice of humans to receive the visions and corrected it by leading the Parsendai to buying Szeth. That last part is just my guess.

 

[Blightsong]

7 minutes ago, Humpty said:

I have to agree with you on Gavilar both he and Mr T. totally missed the point of the visions. Unlike Dalinar he didn't seem to change that much throughout getting the visions. Yes he changed a little by refusing duels and reading the way of kings,  However he totally missed or ignored the point of the Radiant Ideals and the life before death aspect of them. So no he wasn't on the way to becoming a radiant. More than likely the Stormfather just made a mistake in his choice of humans to receive the visions and corrected it by leading the Parsendai to buying Szeth. That last part is just my guess.

We have WoB that Gavilar was indeed on the path to becoming a Bondsmith. The first ideal can be interpreted in many ways, and we know that some radiant orders can possess a Machiavellian philosophy.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Blightsong

[Humpty]

really that seems like a continuity error to me.  On one hand we a guy who is going to cause the deaths of thousands of people.  And at the same time BS says he was on the way to becoming a Radiant. "the radiant seeks to defend life always"

[Pagerunner]

5 minutes ago, Humpty said:

really that seems like a continuity error to me.  On one hand we a guy who is going to cause the deaths of thousands of people.  And at the same time BS says he was on the way to becoming a Radiant. "the radiant seeks to defend life always"

I think it more illustrates a misconception on what the Radiants were. Windrunner ideals are about protecting others. Edgedancer ideals are about helping others. But there are eight other large Orders, and the Bondsmiths who need to attract one of three specific spren.

To put a possible new perspective out there, Gavilar wasn't starting a new war. He's trying to end one that has long been dormant. He wants to finish what the Heralds have delayed, he may want to finish Odium off instead of leaving Rayse trapped on Braize. If he was indeed getting the same visions as Dalinar, then he was given a command to do something about it. Dalinar led his troops to the center of the Shattered Plains, which costed many lives, but was necessary for the war. Gavilar may have been in a similar situation; either leave Odium alone until he breaks free and destroys the world and everyone on it, or take drastic action to bring the Heralds back and defeat Odium once and for all. Neither possibility is good. But there is really only one option.

[+Extesian]

7 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Very cool to read, and thanks to all who have worked on transcriptions. A couple of thoughts:

• The humans stopped the Parshendi from transforming by capturing a very old spren. I suspect this third spren is of Adonalsium, and is the third Bondsmith spren. It's not Nightwatcher or Stormfather (since Lift visited Nightwatcher, and the vast bulk of the Parshendi haven't been released to bond forms yet), and for some reason I'm not leaning towards one of the Unmade as being a 'normal' part of the Listeners' life cycle. A third superspren, one that has been present since before the Shattering, would fit with the Listeners predating the Shattering as well, and provides a likely candidate for our missing Bondsmith spren. I don't think Cusicesh could fit, since he's not trapped in a gemstone.
• The voice in Klade's head is attuned to the rhythms. This is reminiscent of similar instances we've seen in Mistborn, which would imply it's a Shard that is using the rhythms to speak into someone's mind. We have two active Shards, Cultivation and Odium. It might be a hidden plan of Cultivation, it might be that Odium needed a war to push the Listeners to experiment with stormspren. I can see either Shard as being a distinct possibility for now, until we learn who's pulling the strings. An off-the-walls idea is that it's the soul of Roshar that's coordinating these events, but I find that to be unlikely and am only mentioning it for completeness' sake.
• The Parshendi didn't acquire Szeth until right before the assassination, seemingly by coincidence. How did Szeth get into an Alethkar slave market? But, he was already an assassin, and the Parshendi didn't give him his Honorblade, that was from Shinovar. This is probably one of the reasons Brandon had to write much of Szeth's flashback sequence, since it has to make sense how he arrived where he is, where he got his reputation, and how the Parshendi learned he was a Surgebinder. (Or, did they even know that? Did he say he was an assassin, and then they didn't know what to expect when they turned him loose?)
• Looks like Voidlight is confirmed. Not a spren, but pure Investiture required for the Listener Forms of Power. Where is Eshonai's sphere now? How did it make its way over from Braize?
• Gavilar is trying to bring the Heralds out of hiding. He knows most of them are on Roshar, but he must not have realized there was at least one in his palace that very day.
• Gavilar is trying to bring pack the Listeners' old gods, of which Odium is king and the other gods are the Unmade. I don't think we have explicit confirmation on this, but it's seeming more and more likely. Thing is, the Thrill is happening in Dalinar's flashbacks, which well predate this prologue. So, at least one of the Unmade is already there and active, right? And the Death Rattles, how long have they been happening? Because that's another Unmade, isn't it? So what was he trying to accomplish that hasn't already been done? There are some cause-and-effect cases I would really like to see expanded on, so it's a good thing there are another thousand pages or so to this book.

