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[OB] Interlude 3!


Chaos

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The biggest problem Eshonai had going forward is she was pefect. If you were writting a character to lead and save the parshendi from Odium and become the first parshendi KR (Willshaper) Eshonai ticked. Every. Single. Box. For it. And when was the last time Brandon wrote a character perfectly representative of his group? Thats right. Never.

The way I figured this was okay, was because the Parshendi had possibly the toughest path going forward, and if parshendi were never knights the first would have too be perfectly perfect for the order to be chosen by the spren, right? Turns out no :(.

If Eshonai is dead so much changes.

  • Rlain takes basically undisputed spot 1 as parshendi hope.
  • The parshmen are more screwed. Now there is no hero to free them and go back to Honor, now we don't know where their paths take them.
  • Things look more grim for there ever been a parshendi KR.
  • Additionally, could mean next book is the Dustbringer one, and Shallash book will be the Willshaper one. 

On Venli topic. Yeah, I'm so looking forward to her -sarcasm-. The parshendi are so lucky to have her. Lets make a list

E wanted what was best for her people. V wanted to be queen (personal glory/worship, over her people). Check

E as single stipulation over above clause was she hated and feared the gods and was willing to watch her people die than return them. V returns gods willingly and gleefuly to be queen. 

E wanted peace with humans. V wants to destroy humans. 

E fought the transformation into Voidbringer. V embraces it. 

E was honorable to her core. V...well, odious to her core :) 

E fully respected and seen as leader of the parshendi. V jalaleus, spiteful -insert whatever odium word you want here- of E 

I could go on, but will stop. The parshendi are so lucky to have V. Looking at the list I see Venli is the perfect voidbringer. Once again there is not a single voidy box she doesn't check. I guess thats why we are left with her. As she'd be the perfect unlikely hero. 

Nevertheless...Szeth has the redemption arc of SA, not overly interested in a trobe of them more.

My brain feels like scrambled eggs since I heard the excerpt, so...here I am till midnight when my kindle gets the bomb to completely blow up my poor brain.

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I havent seen it in the few posts i read of this thread but it seemed really clear to me when listening to this bit that Eshonia WAS the comet like spren. 

The voidspren say they listen to the listeners ancestors

They have gemhearts, storage Check

They can a mind that shapes themselves in the cognitive realm, check

They can obsorb investiture from highstorms, (maybe check ?)

Equals the making of a spren

Dead listeners turn into spren

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I'm lost as to how her blade would still be in the ground if she is still alive....last I checked that only happened if the bearer was dead or willing it not to vanish.

I feel like people are in denial here. Sanderson admitted he screwed up with Jasnahs death but he is going to do the same thing in the very next book? I don't think so.

 

Eshonai was a boss I know, taking on a stormwall with nothing but a shield for protection. Surviving being thrown into a chasm and an everstorm and highstorm crashing together in her head only to drawn in the ensuing floods. We will see again though....in flashbacks.

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@WhiteLeeopard That might have fit if every other radiant we have wasn't (or on his way to be) a perfect embodiment of his order's ideals, though i totaly expect some of them at one point or another to challenge those ideals and go beyond, but that's not the point. Really you could say that each character fits a mold the story needs him to, but that doesn't change that my impression right now is that trading Eshonai for Venli is a deal i wouldn't sign up for, there's no doubt in my mind that Brandon would make it work but i just can't summon any excitement for it right now.

@Nymeros For the blade, we don't know how mind commands work, particularly how they are dispelled, is losing consciousness enough ? maybe, maybe not. Or maybe we do know and i forgot.

Edited by Darvys
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8 minutes ago, Darvys said:

 

@Nymeros For the blade, we don't know how mind commands work, particularly how they are dispelled, is losing consciousness enough ? maybe, maybe not. Or maybe we do know and i forgot.

Yes, we know it requires concious effort and focus to maintain the blade in the physical realm while it's away from your body.

Also i didn't care for Venli at all in Words of Radiance but her chapter here was better than all of Eahonais interludes (not the prologue mind you) combined. She is yet another scholar yes, but she's far more compelling than Eshonai imo.

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4 minutes ago, Nymeros said:

Yes, we know it requires concious effort and focus to maintain the blade in the physical realm while it's away from your body.

How does that fit with lending your blade to others for practice ? Elhokar spends his days focusing on maintaining his blades formed ? That would explain much in a way.

I always assumed the challenge was in conveying your will to the blade, and once that was accomplished you would only need to send a command to dispel it or summon it back when you needed to.

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21 minutes ago, Nymeros said:

I'm lost as to how her blade would still be in the ground if she is still alive....last I checked that only happened if the bearer was dead or willing it not to vanish.

I feel like people are in denial here. Sanderson admitted he screwed up with Jasnahs death but he is going to do the same thing in the very next book? I don't think so.

 

Eshonai was a boss I know, taking on a stormwall with nothing but a shield for protection. Surviving being thrown into a chasm and an everstorm and highstorm crashing together in her head only to drawn in the ensuing floods. We will see again though....in flashbacks.

Screwed up seems a bit much. More... He realized he was falling into a pattern and he doesn't want to be predictable. But killing Jasnah would have truly been a detriment to the story. She's a fantastic character and has history with her family that I can not wait to hear. (Even though I guarantee it will be super depressing/revolting.) 