My thanks as well to everyone who put together the transcription!!

Some of my thoughts and responses to @Pagerunner's thoughts.

I tentatively agree with the idea that the ancient spren used to stop parshmem transforming must have been an Adonalsium spren and it makes some sense that it could be the third Bondsmith one.

The Voice - I definitely agree it was a Shard rather than an Unmade. I lean heavily towards Odium, while I think we know he can't communicate directly with humans like Ruin could (can't find the WoB) I think Odium has hijacked the Parshendi, who were originally of Adonalsium:

Quote

NTERVIEW: Mar 11th, 2014

WoR Signing Report - Awesomeness Summoned (Verbatim)

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Odium?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally

Though against that, and for Cultivation, we have this:

Quote

INTERVIEW: Mar 11th, 2014

WoR Signing Report - Awesomeness Summoned

)Verbatim)

QUESTION

Are the Parshendiof Cultivation?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally

and this:

Quote

• INTERVIEW: Apr 8th, 2016

  Odyssey Con 2016

  BLIGHTSONG

  Can Odium change written word on Roshar like Ruin could on Scadrial? (I was wondering this because it would make it easy for him to manipulate Mr.T that way.

  BRANDON SANDERSON

  *apprehensive* This is not really a thing that Odium does. Um, yea.

As people have discussed before, the intent of Cultivation is probably to make things grow, change for the positive, even though that involves, let's say, some culling from time to time. Parshendi are now of Cultivation in part, Odium doesn't tend to do things like change writing, so i think I've just convinced myself that Cultivation is more likely

Everything with Szeth indicates very long term planning to reveal to him certain truths, get him declared truthless and have him in the position to stop the return of the old gods. So yeah definitely going cultivation, with long term planning to get Szeth in the right place at the right time. Fits as well with Mr T, who i suspect becomes more vulnerable to Cultivation's influence on his smart days.

I think Cultivation is the source of much of all this for the reasons discussed - to bring Odium out and defeat him properly, but at her chosen time, not his. She's mourned Tanavast for too long.

I agree that if the black sphere isn't Odium-essence it's one Braize of a red herring. The parshendi main forms are of Adonalsium, the new forms are of Odium formed by his own essence being given to them. I suspect the timing of the Unmade being back in action is based on Cultivation's longer term schemes.

They're my unbelievably long thoughts of how this all ties together

Edited February 7, 2017 by Extesian
Tidying up formatting

[Zea mays]

It sure was a busy night for Gavilar (even before the point when some fool went and killed him). I assume all of this happens before the scene in WOR prologue, where Jasnah encounters Gavilar, still (or again) concocting secret plots with Meridas Amaram? These people were running all around the palace like mad things.

In the same Prologue we also learn the Liss  has brought Szeth with her to Kholinar, and has already sold him off to some unspecified person there (dude was to creepy for her. Too creepy for The Weeper, a paid assassin who cuts out the eyes of her victims)

[maxal]

1 hour ago, Humpty said:

I have to agree with you on Gavilar both he and Mr T. totally missed the point of the visions. Unlike Dalinar he didn't seem to change that much throughout getting the visions. Yes he changed a little by refusing duels and reading the way of kings,  However he totally missed or ignored the point of the Radiant Ideals and the life before death aspect of them. So no he wasn't on the way to becoming a radiant. More than likely the Stormfather just made a mistake in his choice of humans to receive the visions and corrected it by leading the Parsendai to buying Szeth. That last part is just my guess.

 

As Blightsong confirms in his post, we do have WoB stating Gavilar was indeed on his way to become a Bondsmith, hence my comment. I personally find it extremely disturbing. As far as we know, the first oath to the Bondsmith is to unite and not divide: it doesn't say how one must perform this deed. Hence, it might be plunging your country in a civil war, slaughtering your own people just so you could sit on top of the mountain is a valid way to enforce this ideal. Hopefully, a future oaths will invalidate this behavior and Dalinar will prove to be the real Bondsmith and not Gavilar.

It also indicates it might be Taravangian is on his way towards becoming a Radiant too as his ways aren't so different than Gavilar. 

Still, I am very bothered by Gavilar. I never liked him and this prologue serves to reinforce those feelings. As much as I love to bash on young Dalinar, I did read something resembling empathy deeply buried within his mean wild ways. I saw none of it in Gavilar. 

[Blightsong]

5 minutes ago, maxal said:

As Blightsong confirms in his post, we do have WoB stating Gavilar was indeed on his way to become a Bondsmith, hence my comment. I personally find it extremely disturbing. As far as we know, the first oath to the Bondsmith is to unite and not divide: it doesn't say how one must perform this deed. Hence, it might be plunging your country in a civil war, slaughtering your own people just so you could sit on top of the mountain is a valid way to enforce this ideal. Hopefully, a future oaths will invalidate this behavior and Dalinar will prove to be the real Bondsmith and not Gavilar.

It also indicates it might be Taravangian is on his way towards becoming a Radiant too as his ways aren't so different than Gavilar. 

Still, I am very bothered by Gavilar. I never liked him and this prologue serves to reinforce those feelings. As much as I love to bash on young Dalinar, I did read something resembling empathy deeply buried within his mean wild ways. I saw none of it in Gavilar. 

I think you are too harsh on Gavilar. If God himself tells you that you need to save humanity, you would probably do everything in your power to do so. We also don't know enough about what Gavilar knew to make assumption as to what his plan was. For all we know Amaram could be carrying out a plan divergent from the one Gavilar had in mind to begin with.

[+Extesian]

12 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

I think you are too harsh on Gavilar. If God himself tells you that you need to save humanity, you would probably do everything in your power to do so. We also don't know enough about what Gavilar knew to make assumption as to what his plan was. For all we know Amaram could be carrying out a plan divergent from the one Gavilar had in mind to begin with.

I'm inclined to agree. This is why there are different radiant orders. There are idealists, there are pragmatists, they both have a role. And Gavilar wasn't trying to cause war, there was already war, he was trying to channel it into a higher cause, a war that had been on hold for several thousand years. Effectively releasing Odium's influence just to bring back the Nahel bonds and the Heralds is risky and will cost lives, but maybe it's worth the risk and will save lives in the long term.

I'm not saying I woulda dunnit, but I am saying it's not inherently wrong. It's the pragmatic move and it's definitely less outrageous than Mr T. I don't think it sounds inconsistent with the Radiants. Just certain orders of them. I suspect the orders with spren more from the Cultivation side are more willing to sacrifice for the greater good than the Honor type, where it's more about each action's morals. But even then you have the Skybreakers, mostly of Honor (I believe) but who will do seemingly harsh things in service of a 'higher' ideal. I think spren are like people, different ideas of what is 'right', and bond people who are like them, not who are objectively perfect.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Extesian
Additional thought

[maxal]

10 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

I think you are too harsh on Gavilar. If God himself tells you that you need to save humanity, you would probably do everything in your power to do so. We also don't know enough about what Gavilar knew to make assumption as to what his plan was. For all we know Amaram could be carrying out a plan divergent from the one Gavilar had in mind to begin with.

It isn't just the prologue... There are also the flashbacks... The picture I am drawing of Gavilar isn't very sympathetic, but I am perfectly fine with this. In fact, I would rather if not all characters ended being good. Also, I never liked Gavilar, even in the books I didn't like him: something always seemed off to me. This being said, I am actually enjoying hating him. I love to hate characters.

[Jofwu]

I'm with @Blightsong as well. It's too easy to judge Gavilar here without knowing everything he knows. I mean, I definitely suspect he's not an innocent angel. But if nothing else, I think he's convinced that he's doing the right thing.

Is it not evident that Odium will win under the status quo? He's already touching the world, and it's only a matter of time before he's free on his own terms. Stormfather's comments about Dalinar being too late come to mind. Can you blame a guy for taking extreme measures when impending doom is the alternative?

And we don't know his full plan. He obviously knows things that we still don't. Maybe he had a serious, legitimate plan to contain the Parshendi gods. Maybe the Listeners were completely manipulated (hello, rhythm voice?) into doing precisely what was necessary to stop Gavilar's plans?

You can't just pretend that the Everstorm coming (as it did) was Gavilar's end game. Seems to me he wanted to confront an imminent problem head on, on his terms, rather than let the world flounder in misdirection until it's too late.

I still strongly suspect his plan wasn't perfect. But I disagree with the heavy judgment at this point.

[emailanimal]

7 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

The humans stopped the Parshendi from transforming by capturing a very old spren. I suspect this third spren is of Adonalsium, and is the third Bondsmith spren. It's not Nightwatcher or Stormfather (since Lift visited Nightwatcher, and the vast bulk of the Parshendi haven't been released to bond forms yet), and for some reason I'm not leaning towards one of the Unmade as being a 'normal' part of the Listeners' life cycle. A third superspren, one that has been present since before the Shattering, would fit with the Listeners predating the Shattering as well, and provides a likely candidate for our missing Bondsmith spren. I don't think Cusicesh could fit, since he's not trapped in a gemstone.