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36 minutes ago, Darvys said:

How does that fit with lending your blade to others for practice ? Elhokar spends his days focusing on maintaining his blades formed ? That would explain much in a way.

Quote

“The king has two Shardblades?”

“One is that of his father, kept for the tradition of training Shardbearers.” The ardent glanced at the sparring men. “Alethkar has always had the finest Shardbearers in the world. This tradition is part of it. The king has hinted that someday, he might bestow his father’s Blade upon a worthy warrior.”

WoR Chapter 16 Swordmaster

At least one of them he doesn't have to worry about keeping focus.

Edited by Fifth of Daybreak
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2 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

You know what I just thought of.. Did we ever see Eshonai summon her blade? I cant remember seeing her doing it. We just assumed she would have bonded it like an Alethi would but did she? If it was not bonded it would be there if she was dead or alive right? 

Super interesting point.  I'm not 100%, but I don't think I remember seeing this.

It would be a very Brandonesque twist to have something important where Shardblades don't work the same for Listeners as humans, but we missed that because everyone assumed of course it would be the same.  There are potentially related mysteries like where did the Listeners get all those Shards in the first place?

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3 minutes ago, Darvys said:

Hmm, i liked that theory then remembered Jasnah's talk with Shallan about Gavilar's interactions with the parshendi and how he had noticed one of their warriors make the gesture indicative of summoning a blade.

Oh yeah.  Dang, you're right.   Another good theory bites the dust :-)

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16 minutes ago, retrorocket1 said:

to be fair, i think everyone assumed the shardplate combined with her stormform would protect her from the fall.

This.

We've seen Dalinar and Adolin do ridiculous jumps in Plate, and turn out just fine.  And we saw Kaladin literally fly right through that same storm.  We don't know how Stormform compares to Windrunning, but it seemed like a reasonable bet that (badass magic) > (destructive power of storm).

Also, we had WoB that Eshonai would be a future focus character.  And surely he wouldn't build her up so much only to cut off that arc early on?

I have to say, kudos to Brandon if she really is gone though.  Nice way to follow up a "y'all thought she was dead when she wasn't" fakeout, by doing the exact opposite!

(fwiw though, I suspect Eshonai will still have a part to play in spite of being dead)

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18 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

Yes they can be revived but you have about 5 minutes to do so before they are brain dead. This entire scene would have taken more than that and that’s already after they found her DOA. 

She’s dead. If she can be revived it’s some magical way and I just don’t see Brandon doing that again under these circumstances. 

 

I really do not buy she is dead. The comet spren is obviously a Radiant spren and she likely already has a Nahel bond. Mind, I am not saying it isn't twisted, but I never once thought she was dead while I was reading the chapter. I have no idea how Brandon is going to pull this one up without having readers deal with another "fake death", but I am utterly convinced she is not dead.

She is supposed to have viewpoints and we are supposed to see her in OB. She can't be dead.

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15 minutes ago, maxal said:

I really do not buy she is dead. The comet spren is obviously a Radiant spren and she likely already has a Nahel bond. Mind, I am not saying it isn't twisted, but I never once thought she was dead while I was reading the chapter. I have no idea how Brandon is going to pull this one up without having readers deal with another "fake death", but I am utterly convinced she is not dead.

She is supposed to have viewpoints and we are supposed to see her in OB. She can't be dead.

I kind of agree, but also for a different reason. It just seems odd to me that they would choose an important character death as their audio preview chapter.

"Kind of" agree because I'm not utterly convinced she is not dead, just mostly convinced. ;)

Not that it makes a lot of difference to me since it's the interlude after part 1, but what about people who only listen to the sample chapter and didn't read the whole pre-release first? Imagine a couple years down the line, someone is looking for an audiobook and they listen to the sample chapter on Amazon or wherever, is this what they're going to hear? Just seems weird to pick that one. Granted it is part 3 of a series, so probably not going to be a very common occurrence, but still.

Guess we'll find out tomorrow(ish).

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4 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

You know what I just thought of.. Did we ever see Eshonai summon her blade? I cant remember seeing her doing it. We just assumed she would have bonded it like an Alethi would but did she? If it was not bonded it would be there if she was dead or alive right? 

Yes, Eshonai summons her blade in one of the interludes,  when she takes control over Narak. 

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3 hours ago, Darvys said:

Hmm, i liked that theory then remembered Jasnah's talk with Shallan about Gavilar's interactions with the parshendi and how he had noticed one of their warriors make the gesture indicative of summoning a blade.

Well there goes that. Couldn’t remeber for sure. 

@maxal so I think a lot of us thought she was a Proto-Radiant but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how she would have had a Nahel bond and have been bonded by the storm spren (or what ever it’s called). The only proof we have that she could have a Nahel Bond is a spren around her. I just can’t see how she wouldn’t have talked about it in her POV before she transformed and for sure can’t see her forming a Nahel Bond after she transformed. I agree it’s weird the spren was around her and possible it was attempting to bond with her but I would think even if she had been bond transforming would have been a bad thing for this. Of course we really don’t know anything about listeners becoming Radiants except the WoB stating people on Roshar would think it’s impossible. 

 

I will just say this. If we see Eshonai walking around in the PR on Roshar I will never believe another death again in SA. 

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