This.... uhm... Let's see.... The only way I can see what you are suggesting making sense to me is if it works as follows... Adonalsium is considered to be the original "patron saint" of the Listeners.  Now, this is not too far out. We know that they take on forms by bonding spren, and we know that they predate the humans (and therefore, at least, the coming of Honor and Cultivation - probably).  Being native to Roshar means that should predate the Shattering.  So, before Honor and Cultivation, they must've bonded spren, and therefore some of their early forms must've been Adonalsium-inspired ones. (now Adonalsium was a god of all, so those forms could be anything).

What still makes me wonder is this... I read the story of the last Desolation to be something like this: humans were fighting the voidforms of Listeners and via some feat of Investiture wound up being able to rip spren out of Listeners, turning them into parshmen.  However, *before* this happened, a splinter group of Listeners somehow defeated their voidforms to assume dullform and escape. They became the Parshendi we know now.  So, to me the "capturing very old spren" read like "spren" was in plural, and referred to the act of ripping the voidspren from the Listeners-in-voidform.

 

7 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Gavilar is trying to bring pack the Listeners' old gods, of which Odium is king and the other gods are the Unmade. I don't think we have explicit confirmation on this, but it's seeming more and more likely. Thing is, the Thrill is happening in Dalinar's flashbacks, which well predate this prologue. So, at least one of the Unmade is already there and active, right? And the Death Rattles, how long have they been happening? Because that's another Unmade, isn't it? So what was he trying to accomplish that hasn't already been done? There are some cause-and-effect cases I would really like to see expanded on, so it's a good thing there are another thousand pages or so to this book.

Yeah, Gavilar and Sons of Honor are even creepier than the Skybreakers. I do not know if Brandon wanted Gavilar to come off as a disturbed eight-year-old who wants to burn down the house because someone took his candy away, but if he did, kudos.  Because this whole "I want my dear Heralds back because life is just too boring without a planetary Apocalypsis"  schtick is not making him look good.  Compared to him, Mr. T. is Miss Manners. 

I am also not surprised that anyone who had a clear idea of what Gavilar was up to would be very distrustful of Dalinar.

 

 

[emailanimal]

1 hour ago, Blightsong said:

I think you are too harsh on Gavilar. If God himself tells you that you need to save humanity, you would probably do everything in your power to do so. We also don't know enough about what Gavilar knew to make assumption as to what his plan was. For all we know Amaram could be carrying out a plan divergent from the one Gavilar had in mind to begin with.

 

It is pretty clear by now that Dalinar's and Gavilar's paths have diverged significantly.  It is also clear that there are sufficiently many people on Roshar running around and one way or another trying to save Roshar from <insert something here>. Here are some of the wacky ideas that are being toyed with.

• There is a group of people who misinterpret what can only be the in-world version of the "crack in the soul" myth and self-torture hoping to become Knights Radiant.
• There is a group of people who run around and kill any emerging Surgebinder hoping that this will prevent Desolations from coming.
• There is a group of people who assassinate monarchs, cause political chaos and try to amass power, all staked on semi-coherent writings of an obsessed person, hoping that this will save the world.
• There is a group of people trying to kill Jasnah. There is a special place in hell for them.
• And then there are people who decide that because life just isn't interesting enough because unlike five thousand years ago, they cannot just go and talk to their Gods [1], the correct course of action is to unleash upon the world the very enemies these Gods keep on fighting. 

This latter  plan makes Skybreakers look pitiful, and make the Diagram look positively the only sane people in the room.  

I am now absolutely convinced that Sons of Honor are the creepiest, most deranged and dangerous SOBs around.  The Earth parallel is the Christian sects that want to see all Jews move to Israel, because this is the event that will trigger Apocalypse. 

Yeah, Gavilar was on his way of Nahel-bonding Stormfather.  This actually is probably the best argument for why there should never be more than three Bondsmiths. Because if at least one of them is Gavilar-style wacko, Roshar is going down the drain.

[1] Who, we know from WOBs are certifiably insane in their own right (which makes this idea even worse than it otherwise looks)

 

1 hour ago, Extesian said:

It's the pragmatic move and it's definitely less outrageous than Mr T.

Nope. It really is nowhere near "pragmatic".  "Pragmatic" is running around and offing Surgebinders. You are killing individual people, but very few of them, and if this prevents entire countries from being burned out, certain lines of thinking may treat it as pragmatic: it is minimizing the overall loss of life over a long period of time.  The Diagram is the tragedy of an anti-villain turning dark and sociopathic. But Gavilar's approach to saving the world is wistful insanity of a spoiled child who has a sad because Santa isn't real and there is no Easter Bunny.

Edited February 7, 2017 by emailanimal